Debates About Climate Change

Many scientists believe that man-made emissions are causing our climate to change, and they are researching Climate Change to determine exactly how changes to our climate occur and what is causing our climate to change. However, not all scientists believe that our changing climate is due to the influence of humans. They attribute changes in our climate to natural causes.There are thus strong debates between atmospheric scientists, meteorologists, and other persons about climate change.

This page contains links to scientific articles about the debates.
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident in most regions of the globe, a new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes.
The findings, published in the journal Organizational Studies, identify five distinct beliefs on climate change, ranging from evolutionary to economic. There were also some interesting distinctions in who believed what about the subject. Younger, female engineers employed in government seemed to support the Kyoto Protocol, whereas their older, male counterparts -- largely employed by oil and gas companies -- tended to take a fatalistic response to climate change, labelling nature as the culprit.
For some people, scientific facts help determine what they believe about an issue. But for others, political views trump scientific facts and determine what information they will accept as true. It's a phenomenon that is particularly prevalent on the issue of climate change.
Giant volcanic eruptions in Nicaragua over the past 70,000 years could have injected enough gases into the atmosphere to temporarily thin the ozone layer, according to new research. And, if it happened today, a similar explosive eruption could do the same, releasing more than twice the amount of ozone-depleting halogen gases currently in stratosphere due to humanmade emissions.
In a paper published June 12 in the journal Nature Communications, UCLA researchers and colleagues reveal that not long after the last ice age, the last woolly mammoths succumbed to a lethal combination of climate warming, encroaching humans and habitat change — the same threats facing many species today.
Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don't understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match scientific consensus?
Inside a thunderstorm cloud, warm air rises in updrafts, pushing tiny aerosols from pollution or other particles upwards. Higher up, water vapor cools and condenses onto the aerosols to form droplets, building the cloud. At the same time, cold air falls, creating a convective cycle. Generally, the top of the cloud spreads out like an anvil.
The debate may largely be drawn along political lines, but the human role in climate change remains one of the most controversial questions in 21st century science. Writing in WIREs Climate Change Dr Kevin Trenberth, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, argues that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is now so clear that the burden of proof should lie with research which seeks to disprove the human role.
Global warming is real, according to a major study released today. Despite issues raised by climate change skeptics, the Berkley Surface Temperature study finds reliable evidence of a rise in the average world land temperature of approximately 1 C since the mid-1950s.
From the hurricane that smashed into New York in 1938 to the impact of the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, the late 19th and 20th centuries are rich with examples of extreme weather. Now an international team of climatologists have created a comprehensive reanalysis of all global weather events from 1871 to the present day, and from the earth’s surface to the jet stream level.
This statement, signed by 255 of the world's leading scientists, explains the scientific research process and confirms the fundamental conclusions about climate change based on the work of thousands of scientists worldwide. It specifically reaffirms the “compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend,” and highlights that there is nothing identified in recent events that has changed the fundamental conclusions about climate change.
“A recent survey showed that more than 96 percent of leading climate scientists are convinced that global warming is real and that human activity is a significant cause of the warming,” says Maibach. “Climate scientists may need to make their case directly to America’s weathercasters, because these two groups appear to have a very different understanding about the scientific consensus on climate change.”
Key findings from the review are highlighted in 85 key points, which you can see in full at:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/SCAR_ssg_ps/ACCE.htm
The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published October 19.
The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth’s ancient past. The study, which was published online July 13, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
A raft of recent peer reviewed studies — many which take advantage of new satellite data — back up claims that it is emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing global warming. A growing cadre of so-called “global warming skeptics,” however, deny these connections and chalk it up to natural cycles.
Watch a video produced by the BBC.
A United Nations climate change conference [reported by WorldNetDaily] in Poland is about to get a surprise from 650 leading scientists who scoff at doomsday reports of man-made global warming – labeling them variously a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion.
While one NASA scientist says man-made catastrophic climate change will cause an apocalypse, another says hysterical pronouncements about carbon dioxide emissions are unwarranted and overblown [reported by WorldNetDaily].
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has released a new report “Climate Models: An Assessment of Strengths and Limitations,” the 10th in a series of 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products (SAPs) managed by U.S. federal agencies.
A UK documentary called the The Great Global Warming Swindle misrepresented the views of several climate scientists and disregarded broadcasting rules on impartiality, according to a review by a regulatory panel. But the ruling on the much-debated global warming film gave both sides something to cheer, as it also said that the film did not mislead audiences “so as to cause harm or offence.”
Why doesn’t everyone believe in it? I shouldn’t say ‘everyone’ I should say mostly Americans. Here in Europe they’ve been convinced by the scientific evidence and even among the hoi polloi it’s taken as a fact. Climate change skepticism is more an American (although there are exceptions) phenomenon. Why? There are lots of explanations. First Climate change in the US became politicized. It was seen as a political stance rather than a scientific one. Next, there were big interests to keep the pot stirred. A year or so ago there was a nice Newsweek article that followed the money from Big Oil to the efforts to keep Climate Change perceived as an uncertainty in the US. It was reminiscent of Tobacco company efforts to keep smoking and cancer separated by attacking the studies. But I hate to descend into conspiracy theories when the science is as strong as it its. (But hey, the most powerful economic force in the world has a vested interest in there not being global warming—do you think there is a connection? We can always trust the most powerful lobbies on Earth right?)
“We’re confident about what’s going on,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York.
But even if there is a consensus, how can scientists be so confident about a trend playing out over dozens of years in the grand scheme of the Earth’s existence? How do they know they didn’t miss something, or that there is not some other explanation for the world’s warming? After all, there was once a scientific consensus that the Earth was flat. How can scientists prove their position?
There is no question that Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a powerful example of how scientific knowledge can be communicated to a lay audience. What is up for debate is whether it accurately presents the scientific argument that global warming is caused by human activities. Climate change experts express their opinions on the scientific validity of the film’s claims in articles just published online in Springer’s journal, GeoJournal.
In other words, even skeptics, deniers, contrarians—pick your favorite term—agree that global warming is real, or so it appears from the recent three-day conference in New York City put together by the Heartland Institute, a bastion of free-market thinking on the perils of junk science and government economic regulation. They just disagree—even amongst themselves—whether it is man-made.
Global warming is a natural process, not likely the result of human activities, argued more than 100 internationally prominent environmental scientists in papers presented at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, which concluded here today.
The world’s largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists has updated its position, saying the consequences of climate change “are not natural.” [reported by NewsDaily, January 25, 2008]
The report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP ranking member cited more than 400 prominent scientists in dozens of fields of study from more than two dozen nations around the world who voiced objections to the so-called “consensus” on “man-made global warming,” the subject of Gore’s award-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes ("fingerprints") over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.
Australia’s new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the paperwork Monday to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, making good on an election promise that will leave the U.S. isolated among industrialized countries in shunning the international global warming pact.
One of the world’s foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize “ridiculous” and the product of “people who don’t understand how the atmosphere works”.
Mr. Taylor manages the Oregon Climate Service, and much of his work has to do with global warming. “I’m certainly in favor of doing prudent things to reduce the human impact,” he says.
But unlike most climate scientists, he does not believe that anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gases – mainly from coal-fired power plants and motor vehicles spewing carbon dioxide – are the main culprits. In fact, he says, “It’s my belief that in the last 100 years or so natural variations have played a bigger role.
Ferguson said the David-Gordon “manipulation” is critical because the central premise of the book argues CO2 drives temperature, “yet the ice core data clearly reveal temperature increases generally precede increasing CO2 by several hundred to a few thousand years.”
More than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting the current man-made global warming scare, according to a new analysis of peer-reviewed literature by the Hudson Institute.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no “consensus.”
“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research.  Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz. (LINK)
That comment comes from Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, who said the temperature of the earth is increasing, but it’s got nothing to do with what man is doing.
A Senate bill to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would raise energy prices and also reduce American economic output by more than half a trillion dollars over two decades, according to a government report released on Monday.
Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don't understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match scientific consensus?
The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China’s growing role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy. China’s emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world’s biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year.
Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.
The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it. [posted by The Capitol Times (online)]
On Kilimanjaro, ice loss seems to be driven by two factors: a lack of snowfall and sublimation, the same process that causes freezer burn by sucking moisture out of leftovers.
Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed.
They have found that emissions of carbon dioxide have been rising at thrice the rate in the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast – and the seas are rising twice as rapidly – as had been predicted. [posted by The Independent (online), June 3, 2007]
“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”….
Griffin’s comments immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week. [posted by Timaru Herald (New Zealand, online), May 19, 2007]
“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”
“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”
This fall, as the IPCC was preparing to announce, in stronger terms than ever before, that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate and that people are the cause, Christy was declaring exactly the opposite. "The usual predictions show escalating atmospheric temperatures, and we’re just not seeing that rise," he says. "This indicates that the cause of recent surface warming may be due to factors other than human activities."
Climate scientists agree there have been a lot of strong hurricanes lately. They agree that warmer seas have given these storms some extra punch. But they disagree how much global warming is to blame.
The report was called “CO2 production by Benthic Bacteria: The Death of Manmade Global Warming Theory?” and includes a research credit line to “Daniel A Klein, Mandeep J Gupta, Philip Cooper, Arne FR Jansson” as well as acknowledgements to the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies, the Department of Climatology at the University of Arizona, and the Department of Atmospheric Physics at Goteborgs Univeritet in Sweden.
Scientists at the GKSS Research Centre of Geesthacht and the University of Bern have investigated the frequency of warmer than average years between 1880 and 2006 for the first time. The result: the observed increase of warm years after 1990 is not a statistical accident.
What he found were temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces — all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions.
New research suggesting that cloud cover, not carbon dioxide, causes global warming is getting buzz in climate skeptic circles. But mainstream climate scientists dismissed the research as unrealistic and politically motivated.
Most of the world's population will be subject to degraded air quality in 2050 if human-made emissions continue as usual. In this 'business-as-usual' scenario, the average world citizen 40 years from now will experience similar air pollution to that of today's average East Asian citizen. These conclusions are those of a study published August 1 in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

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