Greenhouse gases are both manmade and natural including water vapor and methane. I bet there are many we don't know about yet. Other factors play an under-studied role in global climate—volcanoes above ground and in the ocean floor, solar cycles, earth orbit cycles, ocean salinity and currents, sea spray and I dare bet many yet to be discovered. While many of these are understudied they have been taken into account to the extent we can. The earth is 70% water but we know so little about the secrets of the oceans including its temperature and chemical changes and impacts on weather and climate. We are just exploring the so-called "twilight zone" key to understanding the oceans' role in controlling atmospheric carbon nd hence climate. But we know a lot and will keep exploring. We know methane is a key greenhouse gas but there is no consensus among chemists studying plants on plants' emission of methane and subsequent influence on global warming. The treatment of aerosols in global climate models is highly simplified, omitting any processes and feedbacks thought to be climatically important.

A new report in the Journal Science by a geochronologist in Denmark covers a volcanic event that caused a massive global warming 55 million years ago. This points out not only past natural warming, but also validates the role of greenhouse gases and the dangers of the release of Methane hydrates, which if released suddenly from the melting of permafrost or undersea deposits would place global warming out of our hands. A recent study based on chemical isotopes of fossil teeth and bones from the Northern and Western USA, written about in the April 2007 BAMS, reveals that a reduction of greenhouse gases led to a decrease in global temperaturs 34 million years ago, which may have led to the extinction of many amphibians and reptiles in North America.

The 15 degree temperature drop over several hundred thousand years ended a period of relative warmth that had tropical vegetation in North America and ice-free polar regions. The cause is a mystery, theories include an increase in small organisims in the ocean that consume carbon dioxide or the rise of Tibetan mountains that added to weathering, a process that soaks up carbon dioxide. A recent study by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered tiny microbes are eating into volcanic rocks on the sea floor influencing global chemical processes in a way that may have climate implications.

At the mouth of the Ganges River over 100 islands are threatened by rising waters, an uninhabited island has disappeared and the Island of Lohachara in the Sunderbans delta is the first known case in the world of an inhabited island now submerged by rising waters displacing 10,000 people. Interesting and maybe worrisome but I don't think we know if it is global warming related or not. Of course if your land goes underwater it's more than interesting to you!

Researchers are constantly finding new factors or different roles and weightings for the known factors. Computer projections feed off of data but are not themselves data. The instrumental and satellite records all have limits and problems but we can also take that into account. Researchers take this into account as best they can. The data we have is limited in time and space, quality and quantity including written history. This often requires proxy measurements or estimates such as tree rings, ice cores and coral reefs. But carbon dating and modern chemistry make these much more than some wild guess.

Our best data sets are imperfect and at their fullest and most accepted level they are but a speck of information given the age of the sun and the planet. The earth-sun-ocean-atmosphere system is infinitely complex. Toss in chaos theory and I have limited confidence in any absolutist conclusions drawn by either side. However, most skeptics have done no research of their own but just selectively cast stones at the work of others. They may suffer from what psychologists call "motivated skepticism"-- we are more skeptical of things we dont want to believe and demand a higher level of proof.

There is plenty of reason to debate the questions and the qualified findings of the pro and con positions. I welcome honest debate among qualified persons not those seeking to score talking points. But I realize some people delight in listening to the most provocative if not the most plausible. When it comes to what works best in the media, quantum weirdness and spooky logic are the most popular, and many minds are numbed and hearing impaired, by the left-right political noise machine. The egomanical writers and talkers exist thanks only to the spineless acquiescence of their fans. The commentariat climb the ladder by stepping on the weak brains and backs of their readers and listeners who engage in the self-bondage of paid enslavement-- doing their masters bidding by being brainwashed into saying yes, yes, yes and doing as they're told in the economy and the voting booth. The straight and narrow is for us, crony capitalilsm is for them as they prey and pray for profits. But your media darling heros wont do the Christian thing and put the principles of humanity over the conveniences of the moment, eye of the needle be damned. This is why we increasingly live in an Idiocracy. Where the naiton is in a state of perpetual alarm leading too many to be fact averse and truth resistent. Conservative columnist George F. Will had a good turn: "this rhetoric of pathos reflects the de-intellectualization of public life--the substitution of sentimentalism for reasoned persuasion." Sadly anger and hate are strong sentiments, and the clueless elite will always be with us. But facts are stubborn things and messy, dictators make things so much easier. To play with Ben Franklin, if this be a Republic, you can keep it.

The complexity should not make us feel helpless or hopeless. People of good will and the scientific method can lead us to answers as they have before in our history. In the face of uncertainty individuals, corporations and nations should do the logical. Perform a cost-benefit analysis of options using best available information while continuing the research with open minds and a willingness to adapt and change course as the situation matures and our knowledge base grows. It's worked for us in medicine and surgery, the space program, economics, military and industrial affairs and a host of other human endeavors. One area I wish scientists would work on is to reach broad agreement on the working data set so there is a common framework to study, a baseline of common metrics for verification.

Consensus is good and dissent is good, but neither is proof of right. Remember not all scientists are created equal for the same field of study. A solar physicist knows more about climate than an anthropologist or paleontologist. I would not ask a meteorologist a medical question or a question about the stars and planets. And I would not ask an MD about ageostrophic motion and Q-vectors but I consider them in each forecast. I would not ask an astronomer or astrophysicist what the weathers going to do. And I would not ask a geographer, geologist or botanist about global climate. However they are all scientists and so may have something to add to the discussion and it should be welcomed.

I certainly trust someone with scientific training over someone who is just a broadcaster or other member of the media with an opinion. The mainstream media talk shows are full of puffed-up pundits and self-important blowhards. But I realize some people prefer an echo chamber where they can enjoy the seductive comfort of their own views.

Meteorology is another name for atmospheric physics or atmospheric science. We apply the laws of thermodynamics, kinematics, chemistry, fluid dynamics, and other laws of physics to the atmosphere. Back when I worked for the University of Illinois for 3 years and entered forecasting contests I often came in First-Place and out scored senior scientist PhDs. in meteorology. Was I smarter than they were? No. They focused on other areas of the field. My degree is in operational/synoptic meteorology. If I crossed over to their subspecialty they would outscore me big time despite our both following the same science.

My point is I often see experts in other fields trotted out as experts on weather and climate, mostly but not exclusively to oppose the idea of man induced global warming. Either way, use with extreme caution. Remember the tobacco industry example I mentioned. The same applies to the payroll of environmental groups, big energy, or corporate America and all their associated lobbyist "stink tanks". They may have a conflict of interest. Follow the money and use with caution.

Some would say that since the earth has warmed and cooled before that's all that must be going on now. The scientists studying climate are the ones who told you that, they know and take it into account. An analogy would be the human body is sometimes healthy and sometimes not. Does that mean that what you put into it and how you treat it does not have an effect in addition to genetic tendencies and environmental factors? Forget the medical experts, the body will get sick by itself and heal naturally—or you'll die.

Is there a consensus for global warming? Is there a consensus against? Define consensus. There is certainly no consensus against it, so if that's the litmus test critics are dead before sunrise. Is a consensus a guarantee of correctness? Is the majority always right? Is the scientist against the consensus always right? Intuition and experience tell us the answer. But scientific consensus is more meaningful than the majority opinion on talk shows or the consensus at the bar or the neighborhood pool or a cocktail party. Unless Einstein is getting drunk alone in the pool at a cocktail party!

Can science make determinations without perfect data or hands on measurements using theory and mathematical models? Ask the drug industry. Just ask any astronomer or astronaut. Do we make decisions based on best current information that changes with time? Ask anyone in the fields of heath, diet, food, medicine, supplements, herbal remedies, dentistry or the insurance industry.

How about the stock market, futures trading, investment bankers, opinion pollsters, investors or market researchers? Ever try to find a consensus on the best products or services for your car or home fix it problems? In every walk of life people, business and governments make decisions with limited imperfect data using logic and reason doing a cost benefit analysis. It may be formal or informal subjective or objective.

It's true it only takes one scientist to be right. But history has shown it is the exception and not the rule that the lone voice turns out to prevail over conventional scientific consensus. But if you want to doubt climate change forecasts-- just remember, error works both ways, so future climate change could be less severe or MORE severe than now predicted, and we could have more or LESS time to figure it out.

Uncertainty should not paralyze or politicize action or debate in climate anymore than any other realm of life. It certainly does not make sense to use this as a reason to be dismissive of a possible future global warming crisis as a joke, nor should we dismiss the doubting Thomas whose doubts are scientifically based. While there are some catastrophic scenarios they are not yet likely so there is no need for a rush to judgment.

I think we can come up with answers and find solutions. As FDR said of a much more difficult time "We are struck by no plague of locusts, compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid." I think we can go forward having faith in Him and in ourselves that this nation will endure and prosper. "There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations...It makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for his task."—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

There IS by any legitimate definition a scientific consensus that recent global warming has been caused to a significant degree by humans; that we have at least played a role in contributing to it, that man-induced global warming climate change is real. Like in the Supreme Court there is room for legitimate dissent. Much work remains to be done and there is still a minority opinion held by a number of respected scientists to the contrary. Scientists who agree on global warming don't all agree on extent, causation or many particulars. Those who don't believe in it do so for different reasons. So both sides can't agree fully on there own side in the details.

But the pro and con scientific literature is more balanced and less absolute than politicians, talk show hosts, authors and media writers would have you believe. The science papers are sound. Even the various UN reports if you read them discuss the limits and unsolved questions. But in the popular press: radio/TV/print both sides are shamefully and sadly guilty of exaggerated claims and false representations of so-called evidence for their side.

Any single heat wave or drought is not evidence of man-induced global warming, nor is a horrible record hurricane season. A late season cold wave or snowstorm or record frost or a single expanding glacier is not proof of a new ice age or evidence of no global warming. They are all normal parts of the fluxuating average. To say any single weather extreme proves something about global warming one way or the other is just plain wrong.

I believe we need to better understand coupled boundary layer interactions between air and sea and need to know more about the carbon cycle and water and energy cycle and budget of the planet, sun and oceans as well as sources and sinks of all the chemicals and gases that influence climate. I don't think we know enough about the ocean conveyor belts.

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