Part B: AGW skeptics, can you change their minds?

Question

These are what the AGW proponents said would change their minds about AGW. Can you find the evidence and/or explain these?

When climatologists and major scientific organizations change their minds.

A better theory to explain the recent warming--one that would convince a significant portion of climate science experts.

Proof that greenhouse gasses don't absorb outgoing radiation.

I haven't seen any opinions shift (at least not in the regulars), and it seems like the same arguments get tossed about day after day, but no progress is made. I'm just trying to act as a mediator.

Again, to be fair, I'll ask the opposite question.

Answer 1

Your question is a bit unclear.  Maybe it makes sense, but I had to read it several times just to work out whether you are addressing skeptics or believers.  From your first sentence it's not clear if the word 'their' refer to skeptics or believers.

Greenhouse gasses clearly do absorb outgoing radiation.  That's not what skeptics dispute.  The question is how much additional radiation will be absorbed by doubling the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere.  There is an experiment that's been done over and over again (recently by Heinz Hug) where a glass vessel is filled with CO2, such that radiation passing through the vessel passes through the same amount of CO2 as radiation passing through the entire thickness of the Earth's atmosphere.  If you measure the infrared transmission through the CO2, then measure the infrared transmission through double the amount of CO2, the difference is extremely small.  It doesn't matter how many times you do the experiment and by whom, the result will always be the same because that is verifiable science.

Believers say, yes we know about science, but maybe at the upper layer of the atmospere there is some different effect, or maybe radiative transfer makes a difference.  Maybe it does, but these are speculative maybes.  They are not scientifically verified.

Answer 2

Well I was kind of a half way supporter of AGW until the Hockey stick graph came out and I could really see what kind of flat out lie they were promulgating. This alone turned me solidly against them and caused me to look around and find out why they would put out such a bare faced lie that even a studious non scientist could easily see was a lie. Then over time it became clear that it was just another scam to raise energy prices and break the overall economy so they could grab more political and economic power.

Answer 3

No.  At this point if someone is a skeptic it is because they don't want to understand, or are so emotionally invested in their lifestyle thay can't cope with the idea of changing at all.  The responder who used Mann's work as a rational explanation for why they were now a skeptic is a perfect example of this.  If that responder were actually viewing the temperature reconstructions objectively, he would find the NAS report, and the discussion in the IPCC AR4, and really go into detail on how the essential details of the Mann "hockey stick" plot have now been independently verified by at least five other groups.  They would also read the discussion of how while certain regions of the globe were as warm as today, the character of the warming in terms of temporal and spatial correlation is nothing like what is happening today.  In short, there is no rational basis in Mann's work for such skepticism about the entire theory of climate change.  

A rational skeptic would look at all the data, not just pick a relatively minor inconsistency in one particular dataset as a reason to throw out the entire theory that anthropogenic CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere, affecting radiative transfer, and modifying climate.  By using a problem (which really was very minor problem) in Mann's work to justify their skepticism, a skeptic is signaling they are not rational.  Their objections are emotional.  As such, no amount of evidence or rational thought will sway their opinion.

A second example would be the responder who is unwilling to learn the basic physics of longwave infrared radiative transfer through inhomogeneous atmospheres.