you see the somewhat far-fetched but chock full o' some great special effects, (bless those gosh darned computers) movie, "the day after tomorrow"? well, this is a similar explanation for such an occurence http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm beyond that, SOME scientists will tell you that global warming doesn't necessarily refer to warmer weather but more to a warming of the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures which will engender unstable and bizarre weather, much like this most peculiar cold as the arctic tip of a witches nipple via global "warming" weather you are now experiencing in the states and europe. it all MAY just be the natural ebb and flow of the earth's climate and there may not be enough RELIABLE empirical data on something that moves in decades, if not centuries though to me, the ideas behind global warming are sound enough, chemically speaking and it COULD be the cause of the next ice age we would rather not have (though i am in thailand, so cooler wouldn't be so bad as i sit, bare ass stuck to a plastic seat in my living room). but then, there are a few places here that will be under water from it so who knows i am half blind and it may be on there but where did you get your historical chart?
can't argue with that as is as or more reliable than anything else out there. seems as if we were naturally in an uptrend these past few deci-millenia, so let's hope our perhaps tiny contribution of gases doesn't push us to new highs.
So the scientists who disagree with the current hypothesis are wrong because they don't agree with the majority? Is that how it works? Do you have any idea how often science gets it wrong before eventually getting it right? I have no doubt the science community will get it right, eventually, but when it comes to anything related to "saving the earth," a scientist who has collected data suggesting the status quo is incorrect will have to wade through miles of crap to be heard and will be belittled and endure personal attacks from their colleagues until eventually proven right, which is pretty much par for the course in the science community, particularly when it comes to humans destroying the planet.
Yes, as I recall it took a rather long time for Big Tobacco's scientists to "get it right " on the hazards of smoking. Since many of those very same scientists are now working for Big Oil, I'm confident that they will get it right again. Eventually. http://one-blue-marble.com/blog/2009/04/21/big-tobacco-big-oil-big-coal/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2 http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
Yeah, yeah, like doctors or any other expert witness, deep pockets influence the research. But it sounds like you're suggesting all scientists who have issues with the status quo are getting paid off. Surely that's not what you believe. And like you're big oil suggestion, I suggest the scientists who suppress conflicting data or commit outright fraud are influenced by their hearts (gotta save the earth!) and what they think is right. Observer bias will always skew the results, and these people aren't exactly conducting double-blind experiments in the field. How do they extract quantitative data from such complex datasets? The answer is they probably don't, or if they do, they are prone to suppress conflicting data or just fabricate the numbers like what happened recently at the Climate Research Unit. I'm in a bit of a rush right now, so I'm not going to take the time to post links to the fraud committed at the CRU, but it was all over the news recently and you should be able to find it with a quick search.