[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPNWRti8CfY]
While I would like to see the proposed Science Debate to evaluate the views of all the candidates on science issues we already knows where Fox News stands on climate change–they get the facts all wrong. See the above video for some examples. (Hat tip to Greg Laden.)
“Man probably has an impact, but we don’t know for certain” and this is buzzed with a big X as incorrect . . . or is it?
“The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming,”
“Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
What madmen are making these claims? Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia) in A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions in the International Journal of Climatology .
Now, we all know that Fred Singer is paid shill, a psedul-scientist, and a non-climate expert, so how he got to be 3rd author on a peer-reviewed paper in an academic journal, is, I’m sure, shocking, but there it is.
However, the International Journal of Climatology probably, maybe, publishes articles based on scientific merit.
Global warming alarmist and antropromorphic warming certainist need to beware of Dicto simpliciter, unless they just don’t care that they sound like they don’t care about what they taking about . . .
That’s a lot of unconvincing double talk to attempt to ignore the fact that there is a clear scientific consensus regarding climate change.
So you say.
But stating “there is a clear scientific consensus regarding climate change” is, on it’s face, a red Herring because yes, there is very good empirical evidence that the climate is warming — the open questions have to do with the mechanism of warming, i.e., why and how?
For example, before (and now) there’s clear empirical evidence that the heavenly bodies rise the east the set in west — our own eyes provide that evidence, but before Copernicus, the open question was about the mechanism or cause of that observation. After Copernicus & Galileo, the mechanism or cause was no longer in question. If you think that status of the antropromorphic theory of warming is as soild celestial mechanism — think long and hard again.
No papers today are published that propose an alternative account of why the sun and stars move above our heads as they do — the physical models/theories explain completely what we see. It would take brand new observations, that no one has yet seen or measured, observations that aren’t predicted by the current physical models/theories, to challenge those physical models/theories. For the last 500 years, that just hasn’t happen.
The International Journal of Climatology has found merit in the author’s claims that there is “good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
Greenhouse gases are one source — but, because this type of research get funded, conducted, and published, the only rational conclusion to come to is that they are likely not the only source. To simply ignore the studies that empirically support alternative explanations is to put you in the same class as Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (I’ll let you look up who that was).
You have it backwards. I was persuaded by those who argued about global warming by the overwhelming scientific evidence in their favor.
In contrast I find the opponents to be taking an essentially religious anti-scientific stance in distorting reports and making a big deal out of the slightest contrary claim, clearly having decided the issue based upon ideology as opposed to science.