A question for r/climateskeptics: If the alarmists are wrong, then what's really going on with climate?

Dirkpitt · 2 months

Meh..Climate change is real. AGW didn't make the Sahara. Mankind has far bigger problems than CO2.

publius_lxxii · 2 months

I've noticed that even the skeptics don't seem to agree. some skeptics seem to think that warming isn't happening at all, some think that the warming is real but isn't caused by humans, and others think that it is real and caused by humans but won't be catastrophic.

None of these 3 are binary. They're all analog, both in terms of magnitude and certainty. And they've all been exaggerated.

The entire alarmism argument has been built on fuzzy definitions and blatant mischaracterization of strong skeptical arguments.

Your comment, while probably unintentional, is a case in point.

Kim147 · 2 months

Cheating at science won't solve the world's problems and it will waste a lot of very much needed money . Doing the science properly is the only way .

AlyssaMoore · 2 months

Understanding the Global Warming Debate:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/09/understanding-the-global-warming-debate/

There are a few things in this article that the global warming alarmists disagree with, but it explains most of the skeptics' side pretty well.

penGuiner · 2 months

I'd say the underlying position by skeptics is that climate science is in its infancy. The climate is a complex chaotic system and we are not even sure of all the components that effect it, let alone the primary drivers and how they interact.

For me, the first doubt about CAGW was its certainty. In geological history, what we are seeing is well within all the parameters the world has experienced in the past, and over that time the climate on the whole has been remarkably stable to allow life to not only survive, but to flourish.

I'd second the Warren Meyer presentation link down below. It is an excellent primer on the skeptics position.

deck_hand · 2 months

I've noticed that even the skeptics don't seem to agree.

People can doubt the official line of reasoning without being unified in what they think actually is going on. You pointed out that some people thing one thing is happening, while others think something else might be going on. Then you ask, "which is it?" I think the answer is "all of the above."

We don't know, exactly, what's going on. We don't know exactly how much we've warmed over the last 3000 years. We know fairly well how much we've warmed over the last 130 years, but even the official climate scientists don't agree 100%. Take a look at the differences between the GISS, HadCRUT and NOAA temperature estimates. They are all different.

Hell, right now we've warmed by only about half a degree since 1978, and but the GISS and HadCRUT differ by ~~over 40%.~~ some amount that I have not calculated. If the experts can't agree within ~~40%~~ some amount that I have not calculated, but is fairly obviously large if you look at it, of the temperature anomaly we're currently experiencing over the last 42 years, with their millions of dollars of research and supercomputers, how well do you think people following along at home should do?

EDIT: fixed the estimates before counters or nuclear_is_good slams me for posting something that hasn't been peer reviewed.

OortCloud · 2 months

The fact that skeptics are throwing around so many alternatives should tell you that we're open to debate. On the other hand the AGW supporters seem to believe that all climate fluctuation has one cause, and one cause only. The fact is that climate fluctuations are poorly understood and the main cause for that knowledge deficit is that the we have only developed the tools recently.

The traditional model, that has stood all attempts at refutation, holds that the main climate drivers (excluding Sol) are, in order: the oceans, water vapour, clouds, ground albido, atmosphere (including particulates). AGW turns that on it's head by reversing the order. Accepting the traditional list, most skeptics examine and debate the merits of each as the underlying cause of the present warming. We understand that people as a whole have a long way to go before we can say that we understand Earth's climate.

We know that the present warming in not unprecedented. AGW supporters insist that past warming such as that of the Roman period and the MWP, and past cooling such as the LIA did not happen. That insistance is foolish. We know that the present period of warming began 300+ years ago at the end of the LIA. We know that CO2 level rise and warming are coincident, now and in the past. We know that past levels of CO2 were as much as 10x what they are today and there was no "runaway greenhouse effect". These are some of the simple facts that have no place in the AGW hypothesis.

I will not speak for all of the skeptics here, but I am still open to proof that CO2 drives climate rather than the reverse. So far the evidence is not irrefutable so I remain a skeptic. Sadly, AGW is no longer a scientific debate because it's been politicized to the point where those invested in the hypothesis can't afford to lose. In my opinion they have already lost the fight for the political advantage. The fallout from such a loss means that many people will be out of work, and that includes the climate bloggers.

Will_Power · 2 months

Good questions. I'll comment on your three groupings, but I can't speak for anyone's perspective but my own.

some skeptics seem to think that warming isn't happening at all,

I have actually never seen a skeptic claim this, though there must be people who believe this because the alarmists keep attacking those people. Surely they wouldn't create a strawman for such a purpose.

Joking aside, I am aware of a very few people who have claimed that changes in temperature are not outside the bounds of random noise. I don't agree with that claim, but that might be where you get the idea that there are people who claim no warming.

some think that the warming is real but isn't caused by humans, and others think that it is real and caused by humans but won't be catastrophic.

I think there is probably a continuum between these two groups. Again, I have never seen a skeptic say that none of the present warming is caused by humans. I have seen several, though, who claim a very small percentage of warming is due to CO2. Just by way of perspective, the IPCC claims "most" of the observed warming in the latter half of the 20th century was due to CO2. That implies 51% or more. So a skeptic that thinks, say, 40% of warming during that time is due to CO2 may actually be closer to some from the warmist side than he is to other skeptics.

I think the most fundamental aspect of the debate, though, is the concept of climate sensitivity. Renowned skeptics like Richard Lindzen and Christopher Monckton happily agree that a good portion of previous warming is due to CO2, but are very vocal about the lack of understanding regarding the feedback mechanisms that determine climate sensitivity.

I think this is where you find the last group you identifiy. They point out that if the climate really were dominated by positive feedbacks, much more warming should have occurred by now. You could, in fact, have someone who believes that 100% of warming over the last century was due to CO2 and still say "Meh." when it comes to supposed catastrophic outcomes because they see no real evidence of climate warming more than a degree or two per doubling of CO2.

acceptableusername · 2 months

You've kind of got the burden of proof backwards. AGW advocates are the ones that need to make a particular case.

In order to make the case that global warming is man made and caused by the increase of CO2 that we release by burning fossil fuels, and that we need to "do something" about it, all of the following need to be true:

That CO2 levels are the primary factor that drives climate.

That the Earth's climate is subject to positive feedback.

That the recent change in temperature is unprecedented, and current temperatures are unusual.

That increased temperatures are harmful.

If any one of these is not true, then AGW is either nonexistent, or nothing to worry about.

yoashby · 2 months

what's going on with the climate?

Business as usual. Why must every generation assume there is something remarkable about it?

hous · 2 months

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm

Quite possibly there is nothing interesting going on with the climate. The last geologically interesting thing to happen to the climate was the closing of the Isthmus of Panama, about 3 million years ago. This probably caused the current cycle of Ice Ages we are living in, and turned a huge part of fertile African savanna into desert, forcing apes to come down from trees, and you know the rest.

It's possible that we are facing a new period of Ice Age within the next 10,000-100,000 years. I'm basing that on the fact that climate has predictably swung between periods of heavy glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere and the kind of climate we see today. I doubt it is possible for the climate to get much warmer, and certainly not from the amounts of CO2 that humans are putting into the atmosphere. The first-order effects of a doubling of CO2 (as is likely within the next 50 years) would amount to a warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius according to what would be predicted by "high school science" but how that ACTUALLY affects the climate (feedback effects) is not at all clear.

It is also possible that plants are sucking up most of the CO2 that humans are putting out, and that the recent increases in CO2 in the atmosphere are driven by temperature and not the other way around.

tttt0tttt · 2 months

What's driving the hysterical global warming movement can be summed up under three headings:

religious hysteria -- No one can deny the religious component to the AGW fanatics. Mother Nature is their Goddess, who human beings have defamed and degraded with our sinful excessive use of energy and our squandering of natural resources and our pollution ... and now the Goddess has grown angry at us and intends to punish us by heating up the planet. To atone for our sins, we must suffer. How do we suffer? By cutting back our material possessions and energy use, and by punishing ourselves by making everyone sort through their garbage and reduce their water consumption, and most of all -- pay, pay, PAY in the form of new taxes. All this is designed to cause us pain, to atone for our sins, and accomplishes not much of anything that is of any use.
greed -- It wasn't long before researchers and magazine writers and book publishers and television documentary makers and universities and a host of others realized there was MONEY to be made from the mounting man-made global warming hysteria. The best way to insure funding for your research project is to work in some bogus global warming angle, however tenuous it might be. Careers and paychecks are riding on the continuation of AGW. It is a cash cow that is being milked by countless extended hands, none of who ever want to see it end for any reason.
social engineering -- The leaders and big players in the man-made global warming movement have realized that it can be manipulated not only to make money, but to achieve social and political goals. There are very wealthy men who are in it, not for the cash, but for the power. They use AGW as a lever to transfer wealth from one part of society to another, and from one region of the world to another -- not selflessly. Oh, no, don't ever think that. These bastards don't have a selfless bone in their psychopathic bodies. They are social engineering for their own agrandizement, and to fulfill their own conceits of how human society should work, and how it should be organized, and who should pay for everything (hint: not them). Carbon tax is about power first, and money only in a secondary sense. It has nothing at all to do with the environment.

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