The Evidence Against Global Warming? READ BEFORE FLAMING!

Hey guys.

First, before you all start flaming me as a super-conservative nutcase, hear me out: I’m not saying GW is fake; I just want to see opinions, and since it’s so easy to find pro-global warming studies, I need help with the opposition.

After reading Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”, I have doubted my opinion of Global Warming. However, the book is fiction (although it references real studies), so I want more examples. Will you guys please link to any reliable studies, graphs, etc. showing that global temperatures aren’t rising abnormally, species aren’t going extinct faster DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING, sea levels aren’t rising, glaciers and Antarctica aren’t melting, crops aren’t failing, extreme weather isn’t rising, etc.

I especially want to see studies and graphs about Antarctica/glaciers GROWING, temperatures FALLING in some cities, CO2 levels following temperature, the immense smallness of CO2 compared to total atmosphere, and the urban heat island effect.

Again, before you flame me, realize that I just want to see both sides of the issue, and that since it’s far easier to find pro-global warming studies, I came here for help.

tl;dr: I want some info about opposing arguments of global warming.

You won’t get (much) flaming here in GD…that’s what the Pit is for. You also won’t get much traction with Michael Crichton and his theories here. I assume that guests can search the board, so my suggestion is to start by doing a search on previous threads on this subject…there are a LOT of them, and the ones with jshore and Intention have pretty good info on the two sides of this debate. Essentially though, the majority of the scientific community that is actually involved in climate studies is fairly confident that A) GW is happening and B) That it’s caused by human activities…and I think that is shared with the majority of 'dopers as well.

-XT

And you can add C)

It’s almost too late to avoid catastrophe.

At this point denying either A or B is the equivalent of spouting Creationism or denying the Holocaust.

ok, well, that doesnt change the fact that it’s important to know where the opposition is coming for-if only so you can argue better.

I don’t believe that your C is as widely accepted…nor does there seem to be a consensus on what we can or should do. That’s why I didn’t include those things. And I don’t believe that the debate has reached the same levels as Evolution vs Creationism or Holocaust denial either…there are a lot of variables in the GW debate, and a lot of the science is still fairly new and theoretical, the computer models are still being worked up and tested. I think you are doing ‘your’ side a bit of a disservice by making such statements at this point in time, or trying to dismiss real, rational scientific examination of the subject, which is still ongoing.

YMMV of course.

-XT

“my” side? what do you mean? at this point, I’m neutral.

My comment was meant as a reply to tagos.

-XT

First you need to specify what you mean by “global warming.”

Does it mean that world surface temperatures have risen on average over the last century?

Does it mean that mankind’s activities are likely to raise such surface temperatures, possibly by a little, possibly by a lot?

Does it mean that mankind’s CO2 emissions are likely to cause temperatures to rise, which will increase water vapor levels, which will cause further temperature increases, and so on, resulting in temperature increases which will cause significant negative effects?

The first two interpretations are probably true. The third (which I call “CAGW”) – at a minimum – has not been sustained by the evidence, in my opinion.

I wrote a few blog posts on wordpress (brazil84 is my username there) explaining why I think CAGW is a hoax. Is linking to such a blog against the rules?

All three, but countered/verified seperatly

I’ve yet to be convinced by either side.

Two good sites on either side of the debate are Real Climate and Climate Audit.

However, it is indisputable that the Earth has warmed these past few hundred years. The only question is how much (if any) of it is due to man. You may care to investigate the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum.

but what about claims that the greenland ice sheet and Antarctica are growing, not melting?

Complete horseshit from what I can tell. The ice sheets are certainly shrinking in both places, and are moving faster (which is actually a worse sign). There are plenty of web sites out there showing this (just do a google search on ‘Iceland ice sheet shrinking’).
I found this on RealClimate discussing Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”:

-XT

The first would seem to be correct. Among other things, temperature increases have been verified by sattelites measurements. However, it should be noted that global temperature increases and decreases happen regularly over short, medium, and long periods of time.

The second is trivially correct. Just lighting a cigarette increases global surface temperatures slightly. Turning to CO2 emissions, there is little dispute that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas. So based on theory, it seems very likely that CO2 emissions will have some positive impact on global surface temperatures.

The important question is “how much impact?” Because considered in isolation, CO2 emissions are not likely to have a big impact. The scary predictions you hear come from water vapor feedback, i.e. the idea that warming due to CO2 will be mulitplied due to a positive feedback loop with water vapor.

That brings me to the third interpretation. As I noted above, this has not been sustained. I spelled out the basis of my skepticism in a few blog posts.

An interesting web site to check out is http://www.climate-skeptic.com

The author prepared a skeptical guide to global warming. There are also a few videos.

Here is a start:

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/11/more-ways-to-vi.html

intresting… thanks for that. any more?

ah… climate -skeptic seems good!

The leading theory against human-caused global warming is that scientists are all eco-hippies, seek to enforce a single government rule upon the rest of the world, or are making money on book deals and so on. In truth, it is the sun that is heating up the planet–i.e. it is the sun that is warming.

The problems with this theory are two-fold (which makes sense since it is in two parts). Firstly, there’s a massive amount of research that has been done, by organizations from all over the world, for ~50 years. Falsifying that much data, that consistently, by that many number of people, for that long a period of time, by that many diverse groups, seems about as plausible as that NASA faked the moon landings. …though of course NASA is one of the organizations which has studied Earth’s climate and which says that global warming is occuring. Let me just note that I am unaware of any significant science organization which denounces anthropogenic global warming. The list of those that support AGW is as long as your arm and the total budgets of those groups is certainly in the hundreds of billions if not trillions–so if they’re not doing their jobs faithfully, we really should stop using our tax money on them. Secondly, the change in the heat of the sun does not match the change in the global temperature within instrumentally recorded history, and it still doesn’t if you look back at recreations of the last few thousand years.

Now if you really want to argue about global warming, let me link to this page on the Wikipedia. When you look at graphs, make sure that the graph covers as long a time period as is possible. Lots of denialist work depends upon graphs that–if you don’t pay attention–start and end at very specific dates rather than trying to show as much time as they can. Make sure that the graph is of the global temperature and not a single region or what-have-you. Make sure that the research was done by someone actually qualified to do scientific research and presents the data as such. There are probably real, scientific reasons to doubt various parts of the current science, but if you ever saw those, they would be presented in just as terse and eye-wateringly boring a format as any other scientific information. Some guy blogging on the internet, regardless of how pretty his graphs may be and engaging his text, still isn’t a credible source. Lots of secretaries around the world know how to make a pretty graph in Excel. I still wouldn’t entrust them with running the global economy.

Now just because something is produced by real scientists, this doesn’t mean it is so. There is every possibility that all the scientists in the world are wrong, and they will be the first to tell you so. Not believing what people know to be true is the very definition of a scientist’s job.

Please. This is unworthy of GD.

That there are gadflies who denounce AGW is a good thing: it makes those who believe it prove their case. As yet, IMHO, they have yet to do so.

Climate change conspiracy theory - Wikipedia shrugs I didn’t make it up. Michael Crichton is, indeed, one of the people advancing the theory, and he’s right there in the OP. How do you want me to argue with Michael Crichton if I’m not allowed to present Teh Loony.

I think the OP has a misunderstanding about how science is done. You don’t get a bunch of arguments for one side of an issue, and then go find the same number of arguments for the other side of the issue, and then compare them. You get all of the arguments you can, from any source, regardless of which side they’re on, and then you look at all those arguments. If it happens that the vast majority of the arguments are all on the same side, well, then, that tells you something. If you’re in a situation like that and you actively seek out opposing arguments, then you’re going to end up with crackpottery.

Well…the other side of that coin is that it’s not a popularity contest, and the majority of opinions in the scientific community can and have been wrong in the past. That’s why it annoys me so much when people try and dismiss ALL GW skepticism as crackpottery. Think about how long it took for something like General Relativity to be accepted by the majority of physicists and such in the field…or a theory like Evolution. It took decades, and basically they both overturned the earlier majority opinions.

Personally I think that the evidence is mounting that GW is happening and that humans are a major cause…but I don’t believe that the theory is any where near as solid as those other two are…and THEY took decades to become mainstream within their communities.

-XT