What is Global Warming?

What is Global Warming?

The topic of Global Warming has been in the news for a number of years, so it is appropriate to be certain that a clear, simple explanation is available. Global warming is, in plain terms, the increase in the average temperature of the Earth, in particular the surface, water, and atmosphere.

Global warming is usually attributed to three possible factors: heat produced by the Earth itself either as a result of radioactivity or gravity; increases in solar radiation; or the greenhouse effect, which is the trapping of infra-red radiation from the surface and atmosphere by gases in the atmosphere. Measurements of the intensity of solar radiation have been constant for at least the last 30 years, so global warming for that period cannot be attributed to solar energy. Periods of sunspot minimums, such as the Dalton Minimum during the late 18th and early 19^th century, have resulted in periods of unusually cold weather due to reduced solar radiation. In fact, evidence is that we are in the first decade of another solar minimum, despite the continued rise in average world temperature. The internal sources of heat seem to have been constant for many millennia (actually eons).

The greenhouse effect has been studied by scientists since about 1820, when Joseph Fourier first studied it. Famed scientist and engineer Alexander Graham Bell warned of the dangers of heavy reliance on carbon based fuels for power as early as 1917. He noted that increases in the levels of carbon dioxide could result in global warming due to the greenhouse effect. He advocated for alternate energy sources such as solar energy. He actually invented the term global warming.

Since the time of Alexander Graham Bell there has been considerable study of the effect of burning non-renewable carbon fuels for energy production. The topic remained primarily of modest public debate until recently, perhaps gaining interest primarily after politicians such as Al Gore began to bring it into the mainstream.

The main source of new carbon dioxide is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and natural gas by humans, but deforestation accounts for over 20%. Other significant types of significant green-house gases are chlorofluorocarbons (such as freon) and methane. Chlorofluorocarbons are being reduced as a risk by vastly reduced use of them.  Methane poses a threat as global warming thaws frozen tundra and heats Arctic lakes, resulting in significant methane release.

About 10,000 years ago underwater landslides caused a massive release of frozen methane and may have caused a sudden acceleration of global warming.The flooding of the Black sea, which may have occured as a result of the breaching of the Bosporus strait by rising water in the Mediterranean, is the putative source of the Gilgamesh/Noah flood story. Some scientists warn of the potential of such landslides off the East Coast of the United States.

 Rice farming and cattle breeding also produce methane, as do sewage plants and land-fills. Many sewage and land-fill facilities either burn or collect methane to convert into fuels. Both processes result in eventual release of carbon dioxide. Methane, however, is much worse as a greenhouse-gas.

Man caused (anthropogenic) global warming nay-sayers have not quite yet been classed along with flat-Earthers, but the resistance to the concept is fading, shifting more and more to the fringe. One website complains that Vice-President Gore "forecasted" that there would be total melting of Arctic sea ice by 2013. Besides making up words, they also proceeded to claim that polar ice at both poles has increased, which is totally a fabrication. Both poles are undergoing well documented rapid loss of ice. The surface area of sea ice in the Antarctic region has increased due to the refreezing of some of the run-off from the melting continental ice pack and the increased movement of  glacial ice into the ocean,  but the total amount of ice has decreased.  This has resulted in added confusion among the scientifically illiterate deniers.