# Is global warming falsifiable?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 6, 2014, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786 "2014-05-06T07:30:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 29

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**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/562 "2014-10-31T21:54:29Z")

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Most of the “cooling” talk of the past was in the context of a Nuclear Winter.

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**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:** [October 31, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/563 "2014-10-31T22:12:35Z")

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> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#):
>
> I’m no longer reading his nonsense but the fact that he breaks out the “in the 70’s they predicted am ice age” is pretty sad. Wouldn’t that be analogous to, several pages into a discussion on the merits of evolutionary theory, bringing up Piltdown Man as if it was some game-changing revelation?

+1

Indeed, the contrarians are just pushing very pathetic and already debunked points.

And to show how ignorant the points FXMasterming is making we do not need to use Skeptical Science, **we could ask the very same writer that made that article** that FX and many deniers out there are using to claim that most scientist predicted cooling then:

> [@](#):
>
> **It’s time for deniers of human-caused global warming to stop using an old magazine story as ammunition against the consensus of today’s climate scientists.**
> 
> Originally published: May 21 2014  
> **Peter Gwynne** , Guest Columnist
> 
> “The central fact is that, after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the Earth seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling 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.” – Newsweek: April 28, 1975
> 
> That’s an excerpt from a story I wrote about climate science that appeared almost 40 years ago. Titled “The Cooling World,” it was remarkably popular; in fact it might be the only decades-old magazine story about science ever carried onto the set of a late-night TV talk show. Now, as the author of that story, after decades of scientific advances, let me say this: while the hypotheses described in that original story seemed right at the time, climate scientists now know that they were seriously incomplete. Our climate is warming – not cooling, as the original story suggested.
> 
> Nevertheless, certain websites and individuals that dispute, disparage and deny the science that shows that humans are causing the Earth to warm continue to quote my article. Their message: how can we believe climatologists who tell us that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming when their colleagues asserted that it’s actually cooling?
> 
> Well, yes, we should trust them, despite the views of detractors such as comedian Dennis Miller, who brought my story to The Tonight Show in 2006. Several atmospheric scientists did indeed believe in global cooling, as I reported in the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek. But that was then.
> 
> In the 39 years since, biotechnology has flowered from a promising academic topic to a major global industry, the first test-tube baby has been born and become a mother herself, cosmologists have learned that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than slowing down, and particle physicists have detected the Higgs boson, an entity once regarded as only a theoretical concept. Seven presidents have served most of 11 terms. And Newsweek has become a shadow of its former self.
> 
> And on the climate front? The vast majority of climatologists now assure us that Earth’s atmosphere is not cooling. Rather it’s warming up. And the main responsibility for the phenomenon lies with human activity.
> 
> “There’s no serious dispute any more about whether the globe is warming, whether humans are responsible, and whether we will see large and dangerous changes in the future – in the words of the National Academy of Sciences – which we didn’t know in the 1970s,” said Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. He added that nearly every U.S. scientific society has assessed the evidence and come to the same conclusion.

> [@](#):
>
> **Opponents of Mann and his fellow climatologists also seek to highlight areas of disagreements among climatologists. Certainly those disagreements exist. But they don’t affect the reality that human activity is the primary trigger of warming in recent decades.**
> 
> Take, for example, research on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather.
> 
> “It is a very nuanced subject, and a legitimate controversy,” Mann said in an interview. “There really are different schools of thought, each of which are credible and making arguments in good faith. Jennifer Francis at Rutgers argues that there is a connection with loss of sea ice, and others are skeptical.”
> 
> Schmidt agrees.
> 
> “It is a genuine debate,” he said. “Scientists don’t just sit around congratulating ourselves on what we’ve done. We look for things at the cutting edge between known and unknown. It’s a complex terrain and that’s what makes it interesting.”
> 
> Certainly, the disputes have become more nuanced. But their existence provides opponents of scientific findings that they find unpopular with opportunities to muddle the facts.
> 
> **“The American political system has always had a rather odd connection to the role of expertise,” Schmidt added. “There’s a clear strand in American discourse that is anti-intellectual and anti-expertise.”**
> 
> While the affair reveals much about the relationship between politics and science, it also casts a shadow on science writing.
> 
> “There’s too much handwaving in science journalism,” Schmidt noted. “Scientists don’t spend a lot of time when talking to journalists about what their research doesn’t mean. One of the fault lines between science and journalism is how you pull together the bigger picture. So a reticence on the part of scientists to fill in the big picture, and over-enthusiasm on the part of journalists to say what does it all mean, means that the journalists don’t get it quite right.”
> 
> **Here I must admit mea culpa. In retrospect, I was over-enthusiastic in parts of my Newsweek article. Thus, I suggested a connection between the purported global cooling and increases in tornado activity that was unjustified by climate science. I also predicted a forthcoming impact of global cooling on the world’s food production that had scant research to back it.**
> 
> **The messages for science writers are to ask questions beyond the obvious and to seek out what the science doesn’t imply as well as what it does. If I had applied those lessons back in 1975, I might not now be in the embarrassing position of being a cat’s paw for denial of climate change.**
> 
> Over my career I’ve covered subjects as diverse as cell biology, the world of physics a century after Einstein’s birth, space commerce, and World Cup soccer. I’ve won prizes for my writing, including a lifetime award from the American Chemical Society. But I fear that my obituary will be dominated by that single article in Newsweek.

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/564 "2014-11-01T17:46:58Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Let’s review the argument, it’s not hard to do.
> 
> The theory of **the enhanced greenhouse effect** predicted the most warming in winter, in the NH hemisphere, over land. That is one key prediction from the theory, based on physics and the characteristics of warming from an enhanced greenhouse effect.

> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> No, it didn’t.

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Exactly right, and of course I agree on both those points. Plus, there’s nothing new in that recent missive – this is a repeat of what’s already been fully dealt with earlier in this thread and elsewhere.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > In 1896, Svante Arrhenius mentioned that greenhouse warming should cause winters to warm faster than summers (Arrhenius 1896), citing an earlier prediction by John Tyndall (Tyndall 1865). During summer, a region receives more sunlight and warms. During winter, the region receives less sunlight and cools by radiating heat to space. Greenhouse gases stop some of this heat from escaping to space so an increased greenhouse effect slows down the winter cooling. Consequently, if greenhouse gases are causing global warming, we expect to see winters warming faster than summer.
> 
> > [@](#):
> >
> > They found that winters have been warming faster than summers. What’s interesting is how the seasons have changed over time. In the early 20th century, they find the warming is a combination of man-made and natural forcing (eg - from the sun) as well as some internal variability (eg - ocean cycles). In the latter 20th century, man-made forcing accounts for nearly all the observed temperature changes (Braganza et al 2004).
> 
> [The human fingerprint in the seasons](http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-human-fingerprint-in-the-seasons.html)
> 
> Why anyone would either deny it’s part of the theory, or claim now that it’s not important, at least that isn’t a mystery.

As a crusty old bastard, who actually lived through the global cooling scare, the atomic WWIII scare, the cold war, the over population scare, the “run out of fuels scare”, the “commies will take over if we don’t kill people” madness, the swine flu panic, and dozens of other crazy ass shit like that, I find it hard to believe I might live through the great global warming scare as well. Certainly all the symptoms are present, as we can see from the actual denial going on here.

You say global warming theory says nothing about winter warming, I use multiple sources, including the IPCC, and now even skepticalscience, showing clearly it’s not only basic theory, but it’s a prediction that has been around for a very long time, and somehow that is ignored. Like that is going to help you win the debate.

Of course the insanity becomes more evident with each passing year, especially since there is little doubt this winter is going to be another one in the trend. (I actually was hoping for another anomaly, like 2012)

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> What science was saying in 1975 was that not only did we not know what the future of the climate was going to be, we didn’t even know the right questions to ask.

I say it is still that same situation. The reaction from the global warmers when faced with a completely unexpected reality, be it a trend of much colder winters, or a lack of warming, or an unexpected ratio of land to ocean warming, or the new discoveries in biology and atmospheric chemistry, or even the better understanding of long term ocean cycles, and of course the sun itself, we see over and over the hubris of those who think somehow in the short period of time they know almost everything, and they have no doubt this time about their predictions of global weather and climate.

Yet nature time and time again, seems to almost take an ironic delight in making experts look like fools.

Not that I get any enjoyment from this, because it’s more ammo for people who truly would not care if we knew with 100% certainty that burning all the fossil fuels would result in worldwide ultimate disaster. And I hate those fuckers a lot more than anyone just deluded into thinking they know the future of the world. Or even the winter climate next year.

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**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/565 "2014-11-01T18:22:16Z")

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So you’re taking to yourself now?

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**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:** [November 1, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/566 "2014-11-01T18:23:39Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> I say it is still that same situation.

Nope, you are ignoring the relativity of wrong.

[http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity\_of\_wrong.html](http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html)

> [@](#):
>
> The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. “If I am the wisest man,” said Socrates, “it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” The implication was that I was very foolish because I knew a great deal.
> 
> Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my corresponders would realize this.) This particular thesis was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.
> 
> My answer to him was, “John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
> 
> The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that “right” and “wrong” are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> The reaction from the global warmers when faced with a completely unexpected reality, be it a trend of much colder winters, or a lack of warming,

And you are wrong, pathetically wrong for using a **limited** view of a **piece** of the puzzle.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> or an unexpected ratio of land to ocean warming,

Again, just using a limited time frame, a very dishonest point made by deniers.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> or the new discoveries in biology and atmospheric chemistry, or even the better understanding of long term ocean cycles, and of course the sun itself, we see over and over the hubris of those who think somehow in the short period of time they know almost everything, and they have no doubt this time about their predictions of global weather and climate.

As Asimov points out, you are willfully ignoring that better tools are finding more evidence that they are correct, the contrarian blogs where you are getting “supporting” evidence are using what in reality was a popular press report that got it wrong.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Yet nature time and time again, seems to almost take an ironic delight in making experts look like fools.

James Hansen got a medal from the American Metorological Society, Gavin Schmidt became Director of NASA/GISS, Mann got his much maligned hockey stick to be confirmed by a lot of other surveys and even skeptics like Muller. Nordhaus became president-elect of the AEA.

You have no peers to support what you claim, yours are only misunderstandings that no serious researcher takes into account for many reasons already explained.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Not that I get any enjoyment from this, because it’s more ammo for people who truly would not care if we knew with 100% certainty that burning all the fossil fuels would result in worldwide ultimate disaster. And I hate those fuckers a lot more than anyone just deluded into thinking they know the future of the world. Or even the winter climate next year.

But you will continue to be very helpful to them, of course most of the ones that give support for your claims are also discredited and not capable of pushing their flawed points in scientific organizations and academia.

> **[I Crashed a Climate Change Denial Conference in Las Vegas](https://www.vice.com/en/article/las-vegas-climate-change-denial-brendan-montague-101/)**
>
> Gambling with the future of the planet.

> [@](#):
>
> I’ve been researching the climate denial industry for almost three years and the best way to gather information about this incredibly small yet influential clique is to hang out with them. I attended their 2012 conference of the Heartland Institute, an oil and tobacco funded free market think tank that spends a lot of time and effort trying to call bullshit on what is clearly not bullshit – the science of climate change. My presence was clearly unwelcome – but I guess they forgot to scrub me from their email invitation list, because I got invited again this year, to their 9th International Conference on Climate Change in the deep heat of the Nevada desert amid the chaos of Las Vegas casinos.

And even groups that do check pseudo science conclude that they are in the same column as what they investigate for a living…

[http://skepdic.com/climatedeniers.html](http://skepdic.com/climatedeniers.html)  
And yes, the record here shows that FX completely screwed up and was completely useless in finding good support for his claims, he had to rely on a popular press report that got the scientists predicting cooling of the 70’s wrong. He is misrepresenting what was mentioned before, that a majority of scientists (not all) did predict warming and that is one of the reasons why virtually all scientific organizations agree with the consensus of the evidence.

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/567 "2014-11-01T18:27:48Z")

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Now for the latest round of ignorance.

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Yet based on this fatuous pile of gibberish, we are supposed to overlook the basic physics of greenhouse gases and ignore a century of climate change;

That’s your claim, since nobody in this thread has said anything about the physics of greenhouse gases being ignored, except you. None of the unexpected events point to physics being overturned, it’s about the assumptions involved with the theory.

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Climate science has been well past the point of looking for “evidence” for AGW – as if it was something contentious that scientists actually argue about.

Nonsense, nobody has stopped gathering evidence, only fools think science is ever settled. The details actually matter.

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Clearly, if regional and temporal trends are consistent with the overall planetary warming, then no further explanation is required as this is the default expectation, but if they deviate significantly in either direction from the global trend, then we need to look for the circulation-system drivers responsible for creating these regional anomalies.

It’s what is meant by " the overall planetary warming" that you keep avoiding. If the planet warms, and we don’t see the greenhouse signature, then something else is causing it. Same for if the planet cools, it’s how it happens that matters. Because swings from cold to warm, and then cold again, are the norm, it’s abnormal changes that matter, in regards to the CO2 theory. We want to know what the effect will be, and that’s where the theory comes in.

> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> These are the kinds of things climate science does – refining our understanding and building better general circulation models and earth system models and fine-grained regional models, developing more accurate estimates of climate sensitivity, and generally refining our predictions and expectations to finer degrees of detail.

There is a lot more to it than that. And it’s nothing new, because predicting weather, and predicting long term trends, is a vital enterprise to us humans, trying to figure out what is going on is a very old pursuit.

For example, in 1928 a great effort was underway to somehow get weather stations in the arctic. Because there was just one, east of Greenland There was no way to forecast, or even know, what was happening with the destructive winter storms coming down from the arctic. Which is still an important thing to know.

It was the same for the great oceans, there were no weather stations. It made it impossible to really know much about what was going on. The scant readings from ships and balloons was the best we could get.

Now we have satellites, we can even measure daily most of the troposphere, we have better data now than ever before. It’s ironic that the alarmists want to ignore the satellite data, and instead use the surface station data to measure global temps. Of course if the sat data showed drastic warming, then it would be considered good data.

But now even the best data ever is handwaved away, as if it means nothing.

Even the global mean shows how [the NH winters](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1990/to:2014/every:12) are causing the entire planet to show little to no continued warming.

The NH winter trend is so cold, it actually effects everything else.

You can clearly see it [looking at the February data](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1990.08/to:2014/every:12).

The NH summers [certainly continue to show a warming trend](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1990.5/to:2014/every:12).

But [that February data](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1985.08/to:2014/every:12), it shows why the theory is going to have to be changed, unless we can find another reason for the cooling.

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/568 "2014-11-01T18:35:28Z")

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Just saw the newest posts. The thing about nonsense, bullshit, just plain wrong crap, is it is very easy to debunk it, using evidence.

It’s also more effective. So if you actually disagree with a point, you are specific, and use evidencer and reason to counter. Not blanket dismissal and personal asides.

That won’t sway anyone.

For example, if somebody posts 35 years of good sat data, for February, land only, [showing how the expected warming did not happen](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1980.08/to:2014/every:12), you have to counter that with science.

You can’t claim cherry picking, since it’s the entire dataset. It’s also 35 years, long enough for a trend to show up.

Claiming it’s from a denialists blog won’t work, since no blog contains this point (if you find one, let me know)

Claiming it’s denial of science won’t work, it’s actual scientific data.

Attacking the data source won’t work, it’s the best measurement of the globe we have.

So in a debate, you have to be logical, not emotional. Personal attacks don’t make science look bad, they make you look like you have nothing.

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/569 "2014-11-01T18:39:09Z")

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Of course there is the current tactic being used. Claim that global warming says nothing about long term temperature changes for NH winters. The problem with that is, as the evidence clearly shows, it’s a made up idea, with no evidence to support it.

The honest researcher recognizes that it’s a serious problem, and looks to find out why it’s happening. Certainly as we see in _Cohen et al 2014_, theory does not explain an increasing number of nights below zero for the NH winters. The theory does not explain colder winters. And all the models, based on the theory, predict the most warming should happen in winter.

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**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:** [November 1, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/570 "2014-11-01T18:39:39Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Now we have satellites, we can even measure daily most of the troposphere, we have better data now than ever before. It’s ironic that the alarmists want to ignore the satellite data, and instead use the surface station data to measure global temps. Of course if the sat data showed drastic warming, then it would be considered good data.

Wrong as usual. It is not ignored, and the reality is that direct temperature measures are still considered the most important evidence.

> **[Satellite measurements of warming in the troposphere](https://skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere-advanced.htm)**
>
> Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropical data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concludes the discrepancy is most likely...

> [@](#):
>
> Satellite measurements do show warming in the Tropsphere when a cooling bias from the Stratosphere is removed. Warming trends agree well with surface temperatures and model predictions except near the Poles. Differences between various analyses are largely due to analysis techniques and compensations for satellite data issues.

As the rest of FX’s post deals once again with already discredited cherry picks (that even [woodfortress.org](http://woodfortress.org) warn to people like FX to not abuse the data that way) one cana dismiss it once again.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 1, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/571 "2014-11-01T18:45:41Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> That won’t sway anyone.
> 
> For example, if somebody posts 35 years of good sat data, for February, land only, [showing how the expected warming did not happen](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1980.08/to:2014/every:12), you have to counter that with science.
> 
> You can’t claim cherry picking, since it’s the entire dataset. It’s also 35 years, long enough for a trend to show up.

_ **Bullshit** _, and certifiably so.

[http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1800/to:2014/every:12](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1800/to:2014/every:12)

The database you picked is only limiting to the remote sensors from satellites or balloons and that peculiar and short database usually measures just the upper atmosphere. **And the dataset you used starts around 1980**. Again, the bullshit is not about the data, but how it is used to distort the information.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 1, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/572 "2014-11-01T19:20:49Z")

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One more thing to notice from that cherry pick, AFAIK satelite measurements are indeed taken into account, but the adjustments are still based on the more reliable surface temperatures, the problem with the dataset FX did choose was that the measurements do not focus on recording the surface temperature, as pointed before they are measuring other parts of the atmosphere besides the lower parts.

But what in the end the curators of the dataset report is to be in agreement with the main theory, as it usually the case in all the cherry picking moves that FX is making.

[http://www.remss.com/research/climate](http://www.remss.com/research/climate)

> [@](#):
>
> Over the past decade, we have been collaborating with Ben Santer at LLNL (along with numerous other investigators) to compare our tropospheric results with the predictions of climate models. Our results can be summarized as follows:
> 
> ```
> [ul]
> 
> ```
> 
> [li]Over the past 35 years, the troposphere has warmed significantly. The global average temperature has risen at an average rate of about 0.13 degrees Kelvin per decade (0.23 degrees F per decade).[/li][li] Climate models cannot explain this warming if human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are not included as input to the model simulation.[/li][li] The spatial pattern of warming is consistent with human-induced warming. See Santer et al 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012 for more about the detection and attribution of human induced changes in atmospheric temperature using MSU/AMSU data.[/li][/ul]

Of course there is an issue of the rate of temperature not increasing as expected (i **t is still increasing, and explained by what humans are putting in the atmosphere** ), but as pointed many times before , this is not a show stopper:

> [@](#):
>
> The reasons for the discrepancy between the predicted and observed warming rate are currently under investigation by a number of research groups. Possible reasons include increased oceanic circulation leading to increased subduction of heat into the ocean, higher than normal levels of stratospheric aerosols due to volcanoes during the past decade, incorrect ozone levels used as input to the models, lower than expected solar output during the last few years, or poorly modeled cloud feedback effects. It is possible (or even likely) that a combination of these candidate causes is responsible.

BTW scientists like the late Schneider reported that they were among the few in the wrong side of the cooling/warming coming back in the 70’s, but he explained that they did not expect that the cooling aerosols were going to diminish leaving the CO2 in the background to increase the temperature as a result.

And the ones working with the dataset that FX misused report also that water vapor is increasing, along with the feedbacks involved.

> [@](#):
>
> Time series of total column vapor anomaly, averaged over the world’s oceans, from 60S to 60N.
> 
> This increase can be formally attributed to human-induced climate change – see Santer et al, 2007.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/573 "2014-11-01T19:56:29Z")

</div>

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Claiming it’s denial of science won’t work, it’s actual scientific data.
> 
> Attacking the data source won’t work, it’s the best measurement of the globe we have.

There was little doubt about what would be the response to actual science.

> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> The database you picked is only limiting to the remote sensors from satellites or balloons and that peculiar and short database usually measures just the upper atmosphere. **And the dataset you used starts around 1980**. Again, the bullshit is not about the data, but how it is used to distort the information.

The advanced scientific study of our planet is reduced to “it means nothing”, based on the assumption the data doesn’t support the warmer story. Quite obvious, and sad really.

The science and methodology, as well as much of the data, is easily available.  
[http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature](http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature)

And of course we can actually look at the data as well. The lower troposphere data shows us a lot, including the northern mid latitude data, which is such a bone of contention for some.

> **[RSS / MSU and AMSU Data / Time Series Trend Browser](https://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html)**
>
> MSU (Microwave Sounding Unit) and AMSU (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit) Data Products (Current and Archived) - Browse Images and Download geophysical data: atmospheric temperature

The south pole data clearly shows the long term cooling trend there, as well as the long term warming at the north pole.

The CONUS data also matched the surface station data from the US, clearly showing the current cooling trend for the US, as well as the warming trend. The thing about quality data, is that it makes it really hard for rhetoric to mean much, when it comes to climate change.

No way to link to the zonal records, you have to lift a finger and click some.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 1, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/574 "2014-11-01T20:19:10Z")

</div>

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> There was little doubt about what would be the response to actual science.
> 
> The advanced scientific study of our planet is reduced to “it means nothing”, based on the assumption the data doesn’t support the warmer story. Quite obvious, and sad really.
> 
> The science and methodology, as well as much of the data, is easily available.  
> [Remote Sensing Systems](http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature)

As it is the conclusions the ones making the dataset are telling us, as usual you are confusing actual science with misleading statements, as the REMSS people told you what they do means a lot (they actually do point at many other pieces of the puzzle that are already understood and placed on the table already, not likely that your cherry picks will change that), but you will continue to miss the conclusions they have and all other evidence.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 1, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/575 "2014-11-01T20:31:40Z")

</div>

What FX only showed in his latest posts to all, is that he is not even aware of how the scientists that are doing the work are not in agreement with him.

As pointed many times before if what me and virtually all scientists are talking about is a pseudoscience then the deeper we are going the **less** agreement we should see with the actual evidence and conclusions the scientists have, in the end most scientific organizations and even Skeptical Science do agree with each other.

And this take us to once again ask for one item that continues to be ignored by FX, so where are the scientists at Nasa/Giss and now at REMSS that agrees with his conclusions? Again what we see is that they still agree that humans are responsible for most of the warming observed so far, and a big reason for this are our global warming gases emissions.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/576 "2014-11-02T01:06:15Z")

</div>

> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> The database you picked is only limiting to the remote sensors from satellites or balloons and that peculiar and short database usually measures just the upper atmosphere.

Wrong again, but it doesn’t even matter. That you are wrong about how RSS works.

You can use [HADCRUT4 global mean](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1985.08/every:12)

[CRUTEM4 NH land only](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vnh/from:1985.08/every:12)

or even [GISS](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1995.08/every:12)

They all show [the obvious problem for global warming theory](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1995.08/every:12)

The winter trend should look more like [the summer trend](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1995.5/every:12) ends up being.

Of course that the NH summer shows warming, while the winter shows cooling, thats a real problem for the basic assumptions that enhanced greenhouse effect is the main forcing, driving climate change.

Which makes sense when there isn’t an annual increase anymore. If we were measuring a flat annual trend, but it was the summers bringing down the yearly mean, that would be even stranger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/577 "2014-11-02T01:07:58Z")

</div>

> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> As pointed many times before if what me and virtually all scientists are talking about is a pseudoscience then the deeper we are going the **less** agreement we should see

Yes, of course.

“what me and virtually all scientists are talking about”

Nobody can argue with that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/578 "2014-11-02T01:20:34Z")

</div>

Global warming Myth or fraud? Check the facts. The temp has been dropping for the last 15 years not rising. The predictions of the sea level rising have proven false, so why would any sane person continue to believe?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/579 "2014-11-02T01:28:52Z")

</div>

> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> That is my line too, but then again we are already aware (and I called it early too) of your game of ignoring that what me and many others already accept, we do accept the definitions you point at and the answer you have here, it is just that your game is to ignore them too from this point too.  
> And anyone can see that in my previous reply I just about did claim that “Yes, basic global warming theory predicts both sea level rise, and an increasing rate of rise.” And I do accept it. So by your own logic you should not ignore it, but we know you will and the rest:
> 
> The games you are playing are clear, you will ignore from now on that the theory is not just your pet cherry pick of the winters in specific regions and from short time periods, it includes much more and it is silly to say that what you claim discredits the main theories.

But when is this sea level rise going to get started? Remember back in 1978 when the prediction was for 2 meters before the turn of the century, and how phony that turned out.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 2, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/580 "2014-11-02T01:32:53Z")

</div>

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Wrong again, but it doesn’t even matter. That you are wrong about how RSS works.
> 
> You can use [HADCRUT4 global mean](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1985.08/every:12)
> 
> [CRUTEM4 NH land only](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vnh/from:1985.08/every:12)
> 
> or even [GISS](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1995.08/every:12)
> 
> They all show [the obvious problem for global warming theory](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/from:1995.08/every:12)
> 
> The winter trend should look more like [the summer trend](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1995.5/every:12) ends up being.
> 
> Of course that the NH summer shows warming, while the winter shows cooling, thats a real problem for the basic assumptions that enhanced greenhouse effect is the main forcing, driving climate change.
> 
> Which makes sense when there isn’t an annual increase anymore. If we were measuring a flat annual trend, but it was the summers bringing down the yearly mean, that would be even stranger.

Cherry picked time again, and again, if you can not contradict what REMSS reports:

Over the past decade, we have been collaborating with Ben Santer at LLNL (along with numerous other investigators) to compare our tropospheric results with the predictions of climate models. Our results can be summarized as follows:

> [@](#):
>
> ```
> Over the past 35 years, the troposphere has warmed significantly. The global average temperature has risen at an average rate of about 0.13 degrees Kelvin per decade (0.23 degrees F per decade).
> Climate models cannot explain this warming if human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are not included as input to the model simulation.
> The spatial pattern of warming is consistent with human-induced warming. See Santer et al 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012 for more about the detection and attribution of human induced changes in atmospheric temperature using MSU/AMSU data.
> 
> ```

Your points are not serious at all. Do you really think that REMSS is not telling us that a combination of factors is causing the current “pause” in surface temperatures? And that subduction of heat into the ocean is very likely a significant part of the explanation for the model/observation discrepancies? The bottom line is that they are not in opposition to the main theory(s) only in your imagination they are.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 2, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-global-warming-falsifiable/687786/581 "2014-11-02T01:34:37Z")

</div>

> [@DingoelGringo](#):
>
> Global warming Myth or fraud? Check the facts. The temp has been dropping for the last 15 years not rising. The predictions of the sea level rising have proven false, so why would any sane person continue to believe?

The scientist at REMSS that FX kindly pointed at are just one of virtually all the scientific groups that tell you that you are wrong; the insanity is for the deniers that are telling you to ignore what the experts report.

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