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Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens in global warming skepticism. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet eagerly, even blindly embrace any argument, op-ed piece, blog or study that refutes global warming. So this website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say? Tuesday, 9 February, 2010Working out future sea level rise from the pastPredicting future sea level rise is tough. A growing contributor to sea level rise is ice sheets that break off into the ocean. However, ice sheet dynamics are non-linear and difficult to predict. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report essentially ignores ice sheet dynamics, predicting sea level rise of 18 to 59 cm by 2100. More recent research accounting for accelerating ice sheets predict sea level rise of 75 cm to 2 metres by 2100 (Vermeer 2009, Pfeffer 2008). Even these latest predictions admit they may not fully predict the non-linear aspect of ice sheet dynamics. However, there is another way to determine future sea level rise that neatly sidesteps the complexities of non-linear dynamics. Look at how sea level has responded to temperature change in the past. Posted by John Cook at 12:21 AM | 9 commentsSunday, 7 February, 2010Could climate shifts be causing global warming?The work of Tsonis and Swanson are often cited as evidence against man-made global warming. Their research suggests our climate is subject to dramatic regime shifts. At key moments, the climate shifts from a warm regime to a cool regime, or vica versa. They claim climate shifts occured around 1910, 1940, 1976 and 2001. Some have interpreted this work to say climate shifts can explain the last few decades of global warming. Richard Lindzen's take is that 'this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century'. Is this what Tsonis and Swanson's research shows? The best people to answer this question are the authors themselves as they address this very question in their peer-reviewed work. Posted by John Cook at 7:29 PM | 31 commentsThursday, 4 February, 2010What the IPCC and peer-reviewed science say about Amazonian forestsA recent 'scandal' being trumpeted around the blogosphere is an apparent error in the IPCC Fourth Assessment report. In this case, the IPCC's source on Amazonian forests came not from peer-review but from a WWF report. In one sense, this criticism has a degree of validity - one should always seek to use peer-reviewed science as their primary source of information. In fact, kudos to those championing peer-review! Ironically, the same critics who lambast the IPCC for not citing peer-review have shown little evidence of doing the same. To demonstrate, let's compare the IPCC statements and what the peer-review literature actually says. Posted by John Cook at 4:00 PM | 56 commentsMonday, 1 February, 2010The role of stratospheric water vapor in global warmingThere's been a number of queries regarding a new paper examining the role of stratospheric water vapor in global warming. The paper is Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming (Solomon 2010). There are a few overly excited interpretations of the paper's results circulating around the blogosphere. This is presumably from readings of media clippings, not the actual paper. To accurately determine the significance of Solomon 2010, the best course is to see what the paper actually says. Posted by John Cook at 10:15 AM | 67 commentsFriday, 29 January, 2010Lessons from the Monckton/Plimer debateEarlier today, I attended a climate debate between Ian Plimer and Christopher Monckton versus Barry Brooks and Graham Readfern at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane (many thanks to Graham for the ticket). The debate made for good entertainment, and surprisingly, I even learnt a thing or two about the climate debate. Even more surprisingly, the most enlightening aspects came from Monckton and Plimer. Posted by John Cook at 5:42 PM | 105 commentsThursday, 28 January, 2010Guest post in Guardian on microsite influencesAfter the recent post on microsite influences, I was asked to write on the subject for the Guardian Environment Blog. So here it is, Climate sceptics distract us from the scientific realities of global warming (I didn't write that headline, btw, I suggested "On measuring temperature: how data analysis trumps photographs" but apparently headlines with the phrase "data analysis" just aren't sexy enough). It's basically a less technical version of the original blog post along with an introduction to the concept of microsite influences (while studiously not using the term 'microsite influences' once). The one thing the article does do, I believe, is more succinctly explain how poorly sited weather stations produce a cooler trend: Posted by John Cook at 9:51 AM | 30 commentsWednesday, 27 January, 2010The upcoming ice age has been postponed indefinitelyThe 9th most popular skeptic argument is that we're heading into an ice age. The whole premise of the website Ice Age Now is that a new ice age could begin any day. Considering the skeptic aversion towards alarmism, it's surprising that this idea has gained so much traction. In the interest of lowering skeptics' stress levels, its time to put all those ice age fears to rest once and for all. Posted by John Cook at 8:26 PM | 43 commentsSunday, 24 January, 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warmingIf the IPCC's mistaken prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 taught us anything, it's that we should always source our information from peer reviewed scientific literature rather than media articles. Consequently, I've spent the weekend overhauling the list of positives and negatives of global warming so that all sources were peer reviewed. The list is by no means comprehensive and I welcome any comments mentioning other impacts of global warming found in peer reviewed papers (good or bad). Please include a link to either the abstract or if possible, the full paper. Note to skeptics - here is an opportunity to pad out the positive column if you can find peer reviewed papers outlining any benefits of global warming. Posted by John Cook at 11:48 PM | 92 commentsFriday, 22 January, 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature RecordThe website surfacestations.org enlisted an army of volunteers, travelling across the U.S. photographing weather stations. The point of this effort was to document cases of microsite influence - weather stations located near car parks, air conditioners and airport tarmacs and anything else that might impose a warming bias. While photos can be compelling, the only way to quantify any microsite influence is through analysis of the data. This has been done in On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (Menne 2010), published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The trends from poorly sited weather stations are compared to well-sited stations. The results indicate that yes, there is a bias associated with poor exposure sites. However, the bias is not what you expect. Posted by John Cook at 10:10 PM | 192 commentsFriday, 22 January, 2010The chaos of confusing the conceptsGuest post by Jacob Bock Axelsen Posted by Jacob Bock Axelsen at 8:06 AM | 42 comments |
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