Aug 20 2007
Royal Society Combats Climate Change Controversies
Hat tip to Inel.
The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science.
This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming. Instead, the Society - as the UK’s national academy of science - responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies.
Misleading argument 1 : The Earth’s climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans.
Misleading argument 2 : Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
Misleading argument 3 : Rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
Misleading argument 4 : Observations of temperatures taken by weather balloons and satellites do not support the theory of global warming.
Misleading argument 5 : Computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable and based on a series of assumptions.
Misleading argument 6 : It’s all to do with the Sun - for example, there is a strong link between increased temperatures on Earth with the number of sunspots on the Sun.
Misleading argument 7 : The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays.
Misleading argument 8 : The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.
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3 Responses to “Royal Society Combats Climate Change Controversies”
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Hello atmoz,
I am glad you have linked to these Royal Society responses that went online in early April 2007, post-AR4 WG1 report.
There is also an earlier pre-AR4 PDF document produced by the Royal Society that you are probably familiar with. Dating from May 2005, it is online as Guide to facts and fictions about climate change and covers twelve misleading arguments.
The contrarians’ arguments obviously evolve as time goes on, but the goal to confuse remains; the same old arguments are modified and repeated ad nauseum because familiarity breeds belief.
Though I have never even written in to any newspaper before this year, I think good resources to combat misinformation need to be promoted far and wide, especially through letters to editors and comments in local papers. It is clear that most people remain unaware of where to begin looking for the right answers and are unwittingly kept in the dark.
The Royal Society has an entire section on its website devoted to different aspects of climate change.
Thanks for the reference…it’s a good one
“A simple guide” states the Royal Society. Indeed: simplistic would be better.
This is pure and simple fearmongering (how about the Holocene optimum 5,000 y ago) and again shows a lack of understanding of meteorological phenomenons such as droughts,and reasons for severity of weather events. “And the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor those who can least afford to adapt. Thus a changing climate will exacerbate inequalities in, for example, health and access to adequate food and clean water.” This is of course pure political statement that is supposed to make anyone questioning the dogma feel like not only an ennemy of the planet but of course of the poors too!
1) “There have also been regional changes such as periods known as the ‘Medieval Warm Period’, when grapes were grown extensively in England, and the ‘Little Ice Age’, when the River Thames sometimes froze over.” The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Optimum have been documented globally not just in Europe but in southern hemisphere too (see Maldives sea levels).
2) this is circular reasoning: because humans increase atmospheric CO2 concentration we create global warming because global warming is caused by GHGs.
3) “carbon dioxide from human sources is almost certainly responsible for most of the warming over the last 50 years. There is much evidence that backs up this explanation and none that conflicts with it.” Almost certainly?
4) “Satellites were found, for example, to be slowing and dropping in orbit slightly, leading to inconsistencies in their measurements.” This is truly misleading since even with corrected trajectories the data stood.
5) “Modern climate models have become increasingly accurate in reproducing how the real climate ‘works’. They are based on our understanding of basic scientific principles, observations of the climate and our understanding of how it functions.” Dr Sylvie Joussaume from the LSCE acknowledges that models do not image properly the LIA and are unable to see variations for 10 to 100y periods. More importantly, models are based on the tri-cellular atmospheric circulation concept, abandonned in 1951 but still used for convenience. Prof. Marcel Leroux has demonstrated the inepty of this model and its inability to integrate numerous data.
6) and 7) Simplistic description of others’ research is quite caricatural: are we trying to understand reality or are we defending a theory tooth and nail?
Considering the amount of publicity using every mean at its disposal, from Gore’s to Live 8 rock concerts, from alarmist newspaper articles to Scientific Societies resources, I find the Royal Society’s website simple guide an insult to intelligence, to scientific research and its pluralism. May I remind the Royal Society that it is their honored member Sir Harold Jeffreys who applied brilliant calculations to dispel Alfred Wegener’s Continental Drift documented intuition, in an effort to discredit his findings. It succeeded only because the calculations were applied to the wrong object, continental crust instead of lithosphere. Although at the time the society enjoyed a jolly good belly laughter, we know now that Wegener was brilliant and Jeffreys, well Harold who?