I think the point that needs to be made, is that the whole climate change argument isn't even a scientific theory. It's merely a hypothesis. This is the reason scientists are still arguing about the root cause of global warming and not about gravity.
No, it isn't a hypothesis.
This would be a hypothesis: the CO2 increase in the atmosphere which can't be explained by geological or biological causes is due to human activity.
And indeed that is a hypothesis, and can be, and has been tested. The result is that the increase of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere which can't be accounted for by all other known causes is a very nice match for human activities -- dating back to the fourteenth century when Europe was almost stripped of trees in order to provide for all the navies and building programs.
No, the reason they're still arguing about the causes isn't that they don't know the causes, it's that the methods for determining ancient and paleo-temperatures and atmospheric content, it's very difficult to figure out what is a following factor and what is a driving factor, what factors are independent and what are related. Take, for example, the claim that Al Gore had his charts backwards, and that they actually show that CO2 increases follow temperature increases, and not the other way around. The problem is that both are true, and neither of those processes is independent of the other (about his graphs, I make no claims).
A large number of those e-mails discuss such problems; they are as a result neither "pro-warming" or "anti-warming", they're merely discussions of how to do the science.
BTW, scientists indeed argue about gravity, a great deal -- some even say there's no such thing, only curbed spacetime.
You may believe nothing I say because of what I do, but i'll tell you anyway. i'm a senior biologist with a BS in biology and an MS in zoology. i am not a climatologist and do not do climate research.
There are papers out there that discuss solar cycles, methane gas, and a number of other things that may contribute to climate change. that's not new! we've know about it for years. what the current prevailing belief is that our contribution of CO2 into the air (primarily due to combustion) has significantly increased and probably exasperated the natural cycles of heating and cooling. yes climate shifts have happened in the past and yes they've been extreme (places like Egypt used to to be tropical!) that's not new either. in fact climate change is believed to be what resulted in evolution in earlier species such as Australopithecus afarensis into developing larger brains and ultimately leading to Homo sapiens.
we know climate change is happening by looking at the data. what are are not sure on is what is driving it. We know we are contributing to it, but are we contributing to so much that we are the driving force? we don't know. we think we are, but we can't prove it. there is no way to test it. it's the whole freaking planet for crying out loud. all we can do is look at models, run the numbers, and make some guesses. so we are not 100% sure. most institutes put the certaint at about 85-90% certain. So apparently that's not good enough. But what if it were only 50% certain? if someone told me there was only a 50% chance the car I were going to drive to work tomorrow would blow up, do you think I'd drive it? Well i can tell you what i'd do. that's NOT drive it. What about you?
Please look into the Copenhagen meeting on Dec 7th. They are discussing this issue on that date and putting a carbon tax on all people on the earth is on the agenda, as well as global governance (one world government, it won't be instantaneous but it will be eventual). How can people not see that the sun has a major role to play with this? During our heating period there were other planetary changes as well including some moons of other planets that had their ice caps melting too in accordance to ours. I know that we are not responsible for THAT. The sun is obviously a thing that needs to be looked into..unless it already has been looked into and they found that it is more ominous than we can handle in which case, we wouldn't get told if it is really that dire.
The sun has been looked at. Incoming energy from the sun is called "insolation", and it has been measured, as best can be done, all across the solar system (they even have ways to measure wind speeds on Jupiter, which are in part a function of insolation). Insolation on Mars is easy, on Venus is problematic, but wherever any decent estimate can be gotten, it has been, multiples times.
The result is that while yes, the sun is indeed heating up the whole solar system a bit more than before, the figure arrived at is no greater than possibly one-twentieth what would be needed if insolation is the only or even a major contributor to Earth's warming.
BTW, many scientists won't even grant the 1/20th figure; <1/50th (2%) is more common.
BUT -- remember what I said about independent and dependent? Insolation affects every warming variable on earth except two: geological, and human. It screws up measuring atmospheric carbon history because as it warms the atmosphere, plants grow better, and that changes the atmospheric CO2 content. It changes the kinds of clouds we have and how common they are, it changes the ocean currents, and those in turn affect the growth of living things, which have their own impact of warming. So when you're looking at insolation, you're not just dealing with a change in incoming radiation, but with all the changes that produces -- such as, for instance, increased forests in some places, and increased deserts in others.
I think you need to spend some time reading at this website. These are climate scientists and they are involved in this latest attempt to make hay by the deniers.
The CRU hack
Filed under:
* Climate Science
— group @ 20 November 2009
As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.
Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.
<<snip>>
It's worth reading the rest at the link here;
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853
All the denial is astroturf created by big oil, coal and anyone else who stands to benefit by inertia.
<<snip>>
There's been a lot of talk recently about the "hacked climate emails." Long story, short: Hacker steals email, posts. Wingnuts take some lines out of context, claim they show a cover-up, cry conspiracy. Scientists refute, in detail. Media covers "controversy." Driven by talk radio and oil money, the whole thing escalates into a scandal.
But a much bigger scandal is just waiting to break.
That scandal?
1) Climate change is real, it's here, we're causing it, and it's worse than we thought it was.
<<snip>>
http://www.alternet.org/environment...about_hacked_emails_but_the_media's_coverage/
We can't escape this, there is no where to run.
That "it's worse than we thought it was" is true. They just recently found that the Greenland ice pack is melting faster than was thought; as a result, there are concerns that it will become unstable, which could mean chunks far bigger than just Rhode Island breaking off -- chunks which could raise sea levels half a meter in a matter of weeks (and there are quite a few such chunks).
Then there's the unstable ice field in Antarctica which, if it collapsed, could raise sea levels two to three meters in just a matter of weeks.
The thing is this, the emails ARE real and this is an attempt turn the truth into a lie as they always do. Look deeper my friend, you will see the truth.
Consider the possibility that those trying to turn the truth into a lie are the ones you're listening to.
Because so far, the e-mails you've shown have actually hurt your case.
