What’s Warming the World, really? The NASA / Bloomberg view.

This won’t close any debate – but lets try to keep to some facts.

I note in various comments threads on major energy media sites, and blogs, a lot of erudite financial and economic responses.

There is also a lot of “scientific” commentary as well, much in relation to global warming – whether it is man-made, or just a natural cycle of earthly activity. I add quotation marks, because the standard of accuracy or objectivity in anything categorised as scientific needs to be bit higher than anything branded opinion.

To the topic of warming itself (briefly) –  whichever root cause is championed, we need to provide our objective evidence, if we are to do the scientific label any justice.

So, if it is earthly cycles, which ones, and are they going to keep causing warmth, or revert to a cooler phase?

If man-made, how significant and what is the proof – essentially the whole IPCC / Paris COP-21 position and so on.

It could, indeed, be a combination.

In any event, we need to get some convergence on the answers, before entrenched debate on root causes acts as a brake on any inaction or action.

With that in mind, there is a recently updated report on background to the global warming debate on the Bloomberg energy site via its Quicktake series using NASA’s  methodology – see here. 

I do not pretend this can close any warming debate on the underlying natural vs man-made causes – but it is a referenced source from reputable enough organisations. You should expect something of similar quality from any line of counter-argument.

So,  it is a fact that the data in the link was developed by NASA’s Global Institute for Space Studies (GISS) using their mature and respected ModelE2 climate projection, and summarized by Bloomberg business journalists.

Thus, if you are in a debate with friends and family on this one – you can at least state with authority: according to NASA and Bloomberg, their conclusion is:

“Putting the possible natural (volcanoes, land use, solar changes, natural ozone and aerosols or orbital changes) and human causes of climate change alongside one another makes the dominant role of greenhouse gases plainly visible. The only real question is: what are we going to do about it ?”

Not conclusive, but worth remembering in any “scientific” discussion you get pulled in to.