Skeptics Speak Out on Global Warming

Aqua satellite data suggests there are reasons why we should be skeptical to the extent to which carbon dioxide drives warming, that CO2-driven increases in water vapor actually cool the earth, not magnify warming, and with equal interest the latest data from Argos float buoy data in the ocean could suggest the ocean is cooling since 2003 when they became operational.

In a report posted on Australia’s ABC National on March 17th entitled “Climate Change,” Jennifer Marohasy of the Australian Environment Foundation comments on data from the NASA Aqua satellite:

“The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that when you’ve got warming from additional carbon dioxide this will result in increased water vapour, so you’re going to get a positive feedback. That’s what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite…and the first time this data has been able to be collected is 2002 so we’ve got a little bit of data now, it’s actually showing just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they’re actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you’re actually getting a negative rather than a positive feedback.”

On March 24th in the National Post, author Lorne Gunter posted a story entitled “Perhaps The Climate Change Models Are Wrong,” where he reports on an NPR interview with Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings:

“When they were first deployed in 2003, the Argos were hailed for their ability to collect information on ocean conditions more precisely, at more places and greater depths and in more conditions than ever before. No longer would scientists have to rely on measurements mostly at the surface from older scientific buoys or inconsistent shipboard monitors.  So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years, the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters’ hypotheses, must be wrong.”

These quotes from a post on ECOWORLD, which neglects to mention that Marohasy's comments were taken somewhat out of context.  Marohasy also said:   

"It (global warming) has stopped for the last ten years, but that's a very short timeframe. If you look over the last 100 years, it's mostly been warming over the last 100 years but there was some cooling from 1940 through to 1975 and now there appears to be some cooling since 1998. But if you look at the longer timeframe, say, since the last glacial maximum, well, that's going back, say, 16,000 years, then there actually has been significant warming, and sea levels of course have risen over 100 metres over this period. So the last eight to ten-year dip may just be a dip, and there may be continued warming into the future, or it could be the end of this interglacial warm period and we could go into another ice age. We don't know what the future holds."

Willis also said:

In nearly 30 years of operation, the satellites have discovered a warming trend of just 0.14 C per decade, less than the models and well within the natural range of temperature variation.

These statements haven't changed my opinion that global warming is probably a true phenomena, but they do cause me to take pause in my thinking and I thought that I should share these comments with you.

Comments

[Demesure]

"Furthermore, you can't have it both ways. You can't make a blanket statement that there is no data on increased methane release and then attack that "nonexistent" data."

Wallace,
Your nonexistent data are refuted by the existent data - methane atmospheric concentration.
"The rise of methane has mysteriously ceased." Trusting toy models which can't explain it and which has failed to predict anything is unreasonnable.

[Demesure]

"Thats why ice ages are so cyclical.
But that takes tens of thousands of years.
Not tens of years."

GreyFlcn,
You imply that there is no more rapid warming than the warming of the last decades, which is simply FALSE.
Look at any icecore data, for example Vostok's and you'll see that over the past 10,000 years, there have been warmings 2,4, 5x more rapid than now, naturally. The characteristics of the current warming is that it's UNcharacteristic, except for the alarmist movements.

The hysteria is caused by such canards repeated ad nauseam, so please, look at the data before making demonstrably false claims.

[Bob Wallace]

It's not my data.

It's data published in Nature.

"We find that thawing permafrost along lake margins accounts for most of the methane released from the lakes, and estimate that an expansion of thaw lakes between 1974 and 2000, which was concurrent with regional warming, increased methane emissions in our study region by 58 per cent."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/abs/nature05040.html

If you think the data isn't data please take it up with the Editorial Board of Nature.

Furthermore, if you were to go back and read my post as I requested you would discover that I made no claim that there is an increased methane level in the current atmosphere.

[mjtimber]

Why does everyone say that temperatures have been dropping since 1998? It really isn't true. What actually happened was temperatures dropped from 1998 to 1999, then continued their steady rise. The aberration is 1998, not what's occurred since.

[GreyFlcn]

==You imply that there is no more rapid warming than the warming of the last decades, which is simply FALSE.==

Oh, well of course there are other faster factors at play.
greyfalcon.net/lean2005.png

But none of them alone explain whats been going on in the past 40 years.
greyfalcon.net/forcing4.png

Particularly Solar Irradiance doesn't explain things.
sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/312/3

[Cyril R.]

@ Cyril R.
There are plenty of recent peer reviewed articles that question the "consensus".
So what ?

You did not link to a peer reviewed article, rather one that makes a list of articles that are.

Unfortunately for you, none of those links actually disproves the IPCC consensus thesis. They might explain specific variations, or even improve on details, but don't present an alternative thesis on the longer term warming trend.

Even more unfortunate for you: there are several dozen of these dissident articles in your "paper" (it's little more than a list, without comments - makes me wonder about the qualifications of the "author") but there are several thousand that still support the increased GhG effects thesis. That's why there is a consensus.

I'm still waiting for that peer reviewed work that shows a thesis and subsequent models which support the observation better than those currently used by the IPCC.

[Bob Wallace]

"Why does everyone say that temperatures have been dropping since 1998? It really isn't true. What actually happened was temperatures dropped from 1998 to 1999, then continued their steady rise. The aberration is 1998, not what's occurred since."

Because many people seems to have some major need to deny what the vast majority of scientists are saying.

They start from a (political?) position that global warming isn't happening and then don't mind being intellectually dishonest in order to further their agenda.

It's like a religious stance on their part.

Start with a belief and the cherry pick bits and pieces of data in an attempt to support your preconceived position.

("You can see Jesus on that English muffin. Just ignore those dark spots there, squint a little, now turn your head a little to the right. Here, let me move that crumb that's in the way....")

(A bit of guessing on my part here. But I suspect it quite close to the truth. ;o)

[Demesure]

"You did not link to a peer reviewed article, rather one that makes a list of articles that are."

I showed you a summary list of peer reviewed articles. And you tell me I didn't show a peer reviewed article !
What do you want? That I cut and paste each and every abstract of the list ?

Man, it's not a science debate, it's a cult defense.

[Demesure]

"Unfortunately for you, none of those links actually disproves the IPCC consensus thesis."

Cyril R,
That's a false claim. You must have not read a single paper of the above list to state such nonsense.

[Cyril R.]

I showed you a summary list of peer reviewed articles. And you tell me I didn't show a peer reviewed article !

Demesure, making a list of articles and not commenting on them, not to mention synthesize a conclusion, is not science. In fact, it would not do the word "article" justice.

You do realize that Madhav L Khandekar is officially retired as a researcher do you now?

I read the titles, and none of them indicated to have an alternative thesis about the observed data combined with subsequent models to support the empiric data. That is what I asked, just one simple thing.

11 year cycles do not explain 100 year trends. Of course there are variations in local effects, of course the sun's role in the climate is paramount. In the complexity and ambiguity of climate physics, anyone can select a set of data to support their position. I will start listening to them if they can provide models that perfectly explain all of the measurements.

After all, if they know everything about all of the processes, and are so good at quantification of that, that should be a walk in the park right?

[Scott]

I think the other clear message here is that we should be far less obsessed with climate change and concentrate more on real issues relating to long-term sustainable energy production and consumption.

In my view the climate is changing, but it has always changed and always will. What is more certain is that fossil based fuels will not last forever and its never too soon to consider ramping up alternatives such as aglae derived biofuels, wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear fusion etc.

[Demesure]

"Demesure, making a list of articles and not commenting on them, not to mention synthesize a conclusion, is not science. In fact, it would not do the word "article" justice."

Cyril R,
You said "science is in peer-review articles", I provided you with a long list of peer-review articles that question the "consensus" and now you complaint the peer-reviewed articles are not commented (by whom anyway ?).
Suck or blow but don't do both.

BTW, since when a refutation of theory must be provided with an alternative theory? You must be talking of something else than science.

[Benny Peak Demand Cole]

Grey Falcon:

Newfoundland was warmer in 1000 a.d. than today because the whole world was warmer. It was not a microclimate. Greenland was warmer, Europe was warmer. It was called the the "medieval climate optimum." The world was warmer in 1000 than today.
Sheesh, Leif Ericson found grapes in New Foundland. Grapes! It must have taken centuries for wild grapes to reach into the north -- centuries upon centuries of warm climates.
This, of course, does not mean that global warming today is not a concern. It does mean the world was warmer before, and entirely due to "natural" causes. Moreover, the warmer climate was salubrious to man in the northerly latitudes.

[GreyFlcn]

Well, even the oldest Arctic ice is now melting.
www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1822988120080318

And apparently whatever new ice replaces it is highly susceptible to rapid melt due to it's low density.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080111100652.htm

Some say that the Arctic might even be completely free of ice as early as 5 years from now.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

_

One thing is for certain.
Yes, the Arctic is melting. A lot.

[GreyFlcn]

==The world was warmer in 1000 than today.==

Care to quote an actual peer reviewed study on that? (i.e. Back yourself up)

And no, I don't consider Baliunas 2006 to qualify for that.
greyfalcon.net/baliunas

Neither does the US National Academy of Sciences, which said that:
None of the reconstructions indicates that temperatures were warmer during medieval times than during the past few decades

This is pretty much what the peer reviewed literature has to offer.
greyfalcon.net/moberg2005.png

No warmer than 1940, much less 2005.

[GreyFlcn]

Also, Vínlad was named after Vín.
The Norse word for Meadow.
(Why would Vikings name it after a British word?)

And the "grapes" they found were actually squash berries.
transportationhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/lief_ericson
darktickle.com/images/squashberry1.jpg

_

Either way, anecdotal evidence isn't peer review.

[disdaniel]

Idiots and fools...and I'm not saying who is who. You know who you are.

[Dennis Blackmore]

Great article - learned many things.

[Steve Salmony]

Thanks for this opportunity to communicate openly about what to me appears to be the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges: the human overpopulation of Earth in our time.

It looks like humankind inhabits a tiny celestial orb that is miraculously set among of sea of stars. As far as we know, life as we know it exists nowhere else in the Universe. In the light of these one-of-a-kind circumstances, perhaps we of the human family have the responsibility of assuring the security for the future of life in our planetary home.

I am trying to focus attention on the pressing need for human beings to protect and preserve the finite resources of Earth and its frangible ecosystems. If we fail to achieve this goal, then an unimaginably bleak future could await our children. In all the seriousness of what could be somehow true, I mean the children of my generation.

If 6+ billion human beings live on Earth now and 9+ billion are expected to populate our small planet by 2050, then the human species simply cannot keep engaging in certain unbridled activities that we can see overspreading the Earth because the Earth has limited resources upon which all forms of life and human constructions like national economies utterly depend for existence. Without adequate resources and ecosystem system services of Earth, life as we know it and human institutions could collapse, I suppose.

Now, some portion of the world’s human population conspicuously over-consumes the resources of our planetary home. Other people, working in huge multinational conglomerations, are operating businesses in a way that recklessly scours the oceans' floor, decapitates mountains, turns biomass into human mass and, in these and many other ways, end up dissipating natural resources at such an alarming rate that the Earth has insufficient time to restore the resources for human benefit. Still other people in the family of humanity are overpopulating the planet. The leviathan-like scale and rapid growth of global human consumption, production and propagation activities are putting the Earth, life as we know it, and the human community in grave, clear and present danger.

Elder human beings of the overdeveloped world, of whom I am one, are among the people in our planetary home who are ravenously over-consuming Earth's resources. We could choose to consume less. People in the developing could choose to limit overproduction of unnecessary things, to stop ravaging the planet, and to contain industrial pollution. People in the underdeveloped world could limit their number of offspring. Perhaps these are some ways the family of humanity begins to respond ably to the human-induced global challenges that loom so ominously before humanity in our time.

While I certainly agree that action should have been taken by my generation of old folks when we were young in the 60s and 70s, when we became aware of the "population bomb," still we have responsibilities to assume and duties to perform, here and now, for the sake of our children, grandchildren and coming generations.

The idea of making a conscious choice to do nothing in the face of the recognizably daunting global challenges that are visible before humanity on the far horizon is anathema to me.

At a minimum, do we not have a "duty to warn" others of the potential for some kind of ecological catastrophe if the human community adamantly chooses to continue relentlessly down the current "primrose path" marked by soon to become unsustainable consumption, production and propagation activities now threatening to overwhelm the Earth?

Always with thanks,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001

[ELMO the Electric Bikes -n- Scooters Guy]

This is just another reason why we need to move as quickly as possible, (much as in the same manner as Kennedy's challenge to get a man on the moon) to alternative energy vehicles.

I know, I know, we will have to build more electrical plants. B.S!!!

I know of little old engineers that power their cars on solar energy right out of their homes. Don't tell me we aren't smart enough!!!

[Aruh Kedding]

The climate is certainly changing but can you call it "global" warming or is it in fact that the Northern Hemisphere is warming while the Souther Hemisphere is cooling because of the precesion of the earths axis?

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[Max Schreiber]

It is encouraging to see increasing numbers of skeptics. co2 is the least likely agent of global warming one could have picked. Rainfall cycles follow the 11 yr sun spot cycles. That ought to be a clue. One earlier comment stated that co2 caused increased clouds, listing this as a POSITIVE feedback. It is actually a NEGATIVE feedback. Positive causes instability. Negative causes stability. However, identifying the feedback factors should be and is a priority of Climatologists. Virtually everything is dynamic. Trends one way or another should be of little concern if you understand the stability of the system.

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[canvas]

The best article is that No longer would scientists have to rely on measurements mostly at the surface from older scientific buoys or inconsistent shipboard monitors. So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years, the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. term life insurance quotes

[Medical-x-ray]

That is what you earn for doing it properly and rightfully.

[Solar Panels]

Installing Solar Panels can greatly help in improving the environment from global warming since it uses the sun's solar energy to make electricity. This is free and renewable energy that has remarkable benefits to mankind.

[Microsoft Office 2010]

You are great! But I still did good! Hey!

[church youth group activities]

Finally people are beginning to wake up to the idea that global warming is not just a theory.

[Auto Lease Broker Los Angeles]

I just don't understand how we could be taught for years and years that global warming is something that's going on, with all this scientific evidence that has allegedly been presented now people are saying it's not as big of a deal as we've made it out to be? I'm so confused!

[Furniture Stores Los Angeles]

I agree with the skeptics, it is climate change not global warming. But I am not one that it much educated in this matter.