IPCC AR4 leaks wrong

I would second that. Three cheers for all the hundreds of scientists who put their skill, knowledge and effort into ensuring the best possible 4th Report to the IPCC.

Don't worry, the AEI is now offering bribes to get scientists to write stuff similar to what Murray and Bolt have written. You'll be busy for awhile, Tim.

"Plus extra from accelerating ice flows". In other words, you could claim a rise of 150 cm and still get away with the fudge that any number in excess of 59 cm is due to "extra from accelerating ice flows".

What an embarrassing squirm of an evasion.

Better luck next time Tim, admit you erred, and move on.

SO, Tim, you claimed to have read this report last year and quoted the then-current numbers, sure that they'd use the then-perceived 'wisdom' of this bogus enviroscare.

Only they did not.

And instead of admitting you engaged in a bit of creative BS, you now wriggle and squirm and try to lie your way out of it.

Hey, genius, the last time I looked 59 did not equal 88.

You SCIENTIST, you.

Thanks for the laughs at your expense.

MarkL
Canberra

But, but according to the latest issue of the Lancet, sea levels are predicted to rise by 655,000 cm.

If you are wondering where the inane comments are coming from, you can [thank Glenn Reynolds](http://instapundit.com/archives2/2007/02/post_2207.php).

Tim! That Instalanche you always wanted. You must be so proud.

Tim, why do you hate science?

Tim hates science bc he is a statistian.
This ain't a science site at all, just a left wing hideout.
Regards
Peter Bickle

Hey, genius, the last time I looked 59 did not equal 88.

You had to look? :)

Sorry about Reyonolds, Tim. I can assure you not all folks from Knoxville are quite so, well, consistently wrong.

Peter, Lambert isn't even a statistician. I believe he's a computer teacher.

Which part of 59cm plus accelerated ice flows do Blair's winged monkeys not understand?

From Realclimate -

Note that some media have been comparing apples with pears here: they claimed IPCC has reduced its upper sea level limit from 88 to 59 cm, but the former number from the TAR did include this ice dynamics uncertainty, while the latter from the AR4 does not, precisely because this issue is now considered more uncertain and possibly more serious than before. My emphasis.

These people are fucking morons. Sorry about the bad language Tim, but we're dealing with troglodytes here.

By the way, MarkL, I'm now laughing - at your expense.

43 is closer than 59 than 88 is to 59. looks like bolt has you on this one.

Tim,

Why do you hate math?

I don't know about Tim but I can tell you why I hate math. In Australia we have maths instead.

Stu: that's the crazy thing about the internet. Not everyone who comes on here is from Australia. Mad, huh?

Reynolds: "NUMBER PROBLEMS for Tim Lambert? Color me unsurprised?"

Could I color you a nice shade of dumb-arse southerner Red, Glen?

At last I can see the reason Glen Reynolds does not allow comments at his blog

"Which part of 59cm plus accelerated ice flows do Blair's winged monkeys not understand?"

Indeed, this was addressed in by me in the THIRD comment. Which part of "evasive squirm" can't you read?

And of course, babbling about Glenn Reynolds addresses none of the substance of the comments, nor does it explain how you got the figures so spectacularly wrong, figures that you now try to fudge with weasel words ("not the same but similar").

Your attempted sneer, smear and ignore is just the equivalent of ad hominem really, a logical fallacy even you should have no difficulty understanding. Then again with your ineptitude with numbers I'm not so sure.

Which part of 59cm plus accelerated ice flows do Blair's winged monkeys not understand?

Which part of "We can be very confident that the net effect of human activity since 1750 has been one of warming" don't these Winged Monkeys understand?

Which part of
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/02oceans.html
don't these winged monkeys understand.

Tell me that you are getting paid for this.
Tell me that you are not just giving it away:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/02/news/companies/exxon_science/

I don't know who these jerks are who are writing into this thread (Tim suggested GR himself), but they/he/whoever are doing it (making pedantic comments about 88 vs. 59 cm sea level rises) are making complete asses of themselves. Their analogy is to argue that instead of getting hit by a freight train, we are only going to be run over by a ten-ton dump truck. By their admission, this change ain't so bad.

GR or whoever the hell you are: read the conclusions of the latest IPCC report. The seriousness of the current predicament was spelled out clearly in black and white. If nothing is done, the projected warming will have consequences on complex ecological systems (systems that sustain us) and on civilization that are almost too grave to comprehend. As predicted by a number of leading scientists last evening, the sceptics aren't going to go away quietly now that science is vanquishing their feeble arguments, but they will shift their tactics. This is being seen already. What a pathetic, twisted, sick lot the sceptics are.

Calling the people that post at Tim Blair's site "flying monkeys" is a bit insulting to monkeys, flying or otherwise, isn't it?

And of course, babbling about Glenn Reynolds addresses none of the substance of the comments

uh huh. And the substance of the comments would be ...? "we don't understand science" is my best guess.

The substance of the comments would be that you understand numbers. Else, why continue to weaselly defend this embarrassing gaffe?

59? 88?

"I didn't say the numbers were the same, merely similar."

lol!

Admit you screwed up and jog on before you make even bigger fools of yourselves Lambert-defenders...

Erratum: "that you understand" should read "that you don't understand . . .".

"[T]he battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

- Paul Ehrlich (overpopulation hysteric).

"If nothing is done, the projected warming will have consequences on complex ecological systems (systems that sustain us) and on civilization that are almost too grave to comprehend."

- Jeff Harvey (warmification hysteric - formerly, Mike Walsh's band leader).

And then we have this gem of paranoia from "Jeff Harvey":

"I don't know who these jerks are who are writing into this thread (Tim suggested GR himself), but they/he/whoever are doing it (making pedantic comments about 88 vs. 59 cm sea level rises) are making complete asses of themselves."

Yes, we're all Glenn Reynolds. Perhaps you are Tim Lambert?

As for pedantry, the initial salvo was fired by Lambert for questioning the accuracy of one Andrew Bolt. "Zero out of ten for accuracy" he says. It is hardly besides the point to point out that Tim Lambert is not so accurate on the numbers himself, and thereby hoists himself on his own petard.

Failure to admit that just signals intellectual cowardice and dishonesty on the part on Lambert who holds his interlocutors to standards he himself does not maintain. In short: he excoriates others for something he himself is guilty of. This is rank hypocrisy.

The irony of it all is that I'm not a global warming sceptic. It just amuses me that you fall over yourselves defending Lambert's embarrassing gaffe out of ideological solidarity.

lol and the other sceptics: I'd like you all to admit that the conclusions of the latest IPCC report are very serious indeed and that the implications of inaction on AGW will have very serious consequences for the environment and for humanity... that is if you want to discuss the scientific basis of it. Or are you so desperate in your denial that you want to stick to tiny pedantic points? What do you understand, for example, about the link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning? About the effects of rapid climate change on food webs, ecological communities and larger systems? About the effects of rapid climate change and other anthropogenic processes on the ecological services that emerge over variable spatial and temporal scales that sustain us? Or is the truth that you don't understand any of this so you dispense with it?

Jeff Harvey misses the beat again. Save your drivel for the sceptics and admit that Lambert screwed up royally.

lol, thanks for your answer. What you don't understand you refer to as 'drivel'. Not 'science', but drivel. This tells me that your understanding of the relevant science is probably based on your last high school exams. Some advice: take your pedantic, frankly pathetic drivel elsewhere.

Actually, thanks to lol, I looked up a defintion for his use of the word 'drivel' (thanks to Dictionary.com):

1. saliva flowing from the mouth, or mucus from the nose; slaver.
2. childish, silly, or meaningless talk or thinking; nonsense; twaddle.
-verb (used without object) 3. to let saliva flow from the mouth or mucus from the nose; slaver.
4. to talk childishly or idiotically.
5. Archaic. to issue like spittle.
-verb (used with object) 6. to utter childishly or idiotically.
7. to waste foolishly.

I will let those decide whose posts best fit the description here, but I think #'s 2, 4, 6, and 7 fit lol's focus on the 55 versus 89 cm sea-level issue while ignoring the more important conclusions of the latest IPCC report quite perfectly. Moreover, I feel that lol is so desperate to pin TL down on this basically irrelevant issue that he/she is foaming at the mouth, so 1, 3 and 5 probably apply as well.

Wow, they kinda get angry when you question their religion don't they?

lol:

The irony of it all is that I'm not a global warming sceptic. It just amuses me that you fall over yourselves defending Lambert's embarrassing gaffe out of ideological solidarity.

We're not falling over ourselves. The third assessment predicted 88 cm as the maximum sea level rise, the fourth predicts 59cm, but as the RealClimate folks have pointed out these figures are not directly comparable because the latter excludes the ice dynamics.

Yet Bolt makes this very comparison:

The IPCC report has since been released, and gives six possible scenarios of sea level rises, the highest of which predicts a maximum rise of 59cm, not 43. To put this in context for Lambert: 59 is two thirds of 88. It is not "similar" to it

Lol, are you claiming this comparison is correct?

The "CL" troll above is no doubt this chap: http://thecurrencylad.blogspot.com/

Ignore him and he will go away.

Jeff Harvey:

As predicted by a number of leading scientists last evening, the sceptics aren't going to go away quietly now that science is vanquishing their feeble arguments, but they will shift their tactics.

Just a point of semantics. Scepticism (doubt) is part of science. Even the best (thoroughly tested) hypotheses deserve the occasional raised eyebrow.

May I suggest that "Global Warming Denialist" is far better.

Just a point of semantics

Sorry, that should be "syntax"

"Yet Bolt makes this very comparison"

As does Lambert when he claimed:

"The new IPCC report has similar numbers for sea level rise as the previous one."

Oh dear.

Jeff Harvey thinks it's irrelevant. Really? So why did Lambert get his panties in a twist over "accuracy" then? Is Lambert being irrelevant too? Funny how when the same charge is leveled at Lambert it all of a sudden becomes an "irrelevant" issue. Hypocritical much?

Yea, you just tied yourself into a pretzel. You can remove your foot from Lambert's mouth now.

Given their eagerness to rally round theories that were nice tries back in the day, but have long been discredited (Lindzen's IRIS), wild exaggerations of certain forcings (+0.12 W/m^2 change in solar forcing vs +2.3 W/m^2 GHG forcing ), preposterous pseudo-history (1491, the year china discovered America), papers with sadly humorous errors (Khilyuk & Chilingar), AGW denialists are more accurately described as 'credulous' rather than 'sceptical' .

All right, that's it. [Pinata deployed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/02/no_clue_about_ar4.php).

Tim,

I am convinced you're just a fake pretending to be a scientist.

From 88, down to 54 and the actual reports says 44.

And how in God's name 88 is "merely similar" to 44 is clearly a denial.

Yes folks, do what "melaleuca" did above and ignore me!

Steve, return to your blog - the comments threads are going gangbusters over there.

:)

The new IPCC report has similar numbers for sea level rise as the previous one.

Unless I'm missing something, the "similar" is referring to the fact that the numbers are not directly/precisely comparable, only roughly comparable.

I should be more precise: Roughly comparable, that is, after ice dynamics are included.

"I'd like you all to admit that the conclusions of the latest IPCC report are very serious indeed "

Fine, I will admit to the above. But I wont admit that the conclusions are correct. The conclusions were written, rather negotiated by politicians.

Here is an excerpt from a news article:

"You are Christopher Landsea of the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory. You were a contributing author for the UN's second International Panel on Climate Change in 1995, writing the sections on observed changes in tropical cyclones around the world. Then the IPCC called on you as a contributing author once more, for its "Third Assessment Report" in 2001. And you were invited to participate yet again, when the IPCC called on you to be an author in the "Fourth Assessment Report." This report would specifically focus on Atlantic hurricanes, your specialty, and be published by the IPCC in 2007."

"Then something went horribly wrong. Within days of this last invitation, in October, 2004, you discovered that the IPCC's Kevin Trenberth -- the very person who had invited you -- was participating in a press conference. The title of the press conference perplexed you: "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity." This was some kind of mistake, you were certain. You had not done any work that substantiated this claim. Nobody had."

"As perplexing, none of the participants in that press conference were known for their hurricane expertise..."

I won't quote the whole story, but you can read it here.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=ae9b984d-4a1c-45c0-af2…

Basically, the scientist who did the work on hurricanes claims that his work has been misrepresented by the summary. I guess he must a tool of the oil companies.

"Could I color you a nice shade of dumb-arse southerner Red, Glen?" -- sneezy

Wow, whodathunk the church of global warming was made up of intolerant, parochial bigots?

"GR or whoever the hell you are: read the conclusions of the latest IPCC report. The seriousness of the current predicament was spelled out clearly in black and white." -- Science blog commenter

Who cannot possibly have read the work on which the summary is based, since the report is not yet complete.

"AGW denialists are more accurately described as 'credulous' rather than 'sceptical'." -- Another science blog commenter.

The irony is invisible to them, I am sure.

Is this the same Ender who tried to claim that barley was grown as a crop in Greenland because he found some pictures on arctic grass growing in Greenland at the height of midsummer?

"Yea, you just tied yourself into a pretzel. You can remove your foot from Lambert's mouth now."

Um, lol, that is NOT his foot, and it is NOT Lamberts mouth into which he has inserted it.....

What Lambert and his flock of moonbats is useful for is 'shits and giggles' (to quote ann old line). For as part of the Holy Church of Glowball Warmening they honestly believe that there is a causal link between human-derived additions to greenhouse gases even though they are well within the natural variation of the system. To do this they have to ignore the inconvenient fact that circa 95% of greenhouse gas is that deadly substance H2O, and then ignore the global temperature trace over the last ten millennia becuase this shows that we are not yet even at the temperature peak of the Roman warm period (in other words, the present Milankovich cycle is doing its thing and we are observing a natural phenomina).

Their Church demands belief of them this, of course. Price of entry.

And rabid believers in this secular religion include those who were previously rabid believers in 'The Population Bomb' and 'Global Cooling'.

They are closed-minded nutters, but they are also deeply entertaining.

SO. Having blasphemed against your secular religion: dance, monkey-boys, DANCE for my amusement.

MarkL
Canberra

Thanks brb I've always been intolerant of antiscientific loudmouths, no apologies. Perhaps I'm just not a good churchgoer after all. "Credulous", btw, is an excellent description of the followers of Reynolds, Blair, Bolt, and the rest of the goon show. It's the nature of every scientist to be sceptical, and it's as plain as day every time they open their loud mouths that none of the Reynolds faithful is a scientist. You'd be one of the brightest among them brb (contain yourself, that ain't flattering) but you've had no real scientific training yourself have you? Most are more of the standard of "lol", who just has no idea what the significance of the numbers 59 and 88 (or whatever they are/were) in the report would be. Yet believe they have important contributions to make by chattering away on the internets. Huzza.

Speaking of Reynolds his current post isn't really all that silly at all - I recommend particularly to those of the clueless faithful who've flocked here on Glenn's sayso to go and f***ing read it. Not you MarkL, you're just an idiot.

Forgive my ignorance about conversion between metric and American.
So this report says that the sea will rise about a foot and a half over the next century (if it's correct about the poles melting and such).
Big deal. SO what? That only gives me about fifty years, give or take a decade, to move my beach blanket back a couple yards.
How is this a problem?

Err. As my nic indicates, I am as bothered about the issues as anyone else here. However, there was a post over at CA that I thought made a pretty good point. How do I respond to this?

"OK, lets say IPCC proves to be correct and global average temperature increases by "1.8 to 4 deg C over the next 100 years". What really does that mean?

Can I suggest a simple experiment that would indicate to each of us exactly what it might mean. I will use an Australian example.

Pack up your stuff and move to live in Hobart (42S) for a year (say 2007). You will experience an average annual temperature of 12.3 deg C. To understand what a 2.5 deg C increase in average temperature is like, pack up again and move to Melbourne (37S) for a year (2008) where the average annual temperature is 14.8 deg C. Is that scary?

Repeat the process through Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville and Darwin.

Here are the annual average temperatures for some Australian cities that I hope illustrate my point (I used full stops since I couldn't get the spaces to work):

.....................Latitude.................Annual Average Temperature
Hobart.................42S..........................12.3 deg C
Melbourne..............37S..........................14.8 deg C
Sydney.................33S..........................17.6 deg C
Brisbane...............27S..........................20.5 deg C
Townsville.............19S..........................24.1 deg C
Darwin.................12S..........................27.8 deg C

So, just by spending time in each of these Australian cities, each and any one of us can experience a range of annual average temperatures extending from 12.3 deg C right up to 27.8 deg C - 15.5 degs C in total. Doesn't make 1.8 deg to 4 deg C seem all that scary to me!

Of course, I realise that increasing temperatures are not the only thing to be discussed. There is concern about droughts, storms, hurricanes, rising sea levels etc. Can I suggest that we would experience directly the real impact of each of these by following the simple experiment that I have proposed.

It is obvious for example that Townsville and Darwin are exposed to more hurricanes (actually cyclones in this part of the world) than the southern Australian cities. Surely that would be handled as it is today. If you are really concerned about it, you move. If you decide that the benefits of living in that climate are sufficient, you will just ensure that your insurance is good, and that you have storm shutters installed, and that your tie down cables are in good condition.

Similarly, if sea levels rise, wouldn't the actual response be to move? And if this is a national scale problem, wouldn't the national government take decisive action to deal with the issue, and to assist those affected to cope?

Obviously, northern hemisphere residents can do something similar. In fact, those in the Americas can experience (if they wish) average annual temperatures ranging the Arctic to the Equator.

Maybe I am missing something in all this. But I just don't get what is SO scary about a temperature increase of 4 degrees."

Appreciate your thoughtful comments.

"you've had no real scientific training yourself have you?" -- sneezy

Actually I have. I majored in physics for my first two years of college (that would include thermodynamics, btw) then switched to "computer science", a decision I don't regret. Although why my CV has anything to do with the validity of my arguments completely escapes me. My reservations are based on logic, not an anti-scientific bent.

One other thing, if you read Glenn's post, I think you will find a clear exposition of the majority position on Tim Blair's site. If you weren't so busy demonizing agnostics by calling them "deniers" and had any ability to distinguish ironic posts from the genuine, you might know that. Glenn as well, is more thoughtful than some of your more "credulous" posters give him credit for. He also gets the kind of traffic Deltoid can only dream of, and has no need for "Sock Puppetry", look it up.

Why do we call you guys "The Church of Global Warming"? Because you see the argument as a morality play, rather than a scientific discussion. Here is my position, boiled down. You tell me if I am an inumerate denier.

The case for AGW via CO2, methane, etc is entirely circumstantial. No amount of evidence for warming changes the circumstantial nature of it. The gasses have gone up, and the climate has warmed. While circumstantial cases can be very strong, they are considerably weakened if alternative explanations exists, as is the case with the recent warming.

For starters, if GHG were the only significant forcing, then, as GHG rise, as they have been, diatonically, the warming should correlate very highly with them, since as you guys are wont to point out, something must be happening to force the climate one way or another.

Other candidates are Solar Variablity and Cosmic Rays. Let's take Solar Variability first. I know what you are dying to say,

"ooh, ooh, ooh!, we have 20 years of measurement and the variability is very slight!. We plugged this into our models and the effect is swamped by GHG."

To which I say "really?" So the effect of slight variablities in solar energy on clouds is fully understood? I think the answer is no. I would be very interested in any studies on the subject you know of. Since the effect of solar radiation can potentially be magnified by water vapor. Solar winds also affect the weather and also vary.

Cosmic Rays. Surely I jest with this Buck Rogers explanation? Well no. Cosmic Rays exist, and have been shown to have an effect on cloud formation in the laboratory. Further experiments using a particle accelerator rather than naturally occuring cosmic rays are planned.

These are very interesting because, as a science afficianado, I am sure you are aware that there is a 100,000 year climate cycle. Well, that is about the same amount of time that it takes for the Sun to orbit the Milky Way. A trip that predictably varies the amount of cosmic rays the Earth recieves.

The point is, that until these two possible explanations are "knocked on the head", or at least fully understood and incorporated into the models, and there may be others, there is no "smoking gun" on AGW.

This is not to say that GHG do not contribute a positive forcing, the question is, what is the relative scale? There is no question that cutting economic growth will have a potentially devastating effect on humankind. Possibly triggering world wars and famine. The debate is not nearly over.

And sneezy, calling all southerners "rednecks", and even using the term "redneck" implies a sloppiness of thinking that probably precludes further discussion.

A number of things on this thread are clear:

1. The scpetics view climate change completely from an anthropocentirc perspective; this is because they aren't biologists and have not got a clue how broader global changes driven by human activities - including climate change - will affect the health and resilience of natural systems. In fact, they don't understand anything about ecology at all.

2. Many of 2,500 scientists who contributed to ther final draft of the IPCC report are population ecologists who are in the process of exploring the affects outlined in 1. A small part of my research programme is investigating atmospheric warming on (a) plant and animal invasions across natural climate envelope barriers (and their affects on less thermophilic organisms), and (2) differential responses of soil and above-ground biota to temerature lags (belowground) compared with above-ground. Because the development of ectotherms is temperature dependent, we are expecting phenological shifts in ecophysiological processes (whereby some species respond differently to others) to impact food web structure, community assembly and ecosystem functioning. Most importantly, because the rate of temperature change is (i) unprecedented in many hundreds of thousands of years, and probably millions, and (ii) it is occurring in systems that have already been greatly simplified by other anthropogenic processes (e.g. habitat loss, pollution, biological invasions) then the prognosis for the stability and resilience of eclogical systems and, more importantly, the services that flow from them, is indeed of great concern.

Against these scientific facts are a whole sea of frankly embarrassing arguments here (from climate change deniars or cornucopian optimists) that reveal a complete inability to grasp ecological complexity even at the most basic level. Because they do not understand it, they ignore it and impugn anyone who dares suggest that human existence hinges on the ability of nature to generate conditions which make the planet habitable. Concerned of Berjekely is a case in point. His/her arguments made me cringe, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Much smaller temperature changes than projected by the IPCC are already negatively impacting food webs in the Netherlands as studies conducted by colleagues here at the NIOO have demonstrated. Its clear that, were more systems and interactions to be studied, the same patterns would emerge. We know that populations of migratory temperate songbirds are declining at least in part because climate change has differential physiological effects on various species in linked food webs. And this is occurring in temperature windows that are a fraction of those predicted by the IPCC in its latest draft. If these temperatures are realized, we are staring at a mass extinction event of catastrophic proportions. This is a stark fact.

Here's the crux of the matter: humans have evolved to what we perceive as instantaneous threats: an earthquake, a grizzly bear crssing the path in front of us, the damage wrought by a tornado. However, response to what we perceive as gradual change (but change that is unprecendented in nature) has not been evolutionarily programmed into our genomes. Instead, we stick our fingers to the wind and say, "Yeh, its a bit warmer than last year, so who cares"?. To really comprehend the effects of climate change, we have to start thinking in other terms. A mean 2 C rise in global syurface temperatures will have enormous ecological consequences. Most natural systems are not genetically adapted to respond to more extreme weather events - heat waves, droughts, extremes in precipitation regimes - that will accompany warming. As I said above, species in tightly interacting food webs will respond differently, with winners and losers. Climate change, by exacerbating the current extinction event already underway, will impact complex food webs by (i) unraveling them, and (ii) reducing functional redundancy in them. The latter describes processes whereby more than a single species perform specific kinds of important biological/ecological functions. As species disappear, systems begin to rely disporportionally on smaller numbers of species within defined guilds. Its like having a football team with a deep bench: when the starting team loses key players through injury, the team with a better bench will perform better on the field. This is redundancy - and humans, by simplifying nature, are reducing functional redundancy, thereby pushing these systems towards some threshold beyond which they will be unable to sustain themselves - and us.

Most importantly, the projected rate of rise in temperature is not only far beyond what species and ecosystems have ever experienced, but it is not expected to be uniform. There will be immense variability. Further, some regions (e.g. towards the poles and in temperate regions) will see vastly higher rates of temperature change than tropical regons and lower latitudes. Although species are genetically adapted to respond to some degree of change in the temperature 'window', the projected warming is far beyond what most can respond to in such a short evolutionary time frame.

So what ecological services will be seriously affected? A huge range: pest control, pollination, seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, the breakdown of terrestrial wastes, climate control (regionally), water storage and provision and the health and maintenance of soils and renewal of their fertility. These services emerge over variable spatio-temporal scales and are the by-product of literally trillions of interactions between individual organisms, populations, species and ecosystems. Since very few of these services have any kinds of technological substitutes, and instead are freely provided by nature, a current suite of human actions can be viewed as a huge, single, non-replicatable experiment on systems of unmaginable complexity yet upon which we depend. The denialists/sceptics here are effectively saying, without much empirical evidence or even support, that by doing nothing humans will be able to manage systems whose functioning we barely understand yet upon which our survival is dependent. This is the sprint of folly.

brb I think you might be amused to see, if you go back and read what I wrote, that I didn't use the term "redneck" but "red". True I might not resile from your term anyway, but what I said was different and what I had in mind was the red state votes that along with a sad, corrupt old fool of a chief justice lumbered us with the most inept president in history. So it was still offensive I suppose but "whatever".

Also I didn't call all southerners "red". Just as had I said say "dumbarse lawyer" - and at this point please note that I said something pretty nice about Glenn earlier on, cool eh? - that would not have been a case of calling all lawyers nasty names, but referring to a subset of them. OK let's move on.

Sure it's a moral question, climate change caused by us. It threatens to wipe out individual species and entire ecosystems because the rate of climate change we're responsible for is so unnaturally high. It's immoral to kill things carelessly, and we risk killing the entire living planet. Argument's possible about the magnitude of the risk. Yeah it's a moral question in a way that things like war and abortion are. The fact that followers of the antiscience pundits (let's leave Glenn out again shall we?) don't even understand that, while boasting of their moral clarity and their bible faith, makes them the babbling idiots that they are. It's not a democracy of talent out here man, some commenters are sure as hell a lot dopier than others.

It's not really apt to refer to the evidence in the science of greenhouse warming as "circumstantial". The radiative physics of the relevant gases is almost a matter of simple lab physics. You get invalid results when you attempt to apply logic to incorrect premises. You know: given a falsehood you can infer anything you like. Speaking personally you show a real interest in the science and you've demonstrated aptitude with second year physics behind you. Now, what is your scientific reasoning for why the working scientists of the world whose work is represented by the IPCC should be so misguided as compared to luminaries like Tim Blair (I'm giving Glenn real credits for that later post of his again)?

True it's "anthropogenic climate change" that is our problem CoB, but it's not a problem because of the immediate effect on us - your thoughts make that point perfectly well. But we are not independent of our environment. As we _are_ interconnected with the rest of life on Earth and depend on other species for our survival, and as some of them depend on us not screwing things up for their own survival, it would be better for a whole lot of vibrant life around these parts were we to not screw over the planet any more than absolutely necessary. Burning fossil fuels because they're so cheap 'n easy is not necessary, it's a moral and economic choice we make.

Ecosystems adapt themselves to change unless the rate of change is too great for them. We can cause that effect to happen to an increasing number of the world's ecosystems some of which we just really do like a lot (hmmm rainforests and coral reefs and polar ice) and others of which though hidden to most of us most of the time may be of huge significance to our own quality of life (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and on and on).

We're organic life forms folk and we look and genetically code just like a whole lot of other life forms. Without them there's no homo sapiens, not even homo stupidus.

"Now, what is your scientific reasoning for why the working scientists of the world whose work is represented by the IPCC should be so misguided" -- sneezy

There you have it. You have opted out of the discussion to become a cheerleader for the IPCC. I believe this is called arguing from authority. I believe you are incapable of answering any of my points, unfortunately. However; I will answer yours.

Point 1: The IPCC is a political organization, first and foremost. They are appointed by govts and their responsibility is to the interests of the govts who appointed them. There are billions, possibly trillions of dollars at stake.

Point 2: You used the term "the working scientists of the world" as if there were no other scientists with anything to say outside of the IPCC. I pointed out that astrophysicist and solar physicists have different opinions and strong circumstantial stories as to why phenomena from their domains may impact the climate heavily. Ever hear of the Maunder Minimum? Sunspots went to near zero, little ice age happened at the same time?

Point 3: I never said that the case for the mechanism by which GHG can cause warming was circumstantial, there is direct evidence of the effect that can be reproduced in the laboratory. I said that the case for assigning it responsibility for all of the recent warming was circumstantial.

If my arguments are misguided, why not point out the flaws? That's why I come here, to increase my understanding, not to try out new rhetorical approaches. You guys are so scientifically literate. Why not point out where I am wrong?

Rant Mode, feel free to skip:

Each time I reach a new level of understanding on this issue, I run it by a Church of Global Warming site to see what kind of issues they can find. So far, sneezy, you haven't laid a glove on any part of my argument. In fact, you seem most interested not in what I have to say, but who I am to say it. Why do you come to a science blog if not to discuss scientific ideas? Or do you feel you are not qualified to discuss science? Why then, not go to a cheerleading blog? Or a sermonizing blog? Al Gore went to theology school. Maybe there is some kind of theology blog that specializes in sermonizing. But then there is one, this one. I went to a Catholic wedding one time, the priest kept talking about "the mystery", your last post brought that experience to mind.

PS. Interesting that you don't consider my studies in computer science as scientific training. I don't either, but to be fair to Tim Lambert, it is training in the application of mathematics to real world problems.

brb,

How can the Sun be the cause of warming in the late 20th Century (even with Svensmark's cosmic ray hypothesis) given that the Sun's activity hasn't changed significantly in 50 years?

Svensmark's lab work may well show that you can make clouds with cosmic rays, but why is there no correlation between the solar cycle and *global* cloud cover? Svensmark showed a correlation using one small dataset, but when other groups tried correlations to the global cloud cover they found no link. Even if Svensmark does eventually prove his hypothesis how can he link it to changes in late 20th Century global average temperature? As I've explained solar activity and cosmic ray fluxes haven't varied over this time period. So, he may well go on to show a link between cosmic rays and climate over various time periods, but the relevance to this debate is tenuous at best.

brb,

Point 1: Can't you see that arguing the IPCC is biased with no evidence is the opposite of an argument from authority? As for billions of dolars at stake, unless you have proof that the IPCC scientists are taking bribes, then you have no argument, only a conspiracy theory. Meanwhile I point you to the many documented cases of sceptics taking money from corporate interests, including the new AEI offer of 10 G's for "science."

Point 2: Here you imply that the IPCC does not consider solar influences. That's an absurd position.

Point 3: Um, of course it's circumstantial. But the evidence is also overwhelming.

I suppose it's comforting to say "church of global warming" but it is the sceptics who deny the obervational evidence in front of their very eyes.

BRB: You might not be getting much response to your comments because many of us have been down this road before. For example you present an article from the Canadian National Post that talks about Chris Landsea and why he resigned from the IPCC. If you actually research this you will eventually find that Landsea is responding to an interview given by Dr. Trenberth. You can find a transcript here:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/record/transcripts/hurricanes102104.shtml

As you can see in the transcript Trenberth does have papers and statistics to back up what he says (not that there is an increase in hurricanes - he never says that - but that the ones we get are stronger).

But I thank you for bringing up an old myth that refuses to die since it has led me to adopt a new term for those who keep bringing up the same old dead stories - necromancers!

In regards to the science you presented, here is something to make you think - I am interested to see what you do with it. What is the period of orbit about the galaxy's core (a distance of several hundred thousand lightyears) and what does that do to the point you listed here:

These are very interesting because, as a science afficianado, I am sure you are aware that there is a 100,000 year climate cycle. Well, that is about the same amount of time that it takes for the Sun to orbit the Milky Way. A trip that predictably varies the amount of cosmic rays the Earth recieves.

So "dangerous rise in greenhouse emissions" means dangerous for the Central Valley red-spotted salamander, as opposed to being really and truely dangerous.

Abe G, yours first. Learn to think. It is not "taking bribes" to consider the interests of the country and government you represent at an international conference where money is at stake.

Paul, if you look at the Wikipedia graphs of sunspot activity, you will see that it has increased in the last fifty years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

We have no accurate measures of solar output that predate this period of increased activity. It would be naive, even credulous, to believe that we can willy nilly extrapolate measurements between solar modes.

I see that there is no mention of any studies that discuss the implications of solar variation on cloud formation.

John Cross. You actually make some good points. I will get back to you after some google time.

John, you sent me back to the drawing board, thanks. The actual orbit of the Sun around the Milky Way is 225 million years.

brb if you're attempting to caricature yourself you're winning on that front. You apparently haven't read the IPCC's reports but have accepted some denialist's spin on what they in fact say and the scientific evidence and reasoning they back it up with, and it seems you haven't even heard that the brilliant and incisive Peiser retracted his mistaken claims that the published scientific literature did not in fact, virtually unanimously, accept the scientific consensus position as it is presented by the IPCC. You have your derived opinions, ill informed as they are, and that's good enough for you. It may be new and fresh to you but we've seen it all before, brb. To respond to the rest of your nonsense brb would be to elevate it beyond what it deserves, but apparently you with your CS qualifications would always be in the mood to hear a second year climate science student explain in derisory tones to you how your own specialty has failed this, misunderstood that, ought to listen more closely to Instapundit on the subject, is a church for the sheepishly faithful not a science, etc etc ad nauseam. Like I say we've heard it all before from people who do it better than you (not necessarily a slight brb, it may be that you're too honest or maybe even too smart to believe your own nonsense yourself).

Don't be silly papertiger.

Sorry all, the link that I fluffed was of course to:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/

BRB: "Point 1: The IPCC is a political organization, first and foremost. They are appointed by govts and their responsibility is to the interests of the govts who appointed them. There are billions, possibly trillions of dollars at stake."

So the governments are ordering them to falsify the scientific data so they can waste hundreds of billions of dollars responding to what they know is a false threat?

Does this actually sound credible to you?

So the governments are ordering them to falsify the scientific data so they can waste hundreds of billions of dollars responding to what they know is a false threat?

Well, since the hundreds of billions of dollars wouldn't be their money, and it will mostly be used to bully through new governmental regulatory powers, I would say ..
HELL YES THEY WOULD IN A HEARTBEAT!

Well obviously given your beliefs, there's only one logical course of action.

Sell the house, stock up on ammo and move to that compound in montana.

Remember, when the black helicopters of ZIOG come swooping in save your last bullets for your kids to spare them the horrors ahead.

What I find so amusing is that armchair pundits and people with high school diplomas are making points about 'solar forcing' and 'natural cycles' accounting for the current warming as if the climate science community hadn't considered these potential factors. What do they think researchers have been doing in their university and research programs over the past 15-20 years? Next, the armchair brigade will try to explain to statured scientists how clouds work and the influence of positive and negative feedbacks on radiative forcing.

I already dispensed with one of the silly arguments posted above (e.g that a 1.4 to 4 C increase in global surface temperatures is not so serious). Another one here was that 'natural cycles' are accounting for the current warming. This is said without understanding the normal time scale with which 'natural cycles' operate. Let us be clear here - a surface temperature rise of 4 C in < 100 years is well beyond the kinds of change that would occur in the absence of some huge catalyzing event. Natural cycles - say from solar forcing - may facilitate a 4 C change in no less than a millenium under the most extreme conditions, but in < 100 years? Forget it. It would take something truly catastrophic - say a meteor impact - to change the climate at the rate it is changing now. Humans are profoundly altering the planet's surface, as well as the chemical composition of the air and the water. Our species is altering largely deterministic biogeochemical processes that operate over truly stupendous scales. In 1994 Stanford ecologist Peter Vitousek, in is Robert McArthur award paper for the journal Ecology, made this point and stated openly that there will be ecological conseuquences to human alterations of the biosphere.

I obtained my PhD in 1995 (population ecology) and have been a senior scientist for the past 7 years, yet I defer to those scientists in the climate science community who have been researching the field for years over some of those denialists who contribute comments to these threads who have no formal training in the field. The armchair pundits in the denial camp who are posting here should too.

Brb,

I've seen those graphs many times and I'm afraid I can't see the "increase" in solar activity between 1950 and present day that you see. The first graph "400 years of sunspot observations" quite clearly shows a decrease between 1950 and present day.

The second figure showing the 11 year solar cycle in detail and doesn't go back as far as 1950.

The third figure showing "solar activity proxies" seems to show an increase in sunspot number between 1950 and present, except this figure's scale stops before present, so it might be better to use the first graph as it's scale extends further towards the present. Using that figure you will never convince me that solar activity has increased between 1950 and present day.

The Be10 record in the third figure doesn't show the record extending past 1950, so that's not useful for this purpose. Try this one instead:

http://www.realclimate.org/muscheler_14C.gif

Again I fail to see an increase in solar activity between 1950 and present day. So, again, how can your hypothesis account for the observed warming?

In the face of not a even a circumstantial or qualitative connection between climate and solar activity since 1950 doesn't this leave this hypothesis with some major problems? Or are some circumstantial connections more equal than others?

Of course Jeff, you know you are simply part of the liberal elite leftist anti-science crowd, disregarding the common sense reasoning that AGW cannot be significant, or if it is, it's a good thing :o)

Meyrick,

Yeh I realized that some time ago. In fact, I was in Amsterdam two years ago debating two climate change sceptics before an assembled audience and one of them said that scientists like me are 'watermelons', green on the outside but in fact closet communists (hence, 'red on the inside'). What made it all the more amusing was that the guy was serious.

Brb,

Here's some more data which shows the actual variation in galactic cosmic radiation:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/recent-warming-bu…

As you can see there is no statistically significant trend in galactic cosmic radiation. Doesn't this invalidate even a circumstantial link between climate and cosmic radiation?

Oops, let me further clarify my final sentence because it isn't correct:

Doesn't this invalidate even a circumstantial link between the current climatic warming and cosmic radiation?

Learn to think.

Advice from a conspiracy theorist who can't read graphs. Thanks. I'll get right on it.

Jeff: "Yeh I realized that some time ago. In fact, I was in Amsterdam two years ago debating two climate change sceptics before an assembled audience and one of them said that scientists like me are 'watermelons', green on the outside but in fact closet communists (hence, 'red on the inside')."

Jeff, well seeing as their own beliefs (and it is a matter of belief for them)regarding climate science are based primarily on their political views, they naturally assume others form their views in a similar way.

I still can;t get a straight answer from any of these people as to whether Schwartzenegger; McCain; George HW Bush; John Major and Helmut Kohl are communists too.

It is a good thing to be a right-wing self-centric sceptic: you never have to worry anything else than your own ass. I wonder do their paranoid nightmare on left-wing scientists cause angst at the level we living with real world problems suffer. Probably not.

Don't despair Skeptics!

The truth and freedom loving capitalist Chinese may yet say you from the steel fist of America's socialist tyranny:

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/

The feeling at the IPCC's release in Paris on Friday was that the US had turned a corner - and that the Chinese are moving to take their place as the climate nigglers.

I absolutely concede that 1) the Chinese should not be held accountable for much of present-day warming 2) that it is hypocritical to expect them to stave off their development in the name of the environment when what they seek is to achieve the living standards that the west has been enjoying for the last 50 years, and 3) that the West must clean up its own act as it helps developing nations progress down a development path that takes into account the environmental value of natural resources.

But it's one thing to say, as the Chinese have in the past, that they must prioritise their development. It's quite another to stall a meeting which has come together because the overwhelming body of scientific evidence shows that there is a 90% chance human activities are responsible for warming global temperatures.

Yet that seems to have been the approach of the Chinese delegation at last week's 5-day deliberations on the summary of the IPCC report.

Talking to the scientists who contributed to the report, I found that not just one, but several used words like "cooperative" and even "constructive" when referring to the US delegation's work during the week prior to the release. They were only a little more hesitant to say that as much as the US had been helpful, the Chinese had not.

I read in the Daily Yomiuri (English version, not online) that the Chinese are even now preparing their first GW policy, and will release it later this year. They are, according to the Yomiuri, preparing to change their view. The Yomiuri quoted a reduction of 2% in annual GDP due to drought, floods, etc. as a consequence of China`s current environmental problems, and high level figures fearing that strong GW effects could render the Northwest of China uninhabitable, as well as exacerbating these hindrances to growth.

So the skeptics may have to look further afield. Maybe North Korea? Zimbabwe?

I defer to those scientists in the climate science community who have been researching the field for years over some of those denialists who contribute comments to these threads who have no formal training in the field. The armchair pundits in the denial camp who are posting here should too.

SssshYAA!

AS IF!

Like you don't have an identity to uphold by denying reality!

Get real Jeff!

But seriously, thinking folks are taking the denialists and shill less seriously; let's hope the thinking folk minority can drown out the desperate shouting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Best,

D

"So the skeptics may have to look further afield. Maybe North Korea? Zimbabwe?"

At this point I fear The Rapture may be their last hope.

At this point I fear The Rapture may be their last hope.

thanks you