|| Global Warming || Table of Contents ||

Based on the analysis of entrapped air from ice cores extracted from permanent glaciers from various regions around the globe, it has been demonstrated that global warming began 18,000 years ago, accompanied by a steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Humans are quite likely the cause of a large portion of the 80 ppm rise in CO2 since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and from a distance, it looks possible that increasing CO2 may cause atmospheric temperatures rise. However, on closer examination it is seen that CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes -- confirming that CO2 is not the primary driver of the temperature changes.

The real signature of greenhouse warming is not surface temperature but temperature in the middle of the troposphere, about 5 kilometers up. If global warming is occurring from an increasing greenhouse effect due to CO2 additions by humans the temperature of the middle troposphere should be warming faster than Earth's surface (1,2). However, the opposite has been happening-- which suggests either the surface temperature records are in error or natural factors, such as changes in solar activity, may be responsible for the slight rise in surface temperatures (approximately 0.6° C, globally) that appears to have occurred over the past century.

Interestingly, from 1999 to the present the temperature of the mid troposphere has actually decreased slightly and surface temperatures have ceased warming -- even as CO2 concentrations have continued to increase (3). This should not be happening if CO2 increases to the atmosphere are the primary driver of global warming.