One of the claims of the skeptics was that the warming is a combined result: the greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming only a little, but the main and important factor is natural, that is, natural weather cycles when human activity is not significant, or has a minimal effect.
Despite the repeated reference to global warming and its results, there are still skeptics (usually scientists "on behalf of") who disagree on the opinion that the most significant cause of warming is: the industrial and agricultural activity of the human race, especially in the last century, and even earlier.
Most climatologists, ecologists and other scientists who are not "dependent" on "interested" factors agree and accept two basic facts: one - the world is warming at a speed that exceeds any forecast, and at a rate that has never been in (geological) history the second agreed figure - we humans have a central and main role in industrial society In causing the warming, by destroying forests, harming habitats, building huge cities (megapolises) and especially the emission of greenhouse gases.
Recently, data was added showing who is the main cause of warming, what are the phenomena that are already happening and what are the predictions for the near future. One of the claims of the skeptics was that the warming is a combined result: the greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming only a little, but the main and important factor is natural, that is, natural weather cycles when human activity is not significant, or has a minimal effect.
According to those skeptics, the main and most significant factor is the periodicity of the eruption of sunspots. What we see as spots are bursts of energy. There are dark spots, and bright spots that emit heat and light. The eruptions come in cycles, with the shortest cycle being eleven years old, the skeptics claim that we are in a long period of eruptions and that the eruptions are the main cause of global warming.
Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research - in the USA (National Center for Atmospheric Research).
And the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics - in Germany (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics) published the results of their research in Nature. The researchers collected climate data from the last thirty years and compared them to sunspot eruptions, the data was collected from meteorological stations around the world from satellites and telescopes as well as from historical sources starting from the seventeenth century. To expand the picture, isotopes of rare elements captured in marine sediments and ice layers in Antarctica and Greenland were tested. By weighing all the data, it turns out that: in eleven-year cycles in which sunspot activity was maximum, the brightness of the sun increased by only 0.07%, and hence the contribution to warming is minimal. Moreover, in the last thousand years, the level of energy radiated by the sun has not changed.
The researchers' conclusion is that "the sun's contribution to global warming in the last thirty years is marginal, compared to the weighty impact of human activity." To justify their claim, the skeptics rely on the departure from the Ice Age - about 10,000 years ago and the "Little Ice Age" in the seventeenth century. According to the researchers, the two events are related to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and not to the radiation level, which has hardly changed.
Because the researchers claim that according to all the tests, "no evidence was found for significant differences in the intensity of radiation from the sun in the past tens/hundreds/thousands and even millions of years".
The year 2000 was the peak of the eleven-year cycle in solar activity, and the year 2005 was the year in which the highest average temperatures were measured since records began, so the attempt to attribute warming to sunspots is not successful to say the least.
Mark Serreze is considered one of the most prominent scientists in Colorado - USA. According to his testimony, "Up until five years ago, he was still 'sitting on the fence' about global warming" but the current data obtained from satellite images and measurements in the field leave no room for doubt and have also turned him into a "prophet of wrath", who calls for the reduction of emissions and immediate steps to stop the negative impact of the industrial society on the climate.
In the picture above we see the Arctic ice cover, on the left in 2004 and on the right in 2005. Over the past 25 years, the ice has retreated at a rate of 1.5% per decade. In the last two years, the process has increased, at a faster rate, 10 to 15 times. Moreover, according to NASA, the ice in the eastern Arctic Ocean has retreated by 40% in the last two years. The ice continues to recede even at the low temperatures in winter because of the water under the ice, water that maintains high and increasing temperatures, and again to the skeptics who claimed that there is no place for "fury prophecies" regarding sea level rise since there are no clear and unequivocal markers for the melting of glaciers, the latest findings illustrate the melting and show Because the forecasts were very cautious of what was happening, since at the current rate it won't be long before Manhattan is flooded. The environmental effects have already been written about and we will only mention, less plankton, less fish, less food in the sea, less food from the sea and again the flooding of coastal cities and islands..
Now there are more and more voices calling for immediate action, action on a large scale from all the treaties and agreements as the catastrophic development of the results of warming is much faster than expected. James Hansen was one of the leading researchers at NASA, headed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and was considered a leader in climate research. According to him "the world has a window of opportunity of no more than ten years to act decisively to stop the warming and prevent a disaster", because if the world continues with "business as usual" the temperature will rise to the extent that it will completely change the environment and as he said "we will create a different world". Fifty percent of species will become extinct. Storms and hurricanes will cause damage and death. Heat waves and floods will kill and damage. Drought seasons will bring periods of famine.
In recent years, officials in the Bush administration tried to silence Hansen and "edit" his reports to the administration, because despite being a "government employee" he persisted in his claims that the US - the leader in pollutant emissions - should be a leader in the opposite direction, in opening up alternative/clean energy and returning to the commitment to the treaty Koyoto from which (as I recall) the president refused to sign on the grounds that "it would harm the US economy". Recently, "Nature" reports that the Bush administration is blocking a report that more than implies that global warming is a "contributing" factor to the frequency and strength of hurricanes in recent years.
It can be hoped that the growing mass pressure and the green activity of states in the US will lead to a change in the attitude of the federal government. In my own way I wanted to add - and a savior came to our environment, except that I am a little skeptical.
One response
It is indeed accepted today, more and more, that there is a cycle in the weather and climate, the influence of humanity on climate change is minimal