My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies

Global Warming ^ | Feb., 2014 | Roy Spences, PHD

[Mike Darancette]

I receive many e-mails, and a recurring complaint is that many of my posts are too technical to understand. This morning’s installment arrived with the subject line, “Please Talk to Us”, and suggested I provide short, concise, easily understood summaries and explanations “for dummies”.

So, here’s a list of basic climate change questions, and brief answers based upon what I know today. I might update them as I receive suggestions and comments. I will also be adding links to other sources, and some visual aids, as appropriate.

[Mike Darancette]

As far as I am concerned this settles it.

[Kenny Bunk]

Mike,
Three Concepts:

The Milankovitch Glaciation Cycle
The Maunder Sunspot Cycle
The Historical Record of Climate Change Events

No dicussion of global climate change can possibly take place without an appreciation of these incontrovertible effects.

Those who are loud proponents of Global Warming very often have not even HEARD of these things.

[Boundless]

And for those who aren’t dummies, there’s Burt Rutan’s (also skeptical) take on Global Hot Air®:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
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GHA is a registered trademark of Al Gore, Inc.

[catnipman]

I could do a better job than that:

e.g., simple explanation of the hockey stick fraud; namely the unmentioned tacking on thermometer data at end of tree ring data to get the puck-hitting part of the stick, or cherry-picking the trees to start with.

no, the oceans haven’t risen.

no, there has been no warming for 18 years.

Antarctic ice pack is at a record, and Artic ice pack had 40% growth this year.

no mention of the overwhelming impact of the sun and solar cycles on the climate.

no mention of overwhelming of prehistoric data showing CO2 lags warming because of production by plant growth.

insufficient mention of the significance of the medieval warming period.

no mention that it’s been mathematically proven that current WEATHER can’t be accurately predicted beyond 3 days, so how the hell are you going to predict “climate”.

[SgtHooper]

“The total amount of CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere in the last 100 years has upset the radiative energy budget of the Earth by only 1%.”

A closing remark from the author.

[Rides_A_Red_Horse]

3) Haven’t Global Temperatures Risen Before? Yes. In the longer term, say hundreds to thousands of years, there is considerable indirect, proxy evidence (not from thermometers) of both warming and cooling. Since humankind can’t be responsible for these early events is evidence that nature can cause warming and cooling. If that is the case, it then opens up the possibility that some (or most) of the warming in the last 50 years has been natural, too. While many geologists like to point to much larger temperature changes are believed to have occurred over millions of years, I am unconvinced that this tells us anything of use for understanding how humans might influence climate on time scales of 10 to 100 years.

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But just in case I need to tax you at 90%, restrict your usage of reliable privately owned transportation, micromanage/restrict your diet and force you to warm yourself with a primitive dung fire.

[MtnClimber]

A scam by those who want to control the means of production. The political left always tries that. The desired results of the UN computer model were known before the model was generated. That is not how science works.

[Nifster]

Pretty well presented..... truth is climate changes and we don’t fully understand it. No I don’t think it is worth studying

[snoopy 'n linus]

cute “dummies” explained in cartoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4Bc2WCsdE

[Alberta's Child]

It's important to note that there's no such thing as "climate science." Even meteorology has a major flaw as a field of study from a scientific standpoint because it's impossible to conduct meteorological studies in the real world under the type of controlled environment that is needed for scientific study. There are simply too many variables outside the control of the scientist that affect the outcomes of any experiments, tests, etc.

This is why a good meteorologist will always point out the inaccuracies of even a short-term weather forecast, and will make it clear that predictions of things like storm tracks and precipitation are based largely on historic data and therefore subject to a lot of variations.

[GOPJ]

5) Isn’t the Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Evidence of Warming? Warming, yes…manmade warming, no. Arctic sea ice naturally melts back every summer, but that meltback was observed to reach a peak in 2007. But we have relatively accurate, satellite-based measurements of Arctic (and Antarctic) sea ice only since 1979. It is entirely possible that late summer Arctic Sea ice cover was just as low in the 1920s or 1930s, a period when Arctic thermometer data suggests it was just as warm. Unfortunately, there is no way to know, because we did not have satellites back then. Interestingly, Antarctic sea ice has been growing nearly as fast as Arctic ice has been melting over the last 30+ years.

Great post - thanks Daracnette...

[98ZJ USMC]

“The total amount of CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere in the last 100 years has upset the radiative energy budget of the Earth by only 1%.”

To my way of thinking, because I have no idea how you could account for it outside of human produced Co2, that would have to include volcanic event Co2, which is enormous.

[Tenacious 1]

I think the author is a fence rider and is afraid of confrontation. From his perspective, there just isn’t enough evidence to be sure if humans are responsible for Global Warming.

That’s too weak for me considering the money and resources that has been stolen and distributed for the “cause”.

[Mike Darancette]

...possible that late summer Arctic Sea ice cover was just as low in the 1920s or 1930s, a period when Arctic thermometer data suggests it was just as warm.

1922 article talks about melting arctic:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/

Snopes says true.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/science/globalwarming1922.asp

[Bob]

IMHO, Dr. Spencer went way to easy on Mann’s hockey stick and especially on the Climategate emails. The collusion and fraud evident in those emails is far worse than I view his description of them to be.

A scientist is not supposed to “hide the decline” - his purpose is (or should be) to research the cause and explain the decline, not hide it because it contradicts his agenda.

[Yardstick]

This is excellent. I might email this to some folks.

[agere_contra]

Good list!

I would just like to highlight the slow movement of continents across the planets surface (implied in your third item).

The world has been in an ice age for 2.6 million years - the biggest driver behind this change was the Antarctican landmass moving to the pole.

That’s a huge area of land that is not only not receiving very much insolation ( = direct solar radiance, for the thread) but that also turned white (!). This has radically changed the earth’s heat budget.

It’s importance when talking about AGW is because it emphasizes the importance of insolation on land (rather than water). The time of the dinosaurs was on average 5 degrees C warmer than today - our earth got cold largely because of this single enormous change.

[Kenny Bunk]

Yeah.

How educators and "scientists" fail to mention the many already observed and verified phenomena that affect our planet's climate cycles never fails to amaze, shock, and disgust me.

Are Americans now that frickin' dumb?

[GOPJ]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/science/globalwarming1922.asp

Claim: A 1922 newspaper article reported that “radical change in climatic conditions” was melting Arctic ice and disrupting wildlife.

TRUE

I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922. As reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post - 88 years ago!

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Seems the Washington Post was a more honest newspaper 88 years ago... wonder if Charles Krauthammer has seen this...

[Go Gordon]

I could do a better job than that:

Air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Please have the man-made global warming alarmist explain the comparison between the man-made components of 0.039% of the atmosphere and the naturally occurring components. Then have them explain how 0.00X% of the man-made contribution causes "climate change". I guarentee you, not a single person will be able to do this.