Global warming 'very likely' man-made

A definitive report says that global warming is caused directly and indirectly by human activities. This report was known to have been in the works for quite a while and would have very negative conclusions. Today there are many stories about it.

I notice that the greatest warming in the United States is predicted for the Midwest and for Utah, western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming, and southern Idaho.

From Time Magazine. Global Warming ‘very likely’ man-made.

USA Today. Report says global warming very likely man-made, to continue ‘for centuries’

The Guardian (U.K.) Bush administration accused of doctoring scientists’ reports on climate change. By Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
· Inconvenient conclusions censored, hearing told
· Researchers warned not to talk about global warming

Discussion on the Real Climate blog.

7 thoughts on “Global warming 'very likely' man-made

  1. the report is issued every 6 to 7 years …. and the next one is already in the works. the improvements to the models that form the basis of the climate projections have to be complete by end of this year. that provides one to two years for testing, two years to run the simulations, and a year to write the report.

    keep in mind that the IPCC report is based on results that are about 3 to 4 years old. the science is evolving quickly here.

    here is a piece I wrote for the Fort Collins Coloradoan paper today (in case anyone is interested).

    Climate models deserve serious deliberation
    Todd Ringler

    It is hard to open up a paper these days without finding yet another article on global climate change. Editorials, letters to the editor, the City Council and even the president have taken up the issue.

    The information comes so fast, from so many sources, and from so many directions, it must be all but impossible for even the most diligent to keep up. So I thought I would comment from what is probably the most under-represented perspective on this issue: the perspective of a mainstream climate scientist.

    While a cursory read of the popular media would indicate otherwise, the scientific foundation of global climate change has continued to strengthen over the past two decades. Here is what we know: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it tends to warm the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels are rising and are presently at concentrations higher than anytime in the last 650,000 years. The rapid rise in global temperature in the last 30 years cannot be accounted for without the inclusion of human influence through fossil-fuel consumption. All of this is to say that when we look to explain the rise in global temperature to date, we do not need to look much farther than ourselves.

    As we look to the future, our climate models project an additional 3 F to 10 F of warming during this century. A warming of 3 F will definitely be noticeable and is something that we should be concerned about. A warming of 10F will, in all likelihood, tear at the fabric of our society. Whether we find ourselves at the low end or the high end of these projections will depend primarily on whether we curtail our fossil-fuel consumption.

    Having developed climate model for the last 15 years, I have two bits of advice regarding these projections of global warming: do not take them as absolute truth and do not discard them as folly. These projections warrant serious deliberation when considering our future fossil-fuel consumption.

    While we do know a great deal about the Earth’s climate, we are far from a complete understanding. The role of clouds and aerosols in a changing climate continues to be a perennial problem. The amplitude of climate feedbacks that can both amplify and mitigate the impacts of our fossil-fuel consumption will continue to be an area of intense research.

    The Earth is a beautifully complex system, and science will continue to unravel and explain its complexity in the coming decades. But we need to be very clear here: Complete, absolute knowledge is unattainable.

    An expectation that perfect understanding is a prerequisite for considering our future fossil-fuel consumption is unrealistic. At the same time, proceeding with the hope that the scientific consensus is wrong is, in my view, simply unreasonable.

    We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to ask the following question: What if our present understanding of global climate change is correct? This question immediately leads to a long list of related questions, such as: What does this mean for our society? What will happen to water in the already arid West? What will happen to agriculture, both here and around the world? Can developing nations accommodate these changes? And if not, how will we deal with the climate-driven conflict that will surely follow?

    The reality is that the questions scientists must answer to understand global climate change are easy in relation to the questions society must answer to deal with the potential impacts of global climate change.

    Curtailing fossil-fuel consumption strikes at many of our core values, so we should not expect answers to come quickly or easily. But that does not mean we should not try.

    Todd Ringler (todd.ringler@mac.com) of Los Alamos, N.M., is the science adviser to the Fort Collins Sustainability Group. He holds a Ph.D., in atmospheric sciences and worked at Colorado State University as a scientist from 1996-2006 in the atmospheric science department. He is currently employed as a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on issues related to global climate change. This Soapbox does not represent the view of LANL or the Department of Energy

  2. I have noticed in the last 30 years a change in climate. I,ve lived in Kansas and have traveled the Northern Oklahoma and the Southern Kansas geography for this period of time. Over the years I have kept an interest in the outdoors and nature. The changes are many, the animals of the arrid Southwest have migrated north over this same period of time. New found and politically correct opporitunist think this change is because of man.. This global temperature change is part of Mother Natures everchanging dynamics. As I age and grow older I know that my time in this vast evolvement is just a blip on the radar screen and that I have very impact on this time or this place. Grow up and face the fact that you most likey are wrong about man and his impact on such a great ecosystem. Study the mini ice age of the 14th century and its impact..open your mind, not your newspaper.

  3. This article was in Sunday’s Post Registered titled “Is Global Warming a Snow Job”.

    “With the Democrates now in power, we are seeing an explosion of articles about the horrors of global warming. I’m guessing this is no coincidence.

    I think global warming is more of a snow job than science. Obviously, I am not a big fan of global warming.

    Not that I am a complete skeptic. I believe in climate change. In the past 100 years it has been warmer than it is today (1930s) and colder than it is today (1940 – 1970).

    In the past 10,000 years, it was warmer than today (climate optimum – 9,000 to 4,000 years ago) and colder than today (little ice age – 700 to 200 years ago).

    Climate scientists believe there have been roughly 60 ice ages in the past 4 million years, each followed by an interglacial period when it warmed up enough to melt the ice, except in the polar regins. Humans were responsible for none of this.

    Given that humans were not responsible for past climate changes, why would we believe that now, part-way through the 60th interglacial period, we humans are suddenly the sole cause of global warming? That makes no sense!

    Our planet has warmed 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. There seems to be general agreement on this point. But 1 degree Fahrenheit is well within the normal temperature fluctuation of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius that the Earth has experienced in the past 10,000 years. This does not indicate dire warming.

    There is agreement among some scientists that humans are largely the cause of this warming because we increase the amount of CO2 in the air.

    But other scientists believe climate warming is caused by cosmic radiation. The theory postulates there is a strong correlation between levels of cosmic radiation and cloud cover–that is, the lower the cosmic radiation, the fewer clouds there are, and therefore, the warmer it is.

    Other scientists believe that variations in the course Earth travels around the Sun and in the tilt of its axis are associated with episodes of global warming and cooling.

    Still other scientists have other theories. It is not true, as global warming alarmists such as Al Gore tell us, that the science on global warming is settled, and there is consensus among scientists that humans are the cause. In 1998, a total of 17,000 scientists signed a petition that said there is no convincing evidence that human release of CO2 is causing catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

    It may be that humans are the cause of global warming, or not. That’s the point. Until we do know for sure, we should not spend billions of dollars correcting a problem that we do not know for sure exists.”

    From what I read then all that stuff about cows being the major cause of global warming is not proof at all. It is either humans, cows, cosmic radiation, tilt of the eart and its rotation, or we are just in the natural pattern of the earth’s heating and cooling cylce. Therefore, much to many of you folks who dislike cattle this kind of puts to rest that they have not contributed siginicantly to greenhouse gases and the like.

  4. Eugene,

    You may be correct that individually we don’t have much impact on the global temperature and ecosystem. On the other hand, collectively we are having a profound impact.

    I think your post goes to the heart of our problem. People are comfortable ignoring basic science that has been studied extensively for decades — it demonstrates that as a society we don’t real value knowledge. Most of us would rather just believe what we wish, even it contradicts the facts. We can choose our own beliefs, but not our own facts.

    Todd

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