Scientific Support for Global Climate Shift

I've read time and again conservative yokels saying that many scientists claim up and down a pole how GCS doesn't exist, it's a hoax, etc. I honestly do not know from where these statistics crop up, but I decided to do a little research myself, and I found the following:


A panel entitled the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that it is very likely that humans have caused and expounded upon global climate shift trends (very likely being 90% agreement). Now, you may say, who is this suspicious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? They sound like a bunch of leftist partisan hacks!
Well, not so fast. It is actually an internationally funded and supported group created from organizations within the United Nations: the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme; neither of which are based out of the United States, and both of which contain a charter which is riddled with some of the most prominent names in Meteorological sciences and, more broadly, environmental sciences.
Now, if you do a little research you will see that the IPCC doesn't do any of its own research, and you may say "AHA! See! Just a bunch of speculation!!"
Well, that's not so true. They put out reports speculating on the possibility of human influence on Climate Shift, based off of scientific reports from all around the world (inside and outside of partisan lines).

A brief synopsis of their 4th report, which was released last year, states as follows (just a few bullet points, the report can be read in full; I will post a few links after this)

# Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
# Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.

# Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18).

# The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.


Now, again, you're saying they're cherry-picking research, and not doing it comprehensively. Well, IPCC just so happens to list their contributors, who number over 250 (contributors means scientific researchers, teams of scientists, and individual institutions); and their nationalities are very diverse, ranging from America to Zimbabwe; each one of the scientist and/or team of scientists being very prominent in their own countries and their own rights.

So, I guess the scientists you are listening to aren't necessarily the scientists to whom you should listen. The Bush administration has been caught pressuring scientists to disavow Global Warming. Now even the people who didn't acknowledge global climate change for many years (much like how the catholic church bashed and subsequently punished those who believed the sun was the center of our solar system, and not the earth [and then didn't apologize for their actions for 400 years]) have actually recanted their original position; back-striding to say, essentially "We fucked up, here, we should fix this."

To so as imply that there are a lot of scientist that don't believe climate shift is possible is just as stupid as saying the Earth is flat, or the sun revolves around Earth. Sure, there are scientists who are the dissident population, but they do not represent a majority, or even a spatial culmination of "a lot." Maybe, a lot means in relation to the size of their IQs, or possibly a lot in relation to the amount of african-americans in the commonwealth of Wasilla (At last census count, 7). But a lot doesn't constitute 8 in a population of 10,000+.

I honestly hope you got something from this, but you probably didn't.

Anyway, here are some sources you all can cite if you want (by the way, this response took me some time, so I'm not this environment nut, or somebody who was able to rattle these stats off the top of his head... just a few long-winded google-searches).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report:_Climate_Change_2007
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/index_en.html
http://www.unep.org/
Contributors to the IPCC Report:
http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/FAR4docs/final_pdfs_ar4/Annex-III.pdf
Actual Report:
http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/AR4-chapters.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy#Existence_of_a_scientific_consensus


That should get you started...