9 Why are some scientists sceptical about climate change?
9.1 What are the main climate change sceptics’ arguments and are they valid?
The top 12 main arguments are listed below. None of them stands up to scrutiny.
The Earth's climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans.
CO2 only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
Rises in the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
Observations of temperatures taken by weather balloons and satellites do not support the theory of global warming.
Computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable and based on a series of assumptions.
It's all to do with the Sun – for example, there is a strong link between increased temperatures on Earth with the number of sunspots on the Sun.
The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays.
The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.
Climate's changed before.
There is no consensus.
Variations on the Earth is cooling; we're heading into an ice age; it hasn't warmed since 1998; Antarctica is cooling/gaining ice.
Surface temperature is unreliable.
And so on. There are over 50 in total.
In the words of the Royal Society:
Our scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently sound to make us highly confident that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue. However, none of the current criticisms of climate science, nor the alternative explanations of global warming are well enough founded to make not taking any action the wise choice. The science clearly points to the need for nations to take urgent steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, as much and as fast as possible, to reduce the more severe aspects of climate change. We must also prepare for the impacts of climate change, some of which are already inevitable.
The Royal Society has produced answers to eight misleading arguments about climate change in their publication ‘Climate change controversies: a simple guide’
New Scientist has ‘Climate change: a guide for the perplexed’.
The Skeptical Science website examines the science of global warming scepticism and includes 74 sceptics’ arguments, ranked by frequency of occurrence.
RealClimate also has a set of ‘Responses to common contrarian arguments’.
8.6 Is the media coverage on climate change accurate?