People like me, who question the accuracy of the findings (and are appalled by the politics surrounding the issue) are derided as anti-science, anti-reason boobs.
Now, out comes a research study from CERN, a study long-delayed due to political intereference, which turns the AGW positions on its head. It's findings, if true, completely invalidate the existing climate models. Second, and as important, it once again underscores the fact that AGW is not "settled" science.
The CERN press release states that "it is clear that the treatment of aerosol formation in climate models will need to be substantially revised." The press release concludes with the statement "However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed."
The concluding statement is a necessary show of scientific humility, one not taken by the AGW zealots.
If you want to hear a presentation made by Jasper Kirkby at a TED conference, here it is:
EDIT: 9/14/2011
For further evidence that the science is not settled note that Nobel Prize Physicists are resigning from the American Physical Society over the position that the debate is settled.
Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below:
Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate....
For further reading see the following from the American Physical Society:
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
As for example the following quote from an APS article, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming” of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity:
1.Radiative forcing ΔF;
2.The no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter κ; and
3.The feedback multiplier ƒ.
Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained. More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.
