Comparative CMBology: Putting Things Together

Abstract

I present a series of diagrams which illustrate why the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data favor certain values for the cosmological parameters. Various methods to extract these parameters from CMB and non-CMB observations are forming an ever-tightening network of interlocking constraints. I review the increasingly precise constraints in the Ωm - ΩΛ plane and show why more cosmologists now prefer ΛCDM cosmologies to any other leading model.