How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

[RedEarth]

......below is just a partial list on the Gristmill site........


How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic


Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:

Stages of Denial,
Scientific Topics,
Types of Argument, and
Levels of Sophistication.
Individual articles will appear under multiple headings and may even appear in multiple subcategories in the same heading.


Stages of Denial
There's nothing happening
Inadequate evidence
There is no evidence
One record year is not global warming
The temperature record is simply unreliable
One hundred years is not enough
Glaciers have always grown and receded
Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect
Mauna Loa is a volcano
The scientists aren't even sure
Contradictory evidence
It's cold today in Wagga Wagga
Antarctic ice is growing
The satellites show cooling
What about mid-century cooling?
Global warming stopped in 1998
But the glaciers are not melting
Antarctic sea ice is increasing
Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
Sea level in the Arctic is falling
Some sites show cooling
No consensus
Global warming is a hoax
There is no consensus
Position statements hide debate
Consensus is collusion
Peiser refuted Oreskes
We don't know why it's happening
Models don't work
We cannot trust unproven computer models
The models don't have clouds
If aerosols are blocking the sun, the south should warm faster
Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
Prediction is impossible
We can't even predict the weather next week
Chaotic systems are not predictable
We can't be sure
The modelers won't tell us how confident they are in the models
Hansen has been wrong before
If we can't understand the past, how can we understand the present?
The scientists aren't even sure
They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
Climate change is natural

plus much more...........

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics?source=daily

[Ellis Wyatt]

1. confusing graphs

does this:


chart from this: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/26/20495/240 page, show evidence that the temparatures are no hotter now than they have been numerous times in the past? And moreso, that there is a very distinct and repeatable pattern of about 100,000 years where the earth gradually cools and then dramatically increases in temperature? And that the argument could be made that we are merely near the peak of this temperature cycle?

The reason I went to that specific link (the first one I clicked) is that the argument I hear is that "100 years or even 10,000 years is not enough to look. The planet is billions of years old. Show me history of the temperature of the earth for a few hundred thousand years, and if the 'hockey stick' pattern still exists, I'll buy into man-made global warming 100%".

Am I reading the chart wrong, or does the 100,000+ year (and even borderline the 10,000 year) chart actually SUPPORTING EVIDENCE against humankind-caused global warming?

[Ellis Wyatt]

2. hello

anyone? Bueller?

[GliderGuider]

3. The main problems with that chart are its time insensitivity and the source of the data

In other words, it doesn't show very rapid change such as we have had recently because the time scale is too compressed. In addition the data is drawn from ice cores, which means that recent changes in GHG concentrations have not been captured.

The "0" on the time scale is actually several hundred years out of date. It's showing CO2 concentrations of around 280 ppm, and CH4 concentrations of around 700 ppb. From the references I've found, those concentrations were correct in about 1800. The current CO2 concentration is 380 ppm and the current CH4 concentration is 1745 ppb - both way off the top of that chart. In fact, the current CO2 level is 25% higher than the highest recorded peak, and is still climbing at 2.5% per year. CH4 has stabilized, but at a level 150% higher than in 1750 (i.e. 2.5 times the levels in 1750). Once you add the current measured CO2 and CH4 concentrations to the graph - bingo, the hockey stick comes back.

Combine that with the fact that greenhouse-driven temperature rise exhibits hysteresis (it happens after the forcing influence is applied to the system) and it's easy to see why this graph is unhelpful in analyzing the current situation. Temperature behaviour over the last 400,000 years provides little evidence about what is going to happen in the next 100 years, simply because the GHG composition of the atmosphere is different than it has ever been in that period. Given that earth's regulatory mechanisms (plant growth and ocean uptake) have been compromised by other human activities, and it's easy to see why the smart money is all betting on anthropogenic climate change.

[Ellis Wyatt]

4. thanks

If the chart is wrong, they should just take it off the site.

Becuase the chart, as it is, makes a pretty clear case against any concerns about climate control. It makes it seem like the changes we've seen over the last hundred, thousand, and even 10,000 years are no different than what the earth has seen multiple times before.

[GliderGuider]

6. The chart isn't "wrong" exactly

It's just poorly explained, and the context in which it should be interpreted isn't made clear. It does show that the earth's climate experienced major fluctuations before there was industrial civilization (or even people), and that's good to know. However, it's not a good idea to conclude "because there were climate changes before there were people, then people aren't a factor in the current changes" - the historical evidence doesn't support that leap of faith. The chart needs a much better explanation.

[Kolesar]

5. The list loses a lot without the links to the answers to each "denier talking point"

[Viking12]

7. Try Coby's original site, A Few Things Ill-Considered

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-global-warming-sceptic.html

[RedEarth]

8. I checked several of the sites and they did provide links to the

answers....

The first

Stages of Denial
There's nothing happening
Inadequate evidence
There is no evidence ........link provided is this below...


(Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide)

Objection: Despite what the computer models tell us, there is actually no evidence of significant global warming.

Answer: Global warming is not an output of computer models; it is a conclusion based on observations of a great many global indicators. By far the most straightforward evidence is the actual surface temperature record. While there are places -- in England, for example -- that have records going back several centuries, the two major global temperature analyses can only go back around 150 years due to their requirements for both quantity and distribution of temperature recording stations.

These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:

.........here are two links they provide..below these two are are more eight more links....

NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis
CRU direct surface temperature analysis

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/25/181237/51

[Nihil]

9. This technique sometimes works too ...