CLIMATE CHANGE: TOWARD AN INTEGRATION STAGE

Updated to include discussion at Academia.edu

It is widely recognized that climate is one of the most complex phenomena known to science. There are variables, interactions, and feedbacks that are known only qualitatively, and there are others that are not known. A great deal of climate research is still going on, with the aim of improving and refining existing models, as well as developing new explanations of climate change phenomena. This is a brief letter with a proposal for a new direction in climate research.

After a few decades of intensive research, it is logical to assume that all plausible explanations have been proposed. The main proposals are as follows:

1. The Greenhouse Effect (GHE) caused by natural processes and human activities through the burning of fossil fuels. This is by far the dominant and most controversial theory, supported and rejected by thousands of scientists.

2. Water vapor rather than CO2 is the dominant greenhouse gas and warms the Earth, but also has a negative feedback effect, as it leads to the formation of clouds. The balance between the two feedbacks is an active area of research.

3. Solar variability of multi-year and multidecadal periods.