The main points:

1. The Keeling curve, measuring CO2 from the Mauna Loa Observatory. [See chart below.]
2. The retreat of numerous glaciers is shown in before-and-after photographs (see Retreat of glaciers since 1850).
3. A study by researchers at the Physics Institute at the University of Bern and the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica presenting data from Antarctic ice cores showing carbon dioxide concentrations higher than at any time during the past 650,000 years.
4. Temperature record since 1880 showing that the ten hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record have all occurred in the last fourteen years.
5. A 2004 survey by Naomi Oreskes of 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles on global climate change published between 1993 and 2003. The survey, published as an editorial in the journal Science, found that every article either supported the human-caused global warming consensus or did not comment on it.

Real Climate:

[...] How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn’t highlight the connection any more than is appropriate [].

There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. [...]

For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did in Earth in the Balance. The small errors don’t detract from Gore’s main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory of climate change. This is not entirely a scientific issue — indeed, Gore repeatedly makes the point that it is a moral issue — but Gore draws heavily on Pacala and Socolow’s recent work to show that the technology is there [].

I’ll admit that I have been a bit of a skeptic about our ability to take any substantive action, especially here in the U.S. Gore’s aim is to change that viewpoint, and the colleagues I saw the movie with all seem to agree that [Al Gore] is successful.

In short: this film is worth seeing. It opens in early June.

External Link: Al Gore’s critics.

Previously: The London School of Economics chose InTrade-TradeSports over BetFair-TradeFair for floating event derivatives on global warming. + InTrade’s global warming prediction markets are more socially interesting than BetFair’s ones. + BetFair’s Global Warming Prediction Markets — CFM’s Views