Behind the climate changes, it is the paw of the human species. The vast majority of specialists agree on the fact, detailed to a new time in a report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) presented on Monday 8 October. However, publications shared widely on social networks in recent days say the opposite. Has the to believe, the man would not be “for nothing” in the global warming. But if these assertions may seem justified at first glance, they resist poorly to the examination of the facts. That said the rumor
Several articles published in recent days, including by the sites Wikistrike.com or Reseauinternational.net (two publications that appear to us to be unreliable in the Décodex) bring to the fore the statements of Werner Munter, a Swiss specialist of avalanches, “which” board night and day for three years on the global warming “. The latter explains that he ” does not dispute the warming [climate] itself “, but the fact that it would be caused by human activity. It for it in advance several arguments :
The global warming in progress would just be a natural cycle, among others (” nothing in the last 10 000 years, there have been five peaks of temperatures comparable to the one in which we live “) ;The man is only responsible for only a small amount of greenhouse gas emissions (” there’s a little less than 0.5 % in the atmosphere, and a maximum of 5 % of this amount is attributable to the man […] And they want us to believe that this tiny proportion due to man is a disaster ? “) ;Other planetary phenomena would be at work, such as changes in the intensity of solar radiation. And ” whatever it is, it is arrogance to believe that 150 years of industrialization, we have changed the climate. The nature is much stronger than the man, we are not the masters of the Earth ! “WHY It IS FALSE
The statements of Werner Munter stated in these articles have any of the same : they are taken from an interview he granted to the swiss newspaper in The Morning, published in may 2014. Above all, his assertions are questionable on the merits. Let’s take them point by point.
1. The argument time is not the road
It is quite fair to remember that the climate has varied quite natural throughout the history of the Earth. What Werner Munter occult, on the other hand, it is the speed and magnitude of warming.
According to the latest report of the IPCC, the global warming was approximately at 0.87 °C over the period 2006-2015 compared to the average of the years 1850-1900. Except startle the world’s greatest, the threshold of 1.5 °C will be reached between 2030 and 2052, and the overheating could be of the order of 5.5 °C at the end of the century.
A study published in the journal Science in 2013 concluded that after being refreshed for the next 5 000 years, the earth’s climate has rapidly increased since the 1800’s. It would now be higher than the levels estimated over 90 % of the last 10,000 years. It is particularly this observation that brings the experts to estimate the recent climate change as an irregularity.
In summary, the current global warming is nothing ordinary, contrary to what Mr. Munter.
2. Human activity has increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
Werner Munter denies that human activity could have lead to an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. But here also, he uses an argument that is misleading. It is quite right that considerable amounts of CO2 are emitted each year without any human intervention. It is also true that the oceans, seas, or forests, for example, absorb a part of it.
However, it is undeniable that the human part of CO2 emissions has exploded in recent decades. The man produced 1.5 billion tons of CO2 in 1950 ; this amount has been multiplied by more than twenty to 36.3 billion tonnes issued in 2016.
Result : the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has also increased strongly since the late 1800s, while it is estimated that it had stagnated during the preceding centuries. Human activity has therefore been, once again, a real effect.
concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased sharply since the beginning of the Twentieth century This graph represents the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since the year 1000, in parts per million (ppm, 1 ppm = 1 mg/kg). To improve readability, the y-axis starts at 225 ppm. Sources : National oceanic and atmospheric administration, Carbon dioxide information analysis center
It is therefore wrong to assert, as does the expert in avalanches, that a man would only have a marginal role in the emission of CO2.
Read : relatively stable since the year 1000, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 40 % in a century
3. The natural factors cannot explain alone the current warming
The sudden increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is of concern because it is a greenhouse gas that promotes global warming. The combination of this indicator with the other factors of climate change of human origin corresponds quite well to the global warming observed since decades.
In theory, natural factors such as solar radiation or volcanic eruptions have certainly played a role in climate change in the past. But according to the vast majority of specialists, the combination of these factors with other natural elements would have been a contribution to virtually zero on the climate during the recent period. In clear, what are the human factors, and not natural, which have had a decisive influence in the warming period (see our detailed explanation in this infographic).
Read also : How man is upsetting the balance of climate on Earth
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