Should we look at all data about climate change or only the data proponets of global warming want us to?

Question

I hear how global warming is a fact yet there is no evidence that man has any effect on it. Then the proponents reference things like algores movie, that has been shown to be non-factual and the guy who made the movie even admitted to camera tricks.
I have been given links to data that was gathered by NASA that says we are to blame but when i go to NASA.gov, I find that the data was incomplete and does not, in fact show man having any effect.
The proponents of global warming seem to be constantly trying to change the argument every time their data is questioned.
I have seen it go from global cooling to global warming to desertification to climate change, and i have still never gotten an answer as to what the climate should be, compared to what it is.
I remember in HighSchool science you class were supposed to have a control. Seems the closest thing to a control would be Mars, but the global warming Alarmists don't want that to be used because Mars is heating up as fast as earth.

Sorry bob, all of your links are either political or hearsay. However the one link, realclimate.org was almost there.
Too bad the article contridicted itself.
It concluded scientist couldn't say what the weather should or would be with such a short time period of data.
Then it goes on to say it can.

Ahhh ... Trevor .... thats great that you know an acctual "Climatoligist".
Can you give his name and possibly links to his research. Every link i have received so far has been hearsay and papers of opinion from scientist that have done no reaserch on climate change or from politicians and pundits that are paid by supporters of the global warming/climate change argument.
It would be great to see actual data from someone not being paid by those with political interests in gloabal warming that acctually supports its exsistence.

btw .... The producer of al's movie admitted that they didn't have science to back up any of the claims made in the movie, but that they made the movie to convince people of a political point

Answer 1

I know I'm much older than many of the Yahoo answerers, so I do remember climate changes alarms for more than 50 years. Like you, I remember fears of global cooling. So, what do I know for certain? Climate change is a naturally occurring phenomena. What I GUESS must be true is that mankind has SOME effect. There's just too many of us to have no effect whatsoever. We must also effect it indirectly through increased livestock---therefore, methane gas. I think it is very reasonable to assume the developing nations bare far more "blame" (I don't like using that word in this context) than the industrialized nations because they have no choice except to depend on fossil fuels. But how much can be blamed on volcanic eruptions and forces of nature entirely beyond our control? Basically, I agree with everything you say. The scientific method has not been used and that drives me crazy. However, it is of no benefit to any of us to turn this into a political discussion. There is no reason to ever mix science and politics and I appreciate your attempt to avoid that. Thank you.

Answer 2

ACCORDING TO YOU: Global warming is happening on Mars and Pluto as well. Since there are no SUVs on Mars, CO2 can't be causing global warming.

INDEED: Warming on another planet would be an interesting coincidence, but it would not necessarily be driven by the same causes.

The only relevant factor the earth and Mars share is the sun, so if the warming were real and related, that would be the logical place to look. As it happens, the sun is being watched and measured carefully back here on earth, and it is not the primary cause of current climate change.

As for the alleged extraterrestrial warming, there is extremely little evidence of a global climate change on Mars. The only piece we are aware of is a series of photographs of a single icy region in the southern hemisphere that shows melting over a six year period (about three Martian years).

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Concerning the CO2 and the temperature, it is a complicated interaction since sometimes one parameter is observed before the second or the contrary.

This means that CO2 has beeen in the past caused by higher temperatures due to for example the solar activity

But also increase in CO2 levels ALWAYS caused an increase in temperatures.

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As for the predicted Ice Age, you can research but its the weakest arguement. Only the press was alarmist, not the huge majority of the scientists about it.

Answer 3

Remember there are no facts in science only theory. It would be irresponsible to look only at one side of the argument. When someone like Al Gore, someone without any science backgroud, makes a scientific documentary they are only giving you one side of the argument, theirs.

As a member of the scientific community I am continuing to see the facts around Global Warming move more and more to supporting the idea that it is a natural cycle. If you want real knowledge about climatology I suggest taking a night course at a local college. If the professor is worth their salt they will present both sides of the arguement and allow you to decide. If you can't do this find an enviromental professor you can converse with, either over email or maybe face to face. If they are unwilling to do so they should at least be able to give you some unbiased reading material to get you in the right direction.

One thing is for sure, if you want objective views on Global Warming you need to turn off the 24hr news stations and docudramas and talk with someone in the field.

Answer 4

We should absolutely look at all data about climate change, and you, jack, are included in "we".

Your very first claim is that there is no evidence that man has any effect on global warming. This is incorrect - there have been many, many studies which have provided evidence to that effect. You're not looking at all data when you make that claim.

Then you discuss "An Inconvenient Truth", which covers a global warming presentation not by a scientist, but by a politician. There may be minor flaws with Al Gore's presentation, but experts have agreed that most of the scientific data he presents is accurate.

Then you discuss NASA, whose scientists indeed have perfomed studies which have found evidence that global warming is caused by humans. Unfortunately, NASA is a government institution, and our current government has done much to suppress data which correlates human activities and global warming. The Bush Administration has gone as far as to alter government reports which have stated or even just suggested that humans have caused global warming.

As a matter of fact, NASA scientists have been specifically instructed not to use the term "global warming" publicly, but instead to use the term "climate change", just as an example of government influence on their public relations.

Your next statement says something about global warming vs. global cooling etc., but I have no idea what you're trying to say. Climate change is simply another word for global warming.

I suggest you follow your own advice and look at all data about climate change. That's what scientists and environmentalists want you to do.

Answer 5

Sounds like you want to read the original scientific papers themselves. Well, go ahead. You should be able to gain access at almost any university library. The argument that humans are responsible is two-fold:

1) Atmospheric CO2 is increasing, and the expected temperature rise due to the observed amount of increase is in accord with what is expected, based on laboratory measurements of the broad-band electromagnetic spectrum of the CO2 molecule.
2) The isotopic abundances of the carbon in the excess CO2 is in accord with the carbon originating in fossil fuels, as opposed to any other source. Also, the amount of additional CO2 that appears in the air each year is somewhat less than the amount of CO2 known to be released by economic activity throughout the globe.

Not all scientific theories can be verified by direct, controlled experiments. Mars' atmosphere is nothing like the Earth's, and by the way the evidence for warming on Mars and other planets is quite thin---it's only a small region on Mars that is melting; the vast majority of the surface of Mars is unmonitored. The data on the Sun show no net increase in solar luminosity or particle output.

Answer 6

I think this might be a long answer, I won't go into detail as it would then become a veeery long answer...

<< Should we look at all data about climate change or only the data proponets of global warming want us to? >>

All of it - I'm involved in climate research and we look at everything regardless as to whether we like it or not.

<< I hear how global warming is a fact yet there is no evidence that man has any effect on it. >>

The evidence that global warming is happening and has happened is nothing more than a simple physical property of the 'greenhouse gases'. They trap heat, the more of them there are in the atmosphere the warmer it gets, the principle is very similar to putting heat trapping layers of clothing on when it's cold outside.

<< Then the proponents reference things like algores movie,... >>

I've never once referenced his movie - check the hundreds of answers I've given to questions on this forum. The climatologists I know don't reference his movie either as Gore is only the messenger so to speak.

<< ...that has been shown to be non-factual and the guy who made the movie even admitted to camera tricks. >>

The best that the skeptics can do when discrediting the movie is to point to the 'hockey stick graph'. Just one aspect out of perhaps a hundred that are included within the movie. Even then, the graph is fundementally accurate and the sections in contention relate to periods in time hundreds of years ago. The important part - the recent rapid rise - isn't questioned.

As for camera tricks - the guy is making a presentation, he's not performing stunts or anything like that. How would camera tricks affect what is principally an oratory.

<< I have been given links to data that was gathered by NASA that says we are to blame but when i go to NASA.gov, I find that the data was incomplete and does not, in fact show man having any effect. >>

Maybe you could elaborate and specify which data, you'll find that almost everything that's known about climate and global warming can be obtained from multiple sources. I frequently use the NASA site myself and haven't come across incomplete data or data that shows man is not having an effect.

<< The proponents of global warming seem to be constantly trying to change the argument every time their data is questioned. >>

Again, you need to elaborate further please. I'm involved in this every day and have been for more years than I care to think about (23 actually) and whilst the data is frequently questioned it is never modified without good cause and any such modifications are usually the result of more complete data, further analysis or better and newer technologies. Such modifications are slight and have no bearing on the overall science and where modifications are made they are clearly explained.

<< I have seen it go from global cooling to global warming to desertification to climate change, >>

Global cooling is something that has been blown out of all proportion by the global warming skeptics. The best way to demonstrate this is to ask people who were around in the 1970's if they remember global cooling - few of them will. If you care to research the subject further you'll see that there was very little mention of it, what mention there was primarily came from the media and not scientists and what scientific research was conducted has been shown to be correct. There was never any suggestion of an imminent ice age or anything even remotely close, the scientists correctly stated that the natural cycles of the sun and earth will lead to global cooling of there are no extraneous factors involved.

Desertification is a conseqence of global warming as is climate change. All three things are inexorably linked, there has been no change from one to the other. Global warming is what's happening and climate change is the result.

<< and i have still never gotten an answer as to what the climate should be, compared to what it is.>>

It's very hard to say what the climate 'should' be, that's like asking what the weather should be. With weather we know that winter is colder then summer, certain times are wetter than others but we can't say the weather on May 28th should be...

What we can do is to look at how the climate has been in the past and has evolved over time - we have 542 million years worth of data to go at. It's pretty pointless going that far back in time as the planet has radically changed since then so what we do instead is to look at say the last 10,000 years. This shows a very slow increase in temperatures over the period (1 degree Celsius), this rise is due to natural cycles. When we draw a graph from 10,000 years ago to 200 years ago it's a more or less straight line with a few ups and downs here and there, from that we can interpolate what the climate 'should' be and we find it should be considerably cooler than it is.

<< I remember in HighSchool science you class were supposed to have a control. Seems the closest thing to a control would be Mars, >>

You use a control when testing something, global warming isn't a test. Even if it were then Mars would be hopeless as a control. A control by definition is identical to the subject being tested in all but the aspect being investigated

<<... but the global warming Alarmists don't want that to be used because Mars is heating up as fast as earth.>>

This statement kind of confirms that you were unable to find information on the NASA website. Had you looked at the original reports about Mars warming you'd have also read that only parts are warming, other parts are cooling and that any warming if it is occuring (insufficent data to conclude for certain) is not related to the warming being experience on Earth.

I would assume that your argument is that Mars is warming and therefore the warming on Earth is attributable to the same source - namely the sun. This reasoning falls down when you realise that Mars and Earth are exceptions to the rule, on all but 6 planets and moons in our solar system (there's 172 of them in all), either no warming has been observed or they're beleived to be cooling.

By all means question global warming, it's important that people do so but may I respectfully suggest that you don't place too much emphasis on the material you find on certain websites or come across by word of mouth. If you want to test the validity of any argument, either for or against global warming, then trace it right back to it's original source.

Answer 7

Here's the data with copious references. Of course, you'll need to actually read the links and possibly check the references:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2.html

Global cooling was never a consensus:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

The climate should not cause (avoidable) massive flooding and drought:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL052735320070407

Mars may be heating also, but not most of the other planets. NASA's latest theory on Mars heating is dust storms. But virtually every story on this coming from the scientists who do the work says it's not the same issue as Earth.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070527101114.htm

There's a huge scientific consensus on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics. Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Honestly at this point being a global warming skeptic is like denying we went to the Moon. You have to ignore a whole lot of science to do it.

Answer 8

Since the obvious errors and misuse of terms in your post show you lack even a basic grasp of real science, why do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

FYI--no legitimate scientist has presented any data that calls global warming into question. The rants o fconspiracy teorists and oil company propaganda disseminated by idiots like Rush Limbaugh are not credible sources.

Answer 9

You should always look at all the available, relevant data. I believe we have some effect on global warming, though the Earth could certainly also be heating up because of "natural" causes. It would foolish to say that dumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that would not otherwise have been there would not effect the enviroment in some way.

Answer 10

From what I have heard and I I do pay attention, All credible scientists are in agreement that humans are causing global warming, there is no longer a real debate here, you are behind in the science if you believe there is. So if you want to so your own research go ahead but do you really have the time or expertise??