There is no debate among scientists as to whether global warming is happening nor if humans have contributed to this.
Global warming is happening. Humans are a significant cause in recent global changes.
The IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report offers significant evidence of human induced climate change:
- CO2 levels have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution
- CO2 released from burning fossils fuels more than accounts for the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Recent CO2 levels in the atmosphere only account for half of what has been released from fossil fuels. The other half has been sequestered in the earth.
- Carbon that comes from the burning of fossil fuels is significantly higher than the carbon that comes from volcanic eruptions or deep ocean sources.
- Only climate models that include natural and anthropogenic factors predict the changes in climate that we’ve seen. Natural factors alone, underestimate these effects.
Here is a YouTube video about human interaction with global warming and their effects on the climate–> The Human Role in Climate Change
You might be thinking.. but what about the carbon cycle? Doesn’t the CO2 we use just get passed along to the next stage in the cycle?
The Carbon Cycle
The answer is yes, the CO2 does cycle. The problem is that humans are releasing CO2 faster than it can be re-sequestered. Humans are not in fact creating greenhouse gasses, we are just putting the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere more quickly than the oceans, soils, and plants can absorb them.
Sequester CO2-Plant a tree!
The natural cycle of carbon has a relatively even trade-off between emissions and sequestration (compared to that with human intervention). Volcanic and deep sea sources of carbon can cause a disturbance in this cycle, but as the evidence points out, these sources have not contributed to the recent rise in CO2 levels.
Without human intervention, the natural carbon fluctuations would not see the extremes that we see today. Human intervention has lead to increases in CO2 levels through disturbances in the natural processes or carbon.
Tags: Carbon Sequestration, Grace Lange, human induced climate change
