The Climate Question · Investigation · Attribution
Is it man-made? Follow the fingerprint.
Not settled by vote or authority — settled like a crime. The natural suspects (orbit, Sun, volcanoes) have alibis, and the extra CO2 carries the chemical and physical fingerprints of burning fossil fuels.
FACT
§2 · Thesis
Attribution is a fingerprint match, not an opinion poll: rule out the natural drivers, then match the evidence to the culprit.
Every pillar here is graded against a primary agency source — NASA, NOAA, USGS, the Royal Society.
The number
60×
how much more CO2 humans emit each year than all the world's volcanoes combined — volcanoes are under ~2% of the human total (NOAA; USGS).
NOAA Climate.gov; USGS (Gerlach 2011)
§5 · Graded Claim
The Sun isn't the cause: measured total solar irradiance has been flat to slightly down since 1978 while temperatures rose.
FACT
A warming Earth under a steady-to-dimming Sun cannot be explained by the Sun.
§5 · Graded Claim
The orbit points to cooling: absent human influence, Milankovitch cycles would be nudging Earth toward the next glacial, not warming it.
FACT
Over the past several thousand years orbital forcing has been on a slow cooling trend; the last century's rapid warming runs opposite to it.
§5 · Graded Claim
The extra CO2 carries a fossil-fuel isotope signature: atmospheric carbon is getting lighter — the carbon-13 share is falling and radiocarbon is diluted (the Suess effect).
FACT
That signature matches plant-derived fossil carbon, not CO2 from oceans or volcanoes. Precise wording: it is the heavier isotope's proportion that falls, not rises.
§5 · Graded Claim
The atmosphere is warming below and cooling above — a greenhouse fingerprint the Sun cannot leave.
FACT
The troposphere warms while the stratosphere cools; a brighter Sun would tend to warm both. The split distinguishes greenhouse warming from solar warming.
§5 · Graded Claim
CO2 is now above 420 ppm — outside the 170–300 ppm band of the entire 800,000-year ice-core record, and rising ~100× faster than past natural transitions.
FACT
Antarctic ice cores preserve the atmosphere back ~800,000 years; today's level and rate of rise are both unprecedented in that record.
§6 · Record vs Narrative
Solar warming vs. greenhouse warming.
If the Sun were the cause
- Solar output would be rising — it's flat/down since 1978.
- The whole atmosphere would warm together.
- No isotope shift in the added carbon.
What we actually see
- Troposphere warms, stratosphere cools.
- Added carbon is isotopically light (fossil signature).
- Orbit and Sun both point away from warming.
Declassified
The real scientific uncertainty is in climate sensitivity and regional impacts — not in whether humans are the cause.
§7 · Why it matters now
A settled question, kept open on purpose.
On attribution the science has been settled for years — yet the public hears a live debate. That gap is manufactured, run from the tobacco industry's playbook. Sorting the real scientific questions from the manufactured ones is the work of The Climate Question hub; this page is its foundation.
▸ The Climate Question →
▦ Ledger gaps
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenClimate sensitivity — how much warming a doubling of CO2 ultimately produces — and the size and timing of regional impacts.
- OpenWho funded the decades-long effort to keep a settled question feeling open (its own spoke to come).
Help fill these →