Difference between revisions of "Climate change"

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Despite holding to his belief that Antarctica is gaining ice, Zwally does not argue against climate change. He still accepts that global sea levels are rising, "But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses]." Also, Zwally's own team calculated that, if the ice mass loss on the western side of Antarctica continues to decrease as expected, in a few decades it's loss will outstrip any gains made on the eastern side of the continent.
 
Despite holding to his belief that Antarctica is gaining ice, Zwally does not argue against climate change. He still accepts that global sea levels are rising, "But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses]." Also, Zwally's own team calculated that, if the ice mass loss on the western side of Antarctica continues to decrease as expected, in a few decades it's loss will outstrip any gains made on the eastern side of the continent.
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[[Category: Science]]
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[[Category: Politics]]

Revision as of 09:46, 29 July 2019

Arguments Against

The majority of climate scientists do not believe in man-made climate change

The number of climate scientists who believe in anthropogenic climate change is often cited at 97%, however, critics argue that 97% is not an accurate number because there has never been a study where every climate scientist in the world was asked if they believe in man-made climate change.

Scientists opinion of human-caused global warming.

Of course, real science is not a matter of popular opinion, but since not everyone can be a climate science expert, we must rely on the opinions of experts. Since 2003, there have been over a dozen research papers published on the expert opinions of climate scientists, and there are two facts that can be taken away from the data.

One, in every single paper published, the majority of climate change scientists do indeed believe that humans are causing climate change. Two, the percentage of scientists who believe humans are are causing climate change has been steadily growing for the past 15 years.

The sun accounts for most of the earth's warming

Prior to better scientific models of the solar system as it pertains to the earth, scientists believed the sun played the most significant role in the surface temperature of the earth. However, in 1995, an important paper showed that the sun accounted for only around 1/3 of the earth's recent warming (link), and, a paper in 2011, which was updated with better data, showed that the actual amount was much less (link).

Antarctica is actually gaining ice, not losing it

In 2015, glaciologist Jay Zwally published a paper with three other researchers in the Journal of Glaciology called "Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses" which presents measurements showing an increase of ice on the eastern side of Antarctica. Conservative media outlets pushed this story hard, often exaggerating the findings. However, Zwally's paper is the only one in the past several decades which shows an increase, all other published papers show a decrease in overall ice[1]. Zwally's colleagues point to two primary flaws in Zwally's research. First, while they accept that the surface level of the eastern side of Antarctica is rising, they disagree as to the speed of its rise, suggesting and improperly calibrated measurement system. Subsequent research fits this theory and show that the growth is about three times less than what Zwally measured[2]. A second area of contention is that Zwally's paper assumes the growth is ice rather than snow. Ice is over twice as dense snow, but the majority of climate scientists argue that the growth is snow, not ice.

Despite holding to his belief that Antarctica is gaining ice, Zwally does not argue against climate change. He still accepts that global sea levels are rising, "But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for[3]." Also, Zwally's own team calculated that, if the ice mass loss on the western side of Antarctica continues to decrease as expected, in a few decades it's loss will outstrip any gains made on the eastern side of the continent.