There’s not a lot of data you need to understand “global warming”. In fact, everything you need to understand it, and make your own informed decision requires only a couple of pages and a few charts to review. You can listen to the doomsayers, or, if you’re interested in the real scientific data, and the truth, read on.

In the beginning.

First off, to understand global warming, it’s important to understand a little background about the Earth. Currently, we believe the Earth was formed approximately four billion years ago from dust and gases that were circling our newly formed sun.

Massive amounts of gas, rock, dust and debris we’re swirling in odd orbits around our sun. Much of the lighter material, mostly gases, was further out from our sun, while the heavier dust and rock had been pulled closer.

As the gases coalesced they formed the outer planets, largely made of hydrogen and helium (although there’s plenty of methane and other complex hydrocarbons).

As the inner solar system coalesced, debris and rock would hurtle at thousands of miles per hour, smashing into the rapidly forming proto-planets. Each impact would become more violent as the planets gained more mass and gravity, pulling debris in faster and faster. By the time the melee began to settle down, the Earth was a red hot, molten ball of rock.

And this is how they say the Earth began; molten hot, covered in a thick blanket of carbon dioxide, four billion years ago.

In the middle.

Since its violent beginning the Earth has been cooling. After forming a solid crust on its surface, eventually the earth cooled enough that liquid water formed. After hundreds of millions of more years, it had cooled enough in some places that some forms of microscopic life had formed.

Over the ensuing billions of years, the temperature of the Earth gradually continued to decline, based on rules we call “thermodynamics”, which essentially say that heat moves from warmer places (earth) to colder places (space). And this process would continue cooling our planet.

The chart above documents the general trend over the last 500 million years, showing the latest bit of cooling. Interestingly, approximately 50 million years ago there was a temperature spike. Many believe this was caused by a large asteroid strike, which raised the temperature back up again sharply for a short period of time and wiped out the dinosaurs. But what’s important to note is the continuation of the long term cooling trend. (Note that the time scale on this chart is non-linear, stretching out as it approaches the current day).

Even more recently, the last 65 million years.

In recent millennia, the Earth does indeed seem to have reached a “tipping point”, although it's not the same one we often hear about in the news, or from politicians. And of all places, Antarctica is leading the world into this bold, new future.

Approxmiately thirty two million years ago, the Earth had cooled enough that Antartica froze over. On the plus side, after a few million years, it thawed. But alas, then it froze over again (about 15 million years ago), and has remained frozen ever since.

The following chart shows the cooling trend continuing over the past 65 million years (note that the right of the chart is further back in time, and the temperature gauge is also on the right). Also, the periods of Antarctic glaciation and thawing are marked.

Today.

And finally, documenting our most recent history in as much detail as we have, is the Vostok Ice Core. These ice cores are drilled and then pulled from the ground at a research station on the south pole. The long core of ice that's extracted is then carefully documented and "shaved" into razor thin layers, with sucessively deeper layers representing periods that are further back in time. Each ultra thin layer is carefully examined for dust, CO2, and other properties, giving us a snaphsot of the past. And as far as a snapshot goes, it's the best "close-up" we have on what would be geologically called Earths "recent" climate.

This Vostok chart shows detail on the last half million years only, and is critical to understand what is happening to our planet now, and what is likely to happen in the near future.

Shown above in blue, the Earths temperature has briefly peaked five times in the last 500,000 years or so, each time at a temperature that appears to be just a few degrees celsius higher than todays average temperatures (the temperature scale shown on the left represents the difference from today, in degrees celsius).

Each of the blue peaks in the data represents one of these warming periods. During these peaks the glaciers and polar ice cap melted, the plants grew, and life flourished around the globe (just as is happening today).

Strangely, the global warming doomsayers are making a big deal regarding the melting of the arctic ice, and polar ice cap. What they're not pointing out is that all of the arctic ice is going to melt again, just as it did during the prior ice age cycles shown in the Vostok graph above. Again, the polar ice cap and arctic ice is all going to melt, and this melting is 100% natural (just as it did during the previous warming cycles). It's certainly not a sign of global warming, it's appears to be simply history repeating itself, just before we plunge into the next ice age.

If you look at the green line in the graph, atmospheric CO2 concentrations trail the temperature increases, not lead them. This would tend to indicate several things, including that CO2 is not the primary cause of the previous cycles of global warming, and perhaps it's quite the opposite (that warming is a process which causes more natural CO2 to enter into the atmosphere, for example).

As an aside, if you're really curious whether someone knows a lot about the Earths recent natural climate cycles, ask them how much of the arctic ice is "supposed" to melt; you'll rarely have a global warming alarmist reply that the correct answer is "all of it" (makes you wonder...).

In between each of these blue peaks, for extended periods of time the global average temperature dropped 6 to 8 degrees celsius below todays average temperature (that's roughly 14-18 degrees Fahrenheit). And six to eight degrees cooler in the arctic circle, can literally make a world of difference.

At the beginning of the last glaciation cycle, after the surface of the Arctic Ocean had frozen over again, thousands of years of cold and incessant snowfall caused mountains of snow to pile up. As thousands of more years of cold passed, more and more arctic snow piled and piled, forming massive glaciers.

And after more and more centuries of continued cold and snowfall, the glaciers would be pressed southward by their own staggering weight. Three mile tall walls of ice would lurch forward, shearing mountains and carving valleys.

Grinding forests into the ground as they moved, they truly were "destroying the planet".

Creating enough snow and ice to feed and grow these moving three mile tall glaciers would require copious amounts of water. And to that end, we have vast supplies, oceans full. But to pile and compress snow and ice over 15,000 feet thick, to begin to engulf the globe in a single, gigantic glacier, even all of our oceans would not be enough.

After tens of thousands of years of glacier formation, much of the water would run dry (the last globe encircling mountain of ice made it as far south as the Baltimore area before the water started to run out!).Global sea levels had fallen by over 200 feet! (all of this is well documented, there's a lot of physical evidence that many of us can walk outside and see for ourselves).

You’ll notice in the Vostok chart that dust is also recorded (shown in red), and appears to increase rapidly towards the end of each long period of glaciation.

Why would a coating of dust start showing up in the snow on the south pole (Vostok is in Antartica) tens of thousands of years after the glaciers started forming? The straightforward answer is that much of the oceans had evaporated, and precipitated in the arctic, creating more ice. But with much of the oceans gone (don't forget, sea levels dropped more than 200 feet!), the exposed sea floor would become dry, then barren… and finally sandy, then dusty.

For a planet whose surface was largely water, the Earth had become a lot drier (and dustier) around the equator.

And so, towards the end of these glacial periods, when much of the Earths water was trapped in the glaciers, the wind would pick up dust from the dried sea beds and the expanding deserts. Eventually, some of the dust would land on the glaciers, darkening them. Over time, and with enough dust, they would absorb more heat, helping to bring us back to the melting stage.

The future.

In the long view, the Earth is cooling. We’ve begun oscillating in and out of increasingly longer and longer glacial periods. The Vostok Ice Core data indicates that we’re about to enter another ice age which appears will last longer than 100,000 years, perhaps even greater than 120,000 years.

At some point in the not too distant future, barring some remarkable force (more powerful than 600 billion billion tons of rapidly cooling planet), a reasonable conclusion would be that the Earth will have cooled so much that it will enter a glacial period, and never recover.

If you’ve seen Star Wars, the planet Hoth comes to mind.

(Well, the scientists studying the sun will tell you we're in for even bigger trouble in 500 million years or so, as the sun is expected to start heating up in preparation for a big "blowout" in a few billion years... but that's another hub...)

Summary.

It seems fairly straightforward when reviewing the data to understand what’s going on.

• The Earth has been cooling since its formation.
• The Earth has now cooled to the point where it is beginning to oscillate between a temperate climate and a glaciated one.

These appear to be the facts, based on the scientific data (including the data above) and our understanding of the formation and history of the Earth. They're as irrefutable as the glaciers themsleves.

If you carefully consider the long term temperature record, as well as the recent climate data for the Earth, the most likely climate developments would appear to be:

• The Earth will continue to cool through thermodynamic radiation, and will cool even further.
• The Earth will eventually cool beyond this “oscillating” phase, and permanently enter a glaciated stage.

Given this background, some obvious questions are:

Q: If the Earth is generally cooling over time, why are we so concerned about global warming?

A: According to the Vostok Ice Core data, we are reaching the peak of a thawing cycle before the next glacial period, which will likely last for more than 100,000 years. It appears to be this last bit of thawing which has caused some concern. But don’t worry – Mother Nature knows nothing of our self-importance, or our arrogance. She'll continue on, wielding awesome forces, and eventually crush our cities underneath miles of glaciers. Given the vast scale of the Earth, and the constant “leaking” of heat from its core, there’s likely little or nothing we can do to prevent, or even slow these processes.

Q: Why would a “consensus” of scientists all agree that “man made global warming” is real?

A: Good question. First off, many would argue that there’s not a consensus (For instance, these 30,000 scientists: http://www.petitionproject.org/ ). Big business now controls the media in the US, controlling what we hear, including whether we hear that there is a consensus or not. Also, there’s an abundance of money for studies and research that support business objectives, and a relative dearth of funds for studies and research that do not. As far as businesses motives go, selling expensive equipment to limit CO2, to “green” our engines and electricity, or to raise fuel and energy prices would be seemingly obvious ones. Secondly, natural short term "global warming" is actually happening; we're nearing the end of the (perfectly natural) final warming stage before the next period of glaciation. It seems clear, based upon the data above, that we're simply repeating the same pattern of glaciation the Earth has recently fallen into.

Q: But, but, if we blanket our planet in CO2, that will trap the heat, and our continued burning of fuel will then cause the planet to go into some sort of "greenhouse" effect, and we'll overheat, won't we?

A: Actually, the Earth began with most of the atmosphere as CO2, unlike the tiny fraction that's present today. And even though the Earth's atmosphere was largely CO2, the heat still leaked out faster than it came in, the surface still cooled and hardened into rock, and is continuing to cool. Another way to think about the cooling is: If you took a hot marble and snugly fit it inside a styrofoam container, would it eventually cool to room temperature? (Yes eventually) The same is true for the Earth, except we don't even have styrofoam. The molten rock still at the center of our Earth is cooling. It will eventually cool so much that it hardens into solid rock. And no amount of CO2 in our atmosphere has, or can stop it (or even styrofoam). (Yes geologists, I know there's nuclear material inside the Earth, but it's only going one way, depleting - eventually even the iron core will solidify).

Conclusion.

As I said at the beginning of this hub, you've got the basic information regarding our climate and what's been going on, both long term and in recent history (well, recent as far as geological time goes).

And although I've never won an Oscar, I do believe that real facts and solid logic are far more meaningful than following the latest pop-culture trend or catching the latest fad.

So the next time someone tells you that you’re “destroying the planet”, think about the three mile thick glacier that will be bearing down on your city within the next few thousand years.

Sometimes I just grin and reply, "Don't you believe in glaciers?"

_______________________________

Update:

Since the time I wrote this (about 6 months ago), a major scandal has broken out. It seems the esteemed University of East Anglia got hacked. Thousands of emails from this prestigious organization, a major contributor to the IPCC reports, were released to the public.

Analysis of the leaked correspondence between the Universities CRU and other climate scientists around the globe reveal an unprecedented pattern of deception aimed at hiding the raw climate data, and instead providing false "adjusted" data in order to bolster their preconceived notion that climate change is anthropogenic (man-made). Further, the emails also reveal a pattern of coercion within the scientific community, asserted by IPCC related scientists - significant efforts at shutting out any and all skeptics, including entire scientific journals that published articles bearing the slightest earmarks of skepticism.

Finally, Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, perhaps the most vocal global warming alarmist, wrote the following in a 2005 email to a colleague: "The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn't statistically significant." - Dr. Jones apparently didn't consider the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on fraudulent global warming R&D (since 1998) as "statistically significant", (while in fact the Earth was cooling, and he knew it).

And now global warming sounds a lot more like a religion than it sounds like science.