Bob Carter claims it's not warming

Hey, remember how all the global warming skeptics used to say that warming wasn't happening because the satellite data didn't show a warming trend. Until in 2005 when they found a mistake in the satellite data and what do you know, it did show warming. And they stopped using that argument? Well Bob Carter isn't going to let a little thing like that bother him. He is still claiming that satellite data shows no warming.

Here he is in the denialist Daily Telegraph:

However, our most accurate depiction of atmospheric temperature over the past 25 years comes from satellite measurements (see graph below) rather than from the ground thermometer record. Once the effects of non-greenhouse warming (the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific, for instance) and cooling (volcanic eruptions) events are discounted, these measurements indicate an absence of significant global warming since 1979 - that is, over the very period that human carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing rapidly. The satellite data signal not only the absence of substantial human-induced warming, by recording similar temperatures in 1980 and 2006, but also provide an empirical test of the greenhouse hypothesis as understood by the public - a test that the hypothesis fails.

i-75c2818f82e72ff4631cd39c4b676c06-nrclimate08b.jpg

And gee whiz his graph of satellite temperatures shows almost no warming.

But at the MSU site where his data comes from you see this graph that shows strong warming:

i-a7c2311353d0766ed5b8de00389616a1-tropo_temp.png

What on earth could be going on? Well, if you look at the fine print on Carter's graph you find the data set he plotted was "uahncdc.mt", and "mt" stands for mid troposphere. His "Global Average Temperature" is the temperature 6 kms up in the sky, where nobody lives. And what does that silly greenhouse hypothesis predict for the mid troposphere? Well, it says that the lower troposphere will warm (see second graph above), the stratosphere will cool (Look!) and in between them, temperatures in the mid troposphere will not change. Yes, far from the greenhouse hypothesis failing the test, Carter's graph shows that it passed with flying colours.

Is Bob Carter clueless or is he dishonest? You'll have to decide that for yourselves, but there is a bit more evidence in his article:

That the satellite temperature record shows no substantial warming since 1978, and that even the ground-based thermometer statistic records no warming since 1998, indicates that a key line of circumstantial evidence for human-caused change (the parallel rise in the late 20th century of both atmospheric carbon dioxide and surface temperature) is now negated.

Carter can only contrive a "no warming" result in the surface record by starting in 1998, an El Nino year. But to get a "no substantial warming" in the satellite record, he threw out all the El Nino years. You will seldom see a more blatant example of cherry picking.

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I realize that this is a non sequitor, but one of the reasons Kevin Vranes is throwing himself into every climate change story, like a groupie at a rock concert, is because he's trying to make a name for himself as an energy consultant.

http://www.point380.com/staff.html

This might explain his media whoring.

We need a new word to describe evidence that is only convincing to diehard Republicans.

Neo-convincing?

He's also trying to claim that $10,000 prize offered by energy interests. If they make the award based on effort he's a shoein.

"We need a new word to describe evidence that is only convincing to diehard Republicans."

Faith-based evidence?

Even in his graph, the existence of warming is plain to the eye. It's not as much as for surface temperatures, but to claim that that data set is not warming is unobservant at best. Compare the first 10 years on that chart with the last 10.

By Nick Barnes (not verified) on 10 Apr 2007 #permalink

Well, if you look at the fine print on Carter's graph you find the data set he plotted was "uahncdc.mt", and "mt" stands for mid troposphere. His "Global Average Temperature" is the temperature 6 kms up in the sky, where nobody lives. And what does that silly greenhouse hypothesis predict for the mid troposphere? Well, it says that the lower troposphere will warm (see second graph above), the stratosphere will cool (Look!) and in between them, temperatures in the mid stratosphere will not change.

You seem to be using mid troposphere and mid stratosphere interchangeably. Are they the same thing, or did you mistakenly say mid stratosphere when you meant mid troposphere?

*[Oops. I meant mid troposphere. Fixed. Thanks. Tim]*

By anonymous (not verified) on 10 Apr 2007 #permalink

Thom, just as I won't draw any conclusions about IPCC authors participating in consultant services at ClimateAppraisal, I wouldn't draw any conclusions about Kevin V. being at Point380. People are allowed to make money off their fields of work.

Roger Pielke Jr. did a poor job of attacking IPCC authors working at ClimateAppraisal. There's no need to imitate him.

Hasn't satellite data also measured a decrease in the rate of outgoing longwave infrared radiation (i.e., heat) leaving the Earth's atmosphere into space?

Seeing as how that is the actual measurable part of a greenhouse gas hypothesis, doesn't that help verify that (a) there is a decrease in outgoing longwave infrared radiation leaving the Earth's atmosphere at the specific frequencies able to be absorbed and diffused by CO2; (b) a decreased rate of OLIR at CO2 capable frequencies, given a constant rate of heat & energy input from the Sun, can only mean an overall increase in planetary heat; and (c) this is an empirical rather than theoretical verification of the greenhouse effect of CO2?

(Given no measured increase so far in planetary albedo {reflection of light}...)

Cripes, they are recycling the old UAH MSU graph like crazy. Lubos pointed to it not one second ago, and I did a riff on it too.

Do these guys have a private group where they agree on the denial of the day?

Eli,

All they have is recycling the same cr*p. You know this. This is all they have. Take heart in it. They got nothin'.

And get ready for your daffys and tulips to get pounded Friday (unless we get lucky and it tracks south).

Best,

D

Oops. Too much Beam:

This is why I started the Dano character: to trace the recycling trail.

Best,

D

Thanks, Tim and everybody here, for exposing the denialists in posts that are accessible to non-scientists like me. When I saw that Bob Carter piece (linked by a NZ Ayn Rand fan and denier), I thought something smelled fishy, but couldn't pinpoint it. These people truly are intellectually despicable.

Unfortunately, all this muddying of the science is working with some diehard deniers. I tuned in to a NZ talkback interview with Augie Auer, the NZ denier, and the questions he fielded were simplistic and pitched well below even a high school understanding. And he had the nerve to obfuscate climate and weather ("We can't predict the temperature tomorrow" and so on and so forth)!

With an audience like that, Bob Carter's piece provides them with the excuse they need to laugh at the socialists (which is what it's all about, sadly).

By Frustrated in NZ (not verified) on 10 Apr 2007 #permalink

""I tuned in to a NZ talkback interview with Augie Auer, the NZ denier, and the questions he fielded were simplistic and pitched well below even a high school understanding.""

Really ? I wonder what they would have been.

Do we have hard evidence that New Zealand exists ?
If it was a real country wouldn't it have its own flag instead of a sligtly altered Australian flag ?
Is the fossil record of rugby players credible ?
How can we take claims seriously that this is supposedly a first-world island nation with no navy ?
If there are no such thing as New Zealanders why are Australian Centrelink queues so long ?

And before someone accuses me of being a NZ denier, I believe it exists, I just think we need to see more evidence before we can take it seriously.

Put up a new graph every week that with flying colo "prove" IPCC. Bob is right. This isn't the IPCC predictions, but anyway noone can be sure it is the CO2 that changes the temperature. Only Svensmark has 94 per cent correlation over ups and downs, and superb correllation hundreds and millions of years back. All correlation and the chemical causes thrue cosmic rays and clouds sufficiently proved.

Do CO2 coauses global warming when the 100 extra ppm CO2 (0,0001 per cent) emmit infrared radiation or when it collect it? Not the latter I guess. Where does the infrared radiation goes when it is emitted? To the 96 per cent receptive GHG water vapour? :-) A really strong heory compared to that proved 4 per cent variation in clouds from sun storms and cosmic ray varioations (about 40 per cent variation due to the sun systems positions in the galaxy during the millions of years time scale).

Please read this document! It is dynamite.

http://www.climatescience.org.nz/assets/2007371711530.SvensmarkClimatol…

Short link: http://tinyurl.us/?f=5LAI

There is a sligt mismatch in the diagram too, but that is due to a correction which I'm sure that also is known by those who accusing Bob here. This business is not science. Its full scale war with no substance but loads of rhetoric attacks from the IPCC-followers. Amazing.

Magnus, why are you promoting the uncorrected info?

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/readme.15Dec2006:

"Update 15 Dec 2006 ******************************

"Due to a dumb mistake, the values for MT were in error when loaded up for the period ending Nov 2006. Rather than eliminating NOAA-16 data (the bad satellite) I had eliminated NOAA-15 (the good satellite) after Sept 2005. So, the values for MT have all been rerun and replaced...."

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 11 Apr 2007 #permalink

I have a question that's slightly off-topic. If Bob Carter has the goods on the "global warming swindle" then why doesn't he publish in a peer-reviewed journal? Or has he done so, but we don't know about it because global warming scientists have suppressed that fact in the media because of their vested interests?

Same with all the other sceptics -- Lindzen, Pieser, Easterbrook, our friend Magnus here -- what's to stop them publishing articles in the peer-reviewed literature debunking global warming?

Please excuse the snark. This is a serious question. I checked out the climatescience.org site above, but a lot of the pdf links are opinion pieces or not traceable to a journal.

>Or has he done so, but we don't know about it because global warming scientists have suppressed that fact in the media because of their vested interests?

Simple reason is he has not theory and no alternative. I have witnessed his ideas be subject to peer review once at a science meeting, and he came out look daft (well, worse than daft, but lets not be mean).

plum: "Whats to stop them publishing articles in the peer-reviewed literature"

Touching your faith in the "quality seal of endorsement" conferred by peer review. If nothing else, the work of McIntyre/McKitrick, Wegman, and even the NAS Panel report have shown up "peer review" as a very sloppy and inadequate form of due diligence and quality control.

I certainly wouldn't want to drive across a bridge designed with a climate science "peer review" seal of approval. And I doubt you would either.

I certainly wouldn't want to drive across a bridge designed with a climate science "peer review" seal of approval.

Yet I imagine you'd happily drive across this bridge, designed by the man who earlier designed the Golden Gate bridge? Whose design was chosen after review by his engineering peers?

Which is worse:
Stressing the fact that global temperature still is lower than 1998, or suggesting that temperature responds linear to co2?

Tim Lambert, I am still waiting for your Al Gore critique.

By Hans Error (not verified) on 11 Apr 2007 #permalink

Hans,

Global surface temperatures are categorically NOT lower than in 1998. According to NASA, in 2005 the mean surface temperature was 0.76 C above the 1951-1980 average, whereas in 1998 it was 0.70 C higher. Besides, this year has already see the highest mean monthly temperature (1.08 C above the 1951-1980 average), and over the first three months the surface mean is almost 0.90 C over the 1951-1980 mean. This year is thus very likely going to break the 2005 record, and perhaps by quite a margin.

Its pathetic that the delusionists like Hans keep trotting out this dead duck. Dano is spot on when he says 'They got nuthin'.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

"According to NASA, in 2005 the mean surface temperature was 0.76 C above the 1951-1980 average, whereas in 1998 it was 0.70 C higher."

No problem if the 2006 temperature was lowe than the 2006, the boys can just start claiming "global warming stopped in 2005".

If 2007 is hotter, they'll just have to wait for year with a marginally lower average to start bleating "global warming stopped in 2007".

Remember it isn't about facts or logic, it's about defending an ideology.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

"suggesting that temperature responds linear to co2"

I'm curious about where Gore uses the word "linearly". What were the words he actually said? Considering his audience, Gore is not likely to use the word "logarithmic" and considering that the actual forcing is now 85% of what it would be if it were linear, I'm having a hard time trying to work out how this is "deeply unethical" compared with Carter's actions which are professional incompetence at best.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

Ian,

Spot on - and this underlines Dano's frustration with the delusionists. As you say, expect the delusion crowd to start claiming that, because it was slightly less warm last year than in 2005, that warming stopped in 2005. And so on an so forth.

The straws they are clutching at are getting shorter and shorter. But my concern has been the number of people who have jumped from the rapidly sinking 'global warming isn't happening but is a doomsday myth' ship (their primary argument during the late 1980's and 1990's) to the 'it's happening alright but its mostly down to solar forcing or other non-anthropogenic causes' ship (e.g. their current argument). The 1980's-1990's style denialists are seen to be something like dinosaurs now, but they've moved on. The bottom line is that they will grab at anything so long as it keeps mitigation from the agenda. The next stage in this ugly scenario will be for them to finally admit that humans are the primary culprits but then to say 'it is too late to change anything, so we will just have to adapt'.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

Jeff Harvey: "The next stage in this ugly scenario will be for them to finally admit that humans are the primary culprits but then to say 'it is too late to change anything, so we will just have to adapt'."

For further information on this style of denialism, see also Roger Pielke Jr. and/or Prometheus blog.

Yes.

My point is becoming that these people and their made-up, grasp-at-limp-straw arguments should be treated like you'd treat your coo-coo bananas Aunt Bea.

You know: the one who still worships Elvis, still has a beehive hairdo, and hasn't listened to one note of new music since 1974 - because Elvis makes her feel good and speaks to her sensibilities and she bases her whole identity on her worship of Elvis.

The delusionists may or may not have their Elvis to worship, but most of them (certainly trolls) have their hatred of what they think WE (us, the Other, them, those people) worship.

There is no need to spend time debunking the details of their argument. Who gives a rip.

But, if decision-makers are swayed by some wet, limp straw, point out an Elvis worshipper is desperately trying to blow on it to make it look substantive.

Only decision-makers and those seriously directioning society need to be engaged.

We avoid talking to Aunt Bea at twice-yearly family functions because we can't stand "Love Me Tender", yet we waste time pointing out - daily - that the socks were brown and not black in that scene in Viva Las Vegas.

Directioning society won't be about the color of our socks, but rather where we'll get the water to wash them. Hence the sudden interest in the framing issue, as we've figured out that society must discuss what to do. Delusionists don't care, they just don't want people they hate to have a say-so. Well, too bad.

The fringe people can come along or we can wish them goodbye. That's the deal.

Best,

D

"Dano is spot on when he says 'They got nuthin'. "

But they got money. And that is worth more than a pile of facts in this propaganda war. They are not trying to convince scientists of their case; they are sowing doubt in the mind of the voters.

So I See Magnus A never give up it's still interesting to se that over the last few years he haven't bean able to get any published support for what all the crap he is saying. It's bean pointed out several times to him how doggy his claims about Svensmark and CO2 is he just wont listen.

Richard,

I think the absolute number of voters who are on the side of delusionist propaganda crackpottery wrt the science is a minority.

We have turned a corner and have taken the first baby steps toward discussing what to actually do.

The framing issue popping up now is instructive in this regard: we as societies don't know how to talk about deciding how to redirection society, how to plan. So we must learn - we've never done this before, after all. Framing is very important in the early going.

The propagandists whom the delusionists like so much know framing is very important - they've been framing with success for almost two full generations now. And the SwiftBoating of that exaggerating energy hog fat AlGore and James 'alarmist' Hansen is happening because Gore and Hansen frame the issue so reg'lur folk can understand it.

What really started this particular framing conversation in my view was a paper by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. I recommend it.

So. Big picture: the minority group of delusionists will never - ever - I repeat: never go along with what we (We, they, the other, those people) propose. Fuggem. Get left behind if that's what you want. We don't need your crackpottery anyway. Well, we need them for our amusement, else we'd have to invent them, but you get my meaning.

Best,

D

hmmm...strike tag not enabled...

On a thermodynamic basis, if satellite data has shown that the rate of escape of infrared longwave radiation (heat) is measurably lowered in recent decades, while the rate of energy (from the sun) entering the atmosphere is the same (and neither has more been reflected)...

...pray tell, how could the planet *not* undergo heating?

Does the Earth have any other way of releasing heat to space of which science is unaware?

If less IR longwave radiation is leaving the atmosphere, while the amounts entering or being reflecting remain constant, how can such a system NOT thus heat?

"I think the absolute number of voters who are on the side of delusionist propaganda crackpottery wrt the science is a minority."

Ah but you don't have to believe it's true, you just have to believe it MIGHT be true long enough to justify voting with your gut rather than your head.

You know like Saddam might have shipped his WMDs to Syria despite the fact that he and Assad hated each other (and he had repeatedly attempted to have Assad's father assassinated)and despite the fact that the claimed amount of WMDs in Iraqi possession as per pre-war "intelligence" would have required about 250 semitrailers to move and the Syrian/Iraqi border was being watched intensively in the prewar period.

You don't have to believe it did happen, you just have to believe it MIGHT have happened.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

I agree Ian, I'm just saying I...believe...we've moved on as a society and we're now talking about what to do.

Best,

D

Hank Roberts wrote: "Magnus, why are you promoting the uncorrected info?

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/readme.15Dec2006:

"Update 15 Dec 2006 **********

"Due to a dumb mistake, the values for MT were in error when loaded up for the period ending Nov 2006. Rather than eliminating NOAA-16 data (the bad satellite) I had eliminated NOAA-15 (the good satellite) after Sept 2005. So, the values for MT have all been rerun and replaced...." "

Hank, how stupid are you? Not meassurable I guess. I posted that one long before this change. Do you have any problems with "IPCC proselyts" still today pressing Michael Manns Hockeystick down my throat?

Hypocrisy and doubble standards? Well, I can change the graph and tell the blogg readers why I did that, but still what Bob and I did before the change wcan't be undone, and it is no error to use the current data when one uses it.

On the other hand You and this blogger tries to accuse Bob and me for data that was present at the time for publishing bu compare it with the data today. That isn't fair and especially not the way Tim Lambert here doing it!

You are like idi-ts all of you I often think. Why I encounter so stupid so called "brains" by visit sites like this I really don't know! But if some other sound ppl do it too, I recommend the book The Chilling Stars and this document:

http://www.climatescience.org.nz/assets/2007371711530.SvensmarkClimatol…

The theory presented proves to explain climate change very well and for all times.

You can also browse a report (pdf-file) which shows that CO2 cioncentration in the atmosphere might have been about 400 ppm for 100 and maybe 200 years ago. (short version, PDF file.)

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Meth…

and this document which shows that IPCC may have been constructing a CO2 hockey stick. (PDF file.)

http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_71…

Farwell stupid IPCC moron commentators as well as normal sound readers.

I must also comment on peer reviewed. Svensmark is published in a scientific paper, and Nir Shaviv as well (his theory directly lies upon climate change from cosmic rays and clouds). Svensmarks last experiment ended extremely successful late 2006 and I don't exactly know the process for scintific review but it takes its time (the first publishing in a scintific paper took a full year for Svensmark). But the good results here is embraced by researchers he had been in contact with during his research and by CERN for example, which are fully confident that Svensmarks experiment in CERN too shall give the expected result. So why don't go read about it, morons?

Ian Gould | April 12, 2007 06:40 AM: "they'll just have to wait for year with a marginally lower average to start bleating "global warming stopped in 2007""

Oh, yeah. We all no that this is the point of no return! No matter that the policy makers say that it may not happen, and no matter the IPCC reports sais it has no scientifically proof that warming badly affects the poorer contries and that estreme weather possibly can come in spite of weather science thet sais the opposite etc. etc. The BAD TIMES is coming closer!

No I don't think so, and if it starts to get much cooler 2007 to 2013, which it will due to the 11 year solar cycle, do you think some will claim that Gore saved us? *LOL*! (Well, you might think the temperature has a destiny if we don't do anything, just as Gore? I'm glad you hav a belief. Maybe Gore is Jesus for a secular but idealistic non-realistic secular world? I don't know...)

There are of course no measurable AGW, but I wish it was. The warmer climate the better for nature and humanity has allways been the case during the entire history. But on the other side Gore sais that just a little rise in... LMAO :)

BTW: The BAD TIMES is coming. It will get cooler. We are in a nice warm short time of an icehouse period now and there are more ice ages to come for sure! Don't believe garbage politicians.

There's a list of commenters who one doesn't call stupid, and Hank's on it. Forced to cull the list, Hank remains on it.

Did all you delusionists see that ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips has joined several other major corporations urging Congress to require limits on greenhouse gases tied to global warming, the first major U.S. oil company to take such a stance.

The company said Wednesday it has joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an alliance of big business and environmental groups that in January sent a letter to President Bush stating that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

Shame, really. What will delusionists do now?

Oh, wait: make some sh*t up. Never mind.

Best,

D

You are like idi-ts all of you I often think. Why I encounter so stupid so called "brains" by visit sites like this I really don't know!

Well, now we know Borat's opinion.

Just joshin' ya, Magnus. I can't imagine what my posts would look like if I tried to compose them in Urdu or Klingon or whatever your first language is. Keep on keepin' on, brutha!

Well, now we know Borat's opinion.

Good. Then i hope you are glad to throw stupid accusements and stupid IPCC-non science hockeysticks on others. (If you didn't got my point I posted the graph more than half a year before the correction, but to accuse Bob of an error you uses the corrected graph and mix it up with the "original" he used.)

And you can go on call people stupid between the false accusations... Don't read any good reasonable science plz, besides that it wouldn't help I hope you stay in your so called science along with IPCC and personal accusations.

BR, Borat

Magnus writes, "The warmer climate the better for nature and humanity".

Pure, utter drivel. Garbage. Gobbeldegook. Lacks an empirical foundation. A vacuous statement made that ignores: 1. The current rate of climate change. 2. Regional extremes. 3. Effects of AGW on other climatic parameters (e.g precipitation). 4. Effects of AGW on ecosystems through disproportionate effects on species that interact in tightly lnked food webs and that have cascading effects over alrger spatio-temporal scales. 5. Synergised effects of AGW with other anthropogenic stresses.

What I have seen over the years as a scientist is how the anti-environmental crowd (e.g the delusionists) make sweeping statements whose data trails go cold very quickly. Magnus' remark is no exception. Frankly to have to answer this kind of stuff is an embarrassment. It's comic book analysis. Science has moved on.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 Apr 2007 #permalink

OK strike now enabled.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | April 12, 2007 01:35 PM

Translated: "Gentlemen, start writing your lame arse 'oops I mean...' jokes".

Maguns,

Perhaps I missed it between your sloppy insults, but what is your excuse for good ol' Bob using temps 6km up? And since you apparently believe GW stopped in 1998, do you also believe it stopped in 1981 and 1990?

And if you do, please disprove my claim that global cooling stopped in 1999.

"You are like idi-ts all of you I often think. Why I encounter so stupid so called "brains" by visit sites like this I really don't know!"

Magnus, I realise English probably isn't your first language but if you want to call people "idi-ts" you might want to look to your own grammar, spelling and punctuation.

"...and if it starts to get much cooler 2007 to 2013, which it will due to the 11 year solar cycle, do you think some will claim that Gore saved us?"

Tell me, Magnus, if it doesn't start to get cooler, will you change your mind on the topic?

Care to put a bet on whether the global average temperature in 2013 will be higher or lower than for 2006?

"The warmer climate the better for nature and humanity has allways been the case during the entire history."

Yes, that's why Subsaharan Africa is so much richer than Scandinavia.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 13 Apr 2007 #permalink

Ian,

Nice one! I like the idea of a bet on surface temperatures in 2013 compared eith 2007, though don't expect Magnus to take it up. Certainly the trend over the coming six years will be for temperatures to rise still further. Moreover, unless temperatures over the remainder of this year are dampened considerably, then 2007 will be the warmest yet and probably by quite a margin. January - with a mean surface temperature 1.09 C above the 1951-1980 average - was very much the warmest month in over a century. In second place, February of 1998 was quite some way behind (1.01 C).

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 Apr 2007 #permalink

Magnus, I asked why you promoted the uncorrected info --- not meaning why did you collect it originally --- back before it was found to be wrong.

Why did you bring it up here and now? I thought maybe the 'Swindled' producer was relying on the old uncorrected info. Was that your point?

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 13 Apr 2007 #permalink

this sums it up nicely for Al Gore:

Stephen Schneider:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but -- which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

Al Gore is very effective.

By Hans Erren (not verified) on 16 Apr 2007 #permalink

We're still on an upward trend, but the 2006 data has us almost back to where we were in 2000 and under 2001, although the significance is only 10.7% and we're still +.3C over average. However, we've fallen from the 2002 high of +.6C So are we now cooling?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/GCAGdealtem?dat=BLEND&mon1=1&monb1=1&mone…¶m=Temperature&non=0&klu=1&proce=80&puzo=0&nzi=99&ts=6&sbeX=-180.0&sbeY=90.0&senX=180.0&senY=-90.0

Compare and contrast to the 63.6% significance from 1882-1893 where we fell from average to -.73 below it. Cooling?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/GCAGdealtem?dat=BLEND&mon1=1&monb1=1&mone…¶m=Temperature&non=0&klu=1&proce=80&puzo=0&nzi=99&ts=6&sbeX=-180.0&sbeY=90.0&senX=180.0&senY=-90.0

I wonder what they were thinking about in 1895

Question; did CO2 concentrations cause us to drop .3 degrees from 2005 to 2006 or rise .3 from 2001 to 2002? Answer is.... Climate Change!

The temperature is increasing .05C per decade over the last 126 years. What are we worrying about?

By Robert S. (not verified) on 18 Apr 2007 #permalink

I'm not an anti-environmentalist. I'm a pro-conservationist and an anti-alarmist.

By Robert S. (not verified) on 18 Apr 2007 #permalink