Explain the data with possibly ten different reasons or just one

10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
[Via Skeptical Science]

The NOAA State of the Climate 2009 report is an excellent summary of the many lines of evidence that global warming is happening. Acknowledging the fact that the planet is warming leads to the all important question – what’s causing global warming? To answer this, here is a summary of the empirical evidence that answer this question. Many different observations find a distinct human fingerprint on climate change:

To get a closer look, click on the pic above to get a high-rez 1024×768 version (you’re all welcome to use this graphic in your Powerpoint presentations). Or to dig even deeper, here’s more info on each indicator (including links to the original data or peer-reviewed research):

1. Humans are currently emitting around 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere (CDIAC). Of course, it could be coincidence that CO2 levels are rising so sharply at the same time so let’s look at more evidence that we’re responsible for the rise in CO2 levels.
2. When we measure the type of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, we observe more of the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Manning 2006).
3. This is corroborated by measurements of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen levels are falling in line with the amount of carbon dioxide rising, just as you’d expect from fossil fuel burning which takes oxygen out of the air to create carbon dioxide (Manning 2006).
4. Further independent evidence that humans are raising CO2 levels comes from measurements of carbon found in coral records going back several centuries. These find a recent sharp rise in the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Pelejero 2005).
5. So we know humans are raising CO2 levels. What’s the effect? Satellites measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat, thus finding “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect”. (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).
6. If less heat is escaping to space, where is it going? Back to the Earth’s surface. Surface measurements confirm this, observing more downward infrared radiation (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009). A closer look at the downward radiation finds more heat returning at CO2 wavelengths, leading to the conclusion that “this experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.” (Evans 2006).
7. If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
8. Another distinctive pattern of greenhouse warming is cooling in the upper atmosphere, otherwise known as the stratosphere. This is exactly what’s happening (Jones 2003).
9. With the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) warming and the upper atmosphere (the stratophere) cooling, another consequence is the boundary between the troposphere and stratophere, otherwise known as the tropopause, should rise as a consequence of greenhouse warming. This has been observed (Santer 2003).
10. An even higher layer of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, is expected to cool and contract in response to greenhouse warming. This has been observed by satellites (Laštovi?ka 2006).

Science isn’t a house of cards, ready to topple if you remove one line of evidence. Instead, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle. As the body of evidence builds, we get a clearer picture of what’s driving our climate. We now have many lines of evidence all pointing to a single, consistent answer – the main driver of global warming is rising carbon dioxide levels from our fossil fuel burning.

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Numbers 1, 2 and 5 were the ones to really convince me that humans were the ones involved. The additional 7 all bolstered the human fingerprint on climate change. There are also more than just 10 but these are the easiest to discuss.

Many denialists will have to come up with multiple theories – perhaps 10 – to explain all these data, data that can be explained by scientists with one theory. As Feynman said:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.

The denialists continue to construct a Cargo Cult World yet here are 10 easy bits of data for them to deal with. Perhaps they can build something that will actually fly.

The best proposal that fits all the data is that human actions result in the warming of the earth.. Our continuing inactions will simply not help matters at all.

A single graphic demonstrating how scientists percieve climate change and the public

Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
[Via Skeptical Science]

Matthew Glover at Renegade Conservatory Guy has created a telling visual on the disconnect between the scientific consensus on global warming, how the media portray the science and subsequent public opinion:

As there’s plenty of detail, there’s also a PDF version of the graphic (the above graphic also links directly to the PDF). The PDF also includes hyperlinks to the peer-reviewed papers where Matthew got his figures. While the graphic is quite simple and clear in how it presents the data, there’s plenty of meat in there to chew over. Discuss…

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Seems pretty clear that the media are doing an inadequate job explaining the facts as understood by scientists to the public. Almost makes one wonder why the media is doing such a bad job educating the public? Because at one time the Fourth Branch was almost an equal with the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of our government. Now it is as seemingly corrupt and uninterested in the needs of the public as the other three branches have become.

Sometimes I wish George Carlin was still alive and we could ask him if this is still his viewpoint – NSFW since it is George Carlin. It is not really very funny but not meant to be, I think.

One of the best presentations of climate change data in 10 minutes

Video: Everything you wanted to know about climate science in under 10 minutes
[Via Climate Progress]

James Powell, Executive Director, National Physical Science Consortium, has produced an excellent YouTube video summarizing the evidence for anthropogenic global warming

Powell is a former college and museum president. “President Reagan and later, President George H. W. Bush, both appointed Powell to the National Science Board, where he served for 12 years.”

Great for sending to any sceptics you may know:

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Powell brings together a tremendous amount of the best figures showing the huge amount of data regarding climate change, all of it demonstrating a warmer world, one caused by humans.

He also makes the point that for this not to be the case, there must be several completely unknown processes that overturn the completely known processes that explain the data. There is just too much data from too many different places. It can not easily be simply denied. Believing in things for which there is no physical proof seems to be how many people approach climate change.

Denying the facts in order to foster make-believe will only result in a society which is completely unable to deal with the coming changes.