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Originally Posted by crockett
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Evidence does not equal proof. Theories do not equal proof. Computer models do not equal proof. John Cook is not the be-all and end-all of discussion on this topic.
You post a link to a point on a blog (run by a discredited evangelical christian) so I will post a link to a direct counterpoint from another blog:
The Reference Frame: John Cook: Skeptical Science
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There's no empirical evidence: Cook offers what he considers the key empirical evidence: CO2 is measured to rise; satellites show that it blocks some IR rays; oceans are apparently collecting heat. This gives a "line" of evidence, he thinks. Well, there's no doubt that we're adding CO2 to the atmosphere. But whether it matters depends on a "line" of hypotheses and several of them are only supported by a very poor evidence. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link: it's a point that Cook and others completely misunderstand. He apparently thinks that the more convoluted chain of arguments he constructs, the more likely it will become - and one vague evidence for each link is enough. However, the truth is the opposite one: the longer the chain of the relationships whose importance should be high is, the less reliable the chain becomes, and the more evidence we need for every individual link. The empirical evidence that CO2 is actually blocking the escaping IR radiation is extremely poor and the estimates of the heat accumulated by the ocean - and similar quantities - is often being changed by 100% or so. We don't really know the sign with any degree of confidence that would be worth talking about. To summarize the situation, there's no empirical evidence that CO2 actually affects the climate, and we only have theoretical reasons to think that it should have *some* effect - but we also know dozens of other things that should have an effect.
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CO2 effect is weak: this is clearly the same point as 31 about climate sensitivity, and others. It doesn't even seem that John Cook realizes it's the same thing. Again, he claims that this CO2 effect is directly measured by energy flows. Lindzen and Choi recently showed that the energy flows, on the contrary, prove that the large positive feedbacks attributed to H2O etc. can't exist. But whatever the primary driver is, it hasn't been empirically determined what it is.
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