| Skeptic Argument | vs | What the Science Says |
| 1 | "It's the sun" | The sun’s output has barely changed since 1970 and is irrelevant to recent global warming. |
| 2 | "Climate's changed before" | The climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time, which now is dominated by humans. |
| 3 | "There is no consensus" | Around 95% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming. |
| 4 | "It's cooling" | The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record. |
| 5 | "Models are unreliable" | Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean. |
| 6 | "Temp record is unreliable" | The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites. |
| 7 | "It hasn't warmed since 1998" | 2005 was the hottest year globally, and 2009 the second hottest. |
| 8 | "Ice age predicted in the 70s" | The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming. |
| 9 | "We're heading into an ice age" | Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years. |
| 10 | "Antarctica is gaining ice" | Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate. |
| 11 | "CO2 lags temperature" | Recent CO2 increase has caused recent warming without any time lag. |
| 12 | "It's not bad" | Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives. |
| 13 | "Al Gore got it wrong" | Al Gore’s book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books. |
| 14 | "It's cosmic rays" | Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming. |
| 15 | "It's freaking cold!" | A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures. |
| 16 | "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming" | There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming. |
| 17 | "1934 - hottest year on record" | 1934 was not the hottest year globally, only in the US. |
| 18 | "Hockey stick is broken" | Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years. |
| 19 | "Mars is warming" | Mars is not warming globally. |
| 20 | "It's Urban Heat Island effect" | Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend. |
| 21 | "It's just a natural cycle" | Ancient natural cycles are irrelevant for attributing recent global warming to humans. |
| 22 | "Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle" | Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat. |
| 23 | "Sea level rise is exaggerated" | A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century. |
| 24 | "Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas" | Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse. |
| 25 | "Other planets are warming" | Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly. |
| 26 | "Greenland was green" | Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer. |
| 27 | "Oceans are cooling" | The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming. |
| 28 | "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy" | Several investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident. |
| 29 | "Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions" | Human-caused CO2 emissions upset the natural balance and are causing global warming. |
| 30 | "Climate sensitivity is low" | Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence. |
| 31 | "CO2 effect is weak" | The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements. |
| 32 | "We're coming out of the Little Ice Age" | The sun was warming up then, but the sun hasn’t been warming since 1970. |
| 33 | "It cooled mid-century" | Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming. |
| 34 | "Glaciers are growing" | Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water. |
| 35 | "It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low" | Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2. |
| 36 | "There's no empirical evidence" | There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming. |
| 37 | "Polar bear numbers are increasing" | Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species. |
| 38 | "Satellites show no warming in the troposphere" | The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming. |
| 39 | "Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use" | Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases. |
| 40 | "IPCC does not represent a scientific consensus" | The IPCC summarizes the recent research by leading scientific experts. |
| 41 | "Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming" | Extreme weather events are being made worse by global warming. |
| 42 | "CO2 is not a pollutant" | Excess CO2 emissions will lead to hotter conditions that will stress and even kill crops. |
| 43 | "There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature" | There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term. |
| 44 | "Greenland is gaining ice" | Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement. |
| 45 | "CO2 was higher in the past" | While CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler. |
| 46 | "Scientists can't even predict weather" | Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail. |
| 47 | "There's no tropospheric hot spot" | We see a clear "short-term hot spot" - there's various evidence for a "long-term hot spot". |
| 48 | "Neptune is warming" | And the sun is cooling. |
| 49 | "Jupiter is warming" | Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling. |
| 50 | "It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation" | The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming. |
| 51 | "CO2 effect is saturated" | Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat. |
| 52 | "Pluto is warming" | And the sun has been recently cooling. |
| 53 | "Greenland ice sheet won't collapse" | When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted. |
| 54 | "Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans" | Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes. |
| 55 | "Animals and plants can adapt to global warming" | Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales. |
| 56 | "Medieval Warm Period was warmer" | Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times. |
| 57 | "CO2 measurements are suspect" | CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend. |
| 58 | "It's the ocean" | The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain. |
| 59 | "It's El Niño" | El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming. |
| 60 | "Arctic sea ice is back to normal" | Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat. |
| 61 | "Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming" | Around 95% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming. |
| 62 | "Dropped stations introduce warming bias" | If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher. |
| 63 | "Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun" | The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming. |
| 64 | "It's aerosols" | Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise. |
| 65 | "It's microsite influences" | Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend. |
| 66 | "CO2 has a short residence time" | Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years |
| 67 | "It's a climate regime shift" | There is no evidence that climate has chaotic “regimes” on a long-term basis. |
| 68 | "2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory" | The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed. |
| 69 | "Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate" | Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming. |
| 70 | "It's not happening" | Recent global warming is occurring and is due to humans. |
| 71 | "Greenhouse effect has been falsified" | The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations. |
| 72 | "It's land use" | Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate. |
| 73 | "The science isn't settled" | That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations. |
| 74 | "2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells" | A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming. |
| 75 | "It's methane" | Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt. |
| 76 | "500 scientists refute the consensus" | Around 95% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming. |
| 77 | "Mike's Nature trick to 'hide the decline'" | Michael Mann was quoted out of context, and nothing was hidden. |
| 78 | "IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers" | Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report. |
| 79 | "Ocean acidification isn't serious" | Past history shows that when CO2 rises quickly, there was mass extinctions of coral reefs. |
| 80 | "Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated" | Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting. |
| 81 | "Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed" | Benny Peisner, the Oreskes critic, retracted his criticism. |
| 82 | "Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995" | Phil Jones was misquoted. |
| 83 | "Ice isn't melting" | Ice is melting at an accelerating rate at both poles and in glaciers all over the world. |
| 84 | "CO2 is coming from the ocean" | The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result. |
| 85 | "It's not us" | Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change. |
| 86 | "CO2 is not increasing" | CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years. |
| 87 | "It's albedo" | Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming. |
| 88 | "Record snowfall disproves global warming" | Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter. |
| 89 | "Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong" | Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right. |
| 90 | "Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity" | Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climatologists. |
| 91 | "The sun is getting hotter" | The sun’s output has just oscillated since 1970 with a slight cooling trend. |
| 92 | "Solar cycles cause global warming" | Over recent decades, the sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming. |
| 93 | "Springs aren't advancing" | Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years. |
| 94 | "Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project" | The 'OISM petition' was signed by only a few climatologists. |
| 95 | "Water levels correlate with sunspots" | This detail is irrelevant to the observation of global warming caused by humans. |
| 96 | "IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests" | The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media. |
| 97 | "Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted" | Weather is chaotic but climate is driven by Earth's energy imbalance, which is more predictable. |
| 98 | "Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming" | This possibility just means that future global warming could be even worse. |
| 99 | "Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising" | The paper in question was misquoted. |
| 100 | "Mauna Loa is a volcano" | The global trend is calculated from hundreds of CO2 measuring stations and confirmed by satellites. |
| 101 | "CO2 is not the only driver of climate" | CO2 is the main driver of climate change. |
| 102 | "Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming" | Trenberth is talking about the details of energy flow, not whether global warming is happening. |
| 103 | "CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician" | The sun was much cooler during the Ordovician. |
| 104 | "Southern sea ice is increasing" | Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time. |
| 105 | "Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic" | Melting ice leads to more sunlight being absorbed by water, thus heating the Arctic. |
| 106 | "Global temperatures dropped sharply in 2007" | But global temperatures rose sharply in 2009, to the second hottest level. |
| 107 | "Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960" | This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend. |
| 108 | "Hulme says IPCC consensus was phoney" | Ironically, it's those who are mispresenting Hulme's paper that are the ones being misleading. |
| 109 | "It's CFCs" | CFCs contribute at a small level. |
| 110 | "A drop in volcanic activity caused warming" | Volcanoes have had no warming effect in recent global warming - if anything, a cooling effect. |
| 111 | "CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration" | That humans are causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 is confirmed by multiple isotopic analyses. |
| 112 | "It's global brightening" | This is a complex aerosol effect with unclear temperature significance. |
| 113 | "Warming causes CO2 rise" | Recent warming is due to rising CO2. |
| 114 | "It's ozone" | Ozone has only a small effect. |
| 115 | "It's satellite microwave transmissions" | Satellite transmissions are extremely small and irrelevant. |
| 116 | "We didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution" | CO2 emissions were much smaller 100 years ago. |
| 117 | "Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass" | Greenland's ice loss is accelerating & will add metres of sea level rise in upcoming centuries. |
| 118 | "Antarctica is too cold to lose ice" | Glaciers are sliding faster into the ocean because ice shelves are thinning due to warming oceans. |
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