Posted on 17 August 2024 by Guest Author

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Does CO2 correlate with global temperature long-term?

While natural variations cause short-term ups and downs to the weather, CO₂ and global temperatures move together long term.

This is because CO₂ in the atmosphere impedes the escape of heat back to space. Humans added 50% more CO2 since the Industrial Revolution by burning fossil fuels.

Over multi-decade timespans, CO₂ shows close correlation with global temperature. However, on much shorter timescales (years, months, days), other natural variations in temperature (e.g. El Nino, La Nina) create "noise" on the graph — the up-and-down fluctuations we see. That's why climate trends tend to be expressed in blocks of 30 years.

When viewed over 30 or more years of data, the dominant relationship between human CO₂ emissions and warming is clear. Man made CO₂ and global temperatures have both steadily increased since humans have begun to burn fossil fuels.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

NASA Carbon Dioxide Latest Measurement

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR6 Chapter 7: The Earth’s Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity

Facts on Climate How are CO? concentrations related to warming?

Geophysical Research Letters The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability?

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.