How to become a climate skeptic

Global anomalies galore! So you’ve seen the biggest typhoon ever wreak havoc in the Philippines. You’ve seen snow fall where it rarely, if ever, falls (Palhoça, Brazil). You’ve seen deadly forest fires that killed 19 firefighters in Arizona and others that devastated part of the Yosemite natural park, killing thousand-year-old sequoias, due to intense heat waves.  You’re scratching your head trying to imagine when and where the next catastrophe will hit.

Destruction in Tacloban, Philippines from the typhoon Haiyan. Photo taken by French journal La Libération.

All of the events mentioned above happened in 2013, folks.

But how on Earth can scientists still claim that this is perfectly normal and we’re not experiencing any major global changes caused by human activity?

Here’s my guide on how to become a climate skeptic in three easy steps. First, inform yourself on all the major changes the Earth goes through that can cause climate change. Second, learn how to deny and contradict arguments employed by scientists on the opposite team, basing your facts scientifically. Thirdly, ally yourself with important politics that will approve your claims and have economic interests in proving/disproving climate change.

So! Buckle up, this is a long one.

#1.  Inform yourself about all the other processes that can affect the climate

• Ice ages

First of all, the Earth didn’t always have this warm, sunny climate that we’re used to today. You’ve all heard of ice ages that periodically cover part of the Northern hemisphere in ice and the wooly mammoths that come with. Ice ages are just one of the Earth’ many cycles. They are part of Earth’s past and will happen in the future.

In fact, the period between ice ages is so short, it’s called interglacial period. It’s much shorter than the ice ages. While each ice age lasts about 100 to 150 thousand years, the interglacial periods last only 20 thousand years.

So what we’re living in today is nothing more than a brief interruption of the last ice age, known as Würm here in Europe or the Wisconsin glaciation across the Atlantic Ocean.  Rises and drops of temperature are normal during this period. In fact, a rise in temperature may mean that the Earth is bracing itself for another ice age, not that we’re releasing enormous amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Influences from outer space

• The sun

When we hear about the Earth warming up, we tend to look up- with good reason. The sun is Earth’s heat source and the greenhouse effect is what traps part of this heat and keeps the Earth toasty.  Any changes in the sun itself would impact Earth’s temperature directly. As it is, the sun does has its own cycles, one of which lasts around 11 years and is responsible for boosting the solar “constant”, or the radiation factor that makes the sun transmit more or less heat to Earth. Another longer cycle lasts from 80-200 years and gradually increases the constant maximum before bringing it back to normal.

The number of sunspots are related to an increase in the solar constant and solar radiation that the Earth receives. Source: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif

This isn’t a great argument to use in climate-skeptology, because the period involved in climate change is too short to be taken into account. Unless you're ingenious and you want to show that global warming nowadays is a result of the end of this sun cycle. Or maybe you’re part of the group that denies climate change completely and you want to use this argument to show that according to the number of sun spots recorded over the last decade, the solar radiation is actually going down, not up. The great thing about science is that you can pick your data according to your beliefs and back it up with your own arguments, right?

•  The Earth

Then there’s the Earth’s position in outer space.  Everyone is familiar with the Earth’s two main rotations; one around itself, creating day and night; and one around the sun that accounts for the change in seasons. But there are three other processes that change which parts of Earth are closer to the sun, commonly known as the Milankovitch cycles:

Precession, or the rotation of Earth’s axes, as demonstrated by this video:

A complete rotation takes about 23 thousand years to be completed.

Axial tilt or obliquity, which are responsible for the changes in seasons, but can also vary over a long period (41 thousand years), as demonstrated by this video: 

Eccentricity, or the change in Earth’s eliptic orbit, as demonstrated by this video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mlUXzHoJsk

This takes about 100 thousand years to be completed. All in all, these many cycles have a major impact on Earth’s climate in the long term.

• Volcanoes

Next on the anti-climate change menu is volcanic activity. Yes, volcanos have a major impact on the planet. When a strong eruption reaches 12 to 18 kilometers in altitude, it releases sulfur in the stratosphere. This will cause a layer of reflective material that make the sun rays bounce back from where it came from, and keep the Earth from warming with the greenhouse effect. Volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa in 1883 create harsh winters.

In fact, releasing sulfur in the stratosphere is such a powerful combatant against the greenhouse effect that a couple scientists have considered launching missiles in the stratosphere to imitate what volcanoes do naturally.

• Ocean currents and wind

And last on my non-exhaustive list of arguments are the changes in ocean currents, known as El Niño and La Niña. El Niño is a transfer of heat from the Pacific Ocean towards South America, where there will be heavy rain fall. This will also cause droughts in Indonesia and Australia. La Niña is the opposite, caused by strong winds that push this heat away from South America. The warm water is blocked near Indonesia and cold underlying water is forced to move towards South America.

If you compile all this data, you will have a great selection of what to choose to prove those pesky scientists that it's ok to keep on polluting. Climate change is natural and not caused by human activity at all. 

And that, my friend, is how you make a climate skeptic.

Keep tuned for Part 2 on becoming a climate skeptic: how to deny global warming.