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Deciphering Climate Change Narratives: Peer Review and Denial Stages

Explore the complexity of climate change beliefs, deciphering peer-reviewed findings versus denial stages. Who to believe? How to decide? Delve into the debate to understand the varying viewpoints.

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Deciphering Climate Change Narratives: Peer Review and Denial Stages

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  1. CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE GREAT OCEAN CONVEYOR BELT Sam Miller Plymouth State University

  2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Other Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers Paul Mayewski – UNH Climate Change Research Center “The Glacial World According to Wally” (Wallace S. Broecker) “A Brain for All Seasons” (William H. Calvin) News sources

  3. By way of a preamble

  4. Climate change is an extremely complex subject Who do you believe?

  5. Global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R – OK)

  6. “Global warming is nothing more than just another hoax, just like Y2K and the global freezing claims in the 1960's and 70's were. Global warming is being used to generate fear and panic. Those behind this movement are using it to control people's lives and for financial gain.” World Natural Health Organization http://www.wnho.net/global_warming.htm

  7. “The earth has gone through periods of much warmer and much colder weather than today. The trends of even 50 years don't mean much to me or prove global warming. Like every natural cycle, they can last a long long time. I fully expect the planet to begin cooling again as we leave a time of heavy solar activity.” Elendil’s Journal http://elendil.schenkenfelder.com

  8. “Over the last five years, 600 scientists from the IPCC sifted through thousands of studies about global warming published in forums ranging from scientific journals to industry publications and distilled the world’s accumulated knowledge into this conclusion: Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” NASA Earth Observatory http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/

  9. “All known natural explanations for the current global warming trend have been eliminated by direct observations. The human-intensified greenhouse effect provides the only quantitative explanation for the current warming trend.” Are Humans Responsible for Global Warming? http://www.edf.org/documents/5279_GlobalwarmingAttributuion.pdf

  10. “The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” U.S. National Academy of Sciences http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer

  11. Climate change is an extremely complex subject Who do you believe? How do you decide who to believe?

  12. Climate change is an extremely complex subject Who do you believe? How do you decide who to believe? PEER REVIEW

  13. Sound theoretical basis Evidence drawn from the observational record Results produced via sound scientific methods; can be reproduced from the same data by someone with a similar background Conclusions drawn from results via deductive reasoning Climate change is an extremely complex subject Who do you believe? How do you decide who to believe? PEER REVIEW

  14. Stages of Global Warming Denial

  15. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem.

  16. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science"

  17. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus

  18. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus ONE WAY THIS IS DONE IS TO ARGUE THAT ALL OBSERVED CLIMATE VARIATIONS IN RECENT HISTORY ARE ENTIRELY NATURAL

  19. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus SEE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE DATED 23 APRIL 2009: “INDUSTRY IGNORED ITS (OWN) SCIENTISTS ON CLIMATE”

  20. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus CONSENSUS IS ACTUALLY QUITE STRONG MORE THAN 2,000 SCIENTISTS FROM 120 COUNTRIES ARE CONTRIBUTORS TO RECENT IPCC REPORT

  21. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small

  22. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small Admit that the evidence and predictions are valid, but argue that climate change will be advantageous

  23. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small Admit that the evidence and predictions are valid, but argue that climate change will be advantageous SEE THE “GREENING EARTH SOCIETY” (FUNDED BY WESTERN FUELS ASSOCIATION)

  24. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small Admit that the evidence and predictions are valid, but argue that climate change will be advantageous Argue that action will be too expensive and probably cause harm to economy

  25. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small Admit that the evidence and predictions are valid, but argue that climate change will be advantageous Argue that action will be too expensive and probably cause harm to economy RECENT REPORT BY FORMER WORLD BANK ECONOMIST NICHOLAS STERN STATES THAT IT WILL COST 1 PERCENT OF OUR ECONOMY TO AVOID CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING BEFORE IT HAPPENS, OR 20 PERCENT OF OUR ECONOMY TO ADAPT TO IT AFTER IT HAPPENS STERN REPORT: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/~stmiller/stmiller_content/PSU_Courses/MTDI1110/EconomicImpactClimateChange.pdf

  26. Stages of Global Warming Denial Ignore scientific evidence pointing to problem. Ridicule scientific evidence as "junk science" Engage in debate, attempting to cloud issue and create the impression that there is a lack of consensus Admit that there is a problem, but argue that effects will be small Admit that the evidence and predictions are valid, but argue that climate change will be advantageous Argue that action will be too expensive and probably cause harm to economy Stonewall and bluff, attempting to delay action as long as possible in order to maintain current economic order

  27. Our agenda • Natural climate variations • Greenhouse effect and human-induced variation • Will a runaway greenhouse happen here? • Complex determinism • Thermohaline circulation • Global climate experiment: Can we induce a repeat of the Younger Dryas Event?

  28. Natural Climate Variations

  29. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES • One claim of the deniers is that all climate variations seen in the instrumental and proxy records are entirely natural

  30. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES • One claim of the deniers is that all climate variations seen in the instrumental and proxy records are entirely natural Milutin Milankovic Serbian civil engineer and geophysicist (1879 – 1958)

  31. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES • Astronomical variations that cause changes in the amount of sunlight reaching a given point on the Earth’s surface • Originally formulated in an attempt to explain ice ages noted in the geologic record • Account for some (more than half) – but NOT all – of natural range of climate variation

  32. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES • Variations in the shape of the Earth’s orbit (eccentricity)

  33. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES 2. Precession of the Perihelion with respect to the seasons

  34. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES 3. Variations in the tilt of the axis (obliquity)

  35. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES 4. Precession of the axis

  36. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES Variations add up to net Solar Forcing NET

  37. MILANKOVITCH CYCLES Variations are not enough to account for all observed climate variations NET OBSERVED

  38. THERE ARE OTHER FORCES AT WORK • Variations in the Solar “constant”. (Scale is years – centuries for oscillations; billions of years for long-term increase) • 2. Variations in global ocean circulation. (Scale is decades – millennia) • Variations in arrangement of land masses. (Scale is millions of years – hundreds of millions of years) • “Other” – Volcanic activity, collisions with celestial objects, etc. (All scales.)

  39. HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT THE ACTUAL CLIMATE VARIATIONS ARE?

  40. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD VOSTOK ICE CORE

  41. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD • TEMPERATURE RECORD DERIVED BY SEVERAL MEANS, SOME OF WHICH ARE: • Ratio of Oxygen-18 to Oxygen-16 isotopes (d18O) in benthic foramanifera and ice cores • Mg/Ca ratios in benthic foramanifera • Alkenones • Pollen distributions • Carbon-13/Oxygen-18 bonds in CO2 gas bubbles

  42. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD • DATING ALSO PERFORMED BY SEVERAL MEANS: • Counting annual layers in ice cores • (GISP2 Ice Core) • Seasonal chemical transport • Isotopic/radioisotopic methods

  43. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD MILANKOVITCH-DERIVED SOLAR FORCING NOT A VERY GOOD INDICATOR OF TEMPERATURE

  44. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD CO2 BUBBLES IN ICE SAMPLES ARE A BETTER INDICATOR OF AIR TEMPERATURE

  45. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD HOLOCENE RECORD ENDS BEFORE BEGINNING OF INDUSTRIAL AGE

  46. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD LAST GLACIAL MAXIMUM (LGM) 20,000 YEARS AGO

  47. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD LAST INTERGLACIAL 120,000 YEARS AGO

  48. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD BEGINNING OF HUMAN MIGRATION OUT OF AFRICA BEGAN DURING THE LAST INTERGLACIAL

  49. ANTARCTIC ICE CORES ONE TYPE OF CLIMATE RECORD MIGRATION CONTINUED THROUGHOUT THE LAST ICE AGE

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