As the supporters of the existence of global warming have proved that earth’s average temperature is rising, the opposing side argues that there is no significant and extended temperature changes from 1997. The proponents of global warming existence acknowledge that from the 1800s, the rise has been steady with 1970s being stronger. However, in the 1990s the rise become lull but started to rise again on 2000s. On the other hand, the opponents claim that since from 1990s temperature change has not been significant, global warming is not real. Even though there was a steady rise from 1975, it became flat in after 1997 and there has not been a significant change for 17 years.
The proponents have proved that the rising sea level is due to global warming. Evidently the sea level has been rising in many parts worldwide. The melting ice caps and glaciers have partially attributed to the rise. The rise in global sea level increased to about 6.7 inches in the past century. Compared to the 20th century, the rise in sea level has doubled from a trend of 1.6 mm per year. The 2007 IPCC report forecast that global warming will cause a 7-23 inches increase in sea levels by the end of this century. According to Vardiman, global warming has seen the sea surface temperatures of Gulf of Alaska rise by 3% in the last 30 years, Arctic sea-ice coverage decreased by 5% in the last 25 years, and the Western Atlantic hurricane frequency increase about 3% in the last 150 years. Evidently, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration have increased the greenhouse effect and possibly caused warming. Even though it was not clear to Vardiman which one caused the other between increased carbon dioxide concentration and global warming, it appears that increased carbon dioxide concentration raised atmospheric temperatures that warmed the oceans to release its large quantities of locked carbon dioxide. The oceans have several times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere that can be released when warmed or altered in pH. As another evidence of global warming, there have been rising ocean temperatures: From the documented temperature records over 50 years, there has been a steady rise in ocean temperature since 1969. The greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere from fossil fuel have been sucked up by the oceans thereby increasing its temperatures. The glaciers have also been shrinking. Greenland and Antarctica are losing its glacier to increasing temperatures. According to NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, Greenland lost between 36 and 60 cubic miles of glacier yearly from 2000 to 2006. The glaciers in Montana Glacier National Park have reduced from 150 to 25 since 1910. The proponents have also proved that because of global warming, ocean acidification is real. The Ocean is becoming more acidic as the emitted greenhouses gases into the atmosphere find their way into the ocean.
As the proponents believe that the human activities are the primary cause of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the contrarians believe that nature releases more carbon dioxide than humans. According to proponents, humans are the primary contributors to global warming. With the increased use of fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide has found their way into the atmosphere. More heat has been trapped by the carbon dioxide that has overloaded the atmosphere. The atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing and are higher at the moment than at any point in history. The carbon dioxide level is 25% higher today than in 1957. When it comes to global warming, carbon dioxide is the key driver even though there are other heat-trapping gases. According to NASA, human and not natural processes are the cause of global warming. The NASA/Duke University study revealed that natural cycles alone are not enough to explain the global warming examined over the last century. The study shows have detailed justifications that global temperatures would remain stable for a long time unless they are destabilized by outside forces like increased greenhouse gases from humans’ activities. The contrarian claim that nature releases more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than human is true as 95% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is natural. However, natural processes like plant growth and oceanic absorption pull the gas back out of the atmosphere thereby offsetting them. This leaves the human activities as a net surplus. The fossil-fuel burning and increased deforestation have primarily cause of increased carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere.
Despite using the same pieces of evidence as those supporting the existence of global warming, the opponents appear to have a different conclusion. The opponents claim that there is insufficient historical data available to support global warming. The failure by the recent gathering of 31,000 environmental scientists to come to a consensus about global warming being real due to lack of long-term data on historical climate and unclear existing data. The increase in arctic ice by 50% since 2012 have helped the opponent of global warming existence argues their case. The Arctic Ice core measures indicate that an increase in volume from 2012, thereby contradicting the argument that global warming is causing the ice to melt. In 2012 alone, the Arctic Ice increased by 50%. In addition, the opponents believe that the climate models have been unreliable and the predictions made were wrong. Since some of the predicted dates passed without the predicted effects happening, the opponents believe that the climate models that have been used to predict the impacts of global warming have been flawed. For instance, Al Gore foresaw all Arctic ice vanishing by 2013, which, on the contrary, is up by 50% since 2012. They believe that the long-term global warming predictions are meaningless. Scientist like Lewis of the University of California, Santa Barbara has been seen discrediting global warming. In his resignation letter, Lewis strongly believed that global warming is a scam being driven by trillions of dollars that have corrupted several scientists. Lewis further stated that global warming is not only the greatest but also the most successful pseudoscientific fraud in a long time.
The question, therefore, is why are there divergent views on global warming? Does global warming really exist? The two groups appear to differ greatly even though they use the same data. Why the divergent view? Maybe there is no agreed term or definition to describe what is actually happening. Is the definition of the global warming in the context of climate an issue? Maybe a different term such as “climate change” may be more insightful of the actual issue. Maybe the different mode of analysis and interpretation of the existing data is what has seen divergent conclusions on global warming even though the data is the same. Are climate change deniers being used by the energy industry to shoot down pieces of evidence supporting global warming? According to Begley et al (2007), the energy industry is using their 'Exxon Secrets' project to find climate change denials. Also on The Carbon Brief (2011) revealed that 90% of those authors doubting and criticizing climate change had relations to ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil has been known to fund organizations that question the global warming science and even attack policies aimed at solving the crisis. According to Adam (2008), the UK Royal Society conducted a survey in which it revealed that ExxonMobil allocated US$2.9 million in 2005 to 39 groups that distorted the climate change science by the absolute rejection of the evidence. According to Vardiman, global warming has been happening over at least the last 30-50 years. The warming may just be a temporary fluctuation that could have a longer-term trend. Global warming is real and the shorter period oscillations that have been witnessed should not be used to discredit global warming.
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