During my senior year of high school I took a college level geology class, and used my new found knowledge to do my final class presentation on the causes and effects of global warming. I remember coming home to my mom (who was a global warming skeptic) and providing her with all the facts I had learned in class and her responding, "Well if the Earth is really warming, then why do we still have snow?" After taking my class, I can't help but slowly shake my head whenever someone asks me this question. But I understand why people may be skeptic of global warming, because there is a large misunderstanding as to what global warming is.
Looking at global warming strictly from a geological standpoint, climate is described as, “highly variable, and is constantly changing as time progresses and conditions change." In short, the global climate is constantly changing, and has been since the beginning of time. Geologists agree that an increase in atmospheric temperature is a result of both "natural and anthropocentric causes", but also note that, “concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for many thousands of years.” So what does this mean? It means that global climate change has, and always will happen naturally, but in the past several years humans have played a part in accelerating the Earth's natural climate change process.
Natural causes of global warming are forest fires, volcanic eruptions, natural greenhouse gases, and changes in Earth's orbit. Man made influences on global warming include deforestation, pollution, and the burning of fossil fuels. All causes of climate change, whether natural or anthropocentric, have one thing in common, they release high amounts of CO2. Simply put, the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the hotter the Earth will be, and we have began to see this already. Global mean temperatures are higher now than they have been in the past 500-1000 years. It is important to note that though this increase in temperature would happen eventually naturally, humans have been a significant cause of increase since the 1950's.
So is the Earth really getting warmer? Yes. Though this would have eventually happened naturally, humans have played a role in accelerating the Earth's natural climate change process. The Earth's natural climate change process is a delicate balancing act between naturally rotating through warming and cooling trends.
Through the carelessness of humans, the delicate balance has been disrupted and if continued could wield serios consequences.
