So my issue with all of this data is that it doesn't present a unifying reason why the consensus is false. Any cause is acceptable as long as it disagrees with the hypothesis that human emitted Co2 is causing climate change. Let's take a look at a few of the headlines from the section:
So, what is causing the warming? Is it other planets? Is it Geomagnetic? Cloud Cover? Richard Nixon?
As a counter, here is a paper that analyzed 11,944 papers on the topic, and concluded that 90+ percent confirm the idea of anthropogenic Global Warming. (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002).
Now, let's take out Occam's razor. What's more likely to be correct: A smaller coalition of denying papers, with many different explanations that contradict each other, or a much larger group that all centers on one conclusion?
The consensus isn't necessarily false. But the consensus position is quite vague: that at least half the warming since 1950 has been caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and other human activities.
Many of the papers I linked to are exploring the other 50% and seek to nail down the human component more accurately by more completely understanding how the climate works through real world proxies and observations with a reluctant focus on global climate models. Others are positing alternative theories, which should not be discounted as long as they are following the scientific process.
Thanks to media hype and the general inability for most people to properly understand complicated science they are not particularly interested in, there is a commonly held misconception that ALL warming since the industrial revolution was caused by humans and that predictions are actually much worse than they are, based on the highest authority in climate change science (the IPCC).
There is a contingent of high level climate scientists that believe that to be the case as well. Others share a much more skeptical and conservative view...that the human component was a minority of warming in the 20th century, but does show a bigger proportion through time. I think, in my limited capacity as a layman, that these scientists have a more robust knowledge of the climate without the ideological hangups that climate scientists like Michael Mann or other laymen like Bill McKibben have.
The point is to have an all of the above approach. There is no one driver of climate or its changes. There are countless ones that constantly change. Greenhouse gases are an important one...but are just one part. The changes in solar activity during the 20th century were also very significant in human history. And through further study, we are learning that solar changes impact climate more than, but also completely differently than the IPCC or the models assume. Complex relationships between ozone, clouds, and ocean cycles with changes in UV radiation, which varies much more than overall solar irradiance changes, contribute to warming and cooling as well as regional climate change. The models assume a basic "solar constant" that has an almost immeasurable effect on global temperature change. They need to be updated...but that might reduce the expected amount of warming...so instead such science is criticized and dismissed. This is the kinda thing I have an issue with.
One can also explain, as the cited paper does, warming by blaming it on a reduction of cloud cover. Of course this might involve assumptions that the consensus rejects...but the global climate models don't accurately deal with clouds...so it is not easy to counter the cloud argument. Instead, such papers are dismissed.
In 2008, for example, the global temperature went down quite a bit from previous years...and the deepest solar minimum in a century and an increase in global cloud cover are the likely culprits, along with a La Niņa.
When skeptics started screaming about the sudden slowdown of warming after 2000, rather than investigate...first, the slowdown was simply denied. Then there was panic and all kinds of straws were grasped...it's La Niņa! The heat is being sequestered into the deep where we cant measure it! Then they just subjected the temperature record to new adjustments, known as the "pause buster"...which increased the warming trend since the 90s by arbitrarily making the late 90s cooler and recent times warmer. Now the pause is treated as if it never happened.
You can argue such adjustments are legitimate...but something like 3/4 of adjustments increase the warming trend. And these adjustments are done frequently. The early 20th century is much cooler today than it was 20 years ago.
I also have a problem accepting papers that claim global warming must be caused by increased GHGs because "the models couldn't produce the amount of warming unless we add the human component." This becomes moot if your assumptions about non human components don't change with the introduction of new evidence.
This ideological drive to only accept one answer leads to increasingly random and incorrect predictions...like that hurricanes, snowstorms, and El Niņo could become both more or less frequent and both more or less intense due to human made climate change.
The argument that "my side has way more papers" falls short if you have the system set up to encourage your side and discourage the other. And I wont accuse you of this...but look at Runeghosts response to me. That attitude is very common with this issue and serves as proof that ideology, belief, fear, and emotion are in control...and no matter what, those things are always poisonous to science.
