01 Climate Forcing Factors

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  • What impacts the climate? In order of importance they are: Solar output, variations in the Earths Orbit (Milankovitch cycle), Volcanism, Meteorological events, Plate Tectonics, Ocean Variability, Radiative forcing (greenhouse effect is a small part of this), Flora and Fauna
  • Radiative forcing is one of the weakest of the forcing factors impacting the Earth's climate. The greenhouse effect is a second weakest part of radiative forcing. And CO2 is a very small part of the greenhouse effect. And man contributed a minuscule amount of CO2.
  • Every part of forcing factors are still debated, especially the important ones carbon sequestration, cloud albedo, and CO2 scrubbing (how fast can the earth correct for increases in CO2). If the earth wasn't a self-balancing system, then why didn't we cook-off in the last 4.5B years, or back when we had 10x the CO2 we have today?

Forcing Factors

What impacts the climate? Almost everything. The Earth's climate is constantly changing due to the following factors (IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE):

  • Solar output
  • variations in the Earths Orbit (Milankovitch cycle)
  • Volcanism
  • Meteorological events
  • Plate Tectonics
  • Ocean Variability
  • Radiative forcing (greenhouse effect is a small part of this)
  • Flora and Fauna


Man only contributes a minuscule amount to the weakest two — and CO2 not only has a diminishing feedback effect, but there's great debate over counter-balancing effects of raising CO2, like: carbon sequestration, cloud albedo, and CO2 increases flora and fauna which increases CO2 scrubbing. If the earth wasn't a self-balancing system, then why didn't we cook-off in the last 4.5B years, or back when we had 10x the CO2 we have today?

Milankovitch cycle

Earth Cycles.gif