CRITIQUE TWO

Critique of a climate sceptic article

Student: Emma Swann 3171645

(Image courtesy of http://www.sustainablelivingtips.net)

Choose a "climate sceptic" article/website/book. Critique the arguments put forward using the
IPCC documents and/or later peer-reviewed journal articles.
The ‘climate sceptic’ website that I will review is:

http://www.divinecaroline.com/33/107305-eleven-political-thought-leaders-doubt#1

It lists 11 quotes from American politicians and talk show hosts regarding climate change, all of
which have been said in public on television or in parliament.

The purpose of this paper is to critique the main 4 arguments put forward in these quotes.

Argument 1:

“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming—is
part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland
for a reason, right?”

(Michael Steele, chairman of Republican National Committee On The Bill Bennett Show, March 6,
2010)

Mr Steele uses Greenland as an example of an overall cooling trend. While a few areas in the world
have demonstrated an overall cooling since 1901, including the northern North Atlantic near
southern Greenland, this cooling is the exception to the rule. Over the last 157 years, instrumental
records have shown an overall warming of the earth’s surface (Trenberth et al., 2007). This finding is
not based on the results of a single thermometer in a single location, but rather the result of daily
thermometer readings taken at thousands of land stations over the world, along with thousands of
sea surface measurements taken from ships. These thousands of readings are combined to give a
global monthly average temperature, and it is this temperature which is rising – between 1906 and
2005 it has increased by about 0.74°C (Trenberth et al., 2007).

It’s important to note that the warming trend has not been steady and has differed between seasons
and locations. There was very little change from 1850 to 1915, followed by an increase of 0.35°C in
the global average temperature from the 1910’s to the 1940’s. A slight cooling of 0.1°C occurred,
then significant warming of 0.55°C until 2006. 11 of the 12 warmest years on record have occurred
between 1998 and 2005 (Trenberth et al., 2007).

Given that there have been stages were cooling has occurred, and that the warming trend is not
linear nor the same in all parts of the world, it is easy to pick a few years in a certain location where
cooling has occurred and use this to say that we are actually cooling. To do this is misleading,
Therefore the evidence of thousands of thermometers all over the world say that we are warming.
To suggest that we are cooling flies against this evidence, and to use the isolated example of
Greenland as evidence of an overall cooling trend is misleading.

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“…the consensus is currently imploding—there is no consensus! The scientists themselves are

Glenn Beck, Talk Show Host February 23, 2010

In its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded that “Most of the observed increase in global average
temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in
anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentration (IPCC, 2007).” When the IPCC uses the words ‘very
likely’, they do so in a careful, scientific fashion, meaning that they believe it to be 90% likely to be
true (Dessler and Parson, 2010).

When a peak world-wide body known for its caution and rigorous ....give a statement like that, it
demonstrates remarkable scientific consensus on the issue. The IPCC is an intergovernmental body,
open to all member countries of the UN and the WMO. Thousands of scientists from many nations
contribute to the IPCC reports on a voluntary basis in the form of authors, expert reviewers and
editors (IPCC, 2010). The authors for each Working Group are nominated by government and
participating organisations on the basis of their expertise demonstrated by publications and works.
IPCC reports are primarily based on published and peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the
reports undergo a rigorous review process (including expert reviewers and governments) to ensure
objectivity and unbiased assessment of the most recent scientific information (IPCC, 2010).

All major scientific bodies in the USA whose members are experts on climate change matters have
made statements confirming the scientific consensus. Such bodies have included The American
Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. The National Academy of Science specifically stated that the IPCC’s
conclusion that increased warming was very likely due to increased concentrations of greenhouse
gases was an accurate representation of the scientific community’s thinking (Oreskes, 2004).

Despite many such statements from peak scientific bodies, some sceptics argue that these
statements are made despite a contrary opinion held by the majority of their members, thus
dismissing legitimate scientific dissenting views (Harris, 2011). However, this theory was tested by
examining 928 abstracts published between 1993 and 2003 in refereed scientific journals with the
keywords “climate change.” 75% of the papers either explicitly or implicitly supported scientific
consensus on human-caused climate change while 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate analysis,
providing no opinion on the causes of climate change. Not a single paper disagreed with the
scientific consensus on anthropogenic caused climate change (Oreskes, 2004). Thus scientists who
are being published in peer-reviewed literature generally agree with the IPCC and the published
statements of their corresponding scientific bodies.

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“If you take a look at geologic time, we’ve had huge climate swings....So no, I absolutely do not
believe that the science of man-caused climate change is proven... I think it’s far more likely that
it’s just sunspot activity, or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in
the climate.”

Senator-elect Ron Johnson, R-WI Interview with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 16, 2010

It is certainly correct that the earth’s climate has changed enormously over its billions of years of
existence (check billions). However, the fact that there have been changes in the climate in the past
which have occurred by natural causes, this does not mean that this current warming trend is
‘natural’ and uninfluenced by human greenhouse gas emissions.

In their 2007 report the IPCC considered how 20 th Century climate change compared with climate
change over the last 2000 years. They concluded that “average rates of increase in CO2, as well as in
the combined radiative forcing from CO2, CH4 and N2O concentration increases, have been at least
five times faster over the period from 1960 to 1999 than over any other 40-year period during the
past two millennia prior to the industrial era (Jansen el al., 2007).” The Third IPCC Assessment report
concluded that the late 20th Century had been exceptionally warm relative to the past 1000 years,
and the 4th assessment report included evidence that strengthened that conclusion. “It is also likely
that this 50-year period was the warmest Northern Hemisphere period in the last 1.3 thousand years
(Jansen et al., 2007).”

While sunspots and variations in solar output have caused climate changes in the past, evidence
suggests that current warming cannot be attributed to the sun. While in the first half of the 20 th
Century solar radiation increased and increases in greenhouse gases were quite low, solar radiation
did not increase significantly during the second half of the 20 th Century, while the overall
temperature and greenhouse gases did noticeable increase (Pittock, 2009).

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TRENBERTH, K.E., P.D. Jones, P. Ambenje, R. Bojariu, D. Easterling, A. Klein Tank, D. Parker, F.
Rahimzadeh, J.A. Renwick, M. Rusticucci, B. Soden and P. Zhai, 2007: Observations: Surface
and Atmospheric Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt,
M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom
and New York, NY, USA.

IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt,
M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom
and New York, NY, USA.

JANSEN, E., J. Overpeck, K.R. Briffa, J.-C. Duplessy, F. Joos, V. Masson-Delmotte, D. Olago, B. Otto-
Bliesner, W.R. Peltier, S. Rahmstorf, R. Ramesh, D. Raynaud, D. Rind, O. Solomina, R. Villalba
and D. Zhang, 2007: Palaeoclimate. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt,
M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom
and New York, NY, USA.

DESSLER, A. & PARSON, E. 2010. The Science and Politics Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
HARRIS, T. 2011. Getting Society Off the Climate Change Bandwagon. Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada:
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
IPCC 2010. Understanding Climate Change: 22 years of IPCC assessment. IPCC.
ORESKES, N. 2004. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science, 306, 1686 -1688.
PITTOCK, A. B. 2009. Climate Change: the science, impacts and solutions, Collingwood, Victoria,
CSIRO Publishing.

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