Arguments
Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial.
2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
Posted on 5 September 2021 by BaerbelW
The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: From tweet to updated rebuttal - a little saga, The Person Who Lies To You The Most…. Is You, Here’s what makes a new Amazon carbon study so unnerving, How to do your own research, and How easily the climate crisis can become global chaos.
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From tweet to updated rebuttal - a little saga
Posted on 3 September 2021 by BaerbelW
This blog post tells the little saga of how a tweet aimed at Repustar's @Fact Sparrow led to a quickly drafted new Fact Brief and how our internal review of the brief made it clear in turn that our related rebuttals were in dire need of updates as well.
The Tweet
On July 19, Spencer Fletcher tweeted the question "Why was there an ice age in the paleozoic era even though CO2 was 3000 ppm?" at @Fact Sparrow, Repustar's friendly fact delivery bot:
FactSparrow logged Fletcher's concern about this topic and promised to keep looking for more information. Acting on this promise included a notifcation from Repustar's staff to our team, to see if we - as one of Repustar's content partners - could help out with a new Fact Brief to answer Spencer's question.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021
Posted on 2 September 2021 by doug_bostrom
124 articles by 744 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Tropical teleconnection impacts on Antarctic climate changes
Li et al. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment
10.1038/s43017-021-00204-5
Interpreting the Dependence of Cloud-Radiative Adjustment on Forcing Agent
Salvi et al. Geophysical Research Letters
Open Access 10.1029/2021gl093616
Observations of climate change, effects
The “Hockey Stick” imprint in Northwest African speleothems
Sha et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094232
Toward an ice-free mountain range: demise of Pyrenean glaciers during 2011–2020
Vidaller et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094339
Rapid rises in the magnitude and risk of extreme regional heat wave events in China
Wang & Yan Weather and Climate Extremes
Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2021.100379
A Comparison of the Variability and Changes in Global Ocean Heat Content from Multiple Objective Analysis Products during the Argo Period
Liang et al. Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli-d-20-0794.1
(provisional link) Novel and disappearing climates in the global surface ocean from 1800 to 2100
10.1038/s41598-021-94872-4
Extreme climatic characteristics near the coastline of the southeast region of Brazil in the last 40 years
de Oliveira et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Open Access 10.1007/s00704-021-03711-z
The South Pacific Pressure Trend Dipole and the Southern Blob
Garreaud et al. Journal of Climate
10.1175/jcli-d-20-0886.1
Trends in soil temperature in the Icelandic highlands from 1977–2019
Petersen International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7366
Observed and estimated consequences of climate change for the fire weather regime in the moist-temperate climate of the Czech Republic
Trnka et al. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108583
Comprehensive observational features for the Kuroshio transport decreasing trend during a recent global warming hiatus
Liu et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl094169
Recurrent pattern of extreme fire weather in California
Son et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748-9326/ac1f44
Thinking is Power: Are you a Critical Thinker?
Posted on 1 September 2021 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public.
Learn how to think, not what to think
Everyone thinks. And everyone thinks they’re good at thinking.
But good thinking is hard, and it doesn’t come naturally. It’s a skill that has to be learned and practiced. Our brains are adapted to keep us alive by making quick decisions to avoid predators and by forming strong emotional bonds with members of our tribes. Trusting that your brain inherently knows how to reason is a recipe for being misled. And it doesn’t matter how smart or educated you are. No one can lie to us better than we can.
Unfortunately, many of those who are most convinced that they are the true critical thinkers are actually doing the exact opposite. We all know who they are. They confidently air their opinions as fact and hide factually incorrect assertions behind an “opinion shield.” They oversimplify complex issues and are unwilling or unable to entertain nuance and detail. Due to a lack of substantive arguments, they resort to childish name-calling (eg “sheep,” and “fake news”), and proclaim that those who disagree with them are “stupid” and need to “think for themselves.” Ironically, they have inoculated themselves against critical thinking…..if you’re convinced you’re using “evidence” and “logic” and “know the truth,” why would you entertain the possibility that you’re wrong and need to learn new skills?
Here’s what makes a new Amazon carbon study so unnerving
Posted on 31 August 2021 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson
The sixth major assessment of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – which landed with an existential thud on our collective doorstep in August – confirms why we need to be profoundly concerned about parts of the Amazon shifting from a carbon sink to a carbon source, a finding reported in the journal Nature in June.
Just under half of the carbon dioxide (CO2) pumped out by human activity each year accumulates in Earth’s atmosphere. The other 56% is dutifully soaked up by the planet’s oceans and vegetation. That absorption has grown in remarkable sync with emissions themselves, the IPCC noted. There are year-to-year ups and downs, largely associated with El Niño and La Niña, but the average fraction of emitted CO2 going into ocean and land sinks has remained nearly constant for the past six decades.
It’s a prime example of what researchers like to call an “ecosystem service”: something our living planet does that happens to help us out.
A partial ‘transition from carbon sink to source’
Ecologists and climate scientists have marveled at the planet’s ever-growing carbon sink even as they’ve worried about its ability to keep up with fossil fuel use. Now, a new Amazon study has yielded the starkest evidence to date of a region where the tide has turned and the landscape is consistently giving up more carbon than it can absorb. If additional land areas become sources instead of sinks over time, it could hobble our ability to slow and eventually reverse the nonstop buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The transition from sink to source in the southeast Amazon became evident through monthly sampling via aircraft from 2010 through 2018: at four sites across the Amazon, as documented in the Nature study led by researcher Luciana Gatti of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The southeast Amazon falls squarely in the long-time “arc of deforestation” that’s been pushing relentlessly toward the central Amazon.
The other three areas, where forests are less depleted, were found to be either carbon-neutral or serving as weak carbon sinks. But in the southeast Amazon, deforestation and heating are pouring carbon into the atmosphere while cutting back on the region’s carbon absorption.
“Emissions come from fire initially, and later from the decomposition,” said Gatti in an interview.
Catastrophic Hurricane Ida hits Louisiana with 150 mph winds
Posted on 30 August 2021 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson
Category 4 Hurricane Ida struck a catastrophic blow on Louisiana, making landfall at the key oil industry hub of Port Fourchon at 11:55 a.m. CDT August 29, with 150 mph winds and a central pressure of 930 mb. Remarkably, today is also the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005. Katrina, the most expensive weather disaster in world history, at $176 billion, caused between 1085 and 1389 deaths.
Only four hurricanes (all Cat 5s) have made landfall in the contiguous U.S. with stronger winds than Ida, and Ida is tied with Laura of 2020 and the 1856 Last Island Hurricane as the strongest ever to hit Louisiana. As measured by central pressure at landfall, Ida ranks as the ninth-strongest to hit the contiguous U.S., and second-strongest to hit Louisiana. Only Hurricane Katrina of 2005, with a 920 mb pressure at landfall near Buras, had a lower pressure.
Ida is the second major hurricane of the 2021 season; Grace also became a major hurricane earlier this month as it hit Mexico. The most recent Atlantic hurricane season with two or more major hurricanes by August 29 was 2005 – the year of Katrina.
According to Brian McNoldy, Ida’s Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE, a measure of the total destructive power of hurricane, based on the size of its wind field) was 36 terajoules (TJ) at 11 a.m. EDT Sunday, an increase of 64% from the 22 TJ it had 24 hours previously. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina’s IKE at landfall was 113 TJ. Thus, Katrina’s surge had a lot more destructive power than Ida’s. However, Ida’s wind damage and fresh water flooding damage will likely exceed that of Katrina – particularly since Ida is hitting a key area of U.S infrastructure.
2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Posted on 29 August 2021 by BaerbelW
The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: Eunice Newton Foote’s nearly forgotten discovery, As denying climate change becomes impossible, fossil-fuel interests pivot to 'carbon shaming', Cartoonists’ ‘Code Red’ caricatures of new IPCC report, and Europe’s July floods: So rare and extreme, they’re hard to study .
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Why trying to prove yourself wrong is the key to being right
Posted on 27 August 2021 by Guest Author, BaerbelW
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public.
The difference between falsifiable and unfalsifiable beliefs
Tony Green was convinced that the threat of the virus was being overblown… it was no worse than the flu. It was a scamdemic.
As a gay conservative, he was used to fighting for respect, but staying true to his values was important to him. He voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and thought the pandemic was a hoax created by the mainstream media and the Democrats to crash the economy and destroy Trump’s chances at re-election. A self-described “hard-ass,” he stood up for his “God-given rights,” and made fun of people for wearing masks and social distancing. He liked his freedom, and he didn’t want the government telling him what to do.
So when the lockdown restrictions lifted, he organized a weekend getaway with his family. It was summer and they hadn’t seen each other in months. It was time to enjoy life.
On Saturday, June 13, he and his partner hosted both sets of their parents at their home. On Sunday, he woke up sick. And by Monday, his partner and his parents were sick. Also on Monday, his in-laws traveled to witness the birth of their first grandchild. Later that night his father-in law was sick….then his mother-in-law…. and their daughter…
And on it went.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #34, 2021
Posted on 26 August 2021 by doug_bostrom
AMS State of the Climate in 2020: Pay Attention
Only a couple of weeks ago the IPCC released its AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis synthesis report, the latest of a series of comprehensive, deeply sourced periodic updates describing our best understanding of how Earth's climate functions, and how it will malfunction if we misbehave and thereby alter the system, the "how we can change the climate, and what will happen if we do" perspective on anthropogenic climate change. The report focuses on matters relatively abstract with respect to our daily lives. This latest IPCC report tilts more to the perspective of what will happen in the future, and why.
This week sees the American Meteorlogical Society (AMS) publish what might be called the third leg of our climate change information perch, State of the Climate in 2020 (PDF, 26MB), the "knowing what we do, how are we doing?" assessment from the best of our information at our closest fully recorded moment in time. Similarly to the IPCC's AR6, this is a massive review and synthesis of research literature from a broad span of domains connected by climate change but (naturally given it's the AMS) with a more meteorological bent. Compared to the AR6, this is a more observationally based effort. Taking into account authors of works cited to describe the present climate situation, as with the AR6 there are thousands of researchers contrbuting to this synopsis.
So, how are we doing? In a nutshell, we're not living up to our potential. A few excerpts from the report's executive summary (PDF, 11MB) paint for us the general picture, not a hypothetical scenario but what is happening now:
Can Hydrogen Fuel Power the Planet?
Posted on 25 August 2021 by Guest Author
Stopping climate change is complex, but one wonder solution has been hyped beyond almost any other: hydrogen. What can this fuel do to stop global warming, and why isn't it the silver bullet that many suggest?
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: http://patreon.com/climateadam
IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate
Posted on 24 August 2021 by Guest Author
The first major IPCC report for seven years sheds light on the past, present and future of climate change. But what do we now know about global warming, and how will it reshape the path we choose over the next decades and centuries? I break down my key take aways from the IPCC AR6 WG1 (6th assessment report, working group 1).
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: http://patreon.com/climateadam
1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of additional global warming: Does it make a difference?
Posted on 23 August 2021 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman
Remember these: Severe heat waves in U.S. Pacific Northwest and in British Columbia and Siberia;
And this: Historic flooding in Germany and other parts of Western Europe;
These too: Oregon, California, Montana, and other parts of the West experiencing searing wildfires;
And this: New York City, Philadelphia, and the Nation’s Capital and other parts of the eastern seaboard shrouded in western wildfire smoke;
And keep this in mind: Rising concerns of a “megadrought” across several western states.
And these are just in the first half of one year, 2021. Collectively, they all point to a world in the grip of weather extremes fueled by the continuing rise of emissions of human-made (technical term: anthropogenic) atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Approaching November 2021, when the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) is to convene in Glasgow, Scotland, amid continuing global pandemic concerns, the reality is that the number and severity of extreme weather events are overtaking efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate change is moving faster than we are,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said back in 2018 in his address to the UN General Assembly – a statement that in hindsight now rings especially true.
At more than 420 parts per million, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are the highest in recorded history … and still climbing.*
The essential goal of the Paris agreement of 2015 has been to limit the rise in average global temperatures to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels – a time period centered roughly on the mid-19th century. The aspirational or wished-for objective of the agreement is to strive for a rise in temperatures that doesn’t exceed 1.5° C (an increase of 1.5°C = about 2.7°F of additional warming, an increase of 2°C = about 3.6°F).
But with carbon dioxide levels in the global atmosphere topping 420 parts per million – the highest level in recorded history – the 1.5°C target appears to many experts to be out of reach. A United Nations report in 2018 concluded as much, saying back then that average global temperatures will likely reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels sometime between 2030 and 2052 if emissions continue rising as they have been.
2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Posted on 22 August 2021 by BaerbelW
The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: When the Far Right Picks Fights With a Teen, Volunteer opportunity turned into a big win for SkS and students!, Guide to the Most Common Logical Fallacies, IPCC Sixth Climate Assessment. Will this one make the blindest bit of difference? and BLOWING UP THE DEATH STAR WILL COST ALDERAAN JOBS.
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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33, 2021
Posted on 19 August 2021 by doug_bostrom
113 articles by 627 authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Changing El Niño–Southern Oscillation in a warming climate
Cai et al. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43017-021-00199-z
Observations of climate change, effects
Earth's Energy Imbalance from the ocean perspective (2005 - 2019)
Hakuba et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl093624
Emerging new climate extremes over Europe
Ossó et al. Climate Dynamics
Open Access pdf 10.1007/s00382-021-05917-3
Rapidly expanding lake heatwaves under climate change
Woolway et al. Environmental Research Letters
Open Access 10.1088/1748-9326/ac1a3a
Changes in the spatial–temporal characteristics of daily snowfall events over the Eurasian continent from 1980 to 2019
Lin & Chen International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7339
Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Snowmelt over the Conterminous United States
Welty & Zeng Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Open Access pdf 10.1175/bams-d-20-0182.1
The Global Fingerprint of Modern Ice-Mass Loss on 3-D Crustal Motion
Coulson et al. Geophysical Research Letters
10.1029/2021gl095477
Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean 2010–2019
Solomon et al. Ocean Science
Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-17-1081-2021
Decline in plankton diversity and carbon flux with reduced sea ice extent along the Western Antarctic Peninsula
Lin et al. Nature Communications
Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-021-25235-w
Intraseasonal contributions of Arctic sea-ice loss and Pacific decadal oscillation to a century cold event during early 2020/21 winter
Zhang et al. Climate Dynamics
10.1007/s00382-021-05931-5
Arctic sea ice motion change and response to atmospheric forcing between 1979 and 2019
Zhang et al. International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7340
Thermospheric parameters’ long-term variations over the period including the 24/25 solar cycle minimum. Whether the CO2 increase effects are seen?
Mikhailov et al. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
10.1016/j.jastp.2021.105736
Arctic sea ice variation in the Northwest Passage in 1979?2017 and its response to surface thermodynamics factors
Xin-Yi et al. Advances in Climate Change Research
Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2021.08.004
A 40-Year Climatology of Summer Heavy Hourly Rainfall over Mountainous Shanxi in China
Dong & Zhang International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7344
Possible impacts of anomalous Arctic sea ice melting on summer atmosphere
Wu & Li International Journal of Climatology
10.1002/joc.7337
Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
Posted on 18 August 2021 by Guest Author, BaerbelW
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public.
The human brain is a fascinating thing. It’s capable of great things, from composing symphonies to sending people to the moon. Its ability to learn and problem solve is truly awe-inspiring.
But the brain is also capable of Olympic-level self-deception. When it wants something to be true, it masterfully searches for evidence to justify the belief. And when it doesn’t want to believe, its ability to deny or discount evidence is (unfortunately) unsurpassed.
In humanity’s search to understand the world around us, the invention of science was revolutionary. No more relying on our flawed perceptions and irrational thinking. Finally, there was a way of knowing that demanded evidence and made a systematic attempt to identify and minimize our biases. The proof was in the results: we owe much of the increase in the quality and quantity of our lives over the last century to scientific advancements.
It’s no wonder then that people trust science. Unfortunately, many don’t understand how science works and what makes it reliable, leaving people vulnerable to assertions that seem scientific… but aren’t. Charlatans who seek to elevate their claims dress them up in the trappings of science to fool those with worldviews that align with their goals. They know full well that we are most likely to fall for misinformation when we want…or don’t want…to believe.
Volunteer opportunity turned into a big win for SkS and students!
Posted on 17 August 2021 by BaerbelW
At the end of May we published our Call for Help in order to find volunteers who'd be willing to fix broken links in our rebuttals and add references of published papers to our glossary. In this blog post we'll focus on what happened for the 2nd of our volunteer opportunities, the glossary entries.
It didn't take long for the first applications to arrive and in early June we received an email from Tara Holland, who teaches climate change at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Tara had the neat idea to encourage her students to apply for the task and to turn this into one option for the final assignment of the summer semester which - incidentally - was about climate communication. What a perfect fit and intriguing suggestion!
The Assignment
We quickly agreed that from the two tasks available, identifying and adding references to our glossary was the best fit for Tara's students to work on. Within a couple of days of her making the announcement in class we started to receive their applications. Once the deadline for submissions had passed we set up a Zoom-call, so that we could get to know each other. We also used that call to explain in more detail what the task involved and what the expectations were. The students then had a few days to decide whether or not to do this assignment and we ended up with a group of six who set out to work.
Is Western U.S. experiencing a ‘megadrought’?
Posted on 16 August 2021 by greenman3610
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
The Western U.S. is shattering drought records this summer. For the first time since the drought monitor was created, over 95% of the region is in drought. Near Las Vegas, Lake Mead – the largest reservoir in the U.S. – is at its lowest level since it was built.
“This is a bigger event than the 1950s drought in the Southwest or the Dust Bowl drought in the Central Plains,” says Benjamin Cook, a climate researcher at NASA, in this new video by independent videographer Peter Sinclair. “We have to go back at least 500 years before we find any event that’s even similar in magnitude.”
Scientists have found from clues in tree rings have that intense, prolonged droughts called “megadroughts” occurred regularly during the Middle Ages. Now the West may be in another megadrought period, this one made even worse by climate change.
Climate change makes historical drought patterns more intense by increasing temperatures and thus evaporation. This poses challenges to water supplies in the West as they come primarily from surface water like the Colorado River. Much of the population growth in the Southwest happened during the 1980s and 1990s, which were relatively wet decades.
Though there have been many improvements in water use efficiency in recent decades, they have not been able to match losses from drought.
“The Colorado River drains the entire Southwest – it’s about an eighth of the U.S. The river itself is actually not that big, it’s about the size of the Hudson and if you can imagine, it’s serving 40 million people,” says Brad Udall, a research scientist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Institute. “If it suffers, everyone suffers.”
2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #33
Posted on 15 August 2021 by BaerbelW
The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: New IPCC climate report is the clearest guidebook for selecting a future, Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?, Losing Alaska: Why Our Brains Weren't Made To Deal With Climate Change, and Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32, 2021.
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The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
Posted on 13 August 2021 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report, summarized nicely on these pages by Bob Henson, much of the associated media coverage carried a tone of inevitable doom.
While United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres rightly called the report a “code red for humanity,” tucked into it are details illustrating that if – BIG IF – top-emitting countries respond to the IPCC’s alarm bells with aggressive efforts to curb carbon pollution, the worst climate outcomes remain avoidable.
The IPCC’s future climate scenarios
In the Marvel film Avengers: Infinity War, the Dr. Strange character goes forward in time to view 14,000,605 alternate futures to see all the possible outcomes of the Avengers’ coming conflict. Lacking the fictional Time Stone used in this gambit, climate scientists instead ran hundreds of simulations of several different future carbon emissions scenarios using a variety of climate models. Like Dr. Strange, climate scientists’ goal is to determine the range of possible outcomes given different actions taken by the protagonists: in this case, various measures to decarbonize the global economy.
The scenarios considered by IPCC are called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The best-case climate scenario, called SSP1, involves a global shift toward sustainable management of global resources and reduced inequity. The next scenario, SSP2, is more of a business-as-usual path with slow and uneven progress toward sustainable development goals and persisting income inequality and environmental degradation. SSP3 envisions insurgent nationalism around the world with countries focusing on their short-term domestic best interests, resulting in persistent and worsening inequality and environmental degradation. Two more scenarios, SSP4 and SSP5, consider even greater inequalities and fossil fuel extraction, but seem at odds with an international community that has agreed overwhelmingly to aim for the Paris climate targets.
The latest IPCC report’s model runs simulated two SSP1 scenarios that would achieve the Paris targets of limiting global warming to 1.5 and 2°C (2.7 and 3.6°F); one SSP2 scenario in which temperatures approach 3°C (5.4°F) in the year 2100; an SSP3 scenario with about 4°C (7.2°F) global warming by the end of the century; and one SSP5 ‘burn all the fossil fuels possible’ scenario resulting in close to 5°C (9°F), again by 2100.
Projected global average surface temperature change in each of the five SSP scenarios. (Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report)
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32, 2021
Posted on 12 August 2021 by doug_bostrom
IPCC AR6: The largest scientific literature review ever?
This week sees the latest installment of the IPCC's occasional reminders to look at the planet's dashboard and think about how it'll be feel to be sitting on the side of the road in a cloud of steam, all hot and sticky because... why? We can hardly claim not to have heard any piercing buzzers or seen any urgently flashing lights for the past few decades of our trip. By now it's becoming fairly clear that the kiddies in the back seat telling us to ignore our ears and eyes were not offering good advice.
IPCC's AR6 Climate Change 2021:The Physical Science Basis (PDF 232MB) is the product of a cooperative human enterprise unmatched in intellectual scale and scope by any other. Contrary to some reports in the popular press, a casual glance at chapter citation reference lists reveals that far more than 234 authors are involved in the fabric of the 3,949 page work. This synthesis might more accurately be thought of as having many thousands of contributing authors. Every claim and assertion in AR6 comes with a citation, and each citation leads to a research publication with its own list of authors. The foundation of evidence supporting the work is unlike any other on the planet; there is literally no other topic than anthropogenic climate change that has brought together so many experts in so many disciplines to create such a broadly comprehensive vehicle for communicating the very best of our understanding to policymakers and— more importantly— members of the public who supply policymakers with impetus and sensible instructions.
We don't have the means right now to count the total citations and total contributing authorship of AR6. But some notion of the pyramid supporting AR6 can be gleaned from our own local effort. This particular edition of New Research features 109 newly published research articles, involving 537 contributing authors. Claims and assertions in this small collection derive from and are supported by 3,637 cited earlier research works, these in their own turn produced by some 16,914 authors. Cited papers of course are similarly supported in a fabric of prior effort, findings and publications. Drillling down another level would certainly produce eye-popping results for even a jaded eye. Each work in this geometrically explosive collection is connected by a continuum of understanding and integration with earlier and later investigations. Numbers like these are just one indicator of the tragicomic loneliness and isolation of climate science deniers, when it comes to actually talking about science. So, when we hear somebody dismissing AR6 as agenda driven make believe, we may safely conclude that we're hearing simulated or real ignorance.
