Who here is a global warming skeptic?

Harold Squared · June 30, 2015

The navigability of waters at high latitudes was demonstrated by Allied shipping to Murmansk during the Great Patriotic War fought at great cost by our heroic Soviet comrades of yesteryear.

Please don't.

What, you ran out of Star Trek photos?

Old Guy In Stanton · December 2, 2015

Can you please post some kind of evidence - preferably new evidence - which made you come to this conclusion? And FOX News does not count.

Instead of forcing the climate sciences to "prove" that climate change is a fact, why don't we reverse this for once? Just prove to us that climate change is a myth... then we can bust that myth.

I'm sick and tired of having to explain the whole climate theory... and then some stupid climate skeptic finds 1 little point which is perhaps not explained well, and claims that the entire theory falls to pieces. Let's reverse that process. You can prove that it's bunk, and we'll shoot holes in the climate skeptics' theories.

The problem with your idea is that disproving global warming is an attempt to prove a negative assertion (that something is NOT). How do you prove that something is NOT, exactly? And it seems to me that the entire basis of science is proving that something IS.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Old Guy In Stanton

**Strange** · December 2, 2015

Actually, quite the reverse. Science works by disproving theories not by proving them. It would be quite easy to disprove the theory of climate change. You could show that 200 years of physics is wrong. You could show that levels of CO2 have not increased. You could show that despite this global temperatures have not increased. And on and on...

TheGeckomancer · December 2, 2015

I am a global warming skeptic. Because we know it to be global climate change not warming. And there is nothing to be skeptical about, if you take an earth science class in highschool you learn about atmospheric c02 levels and some of the things they do.

mettasattva · December 10, 2015

This question is about the atmosphere. The AGW hypothesis as I have read says that the only way for heat to escape is via electromagnetic radiation into space. And it gives an account of the sun heating the earth's surface and then the earth releasing that into the atmosphere. Then this is blocked by greenhouse gases.

This is clearly not a technical account of the processes.

When the earth's surface is heated, the main cooling factor is actually convection into the air, everyone knows this from how a greenhouse actually works. A greenhouse blocks convection, and the glass insulates the inside from the outside. The CO2 content inside is actually to boost plant growth and has no significant effect on temperature. So the "Greenhouse effect" is obviously a simplification.

When the air heats up at the surface, does it not rise up into the atmosphere? As the gases rise, they lose Kinetic energy and gain Gravitational Potential Energy. Wouldn't this lower the temperature of that air?

Does the AGW take this into account, my basic understanding was formed from reading popular sites. I have no idea what goes into the technical discussions.

(If the whole earth rose in temperature, then the volume of the atmosphere would then increase, resulting in thinner air)

John Cuthber · December 10, 2015

This is clearly not a technical account of the processes.

When the earth's surface is heated, the main cooling factor is actually convection into the air, everyone knows this from how a greenhouse actually works. A greenhouse blocks convection, and the glass insulates the inside from the outside

When the air heats up at the surface, does it not rise up into the atmosphere? As the gases rise, they lose Kinetic energy and gain Gravitational Potential Energy. Wouldn't this lower the temperature of that air?

Does the AGW take this into account, my basic understanding was formed from reading popular sites. I have no idea what goes into the technical discussions.

The description as a greenhouse is a simplification.

That's why there's snow on the tops of mountains, even near the equator.

Yes, it does (and lots of other complicating factors).

**Strange** · December 10, 2015

Does the AGW take this into account, my basic understanding was formed from reading popular sites. I have no idea what goes into the technical discussions.

Climate modelling certainly does take into account convection (in the atmosphere as well as the oceans).

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=convection+climate+models

overtone · December 10, 2015

(If the whole earth rose in temperature, then the volume of the atmosphere would then increase, resulting in thinner air)

Not necessarily. Some of the increase in temperature can lead to an increase in air pressure, not volume.

As far as the volume of the atmosphere overall, notice that most of the heat trapped by an influx of extra CO2 is trapped at fairly low altitude initially - that's where most of the extra CO2 is. The very highest levels of the atmosphere are often cooled by this extra interruption of radiant heat transfer from the surface - and shrink in volume. In the long run this will balance, and the planet will eventually be emitting into space as much solar energy as it is absorbing. But for the time being the newly CO2-insulated surface is absorbing more than it is emitting. Hence global warming.

mettasattva · December 10, 2015

Thanks for clearing that up. My education on the topic was from GSCE science and that climate site. Which left most information out.

One more question, I just read that water vapour amplifies the greenhouse effect because the warmer oceans produce more vapour, and this vapour then adds to the greenhouse effect amplifying the effect of the addition of CO2.

Does the addition of water vapour similarly get amplified by this effect? That is, if water vapour was released by humans, would that raise the temperature leading to more evaporation thus amplifying the effect of the addition of H20?

John Cuthber · December 10, 2015

Thanks for clearing that up. My education on the topic was from GSCE science and that climate site. Which left most information out.

One more question, I just read that water vapour amplifies the greenhouse effect because the warmer oceans produce more vapour, and this vapour then adds to the greenhouse effect amplifying the effect of the addition of CO2.

Does the addition of water vapour similarly get amplified by this effect? That is, if water vapour was released by humans, would that raise the temperature leading to more evaporation thus amplifying the effect of the addition of H20?

It would in principle, but the amount of water in the air is very large and very variable. Mankind makes only a relatively small change to it.

Shelagh · December 17, 2015

The climate is changing all the time; it always has and it always will change. Global warming is the new religion of twenty-first century: it can be neither proved nor disproved, and requires a certain amount of belief.

**swansont** · December 17, 2015

The climate is changing all the time; it always has and it always will change. Global warming is the new religion of twenty-first century: it can be neither proved nor disproved, and requires a certain amount of belief.

Hmm. Not a speck of science.

Global warming "skepticism" is creationism's younger sibling

**Phi for All** · December 17, 2015

The climate is changing all the time; it always has and it always will change. Global warming is the new religion of twenty-first century: it can be neither proved nor disproved, and requires a certain amount of belief.

I had high hopes you were going to present some good scientific arguments, based on other posts (hard to believe you called science a religion after your views in another thread about atheism and religion - it's almost like you're two different people). You can't have read even a small portion of the rest of this thread.

Science isn't about proof. It's about accepting the preponderance of evidence for any explanation, especially one as heavily studied as the science surrounding climate change.

**swansont** · December 18, 2015

I had high hopes you were going to present some good scientific arguments, based on other posts (hard to believe you called science a religion after your views in another thread about atheism and religion - it's almost like you're two different people). You can't have read even a small portion of the rest of this thread.

Science isn't about proof. It's about accepting the preponderance of evidence for any explanation, especially one as heavily studied as the science surrounding climate change.

I learned today that this is called a consilience.

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/11/9898098/climate-skeptics-consilience

The strength of consilience science does not issue from the validity of any one set of measurements or any one line of evidence. It's not vulnerable to wholesale refutation if anomalies are found in one data set or another. Even if individual lines of evidence are weak or uncertain, their convergence, the fact that many trails keep leading to the same place, can make consilience science strong.

And the convergence also makes consilience science fecund — it suggests and structures further research.

The thing is, as the above article points out, merely being a "skeptic" doesn't present an alternative explanation. The "it's natural" falls well short because all of these mechanisms can be studied. While it is an explanation, it's a falsified one. We know it's wrong. Natural processes don't explain the warming we see.

Shelagh · December 18, 2015

Science isn't about proof. It's about accepting the preponderance of evidence for any explanation, especially one as heavily studied as the science surrounding climate change.

Even Stephen Hawking said that his belief was wrong! Scientific evidence can be misleading:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-admits-the-biggest-blunder-of-his-scientific-career-early-belief-that-everything-8568418.html

**swansont** · December 18, 2015

Even Stephen Hawking said that his belief was wrong! Scientific evidence can be misleading: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-admits-the-biggest-blunder-of-his-scientific-career-early-belief-that-everything-8568418.html

What does that have to do with climate change?

**Phi for All** · December 18, 2015

Even Stephen Hawking said that his belief was wrong! Scientific evidence can be misleading

You've misunderstood the article. The point is, when the evidence mounts up against what you want to be true, a scientist must be willing to trust the evidence over what they initially believed. Einstein, Hawking, Bohr, we've taken their wonderful pioneering work and continued to develop and strengthen many mainstream theories. They all made mistakes (we really should remove the Bohr atom model in our logo).

But that has nothing to do with the kind of consilience (thanks, swansont!) we see in the climate change issue. When so many different lines of evidence converge to support a conclusion, you can't just ignore it and call it a normal cycle.

TheGeckomancer · December 18, 2015

Shelagh, I don't have to read that article to tell you you are doing exactly what you don't think he is doing. Scientific evidence cannot be misleading if the tests and results are accurate and verified. Even if they ARE accurate and verified our conclusions of these results can still be wrong.

**Strange** · December 20, 2015

The climate is changing all the time; it always has and it always will change. Global warming is the new religion of twenty-first century: it can be neither proved nor disproved, and requires a certain amount of belief.

I am very disappointed to see this after all your other very intelligent and perceptive posts.

Shelagh · December 21, 2015

Sorry to disappoint you, but nobody likes a smart alec, so I like to throw in the odd, dumb comment every now and again.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Shelagh

dimreepr · December 21, 2015

If you don't like a smart alec then maybe this isn't the forum for you, most of us throw in a dumb comment now and then; learning from the mistake won't disappoint, excuses might.

**Strange** · December 21, 2015

If you don't like a smart alec then maybe this isn't the forum for you,...

I think Shelagh was being self-deprecating. I hope she is also open-minded enough to consider the weight of evidence.

On the subject of consilience, I heard a while ago that a team had done an analysis of economic growth over (something like) the last century. This is, of course, closely related to energy use (and therefore CO2 production) and they found that this matched very closely all the other measurements of CO2levels. (Too long ago and on the radio, so no source I'm afraid.)

dimreepr · December 21, 2015

If you don't like a smart alec then maybe this isn't the forum for you,

That was only half my point.

most of us throw in a dumb comment now and then; learning from the mistake won't disappoint, excuses might.

I hope she is also open-minded enough to consider the weight of evidence.

That was the other half.

MigL · December 21, 2015

Now I'm disappointed Shelagh.

Don't change your views or ideas simply because other people have expressed a dissatisfaction with them.

Tell these Bozos ( I mean that in the nicest way possible, guys ) to provide you with evidence, and if that evidence is satisfactory, THEN you'll change your mind.

( that's what a discussion is, isn't it ? )

If you change your mind just because everyone is against your opinion, then you're just trying to 'fit in'.

Edited December 21, 2015 by MigL