Another interesting read...

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html

You're either supremely ignorant or totally nuts if you think a yearly rainfall variance is evidence of global warming.  By that logic, since there was a record low temperature in X town yesterday, we must be headed for another ice age. 

Agreed, I think most people on both sides of the issue are merely expressing what they believe to be the right way to handle the information we have. 

Well put, sir, probably a lot more eloquently than my crude efforts. 

To all who have said something like this for anywhere (ie it is hot, raining more, flooding, etc), you realize that this is not evidence of global warming, don't you? Even temperatures increasing are not evidence of global warming, especially human-caused global warming.

Here is a chart ( http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wcstates.htm ) showing record low temperatures. Some are from the 1800s and some from the 1990s. In other words, every short-term variation does not equal long-term trend, something which is true for temperature, precipitation, extreme weather events like hurricanes, etc. Ask hurricane experts and they will tell you that hurricane variances are caused by ocean current patterns, for example.

Bottom line, do not try to tell us that because last year it was hot means global warming is absolutely, positively true because that is rather stupid.

Storms also tend to occur in natural 30 year cycles. The last one ended in the 70s, and a new one is kicking in. The main difference is that in the interim we've had far more people moving to southern, coastal locations (in the US anyway), and, since hurricanes haven't been like this since they moved there, the assume that the spike is something new.

If the Sun is responsible for an increase in solar activity, and hence global warming - then this makes taking action on global warming even more important and urgent.

This isn't some theoretical debate on whether we are affecting the planet, and that we shouldn't - its the actual physical increase in temperature (and the results) that is important.

Otherwise we just sit here and get fried - and in the end just say "Well, it wasn't our fault...".

I haven't done enough research on it, but I can't imagine our global warming trends could be the sole result of increased solar activity. Its simply too obvious, and something that is quite easily measured.

It also seems quite "suspicious" that for the billions of years that the Earth/Sun have co-existed (and a couple of thousand years of recorded history) - its the same 50 years that humans have had a significant impact on our own climate - that the sun has caused the temperature differential (and one that perfectly matches scientific predictions and equations based on AWG).

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BTW, elprincipe: your link is broken...

"Here is a chart (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wcstates.htm) showing record low temperatures. Some are from the 1800s and some from the 1990s."

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And Timmah!, reading from your last link on the warming about Mars... here is a section from the article. Basically no one agrees with the guy claiming the sun is responsible for warming:

" "His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.

"And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." (Related: "Global Warming 'Very Likely' Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)

Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."

Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" [September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said."

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This is a good discussion though, and its forcing me to research and learn more about the related topics... so keep it coming! 

There are a lot of factors behind these changes, mainly inner ones. Some planets like Uranus have cooled: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/eprint/ur149/Young2001Uranus.pdf

You have understood the greenhouse pheonmenon incorrectly. Greenhouse gases like water vapour (non-cloud) and CO2 absorb the heat, they don't reflect it. Clouds do reflect heat, but that's not the greenhouse effect, that's simply the reflecting effect that free H2O doesn't have. Clouds actually have a strong cooling effect because they reflect radiation back to space before it hits the ground.

Another interesting article. It talkes some about a documentary that aired in Great Britain called 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. I'd like watch it as a counter-point to algore's movie.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=440049&in_page_id=1965&in_page_id=1965&expand=true

Here's a link to their website. They have some interesting views on the global warming debate.

http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/

And another point, scientists in the 70s were terrified of GLOBAL COOLING because the temperature had been steadily decreasing since the 40s (we pumped out TONS of CO2 in that time, but temperatures went DOWN).

Here's some Scientific 'Consensus' about global cooling in the 70s. Once again they are trying to create mass hystaria by predicting long-term (thousands of years) patterns using short-term (the last 10-30 years) data, then blaming it on 'evil industry'. You'd think these scientists would learn!

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population.

-- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971)

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer

-- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000

-- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.

-- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion

-- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century

-- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976

There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it.

-- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.

-- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.

-- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)"

Taken from 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' website.