Is the global warming the biggest hoax of the 21st century?

Discussions about the change of our world climate seem to be a very hot topic these days.

Is the global warming just a fashionable subject to talk about and nobody can prove it or is it a

fact based on recent scientific data? If there is any warming then what is the cause of it? Can we

say that this is only a natural way of how our global climate works? This argument paper will try

to answer those questions. It will show that the global warming is an undisputable fact. It will

also show that as of now it is difficult to be explained by the sun’s activity fluctuations or

changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun. It will also strongly suggest that it is caused by the

greenhouse effect. And finally it will show from correlated graph information that it is highly

probable to be caused by human activities.

Warming is a fact! According to United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change’s (IPCC) report from 2007 the average global surface temperature has increased about

0.8 Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) degrees since the year of 1880. Also the rate of warming is

increasing, most of this temperature change happened in the last fifty years.

Holli Riebeek (2007), NASA

National Geographic News (2007) reported that “the 20th century's last two decades were the

hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia” and by IPCC (2007) “11 of

the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850”. Glaciers and mountain snows are

rapidly melting and average global sea level is rising. According to IPCC (2007) during the

twentieth century the sea level rose for about 0.17 meters (0.56 feet) and Arctic sea ice shrunk by

2.7 percent per decade since 1978, the year when the satellite images began to be taken. All these

facts are very hard to negate. Yes, the global warming is very real and is happening right now.

IPCC (2007)

Many people argue that if the scientists are not able to predict a weather forecast for

several days how they can predict the weather in years or decades in advance? Holli Riebeek

NASA (2007) explains that “weather is a short-term, small-scale set of measurements of

environmental conditions, while climate is the average of those conditions over a large area for a

long time”. It is compared to “the difference between predicting when a particular person will die

versus calculating the average life span of an entire population”.

Holli Riebeek (2007), NASA

Ok, the global warming is the fact but what is the actual cause? So far there seem to be

three main theories. The first one relates natural cycles in Earth's orbit to altering its exposure to

sun. According to National Geographic News (2007) the “Earth has indeed experienced warming

and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts” but “such

changes have occurred over the span of several centuries”. Today’s changes have taken in less

then one hundred years, and the biggest rate of change happened in the last fifty years.

The second theory is based on the effects of variations in the sun's output. But by Holli

Riebeek NASA (2007) “an increase in solar output also falls short of explaining recent

warming”. NASA itself states that its “satellites have been measuring the Sun’s output since

1978, and while the Sun’s activity has varied a little, the observed changes were not large enough

to account for the warming recorded during the same period.” The graph below shows Satellite

measurements of the Sun’s activity since 1978 and it also reveals the Sun’s eleven-year sunspot

cycle.

Holli Riebeek NASA (2007)

The third theory explains the warming by the increase of greenhouse gases and clouds in

the atmosphere. The Holli Riebeek NASA (2007) says that “if there were no greenhouse gases or

clouds in the atmosphere, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C

(0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today”. The greenhouse effect works in a

very similar way to when the sun’s rays enter through the car’s window (Jonathan Strickland and

Ed Grabianowski, 2005, How Stuff Works). It warms the car seats and its interior but when

released it radiates on different wavelength and is stopped by the windows and reflected back.

That’s why inside the car it is much hotter then outside. According to Holli Riebeek NASA

(2007) from all the sun’s rays that hit the Earth about 70 % stays on the planet mirrored back by

CO2 or methane gasses and the other 30 % returns back to space reflected by clouds and snow or

other shiny surfaces. When all is in balance this absorbed energy is slowly released by oceans

back to space or stored by plants or used in various chemical reactions and the temperature stays

the same. When it is not balanced and more energy stays in the temperature slowly increases.

IPPC (2007)

According to IPCC (2007) since 1750 “carbon dioxide levels have increased 35 percent and

methane levels have increased 148 percent”. This data is well proofed by Paleoclimatology

scientific methods when taking deep ice samples. The graph below correlates the increase in the

temperature and in CO2 gasses. Those two graphs nicely follow the same curvature either before

1950 or fifty years later when the values are almost doubled in comparison to what was

measured at the beginning of the 19th century.

Holli Riebeek (2007), NASA

As of today the only viable explanation for warming after 1950 is an increase in greenhouse

gases (Holli Riebeek NASA, 2007).

But are humans causing it? According to Holli Riebeek NASA (2007) there are no other

explanations for so much increase of CO2 gasses during the last fifty years then the human

activities. Also all these changes happened “since the industrial revolution began in about 1750”

(IPPC, 2007). The scientists call this phenomenon the anthropogenic climate change.

There are arguments that frequent volcanic eruptions release various gases and aerosols

high into the atmosphere and this can cause the greenhouse effect also. But the Holli Riebeek

NASA (2007) contradicts that “the cooling influence of this aerosol shade is greater than the

warming influence of the volcanoes’ greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore such eruptions

cannot account for the recent warming trend”. The following graph correlates the temperature

change and aerosol thickness of recent eruption of Mt. Pinatubo volcano. It can be seen that there

is actual cooling and not warming happening.

Holli Riebeek (2007), NASA

All scientific data show that the global warming is a fact and is happening right now. Not

only the global average temperature is changing but also the sea level is rising and the snow and

ice coverage in the northern hemisphere is decreasing. Most of the scientists are agreed on that

this warming is caused by the greenhouse effect. As of now there is no other explanation for the

cause of this greenhouse effect than that it is caused by the human activities (Holli Riebeek

NASA, 2007). The biggest rate of changes in the global average temperature and CO2 density

happened in the last 50 years and it nicely relates to the higher industry production all over the

world.

Works Cited

1. National Geographic News (2007), Global Warming Fast Facts

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html

2. Jonathan Strickland and Ed Grabianowski (2005), How Stuff Works, How Global

Warming Works

http://science.howstuffworks.com/global-warming2.htm

3. Holli Riebeek (2007), NASA- Earth Observatory, Global Warming

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/

4. United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC (2007), IPCC AR4

Synthesis Report

http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/gr-ar4-syr.htm