When do you consider the science of global warming to have been settled?

Question

I do not ever recall the environmentalist movement taking a wait and see approach and letting the science to come in. According to them the science has been settled since the early eighties, even before the study of the climate even began.

Answer 1

I think it will be settled when everyone in the scientific, meteorology fields agree. But even then who knows; there are scientific "facts" I was taught in school 10 years ago that have been disproven.  And many of the same people yelling global warming now in the 70's were calling for us to melt the poloar ice caps because the world was going to freeze.

Answer 2

The science will be settled when actual science is used to prove or disprove the theory. This will not be easy as there are so many variables. Only thing we really know is the science is far from being proven. Current models have yet been able to predict anything of worth.

Answer 3

Never.  We'll always need to know more about the details.

But here's what's settled -

Global warming is real, mostly caused by us, a serious problem, and capable of being solved by us.

A few "skeptics" disagree.  Big deal.  You can find as many scientists to say the Earth is 6000 years old.  But it's settled that the age of the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.  The same is true of the four basic things about global warming.

Answer 4

Depends on what you mean by "the science".

If you mean what's the primary cause of the current warming, that's settled.  In 1979 the NAS stated that there was a scientific consensus that human forcings were going to cause global warming (spoiler alert - the consensus was right).

There are of course many details which have not been settled, like the role of aerosols in effecting the climate.  But the main forcings are well-known.  That science is settled.

By the way - quick history lesson.  The global climate has been studied for over a century.  In 1896 Svante Arrhenius predicted that a doubling of CO2 would cause a 5 deg C warming (current estimates are ~3 deg C).  James Hansen was one of the first scientists to predict global warming based on human forcings in 1967.

*edit* who is "they"?  When a person makes claims like this and provides no supporting evidence, you know he's just pulling stuff out his butt.

James Hansen's 1988 prediction came as close as possible to accurately predicting the ensuing warming.  Watch this - I'll prove it with a link!

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

And projections in general - watch this, another two links!

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/sh...

Answer 5

Environmentalist actions are black and white.They aren't politically motivated as the IPCC.All though the IPCC is not allowed to dictate policy the do place recommendations to gov panels.This says a lot about clout, influence, existence, sponsorship, and funding. Being a consortium of international regulators that can sway independent business. This was seen during the AR4 agenda criticism by the AAPG delegates.

Answer 6

Oh I dunno it happens.  How about the science of anthropogenic global warming?  That is the question young jedi.

Answer 7

There is no such thing as global warming. It is a natural process that has been going on since the beginning of time. It's just because of idiots like Al Gore who put that type of fear into people, that everyone is now worried about "global warming." That's why the world had its Ice Age.

Answer 8

It was settled in my mind, when they said the debate was over, skeptics were like holocaust deniers, and intimidation was used to depress skepticism. Has a scientific theory ever been treated so friendly? I was under the impression it usually worked somewhat in the opposite direction. t

Answer 9

When the cows come home.

  Notice how it was settled in the 1980's?

  Notice how cold it has been in the last few years.

  Wonder why they stopped doing their homework?

  Of course in the 1970's it was global cooling and that was all the hype. So now they have some body else funding them for the result they want to sell you.

Answer 10

The science isn't settled and never will be because it is just alarmism like the danger of the ozone hole, the mass starvation when the population hits 4 billion, global cooling, etc, etc, etc.  There will always be a certain segment of the scientific community that has to play Chicken Little to feed their own ego.  Bob makes some great points - if you are willing to make assumptions.  There is no proof that global warming is caused by man.  If the science was truly settled, the IPCC would claim as much.  However, the IPCC even falls short of declaring global warming is man made.  Bob's other point is that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and that is settled.  Once again, the so-called science is based on assumptions.  All types of dating methods are based on assumptions of the level of whatever substance is being measured.  If you know the half-life of say, carbon, you can calculate how old something is based on the concentration of carbon we find today.  Who says that same level of carbon existed at the time  the object being measured came into existence?  If our existence truly did evolve, I think it is awful arrogant to claim to know without a doubt the conditions of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago.

The funny thing about people like Bob is they worship the religion of scientific assumption.  Whether it is the Big Bang or evolution or global warming, they hypothesize about something and then claim it as fact without proof.  These same people are never wrong.  If something doesn't quite fit right, they come up with new reasons for the discrepancy.  And before you know it, they are claiming that an ancient alien race took part in the Big Bang.

Global warming is the same thing.  The Earth is warming.  It must be man made.  Evidence that the Sun is causing it?  Hogwash.  Record heat?  Must be AGW.  Record cold?  Doesn't quite fit with the whole idea, but AGW is occurring and record cold is occurring, so AGW must be responsible.  Hurricanes?  AGW.  No hurricanes?  AGW.  Drought?  AGW.  Floods?  AGW.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.