July 2, 2007, 2:06 pm

I am releasing version 1.0 of my Skeptical Layman's Guide to Anthropogenic Global Warming. You may download the pdf (about 2.7 mb) from the link above or by clicking on the cover photo below. In the next few days, I will also be posting an online HTML version as well as offering a printed version at cost.

Update: The HTML version is here, and the book can be purchased at cost through this link

The purpose of this paper is to provide a layman's critique

of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory, and in particular to

challenge the fairly widespread notion that the science and projected

consequences of AGW currently justify massive spending and government

intervention into the world's economies. This paper will show that despite good evidence that global temperatures

are rising and that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas and help to warm the Earth,

we are a long way from attributing all or much of current warming to man-made

CO2. We are even further away from being

able to accurately project man's impact on future climate, and it is a very

debatable question whether interventions today to reduce CO2 emissions will substantially

improve the world 50 or 100 years from now.

I am not a trained expert on the climate. I studied physics at Princeton University before switching my

major to mechanical engineering, where I specialized in control theory and

feedback loops, a topic that will be important when we get into the details of

climate change modeling. For over ten

years, my business specialty was market prediction and sales forecasting using

modeling approaches similar to (if far less complex than) those used in climate.

My goal for this paper is not to materially

advance climate science. However, I have

found that the global warming skeptic's case is seldom reported well or in any

depth, and I wanted to have a try at producing a fair reporting of the

skeptic's position. I have been unhappy

with several of the recent documentaries outlining the skeptic's case, either

because they skipped over a number of critical issues, or because they

over-sold alternate warming hypotheses that are not yet well understood. To the inevitable charge that as a

non-practitioner, I am not qualified to write this paper --I believe that I am

able to present the current state of the science, with a particular emphasis on

the skeptic's case, at least as well as a good reporter might, and far better

than most reporters actually portray the state of the science. Through this paper I will try to cite sources

as often as possible and provide links for those who are reading this online,

this report is best read as journalism, not as a scientific, meticulously

footnoted paper.

An outline of the paper is as follows:

Forward: What Are My Goals For This Paper Chapter

1: Management Summary Chapter

2: Is It OK to be a Skeptic? Charges

of Bias The

Climate Trojan Horse The

Need to Exaggerate Chapter

3: The Basics of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Theory Chapter

4: The historical evidence The

long view (650,000 years) The medium view (1000 years) The

short view (100 years) Sulfates,

Aerosols, and Dimming The

Troposphere Dilemma and Urban heat islands Using

Computer Models to Explain the Past Chapter

5: The computer models and predicting

the future The

Dangers in Modeling Complex Systems Do

Model Outputs Constitute Scientific Proof? Econometrics and CO2 Forecasts Climate

Sensitivity and the Role of Positive Feedbacks Climate

Models had to be aggressively tweaked to match history Chapter

6: Alternate explanations and models Solar

Irradiance Cosmic

Rays Man's

Land Use Chapter

7: The effects of global warming Why

only bad stuff? Ice

melting / ocean rising Hurricanes

& Tornados Temperature

Extremes Extinction

and Disease Collapse

of the Gulf Stream and Freezing of Europe Non-warming

Effects of CO2 Chapter

8: Kyoto and Policy Alternatives Kyoto Cost

of the Solutions vs. the Benefits: Why

Warmer but Richer may be Better than Colder and Poorer Chapter

9: Rebuttals by AGW Supporters

Please feel free to download and share. If you find errors, omissions, mistakes, gaps or anything else you would like to comment on, please email me at the address on the cover. In particular, I have tried to be careful with copyrighted material, but if I have used any of your material without your consent, let me know ASAP and I will remove it.