124 Misconceptions about Climate Change -- And Counting

 

 Heard that climate change isn't happening?

You had to hear if from someone, right?

You've heard things like this:

"It's the sun."

"The climate has changed before."

"Last winter had record cold spells."

"CO2 is not a pollutant."

or simply "It's not happening."

These and 119 other misconceptions are addressed at this site: Arguments

Just scroll down the list until you find objection to climate change that you've heard, click on the short answer in the right-hand column, and you'll find a complete explanation of the misconception. 

And the site treats misconceptions from different sides of the argument.  You'll also find three levels of detail in the answers: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Check the list no matter what you think about global warming. Talk about what you find below.

Comments

[Taylor Britain]

The al gore one i thought was interesting because who is anybody to say that his information is correct? And how can we say that the contrary is wrong? Also the graph above is not that serious, its over 120 years and look how small the increments on the graph are.

[wbc]

Taylor -- Think about this comment that you made: "who is anybody to say that his information is correct? "

Well, lots of people, actually. The logic of your question means that you feel free to reject anything you learn at college if you don't like it.

Well, you ARE free to do that. But reality will have a way of correcting your errors, sometimes rather harshly.

By the way, explain more fully about the link you looked at on the Misconceptions site.

[wbc]

Taylor -- for example, Did you read this?

The skeptic argument...
Al Gore got it wrong
"An Inconvenient Truth was criticised by a high court judge who highlighted 'nine scientific errors'. For example, Gore claimed two graphs plotting C02 and temperature showed 'an exact fit'. The judge said 'the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts'. Gore said the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was attributable to humans. The judge said that could not be established." (The Guardian)

What the science says...
Select a level... Basic Intermediate
While there are minor errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the main truths presented - evidence to show mankind is causing global warming and its various impacts is consistent with peer reviewed science.
It's worth pointing out that Al Gore is a politician, not a climate scientist. Debunking Gore does not disprove anthropogenic global warming. Nevertheless, it is instructive to look at the purported errors in An Inconvenient Truth as it reveals a lot about climate science and the approach of his critics.

What Al got right
Retreating Himalayan Glaciers
Contrary to James Taylor's article, the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate never said growing glaciers are "confounding global warming alarmists" - that's a quote from the Heartland Institute website written by... James Taylor. He's actually quoting himself and attributing it to the AMS! To put the Himalayas in context, the original AMS study is not refuting global warming but observing anomalous behaviour in a particular region, the Karakoram mountains. This region has shown short term glacier growth in contrast to the long term, widespread glacier retreat throughout the rest of the Himalayas due to feedback processes associated with monsoon season. Overall, Himalayan glaciers are retreating - satellite measurements have observed "an overall deglaciation of 21%" from 1962 to 2007. In essence, the Karakoram glaciers are the exception that proves the rule.

Greenland gaining ice
Re Greenland, a big clue is the study's title: Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland. The study finds increasing ice mass in the interior due to heavier snowfall - an expected side-effect of global warming - and doesn't factor in all the melting that occurs at the edges of the ice sheet. Overall, Greenland is losing ice according to satellite measurements here, here and here.

Antartica cooling and gaining ice
Antarctic cooling is a uniquely regional phenomenon. The original study observed regional cooling in east Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the Pole causes increased circular winds around the continent preventing warmer air from reaching eastern Antarctica and the Antarctic plateau. The flip side of this is the Antarctic Peninsula has "experienced some of the fastest warming on Earth, nearly 3°C over the last half-century". While East Antartica is gaining ice, Antartica is overall losing ice. This is mostly due to melting in West Antarctica which recently had the largest melting observed by satellites in the last 30 years.

Hurricanes
The dispute isn't that global warming is causing more hurricanes but that it's increasing their severity and longevity.

What Al got wrong
Mount Kilimanjaro
Indeed deforestation seems to be causing Mount Kilimanjaro's shrinking glacier so Gore got this wrong. In his defence, the study by Philip Mote came out after Gore's film was made. But Mote puts it in perspective: "The fact that the loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro cannot be used as proof of global warming does not mean that the Earth is not warming. There is ample and conclusive evidence that Earth's average temperature has increased in the past 100 years, and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence."

Dr Thompson's thermometer
Al Gore refers to a graph of temperature, attributing it to Dr Thompson . The graph is actually a combination of Mann's hockey stick (Mann 1998) and CRU's surface measurements (Jones 1999). However, the essential point that temperatures are greater now than during the Medieval Warm Period is correct and confirmed by multiple proxy reconstructions. More on Dr Thompson's thermometer...

Rebuttal written by John Cook. Last updated on 26 June 2010.

[Chris Kennelly]

Al Gore is a complete joke. He exaggerates everything he says, and falsifies many facts. This is a link that provides evidence to show how his book is completely exaggerated:

http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/

What I find is funny is that Al Gore is so worried about global warming and is saying we need a new energy source as soon as possible. Yet Al Gore flies in several private jets all the time!How can we take Al Gore seriously when he himself is doing more pollution than we are? Private jets give off about four times the amount of carbon emissions than regular commercial airplanes. This is a quote from what Sean Hannity said about Al gore,

"The vanquished vice president has led the charge towards carbon neutrality and has brought some of his Hollywood friends along with him. But there's more to the story. Something that Al Gore doesn't advertise. When it comes to carbon emissions, Al Gore and his liberal friends, well, they have a dirty little secret.

Private planes, take for instance your typical commercial jet, a Boeing 737, well, it seats a maximum of 189 people, it burns 800 gallons of fuel per hour and emits 16,880 pounds of carbon dioxide per hour in the air. Now take a Gulfstream 400, one of the more common brands of private jet. Well, it seats a maximum of only 19 people, it burns 415 gallons of fuel an hour and emits 8,785 pounds of carbon dioxide per hour. That means per passenger a Boeing 737 emits 89 pounds of carbon dioxide an hour while Gulfstream and similar private jets emit 462 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger per hour.

In short, flying in a private jet does more than four times the carbon emission damage to the environment than flying a regular commercial jet. So if you were worried about your quote-unquote "carbon footprint" on the environment, and if you are concerned about carbon neutrality, the last thing that you should be doing is flying on private jets. Sit in coach, you might save a polar bear."
If you want to read the rest of his report about this, the site is http://newsbusters.org/node/10951.

The point I am trying to make is that Al Gore is a very poor example of someone who has evidence that global warming is a threat. His contradictions and his over exaggeration add more disbelief.

[Chris Kennelly]

My apologies for writing on the wrong blog yet again!

[Alex Oakes]

This site was very informative and I liked how there was direct answers to the questions. People have the ability to form their own opinions but the fact is plain and clear. There is more than enough quantitative and qualitative data to support the fact that global warming is real and poses a threat to our world.

[Nicole Shannon]

I appreciate the fact that we are addressing the "other side to the argument", and testing its validity. By taking the misconceptions and proving their incorrectness, you ultimately take away any argument about global warming. If everyone would look at the facts, the argument would more likely be "How do we clean up and turn around global warming?" rather than "Is global warming an issue?"

[Daniel Prohaska]

This was a very informative article that brought several new points to my attention.

I found it interesting that the solar output of the sun had decreased in recent years while the temperature on Earth has gone up. Why would two trends that had previously followed each other so closely now separate?

The argument that climate changes to whatever the dominant force is at the time (now humans) is definitely a new perspective on that claim that I will have to think about more thoroughly. The point that greenhouse gases have caused climate change in the past and not just since humans have been industrializing the planet is also a new piece of information to me.

Regarding climate models it is good to make the distinction that models are REPRESENTATIONS and not FORECASTS. This gives climate models a bit more credibility. The thing that worries me about the models still is that their accuracy is tested on PAST trends. While this SHOULD provide an accurate means of ensuring they will be accurate in the future, what if those trends change? What if something new or different emerges to have an effect on the climate that these past models have not been tested against? Also, why is it that ONLY CO2 could account for temperature rises in the last century? In a universe of variables, that seems like it would be difficult to prove. It seems to me that models are constantly considering new variables so how will we ever know how accurate they really are or when we’ve considered every variable? Or is worrying about every variable important? Is “close” close enough when you’re dealing with the future of the human race?

These are just a few points I choose to consider, I realize there are more. This is a really good site I think to get information and I will definitely be back to examine some more points latter.

[wbc]

Chris -- Welcome to the mat. Here is your assignment. Due by Tuesday night, 8. p.m. so that we can discuss it in class on Wednesday.

You grabbed some information from the net and using it as evidence. Therefore you're vouching for these sites. You assignment:

1. Tell me why you believe that these are reliable websites. What do you know about them? If you no nothing, find out something that will convince me that they are legit and trustworthy.

2. Tell me how you applied critical thinking to these sites before you accepted what they are saying.

You might want to be able to answer some questions tomorrow morning.

[wbc]

Daniel -- the models accurately described the past, that is, the data that was fed into the program for the model to describe the past is exactly the same kinds of data entered to predict future trends. In other words, to predict future trends, current data is fed into the programs. In order to test how dependable the model (program) is, the corresponding data for previous periods was fed into the program. Ideally, the program, using that data, should be able to produce a climate description that closely matched reality.

It did.

We're not dealing with amateurs or idiots like Senator Inhofe here.

[Gaston, Kevin]

This article shows how uneducated people are about this issue. The amount of evidence surrounding Global Warming is rediculous, and the people refuting the idea are basing their conclusions off of anecdotal evidence that has no real scientific basis. I think once people start understanding just how bad the impact of humans on the planet Earth is, they will start to realize the severity of global warming.

[Ax Dillingham]

I like this because it refutes rather than ignores arguments people make against global warming.

[Amy Salmond]

In the argument about how it's not us, there was a diagram showing the natural global patterns with the unnatural global patterns (otherwise known as humans changing the planet). From what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), but a lot of the human-created global warming has been claimed to come from the Industrial Revolution. However, this graph didn't show a separation between the natural and unnatural global patterns until the 1980s. 1) Why wouldn't the effect show until the 80s. 2) Does that prove that the Industrial Revolution had little impact on global warming. 3) From this information, can we infer that all the hairspray in the 80s has caused the global collapse?

[Kailagh Powell]

I appreciate that this site gives examples of common thoughts of those not convinced global warming is a real issue and gives arguments accordingly. This site did help me to clear up a few misconceptions of my own. However, on the whole Al Gore issue I am not convinced. I found a quote from him saying "Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are...". If global warming is such a huge problem I don't know why anyone would need to exaggerate the facts.