Just curious... Has a irrefutable study been done on AWG ?

Question

This seems like one of the most challenging endeavors for alarmist and skeptics alike?

Answer 1

No, science values challenges and does not presume to provide "irrefutable" conclusions.  

Climate is complex, difficult to tease out the various components as they're masked by weather effects, so it'll both take time to develop the scientific models and they'll always be "refutable" with short term weather signals (as we frequently see).  That's not to say that the challenges are credible or prove anything, just that they're able to be launched, using seemingly reasonable logic.

The question is interesting however in that there is an inherent implication that waiting for irrefutable evidence is desireable.  Even if the confidence never rises above the current 95%, waiting is not a wise course of action.

Consider this four stage analogy:

Stage I:

If you were diagnosed with a gradual cancer such as prostate cancer, and it was determined that it was "most likely" going to kill you (defined as a 95% probability) by spreading to more severe forms in other organs if you did not seek treatment within 10 years, would you wait for "irrefutable" study that your life was truly threatened, or would you be willing to allocate a small portion of your income (say 1 to 2%) towards prudent healthcare to improve your chances of survival?  

Stage II:

What if, when you looked a the big picture, the treatment had other economic and health side benefits for you as well (as oil and power conservation do in the case of global warming and peak oil production)?

Stage III:

What if waiting not only decreased your odds of survival, but also could severely increase your costs to deal with the cancer later, not only taking a larger share of your income, but also reducing the value of all of your existing assets?  

Stage IV:

What if your cancer was communicable (as the HPV virus is, predisposing people to various cancers), and by waiting you would also pass on even a greater high risk, with even more damaging consequences, to your children and to their children?

Most people would probably opt for the relatively inexpensive current treatment with positive side benefits, rather than the very likely higher cost and potentially much more destructive outcome later.

The global warming issue contains all four stages of cost to benefit tradoffs, time vs. cost tradeoffs, and the communicability of the problem to others if we choose to do nothing.

Answer 2

Nope.  Nothing in science is "irrefutable".

There is no irrefutable study that says the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.  The argument that a higher power created fossils, etc., to make it look at that way, is impossible to defeat.

But there is overwhelming scientific proof that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that global warming is real, and mostly caused by us.  Both facts have as good a scientific basis as it gets.

"The drafting of reports by the world’s pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For many months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel’s reports are extremely conservative – even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be."

George Monbiot

Which is why all these scientific organizations agree.  

The National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Meteorological Association, etc.

They don't take official positions on controversial issues in science, because that would annoy a significant fraction of their members.  They just sit back and watch.  But they all officially say that global warming is real, and mostly caused by us.

Answer 3

There aren't any.  The entire premise of "global warming" is that if last year was warmer then the year before, then this year should be warmer than last.

No one can predict the future.  For all anyone knows, there's an equal chance that it will be either warmer or colder 10 years from now.

Any prediction is only as accurate as a toss of a coin.

Answer 4

Yes according to AGW advocates. No according to the skeptics. That's the basis of the argument. The science is very complex, well beyond our current ability to assess let alone predict, according to skeptics. If you're not certain of what the global average temperature is today, how can you reliably predict what it will be 100 years from now? There are so many inputs into our temperature and the amount many of them contribute is still disputed. CO2 does have a formula for computing it's effect on temperature but temperatures have not changed in step with the increase in CO2. Advocates say that's because it's long term, skeptics (they like to call us deniers, like Holocaust deniers, get it? so funny) think it's because of the hundreds of other variable.

Even the effect the sun has is difficult to measure as far as it's effect on our temperature. Then there is gamma radiation from other stars that can interact with water vapor in our atmosphere. The fact that the space the planet is moving thru is never actually empty even if it looks that way. Additional CO2 has diminishing impacts on temperature. Vegetation and other natural factors absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. As land is exposed from ice melting, it releases more oxygen than CO2. The list could go on from here but you can see how complex it is and we can't be sure how much impact any one of those have on current or future temperatures since they're either difficult or impossible to accurately measure.

This hasn't stopped AGW advocates from claiming they can and that the science is all 'settled' and that all scientists in the related fields are in agreement. Neither of which is true but they start calling names if you point that out. The very bodies that seem to have the most to gain are the ones providing the overwhelming amount of funding for AGW research while anyone who publishes a study that calls AGW into question is labeled a tool of the oil companies and ignored or derided.

****

No, oddly enough, a summary for policy-makers written by people appointed by various governments doesn't move me to action. So I don't rely solely on any IPCC report, though the individual groups' reports are interesting. And they don't all agree which is why there is a 'tussle'. Who ulitimately decides what gets published by the IPCC? Not the scientists.

Does man contribute to global warming? If that was the question then I'd give an unqualified yes. But that's not the premise of AGW, their premise requires political action to 'punish' countries who won't fall into line by devastating their own economies.

The claim that all we need to do is sacrifice 1 or 2% to stop global warming is laughable in the extreme. They're talking about reductions of 75% from the 1990 levels of CO2. What exactly would that mean, barring some huge scientific breakthrough? Massive layoffs, bankruptcies and suffering, all because of a theory that cannot be verified. Do we cause 10% of warming, or is it 50%? 80%? 100%? It is impossible to answer that question.

Some of us just think that before we submit all local authority and yield up our autonomy to the UN and international bodies we should think very carefully about the consequences. 100 years from now, if AGW is proven wrong and we're sliding to an ice age, will those politicians and bureaucrats ever yield up that authority? If you think so you're incredibly naive.

Answer 5

The problem is "irrefutable study" is an oxymoron.

Of course if most of the people on Y!A, on both sides of the issue, had any personal knowledge or background, rather than arguing second, third and fourth hand information repeatedly, it might actually be interesting.

Answer 6

What? Doesn't the IPCC report do it for you?  What sort of evidence do you require?  Or are you just interested in something that tends to support ANYTHING else besides AGW?

Answer 7

In science it is very hard to say anything is irrefutable, there are still people who believe the world is flat and dispute evolution.

However the:

Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate

Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California

UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

British Antarctic Survey

Nasa

US Department of Energy,

the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California

US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Met Office's Hadley Centre.

Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute

Scientists from every university in the world.

All these institutions and scientists have produced research to support global warming and that man is the major contributor.

This list could be endless many of them would say their research is irrefutable even if not it is a growing catalogue of research which will eventually leave those who refute it with the flat earthers and non believers in evolution.

Answer 8

Nothing is irrefutable. There are still people who refute the fact that the Earth is round.

Answer 9

No there has not been an irrefutable study.

Contrary to what "Bob" and "Jas B" say, the organizations they name are very political and very dependent on governments and universities to keep them funded.  They see a gravy train and want to get their share of it.  The members know that if they can take their pet project and somehow connect "Global Warming" to it, they can get funded.

Most of the real argument (which if you read the real reports and their caveats instead of relying on the newpapers reports fo those studies) will show that while no one denies that the the globe is warming (The fact that we no longer in the last ice age is proof of that!! Doh!!), there is no IRREFUTABLE data which show how much man is contributing.