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Global Warming is Real and is Manmade!

In ROUND 1 my opponent provides us with numerous sources (primarily a list of doctors and Ph.D's with apparent expertise on the subject) that discredit the claim that global warming is happening or that it is a human created phenomenon. If we pay close attention to what these sources are saying, we'll find that they're actually arguing two different, incompatable things--revealing that my opponent isn't solidly defending exactly where elevations in surface temperature are coming from. One of his sources asserts that the gradual increase in the Earth's surface temperatures can be hocked up to "flawed temperature measurements", because of expanding cities and urban development, which traps heat; hence recordings that show an elevation in Earth's surface temperature over the years are actually showing spikes in artificial heat caused by expanding city development. His other sources argue that global warming is a natural phenomona and that the measurements of gradually rising temperatures are authentic but should be attributed to natural long-term climate patterns on Earth. From these two positions we see that my opponent is arguing that global warming is either (1) not happening, or (2) happening but not human created. In this debate I will demonstrate why the third option--global warming is happening and is manmade--is the best, most credible point-of-view, particularly in light of the multitude of scientific data [1]. The Overwhelming Majority of Climate Scientists and Climate Experts Say Global Warming is Real, Manmade In ROUND 1 my opponent cites an impressive but brief list of "experts" that claim global warming is either not real or isn't human facilitated. Here he's using the fallacy of appeal to authority to sell us his position, particularly since he's not posting any solid data (only assertions) to back up his claims. How can I possibly defend myself against his impressive (but brief) list of experts? Simple. By posting an even larger list of climate scientists and climate experts that hold the opposing view. Of course if I did only this I would be commiting the same fallacy. So I must also provide data and solid evidence to demostrate that global warming is both authentic and manmade. My opponent posted a seemingly impressive list of "experts" to show that there are scientists and capable professionals that oppose the popular view on global warming and climate change. (Some of those "experts" he cites have no qualifications in climatology and meteorology.) So how many authentic climate scientists (the ones that actually do research on this subject) believe in anthropogenic (manmade) global warming? According to the surveys and studies conducted to answer this, virtually all of them do [2][3][4]! The truth is the experts my opponent cites belong to a tiny but vocal minority (the ones that actually do research in this field, I mean). A study published in 2013 that quantified the scientific concensus on manmade global warming in scientific literature found that an overwhelming 97% of all scientific research studies that investigated the issue in some way agreed with or confirmed anthropogenic global warming [2][3]. The authors that conducted the study meticulously sifted through 12,000 research journals published over the span of decades to reach their findings [2][3]. An independent study published the same year found that 2259 peer-reviewed climate articles authored by 9136 scientists agreed with manmade global warming; only one author out of all the climate articles reviewed in that study rejected anthropogenic global warming [4]. And the world's foremost authorities on climate change--like the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS), and the Japanese Metereological Agency, to name a few--all insist that global warming is real and manmade [5][6][7]. The UN's International Panel on Climate Change is by far the world's leading authority on climate change; made up of 195 member nations and consisting of 900 contributing scientists that investigate and report on the impact of a warming Earth, the panel is now 95% certain that global temperatures are rising and that humans are at fault [8][5]. Irrefutable Evidence that Global Warming is Authentic and that Humans are to Blame There is a plethora of unassailable evidence to show that global warming is real. Graphic data provided by the IPCC in one of its climate reports shows that most of the Earth's surface experienced an increase in temperature between 0.2 and 1.0 degree celsius between 1970 and 2004 (some places experienced a greater temperature increase; few places saw a temperature decrease): North America in particular has seen a dramatic increase in temperature (about 1 degree celsius) between 1955 to 2005, as depicted here (with some locations observing a more severe increase): To affirm the IPCC's data on the global temperature trend, data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS) shows that with comparison to the base year 1945 (taken as the surface temperature average), temperatures have been increasing since 1910, and have been increasing more rapidly over the last 3 decades (see graph directly below) [1]. This data is consistent with other global temperature records provided by the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, the Japanese Metereological Agency and the Met Office Hadley Center [1]. Since the base year 1945, the Earth's average surface temperature has risen by 0.56 degrees celsius; since 1910, the Earth's average surface temperature has risen by 1.02 degrees celsius [1]. NASA shows that 2013 was the 7th warmest year on record, with the years 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010 only being hotter--and the hottest years being 2010, 2005, 2007 (in that order) [1]. Data shows no reversal in the Earth's average temperature change, toward the 1945 base year average. The Japanese Metereological Agency shows global warming data almost identical to NASA's: The NASA website has a lengthy page devoted entirely to the evidence for anthropogenic global warming [1]. Like the IPCC and the Japanese Metereological Agency, the NASA website asserts that global warming is a real phenomenon impacting the globe. And what evidence is there of this? A lot. Satellite data shows that 2012 had the lowest quantity of Artic Sea Ice on record--a shocking 3.62 million square kilometers, or less than 50% of the quantity recorded in 1980 (see graph immediately below) [1]! Since 2012, some of that Artic Sea Ice has returned, but year-to-year oscillation is to be expected. NASA's Grace satellites "show that the land ice sheets in both Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass. The continent of Antarctica has been losing more than 24 cubic miles of ice per year since 2002" (see graph directly below) [1]. And satellite sea level measurements show oceanic sea levels rising rapidly--with the trend accelerating in the last two decades. Data from NASA missions Jason-1, Jason-2/OSTM shows oceanic sea levels rising on average 3.16 mm per year from 1993 to 2013; this is nearly twice the oceanic sea level increase from 1870 to 2000 (see graph immediately below) [1]. NASA points out that increasing sea levels is caused by two factors: "the added water coming from the melting of land ice, and the expansion of sea water as [the Earth] warms" [5]. As you can see, NASA takes the issue of global warming seriously, and the impacting effects of disappearing land and Artic Ice and rising sea levels refute the notion that global warming is only a metropolitan heat Island phenomena--one of the arguments that my opponent makes in ROUND 1. As data provided by the UN's IPCC, the Japanese Metereological Agency and NASA confirm, global surface temperatures are indeed rising. The 10 warmest years on record have occured in the last 16 years. The warmest year ever directly recorded was 2010--just four years ago [1]. The effects of global warming continue to be felt and show no sign of halting. Sea levels are rising, coastal land is disappearing, polar sea ice is vanishing, land ice is melting. And the greenhouse gas with the most radiative impact in the atmosphere--CO2--continues to be churned out at crippling levels [1]. Year after year the concentration only increases and the Earth gets hotter [1]. In ROUND 1, my opponent falsely claims that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are caused by global warming--that they do not contribute to it. These are his exact words: "Rising CO2 levels are a result of global warming, not a cause of it." But here he's being blatantly dishonest. It's a well-established scientific fact that carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas; its heat-trapping effects have been studied in laboratories throughout the world [9]. With the boom of the industrial revolution, which continues to expand into and dominate new countries on a yearly basis, human-induced global warming--through such actions as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation--has led to an unprecendented increase in CO2 concentrations. Never in the last 400,000 years has the CO2 concentration been quite so high, as the graph below provided by NASA indicates [1]. This is something I will go over in the next ROUND. [1] (http://climate.nasa.gov...) [2] (http://www.washingtonpost.com...) [3] (http://iopscience.iop.org...) [4] (http://www.policymic.com...) [5] (https://uk.news.yahoo.com...) [6] (http://www.giss.nasa.gov...) [7] (http://www.data.kishou.go.jp...) [8] (http://ipcc.ch...) [9] (http://en.wikipedia.org...)