# What else causes global warming? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775 "2018-02-28T20:41:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/1 "2018-02-28T20:41:29Z")
Is there Correlation of global temperature with solar activity? Does the weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic shield which prevents sun rays mean we are getting more heat? I found this chart on solar activity, and there seems to be a correlation. [http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html) I expect this to be a heated debate, pun intended 🙂 -SL ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/2 "2018-02-28T20:47:30Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Does the weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic shield which prevents sun rays mean we are getting more heat? The earth’s magnetic field does not “prevent sun rays” from reaching earth. It deflects charged particles and high energy “cosmic rays”, but the latter do not originate in the sun. But when you ask “what else”, you need to specify “what else besides x, y, and z”. We don’t know what you already think x, y and z are. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/3 "2018-02-28T20:51:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Is there Correlation of global temperature with solar activity? Of course. IIRC, the temperature goes up about 10% per billion years due to the sun getting hotter. The orbit and precession of the planet also affect the temperature, which is why we go from glaciation to inter-glacial periods such as the one we are in. The thing is, they don’t account for how rapidly it’s risen in the last hundred or so years though. > [@](#): > > Does the weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic shield which prevents sun rays mean we are getting more heat? No…that would simply allow in other harmful radiation. > [@](#): > > I expect this to be a heated debate, pun intended I don’t really think it will be, but we shall see. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/4 "2018-02-28T21:04:41Z")
The canonical list of climate change denial and myths: [Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says](https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php) Please present some novel argument rather than a vague, “It could be ‘something else’,” attempt at diversion without any evidential basis. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/5 "2018-02-28T21:10:12Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I found this chart on solar activity, and there seems to be a correlation. > > [Correlation of global temperature with solar activity](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html) Did you actually look at the plots there? If you have to throw away some of the data (namely everything after 1980 or so) to show a correlation, it’s not really a correlation, is it? ---
**Author:** ![WillReadmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@WillReadmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillReadmore)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/6 "2018-02-28T21:57:55Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Is there Correlation of global temperature with solar activity? > > Does the weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic shield which prevents sun rays mean we are getting more heat? > > I found this chart on solar activity, and there seems to be a correlation. > > [Correlation of global temperature with solar activity](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html) > > I expect this to be a heated debate, pun intended 🙂 > > -SL You managed one more argument of the form, “Scientists just don’t know about \, thus they are all wrong.” Of course, someone came up with that chart of yours. Was that a high school art project? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/7 "2018-02-28T22:05:00Z")
Deforestation is a BIG one here … from SciAm [“Deforestation and Its Extreme Effect on Global Warming”](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deforestation-and-global-warming/) > [@](#): > > By most accounts, deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads. According to the World Carfree Network (WCN), cars and trucks account for about 14 percent of global carbon emissions, while most analysts attribute upwards of 15 percent to deforestation. That’s leaves 71% of carbon emissions for electrical generation by first world countries … we’d all die without A/C … right? … ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/8 "2018-02-28T22:11:16Z")
Concerning the OP … yes, sun spot activity is known to effect weather … this is one of the reasons climatologists use 50 year averages … this include two complete cycles and hopefully the effect is averaged out … better to use 100 year averages and four cycles just to make sure … noteworthy that the recent “plateau” in global warming occurred during a particularly underwhelming solar maxima … these seventeen years just is far too short a time period to make any conclusions about global warming as a whole … ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/9 "2018-02-28T22:27:39Z")
The other respondents have pretty much given you your answer. I would particularly suggest you read **Stranger** ’s link to all the common myths, of which you’ve managed to regurgitate one of the old classics. > [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Is there Correlation of global temperature with solar activity? > > I found this chart on solar activity, and there seems to be a correlation. > > [Correlation of global temperature with solar activity](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html) Short answer: no. Over sufficiently long timescales, of course, there will be a correlation, but over the timescales we talk about when we consider anthropogenic global warming there is not. Furthermore, the Friis-Christensen study you cited is old and has [long since been discredited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigil_Friis-Christensen#Solar_activity_and_climate_change). Solar variability and its effects on climate have been studied very intensively over recent decades and have been discussed here a few times before in some considerable depth. The warming caused by the radiative transfer effects of CO2 and other GHGs and their feedbacks are well quantified and observations match the CO2 concentrations that have accumulated since industrialization. Moreover, satellites can measure incoming and outgoing solar radiation and help us build an accurate picture of the forcings and energy imbalance caused by GHGs in the atmosphere. Yes, there are other things that cause global warming and cooling, but no other direct forcing comes even close to the effects of GHGs, particularly the highly elevated levels of CO2 we have at present. > [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Does the weakening of the Earth’s Magnetic shield which prevents sun rays mean we are getting more heat? The earth’s magnetic field has nothing to do with the level of solar insolation hitting the surface of the earth. > [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I expect this to be a heated debate, pun intended 🙂 There’s nothing to debate here. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/10 "2018-02-28T22:31:20Z")
Hitler? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/11 "2018-02-28T22:32:22Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Is there Correlation of global temperature with solar activity? Correlation is not causation! ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/12 "2018-02-28T23:19:12Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Did you actually look at the plots there? If you have to throw away some of the data (namely everything after 1980 or so) to show a correlation, it’s not really a correlation, is it? And indeed, what we see there from the OP is a dependency on the same old misleading sources. Here is a more up to date plot over here: > **[Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions](https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm)** > > \In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.\ That shows that yes, there is almost no correlation. There is indeed some, but that is because indeed natural forces are still in the background warming the earth, and if it was just like that then the temperatures would be closer to the ones observed in the 1930-50’s. The problem is that the current warming being observed is increasing thanks to human action. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/13 "2018-02-28T23:43:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > [snip] … The warming caused by the radiative transfer effects of CO2 and other GHGs and their feedbacks are well quantified and observations match the CO2 concentrations that have accumulated since industrialization … [snap] Cite? > [@Quartz](#): > > Correlation is not causation! When the sun emits more energy, the Earth receives more energy … thus increasing temperatures … but for all the reasons **wolfpup** laid out, this amont is inconsequential … it’s just teeny tiny amounts … even weather forecasters safely ignore it … but there’s a clear cut cause and effect … ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/14 "2018-02-28T23:55:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Cite? > **[Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions](https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm)** > > \In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.\ > [@](#): > > The amount of warming caused by the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 may be one of the most misunderstood subjects in climate science. Many people think the anthropogenic warming can’t be quantified, many others think it must be an insignificant amount. However, climate scientists have indeed quantified the anthropogenic contribution to global warming using empirical observations and fundamental physical equations. That was in 2010 More confirmation of that from here (2015): [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240) > [@](#): > > Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska—are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3 together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m−2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m−2 per decade and ±0.07 W m−2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m−2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance. Link to paper: [http://asl.umbc.edu/pub/chepplew/journals/nature14240\_v519\_Feldman\_CO2.pdf](http://asl.umbc.edu/pub/chepplew/journals/nature14240_v519_Feldman_CO2.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/15 "2018-03-01T00:04:50Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > When the sun emits more energy, the Earth receives more energy … thus increasing temperatures … but for all the reasons **wolfpup** laid out, this amont is inconsequential … it’s just teeny tiny amounts … even weather forecasters safely ignore it … but there’s a clear cut cause and effect … Up to the 1940s, after that, nature remains in the background and humans are driving the warming now. What remains notorious is that even in the 1950’s people like Plass noted that human influence was, well, beginning to influence the thing. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/sdALFnlwV_o/maxresdefault.jpg "Climate Science 1956: A Blast from the Past") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdALFnlwV_o) > [@](#): > > As this recently uncovered recording from 1956 shows, the outlines of climate change science have been clear for many decades. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/m-AXBbuDxRY/maxresdefault.jpg "Climate Change 1958: The Bell Telephone Science Hour") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY) > [@](#): > > The famous Bell Telephone Hour clip, with the all knowing Dr Frank Baxter explaining a very modern understanding of climate science **in 1958**. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/16 "2018-03-01T00:39:05Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Cite? I’m not sure why you’re trying to challenge either the assertion that the theoretical climate forcings arising from CO2 are well quantified or that they match observations. None of this is controversial. What is controversial is how forcings relate to changes in key climate parameters, particularly temperature, but even those arguments have well-bounded limits for climate sensitivity. But just to run through a sort of quick sanity check, the first-order approximation for the CO2 radiative transfer code [is given here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing#Forcing_due_to_atmospheric_gas). This is a simplification of the effects of the CO2 spectral absorption lines. If you work through the math using 290 as the pre-industrial reference value for CO2 and 400 as the present value, you get an approximate predicted forcing of 1.72 W/m[sup]2[/sup]. If you look at the latest IPCC AR5 estimate of actual CO2 forcing, [given here on published page 697 and PDF page 39/82](https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf), the estimated value based on observations and modeling is around 1.8 W/m[sup]2[/sup], with an uncertainty range between about 1.4 and 2.2. So the post-industrialization CO2 differential is creating the predicted amount of forcing. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/17 "2018-03-01T01:21:45Z")
Now, I’m just asking questions here so don’t yell at me (Gigo), but are you guys open to the possibility…just the possibility mind…that Trump could be a major cause of Global Warming? I know that it’s accepted by all those scientist types that CO2 is a major contributor, but Trump sure puts out a lot of hot air, so is it possible he is having a measurable effect? JAQ and all… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/18 "2018-03-01T01:31:29Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Now, I’m just asking questions here so don’t yell at me (Gigo), but are you guys open to the possibility…just the possibility mind…that Trump could be a major cause of Global Warming? I know that it’s accepted by all those scientist types that CO2 is a major contributor, but Trump sure puts out a lot of hot air, so is it possible he is having a measurable effect? > > JAQ and all… [https://longislandweekly.com/matt-bodkin-cartoon-march-23-2016/](https://longislandweekly.com/matt-bodkin-cartoon-march-23-2016/) Matt Bodkin Cartoon. (Two Republican elephants sweating at the sight of Trump signalling to fascists and ignorants.) “Maybe the climate really is changing!” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/19 "2018-03-01T01:32:30Z")
One of the IPCC reports has a good chart that correlates the average temperature to a few key variables. CO2 (additive), solar irradiation (additive), and sulfur dioxide (subtractive) were the top three, I think. There may have been a fourth, but I can’t recall it offhand. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775/20 "2018-03-01T04:20:16Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Now, I’m just asking questions here so don’t yell at me (Gigo), but are you guys open to the possibility…just the possibility mind…that Trump could be a major cause of Global Warming? You may be on to something here! I just tried plotting Trump’s age vs. global temperature, and [there is a remarkably strong correlation.](https://flic.kr/p/24Hjct3) Temperature data taken from [here](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2016). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-else-causes-global-warming/809775.md?page=2)