Is the Sky Falling? (or melting) - Part 4

I had a few detours, but I am back on the trail to determine if global warming is in fact a thing. Last time I finished up linking to this skepticalscience.com article by GPWayne. It seemed like a logically laid out argument for why global warming was not just happening, but why and explained why it can be linked to us humans.

Here is the summery quoted from the article:

 

Summing Up

Like a detective story, first you need a victim, in this case the planet Earth: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.

Then you need a method, and ask how the energy could be made to remain. For that, you need a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere, and greenhouse gases provide that mechanism.

Next, you need a ‘motive’. Why has this happened? Because CO2 has increased by nearly 50% in the last 150 years and the increase is from burning fossil fuels.

And finally, the smoking gun, the evidence that proves ‘whodunit’: energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelengths of energy captured by CO2.

The last point is what places CO2 at the scene of the crime. The investigation by science builds up empirical evidence that proves, step by step, that man-made carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm up.

 The first point about more energy remaining in the atmosphere seems to be true. We already answered that one. The earth is warmer than it was. Not a lot, but it is warmer.

The second point is also true. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It does absorb solar radiation. I haven't heard anybody argue against that one.

The CO2 levels are a good bit higher than they were 150 years ago and we are to blame for that one pretty clearly. Again, I don't think anybody is arguing with this. I haven't found any compelling evidence to the contrary.

This next  and final part is a bit less of a slam dunk though... It is correlated sure. Both the temperature and the CO2 levels have gone up at the same time. However, we do not know, and I don't think we can know for sure that the warming is exclusively caused by increased CO2.

I realize that my skepticism is coming through here, but it is a meaningful point. Correlation does not prove causation. It is not an unreasonable parallel to draw. However, before I am willing to declare it all our fault, to use his murder analogy, beyond reasonable doubt, I need to feel a little more compelled. It is a well laid out argument though and I commend GPWayne for it. There are not enough people making reasonable arguments on the topic.