Brent Thread

By popular request. Comments from Brent and folks arguing with him are cluttering up more useful discussions. All comments by Brent and responses to comments by Brent should go in this thread. I can't move comments in MT, so I'll just delete comments that appear in the wrong thread.

More like this

sunspot,

The three issues were (1) the surface temperature record is flawed in many ways, but is flawed in particular as a metric to detect greenhouse-imposed warming, (2) direct tests of the so called fingerprint of climate model temperature changes versus observations indicated significant differences, failing simple hypothesis tests, and (3) the critical value of climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases was overstated because it had not been properly calculated. All of these were supported by peer-reviewed publications which even now continue to appear.

Where is this 'Appendix B' he refers to in the original source, which supposedly has references to actual peer-reviewed scientific papers demonstrating this?

If you can't produce the papers, your claims (and his) are just hot air, as usual.

MFS [said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2596896) :Where is this 'Appendix B' he refers to in the original source, which supposedly has references to actual peer-reviewed scientific papers demonstrating this?

MFS, like sunspotdupe, you're just meant to accept that there are a plethora of peer reviewed papers purportedly establishing the proposition. Please don't spoil the mood by actually asking to see them.

Just as with the definition of 'consensus', sunspotdupe swallows any old dick of a supplied definition, without checking it for himself.

To see things sunspotdupes way, you just have to be totally unsceptical and accept thinktank-groupthink, when it will all become clear.

chek,

Sorry for being so inconveniently skeptical :)

As my friends say when I tell them I caught a fish 'this big!': 'show us a photo or it didn't happen'. In this case show us a reference attributing the source, or you just made it up.

I chuckle whenever sunspot feels the need to call someone names. It's a primary school level "debating" trick, typically resorted to when one is losing the argument.

Cue more name-calling in 3....2....

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Jun 2010 #permalink

Spotty,

If you knew anything about science, you'd realize that scientists rarely agree on anything, meaning that our profession does not, nor never has, operated by "consensus".

But public policy must be based on it. Otherwise, if the scientific community had to acknowledge the opinions of every outlier as well as those on the academic fringe (those who constitute the vast majority in the denial community) then policy would forever be impotent, frozen in disarray.

Whether you like it or not, we have accrued enough empirical evidence by now to support the AGW hypothesis and to refute the sceptics. There are plenty of uncertainties, just as there are in fields where there is even broader support amongst scientists. These uncertainties are generally based on the outcome of AGW and not the process itself. As I have said before, this is where the sceptics have been most dishonest: in taking the uncertainties over the outcomes of climate change and applying that to the process itself.

Furthermore, check out the opinions of some of the notable denialists with respect to other environmental problems, and you will see an ugly pattern emerges that is consistent with AGW. Check out the likes of Morano, the WUWT team, those at the SEPP, Milloy, et al., and you will find that they are in probably in agreement on a suite of contemporary environmental issues: that agreement is that the problems are either overblown or are non-existant. And they all have in common another important facet that is policy related. I am certain that you would find that they agree that a good policy is that nothing is done to ameliorate the apparent 'threat' in any of these areas. Why is that? IMO it is because they all share a political ideology that is based on unregulated capitalism and a neoliberal economic order aimed at maximizing short-term profit. If you don't realize this then you should rename yourself 'sunhole' to describe the large gaping chasm that is in the middle of your head.

As for Kuhn, he was a great scientist but his book was written back in 1962. He also had many in the scientific community who venhemently disagreed with some of his ideas. Moreover, since he died (in 1996) the evidence in support of AGW has grown by many factors.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Jun 2010 #permalink

Thanks for the link to John Christie's testimony, Sunspot.

Christie is just the kind of clear-minded undogmatic scientist who should be running the show at IPCC.

Some more good news: Spain has slammed on the brake. Carbon hysteria had caused them to throw megabucks at so-called green jobs and at nocturnal solar power. At last their government has woken up:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/17/spain_sustainability_scam/

If Spain goes bust it'll make Iceland and Greece look like a stroll in the park; it'll be a crash on the scale of Lehman Brothers. Admittedly green craziness is only part of their budget haemmorrage but, as the saying goes, every billion helps.

In #493 you posted some of Thomas Kuhn's thoughts on scientists who get stuck in a pardigm bind. Same mentality as religious fundamentalists. The more they are proven wrong, the deeper into denial they go.

Brent says: *Christie [sic] is just the kind of clear-minded undogmatic scientist who should be running the show at IPCC*

More information on Christy's "clear-mindedness" and "lack of dogmatism":

*Christy was a contributing writer to "Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths," published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2002 and which is partly funded by Exxon-Mobil. He spoke at a June 1998 briefing for congressional staff and media, which was sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition*.

Let me see now. How 'undogmatic' is the position of one of the most right wing think tanks in the United States, the CEI, which receives huge amounts of funding from several polluting industries? Or the now defunct Cooler Heads Coalition, also once linked with the CEI? The book I refer to is typical contrarian rubbish authored by the usual suspects.

At a 2003 "CATO-Institute sponsored conference, Global Warming: The State of the Debate" Christy apparently said: "I don't see danger. I see, in some cases, adaptation, and in others something like restrained glee, at the thought of longer growing seasons, warmer winters, and a more fertile atmosphere."

What utter tosh. I do not know where to begin dismantling this appalling remark.

So much for Brent's 'opinions'. But, then again, most of us here realized that they were worthless quite a while back.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Jun 2010 #permalink

Jeff Harvie @507:

Thanks for the correction.

Brent,

Hope that includes your contrarian worshipping as well.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 Jun 2010 #permalink

Another interesting story in yesterday's paper. There's a shortage of Goldcrests in Britain because of the cold winter. Jeff will doubtless explain the inevitable knock-on effect in the ecosystem: goldcrest predators going hungry and a plague of worms ("No!!!" shrieks Jeff, "they eat spiders, you dummy!" All right then, a plague of uneaten spiders, then.)

My early impressions of Levin's book 'Fragile Dominion' are that the field is very descriptive, however this may be because the book is aimed at the public; I recall Stephen Hawking's publisher warning him that "with every extra equation, book sales will halve", hence his maths-light 'Brief History of Time'.

Jeff has two ologies: he's an ecologist and also an apologist for fuzzy science. I hear it said, with great firmness, that "science is numbers"; I wonder if ecology would be better off downgraded to ecography.

Brent, modern science is perhaps about understanding the world and its complex, variable, adaptive systems and how they interact with each other and us.

It's tough for those like you who wish the world was nice, neat and linear, and who basically got left behind back in the iron age but the thing is, reality doesn't care what you think or why.

I suspect you indeed recognise this and attempt to compensate, hence your nervous tic and riff away with your repetitive, thick as two planks snark attempts to belittle.
And of course, you feel right at home with the anti-science AGW denial crowd who pander to the inertia of your self-sustaining ignorance.

Here's a tip Brent - you'll perhaps notice at some point (or likely not) that they're not interested in educating you or increasing your undertsanding, they like you just the way you are. You're merely another oh-so easily led, expendable low voltage battery powering a campaign.

This is what psychologists call reflection:

>The more they are proven wrong, the deeper into denial they go.

The more Brent gets proven wrong, the more he keeps blindly thrashing. John Christie? That's the best you got?

I mean *really*.

They might even call it projection.

Translated from Dutch for the sheep.

We'll have to see whether the sun is on the results of their modeling will conform. Anyway, the results of CO2-driven climate models and the solar models seem increasingly to diverge. This means that the scientific 'consensus', which the supporters of human greenhouse hypothesis would be no more than a mirage is. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bmf

.

JournalofCosmology.com, June, 2010
The Forthcoming Grand Minimum of Solar Activity

S. Duhau, Ph.D.1, and C. de Jager, Ph.D.2,
1Departamento de FÃsica, Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1428, Bs. As. Argentina.
2Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research; P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, The Netherlands.
Abstract

We summarize recent findings about periodicities in the solar tachocline and their physical interpretation. These lead us to conclude that solar variability is presently entering into a long Grand Minimum, this being an episode of very low solar activity, not shorter than a century. A consequence is an improvement of our earlier forecast of the strength at maximum of the present Schwabe cycle (#24). The maximum will be late (2013.5), with a sunspot number as low as 55.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bmh

MFS (499): Thanks for your posting on whale poo and iron; it's a bigger deal than I supposed.

You used words such as 'significant' and 'orders of magnitude higher'. One aspect of what Chek calls 'modern science' is that trivial minor observations are presented as major breakthroughs with profound implications. I wrongly figured that "whales ingest iron in one place and form and secrete it in another place and form" was an example of vacuous factfinding. From what you say, the whaling industry may have been a significant contributor to the rise of CO2, and so this isn't just another 'bears shit in the woods' story.

Chek (512) writes: "It's tough for those like you who wish the world was nice, neat and linear". I make no apology for seeking simple and profound truths (or at least sit in the cheap seats watching bigger minds than mine do so out on the pitch, competing with a team with a different mindset: the pattern-finders who would claim that their art is so complex that 'elegance' wiil not be fothcoming.)

Much the same has happened in financial circles. There are superbrains who create derivative products so fiendishly complex that they are only fully understood by a handful of experts. Pitted against them are stodgy codgers who say that retail banks keep their customers' money safe, and lend it on to business at a premium; in contrast is the qualitatively different investment banking business with different agenda; the intermingling of the two is highly dangerous.

In the present debate we have individual scientists who study a tiny fragment of nature and its complex adaptive systems and then have the effrontery to make inferences way beyond their puny hoard of knowledge.

It is claimed that the world is warming significantly because of manmade CO2, that the seas are rising significantly, that the cryosphere is shrinking significantly. Yer fadder's moustache.

Sunspot: You quote those astrophysicists: "not shorter than a century" and " The maximum will be late (2013.5), with a sunspot number as low as 55".

We have a tabloid newspaper in England, The Sun, which claimed after an election "It was The Sun wot won it". I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future. Duhau & co are sticking their necks out here. In accordance with Popper's falsifiability they stand to lose credibility if they're wrong.

They could've covered their arses if Lotharsson had been on the team. He'd have redrafted it: "The maximum may be late - 2013.5 +/- a century or so provided nothing unexpected comes along".

Remember what Tagei wrote about sloppy science back in #343, parodying vague statements? (Boyle: the pressure, volume and temperature of a gas "may be" related.) I would say that there's nothing wrong with floating an idea - with conjecture - but such statements have a limited 'shelf life'.... you're floating the idea for a limited period, after which you'll either put up or shut up. These AGW snake-oil salesmen don't have the integrity to add, "And if
it DOESN'T happen, we'll issue a public apology and wear sackcloth and ashes." Slippery sloppy snake oil salesmen, with Gore the supreme slimeball.

brent, this bloke just showed the world the energy potential of water. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bmr something about that reminded me about an old neighbor of yours, Mountbatten I think,
anyway I spoze this bloke believed in stan mayer and probably aGw, was he doing something for the world ? None in here believe the fairytale enough to do anything about it.

Brent [said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2598819): "and then have the effrontery to make inferences way beyond their puny hoard of knowledge".

Brent, just for one moment try to stop thinking like a moron. It's an obvious given that there is a large gulf between what is understood and what *you* understand. Your continued self-projection and misunderstanding don't change that.

Your doctor for example doesn't know everything there is to know about how the human body works, but are you likely to lambast him for having the "effrontery to make inferences beyond his puny hoard of knowledge", or allow him to get on and fix up your broken leg or treat your tumour?

Actually, having seen the Brent v.1.0 who first posted here, and the Brent v.1.0 still posting here who has apparently learned nothing over the time, I'm not sure of the answer to that.

> They could've covered their arses if Lotharsson had been on the team.

Still can't resist smearing me with false implications of what I said? That's the mark of a desperate goldfish...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 19 Jun 2010 #permalink

Speaking about making inferences way beyond their hoard of puny knowledge:

> brent, this bloke just showed the world the energy potential of water.

There have been any number of patent applications for perpetual motion machines. Funny how none of them have ever provided higher usable energy output than the required energy input. Who knew the laws of thermodynamics were so hard to break?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 19 Jun 2010 #permalink

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

So what you have is a belief which you freely admit isn't backed by any evidence.

What we have is a theory backed by a mountain of evidence, none of which you've been able to disprove.

As you said:

>The more they are proven wrong, the deeper into denial they go.

It's the sun, stupid, and the mating net is closing in on you hyperventilating neoapocalypticists:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the…

Jaysus, when even New Scientist begins to doubt that Thermageddon is about to fry us all, it must be bad.

We were recently reprising the fuzzy-science meme. As so often, the Monty Python boys had a skit on the kind of pseudoscience which starts with a few measurements and leads to grand pronouncements. There was a study of dinosaurs by a researcher called Ann Elk, who proclaimed that "dinosaurs are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle, and thin again at the other end". I fondly dub such methods as 'Harvology'.

Whatever caused the Maunder Minimum (and I'm hopeful that we're close to an answer, what with the advances of the astrophysicists and their new probes), we may be in for a repeat. (Yeah, yeah, and maybe not, you're right.) If we do get a Maunder II, and if it does cause a couple of degrees of cooling, we may be approaching an end to our Great Debate.

I reckon that three snowplough-winters in the next five years will drive even hard-liner warmists like John and Dave R back under their stone.

> If we do get a Maunder II, and if it does cause a couple of degrees of cooling, we may be approaching an end to our Great Debate.

LOL! Epic Fail, Brent.

How exactly would a Maunder Minimum with a couple of degrees of cooling **disprove** the anthropogenic warming effect - especially given that it's been very warm even while the sun has recently been rather quiet? And what happens **after** a Maunder Minimum if anthropogenic warming factors remain at the same or higher levels compared to today?

This has been my point since the very first time you started posting. You're unable to separate observations of warming (or otherwise) from causal attribution - or maybe it's just that you're unable to comprehend two or more different forces acting at the same time.

In other words you presume (in your proposed "test") that any observed future cooling means that humans have not also caused warming that would not otherwise take place - even if some other factor has caused significant cooling that would not otherwise have taken place.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 19 Jun 2010 #permalink

Brent, apparently without a hint of irony, writes, *Jeff has two ologies: he's an ecologist and also an apologist for fuzzy science*.

Good God, I have to give Brent an award for breathtaking hubris: for the millionth time, its the contrarians and their paymasters who are mangling science. Given that one of his heroes, John Christy, didn't seem to be fazed contributing a chapter to a book published through the rabidly right wing Competitive Enterprise Institute, funded by a gamut of multinational corporations anxious to promote deregulation of the economy, I find it quite stunning that a dork like Brent thinks he possesses the ability to separate 'sound' from 'shoddy' science. The book, incidentally, was edited by none other than Ronald Bailey. 'Nuff said.

Brent's attempt to belittle population ecology (#511) also shows him to be a complete and utter dork. This is typical contrarian behavior when they are shown to be well out of their intellectual depth. That is to ridicule what they do not understand. I am quite experienced with the denialati, having debasted many of them over the past decade. Most are intellectual lightweights, neophytes who have no scientific education whatsoever but who are anxious to convince others that they did not need to go to universities and do degrees in relevant fields to become experts. Curtin does it. Sunpsot does it. And Brent does it. They are totoally predictable.

Its the same old refrain: a layman stumbles into fields well beyond their competence. At the same time, they possess an inherent bias based on their own simple views of the world and their own political ideology. They surf the internet anxious to find any views that support their own, and then after reading a few of the posts on these contrarian sites they feel that they have mastered the subject. (Its D-K revisited). They then wade into sites like Deltoid, anxious to show others how science works and that they understand what thousands of working scientists with PhDs and years of experience do not.

Brent, get lost, dummy, Your posts have long been shredded by others here. I have neither the time nor the patience to deal with innane posts like yours at #511. To call it vacuous would be to give it too much credit.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 - 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, GLOBAL COOLING, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations. Approximately 130 participants will attend of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education, and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bpe

Spotty posts: *The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 - 6 June 2010*. One of the topics on the agenda is global cooling (I have trouble stifling hysterical laughter at this point, but I will try).

First of all, who constitutes the group attending the conference? Check out the lsit of participants. Its a who's who of the corporate establishment, elites whose clear purpose that cannot be laid out in the flyer is that they are not meeting to solve 'problems' but to discuss ways to maintain captial flows from the poor to the rich and to maximize profits and investor's returns. This seems a bit to me like the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, which has existed since 1918 and consists of well-financed and powerful elites from the East coast whose purpose is to promote American exceptionalism and expansionism in ways the best enrich themselves.

I have no idea why spotty, as naive as he is, would post up such garbage here. Please tell, spotty. What scientific credibility has this lot got? You arent'suggesting that because they mention 'global cooling' that this has any credibility, are you?

Where the heck do you dig up this crap, anyway? Do you not have anything better to do?

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

Go on Pinicchio, bash that keyboard to smithereens.

Clearly, the panic-evoking extinction-predicting paradigms of the past are rapidly giving way to the realization they bear little resemblance to reality. Earth's plant and animal species are not slip-sliding away - even slowly - into the netherworld of extinction that is preached from the pulpit of climate alarmism as being caused by CO2-induced global warming.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bpm

Spotty (or should I say snotty),

Please inform me as to what inherent wisdom you possess to be able to make such a conclusive remark in post #530. Given your lack of any relevant qualifications, methinks (as usual) that you are speaking out of your rear oriface.

Lastly, you never explained why you think that the majority of scientists cannot be trusted on the issue of climate whereas anything coming from the corporate establishment must be trustworthy. Again, you are super-selective; this clearly must reflect your rather simple idealogical world view.

PS. Given the kinds of stuff that you write in your posts here, I think it is you who is 'bashing the keyboard to smithereens' and not me. I see layman like you and people like you as a minor distraction, that is all.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

Yes Brent. The sun is in a period of low activity. This must be why it is warming.

Only passin' on the news Pinicchio, as usual your lack of savvy is evident.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bpo

I see the penny hasn't dropped with slothy, still can't work out the ocean stores solar energy and then gradually releases it later, blind in one eye and the other one shut.

It's the sun, stupid.

FFS, at least spell my name correctly.

By Pinnochio (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

sorry Pinocchio, I might of dropped the O but you dropped the C !!

[Foulspot says](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2600042):

...I might of dropped the O ...

Now, I'm usually not one to use another's grammar as a basis for dismissal, but in this case I can't ignore it.

If foulspot can't manage even a basic level of grammatic usage, then there is an extreme probability that his science is as [bogan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan) as his English.

And if my bogan acquaintances are anything to go by, spotty's science would falter at the why-does-the-sun-rise level.

Given the habit that he exhibits of slyly and consistently disguising his sources behind tinyurl, I'd say that he knows that he is speaking scientific (as well as grammatic) tosh, too. He seems to revel in it though...

'Course, I might of got 'im all wrong.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

> ...still can't work out the ocean stores solar energy and then gradually releases it later...

Of course it does - and it's a stupid evidence-free claim that I think otherwise! (Given that you tout many other things that actually go against the evidence, I guess I should not be surprised.)

Ocean energy storage is one of many reasons why there are long timelags in the climate system. And that's one of *several* reasons why 20-30 year global averages are necessary rather than looking at regional or short term effects. (Short term climate effects include La Nina and El Nino - which means that it's eminently stupid to report on Spencer's report on SST due to La Nina and then claim "it's the sun, stupid". And it's especially stupid when *even Spencer* doesn't claim "it's the sun" but "it's probably clouds".)

And ocean energy storage is also one reason why air surface temperature changes don't necessarily track energy fluxes across the top of atmosphere directly - a point frequently and fallaciously taken by denialists to mean that anthropogenic influences can't be causing warming. I bet I could find an instance or three of you relying on this claim if I needed to.

And obviously ocean energy storage is one reason why air surface temperatures don't necessarily rise in concert with CO2 concentrations - a point that escapes the average denialist who first claims "it isn't warming, it's cooling" and then claims "it's not warming enough for CO2 to have any significant effect". If I could be bothered I could probably find multiple instances of you implying or stating one or the other.

And processes on climate timescales are why (say) Roy Spencer's "analyses" that purport to show a low climate sensitivity are often bogus - they appear constructed to specifically eliminate the effects of the time lag. I bet I could find you touting Spencer's climate sensitivity analysis as well.

So, given that you [touted models](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…) on the empirical evidence thread a while back and now you're acknowledging that *energy balance drives climate across climate timescales* thereby debunking several denialist arguments in one hit, is there hope for you yet? ;-)

Or is it just that you didn't realise that the point you so gleefully posted because you thought it rebutted climate science actually supports it and destroys several of your own?

Unfortunately my money's on the latter.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Jun 2010 #permalink

slothy it is nice to see that you recognize that the sun does have a little to do with global temps, please don't get upset about the ocean temps falling off a cliff, it's the sun stupid.

The reconstruction shows reliably that the period of high solar activity during the last 60 years is
unique throughout the past 1150 years.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bry http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bs0

and.........

Correlation of solar luminosity and temperature over the last 1000 years http://www.tinyurl.com.au/bh7

and.......back around the goldfish bowl.

if this (below) play's out then I may reconsider my views on the ability of aGW and CO2 above and beyond solar cycle variation's on our rock, although........
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/brz

burnie @ 538 u thunk i'm bad at speilin,
you shoodar seed jeff harvie's befour he
lernded how ta yooz a spiel cheka, turd grade stuff.

Snotspot,

Bernard was referring to your grammar, not your spelling. And he is correct, your grammar is utterly appalling. However, the level of your 'science' is even worse. Clive Hamilton sums up people like you very well in his excellent book, "Requiem for a Species". I suggest that you read it and then take a long, hard look in the mirror. You might learn exactly why your views are so out of whack with most in the scientific community.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 Jun 2010 #permalink

Pinicchio, what's my grammar got to do with it ? She's dead. So is the CO2 fable.

Good grief, you folks are still responding to these morons? Brent, the far more intelligent of the two, thinks that, if the water stops boiling for a moment when you throw in the pasta, that proves that the stove is off, and he still hasn't realized that winter is not a global phenomenon. These guys are unreachable, and there have been no lurkers for months. Give it up already.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 21 Jun 2010 #permalink

Ah, Truth Machine, we've been expecting you. This ecology book I'm ploughing through refers to you: It says "Nobuddy kin talk as interestin' as th'feller that's not hampered by facts or information."

It's slow going, partly my fault from getting distracted by other things (a sudden interest in bees, I now know a bombus lucorum from an apis mellifera, and we have at least five types here), partly 'cos there aren't many pictures in this pesky book.

The question I am hoping the author will answer is: "In disrupting Nature, can we identify a happy medium between the two extremes of (a)Uninhibited damage to ecosystems (in consumption and pollution and habitat destruction) and (b)Bhuddist-style avoidance of damaging the slightest hair on a bumblebee's head?" Put another way: can we usefully differentiate between fragility and robustness? (I say 'usefully' because debates on environment and climate must lead to a concensus in society as to what is appropriate ACTION.)

Was it Erasmussimo who said, back on the Empirical thread, that one camp's extremists shouldn't be debating with rational folks in the other camp? That was on the subject of AGW of course, but a Fragile Nature debate can be similarly derailed: "Exctinction's a one way ticket, dumb-arse", one side would scream, to be countered by: "You hypocrites! You wear CLOTHES and eat FOOD!"

I rather suspect that Jeff Harvey's pied flycatchers will put up with a lot of shit before being wiped out, but such intuition (or should that read 'baseless guesswork') needs to be nourished by listening to the experts.

C'mon on Lenny. Keep patting that dog harder, maybe it will come back to life.

[Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2604332):

I rather suspect that Jeff Harvey's pied flycatchers will put up with a lot of shit before being wiped out, but such intuition (or should that read 'baseless guesswork') needs to be nourished by listening to the experts.

Indeed, one's intuition should defer to the experts.

To this end, as you have raised the issue of avifauna, you might like to consider [Harry Recher's opinion](http://tinyurl.com/23qbk5h) about the decline of Australian native bird species:

I expect less than half of Australia's terrestrial bird species will survive the next one hundred years. If I am wrong, it will only be because birds are tenacious and the rate of extinction will be slower than I
anticipate, or because Australians modify their behaviour and change the ways they manage and exploit the continent's lands, waters and natural resources. However, at the close of the 20th Century, there is no evidence that this will happen and all trends are towards a continued, rapid decline in the avifauna with the progressive loss of regional populations culminating in continent wide extinctions. If the loss of species is not as great as I predict, Australia will still lose most of its avian biodiversity through the decline and extinction of populations and massive change in the great majority of birds will he diminished, while a few will continue to he extraordinarily abundant. The conspicuousness of these few, superabundant commensals of humanity will mean that few Australians will notice the losses. My analysis and prediction is not novel: they are simply a description of
events as they have happened over the past 200 years.

...

If my evaluation of the status of the Australian avifauna and prognosis for the future appears unrealistic, I have company. Assuming that current rates of endangerment continued, Smith et al. (1993) predicted that half of the world's 9 500 species of hirds will become extinct within the next 200 to 300 years. Using a more comprehensive set of data, Crosby et al. (1994) predicted that "between 400 and 1200 species of hirds may become extinct within the next 100 years." According to their models, the half-life for the world's avifauna lays between 800 and 2 800 years depending on the constancy of threatening processes and rates of habitat loss. Exactly the same situation pertains to Australia.

You may suspect that pied flycatchers can "put up with a lot of shit before being wiped out", but this really only goes to show how little you understand about the intregrated effects of multiple assaults on a species' long-term continuation.

Tell us, have you ever performed a population viability analysis? Do you understand what factors can influence the viability of a population? Do you understand the concept of an exctinction debt, and how such a debt can be inevitable even as a population appears robust to a casual observer?

Recher's work and that of the others he mentions was focussed mostly on habitat destruction, modification, or fragmentation, with a smaller component considering the impact of introduced species and diseases. Climate change effects do not need to be included in order to reach the bleak conclusion that inevitably arises from frank and objective consideration of the data.

However, the impact of climate change on the bioclimatic envelopes of species, whether avian or other, will surely exacerbate extinction debts to which much of our biodiverity is already committed. An understanding of thermoregulatory physiology would help here, as would a passing knowledge of how apparently small differences in mean temperature affect other climatic parameters... And even if species are able to tolerate change within their own bioclimatioc envelopes, there is no guarantee that they are safe, because they are also hostages to their phenological relationships with other species, both food and predator.

Brent, you remind me of [the whale in Douglass Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_th…):

Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't there? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ound', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!

You discover something, you believe that you understand it (you are a very clever whale, after all), and you see no deficiencies in your analysis nor danger in those things that you dismiss.

The difference though, between you and the whale, is that you may be fortunate enough to live out the term of your life before being atomised. Unfortunately for a sizable chunk of life on Earth, though, especially at the species level, the ground is rushing up alarmingly.

It must be lovely to be a weightless whale whooshing through the wind with gay abandon, whilst the bowl of petunias that has somewhat more awareness craps itself.

It's a shame that the proportionality of matter in the metaphor does not translate into the reality of climate change, and it's potential impact on the biodiversity of the planet - that bowl of petunias is, in fact, a very big bowl indeed, with many, many petunias.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 Jun 2010 #permalink

Brent,

A trip to New Zealand might help you to understand why rapid environmental change can be as catastrophic for biodiversity as people make it out to be.

When it comes to Jeff's flycatchers,

1. How would you yourself go about determining if they are ok, or instead likely to become extinct unless we do something?
2. Would you just go on thinking they're more likely to be resilient than not, until one day you suddenly notice they're gone? Or simply that it's unimportant whether they become extinct or not?
3. Do you think it's worth knowing whether the biodiversity around us is thriving or suffering? If you think it's worth knowing, how would you go about finding out? If the results of your research is not what you want to hear, what would you do about it?
4. Have you stopped to think that, once you reject the hypothesis that climate researchers are not in a conspiracy to pervert the course of science, the results they come up with is not what they themselves want to hear?

Just some musings.

I have an acquaintance who brushes off the extinction problem with a flippant reference to past extinctions.

I asked him if he was aware how fast the current extinction rate is compared to the previous 'background' extinction rate. He was not aware, nor did he show any interest in finding out.

Apparently he believes that if extinctions are a 'regular' event then one need not care what the current rate of extinction is in comparison to the "regular" rate.

So a question for Brent, before you look up the 'regular' (background) extinction rate, ask yourself what percentage rise over this rate would be warning signal for you? 10%, 20%, more? And what size rise over this rate would be alarming to you? 50%, 100%, 500% rise in the rate of extinctions?

Then once you nominate your thresholds, do the research and tell us what you find the current rate of extinctions to be compared to the background fossil record rate.

There were far higher levels of extinction at the PermianâTriassic and CretaceousâTertiary boundaries, so it's business as usual and nothing to worry about, you silly alarmist!

[Really, it's a waste of time to engage Brent because his responses are no less stupid than that.]

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 22 Jun 2010 #permalink

Truth Machine @ #552.

Agreed. Brent claims he's reading Levin's book, "Fragile Dominion", where the main message is not just how much biodiversity we are losing compared with past extinction events, but how this will (1) affect the functioning of ecosystems across the biosphere, and (2) the delivery of vital ecosystem services that sustain human civilization. Of course natural systems are robust and have in-built redundancy, but this is no guarantee that the human assault will not result in a massive descrease in the free delivery of a range of services that have few, if any, technological substitutes. This is the core message of Levin's book, along with the fact that our understanding of what he refers to as 'complex adaptive systems' is still very poor. I gave Brent more credit than I should have. His rejoinder shows that not one iota of the book's message has sunk into his head.

Past extinction events did not occur when a single species dominated the planet as Homo sapiens does today. No species extracts more from - or depends more on - natural systems than does our species. We redirect 50% of freshwater flows and utilize 40% or more of net primary production. Consequently, when things begin to break down, perhaps systemically, then we could be the biggest losers. The pied flycatcher study just goes to show how interconnected different processes are in nature. Species interact, and thus the biggest extinction of all could be that of vital interactions that reinforce the strength of food chains and the communities in which they are embedded. Moreover, given that there are not nearly enough ecologists to study the billions of interactions that occur just within individual ecosystems, it is likely that the pied flycatcher-winter moth-oak/climate change study represents the tip of a vast network of worrying changes brought about by recent warming.

Brent, if you are the smart guy you try and make out to be here, then it is quite unwise of you to downplay - even ridicule - individual examples looking at vertical trophic interactions even consisting of just a few species. If you were to look in the pages of any number of peer-reviewed ecological journals over the past 10 years, you would see that there are many worrying signs coming out of natural systems in response to rapid warming, and that, were more species and systems to be studied, we might see that a bleak pattern is emerging.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 Jun 2010 #permalink

It is typical of Brent 1) to pose two extremes, Uninhibited damage to ecosystems (in consumption and pollution and habitat destruction) which is pretty much what we have now and Bhuddist-style avoidance of damaging the slightest hair on a bumblebee's head which is a wildly hyperbolic fantasy strawman of Brent's own invention and 2) to treat the issue as if it were completely independent of AGW so as to be able to continue and not retract or apologize for his past stream of scurrilous and offensive lies about "alarmists" promoting a "global warming fairy tale", his nonsense about "Classical, Modern and Empirical" science, etc. ad nauseam. He has not moved an inch, and no book will move him, from his #33 in which he conceded that if "Climate Change is happening as forecast by the IPCC, this must be a great threat to species and habitat" but then went on with his pig-ignorant and stupid analysis of residence time and his D-K arrogant declaration that "I have done a calculation of exponential decay and I suspect that the Royal Society's figure was typed by somebody with good hair and a degree in Public Relations", and then in #36 pondering, as is his wont, whether "there's an anti-development agenda in warmist circles, a desire to return to some rose-tinted state of grace, to the good old days" -- and one can go on through the hundreds of posts before and after to find numerous similar ad hominems, all derived from Brent's unwavering ideological commitment to the view that AGW is not in fact a serious threat.

By truth machine, OM (not verified) on 23 Jun 2010 #permalink

Shortly after the third of three major snowstorms brought record-setting snowfall to the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, NOAAâs Climate Scene Investigators (CSI) assembled to analyze why the snowstorms happened. The CSI is a team of âattributionâ experts in NOAA whose job is to determine the causes for climate conditions. By distinguishing natural variability from human-induced climate change, they aim to improve decision-making and inform adaptation strategies.
The CSI team was formed in 2007, following chaotic media coverage of the record U.S. warmth in 2006 (see CSI: NOAA Climate Scene Investigators). Here they have been called to the scene again, but now to explain cold, snowy conditions, and to reconcile those with a warming planet. After a series of record-setting snowstorms hit the mid-Atlantic region this winter, some people asked NOAA if humans could somehow be to blame. Specifically, they wanted to know if human-induced global warming could have caused the snowstorms due to the fact that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor. The CSI Teamâs analysis indicates thatâs not likely. They found no evidence â no human âfingerprintsâ â to implicate our involvement in the snowstorms. If global warming was the culprit, the team would have expected to find...................

more here http://www.tinyurl.com.au/c69

IPCC "Consensus" on Solar Influence was Only One Solar Physicist who Agreed with Her Own Paper.........

Klimaskeptic.cz continues "As I wrote elsewhere (article on pmode ACRIM), Judith Lean, along with Claus Frohlich, are responsible for the scandalous rewriting of graphs of solar activity. Satellites showed that the TSI (measured in watts) between 1986 and 96 increased by about one third. Judith Lean and Claus Frohlich (authors of the single study noted above) "manipulated" the data. People who were in charge of the satellites and created the original graphs (the world's best astrophysicists: Doug Hoyt, Richard C. Willson), protested in vain against such manipulation. Willson: "Fröhlich has made changes that are wrong ...

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/c6b

Sunspot, I caught the same article from Klimaskeptic.cz, and asked if there was a mis-translation. A one-third increase in TSI cannot be right: that's several hundred Watts. I suspect it's the variation in TSI (between roughly 1365 and 1367 M/m2) that's being revised.

I'm not posting much of late. I'm gradually getting through an ecology book in order to have a more informed stance on whether any climate change is likely to be taken in its stride by nature (robust) or whether nature is like an intricate clockwork watch liable to seize up when jabbed at with a Big Bertha screwdriver (fragile).

Although the book is aimed at the public, I have to re-read many passages before getting it, e.g., "... a picture has begun to emerge of how ecosystem functioning depends on the details of biotic structure." This is not gibberish; with enough prior knowledge, or enough reflection, it all makes sense.

I watch the Buddleia in the garden attracting four species of bee and little flies and beetles, and also a damsel fly. This helps illustrate the book's discussion of "structure", and I can imagine other - less fortunate - plants with just a single creepy-crawly serving it. It would be more "fragile", more susceptible to... er... CCCCC. (This is my new acronym. It stands for creepy-crawly-cidal climate change. Can't see it catching on!)

The likes of Jeff Harvey, with his superior knowledge of Pied Flycatchers, claims that even a few lousy tenths of a degree change can be dangerous. If he's right, and if the thermometers aren't dodgy, I need to join his side. If, on the other hand, he is misrepresenting nature - in particular by his claims that temperature changes are excising great strips of the biota, when in fact nature copes very well with variation, and has had billions of years of practice - then he deserves to be dismissed as a scaremonger.

Oh, and as for Pied Flycatchers, I wonder if they do a little moonlighting. Might they instead be called Pied Fly-or-sometimes-wasp-Catchers? I'm a Fat Beerdrinker, but when the cupboard's bare I've been known to give the wife's sherry a bashing. Professor Levin might give this a title such as DABB: Drought-Adaptive Boozeraiding Behaviour.

Of course, what Brent is really doing is scouring the internet looking for any information that a changing climate isn't harmful to nature and no creatures will go extinct and everything will be just fine, if global warming was happening, which it isn't, but even if it was (and it's not) nothing bad will ever, ever happen. Even though he admits the temperature record is trustworthy, that it is warming, that the AGW theory hasn't been disproven, that his own theory has no evidence behind it and is purely an article of his own, ideologically bound personal beliefs.

Phew!

TSI,

Notice that the deviations (red spots) have been higher than the standard deviation (violet horizontal band) since 1916 AD.

What percentage higher ?

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/c84

Wasn't it 1916 when aGw started ?

Judithgate Update

"This is a typical story showing the character of the [IPCC] "consensus".

"Whenever there are questions that really matter, the IPCC minimizes the number of people who have something to say about the subject. The goal is clear, the small number of authors (in this case, a single author) are expected to say that nothing aside from CO2 really matters - so that the important question isn't even discussed. This task for Ms Lean was determined from the very beginning: after all, this task is what the IPCC is all about. She was selected for her ability to fulfill this task in a disciplined way which is what she has done, indeed."

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/c7x

I'm gradually getting through an ecology book in order to have a more informed stance on whether any climate change is likely to be taken in its stride by nature (robust) or whether nature is like an intricate clockwork watch liable to seize up when jabbed at with a Big Bertha screwdriver (fragile).

When you start with the sort of stupidity that poses such false dichotomies, you're bound to end up just as stupid, no matter what you read.

By truth machine (not verified) on 27 Jun 2010 #permalink

[Truth Machine said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2615541) "When you start with the sort of stupidity that poses such false dichotomies, you're bound to end up just as stupid, no matter what you read".

Plus, I'm in danger of starting to feel sorry for Brent'n'Sunsplat, who just like Poptart and his "700 papers", seem to be somehow self-condemned to the sisyphean task of pushing a mountain of pigshit up the hill with a teaspoon every day, only to have it collapse all over them every night and then have to start all over again at the beginning the next day.

But it is small fun to watch their drivelling devotion.
It's just a pity the crows don't get to peck out their livers too, just to add to the craic.

Chek, as we so often say, correlation is not causality.

The promising correlation between sunspot cycles and temperature is just an indicator that calls for deeper understanding. Of course sunspots don't cause rises and falls in yearly temperature but may well have a common cause, yet to be understood.

This isn't dumb. Arguing that changes in atmospheric CO2, which shows a steady rise, causes decade-by-decade oscillations is dumb. The idea that the sun may be the main driver of earth's temperature, or rather its oscillation, makes good sense.

Brent,

It is not a *few lousy tenths of a degree* we are talking about at regional scales. You are, as always, confusing global scale effects with local scale effects. The temperatures in much of central and northern Europe have risen by some 2-3 degrees since the early 1980s. This is NOT a trivial change. Temperatures in much of the Arctic have increased by twice that. These kinds of changes - most importantly in terms of temporal scaling - are probably unprecendented in millions of years.

I am not an expert on the pied flycatcher, but it is just one example where phenological asynchrony over three levels of the food chain is being caused by rapid spring and nighttime warming. If many other species and the communities in which they were embedded were to be examined in a similar way, my belief is that we would find that climate change is a major driver in their decline.

There is little doubt that regional changes in climate will harm biodiversity on a large scale. You can try and twist the facts to suit your narrative but there is no escaping this fact.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 Jun 2010 #permalink

Pinocchio,

Global Warming is Not Global, http://www.tinyurl.com.au/cau

Arctic Animal Populations. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/cat

You know that if a universal tax is forced upon us, then there wont be any funding to address the real causes of environmental problems. You in particular will be on the outer for not recognizing that the perceived GW is not the major cause in harming biodiversity. I think you maybe a shill.

>Arguing that changes in atmospheric CO2, which shows a steady rise, causes decade-by-decade oscillations is dumb.

I thought it was "logical" and "well thought out".

While we're at it, perhaps Brent can explain with his vastly superior intellect why the global temperatures are up while sun activity down?

Oh wait:

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

So you have a personal belief in something but can't prove it with science. Now that's dumb!

Blotspot is (as usual) full of it. The scientific community does not just measure the demographics of species populations instantaneously but with time. Some species and populations - like many tropical migrant songbirds - are being negatively affected by rapid warming due to a dramatic phenological changes in vital interactions with species in other trophic levels on which they depend for reproduction and survival. Other species that occur in less tightly linked trophic interrelationships - habitat and dietary generalists for example - many benefit for the short term as conditions become warmer because they open up possibilities for a decrease in metabolic expenditure for access to food and for reproduction. In other words, conditions can transiently improve and mask an underlying negative trend that will occur when conditions pass some threshold. What is happening in Arctic ecosystems is just that - conditions are becoming temporarily more benign but, as the warming continues, and more ice is lost, with a longer growing season (on poor, acid soils), then conditions will switch rapidly to a new and potentailly very harmful state. Polar Bears constitute one example of this phenomenon. No doubt the bears will benefit from a reduction in pack ice to a certain point, but once that is passed then their populations will plummet.

I wouldn't expect some one with a high school dropout-level education like Sunspot to understand term like the 'extinction debt' but he ought to stay out of areas of science - such as population biology - where I s*** all over him. The truth is that his understanding of ecology, along with the doipes whose misinformation he peddles here, is akin to the analogy of the person who wants to travel as fast as they can and jumps off the top of a 100 story building. As they fall their mass picks up speed, so that by the time they have fallen 90 floors they are travelling faster than at any time since they jumped from the building. Then suddenly -
S-P-L-A-T!!!!! They careen into the pavement and that is it. Similarly, any population rises in Arctic biota are certain to be temporary, until conditions pass a critical threshold. Then they will plummet. Ecology is the most non-linear of the sciences in cause-and-effect relationships because one minor change in a seemingly innocuous variable can rebound on the system, but not necessarily at once. Some songbird declines in the eastern United States are almost certainly attributable to changes in habitat and the los of top-level predators that occurred many years, and in some cases even centuries, ago.

So will rapid warming harm biodiversity? Most certainly. I say this as a scientists with years of experience in my field of research. Blotspot has none. He is an idealogically driven libertarian.

Some advice blotspot: stick to areas - perhaps like making cardboard boxes or the like - where you are probably skilled.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 Jun 2010 #permalink

[Brent said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2616329) "The idea that the sun may be the main driver of earth's temperature, or rather its oscillation, makes good sense".

Of course the sun is the main driver - that's where (almost) all the thermal energy on Earth comes from.

As for accounting for the current excess warming anomaly no Brent and sunsplat, [it doesn't make any scientific sense whatsoever](http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming…)

It's just another constituent of that pile of pigshit you keep pushing.

[Sunsplat said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2616430) "You know that if a universal tax is forced upon us, then there wont be any funding to address the real causes of environmental problems. You in particular will be on the outer for not recognizing that the perceived GW is not the major cause in harming biodiversity. I think you maybe a shill".

Good to see you openly if tentatively (only maybe a shill, eh? How rational of you!) aligning yourself with the cranks, crackpots and conpiracy theorists. There was never much doubt that that was your preferred natural habitat.

"The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".

Most likely, the reason the Trenberth/IPCC Earth energy budget can't account for the lack of warming is because warming from greenhouse gas back radiation doesn't exist.

Claes Johnson, professor of applied mathematics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, has a blog for those interested in the mathematics & physics of the atmosphere, and has a new post today which also finds the conventional greenhouse gas theory of back radiation or re radiation causing global warming to be fictitious.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/cbo

[Sunsplat said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2616657) "Most likely...."

Or more accurately, not the least bit likely, stratospheric cooling and tropospheric warming being an AGW signature.
[Trenberth is talking about our inability to be able to measure the net radiation balance at the top of the atmosphere to the requisite precision to be able to say on short time scales what the energy budget is doing. The observations are inadequate for that.](http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=1853#comment-142189)

Still swallowing recirculated dead fecal material from the climategate dud eh, spotty?

But then, when you have nothing what else is there?

The Earthâs weather and climate regime is determined by the total solar irradiance (TSI) and its interactions with the Earthâs atmosphere, oceans and landmasses. Evidence from both 29 years of direct satellite monitoring and historical proxy data leaves no doubt that solar luminosity in general, and TSI in particular, are intrinsically variable phenomena. Subtle variations of TSI resulting from periodic changes in the Earth's orbit (Milankovich cycles: ~20, 40 and 100 Kyrs) cause climate change ranging from major ice ages to the present inter-glacial, clearly demonstrating the dominance of TSI in climate change on long timescales. TSI monitoring, cosmogenic isotope analyses and correlative climate data indicate that variations of the TSI have been a significant climate forcing during the current inter-glacial period (the last ~ 10 Kyrs.). Phenomenological analyses of TSI monitoring results during the past (nearly) three decades, TSI proxies during the past 400 years and the records of surface temperature show that TSI variation has been the dominant forcing for climate change during the industrial era. The periodic character of the TSI record indicates that solar forcing of climate change will likely be the dominant variable contributor to climate change in the future.

A contiguous TSI database of satellite observations extends from late 1978 to the present, covering more than two sunspot cycles. It's comprised of the observations of seven independent experiments: Nimbus7/ERB1, SMM/ACRIM12, ERBS/ERBE3, UARS/ACRIM24, SOHO/VIRGO5, ACRIMSAT/ACRIM36 and SORCE/TIM7. A composite database combining these results using overlapping, in-flight comparisons has begun to provide new insights into both solar physics and climate change.

this site has good data and info,
http://www.acrim.com/

hahaha, CO2 !

sunspot, that site with the data doesn't show temperatures. However, what it does show is that since the beginning of the dataset, TSI has fallen.

Yet temperatures have risen over that time.

haha sunspot!

"this site has good data and info, http://www.acrim.com/"

Is what you said.

Now that it's no longer got good data???

And it would be a good idea to visit a bookshop and look at the globe of the earth there.

The Antarctic is in the south (which is experiencing its winter, little tip for you) and it is not sea. It is land. Which is *above* the sea. And what happens when you melt an ice cube on your hand? It becomes slippery (try this yourself if you have a refrigerator). So when ice on the land which is above the ocean starts melting, it gets slippery.

But it slides downhill, doesn't it, sumspot.

Into the ocean.

Can you guess what that does to the extent of sea ice around (not at) the south pole?

What a complete moron you are.

You don't even know where the south pole is!

Brent recently popped up doing his usual trick that global warming was a fraud because "it's an uptick of a few lousy tenths of a degree on a dodgy thermometre". Putting aside Brent's repeated use of Orwellian language for a moment, I can't help but wonder why, when Brent has admitted the temperature record is accurate, does he lie to himself?

Brent recently popped up doing his usual trick that global warming was a fra*d because "it's an uptick of a few lousy tenths of a degree on a dodgy thermometre". Putting aside Brent's repeated use of Orwellian language for a moment, I can't help but wonder why, when Brent has admitted the temperature record is accurate, does he lie to himself?

Brent, why do you hate science?

Brent says:

Looking back at the "Empirical Evidence " thread before the Wicked Censor concluded that it was making progress, and therefore to be terminated, we achieved some useful progress together.

As you know, but pretend not to, you were given your very own thread for your uncensored, highly repetitive, and wholly unenlightening posts not because you were "making progress" (you weren't, you were simply repeating the same tired arguments over and over again, without showing the least interest in learning from the responses you received), but because your content-less comments and the responses to them were cluttering up otherwise useful threads.

You know this of course, which is why you no longer post on your own thread, where your posts could be read "uncensored" in perpetuity; in reality you aspire only to be a political gadfly, hoping to provoke a response from those whom you regard as your ideological enemies, so that you then have an excuse to showcase more recycled arguments and abuse. It's all very dull for someone who reads Deltoid for insightful and interesting contributions, and I heartily commend Tim Lambert for this arrangement that allows you to post without derailing otherwise useful threads.

Note to Tim Lambert: I understand your desire to delete my every contribution to this debate, but can't you cut me a little slack here rather than censoring me? I suppose I could return under a pseudonym, but the vivid ideas we are debating here would make such an exercise transparent. Please stop censoring me. If you can't, at least suggest to me a more appropriate outlet for my ideas. Such outlets cannot be predominantly among likeminded people: I need to test them against antagonists like Lotharsson: a rich resource of irrational apocalypticism.

You are not being censored. You have your outlet: it is this thread. It is yours by popular demand. Post here, debate here, and leave the useful threads to those who are actually willing and able to contribute something interesting. A starting point: Can you point to instances in which Lotharsson is actually being (a) irrational and (b) apocalyptic? Or is this simply more empty gadfly posturing on your part?

"at least suggest to me a more appropriate outlet for my ideas."

Here's a suggestion, Bent, use this thread as an outlet for your "ideas".

Wow, do you think that people will come out to play here? It seems perverse to occupy a chatroom with my name on it!

Well, as Sylvester once said to Tweety Pie, all right then. Here goes: Earlier, on another thread, I wrote:

= # =

Lotharsson, good to see you again!

Looking back at the "Empirical Evidence " thread before the Wicked Censor concluded that it was making progress, and therefore to be terminated, we achieved some useful progress together.

Despite the appalling ad hominem attacks from people like you, we managed to get somewhere together; we managed to focus the debate on two key areas which will either confirm or refute the Global Warming Theory. To have identified the key battlegrounds in this way was very useful.

The entire debate hinges on (i)Feedback and (ii)Sensitivity. (Meanwhile the planet will do what it does regardless of the hubristic words - including feedback and sensitivity - of puny Man.)

If I may state the Feedback Question: "Is the Earth's climate subject to positive or negative feedback? In the event of, say, a rise in global temperature, are there natural mechanisms which will damp and reverse a rising trend (negative fb) or do temperature rises lead to further such rises beyond a tipping point (positive)."

If I may state the Sensitivity Question: "Of the various influences known to affect the Earth's temperature ("drivers"), what is the relative sensitivity of the climate to each of those drivers and to what extent are we certain of our understanding of such contribution? In particular, the relative sensitivity of CO2 and solar/volcanic is critical. If CO2 dwarfs solar and volcanic, man's carbon footprint is of critical importance; however if it is trivial in comparison then the current concern over CO2 is to be dismissed as a scare story."

I hope this helps.

= # =

Would anybody like to comment on the 'twin battlegrounds' idea?

It's legitimate to say, "If feedback WERE negative as you suggest, and if carbon DID HAVE a relatively minor effect on glabal temperatures, then you'd be right, mate: we'd have nothing to worry about. Fact is, there IS a quantifiable tipping point, and there's ample evidence that carbon is the ONLY significant driver, so nice try but no coconut!"

What I get here on Deltoid is more like: "You moronic goldfish troll, only stupid people doubt the radiative physics discovered by Arrhenius. Denying global warming is denial of the laws of physics."

Despite such abuse, I maintain that the long hard discussions in this arena have helped crystallize the key questions surrounding the global warming theory.

Arguably, the positions of the two sides are so entrenched that it is pointless to attempt gentlemanly debate. But I am encouraged by my discovery of the Twin Battlegrounds; I would never have dug so deeply into the claims of the IPCC without people kindly recommending: "Moronic bozo, you haven't read AR4 WG1, and probably can't understand it you educationally subnormal git."

"It seems perverse to occupy a chatroom with my name on it!"

No, it's perverse to IGNORE a thread named for you.

Then again, you're a pervert, so what should we expect, hmm?

Here I am, all alone, talking to the walls.

That fecking Lambert got his way, and has put me in solitary. Maybe he's right; maybe being abused and insulted by the Deltoid Rude Boys was a Stockholm Syndrome thing; maybe we will be growing pineapples in Shropshire soon; maybe Al Gore was right about the Tipping Point; maybe all my friends like Salty Current and Dave R and Jeff Harvey are not the hypocrites I suspected and they have actually given up driving motor vehicles, given up air travel, given up eating imported food.

Hallelujah! I'm cured! I see it now, the error of my ways!

To make amends, I shall now buy offset vouchers for my last ten years of air travel, secure in the knowledge that the money will go to a good cause, to directly combating climate change. The money will reduce atmospheric CO2. Don't ask me how, it just will, OK, because I now believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming and therefore believe the 97% concensus of climatologists.

Someone needs to say this:

Sarcasm is no substitute for evidence-backed logic. You have plenty of the former, Brent, and a good fighting spirit, but are woefully lacking in the latter.

>"Of the various influences known to affect the Earth's temperature ("drivers"), what is the relative sensitivity of the climate to each of those drivers and to what extent are we certain of our understanding of such contribution? In particular, the relative sensitivity of CO2 and solar/volcanic is critical. If CO2 dwarfs solar and volcanic, man's carbon footprint is of critical importance; however if it is trivial in comparison then the current concern over CO2 is to be dismissed as a scare story."

All "ifs" and no science. Welcome back Brent.

>Arguably, the positions of the two sides are so entrenched that it is pointless to attempt gentlemanly debate.

So does "gentlemanly debate" include arriving here under false pretences?

Nobodies position here is "entrenched". It is based on the best possible science available which, surprise!, is not being done on the skeptic blogs. Of course, you don't really have a scientific agenda. You have a political one.

Drop the persecuted act. You have routinely changed positions, made "concessions" you really don't believe and have frequently lied to us, all in some weird act to make us admit we've been hoaxing to you.

Our position on global warming has stayed constant. Yours has veered wildly based on whatever Watts has posted that day.

For all your guff about climate sensitivity you've already admitted you know nothing about it, so I don't know why you continue to champion as the global warming dealbreaker.

Prove to us the climate has a low sensitivity or shut up.

Hi, John,

(i)IPCC 4th report, section WG1, chapter 2, page 203:

Level of scientific understanding of cloud albedo effect and solar irradiance is -quote- low - unquote-.

(ii) Correlation between the flow rates of the Parana River and sunspot number over the last century. Ditto for water level in Lake Victoria. An interesting summary of research into the sun's effect on climate here: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part6_SolarEvidence.htm I'd be interested to hear your views on that site.

You know, it's your side that claims that the science is settled. My side says that the risk of catastrophic global warming is insufficient to change the culture. I look forward to the day when we can demonstrate precisely the flaw in the AGW theory; meanwhile, the onus is on your side to prove that the sun has only a trivial effect on climate variation. The "low" level of scientific understanding in your sacred IPCC text ought to make a little light wink in your head: a man of integrity would concede that this "low" level of understanding has the potential to drive a coach and horses through your pet theory.

(iii) Patchauri is colouring his hair.

Question: If future advances in understanding demonstrate that solar forcing exceeds CO2 forcing by over 4:1, will you concede that the game is up, and abandon your position that carbon dioxide is jeapordising the earth's future?

Change what culture? I can assure you that having a solar hot water supply for the last 20 years hasn't changed anything in this household apart from the power bills.

As for the culture of business, innovation, making money, where's the problem? Any competent business can make money out of new, or changed, (or retro) technology if there's a market for it. How much money is there just waiting for businesses to go for it if households, landlords, businesses or governments decide that fitting insulation, double glazing and all the other power saving things would be a good idea? The last report I read said >600,000 jobs in USA alone for about ten years. Now that's what I call a business opportunity, for both skilled and unskilled workers.

A question for you. If it's not CO2 jeopardising our climate and our future - what is it? Sydney's just had its 21st straight winter with temperature above the long term average. If it's not CO2, what is it? And what should we do about that?

Newton: "F=ma" Dave R: "Back around the goldfish bowl!"

Dave, you are mistaking consistency and truth for stubbornness.

Oh, may I suggest an investment opportunity for you? I'm heavily invested in BP, but always have an eye out for other opportunities. I see that carbon futures on the CCX are low at the moment. They're trading at USc 10, down from USD 7. Bargain!! If you believe that the world must address the great evil of CO2, and that Cap'n Trade is the way forward, Dave, please put your life savings into carbon futures.

Unfortunately, I can't join you because I expect the daft scare story to go the way of crop circles soon, and the price of carbon futeres will fall to a big round zero.

But I do hope you will become a major investor!

Adelady, I built my first solar panel in 1984 on the roof of my house in Marseille. It worked great. Last year I did some maths on a business idea: to install PV systems (elecricity generating solar panels) in England.

Even with subsidies, the RORI (rate of return on investment) for a person signing up for it was lower than interest rates. In other words, my customers would benefit from leaving their money in the bank, rather than "on the roof". In other words, I would've been conning people, and so I dropped it.

I have no doubt that subsidies will skew the economics of this and other green industries. This subtle and pernicious pracitice has the effect of hobbling genuine wealth creation in western economies. At the moment it's a vote-winner, but I continue to hope that the IPCC agenda will be shortly exposed, and governments will cease throwing taxpayers' money at counterproductive green measures.

The most flagrant abuse of subsidy is in Spain: a country lauded for its green policies. Their solar panels feed into the system at night. AT NIGHT. (This is clearly criminal behaviour.) Coincidentally, Spain's government's finances are in deep deficit. Irony and banter aside, do you see my point - even if I'm wrong, and that carbon is as dangerous as some say. Do you at least see where I am coming from: that if (yes, that IS an 'if') the West is mistaken about the need to combat carbon, the damage to our economies is as unwarranted as an anti-UFO defence corps!

The UK government will pay 30p/kWh for electricity a citizen produces from solar/wind - the so-called 'feed-in tarif'. There are people here powering fans at 10p/kWh (purchase price) to drive them. Of course there are efficiency losses, but a bit of crafty rewiring cuts out the need for whirling blades! Who pays? The neighbours pay! And the manufacturers pay more for expensive juice whilst they compete with foreign competitors with no such cost-premium.

This is the price we are paying for our non-apocalypse.

And, Adelady, have a look at this pie-chart showing where the world's energy comes from:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/01/global-energy-use-in-the-21st-cen…

If you accept that energy is one of the central features of our culture, giving us the productivity our ancestors never dreamed of, then the tiny sliver of that pie chart representing green energy will have to expand a hundredfold if not more.

This is part of the 'culture change' implicit in the green agenda. It will not happen in our childrens' lifetime.

"If you accept that energy is one of the central features of our culture,"

Why is it?

a) You don't have to accept it. Music art and so on are features of our culture and very central to it

b) where does it say that has to be oil based?

"giving us the productivity our ancestors never dreamed of"

Yeah, the sort of productivity that was supposed to lead to us having a problem in what to do with our free time..?

And one result of the electric lighting in the workplace was increasing the time spent at work by the labourers.

And not leading to increased productivity. Just more work.

"This is part of the 'culture change' implicit in the green agenda."

No it isn't.

Energy is energy.

It doesn't give a toss whether it's from sunlight in a solar water heater or stored hydrocarbons dug out of the ground.

But refusing to acknowledge this fact is a central item of faith implied by people spouting your "green mantra means we'll go back to the stone age!" crap.

>My side says that the risk of catastrophic global warming is insufficient to change the culture.

No, your "side" says it's a hoax, as yourself have enthusiastically described it so many times in the past. Never here of course, you leave your real views on other websites. Part of the reason you're considered so trustworthy.

The onus is on you to prove that the climate has a low sensitivity, as all the evidence points the other way.

Evidence given = none. Why can't you do this Brent? Why are all your beliefs based on no evidence and "if" hypotheticals? Is it because you have no evidence Brent? Why do you hate science Brent?

>Question: If future advances in understanding demonstrate that solar forcing exceeds CO2 forcing by over 4:1, will you concede that the game is up, and abandon your position that carbon dioxide is jeapordising the earth's future?

Why are you dealing in science fiction now? You have no evidence besides your personal belief to back up your claims. This is not science. I am not going to deal with hypothetical "ifs". I am going to deal with the known.

It's amazing to think the hours you've spent battling science and trying to force it to fit your ideology and yet it still stands. I suspect your return here isn't so much driven by a love of science as much as it's driven by bitter feelings and an intellectual inferiority complex.

Come clean Brent. What are your political views? Judging by your attack on the Spanish government I'd say right-wing. Do you still believe AGW is still a "hoax"? Does it still fill you with "fury"? Are you angry, Brent? Angry at a leftist society that's keeping you down and trying to take away your comfortable life?

You've had every position on global warming it's possible to have (except that it's happening), and then you sook like a five year old because you get called a troll.

Seriously, HTFU.

I see Brent is still posting and wonder what he's up to. Let's see...

> Dave, you are mistaking consistency and truth for stubbornness.

Sheesh, that's a pathetic feint.

Brent, you've been taken to task on those points several times, and still you raise them as if no-one has yet pointed out that they don't imply what you claim. **That** is why you got the appellation "goldfish troll" and why Dave's use of it was appropriate.

Enjoy your thread.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 01 Sep 2010 #permalink

Jakerman, if your contribution to a debate on serious energy security issues, financial viability of alternative energy, international competitiveness of nations embracing the emissions reduction targets, the relative impact of CO2 and the sun on global temperatures...

...is a picture of a cat on a toilet, then this suggests you are a gratuitous spoiler rather than a participant in mature debate. Pray tell, what do you do for a living, and what sacrifices have you personally made to mitigate the coming thermageddon?

>*If you accept that energy is one of the central features of our culture, giving us the productivity our ancestors never dreamed of, then the tiny sliver of that pie chart representing green energy will have to expand a hundredfold if not more.*

[Once more round](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2543443) the gold fish bowl.

>Thus Monckton [and Brent's] perscription is to continue the acceleation of fossil fuel combustion and thus reduce our adaptation time when we do run hard into depleation of the fuel which we'd structured our economy around.

>Surely if energy productivity is critical to complex, healthy and high poplulous civilisations, then we need to chose a managed transition on our terms; rather than have the shock of a transiton imposed by scarcity and the slippery slope of the downside of a bell curve.

This is Brent's idea of "mature debate":

>That fecking Lambert got his way, and has put me in solitary. Maybe he's right; maybe being abused and insulted by the Deltoid Rude Boys was a Stockholm Syndrome thing; maybe we will be growing pineapples in Shropshire soon; maybe Al Gore was right about the Tipping Point; maybe all my friends like Salty Current and Dave R and Jeff Harvey are not the hypocrites I suspected and they have actually given up driving motor vehicles, given up air travel, given up eating imported food.

>Hallelujah! I'm cured! I see it now, the error of my ways!

Or he's treating your galloping trotskies with the contempt they so clearly deserve.

PS why don't you try debating serious energy issues, financial viability of energy, international issues like security, emissions targets and the relative impact of CO2 and the sun on global temepratures?

Shortlist for you:

Peak Oil and reduced supplies in the free market makes nonrenewables an untenable short term solution.

Nuclear power is financially dead. Nobody is willing to implement it without government bailouts, despite 50 years of government handouts getting it "commercially viable".

When China eats your lunch because they're building the renewable power stations you need to feed your energy habit, you'll be uncompetitive.

Governments are unwilling to undergo short term change for long term gain, though not to the extent that publicly traded companies do, where governments are concerned with ~years whilst corporations concerned with the next quarters' report.

And CO2 has AT LEAST twice the impact on current temperatures than solar changes have increased the global equilibrium. More recently, since the sun's output has dropped, yet we are still getting record temperatures, the sun's effect is more than neutered.

Will you discuss or will you put your fingers in your ears and go "NANANANA I CAN'T HEAR!"?

Brent I was smiling [at this video](http://tinyurl.com/38t8q2a) the other day.

For some reason your feinting sincerity made me think of it again.

I hate to sound like a nagging mum going on about the towels on the bathroom floor, but ......

If you're so opposed to government subsidies on power, how come I never see you complaining about the $US500 billion handed over to fossil fuel companies every year.

And I notice you've not yet said anything about Sydney's 21 year run of warmer than average winters. Just nagging.

You see adelady Brent has repeatedly argued that global warming doesn't exist because it's cold where he lives in central England.

Wow, "energy is energy" you say. Of course, the point is about usefully-exploitable energy at an affordable price. "Nuclear power financially dead", you say. Well, France made a very wise decision to go heavily nuclear back in the sixties, and I believe that the next generation of PWR will be very efficient and safe.

[There was an interesting article in The Economist about energy companies increasingly heading towards gas. There is so much of the stuff that their projects are governed by infrastructure costs, not reserves. And (as BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster shows) the dangers of the liquid stuff are adding to this major strategic move.]

From your statement about electric lighting adding to worker exploitation I think I see your mindset. I've tried to avoid discussion of political persuasion on this site because the laws of physics is of course on another plane. I was on the brink of joining Tony Blair's Labour party, and only his decision to take us to war stopped that. Today, I'm very pleased with the UK's new Con/Lib coalition apart from the nutjob in the Ministry of Silly Walks (the Climate Change blokie, Huhne). I'm a democrat and a capitalist.

Look, guys, I am not here to try to persuade you! It's like talking to a Jehovah: utterly fruitless. No, I am trying to understand what makes you all tick and I am trying to distil the debate down to some simple truths that even a bunch of watermelons must agree to.

But if we can't even agree that energy supplies have enriched our lives in dozens of areas then we may have 'hit the wall'.

Probably flogging a dead horse here but let me cite some examples: The combine harvester; international ait travel; the humble washing machine; driving to the shops; domestic water supplies; air conditioning in hot countries. If we don't agree that these are enequivocal blessings then maybe our political starting points are so far apart as to make further debate pointless.

On the off-chance that youse guys accept the above things as beneficial, then I can still dangle in front of you the nice idea that if (if...) AGW is a crock, then maybe we can go back to enjoying the fruits of progress and development. Well, guys, what's it to be, then? "Stone age good, technology bad?" Or a more reasoned "Energy good, but not at the price of destroying the ecosystem."

"Wow, "energy is energy" you say. Of course, the point is about usefully-exploitable energy at an affordable price."

And oil is not affordable. It's cheap because it's subsidised and the costs of burning it is discounted against future earnings.

"Well, France made a very wise decision to go heavily nuclear back in the sixties"

And pour billions each year into keeping it afloat. It's done for oil independence and the French nuclear forces, not for economical reasons.

"and I believe that the next generation of PWR will be very efficient and safe."

And the engineers at Chernobyl believed the same thing about their design.

"From your statement about electric lighting adding to worker exploitation I think I see your mindset."

You think you see it, but you don't. That point was merely to show that more energy hasn't increased productivity by its use alone.

But you don't want to understand, do you.

"Look, guys, I am not here to try to persuade you!"

Why are you here then?

"It's like talking to a Jehovah: utterly fruitless."

[Projection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection)

"But if we can't even agree that energy supplies have enriched our lives in dozens of areas then we may have 'hit the wall'."

Odd, you've asked that before, but you still REFUSE to admit that you're saying "energy" here.

And ""energy is energy" you say."

Yet you refuse to admit it.

"The combine harvester;"

Which is not oil based.

"international ait travel"

Which isn't a productivity improvement.

"the humble washing machine"

Still isn't oil based. And you have the anti-improvement of hot air tumble driers.

"driving to the shops"

Isn't a productivity improvement.

"domestic water supplies;"

Isn't anything to do with energy.

"air conditioning in hot countries"

Which makes more countries that need air conditioning. And isn't a producivity improvement.

[HERE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rammed_earth) is a productive way of keeping your house cool in hot weather.

And energy free in operation!

"On the off-chance that youse guys accept the above things as beneficial"

They may be beneficial, but they aren't why we must continue to use fossil fuels. Neither are they all productivity improvements.

"I can still dangle in front of you the nice idea that if (if...) AGW is a crock"

Ah, yes, it's a convenient lie to hide behind, isn't it.

"If". And ignore the "If it isn't".

So much more convenient.

"If we don't agree that these are enequivocal blessings"

We don't. You don't even have them as the right sort of blessings. And the combine harvester is only beneficial in certain areas for certain uses. Try using it in a New Zealand sheep farm.

"Well, guys, what's it to be, then?"

Well, Brent, what's it going to be? "AGW is a crock, even though I said 'If'" or "AGW could be a problem. Lets avoid it"?

Or is it "technology good, humanity bad"?

Brent writes:

>*I've tried to avoid discussion of political persuasion on this site because the laws of physics is of course on another plane.*

Just another untruth in a long list from Brent:

>*Guy on WUWT says "their support for the rigid political line of AGW is making them look like Soviet Lysenko Lackies".*

And

>*we're pissing away billions on useless windmills.
MFS, it's Lysenkoism. It's time to abandon it.*

Wow,

Thank you for your contribution to this debate, but I think the time has come for us to cease corresponding. One of us is terminally argumentative, and if that's me then just leave me to stew here in my quarantine area.

Bye!

France's nuclear reactors didn't look such a good bargain when they were unable to power airconditioning in a hot summer -- because they were turned off!! The river levels were too low to allow a supply of cooling water. Nice work.

You might notice that New York has just had its *hottest summer ever* at the same time as the run of Sydney's above average winter temperatures celebrates its coming of age. 21 years!

"One of us is terminally argumentative,"

And the other an ignoramus.

John (597): You ask "Why do you hate science, Brent?"

If you'd seen YOUR pet dog run over by a guy in a white labcoat you wouldn't ask me that.

In the past, John, you've asked me why I can still doubt AGW given the radiative physics and the manmade contribution to atmospheric CO2. Well, it's a bit like this argument:

Iron is denser than wood - FACT.
Ships have always been made from wood - FACT.
Water is denser than wood - FACT.
Iron is denser than water - FACT.

A ship made out of iron must sink. The above statements make it so.

Arrhenius proved that CO2 blah blah - FACT.
Burning of fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO2 PPM - FACT.
Al Gore is a man of wisdom and integrity - FACT.
Temperatures have been rising since 1976 - no not THOSE ones, you goddam cherrypicker you - and provided we ignore the previous fall in temperatures even though the CO2 was still going up then - FACT.
White polecaps have higher albedo than black ones - FACT.

The above sequence of facts leads us with unassailable logic to the conclusion that a tipping point will be reached, only we don't quite know when, and it's rude to ask that question, and we don't have ALL the answers but we do have enough to be certain and only denialists would doubt this logic like they deny holocausts and lung cancer.

Hands up all those who have put in for a ticket to Cancun!

"If you'd seen YOUR pet dog run over by a guy in a white labcoat you wouldn't ask me that."

Yeah, I'm afraid your meds were kicking in.

how did you know it as a white LAB COAT while they're driving?

"The above sequence of facts leads us with unassailable logic to the conclusion that a tipping point will be reached,"

Only when using them to build a strawman on.

"we don't have ALL the answers but we do have enough to be certain"

True.

Now why do you refuse to accept it?

Brent, I get the distinct impression that you come here armed with a head full of Christopher Bookerisms and expect that to carry you on a blog frequented by scientists and those interested in science. Well, it ain't gonna happen.

You show the same disdain as him for actually finding things out and citing reputable sources that can be verified, preferring instead to fit things into your 'yet another apocalypse' interior storyboard. Your "logical" thought trains as shown above are laughable, and your 'common sense' is really just a bunch of received assumptions that you're comfortable with. And you're happy with that.

I'm not sure what the answer is. You refuse to learn anything you don't already know (such as that is) and probably won't bother until such time as you want to understand what's going on when AGW begins to bite, yes even in bourgeois middle England. You don't yet see the signs, but nevertheless they're there for those who can see, and can also see where multiple trends are headed.

p.s. Was it the Stern Report you were on about last weekend?

>Iron is denser than wood - FACT. Ships have always been made from wood - FACT. Water is denser than wood - FACT. Iron is denser than water - FACT.

>A ship made out of iron must sink. The above statements make it so.

I'm thinking of something now that is a lot denser than any matter currently known to man.

Brent, as previously pointed out scientists are working on the answers to your questions. You however don't like the answers and so have convinced yourself that they're wrong. You've fought the science tooth and nail and landed no blows.

It wouldn't matter what the scientists came up with at this point because you're already convinced they're engaged in an enourmous fra*d. You already know the truth, even though yourself admit you have no evidence for it. What is it with denialists and blind faith?

Brent,
>"Iron is denser than wood - FACT. Ships have always been made from wood - FACT. Water is denser than wood - FACT. Iron is denser than water - FACT.

>A ship made out of iron must sink. The above statements make it so."

Epic failure of logic. A ship is not made of solid iron, in terms of volume, mostly air.

Now follow your post by pointing out the failure of logic in the argument that CO2 causes global warming. And for chrissake TRY not to mention Al Gore. Who gives a s#!t about that politician? What's your obsession with that guy?

[Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2766881).

You're being a little hard on jakerman. The image he posted was one that [I used in reply to a request from you](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2764067). So perhaps it is me who is the immature spoiling participant in this thread, but in my defense I am only expressing my response to the lack of scientific and logical quality in your postings.

And the more so to the intention behind them, as they seem to have slipped from the noble proclamations that you expressed at the beginning of the thread that preceded this one.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 01 Sep 2010 #permalink

NSW shivered through its coldest winter in 12 years, while daytime temperatures in August hit their lowest since 1990.

NSW experienced average daytime temperatures of 15.9C, making it the coldest winter since 1998 and the 16th nippiest winter on record.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/mq4

"NSW shivered through its coldest winter in 12 years,"

So I take it that it was colder merely 12 years earlier? So your assertion that it's cooling MUST BE FALSE!!!

NSW coldest for 12 years? That actually tells us something about longer term trends. It seems that what now counts as cold is not as cold as cold used to be.

Sydney's warmer winter record has come of age.

21 years straight above average winter temperatures.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/nsw/sydney.shtml

sunspot,

Here you go again with "So-and-so was particularly cold recently". How futile, and pointless, to talk about the weather. I hear southern Tasmania had a much warmer than average winter with possibly some records broken. So what???

What is your point?

"What is your point?"

The point is that sunspot here has just proven global warming! After all, it was colder than this 12 years ago, ergo warming!

akerz you are cherry picking again.

Irreversible CO2-Induced Global Warming?

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o01

The mean relative temperature history of the earth (blue, cool; red, warm) over the past two millennia - adapted from Loehle and McCulloch (2008) - highlighting the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA), together with a concomitant history of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration (green).

"Irreversible CO2-Induced Global Warming?"

According to some denialists, humans are too puny to affect the climate, therefore the warming is natural and not reversible by us.

Hence, they would call the warming irreversible global warming.

Are you telling us that humans CAN affect the climate?

>*akerz you are cherry picking again.*

Lol.

Sayz the nob using 3 months temp in one state of Australia to try and overturn a [century of global warming](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2769613).

:)

BTW spotty, you are cherry picking a [cherry picker](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/past-reconstructi…). You'd better synthesize the [best available evidence](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html).

The unwary here should be mindful that sunspot's pernicious habit of camouflaging his linked websites is in this case hiding a direction to "co2science.org" [sic]. The graph that is vomits forth should be compared to more realistic ones, such as might be found even at that [most know-it-all of references](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png).

There is quite a difference when the two are compared.

For the umpteenth time, sunspot, what is your mission with regard to the surreptitious rebranding of your lobbyists' sites. What are you trying to hide, and for whom are you working, that you find it necessary to disguise everything that you rely upon for support?

Why do you find it so difficult to use simple, plain science, rather than discredited vested-interest rubbish?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 02 Sep 2010 #permalink

akerz ? are you employed by penny wong ?

'The figure below depicts the central Greenland surface temperature reconstruction produced by the six scientists; and as best we can determine from this representation, the peak temperature of the latter part of the Medieval Warm Period -- which actually began some time prior to the start of their record, as demonstrated by the work of Dansgaard et al. (1975), Jennings and Weiner (1996), Johnsen et al. (2001) and Vinther et al. (2010) -- was approximately 0.33°C greater than the peak temperature of the Current Warm Period, and about 1.67°C greater than the temperature of the last decades of the 20th century. In addition, we note that between about 1400 and 1460 there was also a period of notable warmth in Kobashi et al.'s temperature reconstruction, which we have christened the "Little" Medieval Warm Period, the peak temperature of which was about 0.9°C greater than the temperature of the last decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o03

Since foolishly taking the bait and finding myself reading some ignorant tosh by an ignorant nutter called, IIRC John O'Sullivan, I now employ the simple expedient of not following any disguised links fron sunspot.

There's not enough time to keep up with good commentary and news, without wasting what little there is on abject rubbish directed at the credulous and simple minded.

After all, it's not like sunspot's disguised links ever have assisted with whatever 'case' he's mistakenly bent on making, and I don't expect that will change.

hard core alarmists, sheeez, when is the penny gunna drop

Roy is talking straight again.

'Unlike particle physicists, climate researchers currently have no way to objectively determine the probability of dramatic changes like climate tipping points. At least when particle physicists talk probabilities, they are talking about real probabilities, based upon real observable events which are repeatable. The IPCCâs probabilities regarding one-of-a-kind events with uncertain causes (e.g. warming in the last 50 years) are no more than measures of their faith expressed in pseudo-scientific jargon.

And the people who write the Summary for Policymakers for the IPCC reports are masters at wordsmithing their documents to convey maximum alarm without resorting to outright falsehoods. How clever.'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o08

Foulspot.

If you're so convinced of the truth of your sources, why do you always camouflage them?

Is this disguising a tacit admission that you're always referring to junk, rubbish, and garbage?

It seems that somone does not have the courage of his ideological convictions...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Sep 2010 #permalink

Spotty you should be aware that "CO2 Science" [sic] is not a reliable source. Its just Idso's site where he cherry picks the parts of papers he like and edits out the bits it dislikes.

I can see why you like it. But for people wanting reliable information, avoid Idso and go [the source](http://www.springerlink.com/content/n567324n1n3321h3/fulltext.pdf#page=…). In figure 17, note how well Kobashi et al's reconstruction fits with Mann 2008.

akerz, I liked figures 9, 13, 16 & 18

sunslut, that's why it's called "cherry picking".

akerz, figure 10 is a little beauty

Spotty, maybe you should apply for a job with Idso picking out all the science that fits with your beliefs, and cutting out all the bits you don't like the look of.

I think you and Idso would be good commissars.

wow, thanks for the complement :)

it was accurate a few years ago, not now hahaha,

do you know what will happen to the cherries this year ? Toooooooo much rain this year !

when there is much moisture they split and are worthless for sale.

the aGw theory will split like the cherries if the dammed ocean doesn't warm back up !

Brent now:

>Meanwhile, in Central England, August was the 208th hottest in 352 years. No doubt the unsceptics will find some profound meaning in this utterly unremarkable fact.

Brent then:

>Hot news: April's CET (Central England Temperature) result has just emerged from the UK Met Office.
>At 8.8C, it's been cooler than April 1865, when it was 10.6C.
>We had the heating on this morning. Brrr!

>The temperature here in Central England is a bit less chilly. We've had the heating on this evening, but just for a couple of hours to... er... hide the decline! Global warming? I wish!

>No surprises there. Brrr. I just switched the heating off to save cost. Nearly April, and Iâve got a wooly jumper on. Roll on summer, I say!

>Miss you all. Group hug. Still trying to find loopholes in IPCC WG1, but having trouble scrolling down in woolly gloves. Brrr!

>By the way, we STILL have frost in the mornings. It's nearly May, fer Chrissakes! Outrageous! If a new Little Ice Age has started, triggered by a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, maybe we should be planning a major CO2 Production Programme. Brrr!

>cc. In #1438, MFS refers to âin a warming worldâ. To that assumption I reply: âBrrrr!â

>*akerz, i hate to pour cold water on your hallucination, but..........*

In that case you need not fear [posting](http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html) your link. Cos its consistent with [my OHC link](willhttp://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/05/ocean-heat-conten…), and consistent with [SST trends](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/trend/plot/ha…).

Are you aware your evidence is supporting real science?

Meanwhile, in Central England, August was the 208th hottest in 352 years. No doubt the unsceptics will find some profound meaning in this utterly unremarkable fact.

Brent thought it was so utterly unremarkable that he made a remark about it.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 03 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent's also on denial blogs boasting that another cold winter or two will be the end of global warming in England. But whatever. I don't expect consistency from Brent.

telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather

Coldest August for 17 years
Last month was the coldest August for 17 years, recording the chilliest average temperatures since 1993 without a single "hot day", figures show.
Heavy rain across much of the country and thick cloud in the south east made for a disappointing end to the summer holiday.

The month also saw the coldest temperature recorded in August for 23 years, with mercury falling to 12.8C in Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Last week a number of nights were "notably" cold and by the end of the month there had not been a single day on which temperatures topped 27C, forecasters said.

Weather consultant Philip Eden said average temperatures this August had been at their lowest since 1993.

Data showed rainfall in England and Wales was almost one and a half times the average amount, at 106.2mm.

In the last 100 years, only 22 Augusts have been wetter.

In Weybourne, Norfolk, temperatures soared to a high of 26.70C, but temperatures failed to reach the levels of July when the 30C heat in some areas prompted health alerts.

Figures showed England and Wales enjoyed 148 hours of sunshine this month â 25 per cent less than the average.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o16

brent sucked you in !

shows how gullible/credulous you all are to the word "HOT"

Where Sunspot? None of us fell for his obvious bait attempt.

akerz, I believe this -

"NOAA and NASA have misused science to produce a bias," says DâAleo. "The climate models are flawed miserably. Their models are built in ways that give them the desired results. If their models donât match the data, they donât change their models â they fiddle with the data."

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o17

the temp data is very doubtful, and I think you know it !

"akerz, I believe this -

"NOAA and NASA have misused science to produce a bias," says DâAleo."

Yup, because it's comforting: it lets you be an arse about your life with clear conscience.

"The climate models are flawed miserably."

Yeah, 'cos they say that CO2 causes warming. OH THE HORROR!

"Their models are built in ways that give them the desired results."

Translation: they don't give me the result I desire. Bugger. I'll just SAY they're wrong without making a good one myself.

"If their models donât match the data, they donât change their models â they fiddle with the data."

If this is know, then this prick will have proof.

Or, just like North, you and all the other selfish wankers in denial of truth are just making shit up.

Which is far more likely.

>*"NOAA and NASA have misused science to produce a bias," says DâAleo.*

Who cares what D"Aleo says? I care about evidence.

>*Coldest August for 17 years* [in England].*

Once again spotty, I'll see your 'one month in little England' and raise you a [century of global trends](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif).

>*brent sucked you in !*

Shows your lack of comprehension spotty.

;)

Wow (655):

Jaysus, it has taken a long time, but at last the Thermageddon Cult's language betrays them. "With aclear conscience", you say. Hah!

This was never about the laws of physics, never about the cool dispassionate interpretation of meandering temperature graphs. It was always Western Wealth Guilt. Until very recently people in advanced countries made their living from doing practical constructive useful tasks. Within a generation this has changed radically, and the bulk of us spend our days gawping at screens, or idly passing our time, or Having Meetings. Within the same brief timescale, the word "poverty" has been redefined: within living memory, poor people went hungry; in 2010 even a poor person can afford a colour TV.

The West is rich. Compared to much of Africa, even our poor are rich. And does this make us happy and contented? No, we invent a bogus threat. A tiny clique of "experts" with names like Hansen, Briffa, Trenbreth, Jones, Watson squeak "The End is Nigh, and energy usage is the smoking gun". What do we, the public do? Instead of laughing at them and enjoying the Good Times, we lap up their daft predictions; we believe them like the gullible fools we are.

Sunspot once summed the syndrome perfectly: something like "skinny arsed weaklings who have forgotten what it's like to feel the sun on their soft white flesh". The Global Warming Myth feeds on the guilt tripping of people who should "get out more". Penpushing prats with time on their hands.

I've spent more time on you burkes than I ever did doing battle with Jehovahs Witnesses or Flying Saucer Believers. Why? Because you tossers have persuaded our governments to prod a spanner into the gears of our manufacturing industry: your obsession with carbon dioxide is damaging our manufacturing base.

Come the day that the world's airliners are made by Brazil (bye bye Boeing) and THE luxury car is Chinese (bye bye Bentley) and India floods the world's cheese market with Bombay Brie and Calcutta Camembert (bye bye French Fromage), we'll bloody well regret the passing of our manufacturing base whose coffin was nailed shut by a bunch of well meaning but deluded tree huggers.

Shorter Brent:

It's a conspiracy/fra*d/hoax etc.

>*This was never about the laws of physics, never about the cool dispassionate interpretation of meandering temperature graphs. It was always Western Wealth Guilt.*

No it was always about the laws of physics. Would you care to make another dictate by assertion Brent?

Shorter John: I begin to see that this bloke has a point!

Jakerman: If you truly believe in Global Warming, rather than sniping about what others say loud and clear and unambiguous, please say how you foresee the coming decades.

The assumption here is that you actually have something to say.

Brent,
>"It was always Western Wealth Guilt. Until very recently people in advanced countries made their living from doing practical constructive useful tasks. Within a generation this has changed radically, and the bulk of us spend our days gawping at screens, or idly passing our time, or Having Meetings. Within the same brief timescale, the word "poverty" has been redefined: within living memory, poor people went hungry; in 2010 even a poor person can afford a colour TV."

That's a good one! With all your comments in various threads about how much universities or the public service pay people like Bernard to sit around I'm starting to think YOU are the one with, as you call it, 'Wealth Guilt', and you're simply projecting when you imagine the rest of us spend our working days "gawping at screens, or idly passing our time, or Having Meetings". Is that how you spend your days? It would explain a lot, guilt is often the first step towards denial!

You so often say that it's a cold day where you live, therefore AGW is wrong... And now you say "the word 'poverty' has been redefined: within living memory, poor people went hungry; in 2010 even a poor person can afford a colour TV.".

I ask you: have you been to Detroit? Baltimore? Los Angeles? ANY major American city? What parallel universe do you live in where the world is rosy, there in no global warming, and no poverty??? I want to move there!!!

Brent, you're doing it wrong. You know I think you're an untrustworthy liar whose word means nothing because you're so consistently inconsistent. I've never seen anybody have so many positions in so few posts. Meanwhile, our positions have stayed the same. Pathetic.

Am I to gather you've now gone back on your previous revelation that you no longer thought global warming was a fra*d?

Yes or yes?

skinny arsed weaklings who have forgotten what it's like to feel the sun on their soft white flesh". the guilt tripping of people who should "get out more". Penpushing prats with time on their hands.

Brent's argument degenerates to psychopathic personal attacks.

Meanwhile, the lower troposphere has its second hottest August EVER in the record, only just beaten by the huge El Nino 1998 year, none of this bullshit about "in the last 17 years" or some other small fraction of the record.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 04 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent sez: "we'll bloody well regret the passing of our manufacturing base whose coffin was nailed shut by a bunch of well meaning but deluded tree huggers". And so we get the version of history as consumed by Brent.

Brent may not have noticed that the shopping malls of the de-industrialised west, far from looking as bare as a 1970's Russian department store the day after Christmas, are still stuffed to bursting with goods sold by western companies with production outsourced to elsewhere.

Brent blames this on "tree huggers", because otherwise he'd have to blame it on the rapaciousness of corporate shareholders relentlessly pursuing reduced costs and increased profitability by relocating production to countries eagerly offering cheap labour and no-questions-asked environmental policies, and shipping goods around the globe using cheap, subsidised oil.

Those free marketeers, promoting strict domestic "anti-inflationary" monetary policies while busily removing "trade barriers" enabling un- or self-regulated industry might not have had your personal best interests at heart, Brent. But it's worked out very well for them with for example North America's five per cent of global population holding approximately (as averaged between GDP and PPP) thirty per cent of [global wealth.](http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-200…)

But criticising that would be almost socialist if not downright communist, which the Brents of this world can't bring themselves to do. It's easier all round to blame "tree huggers", and avoid an ideological earthquake caused by scales falling from eyes.

In the end Brent's subliminal fears may well be right: the damage to the commons by the private, as exemplified by climate change may well lead to a sea change in how human affairs are organised.

Yes, sunslut, making shit up.

At the heart of Brent's beliefs is fear. He's terrified that if politicians accept global warming and act on it his life is going to change for the worse.

This is why he fights tooth and nail and can't hold himself to any one position. Consistency and understanding the science comes second to confusing the public and trying to convince them it isn't happening.

However, deep down Brent knows global warming is real.

Get used to your warm summers Brent.

akerz, yuckiepoo,

you should have pushed the button, what you been eating ?

Nope, that looks & smells like yours !
besides, it's your photo

fraid not spotty, it a metaphor for Brent's ugly crap he serves up here.

But I can tell it speaks to you on your level. I even sense you really wish you had controlling right to the meaning of the metaphor. Bad luck spotty.

don't know about a metaphor akerz, looks more like a mega-meconium,

You are studying it well spotty. Perhaps Brent will provide a regurgitation of more of his bile and you can sift through any metaphors that that may inspire.

MFS (662): Nope, I have not been to blackspots of poverty in the US. Are we to believe there will be famine there in the event of a bad harvest? Pull the other one! Your attempt to blur the distincion between relative and absolute poverty doesn't wash. The West is rich.

John (663): Correct, I do not think that Global Warming is fra*d. A more apt word is "bollocks". Climatographers with doubts about the apocalypse - call them crypotoheretics maybe - have a vested interest in keeping stumm. Just like turkeys who are reluctant to vote for Christmas. Fra*d would be putting it too strongly.

Chris O'Neill (664): The hottest August EVER you hoot. This is a satellite record going back how many millennia? Let's see.... I make it 0.031 millennia. "EVER!", you hoot. What must the Chris O'Neill Book of History contain? Items like: "Space Shuttle takes Man to the furthest distance EVER from Earth." "Ronald Reagan assassination attempt the first EVER on a US president." "Elizabeth II the first female monarch EVER." If you believe in Global Warming, pray tell what steps you are taking to save yourself and your family as it bites.

Chek (665): I am most grateful for the openness with which you express your politics. My intention was always to understand the mindset of Believers in Global Warming. My mistake was to examine your 'arc' of scientific understanding, figuring you'd all watched An Inconvenient Truth and genuinely believed the Powerpoint Science.

I now see the political starting point that makes you what you are. I loved you Para 3 with "rapaciousness of corporate shareholders". Good adjective! Corporate? Grrrrr! Nasty. If you have a pension, Chekky Baby, you are one such - Grrr - capitalist. Your Para 4 is a beauty. The notion that it is a travesty that 5% of the population can own 30% of the wealth is most entertaining, and very revealing. Look up "Pareto" on Wikipedia. His 80/20 rule is a law of nature. 80% of the beer in your pub is drunk by 20% of the customers. 20% of the plants in your garden are 80% of the biomass. 80% of your amplifier's time is spent playing 20% of your CD collection. Only in the minds of Lenin and yourself is equality feasible and desirable. Your final paragraph yearns for "a sea change in how human affairs are conducted". In that, you echo the Canadian fuckwit who kicked off the Global Warming Myth: Maurice "World Government And Now" Strong. In 1929, if only Mr. and Mrs. Stong had played Canasta instead of having sex we would've saved a lot of unpleasantness.

You Watermelons are anti-business, anti-development and anti-energy. Your hypocrisy, as you enjoy the fruits of the very things you oppose, is stunning. You fellow-traveller 'Wow' (596, 608) displayed similar leanings. Gah-damn cahmunists! Why don't you fuck off to North Korea where you'll be happy.

Chek (665): I just wrote a long-ish analysis of your Watermelon mindset, admonishing you for the hypocrisy by which you despise business, despise development, despise energy and yet enjoy the fruits. My mistake was to invite you to f-off to North Korea where you'd be happy, and the intemperate language triggered a red flashing light in Deltoid Control Centre.

John (667): You invite me to get used to warm summers.

It's pretty much business-as-usual here, John. Life goes on, as always, and the farmers ain't planting no lavender yet.

Maybe we'll have a warm winter, but I'm hoping for another one with blizzards. If we get it, the people will be trading Global Warming jokes, and your sort will have to keep your beliefs quiet in order to save face.

Brent, rest assured that were you ever to refer to my "watermelon mindset" to my face, I would rip you a new @sshole right round to your white, racist eyebrows before you could say "sambo".

Show some consistency Brent. Based on your previous reasoning this hot summer proves global warming. After all, you believe that weather is climate.

Brent, if scientists are lying for personal gain they're comitting fra*d. No matter how you try to reword it fra*d is fra*d. I know you like to reword science to fit your narrative, but you need to grow some balls and own up to your beliefs.

Keep hoping for that blizzard filled winter, and when winter does come I have no doubt you'll be back to crow that the inevitable cold weather means global warming is all a scam and we'll all go round the goldfish bowl once more.

But hey, hottest year on record, business as usual right?

Chek, calm down. Brent wasn't being racist.

Chek (678): I see I have to educate you. Sigh.

A Watermelon is a person who, before the collapse of communism, used to banh on about how the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise with everybody equal, and a shining example to the corrupt West whose system contained the seeds of its own destruction. These people have not gone away; they have morphed into environmental obsessives and, being Committee Men by nature, taken over the likes of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, shouldering aside the gentle nature lovers who founded them.

Green on the outside and red on the inside, Dumbo.

John (680): Let me explain some of the maths behind temperature variation in a chaotic system.

No, on second thoughts, if it makes you happy to believe we're all going to fry, nothing I say will dissuade you.

But, pray tell, what concrete steps are you taking to safeguard your family as the seas rise and the crops fail?

>*I just wrote a long-ish analysis of your Watermelon mindset*

And,

>*before the collapse of communism, used to banh on about how the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise with everybody equal[...] These people have not gone away; they have morphed into environmental obsessives*

So Brent is saying that concern about climate change is in the mind set of the deluded Starlinists. What a load of cobblers,epic fail via Godwin's law. But we didn't expect anything near accurate from Brent did we.

Brent:

Chris O'Neill (664): The hottest August EVER

Thanks for ignoring the fact that longer records agree quite well with the satellite record. It's what I expect a psychopath like yourself to do. I don't recall you having any problem with sunspot and his coldest in ***wait for it*** 17 years. I'll wait until you've said something about his crap before I take any notice of your denial of all the temperature records we have.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 05 Sep 2010 #permalink

Chris: Funny you should mention 17 years. Have a look at this NASA website:

http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/bigQuestions/planetHealthReport/

They say that in those same 17 years sea levels have shot up by 57mm, and that if the sea rises by just 6m, much of Florida will be underwater. If you have property there, I advise you to get rid of it fast. By all means check my maths, but I make it 1789 years. Yes, by 3799AD we'll be in trouble. Call it 3800AD... what's a lousy year here or there in the great scheme of things?

If it weren't NASA putting this data out I'd be pooh-poohing it. Does this worry you as well?

*If it weren't* Brent making such stupid commentary ([i.e.](http://www.tinyurl.com.au/pa7)) I take the time to point out his errors, but it is Brent so I'll let him steep in his ignorance.

Hey Brent, you still think a carbon price caused the off-shoring 'western' manufacturing?

;)

I've been waiting for results from CERN's cloud experiments, not a whisper ?

A political hot potato ??

If they confirm Svensmark then who in here will be the first to perform the act of seppuku upon themselves ?

The remaining CO2 monomaniac's world will revolve around a bottle of prozac, should any of you fine people like to lessen the hypovolemic shock to yourselves, I present you this.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/pa8

Spotty can you also link to another free energy machine while you're on youtube?

nothings free akerz, but I do find this interesting.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/paa

When are you going to post another one of your poo photo's ? Judging from the mung beans in the last one I'm guessing that you voted for the greens.

I think there is growing support for thorium reactors.

I can see I've sparked a real fetish in you spotty. I'm afraid I'll hold back the grossest metaphors for Brent's posting for shock value. Once will have to be enough for you for now.

Sunny,

Since everyone knows that cosmic rays leave ion tracks and that ions are nucleation sites for aerosols but that there are lots of other nucleation sites in the atmosphere the real question is whether the nucleation is like a zillion times more efficient than for all the other sites, and then, of course, you have to do some pretty nasty modeling using variations of atmospheric composition, etc. to actually show that there is any difference even if the efficiency is higher.

In short, this was a bone CERN threw at the Danes as long as the Danes paid for it.

Eli is a not very blood thirst bunny, so he wonders when they flush the experiment whether you will just become quiet.

Yes Eli, I might have to eat humble pie, but wouldn't it be a breath of fresh air for them to be correct ?

If CO2 is not the boogyman it should be placed down the list and other more important environmental problems be dealt with.

The politics and scientific dogma do appear to be restricting solar science/physics, and they are all bitching about being left out in the cold.

Jakerman (686): You ask if I "think a carbon price caused the off-shoring 'western' manufacturing".

The concern is this: That energy prices in Britain are escalating very fast, due mainly to the Renewables Option (RO) and the Climate Change Levy exemption (CCLe). These are government taxation measures which raise energy prices in order to finance renewables. Wholesale energy which in 2002 cost £20/MWh today costs £60-£70/MWh, of which between £35 and £55 (it varies) is a subsidy going to ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates).

This finacial burden is crippling British manufacturing industry.

In today's Sunday Telegraph they report that the Sicilian Mafia is gorging on these subsidies. The EU pays out annually EUR 5bn in loans and grants; last Novemnber in Operation Gone With The Wind 15 people were arrested in Italy on suspicion of trying to embezzle EUR30m in EU funds. Among those arrested was the president of Italy's National Wind Energy Association. Other such scandals have emerged in Romania and Spain or "the Land of the Midnight Solar Panel" as I call it.

This is an unholy alliance between you Trotskyists and organized crime. Who pays? The honest citizen and the honest manufacturing enterprise. Who benefits? The bent scientists on the gravy train, the green energy fraudsters, and the international competitors of Britain, Italy etc.

The Great Windmill Scam, riding on the Great Carbon Myth, is seriously undermining wealth creation in my country and yours.

Mafia and Windfarm Scamming:

Here's a little quotation from Dino Leggio, a barman in Corleone, Sicily: "Before they start pumping millions of Euros into wind farms, they should fix the roads, which are in a terrible state."

The West is pissing away billions to fix a nonexistent CO2 problem, money which is urgently needed elsewhere. Personally I deplore energy taxes, but even you commie bastards can surely see that your own pet Good Causes must suffer! Surely, even you can see that precious nature conservation projects must be bled dry to pay for the carbon game.

And, just to rub your noses in it, a little anecdote: An old schoolmate of mine, Phil, is a Suit in the City of London. He's implicated in the Carbon Credit trading mechanism. He haughtily tells me, "Brent the SCIENCE IS SETTLED. You sceptics are way out of line." Phil operates within the law as he gets richer and richer, but his snout is in the same grubby trough as his soulmates in Sicily.

>*This finacial burden [of a weak carbon price] is crippling British manufacturing industry.*

Haaah, haah.

Manufacturing is being offshored because of structural changes in the economy and trade going back 40 years. So Brent's idea requires carbon prices to reach backward in time.

Not only did carbon price not reach back in time but energy costs are small compared to labour cost for most manufacturing. And labour is cheap in China.

Manufacturing is also being offshoreed to China because of an investment bubble in housing (and now deflation) sucking the wealth out of the productive economy.

Green Keynesianism is the best chance the west has of reversing this trend and regain a vital manufacturing base.

So come back and try again with some coherent economic arguments that at least stand basic scrutiny.

>Let me explain some of the maths behind temperature variation in a chaotic system.

Go on.

While Brent is busy Googling "temperature variation chaotic system global warming" in a a vain attempt at a "gotcha!" that isn't even on topic or have anything to do with what I said, is anyone else surprised that Brent can't even understand the kids section on the NASA website?

>commie bastards

hehe

Brent, your head is packed so full of pat little spoon-fed mythologies it's a wonder you can see straight. Have you ever applied any critical thinking to them?

Let's take your latest epic smear, where you imply energy prices since 2002 have risen because they've been loaded with green subsidies "in order to finance renewables".

In Brent's world [the trebling of oil prices since his cherry-picked year - no surprise there!- of 2002 has nothing to do with it](http://static.seekingalpha.com/wp-content/seekingalpha/images/OilPrices…)
I don't drive, but I'd be more than surprised if even Brent the Goldfish can't recall not so very long ago motorists betting that they'd never go so far as to let pump prices break the psychological £1 per litre barrier. Good times, good times...

@ John, Blank-eyed Brent is too gormless to even realise his pre-formed, straight-from-whacky-Monckton's-mouth insults are racist whether he imagines himself too clever to perceive it that way or not. Calling a black person 'watermelon' isn't quite the 'N' word but it's in the same ballpark.

An' for de record I is not black, but that muthah Brent di'n't know before though he sho'nuff is a whole education in complicit redneck ignorance.

A good article in The Times of 31 Aug:

http://climaterealists.com/?id=6221

(It isn't available at Timesonline.)

The author asks whether the high priority accorded to Global Warming is exaggerated when compared to poverty and habitat loss.

Cue Jeff Harvie: "When the Earth has turned to a cinder there will be no habitat left to lose! This is a right wing conspiracy funded by big oil. Yes please, stewardess, I'll have a little more champagne."

Jakerman (696):

"Green Keynesianism" you say. Nice one.

If I understand your thinking: Provide a stimulus to the economy by government investment in a project which may or may not have its own merit (e.g., Yellowstone National Park) in the expectation that such expenditure will spin up the wider economy, enabling consequent tax revenues to fund the government's initial seedcorn investment.

Well, there was a time when such thinking was valid, and I congratulate you on being several decades more advanced than the commie bastads who mostly inhabit this chatroom.

1930s is a big advance on Marx's 1850s. You echo the thinking of Mitterand in the 1980s.

If we absolutely must throw public money (correction: money to be paid back by future generations cos we ain't got none today) at an expensive but unproductive project, if they put it to the vote I wouldn't choose windmills (ugly noisy things ruining our beauty spots)... I'll vote for FREE BEER!

Brent, as to be expected you don't appreciate the full benefits to internal manufacturing jobs of Green investment. (Its an advance on 1930 Keynesianism). I don't expect you to apprciate the merit in aligning our economic feedbacks with environmental feedbacks. But fortunately you are dying breed.

Depending on the lead time of our actions we may have time be able to evolve our economic feedbacks, despite the dead weight forced to bear (yes Brent the dead weight are those behaving like you).

Hey Brent, how's the lesson on something you know nothing about coming along? Didn't Googling give you any answers? Try Alta Vista. Or the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica.

I'm glad Brent's politically charged reasoning has finally come to the surface. If only he'd had the honesty, decency and moral character to admit his views were based on fear, politics and certainly not science in the first place.

BTW how's your summer going? Business as usual, eh?

Brr!

Classic Brent over at Bishop Hill. Link mine:

>I've just written a long wordy piece in the Deltoid chatroom about how Climatography (they've been stripped of the 'ology') will collapse under a tide of public scorn and derision once their dire predictions fail to materialise. (Are we there already? I think a couple more winters like the last one will do the trick...)

>I say that the Climatographers are bringing the wider scientific profession into disrepute; I say that the Chief Scientific Advisers to the governments of western democracies are betraying the trust placed in them by their political masters who can hardly be blamed for accepting such advice; I say that it's about time that younger scientists staged an Ataturk-style putsch, driving the 'sultans' from power as punishment for such gross mismanagement.

Phew - governments and politicians are no longer involved in this hoax. According to Deltoid's own Chief Scientific Expert it's all the work of the Evil Communist Scientists who are fra*ding the public for their own personal gain. That's clever of them!

Meanwhile...

Come on now, John. That's just not fair.

Huxley might have said
âThe great tragedy of Science â the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.â
Poor old Brent might not be proposing a hypothesis, but it applies just as well to pure silliness. (Here's me calling him old. He's just as likely to be half my age.)

Booker, Montford and Delingpole have led their Brent-like constituency up the garden path by having their poor dumb readership believe that they've somehow overturned the science - without themselves actually having any scientific argument whatsoever.

And the stupid - witness Brent's brave and fearless assault on vocabulary - not knowing any better, go along with it because it's their dearest wish that everything is just hunky dory dandy.

You really can only cringe at the self-serving stupidity of their self inflicted myth.

We have yet another label for the End-Is-Nigh brigade: "apocaholics", a useful neologism from Thomas Fuller at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/grace-under-fire/#more-24490

Why would we need to add to a list already so rich, with excellent labels such as neoapocalipticists, warmists, doommongers, unsceptics, Climatographers, Chekists, and my favourite: "shit head shinny arse's [lacking] any idea how to survive in the environment, most of [who] wouldn't know what the sun felt like on their vitamin D deficient, lilly white, blubbery carcasses" (Credit: Sunspot 11 Mar 2010)

For some reason a vivid scene has sprung unbidden to my imagination: Brent ferreting around in the used khaki underpants section of his local army disposal store....

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 06 Sep 2010 #permalink

>*Why would we need to add to a list already so rich, with excellent labels such as neoapocalipticists, warmists, doommongers, unsceptics, Climatographers, Chekists, and my favourite: "shit head shinny arse's*

Indeed, why would you even need evidence or a coherent scientific case when you'v got such a 'rich' collection of labels.

"... such a 'rich' meaningless collection of labels".

Hope y'all don't mind a small correction there.

All this bitter squabbling between us is, of course, for naught. The laws of physics don't give a monkeys about our "opinions" and "beliefs". It was always going to be the "E minus O" column in the statistical table - Expected minus Observed - as it pans out over the years. Either the world's temperature escalates as Patchauri and Pals predict or (and this is what I see looking out of my window) it tootles along like always - up a bit and down a bit; sometimes a heatwave, sometimes a cold snap.

Have a look at this graph, you Warmists (courtesy of Dr. Christy at UAH) and weep:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ChristyIPCCModelsvObs_2009.jpg

Reality is getting away from you.

And! And doesn't it strike you that "Anomalies" is all very well (we understand that for homogenisation purposes it is a useful "trick" (in the non-perjorative sense)), but absolute temperatures are surely the Gold Standard, wouldn't you agree?

Let's ask "what are the record temperatures recorded in the various continents?" If Thermageddon is actually happening, wouldn't we expect to see some new records in the last decade or two? Sorry to disappoint you Warmists, but:

http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0133f3c7b1f8970b-pi

Are there ANY circumstances in which you True Believers will concede that you may be on a sticky wicket? If you have ever argued with a Jehovah's Witness or a died-in-the-wool Commie, you will see my frustration in talking to your sort.

Please, for decency's sake, admit that the stats may eventually prove you wrong.

Vince (707): I was drinking coffee as I read your posting. You made some of it go up my nose. Nice one, mate!!!

Shorter Chek (708): "No, but it's gonna!"

cremation chris,

poor soul, I know your scared, try to keep up with the science and have another prozac.

Melting rate icecaps Greenland and Western Antarctica lower than expected
02 September 2010 by
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/pd9

Scientists in Bangladesh posed a fresh challenge to the UN's top climate change panel on Thursday, saying its doomsday forecasts for the country in the body's landmark 2007 report were overblown.
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/pda

"admit that the stats may eventually prove you wrong" Of course I would, and so would everyone else who disagrees with you. As it happens I have children and I'd like to think that my grandchildren and greatgrandchildren *and* their descendants will have a benign world to live in. And I want that for everyone's families.

We don't **want** hell and high water - do you understand that? What we wish for, and we're in pixie dust territory here, is physics to tell us we're wrong. Nobel Prize territory for anyone who can deliver this, but we would much, much rather be wrong.

Brent said: "Either the world's temperature escalates as Patchauri and Pals predict or (and this is what I see looking out of my window) it tootles along like always - up a bit and down a bit; sometimes a heatwave, sometimes a cold snap".

Indeed it does, and in addition the average (a concept foreign to the small-minded and parochial who think their own direct experience is all that matters) edges upwards, so that what was a peak in 1980 becomes the average by the mid -90s, and what was a peak in 1990 becomes an average by the mid-2000's and so on. [That shouldn't be too difficult to grasp from this chart.](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A3.lrg.gif)
'Chart' hopefully sounding less scary than 'graph'.

Brent also said: "And doesn't it strike you that "Anomalies" is all very well (we understand that for homogenisation purposes it is a useful "trick" (in the non-perjorative sense)), but absolute temperatures are surely the Gold Standard, wouldn't you agree"?

No, because the change in anomaly (against a baseline) is what's of interest and is being tracked. Otherwise it allows jokers to play numbers games on the foolish and stupid (mentioning no names), such as measuring your height from the centre of the Earth and observing there's not really that much difference in such absolute heights between you and the Eiffel Tower.

Brent then goes on to say: "Let's ask "what are the record temperatures recorded in the various continents?" If Thermageddon is actually happening, wouldn't we expect to see some new records in the last decade or two"?

You might expect that, but that's all.
Let me put it in terms even you may understand Brent.
The oldest person (let's call it extreme age) in the UK is Florrie Baldwin, who was 114 in March. Not many reach Florrie's grand old age. However while that extreme may not be often matched, the number of centenarians is rising so rapidly poor old Queen Liz might very well have a full time job just sending telegrams very soon, as their numbers have increased from just [100 in 1911 to 9,600 in 2008](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1875)
So as with temperature, it's the average that tells the real story, not the extremes. But if you want to play at extremes, [17 countries reported them this year.](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperature…)

I don't have access to IPCC AR4 at this moment, so I can't see what that rancid bunch at icecap.us have done with that projection. But I bet someone will be along shortly to show exactly what no good they've been up to.

Brent also said: "All this bitter squabbling between us is, of course, for naught".

Not at all - challenging the misinformation and disinformation disseminated by liars, fantasists, the deluded and the stupid can only be to the good.
The 'views' of such types cannot be accommodated, only shown to be wrong.

Brent, Christy should have used the same smoothing (10 to 12 year) as the IPCC, and Christy should not have removed the error bars- especially when looking at such short term variation.

[I've roughly sketched](http://i51.tinypic.com/qysbr8.jpg) in updated data and extrapolated the error bars from AR4 Figure TS.26

Adelady (714): Thanks for a sensible posting. I've been arguing all along for clear-cut pass/fail criteria for the AGW theory, but even upon reaching such a threshold - on the hot or the cold side so to speak - an extremist of either colour can welch on the deal, saying that it's a temporary blip masking the big picture.

If the annual average temperature anomaly reported by GISS exceeds 0.75C on two occasions in future years I shall concede defeat and become an anti-CO2 campaigner. On the "Empirical" thread, some warmists agreed that the same figure ducking under 0.35C puts the kibosh on the AGW theory.

These pass/fail criteria are, of course, unofficial. My forecast is this: that the IPCC's projection of ever-rising temperatures will never be declared a crock, even if the GISS anomaly falls to zero. Long before that time the IPCC will have lost all authority with the public, allowing politicians to gain advantage from scepticism.

I believe that you are genuinely concerned about AGW. As a kid I was taken in by many an apocalypse story; this time round I need more.

I can't knock you for wanting security for your kids and theirs. But if AGW is untrue, the unneccessary countermeasures will appear to later generations as a historic waste. In Britain we've had TV adverts showing a father reading his small child a bedtime story in which the storybook becomes animated and the teddy bear is threatened with drowning. If AGW is a crock, such propaganda is screwing up the next generation's worldview. If it's a crock, let's divert a fraction of the funding being blown on this nonsense towards something useful such as habitat preservation.

Jakerman (716): If I understand correctly, the graph you linked to is more authoritative, and the solid black line followed by black dots show actual GISS observations. Fair enough; the jury's deliberations will not be quick.

What do the thin green and mauve lines represent?

> I've been arguing all along for clear-cut pass/fail criteria for the AGW theory...

You did argue that fairly early on the Empirical Evidence thread, but when I and others gave you some criteria you misunderstood the reasons for them and the reasons why your original proposal was unreliable, repeatedly mischaracterised the criteria you were given, denied the fact that the same criteria could be posed (say) 30 years ago and would already pass today, and then misremembered that anyone had given you some and on that basis complained that no-one thought the climate science was sound.

> ...an extremist of either colour can welch on the deal, saying that it's a temporary blip masking the big picture.

Which was precisely my key point about why your original proposal was rubbish - it merely looked at numbers (much like you're proposing now), which can utterly fail when there **actually are** temporary blips that are due to well-known causes with accurately characterised and non-long-term impacts that will not counteract the actual warming factors.

All of which means after all this time, you're *still* playing the goldfish...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 07 Sep 2010 #permalink

Lotharsson (719):

Your idea of looking back 30 years and making a prediction which - voila! - is true today is meaningless. I suppose you'll claim that in 1980 you had a theory that Spain would win the 2010 footy World Cup, but never told anybody.

This reminds me of Garrison Keillor's childhood game of "Championship Golf": wherever he hit the ball was where he then deemed the hole to be.

He was a kid. What's your excuse? And if you believe your 2010 predictions, what concrete practical steps have you taken to safeguard your family when Thermageddon strikes? Investing in the Murmansk Freight Terminal, or Scottish Lavender Industry? Moving house to a hilltop? Or do your thoughts begin and end in your inner make-believe world?

I could get all tricky and suggest that 25 years of above average temperatures would be a good marker for Brent.

But that would be sneaky because we've *already* had 306 consecutive months of temperatures above the 20th century average.

So, let's guess. 30 years? - that's another 4.5 years. A whole degree celsius? Don't care to think about that one. The whole of the Maldives under water?

I really don't believe that it needs that much additional evidence to convince someone who's actually been paying attention.

And as for my descendants. It's all very well leaving some fine china and the furniture made by my great grandfather. What I'd really like is for there to be some resources left in the ground. Geological fuel, geological water. I dislike people who elbow their way to the front of the queue. I dislike people who, being at the front of the queue, take more than their fair share.

We just happen to be ahead in the queue. We have no right to just take stuff because it's there and throw it at the walls. We're wasting perfectly good resources and we should be ashamed.

> Your idea of looking back 30 years and making a prediction which - voila! - is true today is meaningless.

No, it's not, but I'm confident you're not smart enough - or are unwilling for other reasons - to understand why.

(In part because we've had this discussion before - as well as discussing practically every other argument you've raised in this thread, and even if you learn something you revert very shortly to unlearning it.)

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 07 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent @ #720

Your idea of looking back 30 years and making a prediction which - voila! - is true today is meaningless.

When I was a student 40 years ago, we were told to expect global warming with it probably becoming noticeable around the turn of the century (and we were given the evidence for this). I am sure that our plant physiology lecturer was not the only person to think of this so no doubt you could find a similar reference to this in the literature. I can't be bothered - you are not worth it.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 08 Sep 2010 #permalink

Richard, if you were heeding climate-disaster stories 40 years ago that would've been the "Ice Age Imminent" one.

Senility is probably clouding your memory, but back then there was a plan to pump the atmosphere full of CO2 to keep warm.

If you haven't shuffled off your mortal coil in 20 years' time, if there's a cold snap you'll be able to recycle your old notes and claim to have believed in Cryogeddon all along!

From the RC link provided by Dave R [my emphasis]:

> To those who even today claim that global warming is not predictable, the anniversary of Broeckerâs paper is a reminder that **global warming was actually predicted before it became evident in the global temperature records** over a decade later...

...and:

> It is very instructive to see how Broecker arrived at his predictions back in 1975 â not least because even today, **many lay people incorrectly assume that we attribute global warming to CO2 basically because temperature and CO2 levels have both gone up and thus correlate**. Broecker came to his prediction at a time when **CO2 had been going up but temperatures had been going down** for decades..

This goes back to the [very first point](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…) I tried to make to Brent on the Empirical Evidence thread when he suggested a naive pass/fail test for global warming. You can't blithely argue that CO2 doesn't cause significant global warming *merely because* temperatures don't go up for a while. That argument would only be valid if CO2 were the *only* force acting to change the climate. In the real world, and despite many and various attempts to pretend otherwise, an array of other forces may temporarily counteract some or all or more than all of the CO2 warming (as they were doing when Broecker made his prediction).

Others also [pointed out more effective tests to Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…). But as you can see from:
> Your idea of looking back 30 years and making a prediction which - voila! - is true today is meaningless.
Brent (disregarding that he misrepresented/misunderstood what I said) has forgotten all of that.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 08 Sep 2010 #permalink

Richard, if you were heeding climate-disaster stories 40 years ago that would've been the "Ice Age Imminent" one.

Ah yes. I remember that one too. Due in 20,000 years (or perhaps 100,000 years) if nothing else changed, wasn't it?

One crucial difference, apart from the strength of the evidence at the time, is that the warming has actually happened as expected.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 08 Sep 2010 #permalink

Richard (729): I hope you're right, that we have millennia before the current "Interglacial Period" ends. They have a name for this one: the 12,000 year old "Holocene". These interglacials last for about 10,000 years, with 90,000 ice ages in between.

But, if the pattern of the last half-million years continues (and, yes, it's an 'if') we're overdue for an ice age. This is why there were proposals to stave it off by deliberate manmade global warming. This was in the 1970s. Think of flared trousers and very long hair: it'll jog your memory. Or am I wasting my time?

Hey, here's an idea: rather than joining in with every scare story, be a bit stoical and enjoy your remaining years.

Or, if your need for sleepless nights is so compelling, forget about the cold/hot/cold stuff and worry about the sun's evolution. That hydrogen won't last forever!

Lotharsson (728): A very welcome posting. We're maybe getting somewhere. I do respect a person who is bold enough to advance arguments which may end up scotching his own position. This is the stuff of true debate.

You mention "an array of other forces may temporarily counteract some or all or more than all of the CO2 warming", and "a time when CO2 had been going up but temperatures had been going down for decades".

This is good. Without irony, I urge you to carry that thinking forward.

>*I urge you to carry that thinking forward.*

I'm picturing it now. Its noise around a forced trend.

"This is the stuff of true debate.
This is good. Without irony, I urge you to carry that thinking forward", said 'Crocodile' Brent, having no intention of reciprocating.

Yeah, well without sarcasm which is what I think you mean because there's no irony visible, why don't you start taking evidence on board Brent? Actual first hand evidence un-prefiltered and pre-thought out for you through some cesspool website.

Or must everything relate back to some 1970's frizzed perm, bell-bottomed trauma you had through which the present must first be re-interpreted?

A new insult for the Global Warming lot: neo-malthusians.

This adds to the list we bagan in #706, and is a nologism from a guy called Espen in a discussion at Watts Up With That:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/08/i-am-so-tired-of-malthus/#more-24…

Malthus, if I remember correctly, predicted in about 1850 that we'd have run out of food by - oh, I dunno - about 1860. A big part of my interest in you lot is your capacity to unerringly see the negative, dressing it up as due caution and intelligent risk-assessment. "The End is Nigh!", you trill in peurile falsetto tones.

No it isn't.

> Without irony, I urge you to carry that thinking forward.

Don't be silly! I've done so in the past, and explained it to you in some detail and with considerable patience. For a while you even seemed to catch a glimpse of why your argument was invalid and why the scientific case was much much stronger than you had thought...and then you put it out of your mind again.

> We're maybe getting somewhere.

No, *we* are not because *you* are almost precisely right back where you started. And I'm not going to repeat the cycle with you.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent: I do not need reminding that, in the 70s, it was suggested that, in the long term and if nothing else changed, Earth would enter another Ice Age. I also remember popular 'news' sources twisting this to mean that it was imminent if not overdue. However, I challenge you to find a single paper in any reputable scientific journal that suppported this idea of it being imminent.

When you first started posting here I advised you that people might take your opinions more seriously if you stopped acting like a smart-alec teenager. The advice still holds.

It would also be useful for your cause to actually present evidence to support your flights of fancy. In all of your posts, I don't think I have ever seen a clear explanation of why you think that increasing atmospheric CO2 would not increase global temperatures anything.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent said: "The End is Nigh!", you trill in peurile falsetto tones. No it isn't".

Brent, what did I just tell you?
And where is the evidence for the above slice of made up stupid which is what Richard just asked for?

After all, you're the one longing to be taken seriously.

What we're all overlooking here is -why- there was so much fuss about imminent cold in the 70s. We were still in the throes of the cold war and there was a great deal of talk about 'nuclear winter' following a nuclear war.

When the idea of universal cold from climate change was briefly flirted with, the MSM conflated the two and we got the idea of an ice age. An ice age that would come on as fast as a nuclear war. Neither happened, and the way we're going, we're deferring the next age by several millennia.

>*What we're all overlooking here is*

That we capped the growth in SO2 aerosols which had been balancing CO2 growth for several decades up until 1970.

A welcome contribution to the Global Warming Debate from Michael O'Leary, boss of Ryanair:

"Do I believe there is global warming? No, I believe it's all a load of bullshit. But it's amazing the way the whole fucking eco-warriors and the media have changed. It used to be global warming, but now, when global temperatures haven't risen in the past 12 years, they say 'climate change'."

"I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the fucking weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the fucking global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horseshit."

You Jeremiahs will doubtless mock Mr.O'Leary's lack of scientific training. I, on the other hand, see that he knows more about PR than a coachload of Climatographers skidding off an alpine road andbeing tragically lost over a precipice. The battle for public opinion is the key to ending this scare; his words will have Joe Public nodding their agreement.

> A welcome contribution to the Global Warming Debate...

Of course you welcome it. It echoes your own errors. Bonus points for you if you can identify them.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 09 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent said: "his words will have Joe Public nodding their agreement".

It's always amusing the way you oldsters imagine you have some notion of what public opinion is, Brent.

And I'd speculate that those you fondly imagine are nodding in agreement would be those not used to using terms like "vested interest".

I wonder why the boss of Ryanair would make the same bogus errors as the Saudis and the Fossil fuel lobby. Science vs Nonscience..

Hands up those of you who offset their flights.

Hands up those of you who can define the verb "to offset".

It was my interest in this question which led to my attempt to launch a business called 3CR - Carbon Capture Consulting and Research - whose mission was to find an engineering solution to the rise in CO2 by creating a mineral sequestration pilot plant. The input mineral was Serpentine - a silicate - and the output mineral Magnesite - a carbonate. The piolt plant would have run a large number of trials to identify optimum process parameters for a later scaled up plant sequestering tonnes of CO2 per week.

It flopped because I couldn't attract funding. With backing, I'd have used Nottingham University's CICCS, who had offered advice if we could get the thing launched.

What struck me in this episode was the utter folly of "offsetting" since there is no concrete method of offsetting; there's smoke-and-mirrors justification of "offsetting" using empty words like "raising awareness" and "outreach" in the finely-honed vocabulary used by the vast and pointless Green Advocacy Industry.

Naively I believed that actions speak louder than words. Nah!!! In Global Warming, words speak much, much louder than actions.

Go on, Chek, Jakerman, Lotharsson et al: Tell us if you have the slightest intention of doing something tangible in the real world. We know you can talk the talk. Can you...

"tangible in the real world"?

Oh, the invitation to the who-did-most-or-first in their private lives contest. Fantastic.

Having done a fair amount personally, I look around and see what's next. Mass transit, wind power, urban design? Oh, OK. I'll get right onto it.

The only way to "get on with it" is through community and political public action.

chek

I'll thank you to have a bit more respect for us oldsters. It ain't age that makes attitudes strange. It's the unwillingness to learn.

> Tell us if you have the slightest intention of doing something tangible in the real world.

The Goldfish Troll forgets what he has previously been told, and then accuses others of not telling him.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

> Bonus points for you if you can identify them.

As expected, no bonus points for Brent.

I was going to offer triple bonus points if he identified to within +/- 25% *how many times* he had previously been corrected on each of those errors, either on the Empirical Evidence thread or this one, but never mind...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

Adelady: Let me guess. By "a fair amount", do you mean that you recycle, you try to drive a bit less than you otherwise would, and you have fitted low-power lightbulbs and radiator thermostats?

Lotharsson: Your slipperiness speaks volumes. Let me phrase it for you: "I, Lotharsson, am above having to account for my actions. I cannot be expected to live a pre-industrial lifestyle. I fly. And I drive. And I buy imported goods. Of course I do. But the problem lies with everybody else's carbon footprint." There, it's out. Do you feel better now, an open and honest hypocrite?

> Your slipperiness speaks volumes.

Pot. Kettle. **Very very black**.

Brent has no shame - and no argument.

For anyone playing along at home:

a) Brent is engaging once more in the fallacy that dealing with AGW means living a "pre-industrial lifestyle". Brent has been set straight on this point in the past (probably several times), but still he persists with the claim. That speaks to his limited intellectual capacity or lack of honesty - or both. Would you consider "slipperiness" to be a better descriptor?

b) Brent bases his argument on the assumption that unless individuals make big enough changes, AGW isn't a serious problem. This is yet another fallacy, and yes - Brent has been set straight on this point several times in the past. Slippery? I highlight, you decide.

c) Brent is then attempting to argue that AGW isn't a problem because most people generally don't feel the need to tell *him* what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint. The average schoolkid could point out the core logical fallacy here (and perhaps even identify the blatant attempt at manipulation). And in fact, the fallacy (and manipulation) have been pointed out to Brent in the past - but still he repeats it. Some might call that slippery - maybe even you, dear reader.

d) Despite Brent's eminent unsuitability for the role of carbon footprint auditor (e.g. due to "slipperiness" and persistent use of bogus arguments to assert that AGW is not a problem in the first place), several people **have** told Brent some of the things they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint - myself included. (I'm not going to do it again, and they probably won't either.) Even if we disregard Brent's propensity to misrepresent what people have said, would you term Brent's false assertions that they haven't said anything on this particular question "slippery" or just plain "lies"? And what would you call his charge that *because* they "haven't" told him these things that they themselves are "slippery", when that charge is based on a known falsehood?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 10 Sep 2010 #permalink

adelady @746 - No offence intended from me who passed the mid fifties marker a while ago.

Rather than a chronological jibe, I use oldster in the fossilised thinking sense. Witness Brent's kneejerk accusation of communism when some straightforward, well known current practices of global capitalism were even mentioned recently.

Brent's heroes Booker, North and Montford are from a similar mould. They've been old since their twenties, cf. young fogeys.

And echoing Lotharsson, I'd add a comment I've made previously. Most would rather stick a fork in their eye before divulging any personal information to creepy, two-faced Brent. Despite the obvious hostility, even sunsplat operates with more good faith.

Brent,

Your obsession with finding out what people actually do in their personal lives is fascinating, but not as telling as this:

You get so carried away you fail to realise that the difficulty of getting off one's arse and reducing one's footprint is precisely why a carbon tax or ETS or other ways of forcing carbon-based energy sources to become less competitive is absolutely required.

>*"I, Lotharsson, am above having to account for my actions to a proven prat like Brent.*

I'll disclose my individual action when it will make a difference, and I don't want to embarrass any of the good people here by asking them to list off their good works.

Its a pattern of Brent's, when he loses the science and economic points, he tries on the ad hom.

Gentlemen, and lady:

I'll take that as a 'no', then.

> I'll take that as a 'no', then.

You can do whatever you like, but if you do so then - yet again - you'll be wrong. At least you're reliable in that fashion.

I'll take your non-response to my points as demonstrating that you "...have no shame - and no argument".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 11 Sep 2010 #permalink

Er.... would you lot be the People's Front of Judea or the other one, the Judean People's Front?

Quick... table a motion: "We, the PFJ, hereby demand the immediate cessation of all carbon dioxide production, and a solution to Global Warming." Hands up all those in favour!

Give me a moment: what else might "PFJ" stand for? Let's see. What three-letter-acronym would adequately describe a bunch of screen-bound windbags who jump on the latest end-is-nigh story and bewail the end-of-times whilst personaly doing the very things they claim are damaging the planet?

Anybody out there with a proposal? Yes, I know it'd be a lot easier if the letter "H" were available, but the PFJ have only those three letters to juggle.

Brent @740:

You Jeremiahs will doubtless mock Mr.O'Leary's lack of scientific training.

I couldn't give a two-ha'penny flying one for Mr. O'Leary's fatuous views on a subject he knows next to nothing about. He isn't even a scientist, let alone a climatologist, and he certainly isn't advising governments and industry on the best policies to address the issues (or at least I hope he isn't...). Why you think his foul-mouthed and irrelevant opinions warrant repeating here I care even less about, but that scraping noise you can hear is you nearing the bottom of the intellectual barrel.

I, on the other hand, see that he knows more about PR than a coachload of Climatographers skidding off an alpine road andbeing tragically lost over a precipice.

So in this bizarre and squalid little fantasy of yours, as this busload of climate scientists plunge to their doom off an alpine pass, their last thought is the realisation they've lost the PR war?? You're off your chump.

The battle for public opinion is the key to ending this scare; his words will have Joe Public nodding their agreement.

Oh god, Brent does pompous rhetoric. Badly.

I knew it was a bad idea to come back to this thread...

PFJ = Pig-ignorant, Floundering Jerkoff.

But oh look, we're back to talking about you again Brent; possibly the dullest subject ever although all three words do so fit you precisely to a tee.

No, Chek, that's PIFJ. Try again. I'm still waiting for inspiration.
Oh, Michael O'Leary's welcome contribution to the PR battle has been matched by a thinker from your cult. No less than Prince Charles "questioned the sceptics' belief that carbon emissions 'just disapper through holes' in the atmosphere."

The Telegraph article says: "Scientists believe".... (Jaysus, there was a time when science was a matter of repeatable experiment. This phrase has so much in common with "Pharaoh believed that in the afterlife he would..." and "The Chinese belief that the eclipse was being caused by a dragon eating....").... (anyway...) "Scientists believe that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide...."

Chek, what's your stance on crop circles? I know there's no absolute proof, but can you be sure that every single one was made by drunks with a length of string? Under the "precautionary principle" wouldn't it be prudent to set up an Extraterrestrial Monitoring Task Force? As Tony Blair so wisely says, we shouldn't regret spending megabucks to combat a threat which (although remote) would be disastrous if true. (Blair's words relate to Global Warming, but he's hoping we'll make the further mental leap: "Hey, Tone has a point there! And THAT'S why we invaded Iraq... there MIGHT HAVE BEEN nukes pointing at London.")

I notice the brent has completely given up on even the pretense that he is discussing the physics and science. He has reduced himself to using Monty Python and space aliens as the basis for his 'arguments.'

No, Lee.

The science is settled. It's now a battle of PR.

Central England Temperature

Somehow I can't see this making the newspapers which, gladly, are losing interest in Global Warming.

It's the 208th warmest August on record. Temperature a stunningly average figure of 15.3C. Now, if that were in the 20s it might cause some concern. But even the hypersensitive AGW brigade, for whom a few lousy tenths of a degree presages the four horsemen of the apocalypse, will have to work hard to raise the alarm over 15.3C.

Go on, boys, give it your best shot! Frighten the viewers!

A battle for the PR between science and ... some noisy nonentities? I'm not sure Ladbrokes would even take my bet.

Brent, are you sure a pompous, fatuous jizzpool (all one word) much like yourself, wouldn't be happier at somewhere like David Icke's site? Just think - you'd probably be an intellectual giant somewhere like that, and be able to talk crop circles, alien overlords and Loch Ness monster invasions all the live-long day.

From what I gather they also think AGW is an elitist hoax ... or is it terra-forming by aliens ... I forget which, but either way the point is I'm sure you'll wow them with your cavalier attitude to verifiable evidence and 30 year old social references.

The one thing you can be reasonably certain about is that your stock on this site is never going to rise above the risible, because you just don't seem to have a clue about the meaning and import of real world evidence away from your own front door. You make the occasional short-lived, daft pretense, but nobody's falling for it any longer.

Bent:

Central England Temperature August

Yawn. Another tired old cherry-picking of cherry-picking exercise from Bent. Even the cherry-picked global August temperature is warmer than any year measured before 1998.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 11 Sep 2010 #permalink

This conversation in my dreams:

B: Hi, Chris, I don't think you're quite right there about August being hotter than any before 1998. The very first Augusts measured - 1659 and 1660 - show 16.0C, and last month was 15.3C.

C: Oh, yes, mea culpa! I have accessed the Hadley Centre data, and I see that 15.3C is barely middling. I see that 1666 was a blazing 17C!

B: Maybe it's unfair of me to quote Central England.

C: No, no, not at all! If the world is burning then England's temperature would also be shooting up. Thank you for pointing out that the longest continuous record of actual temperature measurements is so, er.... boring.

B: No news is good news, Chris. You may sleep soundly in your bed!

C: Thank you! I will!

Chek (758): My best attempts to find a TLA (three letter acronym) for the half-arsed cult of predicting the end of the world are not much better than your crap effort.

For JPF: "Jeremiahs Proclaiming Final Days"... no, that's JPFD. Still trying to come up with a snappy title for you blokes. Gimme time.

I have a promising theme tune though! Cat Stevens's 'O Caritas' - mostly in Latin which lends authority - is all about the doom you lot yearn for, and its line "video flagare" could be your motto.

How about Petrified Fixated Jeremiahs for PFJ? WIth no mention of Global Warming it still doesn't quite work.

Here's a list of Brent's gish-gallop, contradictory and largely non-scienctific arguments since my last comment:

Global warming is wrong because ...

1. Sunspot doesn't find scientists attractive. (goldfish)
2. weather is climate. (goldfish)
3. it doesn't stand up to the meaningless criteria he personally created. (goldfish)
4. we won't tell him our lifestyle choices (goldfish)
5. imminent Ice age (goldfish)
6. overdue for an iceage (goldfish)
7. we didn't run out of food in 1860.
8. Michael O'Leary doesn't understand climate isn't weather (see 2)
9. PR is more important than observable science, especially if it's based on personal belief and not evidence. (goldfish)
10. he didn't make any money out of it because of his incompetence, despite his belief of a "gravy train".
11. Lotharsson wants to take us back to the stone age.(goldfish)
12. terrible Dad humour, can't actually work out his point.
13. of crop circles.(goldfish)
14. "The science is settled. It's now a battle of PR."
15. weather isn't climate all of a sudden because it's warm where he lives (contradicts 2)
16. of cherry picked reigonal temperatures in the past.(goldfish)
17. more bad Dad humour to disguise the fact he's out of his depth.

Brent then:

>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.

Brent now:

>The science is settled. It's now a battle of PR.

John, you little monkey, I do believe you are taking things out of context!

By 'science is never settled', I of course mean that new discoveries are still to be made.

By 'the science is settled' I am of course talking about the failure of the pesky planet to do what the half-baked theory of Global Warming claims it must. I suppose that if your house ends up under six feet of water in the next few years, or if your back garden in Surbiton appears on the BBC News when your pineapple grove starts exporting to the agricultural wasteland of Sierra Leone, I'd have to rethink my statement.

You really ought to give up Climatism sometime in the next century, but with your Jehovahs Witness mindset I doubt you have it in you. Keep the faith, John!

>By 'science is never settled', I of course mean that new discoveries are still to be made.

Such as:

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

Keep the faith, idiot.

>By 'the science is settled' I am of course talking about the failure of the pesky planet to do what the half-baked theory of Global Warming claims it must.

Goldfish, idiot.

>I suppose that if your house ends up under six feet of water in the next few years, or if your back garden in Surbiton appears on the BBC News when your pineapple grove starts exporting to the agricultural wasteland of Sierra Leone, I'd have to rethink my statement.

Goldfish, idiot.

Brent has created many, many critera for when he'll believe AGW, yet none of none of them seem to include "continually warming planet". Brent knows better than anybody that weather isn't climate, except when it's cold where he lives whereupon weather suddenly becomes climate.

I have to ask, Idiot - despite your pathetic and wholly unconvincing explanation which way has the science settled? In your favour?

Does this sound like settled science to anyone?

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

I'll say it again so that hopefully even people with a reading disability like Brent will get it:

Even the cherry-picked GLOBAL August temperature is warmer than any year measured before 1998.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Well, John, the Earth has supported life for some 4 billion years. The claim by maverick 'scientists' that the 1975-1998 warming period (if 'period' isn't putting it too strongly; blink-of-eye would be another way) wasvthe beginning of a century-long escalation caused by greenhouse gases is now debunked. Because it stopped getting hotter. This is what we call "a hypothesis refuted by observation".

There have been hot times and cold times, and orbital changes explain the ice-age/intergalacial periods in recent millennia, but such changes cannot explain the 1940-1975 cooling, or the 1975-1998 warming, nor the past twelve years of cooling. Astrophysics being still in its infancy, we may hope that the expensive array of probes now sending data may explain the Sun's contribution to recent cooling (we don't yet know it all) and send packing the Jeremiahs like you who see a threat in every change that Nature exhibits; send packing the Hubristic Halfwits who believe Man to be so powerful that he is the cause of climate change.

John Boy, Johnny, when you got to hear about the kinks in Saturn's rings, did you ask, "Who caused this?" Johnny baby, there will be cool times ahead, and warm times, and you don't need to trouble your little head with "how did we cause this". Save your guilt for things that you personally can have an effect on.

Bent:

If the world is burning then England's temperature would also be shooting up.

It is rising substantially so what is the point of your brainless contradiction other than to display for all the world to see how brainless you are?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Ah the cooling of the 40's and 50's!! How to explain it??Well the party line is that the rise in industrial production of World War 2 gave off all those aerosols and this led to cooler temperatures.Yeah right! Funny how the temperatures went south in 1939-1940 when only Englang,Germany and France were at war.They must have been pumping out a lot of aerosols to make the global temps turn on a dime like they did.Funny how aerosols are supposed to be regional in effect,but the steepest drop in temps was in the southern hemisphere where there was very little industry.And funny how temps continued to rise in the 30's during the Great Depression-which had LOWERED industrial production world wide.What a load of bollocks.

Warren again rewrites history to fit his view.

He also complains of the IPCC ignoring other factors and concentrating on CO2 yet he insists that only aerosols are having effects in the 40's...

He's not very self aware, he's only a teen.

To brent: vb.intrs., making preposterous assertions that can be easily disproved particularly about subjects not understood by the speaker; e.g."the 1975-1998 warming period wasvthe (sic) beginning of a century-long escalation caused by greenhouse gases is now debunked". brenting making easily disproved assertions about subjects the speaker has not understood; brented past tense e.g. the speaker waffled and brented inteminably revealing nothing more than their utter ignorance of the matter; conjugation: brent, brented, brenting. See also brenter n. one who brents

Two brents: the time taken for the average child of ten to check a false assertion on the internet; e.g. the claim was found to be nonsense in two brents; within two brents they had the real answer.

Chris (774): Thanks for the link to Wikipedia and the rise in Central England Temperature. Yes, there is an upward trend since 1659.

Can we agree a target which would make life uncomfortable in England? Let's be conservative here: let's say a figure of 20C (such a temperature would have us complaining on holiday in Spain: "Twenty lousy degrees? I might as well have stayed at home!"), but let's agree that 20C is bad news for the biota (that's a Jeffharveyism; normal people call it life).

The Wikipedia graph shows an upward trend of 0.8C per annum.

No. Correction. Check arithmetic.... no, it's 0.8C per three-and-a-half-bleedin'-centuries. 0.23C per gawdalmighty century. And this worries you? Get a life, Chris! You quote me asking why England's temperature isn't "shooting up". I assume that you consider this rate of increase to be "shooting up". Silly person.

Oh, yes, we agreed a target temperature of 20C. How long will it take at the present rate of increase? Holy mackerel!Forty three centuries.

Chris, if you are still here in 6310AD, and can walk out on a spring evening and say, "Hmmmmm, rather pleasant", you may think we were unduly concerned back in the 21st century.

"Can we agree a target which would make life uncomfortable in England?"

Can we get out of the 18th Century, please, and drop the Victoriana.

"No. Correction. Check arithmetic.... no, it's 0.8C per three-and-a-half-bleedin'-centuries"

Yah, with most of that in the last 50 years.

This is what is called "accelerating". My car yesterday spent a week standing still then moved 55 miles. That's 0.32mph.

A three-toed-sloth can get nearly half that speed, and a spider can manage about FOUR TIMES that!

Isn't my car slow..!

PS when India is too hot for human habitation, where in Central England will the 1 billion Indians live?

I hope you have a large bed, Brent...

Wow.... you are cherrypicking, you rascal you!

You're talking about the decade 1997-2006, aren't you? Since then the trend is downward (2006: 10.82, 2007: 10.48, 2008: 9.96, 2009: 10.11). At this rate of decline, 0.27C per annum, within a millennium we'll hit absolute zero.

Maybe we shouldn't be extrapolating quite so much! If you agree to stop dumb-arsed extrapolation then I'll agree to do the same.

Good point about Indian immigration if the thermometer shoots up by 10C in the next forty three centuries. You being an exopert extrapolator, would you kindly estimate Indias' GDP if it rises at 10% pa for the next 4300 years?

Maybe you should get out more.

Oh brent, you were the one picking them cherries.

Three and a half centuries?

No.

150 years for the industrial experience and since it is cumulative and only since WW1 has there been serious exploitation of fossil fuels, three and a half centuries is rather pushing it.

But I suppose you don't like it when someone points that sort of thing out, do you.

Roaches do not like the light. Do you.

> You're talking about the decade 1997-2006, aren't you?

No.

Fifty years would be 1960.

Maths is not your strong point, is it.

"Since then the trend is downward "

How can something that doesn't exist be stated as downward? since 2006 is no trend. Despite which, 2010 is hotter, so the temperature differences between these cherry pips you have is upward.

Oopsie doopsie.

> If you agree to stop dumb-arsed extrapolation then I'll agree to do the same.

First, this would require my post to be dumb-arsed extrapolation.

Secondly, you never will stop the dumb-arsed extrapolations (and it's telling that you state now that you have done so yet never stopped yourself extrapolating like a dumbass).

Whatever Brent now writes, I can easily show somewhere he's contradicted it.

Brent says:

>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.

But he also says:

>The claim by maverick 'scientists' that the 1975-1998 warming period (if 'period' isn't putting it too strongly; blink-of-eye would be another way) wasvthe beginning of a century-long escalation caused by greenhouse gases is now debunked.

And:

>I don't doubt that it started getting warmer around 1975.

And:

>I don't even doubt that it's been getting warmer since 1860.

Warren shows us he a challenger for dunce of the thread:

>*Funny how aerosols are supposed to be regional in effect,but the steepest drop in temps was in the southern hemisphere where there was very little industry.*

[Yeah right Warren](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A3.lrg.gif).

Bent:

estimate Indias' GDP if it rises at 10% pa for the next 4300 years?

10% pa for the next 4300 years. Riiiiiiight. Then says:

Maybe you should get out more.

Thanks for giving advice you need to take yourself.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Jakerman:Hansen is the dunce jake,he shows a .4C difference in anomaly between NH and SH.Yeah that makes sense.BS has always been his shtick.I do wonder though which version of his graph this is? I have seen so many graphs from jimmy,all supposedly of the same data over the same period.Who knows which to believe.

Jakerman:In any case,the graph that you bought from Honest Jim's used cars,bears out the point I was making.The steepest drop in temps was in the southern hemisphere.With very little industry producing very few aerosols,the observations again dont seem to fit the theory-once again.We dont know what produced the cooling for 3 decades,and we still dont know how the system works.

Warren, please feel free to present any evidence that supports your absurd claim that:

>*the steepest drop in temps was in the southern hemisphere where there was very little industry*.

Alternatively you could take the novel step (novel for you) of admitting your gross error.

BTW, if you weren't the Dunning Kruger that that you are you might understand why the SH takes longer to warm. It is due to: a) the higher specific heat of water relative to land; combined with b) the overturning currents of water requiring the heating of more water than than land.

Jakerman:"feel free to present any evidence.."
Are you blind? The graph that YOU supplied shows it!Look at the period for the 1940's in the SH.The slope is steeper!!
The SH takes longer to warm?So it would also take longer to cool right?Thermal equilibrium works both ways.So the question still stands-why did it get cooler, FASTER in the SH?

>*The steepest drop in temps was in the southern hemisphere.With very little industry producing very few aerosols,the observations again dont seem to fit the theory-once again.We dont know what produced the cooling for 3 decades,and we still dont know how the system works.*

Please name the 3 decades of cooling in the southern hemisphere. A smaller than 0.1K drop in the 5 year mean is hardly inconsistent with the combination of internal variability and error.

And a larger 0.2 K drop over 3 decades in the NH is entirely consistent with aerosol forcing.

>*The SH takes longer to warm?So it would also take longer to cool right?Thermal equilibrium works both ways.So the question still stands-why did it get cooler, FASTER in the SH?*

Short term variability (less than 2 decades) is not a trend. For such short term fluctuation as occurred in the SH is consisted with internal variability. The SH barely deviates from hits trend. It would be consistent with a change in measuring technique, or a short change in current strength.

The cooling in the NH is longer than 2 decades but is consistent with aerosol forcing.

Jakerman:So the cooling in the SH was an error/measurement artifact/internal variability thing yeah?.OK so that means that it was unrelated to the "real" cooling of the NH.That was a real event right?But it seems awfully coincidental that the cooling took place in both NH and SH at the same time,especially when you consider that they are unrelated.The whole thing is a patchwork quilt that Grandma Hansen would be proud of.But lets go back in history a little bit though.If industry generated aerosols produced cooling during and after WW2,then why didn't industry generated aerosols produce cooling during and after WW1?

>*So the cooling in the SH was an error/measurement artifact/internal variability thing yeah?.OK so that means that it was unrelated to the "real" cooling of the NH.*

Not necessary unrelated. It looks like the two share an element of a commonality. Its just one was briefer and of a smaller scale indicating a high proportion on internal variability.

>*If industry generated aerosols produced cooling during and after WW2,then why didn't industry generated aerosols produce cooling during and after WW1?*

Its a matter of scale. Take tanks as one comparison, in in WW1 [less than 8,000 tanks](http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/tanks.htm) were produced. In WW2 this number was exceed by more than [30 times](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II) (a 3000% increase).

Jakerman:Bollocks!Industry went into hyperdrive during WW1.Plus industry used far more coal[particulates] than oil during WW1.Germany never reached it's level of WW1 production during WW2[see Alberts Speer's book].In any case this is just an evasion.If aerosols produced cooling during WW2,then why was it the OPPOSITE effect during WW1?If the aerosols produced during WW2 STOPPED and REVERSED the warming of the 20's and 30's,then why didn't the aerosols produced during WW1 atleast have some measurable effect on the temp rise?. It had no effect at all.It did not even slow the rate down.Complete and utter un-scientific balderdash!

>*Bollocks!Industry went into hyperdrive during WW1.*

You fail to quantify you clam and failed to put an alternative to my example of tanks. BTW, not only was WW2 bigger, more mechanized and longer, but it was followed by a post war boom, the shorter WW1 was followed by a the Spanish flu then a depression.

> WW1.Plus industry used far more coal[particulates] than oil during WW1

Your argument relies on assumptions for which you have not provided any evidence - for starters, that the **nett effect** of emissions must have been a stronger cooling forcing in WW1 than WW2. Underlying your assumption is the further assumption that the *same* kinds of aerosols were produced in quantities proportional to overall "levels of industrial activity" in both wars. You cannot draw these conclusions from the evidence presented (e.g. merely observing "more industry in WW1 than WW2", not even when combined with "more coal use in WW1 vs more oil in WW2"). Different emissions have different effects - for example, some warm a bit and some cool a bit. That makes your argument - as currently stated - "un-scientific balderdash". Now you may be able to produce evidence to back it up - but to date you have not.

By the way, it's instructive to note that here you are making the same kind of leap-to-unjustified-conclusions you make with "CO2 increases NPP in some studies therefor it can only be good for plants or humans or the ecosystem".

Some thoughts on your hypothesis here - from the top of my head I thought coal produced more CO2 than oil for the same amount of usable energy, and that "black carbon" particulate matter has a **warming** rather than cooling effect. If these are accurate, then heavy use of coal in WW1 vs oil in WW2 plus heavier industrial activity in WW1 vs WW2 would suggest that the "industry-derived forcing" was likely warmer in WW1 than WW2 - which would suggest that your hypothesis is not correct, and probably even 180 degress incorrect.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Jakerman:WW2 was bigger in all ways,but WW1 was followed by the Roaring Twenties.The depression of 1920-21 was only 18 months in length.The point is,is that if aerosols produced such a dramatic effect on temps early in WW2,then why did the same kinds of aerosols produce no effect whatsoever in WW1?You have dodged that point.

Brent@773
"Well, John, the Earth has supported life for some 4 billion years."

Well, goody. You may be surprised to learn that most of us don't give a fig about the occasional billion years that supported the proliferating life of slimy things that couldn't survive on the planet as it now is. We may be intrigued by the paleoscientists telling us that such and such a weird, wiggly thingy is linked to the later formation of something else we've never seen which couldn't survive today.

We know that climatic events, within 100s of thousands of years rather than millions, were damaging enough to reduce the tiny populations of human precursors to a few isolated, fragmented remnants. And we know we're lucky to be here at all.

And now we're pushing our luck. The planet can continue blithely on with or without us. The planet has no interest in our happiness or our misery, our nutrition or our starvation, our survival or our extinction.

But we care. Extinction may be many millions of years away, but we can do something about how many people suffer how much misery or starvation now and in the next few millennia.

Lotharsson:Do you realize how much blather your last post was?CO2 produced warming during WW1,but did not produce warming during WW2.Aerosols produced cooling during WW2 but they did not produce cooling during WW1.
More coal[total] was used in WW2 than in WW1,and that produced cooling right?But far more oil was used in WW2 than WW1,and that produced what??Warming? Cooling? Where the hell am I? Tell me how this fairy tale is supposed to end.

>*The point is,is that if aerosols produced such a dramatic effect on temps early in WW2,then why did the same kinds of aerosols produce no effect whatsoever in WW1?You have dodged that point.*

Its a matter of scale combined with internal variability, the scale was so small as to be comparable with internal variability.

And the fact that some portion (the most dramatic drop in ocean temperature) of the 1940s cooling is consistent with [change in measurement methods](http://www.skepticalscience.com/A-new-twist-on-mid-century-cooling.html).

Jakerman:I give up! If you can understand it then you are a better man then I am.

> ...,then why did the same kinds of aerosols produce no effect whatsoever in WW1?

You **presume** there was no effect, but have provided no evidence other than a temperature graph and a guess at what the kinds and levels of aerosol production were. This presumption is not justified. You need to figure out the kinds and amounts of aerosols, PLUS what the other forcings were doing at the time. In other words you need to do some "attribution" - you can't derive the effect of one variable on temperature when others are changing temperature at the same time merely by looking at the graph of the variable and temperature - which is kind of what I was pointing out at length [over here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) too.

> Do you realize how much blather your last post was?

You didn't understand. Let me try to simplify it.

> CO2 produced warming during WW1,but did not produce warming during WW2.

I did not say that. I said that - based on your characterisations of the different levels of industry (which may or may not be correct) and the energy sources (which may or may not be correct) - that CO2 would have produced **more** warming during WW1 than WW2:

> ..."industry-derived forcing" was likely warmer in WW1 than WW2

Note carefully that it's a **comparison** statement ("warmer" a.k.a. one was a stronger warming force than the other) between the two periods, not an assertion that CO2 had zero total warming or even a cooling effect during WW2.

More simplification: you talk about "particulate matter" produced by coal burning. Some particulate matter is called "black carbon". It produces a **warming effect**, even though your argument **presumes** that all "aerosols" cool. They do not.

Coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy than does oil. CO2 produces a warming effect. Thus periods where more coal was used than oil - even if the same amount of energy happens to be derived - will experience a higher warming effect purely from CO2.

Furthermore you argue by implication that more energy was used in WW1 than WW2 - which would mean **still more** CO2-based warming in the former than the latter.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Adelady (803): My point about the 4 billion years is one of stoicism: that we have every reason to believe in continuity. Life has evolved despite the ups and downs of climate (arguably BECAUSE of) and unless there is good reason to worry about exceptional and unprecedented variation then it's fair to assume that li-li-li-li-life goes on.

You write: "we can do something about how many people suffer how much misery or starvation now and in the next few millennia". An excellent point. I consider the recent western obsession with carbon dioxide a gross distraction from more important priorities such as habitat conservation and third world poverty. To put it coarsely, every useless bleedin' windmill is frittering away "green" resource better spent on protecting rhinos or vaccinating kids in Zimbabwe.

The public's awareness of green issues is a historic opportunity for good. It's a tragedy and a travesty that the carbon-obsessives have hijacked the agenda.

> My point about the 4 billion years is one of stoicism: that we have every reason to believe in continuity

So if you're the lithosphere, you're A-OK.

This is not much comfort to humans.

Though if I *had* to ascribe some "sentient" life form to you, brent, a Discworld Troll would fit it to a "T".#

> To put it coarsely, every useless bleedin' windmill is frittering away "green" resource better spent on protecting rhinos or vaccinating kids in Zimbabwe.

Ah, so every pound spent on one thing means that NOTHING can be spent on another.

And what's the point of Zimbabwe kids growing up healthy in a land that can no longer support human habitation?

"Well, kid, even though you're starving to death and have lost your home, family and friends to it, at least you don't have malaria!"

> It's a tragedy and a travesty that the carbon-obsessives have hijacked the agenda.

It's a travesty that you have hijacked the green awareness to concern troll your way out of doing anything about the problem.

Warren: You're doing a great job in challenging the dumb-arsed extrapolators on their tunnel vision.

The temperature graph goes up and they yell: "It's got hotter!" The temperature graph goes down and they whisper: "Ah, that's just an exception to the rule."

Rational people have always had to confront dumb extrapolators, doommongers inspired by Malthus. You'd think that since The Enlightenment rational people would have vanquished those who claim to foretell the future based on a pattern they claim to see but cannot explain. Pattern recognition is embedded deep in the human psyche, and the gullible twats who look at Michael Mann's hockey stick and crap their pants are no worse than horoscope readers or investors who join in with a 'bubble'.

Ideally, the laws of physics would settle things: since Newton and Kepler we don't have to put up with soothsayers predicting that 'next July we'll collide with Mars'. But these tossers can still make a living where Chaos operates, and in their biggest market, Climatography, they must be challenged until they crawl back into their new-age covens.

warren:

Do you realize how much blather your last post was?CO2 produced warming during WW1,but did not produce warming during WW2.

Not that it's particularly important, but have you actually bothered to check how much the atmospheric CO2 increased, if at all, during WW2? You'll find that it actually decreased. This issue isn't particularly significant but before you accuse someone of blather, it's always a good idea to make certain that you're not blathering yourself. People in glass houses and all that.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

"The temperature graph goes up." And so it does - but it wouldn't mean much if it were just a blip in a downward trend or an oscillation around a steady trend.

"The temperature graph goes down." And so it does - but it wouldn't mean much if it were just a blip in an upward trend or an oscillation around a steady trend.

In both cases it might mean a lot if the upward or downward movement indicated a continuation or an acceleration of that same trend.

And what do our current graphs show?

Warren still hasn't pointed out which 3 decade cooling period, if any, occurred in the southern hemisphere. If he's trying to make a big deal out of some short period like 10 years or less then the only thing he's achieving is showing that he's trying to make a big deal out of something that has no climatic significance. Warren, go away until you've found some climatically significant variation that lasts at least thirty years. Without that, you're only talking about the weather.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent, not happy with Warrens's challenge to his status as dunce of the thread offers this:

>*The temperature graph goes up and they yell: "It's got hotter!" The temperature graph goes down and they whisper: "Ah, that's just an exception to the rule."*

Who are you mis paraphrasing this time Brent?

We have established that when Brent loses the scientific points, and the economic point he tries the ad hom. Lets add another tentative pattern, when Brent's ad hom fall flat he resorts to making stuff up.

BTW Brent, its [getting hotter](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif), and done so with the noise of internal variability and in spite of aerosol forcing.

Adelady, you ask: "what do our current graphs show?"

A few tenths of a degree here and there. Since the annus mirabilis of 1998, when warmists were punching the air and yelling "Yo!!! Git in the hole!", nothing much.

In Central England, we managed 10.34C in 1998 (Yo!! Git in the hole!", but we then realised that we'd scored 10.47C back in 1733. Georgian bastards. I wonder how they explained the unprecedented heat? Something to do with phlogiston or fixed-air or devil-worship maybe.

Anyway, recent graphs are nothing to get excited about.

>*A few tenths of a degree here and there.*

[Moron](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif)

>*Since the annus mirabilis of 1998 [...] nothing much.*

Except the warmest decade on record, the warmest in at least the the last 400 years and likely the warmest in far longer than that. Oh and don't forget, and a [continued warming trend](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/plot/wti/from:1998/trend).

>*In Central England...*

Cherry pick.

Nothing much's changed in Brent's vacuous posts.

Jakerman (814): Nice graph.

Getting hotter you say? Not where I live, mate. Since 1733 it's been getting colder. Lest I be accused of being parochial, is there any sign of Thermageddon where you live? I mean, anything more meaningful than a few lousy tenths of a degree? Or maybe biblical floods? Or a bit of pestilence or famine? Maybe some kind of anxiety therapy might help you.

Compared to our forefathers, we don't have much to worry about. Ask yourself if your unhealthy fixation with the weather might be a symptom of too comfortable a lifestyle. The ones who bang on about Global Warming are all well-heeled westerners. Those in less privileged places put their time to better use (with the honourable exception of the Maldives government who hold cabinet meetings in scuba gear. Man, their PR team is world class. Defence Minister: "I'll look a right plonker sitting at a desk holding a pen!" Media Relations Advisor: "Minister, we'll be able to screw millions in subsidies. Now, remember what I told you about 'Sincere Face'? When you break the surface I want to see a sad little tear in your eye as you bleat about rising sea levels.")

.

hmmm.... PFJ

Pestiferous Fabricating Jabberwockies

>*Getting hotter you say?*

Yep, with evidence.

>*Not where I live, mate*. [Cherry pick](http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4…) much.

>*is there any sign of Thermageddon where you live?*

Yep, we've had 2 extraordinary record breaking heat waves in the last 3 years. I've lost six 40 metre trees (at least 100 years old) in the last six years, two (the largest two) in the last 3 weeks of usual wet and thats just the loses from my little acre block. Across the SE of Aus, we've also had severe drought, collapse of our major river system (and farming communities) and mega fires with large loss of life.

Brent despite your babbling of twaddle such as: [The Enlightenment rational people would have vanquished those who claim to foretell the future based on a pattern they claim to see but cannot explain. (sic)](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2793801)

Observations are proceeding in accordance with predictions foreseen by AGW theory. Ice at the poles is melting, global average temperatures continue to exhibit a rising trend average night time tempertures are increasing, and more extreme weather is occurring more often globally.

You have no alternative explanation for those observations - all you have are the likes of proven idiots like Watts and Goddard et al pretending those events aren't happening, which you prefer to believe.

And to lay another of your turkeys to rest, you can't preserve habitats if the climate changes beyond the capability of the species native to that location to adapt.
So your green concern-troll fig leaf is meaningless.

The warming of the nighttime temperature is due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which is the result of two main features of urban areas. First, buildings, roads and paved surfaces store heat during the day, which is then released slowly over the evening due to the thermal properties of the surface materials and the building geometry which traps the heat stored during the day. The second contributing factor to the UHI is due to the artificial heat released into the urban atmosphere by combustive processes from vehicles, industrial activity and the heat that escapes from commercial and domestic air conditioning.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s26

Brent @ 810:

"Warren: You're doing a great job in challenging copying and pasting the dumb-arsed extrapolators on their tunnel vision utterings of vested self-interest groups.

The global mean temperature trend graph goes ever up and they yell: "It's got hotter colder in Dullsville/ Novosibirsk/ Mawson!" The temperature graph in Dimf**k Iowa goes down and they whisper chant: "Ah, that's just an exception to the rule see, told you global warming was a scam."

Rational people have always had to confront dumb extrapolators, doommongers so called "sceptics" and assorted Pollyannas inspired by Malthus self-appointed "auditors" (McI) and purveyors of snake oil (Plimer). You'd think that since The Enlightenment rational people would have vanquished those who claim to foretell the future know better than scientists who've devoted their lives to studying a particular aspect of science, based on a pattern they claim to see but cannot explain. Pattern recognition is embedded deep in the human psyche, and the gullible twats who look at Michael Mann's considerable body of work, pick out one popular yet not especially pivotal facet (the hockey stick) and crap their pants presume to be able to blow an entire branch of science out of the window based on their own over-inflated sense of expertise are no a lot worse than all the horoscope peddlers or investors who join in with a 'bubble' and fraudsters who scab money off innocent people combined.

Ideally, the laws of physics wshould settle things: but since yet despite Newton and Kepler, Boyle and Arrhenius we don't still have to put up with soothsayers droves of self-serving, self-opinionated, self-appointed "experts" who couldn't spell "statistically significant trend" if their lives depended on it predicting that 'next July we'll collide with Mars the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet will have recovered'. But these tossers can still make a living where Chaos Big Money operates, and in their biggest market, Climatography FUD, they must be challenged until they crawl back into their new-age covens industry-funded "centres for independent studies".

There. FTFY.

>The temperature graph goes up and they yell: "It's got hotter!" The temperature graph goes down and they whisper: "Ah, that's just an exception to the rule."

Idiot, the temperature graph goes down, you gloat that it's cold therefore warming doesn't exist. Temperature graph goes up and you say it's an "utterly unremarkable fact".

>You'd think that since The Enlightenment rational people would have vanquished those who claim to foretell the future based on a pattern they claim to see but cannot explain.

The irony.

>Getting hotter you say? Not where I live, mate.

Liar. Either you're lying or you don't live on Earth.

No spotty, UHI effect is just one cause in the relatively minute urban areas, not everywhere.

"The data covered six years from 1994-1999 based on a major study by IRRI on the productivity of intensively managed irrigated rice farms in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and India.

"Our study is unique because it uses data collected in farmers' fields, under real-world conditions," Welch said.
Using longer-term data, the researchers found that rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations in the study areas.

Temperature increases at night, depending on the quarter of the year and the site, were anywhere from 0.3 degrees Celsius to 0.6 deg C. on an aggregate basis.

"We see some increases in maximum temperatures but we see much more consistently increases in night-time temperature," Jarrod Welch of the University of California, San Diego, says in the study, published online in the latest issue of the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

BOM's dicey data -

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s29

Eucalypts always fall over when they get wet feet and the wind blows, especially if others nearby have been removed.

Got it all cut and split akerz ?

Chris:there is no 3 decade cooling on the SH,atleast not according to Jimmy and the boys at GISS.
Jakerman:So these heatwaves in the S.E. are unprecedented are they? What about the 1926 heatwave that killed 130?Or the 1907 heatwave that killed 246?Or the 1895 heatwave that killed 437?Or the longest recorded heatwave in the world in Marble Bar in 1924?
Doughts,well the worst was the Federation Drought of 1902.
Bushfires,the worst being Black Friday in 1939 which killed 438.But everything we have experienced recently is due to global warming/CO2 right?

Here's an event hosted by agenda-laden science deniers - "Galileo Was Wrong".

Obviously since they're standing up against the entire scientific community they must be right, and just like Brent their beliefs are entirely based on faith, not science (and like Brent they will prove it....one day! YOU'LL SEE!!).

Oh wait, it isn't a perceived threat to Brent's comfortable lifestyle so, no, I doubt he will support it.

Shame.

Here's one I missed:

>I am of course talking about the failure of the pesky planet to do what the half-baked theory of Global Warming claims it must.

I thought AGW theory was "logical" and "watertight"? Now it's "half-baked"?

Make up your mind, Idiot!

Must your opinion shift so readily, Idiot? It's almost like you're a disingenuous troll who cares more about short term point scoring than having a coherent theory.

Jakerman, sorry to hear that the trees are suffering down under. I sometimes take for granted living in "England's green and pleasant land". I wouldn't wish to make light of the enormous challenges facing Australia, bushfires and farmers going bust and all. Fingers crossed for you guys, our brother Aussies!

But how exceptional is it? Does Warren have a fair point in quoting that list of disasters from past years such as Black Friday? If there were to be a repeat (God forbid), I suspect it would be trumpeted as evidence of Global Warming. But answer me this: If the reverse is true - that Australia is fortunate enough for, say, the Marble Bar drought not to be repeated - shouldn't such good news be weighed against spectacular disasters?

The reporting of air accidents is conducted on a much more mature level than Climatographic Armageddon Incidents, wouldn't you and the rest of the PFJ agree?

Sunspot: Pestiferous Fabricating Jabberwockies? Nice one! Another line from Life of Brian applies: "He IS the Messia:I should know: I've followed a few." Back in #104 we were speculating on how many Warmists had been True Believers of older scare stories like flying saucers. As Chek likes to say: "It IS the end of the world. I should know: I've had a few. Hic!"

The bushfires of 50 to 100 years ago burnt more land and killed so many people because we didn't have the capacity then to fight them. Nowadays we're a lot more sophisticated - and even that is uneven across the country. Here in SA we have special police patrols on high fire danger days.

What do they do? They just doorknock known or suspected firebugs - they don't threaten them in any way, they just let them know they're in the area. Unsurprisingly, we're starting to see a small but encouraging difference in our figures and those interstate. And of course everywhere we have volunteer fire crews who have modern equipment and, most importantly, a new attitude that says that staying alive is more important than saving any particular building or piece of land. People just don't do what they did in 1939, fighting major fires with a wet sack and no protective clothing and staying there until escape is impossible.

As for local temperatures. Marble Bar? I wonder why the population stays around 200, well that would be because of the inhospitable climate. (Do you know where Marble Bar is? It's in the middle of nowhere. There's an awful lot of nowhere in the Australian deserts.) Coober Pedy does a lot better with most of the living quarters underground.

John (829): Peristent, aren't you?

You keep reminding me that I once wrote, "Whilst much of the supporting logic of AGW is watertight, I doubt the overall conclusion," as if the word "watertight" made me a paid up member of Nutty Nutjob's Global Warming Club. No.

Jonno, Jonno, it's a bit like this: (a) John is human (b) All humans have a brain (c) Thought takes place in the brain (d).... and let me see if you understand the principle here.... (d) John is a Great Thinker, and will be revered by philosophers in future centuries.

John Boy, do you see how..... splutter.... what's the point?

You're [brenting](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2792445) again, Brent.

It seems to be that whenever your position becomes too ridiculous even for you to spin your way out of, your only defence is to speciously and dishonestly accuse someone else of being even more ridiculous - without any evidence whatsoever of course - that being the entire nature of brenting.

Like that's gonna work, but as we already know, there's no such thing as an honest denier.

warren:

Chris:there is no 3 decade cooling on the SH,

So you admit that anything you said about cooling in the SH had no climatic significance whatsoever and consequently you were just blathering noisily and insignificantly about the SH temperature record.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent @810:

Rational people have always had to confront dumb extrapolators,

Such as the person on this thread who repeatedly extrapolates from an area about the size of Wood Buffalo National Park to the world as a whole.

Then check out the couple of loons on the CO2 is plant food thread who wildly extrapolate from a few greenhouse/laboratory studies to complex ecosystems.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Richard (835): You challenge the validity of using the 350 year-old Central England record. Not so fast, Kincaid!

When your ancestors were running around in animal skins, mine were making scientific measurements, leaving us this wonderful legacy. They had no bull about "anomalies"; they looked at thermometers and recorded what they saw. What they saw is within a gnat's dick of what I see with my thermometer today.

Maybe using England as a surrogate for changes in the whole world's thermometer is not 100% ideal, but it's a darn good start. By your petty nitpicking argument, measuring a person's temperature in his mouth is unsound. For my part, I say this is the opposite to dumb-arsed extrapolation; it's using a plenty-good-enough surrogate.

The beauty of CET is its continuity. Back in the day, the number of thermometers in Africa and Antarctica and Wood Buffalo National Park was precisely zilch.

Back in the day when I believed in Global Warming, I stubbornly said I would go in search of source data, data uncontaminated by artistic interpretation, by well-meaning boffins with an agenda, by crooked bastards who fiddle the figures. The best 'bedrock' I have found are the CET and the graph of the Great Aletsch Glacier in Austria. In both cases they say that current conditions are within the known range.

Build your house on sand if you must; I base my conclusions on the most solid stuff I can find. I'm from Shropshire, the british equivalent of Missouri.

> You challenge the validity of using the 350 year-old Central England record. Not so fast, Kincaid!

England was not the world and was only considered so during Victoria's reign.

Get into the 21st Century, you cro magnon you.

> Back in the day when I believed in Global Warming

... in a galaxy far, far away...

> The beauty of CET is its continuity.

The problem is that CET isn't the globe. No amount of beauty (even if you combined Christina Hendricks with Angenlina Jolie and tossed in a bit of Amazonian Woman in there for heat) makes up for that problem.

And, since Russia have records for 1000 years, this beauty is hardly unique.

> The best 'bedrock' I have found are the CET

"best" being defined as "I can use it to prove my point even if it doesn't.

Wow (837): I think I see your problem. Angelina Jolie? Yuch! Looks like a lizard with a frog's mouth.

Mate, your judgment of crumpet is as lousy as your judgment of climet.

Shame on you Wow for not getting the era correct. Now if you'd invoked '50's Brit starlet Diana Dors, Lilly Langtree or even Dame Nellie Melba, Brent would have involuntarily masturbated himself to a sticky pulp by now.

As it is, despite living in the heart of rural England (albeit populated by troglodytes who wouldn't, in general, feel out of place in a Tolkien novel - and I speak as someone who lived in Shrewsbury for 6 months) Brent Just Doesn't Know What's Going On. Which will come as no surprise to anybody save perhaps Brent hinself.
Let's consider the farmer's bible, the Thermal Growing Season, defined as "the longest period within a year that meet the following requirements: Begins at the start of a period of five successive days where the daily-average temperature is greater than 5.0°C
Ends on the day before of a period of five successive days when the daily-average temperature is less than 5.0°C"

Brent's from Shropshire, you see where this stuff is Very Important, but Brent isn't involved with the natural world, hence his contempt-as-flippency schtick.

"There has been an increase in growing season length since 1980. This is largely due to the earlier onset of spring. The earliest start of the thermal growing season was in 2002 when it began on 13 January. The longest growing season in the 233-year series was 330 days, in 2000. The shortest growing season was 181 days in 1782. [In 2009 the thermal growing was 298 days, up from 249 days in 2008 and above the 1961-1991 average of 252 days."]
(http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/statistics/climate_change/1_20100319…)

Meanwhile Brent is happy to believe nothing is happening that can't be blamed on whatever Bookerism he last read.
The term 'moron' may have to be re-defined to take account of brentism.

Dame Nellie Melba? Phwooooargh!

Chek, what's that link to the DECC's growing seasons again? The 1782 record-short growing season would seem to tally nicely with a particularly chilly year in Central England: 8.01C.

Of course, correlation is only a useful pointer to a possible causal relationship, the 'detective's clue' possibly leading to the case being solved.

It's looking like a sunspot cycle of unusual length, and there has been research correlating long cycles with low global temperatures. For the moment, we can all agree, this is no more than 'interesting'; let's hope that the astrophysics boys finish the job. We need an equivalent of a "Grand Unified Theory" linking sunspots, solar wind, cosmic ray shielding, cloud cover and global temperature.

What's the betting that a 14-year sunspot cycle will coincide with a repeat of the Little Ice Age? Agreed, it's far from certain but...... get yer winter woollies ready boys! Two blizzardy winters in the next four will earn me your grovelling retractions.

Warren writes:

>Jakerman:So these heatwaves in the S.E. are unprecedented are they?

First point is that the challenge to relate my regional temp to global was Brent's request. Given that its likely that more local heat records are currently set than cold records, Brent was odds on to lose with his punt of comparing hotter and colder events in locals.

Here is what I wrote:

>*we've had 2 extraordinary record breaking heat waves in the last 3 years.*

Regard the [extraordinary nature](http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/03/is-there-a-link-between-adelaides…):

Adelaide got its hottest night on record, Tasmania its hottest day, and Melbourne its second hottest. A one in 400 year event. Warren picks out a bunch of other non-synchronous hot events, so what makes this so special? Well it occurred one year after a one in 3000 year event.

>*The record-smashing March 2008 heatwave persisted for a whopping 15 straight days and surpassed the previous longest stretch of above 35C degree temperatures recorded in any Australian capital city (formerly held by Perth in 1988). Poor old Kyancutta took a hot hit then too, recording 13 days straight of over 40C temperatures. The hottest night ever in March in Adelaide, of 30.2C, was also recorded during this event. Overall, last yearâs heatwave was not as consistently hot as this yearâs event (see chart), but it will still likely hold the record for duration. A frequency analysis on this monster implies that it was a 1 in 3,000 year event*

Then Warren, my cherry picking little friend you need to compare these experiences (and those around the world) with global temperatures. Warmer temperature in more locations than colder temperatures are both consistent with Greenhouse forcing and with the global rising temperature trend.

On second thoughts, if the "growing season" is declared purely according to temperature, it may be a direct result of the CET data series, in which case the search for correlation would be a pointless task.

[Brent said: What's the betting that a 14-year sunspot cycle will coincide with a repeat of the Little Ice Age? Agreed, it's far from certain but...... get yer winter woollies ready boys! Two blizzardy winters in the next four will earn me your grovelling retractions.](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2795289)

Shorter Brent: Why you... just wait until my fantasy predictions come true - then you'll be sorry.

Which I think can be agreed ranks amongst the Weakest Comebacks, Ever.

[Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2795289),

That's hilarious!!!

I have some questions for you: Didn't the 'little ice age' last more like a century? How does this work when the sunspot cycle is 11 years long? And how do you acount for the fact that solar activity has been decreasing since the 1970s, yet temperatures have been sharply increasing?

Finally, what happens, assuming your fantasies come true, when this inordinately weak sunspot cycle ends and normality resumes, if CO2 is indeed causing the warming? The suddenness of THAT rise would give anyone food for thought...

I can't believe you're still going on about the sun when you've been set straight so many times.

Bent:

Peristent, aren't you?

New levels in hypocrisy.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

> ...but it's a darn good start.

Goldfish.

> By your petty nitpicking argument, measuring a person's temperature in his mouth is unsound.

Argument both from ignorance and invalid analogy.

There are several different body temperature measurement methods, each returning different values. But medicine is not interested in the **absolute** temperature, but rather the deviation from norm *for the method used*, a.k.a. anomalies. (Hmmm, where have I seen that before?) And for *that* purpose any of the methods works.

> In both cases they say that current conditions are within the known range.

Shorter Brent: I'm not worried that my car is accelerating directly downwards towards the rocks below because it's gone this fast many times in the past without incident.

> Two blizzardy winters in the next four will earn me your grovelling retractions.

Goldfish. Weather != climate.

> And, since Russia have records for 1000 years, this beauty is hardly unique.

There's also the [Japanese cherry blossom records](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/a_new_hockey_stick_mcshane_and…) since the 9th Century...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent @836:

When your ancestors were running around in animal skins, . . . I'm from Shropshire,

Oops, you are drawing overly hasty conclusions again. One of my ancestors grew up in a temperance hotel in Dolgellau, others were from the Bristol and Manchester areas. In any case, only an ignorant racist would use 'ancestors running around in animal skins' as an insult to imply ignorance.

It's great that the temperature record goes back that far, but it is only a local record.

Two blizzardy winters in the next four will earn me your grovelling retractions.

Where? You are still confusing local weather with global climate. Last winter was unusually mild in Canada and the blizzards in the eastern US seem to have been caused by the Atlantic being warmer than usual.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Idiot is sliding further into lunacy. The current record heatwave in central England doesn't count, but a theoretical blizzard (as forseen by Brent's faith) will disprove global warming forever and ever.

What was I saying about consistency Brent?

"I think I see your problem. Angelina Jolie? Yuch! Looks like a lizard with a frog's mouth."

Yeah, before the lip "enhancement" there was no problem. Liv Tyler: Hot. But after the lip plumping she looks like someone's stuck a pair of those plastic lips you used to get in kids sweeties bags as a treat.

REALLY not getting it.

But there's plenty other things to look at, and they're FINE..!

John (850): Thank you for informing me about the "record current heatwave in central England". That'll be on one of your graphs, I assume. In these parts we phrase it rather differently: "Bleedin' crap English weather; if only we could win the lottery we'd decamp to Tuscany to get some rays."

Lotharsson: Thanks for the link to the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival. Another valuable addition to the sum of human knowledge. As always, you and I will draw different conclusions from it. When I first began chatting with you lovely Deltoid people I naively hoped that we could agree on certain core truths, and reserve the bickering for areas of dispute. This, I thought, would move the debate on. But it now seems that there is such a philosophical divide between the two camps that no common ground can be reached.

Your cherry blossom graph,

http://i34.tinypic.com/119cvm0.jpg

through your eyes, says that the recent uptick is unprecedented; that it validates Mann's 'Hockey Stick'. Through my eyes, I see a confirmation that standard deviation is a degree-or-so. You see 150 years of uptick and assume a continuation; I see the same 150 years of uptick that I can see on the Aletsch Glacier (or is that 'downtick'? Th glacier has been getting shorter!) and don't find it alarming; I see that we're still in the historic range, or maybe two lousy tenths beyond.

Surely, Lotharsson, the two degree temperature fall in Japan between 1310 and 1330 (I repeat: two whacking great degrees!) is a reason to be relaxed about the little temperature shift between 1975 and 1998.

> I see that we're still in the historic range...

I'll repeat it once more:

> Shorter Brent: I'm not worried that my car is accelerating directly downwards towards the rocks below because it's gone this fast many times in the past without incident.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 Sep 2010 #permalink

Wow (837): You mentioned a 1000-year Russian temperature record. Would you kindly supply a link?

Richard Simons (849): Chill out dude! Your name hardly suggested that you were purebred Apache. You teetotal bolsheviks are soooo thin-skinned! As I'm sure you knew, my statement that most Sceptic Tanks were still running around in animal skins 350 years ago was an oblique way of pointing out the pinnacle that Europe then occupied.

Lotharsson (853): This may be hard for you to understand, but I'll give it a go.

The Economist had a stimulating editorial ten years ago on how inflation was reported. If you've heard of calculus it'll help. Governments, when reporting on the ogre of inflation, would choose which 'differential' to report on.

For instance: (a) Prices are what they are (b) Prices are rising at a certain rate (c) Inflation is falling (d) The rate of increase in inflation is softening. A mathematician sees in those four statements the base variable and the first, second and third derivative. The choice of whether to emphasise one or the other derivatives is a PR choice; it's 'spin'.

Your concern about the hockey stick's rate of change is conscious or subconscious spin. A Jeremiah like you can always find a threat. If your wife says that there's money in your bank, you'll reply, "Ahhhhh, yes, but it's going down!" If your wife says your savings are rising, you'll reply, "Ahhhh, yes, but not as fast as they were before."

I must apologise if this mathematical point challenges you, or is too arcane. What annoys me is when I say "We're OK, things are fine", the cognitive monkey on your back causes you to reply, "Ahhhh, yes, but we're headed for disaster."

Lotharsson, you are either a gifted clairvoyant or a miserable doomladen neoapocalypticist.

> Wow (837): You mentioned a 1000-year Russian temperature record. Would you kindly supply a link?

Yes.

Though you can get the same by READING THE FREAKING NEWS.

Have Changes In Ocean Heat Falsified The Global Warming Hypothesis? yes !!!!!!!!
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s3k

Ken Stewart has been hard at work again, this time analyzing the Australian urban records. While he expected that the cities and towns would show a larger rise than records in the country due to the Urban Heat Island Effect, what he found was that the raw records showed only a 0.4 degree rise, less than the rural records which went from a raw 0.6 to an adjusted 0.85 (a rise of 40%). What shocked him about the urban records were the adjustments⦠making the trend a full 70% warmer.

The largest adjustments to the raw records are cooling ones in the middle of last century. So 50 years after the measurements were recorded, officials realized they were artificially too high? Hopefully someone who knows can explain why so many thermometers were overestimating temperatures in the first half of the 1900âs.
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s3l

and, the cover up continues

Tightened muzzle on scientists is 'Orwellian'
http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s3m

No reference, just a long distant memory.

I recall being told - maybe mid-60s - that the central thermometer station was moved or modified or both because it's exposed position, and especially its inadequate container, meant that the temperatures were a bit off.

I fully believe this because we are still, in the 21st century, making the same mistakes here. The mistake being to take European designed stuff, trams, buses, farming methods, you name it, and plonk it, unmodified into our totally unsuitable environment. Unsurprisingly, trams get too hot, topsoil disappears in the wind and, probably, temperatures get recorded incorrectly.

> Your concern about the hockey stick's rate of change is conscious or subconscious spin.

No, the characteristics and basis of "my concern" appears to be a figment of your imagination (along with "your competence", "the strength of your arguments" and practically everything you imagine that I think).

In addition you've completely and utterly missed the point of referring to the Japanese records in the light of one of your comments. I don't give a crap what you think or don't think about the hockey stick - not the least because you've proven time and time again that you **won't or can't** think clearly about this stuff - and I certainly didn't post the Japanese records to support "the hockey stick".

Perhaps your superior intellect might be able to figure out why I did post that reference?

> If you've heard of calculus it'll help.

You attempting to patronise me is (as one of our young Aussie comedians reportedly said) about as effective as a hippie threatening to punch me in the aura.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

As ever, the slippery Lotharsson sidesteps the very point which might help advance the debate.

You say that it isn't the (well precedented) global temperatures that scare you; it's the rate of change taking us somewhere unprecedented. Your analogy is a car accelerating towards rocks. Not just moving - and by your analogy the car has momentum - but accelerating.

Would you care to clarify further? No, of course you wouldn't. The acceleration towards Thermageddon is so obvious to someone with your psychic powers that it's beneath you to explain further.

> Your analogy is a car accelerating towards rocks. Not just moving - and by your analogy the car has momentum - but accelerating.

And the temperatures are rising.

The analogy being "temperature" == "speed" where "climate" == "car".

This seems to have missed you, but this is because you are a bare faced liar who ignores and twists anything to avoid the truth around you when you don't like it.

I guess that you don't take anti-pyretics when you have a fever, then, Brent, since there is no such thing as Thermageddon.

> You say that it isn't the (well precedented) global temperatures that scare you; it's the rate of change taking us somewhere unprecedented.

Brent, as usual you misinterpret me in your drive for an "explanation" that fits your embarrassingly simple preconceived mental model - and then label me as "slippery" on the basis of *your* misinterpretation. How's swinging at my aura working out for you? Let me know when I should feel something.

(And sheesh - if you had even *half* a clue you'd know that (even though it wasn't my point) the rate of change is *precisely* what is causing biologists and ecologists to shit themselves. But there's plenty of explicit Brent error to focus on so let's not get distracted with the implicit ones...)

> Would you care to clarify further?

You mean more than the 30 times I and others already did before?!

Get real. That demonstrably **will not** help. The only remedy is for **you** to **actually** think instead of congratulating yourself on your preening teenage wit and rhetoric...

So try again. Maybe the 31st time will do the trick.

Blatant hint: the car analogy is *not* intended to be a precise analogy for what's going on in the climate system. It's to *explain why your logic is wrong*. (And this is high school logic *at best*. You should be embarrassed by it.)

Blatant followup hint - figuring out where you went wrong should be dead easy as you have two large threads where there are numerous examples of people correcting your error - plus my analogy.

Blatant bonus hint: Wow shows that your understanding of analogy is about as good as your logic. Pondering why and how you got it wrong and how getting it right *might* change your understanding would ultimately prove fruitful.

Once you've figured that out, see if you can figure out why I referred to the Japanese records.

On form I must regretfully bet you fail both tasks, but I sincerely hope to lose that bet.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

MFS (846): The correlation between climate and sunspots is not as you suppose. The hypothesis is for an inverse relationship between cycle length and temperature. A century of 11-year cycles would be warmer than a century of 13-year cycles. There is no suggestion that this warming/cooling effect itself operates on an 11-year cycle.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/09/sunspots-correlations-with-temperatur…

No causal relationship has yet been proven, but a promising mechanism is this: that solar wind is more intense during short cycles, affecting cloud cover, affecting albedo. This, the Svensmark hypothesis, will be confirmed or refuted.

This links beautifully with Argentine research which found close correlation between sunspots and the flow of the Parana River. We aren't there yet, and such correlation may prove to be pure coincidence, but it's beginning to look like an elegant framework. What a contrast with carbon monomania whose acolytes throw a hissy fit when Warren points out a couple of decades of Inconvenient Truth.

Wow (864): Thanks for the link to Real Climate. They challenged the Svensmark hypothesis, and quite rightly! Comment No. 7 is interesting: one of the authors concedes that it is by no means proven. But your word 'refuted' is premature.

I don't know why you spout nonsense about fighter pilots. A correlation may - or may not - be an indication of something useful and previously unknown. Your craven pseudonym coincides with a pyramid selling scam called Women Empowering Women. Worth the time to investigate? Yer fadder's moustache.

> But your word 'refuted' is premature.

Nope, if an experiment designed to show a mechanism fails to show the mechanism, the mechanism is incorrect and proven wrong.

It only takes ONE black swan to disprove the theory that all swans are white.

> I don't know why you spout nonsense about fighter pilots.

To get this admission from you:

> A correlation may - or may not - be an indication of something useful and previously unknown.

Funny how you KNOW that solar rays are the source... A correlation may - or may not - be an indication of something useful and not previously known, but YOU take it to prove that AGW is not happening.

How does this happen?

Because you're a lying sack of crap.

PS less than 30% of the temperature rise is due to solar output increases.

Since you have not calculated the magnitude of the change, and solar output cycles on the solar cycle in that graph too, your insistence that sunspots, as opposed to merely solar output as being a driver of climate is more tenuous than the solar wind you attribute.

Then again neither you nor Bjorn care about the science as long as it can be used to get the profits up in the fossil fuel industry.

Wow, my shareholdings in Royal Dutch Shell and BP are doing very nicely indeed, thank you. Energy's good, man. Keeps civilization going.

As for black swans (867) and Popperian falsifiablity I assume that you will now concede that the decline in global temperatures from 1940 to 1975, whilst CO2 was rising, blows the AGW theory out of the water.

Nah, I might as well ask a druid to shave off his beard.

It was 15C at my back door this afternoon. Oh, Lord!!!! Please send some of that global warming that your followers keep preaching!

> Energy's good, man. Keeps civilization going.

Yah, got news for you, 19th century man. oil is not energy.

Yes, energy's good. So why do you waste so much of it? Why not use a renewable source for it?

Because you aren't into energy, you're into money. You don't believe that statement, you just use it as a smokescreen for your rapacious greed.

> I assume that you will now concede that the decline in global temperatures from 1940 to 1975, whilst CO2 was rising, blows the AGW theory out of the water.

It blows your idea that only CO2 causes any climate change.

It doesn't blow AGW out of the water because less than 100% of the temperature increase and the consequent climate change is due to CO2. Most likely, a little north of 60% is due to CO2 and equivalents from human activity (which is the A in AGW).

I take it then that the decrease from 1940 to 1970 blows your solar wind theory out of the water?

I take it then that the increase from 1970 to date will mean you accept AGW as real?

Nah, you're a lying sack of crap.

>*Yes, energy's good. So why do you waste so much of it?*

Indeed!

Brent,

>you will now concede that the decline in global temperatures from 1940 to 1975, whilst CO2 was rising, blows the AGW theory out of the water

You are the only one insisting that it's either 100% CO2 or 100% the sun.

Wow, you ask why I don't use a renewable source of energy.

Same reason as you, mate: The capacity is trivial and intermittent. Watermelons like you enjoy the fruits of modern life whilst railing against them. Put your money where your mouth is, o hypocrite, and disconnect from the grid to prove your bona fides: you wouldn't last five minutes.

Swap your car for a pedal car or a bike? Fat chance of that: you wouldn't be able to drive to the supermarket and benefit from their state-of-the-art logistics.

Only Bernard J on these chatrooms makes any claim to having made profound lifestyle choices for ethical reasons. The rest of you mealy-mouthed two-faced hypocrites trill, "Why should we tell you?", don't even have the balls to tell a big fat lie, even whilst skulking behind pseudonyms.

For once, though, I welcome something you write: "a little north of 60%" in #870. You concede that non-manmade influences are capable of halting the advance of GHG-forced warming, albeit temporarily; you concede that natural forcing can be a substantial minority effect rather than tiny. (IPCC p136 shows it as tiny: a profound flaw.)

Please let me know if I misrepresent you there. To concede a fair point is not a weakness; it's rather a badge of integrity, and you have risen in my estimation.

MFS (872): I'm not quite arguing that cooling is 100% due to the sun. I'm not being slippery here. It's this:

The ups and downs in the past (viz Japanese blossom, Aletsch glacier, Canadian molluscs) tell us that SOMETHING has caused a degree or two of cooling at certain times. Let's call him Boreas, the god of the chilly north wind.

Over the millennia there have certainly been warming periods, after which Boreas has arrived (phew!) to cool us down again. Who is he? We don't know for certain, but we have a promising candidate from Mr. Svensmark.

May I ask a favour? How do I place a jpeg on TinyPics?

> You concede that non-manmade influences are capable of halting the advance of GHG-forced warming, albeit temporarily; ...

Sheesh! You have **only just** realised this, despite having spouted endlessly about how the climate scientists seem likely to have it all wrong? Every climate scientists agrees; in fact they insist on it because we don't have a decent explanation for observations without it. I doubt you can find anyone who has seriously claimed otherwise within earshot of you either. (And I'm sure others have insisted on pointing this out to you any number of times over your posting history - I'm fairly sure I have a number of times.)

Perhaps you will now realise you've been tilting at windmills and impugning others for months on end.

> I'm not quite arguing that cooling is 100% due to the sun.

Er, yes, you are, even though you're dumb enough not to realise it. Your argument:

> I assume that you will now concede that the decline in global temperatures from 1940 to 1975, whilst CO2 was rising, blows the AGW theory out of the water.

...**relies** on it. Never mind that *that* argument **contradicts** your other belief:

> non-manmade influences are capable of halting the advance of GHG-forced warming, albeit temporarily...

And then you imply it's all due to the sun again:

> Who is he? We don't know for certain, but we have a promising candidate from Mr. Svensmark.

Try to stick to arguments that don't contradict each other. One day you might even reach a correct position.

And how are you going with [my questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2796608)? Or is calling someone "slippery" and then quickly running away what passes for reason in your book?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent,

I'm not sure it makes much difference. You explanation seems to suggest you're arguing that, because the sun or other factors have had a cooling or warming effect in the past, they must be responsible (or carbon cannot be responsible) this time around. That is illogical. It is akin to the ultimate ad hominem: so-and-so were wrong in the past, therefore they must be wrong now (regardless of all evidence to the contrary)

Lotharsson: Your two questions:

(a) I do not know why you posted the Japanese Cherry Blossom graph. But it's good, and will help me in an attempt to predict the next turning point of the Aletsch Glacier.

(b) You car analogy - hurtling towards the rocks. I figured that I had addressed this when mentioning derivatives, but since you persist I will answer. In Newtonian mechanics, if positions, velocities, masses and forces are known it's a doddle. In Climatography, the drivers (both cooling and heating drivers) are disputed, and hence any extrapolation of today's temperature by assuming recent rate of change must continue is a groundless assumption.

IPCC p136 (bar charts showing +ve and -ve forcings) is big on positive forcing and small on its opposite. It's asymmetric. Historically there has been equilibrium between red and blue, otherwise we'd already have fried or frozen. The implicit claim in IPCC p136 is that this equilibrium has now ceased due to unprecedented GHGs.

If this were so, the rate of increase 1800-2010, or 1975-1998 if you prefer, would be unprecedented. It isn't. We've been here before. And we have evidence of rate-of-decrease which match it in the past. What drove these?

What's the missing blue bit on their graph - the cooling bars? (Remember: They MUST have been there in past centuries!) I have dubbed it Boreas, and am hopeful that Svensmark's hypothesis will give chapter and verse on how higher albedo provides cooling; closed loop control. But the possibility remains that Boreas has some other identity; if I name a couple you'll accuse me of being a fantasist.

> I do not know why you posted the Japanese Cherry Blossom graph.

To show that your assertions that (a) you diligently sought and used the most appropriate data set available, and (b) that it was suitable to draw global conclusions from - were rather silly (more so since you've been corrected on this a dozen times and still do it, and fail to recognise when someone is showing it up yet again).

> I figured that I had addressed this when mentioning derivatives, but since you persist I will answer.

No.

Your "shorter Brent" argument is "we've had this temperature before, so nothing to worry about". You're essentially arguing that "what was driving temperature *before* must be also driving it *now*, merely because you claim that absolute temperatures and their rate of change have precedent".

I **really** shouldn't need to explain to anyone who's had a few years of high school why this is false logic.

But it was needed - hence my analogy where what is driving the car's speed trajectory is *different*, even though the current observations of *speed* are the same *as have been historically observed*.

And the important corollary was that failing to identify the *differences* between two situations that may have the *same current measurements* will lead to falsely assuming the same outcomes.

This particular fallacy has been one of your party tricks from your early posting days here, despite having been corrected on it numerous times.

> ...the drivers (both cooling and heating drivers) are disputed,...

Not nearly as much as you imply. Most of them are reasonably well known, some are more uncertain, but - even though we'd like to do better, and are working on it - physics constrains the magnitude of the contribution to a reasonable degree.

> IPCC p136 (bar charts showing +ve and -ve forcings) is big on positive forcing and small on its opposite.

...and this means they are...what, wrong? Merely because they are asymmetric? Oh, wait...

> Historically there has been equilibrium between red and blue, otherwise we'd already have fried or frozen.

Historically the planet has largely frozen at times, precisely because the *total radiation balance* has changed, and then unfrozen, precisely because the *total radiation balance* has changed. But it's a basic error to assume that it is "equilibrium between red and blue [forcings]" that determines the equilibrium temperature. The IPCC graph (assuming it's the one I think) shows **forcings**, which by definition are differences from a reference state. And the concept of equilibrium radiation balance includes changes in outgoing radiation levels due to changes in the earth's temperature (which is an important factor in establishing a new equilibrium temperature), which you don't seem to understand.

> The implicit claim in IPCC p136 is that this equilibrium has now ceased due to unprecedented GHGs.

The GHG *levels* are NOT unprecedented, but IIRC their rates of change are.

And yes, the implicit claim is that the radiation imbalance is currently positive which leads to warming which would continue (assuming nothing else changed) until a new equilibrium temperature is reached.

> If this were so, the rate of increase 1800-2010, or 1975-1998 if you prefer, would be unprecedented.

Only if the **current total forcing** is unprecedented, which is not what you have shown. You have assumed that since once forcing is changing at unprecedented rates, that total forcing must also be, and that must be fairly immediately represented in temperature change.

To respond another way...if I take a high performance vehicle out on a drag strip and accelerate it at greater than 1g, does it mean that should I drive it over a cliff my acceleration would have to be "historically unprecedented" and therefore must exceed 1g?

> What's the missing blue bit on their graph - the cooling bars? (Remember: They MUST have been there in past centuries!)

You firstly appear to be confusing forcings which are differences from a reference level with absolute levels. And secondly you are probably erroneously assuming that the subject of the graph includes forcings from past centuries. This leads to the unsupported and probably incorrect assertion that there's a "missing blue bit".

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 14 Sep 2010 #permalink

> Wow, you ask why I don't use a renewable source of energy.

> Same reason as you, mate: The capacity is trivial and intermittent.

So is nuclear. Capacity is trivial and intermittent.

And so is Gas: capacity, trivial and intermittent.

And, in the 1850's, coal. Capacity, trivial and intermittent.

So I guess that coal never took off, hmm?

You idiot.

PS you ARE using renewable, but you don't want your stock options to die just yet, you have your greed to maintain...

> Swap your car for a pedal car or a bike? Fat chance of that: you wouldn't be able to drive to the supermarket and benefit from their state-of-the-art logistics.

Wow. So you don't know squat here either.

I cycle to work, I walk to the shops. And "state of the art" logistics?

You mean "when I run out of something, ask for some more"..?

Your problem with this is you're projecting. Just because you can't get your fat ass to work or to the shops without your car, you assume that it's impossible.

The possibilities are beyond the reach of your intellect, close though these ideas are, because your intellect is feeble.

And what about the EV owners? They're using renewable to get to the shops, etc.

So many options, all beyond your feeble grasp.

Wow, your postings bring joy into my life!

Thank you for saying that nuclear power is trivial and intermittent. This statement is a window on your intellect!

I dream of an island somewhere which by referendum decides to split in two. On one side are normal people with normal lives: they have the conventional power stations on their side of the island. On the other live the woolly-minded watermelons with their solar panels and windmills.

Let's say that you went to live on the latter. How long would you and your fellows survive?

Having scoffed at you, I do admire your choosing to live without a car.

> Thank you for saying that nuclear power is trivial and intermittent. This statement is a window on your intellect!

Thinking that shows your lack of intellect.

> Let's say that you went to live on the latter. How long would you and your fellows survive?

Problem: the loonies think that "conventional power stations" means "coal fired".

But they'd live longer than you lot. Less pollution, less money going out of the country and no problem with running out of fuel. Well, not for about 4.5 billion years.

Your side will be whinging about how we must be hogging all the coal and freezing your bollocks off in winter.

s/they'd/we'd/

Brent,

>On the other live the woolly-minded watermelons with their solar panels and windmills.

Well if we're on an island, why not use wave power and tidal power as well? They fill in some of the gap. They can use a heatbank to even out the spikes from the solar panels and wind turbines like they currenty do at Mawson Station with their wind turbine.

While we're at it, the island could even be a coral atoll... so they'll have plenty of geothermal from the extict volcano they're sitting on. Hey look, with wind, sun, waves, tides and hot rocks their energy is cheap and plentiful! Hey look! The economy of the conventionally powered part of the island is sinking, they can't catch enough fish and farm enough coconuts to pay for their coal!

Why, o why do you keep coming up with these absurd examples?

MFS, it was an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of those who enjoy the fruits of an advanced society but advocate shutting down the bulk of the energy supplies which make it all possible. The idea of windmills and solar panels is all very well, but they contribute vitrually nothing; it is argued that windmills are even counterproductive (see Etherington's 'The Great Wind Farm Scam').

The 'every little helps' mentality (actually, no it doesn't... these token efforts to replace coal, nuclear, gas and petroleum perpetuate the myth that renewables will replace the bulk of western generating capacity. No they won't.) is causing our political leaders to squander great sums of public money on these white elephants.

The island idea was a playful attempt to imagine a world where responsible citizens separated from the dreamers, with each group bearing the consequences. At the moment, green hypocrites consume similar energy to the rest of us whilst claiming piously to somehow be above the grubby business.

Energy is one of the bedrocks of our civilization.

> MFS, it was an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of those who enjoy the fruits of an advanced society

We in the pro-renewable camp wish to enjoy the fruits of an advanced *20th Century* society, as opposed to the *19th Century* technology of "lets burn that stuff for heat".

You just wish to keep it all in the early Victorian Era when Britagne was The Centre Of The Universe.

You pathetic outdated moron.

... and as has been pointed out numerous times before to our resident goldfish, Etherington (regarded as the intellectual guru of Country Guardian - a Nukes R Nice frontgroup), is hardly neutral regarding renewables.

["The anti-wind lobby took off in 1992 with a group called Country Guardian, which was worried by wind power's potential to damage landscape. It strongly denies accusations of having close links with the nuclear industry, even though its chair is Sir Bernard Ingham, who is a paid lobbyist for British Nuclear Fuels.](http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/may/07/utilities.greenpolitics)

Lotharsson (878):

Useful though the Jap data is, it is indirect. This is why I consider the Central England series the gold standard. The CET is a record of thermometer readings. No interpretation, no proxies, no confirmation bias, no slippery politicised well-meaning tweaking. Just facts.

I began to reply in detail to your 878, but ended up much too wordy, and deleted.

In short, the IPCC graph compares the radiation balance of 1750 with today's, and acknowledges great uncertainty where clouds and albedo are concerned. Even today we are only beginning to understand how two-faced clouds are, keeping us warm at night, but blocking the sun's heat by day. Joni Mitchell was right.

You reckoned that I assumed that the IPCC barchart "includes forcings from past centuries". No, I was just pointing out that the CET, the Japanese proxy and the Aletsch proxy all indicate that in past centuries the equal and opposite of The Great Global Warming Event has often occurred. Like most scaremongering, this theory is quick to scream "be afraid", and slow to admit that there are equal and opposite grounds for reassurance.

I grew up with a poisonous newspaper, the Express, which would parade before its gullible readers the many threats about to extinguish our way of life. I became a stoic as a reaction against this. As an example, they would scream "Billions Wiped off the Stockmarket" on Monday, and yet lack the vocabulary to describe Tuesday's complete recovery. "Wiped Back On" just didn't work!

There is perhaps an element of faith in being stoical, or maybe not faith... maybe a more apt word is judgment. When all the left-brainers are quantifying threat with great precision, it is sometimes best to engage the right-brain and ask, "does this clever stuff tally with common-sensical judgment?".

If you must, believe that the end is nigh. I can't prove that these millions of years of continuity are not about to be snuffed out by carbon dioxide.

Brent,

That's all very well, and I don't think any reasonable intelligent adult would dispute that newspapers are fearmongers because doom and gloom sell like hotcakes, and the media's only reason for being is to sell itself.

But you're confusing the media's calculated, profitable hysteria with the reality of global warming. You are, IIRC, an engineer. You have presumably recieved the majority of the content that shapes your view of the world through the media, as most people have, and like they, are not in the habit of regularly reading the primary literature. Think on that.

Your stock market example is for once a good one. Most people I talk to seem to think putting money in shares is purely a form of gambling. Those who have done some research, perhaps read Graham, know better, and can make it consistently pay a reasonable rate of return, in the long run.

But there are two sides to every story, and even chicken little, the preferred parable of deniers, has a counterpart, the boy who cried wolf. When you have become inured to disregarding so-called warnings, is there a chance you may happen to ignore a valid one?

Bent:

the Aletsch proxy all indicate that in past centuries the equal and opposite of The Great Global Warming Event has often occurred

And when, pray tell, was the Aletsch increasing as rapidly as it is now decreasing? Or is the above just another of Bent's bare-faced lies.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink

> ...but advocate shutting down the bulk of the energy supplies which make it all possible.

Strawman goldfish.

> This is why I consider the Central England series the gold standard. The CET is a record of thermometer readings.

And still you (a) miss the bigger point that your "gold standard" is completely irrelevant to **global averages**.

> In short, the IPCC graph compares the radiation balance of 1750 with today's,...

...which means despite the paragraphs you wrote after this statement that there are no "missing blue bits from earlier centuries" as you previously appear to have asserted.

> No, I was just pointing out that the CET, the Japanese proxy and the Aletsch proxy all indicate that in past centuries the equal and opposite of The Great Global Warming Event has often occurred.

Firstly, **no they do not**. They are **regional** indicators, and you **cannot** draw global conclusions from them. Do you have any idea how many times you've made this mistake - and been called on it?

Secondly, saying in context of a chart "where are the missing blue bits", it implies to most readers that you think there are blue bits that **should be shown on the chart**. You need to express yourself more clearly.

Thirdly you are (surprise, surprise!) repeating the major fallacy that I responded to with my falling car analogy.

And fourthly, I don't think you realise that you have not even shown that "...in past centuries the equal and opposite of The Great Global Warming Event has often occurred".

> Like most scaremongering, this theory is quick to scream "be afraid", and slow to admit that there are equal and opposite grounds for reassurance.

Complete and utter goldfish tosh.

You show no signs of understanding the reasoning behind the concerns, so you are in no position to make this claim.

And as has been pointed out to you any number of times, scientists are *highly motivated* (Nobel prizes awaiting and eternal glory and all that) to show that we don't have much to worry about so your claim is the complete opposite of reality.

> When all the left-brainers are quantifying threat with great precision, it is sometimes best to engage the right-brain and ask, "does this clever stuff tally with common-sensical judgment?".

And yet almost always it is not better to do that - and you show **zero indication** of having the judgement to tell the difference. Pray tell, do you figure out the difference by using left brain analysis or common sense?

> I can't prove that these millions of years of continuity are not about to be snuffed out by carbon dioxide.

What a strange strawman to be attacking.

Wake me up when you've got something of substance rather than these comforting little fairy tales.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 15 Sep 2010 #permalink

MFS (889): You make a good point hat scepticism should not tempt one into disregarding genuine threats. There esometimes IS a great slavering wolf to fear, and the appropriate response is then to be afraid.

As you rightly say, one should find the primary literature in order to assess. Chris (890) asks me when, pray, the Aletsch has exhibited the equal-and-opposite behaviour leading me to suppose that the retreat since 1860 is merely part of a cycle. Answer: the 3300m retreat in those 150 years is matched by a 2700m advance between 1250 and 1369. A faster advance, of 1700m, occurred in the 70 year period from 1350AD. It comes and goes. It just happened to begin retreating in 1860, long before we invented the diabolic 'Carbon Emissions' expression.

Scaremongering succeeds because of an innate human need to fear risk. It is assymetric. In the stockmarket example, stoics like myself invest when others are overestimating risk, which is why I filled my boots with BP shares at 298p. They are currently at 409p, heading for 450 plus in my judgment.

The climatographers who trumpet the recent warming as unprecedented need to explain away the equal-and-opposite coolings from history. Our fears are asymmetric: one man's fear is another man's opportunity.

Lotharsson (891): You make a good point about the opportunities (Nobel Prizes and all that) for somebody who can find the silver bullet that kills the carbon monster. I couldn't agree more.

In the three examples we have discussed (Aletsch, Cherry Blossom Festival and downticks in the CET record) we are better at explaining warming than cooling. A great prize awaits the person or team which can explain cooling periods.

In our discussions here I have taken two approaches. Firstly to examine the psychological reasons for our asymmetric risk assessment, and secondly to seek out the loopholes in the science presented by the IPCC within my limitations.

If you warmists can decisively win on the twin battlefields of sensitivity and feedback, you'll win and the world must embark on the great endevour to eliminate CO2 production from man's activities. The two big questions are: "Is CO2 the single most important driver of temperature, dwarfing the influence of solar and aerosols?" and "Does a rise in global temperatures lead to further warming (positive feedback) or are there cooling mechanisms which will become more important as temperature rises (negative)?"

I think your answers are Yes and The Former. Please correct me if I misunderstand you.

brent, a real estate investment on tuvalu would be a winner.

you could build a pub in the water on the beach and the warmer's could dismally wade around knee deep in the bar.

slogan - come and sink a pot at the sinking pub;.

your great great great grandchildren would still be stooging the torrid tourists

Sunspot, you've got the kernel of a great investment opportunity there.

Kipling wrote "when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you". My investment activities don't go beyond buying shares I expect to rise, but if I could figure out how to trade in "carbon futures" I could make a killing. The likes of Lotharsson will be betting on a rise while I am 'shorting'.

In March 2008, a website called Carbon Positive reported that "Prices this week [on the CCX] hit the $5.50-$5.70 range per tonne of CO2e, up from $2.30 in late January." A year ago they had fallen to 10c, and are still there. Tell me, is 10c more or less than 'a plugged nickel'?

Message to all our warmist friends: there's a major investment opportunity waiting for you there!

looks like deutsche bank reckon they've bought at the bottom and are trying to hook a few suckers into throwing their wealth into useless ventures, i bet a few of the mugs in here bought at the top

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s7m

John, if you're out there, can I raise a question with you?

You have asked me before, "Brent, why do you hate science?" You also posted a statement of mine "...and the science is NEVER settled", a statement I am happy to stand by.

Would you say that science can reach a state of grace where no further work is required? Just before Einstein they thought that there remained just a few details to be mopped up, and of course this was wrong. I'm interested in your viewpoint.

For my part, I reckon that anomalies - I mean things which do not conform to the current understanding - are something to be cherished. They can be the doorway to a new, more accurate, understanding. When a previous view is overturned it brings no shame to those who previously trod the path. Einstein didn't make a fool of Newton; he stood on Newton's shoulders. Perhaps you misinterpreted my "... and is NEVER settled" to mean that all science is transient cobblers.

I would welcome your views. But please try and stay civil.

Sunspot, thanks for the link to the Reuters piece on Deutsche Bank.

"Fulton argues that the âbasic laws of physics dictate that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the earth's atmosphere produce warming." This is great. I would add that the basic laws of physics dictate that drinking more water will reduce sea levels. The missing word in both cases is "significantly".

My task for the week is to figure out how to do some short selling against Deutsce Bank's global warming fund. If I manage to make a killing, I will donate a third of the proceeds to an organization engaged in habitat conservation. Lotharsson, please put your pension into this fund. Together we will make a difference: you will be poorer, I will be richer, and we'll hopefully save some rhinos. I have a wild-assed idea: to offer tamper-proof digital cameras free to rhino poachers and to buy every unique and date-stamped photo for hard cash. I'll call it "Shoot A Rhino"tm.

> My task for the week is to figure out how to do some short selling against Deutsce Bank's global warming fund

Uh, this is managed by a arcane procedure called [buying an option](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)). If you don't know how to buy shares, how did you buy shares earlier???

But go ahead and buy into Deutsche Bank shares futures and short them.

Bet the lot on it.

Dare ya.

Wow, I have never "shorted" before. Don't know how to do it. Always seemed like profiting from bad news. But if I can find the DB fund which rises as a consequence of Thermageddon I will gladly put my money where my mouth is and make money out of the very reverse happening. At present, I only know how to buy and sell shares and the funds which are a basket of such shares.

> Wow, I have never "shorted" before.

So? It's only share purchases and selling.

No great magic.

> Don't know how to do it.

You don't know how to buy shares? Here's some help:

You: Hi, Mr Share Manager, can you short Deutsche Bank shares for me.
Mr Share Manager: Sure. How much?

You DO have shares in other companies. Same deal here.

> At present, I only know how to buy and sell shares

And Shorting is just buying and selling shares, except the sell is now and the buy is in the future. The same guy you get to organise the share purchase with will do the same, just say "I want to short".

This is not rocket science.

It takes more knowledge to know that you CAN short shares than to know how to short them.

But you seem to have the *oddest* gaps in your intelligence.

Bent:

the 3300m retreat in those 150 years

The 3300m of retreat was up to 2002. It has continued at 50m per year since then so is now up to 3700m and counting.... As Holzhauser points out:

"it must be borne in mind that the dynamics of the Great Aletsch glacier tongue not only constitute a smoothed but also a slightly delayed function of direct climate and mass balance forcing. In this case, the corresponding time lag is estimated at a few decades, which means that the glacier tongue would have to be hundreds of metres shorter than now in order to adjust to conditions of the year 2004."

is matched by a 2700m advance between 1250 and 1369.

I don't think 2700m quite matches 3700m and counting.

A faster advance, of 1700m

It needs to be as large as the present retreat (3700m) to be be able to able to say the present is precedented. So contrary to the lying Bent:

the Aletsch proxy all indicate that in past centuries the equal and opposite of The Great Global Warming Event has often occurred

the equal and opposite of the Aletsch's present retreat hasn't even occurred once, let alone "often".

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 16 Sep 2010 #permalink

Well done on posting that Aletsch Glacier data Chris.

At best exposing the facts are damningly indicative of the degree of blatant self-deception required to continue in denial.

At worst would be ... but, well it's very unlikely someone of Brent's calibre is.

>I would welcome your views. But please try and stay civil.

Tone troll. I have no intention of being polite to you, Idiot.

Why do I think you hate science? Because you think that believing in your own gut feelings and "winning the PR battle" is more important that science. Your views on warming are short term, and shift to whatever you believe will score quick points (which is why it is so easy to pick at howlers like claiming science is never settled, before proclaiming the science settled).

Plus, you show no capacity towards skepticism as you believe whatever you are told as long as it contradicts the consensus you despise.

This is not science.

You are an idiot.

Chris, the Aletsch's current retreat is 3400m, not 3000m or 3700m.

1860-2005 3400m in 150 years: 22.7m per annum
1250-1369 2700m in 119 years: 22.7m per annum
1590-1666 1600m in 76 years: 21.1m per annum

[I wrote earlier: "In the 70 year period from 1350..." Typo. Should have written "In the 70 year period from 1590..." or even 76 years. Apologies.]

Holzhauser wrote in 2005: "it is highly probable that, in the near future (around 2050), the previous minimum extent of Late Bronze Age may, therefore, be reached or even markedly exceeded."

(a) In forty years time we may reach an unprecedentedly short glacier. You find this alarming, I assume.

(b) The three rates of change I quote above I have taken from Holzhauser's graph. I omitted to add 'retreat', 'advance' and 'advance' to the 3 lines. I assume you find a retreat of 22.7m per annum more alarming than a 22.7m per annum advance.

On occasion it has retreated by a whopping 50m in a year. I wouldn't be surprised if the 1260-1369 advance, had we the data, was sometimes faster and sometimes slower than the mean.

Do you agree that advances and retreats are pretty much symmetrical?

Pesky website reformatting my lines unasked!

1860-2005 3400m in 150 years: 22.7m per annum. (Retreat)

1250-1369 2700m in 119 years: 22.7m per annum. (Advance)

1590-1666 1600m in 76 years: 21.1m per annum. (Advance)

Imagine six crabs making a living in a coastal rockpools.

Chekcrab: "Omygod! The tide's going out!"

Chriscrab: "Aaaargh! No sea, no food."

Slothcrab: "I agree with you two. The science is settled. No food means starvation. Scientifically proven. Omygod!"

Warrencrab: "Relax, dudes. It's done this before."

Brentcrab: "Yes, it's cyclical. Dunno why."

Johncrab: "Idiot. Moron. Poo poo. So there."

Sunspotcrab: "I hear that the moon makes the sea go back and forth."

Unscepticcrabs, in unison: "The breathing of crabs makes the sea retreat, and that's all we know. We're all gonna die. And it's our fault!"

Too busy writing cartoons about crabs and their wacky hi jinks to short the shares, Brent?

> Brentcrab: "Yes, it's cyclical. Dunno why."

Chekcrab: "It's called "tides", Dumbass". Now explain this wicker basket thingy that all the other crabs say is a bad thing to walk into because crabs go missing and die"

Brentcrab: "There is no 100% proof that crabs die when they are lifted up in those things, therefore you're just scaring us and trying to send us back to the larval stage!!!"

Stop hurting Brent's tender feelings everyone. He might leave for the seventh time.

Wow, your #901 shows that you know as much about securities trading as John does about manners.

That Isle of Wight windmill manufacturer that went bust would've been a perfect target for shorting. Too late now, though. The economics of wind energy was pretty irrelevant there: the essential skill of windmill makers is to suck on the subsidy teat; the production engineering is neither here nor there.

Timing is also important: I have to judge the moment when the general public concludes that we've all been conned by the Carbonocracy. When that happens, and stand-up comedians get a laugh out of "Shifty looking bloke took me to one side and muttered, ''Ere, mate, wanna buy some surplus windmills?' ", the politicians will realise which side their bread is buttered, and pull the plug.

My broker's website has an "Alternative Energy" listing. On the London market I find PV Crystalox Solar plc (PVCS.L). Their shares were trading at 175p two years ago. Today 54p. Shareholders have lost two thirds of their shirts. Will they dive further? If that Chris Huhne says, "Here's a hundred million of other people's hard-earned dosh", the price might recover. This is risky, Wow.

Look here: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/update-2-pv-crystalox-hit-by-2011-sola…

What's ruining this company? SUBSIDY CUTS. Git in th' hole!!

There's Clean Energy Brazil plc: they have magically turned £140m into £21.03m in two years. There's Proton Power Systems (PPS.L): Share price is a bargain at 3.62p (down from 75p in 2007) and earnings per share of - WHAT? - minus 5.5p???.

Clearly this Bargain Basement of Barking Barmpots has had its heyday. It takes real talent to destroy 95% of shareholders' capital.

Bent:

the Aletsch's current retreat is 3400m, not 3000m or 3700m.

No, it was 3300m in 2002. Try to get your facts right.

In forty years time we may reach an unprecedentedly short glacier.

No, in forty years time it is highly probable that we will have an unprecedentedly short glacier. And if you assume that the rate of shrinkage of the glacier suddenly stops, contradicting the accelerating trend, then it will arrive at the unprecedented length by 2025. It was 1000m longer than the minimum in 2005 so it would now be down to 750m longer than the minimum. Another 15 years and that'll be gone. So yes, I do find that somewhat alarming.

Do you agree that advances and retreats are pretty much symmetrical?

You are still ignoring the fact that the present retreat is unprecedented. i.e. it is not symmetrical with anything. BTW, Holzhauser's graph has nowhere else with the current extent and rate of decrease occurring at the same time.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 16 Sep 2010 #permalink

> Wow, your #901 shows that you know as much about securities trading as John does about manners.

Oh? In what way?

Your mere statement doesn't make it.

> Timing is also important: I have to judge the moment when the general public concludes that we've all been conned by the Carbonocracy

Ah, so you don't know if it will be a good investment, then.

So why did you say:

> My task for the week is to figure out how to do some short selling against Deutsce Bank's global warming fund.

Surely your task (should you EVER undertake it, which is never going to happen because you're a lazy arsehole) would be to find out when to short, not how to short.

Funny how you're hot on probable risk when it comes to shorting stock (there's a finite chance that shorting NOW will net you profit, so less than 100% chance you will fail to make profit), yet you fail to consider that there's a 95% chance that AGW will be as bad or worse than the IPCC state but REFUSE to hedge that bet.

Chris, thanks for that link to the BHP boss calling for carbon taxes. How strange! The rest of business is horrified. I can only assume that he believes in Global Warming like his PM. Chalk that one up to your side!

As for the Aletsch Glacier, I see how immune you are to evidence. Without wishing to put you on the spot, how do you explain the thousand-metre dash it made between 1750 and 1840? Go on. Explain. The people were so concerned at the loss of farmland that they had the Catholic church trying to stop it with prayer. (It worked; some say it was correlation, not causation...)

Christ, if we carry on like this the English wine industry will be picking up where the Romans left off. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

If you can't explain the galcier's advance at least have the decency to concede that 'forces unknown' were in operation then and in the other instances of glacial advance.

Brent, you've been shown to be talking out of your orifice about one of your self-proclaimed, special interest yardsticks.

Was it the answer in a Christmas cracker you once had?

I'd recommend you just STFU, and go read at least a wiki paragraph or two.

Or you could continue on.

It's not like it's possible for you to look any more stupid and uninformed.

So, gentlemen, and lady, after long reflection I conclude the following: the Global Warming theory is just the latest incarnation of a historic series of scare stories, meeting the basic human need: to fear that some disaster is just around the corner.

Its proponents fall into a number of mutually supporting categories: scientists whose funding benefits from perpetuating the myth, green activists with an anti-development agenda, politicians who in seeking the green vote divert precious resource to combat an illusory threat, and finally the dim fellow travellers who spend their lives on Deltoid and its equivalents.

But with every passing year the patience of the public grows thinner as they observe that the proclaimed apocalypse shows no sign of materialising. The scare story has had a good run, but since peaking in 2003, public perception has shifted from general acceptance, via bemused detachment, to gentle scorn. I await the final two phases: outright ridicule and then anger at having been so deceived.

The scientific debate being conducted at high level will ultimately be settled once the two key scientific questions - feedback and sensitivity - are resolved. In many other - more linear - fields such questions are soon resolved; in the murky mists of the chaotic climate lurks many a scoundrel. Flushing them out make take a decade or more.

For the full, authentic effect of all that empty, fact-free and presumptuous ranting Brent, you really need to be waving a half-empty tin of 8.2% Special Brew around with one hand and brandishing some grease-stained, two week old copy from Christopher Booker's back catalogue of fish wraps in the other.

The topography of your interior dialogue is about that interesting.

Bent:

the BHP boss calling for carbon taxes. I can only assume that he believes in Global Warming. How strange!

Yes I know the world is a very strange place for people like you who are in denial of reality.

As for the Aletsch Glacier, I see how immune you are to evidence

As usual when Bent loses the argument he gives up and resorts to resorts to hypocrisy and goal-post shifting. Bent's symmetry argument is crying out "Bent, Bent, where are you? I'll die if you don't rescue me. Please help me." RIP Bent's symmetry argument.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 16 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent,

>"Chris, thanks for that link to the BHP boss calling for carbon taxes. How strange! The rest of business is horrified. I can only assume that he believes in Global Warming like his PM. Chalk that one up to your side!"

The CEO of the largest mining company in the world has access to the best scientific and legal advice that money can buy. He is not going to take unsupported ideological positions that will hurt the bottom line. He is using this advice to position his company in the best way he can, given the likely way this is going to play out.

What I'm trying to say is: this is only strange to you because you're in denial.

>*He is not going to take unsupported ideological positions that will hurt the bottom line.*

A sound point. And stronger for the fact that it is not claiming he would never take an unsupported ideological position.

Brent's changed my mind.

What with continually rising temperatures, melting icecaps, changing ecosystems, and an increse in extreme weather events I can rest safe knowing it's all a scientific fra*d because sometimes it's cold where Brent lives, which I believe is his final argument.

Also there's something about climate sensitivity which he's admitted he knows nothing about, and seems unaware that the evidence is marching in the opposite direction of his personal beliefs.

Brent finally says:

>So, gentlemen, and lady, after long reflection I conclude the following: the Global Warming theory is just the latest incarnation of a historic series of scare stories, meeting the basic human need: to fear that some disaster is just around the corner.

Except that he's already said:

>My best shot at an explanation is that this great myth meets a basic human need which has been satisfied by a variety of demons down the ages, AGW being the latest incarnation.

And:

>For my part, I seek to distinguish between real risks and illusory ones (I guess we all of us think weâre doing this). In raising historical scare-stories I seek to dismiss Global Warming as the latest incarnation of apocalypticism.

So how about the "real risks" of sending us to the stone age if we stop burning fossil fuels?

Can we have the assessment that brought that one out of the "alarmist claptrap"/"great myth" category into "real risks" that are your only concerns, Brent?

Flying in the face of one the biggest, internationally peer reviewed and internationally co-ordinated scientific projects ever put into practice, backed by the national science academies of every major nation ... Brent prefers to believe the airport book psychology of right wing comedy ranter Booker's tome, 'Scared to Death', which is Brent's current ideological bible.

Being an irrational, closet Jehovah's Witness type, Brent feels the need to 'convert' people, the shallowness of his own understanding being no deterrent. I expect he'll be back shortly with a new tack, which will turn out to be the same old tack.

BHP Billiton: The word is on Jo Nova that the boss of BHP is playing a sophisticated game intended to lower his company's overall tax burden.

I don't see the shares crashing so he must have the support of his shareholders.

Johnboy, you DO spend a lot of your time studying my postings. I thank you for pointing out their consistency. Maybe you should get out more? Pray tell, what do you do for a living?

> I thank you for pointing out their consistency.

Unfortunately, Rent boy thinks that black is white and we've always been at war with Eurasia.

If he understood the consistency of his arguments (extremely runny), he would not be thanking anyone for pointing it out.

It's a good example of his willful ignorance however.

must be the cold weather ?

Himalayan Glaciers Seem to Be Growing
In the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s8w

12 more glaciers that havenât heard the news about global warming

Turns out the IPCCâs chicken little story that all the Himalayan glaciers are melting is just another exaggeration. Or fra#d. Take your choice. You know, like the stats coming out of East Anglia CRU. And its claim that Antarctica is melting. And that Greenlandâs ice cap is melting. And that sea levels are rising. And that the polar bears are dying. Fact is, some glaciers are retreating, but many others around the world are growing.

âBut how is that possible? How can glaciers be growing when the world is warming up like a package of Jiffy-Pop in a microwave?â

Here are a dozen glaciers (or groups of glaciers) around the world that are growing almost as quickly as global warming skepticism.

Himalayan glaciers are growing, not shrinking

Things are not as they seemed to be in the IPCC report. Not only are the Himalayan glaciers not shrinking, theyâre growing. Discovery reports:

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s8x

Here's a (partial) list of the
specific glaciers that are growing

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s8y

> Fountain said that similar trends were evident in some Scandinavian glaciers during the 1990s, which benefited from increased storminess and precipitation coming off the North Atlantic Ocean.

And those scandanavian glaciers shrank yet again, the gains were transient.

Poor spotty kid.

He's just like that German Prince in Blackadder 2. Shorty, greasy, spot-spot.

Or maybe we shouldn't inconwenience him like this and get him locked up for his own good...

I can assist spotty [with his on going project of cherry picking](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2803313), this time glaciers that are the exception to the trend.

[Scroll down to figure 2](http://www.skepticalscience.com/An-overview-of-glacier-trends.html), the growing glaciers stand out like a saw thumb.

Question for spotty, does cherry picking show scientific rigor, or does it show more about your poor process and prejudice?

akerz don't bother posting me links to that biased crappy site, they try to force square pegs into circular holes.

Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists", is recovering artifacts in mid-Norway, 1850 meters above sea level. He has found "specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe" in the Jotunheimen mountains, The Home of the Giants, inspired by the name Jötunheimr in Norse mythology. The findings are very significant, with 600 artifacts recovered in the Juvfonna ice-field alone.

Rune Strand Oedegaard, a glacier and permafrost expert from Norway's Gjoevik University College states that "SOME ice fields are at their minimum for at least 3000 years,". Interestingly, though, is that these artifacts seem to be from the Iron Age, more or less 1500 years ago, or even from Viking times, only 1000 years ago. This leads to the conclusion that these artifacts are from the Medieval Warm Period, and not from Holocene climatic optimum, as Oedegaard states.

What remains clear from these examples is that past climate was clearly warmer, with less ice, both in glaciers and in the Arctic, not long ago.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s9f

>Johnboy, you DO spend a lot of your time studying my postings. I thank you for pointing out their consistency. Maybe you should get out more? Pray tell, what do you do for a living?

I'll take that as "John, you got me."

akerz, you didn't answer this

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s9i

your link to a UN paper, more rubbish.

Do you think australia should join the UN Security Council ? given that they engage in wars of conquest rather than peace and stability.

Do you think that the labor party has been pushing for a farcical carbon tax for reasons other than climate change ?

eg. sycophantic sucking to the UN

the kid's problem is that he doesn't like the UN or any interference in HIS country.

'course HIS country interfering in other countries is fine...

In other words, fine fodder for neo nazis and just the sort of kid who the third reich sought out early on for noise and violence.

> So how about the "real risks" of sending us to the stone age if we stop burning fossil fuels?

The irony is this "back to the stone age" meme that Brent brents repeatedly is precisely the kind of unsupported doomsday cult thinking that Brent implies motivates all concern about AGW.

It goes without saying that he's wrong on both counts - but as I said earlier, at least he's *reliably* wrong...which might inform his acquisition of a new acolyte who's also almost always wrong:

> ...your link to a UN paper, more rubbish.

Ah, the old "my entire argument is an ad hom therefore rubbish so let me throw a few red herrings out there to distract you" gambit...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 18 Sep 2010 #permalink

Spotty I notice you are on the run. Have I upset your game by [naming it](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805078).

>*does cherry picking show scientific rigor, or does it show more about your poor process and prejudice?*

Looks pretty bad for you when rather than answer that question (or [the one after](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805156)), that you simply follow up with more of you project of unrepresentative cherry picking.

;)

Hey, I just discovered a fantastic website:

http://www.350.org/home?page=1

Apparently, if enough people stand on a carpark making the numbers 3 - 5 - 0, it wil save the planet. Yay!!!

I just sent them an email asking if, with rising sea levels, it is sensible to build an ark.

Please make a note in your diaries: 10/10/10 (see what they did there?!). October 10th is a day of action, with, for instance, San Francisco bike repair workshoppers doing their bit on that wonderful day!

http://www.350.org/campaigns/1010

Sunspot, thanks for the link to "Record Breaking Cold Month". One of the commentators there wrote:

"The Met Office told us to expect a hot summer last year, they said the same about this year... they not unsurpringly got both predictions wrong. What is surprising is that they still exist in such a big way... jobs for the boys and girls? Any comments about global warming would seem trite after the weather this August!"

Imagine the noise from the Warmists if the opposite had happened! But then it'd be climate, not weather.

The *really* amusing thing about the bent/spot double act is that they WILL NEVER accept weather as proof of warming, yet _love_ to show weather to prove cooling.

I bet this is a defense mechanism to stop them falling catatonic when the sun comes up in the morning and it gets warm quickly: otherwise they'd be pronouncing the end of the world by teatime!

look akerz, here is your hero rock star pin-up boy, he tells lie's.

Last week, federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said experts predicted sea level rises of up to 6m from Antarctic melting by 2100, but the worst case scenario foreshadowed by the SCAR report was a 1.25m rise.

Mr Garrett insisted global warming was causing ice losses throughout Antarctica. "I don't think there's any doubt it is contributing to what we've seen both on the Wilkins shelf and more generally in Antarctica," he said.

now the truth--------

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week's meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades".

Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.

"Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally," Dr Allison said.

The melting of sea ice - fast ice and pack ice - does not cause sea levels to rise because the ice is in the water. Sea levels may rise with losses from freshwater ice sheets on the polar caps. In Antarctica, these losses are in the form of icebergs calved from ice shelves formed by glacial movements on the mainland.

Do you work for the government akerz ?

Spotty are you trying to ad hom me? Before I answer you question, do me this favor, tell me what difference would it make it I did or didn't work for the govt.

BTW you are reaching back to old misstatements rather that error is the science. The Antarctic doesn't need to melt for loss of ice in the Arctic to be a feedback and induce nonlinear changes to sea level. For reasons of timing, most projections of SLR exclude such non-linear effects.

After we deal with your ad hom baiting question I'll pick you up on the question you are [consistently running from](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805281).

the difference maybe that you must abide by your peers consensus, your cherry picking alludes to the possibility that you are towing the party line by dismissing evidence contrary to the CO2 theory, your sole fix for the worlds problems is a tax, follow the money, extra tax on alcohol, smokes & fuel never diminished the use of those products, CO2 tax will do nothing for the environment either.

So.....to me you appear to be a revenue agent, if not.........?

Global Warming Theory Falsified by Ocean Cooling http://www.tinyurl.com.au/sa7

Cherry picking? [Your projection](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805281) is blinding you.

You see spotty without examples you just throwing names around, and you end up looking exactly like you are.

BTW, your little pet theory requires your ad hom dismissal of anyone who works for the Govt and who agrees with the overwhelming weight of evidence. Patantely absurd.

And no matter how absurd, your pet little theory would not even apply to me as I've never worked for the government.

Now answer [my questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805281).

>Imagine the noise from the Warmists if the opposite had happened! But then it'd be climate, not weather.

Brent's right, it is pretty mild in England right now. Global warming disproven.

John pwnes Brent.

Brent is so thick and uneducated. I can't believe he thinks every cold day disproves global warming. What a moron.

Oh be fair John.

There is one blue spot on the east coast. I spose a red spot in Scotland doesn't count and those little tiny red spots you can't even see! So that doesn't count either.

akerz, my answer to your qweesteyon is another qweesteyon

did you miss this ?

Dr Lalâs admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/sac

In other words the glacier section of the IPCC is null and void

Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped. http://www.tinyurl.com.au/sad

and now there is this,

reports on a study released last week by Dutch and American scientists that shows the icecaps over Greenland and Western Antarctica are receding far more slowly than most global-warming scientists had thought. (See here, here and here.) http://www.tinyurl.com.au/sae

so why wont you concede that the alarmism is purely a political tool to extort another useless tax ?

what is extortion plan B akerz ?

Bent:

I just discovered a fantastic website

Not half as fantastic as this link. Bent should get it tatooed on his arm so he doesn't have to rely on his goldfish memory. Poor, poor glacier symmetry argument. How Bent must pine for it.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Sep 2010 #permalink

>*In other words the glacier section of the IPCC is null and void*

Spotty you are gasping at straws, and I'm afraid that straw you are clinging to wont save you.

You are referring to a corrected error in projections for glacial melt. (One error in more than 1000 pages, an commendable accuracy rate).

This has nothing to do with observation of current and past glaciers.

[These](http://www.skepticalscience.com/An-overview-of-glacier-trends.html) findings [are certainly](http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/pdfs/5.pdf) valid and beg the questions that you are so keen to avoid.

Please answer [the questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2805281).

sunsickness:

which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw

"last week" meaning the week before the 17th of January or sometime around then.

did you miss this ?

Apparently sunsickness didn't miss it but it takes 9 months for him to put his brain into gear. At least no-one could accuse him of having a mind like a steel trap.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Sep 2010 #permalink

akerz your link to 5 PDF

'The numerous length change series together with
the positions of moraines from the LIA provide a
good qualitative overview on the global and regional
glacier changes; while the mass balance series provide
quantitative measures of the ice loss since the late
1940s. However, the about 230 glacier mass balance
series are less representative for the changes in the
global ice cover. Many regions with large ice cover are
strongly underrepresented in the data set or are even
lacking in observations. Data from south of 30° N has
only been reported since 1976. As a consequence, the
field measurements with a high temporal resolution but
limited in spatial coverage should be complemented
by remotely-sensed decadal area and volume change
assessment in order to obtain a representative view of the
climate change impact on the glacierisation.'

So there is still no link between CO2 and GW, certainly not in that document.
It even tells you that what they have found to be melting, has been melting since the LIA.

Looks like cherry pickin' to me

cretinousChris,

i supplied the links so that even a 2 year old retarded chimpanzee could peruse the article, I'm happy to see that you noticed the date.

I read today that turmeric may help you with alzheimer's, and may help you to remember inconvenient facts.

Spotty so are more shrinking or growing?

[sunny sez:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2806435) "glaciers are subject to varying weather patterns"

What a marvellous insight! Such an undeniably true and economical analysis I can only think I must be missing something that maybe ain't quite so bleedin' obvious.

But assuming that the face value is just so, then more AGW = more thermal energy in the atmosphere = more evaporative capacity = more precipitation. That's also one of the reasons professional glaciologists are consulted - they tend to be aware of these things, with it being what they do an' all, rather than the third hand spin of news reports by unscientific climate trash sites.

And now your concerns about the science have been laid to rest, I'm also be interested in your sources for your standard issue, contrarian, tediously often repeated tax alarmism. I'm betting that doesn't come from credible or reputable let alone peer reviewed sources either.

Chris O'Neill (959): Thanks for the link to that Holzhauser paper.

In the abstract he says that "a comparison between the Great Aletschglacier and the residual 14C records supports the hypothesis that variations in solar activity were a majorforcing factor of climatic oscillations in west-central Europe during the late Holocene".

Would you agree that this supports the notion that the sun is a major driver of climate?

Your response should contain the word "yes" or the word "no", along with your reasons for reaching this conclusion.

Even when you're trying to be oh-so-clever, your self-imposed ignorance shines forth like a super nova Brent.

How could the sun not be "a major forcing factor of climatic oscillations in west-central Europe during the late Holocene" - i.e. in the past 3.5ka?.

How does this tally with the lowest solar activity recorded in recent history, and increasing warming in the present day? Your answer should not contain the words 'er' or the word 'um'.

> In other words the glacier section of the IPCC is null and void

Since Brent and spots have both been wrong in the past on something, everything they've said is null and void.

('specially 'tween the ears)

Bent, have you stopped beating your wife? Your response should contain the word "yes" or the word "no", along with your reasons for reaching this conclusion.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Sep 2010 #permalink

Oh and Bent, it would look really good if you could put the word "symmetrical" in you answer.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Sep 2010 #permalink

Poor old Brent, still untransparently trying to trap people into making concessions.

Hi, John!

No, you misunderstand. The purpose of the exercise here has been to reach a clear understanding of the merits of the Global Warming theory and of the mentality of its believers. It's true that I once hoped to establish common ground, moving the debate forward from what both sides agreed as basic truths, but there's no reasoning with died-in-the-wool ideologues.

In #920 I summarised my thoughts. I know that you can never agree that the climate is normal, any more than a Marxist or a Jehovah can doubt the faith that defines him. In all three cases, whatever the evidence, such people say, "Not yet, but it's gonna". Normal people cannot dissuade such ideologues; normal people have to circumvent. Just so long as bible-bashers, Marxist-Leninists and Warmists don't do serious harm, the rest of society can let them act out their fantasies. On a political level you Warmists have had a good run, but with every passing year of business-as-normal the prospects of abolishing the IPCC and squashing the budget of Climate Change ministries improve.

The public are bored already; the media are turning against you fast. When the media begin savaging the AGW industry as alarmist gravy-train fantasists, the politicians will join in. The names Monckton, Delingpole, O'Leary, Watts get right up your nose today; you ain't seen nuthin' yet!

I haven't followed the US TV programme The Daily Show for a while; that's the kind of show that exposes Dumb Extremism to the corrosive influence of laughter. Watch that space, John!

> It's true that I once hoped to establish common ground

No, you've hoped to establish YOUR ground as the only one to stand on. I point to the fact that you have not moved on iota from your position, even when in error and shown to be so.

Since you have been in error so many times and so badly, there is no common ground between your insane world and the real one that people actually inhabit.

And going "You're not agreeing with me! You MUST be biased!!!" is complete bollocks when you're going "the answer to 2+2 is Mango".

[Brent said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2808254) "but there's no reasoning with died-in-the-wool ideologues".

Yes, that became quite apparent within your first few posts, Brent.

and:

"whatever the evidence, such people say, "Not yet, but it's gonna"

followed by:

"The public are bored already; the media are turning against you fast. When the media begin savaging the AGW industry as alarmist gravy-train fantasists, the politicians will join in. The names Monckton, Delingpole, O'Leary, Watts get right up your nose today; you ain't seen nuthin' yet!

I guess Brent doesn't recognise his own gobsmacking irony, or know what the embracing and encouraging of thugs usually leads to historically.

âA stupid manâs report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.â

----Bertrand Russell

Not only is Brent a stupid man; as he has serially demonstrated with such tiresome monotony, he is willfully so.

That goes double for sunspot.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

And just suppose that one of you had recanted. Just suppose Chek or DaveR had written, "Y'know, these Denialists have a point: that the only evidence for Global Warming is a few lousy degrees in some dodgy graphs. This is so trivial compared to historical variation that I've changed my mind. It's entirely legitimate to be sceptical of these predictions. I'm out!" Such a u-turn wouldn't change a thing.

What we on this chatroom believe will not affect the worldwide debate one jot. For me personally it has been fascinating to get a glimpse of the Lysenko mentality. You warmists are utterly immune to evidence. Your hypocrisy, in doing bugger all about the allegedly world-threatening crisis (with one noble exception) is highly amusing. Because you all ran a mile when asked about your personal actions I still cannot gauge the extent to which you lot truly believe.

When children stop asking questions about Father Christmas we know why: too many searching questions will confirm the sneaking suspicion that he doesn't exist, so back off.

If Wow were building an ark in his back garden his actions would speak louder than his words. If Jakerman had given up air travel in 2002 ditto. If Jeff Harvey and Chris O'Neill went off the electricity grid, if MFS and Luminous Beauty had invested their pension funds in Clean Energy Brazil plc (see #913), your words would carry some weight.

Bunch of hypocrites.

> Just suppose Chek or DaveR had written, "Y'know, these Denialists have a point: that the only evidence for Global Warming is a few lousy degrees in some dodgy graphs.

That would, though require:

a) that the graphs were dodgy

b) that "only a few degrees" was irrelevant

Neither have been shown, Bent.

> For me personally it has been fascinating to get a glimpse of the Lysenko mentality.

Try looking in your own head.

> If Wow were building an ark in his back garden his actions would speak louder than his words

Yes, it would show I've lost the plot. Absent that evidence, it shows I haven't.

> If Jakerman had given up air travel in 2002 ditto.

And you know this hasn't happened HOW?

You will have to ignore any travel made for work: you'd get sacked if you said "no" to a requirement to travel.

> If Jeff Harvey and Chris O'Neill went off the electricity grid

Why would that be necessary? Renewables produce electricity too, but the fact that you refuse to see this shows how badly you lost the plot years ago.

> if MFS and Luminous Beauty had invested their pension funds in Clean Energy Brazil plc

So when are you investing your money in shorting Deutsche Bank? Is this indicating that you aren't buying your own bullshit?

Plus most pension funds are set to areas, not specific companies, but "green" or "fairtrade" options are available. 30% of my pension fund is in such elements. So if you shorted DB you'd be taking money off me, if you are right.

Have you the courage of your "convictions", Bent?

I don't think you have any courage at all.

[Brent said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2808908) "that the only evidence for Global Warming is a few lousy degrees in some dodgy graphs".

And it's preferring to believe that precise pseudo-reality that proves LB's point @978.

All your "side" have is hot air and a corrosive brand of rhetorical stupidity - which is adequate for those who can't comprehend the world beyond their own doorstep and like children, prefer being told stories made up by liars.

The data however are telling a more faithful story of multiple trends for those with the eyes to see and the intelligence to understand. But that ain't you, nor is it ever likely to be.

> Because you all ran a mile when asked about your personal actions I still cannot gauge the extent to which you lot truly believe.

What bullshit you spew, Bent.

I've said I cycle in to work, walk to the shops, don't fly. And if we HAD run a mile, this too would be proof that we are walking the walk.

Whilst you and spots are driving round in circles, likewise displaying your bent:

Misanthropy, greed and stupidity.

And also Bent doesn't seem to know anything about new ventures.

90% of those fail in the first three years.

But to Bent any failure of a "green" initiative is "proof" it is a failure.

Odd how a 90% figure here is ignored by Bent and also in the climate sensitivity (where the 90% chance it is 2-4.5C per doubling is likewise ignored by this ignoramus).

Maybe this is why Bent wants to short stock: a 10% chance of guessing right is, to this barnpot, a dead cert, while the 90% chance never happens...

Ah, Brent is reciting his [religious](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2808254) climate [litany](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comment-2808908) once more, complete with his traditional accusation that those who believe differently **only** do so ... out of *religious* belief.

Ironic.

I grew up in a somewhat fundamentalist religious subculture. I've seen it all before, right down to:

- "*your* beliefs are based on False Doctrine, but *mine* are based on True Doctrine", often leading to...

- "you ignore the unimpeachable Truth provided by my chosen religious texts/authorities/interpretations but cling to your own corrupt texts/authorities/interpretations", typically accompanied by arguments about methods to determine Truth and demands to recant.

*Two* people both arguing on this basis tends to lead to a rather amusing kind of multi-dimensional (and incredibly flexible) pretzel 'logic' ju jitsu in order to define "unimpeachable" to include their chosen texts/authorities and exclude those of the other.

One person arguing on that basis with another espousing science-based belief is usually at a complete head-scratching loss as to why their pretzel logic isn't found convincing. (Readers of this thread may find that sounds familiar.)

- "I'm interested in establishing common ground", where the subtext that often becomes apparent after a little drill down often includes "but only as long as the process ultimately works to undermine your beliefs and/or strengthen mine in some fashion".

- and even the "you don't have the courage of your convictions unless you prove it to *my satisfaction* by publicly meeting *my criteria*", the latter sometimes executed rather subtly and other times made far more overt - and frequently accompanied by charges of hypocrisy.

Many evangelistic believers desperately seek external validation for their beliefs because they don't have sufficient internal validation (and find insufficient levels of external validation very challenging to deal with). They seek external validation by (a) associating primarily with people who profess very similar beliefs, except when (b) desperately seeking converts who will mirror them, the necessary association with unbelievers being considered a laudable personal sacrifice.

It's difficult not to see Brent as a (somewhat frustrated) evangelist for his chosen religious beliefs.

Cue Brent erroneously projecting all of this onto climate science in:

3...

2...

1...

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent, oh Brent, you're such a dope.

>if MFS and Luminous Beauty had invested their pension funds in Clean Energy Brazil plc (see #913), your words would carry some weight.

>Bunch of hypocrites.

Hehehe... when all else fails, accuse, accuse, accuse... and keep on failing to provide evidence to back up your stance...

This is the ultimate ad hominem, though, isn't it? You don't have your money invested where your caricature of my character suggests it should be, therefore your insight and observations are worthless.

Pull the other one.

I forgot,

Brent, how do YOU know where I have or don't have my money invested. Are you claiming to be psychic? Because I make it a point never to discuss my bank accounts and investments with strangers and so should you.

And you should stop presuming to know so much about other people. You overestimate your guessing accuracy like you overestimate your ability to insightfully critique climate science.

Bent:

You warmists are utterly immune to evidence.

Evidence such as the fact that there has been no retreat of the Aletsch glacier as great as the one that is occurring now (3700m and counting at 50m per year) since the end of the last ice age. I have yet to hear any figure from you for a past retreat that exceeds 3700m (or 3300m as it was in 2002 for that matter). Your hypocrisy is psychopathic.

BTW, my electricity comes from hydro. Where does your come from?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

Hi Brenty!

>It's true that I once hoped to establish common ground, moving the debate forward from what both sides agreed as basic truths, but there's no reasoning with died-in-the-wool ideologues.

Tell me about it!

>I share your fury at the obscene fraud that is AGW.

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

I'm glad you're beginning to see yourself for what you are.

>"whatever the evidence, such people say, "Not yet, but it's gonna"

Interesting, because you also say:

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

You say we're immune to the evidence - what evidence have you given us besides "it's cool where I live" and "In The Future Nobody Will Believe In Global Warming Wait And See"?

Hi Brenty!

>It's true that I once hoped to establish common ground, moving the debate forward from what both sides agreed as basic truths, but there's no reasoning with died-in-the-wool ideologues.

Tell me about it!

>I share your fury at the obscene fra*d that is AGW.

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

I'm glad you're beginning to see yourself for what you are.

>"whatever the evidence, such people say, "Not yet, but it's gonna"

Interesting, because you also say:

>I think we both believe that the sun is the major driver of climate, although explaining the precise mechanism lies in the future.

You say we're immune to the evidence - what evidence have you given us besides "it's cool where I live" and "In The Future Nobody Will Believe In Global Warming Wait And See"?

Haha! Methinks I touched a nerve there!

If Galileo had actually been wrong about the Earth orbiting the Sun his stubborn insistence on the implications of his observations would have made him look foolish. (Mention of Galileo usually causes Unsceptics to splutter, "Hah! This moron disagrees with us and thinks he's a great thinker on a par with Galileo! How very dare he!")

But if he were with us today, and in a minority of one, and dragged in front of a jury of Gores and Pachauris for failing to toe the Global Warming line, I like to think the old boy would sneer: Eppur si raffreddare!

> If Galileo had actually been wrong about the Earth orbiting the Sun his stubborn insistence on the implications of his observations would have made him look foolish.

And if Brent's arguments had *actually held water*, our stubborn provision of reasons why his logic and evidence and interpretation thereof were flawed would have looked really foolish.

And if I'd won Lotto last week, then my stubborn insistence that I am not loaded would have looked really foolish!

And if pink unicorns had been discovered living in a patch of forest in the Lake District, then all those who had previously insisted there was no evidence that unicorns ever existed would look foolish!

And if I'd never been born, then my stubborn insistence that I grew up in a somewhat fundamentalist subculture would look really foolish!

And if Galileo were with us today, and in a minority of one...oh, wait, Brent's already done that one.

I guess your "rewrite history and pretend it's logic" trick passes as convincing argument amongst certain of the more gullible "skeptics"...

> ...I like to think the old boy would sneer: Eppur si raffreddare!

That's *almost* as convincing as you telling us that your imaginary friend agrees with you.

But not quite.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

Brent, Galileo was great for using evidence based practice.

And contrast that with your contiued fall back on ad-hom, fallacious allusions, and name calling. Galileo didn't need any of that to shield him from the findings.

One side is integrating the proponderene of evidence vs other side using prejudice and inquisitional rationalistion in defense of your ideology.

I am Galileo.

By Shorter Brent (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

> If Galileo had actually been wrong about the Earth orbiting the Sun his stubborn insistence on the implications of his observations would have made him look foolish.

Well, yes, because he would have been wrong and insisting he's right would be foolish.

But Galileo was right and so was Copernicus, Erastothenes and all the other scientists who considered the sun the centre of the system rather than the earth.

In stark contrast to Bent who has no observations, just refusals and opinions.

So now I'll update Brent's watertight arguments:

*"it's cool where I live"
*"In The Future Nobody Will Believe In Global Warming Wait And See"
*"I am Galileo"?

Speaking of which, remember this piece on Google Galileos?

Last time you viewed it you assessed it as "uncomfortable reading". You're a bit thick, so time for a re-read.

Bent:

If Galileo had actually been wrong about the Earth orbiting the Sun his stubborn insistence on the implications of his observations would have made him look foolish.

No shit Sherlock. You are still in denial of the evidence that the current retreat of the Aletsch glacier is greater than any other retreat since the end of the last ice age. BTW, you may have delusions to the contrary, but 2700m does not match 3700m and counting or even 3400m.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 20 Sep 2010 #permalink

Chris, you're right that 3700m does not equal 2700m. But would you concede that if the retreat since 1860 can be explained by greenhouse gases, then the 2700m advance in other times also needs explaining?

In fact, let's lay this open to the floor. Does any one of you slippery neoapocalypticist thermageddon merchants have the honesty to confront the question of oscillation, of the weather coming and going, that warm spells are followed by cold spells on a variety of scales and timescales? Or do you, like Chris, snatch at a figleaf and say "the symmetry is not quite perfect, therefore it is not symmetrical; the expression 'it comes and goes' is wrong; 'it goes' says it all.

The mighty Aletsch Glacier rumbles forward 2700m, destroying precious pastureland, terrifying the alpine peasants. And then, after many decades and many prayers it relents and retreats. Homo Apocalypticus shrieks, "Look! It's retreating! We wicked sinners have caused this with our carbon footprint!" These are the descendants - in more ways than one - of the fools who observed the exact opposite and attributed it to our sins - just different ones.

Like crabs at the tideline we wonder at one transient change or the other. Science needs an explanation which encompasses both; my guess is that the astrophysicists will strike gold before the latter-day soothsayers who claim the tarnished title of 'Climatologist'.