What do you know that these people don't ?

Question

Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovskaya Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."[13][14][15] 
Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air."[16] 
Reid Bryson, deceased, former emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison: "It’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air."[17] 
George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: "The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible."[18] 
Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: "That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation - which has a cooling effect. ... We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly... solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle."[19] 
David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester: "The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."[20] 
Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035"[21] 
William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential."[22] "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."[23] "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."[24] 
William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology: "There has been a real climate change over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that can be attributed to natural phenomena. Natural variability of the climate system has been underestimated by IPCC and has, to now, dominated human influences."[25] 
George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview: "What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural."[26] 
David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."[27] 
Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean M

Niggle · Accepted Answer

TOO LONG DIDN'T READ

Global Warming = Al gore's Bullshit

campbelp2002 · Answer

In the middle of all that is this statement 

"That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere"

So they are not saying CO2 cannot cause warming. They are just saying it cannot cause ENOUGH warming. So the only argument is how much warming will the CO2 cause, not if it will cause any at all. After the globe warms 2 degrees one side will say, "see, it didn't get hot" while the other side says,, "what do you mean, it is 2 degrees hotter". So is 2 degrees hotter global warming? is a warming of 2 degrees warming or not? I say it is. And I also say people who make sensational claims like millions of people dying as a result of that are hurting their own credibility.

Dana1981 · Answer

Here's a better question - what do those few scientists know that the thousands of other climate scientists who agree that humans are causing global warming don't?

To choose a few of your examples, unlike Abdusamatov, I know that

a) Greenhouse gases cause the planet to warm (I thought everyone who took high school physics knew that).
b) Solar irradiance has not increased in 30-70 years and thus cannot explain the recent warming (you would think an astronomer would know that).
http://www.mps.mpg.de/images/projekte/sun-climate/climate.gif

Unlike Bryson, I know that the global temperature has not been increasing "since the early 1800s" or since the LIA, but that global warming began in the early 1900s.  But Bryson is an old (now dead) guy who hasn't done any research in decades, so maybe it's not too surprising that he's not familiar with the global temperature data (although I've never professionally researched climate science and I know about it).
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

And I know that the global temperature doesn't magically increase - that there has to be a physical cause for the increase.  You would think an emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences wouldn't believe in magic.

Unlike Douglass, I know that Douglass is flat-out wrong.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/tropical-tropopshere-iii/

Unlike Easterbrook, I know the cyclical climatic cycles only redistribute heat, they don't retain or create it, and thus cannot cause global warming.

Apparently I know a lot of things that these so-called experts don't.  I could go on, but I know you're just going to dismiss/ignore my answer anyway, so I'm not going to waste any more time on it.

And by the way, 2007 was the 2nd warmest year in the past 130, and 2008 was the 9th warmest.  If you call that "temperatures falling precipitously", I'd hate to think what you call the global warming over the past 30 years.  A raging fireball?  Hell on Earth?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

David · Answer

Most of the warming from 1900 to 1940 was, very likely, primarily due to the sun. As you can see (scroll down a bit) there is a correlation between those years, a cooling from 1940 to 1970, but after 1970 that correlation completely stops: http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

As far as the water vapor trigger goes, this is indeed accounted for in every computer model and extensively studied. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/ 
Whoever made this argument is using a stubborn definition of "proof" that is constantly sliding. How on Earth (pun intended) could we possibly "test" a massive, long term and planet wide effect such as global warming? Should we construct a second Earth next to our own? Doesn't it seem a bit unreasonable to stubbornly await a "proof" that they cannot themselves actually define?

Anyway that's a start. Of course there are people who try to deny AGW, but does attacking it from several unrelated angles (it's natural, it's the sun, it's all to make money, it's amplified by water vapor...etc) really sound like a good, solid argument against something? 

They're not trying to prove anything, they are trying to attack an idea by any means they can possibly find. It's the exact same strategy used by creationists to challenge evolution, in that the skeptics as well as the creationists will never be satisfied no matter how much evidence rolls in (there is still a large cash reward from the creationists for anyone who can "prove" that evolution is real. As you can probably guess, no one will ever receive this money.) 

There is no consensus among them; just the fact that you grouped them all together shows that you understand what I'm saying. The only thing they have in common is they all don't like AGW, for whatever reason; the arguments are purely political. The "scientists" who supposedly "agree" that it is not true all have different opinions about why it is not true. They are not contributing anything to science, and in fact often use questionable science. 

An example is a report written by 400 "scientists" that dispute global warming. You can read it all if you like here, and see the type of variation in responses I'm talking about (everything from volcanoes, to the sun, to the fact that it is just [by personal opinion] "arrogant" to think humans can affect the climate.) 

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

Oh, one other thing you'll notice: in that 100 page report, there are a full 120 mentions of Al Gore. Why attack a man who has absolutely no say in the science? Al Gore is not a scientist, he is merely a messenger. Attacking the messenger is the surest sign that you do not have the ability to attack the message itself, and a very sure sign their motivations are something other than science.

trunorth · Answer

One of my trucks won't start, the other barely turned over.
My snowmobile won't start unless I warm my battery in my pants.
The diesel fuel in my Bobcat is gelled up due to the weather.
My brand new well was frozen for three days.

It was -29 last night.

Global warming, my butt!

Roger D · Answer

I hope these guys have some good secure places to hide out as the green shirt brigades will be after them as fast as they can be organized and trained.

Ken · Answer

I know that the list below contains far more credible practicing climate scientists with much more relevant experience/education than your list:

http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/news/2007/Bali.html

I also know that not a single person on your list has been able to present a single paper discrediting AGW that could stand up to any serious peer scrutiny.

Blackadder · Answer

James, you say 90% GH gases are water vapor, that would suggest most of the remaining 10% then would be c02, this is actually higher than the accepted scientific estimate of the percentage effect which is put at around 2%.
Your two valley's story is pointless as many things affect how fast the temperature drops including cloud cover and surface terrain, and your two valley's, to be valley's, have to have hills or mountains between them these would act as a shield and depending on local conditions and whether one valley was getting weather from the sea and the other from inland also if the two valley's are at different altitudes. Because if you have two valley's that are the same, in all the above, they will cool at the same rate.
These sort of stories really do show the lack of 'even basic' understanding of real weather/climate issues.

Anonymous · Answer

The key item here that the skeptics see and the faithful do not is how much warming can Co2 by itself do, not very much as anyone who has ever visited an are where there are two valleys near to each other where one has low humidity and the other has high humidity. This simple experiment is easy for anyone to perform in some cases in California, Washington and Oregon where you have regions near each other that can be driven between in a few hours time. The true test is how fast the local temperature drops after sun fall. In most cases in the high humidity zone the drop will be 5 to 15 degrees depending on how high the humidity is. In the low humidity zone it can drop 20 to 30 degrees or more in the same time frame. The difference is first there is much less Co2 than humidity in the air most places. Second Co2 only blocks a small percentage of what humidity does even in exceptionally high concentrations. So where it occurs more than 90% of the greenhouse effect is from water vapor not any of the minor gases.

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm#
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html#anchor2108263
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/The_Saturated_Greenhouse_Effect.htm
http://landshape.org/enm/greenhouse-thermodynamics-and-water-vapor/
 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMGC21A0725E
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30sep_blankyear.htm
http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/tilmari5.htm#spots
http://climate-change.suite101.com/article.cfm/climate_change_solar_variability
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

Anonymous · Answer

WOAH how long did it take you to type all that? or did you copy and paste and waited 3 minutes for it to load?

WOAH cause common thats a wall of text! bigger then the wall of china!

antarcticice · Answer

Khabibullo Abdusamatov, is pushing a theory that puts the blame for climate change on the Sun, his claim is, recent increases in solar irradiance are to blame for GW. This link was being used earlier in the year as reliable source for this theory.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

The second page of this link has the opinions of several main stream scientists of the theory, basically it's nonsense. Easily shoot down on one of it's main points solar irradiance, which has been monitored since the 70s and outside of the usual solar cycle rise and fall (which is around 0.01%) there has been no rise in solar irradiance.

"The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years."

Sorry this is fiction, the drop is nothing like that, this is the last five years

2008 - (based on the 11 months so far) 0.48°C (+0.86°F) above
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/ann08.html

2007 - 0.55°C (+0.99°F) above average (Ranked 5th warmest)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/ann/global.html

2006 - 0.54°C (+0.97°F) above average (Ranked 5th warmest)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/global.html

2005 - 0.58°C (1.04°F) above average (Ranked 2nd warmest)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/ann/global.html

2004 - 0.54°C (0.97°F) above long term trend (Ranked 4th warmest)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2004/ann/global.html

This is the HadCrut data it also shows no such drop
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.pdf

"A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here." 
You posted nothing to support your claims

Trending News

What do you know that these people don't ?

15 Answers