Top Ten Good Skeptical Arguments (Global Warming)

By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

As suggested by a friend, I’m following up my Top Ten bad global warming arguments list with a Top Ten good arguments list. These are in no particular order, and I might have missed something important.

These ten were just off the top of my head….there’s no telling what might be lingering deeper in my brain.

I have avoided specific alternative causal mechanisms of natural climate change, because I view them individually as speculative. But taken as a whole, they represent a class of unknowns that can’t be just swept under the rug just because we don’t understand them.

For some reason, all of these ended up being phrased as questions, rather than statements.

Per NOAA, Current Global Warming ‘Pause’ Unprecedented In Modern Era – 190 Months Long (source)

1 • No Recent Warming. If global warming science is so “settled”, why did global warming stop over 15 years ago (in most temperature datasets), contrary to all “consensus” predictions?

2 • Natural or Manmade? If we don’t know how much of the warming in the longer term (say last 50 years) is natural, then how can we know how much is manmade?

3 • IPCC Politics and Beliefs. Why does it take a political body (the IPCC) to tell us what scientists “believe”? And when did scientists’ “beliefs” translate into proof? And when was scientific truth determined by a vote…especially when those allowed to vote are from the Global Warming Believers Party?

4 • Climate Models Can’t Even Hindcast How did climate modelers, who already knew the answer, still fail to explain the lack of a significant temperature rise over the last 30+ years? In other words, how do you botch a hindcast?

5 • …But We Should Believe Model Forecasts? Why should we believe model predictions of the future, when they can’t even explain the past?

6 • Modelers Lie About Their “Physics”. Why do modelers insist their models are based upon established physics, but then hide the fact that the strong warming their models produce is actually based upon very uncertain “fudge factor” tuning?

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Also See:

• Skeptical Arguments that Don’t Hold Water (drroyspencer.com)
• Global Warming: Heads they win, tails you lose. (iLLuMiNuTTi.com)
• Global Warming: I Have Questions (iLLuMiNuTTi.com)