Has anyone considered that correlation does not imply causation with global warming?

Sure, but you'd have to be a fool to think that us humans since the industrial age spewing countless tons of pollutants in the atmosphere isn't doing ANYTHING to the world.

I assure you that every climate scientist in the world is aware of that fact. So, yes, it has been considered. ======== Peter J -- Would you, or any denier, care to share your knowledge of the mathematical reason underlying the statement "correlation does not imply causation"?

I didn't think so. Just because a group of people say something, that does not mean they know what they are talking about.

Ahh, another denialist discussing science with obviously no background in it. The saying you have misquoted is "correlation does not EQUAL causation", but in actual fact correlation CAN prove causation when applying Bayesian statistical methods. This is done quite frequently in epidemiology, and was first used to show that cigarettes were causing lung cancer in humans back in the late 50s or early 60s.

The gist is, when you have a large body of work on a topic you can review the work and collate it all based on similar characteristics. These characteristics are used to describe whether the evidence is weak, moderate or strong; the type of methods used, and the direction the relationship describes (positive or negative). You then score each paper based on the strength and methods used and compare the total numbers of positive to negative.

If it is overwhelmingly in one direction, this indicates a causal relationship. I'm not saying this has been done in climate science, since it has rarely been used in environmental science and these methods are just becoming more accessible in the last decade or so for those of us outside the health sciences. But, just so you know- it is very easy to do.

Rubin (1978). Bayesian Inference for Causal Effects: The Role of Randomization. The Annals of Statistics.Vol.6, No.1 (Jan.

, 1978), pp.34-58 - jstor.org/pss/2958688 Holland (1986). Statistics and Causal Inference. Journal of the American Statistical Association.Vol.

81, No.396 (Dec. , 1986), pp.945-960 - http://www.jstor.org/pss/2289064.

The correct statement "correlation does not prove causation. " If correlation never implied causation, then we would have to throw out the germ theory of disease, which is all about disease being correlated to pathogenic bacteria and viruses, and the law of gravity, which is all about the correlation of gravitational acceleration towards an object being correlated to the mass of the other object toward which the first object is accelerating. Obviously, scientists don't, or at least shouldn't jump to conclusions about causation when they see two trends showing correlation.

They need to know if some third factor may be influencing both trends. For example, the Maunder Minimum did not cause cooling because of the lack of sunspots, but rather, the lack of sunspots and the cooling had a common cause, probably related to a lack of magnetic activity in the Sun during that time period. In order to claim that anything causes something else, scientists need to consider the possibility of type II errors.

They also need a mechanism as how the causation happens. No one looked at the Keeling Curve and at the GISS dataset and decide that CO2 magically influences temperature. Carbon dioxide is now known to influence temperature after almost 200 years of extensive study of how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases work.

aip.org/history/climate/timel… Caliserv Over what time period. Over 800 of the last 1,000 years carbon dioxide levels remained almost constant while temperature varied, even if not by the extent denialists claim. During that period, the Sun and to a lesser extent volcanoes drove temperature.

Over the last 30 years, the temperature increased while solar activity decreased. Temperature and ocean warming index correlate well because temperature drives ocean warming index. skepticalscience.com/solar-ac….

I think it's pretty well established that a rise in temperature produces a rise in CO2 (despite Al Gore and other alarmists implying the reverse; temperature FIRST, CO2 SECOND).

Indeed, it has been carefully considered. There is a known physical relationship between CO2 and temperatures. Beyond correlation, it is physics.

Greenhouse gasses react with long-wave radiation to retain heat; it is this process that causes the atmosphere to retain enough heat for life on this planet. Add more greenhouse gas molecules, and you get more heat retention. It is physics, not correlation.

Meanwhile there is a never-ending search for natural explanations of the ongoing warming. None has been found. For example, in past periods of climate change, CO2 has followed warming because the warming oceans throw off more CO2.

But now both the atmosphere and the oceans are absorbing CO2 thus eliminating the possibility that the atmospheric CO2 is coming from the oceans as in the past. This search for and elimation of alternate explanation is an important part of any scientific advancement and it is with climatology. But there is no known natural explanation for the observed warming, and there is no known way for the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere to not cause more warming with the addition of more greenhouse gasses.

The science is not about correlation but about physics. The properties of CO2 as a greenhouse gas has been known for about 100 years. More recently, satellites have detected the incoming solar radiation and the amount of infrared(heat) radiation retained by the earth.

Yes, there is a lag of hundreds of years when temperature increase. This is a feedback effect. After an initial temperature rise due to greenhouse gases, there is a further release of more CO2 from the oceans which causes even more warming.

Try again, maybe it's the cosmic rays from martians. Anything except human emissions.

Yes, correlation is NOT causation. That does not mean we can ignore correlation. In some cases we can wait for absolute proof.In this case the possible destruction of the planet cannot wait for paid stooges of the petrochemical industry to get convinced.

The world has moved on and 18th century thinking like yours is just a joke.

Some of these answers are absolutely ridiculous and only display the arrogant stupidity of these wanna be scientists. A true scientist will come up with a theory and then assemble data to prove that theory. The facts will either prove or disprove that theory.

Now when a theory is proven true then you can use it to accurately predict upcoming events and actions. There has been a lot of money spent by many governments to prove the 'Global Warming' or 'Climate Change' theory and nothing has come out of it except the need for someone to reach in my pocket and for me to give up my liberties so that that schmuck can get rich or more powerful. Simply take the money and power out of the Global Warming equation and you will have no more Global warming.

Recently a top scientist in Colorado threw up his hands since his data collection and theory analysis produced no meaningful answers. He couldn't make an accurate prediction. That's the sign of true science is that it can accurately predict.It is as simple as that.

No more need be said. A true scientist will prove out his theory before he sees a need to dip in my pocket or make laws for a crisis. When someone says 'we can't afford to wait' he is proving he is a con artist and an insult to every scientist's and thinking person's intelligence.

There we go with Caliserve stating something about a fallacy again. Though of course anyone who is aware of the science knows that there is much evidence for CO2 being the cause including quantum theory, measurements of atmospheric longwave radiation wavelengths, measurements of rates of temperature change, measurements of carbon dioxide concentration and human carbon emissions, and so on. People like this run around with blinders stating something about correlation and causation without even looking at the evidence.

Instead they just run right through it and continue spouting their beliefs. And your statement that CO2 is rising due to temperature increases completely ignores the fact that atmospheric CO2 is increasing by 2ppm or 15.8gt per year and human emissions are over twice that amount. You also have to ignore that both the sea surface and the atmosphere are both increasing in CO2 evidenced by the measurements mentioned above and declining ocean pH.

None of the alarmunists have considered that, no. Skeptics point it out frequently, and it appears to the unbiased that CO2 concentrations may change as a result of temperature changes and not cause them.

This is the problem the left has with the whole global warming thing... it is shot through with the false cause fallacy, i.e. Correlation is accepted as evidence of causation. You can see this in the IPCC reports; and in the video representations of the same science basis in the NSF videos on the NSF website.

Also prevalent there is the 'argument from ignorance' fallacy--Dr. Richard Alley makes a passionate case for the AGW hypothesis, based on 'we looked at everything we could think of' and the CO2 was what was left. In fact, the correlation to CO2 is not that good (Pearson's r = 0.66). It is weaker than that of TSI, which is weaker than that of the Ocean Warming Index.

There was a long period of cooling between the 40's and the 70's, and then again it has been flat to cooling over the last 15 years. None of this fits the models. The hypothesis has been tested, and has failed, over and over... but that seems not to bother them much.

Here's an amusing example of the false cause/correlation is not causation/flies cause garbage fallacy in action: researchers in PA say the birds there are getting smaller, and that its caused by global warming. But, researchers in CA say their birds are getting *bigger*, ...and *that's* caused by global warming! Neither group has a shred of evidence that the changes in bird size are caused by global warming.

Al Gore says CO2 is driving climate but good science says that's false. CO2 has never driven temperature in the past and its not doing so now. Watch the videos: The Great Global Warming Swindle youtube.com/watch?v=YaTJJCPYh… Global Warming Doomsday Called Off video.google.com/videoplay?docid=….

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.