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Because whole "climate science" has just as much science innit as finance... If someone missed it, they don't do the "experiment" stage of real science.

I guess this isn't an experiment then?

If only there was some way to measure the effect of extra carbon dioxide in the air.

1/ do this experiment for yourself (this is known for over a century) :
http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
2/ can you prove me how humans don't increase CO2 in the atmosphere like this :
gas/oil/wood/coal/... + O2 --> CO2.

The H2O is a really good greenhouse gas too, you know: http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watervapour.html

And I assume you've been able to experimentally reproduce the affects of greenhouse gases on climate change?

Actually, demonstrating the greenhouse effect is quite simple.

Do it yourself if you don't beleive me.

I don't know if I find that site particularly credible. For one thing, he claims that the Irish Potato Famine was caused by climate change, when in fact it was caused by a fungus.

In addition, other sites suggest that water vapor accounts for much less of the greenhouse effect, 60% according to these folks, and the Wikipedia offers anywhere from 36% to 70%.

Just one question...

How have they recorded variations in temperature over the last millenium?

That, and the strawman arguments they have for several of the myths make me call bullshit.

Here's a fact: The global temperature has been increasing more rapidly since the start of the industrial revolution.

Here's another fact: The 40%, by effect, of greenhouse gases have increased signficantly since this time - some more than 100%.

http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_dimen sions.html

Now, given fact one and fact two, most reasonable people would logically arrive at the conclusion that the temperature is going up because of the extra gases that are now being put into the atmosphere from industrial processes.

Can we prove it? No, the atmoshpere is extremely complex. We can't even make highly accurate weather forecasts 12-24 hours in the future. But a reasonable person would stop putting so much excess greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to slow down the temperature changes.

Which then ejects water into the air, increasing the general humidity, creating a different type of global warming than we currently have.

BZZT. Try again.

I honestly do not understand how anyone can doubt that humans cause climate change. First of all, it is a fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Nobody can dispute this: you can prove it with a very simple experiment, and of course the planet Venus is a very vivid example. Therefore, all other things being equal, increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the planet to heat up. It seems obvious that it's better to err on the side of caution than to say the future is too difficult to predict, and therefore we shouldn't do anything.

I might as well take a crack at this too (and I got a "C" in high school chemistry because I insisted on lighting up th acetylene ballons we used in the Gas Density lab...)

To focus on water's phase changes as a heat sink is to miss the point. Surface water is not a major component of Earth's mass, so its ability to smooth out temperature variations as a 'thermal capacitor' would on the face of it be not very significant when compared to the mass of Earth as a whole.

Another fallacy is that the Earth is a closed system. It's not: Earth not only takes in energy from the Sun but it also radiates energy back into space. I should mention that solar radiation isn't the only heat source either: radioactive decay also heats the Earth's core.

Once you understand this, then you appreciate the very reason greenhouse gases are called such: they trap this radiation like the walls of a greenhouse.

The size of the polar ice caps is a reflection of the average Earth temperature, not the other way around. Its effect on mean sea level is an indicator of mean temperature, but it certainly isn't the only one (how about the mean temperature itself?)

More interesting to me is the potential effect of increased water vapor in the air, itself a greenhouse gas. Would it have a positive reinforcing effect on a temperature rise, whether it be due to increased CO2, solar radiation, or cow flatuence? On first glance this phenomenon seems to be not well understood.

Another idea I don't see tossed about much is biological equilibria having influence on CO2 levels. It seems quite reasonable that increased CO2 levels and temperatures would increase the biomass (especially in plankton) and thus the drawdown of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Global climate is a complicated thing. Unfortuantely it is complicated further by global politics....

- dvd_tude