What's the best alternative global warming theory skeptics have come up with?

Question

The planet hasn't warmed as much as we think due to contamination in the surface temperature record. Disproven here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AipGtvI.VE50ZTVrkFixxdDty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071102221434AAyQmvK

GCRs are responsible for most of the warming. Rebutted here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApKvie5J_.B1pnQlT7eTH0fty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071030112550AA7AXSu

The Sun is responsible for as much as 25-35% of the recent warming. Rebutted here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoeuTAY_gk.e9tXGWvoGKfwjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20071012155438AAM95Xn

Global climate is not as sensitive as previously thought. Rebutted here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ar3uYF61NoLWT9ZHLARiBxHty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071118084331AAcdWj5&show=7#profile-info-oB22coxGaa

Climate indices syncronization is responsible. Rebutted here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArHYFVZz0P6LZIlrDK6XzQ3ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071031092849AAVfD27

Did I miss any?

Which of these is the most plausible (or least implausible) theory? Are any remotely plausible?

Answer 1

Marc G - The NASA data error amounted to a few hundredths of a degree in the US and about one thousandth of a degree worldwide. It covered one two year period when they switched satellites and had a minor calibration issue. So the long term warming rate globally was completely unchanged. The only thing that happened was that, in the US only, 1998 was about a hundredth of a degree more using the old data, and 1934 is now about a hundredth of a degree warmer. To say it was no big deal is understating the case.

Dana - The most plausible argument comes from the most plausible skeptic, Lindzen. He guesses that clouds will provide negative feedback and slow warming down. Of course he has no data to show it, and the recent past indicates otherwise. But it's very complicated (clouds can provide both positive and negative feedbacks depending on type and altitude) and so cannot be refuted as easily as the arguments you list.

I suppose some might want to bet their well being on Richard Lindzen's guess. I'll pass.

Answer 2

They are all plausible, the problem is that by combining what is presently known about climate physics, ocean circulation, radiative transfer, atmospheric chemistry with the best available observational data, none of these mechanisms can explain the observed warming over the last 25 years. But you can't ever prove they are unimportant, you can only say that based on what is known now, it is likely they are unimportant. But since most skeptics don't accept expert assessments of the situation, instead substituting the opinions of people who aren't qualified to make expert assessments, the importance of these mechanisms gets blown out of proportion. In contrast, papers that skeptics should take note of (e.g., the climate sensitivity paper by Roe and Baker) get ignored because they don't like the implications.

What skeptics don't get is that climate scientists would love to be wrong about anthropogenic global warming and climate change. It won't affect their jobs one way or the other because even if the current warming is "natural" governments will still want to know why it is happening and how severe it will be. Similarly, governments would love it if climate scientists could prove that the current warming isn't due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases because they are absolved from the responsibility of making any truly hard decisions that their citizens will hate. There simply is no benefit to anyone for the IPCC or any credible scientific group to lie about this and say mankind is affecting climate when in truth anthropogenic activity is unimportant.

That might be a good question to ask, with responders providing citations: Who benefits from regulating carbon emissions and how much money will they make? Don't just say "oh well it's a way to transfer money from the U.S. to the 3rd world." That's Limbaugh pablum. Put some numbers and reasoning into the answer. Who gets the dough? It isn't the scientists,

Answer 3

Ben, you've looked at a temperature graph and now decided that you're better informed to make a prediction than those who produced it? I've got news for you, the scientists don't just eyeball the graph and come up with a number. They use a great tool called mathematics. Their prediction is based on there knowledge of the various greenhouse gas's climate forcing characteristics, predicted future levels of those gases, and statistical analyses of temperature change. They didn't make an average temperature graph for the last century and then throw out a guess, like you seem to have done. There's a lot more to climate science than you seem to be aware of.

Ron C:
1) Accuracy of data has always been a major concern of all IPCC climate predictions and has been taken into account.

2) Our ideas about climate sensitivity to C02 are based on much more than comparing surface warming trends to C02 increases. Less observed warning does not equal less sensitivity to C02.

3) There have been many historical reconstructions, finding the one that you like and quoting it is not a proof. The IPCC takes into account many different models and reconstructions.

4) You're understanding of oceanic oscillations is lacking. Both of these pheonmena are well studied. Climate effects of ENSO and PDO are documented, and our understanding of them is increasing. There is much more to be learned, but I promise you that the IPCC didn't just forget about them when they predicted continued warming into the 21st century as "almost certain." Did you think that you just outsmarted these hundreds of scientists by going to the ENSO and PDO wiki entries? You must be pretty arrogant to think that in your 10 minutes of surfing you figured something out that the world's best oceonographers, atmospheric scientists, and climatologists couldn't figure out in years of dedicated research.

Answer 4

Since surface obs are accurate then why has the US changed it's hottest year on record to 1934 instead of it being 1998. I think it was b/c some surface obs were fudged due to urban sprawl and poor surface obs locations. So yes now the surface obs and temperature readings for the US are accurate. So who's to say the global temperatures aren't a little fudged as well.. Not saying they are, but there's always a possibility. Also, I wonder how long NASA's known about the incorrect readings of the surface obs?? HMM???

Bob: I didn't figure it made much of a difference on a global scale. It just shows that surface obs can be effected by it's surrounding area. Which sometimes can create a different scenario for one to study and your right on with the clouds..

Answer 5

No, you haven't missed anything. Some deniers of AGW and climate warming have now become "skeptics". As a layman,
I can see all the signs like no ice forming on the Alps where usually it was covered in ice all year round. tidal surges, floods in Pakistan and Mexico recently. The smog in all the major cities are so bad that its killing most of the people who are suffering from respiratory illnesses and if we don't come up with something to replace all the gasolene. diesel and coal firing generators/engines it will be too late to reverse climate warming.

Answer 6

The most believable theory for me is - "Global conspiracy by Socialists to enact one-world government". But I'm a just an old conspiracy theorist at heart.

Here's some telling stuff, if you haven't read it already.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=109

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html
(click on Contrarians in the right column)

From RealClimate:

"The current thinking of scientists on climate change is based on thousands of studies (Google Scholar gives 19,000 scientific articles for the full search phrase "global climate change"). Any new study will be one small grain of evidence that adds to this big pile, and it will shift the thinking of scientists slightly. Science proceeds like this in a slow, incremental way. It is extremely unlikely that any new study will immediately overthrow all the past knowledge. So even if the conclusions of... [Insert name of favorite contrarian study here] ...discussed earlier, for instance, had been correct, this would be one small piece of evidence pitted against hundreds of others which contradict it. Scientists would find the apparent contradiction interesting and worthy of further investigation, and would devote further study to isolating the source of the contradiction. They would not suddenly throw out all previous results. Yet, one often gets the impression that scientific progress consists of a series of revolutions where scientists discard all their past thinking each time a new result gets published. This is often because only a small handful of high-profile studies in a given field are known by the wider public and media, and thus unrealistic weight is attached to those studies. New results are often over-emphasized (sometimes by the authors, sometimes by lobby groups) to make them sound important enough to have news value. Thus "bombshells" usually end up being duds."

edit:
Mr. Jell-O - A link to a news story about the weather, another to a debunked hypothesis, and a contradictory statement which supports the arguments of your detractors. One wonders why you post here.

Answer 7

When dealing with any complex system, you can analyse all you want, but ultimately you need to check your ideas with real world data. Climatologists are not superhuman and are just like researchers in any other field in that respect.

No matter how sound and well thought out the theory of global warming is or how much researchers agree about how well thought out the theory is, the theory departs from real world data in a couple of ways.

1. The IPCC's reported data from 1910 to 1940 shows a higher rate of warming than we have now with a 0.5 degree increase in temperature over 30 years.

2. The IPCC's prediction of 0.2 degrees warming per decade in the short term future doesn't seem to be about to happen - the current rate of change looks to be close to half that.

(edit) Joe, of course climate science is complicated and I'm not pretending to be an expert. The lack of fit with real world data is a sticking point with a lot of people from fields other than climatology.

Answer 8

These are not refutations. To me the best theory is a combination of factors:

* The warming is not as great as once thought due to poorly sited weather stations.
http://surfacestations.org

* Since the warming is not as great as once thought, then the climate is not as sensitive to CO2 as once thought. This means the climate is not even as sensitive as Stephen Schwartz estimated because Schwartz was using a combination of surface temps and ocean heat content. The Schwartz paper is here.
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

* Scientists have underestimated the role of internal climate variability due to poor temperature reconstructions by Mann and others on the Hockey Team. The Loehle reconstruction shows it was significantly warmer during the MWP. The McIntyre reconstruction using good quality weather stations in the US shows the US was warmer in 1934 and 1921. Once we have a list of good quality weather stations outside the US, these years will probably be near the top globally. When everyone comes to terms with the climate's natural variability, it will be easier to see that CO2 is not having a very great affect.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

* Internal climate variation comes mainly from oceanic oscillations. The most important of these is Pacific Decadal Oscillation. When it is in its warm phase, global temps go up (1905 to 1945 and again 1975 to 2006). When it is in its cool phase, global temps go down (as in 1945 to 1975). Another important oceanic oscillation is El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It has the greatest impact on year to year variability. When ENSO and PDO are both warm at the same time, the Earth can get very warm - as in 1998 and 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENSO

* Solar variation also plays some role in climate. Scientists do not yet fully understand solar amplification at the poles and how this relates to oceanic oscillations and global temperature.

Note to Joe M -
Did you bother to read any of the links I provided? If you had, you would know I mainly linked to credible research. The wiki links provide the years the PDO was in the warm phase and cool phase, so readers could check that for themselves. I have lost the link to the research that first came up with this hypothesis, but I will find it again. In the meantime, you need to realize that climatologists largely underestimate the level of natural climate variability. This is a standard skeptical position held by Lindzen, Pielke, Watts, McIntyre, Christy, Spencer and many others. When the level of natural variability is fully realized, climate sensitivity by necessity goes way down.

Answer 9

I'm actually a skeptic because the position for global warming is buried in political and economic agenda. Each side usually presents "proof" for and against it.

But global warming is big money. I'm sure you're aware that the EPA has nearly a billion dollars to spend towards global climate change, $122.9 million of which goes toward reducing green house gases and $98.2 million toward "enhancing science and research."

Face it, global warming is used as a catch-all to expand government agencies and fatten scientist pockets.

Answer 10

First admit that global climate is not stable;
Second, admit that warming isn't all bad;
Third, that there is a limit to our current understanding;
Fourth, that there is very little evidence that CO2 concentrations ever was the driver in global climate;
Sixth, that we are in an unusually warm interglacial period that has had many ups and downs in temperature not related to CO2. I don't know what the cause is but I am quite confident that socialism isn't the cure.
etc.
I wouldn't pretend to understand all the answers but then again I know enough to know that noone knows.