This is an expansion of a previous diary I posted. This time, I'm bringing the links, etc - ie, I'm helping others "read the data".
There's been several others diaries in the last few days touching on aspects of this, but I've attempted to make sure I'm taking a bit different tack.
Enough intro, on with the diary!
Has anyone else noticed that there's a large overlap between the climate change denial crew and the "read the bill" crew? They exhort us to "read the bill". They claim all sorts of nefarious things are in there (there aren't), and they try to hammer us with the whole "read it" thing. A Venn diagram of the two camps would show a lot of overlap and little crescents of people who are only in one and not the other.
Well, my message to them is: "read the data". In contrast to all of the hysteria over the various climate-gate (or SwiftHack, to steal RLMiller's term) emails, there is actually a rather large body of data out there. (see the current rec list for a diary about another attempted break-in). And most of the scientists involved are welcoming the inquiries, since they know that their data is sound. These scientists are hardly hiding the data. I know - I've checked it and I know it's there. Most of the scientists even provide links to the paper text, which is actually somewhat extraordinary, since they need to pay extra money to allow anyone without subscriptions to access their papers. They're hardly hiding the data, they want everyone to know it so that their concern can be revealed to all.
Realclimate has a wealth of information and links to raw data, processed data, and papers. I'm choosing a few sources here.
First, the paper (pdf) being referred to in the infamous "we can't account for the lack of warming" email. And, here's the link to the paper with the "hide the decline" comment, where they...talked about the decline. I challenge any rational person to still think this is a big problem once they actually read the paper. This thread at realclimate has additional useful links. If, say, a hard-core denier were to get this far, please, check the links. I'm imploring you. The data's all there, and in subsequent links. I think it's a better debate to debate the science behind global warming - and the interpretation of the data - rather than just deny, deny, deny. As a climatologist points out at real climate, the science is not actually settled - but the basic tenet that humans are causing the observed global warming is settled. But one can still debate the extent, the manifestations, etc - and good scientists always want more and better data in order to generate better models.
Second, here's the link to the various sources of raw data, processed data, etc. If they have quibbles with the corrections factors, etc - there's where to find all the information. The scientists are hardly hiding the data. They'd welcome debate about the correction factors - it gives them more papers - but they are hardly trying to sweep things under the rug. It also looks like the UK meteorology office will soon add their records to the list. (Incidentally, the easier access to the raw data is a positive outcome to come out of the whole SwiftHack thing).
Second source for above, courtesy of palantir
Additional sources / etc can be found below. I thank RLMiller for the compilation, which I lifted from a post in one of my diaries.
2007 Nobel Prize winning IPCC report
2009 US report
September 2009 UNEP report
December 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis
After checking those sources, and checking this slideshow (apologies if this link doesn't work right - let me know and I'll fix it), I challenge skeptics to come up with an alternative explanation that fits the data for the observed warming. The scientists have run the simulations with and without the CO2 forcing, and no other explanation has fit the observed data. Solar output is at a minimum now, and the simplest explanation for why 1998 is the warmest year is the El Nino that occurred that year. 1998 and 1991 (Pinatobu) shouldn't be used as reference points by anyone, because one-year events skewed the temperature data significantly - but the Earth rapidly re-established the long-term trends towards steady warming.
It's a bit more rare to find someone who denies the basic chemistry (instead of just denying the effects), but here's a primer on the chemistry. This is lifted from an older diary of mine, but it fits here, too. Most of what follows isn't open to debate, unless you want to fail chemistry.
Most people have heard that carbon dioxide causes global warming, and that carbon dioxide is the product of burning fossil fuels. Most also have heard the ppm levels for carbon dioxide and that they're rising and that a graph can be made which shows that rising CO2 and rising global average temperatures are correlated.
However, I'm not sure how many who haven't been forced to take the courses in colleges understand the chemistry behind global warming. What follows is an admittedly simplistic explanation that I'm sure some on here already know all of.
First basic: fossil fuels (and wood) are made up of hydrocarbons or carbohydrates. This basically means they have hydrogen and carbon or hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. In simplified terms, the higher the oxygen content in a fuel source the less energy is generated. This can be represented using the following equation (not properly balanced):
CxHyOz + O2 --> xCO2 + yH2O + heat.
Humans use the heat component to do work, like making electricity or driving cars, etc.
In a nutshell, this explains where the CO2 comes from, like in the coal plant above (water, like the steam cloud above is also technically a greenhouse gas but it's one which is harder to control as humans than CO2 is)
Second basic: All organic molecules (by definition, "organic molecule" contains carbon) absorb infrared radiation (aka, heat), to a greater or lesser extent. Carbon dioxide is actually a poor absorber, but it absorbs radiation that is only in heat the earth is trying to give back off. The solar radiation coming in doesn't contain the wavelength that CO2 absorbs. Methane, the other primary GHG of concern, is 20 times more efficient at absorbing heat, and it absorbs at wavelengths that CO2 doesn't.
Original source of graph here.
On the X axis is "wavenumbers", a rather odd term but it's the inverse of the wavelength of light absorbed. The Y axis is absorbance, with higher numbers being more energy absorbed. Sometimes you'll see the same graph flipped upside down, and that's "% transmittance", which is the opposite of absorbance.
Third basic: CO2 in the air can be absorbed into water as carbonic acid (think soda carbonation). On a scale like the earth, the CO2 is in equilibrium with carbonic acid. Colder water absorbs more gas, so arctic water absorbs more CO2 than tropical water. The easiest way of explaining this whole process to someone is to ask them whether warm soda (or beer) goes flat faster than cold soda (or beer), and then to explain that the CO2 in the air / sea is the same thing.
The equations can be represented as the following:
CO2 + H2O <--=> H+ + HCO3- <----=> H+ + CO3 2-.
The second equilibrium's pretty negligible without stronger base around but that's pretty technical :).
Here's a great graphic of the carbon cycle.
Fourth basic: phase transitions (solid --> liquid or liquid to gas) take a lot of heat to accomplish. Why is this relevant? The ice that's been melting has absorbed a lot of the heat, taking one for team earth. Otherwise the temperature would be higher. But, as the ice melts, there's less of it to absorb heat...and if we do reverse the warming it'll be equally energy-intensive to make it back into ice. Easiest way to think about this: when you boil water, it doesn't take much to get the water to a high temp, but it takes a lot more to boil it all off into gas.
Glacier Melt Picture, source here.
Fifth basic: Yes, life on earth needs CO2, since the heat it traps is actually essential for our planet being the rough temperature it is. However, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The Chemistry in Context crew I linked above likes to use the term "enhanced greenhouse effect", since naturally about 84% of the earth's emitted heat is trapped by the atmosphere. But it's a fine balance. Everything in moderation...
Some useful definitions:
ppm: parts-per-million. So a target of 350 ppm CO2 is 350 molecules of CO2 for every million molecules of air.
Infrared radiation: In a nutshell, heat. The near-IR region is the region the earth emits back out and it's also, for better and for worse, the region where organic molecules absorb the energy, thus preventing it from escaping into space. The sun's rays contain comparatively little IR radiation.
Equilibrium: both sides are going back and forth in an equation.
Ask and ye shall receive on more definitions :).
The bottom line is, the chemical facts underlying the global warming issue are completely infallible. The deniers can try to debate the macroscale issues all they want but they'd fail any reputable chemistry course if they tried to deny any of the above.
On occasion, some of the climate change skeptics have pointed to the recovery of the ozone layer as evidence that global warming doesn't exist. This is mixing up two atmospheric chemistry issues. The gases (chlorofluorocarbons) that destroy the ozone are a separate issue. It is true that the CFC's are extremely powerful IR absorbers but their concentration is low enough that fortunately they don't impact global warming much. So anyone who tries the ozone angle is merely ignorant or blowing a smokescreen. More recent evidence suggests that Antarctica's warming would have been worse without the ozone hole - so the two man-made effects somewhat canceled each other out, but that doesn't mean that we should pour more CFC's up there to fight global warming.
As a final note, I'm hardly the only diarist who's come out and posted some stuff about deniers, global warming, etc. But, I'd like to challenge especially those who ask us to "read the bill" to "read the data" :).