Zbigniew Jaworowski’s Climate Change/Ice Core Critique (Debunked)

Myth: Zbigniew Jaworowski disproved (insert random climate change denier argument about glacial studies and ice cores here).
Fact: Zbigniew Jaworowski’s claims are rejected among other Glacial experts, as being based on old, outdated methods that have been since improved upon.

Zbigniew Jaworowsk (1927-2011) was a Polish physician who is sometimes referenced by climate change deniers as having somehow having disproved the validity of the ice cores as they are used in relation to studying climate change. Other glacial experts reject his criticisms as they address old methods that are no longer used to study ice cores. Here is a response by Hans Oeschger, PhD and Professor of Physics at The University of Bern (Switzwerland).  See Full Article.

This also highlights a recurring theme with climate change denial (and it mirrors evolution denial). Deniers often cling to studies/papers conducted b scientists not taken seriously in their respective field. Because their work isn’t taken seriously, there are few if any responses within the scientific community. The result is that deniers will cling to these papers/studies and there exists little/no publicly accessible responses to these studies because they were never taken seriously. However, the public at large is mostly unable to discern between fact and myth when it comes to these topics.

This gives deniers a systemic advantage, especially since scientists who aren’t taken seriously and are ignored by scientific organizations will publish their findings in popular media, where no peer review process exists. An uninformed public has little if any way to discern the validity of these claims.

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What about the Positive Impacts of Global Warming?

Climate Change Impacts and Benefits

Myth: Climate change will have some benefits.  Climate alarmists need to take a breath and weigh the pros and cons of global warming.

Fact: The cons outweigh the pros by a large margin, and the cons are far more extreme in nature.  This has been understood for years.  Many of the alleged benefits are based on a misconception of how global warming will actually affect out atmosphere and oceans.

Global Warming: Pros and Cons

There are those who claims that climate change will have some positive impacts on the Earth, and that this needs to be weighed against the negative outcomes. However, the positive/negative outcomes have been long since compared, and the concern over climate change is due to the overwhelming negative results.

One such example: CO2 is GOOD for plant, and we should weigh this and other positive aspects against their negative counterparts.

The effects have already been published

Here are some snippets from a 2008 IPCC Paper:

However, the large-scale implications of CO2 –water interactions (i.e., at canopy, field and regional level) are highly uncertain. In general, it is recognised that the positive effects of elevated CO2 on plant water relations are expected to be offset by increased evaporative demand under warmer temperatures.

Many recent studies confirm and extend TAR findings that temperature and precipitation changes in future decades will modify, and often limit, direct CO2 effects on plants. For instance, high temperatures during flowering may lower CO2 effects by reducing grain number, size and quality (Thomas et al., 2003; Baker et al., 2004; Caldwell et al., 2005). Likewise, increased water demand under warming may reduce the expected positive CO2 effects.

Impacts of climate change on irrigation water requirements may be large. A few new studies have further quantified the impacts of climate change on regional and global irrigation requirements, irrespective of the positive effects of elevated CO2 on crop water-use efficiency.

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No scientists did not exaggerate global warming

A recent article published by Nature Geoscience states that limiting warming to 1.5 °C is feasible with current emission pledges (Note: emission PLEDGES, not current emission levels). What this means is that it’s not too late to avoid a 2 °C increase in average global temperatures, which itself would have disastrous consequences, but was a benchmark climatologists were hoping to avoid surpassing.

From the abstract:

If CO2 emissions are continuously adjusted over time to limit 2100 warming to 1.5 °C, with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation, net future cumulative CO2 emissions are unlikely to prove less than 250 GtC and unlikely greater than 540 GtC. Hence, limiting warming to 1.5 °C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, but is likely to require delivery on strengthened pledges for 2030 followed by challengingly deep and rapid mitigation. Strengthening near-term emissions reductions would hedge against a high climate response or subsequent reduction rates proving economically, technically or politically unfeasible.

Climate denier sources have falsely promoted the idea that scientists have admitted that they had exaggerated global warming.

In fact, Breitbart somehow managed to translate this into:

The paper – titled Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 °C – concedes that it is now almost impossible that the doomsday predictions made in the last IPCC Assessment Report of 1.5 degrees C warming above pre-industrial levels by 2022 will come true.

Which is of course, false.  The paper is saying that it may be possible to limit warming to 1.5 °C IF emissions are cut to the degree that emission pledges propose.

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Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Irma, Harvey, Sandy or Katrina?

Climate Change/Global Warming Causing Hurricanes or Making them Stronger
Fact: This is the wrong question to ask, since it assumes that one variable (in this case, climate change/global warming). In reality, multiple events led to hurricanes like Irma, Harvey, Sandy and Katrina, and increased ocean temperatures and atmospheric water vapor increased the strength of these hurricanes.

While there is no credible source claiming that climate change/global warming somehow “created” Hurricane Irma, what does seem to be in agreement is the idea that climate change, by resulting in more humidity and warmer oceans strengthens the impact of storms, resulting in more damage.

Dr. Meehl makes an analogy with baseball and steroids:Continue reading

Climate Change and the 97% Consensus among Climatologists

Climate Change Consensus 97%

The “97% Climatologist agreement” claim is based on the fact that 97% of related a articles published in peer-reviewed journals and that actually take a position in their abstracts agree that climate change is real and largely caused by humans.  Most “counterarguments” omit these specifics.  Other studies have reached similar conclusions.

The 97% Consensus

In reality, seven separate studies/surveys have shown a consensus among climatologists. These studies were conducted by:

However, most critics seem to only know about John Cook’s or conflate Cook’s study with a different one (for example,

The 97% Consensus

The “97% climate change consensus” claim is based on (multiple) studies of climate change papers submitted in peer review journals (meaning, scientific journals where other subject matter experts can critique it). 97% of these papers with abstracts that actually take a position on the whether climate change is real and caused by human activity do so in the positive.

The fact that this is specific to papers whose abstracts take an actual position is relevant here. On one hand, it’s generally regarded as fact among climatologists that this climate change is real, and largely caused by human activity, and there is no need to take a “position” (imagine Paleontology papers taking an assertive position on evolution; There is simply no need to at this point).Continue reading