Climate Change

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

There has been some discussion on this topic under Politics, but I think this warrants its own thread so that we can dig a little deeper into the evidence and arguments.

this is a general definition from Wikipedia. I read through it and it seems perfectly acceptable to me.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather within the context of longer-term average conditions. Climate change is caused by factors such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions. Certain human activities have been identified as primary causes of ongoing climate change, often referred to as global warming.[1]

Scientists actively work to understand past and future climate by using observations and theoretical models. A climate record—extending deep into the Earth's past—has been assembled, and continues to be built up, based on geological evidence from borehole temperature profiles, cores removed from deep accumulations of ice, floral and faunal records, glacial and periglacial processes, stable-isotope and other analyses of sediment layers, and records of past sea levels. More recent data are provided by the instrumental record. General circulation models, based on the physical sciences, are often used in theoretical approaches to match past climate data, make future projections, and link causes and effects in climate change.

I have highlighted this part about all the natural causes that can cause climate change because this has been used in the previous thread to throw confusion. We are not ignorant of the fact that the climate changes due to natural causes, nor are we ignorant of the fact that all of these potential causes can make the science of predicting human influence more complicated.

But the discussion is primarily about human influences that we have control over. For example, your income is the result of many factors. If you have job, then income from that, if you have investments they will also factor in. If a distant uncle dies and leaves you a million dollars that will factor in. If you get sick, have a car accident, etc. All of these can factor in. Even so, most of us would focus on the the things we control when considering our income.