pyper said:
Garbage in = garbage out. When you take a weather station that's been sited on grass for 120 years and move it to tarmac are you really surprised that it measures warmer temperatures? From a realistic standpoint, if it's getting colder where I live, and it's getting colder where you live, and it's getting colder everywhere that everyone else lives, then does it really matter that some collection of thermometers that are not randomly placed was getting warmer?
There's only a "consensus" if you ignore the growing body of dissent. I notice a shift in terminology, by the way. The "scientists" used to be calling it global warming, and now they're calling it climate change. Having seen the start of the next cooling phase they've changed their nomenclature to get ahead of the curve.
I agree that reading about the scientific method does not make a person a scientist, but how does one purport to be a scientist if one does not use the scientific method? There used to be a lot of scientists who believed in phrenology and eugenics too. When it comes to scientific theory, being popular isn't always the same thing as being correct.
If increasing concentrations of CO2 inexorably make the world warmer, then why was it cooling from the 40's to the 70's? If there aren't other factors involved, then why was it so much warmer in Roman times? And in the medieval period? (Things easily established by archeology) Why is there a total disconnect between CO2 and temperature over the last 600 million years?
Finally, all this supposed science is primarily based on a single variable -- temperature. Without taking humidity into account you really don't know anything.
Well, in for a dime, in for a dollar as they say so here goes.
The Urban Heat Island effect is well know by climate scientists and is accounted and corrected for in the climate models. Furthermore the greatest warming observed so far has been near the poles where there hasn't been asphalt laid.
Getting colder where everyone lives? Not according to NOAA who already predict 2010 to be the warmest year on record for the planet.
Increasing volume & Fox News coverage does not equal a growing body of dissent.
Scientists have been using the term Climate Change for decades & still use it. It is a better term really since the greatest effects are predicted to be severe storms, droughts, sea-level rises... more variable weather in general, not just a hotter summer in wherever one happens to be. Global Warming has always been a term used more by the media, perhaps that's changing. I haven't seen any evidence of cooling other than those ocean surface satelight readings from a couple years back that later turned out to show warming after-all.
The scientific method is a great way to teach science as a concept to 5'th graders, it kinda falls short when studying the entire planet. Look, I know anyone can fund quasi-science to prove whatever they want to prove, that's why I put more stock it a report from NOAA or the IPCC than one from an oil industry-funded 'Think Tank'.
Yes science has been used to try to justify some messed-up things; so has religion, politics, economics, social science.... Just 'cause eugenics happened is no strike against climate science.
The pause in warming (not actual cooling) from 40's-70's has been attributed to increased sulphates, volcanic aerosols, reduced solar activity, US vs UK ship record keeping differences, but in essence it's a short pause in the larger warming trend.
Global mean temp was most likely slightly (fracton of a degree) cooler in the medieval warm period, than it was by the late 20'th century, although it seems to have been warmer in the north Atlantic & north Europe/Asia. It was more of a regional event. So yes, grapes in Greenland & all that, but not a warmer globe than today.
I don't see the disconnect btwn CO2 & temperature at all.
The Global Climate Models are the most powerful and comprehensive tools we have to help us understand climate and no, they are not based on just one variable, they are based on collections of literally everything we know about the earth-climate system and all it's sub-systems. They, of course, project continued and accelerated warming. Maybe you need to start studying global moistening to find the missing key that will tell us there's no prob & just keep burning fossil fuels as fast as possible?