27 October 2011
Climate Skeptics Find The Truth Is Getting Ever More Inconvenient
Posted by Dan Satterfield
The BEST study tracks very close to the previous land surface temp. reconstructions. ( Note this graphic added after I published the original post)
One of U.C. Berkeley’s most popular undergraduate courses is Physics For Future Presidents. It’s taught by Professor Richard Muller who is a very well-known physicist who has worked in nuclear and particle physics at U.C. Berkeley and is a senior faculty member at Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory. His book, Physics For Future Presidents, is absolutely excellent as well and I highly recommend it, but this is a story about climate change and the dwindling number of skeptics.
It seems that Dr. Muller made some comments that seemed a bit skeptical about climate change a few years back and he rapidly became the darling of those who do not believe the mountain of scientific evidence that the planet is warming. The skeptic numbers have continued to diminish and among those with a background in atmospheric physics, only about 2% are in disagreement with the consensus. The overwhelming majority of those who think that the planet is not getting warmer, or that the warming is a natural fluctuation, have little scientific background.
So what fuels their anger and mistrust?
It’s simple, they don’t believe because it is very inconvenient to do so. If climate change is real, (and it is) then fossil fuels are going to get more expensive as we switch to renewable sources of energy. If you sell oil and oil products, then you are likely to make less profit in the future, and that can be VERY inconvenient. In other words, the vast majority of those who doubt climate change are worried about the consequences to their pocket-book! I worry about that as well, but I recognize that the scientific reality of rising greenhouse gases is a separate question from what we do about it.
When Dr. Muller announced that he was going to do a separate study of the surface temperature record to confirm once and for all is the planet was getting warmer, the skeptic community rejoiced. Finally the truth would come out! A prominent blogger and TV weather man (not a meteorologist) even announced that he would abide by the results of Muller’s study. Keep in mind that NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office have long ago done the same thing, and their results are all very close to each other and confirm that we are indeed warming.
Update: Peter Sinclair has a rather hilarious (but very accurate) video out on this very subject (embedded below).
Dr. Richard Muller
Now, science is all about showing your work and others being able to replicate your results, so this attempt was welcomed by most, and perhaps some mistakes would be found. The skeptics waited impatiently for the “truth” to finally come out, and prove that climate science was the hogwash they’d convinced themselves of. Unfortunately, my favorite scientific quotation ( from Neil deGrasse Tyson) rules again: “The laws of physics are real, everything else is politics!
Dr. Muller’s study confirmed what NASA, NOAA and 97.5% of the world’s climate experts already knew, the planet is warming. Muller wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal and it is well worth a read. Not that it will convince their editorial board who regularly rely on long exposed myths to proclaim otherwise. Chris Mooney has more about this in an excellent post here. Oh, and if you’re still clinging to the belief that it is heat from cities, John Cook over at Skeptical Science has something you should read first.
Questions about the study? Go here.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.
Personally, I do not see the human race as a threat to this planet. The Earth is approx. 4.54 billion years old. We have only been involved in heavy industry for around 200 years. The nerve to think that somehow we’re a threat to this little blue/green ball floating around the sun is arrogant. The truth of the matter is that there are not solid records that go back far enough. We all know that ours along with every other planet go through cycles. What is to say that this isn’t the case. I for one do not think that what we have done in a little over 200 years has affected a 4.5 billion year old planet that severely. You want to bring data to the table well, I want a temp. graph that covers now back around 200,000 years so I can look for a pattern to prove myself wrong.
Who said we are a threat to the planet?? The planet will do just fine at a warmer temperature. The species of flora/fauna that inhabit it will change dramatically. Earth in the past could not support humans and it will not likely do so in the future. The rest of your argument is laughably weak.
Before claiming something silly like humans cannot change this planet, take readings of air pollution levels in Antarctica and in the middle of the Pacific. Take a look at the concentration of greenhouse gases over the last century and tell us why the laws of nuclear physics are wrong and the planet will not warm as greenhouse gases rise.
To be honest those of you who are skeptics, are your own worst enemy. You make claims that show an incredible lack of scientific knowledge. If you think every major scientific body on Earth has it wrong- learn what they know, and then write up why and submit it to a journal. Then you will get the attention of the science community. Oh, and the temperature record for the last 400,000 years from the Vostok Ice core is here: http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/wp-content/files/2007/06/last_400000_years.png
Care to explain it for us?? Hint- google Milankovitch to start.
Jason Elser, what cycles are you suggesting, and what solid records are there to prove those ?