If all these Global Warming believers are so knowledgeable on science, why can't they prove Global Warming or Climate Change exists?

Question

This is in response to a question by one of our famous contributors. I know, it is a feeble attempt to denigrate honest and true scientists on this site.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081122165542AAhTubV

Questions like these are proposed by cowards. The respondents are to offer mere opinions nothing factual or scientific. These are the gotcha elites, who do playground science, playground tactics and playground ethics.

So I will give these scientific elitists the chance to prove that they know basic science.

Answer 1

I will start with a quote attributed to Einstein: “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”



I don't think that many people have sufficient understanding of, not only the science, but of the ways required to explain it. The recent question on removing the CO2 from the atmosphere illustrates this.



There are papers available that will tell you the range of CO2 climate sensitivity and what will happen with a CO2 doubling so people can know that. What happens when the CO2 is removed is not known in the same way and because of the complexities no-one can give you a straight answer. Do we even know the amount of warming caused by the greenhouse gases? Roy Spencer has suggested that the oft quoted 33°C should in fact be 60°C because about 30°C of convective cooling needs to be removed.



The expert view always starts from the fact that the earth is not a black body so we will use the black body formula to see what is happening. How does that work?



In a court of law, I think much of what we are told about global warming would be dismissed as circumstantial evidence. Like, for instance, the fact that this warming is supposed to have started during the Industrial Revolution. That is not attribution: that is guess-work. What else happened at the same time that could also have had an effect? Did the Little Ice Age really end because of industry? Quoted start dates are quite flexible. Anywhere from 1750 to 1950 can be used.



We get the occasional scare like the hockey stick curve. After some thought you can see that trees do not measure temperature which must cast much doubt on any conclusions. Tree rings record tree growth not CO2 or temperature or rainfall or sunlight or possible disease but all those things combined.



So, if you are like me then you end up with questions that don't seem to have answers and the establishment replies by producing An Inconvenient Truth. Mr Justice Burton found errors in the film but the important question for me is why was the exaggeration or distortion necessary? Why couldn't they just tell the whole truth?



Same with ClimateGate. Why was there so much effort being devoted to stopping people publishing? How honest and straightforward did they think they were being?



When pushed, the argument always reverts to: We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and if we keep producing more and more then something has to give. Good. I can see that. Now I need to know why it did not "give" all those times when it was higher previously. I also want to know why temperatures are not necessarily sky-rocketing today, to coin a phrase, in spite of CO2 increase rates.



The type of science being done is not convincing either. On one hand we can see the experiments being performed in the Large Hadron Collider. That was a mammoth undertaking for the physicists involved. Then we look a climate science and we see people just playing with other people's figures. I could do that at home in between YA posts.



The time is probably right for that type of science. The computer generation really do think that running a program is an experiment. It does remove the understanding aspect of the job, though. You put numbers in, numbers come out. They must be right because the computer says so. It seems you don't even need to have the data points the right way up or centre your data prior to working out your principal components.

Answer 2

Prove global warming (or global climate change, or global climate shennanigans) exists? That's the old bait and switch, Kano. I am a firm believer in GCC and AGW. I see the earth warmed about 0.8 C in the last century, and it seems to be on track for another degree or so this century. Since a moderate rise like this is no cause for alarm, it makes me neither a "denier" nor an "alarmist."



Dana's question was a thinly veiled attempt to portray those who do not believe the CAGW hypothesis as uneducated, ignorant, and probably fundamentalist Christians as well. It's a strategy similar to attacking the character, credentials, or funding of contrarian climate scientists- rather than attacking their findings.

Answer 3

Steven H,

To address your list:



Sea levels have risen. - Yeah by a whole 3 mm per year. Scary scary.

Mega fires - May have to do with us shutting down the logging industry in our country and using the stop every forest fire approach that makes it so that only large fire that can't be controlled every clear out the underbrush. You MIGHT have a case if you could show an increase in droughts leading to the fire problem, but given the last 60 years has shown no increase in droughts, you argue lacks a CAUSE.

Farm production - Are we talking globally or locally, I always get confused with your warmers who say warming is global, then talk about local farms. GLOBALLY food production is increasing faster than the population. Locally, farm have always done that in various locations.

The big wet? - So you are complaining that deserts are becoming greener??? Sure why not?

Rainforest burning- HMMM what could possibly be the cause??? Could it be that they are being slashed and burned???



The ONLY thing you have managed to MAYBE link to AGW is longer "big wet" period for deserts. Hardly a reason to believe in catastrophe.



Edit:

Look steve H, Either this is global warming or local warming. MAKE UP YOUR MIND. If you want to talk about things caused by drought and STILL CLAIM GLOBAL, then you have to talk about global incidence of droughts, not local examples. There will always be local examples of climate changes because the climate is always changing and has for 4.5 billion years. There has been no increase in frequency of droughts over the last 60 years.



And the deserts you bring up. Oh yeah... foliage has increased by 11%

http://phys.org/news/2013-07-greening-co2.html





Fact is that you want to link local problems to global problem without first properly analyzing the problem and the possible local causes. You want to bring up the Cali drought??? Well then you first have to factor in the history of California which has had a 200 year drought in its history. Then you have to consider the diverting of water flow and the change in use of landscape. Once you have accounted for the local factors you can BEGIN to look at other outside factors.



You warmers just want to bring up every problem in the world, every flood every drought, every hurricane, every tornado and run around like Chicken Little screaming the sky is falling. You don't want to do proper scientific analysis and yet you expect me to just go along with your BS as if it is science. Is it because a scientist said so, so it must be right??? If so, I am a scientist and I say it's not so, so it's not.



And BTW, 30 cm in 100 years.... Yeah, that is my point. That is about the change you need to cause a movement of population and how many 100 year old building are in the US? All the while, you are gaining farmland to the north and at higher elevations.



And talking about timing, IFFF the liberals would back a nuclear plan, we could get this whole problem of fossil fuels solved in about 30-35 years. Have nuclear take over the base power load, let solar naturally reduce in cost until it is affordable (it's almost there now), and start working toward cheap e-cars.



You need to talk about 100 years before your sea level rise becomes problematic, giving us time. Taxation is not the solution. Neither is panic.

Answer 4

Global Warming ended in 2012. If man Made Climate Change occurs then earth will become a dead planet. Mike

Answer 5

Only a fool even expects the system to be static, so proving change is not difficult. The cause of the change is what is open to discussion. I suppose we can argue how much change has occurred as well; there seems to be an awful lot of data manipulation going on to make change seem more serious than perhaps the facts would support. But there is no question that the climate at a place being experienced now is different from what it was in the not-distant past. historic records demonstrate it.

Answer 6

If they used science, all they could do is say that the recent changes are indistinguishable from past changes. That wouldn't scare anybody and it is hard to push an otherwise unpopular political agenda using something nobody cares about so they lie, they cheat and they exaggerate. What else can they do?

Answer 7

This is why alarmists like Kevin Trenberth try to flip the null hypothesis, and declare that they should be assumed correct and the skeptics have to prove them wrong. And when the skeptics do that, he then signs a letter to the President asking the skeptics to be thrown in jail and their assets seized.

Answer 8

First of all I "believe" in global warming the same way I believe in gravity.





The reason scientist can not prove to YOU that global warming exists quite simple, it is because you as a young earth creationist, believe (and I quote) "there is no science." Any normal person would face up to reality and embrace the scientific method. When the results conflict with their interpretation of their holy book(s) they would rethink their interpretation of their holy books.



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Answer 9

They aren't. They are simply posting articles they find that they hope will make them appear as though they understand.

,there is nothing to understand when are no facts behind any of it. They think that Simply posting "proof" from an article means they get it and that they did something to help the "cause".

Answer 10

They cant prove it , Nothing has changed

Answer 11

Come on, now. You know - - or Should know - - that "proof" is something for the fields of logic and mathematics. Science deals in DISproof. Your red-herring approach to trying to counter Steve's list of evidence does nothing to bolster your case; it only shows its weakness. What do roads have to do with AGW? Look at the evidence with an un-jaundiced eye, if you can.

Answer 12

Feeling edgy today? Maybe a bit too warm for you.

Answer 13

If the sun is shining outside must scientists prove it is indeed shining? Why not just look out the window?



I ask these questions because there are many examples of global warming staring us right in the face:

- Sea levels have risen. That's because polar and glacial ice has melted.

- Mega fires are common during the hotter months in places like America and Australia now, yet they were rare previously.

- Many previously productive farming areas have become parched dust bowls.

- The time between what's commonly known as the "big wet" in desert areas is typically increasing.

- Many areas of rainforest that previously never got affected by wildfire are now being burned. That was thought to be impossible in the past by scientific consensus, yet now the scientists have changed their views on the matter.





Edit: Interesting little data graphing program provided in your link. I don't know enough about where that data is obtained, but did observe if the source was changed to "Gistemp" the result is quite different.



Lots of lovely TDs I see, however that doesn't change the facts of my original reply. With regard to some areas not being fire managed properly I'll agree with that. Some areas could indeed experience fires that become out of control due to change of policy. However that doesn't explain mega fires that have occurred in areas that are well managed. Many areas in Australia have been routinely back burned for decades with minimal problems, yet back burning in the last 20 years has become dangerous and must be very closely monitored and controlled. You try talking to people who are on the ground fighting these fires. They know how much the situation has changed. Especially areas of rainforest that never burn. How come suddenly it's a problem there too?



Remember that CO2 emissions aren't just a problem for global warming. The acidity of the oceans is being increased. Many species of fish and whales rely on krill and just a little more nudging towards acidity will make them unable to grow to adulthood. We are already overfishing the oceans and in combination with less fish breeding what are we going to eat? Our global population is heading towards 8 billion and we need to create more sources of food, not less.



Thankyou for letting us know you're a farmer Sagey. Farmers tend to have a very single minded viewpoint with regards to the environment. I can see you're very stubborn in your ways and unfortunately people like you could be our downfall. We need to be looking at ways to improve the functionality of our environment, not to destroy it.



Caino brought up a valid point about sea levels only raising by 3 mm per year. That's nothing right? Well over ten years that equates to 3 cm and over 100 years that's 30 cm.

The very general rule of thumb when it comes to flooding is (depends on the land gradient) for 10 cm the land will flood 3 times as often. For a 20 cm rise it occurs 9 times as often and for 30 cm it occurs 27 times as often

Answer 14

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html



It is proved.