What is the SCIENTIFIC consensus on AGW?

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

* Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

* Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.

* Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18).[41]

* The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.

* World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C (2.0 and 11.5 °F) during the 21st century (table 3) and that:

o Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) [table 3].

o There is a confidence level >90% that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall.

o There is a confidence level >66% that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides.

* Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium.

* Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years

The U.S. Global Change Research Program

Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal. The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), with important contributions from the clearing of forests, agricultural practices, and other activities.

European Academy of Sciences and Arts

Human activity is most likely responsible for climate warming. Most of the climatic warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Documented long-term climate changes include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patterns and extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones. The above development potentially has dramatic consequences for mankind’s future.

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society....The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.

European Science Foundation

There is now convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases have become a major agent of climate change. These greenhouse gases affect the global climate by retaining heat in the troposphere, thus raising the average temperature of the planet and altering global atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns.

While on-going national and international actions to curtail and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are essential, the levels of greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere, and their impact, are likely to persist for several decades. On-going and increased efforts to mitigate climate change through reduction in greenhouse gases are therefore crucial.

Etc....

I worry the money and politics has motivated most of the majority, if a consensus exists -- that's. The inexperienced residence outcome could now not mannequin truth. It could. It could many times and now not others. With just a modest know-how of among the sizeable factors of the sciences concerned, I might say that we had satisfactory hold finding out, and tracking of the identified pollution, of which would good threaten us sooner or later. In a simplistic evaluation, I might say that developing populace is such the protagonist, that for all our efforts, no large mitigation of the pollution' damage might be discovered. Imagine a couple of extra billion mouths to feed and ft to be clad; the 3rd international aspires to have what we revel in. Global urbanization, going on now, coupled with unsustainable populace development will negate our satisfactory efforts. Everyone needs a vehicle, and all of the satisfactory matters. That "all people" is developing exponentially, even supposing so much country wide populations aren't. More and extra will come to pollute extra. As for CO2. It isn't always a pollutant. I feel of Apollo 13's drawback of prime CO2 Concentrations as a pollutant; I do not feel CO2 is presently a pollutant on Earth.

The main points that most would agree on as “the consensus” are:

1. The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2°C in the past century; 0.17°C/decade over the last 30 years)

2. People are causing this

3. If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate

4. This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004...

This consensus is supported by over 97% of climate scientists and every mainstream scientific organization which has issued a formal opinion on the subject. This includes the National Academies of Sciences of over a dozen countries, American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society, etc. etc.

http://logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.ht...

I provided this survey on the last question. It found that 94% of published climatolgists believed man is causing waming, though the sample is a bit small.

The writers also point out that other researchers found that found that more than 75% of peer-reviewed papers accepted the consensus view that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities, but that work was critisized for its methodology and its sample.

If you do a web search you will not find a single institution of climatogy that does not believe the consensus. There are a handful of individuals, so it is not unanamous. Those individuals though are not agreed on a possible natural cause of the warming.

As a botanist would you please explain how the "consensus" on the coheision-tension theory accounts for the refilling of embolized xylem conduits.

Or how the "consensus" reinforces the idea that whole plant transpiration can be modeled from stomatal conductance measurements of three leaves in the canopy of a 30 meter tree?

Or what about the "consensus" agreeing that plant transpiration can be modeled based on ambient vapor pressure deficit when intercellular spaces in leaves most often have temperatures much higher than ambient air.

A consensus doesn't really mean much when it's simply a group of scientists accepting their inability to properly measure responses (whether from difficulty or technological limitations). But they still report their results, and it's typically peer reviewed.

Edit - my point is the existence of a consensus on poorly understood variables does not signify factual evidence. All of the scenarios I put forth above are stiffly erroneus and lead to major miscalculations in modeling, but I see them used in recent literature all of the time. However as plants are far easier to study than the myriad responses regulating climate logical assumption would dictate that simplifications of equal importance are made in *all* modeling efforts. I'm no climate science nor do I pretend to understand all of the science behind it. The most damning of the CRU emails indicated that the scientists couldn't explain discrepancies in the energy budget despite the fact that all of the peer review parrots on this site say the calculations of energy budgets and climate forcings are something we all should have learned in high school physics. Apparently all of these climate scientists collectively missed that week of class.

BTW the comparison of skeptics to flat earthers and birthers has been made a million times before. But what's the point, every one needs some way to denigrate those they disagree with right?

The main points that alarmists claim as “the consensus” are:

1. "The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2°C in the past century; 0.17°C/decade over the last 30 years)." However scientific data does not support this claim, the data shows the earth getting cooler.

2. "People are causing this," which is impossible according to physics. The sun supplies 100% of all heat to the earth.

3. "If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate," which has not happened in the last 10 years, temps have actually dropped.

4. "This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it," but only very high taxes and inefficient energy mandates will help.

This consensus is not supported by over 97% of climate scientists and no mainstream scientific organization which has issued a formal opinion on the subject. This includes the National Academies of Sciences of over a dozen countries, American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society, etc. etc.

Consensus is irrelevant. Only the facts matter. If ninety-nine percent of people are wrong, they are still wrong.

The problem with AGW is that it has long since left any form of science and has taken on the form of a cult. People who are skeptical are labeled as deniers and equated with people who don't believe the holocaust occurred. We are told the science is in, we have the answers. This despite the history of science that has shown time and again the original answers are wrong.

It now comes out that much of the evidence has been cooked. At a minimum these researchers and all that has been derived from their work must be discarded. It is the fruit from the poison tree. It would not be allowed in a court.

Anyone who has ever done dynamic modeling could tell you that modeling for the climate is impossible with current technology. The national weather service cannot predict the weather 100 days from now. How is it that these guys think they can model climate 100 years from now? They cannot.

How much of a threat is a warming world? Look at the history of humans. It's the cold spells that have been hard on us. We are a creature that has existed in present form for a couple hundred thousand years, yet it has only been in the last few millennium that we went from a marginal creature to a successful species. The current inter-glacial has been a huge factor in that. We are a tropical animal.

Look at the economics. Everything we do is at the cost of something else undone. The draconian measures pushed by the politicians would hamstring our societies against the flexibility needed for individuals to make the right decisions about their lives. In our hurry to defend against rising seas we might build seawalls that would 100 years later have to be breached to cut the channel out to the receding seas. We spend time and money on global warming that might instead be spent on other more real problems, like AIDS, hunger, etc.

If AGW is not a fraud it has certainly been buried under one. In either case, the people who have pushed this as a political agenda, those who falsified data, and those who sought to silence honest inquiry should themselves be silenced so that real science can emerge.

Nope not even close I think it would be safe to say that most of the time the scientific consensus has been found to be wrong.

I believe at one time the consensus was that if you traveled over 30 mph the wind would take your breath away and you would suffocate. Also there was the world is flat stuff. Electro-magnetic radiation is a wave, (before quantum mechanics). The consensus was that Einsteins theory of gravity was incorrect (at least until it was shown by experimental evidence to be correct.)

I think there are plenty of examples where the consensus was shown to be incorrect by experimental evidence. I don't know what they teach in the life sciences, but in physical sciences and engineering we are taught the scientific method. Where theories are tested by experiments and observations, rather than popularity polls. If the observations don't match the predictions made by the theory then the theory is rejected or modified. Not the data or the record of the observations.

It's obvious which of the Dana's below have provided proof and which has not. One wishes to show you what science thinks, one does not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on...

This is why folks who deny the science claims "hoax". It's their only explanation for the strong scientific consensus on the topic.