Even after decades of research, some scientists, policymakers and members of the U.S. general public still fail to focus on climate change as a problem to address.
Image: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation
It seems the general public just can't make up its mind about the existence of man-made climate change. Rather than steadily increasing or decreasing over the last decade, the U.S. public's concern over our warming planet has jumped up and down, according to Gallup polls. But what exactly is driving this seesawing of opinions on climate change?
The level of public concern about this global issue is mostly influenced by the mobilization efforts of political leaders and advocacy groups, new research shows.
"Public opinion regarding climate change is likely to remain divided as long as the political elites send out conflicting messages on this issue," lead researcher Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said in a statement.
To come to their conclusions, Brulle and his colleagues aggregated data from 74 separate national surveys conducted between January 2002 and December 2010. The surveys asked 84,086 respondents to gauge the level of threat they attributed to climate change (some of the surveys used different words to describe the phenomenon, such as global warming and the greenhouse effect). The researchers used this information to create a "climate change threat index," which assigned a numerical value to the public's concern for each quarter of the year.
Next, they developed a list of measures to evaluate the five factors they believed should account for the changing levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, positions of political elites and efforts by advocacy groups.
For example, to examine the influence of advocacy, the researchers counted the number of stories on climate change in environmental and conservative magazines, as well as the number of New York Times mentions of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," between 2002 and 2010.
The researchers also looked at several additional control variables that could possibly influence public concern about the environment, such as the unemployment rate and the gross domestic product (if the public is highly concerned with these economic issues, they would be less likely to worry about climate change).
After plugging all this information into computer models, they found that access to scientific information has a minimal effect on the public's opinion about climate change, while weather extremes have no noticeable effect whatsoever (which slightly contrasts with a 2011 study). Media coverage seems to exert an important influence, but the researchers conclude that this coverage is inextricably tied to other factors, such as political opinions and the state of the economy.
With the critical factors now in hand, the researchers sought to create a narrative to explain the major shifts in public opinion -- which occurred in 2004, 2007 and 2010, where 26 percent, 41 percent and 28 percent of Gallup poll respondents, respectively, stated they "worried a great deal" about climate change. (Since 1990, this percentage has never gone higher than 41 percent, and has only once gone below 26 percent, when it dropped to 24 percent in the late 1990s.)
Between 2006 and 2007, the researchers note, key Republicans and Democrats worked together to advocate climate change legislation. Around the same time, "An Inconvenient Truth" hit theaters and subsequently earned an Academy Award, while the economy remained relatively stable.
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59 Comments
Add CommentThis problem will never be "solved", because the politicians are the ones pushing the nonsense on either side as well as the solutions because they all have agendas to use global warming for money and power for themselves and their sycophants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen what would we expect, the scientists themselves who push the fantasy global warming get their funding from politicians, so it is not really surprising this is a political issue.
I believe the main reason for being undecided lies with no trust in the scientists due to the disclosures of climate fixing data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUltimately scientists have to have the faith and confidence of the public. People have to believe that because they say it it is true. By acting in a political/partisan manner they have lost that trust. Trust lost is seldom regained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one needs data to recognize we have a complicated pollution problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo keep making foolish comments about trust and data shows your lack of responsibility to recognize reality.
'Outside the box' is bang on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgenda and science is a toxic mix. We get left with what has developed today, science lost in an ideological debate. The loser is the credibility of climate scientists....unfortunately this taints science in general.
I keep hearing about this supposed climate data scandal. What got fixed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real issue is what we can do to clean up the most with the least amount of money. It's about being Cheap, not facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists don't need the faith and confidence of the public.
It's not church, it's about facts that are provable.
Another sad fact, is that, Congress is not personally responsible for harm to others caused by bad policies. Laws need to be updated to protect the public they serve. We need to boot the bad ones out.
The fact looking up chemicals and other facts takes time....prevents most of the public from researching issues thoroughly.
Sites like ScienceDirect.com charges $31.50 to read 6 pages, from 2009, on water pollution. Elsevier thinks they have the right to charge the public to read tax funded works.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you were looking issues up, and seeing how information is being marketed, the grimmer picture appears..Check it out for yourself.
Unfortunately, most people in America are not swayed by facts because most people are not educated in critical thinking. This bit of education is skipped in favor of teaching compliance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCompliance can include a wide variety of job skills. Having a completely stupid population wouldn't be of much use to empire builders. But empire builders certainly hate the idea of having people questioning their bad decisions. They spend millions of dollars lobbying, bribing, and selecting the people we elect to ask those questions. So, education gets short changed even though it's necessary to sustain a functioning republic.
If global warming keeps going at the present rate, I don't reckon we're going to have anything to worry after a couple more centuries. Crop failures, widespread disease, oceanic and atmospheric changes in chemistry, poverty, and the wars that will result from that will finish us off for good. The Earth will shake us off like so many fleas.
This is a prospect that is unimaginable to innumerate people. Their minds can't really accept the fact that we're creating a strange new world that will be hostile to humanity. They cannot comprehend the rate of species extinction to realize that Earth is undergoing a mass extinction event right now. One that is sure to include us if it keeps going.
Instead of accepting reality, we have fantasies about escaping to another planet. With what vast amount fuel and energy would we do that? I suggest a good ten mile hike before doing the multiplication of how much time would be spent in the vast reaches of space between stars. Try a steep hill to experience the potential energy required for the climb. I also suggest pumping the fuel you put into your car into a jerry can first and then filling your tank with that. Such exercises may stimulate the beginnings of a concept of scale and just how large a problem can be.
The real oddity of the whole mess is that it can be solved with less than 1% of the world's gross domestic product. It takes a special kind of fool to be unwilling to spend a penny on each dollar to save your grandchildrens' grandchildren from misery and extinction.
Another remarkably poor post by Sci Am. Where, for instance, is the link to the source article? It is here, for those interested. http://www.springerlink.com/content/k17856khp026w174/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do the many more or less irrelevant links in the article either self-reference (back to Sci Am) or go to outdatated sources?
Why does the magazine under its current editorial staff continue to "report" scientific findings with an editorial slant?
Martin..another alarmist rant. Drink the Kool-ade or perish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour rant is symptomatic of why not to mix ideology and science.
Can anyone say arrogant and condescending? Sorry friend but making the claim to some sort of "critical thinking" education as the only means us peons could possibly understand your complex "science" of global warming is just additional proof your global warming scam, is in fact a scam. I suppose it is understandable, priests made the same argument as to why the bible could not be translated for all to read because the common peons simply could not understand such complex stuff as to why their goofy religion is in control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe truth or facts don't actually require special educations to understand, sorry to break the news to you.
I looked into the data changes, it seemed to be politically motivated to discredit the researchers with fake e-mails. A pre-paid created myth!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNext time you get a headache, drive a spike through your skull to let out the spirits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrain surgery is another one of those elite hoaxes explained away by the fact that only educated people would understand.
Clearly the whole "climate-gate" scandal was a fabrication by global warming deniers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeo- Another one gets off the Kool-ade diet. Maybe more to follow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/4867-germanys-top-environmentalist-turns-climate-sceptic.html
I thought the AGW debate was about science? I didn't reealize that a PR war determined reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmmmmm.... Maybe we get Congress behind a PR war to Repeal the Law of Gravity? I could lose weight without even trying then!
I see, so now the peons of the world can't understand the concept of brain surgery or you have arrogantly determined that the quack climatologists following the complex global warming scam are somehow the equivalent in skill as a brain surgeon. Personally, I will go with the brain surgeon, at least he works on REAL brains eventually instead of brains created in a computer model. Get over yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo complex, how about congress just make a new law that says they get to determine the laws of physics by vote. That should cover all fantasy possibilities their Warmist compatriots can "find" and "prove" in their computer models.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Gore: the philosophy of this non-science 'Guru' epitomizes how the gullible are like putty in the hands of their manipulators. The GW cultists actually quote this fellow as a sage. Al Gore says.....blah, blah. Somewhat akin to the Moonies hanging onto every word of their great Korean 'Moon'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs touched upon my Martin Wirth, this debate, in my view, highlights the crucial importance of a decent education in science, numeracy and statistics (particularly assessing probabilities) – something I fear sadly lacking in many of our most influential politicians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn addition, the debate continues to highlight a lack of objective disinterest in a significant number of the most vociferous commentators on this subject, be they political or not.
Can't we debate the facts here? Isn't it telling that acceptance of global warming dropped off like a rock among conservatives after 2008? The other groups stayed roughly the same. How could this be? Might it happen because a climate bill was actually possible once Obama was elected and the fossil fuel interests orchestrated their opposition through conservative politicians and the right-wing media? Face it, if it weren't for the blabbering on Faux News, right wing radio and all the other Rupert Murdoch mouthpieces, climate denial would be non-existant. Since conservatives are more likely to believe people in their "tribe", OF COURSE they would turn away from reality given the barrage of misinformation that comes from News Corp and the fossil fuel spindoctors:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/22/374434/fox-news-viewers-misinformed-study-jon-stewart/
Look, the world's scientists are pretty much in agreement that humanity's CO2 emissions are jacking with the climate. There are a few who disagree, but there are also a few "scientists" that think HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Do you honestly think anybody takes THEIR opinion seriously? Every single professional scientific organization agrees that CO2 emissions harm the climate, like The National Academy of Sciences and the American Geophysical Union:
http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/climate_change2008.shtml
So when you deny basic physics, observed phenomena and the world's ENTIRE scientific establishment, don't pout when people call you out on it. Remember, your feelings are meaningless in the context of the health and well-being of countless generations.
Speaking of Climate Change Position Statements, look here and I'll give you a cookie for every professional society that disagrees with the consensus that our emissions harm the climate:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.google.com.kw/#hl=en&cp=33&gs_id=49&xhr=t&q=climate+change+position+statement&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=climate+change+position+statement&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=7ca32f657da843df&biw=1440&bih=728
Well, every one besides, you know, the cowardly cop-out issued by the American Association of Petroleum Geoligists because...well...their paychecks depend on postponing action to reduce emissions...
Or look here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
"The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming and it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels...National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 which states:
An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[5]
No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position."
Looks like I'm keeping all my cookies!
Oh, and anybody that says we can't clean up our act until China cleans up theirs, take a look at this graph:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumulative_energy-related_carbon_dioxide_emissions_between_1850-2005_for_different_countries.png
Yeah, looks like we need to show some leadership on this issue because we look like freakin' hypocrites on the international stage.
So the science is settled and the U.S. is BY FAR the largest historical emitter. What's the hold-up?
Oops! CO2 Feeedback Loop Demonstrated in Real World!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always criticized the AGW True Believers for never being able to identify and isolate the amplification "circuit" by which CO2 becomes a plant threatening monster. It seems that a researcher has experimentally identifed and qauntified the feed back circuit.
It is very slightly negative. Increased CO2 drops temperatures very very slightly due to effects on relative humidity. Experimental data match real world results, no computer models needed.
AGW as a theory is DEAD. Experimental data (real data, repeatable, verifiable and falsifiable) killed it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/
Now for the "Rise of the Eco-Zombies" because dead just isn't dead when Billion$$$ are at stake.
You'll loose all your cookies over this one Sault:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/
Sault, regarding this you quoted from Wikipedia, "The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming and it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing it..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not an entirely accurate statement. The earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age over 10,000 years ago. That is established scientific fact. Over at least the last 60 years there has been an acceleration in the warming, that, based on statistics and climate models, is due to man's influence.
It is more than 90% certain that man is accelerating the warming, but man alone is not what is causing all the warming as the quote from Wikipedia implies. When a person without a scientific background reads an inaccurate statement like the one from Wikipedia and then is given scientific facts about the earth's warming since the end of the last ice age, what is that person to conclude?
If you are looking at a mountain and see a boulder tumbling down the side, what do you focus on? The boulder is the few pieces of bad data falling off the mountain of data that supports global warming. It's human nature to focus on the boulder.
The Climate gate Hoax? There was nothing to fix afterwards. The researchers were repeatedly exonerated by various investigative panels, and the only criticism was that the researchers could be faster in responding to frivolous requests for data from people who obviously didn't have a clue what to do with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne can see why coal and fuel interests would fund the "Global warming is a scam" folks. All the conspiracy theorists would come along with this for free. That makes sense. Just follow the money. I wonder if a politician would jump on the band wagon to get elected? The predominant scientific opinion seems to be clear. It seems to count for little against a passionately held belief. Don't confuse the issue with facts is hard to argue against. The point of the article seems to be well taken and please note that at least to the other side the facts don't matter. How you deal with that is the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe condensation just drips off this page. The reason many including myself don't trust "scientists" is the way they get funded. Also the crooked charts and backstabbing, performed at money grabbing schools, foundations, and assorted sponges and pigs at the public trough have shown what duplicitous people you are. The author and some of the posters seem to think if I disagree then I'm stupid. That is the ultimate liberal way. I disagree because I have a brain and I can use it. The lies and misdirections used by the AGW crowd have made me completely suspect of all "scientists". The AGW idea doesn't require facts just belief in big govt. It is nothing more that the new religion since communism failed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "OCEANOGENIC POWER"[ http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-743618 ]itself is a cost effective solution that would end the smoking process undeniable that carbon-based fuels are causing in our atmosphere, and gift, also stop global warming or the debate on the guilty of the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is really strange is that the U.S. government, and the top leaders of Freemasonry, induced the government of Panama to fire me, and not give me employment, while, break their clothes when it is suggested that it would be best to induce to start the project.
Besides the ridiculous position of give me so, such importance, aggregate the position that Third World governments have to settle for little businesses deprived of 10 years and promote legal positions here, that for the money, again try to kill Truth; even that of they are destroying the only place where they can spend their money.
Yes, exactly. They lost me during the Gulf War when numerous top scientists banded together to warn of horrible climate results if we attacked Iraq, and Saddam blew the oil wells. The results would be catastrophic, causing something like a nuclear winter. We invaded, he blew the well tops, and nothing happened of significance. I have not believed scientists on political matters since. Scientists, like everyone else, are biased and influenced by many non-scientific factors (politics, money, noteriety, fear of standing alone, etc.) and there are simply too many things they don't know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been studying this issues for years and have spent hundreds of hours pouring through the science to determine the truth of the matter, and my research has led me to conclude that the evidence is so overwhelming that man has little to do with climate change that no honest person could have any other conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe argument is not whether the planet is getting warmer or colder, what matters is whether or not we can do anything about it. That is the real argument, and an argument in-which Global Warming proponents refuse to participate. And since AGW proponents won’t debate the carbon “crisis”, their justification for taxing and controlling industries and people around the world, we are left to use their own claims concerning man’s activities, as well as facts that are readily accessible, to determine the legitimacy of their case for regulating Carbon.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) tells us that humans contribute 5% of atmospheric carbon concentrations, and Carbon produced from man’s existence and activities needs to be reduced to save the planet. For the sake of argument let’s accept their number of 5%. Since we also know that the carbon dioxide currently makes-up thirty-eight one-hundredths of one percent (.0038) of our atmosphere, it is easy to do the math to determine the outcome should we do what they tell us needs to be done. In fact, lets go farther by pretending that every man, woman, child and SUV has died and use the full 5% instead of the far smaller reduction they now expect to achieve with us all stubbornly staying alive.
By multiplying 38/100 of one percent by 5% (.0038 x .05) you get the number of .00019, or 19/1000 of 1%. Now think about that. If every person took their SUV with them and disappeared off the face of the Earth, we would achieve a reduction of a colorless, odorless, harmless inert gas called Carbon Dioxide by .00019 the total of all atmospheric gases. Think about it, all this nonsense about changing our atmosphere by less than nineteen one-thousandths-of-one-percent. It’s astoundingly stupid.
Think about what they are asking of us to change the atmosphere by far less than the number we just calculated. How many jobs they are asking us to give-up for that number. Think about the freedom they are asking you to sacrifice to accomplish so little. As they have demonstrated, the whack-job enviros are quite happy with whole continents under-developed and full of hunger and disease as long as Mother Earth escapes "exploitation" How compassionate is it to advance a lie that insures the third-world will experience many more generations of hunger and poverty. It is not only absurd, it shows you just how craven and dishonest the global left has become in their quest to lord over the rest of us rubes and peasants.
Simple math demonstrates what an outrage this fraudulent Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign is. Too bad "environmental reporters" spend so much time trying to determine what people believe rather than what the truth is.
"While the study found a slight increase in specific humidity (the mass of water vapor per unit mass of air)..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWHOOPS! Looks like all that bull Watts laid down about NEGATIVE CO2 feedback is FALSE! No wonder Watts is an idiot; he thinks RELATIVE humidity directly affects the atmosphere's radiative heat transfer. This passage FROM HIS OWN ARTICLE disproves his little ruse. To top it all off, he thinks relative humidity measurements from the BOTTOM 2m of the atmosphere, in just N America by the way, invalidates the overwhelming majority of climate science!
And it's real slick how he tries to conflate the debunked "saturated CO2" hypothesis with this new paper that doesn't have ANYTHING to say on the subject! This guy is a charlatan and has REPEATEDLY been shown to be lying to his readers. Here's a good roundup of sound debunkings:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=Anthony+Watts&x=10&y=12
So, to sum up, Watts jumps right to his predetermined conclusion based on a paper that has NOTHING to do with the 1st half of this ridiculous article, with no questions about urbanization, land use, vegetation or weather pattern changes AT ALL, and then ends with sloppy conclusions that are likewise NOT IN THE PAPER!
Do you even bother to read through these articles that the right wing denialosphere hands you before you regurgitate them?
Whew...at least Shoshin presents some outside sources so that we can have some kind of debate. The rest of the deniers here have a bunch of kooky conspiracy theories, unfounded accusations and a bunch of un-sourced bunkum that I'm not going to waste my time trying to debunk. If you guys can't see your errors after looking through this list, I don't know if it's even possible to change your mind:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
What do you people not understand, that CO2 traps heat or that we've increased it's concentration in the air by %40? Barring disagreement on these points, what value for the Earth's climate sensitivity do you base your scientific case on? Where are your equations showing that Ocean Acidification won't be bad? How come everybody but Shoshin ignored my cookies, and even then, they utterly failed? I really want to know what the deniers think about how EXACTLY ZERO professional scientific / technical organizations disagree that humans are jacking with the climate via CO2 emissions.
So, what percentage of the warming is due to human influence and which percentage is due to the "recovery" from the "Ice Age"? Which factors are causing this "recovery"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHint: you can't say "increased CO2" because humans already got that one covered. Another hint: it's not the Sun as it's activity has been decreasing while temperatures have been rising. Another hint: can't be the orbital forcings that ACTUALLY CAUSED the "Ice Age" (AKA the most recent Pleistocene Glaciation) since they operate too slowly to cause the rise in temps since 1900. Final hint: It's probably CO2 because NOTHING else can warm the poles faster than the tropics, nights faster than days, winter faster than summer and the troposphere faster than the stratosphere AS HAS BEEN OBSERVED.
Look at this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene
"The timing of our present interglacial interval (known as the Holocene, Postglacial, or the Present Interglacial) to that of the previous interglacial beginning about 130,000 years ago (Sangamon), suggests that the next glacial will begin in about 3,000 years."
We're already on the downswing in this interglacial. There's no "recovery".
Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
Again, no "recovery". If anything, our present interglacial is being extended by our CO2 emissions, reversing a general, long-term cooling trend. Most other interglacials spike in temperature and then fall off precipitously. Note: this isn't a GOOD thing as we would only need to keep CO2 above 300ppm to stave off an ice age. It's almost OVER 400ppm ALREADY and ACCELERATING! We're releasing CO2 thousands of times faster than nature can handle it!
To sum up, there is no "recovery" going on from the "Ice Age" or Wisconsonian Glaciation if you want to get specific. ALL the natural forcings are headed in the wrong direction.
Regardless, it's dangerous to think that a 1-degree incline in front of a car speeding towards a brick wall relieves the driver of the obligation to take their foot off the accelerator!
Looking back at this figure:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
Do you realize that it's IMPOSSIBLE to explain the wild temperature swings in these measurements with a Climate Sensitivity value below 3C? Just. Can't. Do. It. (Call Nike and request a refund!)
Notice how the CO2 scale only goes up to 300ppm? We're WAAAAAAAAAAY off that chart already and CO2 is the HIGHEST it's been in 25 MILLION YEARS!
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig3-2.htm
Please tell me how in the world you can think this is safe, how in the world you think we can continue on ACCELERATING the increases in CO2 concentration year after year with hardly any consequences and how in the world you think DECREASING oxygen levels in the atmosphere isn't a bad thing as well.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/33114.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis answers at least some of your comment.
The problem is not political- since when did solid science become political? Only a blind person at this point with their head in the sand could not see that the climate is in the early stages of rapid destabilization. More is coming, and it will become increasingly unpleasant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet the scientists do their job- and lets keep the special interests, the politicos out of the equation. The longer we debate this issue the more nasty it will become.
Sault,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood luck with all that. Real data shows that AGW is a myth.
You've gone hypersonic on us. That's the sound of a belief system imploding.
There is no AGW god....
This NCDC graph shows U.S. temperatures have declined since 1998.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=453
NAS reports that earth’s temperature declined in the last decade.
Temperatures are recovering from a 500 year Little Ice Age. The Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods were warmer than it is now.
Several studies show CO2 increases after warming, not before.
The IPCC, EPA, NOAA, NASA, DOE, CDIAC, etc. have ascertained the Global Warming Potentials of various atmospheric components. 95% of Global Warming is from water vapor; 5% is from 5 green house gasses (GHG); only 0.28% of GW is from man-made GHG. Only 0.117% of Global Warming is from man-made CO2. Therefore 99.72% of GW is natural.
The strength of correlation of temperature changes to solar intensity from 1895 to 2007 is 0.85; to oceanic oscillations from 1895 to 2007, 0.57; to CO2 from 1897 to 2007, 0.43, but to CO2 from 1987 to 2007, only 0.02. Since peaking in 1998, temperatures have declined while CO2 has increased, conflicting with all climate models.
This graph of NASA AMSR-E data shows arctic sea ice is rapidly increasing.
IAW the University of Copenhagen research arctic sea ice is twice the extent of 5,000 years ago.
This NSIDC graph shows Antarctic sea ice is about average after setting a 300 year record.
The U. OF CO and others report that sea level is dropping.
For further reading – here are over 900 peer reviewed articles by thousands of scientists disputing AGW.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Global Warming alarms have been raised since the early 1970s. First the insurance companies wanted to scare people into buying catastrophe insurance, so they recruited and indoctrinated WWF advocates. By 1976 Margaret Meade advocated population control to reduce global warming (during a global temperature decline no less). Other presidents and politicians warned that without one world government, social justice and redistribution of wealth, AGW would destroy the world. Researchers lobbied for grants to study the problem. Corporations lobbied for subsidies and grants for alternate energy equipment and machinery. Oil companies lobbied for restrictions to force out smaller competitors. The Major Socialist Media ignored the facts and the science and propagated the false alarmists’ messages far and wide. No amount of studies, research and exposure of a fraudulent conspiracy made it the MSM.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Summary.htm
In the last 130 years alarmists have warned us of two ice ages and two conflagrations.
In 2000 they predicted that by 2005 some 50 million people would be fleeing climate change, rising seas, mega-hurricanes and so on.
They have made at least eight other failed forecasts
1. By 1980 all important animal life in the sea will be extinct.
2. By 1985 pollution will reduce sunlight one half.
3. By 1995 the greenhouse effect will cause drought in the heartland and Eurasia and a continent wide blizzard of prairie dust.
4. By 2000 the world will be 11 degrees cooler
5. By 2000 the Arctic will be ice free.
6. By 2000 the UK will be reduced to a small group of impoverished islands.
7. By 2010 US temperatures will be 2 degrees warmer.
8. By 2010 there will be no more snow.
9. By 2010 50 million people would be fleeing climate change, rising seas, mega-hurricanes and so on.
Global Warning has been blamed for another 756 phenomena.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529363
ONLY TWO LINKS ALLOWED!
Where's all that "real data" you speak of...haven't seen it yet. Why don't you respond to my points, or are you retreating from the debate in defeat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHo-leeeee-carp! You got a motherlode of denier bunkum. The only REAL data you presented was at some website called "friendsofscience" and it referenced the UAH temperature series. Too bad they have to show the UNCORRECTED data to get their point across:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The UAH TLT dataset was a source of controversy in the 1990's as, at that time, it showed little increase in global mean temperature, at odds with surface measurements. Since then a number of errors in the way the atmospheric temperatures were derived from the raw radiance data have been discovered and corrections made by Christy et al. at UAH.
The largest of these errors was demonstrated in a 1998 paper by Frank Wentz and Matthias Schabel of RSS. In that paper they showed that the data needed to be corrected for orbital decay of the MSU satellites. As the satellites' orbits gradually decayed towards the earth the area from which they received radiances was reduced, introducing a false cooling trend.
Even after the correction for satellite decay UAH continued to infer lower TLT temperatures than RSS based on the same raw data. For example Mears et al. at RSS found 0.193 °C/decade for lower troposphere up to July 2005, compared to +0.123 °C/decade found by UAH for the same period.
Much of the remaining disparity was resolved by the three papers in Science, 11 August 2005, which pointed out errors in the UAH 5.1 record and the radiosonde record in the tropics.
NOAA-11 played a significant role in a 2005 study by Mears et al. identifying an error in the diurnal correction that leads to the 40% jump in Spencer and Christy's trend from version 5.1 to 5.2.
Christy et al. asserted in a 2007 paper that the tropical temperature trends from radiosondes matches more closely with their v5.2 UAH-TLT dataset than with RSS v2.1.
Much of the difference, at least in the Lower troposphere global average decadal trend between UAH and RSS, has been removed with the release of RSS version 3.3 in January 2011. RSS and UAH TLT are now within 0.003K/decade of one another."
And to top it all off, Dr. Christy has messed up BIG TIME on numerous occasions:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_John_Christy.htm
So, where in the world are all these graphs and data of which you speak?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This graph of NASA AMSR-E data shows arctic sea ice is rapidly increasing.
IAW the University of Copenhagen research arctic sea ice is twice the extent of 5,000 years ago.
This NSIDC graph shows Antarctic sea ice is about average after setting a 300 year record.
The U. OF CO and others report that sea level is dropping."
Could it be that -GASP!- you might be a spambot financed by fossil fuel companies to spread their misinformation all over the web?
Finally, all your ridiculous "arguments" are torn apart here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
How come you deniers need 173(!) different arguments to present your case? Why does your story and your argument keep changing so rapidly? How come there hasn't been 1 or 2 major objections over the years that get discussed and are either addressed or dismissed? It seems to me that the "skeptics" are trying to keep the debate going as long as possible by using the kitchen sink approach. Why would they want to do that? Well, the tobacco companies made BILLION$ more by downplaying the link between smoking and lung cancer for decades. The fossil fuel companies want to recreate that magical PR coup for themselves.
Ice will be gone in the arctic by as as early as 201 feedback's of disappearing ice are no influencing our weather. How much worse does it have to get?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Paleo climate records of carbon content in the atmosphere- tell a very different story then the hogwash you try and sell here. Go back 15 million years ago to the Miocene- when C02 was as high as today- sustained. The world then? Sea levels over 1200 feet higher and temperatures over3 degrees Celsius higher.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.climate.ucla.edu/news/article.asp?parentid=4676
I deal in evidence, facts- not baloney manufactured from the far right.
I prefer to get my readings on global temperatures from NASA, The NOAA, The National Academy of Sciences- all with the highest standards of scientific accuracy- which have flatly stated that the two warmest years have been 2005 and 2010. Your assertion that there has been no warming since 1998 is false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI look at carbon content in the atmosphere from past paleo climate records- not computer models. As is the as with almost all legitimate climate scientists of high standing. C02 at the levels of today (nearly 395ppm) sustained- will result in the same conditions as seen in the Miocene 15 million years ago- and those conditions? Sea levels over 100 feet higher then today- and global temperatures 3 degrees C or higher. Sadly we are heading to 450ppm by the early 2030s. The climate now is rapidly destabilizing. Ice free arctic in late summer in a few years-
http://www.climate.ucla.edu/news/article.asp?parentid=4676
Greenhouse Pollution Melts Arctic, Sending Killer Winter Weather Into Europe
As the United States has a freakishly warm and calm winter, Europe has been experiencing a frighteningly cold and dangerous season. Hundreds have died in frigid temperatures, snow and ice storms, and floods. This freakish weather in the Northern Hemisphere is connected by unusual behavior in the jet stream, which scientists are attributing to the dramatic changes in the Arctic caused by global warming pollution. In a new paper published in Tellus, scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research find that declines in summer Arctic sea ice are a factor in changing the Arctic Oscillation, the circulation pattern that dominates winter weather:
Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, say the frigid, snowy European winter has its origins in a warm Arctic summer. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July 2011 was the fourth-warmest July on record. A warm summer in the Arctic cuts the amount of sea ice. NOAA reports that sea-ice levels last July were the lowest in three decades.
Even if we can't have the climate we have spent the last 10 thousand years in, there is a difference between 2 C of warming and 4 C of warming, much in the same way as there is a difference between having a car wreck at 30 mph or 60 mph.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCollectively, we are still accelerating into a wall.
The circus is well armed:<br>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose that fights the CO<sub>2</sub>: propose less jobs, human sacrifices, and they ask for more funding, which, they receive.<br>
Those that defends CO<sub>2</sub>: propose more wars, human sacrifice and they ask for more funding, which also they receive.<br>
Oceanogenic power is the end of the show, wakes jealousy, allows more employment (it would be incredible, but it must be said for humans?) and growth of markets, will not allow the third world war, and receives no financing nor for a course grammar. <br>
What is this?
Oh, go do some administrative work, you wanna-be engineer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile,
The rate of warming is within the standard deviation error bars of the IPCC ensemble.
Not sure where you are getting that about the rain; what I've heard is that it's less easy to quantify that temperatures. But, the models consistently predict an expansion of Hadley cells, Hadley cells have a large influence on rain patterns, and the distribution of rain has pretty much shifted in a way that is consistent with the observed expansion. Try searching in Google Scholar for "Hadley cell expansion".
Sea level, hmm, where do you think the accelerating loss of ice sheet mass will end up?
Less developed nations, yeah, so, what's your point? Countries which have contributed the least to the current mess are unwilling to make reductions that those most responsible are not. Therefore, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas?
Which GCMs are you complaining about? The ensemble from the IPCC is still pretty much on track.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
I think it is you who are unable to face your fears.
You are right; sometimes the models are wrong. For instance, here is a study that questions why the model estimates are less that the observed expansion of Hadley cells.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008JCLI2620.1
That's right; sometimes the models underestimate the problem.
Can you provide specific examples of "pre-existing agendas and activities of environmental and product safety activists spanning many decades" and
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhen the "boy cried wolf"?
Your conclusions pre-suppose your hypothesis. It's called a circular argument. Go back to Grade 8 and learn what science is actually about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comments have about as much science in them as Saults. Which is none.
Not even sure how to respond to your level of illiteracy.
Pheeew glad I didn't bother reading any of these Comments- Global warming brings out the Flat Earthers like nothing else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Go back to Grade 8 and learn what science is actually about. Your comments have about as much science in them as Saults. Which is none."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not seeing much science in yours. Accusation, yes. Arrogance, yes. Science, not so much.
"Global warming brings out the Flat Earthers like nothing else."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPity the poor Hollow Earthers that have been replaced as the modernization of pseudo-science marches on.