My first post in this series, Climate Change – Part I – Scientific Debate, could be summarized as follows:

1. The mechanism of how carbon based gases can influence air temperature (the “greenhouse gas effect”) is well established basic physics.
2. On average, the global atmospheric temperature has been rising over the last century.
3. Part I discussed how ice core drillings in Vostok/Antarctica going back 420,000 years shows undeniable correlation between CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere throughout numerous cooling/warming cycles. However, the temperature changes occurred 800 years ahead of the CO2 changes; not the other way around.  It’s noteworthy that Al Gore used this same data in support of his core argument that carbon is driving global warming in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, but failed to point out that CO2 changes lagged behind temperature changes by 800 years (perhaps another inconvenient truth).
4. Heating/cooling cycles happened long before humans discovered fossil fuels. Something triggered each of these cycles. These triggers (whatever they might be) are thought to cause rapid changes through positive feedback mechanisms.
5. Some speculate that the release of massive amounts of man-made CO2 could become one of these triggers.
6. Notwithstanding the Vostok data, many (but not all) climate scientists have somehow concluded that man-made CO2 is driving an increase in global temperatures.

On to Part II which discuss how some scientists are pursuing the sun and clouds (water vapor) as alternatives to carbon as the key drivers of climate change.

Tags: climate change, climate debate, climate science