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the majority of scientists – although by no means all – working in the field of climate science kind of agree - leading to the unequivocal conclusions in the recent IPCC report
Fortunately there is very little science in climate "science", so the world continues to enjoy the benefits we toilers at the bench and observers of nature bring to it.
Anthropogenic global warming is widely recognised as the third world religion, with more believers and less evidence than Buddhism. Unfortunately like its big brothers Christianity and Islam, politicians use it to justify decisions that would otherwise rank somewhere between stupid and evil, and a lot of crooks make money out of it.
The fundamental flaw in the AGW argument is threefold. First, there is no meaningful definition of "mean global temperature", the very parameter that believers try to predict. Second, there are no useful measurements of anything that might be related to it before 1970, and even recent data is subject to "corrections". Third, the only reliable historical proxy, ice core data, clearly shows that carbon dioxide concentration lags behind atmospheric temperature so cannot be the causative factor. No amount of modelling or consensus can override the truth.
Quotethe majority of scientists although by no means all working in the field of climate science kind of agree - leading to the unequivocal conclusions in the recent IPCC reportScience is about facts, not consensus. The overwhelming consensus was in favour of a geocentric universe, a flat earth, four elements, indivisible atoms, phlogiston, aether, and the impossibility of manned flight (let alone lunar exploration). As for "what can be done about it?" the consensus in 1955 was that the UK would need "about five computers" to solve all the government's problems. Credible science will eventually kill AGW, not the other way around. A few months ago a Canadian group announced the growth of some plants that had been buried under a glacier for 500 years. The scientifically interesting point is not that the glacier is now retreating, but that it was a lot warmer 500 years ago (i.e. well within recorded history) when the CO2 level was presumably a lot less, in order for the plants to be there at all. That's science.
the majority of scientists although by no means all working in the field of climate science kind of agree - leading to the unequivocal conclusions in the recent IPCC report
there are plenty of long standing temperature time series that are well understood which can be used, although these are not global, merely indicative
even though there was evidence for global warming, temperatures had not risen as much as expected.It made me wonder if there could be a tipping point. Or if there is any process involved with global warming that compensates or acts like a buffer, so to speak, minimizing temperature change but only to a point and then might abruptly fail?
[Is there] any process involved with global warming that compensates or acts like a buffer?
Perhaps it is part of a natural downward trend of the temperatures as part of a 30 or 60 year cycle. However, if the temperatures don't actually drop, but rather stay steady, then the next upswing may be significant. Temperatures may in fact rise in a stepwise fashion.
Obviously the data 100+ years old is of marginal quality, but it is the best that we have.
I wonder if the topic title is being looked at the wrong way round...Climate science is clearly a relatively young science, but for an area of science that sets out to model such complex systems I'd argue it is doing remarkably well.Since this topic is about damage to the perception of science (can I assume as perceived by the public and not by other scientists), this isn't really a discussion that belongs in environmental science but rather a general discussion point.So, turning the question around, should we wonder if climate science is just the latest of many areas of scientific enquiry through its history that have fallen foul of general public mistrust or misconception of science and the scientific method?
Has this changed the way people see scientists or the findings that are published?