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Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens in global warming skepticism. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet eagerly, even blindly embrace any argument, op-ed piece, blog or study that refutes global warming. So this website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say? Thursday, 11 March, 2010Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition ProjectIn early 2008, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) published their Petition Project, a list of names from people who all claimed to be scientists and who rejected the science behind the theory of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). This was an attempt to by the OISM to claim that there were far more scientists opposing AGW theory than there are supporting it. This so-called petition took on special importance coming after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, and specifically the Working Group 1 (WG1) report on the science and attribution of climate change to human civilization. Posted by angliss at 1:57 PM | 23 commentsTuesday, 9 March, 2010Watts Up With That's ignorance regarding Antarctic sea iceIn recent weeks, the Watts Up With That blog has focused several times on Antarctic sea ice. Specifically, Steven Goddard mentions that Antarctic sea ice has increased over recent decades, speculating this is probably due to cooling around Antarctica. In one post, he comments that "sea ice extent has been increasing over time around Antarctica – this is consistent with the idea that temperatures are cooling". In another post, he repeats this theme: "Antarctica is cooling and sea ice is increasing (makes sense – ice is associated with cold)". If his intent is to accurately describe why Antarctic sea ice is increasing, he would be better served first checking what observations and peer-reviewed research have to say on the matter. Posted by John Cook at 8:37 PM | 94 commentsTuesday, 9 March, 2010iPhone app version 1.1 - now with search, image viewer and Twitter!Version 1.1 of the Skeptical Science iPhone app has just been released (download for free from http://itunes.com/apps/skepticalscience). Shine Technologies have been very busy, adding a number of new features. I'm fairly new to this whole software release business but if this is what you get moving from 1.0 to 1.1, I can't wait to see what happens in version 2.0. Here are some of the new features on offer: Posted by John Cook at 12:32 PM | 3 commentsSunday, 7 March, 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?The 2009/2010 winter saw a number of dramatic, record breaking snowstorms. Early February saw two "once in a 100 years" snowstorms hit Philadelphia, now being dubbed "Snowmageddon". Does record snowfall prove that global warming isn't happening? What do observations say? 2009 was the second hottest year on record. January 2010 was the hottest January in the UAH satellite record. Satellites data indicates last month was the second hottest February in the satellite record. Observations tell us that rumours of global warming's death have been greatly exaggerated. Posted by John Cook at 11:55 PM | 74 commentsSaturday, 6 March, 2010New observations find underwater Arctic Shelf is perforated and venting methaneOne of the positive feedbacks from global warming is the thawing of Arctic permafrost. This releases methane, a greenhouse gas over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Investigations into Arctic methane have tended to focus on land permafrost. However, there are also vast amounts of methane held underwater in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). This encompasses over 2 million square kilometres, three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetlands, which have been considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane. Underwater permafrost acts as a lid to restrain methane stored in the seabed. Until now, it was thought the permafrost was cold enough to remain frozen. However, recent observations have found that over 80% of the deep water over the ESAS is supersaturated, with methane levels more than eight times that of normal seawater (Shakhova 2010). More than half of the surface water is supersaturated also. The methane venting into the atmosphere from this one region is comparable to the amount of methane coming out of the entire world’s oceans. Posted by John Cook at 10:09 AM | 68 commentsWednesday, 3 March, 2010Visual depictions of Sea Level RiseGuest post by Peter Hogarth Posted by Peter Hogarth at 9:34 PM | 67 commentsTuesday, 2 March, 2010Every skeptic argument ever usedThe Skeptical Science list of skeptic arguments is one of the larger compilations going around, currently numbering 91 different arguments. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Whenever I encounter a skeptic argument, I add it to the database which currently contains 242 skeptic arguments. The 91 are those which I've found the time to research and write a summary of what the peer-reviewed science says on the topic. Now all 242 arguments have been categorised and displayed on a new Global Warming Links page. And just to open up a potentially huge can of worms, you can add to the list of skeptic arguments yourself! Posted by John Cook at 9:22 PM | 57 commentsSunday, 28 February, 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warmingA common skeptic argument is that there is no empirical evidence for man-made global warming. People who make this claim can't have looked very hard. As most don't have the time to scour through the peer-reviewed scientific literature, the multiple lines of independent evidence for global warming are given here. To make the science even more accessible in this time of multimedia and short attention spans, there is now a YouTube video outlining the empirical evidence for man-made global warming. Posted by John Cook at 6:58 PM | 155 commentsSunday, 28 February, 2010Skeptical Science housekeeping: Woody Guthrie award, bug-fixes, Facebook and donations
Posted by John Cook at 1:13 AM | 20 commentsFriday, 26 February, 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warmingThere has been a shift in the climate debate over recent months. It seems people are talking less about the science and more about the alleged actions of a small group of climate scientists. Senator Inhofe is an extreme example with his recent attempt to criminalize 17 leading scientists. These accusations are largely based on stolen private emails that are being quoted out of context and/or without understanding of the science involved. Unfortunately, this is shifting the focus away from the most important element of the climate debate: the scientific reality of global warming. The empirical evidence that global warming is happening and that humans are the primary cause has been and continues to be observed, measured and documented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Posted by John Cook at 3:48 PM | 136 comments |
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The Woody Guthrie Award for a Thinking Blogger is an honour passed from blog to blog where each blogger subsequently gets to choose the next recipient. Dan Satterfield from