What are your current beliefs on climate change?
I'll skip talking about my own general beliefs about climate change because there's little reason to think they're of much more interest than those already posted.
Instead I'll point to the results of the last LW survey, where hundreds of us answered the question, "What is the probability that significant global warming is occurring or will soon occur, and is primarily caused by human actions?" The question isn't very specific and is somewhat subjective, but the answers to it can be correlated with the survey's other answers (on demographics, politics, and so on).
If you read my recent posts linked above, did the posts contain information that was new to you?
Some of the fine details were new to me, but the only substantial bit of information I hadn't seen before was Armstrong & Green's allegation that climatologists don't hew to forecasting principles closely enough.
Did any of this information surprise you?
Not particularly.
Do you think it's valuable to carry out this sort of exercise in order to better understand the climate change debate?
Do I think it's valuable for you to have made these posts? Yeah, a bit; it's been interesting to see how an intelligent, Less Wrong-y person with some mathematical training thinks about the topic when they're prompted to investigate it as part of a more general project about forecasting.
Do I think it's valuable for people in general to do this? If they get into arguments about climate change a lot, they probably ought to read into the topic in some detail. Otherwise, realistically, there's not much reason to put lots of time into honing one's beliefs here (and my advice would be to just flick through the relevant sections of the IPCC reports as & when one feels like it).
Note: Please see this post of mine for more on the project, my sources, and potential sources for bias.
I have written a couple of blog posts on my understanding of climate forecasting, climate change, and the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis (here and here). I also laid down the sources I was using to inform myself here.
I think one question that a number of readers may have had is: given my lack of knowledge (and unwillingness to undertake extensive study) of the subject, why am I investigating it at all, rather than relying on the expert consensus, as documented by the IPCC that, even if we're not sure is correct, is still the best bet humanity has for getting things right? I intend to elaborate on the reasons for taking a closer look at the matter, while still refraining from making the study of atmospheric science a full-time goal, in a future post.
Right now, I'm curious to hear how you formed your views on climate change. In particular, I'm interested in answers to questions such as these (not necessarily answers to all of them, or even to only these questions).