Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

That has been the one thing that keeps me on the fence on this issue. I haven't seen many, if any, scientists firmly promoting the anthropomorphic theory of global warming whose funding does not depend, at least in part, on there being a problem there. And I haven't seen a lot of scientists whose funding does not depend on the anthropomorphic theory of global warming who strongly support that theory.

I remember arguing with you some years past wherein you denied that the scientific consensus supported the global warming thesis. I'm not sure what was your position on the possible linkage between smoking and lung cancer.

I mean both. I'll refer you back to the Newsweek piece you referenced. The trajectory of issues/theses was:
- is the earth warming at all
- is this warming anthropogenic

Both have been the subject of industry funding designed to cast doubt and to deny/inhibit consensus and legislation.

In the results of a survey of climate scientists conducted in 2003 [3] one question on the survey asked "To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes? A value of 1 indicates "strongly agree" and a value of 7 indicates "strongly disagree". Countries, and number of responses from each country are as follows:

USA n = 372;
Canada n = 14;
Germany n = 56;
Italy n = 14;
Denmark n = 5;
Netherlands n = 4;
Sweden n = 5;
France n = 5;
U.K. n = 18;
Australia n = 21;
Norway n = 3;
Finland n = 3;
New Zealand n = 6;
Austria n = 3;
Ethiopia n = 1;
South Africa n = 3;
Poland n = 1
Switzerland n = 7;
Mexico n = 3;
Russia n = 1;
Argentina n = 1;
India n = 3;
Spain n = 2
Japan n = 3;
Brazil n = 1;
Taiwan n = 1;
Bulgaria n = 1



To the question posed above there were 530 valid responses. Descriptive statistics are as follows:
Mean = 3.62; Std. Error of mean = .080; Median = 3.00; Std. deviation = 1.84; Variance = 3.386

Frequencies:

1 strongly agree 50 (9.4% of valid responses)
2 134 (25.3% of valid responses)
3 112 (21.1% of valid responses)
4 75 (14.2% of valid responses)
5 45 (8.5% of valid responses)
6 60 (10.8% valid responses)
7 strongly disagree 54 (9.7% of valid responses)

These results, i.e. the mean of 3.62, seem to suggest that consensus is not all that strong and only 9.4% of the respondents "strongly agree" that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes. This is however, a slight rise in consensus of the same survey conducted in 1996 [4] that resulted in a mean of 4.1683 to the same question (Five countries - USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Denmark only in 1996 survey, N = 511).

May I insist :
1. Global warming is not refutable and easy to detect with modern accurate measurements.

To clarify, are you claiming is was not refuted over the past two decades?

The global mean doesn't have to rise much at all to severely affect the weather which we have become accustomed to...

Cycloptichorn wrote:

The global mean doesn't have to rise much at all to severely affect the weather which we have become accustomed to...

But all models, the same ones which predict a T rise, also predict a warmer world would lead to LESS variability !
Which is something established in meteorology : extreme events are related to the difference in temperature betwen the tropics and the temperate zones. A GW would reduce this difference and hence bad weather events. You wouldn't find a scientific paper which states otherwise.

P.S. If you don't like GW, use "climate change", the head you win, tail I lose version of GW :wink:

It doesn't have to be an 'extreme event' to cause major problems for our currently preferred way of life; just a change to a different stability. While this isn't a disastrous event on the scale of massive storms, it hurts farming, fishing, and various other industries on which we rely.

Information Council on the Environment
The Information Council on the Environment (ICE), an organization created by the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical Institute. ICE launched a $500,000 advertising and public relations campaign to, in ICE's words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)." Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling [1] and Sherwood B. Idso all lent their names in 1991 to its scientific advisory panel.

"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It doesn't have to be an 'extreme event' to cause major problems for our currently preferred way of life; just a change to a different stability. While this isn't a disastrous event on the scale of massive storms, it hurts farming, fishing, and various other industries on which we rely.

What do you mean a "different stability" Cycloptichorn ? I don't think the weather has ever been "stable", from season to season, from year to year, century to century, do you ?

Oh, yeah, weather patterns are mostly stable over our short time period. For example, there are many parts of Europe which have been experiencing roughly the same weather for thousands of years; this is reflected in the tradition of crops grown regionally.

Global warming is a misnomer primarily because warming in one part of the globe often leads to cooling in another part as air and ocean currents shift to accomadate the new temperature fluctuations. This is why spot changes - for example, large amounts of pollution/co2 in areas which didn't used to have them - can lead to regional changes. I'm not an alarmist on the scale of many, but I do believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially when dealing with our life support system.

No part of Europe has had a stable weather. During the Little Ice Age 300 years ago...

I never heard that a regional change in CO2 may lead to a regional climate change!

Ok, Blatham,
Suppose you demonstrate that the scientists above are dishonest and/or uncompetent and 4b (bought by big business). Don't you think that this recent open letter to YOUR governement by 60* scientists, most of them climatologists, bears some credibility in the critics against the AGW theory ?

* in fact 58 since bad Michaels and uggly Singer are on the list (see scientists namelist at end of link below)

Hahha, that's why I said 'mostly stable.' And it has been. The 'little ice age' is nothing from a long-term perspective. The same sorts of crops grow now in Europe as have for the entirety of recorded history.

True climate change, shifting of weather patterns dramatically, lead to much greater changes than a few centuries of colder than normal weather.

BRITAIN has had one of the most volatile climates on earth with up to 10 ice ages forcing early settlers into exile, leaving the land uninhabited for periods of up to 110,000 years, researchers have found.

Hey, I thought global warming and its cause were a complete consensus by all credible scientists! Thats what posters here on A2K have been telling me and that I was an idiot and behind the times for thinking otherwise.

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

blatham wrote:

Information Council on the Environment
The Information Council on the Environment (ICE), an organization created by the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical Institute. ICE launched a $500,000 advertising and public relations campaign to, in ICE's words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)." Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling [1] and Sherwood B. Idso all lent their names in 1991 to its scientific advisory panel.

Ok, Blatham,
Suppose you demonstrate that the scientists above are dishonest and/or uncompetent and 4b (bought by big business). Don't you think that this recent open letter to YOUR governement by 60* scientists, most of them climatologists, bears some credibility in the critics against the AGW theory ?

* in fact 58 since bad Michaels and uggly Singer are on the list (see scientists namelist at end of link below)

Excertp from the Open Letter (emphasis mine)

Quote:

"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.