1)

"Why So Gloomy?"

About the author: "Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies."

Link to the article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

2)

"The 7 biggest myths about climate change"

Authors: Catherine Brahic
David L. Chandler
Michael Le Page
Phil McKenna
Fred Pearce

Link to the article: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19426041.100-the-7-biggest-myths-about-climate-change.html




#1 says global warming is not real. #2 says it is real. There is nothing wrong with both sources. The author of #1 seems very intelligent because he's from MIT. The authors of #2 makes the article seem peer-reviewed and it is published in New Scientist Mag.


The community of SciForums. Which article is true? Please help.

both

Global warming "caused by carbon dioxide" is not correct, but global climate change is rapidly happening.

GCC is far more catastrophic, and may be irreversible, and fatal.

omegafour.com

This is the lead of #1: There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true.

Both the articles say the globe is warming, and both attribute an important share of that to greenhouse gas accumulation.

They disagree on the likely consequences, is all.

And regardless of how intelligent Mr Sloan is, I have no difficulty doubting his reassurances about the effects of the extra greenhouse warming on matters of importance to most of us. He is no biologist, for example.

Having read the rest of Mr Sloans little essay, I can now go further in commenting on its smarmy rhetoric and misleading tone:
Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. No. They conclude the cause is probably greenhouse gas accumulation (not emission) because it fits their data better than anything else they can think of. Something wrong with that?
Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. - - - Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy. That mystery is not "overlooked", it's famous and often mentioned. And it does not, as Sloan insinuates, cast doubt on greenhouse warming - instead, it completely eliminates any objections based on alleged inability of current accumulations to warm the earth so much - there is more than enough greenhouse gas accumulation to account for all observed warming and then some.
Is there any point in pretending that CO2 increases will be catastrophic? Or could they be modest and on balance beneficial? India has warmed during the second half of the 20th century, and agricultural output has increased greatly. I do not know if Sloan is honestly this naive and ignorant about India's green revolution, or whether he is deliberately misleading his readers there. I am beginning to have serious doubts about his integrity at this point.
Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. My doubts sharpen. This comment is about something in his field. Surely he knows that broad features of climate are far easier to predict than local weather, and that the models involved are not "similar" ?
What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week. There are a half dozen objectionable things there, from the red herring of "optimal temperature" (irrelevant) to the insinuation that this recent pattern looks like patterns of the past (it doesn't) to the "seem to miss" about something that has been very carefully and thoroughly discussed, to the repeat of the "can't predict next week, let alone next twenty years" BS argument.

And last and maybe worst: The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle—Al Gore's supposed mentor—is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate. Here's a clue: he's dead. His conclusion was drawn in the past, before the more recent data came in. And besides, most of the recommendations for CO2 reduction are in fact justifiable on other grounds as well - so that is no argument, as he implies, for not following them.

Instead of concluding, as an honest person would, that since we should be doing most of this stuff anyway we lose nothing by reducing CO2 emissions as well, he implies that this stuff is foolish because it is motivated by concern for the effects of rapid CO2 buildup.
This essay sets my teeth on edge.

methane is much more damaging to the atmoshphear than carbon dioxide is. so stop farting.

if you could calculate the amount of methane all 6-7 billion humans release it would be quite alot per year.

peace.

Iceaura- LIndzen is not called Mr Sloan, thts just the position he holds. He is a well known climate denier, as youhave just found.

Revelle died in 1990 or so, IIRC, long before most of the modern data as you say.

methane is much more damaging to the atmoshphear than carbon dioxide is. so stop farting.

if you could calculate the amount of methane all 6-7 billion humans release it would be quite alot per year.


You mean we can ignore the cows and termites?