What is global warming and the biggest argument against it?

Answer 1

Global warming is the process of the mean temperature of the earth's atmosphere increasing.

It is agreed that the Earth's atmosphere acts as a blanket by trapping heat. We know this through physical chemistry but also by a simple thought experiment... Is the surface of the Earth as cold as the surrounding space? No it isn't and why.... because the atmosphere traps some of the incident heat from the sun.

Again from physical chemistry we know that carbon dioxide and water are the two primary chemicals in the atmosphere responsible for this process. Yet another way that water is essential to life on Earth.

So first an aside... why don't we care about Water...? Well, water that is released into the atmosphere typical returns to the ground as rain (And is in effect sequestered) within 7 days. Whereas carbon dioxode takes around 200 years to be sequestered.

So while water is arguably a more potent greenhouse gas it has much, much less time to cause its effect and so is less important than CO2when it comes to humanities emissions.

However, your addition to the question "and the biggest argument against it" suggests that you actually mean "what is "man-made global warming".

This is the hypothesis that emissions from human activity is significantly adding to the warming effect of the atmosphere. It is generally assumed that the definition includes the addendum that this process will be ultimately negative - for human's at least.

The IPCC recently re-reviewed the existing evidence and concluded that anthropomorphic emissions are contributing to global warming.

There are many arguments for and against both the "big question" of is global warming happening and the many questions that suggests. The only way to deal with this well is through the scientific method. Current scientific consensus is that warming is happening, we're at least partly to blame and we need to do something to address this.

It is true that this consensus could change - that's how science works after all. But the more research that is done the less likely it is this consensus will change.

Take as an example the scientific consensus that allows us to build aeroplanes... it is possible that we will discover that we are wrong about how planes fly... but it is unlikely that will happen.

www.realclimate.org is a very good source for up to date climate science written by climate scientists...

Also take a look at this video (and then if you want the masses of other videos linked off it) www.YouTube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg

It isn't a discussion of the global warming science more a discussion of how to respond to the risk...