Earths Climate Change - Cyclical or Man-Made, Both or Other?

[Ant Sinclair]

Below is a link to a video, in the video Professor Bob Carter lectures on climate-change. Would his views hold with the Experts here on Science Forums?

 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DRCISn1KfKQ

[Strange]

Could you summarize his views for those of us unable to watch the video?

[Ant Sinclair]

Sorry Strange You're correct in Your request and I will put together a synopsis of His lecture and post it here. I had aimed this at the Forums Experts and may have wrongly presumed that the Experts would have known of Him.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Ant Sinclair

[Strange]

This appears to be him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Carter#Global_warming_controversy

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Bob_Carter_arg.htm

 

In response to claims made by Carter that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had not uncovered evidence that global warming was caused by human activity, a former CSIRO climate scientist stated that Carter was not a credible source on climate change and that “if he [Carter] has any evidence that [global warming over the past 100 years] is a natural variability he should publish through the peer review process.”

http://www.desmogblog.com/bob-carter

[Ant Sinclair]

In this de smog blog who is claiming He is not credible Strange? Could You summarise the blog and name the credible source denouncing Prof Bob Carter?

[Strange]

 

A former CSIRO climate scientist, and now head of a new sustainability institute at Monash University, Graeme Pearman, said Professor Carter was not a credible source on climate change. "If he has any evidence that [global warming over the past 100 years] is a natural variability he should publish through the peer review process," Dr Pearman said. "That is what the rest of us have to do."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/minchin-denies-climate-change-manmade/2007/03/14/1173722560417.html

[Ant Sinclair]

Is this Dr. Graeme Pearman? Would He be as knowledgable as a Professor?

Have there ever been any scientists implicated in giving false implications on scientific subjects due to different causes of impartiality?

Edited March 17, 2015 by Ant Sinclair

[studiot]

 

A Sinclair

Have there ever been any scientists implicated in giving false implications on scientific subjects due to different causes of impartiality?

 

 

How about this famous one

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

[Strange]

Is this Dr. Graeme Pearman? Would He be as knowledgable as a Professor?

 

Well, he seems to work in the area of climate science, which Carter doesn't. But that is getting dangerously close to "argument from authority". His point is that if Carter has any scientific arguments then they should be subjected to the usual peer-review process, not published in newspaper articles.

 

 

Have there ever been any scientists implicated in giving false implications on scientific subjects due to different causes of impartiality?

 

I'm sure there have been many - which is why science doesn't rely on the opinions of individuals.

 

Follow the money, as they say:

According to leaked documents Carter receives $1,667 a month from the Heartland Institute, an organization with an intense focus on climate change skepticism.

http://www.desmogblog.com/bob-carter

[swansont]

Sorry Strange You're correct in Your request and I will put together a synopsis of His lecture and post it here. I had aimed this at the Forums Experts and may have wrongly presumed that the Experts would have known of Him.

!

Moderator Note

That doesn't grant you a waiver regarding rule 2.7. People need to be able to participate without watching the video. You need to at least summarize the issues you wish to discuss.

[Ant Sinclair]

!

Moderator Note

That doesn't grant you a waiver regarding rule 2.7. People need to be able to participate without watching the video. You need to at least summarize the issues you wish to discuss.

I'll make the Synopsis a priority this evening swansont as I have been busy working on the Energy Constants thread and the H-Bonds thread inbetween discussions with Strange, Myself personally watched the video whilst doing this work, and as I may not have picked up every detail watching it this way will have to re-watch it to give a fair synopsis.

[iNow]

It never ceases to amaze me when people ignore the tens of thousands of scientists from different fields who have studied this issue and arrived at the same conclusion in favor of that one random crackpot with an unsupported contrary position that aligns with personal preference.

[Greg H.]

It never ceases to amaze me when people ignore the tens of thousands of scientists from different fields who have studied this issue and arrived at the same conclusion in favor of that one random crackpot with an unsupported contrary position that aligns with personal preference.

I don't know why it would - evolution has been facing the same battle for far longer.

[StringJunky]

It never ceases to amaze me when people ignore the tens of thousands of scientists from different fields who have studied this issue and arrived at the same conclusion in favor of that one random crackpot with an unsupported contrary position that aligns with personal preference.

A lot of people only support what they want to hear and that random crackpot is giving them it. It's a bit like the current economic denialism by the Greek electorate; the truth is too painful what needs to be done, and that situation is a storm-in-a-teacup compared to climate change

[pavelcherepan]

It never ceases to amaze me when people ignore the tens of thousands of scientists from different fields who have studied this issue and arrived at the same conclusion in favor of that one random crackpot with an unsupported contrary position that aligns with personal preference.

There are also peer reviewed studies to the contrary as well, although not as numerous and not as well supported. There is also a concern that studies on man made climate change are being supported by developed countries for political reasons. For example one of such ideas says that modern post-industrial economy has pretty much run its course and we're expecting a major paradigm shift in global economy. Those who are quick to react will reap greater benefits. Developed countries on the other hand have too much money invested in old type of economy and changing will be slow for them and so by imposing strict regulations on energy generation they are trying to buy themselves some time to be ahead of the game when the time comes.

 

I'm not supporting this view but indeed there's a lot of politics involved in global warming discussions.

[Phi for All]

There are also peer reviewed studies to the contrary as well, although not as numerous and not as well supported. There is also a concern that studies on man made climate change are being supported by developed countries for political reasons. For example one of such ideas says that modern post-industrial economy has pretty much run its course and we're expecting a major paradigm shift in global economy. Those who are quick to react will reap greater benefits. Developed countries on the other hand have too much money invested in old type of economy and changing will be slow for them and so by imposing strict regulations on energy generation they are trying to buy themselves some time to be ahead of the game when the time comes.

 

I'm not supporting this view but indeed there's a lot of politics involved in global warming discussions.

 

You don't need to invoke a paradigm economic shift to see that those with established infrastructure investments don't want to make the changes necessary to mitigate the problem. It's only political because the corporations involved have made it so. The science should have a louder voice than the oil companies and their congresscritters.

[iNow]

There are also peer reviewed studies to the contrary as well, although not as numerous and not as well supported.

Correct. the red slivers in the charts below (across 3 meta studies) represents those aforementioned studies to the contrary.

 

[pavelcherepan]

Correct. the red slivers in the charts below (across 3 meta studies) represents those aforementioned studies to the contrary.

 

 

Do these charts show just the scientists who believe that man-made climate change is not a thing at all or also the ones who believe that it's one of several factors? Most of geologists I know, including some in senior positions in USGS tend to hold to the latter point of view, i.e. that there are multiple factors affecting climate change and man-made influence may or may not be the leading one of those.

[studiot]

 

pavelcherepan

I'm not supporting this view but indeed there's a lot of politics involved in global warming discussions.

 

 

+1 for fairness and astuteness.

 

You don't need to invoke a paradigm economic shift to see that those with established infrastructure investments don't want to make the changes necessary to mitigate the problem. It's only political because the corporations involved have made it so. The science should have a louder voice than the oil companies and their congresscritters.

 

With all due respect I would see this as a political statement rather than a scientific one.

[Essay]

I'm not supporting this view but indeed there's a lot of politics involved in global warming discussions.

 

Really, it is more that there are a lot of politics involved in discussions about global warming solutions.

 

 

 

Do these charts show just the scientists who believe that man-made climate change is not a thing at all or also the ones who believe that it's one of several factors? Most of geologists I know, including some in senior positions in USGS tend to hold to the latter point of view, i.e. that there are multiple factors affecting climate change and man-made influence may or may not be the leading one of those.

 

Do you know of any geologists who do not think, like the vast majority of scientists, that there are multiple factors affecting climate change?

 

I'm not sure how those charts and statistics are defined, but if you want to speak in terms of how "man-made influence may or may not be the leading one of those ...multiple factors affecting climate change," I'd expect the breakdown would be about the same, with a small percentage saying it is insignificant, and a vast majority saying it is significant. If you want to define a cause as "leading," then you'd need to specify a time span, such as the expected lifetime of CO2 or the lifetime of a particular policy or species or civilization perhaps.

 

~

p.s. While I'm voting for "both," I'm anxious to hear about what the video says.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Essay

[iNow]

Do these charts show just the scientists who believe that man-made climate change is not a thing at all or also the ones who believe that it's one of several factors?

 

The citations are there. Go find out for yourself. Of course many factors influence climate. The primary driver of the changes we are seeing is human contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere. We're digging up massive carbon stores previously locked in the ground and burning it, thus releasing ~40 gigatons into the atmosphere per year.

 

Yes, other factors play a role, but none of those natural nonanthropogenic forcing agents can explain the changes we are seeing, neither the magnitude nor the pace.

[pavelcherepan]

The citations are there. Go find out for yourself.

 

No problem.

 

As far as Doran & Zimmerman poll is concerned the data looks all right to me, although it strikes me how they decided that opinions of anyone except for climatologists specializing on global warming are very much irrelevant to the discussion. Why ask them in the first place then?

 

I'll elaborate on that: the data shown on the graph shows that 76 out of 79 (which is actually 96.2%, not 97%) climatologists specializing on climate change agree that human influence plays major role in global warming, but "Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature." And then in conclusion they simply dismiss other opinions stating:

 

 

 

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.

 

Well, that's some scientific integrity. Really, who cares about opinions of ecologists, geologists, paleoclimatologists and all other climatologists not specializing on global warming.

 

Second study by Anderegg and others simply divided respondents into groups of "convinced of anthropogenic climate change" and "unconvinced by evidence" without taking any account of possibility of significantly varying views among the first group. I'm not even sure what to make of the 2.5% of scientists who said they are not convinced. They seem to be completely ignoring the very obvious and abundant scientific evidence. So this poll is something like asking science community whether they believe the Earth is round and singling out a few freaks who believe it's flat. I don't think it's a very conclusive result.

 

Next study by Crook et al. First of all out of 11000+ abstracts of articles about global warming, 66.4% didn't state any view on anthropogenic climate change and yes, out of remaining 33.6% of abstracts 97.1% of authors agreed that 'humans are contributing to global warming'. For some reason graph shows 98.5% and I have no idea why. Maybe to show the nice trend of rising approval 2009 -> 2013, but that's speculation on my part, maybe just an honest mistake.

 

And when those results have been split into categories there was an interesting figure of 1.02% of abstracts that actually endorsed the standard definition which stated: "human activity is very likely causing most of the current warming (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)".

 

Anyways, I'm not disputing climate change or anthropogenic influence on climate change, it seems pretty obvious with available data, but interpreting this data in a sense that scientific community almost unanimously agrees that humanity is causing most of global warming is not correct for the reasons described above.

Edited March 19, 2015 by pavelcherepan

[iNow]

the data shown on the graph shows that 76 out of 79 (which is actually 96.2%, not 97%)

Wow. You're right. That changes everything, and completely refutes the core point about how overwhelmingly the experts on this topic agree with anthropogenic origin. I mean, pffft. Only 96.2%? What jackass wouldn't believe the other 3.8%, amiright?

 

Well, that's some scientific integrity. Really, who cares about opinions of ecologists, geologists, paleoclimatologists and all other climatologists not specializing on global warming.

They are all welcome to offer their opinions. Unfortunately, when those aforementioned contrary opinions are reviewed against the mountains of evidence we have and scrutinized against the decades of available facts, they consistently crumble. They become specious, unfounded, and entirely dismissible. There is no avoiding that human behavior is the key driver of the climatic changes we are experiencing and forecasting, even though other natural forcing agents clearly play a role.

 

If they disagree, they need to show what natural forcing agent has changed significantly enough to explain the changes we're seeing, why this is more parsimonious with the data than CO2 contributions, and why the changes coincided with the industrial revolution. They'd win some rather large prizes and probably get invited to Stockholm, Sweden if they did, btw.

 

and yes, out of remaining 33.6% of abstracts 97.1% of authors agreed that 'humans are contributing to global warming'. For some reason graph shows 98.5% and I have no idea why.

Again, you're right. That changes everything, and completely refutes the core point about how overwhelmingly the experts on this topic agree with anthropogenic origin. I mean, pffft. Only 97.1%? What jackass wouldn't believe the other 2.9%, amiright?

 

More seriously, your approach here strikes me as misguided. It's equivalent to suggesting we should discard the conclusion that 15% of Americans lived below the poverty line in 2014 because the actual number is closer to 14.5%. It's nonsequitur to translate this into a conclusion that poverty didn't exist for tens of millions of people last year, and in much the same way it's nonsequitur to conclude that the scientific community and data don't share an overwhelming consensus on the primary driver underlying the changes we are facing in our climate (i.e. human contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere and the resulting downstream feedbacks).

 

Anyways, I'm not disputing climate change or anthropogenic influence on climate change, it seems pretty obvious with available data

That's all well and good and thanks for clarifying, but we were talking about those other "most geologists" you know who can't seem to accept this "pretty obvious" conclusion and for some strange reason "hold the point of view" that "man-made influence may or may not be the leading [factor affecting climate change]."

 

Here it is again, remember? >>

 

"Do these charts show just the scientists who believe that man-made climate change is not a thing at all or also the ones who believe that it's one of several factors? Most of geologists I know, including some in senior positions in USGS tend to hold to the latter point of view, i.e. that there are multiple factors affecting climate change and man-made influence may or may not be the leading one of those."

Edited March 19, 2015 by iNow

[pavelcherepan]

 

That's all well and good and thanks for clarifying, but we were talking about those other "most geologists" you know who can't seem to accept this "pretty obvious" conclusion and for some strange reason "hold the point of view" that "man-made influence may or may not be the leading [factor affecting climate change].

 

I'm not sure what your point is. I never argued against anthropogenic climate change and never did I say that geologists I know dismiss it. Au contraire, I said that they generally do accept man-made influence and some consider it to be the leading cause of global warming while a lot of others don't.

 

 

Again, you're right. That changes everything, and completely refutes the core point about how overwhelmingly the experts on this topic agree with anthropogenic origin. I mean, pffft. Only 97.1%? What jackass wouldn't believe the other 2.9%, amiright?

 

Any science is based on some sort of empirical evidence and you can't go around randomly changing numbers so they better fit some sort of trend you think you should be observing (and I'm not talking about you, iNow, but of the author of graphs ). Even if the change is minor there's no excuse for fiddling with numbers like they did in graphs you provided. Apart from those incorrectly reported percentages there are extremely large errors on number of respondents in graph 3 where out of 11000+ abstracts only some 7300'ish did actually state any kind of view on the problem in question, but the graph still uses the big, fancy original number for the purpose unknown.

 

Also, if you want to have a look at the attached image, it shows results of the same polls you mentioned and several others too. This comes from the wiki article on scientific community view on man-made climate change. Doesn't it concern you how different it looks compared to the graphs you attached? Based on this graph and depending on which poll to look at it's up to 18% of scientists who disagree that anthropogenic climate change has significant effect on global warming.

 

 

 

 

 

And again, so that we're clear on that - I don't feel like arguing whether or not anthropogenic climate change is real or not. It's pretty obvious to me that it is, but there is a question on whether it is the main contributor or not. I have yet to see a study that would look at all major contributors and attempt to quantify their influence and with rock-solid evidence.

 

Also, in your post you sounded a bit irritated by me, yet all I did was a peer-review of the evidence you provided, it didn't seem to be entirely valid and I hate forged numbers.

Edited March 19, 2015 by pavelcherepan

[iNow]

And again, so that we're clear on that - I don't feel like arguing whether or not anthropogenic climate change is real or not. It's pretty obvious to me that it is, but there is a question on whether it is the main contributor or not.

Well, no. And that's the point. There's not. That question has been answered, and was answered long ago.

 

I have yet to see a study that would look at all major contributors and attempt to quantify their influence and with rock-solid evidence.

Your personal incredulity is irrelevant to the reality of the situation.