Can anthropogenic global warming skeptics please answer these questions for me?

Question

If humans are not the primary cause of the current warming, then...

1) How can a 38% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations be having a negligible effect on the current warming, which is coincidentally happening at the same time? What natural effect is swamping out this significant greenhouse gas increase?

2) If the current warming is natural, why have we been warming at a rate 20 times faster than when the planet naturally comes out of an ice age (last ice age was 8°C warming over 8,000 years, current warming is 0.5°C over 30 years).

3) Why do the vast majority of scientists think that humans are the primary cause of this warming?

4) Why have climate models with a huge number of variables been able to hindcast the 20th century climate change so accurately if they're wrong?

5) Why was James Hansen able to predict the warming from 1988-Present so accurately if the basis of his model was completely wrong?

Answer 1

I'm an atmospheric scientist, and I agree with your side, but I can already tell you what they're going to say:

1) The effect of CO2 is very small compared to the effects from the sun cycles. The sun is simply shining more right now. That's wrong.

2) Those records aren't reliable and the Earth has done this before.

3) Those scientists only get grant money if they go along with global warming. (Also not true)

4) Hindcasting is always easier than forecasting. You can just adjust parameters until it matches what already happened. That doesn't mean anything about its ability to tell a forecast (That actually IS true)

5) He guessed.

Answer 2

1) Correlation does not prove causation. And the correlation is not that good anyway (whats the R squared?).

2) If you go back to the start of the current warming trend you will see that the rate of warming is about the same this time.

3) The vast majority of what scientists? I doubt you can demonstrate even a majority of all scientist that agree with this.

4) You can always backcast very effectively by adjusting parameters in your models. This is especially true if you used past data to fit the models in the first place.

5) See the answer to 4. Also, you can make a very good prediction of where things are likely to go using past data and assuming that this cycle will follow a similar trend. This incidently seems to be what the IPCC concensus opinion is, a projection that the current warming trend will more or less follow past trends.

Answer 3

1) Right in the middle of your 38% increase the climate began cooling and caused ice age mania. And don't tell us that anthropogenic sulfate emissions caused it, it was the sun, according to peer reviewed literature.

2) 20 times faster? Give me a break, comparing the slope of 30 years of globaly averaged instrumental temperature data against the slope of a proxy dataset is rediculed with sampling granularity constraints.

3) Why do the vast majority of scientists think it's because of us? It's a simple theory, the real story is far too complex for most scientists.

4) The climate models were ran repeatedly with many iterations of smoothing of the parameters until they got it to match. Anybody can do that with anykind of model.

5) Because the world is warming up, it is either warming or cooling he had a 50% chance, but he was wrong about the iceage.

.
.

Answer 4

1) 38%? 38% of WHAT? 38% of one third of one percent of the atmosphere. That's spit in the ocean.

2) You're being silly. If the average temp this year were a tenth of a degree cooler can I then say that the trend is at a rate of ten degrees per century? You can't separate half a degree from the statistical noise.

3) That's simply not true and can't be documented.

4) The climate models amazingly fit the data that was used to construct them with.

5) There weren't THAT many possibilities. Temps up a little, temps down a little, or temps stay about the same. He said temps up a little and was right. So what?

Answer 5

I'm not an expert on this. I just have my own opinion, and I do my part to live as eco-friendly as possible. I cannot answer your questions specifically, but I am going to make some comments.

Firstly, CO2 has been around forever. There is clearly more of it now than ever before because we have a higher population, both animal and human. Carbon monoxide emissions have also increased because we burn more fossil fuels, which has GOT to stop.

I can't speak for other 'skeptics' of anthropogenic global warming, but for myself I can say that I believe we are speeding up the rate of global warming, but that the warming itself is a natural occurence. Perhaps it wasn't supposed to happen for another 20,000 years, who knows?! I have never denied that we don't contribute to the problem. I guess my standing is that the media, and I suppose the scientists themselves, seem to make this out to be a huge catastrophe that only we must STOP! I don't think it is possible to stop it, just to slow it down.

I don't believe we are the cause of global warming, irregardless of what the scientists think. Again, I believe we are causing the natural process to happen more quickly than it should.

Hindcasting is always easier and more accurate than forecasting. What's that saying: hindsight is 20/20? Yes, I believe that's it. It was the beginning of the 20th century that North American industry really began to boom. Of course this increase in pollutants has had a drastic effect on our climate. Throw CFCs into the mix, which have helped to create holes in our ozone, something was bound to happen. Again, that does not discount the theory that this could very well be a natural part of our planet. Nature may simply be 'doing away' with the ridiculous amounts of pollution we are feeding it, in order to balance out our world once again. I hate to say it, but with the climate changes that are already upon us, people are dying. And that will continue to happen until nature has balanced out all aspects. The population will drop (due to natural disasters, famine, droughts, etc) which will also help to lessen the impact that we humans are having on the environment. Hopefully the second time around we won't be as careless as we have been this time.

I don't know who James Hansen is, so I cannot make any comment pertaining to his model.

I just feel that those who believe in global warming seem to think that those of us who view it as a natural occurance think that we're idiots who don't want to accept any responsibility for 'messing up the planet'. I can't speak for all who share my viewpoint, but only for myself. As I've said before, I believe this is a natural occurence, but we are contributing to the rapid pace at which it is happening. I don't believe we can stop it, but I do believe we can slow it down by making changes in our lives. We should be using electric cars. We should have better mass transit systems. We should create less garbage. We should use less electricity. Yes, those things will benefit us all, and we should all take steps in that direction. Perhaps we should focus more on making these things a reality, by removing more high-polluting options in the first place, rather than focusing on 'global warming is going to kill us all'.

Answer 6

Response to Origin L

1. The proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 is irrelevant here. Quality, not quantity. CO2 is a greenhouse gas even in trace concentrations. Nitrous oxide is even more potent and is present in parts per billion. Yet, it has a very strong effect on warming.

2. No, the world didn't end when it was warmer but it was certainly different and did not support the population it does today. Any warming is going to seriously fcuk up the food supply, water supply and living conditions of people, in both developing and developed countries.

Answer 7

first all you global warming people claim that our meteorologist
are not qualified to make statements about global warming
in fact you all claim that climatologist are the only ones qualified.

then you quote DR James Hansen
DR Hansen is not a Climatologist
He has dregrees in physics mathematics and astronomy
but has NO degree AS A CLIMATOLOGIST
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html

you global warming people are caught in another LIE
you are also caught using a criteria that you denie us.

HOW MANY MORE OF YOUR "CLIMATOLOGIST" ARE NOT CLIMATOLOGIST.

Answer 8

Human endeavor has never been so predominant! How this translates to global climatic change is like compareing the influence of saturns moons upon where the sun's hot-spots occur-and why they occur! The scientific explination of this relationship is as vauge as the distance between your shortest nose-hair and your longest toe-nail. I do believe in 'Guia' and have invested my being there.

Answer 9

We can see by the data gathered by NASA that the climate has stopped warming in 1998. The temperatures are slightly declining.

There is no correlation between co2 and temps.

We aren't warming at any rapid rate

About half of scientist believe global warming is man made. And these scientist are typically funded by government.

Hansen isn't even close. He had to draw up 3 graphs that varied greatly. His data is like a shot gun. He has to hit something with the spread of his data.

Answer 10

Skeptics are not called that for nothing. They would argue against the findings of 3,000 + scientists just shows how stupid they are, most of them are content with burying their heads in the sand.