Is there any reason to believe Roy Spencer is right about global warming?

"It began when he and Christy analyzed satellite global temperature data and wrongly concluded that our atmosphere was cooling. Other scientists later caught and corrected their error."

I wish you would quit using this as an example of why we shouldn't trust anything Spencer says--this type of thing occurs all the time in science. Yes, it was a very large error, but after RSS discovered and reported the error, Spencer and Christy corrected it. Just like when S&C discovered an error in RSS data--RSS corrected it. That's the way it works.

Now Spencer's belief in ID should cause you to take a second look at any claims he makes, but this belief cannot be a reason to discount his work on climate; that would be a true example of an ad hominem (despite what most denialists think, ad hominem does not mean just insulting the other party).

"More recently, Spencer has argued that we can't even be sure that humans have caused the increase in atmospheric CO2."

This isn't quite true--he argues that humans have contributed a significant amount to rising CO2, but that the oceans may have contributed as well. Now even this stance is indefensible, but not quite as dramatic as you make it out to be.

Overall, I think we have good reason to be skeptical of the claims made by Roy Spencer, but we cannot use his past mistakes and current beliefs to discount his work all together.

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Edit:

The denialists have come out in full force....

Tomcat wrote

"As far as your criticism of believing in god, I have trouble believing in the opinion of any scientists who is an atheists."

I don't think this was Dana's criticism. Not believing in intelligent design does not mean you are an athiest.

Starbuck wrote

"Is it ridiculous? What empirical evidence do you state that MAN has caused the increase in C02 in the atmosphere when increases according to empirical ice core evidence shows that C02 follows warming of the earth. Since the Mann's hockey stick has been totally disgraced as entirely the wrong conclusions on the evidence, the data is now recognized that warming occurs first then and increase of C02"

Ahh, so many fallacies in just one post. I won't go over the whole thing, but...

1) Where do you think man's emissions are going? Yes, natural processes release many times more CO2 yearly, but that is part of the yearly cycle--it gets absorbed again. That is why we call it a balance. Human CO2 emissions are disrupting the balance.

2) Ice core records show that CO2 is released some 700 years after the rise in temperature. So unless you can point to some warming 700 years ago that would be the cause of the recent rise in CO2 (and we know there is one), your argument falls apart.

3) Mann's study had some statistical errors, but they didn't effect his overall findings, and several other studies have been done over the past decade that come to the same conclusion.

Well let’s see so far we have:

* Silly flawed human, what makes you think you could ever understand?

* What’s the problem a scientist who supports a faith based substitute for science?

* The guy who gave you an F deserves a zero for plagiarizing the same old debunked nonsense.

* The magic bullet to fix climate change is – paint your roof white!

* Silly small human, the world is big and we are small.

* Anyway, science doesn’t even exist!

My answer? Anyone who defends creationism as substitute for science should not only not be trusted they should be ignored. It’s too big of a gulf to bridge and it calls into question their judgment. One can certainly be spiritual and believe in a higher power. It’s just at this point it looks like whatever God did, it was before the big bang and [He’s] kind of let things run unattended since since then.

When you have your answer first and then look for data you typically get the wrong conclusion. People like Spencer are so invested in the idea that God's creation is blameless they can't see the answer even after it's shown to them. The anthropogenic source of excess carbon is an open and shut case - carbon isotopes - so anyone who would question it is rationalizing the alternate conclusion. Again, poor judgement, can't be trusted.

i dont understand how people cant step outside and notice all the drastic changes and NOT believe that we caused global warming. you are completely right by saying that the logic is flawed.

Sure, global warming and cooling is a natural process, its the way our planet restores itself. But this time, we have greatly influenced the changes. Human activities have caused our climate to warm up more rapidly and more drastically than it ever did naturally. This also means that the ice age which comes at the end of the global warming will be so much worse than previous time.

Practically every single educated scientist on this planet agrees that we sped up global warming and made it so much worse than it was thousands of years ago.

But in my opinion, we should stop arguing about what caused it. Climate change is already going on, and an ice age is coming. There is nothing we can do to stop it. Maybe slow it down, or make the impact less, but we have already created such a mess out of this planet that its inevitable.

Evidence is clear....polar bears are swimming where they used to be walking. All that white ice that used to reflect light energy is now water which is absorbing that energy. Retaining energy is the problem. That converts to heat. Now if we all paint our roofs and highways white, we can make up for a large part of that energy reflecting capacity that the polar ice caps have lost. We should be concentrating on what counts.... we need to radiate the sun's energy back to space. There are sure worse gases than CO2 that are preventing that radiation of heat from escaping... like CO or cow farts. (and people for that matter). Eating vegetarian helps the lowering of CO which is multiples more absorbing than CO2 in terms of heat energy. So if we paint out roofs white, eat vegetarian and encourage birth control, we don't have to worry about which scientist is right or wrong. In the end of the day, the polar bear who now swims 40 more miles each spring will be eternally grateful... (and alive hopefully). And isn't that what counts?

The Sun is the main reason for global warming. The planet Mars is also warming, and I don't think there are any little green men driving evil SUVs on Mars.

Is there any reason to believe Roy Spencer is right about global warming?

Only if you believe that 25 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the subject of satellite climate measurements are significant.

Otherwise of course he'd be a comple fool.

Who is Tamino?

No, his arguments are not very convincing. Spencer obviously has a lot of faith, but not a very scientific mind.

A. Spencer and Christy messed up their analysis of the satellite data, and then begrudgingly fixed their analysis. They've sat for a decade and encouraged the deniers to use the erroneous data sets.

B. Looking over a few online articles that he wrote, I noticed that he continues to confuse the global temperature trend with that of the continental US.[1] This is a very amateur mistake.

C. Spensor continues to post the Loehle graph of reconstructed temperatures on his web blog.[2] The Loehle study has been thoroughly discredited.

Yes there is. It is the politicians and media that are trying to get the public to believe there is a consensus on global warming. There certainly is NOT. There also is NO such thing as any kind of scientific theory, be it climate change or global warming.

And maybe a lot of people have either read misleading books or did not study the original documents. I agree much church cult information on religion is seriously flawed from poor or misleading translations of the original works. Here is a commentary by a Jewish scholar on the subject and he shows when read in the original there is a one to one correlation between what is in the bible and Darwin. In other words the bible to those who understand its message teaches evolution!

http://www.solhaam.org/teachings/relsta6.html

As the oceans warm up the hold less CO2. His argument has validity. If nothing else CO2 rose and fell many times for many reasons before man.

Do you believe in the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS? Then you have to believe in some form of intelligent design. How did mass get here?

By the way Einstien was deeply religious.

Einstien alsy had a math error in his first version of Relativity, (I know it is alot more complicated but Spencer is no Einstein)

Spencer has won many awards and is a reptuable scientist. If he was on your side you would love him.

Secondly the vast majority of scientists is not correct, read the Senate report sometime.

One scientist is at my univeristy. The list below is legit.