Why do people try to reason through global warming with just history and common sense?

Question

It seems like almost everyone who doubts anthropogenic global warming bases their doubt on historical evidence, "common sense", or both. This puzzles me, because the global climate is far too complex to simply understand with common sense.

Most of the scientists skeptical of AGW appear to be geologists. This is because geologists study the Earth's history, and conclude "The Earth has gone through climate changes before, and been hotter than it is now, so the current global warming is no big deal". Many laymen use this same reasoning. However, this historical argument ignores the recent data which cannot be explained by natural cycles, as previous climate change events can be.

So some people conclude that because the climate has changed before, humans are not warming it now. Others conclude that humans are too miniscule to be impacting something as large as the Earth's climate.

They not only ignore a vast amount of data, but the experts' conclusions, based on common sense.

My question is - why do they think their common sense is not only enough to draw a conclusion about the causes of global warming, but also better informed than climate scientists?

jim z - proving my point about geologists precisely. Thanks.

No offense of course - many of my co-workers are geologists. But then, they don't fancy themselves global climate change experts.

Tomcat what are you smoking? I always specifically state "the current global warming", which is the warming over the past 30 years, which as you point out, is not caused by the Sun.

Your quote states not only over the entire century rather than focusing on the recent warming, but it also has massive error bars.

Basically you're seeking out any possible reason to deny AGW. Ignoring a massive body of evidence because a few outlying papers with large uncertainties appear skeptical is absurd. Denial.

Grizz - where am I calling people names rather than discussing science?

You're grumpy today.

coocachoo - you seem out of touch with both my answers and the conclusions of climate scientists.

Tomcat #2 - I appreciate that you kept an open mind on the surface temperature record quality.

Whether or not global warming continues in the future depends not just on the Sun's output, but the magnitude of its change as compared to the magnitude of change of greenhouse gas concentrations.

Over the past 30 years, greenhouse gas concentration changes have dominated solar output changes in terms of climate effects. I doubt the solar output will decrease sufficiently to change that.

Answer 1

The logic (if you can call it that) is exactly the same as the following hypothetical example:
>In the past, we know that lightening has caused many forest fires. This is a natrual phenomenon.
>Today there is a forest fire. Because we know that forest fires are caused by natural processes, the cause of this forest fire must be natural
>any alternative explanation such as the fact that a careless caper caused the fire, is there fore false, no matter how much evidence there is to support it.
>The fact that there is no evidence that any natural forces that cause forest fires are prpreset at this time can also be ignored,s ince we already have concluded that the cause must be natural.

(If you think about it,, you'lll see that I'm serious--this is the internal logic of the "natural causes" arguement applied to global warming. I'd list the logical fallicies--but there's abut 5 or six--it would take several pages.

The key of course, is this: the arguement assumes that , because a n event is caused by one thing, it therefore cannot be caused by another thing. Which--"common sense" (as well as logic) will tell you is pure nonsense! :)

Dana--I don't know of any legitimate scientists who buy this--including geologists--and I'm a grad student at one of the top tier research universities.

Answer 2

I don't know Dana, it maybe that you just are not good at convincing people, perhaps when you and Bob say we know it is not the sun or mostly not the sun:

Bobs evidence:

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

Smoothed sunspots, I think that is a little weak.


Your evidence:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm

A BBC article about neutron rates, thats probably not a good scientific source to convince people of solar variability.

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

A peer reviewed paper by LOCKWOOD and FROHLICH, ok I am listening.


"There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures."

Ok there is evidence the sun caused the warming before the industrial revolution and had much influence in the first half of last century, but could not have caused it over the past 20 years. Only recently it's not the sun that caused global warming, that's not quite the story you usually tell people.


Now my peer reviewed paper by Scafetta and West 2006

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL025539.shtml

"We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.
"



So is it unethical to be skeptical when there is still debate about such important variables that climate models should be utilizing?

EDIT:

Dana

I am not denying AGW, 25-35% from 1980-2000 is significant from a purely radiative point. I am saying that if solar output drops in the near future, the climate will grow colder regardless of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The radiative properties of CO2 in the atmosphere are based purely on how much energy the sun outputs.

On another point Dana, I am convinced now, that nobody has presented any reasonable evidence that the surface record shows contamination from UHI, so I am not in complete denial.


.

Answer 3

It's an easy way to explain global warming for either...

a) people who don't understand the workings of the climate
b) people who don't want to understand the workings of the climate
c) people who do understand but would rather pretend that they don't in order to keep alive the notion that AGW is natural

The time scales the geologists refer to are ones of millions of years, we know for a fact that over such long periods of time the climate changes of it's own accord.

The geologists also reightly conclude that the planet has been warmer in the past but they then have to rely on oceanographers, hydrologists, climatologists etc to tell them why it was hotter.

Simply saying it was hotter in the past is of little consequence unless you also include why it was hotter and how those causes are affecting the climate today.

The big difference now, as you're only too well aware, is the rate at which the climate is changing. If we bring some numbers into it - the world warms for approx 60 million yeras, cools for the same period then repeats the cycle; it's what causes the ice ages.

The temp difference between peak and trough is approx 30°C (from ave global temps as low as 5°C to as high as 35°C). The overall trend is therefore a change of 1°C per 2 million years, the world is currently warming by that amount every 56 years. If you pretend that 56 years and 2 million years are the same then global warming can be explained as a geological cycle.

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EDIT: To continue from where Nickel J left off...

Enviroman, if solar activity has increased why is there no solar constant, why are some planets cooling, where is the 'global' warming on the Moon, why does the warming on earth not coincide with any known solar cycle (e.g. 5.5 years of warming followed by 5.5 years of cooling if you're going to claim it's due to sunspot activity). Most importantly, TSI has decreased slightly over the last 30 years, coinciding with the time when AGW has been at it's most aggressive.

EDIT 2: To Jim Z (Below)...

Your answer demonstrates the point I'm making. Your graph shows Milankovitch Cycles, the shortest one of which is a 19,000 year precessional (or gyroscopic) cycle. This can positively or negatively interact with other cycles (not just Milaknovitch's) and cause climate change over many, many thousands of years, this is NOT what is happening to the climate now.

Answer 4

Dr Jello's answer personifies why addressing the issue like this is futile. The problem is people like him want a deterministic answer out of a nonlinear and chaotic system. That simply isn't possible and common sense in this case doesn't work because our common sense is notoriously faulty in evaluating risk and probability. So the Jello's of the world are incapable of assessing their true risk, and because of that, rely on all sorts of "common sense" arguments, which are really rationalizations, for why they should not endure certain hardships (e.g., eating less beef, driving less often, being a little warmer in the summer and colder in the winter) in order to mitigate something that only might happen (even if the a realistic estimation of the probabilities show that *might* implies a greater than 90% chance of warming occurring). I kid people that the first thing you have to do to solve global problems is breed a new kind of human, one that could act out of an elightened self-interest that the purpose of life is propagation of the species. Anyway, common sense doesn't work since most common sense decisions require an understanding of the probabilities involved and the costs, risks and rewards. The risks in this case are too vague, the rewards non-existent in the short-term, and the costs too high, so there is no rational argument you can put forth that will change their minds.

Answer 5

My colleagues and I have slaughtered this out during many a tea break. Science is mainly hypothesised using historical evidence. The changes we are seeing are in fact part of a natural cycle. The part of the problem that so called experts are being too laid back about, is that humans are speeding up the cycle, which in itself could have undesired, if not catastrophic, effects.

Unfortunately, each branch of science seems to be in competition to find a solution (or even a valid cause) and therefore causing confusion and false facts.

If I have time in the next few days I will post some interesting sites that really have some viable explanations that you can draw your own conclusions from.

This is so far the most intriguing question I have come across.

Thank goodness there are some brains out there! LOL

Answer 6

"Why do people try to reason through global warming with just history and common sense?"

I remember spending two weeks in hospital seriously ill, and nobody knew why. I had a stream of consultants come and go and every one of them had a suggestion to make, and every suggestion they made related to their own area of expertise.

People produce explanations through the lens of their personal experience and prejudice, whether they are scientifically literate or devoutly religious to the exclusion of all scientific principle.

Endless expositions of the scientific merits of AGW being "true" or "very likely" do not speak to the mindset of most of those in denial, because history at best means the civil war, and common sense means going to church on Sunday, voting Republican and devoutly following Gods Will as explained to them by people like Jerry Falwell.

You can, and by the sound of it, you probably have presented evidence until you are blue in the face just to meet the perpetual rebuke for the same reasons. The descent into pantomime becomes inevitable.

When people have such radically different ways of looking at the world, and understanding it - the first bridge to cross is the one which to find a common language where ideas can be exchanged.

In your question "reason and common sense with just history" mean something completely different to you, than those you are discussing the issue with.

Answer 7

What does common sense tell you when you see a sharp curve of increasing CO2 and a sharp curve of increasing temperature!! Common sense tells you man is the reasoning behind this, sure is hell isn't much science to it. All I've seen is how much you know about CO2 and how it helps heat the earth. I've never see you bring in any other factors into global warming. From what I've read of your post all you have to say is man is reasoning behind AGW when in fact the only thing man might be doing is speeding up the inevitable. The climate is going to change regardless of Man. It's near stupidity to not look at other factors. Science isn't just about one man's belief it's about many of man's beliefs and there are skilled, highly professional scientist that feel differently than the average Joe. So a real scientist will look at all aspects and see that the climate is going to change with or without man's help. But I do enjoy your questions and comments!!!

Answer 8

History is important because history, through ice core samples, has shown that there have been warming periods and cooling periods. This is important to recognize. However, it is also important to note that the increase in greenhouse gasses is augmenting a natural warming cycle. However, pollution is not the cause of global warming it is only augmenting a natural cycle.

Answer 9

I will post the wikipedia chart once again but this time really look at the bottom chart. It shows the last million years moving right to left and shows that we came out of a period of cooling around 10,000 years ago. Since then the rise in termperature is relatively steep. This rise is obviously offset with minor periods of cool and warmth (which are not even visible) which I think non geologist (generally) focus on because they don't seem to have a historical sense in geological time. Because the temperature has been generally rising for thousands of years at a steep rate, recent warming should not come as a surprise or shock to anyone. To suggest it somehow shows proof of human caused global warming is nonsense. It does nothing of the sort.

Answer 10

Actually most of the disagreement is over the use of misinformation and bad data by the Al Gore groupies, not "common sense". Most to this was started by his DVD which is riddled with false "facts" and his own "common sense". When you have skewed data, such as the temperature data available ( skewed because the collection points are defective) even "expert" conclusions can be wrong. Another reason why people are not falling all over themselves about this fake emergency, is because his whole argument revolves around "consensus of scientists" and not on scientific argument. Consensus does not make science. At one time, there was consensus of scientists that the world was flat, for example.