Global Warming: Fact or Fiction

Abstract

Global warming or climate change is an issue that is complex with supporters on both sides of the questions, real or not real? The data collection stations, methods of reading and interpreting the data as well as the computer models built to forecast future events have both proponents and detractors. There is also a financial interest in the outcome of this debate from both large fossil based fuel organizations to newer "green" energy companies.

Global Warming: Fact or Fiction

Global warming is a topic that is misunderstood and misrepresented by advocates on both sides of the discussion. Absolute claims are made and refuted with equal certainty while the real facts based on science are overlooked or ignored. In order to present this topic in as clear and unbiased manner as possible and to further educate members of the U.S. Congress on it, we will present both sides of this issue in this document.

As we begin this discussion it would be useful to define what is meant by "global warming". The attention given to the phrase by the mass media has in fact led to confusion around what we are really talking about, which is climate change on a global basis. Focusing, as the mass media tends to do, on the overall small increases in temperatures, masks the real potential issue which is elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels (Lamb, 2010). The open question in many scientific minds is, is man responsible for increased CO2 levels found in our world today?

Proponents of global warming or climate change can now point to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project which gathered temperature data beginning in 2009 and running through 2011 (Muller, 2011). This project, "which obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world" utilized a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians who developed a new analytical approach which has increased the certainty and reliability of the data (Muller, 2011). This method of analyzing data now removes much of the uncertainly that previously existed as data was gathered from the thousands of collections sites around the world.

Increased levels of CO2 in our atmosphere are not a matter to be questioned; everyone on both sides of this issue agrees this is a fact. The issue is whether or not these increased levels are the result of the activities of man.

"This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution" (National