1. 

I think this subject became so controversial, it attracted many people who all want to give their 2 cents, and not only experts.

It's now too late to take the heat out of the debate

... just like religion.

Anyway, "warmists" may refer to IPCC as an unique source while "skeptics" came from various sciences (mostly geology, paleontology...) and less reliable sources.

Many skeptics for example are just interested in bashing official dogma, whatever the arguments good or bad.

That makes many opinions.

I'm not sure which side I stand on, maybe "skeptic" since I like to always question my own opinions.

Just for your information, my pragmatic views on "skeptic" dogmas:

- CO2 *does have* an effect on climate though way less than other greenhouse gases ie. water vapor and methane.

- "It's all a hoax, there is no warming"

depends on time scale:

* 10 years: cooling

* 100 years: warming (the industrial warming)

* 1000 years: stable (medieval optimum similar or slightly warmer than today but Roman optimum - 2000 years ago was definitely warmer)

* 10,000 years: warming (Holocene interglacial)

* 100.000 years: cooling (Eemian interglacial 4 - 5°C warmer than today) Note there are no evidence of Neanderthal driving SUVs

* 1,000,000 years cooling (Quaternary glaciations becoming more and more severe)

etc. (Dinosaurs have never seen any ice even on the poles, But Earth used to be a snow ball before them...)

- "There is warming, but it's 100% natural"

Partly: a part of the 0.8°C in 150 years is human made. How much is the controversial point.

- "CO2 has no effect on the planet's temperature"

- "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effects are saturated, so adding more has little or no effect"

See above

- "There is warming, but not very much warming, so we don't need to be worried about it"

Agree

The normal gap between glaciations and interglacials is 10 to 15°C.

Industrial warming is an epiphenomenon, barely detectable on the curve.

"There is significant warming, but it's OK, warmer is better"

Right.

human is still a tropical ape which flourishes during warmings and is endangered during glaciations (at least 3 human species became extinct during last Ice Age, we are the last one and have been twice close to extinction, always in a glaciation)

"What is the significance of this difference? What does it say, if anything, about "skeptics" and/or "warmists" as a whole? Any other thoughts?"

The main thing it says is twofold: it's a complex scientific question and it's politically charged. Let me expand on that using your thoughts as part of it.

At one fringe, we have people who believe AGW is a global conspiracy, a socialist plot or otherwise some planned deliberate hoax. At the other fringe, we have the world is going to end, stop fossil fuels at all costs, the basic environmentalist nut jobs. I would characterize those people where the first group are generally ultra right wing, anti-big government and conspiracy theorists perhaps in general. The other fringe are far left, anti-capitalist, nature over people types. I would imagine the science doesn't matter a whit to them.

That leaves a pretty large group in the middle ground. The near fringes of this group probably gravitate slightly to the side that is pulling them politically and quite a few follow the science as well, probably giving some internal dissonance (unlike the extremes who are solidly in their camp regardless of reality).

For me, I am on the skeptic side of AGW but the left side politically. I doubt I am going to change my political leaning although I'm open to change my scientific viewpoint. Yelling at me or insulting me won't do that though.

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By the way, you didn't mention my skeptic viewpoint which is open to labeling as valid or not:

"AGW is indeed real. The Earth's surface tmperature has been warming since the Little Ice Age. Man has affected the climate by warming it through CO2 emissions, land use changes and urbanization and industrialization. We don't know what percentage of recent warming has been due to man's activities (nor the distribution of man's activities) although it has likely been significant enough to be measured. Certainly, natural factors are also significant including short and long term cycles as can be seen through yearly and decadal surface temperature fluctuations.

The key scientific question is the sensitivity of the climate to increased CO2 concentrations. The IPCC has estimated a mean figure of 3C temperature increase for a doubling of CO2. Its model projections are based on that (actually, they're based higher but that's another story). Many recent sensitivity studies have indicated that 3C is on the high side of estimations. We still don't know enough about cloud processes and the amount of positive water vapor feedback is still a guess.

Since future projections include a combination of natural and man-made effects, we are required to have a pretty good idea of future natural forcings like the Sun. I have little confidence that solar physicists can accurately predict future solar activity levels given past performance, especially since the end of Cycle 23."

Politically, I don't believe in strict adherence to the Precautionary Principle for the case of AGW. There are too many unknowns and policies I've seen are doing more harm than good. And it seems that countries with the most strict policies are the ones suffering the most right now and taking serious looks and scaling back (e.g. UK and Germany).

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To answer you question in another way, as a skeptic, I understand that people have different points of view on this issue. Even someone with no knowledge on the subject just has to look at the statements of major scientific institutions and I completely see how they would consider AGW a serious issue that needs addressing immediately. I even understand the fringe points of view. That's just the way those people are. I believe this makes me different from several warmists I interact with who apparently do not understand my own point of view. I also wonder why these people need to distort my point of view to disagree with it? To me, that's the main difference I see.

Yes, but only because it is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Warmists are people you agree with and sceptics are everyone else.

When you look in details at the warmist side and pick a single topic like modelling and a small part of that like aerosols then you will find quite large differences. All the models seem to be designed to run too hot because they over emphasize the effect of CO2. Different models use different amounts of aerosols to get the numbers closer to reality. What we in the engineering world know technically as a "fudge factor".

So, in practice, warmists do not agree with each other about the detail, just the conclusion and then they claim it is all based on the science. More skeptical modellers would see that unless they agree on the non-CO2 parameters as well then what they are demonstrating is not consistent.

EDIT: I would like to submit the following two pieces of evidence. They are from people whom for convenience I will call BG and CF:

"The sun doesn't have any more impact on GW that (sic) cow farts (another piece of denier bullsh*t)"

"The sun affects climate."

That sounds like "diversity of opinion" to me.

Skeptics are free thinkers.

Why is CO2 such a lock as a climate forcer? If anything, the minutely constructed temperature record going back 150 years shows that the temp hasn't drifted out of a reasonable margin of error the whole time. I'll question whether we have had significant warming at all.

It seems the skeptics zero in on the data, models and predictions while the warmists hang their hats on "this guy says that" and "most scientists say this".

Warmists also have a problem with information that doesn't fit their alarmist model. The medieval warming period is a classic example. They did all they could over the years to gloss it over. How can they call warming "unprecedented" when it was warmer a few centuries ago?

They tried to convince everyone that this centuries long warming period was "regional". The likes of Michael Mann downplayed it out of existence.

Well, now it's back. Of course it never left. You can't change the fact that it was warmer 800 years ago than it is now. The fact that they tried so hard to get rid of the MWP is a testament to their agenda driven dishonesty.

Because there is more diversity of opinion among the skeptics. You give a series of contradictory viewpoints. You left out 'There is significant warming, it is a problem, but there is nothing to be done about it.' and 'The solutions are worse than the problem.'

These are pretty strong views espoused by the likes of GWPF and Bjorn Lomborg.

The warmists are less varied in their opinions, because in order to be a warmist you have to be opposed to all of the opinions you state above. It is not enough to show the planet is getting warmer(ChiefIO disputes this). You have to show that it is caused by CO2. That the increase in CO2 is manmade. That the amount of warming is substantial. That there is a large negative effect from this warming. That specific policies could counter the warming. Otherwise, the IPCC achieves nothing.

At best, warmists could ignore the last few points and be legitimate scientists but they would then not be helping the political cause.

The significant difference is skepticism in our ability to understand how the earths climate responds to the multitude of variables whether natural or man made and our ability to influence or predict what will happen in the future.

Warmonist simply don't have a free thought in their heads and if you were honest with yourself you would realize that most AGW believers simply believe out of fear of the unknown, fear instilled by claims that the future is going to include more of the bad weather they saw in last weeks news, and primarily because they've been fed a story that it's some faceless big corporation (that is making too much profit) at fault. All a believer needs to know is it is bad and can we blame somebody else for the bad thing. It is simply easier to go through life believing the cause of your distress is someone elses fault.

So I guess you'll find most believers are consistent in their belief that someone else is to blame and it can be fixed if they pay for their crime or are put out of business.

Global warming ceased to exists 11/28/2012 and all seasons are returning to normal naturally. Global Command/ Mike

"Skeptics" do not care about coherence, or logic or scientific merit of their claims. What they care about is that their claims make them feel good about pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As such, when a "skeptic" claims that carbon dioxide has no effect on temperature, and that global warming is good, it is often the same "skeptic" saying these things.

On the other hand, with a few exceptions, "warmists" are mostly interested in scientific evidence. While there are a few "warmists," who could be called the flip side of the same coin as "skeptics," who might respond to a cold snap by claiming that carbon dioxide causes cooling, too, most "warmists" know that for carbon dioxide to cause cooling would violate the laws of thermodynamics. The reason why global average temperature is not increasing monotonically is because it is effected by many factors, including the Sun, ENSO, PDO, AMO, volcanoes and anthropogenic aerosols, as well as by carbon dioxide.

However, "warmists" are not a uniform block. Contrary to what Sagebrush would have people believe, Maurice Strong and Paul Ehrlich only speak for themselves, not for all "warmists.

I would say that the significant diversity of opinion of the skeptics reflects how there are so many aspects of the AGW position that are problematical. I prepared an outline of the problem, and found more then twelve erroneous premises within AGW orthodoxy. In terms of legitimate science, this argument is a total mess.

And the AGW Alarmists rely mostly on dogma/propaganda and ad hominem attacks, calling the skeptics "Deniers," and wielding a very nasty attitude.

If you can explain why PDO and AMO in a positive phase causes warming in the Northern Hemisphere, then you might have a clue about a skeptic's viewpoint. I have never seen you give any credit to natural sources either. All I ever see out of you is questionnaires about why skeptics are skeptical.

It seems like "warmists" pretty much agree about AGW. There's some disagreement about the best method or methods to use to fight AGW, and exactly *how* bad it's going to be, but to my knowledge all but a lunatic fringe of "warmists" would agree to a pretty large number of non-contradictory statements about AGW--for example, "We should take measures to reduce our net CO2 emissions", "CO2 is, at present, the dominant directional climate forcing, but is by no means the only factor that influences climate", and so on.

"Skeptics", on the other hand, can't even seem to agree about whether CO2 *has* an effect on climate. I have seen any and all of the following treated as a valid "skeptic" viewpoint:

"It's all a hoax, there is no warming"

"There is warming, but it's 100% natural"

"CO2 has no effect on the planet's temperature"

"CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effects are saturated, so adding more has little or no effect"

"There is warming, but not very much warming, so we don't need to be worried about it"

"There is significant warming, but it's OK, warmer is better"

I think I've even seen the same person believe several essentially contradictory things--something like "There is no warming, and it's natural anyways, and even if it's not natural there's not very much of it, and besides, warming is good for us, even if there is a lot of it." And I've rarely seen, for example, the skeptics who acknowledge that there is AGW, but just think that it won't be that significant, call out the "skeptics" who think that CO2 has absolutely no effect on average global temperatures.

What is the significance of this difference? What does it say, if anything, about "skeptics" and/or "warmists" as a whole? Any other thoughts?

I don't see much significance in the 'diversity' you cite. What I see is the undue influence of politics and the media on the level of excitement over the topic of climate change while science marches on. I've long believed that there is a process societies go through when issues of great importance arise that might be described as a bell curve. Perhaps it has been, but I haven't studied sociology formally in decades (or science.) People get all excited about this issue or that one as public awareness of a problem grows, it peaks and then begins to level off and then drop. Perhaps the best example globally other than climate change is economics; another contemporary issue (in the U.S.) is immigration, and another, health care.

On the issue of Climate Change, we're a little past the peak of excitement. As additional data and research has unfolded, those who were calling for immediate and extreme action are losing the attention, credibility and influence they briefly enjoyed, and those who enjoyed the opposite attention are also experiencing the same loss. There was a study I saw some years ago about the news cycle, related more, perhaps, to the almost obsolete significance of newspapers but nonetheless relevant; it explored the progression of front page news with blaring headlines to footnote status on the back pages and used a number of methods to try to objectively study that progression. I wish I could find it now because some of the points the narrative made were quite illustrative of the progression of Climate Change in the public eye.

We also have to keep in mind, of course, that the interest in Climate Change has been greatly influenced by economics and a long, difficult recession followed by a tenuous recovery...which means that many people realize we have multiple issues that demand attention and money, so we as societies-more and more linked globally-have to prioritize our attention accordingly. Perhaps the mindset of the average person at this juncture might be 'sure, we need to pay attention to climate so we can plan, but right now we have to focus on more immediate issues-like all these wars, the people who are struggling...not just for subsistence now, but those who support them and are having a difficult time maintaining decent jobs and a living wage.

I've just never (well, never say never, but by and large) have been one to get so excited about social issues to demand immediate action in the absence of adequate information. There are plenty of people who do, and we call them extremists. As the bell curve progresses from its beginning rumblings of awareness and accelerates to a peak of frenzied activity, the extremists express their varied and competing opinions and fight amongst themselves, and when the excitement peaks-as it may have about climate change, at least temporarily-a dominant belief emerges and a course of action is chosen. Sometimes it does not work to the advantage of society at large, at least initially, and other times it does. Regardless, there are always pitfalls and adjustments that need to be made.

One would hope that the most reasonable course of action would be chosen, but in the U.S. alone, fears of extremism have paralyzed the body politic, with each side fighting the other using extreme language and tactics to avoid outcomes they liken to historic events, including the rise of Hitler...the most extreme example most can think of, which the opposition, when compared to that maniac, reasonably enough object to.

When it comes to climate, the vagaries of weather and the variables that affect climate both regionally and globally have a greater impact as people debate-often with only a minimal amount of information-what is happening based on the datasets they choose. Sometimes that dataset is based only on the weather outside their window on any given day or during a single season, other times it is longer term. That is what is happening, especially on line where people have the best outlet to express their frustrations with uncertainty and the lack of influence they as individuals have.

Those expressions of frustration are insignificant in the greater scheme of things, and by and large serve as little more than entertainment' for many others who are waiting until enough information is gathered to make an informed decision. Perhaps the internet may be legitimately described as the new opiate of the masses, particularly, at this point, when it comes to the uncertainties that still exist in the field of climate science. These uncertainties are certainly acknowledged by climate science itself, but a lot of people are overlooking that in their frenzy over the disasters (primarily economic and political) that they fear will befall us...and the media as well as politicians are feeding-and feeding on- those fears.

Science is based on evidence and reason, so scientists usually come around to similar opinions. There are very few real skeptics on climate change as the evidence is clear and all their reasons for skepticism have been addressed. There are a number of false skeptics, and their opinions are diverse - as what they make up is only limited by their imaginations.

Ha! Ha! How about those out there looking for the missing heat? How about those who think we are going into an Ice Age. How about those who deny that the earth is cooling, contrary to data. How about those who don't even think it is about climate change, it is about politics? Example:

Quote by Ottmar Edenhoffer, high level UN-IPCC official: "We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy...Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."

How about Jeff M. He can't even come up with an agreeable set of charts? How about Al Gore? You disagree with him and throw him under the bus, but you use his main tenets.

So admit it! You greenies are more like the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

Warmists don't really have opinions of their own, they just repeat government propaganda like good little eco fascists should.

Yes, Skeptics are more open - minded and less prone to embrace 'consensus' thought.

Of course skeptics are critical thinkers and less influenced by propaganda and are not brainwashed like you are, so they they tend to have different opinions.