# Global Warming Redux: Have they lost their credibility? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090 "2010-02-15T18:07:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/101 "2010-02-16T17:42:29Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Ah, luci, man of science…impartially interpreting the science. By golly, that’s the real stuff there, **RR**! Conspiracy theory, firmly grounded innuendo and suggestion, all based on rock-solid self-esteem. Classic **RR**! ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/102 "2010-02-16T17:49:46Z")
I find it interesting that people are glomming on to the [Daily Mail](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html) article and not the [Daily Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/7232733/Climategate-scientist-says-data-disorganised.html) article. Why would they do that? Could it be the quotes in the respected news source > [@Dr. Jones](#): > > "He said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made. " \ He said “sceptics” who doubted his climate record should compile their own dataset from material publicly available in the US. > > “The major datasets mostly agree,” he said. “If some of our critics spent less time criticising us and prepared a dataset of their own, that would be much more constructive.” \“I’m a scientist trying to measure temperature. If I registered that the climate has been cooling I’d say so. But it hasn’t until recently - and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend.” weren’t in the broadsheet rag? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/103 "2010-02-16T17:51:23Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > In AGW, House A is predicted to take a tumble because the sea is eroding the cliff it’s near. > In overpopulation, House B is already on fire and burning vigorously. > > […] One is a Great Cause; the other just one of the (many) problems facing mankind. And yet the one elevated to Great Cause status pales in comparison as a defined immediate threat the failure of which to address is permanent disaster for the ecosystem. One important difference that I think you’re overlooking is the timeframe in which the problem could be reversed if it did turn out to threaten immediate catastrophe. If worse came to absolute worst on the overpopulation front, draconian mass sterilization programs could slash population levels within fifty years. But if anthropogenic greenhouse gases somehow pushed climate mechanisms past some catastrophic “tipping point” triggering disastrous major changes, there is currently no known way of reversing that process within hundreds or even thousands of years. So it’s not entirely unreasonable that many people should perceive AGW to be a potentially more dire threat than overpopulation, even if the immediate and defined dangers from overpopulation are greater. To continue your own analogy, a burnt-out house on a cliff can be rebuilt on the same cliff without too much difficulty. But a house destroyed by the complete collapse of the cliff it’s built on can never be rebuilt there again unless the whole cliff can somehow be restored, with centuries of massive engineering labor or aeons of slow geological change. (By the way, speaking of passionate attachment to “Great Causes” and consistency of belief therein, do you yourself have children? How many?) > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > (I did make a bet with a more proximate timeline with **SentientMeat** here to wear a “I believie in AGW” placard if we get a record hot year in the next 3 or 4 years and post the photo on the Dope). If you want a more proximate prediction, I’ll predict that over the next two to three years there will be an increasing number of analyses critical of AGW that are more broadly accepted; I’ll predict that “Global Warming” is increasingly less emphasized in favor of “Climate Change” as currently-accepted datasets and future data collection are more rigorously scrutinized, and I’ll predict the mass hysteria will further abate and not strengthen. For one thing, I think you’re behind the times in your view of the nomenclature issues. AFAICT, **both** “global warming” and “climate change” are currently used, because they’re two important but non-identical aspects of the global climate situation. “Global warming” is the overall increase in average global temperature due to the insulating effect of increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. “Climate change” refers to the all the different effects on climate phenomena **caused** by the warmer global temperatures, including hotter weather in some places and colder weather in others, more frequent and severe extreme weather events, and so on. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > I’m not that vested in being the AGW skeptic. Really. That doesn’t sound very convincing in light of the fact that all your predictions about the future of the AGW hypothesis are in favor of discrediting or diminishing it. I mean, we have here a scientific hypothesis that has over the past few decades continually gained supporting evidence in peer-reviewed research and continually gained adherents among researchers and scientific organizations, and has now achieved mainstream-paradigm status in climate science. Of course, as I’ve continually said, the hypothesis is still quite uncertain in some areas and the evidence in its favor is still extremely incomplete. But ISTM that anybody who likes a bet would figure that the smart money was in favor of this mainstream (and increasingly widely accepted) hypothesis turning out to be substantially valid. Yet for some reason you’re emotionally committed to betting **all** your money the other way. **All** your views for the future of AGW are centered on the expectation that all these mainstream scientists will turn out to be wrong or fraudulent or deluded. I can see why you think it would be fun if the contrarian anti-AGW position turned out to be right and you could pat yourself on the back while tweaking the noses of all those well-informed climate scientists and all those ill-informed panicky laypeople. But I can’t see why you think it would be likely. Are you really so tempted by the distant prospect of handing out a “delicious comeuppance” that you just don’t care what the odds are against it? I think **Hentor** is spot on in saying that a lot of the bizarre psychology on this issue is happening in your own head. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/104 "2010-02-16T18:06:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > By golly, that’s the real stuff there, **RR**! Conspiracy theory, firmly grounded innuendo and suggestion, all based on rock-solid self-esteem. Classic **RR**! Ah, he’s a _conspiracy theorist!_ Probably racist, sexist and homophobic, too! Puts ketchup on his hot dogs, no doubt! ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/105 "2010-02-16T18:28:29Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > … > > Your decision has nothing to do with the fact that AGW neatly fits into your political beliefs. > > … I stripped the context above, so I should note that was sarcasm. And this bit of projection pretty much sums up your position, as well as the overall debate. I wonder if your “agnosticism” regarding climate change is not based on the scientific underpinnings, but an adherence to classical liberalism? Hmmm. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/106 "2010-02-16T18:31:35Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I have the sense that for many years the anti-vax crowd was confident science was on their side, actually. You seem to be encouraged by some sort of mass vote on the part of the scientist consensus in general. But scientists are not somehow immune to mass psychology. And they are utterly dependent on research done elsewhere. So, for instance (and I am not saying this is the case) if it turns out GATA has been poorly monitored, any number of downstream papers depending on that and expanding on that would fall apart. I see that analogy as right on. The anti-vaxers had a sliver of data in back of it, but a mountain of long term evidence against it. The climate change deniers are like that. A vast consortium of scientists have put their reputations on the line in back of it. A few, easily bought off or aberrant scientists deny. Those who can gain from fighting the climate changers ,throw all their backing and money to the small and completely suspect anti-change scientists. It allows them a far bigger stage than they merit. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/107 "2010-02-16T18:46:33Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Ah, he’s a _conspiracy theorist!_ Probably racist, sexist and homophobic, too! Puts ketchup on his hot dogs, no doubt! Yes, when you start talking about science as if it is cabal of self serving scientists patting itself on its own back in order to squeeze funding from the government, it is definitely a conspiracy theory. And it is no less absurd then 9/11 truthers to anybody that has ever tried to publish or present data to the scientific community. We may all get along socially, but it’s like treading water in a shark tank. Everyone wants to be the next Feynman stamping through the current scientific paradigm with their brilliance. As evidenced by the number of great scientists that have died poor, we aren’t motivated by money, we are motivated by ego. Just look at any nonpolitical scientific thread that pops up in general questions. Every poster is desperately trying to one up the other on how much they know. A simple question turns into a discussion of the minutia that the OP had no interest or understanding of. I’m just as guilty as anyone. I find those conversations riveting, because I learn so much. Particularly when I am wrong. There is no doubt, that a scientist that undoubtedly produces good evidence will be a nobel prize winner. And when the evidence becomes apparent, scientists will switch sides faster than you can ever imagine. If there is one thing a scientist can’t stand, it’s being wrong. Of course being wrong is nothing compared to the shame of being caught deliberately fudging data. There is no shame in being wrong, it just stinks. I’ve seen only one scientist get caught genuinely faking published data, and it is not pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/108 "2010-02-16T18:54:49Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Right. The layperson probably doesn’t understand the full scope of the climate research. I know I don’t. I think only **jshore** does here. > [@](#): > > I do understand scientific research well enough to know that on any subject matter, some predictions will be incorrect, and some individual researchers will do things that are not great. If that prediction were the only prediction made and if that researcher were the only researcher, you might have a point. > > Unfortunately, you don’t. Unfortunately I do. Except that that prediction of 2035 for the glaciers was plainly rubbish. And we all missed it. Yes, I did read the report and I missed it too. Despite it being quoted. This makes people wonder what else was missed, what else is in error. It doesn’t make the IPCC wrong, it makes it **suspect** , which is worse. Anyway, as I said, the U.K. is doing an independent review and I’m confident that the truth will out. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/109 "2010-02-16T20:07:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > One important difference that I think you’re overlooking is the timeframe in which the problem could be reversed if it did turn out to threaten immediate catastrophe. > > If worse came to absolute worst on the overpopulation front…\, above > > I think **Hentor** is spot on in saying that a lot of the bizarre psychology on this issue is happening in your own head. But if AGW is correct, worse has come to worse on the population front; the load on the ecosystem is entirely proportional to the number of peeps wanting to live good. The quickest way to actually improve tomorrow’s AGW predictions is to constrain population expansion right now. Unfortunately, since populations are most expanding in the developing world, it is politically off limits to address it. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, when we hit 9Billion people and get them all to living comfortably, we’ll have effectively altered the world and her ecosystems in a much more profound way than AGW could. And of course, we’re likely to hit 9B before we figure out how to support them all in an AGW-friendly fashion. So to the point of the OP, the greatest credibility loss the pro-AGW crowd has for me is that they are not trying to save the planet, nor are they trying to save mankind. Those two things would require–at minimum–an equal address of over-population. And the fact that a deaf ear is turned to over-population suggests to me that AGW is a political and fun and personal Great Cause first, and a Real Cause (for lack of a better term) second. It’s a Movement train to hop on and get some free significance, because you are Doing Something and Being Special. It’s not some sort of orderly, scientific approach to saving the world. None of that means AGW science is wrong. In general I agree with Sam Stone’s post above that there is reasonable science that greenhouse gases create radiative forcing which warms the atmosphere. It seems to me there are unknown feedback loop parameters, unquantified alternate sources of heat and losses of heat, and poorly-understood cyclical variations in things such as ocean currents, heat energy into the oceans from the earth’s crust, solar cycles and so on. In short, the longer-term sensitivity of climate to CO2 forcing is undefined, in my view, as is the consequence of temperature change. But to whatever extent man is mucking up the earth, the biggest problem is that there are too many men (and probably too many women, if such a thing is possible) and until we get on that, I think I’m unlikely to be anything but amused and bemused about AGW deniers and proselytizers. The term “barking up the wrong tree” comes to mind. We’ve got a couple of lovely children. All virulently pro AGW. Working on 'em, but they’ve been poisoned by their higher education. 😉 Finally (as I’ve also mentioned before) I’d be happy to be all my money on a pro-AGW position. Literally. If I were not such a skeptic I’d be trading in carbon offsets and pushing for them in the US right now. But I think the ($150B?) carbon offset market in Europe is a complete sham. A house of cards built on dicey science and even dicier pretenses that carbon will be offset by the various schemes underpinning the offsets. That sucker’s gonna fall farther and faster that mortgage-backed instruments built on mortgages lent to twits if AGW is wrong (and maybe anyway, if enough of the ridiculous scams are brought to light). Still, I would not hesitate for a moment to put my money on AGW. I am not particularly vested in an anti-AGW position, however many times you like to say that. It occurs to me that, like a typical pro-AGW proselytizer, you assume the skeptic is really a denier at heart pretending neutrality. Not so. But it’s part of the Great Cause psychology to feel threatened and to frame skeptics as attackers, so have at it with my blessing. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/110 "2010-02-16T20:14:28Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Yes, when you start talking about science as if it is cabal of self serving scientists patting itself on its own back in order to squeeze funding from the government, it is definitely a conspiracy theory. . Meh. As much as I’d like to think scientists and scientific institutions are almost incorruptiable, my low estimate of human nature tells me otherwise. The Climategate scandal shows that the science which supports global warming needs some very careful vetting before we make decisions that will put immense strains on the global economy. Scientists at CRU suppressed and destroyed data and pressured peer reviewed journals not to publish papers which might raise awkward questions about the conclusions the AGWers had reached. A Canadian analyst found that the IPCC’s supposedly scientific report used twenty non-peer reviewed sources such as the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. The IPCC’s warning that 40% of the Amazon rain forest would be lost to global warming was based on nothing but propaganda from an environmentalist activist group, and the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear in the next few decades turned out to be sheer alarmist fantasy. Hell, Phil Jones, one of the con men at CRU, has admitted that there has been no warming for fifteen years, and that the world was warmer during the middle ages than it is now. And we’re not talking about a single question. We’re talking about five questions: [ul] [li]Is global warming happening?[/li] [li]Is it man-made?[/li] [li]Will it be catastrophic?[/li] [li]Can it be stopped or reversed?[/li] [li]Will the economic disruption caused by the attempt to stop or reverse global warming cause more harm than global warming itself?[/li][/ul] To justify the extreme measures advocated by climate alarmists, you will need an unreserved yes to all of those questions, and I am immensely skeptical there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists on all five. So, is global warming happening? Probably, but it’s not at all clear that people are the sole or primary cause, it’s not clear that it can be stopped, and it’s not clear that the effort to stop it won’t do more harm than global warming itself. And the fact that the extreme measures advocated by climate alarmists like Al Gore (who stands to profit handsomely from the proposed measures) will involve transfers of immense wealth and political power is more than sufficient grounds for cynicism about the whole business. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/111 "2010-02-16T21:05:23Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > So to the point of the OP, the greatest credibility loss the pro-AGW crowd has for me is that they are not trying to save the planet, nor are they trying to save mankind. […] > > None of that means AGW science is wrong. […] > > Still, I would not hesitate for a moment to put my money on AGW. I am not particularly vested in an anti-AGW position, however many times you like to say that. Then why are all your predictions and wagers only in favor of **discrediting** AGW? The reason I keep noticing that you seem to be irrationally attached to skepticism about AGW is that you keep refusing to actually stake anything (credibility or money) on the likelihood of its correctness, although you claim that you “would” do so…if only you weren’t so committed to being a skeptic. Exactly my point. You seem to be so wedded to your disdain for ill-informed panicky AGW “proselytizers” among laypeople that you’re letting it determine your views on the actual science. You’d rather stay immovably “neutral” and “skeptical” about AGW, no matter how much scientific evidence and credibility accumulate in its favor, than risk appearing to be in agreement with ill-informed pro-AGW “True Believers”. That position seems very irrational to me. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/112 "2010-02-16T21:10:25Z")
I would think that a conspiracy theory would at least need to posit the existence of a conspiracy to qualify as such. I have never said and do not believe that there is a conspiracy among climate scientists to support AGW. also, your charge of conspiracy theorist doesn’t explain why you so wholeheartedly embrace AGW when you don’t care so much about, or actively oppose mainstream conclusions on, other scientific topics. I’m sure when the Bell Curve came out you soaked in the science and embraced the conclusions instead of saying “oh, well this just must be wrong.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/113 "2010-02-16T21:42:19Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > But if AGW is correct, worse has come to worse on the population front; the load on the ecosystem is entirely proportional to the number of peeps wanting to live good. The quickest way to actually improve tomorrow’s AGW predictions is to constrain population expansion right now. While it may be true that slashing population levels immediately would be the quickest way to bring down CO2 emission levels, it’s not true that population _per se_ is the chief culprit in rising CO2. As you put it, it’s not the “number of peeps” but rather the “living good” that makes the difference. As the charts in [this article](http://jhs.pharm.or.jp/data/55(1)/55_125.pdf) show, what really kicks up CO2 emissions is not more people merely living and breathing and excreting and raising livestock, but rather massive increases in fossil-fuel use. Restricting carbon emissions themselves is a direct measure for addressing the problem, whereas constraining population expansion is mostly an indirect measure. (And in some cases it’s not even that, as you can see from the chart for Japan, where the total human-derived emissions (breathing, waste, livestock, etc.) remained the same or even decreased slightly between 2000 and 2005, while the total emissions still increased due to continued growth in fossil-fuel emissions. Cutting population won’t necessarily achieve a damn thing, emissions-wise, if it just results in fewer people emitting more CO2 per person due to greater per capita fuel use.) > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > In general I agree with Sam Stone’s post above that there is reasonable science that greenhouse gases create radiative forcing which warms the atmosphere. It seems to me there are unknown feedback loop parameters, unquantified alternate sources of heat and losses of heat, and poorly-understood cyclical variations in things such as ocean currents, heat energy into the oceans from the earth’s crust, solar cycles and so on. In short, the longer-term sensitivity of climate to CO2 forcing is undefined, in my view, as is the consequence of temperature change. But by your own admission, you’re a non-specialist who doesn’t really understand any of the details of climate science research. So why do you think that your doubts and uncertainties about physical processes you don’t understand are credible enough to outweigh mainstream scientific opinion on them? The vast majority of climate scientists are saying “There are lots of uncertainties and open questions about the details of AGW, but overall the evidence indicates that AGW is probably a serious problem.” In response, you, a self-described ignorant layman, are saying “There are lots of uncertainties and open questions about the details of AGW, and in consequence I refuse to accept even tentatively and provisionally that AGW is probably a serious problem until these are resolved.” That’s not really skepticism so much as sheer contrarianism. You’ve just made up your mind that you’re not going to agree with any pro-AGW position unless and until you’re absolutely forced to. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/114 "2010-02-17T00:02:52Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Meh. As much as I’d like to think scientists and scientific institutions are almost incorruptiable, my low estimate of human nature tells me otherwise. The Climategate scandal shows that the science which supports global warming needs some very careful vetting before we make decisions that will put immense strains on the global economy. Scientists at CRU suppressed and destroyed data and pressured peer reviewed journals not to publish papers which might raise awkward questions about the conclusions the AGWers had reached. As pointed out many times before, your sources are misinforming you. Big time. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html) > [@](#): > > Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny. > > The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists’ scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial ‘smoking gun’: proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe. > > This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country’s much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails. > > First, Earth’s cryosphere is changing as one would expect in a warming climate. These changes include glacier retreat, thinning and areal reduction of Arctic sea ice, reductions in permafrost and accelerated loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Second, the global sea level is rising. The rise is caused in part by water pouring in from melting glaciers and ice sheets, but also by thermal expansion as the oceans warm. Third, decades of biological data on blooming dates and the like suggest that spring is arriving earlier each year. > > Denialists often maintain that these changes are just a symptom of natural climate variability. But when climate modellers test this assertion by running their simulations with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide held fixed, the results bear little resemblance to the observed warming. The strong implication is that increased greenhouse-gas emissions have played an important part in recent warming, meaning that curbing the world’s voracious appetite for carbon is essential (see pages 568 and 570). > > Mail trail > > A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists’ conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers. > > If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers, often in the form of endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts. Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden. > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > A Canadian analyst found that the IPCC’s supposedly scientific report used twenty non-peer reviewed sources such as the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. The IPCC’s warning that 40% of the Amazon rain forest would be lost to global warming was based on nothing but propaganda from an environmentalist activist group, And another one bites the dust… Even in this thread it was already mentioned that the sources saying this are just reporting hogwash. > **[RealClimate: IPCC errors: facts and spin](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/)** > > RealClimate: IPCC AR4 errors, glaciergate, amazongate > [@](#): > > Amazon forest dieback: Leake (yet again), with “research” by skeptic Richard North, has also promoted “Amazongate” with a story regarding a WG2 statement on the future of Amazonian forests under a drying climate. The contested IPCC statement reads: “Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000).” Leake’s problem is with the Rowell and Moore reference, a WWF report. > > The roots of the story are in two blog pieces by North, in which he first claims that the IPCC assertions attributed to the WWF report are not actually in that report. Since this claim was immediately shown to be false, North then argued that the WWF report’s basis for their statement (a 1999 Nature article by Nepstad et al.) dealt only with the effects of logging and fire –not drought– on Amazonian forests. To these various claims Nepstad has now responded, noting that the IPCC statement is in fact correct. The only issue is that the IPCC cited the WWF report rather than the underlying peer-reviewed papers by Nepstad et al. These studies actually provide the basis for the IPCC’s estimate on Amazonian sensitivity to drought. Investigations of the correspondence between Leake, scientists, and a BBC reporter (see here and here and here) show that Leake ignored or misrepresented explanatory information given to him by Nepstad and another expert, Simon Lewis, and published his incorrect story anyway. This “issue” is thus completely without merit. > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > and the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear in the next few decades turned out to be sheer alarmist fantasy. Well, even a broken clock can be right twice a day. The deniers were correct here, however, it was scientists who came with the complaint and it was in the end an error brought in by a typo, unfortunately the wish that this would in the end discredit global warming was bananas, the glaciers are likely to disappear in 2350 instead of 2035 > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Hell, Phil Jones, one of the con men at CRU, has admitted that there has been no warming for fifteen years, and that the world was warmer during the middle ages than it is now. And the con artists also got you here: > **[RealClimate: Daily Mangle](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/daily-mangle/)** > > RealClimate: Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled "Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995". The title itself is a distortion of what... > [@](#): > > Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled “Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995″. > > The title itself is a distortion of what Jones actually said in an interview with the BBC. What Jones actually said is that, while the globe has nominally warmed since 1995, it is difficult to establish the statistical significance of that warming given the short nature of the time interval (1995-present) involved. The warming trend consequently doesn’t quite achieve statistical significance. But it is extremely difficult to establish a statistically significant trend over a time interval as short as 15 years–a point we have made countless times at RealClimate. It is also worth noting that the CRU record indicates slightly less warming than other global temperature estimates such as the GISS record. > > The article also incorrectly equates instrumental surface temperature data that Jones and CRU have assembled to estimate the modern surface temperature trends with paleoclimate data used to estimate temperatures in past centuries, falsely asserting that the former “has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’”. > > Finally, the article intentionally distorts comments that Jones made about the so-called “Medieval Warm Period”. Jones stated in his BBC interview that “There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia” and that “For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.” > > These are statements with which we entirely agree, and they are moreover fully consistent with the conclusions of the most recent IPCC report, and the numerous peer-reviewed publications on this issue since. Those conclusions are that recent Northern Hemisphere warming is likely unprecedented in at least a millennium (at least 1300 years, in fact), and that evidence in the Southern Hemisphere is currently too sparse for confident conclusions. Mann et al in fact drew those same conclusions in their most recent work on this problem (PNAS, 2008). > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And we’re not talking about a single question. We’re talking about five questions: > > [ul] > [li]Is global warming happening?[/li] > Yes. > > [li]Is it man-made?[/li] > Yes > > [li]Will it be catastrophic?[/li] > Depends on your location on earth. But as there are so many connections in international trade it is bound to affect everyone > > [li]Can it be stopped or reversed?[/li]Yes, but I see that not much will be done until bad things start happening. > > [li]Will the economic disruption caused by the attempt to stop or reverse global warming cause more harm than global warming itself?[/li]Only if we do boneheaded solutions. > > [/ul] [My reply to the questions was in Red.] > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > To justify the extreme measures advocated by climate alarmists, you will need an unreserved yes to all of those questions, and I am immensely skeptical there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists on all five. As it still missed by you, there is overwhelming consensus that we are indeed warming the planet, what we do about it is a different subject really as the will of the people is bound to change in the future. > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > So, is global warming happening? Probably, but it’s not at all clear that people are the sole or primary cause, it’s not clear that it can be stopped, and it’s not clear that the effort to stop it won’t do more harm than global warming itself. And the fact that the extreme measures advocated by climate alarmists like Al Gore (who stands to profit handsomely from the proposed measures) will involve transfers of immense wealth and political power is more than sufficient grounds for cynicism about the whole business. Well, as mentioned before, I trust scientists, I do not trust politicians, and I even trust less people that never learn to avoid misleading media. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/115 "2010-02-17T00:04:21Z")
To answer the question, yes, they have taken a huge hit in credibility. Whether that hit is warranted is a whole other question. But, yes, they have lost credibility. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/116 "2010-02-17T00:24:35Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > And the conclusions of scientists have nothing to do with the incestuous nature of the grant-making and peer review processes, the political funding of their work, the political pressure to come up with the right answer, and their own political convictions. Funny that you mention that, because if you had read the history on how we got to the current consensus, (Link already provided) you would had noticed that the Galileo of Climate research was called Callendar. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm) He was **not funded** to search for Climate Change, he was an engineer that investigated Meteorology in his spare time, and his research was dismissed by the majority of scientists, the consensus was then that the human produced CO2 was going to be absorbed by natural sinks. Of course then if the assumption of climate skeptics was correct then we could say that the scientists of those days were not able to check for the truth because of politics and corporations that told researchers to look the other way… Or we could say simply the obvious: the evidence was not good enough to change the consensus of those days. The long road to the current consensus came thanks to the work of physicist Gilbert N. Plass in the 1950’s, he took up the challenge of calculating the transmission of radiation through the atmosphere and then demonstrated that physicists had miss the true radiative transfer levels and the role of CO2. In 1955, **Plass left his academic setting** , he held a job for a year as a staff scientist with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. He then joined the advanced research staff at the Aeronutronic (military) division of the Ford Motor Company. In 1956 Plass published his articles on the effects of CO2. And began to convince others about the problem. So, you tell me how your theory of incestuous grants, political funding and pressure influenced the results they got. Or we could say simply the obvious: the evidence was now good enough to begin to change the consensus of those days, more research and evidence has now convinced virtually all scientific organizations of the problem caused by human produced greenhouse gasses. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/117 "2010-02-17T00:31:59Z")
Why are you presenting the story of the early researchers as having any relevance on how consensus was developed? In fact, your story could also be taken as supporting my position by showing that no one was all that interested in AGW until certain politicians and their standard-bearers took up the cause. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/118 "2010-02-17T00:35:19Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Why are you presenting the story of the early researchers as having any relevance on how consensus was developed? In fact, your story could also be taken as supporting my position by showing that no one was all that interested in AGW until certain politicians and their standard-bearers took up the cause. Now that is silly, you want to ignore it because it shows that indeed it was the \*\*evidence \*\*that began to change the consensus, it was not “the cause”. As I said before but you decided to ignore, history is not on your side on this issue. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/119 "2010-02-17T01:45:26Z")
Gigo, you post a cute little story about a pioneer in AGW research. Your story ends in 1956 with “. . . and and and then . . . CONSENSUS!!!” Your story changes nothing. But, cool story, bro. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-redux-have-they-lost-their-credibility/529090/120 "2010-02-17T01:53:45Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Gigo, you post a cute little story about a pioneer in AGW research. Your story ends in 1956 with “. . . and and and then . . . CONSENSUS!!!” Your story changes nothing. But, cool story, bro. Keep showing more evidence of your ignorance, that will help your cause… Not. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm) > [@](#): > > In an attempt to force scientists to agree on a useful answer, in 1977 the U.S. Department of Defense persuaded two dozen of the world’s top climate experts to respond to a complicated survey. Their main conclusion was that scientific knowledge was meager and all predictions were unreliable. The panel was nearly equally divided among three opinions: some thought further cooling was likely, others suspected that moderate greenhouse warming would begin fairly soon, and most of the rest expected the climate would stay about the same at least for the next couple of decades. Only a few thought it probable that there would be considerable global warming by the year 2000 (which was what would in fact happen).(31a) > > Government officials and scientists needed more definite statements on what was happening to the weather. Thousands of stations around the world were turning out daily numbers, but these represented many different standards and degrees of reliability — a disorderly, almost indigestible mess. Around 1980 two groups undertook to work through the numbers in all their grubby details, rejecting sets of uncertain data and tidying up the rest. To contrive an entirely fictional example, suppose in the 1910s there were only eight stations measuring temperatures across a million square miles of the Canadian Arctic, and six of them were in the southern half of the territory. How do you combine the numbers to get an average for that entire segment of the globe? If one of the stations was moved in 1915 from a riverbank to a higher point that was usually colder, how do you adjust? What if one of the stations gave inconsistent results in the winter, and you suspect that the fellow stationed there didn’t care to go out to read the thermometer on really cold days, and made up the numbers? The final values for an average temperature in a region resulted from countless difficult decisions. > > One of the groups that undertook the task was in New York, funded by NASA and led by James Hansen. They understood that the work by Mitchell and others mainly described the Northern Hemisphere, since that was where the great majority of reliable observations lay. Sorting through the more limited temperature observations from the other half of the world, they got reasonable averages by applying the same mathematical methods that they had used to get average numbers in their computer models of climate. (After all, Hansen remarked, when he studied other planets he might judge the entire planet by the single station where a probe had landed.) In 1981, the group reported that “the common misconception that the world is cooling is based on Northern Hemisphere experience to 1970.” Just around the time that meteorologists had noticed the cooling trend, such as it was, it had apparently reversed. From a low point in the mid 1960s, by 1980 the world had warmed some 0.2°C.(32) > > Hansen’s group looked into the causes of the fluctuations, and they got a rather good match for the temperature record using volcanic eruptions plus solar variations. Greenhouse warming by CO2 had not been a major factor (at least, not yet). More sophisticated analyses in the 1990s would eventually confirm these findings. From the 1940s to the early 1960s, the Northern Hemisphere had indeed cooled while temperatures had held roughly steady in the south. Some of the change certainly came from natural variations, probably including changes in the Sun’s output and a modest spate of volcanic eruptions. More significantly, a sharp increase in haze from pollution such as sulfate aerosol particles had probably helped to temporarily cool the industrialized Northern Hemisphere (it was hard to be sure, since nobody had been measuring global pollution back then). After the 1960s, with pollution growing less rapidly while CO2 continued to accumulate in the air, warming resumed in both hemispheres.(32a) > [@](#): > > Knowledge of the global temperature record was becoming so important (and to some, controversial) that the work by the groups in New York and East Anglia no longer seemed enough. A new major effort to track the trends was getting underway at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The Center had been established in 1951 as the National Weather Records Center, with the task of organizing the data that the Weather Bureau and military services had accumulated since the 1940s. The staff had assembled the world’s largest collection of historical weather records. A team led by Thomas Karl began to tediously review the statistics for the world and especially the United States. Making their own decisions about how to combine data, they got results that inevitably differed in minor details from what the other groups reported. But there was no disagreement about the recent general trend. (In 2006 the Japan Meterological Agency would provide yet a fourth independent analysis, confirming the others.) > > Each of the three groups began to issue annual updates, which the press reported prominently. When all the figures were in for 1988, the year proved to be a record-breaker (the 1980s now included the four warmest years since global measurements began). But in the early 1990s, average global temperatures dipped. Most experts figured the cause was the huge 1991 Pinatubo volcanic eruption, whose emissions dimmed sunlight around the world. After rains washed out the volcanic aerosols, the temperature rise resumed. 1995 was the warmest year on record, but 1997 topped it. 1998 beat that in turn by a large margin. Of course these were global averages of trends that varied from one region to another. The citizens of the United States, and in particular residents of the East Coast, had not felt the degree of warming that came in some other parts of the world — if they had, the politics of the matter might have been different. But looking at the world as a whole, in the late 1990s the great majority of experts at last agreed. Yes, a serious warming trend was underway.(38\*) > > This consensus was sharply attacked by a few scientists. Some pulled out the old argument that the advance of urbanization was biasing temperature readings. In fact, around 1990 meticulous re-analysis of old records had squeezed out the urban heat-island bias to the satisfaction of all but the most stubborn critics. Moreover, long-term warming trends showed up in various kinds of physical “proxy” data measured far from cities. To be sure, in urban areas whatever global warming the greenhouse effect might be causing got a strong addition of heat, so that the combination significantly raised the mortality from heat waves. But the larger global warming trend was no statistical error.(39\*) > > With the urbanization argument discredited, the skeptics turned to measurements by satellites that monitored the Earth. Since 1979, when the first of these satellites was launched, they had provided the first truly comprehensive set of global temperature data. The instruments did not measure temperatures on the surface, but at middle heights in the atmosphere. At these levels, analysis of the data indicated, there had been no rise of temperature, but instead a slight cooling. The satellites were designed for observing daily weather fluctuations, not the average that represented climate, and it took an extraordinarily complex analysis to get numbers that showed long-term changes. The analysis turned out to have pitfalls. Some argued against the greenhouse skeptics that the satellite data might even show a little warming.(40) > > In an attempt to settle the controversy, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences conducted a full-scale review in 1999. The panel concluded that the satellites seemed reliable (balloon measurements, although far less comprehensive, also failed to find warming in mid-atmosphere). The satellite instruments simply were not designed to see the warming that was indeed taking place at the surface. > > The measurements indicating that middle layers of the atmosphere had not noticeably warmed were embarrassing to the scientists who were constructing computer models of climate, for their models predicted significant warming there. They suspected the discrepancy could be explained by temporary effects — volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo, or perhaps the chemical pollution that was depleting the ozone layer? While the skeptics persisted, most scientists believed that although the computer models were surely imperfect, the satellite data analysis was too ambiguous to pose a serious challenge to the global warming consensus. > This hunch was confirmed in 2004 when meticulous analysis of both satellite and balloon observations turned up sysematic errors. The mid levels had in fact been warming. It was one of several cases where computer modelers had been unable to tweak their models until they matched data, not because the models were bad but because the data were wrong. “This is the answer — I wish we had recognized it ourselves,” said the chair of the 1999 Academy survey. Contrarians in the public sphere continued to cite the satellites and other erroneous data (once an idea gets on the internet it can never be removed from circulation). But scientists were now satisfied that warming was underway pretty much as the models had predicted.(41\*) There is more, but you already demonstrated how incapable you are dealing with evidence linked to, so it is all good for all others to see. Your theory of incestuous grants, political funding and pressure influencing the results they get is beyond silly. 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