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Climate change is very complex and the science is still unfolding, leaving plenty of room for debate. But I have settled on the following three reasons to believe. Taken together, they have led me to an inescapable conclusion: Man-made emissions are forcing climate change.
One: The Greenhouse Effect. The insulating effect of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) is well-documented bedrock science going back to 1859, when John Tyndall conducted his pioneering experiments. The sun's energy arrives as visible light and leaves as infrared energy. Tyndall proved conclusively that greenhouse gases absorb infrared energy, blocking it from passing through the atmosphere to outer space. This in turn controls the temperature of the atmosphere.
Two: The Industrial Revolution. In 1829, British coal production was 15 million tons. In 2005, China's coal production was 2,204,729,000 tons. In 1901, American automobile production was 3,219. By 2012, China is expected to produce 16 million cars. Common sense tells us that burning all that coal and driving all those cars over the last couple of centuries has created a lot of CO2 that made its way into the atmosphere.
Three: Chaos Theory. Small changes introduced into a system can lead to very big changes, the so-called butterfly effect. Again, chaos theory is bed rock science, demonstrated in thousands of experiments involving many different processes.
So let's put it all together. If you start out with an atmosphere that contains a certain level of greenhouse gases that results in a certain average temperature and then the industrial revolution injects a massive amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, chaos theory tells us that SOMETHING has to change. Logic says that at least one component of that change will be warmer temperatures in the atmosphere because that is what greenhouse gases do.
Is it really as easy as 1, 2, 3? I think so. Just bear in mind that climate is the sum of many different processes, of which greenhouses gases are just one, so the net effect may be quite different depending on where you live. But have no doubt that there will be effects. We are already seeing early indicators that I believe will have hardened into long-term trends by the time my grandchildren are in their 30's.
This article first appeared in PlanetRestart.org.
