Global warming

[CapelDodger]

Not in your area (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/HadEWP.html)...no increased rain

No AGW hypothesis confirmation on that basis, sorry.

Do what now? :confused:

I don't need telling that it's been a wet summer over here. Really wet. In bursts. A graph of the smoothed-out average British year over the last 230 years - terminating in 2000 -contributes nothing to what's currently going on. UK rainfall is shiftiing from steady and depressing to sudden and alarming.

[bobdroege7]

can you provide evidence to support the 1500 year cycle that covers more than one cylce of 1000 years that being the time between the Medieval warm period and now?

Given that he proposes a 1500 +/- 500 year cycle, does he have any evidence to support this?

[mhaze]

can you provide evidence to support the 1500 year cycle that covers more than one cylce of 1000 years that being the time between the Medieval warm period and now?

Given that he proposes a 1500 +/- 500 year cycle, does he have any evidence to support this?

Yes, that is my intention.

Obviously his theory is radical, but he bases it on isotope readings, ice cores, historical data. So it should be easy to grasp, as opposed to some things that get very technical very fast.

But first we had to get all the anti Singer personal attacks out of the way.

Now we can get into the science. By the way, outside of skimming his article, I know little about his theory and could not care less if it stands or falls.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by CapelDodger http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2916572#post2916572)
Actually, this "more evaporation so more clouds and so a negative feeback" hypothesis/hope has been modelled in the big bad analogue one and has yet to kick in. It remains as much a "might" as it was twenty years ago; "hasn't" seems more appropriate given the ocean warming that's taken place.

The physics of the hypothesis is bad to start with. More evaporation doesn't lead to more cloud because the condensed droplets in cloud are as subject to evaporation as any other body of water. And all over. Not just at the top. Condensation nuclei are way above saturation point, so there won't be any more cloud. There might be a more rapid cycling, though, leading to heavier downpours.

Such arguments, like Singer, are rooted in the past, old Before Warming arguments. Back in the "it won't happen" days. We're well into the During Warming days now, of course.

At least Lindzen seems to have dropped his ludicrous Iris Theory. He's been rowing back for years now. Singer, on the other hand, has definitely lost the plot.

Shame really, it was so well reasoned.

You guys just got all wet. Caught out in the rain?

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/Template/0_CO2ScienceB2C/images/spacer.gifIn an intriguing Climate Change report in Science, Wentz et al. (2007) note that the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, as well as various climate modeling analyses, predict an increase in precipitation on the order of 1 to 3% per 癈 of surface global warming. Hence, they decided to see what has happened in the real world in this regard over the last 19 years (1987-2006) of supposedly unprecedented global warming, when data from the Global Historical Climatology Network and satellite measurements of the lower troposphere have indicated a global temperature rise on the order of 0.20C per decade.

They derived a real-world increase in precipitation on the order of 7% per 癈 of surface global warming, which is somewhere between 2.3 and 7 times larger than what is predicted by state-of-the-art climate models.

Based on theoretical considerations, Wentz et al. concluded that the only way to bring the two results into harmony with each other was for there to have been a 19-year decline in global wind speeds. But when looking at the past 19 years of SSM/I wind retrievals, they found just the opposite, i.e., an increase in global wind speeds. In quantitative terms, in fact, the two results were about as opposite as they could possibly be, as they report that "when averaged over the tropics from 30癝 to 30癗, the winds increased by 0.04 m s-1 (0.6%) decade-1, and over all oceans the increase was 0.08 m s-1 (1.0%) decade-1," while global coupled ocean-atmosphere models or GCMs, in their words, "predict that the 1987-to-2006 warming should have been accompanied by a decrease in winds on the order of 0.8% decade-1."

Wentz et al. tate that "the reason for the discrepancy between the observational data and the GCMs is not clear." They also rightly state that this dramatic difference between the real world of nature and the virtual world of climate modeling "has enormous impact," concluding that the questions raised by the discrepancy "are far from being settled."

Wentz, F.J., Ricciardulli, L., Hilburn, K. and Mears, C. 2007. How much more rain will global warming bring? Science 317: 233-235.

[mhaze]

Yes, that is my intention.

Obviously his theory is radical, but he bases it on isotope readings, ice cores, historical data. So it should be easy to grasp, as opposed to some things that get very technical very fast.

But first we had to get all the anti Singer personal attacks out of the way.


Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2914476#post2914476)


How to sound dumb and debate skeptics (http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics) from Gristmill Or Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) at Realclimate leads to stuff like what has just been posted...
Singer is a corporate whore and no better than a lawyer.
Singer is nobody's go-to guy for that.
He does make very clever logical errors, that seem to slip past a few people
He deliberately misprepresents the findings of a paper into the discrepancies of the troposphere temperature readings.
He does a classic bait and switch.
Singer, on the other hand, has definitely lost the plot.
Singer is nobody's go-to guy for all the honest, seeking-truth interpretations.
Singer, are rooted in the past, old Before Warming arguments.
you are clearly attempting a derail by citing vague and volumes references from questionable sourcesDid I miss anything? So far Singer's theory of the 1500 year cycle stands irrefuted and Un-debunked. And if it stands as valid, AGW does not exist.

I repeat my challenge -

Why not just read the actual science? It ain't gonna bite ya.http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf) of the 1,500 year climate cycle, excerpted from his book.

If you want to debunk something, here is something that you may click on with your one remaining arm - and read with your two eyes - as long as your head remains attached.

Debunk Singer's core theory,
the 1,500 year climate cycle.

[mhaze]

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf)

Executive Summary (from the paper)

The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that human activities have little to do with it. Instead, the warming seems to be part of a 1,500-year cycle (plus or minus 500 years) of moderate temperature swings. It has long been accepted that the Earth has experienced climate cycles, most notably the 90,000year Ice Age cycles. But in the past 20 years or so, modern science has discovered evidence that within those broad Ice Age cycles, the Earth also experiences 1,500-year warming-cooling cycles. The Earth has been in the Modern Warming portion of the current cycle since about 1850, following a Little Ice Age from about 1300 to 1850. It appears likely that warming will continue for some time into the future, perhaps 200 years or more, regardless of human activity.

Evidence of the global nature of the 1,500-year climate cycles includes very long-term proxies for temperature change — ice cores, seabed and lake sediments, and fossils of pollen grains and tiny sea creatures. There are also shorter-term proxies — cave stalagmites, tree rings from trees both living and buried, boreholes and a wide variety of other temperature proxies.

Scientists got the first unequivocal evidence of a continuing moderate natural climate cycle in the 1980s, when Willi Dansgaard of Denmark and Hans Oeschger of Switzerland first saw two mile-long ice cores from Greenland representing 250,000 years of Earth’s frozen, layered climate history. From their initial examination, Dansgaard and Oeschger estimated the smaller temperature cycles at 2,550 years.

Subsequent research shortened the estimated length of the cycles to 1,500 years (plus or minus 500 years). Other substantiating findings followed:
● An ice core from the Antarctic’s Vostok Glacier — at the other end of the world from Greenland
— showed the same 1,500-year cycle through its 400,000-year length.
● The ice-core findings correlated with known glacier advances and retreats in northern Europe.
● Independent data in a seabed sediment core from the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland, reported in 1997, showed nine of the 1,500-year cycles in the last 12,000 years. Other seabed sediment cores of varying ages near Iceland, in the Norwegian and Baltic seas, off Alaska, in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Arabian Sea, near the Philippines and off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula all also showed evidence of the 1,500-year cycles. So did lake sediment cores from Switzerland, Alaska, various parts of Africa and Argentina, as did cave stalagmites in Europe, Asia and Africa, and fossilized pollen, boreholes, tree rings and mountain tree lines.

None of these pieces of evidence would be convincing in and of themselves. However, to dismiss the evidence of the 1,500-year climate cycle, it is necessary to dismiss not only the known human histories from the past 2,000 years but also an enormous range and variety of physical evidence found by a huge body of serious researchers.

[a_unique_person]

Yes, that is my intention.

Obviously his theory is radical, but he bases it on isotope readings, ice cores, historical data. So it should be easy to grasp, as opposed to some things that get very technical very fast.

But first we had to get all the anti Singer personal attacks out of the way.

Now we can get into the science. By the way, outside of skimming his article, I know little about his theory and could not care less if it stands or falls.

So he is saying once again that he is basing his idea on a correlation? I thought he already said, correlation is not causation.

[lomiller]

Run for that ice!

Here is a repeat -

I've invited you to debunk or otherwise refute Singer's main hypthesis.

Ad hominem attacks cede victory to the opposite side.

LOL apparently losing half the ice in the arctic is a laughably insignificant indicator. :eek:

If you are going to hold Singer up as an expert then challenging his credentials and past work is fair game. In any case I’m not going to run out reading novels trying to guess what you think are the significant points. If you want to bring up those points by all means do so but don’t complain that other people won’t run out and do the research for you.

[CapelDodger]

OK, a 1500 year cycle, MWP posited for 1000-1200CE, ergo next peak around 2500-2700CE. Current date around 2100CE. How frickin' warm is it going to get by 2500CE? A lot warmer than in 1000CE, that's for certain.

But of course it's a 1500 year cycle plus or minus 500 - mhaze, you're normally a stickler for certainty, doesn't this get-out concern you at all? I mean, talk about data-mining.

"None of these pieces of evidence would be convincing in and of themselves. However, to dismiss the evidence of the 1,500-year climate cycle, it is necessary to dismiss not only the known human histories from the past 2,000 years but also an enormous range and variety of physical evidence found by a huge body of serious researchers."

The past 2000 years is hardly all the human history available to us, and would encompass one - count them - and a bit "cycles". Of between 1000 and 2000 years. OK, maybe just one, or perhaps two. To me that just sounds like stuff happening.

The use of "enormous" is entirely subjective. A 1500 year cycle during the last glaciation is only tentatively extracted even by its proposers. After all, it could just be a stastical artefact. Has it been properly audited by McIntyre?

In summary : it's a broken reed.

Greenhouse theory, on the other hand, predicted the current warming and is supported by an enormous range of living physical scientists, let alone the historical ones. And, of course, by the big bad analogue model.

Singer's hand-waving just gets wilder by the decade.

[CapelDodger]

So far Singer's theory of the 1500 year cycle stands irrefuted and Un-debunked.

So far my theory of my own immortality stand unrefuted.

And if it stands as valid, AGW does not exist.

Even if Singer's one to two thousand year cycles are real - that is, have some underlying physical cause - AGW could still exist. It's not one or the other. Singer's clutched straw doesn't define the amplitude any more accurately than it does the frequency. There's plenty of room for both an unrecognised mechanism of small amplitude and AGW over the last century. Even more over the last few decades.

I repeat my challenge -

Yet I still don't feel challenged.


Why not just read the actual science? It ain't gonna bite ya.

Why not buy SciAm to get the actual science of AGW?
Singer's piece is not actual science. It's speculation on what may be a cycle of varying and indeterminate frequency and amplitude with no firmly postulated mechanism behind it. Singer's favoured hypothesis could as easily be a statistical artefact, since it depends very heavily on statistics. If not entirely - I can't see any part of it that isn't statistics, but I may be missing something.

[CapelDodger]

LOL apparently losing half the ice in the arctic is a laughably insignificant indicator. :eek:

Wot, no error bars :) ? How close to half? Half of what? Prove it's not slightly less than half you alarmist greenhornswoggler :mad: .

(That's a word I made up.)

We really should discuss the real world more. The thread title's pretty inclusive, after all.

Predictions about ice-mass have erred on the downside generally, but this summer in the Arctic is particularly eye-catching. We're about at the turning-point now, of course, so expect the next interesting news in a few months time. Unless the melt-season itself is markedly extended, which will be dramatic news in itself.

Ice-dynamics modelling is bloody hard - at least an order above climate modelling - so we're learning by watching, really. It's all very exciting :) .

[CapelDodger]

You guys just got all wet. Caught out in the rain?

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/Template/0_CO2ScienceB2C/images/spacer.gifIn an intriguing Climate Change report in Science, Wentz et al. (2007) note that the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, as well as various climate modeling analyses, predict an increase in precipitation on the order of 1 to 3% per 癈 of surface global warming. Hence, they decided to see what has happened in the real world in this regard over the last 19 years (1987-2006) of supposedly unprecedented global warming, when data from the Global Historical Climatology Network and satellite measurements of the lower troposphere have indicated a global temperature rise on the order of 0.20C per decade.

They derived a real-world increase in precipitation on the order of 7% per 癈 of surface global warming, which is somewhere between 2.3 and 7 times larger than what is predicted by state-of-the-art climate models.

Based on theoretical considerations, Wentz et al. concluded that the only way to bring the two results into harmony with each other was for there to have been a 19-year decline in global wind speeds. But when looking at the past 19 years of SSM/I wind retrievals, they found just the opposite, i.e., an increase in global wind speeds. In quantitative terms, in fact, the two results were about as opposite as they could possibly be, as they report that "when averaged over the tropics from 30癝 to 30癗, the winds increased by 0.04 m s-1 (0.6%) decade-1, and over all oceans the increase was 0.08 m s-1 (1.0%) decade-1," while global coupled ocean-atmosphere models or GCMs, in their words, "predict that the 1987-to-2006 warming should have been accompanied by a decrease in winds on the order of 0.8% decade-1."

Wentz et al. tate that "the reason for the discrepancy between the observational data and the GCMs is not clear." They also rightly state that this dramatic difference between the real world of nature and the virtual world of climate modeling "has enormous impact," concluding that the questions raised by the discrepancy "are far from being settled."

Wentz, F.J., Ricciardulli, L., Hilburn, K. and Mears, C. 2007. How much more rain will global warming bring? Science 317: 233-235.


GCM's are not very good with precipitation. I don't think that's disputed. They don't need to be, really, since rain is weather, not climate. Rain doesn't influence climate. Clouds do, of course.

When it comes to finding out in detail how rainfall reacts to AGW we're just spectators. The general trend will be to a more rapid throughput of moisture, so more rain where it's already wet and quicker dessication where it's already dry. More floods, more drought. Just how much more will emerge from the statistical noise as we watch. As we are watching.

[CapelDodger]

Shame really, it was so well reasoned.

Amusingly, Lindzen's Iris Theory depended on selected parameters to work. By "work" I mean explain why what's happening wasn't going to happen, which is what he was trying to build. Sadly, but equally amusingly, if it did work it explained why the current interglacial never happened. Not what it was aimed at, but consequential. The Iris Theory could not be refined to deal with that. So it unquietly got dumped. Even before direct observation established the actual parameters, which were wildly at variance with Lindzen's Elected Few.

This is basically what climate modellers are accused of by contrarians who mostly have a good opinion of Lindzen. Yet Lindzen got found out, while climate modellers were never so stupid as to try in the first place, nor did they even want to.

[David Rodale]

Amusingly, Lindzen's Iris Theory depended on selected parameters to work. By "work" I mean explain why what's happening wasn't going to happen, which is what he was trying to build. Sadly, but equally amusingly, if it did work it explained why the current interglacial never happened. Not what it was aimed at, but consequential. The Iris Theory could not be refined to deal with that. So it unquietly got dumped. Even before direct observation established the actual parameters, which were wildly at variance with Lindzen's Elected Few.

This is basically what climate modellers are accused of by contrarians who mostly have a good opinion of Lindzen. Yet Lindzen got found out, while climate modellers were never so stupid as to try in the first place, nor did they even want to.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029698.shtml
http://www.uah.edu/news/newsread.php?newsID=875

[CapelDodger]

Not in your area (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/HadEWP.html)...no increased rain

No AGW hypothesis confirmation on that basis, sorry.

Another thing about that rain we get over here, it comes mostly from the Atlantic, and none of it from artesian water-mining in the US south-west. That may seem impressive from close up but in the big picture not so much. It's a question of scale and perspective.

[CapelDodger]

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029698.shtml
http://www.uah.edu/news/newsread.php?newsID=875

And lo, proof is summoned that the Lindzen Iris Theory goes away unquietly, and quite possibly asymptotically. Lindzen isn't directly quoted in either reference from what I can see. He's bugged out, for good reason.

Lindzen's Iris Theory has not been borne out by events. It is therefore discarded. It was thoroughly contrived in the first place, not created to explain an observation but to explain why an observation - global warming - wouldn't be made in the future. That future is now the past, and global warming has been observed in the meantime.

[mhaze]

And lo, proof is summoned that the Lindzen Iris Theory goes away unquietly, and quite possibly asymptotically. Lindzen isn't directly quoted in either reference from what I can see. He's bugged out, for good reason.

Lindzen's Iris Theory has not been borne out by events. It is therefore discarded. It was thoroughly contrived in the first place

From DR's link-

Abstract

We explore the daily evolution of tropical intraseasonal oscillations in satellite-observed tropospheric temperature, precipitation, radiative fluxes, and cloud properties. The warm/rainy phase of a composited average of fifteen oscillations is accompanied by a net reduction in radiative input into the ocean-atmosphere system, with longwave heating anomalies transitioning to longwave cooling during the rainy phase. The increase in longwave cooling is traced to decreasing coverage by ice clouds, potentially supporting Lindzen's “infrared iris” hypothesis of climate stabilization.

Helllooo???....

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by David Rodale

Anyway, this paper is being discussed at the following. Annan is claiming an error in Shwartz's article. We shall see how it plays out.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/...nges/#comments (http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/08/20/new-paper-on-the-diagnosis-and-significance-of-ocean-heat-content-changes/#comments)
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/20...-estimate.html (http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2007/08/schwartz-sensitivity-estimate.html)


What an attitude Annan apparently has - from his "review" I am happy to let RealClimate debunk the septic dross

I hear that this paper (http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf) from Stephen Schwartz (http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/schwartz.html) is making a bit of a splash in the delusionospher

given the screwy results that Schwartz obtained,

Why Annan has an attitude. From Climateaudit.org - Their revised version (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimaticChange_inPress.pdf)is the version that includes their confirmation of our result that MBH verification r2 was ~0 - although they and UCAR had issued a press release that our results were unfounded. As I reported previously, Wahl and Ammann withheld this information in their first draft and included the information in their revised version only after I filed an academic misconduct complaint against Ammann.
In simple terms "MBH verification r2 was ~0" means no hockey stick.

Ammann has been a bad boy.

[mhaze]

LOL apparently losing half the ice in the arctic is a laughably insignificant indicator. :eek:
We really should discuss the real world more. .

Yes, we should discuss the real world and the Artic Ice. Let's do that a bit. Obviously, dramatic and unprecedented climate change is based on a understanding of what is not dramatic and unprecendented. That is the reason Mann was so eager to get the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice age out of the graph, because they showed that current conditions were not at all "unprecedented".

Now Singer comes along and shows with a hundred citations to peer reviewed literature that the events such as the Medieval Warming Period are part of a cycle that has occurred for hundreds of thousands of years. Here is why that is important. Assume that you have a 400 year warm period in a 1500 year cycle, and it is 4 degrees C warmer at the peak. It takes 200 years to go up to peak, and takes 200 years to go down. That is 0.2 C increase (and later, decrease) per decade.

All or most of the 20th century global warming was well within the realm of natural variation as indicated by the historical evidence.


The past 2000 years is hardly all the human history available to us, and would encompass one - count them - and a bit "cycles". Of between 1000 and 2000 years. OK, maybe just one, or perhaps two. To me that just sounds like stuff happening.The evidence is over hundreds of thousands of years, by a multitude of studies using a variety of proxies. A consensus exists on the 1,500 year cycle. Just one example - Near Iceland, Maureen Raymo of Boston College found the Earth was undergoing Dansgaard-Oeschger's 1,500 year climate cycles more than a million years ago. Raymo and her research team retrieved a very long sediment core from the deep sea bottom south of Iceland. As the Raymo team wrote in Nature: "Here we use sediment records of past iceberg discharge and deepwater chemistry to show that such millennial-scale oscillations in climate occurred over one million years ago.... Our results suggest that such climate instability may be a pervasive and long-term characteristic of Earth's climate...."
M. E. Raymo et al., "Millenial-Scale Climate Instability during the Early Pleistocene Epoch," Nature, vol. 392, no. 6677, April 16, 1998, pages 699–702. Even if Singer's one to two thousand year cycles are real - that is, have some underlying physical cause - AGW could still exist. It's not one or the other.

They are not Singer's cycles. They have been noted by Dansgaard, Gerald Bond, Meter deMenocal, Maureen Raymo, Giancarlo Bianchi, Carin Anderson, Dennis Darby, Bettina Schilman, Boo-Keun Khim, F.S. Hu, Dirk Verschuren, and hundreds of other scientists. Singer has simply brought these various works together insofar so they relate to 1500 year cycles.

AGW of course could still exist. Relegated to a small, unimportant paragraph in the future textbooks on the history of science. Most likely the title of that chapter will be "Famous Scientific Frauds and Myths"


Singer's clutched straw doesn't define the amplitude any more accurately than it does the frequency. There's plenty of room for both an unrecognised mechanism of small amplitude and AGW over the last century. Even more over the last few decades.
There is room for both theories. There may be a small desk in the basement that Hansen, Mann, Gore, and Jones can share. You and AUP may visit them there and together discuss future planetary crises caused by the evils of man and his infernal combustion engines. By the way, would you take a can of roach spray down there for them? They have some work to do.

And do not forget the clear lack of actual scientific atmospheric experiments to prove or disprove the CO2 hypothesis.

Get over it. AGW is disproved by the historical evidence presented.

[Pipirr]

{snip}
And do not forget the clear lack of actual scientific atmospheric experiments to prove or disprove the CO2 hypothesis.

Would you care to be more specific here: what experiments, what hypothesis?

Get over it. AGW is disproved by the historical evidence presented.

That's cute, the way you just declared victory. Yet one might observe that the scientific community continues to publish it's disagreement.

You don't really think that the science of AGW is so settled, do you? I do intend that as a serious question.

[Geckko]

Why Annan has an attitude. From Climateaudit.org - Their revised version (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/WahlAmmann_ClimaticChange_inPress.pdf)is the version that includes their confirmation of our result that MBH verification r2 was ~0 - although they and UCAR had issued a press release that our results were unfounded. As I reported previously, Wahl and Ammann withheld this information in their first draft and included the information in their revised version only after I filed an academic misconduct complaint against Ammann.
In simple terms "MBH verification r2 was ~0" means no hockey stick.

Ammann has been a bad boy.

Note that there is an "Annan" (James) and "Ammann" (Casper).

[CapelDodger]

Yes, we should discuss the real world and the Artic Ice. Let's do that a bit. Obviously, dramatic and unprecedented climate change is based on a understanding of what is not dramatic and unprecendented. That is the reason Mann was so eager to get the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice age out of the graph, because they showed that current conditions were not at all "unprecedented".

The Mann et al reconstruction was an attempt to reconstruct a global climate history based on objective data. What the result demonstrates is that the MWP and LIA are represented in the record, but nowhere near as significant as the subjective European folk-history would suggest.

(I naturally don't accept your attribution of deliberate fraud and non-scientific motivations to the scientists involved.)

The actual "crime" of Mann et al and all the other scientists who have independently reproduced essentially the same reconstruction is that their reconstructions do not reflect the folk-history that ant-AGW populism - the sort of stuff that people like you lap up - is so dependent on.

Now Singer comes along and shows with a hundred citations to peer reviewed literature that the events such as the Medieval Warming Period are part of a cycle that has occurred for hundreds of thousands of years.

Suddenly Singer "shows" with citations attached (relevance uncertain) that current events "are" part of a cycle that can be precisely recognised from the very noisy data of the last few glacial cycles by statistical means, with the period of the cycle varying between one and two thousand years and the amplitude being whatever it takes to declare the turn of a "cycle". Data-mining or what?

Here is why that is important.

As you may have picked up, I don't think it is important. Which it isn't.

Assume ...

You started with "Yes, we should discuss the real world". Notice the dissonance?

What I meant by "real world" is more precisely "empirical world". The world around us. From which there's no refuge in history or well-racked statistics. Your Medieval Warm Period has convinced you of its star status, but it didn't persuade its contemporary permafrost to melt as today's is. That's what's going on in the real world. And there's no refuge from it in the past.

[CapelDodger]

Would you care to be more specific here: what experiments ...

No fair. You're asking mhaze to describe something he clearly hasn't seen :) .

... what hypothesis?

Good question.

That's cute, the way you just declared victory. Yet one might observe that the scientific community continues to publish it's disagreement.

Nor are the seismic repurcussions in the scientific world at all evident. Nor in the world in general. A storm in a Forum, apparently.

[CapelDodger]

There is room for both theories. There may be a small desk in the basement that Hansen, Mann, Gore, and Jones can share.

Gore, eh? What a basement guy. He's the poster-boy of basement guys. Plotting away out-of-sight of any that lack your insight and appreciation of the real world.

Are you claiming the penthouse for Singer? Poster-boy for a small and sorry audience? I can see how that might be some sort of compensation.

... evils of man ...

The Law of Unintended Consequences exonerates, it doesn't condemn. AGW is an unintended consequence of human ingenuity.

... and his infernal combustion engines.

"Infernal", "evil", Gore (of course) - where's the objective real world in all this? Is this the actually the real world as you perceive it? The evidence points that way.

By the way, would you take a can of roach spray down there for them? They have some work to do.

So the imaginary cabal is not only subterranean but vermin-infested. I can clearly see how you haven't been subject to propaganda.

[CapelDodger]

From DR's link-

Abstract

"We explore the daily evolution ..."

Not so much a climate issue then.

... of tropical intraseasonal oscillations in satellite-observed tropospheric temperature, precipitation, radiative fluxes, and cloud properties. The warm/rainy phase of a composited average of fifteen oscillations is accompanied by a net reduction in radiative input into the ocean-atmosphere system, with longwave heating anomalies transitioning to longwave cooling during the rainy phase. The increase in longwave cooling is traced to decreasing coverage by ice clouds, potentially supporting Lindzen's “infrared iris” hypothesis of climate stabilization.

Helllooo???....



"Potentially supporting" Lindzen's Iris. Not much, is it? What it does get is a Google-hit for mentioning Lindzen's Iris Theory and 2007. Which is where DR summoned up these links from - with no added comment.

Lindzen himself has given it up. The experiment has been run, and observations have shown the assumed - because then unobserved -parameters to be wildly inaccurate. Plus the fact that the "infrared iris", while designed to explain why AGW wasn't going to happen, also explains why the current interglacial never happened. Which is at odds with the evidence.

Lindzen's smart enough to dissociate himself from a failed project.

[a_unique_person]

From DR's link-

Abstract

We explore the daily evolution of tropical intraseasonal oscillations in satellite-observed tropospheric temperature, precipitation, radiative fluxes, and cloud properties. The warm/rainy phase of a composited average of fifteen oscillations is accompanied by a net reduction in radiative input into the ocean-atmosphere system, with longwave heating anomalies transitioning to longwave cooling during the rainy phase. The increase in longwave cooling is traced to decreasing coverage by ice clouds, potentially supporting Lindzen's “infrared iris” hypothesis of climate stabilization.

Helllooo???....


Fixed it for you.

[CapelDodger]

Shame really, it was so well reasoned.
You can't knock the craftsmanship. IMO Lindzen stands above the contrarian crowd, intellectually. Tasked with producing an explanation for why an as-yet projected observation would not occur because it was - and is - unwelcome, Lindzen did a damn' fine job.

What he didn't - and couldn't, by the evidence - do is make it specific to a CO2 forcing. Which is what it was for, and where it broke down when tested generally. Lindzen's Iris Theory was as much a negative feedback during the glacial/interglacial shift as it might have been recently. So much so that it wouldn't have happened.

Lindzen has become poitively delphic in his more recent pronouncements. Not yet jumping ship, but close to the lifeboats.

[CapelDodger]

The evidence is over hundreds of thousands of years, by a multitude of studies using a variety of proxies. A consensus exists on the 1,500 year cycle. Just one example -
Near Iceland, Maureen Raymo of Boston College found the Earth was undergoing Dansgaard-Oeschger's 1,500 year climate cycles more than a million years ago. Raymo and her research team retrieved a very long sediment core from the deep sea bottom south of Iceland. As the Raymo team wrote in Nature: "Here we use sediment records of past iceberg discharge and deepwater chemistry to show that such millennial-scale oscillations in climate occurred over one million years ago.... Our results suggest that such climate instability may be a pervasive and long-term characteristic of Earth's climate...."

M. E. Raymo et al., "Millenial-Scale Climate Instability during the Early Pleistocene Epoch," Nature, vol. 392, no. 6677, April 16, 1998, pages 699–702.




One example does not a consensus make, and you've chosen one from Iceland. The sort of place - right over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge - that is going to have a very noisy data record. What with all that volcanic activity that is entirely independent from any climate effects.

Nobody can resolve 1500-year cycles from a million years ago. Sorry, but there it is.

They are not Singer's cycles.

Why then the challenge to undermine and belittle "Singer's Hypothesis"? Which is apparently that there's a "cycle" that "happens" and it happens every "one or two thousand years" to an unspecified degree for no reason other than it's a "cycle" that "happens" according to some statistical analysis.

Simply defining Singer's Hypothesis is a sufficient vehicle for ridicule.

[mhaze]

Would you care to be more specific here: what experiments, what hypothesis?

What Hypothesis?
The OP initial post of this thread was "Has anyone actually proved that CO2 causes global warming (going from memory, it may have slightly differed).

It was then asserted that Arrhenius in the last century asserted the "greenhouse effect", and I corrected that to reflect the "Callendar Effect". But had this been proven in any fashion? Plass 1957 seems to have been a cite, but why nothing more recent? Laboratory spectrographic measurements of the absorption of CO2 tend to prove the hypothesis that CO2 acts in the upper troposphere to form a "hot spot". But there have been no actual atmospheric experiements that acquired data from the various layers of the atmosphere, which in turn were then able to calculate the effect of CO2 and prove or disprove the initial question of OP.

What experiments?
Ground based temperature measurements have traditionally been done with a thermometer that shows min and max. This doesn't work for determining GW because you need to know the rate of rise of the temperature when the sun comes out and begins the warming process. And you need that rate of rise for the layers of the atmosphere. Then it is possible to integrate the warming of the layers of air over an entire daily cycle. That must be done not globally, but in a local area.

Satellite and ground measurements of the atmosphere do not show the trends that would be expected under the theory of CO2 warming in the tropics, which is the most important area of this effect.

A dozen autonomous Predator aircraft (I'm using these as an example that people are familiar with but there are better UAVs for this, including some that are effectively disposable) flying at 1000 meter intervals from 1,000 meters above sea level to 11,000 meters above sea level -
clear sky and reasonably calm weather conditions
equatorial region
over open waterData logging temperature for several 12-20 hour periods would provide the required data set. Releasing that data set to the entire climate community would be quite interesting, and advance the discussion considerably. From the measured hotspot in the troposphere, the resulting amount of actual "greenhouse effect" could be calculated. Note that word actual.

Other experiments may be possible, this comes to mind offhand.

The CO2 hypothesis as I used the words refers to the theory that manmade CO2 emissions have caused the recent warming of the planet, and (IPCC) will have the effect of causing 2.5-6 C warming within the next theory. Generally, the CO2 hypothesis holds that man's output of CO2 is the only (Alarmist), or the major, factor in warming (IPCC).

Does that answer your question? By the way, I am quite fine with being proved wrong in any of this and will correct anything that is found that is inaccurate or unduly biased, unlike numerous other posters here who have a True Religion.

[mhaze]

LOL apparently losing half the ice in the arctic is a laughably insignificant indicator.
We really should discuss the real world more.

We're about at the turning-point now, of course, so expect the next interesting news in a few months time. We really should discuss the real world more.

Absolutely, we should. Not the fantasy worlds of AGW; in which


man's infernal combustion engines and industrial dooms major cities underwater after an 80 foot sea level rise
trillions of dollars of taxes are demanded for urgent (ineffective) action based on arguments of fear on false premises
there is no consensus in the scientific literature.
worse case scenarios of highly questionable computer models are used to produce newspaper and media headlines Yes, we need to discuss the real world.

For a rational explanation of how the natural 1,500 year cycle can cause things like the recent warming, and the recent melting of arctic ice, here is an interesting 10 minute video clip (http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503) (and transcript) of Singer and Avery being interviewed on TV.

http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503

Here is a link to Rigor's Polar Science Page, (http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/) with a fascinating animation of arctic sea ice, and his published articles.

http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/

[ConspiRaider]

We really should discuss the real world more.

Absolutely, we should. Not the fantasy worlds of AGW; in which

man's infernal combustion engines and industrial dooms major cities underwater after an 80 foot sea level rise
trillions of dollars of taxes are demanded for urgent (ineffective) action based on arguments of fear on false premises
there is no consensus in the scientific literature.
worse case scenarios of highly questionable computer models are used to produce newspaper and media headlinesYes, we need to discuss the real world.

For a rational explanation of how the natural 1,500 year cycle can cause things like the recent warming, and the recent melting of arctic ice, here is an interesting 10 minute video clip (http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503) (and transcript) of Singer and Avery being interviewed on TV.

http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503

Here is a link to Rigor's Polar Science Page, (http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/) with a fascinating animation of arctic sea ice, and his published articles.

http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/
You know what's "real world", mhaze? Certainly NOT the tripe you are posting. "Real world" is happening right now - as a sneak preview - of the coming havoc once AGW becomes irreversible.

Are you familiar with New Orleans and Katrina? Look at the ripple effect of just that one devastating hurricane. One hurricane - one extraordinary weather event - and the reverberating din is NOT subsiding a bit.

Look at the fires in Greece. Those fires are THREATENING TO CHANGE THE POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE in that country.

Look at Beijing China, and the upcoming Olympics to be held in that city. The pollution is at a horrific stage right now - athletes are trying to plan ahead as to whether they should get to Beijing early and "acclimate" to the pollution. Or, do a quick-hit approach. In - do their events - out.

You know what the United States is doing? Same as Russia and other countries. While the lying BushTurd Administration is denying or minimizing AGW - studies are being conducted right now in and around the Arctic to determine how much ocean drilling we can do on "our" extended oceanic borders once the polar cap melts. How's that for hypocrisy?

You know that one of the driving forces behind the havoc in Darfur is hardships caused by climate change?

There's flooding in Britain. In the Midwest USA. Drought in other areas. Ever see the movie The Eiger Sanction, with Clint Eastwood? The Eiger is losing its snow, and is undergoing constant rockslides and crumbling. They could do that movie 30 years ago. They could NOT do it today.

And this is just today. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are NOT being curbed, worldwide. They are in fact INCREASING.

You just keep preaching to keep moving along, nothing to see here, nothing to see. Do you have kin? Little ones? When they eventually ask you why you expended your efforts in denying the reality of AGW and making their adult lives more dangerous and precarious: WHAT WILL YOU TELL THEM?

[mhaze]

Hi Conspir;

Your arguments stand on their own merit (or lack of), and do reflect the Alarmist AGW viewpoint. I do not share this viewpoint, obviously.

One minor issue - you note the China pollution. This is more traditional pollution, rather than AGW.

We are not mixing these up right?

I don't think there are many people who even anti-AGW, who think that pollution is okay.

[David Rodale]

You know what's "real world", mhaze? Certainly NOT the tripe you are posting. "Real world" is happening right now - as a sneak preview - of the coming havoc once AGW becomes irreversible.

Are you familiar with New Orleans and Katrina? Look at the ripple effect of just that one devastating hurricane. One hurricane - one extraordinary weather event - and the reverberating din is NOT subsiding a bit.

Look at the fires in Greece. Those fires are THREATENING TO CHANGE THE POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE in that country.

Look at Beijing China, and the upcoming Olympics to be held in that city. The pollution is at a horrific stage right now - athletes are trying to plan ahead as to whether they should get to Beijing early and "acclimate" to the pollution. Or, do a quick-hit approach. In - do their events - out.

You know what the United States is doing? Same as Russia and other countries. While the lying BushTurd Administration is denying or minimizing AGW - studies are being conducted right now in and around the Arctic to determine how much ocean drilling we can do on "our" extended oceanic borders once the polar cap melts. How's that for hypocrisy?

You know that one of the driving forces behind the havoc in Darfur is hardships caused by climate change?

There's flooding in Britain. In the Midwest USA. Drought in other areas. Ever see the movie The Eiger Sanction, with Clint Eastwood? The Eiger is losing its snow, and is undergoing constant rockslides and crumbling. They could do that movie 30 years ago. They could NOT do it today.

And this is just today. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are NOT being curbed, worldwide. They are in fact INCREASING.

You just keep preaching to keep moving along, nothing to see here, nothing to see. Do you have kin? Little ones? When they eventually ask you why you expended your efforts in denying the reality of AGW and making their adult lives more dangerous and precarious: WHAT WILL YOU TELL THEM?
Are you familiar with New Orleans and Katrina? Look at the ripple effect of just that one devastating hurricane. One hurricane - one extraordinary weather event - and the reverberating din is NOT subsiding a bit.
Well let's see, how many hurricanes have there been since Katrina? Seeing how it sits in a toilet bowl, the only thing it proved was how inept government is. All those yellow school buses come to mind. AGW hypothesis says hurricanes should increase with frequency and strength. Naturally (a foreign word to AGW), a 'new and improved' hypothesis will spring forth explaining why that observational evidence doesn't support AGW either.

Nice try on the precipitation:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5835/233

Umm, Russia has already laid claim to the North Pole. So you're right, Bush screwed up ;)

China's pollution problem only shines the light on the failed system of Communism.

Ah yes, the "tipping point". There's no evidence to support your claim, but it has become the hallmark of gullible warming theory.

After that long speech, you still did not provide one speck of evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate.

[ConspiRaider]

Hi Conspir;

Your arguments stand on their own merit (or lack of), and do reflect the Alarmist AGW viewpoint. I do not share this viewpoint, obviously.

One minor issue - you note the China pollution. This is more traditional pollution, rather than AGW.

We are not mixing these up right?

I don't think there are many people who even anti-AGW, who think that pollution is okay.
The China pollution I mentioned is the "seen" part. But for everything you see, understand the unseen carbon dioxide and methane - very efficient re-radiators of infrared heat - are bravely making their presence known. Just a bit higher up.

Pollution is no longer just visible particulates and actually it never has been. We're producing quite a nice and diverse soup for our fragile atmosphere. Mercury particulates, CFCs, nitrous oxide and many more goodies are being vomited into the air - by us. You and me. Either directly or indirectly, via heavy industry. And via the products we use.

When do you think we will STOP destroying the ecosystem? When we're extinct? Or do you think we'll have the foresight to stop it beforehand - prior to Nature shutting us down for good?

[ConspiRaider]

Well let's see, how many hurricanes have there been since Katrina? Seeing how it sits in a toilet bowl, the only thing it proved was how inept government is. All those yellow school buses come to mind. AGW hypothesis says hurricanes should increase with frequency and strength. Naturally (a foreign word to AGW), a 'new and improved' hypothesis will spring forth explaining why that observational evidence doesn't support AGW either.

Nice try on the precipitation:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5835/233

Umm, Russia has already laid claim to the North Pole. So you're right, Bush screwed up ;)

China's pollution problem only shines the light on the failed system of Communism.

Ah yes, the "tipping point". There's no evidence to support your claim, but it has become the hallmark of gullible warming theory.

After that long speech, you still did not provide one speck of evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate.
Before you beat your chest about the merits of Capitalism and the woes of Communism, understand that the United States of America - Capitalism Heaven - is the world's largest greenhouse gas contributor. In raw numbers, China is expected to overtake us very soon (if they have not already). But that still leaves the pesky calculation of "per capita". China's population is more than 4 times greater than that of the USA.

It's one world now. I'm in Los Angeles, and I am breathing particulates released by China's coal burning plants. The Inuit (Eskimos) use little or no heavy industry, and yet their mothers are being cautioned about breastfeeding their own children. Because pollution from the USA and Canada is being swept up into their territories and deposited upon them.

Now you can play your silly "Lookit this report it proves I'm right yup yup" game as long as you wish. Guaranteed, you'll be able to dial in the report / link of your choice to make you feel all cuddly and warm about our complete innocence in the case of ecosystem destruction. They are out there. An inexhaustible supply of hired guns to contradict any general consensus. They are yours for the cherrypicking.

When things really get bad and we have to take drastic action to counteract our Destructor-behavior - please get thee to a corner and stay there so you don't get underfoot and impede our efforts. You better hope we can come up with something - or things - to effect a semblance of reversal on what we've done to this planet. You'd better hope we're smart enough. Because we have NOT been smart enough on preventive measures.

[Safe-Keeper]

Going off-topic for a sec', if you'll bear with me.
After that long speech, you still did not provide one speck of evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate.He does, however, make an important point that deniers seem to be ignoring (see post #783): the weather is growing more powerful. Hurricanes in the Caribbean are predicted to grow more dangerous. And to give an example from my own homeland, rain and wind is becoming more plentiful here, which is dangerous considering that Bergen residents have had a long-lasting habit of building houses on hills. On less-than-stable soil. This because precipitation has never been powerful enough to do any harm. When precipitations increase... lives are lost.

What strikes me is that the climate deniers are often the same ones who wanted to invade Iraq due to its WMDs, even though none were ever proven to exist as of 2003. There was no evidence of Saddam owning them. Yet even today, in 2007, they continue to bring forth nutcase theories about how they're sold to North Korea, hidden in Yemen, or buried in the desert sands.

Yet when we try to rally those same people against AGW, which has been proven to exist and do damage, they suddenly stonewall. All of a sudden it's sceptisism, denial, head-in-sand. Anything but accepting that climate is growing more powerful, and is taking its toll in lives and money.

/off-topic rant

Well let's see, how many hurricanes have there been since Katrina? Seeing how it sits in a toilet bowl, the only thing it proved was how inept government is. All those yellow school buses come to mind. So without Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans would still be flooded in the fall of 2005? I doubt it, friend. New Orleans was Katrina's fault, and Katrina was caused by AGW.

AGW hypothesis says hurricanes should increase with frequency and strength. Naturally (a foreign word to AGW), a 'new and improved' hypothesis will spring forth explaining why that observational evidence doesn't support AGW either.What are you talking about? Care to elaborate?

Nice try on the precipitation:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...t/317/5835/233 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5835/233)I don't need a science mag to tell me precipitation has been increasing in Europe for years.

Umm, Russia has already laid claim to the North Pole. So you're right, Bush screwed up :wink: Red herring. You did not address his point and you know it.

Ah yes, the "tipping point". There's no evidence to support your claim [...]...that you are willing to acknowledge.

China's pollution problem only shines the light on the failed system of Communism.:jaw-dropp

Right. Pollution is a Communist problem. Right. So if we travel to Taipei, Taiwan, we'll not find a blanket of smog...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/358981093_4907a9e6d5.jpg

Oh. That's right. We will.

[Pipirr]

Thanks for the answer. For the benefit of the gallery and myself, could you break this down a bit more? I do find these GW threads educational. The more so when they aren’t being relentlessly Gored… :D

What experiments?
Ground based temperature measurements have traditionally been done with a thermometer that shows min and max. This doesn't work for determining GW because you need to know the rate of rise of the temperature when the sun comes out and begins the warming process.

This sounds like it would be fine for determining GW. Measurements of day temperatures showing an increasing trend over time would provide a useful dataset. What’s the problem with (and what do you mean by) a thermometer that shows min and max? Why is the rate of the rise of temperature needed?


And you need that rate of rise for the layers of the atmosphere. Then it is possible to integrate the warming of the layers of air over an entire daily cycle. That must be done not globally, but in a local area.

Ok, information on temperatures at different atmospheric layers. Why is this needed? Is it to prove GW in some way? I can imagine that it could be useful information to have, but I can also imagine that it would be tricky to obtain. What benefit?

Satellite and ground measurements of the atmosphere do not show the trends that would be expected under the theory of CO2 warming in the tropics, which is the most important area of this effect.

Which trends are these? Why are the tropics the most important area?

A dozen autonomous Predator aircraft (I'm using these as an example that people are familiar with but there are better UAVs for this, including some that are effectively disposable) flying at 1000 meter intervals from 1,000 meters above sea level to 11,000 meters above sea level -
clear sky and reasonably calm weather conditions
equatorial region
over open waterData logging temperature for several 12-20 hour periods would provide the required data set. Releasing that data set to the entire climate community would be quite interesting, and advance the discussion considerably. From the measured hotspot in the troposphere, the resulting amount of actual "greenhouse effect" could be calculated. Note that word actual.

This goes back to the temperature data for the atmospheric layers. I’d question the utility of one day of observations, and I’d also want to know how many days of measurements would be needed to get useful data. It sounds like a recipe for a messy dataset, but then I don’t see what it’s needed for or how it would be used. In what way would it advance the discussion, and how would the amount of actual greenhouse effect be calculated?

And one last one, what do you mean by ‘measured hotspot’?

Maybe these are sophomore questions, but it would help me get on the same page.

[Walrus32]

Just wondering...Mann was widely criticized by the AGW people for not revealing his data, methodology, or even where he obtained his tree rings for dendrochronology. He claimed that it a tactic on the part of the AGW crowd to intimidate him, or something like that...

Has he ever made a full and complete disclosure to all of his data and statistical methods used in generating the "hickey [sic] stick"?

[mhaze]

The China pollution I mentioned is the "seen" part. But for everything you see, understand the unseen carbon dioxide and methane - very efficient re-radiators of infrared heat - are bravely making their presence known. Just a bit higher up.

Pollution is no longer just visible particulates and actually it never has been. We're producing quite a nice and diverse soup for our fragile atmosphere. Mercury particulates, CFCs, nitrous oxide and many more goodies are being vomited into the air - by us. You and me. Either directly or indirectly, via heavy industry. And via the products we use.

When do you think we will STOP destroying the ecosystem? When we're extinct? Or do you think we'll have the foresight to stop it beforehand - prior to Nature shutting us down for good?

Nobody is in favor of destroying ecosystems or in favor of pollution. China has already surpassed the US in greenhouse gas emissions, by the way. Jakarta has so many 2 cycle motorbikes their contribution in greenhouse gas equivalents is calculated at 6 billion SUVs.

The more basic question is why do we disagree on the fundamentals. You think CO2 is a vile pollutant, I don't. I think it has some greenhouse effect, a fraction of what the IPCC models it to have.

I am sure that you would agree that we would not want to try to solve the wrong problem, and that we would not want to solve the right problem with ineffective means.

Is that correct?

[CapelDodger]

Right. Pollution is a Communist problem. Right. So if we travel to Taipei, Taiwan, we'll not find a blanket of smog...

Oh. That's right. We will.

Nice :) .

It seems the light shines on both systems, Communist and Capitalist. It's surely not coincidental that neither theory-group/ideology takes account of the physical world except in terms of technology and resources. Otherwise they're purely anthropocentric determinism. (Like Theology or Philosophy, which generate their own version of smog.)

As such, they contain no vestige of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Which is to miss one of the fundamental laws that govern life as it has always been lived. A disastrous flaw.

[CapelDodger]

We really should discuss the real world more.

Absolutely, we should. Not the fantasy worlds of AGW; in which

man's infernal combustion engines and industrial dooms major cities underwater after an 80 foot sea level rise
trillions of dollars of taxes are demanded for urgent (ineffective) action based on arguments of fear on false premises
there is no consensus in the scientific literature.
worse case scenarios of highly questionable computer models are used to produce newspaper and media headlinesYes, we need to discuss the real world.

That's your fantasy of what AGW predicts. The empirical world is following the course actually predicted by the theory.

You keep touching on the "real world" as an introduction and then veering wildly away to the past or some made-up consequences in the distant future.

For a rational explanation of how the natural 1,500 year cycle can cause things like the recent warming, and the recent melting of arctic ice, here is an interesting 10 minute video clip (http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503) (and transcript) of Singer and Avery being interviewed on TV.

I think you're confusing "interesting" and "comforting". I'm not going to waste ten minutes on Singer telling me how a natural 1500 year cycle (plus or minus 500) that he truly believes in (and you appear to have been convinced of) can cause stuff that Singer was adamant wouldn't happen in the first place. He's only gone looking for an explanation after the event. AGW, on the other hand, predicted it.

After the event, Singer's quest, corporate whore that he is, is to keep the question "open". He provides the same sort of service for the tobacco industry. Want an explanation for why mercury in the water-supply might be harmless? Singer's the go-to guy.

If you ever find there's mercury in your water-supply, you'll find what Singer has to say about it comforting, I've no doubt of that.

[CapelDodger]

When do you think we will STOP destroying the ecosystem? When we're extinct? Or do you think we'll have the foresight to stop it beforehand - prior to Nature shutting us down for good?

My firm opinion is that the post-tribulation society will have added a few valuable lessons to the ones it's learned already. I'm also of the opinion that our generations will be held in contempt. That's the way of it with History.

Human progress - scientific and social - has continued through many tribulations, and I doubt this one will be any different. It's the biggest yet, but then they always are. Which is good evidence of a very long upward trend.

The world this society emerges in will be a lot simpler than the one we grew up in. It's the first mass-extinction we've experienced, but we can handle it. The gene-lines that have latched onto ours will have a new advantage, they'll be connected, capische :cool: ? Grasses, biddable herd-animals, the potato family, farmable sea-food. Dogs, if I have any say in the matter. Cats if I don't. Horses definitely, which is good.

What I don't see in the future is HomSap allowing another ice-age. Ever. What could possibly be the point? Performance Art? Climate and CO2 will stabilise at a time when there's a craving for stability. The "creative destruction" club will have been well clubbed by then. In future, the planet will be governed. By light or heavy touch remains to be seen.

HomSap has arrived. Time to get over getting over ourselves. We are a force of nature.

[a_unique_person]

What Hypothesis?
The OP initial post of this thread was "Has anyone actually proved that CO2 causes global warming (going from memory, it may have slightly differed).

It was then asserted that Arrhenius in the last century asserted the "greenhouse effect", and I corrected that to reflect the "Callendar Effect". But had this been proven in any fashion? Plass 1957 seems to have been a cite, but why nothing more recent? Laboratory spectrographic measurements of the absorption of CO2 tend to prove the hypothesis that CO2 acts in the upper troposphere to form a "hot spot". But there have been no actual atmospheric experiements that acquired data from the various layers of the atmosphere, which in turn were then able to calculate the effect of CO2 and prove or disprove the initial question of OP.



The history of the greenhouse effect.


The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect
In the 19th century, scientists realized that gases in the atmosphere cause a "greenhouse effect" which affects the planet's temperature. These scientists were interested chiefly in the possibility that a lower level of carbon dioxide gas might explain the ice ages of the distant past. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming. Other scientists dismissed his idea as faulty. In 1939, G.S. Callendar argued that the level of both carbon dioxide and temperature had been rising, but most scientists found his arguments implausible. It was almost by chance that a few researchers in the 1950s discovered that global warming truly was possible. In the early 1960s, C.D. Keeling measured the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it was rising fast. Researchers began to take an interest, struggling to understand how the level of carbon dioxide had changed in the past, and how the level was influenced by chemical and biological forces. They found that the gas plays a crucial role in climate change, so that the rising level could gravely affect our future. (This essay covers only developments relating directly to carbon dioxide, with a separate essay for Other Greenhouse Gases. (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/othergas.htm) For related theoretical issues, see the essay on Simple Models of Climate. (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm) )


What experiments?
Ground based temperature measurements have traditionally been done with a thermometer that shows min and max. This doesn't work for determining GW because you need to know the rate of rise of the temperature when the sun comes out and begins the warming process. And you need that rate of rise for the layers of the atmosphere. Then it is possible to integrate the warming of the layers of air over an entire daily cycle. That must be done not globally, but in a local area.

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere. It can't suddenly decide to not absorb radiation of a particular frequency. We know the earth will heat up, the heat cannot just suddenly disappear down a black hole. This is where the models come in. Since we know the earth will rise, to what extent will it rise, and what will the effects be around the world. That is a lot more difficult to do with models, but we do get a better idea of what the effect will be than to just say it can't be done.


Satellite and ground measurements of the atmosphere do not show the trends that would be expected under the theory of CO2 warming in the tropics, which is the most important area of this effect.

Wrong, they do. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170

A dozen autonomous Predator aircraft (I'm using these as an example that people are familiar with but there are better UAVs for this, including some that are effectively disposable) flying at 1000 meter intervals from 1,000 meters above sea level to 11,000 meters above sea level -
clear sky and reasonably calm weather conditions
equatorial region
over open waterData logging temperature for several 12-20 hour periods would provide the required data set. Releasing that data set to the entire climate community would be quite interesting, and advance the discussion considerably. From the measured hotspot in the troposphere, the resulting amount of actual "greenhouse effect" could be calculated. Note that word actual.

Other experiments may be possible, this comes to mind offhand.

The CO2 hypothesis as I used the words refers to the theory that manmade CO2 emissions have caused the recent warming of the planet, and (IPCC) will have the effect of causing 2.5-6 C warming within the next theory. Generally, the CO2 hypothesis holds that man's output of CO2 is the only (Alarmist), or the major, factor in warming (IPCC).

Does that answer your question? By the way, I am quite fine with being proved wrong in any of this and will correct anything that is found that is inaccurate or unduly biased, unlike numerous other posters here who have a True Religion.It is interesting that the denialists condemn the AGW research for being a gravy train that has been created purely for greedy scientists, then demand even more money be spent on very expensive research.

[CapelDodger]

Jakarta has so many 2 cycle motorbikes their contribution in greenhouse gas equivalents is calculated at 6 billion SUVs.


You're still sold on that idea? Look at it. It's terribly silly isn't it? I thought I pointed that out a while back. Six billion SUV's? Scooters in Jakarta?

What you probably read was that Jakarta's motos create more pollution than the SUV's. Which is quite likely. Particulates are pollution. Cheap two-strokes are a bugger for particulates. And most SUV's have catalytic converters. They were imposed by gummint to get rid of the smog.

The ones sold in Indonesia probably don't have them. What's the point with all those two-strokes around anyway?

Seriously, can Jakarta's two-stroke owners be spending as much on oil-based fuel as six billion average SUV drivers? Oil is a mainstay of the Indonesian economy, but those Indonesians that see any of the money drive SUV's. The price of fuel and SUV's is determined on a global market.

Scepticism should be applied generally, not just to alarming matters. IMO, comforting reports demand the greatest scepticism. Apart from anything else it tends to minimise embarrassment.

Six billion SUV's? Jakarta? That didn't give you pause?

[CapelDodger]

It is interesting that the denialists condemn the AGW research for being a gravy train that has been created purely for greedy scientists, then demand even more money be spent on very expensive research.

The fending-off policy of "more research is required" has had the unintended consequence of such research being funded. (OK, some Earth-observing satellites have been dropped in favour of founding a New New Orleans on Mars by 2100CE, but real research has been done :) .) All of which has confirmed and honed the existing conclusion. The passage of time has contributed more data. No surprises have emerged.

Nothing substantial has been done about AGW or is even in prospect, so no surprises there either. But waddaya gonna do? HomSap is what it is.

[CapelDodger]

Nobody is in favor of destroying ecosystems or in favor of pollution.

Truism. It's done to favour the bank-account.

China has already surpassed the US in greenhouse gas emissions, by the way.

No scientific relevance.

Jakarta has so many 2 cycle motorbikes their contribution in greenhouse gas equivalents is calculated at 6 billion SUVs.

Silly. Believe that, believe anything.

The more basic question is why do we disagree on the fundamentals. You think CO2 is a vile pollutant, I don't.

Your use of "vile" is a clue. You constantly attribute extreme emotive terms to people who don't use them themselves. CO2-load and AGW are not emotional matters. AGW is one unintended consequence of the other. They exist dispassionately.

[I think it has some greenhouse effect, a fraction of what the IPCC models it to have.

I've no doubt you find that thought comforting.

I am sure that you would agree that we would not want to try to solve the wrong problem ...

Singer's latest position, one you seem so eager to embrace, allows of no solution. It's a cycle. There's no mechanism we can influence. It's a cycle. Nothing to be done about cycles. Cycles just happen. Statistics prove it. Nine times out of ten, anyway.

... and that we would not want to solve the right problem with ineffective means.

Inefffective means do not solve problems. That comes with the territory. Any solution is better than none, even if it isn't - in hindsight - the optimum.

Everything about your position argues for inactivity. Either nothing can be done - the Singer Song - or nothing should be done anyway until all the figures are in and all suggested schemes properly mulled-over, long-listed, short-listed, negotiated, tripped-up by events, re-negotiated, agreed, ignored ... and none of it under the auspices of the UN, perish the thought.

Nothing's going to be done about AGW, let's face it. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Russia's decision-makers live a very good life on the flow of fossil fuels, and are licking their lips over the Arctic melt and Peak Oil. Global warming? They just can't seem to care.

If it brings drought and a change of heart in the Ukraine, so much the better. Belarus is a shoo-in, after which the Polish Question comes back into play.

Poor bloody Poles. Russia on one side, Western Europe on the other. Biggest Polish export over the long-term? Poles. Good call, IMO.

Is that correct?

[CapelDodger]

Naturally (a foreign word to AGW), a 'new and improved' hypothesis will spring forth explaining why that observational evidence doesn't support AGW either.

Observations on the ground reveal the anti-AGW camp conjuring up new hypotheses to explain the real world. Science has been confirmed by events. And will continue to be.


Umm, Russia has already laid claim to the North Pole. So you're right, Bush screwed up ;)

I could make some glib comment on Bush's capacity to find a pole on a globe, but naturally I won't. Too cheap.

Bush and the decision-makers he's poster-boy for think the Middle East is where it's all at because it has been for so long. Meanwhile, Russians chuckle into their beards.

China's pollution problem only shines the light on the failed system of Communism.

I've read that Californian air is so clean these days that China's pollution can be detected in it. Regulation and enforcement can work. California's air-quality was a joke back when I were a lad.

Ah yes, the "tipping point". There's no evidence to support your claim, but it has become the hallmark of gullible warming theory.

The thing about "tipping points" is that the evidence is retrospecive. Evidence is like that. There are often predictions and warnings beforehand, but by definition if they're heeded the tipping-point isn't reached. Which makes said predictions alarmist ...

"Gullible warming theory", eh? That's the spirit.

After that long speech, you still did not provide one speck of evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate.

The increase in CO2 is the main driver in the current warming. Which is surely the important issue.

CO2 hasn't been a driver of climate in the past any more than water-vapour is at present. CO2 has typically been a positive feedback, as water-vapour continues to be. This time around, CO2 isn't reacting to climate change by other means, it's being injected directly into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. This time around climate is responding to the CO2 increase. An unintended consequence, but a consequence nonetheless.

[mhaze]

You're still sold on that idea? Look at it. It's terribly silly isn't it? I thought I pointed that out a while back. Six billion SUV's? Scooters in Jakarta?

.............. Scepticism should be applied generally, not just to alarming matters. IMO, comforting reports demand the greatest scepticism. Apart from anything else it tends to minimise embarrassment.

Six billion SUV's? Jakarta? That didn't give you pause?

Yes, it did. When I looked it up the issue was vaporization into the atmosphere of the generally rich fuel mixture, eg, unburned fuel into the atmosphere. And the phrase was "greenhouse gas equivalents" , you know, the way (which I don't agree with by the way) they add up the pollutants into some kind of "equivalence of carbon dioxide".

All evils lead to CO2, so to speak.

So, yes, we discussed it, yes, it sounded bizzaro, yes, a bit more research was done, and yes....it looked like they sort of had it right. Now....it's such a great little bit of spin...how can one not use it? I particularly like it because it puts into some perspective that the USA is not the greatest evil on the planet as far as this subject goes.

Why, it's as good as the Northwest Passage, New York under water, in my humble opinion. But the lonely polar bear on the little chunk of ice, that takes the cake.

[a_unique_person]

Yes, it did. When I looked it up the issue was vaporization into the atmosphere of the generally rich fuel mixture, eg, unburned fuel into the atmosphere. And the phrase was "greenhouse gas equivalents" , you know, the way (which I don't agree with by the way) they add up the pollutants into some kind of "equivalence of carbon dioxide".

All evils lead to CO2, so to speak.

So, yes, we discussed it, yes, it sounded bizzaro, yes, a bit more research was done, and yes....it looked like they sort of had it right. Now....it's such a great little bit of spin...how can one not use it? I particularly like it because it puts into some perspective that the USA is not the greatest evil on the planet as far as this subject goes.

Why, it's as good as the Northwest Passage, New York under water, in my humble opinion. But the lonely polar bear on the little chunk of ice, that takes the cake.

No, the IPCC clearly spells out what the greenhouse gases are and never makes the claim it is the only one. It is the only one that is, however, doubling in content.

The spin is all in your mind.

[a_unique_person]

Link to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

[David Rodale]

The history of the greenhouse effect.

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere. It can't suddenly decide to not absorb radiation of a particular frequency. We know the earth will heat up, the heat cannot just suddenly disappear down a black hole. This is where the models come in. Since we know the earth will rise, to what extent will it rise, and what will the effects be around the world. That is a lot more difficult to do with models, but we do get a better idea of what the effect will be than to just say it can't be done.

Wrong, they do. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170

It is interesting that the denialists condemn the AGW research for being a gravy train that has been created purely for greedy scientists, then demand even more money be spent on very expensive research.
Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.


With respect to RealClimate, you are referring to the CCSP “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.


Dr. Roger Pielke addresses this in great detail on his weblog, of which I contributed (guess which one) since he was a lead author prior to resigning. The CCSP was structured the same as IPCC: Committees formed with conflicts of interest, authors in groups reviewing their own work, agenda driven.....essentially lapdogs for IPCC 2007.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/02/ccsp-report-published/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/16/conflict-of-interest-in-the-ccsp-report-temperature-trends-in-the-lower-atmosphere-steps-for-understanding-and-reconciling-differences/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/17/ccsp-advocacy-report-appears/
To briefly illustrate this conflict of interest, I will use two topics from the CCSP Report. First, Tom Karl (Chairman), Tom Peterson and Russ Voss are from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), and are vested in the surface temperature record set created by NCDC. (Tom Karl is also Director of NCDC). Other surface temperature experts on the Committee such as Chris Folland and David Parker of the United Kingdom (UK) Met Office also have a vested interest in the existing surface temperature trend data. When the first National Research Council (NRC) Committee reviewed the report, Phil Jones of University of East Anglia in England, also with a vested interest in the existing surface temperature data set, represented that community. Thus, the same community who has invested significantly in creating the global surface temperature record is assessing its value. It does not matter that these scientists have contributed significantly in the peer reviewed literature and are well-respected; they have a conflict of interest (e.g. see

Peterson, T. C., D. R. Easterling, T. R. Karl, P. Ya. Groisman, N. Nicholls, N. Plummer, S. Torok, I. Auer, R. Boehm, D. Gullett, L. Vincent, R. Heino, H. Tuomenvirta, O. Mestre, T. Szentimre, J. Salinger, E. Førland, I. Hanssen-Bauer, H. Alexandersson, P. Jones, D. Parker, 1998: Homogeneity adjustments of in situ atmospheric climate data: A review. International Journal of Climatology, 18, 1493-1517.

and

Peterson, Thomas C. and Russell S. Vose, 1997: An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network temperature data base. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78, 2837-2849,

where 4 of the authors are on the CCSP Committee, and one was the surface temperature expert on the 2005 NRC Committee that reviewed the first draft of the CCSP Report).

These scientists have a clear systemic conflict of interest in the results of the CCSP Assessment of “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.

A similar situation exists with the modelers on the Committee. The Convening Lead Author of Chapter 5 of the CCSP report was Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Tom Wigley, of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was Convening Lead Author of the Executive Summary. Both scientists are working and publishing results from the models, including the NCAR Parallel Climate Model (PCM), that are assessed in the CCSP Report. As with the surface temperature assessment, these scientists have published papers on the application of these models; this includes the 2005 Science paper with authorship:

Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere
B. D. Santer, T. M. L. Wigley, C. Mears, F. J. Wentz, S. A. Klein, D. J. Seidel, K. E. Taylor, P. W. Thorne, M. F. Wehner, P. J. Gleckler, J. S. Boyle, W. D. Collins, K. W. Dixon, C. Doutriaux, M. Free, Q. Fu, J. E. Hansen, G. S. Jones, R. Ruedy, T. R. Karl, J. R. Lanzante, G. A. Meehl, V. Ramaswamy, G. Russell, and G. A. Schmidt
Science 2 September 2005 309: 1551-1556; published online 11 August 2005 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1114867] .

Ten of the authors are on the CCSP Committee.

This paper is quite interesting and was appropriate to be published. However, to have them evaluate their own work in an assessment is a clear conflict of interest.

Public comment by Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/NR-143.pdf

I have every confidence you would agree there shouldn't be conflicts of interest, politics or bias in such important issues.

Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.

If you'd like to have a separate discussion on climates models exclusively, that may of value since you claim they can predict future climate.

Lastly, you do realize what it means when ocean temperatures stall and begin to drop, don't you?

[David Rodale]

Link to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

Link to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

[Safe-Keeper]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.Not so much the cause of hurricane Katrina as a contributor to her strength (http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050915_stormfrm.htm), by warming the waters she passed over. Hurricanes are not growing more frequent, but the ones that are created are growing more powerful. We admittedly do not know enough to tell if Katrina was fueled by global warming, but there is evidence she was, and it'd not surprise me the least. From the article I just linked to:

“What we found was rather astonishing,” said Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Ga., lead author of the study [on hurricane trends]. “In the 1970’s, there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year globally. Since 1990, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled, averaging 18 per year globally.”

In conclusion, it's far from proven that Katrina was fueled by AGW, but to say it's not worth responding to is underestimating the amount of evidence that does exist.

[mhaze]

Not so much the cause of hurricane Katrina as a contributor to her strength (http://www.world-science.net/othernews/050915_stormfrm.htm), by warming the waters she passed over. Hurricanes are not growing more frequent, but the ones that are created are growing more powerful. We admittedly do not know enough to tell if Katrina was fueled by global warming, but there is evidence she was, and it'd not surprise me the least. From the article I just linked to:

In conclusion, it's far from proven that Katrina was fueled by AGW, but to say it's not worth responding to is underestimating the amount of evidence that does exist.

With all due respect, I understand from your header that you are from Norway. I am intimately familiar with New Orleans. Many times I was told by people who lived there, that if a hurricane ever hit them, their city was going to be gone.

AGW has many fair arguments, this is not one of them.

[mhaze]

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere. It can't suddenly decide to not absorb radiation of a particular frequency. We know the earth will heat up, the heat cannot just suddenly disappear down a black hole. This is where the models come in. Since we know the earth will rise, to what extent will it rise, and what will the effects be around the world. That is a lot more difficult to do with models, but we do get a better idea of what the effect will be than to just say it can't be done.

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.

[mhaze]

When things really get bad and we have to take drastic action to counteract our Destructor-behavior - please get thee to a corner and stay there so you don't get underfoot and impede our efforts. You better hope we can come up with something - or things - to effect a semblance of reversal on what we've done to this planet. You'd better hope we're smart enough. Because we have NOT been smart enough on preventive measures.

Your state, California, has passed laws that clearly state that when it's four nuclear reactor power plants licenses expire, they cannot be renewed. Bye bye that nice 16% of your total power for your state. Bye bye for 16% of power with no greenhouse gases.

Is that why CA is negotiating to buy power from the two dirty coal power plants being planned in southern Nevada?

Am I missing something or is your state pedaling backwards?

[a_unique_person]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.



:confused: Considering there is no reference to Katrina in my post :confused:

[a_unique_person]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.


With respect to RealClimate, you are referring to the CCSP “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.


Dr. Roger Pielke addresses this in great detail on his weblog, of which I contributed (guess which one) since he was a lead author prior to resigning. The CCSP was structured the same as IPCC: Committees formed with conflicts of interest, authors in groups reviewing their own work, agenda driven.....essentially lapdogs for IPCC 2007.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/02/ccsp-report-published/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/16/conflict-of-interest-in-the-ccsp-report-temperature-trends-in-the-lower-atmosphere-steps-for-understanding-and-reconciling-differences/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/17/ccsp-advocacy-report-appears/


Public comment by Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/NR-143.pdf

I have every confidence you would agree there shouldn't be conflicts of interest, politics or bias in such important issues.



That must be why you keep commenting on the errors discovered in Christies troposphere data.



Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.



Have you actually read the IPCC report? It's all in there.

[Diamond]

The CO2 influence is greater now but the solar influence peaked around 1950. The volcanic influence has been pretty much factored in, not having changed much this last century or so. Different influences wax and wane and the thermal inertia of the oceans tends to smooth out the effect.

Evidence? Once again CapelDodgy produces yet another invented factoid.

10mm per annum spanning the shift between glaciation and interglaciation - a cataclysmic shift, I'm sure you'll agree - is hardly surprising. It certainly puts 0.4mm pa in the shade, and even the 0.5mm pa contribution from the Antarctic.

Perhaps then you can explain where James Hansen is going to conjure sealevel rise of several meters in the next 100 years?

I'm glad there are some science-based historical reconstructions that you trust.

When they're not produced by Creationists like Hansen, maybe. Or Houghton.

Because I can spot a specious argument when I see one. And because of the science, naturally.

Because of the science? You invent factoids and then defy others to debunk them? This is standard CT behavior.

You have a long history of ignoring facts that don't fit your long standing belief that industrial society of whatever kind MUST be responsible in large part for changes in climate.


7,000 years ago agriculture was just starting to get into its exponential stride. By 4,000 years ago it was dominant pretty much everywhere. Are you sure that warming wasn't anthropogenic? And if so, why?

Again standard CT behavior. Make ridiculous claim based on no evidence and then try to get others to disprove it.

Produce the evidence that the Holocene maximum was anthropogenic. You know - science. The thing you're ignorant of.

The generally used measure of current sea-level rise is the decadal observation, which takes out incidental variation. That's still at about 3mm per decade, I think. The recently measured increase could be a blip.

Yes it could. It could also be entirely false, as a sea-level expert explains (http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Morner.INQUA.2.5.ppt).

If you're referring to GCM's, they do take the Sun into account. Of course they do; they're designed to model the climate, which is affected by solar variation.

No it isn't. In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950 (see above)

Standard contrarian alarmism.

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism. As a long standing climate alarmist since the Ice Age scare of the 1970s you should know all about spinning minor changes in climate into apocalyptic visions of the future.


I wonder about yours when you conjure up a 0.5mm pa contribution from Antarctica in the last twenty thousand years and stand it up against a 0.4mm pa global increase today. What was meant to be your point in the first place?

The point being that the actual contribution of sea-level rise from Antarctica at the moment is negative.

I don't think so. More likely a pig.

Ah! You've spotted your arguments as well.

[a_unique_person]

Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.


Since no one has ever claimed that, I don't think you'll ever get anyone providing evidence of it.

[a_unique_person]

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.

Do you think I am a research scientist? Sorry, I have to inform you I am not. I just have to accept the science as presented, I am not competent enough in this complex area of science to reject the findings of the IPCC.

[a_unique_person]

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

Falsification of greenhouse? What a bunch of jerks. The term greenhouse refers to a simplified model to help the average member of the public understand what the scientists are talking about. It is a practice widely used in press reports and education. The greenhouse mechanism from CO2 is not the mechanism a real greenhouse uses to trap heat. That's no big deal. Kids in school all over the world are taught every day that atoms can be thought of as little coloured balls. They aren't, but does that mean you are going to go out and shout from the rooftops "Children, they are lying to you, atoms aren't really like that".

Still, I am glad you used that "paper" as something you think is reliable science, I can now see where you are coming from.

[David Rodale]

Since no one has ever claimed that, I don't think you'll ever get anyone providing evidence of it.

CO2 goes up, temperature follows. Do you disagree with that?

[Pipirr]

CO2 goes up, temperature follows. Do you disagree with that?

I don't speak for AUP, but my contention is with your statement "CO2 being the main driver of climate".

All other things being equal (including the sun), then increasing levels of CO2 can be a main driver of "climate change".

It is the change in the Earth's climate that is at issue here, is it not?

[mhaze]

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.
Do you think I am a research scientist? Sorry, I have to inform you I am not. I just have to accept the science as presented, I am not competent enough in this complex area of science to reject the findings of the IPCC.

We may be getting somewhere.

Have you actually read the IPCC report? It's all in there.It is not in the IPCC report.

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere.No scientist would say something like that, and engineers scoff at being asked to rely on building anything on flimsy evidence with 400% uncertainty.

"Here is your new tire design." says the engineer.
"How fast will it safely go?" says the customer.
"Somewhere between 30 mph and 120 mph. We're got this great lab model" says the engineer.

who just got fired?

Trillions of dollars of taxes and urgent action now based on that level of level of understanding of real world atmospheric physics?

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by David Rodale http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2926312#post2926312)
I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Fals...ion_of_CO2.pdf (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf)
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...707.1161v2.pdf (http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf)
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf


Falsification of greenhouse? What a bunch of jerks. The term greenhouse refers to a simplified model to help the average member of the public understand what the scientists are talking about. It is a practice widely used in press reports and education. The greenhouse mechanism from CO2 is not the mechanism a real greenhouse uses to trap heat. That's no big deal. Kids in school all over the world are taught every day that atoms can be thought of as little coloured balls. They aren't, but does that mean you are going to go out and shout from the rooftops "Children, they are lying to you, atoms aren't really like that".

Still, I am glad you used that "paper" as something you think is reliable science, I can now see where you are coming from.

Spencer Weart, a historian is the jerk. You are the one quoting and referencing inaccuracies. Weart struggles to explain things that he clearly does not understand, which should be just expressed as say, a partial differential. Weart is no Stephen Hawkings.

Since Weart still clings to the fraud of the hockey stick, his writings can be summarily dismissed.

[Safe-Keeper]

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism. As a long standing climate alarmist since the Ice Age scare of the 1970s you should know all about spinning minor changes in climate into apocalyptic visions of the future.
Why do deniers keep bringing up the Ice Age scare of the seventies? Especially when I, for one, addressed it several times in this thread alone.

Apples and oranges, buddy. The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions. Unlike AGW. The only thing they had in common was that they scared people - hardly enough to start comparing the two more than you can compare a fire drill to a real blaze raging over three floors.

No it isn't. In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950 (see above)I believe the sun question, too, has been addressed in this thread. Time for an image from a certain Meehl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Climate_Change_Attribution.png

If it's the Sun or volcanoes, why does the temperature go up when volcanic activity goes down and the Sun remains mostly stable?

[mhaze]

Thanks for the answer. For the benefit of the gallery and myself, could you break this down a bit more?

This sounds like it would be fine for determining GW. Measurements of day temperatures showing an increasing trend over time would provide a useful dataset. What’s the problem with (and what do you mean by) a thermometer that shows min and max? Why is the rate of the rise of temperature needed?

Ok, information on temperatures at different atmospheric layers. Why is this needed? Is it to prove GW in some way? I can imagine that it could be useful information to have, but I can also imagine that it would be tricky to obtain. What benefit?

Which trends are these? Why are the tropics the most important area?

This goes back to the temperature data for the atmospheric layers. I’d question the utility of one day of observations, and I’d also want to know how many days of measurements would be needed to get useful data. It sounds like a recipe for a messy dataset, but then I don’t see what it’s needed for or how it would be used. In what way would it advance the discussion, and how would the amount of actual greenhouse effect be calculated?

And one last one, what do you mean by ‘measured hotspot’? Maybe these are sophomore questions, but it would help me get on the same page.
The Sun hits pretty much straight on in the tropics, so there the hotspot is the most pronounced.

Regarding why the rate of rise is required, consider two Chinese food takeout containers, one well insulated, the other not. Ask the question, what is the average thermal content of the container? And obviously, the one that loses heat, has less average thermal content, whether we are looking at watts or BTUs. Suppose you tried to figure this issue out by measuring the temperature of the food inside the container 15 minutes after putting it in there.

There is no any ability to predict the temperature 10 minutes or 20 minutes. Was the decrease weakly exponential? Linear? What is the precision of your prediction if you use presumptions on the nature of the curve?

Now on the contrary presume you continuously measure the temperature. It is a simple matter to then describe the efficiency of insulation of the container.

The measured hotspot is similar to the below (f), from IPCC Chapter 9 page 675 (also check appendix 9C). For details on the calculations Santor 2003 (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2003/Santer_etal.html)
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2003/Santer_etal.html

For a simple non technical explanation of why CO2 is most likely only an insignificant factor in the recent slight global temperature increase check Monckton 2007 "Greenhouse Warming? What Greenhouse Warming?" (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html).

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html

For discussion pro and con (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=923) on Monckton's view check

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=923

and other threads on www.climateaudit.org by typing Monckton into the search bar. Note here content is all from the message base, there is little input from McIntyre or the webmaster.


http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446dae9084f326.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=8082)

In summary, we have highly imprecise "models" of the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, on which alarmism is festering, that being egged on by political interests.

As you have noted, the science is really in the early stages of understanding.

There is at this time no reason to take any view other than that man's contribution to global warming due to CO2 is a minor or insignificant issue in global warming. (Alarmists argue the exact opposite).

Actual atmospheric experiments would help in clarifying areas of known uncertainty.

[David Rodale]

Why do deniers keep bringing up the Ice Age scare of the seventies? Especially when I, for one, addressed it several times in this thread alone.

Apples and oranges, buddy. The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions. Unlike AGW. The only thing they had in common was that they scared people - hardly enough to start comparing the two more than you can compare a fire drill to a real blaze raging over three floors.

We are not experiencing anything outside natural variation.

The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions.
Would you care to cite a reference quantifying this?

[mhaze]

I believe the sun question, too, has been addressed in this thread. Time for an image from a certain Meehl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Climate_Change_Attribution.png

If it's the Sun or volcanoes, why does the temperature go up when volcanic activity goes down and the Sun remains mostly stable?

We keep talking about getting around to discussing the sun and all interrelated influences of it, but not so far.

Regarding the Sun vs. volcano.

Which would win that boxing match?

[Safe-Keeper]

I already have several times, but fine, I'm game. The Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming#Relationship_to_global_warming) is a good place to start.

[mhaze]

I already have several times, but fine, I'm game. The Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming#Relationship_to_global_warming) is a good place to start.
Global dimming is a big topic.

Your chart is based on "Modeled forcing response". Whatever that means.

Do you have any actual data you want to discuss, or questions that are not predicated on some unstated, unknown "model"?

[mhaze]

I don't speak for AUP, but my contention is with your statement "CO2 being the main driver of climate".

All other things being equal (including the sun), then increasing levels of CO2 can be a main driver of "climate change".

It is the change in the Earth's climate that is at issue here, is it not?
One should look at the natural variability of the climate and ask, do we have "change" that is outside of any reasonable bounds?

If so, what might the reasons be? One of those would be the effects of man, and one of many of those effects would be CO2. What, then is the natural variability? We appear to have had some 0.6 degree C increase in world temperature in the 20th century.

Is that within the range of natural variability?

Many have been told "we are experiencing unprecedented, alarming global warming".

But the Little Ice Age recovery began in the mid 1800s. Coming out of a "Little Ice Age" the trend line would be going up a bit, right? And if we are going into a warming period, say that is of 400 years duration and there is a steady increase to a peak temperature 2 C higher than average, then a steady decline back to the "average". That is 0.10 C per decade average.

That 0.10 C change - established as a natural variation - is the general range of 20th century warming. These simple realities destroy the myth of man made global warming.

Singer notes that the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming period are only the latest markers in a long historical series of approximate 1,500 year climate cycles. As previously noted, ice cores in the opinion of scientists prove this. (In the opinion of CP, they don't. But where is his published peer reviewed article, or citations to them?)

Dansgaard and Oeschger told us that the climate shifts were moderate, rising and falling over a range of about 4° C in northern Greenland, with very little temperature change at the equator — and only half a degree when averaged over the northern hemisphere.

The cycles were confirmed by 1) their appearance in two different ice
cores drilled more than 1,000 miles apart; 2) their correlation with known
glacier advances and retreats in northern Europe; and 3) independent data in a seabed sediment core from the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland.

They noted that the cycle shifts were abrupt, sometimes gaining half of
their eventual temperature change in a decade or so. That suggested an external forcing, perhaps amplified and transmitted globally by the ocean currents and winds. (In the mid-19th century, the Upper Fremont Glacier in Wyoming went from Little Ice Age to Modern Warming in about 10 years.)

A robust series of other, unrelated proxies all show the same 1,500 year pattern. This is a well established hypothesis, derived from many separate and unrelated, yet interlocking, lines of research.

Just one more example - North American pollen databases, that go back approximately 14,000 years. The pollen database, reflecting the actual decline and increases of forests of particular types of tress, may be used to indicate historical climate patterns. The pollen database clearly shows 9 climate cycles, averaging some 1,650 years each.

There is no clear reason to ascribe recent global temperature increases to the activities of man, as they fall within well within the range of natural variation. Man made global warming does not exist, or if it does exist, is an insignificantly small factor in global climate dynamics.

Heavy handed government controls, taxation and regulation amounting to trillions of dollars are clearly not justified.

[mhaze]

References for the above.

Singer's paper (http://forums.randi.org/www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf)on the "The Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500 Year Climate Cycle"
W. Dansgaard et al., "North Atlantic Climatic Oscillations Revealed by Deep Greenland Ice Cores," Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity, Geophysical Monograph, American Geophysical Union, vol. 29, 1984, pages 288–298.

Richard D. Tkachuck, "The Little Ice Age," Origins, Geosciences Research Institute, vol. 10, 1983, pages 51-65.

C. Lorius et al., "A 150,000-year Climatic Record from Antarctic Ice," Nature, vol. 316, no. 6029, August 15, 1985, pages
591–596.
A.E. Viau et al., "Widespread Evidence of 1,500-Year Climate Variability in North America During the Past 14,000 Years," Geology, vol. 30, no. 5, May 2002, pages 455–458.

(The North American Pollen Database is located at Springfield, Ill., and is part of the Paleoclimatology Program sponsored by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.)

[Safe-Keeper]

Well let's see, how many hurricanes have there been since Katrina?There have been plenty, several of which hitting Category 5. In fact, I believe 2005 was the only year ever to have four Category 5 hurricanes in one season: Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. And, of course, Dean in 2007. All Category 5 hurricanes.

In addition to those, we've got the hurricanes which did not reach Category 5, as well as a number of tropical storms and subtropical storms. You can find lists at the National Hurricane Center:2006 Atlantic Season (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2006atlan.shtml)
2007 Atlantic Season (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2007atlan.shtml)

[mhaze]

.
There have been plenty, several of which hitting Category 5. In fact, I believe 2005 was the only year ever to have four Category 5 hurricanes in one season: Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. And, of course, Dean in 2007. All Category 5 hurricanes.

In addition to those, we've got the hurricanes which did not reach Category 5, as well as a number of tropical storms and subtropical storms. You can find lists at the National Hurricane Center:2006 Atlantic Season (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2006atlan.shtml)
2007 Atlantic Season (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2007atlan.shtml)



Climate Science, as defined by pages 16-21 of this ...

climate is growing more powerful, and is taking its toll in lives and money.
Falsification of greenhouse? What a bunch of jerks.
what exactly is a prole? Is that short for proletariat?
In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950
You invent factoids and then defy others to debunk them?
So your solution is to stop all car and plane transport right NOW?
the lying BushTurd Administration is denying or minimizing AGW
Do you have kin? Little ones? When they eventually ask you why you expended your efforts in denying the reality of AGW and making their adult lives more dangerous and precarious: WHAT WILL YOU TELL THEM?
New Orleans was Katrina's fault, and Katrina was caused by AGW.
Now you're saying Economics and Statistics are not science?
All evils lead to CO2
You will note this has been a rational discussion.
LOL apparently losing half the ice in the arctic is a laughably insignificant indicator. Run for that ice!
See? I am a reasonable person. Well, sort of....
the results do not bode well for alarmists. Particularly for fundamentalist faith based reasoning by the Gored.
Ice cores can tell us interesting stories.
it's not clear what point you're trying to make, but then it rarely is.
Black Knight: None shall pass.
Fire Ants. Spreading. World wide. Hot ants. AGW. Ant-Global Warming.
do you mean creating an artificial value (carbon credits) for carbon emissions, which in reality has a value of zero?
Debunk Singer's core theory, of the 1,500 year climate cycle. Debunk what? A novel? Come on...
When things really get bad and we have to take drastic action to counteract our Destructor-behavior - please get thee to a corner and stay there so you don't get underfoot and impede our efforts.
AUP and I will debunk anything you guys come up with. "sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"
In Texas we prefer chain saws. That arm holding the shotgun, did it used to be part of you?And the winner is ...

You will note that this has been a rational discussion

[CapelDodger]

Yes, it did. When I looked it up the issue was vaporization into the atmosphere of the generally rich fuel mixture, eg, unburned fuel into the atmosphere. And the phrase was "greenhouse gas equivalents" , you know, the way (which I don't agree with by the way) ...

Quelle surprise.

And yet you go by it when it's applied to Jakarta.

... they add up the pollutants into some kind of "equivalence of carbon dioxide".

Simply fuelling up six billion SUV's is going to release a lot of fumes. Aka "unburnt fuel". Six billion SUV's and a few hundred thousand two-strokes in Jakarta. This horse is beyond flogging.

All evils lead to CO2, so to speak.

Again with the "evil".

So, yes, we discussed it, yes, it sounded bizzaro, yes, a bit more research was done, and yes....it looked like they sort of had it right. Now....it's such a great little bit of spin...how can one not use it?

It's transparent bollocks. As spin it worked on you, but that doesn't make it great spin. It's more like leading with your chin.

I particularly like it because it puts into some perspective that the USA is not the greatest evil on the planet as far as this subject goes.

The USA doesn't house six billion SUV's. So how does the USA come into it?

It's not all about the USA, you know. You should check out China - or Jakarta, even, you'll find SUV's there. In the modern world, your ride defines your status just as your armour did back in the day. And an SUV is the must-have symbol. Unless you're cool, of course.


Why, it's as good as the Northwest Passage, New York under water, in my humble opinion.

The Northwest Passage opening up is ripe for spinning because it's actually happening. Spin up, spin down, whatever, there it actually is. Your Jakarta thing really isn't.

The idea of New York under water probably goes down well in some quarters.

But the lonely polar bear on the little chunk of ice, that takes the cake.

The sufferings of polar bears are also ripe for spinning. They are so photogenic (especially the cubs) and they are suffering.

[CapelDodger]

No, the IPCC clearly spells out what the greenhouse gases are and never makes the claim it is the only one. It is the only one that is, however, doubling in content.

More generally, it's the one that's accumulating. The others are relatively transient and concentrations quickly reflect the rate of input; methane and hydrocarbons are transients that actually produce CO2 when they break down. CO2 hangs about once it's arrived.

Which is the problem, really. Unlike smog, you can't see it or feel it in your throat, so there's no general sense of urgency.

[Safe-Keeper]

This is straying even farther off-topic, but I'm game.
I particularly like it because it puts into some perspective that the USA is not the greatest evil on the planet as far as this subject goes.And we said otherwise how? Or are you suggesting that because someone else is not performing according to standard, neither should the USA? You know, good old Kindergarten 'I'm not doing it 'till Li'l Johnny does it!'-style?

Oh, and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions) might be of interest. Fact is that the US releases more Co2 annually than any other nation on the planet. It's silly beyond belief to stall and point to the lesser evils of China and India, or, for that matter, the scooter-driving commuters of Jakarta.

Oh, and you might want to have a look at this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_per_capita_2000.svg). Where are the global warming baddies of China and India again? Are they hiding behind those green countries in South-East Asia [/cheap shot]?

[mhaze]

Quelle surprise.
And yet you go by it when it's applied to Jakarta.
Simply fuelling up six billion SUV's is going to release a lot of fumes. Aka "unburnt fuel". Six billion SUV's and a few hundred thousand two-strokes in Jakarta. This horse is beyond flogging.

Again with the "evil".

It's transparent bollocks. As spin it worked on you, but that doesn't make it great spin. It's more like leading with your chin.

The USA doesn't house six billion SUV's. So how does the USA come into it?

The sufferings of polar bears are also ripe for spinning. They are so photogenic (especially the cubs) and they are suffering.

My BAD. Here is the post. It was only 5 billion. Now, are you happy?:D


Meanwhile as we talk, hundreds of thousands of motorbikes in Jakarta each pollute more than an average USA car, and no one cares. And China just took our enshrined position as the biggest CO2 emitter.

DUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Excuse me, but it was 3 million bikes in Jakarta.... and I quote

Two-stroke engine pollution is a particular problem in the developing countries of South and Southeast Asia, where more than 100 million two-stroke vehicles produce pollution equivalent to 5 billion automobiles each year. Localized bans fail to remove two-strokes from the larger market as nothing of value is discarded in developing countries.

Equal to 5 BILLION AUTOS!!!! Sheeesssh... And people want to control and regulate my (our) behavior! To "save the planet". Unbelievable.

[mhaze]

This is straying even farther off-topic, but I'm game.
And we said otherwise how? Or are you suggesting that because someone else is not performing according to standard, neither should the USA? You know, good old Kindergarten 'I'm not doing it 'till Li'l Johnny does it!'-style?

Oh, and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions) might be of interest. Fact is that the US releases more Co2 annually than any other nation on the planet.

It's silly beyond belief to stall and point to the lesser evils of China and India, or, for that matter, the scooter-driving commuters of Jakarta.

China is top bad gas dog now. And it's not silly at all to look at obvious, possibly easily fixed issues.

The USA did better percentage wise without Kyoto than Kyoto nations did with it. No brag. just facts.:)

Your neighbors in Finland are all fixed to get some $400 Euro per year per house higher utility bill in the name of Kyoto.

That's "good"? Why?

[mhaze]

This is straying even farther off-topic, but I'm game.
And we said otherwise how? Or are you suggesting that because someone else is not performing according to standard, neither should the USA? You know, good old Kindergarten 'I'm not doing it 'till Li'l Johnny does it!'-style?

Oh, and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions) might be of interest. Fact is that the US releases more Co2 annually than any other nation on the planet. It's silly beyond belief to stall and point to the lesser evils of China and India, or, for that matter, the scooter-driving commuters of Jakarta.

Oh, and you might want to have a look at this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GHG_per_capita_2000.svg). Where are the global warming baddies of China and India again? Are they hiding behind those green countries in South-East Asia [/cheap shot]?

from www.climateaudit.org (http://www.climateaudit.org/) unthreaded #19 ...

No Consensus Hits TV

Last night, Fox News, Brit Hume asked:
“How Many Scientists Say That Mankind Is Affecting Global Warming?”Conventional Wisdom
Earlier this year the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it was “90 percent likely” that man was having an impact on global temperatures. And dailytech.com reports an analysis of scientific papers in 2004 concluded that a majority of researchers supported what it called the “consensus view” that humans were effecting climate change.
But now a study of all research papers between 2004 and 2007 indicates only seven percent give an explicit endorsement of that so-called consensus. Forty-five percent give an implicit endorsement. But 48 percent of the papers are classified as neutral — neither accepting nor rejecting the hypothesis. And only one of the 528 papers reviewed makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
read the rest here (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295330,00.html)

[CapelDodger]

Evidence? Once again CapelDodgy produces yet another invented factoid.

Solar influence has not increased since the 1950's. Volcanic influence has not decreased since about 1900. The thermal inertia of the oceans smooths out variations in forcings (inertia does have that effect). What's invented out of that?

Perhaps then you can explain where James Hansen is going to conjure sealevel rise of several meters in the next 100 years?

I think the Hansen position is "more than a metre", which is not "several metres" by any honest stretch.

The metre-and-more projection includes the loss of ice-mass. Sea-level rise has been dominated by thermal expansion until recently, the last decade or so, but now the melt is getting into its stride. Ice-mass has its own inertia but that's been overcome. Loss of ice-mass is outstripping the forecasts quite significantly. Given the positive albedo feedback there's no reason to expect that to change, and there's more than enough ice outside the Antarctic and Greenland icecaps to increase sea-levels by a metre. Relative to the total volume of the oceans that's not much.



When they're not produced by Creationists like Hansen, maybe. Or Houghton.

What a strange person you are.

Because of the science? You invent factoids and then defy others to debunk them? This is standard CT behavior.

I've invented nothing, not even a Marxist conspiracy to explain AGW's increasing orthodoxy. As I recall, you have invented a Marxist conspiracy for just that purpose. (Or had it invented for you and bought in.)

You have a long history of ignoring facts that don't fit your long standing belief that industrial society of whatever kind MUST be responsible in large part for changes in climate.

Increasing atmospheric CO2-load is the driver of current climate change. Modern industrial society is the cause of the increasing CO2-load, by its consumption of fossil-fuels as an energy source. Pre-modern industrial society that depended on water- and wind-power as energy sources had no such effect and didn't influence the climate. It's the burning of fossil-fuels that's responsible for climate change, not industrial society.



Again standard CT behavior. Make ridiculous claim based on no evidence and then try to get others to disprove it.

Do what now :confused: ?

It's undeniable that there was a significant change in land-use between 7000 and 4000 years ago as agricultural society developed exponentially. Is it ridiculous to think that it might have an influence on climate?

Produce the evidence that the Holocene maximum was anthropogenic. You know - science. The thing you're ignorant of.

The Holocene maximum was more than 7000 years ago and was the result of natural causes. I've never argued anything different.



Yes it could. It could also be entirely false, as a sea-level expert explains (http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Morner.INQUA.2.5.ppt).

A sea-level expert explains? The link didn't work for me, perhaps you could give me a precis of his argument.



No it isn't. In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950 (see above)

Solar input stabilised in the 1950's. That's an observed fact. GCM's would reflect any variation since then, given that they do incorporate solar influence. They also reflect the absence of such variation. Which is what's been observed in the real world.

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism.

:confused:

As a long standing climate alarmist since the Ice Age scare of the 1970s you should know all about spinning minor changes in climate into apocalyptic visions of the future.

You keep pretending you knew me in the 70's. We've never met. I was sceptical about AGW in the 70's, and there never was an Ice Age scare. That's the truth of the matter. You'll keep calling me a liar, but it's not me you're referring to in any real sense. You're referring to a tiny-minded paranoid bigot's projection of me. Which is pretty much all you've got to go on.

The point being that the actual contribution of sea-level rise from Antarctica at the moment is negative.

You're quite sure of your sources for that? Some of them might be scientists, after all, so you have to allow for the Marxist bias. It's numpties like you that take refuge in Central Antarctica's stability.

Ah! You've spotted your arguments as well.

Sad. The twat I was responding to has apparently fled the field while my reputation remains intact. Your reputation as an A-list carpet-biter remains similarly unsullied.

[a_unique_person]

My BAD. Here is the post. It was only 5 billion. Now, are you happy?:D

Meanwhile as we talk, hundreds of thousands of motorbikes in Jakarta each pollute more than an average USA car, and no one cares. And China just took our enshrined position as the biggest CO2 emitter.

DUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Excuse me, but it was 3 million bikes in Jakarta.... and I quote

Two-stroke engine pollution is a particular problem in the developing countries of South and Southeast Asia, where more than 100 million two-stroke vehicles produce pollution equivalent to 5 billion automobiles each year. Localized bans fail to remove two-strokes from the larger market as nothing of value is discarded in developing countries.

Equal to 5 BILLION AUTOS!!!! Sheeesssh... And people want to control and regulate my (our) behavior! To "save the planet". Unbelievable.


You might this hard to believe, but the US is still the single biggest creater or CO2.

Kyoto was created in 1997, that's ten years ago. It was intended that the wealthy Western countries would set up a structure that would then be ready to be used globally when the new treaty was set up in 2012. So it doesn't just pick on the USA, but it did look to the USA for leadership. :(

[mhaze]

I think the Hansen position is "more than a metre", which is not "several metres" by any honest stretch.

Really?
It appears Al Gore was way off on his 20 ft. sea level claim as Hansen is now saying 80 ft by 2100

Increasing atmospheric CO2-load is the driver of current climate change. Modern industrial society is the cause of the increasing CO2-load, by its consumption of fossil-fuels as an energy source.
Nonsense.

[mhaze]

You might this hard to believe, but the US is still the single biggest creater or CO2.

Google it.


Kyoto was created in 1997, that's ten years ago. It was intended that the wealthy Western countries would set up a structure that would then be ready to be used globally when the new treaty was set up in 2012. So it doesn't just pick on the USA, but it did look to the USA for leadership.
Leadership you got but follow you didn't.

We led by refusing to buy into that very bad scheme.

History proved us right.

[Pipirr]

But 48 percent of the papers are classified as neutral — neither accepting nor rejecting the hypothesis. And only one of the 528 papers reviewed makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

Neutral, in the sense that the authors made no explicit statement to the effect that "our findings confirm/contradict the AGW hypothesis".

However, it's entirely possible that the paper's findings did in fact support the hypothesis of AGW, and further bolstered the evidence base for the IPCC reports.

An awful lot of climate scientists are not working in a paradigm of confirming or refuting the AGW hypothesis. That just isn't a useful way to conduct research, especially when one's research area may be small, focused and in and of itself unable to confirm or reject the AGW hypothesis.

However, taken together, such small pieces of evidence are added up and will form the basis of reports such as the IPCC.

I use the Web of Science frequently myself, and the last few weeks, just for fun, have been conducting searches using search terms such as "global warming" and "climate change." Know what that gets you? Non peer reviewed opinion pieces, for the most part. To reveal the vast evidentiary base for the hypothesis of AGW, you need to be rather more targeted with your search terms.

For the most part, it really is neutral science. The study you reference found only one paper that mentioned AGW leading to catastrophe. The scholarly and learned climate science journals are not publishing such alarmism, even as they publish more and more papers that refine and bolster the hypothesis of AGW.

I do hope you appreciate the sheer amount of scientific research that would have to be refuted for the AGW hypothesis to fall. That's not to say that you shouldn't tilt at it, as after all criticism and skepticism will always have a role to play.

[Safe-Keeper]

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism. Say what you want, but in my eyes, stating that a Communist cabal plots far-left reforms and gargantuan taxes in the States after falsifying climate science by buying thousands of scientists... makes you sound alarmist, yes:o.

Equal to 5 BILLION AUTOS!!!! Sheeesssh...6 billion SUVs≠5 billion generic cars. If this is even true. Glad we got that sorted out.

And people want to control and regulate my (our) behavior!See my earlier post. To refuse to take action because others in your eyes aren't meeting your standards is childish to the extreme.

To "save the planet". Unbelievable.Am I hearing an appeal to personal incredulity? Looks like a strawman, too.

Out 48 percent of the papers are classified as neutral — neither accepting nor rejecting the hypothesisAnd out of the remaining 52%, is there a single one that denies AGW is real?

[CapelDodger]

I don't speak for AUP, but my contention is with your statement "CO2 being the main driver of climate".

All other things being equal (including the sun), then increasing levels of CO2 can be a main driver of "climate change".

It is the change in the Earth's climate that is at issue here, is it not?

The current change in climate is the issue, of course. You have to nail weasels down very precisely to stop them wriggling. Contrarians habitually take refuge in a past that, unsurprisingly, doesn't reflect an artificial CO2 forcing by the planet's first industrialised species, which is certainly the main driver of climate change today. Obviously, the Sun and orbital cycles have been the main drivers of climate change in the past. Everything else has been feedback. This time is different. Contrarians prefer obfuscation to facing that fact. "Hasn't happened before" is their deeply conservative watchword.

[CapelDodger]

My BAD. Here is the post. It was only 5 billion. Now, are you happy?:D

Hardly. Seeing you look sad and stranded on an ice-floe would be a blast but even then ... Happy? I'm not sure I can do it.




Meanwhile as we talk, hundreds of thousands of motorbikes in Jakarta each pollute more than an average USA car, and no one cares. And China just took our enshrined position as the biggest CO2 emitter.


DUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Excuse me, but it was 3 million bikes in Jakarta.... and I quote

Two-stroke engine pollution is a particular problem in the developing countries of South and Southeast Asia, where more than 100 million two-stroke vehicles produce pollution equivalent to 5 billion automobiles each year. Localized bans fail to remove two-strokes from the larger market as nothing of value is discarded in developing countries.

Equal to 5 BILLION AUTOS!!!! Sheeesssh... And people want to control and regulate my (our) behavior! To "save the planet". Unbelievable.



Just a billion out, "pollution" not greenhouse gas equivalent, "autos" not SUV's, South-East Asia not Jakarta. That's the "sad", and worth a giggle in itself, but the "stranded on an ice-floe" is still missing.

[mhaze]

Hardly. Seeing you look sad and stranded on an ice-floe would be a blast but even then ... Happy? I'm not sure I can do it.
Just a billion out, "pollution" not greenhouse gas equivalent, "autos" not SUV's, South-East Asia not Jakarta. That's the "sad", and worth a giggle in itself, but the "stranded on an ice-floe" is still missing.

Hey I remain ready to admit mistakes, CD, I don't capeldodge them.

[a_unique_person]

Google it.


Leadership you got but follow you didn't.

We led by refusing to buy into that very bad scheme.

History proved us right.

The "History" is only just starting.

[a_unique_person]

Really? It appears Al Gore was way off on his 20 ft. sea level claim as Hansen is now saying 80 ft by 2100
Nonsense.

It's about what's possible, in risk managment. The data centre could burn down tomorrow. I don't think it probably will, but it could. He is warning people about what is possible. Given the rate of melting of the Arctic, the estimates could quite easily be too conservative.

[mhaze]

The "History" is only just starting.

I agree!

There is still time for Australia to back out of Kyoto, of course.

My question of a while back still seems reasonable. . . ..
How about Australia? How are you guys doing a la Kyoto? Just state the numbers, please. Any plans to sequester carbon from your famous coal powerplants? Any plans of substance to comply with Kyoto down under, or just rhetoric? Nuclear plants? Any substantial projects at all? Please provide projected numbers in terms of how your country forecasts reaching any reduction in CO2 emissions.

[a_unique_person]

from www.climateaudit.org (http://www.climateaudit.org/) unthreaded #19 ...

No Consensus Hits TV

Last night, Fox News, Brit Hume asked:
“How Many Scientists Say That Mankind Is Affecting Global Warming?”Conventional Wisdom
Earlier this year the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it was “90 percent likely” that man was having an impact on global temperatures. And dailytech.com reports an analysis of scientific papers in 2004 concluded that a majority of researchers supported what it called the “consensus view” that humans were effecting climate change.
But now a study of all research papers between 2004 and 2007 indicates only seven percent give an explicit endorsement of that so-called consensus. Forty-five percent give an implicit endorsement. But 48 percent of the papers are classified as neutral — neither accepting nor rejecting the hypothesis. And only one of the 528 papers reviewed makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
read the rest here (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295330,00.html)

“How Many Scientists Say That Mankind Is Affecting Global Warming?”

Now there's your problem in a nutshell. Most science in this area is not concerned with the effects, but just the specific point of research of their paper. To draw conclusions such as "the effect of global warming on manking" would be outside the scope of what they are investigating.

[a_unique_person]

Nexus6 has something to say on the topic.

http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/08/sceinteficelly-litarete.html

[bonkey]

So 7% explicitly affirm, 48% implicitly affirm and (therefore) 45% are neutral.

That leaves, using some basic math, a rough total of 0% who either implicitly or explicitly reject the assertion.

Taken a different way, of the 290-ish (55% of 528) papers who actually comment (implicitly or explicitly), 100% are in support of the assertion.

Where's this lack of consensus argument coming from?

[BobK]

Somewhere posted above I noticed someone suggesting that 2005 was the worst year ever for hurricanes because the temperature is rising. I get tired of hearing this meme being presented as if it can't be refuted.

Here is a comparison to the cooler 1950 which I call the worst year ever recorded. All storms and individual tracks with winds >= 65kts are presented. The data comes from the NHC official database.


Year 2005
____________________
Data range 7/6/2005 to 12/7/2005
____________________
Storm data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
7 1 2 1 4 15

Peak wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S. Dev.
100 90 102 34
____________________
Track data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
104 25 27 32 11 199

Wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S.Dev.
65 80 90 25
************************************************** **********
Year 1950
____________________
Data range 8/13/1950 to 10/21/1950
____________________
Storm data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
1 2 5 2 1 11

Peak wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S. Dev.
105 105 109 20
____________________
Track data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
91 73 34 30 10 238

Wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S.Dev.
85 85 92 21

There may have been more category 5's in 2005 and more total storms, but 1950 had more major(cat 3-5) storms, more total tracks of hurricane force winds, and the wind speeds were overall higher.

Remember this the next time some touts 2005.

Edit to add: For those that may not know. A track is defined as one observation. Observations are taken every six hours.

[a_unique_person]

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

Weart is indeed a historian, and he does an excellent job of tracing the history of the science of CO2, and providing references.

[a_unique_person]

Somewhere posted above I noticed someone suggesting that 2005 was the worst year ever for hurricanes because the temperature is rising. I get tired of hearing this meme being presented as if it can't be refuted.

Here is a comparison to the cooler 1950 which I call the worst year ever recorded. All storms and individual tracks with winds >= 65kts are presented. The data comes from the NHC official database.


Year 2005
____________________
Data range 7/6/2005 to 12/7/2005
____________________
Storm data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
7 1 2 1 4 15

Peak wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S. Dev.
100 90 102 34
____________________
Track data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
104 25 27 32 11 199

Wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S.Dev.
65 80 90 25
************************************************** **********
Year 1950
____________________
Data range 8/13/1950 to 10/21/1950
____________________
Storm data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
1 2 5 2 1 11

Peak wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S. Dev.
105 105 109 20
____________________
Track data:
Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Total
91 73 34 30 10 238

Wind in knots
Mode Median Mean S.Dev.
85 85 92 21There may have been more category 5's in 2005 and more total storms, but 1950 had more major(cat 3-5) storms, more total tracks of hurricane force winds, and the wind speeds were overall higher.

Remember this the next time some touts 2005.

Edit to add: For those that may not know. A track is defined as one observation. Observations are taken every six hours.

The actual effects of global warming are difficult to predict, as the scientists keep saying. They expect changes, and model them, which gives us an idea. The atmosphere is hotter, the SST is hotter, what will the actual result be of that extra energy in the system? In terms of hurricanes, it appears the result is stronger storms, average, not more. The current season seems to be confirming that. Rapid intensification of storms that have a chance to pass over high SSTs has been happening again.

Records broken in 2005

* Named storms: 28; previous record: 21 in 1933
* Hurricanes: 15; previous record: 12 in 1969
* Major hurricanes hitting the U.S.: Four (Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma); previous record: Three, most recently in 2004
* Hurricanes of Category 5 intensity (greater than 155 mph): Four (Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma); previous record: Two in 1960 and 1961

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2540.htm

[mhaze]

Weart is indeed a historian, and he does an excellent job of tracing the history of the science of CO2, and providing references.

His account can be kept, modified to correct the numerous errors, and retitled as the "Myth of Man Made Global Warming".:)

Natural cycles are the cause of changes in hurricanes, not man's evil combustion engines.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,484987,00.html

FIVE-THOUSAND YEARS OF HURRICANES (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,484987,00.html)

Does Global Warming Play a Role?

By Franziska Badenschier (franziska_badenschier@spiegel.de) in Woods Hole, US
Soil samples from the Grande Playa lagoon in Puerto Rico have given US scientists insight into the last 5,000 years of Atlantic hurricanes. The samples suggest that recent devastating storms may not necessarily be linked to global warming.


At first sight, the soil samples collected by geophysicist Jeffrey Donnelly at the Playa Grande lagoon in Puerto Rico don't look like much to get excited about. The cores sitting in his laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts seem to be little more than a bit of moist, black clay. But look closely, and you can see the gray, porous layers of tiny grains; sand that swept into the lagoon from a nearby spit of land by powerful hurricanes. By examing the layers of sand in each of the 12 four-meter-long cores (13 foot) samples, they become an extensive climate timeline. Together, they represent the longest chronology of hurricane activity that currently exists anywhere in the world.

The samples have allowed hurricane historian Donnelly from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to look more than 5,000 years into our planet's past. And what he found may have profound implications for our understanding of the effects of global warming on violent storms. The frequency of fierce storms that sweep into the Caribbean and onto the Puerto Rican island of Vieques varies considerably.

There are stormy periods and more placid epochs -- and they alternate back and forth.

Donnelly and his colleague Johnathan Woodruff listed their results in a recent issue of the scientific journal Nature. Hurricanes, they wrote, regularly struck the lagoon between 5,450 and 3,650 years ago. This period of intense hurricane activity was interrupted only briefly by a 150 year respite. After that period, there were only few hurricanes -- until about 2,550 years ago, when an interval characterized by a relatively high number of strong hurricanes began, continuing until the next quite phase, which began about 1,050 years ago.

But during the last 300 years, the lagoon has once more been exposed to a higher number of violent hurricanes -- just as the unpleasant storms have been multiplying elsewhere as well.

[mhaze]

For the most part, it really is neutral science. The study you reference found only one paper that mentioned AGW leading to catastrophe. The scholarly and learned climate science journals are not publishing such alarmism, even as they publish more and more papers that refine and bolster the hypothesis of AGW.

I do hope you appreciate the sheer amount of scientific research that would have to be refuted for the AGW hypothesis to fall. That's not to say that you shouldn't tilt at it, as after all criticism and skepticism will always have a role to play.

Of course, you understand that the study on the lack of consensus was important, because of pro AGW polemicists continually harping on their 100% or 99% consensus, which was utterly ridiculous. That was the problem. As you mention, most is neutral science - their may be a short statement in the intro "None of this is meant to disprove the wider context of global warming" or the like. But most of the actual scientific work is too narrowly focused to have direct application to the issue.

However there are exceptions. There is the evidence we are digging up from the past. In that, there is a record of climate cycles.

And there is no shortage of this material - more of it can be dug up in diverse locations to prove or disprove any hypothesis. We are talking ice cores, bore holes, sea bed sentiments, and the like.

So rather than the science being "completely settled in favor of AGW", as various alarmists have repeated claimed since 1992, it is just in it's infancy.
Here is another bit of that historical record - the pollen database.The North American Pollen Database reveals nine continent-wide temperature-driven shifts in vegetation during the past 14,000 years, an average of one every 1,650 years. Thousands of pollen studies show that the vegetation shifts occurred across the whole of North America. The most recent major shift happened about 600 years ago "culminating in the Little Ice Age, with maximum cooling 300 years ago." The previous shift began about 1,600 years ago, and "culminated in the maximum warming of the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago." The pollen analysis was led by Andre Viau of the University of Ottawa who wrote, "We suggest that North Atlantic millennial-scale climate variability is associated with rearrangements of the atmospheric circulation with far-reaching influences on the climate."
Ian Campbell and John McAndrews of Environment Canada found that as the Little Ice Age cooled southern Ontario's climate, the predominant forest trees shifted from warmth-loving beeches to cold-tolerant oaks, and then to cold-adapted evergreens. Since 1850, that shift has been reversing, with oak trees gradually displacing the evergreens, and the beech trees awaiting their turn. The scientists' computer simulation found the tree species still lagging behind the Modern Warming in 1993, though most of the warming predated 1940. Tree populations may thus need centuries to adapt to the major climate shifts. Campbell and McAndrews also concluded that the total plant mass of Ontario forests fell by 30 percent in the Little Ice Age; the forests still have not recovered the full productivity they had during the Medieval Warming.

Viau et al., "Widespread Evidence of 1,500-Year Climate Variability in North America During the Past 14,000 Years," Geology, vol. 30, no. 5, May 2002, pages 455–458.

Singer, Fred 2007 Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500 Year Climate Cycle (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf)

Television interview (and transcript) 10 minute video (http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503) of Singer and Avery
Some scientists would not be happy at substantial evidence that natural variation is responsible for the largest part of the recent warming we seem to have seen. Those are the scientists who have stepped outside the bounds bounds of respectable, objective science and have found that they like the publicity engendered by shrieking about alarmism.

Other - I suspect the vast majority - would be quite happy to have it be effectively determined that there was no planetary crisis caused by man's industrial and technological civilization that demanded urgent action.

The recent warming is shown by the historical record to not be outside the bounds of natural variation. Since only the "unprecedented recent warming" that causes the "A" to be added to the "GW", in the absence of "unprecedented warming", the AGW hypothesis falls.

So there may be a small desk in the basement that Hansen, Mann, Gore, and Jones can share. Lovelock is already down there, of course.

And would you take a can of roach spray down there for them? They have some work to do.:)

[BobK]

The actual effects of global warming are difficult to predict, as the scientists keep saying. They expect changes, and model them, which gives us an idea. The atmosphere is hotter, the SST is hotter, what will the actual result be of that extra energy in the system? In terms of hurricanes, it appears the result is stronger storms, average, not more. The current season seems to be confirming that. Rapid intensification of storms that have a chance to pass over high SSTs has been happening again.

Records broken in 2005

* Named storms: 28; previous record: 21 in 1933
* Hurricanes: 15; previous record: 12 in 1969
* Major hurricanes hitting the U.S.: Four (Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma); previous record: Three, most recently in 2004
* Hurricanes of Category 5 intensity (greater than 155 mph): Four (Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma); previous record: Two in 1960 and 1961

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2540.htm

You seem to be missing the point. Again. You can always find a way to set some new record. I don't know how many records 1950 set when it occurred. But let me give you a pop quiz.

That character occasionally seen in Star Trek by the name of Q comes to you and says you are to make a choice from one of two possible scenarios for the next hurricane season's activity in the Atlantic Basin. With the storm locations to be randomly chosen at a later date. He'll make sure it happens. If you don't make a selection he will cause a 100 year suspension of all rainfall in Australia. Nothing heavier than morning dew will be allowed.

Choices:
A) Another year like 2005 with a bunch of records being set, and 49.75 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 90 knots.

B) A season like 1950 with few records, and 59.5 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 92 knots and cooler temperatures.

Which choice do you make?

[mhaze]

You seem to be missing the point. Again. You can always find a way to set some new record. I don't know how many records 1950 set when it occurred. But let me give you a pop quiz.

That character occasionally seen in Star Trek by the name of Q comes to you and says you are to make a choice from one of two possible scenarios for the next hurricane season's activity in the Atlantic Basin. With the storm locations to be randomly chosen at a later date. He'll make sure it happens. If you don't make a selection he will cause a 100 year suspension of all rainfall in Australia. Nothing heavier than morning dew will be allowed.

Choices:
A) Another year like 2005 with a bunch of records being set, and 49.75 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 90 knots.

B) A season like 1950 with few records, and 59.5 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 92 knots and cooler temperatures.

Which choice do you make?

Disregarding temperatures (and air densities, and total mass of air)

the energy ratio should be like this ...

Kinetic energy = 1/2 * m * v^2

Relative Kinetic energies A/B = (59.5 * 92^2)/(49.75 * 90^2)

A/B = 1.25

1950 looks like 125% of 2005.

Bob, that "cooler temperatures" .... was that ocean temps or air?

[Safe-Keeper]

I don't see the point you're trying to make. Are you saying that warmer waters in the Caribbean will not lead to stronger hurricanes? In which case, how does the single record year of 1950 support your position? Remember, one single year is not a climate trend, and there are other factors influencing hurricanes than just temperatures.

I, for one, am not saying that the 2005 record year proves that warmer water leads to stronger hurricanes. It certainly supports the theory, but admittedly not really by much, and it was mostly as a response to the 'how many hurricanes have we experienced since Katrina' question. Science, not one record year, is demonstrating that warmer waters fuel hurricanes.

NOAA Research (http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_gfdl.html): 'The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.'

Nature (ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/NATURE03906.pdf): 'Here I define an index of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show that this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities. I find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature,
reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multidecadal
oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and
global warming.'

More here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Global_warming). Admittedly, this is not 'proven science', but what we have points towards stronger storms as the waters are heated.

[a_unique_person]

Mhaze, you're modelling. Don't know if I can believe anything a model says.

[a_unique_person]

You seem to be missing the point. Again. You can always find a way to set some new record. I don't know how many records 1950 set when it occurred. But let me give you a pop quiz.

That character occasionally seen in Star Trek by the name of Q comes to you and says you are to make a choice from one of two possible scenarios for the next hurricane season's activity in the Atlantic Basin. With the storm locations to be randomly chosen at a later date. He'll make sure it happens. If you don't make a selection he will cause a 100 year suspension of all rainfall in Australia. Nothing heavier than morning dew will be allowed.

Choices:
A) Another year like 2005 with a bunch of records being set, and 49.75 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 90 knots.

B) A season like 1950 with few records, and 59.5 days of hurricane winds with an average speed of 92 knots and cooler temperatures.

Which choice do you make?

I just quoted the NOAA web site.

The result of warming appears to be not more, but stronger, hurricanes. The last two through the carribean seem to indicate that is the case. The rapid speed at which they have spun up to CAT5 has surprised the hurricane watchers.

[mhaze]

AUP, I don't feel like people can model climate, but weather, you bet we can and do.

And modeling the negative consequences of Kyoto plans is well within our grasp.

We have on the Gulf Coast here, from Mexico through Texas and to Florida, hurricanes. Period. Lots of them. Big ones. Really big ones. Always have and always will. When and if those storms come cartwheeling into the Gulf, if the Gulf is unusually warm, they pick up energy. Basic weather 101. Moisture plus heat = storms. That's not fundamentally different for summer thunderstorms or cyclones.

If I understand this argument it goes this way -

1. There is GW.
2. There is more CO2 because we put more in the air.
3. (2) caused (1). This is the AGW premise.
4. There are more intense hurricanes than there used to be.
5. (3) caused (4).
6. Kyoto plans will maybe fix 5,4,3,2,1

It looks to me like

1. Recent warming is not outside the bounds of natural variation
2. There is more CO2 because we put some in the air
3. (2) is an insignificant or minor contributer to (1).
4. There is no evidence of a change in hurricane activity.
5. No causal effect of (2) or (3) on (4).
6. There is a documented historical cycle of hurricane over millenia.

I have provided several references on (1), and also one on (6). Bob has provided some data that roughly agrees with (4).

Safekeeper -

Your reference to NOAA is a modeling forecast. Basically it says that if temperatures go up hurricanes should get more intense. Sounds reasonable on a first guess basis, yes.

Please explain this.

1. We were in a Little Ice Age until about the middle of the 1900s.
2. We are not in a Little Ice Age now.

Does that mean temperatures went up, down, or stayed the same?

[BobK]

mhaze,

Here are some links to text files for monthly northern hemisphere temperature anomalies going back to 1880.
Land (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Ocean (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Combined (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)

[mhaze]

mhaze,

Here are some links to text files for monthly northern hemisphere temperature anomalies going back to 1880.
Land (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Ocean (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Combined (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)

Yep. But these compute the "anomaly" based on an average, thus the first half has a "negative anomaly" (colder) the second half has a "positive anomaly" (hotter).

I'd like for these warmers to definitely state that in their opinion, the natural trend is a line with slope = 0 coming out of a "little ice age". Because that is what all the theory of unusual warming is based on, right?

On the contrary, if one said that the line has should have some positive slope, then granted, some amount of AGW could be overlaid on top of it to get to the actual historical trend line.

[lomiller]

You seem to be missing the point. Again. You can always find a way to set some new record. I don't know how many records 1950 set when it occurred.

I don’t get it. Are you trying to say that no matter how many records are set hurricanes are not becoming stronger & more common as long as there is a single record that wasn’t broken?

The link between warmer water and number and intensity of hurricanes is well established, therefore global warming is expected to make them stronger and more common. Warmer water is not, however, the only factor involved and sometimes natural variability will swamp the trend. Thus no single year can prove or disprove anything. Multi year trends are another matter. What is so hard to understand about this?

Note that although single years can’t prove anything they can serve as examples showing what effects are more common and as a risk management tool for assessing associated costs.

[lomiller]

Yep. But these compute the "anomaly" based on an average, thus the first half has a "negative anomaly" (colder) the second half has a "positive anomaly" (hotter).

I'd like for these warmers to definitely state that in their opinion, the natural trend is a line with slope = 0 coming out of a "little ice age". Because that is what all the theory of unusual warming is based on, right?

On the contrary, if one said that the line has should have some positive slope, then granted, some amount of AGW could be overlaid on top of it to get to the actual historical trend line.

Other then wishful thinking what is your basis for assuming there should be a positive slope after the so called little ice age? The planet was cooling after the anomalous warmth of the middle ages. Why would that just stop in its tracks? If anything the temperature record suggests we should have seen further cooling not warming.

[mhaze]

Other then wishful thinking what is your basis for assuming there should be a positive slope after the so called little ice age? The planet was cooling after the anomalous warmth of the middle ages. Why would that just stop in its tracks? If anything the temperature record suggests we should have seen further cooling not warming.

It did start to warm after the little ice age. Why should you not presume it is headed to a point similar to the medieval warming period?

On what basis would you presume a "natural" slope, and what would it be?

[rockoon]

I don’t get it. Are you trying to say that no matter how many records are set hurricanes are not becoming stronger & more common as long as there is a single record that wasn’t broken?


No, I believe he is saying that simply because a record was broken, that does not justify the drawing of conclusions that so many folks often do.

It becomes a cherry-picking festival.

When dealing with a large soup of stochastic variables and only a short history, it is COMMON for a record high to be broken SOMEWHERE. Record lows too.

To put it as bluntly as possible:

The first year of sampling, 100% of the data sets a record. What conclusions should we draw? We shoudn't draw any, right? What makes year 10 different from year 1 in regards to the information content of a record being broken? How about year 20? Year 50? Year 100?

Then we get into the whole situation where it doesnt set an absolute record, but it sets a recrd for a shorter period than we have data for .. "worst in 20 years" even though we have 100 years of records .. this is even worse than considering the real highest on record ..

If you try to draw a conclusions from a record being set, aside from simply that the record was broken within the period specified, then you are heavily involved in cherry picking and nothing is going to change that.

[David Rodale]

No, I believe he is saying that simply because a record was broken, that does not justify the drawing of conclusions that so many folks often do.

It becomes a cherry-picking festival.

When dealing with a large soup of stochastic variables and only a short history, it is COMMON for a record high to be broken SOMEWHERE. Record lows too.

To put it as bluntly as possible:

The first year of sampling, 100% of the data sets a record. What conclusions should we draw? We shoudn't draw any, right? What makes year 10 different from year 1 in regards to the information content of a record being broken? How about year 20? Year 50? Year 100?

Then we get into the whole situation where it doesnt set an absolute record, but it sets a recrd for a shorter period than we have data for .. "worst in 20 years" even though we have 100 years of records .. this is even worse than considering the real highest on record ..

If you try to draw a conclusions from a record being set, aside from simply that the record was broken within the period specified, then you are heavily involved in cherry picking and nothing is going to change that.

This can go back and forth, and around again. One consideration not discussed which few can argue, is the ability of modern weather monitoring technology to detect storms which in prior years was not possible. This is documented in the following article:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf
The Atlantic is the one tropical cyclone basin
that has quantitative records back to the midnineteenth
century for the whole basin (i.e.,
North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf
of Mexico) [Jarvinen et al., 1984; Landsea et al.,
2004]. Mann and Emanuel [2006] used this data
set to find a positive correlation between sea
surface temperatures and Atlantic basin tropical
cyclone frequency for the period of 1871–
2005. Likewise, Holland and Webster [2007] analyzed
Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency back
to 1855 and found a doubling of the number of
tropical cyclones over the past 100 years. Both
papers linked these changes directly to anthropogenic
greenhouse warming. However, both
analyses, with no indication of uncertainty or
error bars, presumed that tropical cyclone
counts are complete or nearly complete for the
entire basin going back in time for at least a
century. This article will show that this presumption
is not reasonable and that improved monitoring
in recent years is responsible for most, if
not all, of the observed trend in increasing
frequency of tropical cyclones.

There are other researchers with similar papers, Bill Gray being one, arguably the most notable pioneers in hurricane research.

[rockoon]

This can go back and forth, and around again. One consideration not discussed which few can argue, is the ability of modern weather monitoring technology to detect storms which in prior years was not possible. This is documented in the following article:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf


Our very own BobK showed this very thing on the Climate Audit website, complete with an animated GIF which really brings out the selection bias in the record.

He studied this in quite some detail, even writing agorithms to cull the datasets so as to only include storms that actualy made landfall under the presumption that these storms have the least selection bias over the history of the record.

His conclusions are that, of the hurricanes that made landfall, there arent any more now than there were in the past (infact, less of them) and that the average strength now isnt any more powerfull now than it was in the past (infact, less powerfull)

Most of the "peer reviewed" guys seem to make little or no effort to remove selection bias... that is why I giggle every time I see someone trumpet these studies... most people don't know how really lazy their methodology is and how completely inaccurate the study is because of it.

[mhaze]

When hurricanes enter the Gulf of Mexico, if it is warmer, they gain more strength than if it is cooler in the Gulf. But note that is a characteristic of an already organized cyclone.

If the Atlantic is warmer, does it follow that we have more intense hurricanes or more of them? A completely different issue. Too bad we may not have good records from the 1930s.

It was recently asserted by NASA than an unusually warm Atlantic current was the cause of the unusually hot 1930s in the US.

[mhaze]

mhaze,

Here are some links to text files for monthly northern hemisphere temperature anomalies going back to 1880.
Land (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Ocean (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Combined (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)

A worthy data set for me to learn the R package with.

[a_unique_person]

This can go back and forth, and around again. One consideration not discussed which few can argue, is the ability of modern weather monitoring technology to detect storms which in prior years was not possible. This is documented in the following article:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf


There are other researchers with similar papers, Bill Gray being one, arguably the most notable pioneers in hurricane research.

Realclimate has it's say.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/reactions-to-tighter-hurricane-intensitysst-link/

[a_unique_person]

Our very own BobK showed this very thing on the Climate Audit website, complete with an animated GIF which really brings out the selection bias in the record.

He studied this in quite some detail, even writing agorithms to cull the datasets so as to only include storms that actualy made landfall under the presumption that these storms have the least selection bias over the history of the record.

His conclusions are that, of the hurricanes that made landfall, there arent any more now than there were in the past (infact, less of them) and that the average strength now isnt any more powerfull now than it was in the past (infact, less powerfull)

Most of the "peer reviewed" guys seem to make little or no effort to remove selection bias... that is why I giggle every time I see someone trumpet these studies... most people don't know how really lazy their methodology is and how completely inaccurate the study is because of it.

You're making that up.



Kevin Trenberth (also in the Fox News piece) made a good point though. The authors of the study used the NCEP reanalysis as the source of their data. A reanalysis is a re-running of the current state-of-the-art weather forecasting model for all the sources of data that were available in the past (i.e. a hindcast of what all the 6 hour weather forecasts would have been if they had used today's model). These projects (and there are two main ones - NCEP and ERA-40) have a problem in that the amount of useful data increases as you go along - most significantly around 1979 when satellite data starts to be significant. So estimates of key quantities are likely to be worse prior to 1979. Not mentioned, but conceivably important is that the NCEP reanalysis is tied in some respects to the radiosonde data, which, as we discussed last year (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=179), may have some spurious trends. This doesn't obviously affect the results significantly, but it does suggest that doing the analyses again using the ERA-40 data might be a useful check. So where does that all leave us? Basically, although everyone acknowledges that there are data problems early in the record, it seems clear that there has been a global rise of the most intense hurricanes over the last 30 years and the most obvious explanation is that this is related to the contemporaneous increases in tropical SST in each basin. However, the magnitude of the correlation cannot yet be explained in terms of our basic theoretical understanding, and is significantly stronger than some modelling work has suggested it should be. Possibly the theory needs work (hurricanes are a complicated business!) or there are other factors at play that haven't yet been considered. Since the SST changes are global, and almost certainly tied to greenhouse gas driven global warming, there are the beginnings of a corroborated link between increases in hurricane intensity and GW - however, so far there are only a couple of ducks in a row.







The data is a known problem, and attempts have been made to factor that into the research.

[rockoon]

You're making that up.


Even if you searched THIS forum you would know the truth ..

...as a matter of fact you posted on the very thread on this forum where the data was introduced, doing so 3 times.

Hey liar.. got anything of substance to day for yourself?

And I quote one of BobK's posts on this forum:


Here's a count of plots of hurricane force winds from 0-300 miles and
301-1200 miles from land for 1851-1900 and 1951-2000.

Landfall-> 0-300 miles 301-1200 miles
1851-1900 3342 plots 1165 plots
1951-2000 2933 plots 1921 plots


14% more hurricanes within 300 miles of shore between 1851 and 1900 than made between 1951 and 2000 - and we know that there is zero chance that we missed any in the latter period but still a very strong chance that we missed some in the former period.

He states:


I think 1851-1900 was as bad and probably worse than 1951-2000 given the
disparity in observational quality between the two periods. Unfortunately there
isn't any way to resolve the observational discrepancy accurately.


In a further post, he states on the specific landfall numbers:


1851-1900 shows 288. 1951-2000 shows 236. It appears it was pretty nasty
back in the 1800's and the 1950-2000 era wasn't anything exceptional. You
can even add in the 2001-2006 landfalling plots(43) and not exceed what 1851-1900 had.



The data is a known problem, and attempts have been made to factor that into the research.

I am afraid that what you quoted makes no reference to attempts to factor in the selection bias in the data which goes back over 150 years. These are lazy people doing lazy things and caling it science.

[Pipirr]

{snip}Most of the "peer reviewed" guys seem to make little or no effort to remove selection bias... that is why I giggle every time I see someone trumpet these studies... most people don't know how really lazy their methodology is and how completely inaccurate the study is because of it.


No disrespect, rockoon, but peer review remains the best way of evaluating scientific research. It strikes me as improbable that the AGW skeptics' camp (or anyone else) has formulated a better approach.

I don't know Bobk, neither from here nor at Climate Audit, but if the methodological flaws that he has uncovered are real then they are publishable and I encourage him to do so. The arguments over the AGW hypothesis will be won, in the end, in the scholarly journals. That's not to say that we in the gallery shouldn't join in the debate, but let's not dismiss the "peer-reviewed guys" on the basis of an unpublished critique.

Although of course if Bobk has published, then I'm happy to stand corrected.

[The Painter]

Are you guys still arguing about this? The same scientists have said it’s too late to do anything about it. Don’t worry about it. You can’t do anything to change it. It’s already over.

[mhaze]

No disrespect, rockoon, but peer review remains the best way of evaluating scientific research. It strikes me as improbable that the AGW skeptics' camp (or anyone else) has formulated a better approach.

I don't know Bobk, neither from here nor at Climate Audit, but if the methodological flaws that he has uncovered are real then they are publishable and I encourage him to do so. The arguments over the AGW hypothesis will be won, in the end, in the scholarly journals. That's not to say that we in the gallery shouldn't join in the debate, but let's not dismiss the "peer-reviewed guys" on the basis of an unpublished critique.

Although of course if Bobk has published, then I'm happy to stand corrected.

The threads in question at Climateaudit on hurricane intensity raised valid questions as to whether the facts show that hurricane intensity has intensified.

For example, here is one comment from CA (not Bobk) - Re #44 One problem I have with HW is the quality of the older data. This is an old problem and covered in detail in the past at CA. It’s hard for me to build up much enthusiasm for the HW analysis when I’m bothered by the data on which it is founded.
To beat this horse once again, I want to add a new ocular exercise, with regards to holes in the data. This will take a minute because I have not consolidated these:
Glance at 1931 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1931/index.html), 1932 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1932/index.html), 1933 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1933/index.html), 1934 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1934/index.html), 1935 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1935/index.html), 1936 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1936/index.html), 1937 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1937/index.html), 1938 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1938/index.html), 1939 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1939/index.html), 1940 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1940/index.html), and on to 1945. I think the visual impression is that there are few storms east of 55W. What was happening between 55W and Africa? It’s like a void existed, with few exceptions.

Now, glance at 1995 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1995/index.html), 1996 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1996/index.html), 1997 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1997/index.html), 1998 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1998/index.html), 1999 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1999/index.html), 2000 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2000/index.html), 2001 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2001/index.html), 2002 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2002/index.html), 2003 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2003/index.html), 2004 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2004/index.html) and 2005 (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2005/index.html).

The activity east of 55W is widespread.
I would say what has changed (today vs 1930s/40s) is data collection in these remote parts of the ocean, thanks to reconnaissance and especially satellite. In my opinion, some weaker storms in the east Atlantic were missed and some peak strengths were missed. HW may say “regime change” with hotter SST and more activity in the east Atlantic. I think it’s a data collection problem.

I believe that HW should refer to "Hurricane warming", or possibly Hurricane warmers, those who want to believe in hurricane warming.

[Pipirr]

The threads in question at Climateaudit on hurricane intensity raised valid questions as to whether the facts show that hurricane intensity has intensified.
{snip}
I believe that HW should refer to "Hurricane warming", or possibly Hurricane warmers, those who want to believe in hurricane warming.

I agree that there are valid questions, and I expect "hurricane warming" to be a difficult hypothesis to prove, given the limitations and extents of the available datasets. You and I probably share the same reservations about anyone stating emphatically that "HW" exists, and is responsible for Felix, Katrina etc.

Still, dismissing "the peer-review guys" on the basis of a blog discussion strikes me as hubris. It's easy to attack scientific research from the outside. It takes real chops to do it from within the realm of peer review.

[mhaze]

Note in these graphs from yet another Climateaudit thread (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=790), the clear cyclic nature of the phenomena.
Do warmers that connect hurricanes to AGW talk about these cycles? No.
Do warmers show graphs that starts at the low point of the current cycle (1970s) and ends at the current high? Yes. Willis Eschenbach says: (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=790)
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Let me add a couple other graphics to the site …


http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446de9f0fed76d.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=8111)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446de9fcb8e849.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=8113)

Piperr -
It is laughable to suggest that one can duck and dodge the direct presentation of facts by asking if they are peer reviewed, or to suggest that such facts should not be taken seriously until they are peer reviewed.

Alternately, if one followed your guidance on not believing facts until they were published, then we need to discount all of the opinions put forth into the media by scientists concerning hurricanes and the possible causes being AGW. Unless publishing in the Guardian, New York Times, or Scotsman qualify as peer reviewed. Publishing at Realclimate, then? Also not peer reviewed.

Direct questions that are asked, with supporting data, deserve direct answers. Correct understanding of science follows and is eventually published.

Published peer reviewed research without disclosure of datasets, methods and programs used is a major problem in climate science. Peer review cannot solve that problem. An amusing introduction to these issues is to read McIntyre's critique of Mann's Hockey Stick paper along with the source document.

[Pipirr]

Piperr -
It is laughable to suggest that one can duck and dodge the direct presentation of facts by asking if they are peer reviewed, or to suggest that such facts should not be taken seriously until they are peer reviewed.

Alternately, if one followed your guidance on not believing facts until they were published, then we need to discount all of the opinions put forth into the media by scientists concerning hurricanes and the possible causes being AGW. Unless publishing in the Guardian, New York Times, or Scotsman qualify as peer reviewed. Publishing at Realclimate, then? Also not peer reviewed.

Direct questions that are asked, with supporting data, deserve direct answers. Correct understanding of science follows and is eventually published.

Published peer reviewed research without disclosure of datasets, methods and programs used is a major problem in climate science. Peer review cannot solve that problem. An amusing introduction to these issues is to read McIntyre's critique of Mann's Hockey Stick paper along with the source document.


Duck and dodge? On the contrary, I'm not advocating peer reviewed research as the only place for discussion, nor would I say that there is no place outside it for debate and asking questions. What I take issue with are statements like these:

Originally Posted by rockoon
{snip}Most of the "peer reviewed" guys seem to make little or no effort to remove selection bias... that is why I giggle every time I see someone trumpet these studies... most people don't know how really lazy their methodology is and how completely inaccurate the study is because of it.

Peer reviewed research should not just be dismissed on the basis of a dissenting blogger. And if the dissent has real merit, then such dissent should be publishable. Our understanding of climate, hurricanes, global warming, will be better for it.

I expect far more climate scientists check in with the Web of Science on a regular basis than read the climate blogs.

Direct questions that are asked, with supporting data, deserve direct answers. Correct understanding of science follows and is eventually published.

That sounds fine to me. However, such questions do carry more weight when asked in peer reviewed journals. As the AGW skeptical community appears to be growing in number and capability, I hope that they will choose to engage the scientific community in more formal ways. Climate research will be all the more robust for it. And who knows, in a few years time Oreske's test could give quite different results...

[mhaze]

Duck and dodge? On the contrary, I'm not advocating peer reviewed research as the only place for discussion, nor would I say that there is no place outside it for debate and asking questions. What I take issue with are statements like these:

Peer reviewed research should not just be dismissed on the basis of a dissenting blogger. And if the dissent has real merit, then such dissent should be publishable. Our understanding of climate, hurricanes, global warming, will be better for it.


I may have misunderstood not your comment, but the extent to which you would have carried it.


I expect far more climate scientists check in with the Web of Science on a regular basis than read the climate blogs.

However, such questions do carry more weight when asked in peer reviewed journals. As the AGW skeptical community appears to be growing in number and capability, I hope that they will choose to engage the scientific community in more formal ways. Climate research will be all the more robust for it. And who knows, in a few years time Oreske's test could give quite different results...It is worth noting that the discussions at Climateaudit and several others have a fair proportion of scientists (who are publishing in peer reviewed journals).

Oreske's "test" was highly biased. Either it has been debunked by the recent review of 528 published articles, or the opinions of scientists have changed in the 2003 - 2007 timeframe toward a more skeptical view.

[rockoon]

No disrespect, rockoon, but peer review remains the best way of evaluating scientific research. It strikes me as improbable that the AGW skeptics' camp (or anyone else) has formulated a better approach.


Hello Mr Strawman. You don't mind if I call you by your real name, do you?

I didnt say otherwise Mr Strawman.

But to be quite honest, these "peer reviewed" scientists typically do not have to abide by the standard of the journal they are publishing in. This isn't because the journals think their standards are wrong and are actively revising them, but that they themselves simply do not enforce it for whatever reason (I suggest economic.)


I don't know Bobk, neither from here nor at Climate Audit, but if the methodological flaws that he has uncovered are real then they are publishable and I encourage him to do so.


Mr Strawman, did I say that BobK uncovered methodological flaws?

I said that the papers on this subject are written by lazy people who make little or no effort to use good data.

If you have an example where a paper on the subject of the trend of hurricane intensity makes these efforts, and there are some, then you have found a rare paper.

Now, most papers on this subject do not even consider the whole record. That isnt even lazyness.. thats cherry picking.. I wish to thank you for giving me the opportunity to point that out.


The arguments over the AGW hypothesis will be won, in the end, in the scholarly journals.


Mr Strawman, they will be "won" on real data: past, present, and future.

Do you think it is a debate or something? This is science. It is only right when your hypothesis continualy makes accurate predictions that satisfy the data.

[Pipirr]

Hello Mr Strawman. You don't mind if I call you by your real name, do you?


Hi rockoon. My apologies if you think that I misrepresented your point of view. You may not have noticed, but I've been careful to avoid the rancour and name calling in the global warming threads. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I don't respond to you in kind.

In fairness to you, on reading your post again you weren't explicitly advocating dismissing the peer reviewed hurricane research. You did seem to suggest that in the majority of papers, the methods are flawed and the quality of the research poor. I think that begged the question of whether you are correct, and what can be done about it. Even if you were a climate scientist at the top of his game (maybe you are, I don't know), such a broad brush statement would give me pause.

As for the rest, I agree; the arguments will be won on real data. And I still would like to see the criticisms of methodology, which you highlighted, get into print.

[David Rodale]

Duck and dodge? On the contrary, I'm not advocating peer reviewed research as the only place for discussion, nor would I say that there is no place outside it for debate and asking questions. What I take issue with are statements like these:



Peer reviewed research should not just be dismissed on the basis of a dissenting blogger. And if the dissent has real merit, then such dissent should be publishable. Our understanding of climate, hurricanes, global warming, will be better for it.

I expect far more climate scientists check in with the Web of Science on a regular basis than read the climate blogs.



That sounds fine to me. However, such questions do carry more weight when asked in peer reviewed journals. As the AGW skeptical community appears to be growing in number and capability, I hope that they will choose to engage the scientific community in more formal ways. Climate research will be all the more robust for it. And who knows, in a few years time Oreske's test could give quite different results...

Was Oreske's essay peer reviewed? Please cite if so. I dare say it was not,

[Pipirr]

I don't know if it was peer-reviewed. It was an essay, and seeing as a lot of the essays that Science publishes are invited, perhaps it was just scrutinised by the editors.

Whatever, I made no claims about the quality and usefulness of it. But I wouldn't be surprised if an updated key word search on the Web of Science using her methodology, would now show some different results.

[mhaze]

Found it.

This is the study I was thinking of that is recent; that may really affect the hurricane-GW hypothesis and certainly affects the AGW modeling.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1140746
How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?

Frank J. Wentz,* Lucrezia Ricciardulli, Kyle Hilburn, Carl Mears Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades.

What does this mean? Some guesses (mine)

Models underestimate movement of air masses
Cloud cover the four types of clouds is higher than predicted
Transfer of moisture to the poles is higher than predicted
Cloud cover at the poles is higher than predicted
Feedbacks are all wrong (but we already knew that).
A lot of published articles may have wrong presumptionsHow about the issue of the ratio of "greenhouse effect" due respectively to CO2 versus water?

[David Rodale]

I don't know if it was peer-reviewed. It was an essay, and seeing as a lot of the essays that Science publishes are invited, perhaps it was just scrutinised by the editors.

Whatever, I made no claims about the quality and usefulness of it. But I wouldn't be surprised if an updated key word search on the Web of Science using her methodology, would now show some different results.

It is odd that Science welcomed her essay without peer review, yet refused to publish others in disagreement. You may not make any claims to its veracity, but that essay was published just in time and used as "evidence" (coincidence?) for the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change, and is parroted on every AGW scripted response weblog.

Peer review may be the desirable methodology in science, but it can be and is being abused to promote political agendas. Based on their public statements and willingness to rush pro AGW articles to publication, it appears Science would publish Dr. Seuss if it supported their views.

The Oreske essay was no more than an opinion piece.

Would Science publish the following? I think not. You are correct in surmising there are results directly contradicting hers however:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf

[mhaze]

It is odd that Science welcomed her essay without peer review, yet refused to publish others in disagreement. You may not make any claims to its veracity, but that essay was published just in time and used as "evidence" (coincidence?) for the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change, and is parroted on every AGW scripted response weblog.

Peer review may be the desirable methodology in science, but it can be and is being abused to promote political agendas. Based on their public statements and willingness to rush pro AGW articles to publication, it appears Science would publish Dr. Seuss if it supported their views.

The Oreske essay was no more than an opinion piece.

Would Science publish the following? I think not. You are correct in surmising there are results directly contradicting hers however:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf

Let's apply Oreske's logic to prove a different fantasy consensus.

Hypothetical consensus to be proven or disproven.Aliens cause global warming.
Oreske's words from her paper ..."Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position".

"75% either explicitly or implicitly agreed with the consensus position".

Looks like Oreske can prove aliens cause global warming.

But, you say, that's ridiculous. Show us your work. Name the 928 papers and show the paragraphs that prove out your numbers. No answer. No archived data. No web based database accessible to independent researchers.

"But it's published in Science".:rolleyes:

[ConspiRaider]

Let's apply Oreske's logic to prove a different fantasy consensus.


Hypothetical consensus to be proven or disproven.Aliens cause global warming.

Oreske's words from her paper ..."Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position".


"75% either explicitly or implicitly agreed with the consensus position".

Looks like Oreske can prove aliens cause global warming.

But, you say, that's ridiculous. Show us your work. Name the 928 papers and show the paragraphs that prove out your numbers. No answer. No archived data. No web based database accessible to independent researchers.

"But it's published in Science".:rolleyes:
Hey -

First, discover that scientists are now predicting the polar cap summer melt by 2030. How much you want to bet they'll adjust that to occur even sooner? $105,000? I'll take that bet.

Another thing. The 10-pager I mentioned previously that ran in Scientific American. Did you go to the library, check out that issue and read it? And what is your basis for denial after having read it?

Another thing: We've had 2 hurricanes now, Category 5. How many more do you think we'll have this fine season?

[mhaze]

Hey -

First, discover that scientists are now predicting the polar cap summer melt by 2030. How much you want to bet they'll adjust that to occur even sooner? $105,000? I'll take that bet.

Another thing. The 10-pager I mentioned previously that ran in Scientific American. Did you go to the library, check out that issue and read it? And what is your basis for denial after having read it?

Another thing: We've had 2 hurricanes now, Category 5. How many more do you think we'll have this fine season?

Hi conspir -

Where did you run off too? I thought we were going to discuss scripts based on GW. Like, the northwest passage, Canada and Norway squaring off, etc. Too bad two days after we had that chat the subject ran as a skit on Cobert Report. But there is lots of good material left.

Hurricanes at the North Pole? Polarcanes?

New ocean currents in the Pacific and Hurricanes hitting Hollywood?

We are used to them over here so they are not quite so scary.

But in LA, they would be really a fright. What would you guys do?

[a_unique_person]

Let's apply Oreske's logic to prove a different fantasy consensus.

Hypothetical consensus to be proven or disproven.Aliens cause global warming.
Oreske's words from her paper ..."Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position".

"75% either explicitly or implicitly agreed with the consensus position".

Looks like Oreske can prove aliens cause global warming.

But, you say, that's ridiculous. Show us your work. Name the 928 papers and show the paragraphs that prove out your numbers. No answer. No archived data. No web based database accessible to independent researchers.

"But it's published in Science".:rolleyes:

That's not the case at all.

Numerous research is going on into areas of science relevent to global warming. The point was that none of this research throws up anything to contradict the findings of the IPCC.

If the research they were doing was into alien life, and it came up with nothing every time, then that would be a comparable situation.

[CapelDodger]

Hey -

First, discover that scientists are now predicting the polar cap summer melt by 2030. How much you want to bet they'll adjust that to occur even sooner? $105,000? I'll take that bet.

I'll take any action you can't handle.

After all, the trend is towards it getting closer and Science is conservative. The retreat in consensus from 2100 to 2040-ish has been pretty precipitate. And there are enough 2030 outliers to suggest that it hasn't stopped yet. Not much room for retreat left, but I reckon there'll be some.

[mhaze]

That's not the case at all.

Numerous research is going on into areas of science relevent to global warming. The point was that none of this research throws up anything to contradict the findings of the IPCC.

If the research they were doing was into alien life, and it came up with nothing every time, then that would be a comparable situation.

Have I misrepresented Oreske? If so, it was unintentional.

Oreskes, defined "consensus" quoting as follows from IPCC (2001) "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents .... that absorb or scatter radiant energy ... most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
By this measure I agree with the first premise and disagree with "most" in the second. But then she says "most...is likely to have" so there is some capeldodging possible there. I would go for 5-30% warming due to manmade factors, not that my opinion matters one bit.

She was supposedly looking for agreement in the 928 papers she reviewed, right? Oreske's words from her paper ..."Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position".
"75% either explicitly or implicitly agreed with the consensus position". (whatever implicitly agreed means...)
Okay, let's audit the work of Oreske.

1. Show us your work.
2. Name the 928 papers and show the paragraphs that prove out your numbers.
3. No answer.
4. No archived data.
5. No web based database accessible to independent researchers.

Well, no way to audit that bit of work!

Quoting from Monckton's excellent criticism of Oreskes (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf)
There is no scientific consensus on how much the world has warmed or will warm; how much of the warming is natural; how much impact greenhouse gases have had or will have on temperature; how sea level, storms, droughts, floods, flora and fauna will respond to warmer temperature; what mitigative steps - if any - we should take; whether (if at all) such steps would have sufficient (or any) climatic effect; or even whether we should take any steps at all.
Consensus has been claimed on many aspects of climate science based on Oreske's work - very inappropriately - and on many political tax schemes. We are seeing consensus claimed in the popular media and in ill informed but educated people on such things as droughts, hurricanes, and sea level.

[a_unique_person]

Quoting from Monckton's excellent criticism of Oreskes (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf)There is no scientific consensus on how much the world has warmed or will warm; how much of the warming is natural; how much impact greenhouse gases have had or will have on temperature; how sea level, storms, droughts, floods, flora and fauna will respond to warmer temperature; what mitigative steps - if any - we should take; whether (if at all) such steps would have sufficient (or any) climatic effect; or even whether we should take any steps at all.
Consensus has been claimed on many aspects of climate science based on Oreske's work - very inappropriately - and on many political tax schemes. We are seeing consensus claimed in the popular media and in ill informed but educated people on such things as droughts, hurricanes, and sea level.


Monckton is a nutter, pure and simple. Once again we have earnest amateurs taking on the science, while being completely ignorant of what is actually going on. He is completely misrepresenting what she did. He derides her for her research when she is not a climate scientist, when he isn't one either. What she did was search through the papers produced, on climate, and see if anything came up that contradicted the accepted scientific stance an climate change. Nothing she found did.

She did not claim that scientists know exactly how much it will warm by, exactly what can be done to mitigate the changes, exactly what the effects will be. You would think this was an earth shattering revelation, but it's nothing of the sort, since the IPCC has spelled that out from the start.

[mhaze]

Monckton is a nutter, pure and simple. Once again we have earnest amateurs taking on the science

Well, the earnest amateurs Monckton and Oerkes taking on each other.

I note that you don't disagree with me that Oerkes work is not verifiable.

Moot point since Shultz 2007 has nailed the lid on the consensus-coffin.

There is no consensus.

Was there once? Maybe, I don't know. Doubt it, though.

[a_unique_person]

Well, the earnest amateurs Monckton and Oerkes taking on each other.

I note that you don't disagree with me that Oerkes work is not verifiable.

Moot point since Shultz 2007 has nailed the lid on the consensus-coffin.

There is no consensus.

Was there once? Maybe, I don't know. Doubt it, though.

Oreskes was doing what she is qualified to do, researching science itself. Monckton is a nutter, with no qualifications to do anything other than be paraded around by deniers as an authority on something.

Schulz does nothing more than say they don't endorse global warming, which is, once again, not what they would do. Each piece of science will be looking at a particular area of science, even one glacier, perhaps. It is only possible via a process such as the IPCC to look at the big picture. Oreskes was trying to find if there was anything that invalidated what the IPCC is saying, she didn't find anything. Shulz has found pretty much the same thing, only he's putting a different spin on the finding.

[a_unique_person]

Benny Peiser tried the same trick before.


This seems likely to be a rerun of Benny Peiser's effort. (Peiser said that 34 of Oreskes' abstracts rejected the consensus. Eventually he downgraded the number to just one (http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/peiser_admits_he_was_97_wrong.php). I've sent off an email to see if I can get a copy of the paper, but in the mean time we can check some stuff.

Chasing down Benny Peiser.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1777013.htm





Only [a] few abstracts explicitly reject or doubt the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) consensus which is why I have publicly withdrawn this point of my critique.

— Email from Benny Peiser to Media Watch

So long Benny, and thanks for that.

[mhaze]

Benny Peiser tried the same trick before.

Chasing down Benny Peiser.

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1777013.htm

So long Benny, and thanks for that.

So AMP, have you figured out what consensus science really is? Politics.

[a_unique_person]

There is no such thing as 'consensus science'. That's just an invention from the denier camp.

[bobdroege7]

The recent warming is shown by the historical record to not be outside the bounds of natural variation. Since only the "unprecedented recent warming" that causes the "A" to be added to the "GW", in the absence of "unprecedented warming", the AGW hypothesis falls.

:)

Of course the current warming is not outside the historical record as the historical record varies between snowball earth and near complete absence of ice and sea levels high enough to flood the North American continent creating an inland sea.

So I conclude that you would admit no AGW until all the earth's ice has melted.

[mhaze]

Of course the current warming is not outside the historical record as the historical record varies between snowball earth and near complete absence of ice and sea levels high enough to flood the North American continent creating an inland sea.

So I conclude that you would admit no AGW until all the earth's ice has melted.

Funny, I like that.

But you know I was discussing the 1500 year cycle (Minoan, Roma, Medieval) with a few degrees C difference.

[Megalodon]

I note that you don't disagree with me that Oerkes work is not verifiable.


Of course it isn't... Both University and public libraries are guarded at gunpoint by the International Marxist Man in Black, and they don't allow anyone in.

The work is not only verifiable, it would be extremely easy to prove wrong, using exactly the same database. You know, publicly available papers.

[mhaze]

Of course it isn't... Both University and public libraries are guarded at gunpoint by the International Marxist Man in Black, and they don't allow anyone in.

The work is not only verifiable, it would be extremely easy to prove wrong, using exactly the same database. You know, publicly available papers.

Which is more or less what Shutle 2007 did; there is no consensus, get over it.

With all due respect, I'm not interested in discussing the (admittedly) circular arguments about consensus, they don't seem to lead anywhere interesting.

The actual science does. Back to it.

[mhaze]

Funny, I like that.

But you know I was discussing the 1500 year cycle (Minoan, Roma, Medieval) with a few degrees C difference.

Back out the AGW theories' presumptions (disregarding for a moment the high inaccuracies in the models' predictions) and what you have left is a flat line.

There is only one way to have a flat line and that is if there are no thermal inputs or outputs. For humans, we call that Death.

That's ridiculous as either a "standard or stabilized state" or as a goal for climate engineering.

Obviously, we have natural cycles over various terms - daily, seasonal, monthly. I've noted the approximate 60 year and 1500 year cycles and provided references. But how does all this interact?

Understanding the mechanisms driving such climate variability is difficult because unraveling causal connections that lead to chaotic climate behavior is complicated.

To simplify this, Tsonis et al. investigate the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation.

By studying the last 100 years of these cycles' patterns, they find that the systems synchronized several times.

Further, in cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then. a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability.
The authors show that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century.

Here is a link to Tsonis's "A New Dynamical Method for Major Climate Shifts" theory which explains the last 100 years of climate history using a network approach in complex systems analysis.

http://downloads.heartland.org/tsonis_GRL07.pdf

full text draft of the pdf here

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/08/mechanism-for-major-climate-shifts.html

In case you are wondering why the Warmers and Alarmists are not doing too well, it is simply because the state of understanding of the science in these areas is progressing.

[mhaze]

In case you are wondering why the Warmers and Alarmists are not doing too well, it is simply because the state of understanding of the science in these areas is progressing.

As a joke, somebody said that if the sea ice all melted and the polar bears died off, we could just take some of our American and Canadian bears and paint them white.

But with the surge of insightful research in this area, there is new reason to think the opposite. Polar bears, now are known to have multiplied five fold from several decades ago and are soon to be reaching a population crisis.

With the UK having the sad experience of having killed off the last native black bear centuries back, I suggest airlift these hungry polar bears to the UK and paint them black.

[Megalodon]

Which is more or less what Shutle 2007 did; there is no consensus, get over it.

So the work is not verifiable, but someone verified it? Your line of argument is very... peculiar.

[Megalodon]

In case you are wondering why the Warmers and Alarmists are not doing too well, it is simply because the state of understanding of the science in these areas is progressing.

So, your refutation for the models is another model?

However, comparison of the 2035 event in the 21st century simulation and the 1910s event in the observations with this event, suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970s event to a different state of a warmer climate, which may be superimposed on an anthropogenic warming trend.

Do you even read what you post?

[mhaze]

So, your refutation for the models is another model? Do you even read what you post?

I've previously said there might be a slight CO2 warming effect, perhaps 0.5 C for a doubling of the concentration). A huge number of "deniers" do not dispute some slight effect of CO2. They dispute the huge and central effect that it those of the AGW belief set think it has as stated in the IPCC 4th edition and selected sources therein.
To put it really simply, numerous calculations by what you would call "deniers" do not show that large of an effect.

According to the IPCC AGW model, most of the warming is due to man's CO2 forcing and feedbacks thereof. Back that out, and you have a flat line. That's their concept of our climate without "our bad effects".

Go to Tsonis now. See the difference? The trend line is not zero slope but is somewhat predicted from their theory. Of course you can superimpose some level of AGW on top of it. But how much? The amount of AGW that is possible is limited by the natural factors that they attempt to understand and model.

Further. What feedbacks, and forcings are possible? They are completely different than what is concluded if one tried to make CO2 the primary driver of climate in the several decades past and coming.

Is that clear?

If not, let me quote the full paragraph from which you produced the AGW phrase. It is interesting to speculate on the climate shift after the 1970s event. The standard explanation for the post 1970s warming is that the radiative effect of greenhouse gases overcame shortwave reflection effects due to aerosols. However, comparison of the 2035 event in the 21st century simulation and the 1910s event in the observations with this event, suggests an alternative hypothesis, namely that the climate shifted after the 1970s event to a different state of a warmer climate, which may be superimposed on an anthropogenic warming trend.
So is there anything here to support Alarmists? Not that I see offhand. Is there anything to support AGW? Much less than with the IPCC current belief set.

The point of actual useful science like this is not to prove or disprove AGW, but to actually understand phenomena. Let the chips fall where they may, right?

[a_unique_person]

As a joke, somebody said that if the sea ice all melted and the polar bears died off, we could just take some of our American and Canadian bears and paint them white.

But with the surge of insightful research in this area, there is new reason to think the opposite. Polar bears, now are known to have multiplied five fold from several decades ago and are soon to be reaching a population crisis.


Once again, things just *happen*. We are naive innocents, and things just happen for no reason? No, the polar bear population has just recovered from overhunting. That's why the population has been growing. Now another event is about to threaten them.

[mhaze]

So the work is not verifiable, but someone verified it? Your line of argument is very... peculiar.

Not meaning to beat a dead horse unduly here, but we can now officially stop Going at it about Oeskes and Schulte.

They are at each other directly now (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/approverelease-Schulte9-5-07.pdf) with the insults and charges flying.

[a_unique_person]

Not meaning to beat a dead horse unduly here, but we can now officially stop Going at it about Oeskes and Schulte.

They are at each other directly now (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/approverelease-Schulte9-5-07.pdf) with the insults and charges flying.



3) The piece misrepresents the results we obtained. In the original AAAS talk on which the paper was based, and in various interviews and conversations after, I repeated pointed out that very few papers analyzed said anything explicit at all about the consensus position.This was actually a very important result, for the following reason. Biologists today never write papers in which they explicitly say "we endorse evolution". Earth scientists never say "we explicitly endorse plate tectonics." This is because these things are now taken for granted. So when we read these papers and observed this pattern, we took this to be very significant.We realized that the basic issue was settled, and we observed that scientists had moved on to discussing details of the problem, mostly tempo and mode issues: how fast, how soon, in what manner, with what impacts, etc. (See Oreskes, 2007 (http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/Oreskes2007.pdf) for further discussion).



I thought as much. People have been beating up on Oreskes for something that she never claimed. The blogosphere don't give a damn, it's always party time out there for any inane reason that happens to pass by.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/

[Megalodon]

I've previously said there might be a slight CO2 warming effect, perhaps 0.5 C for a doubling of the concentration). A huge number of "deniers" do not dispute some slight effect of CO2. They dispute the huge and central effect that it those of the AGW belief set think it has as stated in the IPCC 4th edition and selected sources therein.

Every hypothesis is always under discussion. However, there's a difference between the arguments based on decades of science and the ones based on a gut-feeling. But I am not expecting you to get it anymore...

To put it really simply, numerous calculations by what you would call "deniers" do not show that large of an effect.

To put it really simple, you disregard the calculations of the majority of scientists in favour of the calculations of whomever that might support your ideology, even if only apparently.

And obviously, you have no idea about whom I would or wouldn't call a "denier".

According to the IPCC AGW model, most of the warming is due to man's CO2 forcing and feedbacks thereof. Back that out, and you have a flat line. That's their concept of our climate without "our bad effects".

Does this IPCC of yours hide in your closet at night? Or is it hanging in the cornfield?

Go to Tsonis now. See the difference? The trend line is not zero slope but is somewhat predicted from their theory. Of course you can superimpose some level of AGW on top of it. But how much? The amount of AGW that is possible is limited by the natural factors that they attempt to understand and model.

So, your problem with the other models is that they don't tell you what you want to hear.

What feedbacks, and forcings are possible? They are completely different than what is concluded if one tried to make CO2 the primary driver of climate in the several decades past and coming.

Exactly... and do they conflict with what our previous knowledge tells us? Do they explain why the current models worked so well?

So is there anything here to support Alarmists? Not that I see offhand. Is there anything to support AGW? Much less than with the IPCC current belief set.

The crux of the matter is the measurments. We know that aerosols were in the atmosphere (ask the swedes) and we know the effects on temperature. If this new hypothesis is to explain the observations, they have to explain why the aerosols had no effect whatsoever.

If they can't they should revisit their work, as they quite probably will. The work seems interesting, but as any first attempt at moddeling, it's the follow-up papers I'm interested on.

The point of actual useful science like this is not to prove or disprove AGW, but to actually understand phenomena. Let the chips fall where they may, right?

So, if the result of the model superficially seems to agree with you, you say "let the chips fall...". If not, models are worthless or scientists want to rule the world under a marxist ideology... got it.

[mhaze]

But I am not expecting you to get it anymore...

you disregard the calculations of the majority of scientists in favour of the calculations of whomever that might support your ideology, even if only apparently.

And obviously, you have no idea about whom I would or wouldn't call a "denier".

Does this IPCC of yours hide in your closet at night?

Or is it hanging in the cornfield?

So, your problem with the other models is that they don't tell you what you want to hear.

if the result of the model superficially seems to agree with you, you say "let the chips fall...".

If not, models are worthless or scientists want to rule the world under a marxist ideology... got it.



You do seem to have a bit of a problem with people not agreeing with you.

The current models work so well? That's really news to me. Got any facts on that, or is that just a gut feeling? I thought one of the fundamental issues was why did they work so poorly.The crux of the matter is the measurments. We know that aerosols were in the atmosphere (ask the swedes) and we know the effects on temperature. If this new hypothesis is to explain the observations, they have to explain why the aerosols had no effect whatsoever.

If they can't they should revisit their work, as they quite probably will. The work seems interesting, but as any first attempt at moddeling, it's the follow-up papers I'm interested on.

Agree in part. Effects of aerosols are very poorly understood.

If the facts change, I'm going to change my opinion. As for you???

[mhaze]

Every hypothesis is always under discussion.
The crux of the matter is the measurments. We know that aerosols were in the atmosphere (ask the swedes) and we know the effects on temperature. If this new hypothesis is to explain the observations, they have to explain why the aerosols had no effect whatsoever.

If they can't they should revisit their work, as they quite probably will. The work seems interesting, but as any first attempt at moddeling, it's the follow-up papers I'm interested on.
So, if the result of the model superficially seems to agree with you, you say "let the chips fall...".

Part of the chips falling as they may is the ability to verify the correctness of the raw data, the modeling, including the algorithms and actual computer program, thence the ability to replicate the results independantly. That's why the work of Steve McIntyre is so important.

You have a group of people trying to get trillions of dollars in taxes, fees and fines due to the alleged effects of CO2 in the atmosphere, and in many critical cases, they won't let us see their data or methods.

Sorry, I have no sympathy for that point of view. No more that I care to see basketball rigged. The following article about corruption in basketball, does apply to this area which is both scientific and political, and shows clearly why work such as www.climateaudit.org (http://www.climateaudit.org) is important.

(Schneier's 50th essay for wired.com)
Basketball Referees and Single Points of Failure (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/basketball_refe.html)

Sports referees are supposed to be fair and impartial. They're not supposed to favor one team over another. And they're most certainly not supposed to have a financial interest in the outcome of a game.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/basketball_refe.htmlThe best way to catch corrupt trusted insiders is through audit. The particular components of a system that have the greatest influence on the performance of that system need to be monitored and audited, even if the probability of compromise is low. It's after the fact, but if the likelihood of detection is high and the penalties (fines, jail time, public disgrace) are severe, it's a pretty strong deterrent. Of course, the counterattack is to target the auditing system. Hackers routinely try to erase audit logs that contain evidence of their intrusions.


Even so, audit is the reason we want open-source code reviews and verifiable paper trails in voting machines; otherwise, a single crooked programmer could single-handedly change an election. It's also why the Securities and Exchange Commission closely monitors trades by brokers: They are in an ideal position to get away with insider trading. The NBA claims it monitors referees for patterns that might indicate abuse; there's still no answer to why it didn't detect Donaghy.

So indeed, as you have notedit's the follow-up papers I'm interested on.
There are some follow on papers to key pieces of work in the AGW hypothesis which are obfuscated or prevented by the active withholding of data and methods.

Do you dispute that?

[Rob Lister]

Part of the chips falling as they may is the ability to verify the correctness of the raw data, the modeling, including the algorithms and actual computer program, thence the ability to replicate the results independantly. That's why the work of Steve McIntyre is so important.

...

You have a group of people trying to get trillions of dollars in taxes, fees and fines due to the alleged effects of CO2 in the atmosphere, and in many critical cases, they won't let us see their data or methods.

...

Do you dispute that?

Indeed. And the main culprit is Hanson. For inexpiable reason, this area of science gets an almost utter reprieve on providing the very data and methods required to replicate their findings.

I frankly do not understand it.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2022#more-2022

[mhaze]

Indeed. And the main culprit is Hanson. For inexpiable reason, this area of science gets an almost utter reprieve on providing the very data and methods required to replicate their findings.

I frankly do not understand it.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2022#more-2022

Neither did McIntyre. But he saw the Hockey Stick being used the same way data was pumped in stock frauds....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Audit
McIntyre became interested in these issues after advocates of the Kyoto Protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol) used the Hockey Stick graph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Stick_graph) from MBH98 in ways that he found similar to Bre-X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bre-X) and other stock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock) frauds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud), leading him to try to audit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_audit) the MBH98 data and analysis. He launched the blog on October 26, 2004 [1] (http://www.climateaudit.org/?m=200410)Geophysical Research Letters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_Research_Letters) published a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McKitrick) critiquing MBH98. The blog is largely concerned with McIntyre's efforts to audit current climate publications.

Some people are easier to fool than others.

[rockoon]

Indeed. And the main culprit is Hanson.
For inexpiable reason, this area of science gets an almost utter reprieve on providing the very data and methods required to replicate their findings.


I suggest economic reasons.

The journals which publish climate research papers do not seem to enforce their own data archival policies and I presume that this is because of a rush to publish papers on the subject.

This doesnt shed a good light on the peer review process because if the journals are already showing a bias in regards to enforcing their own policies which are meant to aid and enable the peer review process, then one has to wonder how far their bias actualy goes.

Who in this process can be counted upon to be critical if the journal itself is pushing for the paper to be published? The journal, rememeber, selects the "peers" who do the "review." Often selected from an entirely inappropriet field of science (The MBH review wasnt done by statisticians, for instance, but it should have been)


I frankly do not understand it.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2022#more-2022

I frankly do not understand why this is at all suprising when so much money is involved.

The scientists want to publish so that they can catch some of the BILLIONS that governments and universities dish out in research grants. The journals want to publish so that they can sell subscriptions.

A paper being published is win-win for those directly involved.
Rejecting a paper during the review process isnt a win for anybody directly involved

[a_unique_person]

You do seem to have a bit of a problem with people not agreeing with you.

The current models work so well? That's really news to me. Got any facts on that, or is that just a gut feeling? I thought one of the fundamental issues was why did they work so poorly.The crux of the matter is the measurments. We know that aerosols were in the atmosphere (ask the swedes) and we know the effects on temperature. If this new hypothesis is to explain the observations, they have to explain why the aerosols had no effect whatsoever.

If they can't they should revisit their work, as they quite probably will. The work seems interesting, but as any first attempt at moddeling, it's the follow-up papers I'm interested on.

Agree in part. Effects of aerosols are very poorly understood.

If the facts change, I'm going to change my opinion. As for you???

The models have been validated on past records using standard statistical methods. The projections aren't going to be perfect, and the model owners will tell you that up front. They are our best insight into what is coming. To just say they aren't perfect, therefore we should stick our collective head in the ground, is stupid. The model projections for Australia are holding up quite well, the South East is still in the grip of unprecedented drought, despite hopes that an El Nina would bring some relief this year. If only it weren't for the drought, Australia's farmers would be making a mint. :rolleyes:

[mhaze]

The models have been validated on past records using standard statistical methods. The projections aren't going to be perfect, and the model owners will tell you that up front. :rolleyes:

I'm sure you can see the possible improvements in predictive capability with the new research previously mentioned in this thread by Tsonis, Wentz, Singer, Spencer, and Schultz.

The revisions seem to show a future more optimistic, instead of more pessimistic. More negative feedbacks, less climate sensitivity, some integration of natural climate cycles.

The work we are discussing seems to invalidate the IPCC 2007 modeling results and the Summary for Policymakers (although this latter is political, not scientific), along with Stein's economic analysis of the summary.

Such is scientific progress.

2007 may be the year AGW jumped the shark.

[Elentar]

Okay, quick answer. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to the greenhouse effect, constitutes 0.0360% of the earth's atmosphere. That's nothing. That's small enough for us to change drastically. When I first heard this at the tender age of 15, way back in the early 70's, I thought "Hey, we're burning billions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons. Won't that have an effect?" Uh huh. Even a 15 year old could figure that one out. The math is actually pretty simple.

Exhibit 2: The arctic circle is now the object of heavy competition between multiple countries--well, between the oil companies of multiple countries. Why is that? Nobody gave a damn about it ten years ago. But now, the arctic is melting. It's all opening up, it's all becoming navigable. Do you remember the Northwest Passage, an expedition of an oil tanker called the Manhattan and a small Canadian icebreaker? They gave up on it--the Manhattan got ripped to shreds by the ice. Had it not been for the icebreaker, they would have lost the whole ship. If it had been carrying oil, all the oil would have ended up in the ice. Thirty years later, that's not the case. But hey, aren't these oil companies the same people claiming that the temperature is not warming? Or that the sun is doing it (disproven.) Or that volcanoes are doing it (also disproven.)

The very people telling you it isn't happening are positioning themselves for the very outcome they say will not happen. They know it's happening. By now, so should you.

[a_unique_person]

Indeed. And the main culprit is Hanson. For inexpiable reason, this area of science gets an almost utter reprieve on providing the very data and methods required to replicate their findings.

I frankly do not understand it.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2022#more-2022

Rubbish, it's just that climate science is telling people something they would rather not know, and demand a far higher level of scrutiny that is otherwise normal in the scientific world. Try the same trick on any other area of science, and you will find the same response, or worse.

[rockoon]

Okay, quick answer. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to the greenhouse effect, constitutes 0.0360% of the earth's atmosphere.


Carbon dioxide isnt the main contributor of the greenhouse effect. The main contributor is H2O.

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf


When I first heard this at the tender age of 15, way back in the early 70's, I thought "Hey, we're burning billions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons. Won't that have an effect?" Uh huh. Even a 15 year old could figure that one out. The math is actually pretty simple.


Pretty simple to apply math. Pretty hard to apply it correctly. Your error is proof of that.


The very people telling you it isn't happening are positioning themselves for the very outcome they say will not happen. They know it's happening. By now, so should you.


The obvious error in the rest of your post is that you somehow believe that the climate is supposed to be static and have jumped to the conclusion that since it isnt behaving statically then it must be because of CO2.

You should try science instead of dogma.

[Safe-Keeper]

Could've sworn I put a reply in here:boggled:.

Carbon dioxide isnt the main contributor of the greenhouse effect. The main contributor is H2O.Yes. But the H2O emitted into the atmosphere goes back out again - we have this funny natural phenomena called rain, so the vapor never stays in the atmosphere for long enough to cause warming. Co2, on the other hand, when released in too big numbers, stays up there for hundreds of years.

The obvious error in the rest of your post is that you somehow believe that the climate is supposed to be static and have jumped to the conclusion that since it isnt behaving statically then it must be because of CO2.I don't think anyone here has said anything like that.

[mhaze]

Okay, quick answer. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to the greenhouse effect, constitutes 0.0360% of the earth's atmosphere. That's nothing. That's small enough for us to change drastically. When I first heard this at the tender age of 15, way back in the early 70's, I thought "Hey, we're burning billions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons. Won't that have an effect?" Uh huh. Even a 15 year old could figure that one out. The math is actually pretty simple.


There is a great deal of political propaganda to convince you of this and weak scientific support on this theory.



Exhibit 2: The arctic circle is now the object of heavy competition between multiple countries--well, between the oil companies of multiple countries. Why is that? Nobody gave a damn about it ten years ago. But now, the arctic is melting. It's all opening up, it's all becoming navigable. Do you remember the Northwest Passage, an expedition of an oil tanker called the Manhattan and a small Canadian icebreaker? They gave up on it--the Manhattan got ripped to shreds by the ice. Had it not been for the icebreaker, they would have lost the whole ship. If it had been carrying oil, all the oil would have ended up in the ice. Thirty years later, that's not the case. But hey, aren't these oil companies the same people claiming that the temperature is not warming? Or that the sun is doing it (disproven.) Or that volcanoes are doing it (also disproven.)

The very people telling you it isn't happening are positioning themselves for the very outcome they say will not happen. They know it's happening. By now, so should you.No, there is no giant Exxon plot.

Natural forces and cycles are at work.

I had a question for you based on this snip.

Last year, when a conference was held at Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Beaufort Sea, news reports blamed global warming for the massive coastal erosion that is endangering the community.
However, research has documented that such erosion has been occurring along this part of the Mackenzie Delta at a rate of tens of metres per year for centuries, if not millennia.What would you do about the liars in (1)?

[a_unique_person]

There is a great deal of political propaganda to convince you of this and weak scientific support on this theory.


The theory is quite basic and understood for over 100 years now. Intensive research and empirical evidence has confirmed it. Read the IPCC.

[mhaze]

Okay, quick answer. Carbon dioxide, the main contributor to the greenhouse effect, constitutes 0.0360% of the earth's atmosphere. That's nothing. That's small enough for us to change drastically. When I first heard this at the tender age of 15, way back in the early 70's, I thought "Hey, we're burning billions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons. Won't that have an effect?" Uh huh. Even a 15 year old could figure that one out. The math is actually pretty simple.

Exhibit 2: The arctic circle is now the object of heavy competition between multiple countries--well, between the oil companies of multiple countries. Why is that? Nobody gave a damn about it ten years ago. But now, the arctic is melting. It's all opening up, it's all becoming navigable. Do you remember the Northwest Passage, an expedition of an oil tanker called the Manhattan and a small Canadian icebreaker? They gave up on it--the Manhattan got ripped to shreds by the ice. Had it not been for the icebreaker, they would have lost the whole ship. If it had been carrying oil, all the oil would have ended up in the ice. Thirty years later, that's not the case. But hey, aren't these oil companies the same people claiming that the temperature is not warming? Or that the sun is doing it (disproven.) Or that volcanoes are doing it (also disproven.)

The very people telling you it isn't happening are positioning themselves for the very outcome they say will not happen. They know it's happening. By now, so should you.


While you mull over my prior request for your opinion on how to handle groups that actively use misinformation and propaganda (which is not Exxon) here is another interesting tidbit.

An article today in Ad Age:

"But now one of the most hotly contended pitches out there is for the Alliance for Climate Protection, the organization formed last year by Al Gore. Four elite agencies — Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the Martin Agency and Y&R — are squaring off for the business and are expected to present to the former vice president himself early next month, according to executives familiar with the review.



The budget for the "historic, three-to-five-year, multimedia global campaign," as the request for proposals puts it, is contingent on how much money the alliance raises. Media spending will likely be more than $100 million a year."


Who is the big spender to influence public opinion? Oil companies, or greenwash?

[mhaze]

Yes. But the H2O emitted into the atmosphere goes back out again - we have this funny natural phenomena called rain, so the vapor never stays in the atmosphere for long enough to cause warming. Co2, on the other hand, when released in too big numbers, stays up there for hundreds of years.

You would want to go back and consider the Wentz 2007 link in post #883, and reconsider what happens to atmospheric moisture with increases in temperature.

And then check Schwartz 2007 regarding the time constant of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is likely to be 5-15 years instead of "hundreds of years".

These may affect your opinion; if not, they still refute the "traditional argument" you have presented.

[BobK]

It seems Hansen has finally released his code. Link (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2031)
It will be interesting to see what is discovered.

[HghrSymmetry]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Computer predictions of a dramatic decline of sea ice in regions of the Arctic are confirmed by actual observations, according to scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Yes, it will be up for peer review;
Their research paper will be published Saturday in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600ap_wst_low_ice.html
-----------------------------------
Admittedly, it's a computer model, though still disconcerting;

WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20645362/

[David Rodale]

The theory is quite basic and understood for over 100 years now. Intensive research and empirical evidence has confirmed it. Read the IPCC.

"Read the IPCC".

How about you quoting IPCC and it's empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate.

One snippet from AR4 SPM is thus:
Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region
If you have read IPCC, didn't that stick out at all?

So why all the talk about catastrophic sea levels when the IPCC Holy Scriptures doesn't implicitly state it?

You will also find nothing in IPCC implying "tipping points".

[David Rodale]

The models have been validated on past records using standard statistical methods. The projections aren't going to be perfect, and the model owners will tell you that up front. They are our best insight into what is coming. To just say they aren't perfect, therefore we should stick our collective head in the ground, is stupid. The model projections for Australia are holding up quite well, the South East is still in the grip of unprecedented drought, despite hopes that an El Nina would bring some relief this year. If only it weren't for the drought, Australia's farmers would be making a mint. :rolleyes:

Quoting Gavin Schmidt is not evidence for climate models.

"Unprecedented".....seems like we've heard that term tortured enough.

You should become familiar with how climate models are constructed first before making such unsupportable statements.

Climate models are not "validated on past records", they are tuned (forced) to match. Models can be made to output any result the programmer wishes. It is a perpetual process as described here:
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/charles/Jackson_Sen_Stoffa_JCL.pdf
One source of uncertainty for climate model predictions arises from the fact that climate models have been
optimized to reproduce observational means.
Translation: fudge factors.

Models can give correct results for the wrong reasons, that being the parameterizations. Do yourself a favor and study climate models rather than posting opinions and non-evidence.

When observational evidence exceeds model predictions, that is not a validation of climate models.

[David Rodale]

Yes, it will be up for peer review;

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600ap_wst_low_ice.html
-----------------------------------
Admittedly, it's a computer model, though still disconcerting;



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20645362/

More newspaper hype.

So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate? The disclaimer "it's a computer model" says volumes.

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf
During the period of maximum forest extension, the mean July temperatures along the northern coastline of Russia may have been 2.5° to 7.0°C warmer than modern.

That's odd. Nowhere in those news articles does it mention previous climate.

Curious musings from one of those news articles:
The models do not do as well accounting for wind and cloud patterns and other factors that may have contributed to recent warming, Overland said.

But the contribution to warming by greenhouse gas emissions likely are set, he said. Emissions stay in the atmosphere for 40 to 50 years before being absorbed by the ocean. The amount put out in the last 20 years and the carbon dioxide put out in the next 20 will be around to influence the half-century mark, Overland said.
Why not 100, 200 years for atmospheric CO2 life cycle? Why? Because there is no evidence to support even 40-50. Where is the "missing sink"? Junk science.

[Rob Lister]

It seems Hansen has finally released his code. Link (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2031)
It will be interesting to see what is discovered.

Indeed, it seems Steve M's combination of 1) proving one part wrong and 2) enlisting the help of the internet to reverse engineer the methods from the data presented left Hanson -- or much more likely, Hanson's bosses -- with little choice. They were going to figure it out with or without the code.

At least Hanson was gracious (not).

Nothing like joisting with the jesters.

[a_unique_person]

Indeed, it seems Steve M's combination of 1) proving one part wrong and 2) enlisting the help of the internet to reverse engineer the methods from the data presented left Hanson -- or much more likely, Hanson's bosses -- with little choice. They were going to figure it out with or without the code.

At least Hanson was gracious (not).

Nothing like joisting with the jesters.

Where were the whoops of joy from the denier camps over the errors found in Christy's satellite data? Why didn't McIntyre find it?

Hanson knows that no matter what he does, the onslaught will never let up. Gracious given is as gracious received. The demands are not about truth, but about attacking.

[a_unique_person]

More newspaper hype.

So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate? The disclaimer "it's a computer model" says volumes.



Maybe it's because the hockey stick is more accurate than the temperature records that people want to believe.


Why not 100, 200 years for atmospheric CO2 life cycle? Why? Because there is no evidence to support even 40-50. Where is the "missing sink"? Junk science.


The evidence is there. You just choose to not believe it.

[a_unique_person]

Part of the chips falling as they may is the ability to verify the correctness of the raw data, the modeling, including the algorithms and actual computer program, thence the ability to replicate the results independantly. That's why the work of Steve McIntyre is so important.



Where is McIntyres in depth investigations of Christy, Singer, Lindzen, and the rest. I won't be holding my breath.


You have a group of people trying to get trillions of dollars in taxes, fees and fines due to the alleged effects of CO2 in the atmosphere, and in many critical cases, they won't let us see their data or methods.



It's a double bind, you want more research, which will cost even more money. They are quite happy to reduce the spending on research into the science, and spend more on preventing the problem. Don't make up motivations for them.

[CapelDodger]

[quote=David Rodale;2944374]So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate?[quote]

Polar bears are a sub-species of the brown bear and have been around for about a hundred thousand years, as I understand it. There's no good evidence for thousand-year stretches of warmer climate than today during that period. There is good evidence against them - polar bears aren't extinct. Without human intervention, they will be soon. Their survival up to now can't be attributed to humans. Ergo, nothing like this has happened in any polar bear's experience, dead or alive.

There is no refuge in the past.

[CapelDodger]

Where were the whoops of joy from the denier camps over the errors found in Christy's satellite data? Why didn't McIntyre find it?

He's too busy trying to cool down Africa (where they really need it) having already cooled down the US of A. If you're lucky, McIntyre and his numerate minions will be along your way to do their cooling thing. Alphabetical seems fair, neh? Greece shouldn't get special preference for their entirely incidental cultural heritage. It's not Australia's fault that its deep cultural heritage could - and probably will - see this out as they've survived their own Unintended Consequences for tens of thousands of years. Australia hasn't inspired World Culture the way Greece has :rolleyes: .

We're in the same group for the World Cup. Time for you to relocate to Old South Wales and join the winners :) .

[mhaze]

Nothing like joisting with the jesters.
Where were the whoops of joy from the denier camps over the errors found in Christy's satellite data? Why didn't McIntyre find it?

Hanson knows that no matter what he does, the onslaught will never let up. Gracious given is as gracious received. The demands are not about truth, but about attacking.

Well... FYI. ..

"jesters" (Hansen's word) were the only ones at court always allowed to speak the truth

[mhaze]

Where is McIntyres in depth investigations of Christy, Singer, Lindzen, and the rest. I won't be holding my breath.

It's a double bind, you want more research, which will cost even more money. They are quite happy to reduce the spending on research into the science, and spend more on preventing the problem. Don't make up motivations for them.

There is no double bind.

You are getting your audits for free.

I wonder why that is disliked...

[mhaze]

By-the-book AGW Strategy.

1. Run for the ICE!
2. Plead for the BEARS!
3. Reverently invoke the Authority of the Computer MODEL.

Dodge facts and published articles in science.

[David Rodale]

Maybe it's because the hockey stick is more accurate than the temperature records that people want to believe.

The evidence is there. You just choose to not believe it.

Unique, repeating the same errors over and over will not heal the broken hockey stick. I doubt you've ever read the details of it.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/archive/pr0310.html
Cambridge, MA - A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.

The studies are available. Search and you shall find.

[David Rodale]

[quote=David Rodale;2944374]So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate?[quote]

Polar bears are a sub-species of the brown bear and have been around for about a hundred thousand years, as I understand it. There's no good evidence for thousand-year stretches of warmer climate than today during that period. There is good evidence against them - polar bears aren't extinct. Without human intervention, they will be soon. Their survival up to now can't be attributed to humans. Ergo, nothing like this has happened in any polar bear's experience, dead or alive.

There is no refuge in the past.

Can you read?
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf

[mhaze]

So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate? The disclaimer "it's a computer model" says volumes.

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf


That's odd. Nowhere in those news articles does it mention previous climate.


Here's what's odd.

You took it seriously, went to the trouble to find research that rebutted the obvious logical errors, posted that, and were met by denial and disinformation.

Your article clearly shows that you are right that the bears survived past warmer climates.

And we've obviously got a major starburst media campaign on AGW again.

[CapelDodger]

[quote=CapelDodger;2945152][quote=David Rodale;2944374]So, how did polar bears survive for thousands of years in previous periods with much warmer climate?

Can you read?
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf

Yes, and I can write, comprehend, and think. I could even talk down to you, if I saw any point in it. Mostly what I do is respond to other people's posts.

Try it yourself. How is it that polar bears survived the thousand-year warmer periods you posit? They clearly have survived them, and they clearly won't survive a few more decades like the last few. A very short period on the thousand-year scale. The very obvious survival of polar bears as a distinct sub-species gives the lie to these long warm periods you conjure up from the deep and distant past.

What we are experiencing now is new. There is no refuge in the past.

[mhaze]

[quote=David Rodale;2945454][quote=CapelDodger;2945152]The very obvious survival of polar bears as a distinct sub-species gives the lie to these long warm periods you conjure up from the deep and distant past.

What we are experiencing now is new. There is no refuge in the past.

There is no refuge in AGW belief, when to so belief you must deny several hundred scientific studies as you just have.

Better to just admit the error graciously and move forward.

[mhaze]

Advances in the State of the Art of "Climate Science" since Post #826

Assertions by AGW believers
But I am not expecting you to get it anymore...
you disregard the calculations of the majority of scientists in favour of the calculations of whomever that might support your ideology, even if only apparently.
Your problem with the other models is that they don't tell you what you want to hear.
if the result of the model superficially seems to agree with you, you say "let the chips fall...".If not, models are worthless or scientists want to rule the world under a marxist ideology... got it.
Does this IPCC of yours hide in your closet at night? Or is it hanging in the cornfield?
stating that a Communist cabal plots far-left reforms and gargantuan taxes in the States after falsifying climate science by buying thousands of scientists... makes you sound alarmist
Seeing you look sad and stranded on an ice-floe would be a blast but even then ...
Contrarians habitually take refuge in a past that, unsurprisingly, doesn't reflect an artificial CO2 forcing by the planet's first industrialised species, which is certainly the main driver of climate change today
you would admit no AGW until all the earth's ice has melted
Both University and public libraries are guarded at gunpoint by the International Marxist Man in Black, and they don't allow anyone in
The evidence is there. You just choose to not believe it.
What we are experiencing now is new. There is no refuge in the past.
You're making that up.Assertions by skeptics
Try science instead of dogma.
Claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina are not worth responding to.
There is no double bind. You are getting your audits for free. I wonder why that is disliked...
Actual atmospheric experiments would help in clarifying areas of known uncertainty.
What consensus science really is? Politics.
The point of actual useful science like this is not to prove or disprove AGW, but to actually understand phenomena.
Repeating the same errors over and over will not heal the broken hockey stick
You took it seriously, went to the trouble to find research that rebutted the obvious logical errors, posted that, and were met by denial and disinformation.
You will also find nothing in IPCC implying "tipping points".
By-the-book AGW Strategy. 1. Run for the ICE! 2. Plead for the BEARS! 3. Reverently invoke the Authority of the Computer MODEL. Dodge facts and published articles in science.
Mr Strawman, they will be "won" on real data: past, present, and future. Do you think it is a debate or something? This is science. It is only right when your hypothesis continualy makes accurate predictions that satisfy the data.
There is no refuge in AGW belief, when to so belief you must deny several hundred scientific studies as you just have.
In case you are wondering why the Warmers and Alarmists are not doing too well, it is simply because the state of understanding of the science in these areas is progressing.
there is no consensus, get over it. There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism.
2007 may be the year AGW jumped the shark.Unanswered Skeptics' questions

Why all the talk about catastrophic sea levels when the IPCC Holy Scriptures doesn't implicitly state it?
Who is the big spender to influence public opinion? Oil companies, or greenwash?
How about Australia? How are you guys doing a la Kyoto? Just state the numbers, please. Any plans to sequester carbon from your famous coal powerplants? Any plans of substance to comply with Kyoto down under, or just rhetoric? Nuclear plants? Any substantial projects at all? Please provide projected numbers in terms of how your country forecasts reaching any reduction in CO2 emissions.
There are some follow on papers to key pieces of work in the AGW hypothesis which are obfuscated or prevented by the active withholding of data and methods. Do you dispute that?
You have a group of people trying to get trillions of dollars in taxes, fees and fines due to the alleged effects of CO2 in the atmosphere, and in many critical cases, they won't let us see their data or methods. ... Do you dispute that?
If the facts change, I'm going to change my opinion. As for you??

[Safe-Keeper]

Unique, repeating the same errors over and over will not heal the broken hockey stick. I doubt you've ever read the details of it.There's been a lot of research since the infamous hockey stick was released. They all tell us that the warming we're seeing right now is unprecedented.
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/user/6932/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Cambridge, MA - A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.What does this mean? That it was not warmer globally, but only in those parts of the world?

[David Rodale]

[quote=David Rodale;2945454][quote=CapelDodger;2945152]

Yes, and I can write, comprehend, and think. I could even talk down to you, if I saw any point in it. Mostly what I do is respond to other people's posts.

Try it yourself. How is it that polar bears survived the thousand-year warmer periods you posit? They clearly have survived them, and they clearly won't survive a few more decades like the last few. A very short period on the thousand-year scale. The very obvious survival of polar bears as a distinct sub-species gives the lie to these long warm periods you conjure up from the deep and distant past.

What we are experiencing now is new. There is no refuge in the past.

You consider 70 years ago the deep and distant past? 1000 years? 2000 years?

They clearly have survived them, and they clearly won't survive a few more decades like the last few.
Nothing like good old fashioned logical fallacy.

[mhaze]

Links for posts 826-944

AUP
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/08/sceinteficelly-litarete.html
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2540.htm
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...nsitysst-link/ (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/reactions-to-tighter-hurricane-intensitysst-link/)
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/tra...s/s1777013.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1777013.htm)
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/archive/pr0310.html

BobK
Land (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Ocean (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
Combined (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.00N.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat)
It seems Hansen has finally released his code. Link (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2031)

David Rodale
It could also be entirely false, as a sea-level expert explains (http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Morner.INQUA.2.5.ppt).
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Fals...ion_of_CO2.pdf (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf)
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...707.1161v2.pdf (http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf)
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea...-may012007.pdf (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf)
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staf...Stoffa_JCL.pdf (http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/charles/Jackson_Sen_Stoffa_JCL.pdf)
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/im.../consensus.pdf (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf)


HghrSymmetry
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...t_low_ice.html (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600ap_wst_low_ice.html)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20645362/

MH
www.climateaudit.org (http://www.climateaudit.org/) unthreaded #19 ...
read the rest here (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295330,00.html)
FIVE-THOUSAND YEARS OF HURRICANES (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,484987,00.html)
Singer, Fred 2007 Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500 Year Climate Cycle (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf)
How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?
Television interview (and transcript) 10 minute video (http://www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/503) of Singer and Avery
yet another Climateaudit thread (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=790),
Quoting from Monckton's excellent criticism of Oreskes (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/consensus.pdf)
http://downloads.heartland.org/tsonis_GRL07.pdf
full text draft of the pdf here http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/08/me...te-shifts.html (http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/08/mechanism-for-major-climate-shifts.html)
They are at each other directly now (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/approverelease-Schulte9-5-07.pdf) with the insults and charges flying.
Basketball Referees and Single Points of Failure (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/basketball_refe.html)
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...ball_refe.html (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/basketball_refe.html)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Audit

Rob Lister
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2022#more-2022

Rockoon
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students...tionBudget.pdf (http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf)

Safekeeper
NOAA Research (http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_gfdl.html):
Nature (ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/NATURE03906.pdf):
More here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Global_warming).

[David Rodale]

There's been a lot of research since the infamous hockey stick was released. They all tell us that the warming we're seeing right now is unprecedented.
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/user/6932/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

What does this mean? That it was not warmer globally, but only in those parts of the world?

Please enlighten us since you didn't bother citing the source of the spaghetti graph.

[Safe-Keeper]

(dark blue 1000-1991): P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett, and S.F.B. Tett (1998). "High-resolution Palaeoclimatic Records for the last Millennium: Interpretation, Integration and Comparison with General Circulation Model Control-run Temperatures". The Holocene 8: 455-471. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1191/095968398667194956 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/095968398667194956)
(blue 1000-1980): M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes (1999). "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations". Geophysical Research Letters 26 (6): 759-762. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1029/1999GL900070 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/1999GL900070) (pre-print (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/millennium-camera.pdf))
(light blue 1000-1965): Crowley and Lowery (2000). "Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction". Ambio 29: 51-54. Modified as published in Crowley (2000). "Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years". Science 289: 270-277. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1126/science.289.5477.270 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5477.270) (data available from NCDC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Climatic_Data_Center) : [2] (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/gcmoutput/crowley2000/crowley_lowery2000_nht.txt))
(lightest blue 1402-1960): K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, F.H. Schweingruber, I.C. Harris, P.D. Jones, S.G. Shiyatov, S.G. and E.A. Vaganov (2001). "Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree-ring density network". J. Geophys. Res. 106: 2929-2941. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1029/2000JD900617 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2000JD900617)
(light green 831-1992): J. Esper, E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber (2002). "Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability". Science 295 (5563): 2250-2253. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1126/science.1066208 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1066208)
(yellow 200-1980): M.E. Mann and P.D. Jones (2003). "Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia". Geophysical Research Letters 30 (15): 1820. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1029/2003GL017814 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003GL017814).
(orange 200-1995): P.D. Jones and M.E. Mann (2004). "Climate Over Past Millennia". Reviews of Geophysics 42: RG2002. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1029/2003RG000143 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003RG000143)
(red-orange 1500-1980): S. Huang (2004). "Merging Information from Different Resources for New Insights into Climate Change in the Past and Future". Geophys. Res Lett. 31: L13205. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1029/2004GL019781 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004GL019781)
(red 1-1979): A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén (2005). "Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data". Nature 443: 613-617. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1038/nature03265 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature03265)
(dark red 1600-1990): J.H. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308: 675-677. doi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier):10.1126/science.1107046 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1107046)
(black 1856-2004): Instrumental data was jointly compiled by the Climatic Research Unit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit) and the UK Meteorological Office (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met_Office) Hadley Centre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_Centre). Global Annual Average data set TaveGL2v [3] (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/) was used.

[mhaze]

There's been a lot of research since the infamous hockey stick was released. They all tell us that the warming we're seeing right now is unprecedented.
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/user/6932/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

What does this mean? That it was not warmer globally, but only in those parts of the world?
This thread at climate audit may interest you. Your graph, right?
IPCC and the Briffa Deletions (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1792) (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1792)

By Steve McIntyre
I’ve posted on several occasions on the deletion of the “inconvenient” section of the Briffa reconstruction. Now that the review comments are online, I want to reprise this, just so you can understand the IPCC process a little better. This repeats some earlier material.
As an IPCC reviewer, I
Show the Briffa et al reconstruction through to its end; don’t stop in 1960. Then comment and deal with the “divergence problem” if you need to. Don’t cover up the divergence by truncating this graphic. This was done in IPCC TAR; this was misleading. (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 309-18)]
In response, IPCC section authors said:
Rejected though note divergence issue will be discussed, still considered inappropriate to show recent section of
Briffa et al. series.
Once again, here’s what they were deleting and what they felt was “inappropriate” to show the public - the post-1960 decline in the Briffa index. (I’ve shown the IPCC TAR version here but the same deletion is made in AR4). By deleting the adverse segments, they enhance the rhetorical impression of the remaining series. Any mining promoter that did this would be in trouble with the securities commissions.

[David Rodale]

[LIST=1]
(dark blue 1000-1991): P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett, and S.F.B. Tett (1998). "High-resolution Palaeoclimatic Records for the last Millennium: Interpretation, Integration and Comparison with General Circulation Model Control-run T

Don't play games. Give the source for the chart! Are you afraid of something?

I have seen the chart and data before. Nearly all are tree ring proxy data (Mann redux) and climate models.

[Safe-Keeper]

Those... are the sources for the chart. All the creators of the chart did was feed the 11 sets of data into Excel and have it create a representation. The links I gave are the primary sources. It doesn't get more source-ish better than that.

But as you will, the secondary source is Wikipedia, who got it from Global Warming Art.

[a_unique_person]

Unique, repeating the same errors over and over will not heal the broken hockey stick. I doubt you've ever read the details of it.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/archive/pr0310.html


The studies are available. Search and you shall find.

Sure

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

I think that wraps it up.

[rockoon]

Could've sworn I put a reply in here:boggled:.

Yes. But the H2O emitted into the atmosphere goes back out again - we have this funny natural phenomena called rain, so the vapor never stays in the atmosphere for long enough to cause warming. Co2, on the other hand, when released in too big numbers, stays up there for hundreds of years.


Yes, rain removes H2O from the atmosphere - but evaporation adds it to the atmosphere - the net result is that H2O is (currently) the dominant source of the greenhouse effect. Why would you want to downplay its significance?

The paper I linked to is the most favorable one I could find on the subject of CO2's importance (I was feeling generous), putting at about 50% of the significance of H2O. Other papers put CO2 at an order of magnitude less than H2O, or ignore H2O entirely.

The post I responded to was in error, yet the attitude the poster took was that he somehow saw the light when he was a young lad. pffft.

I took the time to correct him.

[JoeEllison]

Sure

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

I think that wraps it up.You would think so, and yet magically they keep quoting the oil executive, as though your link simply doesn't exist. Weird, dude.

[rockoon]

You would think so, and yet magically they keep quoting the oil executive, as though your link simply doesn't exist. Weird, dude.

Did you look at the link? Did you have your critical thinking cap on at the time?

Lets examine this link:

MYTH #0: Strawman fallacy - constructs an arguement that is easy to take down
MYTH #1: Srrawman fallacy - constructs an arguement that is easy to take down
MYTH #2: Strawman fallacy - constructs an arguement that is easy to take down
MYTH #3: Strawman fallacy - constructs an arguement that is easy to take down
MYTH #4: Strawman fallacy - constructs an arguement that is easy to take down

Throughout the text you find lots of other fallacies, including:

The spotlight fallacy
Poisoning the well
Hasty generalizations
Shifting the burden of proof

Wow.. what a great link... thanks for sharing it guys!!

pffft.

The MBH hockey stick claimed that the late 20th century exhibited unprecedented warmth in the last 1000 years. (Note that very little of the data used to create the stick can be used to examine warming rather than warmth)

This claim cannot be substantiated when using the same data correctly, rather than incorrectly.

It is possible to mine for data that does seem to substantiate the claim but thats cherry picking and you don't actualy get to do that in real science.

The data Mann used was quite extensive and if it were not for his mishandling of it, other scientists wouldnt be farming smaller sets of data for the same conclusion he had incorrectly drawn.

[Safe-Keeper]

Not one of the article's rebutted points are strawmen. I don't understand how you get to that conclusion. In fact, Myth 3 is stated by you in the very post you call it a strawman:

They:
MYTH #3: The "Hockey Stick" studies claim that the 20th century on the whole is the warmest period of the past 1000 years.

You:
The MBH hockey stick claimed that the late 20th century exhibited unprecedented warmth in the last 1000 years.

The spotlight fallacy
Poisoning the well
Hasty generalizations
Shifting the burden of proofExamples, please.

Yes, rain removes H2O from the atmosphere - but evaporation adds it to the atmosphere - the net result is that H2O is (currently) the dominant source of the greenhouse effect. Why would you want to downplay its significance?No one ever claimed water vapor is not added to the atmosphere. But the amounts of water vapor added equals the amount removed. Co2, on the other hand, increase in amount over time, thus contributing to an increase in greenhouse gases and accelerating global warming.Co2 is significant because unlike all other greenhouse gases, it is not compensated for. Total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased by 35% thanks to our Co2 emissions.

[a_unique_person]

When you go to a specialist, do you pick any specialist for a heart condition, or do you go to the heart specialist, or a oncologist? Would you listen to the heart surgeon's advice, or would you prefer to hear what the oncologist has to say if you don't like what the heart surgeon is telling you? That's not poisoning the well, that's telling you when you have a heart problem, you want to be pretty clear what you are doing when you prefer the advice of the oncologist. This is the age of specialisation, it's a simple fact due to the limits of the human mind to cope with the massive amounts of information needed to be able to specialise in one area of knowledge.

The "Myths" are pretty well what I read all the time, Realclimate appears to have heard them just the same way I did. The IPCC is wrong, since the "Hockey Stick" is broken is a very common attitude. The "Hockey Stick" is purely the work of Mann et al, there are apparently no other attempts at climate reconstruction.

David Rodal said



Unique, repeating the same errors over and over will not heal the broken hockey stick. I doubt you've ever read the details of it.

That's pretty well covered by the Realclimate rebuttal, they aren't attacking strawmen.

Soon et al are mentioned specifically.



(1) In drawing conclusions regarding past regional temperature changes from proxy records, it is essential to assess proxy data for actual sensitivity to past temperature variability. In some cases (Soon and Baliunas, 2003, Soon et al, 2003) a global 'warm anomaly' has been defined for any period during which various regions appear to indicate climate anomalies that can be classified as being either 'warm', 'wet', or 'dry' relative to '20th century' conditions. Such a criterion could be used to define any period of climate as 'warm' or 'cold', and thus cannot meaningfully characterize past large-scale surface temperature changes.
(2) It is essential to distinguish (e.g. by compositing or otherwise assimilating different proxy information in a consistent manner—e.g., Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1998, 1999; Briffa et al., 2001) between regional temperature changes and changes in global or hemispheric mean temperature. Specific periods of cold and warmth differ from region to region over the globe (see Jones and Mann, 2004), as changes in atmospheric circulation over time exhibit a wave-like character, ensuring that certain regions tend to warm (due, for example, to a southerly flow in the Northern Hemisphere winter mid-latitudes) when other regions cool (due to the corresponding northerly flow that must occur elsewhere). Truly representative estimates of global or hemispheric average temperature must therefore average temperature changes over a sufficiently large number of distinct regions to average out such offsetting regional changes. The specification of a warm period, therefore requires that warm anomalies in different regions should be truly synchronous and not merely required to occur within a very broad interval in time, such as AD 800-1300 (as in Soon et al, 2003; Soon and Baliunas, 2003).



A pretty basic response, too, is the melting of permafrost that had been stable for the "MWP", without melting.

RC also make this point.



Rutherford et al (2004) demonstrate nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=29)methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.

[a_unique_person]

Yes, rain removes H2O from the atmosphere - but evaporation adds it to the atmosphere - the net result is that H2O is (currently) the dominant source of the greenhouse effect. Why would you want to downplay its significance?

The paper I linked to is the most favorable one I could find on the subject of CO2's importance (I was feeling generous), putting at about 50% of the significance of H2O. Other papers put CO2 at an order of magnitude less than H2O, or ignore H2O entirely.

The post I responded to was in error, yet the attitude the poster took was that he somehow saw the light when he was a young lad. pffft.

I took the time to correct him.

No one ever has played down it's significance, read the IPCC reports, they specify it's role quite clearly. What they point out is that it is not a 'forcing', that is, something that is causing change. It's the change that is of interest. H2O will act as a powerful feedback, however.

[rockoon]

Not one of the article's rebutted points are strawmen.


Ok, then who made those rebutted points?


In fact, Myth 3 is stated by you in the very post you call it a strawman:

They:
MYTH #3: The "Hockey Stick" studies claim that the 20th century on the whole is the warmest period of the past 1000 years.

You:
The MBH hockey stick claimed that the late 20th century exhibited unprecedented warmth in the last 1000 years.


You dont see the difference? I didnt say 20th century, I said late 20th century .. just like they do in their "rebuttal"

Their strawman is that they are arguing against a specific "MYTH" about the entire 20th century .. if its not a strawman, then who made that claim?


Examples, please.


You will get examples when you have shown that you put enough effort into this to actualy find them.

You obviously couldnt spot the difference between two sentences, one with "20th century" and one with "late 20th century" and that tells me that you never read their rebuttal, because their "rebuttal" of this "myth" makes it quite clear that the removal of this word is what their "point" is all about.

(hook line and sinker... thats right.. hook line and sinker)

[rockoon]

No one ever has played down it's significance


Infact, Safe-keeper did.

Chain of events:

Claim made that CO2 is chief contributor to the greenhouse effect

I rebutted this claim, pointing out and citing a reference to the fact that this isnt the case at all. That H2O is the chief contributor to the greenhouse effect.

Safe-keeper then plays down the role of H2O by pointout out only half of the water cycle, as if H2O isnt the chief contributor because of that half.

I then point out the other half, reaffirming that it is indeed the chief contributor, and ask why he is playing down the role of H2O.


What they point out is that it is not a 'forcing', that is, something that is causing change. It's the change that is of interest. H2O will act as a powerful feedback, however.

I have noticed this sort of problem with you often.. on prior occasions you could not tell the difference between GW and AGW .. and now you cannot tell the difference between GW and GHG's.

The "points" you are trying to make now seem to suggest that you are fighting a claim about GW or AGW, but you actualy reponded to a post containing statements about GHG's and no statements at all about GW or AGW.

[a_unique_person]

Infact, Safe-keeper did.

Chain of events:

Claim made that CO2 is chief contributor to the greenhouse effect

I rebutted this claim, pointing out and citing a reference to the fact that this isnt the case at all. That H2O is the chief contributor to the greenhouse effect.



As the IPCC says.



Safe-keeper then plays down the role of H2O by pointout out only half of the water cycle, as if H2O isnt the chief contributor because of that half.

I then point out the other half, reaffirming that it is indeed the chief contributor, and ask why he is playing down the role of H2O.



I have noticed this sort of problem with you often.. on prior occasions you could not tell the difference between GW and AGW .. and now you cannot tell the difference between GW and GHG's.

No


The "points" you are trying to make now seem to suggest that you are fighting a claim about GW or AGW, but you actualy reponded to a post containing statements about GHG's and no statements at all about GW or AGW.No.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 Water vapour.

[mhaze]

As the IPCC says.
IPPC ch. 2, P. 138."Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas."

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 Water vapour.Since approximately constant relative humidity implies an increase in specific humidity for an increase in air temperatures, the total amount of water vapour will increase adding to the greenhouse trapping of long-wave radiation. This is the famed 'water vapour feedback' (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=133). A closer look reveals that for a warming (in the GISS model at least) relative humidity increases slightly in the tropics, and decreases at mid latitudes.

How do we know that the magnitude of this feedback is correctly simulated? A good test case is the response to the Pinatubo eruption. This caused cooling for up to 3 years after the eruption - plenty of time for water vapour to equilibriate to the cooler sea surface temperatures. Thus if models can simulate the observed decrease of water vapour at this time, it would be a good sign that they are basically correct.
You quote 2005 rhetoric which assets the models are right. Here is 2007 science. How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?
2007 science beats 2005 rhetoric and 2005 computer modeling.

Questions?

[mhaze]

With respect to RealClimate, you are referring to the CCSP “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.


Dr. Roger Pielke addresses this in great detail on his weblog, of which I contributed (guess which one) since he was a lead author prior to resigning. The CCSP was structured the same as IPCC: Committees formed with conflicts of interest, authors in groups reviewing their own work, agenda driven.....essentially lapdogs for IPCC 2007.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/02/ccsp-report-published/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/16/conflict-of-interest-in-the-ccsp-report-temperature-trends-in-the-lower-atmosphere-steps-for-understanding-and-reconciling-differences/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/17/ccsp-advocacy-report-appears/


Public comment by Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/NR-143.pdf

I have every confidence you would agree there shouldn't be conflicts of interest, politics or bias in such important issues.

This is junk science close to the order of Lysenko.

It is clear what motivated amateurs like Anthony Watts to set up the www.surfacestations.org (http://www.surfacestations.org) project.

[varwoche]

Fixed it for you... Here is an opinion piece from an abject propagandist (who it not a climate scientist), a source already demonstrated in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2874323#post2874323) to be unreliable, that provides an interpretation of 2007 science: How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?

[mhaze]

Fixed it for you...

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2946311#post2946311)
Here is an opinion piece from an abject propagandist (who it not a climate scientist), a source already demonstrated in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2874323#post2874323) to be unreliable, that provides an interpretation of 2007 science: How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?



Making up stuff and attributed it to me? No valid arguments?

Wentz 2007 in Science is the issue.

[mhaze]

Making up stuff and attributed it to me? No valid arguments?

Wentz 2007 in Science is the issue.

http://www.nasa-news.org/documents/pdf/Wentz_How_Much_More.pdf

Here is your source copy. Now here is what I said.
You quote 2005 rhetoric which assets the models are right. Here is 2007 science. How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring? 2007 science beats 2005 rhetoric and 2005 computer modeling.
Questions?
What exactly is there to take objection to? This is not about ego or debating points.

[mhaze]

It seems Hansen has finally released his code. Link (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2031)
It will be interesting to see what is discovered.

Hundreds of internet amateurs descending on a mess of old Fortran and Python code...used to authenticate "global temperature" in turned used to promote taxation and industrial control schemes in the trillions of dollars.

What a strange spectacle.

Of course, AGW "True Believers" are free to also descend on the code with their supposedly much larger groups....Wouldn't having a "consensus" mean you had much larger groups and more brainpower?:D

[a_unique_person]

IPPC ch. 2, P. 138."Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas."





Yes, just like I said. So what's the problem?

Since approximately constant relative humidity implies an increase in specific humidity for an increase in air temperatures, the total amount of water vapour will increase adding to the greenhouse trapping of long-wave radiation. This is the famed 'water vapour feedback' (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=133). A closer look reveals that for a warming (in the GISS model at least) relative humidity increases slightly in the tropics, and decreases at mid latitudes.

How do we know that the magnitude of this feedback is correctly simulated? A good test case is the response to the Pinatubo eruption. This caused cooling for up to 3 years after the eruption - plenty of time for water vapour to equilibriate to the cooler sea surface temperatures. Thus if models can simulate the observed decrease of water vapour at this time, it would be a good sign that they are basically correct.
You quote 2005 rhetoric which assets the models are right. Here is 2007 science. How Much More Rain (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp) Will Global Warming Bring?
2007 science beats 2005 rhetoric and 2005 computer modeling.

Questions?
Now this is poisoning the well.



Trouble in Climate-Model Paradise



Scientists have never claimed the anything of the sort. They know their models are not perfect, and that there is no such thing as "climate model paradise".

You will note it is climate research scientists who discovered this information, not the 'sceptics', and published it. They know the models are not perfect. They don't claim the models are pefect.

The models are an imperfect attempt to work out just what will happen, since we can't use time travel to look into the future. They have already been shown to be wrong about the rate at which the Arctic will melt, as well. Why should we just assume that because they are not perfect, everything will be OK? Maybe everything will be worse than predicted.

Hope is not a recognised risk management method.

As Varwoche has pointed out, this is also their interpretation of what the paper says. There have already been numerous papers published that have had the findings of the authors twisted out of all recognition due to wiful misrepresentation by such agenda driven sites as "CO2 Science". The quote you provide is written by three members of the one family. Does that look like anything more than a nutter site?

[CapelDodger]

You consider 70 years ago the deep and distant past? 1000 years? 2000 years?

There was a thousand year warm period seventy years ago? How does that work?

It doesn't work, of course, you've just got yourself into a tangle. It was particularly warm in the USA seventy years ago. It didn't last long, though.

Nothing like good old fashioned logical fallacy.

Sad. Better to say nothing than say that.

Mere decades of this climate will see off the polar bear sub-species. It could not have survived thousand-year stretches of it, let alone anything warmer. The polar bear sub-species clearly has survived this inter-glacial - and quite possibly the previous one, the Eemian. Ergo, long stretches of warmer climate have not occurred during the last hundred thousand years or so (which is the general estimate of the polar-bear lineage).

If there's a fallacy there, I'd love to hear about it.

[mhaze]

There was a thousand year warm period seventy years ago? How does that work?

It doesn't work, of course, you've just got yourself into a tangle. It was particularly warm in the USA seventy years ago. It didn't last long, though.


Nonsense. Your tangle is well deserved, unless you are actually implying that the modern equivalent of the medieval warming period lasted for a few years in the 1930s, or a few years in the 1990s.

If there's a fallacy there, I'd love to hear about it.

You have.

[mhaze]

Yes, just like I said. So what's the problem?
And I'm agreeing they said that.


Now this is poisoning the well.


I'm skipping your attempt to dodge and duck into the bash-co2science sickfest.

The subject is Wentz 2007 and how it just put your RC 2005 theories into the basement.

[CapelDodger]

It seems Hansen has finally released his code. Link (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2031)
It will be interesting to see what is discovered.

They have released what is said to be the source-code. McIntyre's making that insurance play.

Nothing will be discovered in the code, of course, except possibly the number 666. Anyway, McIntyre's too busy data-mining African temperature records to get onto it. We've been promised startling results from there any day now.

Whimsical thought ... could The Bible Code be used to tease "Al Gore is the Messiah" from Hansen's code? That would be cute :) .

[CapelDodger]

Nonsense. Your tangle is well deserved, unless you are actually implying that the modern equivalent of the medieval warming period lasted for a few years in the 1930s, or a few years in the 1990s.

Not my tangle at all. And you've just made your own. David Rodale referred to "thousand year warmer periods", then subsequently claimed one had happened seventy years ago. And a thousand, and two thousand. That would make "warmer periods" normal, and leave no room for a Little Ice Age.

Your tangle is too Gordian for me.

Let me lay it out again. It only takes decades to see off the polar bear sub-species in conditions like this. We can observe and explain that. Said sub-species survived centuries of your putative MWP. Ergo, it was not as warm back then. For centuries. Let alone a millenium. Otherwise there wouldn't be any polar bears to talk about. But there they are, like canaries in a mine. Alive, but showing signs of distress.

Conditions are very warm right now, and they've got there pretty damn' quickly. There's a reason for that.



You have.

Nope.

You get as many tries as you like, I'm easy.

[HghrSymmetry]

Cooling could have consquences as well, or so some seem to think;

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4

Perhaps the field is young enough to where we can study all variables before
taking vitriolic, diametrically opposing 'sides.'

[CapelDodger]

Hundreds of internet amateurs descending on a mess of old Fortran and Python code...used to authenticate "global temperature" in turned used to promote taxation and industrial control schemes in the trillions of dollars.

What a strange spectacle.

Of course, AGW "True Believers" are free to also descend on the code with their supposedly much larger groups....Wouldn't having a "consensus" mean you had much larger groups and more brainpower?:D

It's for the people who've demanded the code and made so much of the subject to produce revelations. Now you've got it ... it seems you don't actually want it. It was the wanting that mattered.

Normal people don't need to be told exactly what the temperature record is to notice that it's getting warmer. Pretty much everywhere that people live. The McIntyre Fetish is simply displacement activity. Outside, it just keeps going on. The biggest, baddest analogue model of them all. The one that's sometimes surpirsing, but never wrong. Not even by a smidgin.

[CapelDodger]

Cooling could have consquences as well, or so some seem to think;


http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4

Perhaps the field is young enough to where we can study all variables before
taking vitriolic, diametrically opposing 'sides.'

Canada, now there's another reason why nothing significant will be done about carbon emissions. Like Russia, Canada can see an up-side to global warming. In Canada there was an early knee-jerk "We Are Our Wilderness" reaction to the prospect, but in the medium-term a more pragmatic approach has come to the fore.

The Russians weren't first with the flag-planting thing up north; as I recall Canada got into it with Denmark over some newly-revealed island just off Greenland.

The Schwabe cycle is highly speculative. You might not pick that up from the article you cited, but it is.

[a_unique_person]

And I'm agreeing they said that.



I'm skipping your attempt to dodge and duck into the bash-co2science sickfest.

The subject is Wentz 2007 and how it just put your RC 2005 theories into the basement.

It was CO2 science who made up supposed qualities of the models that the scientists have never claimed they have.

CO2 science and others have regularly seized on out of context fragments of papers to misrepresent what the science is actually saying, or what it means.

http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/08/sceinteficelly-litarete.html

[mhaze]

Cooling could have consquences as well, or so some seem to think;
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4

Perhaps the field is young enough to where we can study all variables before
taking vitriolic, diametrically opposing 'sides.'

Cooling would be very bad.

Of course AGW believers do not want to give you the time to study all variables. They demand action now to the tune of trillions of dollars, or else they get quite vitriolic.

[CapelDodger]

Infact, Safe-keeper did.

Chain of events:

Claim made that CO2 is chief contributor to the greenhouse effect

I rebutted this claim, pointing out and citing a reference to the fact that this isnt the case at all. That H2O is the chief contributor to the greenhouse effect.

Safe-keeper then plays down the role of H2O by pointout out only half of the water cycle, as if H2O isnt the chief contributor because of that half.

I then point out the other half, reaffirming that it is indeed the chief contributor, and ask why he is playing down the role of H2O.

And so on through the same old same-old. Yes, H2O is the major greenhouse component in the atmosphere. Yes, in a warmer climate there's more H2O in the atmosphere. The atmosphere gets wetter when it gets warmer. It doesn't get warmer because it suddenly got wetter. The atmosphere is always as wet as it can be in the prevailing circumstances. H2O is not a forcing, it doesn't impel warming (or cooling). It reacts, as a positive feedback.

[mhaze]

It was CO2 science who made up supposed qualities of the models that the scientists have never claimed they have.

CO2 science and others have regularly seized on out of context fragments of papers to misrepresent what the science is actually saying, or what it means.

http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/08/sceinteficelly-litarete.html

No, get over it. Varoche didn't like the link, I provided one to the original article. No changing the subject to just disparage some people you don't like.

Anyway, if you and Varoche want to go ballistic if a ref to co2science, idso, or daly comes in, you can just make a deal. I'll not mention them, but I get to pick three people or websites you don't like or reference.

Take it or leave it or try to change the subject.

Wentz 2007. I assume from the "no answer" that you have recognized that this indeed does invalidate IPCC modeling as done in the 2005-2006 era. Thanks.

[mhaze]

Not my tangle at all. And you've just made your own. David Rodale referred to "thousand year warmer periods", then subsequently claimed one had happened seventy years ago. And a thousand, and two thousand.

The record of these discussions is here, it's easy to go back and see what was actually said and why. That means you don't need to tell me what someone said, however if you wish to, you might want to include the post number you are quoting them from.

[CapelDodger]

Cooling would be very bad.

Why? It would be a return to normal. Normal is what we're adapted to. Cooling would be good thing.

Of course AGW believers do not want to give you the time to study all variables. They demand action now to the tune of trillions of dollars, or else they get quite vitriolic.


I'm convinced of AGW (you might class me as a "believer"), but I make no such demands nor am I vitriolic. In fact, over this long thread there's been far more reference to vitriol than vitriol itself. There seems to be a general need for victimhood in the contrarian "community".

[CapelDodger]

The record of these discussions is here, it's easy to go back and see what was actually said and why. That means you don't need to tell me what someone said, however if you wish to, you might want to include the post number you are quoting them from.

No, I feel no need for that. As you say, it's easy to go back and look. It's even easier to read what I'm quoting from David Rodale, and responding to, and not get yourself into a freelance tangle.

And if I was you, I'd drop the sulky attitude.

[rockoon]

And so on through the same old same-old. Yes, H2O is the major greenhouse component in the atmosphere.


It is?

Then why do you respond to my correction of this error with information not relevant to that correction?

You are downplaying the correction. Why?

[CapelDodger]

Wentz 2007. I assume from the "no answer" that you have recognized that this indeed does invalidate IPCC modeling as done in the 2005-2006 era. Thanks.

Gibberish.

The IPCC doesn't do modelling, let alone for the 2005-6 "era". What are you going on about?

[a_unique_person]

Cooling would be very bad.

Of course AGW believers do not want to give you the time to study all variables. They demand action now to the tune of trillions of dollars, or else they get quite vitriolic.

Time is one thing we don't have. A trillion dollars were carelessly wasted on a war that achieved nothing. It's money thats available, and increasing energy efficiency and cutting waste will actually end up saving money.

[mhaze]

Gibberish.

The IPCC doesn't do modelling, let alone for the 2005-6 "era". What are you going on about?

Don't worry about it.

I don't recall that you placed your faith in computer models and predictions anyway, did you? Rather it was direct observation and such. So the models results being invalidated would not affect your position vis a vis AGW.

Your predictions were based on your opinions, not computer models or the forecasts of them. Wasn't that correct, say with reference to your opinion on conditions in the year 2050?

[mhaze]

Time is one thing we don't have. A trillion dollars were carelessly wasted on a war that achieved nothing. It's money thats available, and increasing energy efficiency and cutting waste will actually end up saving money.

Well, I do respect an honest opinion.

And agree that increasing energy efficiency and cutting waste is good.

But it looks to me like the facts indicate that we have plenty of time to figure things out very precisely, as to whether there is a problem, if so exactly what it is, and what should be done about it.

So we can disagree about that, of course.

[a_unique_person]

Well, I do respect an honest opinion.

And agree that increasing energy efficiency and cutting waste is good.

But it looks to me like the facts indicate that we have plenty of time to figure things out very precisely, as to whether there is a problem, if so exactly what it is, and what should be done about it.

So we can disagree about that, of course.

We don't have time. The CO2 we add persists in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. The feedback mechanisms are kicking in, with albedo changing, for example.

By just agreeing to disagree, you win, since we end up effectively doing nothing.

[CapelDodger]

It is?

Then why do you respond to my correction of this error with information not relevant to that correction?

You are downplaying the correction. Why?

You quote one line of my carefully crafted post to respond to. That hurts.

My point was (you'll have heard this before) that a wetter atmosphere is a response to a warmer climate, not a cause of a warmer climate. So your nit-picking over greenhouse components bears no relation to greenhouse forcings, or any other climate forcing.

It doesn't matter that H2O is the dominant greenhouse component because H2O responds to climate change, it doesn't cause it. It's a feedback, not a forcing. Climate change is what we're talking about. And seeing, of course.

You can call that "downplaying" if you like, I call it dismissing.

[a_unique_person]

You quote one line of my carefully crafted post to respond to. That hurts.

My point was (you'll have heard this before) that a wetter atmosphere is a response to a warmer climate, not a cause of a warmer climate. So your nit-picking over greenhouse components bears no relation to greenhouse forcings, or any other climate forcing.

It doesn't matter that H2O is the dominant greenhouse component because H2O responds to climate change, it doesn't cause it. It's a feedback, not a forcing. Climate change is what we're talking about. And seeing, of course.

You can call that "downplaying" if you like, I call it dismissing.

It's also all explained in the link from Realclimate I have already provided. Is it possible we at least get this point sorted out with Rockoon and Mhaze?

[CapelDodger]

Of course there's a problem.

[quote]... if so exactly what it is ...

Why exactly or precisely? Isn't the sign good enough? "Warmer than now" is the prognosis.

How can "the facts" indicate that we "have plenty of time" when Arctic sea-ice facts are way ahead of the predicted time-horizon? Ditto Greenland ice-facts. The observable facts indicate that we really don't have much time left to get a handle on things.

Which we won't. There was never even a forlorn hope of that. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

[rockoon]

You quote one line of my carefully crafted post to respond to. That hurts.


It was all that was required.


My point was (you'll have heard this before) that a wetter atmosphere is a response to a warmer climate, not a cause of a warmer climate. So your nit-picking over greenhouse components bears no relation to greenhouse forcings, or any other climate forcing.


Fact: H2O is the chief greenhouse gas

So what is the debate? There is no debate.. right?

I say it is the chief greenhouse gas.
You say it is the chief greenhouse gas.
The IPCC says it is the chief greenhouse gas.
All the science says that it is the chief greenhouse gas.

So who is nitpicking? All I did was correct a person who posted incorrect information. Since then I have been descended upon with replies to my correction with unrelated information.. as if these "nit picks" change the fact.. they don't.. and you even say that they don't.. so again I ask you.. WHAT IS THE DEBATE?

You are trying to appear smart.. but fail to see the obvious.. that you are going on and on and on about something unrelated to the situation..

[mhaze]

I say it is the chief greenhouse gas.
You say it is the chief greenhouse gas.
The IPCC says it is the chief greenhouse gas.
All the science says that it is the chief greenhouse gas.

So who is nitpicking? All I did was correct a person who posted incorrect information. Since then I have been descended upon with replies to my correction with unrelated information.. as if these "nit picks" change the fact.. they don't.. and you even say that they don't.. so again I ask you.. WHAT IS THE DEBATE?


And me too! I said it too!

The debate is this -

AUP used RC, a 2005 essay, to try to refute Wentz 2007, but obviously that no work.

Means the Models are broke.

I'm trying to get them to admit it.

[rockoon]

H2O is the chief greenhouse gas.

What does this statement say?

Does this statement say anything about global warming?

No.

Does this statement say anything about CO2's role in altering H2O content in the atmosphere?

No.

This statement says that H2O is the chief greenhouse gas.

Is this statement correct?

Yes.

How was this statement used?

It was used to correct a poster who claimed that CO2 was the chief greenhouse gas. He was wrong. Everyone who has posted since agrees with this fact or makes no statement at all about its validity.

Now kindly STFU about it unless you disagree with this fact.

[HghrSymmetry]

I sit corrected, apparently we have no vitriol here.

So what do we have? Basically two camps that downplay and or dismiss any possible study the "other" side provides.

Does that sound familiar?

I thought it might.

[Skeptical Greg]

.......
Which we won't. There was never even a forlorn hope of that. Buy the ticket, take the ride.Do we really have a choice, except to try to adapt to the weather/climate we are dealt ? Even if some of it is man made. It is what it is ..

Exactly what is the expected net effect of global warming in the next hundred years or so ? Rising unemployment at ski resorts ? The deserts will be even more agri-unfriendly than they are now ? More people will die from the heat than from the cold ?

[mhaze]

[quote=mhaze;2947648But it looks to me like the facts indicate that we have plenty of time to figure things out very precisely, as to whether there is a problem ...[quote]

Of course there's a problem Why exactly or precisely? Isn't the sign good enough? "Warmer than now" is the prognosis.

How can "the facts" indicate that we "have plenty of time" when Arctic sea-ice facts are way ahead of the predicted time-horizon? Ditto Greenland ice-facts. The observable facts indicate that we really don't have much time left to get a handle on things.

Ice and bears do not get you the trillions you want, sorry.

Facts look perfectly fine to me. Plenty of time. Probably or possibly no problem to be concerned about.

But admittedly, you are a alarmist and I a skeptic, so that is expected.

[mhaze]

I sit corrected, apparently we have no vitriol here.

So what do we have? Basically two camps that downplay and or dismiss any possible study the "other" side provides.


Is that right? I have looked at everything presented and rebutted it where newer science existed.:confused: