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[bjlong]

What we're seeing here is that the anthropocentric climate change movement is a group's favored theory, in the nicest sense of the term (i.e., Special Relativity for a long time was in the same stage. Same thing with fractals being useful for anything other than pretty pictures.) People are trying out data. They are then processing the data while looking for something like what they expect. This is normal. This is how most science is done. Sure, there's probably something slightly fishy going on under the hood here. That's why scientists have kept open a debate about possible solar and natural causes of global warming--because people can get so worked up over their personal theories that they occasionally lose sight of the bigger picture.

What is telling is how everyone's getting all worked up about this. Yes, scientists aren't perfect. The science can be ambiguous, and what we think can be wrong. This is normal. What isn't normal, however, is how people seem to think that scientists suddenly betrayed them. It seems to support the idea that scientists have become like prophets. People are going to be up in arms for a while, and I can easily see this becoming a cultural "crisis of faith."
 
Anyway. As usual, the science is solid but suspect--there are a lot more wrinkles to work out. All the fluff flying around here is about how much the wrinkles stand out.

[LegoLord]

Feh.  A few e-mails prove nothing.  Especially from hackers, and even more so when no reputable news network (one of which FoxNews is not) reports on it.  Further, data cannot be masked so easily, not with such a hot topic.  If it's something basic like, say, temperature trends for the last century, well guess what?  There's going to be many multiple records, plenty from before these emails, that are out of the recipients' or senders' control.

And hey, if the average global temperature has been rising recently, then you have global warming.  Sorry, but that's what global warming is.  Whatever the heck is causing it, be it man or nature, it's there.

And no, I didn't bother to read the articles.  The only two sources I've heard of are wikileaks and wikipedia (both of which are dubious sources on controversial issues at best), and I'm sure most people I know have only heard of one of those.  If he had something I knew was reliable, I might check that.  But he doesn't.

[kuro_suna]

What is telling is how everyone's getting all worked up about this. Yes, scientists aren't perfect. The science can be ambiguous, and what we think can be wrong. This is normal. What isn't normal, however, is how people seem to think that scientists suddenly betrayed them. It seems to support the idea that scientists have become like prophets. People are going to be up in arms for a while, and I can easily see this becoming a cultural "crisis of faith."

Personally one of the reasons I am skeptically about claims that global warming is false is it seems like a lot of the strength of the anti global warming movement is coming from anti evolution camp. I believe this because I've heard a lot of the same arguments from both. Namely painting science as dogmatic to level the playing field while forcing them to become defencive and citing any defence of arguments like "evolution is just a theory" as proof of scientific dogma.

[bjlong]

What is telling is how everyone's getting all worked up about this. Yes, scientists aren't perfect. The science can be ambiguous, and what we think can be wrong. This is normal. What isn't normal, however, is how people seem to think that scientists suddenly betrayed them. It seems to support the idea that scientists have become like prophets. People are going to be up in arms for a while, and I can easily see this becoming a cultural "crisis of faith."

Personally one of the reasons I am skeptically about claims that global warming is false is it seems like a lot of the strength of the anti global warming movement is coming from anti evolution camp. I believe this because I've heard a lot of the same arguments from both. Namely painting science as dogmatic to level the playing field while forcing them to become defencive and citing any defence of arguments like "evolution is just a theory" as proof of scientific dogma.

Perhaps in a lot of the non-scientific communities, yes, they're the same group, but in scientific communities, it's more of a question of how one can leap to the conclusion of anthropocentric climate change when we don't have enough data on climate change in general. And, yes, I suppose I painted myself as part of the "science as religion" groups, but as a student of physics, I find it infuriating when I get someone asking me about the misworded headlines in a cracked.com article, citing them as absolute truth because "scientists said it!" But maybe that's just me.

And hey, if the average global temperature has been rising recently, then you have global warming.  Sorry, but that's what global warming is.  Whatever the heck is causing it, be it man or nature, it's there.

1) Global warming is not occuring right now--we have some global cooling, which some relate to a period right before global warming, but the data doesn't seem entirely unambiguous. So there's climate change going on, yes, but the questions are: is it catastrophic, and is it man-made?

2) Not sure what you're arguing here--if it's not man made, then what the hell is this governmental uproar about? It's like saying that we should stop wasting energy, so all lightening bolts should be taxed.

I'd highly recommend you take a look at some of the documents in question. Otherwise, you're kinda jumping into this discussion blind.

[Strife26]

We had a long talk in Gov about it. Scientists can be lying bastards pushing an agenda too.

[Ampersand]

Climate change is just a liberal hippie conspiracy to clean our air and water. They must be stopped.

Edit:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/732531--first-snow-free-november-in-162-years?bn=1

Damn scientists must be making the planet warmer to make it look like they're right or something.

[LegoLord]

Our Most governments consist of politicians, not scientists.  I'll just leave it at that.

And there has been global warming in the past, if not right now.  It stopping doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[bjlong]

And there has been global warming in the past, if not right now.  It stopping doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I'm not sure what you're arguing. Climate change has happened repeatedly in the past. This involves both warming and cooling. The argument that has been made is that the fluctuations we experience now are merely the effects of this natural climate change. Currently, the trend is towards an overall cooling, but whether it is warming or cooling, scientists have proposed models for understanding the change as a result of human actions. Noone is arguing that climate change doesn't exist--at least, not in the mainstream scientific community. What is being argued is whether or not the evidence points to a man made or anthropogenic/centric climate change.

[Ampersand]

I don't quite get what you're saying. A trend toward cooling?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg

Yep, there it is. -.05 degrees in the global average after steadily rising +.5 degrees. since 1980.

I don't think you understand what a trend is, on a global scale. You cannot think in terms of months and years. Decades, even do not adequately suffice. Trends must be measured over the course of a century or longer when it comes to things so massive as the climate of the Earth.

And I can attribute that slight decline in global temperature to a severe lack of solar activity in the past couple of years. There were absolutely no sun spots on the sun for 266 days of 2008. This lack of solar activity [called the Dalton Minimum], combined with the volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora and others, caused the year without summer in 1816. While many of the so called Climate Change skeptics claim that global warming can be attributed to solar activity, the inverse is true, solar activity can be blamed for a drop or plateau in temperature rise over the past few years.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Meh.

See me in 50 years.

[kuro_suna]

I don't quite get what you're saying. A trend toward cooling?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg

Yep, there it is. -.05 degrees in the global average after steadily rising +.5 degrees. since 1980.

Usually when people say the world is cooling their comparing the 1997-1998 el nino to every year after which seems a awful lot more disingenuous than what anyone representing real science could ever hope to get away with.

[bjlong]

Snip

Sorry, trend was poor wording on my part. There is a change in overall temperature that could be interpreted as the beginning stages of a cooling trend, but that other scientists claim is indicative of another warming period. There's something of a stir over it, in any case.

You seem to say that climate change cannot be understood over a period of years or decades, rather centuries. However, you then cite a "trend" that begins in 1980. This is the fundamental problem with the argument--not enough is known about the earth's climate as a whole to do an in-depth analysis of it. The Dalton Minimum, for example, is not very well understood in this context, as with sunspots in general. (BTW, I'd like to see a reference for your argument of the cooling being caused by the Minimum, if you have one handy. I seem to recall a paper relating the sunspot data to recorded temperatures and tree growth, and not finding any overt correlation as far back as the medieval warm period, and will be happy to perform a literature search if there seems to be new evidence on this.)

In any case, please understand that I'm no expert on this subject. I'm merely playing devil's advocate at this point.

[Ampersand]

My point about the rise since the eighties was to point out the absurdity of saying that the world is cooling based on two years compared to the warming over, not just the past thirty years, but yes, past one hundred years. The little flux in that is being called the start of cooling or whatever is standard deviation. If you take two steps forward and one step back, the trend is still forward, despite that every couple seconds you can claim to be moving backwards.

Unfortunately, resources that I would hand you are not internet published, so unless you have a copy of Climate Dynamics vol. 25, I can't really help you there.

But, like I said, the severe drop in temperature during the Dalton minimum is not attributable to the Dalton Minimum alone. While it probably had something to do with it, there was a significant quantity of dust in the atmosphere after the eruption of Mt. Tambora, the largest volcanic eruption within the past 1,700 years, roughly, also probably had a lot to do with it.

[de5me7]

unfortunatly climate change journalism is increadably polarised most articals are written by people who are looking for evidence to proove their view rather than drawing views from evidence.

I dont think too many conclusions beyond poor professionalism can be drawn from the emails until they are linked to actual data sets and bits of research, and until there has been some sort of enquiry.

there are more than 4 climate change scientists on earth. You can't really snub a theory based on four individuals mis conduct.

The solid evidence for anthropogenic climate change imo comes from carbon (and other green house gases) levels in the atmopshere, and other parts of the environment. Theres pretty good isotopic, and concentration data for the rise in anthropogenic Co2. we were about 280ppm (parts per million) prior to the 1860s, i think we are now around 390ppm. The new Co2 is isotopically light - meaning it has been photosysnthesed at some point. Photosynthesis on earth has not rapidly increased in the past century, but incineration of fossil (plant derrived carbon) has. Whilst about 50% of this new carbon has been absorbed by the oceans, there is still a considerable amount in the atmosphere.

There is evidence collected by independant groups from:

forminetherea (algea) in various layers of the ocean
Corral
oceanic sediments
ice cores
peat cores
and of course atmospheric sampling

There is a relationship between Co2, methane, water vapour, hcfcs (and all the other green house gases) and temperature. There are two bits of evidence for this relationship. the first is atomic. the Atoms of these substances trap heat - this can be lab tested. Secondly temperature reconstruction from O16/18 ratios (and other methods) relate pretty well with green house gas records.


and then on top of all that we have the disputed modern temperature recordings.

[Ampersand]

Precisely.

The accusations based on these hacked emails rely on ad hominem attacks, rather than data that points a contrary point of view. Of course, we don't know if these emails were edited in any way. Or if they were taken out of context, or anything about them. They were simply posted anonymously on wikileaks. If I go post anonymously on wikileaks fake scientist emails that say they faked data proving that smoking causes cancer, it'd get laughed at.