@krellin - If you would really look at the EPA site, and not just at the front page, you will see the science. And then if you will scroll alllllll the way to the bottom you will see something called references. There is where the link is to the real science. You will notice that there are many references.

For global warming to be considered a man-made problem, we have to prove 3 things:
1. Is global warming happening
2. Are humans the cause of global warming
3. Does global warming negatively impact our lifestyles.
I will be addressing these 3 below, as well as a 4th point:
4. We need to seriously and quickly change our lifestyles or we will drive ourselves into extinction. (I don't know if anyone here actually believes this, but the main point I will be addressing in #4 is how easily we can solve the issue, and how it has nothing to do with decreasing carbon emissions)

#1. Its impossible to deny that between the years of 1970 and 1998 the average temperature on earth rose .64 degrees, since then global warming has stagnated with temperatures in 1998, 2005, 2010 being the 3 hottest years on record (by record I mean the last 150 years), all of them within a 2 hundredths of a degree of eachother. This has lead some to conclude that global warming ended 14 years ago.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/05/daily-chart-1
This isn't to say that global warming isn't happen, and global warming deniers generally deny the 25 year period before 1998 and only look at the last 14 years. Even if it has stagnated, the temperature of the atmosphere is still higher then at any time over the last 150 years and the temperature of the oceans has been on a constant upward trend.

The economist addresses the stagnation in earths temperature as:
"Global surface temperature records show a warming over the same period, though because of fluctuations in the climate, air pollution, volcanic eruptions and other confounding factors the rise is nothing like as smooth.

So determining whether there is a trend really depends on the start date, over the past 20 years, the temperature has increased by 0.0141 degrees a year (looking at the slope of the trendline according to microsoft excel plotting the data of Hadcrut4). Over the past 15 years, temperature has increased by only 0.0041 degrees a year. Over the past 10 years temperature has actually dropped by 0.0049 degrees a year, and over the past 5 years temperature has decreased by 0.0062 degrees a year. This is based on the slope of the trend lines from each other the starting graphs. So depending on how recently you want to start the graph, there has either been an increase or virtually no change in temperature over the last few years.

Conducting a 5 point moving average shows that global temperatures between the years 1992 and 2005 saw a 0.3 degree increase in temperature (from 0.198 to 0.489), a rather worrying increase and a sign that the earth is actually getting warmer.

However between the years of 2005 and 2012 the temperature decreased 0.04 degrees (from 0.489 to 0.449), as well as a drop in temperature in 4 of the last 6 years, some would say this suggests that global warming is finished.

In the end I would conclude there has been an increase in temperature, however not to the degree that environmentalists warn us about. Mainly because since over the last decade temperatures have only increased by half a degree, compared to the 2.2 degree increase over the decade before, which suggest that global warming is slowing down.

Interestingly enough, a point I believe Krellin once made regarding this, is that the earth does have an artificial mechanism that slows down climate change if it is rapid. Increase temperatures causes more water to be evaporated, which increase cloud coverage which blocks sun rays which decreases temperatures. The reported increase in rainfalls over the last 20 years which slightly lags increase in temperature could suggest that this very effect is taking place which is slowing the rate in which global warming is happening.

#2. The most popular belief is that carbon dioxide is causing the increase in temperature, which is being caused by humans.

Now Krellins study suggests that carbon lags warming, which would certainly suggest that carbon doesn't cause warming, or if it does it isn't the biggest factor.

My favourite study regarding CO2 levels (simply because I've seen both conservative and liberals use it as 'evidence' that what they are saying regarding CO2 levels is right) is:
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/literature/Kouwenberg_2005_Geology.pdf
What this showed is that:
1. That past studies showing the variation of carbon in the atmosphere were wrong, as data from various ice cores contradict each other as well as show a lack of variation (even among the years were carbon was suppose to be increasing). Conservatives point this out.
2. That temperature and CO2 have more closely correlated over the past 100 years then we previously thought. Liberals point this out.
"For the first time, CO2 changes inferred from stomatal frequency analysis have been related to coeval variation in Atlantic SSTs providing evidence that CO2 fluctuations over the last millennium at least partly could have originated from temperature-driven changes in CO2 flux between ocean surface waters and atmosphere. Because the CO2 variation also shows similarities with terrestrial air temperature trends in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere
regions—which are the areas most sensitive to global warming— it may be hypothesized that throughout the last millennium, CO2 could have served as a forcing factor for terrestrial air temperature."

This does bring the interesting conclusion that CO2 is correlated with temperature, but the change in CO2 isn't just being caused by humans.

The next point I want to examine is other factors in global warming. One of the possible factors for the increase in global warming in the 70s, 80s and 90s was actually man trying to clean up the air. Smog, because it blocks sunlight, is actually now believed to decrease temperature of the planet and so when America and Europe went through efforts in the 1970s and 80s to decrease smog, temperatures rose. Nasa believes that half of the increase in temperature since 1976 is because of a decrease in smog.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-liberson/clean-air-act-wrong-for-f_b_808553.html


My conclusion here is that carbon is likely a contributing factor in temperature change (but certainly not the only factr and probably not even the biggest factor) and that humans are a cause (but probably not the only cause) for the increase in CO2.

#3. Well this was the main point of my previous thread "Burning fossil fuels makes the planet greener?". Since that thread was some how derailed and turned into a capitalism vs socailism thread, we might as well move that discussion over to here.

The point I made was that plants are certainly happy with the increase in carbon and temperature, shown by a 20.5% increase in the vegetation of the planet over the past 30 years (according to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index).

Studies in labs have shown that the ideal carbon volume for plants is 790 ppm (testing growth of plant tissue based on various carbon levels lead to that conclusion according to Matt Ridley's lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nsU_DaIZE. He didn't provide any footnotes so I can't provide full details of the study), so plants are perfectly happy with seeing carbon go from 300 to 400 ppm, something that has happened over the past 200 years. And as I say, the very evidence of that is that the planet has gotten 20% greener since the NDVI began recording in 1982. At the same time the Sahara desert has actually gotten smaller (while the other deserts around the world got bigger so moot point), despite popular belief that desertification is a problem.

The point here is that plants and plantlife are really happy that the carbon in the atmosphere is increasing.

The next question is animals. The change in climate has probably lead to problems in migration for birds and hibernation for animals, where the change in temperatures of thrown them off causing them to migrate/hibernate too early or too late in the year. That said, as Matt Ridley pointed out, efforts in conservation and protecting endangered species has actually resulted in few extinctions and a reduction in the number of endangered species. However this is more because of efforts by humans to save animals once they become endangered then effects of climate change. But speaking of saving animals that reminds me of this comic:
http://bizarrocomics.com/files/2013/03/bz-panel-03-07-13.jpg

My conclusion is that the effects climate change is having on us is minimal and our technological advancements over the same period has, and will continue to negate the effects climate change has.

#4. Too lazy to type so I'll sum it up quickly: Freakanomics did a study on cheapest and quickest ways to curb global warming. Here is a youtube video summarizing their findings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RsrRpjAGi8

Overall point:
Changing carbon emissions is bullshit, the change of volume of CO2 over the past 300 years has been exaggerated, the effect on warming the earth this change has caused has been exaggerated and the effect warming will have on humanity has been exaggerated.

Given that this post took me just over 3 hours to write, I am sure a lot of people are going to find things I've gotten wrong. But this is my overall opinion of global warming.

@Jim: "The EPA has a great website that explains climate change. What causes it. Where it it headed. What can be done."
And me and Krellin have thougholy debunked the arguments posted by the EPA, I was actually surprised how out dated the facts on EPAs site are.

And its not like what me and Krellin are posted is from conspiracy theorists, these are peer reviewed scientific papers as well as studies conducted by NASA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InIQkyKYfv4
Also suggests that the IPCC Assessment report on global warming, the most cited study by global warming activists, shows a lot of conformation bias by the scientists involved.

@Krellin:"I will concede, as well, that this study says nothing about "global warming" in general, but is a targeted study of a specific relationship. That being said, since that specific relationship (which this suggests does not exists) is always identified as the cause of "global warming", do you concede that it is probable, based upon this evidence, that global warming may be a flawed, if not outright incorrect, concept? And instead what we witness are natural cycles which (not surprisingly) play out over decades and/or centuries?"
Your study simply proves the relationship between the increase in CO2 and the incrase in global warming to be flawed, but the lack of a relationship doesn't suggest that neither of those increases are fictional.

"http://climateconferences.heartland.org/iccc7/"
While I do agree with a lot that is said by the ICCC, the problem is heartland is the worlds think tank with the biggest anti-global warming stance out there. The fact that ICCC is sponsored by them suggests that like the IPCC they are heavily subject to bias.

I'm trying not to let bias get in the way of my beliefs and the fact is both of you are citing really really bias research.

You guys realize that there's a distinction between global temperature and global warming, right? I just ask so that we aren't mixing up terms. The distinction is important.

Now, in talking about anthropogenic CO2, we are talking about increasing atmospheric concentrations by a few parts per million. The entire point is that you don't need much to shift things. All of the other reservoirs they investigate are naturally occurring, and so the fact that they have a stronger control on global climate (if that is, in fact, the case) is irrelevant, because those same processes have been taking places essentially for the entire history of the earth.

The link between human emissions and global temperature increase is unmistakable and undeniable. (Let me finish.) CO2 is absolutely a greenhouse gas, and so increasing the concentration in the atmosphere can only cause temperature increase. The natural CO2 cycle involves a feedback loop between the atmosphere and oceans. CO2, when dissolved in water, can precipitate as limestone. Acidic water breaks down limestone, releasing CO2 to the atmosphere and neutralizing the pH of the water. There is no surprise that there is a time lag here.

What this article is actually saying is that temperature change happens after anthropogenic CO2 is emitted. It is /not/ saying that the release is insignificant.

Ultimately, though, I am unsure about their methodology here. For those who skipped that section, they compare databases and use a '12 months - the previous 12 months' method of determining the value for each data point. They are then comparing that to sea surface temperature and surface air temperature. I am not confident that they would see the strongest correlation by comparing those two sources of data.

@dub

"What this article is actually saying is that temperature change happens after anthropogenic CO2 is emitted. It is /not/ saying that the release is insignificant."

No, they are also saying that anthropegenic CO2 is significantly less than natural CO2.

"Ultimately, though, I am unsure about their methodology here."

Can you elaborate more on what your problem is?

dubmdell---- did you red the article? Do you understand the so-called link between CO2 levels and global temperature is not what you think...that CO2 increases LAG behind temperature...i.e. can not CAUSE what they FOLLOW?

This is a perfect example of the religious-like belief in "global warming"....even when presented with highly scientific research, you can't let go of your belief. Astounding....fascinating psychological phenomena...

"What this article is actually saying is that temperature change happens after anthropogenic CO2 is emitted." This is NOT a true statement. It says there is temperature change...and it says CO2 changes it...AND it says the anthropogenic CO2 has essentially zero affect....point 6 of the conclusion, says anthropogenic CO2 has little influence on atmospheric CO2...and atmospheric CO2 is a lagging affect of temperature change.

THEREFORE...Sense CO2 increase is an AFFECT of temperature...and man made CO2 essentially no affect on CO2 levels in the atmosphere...it is shear buffoonery to suggest man made CO2 is impacting global temperatures.

Your reading skills leave much to be desired.

@jim

Can you please address the discrepancies between the EPA and Humlum's paper?

"This is NOT a true statement. It says there is temperature change...and it says CO2 changes it...AND it says the anthropogenic CO2 has essentially zero affect."

CORRECTION....it says CO2 changes AFTER temp change...

What discrepancies exactly? I'm not a scientist, as I have said several times, so I can only look at the two, like you can, and see where they differ.

@jim

The EPA claims that temperature increases due to greenhouse gases. According to the EPA, greenhouse gasses are ~85% CO2.

Now, if this is true, when CO2 increases, we should see temperature increase shortly after, yes?

Humlum's paper, however, shows the exact opposite is the case.

This is a discrepancy. Can you explain it because I can't.

jim - please take no offense at this - but if your answer to abge's inquiry is "I'm not a scientist, I don't understand..." then why do you say one set of scientific data is flawed/wrong and believe the other, since you admit you don't have the knowledge understand what you are reading? I'm actually trying to understand 8why* you believe what you believe, since you seem to admit to not understanding the science behind your belief.

I would think at this point - given that apparent fact that you have what you believe is contradictory scientific data - you ought to be completely open to any possibility, including that your previous belief was wrong. Essentially you ought to be a "global warming" agnostic at this point, at best. do you have an emotion investment in believing global warming is true? Because I can understand it would be difficult to release such a belief, even in the face of facts, if you have held the belief and argued it for a long time. Care to comment? Again...not trying to attack you - I'm trying to understand the psychology of the believer.

@dubmdell: A lot of conservatives think the temperature of the earth today is identical to what is was 16 years ago, if that was true (which it isn't), and the temperature had in fact not increased in 16 years, I think that would give us good reason to believe that global warming wasn't happening. That was what I was point out, I was showing why the conservative belief was wrong, but at the same time why the liberals exaggerate the rate in which the earth is warming.

As for Krellins article, I spent 3 hours writing my own opinion, so I didn't want to have to spend a few more hours reading and analyzing Humlim's paper, so I just read the abstract. Not very thorough but at that time (2:47 PM est was when I started my rant) Abgemacht seemed to see legitimacy in the method and data of Krellins paper, so I concluded that rather then waste time reading it myself, I'd just read the abstract and listen to what abgemacht had to say.

From looking at the EPA site, they list CO2 as a "1" with regards to its global warming potential. In comparison, they list methane as a "21" and N2O as a 310. I think that people don't really look at the data and see that CO2 is the biggest so it must be the worst. It's not. And the EPA says as much.

abge - his previous answer to this discrepency was essentially to say that the EPA says it is CO2 *AND* other stuff...

To which I replied yes...CO2 .06% of the atmosphere (~320 parts per million), and the "other" man-made pollutants are about 0.005% of the atmosphere...i.e. hard to believe they have any significant impact.

@jim/krellin

Yes, it is certainly possible that other 15% of greenhouse gasses are, in fact, affecting temperature. But, if CO2 really does nothing, then why is it included with gasses that do? Something is very wrong here.

Since Humlum only looked at CO2, I don't think we can disregard CH4 and N20, although I'd be curious why these affect temperature and CO2 doesn't.

"From looking at the EPA site, they list CO2 as a "1" with regards to its global warming potential. In comparison, they list methane as a "21" and N2O as a 310. I think that people don't really look at the data and see that CO2 is the biggest so it must be the worst. It's not. And the EPA says as much."

OK thanks, this is exactly the sort of info I was looking for. Let me look into it more and get back to you.

EPA says: "The Global Warming Potential (GWP) for a gas is a measure of the total energy that a gas absorbs over a particular period of time (usually 100 years), compared to carbon dioxide."

Essentially, they say these other gases (0.005% of the atmosphere) absorb more energy and therefore have a greater global warming effect than CO2. In other words, CO2 is the initial cause, and everything is compared to CO2...and these gases "trap more heat" than CO2 when compared pound for pound...

...so if CO2 is not a cause AT ALL of temperature increase, then how do you say the others are a cause?

Unproven theory and conjecture disputed by the facts...

I don't think that the EPA / most scientists are saying that CO2 doesn't affect temperatures. I just think that this is not an easy topic to digest. Once again, I think that the EPA site, which seems pretty well laid out, gives some hard, scientific data showing why global climate change is happening.

What if I could provide you with government sponsored data from 30 years ago that said we were headed for an ice age?

In 1975, this was what some government "experts" had to say:

"A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972."

@abgem - I'm glad to discuss this with you, and any other reasonable person, based on both of these sites and their information. Or any other information brought in that is generally believed to be fact by the majority of scientists. But I will not be drawn in to some sort of troll discussion by krellin. At least you see facts and figures and try to make sense of them.

@jim

Yeah, but you can't just ignore contradictory evidence. It either needs to be discredited or it needs to be shown that a contradiction doesn't actually exist.

So...you see...government data...has a nasty habit of being motivated by politics and other non-scientific input. What you see above would be considered flawed, cherry-picked data. The same can be said of current "data" as presented by the EPA.

Those that have been around long enough to have seen various hysterical cries of panic and doom have a tendency to see all things...especially from the government...as objects deserving healthy skepticism...

jimgov -- I used actual quotes and actual figures...it is not a troll discussion just because you don't like it. Grow up, man.

"At least you see facts and figures and try to make sense of them. "
Facts and figures....CO2 does not cause temperature increases. If they do not, but the EPA claims they do, how can the lesser gases cause the problem, especially since the manner in which they cause the supposed damage is based upon their similar (if not amplified behavior) to CO2...

THIS IS NOT A TROLL DISCUSSION....it is simple logic.

Alright, if we can, let's take a look at a couple things from the EPA website.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html

First, the EPA does acknowledge that greenhouse gasses prehistorically lagged temperature. So far, no problems.

Second, the EPA claims that since the Industrial Revolution, humans have significantly increased CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. This does contradict Humlum, but I'm not too worried by that. As I initially said, I wasn't fully convinced of his methods for determining anthropogenic/natural CO2. So, let's table that for now and move on.

Third, the EPA now claims that greenhouse gases have increased so much that the normal greenhouse gasses/Temp feedback cycle is broken and now temperature actually lags greenhouse gasses. This is in direct contradiction to Humlum. Here are the 3 options:

1) Humlum is wrong (his data are inaccurate or analyzed improperly)
2) EPA is wrong
3) CO2 does not affect temp, but CH4 and N2O do.

So, that is where we stand.

@abgemacht - I'm not going to pretend that I have time to read and completely understand the entire article. 19 pages of scientific jargon is just too much for my taste. I will point out the end of the abstract, however, which states "The correlation between changes in ocean temperatures and atmospheric CO2 is high, but do not explain all observed changes."

I believe that they are only measuring CO2 vs. temperature from this last statement. If the EPA site is correct, that would be a problem. There are many reasons for the changes in the temperature of the planet, MOST not man made. If you only look at CO2 with regards to this phenomenon, then you are only looking at a part of the picture.

Sorry. I was typing while you were posting.

Time for NASA vs EPA. When the conclusions from these 2 government agencies contradict eachother, which government agency do you believe is right?
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
vs
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

NASA claims that most of earths warming over the last 50 years has happened because of regulations put in place by the EPA that reduced certain pollutants, such as Aerosols and Sulfates. Aerosols and Sulfates are believed the block sunlight and cool the earths temperature down. This has been proven to be true because when Volcanoes erupt, the Sulfates have lowered the temperature of the nearby climate for the next few years.

Over the 1970s and 80s and 90s, sulfate emissions were reduced by 50 percent, and according to the NASA study at least 45% of the increase in the worlds temperature over that time period was caused by that reduction.

The NASA's research is based on a study done in 2009 (more recent then the EPA studies) and claims the EPA is responsible for global warming (meaning the EPA may be bias when producing counter studies, latest one on their site being from 2007).

On the other hand we have the EPA has self contradictory work. They acknowledge that Methane and Nitrous Oxide do more damage to the environment and have contributed to global warming more then CO2 has, yet what was is their recommendation to fixing the environment:
Reduce CO2 emmissions. If CO2 isn't the biggest factor then why make CO2 the focus of the reduction?

Given that NASA claims EPA is responsible and the EPAs alternative study is contradictory and assumes that most if not all of the warming comes from GHG, it would lead me to conclude that the NASA report is more legitimate then the EPA report.

I am only using the EPA site as an example. I don't profess that this is the be all and end all. But...there are many other very reputable sites that use scientific data that all believe that global climate change is happening and that it is, at least partially, man made.