Since I just posted on this topic,  I want to provide some follow up to some of the issues I discussed in a previous post.

Scientific American has just published an article authored by Glenn Scherer, making a case that scientific research has actually underestimated the effects of climate change.

Fingers are pointed directly at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has failed to get the numbers right on several different points.

Here is a breakdown:

1. Decline of summer sea ice in the Arctic:

“In the 2007 report, the IPCC concluded the Arctic would not lose its summer ice before 2070 at the earliest. But the ice pack has shrunk far faster than any scenario scientists felt policymakers should consider; now researchers say the region could see ice-free summers within 20 years.”

2. Sea-Level Rise:

“In its 2001 report, the IPCC predicted an annual sea-level rise of less than 2 millimeters per year. But from 1993 through 2006, the oceans actually rose 3.3 millimeters per year, more than 50 percent above that projection.

 

Some other important points brought up in the article:

 

1.  The IPCC does not conduct original research.

The organization’s job is to synthesize findings from studies conducted around the world and provide meta-analysis

2.  The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Prize (along with Al Gore) in 2007, for its findings on climate change.  This is not thought to be an organization of climate change skeptics.

3. There are scientists producing material that produces far more dire predictions for the planet than the IPCC is offering.

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but you can check it out for yourself on the SciAm website.

Typical of climate change coverage, there is a conspicuous absence of possible SOLUTIONS to the climate change problem, though I must concede that perhaps we cannot begin solving a problem that a significant proportion of us do not believe even exists.

Like just about any article published by a significant news organization on the Internet, the SciAm story is worth checking out for the comments section alone.

Here is one posted by user “Sisko”:

“Let’s review some of the claims in this propaganda piece by Scherer

He wrote- “The IPCC’s overly conservative reading of the science, they say, means governments and the public could be blindsided by the rapid onset of the flooding, extreme storms, drought, and other impacts associated with catastrophic global warming.”

My response- Idiots try to claim that any recent bad weather has been caused by CAGW but when you look at the actual long term data trends you find that there is not any significant change from the long term data.”

 

What is CAGW?  That’s Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

 

Here is an excerpt from a rebuttal by dubay.denis (addressing to “Mr. Sisko (if that is your real name)”:

 

“If at some point you want to check on the propaganda you have filled your mind with, you might check out the following report prepared by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, (see http://www.scribd.com/doc/98458016/Climate-Change-Lines-of-Evidence).

We all need to debate what to do about climate change, but as the above report will indicate if you choose to read it, the existence of climate change is not a matter to debate, it’s a matter of evidence, which is very clear.

To suggest otherwise is to mislead, misrepresent, and misinform, with the simple goal of creating doubt, so you and your cohorts can win the policy debate before it even begins. That is dishonest, and dangerous to our democracy. Stop it!”

 

It goes on from there.  Check it out…

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-science-predictions-prove-too-conservative