Is Anthropomorphic Climate Change Real

Global warming, or more accurately, climate change, is the phenomenon that has been scientifically observed over repeated studies that the planet is experiencing warming and changing climates at a pace much more rapid that has been observed in any prior era. The increase in the pace of the climate change has been correlated with the coming of the industrial age, and in particular with the mass adoption of fossil fuels. The burning of hydrocarbons to create energy unleashes a chemical reaction that ends with carbon entering the atmosphere, where it then traps solar radiation in the atmosphere, leading to the warming process. This paper will outline this process and the evidence supporting the fact of anthropogenic global warming.

Observations of Climate Change

The first step in understanding climate change is understanding how it is determined to be occurring. Weather is an observable phenomenon, and over a long period of time thousands of individual data points can be gathered with respect to weather. When these individual data points are gathered at the global level, they can be processed to determine trends in variables such as temperature, and outlier weather events. Weather information has been gathered since the late 19th century in some areas, and the early 20th century in a much broader set of locations. By the mid-20th century, even extreme locations such as the South Pole had weather stations installed, allowing for a minimum of 60 years of data from tens of thousands of locations around the world to be gathered.

Weather stations do not just gather data about storms and temperature, they also gather data about atmospheric composition. Because of this data set, we know that atmospheric saturation of gases such as carbon dioxide, tropospheric ozone, methane and nitrous oxide have all increased significantly since the advent of measurements (Seinfeld & Pandis, 2006). The earliest studies of climate change, back when it was termed global warming, were focused on CO2 in the atmosphere, but without much focus on other gases, the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere or the feedbacks on climate (Seinfeld & Pandis, 2006). The major greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide, CO2 and methane, are all known to alter atmospheric chemistry, and their effect is to trap solar radiation into the Earth's atmosphere. Under normal, pre-industrial conditions, a certain percentage of solar radiation that hits the Earth would be reflected back into space. With more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, less solar radiation escapes into space.

The observed changes in global temperature and atmospheric composition are, ultimately, short-range. The planet is five billion years old, and may be at the midpoint of its life cycle. As such, a few decades does not represent an accurate understanding of any sort of long-range phenomenon. To conclude that recent changes in climate are out of line with past history requires understanding past temperature and atmospheric composition. While the atmosphere and ocean can provide some valuable information, perhaps the best source of information comes from ice cores. There is some ice on this world that has been frozen for millions of years, a long enough time to determine whether the recent changes in observed weather and atmospheric phenomenon are abnormal or not. Evidence from the Vostok ice core in Antarctica, for example, reveals the climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years. This examination revealed, for example, that atmospheric and climate properties "oscillated within stable bounds" and that the upper bound was well below today's observations. Thus, the amount of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere at present are unprecedented in at least that amount of time (Petit, et al., 1999).

Ice cores from Kilimanjaro provide evidence of climate change just for the Holocene era. These cores suggest that in the Holocene, there have been three abrupt periods of climate change, and this information notes that current climate change is stronger than past events, and will lead to the elimination of ice cores on Kilimanjaro between 2015 and 2020 (Thompson et al., 2003). With samples from different parts of the world, evidence has been presented that the current climate and atmospheric conditions are out of the natural range during recent history, and that these changes have only occurred recently, as distinguished from other recent climate events. Further, the intensity of current climate conditions is stronger than other climate events in the Holocene. This has been confirmed in other studies as well. One study of Northern Hemisphere climates in the past 1000 years has found that current climate conditions are out of the normal range over this time period, and that projections for the 21st century far exceeds natural climate variability (Crowley, 2000).

Ice core science predates the modern study of climate change. In a climate journal in 1984, the technique of analyzing ice cores for their composition was used to identify different climate cycles in the North Atlantic, relating to massive iceberg releases from Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. Even at this time, scientists were able to rule out other explanations, such as discontinuities in the cores or ice sheet instability. Today, using hundreds of ice cores from around the world, the findings are even more robust, and variations can only be explained by broad-based changes in the atmosphere (Dansgaard, et al., 1984). In other words, when climate scientists began examining ice cores to test hypotheses about climate change, they were using techniques established in the field long before the climate change debate existed.

A preponderance of other studies have reached the same conclusions. The climate changes that have been observed in all parts of the world over the past 60-120 years of accurate record keeping are in excess of natural variation, both within the context of short-run time periods and larger ones that extend past the Holocene. This shows what all anecdotal evidence knows to be true -- the climate is changing, and the evidence is incontrovertible.

Attribution of Climate Change

That climate change can be observed is only part of the argument, however. For policy makers and the general public alike, denial that climate change is occurring is absolutely suicidal, because failure to plan for something that is verifiable fact leaves one extremely vulnerable to negative outcomes. There is a difference, however, between preparing for natural climate change and how we as a species should manager anthropomorphic climate change. That is the second part of the question -- are we doing it? If so, how?

From the earliest studies of global warming, the line of thought has been to determine the time frame for this climate change, and then seek to test what might be different between this period and other periods. The hypothesis quickly turned to greenhouse gases, and the science behind that was explored. It was discovered that greenhouse gases are present in the atmosphere at much higher levels than at any point in history, lending power to the hypothesis. Indeed, it has been possible to test the contribution that each of the greenhouse gases makes to the greenhouse effect that is driving climate change. Rodhe (1990) found that carbon dioxide is making a greater contribution to climate change. Methane is actually a stronger greenhouse agent, but much more carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere, which makes it a greater contributor.

Further studies have demonstrated that multiple human activities are contributing to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Agriculture is one such endeavor. Fertilizers have been found to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in comparison with non-cultivated land in the same area. This indicates that it is not merely a matter of driving that is at issue, but a wide range of human activities, which is one of the reasons why the problem is so intractable. Searchinger et al. (2008) points out why this is important -- greenhouse gas emissions actually increased when land was used for biofuels. The theory was that biofuels would reduce emissions because less petroleum would be consumed, but it was found that the fertilizers used to help produce biofuels were creating more emissions that they were saving.

Burning fossil fuels, or the conversion of fertilizers, both are major contributors to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They have both increased substantially since the turn of the 20th century. There is a considerable body of evidence that these specific activities has changed the composition of the atmosphere, and that these changes are encouraging climate change, by raising the planet's atmospheric temperature. Worse, the problem has only accelerated in recent years.

Acceleration of Climate Change

There are two reasons for the acceleration of climate change, both of which lend support to the idea of anthropomorphic climate change. First, the climate is facing a series of feedback loops. At this point, the climate's warming is melting polar ice sheets. These sheets have been reflecting solar radiation back into space, and when they are gone they will no longer be able to do so. As a result, more radiation will be kept in the atmosphere, leading to further warmer.

Compounding the problem, frozen tundra underneath of ice sheets, or simply frozen without much ice, will also melt. This tundra contains a substantial amount of methane, a greenhouse gas that is now being released into the atmosphere in large volumes, especially in Siberia. Methane will accelerate the greenhouse effect, which will only cause more tundra and ice to melt, hence the negative feedback loop. Further, there are large stores of methane under the sea floor, and should water temperatures rise there is a risk that these will be released as well. What all this means is that the rate of increase in global temperature should increase over time, and that aligns with the observed phenomena (Cox, et al., 2000).

It is also worth considering that climate change is not just a reality under normal conditions, but under all conditions. On the impossible condition that all carbon emissions cease immediately, the climate will continue to increase in temperature for at least 1000 years. Seas levels will therefore rise several meters over this period of time, creating significant change in human settlement patterns, and indeed changes in the way we live at all levels (Solomon, Plattner, Knutti & Friedlingstein, 2009).

The impacts of climate change on ecosystems are expected to be severe. An analysis of tropical rain forests in Australia estimates severe, non-linear extinction rates, and that these will accelerate as the climate changes more than 2C (Williams, Bolitho & Fox, 2003). Climate change is also influencing the acidity level of the world's oceans, owing to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. This is weakening coral reefs, and the reefs that do exist are becoming less diverse. Functional collapse is likely to occur (Guldberg, 2007).

Counterclaims

There are no credible counterclaims to the mountain of evidence that not only identified climate change as observable phenomena, but ties it to human activity, specifically modern agricultural practices and the burning of fossil fuel. There is scientific consensus on the matter. If you search online you may find people who are not climate scientists weighing in, but the evidence is overwhelming. Humans are causing climate change that is outside of the natural variations, and more to the point that this climate change is actually very destructive.

So why opposition? Why denial? Part of this lies with scientific illiteracy. The scientifically illiterate are more prone to mistrusting hard facts because they simply do not understand the science behind them. People are sometimes very dim, is all there is to say, and for some reason those voices are given a platform once in a while. They should not be. Anybody with credible evidence is free to make their point, but those without it do not belong in the debate -- scientific reality is not a debate, it is not democracy, it is about facts, tested using the best methods and with the best equipment, by people who have devoted their life to its study.

Without scientific opposition, the opposition is actually political, and to a lesser extent social. Social opposition, as noted above, should not matter that much. It took a long time for the world to achieve consensus on the roundness of the planet -- what people think is not actually important, when weighed against verifiable fact. But politics does matter, because there is value to many in creating political discord on this issue. Indeed, the only reason to foment dispute about the facts of anthropomorphic climate change is to enhance one's own interest politically.

There are certainly benefits to climate change denial. Oil companies realize that their activities are destroying the planet, and prefer not to pay the cost. When the solution to the problem lies with ending their business, or taxing it heavily enough to actually counter the damage that they are doing -- this is probably impossible at this point -- there are extreme financial motivations for raising doubts. It is simply a matter of following the money -- consider that the people leading the denial are old men, who will be long dead before the costs of climate change are felt in earnest.

Researchers have looked to see where the cause of political inaction on climate change lies. Dunlap and Jacques (2013) found that there are strong links between conservative think tanks and climate change denial publications. The vast majority of such publications undergo no review process, so are free to publish unverified or refuted claims as fact. The organized effort to discredit climate science began in earnest after the Kyoto protocol, using stealth strategies after previous head-on efforts failed during the Reagan administration.. Such tactics, where those seeking to discredit the science have clear financial motivation, are at the core of climate change denial (Dunlap & Jacques, 2013).

That the climate change denial industry scored a victory with an email scandal, using minor errors to discredit all of climate science (Dunlap & McCright, 2010), points to a bigger problem facing the world -- people realize that they have to deny it. The world has utterly failed to act, and this cannot be put simply upon those whose vested interests in the fossil fuel industry are clear to see. Our entire human society -- our modes of producing the food we eat, our modes of transportation everything we do, is reliant on burning fossil fuels. The factors that contribute to climate change leave very few modern human activities unchanged. To stop, tomorrow, all use of fossil fuels, would bring our societies to a complete halt. With our inaction we are, in essence, sacrificing tomorrow in order to save today, in the hope that perhaps tomorrow will not be so bad after all. This is an interesting sociological issue.

There are a few sociological theories that can explain climate change denial, which is important since there is no science that can. Antonio and Brulle (2011) note that climate science is just one of the many axes around which people in the U.S. in particular have become polarized. Republican leaders have gone on record denying climate change, and thus framing it as a political, rather than scientific issue. They have invoked economic arguments too, noting studies that project short-run costs. Yet, those studies do not take into account long-run costs. But more important, when the issue is framed as political in a polarized political environment, this gives the impression that if one belongs to one political orthodoxy, one must deny climate change. No critical thinking is required. Sociologically, this is an interesting phenomenon, and the United States being one of the most important sources of climate change denial, a fairly important one.

Weighing the Cases

Just for the sake of the exercise, the cases should be weighed. On one side, there is a massive amount of science, scientific consensus and ample anecdotal evidence on top of that confirming that the climate is changing, that greenhouse gas emission are the cause and that human activity has increased greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, over the time period where the climate has been changing.

On the other side of the argument there is no science, not from climate scientists at any rate. There are, however, arguments that carbon taxes will destroy economies, that government will intrude into people's lives, that somebody sent an email ... in essence, no meaningful attempt to actually refute the science. The argument about economic devastation is facile, for example. Yes, a carbon tax will result in a decrease in fossil fuel-based activity. That is rather the point. The point is to create motivation for companies and individuals to shift away from activities that depend on carbon. Given how everything we do is based on some sort of carbon burning, this will not be impossible initially but at least by creating the motivation, steps can be taken in this direction.