Reasons for Skepticism About Global Warming and Climate Change
An Objective Look at Concerns Many Have Over the Issue of Climate Change
The first objection I want to examine is the idea that nature causes the climate to change on its own, to a much greater extent than any possible human causes. This actually leads to two variations of this objection: one is that, because nature's changes dwarf ours, there is no point in doing anything about our piece of it-- especially if it causes economic hardship. The second point often concluded from this opinion is that the actual changes being observed (such as the well-documented increase in global average temperatures) are probably due to natural causes and not man.
When I review the evidence related to this point, I discover that indeed there is a good record of significant climate changes caused by purely natural causes-- such as changes in the solar output of our sun, changes in the earth's orbit, etc. However, all of these nature-induced changes have taken many hundreds or thousands of years to happen, whereas the predictions of human-induced climate change show it occurring to a significant degree in only 20-50 years - less than a single lifespan! So I would conclude that if this is the case then the presence of longer-scale natural effects is irrelevant to whether we should do something about the human-induced climate change.
Regarding the question of whether the changes being observed are due to natural versus man-made effects, I see that climate scientists show a clear correlation between the amount of various gasses ("greenhouse gasses" such as carbon dioxide) and the average temperature around the world. No matter how much we might want to say that could be just a coincidence, or question which is causing which, the scientists have an explanation that is pretty clear to me for the mechanism by which this is explained: it is a simple fact that these gases absorb and then re-radiate back to earth much more heat energy than the other atmospheric components, so the more of them in the atmosphere the stronger that effect is (the "greenhouse effect"). And while it might seem surprising that a gas that only comprises one or two percent of the atmosphere can have such a significant effect, the physics of the situation bear this out. And this is not a point that is in dispute by any scientists. My next article will focus on the question of just how much "consensus" there really is among scientists, and whether we should believe them.
Published by Dr. James Stoos
Academically and professionally a scientist and engineer, but what Dr. Stoos most likes to sound off about is public policy issues and a bit of politics. View profile
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9 Comments
Post a CommentLorraine, climate gate was about criminalr hacking into computers, stealing e-mails and taking them out of context to make them sound bad. Even NASA sats climate change, are they conspiring against the poor oil companies too?
Lorraine, you must have missed the news (that came out just about the time of your comment) that yet another investigation into the climategate affair completely exonerated those scientists of any scientific misconduct. Check out the very thorough article on the whole thing in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
You must have missed 'climategate,' the falsified and cherry-picked temperature data that showed the increase. You must have missed the IPCC politicos that were caught lying. You must see an upward trend in the charts when real data is flat. You must know nothing about which you speak, but only carry the politically correct ideology.
Here's an informative video Doc that will further enforce your correct views on global warming - http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/01/climate-science-video-empirical-evidence-for-human-caused-global-warming/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29
I just stumbled upon a great article that is very balanced and examines the views of experts on both sides of the climate debate; even though it was written in 2006, the people it interviewed are still active and saying the same things:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305.html
Good piece, of course then you get those who just refuse to believe data and believe the world is really cooling. They can always find the "facts" to back this up as well.
I think both sides of this issue don't really know and no matter which way you shake it is comes oaut politically. Point in fact we do not know what the overall changes on this earth will be in 10, 20 yrs, we can only guessestimate. One thing I do know is that what do we all say if temps do start to deviate..The wqest coast goes down a degree or 2 and the east coast gets warmer a degree or two..How do you sort that out, man made or natural..Either way it can have a hugh effect on our inclimate weather such as hurricanes, floods and major typhons..Something is happening..so quit bit____ing at each other and try to figure out together how to get early warning/detection to these natural disasters that keep happening throughout the world now.
Glad to see another thoughtful assessment. I just posted a lengthier piece at www.associatedcontent.com/weather You should check out the new NIPCC Report and other references I have posted (if you haven't already looked at them) for further evidence. Please let me know when you post another article. Mike Mogil (meteorologist)
Nice read, I like how it is set up to be another climate change is a myth article!