[Lune]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Global warming is falsifiable, but anthropogenic global warming is not. You can't assign causes without a control group

What control group are you using to highlight the cause of global warming, that you can't use for anthropogenic global warming? Our emissions can be estimated with reasonable accuracy, the concentration of gasses can be measured accurately, and the models for the way these gasses behave are well understood.

Think about this: Watson, Crick, and Franklin used X-ray crystallography to observe the helical structure of DNA. What causes the helical structure of DNA? Well, we know it is due to the structure and properties of the molecules on the backbone of the DNA, and the nitrogenous bases that connect the two backbones-- their charge distribution and orientation of their bonds contorts the molecule a certain way. So which is it? What's the 'control group' that allows us to know this? Is this not falsifiable? What if we discovered that a series of previously unobserved structural proteins were holding the helix in place?

What if we discovered that it wasn't humans that were heating the atmosphere, but rather some previously unknown tectonic mechanism that was releasing billions of tons of methane and other gasses into the atmosphere that we had somehow missed?

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

especially since if you look at the temperature history of the Earth you can see that it varies wildly. Also I think virtually all inductive economics is pure junk, so I have no idea where you got that.

In recorded history it has rarely varied as wildly as it is varying (toward higher temperatures) right now, and it coincides with increasing concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is in fact not falsifiable by the same argument. And in any case, it's not that simple. CO2 has a relatively limited effect on radiative forcing, and that effect is logarithmic, so it increases very slowly. The theory of AGW rests on the premise that this very small increase in temperature will heat the oceans, thus sending large amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere. I'm certainly not saying this impossible, but the atmosphere is an incredibly complex system. It's worth nothing that global CO2 has increased by 10% over the past 20 years, while global temperatures haven't changed much.

CO2 is far from being the only greenhouse gas, and the vast majority of the increasing heat is being absorbed by the oceans, where each quanta of heat does not contribute to global land temperatures on a 1:1 basis. There are also plenty of positive and negative feedback mechanisms that have been accounted for.