How many scientists really dispute global warming?

What makes you think sunspot activity is being ignored? It has been extensively studied and the output of the sun is incorporated into the IPCC models.

"Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity—and they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies available to back up that claim.

Peter Foukal of the Massachusetts-based firm Heliophysics, Inc., who has tracked sunspot intensities from different spots around the globe dating back four centuries, also concludes that such solar disturbances have little or no impact on global warming. Nevertheless, he adds, most up-to-date climate models—including those used by the United Nations’ prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—incorporate the effects of the sun’s variable degree of brightness in their overall calculations."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sun-spots-and-climate-change

 

1) I believe you and take your word for it, as it is rational to me. The motion example you gave is also interesting, I didn't know
that.

2a) I agree with this as well.
2b) Disagree here, where is the evidence of useful forecasts? I am completely serious, if they are so accurate then I would like to see the forecasts and the results in order for me to believe in said "usefulness". If these results exist then there could not be any dispute whatsoever, which is why I doubt their existence. Also, that same model would have to remain unaltered, otherwise well... I'm sure u can see the problems that would arise if it were to change (something like curve fitting comes to mind).

3) I am not denying anything in this argument. I do have a major problem however; "In the absence of mathematical proofs" is an issue for me. Basing models on assumptions... is flawed, at least flawed enough for anyone rational to not believe in the model's predictions without question. Basing predictions on the weight of evidence is fine and logical, but let's not pretend it is anywhere close to accurate. I believe the market analogy is much more relevant this time around, for example most people knew the real estate market was overvalued (in specific areas if u lived there), long (years) before the crash. However very few people predicted it with anything even close to resembling accuracy, including myself.

Another issue is the CO2 lag/lead, even that article does not fully explain it, and admits as much in this sentence "The exact mechanism of how the deep ocean gives up its CO2 is not fully understood but believed to be related to vertical ocean mixing".

I know that u are more knowledgeable than I am on the subject, so I would simply like for u to give me your opinion of the chart posted earlier on the same skeptical science website, of the sun's output. IMO it is extremely flawed and essentially worthless, yet it has been touted as "overwhelming evidence" in this thread.

BTW I agree that the weight of evidence supports global warming. However, I 99% disagree that it can/is being predicted accurately, and most importantly that the consequences of it are as dire as some would have us believe. In other words, I am entirely indifferent to it, and I think that any logical person would never even consider to give up their profession/business/hobby etc, over a prediction of the future. And CaptainObvious articulated why "predicting" day and night is not quite the same as predicting the future, much better than I did.

 

Yes it is. It is a fact that the earth has a temp, it is a fact that it always has, and that as long as it exists it will have a temp. Every other body in the universe also has one, with the exception possibly of black holes, which are kinda the opposite of the rest.

 

Quite right - it is not an assumption - I misread the sentence. But if you are going to project that fact into the future, it is a prediction, albeit one with as close to certainty as possible. There have been many facts in the past that have been overturned by new knowledge or new discovery (e.g. the earth is flat). Now do I believe this will be a fact in the future? Absolutely - just as I believe in other core physics.

Does the evidence of global climate change match the probability/confidence of the temp example? Absolutely not. Does it meet a level where I believe it is happening, that we have a decent understanding of what is causing it, and that we believe it will happen in the future (and the consequences of it happening) - yes, I believe we do. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

 

Ok, that is pretty much splitting hairs though. For example what do we actually KNOW? I know when I am hungry, thirsty etc, aside from that nothing is 100% certain. But the temp example is, as u said, as close to certainty as possible.

This sentence "There have been many facts in the past that have been overturned by new knowledge or new discovery", concisely sums up my argument AGAINST global warming, or more specifically the exact causes and consequences of it. Backed by the very small % of the total data in existence that we actually have (in reference to the history of our climate and the Sun's output.)

I agree with the rest of your post. I would only ask that as a believer in the causes and consequences of AGW, do u believe that we should halt all detrimental activities by force if necessary, to stop it.

 

Well, take a class is epistemology and then tell me what you know.

Your second point - that there is new information that overturns the global climate change thesis - as far as I can see (in reading major papers), while there are minor squabbles over different aspects of climate change, there is a serious lack of papers that overturn it. There maybe a few here and there, but overall, the literature doesn't have a lot of variation on whether it exists or whether man is causing it - most scientists now understand that as a well understood concept but would change if there was new evidence brought forward that disproves the thesis.

The skeptics have forced more transparency on the science (which is a good thing), but now I put the ball back in the skeptic's camp in my opinion. The skeptics have the data, and the models (GISS models are free for anyone to download) - so let's see some science disproving it. Until I see that, I see no reason to doubt the conclusions.

Now to your final point - what to do about global climate change? It may sound silly based on what I've posted, but I don't think it matters what I think about what to do - the reality of the situation is that the US government is unlikely, under either Democrats or Republicans to do anything terribly meaningful. The US government seems to be almost completely captured by business interests, who, now let loose to spend as much as they want, will take the natural step of just buying the Congress outright, thus stopping any reform possibilities.

And I'm saddened by that - even if you don't believe in global climate change, I think reducing our oil consumption (and thereby reducing our carbon output - taking into account the "moving the tailpipe syndrome) by using other energy products to power our cars is, to me, a national security issue. Who knows if Congress will be able to pass something supporting that outside of the Cap and Trade bill - it will be interesting to watch.

 

I had to take philosophy in HS and college, and I can't remember much about epistemology... but enough to get your point.

After re-reading my second point I didn't make it clearly. I was not implying that this evidence has already been uncovered, just that it MAY be. Based only on the vast amount of historical data that exists, from which we have very small % of, and that some of the physical principles are not fully understood. Also I didn't know the models were available on the GISS website, since I am bored for the next few days maybe I will check them out.

 

And yet, when it is pointed out to you that the lasr few years have cooled, you and your ilk don't hesitate to point out that solar activity is at a minimum to explain away that cooling.

Sounds like you've just exposed your hypocrisy, Dave.

 

The last few years have NOT cooled - that is a complete fantasy. This is the hottest decade on record. Nobody is explaining it away because of a low in the solar cycle, even though there is a low in the short term solar cycle. GISS temperature record shows 2009 as the second hottest year by a whisker. You are seriously misinformed:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/

 

If you want to look at the models you may also like to have a look here:

http://clearclimatecode.org/

Which is a project to rewrite the GISS models code in Python and to do a general cleanup to make it more understandable and more accessible. They are effectively auditing the GISS code as they go along and have reported a couple of minor bugs to GISS.

Interestingly, their results are in very close agreement with GISS.