Anthropogenic Climate Change
Sven Gelbhaar
25.07.2019
The debate rages on as to whether the increase in global average temperature is
anthropogenic, or even if it exists at all. Normally I wouldn’t weigh in on
this as other, more-than-competent people have already done so and continue to
do so. Something along the lines of 90+% of scientists who have been surveyed
(not be me, granted) have claimed that both propositions are true.
My thoughts on the matter concerning the latter don’t really matter. There is
an abundance of rigorously conducted and presented research pertaining to the
global rise in temperatures over time, particularly the accelerating rate of the
same starting just around the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Dust from volcanoes and dust from meteor strikes have, in the past, impacted the
climate in huge ways. According to the scholarly literature on the topic, they
have been to blame for the fluctuations of temperature in the past. This is all
rather intuitive, as something surely must be to blame for this/an effect in a
causal system.
We haven’t had any spikes in volcanic output in the last couple of centuries,
especially not on the scale which would explain the average rise in temperatures
that has been meticulously recorded. So volcanoes can’t be to blame for the
rise in temperature.
We certainly haven’t had any major (slew of) meteor impacts since then either.
The last meteor impact that significantly altered the Earth’s climate wiped out
the Dinosaurs ~65 million years ago. So that’s not the cause.
No major nuclear wars have been fought which would propel (once again) dust into
the atmosphere and thereby impact our global climate.
The Sun’s output hasn’t changed drastically. NASA claims that our star
completes an 11-year cycle, varying in levels of output by 0.1%. The point
being that it is a cycle: not an increase over time. Furthermore temperature
elevations have far exceeded 0.1%.
[https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/ ,
Retrieved 25.07.2019]
So what has changed over the last ~200 years that could have any kind of impact
on elevations in global climate?
We have been pumping carbon (et al) into the atmosphere for those same ~200
years. Carbon is said to act as a greenhouse gas, allowing in more heat than it
allows back out. More to the point: The larger a target is, the more energy it
will encounter. Larger atmosphere -> more heat absorbed from the Sun by our
planet. This really shouldn’t even merit a discussion from scientists as it’s
blatantly obvious.