There is No Evidence

sceptic guide 1 Minute

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

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 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:

Both trends are definitely and significantly up.  As well as the direct measurements of surface temperature, there are many other measurements and indicators that support the general direction and magnitude of the change the earth is currently undergoing.  The following diverse empirical observations lead us to the same unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:

There is simply no room for doubt: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend.

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

“There is No Evidence” was first published here, where you can still find the original comment thread. This updated version is also posted on the Grist website, where additional comments can be found, though the author, Coby Beck, does not monitor or respond there.

Published by Coby Beck

Published

56 thoughts on “There is No Evidence”

  1. I suspect you would not know a radiosonde even if it bit you on the arse.

    I found one once, and followed the instructions to return it to its masters (USPS does it on a pre-paid government account).

    The rest of your post is equally accurate.

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  2. No this is not correct dhogaza, we have covered this before but i will persist for the time being

    You, and other denialists, can repeat this lie until you’re blue in the face, won’t make it true.

    Climate science predicts that warming due to any cause will lead to a tropospheric hotspot. Claiming it does not then arguing against your claim is a strawman argument.

    The problems with radiosondes are well-documented. If there weren’t problems, there wouldn’t be people working so hard to undo the problems.

    When you post as you did above, it makes it very clear that you’re not in the least bit serious, so I’m not going to bother trying to drag up sources for you. Especially since you seem incapable of understanding that IPCC predictions of a tropospheric hotspot due to CO2-forced warming IN NO WAY CONTRADICTS THE SCIENCE PREDICTING IT WOULD HAPPEN REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE OF THAT WARMING.

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  3. Crakar will just ignore this, but …

    “Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human induced global warming. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved.

    This difference between models and observations may arise from errors that are common to all models, from errors in the observational data sets, or from a combination of these factors. The second explanation is favored, but the issue is still open.”

    This is from a recent assessment co-authored by John Christy, no friend of AGW.

    “the second explanation” referred to is “from errors in the observational data sets”, i.e. radiosondes and satellite.

    For the record, the RSS product matches up well with model predictions, it’s UAH and radiosonde data that don’t.

    Given the past history with UAH, and the fact that they’ve got some strange seasonal cycles in their reported anomalies that didn’t appear into a sensor/algorithm switch a few years back (John Christy is on record agreeing that it’s weird and a problem), and that RSS has had a history of uncovering UAH problems, and that the radiosonde dataset has severe problems, one can’t say that the hotspot is missing and “proves models wrong”.

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  4. crakar,

    I had a look at your AR4 link (AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf) and the graphs you referenced. I think you, or the site your are getting this from, are misinterpreting them. They show six images, one for each of solar, volcanic, GHG, ozone, sulphates and all forcings, images of the zonal warming by height in the atmosphere.

    I believe that these are produced using the observed forcings, and therefore are not what we would expect to see if, for example, all of the recent warming were from solar, or all from ozone etc. So you can not take the observed warming pattern and meaningfully compare it to any one of the individual forcing graphs.

    For a comparison of solar forcing vs CO2 forcing of equal and large magnitudes see this Real Climate article and the graphs in that.

    I think that the real signature of an enhanced greenhouse is a cooling stratosphere, and this observation is much clearer that the observations of only mild warming in the tropical troposphere (findings of which are already being contradicted).

    crakar, doesn’t the stratospheric cooling strike you as requiring some explanation?

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  5. I think that the real signature of an enhanced greenhouse is a cooling stratosphere…

    Yes, that’s what scientists working in the field say, at least …

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