Deltoid

I just finished skimming the paper. It really is impressive. More than 29,500 datasets covering biological, agricultural, cryospheric, and other phenomena, and 90% of them indicate warming since 1970. The mountain of data supporting AGW just gets bigger and bigger, and denialists respond by shrieking that CRU refused to release its original data. Pathetic.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 1, 2010 9:45 PM

"I wonder when I became so cynical."

Perhaps when Lord Munchkin and ClimateFraudit and WFUWT were considered impartial sources of "real" science?

Anyone have an idea whether or not higher sea-levels could have been a contributing factor to the breaching of the sea walls in France with this last "bomb" (i.e, rapidly intensifying depression)?

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 1, 2010 10:46 PM

I highly recommend this video as a reference for the retard that pop up in any AGW comments section asking for proof of AGW.

Just keep on linking to it every time you see that moronic request.

Posted by: Wadard | March 1, 2010 11:19 PM

#7

The "Bolshevik Plot" refers simply to the idea that such a problem, if it exists, can be solved by the methods proposed by the Australian (and other) Government and the United Nations. Those solutions present like socialist makeovers rather than real solutions.

Most laughable: The proposed solution is to introduce an emissions trading scheme that establishes a market for the licenses to emit CO2-e. The to the extent that the govt takes part is to 1) set the number of licenses to issue, and 2) compliance with those licenses.

The rest is entirely up to the private sector. The govt is not "picking winners" or even "taking over the means of production", which is what Bolshevism was/is.

So the ETS is the opposite of being socialist. The ETS is a free market solution that says, "you can pollute as much as you want, so long as the cost of the correction to the pollution is included.

After all, if you want to live in a fun world, you have to pay for the ride.

Posted by: Rixaeton | March 1, 2010 11:28 PM

James @ 7

The crock is the video. No sceptic (or very few) denies the greenhouse effect of CO2. No sceptic denies that there was warming in the three decades up to 2000 (although the extent appears may have been exagerrated). No sceptic would deny the natural consequences of warming (migratory patterns, ice melt etc). Some (perhaps many) sceptics question the extent of these natural consequences and contend that they are overstated.

Now the deniers are misquoting themselves.

Posted by: MikeH | March 1, 2010 11:58 PM

James insists that "nobody is denying the basic phenomena". C'mon, James, do I really have to trot out several dozen quotes from comments on this very blog denying precisely what you say "nobody denies"?

I would be pleased if deniers would be so reasonable as to acknowledge the obvious and move on to the questionable, but my experience leads me to conclude that deniers concede a point only when it was established beyond a reasonable doubt five years earlier. I am convinced that deniers are engaging in a cynical rearguard action, denying everything possible, obfuscating everything possible, and conceding only what has long since been lost.

As to the issues that you claim are questionable:

1. the extent (and unprecedented nature) of the warming.

The temperature records for the last century are beyond question. They show the extent of the warming quite plainly. As to the "unprecedented nature" of the warming, deniers can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that it's the rate of change of temperature that is unprecedented, not the temperature itself. I hope that you're a cut above the average denier, but if you recognize the difference between a value and its rate of change, you wouldn't be calling it "unprecedented".

1. the extent to which anthropogenic CO2 is responsible

C'mon, all the other possible hypotheses have been examined quite closely and there simply isn't any other plausible mechanism -- and the CO2 hypothesis explains the data quite neatly. What do you want -- a deep voice booming out from the clouds, "It's the CO2, stupid!"

1. the effectiveness of the proposed solutions

Now here's something that can be discussed in a reasoned way. Yes, there's plenty of debatable material here -- but all of your fellow riders shut down debate on the subject by arguing endlessly about scientific points when they don't know the difference between a time derivative and a hole in the ground. So yes, let's talk about the effectiveness of proposed solutions, their costs, and the costs of not acting. I'm willing to decide this matter strictly on economics. Let's quit frackin' around with ignorant arguments about science and get down to dollars and cents.

1. Those solutions present like socialist makeovers rather than real solutions.

Since when is taxation a socialist makeover? A carbon tax is the preferred approach of most economists and scientists. If taxation is socialism, then every government in human history has been socialist.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 2, 2010 12:13 AM

James @ 7

The "Bolshevik Plot" refers simply to the idea that such a problem, if it exists, can be solved by the methods proposed by the Australian (and other) Government and the United Nations. Those solutions present like socialist makeovers rather than real solutions.

In reality the ETS is a neo-liberal solution to carbon mitigation which is why first John Howard and then Malcolm Turnbull supported it.

Tony Abbott's "direct action" plan is actually a plan to do little more than hand tax payer funds to the major polluters - commonly known as "socialism for the rich".

The Business Spectator columnist Alan Kohler this week commended the Coalition's Emissions Reduction Fund as a plan to pay British utility International Power, operator of the developed world's dirtiest brown-coal-fired power station at Hazelwood, in Victoria, and Chinese-owned Truenergy, operator of the similarly polluting Yallourn station nearby, to switch to cleaner gas-fired power.

Posted by: Mikeh | March 2, 2010 12:45 AM

James@7 has never heard of Tim Ball and a dozen like him. James must be the first PhD in See-no-evilology, and 28 (or 35) years not using the internet.

"The crock is the video. No sceptic (or very few) denies the greenhouse effect of CO2. "

Posted by: Dan | March 2, 2010 1:24 AM

I am a frequent visitor (and sometimes contributor) to Bolt's blog and a number of others. They are punters with opinions, some more, some less, informed. So what? I haven't seen anything worse there than that expressed in "6" above.

Posted by: James | March 2, 2010 2:25 AM

Come on, Vince, it's a blog, a popular one, and a conservative one. I can name plenty of vitriolic trash coming out of left wing blogs but where does that leave us? Interesting to see the types of arguments my comment has attracted. Only one attempt out of eight to even try to debate the substance of what I have written, which was on point. You guys can hardly be critical of Bolt with a scorecard like that eh? You can debate what I have written or not. I stand by what I write, and what I quote. Or would you perhaps like to defend David Marr on ABC declaring that the opposite of an ETS was to "let the world fry....". It's a chicken shit argument. "Those who share your views express them this way therefore you are wrong".

Posted by: James | March 2, 2010 3:11 AM

Nice video.

Although it would have been nicer to see the GHG molecules vibrate when hit by photons.

Posted by: Paul UK | March 2, 2010 5:18 AM

Dear James (#7), you wrote:

"And that's before we start talking about the conduct of some of the more prominent scientists and politicians in the AGW "industry"."

Don't you realise how lame you sound? Translation of your screed: I have no scientific arguments against the video presentation, so I will just call it a "crock" as a substitute. Not having arguments means that then I want to attack a handful of scientists personally in order to distract readers from the weakness of my position.

Get a life.

Posted by: toby | March 2, 2010 6:30 AM

James write:

The crock is the video. No sceptic (or very few) denies the greenhouse effect of CO2.

James who do you speak for a so called "skeptic's" consensus? I've regularly read rubbish such 'CO2 is not a pollutant', and man cannot change the climate'. Sinclare eve used denialist industry video that claim there is no evidence of CO2 warming.

I suggest you need a poll to support your claim that no or few people who call themselves AGW skeptics deny the greenhouse effect of CO2.

James continues:

No sceptic denies that there was warming in the three decades up to 2000

Then James contradicts himself:

(although the extent appears may have been exagerrated).

What evidence do you have for exagerrated warming in the last 30 decades?

James continues:

No sceptic would deny the natural consequences of warming (migratory patterns, ice melt etc).

That would be except if they called it exaggerated instead of admitting to denial:

Some (perhaps many) sceptics question the extent of these natural consequences and contend that they are overstated.

Add to James' denial (or science conspiracy) those who invest the debate with arguments such as the sea ice has recovered. Jame have you ever smacked down a denialist for that type of bogus claim?

James continues:

So in creating what Sinclair would like his opponents' arguments to be, he is then able to effectively rebut them.It is this type of tactic that has the sceptics wondering about conspiracies. The video is the crock.

Sinclare has nailed you James, you've raced to the barricades and you've need to charge scientific conspiracy (exaggeration) to state your beliefs.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 6:47 AM

James writes:

The temperature records for the last century are broadly not contended, at least until recently. To the extent that they are, can I suggest you visit the University of East Anglia to discover the reasons why?

Denial and nonsense James. There is no evidence that the Warming has been exaggerated. CRU is not contradicted by GISS nor UAH nor RSS MSU, nor the sea ice loss nor biological response, nor glacial melt. You are exhibiting the denial that Sinclare addressed and you claimed he smacked too low.

James continues:

There is much debate, despite the apparent "consensus" as to what caused the warming of the last century

Really where? Name just 5 papers in credible journals in the last year that showed strong evidenced that AGW was not the strongest driver of recent warming. Or if last years was a bit light, name 10 credible papers in the last 2 years.

For the decade that I have been following this it has become more and more apparent that the arguments, and the methods of argument, on the part of (shall we call you) proponents has been fundamentally flawed.

Empty words James, lacking evidence.

James:

It would seem highly unlikely that the addition to the naturally occurring CO2 in the relatively minute levels that is anthropogenic would be causing the heating that has occurred and is predicted (however incorrectly so far) to occur.

First point is that That you assert with out evidence that CO2 is highly unlikely assertion to cause the warming, and you make this claim without counter evidence. You also sneak in you assumption that something is incorrect, again without evidence.

Second point is you are proving Sinclair correct buy squeezing your self under his nail.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 7:10 AM

Further to the comment above, I wouldn't call a ~35% increase in total atmospheric CO2 due to human activity 'a relatively minute anthropogenic addition' (slight paraphrase).

Posted by: Stu | March 2, 2010 9:12 AM

@toby: Sadly, Irena Sendler passed away in 2008.

Posted by: Marco | March 2, 2010 11:13 AM

I'd like to defend James against the avalanche of angry responses to his comments. Not that I agree with his claims. I'd like to point out that James represents a different class of commentator here. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him an "opponent" rather than a "denier". His arguments are not in the same class as the idiotic, ill-informed crap that are usual among deniers. I realize that everybody here is so used to seeing outright lies from deniers that there's a strong tendency to attack anybody who takes that side, so the response is psychologically understandable, but I think it's also wrong. Although I doubt that we'll be able to reach any agreement with James, I do think that he'll respond to reasoned arguments with reasoned counterarguments -- don't you think that would be far more productive and interesting than the usual head-bashing that characterizes discussion on this board?

That said, now let ME roll up my sleeves and go to work on James! ;-)

First, I like your idea of characterizing the bell curve of opinions, so we don't argue against each others extremists instead of each other. I'll start by declaring the centerline of proponent arguments on AGW: the IPCC AR4 reports, which you can find here:

http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/wg1-ar4.html

As to the extrema, I'd put Al Gore at the edge. Much of what he says is true, but he occasionally overstates his case. I see no reason to defend Al Gore when I have IPCC AR4. So I'll ask you to confine your criticisms to statements in IPCC AR4. Another centerline source of information is the National Academy of Sciences brochure on AGW, which you can find here:

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rptbriefs/climatechange2008final.pdf

This isn't so intimidating a document as IPCC AR4, because it presents the case in nontechnical language. But remember this: IPCC AR4 is the core document, the fundamental case, against which all opposing arguments should be made.

To the extent that they are, can I suggest you visit the University of East Anglia to discover the reasons why?

I suggest that you visit this page:

http://www.ipcc-data.org/

to get an idea of why the whole CRU thing is a tempest in a teapot, a trumped-up distraction from the truth.

There is much debate, despite the apparent "consensus" as to what caused the warming of the last century, and I don't accept that the debate is close to concluded.

This is correct, by only in the sense that there are plenty of ignorant people who are presenting idiotic arguments against the science of climate change. If you want to get an idea of the real issues being debated, please consult the NAS brochure and/or the IPCC AR4 report. There really is a strong consensus that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the recent warming.

For the decade that I have been following this it has become more and more apparent that the arguments, and the methods of argument, on the part of (shall we call you) proponents has been fundamentally flawed.

Then perhaps you should actually read the arguments and methods of arguments used by the actual proponents, not the crap that you see on television. Read IPCC AR4! It's all there for public consumption, and yet nobody ever bothers to read it -- instead they complain that the scientists are being secretive. Until you've read IPCC AR4, you have no ethical basis to comment on the arguments in favor of AGW, because you haven't even seen them.

It would seem highly unlikely that the addition to the naturally occurring CO2 in the relatively minute levels that is anthropogenic would be causing the heating that has occurred and is predicted (however incorrectly so far) to occur.

It is long been known that the earth's surface temperature is 33ºC warmer than it would be without any greenhouse effect, and that most of that effect is due to CO2. So if 270 ppm of CO2 can raise the temperature of the earth by 30ºC, what's so crazy about saying that adding another 100 ppm of CO2 might increase temperatures by another 5ºC?

Moreover, this notion that "tiny things can't have any effect" is absurd. A meteorite with mass of just one billionth that of the earth managed to destroy the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A few hundred HIV viri on your skin, with a mass of picograms, can kill you. There are plenty of poisons a few micrograms of which can kill you. Tiny things can certainly have big effects.

there is much debate as to what should be the figure for the "forcing effect"(?) of CO2

Please see Table 2.1, IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 2, which presents atmospheric concentrations and changes of more than a dozen different chemicals in the atmosphere, as well as the radiative forcing of each one as of 2005. CO2 forcing is put at 1.66 W m**-2.

I agree with you that most of the schemes I have seen for addressing climate change are pretty lame. They aren't aggressive enough to accomplish much, and they seem more like disguised subsidies. I would much prefer a carbon tax -- as do most economists. I concede that a carbon tax is politically unviable -- but that's only because people don't understand the magnitude of the problem. So let's talk carbon tax, OK? Do you object to a revenue-neutral carbon tax?

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 2, 2010 11:46 AM

Erasmussimo, terrific post @34.

I have a couple of things to say about your post though, firstly the biggest contributor to the 33C greenhouse effect is water vapour. The part due to CO2 is by no means insignificant though (see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/)

Secondly, HIV on your skin will do squat. Get in a cut though...

Anyway, as I have already said, I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of your post.

Posted by: Stu | March 2, 2010 1:01 PM

"I'd like to point out that James represents a different class of commentator here. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him an "opponent" rather than a "denier"."

Think again Erasmussimo, he's just your everyday common troll

http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/weekend-gab-fest-23/#comment-21179

Posted by: Ben Breeg | March 2, 2010 4:24 PM

Eli is often asked to name a few denialists of the Greenhouse Effect, and he has some who have published papers in refereed journals: Gerlich, Tscheuschner, Chilingar, Khilyuk, Sorokhtin, Kramm of the tips of his ears.

Go google some of those worthies and you will find multiple fan clubs. So James, let us not pretend that denial don't deny the greenhouse effect

Posted by: Eli Rabett | March 2, 2010 5:08 PM

Ben said: "Think again Erasmussimo, he's just your everyday common troll

http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/weekend-gab-fest-23/#comment-21179

Because of course, nothing is ever truly real in moronoland until you've bragged about it to yer "mates".

Posted by: chek | March 2, 2010 5:25 PM

James is just another reminder of the futility of reason when dealing with the wilfully ignorant.

After seeing a video explaining the empirical evidence shwoing some of the relevant papers, we have idiots like James saying - they showed no evidence.

It's just a litle bit amazing that we're in the 21stC but there are people who wear anti-science ignorance like a badge of honour.

Posted by: Michael | March 2, 2010 5:52 PM

Anon,

global warming doesn't have to be 'runaway' to be concerning!

Posted by: Stu | March 2, 2010 6:12 PM

Stu@46:

Runaway global warming caused by CO2 is what IPCC predicts. Everyone knows and agrees CO2 is a greenhouse gas a causes some warming, which if not enhanced by other factors in the system would not be catastrophic at all.

Posted by: Anonymous | March 2, 2010 6:22 PM

Shorter Anon (sounding a bit like James):

I'm gonna make up stuff about what the the IPCC say, don't mind me.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 6:26 PM

James, CFCs are trace gases (and measured in ppt compared to ppm for CO2) and look what they have done to the ozone hole, in the stratosphere, above Antarctica.

Your trace gas argument is feeble and a classic contrarian myth that has been discounted repeatedly.

Let's cut to the chance, b/c this is essentially what it boils down to. What is the climate sensitivity to doubling CO2? And I want a reputable reference from the peer-reviewed literature to support your assertion (i.e., not Lindzen and Choi, 2009).

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 2, 2010 6:51 PM

For those who need further evidence to doubt James er Sancty's credentials as a troll.

http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/global-warming-has-stopped-says-tony-abbott/#comment-13087

And Stu, to answer your question as to how I found that link, it is because I post over there under the name Tom R. No, don't ask me why I used Ben Breeg here, except perhaps that Tom R is just a boring name (shrug). I typed it on the fly when blogocracy was around, and wanted to maintain it so people knew who I was (to a degree). So I guess I will revert :( to avoid cinfusion.

As to james, his arguments usually end in the 'you post Lambert, and I'll post WUWT' type rant, ignoring completely that one is based in fact, while the other is based on ??? (don't really know yet). Or, his even better one, his mates told him it wasn't happening, so there (the great Barrier Reef escapade).

I guess, in the short of it, it is my fault he is here, so for that, I apologise.

Posted by: Tom R | March 2, 2010 7:08 PM

Stu, I'm no coward and my ability to debate is restricted only by time constraints and general scientific ignorance. I acknowledge that freely but reserve my right to participate as an affected citizen who is capable of applying critical consideration of many of the issues.

TomR has misrepresented one of my points. I am a frequent visitor to the GBR, as an enthusiastic yachtie and snorkeller. I have in the past repeatedly asserted that the parts of the GBR that I visit, and they range on a broad scale, show no visible signs of stress over a period of two decades. I can see for myself that the many predictions of Ove (whatever his surname is) are demonstrably false.

Posted by: James | March 2, 2010 7:48 PM

James:

I can see for myself that the many predictions of Ove (whatever his surname is) are demonstrably false.

All right. Demonstrate it then. Tell us at least one prediction and demonstrate that it's false.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 2, 2010 8:08 PM

Anon writes:

Runaway global warming caused by CO2 is what IPCC predicts.

Jakerman wrties:

Shorter Anon [...]: I'm gonna make up stuff about what the the IPCC say, don't mind me.

Anon writes:

jakerman@50: Please read: http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/ar4-wg1-faqs.pdf

Anon, do your own homework, I say you made it your claim up. Prove me wrong, show me were the "IPPCs predicts" "Runaway global warming caused by CO2". Cite the passage, or the page, the chart or the figure.

Why do I think you are wrong? Cos I've read what climate scientist write:

People often conclude that the existence of positive feedbacks must imply ‘runaway’ effects i.e. the system spiralling out of control. However, while positive feedbacks are obviously necessary for such an effect, they do not by any means force that to happen. Even in simple systems, small positive feedbacks can lead to stable situations as long as the ‘gain’ factor is less than one (i.e. for every initial change in the quantity, the feedback change is less than the original one). A simple example leads to a geometric series for instance; i.e. if an initial change to a parameter is D, and the feedback results in an additional rD then the final change will be the sum of D+rD+r2D…etc. ). This series converges if |r|<1, and diverges (‘runs away’) otherwise. You can think of the Earth’s climate (unlike Venus’) as having an ‘r‘ less than one, i.e. no ‘runaway’ effects, but plenty of positive feedbacks.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 9:27 PM

James,

it's all on record, I've justified every claim I've made here (at Gutter Trash) and I simply can't be bothered with your lies any more.

Posted by: Pterosaur | March 2, 2010 10:10 PM

Pterosaur, you want me to substantiate scientific arguments, despite my repeated admission that I am no scientist. I can argue only on the basis of reason and logic. To whit, my original argument on this subject is about the positioning of the sceptical argument in the posted video.

Yet, you come on here, attack my character, accuse me of lying, twice, then refuse to "be bothered" to substantiate your accusation in the forum in which it was made (never mind that you have also failed to do so in the forum in which you have claimed to). Back up your serious charges, Pterosaur, because no matter what side of the debate you stand on, to fail to do so would make you a fraud.

Posted by: James | March 2, 2010 10:22 PM

Anon, stop contradicting yourself, you just had it confirmed that you are using the wrong term yet you opt to keep using it.

So, coming back to the original post, this video does not in any way establish the link between CO2 and global warming that will run away from us.

You were the joker who claimed it should be trying to establish such a link. I called you on your folly.

Your post is utter nonsense, you arn't close to discussing the science nor what the IPCC say or need to say.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 10:48 PM

Maple Leaf, there are five papers listed in that blog which give a climate sensitivity figure of less than the IPCC. Again, what constitutes "reputable". On your criteria, it would seem to eliminate anyone who holds a view different to those to which you adhere?

Posted by: James | March 2, 2010 11:01 PM

Anon, looking past your persistent use of misleading terms I will address a question that I hope you are asking:

Can we establish the link between CO2 and global warming that is going to have catastrophic effects?

To address this question first answer me this, do you accept the evidence that greenhouse gases cause global warming?

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 11:24 PM

there are five papers listed in that blog which give a climate sensitivity figure of less than the IPCC.

James your sources citing of 5 papers does not mean the data supports his claims. Your source is out of date and misses the corrections by Lyman, the updates by Levitus and your source completely dodged Domingues.

This data is compelling.

Posted by: jakerman | March 2, 2010 11:59 PM

MapleLeaf,

Do you really think James could manage to find his own arse even with a flashlight?...... well, maybe if it was posted on a denialist blog, then he might.

Posted by: Michael | March 3, 2010 1:46 AM

my ability to debate is restricted only by time constraints and general scientific ignorance

Isn't that a fact.

I can argue only on the basis of reason and logic.

Reason and logic, of which you are also generally ignorant, aren't particularly useful for addressing empirical matters when one is unfamiliar with, or in denial of, the evidence.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 2:50 AM

I use the Great Barrier Reef as an example of just one climate scare that is self evidently false. You cannot tell me something is dying when I can see for myself that it is not.

You're a fucking idiot.

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200917/3529/Dying-coral-reef-shows-signs-of-spectacular-regrowth

David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told the program he was heartened to see damaged corals respond. "It's incredibly heartening to see how quickly a really healthy coral reef can respond," he said. "But of course at the same time it's somewhat sobering because it makes us realise that reefs do have to be very healthy to survive impacts of climate change, and also indicates to us that we only have a certain amount of time to do something about climate change if we want to keep coral reefs around the world," Wachenfeld continued.

There those scientists go, scaring people with their sober talk.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 3:07 AM

So I guess in proving that point, it was a form of trolling.

Indeed, a scientific illiterate coming to a scientific forum for the purpose of having a debate is a case of trolling.

In terms of "tiny trace gas" the difference between CO2 and HIV is that the CO2 is already present in a natural form.

Did you even watch the video, moron? CO2 from natural and anthropogenic sources can be distinguished, and the increase is due to the latter; the fact that CO2 is already present in a natural form is irrelevant. Who are you to talk about "the relatively minute levels" of anthropogenic CO2 and the likelihood that would cause the heating that has occurred when you admit that you're scientifically illiterate? You whine that you're being asked to substantiate scientific arguments, despite your repeated admission that you're no scientist, that you can argue only on the basis of reason and logic. Fine, asshole, give us your deductive proof that the levels of anthropogenic CO2 are insufficient to produce the indicated level of warming.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 3:34 AM

Calm down Marcel! Quadruple posting :-0

James, I never called you a coward. I merely wondered whether you'd be back. And you are.

I'd appreciate it if you'd respond to MapleLeaf's post @73 if nothing else, as those're good points.

And answer me this: are reason and logic always going to help? I have come across a great deal of scientific results that are counterintuitive. You have to go where the evidence leads, not just to what 'feels right'.

As an example, what is your answer to the following question

Which is better news for the magnitude of global warming over the next century: that aerosols have a large or a small cooling effect?

Posted by: Stu | March 3, 2010 3:38 AM

Calm down Marcel!

Don't patronize me. I'll post as many times as I choose to.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 3:42 AM

Just love this new robustness in the debate, but I'll throw a bucket of cold water over everyone.

The snowiest decade in US history has just been recorded. Is that weather or climate?

Posted by: el gordo | March 3, 2010 3:50 AM

You will until the filter catches you for flooding.

Thank you ever so much for your concern.

I'm amazed it doesn't put posts with gratuitous swearing in for moderation, TBH.

My swearing is not gratuitous. And I hardly find it amazing -- not everyone is so immature as to recoil at common expressive language.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 3:55 AM

Just in the nick of time, el gordo wafts in with some non-science.

We could try to present some facts, but if we mention that increased snowfall is expected under warming conditions, poor el gordo wil have a fit.

Posted by: Michael | March 3, 2010 4:01 AM

You top it all of by making pathetic allusions to the failed climate gate smear.

He topped his topping off with this immense idiocy:

I use the Great Barrier Reef as an example of just one climate scare that is self evidently false. You cannot tell me something is dying when I can see for myself that it is not.

It's hard to find more intellectually obtuse "skepticism".

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 4:23 AM

TomR, the term "crock" comes from the title on the video. It is a play on words and hardly abusive in that context. I stand by my words on "Bolshevik Plot". It was put in to mock and characterise all sceptics, and was therefore unfair.

As to a "free market ETS" there is no such thing.

Posted by: James | March 3, 2010 4:51 AM

I'd like to point out that James represents a different class of commentator here. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him an "opponent" rather than a "denier". His arguments are not in the same class as the idiotic, ill-informed crap that are usual among deniers.

Here is James/Sancty's characterization of this video, posted at guttertrash:

My comments are in relation to the video, described as “empirical evidence”. It is nothing of the sort, just a bunch of assertions. None of it is evidence, none of it is linked to evidence, hence I felt quite comfortable describing it as a crock.

Read that carefully, then watch the video again, and tell me that this isn't radical denialism.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 4:53 AM

Amidst it all Marcel makes many valid points. Unfortuantly James is saved from need to to be held to account by these valid points because rage gets top billing, thus letting Jame's multiple misrepresentation slip out the side door for a quiet exit.

Marcel, sorry that I poked fun. I have a shocker every so often, so should't make fun when others take their fair quota of angry venting.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 5:01 AM

Unfortuantly James is saved from need to to be held to account by these valid points because rage gets top billing, thus letting Jame's multiple misrepresentation slip out the side door for a quiet exit.

This is nonsense and ad hominem. One always needs to be held to account for their lies and misrepresentations, regardless of the tone of their critics.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 5:09 AM

James you have been shown why your source is not reputable by me and others. You have been accurately called for misrepresenting Sinclair video. You even managed to squeeze yourself under his hammer ex post facto.

You pretend to want open discussion yet to make continued unsupported claims and run away when you are called on them, even ignoring the multiple times you have been caught out.

Whether you know it or not your traits expressed here are dishonest, and incompatible with reasoned debate.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 5:29 AM

In terms of "tiny trace gas" the difference between CO2 and HIV is that the CO2 is already present in a natural form. Either you have HIV or you don't. If you have, say, 380 PPM of HIV infected cells in your body injecting another hundred PPM is going to make no difference. Without treatment, you are a goner anyway.

As I said earlier as far as warming is concerned CO2 is not a trace gas. From a purely, far reaching, broad outlook and with no reference to much science other than to measure the quantities in the atmosphere, then CO2 is a trace gas.

But from the perspective of science and IR radiation it is about 9% of the IR sensitive atmosphere and hence is in no way a trace gas.

Playing with what words mean, deflects from the science. We all know that when some people refer to CO2 being a trace gas, they are often trying to con naive people into thinking there is no problem. It is a lie and a political move, aimed at spreading disinformation.

Posted by: Paul UK | March 3, 2010 5:37 AM

Looks like the snowiest decade and the warmest decade are not incompatible. No need for alarm

Non sequitur.

And in case James is reading, I'm still waiting for James to explain himself and his change the topic runaway traits.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 5:48 AM

James, Lindzen has slowly but steadily lost credibility because the quality of his science has slowly but steadily decreased with time. The latest foray, which has been referred to in this thread, is Lindzen and Choi (2009) (about determining climate feedback from satellite data. Which they didn't do properly).

It was so bad that even sceptic's favourite Dr. Roy Spencer stepped in to criticise it.

Posted by: Stu | March 3, 2010 6:07 AM

If my point is sound then we already know the answer.

It would require as stunning turn around for James to cease exemplifying the point to made.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 6:17 AM

Marcel, what annoys you most ? 1/ that it won't stop snowing in the northern hemisphere ? 2/ or the troll's that keep reminding you about it ? 3/ the relatively cool wet summer in Australia ? 4/ or the trolls that remind you about it ?

Posted by: sunspot | March 3, 2010 7:29 AM

What annoys me most is that we have to keep reminding the determinedly ignorant that a., weather is not climate and b., local is not global. (Should I add - c, warmer = more snow?).

January was (globally) the warmest ever on record.

Posted by: Michael | March 3, 2010 7:45 AM

SS this annoys me most.

Oh and that some ill informed people think AGW is supposed to stop snow. But that's life when dealing with zealots who's bias fools them into thinking everything contradicts AGW.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 7:50 AM

James says "As to your other question*, let me get back to you. I suspect the answer has something to do with whether I think Global Warming is a problem or not."

Well, not really. It does have implications for how much of a problem global warming will turn out to be though. And is an exercise in scientific reasoning (note my preamble about counterintuitive results).

*The question was "Which is better news for the magnitude of global warming over the next century: that aerosols have a large or a small cooling effect?" By which I of course meant, which scenario would result in less warming over the next century :-)

PS sure you can call me Disco, but please, not in public. Disco Stu doesn't advertise.

Posted by: Stu | March 3, 2010 8:42 AM

@ Paul UK

Your intellectual dishonesty is noted. Again, it was Stu who referred to "trace gas", and thus it is Stu who would be subject to your charge "We all know that when some people refer to CO2 being a trace gas, they are often trying to con naive people into thinking there is no problem. It is a lie and a political move, aimed at spreading disinformation."

James is guilty of much, but not that -- he merely said (erroneously) that anthropogenic CO2, as compared to natural CO2, is "relatively minute". Rather than your comment being "simple and to the point", it made clearly erroneous claims about motivation that completely missed the point.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 9:02 AM

Hi, guys, I'm a new kid in town; please don't beat me up!

I'm pretty durn fascinated by this Great AGW Debate and, if I may join in here, I'd welcome a give-and-take of views.

Somebody wrote above "I like your idea of characterizing the bell curve of opinions, so we don't argue against each others extremists instead of each other." Yessss!

Brief intro: I'm a graduate Manufacturing Eng who dropped out of a physics degree at London Uni. Cards on table: Whilst much of the supporting logic of the AGW hypothesis is watertight, I doubt the overall conclusion. Given that there are bright, educated, informed, sincere people on both sides, I'll welcome energetic counterarguments but, please, no abuse.

I hope it's fair to summarise the video as saying: "This physics is proven, these measurements are solid, these are the trends and feedbacks, and so here is our forecast." If so, here's a question: If, despite this great research work, the forecasts of temperature rise don't materialise (say, the UAH MSU satellite temp stays below the 1998 peak anomaly of 0.75C), would it be fair to consider the hypothesis refuted?

James, in #7 above, wrote that "No sceptic (or very few) denies the greenhouse effect of CO2.. ...what is questioned is the extent (and unprecedented nature) of the warming......" This seemed like a reasonable attempt to agree common ground before moving the debate on, and yet he attracted some pretty nasty replies. Is this neccessary?

Let's seek a meeting of minds: thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis.

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 9:34 AM

If, despite this great research work, the forecasts of temperature rise don't materialise (say, the UAH MSU satellite temp stays below the 1998 peak anomaly of 0.75C), would it be fair to consider the hypothesis refuted?

This is a quite common and reasonable question. But the answer is one that many people find difficult to understand.

Answer: no, not even with "say 10-20 years" attached.

Imagine we start the (say) 20 year clock today. Further imagine that we monitor all of the forcings over the 20 year period, and note that whilst CO2 forcing is going up, the sum of other forcings are going down even more. What would we expect to see? The global average temperature would not exceed the global average temperature this year because the net change in forcing was negative over the 20 years.

[For simplicity I've assumed 20 years is long enough when it might not be in practice; I've ignored feedbacks, changes in feedbacks, short term variation in forcings & feedbacks, and natural variation, and non-equilibrium states. I trust that you can see how these can be added to the simple consideration without fundamentally changing the idea.]

So...if you're looking for falsification criteria based on observed temperature trends, you need to factor in (or at a minimum sufficiently constrain the uncertainty ranges of) all the forcings and feedbacks. And that means you can't pick N and do a simple max temperature comparison after N years.

Strictly speaking if you really want to falsify the current hypotheses, you should aim to create a model that explains observations better than current models do without relying on the current understanding of anthropogenic influences. (And you likely want to show reasons why your model is not only better at explaining observations, but is at least equally plausible in terms of physical considerations.)

I'm sure some actual scientists can weigh in on any errors or misconceptions in my comment - and on other considerations you might also need to pay attention to when developing and validating your competing model - but this should give some idea why "no rise in N years" is not particularly useful.

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 3, 2010 10:09 AM

Welcome, Brent! I had given up on this discussion, as the "fair share of angry venting" seems to have quadrupled in the last day or two. Let me address your questions during this brief lull in the firestorm.

Yes, if temperature shows no increase for an extended period, then we can consider the hypothesis refuted. How long is "extended period"? The general rule of thumb is that the dividing line between weather and climate is about 30 years. Some people squeeze that down to 15 years, but that's pushing it; the historical record shows anomalous temperature excursions lasting that long. 30 years is a good safe number. After all, the general upward trend that we see in the historical record extends over more than a century; if it were confined to the last 30 years, I think there'd be much less confidence in the hypothesis.

The problem here is that temperature measurements show lots of fluctuations. Much more reliable are the integrating phenomena that add up the overall change in temperature over a long period of time. The best of these are the large-scale changes in the cryosphere: melting glaciers, reductions in Arctic sea ice, loss of ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Together, these show much less fluctuation and give us a clearer, if somewhat delayed response.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 3, 2010 10:16 AM

Brent, welcome to this discussion. It is good to have you here.

However, I beg to differ with respect to when you said this: Given that there are bright, educated, informed, sincere people on both sides [of the debate]

This is patently false. The vast majority of the academic community - and with few exceptions, climate scientists, meaning the one's doing the actual research - argue that the empirical and theoretical evidence behind AGW is solid. The most amazing thing in my opinion as a senior scientist is that there is any debate at all. The uncertainty lies in the outcome of human-driven climate change, not in its existence. The most cunning sleight of hand amongst those in the denial camp is that they have taken the uncertainty over the potential outcomes of climate change and to have applied that to climate change itself. Aided by a huge PR apparatus, think tanks, and astroturf lobbying groups, all funded heavily by polluting industries anxious to maintain the status quo, they have shifted the debate through a culpable corporate mass media apparatus in such as way as to have undermined a huge and growing volume of empirical evidence. Certainly there are thousands of biological indicators which are pointing to a rapidly warming biosphere. And virtually all of the climate scientists I have spoken to at workshops and conferences say that the human fingerprint is all over the current warming.

Another problem is that controversy sells whereas consensus doesn't. The media will interview two scientists (or a scientist and a think tank 'scholar') on opposite sides of the issue as to create 'balance' whereas in actual fact the 'balance' is actually 95% on one side and 5% (or less) on the other. The media did the same thing a few years ago with respect to discussing the importance (and scale) of biodiversity loss. They would interview a scientist with longstanding expertise on the one side, and a contrarian, such as the late Julian Simon, or Patrick Moore, on the other. In striving for 'balance' they gave the completely wrong impression of the scientific evidence and opinion as well as the qualifications of those on either side of the debate. They will often not say that the denier has also received financial support for a polluting indsutry with an axe to grind.

It is no different with climate change. I have seen interviews given with a climate scientist like Steve Schneider or James Hansen on one side and individuals like Ross McKitrick or Myron Ebell on the other. The fact that McKitrick and Ebell are not climate scientists and are associated with corporate-funded right wing think tanks is rarely mentioned; instead, they are treated like 'experts' whose views are just at odds with experts on the other side who have spent their careers involved in research on climate.

So when you say that there are "well informed and bright people" on both sides of the climate change debate, I am reminded that there are allegedly "well informed and bright people" on the other side of other debates dealing with a wide range of comtemporary environmental issues. Having presented lectures on the anti-environmental lobby in both Europe and the United States, I think you would do yourself a service by looking at who these prominent "well informed and bright people" are in the denial camp and what their pedigree is in the relevant fields of research, as well as what idealogical biases might be motivating them. I think that you will find this quite enlightening.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 3, 2010 11:24 AM

What jakerman said at 102, and what Stu said @ 108

Marcel@101 I fear that you are right.

Brent, welcome, I think you should read the full thread (I know a mission), but it might help you understand why some here have lost it. And remember, most people who understand AGW to be a legitimate threat have, for many years now, been dealing with the same tired old arguments, tricks, tactics and games being played by James here-- it becomes very tiresome, annoying and frustrating that people are so determined to misrepresent and distort the science. Science and scientists are also under assault from politicians and the media and political lobby groups (ClimateAudit, WUWT), run under the guise of "science", with almost all of the allegations fallacious.

Brent, if you want to do some fact checking I highly recommend www.skepticalscience.com

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 3, 2010 12:25 PM

Brent

You miss the point.

"the UAH MSU satellite temp stays below the 1998 peak anomaly of 0.75C"

Is a cherry pick of a cherry pick. The year 1998 is a cherry pick and UAH MSU are cherry picks as well. This is dishonest. 2005 was hotter than 1998. The reason that UAH and MSU did detect that is that one of them is distorted by El Nino, and the other doesn't measure the temp. in the polar regions (where warming has been the greatest).

You shouldn't cherry pick like that if you want people to take you seriously here.

Posted by: elspi | March 3, 2010 12:57 PM

P. Lewis (127). Thanks for the links to Open Mind. It's going to take me quite some time to read it all. If I may report my early impressions:

The combined GISS/NCDC/HadCRU 1975-2007 graph: The pattern looks pretty darn linear (but then a little cartoon Mandelbrot pops up on my shoulder saying, 'No, you, fool, have you learned nothing from my wisdom?'!)I don't recall seeing it before (I watch Hadley CET and UAH MSU which I judge trustworthy). I guess these are all earthstation measurements; hasn't there been some recent controversy in the news? ;-)

The Open Mind author proposes a chequered flag at 2015 (when one camp or the other is declared champ), but then makes Lotharsson's point about masking: 'even if AGW is completely correct it’s still possible for temperature to show no increase long enough for the “no-further-warming” side to win this wager, IF unexpected events happen...'

I'm going back to read your sites properly now(thanks again), but may I offer this for comment:

When I grew tired of dumbly believing this expert or that one, I went in search of source data, but insisted on framing my own questions. These were: (i)What is the longest continuous direct measurement of temperature anywhere? Ans: Hadley CET since 1659. Conclusion: business as usual. (ii)What is the longest single-glacier record, direct and indirect anywhere? Ans: Mr. Holzhauser's pet glacier, the Aletsch, since 1200BC. Conclusion: Business as usual. (iii)What is the longest continuous direct CO2 measurement record, and is it corroborated elsewhere? Ans: Mauna Loa, and yes. Conclusion: Rising steadily.

Maybe it's parochial to find reassurance in data from just England (i) and Austria (ii), but I still ain't buildin' no ark just yet. As for (iii), I'd dearly like to know if CO2 drives temperature or whether it's vice-versa. In a brilliant talk to the American Geophysics Union, [http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml] Prof. Alley demonstrated the close correlation over centuries, millennia and gigayears, but correlation is not causality.

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 2:26 PM

Brent, I strongly urge you to read the IPCC AR4 WG1 report, which you can download here:

http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/wg1-ar4.html

This is the nitty-gritty, the real meat of the science of climate change. It is a compilation of everything that we know about climate change. It is very carefully done and its conclusions are sound. And it will teach you a great deal about the science.

Posted by: Erasmussimo | March 3, 2010 2:55 PM

Elspi (132): You say that 1998 is not a fair reference point in the UAH MSU record. Okay, but I'm sure you see what I'm getting at: that for the hypothesis to be confirmed or refuted we need clear criteria that everybody buys into.

Here's a bit of fun: Let's pretend that you and I are the armies' champions: on this single combat swordfight the fates of empires will be decided!

I propose: Have a look at the UAH MSU graph at: http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe.html See the three troughs or 'downspikes' in the past 15 years? They trough at -0.2C. If there are fewer than two downspikes below the 0.0C mark in the next 15 years, I'll capitulate and our armies will hand over their swords hilt-first. I shall declare: "Well it took a while, but my scepticism has now disappeared. I believe in AGW; now let's get cracking on a solution. Mineral sequestration using powdered Serpentine? Go!"

Make me an offer: What would it take for you to declare: "Despite the rational reasoning behind the AGW hypothesis back in 2010, the thermometer beats the theory. The end isn't nigh. Let's all go down the pub instead!"

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 3:26 PM

Brent @ 138:

I propose: Have a look at [...] junkscience.com

No. I'm not going to get information about climate science from people who are paid to lie about it.

If there are fewer than two downspikes below the 0.0C mark in the next 15 years,

You need to look at the trend, not the noise. Read some reputable sources like the ones that have been suggested above.

Posted by: Dave R | March 3, 2010 3:47 PM

I was starting to wonder much the same as you did MapleLeaf.

Brent has made one or two comments typical of concern troll behaviour. I sincerely hope he's not a time waster, because if he is, then the next "newbie" that comes along (who may be genuine) is likely to get short shrift ... which I suppose is part of the plan with such acts of trollishness.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 3, 2010 4:14 PM

This seemed like a reasonable attempt to agree common ground before moving the debate on

Yeah, right, calling the video a crock, and denying the existence of "sceptics" that we have all encountered is a reasonable attempt to agree on common ground.

I can smell people like you and James from a mile away.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 4:36 PM

I still ain't buildin' no ark just yet

Which indicates your complete failure at risk assessment, as well as analogy fail. Here's a better one: We're on the Titanic, those in the crow's nest have been seeing the tip of the iceberg looming for quite a while, but you're not willing to start turning the ship until you organize a diving expedition to verify with your own eyes that it's really an iceberg -- by which time it will be way too late.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 5:03 PM

Quoting someone and making a comment, doesn't automatically mean that the comment is in opposition or in agreement to the quote.

And correlation doesn't automatically mean causation -- but that's a strawman.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 5:29 PM

Jeff Harvey (128) Thanks for the long comment; from what you say I think that you have had some unpleasant encounters with some slippery customers. I was recently in discussion with fellow sceptics, trying to make a case for "minimum concensus" - areas where both sides can agree some basics and then continue debating at a more elevated level. I got some flak from people arguing for more confrontation, not less. (I'll spare you the kind of vocabulary used, but.... yeah you're ahead of me!)

Right, that's enough luvvy-duvvy stuff... let's fight!

;-)

You mention the massive financial forces ranged behind the sceptics. I think it's the contrary. Yes, theoretically the fossil fuel companies might have a secret slush fund to pay WUWT and Climate Audit. But where's the money going? You can run a website from a spare bedroom on a pension. Compare this with the costs of the Copenhagen meeting: how many thousands of air tickets and hotel rooms? Add the costs of punduts in academia, IPCC, carbon traders, NGOs and we're surely talking billions.

You wrote: "The most cunning sleight of hand amongst those in the denial camp is that they have taken the uncertainty over the potential outcomes of climate change and to have applied that to climate change itself." Would you please expand on that? I guess it's a tactic I meet in my work: Person A gives a reasonable, broad, common sense estimate; person B retorts "See? He doesn't know!"

To turn from the politics to the science, you say that there are "thousands of biological indicators which are pointing to a rapidly warming biosphere" and, yes, I hear this often and I'm sure it is true.

I promise that I am not being disingenuous here: If we all accept that there has been a warming period from approximately 1975 to 1998, or to 2005, why should we be alarmed at the biosystem's adaptation to it? Within Production Engineering (my discipline) lies the speciality of Control Engineering; the engineering principles behind, say, vehicle suspension are found in nature - one example being mammals' temperature regime. Isn't nature's adaptation to climate change entirely to be expected?

Some will doubtless think that the above paragraph is gratuitous and provocative. No! By all means, let's debate climate change, but 'lag indicators' are not supporting evidence. If 2010/2020 turns out to be a decade of cooling, I won't trumpet that "ha! the daffodils are flowering later!"; the thermometer will have already told us what we need to know.

One final point, if I may: I think that our "microscopes are at too high magnification". Whatever the oscillations causing (e.g) the Aletsch Glacier to reverse every century or so, it grinds on, sublimely indifferent to yearly changes. In Victorian times, the Catholic church commenced prayers in an attempt to halt the advance which had started a century before. And it worked! The Aletsch went into reverse in 1860, and continues to do so. They are now praying for it to stop retreating...

I hope I have made my point about timescale. At risk of labouring it, using one's bank balance as an analogy to global temperature, we don't examine our savings daily - weeping on Monday and hooraying on Tuesday. Monthly or yearly is a more appropriate timescale. It is equally absurd to find meaning in the fact that Texas has snow today, or the polecap shrank between 2005 and 2006.

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 5:50 PM

You mention the massive financial forces ranged behind the sceptics. I think it's the contrary.

What a complete idiot. You're about as far along on that bell curve of extreme denial as one can get.

I promise that I am not being disingenuous here

Of course you are; it's classic moving of the goalposts.

More broadly, your inane post clearly puts the lie to both "bright" and "sincere".

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 5:57 PM

Make me an offer: What would it take for you to declare: "Despite the rational reasoning behind the AGW hypothesis back in 2010, the thermometer beats the theory. The end isn't nigh. Let's all go down the pub instead!"

This set alarm bells ringing for me as well.

On the off chance that you're actually genuine though, a protracted levelling off or cooling of global temperatures continuing beyond, say, 2020, coinciding with a continuing rise in CO2 levels, would suggest that there may be something wrong with the established estimates for climate sensitivity to CO2. Otherwise, work showing that estimates for climate sensitivity are far too high would have to appear, and the scientific community could accept its error and move on.

My question to you would be, why are you asking these questions? Nothing has happened recently to suggest that either events are likely. We are coming out of the hottest decade in recorded history, just out of the hottest january in recorded history, and out of the joint second-hottest year in record history after 2005. What reason has there been so far to suggest that people might be wrong? If you aren't convinced yet, by the reams and reams of literature on the subject and by the temperature record which clearly shows warming what would it take to convince you of the theory?

Posted by: Bud | March 3, 2010 6:10 PM

Wow, it's pretty ferocious around here!

• Somebody dismissed JunkScience as a Nest of Denial. I may be wrong, but I thought that it conveyed verbatim data or live links from sources such as NASA and CRU. If it is seen as a partisan site then I apologise: no provocation intended.
• This James guy did start a bit pugnaciously ("It's the video that's the crock"), but didn't he have a fair point about agreeing the greenhouse-physics and then moving on?
• The statement "I can smell people like you aand James a mile away" is rather unfair. I stated from the outset that I was sceptical (no, I think I said "unconvinced" or "in doubt", wishing to avoid the tribalism). And, yes, I will argue the case as I see it and take interest in contradictions, and I'm quite prepared to say, "Oh, I get it now!" -Would somebody please define "troll" for me? -I am using open, friendly language in my postings. When I say, "Right, let's fight!", I hope that the humour and bonhommie is understood; expressions like "I ain't building no ark yet" and "microscopes at the wrong magnification" can doubtless be shot down with scorn and derision. -Some people here have recommended some reading, such as WG1 of AR4 and various websites. I will go there. I have an open mind and current position which I will amend according to evidence. The more aggressive brethren here seem to resent contrary viewpoints. -I don't think I have been rude so far, although others are rude to me. I think that advancing a contrary viewpoint is legitimate. -"Correlation is not causality" should have read "...is not neccessarily.." but I thought the 'neccessarily' superfluous at the time. Come on, guys, it is claimed that CO2 reaches a peak 800 years after temperature peaks. Now this may well be duff information, in which case point me to somewhere that contests it. But sneering, "Correlation is not causation, he says? Pah! Trollspeak!" is unhelpful.

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 6:45 PM

Brent, apologies if you are genuine. You have to understand that a lot of people come up with the same kind of 'new here, interested in real discussion, meeting of minds' stuff only to slowly reveal themselves as being the equivalent of a sniper rather than a machine gunner. I suggest not posting inflammatory nonsense like "the end is not nigh, let's all go to the pub instead", because that is guaranteed to get you dumped on from a great height. I struggle to see how anyone could not consider junkscience.com not a market-fundy front site, but didn't bring it up because it was always possible you are unaware of its true nature.

I'd appreciate it if you answered my questions, cheers.

Posted by: Bud | March 3, 2010 7:00 PM

If [junkscience] is seen as a partisan site then I apologise

It takes work to be this clueless.

but didn't he have a fair point about agreeing the greenhouse-physics and then moving on?

He didn't make a point about agreeing to the greenhouse physics -- he blatantly lied and said that "very few" skeptics disagree with the greenhouse physics and offered this in the context of faulting the video for attacking a strawman -- even though the video includes screenshots from such skeptics. And then along you come, lacking agreement with the greenhouse physics when you blather about "correlation is not necessarily causation" in re the connection between CO2 and temperature.

The statement "I can smell people like you aand James a mile away" is rather unfair.

Not at all -- your posts are riddled with falsehoods, intellectual laziness, and intellectual dishonesty.

When I say, "Right, let's fight!", I hope that the humour and bonhommie is understood

What is understood is you complete disregard for the fact that there is overwhelming evidence and a strong scientific consensus for GW -- it is GW, not just AGW, that you are chalenging -- and thus your BS about fighting and standing at the head of armies and heading off to the pub when we finally agree that there's nothing to worry about is sheer arrogance, whether expressed rudely or not. On what it is to be a troll: as I said of James, "a scientific illiterate coming to a scientific forum for the purpose of having a debate is a case of trolling". If you want to learn, then act like a receptive student.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 7:05 PM

Thirdly we know the extra CO2 is from humans because of the isotope ratios (carbon from fossil fuels has no C14 due to it decaying, so the ratios of C12, C13 and C14 change)

As was noted in the video which, again, Brent shows no signs of having watched.

Now, OK, maybe I'm giving too much weight to one glacier in one country. But be fair - shouldn't this give pause for thought? Doesn't this call into question the assertation that the Earth is warmer than it has been for yonks?

More indications that Brent hasn't watched the video, as well as his vast intellectual dishonesty as he cherry-picks madly -- funny how none of the other evidence of warming causes him to pause in thought.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 7:12 PM

Oh for Christ's sakes Brent, of course the climate changes. We know that thank you very much. You know what else? The drivers of climate also change. Whereas in the past CO2 and other GHGs were oftentimes a feedback (lagging temperature change (invoked by Milankovitch cycles for example), CO2 is now acting as a driver and the warming will invoke feedback loops. You are also conveniently forgetting the importance of rate of change.

Something else for you to consider Brent is ocean "acidification"-- no warming needed there. Even if climate sensitivity comes in at 2 C for doubling CO2 (the low end of the range), ocean acidification has the potential to have huge consequences.

Climate scientists know this, there is a whole discipline of paleo-climate. one of the reasons we have been able to estimate the sensitivity of our climate system to doubling CO2 is by using paleo climate reconstructions:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Working-out-climate-sensitivity.html http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm

Anyhow, if others wish to waste their time, fine. But I am done being an echo chamber for you.

Thanks to JBowers at SheWonk for the following list for Brent to reflect on since he is so focussed on Paleoclimate:

"Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years. Tripati et al (December 2009) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1178296 The carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the atmosphere has varied cyclically between ~180 and ~280 parts per million by volume over the past 800,000 years, closely coupled with temperature and sea level. For earlier periods in Earth’s history, the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) is much less certain, and the relation between pCO2 and climate remains poorly constrained. We use boron/calcium ratios in foraminifera to estimate pCO2 during major climate transitions of the past 20 million years. During the Middle Miocene, when temperatures were ~3° to 6°C warmer and sea level was 25 to 40 meters higher than at present, pCO2 appears to have been similar to modern levels. Decreases in pCO2 were apparently synchronous with major episodes of glacial expansion during the Middle Miocene (~14 to 10 million years ago) and Late Pliocene (~3.3 to 2.4 million years ago).

Earth system sensitivity inferred from Pliocene modelling and data. Lunt et al (December 2009) http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo706.html Quantifying the equilibrium response of global temperatures to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is one of the cornerstones of climate research. Components of the Earth’s climate system that vary over long timescales, such as ice sheets and vegetation, could have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but have often been neglected. Here we use a coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to simulate the climate of the mid-Pliocene warm period (about three million years ago), and analyse the forcings and feedbacks that contributed to the relatively warm temperatures. Furthermore, we compare our simulation with proxy records of mid-Pliocene sea surface temperature. Taking these lines of evidence together, we estimate that the response of the Earth system to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is 30–50% greater than the response based on those fast-adjusting components of the climate system that are used traditionally to estimate climate sensitivity. We conclude that targets for the long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations aimed at preventing a dangerous human interference with the climate system should take into account this higher sensitivity of the Earth system.

Here’s a chart to oggle: http://www.paleo.bris.ac.uk/~ggdjl/conferences/egu2009_ess.pdf

High Earth-system climate sensitivity determined from Pliocene carbon dioxide concentrations. Pagani et al (December 2009) http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations through radiative forcing and associated feedbacks—is estimated at 1.5–4.5 °C (ref. 1). However, this value incorporates only relatively rapid feedbacks such as changes in atmospheric water vapour concentrations, and the distributions of sea ice, clouds and aerosols2. Earth-system climate sensitivity, by contrast, additionally includes the effects of long-term feedbacks such as changes in continental ice-sheet extent, terrestrial ecosystems and the production of greenhouse gases other than CO2. Here we reconstruct atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations for the early and middle Pliocene, when temperatures were about 3–4 °C warmer than preindustrial values3, 4, 5, to estimate Earth-system climate sensitivity from a fully equilibrated state of the planet. We demonstrate that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago, and that CO2 levels at peak temperatures were between about 365 and 415 ppm. We conclude that the Earth-system climate sensitivity has been significantly higher over the past five million years than estimated from fast feedbacks alone.

Palaeoclimate: Global warmth with little extra CO2. Schneider & Schneider (January 2010) http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/full/ngeo736.html In the Early Pliocene, three to five million years ago, global temperatures were about 3–4|[deg]| C warmer than today in the low latitudes, and up to 10|[deg]| C warmer nearer the poles. Climate simulations and reconstructions of this relatively recent period (geologically speaking) may help constrain realistic magnitudes of future warming.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations during ancient greenhouse climates were similar to those predicted for A.D. 2100. Breecker et al (October 2009) http://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/576 Quantifying atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([CO2]atm) during Earth’s ancient greenhouse episodes is essential for accurately predicting the response of future climate to elevated CO2 levels. Empirical estimates of [CO2]atm during Paleozoic and Mesozoic greenhouse climates are based primarily on the carbon isotope composition of calcium carbonate in fossil soils. We report that greenhouse [CO2]atm have been significantly overestimated because previously assumed soil CO2 concentrations during carbonate formation are too high. More accurate [CO2]atm, resulting from better constraints on soil CO2, indicate that large (1,000s of ppmV) fluctuations in [CO2]atm did not characterize ancient climates and that past greenhouse climates were accompanied by concentrations similar to those projected for A.D. 2100."

Bye, bye.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 3, 2010 7:25 PM

I stated from the outset that I was sceptical (no, I think I said "unconvinced" or "in doubt", wishing to avoid the tribalism).

You were far more honest when you wrote

I was recently in discussion with fellow sceptics, trying to make a case for "minimum concensus" - areas where both sides can agree some basics and then continue debating at a more elevated level.

You so-called "sceptics" are indeed a tribe, committed to a position, and prepared to wage battle with what you percieve as the other side. But it is scientists who are the true skeptics and go where the evidence leads, wherever that is. Science is not a process based on debate as such, but rather on the scientific method -- observe, form hypotheses consistent with observation, attempt to disconfirm the hypotheses, producing new observations, rinse and repeat, while organizing the observations and hypotheses into explanatory theories. Those who waltz into the middle of this process to "debate" these theories are not doing science and are not merely being skeptical -- they are ideologues committed to a position.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 7:31 PM

Erasmussimo (155): I should've kept my big mouth shut about the funding aspect. What the hell do I know? I was responding to somebody who's mentioned it, and sounded off like an idiot.

There's a little story here: A few years ago, when I believed, I set myself the task of investigating remedial actions to AGW. All the tree-planting I concluded was a con-trick, and found some outrageous schemes, e.g. flying energy-saving lightbulbs half way round the world and sending teams of well-heeled accountancy types to Africa to train the natives how to do their fires more carbon-friendly. (Don't get me started....!) I then heard about mineral sequestration, where certain silicates such as Serpentine will react with CO2 and fix the carbon in a new carbonate compound. Started designing equipment. Started getting supplies from Lizard Point, and conducting trials with bottled CO2 and pressure-vessels. Had a couple of meetings at Nottingham Uni's CICCS. Went in search of funding to set it all up and got "piss off" letters from half of the FTSE 100 Index.

What you said about maverick scientists is of course right: the Nobel Prizes go to groundbreaking pioneers, not conformist clones. But how many 'honest journeyman' scientists are benefitting from research funding linked to AGW? I have heard biologists say "Nobody's interested in buttercups, but if we edit the grant proposal to say, "The effect of Global Warming on Buttercups....."

Anyway, there's a guy above - Calcinations - who's found the silver bullet and doesn't know it. Says, "If there's an 800-year lag, today's CO2 would be the result of events 800 years ago". Bingo! Medieval Warm Period! Shhhhhh! Don't tell Calcinations! That Nobel Prize - Calcination's by rights - will me mine all mine. Hahaaaaaa!

Oh, Kincaid - please don't take the above paragraph literally. Oh, no, he's typing it already: "Hey, Calc, that Nobel's yours man. Don't get ripped off, dude!" Oh, Kincaid - are you allowed to believe in the Medieval Warm Period? No? Then keep schtumm...

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 8:11 PM

Disco, I mean, Stu. To be honest, I really don't get the question. And I am afraid that if I start delving down that path I will be accused yet again of changing the subject.

Is it your suggestion that the prescence of aerosols in the atmosphere has masked the effects of AGW until now, and that aerosols are being replaced, therefore we can expect AGW to accelerate as a result? Look I don't know.

Do I think AGW, if it does exist, is a problem? Well again, I am not sure. I don't believe the predictions of multi metre sea level rises. The apparent melting that has already occured (see video) has had very little effect on sea levels (millimetres? centimetres?). And I would have thought that seasonal ice melt would show some sort of sea level effect if this were the case. From what I can tell, droughts and hurricanes etc at least so far are a bit of a red herring as the CSIRO pointed out only in the last day or so (at least with respect to the drought). I am cynical, to say the least, at the Victorian Government restricting coastal building due to sea level expectations whilst at the same time building a multi billion dollar desalination plant on the coastal flats of Wonthaggi.

Now look, perhaps you guys have it completely right. If that is the case, then you must be extraordinarily frustrated at how the message was sold in the first place, and to some degree continues to be sold. The likes of Gore were showing hockey stick graphs (leave aside the MWP bit) that showed a continuing vertical line. Now for a decade, that line has been largely horizontal. It hasn't gone down, sure, but it hasn't gone up the way it was represented, or, at least, the lay person was allowed to expect. The Arctic ice cap hasn't disappeared. Nor have the polar bears, nor have we seen an increase in the intensity of hurricanes. You can't escape that to the lay person, this was how the message was sold.

Then you look at this blog. I follow it a bit, as I follow many blogs. Due to work commitments, I won't be from Tuesday so please don't think I'm running away at that point. But look what happened when I jumped on and threw in some reasonable points about the video. At least half of it is dedicated to consequences of a warming that is not denied. It warmed, of course it did. We know that. Of course there are going to be consequences of warming so it doesn't add to the argument to list them. It doesn't prove that the warming was anthropogenic, which is the question. Even Monckton doesn't deny that CO2 has a greenhouse effect. The whole question is whether the effect is so great as to have caused the warming of late last century and can we expect that warming (in a directional sense) to resume. So I get on to make those points and, aside from one or two reasonably polite chaps, look at the abuse I copped. Way to sell your argument, guys. It's not just Marcel, but look at this character, Jakerman. I don't think I've yet responded directly to one thing he's said, so he's having an abusive argument with himself. Usually, the louder someone argues, the less convinced I am of their argument.

By the way (and this is generally rather than specific). The HIV analogy doesn't wash as I pointed out earlier. Use white blood cells. They are necessary but if you put too many in your body, it can be damaging (not a biologist by any stretch, just something I saw once).

Posted by: James | March 3, 2010 8:17 PM

By the way (and this is generally rather than specific). The HIV analogy doesn't wash as I pointed out earlier.

You don't understand how analogies work. The point about HIV was simply that small quantities can have large effects; Erasmussimo wasn't making any claim that the mechanisms or an other details are similar. Sheesh.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 3, 2010 8:25 PM

Well yeah, there are HIV denialists too. And all to often they are the climate denialists and the tobacco denialists.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | March 3, 2010 8:28 PM

DaveR (163): Thanks for the tip on reading up about C02 lags. Yes, I'll google it.

You said I hadn't followed the link suggested in #130, to SkepticalScience.

Gimme a chance, man! They're coming at me so fast now that I'm fending them off with Kung Fu from one leg and Karate with the other. That fecking Kincaid just appeared at the window and yelled "blithering fool" before running off.

Oi, Kincaid! What kind of word is 'blithering'? I had you down as a spotty teenager who can't find a girlfriend. 'Blithering' is old-fashioned. Are you one of those senile delinquents?

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 8:53 PM

If you aren't convinced yet, by the reams and reams of literature on the subject and by the temperature record which clearly shows warming what would it take to convince you of the theory?

Shorter Brent:

The theory might be wrong in some way, and the temperature record is like two swallows.

Brent, what evidence would you accept as cause for serious GHG mitigation such as 350 or 450 ppm CO2?

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 8:58 PM

I have a copy of Hanspeter Holzhauser's paper "Fluctuation of the Great Aletsch glacier during the last 3500 years", althogh I can't find it online any more.

That might be because the correct title is:

Holzhauser, H. (1997): Fluctuations of the Grosser Aletsch Glacier and the Gorner Glacier during the last 3200 years: new results.

You might be interested in more recent research by Holzhauser; "Holocene Glacier Fluctuations in the Swiss Alps and Dendrochronological Investigations at the Alpine Timberline in the Valaisian Alps", wherein he writes:

These investigations are necessary to find the range of glacier fluctuations during the last 10,000 years - the maximum and minimum extensions during holocene advance and retreat periods. Furthermore, this investigation also shows how far the modern accelerated retreat period of the alpine glaciers is unusual as compared to earlier retreat periods.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 3, 2010 9:22 PM

P. Lewis nailed it at #142.

What gave it away for me was the preference for UAH, the shortest and (because it is not measuring surface temperature) least "warming" record in the modern temperature context, whilst simultaneously coming out with:

When I grew tired of dumbly believing this expert or that one, I went in search of source data, but insisted on framing my own questions. These were: (i)What is the longest continuous direct measurement of temperature anywhere? Ans: Hadley CET since 1659...

Whatever's convenient at the time, eh?

Of course, the oh so polite beginning which eventually decloaked to show a linguistic pugilist, and the use of many discredited Denialist factoids, both added to the toll of warning bells, but what got me most was that a "graduate Manufacturing Eng who dropped out of a physics degree at London Uni", who professed to be "pretty durn [sic] fascinated by this Great AGW Debate [sic]", could come up with the notion that the temperature record of the planet is fractal.

He's obviously not studied the nature of temperature change over different scales of time, because the planet's temperature record is not fractal.

I smell troll, slathered in the lavender scent of feigned concern and moderation.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 3, 2010 9:26 PM

Brent's incorrect title did turn up this gem that reveals his true feelings, however (scroll to bottom):

Brent Hargreaves, on September 30th, 2009 at 6:54 am Said:

Hi there, and thank you for helping the AGW debate along. I’m a graduate engineer, and have made determined attempts to obtain the source data behind the AGW hypothesis. My current thinking is that the debate resembles a political or religious debate rather than a scientific exercise intended to confirm or refute the hypothesis. Doubt it and you’re a heretic!! I reckon that the AGW scare is just the latest incarnation of “apocalypticism”: mankind perversely needs to fear some great danger.

Sheesh!

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 3, 2010 9:39 PM

Brent:

What is the longest single-glacier record, direct and indirect anywhere? Ans: Mr. Holzhauser's pet glacier, the Aletsch, since 1200BC. Conclusion: Business as usual.

Here's Holzhauser's "business as usual":

along with virtually every other glacier expert, he is deeply worried. "No one can yet say with scientific certainty that the glacier is shrinking because of a greenhouse effect caused by humans," says Holzhauser. "But the fact is that in the last 100 years the glacier has shrunk faster than ever before. And in the last 10 years it has been reducing at a phenomenal rate of up to 50 m per year."

"The Aletsch is so big it reacts slowly," says Holzhauser. "But what we're seeing already augurs a tragedy."

Yup, sounds like business as usual to me.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 3, 2010 9:45 PM

Brent has left a long trail on the Internet. Let's follow it and find out what he really thinks, shall we?

All emphasis mine.

ABC Blogs:

What a good article! I have actually found the Great Climate Debate rather distressing, fearing that the "other side" may carry the day, with catastrophic consequences. (I am teasing you here: I'll reveal "my side" later...) The notion that scientific debate is not gentlemanly but instead a pitiless conflict between ambitious combatants has the ring of truth. "Science" has recently stepped into the void left by theologians; the unwashed public have replaced one set of authority figures for another. And we, the public, find it distressing that our experts are in conflict. Like yer parents arguing with each other. But the daft notion that "science" has it all figured out is, well, daft. It's a dynamic process advancing in fits and starts, and (presumably) even through regressions. And is NEVER settled.

Watts Up With That:

I hereby propose a detailed study of the Urban Heat Island Effect. Its null hypothesis would be: “that there is, to 99% significance, no difference between temperatures at the centre of 100,000-population towns and a temperatures at a 10km perimeter.” And then let the facts speak. The Gore Brigade have failed to demolish the null hypothesis that temperatures in recent decades are insignificantly different to those of past centuries. The general public continue to believe in this null hypothesis. This is not surprising: beneath the byzantine complexity of Statistical Method lies a solid core of common sense, a quality which sadly disappears in some scientists who place their seat on the gravy train before their professional integrity.

Watts Up With That:

Following the advice of Jerome Ravetz here on Wattsupwiththat – “Never forget that you might be wrong” – I had a stroll around the RealClimate site looking for their best shot at validating the AGW hypothesis. It linked to a “Stand Up for Climate Science” petition, http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?clim4tr&1 and a sad little entry by Phil Jones: “195. Prof Phil Jones. Thanks guys, I need all the help I can get. Your support is much appreciated.” I guess he had it coming, but he looked like a frightened old man yesterday in London. Guys, the momentum is with us now: shouldn’t we now concentrate on scientific debate rather than further reviling Jones now that he’s down? Some great victories have been won since Climategate emerged; isn’t it time to look for common ground, to capture the parts of climate science that are agreed by both factions? Please, a little magnanimity. Don’t destroy his dignity.

Ritchie, James, I share your fury at the obscene fraud that is AGW. (RichieP (08:54:05) – “… these wicked conmen”, James Sexton (09:08:39) – “There must be a judgment day…”) If the Hockey Team didn’t believe their own pseudo-science I’d agree with you that the attack must go on. But listen to the interview Mann gave on 26 Feb – http://www.pointofinquiry.org/michael_mann_unprecedented_attacks_on_climate_research/ and I hope you’ll hear what I hear: this guy thinks he’s just an honest scientist being attacked by irrational savages who try to undermine his solid research and the consequent…. aaaah… apocalypse. Yes, he’s barking mad. Steven Mosher, here on WUWT argues that it’s a case of “Noble Cause Corruption”. Mann is wrong, not evil. Ritchie, your references to Virgil and Nelson make your point very well, but the historical metaphors I would offer are 1918 v 1945. The allies foolishly took Germany to the cleaners at the end of WWI, and wisely helped Germany back to health at the end of WWII. Fight the disease (self-calibrating data-withholding gravy-train futurological pseudo-science) not the patient. I suggest that a true victory would be Michael Mann declaring, “Based on the data I then had, the Hockey Stick was good science. But in the light of the new evidence, I agree that recent decades are well within historical range. Maybe the “driver” – if any driver is required – is solar. Whilst we all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we now know that its variations are a consequence of temperature changes, not a cause.” And they all lived happily ever after ;-)

Never Yet Melted:

I reckon that the hacker (or was it maybe a mole) who blew the whistle on this scandalous abuse of scientific procedure at East Anglia University deserve a Nobel prize! Professor Jones has paid the price and resigned; I hope that in the US a rigorous examination of Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” graph will now be conducted. If, upon accessing Mann’s full methodology and data, the Hockey Stick is discredited, then the reputation of its creator must inevitably crumble.

Climate Fraudit:

Steve, I think you made a small typo above. Sumbissions by the public to the Muir Russell Inquiry need to be in by 28 Feb, not 10 Feb as you wrote above. I’m going to propose that Boulton’s links to UEA make him an unsuitable member. Keep up the magnificent work. I reckon that your tenacity in demanding scientific rigour is of great importance, and will be celebrated in future accounts of science at the millennium.

There's a lot more. Follow it up for yourselves if you're interested in what kind of person Brent is, and the puerile game he's playing.

Posted by: John | March 3, 2010 9:57 PM

We shouldn't be too surprised at all this denialist straw grasping.

It's happened before. In the 19thC the denialists of the day (the Flat-Earthers) were quite prominent in the media (ie. gutter-press), issueing challenges (and cash prizes) to scientists if they could demonstrate that the earth was round. Naturally, the Flat-Earther would proclaim all the proofs wrong and then do it all over again some time later.

The similarities with Monckton et al are notable - shameless self-promoters and showmen, who appealed to those sections of the media more interested in spectacle than substance.

Posted by: Michael | March 3, 2010 10:11 PM

Luminous Beauty (183):

Yes, the posting I wrote on Sep 30th was, and remains, my view. Neoapocalypticism indeed.

Had I stated my entire 'current position' at the outset my reception here on this site would have been all the more hostile.

I expect that my reticence will be seen as deviousness and hypocrisy, and I suppose I had better withdraw.

With nothing to lose, here is my parting shot: If a "Troll" is a person who maliciously engages in conversation with the express purpose of disrupting it, well, no, I have better things to do with my time. I was hoping to encounter courteous and knowledgeable people who would, during frank and fiery debate, challenge my current position and thereby help me evolve.

Hasn't been a complete waste of time: People have kindly proposed some interesting leads on C14, on sensitivity, on Holzhauser's latest work.

For those who consider that explicit confirm/refute criteria of a hypothesis is some kind of trap, well this I find revealing. Ask a churchman when his prophet's coming back, or ask a politician when the budget will balance: they will both spout empty eloquence which really means "Ahhhhh no! You're not going to get me on THAT one!"

Ask a scientist what velocity will be a second after dropping an apple and he'll reply "9.81 m/s"

Ask a climatologist, as distinct from a scientist, what are the falsifiability criteria for his hypothesis and (with the honourable exception of the OpenMind website) you'll get a load of waffle that really means "Ahhhhh no! You're not going to get me on THAT one!"

Posted by: Brent | March 3, 2010 10:26 PM

"Ask a scientist what velocity will be a second after dropping an apple and he'll reply "9.81 m/s""

Bang there goes the atmophere! If only science were so simple Brent. That whispy invisible stuff, you'd think physics could almost ignore it wouldn't you.

I find the conclusion to you [latest rant](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/theempiricalevidenceforman.php#comment-2321010 quite removed from the discussion I read here, thought I haven't read it all.

However I find your conclusion quite antagonistic to your method/process.

From this:

I was hoping to encounter courteous and knowledgeable people who would, during frank and fiery debate, challenge my current position and thereby help me evolve.

To this:

Ask a climatologist, as distinct from a scientist, what are the falsifiability criteria for his hypothesis and (with the honourable exception of the OpenMind website) you'll get a load of waffle that really means "Ahhhhh no! You're not going to get me on THAT one

What is missing is the evidnece to support your conclusion. In fact how many climatologist did your interveiw here to gain this conclusion?

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 10:48 PM

Not accusing you, John. It was a general question unrelated to what you posted about Brent.

Posted by: James | March 3, 2010 10:57 PM

Not accusing you, John. It was a general question unrelated to what you posted about Brent.

Of course it wasn't. Because accusing me of wrong doing in this matter would be a futile and embarrassing excercise.

Posted by: John | March 3, 2010 11:03 PM

John, in my own mind I silently disagreed with you when you wrote Brent is an obvious troll. I thought he was a different class and his approach was not obvious. But your chasing evidence and subsequent developments have altered my position.

Cheers.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 11:07 PM

Gack!

At #182 I should have said:

...least "warm" record...

rather than:

...least "warming" record...

They mean two quite different things.

And whilst I'm here - Brent, you might protest a desire to engage others here on the basis of science, but when you walk through the door with so many patently false 'points', you can't expect to be tolerated for too long. As Chris O'neill noted, one of the foci of the Deltoid crowd is to unpick both the deliberate and the ignorant bullshit of pseudoscientific claims, and you walked in with a great big target on your chest.

You were given quite a long grace period by the rough-and-tumble standards of blog discussion, and you failed to demonstrate your sincerity. The problem is yours, and not that of others.

Live with it - or leave your ideology behind and get some real education.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 3, 2010 11:23 PM

Peter if you read this, I really liked the video, but I didn't like the Obama bit even before James presented it as relateing to health care. I found that bit a little grating.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 11:40 PM

James the misrepresention is limited to Obama making this joke against anit AGW conspiracists rather than health care. Video's premise is accurate insofar as it conveys the the anti AGW delusionist who actually agrue there is a conspiracy plot.

My assessment is the the consipracy delustionsist are in greater number on in the anti AGW group than the anti health care group, But with much overlap.

And you Jame are one that resorts to scientific conspiracy theory in this debate if to a lessor extent than some.

Posted by: jakerman | March 3, 2010 11:58 PM

John @188 many thanks!

Brent, lovely comments made at the denier sites. Why do those in denial about AGW have to repeatedly show themselves to be morally bankrupt and deceitful? You only harm your cause.

For what it is worth, my log post #164 finally came through. A good few references to keep you busy.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 4, 2010 12:13 AM

Shorter James:

Warmist are only permitted to smack down arguments I have vetted and deemed to represent mainstream sceptics.

Please send arguments you intend to smack down to me for vetting, as I will not let you know in advance which arguments are mainstream and which get a free pass.

Posted by: jakerman | March 4, 2010 12:40 AM

James said:

"Disco, I mean, Stu. To be honest, I really don't get the question. And I am afraid that if I start delving down that path I will be accused yet again of changing the subject.

Is it your suggestion that the prescence of aerosols in the atmosphere has masked the effects of AGW until now, and that aerosols are being replaced, therefore we can expect AGW to accelerate as a result? Look I don't know."

Don't worry, you were halfway there. If aerosols provide a big cooling effect, the immediate reaction is usually 'good, that'll counteract the warming!'. But only for as long as aerosols are increasing in concentration, even if they stayed the same the increasing GHG forcing would cause warming. Obviously if aerosol pollution was cleaned up, the warming would likely accelerate.

To put it another way, large aerosol cooling implies high climate sensitivity, and vice-versa. We've seen 0.7-0.8C warming in the surface temp record over the last >100 years. If aerosols are hardly masking any warming, then great because we'll probably only see a 2C rise this century. Could be 4-6C if they're masking a lot of warming.

I dunno about you (and everyone else), but it seemed counterintuitive when I first heard this. Made plenty of sense after some thought though.

Posted by: Stu | March 4, 2010 2:31 AM

Ah, that's the crux of the matter! We simply don't know James, aerosol forcing is one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science.

Posted by: Stu | March 4, 2010 3:22 AM

I guarantee you that any scientist who disproves AGW will certainly get a Nobel Prize.

The smart money is on two - physics and economics ;-)

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 4, 2010 3:46 AM

An interesting study of the Urban Heat Island effect has just emerged, by Dr. Roy Spencer at Alabama Uni.

If this research "has legs", then it will surely be a useful calibrator of earthstation temperature measurements.

Some troll called Brent was calling for just such a study (#188). Glad we got rid of him.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/03/spencer-using-hourly-surface-dat-to-gauge-uhi-by-population-density/

Posted by: tnerB | March 4, 2010 4:45 AM

Brent droned;

Ask a scientist what velocity will be a second after dropping an apple and he'll reply "9.81 m/s"

And a feather??.........

OMG! Gravity is a fraud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Michael | March 4, 2010 5:09 AM

Whoops, yes this is the missing words round.

Posted by: Stu | March 4, 2010 5:18 AM

I didn't reckon that video was as conclusive as this one. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/2vb

Posted by: sunspot | March 4, 2010 5:59 AM

Yes, Andrew, it's me.

Given that people found postings I've made elsewhere (which, incidentally, I stand by), I'm wondering whether to withdraw.

It seems that others here consider me some kind of agent provocateur, and 'blew my cover'. But had I wished to visit incognito I wouldn't have used my real Christian name.

I drew some flak for claiming that there were people of goodwill on both sides, and fell foul of some ferocious partisanship. For what it's worth, I'm convinced that this Great Debate will eventually reach some form of concensus, with combatants on both sides conceding points, and over on WUWT I was arguing with sceptic bigots that, e.g., the atrocious attacks on Phil Jones were unfair and utterly unhelpful, and that the two warring factions should be seeking at least SOME common ground.

For instance, a guy called James tried an approach along the lines of "We all agree on these points; but we disagree on some others; let's debate those others." He was howled down, but the howlers may have drowned out other, more courteous debaters who might usefully have continued the debate.

I stated from the outset that I was a sceptic, but initially avoided using that loaded word. I did not claim that I had a virgin record; that I had never expressed grave reservations about the AGW hypothesis. I figured that it would poison the atmosphere here if I tried to describe the full journey I've travelled as a mere member of the public in search of the truth.

I've been reading some of the WG1 document, which begins with a sound statement of Scientific Method (in Ch 1), and refers to Popper's principle of falsifiability. In what I thought was a cheerful tone, I asked the chatroom what it would take to make them change their minds (WG1 says "It is not the belief or opinion of the scientists that is important, but rather the results of this testing." The "test" I proposed was the UAH MSU data, but earthstation data corrected for UHI effect would do). Some had a decent stab at accepting this cheerful challenge which would anyway have zero effect on the high-level players. Some said, "It's more complicated than that: a single temperature series can't do what Einstein's eclipse did. Other factors, such as polecap cover, need to contribute to the chequered flag", which is a very fair point.

The scorn and derision heaped upon language like 'chequered flag' (which men of good will will accept as shorthand for a much more verbose set of validation criteria) is a little offputting. But one must accept that, in such a blogosphere environment, the loudmouth is enitled to his say.

I remain convinced that, on the warmist side (sorry to use that perjorative label) there are people who hold the beliefs they do because they have seen what to them is satisfying evidence, and I'm interested in that. Now that my sincerity is disbelieved, I understand that some will think these are empty words; that fools like me will maintain their stance regardless of contrary evidence.

There's intolerance here to contrary viewpoints, although some have been kind enough to say, "What you just asserted is countered by the following (...)", and I'm determined to follow such leads and question my current stance.

I see a historical parallel between this Great Debate and the theory of Continental Drift which was initially pooh-poohed by the leading lights of geology until observation confirmed the theory. Unfortunately, because the current debate's resolution depends on how the future pans out, we may have to wait a long time.

Posted by: tnerB | March 4, 2010 7:17 AM

Michael (220): You said "And a feather??.........

OMG! Gravity is a fraud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Surely, you understand the point I was making: that science depends on the comparison of observed and predicted data; that a physicist would stick his neck out and make a forecast; that if some figure other than 9.81 m/s were measured it would be worthy of investigation, with the potential to cause a re-think.

Tell me, if in the future the IPCC forecasts don't tally with actual observation, what would it take for you to say, "Theory refuted!"?

Posted by: tnerB | March 4, 2010 7:36 AM

tnerB @226, sorry but Brent backwards wasn't difficult to crack...

@ 228 , It is already actual observation. If you go back to the beginning of this topic you'll see comments about the 29,500 datasets mentioned in the video.

Posted by: Andrew | March 4, 2010 8:18 AM

Brent @ 228:

Tell me, if in the future the IPCC forecasts don't tally with actual observation, what would it take for you to say, "Theory refuted!"?

I'm not a climate scientist. I accept the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that human caused global warming is a real and serious problem. That's the only sensible position a layman can take. If the theory were to be refuted either by observations or by some new research, that consensus would change and I would follow.

Posted by: Dave R | March 4, 2010 8:25 AM

Brent writes:

Surely, you understand the point I was making

I did, and it was an exemplar point. You tried to make science simpler than it really is and you go caught out, as in gotchya!

Science isn't as simple as you pretend. There are complexities and hence scientists make some caveats. But the uncertainties work both ways. Things could be worst or better than best estimates, timing could be sooner or later than best estimates. That does not mean we ignore nor even reject the most precise estimates achievable.

Posted by: jakerman | March 4, 2010 8:50 AM

DaveR,

An excellent point. I am a senior scientist who works in the field of population ecology. However, in the field of climate science, like you, I defer to the vast majority of my peers doing the actual research who argue that there is a very real human fingerprint over the current warming. Note that the denialiti, for the most part, do not do any research. Like creationists, their job is to sit by on the sidelines and to chip away at the evidence in support of AGW which regularly appears on the pages of peer-reviewed scientific journals. Similarly, don't expect the pages of Evolution or Journal of Evolutionary Biology to publish articles in support of intelligent design, because the evidence does not exist. Instead, there are web sites who dedicate themselves to debunking the evidence behind evolution. This is the same game played by the AGW denialati.

What I tend to find in these debates is that many of the contrarians try to give the impression that they are, indeed, armchair experts, valiantly seeking the truth from the fiction. But, like Brent, they come on here hand waving 'facts' from appalling anti-scientific denialist web sites like Milloy's "Junk Science". At the same time, they do not like to read (or are too lazy to seek out) the primary literature. Instead they rely on interpretations from think tanks, astroturf corporate lobbying groups and web sites set up explicitly to distort the empirical evidence.

When Brent appeared to deny yesterday that there is a huge anti-environmental 'slush fund' I realized his comments were beyond the pale. One of the things I wrote in the journal Oikos with Stuart Pimm ten years ago with respect to separating good science from the rubbish rotuinely churned out by the think tanks is to 'follow the money'. In researching this on and off for the past 15 years what I have found is that huge amounts of cash are constantly channeled from industries opposing government regulation to public relations companies and think tanks who act as third parties in promulgating the corporate view. Check out how much money, for example, the fossil fuel industries and their paid-for lobbyists spend trying to influence government policy in the United States each year, and then compare this with the total lobbying budget of environmental NGOs. The latter's lobbying and PR budget is infintisimally small in comparison. And this is just money spent for lobbying purposes. Add up campaign contributions and then the difference becomes even more stupendous. Of course money buys influence, and this is why the corporate lobby invest so much money in trying to debunk the science that they effectively hate.

With respect to adaptation, humans are challenging natural systems and the communities and species that make them up to adjust to changes that they have not experienced in millions of years, if ever. Besides climate change, humans have simplified ecosystems in a variety of ways, through fragmentation, outright elimination, the invasion of non-native exotic species, chnages in the nutrient and hydrological cycles and various types of pollution. Climate change has been added to the mix. GiThere is little doubt that we are forcing nature to respond in ways in which it will not be able to, given the synergized effects of the human assault. We are already seeing ecological network webs unravel, due to mistimed phenological effects amongst species at different trophic levels that are involved in strong interactions. When this happens, feedback loops within communities are damaged, and entire chains of species are disprupted, with serious consequences for the functioning of ecosystems. The think tanks and astroturf groups do not have a clue about any of this, so they dismiss it. This is a typical contrarian trick. Do not understand something? Then ignore it.

The problem is that natural systems are immensely complex and exhibit adaptive properties. At the same time, given their complexity, ecologists have only been able to examine some communities whereas the vast majority (>99%) are not being studied at all. This means that, if the worrying trends that are being currently elucidated in research were to be extrpolated across ecological communities across the biosphere, we would probably realize how serious the predicament really is. Given that complex adaptive systems do not function linearly, once some critical threshold is passed then we can expect very nasty surprises. Pleading ignorance, as Marcel Kinkaid said quite elegantly earlier using the Titanic analogy, is no excuse.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 4, 2010 9:07 AM

Totally off-topic, guys, but apparently the American Family Association, also known as People Who Should Focus On Their Own Fucking Family, wants to stone Tillikum the orca.

The crazies want to stone a fucking orca.

Posted by: Katharine | March 4, 2010 9:12 AM

Tell me, if in the future the IPCC forecasts don't tally with actual observation, what would it take for you to say, "Theory refuted!"?

I repeat, there is no indication that any of the theories which underpin current climate knowledge and predictive capability are anywhere close to being refuted. Asking the question that you keep asking implies an intransigience on the part of the recipient that is simply not borne out by the evidence.

Posted by: Bud | March 4, 2010 9:19 AM

Brent imagines:

I see a historical parallel between this Great Debate and the theory of Continental Drift which was initially pooh-poohed by the leading lights of geology until observation confirmed the theory.

If that's what you see, you need to have your scientific methodology vision checked.

Disparagers of continental drift, and disparagers of other radical ideas such as a round earth and evolution, were largely holding onto their scientifically untested beliefs through ideology (usually religious) or through habit. Those folk who relinquished their opposition were the ones who examined the scientific evidence and assessed it independently of their ideology.

The physics of anthropogenic global warming has been tested as have few other theories, with no credible refutation resulting. The science underpinning many other climate-related fields has also been minutely scrutinised, and it has emerged ever more robust.

In the case of AGW, the denialist cause is not the equivalent of continental drift, for several fundamental reasons.

Firstly, the idea of human-caused climate change was in fact rejected decades ago by many, when it intially emerged, and it was with the gathering of evidence that it has come to be accepted by most.

Secondly, the testing of AGW physics reinforces the scientific case for it, whilst the testing of the denialist cause weakens the denialist case.

If there really is some extraordinary proof lingering somewhere that refutes AGW, it has hidden itself so well that it has eluded both the rational impartiality of the scientific method, and the desperate trawlings of the pseudoscientific anti-AGW ideologues. Any evidence that might be able to counter the fundamental case for AGW after such searching must be so subtle that it's existence is unlikely to actually make much difference to the case anyway, or it simply does not exist as the Denialati imagine it.

If Brent thinks that he has a serious case for refuting the physics and the empirical evidence supporting AGW, he might consider helping the latest troll on deltoid who has dropped the ball when asked my standard list of questions.

In the end, the only poo-pooing that will happen will be scraped off the faces of the Denialists when the Great Experiment inexorably unwinds in spite of the howls of the ideaologues who claim that there is actually a "Great Debate" in the first place. Unfortunately for many humans, and for many non-human species, by then the rest of us will probably be up to our necks in poo-poo because we wasted so many decades engaged in useless faffing about a debate that was not a debate at all.

I've quoted Francis Crick before, and I'll quote him again:

And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 4, 2010 9:45 AM

To me the most obvious evidence that the world is warming is that satellites can now see how much electromagnetic radiation the Earth receives and how much electromagnetic radiation the Earth either reflects or radiates away into space. Earth receives more than it emits and reflects. If one understands the concept called conservation of energy then one knows the Earth is warming without trusting the temperature database of CRU or the other multiple organizations as well.

Is this type of concept really too hard to be mentioned on TV, radio, and newspapers?

/Formerly a "a lurker"

Posted by: Childermass | March 4, 2010 10:46 AM

Bud (240): You wrote: ".... but if you consistently refuse to answer the question which I have asked you twice - what would it take you to accept the conclusions of the vast majority of the world's scientific community? - the why the hell should anyone..."

Fair point, Bud, and I see I have tried your patience. It seems I need a bit of a re-think on validation criteria. People here are consistently saying that it's dumb and simplistic to seek validation by some single numerical parameter. Previously, I'd have responded to your challenge with "a UAH MSU temperature anomaly above +0.8C on three occasions in the period 2010-2020".

But (and I'm not being ironic here) I'm struggling to come up with something more sophisticated. I've taken the position that, since we're talking about global warming, the question 'well, is it warmer or not'? was reasonable.

Above, Lotharsson spoke disapprovingly of 'Popperian fundamentalists'. Now don't bite my head off here... I must say that that sounds like a virtue not a vice. Here I am looking for a yes/no validation, and people are saying that it's dumb and simplistic approach to hypothesis testing. And I'm honour-bound to shift my paradigm if I'm shown to have reduced the pass/fail criterion to a meaningless snippet of data.

Assume for the moment that I'm not being cute with you: Please tell me what is an appropriate measure of whether the AGW hypothesis is sound? And please treat me as if I were 'an intelligent but uninformed listener'; be patient. All this angry "Look, idiot, 29000 biological indicators can't be LYING like you are!!!" is a tad upsetting, even via our remote keyboards.

Posted by: Brent | March 4, 2010 12:35 PM

Luminous Beauty, I wonder if it will be lost on Brent that the report you link to was published in 1966, or the facts that the US military has done research on radiative forcing of GHGs.

Brent's faith in the misguided assertion that AGW is a fallacy and/or hoax, and that climate scientists are frauds is unshakable. Why are we engaging such a mendacious individual who have stated such heinous and fallacious statements about climate scientists on the public record?

Why are those in denial so often morally bankrupt, and compelled to lie? Why?

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 4, 2010 3:09 PM

Brent @ 246:

I'm struggling to come up with something more sophisticated

What specific objections do you have to the more sophisticated approach to which you were pointed in #127?

Here I am looking for a yes/no validation

What specific objections do you have to the simple approach that was suggested in #232?

Assume for the moment that I'm not being cute with you

I don't think that's a realistic assumption.

Posted by: Dave R | March 4, 2010 3:30 PM

They're coming at me so fast now that I'm fending them off with Kung Fu from one leg and Karate with the other.

This is your fundamental problem, moron. Instead of "fending off" the collected knowledge of the scientific community, you should be shutting your yap and listening.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 3:38 PM

I'm a little outnumbered here.

Not just here, fool; see

Scientific opinion on climate change

@Bud I'm sorry, but with respect, this is not a negotiation, the "two camps" (not that this is an appropriate way to describe the scientific community against the 'skeptics')

Indeed it is not. As I noted earlier, science is not a process based on debate as such, but rather on the scientific method. The basic ethos of debating is winning (witness Brent's fight metaphors) whereas the basic ethos of science is learning. Or, as Quine put it,

The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 4:05 PM

LB, thanks for the cartoon. What really cracked me up is that they are paying money to hear a lie.

And Marcel, keeps on nailing it. The wise thing for Brent to have done would have left as soon as John outed him and exposed the vitriol and rhetoric that Brent has posted elsewhere. i like that quote by Quine.

I'm beginning to think that Brent may be yet another denialist D-K case.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 4, 2010 4:15 PM

apart from the minor explosions

If you don't express contempt for these people, you're playing into their hands -- they seek legitimacy in the form of a "debate", with two "sides" or "camps". Don't give these scum what they want.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 4:34 PM

Our best tactic is evidence, risk management and effective communication.

Indeed, but it is a (nuanced?) mistake to think that "communication" should include dialogues with anti-science trolls on blogs like this, regardless of how nuanced they are -- it's a waste of time and resources, per #101. And again, on what makes someone like Brent a troll from his very first post: "a scientific illiterate coming to a scientific forum for the purpose of having a debate is a case of trolling". His post was "nuanced" in that it was deliberately designed to present himself as a reasonable, uncommitted person, a non-extremist, seeking a reasonable and rational discussion ... but to a nuanced reader there were all sorts of red flags; certainly his defense of fellow "sceptic" James and his mischaracterization of James's ridiculous attack on this video was a big one.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 6:47 PM

Thanks James, now we know you’ve got nothing meaningful to contribute. What are you doing back here again?

activates killfile

Posted by: phi1ip | March 4, 2010 7:15 PM

I was trying to engage in some meaningful debate

Denial is no debate, you scientific illiterate.

You see a check of Marcel's form

Ah yes, form ... but substance is what matters, fool.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 7:30 PM

As a long time reader of this blog, I have to say that one of the main reasons it is so consistently excellent is the relatively civil, science-based exchanges. I understand that it is frustrating to engage with others who are clearly not interested in good faith discussion, but I don't see how gratuitous belligerence and spite do anything but cheapen the discussion and dilute otherwise good arguments.

Posted by: A. Lurker | March 4, 2010 7:52 PM

Marcel, I'd love to check your analyse your comments for substance, but sadly, there is none.

That you are a liar is already well-established; no need to compound it with such obvious falsehoods.

I don't see how gratuitous belligerence and spite do anything but cheapen the discussion and dilute otherwise good arguments.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam. And just what good arguments are there with those acting in bad faith?

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 8:05 PM

I really don't want to sound like a concern troll.

Then stop being one.

I just think such unrelenting hatred and bile is unproductive.

What are you, James's older brother?

Given how many people have said that I'm spot on, my comments don't seem to be all that unproductive. How about yours, lurker?

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 8:41 PM

A. Lurker, are you Brent?

Posted by: John | March 4, 2010 8:53 PM

I'm not sure why you think that my questioning your tone is equivalent to defending James, but whatever. I'm not really interested in arguing about this.

Then stop being one.

Fair enough. I've said my piece.

Posted by: A. Lurker | March 4, 2010 8:57 PM

I'm not sure why you think that my questioning your tone is equivalent to defending James, but whatever.

That's not what I meant. James said that my posts (including my other internet posts) consist of nothing but "vitriolic and obscene abuse", and then you chimed in with "unrelenting hatred and bile"; these are very similar misrepresentations.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 4, 2010 9:05 PM

Sorry to sound accusatory, but I do get suspicious when threads fill up with a variety of new names after an inglorious exit from a troll.

Posted by: John | March 4, 2010 9:19 PM

Marcel, i largely agree with your assessment of both James and Brent. I just prefer the way John demostrates his case. Its a rare occation that calling someone a liar is more effective than demonstrating it.

Name calling is an equal opportunity sport, any mug can swing back with bluster and noise. Using evidence to make a case greatly favours those who are practicing truth seeking traits.

Posted by: jakerman | March 4, 2010 9:35 PM

Dr. Rabett has been a busy bunny. He posted this today and provides an excellent link as to the theory of radiative transfer.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/03/simplest-explanation.html

Highly recommended. Also stimulating some discussion going by the number of comments.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | March 4, 2010 11:28 PM

Somehow, they always seem to be considered as one question.

Uh, no; GW and AGW are different terms.

even if you believe natural causes are largely at fault, you can still logically say "Well, I can't control nature, but I can control that part of it that's man-made" and proceed to do so.

But what AGW deniers actually say is that anthropogenic factors are swamped by natural factors and that it's too expensive and demanding to make changes with uncertain and at best minimal benefits.

Bringing down the emotional level would certainly help to achieve the changes we need to make.

The emotional level is pumped up by the huge outlays of money by corporations that don't want to make such changes.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 5, 2010 1:45 AM

jeff of the "inside". If you have a problem with the debate, then perhaps you'd best start looking internally for the reasons why.

For instance, look at Al Gore's "documentary". If your lot hadn't made such a big deal out of the over dramatics, and outright lies in Gore's and other documentaries, hadn't so blatantly manipulated the media, hadn't sought to suppress the release of data and conflicting views, then our lot might not have so much to work with.

At the end of the day, Jeff of the inside, unless you find yourself a bunch of weapons and a bloody big army, you're going to need to convince our lot that your case is meritorious. So far you have failed dismally. The abuse of the Hamiltons and Kincaids of the world hardly helps. So suck it up, Princess, and make your case. Because so far you haven't.

Posted by: James | March 5, 2010 4:25 AM

, unless you find yourself a bunch of weapons and a bloody big army, you're going to need to convince our lot that your case is meritorious

That would take brain surgery, not an army.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 5, 2010 4:37 AM

James,

I think that Marcel and others here have pretty much dismantled the nonsense you have presented here with unfortunate regularity. As I said above, the 'debate' over AGW should have been over 10 years ago. That is hasn't has little to do with science and everything to do with profit and power. Given that you, like most of the denialists that come on here, know little about science, I can only surmise that your motivation is also a political and idealogical one. Let me guess: you are politically to the right and perhaps even a libertarian? Gee, that was not hard to predict, was it?

The so-called 'victory' of the denialati is a pyrrhic one. All that this obfuscation of the science does is to push complex adaptive systems towards a point beyond which they will be unable to sustain life in manner that we know. Once this happens (and it already is), we can expect there to be serious consequences.

Nature is unforgiving. Once critical ecosystem services break down as a result of a diverse and ongoing human assault, then there will be profound consequences for our species. There is no way around it. At present we are living off a one-time inheritance of natural capital and are spending it like there is no tomorrow. On top of that, we are altering critical biogeochemical cycles (and climate), forces that operate over very large spatial and temporal scales. As ecologist Peter Vitousek said back in 1994, there will be effects of human activities on ecosystems across the biosphere. We are already entering a period of consequences. Against this background are people like yourselves who are happy to see humanity fiddling while Rome burns. You appear unconcerned that there are likely to be serious repercussions over the current global experiment that humans are conducting on systems of immense complexity but which sustain us. Climate change, given its scale, is likely to exacerbate many of the other stresses induced on nature by humanity.

So go ahead and keep your head buried in the sand. They say that ignorance is bliss. You are a shining example of that.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 5, 2010 4:46 AM

Oh, and the only thing that Marcel has dismantled is any shred of goodwill that interested doubters may have had in your cause.

Posted by: James | March 5, 2010 5:16 AM

"Trading hypotheticals does not work. It is not a real market and must fail."

Someone had better tell the currency markets to hurry up and fail.

Posted by: Neil | March 5, 2010 5:39 AM

Andrew, you would be hard pressed to find me trying to debate the science with out very clearly expressed reservations on this blog......you might want to read my comments rather than the abusive commentary on my comments when assessing this. And sorry, but like it or not there are a bunch of scientists with an opposing view. They are not all paid by Big Oil (I've checked that) and a lot of them make a very good logical case.

They are kind of helped by the flatline temperature graph over the last decade.

Posted by: James | March 5, 2010 5:44 AM

James @ 292:

Oh, and the only thing that Marcel has dismantled is any shred of goodwill that interested doubters may have had in your cause.

James thinks that he can switch back and forth between concern trolling and regular trolling without anyone noticing.

Posted by: Dave R | March 5, 2010 5:46 AM

James, you utterly default yourself from this debate when you write, "And as for paying "climate debts" to countries that have spent the last 50-100 years slaughtering each other well fuck that".

Good grief, where to begin dismantling this appalling remark? Perhaps by beginning with the fact that poverty in the third world has been driven by western foreign policy for years? By the fact that the US and UK have traditionally seen countries in the south as having a service function for comemrcial elites in the north? Hell, man, have you read any planning documents at all? Have you heard of George Kennan? Paul Nitze? Henry Kissinger? The Council on Foreign Relations? Zbignieuw Brezinski? Have you read memos written by these political 'luminaries'?

Samir Amin, perhaps Africa's most renowned economist, said at the World Social Forum at Peurto Allegre in 2003 that the developed world (meaning countries in the 'quad') were only interested at 'looting resources for the south'. Patrick Bond exapands upon this in his book, "Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation", as does economist Tom Athanasiou in "Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor". Dimitri Simes, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, observed in 1988 that Mikhael Gorbachev’s initiatives would “liberate American foreign policy from the straightjacket imposed by superpower hostility". This meant that the United States can end “the manipulation of America by third world nations.” The manipulation of the rich by the undeserving poor has always been seen as a serious problem amongst western elites, and is particularly relevant in Latin America, which in the preceding five years (1983-1988) had transferred some $150 billion to the industrial West in addition to $100 billion of capital flight, amounting to twenty-five times the total value of the Alliance for Progress and fifteen times that of the Marshall Plan.

The litany goes on. Nothing changes, except that the US now sees little in the way of a military impediment to its control of areas containing vast resource and mineral wealth. This is backed up by the statements of government planners over many yhears and which, not surprisingly, are ignored by the MSM.

I need not spend the next two hours responding to such a flippant remark on your part. It is precisely this comic-level book understanding of the way that the world works which appears to sum up the views of many in the denialati.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 5, 2010 5:53 AM

Sorry, scienceblogs breaks links (just like it says just above this edit box, I now notice). Here is James's "flatline". The only thing that has flatlined is James's mental functions.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 5, 2010 5:59 AM

lotta inflated ego's in here :)

More irony.

I'm thinkin I might have remind some about the total and monumental fuck up's scientists have made over time, they thought they were right too !

There's a difference between scientists and science.

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 5, 2010 6:11 AM

"I'm thinkin I might have remind some about the total and monumental fuck up's scientists have made over time, they thought they were right too !" - Sunspot

You referring to Roy Spencer &, John Christy and the UAH satellite data?.

Posted by: Dappledwater | March 5, 2010 6:15 AM

Brent 246 - assuming you're still around.

I read from your post that the continuation of the current upward temperature trend would do it for you, yes? Ok, but in that case why - even if all 10 years in the next decade were above your chosen anomaly value - would you choose to ascribe that temperature increase to rising human emissions? Why not the Sun? Or GCR? Or pirates? Whatever?

If you doubt CO2 causes warming now, then it seems you have absolutely no reason to accept that it causes warming just because the world continues to warm in the future.

You have your reasoning backwards. If CO2 causes warming - and we know this to be the case and we have progressed enough to make a reasonable prediction as to the extent of this - then the next decade will not comprehensively confirm or refute anything. Obviously if global temperatures fall significantly outside current estimates, then we will have to find out why, but this is not something that will refute the whole scientific case that we are warming the planet any more than a temperature record complying with current estimates means all the work has been done.

This, in a nutshell, is why being a "Popperian fundamentalist" is frowned upon. You were in effect proposing to rest the entire success or failure of a huge body of scientific work on whether or not the temperature rises above an arbitrarily determined value an arbitrary number of times as recorded by a certain arbitrary dataset. Does this not strike you as a little absurd? Popper's falsification principle has an important part to play in science, but he was not the final word in scientific philosophy. An adjustment of predictions to fit current updated knowledge does not constitute a falsification, yet it most certainly represents scientific advancement. An incorrect prediction which is based on several theories does not indicate the falsification of all those theories. Your error comes in looking at AGW as a 'hypothesis' or a 'theory' as a whole, without component parts.

You may respond to this by saying you don't doubt that CO2 causes warming, but do doubt the current estimates for climate sensitivity (I haven't seen you mention it yet though). If this is the case, then what reasons do you have for doubting the current estimates, and what arguments do you have for suggesting that we should base policy on those doubts, which you must agree are on the fringe of any discussion on the matter, rather than on the best scientific viewpoint? And do you think that the next ten years will comprehensively answer the value for climate sensitivity?

Posted by: Bud | March 5, 2010 6:24 AM

Your error comes in looking at AGW as a 'hypothesis' or a 'theory' as a whole, without component parts.

Bud, you had best look at #188. Brent's actual view of AGW is that its an "obscene fraud" and he's furious about it.

You may respond to this by saying you don't doubt that CO2 causes warming

He has clearly stated that he does doubt that; in fact, he thinks fluctuations in temperature cause fluctuations in CO2: "Whilst we all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we now know that its variations are a consequence of temperature changes, not a cause".

Posted by: Marcel Kincaid | March 5, 2010 6:31 AM

@Jeff, Marcel and others.

Several years ago, when I used to frequent a certain online discussion forum, a guy signed up with a username which flagged him as a Ayn Rand-loving market libertarian fundamentalist. The forum had plenty of them at the time, and having argued with them countless times I was pretty fed up and short-tempered with the new guy. He spouted the same old garbage, in a manner never less than cordial, and was understandably shot down every time he posted - by myself probably more than anyone else.

After about a week I got a private message from this guy. Entitled "why is it like this?", it was an honest and genuinely confused query as to why no-one considered Rand's libertarianism a valid or benevolent philosophy. I confess to being a little touched, congratulated him on doing what no other Randist had done and actually asked a question with the purpose of learning, and proceeded to set out exactly the problems with her ideas. A few mails later, and he had scrapped his libertarian leanings and his Randist username.

Of course, this made little difference to the rest of the 20 or so Rand acolytes on the forum. Some people are of course completely entrenched trolls. Sometimes it's open to question. It's the same on climate change. I'm aware that debate with certain individuals on here - John Archer, Dave Andrews, James et al - are impossible to debate with, and I'm also well aware that Brent may simply be a concern troll. But he has at least recognised the need to answer questions (with a little prompting, granted), which is why I carry on a discussion. To be honest, it doesn't actually bother me if I occasionally waste a bit of time on a concern troll. I think I've got a pretty decent radar so as not to do it too often, and I'd rather be fooled three times than falsely accuse someone whose position could genuinely be changed once.

That's just my position, different strokes. If nothing else, and Brent merely goes back to places like WUWT and reinforces his position, at least we can point to this thread in future as evidence of the futility of engagement with people on the pseudosceptic camp. Even if they profess genuine scepticism.

Posted by: Bud | March 5, 2010 6:53 AM

James, it's not my sensitivity figure, it's from the IPCC, but thanks. The rest of your nonsense is a key example of why I cited you above as someone not worth bothering to debate with.

Posted by: Bud | March 5, 2010 6:57 AM

James @ 310:

It hasn't warmed for the last decade

Another blatant lie from James. That claim has already been shown to be false. Repeating it again without addressing the rebuttal will not make it true.

What if it doesn't warm for another decade? And another after? What then? I notice you've all neatly avoided that question.

Another blatant lie from James. That question has been answered several times in this thread, for example #127 and #232.

The guts of your science, as you people have explained to me, your words, is that there is no other explanation.

Another blatant lie from James. The mechanism by which the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere causes warming was understood long before we had added enough to make a measurable difference.

Posted by: Dave R | March 5, 2010 7:04 AM

Well Gents, it's been fun, yes, I even quite enjoyed the mindless abuse.

Like Tamino and his code, you simply can't be straight, let alone polite. Thanks to Stu and Eras for trying. It's a pity that what could have been a sensible and illuminating discussion got drowned out by a bunch of hysterically screaming extremists. But I guess I got my answer. You can't make a case for AGW and that's clear. Remember it's the "A" in AGW that's important (which is why the 29,500 pointers is meaningless and I'd love to know who sat down and counted them and whether ice loss that has trapped all those boats in the Baltic is one of them).

I'm not running away. I'm away for a wedding anniversary this weekend then start a project next week with work so I won't be available to interrupt your fierce head nodding.

And Tim, if you're an "academic" then God help academia.

Marcel, get help.

Posted by: James | March 5, 2010 7:25 AM

James at #310.

Your misrepresentation of the last decade's temperature trajectory has already been called by Bud, Jeff Harvey and Dave R.

In case the message is slow to reach your brain, after issuing from the monitor in front of you, you might consider spending some time pondering the points posted here. Of course, the same delay in comprehension is bound to operate, but perhaps if you sleep on it, the import may eventually sink in.

Do share your insights with us when they finally deign to visit your chugging brain.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 5, 2010 7:37 AM

Aw heck, I missed James by that much.

Hopefully he'll at least have read my previous post before departing - this would give him at least a week then to turn the crank and see if his brain can churn out a considered response...

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 5, 2010 7:42 AM

Brent please state in precise terms what you want to verify.

Posted by: Anonymous | March 5, 2010 7:54 AM

Most Alaskan Glaciers Retreating, Thinning, Or Stagnating ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2008) — Most glaciers in every mountain range and island group in Alaska are experiencing significant retreat, thinning or stagnation, especially glaciers at lower elevations, http://www.tinyurl.com.au/2xa

but wait..................

Mass Loss from Alaskan Glaciers Overestimated? Previous Melt Contributed a Third Less to Sea-Level Rise Than Estimated

ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2010) — The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says http://www.tinyurl.com.au/2xb

hmmmm.........astounding

Posted by: sunspot | March 5, 2010 8:00 AM

The hypocrisy of trolls such as James who "cry foul" about "abuse", but are happy to slander researchers such as Mann, Jones, Briffa on the basis of the "climategate" beatup, and anyone who disagrees with their delusions is certainly instructive, if more than tedious.

His hypocrisy is only challenged by his dishonesty and arrogance, IMHO, although his ignorance is in the race too.

I have spent thousands of words, explaining why (e.g) he is wrong to equate his personal "observations" with scientific methodology, but he is apparently unable to process information contrary to his POV.

I fear I may have (in some small part) played a role in bringing him here, as I have used links to this site to expose many of his "arguments" as the rubbish they are - hence his rage, I guess, and trolling here (where, funnily enough, he tries to mount the same "arguments".)

Thus demonstrating his honesty and search for information.

Sorry about that.

James is incapable of having a "sensible and illuminating discussion", which is why I can't be bothered engaging with him any more.

Posted by: Pterosaur | March 5, 2010 8:06 AM

Brent @ 320:

So, guys, would you have me declare: "[...] I'll just have to defer to the experts."?

Yes, since you've apparently just dismissed the more direct method of assessing it that was suggested in #127, without providing any reasoning whatsoever for that dismissal, despite being asked several times.

Posted by: Dave R | March 5, 2010 8:24 AM

Dave R (250): You referred me to a couple of sites which provide useful analysis: at Opinionations and at OpenMinds. Sorry I haven't responded quicker; I have a life outside this debate ;-)

Can I ask for you help here?

The Opinionations chappie writes that "Forcing per doubling of CO2 is 4W/m2 [Hansen et al. 2005]." Does this imply that a doubling of CO2 from the current 385 to 770PPM would add 4W/m2, and from 770 to 1540 another 4W/m2, and from 1540 to 3080? If so, am I right in thinking that the forcing effect would 'level off'? (I understand that higher PPM increases the greenhouse effect, so 'levelling off' refers only to the CO2-insolation ratio, not to temperature, and that 24W/m2 changes can be catastrophic.)

The OpenMinds site takes us through a statistical analysis. Either side of the GISS 'actual' temperature trend (in black) are confidence limits (in red). I assume these are 97% 0r 99% confidence limits, although he doesn't state it. He writes: "When the lower confidence limit (the lower red line) is above zero, we have some confidence that the trend rate is definitely positive." Now, the lower red line sinks below zero in 1996. Am I right in saying that this tells us that we can be confident that there was a warming trend up to 1996, but that more recent data has such wide confidence limits that no conclusion can yet be drawn?

This approach is indeed useful, and I'm grateful. When sceptics say, "the earth started cooling in 1998", the OpenMinds approach proves such declarations to be premature, and possibly just-plain-wrong.

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 9:08 AM

Brent @ 331:

You referred me to [...] Opinionations

I've no idea what Opinionations is.

Either side of the GISS 'actual' temperature trend (in black) are confidence limits (in red)

You want to be looking at the first link in #127, which addresses your question directly. Here is the link again.

Posted by: Dave R | March 5, 2010 9:37 AM

Anonymous (323): You asked "Brent please state in precise terms what you want to verify."

I will, but first let me explain why. Imagine a history of this time being written a century hence. I can imagine three different ones:

(i) From today's perspective in 2110 it seems unimaginable that the unfolding catastrophe fell foul of the infamous "Denialisti". Climatology had proven the greenhouse effect; demonstrated that fossil fuels were raising atmospheric CO2 concentrations; warned of positive feedback beyond 450ppm. And yet the politicians failed to act, partly due to the denial movement. As if orchestrated by perverse Fate, the IPCC disbandment in 2015 coincided with the rapid escalation of temperatures. These led to a major de-gassing of the oceans and tundra, and the vicious circle of positive feedback was unleashed. By mid-century, the human race had retreated to three zones separated by the Great Cancer Desert and the Great Capricorn Desert.

(ii) By mid century it was clear that the painful decarbonisation of the world economy had just - and only just - prevented the Earth reaching tipping point. The catastrophic warming of the 2020s (whose death toll is still disputed but lies between 50 and 150 million) was the final spur to action. The scientists now vindicated, the politicians, armed with their new mandate, took swift and draconian action with almost unanimous public support. Fossil fuel consumption was reduced by a remarkable x%, and PPM at last began to subside.

(iii) From today's perspective in 2110, belief in the IPCC's projections may seem the height of gullibility. Unlike their electorates which (the polls tell us) became ever more dubious in the century's second decade, governments continued to frame policy according to IPCC advice until, in 2030, xxxx

I can think of several comic endings for 'xxxx', but humour doesn't go down well in this nest of po-faced miseryguts.

To answer your question, Anonymous, "In the event that the causal relationship between rises in CO2 PPM and global temperatures are trivial, upon reaching what set of quantifiable parameters should the AGW hypothesis be declared refuted?"

And its opposite: for "trivial" substitute "as per IPCC AR4", and for "refuted" substitute "confirmed".

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 10:33 AM

Brent @ 337:

It might be worth your while looking at the opinion-nation site with its statistical analysis and tell me what you think?

I don't think it's worth wasting any of my time doing your homework for you. If you want to dispute mainstream science then the burden of proof is yours. If you're not prepared to shoulder that burden, the answer you're looking for is here.

Posted by: Dave R | March 5, 2010 10:57 AM

Brent:

humour doesn't go down well in this nest of po-faced miseryguts

Just let us know how you react to being lied to.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 5, 2010 12:33 PM

"Nature is unforgiving. Once critical ecosystem services break down as a result of a diverse and ongoing human assault, then there will be profound consequences for our species. There is no way around it. At present we are living off a one-time inheritance of natural capital and are spending it like there is no tomorrow. On top of that, we are altering critical biogeochemical cycles (and climate), forces that operate over very large spatial and temporal scales. As ecologist Peter Vitousek said back in 1994, there will be effects of human activities on ecosystems across the biosphere. We are already entering a period of consequences. Against this background are people like yourselves who are happy to see humanity fiddling while Rome burns. You appear unconcerned that there are likely to be serious repercussions over the current global experiment that humans are conducting on systems of immense complexity but which sustain us. Climate change, given its scale, is likely to exacerbate many of the other stresses induced on nature by humanity."

Indeed. Too many humans think they are important to the universe. Humanity is only important to itself.

Earth will do with humanity as the fundamental constants of physics and the chemistry and biology produced therein and their actions within the ecosystem please.

The universe doesn't give a shit about life. It's already nearly gotten rid of it twice.

Posted by: Katharine | March 5, 2010 12:51 PM

Sorry, mis-spelled your name. Katharine with an A.

Ah, now weren't the Cathars a sect of angry heretics who burnt true believers at the stake?

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 2:52 PM

X(

Here's the preceding two paragraphs:

"In my industry (automotive), when I audit a production process needing to run at, say, 150C, I'll ask: "How do you know we've got the right temperature?", they reply "This temperature gauge", I ask, "How do you know the gauge is accurate?", they say, "From this current calibration certificate", and I say, "That's good enough for me, thank you!"

The sarcastic brethren will now hoot, "This dumb-arse thinks that global warming confirmation is a mere matter of temperature measurement, as if the planet were his welding machine!"

The rest of your post does say, in fact, that one must occasionally defer to experts. However, your post about the industry you work in tells me a few things:

1) You make poor analogies. The issue with what you're saying is that the climate is changing, but not at the same rate everywhere. In addition, a number of factors must be taken into account; the weather, the human contribution to global warming, and what would have happened had we not contributed to global warming.

To compare this to the relatively simplistic task of CALIBRATING A GAUGE shows how much you don't understand about science. (What's your background? Engineering? They don't teach engineers much about the scientific method, if I remember correctly. I mean, they're the subjects of the Salem Hypothesis.)

2) Part of being scientific is releasing your results to others so that they can evaluate them, knowing full well that any individual human may be subject to their own biases. Doing this decreases, generally, the likelihood that an individual's own biases will interfere.

Posted by: Katharine | March 5, 2010 4:59 PM

Jeff Harvey (339): Jeff, thanks for that. What you wrote is measured and intelligent.

The other threats that you mention are indeed serious, distressing, and in need of urgent action. I'll just pick out one phrase you wrote:

"e.g. we have lost about 35-40% of the capacity of freshwater, marine and forest ecosystems since 1970"

and of course you said plenty more which resonates.

My view (and I think this is shared by many Denialists, barring the extremist fringe) is that many urgent nature conservation tasks and anti-pollution tasks are being impeded - not assisted - by global warming hysteria. I would urge people to separate out the global warming issue from the general (and laudable) green agenda.

My reason for spending time on this site is to assess the AGW hypothesis from 'inside', listening to sincere, educated, well-informed people who (apart the abusive ones) argue their case passionately and also with dispassionate evidence. From 'outside' it appears that the AGW believers are a bunch of crazy tree-huggers, neoapocalyptic doommongers, egged on by corrupt scientists with a seat on the gravy train. A bunch of 'watermelons'. So I'm glad to be here and size up the psychology. The caricature is way out.

Although I have endured quite some abuse, (I think a 'troll' is a malicious participant in a conversation attempting to disrupt or deflect progress; some call me this) I have benefited from this contact: I now see more clearly how logical the AGW hypothesis is, and understand how believers see sceptics as anti-nature barbarians, as blinkered, selfish fools trying to hold back the noble endeavour of carbon reduction, as bad people, as spoilers.

Now, although I doubt the AGW hypothesis, I'm prepared to see it validated and (if this happens) be compelled to (sheepishly) reverse my position. But validation depends on the events of the next few years. Until then the jury's still out (or rather, this bloody juror, me, is voting 'unproven').

If the graph shoots up, I'll be crapping myself and I'll find a job within cycling distance, and maybe resuscitate my failed Carbon Capture business. The over-intellectual brethren here say that you can't measure global warming with a thermometer - that is Popperian Fundamentalism.

You say "Given the warning of potentially serious consequences regarding human actions (including climate change),..." Jeff, delete the last three words and I'm with you all the way! In my view, the monies which COULD be spent combating deforestation, combating rhino poachers, combating mercury pollution is frittered away on this issue-that-never-was, and future generations will sneer at us.

You mention 'tipping points' and 'ecological stability'. Can you help me out here? May I query this? (Marcel Kincaid: keep you big rude nose out of this. We're talking like grown-ups here.)

The expression 'tipping point' is of course familiar to me as an engineer, and I understand unstable equilibrium. But I understand ecosystems have embraced stable equilibrium out of Darwinian neccessity. Can you cite me some examples of tipping points? One such would be 'minimum breeding population'. Are there others? At present I think of the term as hyperbole.

As for 'ecological stability', I read about wild swings in some species (locusts, lemmings, in briefly-blooming deserts). Has there in the past been 'ecological stability', or isn't nature characterised by constant change and adaptation, often with vast population swings over a variety of timescales?

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 5:54 PM

Katherine (346):

Salem Hypothesis: Never heard of it before, but reading the definition gave me a right old shock! I'm grateful to you. ma'am. And it certainly gives me pause for thought.

Engineering is an accumulation of human ingenuity founded on maths. Science, on the other hand, is a work of discovery, not of invention, although creativity and imagination are an asset. Two very different mindsets indeed, and I imagine your point is: 'Engineers, having reached almost total mastery of their field, are prone to straying into other areas where their ignorance is comical and their certainty a positive liability.' Scary thought. Plank in own eye?

Before engineering I had two unhappy years at London Uni doing physics. Quantum mechanics especially was my downfall. Maths too hard.

OK, maybe I am being thick, but please be patient: Why is it so dumb to want to validate global warming with a thermometer (yeah, yeah, with due regard to statistical technique)?

There are those who sneer "Huh, that's just Popperian Fundamentalism." They're a bit quiet at the moment, but in case they'e lurking, here's a question:

"Is the expression Popperian Fundamentalism used solely by slippery customers who like to wriggle out of giving a straight answer to a straight question?"

And, for those same people, I'll ask again: "If my thermometer isn't capable of testing global warming, pray tell, what other falsifiability criteria (as insisted on by WG1 section of the AR4) do you propose?"

Katharine, you also say "Part of being scientific is releasing your results to others so that they can evaluate them", and somebody was recently saying here that great reputations are won in science not by conforming but by leaps which overturn the prior state of the art. These two concepts together speak of honesty being at the heart of science.

Would you therefore please comment on Roy Spencer's recent work on the Urban Heat Island effect? If most of the GISS thermometers are truly undercalibrated (figure of speech) by a degree, the Great Debate over a piddling half-degree will be over in a very short time and, with the integrity you describe, the scientists will be bailing out of the AGW movement like a flock of seagulls.

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 6:58 PM

Brent:

So let's call this a 'side bet', just between you and me. It may take a few years to produce a result, and you and I count for nothing, so it's just for our own personal benefit, yes? Deal?

It's a brave man who would bet that this trend has suddenly come to an end, especially one who couldn't be bothered to check realclimate for CO2's logarithmic forcing.

By the way Brent, you still haven't told us how you react to being lied to.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 5, 2010 7:34 PM

Oh, Michael (349), another couple of points:

-As I'm sure you understood, I was mocking that guy's scepticism over my acceptance of a calibration certificate. An interesting idea was raised by Australian blogger Jo Nova: she suggested that the opposite to scepticism is "unscepticism". But here we reach the limits of the words. The majority here would define AGW sceptics as "those who are immune to evidence, due either to prejudice or financial interest or from being maliciously antisocial". And the label "unsceptic", were we to adopt it, would mean: "those who unquestioningly accept the doomsday scenario of the Hockey Team, who consider scepticism a vice rather than a virtue; people of 'faith' which is defined as 'holding a viewpoint regardless of contrary evidence'."

-Steve McIntyre: Can we please compare our thoughts on him? Me first, if I may: I see Steve as a dogged pursuer of scientific integrity. Admittedly he has no research of his own; his contribution is one of 'policing'. Using his statistical expertise, he has unearthed malpractice. The title of his website includes the word 'Audit', which is an essential part of ensuring integrity in other domains such as accounting and quality assurance.

Now, feel free to contest any of the above. You say 'with the fairies'. I am sure that you have grounds for saying such a thing, and I'd welcome your further comments. If the guy has a screw loose, well I'll have to stop admiring him.

Posted by: Brent | March 5, 2010 7:53 PM

Steve McIntyre [...] has unearthed malpractice - Brent

No he hasn't you liar. - Dave R.

Sure he has Dave. McIntyre was looking in the mirror when he unearthed it.

Posted by: Dappledwater | March 5, 2010 8:20 PM

When Brent says:

Can we please compare our thoughts on him? Me first, if I may: I see Steve as a dogged pursuer of scientific integrity.

he means:

I reckon that [Steve's] tenacity in demanding scientific rigour is of great importance, and will be celebrated in future accounts of science at the millennium.

Posted by: John | March 5, 2010 8:33 PM

Brent:

Why is it so dumb to want to validate global warming with a thermometer

I must have missed something somewhere but where do you get the idea that global warming is not being measured by thermometers?

If most of the GISS thermometers are truly undercalibrated (figure of speech) by a degree, the Great Debate over a piddling half-degree

You appear to be making a basic mistake in not realizing that warming is detected from changes in anomalies and doesn't rely on absolute temperature measurement. (BTW, GISS doesn't operate its own set of thermometers.) Your attitude is preventing you from learning these basic facts from places such as realclimate.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 5, 2010 8:45 PM

Brent:

Sorry I didn't reply to your question, "Just let us know how you react to being lied to." I'm afraid I didn't quite know how to respond. Short answer: Don't like it! Are you referring to the fact that I entered this website claiming to have an open mind and failed to admit that I had a current position, stated on other sites? That, since I have lied to people here, how would I like the same treatment? Chris, if I had arrived at Deltoid saying "Now Hear Ye - Stand aside, peasants, I know better than you!", I'd have caused an unproductive shouting match.

False dichotomy. It is not necessary to say "Now Hear Ye - Stand aside, peasants, I know better than you!" in order to avoid lying.

You recommended visiting the RealClimate site for more background on CO2 forcing. It's not that I couldn't be bothered before, it's more a question of time and knowing quite where to look.

It doesn't take very long to just read their articles without the comments. Perhaps in particular, the CO2 problem in six easy steps, is a good overview but browsing the index for particularly interesting points is a good way to find something interesting.

forecasts are only forecsts until the time comes. When the time comes, they're either "spot on" or "bollocks", and I prefer to wait and see.

So you'd rather wait for the tragedy to occur just to make sure the forecasts are correct. What a clever strategy that is.

Given that Holzhauser's figures show a shorter glacier 2000 years ago, I'm surprised he predicts a "tragedy", but he DID say it, and I'll be trying to find out why.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the glacier has lost 3 kilometres in 140 years and is now retreating faster than at any time in history. At this rate, it won't be very long before it's the shortest it's been in 125,000 years.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 6, 2010 12:02 AM

Brent;

Steve McIntyre: Can we please compare our thoughts on him? Me first, if I may: I see Steve as a dogged pursuer of scientific integrity. Admittedly he has no research of his own; his contribution is one of 'policing'. Using his statistical expertise, he has unearthed malpractice.

McIntyre's basic premise is the technician/engineer approach misapplied to science.

And while the 'audit' term is thrown around, it's misapplied as well. McIntyre doesn't look at climate science papers in general, he has focussed on those that are particualrly well known, hence his obsession with Mann. It's also quite clear that McIntyre has been looking to find evidence of what he already believed to be true - that there is some kind of fraud in climate science. This is his second basic premise.

It seems never to have crossed McIntyre's head to 'audit' papers that claim the scientific concenus is mistaken.

Posted by: Michael | March 6, 2010 12:56 AM

John (358): You compared a recent comment I made about Steve McIntyre to an older one on some other site.

Although I used entirely different words, the sentiment then was identical to the sentiment yesterday.

If you are suggesting that:

"as a dogged pursuer of scientific integrity"

is inconsistent with

"tenacity in demanding scientific rigour"

well maybe you should (expletive self-censored by writer).

If Steve McIntyre is a bit loopy I'll be obliged to withdraw my admiration for him, but my current view is that I'd like to buy a cottage by the sea with him and have babies.

Posted by: Brent | March 6, 2010 8:21 AM

Lee (353): Lee, I see the logic in what you say, and can see that within the 110-year timescale the trend looks like - well, a trend (!). And what do we do with trends? We extrapolate them.

You ended with: "How many more years of data do you need, and why?", and I see the frustration behind those words. Somebody less polite than you might equate 'wait-and-see' with 'we can spin this out indefinitely until our wicked plan to destroy the world succeeds'.

Here's my answer:

(i) I don't doubt that it started getting warmer around 1975. So what? Even Phil Jones of UEA accepted that it had been getting cooler before that. So what?

(ii) I don't even doubt that it's been getting warmer since 1860. The Aletsch Glacier has been getting shorter since then. So what? Before that it had been advancing over people's pastureland (and a team of Catholic priests were wheeled in to halt the advance). So what?

(iii) The 'so what' sounds a bit cocky, so let's put it more dispassionately: There is plenty of evidence that temperatures have been oscillating down the ages, long before industrialisation and long before 1975. I see no reason to be more alarmed by the past three decades of warming than the 1910-1940 warming.

(iv) The IPCC forecasts can only be confirmed by comparison with actual temperature measurements, which lie in the future. We should know in the next decade (or, at least, I for one will concede the warmist case). Had we been having this conversation 20 years ago, maybe I'd be a Warmist today. But we are where we are, in 2010, and today I say, "Wait and see."

(v) There is reason to believe that the GISS temperature graph is skewed by the Urban Heat Island effect. I am trying to assess whether any such skewing has already been taken into account, whether it is contested by, say, the CRU, and whether the Hockey Stick needs to be revised. Somewhere above I refer to an interesting new paper on UHI by Roy Spencer of Alabama Uni. If he's right that the UHI signal swamps the piffling half-degree that is alleged to be dragging us to Armageddon, then the Jeremiahs who insist that we're all doomed will have to find a new scare story.

Posted by: Brent | March 6, 2010 10:05 AM

Addendum: the Menne et al paper is focussed on US temperatures of course, but the aforementioned hysteria is extrapolated to the globe from a US basis...

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 6, 2010 5:39 PM

Brent:

(i) I don't doubt that it started getting warmer around 1975. So what? Even Phil Jones of UEA accepted that it had been getting cooler before that. So what?

There was only 0.1C of cooling in the 30 year trend to 1975 and 0.6C of warming since then. And all this was after another 0.5C of warming had occurred in the previous 30 years. You are ignoring the fact that the warming that has occurred is ten times as much as the 1944-1975 cooling.

(ii) I don't even doubt that it's been getting warmer since 1860. The Aletsch Glacier has been getting shorter since then. So what? Before that it had been advancing over people's pastureland (and a team of Catholic priests were wheeled in to halt the advance). So what?

Weren't you paying attention above when I said:

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the glacier has lost 3 kilometres in 140 years and is now retreating faster than at any time in history. At this rate, it won't be very long before it's the shortest it's been in 125,000 years"?

Holzhauser says that's it's currently shrinking at up to 1 kilometer per 20 years. Just tell us how much shorter it was in the historical past and you'll arrive at an estimate for how long it will be before it's the shortest it's been in 125,000 years.

(iii) The 'so what' sounds a bit cocky, so let's put it more dispassionately: There is plenty of evidence that temperatures have been oscillating down the ages, long before industrialisation and long before 1975. I see no reason to be more alarmed by the past three decades of warming than the 1910-1940 warming.

That's because you're ignoring cause. A large part of the 1910-1940 warming was caused by a temporary increase in insolation and a reduction in atmospheric particulates. None of these things have happened since 1975.

(iv) The IPCC forecasts can only be confirmed by comparison with actual temperature measurements, which lie in the future.

What on earth are you talking about? Forecasts were being made in the early 1980s. These have been largely confirmed with actual temperature measurements.

Had we been having this conversation 20 years ago, maybe I'd be a Warmist today. But we are where we are, in 2010, and today I say, "Wait and see."

So you think that because you've been asleep for the past 20 years, the rest of the world should also act as if it's been asleep for the past 20 years too? Pull the other one.

(v) There is reason to believe that the GISS temperature graph is skewed by the Urban Heat Island effect.

No there isn't. Urban temperature records are adjusted to have the same long-term trend as nearby rural records in calculating global average.

Somewhere above I refer to an interesting new paper on UHI by Roy Spencer of Alabama Uni. If he's right that the UHI signal swamps the piffling half-degree

His paper is about estimating UHI, NOT about whether UHI has any influence over global average temperature estimates which it doesn't.

that is alleged to be dragging us to Armageddon, then the Jeremiahs who insist that we're all doomed will have to find a new scare story.

Give it a break. You sound like an ideological nutcase.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 6, 2010 8:42 PM

A large part of the 1910-1940 warming was caused by a temporary increase in insolation and a reduction in atmospheric particulates. None of these things have happened since 1975.

This quote embodies precisely the kind of issue I was trying to point out to you in my response to your musings on falsifying "the hypothesis", which you seemed to acknowledge and then forget shortly afterwards.

Imagine "the hypothesis" was "pressing on this accelerator will accelerate this car". Can you falsify it by observing 60 seconds without acceleration? Sure, at least for the specific scenario the car is in. Imagine it's pointed up an incredibly steep hill, or on a road with no friction between the tires & road. You can even observe negative acceleration in some cases.

But is this the right hypothesis when you want to predict what impact the accelerator will have on the car under future scenarios - like, say, with decent grip on a flat road, or even going down a hill? Of course not!

A more useful hypothesis for prediction, and more similar to AGW, would be that "pressing on the accelerator leads to more acceleration than not pressing on it". Do you see why?

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 7, 2010 9:23 AM

the 'Hockey Stick' have nothing directly to do with each other.

Brent:

I was under the misapprehension that the Hockey Stick was just that: a paleo reconstruction with actual measurement data in recent decades.

Arguments about the "Hockey Stick" are normally centred around the potential inaccuracies in the part of the reconstructions before AD 1600, especially parts before AD 1450 and especially still parts covering the Mediaeval Warm Period. These issues are not the same as the issue of UHI. Although UHI could hypothetically affect the hockeystick shape, the former was a serious scientific issue while the latter was never a serious issue. So the "Hockey Stick" has never been adjusted for UHI because it was produced using data that had already been corrected for UHI. Before you start any consideration of the "Hockey Stick" you need to come to the realization that notions that the instrumental global temperature record (e;g. GISS's) are contaminated by UHI are absolute garbage.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 8, 2010 9:04 AM

Chris O'Neill (372): I have an important point to concede here: I followed the link you kindly supplied to the OpenMinds site, and find the following:

"...Gavin Schmidt (via email) has reminded me that the last step of NASA GISS adjustments — the correction for urban heating — uses data from nearby rural stations (like Orland) to apply a correction to non-rural stations (like Marysville). Hence in part, the urban heating correction applied to Marysville depends on the trend at Orland."

This answers my question nicely, and I'm grateful.

On the subject of the Aletsch Glacier, you wrote that maybe I wasn't paying attention when you previously wrote, "maybe it has something to do with the fact that the glacier has lost 3 kilometres in 140 years and is now retreating faster than at any time in history. At this rate... [-] ..Holzhauser says that's it's currently shrinking at up to 1 kilometer per 20 years. Just tell us how much shorter it was in the historical past and... "

It would be unfair to Holzhauser to subject his marvellous graph (with its turning points and gradients) to more analysis than he intended. Whilst the last 200 years of advance and (much more) decline are from direct measurement, he shows previous rates of decline similar to the 1860-to-today period which are probably intelligent guesses. I started doing a quick calculation of decline rates and then abandoned the attempt as over-interpretation. Yes, he said what he said about unprecedented rate of retreat. I don't see it in his graph, but he has a vast knowledge. Er, his paper is therefore just the tip of the iceberg ;)

To the minima he shows at 1300BC and 100BC (shorter than today) he added a big fat question mark, which is admirable. So, yes, if the 150-year trend continues for a few more decades it will reach (to our best knowledge) a record low.

You wrote: "Give it a break. You sound like an ideological nutcase." Maybe you're right; maybe I will!

I have learned a lot from these discussions, and many people have clarified the (joined-up) thinking behind the AGW hypothesis. I'm not quite there yet, but the case for AGW is (in my opinion (which counts for nothing)) stronger than I had figured.

In putting counterarguments, my intention was to put people to the test. Now that the vile shut-up-you-fool-it-just-is-brigade has withdrawn, I see a core of reasoning educated people who accept the hypothesis on its merits.

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 10:49 AM

Lotharsson (373,374): You wrote: "But that does not let you falsify AGW until you separate out the other warming/cooling effects. That concept should be understandable to... " and "Do you see why?"

Well, yes, I do. What you say about other forcings potentially masking the radiative forcing of CO2 makes perfect sense, as does you analogy to a vehicle accelerating/decelerating.

And so there is the potential in the next few years for lower world temperatures which would in no way invalidate the AGW hypothesis. When I wrote something like: "Lotharsson was right: it IS 'N' years!", there was an element of humour, and I wasn't suggesting that you were being slippery or trying to delay the day when the AGW hypothesis can be refuted.

This is an infernally complex issue, and who knows when it can be resolved? Oh for a time machine or the elixir of life, to be able to look back on today.

I have to accept that the AGW hypothesis has an internal consistency and logic, and that its proponents are more rational than I had thought.

I haven't yet thrown in the towel, though. I shall continue to dig, to examine the prism from many angles. I suspect that astrophysics may hold the key, although the carbon boys have a working hypothesis. Just yesterday I heard that the flow of a certain S.American river correlates well with sunspot cycles. Other such revelations may well emerge.

Hey, maybe the sunspots are caused by the river!

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 12:17 PM

Brent @ 380:

who knows when it can be resolved?

This was answered for you in #372.

Just yesterday I heard that the flow of a certain S.American river correlates well with sunspot cycles.

They did not show a correlation with sunspot cycles. (The paper in question is here).

Interesting though how the "correlation is not causation" meme is trotted out in cases where it's a straw man, but not where it's relevant.

It's very easy to find out why the sun can be ruled out as the cause of the recent global warming. If you want to show that you are willing to learn you can post those arguments in your next reply, along with any objections you have to them.

Posted by: Dave R | March 8, 2010 12:41 PM

Dave R (382): Thanks for a copy of the Maunas paper on the Parana River.

When you say, "did not show a correlation with sunspot cycles", have you read the passage where the authors write:

"For the last century, we find a strong correlation with Sunspot Number, in multi-decadal time scales, with larger solar activity corresponding with larger streamflow."

Tell me, do you think this interesting info on solar activity worthy of consideration in the wider debate about AGW?

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 3:02 PM

May I please ask the assembled brethren: "Have you personally taken any steps whatsoever to reduce your carbon footprint by a significant amount? If so, please give some indication in kWh per annum, litres of vehicle fuel per annum, and aircraft passenger-miles."

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 6:00 PM

Ad hominem irrelevancy. While the answer is yes for me, asking me to provide detailed statistics can only be a product of bad faith.

Posted by: ts | March 8, 2010 6:05 PM

ts (386): I know it's putting you on the spot, but given your acceptance of the AGW hypothesis, have you personally taken any steps to reduce your own carbon footprint?

I do wonder whether the unsceptic fraternity have niggling doubts that the sequence of logic we've just been discussing actually culminates in a confirmed hypothesis. I recall my children having doubts about the existence of Father Christmas and then, for a few years, becoming less questioning (not more) until reaching the same conclusion as me on his existence. (I won't ask your view; it would be rude.)

I have yet to meet a single person who has done anything more than a token effort towards carbon reduction.

Dear reader, if you also take zero action (other than changing the odd lightbulb), could it be that deep inside you don't actually believe? And, dear reader, if you are a genuine unsceptic (that is, you buy the whole Inconvenient Truth package) doesn't your inaction suggest that you are indulging in h

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 6:39 PM

have you personally taken any steps to reduce your own carbon footprint?

I already answered that, but your poor reading comprehension is well-established.

I have yet to meet a single person who has done anything more than a token effort towards carbon reduction.

Your beliefs about your personal experience would be irrelevant because of the limited sample space and your evident difficulty in accurately assessing evidence, even if it weren't irrelevant to the scientific questions.

Dear reader, if you also take zero action (other than changing the odd lightbulb), could it be that deep inside you don't actually believe?

Many things could be. For instance, you could be a radical denier and ideological nutcase who continues to attempt to defraud the readers here with your phony concessions about internal consistency and saying you're "not quite there yet" and that the case for AGW is stronger than you had figured and that those here are reasoning educated people who accept the hypothesis on its merits, all the while believing quite differently. Or perhaps not, and there's some other explanation for your patent contradictions.

Posted by: ts | March 8, 2010 6:54 PM

ts (388)You wrote that my question about one's actions backing up one's words was "Ad hominem irrelevancy. While the answer is yes for me, asking me to provide detailed statistics can only be a product of bad faith."

So that's a "yes". If you're reluctant to reveal your current mileage compared to previous (and remember, you have the cloak of anonymity here), well can you give me rough figures for somebody you know? Keep it simple: litres, kWh and air miles.

I assume that you 'offset'. Have you looked into precisely what tangible effect your hard-earned offsetting money has? I know it's distasteful to talk about concrete actions, but it's beginning to look like, well, you know, like the Judean People's Front.

No disrespect, but methinks the ge

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 7:10 PM

No disrespect

You're a pathetic clown and I'm done with you.

Posted by: ts | March 8, 2010 7:14 PM

Dammit, we just lost a good man there in ts. Sorry. What a stupid crack I made about Judean People's Front.

Would anybody else like to continue his logic? I think it goes like this (but blame him, not me, if I don't do it justice):

The science is settled, and CO2 is bad. Yes, it's gross hypocrisy to bleat on about carbon footprints and at the same time keep the central heating on, and drive to work, and fly off on holiday, but the fact that one is a goddam hypocrite (and SUCH a hypocrite that one may decline a casual audit even under anonymity) has no bearing on the laws of physics.

There's maybe a latin expression for "I'm just one bloke; my actions are so insignificant that a change in my behaviour will have zero benefit on the world and yet bollix up my lifestyle". But you can bet that these selfsame CH's are careful not to throw batteries in a ditch or put sump-oil in the gutter. Why doesn't such good individual behaviour extend to carbon footprints? Could it be that the CHs do not truly believe?

Our departed friend stood up for his hypocrisy, and deserves credit for such honesty. Would any other Carbon Hypocrite like to explain their apocalypse fear and their Range Rover simultaneously?

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 7:53 PM

And so finally the true Brent comes out.

Posted by: John | March 8, 2010 7:58 PM

Our departed friend stood up for his hypocrisy

This is of course a lie, as is the entirety of Brent's post.

Posted by: ts | March 8, 2010 8:00 PM

Sure, I could. But I'm not going to play your silly games. You've been destroyed in science all week and now you've fallen back onto something that you think is safer ground so we get to see your true colours. Lucky us.

But as a wise man once said:

You're a joke Brent.

Posted by: John | March 8, 2010 8:05 PM

Right, we have two scores.

In petrol litres per annum, kWh per annum, and air miles per annum,

ts scores "yes for me, 386"

John scores "sure I could, 404"

Sorry, that should read "yes for me" (#386) and "sure I could" (#404). Don't want people thinking that 790 litres of anything have been saved.

Anybody else? (At risk of labouring the point, the question in #386 relates to actions rather than words, and calling into question the sincerity of the words when one carries on driving to the recycling station.)

Posted by: Brent | March 8, 2010 8:18 PM

For anyone interested, here is what Brent thinks of Britain's Royal Society:

This current generation of intellectual pygmies are not fit to walk in the footsteps of Hooke and Newton. They should rebadge themselves Royal Society for the Promotion of Scare Stories.

He knows better, you see. He's studied engineering.

Posted by: John | March 8, 2010 8:31 PM

He knows better, you see. He's studied engineering.

Aye, there's the rub. So many engineers claiming to have special scientific insight or to be actual scientists - and completely unaware of how incompetent they are at science.

I'm not quite sure what it is about engineering studies that produces/elicits this kind of response. It doesn't have to be that way. I studied engineering to PhD level, but I claim no special scientific insight or even competence in scientific research.

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 8, 2010 8:52 PM

I'm not quite sure what it is about engineering studies that produces/elicits this kind of response.

There's also a high correlation between being an engineer and being skeptical of evolution; see, e.g., http://www.theness.com/creationists-mechanical-engineers-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/

I think what happens with mechanical engineers is that they're all taught thermodynamics but, unfortunately, not all of them are the sharpest tool in the shed. So they learn all of the words and enough to be able to pass the subject (such as remembering the answers to likely exam questions) but when they start talking about it in public they don't realize when they're talking gibberish.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 8, 2010 10:01 PM

Brent:

To the minima he shows at 1300BC and 100BC (shorter than today) he added a big fat question mark, which is admirable. So, yes, if the 150-year trend continues for a few more decades it will reach (to our best knowledge) a record low.

Perhaps you could tell us how much shorter the glacier was estimated to be at those times rather than beating about the bush. I saw one graph that suggested it was 1 kilometre shorter at its shortest so on that basis it will break that record in 20 years at the current (and also accelerating) trend.

You wrote: "Give it a break. You sound like an ideological nutcase." Maybe you're right; maybe I will!

That'll be the day.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 8, 2010 10:25 PM

Brent, I have reduced my carbon emissions significantly through various means - and my household use hasn't reduced by a huge percentage because it was relatively low to start with. I will certainly reduce my emissions again (for example) at the next vehicle technology refresh. Furthermore, since buying a new vehicle tends to have a knock-on effect ultimately taking one of the least desirable vehicles off the road, the total emissions reduction from that chain of events was probably quite a bit higher than mine alone.

And so what? I'm under no illusion this new data will make the case for the science any stronger in your head, since your question is NOT about the science - it has all the hallmarks of a gotcha attempt or a distraction from the main issues, and/or to provide material for a puerile boasting point on another blog.

Once again you're missing the forest for the trees - quite a talent you have for it. Ever wondered what purpose it serves for you?

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 9, 2010 1:27 AM

Bernard J (347): Bernard, you are a man of honour, and (with no irony) I salute you.

I can no longer say that I have never encountered a single person with the courage of his carbon convictions.

Posted by: Brent | March 9, 2010 4:12 AM

All anyone (trolls and genuinely interested parties alike) should need on residence time (at least to get you going) can be found in Wikipedia and the references cited.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 9, 2010 5:52 AM

Sunspot.

Your link (which I advise others to ignore) cites Nils-Axel Mörner, emeritus believer in dowsing and 're-adjuster' of satellite altimetry sea level rise data.

The guy's a kook, and your claim of empirical evidence is tainted by his kookiness.

Try harder next time.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 9, 2010 7:24 AM

"Scientist all say", they say.

Here's the UK's Geological Society:

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html

Quote: "All this suggests that the present climate has limited effect on melting ice and rising sea levels."

John: Good prediction. What's your forecast for Antarctica melting?

Posted by: Brent | March 9, 2010 10:42 AM

Brent,

Citing an article that has been distorted by the Idso family on their Western Fuels associated site is not the way to generate interest in a topic here. Moreover, when we are talking about the late Holocene, we could be intimating time scales that cover a millennium over more; not the space of half a century.

My advice: go to the primary literature, and not to those who are distorting it in order to make directed conclusions. The Idso's and 'C02 science' (a mis-named web sitre if there ever was one) did the same thing to a paper written by a colleague of mine here a few years ago that was published in Nature. Let me say that my colleague and the fellow authors of the paper were not amused that the Idso's were using it to score some cheap points as to the virtues of increasing atmospheric levels of C02 - nothing less than a huge global experiment, I may add. The web site is appalling and yet I am bemused that so many lay contrarians - you, el gordo etc. - use to it to support your views. It is NOT a primary source.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 9, 2010 11:25 AM

Jeff Harvey (426):

Jeff, you're right; I can't find the primary source without paying, and if the CO2 Science has a history of tabloid-style mis-quoting, then 'let it be struck from the record'. My apologies.

Posted by: Brent | March 9, 2010 12:01 PM

In a more gentlemanly debate there would be more statements like "the other side have raised Point X, which weakens our own case, and deserves to be conceded or rebutted".

That is what happens among scientists and others who are not wilfully ignorant and intentionally act like jackasses.

I believe that Man has a profound need to fear some impending danger, and conjures up dire threats founded on apparently unassailable logic

Fallacy of affirmation of the consequent. Whether that is true in general has no bearing on whether it holds in this case. By your logic (an area in which you are grossly inept), any real threat can be dismissed -- without even examining the evidence -- on the basis of human psychology.

and when this latest scare story evaporates

There is no basis in the evidence to think that it will.

Guys, I don't doubt your sincerity and I understand why my failure to recant makes you suspect that my visit here was malicious.

Oh, I think you singing little "It’s only a hoax A joke and a pig in a poke" ditties might have something to do with that.

I think that the anger is a telltale sign of your need for an apocalypse.

Which is yet more indication that you are an utter fool. The anger is a normal response to someone who goes out of his way to be a jackass, regardless of the topic -- exactly the same thing occurs with evolution deniers, but there's no apocalypse involved in that case.

Hey, I thought the "constant sun" played no part in climate!

That's because you're an idiot and wilfully ignorant.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 9, 2010 1:22 PM

When I wrote, "Hey, I thought the 'constant sun' played no part in climate!" maybe you missed the cheerful challenge in my tone, hoping that somebody would politely concede or counter ('Must admit that the case is growing' or 'Yeah, can see why you'd think that, but the following suggests otherwise....')

Git.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 9, 2010 2:47 PM

How about you cease trolling here, period.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 9, 2010 3:48 PM

Troll.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 9, 2010 4:25 PM

Brent asks:

"Is there not at least a prima facie case that solar activity might be the single biggest driver of climate change? (Along with well-understood orbital precession and ellipticity.) Is it so unreasonable to conjecture that CO2 variations might be a consequence of these variations and their resulting temperature shifts rather than a driver of temperature?"

In part, sure.

There is a very good case that in many times and circumstances, variation in solar activity is AT THAT TIME the single biggest driver of climate change. It (through orbital variation) is almost certainly the cause of transitions into and out of glaciations. It (through variation in output)was probably responsible for a large part of the warming in the first half of the 20th century.

So what?!

There is an equally good case - perhaps better - that variation in solar activity IS NOT NOW a driver of climate change, and has not been for the last 40 years or more. Brent, this stuff is the subject of a fuck-ton of active investigation and published research.

It would not be unreasonable to conjecture that "CO2 variations might be a consequence of these variations and their resulting temperature shifts rather than a driver of temperature?" - if it weren't for the fact that this is a conjecture that has already been well tested and shown to be false. We know where the CO2 is coming from, we know that there is net flow of carbon INTO rather than out of the relevant carbon sinks. And we know from the basic physics of CO2 that carbon is a driver of temperature changes. At this point, this is no longer a conjecture - it is a raving denialist fantasy.

Posted by: Lee | March 9, 2010 8:55 PM

So what?!

As I noted earlier, Brent's logic is based on the fallacy of affirmation of the consequent. The previous case was

"Man has a profound need to fear some impending danger, and conjures up dire threats founded on apparently unassailable logic" ( a highly dubious claim but we'll let that pass)

AGW is a dire threat founded on apparently unassailable logic

Therefore AGW is believed because man has a profound need to fear some impending danger.

In this case it's

The sun has caused global warming. There is global warming. Therefore the sun is causing it.

This sort of logic error is common among denialists, as when they talk about warming on Mars, Jupiter, or Pluto. It seems beyond their comprehension that warming on other planets, or at other times, is completely irrelevant. Sure, if we had no idea why the globe is warming, then we might hypothesize that the cause is the same as that of some other warming -- but we know better.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 9, 2010 10:29 PM

'Habibullah Abdussamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a host of the rest of the world's leading solar scientists are all convinced that the warming of recent years is not unusual and that nearly all the warming in the past 150 years can be attributed to the sun.

Solar scientists from Iowa to Siberia have overlaid the last several warm periods on our planet with known variations in our sun's activity and found, according to Mr. Solanki, "a near-perfect match."

Mr. Abdussamatov concedes manmade gasses may have made "a small contribution to the warming in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance."

Mr. Soon showed as long ago as the mid-1990s that the depth of the Little Ice Age -- the coldest period in the northern hemisphere in the past 1,500 years -- corresponded perfectly with a solar event known as the Maunder Minimum. For nearly seven decades there was virtually no sunspot activity.'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/35q

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 2:30 AM

Dave R (437): "Solar activity has not increased over the recent period of global warming i.e. the last 35 years, so it cannot be the cause, no matter what mechanism you propose to amplify it."

If, by solar activity you mean irradiance, yes you're right. But there is a proposal that variations in length and peak of sunspot activity is significant, and the current cycle, No. 25, is getting off to a very slow start, with a superficial resemblance to the ones prior to the previous minima (Maunder or Dalton, I forget which).

You also wrote: "you even dispute the existence of the greenhouse effect". No. As dear departed James wrote, the question is "the extent to which". Of course there's a greenhouse effect, and PPM rises are increasing it. It's entirely legitimate to enquire "to what extent" the Sunspot Effect is significant, and the combined effect of the two.

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 3:46 AM

I find it quite irrational that Brent and his ilk will contort themselves to any degree in order to grasp at any old Mars quoting crank and other made up misrepresentations.

If that's what your chosen ideology requires of you, it's time to ditch it in favour of something more congruent with the real world, I'd have thought.

Posted by: chek | March 10, 2010 4:05 AM

Jeff, Tumefied Egotism ? Illusory superiority ? R U worried about the gravy train ? http://www.tinyurl.com.au/363

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 4:13 AM

Thanks Hasis.

This goes to show that one should always read the primary literature and not the way it is re-interpreted (and distorted) by those anxious to promote a pre-determinied world view. It is ridiculous that so many scientists are forced to speak out about how their research is being distorted by think tanks and their astroturf groups funded in part by polluting industries with an axe to grind. This is not an isolated example: many of the denial sites are gulity of it. That is because they do not do their own research. Their job is to stand on the sidelines and to take the empirical evidence and to mould it to generate directed conclusions. This tactic has been honed by those pushing a creationist agenda as well as those who donwplayed the health effects of tobacco.

As I said before, there is categorically no connection between solar activity and the recent warming episode (post 1980). Those using this mantra and clutching at metaphorical straws.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 10, 2010 4:19 AM

SS you missed Jo Nova's after party performance. It was a hoot!

Posted by: jakerman | March 10, 2010 4:30 AM

Chek (446): You wrote "any old Mars quoting crank".

We do indeed see claims that solar activity is producing oscillations in other planets, Mars's polecap being one of them. From what you say, it's a non-starter.

This could be useful. You're clearly ahead of us here, and have looked into this enough to discount it.

I'd appreciate it if you'd give us your thoughts.

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 4:40 AM

Brent @ 444

there is a proposal that variations in length and peak of sunspot activity is significant,

No. There is some correlation between the length of a cycle and the size of the next one. The peak of the cycles has been in decline since the 1950s.

and the current cycle, No. 25 [24 actually], is getting off to a very slow start, with a superficial resemblance to the ones prior to the previous minima (Maunder or Dalton, I forget which).

Yes, for the last few years we have been in the deepest solar minimum for a century. We should be seeing the coldest temperatures on record but instead we are at the warmest. That is because the forcing from CO2 now far outweighs that from the sun, as shown by all the peer-reviewed research on the subject.

• Erlykin 2009: "We deduce that the maximum recent increase in the mean surface temperature of the Earth which can be ascribed to solar activity is 14% of the observed global warming"

• Benestad 2009: "Our analysis shows that the most likely contribution from solar forcing a global warming is 7 ± 1% for the 20th century and is negligible for warming since 1980."

• Lockwood 2008: "It is shown that the contribution of solar variability to the temperature trend since 1987 is small and downward; the best estimate is ?1.3% and the 2? confidence level sets the uncertainty range of ?0.7 to ?1.9%."

• Lockwood 2008: "The conclusions of our previous paper, that solar forcing has declined over the past 20 years while surface air temperatures have continued to rise, are shown to apply for the full range of potential time constants for the climate response to the variations in the solar forcings."

• Ammann 2007: "Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century."

• Lockwood 2007: "The observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified."

You seem to think you can make all this go away just by waving your hands around. You have also simply ignored the other evidence I mentioned that rules out the sun being the cause of the recent global warming. As is common for ideologically motivated denialists, you just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend not to hear -- precisely the opposite of a skeptic.

Posted by: Dave R | March 10, 2010 4:52 AM

Brent @ 454:

I'd appreciate it if you'd give us your thoughts.

You've already been told how to check these things for yourself.

Posted by: Dave R | March 10, 2010 4:56 AM

Dave R (457): You wrote: "You've already been told", with a link which led to Skeptcalscience.com

They write there: "Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet eagerly, even blindly embrace any argument, op-ed piece, blog or study that refutes global warming." Yes, there is a bias - one might call it a 'bias of receptiveness', and it's something that all fair-minded people need to fight.

Taken to its extreme, we become so bigoted that we blank out everything our opponents say, even their valid points.

The people I meet here fall into three categories:

(i) The nasty boys (ii) The articulate ones who take the trouble to write their counterarguments (iii) The linkers (they say: "Just follow this hyperlink and all will be made clear to you")

I don't doubt that linkers are trying to share a source that they find persuasive, and hope that others will find it as helpful. But it can result in homework-overload.

If by "you've already been told", you were pointing me somewhere I didn't reach, well I promise you I am not being obtuse in arriving at SkepticalScience and commenting on it. I'm sometimes tempted to post links to an interesting piece on WUWT, but would expect a hostile reaction.

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 5:20 AM

Another method to investigate whether it's plausible that other forcings could be driving warming over the last century or so. Bear in mind this is a relatively simple model, so don't push it too far when interpreting results - but it should give you a feel for how difficult it might be to relegate GHGes to minor-/elevate solar to major-player status.

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 10, 2010 5:33 AM

Sunspot do you support the claims made in that google discussion group? Some of the claims, all of the claims?

Sunspot replys:

some, do you deny all of them?

So you spread falsehoods you know to be false?

Posted by: jakerman | March 10, 2010 5:37 AM

Brent at Climate Audit:

My, these ARE exciting times! Are these AGW frausters and scaremongers really to be exposed? We rational folk do seem to have the momentum all of a sudden. How delightful to read the ringing words of people posting above: ianl8888: “This IS history, happening as we watch. I find it utterly fascinating … never thought I would live long enough to witness such a thing.” Lucy Skywalker: “Gabi Hegerl is obsessed, like Lady Macbeth, that she has to wash her hands clean. She’s complicit… ” Barclay E McDonald: “May the person(s) who organized and executed the email leak sleep well.” Stirring stuff! Although it is in the nature of Science that false hypotheses must ultimately collapse, there has always been a danger that some bent practitioners of science (who are after all no more immune to greed and vanity than the wider population) would pervert their noble profession for an extended period. Here, I see a resemblance to 1950s USA where one charismatic and determined maniac (Sr. McCarthy) browbeat thousands of good citizens into believing there were reds under the bed. His poison eventually dissipated, but it took many years and great damage to the careers of many an honest and liberal person. I hope that the paranoia created by the Church of Gore will soon dissipate, and the whole rotten edifice of AGW come tumbling down. But I fear that there are so many bent scientists and politicians and commodities traders with a vested interest in perpetuating this scam that it may take many years to consign this neoapocalyptic hysteria to the dustbin of history. May our grandchildren smirk and say, “Grandad, did your generation REALLY believe that the polecaps would melt, the seas rise, that the end of the world was coming soon? How very silly you all were!”

What a joker.

Posted by: John | March 10, 2010 5:57 AM

Brent and Sunspot,

You rely far too much on the internet for your information. When I see you both providing links with stuff written by the likes of Soon and Baliunas, or else web sites like C02 Science, then I know exactly why you think the way that you do. Again, READ THE PRIMARY LITERATURE. Better still, why not go to a university and speak with some climate scientists - you know, the one's who publish their research is scientific journals? You might even wish to attend a workshop with real working scientists (not corporate shills) who may explain the basics to you.

I used to read the pages of Milloy's abominable Junk Science site when I was working as a post-doc in the United States in the 1990s. In my field (evolutionary and population ecology) I was struck by the gumbified comments made by some of the contributors there in discussing various aspects of global change. When I corrected some of the simplistic drivel on their forum page, I was attacked mercilessly by many there, who clearly thought that they knew more about my field of research than I did. It did not matter that I'd done my PhD in the field, and that none of my opponents had any relevant qualifications in environmental science. Instead, I was tarred and feathered and sent packing. Some of the comments had to be seen to be believed: one reader claimed that the world could easily sustain a population of one trillion people, and I was the only one to reply that this was complete and utter insanity, given the cumulative human impacts on the biopshere over the past century alone with a population a small fraction of that. Instead, pretty much all of the rank and file idiots who wrote into the forum thought that the planet could easily support one trillion people.

I do think that you both, in spite of your transparent acceptance of the denialati arguments, are seeking vestiges of the truth. Well, let me tell you that you will not find the truth, as elusive as that is, on denialist web sites. At least, speaking as a scientist, I would not touch these with a barge pole. For the most part, they are not interested in the truth, but in scientific manipulation in support of a political agenda. They will never shift their goalposts no matter how much data come in. And, in the very small chance that they ever do acknowledge the reality of AGW, they will claim it is too late to do anything anyway except to 'adapt', irrespective of the fact that humans are not exempt form the laws of nature and that adaptation is not a given in a world in which our ecological life support systems begin to break down locally or systemically.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 10, 2010 6:13 AM

Jeff, 'but in scientific manipulation in support of a political agenda'. That is evident on both sides ! and yes i am seeking the full truth, it hasn't arrived yet.

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 6:42 AM

John (465): I now regret having written "fraudsters and scaremongers" on Climate Audit. (This in the light of what I have since learned here.)

I begin to see that the case for AGW is a chain founded on a series of interlocking links. Whether the entire structure is sound is another question. (e.g., alternative forcing hypotheses which, if true, would weaken a weld. I have begun to absorb Lotharsson's link to OpenMind (461) which addresses this question.)

An old friend, a nuclear engineer, once commented on my half-finished solar panel saying, "It's funny how we specify and source a series of perfectly good components which together OUGHT to add up to a functioning power station, and sometimes do not."

May I also point out that my intemperate words on scaremongering were not written here where they would have been hostile.

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 6:51 AM

Brent @ 471:

I now regret having written "fraudsters and scaremongers"

Go back there and publicly retract it then -- otherwise you're a liar.

Posted by: Dave R | March 10, 2010 6:57 AM

dont do it brent, read the article again

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 7:01 AM

In a spirit of 'disclosure' (in the light of people here reprinting some of my views elsewhere, some intemperate, but most of which I'm rather pleased with), here's something that was read out on Radio 4's Broadcasting House during the Great Swine Flu Pandemic:

Eddie Mair "Brent Hargreaves is listening in, with flu on his mind, and says 'May I suggest an official BBC Scare Story Quota which obliges you to knock off an old scare story before launching a fresh one. Armageddon Fatigue could thus be prevented when we get the all-clear from the Millennium Bug or Global Warming. We'll then be able to quake appropriately.' "

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 7:09 AM

P. Lewis - d'oh!

LOL. I thought you did it deliberately so as not to link to that other place.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 10, 2010 7:23 AM

Leopards and teenagers have a lot in common: spots can be so hard to shift.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 10, 2010 7:45 AM

Brent, the situation is surprisingly simple. As is often the case when a moneyed denialist interest faces the scientific community (and it is the community), the denialist interests feed petty and misleading arguments to those sympathetic (on some level) to their conclusion, or even just their sentiment. The side of science, despite being more accurate, open, and honest, faces a daunting challenge: the accurate position takes a lot more explaining. It does not offer you the simplistic thinking of pointing at sunspots, misrepresenting a few articles, and calling it a day.

That is why you must do your homework. You are not going to be offered a nuanced and accurate understanding of global warming on a platter. Even if such an explanation were presented to you, you would still have to read and understand it, just like visiting a website or attending university courses. The people explaining it to you are not getting paid and they have surely done such explanations many times before, only to find that nothing was absorbed and the person didn't really care to begin with. Which brings me to the point: if you care, why use denialist claims as a resource when you know why they fail? The 'quick answer' is not automatically the right one, you need to look at consensus views and how they are established.

You're in a tough position, but not a pitiable one. Any time that you would like to learn about the physics going into climate science, the scientific literature is at your disposal as are gobs of attempts by climate scientists to communicate their research to the lay-public, as is the simple fact that the 'controversy' or 'debate' here is between the lay public prodded forth by moneyed interests with an incentive to misinform and a diverse group of scientists independently publishing research who would love the chance to prove the others wrong.

And of course, you've left several of Dave's points, arguments, and large pieces of evidenced unacknowledged, let alone publicly considered. At some point the blame has to fall squarely on the climate "skeptic" for a lack of understanding and cogency.

Posted by: Shirakawasuna | March 10, 2010 8:19 AM

Brent, before you make yourself look any more ridiculous, I suggest you go back to the corner wearing your dunce cap. The most accurate part of your post was when you described yourself as "Mister Nobody, a layman". You belong with the pseudos as WUWT and CA.

Having the audacity to write, After all, I reasoned, there must be many people in the warmist camp who are educated, sincere and well-informed has got to be the most inane comment I have read on Deltoid in a long, long time. Anyone writing such utter garbage ought to be sent packing.

As I said before, the science is being done by those you ignorantly refer to in your post. For the most part, the denialists do not do research. Basically, those you refer to as the 'warmists' are the academics; the denialists, with few exceptions, are the imposters. The only way that they can back up their views is to take existing research and distorting it. For this they can take a page out of the creationists handbook.

Sunspot, both sides categorically are not politically motivated to the same degree. This is some inane b*s that you gleaned from a think tank or from your dependence on the likes of Soon and Baliunas. Its the kind of same crap I hear from creationists who argue that their views are actually scientific but that evolutionary dogma combined with political forces prevents them from being heard. The fact is that scientists test hypotheses in their research. Once evidence is accrued in support of (or in conflict with) a certain hypothesis it is accepted or rejected. This is the way I was taught, as a scientist, to do research.

The evidence for AGW is voluminous and is growing. Those climate scientists I have spoken with at conferences and workshops are speaking from a scientific platform. Like lawyers, who are paid to be working on behalf of their clients, a few scientsts have also been bought and paid for on behalf of industry. Still others are using science to promote their own political agendas which are broadly right wing and opposed to government regulations. A few scientists - very few as it turns out - honestly believe that the evidence in favor of AGW is weak. But these are a very tiny minority of statured scientists and especially those working in the field of climate research. Please do not b*s me with the argument that 95% of climate scientists who are generally agreed that humans are forcing climate are politically motivated. And the grant funding argument has nix to do with it, either. With few exceptions, most scientists in my field of research strongly believe that the case for AGW is beyond reasonable doubt, and virtually none of us are doing research related to climate change. The truth is that we think the evidence is sufficient to do something about it.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 10, 2010 8:39 AM

Brent, you were given ample time to demonstrate you weren't a timewaster. Almost everyone on here was originally helpful to you, including me. Whilst feigning sincerity here, you were writing this at Bishop Hill (8/3/10):

To the tune of "I Believed in Father Christmas"

...

And I believed in global warming

I fell for a big fat lie

But listen up folks

It’s only a hoax

A joke and a pig in a poke

(though to be entirely fair to you, you did laud BJ for his carbon footprint).

You are playing games, which you no doubt think are very clever. It doesn't wash. You are trolling.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 10, 2010 9:03 AM

Shirakawasuna (484): Thank you for your cogent posting.

You say, ".. do your homework" and "Any time that you would like to learn about the physics going into climate science, the scientific literature is at your disposal"

I'm trying to do just that, partly guided by people here (without such guidance one is soon 'lost in the library'), partly by framing my own criteria (such as glacier stuff) and digging for scientific literature to support/refute taht 'detective's lead'. In the spirit you suggest, I attended a lecture by an astrophysicist at London last year. I hesitate to name him here in this volatile atmosphere because the blowpipe brigade (485) will snort, "Oh, him! Don't listen to that charlatan!"

Although I'm just an educated layman, I feel entitled to pose questions such as above in #431. This is, after all, a layman's forum - enriched by some proper scientists and impoverished by the insult-throwers.

You say that I have not acknowledged some of Dave's points. That may be so; I'll have to check back. His calling me a moron makes me less than enthusiastic about doing him the courtesy of following his signposts.

The brethren here are quite immune to any touches of humour or attempts at wit; any cheerful turn of phrase is taken literally and ridicules. Answering the angry boys ("look, stoopid, just read this here website and then come back and confess you are wrong, wrong, wrong") with similar aggression just spoils the atmosphere. Dumb insolence is perhaps best:

Dave R (483): Are you SURE there's no sea ice at Miami? Have you BEEN to Miami lately? Ah.... just checked the satellite images: you were right all along, you son of a gun!

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 9:12 AM

I'm not going to go back through this entire thread to make a complete list, but just scanning the past few postings, I see that Brent has been called a dunce, a moron, and a liar.

It seems pretty clear to me that Brent is putting forward some very poor arguments. But why? Maybe he's a concern troll. Or maybe he's just a guy who is trying to make sense of some very complex issues, and he's not doing particularly well at it.

But here's the thing: should someone who genuinely doesn't understand the science be subjected to the same abuse as someone who is deliberately misrepresenting it? I don't think insulting someone is a very effective way to help them learn.

Let's suppose that when we see arguments like the ones Brent is making, we've learned that 9 out of 10 times, it's deliberate obfuscation. Think of it as guilt or innocence: Should you "punish" all ten, and subject one innocent person to abuse? Or should we ignore it, and let nine guilty people get off scot-free?

Yes, it's hard to keep responding to the same ridiculous assertions, over and over, without getting irritated. Nobody said being the good guys would be easy. And yeah, it sucks that there are people who simply cannot grasp the science, and it sucks that some of those people will align themselves with one side just because the other side seems like a bunch of jerks. Science is about minds, but politics is about hearts and minds. The policies are going to be defined by politicians. Like it or not, this is a political battlefield.

Regards,
Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | March 10, 2010 9:29 AM

Bruce, I generally agree with you. But what really got my ire was when Brent stated that "there must be people in the warming camp who are educated, sincere and well-informed".

Where to begin dismantling this dumb remark?

The fact is that many of the most respected and well-educated scientists in the world are climate scientists in support of the broad consensus over AGW. Many of these scientists, like Steve Schenider, Susan Solomon, James Hansen, and many others have hundreds of peer-reviewed papers in top journals and thousands of citations to their names. Constrast that with the number of scientists with similar qualifications in the denial camp; most have very poor publication records and are considered to be on the academic fringe.

Yet Brent gives the impression that the bulk of true academics are contrarians. This nonsense could not go unchallenged. I do not care whether he is a concern troll or not; speaking as a scientist who supports what I consider to be very strong empirical evidence for AGW, it galls me when someone can write such an inflammatory remark without any kind of foundation. If truth be told Brent's remark is the opposite of the truth. Most of the sincere, well educated people are NOT contrarians.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 10, 2010 9:52 AM

I'm grateful.

That you're greatful to an ignorant and dishonest fool like sunspot just goes to show your complete lack of intellectual integrity ... as if you had not repeatedly demonstrated that already.

Rather outnumbered here.

You could fix that by ceasing to be such a fool.

why their viewpoint is so different from ours

Because you're bunch of ignorant gits who are fueled by ideology, not a scientific search for the truth. The comments section of denier sites are filled with people who talk about "common sense" and about the arrogance of scientists or accuse them of being in some big conspiracy, and who trot out the same talking points over and over, no matter how often they are refuted -- people like sunspot. These people are like teabaggers, birthers, and Creationists and are often the same people. They are arrogant know-nothings who think that their own opinions stand on a par with the findings of the scientific community.

This sort of anti-science arrogance can be seen in what you wrote on one of those sites:

"Science" has recently stepped into the void left by theologians; the unwashed public have replaced one set of authority figures for another. And we, the public, find it distressing that our experts are in conflict.

But it's science, not "science", and it isn't theology or anything like it. Scientists are only authority figures because they have expended great effort to study, learn, investigate, and communicate. The experts are not in conflict; 97% of all climate scientists acknowledge AGW, as does virtually every reputable science organization. By claiming that the experts are in conflict you are propagating a lie, just as people who claim that there is scientific doubt about the theory of evolution are propagating a lie.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 10, 2010 10:08 AM

Truthmachineom @ 497:

Perhaps, by scanning the past few postings, you missed that.

Which is fair enough on a big thread like this. There's no need to be rude to Bruce.

Posted by: Dave R | March 10, 2010 10:22 AM

Truthmachineom, I don't comment here all that often, especially in the climate threads. That's because I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, and I generally can't contribute anything of value.

The five paragraphs above can be boiled down to "Go easy on Brent." If you've read my past comments, and you think I'm a troll, fair enough. But if the only thing you've read was the single comment above, then you're reinforcing my point. It's not helpful to always assume the worst.

Jeff and P Lewis: Fair points. Brent has made several inflammatory remarks. However... Jeff, you know that I'm not a big Chomsky fan, but in this case I'm thinking of one of the areas where I completely agree with him. Our main concern should be the things we do, and not what the other side does. That's what I was driving at when I said it's not easy being the good guys. The good guys get held to a higher standard.

I'm not above slinging insults and ridicule myself... but still, every now and then, we all need a gentle reminder that it's important to keep our eyes on the prize.

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | March 10, 2010 11:38 AM

Brent,

Just finished reading this long series of comments and you've shown yourself to be completely and proudly ignorant. As others have corrected you on everything else, I'll correct you on something unrelated to climate change: @344

Ah, now weren't the Cathars a sect of angry heretics who burnt true believers at the stake?

No. The Cathars were the persecuted sect that was nearly wiped out during the Albigensian Crusade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar There are Cathars around today and they likely wouldn't appreciate being called "angry heretics". Funny, you pegged the wrong side as being "angry" and violent with the Cathars, you make similar mistakes in your other characterizations here. You claim to be an engineer. Judging by your track record here, are you the engineer who designed Toyota's gas pedals?

Of course, as an engineer who dropped out of physics 'cause he couldn't understand the math, you're in good company. Here's a colleague of yours: http://www.timecube.com

Posted by: Lynxreign | March 10, 2010 12:23 PM

By the way again, Brent. Since you're such a big fan of Watts, you might like to help him out at Tamino's message to Anthony Watts where he asks Watts to apologise for lying about what NOAA did and accusing them of fraud. You don't want people to think you're a fan of a big liar, do you?

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 10, 2010 1:38 PM

Dave R (456): I must apologise for not reacting to the many links you posted in contradiction of large-scale solar forcing. I somehow missed your posting; my silence was not a deliberate rebuff, althogh I can understand that it appeared so. You also corrected me on the Solar Cycle No - the new one is 24, not 25, yep.

Lotharsson (462): Haven't yet read in detail the OpenMind link you kindly offered on the same theme. But I will.

I'll have to go quiet for a while, but may I leave you with this food for thought:

(i) In a magnificent piece on how glaciers work at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html the Geological Society's website (founded 1808) (the society, that is, not the website) says:

"All this suggests that the present climate has limited effect on melting ice and rising sea levels, but since the Alarmists keep up their horror stories it is good to know that even the present times are not all bad."

(ii) From RealClimate: "From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later."

'Currently unknown', eh? Isn't that Gavin one of yours? Maybe call him some of the names directed at me here.....

The pygmy blowpipes will surely start shooting at me, but... could it be that the currently rising CO2 PPM is a consequence of the Medieval Warm Period 800 years ago?

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 3:00 PM

Rather than provide a link to explain why Brent's suggestion about the cause of rising CO2 is wrong, I'm just going to do the quick "layman's explanation" here.

Point one: Humans are emitting a whole lot of CO2 - in fact, somewhat MORE than the observed increase, although not a whole lot more. If the CO2 increase was caused by something else, what would you propose is happening to the CO2 that we're observably emitting?

Point two: By looking at the isotope ratios, we find that the C14/C13 ratio in atmospheric CO2 is shifting - there's less C14 and more C13 than there used to be, which is an indicator that the carbon being released is 'old' - the simplest explanation of that is that it's fossil fuels.

Now, yes, you could come up with alternative explanations to either point, I'm sure. But any such alternative explanations would be more complicated, and almost certainly wouldn't cover both points - so you'd need two separate explanations instead of one, which is again more complex, and thus Occam's Razor suggests you should just stick with the "we're causing it" explanation which is simple and consistent with all the observed facts.

Posted by: Michael Ralston | March 10, 2010 3:58 PM

Folks, I'm going to absent myself for a couple of days to do a lot of homework and just maybe see if the outside world is still there.

Interesting site you might want to see: It links to a great deal of evidential support for AGW:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Posted by: Brent | March 10, 2010 4:10 PM

Interesting site you might want to see: It links to a great deal of evidential support for AGW: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Troll.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 10, 2010 4:22 PM

Brent,

Homework suggestion:

http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/index.html

Humor suggestion:

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan

Don't be a Bozo.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 10, 2010 5:24 PM

You, like nearly all "skeptics" are still trying to find/promote one little piece that you can pull out of the case to make the whole thing collapse like a house of cards[.]

I believe Brent described AGW as a "rotten edifice" that would "tumble down".

Posted by: John | March 10, 2010 7:13 PM

It's funny how people who seem so certain it's a rotten edifice generally haven't yet found a plank they can poke their fingers through. It's like they've eyeballed a couple and they're sure they'll yield, but they haven't put the hypothesis to the test. You know, like scientists would...

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 10, 2010 8:19 PM

Michael Ralston.

A useful Point 3 would be the fact that oxygen in the atmsophere is decreasing in stoichiometric proportion to the fossil carbon being combusted by humans.

A candidate for Point 4 would be that the CO₂ decrease and the oxygen increase coincide, in time, with humanity's significant increase in fossil carbon burning stemming from the Industrial Revolution.

The more one focuses a magnifying glass on Brent's red herring, the more patently obvious it is that said piscine is a stinking, rotting carcass that has been festering in the sun for far too long.

For someone of Brent's obvious intelligence, it is surprising that he cannot see that the robust consistency of the AGW case, in contrast to the robust inconsistency of the denialist case, screams a particular parsimonious conclusion.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that IQ is not equivalent to wisdom, and that its possession is no guarantee of a capacity for logical, rational, impartial thought and analysis.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 10, 2010 8:39 PM

sunspot, can you at least Google alexander lavoisier @ sicenceblogs.com/deltoid before you do your ignorant trolling?

the pedestal CO2 sits upon has rotted legs.

I thinks it's infinitely more likely the Lavoisier Society sits upon rotted legs.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 10, 2010 8:44 PM

yep, when its hot its warming, when its cold its weather. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/37k http://www.tinyurl.com.au/37m

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 8:57 PM

sunspot, I know you're just an ignorant troll, but just because it's cold where most of the people are doesn't mean the whole hemisphere is cold.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 10, 2010 9:39 PM

As long as we're using newspapers and single data points as arguments: Seattle. Spokane. (completely different climate)

Posted by: tresmal | March 10, 2010 9:55 PM

Sunspot.

Lavoisier?!

Riiight...

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 10, 2010 10:30 PM

Thanks for that link Chris ??? Now don't spit and cough all over your monitor but Roy Spencer has different ideas to you, an opposing view.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/

unless your changing sides, are you ?

Posted by: sunspot | March 10, 2010 11:02 PM

And while we're on Spencer's determination of climate sensitivity, here's a three part post that suggests that he is (deliberately or inadvertently) screwing up the calculation in ways that give him a significantly lower value than he should find. You need to read all three parts (although you may be able to skim much of the second half of the first part and still get the argument).

In essence, Spencer's estimating sensitivity by observing short term climate variations but using calculations that assume equilibrium is reached which requires a long time. Why do you need a long time? Because different feedback mechanisms (forces that act to change global average temperature in response to a change in global average temperature) take wildly different time spans to operate.

And I believe that is also what Monckton has been doing in his climate sensitivity calculations (amongst other things).

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 11, 2010 12:12 AM

so now you agree with Dr Spencer, do you, that it is hot, but that we're not causing it? Or is it actually cold?

I suspect he agrees with Dr. Spencer that he doesn't know whether it's hot or cold, and once he figures that out, he still won't know why ;-)

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 11, 2010 12:27 AM

With each link presented by 'sunspot', readers might want to ask: how much of what he pushes does 'spotty' already know to dodgy?

Spotty has a record of pushing information he knows to be false.

Sun spot, you still haven't stated which bits are true amongst the list of bogus claims you pushed on us.

Perhaps instead you could give some data on a hypothesis that I'm researching:

I think one of the traits of denial is resistance (and in extreme cases pathological inability) to accept error, correct the record and thus to some degree retarding improvement and development in the area of concern.

What do you think of my hypothesis?

Posted by: jakerman | March 11, 2010 12:40 AM

Sunspot doesn't want to be answerable to anything he posts.

Posted by: John | March 11, 2010 1:19 AM

sunspot:

Roy Spencer has different ideas to you

The point at issue is that he has a different idea to you about whether the world is cold or not. He disagrees with you. Stop lying about this fact.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 11, 2010 2:25 AM

Sunspot,

Your news paper article is well out of date. Central and northern Canada - including much of the Arctic - has had its warmest winter in recorded history.

So much for your 'obectivity'.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 11, 2010 2:59 AM

A sunspot is a transient, recurring phenomenon. When reappearing, it is still dimmer than all around it.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 11, 2010 3:55 AM

Sunspot thank you for that data. More for my study.

spotty writes:

I am not a denier of AGW, I am a denier of it's puissance as compared to that of solar activity, you on the other hand are a denier of all that is exposed against your conjecture that GHG's are the primary drivers of GW

To help me understand your position, could you elaborate on what it is exactly I am denying and what is your evidence for my denial.

Posted by: jakerman | March 11, 2010 4:46 AM

sunspot:

in recent years myself and my co workers have noticed that the intensity of the sun is not dissimilar to welding without your shirt on, even when its only 35C

So why was it that you forgot about this when you gave us your favorite weather reports.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 11, 2010 5:29 AM

Shorter sunspot @ 551:

No, I don't have any response to the arguments that refuted my "it's the sun" talking point. Instead I'm just going to lie about the lifestyles of people I know nothing about.

Posted by: Dave R | March 11, 2010 7:02 AM

Shorter sunspot:

I'm a survivalist, I used the phone and bought solar panels.

Posted by: sim | March 11, 2010 7:21 AM

Cosmic rays and clouds: 1 and 2.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 11, 2010 11:58 AM

although I've avoided using language like 'bent scientists on the gravy train' in on this site, I am guilty of using it elsewhere

Indeed you are. Perhaps you would like to explain or at least explore the mental processes that lead one to write the sorts of things you wrote in #466 in the absence of supporting evidence. How much time have you spent reading the sources you've been provided here? How much time do you suppose the average member of the "rational folk" you mention in #466 has? And how much time do you suppose that the average climate scientist has? I think you seriously need to reevaluate your notion of what constitutes rationality.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 11, 2010 2:55 PM

Brent said: "In today's Times (UK), p17:

"Human activity blamed as 500 species of plants and animals disappear in England."

I am astonished that the words Global Warming and Climate Change do not appear".

I'm astonished that those such as you can only evaluate events in your own narrow, artificial ideological point-scoring terms, such as they are.

Never would the phrase "get real" be more apt.

Posted by: chek | March 11, 2010 4:00 PM

I am astonished that the words Global Warming and Climate Change do not appear.

I am not astonished at your inability to read.

The survey trawled records and specimens dating back 2,000 years. All but 12 of the 492 species to vanish were lost after 1800. This was attributed in part to the scarcity of records in pre-Victorian times, but also to increased hunting and fishing, loss of habitat to farming, and climate change.

Of course, the fact that it is mentioned in the article does not alone mean that climate change was a significant factor in species loss, or even a factor at all. But no amount of exaggeration or "alarmism" undoes the science of climate change. That's why your #510 is trolling.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 11, 2010 4:12 PM

P.S.

I quoted from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7057399.ece

It's possible that Brent is correct about the printed version.

Posted by: Truthmachineom | March 11, 2010 4:17 PM

brent, your a goner ! we are all doomed. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3aa nobody in here will or has got off their arse's to do anything about it, in their narrow fields of vision they think that by ridiculing you into their belief that you might save the world for them !!!!!

Posted by: sunspot | March 12, 2010 5:10 AM

Further to Chris's post, I was wondering why Sunspot is not paying interest to the fact that most of Canada has experienced its warmest winter ever - 5-10 C above normal in many places. if we are to play the weather is climate game, why is this not picked up by the corporate msm and the denialati? Perhaps because it does not fit well with their narrative?

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 12, 2010 6:07 AM

Sunspot, your link to His Royal Highness's statement has put the shits up me. '96 months to save the world', he said. Eight months ago. That leaves us only 89.

Note the new vocabulary. I am now entitled to call people fool, idiot, moron and bozo. When I read your description of our side as

"shit head shinny arse's in here [] most of [whom] wouldn't know what the sun felt like on their vitamin D deficient, lilly white, blubbery carcasses", I thought it was most unfunny.

And, Sunspot (it that's really your name, which I doubt), just look out of the window. See that road? Yeah.... mel-ting, isn't it? Huh? What's that you say? Not melting? Yeah, well it SOON WILL BE, you..... you.... sceptic!!!!!

PS

!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Brent | March 12, 2010 6:23 AM

Shorter Brent and sunspot:

We still have absolutely nothing to dispute the science of human caused global warming. However, we still have plenty of smears and straw men.

Posted by: Dave R | March 12, 2010 7:07 AM

A great article by Bill McKibben oin the American Empire Report that sums up the strategies of the denialati:

http://aep.typepad.com/americanempireproject/2010/02/the-attack-on-climatechange-science.html

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 12, 2010 8:00 AM

Sunspot,

I am not an engineer. I am a population ecologist who just happens to think that the empirical evidence for AGW is very strong, well past a reasonable doubt. Basically, your argument - and it is a pithy one at that - is to suggest that the solutions are easier to talk about than to implement. Fair enough. But if we do not implement changes, then nature will impose changes by itself that have far greater costs on humanity. Nature is unforgiving, and if Homo sapiens continues with its single global experiment then there will be consequenses - nasty ones - in store.

More importantly, there are people with the expertise and acumen to get humanity onto an environmentally sustainable path, and to develop new technologies that as painlessly as possible wean us off of our addiction to fossil fuels. We should have been working towards this goal for the past 20 years, but powerful, selfish forces that think only in terms of short-term profit and damn the future have used their political muscle to delay, delay, delay, postpone, postpone, postpone. They are experts in manipulating public opinion and posesses PR skills that scientists will never be able to emulate. As Michael Mann said in an interview recently, it is a kind of asymmetric warfare - well oiled PR operatives and lobbyists like Steve Milloy and Marc Morano are far more successful in manipulating public opinion than we scientists are, because they have been honed in their spin-doctoring techniques whereas scientist's have not. It does not matter that, in my opinion, Morano and Milloy and their ilk and knuckleheads who do not understand the basics of environmental science; they make waves because the public know even less than they do, and are desperate for optimistic scenarios. I recall another of Morano's appalling projects ten years ago called 'Amazon.con' in which he claimed that the Amazon forests were not under threat. The report was an abomination and full of empirical holes, but I am sure that many out there who want to believe in the tooth fairy swallowed it up.

So to get back to your point: there are those out there working on devising new technologies to replace the fossil fuel addiction we are in. But they are not being heard. So long as the environmental costs of economic activities are externalized, there will never be the will to change course.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 12, 2010 8:18 AM

sunspot thinks he can switch to concern trolling without anyone noticing:

my thrust is Deltoid needs to be more proactive in the solving side of things

If it weren't for morons like you and the liars who feed you your talking points, many more people would be able to devote a lot more time to "the solving side of things".

why [...] no action ?

Claiming that commenters here have taken no action is a bare faced lie, as you have already been told.

Posted by: Dave R | March 12, 2010 9:03 AM

sunspot:

my thrust is Deltoid needs to be more proactive in the solving side of things

I thought your thrust was using reports of cold weather to imply that global climate is not warming. You still haven't explained why you did that.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | March 12, 2010 9:51 AM

Chris, the Holzhauser graph suggests that it was about 100m shorter in 100BC and 500m shorter in 1300BC.

Having read the magnificent document at

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html

glaciers are a much better indicator of past precipitation than current temperature.

When, for instance, a retreating glacier's tip happens to be in a depression - a lake - the retreat is much faster (makes sense) but that sprint is irrelevant to the overall length oscillation. Presumably the converse happens: that in an extended cold period (when such a lake freezes) a forward sprint will occur.

There are doubtless other studies of other glaciers in other parts of the world, but I haven't yet taken time to go in search of them. Somebody wrote here that the Aletsch might be in a microclimate; comparisons with others would help confirm/refute that. I have recently seen results of a c2000 yr proxy study using molluscs in Canada, showing a similar curve, complete with MWP and LIA, which supports the idea of worldwide variation rather than localised.

Posted by: Brent | March 12, 2010 10:16 AM

Just for sunspot:

Its 20 C above normal in Big Trout Lake, northern Ontario, Canada this week... get that! 20 C! (Normal temperature there in mid-March is -6 by day and -21 at night; yesterday and today it has reached +12 to +14 C and is still above freezing at night). Guess what: Marc Morano won't be covering this on "Climate Depot". Neither will WUWT, CA, nor any of the other contrarian sites that peddle gibberish. It does not fit their narrative.

Maximum temperature records are falling like bowling pins across central Canada - areas as far north as Whitehorse, NWT, normally blocks of ice at this time of the year, are also well above freezing. Unprecedented. And, more importantly, many more record high temperatures are being recorded across the globe over the past 20 years than record lows. Of course the planet is warming and doing so rapidly, and the human fingerprint is all over it.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 12, 2010 10:38 AM

Richard,

Good points. I recall seeing robins in the middle of winter in Quebec seven years ago, which was quite a surprise seeing as it rarely wintered even in southern Ontario as I recall growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. Range exapnsions are becoming the norm; thermophic plants are advancing into northern Europe from the south, and we are finding species of arthropods in Holland that are normally confined to central and southern Europe. The first record of Argiope brunnechi (golden orb spider) was made in the province in which I live (Gelderland) in 2000; it is now common over much of ther country. Basically, some species and populations are responding to the current rapid warming. The problem will be in how food webs rearrange themselves and which species will not be able to respond fast enough.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 12, 2010 11:27 AM

On a more serious note, that den of denialist vipers at JunkScience claims that there's a growing disparity between the UAH MSU satellite temperature record and the ground-based GISS. Do we have an explanation? All those research papers I just looked at are using GISS, but if the satellite data is more authoritative, well, might it damage our case in the AGW camp?

Anyone who actually understands what the MSU and AMSU sensors measure, and how they're processed, isn't likely to consider the satellite data "more authoritative".

UAH just changed their processing algorithm to reduce a spurious annual cycle in their reported anomalies. Reduce, not eliminate. "spurious" as "does not physically exist in the temperature sense". "spurious" as in "an artifact of the processing algorithm".

The RSS temperature product matches the GISTEMP trend more closely. Given that UAH has a history of errors (mostly pointed out by RSS, this latest spurious annual cycle wasn't noticed by Christy or Spencer themselves, but detected and commented on by others, as has been typical of UAH problems), I'd trust RSS more than UAH.

Not to mention that Spencer is openly in the denialist camp and has put forward some really weird papers that are obviously agenda driven nonsense, have been rejected, and then claims the rejection is due to the close-minded agenda-driven review process.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the 1979-present data set covers a wide swath of the troposphere concentrated on the 4-7km layer. There were problems with one of the four MSU channels on a couple of the earlier satellite, so more comprehensive coverage doesn't go back past 1986 (according to RSS).

So it's not measuring surface temps.

RSS has a nice overview on their website.

Posted by: dhogaza | March 12, 2010 1:03 PM

dhogaza,

We shouldn't neglect to mention a third analysis by Qiang Fu that brings the satellite trend even closer to GISS, or that of Vinnikov and Grody that actually exceeds it.

It is seriously (not)funny how the denialista brigades consistently cherry-pick the low ball estimates of any given distribution of data.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 12, 2010 2:26 PM

Ah, the Fu analysis is the UW one that claims to do a better job of removing the lower stratosphere "pollution" of the mid-troposphere data product. His paper made it into Nature.

I'm not finding any commentary from RSS or UAH about it, with a quick google search.

Logically it makes sense. What do you know?

Posted by: dhogaza | March 12, 2010 3:31 PM

dhogaza,

This is interesting:

Error Structure and Atmospheric Temperature Trends in Observations from the Microwave Sounding Unit Zou, Cheng-Zhi; Gao, Mei; Goldberg, Mitchell D. Journal of Climate, vol. 22, issue 7, p. 1661

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/mscat/mscat_files/Zou.2009.ErrorStructure.pdf

They have a website at NOAA, MSCAT.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 12, 2010 5:31 PM

Brent writes:

The metre of snow in your area is just weather, and Canada's getting the climate. Here in England the daffodils are still not out. THAT's climate. No wait, that's weather. Or is it the other way round?

Disingenuous Brent,

The example of Canada was raised to show the nature of Spotties weather cherry picking. But you knew that.

How many times have you revealed your disingenuous tactics in this thread alone? Do you see a pattern Brent?

Posted by: jakerman | March 12, 2010 6:57 PM

Help us out here, please: which of the various temperature series would you recommend as being most representative in assessing global warming? I've been figuring until now that UAH MSU and GISS are looking at the same phenomenon (one from space and the other from groundstations), and it seemed reasonable to wonder which is more 'authoritative'.

You mention RSS, a company which I think interprets satellite data. So RSS and UAH do parallel work. How would you describe this overlap? Are they competing with each other, or usefully calibrating each other, or working to different agendas?

UAH made the first satellite temperature reconstruction, claimed the world was cooling, not warming, and that therefore the surface temp record and models were both wrong.

The RSS people did their own satellite temperature reconstruction, and also found errors in the UAH work. I know they're working under contract now but I don't know where the federal funding is coming from exactly. I don't know if they were working under contract when they first got involved.

The two groups use their own homebrewed algorithms and in a sense provide a check on each others work. UAH shows a lower warming trend than RSS, GISTEMP, or HadCRUT and given their past track record of errors, as mentioned earlier, it makes me tend to trust RSS more. It doesn't help that when UAH first "proved" global cooling, which was solely an artifact of errors in their work, they went around publicizing it loudly and often. I won't say that their political and religious beliefs tainted their work, but I think that their preconceived political ideology led them to trumpet their "cooling" findings to like-minded people on the right. And that they weren't sufficiently critical of their own work.

After all, their claims that both models and the surface temp record were wrong was quite the stunning result and deserved a great deal of critical examination. Which it got. But not from christy and spencer ...

This was actually what got me interested in the details of the climate science "debate", actually. The Wall Street Journal proclaimed the UAH "cooling" data to be the "wooden stake through the heart of AGW". I was curious, and the more I read, and the more I watched the drama unfold (errors found by RSS, Christy announcing yet more errors which he claimed restored the cooling when fixed, RSS finding more errors, a somewhat confrontational conference in which UAH got beat down fairly badly albeit politely) the less I came to trust Christy and Spencer.

Posted by: dhogaza | March 12, 2010 7:58 PM

Not to mention that Spencer is openly in the denialist camp and has put forward some really weird papers that are obviously agenda driven nonsense, have been rejected, and then claims the rejection is due to the close-minded agenda-driven review process.

Spencer just made another adjustment to UAH. Clearly his results cannot be trusted! Why won't Spencer release the raw data and the processing code? What is he hiding? Where is his commitment to openness in science? Why isn't McIntyre submitting FOI requests to Spencer? Release the e-mails!

;-) ;-)

Hmmmm, I don't think my parody skills are that great.

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 12, 2010 9:19 PM

dave r @ 578, face it your a poodle not a pit bull, a 'concern troll' you say. If the shoe fits I'll wear it because I've been getting my hands dirty in the environment for over 25yrs and have 'concern trolled' a few environmental vandals. I spoze dave r would complain about the skid mark but never pick up the brush ! 'If it weren't for morons like you and the liars who feed you your talking points, many more people would be able to devote a lot more time to "the solving side of things".' your running around in circles like a chook with its head cut off dave, show everyone in here that you can do something positive

Posted by: sunspot | March 13, 2010 1:45 AM

The example of Canada was raised to show the nature of Spotties [disingenous] weather cherry picking.

Posted by: jakerman | March 13, 2010 2:54 AM

John,

I think your #605 is a fine piece of work, and in a few short words expose what was indeed pretty obvious. Yes, guilty as charged. I congratulate you.

I arrived on this site hoping to debate this serious issue in a gentlemanly way, putting counterarguments and quite prepared to listen to solid reasoning and solid evidence which would confirm the AGW hypothesis. The abuse was pretty uncomfortable - even given the 'remoteness of the keyboard'.

So I must abandon trolling and return to being direct.

This being a layman's site (enriched by some science professionals) I still feel entitled to pose legitimate counterargumants and welcome others demolishing them in honourable debate.

Dhogaza gets this.

Shorter Dhogaza: This is what I think, and this is why; I persuade others by the power of my argument rather than by invective.

The discussion on species range in recent years I found absurd, and chipping in with what the daffodils are doing here was a reducio ad absurdum.

Chris (599): We have no evidence either way whether the Tutankhamun minimum (of the Aletsch Glacier) was preceded by other such minima during the earlier Holcene, so you can't say that if it retreats to this point, or beyond, it will be a 125,000-year low. You claim to have a crystal ball; I wish I did. I can only compare today with what we know of the past.

Current reading suggests that 'Cumulative Mass Balance' is a better parameter than length. Have a look at the graph in this link:

http://climaticidechronicles.org/2008/12/21/swiss-glaciers-going-the-way-of-their-himalayan-and-andean-counterparts/

and

http://doc.rero.ch/lm.php?url=1000,43,2,20100121152230-MF/husssagsm.pdf

The second one, a published paper, concludes that radiative forcing in the 1940s was behind the rapid 1940s retreat.

Glaciers still appear to be a useful proxy for past climate on millennial timescales. To my eyes, this proxy suggests "business as usual".

Posted by: Brent | March 13, 2010 8:20 AM

sunspot:

show everyone in here that you can do something positive

Asked and answered

Posted by: Dave R | March 13, 2010 10:38 AM

Brent @606

The discussion on species range in recent years I found absurd,

Posted by: Richard Simons | March 13, 2010 2:47 PM

Dhogaza gets this. Shorter Dhogaza: This is what I think, and this is why; I persuade others by the power of my argument rather than by invective.

A classic concern trolling technique. But no one cares about whether you approve of their tone, and again your ability to read and absorb evidence is demonstrated to be poor after Dhogaza's " it clear that those who claim that the satellite data is somehow more reliable/easier to interpret/blah blah blah are talking smack". That's you, Brent.

We have no evidence either way whether the Tutankhamun minimum (of the Aletsch Glacier) was preceded by other such minima during the earlier Holcene, so you can't say that if it retreats to this point, or beyond, it will be a 125,000-year low.

You really are rather dim, Brent, and your ideology continues to cloud your vision. What we have here is not simply a context-free question, the sort that one might find on Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit, of how long it's been since the glacier has retreated this much. It's an indicator, of a process, and that process is AGW. It doesn't matter whether the glacier had receded as far at some point in the past, any more than it matters whether Pluto or Jupiter or Triton is undergoing warming. The important point is not whether it will or will not reach a 125,000 year low, it's that it is shrinking rapidly and that shrinkage is consistent with the theory of AGW -- which is about what is going on now, what went on at the time of Tutankhamun -- along with thousands of other indicators. The only reason that we are talking about the glacier is because you attempted to cherry pick it as a counterexample to AGW. As John said, you are a failure.

Posted by: truth machine | March 13, 2010 5:09 PM

Brent said:

The discussion on species range in recent years I found absurd, and chipping in with what the daffodils are doing here was a reducio ad absurdum.

and by doing so renders his entire presence on this thread completely and irrevocably absurd.

Brent, you are obviously not familiar with even the basics of biology. The biosphere is an extremely sensitive integrator of temperature shiftings, and the biosphere is demonstrating very clearly that the planet is warming.

If you find the science absurd, then you are simply demonstrating the cognitive dissonance that occurs when ideology, unfounded in reality, meets scientific fact.

There is only one absurdity that results from this collision, and it isn't the science. Rather, the fit seems to match your size precisely...

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 13, 2010 6:16 PM

P.S.

As for 'ecological stability', I read about wild swings in some species (locusts, lemmings, in briefly-blooming deserts). Has there in the past been 'ecological stability', or isn't nature characterised by constant change and adaptation, often with vast population swings over a variety of timescales?

This is a classic case of cherry picking and a false dilemma. Wild swings in population size of locusts and lemmings, and briefly blooming deserts, do not alone characterize nature, and they certainly don't contradict ecological stability. Now, deserts that briefly turned into rain forests and then the trees turned into lemmings who transformed into locusts and so-on -- that would be ecological instability. But the stable desert ecological network supports those plants that bloom briefly, over and over again, and there are stable ecological factors that support the cyclic growth and decline of lemming and locust populations, which is why we can even associate such swings with lemmings and locusts specifically.

Sheesh.

Posted by: truth machine | March 13, 2010 7:38 PM

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3ds

I'll post this again as some must have missed it or would prefer not to account for it. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3b4

Posted by: sunspot | March 14, 2010 6:26 PM

In most of Canada, it will likely mean a warmer winter with less snowfall, according to Environment Canada Senior Climatologist Dave Phillips.

Seems reasonable. Or did you stop at the sensationalist headline which is not repeated by a single person interviewed?

Posted by: John | March 14, 2010 9:28 PM

sunspot, you still haven't explained why you used reports of cold weather to imply that global climate is not warming.

Nor has spotty answered a plethora of straight questions put to him. Here is another for Spotty, why does spotty think El Nino surface warming contradicts global warming?

I think Spotty has shown himself to be a simple propagandist, he can't make his case in a conherent manner without contradicting himself, so he just pushes out vague notions in the hope massaging the prejudice of a few with vague allusions.

Posted by: jakerman | March 14, 2010 11:16 PM

Because I like to sink in the boot, I thought people might like an insight into Brent's motives here:

To destroy one's enemy, one must first understand him.

So much for "I arrived on this site hoping to debate this serious issue in a gentlemanly way, putting counterarguments and quite prepared to listen to solid reasoning and solid evidence which would confirm the AGW hypothesis.", eh?

We've had some pretty idiotic trolls here, but I reckon Brent would have to be the dumbest. At least most trolls don't lie about their motives.

People like Brent are the very reason there is a massive imbalance in this debate. Scientists are expected to uphold the highest ethics, while denialists rely on lying and misrepresentation and don't see any problem with this. Then, most heinous of all, Brent cries poor when he gets caught out on it!

Posted by: John | March 14, 2010 11:41 PM

Brent's motives here

Aside from what you point out, that post is another illustration of Brent's thinking based on the fallacy of affirmation of the consequent, as he misapplies the notion of "noble cause corruption". If you actually follow the links, you get to http://www.patc.com/weeklyarticles/print/noble-cause-corruption.pdf which talks about police acting unethically to put criminals, or people they think are criminals, away. But these actions of the police do not alone imply that those people did not commit the crime for which they are convicted due to the police misconduct; to determine that, one must example independent evidence. Brent's source, Steven Mosher, even acknowledges this in regard to "Climategate" (while he dishonestly characterizes the emails and other evidence), and goes on to say "To be sure, the balance of the evidence still indicates that the world has warmed" -- something that cherry picker Brent ignores. Of course, Mosher also shows his ignorance or dishonesty when he writes "Jones also affirmed what many contrarians have argued. There are periods in the instrument record that show rates of warming statistically indistinguishable from what we witnessed between 1975 and 1998. And the most recent years, since 1995, have shown no statistically significant warming". No one who misuses Jones' statement this way has a leg to stand on for talking about ethics or anything else in re global warming.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 1:48 AM

why does spotty think El Nino surface warming contradicts global warming?

This is another example of the fallacy of affirmation of the consequent. To make the reasoning explicit:

If humans are not the cause of warming, then there are other causes. El Nino is another cause of warming. Therefore humans are not the cause of warming.

Everyone, even someone as deficient as spotty, is able to understand that the same phenomenon (characterized loosely enough) can result from more than one process, yet somehow this obvious fact escapes the deniers reasoning about global warming, and so they blather on about sunspots, El Nino, Mars and Pluto warming, etc. ad dumbum.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 2:49 AM

CANADA -El Niño or sGW or both ?

Regarding the post's 549 568 584 585 586 620 & 623

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3ew http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3ev http://www.tinyurl.com.au/3b4

Who's picking the twisted cherries ?

I thought this would be the most suitable site for most here - http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/nino/intro.html I did like this sentence - "Scientists do not really understand how El Nino forms." they should have left the "really" out

Posted by: sunspot | March 15, 2010 3:12 AM

the point is about others blaming AGW on Canada's biota moving northwards and not mentioning the El Neno's.

You're a liar. Canada was brought up in #544 in response to your idiocy in #524; as was noted, "The example of Canada was raised to show the nature of Spotties weather cherry picking". You implied in #524 that northern cold shows the globe isn't warming. When it was pointed out that your evidence was cherry picked, the north isn't so cold after all, you moved the goalposts to El Nino. As for biota and El Nino vs. AGW ... unlike you, scientists aren't idiots, they take into account all of the data and make the best inferences from them.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 5:15 AM

Truth, I hope your dummy didn't get too dirty ?

you said,

'unlike you, scientists aren't idiots, they take into account all of the data and make the best inferences from them.'

I'd like to remind you that the world is in the condition it is largely because of science !

You, like most others in this blog are so concerned about being right and protecting your precious ego's that you haven't the foresight to network or think tank with your 'scientists aren't idiots' mate's, why should I believe your science when you and your peer's think that your job is done. You are tooo lazy to look for answers or think that the dish washer at the local pub will come up with an answer for your aGW. Don't give me the crap that your to busy insulting me, you reckon the worlds gunna burn and your doing jack shit to prove your fairytale.

You think your cluey, see how you go organizing the scatter brains in here to do something positive !

ps. I'm sick of hearing how smart you all are

Posted by: sunspot | March 15, 2010 6:51 AM

Hi Jeff (633), and thank you for your kind words.

I think we all of us stuggle with having, on the one hand, a good knowledge of some areas of science and, on the other, accessing other areas where we are dependent on specialists to gain a wider understanding of the many areas with a bearing on climate.

Let’s make a small list with a bearing on climate: astronomy, ecology, thermodynamics, statistics, biology, chemistry, meteorology, geology, nuclear physics, chaos theory. You can doubtless add a few to this list, or point out that one of them is a subset of another one.

Some of these fields are quite mature, but of course still evolving. Some – I would suggest climatology and astrophysics – are in their infancy. In living memory plate tectonics and chaos theory have leaped from being a fringe notion to exciting new fields which enrich the entire scientific oeuvre.

Jeff, it would take a genius to master all these fields. In the absence of such a genius (but let’s hope that one such is about to emerge), we imperfect but educated debaters are attempting a ‘collective effort of mass networking’ to get to the truth. This is why I have tried to be courteous here. Unfortunately, sad bastards like TruthMachineOM have gone in search of pugnacious statements I have made on other sites and used it to demonstrate bad faith. It actually demonstrated that I had a prior view, a position, much as you do yourself. For a while I indulged in ‘trolling’. It was a transparent effort, and went down badly. In trolling, I was hoping to advance the debate by saying: ‘Taking the AGW hypothesis as the best we’ve got, shouldn’t we now address the following counterarguments?’ Such counterargumants being, for example, alternative sources of forcing, conflicting temperature records, and ‘business as usual’.

May I please ask you a few questions?

(i) What is your view on the claim that current climate resembles the conditions of the MWP (as evidenced by the recent mollusc study, Aletsch glacier, Viking settlement of Greenland)?

(ii) Do you discount the sunspot theory (or rather the notion that solar activity may have a profound effect on climate (Parana River, Svensmark, Herschel, Aletsch), potentially rivalling that of CO2)?

(iii) Are you confident that the instrumental record in the last few decades shows an unprecedented increase in temperature, or rate of increase?

(iv) As an ecologist, would you say that recent observed species adaptations (I think you use the word ‘phenology’) are unprecedented and that the climate is changing faster than such species and their partners can cope with?

Please forgive me if you have already made your position clear. Somebody wrote above that the good guys need to be persistent and calm.

Posted by: Brent | March 15, 2010 7:56 AM

Brent,

There is litttle doubt that the rate of temperature increase, at least regionally, is unprecendented in many thousands of years. Climate control systems are highly deterministic and would require a major forcing the knock them out of short term equilibrium. And by short-term I am referring to a century or less (even a thousand years is a short time within a geological time frame). I have had it up to here with denialists arguing that change is the norm; of course it is! But within certain boundaries. Global changes must be viewed within the context of scale. Local processes are much more stochastic than global processes.

When a small planetoid or large asteroid struck the planet near to the present day Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, the event which precipitated the demise of the dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary, it is often assumed by many that their extinction was an instantaneous event, or nearly so. But it is likely that the dinosaurs took 10,000-20,000 years to disappear. The problem with Homo sapiens is that changes that we perceive as being gradual represent the blink of an evolutionary and geological eye in nature. The fact is that the planet is warming at a remarkably rapid rate, given the size and scale of the climate regulation system. Temperatures in parts of the Arctic have increased by 10 C or more over the past century, an incredible amount. In Europe we are experiencing temperatures some 2-3 C higher than in the early 1980s. Again, that is exceptional. And of course there are going to be ecological consequences.

These consequences are likely to be severe. Why? Because species are evolutionarily programmed to respond to changes within certain phenotypic limits. There will be winners and losers, as food webs are stretched in response to rapid warming set against a suite of other anthropogenic stresses. The unraveling of food webs and ecological interaction networks will have significant repercussions on the way that complex systems are structured and how they function. Call it what you will, but I see human assaults across the biosphere simply as a single, non-replicatable experiment. This experiment is not very prudent given that a range of services emerge from nature that make consumption possible and upon which our civilization rests. As humans continue to chip away at nature's ecological life-support systems, there will be profound social and economic costs. Climate change is important because it is likely to amplify the effects of other human-mediated processes including habitat destruction and fragmentation, other forms of pollution, overharvesting and biotic invasions.

The MWP is an artifical denialist construction. If there was warming, it was regional and not global. And the argument that solar forcing accounts for the recent temperature rises has been disproven time, and time, and time again. Brent, what you ought to do is look at the chronology of denialist response to the phenomenon of global warming. Twenty years ago global warming was a doomsday myth; only about 10 years ago did the denialiti accept it a a fact but then their tactics sawitched to the "its natural" or "within natural ranges" mantras. In the face of global change, the problem is not that we do not have the will to make the necessary structural changes that are required, but that those commanding power and wealth will do everything they can to retain the status quo. This is because corporate planners just do not look more than a few years ahead. Their job is to maximize returns for investors now or over the next fiscal quarter or year at most. It is the boiled frog syndrome, in all of its inane stupidity.

I would also advise you to check out the credentials of many of the most prominent denialists. These are the same people who have downplayed the importance of biodiversaity loss, the effects of CFCs on the ozone layer, acid rain, pesticide effects on food chains, tobacco smoke on human health and many other areas dealing with the environment. The constitute a broad right wing coalition of anti-environmental groups waging war against government regulations. As someone who has followed environmental debates for the past 15 years, and has spoken at many universities in Europe and the United States on this topic, there are those who are using science as a tool to promote what is in effect a political agenda.

Sunspot mistakenly tried to intimate that the amount of money funding 'both sides' in the climate change debate was similar, but he is so, so wrong. The problem is that the think tanks and public relations firms receive billions of dollars trhough the back door to promote the corporate anti-regulatory view. This funding is rarely disclosed. But there is little doubt that the anti-environmental lobby - for that is what it is - has budgets that far exceed anything scientists and environmental NGOs will ever muster. Moreover, the anti's can hire the slickest snake oil salesman to pitch their arguments to the public, whereas scientists are traiend to do just that, science. We are not PR executives. This is why people like Morano and Monckton crave debates. They have the skills to sound like experts (which they are not) and in such as way as to appeal to a general public anxious to know the truth. At the same time, the cautious scientist, lacking any kinds of PR skills, comes across as a stammering idiot, even if it is he who is the honest broker.

Last week, the abominable WUWT site boasted polls showing that American public opinion was truning against the human role in climate change. As if this means anything to the 'truth', as elusive as this is in any scientific field. All this means is that the slick propoganda campaigns of those attacking science in pursuit of short-term profits are getting through. Heck, by 2002, 51% of American believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and that Iraq posed a threat to the United States. This could only have been achieved by one of the most mendacious propaganda campaigns in post-WW 2 history. So what does the WUWT heralded polls tell us? Only that the denilati is winning the battle over public opinion through relentless propagandizing. But, given that nature is completely unforgiving, the sad fact is that if we do not do something to stem the combined effects of humans on natural systems in the near future, then we will lose the war.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | March 15, 2010 9:06 AM

@34

Erasmussimo, the url you give for the NAS brochure is corrupted. The correct version is http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rptbriefs/climatechange2008final.pdf.

Hm. Unless it's the comments software that's doing the corrupting (interpreting underscores as instructions to italicize). Here's a tinyurl that should get round that hypothetical problem: http://tinyurl.com/6cf7nl

Posted by: JG | March 15, 2010 10:28 AM

Jeff, I respect you and I do share your thoughts in many more ways than you may realize. I have tried to make the point that 'most' in here are only barracking for a team, hanging off the coattails of climate science as it were, this blog has the potential of a meld of minds to create something positive, the procrastination feeds the denial. Every action begins with a thought, I do believe that there are some brilliant minds in here albeit with narrow spectrum's that need to be joined into coherent and positive action. The problem needs to be tackled from the roots, a tax won't work, Geoengineering would most likely be another disastrous experiment. Solution's need to be created from the ground level, even if you think that no one here is capable to do this it might just be the spark that light's the fire in others. Selflessness can achieve miracles

Posted by: sunspot | March 15, 2010 7:05 PM

'unlike you, scientists aren't idiots, they take into account all of the data and make the best inferences from them.'

I'd like to remind you that the world is in the condition it is largely because of science !

Point-dodging non sequitur, but your hostility to science is noted.

I'm sick of hearing how smart you all are

And we're tired of you demonstrating how stupid and vile you are.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 10:26 PM

truth machine or 'Wether' man ?

Posted by: sunspot | March 15, 2010 10:38 PM

we imperfect but educated debaters are attempting a ‘collective effort of mass networking’ to get to the truth.

Even if you were really doing that, it's not how it's done. To get to the truth we use the scientific method, about which you are apparently quite uneducated. Jeff's point was that you dismiss as "absurd" things that you know nothing about but which Jeff, as a scientist familiar with the relevant collected evidence, does. If science were done by "debating" every point raised by some ignorant person, it wouldn't get done. Scientists answer the questions of the ignorant in order to educate them, but not to 'get to the truth".

Unfortunately, sad bastards like TruthMachineOM have gone in search of pugnacious statements I have made on other sites and used it to demonstrate bad faith.

It was John, not I, who searched for those, and they do indeed indicate that you have acted in bad faith and have trolled -- and you did so right in the middle of pretending to be more reasonable here! So why should anyone trust you now, especially when you continue to get things wrong in a way that is consistent with the ideology that you have spelled out elsewhere as well as here? Even this post is a troll, as you continue to fail to address points raised by myself and others.

In trolling, I was hoping to advance the debate by saying: ‘Taking the AGW hypothesis as the best we’ve got,

Bull; you've made it clear that you don't think that the AGW hypothesis is the best we've got. You think that it's a hoax or at best the result of "noble cause corruption", and you want to have Steve McIntyre's babies -- and when you wrote that, it was in place of addressing the criticism raised of him -- that his "audits" are one-sided, much as you never turn your skepticism and debate on people like sunspot or the others that you absurdly called "we rational folk".

shouldn’t we now address the following counterarguments?’ Such counterargumants being, for example, alternative sources of forcing, conflicting temperature records, and ‘business as usual’.

Such concern. Such trolling. They have all been addressed.

Somebody wrote above that the good guys need to be persistent and calm.

Such concern. But it's a premise of an ad hominem argument; lack of calmness has no bearing on whether the claims are correct. And the evidence has made it clear that calmness does not win politically.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 11:02 PM

Shorter sunspot and Brent: "sure we were trolling, but we were only trying to help get to the truth".

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 11:06 PM

And we're tired of you demonstrating how stupid and vile you are.

And yet on he goes:

truth machine or 'Wether' man ?

sunspot, go get a brain. You ought to be able to find something in the local junkyard that works better than what you've got now.

Posted by: truth machine | March 15, 2010 11:18 PM

akerz you are blinded by your fanaticism.

Empty unsupported assertion, typical of those with no honest arguement, and cosistent with spotty's preveious performance.

Posted by: jakerman | March 15, 2010 11:44 PM