AGU statement

Forum: SSI-List
Thread: AGU statement

# 18852 byArthur P. Smith on Dec. 17, 2003, 12:02 a.m.
Member since 2022-08-22

Just to show where I happen to stand here (not quite tango's position),
here's what the scientists actually agree on these days:

The AGU (of which I happen to be a member) just released a pretty
strong climate change statement, "Human Impacts on Climate":

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html

which states and re-emphasizes:
"Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate.
These effects add to natural influences that have been present over
Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural
influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface
temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century."

This is from people who are experts in studying the Earth and
its systems - geophysicists (I'm just a regular physicist with an interest
in some of their topics).

The US National Academy of Sciences released a similar, though slightly
more equivocal, lengthy report in 2001:
http://www4.nas.edu/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate?OpenDocument

and of course there are the international IPCC reports which have become
increasingly confident in attributing observed warming to human effects.

Arthur