[Vision2020] Level of Uncertainty In Climate Science Re: Human CO2, etc. Climate Impacts: Warning From Copenhagen: 2500 Participants: 1400 Scientific Presentations: Warming Irreversible For a Thousand Years

[Ted Moffett]

This post is aimed at those with an open mind on the subject of climate
science and sincerely wish to learn.  The numerous references to climate
science information will be of interest to someone, perhaps.  The references
below amply demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (and
that current climate change is primarily being driven by anthropogenic
climate forcing) due to the hundreds of billions of tons of human sourced
CO2 emissions and other impacts.  This is not only a matter of majority vote
or degree of consensus among all scientists on the issue.  It's a matter of
physics, mathematics and evidence, that has been revealed by climate
scientists who have spend decades studying climate science.  We could just
as well claim that Einstein's relativity theory is an open question in
science, given there are scientists who question it, if we are to emphasize
how uncertain anthropogenic climate change is, because there are scientists
who question this theory.  There are cases where being in the minority makes
someone wrong (or very likely to be), when it can be amply demonstrated they
are not considering all the relevant evidence.  Just because a scientist has
professional credentials is not a reason by itself alone to trust that their
views on a given scientific issue are just as credible as any scientist.
How well their views hold up to peer review is very important.  If all but
one in a crowded theater smell smoke and yell out "smoke," while one person
shouts "there is no smoke; this is a hoax," this claim is doubtful.
Einstein's relativity theory and the scientific evidence for human CO2
emissions altering climate are both well established scientific theories.
At the bottom of this post I address Einstein's relativity theory again.

It is rather obvious the the issue of anthropogenic climate change has
become a politicised, ideologically driven, highly emotional issue.  There
are good reasons for this, among them a resistance to face the limits
of human impacts on the Earth for development and economic activity, for
both purely materialistic and also ideological motivations; humans as
dominators of Nature is a God given principle (to some), so to emphasize we
are just one organism among many, within the greater whole of the biosphere,
that if we damage the biosphere, humanity is at risk, is perhaps a kind of
heresy.

It's no surprise that many of the organizations pushing doubt about
anthropogenic climate change have been/are connected to industries that will
be negatively effected by efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, to
religious fundamentalists, and "free enterprise" think tanks, such as "The
Heartland Institute," who have in recent years organized some of the most
effective and extensive efforts in the media to cast doubt in the public
about anthropogenic climate change, promoting junk climate change science.

http://www.heartland.org/
--------------
Is the climate science behind anthropogenic climate change as doubtful as
many of the the skeptics claim?  I present scientific information below that
demonstrates it is not very doubtful; the uncertainty about the science does
not rise to the level where it is worth the risks of ignoring the evidence
that humans are altering climate in profound ways, and thus not taking
immediate mitigation action.

Those die hard skeptics who do not want to accept the well
established science on this subject simply will not... No facts or arguments
will change their mind.  Even if Greenland melts into the sea, and Wall
Street is under water, a person can always claim there was some other cause
besides human impacts (solar variability perhaps now the most common
argument, not supported by the observations of solar radiation over recent
decades).  From "Nature" journal:

*Nature* *443*, 161-166 (14 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05072
Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth's climate
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html
---------------
So why debate the issue?  So that those with an open mind who can be
persuaded by fact and reason do not succumb to ideologically driven
propaganda that attempts to portray the global climate science community as
either conspirators in a global fraud, grossly incompetent, or both.  It's
one or the other, or both, given the emphatic assertions of the IPCC and
numerous leading scientific organizations around the world:

Statement on anthropogenic climate change from numerous science academies
around the world:

http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf

More info on scientific organizations who clearly state humans are altering
climate, which should include the Union of Concerned Scientists:

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

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>
).
-----------
Statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists on global warming:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing us today. To
protect the health and economic well-being of current and future
generations, we must reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases by using
the technology, know-how, and practical solutions already at our disposal.
-----------
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change website:

http://www.ipcc.ch/
---------------

I continue:

In fact, the theory of greenhouse gases trapping solar energy can be tested
by anyone, rather easily, if they want, in a simple experiment.  I posted a
high school science text dealing with lab experiments on this issue:

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/pdf/labge1.pdf
-------------
And the physics behind the claim that increasing levels of CO2 in the
atmosphere, will result in increases in global average temperature, is well
established science.  Below read the results of research from Barton Paul
Levenson (who has a degree in physics, and is an outspoken Christian, if
this matters to anyone), to collate the scientific studies on what is called
"climate sensitivity," the change in global average temperature from a
doubling of atmospheric CO2, which has been studied since Nobel Prize winner
Arrhenius in 1896 (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/feb/19/climate-change-arrhenius
).
Note pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels were about 280 ppm, now over 380
ppm. due to human emissions.  Not all the studies are listed at Levenson's
site, but I have never read a credible peer reviewed published study that
shows no increase in global average temperature from a doubling of
atmospheric CO2.  Even MIT's meteorologist Richard Lindzen, whose claim to
fame is primarily that he has opposed the IPCC, and is often quoted as one
of the qualified experts that shed doubt on the impacts of human greenhouse
gas emissions, acknowledges that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will raise
global temperature, but his claim is that this is less than 1 degree
Centigrade.  The average of the studies on this subject conducted by
hundreds of scientists is close to 3 degrees Centigrade:

http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html

http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/
------------
The basics of this science is not difficult to understand, given what should
be the level of science and mathematics comprehension of the average college
graduate.  Content below from the American Institute of Physics that
explains the development and verification of this theory.  This is well
established science.

AIP on CO2 and greenhouse effect:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
------------
The survey of climate science specialists I posted information about earlier
indicated that 97% of the specialists surveyed believe human activity is
altering climate.  Survey results at link below:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
-----------
To return to the high school lab tests on greenhouse gas, these lab tests do
not duplicate what happens in Earth's atmosphere, so the argument can be
made that these tests are not really an experiment dealing with
anthropogenic climate change.  But the argument that everyone can test
gravity, so it is more believable than the science behind anthropogenic
warming, which cannot be verified by everyone, does not address the manner
in which the public will accept and trust scientific theories, that are
difficult for the average person to verify.  How many people have tested the
science behind Einstein's Theory of Relativity?  And given the small number
of people who can claim to have, how many people educated in modern science
will expound on the uncertainties in science, thus the explosion in a
hydrogen bomb or the fusion of hydrogen powering our sun, might not
be related to Einstein's theory?  Of course, you can find scientists who
will question Einstein's relativity theory, in one way or another.  Some
scientists think Einstein's theory will eventually be replaced with a more
complete "physics of everything."  But Einstein's relativity theory is well
established science, that virtually no modern educated person would claim is
a "hoax," in the manner we see a surprising percentage of the US public
believing about anthropogenic climate change.

Ted Moffett
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