Global Warming is Anthropogenic

A leading scientist from the University of Berkley California who was one of the biggest skeptics of global warming and anthropogenic (human caused) global warming and previously funded by the Koch brothers has now reversed his opposition to both conclusions. I was one of those people who from looking at the data could agree that the earth was in a warming trend, but, thought there was scant evidence of anthropogenic causes. This new information is something that the educated voter and consumer should look at and decide on their own what to do.

What can we do? First, make up your mind about the data and conclusions. You don't have to be a scientist to look at data, analysis and conclusions written by a scientist. If the evidence is clear, you will be able to see this and make up your own mind. Don't let the "experts" make you think this is something beyond your understanding.

First, here is a video interview with Richard Muller the leading scientist who had previously been a big skeptic. His summary of the research is a nice starting point for the concerned person to have an idea where to get the new information and analysis just completed and why it is possibly ground-breaking.

What were Muller's previous concerns? These were also similar to my own.

There were issues of prior groups had highly selected the data. The U.K. using only 5% to 7% of the data, here in the U.S. using only 20% of the stations. It was a concern whether they had picked stations that showed warming and not the others. There were other issues, too, about the influence of urban heat islands. Cities get warmer, but that’s not the greenhouse effect. How do we estimate the greenhouse effect? There was the data adjustment, and then the huge computer programs that they used to make the attribution to humans; all of these things are deeply concern me, and I could not get the answers in a satisfactory way

What did he decide to do about his concerns? This seemed like an intelligent approach.

And the only way to answer this was to put together a program. So, we gathered a group of truly eminent scientists — people who were really good at analyzing data. These include Art Rosenfeld, who’s a hero in the energy conservation field, and Saul Perlmutter who, actually, last December, after working on our project for over a year was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. Not for the work he was doing for us, but for prior work he had done astrophysics.

What did this group of scientists find?

We were able to show that the poor station quality — although it affected the temperature measurements, didn’t affect the temperature changes. We were able to use 100% of the data, not the 20% that others had used. We found the data selection bias didn’t affect things. We looked at the urban heat island. It came together — we concluded that global warming was indeed real. But then about three to six months ago, thanks largely to the effort of a brilliant young scientist named Robert Roady who we hired to do and use the best possible statistics in order to be able to use all the data — he was able to push our record back to 1753. That’s before the American Revolution, that’s back when the measurements in the U.S. were being made by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. With that long record, we could look for the fingerprints, we could see how much was due to volcanoes, how much was due to ocean currents, how much was due to the variability of the sun. We could do this much better than people had done before. I got to admit, I was shocked when I saw the results. The was short-term variability that was due to volcanos, essentially nothing to to the solar variation. Theoretically, that’s not too surprising, but I was surprised nonetheless. But the remaining curve, the rise in that curve, was dead on to human production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At that point, the data had led me to a conclusion I would not have expected a few years earlier.

 Interesting information that no one should just take at face value. Pull the veneers off yourself and see what you find. Post back what you think.