hololeap

No, I understand that a small change can create a big effect. The whole reason I have been skeptical is because of the sheer level of emotional propaganda around global warming and little information about the science behind it. I remember seeing Al Gore having to use a cherry picker because his graph was too damn big, and thinking, "is this trying to scare me?" Then, I went to the various major websites to learn more, and all I got was information about the scientific consensus, but nothing to tell me why I should reach the same conclusion. Then, I see the pictures of the smokestacks and polar bears, the videos with ominous music and cars on the freeway zoomed too far in so you can see the heat distortion, the pictures of ostriches with their head in the sand implying that anyone who doesn't immediately believe the hype is an idiot, and still no real information about what evidence is leading the 97% of climate scientists to agree that AGW is a real phenomenon... it led me to be very suspicious and think that there was very little science behind the hype. I guess I was just looking in the wrong places for information. I still have some more questions about AGW, but I am going to continue to research this on my own and see what I can find for myself and then come back to this thread if I have any unanswered questions. There does seem to be more relevant, easy to understand information online than there used to be. But, I think that anyone who is a climate scientist or has any power within the scientific community should heavily discourage the kind of hype that is going on around AGW. It dilutes the facts and makes logical, intelligent folks highly skeptical since there is more out there trying to scare the public rather than educate them.

That makes perfect sense. Thanks for the info. My next question is: How can scientists determine how much humans have impacted the temperature of the planet? Putting all the speculation of the future aside, I would think that in order for the AGW conclusion to hold any weight, there must be some value or range of values calculated for the amount human activity has brought our current temperature above where it "should be". Given all the driving factors for global warming, how can they do this? I can understand that greenhouse gasses are a significant driver of global warming and that humans are a significant creator of greenhouse gasses. But, to conclude that human activity is significantly driving climate change seems, at best, an educated guess. Are there other ways of testing this hypothesis besides measuring the amount of greenhouse gasses we have released into the atmosphere?

I will admit that I am skeptical about man-made global warming, but not because I am in denial, nor because I am an idiot, nor because I am in bed with the oil industry. I simply haven't been given a satisfying explanation of why scientists believe that man is the biggest contributor to present global warming. Most of the websites and videos on the subject are full of reference to the scientific consensus, emotional pictures (think: polar bears swimming and cooling towers), and maybe a simple explanation of how the greenhouse effect works or a graph showing CO2 going up along with temperature towards the end of the last century. None of this proves that man is the biggest contributer to global warming, and I find it insulting that so many major websites avoid educating the public, especially when there is such a political push to "stop climate change". So, what leads the 97% of scientists to believe that man is the biggest contributor? How is it determined how much of the present greenhouse gasses are from humans and how much are from, say, volcanic activity? Is it hypothesized that man-made global warming would have specific effects on the atmosphere that differ from natural warming cycles? If so, have these been observed? I admit that I have not been able to get through any white papers on the subject because I am not familiar with the technical terminology, so I am hoping to get a complete explanation, but using terms that a college freshman could understand. Thanks!

I don't know a lot about number theory and I haven't taken any math classes higher than Calc 1, but I have been playing around with a question: How many exponents of 2 lie between each exponent of 10? i.e. 2, 4, 8 (3) 16, 32, 64 (3) 128, 256, 512 (3) 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192 (4) ... I did this using Ruby and got up to 20,000 decimal places (I don't own a supercomputer) and averaged the results of each exponent of 10. The result I got was an average of 3.322 exponents of 2 between each exponent of 10. I would like to know if this is a well-known problem and what this average is as the decimal places approaches infinity. I would also like to know if there is a way to express this problem as a mathematical formula. Any help would be appreciated. This is just for fun so no pressure.