ANTIcarrot wrote:
I know three things in this area:
1) I am not an expert in climate change.
3) Globally peer reviewed research is generally correct in its findings. In this case climate change is real, we're causing it, it's probably going to be bad, engineering can probably mitigate and/or fix it, but the cost to do so will get exponentially more expensive unless we start soon.
It is ridiculous to claim both 1 and 3.
A lot of people disagree with 3b, that we are causing it, and 3c, that it is going to be bad.
When you look at the evidence for AGW, it is a lot thinner than you might imagine. Basically, the theory/research amounts to three claims.
1) It is getting warmer recently (instrumental temperature record).
Yes, but it has been getting warmer for several hundred years. This is most evident when looking at glacial melt which, despite Gore videos, did not start when CO2 levels started to rise, but rather started several hundred years ago.
Even in the instrumental record, when you look at warming pre significant levels of CO2 compared to post rising CO2 it is hard to find difference in the trend of warming.
2) The warming is unprecedented.
Evidence for this is based on proxy data and more specifically on multi-proxy data, most notably the work of Mann. You may say that this is a detail not worthy of discussion, but Mann's multi-proxies in particular are key to demonstrating that the warming is unprecedented. Mann's work is garbage when examined with any rigor.
In general, multi-proxies that show significant modern warming compared to a flat previous 2000 years, depend on tree ring proxies to get this shape. Tree rings are believed by many to be unreliable temperature proxy data. multi-proxies that do not include tree ring data generally show a pronounced Medieval Warm Period and a significant Little Ice Age.
It is clearly debatable whether, a) temperatures are historically high for the last 2000 years, or that b) temperature rise is faster than other times in the last 2000 years.
3) CO2 is causing the warming.
The historical causal relationship between temperature and CO2 is not well established. CO2 levels elevating lag behind temperature rising in ice core data, seemingly indicating a reversed cause and affect relationship where rising temperatures cause elevations in CO2 levels (ocean out gassing). AGW supporters agree with this. Except that they then claim that the released CO2 acts as a positive feedback to temperature rise, causing temperature to rise more sharply. But this claim is not well supported. It is certainly contested.
Additionally, the mechanism by which CO2 causes temperature rise is not as well demonstrated as one might think. Even AGW supporting scientists know that CO2 is near saturation at lower levels in the atmosphere. Current theory for CO2 causing additional warming rely on it doing so at higher atmospheric levels where temperature and the thin air allow it to absorb radiation with a slightly widened spectrum. Basically, it grows wings to allow it to absorb a few extra wavelengths to the left and right of what it absorbed before. Since the extra warming should be occuring at higher elevations because of this theory, we should see it there, but there is conflicting evidence on whether we actually do.
Consensus
Finally, claims of scientific consensus are exaggerated. There are actually very few climate scientists in the world. Among them, there is disagreement. Currently, only pro AGW papers are generally published. Then their are other scientists who take at face value what the published climate scientists are saying and base additional research off of it (ie, when global warming happens, this other thing will happen). Counting this second level of scientist is not a valid thing to do, but it is done time and time again to demonstrate consensus.
I think you should take some time to examine what you know to be true more closely. Yes, there is bad information and indescriminently published BS on both sides, but if you wade through the chaff, you will find that the arguments for AGW are a lot less convincing then we would want and that the arguments against it can't be as easily dismissed as claimed.
regards