General Overview of Issues

Molecular physics tells us that CO₂ will cause some warming.  But Climate Science doesn’t understand enough to make any statement about the permanence of that warming because it hasn’t shown that there are no natural processes occuring that mitigate warming.  It’s a classic systems problem.  If you don’t understand the many process interactions, you’ll get lots of surprises!

I have a suspicion that the sun is the main driver of the climate, with water in all it’s forms (vapour, ice, clouds, oceans, rain etc.) being the regulator which stops the planet getting too hot or too cold.  There’s huge amounts of uncertainty around how clouds are created, whether they heat or cool, how water vapour mixes in the atmosphere, the sea-atmosphere interactions, etc..  But what we do know, is that climate computer models assume water vapour amplifies any CO₂ heating by a factor of 3 or 4; and give predictions which are way too hot.  Yet atmospheric water can do either warming or cooling…

When the atmosphere and oceans warm, there is more snowfall which replaces the summer-melt at the poles, and reflects more sunlight away, cooling the earth.

Looking at the historic temperatures, and bearing in mind that the data will have large error margins, we see that as the earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age (a cold period ~1650-1850) global warming of ~0.6 deg C occurs upto 1998.  This warming is no faster, nor higher, than warming during previous periods e.g. 1100 AD, Mediaeval Warm Period, 250-400 AD Roman Warm Period and Minoan Warm Period. (1,100 Years Kirkby 2007)

Similarly, the Arctic has not melted more than those previous warm periods, glaciers are not as short as previously, and the sea-level is not higher.

So what’s the problem?  Why can't 20^th century warming be almost entirely due to natural variability?  This is what we in the computing world call the negative testing approach.  Is there any evidence that the earth's normal cooling processes won't be sufficient to prevent catastrophe? These sort of questions don;t appear to have been addressed.

Despite the fact that there’s no concrete evidence, Catastrophic-Global-Warming disciples compare folk who doubt the significance of carbon-dioxide warming with Holocaust-deniers.  That’s a spurious analogy.   There is real, physical evidence for the Holocaust – letters, buildings, etc.. Whereas there’s none for catastrophic-carbon-dioxide-driven-global-warming – only failed predictions.  Not to mention that, this would be the very 1^st time that carbon-dioxide has increased in the atmosphere prior to warming.  Normally, increased carbon-dioxide is due to ocean de-gassing as the ocean warms. So I’m hoping that climate processes are sufficiently adaptable to cope.

Why do Catastrophic-Global-Warming disciples take a Faustian pact, turning themselves into unscientific PR people who don’t care that the average person’s money is being wasted  on unnecessary taxes? Why don’t they demand real evidence from their professional colleagues?

Maybe I can guess.