As per your request, filtered into “true” and “false”.
My current take away is that we agree on quite a bit, but you have a bias in your response to uncertainty.
True claims
After many years of study, climate scientists believe clouds are a slight positive feedback, but it’s a small effect, and the error bars say it’s not possible to be certain that there is a significant effect.
Precisely. Given our uncertainty, it’s quite possible cloud variation is responsible for 100% or more of observed warming.
The rate of uptake was not known precisely in the 1970s, and maybe not in the 80s.
True. This is also true of all proxy measurements before the instrumental record.
It is estimated that, on balance, carbon sinks will slow down their absorption eventually.
True, but trivially so. Yes, there are estimates. No, there is no necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis to check their claims.
Plants also need nitrogen (which they strangely won’t take from the air), phosphorous and sulfur, and specific ranges and patterns of sunlight and rainfall (which are disrupted by global warming).
True, except for that last part. When specific ranges and patterns of sunlight and rainfall are “disrupted”, we call that weather, which has always happened.
I saw a study where coral creatures were studied in water tanks; as carbonic acid increased according to both high and low IPCC projections, corals got more sickly or died.
True, but misleading. Coral reefs already undergo massive pH changes on a regular basis (similar to our massive temperature changes in the diurnal cycle). The laboratory study in question had zero predictive power for the real world.
natural internal variability can apparently create trends that are noticeable over multi-decade timescales.
True, but understated. Natural internal variability can create trends on every time scale.
Whether the bad effects outweigh the good effects are a matter of debate, but it’s generally thought the bad effects are bigger.
True, but uncertainty here is understated. Simply “generally thinking” the bad effects are bigger isn’t science — you need a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for that. And arguably, 2017 is a better year than 1917, and we’ve had 0.8C of global warming during that time.
Thus, the issue of trust is central.
Absolutely true. We address the issue of trust not by polling people, but by insisting on necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypotheses. Trust becomes part of the system, rather than something we only hope for.
Are you suggesting that taking any action on climate change is a religious act, because you (you personally — not necessarily any climatologists) believe there might be a large unknown carbon sink?
Mostly true — everyone who is rational about the topic acknowledges great uncertainties in the measurements, the historical record, the models, and the predictions. Everyone who ignores those uncertainties and demands action due to the precautionary principle is taking a religious step in their belief system.
If no ice cores are available in high resolution, it wouldn’t be possible to pick out the seasonal change in CO2 in the ice cores.
True. Now, tell me the temperature difference between summer, 6500BC, and winter 6500BC. Now, put uncertainty bars on it.
David Middleton’s claim in his ‘first guest post’ that we can trust plant stomatas for accurate CO2 readings is highly implausible
True. Also true about telling prior temperatures from tree rings. But implausibility doesn’t prevent us from addressing alternatives to our favored hypothesis.
A related point is that climate scientists predict, as a general rule, more snowfall when global temperatures rise.
True. But funny how alarmists were predicting the end of winter by 2015 :)
humanity must transition away from fossil fuels anyway since they will run out anyway.
True, but irrelevant. We needed to transition away from whale blubber, because it would run out, but we did so only when it was economically feasible (without subsidy), and replaced by a more reliable source. Conflating the question of economic timing here with atmospheric science is problematic, because as iffy as I might think climate science is, economic science is even worse off.
False claims
“Obviously, increases to global average temperature are experienced as increases to local average temperature.”
Completely false. You can have increases to average global temperature, with decreases in local temperature averages.
You yourself state this with, “A few places are colder or have no temperature trend”.
“And of course, more extreme weather is projected.”
Demonstrably false for at least the past 60 years.
“the equator will heat up too.”
Misleading. The equator will be the least affected, and the effect will primarily be higher minimums, not higher maximums.
organisms can’t adapt quickly enough to rapid climate change,
Completely false. Any organism that survives the dramatic change during the diurnal cycle has already adapted for much greater changes than any projected.
if the plant’s lowest latitude reaches its highest latitude, the tree/plant will go extinct.
Misleading. A local “extinction” is a misuse of the word “extinction”, and extinctions, as part of natural selection, are a good thing. And yes, every thing that humans do is natural :)
ocean acidification, which still happens even if temperature were to somehow stop rising.
False. Oceans are basic, and are becoming more neutral. Given the fluctuations of ocean pH naturally, there’s no reason for us to believe fractional average increases will make any difference to any lifeform.
“the mainstream explanation of global warming fits together and is internally consistent,”
False. The mainstream explanation, like the King James Bible, is full of contradiction. It is full of explanation, which allows you to pick and choose those things that you feel like believing at the time, but unlike science, does not look diligently for hole in the rationale. Peer review != red team/blue team.
But there’s no evidence that such a buffering mechanism exists, is there?
False. The dynamic response of natural sinks is in fact, evidence that there is buffering.
“More importantly, their effects are globally small.”
Demonstrably false. 1998 high temperatures, which are blamed for the “pause” when tracking statistically significant global average changes, are considered an outlier year because of El Nino.
Paleoclimatology shows there have been enormous (albeit very slow) global temperature swings, and huge changes to sea levels.
False. The resolution of the proxy record does not allow you to assert that enormous changes happened only slowly. In fact, the ice core record shows quite clearly that temperature increases happen faster than temperature decreases in the sawtooth pattern of ice ages.
However, the climate is not a living organism — it is big rock with a network of organisms, each distinct,
Arguably false. The interconnectivity of all organisms, all liquid, all solid, and all gas on this planet means that they are only as distinct as the pancreas is from your heart — they’re both part of a thing called “a human”, which has internal regulatory processes, just like the earth’s climate system.
Look up Lovelock and the “Gaia Hypothesis” :)
But your skepticism has only gone in one direction, right?
Absolutely false :) I am skeptical of all claims that exclude the null hypothesis. Thus far, I haven’t seen Roy Spencer try to assert that there is a relationship between any two variables…but I certainly was skeptical of the cosmic ray theory of cloud formation, and have paid close attention to claims there. So far, they’ve done good work on hindcasting, laboratory experiment, and we’ll see if their predictions regarding solar minimums come true for the next 30 years.
