Can global warming skeptics back up some of their claims?
present an argument against the theory of manmade global warming.
It appears that many skeptics and deniers are quite convinced that their assertions are valid. This led me to wonder why they don’t validate their claims with links to sources or other citations.
So my question to skeptics is this – can you provide the evidence to back up the claims that are often used? Links to credible websites will be fine.
Given that skeptics like to be thought of as rational, objective and factual, then I expect there will be no problem at all in substantiating all of the following.
• The current warming is caused by natural cycles
• Global warming has ended and the Earth has been cooling for X number of years
• Scientists have admitted that they invented global warming, fabricated the evidence etc
• Global warming has not caused any change in the weather – droughts, floods, hurricanes etc
• Global warming is caused by the urban heat island effect, surface stations are incorrectly sited etc
• Scientists have deleted the raw data, the work of scientists can’t be verified
• It’s warmed faster in the past
• The number of glaciers is growing, glaciers are expanding etc
• Volcanoes emit more CO2 then humans do
• All the computer models in the past have been wrong
• The other planets are warming therefore it’s the Sun
2010-07-12T06:22:48Z
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CLOSING COMMENT.
I mentioned 11 arguments that are often used by climate change skeptics and deniers and asked if it were possible to validate some of the claims.
37 people answers and not one single link to back up one single claim. I’ve asked similar questions before that have elicited a total of 142 answers, none of which provided links to any credible sources.
It seems safe that such claims have no backing and no credibility to them, which therefore begs the question why they are perpetuated by the skeptics and deniers.
Dana19812010-07-04T19:36:47Z
Favorite Answer
No. It's pretty darn hard to defend a factually incorrect statement. I'd be happy to disprove them though.
• The current warming is caused by natural cycles http://www.greenoptions.com/wiki/global-warming-and-climate-change-causes
• Global warming has ended and the Earth has been cooling for X number of years
The fact that we've broken the 12-month running average global temperature record in 3 consecutive months disproves this one pretty easily. It's hard to argue global warming has ended during the hottest period in thousands of years. http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/10/nasa-hottest-spring-on-record/
*edit* Eric displays gross dishonesty in his answer to this one, attributing the statement to Phil Jones. Jones said the 0.12°C/decade HadCRUT *warming* trend from 1995-2009 was not quite statistically significant at a 95% confidence level. To claim he said the planet was cooling is a complete lie, and eric knows it.
• Scientists have admitted that they invented global warming, fabricated the evidence etc
Never happened. You'll probably get some references to 'Climategate', but none of the stolen emails said any such thing. And in fact a number of independent investigations fully exonerated all climate scientists involved. For example:
“After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data." http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2518632
• Global warming has not caused any change in the weather – droughts, floods, hurricanes etc http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080903/full/news.2008.1079.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_natural_disasters.jpg
• Global warming is caused by the urban heat island effect, surface stations are incorrectly sited etc http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf
• Scientists have deleted the raw data, the work of scientists can’t be verified
This myth is based on a statement from CRU that they threw out some tapes in the 1980s which contained raw temperature data. However, these were just *copies* of the raw data. Since CRU does not collect raw temperature data, they are incapable of destroying anything other than copies of the data. The raw data can still be obtained from sources like the GHCN. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
Moreover, the data is constantly verified as there are several organizations independently calculating the average global temperature. There's CRU, NOAA, NASA GISS, JMA, and then there's the satellites on top of it.
• It’s warmed faster in the past
This may very well be true. There may have been brief periods during transitions between glacial and interglacial period when the planet warmed as fast or faster than it is right now. We don't have the data resolution to make this determination.
However, this is a logical fallacy (non sequitur). The fact that the planet may have warmed faster in the past obviously doesn't mean that the current warming is natural. What it means is that hypothetically, the current warming *could be* natural. But since there is no natural cause which can explain the current warming (see first point), this argument is completely irrelevant.
Or sometimes this argument is used to claim the current warming is nothing to worry about. There are two major flaws with this claim.
1) Some past climate changes have caused mass extinctions, so unless you can show that those climate changes were more extreme than the current one, you don't have a scientific leg to stand on.
2) Global warming is predicted to accelerate as CO2 emissions accelerate (unless we do something to change that) and feedbacks kick in.
• The number of glaciers is growing, glaciers are expanding etc http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/img/5-9.jpg
• Volcanoes emit more CO2 then humans do http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html
• All the computer models in the past have been wrong http://www.greenoptions.com/wiki/fingerprints-of-human-caused-climate-change
• The other planets are warming therefore it’s the Sun http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm
Sadly we hear these long-debunked denier argument so much that it only took me about 5 minutes to get all those links and write up this answer.
Dana, another red-herring. The alarmists are the ones trying to prove a point. They are the ones who need to answer questions regarding their theories. If a skeptic points out a hole in an alarmists theory, it isn't the responsibility of the skeptic to figure out how to resolve the inconsistency. It is the responsibility of the scientist proposing the theory. So, here are some questions for you because regardless of your points in 1 - 3, if the alarmists can't answer these, then how do we know whether we even have a problem? #1 What is the normal global temperature of the Earth? #2 How do we know we are warming above the normal global temperature and not just warming up to it from the last ice age? #3 How do you calculate the global temperature? #4 How do you calculate the global temperature of the Earth prior to the middle of the 20th century? #5 What is the accuracy of temperature readings prior to the mid-20th century? #6 For locations where temperature readings were not tracked regularly or accurately, what data is used? #7 How do we know the data is accurate? The whole basis for AGW alarmism is based on temperature data for a little over 100 years with truly accurate data only in the last 50 years or so. If we don't even have accurate data for 100 years out of a few billion, are the alarmists so arrogant that they believe they know everything concerning our atmosphere?
There is no point - your mind is demonstrably closed to reason, and you have it backwards: you want us to destroy our industrialised civilisation, you need to prove your theory. The status quo stands unless it is proven that we need to wreck our economy for the greater good. Let's look at your mis-representations of skepticism: • The current warming is caused by natural cycles. It is currently cooling, but earlier was cooling 1945 - 1975, warming 1976-1998, cooling 1999-now. Sounds like natural cycles to me, or random variations around the norm. We're talkind fractions of a degree here. • Global warming has ended and the Earth has been cooling for X number of years. Even warmists acknowledge it isn't warming, some admit cooling. ""The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming, and it's a travesty that we can't." • Scientists have admitted that they invented global warming, fabricated the evidence etc. See link below. • Global warming has not caused any change in the weather – droughts, floods, hurricanes etc. The onus is on you to prove that it has. • Global warming is caused by the urban heat island effect, surface stations are incorrectly sited etc. Because of the truly tiny 0.6 degrees per century warming trend, it is quite feasable that heat island weffects are in play. Again - prove it isn't so. It is a reasonable point to raise. • Scientists have deleted the raw data, the work of scientists can’t be verified Just type climategate in google - read the scientists own emails where they admit deleting data. • It’s warmed faster in the past. See Cherry pickers guide below. • The number of glaciers is growing, glaciers are expanding etc All we have to do is show they are not melting in runaway global warming. See Himalaya link below. • Volcanoes emit more CO2 then humans do. They don't but they do affect the global climate more than we do. • All the computer models in the past have been wrong. No-one is saying that - all the IPCC models have so far been wrong, but many other computer models work fine. • The other planets are warming therefore it’s the Sun At the end of the day, it is all about the sun. If it went out, we would rapiidly get very cold indeed. The suns output is known to fluctuate, leading to warming and cooling periods in our geological history - do you deny that?
<<There's a big difference between a 'denier' and a 'skeptic'. >>
I have the same problem when I debate "roundists" (liberals who think the Earth is non-flat). I explain to them that the science is not conclusive, that despite the hysterical claims from people like Al Gore and Prince Philip that the Earth is not flat, we really do not know. So in response to me expressing *skepticism* about the Earth being non-flat, they call me a "denier" to try to make me seem like a Holocaust denier.
All I have been asking for is an open *scientific* debate on whether or not the Earth is flat. Saying to me "everyone says the Earth is not flat" is just arguing by consensus. Consensus is not science, a point that I learned because everyone on the talk radio says so.