Questions tagged [climate-change]
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns. In public discourse, often used as a shorthand for the effects of anthropogenic global warming.
48
questions
151
votes
7
answers
20k
views
Do human activities contribute to climate change?
There is lots of evidence that I have seen showing correlation between human activities and climate change but what evidence is there to support causation?
- 3,227
26
votes
5
answers
5k
views
Does CO₂ cause Global Warming?
I know there is global warming, and I know that it is caused by human activity, but is carbon dioxide the cause of it? I read somewhere that apparently increase of CO₂ doesn't cause the increase in ...
- 6,185
20
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Have global surface temperatures not shown significant warming since the late 1990s?
Those skeptical about the science of global warming have frequently alleged that the surface temperature record has "paused" since about 1998 and showed no significant warming trend (see this recent ...
- 56.1k
31
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Does this graph show climate-change predictions don't meet observations?
Dr. Roy Spencer, a climate change contrarian, posted this graph on his blog claiming that observed temperature trends are much lower than what climate models predict:
Is Spencer misrepresenting what ...
25
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Will global warming reduce available oxygen?
I saw a friend "like" this news article on Facebook which claims that phytoplankton would stop oxygen production:
"If the world’s oceans warmed by 6 degrees Celsius—a realistic possibility if ...
- 643
19
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Has global mean temperature at sea level increased since 1900?
It is generally accepted that the Earth's global mean (average) temperature has varied throughout history.
Given the difficulties of accurately measuring and calculating temperatures across the ...
- 860
13
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Are the IPCC climate change models overestimating sensitivity to carbon dioxide?
A recent report in The Register suggests that we might be currently overestimating the degree to which the world will warm with increasing carbon dioxide.
Climate sensitivity is, crudely, the slope of ...
- 56.1k
9
votes
5
answers
1k
views
Do the recent CLOUD results have significant implications for global warming?
According to this Science Daily summary of a recent paper published in Nature and the abstract at Nature, a recent result indicates that cosmic rays play a larger role in cloud formation than was ...
- 15.1k
8
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Is half of the climate change in the past 110 years due to natural variation in the Sun's output?
A NASA website says:
Of the many trends that appear to cause fluctuations in the Sun’s energy, those that last decades to centuries are the most likely to have a measurable impact on the Earth’s ...
- 105k
49
votes
4
answers
13k
views
Does the logarithmic nature of global warming invalidate climate change claims?
NOTE
It is rather unfortunate that I initially omitted the crucial part of the article I linked below (because the wording was stilted and confusing), and I was rather imprecise in my own claims. ...
- 617
48
votes
3
answers
9k
views
Did the Arctic Ice Sheet grow by 60% from 2012 to 2013?
I came across this picture on Facebook.
The image claims to have been taken from a NASA satellite. I am skeptical this is correct, and if it is, does it show the ice sheet has increased in size ...
- 2,395
27
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Did we have a "global cooling" 40 years ago?
I was reading Superfreakanomics and the book argues that we had a global cooling period 40 years ago? Is that claim accurate?
- 2,975
21
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Are the 16 scientists who claim that climate change is not something to worry about climate scientists?
This is a pretty specific question – in the Wall Street Journal article dated January 27, 2012 entitled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming. There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic ...
- 18k
20
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did the development of agriculture prevent an ice age occurring?
The television program How the Earth Made Us has argued that the development of agriculture prevented a new ice age, due to methane production from livestock, and the burning of natural vegetation for ...
- 38.9k
18
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Could Global Warming be good for life?
A paper from Nature Geoscience (reported by the BBC here) claims that the carbon dioxide humanity has pumped into the atmosphere is holding off a new Ice Age.
This has revived an old idea best ...
- 56.1k
14
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Is global warming irreversible?
I have heard countless times the perils of global warming and how we should all do our fair share to save the Earth for future generations.
Here is but one example from an NPR article: "Global ...
- 5,400
14
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Was the cretaceous the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide was significantly higher than it is today?
Dr. Michael E. Mann recounts a story in his recent book (the Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars) about an encounter with Hillary Clinton during a hostile congressional hearing. While he was fending off ...
- 56.1k
7
votes
0
answers
656
views
Is climate change already killing people and costing billions in the USA?
According to Gizmodo:
Climate change will make our lives worse in the years to come, but a new report out last week highlights the stark costs people are already paying across the Atlantic. In 2012 ...
- 56.1k
7
votes
1
answer
617
views
Does temperature drive CO₂?
The blog THE HOCKEY SCHTICK claims that "temperature drives CO2 levels, not man-made CO2".
The paper "Atmospheric verification of anthropogenic CO2 emission trends" is cited as proof.
The claim is ...
user20862
104
votes
4
answers
26k
views
Does the production of a Tesla battery produce as much CO2 as driving 200,000 km?
Recently I read on Greenpeace's website, that the production of a 100 kWh battery, as in the Tesla Model S, produces as much CO2 as driving a regular car for 200,000 km.
Source: Tesla car ...
- 2,706
82
votes
4
answers
16k
views
Do Milankovitch Cycles fully explain climate change?
The Milankovitch Cycles is the effect on the climate caused by variations in astronomical movements by the Earth relative to the Sun.
A recent Natural News article attributes of the recent effects of ...
61
votes
3
answers
12k
views
Does the ratio of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere show that fossil fuels are not the dominant cause of global warming?
I stumbled upon the following paper
Skrable et al. (2022)
The specific activity of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO₂, which is devoid of ¹⁴C, enters the ...
- 1,867
36
votes
4
answers
13k
views
Are we in a low CO2 period, compared to the last 590 million years?
In 2012 Burt Rutan, the aircraft designer, posted these slides summarizing his take on global warming/climate change.
Slide 14 is
In the big picture we are now in a low CO2 period. The 20th ...
- 1,059
32
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Is Donald Trump forcing the EPA to take down all climate change information?
According to the Independent article Donald Trump orders Environmental Protection Agency to delete all climate change information from its website
The Trump administration is forcing the ...
- 78.6k
31
votes
7
answers
5k
views
Is it accurate to say that 97% of experts agree that global warming is anthropogenic?
A recent spate of newspaper headlines reported that 97% of scientists agreed with the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The UK's Daily telegraph reported:
A review of 12,000 scientific ...
- 56.1k
31
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Did "global cooling" have as much scientific consensus as "global warming" has now?
it is projected that man's potential
to pollute will increase 6 to 8-fold
in the next 50 years. If this
increased rate of injection... should
raise the present background opacity
by a factor ...
- 26.6k
23
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Is the world warmer now than during the Medieval Warm Period?
Climate change seems to polarise comment into denialists and believers. But good skeptics should be able to address specific issues with the data without falling into the anti-science denialist camp. ...
- 56.1k
22
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did Elon Musk's bitcoin transactions release more carbon in a few days than the amount saved by all Teslas ever sold?
In The Guardian, on May 29, 2021, Adam Greenfield writes:
Elon Musk’s recent large-scale transactions in proof-of-work-based Bitcoin released more carbon into the atmosphere in just a few days than ...
- 724
21
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Does unadjusted NASA climate data show no long-term global warming?
The Real Science blog by "Steven Goddard" claims that NASA have altered their data in the USA and other countries to show global warming.
Right after the year 2000, NASA and NOAA dramatically ...
user20862
17
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Would avoiding the eating of meat stop global warming? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is being a vegan more environmentally friendly than otherwise?
Would it be sufficient for people to stop eating meat to stop global warming? I've heard that the process to ...
- 4,433
15
votes
2
answers
846
views
What are the greatest successes of long term climate prediction?
Seth Roberts claims that the field of climate modelling hasn't produced models that have effectively predicted future climate events. According to him the models are only validated on past data.
Is ...
- 33.3k
14
votes
3
answers
841
views
Did global warming exacerbate the Syrian conflict?
Newspapers have recently reported that research shows that Global Warming can now be assigned as a major contributor to the ongoing conflict in Syria. For example, The Independent:
Climate change was ...
- 56.1k
14
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Are global temperatures cooler in 2017 than 2007?
The Global Warming Policy Forum claimed (9-Aug-2017):
An inconvenient truth: Global temps were warmer when Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Prize than today, even after the 2015/16 super El Nino.
This is ...
- 1,927
13
votes
1
answer
849
views
Is avoiding global warming by preventing CO₂ emissions far too expensive compared to geoengineering or adapting to a warmer world?
Experts in the science of global climate change often criticise their opponents by disparaging their expertise in climate science. But experts in climate science are not experts in economics. So when ...
- 56.1k
12
votes
1
answer
884
views
Could global warming lead to an oxygen shortage by 2100? [duplicate]
In this report of a mathematical model (original paper here) about the response of ocean plankton to climate change, its author claims the following:
By 2100, the earth at sea level could have ...
- 56.1k
11
votes
1
answer
530
views
Can some simple, old models of the effect of CO₂ predict temperature better than complex modern climate simulations?
A recent post on the climate skeptic blog climateaudit.org showed some comparisons of the relationship between world temperature and CO2 over the 20th century from a simple model originally published ...
- 56.1k
11
votes
1
answer
546
views
Are polar bears doing well despite a reduction in sea ice?
From Skeptical Science and many other sources:
In conclusion, the reason polar bears have been classed as threatened comes from the impacts of future climate change on the bears’ habitat. Current ...
- 17.7k
11
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Does having one fewer child reduce my carbon footprint as much as 71+ people going vegan?
In July 2017, ScienceMag reported on a study:
Eating no meat cuts an individual’s carbon footprint by 820 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year [...] by choosing to have one fewer child in ...
- 521
10
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Do candles emit ten times the carbon dioxide of an equivalent lightbulb?
In Wasteful Earth Hour?, it's claimed that candles emit roughly 10 times the carbon dioxide of light bulbs of the same brightness. While emissions will vary depending on the candle, the lightbulb and ...
- 38.9k
9
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Does climate change mean that weather becomes more variable in addition to being warmer?
In public media the notion that climate change is more than global warming gets repeated frequently.
Are there strong predictions that show that the climate becomes more irregular? Would we expect the ...
- 33.3k
8
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Are glaciers melting?
There seems to be a scientific consensus that glaciers are melting.
For instance:
Buzzle (Non-peer reviewed web-article):
The last century has been a problem for glaciers across the globe. They ...
- 237
7
votes
0
answers
256
views
Are there alternative methods of meat production (such as free-range meat) that are better for the environment than factory farmed meat? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Organic food is worse for the environment because it requires more land than non-organic food
Most meat in developed nations is produced by Industrial agriculture methods, ...
- 8,775
5
votes
2
answers
831
views
Did UK Met Office claim in 2012 that global warming stopped 16 years ago?
Not the most respectable source, nevertheless mainstream newspaper Daily Mail claimed that:
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report
quietly released... and here is the ...
- 26.6k
4
votes
3
answers
588
views
Has climate change measurably increased the likelihood of tropical storms such as Haiyan?
The recent extreme tropical storm Haiyan has brought the relationship between cyclones and climate change back into the newspaper headlines. This recent headline from Britain's Daily Mirror suggests ...
- 56.1k
3
votes
2
answers
382
views
Does Carbon Dioxide mix well in the atmosphere?
At Skeptical Science, they explain:
Mauna Loa is often used as an example of rising carbon dioxide levels because its the longest, continuous series of directly measured atmospheric CO₂. The reason ...
- 39
3
votes
1
answer
743
views
Have 95% of climate models over-forecast the global warming trend? [duplicate]
From Top Advisor To Australian Gov't Says Climate Change is a UN Conspiracy (slashdot.org) and Climate change a UN-led ruse, says Tony Abbott's business adviser Maurice Newman (The Sydney Morning ...
- 18k
3
votes
2
answers
625
views
Is there more global sea ice than 35 years ago?
On Mail Online, it is claimed:
In fact, across the globe, there are about one million square kilometres more sea ice than 35 years ago, which is when satellite measurements began.
Is that true? ...
user20862
2
votes
5
answers
831
views
Will a warming world directly damage human health?
It is widely believed that a warming world will be a worse world (but see this question for a discussion of the minority view: Could Global Warming be good for life?)
The medical community seems to ...
- 56.1k