Readers of my occasional pieces here at FA might be interested to know that I’ll be doing some guest blogging over at Watts Up With That (“…the world’s most viewed climate website”).
I had a short piece before Christmas, and a serious piece on Sunday. That one critiques the numerous solar scientists who claim that, because solar activity had no upward trend since the 1970’s, solar activity cannot be the cause of post-1970’s warming.
Actually, solar activity from 1940-2000 was the highest since 7000 BC. Most of these solar scientists accept that there is a close correlation between temperature and solar activity over the geologic record, so they accept that high solar activity must create a temperature forcing, but they are at the same time trying to claim that steady peak levels of this forcing CANNOT cause warming. Only if the levels KEEP going up can warming be created.
That’s impossibly stupid. It’s the same as saying that you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the burner all the way to maximum and leaving it there. No, you have to gradually turn the heat up, as if it is the act of raising the level of the flame that heats the water, rather than the level that the flame is raised to.
My post shows just how many solar scientists are invoking this stupid-science as a way to say that modern warming must be due to some other cause than the sun, something like CO2 perhaps, as the people who control all the research money insist. Stupid AND corrupt, though I tone down my language a bit for Mr. Watt’s sake.
We’re a little more plain spoken here at FA, but Anthony does good, and I’m grateful for the chance to put my understanding of climate issues out to his wide readership. If you’re curious, click on over and read the rest.
So when the sun finally starts expanding into a red giant…it’ll be gradual enough warming for them? 🙂
I read your article on W U W T and I thank you for taking the time to disprove the nittwits.
The whole global warming/climate change has nothing to do with science or saving the planet (we couldn’t destroy it if we tried) but with grants, funding and career extensions., ego. Do you remember the experts in the UK who studied the crop circles and came up with all of the theories of their origin. Papers were published, books were published, lectures were given. Even after the original two men responsible for making the circles demonstrated how they made them, the experts fought to discredit them. Hell when you put the wrong head on a dinosaur and it remains in a national museum for 40+ years until it is shown to be a fake, Nothing some experts claim to perk their ego is off limits.
Sounds like a good read….for later ….when I have a block of time.
I’m a hit-n-run when it comes to computer time.
But I do believe that almost all of the global warming bunk would have been killed had true peer review by conventional researchers at the time each piece of baloney came out.
Instead we saw ”science-as-press-release,” come into power.
Obama made a phrase we were starting to see in the global warming community famous: the time for debate is over.
No, it’s not.
Real science is always able to be duplicated by peers who are given access to all the raw data.
The global warmer’s certainly knew that.
So they hid their raw data as long as possible.
When forced to release it they destroyed it instead.
Now I was reading Scientific American yesterday.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bulge-in-atmospheric-pressure
Jon Krosnick, a professor at Stanford University who believes in man-made global warming said his belief is a religion.
Well, actually he said this:
30 percent of the population distrust scientists.
He said that that 30% would be the only people who would not simply believe in man-made global warming.
Thanks Alex!
The half truths and absolute falsehoods on Climate are many. Man made issue arguments are a real grab bag these days with skewed data in abundance and Prophets of Doom chanting their Mantras for anyone who will buy into it. Their Theories yet unproven by time. Volcanic Activity, the Industrial Revolution, internal combustion engines, Cattle Flatulence….Yep Blame them all but use some common sense before you demand others to take steps to destroy the US Economy while China and Russia ignore the “Theories” and continue to grow while the US declines from self inflicted Stupidity.
@Nan G: “Obama made a phrase we were starting to see in the global warming community famous: The time for debate is over.”
Translation: Stop asking us questions we can’t answer. And that pretty much sums up the “debate” about global warming, ah, climate change, um, climate chaos, er, insert-latest-junk-science-terminology-here.
Alex, good post. Everyone should read WUWT http://wattsupwiththat.com/ on a regular basis as well as Roy Spencer at http://www.drroyspencer.com/ and the writings of a 15 year old honor student that makes sense of why the climate changes http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/index.html If you have time, try http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/ This should give you enough ammo to dispute any one who sponsors AGW. You need a priest to change the minds who believe AGW as a religion.
Everything is Subject to Debate. Nothing that Team Obama has done so far has improved anything.
Over Regulation by Agency has become his preferred method of destroying American Industry so until He is out of Office the Propaganda will continue and the Economy will be uncertain. I quite frankly refuse to trust him or his cronies on anything. He has never run a Business or created Private Sector jobs. Larger Government is his motto and larger Debt as well. He embraces anything that limits the recovery of US Industry or grows the US in any sense…………..So why should I trust him on Climate?
Just another Issue that He does not understand and has no genuine working Knowledge or set of Skills to deal with.
This is another reason why government grants need to STOP! The pressure to promote one’s view in order to acquire further grants distorts the duty of every true scientist to dispel bias in favor of OR AGAINST one’s hypothesis. NO government grants should be given to agenda-driven “scientists,” because science is not driven by agenda but is driven by facts.
Jeff
@JVerive: You know that the Folks that get the Grants are Folks that come up with dubious results too. Kinda like ‘salting’ a Gold mine with a shotgun.
The results are predictable…even before the Research is done.
You misstate (and grossly oversimplify) the argument against solar activity as a cause of global warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm
But I can’t help noting that you do acknowledge that global warming is a very real phenomenon, as you (correctly) acknowledged:
“the cause of post-1970’s warming”
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Larry, did you ever think that the reason that solar activity has not been addressed by those wonderful and ethical scientists who tried to “hide the decline” is that there can be no scientific solution to solar warming. If the Earth temperature can be attributed to something man made, then there would be billions of dollars in research grants available. Gore made 100s of $millions spewing hysteria and no fact. Michael Mann and his buddies at East Anglia U prevented opposing papers from being published in scientific journals to keep their scam going.
The facts are, the real money is not in attributing any warming to solar activity even though warming and cooling periods of the Earth in the past correspond with solar activity. I can understand your obsession with AGW. Life for true believers could no longer be meaningful if it was true that the Earth actually orbits around the Sun instead of the Sun Orbiting around the Earth.
Larry Weisenthal claims that I misstate and grossly oversimplify the alarmist position on solar activity, then links to a website that says EXACTLY WHAT I SAID THE ALARMISTS ARE SAYING.
From SkepticalScience:
That is, they are looking at the trendin solar activity, not the level, and claiming that 35 years of the highest solar activity levels in the last 7000 years cannot possibly have caused warming, because the activity level didn’t KEEP going up. It just stayed up, at some of the highest levels ever seen.
Did Mr. Weisenthal even read what I wrote, or read what he was linking to? A good example of how oblivious and unthinking the anthropogenic global warming belivers are.
I love the claim that the debate is over because 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is caused by…
Not long ago, an even greater percentage of health professionals agreed that stomach ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and a Type-A personality. Now we know that many, if not most (or even all) stomach ulcers are caused by the h. pylori bacterium. Science debate is NEVER over until ALL the DATA prove CONCLUSIVELY one side of the debate AND the mechanism responsible for producing the debated effect is well understood. All we have regarding global warming is data supporting the claim and an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the effect. The debate is NOT over!
Jeff
@JVerive:
That’s a great point, and example, Jeff.
I well remember my baby brother having stomach ulcers as a child.
His diet was no different than any of the rest of us.
And he was a happy child….stress-free.
Not a ”driven” Type-A personality either.
Doctors took away all his food and gave him some white stuff and milk.
It took YEARS before he could eat again.
Apparently that white stuff didn’t kill the bacteria, but fed it!
Remember your history?
Medical doctors said the time for debate was over when it came to hand washing between patients, too.
They felt it was irrelevant to the higher incidence of childbirth fever that killed more women than died at the hands of midwives.
Even after a test proved hand washing worked to cut down the deaths, it took another 50 + years for doctors to start making a practice of hand washing.
But that was because the man who showed them up was a Jew.
I always like to paraphrase a famous James Carville line, the one that got Clinton into the White House…with the help of Ross Perot, of course. When talking to members of the AGW cult, I eventually say, “It’s the sun, stupid!”
I read Watts up with that almost daily. I saw your post, but I just now made the connection to you. I find it hard to believe that you think something as insignificant as a giant ball of fire coud have anything to do with the Earth’s climate. /sarc
By the way, I also check this website out occasionally, just for fun. http://www.solarcycle24.com/
On another note, have you read about the scientific endeavors in Abu Dhabi? http://www.ummid.com/news/2011/January/03.01.2011/scientific_rains_in_abu_dhabi.htm
Looks like they are going to be changning the environment in the desert shortly. I wonder what impact that will have on the Earth’s climate as a whole.
@alec (#12): mea culpa. Yes, I admit that I didn’t read the article which you wrote and linked. It was just a careless, off the cuff response from me. I do apologize for my careless accusation that you misstated and oversimplified. I want to take the time it deserves to read your linked blog post in depth and re-visit the whole issue of the modern correlation between solar activity and global temperature.
I will note, again, that you do agree that there has been a warming trend, which is something which has been vigorously denied on this particular blog, by others.
By the way, I am not an “oblivious” “believer.” Last summer, I made the precise argument on the Skeptical Science (pro-AGW) blog which JVerive (#13) just now made (above).
Here’s the link to my comments (my comments being #s 27 and 36):
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-many-climate-scientists-are-climate-skeptics.html
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
What? I think you’re oversimplifying there Larry. I don’t know that anyone has denied warming; many have denied unprecedented or man-made warming. The hockey stick has been proven to be a lie. Science is meant to be done in the open. If you call what Mann and his cronies are doing science, then I take it you will be back later to defend Dr. Wakefield and his childhood vaccines study.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
I don’t believe that has happened here.
Perhaps you could provide some links, eh?
To help you reset your incorrect thinking about consensus and science, Larry, you might enjoy reading this lecture about that.
It is Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture
by Michael Crichton
http://www.s8int.com/crichton.html
Key pointsabout consensus are highlighted.
Here is the start of that portion of the lecture:
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.
In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
@Aye: The Folks back Home in Missoula are not convinced…
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Missoula&state=MT&site=MSO&textField1=46.8722&textField2=-113.993&e=0
Maybe they believe what is out there when they open their Front Door…Just sayin…this Happens every Year in January and has not appeared to have changed in Decades.
@Aye: Most of the global warming debates I had were in comments on blog posts originated by Mike’s America and, to my knowledge, these aren’t available.
@Randy:
You said:
>>If the Earth temperature can be attributed to something man made, then there would be billions of dollars in research grants available. Gore made 100s of $millions spewing hysteria and no fact. Michael Mann and his buddies at East Anglia U prevented opposing papers from being published in scientific journals to keep their scam going.<<
That's not a scientific argument; it's a political accusation. In the first place, the following three points are relatively non-controversial, in scientific circles, if not in political circles. First, global temperatures are increasing. Second, CO2 levels are increasing at a very alarming rate and current CO2 levels are higher than they have been in the entire existence of homo sapiens. Third, CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Now, with the future of the planet at stake, it seems to me to be a very conservative position that research into climate science be generously supported, to either confirm or refute a causal relationship between the rise in CO2 and the rise in global temperature. The problem is not the research, per se. The problem is whether or not the data which exists, to date, support changes in government regulation, or whether we should wait until the data become more definitive. I've argued this on this particular blog (mostly with Mike) extensively. I really don't want to go into it all over again, right now.
With regard to the money which Al Gore made, it's a fact that the rise in atmospheric CO2 has been a major concern and priority of Gore, ever since his days at Harvard, when one of his professors did some of the pioneering work in this area and impressed Gore with the importance of this work. Gore has long been a proponent of the point of view that the rise in CO2 was a matter of legislative concern, long before he got into the world of venture capital. It's like accusing Sarah Palin of getting into politics and running for Vice President, motivated by the fact that she'd thereafter become wealthy beyond her previous wildest dreams, as opposed to her doing this to promote causes in which she altruistically believed. Lots of politicians capitalize, big time, on their political activities in their post-political life. Why is it OK for Republicans to get rich outside of the revolving door, but not Democrats?
With respect to the East Anglia scandal, first, there's nothing in anything which was done which in any way makes a serious argument against the data which has been most prominently offered to support the link between the rise in CO2 and the rise in global temperatures. Second, neither Mann nor East Anglia has monopoly control of the editorial boards of the world's general science and geophysical/atmospheric science journals.
It is a fact the the majority of the world's climate science do subscribe to the theory that global warming is linked to CO2 accumulation. This doesn't mean that they are right (see my comments in #17). But it does mean that there will be a general peer review bias, which may work against publication in the most prestigious journals (Science, Nature, etc.). But it's always possible to get legitimate research published somewhere. And such publications are very easy to find, in the age of search engines. So it's not as if there is slam dunk, smoking gun, anti-AGW research out there, which is failing to see the light of day because of a global conspiracy.
@Aqua: When did I either endorse or refute Mann's research? With regard to the "hockey stick" being a "proven lie:"
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
@Nan G: You are preaching to the choir. Please again read my above comment (#17). I argued — on a prominent AGW blog — that scientific “consensus” is NOT proof of anything and is one of the weakest arguments which can be offered in support of any scientific theory. Another word for “consensus” is “herd mentality,” and herd mentality is poison, whether in science, business, or politics.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
All comments have been preserved so if there have been “vigorous denials” made and/or argued in the comments sections those comments are all still there.
Larry, I mistook your >> to be your OWN comments.
I see now that you were responding TO those >> comments.
My apologies.
With my brother it was Gelusil (a precurser to Tagamet) and milk he had to live on while going through his growth years.
Still, he is 6’2” today, so, I guess he did OK.
Anyone here capable of explaining EXACTLY how to use the ”blockquote” thing-y to get a quote indented?
It would make things clearer.
I got it once, accidentally and was unable to duplicate it later.
@Aye: Is there any way I can access Mike’s original blog posts? I didn’t make any “vigorous denials,” but I certainly remember Mike posting pictures of snowfall in the Arabian desert and whatever, followed by gleeful chortles from his many admirers. I just let that sort of stuff go by. I don’t know how to begin searching, if I can’t do searches on Mike’s America. I don’t have key phrases or anything like that to go by. Mike was, by far, the leading F/A climatology blogger.
@Nan: I agree that it was formerly much easier for Techno-Munchkins like me to use the block quote and “strong” font styles. I like the new blog format, but stylizing replies is now more challenging.
– Larry W/HB
@Nan G:
To use blockquote simply copy/paste the text you are quoting into the blank comment window.
Then, at the beginning of the line add the word “blockquote” using the less than/greater than symbols “<>” with the word blockquote in between.
To close, or end, the blockquote do the same thing but add a / prior to the word.
So…your new comment, including the quoted section would be formatted like this:
“blockquote”The materials being quoted”/blockquote”
Remember to replace the quotation marks with “<>” sandwiching the word in between.
Sorry if that all sounds and looks like hieroglyphics to you…I will try and find a post that I can actually do a screen capture on so that you can see it.
@Aye:
Thanks so much, Aye.
OK Nan…Let’s see if this helps you:
Here are the lines that I copy/pasted from your post above:
Anyone here capable of explaining EXACTLY how to use the ”blockquote” thing-y to get a quote indented?
It would make things clearer.
I got it once, accidentally and was unable to duplicate it later.
Now, here is a screen cap of those lines with the proper coding to make it look like you want it to look:
And how it will actually appear when coded as above:
Does that help?
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
All of Mike’s posts have been removed.
The comment strings on all those posts remain however.
As far as researching to find the comments on those posts you would most likely be able to find them in the “Global Warming” category here:
http://www.floppingaces.net/category/environment/global-warming
@aye: O.K. I just did a F/A global warming search on your name. Here’s what came right up:
Now, I really didn’t want to make a big deal about this. All I was pointing out is that Alec was confirming that global temperatures are increasing, which I simply wanted to note, given that many people (including you, on this particular blog, see above) have challenged this.
By the way, regarding the issue of post 1998 warming:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Well, Larry, it’s good to see that you were able to find some of the old posts that you needed access to.
Now, let’s look at what your original assertion was here on this thread:
Now, take a look at my archived comment that you dug out you’ll notice that nowhere in there did I “vigorously den[y]’ a warming trend.
In fact, quite the opposite. My comment acknowledges warming vis a vis a year of more melting followed by a year of less melting.
You’ll also notice that my archived comment acknowledges that warming occurred up to 1998….hmmm, no vigorous denial there either.
Sorry Larry…your attempt at gotcha got ya.
@aye: You win. You da man. Your semantics trumped my semantics.
“Could it be because there has been no global warming since 1998?”
You did deny. You simply did not “vigorously” deny.
Larry…you really need to re-read my statement again:
Clearly that sentence acknowledges that there was warming prior to 1998.
Again, your attempt at gotcha has failed.
@aye: but there’s also been warming SINCE 1998. That’s what Alec acknowledged and which you clearly did not.
Larry writes: “but there’s also been warming SINCE 1998. That’s what Alec acknowledged and which you clearly did not.”
To be precise, what my full post noted is that the 1998 big El Nino year and this big El Nino year both had the virtually the same measured average temperature (this year slightly below 1998). That is, the “recent warming” that the solar scientists were saying is too large to be explained by solar activity seems to have dropped to approximately zero for the last 13 years. Thus the title of my post. Is little or no warming still too much warming to be explained by decades of peak solar activity?
This flattening out of temperatures CAN be explained by a solar-driver of climate, since solar cycle 23 (1995-2008) dropped of dramatically, and the closest correlation between solar activity and temperature is between current temperature to solar activity over the previous solar cycle. For the CO2-warming theory, this flattening of temperatures is problematic, since CO2 has continued to rise, and the IPCC’s predictions were for this rising CO2 to cause dramatic continued warming.
But I do appreciate Larry’s willingness to take another look, making him far from the usual “anthropogenic global warming believer” I suggest earlier. Those guys just dig in their heads into the sand and try to avoid making sense. Better be careful about crossing Aye though.
@Alec. Thanks. I have started plowing through your analysis (though going through the comments would take me the better part of a week! What thou hath wrought!).
With regard to warming since 1998, do you have a brief counter-rebuttal to the following?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm
Congratulations on the Orange Bowl (though I’m sad that Harbaugh is not coming back to my beloved Wolverines).
– Larry W/Huntingon Beach
At Larry’s Skeptical Science link:
This is how they explain the lack of measured warming since 1998, while still maintaining that “global warming is still happening.”
They are correct about ocean oscillations dominating the surface temperature record. The fact that 1998 and 2010 were both big El Nino years provides a very rough way to control for the ocean oscillation factor. Since both big El Nino years were about the same temperature, it seems that global temperature has not changed significantly in the past 13 years.
@Alec: I’m confused. The Skeptical Science link shows a number of graphs which show clear warming trends since 1998, and I don’t find refutation in the many comments which follow. Also, don’t you think that the very strong El Nino years are the ones most likely to be outliers and that trends can be better discerned by simply censoring the data from the very strong El Nino years? Just asking.
– Larry W/Huntington Beach
@Aye, I will add to your comment about Larry’s blanket mischaracterization (i.e. FA comments and one-size-fits-all beliefs) the simple fact of any warming trends on record… which seems to be reversing… being manmade.
The debate has never been about what the earth is doing in a moment of epoch. It’s whether the gnat on the elephant’s butt… aka known as humans… are the driving force of that.
Larry says: “I’m confused.”
A natural result of trying to get real information from a site like Skeptical Science. For instance, they show a graph with plots of three different temperature records, all with heavy 11-year smoothing line going through them. Since 11 year smoothing requires data from 5 years in the future, the smoothed lines end in 2005.
Just looking at the smoothed lines, all you see is steady upward temperature trends, but look at the actual data points over the last 13 years. Not going up are they? For comparison, look at CRU’s smoothing of their HadCRUT3 temperature record. Notice that their smoothed line turns down in 2003.
The middle record in the Skeptical Science graph is also HadCRUT3. Why doesn’t their HadCRUT3 graph smooth the temperature data the same way CRU does, so that the downturn can be seen? They just CHOSE NOT TO. They are, in this small way, “hiding the decline.”
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Larry, Mann and his buddies conspired to keep others from publishing papers. Read the climate gate emails from these people. There is no evidence that CO2 generated by humans is causing global warming. That is scientific evidence. Al Gore is in the climate business for Al Gore and no other reason. The only thing he is passionate about is a masseuse. If you really want to understand what is happening, look at what a 15 year old high school girl did as an extra credit paper. It is simple and puts all of the climate arguments in one place. http://health.msn.com/health-topics/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100268467>1=31009
Please notice that co2 levels historically rise after global warming occurs (about 100 years) not before. If it is after, how could it cause global warming? Also, you will see in this paper some of the things that the climate models do not address that have a major significance in climate change.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Larry, I you underscience and understand what makes scientific measurements valid, you need to read http://www.surfacestations.org/ These are the temperature stations that those climate scientists are using to create their data. This is just for the US. I think you can believe that if this shoddy data collection is occuring in the US, it is likely to be much more shoddy in other parts of the world. This is tha magic that Michael Mann was to use as stated in the climate gate emails to “hide the decline” in global temperature.
You shoulda just quit there, Alec
@Randy et al
NOTE: what also must be considered with “shoddy data” weather station readings, is the change in landscape around certain weather stations. It must be taken in effect that with any weather station area where the surrounding land changed from natural landscaping to buildings and concrete, that the temperatures readings will unquestionably rise due to heat reflection, heat storage and buildup by blacktop surfaces, and solar energy reflection/concentration. For example, there is a NOAA weather station 5 blocks away from my house that used to be surrounded by natural desert landscape. but about twenty years ago, urban sprawl now has that weather station surrounded by an asphalt parking lot.
That is what WATTS Up With That describes in his project to evaluation of weather stations. http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/test/
Patience, Mata. It was a very serious, thoughtful post. I made the mistake of just glancing at it and figuring that it was written by a “pure” political contributor and not someone with a solid science background. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I did not realize that Alec has been writing serious stuff relating to solar activity for at least 5 years. The source materials and considerations are quite dense and I am taking the time to get myself up to speed; so that I can provide Alec with at least a semi-intelligent discussion.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Larry, then considering you will give Alex’s post the consideration and thoughtfulness it is due, instead of a flippant, off the cuff reply, I will recall my equally flippant response to your comment. We’ve had the benefit of Alec’s posts here for some time at FA. While I consider you a (in most instances) worthy contributor from the opposite side of the political aisle, it did incense me that you so easily cast off his opinions as mere partisan fodder to respond to lightly.
Larry, A lot of us have quite an extensive science background! That is why we need proof of AGW, not computer models or rhetoric. Show one study that proves CO2 causes global warming. While you are looking, there are many that have studies the CO2 levels over the years using ice cores. Their studies show warming increases CO2 levels not the other way around.
Our issues are that there are warming and cooling cycles in the past and it is likely to continue in the future no matter what humans do. Human impact on world climate is like an ant urinating into the ocean and expecting a measureable rise in water levels. I have been reading most everything that has been written about AGW for the past 10 years. Some of the articles and papers are hard to wade through. I also need to refer to some chemistry and physics texts to totally under the issues.
.
A survey of 3,146 scientists released on January 20, 2011 by the University of Illinois reveals the following:
92% are in agreement that the global mean-temperature has risen since the 1800s;
82% are in agreement that human activity has a significant role in the temperature increase.
Of those responding who are climate scientists, 97% are in agreement that human activity has a significant role.
——–
The gist of the letter is that global warming is real, that human activity is a significant contributor, and that climate change deniers are deliberately distorting the science that clearly supports those conclusions. A number of the signatories are members of the U.S. National Academy of Science. From the letter:
Greg wrote:
Um, yeah.
The ”human activity” of placing more and more surface weather stations where people are:
WARNING, link is a PDF file.
Like, duh!
@Nan G, #50:
That report–which was not subject to peer review before publication–has been found to be flawed. That’s typical of many things that have been published and promoted by The Science & Public Policy Institute. Like the Heartland Institute, they have absolutely no interest in promoting sound science.
It appears that there actually is a measuring station bias, but that bias is toward the cool side, not the warm side.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/28/watts-not-to-love-new-study-finds-the-poor-u-s-weather-stations-tend-to-have-a-slight-cool-bias-not-a-warm-one/
The report is exactly the sort of misleading material that those signing the letter sent to Congress are warning about.