79
votes
Why do climate experts from the UN/IPCC rarely mention Grand Solar Minimum?
The IPCC do mentions solar minimums and maximums, as part of extremely careful treatment they do of the reconstructions and predictions for the changes in solar irradiance. The Assessment Report 5, ...
- 17.6k
78
votes
How do 'greenhouse gases' let heat in, but not let it out?
In a nutshell:
The radiation that enters is shortwave radiation from the sun. Solar radiation is dominated by visible (as well as UV and near infrared) radiation with a wavelength mostly between 0.2 ...
- 11.6k
72
votes
Accepted
Is the sea level rise unusual?
The problem is the increase in the rate of sea level rise. I pulled out some approximate numbers from the figure you presented:
Can you see now how the sea level is rising much faster today than a ...
- 17.6k
67
votes
Why is the Arctic melting, but the Antarctic doing great?
Not quite. The report actually shows an increase in extent, but not the volume, of sea-ice around Antarctica. That sounds good, but the data appendix in the report shows the Antarctic continental ice-...
- 4,260
56
votes
Global warming - why doesn´t mankind collect heat (thermal energy) and turn it into electricity or send it to space?
This is due to thermodynamics, the three laws of which can be summarized as 1) You can't win; 2) You can't even break even; 3) You can't leave the game.
The crucial point here is that heat engines don'...
- 1,748
43
votes
Accepted
How does global-warming-triggered ice melting cause global sea levels to rise?
Arctic ice, around the north pole floats on top of water. When it melts it does not add to sea level rises and likewise for other ice on water, as illustrated in this video and this video.
Ice on land ...
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42
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
Your question about water vapour is quite a common one among people learning about the greenhouse effect. Once you discover the relevant proportions of water vapour and CO2 in the atmosphere, it's ...
- 5,431
42
votes
Accepted
Is climate change a vicious circle?
There are indeed a lot of positive feedback mechanisms, i.e. a warm climate leads to a warmer climate. From this Wikipedia article, they are:
Carbon cycle feedbacks
Cloud feedback
Gas release
Ice-...
- 7,729
41
votes
Accepted
Does this peer-reviewed study (referenced in Forbes) contradict the accepted position that climate change is real?
I want to know if that article has been refuted anywhere
Yes. You can read all about it in the blog post
James Taylor misinterprets study by 180 degrees.
In short, the original paper was designed ...
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40
votes
Why do climate experts from the UN/IPCC rarely mention Grand Solar Minimum?
I think the main question has already been answered. But I would like to add to the fallacy that:
History shows solar activity is the main driver of our climate, among other factors.
The Sun is ...
- 401
40
votes
CO₂ level is high enough that it reduces cognitive ability. Isn't that a reason to worry?
There looks like legitimate cause for further study, preferably by scientists breathing air under 950 ppm $\small\mathsf{CO_2}$ (this study showing a 15% decline in cognitive ability at this level).
...
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39
votes
Accepted
I just read news that Antarctica had set a new record high temperature, above 18 °C. How can this be the case if it is currently winter there?
You just read the news too fast. WMO announced that, after evaluation by a committee, they have validated the 18.3°C temperature recorded in February (i.e., in summer) last year:
GENEVA, 1 July 2021 (...
- 7,729
38
votes
Does human body temperature impact climate change?
Does human body temperature impact climate change? Directly? It's not even a blip. The Earth's population is 7.6 billion. With each person radiating about 80 watts (basal metabolism), that's about 600 ...
- 23.2k
37
votes
Why is global warming bad?
Global warming is colloquially referred to as the human-made warming of the climate that would not have otherwise occurred without the industrial revolution. The greenhouse effect, which is the ...
- 13.5k
36
votes
Why is the Arctic melting, but the Antarctic doing great?
The Antarctic is not "doing great":
Antarctica moved from a weakly negative mass balance in the 1990s to a faster rate of mass loss at a rate of between -45 and -120 gigatonnes per year.
35
votes
Why is the temperature *still* rising?
"So much work"? Actually, compared to the global rate of greenhouse gas emissions, it's a case of "so little work"! From a scientific perspective the 'economists' solution' of carbon trading was ...
- 14.2k
35
votes
Accepted
Debunking scientific paper "Has global warming already arrived?"
The comment is saying that the authors are making a fallacy as follows:
Temperature increase will be associated with an increase in tropopause height.
Using instrument/dataset X, we fail to measure a ...
- 11.6k
34
votes
Accepted
Do fossil fuels insulate the crust from the Earth's interior?
Quoting from John Russell's response to this article, "This is arrant nonsense!"
Russell concludes with
How did this paper get through the peer-review and editorial review processes? What ...
- 23.2k
32
votes
Accepted
Global warming - why doesn´t mankind collect heat (thermal energy) and turn it into electricity or send it to space?
Collecting thermal energy is really hard. As others have said, things like heat pumps exist for moving heat around, but the laws of thermodynamics (which are fairly fundemantal in physics) require ...
- 5,800
28
votes
Was Judea as desertified 2000 years ago as it is now?
There has always been a strong north-south rainfall gradient from approximately the Golan Heights (high rainfall), through Judaea and southwards into the arid Sinai desert. We know that this gradient ...
- 14.2k
27
votes
Accepted
"Five of the Solomon Islands disappeared" due to sea level rise, how is this possible so quickly?
The sea is not the only thing that rises, the sea floor can also rise and fall in accordance with the underlying geology. Oceanic tectonic plates sink as they age (and thus get colder and denser), the ...
- 6,878
26
votes
Accepted
Why is the energy transition start not reflected in the CO2 concentration graphs?
Because the energy transition has not yet been sufficient to reduce annual carbon emissions.
From Our World in Data, here's annual total CO2 emissions, by world region:
Since the 1960s, growth in low-...
- 1,400
26
votes
Why is global warming bad?
Our current economy is a rather fragile thing. Even a small war in central Europe has caused supply chain issues and painful inflation around the whole world. Any kind of major disruption would be ...
- 371
25
votes
How do 'greenhouse gases' let heat in, but not let it out?
Gerrit's got the technical answer; I'm going to answer for a layperson.
There are two ways objects lose heat.
The first, and the way people are most familiar with, is conduction. Something touches ...
- 351
24
votes
Accepted
Why was there a negative temperature anomaly between 1950 to 1980?
This phenomenon is known as global dimming.
It was due to the particles and aerosols mostly released by combustion of fossil fuels such as diesel. Those particles block the radiation from the sun, so ...
- 7,729
23
votes
Why is the temperature *still* rising?
Your premises are flawed due to the lack of two critical details:
Population rise; the sheer number of people on the planet that are consuming resources has risen to 7 billion people.
Standard of ...
- 13.5k
23
votes
Accepted
Is 2015's record average temperature evidence that we are now experiencing runaway climate change?
Runaway climate change is, given our current state of knowledge, only something that could be confirmed in historic context - in the rear-view mirror. Inconveniently, there's likely to be a much-...
- 4,090
23
votes
How do 'greenhouse gases' let heat in, but not let it out?
To add to Gerrit's excellent answer, I'd like to add a couple more Images. Images always help clarify things for me.
Firstly, this one shows the spectrum light coming from the sun in red. The peak is ...
- 327
23
votes
Accepted
Do satellites decrease the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth?
Does this huge collective quantity of objects (together with space trash) reflect away enough solar radiation to have a measurable effect? Could this affect Earth's climate, mitigating climate change?
...
- 23.2k
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