Is it sunspot cycles (11.5 years) or greenhouse gas's??Somebody must have the answer by now..surely??

PL

Try the General Science forum. There are several pages of threads there that discuss global warming!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I would say it is greenhouse gas. The way I look at it, we are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere that has been sequestered as petrochemicals for oodles of years. So practically speaking we are adding 'new' carbon to the carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, not a very strong one, but it does do it. Also, much CO2 is dissolved in ocean water, and the amount of gas dissolved in a solute depends on the temperature, and with the temperature going up, this would start to be released, adding to the effect. Also the higher temperatures would start to melt arctic permafrost, restarting the decay of long dead organic material, also leading to the release of carbon dioxide, as well as methane, which if I remember right is a 'better' greenhouse gas. Combining with the loss of polar ice caps, which would release large amounts of fresh water,as well as losing the heat reflecting (high albedo) and absorbing ( ice takes a lot of energy to melt) buffer of the polar ice, this can't be a good thing. Unless your into developing the Northwest Passage that is. Idon't think Earth will become Venus, but I don't think it will be nice.

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so what the hell can we do about global warming!!

In Nostradamus & the Koran there are references that the sea will boil!!

MAYBE THEY WERE RIGHT!!

oh well I am going to have another coffee

see ya

PL

Global warming is caused by methane from biker farts, thats right, Hells Angels are to blame!

We could temporarily sequester CO2 in plant material, we can bury it underground, we can pollute less, and we can live with the consequences. And no, I don't think the seas will boil. Old Nostro probably stole that from the Book of Revelation. It is a mother lode of doomsday imagery and cryptic cautions.

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Greenhouse gases, caused by industrialization.
Nikola Tesla had ideas for solar power in 1901. People should have listened to him.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Less energy is radiated away than is absorbed.

Beyond that, there isnt a single magic bullet that is the cause.

People have listened. Solar power isnt the answer for everything

i notice that it has been kind of cool this summer- i just assume it's because i haven't been driving my 16mpg 1974 Monte Carlo as much as i'd like. but lately i've been driving it, and the days do seem to be getting warmer.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

cigarettes cause global warming! lol

No no, God turned up the Thermostat on the Sun, because wool sweaters make Him itchy.

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I mean, people should have adopted it in 1901 and used it as a major power source. As you said, it's not the answer to everything, and other sources would also have to be used in combination, true. But it's a cool alternate history thing to ponder.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

You are right! You need a Nobel prize, lol

That might have something to do with the current trend. It had nothing to do with the previous half a dozen trends over the last 1,000 years.

Paul - Sunspots. There is a very high correlation between sunspot activity and global temperatures. And I very sincerely doubt that a few degrees warmer here on Earth causes manyfold increases in sunspot activity...

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After careful consideration of NASA's Constellation Program, I believe Directv3 is the only viable means of achieving the objectives of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.

"...only nuclear power can now halt global warming." - James Lovelock, independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

They did. And actually, it was probably closer to 10,000 BC, when they first began using pack animals, also called "hayburners," and as we all known, hay grows in sunlight, therefore it's solar...

So is firewood.

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After careful consideration of NASA's Constellation Program, I believe Directv3 is the only viable means of achieving the objectives of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.

"...only nuclear power can now halt global warming." - James Lovelock, independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

So is coal and oil then, the energy for both came from the sun. The only form of energy that isn't solar is Nuclear, and if you streatch a point slightly, even it is. Supernovas and al that jazz.

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Manbearpig.

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Farting cows! and too much spicy food!

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A smile a day keeps the misery at bay..!

". . .cats and dogs, living together!"

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The difference is that firewood is renewable (real time). Coal and oil use represents a compression of many millions of years of solar-fueled biology and botany compressed into a hundred years or so.

The production/use ratio is about a million to one (1E6:1 aka 1M:1 aka 1,000,000:1)

Thus, it's non-sustainable.

Wood, with a production/use ratio of 1:1, is sustainable.

You're right about everything being solar, in one sense of the word or another...

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After careful consideration of NASA's Constellation Program, I believe Directv3 is the only viable means of achieving the objectives of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration.

"...only nuclear power can now halt global warming." - James Lovelock, independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

Yes, another reason to love our sun.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Stop being so hideously and brilliantly efficient at taking every ounce of locked up Carbon from under the ground and under the sea, and pumping it into the atmosphere by the billions of tons. The rapidity and effectiveness with which we are doing it is quite staggering.

Doug

That's where Wind and Nuclear comes in, the answer for everything else
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=656

Indeed. The solution is diversity of renewable energy sources in combination.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

We have been able to take direct measurements of the sun's energy output using satelites for about thirty years now. In that time there has been no significant change in its output. There are 11 year solar cycles in which the energy output of the sun varies slightly, but the differences between total energy out put between the last three cycles has been extremely minor. Since the start of the industrial revolution human activity has been increasing the amount of several greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The largest increase in the greenhouse effect has resulted from human activity increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about a third through burning fossil fuels and landclearing. The human caused increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases is enough to account for the 0.74 +/- 0.18 degrees of warming the earth has experienced over the past 100 years. So to answer you question, we do know the cause of global warming and it is greenhouse gases. We cannot be 100% certain that they are responsible for all the warming, but their increase is sufficient to cause all the warming that has been experienced.

you need a pic of a car with sails to go along with the Nucleon

What global warming?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/20/weather.world

Summer has passed us by this year

What calendar are you using?

Agreed, you've lost a year there.

But in any case if there were a scientific consensus that 2007 had a summer that did not follow the curve of record-setting heat indicitive of global warming (there isn't) it still wouldn't invalidate global warming as a theory.

A single freak day/week/month is hardly an indication of all the decades of data being incorrect.

And that article isn't even about global warming. It's an article about heavy rain. In Southern England.

Are you kidding me?

The only place that's comparably wet and miserable is Seattle, Washington.

It astounds me that anyone could see an article like this and say, "See! No global warming!"

Obviously there is quite a lot of wishful thinking from the global warming deniers.

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