How the GW myth is perpetuated

[Extrafire]

Yes Extra, the article says if the increase during the minimums were to persist for decades, there then would be a trend worth following.

Yes. That's the thing about real science, they always phrase their conclusions with caveats.

But that isn't happening and as far as I know,

Actually it is happening, they just don't know if it will persist, thereby becoming a significant trend.

there has never been an extended minimum with exception to the Maunder minimum, which is irrelevant to the current interglacial epoch we find ourselves in.

Well there hasn't been one since we started studying sun spots (thankfully, it was an awful time for humanity) and the evidence would seem to indicate there hasn't been one previously during the current interglacial.

This hardly counts as increased solar activity...

Yes it does. It's considerably increased since the Maunder, just as the temperature has been on a generalized warming trend since then.

although your second article does talk of increased solar activity, it also says this:

Kinda throws that correlation out with respect to current conditions don't you think?

Not really. Since it correlates right up to 1980 according to them, and other studies have it correlating right up till the present, (like the first article

Mar. 20, 2003
Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study.

the evidence on the whole would seem to indicate that solar activity is responsible.


Want other real climate scientists?

 

[Extrafire]

And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost.

Now that's so true, and it's the problem with the global warming alarmism, IPCC included. It's all politics.

 

[Tonington]

Yes. That's the thing about real science, they always phrase their conclusions with caveats.

Actually it is happening, they just don't know if it will persist, thereby becoming a significant trend.

Yes it does. It's considerably increased since the Maunder, just as the temperature has been on a generalized warming trend since then.

Not really. Since it correlates right up to 1980 according to them, and other studies have it correlating right up till the present, the evidence on the whole would seem to indicate that solar activity is responsible.


Want other real climate scientists?

No, real science has strong conclusions because it must be repeatable, but only if the foundation and assumptions are solid, which in this case they aren't.

As the article suggested, the activity correlates with minimum periods which happen every 11 years or so, which given the steady rise in temperature, does not create a reliable trend, unlike the greenhouse gas data.

Sunspots do not correlate to the data, nor does total solar irradiance. Although the number of republican senators does seem to....http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/fun-with-correlations/

 

[Extrafire]

Sun spot number: correlation with global warming

Solar variations and cosmic rays may be driving climate change



The picture above shows the number of sunspots in the past. Note that there is a natural 11-year-long cycle and this basic solar variation cycle is modulated by a signal whose timescale is comparable to 400 years. Note the Maunder minimum - click the picture to learn more about it - during 1650-1700. It happens to kind of agree with the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. Also, the number of sunspots in recent years reached the 1000-year high.

Lots of links and more relevant graphs here.

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

Not sure if this has been covered but the effects of global warming could be much more significant than we are currently aware of. Due to global dimming caused by particulate air pollution, as much as half the climate forcing occuring under global warming could be masked. Efforts to clean up air quality could have the unintended result of accelerating global temperature rise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

We are all seeing rather less of the Sun. Scientists looking at five decades of sunlight measurements have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.

 

[Extrafire]

No, real science has strong conclusions because it must be repeatable, but only if the foundation and assumptions are solid, which in this case they aren't.

Activists with an agenda have strong convictions. Science (real science) relies on evidence, and strong conclusions are only stated when the evidence is irrefutable. For instance, mass has gravity, the earth revolves around the sun, the universe is expanding. These are irrefutable. But for decades, the theory that the universe was expanding was based on equations, it hadn't been observed, and until it was, the scientific statements were something like, "the calculations indicate.." or "the universe appears to be expanding.." etc. Similarly, in 1991 when E. Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen discovered that cosmic rays, influenced by the sun's magnetic field (which in turn varies according to sun spot activity) affects cloud formation and global temperatures, they presented their findings with similar language.

Contrast that with the language of the activists (including scientist activists) who stated that "There is no longer any doubt. The earth is entering an ice age caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Glaciers which have been retreating since the last ice age have begun to advance again, and the oceans are cooling as fast as physically possible. The only question yet unanswered is how quickly it will happen." This was based on a 30 year cooling trend. Sound familiar? We're now hearing similar rhetoric based on the 30 year warming trend that immediately followed. But not from real science, which requires many decades (as the article states) before it can be reliably considered a significant trend. Real science has noticed a warming trend since the end of the little ice age (occasionally interspersed with smaller ups and downs) and has attributed it fairly reliably to natural causes (cosmic rays, solar flux, sun spot activity, fluctuations of sun's magnetic field, orbital variance, etc).

The article cites solid evidence, but notes that decades of further evidence are required for it to be of significance. It makes no assumptions. That's what activists do.

As the article suggested, the activity correlates with minimum periods which happen every 11 years or so, which given the steady rise in temperature, does not create a reliable trend, unlike the greenhouse gas data.

What the article says is that the minimums aren't as minimum as they were, that the minimums are increasing steadily and while the 11 year cycles are continuing, the overall strength is increasing, which matches the increase in temperature. Since CO2 data do not match temperature fluctuations, it is unlikely that it has much, if any effect.

Sunspots do not correlate to the data, nor does total solar irradiance.

Yes they do, and here's a few more graphs to illustrate.

 

[Walter]

Bob Carter
September 06, 2007 12:00am
THE question of press bias about global warming is in the news again.
Writing in the Japan Times, Christopher Lingle asks "What's up with the journalists in the mainstream media?", adding that "reporting on issues relating to global warming has become strikingly one-sided". Things have in fact come to such a pass that Newsweek recently equated global warming sceptics (itself a derogatory term for climate rationalist scientists who give priority to factual evidence over speculative computer models) with Holocaust deniers (yes, again), and accused them of being in the pay of Big Oil or Big Coal (yes, again). The unoriginality and ad hominem nature of such silly accusations, which are fuelled by trashy websites like Exxon's Secrets, DeSmogBlog and SourceWatch, have become tiresome.
As US sceptic Frank Miele has pungently, though accurately commented – those who are vocal in their support for global warming doomsterism are "less interested in free expression of ideas than in total compliance with their ideas, less interested in critical thinking than in being critical, and less interested in the truth than in their truth". These attributes will of course be on abundant display in this, the week of the Sydney APEC.
Meanwhile, at that guardian of public news sanctity, the BBC, plans were being laid for the broadcast next year of a new, splashy "consciousness raising" event on climate change– titled Planet Relief and involving public celebrities such as Ricky Gervais.
Peter Horrocks, head of BBC TV News, should be given due credit for having opposed these plans on the grounds it is not the job of a public broadcaster to promulgate a moral campaign to save the planet. Unwisely, however, Horrocks went on to add that "BBC News certainly does not have a line on climate change, however the weight of our coverage reflects the fact that there is an increasingly strong (although not overwhelming) weight of scientific opinion in favour of the proposition that climate change is happening and is being largely caused by man".
The utter lack of self-awareness in this statement, when it is compared with the actuality of the BBC's broadcasts, epitomises exactly the problem with media coverage of the global warming issue across the world, including Australia.
The BBC's "line" is self-evident to any independent and trained scientist who watches its coverage. It is to reproduce, without a trace of critical analysis, the alarmist utterances of a bevy of self-interested, self-perpetuating scientists and science agencies, environmental pressure groups and "significant" politicians (Tony Blair, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bob Brown), while at the same time ignoring or paying the most passing of lip service to any independent scientists or "insignificant" politicians (President Vaclav Klaus, Czech Republic; Senator James Inhofe, US Senate; Dennis Jensen, Australian Parliament) who try to inject some critical analysis into the debate.
Horrocks' statement also embraces the typical semantic confusion that marks journalists and editors when he asserts "climate change is happening", which is not and never has been the issue. Of course climate is changing; it always has and always will. In terms of the current public debate, the hypothesis to be tested is not "is climate changing" but rather "do human emissions of carbon dioxide cause dangerous global warming". Despite the 20-year-long efforts of thousands of scientists and the expenditure of about $80 billion of public money on research since 1990, no unambiguous (or even concerning circumstantial) evidence exists for this proposition. Indeed, with the collapse of the "hockey stick", and the recent failure of global temperature to follow its supposed script, the sole argument an increasingly desperate Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coterie is left with is the deployment of the results of unvalidated, speculative computer GCMs.
Meanwhile, in the real (meaning empirical) world, the dangerous warming hypothesis fails the most elementary of tests. Witness the fact, for example, that global average temperature has flat-lined since 1998 against a 4 per cent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over that period.
Has this ever been reported by the BBC or our ABC? No. Why not, Mr Horrocks and Mr Dalton?
Public broadcasters' coverage of the global warming issue indicates their staff do not understand the difference between sound empirical science and the virtual realities of speculative computer modelling. This in turn reflects that none of their news and current affairs personnel are both adequately trained in science and have the ability and self-confidence to critically assess the climate change issue independently.
As Lingle has observed: "creating group-think and mass behaviour should be anathema to honest journalists" – a principal betrayed every day with respect to the global warming issue by the staff of public broadcasters such as the ABC, SBS and BBC.
Which raises the question, why have Australia's established investigative journalists chosen to hide deep in their burrows over the global warming issue?
Professor Bob Carter is a geologist and climate change researcher at James Cook University, Townsville.

 

[Tonington]

Activists with an agenda have strong convictions. Science (real science) relies on evidence, and strong conclusions are only stated when the evidence is irrefutable. For instance, mass has gravity, the earth revolves around the sun, the universe is expanding. These are irrefutable. But for decades, the theory that the universe was expanding was based on equations, it hadn't been observed, and until it was, the scientific statements were something like, "the calculations indicate.." or "the universe appears to be expanding.." etc. Similarly, in 1991 when E. Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen discovered that cosmic rays, influenced by the sun's magnetic field (which in turn varies according to sun spot activity) affects cloud formation and global temperatures, they presented their findings with similar language.

Contrast that with the language of the activists (including scientist activists) who stated that "There is no longer any doubt. The earth is entering an ice age caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Glaciers which have been retreating since the last ice age have begun to advance again, and the oceans are cooling as fast as physically possible. The only question yet unanswered is how quickly it will happen." This was based on a 30 year cooling trend. Sound familiar? We're now hearing similar rhetoric based on the 30 year warming trend that immediately followed. But not from real science, which requires many decades (as the article states) before it can be reliably considered a significant trend. Real science has noticed a warming trend since the end of the little ice age (occasionally interspersed with smaller ups and downs) and has attributed it fairly reliably to natural causes (cosmic rays, solar flux, sun spot activity, fluctuations of sun's magnetic field, orbital variance, etc).

The article cites solid evidence, but notes that decades of further evidence are required for it to be of significance. It makes no assumptions. That's what activists do.
What the article says is that the minimums aren't as minimum as they were, that the minimums are increasing steadily and while the 11 year cycles are continuing, the overall strength is increasing, which matches the increase in temperature. Since CO2 data do not match temperature fluctuations, it is unlikely that it has much, if any effect.
Yes they do, and here's a few more graphs to illustrate.

Just like with Intelligent design, this issue repeatedly comes up., ie. Scientists all thought the earth was in an ice age during the 70's. This is patently false and has been shown so many, many times. If you want to get your info from bloggers, that's fine. The real problem stems from misquotes. There were scientists saying that present modeling indicated a long term trend towards cooling and glaciation over the next 20,000 years, and using the science available at the time, they weren't wrong (Milankovich cycles). No one was saying an ice age was imminent, which is oft the focus of this ridiculous side note. It all began when George Will, grossly misquoted a report by Hays et al.

George says in Science:

extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation

When the report he was quoting says:

Future climate. Having presented evidence that major changes in past climate were associated with variations in the geometry of the earth's orbit, we should be able to predict the trend of future climate. Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.

One approach to forecasting the natural long-term climate trend is to estimate the time constants of response necessary to explain the observed phase relationships between orbital variation and climatic change, and then to use those time constants in the exponential-response model. When such a model is applied to Vernekar's (39) astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate (80)

Notice the point about timescales as this is the crucial point. Predicting an ice age is imminent is nearly impossible, we can't do that now and scientists don't even say that catastrophe is currently imminent concerning global warming. Media types do, and scientists warn about future consequences, but there is not one single paper in any reputable journal suggesting that it is imminent. Instead they warn of tipping points, and stabilization issues.

Something else George said:

a full-blown 10,000-year ice age

The quote is correct, but the publication is not. You will frequently see this attributed to Science, when in fact it wasn't a peer-reviewed journal, it was in the science magazine "Science News"


I'm going to attmept this one last time, as this is getting incredibly boring.

Read this paper, it has all your solar interactions, including references and is probably the most up-to-date analysis of solar forcings, including, TSI, cosmic ray flux and sunspots.
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

 

[Extrafire]

No one was saying an ice age was imminent, which is oft the focus of this ridiculous side note.

:lol:Your problem is you are so young. I was there. That statement is from an actual article, to the best of my knowledge. I remember the hysteria clearly, if not the exact words, it was just like the global warming hysteria, only the environmental movement wasn't nearly as influential as now so there was no action by governments and not too many people paid any attention. I know it wasn't legit science, but there definitely were scientists who made those claims, just like today. The real science didn't support it, of course, but it did get a lot of press, just like today.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.



Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality. Link

but there is not one single paper in any reputable journal suggesting that it is imminent. Instead they warn of tipping points, and stabilization issues.

They say we are at the tipping point, or we've passed the tipping point, or we're almost at the tipping point of unstoppable global warming. Which is another way of saying it's imminent.

I'm going to attmept this one last time, as this is getting incredibly boring.

Read this paper, it has all your solar interactions, including references and is probably the most up-to-date analysis of solar forcings, including, TSI, cosmic ray flux and sunspots.
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

Here's a bit of reading for you on the subject:
A Millennium Scale Sunspot Reconstruction: Evidence For an Unusually Active Sun Since the 1940's
(Physical Review Letters 91, 2003)
- Ilya G. Usoskin, Sami K. Solanki, Manfred Schüssler, Kalevi Mursula, Katja Alanko

A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L13705, 2007)
- Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, Sergey Kravtsov

 

[Extrafire]

Not sure if this has been covered but the effects of global warming could be much more significant than we are currently aware of. Due to global dimming caused by particulate air pollution, as much as half the climate forcing occuring under global warming could be masked. Efforts to clean up air quality could have the unintended result of accelerating global temperature rise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

Yes, actually, back on page 6 of this thread, lower half.

Researchers led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California, launched three unmanned aircraft last March from the Maldives island of Hanimadhoo to fly through the Brown Cloud at various altitudes.
A total of 18 missions were flown to explore the blanket of soot, dust and smoke that at times is two miles thick and covers an area about the size of the U.S.
They found that the cloud of soot and particulate matter boosted the effect of solar heating on the surrounding air by as much as 50%.
"These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol particulates as cooling agents in the global climate system . . . ." concluded the Nature article summing up the study. Dang. Just when we thought the science of global warming was settled.
These findings also may help to explain the rapid melting among the 46,000 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and why the Himalayan glaciers have been retreating since at least 1780.
This phenomenon also might help explain why carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures don't track very well, if at all.


t previously had been assumed that such particulate matter, like that from volcanic eruptions, had a cooling effect on the Earth. Guess not — at least not all the time.
A computer simulation run by Surabit Menon, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, using Chinese weather reports calculated the warming effects of the cloud. Menon found the brown cloud as it spread around the globe contributed more to global warming than Western greenhouse gas emissions.
S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, finds it "ironic that much of (this) pollution could be avoided by the use of cleaner fossil fuels, like gas, oil, and even coal, all of which release CO2."
Ramanathan has found some resistance to his discovery and its conclusions.
"My colleagues warned me when I got into this that global warming is not really pure science — politics is mixed in with it." An inconvenient truth for a dedicated scientist.
Link

It's well known that particulate from volcanic eruptions have a considerable cooling effect on the earth, in fact it's believed that a series of massive eruptions was partly responsible for the Little Ice Age. But it seems that human particulate might have the opposite effect. Of course, this isn't the same as fossil fuel particulate, so it can't be extrapolated for the whole planet, but it is a significant finding.

 

[Tonington]

Extra, go find a reputable article where any scientist says we're past any tipping point. I would love to read that methodology....

As to the Millenium scale reconstruction, I'll explain the problems. Radionuclides are indeed the most reliable proxy records for reconstructing past solar activity. We have the Be1o and C14 records from ice cores and tree rings respectively. The problem with these records is that atmospheric transport and changes in deposition , as well as changes to the carbon cycle can influence the measurements in the case of Be10 and C14 respectively. While Solanki et. al(2004) find that solar activity is exceptionally high during past decades compared to the past 8000 years, Bard et. al(2000) find that current levels were reached or exceeded at 1200 AD. Obviosly one of these findings must be incorrect. So we turn to the C14 record for further investigation.

Since C14 is influenced by an entirely different set of geochemical properties, the study of the C14 record can help us solve the contradictions. Carbon cycle and past CO2 - C13 records allow us to infer how C14 concentrations as measured in tree rings were produced. In the 1950s, there was a large scale anthropogenic release of C14 due to the nuclear weapons tests and we can calculate the variations in the C14 record up to this point, inferring what the solar magnetic modulation really was. By analyzing these records, Muscheler et al (2005) finds that C14 records indicate that solar activity is high, but most definitely not exceptionally high for the period of the past 1000 years.

 

[Extrafire]

While Solanki et. al(2004) find that solar activity is exceptionally high during past decades compared to the past 8000 years, Bard et. al(2000) find that current levels were reached or exceeded at 1200 AD. Obviosly one of these findings must be incorrect. So we turn to the C14 record for further investigation.....

....By analyzing these records, Muscheler et al (2005) finds that C14 records indicate that solar activity is high, but most definitely not exceptionally high for the period of the past 1000 years.

Kinda supports what I've been saying. If you go back through my posts you'll see where I've said that evidence indicates that it was much warmer than now 7000 years ago (old growth forests then where there are glaciers now) that it was warmer during the medieval climate optimum, that today is warmer than any time since the MCO, but not as warm as then.

 

[typingrandomstuff]

Outside warm, inside cold. Cold due to the magnetism decrease of 10%. Research if you do not believe me.

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

Yes, actually, back on page 6 of this thread, lower half.It's well known that particulate from volcanic eruptions have a considerable cooling effect on the earth, in fact it's believed that a series of massive eruptions was partly responsible for the Little Ice Age. But it seems that human particulate might have the opposite effect. Of course, this isn't the same as fossil fuel particulate, so it can't be extrapolated for the whole planet, but it is a significant finding.

Human produced particulate pollution acts as condensation nuclei resulting in more droplets in clouds making them whiter, reflecting more solar energy back into space. In regions with particualte polution such as from Europe down into North Africa this has resulted in a disruption of seasonal movement of rainfall bands due to lower ocean surface temperatures. There's good evidence that the droughts and famines in Africa were directly linked with this man-made cooling effect.

Which still means that Global Warming is an even more significant factor than we've been aware of.

 

[Extrafire]

Except that the study I posted shows the opposite effect.

 

[Tonington]

Kinda supports what I've been saying. If you go back through my posts you'll see where I've said that evidence indicates that it was much warmer than now 7000 years ago (old growth forests then where there are glaciers now) that it was warmer during the medieval climate optimum, that today is warmer than any time since the MCO, but not as warm as then.

See and this is where the skeptical side falls apart. The junkers can show all kinds of proxy reconstructions with wonky filters and nearly correct methodology. When you show them how the reconstructions are wrong, they fall back on comparing apples to oranges, which is much the same faulty logic as their bunk research.

7000 years ago was a vastly different world, to compare our ancient history to present is wrong in every histroical context. We were not living in large groups( read metropolis), we were not changing the very face of the planet(agriculture and deforestation to name a few), we were not using nearly the same amounts of energy, there weren't as many of us, we weren't forcing living ecosystems into collapse, we were just entering the interglacial.

Quite simply, there are very few similarities, except for the solar output, which has remained predictable. There is no time of similar solar output during this interglacial where temperature AND carbon dioxide have acted in the same way as they are now.

Coincidentally, NASA for some reason or another canceled a project which would have been able to measure( from the gravity neutral spot L1 where the satelite would be exposed to the lit side of the Earth all day for two years) things like how much of the solar energy is absorbed, re-emitted and reflected, albedo. With finer measured details like this we would have a better than ever set of measurements, which current measurements exhibit no correlation to temperature.

 

[Extrafire]

See and this is where the skeptical side falls apart. The junkers can show all kinds of proxy reconstructions with wonky filters and nearly correct methodology. When you show them how the reconstructions are wrong, they fall back on comparing apples to oranges, which is much the same faulty logic as their bunk research.

Hmmm... You point out the varying solar output over the millenia, and I point out that it parallels what I've been saying all along, and then you call it bunk research. 8O If both sides' research reaches the same conclusion it's bunk???8O

7000 years ago was a vastly different world, to compare our ancient history to present is wrong in every histroical context. We were not living in large groups( read metropolis), we were not changing the very face of the planet(agriculture and deforestation to name a few), we were not using nearly the same amounts of energy, there weren't as many of us, we weren't forcing living ecosystems into collapse,

Yeah, so? It was still warmer. That's the only point made.

we were just entering the interglacial.

No, we were a few thousand years into it, and it was much warmer than now.

Quite simply, there are very few similarities, except for the solar output, which has remained predictable. There is no time of similar solar output during this interglacial where temperature AND carbon dioxide have acted in the same way as they are now.

Pretty close though. CO2 increase still follows temp increase.

 

[Walter]

Environmental Reality

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, September 07, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Al Gore, maybe with his private jet being refueled in the background, has said there is a scientific consensus that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing harmful global warming. Well, no.

Related Topics: Global Warminghttp://www.ibdeditorials.com/FeaturedCategories.aspx?sid=1802
Credit Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte with exposing the lie that the global warming alarmists have traded in for years. Schulte, a surgeon and researcher at King's College Hospital in London, recently reviewed 528 climate change papers published from 2004 to February of this year and found that a mere 38, or 7%, explicitly support the consensus. Daily Tech, an online magazine, says the ratio goes to 45% "if one considers 'implicit' endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement)."
While only 32, or 6%, of the papers reject the consensus outright, Daily Tech blogger Michael Asher reports that the "largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no 'consensus.' "
"The figures are even more shocking," Asher says, "when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here." "Consensus," as used in the sense of Schulte's analysis, does not require support for the theory that man is the primary cause of warming. Nor does it require a belief in catastrophic global warming.
"In fact," writes Asher, "of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results."
Before anyone throws out Schulte's findings because he's a medical professional and not a climate scientist, remember that it was a historian at the University of California, San Diego, Naomi Oreskes, who did the research a few years ago that was supposed to prove there was a scientific consensus. Gore even used Oreskes' research in his propaganda film "An Inconvenient Truth."
The Oreskes legend began in 2004, when she reviewed 928 science papers published between 1993 and 2003 and found what she believed to be a consensus among scientists that man was indeed causing global warming. Three-fourths, she said, "either explicitly or implicitly" accepted the consensus view, while the remaining 25% "dealt with methods or paleoclimate" and took "no position on current anthropogenic climate change."
"Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position," she wrote in Science magazine in 2004.
Asher suggests that the changes in papers from the time period covered in Oreskes' research to the era used by Schulte could be the result of a better understanding of climate science. Seems reasonable. But the doubts aren't new.
While Schulte has made a valuable contribution to the debate — a debate that Gore insists doesn't even exist — others have debunked the consensus myth.
A 2003 Web survey by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch asked, "To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes?" Respondents ranked their answers on a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). Fifty strongly agreed while 54 strongly disagreed. The mean was 3.62. Consensus? Hardly.
Critics say an Internet survey can't be taken seriously and argue that it was skewed by skeptics who hijacked the project. But even they must admit there are doubters in the scientific community.
Six years before Bray and von Storch conducted their survey, Citizens for a Sound Economy polled state climatologists. Of the 36 who responded, 17 considered global warming to be primarily a natural event. Six thought man was the cause.
When asked by CSE if they believed then-President Clinton's claim that "the overwhelming balance of evidence and scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory, but now fact, that global warming is for real," more than half either disagreed or disagreed somewhat.
Granted, that was the outcome that CSE, a conservative group now called Freedom Works, was probably hoping for. But it's hard to see how the organization could have cooked the numbers.
The alarmists and their media partners have successfully caught the public's attention; it's too much to hope that the debate will fizzle. But a little more honesty shouldn't be too much to ask.

 

[Tonington]

I grow tired of the pointless waltz Extra. So here it is. Governments, corporations and the academic world have embraced the science which concludes we have a major effect on the climate, that our contribution represents more than 50% of attributed warming in the past 200 years or so. I have picked apart the links of yours I have read. You rebut with wonky "yah, but". If the science is as sure as you say it is, well than heres a challenge for you. Take these papers I post, and show where they are flawed. Show where the science is incorrect. I will post no op-eds or blog quotes like you have. This is science, show me that your confidence in the denialist science can disprove the accepted theory. Just simply show me where they are wrong.

Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf

Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on Earth's climate
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publications/preprints/pp2006/MPA2001.pdf

Solar activity over the past 1150 years: Does it correlate with climate
http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf

These should be a good starter.

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

There's a strong denial machine funded by big petrochemical companies to fight the real science on Global Warming.

Who is keeping the debate of global warming alive?
The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those willing to question the science behind climate change, providing funding for some of them, their organizations and their studies.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/index.html