Is the Great Global Warming Swindle evidence FOR man-made GW?

Question

Anyone with any knowledge about global warming science who's seen this film will agree that it's full of misinformation. Probably the worst of it is the claim that the Midieval Warm Period was hotter than today. The only criticism I've seen of Gore's film was that the "hockey stick graph" was inaccurate in that it de-emphasized the MWP. This film does the exact opposite - taking a similar graph and inflating the MWP, which I find very ironic and hypocritical. Here are 10 seperate temperature reconstructions that look nothing like that in the film:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

I could go through and debunk the film, but I don't have room here and there are entire websites devoted to it.

Considering how full the film is of bad science and misinformation, and that it's supposed to be some scathing indictment of the supposed global warming hoax, is the fact that the filmmakers couldn't do any better evidence IN FAVOR of man-made GW?

blank -

1) The graph is simply linked on Wikipedia. The article authors had nothing to do with the data that produced the graph. Not that it's relevant here, but Wikipedia's accuracy is comparable to that of Brittanica.

2) You don't have to trust anyone. Watch the film and do the research yourself. There are plenty of websites debunking its inaccuracies.

3) The Midieval Warm Period (MWP) was a period of anomalously warm average global temperatures approximately 1000 years ago. Man-made GW skeptics often cite this as evidence that our current global warming is nothing to worry about. As it was not nearly as warm or anomalous as the current warming (as seen in my plot), this is a weak argument, to put it lightly.

Harry - atmospheric water vapor concentrations are determined by atmospheric temperatures. The hotter the Earth is, the more water vapor there is in the atmosphere. The way to reduce the water vapor concentration in the atmosphere is to reduce global warming.

Answer 1

Marc G's point is well taken. It's far better to look at what scientists say instead of a popularized movie. But AIT and GGWS don't deserve to be lumped together.

AIT may be a little over dramatic and scientists have criticized some details. But the vast majority of scientists agree (even the vast majority of those who criticized some details) that AIT basically has the science right.

GGWS is just bogus:

"The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy."

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032572,00.html

Answer 2

Blank, I'm surprised you don't know about the medieval warming period. To be fair I'm not sure if MWP is such a great argument. The premise is that if there were warming periods in the past that were not connected to CO2 emissions than our current warming trend can't be connected to Co2 emissions as well. That doesn't hold water, if you know what I mean. Just because CO2 didn't drive temperature in the past doesn't mean it isn't driving temperature today.

I think the better argument is the content of greenhouse gasses. The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, or just plain old H2O. So how about preventing water from turning vapor? That would be the most logical solution to stop the greenhouse effect.

All this focus on CO2 doesn't make much sense, when you think about it.


EDIT: To Dana,

Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia. You can contribute to Wiki. I can contribute to Wiki. Someone who never finished high school can contribute to Wikipedia. The edits that end up there are from those who are always editing the material and have the most time to spend to sit on there **** writing articles on wiki. I encourage anyone to experiment and put something silly on a Wiki page and see how long it stays there (even years later)

To Dana,

Evidence shows that CO2 follows increase temperatures, not the other way around. Ice data shows a lag of CO2 behind warm periods. That makes complete sense as conventional chemistry had always considered water vapor, or simple h2O as the driver of greenhouse gases. This is why heat must come first and not the other way around. Heat produces vapor from oceans which in turn chemically attracts the other gasses to produce the greenhouse effect.

Therefore something else must be producing the intial heat. Could it be the sun? Also the eventual result is a blocking of solar heat which in turn should produce a cooling. This is a natural process of nature. Like all the other gases, CO2 is absorbed and recycled by nature. So it makes sense that ice samples will show more CO2 in periods following heat periods because CO2 has condensed with the water vapor during times of cooling.

Anyway, to have any real greenhouse effect you need atleast a 80 to 90% concentration of H2O. Otherwise we'll need to re-define greenhouse effect. Perhaps they are already doing it. Insane science we have these days.

EDIT: To 3DM,

What Dana is trying to explain to us is that the greenhouse effect is causing the greenhouse effect. If that makes sense.

Answer 3

"Harry - atmospheric water vapor concentrations are determined by atmospheric temperatures. The hotter the Earth is, the more water vapor there is in the atmosphere."

This from someone who claims to have undergraduate and graduate physics degrees? This is middle-school level physical science and you STILL can't handle it.

Temperature is a factor in both evaporation rate and equilibrium concentrations of water vapor. If it were the only factor, then we'd have no need for the concept of "humidity" because the amount of water vapor would be the same for any given temperature.

Gases like CO2 are easy pickin's, the low lying fruit of climate dynamics. Figure out a couple of gas laws and diffusion gradients and you're golden. But water vapor and condensate (clouds), phase changes, latent heats, biological respiration and transpiration, are among a myriad of factors that simply HAVE NOT been incorporated into these wondrous computer models which serve as the only palpable evidence of global warming. This is why they promote their models as, "Now, with interactive clouds!" Yeah, they've got their models perfected...just like Microsoft has finally perfected Windows with the release of Vista. No more work to do.

Instead of wasting time refuting a refutation like "Swindle", why don't you support your own flimsy hypotheses with something other than a grade-school handle on climatic processes?

Answer 4

Ok so first of all, don't use Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is entirely user-edited. I'm not saying people are stupid, just that some of the information is inaccurate. I know a history professor who had graded a paper from everyone in his class and over half had gotten some of the dates completely wrong.
He asked the students who gave the wrong dates for their sources, and they all cited Wikipedia.

My second big problem is that this argument is one person's word against another. How do I know who is correct? You have told me that most of the science in the movie is just wrong. But how do I know that? I don't know who to trust.

And a third thing: I am a relatively informed person about global warming, but please explain what MWP is.
EDIT: I strongly agree with campbelp2002.

Answer 5

Global warming has become a platform for dirty politics
and will milked of all opertunity going in both directions ,On the one hand corporate control does not want global warming for fiancial reasons .

And religion does not like it because it is not in sink with the scriptures

On the other even dirtier politics would probably like it even worse and faster for reasons of mass manipulation on behalf of globalization.

We can expect much more confusion in the future ,by the end of the day the public wont know any more if they are coming or going

At least Global warming is consistent it keeps on coming.

Answer 6

I have not seen "An Inconvenient Truth" but I have seen parts of it and interviews with Al Gore talking about it. It isn't really science. It is a scientifically based political opinion. I have seen "The Great Global Warming Swindle". It is not science either. It is political opinion based on some selected science.

In my view, even if we burned all the coal and oil in the world we could not increase CO2 levels enough to cause a real catastrophe. I find it hard to believe we could ever make the world hot enough to be dangerous to life. None of the climate scientists is even trying to claim that it would get so hot as to be dangerous to life. Only that we might not like the sea levels or rainfall patterns. We might not like them, but the changes will happen slowly enough that we can adapt. It might get warm enough to melt all the polar ice, or at least the summer ice, but that kind of warming has happened (naturally) several times in Earth's past, and it did not kill off life. In fact, life thrived at those times. All the great extinctions happened in cold periods.

Answer 7

I believe in GW but will check into your link. Always glad to hear from a skeptic from either side that is willing to offer evidence to the contrary, this actually makes for a decent discussion.

I will keep my mind open and listen to the skeptics but let me ask this in return if I may. Please, everybody, forget what you want to hear and look into both sides so you can come up with an objective view. If we can't do this (both sides) we have merely buried our heads in the sand.

Answer 8

The worst thing that I see is starting 100 years ago till now there is a 1 deg .F. change. I am sorry but the thermometers could be in error + - 3 deg.F. Their technology is not that accurate. To measure a 1 deg error your thermometer should be able to measure .1 deg. F. If the measurements are not accurate then there is no problem.

Answer 9

Irregardless of whether theres been fakery on either side, its still self evident that because of our collective refusal to take responsibility for how we manage our resources, were still slowly destroying both mother earth and ourselves.

Answer 10

Oh for the love of Pete.....

I am sick of AIT and GGWS and I haven't even wasted the time to watch either of them. I roll my eyes when either turn up in this here forum.