Is it plausible that scientists are faking global warming?

Not only is it not plausible, it's simply not possible.

I mean, consider what it would take to perpetrate such a hoax. Scientists have been warning of AGW since the 1960s.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarm...

So basically you're talking about millions of scientists perpetrating a massive hoax for 4 decades, falsifying data with not one single credible person revealing the 'truth'. Even the skeptical scientists don't claim it's all a fraud or hoax. That's really all you need to know in order to conclude that it's not a hoax. Credible skeptics like Lindzen might disagree with the theory or its projections, but they don't argue that it's all a fraud.

Even if you ignore the absurd amount of collusion that such an immense hoax would require, and the fact that scientific frauds on far, far smaller scales have been revealed almost immediately, consider the fame that a scientist would get for disproving the hoax. If global warming were really due to the Sun, and all scientists have been saying it's not, and another scientist proved that this was the case - you're talking infamy, Nobel Prizes, etc. etc. Any scientist would love to disprove AGW if it were wrong.

To be blunt, people who think AGW is all just a massive fraud or hoax are just nutty conspiracy theorists like the guys who think there are aliens at Area 51 and the moon landing was faked. They've divorced themselves from reality, and so there's simply no reasoning with them.

I think they don't fully understand the causes of climate change and they go with what they do know. They know that greenhouse gases reflect some of the heat back down to the surface of the planet and that man has increased greenhouse gases and the global temperature is 1ºC warmer. I believe the computer models give CO2 too much credit though and that has been observed many times through the revised IPCC predictions that exaggerate the expected future warming.

If you look at the geological record, you will find that CO2 has little effect on temperature and that it is just a minor feedback. If CO2 had as much influence as the IPCC computer models give it, the world would have overheated a long time ago.

Look at the latest IPCC report and search for the words: uncertainty, uncertainties and assumption

I think it is reasonable to assume that the science is in its' infancy and that there are many unknowns at present.

Edit:

The data is far from being all in.

Well they told us in the 1970's that we were entering a 10,000 year ice age so I guess we have some time before we need to worry about it, huh> Look for your self you wern''t away=re then it was the hot media topic of the time.

The idea that most of the scientists today would knowingly fake data to "prove" global warming is slightly absurd. They may all have mistaken or misinterpreted data, but the idea that they knowingly and purposefully manipulated the data doesn't make sense. Someone somewhere would leak that and make millions off of the book deal.

It is possible for scientists to simply not have enough data or to have interpreted the data incorrectly. It wasn't that long ago that scientists thought that the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth.

If they are then they must have built a doomsday weather machine, because the weather is clearly becoming more severe.

If this is true then I must say I am more scared of government sponsored mad scientists having a doomsday weather machine than I am of Global warming!

I disagree that faking science is bad for your career - people can get away with a lot if they are politically well connected.

Micheal Mann found a hockey stick that wasn't in his raw data, prehaps intentionally or perhaps by a programming error on his part. Finding this hockey stick seems to have done more good than harm to his career and his peers have rushed to his defence claiming that despite any shortcomings in his scientific technique, he got the right answer (apparently by pure luck).

The other problem with climate science is that the processes are not transparant. Case in point are the numbers that the IPCC use for equivalent radiative forcings for various factors. The 500 pages or so of each IPCC report does not include a detailed explanation of where these numbers come from.

Anyone or any group can become corrupted by money and power. That is the problem with the climate change we are experiencing. Al Gore is a liberal and a politician, he was not accurate in his inconvenient truth documentary, so why should any one with any common sense believe this. You love to use stats and data to draw a conclusion however if the data is garbage the conclusion will be garbage. (garbage in garbage out). There is evidence that the earth may in fact be going into a cooling period however its not as popular as global warming and does not incite the masses as does global warming. You used some very good examples about great scientist that were correct in their theories. You failed to mention that they stood alone. That is enough to tell me that the global warming theory is more bark then bite. It seems the elite in our world are still the same people through out history blaming humanity for the ills of the earth and fail to understand they are a part of humanity and are the major contributors. Yet lets tax the overburden some more and blame them, and if they actually have the audacity to stand up for themselves lets call them ignorant and fools. Frankly the old saying is true, their is nothing new under the sun.

how do you fake a natural occurrence? you don't . You capitalize upon it, that is what is taking place.

You are trying to tell the world that the earth is heating up. and humans, mainly Americans are to blame for this rise in temp.

OK, lets play a game, the earth is warmer now than when?

The last ice age? sure, how about the 1800's sure, 1700 maybe, but can you say it is warming than it was in the year 1200? and where was it warmer, who in the Western Hemisphere took those temp. readings?

To say something is changing you must be able to compare it to the way it was, quite frankly, you cant do that now can you?

Oh you can tell us what you THINK it was, but can you show us how you came to that conclusion? I think not.

No, it's completely impossible for 900 thousand of the best minds in the world to agree to fake something like this

Don't feel bad. Scientists have also been caught faking gravity and math. And not just the easy stuff one only one or two digits, but that really complicated stuff with those fake 3 and four digit numbers. Why do you think that many mathematicians openly admit to working with imaginary numbers?