GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING
FACTMYTHFALLACY

Our planet has continued tobuild up heat since 1998 global warming is still happening.

“Global warming stopped in1998.”

Cherry picking: looking at one
region or a short period ignoresthe full picture.

Global warming is like rigging
the weather dice, making it
more likely to get hot days.

“It's cold outside, so global
warming must have stopped.”

Impossible Expectations:
global warming doesn't mean
no more cold weather, justfewer cold days compared tohot days.

Overall, glaciers across theglobe are shrinking at anaccelerating rate, threatening water supplies for millionsof people.

“Glaciers around the world areincreasing, disproving globalwarming.”

Cherry picking: picking ahandful of growing glaciers
ignores the vast majority ofglaciers that are shrinking.

Greenland on the whole islosing ice, at a rate of over 2
Mount Everests worth of ice
every year

“Greenland Ice sheet is thickening in the middle so it must
be gaining mass.”

Cherry picking: looking at thewhole ice sheet shows it's
thickening in the middle butice loss at the edges is accelerating.

The West Antarctic ice sheet
is losing hundreds of billions
of tonnes of ice every year,
making it a major contributor
to global sea level rise.

“Antarctic sea ice is on theincrease and casts doubt on
global warming.”

Over simplification: A numberof factors may contribute to
the increase in sea ice - but inno way does it change thefact that climate change ishappening.

We can measure temperature
in many ways and they all say
the same thing - our planet iswarming.

“The thermometer record isunreliable.”

Jumping to conclusions: justbecause measurements have
uncertainty doesn't mean it's
unknowable. The uncertainty issmaller than measured globalwarming.

Urban heat has had minimal
effect on the climate record,with much warming happening where there is little urban
development.

“Urban development isresponsible for much ofglobal warming over the lastcentury.”

Jumping to conclusions: justbecause urban heat might
affect the climate record
doesn't mean it does. Scientists
have confirmed it has neglible
effect.

Slowing jet stream is causing Arctic cold air to leakdown into Europe andNorth America, like anopen fridge leaking cold air
into the kitchen“Record cold wintersdisprove global warming.”

Jumping to conclusions, cherry
picking: a cold winter doesn't
disprove global warming, youneed to look at the bigpicture.

Climate change and global
warming have both beenused for decades.

“They changed name from‘global warming’ to ‘climatechange’.”Misrepresentation: they didn'tchange the name.

WE’RE CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING
FACTMYTHFALLACY

For thousands of years, ouratmosphere has been inbalance. Humans haveupset the balance.

“Human CO2 emissions are tiny
compared to natural CO2
emissions so our influence isnegligible.”Over-simplification: considers
only natural CO2 emissions
and ignores natural CO2 sinks.

Human emissions are responsible for all of the increase in
CO2 in the air over the past
two centuries.

“Volcanoes produce more
CO2 than humans.”

Jumping to conclusions:volcanoes do produce CO2,
but over recent centuries theamounts are too small toaccount for the observedchanges in the air.

If we stopped emitting CO2, it
would take thousands ofyears for the atmosphere toreturn to pre-industrial levels.

“CO2 has a residence time of
only 4 years so CO2 levels
would fall quickly if westopped emitting.”

Red herring: how quickly a
CO2 molecule moves aroundthe climate system is different
to how long it takes CO2 level
to return back to normal.

Greenhouse gases are like a
blanket. They trap heat,sending it back down to Earthwhere we measure it.

“Greenhouse effect violates
the 2nd law of thermodynamics.”

Misrepresentation: 2nd lawtalks about net flow of energy
and doesn't forbid some flowfrom cool to hot.

Emitting more CO2 means
more heat is being trappedhigh up in the atmosphere
where the air is thinner.

“The greenhouse effect issaturated so adding more
CO2 won't affect it.”Over-simplification: considers
atmosphere as a single layer
when it's multiple layers.

Ice cores tell us warming
causes the ocean to emit
more CO2. Combined withgreenhouse effect, this is areinforcing feedback.

“CO2 lagging temperaturemeans greenhouse effect isminimal.”

False dichotomy: it's not one or
the other but both. CO2 causes
warming and warming causes
CO2 to rise.

One human fingerprint is acooling upper atmospherewith a warming lower atmosphere. Satellites have measured this pattern.

“One fingerprint of
human-caused global
warming is the tropospheric
hot spot which hasn't beenobserved.”

Red herring: hot spot is irrelevant to greenhouse warming.

Satellites measure the warming effect from CO2 - theincreased greenhouse effectis an observed reality.

“CO2 is a trace gas so it’s
warming effect is minimal.”

Red herring: trace amounts ofsubstances can have a strong
effect and this is irrelevant tothe warming potential of CO2.

Changing patterns in the
yearly and daily cycle
confirm human-caused
global warming, rule out thesun.

“The sun is causing globalwarming.”

Cherry picking: ignores humanfingerprints and recent period
where sun and climate move in
opposite directions.

PAST & FUTURE CLIMATE CHANGE
FACTMYTHFALLACY

Past climate change tells us
climate is sensitive to thewarming effect of CO2.

“Natural climate change in thepast implies current climatechange is also natural.”Jumping to conclusions: past
climate change actually sends
the opposite message thanwhat the myth concludes.

Natural influences thatended the Little Ice Agehave been swamped byrecent human activity.

“Current warming is just thecontinuation of natural recovery from the Little Ice Age.”Red Herring: the natural factorsthat ended the Little Ice Age
are no longer significant.

In the past when the sun wascooler, CO2 was higher. The
two roughly balanced eachother. We are now raising
CO2 levels with a warmer sun.

“CO2 was higher in the past
but the world didn't boil away
so the greenhouse effect isweak.”Cherry picking: ignores therole of the sun which wascooler in the past.

While the Medieval Warm
Period saw unusually warm
temperatures in some regions,
globally the planet wascooler than now.

“The Medieval Warm Period
was warmer than currentconditions. This implies recent
warming is not unusual andmust be natural.”

Cherry Picking: For averagetemperature over wide
regions, the hot regions werecancelled out by other coolregions.

Models are based on fundamental physical principles.

“Models are unreliable.”

Impossible expectations: nomodel is perfect but they areuseful tools that can reproduce
the past and provide insights
into the future.

Models have made anumber of successful predictions.

“Models predictions havefailed, making them unreliable.”

Impossible expectations:climate models have had great
success at predicting long-term
effects like greenhouse warming.

Climate models simulate
climate which is weather
averaged over time.

“Scientists can’t even predict
weather.”

Red herring: Confusing weather
with climate distracts from thefact that short-term predictions
have little relevance tolong-term climate predictions.

In the 1970s, the majority ofclimate papers were predicting warming.

“In the 1970s, climate scientists were predicting an iceage.”

Misrepresentation: confuses
mainstream media reports with
scientific papers which overwhelmingly pointed towardswarming.

Even if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels, it would
only delay global warming
by a decade.

“We're heading into anotherice age because of thecooling sun.”Misrepresentation: overstating
the role of solar activity on
climate - it actually has hadlittle effect.

The IPCC is 20 times more
likely to underestimate rather
than exagerate climate
impacts.

“Climate models and theIPCC are alarmist.”

Cherry picking: selectively looks
at a few examples where theIPCC overestimated climatechange, ignoring the muchlarger number of examples ofunderestimation.

CLIMATE IMPACTS
FACT

MYTH

FALLACY

The amount of water vapor
in the air depends on temperature. Warming causes
water vapor to rise, whichcauses further warming: areinforcing feedback.

“Water vapor is the strongest
greenhouse gas.”

Red herring: the fact thatwater vapor is a strong greenhouse gas means it amplifies
the warming from greenhousegases.

Clouds provide a reinforcing
feedback but the effect isn't
strong . Clouds play a minor
role in climate sensitivity.

“Clouds provide negative
feedback.”

Oversimplification: acting as if
clouds only have a cooling
effect ignores that they canalso warm.

Mass extinctions happen
when climate changes too
fast for species to adapt.
Currently species are going
extinct at similar rates to pastmass extinctions.

“Species can adapt toclimate change.”

Jumping to conclusions: justbecause species can adapt tosome climate change doesn’tmean they can adjust to therapid climate change happening now.

Polar bears need sea ice tohunt so the shrinking of Arctic
sea ice is endangering their
populations.

“Polar bear numbers haveincreased so they're in no
danger from global warming.”

Oversimplification: one threat(hunting) has been removed
but replaced with an increasing threat (melting sea ice).

Ocean acidity has increased
30% and poses serious threats
to coral reefs that are also
threatened by warming
oceans and bleaching.

“Ocean acidification isn’tserious.”

Misrepresentation: ocean
acidification means oceans are
decreasing in pH sothey are
getting more acidic, even if
they are not actually acid.

Climate change is having
negative impacts on all partsof society.

“Global warming is good.”

Cherry picking: this focuses ona few good impacts of global
warming but ignores theoverwhelming number of badimpacts.

A pollutant is any substancethat disrupts the environment- CO2 does that by trapping
heat.

“CO2 is not a pollutant.”

Red herring: quibbling overtechnical definitions of pollutant is a distraction from therealities of the negative
impacts of global warming.

Climate change impacts
agriculture through extreme
weather: heat stress andflooding.

“CO2 is plant food.”

Oversimplification: CO2 fertilisation is just one factor affecting
plant growth. The full picture
shows that negative impacts
outweigh benefits.

Risk from extreme weather isincreasing, albeit some formsof extreme weather are
more confidently linked to
global warming than others.

“Extreme weather not linked
to global warming.”

Jumping to conclusions: justbecause extreme weather
happened in the past doesn’tmean climate change isn’t
having an influence now.