22). In support of these assertions, scientists cite the evidence from satellite imagery over the past 30 years that confirm glaciers and ice shelves are melting results (Singer, 2013).
A number of other prominent governmental and nongovernmental organizations agree with these assertions, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, National Geographic, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Congressional House leadership (Frank, 2008). For instance, Greenpeace’s website flatly states that, “Fossil fuels — coal, oil and, natural gas — are major contributors to climate change, accounting for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions” (Fighting global warming, 2017, para. 2). The policy positions taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also specifically implicate anthropogenic sources as the primary cause of global warming. For instance, Gillis (2015) reports that, “NOAA is one of four agencies around the world that attempts to produce a complete record of global temperatures dating to 1880. They all get similar results, showing a long-term warming of the planet that scientists have linked primarily to the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests” (para. 4).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also concurs with the anthropogenic causes of global warming. In fact, since its 1995 Second Assessment Report, the IPCC has been making increasingly assured statements that human-produced carbon dioxide is influencing the climate, and is the chief cause of the global warming trend in evidence since about 1900 (Frank, 2008). For example, in its report, “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis,” the IPCC firmly states that: “Human activities are continuing to affect the Earth’s energy budget by changing the emissions and resulting atmospheric concentrations of radiatively important gases and aerosols and by changing land surface properties” (Cubash, 2013, p. 121). The IPCC also argues that there are several sources of scientific evidence that reinforce the assertions concerning the link between anthropogenic activities and global warming, again in unequivocal terms. In this regard, Cubash (2013) adds that, “Unequivocal evidence from in situ observations and ice core records shows that the atmospheric concentrations of important greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) have increased over the last few centuries” (p. 122).
Other proponents of the anthropogenic causes of global warming cite the several streams of separate scientific evidence that is incontrovertible, including:
Land surface air temperature as measured by weather stations;
Sea surface temperature that date back to 1850 showing that 2000 through 2010 was the warmest decade in recorded history;
Lower troposphere temperature as measured by satellites for a half century that confirm the 2000s as the warmest decade as well as confirming that each of the previous 3 decades has been increasingly warmer than the preceding decade;
Ocean heat content data that extends to the 1950s that show 90% of the extra heat from global warming is going into the oceans which contribute to rapidly rising sea levels as demonstrated by tide gauge records that date to 1870;
Specific humidity has increased along with temperatures;
Melting glaciers with 2009 being the 19th consecutive year that experienced a net loss of ice from glaciers on a global basis;
Northern Hemisphere snow cover has diminished in recent decades; and,
Melting Arctic sea ice based on satellite data that date to 1979 as well as nearly 65 years worth of reliable shipping records that show the extent of sea ice has decreased by more than one-third (35%) since 1979 (Wight, 2017).
Armed with this growing body of scientific evidence, the main arguments that are typically used to implicate human activities as the cause of global warming include the following:
Global temperature over the past century has risen;
Temperature will continue to rise over the next century and impact climate; and,
The main cause of this continuing temperature rise is the emission of carbon dioxide due to consumption of fossil fuels (Payne, 2014).
The first two of the foregoing arguments are clearly supported by the scientific evidence as depicted in Figure 1-A below.
Figure 1-A. Average global temperatures: 1880-2020 (projected)
As shown in Figure 1 above, the 10 warmest years over this 136-year range took place since 2000, and the warmest year on record was 2016 (Global climate change facts, 2017). Indeed, if current projections are accurate, the long-term effects of global warming will be catastrophic, including an increase of between 3 and 9 degrees in average temperatures in the United States by 2100, rising sea levels and more intense heat waves, wildfires and droughts. In addition, disease-carrying vectors such as mosquitoes will become more widespread and the human species may even be threatened with extinctions (Frank, 2008). Nevertheless, critics charge that not only is the scientific evidence less compelling than global warming alarmists claim, it may be…
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