Understanding Climate Science: Bite 1.4 - It's Us

Bite 3 of this series explained some observations we have made over the past 150 years that confirms the climate is indeed rapidly changing.

We also observe that Green House Gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere have been increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels:

- C02 by 50%, http://www.co2.earth

- CH4 by 280%, https://www.methanelevels.org

Whilst we may expect to see increasing temperatures and other changes as a result of human induced emissions from burning fossil fuels, can we be sure we are the cause? After all, the climate has changed in the past (albeit much slower), and those changes happened well before our industrial revolution.

This is the most critical question. If the recent changing climate is the result of external/natural causes then our only response is to learn to live with and adapt to those changes, with the possibility that we may not be able to adapt without huge loss of life in the biosphere. However, if we are the cause of the climate change, then we also have the potential to mitigate and reverse the effects, and return to the relative stability we’ve gotten used to over the past 8,000 years.

The answer to this critical question is unequivocal. We are the cause.

We know this because of all the scientific evidence that points to “the human fingerprints” of climate change.

The eminent climate scientist John Cook nicely summarizes this work, with references to many original scientific papers:

https://skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human...

Only the rising GHGs from fossil fuels is consistent with ALL the observations, and there are two that stand out:

- Whilst the troposphere is warming the stratosphere is cooling

- Nights are warming faster than days.

So, it’s us. That’s good news, because we can fix it.