Have you seen the latest statement from the American Geophysical Union (AGU)?

Question

Statement revised and reaffirmed December 2007 for "Human Impacts on Climate"

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positions/climate_change2008.shtml

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Yep, I saw it.  The AGU is the principle group of climate scientists, and so any remarks it makes with regards to climate change should be taken seriously.

Answer 2

Yes

This statement is significant. It is strong language from an organization that has over 50,000 members.*

Answer 3

Who stated again that the number of skeptics is growing ?

Answer 4

I am a great believer in 'big' science as opposed to trusting 'maverick' operators, amateurs or non scientists.  OK no science is certainty (unlike us poor engineers who have for our livelyhood have to distill a degree of certainty out of it) but the room for doubt on this is becoming very small.

Answer 5

Any organization that has a scale model of the solar system cast into the sidewalk outside their national headquarters has to be doing something right.

Answer 6

Why are some people still disputing this?

Answer 7

I continue to stand by the belief that bad data has resulted in much bad science.  The AGW folks need to verify the accuracy of the surface temperature data collected by NOAA surface-based stations.  An on-going review of these stations currently show a degraded system which is due to incorrect placement and reporting.  The result is that temperatures that are warmer than actual....have been and currently are being reported and included in the data sets used by climatologists.

I can't buy into the AGW claims until their science has some integrity!!

Answer 8

Look, I am a physicist that has worked with numerical simulations. I will not go overboard, documenting skepticism, just to uncoil your ego proselytizing trip. Overwhelming testimony does not document UFOs, nor millions of flies make excrement an attractive prospect. The link you post is belief bordering propaganda for the uncritical reader.

Consider: " If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century." How did they get a 2ºC figure, and more important, how do they establish the inference? Or are they simply spitting numbers into the air? Then they say:

"With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty." But that's not enough because immediately, they add "Given the uncertainty in climate projections". Curiously the uncertainty never acts in reducing effects, the uncertainty always poses the threat that effects will be more disruptive.

They do not mention methods or raw data. This type of statement is acceptable in a press release for the public when you are quite sure about results. However, I for one would like to know the approximate equations used in modeling, and the assumptions used to write them.

Insiders defend their turf and funding. Better have alarming results and conceal actual methods and data.

GW is real. AGW has weak evidence. Stop the bureaucratic pandering and produce robust science.

Answer 9

4 years, no significant change.

guess they had it right then, just as now.

and now they have the Nobel prize committee backing them up.

but that's okay, the walls are just crawling with the, "it ain't happening, do your own research" crowd.

same folks that think a $3 trillion blank check is good, and it should be higher next time around.  Stealing from your children is a good thing.  after all, they're too young to understand.

Answer 10

BB, why do you feel that Climate deniers have integrity, and AGW believers don't? It's fair enough to have a healthy degree of skepticism about science, but if you are going to be skeptical, why choose to believe the side of the debate that arguably has the weakest substantive backing?

Answer 11

Wow. Surprise Surprise. A union coming out in favor of a socialist agenda. How unique.

I find it absolutely frightening that science is so politicized and unionized. Terrifying, really. And totally against the spirit of real science.

This is nothing more than a plea for more government grant money and it's disgusting

Answer 12

I've seen it now.  AGU's 50,000 members are "Earth and space scientists... who explore the surface, interior, oceans, atmosphere, and outer space environment of Earth."

Sounds like they're the same scientists who would be developing climate models and measuring climate change.  

Haven't they seen the latest junk science aired on Fox News  or the latest obscure Russian scientist published on Heartland.org?   (/sarcasm)

BB -

Temperatures at rural stations increased more than at the urban ones.  The concern is valid, but the way that objection has been overstated is the territory of paid propaganda artists.  If it did have truth to it, any skeptic could assemble rural data and show the lack of warming.  They haven't, because the actual measurements indicate the opposite of what your proposing:

"As there are other potential sources of error, such as urban warming near meteorological stations, etc., many other methods have been used to verify the approximate magnitude of inferred global warming. These methods include inference of surface temperature change from vertical temperature profiles in the ground (bore holes) at many sites around the world, rate of glacier retreat at many locations, and studies by several groups of the effect of urban and other local human influences on the global temperature record. All of these yield consistent estimates of the approximate magnitude of global warming, which has now increased to about twice the magnitude that we reported in 1981. Still further affirmation of the reality of the warming is its spatial distribution, which shows largest values at locations remote from any local human influence, with a global pattern consistent with that expected for response to global climate forcings (larger in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern Hemisphere, larger at high latitudes than low latitudes, larger over land than over ocean).

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/distro_pea...

Answer 13

Where is Dr. Jello??

Answer 14

BB - you (or someone) keep posting this same misleading claim.  The urban heating affect has already been analyzed and determined to be insignificant. If you remove all the sensors that could possibly be affected by urban expansion, the trending is barely affected (i.e. it's still warming).  The largest warming has been in remote northern regions. Thermometers in cities too close to potential heat influences doesn't explain the melting polar ice, the global retreat of alpine glaciers, or the heating of the ocean.

This is a dead horse that should have been buried long ago.