Am I still allowed to question climate change?

[Streamline]

Miles out? Can you give examples where the forecasts have been miles out? Oh, and you'll not be taken seriously if you continue to connect short term local weather predictions with long term global climate change.

 

Really? So have you joined Friends of the Earth yet and paid your subs and what life's luxuries have you given up this week to do your bit to hinder Climate Change's progress?

[Streamline]

 

When the climate scientists say "do worry" and the non-experts say "don't worry, it's all media hype, a conspiracy to scare us and buy newspapers", who should we pay attention to?

 

 

Try rephrasing your question instead of slyly trying to label people and you might be taken seriously.

[Wildcat]

Try rephrasing your question instead of slyly trying to label people and you might be taken seriously.

 

And of course you would never do that......

[Wildcat]

This pretty much answers the thread question:

 

1. Humans are currently emitting around 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere (CDIAC). Of course, it could be coincidence that CO2 levels are rising so sharply at the same time so let’s look at more evidence that we’re responsible for the rise in CO2 levels.

2. When we measure the type of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, we observe more of the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Manning 2006).

3. This is corroborated by measurements of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen levels are falling in line with the amount of carbon dioxide rising, just as you’d expect from fossil fuel burning which takes oxygen out of the air to create carbon dioxide (Manning 2006).

4. Further independent evidence that humans are raising CO2 levels comes from measurements of carbon found in coral records going back several centuries. These find a recent sharp rise in the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Pelejero 2005).

5. So we know humans are raising CO2 levels. What’s the effect? Satellites measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat, thus finding “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect”. (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).

6. If less heat is escaping to space, where is it going? Back to the Earth’s surface. Surface measurements confirm this, observing more downward infrared radiation (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009). A closer look at the downward radiation finds more heat returning at CO2 wavelengths, leading to the conclusion that “this experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.” (Evans 2006).

7. If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).

8. Another distinctive pattern of greenhouse warming is cooling in the upper atmosphere, otherwise known as the stratosphere. This is exactly what’s happening (Jones 2003).

9. With the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) warming and the upper atmosphere (the stratophere) cooling, another consequence is the boundary between the troposphere and stratophere, otherwise known as the tropopause, should rise as a consequence of greenhouse warming. This has been observed (Santer 2003).

10. An even higher layer of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, is expected to cool and contract in response to greenhouse warming. This has been observed by satellites (Laštovi?ka 2006).

 

Science isn’t a house of cards, ready to topple if you remove one line of evidence. Instead, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle. As the body of evidence builds, we get a clearer picture of what’s driving our climate. We now have many lines of evidence all pointing to a single, consistent answer – the main driver of global warming is rising carbon dioxide levels from our fossil fuel burning.

 

– John Cook, Skeptical Science.

 

JR: I would add that, as science adviser John Holdren often points out, in order to refute the theory of human-caused global warming, you would not merely have to come up with an alternate explanation for all of the above observed changes. You would have to figure out what unknown factor was blocking or negating greenhouse gases from causing them.

 

http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/10/10-indicators-of-a-human-fingerprint-on-climate-change/#more-31090

[JIbbo]

edit and completed.

[Kat88]

Global Warming is FACT. Whether you believe it now or in the future, it will happen but we can change its IMPACT.

[truman]

Global Warming is FACT. Whether you believe it now or in the future, it will happen but we can change its IMPACT.

 

How come it's been missing for the past 10 years?

[spinac]

Try rephrasing your question instead of slyly trying to label people and you might be taken seriously.

 

A bit sensitive about the non-expert "label" aren't we?

 

I'm a non-expert, but I'm listening to the experts. What's your level of expertise that gives you the confidence to ignore the scientific community? (I'll be more than happy to apologise if you do have scientific credentials and expertise in this area ...)

 

You've asked what action I'm taking Streamline, and I've admitted I'm taking the bare minimum I see as necessary. That means recycling and walking to work and er, ... not much more. I live in a centrally heated house, but keep the thermostat down. I don't have solar panels or wind generators. I'd like to do more but it's going to be of so little use if there's no action on a mass scale. That can't begin until people are persuaded there's a problem.

 

So I'd say it's a priority to engage with the sceptics and the climate change deniers until we reach a point where there's a concensus that there is actually a huge problem looming ahead.

 

Unfortunately politicians can't see that far into the future to be concerned. The consequences of their inaction will be left to future generations.

 

"Science isn’t a house of cards, ready to topple if you remove one line of evidence. Instead, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle. As the body of evidence builds, we get a clearer picture of what’s driving our climate. We now have many lines of evidence all pointing to a single, consistent answer – the main driver of global warming is rising carbon dioxide levels from our fossil fuel burning." Good quote Wildcat.

[Roschach]

Interestingly, they carbon dated Ice in the Arctic Circle several years ago and as well as roughly estimating down to the Ice Age, they found that there appeared to be 3 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere then, than there is now. The Earth has a natural temperature cycle, half a degree average increase over the last 50 years is not unheard of or even vastly surpassed in the Earth's history.

[spinac]

Interestingly, they carbon dated Ice in the Arctic Circle several years ago and as well as roughly estimating down to the Ice Age, they found that there appeared to be 3 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere then, than there is now. The Earth has a natural temperature cycle, half a degree average increase over the last 50 years is not unheard of or even vastly surpassed in the Earth's history.

 

That's not something that fits with what I've read/seen/heard. Just on a very quick google to find something to verify your assertion, I came up with exactly the opposite ...

 

"Ancient air bubbles trapped in Antarctica's ice have revealed that levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere are at their highest in 800,000 years, two studies in the journal Nature said."

 

"More than 90 percent of [these changes] are driven directly through the emission of so-called new carbon dioxide that has not been in the climate system for the last 60 million years."

 

There are many natural cycles the earth goes through which are indeed of no concern. The evidence from respected scientists and journals nearly all report that what we are undergoing now is anything but a natural cycle.

 

... unless there is indeed some new groundbreaking conclusive evidence ... ????