Does global warming have anything to do with the carbon dioxide level in the air?

Answer 1

Yes, Global Warming is directly related to the amount of carbon dioxide (aka CO2) in the earth's atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is a known greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gasses prevent solar radiation from being reflected back into space and thus trap the heat inside the earth's atmosphere.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) created specifically in 1988 to study human created climate change, stated in its latest 2004 report:

• Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years.
• Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.

Note that nature emits about 97% of carbon dioxide, mostly via vegetation and oceans. But unlike the remaining 3% human emitted carbon dioxide, nature also captures carbon dioxide, actually more than it emits. This process is called the Carbon Cycle and via this process earth has always been able to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide levels more or less stable.

But that level has changed drastically since the Industrial Revolution when us humans started to emit additional carbon dioxide through the burning of fossils fuels (mainly oil, natural gas and coal). As stated, humans only add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we do not remove any. As a result, the amounts of carbon dioxide in the air are at its highest levels and, as predicted by climate scientists world-wide and the IPCC, average global temperatures haven risen and are still rising.

A: It is also very true that temperature is very much related to the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere. As temperature rises we see that CO2 slowly follows that rise (lags about 800 years). This means that with increasing temperature, we should see a CO2 level rise. In the past 150 years we have seen a rise in CO2 levels of somewhere between 0% and 0.007% in terms of the total atmospheric change. (The number depends on how we decide to view historical levels). There is zero doubt that the levels of CO2 have risen in the past 30 years by as much as 0.001% (370 to 400 ppm)

Answer 2

Yes, global warming is primarily caused by the increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the Earth's atmosphere. These gases trap heat from the sun, leading to a rise in global temperatures and resulting in climate change.