Yes, unless you believe in coincidences and can come up with the coincidental cause.
These days, almost everybody agrees that the climate is warming. However, there is still disagreement as to how much of the warming is human caused. I started this site with an open mind, and I am still reading studies and modifying what I previously thought. You can find my listing of climate warming causes on this page.
Almost certainly, most of recent climate warming has been caused by humans. Any alternative theory must explain why temperatures stayed within a less than one degree C range for eight thousand years, but has been rising rapidly (and steadily, if you take pollution into account) since mid-19th century industrialization — by 1.8º C (3.2º F) as of this writing. If there is a non-human cause, it is a strange coincidence! I do not believe in such a coincidence. Do you?
Moreover, having studied every alternative possibility that I know of, I cannot find one that holds up scientifically. Lab tests as well as satellites show that greenhouse gases cause climate warming. Albedo (earth reflectivity) changes caused by humans also have caused climate warming. I provide on this site, on my pages discussing climate science, background relevant to the earth’s orbit, the sun, location in the galaxy, the oceans, land use changes, and volcanos .
The Covid lockdown did not disprove human cause, because human CO2 emissions are only about 8 % of plant and microbial emissions1 which vary from year to year. (It’s these additional human emissions that throw the carbon cycle out of balance.) While human emissions drive the average yearly increases in CO2 emissions, natural causes are almost entirely responsible for the fluctuations. A 7% reduction of human emissions during COVID is far to tiny to be detected. A 7% drop in the yearly human emissions is only a 1/2 percent of natural emissions. The average human-caused CO2 increase each year between 1916 and 1923 may be 2.4 ppm. A 7% reduction would bring this down to 2.232. The year before Covid emissions increase was less than this, only 2.0 ppm (parts per million)2.
Deniers that humans have caused the recent increases often cite past temperatue swings 1) in the last 8,000 years and 2) in the last 500 million years (and so do proponents of CO2 being the cause of climate warming).. These arguments are worthless, in my opinion, since we do not know all the conditions of these times. We do know most, if not all of the influences of today.
CO2 influence deniers also argue that since 1850 CO2 levels have not correlated with fluctuating temperatures. True, until you adjust the temperature for changes in air pollution. Then they correlate
In the chart below, the proxies from different regions and using different methods vary substantially, though the variance is less in the last 2,000 years.
Below are two graphs2 3showing how temperatures held steady for thousands of year, but have shot up by 1.1 C to 2016, and another 0.8º C as of this writing. This within the last 100 years, within a 1ºC range, and well below current temperatures. That puts today’s temperature higher than any maximum of any line on the first chart.
In the geological time frame, CO2 levels have closely correlated with temperature, except one era when they did not. Besides changes in the earth’s orbit, other influences include continent break up and movement, magma outflows on land and under the sea, meteorites, solar variation and changes in plants. Scientists dispute whether the CO2 changes caused or followed many of the temperature changes.
To repeat, in my opinion, we have insufficient scientific knowledge of long past conditions to draw any conclusions for today. We do know what is causing climate warming today.
See my discussion of the causes of climate warming here.
And as of this writing, despite all the publicity and efforts, on balance worldwide humans are accelerating climate warming and not slowing it. I discuss this here: Are we slowing climate warming?
On the page: What must we do to slow climate warming? and its sub-pages I discuss the importance of controlling methane, and why wind and solar efforts alone, though less controversial than nuclear, only can go part way to slowing greenhouse emissions.
And finally, I have many pages looking at possible but not actual causes of climate warming and the science behind the actual causes of the warming.
What is causing climate warming?
- See the graphic on my page on CO2: https://myclimatequestions.com/?page_id=343 ↩︎
- https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2021/05/03/why-covid-didnt-have-a-bigger-effect-on-co2-emissions/ ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png ↩︎
- https://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ ↩︎
