Global Warming Miss-information Is the news media and Global Warming activist telling us the full story on Global Warming?
Of course they're not giving us the full story. Many news outlets still suggest that the science is highly uncertain or that there is any sort of legitimate debate in the scientific community about whether or not human activities are causing climate warming and whether or not it is a bad thing. Many news organizations (e.g., the one you link) severely downplay the science in an attempt to demonstrate fairness. What next: shall we have physicists debate the existence of gravity? Should our news leave us wondering whether gravity really does or does not exist?
Actually it can be more correctly stated that there is a debate as to weather or not Man is PRIMARILY responsible for the GW trend we now experiencing. The Climate Change is a natural and ongoing process. The natural forces that cause Climate Change can be dramatic, far more powerful than the changes we are seeing today. In the 1700's the earth went through a mini-ice age that caused great famine across Europe, which in turn drove immigration to the Americas. The painting of George Washington crossing an Icy Delaware River was most likely accurate. My understanding is that the Delaware has not frozen over like that for over 200 years, long before the industrial revolution started. 100,000 years ago we were in a full-blown ice age. There have also been periods in earth’s history where the earth has been much warmer than it is now. The truth is that the stabilty of the earths climate is relative and it in fact is always changing. There is no such thing as a stable Climate. So the question isn't really is man is causing GW. The accurate question is "what part of GW is man responsible for?" It seems pretty clear that we are having an effect. There is a question as to how much is the result of our own activities. Here is an interesting article that explains the Sun's role in Climate Change: http://ncwatch.typepad.com/dalton_minimum_returns/files/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf
Wooooow no. The Maunder minimum/little ice age brought temperatures about 1 C cooler than what we have today. It was felt strongest in the North Atlantic and surrounding landmasses. On the other hand, the "Medaevil warm period" was also slightly coolder than what we have today, and was pretty much entirely felt in the North Atlantic. The last glacial maximum from about 20,000 - 12,000 years ago. Climate is often stable to within a couple of degrees C for thousands of years. That is what folks typically mean when they are referring to stability. The only prudent question is how much human activities are warming the planet. We can explain temperature trends up until about the 60's or so very well by just taking into account natural phenomena and leaving anthropogenic effects out of it. However, it's impossible to get the rising temperatures over the last 30 years by just taking into account natural forcers: they predict slight cooling. In order to have rising temperatures over the last 30 years, which we've had, we have to take into account the human component. Over the last 30 years the warming we've had can be attributed almost entirely to human activities. Studies that have looked specificially at the sun have found that perhaps 10% of the warming could be due to the sun, at best, and that was all during the early 80's.
