Climate change is a significant global issue, with human behavior playing a crucial role in mitigating its consequences. Greenhouse gases, which trap the Sun’s heat, are the key link between temperature rise and human activities. Burning carbon-based materials produces carbon dioxide, which is a key greenhouse gas. Human activities are driving the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century.
The greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space. Human-driven changes in land use and land cover, such as deforestation, urbanization, and shifts in vegetation patterns also alter the climate. Human activities contribute to climate change by causing changes in Earth’s atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols (small particles), and other pollutants.
Human activities are driving large-scale changes through land and sea use, hunting and harvesting of organisms, pollution, and invasive species. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history, changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature.
In conclusion, human activities are driving the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century. The greenhouse effect is essential for life on Earth, but human-made emissions are trapping and slowing heat loss to space. Human activities are also driving large-scale changes through land and sea use, hunting and harvesting of organisms, pollution, and invasive species.
📹 Causes and Effects of Climate Change | National Geographic
About National Geographic: National Geographic is the world’s premium destination for science, exploration, and adventure.
How does changing lifestyle affect the environment?
The modern lifestyle, particularly the Western diet, has a significant impact on the environment through increased use of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation. Factors such as pollution, waste generation, and resource consumption contribute to these issues. Life satisfaction among older adults is significantly influenced by the environment, with age-friendly environments correlated with higher satisfaction levels. Environmental factors like circular economy, energy taxes, and noise pollution also influence life satisfaction.
Residential satisfaction, particularly among Whites, is also influenced by the living environment. Industrial processes have also impacted the natural environment since the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, creating age-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and accessible environments can enhance life satisfaction among older adults.
How do humans cause climate change?
The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and livestock farming are causing a significant increase in greenhouse gases, leading to global warming. The 2011-2020 decade was the warmest, with the global average temperature reaching 1. 1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019. Human-induced global warming is currently increasing at a rate of 0. 2°C per decade, with a 2°C increase compared to pre-industrial times posing serious environmental and human health risks, including the risk of catastrophic changes.
What are the 10 causes of climate change?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth assessment report in 2022, revealing that climate change will increase worldwide, with heat waves, longer warm and cold seasons, and extreme weather events increasing even with 1. 5°C. The report also highlighted the need to cut emissions to net-zero.
Fossil fuel burning is the main cause of global warming, releasing greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. Power plants, particularly coal plants, are responsible for 73 percent of global electricity generation industry’s CO2 emissions. With around 8, 500 coal power plants globally, they produce ⅕ of total greenhouse gases, making them the largest single source.
Agriculture, according to The World Bank, is a significant driver of climate change, producing between 19-29 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Methane, which is 26 times stronger than carbon dioxide, is released from livestock and rice production, with about ⅓ of agriculture’s global methane emissions coming from livestock. Rice grown in rice paddies also contributes to about 11 percent of agriculture’s emissions. Nitrous oxide, 300 times stronger than CO2, is another issue, with 60 percent of human-caused N2O emissions coming from agriculture.
To address these issues, we must shift to other sources of energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. By cutting emissions to net-zero, we can work towards a more sustainable future.
How does your lifestyle affect climate change?
Consuming more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and reducing meat and dairy consumption can significantly reduce your environmental impact. Plant-based foods produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions and require less energy, land, and water. A vegetarian diet can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 500 kilograms of CO2e per year.
Waiving less food waste not only wastes resources and energy but also produces methane, a greenhouse gas. To reduce food waste, purchase only what you need, use what you buy, and compost leftovers.
Planting native species in your garden or outdoor space can help conserve biodiversity. Check for native species using a plant identification app and consider replacing non-natives, especially invasive ones. Even a single tree or shrub can serve as a refuge, but avoid using insecticides and other chemicals. By adopting these practices, you can help reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future.
How does climate affect human lifestyle?
Climate change is causing warming temperatures, precipitation changes, increased extreme weather events, and rising sea levels, which pose significant health risks to our environment. These impacts affect food, water, air, and weather. The severity of these health risks depends on public health and safety systems’ ability to address these threats, as well as individual factors like behavior, age, gender, and economic status. The impact of climate change varies based on location, sensitivity to health threats, exposure, and community adaptation.
People in developing countries are most vuln
erable to health risks, but even wealthy nations like the United States face significant health threats. Certain populations, such as children, pregnant women, older adults, and those with low incomes, face increased risks.
How do human lifestyles affect the environment?
Human activities, including overpopulation, pollution, and deforestation, have had a profound impact on the environment, contributing to climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and the contamination of water sources. Such detrimental consequences may prompt mass migrations or conflicts over scarce resources, including clean water. Educational materials can assist students in comprehending these consequences.
How do human activities affect the environment?
Human activities, including deforestation, global warming, overharvesting, pollution, and agriculture, have had a profound impact on the environment, resulting in species extinctions, sea level rise, and elevated greenhouse gas concentrations.
What is a way human lifestyles affect environmental systems?
Human activities, including overharvesting, deforestation, global warming, pollution, agriculture, urban expansion, and dam construction, as well as overpopulation, have the effect of altering natural habitats and contributing to ecosystem degradation.
What are the 10 main human impacts on the environment?
Human activities have a significant impact on the environment, affecting biodiversity, climate, and resource availability. Deforestation and habitat destruction are two of the most concerning human activities. Deforestation involves the relentless clearing of forests for agriculture, infrastructure, and settlements, disrupting delicate ecosystems and threatening countless plant and animal species. This is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, soil degradation, water pollution, and contamination. Overfishing and marine ecosystem depletion are also significant issues. It is crucial to understand how our actions shape the world and how we can collectively make a positive difference.
What are five human impacts on climate change?
Human activities, including the combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation, urbanization, and vegetation shifts, are altering the climate system. These changes result in changes in Earth’s surface reflectivity, emissions from burning forests, urban heat island effects, and changes in the natural water cycle. As the primary cause of global climate change is humans, solutions are also within the human domain.
However, the human impact on climate change is often misunderstood, leading to debates among the public. Students may resist the conclusion that humans are altering the climate due to feelings of guilt, political resistance, or a lack of scientific understanding. Projections of climate change’s effects can also frighten or discourage students, leading to denial or resistance to learning.
Educators should introduce this topic with scaffolding that establishes the foundations of climate science, underlying principles, and robust scientific research. Strategies to teach controversial environmental issues should focus on the affective and emotional aspects of student learning. By understanding the causes of climate change, effective solutions can be developed and deployed.
How much do individuals contribute to climate change?
Individuals produce several tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, with the US being among the worst offenders. To keep the temperature increase close to 2°C above pre-industrial times, the average global footprint needs to be approaching 0 to 2 tonnes by 2050. By changing a few habits, individuals can prevent many tonnes of GHGs from entering the atmosphere, potentially preventing 100 tonnes of GHGs from entering the atmosphere over their lifetime.
As individuals, we are the micro, a small part of the larger macro system. While macro players like governments and corporations have all the power, they exist to serve us and minimize GHG emissions. If they don’t take steps to fight climate change, they are not providing us with the value we should expect from them.
Elected officials and companies get to where they are today because of us. We decide whom to support by giving them our votes and money. To activate this power, we must use our voices, money, and votes to support parties fighting climate change and making sustainability a priority.
📹 How do we know climate change is caused by humans?
In this video I summarize the main pieces of evidence that we have which show that climate change is caused by humans. This is …
I don´t get a couple of things and hope you can clarify: 1. If we burn fossil fuels which shifts the C12/C13 ratio. Doesn´t that mean that we are restoring the ratio how it was in the past? 2. All graphs were from after the industrial revolution kickt off. Do you know where i can get pre “industrial revolution” graphs for CO2 levels in the athmosphere? 3. How many % of climate change can be attributed to human activity (Controlling the data for other variables like sun activity, measuring in urban vs rural areas ect)
This was really not convincing at all, too many assumptions, too many unknowns, too big of a stretch to prove a hypothesis. Pontificating human created climate change is a political virtue signalling technique (if you say anything that doesn’t align with the ideology you must be “an umcle”. Very “scientific” approach. In the meantime, explain how did you measure temperature thousands of years ago. 😉
Good job! You seem to be exactly the right person to make this article. I think it’s astonishing that you have a bunch of people in the comments who identify themselves as ‘that uncle’, but instead of angry diatribes, I see people mostly exchanging opinions in a rather calm and civilized manner. With this topic and on this platform that is quite the acomplishment in itself!
Not so fast Sabine. If you want an excellent summary of the earth’s increase in CO2 concentration and how we can prove, with direct measurement, that the increase in CO2 comes from the burning of fossil fuels then this is your article. However Sabine, you very much did a wave of the hand of “How do we know climate change is caused by humans” or more specifically how do we know increased CO2 concentration causes global warming. A few sentences concluding stratospheric cooling is the simple explanation of why increased CO2 increases the earth’s temperature doesn’t answer with any specificity the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. The prediction of stratospheric cooling in the 1960s done by Manabe & Wertherald is a mathematical model and not a direct measurement. You can watch your previous article on the Green House Effect to get your detailed explanation of stratospheric cooling but there is plenty to debate when you examine the details of stratospheric cooling and the impact of CO2 concentration on global temperature. My point is not to prove or disprove that increased CO2 causes global warming. My point is you described “How we know CO2 change is caused by humans” and not “how we know climate change is caused by humans”.
0:39 the fact that we can’t get a straight answer on this issue without doing a tonne of digging is a problem in itself, especially for those who are on the fence or simply wanting more information to confirm the narrative about climate change. Unfortunately, we tend to get a lot of narrativeand ideology
I set this task to a group of my Level 3 BTEC Applied Science students, because I know that it is not as simple a question as the public believe. I reckon over 99% of people who vehemently believe in anthropogenic climate change, have absolutely no idea at all what the evidence is, they just know that all the experts are agreed. Not one single student came up with the evidence, even when later prompted as to what I was looking for. Rather they just came back with rising CO2 levels coinciding with increased industrial activity, and similar information to your initial searches.
With all due respect, the concerns of ‘sceptics’ like Dr Steven Koonin and Dr Judith Curry have never been ‘is climate change caused by humans?’ but how much is caused by humans and what are the consequences. To answer the latter it is important to apply sensible projections of human emissions, which requires an understanding of what each representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenario represents, since some (e.g. RCP 8.5) are known to be so extreme as to be effectively impossible.
A good summary Sabine. All of this is uncontroversial i.e. most skeptics agree that CO2 is rising and the additional CO2 derives from fossil fuels. The controversy is about what happens in the future. How much temperature rise would a doubling of CO2 cause and how does this factor alongside the natural temperature cycles? Would this on balance be a bad thing or a good thing and what we should do to mitigate any negative effects? It’s about feedbacks, particularly whether the CO2 rise drives an increase in water vapour in the atmosphere and whether or not the models provide a reliable forecast of future temperatures. This is a lot more complex.
Why are you only looking at the data from 1960 forward, if you go back to 1880 when we started recording temperature data accurately it shows we are in a long term cooling trend. Where are you getting your info on more storms and more intense storms? They have actually decreased. Please state your sources.
Next, I would like to see a article that looks at how and why and when the narrative changed over time. When I was young, we were all being warned of a coming ice age. Why was that? If if the scientists were wrong about that, why were they wrong, and how did they happen to incorrectly reach that consensus?
Hi, Uncle Skeptic here. Earth self-regulates its global temperature. This has been going on for millions of years. Any addition to an enclosed environment will be affected. The question should be is how that environment reacts and over time can it compensate for the intrusion? Now it’s always about how soon are we going to die
This lady seems genuine, but she should be reminded that correlation is not causation. If someone is looking to doubt we are exclusively causing this temperature swing, you need not look very far in climate historical proxies to realize we just have not been taking measurements long enough for our data to mean anything yet. She should also be reminded that a warmer planet isn’t necessarily a bad thing —-it changes things—-but that’s been going on in various extremes for as long as this planet has existed. Turning it into a catastrophe or a crisis is an attempt for some people to assert control over other people. Since modern science is closer to a religion in many fields I doubt the real scientists are going to stick their heads up long enough to cast doubt on the assertion. “We’re all going to burn to death in 100 years” if they are no longer going to be funded for the real science, they’re doing.
Accepting what you say which I definitely do, how then do we account for climate change in the past – i.e. since the end of the Younger Dryas and the beginning of our ‘civilistation’? Glaciologists, dendrologists, geographers, historians, archaelogists, etc all concur in there being quite significant variations – for example, the so-called “Medieval Warm Period’ or the ‘Little Ice Agent’ which followed it. I have never heard an explanation of why these past variations have happened…..it would be great if you could explain! I have total faith in you Sabine to explain all things scientific that interest me…….if only you had been around when I was a kid!
I think Sabine did a good job demonstrating that the measured increase in CO2 is from fossil fuels and so caused by humans. Did she address the connection between CO2 and climate change? I’m not sure she did. It may be true sea water acidification is an effect of increasing CO2 levels. But its connection to climate change? Drawing correlations to CO2 levels (acidification) does not draw the same correlation to earth temp. increase. Increase in sea level? That is very difficult to measure in part because of the accuracy and precision of the measurement required but also because of the lack of a real baseline. Extreme weather events? I’m not sure about this one but I suspect the correlation between extreme weather and CO2 increase is primarily supported by atmospheric modeling. I don’t know, have any of these computer models been validated? Say, by using historical data to predict the present state of the atmosphere? Again, very difficult and a question that should be asked. We do know and have measured with great accuracy and precision the interaction of CO2 and radiation across a broad frequency range in the laboratory. I guess that is a start but I doubt it is the end of the story.
Interesting that most charts go back to 1980, when 1979 was the coldest year in recent record. If you go back to 1900 when good temperature data existed in the developed countries, what does the warming look like? In the USA where the best temperature data exists, the 1930’s appear to be much warmer.
I’m just a trade worker, not a scientist and I gave up studying the sciences when I ran into some personal life difficulties that forced me out of college some years ago but your informative and fun articles have made me fall in love with science again. Even though it pains me greatly that I’ll likely never be a scientist myself or contribute anything to research I can still enjoy catching up on the progress made by others.
To assess whether or not we are being indoctrinated by the global warming alarmists, I only need to look at the way data is presented: 1) The graphs shown all magically start around the 1980s.. as if no prior data was available. 2) The graphs’ vertical scale (atmospheric CO2, C12 vs C12 ratio etc..) vs horizontal scale (years). 3) The selectivity of the data presented.. eg: as if Mauna Loa observations can be extrapolated to the whole planet.. without question. If it has feathers, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
The uncertainty is the part you glossed over. How much influence does an increase of CO2 have on global temperatures. If its small, then wasting trillions on it could be better used elsewhere. If its large, it’s a serious problem. The reality is that the IPCC has a huge error range on this and there are studies showing it could be a lot lower than consensus. Additionally, the predictions are entirely modelling based which has its own sets of predictability issues. Additionally, there are also many positives in a higher CO2 world which are totally ignored in this debate. It’s really an issue about people denying the reality that CO2 affects temperature, its about the size of the effect.
It’s easy to demonstrate that CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by humans burning fossil fuels does in fact warm the planet. However, it’s harder to say by how much exactly since estimating the influence of climate feedbacks is difficult. I would love to see you go into detail about Climate Sensitivity, how it is calculated, and some of the current estimates for its value.
If you need more than one evidence, it is obviously no evidence. One REAL evidence would be enough. I do not know anybody, saying the mankind does not produce carbon dioxide. I do not know anybody, who says carbondioxide can not absorb an emit some wavelength of energy and therefore change heat distribution. Still in nature everything works in feedback control loops. The amount of carbondioxide and the temperature was always changing. More carbondioxide means more plant growth means reduction of carbondioxide. I strongly doubt, mankind understands those control loops. What If, by playing god and changing the natural control loops, we cause the actual desaster?
Now go and look at graphs, made from ice-samples which show the atmosphere from over 1000’s of years. You should see a flat line in CO2 and temperature, then a sharp up-shift about 150 years ago. But instead, you see massive up-shifts, then down-shifts in every time in history. What we have seen since the industrial revolution, is a massive reduction in deaths from climate related events and a greening of the Earth.
UC Davis has had posted on their University website for years a long article about nitrogen in Boreal Forests. They say that past rapid CO2 rises on Earth were sequestered by the Boreal Forests absorbing the CO2 into increased forest growth, naturally sequestered CO2! And the reason the Boreal Forests can do this is because they have excess nitrogen in their soils which the forests can absorb more rapidly than is normally thought to occur in nature and that this phenomenon deserves further study.
IPCC AR6 was released in 2021 and the following are classified as “low confidence” that they have changed significantly in the “modern era” which means from 1850. “Low confidence” means there is little or no evidence they have changed. The AR6 reference is Table 12.12 regarding “Climate Impact Drivers (CIDs)” from Chapter 12 of Working Group 1 of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions) Aridity Avalanche (snow) Average rain Average Wind Speed Coastal Flood Drought Affecting Crops (agricultural drought) Drought From Lack Of Rain (hydrological drought) Erosion of Coastlines Fire Weather (hot and windy) Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods) Frost Hail Heavy Rain Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms Landslides Marine Heatwaves Ocean Alkalinity Radiation at the Earth’s Surface River/Lake Floods Sand and Dust Storms Sea Level Severe Wind Storms Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets Tropical Cyclones This is directly from IPCC AR6, and so Sabine many of the things you say proves climate change are contradicted by AR6. Remember this is not my opinion, it is from hundreds of IPCC authors. However, the summary for policy makers also contradicts much of the above. 120,000 years ago global temperature was 2-4C hotter than today and seas 5-7 Metres higher than today. There was no Arctic ice for at least 1000 years and somehow the planet didt incinerate and polar bears become extinct. In the dinosaur era, CO2 was 4 times higher than today but the oceans didnt turn into a seathing cauldron of acid.
Blah…Blah…Blah… For those of us old enough to remember constant black skies from coal burning by industry, trains, and households or the red chemical skies of NJ and NY due to open pit waste burning and chemical industries, the atmosphere is cleaner today than it was in the 40s, 50s, and 60s… How many volcanic eruptions have occurred in the past 80 years? I bet that all those different isotopes of carbon could be generated by a very clever planet when it spews billions of tons of stuff into the atmosphere… Sure we humans contribute, but destroying our way of life is certainly NOT the approach to fending off a planet-wide catastrophe… The next extinction event has already been planned by the cosmos we live in… The climate change so-called crisis is just a political fabrication to reduce human independence…
I have doubts about how accurately we can measure temperature and ‘extreme weather events’ from 500, 1000, 5000 years ago. Even if we are one or two degrees off, it changes everything by an order of magnitude. I’m sure we can get a ‘reasonable’ idea but we’ve only been measuring weather quite recently. Also, many have criticized how many temperatures are taken in cities instead of the countryside – where cities are usually a degree or two warmer due to concrete, etc. I’m not saying cliimate change isn’t real or isn’t caused by humans, but I really question how accurate we can get with this.
Why are you the first person to make something like instead of getting angry and calling people dumb for not just trusting you because you have a phd? If you wouldn’t mind… what evidence is there that this is linear and won’t hit some sort of plateau for temperature like a horizontal asymptote? And if I’m not wrong, natural heating/cooling cycles can be ruled out because of the rapidity of the change, right?
Is there good evidence to support the idea that the majority of oil is fossil fuels? I am not asking disingenuously. A long time ago I went on a geology trip across the US where we visited oil refineries, and I know that there is indeed oil that comes from fossils from various time periods (especially in the US). However, I have also heard of the Russians having a theory that (some? most? I don’t know) oil comes from deeper in the Earth’s crust and is the result of some unknown production process deep inside of the Earth (i.e., not from plants). They came to this conclusion after revisiting old oil fields that had mysteriously refilled themselves. Not necessarily good evidence of oil not being a fossil fuel on its own, but it did plant a seed of doubt for me… do we actually know that all or most of our oil is a fossil fuel, or is that an assumption we have made because we’ve definitively proven that some oil comes from fossils, and made an assumption that this is the case for all oil everywhere? Not that it changes the climate change debate any, but if oil is a fossil fuel, it is finite, and we have even more reason to switch away from it. If it comes from deep within the Earth, however, that leaves the question of “how much oil remains” open.
An interesting theme occurs in these graphs and charts and numbers. Climate (temp) is usually measured with the GMT30, “Global mean temperature 30 year average”. However, repeatedly we are shown graphs which barely cover 30 years and are asked to interrupt the data ‘within’ it. If you use the data within the 30year period, you are not longer working with “climate”, but seasonal and yearly variations. The same variations that using the 30year average is mean to stop miss interruption from. I know you can plot “years” on a 30 year average, however with a ratio of 30:1 in the intented accuracy and the “point value” … not much should be taken from it. Yet, why do the media and even Sabine (although at least hers’ has units!), keep showing us 30 year average data over less than 30 years. It’s dishonest.
Thank you for the article. I heard a lot of interesting correlations, but I didn’t hear anything approaching causal evidence (as was suggested at the beginning of the article). Just for the record, I do believe that human activity is playing a role in climate change, but I’m guessing my estimate of the extent of that role is significantly below Sabine’s.
You cannot win. People would rather believe their favorite “news” anchor than a scientist (unless that scientist tells them something that they already believe, and it doesn’t inconvenience them). Any data you put in front of them is automatically discounted at being either falsified or irrelevant. Your facts don’t matter because they have “alternative facts”. When deciding who to believe, a PHD and a lifetime of study and research is valued less than having a job sitting in front of a camera on a right-wing news website. In fact, if you have any sort of degree in any field that doesn’t teach you how to cheat and abuse other people out of their money, you’ll likely be suspected of being in on the conspiracy.
My confidence in Hossenfelder has taken a huge hit with this article. She ignores all other forces of nature that have an effect on climate, and focuses only on carbon dioxide. Then, she notes that temperature increases over the last hundred fifty years have roughly coincided with CO2 increases. Conclusion: CO2 is the control dial for climate temperature. Too hard to explain away the centuries and millennia when temperature went up as CO2 declined, or down as CO2 increased, so she ignores that completely. Or the fact that water vapor is 75% to 95% of the total greenhouse effect, depending on how you factor for clouds, or that humans account for only 1/5th of atmospheric CO2. So, if you only consider one independent variable, ignoring all others, and don’t care about when temperature and CO2 change opposite to the hypothesis, and only consider the last century or so when there is some correlation between temperature and CO2, then you can make a weak argument that humans are causing global warming. But, THAT IS NOT SCIENCE, HOSSENFELDER!!!
That’s actually good info. I’m a ‘denier’ by trade, so to speak, and that seems very good data. But, until I can hear if there is another side to the interpretation of that data, I’m not giving up my tinfoil hat completely. And, even if convinced that ‘we are the problem’ then their is the question of, “is the problem actually that large” and the other question of “will earth’s natural compensation mechanisms deal with it anyway.” So, this isn’t the end of the debate by any means.
All you have established is a correlation and, as we all know, correlation does not prove causation. Now, even were CO2 to be the primary driver, perhaps you’d be well to check the maths. We know (or are told) that there is a logarithmic relationship between the concentration (C) of a greenhouse gas and the warming (W) it produces. That is, W=s*log(C)+b where s is the coefficient of proportionality and b a constant, which we can assume zero to maximise W. (If we take logs to base 2, s is sensitivity per doubling). Now, since it’s so fundamental, you’d think that W for CO2 would be widely published — yet the best I can find is from Schönweise towards the end of the last millennium. He suggests 7.2K. You’d also think that another fundamental, i.e. the percentage of atmospheric CO2 that is anthropogenic, would also be widely available; but no. The best I can do is a now-redacted approximation from NOAA of <5%. So, we can calculate sensitivity s and use that to calculate the warming that would be if every molecule of anthropogenic CO2 were removed from the atmosphere and the difference is the amount attributable to humans. I did and found it insignificant. Note that this is without going back through archives to demonstrate how 'the data' has been manipulated, etc.
Climate is probably the most complex phenomenon we study outside of biology – although in some aspects you could argue it is even more complicated than biology. The only thing that is certain is we don’t know much about what’s happening with the climate and why. Anyone who tells you we understand it or says the science is settled has certainly bought into an ideology.
Normally I like Sabine’s lectures on physics — she is very open-minded. Here she presents a hypothesis and evidence for it, but DOES NOT PROVE IT with evidence. For that we need another planet. In any case, the scientific method breaks down here. And I don’t like typical scientists making fun of non-scientists as if science explains everything — Sabine, with her uncle comment, is doing the same. We are in an ice age, because there are still glaciers year round at the poles. And the ice age is coming to and end like previous ice ages, so something is causing a warming. So what causes this earth to go through cycles of warming and cooling? And I know this warming is more rapid, but there are variations of the climate at all time scales.
Your quizzes are perfect. I often want to relay your information to friends and family, and with other websites I’ll be like “Uuuh, wait well… just watch the article”. But when I take your quiz it forces me to make a hard memory about the topic points, and gets me to rewatch certain sections. Then when I’m transcribing from memory, I’m representing the information accurately 🙂
All you have demonstrated is a narrow time frame of the increase of CO2 but then jump to a conclusion that ‘this must be the culprit of climate change’ the problem you have is one of logic, causation and correlation. Previous warm and cold periods are a matter of record, but industry and humans were not involved, so? On the societal level, never were so many controlled (obey you climate denier!) and impoverished by the few (WEF / Ruling Class) with so little (truth) to make so much money and concentration of power. Genius!
I liked the quiz at the end which was made available. Neat feature. I’d like someday to see a short article talking more about the stratospheric cooling effect. If you really want to drive the point home, I’d suggest explaining it. People who are hard-core skeptics on global warming’s cause by human activity are going to point at this and claim that it doesn’t make sense. They’ll say “If CO2 absorbs sunlight and traps it as heat, why does it only do that near the surface of the Earth and not up higher. Sounds like some made-up mumbo-jumbo to support their claims to me!” (and it kinda does) So I think that’d be a neat supplementary article to be made someday.
Rising temperatures: In some places. Increasing sea level: Slightly, and in some places. It’s actually decreasing at Seattle. Ocean acidification: It’s still alkaline, actually. The measured change is minuscule if even detectable. Declining ice cover: Hooray. Nothing like Earth totally covered in ice to be Very Bad. More extreme weather: If you say so. Maybe the USA will have another dust bowl like in the 1930’s.
The problem with your argument is the first part where you assume a bunch of stuff is true that isn’t; I am shocked that you of all people, who constantly lecture people on avoiding unsupported bunk, have fallen for this, apparently without researching it. Temperatures aren’t rising and ocean levels aren’t rising. If you have any interest in reexamining your presumptions, look for “Understanding Climate Change” and “Rising Oceans – NOT”, both using the quotes, and affixing my last name to each string. Oh yes, and stop using Google, because if you knew anything about Google you’d realize that its search results are ridiculously manipulated.
A bit disappointed that a scientist would describe the oceans as “becoming more acidic” when they are not acidic at all. You could say, “less base”, perhaps. But this is secondary to my main comment. While oceans do absorb CO2, when they warm, they in fact outgas CO2. Are we fully considering these two counteracting processes when we talk about the effect CO2 has on the oceans? Couldn’t it be just as likely that on a warming planet, the oceans are contributing more to the increase in atmospheric CO2 than the other way around? Given that we know that in past warming cycles, CO2 has been the trailing factor, with temperatures rising hundreds of years before CO2 does, could we be trying to put the cart before the horse here?
Climate is clearly changing but an additional question that needs to be addressed is the actual effect of CO2 on warming. I think all agree that it does absorb heat as Sabine describes, but I have also heard arguments that it isn’t a major driver in warming. These claims are that other molecular content like changing water vapor ( & other) content in our atmosphere have much more impact which still confuses our ability to conclude that the changing weather is human-caused. These changes could still largely be due to natural processes. While it is becoming apparent that we are contributing to rising CO2 levels, is there a way to further prove what is actually the cause of warming? Because of the behavior of our politicians, I have zero trust in their policies. If they truly believed that this is a near-term existential threat as they claim, we would be seeing many different (& more effective) actions. Instead, they talk a lot, push EVs but then go about things in their normal way. If they were being honest, why aren’t we seeing all options being pursued – like also working on adaptation to changing climate? Adaptation would have much lower impact on the poverty stricken countries while also being a much more effective way to minimize impact of changing climate on humans. All I can really conclude is that we are spending a LOT of money (and who is profiting?) with almost no guarantee that there will be any impact on global warming.
Thank you for your continued contribution to science. Your thorough scientific analysis is always enlightening and thought-provoking. However, I couldn’t help but wonder about the historical context of the data. While the evidence from the 1980s onward is compelling, I wonder about the trends preceding this period. Specifically, how do we account for the potential rise in carbon dioxide levels and temperature fluctuations before the industrial era? For instance, before human industrialization, were there natural processes such as widespread wildfires that significantly contributed to carbon dioxide emissions and temperature changes? Additionally, how do we discern the natural climate variability from human-induced influences throughout history? I believe understanding the pre-industrial dynamics could provide valuable insights into the true extent of human impact on climate change. Your expertise in this field would shed light on these intricate nuances. Thank you for your dedication to scientific inquiry and for sharing your knowledge with the world.
The problem is the actual recorded temperatures from the 1930-1980’s have been “adjusted” to show those temperatures as being 5 degrees F lower than they actually were. This is because the NASA people and NOAA people think all the people worldwide didn’t read their thermometers correctly. Look at the actual temps from any city in the US and compare it to what NASA or NOAA says it was. Even the four recording stations in Africa have been given this treatment by the “scientists” today. No one on any continent could apparently read a thermometer.
This is a bit sad in fact. The “deniers” actually have quite sophisticated arguments and measurments, too. It is a complex debate, form the deniers point of view at least, which Sabine does not know much about, apparently. If she completely ignores what they say and present a symplistic version of the story of the other side, which the deniers mostly know well, she is not convincing the deniers, but only helping people already convinced to label the deniers as stupid, by creating a false impression that they don’t accept oversimplified “facts”. That’s not constructive. If you really want to convince the deniers, you should engage with their arguments (starting with googling them up). It is actually a bit funny, since her story sounds like, I believed something, and I googled until I found nice arguments that align with my belief :).
My uncle is greatly relieved that the USA has rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. He’s been able to get off his blood pressure and sleep aide medication since we did. Prior to that he was so stressed out that the world was going to end in 12 years. He’s resting easy now! He also is doing his part by becoming a vegetarian to cut down on cattle flatulence and the damage its methane is causing throughout the globe.
You’ve got a correlation between CO2 and the one degree rise in temperature over the last century. There’s also a plausible mechanism. But that falls far short of proof. During that time humans have more than doubled in numbers, consequently need double the land to produce enough food, more if they eat meat. We’ve made cities, chopped down and changed large areas of the earth’s surface, it’s reflectiveness, it’s water cycle etc. We have also produced a lot of other pollutants. What if it’s not CO2, what if it’s something else we do? The trouble is climate scientists are so invested in CO2 now, along with the politicians that I rather suspect they could be overlooking something important.
To say we are not effecting it is insane, but it is by how much and how much is too much? With the innovation in battery tech and other sectors not seen since a major war, I will make a guess that we have enough time and when we get to a new standardised way of getting energy worldwide we will undoubtedly have something else to worry about.
Most of the so-called climate issues is pure guff. Looking at the history of the earth over millions of years show that wide swings in temperature BEFORE human existence. In addition, the common analyses fail to take into account the carbon cycle between plant life and animal life. Further, the variation of the solar energy output also never accounts for the clouds generated by cosmic rays in times of low solar energy, which compounds temperature differential effects. So, I am sorry Sabine, the assertion of human activities as being the central cause of temperature rise remains unsubstantiated.
I considered myself quite knowledgeable in a lot of areas of my field of expertise. In 2004 i had an opportunity to attend several workshops and presentations held by actual experts. I came away humbled. I have read enough in the field of climate science to know I’m far from knowledgeable. Listening to other laymen argue against the consensus of expert opinion almost makes me sick. Yes, I’ve bookmarked this to send some of these folks to, but I’m pretty pessimistic about the good it will do.
Hi there. Just want to point out holes in your deductions.You missing few points here. What is % of Co2 in atmosphere, how much % increased due to human activities and how that corresponds to global warming. The total amount of CO2 in atmosphere is 0.004% 421 ppm.Increase by 0.0001% in last 50years. Is this significant? Do we have mathematical model that shows correlation of increase 0.0001% of CO2 with increase temperature? Simulations? We can’t simulate,model weather patterns for more then 10days not to mention planets atmosphere.
I do have one problem with the reasoning, because all evidence in the article is focussing on how humans have caused increase of CO2. That is in fact very easy to show, I don’t think anyone doubts that after seeing the facts. But the much more interesting question is to try and explain how all the positive and negative feedback loop mechanisms on the planet add up to a net positive warming, it’s a very complex and therefore difficult to model system, in which co2 might play a role, but for me personally it’s far from proven that co2 is the major cause, as far I I’m concerned there could be loads of other reasons why there is warming.
Thanks, Sabine. I believe in taking care of our planet.that said, over the past twenty years, I periodically see things in the news such as email leaks documenting data falsification, or articles about improper measurement methods, or government scientists refusing executive orders to release their data for public scrutiny, and I get angry and suspicious. Second, I see valid questions getting asked (some of which you answered in this article), and the response has (until today) been howling accusations of being “science deniers” and bigots and worse; further, I’ve seen scientists who asked valid questions get mobbed out of their jobs by their peers for simply asking some of these same questions. On top of that, when the only actions recommended by the politicians are to actively decrease the population, limit access to fuels that keep the poor alive, strip people of their civil liberties, and line the pockets of the politicians, I become very suspicious that any good science being carried out is being perverted for money and power by political schemers. Providing clear answers to direct questions is something Western civilization is not good at. And then we wonder why our society is polarizing. If we had more people like you, we might have less bickering. That said, I still have skepticism for academics,scientists on the government payroll, the politicians that sign their paychecks, the activist groups that push the political campaigns, and the “news” groups that spin the events.
It’s not that easy, but when you know what the answer is then you kind of see it in the obvious places like the IPCC reports. How do we know we are causing and have caused global warming? We know it because of the physics. As you said we know what CO2 does and we know that the concentration is increasing and that we are causing this increased CO2 concentration. But we need more than that. We also have an accurate enough idea of what other factors do. We express the effect those factos had and will have in the future as so called “radiative forcings” and you’ll find those radiative forcings for all relevant factos in the IPCC reports as a reason for how we know that we are causing all of this. The most important idea in all of this (simplifies this situation quite a bit) is looking at the entire planet and it’s energy budget. You need to understand that our planet can only receive significant energy from the sun and it can only lose energy via thermal radiation. With this realisation it’s just a matter of calculating the effects of the various factors on the earths energy budget. These are the so called radiative forcings. For the sun it’s quite easy to calculate the maximum forcing it could have produced in the last 200 or 300 years. It’s math and physics that even a talented highschooler can understand and calculations that you can do on a piece of paper. For greenhouse gases like CO2, CH4, H2O (water vapor) it’s a lot more difficult. You need to learn about radiative transfer and the radiative transfer equation and to understand this on you will also have to understand the Beer-Lambert-law, Plancks law of thermal radiation and Kirchoffs law of thermal radiation.
Good article. Enjoy them. The information sounds good but unfortunately, the timing of this information I find is questionable. I’ve been hearing and interested in climate change since high school (30 years ago). In those 30 years it’s only been the past few years, the same years we’ve seen unprecedented push for green energy, that this magic c12 content is higher and this proves it’s humans theory. I and people in general have been asking how do we know for 25+ years. I’ve seen scientists questioned on national tv programs about how we know it’s humans’ activity causing the issues and they never said c12. They always answered, you’re one of those, or you’re a climate denier. If this C12 proves it, then why wasn’t this information openly talked about for 30 years??? I question the magical timing of this so called proof. Especially these days seeing all the lies we’ve been told for years. How would any average person prove any of this? We can’t. 2: We don’t know what created fossil fuels. It was Ferns, fish, dinosaurs, etc. are hypothesized not proven. To link C12 to plants that became fossil fuel that was then burned is another red flag. Using unproven science to prove other science??
Thank you Sabine. However if you consider the analysis of Murry Salby (RIP), also available on YouTube you may find that the modern increase in CO2 emissions from natural sources also dilute atmospheric C13. Along with the observation that CO2 increases follow temperature increases on both long a short times scales should give everyone pause.
I’d like to hear what you think of Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv who has definitely alternative ideas to explain climate change (that allow also to explain while climate is changing on other planets of the solar system too!). I am a mathematical physicist and I have always found bizzarre all this deference toward “predictive” models that contains many many free parameters that are adjustable. In this I follow the renowned mathematician Johnny Von Neumann quoted by Fermi saying “With 4 free parameters I can fit an elephant and with 5 I can make it wiggle”. Here is a article in which Nir presents his point of view: youtube.com/watch?v=5yH0jocRiZQ
My dear Frau Doctor Hossenfelder, first let me say I mean no disrespect, but I couldn’t get through this one. I’m a geologist so I tend to look at geologic history quite a bit. It is no warmer that the medieval warm period, and the last four interglacials were warmer than today. We were told that the Arctic sea ice would be gone a couple of decades ago, but it’s still there. Seas have been much higher throughout geologic time, and any rise now is slow and minimal. Storms are not getting worse or more frequent. Please see Climate Discussion Nexis. If sea level rise was a real problem would Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates have bought mansions by the ocean? And the big meeting the WEF just had in Switzerland where those who think themselves our betters drone on and on about climate change while guzzling champagne and entertaining escorts. I understand that there were over 1,000 private jets used to haul their high dollar behinds to the meeting. I can’t help but wonder how much carbon dioxide they produced. These are the clowns who want us to park our cars in exchange for 15 minute cities and ear bugs. Yeah right, like we are going to live like medieval peasants while they soar high above us like ancient gods in their firey chariots. I love the work you are doing as it pertains to physics.
Hi Sabine, first off, thank you for your educational content – it’s incredibly valuable and much appreciated. I have a question regarding the gravity of climate change as a global issue. In your view, how does the seriousness of climate change compare to other potential threats like nuclear war, the rise of AI, or asteroid impacts? And should our focus on it outweigh efforts to combat world hunger or diseases? I’m not trying to downplay climate change’s importance, but rather I’m curious about its prioritization in the grand scheme of global challenges. For instance, if one had a certain amount of resources (which could also be thought of as funding for scientific research), what percentage would be best allocated to addressing climate change? Do you think it warrants a pause in other research areas until the climate is stabilized? This topic might even make for an interesting article discussion 😀
This was a very good and informative article. I wouldn’t mind going to a green system, BUT it should be done only in a reasonable time frame. It appears to me that it would be a couple of generations before we could truly begin to sustain a change like this. Additionally, nuclear power is a natural resource and would be an excellent gateway source of energy. Fusion power may become successful, but ultimately, the (new physics) around zero point energy is the answer. Lastly, can anyone explain why our solar system planets appear to be warming up as well. It’s not just a global warming problem. It’s also a Sol system warming event as well.
The climate changing is not bad or unnatural. The idea that it is caused by humans is just silly. Volcanoes put out more gasses than humans. Also, none of what you shared in this article is proof of human-caused climate change. Correlation and causation are different things. The climate is a complex and dynamic system influenced by multiple factors.
The real issue is not whether there has been human caused climate change, there has been. The real issue is what actually has changed and how bad (or good) it is. There has been a warming of ~1 degree C over the last CENTURY in the global average temperature. It’s happening mostly in winter and overnight temperatures. Daytime summer temperatures are rising much slower. That’s a good thing as 10 times more people die of cold than heat. The United Nations IPCC in their latest Analysis Report, AR6, finds that there has not been any GLOBAL increase in hurricane frequency or intensity, tornadoes, drought, floods, or energetic storms. There has been a small increase in heat wave frequency globally (but not intensity) and a small increase in rainfall (a good thing). Growing seasons have lengthened (a good thing) and a reduction in desert areas has happened (a good thing). Arctic sea ice has gone down, and most (but not all glaciers have receded (but many of those glaciers were much smaller during periods as recent as the Roman Warm Period just 2000 years ago). Not much else. There doesn’t appear to be a “climate crisis”.
Sabina. Just when I started to make some sense of all this, I read chapter 3 of “Fake Invisible Catastrophes…” by Patrick Moore and threw up my hands, in practice for when the world comes to an end. What do you make of his interpretation of the longer trends in CO2 and temperature. Im waiting with bated breath. Regards, George
Most people don’t even grasp what temperature really is: the average kinetic energy of molecules! It’s the vibrations of the molecules that we feel as temperature. And they also do not grasp that WHY CO2 or other greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation: the specific configuration of the molecule which allows them to vibrate thereby storing energy in form of vibrations, just like guitar strings. If I flick a guitar string (i.e. I inject outside energy into it), it vibrates for a while (i.e., it stores this energy for a while). This is how greenhouse gas molecules are – you flick them (via sunlight) and they vibrate – for a long time – and it’s to do with their molecular structure and the tightness/looseness of the chemical bonds.
I don’t understand why no one talks about all the trees that have been cut down for shopping centers, more housing, and parking lots. Growing up I lived an area with lots and lots of trees. We had lots of undeveloped land with trees. I still live in the same area but more than 80% of the trees are gone. They have been replaced with abandoned shopping centers. They build a shopping center and then a few years later they build a new shopping center nearby. The merchants abandoned the old shopping center in favor of the nearby new one and the cycle continues. They don’t go back to the abandoned areas and redo them, instead they just devour untouched land. This has also caused flooding as the water they used to go into the ground must now be handled by the sewer system which was never designed for the increased load. I have kept the trees in the back of my house but in many of the houses in my area they have taken down the trees because the people under 40 do not like to rake leaves in the fall. No trees = No leaves to deal with. Unless I have been liked to all the years in school, trees used to take in CO2 and give off O2. I say take down some of those abandoned shopping centers and plant trees there instead.
Another excellent article, thank you. What my uncle struggles with though is data that definitively shows that a 120ppm increase in CO2 (which is a very small amount) accounts for the rise we see in temperature. He also points to data that shows that historically CO2 levels lag temperature changes. He’s a stubborn old coot.
Dear Sabine, thanks for your great articles as always. In a previous article, you said you are allowing yourself to speak aloud because you have values, you have time to investigate and you like to share knowledge even if sometimes you are making mistakes (error is human). It is a point of view I totally respect and admire. For this article though, I am sorry to say I believe you fumbled the ball and felt into the multi-millions dollars narrative, spreading anxiety and misinformation to our Western cultures (African and Asian cultures can’t care less as they have doubled their emissions in the past 20 years) So please allow me to go exhaustively through your article and share my comments with you. First Co2 indeed absorbs light in the infrared. But CO2 is 2 to 3 times less potent than H20 (water vapor). Should we forbid clouds? This is not a proof that Human CO2 is the only or the major contributing factor to global warming. Two: The Fraction of CO2 has indeed increased since the beginning of the measurement. When looking in Earth history, there were times millions of years ago where C02 was 100 folds higher than today. Was that also due to the human emission? If you look at scientific studies on ice carrots done in Iceland, you’ll find that global warming was cycling with ice age as far as we can tell. The most interesting part is that scientists have found a clear correlation between C02 and these cycles. C02 concentration increases roughly 800 years AFTER global warmings start. And CO2 concentration decreases roughly 800 years AFTER ice ages start.
Forgot to mention that up to now approx. 99% of all climate models and predictions of the last 30 years predicted too high temperature rise (simply wrong) because of too high climate sensitivity rates of CO2 of the models. Comments on RSS 3.3 to 4.0 change (remote sensing system, sattellite temp) adding additional 0,5 degrees on global warming by simply adjusting past satellite data would be interesting.
This could have been good IF you tied it to any of the climate models.., however we can’t, since none of the climate models actually works using these causations points, none of them. You can use part of them for different parts, but not a single model works if the causations are correct, the outcome if the models are provably wrong.., leading to correlation not causations.
Climate change is a real thing but it’s not something that can be controled. The climate has been changing since the earth began. Sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler. Carbondioxide is an important life giving gas. But it’s content hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. And man’s contribution to it is even smaller still. We are in an ice age termination event so temperatures are getting warmer and glaciers are receeding. But in terms of teperatures we are still in a relativly cool state. We do not have the means to affect any change to this. And if we did I shudder to think what might happen. But I am not worried. All we can do is to adapt to these changes. And there will inevitably be a change in the opposite direction at some time in the future. Climate change fear mongering is something being used by elites to justify their political and economic actions to control us through fear and legislation. Don’t fall for it.
The floods are coming, and Dr Foochy of the Marine Health Organisation Alliance (MHOA) has said that it will become mandatory to buy a small boat designed for the purpose. Designed, built and patented by Pfoderna an Meizer. The boats will be $2000 (shares very cheap right now) Any goverment or goverment official who will scare the pants of us to encourage uptake will get a small yacht and some free shares. Oh, and any body left alive, taxes will be now 40%
The science is all pretty good, i really enjoy the breakdowns you give . That being said, i think more people believe in climate change than the hard activists realize . Most people aren’t outright denying it exists and most aren’t suggesting we don’t take action, rather most are simply against taking irresponsible action that leaves humanity in a mass societal crash . Pushing the issue as hard as people are often has a negative effect on peoples stance on the situation . For example here in Canada, our government is pushing climate action policies that just aren’t viable here . Our government is pushing for evs for example with a power grid that is already failing 6 months of the year it is subzero temperatures so the range and efficacy are severely hindered simply put our infrastructure cannot support the mass change in the timeframe set forward . The government is pushing heat pumps that don’t work below -25 celsius in a country that can go to -50 celsius any given day, also see the above power grid infrastructure issue above . So to meet this climate agenda, they expect us to destroy our economy and freeze to death. The issue with climate action is the far too unrealistic timeframe approach to solve the problem that leaves a crumbled economy among several other immediate threats . It’s insane how many people don’t realize what happens when you focus solely on immediate carbon reduction… We could be alot more productive towards the issue if people would stop being so unrealistic about how we proceed responsibly and addressed the issue at the main roots where the carbon output is so much higher than everywhere else .
Excellent presentation! As we have been adding CO2 we also have added sulfate aerosol particles that increase cloud nucleation and shade the Earth. Now that we are regulating that fuels be lower in sulfur, the effect is around 1 watt/m^2 more incoming solar irradiance. Would love to have you cover the Aerosol Masking Effect in a future article. Thanks for all you do!
Can you do article on this question: “Is climate change going to prevent next ice age ? ” Some of my friends keep say: “What ever we are just re releasing the CO2 and preventing next ice age this is long term good for humanity ” 🙂 It has to be some new trend. And I just don’t know how to answer that LOL
A good summary, it should get anyone capable of rational thought thinking. My uncle is long dead but I don’t think anything would have persuaded him. He could be swimming in the ocean over what used to be Florida as the water steams around him and he’d still say it’s all a hoax. He was a smart man in many ways but he was as pig headed as could be on some topics.
Even if i agreed to this, and i can quite easily…. When a drug dealer deals drugs, you target the dealer, not the people. How come we are being targeted? These huge companies dig up oil and then blame us for burning and using it. Their CEO put out more CO2 than any average or poor person. Another point is carbon tax. Where is the money going. Who said we should pay carbon tax. And even if its all very very good, why does unlimited money allow someone to pollute more than someone else? They want everyone to sacrifice, but for millionaires and billionaires, there is no sacrifice. This should be equal for everyone on this planet, but its not… So why should an average person give 2 s*$ts about it when their so called fellow human being can just go out and buy and pollute as much as they want. Because they can afford it? The day, everyone gets a share of carbon tax that is equal and cannot be bought or sold like some commodity, i might believe CO2 is causing the problem. Not when 1 human is allowed more than another because he cannot afford it. Next you will tax people for breathing? Cant afford to breath? then die? The average person is mostly polluting his / her share. The others? I don’t think so. And no, i will never accept that someone has more right to damage the planet than another person. Why over 5000 nukes have to be tested? what for. did any average person even know it was being done? Its easy to point the finger at something and say we are all responsible. But we are all somehow not allowed to benefit from it.
Hi Sabine, really like your articles but I have the following problem with this topic: I just cannot see how CO2 with an atmospheric concentration of onl 4 parts per 10,000 can produce enough heat at its emission wavelength of 1,500 nm to significantly warm the atmosphere. (1,500 nm is not a very energetic wavelength although it is in the IR). Can someone please enlighten me?
Saw a large rise in average temperatures during the later years of WWII. With the massive influx of industrial production, tens of thousands of aircraft, countless fields of crops/town/cities burning.. vehicles gobbling up petrol. Etc etc Didn’t go back down until after the war and not until the 60/70s did it reach similar levels again. To me that was all the proof I needed.
Yes, C3 plants don’t like Carbon 13. But what about C4 plants? They don’t discriminate against carbon13. Here’s a list of C4 plants: Maize (corn): Abundant worldwide, particularly in North and South America and Africa. Cultivated on about 170 million hectares globally. Sorghum: Widely grown in semi-arid regions like Africa and India. Cultivated on about 47 million hectares globally. Sugarcane: A major source of sugar, widely grown in tropical and subtropical regions. Cultivated on about 25 million hectares globally. Switchgrass: A native North American grass with potential for biofuel production, growing in some areas naturally and cultivated for biomass. Johnsongrass: A common weed in warm climates, particularly in the Americas and Africa. Sugar beet: Another important sugar crop, with C4 varieties growing in some regions, like parts of Australia. Amaranth: A traditional grain crop in the Americas, some species are C4 but less widespread than maize. Pigweed: A common weed in warm climates, with some C4 species. Bermuda grass: A popular lawn and pasture grass, particularly in warm climates. Crassula Ovata (Jade Plant): A popular succulent houseplant, surprisingly a C4 plant. C4 plants are particularly abundant in warm and dry environments, such as grasslands, savannas, and semi-arid regions… We get more of all of these regions if the planet warms up – self correcting paradox?
I do am convinced climate is warming up and that human activities are the cause. However, since we know volcanos are also giving off CO2 and that they did play a role in Earth history’s climate variations, it would have been nice to address this question also within the article as you did with heating coming from the Sun. Do you think you may add a comment or edit the article?
ERROR ALERT – you jumped. “If coming from the sun … would warm”. Two Errors. Solar rays are short-wave. Name one thing in the stratosphere that doesn’t reflect SW and absorbs enough of it to cause stratospheric warming? But that is a nit. I think your point is that more CO2 raises the elevation at where the same amount of cooling occurred. But is your jump. If not the sun then it must be CO2. You are brilliant. You know better. Earth is 70% water surface. Most solar energy goes there. And whereas terre-energy is lost overnight, sea-energy is mostly stored below 1m. Because the sea surfaces are warmer than air surfaces, heat flows bottom up. The seas (not CO2) heat the air. The air loses that heat to space. Because of sea “welling”, density differences, and seawater is a liquid that mixes far easier than earth, sea heat can erupt over years, decades, and centuries …. causing climate change. Scientists wearing the hat of scientist vs. Theorist are confident about this because of six independent test that used the scientific method in 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2020-2024, and 2022. Changes in sea temperatures precede changes in air temperatures. Changes in CO2 are opposite of following Changes in temperature. If you get curious about this, I’m always happy to share more with brilliant thinkers like youself.
In some places islands appear to be loosing land mass, this could be because of sand mining. Sand mining is when sand is loaded onto ships to use in construction, sand that comes from the sea floor. Artificial islands are built with sand from the sea floor because that sand has jagged edges allowing it to be compacted, sand from river beds or deserts have round edges so do not compact well, so sea floor sand is preferred in construction.
First piece of evidence looks like water is a bigger problem. Second piece of information showing increasing CO2 – please show a graph of global temps with increasing CO2. I could make a graph showing increasing anything and plot it and say it’s causing global warming. Skeptics say when it’s plotted it shows that CO2 follows increasing temps.
Another ‘but what about’ is: well the earth has gone through many series of hearing and cooling, ice doesn’t cover half the globe anymore so the earth clearly heated in the past. One of the nice thing about that ice on the poles is it can trap bits of the air in with it as the layers increase, so core samples, well studied, can show what historic atmospheric conditions were like. And show the patterns of hearing and cooling people argue, but also the levels of CO2 at the time, and the rate of warming now, and levels of CO2 now are many orders of magnitude more than the highest peaks going back many thousands of years……..
Your sources are not cited, just casually glossing over them and jumping to conclusions to support the remaining content is poor logic. Where are the ocean levels riding? If so, how much and is the rate constant or not? The 30 year moving average temperature actually decreased by 0.2C for my area and precip increased by 50mm but I needed to process the data myself. I have specific data, where is yours? None of your arguments hold up to any amount of scrutiny if your broad starting assumptions can’t be verified.
Sabine needs to talk to the so called climate deniers, many of whom are also physicists, and get her head out of the echo chamber. Rising temperatures, rising water levels, ocean acidification, declining ice covers, and more extreme weather; all of this is manipulated data from the “climate change” community. There’s no significant rise in temperatures, sea level rise continues to increase at levels established before the industrial revolution, ocean acidification is insignificant, the ice covers are stable, and there definitely isn’t more extreme weather. Oh, and there are more polar bears than ever before.
Thanks for the article. I didn’t really understand the part about c12, 13 14 isotopes – I lost the connection to what isotope man is responsible for? Cars produce c02, what does that have to do with these isotopes exactly? It is good to remind ourselves we are a ball hurtling through insanely cold wide-open empty space. It is a miracle we have any heat at all. I say just stop chopping down trees, and planting them too close for timber so they burn in a furious hurricane of fire, and plant more trees everywhere, reclaim the deserts, stop paving everything we can see and do everything we can to absorb sunshine (solar panels, grass roofs, plant-covered high rise buildings like they have in Singapore, and so on). Stop blowing hot air from air conditioners straight up into the sky forming heat domes over our cities. Stop dumping shit in the Oceans. I mean let’s be responsible about conservation of this miracle of life we call home. I love my Telsa, it is the perfect car for driving around town, they are getting much cheaper, everyone should use electric for running around town. Gas is still better for long distance, but that probably won’t be true forever either. I’ve had mine since 2016, and it’s been amazing. Chat gpt says that by driving a Tesla I’ve avoided dumping about 22,000 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere! Imagine if everyone did this. Not to mention all the benefits of cleaner air, healthier breathing for all those runners and cyclists out there. I’m also a Christian, I love Jesus and he told us to be good stewards of this amazing plant.
According to people that studied the carbon dioxide molecule for years, the small thermic effect of it in the atmosphere is saturated at lower concentrations than we got at the present. I would love to hear what Sabine has to say about that! Does she buy these speculative positive feedback theories of CO2 on vater vapour as if they were facts? Does she feel these computer models have been accurate in their predictions so far?
Thank you for this starter. I’ve had to stay neutral because everyone is so charged that I can’t take their claims at face value. Both sides are frustrated I won’t just agree because they present their opinion without supporting facts, then show how things match their opinion in place of evidence.. I’d like more, on the arguments, what merit they have, and where they seem to fall short. THANK YOU for being willing to say what you think, retracting articles etc when your opinion changes, and being willing to tick people off (capitalism) to show your real opinion. I don’t expect you are right everytime…but I CAN trust you are being sincere and trying for truth rather than preference. THANK YOU!
😱 I am truly shocked that this info is so hard to come by… we’re not talking about obscure science here. I knew the answers and have had to explain the isotope data to friends with chemistry degrees and now I guess I know why. I think we really need to second guess how we as a society are teaching and communicating science.
At some point, we also need to aknowledge the Direct human health risks of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (There is a research paper by Tyler et al. with this exact title). co2 levels are around 100ppm higher than when I was born. They don’t need to get much higher to start having multiple health consequences. And this is just baseline co2 levels. Indoor co2 can only be higher than the atmospheric baseline. Pre-industrial: 280ppm 2024: 440ppm Recommended level for long duration breathing: <800ppm 2100 projection: 550-1000ppm (And we are not trending towards the lower value if you ask me...)