Andrew Bolt thirteen months ago:
Note down the prediction:
David Jones, the head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, said yesterday that claims by sceptics the planet was cooling were wrong... Dr Jones said an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean - linked to hotter, drier conditions in Australia - would have an effect on the world's climate next year. ''There is a significant probability next year will be the globe's warmest year on record.''
NASA:
Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
NOAA:
For 2010, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record, at 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F).
Do you think Bolt will mention this?
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No. He will ignore the observed data and continue to feed his ignorant followers piffle.
I'm hoping he will mention it, but only to describe the 'exact tie' between 2005 and 2010 as 'very convenient', 'statistically implausible', or words to that effect.
I note that despite the statistical tie, Intrade expired the "2010 warmest year on record" at 100. They should maybe have been more specific in their contract rules, but it seems if you forget all you know about margins of error and only look at the measurements, 2010 came in above 2005.
It'll just be proof it's cooling (since there has been no warming since 2005).
Bolt, remember this, a diss is still a diss. A lie is still a lie....
(as time goes by)
IMO, the obvious Boltian approach is just to construct a strawman. Bolt would simply pretend that Tim and the rest of us are actually saying "2010 was the warmest year, therefore AGW," and retort with the same line of reasoning about multi-year trends that he and others themselves keep ignoring.
He established this confusion in his original post:
Jones was putting those eight years in context, not making an argument for AGW based on a single year. You can see how this distinction might easily be ignored in the rush to lay the boot in.
I doubt Jones would be interested in single-year temperatures (in fact, he would not have needed to make any of the comments reported) if not for ideologues like Bolt rummaging through the noise in the temperature records.
Feel free to share with friends!
Did Global Warming Stop After 1998
Did Global Warming Stop After 2000
I predict "No warming since 2005" in 5... 4... 3... 2...
Got that covered too...
[Trend Test GISTEMP 2005](http://rhinohide.org/gw/trendtester/img/trendtest-GISTEMP-2005-30.png)
Maybe you would prefer something in a microwave satellite? :D
[Trend Test UAH 2005](http://rhinohide.org/gw/trendtester/img/trendtest-UAH-2005-25.png)
Bolt will mention it if he has some integrity and/or isn't a coward. Otherwise, he won't.
I'm waiting.
And if my aunt were a man she'd be my uncle.
One has to laugh. The Blot is an entire malfeasance category of his own
No, Bolt will point out that we got an la Nina and extreme wet weather, not el Nino and dry and will claim climate science is therefore completely unreliable. That a strong la Nina tends to lower global temperatures and temperatures adjusted for known natural variations including ENSO show 2010 as the hottest across GISS, UAH and RSS will not get mentioned.
The story in the SMH *appears* to imply Dr Jones is expecting an El Nino pattern to emerge next year, ie 2012, but on closer reading he only says there's a "significant probablity". What's that mean? 10%? 6%? 90%? Who knows?
I'm not aware that anyone's forecasting an El Nino is more likely than not - correct me if I'm wrong.
So I'd suggest no-one should be running around claiming Dr Jones predicted a record temperature in 2012. I think what he's saying is that there might be an El Nino and if there is the record is at serious risk of being beaten again.
Ideas?
Re #11
And we are still in a deep solar minimum. According to ISES, solar cycle 24 is expected to peak around 2014. Add in another decent and persistent El Nino. What are chances of the record of 0.62 degrees C being significantly exceeded by 2015? And would that be enough to shut up the likes of Bolt?
Pigs and flying come to mind...
>*And we are still in a deep solar minimum. According to ISES, solar cycle 24 is expected to peak around 2014. Add in another decent and persistent El Nino. What are chances of the record of 0.62 degrees C being significantly exceeded by 2015?*
Great, another 1998 from which they can deny warming for 10 years there after.
Oh yeah, and by then we'll hear it was the Sun what done it!
If True Skeptic is around, can you remind us what were your bet conditions with Girm@?
I think there is a failure in the communication of science that Bolt and others exploit to good effect. Bolt aside, that failure needs to be fixed.
There is a large amount of uncertainty when it comes to regional climate change impact projection. We all know this.
However, this uncertainty gets lost, and quite general statements in the scientific summaries, combined with that dog of a caveat that communicators preface everything with "No single event can be attributed to climate change BUT..."
mean that every time there is an extreme (but not necessarily unprecendented) weather event, some climate scientist will be wheeled out to juxtapose climate change theory with the event, and a nudge nudge wink wink. Their statements are stripped of the uncertainty and quoted around, and Bolt then has an easy post along the lines of: "One minute they are saying more drought, the next they are saying a wetter world."
I'm sure the science is falsifiable, but by the time the science is coaxed and massaged into a media grab, it starts to look pretty convenient, paradoxical and unfalsifiable, with every extreme weather event being due to climate change.
I think it would be best if climate scientists actually say nothing about climate change when an extreme weather event happens (especially while it is still happening!) and instead just continue publishing and putting out media releases about the publications. If someone were to publish a paper 6 months down the track highlighting in a robust way how, say, a particular drought or flood could be linked the climate change then good, but getting in the news speculating about it while the event is still underway just looks bad, its just fodder for Bolt.
Anyone notice that comments for that article are mysteriously switched off? He's disallowed comments now citing a "holiday" but in December 2009 comments on all the other articles were allowed.
I don't think it is mysterious - he normally goes on holiday a couple times a year, and posts nothing, and he's missed some big events as a result.
This is the first time that he has posted while on holidays. Maybe his moderators are on holiday, or else it is too much work for he himself to read all the comments. So he has allowed himself to do posts while on holidays, but turned off comments to limit how much of his holiday time it takes up.
Or something like that.
John, would you expect powerful arguements against Bolt surviving moderation even if comments where not switched off?
Bolt came out of holiday to write [this](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/dont-blame-palin-for-us-shooting/st…) peice of crap.
Bolt of course is batting for [Team Limbaugh](http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/rush-limbaugh-goes-o…).
What is more important than new records being set is the continuing trends. An extreme wet in one or even a few years isn't a trend, it's weather. It will have an impact on that trend but I expect it won't be that big an impact. That's not to say that extremes of weather should be ignored; warmer sea surface temperatures are a consequence of a planet gaining heat and can have a direct influence on specific weather events, but in places the heat stays near the surface and other places is mixed with cooler water or can be carried deeper. ENSO is a particularly powerful influence over such processes across the Pacific. Will ENSO plus warming tend to give us more extreme drought during neutral to el Nino conditions and more extreme wets during la Nina?
Maybe it's more surprising that regions such as SE Australia should see a multi-decade trend of reduced rainfall at all as a result of a warming world with warming oceans. There's no doubt that it's complex and I'm more interested in the carefully considered opinions of people with real expertise who study climate and weather full time such as those at BoM. I look forward to hearing their take on both the extreme wet and on the continuing trend of global warming.
The impact of a weather extreme depends on the noise level (the difference between weather and climate in a mathematical, statistical, sense).
e.g. if you have a weather range for summer maxima of +/- 3C then a weather extreme of +18C is at the six sigma range of statistical impossibility. If the range is +/- 6C then it's barely withing the 95% confidence limits. Very unlikely, but not impossible.
However, this merely states whether a weather event is statistically significant.
The recent flooding in AUS HAS been affected by global warming because warm air holds more water and therefore rains more when it falls out.
Whether the floods were "caused" by global warming is a very difficult question. Whether the floods were made worse is much easier.
PS on the whole "wetter but more drought", have a check on "hydrologically significant rainfall". Summer rain and flooding is not hydrologically significant because evaporation takes place too quickly for the water to sink to the water table. Winter rain in the temperate zones is the important figure for water levels because evaporation rates are generally insignifiant so the water hangs around to seep in.
> I think it would be best if climate scientists actually say nothing about climate change when an extreme weather event happens
Steve, what tosh. Denialists ALWAYS pop out to spout out about how "this event" disproves AGW (go see spots on his thread for a great and continuing example). They almost NEVER propose any errors or uncertainties in their work (go see Monckton for many examples of that).
Funny how they're never a problem.
Then we have the other side of the complete bollocks your complaint is: the climate scientists don't explain uncertainties.
NO EFFING WAY!
What happens is that denialists set a strawman by, for example, removing error bars in graphs and proclaim that AGW *must* be wrong because we can't be as certain as this AGW graph shows.
Meanwhile (nearly in the same damn post), they state that there has been cooling because there is no statistically proven warming from 1996 (this will die out now that 2010 is complete and that statement no longer true).
How you can come over all "they're too certain" when it's trumpeted that not all scientists agree stuns me to be frank.
And no climate scientist says "this event was caused by global warming". NONE. They'll say "this sort of event is what global warming is expected to make commonplace". They'll even say "this sort of event having happened 17 times in ten years is proof of warming".
Yet every time there's a snowstorm, "What happened to all that global warming, huh?".
Wow, two points in response:
1) When denialists cite individual weather events as disproving global warming, they look very stupid. And when they include a disclaimer when they do it (as Bolt always does when he highlights a cold snap), then they look sly. Just because they do it, doesn't mean the pro-AGW side should.
2) Could you please read my post again carefully? My complaint is quite specifically addressed at how scientists (or those reporting their message) communicate, not on what the science says. I accept the science of climate change, and pay heed to what the regional climate projections say as well, taking into account uncertainties. The science is clear on the uncertainties, but those uncertainties are quite lost in the simplification that happens as the science gets converted into sound bites and news articles.
Try reading my post again, and representing my arguments correctly. I never said that any climate scientist says global warming caused a particular extreme weather event. What i've said happens is that they pop up at times such as now, juxtapose the recent extreme weather event with global warming, and make it all kosher by just giving a hasty one liner 'oh of course you can't say that any one weather event is caused by global warming'. I think this is a bad strategy, and it gives license to the likes of Bolt to do the same thing, which he does on a regular basis.
There is no question that it is a tricky communication task, to explain and explain well the regional impacts of climate change. Your misrepresentation of what I wrote helps to demonstrate how easy a message can be garbled when repeated.
I think the communication/impact of this science could be improved by NOT having David Karoly et. al. pop up and start talking about global warming every single time there is flood or bushfire, especially when the case has not been properly made that said flood/bushfire is unprecedented. I think it would be better to do the research seeking to quantify the possible link first and then report that.
I read a paper once by Neville Nichols that sought to quantify to what extent global warming may have contributed to the early 2000s drought. It wasn't speculation, it was a publication - actual science. Reporting the results of that paper is more convincing than a media-friendly climate scientist speculating in the news during the actual weather event.
> I think the communication/impact of this science could be improved by NOT having David Karoly et. al. pop up and start talking about global warming every single time there is flood or bushfire, especially when the case has not been properly made that said flood/bushfire is unprecedented.
Seconded. The majority of people have seen through this ploy and are tired of it. Especially in this case, where the event is far from unprecedented. Most people may not know science, but they can spot a puffball set-up a mile off.
> Most people may not know science, but they can spot a puffball set-up a mile off.
> Posted by: Rick Bradford | January 14, 2011 8:33 AM
Please explain Monckton, MnIntyre, Watts, et al in light of that statement.
> 1) When denialists cite individual weather events as disproving global warming, they look very stupid.
They don't, however, get mentioned when complaints of climate scientists doing so occur.
And please let me know when climate scientists do this. linkies too.
> My complaint is quite specifically addressed at how scientists (or those reporting their message) communicate, not on what the science says
My complaint is that scientists don't communicate the way you say they do. Please try to read it properly.
> I never said that any climate scientist says global warming caused a particular extreme weather event.
c.f.
> they pop up at times such as now, juxtapose the recent extreme weather event with global warming, and make it all kosher
> by just giving a hasty one liner 'oh of course you can't say that any one weather event is caused by global warming'.
You're confused.
You're saying "they don't, but they do, but they don't". Make your mind up.
> I think the communication/impact of this science could be improved by NOT having David Karoly et. al. pop up and start talking about global warming every single time there is flood or bushfire, especially when the case has not been properly made that said flood/bushfire is unprecedented.
Except they aren't. They're saying that these sorts of problems are what AGW mitigation will mitigate. Why is it OK to say that it will be expensive to mitigate AGW but not OK if you say WHY it's worth spending the money, even if you're a strict utilitarian?
Go have a look at the freaking Stern Report.
floods cost money.
floods WILL get worse with GW.
therefore, a flood is showing why we don't WANT GW.
Apparently you don't like effective communication.
According to the science, there is no global warming since 1998 as shown in the following plot.
http://bit.ly/dQ8S9i
The above plot shows global mean temperature trend flat at 0.4 deg C for 13 years!
Who is the denier?
Re: Gaz, Comment #12: The prediction was made in December 2009 - 13 months ago.
First time to this blog.
Wow ......few disagree that our planet is in warming cycle.
It's the "A" for Anthropogenic in AGW that many believe has yet to be proven.
1. We are in a warming cycle.
2. It's not warming at the rate of any of the predictions of the IPCC.
3. There has yet to be any link proven between CO2 and temperature increases.
4. We're foolong ourselves if we think that we can significantly effect this warming trend. Like trying to stop the tide.
5.There is certainly no link proven between these temperature increases and climate extremes - drought, flood, cyclones etc
6.Too much manipulation of historic temperature data for us to trust anybody at this point in time.
7. IF 2010 was the warmest it's a beat-up to the max to state the bleeding obvious.
Rick Bradford:
Assuming you're talking about the current flood situation in Australia, it most certainly is unprecedented - in geographical scope and, in many cases, in scale.
[This link](http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest…) goes to the Bureau of Meteorology rainfall map for the three months leading up to December 31 2010 - before the rain that led to the current flooding in Brisbane, northwest Victoria and Tasmania. My rough eyeball estimate says that ten to twenty percent of Qld, NSW and Vic experienced their highest rainfall on record for this period, and another 70-80 percent experienced rainfall in the top 10% of records.
I'd call that pretty unprecedented.
Most sceptics recognise that the world has been warming for 300 years and for a considerable length of time before the industrial revolution. The trend hasnât changed as anthropogenic CO2 emissions rose. No one knows exactly why it started rising back then, but it wasnât CO2.
Most scientists accept that the world has been warmer than today for most of the last 10,000 years. Only people who think CO2 matters keep repeating that itâs warmed from 1850 to now without pointing out the larger perspective.
AndrewWA;
1. Actualy we are in a long term cooling cycle. We're meant to be heading for a mini-ice age.
2. It is.
3. It's a matter of empirical fact that CO2 has a warming effect and, in relation to AGW, increased CO2 in the atmosphere should increase downwelling radiation (the mechanism for CO2 to increase surfeace temps) and that is what we observe.
4. If we can cause it, we can certainly do something about it.
5. Wrong again. The causal mechanisms are pretty clear. Empirical evidence shows an increase in extreme weather events. If you were trying to say that individual extreme weather events can't be explained by increased temps, then you are right.
6. Huh? Are you talking about adjustments to instrumental readings? If so - wrong again. A while back someone did a very helpful graph of temp adjustments. Turns out to be pretty much a bell curve, with 0 adjustment being the middle. Then it slopes away to both sides pretty evenly - meaning that readings are just as likely to be adjusted down as up and the most common adjustment being none at all. Not something the 'skeptics' like to have pointed out in their endless whining about 'manipulated' data.
7. What would satellites know when I can type "beat-up" and make it all go away.
Sceptic Lank @33;
Please provide more detail on these "most scientists" which, as a collective term, is simulataneously very very large and very very vague.
Temperature records have been set by thermometers often located at airport next to asphalt and jet motors or next to concrete, roads and exhaust vents. There probably werenât too many airports, car parks or air conditioners in the 1800s....... Not to mention the non-random adjustments, and that mystery about how 75% of thermometers are ignored.
AndrewWA:
Well I certainly wouldn't trust you.
Do you find that spouting unsubstantiated gack is somehow comforting for you 'skeptic' lank?
That the trend hasn't changed for instance, [is an outright falsehood.](http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/annual.jpg?w=500)
Lank @ 36;
Bit behind the times there Lank.
That particular 'study' (on weather station sites) by he who shall remain nameless, has blown up in his face.
Someone did the analysis of ther data - shows a cooling bia (which no doubt explains the non-appearence of the much touted, and now much delayed, 'study').
Yes, if the temp record is to be corrected for the poorly sited stations, it has to be corrected upwards.
The world just got a bit hotter.
If it's bleeding obvious what is the point of saying IF?
Hey Chek@38 - your link shows 2010 as being the warmist year since 1880 but according to NASA and NOAA 'Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record'.
Are you saying they are wrong and that they are 'spouting unsubstantiated gack'? What are we to believe; you and your linked graph, them or...... perhaps the the real answer is that the world has been warming for 300 years and for a considerable length of time before the industrial revolution.
Because, Sceptic Lank, at the time that graph was created in August that was the average for the year.
Now any response to 39? You can read more here.
Sceptic Lank, are you saying Co2 doesn't affect climate? What's your view on climate sensitivity to Co2?
Wow, by 'juxtapose', i mean that some scientists or science communicators raise the subject of global warming while the context is firmly on the current extreme weather event. This doesn't mean I said that they are saying that climate change causes the event, it means I am saying that they are putting the two issues side by side. I'm not sure why you misunderstood the point exactly, it seems pretty clear to me, I don't know how to make it clearer for you.
You wanted examples. Very well, here are examples of scientists or else communicators of science or else journalists raising the subject of global warming and juxtaposing it with an extreme weather event, during that extreme weather event, in a way which I think does more harm than good:
About the current flood:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/fates-conspire-to-concoct-a-recipe-fo…
"Professor Karoly stressed individual events could not be attributed to climate change. However, he said the wild extremes being experienced on the continent were in keeping with scientists' forecasts of more flooding associated with increased heavy rain events and more droughts as a result of high temperatures and more evaporation."
Start with a simple disclaimer, then associate the current extreme weather event with climate change, and while the said event is still occurring. Bad timing, and bad politics, and just provides ammunition to the likes of Bolt. It might very well be expert opinion, but it is still somewhat speculative. Better to go and write a peer-reviewed paper on it, then talk about your actual research in the news, rather than this.
Karoly during the Feb2009 bushfires:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/vicf-f11.shtml
"It appears that climate change has greatly increased the risk of severe bushfires. Professor David Karoly, a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the ABC "Lateline" program: "What we're seeing now is that the dice have been heavily loaded so that the chances of these sorts of extreme fire weather situations are occurring much more rapidly in the last 10 years due to climate change... Certainly in some situations, we're seeing unprecedented extremes. The hot temperatures on Saturday in Melbourne and in many parts in south eastern Australia were unprecedented. The records were broken by a large amount and you cannot explain that just by natural variability."
I would want to see an actual publication on this bushfire and climate change, that might appear months after the event, before I would think it a good idea to confidently state that last sentence, which is effectively saying that a regional record temperature cannot be explained just by natural variability, without any uncertainty, confidence etc.
Ian Lowe during the floods:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/drowning-in-a-hothous…
"The Queensland floods are another reminder of what climate science has been telling us for 25 years, like the recent long-running drought, the 2009 heatwaves and the dreadful Victorian bushfires. As well as a general warming, increasing sea levels and altered rainfall patterns, climate modellers confidently predicted more frequent extreme events: floods, droughts, heatwaves and severe bushfires....It is still too early to say with certainty that climate change is responsible for the strong El Nino event that brought devastating drought to eastern Australia and the equally strong La Nina event that has produced the terrible floods.But they are exactly what climate science has been warning us about since the 1980s."
I don't dispute the science Wow, but I know how easy it is for skeptics to conduct their FUD campaign. I would guess that a decent chunk of people get a bit jaded with this style of communication. These events effect people's lives, and it would be smarter and more sensitive to avoid making the connection during the event, and without proper linking to science that specifically demonstrates/quantifies/examines how global warming has impacted said event. Expert speculation combined with a disclaimer simply isn't good enough in the current political environment. As I said, I've seen research that sought to quantify the impact that global warming had on last decades droughts, which I thought could be powerfully communicated. Perhaps the science communicators could wait until similar research is published about the bushfires or these floods before linking the two.
PS. I'm not arguing that it is all natural variability like others in this thread. I am criticising the nature and timing of the messaging, and its effectiveness in changing hearts and minds.
Steve, just a friendly observation. You present like a concern troll.
@30 Andrew:
1. Which warming cycle would that be? Because it sure doesn't correspond to any historically known warming cycle, unless you've just discovered one which no-one else knows about.
2. Which predictions? A1? A2? B1? B2? A1B? A1F1? The IPCC make many predictions based on different scenarios depending on how the world's population growth, industrial base, and energy efficiency might trend. 20th century temperature trends were pretty much spot on. How the 21st century goes remains to be seen.
3. Aside from the fact that it's perfectly plausible based on what we know about greenhouse gases, do you have a viable alternative hypothesis which is any more precise than "it's happening just because of some-thing-or-other"?
4. Of course. 7 billion humans are having a neglible effect anywhere in the world on anything, as we all know. Negligible food or water problems. Negligible acceleration of species extinction. Negligible change in land use. Negligible destruction of habitat. Negligible consumption of natural resources. Negligible contribution to atmospheric pollution. We are far too isignificant to do anything noticeable on the planet. On the second point, what is your understanding of which historical data has been manipulated and how?
5. Every empirical observation on the planet shows that 2010 was warmer than any year with the exception of 1998. Not a beatup. Just an irritating observational fact.
Your first time on the blog raises so many more questions that it answers.
Hi Zoot, Thanks for your friendly observation. I am not a concern troll, I am pro carbon price, pro deep cuts in emissions, and accept the science on climate change, although I do worry that the uncertainties surrounding regional climate change projections are not well communicated.
But surely it isn't such an outrageous opinion to suggest that speculation in the media - even if it is expert opinion - is far too easy for the likes of Bolt to use for his own ends? Bolt has already started posting about how "warmists" were first telling us drought, and now are telling us flood, and using this to smear the entire field.
I think that explaining how all these weather events can be impacted by global warming is a tricky communication task, I I don't think it has been done very well, and I think the approach of popping up to draw a link between climate change and the latest extreme weather event every time there is a bout of nasty weather isn't a useful way to go about it, nor is it timely or sensitive.
Tell me - yes I know that the current floods, the bushfires of 2 years ago, and last decades drought all 'fit the pattern' of global warming impacts. However, droughts and floods and bushfires happened previously too, so these events also seem (esp to your average joe) to fit the pattern of a climate not undergoing global warming. How do you go about convincingly linking such events to global warming in a way that even a pedestrian intellect like Bolt can't take advantage of? Answer: you do the research, and publish a paper on it, rather than providing a soundbite as the event is actually happening. I would like to see (and perhaps one day I will) a paper detailing how strong the current La Nina is, and attempting to argue why the strength of this La Nina is likely (rigourously defining likely, probabilities, margins for error, quantities etc) impacted by climate change, and then explain how this La Nina impacted the current floods. Its one thing to have an expert opinion, its another thing to have peer-reviewed science. I think the news - which is crowded with stories on climate change, should cover the science and avoid the expert opinion, and that would raise the quality and effectiveness of the pro-AGW message.
Andrew WA its a good thing you've come here:
Andrew writes:
>*1) We are in a warming cycle.*
Yes
>*2)It's not warming at the rate of any of the predictions of the IPCC.*
Afraid that you've be ill informed. [It is warming at a rate consistent with IPCC models](http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm).
>*3)There has yet to be any link proven between CO2 and temperature increases.*
Wrong again Andrew. See [Chen 2007](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirically-observed-fingerprints-of-an…)
>*We're foolong ourselves if we think that we can significantly effect this warming trend. Like trying to stop the tide.*
Since you've based this assertion on your demonstrated false understanding, perhaps you might reassess this unsupported claim?
>*5.There is certainly no link proven between these temperature increases and climate extremes - drought, flood, cyclones etc*
Its basic science, warmer air hold more water leading to dry in some regions and heavier dumps in others. And its [supported by observations](http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/28/global-warming-extreme-wet-dry-su…)
>*6.Too much manipulation of historic temperature data for us to trust anybody at this point in time.*
Do you have any evidence to support this wild assertion? Perhaps you think a global conspiracy? Involving the glaciers, flara and fauna? Among several thousand indicators of warming?
Or have you forgotten that you agree it is warming?
Don't forget [this one also](http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…)
Funny that Bolt does mention Jones today - http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/ .
Steve,
i'n not what scientists are supposed to say if carefully qualified statements outlining the scientific case are criticized as you have.
The alternative is to say nothing?
Steve said:
Fair enough. If you say so, who am I to disagree?
Nevertheless, the basic thrust of your claim is specious. You overlook the fact that the usual suspects are not constrained by what climate scientists actually say and even more relevantly, their bands of wailing banshees aren't constrained by what Blot and Nova and their ilk say anyway.
If nobody with qualifications said anything until a fully refereed study supported it, this would make not a skerrick of difference, except that the bullying of the Blot crowd would have silenced those who are qualified to speak.
That can't be good.
Fran - yes, the usual suspects can and do distort what climate scientists actually say. But that doesn't mean the usual suspects should be provided with an easy hit by an opportunistic attempt to raise climate change during a tragic extreme weather event.
I hardly think it would be silencing climate scientists to adopt my suggestions. There is an abundance of articles out there covering the AGW case, and if we weed out some of the insensitive, opportunistic ones that occur around these extreme weather events and are based on expert speculation rather than published research, then I think that would be an improvement.
Michael, you call it 'carefully qualified statements outlining the scientific case'. I call opportunistic attempts to capitalise on a tragic event to push a message on climate change to the public. Yes, I think it would be better if scientists said nothing about climate change DURING these extreme weather events, and instead leave it to the published research to tell the story some time after the fact.
Take a look at what Bolt has done to Dr David Jones [in this post](http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…)
He's pretty much been handed a free kick, barely needs to say anything, and just puts before and after quotes from Dr Jones and Richard Macey (the journalist reporting on Jones) next to each other, and out of context.
This is the danger of scientists communicating their expert opinion into the media around the most recent extreme weather event, without it being rigourous.
Steve, I think that you're missing something very impotant here.
These are quotes in newspapers. Exactly how scentists can interact much better is a mystery to me. Take the floods sotry in the SMH. Are you suggesting that Karoly is the originator of the story???. Surely what happended is that the journa contacted Karoly asking about AGW and the floods and Karoly being as cautious as possible, ensures that he "stressed individual events could not be attributed to climate change".
I guess he could refuse to comment, but then journo's would just go to less qualified people for their quotes and the public would get an even less accurate picture.
We know that the Bolts of the world will distort, mangle and generally muck up any real information that contradicts his world view. And his disciples will egg him on.
The important thing is that the right info is put out there publicly for the interested and the uncommitted.
It would be nice to think that people like him and his fan club would respond appropriately to accurate information, but I'm not holding my breath. Look at it as 2 parallel streams, information with "information" running beside. People cannot choose if the information stream dries up.
[Sceptic Lank said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/01/do_you_think_bolt_will_mention…)
"perhaps the the real answer is that the world has been warming for 300 years and for a considerable length of time before the industrial revolution.
... and you could do a linear regression trend back to the last glaciation making the same specious point to impress the numpties.
What it deliberately fails to address though is the accelerating rate of warming over the past 150 years, which I guess is the true purpose.
I agree very much with Fran @ 50 and Michael @ 53.
Juxtaposing climate change and major disasters - if it's a bad thing at all - is not going to make any noticeable difference to the noise emitted by deniers. This juxtaposition, even if it was entirely dishonest, barely rates against the salacious imaginings of Lord Monckton. The deniers prefer to focus on epic data tampering and communist world government. They'd mention juxtaposition, I'm sure, but I don't think it would hold their interest for long.
Besides, when scientists are asked for their opinion, most would feel duty-bound to describe exactly what they think, warts and all. And what they think is that climate change probably is contributing to these disasters. They certainly have to be careful not to overplay the level of certainty, but it would be a lie-by-omission to say nothing.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of assuming that quoted experts are actively seeking out the media attention in order to push a particular line. If that was the case, things would be different.
Apparently, "Tim Lambert is sweating on Andrew Boltâs response to Steffanâs [Should be David Jones] prediction in Dec 2009."
These guys are as dumb as they come.
Not only is he continuing to distort, but now it seems that Bolt has turned off the comments option on his recent posts.
If an extreme weather event happens, then the best reaction by scientists is to say that we cannot say for sure that this event was caused or exacerbated by global warming, but we expect global warming will make such events more frequent. And expecting scientists to say nothing about it until they publish several years after the event is not a reasonable idea.
The point is that people need to be warned to expect more extreme weather and to prepare for it. Germaine Greer wrote a good piece about the flooding in Australia. I don't know if she has all her facts right, but it's well worth asking why the towns which face flooding every few years don't have levees and preparations made?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/15/australian-floods-que…
Any cold day in New York in mid-Winter is used by the deniers to claim the planet is not warming. Conversely when severe and record extreme weather events occur, scientists are supposed to shut up because we can't ascribe individual events to climate change. Dice loaded or what? But it suits the purpose of deniers to pretend that record severe weather events (the record is the issue, or one issue, we are not saying "oh dear here is a flood/drought/bushfire that must be caused by climate change". We know those things have happened before, What we are saying is that floods of record extent, droughts of record length, bushfires of record ferocity are being affected by climate change) can't be related to global warming because such events are the only way Joe Public can relate what the scientists are saying to his personal experiences. Slow and steady rise on a graph of global average temperatures doesn't mean beans on a day to day basis. Houses flooded that have never been flooded before does mean beans.
So, every severe recordweather event is instantly met with a denier chorus saying "can't ascribe individual events to global warming", before the average punter can begin to put two and two together.
Hollystick, many of the towns at risk have levees and were saved by them.
Steve ...
The other problem I have with your claim is an epistemic one.
Severe weather events are multi-causal. They represent the confluence of several necessary and aggravating or predisposing causes. Remove any one of them and there will either be no event at all or it won't be severe. If it occurs in the wrong place it won't even be news and the comments of climate scientists won't be widely reported. If a scientist says that the severe weather event was caused by Cause1 it can fairly be objected that (s)he has been misleading or deceptive, but of course, that would be true no matter which cause the scientist specified. On that logic, no cause can be said to have caused the severe weather event, which is obviously paradoxical. Scientists will generally qualify when speaking of causality and note that an event represented the confluence of a number of causes, but what would it mean if, essentially for political or cultural reasons, they left out one of them or averred doubt when they ought to have known there was no doubt that it was amongst the causes?
When we examine road trauma, for example, we know that factors such as driver competence, fatigue, sobriety, emotional state, speed, vehicle and road condition, road contention etc operate independently and dynamically to vary the risk and extent of trauma. Policy seeks to bear positively on each of these factors -- improving the quality of roads, drivers, vehicles and altering the culture attached to driving by vehicle operators. If fears of the nanny-state caused policy makers or downplay speed or sobriety and people began saying "you can't blame this accident on speeding/alcohol because there were other factors and this is just a revenue grab/desire to take my freedom to drink and drive fast" would sensible people entertain this? I think not. Would people like you say "we need to see what we find when all the evidence is in?"
When we look at causes, we surely want to distinguish necessary and aggravating conditions that are beyond our reach to manipulate from those that are. It is not within our power to manipulate the ENSO, or even to make radical changes to the topography of Australia's East coast. Yet if elevated SSTs of Australia's east coast (1974 + 1.5degC of which, probably 0.5degC was climate change forced) are a factor in the volume of water dumped by a La Nina event then is it not scandalous to pass over this? I'd say so. Just as a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 is considered a lot more than 4 times as likely to have an accident as someone with one of 0.02 so too one may say that had SST been at the levels they were in 1900 there may have been nothing more than a significant rainstorm in Queensland, and even that is on the assumption that the force and periodicity of the ENSO cycle is independent of climate change.
We do know that an increase in the frequency and intensity of severe weather events is a consequence of climate change and it really doesn't matter how much each individual event is caused/aggravated by climate change. We must assume that a measurable proportion of them will be and since none of them are desirable we must act to mitigate the possibility of any of them. Moreover, the onus really should be on those objecting to the presence of climate change in the causal change to show that it could not have been a predisposing factor.
Very nicely done Fran, good analogy. But I take issue with - "If fears of the nanny-state caused policy makers or downplay speed or sobriety and people began saying "you can't blame this accident on speeding/alcohol because there were other factors and this is just a revenue grab/desire to take my freedom to drink and drive fast" would sensible people entertain this? I think not." In fact the libertarians do entertain this kind of thing. You are on the road safety thread over at John Quiggin's blog http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2011/01/02/300/, and there are responses there seriously arguing for no interference whatsoever with what people choose to do on the roads, and if they kill themselves, and others, then that was their choice.
In essence this is also the Bjorn Lomborg approach to climate change I think.
David Horton said:
To be fair to the right-of-centre libertarians (did I really say that??) I don't think the point person there ("Sam") really made that claim. He began speaking of compulsory seatbelt- and bicycle helmet-wearing but seemed to be endorsing other compulsory road safety measures. He also said he'd voluntarily comply but reckoned it was OK for people to do the risk trade, which wasn't actually a denial of the substantive causal claim.
Pretty much. Lomborg doesn't actually deny CO2-forced climate change -- he just disputes the NPV of mitigation. He knows that the science is beyond serious demur, but he also knows that estimates of future harm and the extent to which the costs of foreclosing it ought to be borne by people in the present are rather more ethically contentious, and since this is the main object of most of the deniers, he has decided to cut to the chase and make sure that where the rubber hits the road, it doesn't.
He then engages in a series of misdirections, red herrings and specious pieces of comparative value, which, when compiled in egregiously misnamed The Skeptical Environmentalist the DCSD deemed to fall short of the standards of a scientific text
He doesn't have to. What is happening Mr Jones ? He has painted himself into a corner, and this is his way of squirming out. And as for the next 12 months being the 'warmist ever' (again ?) - well I can tell Mr Jones for free that there is a big fat zero chance. I would tend agree with Mr Bolt's assessment of the science more than any of you warmy lot - any bright sunny day. :-)
Oh, I invite you to see what ole Billy Bob Hall said about the potential for flooding - way back before I was banned here by timbo.
What a funny time we live in indeed... I am quite amused ! :-)
@#57
'Apparently, "Tim Lambert is sweating on Andrew Boltâs response to Steffanâs [Should be David Jones] prediction in Dec 2009."'
Tarred with the same brush. Same song sheet, same piffle, Chris.
#66
Irony is a challenge for some people. Not surprising these same people are sucked in by misinformation, strawmen, red herrings and straight out lies about about the temperature record.
Do I think Bolt will mention this? possibly not. Do I think this Blog/Mashey/Deep Climate et al will ever mention Trenberth's ongoing plagiarisms? NO.
What's this talking point Fred?
Michael, I just Googled it. Would you believe it originated at Climate Audit and was featured at Watts?
John. do you mean to say Fred K @68 is just another lo-rent, off-topic, denialist parrot doing someone else's bidding?
Surely not!
Trenberth has written a six page article,some dozen or so line are near verbatim reproductions from a source clearly cited at the end.Steve Mac is pretty desperate.
Thanks Nick. Sounds like the first step in a fiendish plan to install One World Government.
If people haven't figured this out yet, Trenberth has been announced as the Deniers Target of 2011. Phil Jones will be relieved it's someone else's turn to be the whipping boy for the belligerantly ignorant and determinedly dishonest.
Plagiarism:
Do I think Bolt will mention this? possibly not. Do I think this Blog/Mashey/Deep Climate et al will ever mention Trenberth's ongoing plagiarisms? NO.(Fred Knell 2011)
Not plagiarism:
"Do I think Bolt will mention this? possibly not. Do I think this Blog/Mashey/Deep Climate et al will ever mention Trenberth's ongoing plagiarisms? NO."(Fred Knell 2011)
In a *draft* of a talk not yet given ...
Nick:
"Steve Mac is pretty desperate."
Ya think? :)
Jones is a liar. Really very simple. Anyone who claims the planet is warming is a liar. This year has been a standout for global cooling. The warmest decade is the 1930's. Thats what the data tells us and you ought to accept it.
"Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York."
Its not complicated. They are liars. Note that NOAA isn't comparing like with like. They have added new data from the ocean, which wasn't present in earlier years. This is scientific fraud, since of course adding ocean temperatures, must as of necessity pump up the average heat.
I assume that is a joke Rothard?
Otherwise you had better go and the give the satellites a good talking to, as they clearly have not recieved your memo.
Re:75
Geez, the overlords of ignorance really are bitchslappin' their slackjaws to get out there and spread the message lately. Even their least able, as exemplified by the improbably named Rothbard.
Actually, I've been reading Bolt's blog and he appears to be struggling with the flood (no pun intended) of news coming in. He is having to perform incredible feats of cognitive dissonance to fend of the realisation that AGW is real.
Imagine his state of mind, the anxiety - he is one of the principals deniers in the world, a man guilty of misleading the public for years.
I suspect Bolt will go on "stress leave" at some point in the next few years when the evidence becomes so overwhelming.
The realisation will break the man.
>*I suspect Bolt will go on "stress leave" at some point in the next few years when the evidence becomes so overwhelming.*
We're are not talking about people open to weighing up the balance of evidence. I don't think there is any evidence that will convince those who are so committed to and invested in denial.
"I don't think there is any evidence that will convince..."
Try it. Lets have it.
Rothbard was a sockpuppet of banned commenter [Graeme Bird](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/04/plonk.php). I've deleted his posts.
The accusation of plagiarism against Trenberth is discussed in comments here, starting Jan 14.
http://deepclimate.org/2011/01/06/wegman-on-deep-climate/
The accusation is based on a paragraph in a preprint copy of a speech he has not given yet, where he cited the source but probably should have indented the quotation or something.
It's the kind of thing deniosaurs screech about when they are desperate to find a false equivalency to try to excuse their own side's misbehaviour.
What will be interesting now is all the deniers who were convinced that Wegman was the target of a conspiracy to silence the truth will be demanding Trenberth be a) fired or b) locked up in the Tower Of London.
#47: jakerman, I would take issue with this notion that "we are in a warming cycle". Do not cycles come back to the same point from which they started? It seems to me that built into this idea is the notion that with each "warming cycle" comes a "cooling cycle". Nothing to worry about folks, it's all natural, business as usual. Surely the whole point about AGW is that it may take us to a point from which recovery to anything approaching pre-AGW conditions is impossible? That's not a cycle; it's an irreversible change.
>* jakerman, I would take issue with this notion that "we are in a warming cycle".*
Fair point (especially on human civilisation time scales). I was too brief as not wanting to invest too much time in the already long Gish Gallop served up by Andrew WA.
That was the point of my "this is plagiarism" and "this is not plagiarism" post above.
The claim is total bullshit ...
I guess this thingy about Trenberth by the Deniers means the Wegman plagarisim accusations and (should be happening) investigations is sinking into their hive consciousness and disturbing things. So they obviously want to use it as a tool to: (a) distract, (b) because its a good idea but they gotta scratch around to pin something.
If the Wegman thing does move through to a definite conclusion then I wonder if we will see a definite 'plagarism' based assault front from the Deniers.
Bolt is [trying really hard to find a commie under every bed](http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…).
> Take a look at what Bolt has done to Dr David Jones in this post
> ...
> This is the danger of scientists communicating their expert opinion into the media around the most recent extreme weather event, without it being rigourous.
> Posted by: Steve
I fail to see the problem you allude to.
> David Jones, the manager of climate monitoring and prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology, says perhaps not.
So "perhaps not" is definitively tying global warming to the flood now?
> âPerhaps we should call it our new climate,â
Perhaps again.
> âThere is absolutely no debate that Australia is warming,â said Dr Jones. âIt is very easy to see ⦠it is happening before our eyes.â
Care to show where the problem is here?
Fake outrage, Steve. Fake outrage.
> Steve said:
> > I am not a concern troll,
But Steve's points DO seem to be concerned with no actual beef to have concern over. I'm concerned that this sort of rhetoric, even by those whose intentions are the best, stifles debate and gives the stage to the nutcases who do not care if they exhort in error.
This sort of communication harms the education of the public and sets back the efforts to mitigate the damage we're doing in the abject fear that someone may be concerned and this concerns me.
Steve, until you've managed to finish a psychiatric course and are therefore able to address with firm knowledge on how discourse by climate scientists will affect the public perception, all you're doing is stifling the debate, so please stop.
When is my ban from this blog to be lifted?
Is one year not enough?
Kind Regards to all
Obviously the offending text should have been quoted but this was a draft, and has since been corrected. What is a whole lot more revealing is the feeding frenzy of denial sites. Try a google search on the title of the article. If so many of them go gaga over something so trivial, I'd like to know where they get their meds. I should buy stock in their suppliers.
Basically they are playing political gothca games. They have no interest in intellectual integrity.
> They have no interest in intellectual integrity.
Who? CRU? NIWA? Is Phil Jones playing "political gothca games". Please explain.
Monckton, Watts, McIntyre and the other big names of denialism, Rick.
Your brain needs fixing, since this would be obvious to someone who understands English.
Rick Bradford is doing homework for his kindergarten trash talk school of "I know you are but what am I".
My mis-spelled post #90 about political gotcha games referred, of course, to the "the feeding frenzy of denial sites" noted by Philip Machanick in #89. The cretinous deniosaurs do not have the ability to recognize integrity, much less practice it.
Scientists like Phil Jones of course have a professional interest in intellectual integrity, as they rise in their profession by earning the respect of their peers. Without integrity, you cannot do good science.
Thanks for the humour - this debate needs some.
All fun aside, Phil Jones is to intellectual integrity what Amy Winehouse is to temperance.
He writes to a colleague:
> Thanks for the email. Steve McIntyre hasnât contacted me directly about the Antarctic data (yet), nor about any of the data used in the 1998 Holocene paper or the 2003 Geophysical Research Letters one with Mike. I suspect (hope) that he wonât.
> I had some emails with him a few years ago when he wanted to get all the station temperature data we use here in Climatic Research Unit.
> At that time, I hid behind the fact that some of the data had been received from individuals and not directly from Met(eorological) Services through the Global Telecommunications Service (GTS) or through the Global Climate Observing System.
He continues:
> Most of the data for most of the graphs have just appeared on the Climatic Research Unit web site. Go to âdataâ, then to âpaleoclimateâ. We did this to stop getting hassled by the skeptics for the data sets.
> Mike Mann refuses to talk to these people and I can understand why. They are just trying to find if weâve done anything wrong.
Yeah, just oozes "intellectual integrity."
Yup, it's intellectually corrupt to demand continually data to "find if you've done something wrong" then, when the data shows that no wrong has been done, demand more data, proclaiming that "there must be a pony in there!".
Several inquiries into CRU and all exonerations. Yet what is the result?
Before:
Denialist: This is going to be GREAT! Finally, these eco nazis will be shown up!!!!
After:
Denialist: This is a whitewash! They've been bought off!!!!
Repeat ad nauseum.
PS where are these denialists looking at Wegman's "doing wrong"?
Seriously silent, aren't you Prick...
I tried very hard the other day to put myself in a "skeptics" shoes, and surprisingly realised that they had a point. It is simply this: Action on AGW will make a pretty big change to our way of life. It won't be as easy as some think (and it won't be nearly as civilisation-destroying as others think). So the scientists working on AGW have a greater than normal responsibility to get things right.
However, this doesn't let the skeptics off the hook, for they too should recognise what is at stake and behave responsibly.
Incidentally, if, just hypothetically, AGW had increased the intensity of the QLD rainfall by 10%, then that extra 10% would have accounted for a good fraction of the flood damage in QLD. It makes me wonder if that sort of damage is factored into the cost of the "do nothing about AGW" option so beloved by extremists?
> It is simply this: Action on AGW will make a pretty big change to our way of life.
Mind you, so was the move to petroleum based fuels and fertilisers.
People who made the man with the flag walk in front of the car (demanded by the horse cab owners) are denoted as idiots nowadays.
As to your final query, no, they deny there's ANY attributable effect on ANY event, even if they agree that AGW will increase the catastrophes.
Rick Bradford:
More like, these useless idiots can get lost. But fact-denialists like Rick Bradford wouldn't understand this.
John Brookes:
With 0.8 deg C of warming, the quantity of rain would have been increased by 0.8 x 7%, let's say 5%, for the same event. There are reports of 7500 Gl falling in the Brisbane catchment so AGW increased the rain that fell by 375 Gl. Wivenhoe dam sent 280 Gl down the river above the flow rate deemed to be non-damaging (3,500 m3/s). So AGW is pretty much entirely responsible for flooding Brisbane given the way Wivenhoe was controlled (which wasn't necessarily the most rational choice).
As if they'd ever do any cost estimation.
> More like, these useless idiots can get lost.
That is indeed an accurate precis of the attitude of the Climategate 'scientists' -- anyone who challenges The Faith must by definition be a 'useless idiot'.
Galileo faced similar problems with the fundamentalists of his day -- blind denunciation of 'heresy' has a long and sorry history.
>Galileo faced [similar problems with the fundamentalists of his day](http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/05/cuccinelli-mann-post-normal-scien…)
Rick Bradford:
If you don't produce any research that produces any advance in science then what, pray tell, is useful about that?
You, on the other hand, are a useful fool for your religion.
^
Religion is an unfalsifiable belief in an all-powerful and unquestionable force and hence is much closer to the cultish belief in man-made global warming than the stance of remaining open and questioning.
> "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." (Bertrand Russell, 1872 - 1970)
> much closer to the cultish belief in man-made global warming
Sorry, you misspelt "science" as "cultish belief".
> than the stance of remaining open and questioning.
This would be nice if you were actually opening and questioning like the scientists who are investigating the results of AGW as opposed to useful idiots like yourself, Dellingpole, Monckton or Watts.
It's definitely a religious fervour that insists that all the evidence for AGW is merely cult belief.
Of course, Rick's mind is so open that he can contain several contradictory memes all at the same time without conflict. This is made easier if you have avoided learning anything, since there will be plenty of space.
> - blind denunciation of 'heresy' has a long and sorry history.
Oddly enough Rick and his fellow adherents of the Church Of Denial (available outside Egypt) blindly denounce the IPCC scientists.
Aren't denidiots like Rick useful.
and in this case, unknown force that is causing the earth's surface to get warmer.
> ... unknown force that is causing the earth's surface to get warmer
It's that same 'unknown force' that has caused the earth to get warmer, and then cooler, over billions of years. We don't know exactly what causes it, so we call it 'natural variation'.
Rick proposed:
So because you don't know, you choose a term you don't understand {natural variation} and use it to make your ignorance sound quasi-scientific and perhaps sage.
Of course people who do understand use descriptive terms (e.g. orbital forcing, radiative forcing) to describe things they can map to data. If there are unexplained anomalies they don't pretend it's "natural variation". They hypothesise and foreshadow further research.
Rick Bradford's does unintentional irony quoting Betrand Russell:
This passage appears in a Wiki intro to Dunning-Kruger and is of course one of the more persistent attributes of those fools and fanatics adopting the naysaying position on anthropogenic climate change.
...same 'unknown force' .....
I'm perfectly happy with the idea that there may be other forces as yet unidentified. But we already know about Milankovitch cycles, albedo, volcanoes, oceans, forests, greenhouse gases, solar irradiation, clouds.
There's quite a lot to work with already. And we have physics, chemistry and biology to help us do that work. Anything we've not yet identified will show up one way or another.
Whether it turns out to be an 'unknown force' is as yet unknown.
> I'm perfectly happy with the idea that there may be other forces as yet unidentified.
However, the forces we already know about explain the observations.
So why must "skeptics" multiply the factors?
It might have been natural but it had a force that was determinate if the observations were available. We are perfectly capable of observing forces if they are real now. Your force does not now exist in observations. No observation now => fiction.
> so we call it 'natural variation'.
Why not call it God?
Or Tabasco?
What is CAUSING the variation.
> What is CAUSING the variation.
Well, considering it has been happening for billions of years causing periodic ice ages and their opposite, it certainly isn't human industrial emissions of CO2.
As I expect they sing at CRU parties: "Something is happening here but you donât know what it is, do you, Prof. Jones?"
*It's that same 'unknown force' that has caused the earth to get warmer, and then cooler, over billions of years*
Nonsense. Certainaly climatic changes are the norm, but that has never been in doubt. The problem is the *rate of change* for a system that is largely determinsitic. It's too bad, Rick, that you are evolutionarily programmed to think in terms of temporal scales that relate to a human life time. It is the same pit that the denialists always dig themselves into. They seriousl think that 10 or 20 years is a long time; that 50 years should be long enough for natural forcings to be elucidated. It explains why people like Peiser and others makes constant references to the old 'it hasn't warmed since 1998' meme. But for a deterministic system, the time scales normally required to generate the changes we are witnessing now would certainly require some profoundly significant external forcing agent. Its certainly not due to solar forcing; there is little evidence to suggest that it is anything but us; swtich that around, and the evidence for a human fingerprint on the current warming is immense.
> > What is CAUSING the variation.
> Well, considering it has been happening for billions of years causing periodic ice ages and their opposite, it certainly isn't human industrial emissions of CO2.
I don't know if that is the way that should have been formatted, but if I take it as this is the right way and the "Well.." but is a response, can I just say "complete bollocks, Rick"?
Complete bollocks, Rick.
What's been causing the warming is CO2. And other greenhouse gasses. And things like the Sun cooling or warming.
And in each event, at different times, the relative effects of each of them have changed.
These are the same variables that when plugged in to our natural CO2 emissions (natural because the natural result of combustion of hydrocarbons in an oxygen rich atmosphere is CO2) show that this time it's CO2 and specifically our contributions to that CO2 level that has caused this warming.
So "certainly wasn't human CO2 production" is complete bollocks, Rick. What CAUSED the variations are CAUSING the variations NOW. And the biggest contributor is human CO2 production.