Scientist says greenhouse gases

A noted climate scientist and Nobel laureate says “there essentially isn’t any uncertainty” that greenhouse gases, or carbon dioxide emissions, are causing global warming. “Scientists don’t debate that anymore,” said Michael Mann, who appeared at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in the Clifford community of Amherst Wednesday night as part of a speaker’s series to help people understand global warming. The global temperature rose 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. If nothing changes for the better, the temperature could rise by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100, Mann said, citing research and climate models. “The dirty secret is that we tend to understate what we find in science,” Mann said. One example he cited was a dramatic plunge in the amount of arctic ice in 2007 — the level now stands at 30 percent of what it was in 1980 and the ice that remains is thinner, he said. Warmer temperatures can change wind patterns, cause longer droughts and change rainfall patterns. The situation could affect national security if the Northwest Passage is opened, creating a new coastline to defend. It could threaten water and food security and create a loss of fresh water and land. Some relatively recent events Mann recalled: n A 1998 outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile Virus in New York, after an unusually warm winter. n The European heat wave in 2003, which produced the warmest summer in 500 years. n Hurricane Irene caused record rainfall and flooding in August. The sea surface temperatures were warm that summer. Mann said scientists can't really say global warming causes hurricanes, but climate change will create stronger storms and more hurricane-related rain. If the international community doesn’t act, the cost of inaction will increase as time goes on, he said. “We will be leaving our children and grandchildren a different planet,” he said. Mann, a Penn State University professor, is director of the school’s Earth System Science Center and was an assistant professor at UVa’s Department of Environmental Sciences. Mann is known for a book he co-authored with climate scientist, Lee R. Kump, titled, “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming” in 2008. Mann shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with several authors regarding climate change. He was the lead author on a chapter titled “Observed Climate Variability and Change” in the Third Scientific Assessment in 2001 prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic, is seeking records of Mann’s climate-change research at UVa and issued a civil investigative demand for them —equivalent of an administrative subpoena. Under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, Cuccinelli wants to investigate whether fraud was committed in obtaining the funding for Mann’s research, paid for with federal and state grants. Other investigations by Penn State and peer academic groups found no wrongdoing. “The truth is that they (climate change skeptics) don't expect to uncover anything,” Mann wrote in The Washington Post in 2010. “Instead, they want to continue a 20-year assault on climate research, questioning basic science and promoting doubt where there is none … Burying our heads in the sand would leave future generations at the mercy of potentially dangerous changes in our climate.”

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

Ads Solvent TreatmentLowest cost and proven solutions in the flexographic industrywww.pureairsolutions.nl Vaginismus? Painful Sex?You are not alone! Read about our weekly & 2-week treatment programswww.womentc.com Best heat transfer productTop manufacturer, great price Hugh stocks, ordering now!www.dynovacn.com Environmental Issues Ads Global Warming Global Warming Effects Global Warming Effects Kids Effects on Global Warming Global Warming Statistics Ads Eddy Covariance SystemGas Analyzers to Measure EC Flux. Download Flux Software & EC Book.www.licor.com/ec-analyzers Your Sun Your EnergyPhotovoltaic Energy Portal Harness the Power of the Sunwww.yoursunyourenergy.com The "greenhouse effect" often gets a bad rap because of its association with global warming, but the truth is we couldn't live without it. What Causes the Greenhouse Effect? Life on earth depends on energy from the sun. About 30 percent of the sunlight that beams toward Earth is deflected by the outer atmosphere and scattered back into space. The rest reaches the planet's surface and is reflected upward again as a type of slow-moving energy called infrared radiation. The heat caused by infrared radiation is absorbed by "greenhouse gases" such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone and methane, which slows its escape from the atmosphere. Although greenhouse gases make up only about 1 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, they regulate our climate by trapping heat and holding it in a kind of warm-air blanket that surrounds the planet. This phenomenon is what scientists call the "greenhouse effect." Without it, scientists estimate that the average temperature on Earth would be colder by approximately 30 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit), far too cold to sustain our current ecosystem. How Do Humans Contribute to the Greenhouse Effect? While the greenhouse effect is an essential environmental prerequisite for life on Earth, there really can be too much of a good thing. The problems begin when human activities distort and accelerate the natural process by creating more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than are necessary to warm the planet to an ideal temperature. Burning natural gas, coal and oil -including gasoline for automobile engines-raises the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some farming practices and land-use changes increase the levels of methane and nitrous oxide. Many factories produce long-lasting industrial gases that do not occur naturally, yet contribute significantly to the enhanced greenhouse effect and "global warming" that is currently under way. Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen in its place, which helps to create the optimal balance of gases in the atmosphere. As more forests are logged for timber or cut down to make way for farming, however, there are fewer trees to perform this critical function. Population growth is another factor in global warming, because as more people use fossil fuels for heat, transportation and manufacturing the level of greenhouse gases continues to increase. As more farming occurs to feed millions of new people, more greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere. Ultimately, more greenhouse gases means more infrared radiation trapped and held, which gradually increases the temperature of the Earth's surface and the air in the lower atmosphere. The Average Global Temperature is Increasing Quickly Today, the increase in the Earth's temperature is increasing with unprecedented speed. To understand just how quickly global warming is accelerating, consider this: During the entire 20th century, the average global temperature increased by about 0.6 degrees Celsius (slightly more than 1 degree Fahrenheit). Using computer climate models, scientists estimate that by the year 2100 the average global temperature will increase by 1.4 degrees to 5.8 degrees Celsius (approximately 2.5 degrees to 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Not All Scientists Agree While the majority of mainstream scientists agree that global warming is a serious problem that is growing steadily worse, there are some who disagree. John Christy, a professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is a respected climatologist who argues that global warming isn't worth worrying about. Christy reached that opinion after analyzing millions of measurements from weather satellites in an effort to find a global temperature trend. He found no sign of global warming in the satellite data, and now believes that predictions of global warming by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century are incorrect.

Another term for global warming is climate change.

"The global surface temperature is an estimate of the global mean surface air temperature. However, for changes over time, only anomalies... are used, most commonly based on the area-weighted global average of the sea surface temperature anomaly and land surface air temperature anomaly." Per Wikipedia, "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that... greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth century, and that natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect afterward. "These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries." Greenhouse gases are defined by the IPCC as "gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds."