Global warming is probably one of the most publicized environmental problems. Everywhere you can find activists of the fight for reducing the impact of humanity on the planet's climate. If in fact humanity leads to a marked increase in global sea level, producing carbon dioxide, which is often considered to be the cause of global warming, of course, something must be done about it.
Nevertheless, what if global warming is caused not by human activity, but by some other processes? The theory that states the use of fossil fuels is leading to a significant increase in the temperature of Earth's atmosphere and the ocean has been criticized by some scientists. What if a temperature increase is not as great as wrestlers with global warming claim? These are the questions scientists give ambiguous answers, but observations show a slowdown in temperature growth. The topic of global warming is very politicized, as the slogan of fighting warming is a good leverage in foreign policy. As authors of scientific works state, “It is very difficult to find an objective assessment of the problem” (Revesz et al. 173).
Nordhaus claims, “Global warming is the process of increasing the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans” (11721). According to RSS satellite data, from September 1996 to January 2014 there has been no global warming for 209 months (17 years 5 months), there is even a slight decrease in temperature. Despite record high growth of CO2 concentration rates.
Once climate studies were very small branch on a huge and mighty scientific tree. Hey state, “Just behind the small, wooded parapet serving overseas campus of the University of Stockholm, stands the building No. 92E” (Dai 53; Trenberth et al. 21). Now there is a canteen, but once the building 92E served as both home and laboratory to an outstanding man named Svante Arrhenius.
Arrhenius became famous not only and not so much by that he became the first Swedish winner of the Nobel Prize, as the fact that he had discovered the amazing effect of heating the air in the atmosphere, by increasing its content of carbon dioxide. Svante, knowing that today he is called the father of the science of climate change, probably would be greatly surprised. His academic career he dedicated to physics and chemistry - Arrhenius first formulated the theory of electrolytic dissociation. However, studying in his spare time, the influence of works of solar radiation on the Earth's atmosphere, Svante discovered what is now called the hypothesis on the greenhouse effect - the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to an increase in average temperature. By this theory, the scientist tried to explain the phenomenon of ice ages.
After the extension of the theory of atmospheric heating, there followed, as expressed by Arrhenius himself, years of persistent computing - the Swede used data from the American astronomer Samuel Langley, who has studied the heat received by the Earth from the full moon. “In 1896, Svante published his calculations - it turned out that if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would fall by half, the temperature would drop after that 4-5 degrees Celsius” (Schiermeier 316). Accordingly, Arrhenius reasoned, if CO2 is doubled, the average temperature would rise somewhat 5-6 degrees.
Even then, for the scientist it was clear that increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere would be caused by human activity - Arrhenius wrote that if the burning of coal would continue to increase in volumes, the CO2 levels could rise by 50% after 3000 years (Xie et al. 981). Fortunately for himself, the Swede has not witnessed that mad race, which let our industry closer to the second half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately for us, today's scientists are looking at the climate problem in not as transparent and clear way as it did Arrhenius.
It took almost half a century to understand the seriousness of the situation. In 1956, Gilbert Plass confirmed the fact that the increase in atmospheric CO2 entails holding therein the infrared radiation. By the end of the 50s, Plass and his colleagues became the first group that appealed to the US government, warning the government about the potential threat.
All 60ies were held under the banner of development and expansion of climate research, and yet the first computer models say - there is no danger, the temperature can increase by the strength of one or two degrees over the next hundred years. The authors state, “Even when in 1979 in Geneva met the first Conference on the world's climate, few can understand the seriousness of the problem - the economic downturn of the 70ies did not give priority to environmental issues take place” (Betts et al. 80; Kosaka and Xie 407). Yes, public attention is increasingly focused on the importance of changing the current paradigm of development and industrial production, but to change this paradigm seriously no one was going.
The next surge of interest in climate research took place in the years 1981-1982. 1981 was the hottest on record. The changes were so noticeable that the television picture showed the whole world concealing ice of Greenland. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol was signed, the world's leading powers have pledged to reduce emissions. However, it is obvious today that despite how huge the last half century has become a "branch" of climate research, despite the fact that these studies were conducted and governments continue to spend billions of conventional units, global warming continues to be nothing more than a highly controversial scientific hypothesis. Studies show, “Most of the countries that signed the agreement at the time in Kyoto and not fulfilled obligations, some countries do have declared their withdrawal from the Protocol” (McCright and Dunlap 157; Dillon, Wang, and Huey 705). Why is this possible?
In 2005, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a historic high. Under the historical maximum, I have in mind not some kind of miserable period of existence of our civilization, no. Carbon dioxide levels peaked during the last 420,000 years (so far can we look into the scientific model that describes the state of the atmosphere in a particular era). Also in 2005, a group of scientists from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a statement: most likely, for most of the global warming person is responsible. In 2010, scientists expressed much more harshly: "Yes, global warming is real," – they said in a joint statement (Martens 18). It took another two years . No new climate agreement was signed, emissions continue to increase. So, on the one hand, we have established scientific consensus on anthropogenic nature of global warming. On the other hand, there is still a very large number of theories attempting to deny the human impact on climate.
Hans von Storch, climatologist and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg recognized that “over the last 15 years there was no significant increase in temperature” (von Storch et al. 15). Maybe the contrary started global cooling? However, according to most scientists, global warming is still there. Since 1880 (when there were relatively accurate thermometers), the temperature rose by 0.6°C – 0.8°C. Practice - the best criterion of the correctness of the theory.
Calculated in accordance with the models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the temperature depends on the concentration of CO2; “it should be noted that the concentration has increased significantly in recent years” (Rogelj, Meinshausen, and Knutti 249). With the advent of relatively accurate temperature information obtained from satellites since 1979, observed temperatures rose. IPCC computer models give values of rising temperatures exceeding twice the value observed in reality. Moreover, in fact, none of the models of the IPCC provide data that would be consistent with the absence of global warming in recent years (Athanasiou and Baer 122).
Until now, “nobody could provide a convincing explanation of why climate change may be suspended” (Shakun et al. 51). In line with most climate models, we should have observed an increase in temperature by about 0.25°C over the last 10 years. That did not happen. In fact, over the last 15 years, there was increase by only 0.06°C - this value is very close to zero. Obviously, calculations of average temperature being different because this value differs from zero in the temperature change.
Are there scientific evidence that global warming is caused by human activity? Global warming is linked to human activities such as “burning fossil fuels of unprecedented volumes, which resulted in increased amounts of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas” (Cherubini et al. 415). Polls show that 97% of scientists and journalists working in the field of climate science believe that global average temperatures have increased over the past century; and they also believe that human activity is a significant contributing factor to the change in the average global temperature. However, the proof of the correctness of the theory “cannot be the number of its supporters, the theory is proved by practice” (Collins et al. 395).
The main argument of the supporters of the theory is the influence of the past century, the observed warming, at the same time accumulation in the atmosphere of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. It is this hypothesis of greenhouse almost taken for granted without examination. However, recent trends in climate change, for which data are presented in the figures above, indicate the probable falsity of this hypothesis.
Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore, who is one of the founders of Greenpeace, speaking before the US Congress, said that “in climate change, in particular, a gradual increase in surface temperature over the last century, there was no fault of the person” (Adams-Hosking et al. 123; Peters et al. 4). There is no scientific evidence that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the main cause of a small warming of Earth's atmosphere over the last century. If there were such evidence, it would have been presented to humankind. But so far, there is no scientific proof of these hypotheses.
Some scholars argue that there are no greenhouse gases. For example, Dr. Pierre Latour, vice-chairman of the association, based in the United Kingdom, Principia Scientific International (PSI) argues that “the CO2 concentration does not affect the temperature of the atmosphere and the temperature effect on the concentration of CO2” (Aykut, Comby and Guillemot 160). He argues that there is no greenhouse gases and CO2 is not air pollutants, it is simply a plant nutrient. The site of this organization is constantly publishing articles refuting the greenhouse effect of CO2.
Thus, the scientific community does not support the theory that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere leads to global warming of the planet. In recent years, significant global warming was not observed, despite the increase in carbon dioxide concentration. So, perhaps we should be more concerned about other environmental issues that may be more serious than the problem of global warming.
Works Cited
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