Why do some scientists think global warming is not a threat?

Answer 1

There is no question the earth has been warming. Some scientist believe, It is coming out of the "Little Ice Age".

However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a "Little Ice Age" for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time.

Though, humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny.

Answer 2

Some "skeptics" think that it will not be as bad as the vast majority think.

Few think it's not significantly the result of man's activities. Almost none think it's not happening.

There are a variety of reasons. Richard Lindzen, one of the more prominent "skeptics", has based his career on opposing the conventional wisdom. Others are honestly mistaken. Many have political motives, and don't really understand climatology. A few are working for financial motivations.

But, add them all up, and they're still a tiny fraction. Proof:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

"The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists. I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."

NASA's Gavin Schmidt

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know. 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

Answer 3

The Earth does appear to be warming, but recent research indicates it is not as bad as we first thought.

Anthony Watts, a broadcast meteorologist, has been leading an effort to photograph and document the quality of weather stations reporting temperatures in the US. He and his team have surveyed about 1/3 of these stations in the last few months. Only 15% of them meet the minimum standards set by the NOAA. 95% of the poor stations have a warm bias. The surface station network outside the US is even lower quality. Up to half of the observed warming appears not to be real but is an artifact of these poor quality stations.

We will know much more when this effort is completed in about two years. To see pictures of these stations (some of them are located on top of parking lots!), go to:
http://surfacestations.org

You can view Watts' presentation to the scientists at UCAR here:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/UCAR-slides/index.html

Several years ago, scientists knew the surface temperature record was not reliable and so Roger Pielke suggested using a different metric to measure global warming - ocean heat content. This has been used by scientists on both sides of the debate. It has been interesting because the oceans began cooling in 2003.

Just recently Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Laboratory published a peer-reviewed paper using a combination of surface temps and ocean heat content to estimate the climate sensitivity to doubled atmospheric CO2. Using this method, he calculated the sensitivity to be much less than previously thought indicating that global warming will not be catastrophic.
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

Answer 4

Because it's completely natural. There is no such thing as a static climate. The Earth will always be either warming or cooling. It is not possible to have the same climate every year at the same day.

Almost all scientist know the Sun is the source for all warming on this planet. Man is far too small to have any impact on the Earths climate.

Answer 5

None of us, scientists included, like to face unpleasant facts. There is always an audience for people who caste doubts. Global warming is also an insidious and rather complex phenomena, and not precisely quantifiable. I suspect that comparatively few scientists have a deep understanding of the data involved. There is always someone, even amongst scientists, who wants to make a name (or money) by tilting at windmills.

Answer 6

Very, very few of them do. Similar questions have been asked on here of late and numbers of 60 to 200 have been put forward as the number of scientists who don't support the theory of global warming, this is out of an approximate total of 60 million scientists worldwide. Undoubtedly there are more than 200. There is a very dubious petition that claims to have the names of 17,000 scientists on it, many of the names aren't scientists but even if they were, it still amounts to less than 1 in 300 scientists.

I think what you'll find is that the scientists who don't support the global warming theory are not from backgrounds related to climate, they're more likely to be physicists, botanists, geologists etc rather than climatologists, meteorologists, astrophysicists etc.

One thing that is always useful to do - check out the backgrounds of the scientists. Some prominent scientists who refute global warming such as Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz are paid by the oil companies.

Answer 7

Legitimate scientists know global warming is a threat. There is no "debate."

Answer 8

because they are paid by Exxon Mobile.

In my research most of the global warming "nay sayer" scientist are somehow being compensated by Exxon Mobile.

Answer 9

Because we have reviewed the data and have decided that that is the most reasonable conclusion.

Answer 10

There is a debate: climate can fluctuate, and we can't be sure of the exact cause because the data that's been collected only goes back so far. So how do we know it won't eventually correct itself?