[Vision2020] Exploring Global Warming: Scientific Consensus?

[Ted Moffett]

Roger et. al.

I have a challenge for you on global warming and human impacts regarding
peer reviewed articles that appear in respected scientific journals authored
by climate scientists.  I have given this challenge to a Environmental
Science teacher I know to discover what they will find.

Provide one reference to an article meeting the conditions I just mentioned
that will claim that if CO2 from human outputs (or even other natural
sources) induce a level of 500 ppm, there will not be major climate change,
without other significant variables that can counteract the impacts of 500
ppm atmospheric CO2 levels.

Perhaps the increasing CO2 in our atmosphere is not due to human output of
this gas, given that the data is incontrovertible that CO2 has increased
from about 280 ppm at pre-industrial levels, now reaching 380 ppm?
What caused this CO2 increase, if it is not human activity?

Do you think that the CO2 atmospheric outputs that are increasing in
absolute amounts every year due to human impacts will not eventually result
in CO2 levels of 500 ppm, unless our outputs are addressed?  Perhaps the
extra CO2 will be absorbed from the atmosphere, which does occur naturally?
Can these natural processes of CO2 absorption keep up with human CO2
outputs?

Or perhaps other variable(s) that can offset the warming impacts of
significant atmospheric CO2 increases will intervene.

That increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will warm the climate has a solid
theoretical and empirical basis in climate science.

Of course you can find scientists who will question the scientific evidence
for human induced global warming.  Science always has debates and
disagreements.  It does not function as a dictatorship.  These debates do
not nullify the importance or reasonable probability of the truth of the
conclusions of hundreds of scientists around the world who warn that human
induced global warming is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

928 abstracts on climate science related subjects are mentioned in the
Science magazine article below, with not one claiming that human induced
global warming is not occurring, and the conclusions of numerous respected
scientific organizations are also presented that insist the evidence for
human induced global warming is solid.  To claim that "Global warming is
occurring, the cause is unclear" is to ignore this huge body of scientific
study from hundreds of scientists:

 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

*BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:*
*
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Naomi Oreskes**<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#affiliation>
*
P*olicy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently
assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an
argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA
administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through
review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate
change" (1 <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref1>).
Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on
carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the
science (2 <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref2>).
Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the
scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This
is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the
World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental
Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a
basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed
and published scientific literature
(3<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref3>
). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the
consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by
human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of
atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ...
[M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been
due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in
(4<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref4>
)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific
bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the
matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of
Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,
begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result
of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in
(5<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref5>
)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary
of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion
that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have
been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately
reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p.
3 in (5 <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref5>)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society
(6<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref6>
), the American Geophysical Union
(7<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref7>
), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all
have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for
human modification of climate is compelling
(8<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref8>
).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for
comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would
diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless,
they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was
tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals
between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords
"climate change" (9<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref9>
).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the
consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods,
paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the
papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or
implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or
paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change.
Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying
paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural.
However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed
literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public
statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists,
journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement,
or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of
science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for
failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame
us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate
change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there
are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for
understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate
change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the
reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly
tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

*References and Notes*

1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.

2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate
Policy *2*(1), 3 (2003).

3. See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm.

4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation,
and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).

5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change,
Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy
Press, Washington, DC, 2001).

6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. *84*, 508
(2003).

7. American Geophysical Union, Eos *84 *(51), 574 (2003).

8. See www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html.

9. The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts
was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although
the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not
about climate change.

10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture,
"Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong," presented at the
AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of
Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research
assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming,
M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.

10.1126/science.1103618


On 3/16/07, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:
>
> Ralph
>
> It is interesting that the left has to resort to  name calling and
> belittling people that they disagree with. Childish, global Warming Denyers.
> Not that some on the right are any better, Re" Michael Savage "Liberalism is
> a Mental Disorder".
> I would make some comments on the letter that you posted.
> Global Warming- There are several scientists who disagree with the view
> that man is the cause of global warming.
> Habibllo Abdussamattov, Head of Space Reasearch at St Petersburg's Pulkovo
> Astronomical Observatory in Russia; Timothy Bell, former professor at the
> University of Winnipeg in Canada; Richard Linzen professor of Atmospheric
> Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Nigel Calder, former
> editor of New Scientist. Bell and Lindzen have lost funding because of there
> views. Calder said " Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling
> any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the
> present system"  Dr. Hansen receives a lot of federal funding for his
> research. Global warming is occurring, the cause in unclear. Anyone who
> wants to be objective should present Channel 4's "The Global Warming
> Swindle" along with Al Gore's "The Inconvenient Truth"
>
> Weapons of mass destruction- I am not a big fan of Bush and no weapons of
> mass destruction were found. But that does not mean that there hadn't been
> amy there. Just what do you think think Hussein used on the Kurds.
>
> Creationist- I do not agree with fundamentalists on evolution, but I would
> not call them childish.
>
> Roger
>
>
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