Climate Research - By the Numbers
US Global Change Research Program from 1990 to 2004 was a whopping US$23 billion.
In 1997, the "World Scientists Call For Action" petition was presented to world leaders meeting to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol. The declaration asserted, "A broad consensus among the world's climatologists is that there is now 'a discernible human influence on global climate.'" It urged governments to make "legally binding commitments to reduce industrial nations' emissions of heat-trapping gases", and called global warming "one of the most serious threats to the planet and to future generations."[28] The petition was conceived by the Union of Concerned Scientists as a follow up to their 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, and was signed by "more than 1,500 of the world's most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science."
Concluding in a joint statement by 40 scientific societies and academies of science including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries:
Climate models are systems of differential equations based on the basic laws of physics, fluid motion, and chemistry. To "run" a model, scientists divide the planet into a 3-dimensional grid, apply the basic equations, and evaluate the results. The atmospheric component of the model calculates winds, heat transfer, radiation, relative humidity, surface hydrology, and surface fluxes of heat and moisture within each grid and evaluates interactions with neighboring points. The ocean component calculates currents, heat content and salinity. The atmospheric and oceanic components interact, for example with evaporation from the oceans into the atmosphere and with atmospheric winds affecting ocean currents. Different models vary in such basics as grid size and therefore do not give the same results.
An example of a prediction that has been tested comes from 1959, when Dr. Bert Bolin, in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences, predicted that by the year 2000, there would be a 25% increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere compared to the levels in 1859. This prediction has proved to be an underestimate. The actual increase by 2000 was about 29%.
Carbon dioxide accounts for about 383 parts per million by volume (ppm) of the Earth's atmosphere, increasing from 278 ppm in the 1880s to over 380 ppm in 2005. Carbon dioxide causes between 9 and 26% of the natural greenhouse effect.
Solar physicists show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.
"...the direct aerosol effect had an approximately five times larger impact on climate forcing than the indirect aerosol and other cloud effects. The overall aerosol and cloud induced surface climate forcing is ~+1 W m-2 dec-1 and has most probably strongly contributed to the recent rapid warming in Europe.
However, The Stern report, like many other reports, notes the past correlation between CO2 emissions and economic growth and then extrapolates using a "business as usual" scenario to predict GDP growth and hence CO2 levels, concluding that:
"Increasing scarcity of fossil fuels alone will not stop emissions growth in time. The stocks of hydrocarbons that are profitable to extract are more than enough to take the world to levels of CO2 well beyond 750ppm with very dangerous consequences for climate change impacts.
According to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, "the earth would warm by 8 degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) if humans use the entire planet's available fossil fuels by the year 2300
Exxon Paid Out $16 Million In Effort To Discredit climate change science.
Common Cause has documented more than $63 million in contributions to politicians from members of the Global Climate Coalition
The group formed in 1989 as a response to several reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
* Exxon / Esso
* Ford
* Royal Dutch/Shell
* Texaco
* British Petroleum
* General Motors
* DaimlerChrysler
* The Aluminum Association
* Dupont
In April 2009, the New York Times reported on a document revealed in court as part of a lawsuit. The document demonstrated that "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."
The Heritage Foundation has spent millions of dollars on refuting climate change, but does not have one "expert" in the field (or close) out of 80 "experts" on their board.
56 percent believed scientists were still questioning climate change.
showed the public has a poor understanding of the science behind global warming.
A 15-nation poll conducted in 2006 by Pew Global found that there "is a substantial gap in concern over global warming – roughly two-thirds of Japanese (66%) and Indians (65%) say they personally worry a great deal about global warming. Roughly half of the populations of Spain (51%) and France (46%) also express great concern over global warming, based on those who have heard about the issue. But there is no evidence of alarm over global warming in either the United States or China – the two largest producers of greenhouse gases. Just 19% of Americans and 20% of the Chinese who have heard of the issue say they worry a lot about global warming – the lowest percentages in the 15 countries surveyed.
A 47-nation poll by Pew Global Attitudes conducted in 2007 found that "Substantial majorities 25 of 37 countries say global warming is a 'very serious' problem".
There is a notable difference between the opinion of scientists and that of the general public in the US. A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found that "while 84% of scientists say the earth is getting warmer because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, just 49% of the public agrees."
he appearance of overlapping groups of skeptical scientists, commentators and think tanks in seemingly unrelated controversies results from an organized attempt to replace scientific analysis with political ideology.
On April 29, 2008, environmental journalist Richard Littlemore revealed that a list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares" distributed by the Heartland Institute included at least 45 scientists who neither knew of their inclusion as "coauthors" of the article, nor agreed with its contents.
Various individuals, most notably Michael Crichton, have asserted that Antarctic temperature measurements contradict global warming, when in fact the temperatures at bases in Antarctica have measured the warmest winter on record.
The Bush administration has also voiced support for an adaptation only policy. "In a stark shift for the Bush administration, the United States has sent a climate report [[U.S. Climate Action Report 2002]] to the United Nations detailing specific and far-reaching effects it says global warming will inflict on the American environment. In the report, the administration also for the first time places most of the blame for recent global warming on human actions—mainly the burning of fossil fuels that send heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere".
In a report by NASA's Office of the Inspector General it has been revealed that NASA officials censored and suppressed scientific data on global warming in order protect the Bush administration from controversy close to the 2004 presidential election.
Climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.