Global Warming Myths

Updated on: January 18, 2024
By: Greeniacs Team
Global Warming

Almost everywhere you turn these days you hear about global warming, climate change, crazy weather patterns, just to name a few terms being thrown around! Along with this conversation, a lot of misinformation has been passed along. Global warming is a complex scientific issue with a lot at stake, so it’s almost impossible not to get lost in the details of the debate. Let’s discuss the TOP TEN MYTHS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING and why they are wrong!

There is No Concrete Evidence, Only Computer Models
- The argument: Critics of climate change claim that there is no actual evidence of significant global warming.¹ In fact, they say, scientists are only relying on computer models, which are notorious for being imperfect and unable to predict the future pattern of a complex climactic system with any real certainty.²
- Why it’s a myth: A common misperception is that global warming predictions are mere conjecture. In fact, climate scientists have compiled volumes of information from a variety of sources, including satellite data, radiosondes, boreholes, glaciers, sea ice, sea levels, proxy reconstructions, and permafrost. These all point to a rapid global warming trend.³ In addition, these “mere” computer models have already correctly predicted warming of ocean surface temperatures, the energy imbalance between sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, the amplification of warming in the Arctic, warming of the troposphere, and the current continuing and accelerating warming surface trend.⁴ Although there is a limit to the models’ ability to predict the effects of smaller influences on warming, such as the sun or short-term weather, they can predict how the most dominant climatic forces are causing a broad and long-term global warming trend.⁵
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There Is No Scientific Consensus
- The argument: Skeptics argue that there is still a huge scientific debate on the existence of anthropogenic global warming. They point to the Petition Project, which includes 31,000 scientists who disagree that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.⁶ In particular, between 2004 and 2008, less than half of total published scientists on climate change actually endorsed anthropogenic global warming, or global warming due to human activity.⁷
- Why it’s a myth: 97.5% of climate scientists who are actively publishing climate papers think that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. While only 82% of all scientists agree, science is a very broad field of study, and only climate scientists have the qualifications to give a professional analysis. In fact, between 1993 and 2003, not one peer-reviewed research paper rejected the consensus climate change model.⁸ Although it is true that only 38% of total published papers on climate change explicitly mentioned acceptance of anthropogenic global warming, it is also true that 48% did not take a stance on anthropogenic global warming. Some claim that this demonstrates doubts about anthropogenic global warming, but in reality, these papers largely implicitly accept this as a premise and move on to discuss more detailed issues as a result. Only 6% actually explicitly reject anthropogenic global warming.⁹
The Earth Is Actually Cooling
- The argument: Graphs of global surface and atmospheric temperatures demonstrate that the globe stopped warming in 1998 and has since been on a cooling trend. This is in violation of the projected steady increases by previous climate change models, suggesting that climate change models are not a reliable predictor of future trends.
- Why it’s a myth: This is misleading on two accounts. First, the year 1998 witnessed the strongest El Niño event of the century, skewing the yearly temperature far above the overall trend. It is false to say that the overall trend is not there simply because there was one anomalous event that was particularly warm. Second, it is not enough to simply look at the land and atmospheric temperatures, since the vast majority of the Earth’s heat content is stored in the ocean. A graph of the global heat storage demonstrates a much steadier accumulation of heat.¹⁰
Urban Heat Islands Falsely Increase Temperature Records
- The argument: According to some critics, scientists only believe there is a global warming trend because they are looking at the weather records from increasingly urban areas. Dubbed the “Urban Heat Island Effect”—the combination of pollution, a lack of shade from trees, and human activity all raise temperatures in the city, causing a false “increase” in temperature records from weather stations in developing cities around the world.¹¹Why it’s a myth: Climate scientists are actually well aware of this effect, and have painstakingly taken precautionary measures to avoid any miscalculation. In fact, a comparative analysis of rural to urban temperature records suggests that the actual disparity is negligible. Even more interesting, 42% of urban temperature records are cooler than their rural counterparts because weather monitors are placed in cool city parks rather than in the most industrial areas.¹² Even so, weather stations consist of only a small portion of the temperature measurements climate researchers use, all of which indicate a global warming trend.¹³
Current Global Warming Is Part of A Natural Cycle
- The argument: Some charge that climate scientists falsely claim that current warming patterns are an artificial anomaly, as there have long been vacillations between ice ages and warmer periods. In fact, the Holocene Climactic Optimum, around 6,000 years ago, was hotter than current temperatures.¹⁴
- Why it’s a myth: Climate scientists are also well aware of the fact that there are natural global cycles that have caused warming in the past and what has caused them. Using simple elliptical calculations, scientists have long determined that the Milankovitch cycles are due to the wobbling orbit of the earth around the sun, the wobbling axis of the earth, and the fluctuating angle of the earth’s tilt.¹⁵ (For an extensive discussion of the Milankovitch cycles, please read: http://www.wordpress-837916-4114959.cloudwaysapps.com/GreeniacsArticles/Milankovitch-Cycles.html). Unfortunately, none of these can explain global warming today. Looking merely at these natural cycles, one would conclude that earth should be on a downward cooling trend at this point. However, even the most dramatic upward spikes in the graph are ten times slower than the current warming trend.¹⁶ Also, asserting that the Holocene Climactic Optimum was hotter is misleading, since that was only during the summer in the northern hemisphere. In that same year, the winters in the southern hemisphere were also much colder due to a tilted axis, averaging globally to no more than current temperatures.¹⁷
Nothing Proves CO2 Causes Global Warming
- The argument: Many agree that climate change is occurring, but they do not agree that it is caused by human activity. Just because both carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and temperatures have increased does not necessarily mean that one causes the other, when there are possibly unknown variables causing each trend independently.¹⁸
- Why it’s a myth: There is technically no “proof” in science. Even the iron law of gravity, a historically reinforced observation, can only be assumed to remain constant in the future and throughout the universe.¹⁹ In fact, climate scientists draw upon the historical record of the Earth, the known properties of molecules, and an immense amount of data and studies searching for any other possible reason for such a drastic upward warming trend.²⁰ No other explanation comes close.²¹ Climate scientists have observed the historical effects of positive energy imbalance on warming, and know that carbon dioxide has created the same radiative forcing (where more energy is coming into the planet than is going back out into space), even if it has not before been the initiator of this energy imbalance.²²
Carbon Dioxide Lags Behind Temperature
- The argument: Some critics of the carbon dioxide emission theory argue that carbon dioxide cannot be the cause of global warming because carbon dioxide levels increase after temperatures increase.
- Why it’s a myth: Although it is true that carbon dioxide causes a temperature increase, the inverse is also true. The historical record of atmospheric traces supports this relationship, since the large increases in temperatures during the Milankovitch cycles cannot be explained by orbital or axis fluctuations alone.²³ Carbon dioxide and high temperatures create a positive feedback loop, which is why the earth is so sensitive to seemingly tiny changes in its atmosphere.²⁴
Scientists Ignore Water Vapor’s Greenhouse Effects
- The argument: Some believe that climate scientists, and especially the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Scientists, ignore the fact that water vapor contributes to nearly all of the current trend global warming. It is conspiratorial for climate scientists to call carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas but for then not to mention water vapor.
- Why it’s a myth: Climate scientists actually do believe that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, but its effect accounts for only about 60-70% of global warming. More importantly, water vapor is only a feedback effect of much longer-lasting greenhouse gases. Water vapor condenses from the atmosphere in less than three months, while carbon dioxide molecules will remain in the atmosphere for centuries. Because only carbon dioxide remains long enough to accumulate in the atmosphere, only it can be held responsible for the long-term trend of global warming. As demonstrated by historical record of volcano eruptions, the increased temperatures do then cause a significant amount of evaporation, which then amplifies the energy imbalance effect. Therefore, it can increase as a result of another effect, but is not sufficient by itself to explain the significant rise in temperature.²⁵
The Sun’s Variation Causes Global Warming
- The argument: The sun undergoes much natural and unpredictable variation, which causes it to emit more solar radiation at certain periods. Sunspots are associated with higher solar intensity, and the number of sunspots may have doubled in the past century.²⁶ Plus, one study suggests that the solar wind from the increased sunspots helps to minimize cosmic radiation, which decreases water vapor and allows the sun to shine through.²⁷ Combined, these sun effects can more than explain global warming.²⁸
- Why it’s a myth: This is a complex argument, but in sum, none of its components are sufficiently backed up with evidence. The first assertion, the sun’s solar radiation is causing global warming, is actually the opposite of the truth. Solar radiation has decreased over the past 35 years, while the temperature has continued to increase.²⁹ The second assertion is technically true, but the small increase in solar heat with sunspots could not nearly account for the increase in global warming. The third assertion is the least backed up by evidence. If it were true, then global cloud cover should have decreased over the past century, which it has not. Also, the graphs in the study contained arithmetic errors, creating false correlations. After the corrections, there was neither a correlation between global warming and solar activity nor a correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover.³⁰ As a result, none of these explanations are plausible.
Other Planets are Warming As Well
- The argument: There is photographic evidence of warming on other planets in the solar system. Just like on Earth, glaciers are melting. If other planets are experiencing the same warming, it’s probably due to a common factor like the sun. Therefore, it’s impossible to say that global warming is caused by anything particular on Earth.³¹
- Why it’s a myth: If the sun were the cause, this would not explain why only 6 of the 100 bodies in the solar system have shown evidence of warming. Although it is true that there are photographs of ice melting on some planets, Uranus is actually cooling. Because the observations have been so sporadic, most of these changes are well understood by other phenomena. The Mars photographs were taken during and after a dust storm. Neptune is still undergoing summer (one Neptunian orbit is 164 earth years). Jupiter’s storms happened to have converged.³² Unlike on Earth, these snapshots of evidence are simply too few in number to make any meaningful extrapolation about an unusual planetary warming.³³