what is global warming REALLY caused by?

Question

what is global warming REALLY caused by?

Answer 1

the sun..... the sun is the only thing responsible for warming the earth. Dont get me wrong ...pollution and greenhouse gases also contribute. But they are not the only reason. We are in a short period of warm temperatures on earth. A small window in time. We just got out of an ice age about 12-15ooo years ago. We have had longer periods of global Ice Ages than we have of global warm periods in the last few million years.... Did u know that a violent volcano can spew enough greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to warm our atmospheric temperatures several degrees. Pollution does the same thing but on a smaller scale. This gas traps the earths heat from escaping back into space. Its like a blanket for our atmosphere. Then the earth gets warm, and creates more water vapor from the oceans. More water vapor means more clouds. More clouds mean less sunlight hitting the surface of earth, less sunlight means less heat, less heat means more ice.. and we go back into an ice age.... then the earth fixes herself, we start to get warmer.... and we go on and on.... Its been happening like that for millions of years. If it wasent for global warming we wouldnt be alive and the earth would be covered with seals, penguins, polar bears and wolly mammoths.

Answer 2

There are great debates about globabl warming - to what extent increase of carbon dioxide in the atmsophere or changes in solar energy are responsible. Could even be long term changes in ocean currents.



Since the increase of temperature has been observed (past century or so), carbon dioxide amount has greatly increased and the amount of solar energy has been virtually constant - so the correlation is much better for the former.



Yet one thing is for certain - burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil/gas for heating and powering machines adds heat to the atmopshere. I heard the amount of heat generated by all the activity in New York City exceeds the amount received from the sun there.

Answer 3

Global warming is "really" caused by air pollution and carbon dioxide that is like a blanket in the atmosphere trapping the sun's heat and causing the earth to warm up. Sort of like a green house, that is why it's called the green house effect. I think.... :)

Answer 4

I agree with Ramidus.......

If all of history was the Length of your fingernail....



then the time man has been on the earth would be equal to one scrape of a fingernail file across your nail.





Global warming has been going on since the end of the last Ice Age...



LONG before man was around....glaciers receded...the Great Lakes formed ...



your talking about weather cycles of tens of thousands of years that repeat themselves...



yes were in a warming trend of a couple hundred years..



a mere tick on the stopwatch of time



check out Newsweek or Time magazine from around 1975.......



Scientists were saying were heading towards another Ice age

and suggested melting the Polar Ice caps.....



this is just another ...Flavor of the Month

Answer 5

Greenhouse Gases

Answer 6

Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and air pollution

tahts what studies show

Answer 7

Global warming is mainly caused by increase in pollution.

Like deforestation.....which leads to more carbon di oxide

Answer 8

People who pee in the water when they go swimming!