April 2012 Open thread

Just lettin ya'll know I did by bit for : Human Achievement Hour 2012.
Cheap abundant energy is my friend :-)

Wot ? Cat go my tung again tim ?

So much for 'free speech'.

Bernard, here is an arctic sea ice prediction from an ecologist, lol, are they all that loopy ?

Now, scientists believe the summer Arctic could be open ocean as soon as next year,(2013) "ecologist" Jim Porter told a crowd of more than 100 on the UGA campus.

( http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-01-19/global-warming-movng-fast… )

Here is another one, he he thinks that it is going to melt in 2008, ( http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/01/content_7696460.htm )

Bernard, I think this next guy may be a relation of yours.

Arctic specialist Burnt Balchen reckons it will be gone in 2000, ( http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zmI0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=L5wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=… )

The New York Times predicted the same thing for 1970 ( http://www.real-science.com/berwyn-thinks-arctic-disappear )

and 1947 - "ARCTIC PHENOMENON Warming Of Climate Causes Concern LOS ANGELES, May 30.-The possibility of a prodigious rise in the surface of the ocean with resultant widespread inundation, arising from an Arctic climatic phenomenon was discussed yesterday by Dr. Hans Ahlmann, a noted Swedish geophysicist at the University of California Geophysical Institute.

A mysterious warming of the climate was slowly manifesting it self in the Arctic, Dr. Ahlmann said, and, if the Antarctic ice re gions ahd the major Greenland ice cap should reduce at the sam. rate as the present melting in the Arctic, oceanic surfaces would rise to catastrophic proportions and people living in the lowlands along their shores would be inundated. He said that temperatures in the Arctic had increased 10deg. Fahren heit since 1900--an "enormous" rise 'from a scientific standpoint.

The waters in the Spitsbergen area in the same period had risen three to five degrees in temperature and one to one and a half millimeters yearly in level. "The Arctic change is so serious that I hope an international agency can speedily be formed to study the conditions on a global basis." he added. He pointed out that whereas in 1910 the navigable season along western Spitsbergen lasted three months it now lasted eight months."
( http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46315410?searchTerm=global%20wa… )

Maybe you can read the future in a snow globe Bernard ?

Delingpole rules OK.

James Delingpole is the gun.

:-)

The 'globe' is cooling (again). Go figure.

Die, commercial spammer, die.

Lovelock admits he's wrong. Where's the 'white flag' Tim ?

Adelady: yes, BP is based on the start of radiocarbon dating. But if Loehle was basing his reconstruction of MWP climate against mid-20th century rather than the end of the 20th century, then it makes a difference. I also recall from an old RC post that he used very few proxies towards the end (I must try and dig out his paper!).

John @422..

"When he knows he's wrong he sinks into deranged strawman arguments. A real man would admit it and move on"

John believes I'm wrong about Gingerbaker advocating murder,because he merely "advocated a discussion" about advocating murder.

Gingerbaker apparently doesn't know if advocating murder is wrong, so he/she decided that a discussion to consider advocating murder is needed.... this is a tough decision afterall.

So here we have Gingerbaker with this gift of being able to know the future, yet has to ask for guidance on the ethics of murder. This is truly an amazing mind.

My biggest mistake was not realizing that a discussion about advocating murder shouldn't include a discussion about whether the person wanting to discuss the advocating of murder is actually advocating murder.

Of course, I wasn't the first to fail with such logic. Here's ianam @243:

"You cannot establish mass murder as being ethical merely by universalizing the ethics of mass murderers who justified their mass murder as preventing other mass murder."

And again @342:

"As I said, you advocated it (or at least offered it for consideration) as a means to prevent it."

Now, you would think that John would get his panties all tied up in a knot trying to get Ianam to admit he/she was wrong. But he doesn't.

The difference being, even though ianam is against the advocating of murder through discussion, he/she at least agrees that the idea of mass murder would be effective in stopping business as usual.

Here's ianam @257:

"Business is likely to continue as usual unless Gingerbaker has his/her way"

So Ianam gets a pass from John et al, because the basic Deltoid ideology remains intact.

I apologize for believing that the consideration of mass murder was akin to advocating mass murder. Perhaps it was the definition of advocate that confused me:

ad·vo·cate (dv-kt)
To speak, plead, or argue in favor of.

Apparently Ginerbaker wasn't speaking or arguing in favor of murder when he/she said this @239...

"Would it be ethically wrong or ethically mandated to kill people like this to protect humanity? There is, it seems to me, no other way to stop them."

Once again, much to my chagrin, I apologize and rid myself of this subject.

Meanwhile, in the frozen wastelands of the Deltoid mind, the mice keep spinning their wheels while shouting "Polar bears are dying because of the climate change, they are nearly all wiped out!".

Prove it.

Nobody has the time to waste engaging with ignorant idiots, Betula.

Of course, you might not be.

But you'd have to prove it.

"Prove it."

Prove that melting arctic sea ice won't cause the polar bears to have to swim further and thereby drown more frequently.

We have a causation.

Prove that it cannot cause polar bear deaths by drowning.

he/she at least agrees that the idea of mass murder would be effective in stopping business as usual

I agree because it's an obvious, objective fact. If, say, we murdered all the teachers, that would kind of put a ding in the usual business of education, wouldn't it? But that I simply note that consequence of murdering teachers doesn't mean I advocate murdering teachers ... as opposed to GingerBaker, who obviously is advocating putting people to death when he suggests rethinking the morality of doing so and offers justifications for doing so.

So I think John is wrong here, but the reason he gives me a pass but not you is because you're a troll sack of lying feces who denies science simply because you don't like the unfortunate consequences of what the science tells us. And as I said, while I'm very much opposed to anyone killing you, I wouldn't bat an eye if you decided to do yourself in.

ianam @432

What exactly is it that I have denied?

"What exactly is it that I have denied?"

That polar bears can drown because the ice retreating from global warming means they have too far to swim.

Oh, and everything to do with climate science.

Wow @431
"Prove that it cannot cause polar bear deaths by drowning"

A lot of things COULD cause polar bears to drown. C'mon, you can think of a few...

The questions are...Have they drowned? How many have drowned? What was the cause of drowning?

Please provide links stating climate change as the direct cause of any polar bear drowning.

Betula logic:

We know tropical forests are disappearing at a rapid rate and we know that with them their biodiversity - in particular endemics - also will face extirpation. But much of what we know is based on projection estimates. That is to say, we know that if you cut down a million hectares of contiguous rainforest in Brazil the forest-dependent biota will disappear along with it. That is a projection and we know from past experience that it is prety accurate. Betula, who must still be in his diapers, would argue in 1900: how many Bengal Tigers have disappeared because of the loss of Indian forest habitat? In 1900, the population of tigers in the Indian subcontinent was estimated to be somewhere around 100,000. The forests had only started to be destroyed at that time. So Betula, sitting in his crib, would say that there is no problem, even though the tiger habitat would largely disappear in the coming years. Now there are approximately 1300 tigers left in India. Projections of their demise in 1900 would have been accurate, taking predictions of the future loss of their habitat into account.

I already demolished Betula's banal argument regarding polar bears by showing that projected losses of sea ice will decimate their numbers because they are habitat specialists, like tigers in India are wet forest specialists. Given there status at the terminal end of the food chain, the effects will also be lagged because they are highly k-selected animals. A study in Nature (1994) by Tilman and May discussed a process known as the 'extinction debt' in which they argued that changes in the landscapes and natural habitats of North America wrought by white settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries may still be rippling through ecological communities three centuries later, and in particular towards the end of three and four trophic level food chains. In other words, there can be lengthy intervals between cause (habitat destruction) and effect (manifestations on the demographics and population ecology of the native biota) that take decades or even centuries to play themselves out. They emphasized these effects at the end of long food chains, which means apex predators. Polar bears are finished if the loss of Arctic ice is anywhere close to predicted estimates. They will linger for awhile, and their demise will take time, but they are finito. All I can add to that is to say that I hope the IPCC and climate science community are wrong. Betula is one of those nincompoops who thinks that cause-and-effect relationships are instantaneous or virtually so. All I can say to most reader of deltoid is to forgive him for (a) his willful ignorance, and (b) failing to grasp any of this which I wrote before in this thread. He is clearly a very shallow individual who has never been near a science room in his life.

Finally, what anti-environmental dupes like Betula state is that they want 100% concrete evidence of a process. Without that evidence, they argue that there is no problem. As I have also said before, this is like trying to win a pissing match with a skunk. Similar logic by deniers has been used to downplay a wide range of anthropogenic stresses on natural systems. Its one of their tried-and-trusted strategies when the growing body of empirical evidence begins to overwhelm them.

Now Betula, be a good boy now and go away. Your arguments are as shallow as a tiny puddle.

Wow @434...

I asked what it is that I deny and this is what I get:

"That polar bears can drown because the ice retreating from global warming means they have too far to swim."

Wow, is this really how you interpret the things people say? I never denied any such thing.

Think about it, you've been arguing with yourself this entire time.

Just to make sure everyone sees the utter bankruptcy here:

I apologize for believing that the consideration of mass murder was akin to advocating mass murder.

And you'd be totally right, if the verbs "advocate" and "consider" were anywhere close in meaning. Which they're not. So yes, apology accepted.

But wait...

ad·vo·cate (dv-kt) To speak, plead, or argue in favor of.

Ah! That narrows it down. You either do not know what "consider" means, or you are an intellectually dishonest douchecanoe whose only hope is that others are as dumb as he is.

The pool is hereby open. I am taking 10:1 on douchecanoe.

Perhaps it was the definition of advocate that confused me:
ad·vo·cate (dv-kt) To speak, plead, or argue in favor of.

What exactly is it that I have denied?

I had specifically in mind these words from the comment I responded to:

this gift of being able to know the future

They sum up your stupidity, ignorance and dishonesty about science, of which you have offered many detailed denials of what science predicts.

"Prove that it cannot cause polar bear deaths by drowning"

A lot of things COULD cause polar bears to drown. C'mon, you can think of a few...

Here you demonstrate your stupidity by engaging in a straightforward logical fallacy. That a lot of things could cause polar bears to drown has no bearing on whether or not melting artic sea ice can.

Wow, is this really how you interpret the things people say? I never denied any such thing.

Well, of course, you have, by engaging in the fallacy and your general dishonesty around the issue. It's as if someone said that the sun exploding and swelling to a million times its diameter could kill people and then you went on and on about how other things can surely kill people, and asked for direct evidence of the sun exploding and swelling to a million times and killing people. Then after spending a lifetime of tapdancing around the issue and never even admitting that the sun exploding could kill people, you then said that, hey, you never uttered the words "I deny it" and you're being misinterpreted.

The bottom line it's obvious that you're a dishonest sack of denialist feces and none of your silly sophistry will change that.

But much of what we know is based on projection estimates.

You cannot know the future! You have no direct evidence!

`<`exit Betula moron mode`>`

One might add to Jeff Harvey, on the usbject of Bengal Tigers and Polar Bears that below a certain number, prolongation of the species entails a sharp decline in genetic diversity and an associated elevated risk of either lethal genetic flaws or declining resistance to disease. This was something noted just the other day in realtion to the thylacine -- that it was not mere human predation that finished the species.

One might also add, in relation to polar bears, that it is not mere drowning that is a threat, but the loss of food sources underneath the floating sea ice on which the prey of polar bears feed. When the prey goes elsewhere, the polar bears cannot follow and are often forced to feed on "salp". So they lose condition very rapidly.

Prove that loss of food sources kills polar bears! Where's your direct evidence that not having a food supply kills polar bears?! Just because I don't acknowledge that a logical consequence of lack of sea ice, and lack of food, is dead polar bears doesn't mean I'm a denier ... you're misinterpreting me!

Maybe Betula believes in this.

Jeff and Bernerd,
I'm beginning to feel a little guilty about my polar bear car seat covers so I hope to sooth your concerns by diverting you to quite a lot of reading here...
http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/11/18/a-skeptics-approach-to-climate-a…

Mack,

I suppose you also have a tiger car seat cover and an amulet made out of black rhinocerous horn as well as a necklace made from the beaks of Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers....

Or don't you think that these species are threatened either? This is the sprint of folly. Refuse to acknowledge projections based on habitat area-extinction models, stick your head in the sand and claim that we have no idea what the future holds for the Arctic and leave it at that.

So, what do you think will happen to Polar Bears if their habitat changes drastically in the next 50 years? Are you one of those silly scientifically illiterate deniers like Lomborg who think that they will 'evolve behavior like their brown bear cousins?'... all in the space of a single generation? Fran's point is important: the genetic dispostion of the population will influence the rate of adaptive radiation, but given that these are highly k-selected animals, their response will be in slow motion. The ice isn't disappearing in slow motion but at rates probably faster than at any time in the bear's evolutionary history. This is set against populations also affected by pesticides and hunting. If they were Diptera or Orthoptera I would think they might stand a chance, but they are not.

"Are you one of those silly scientifically illiterate deniers like Lomborg who think that they will 'evolve behavior like their brown bear cousins?'"

And guess what happens when they do? Since whitey here doesn't live in the arctic, he and his mates will see these huge bears, feel threatened and demand that they be killed off "for the safety of our children".

It's called humour Jeff. But sorry I forgot you're a souless doom-merchant. Just read the link.

[Foulspot](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…).

It's a forlorn endeavour to hope that you might actually sufficiently evolve intellectually that you yourself could understand the science.

You've pegged the game of sock-puppetry though...

"Just read the link."

I did.

Why did it need reading? If I point you to an xkcd comic, will you read that?

From that whining self-pitying puff piece:

"a theory which states that the variations in temperature, thought to be explained by anthropogenic emissions according to the IPCC, were actually better explained by increases in solar activity."

Except that you'd have to deny the sun has been cooling when the temperatures are still going up. Last time the sun was this inactive, the world was 1.3C cooler.

Or did you and he not approach that theory *skeptically*?

This would be why you and he gets called denier when promulgating that idiocy. Because you're not skeptical over it, you haven't bothered checking. You both just *hope*.

"Wow, is this really how you interpret the things people say? I never denied any such thing."

You have denied plenty of such things. Here is the proof:

"Please provide links stating climate change as the direct cause of any polar bear drowning."

You're denying that the causation is appropriate and sufficient. You're denying that EVERYTHING has to be inferred. You never saw the bullet leave the gun, you heard a bang, you heard "I'm gonna kill you" and the person who is dead has a bullet hole through them and the gun has a missing bullet and smoke powder.

But, since you didn't ACTUALLY SEE the bullet, you deny that the person was shot dead by the defendant.

Tell me, what OTHER ways could polar bears die?

Now PROVE they died that way.

*It's called humour Jeff*

If that was 'humor', then you've cornered the market for insidious stupidity...

And yes, as Bernard says you have become a sock-puppet expert Spotty. How many other aliases can we expect to see you don?

Sorry Hello Jeff only one person here .no alias you poor paranoid.

Amazing

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png

Hey Mack, where did you get those seat covers ?

I would like to get a polar bear skin to put on the floor of my walk in freezer.

Funny how the gits in here think you are me, that makes you a foulspot too, maybe only once a month though ? That's what that disgusting creature bernerd is referring to.

Here is one for the gits, some perspective !

( http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/vivid-illustration-of-how-… )

Sunspot.

I'm losing count of the number of socks that you employ on Deltoid (perhaps someone with more patience than I could list them), but you're not fooling anyone with your denials of such. Your peculiar idiosyncracies of semi-literate grammar, spelling, punctuation and vocabulary are klaxons to anyone with half a clue.

Further, just so you know, when you [start talking to yourself](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…) it's time to acknowledge your abject foolishness.

And you obviously have no Shakespeare under your belt, or you'd not tell disgusting and despicably purile untruths about the reason why I refer to you (very validly, as it seems) as 'Foulspot'.

If you're a hero of your denialist mates, then the quality of the whole Denialati movement is suitably represented by the quality of your 'advocacy'.

Isn't it "damned spot"? Of course, in this case, foul works just as well.

Yep, it's "damned", but way-back-when I felt that I couldn't elevate spotty to the lofty heights of metaphysical disapprobation. 'Foul' seems a better descriptor, and it's commonly used in the misquote.

Ironically, the substance of the spot is of the exact hæmatological nature as 'Karen' suggested, even if the source is different. And if ever anyone needed evidence that Karen isn't female, the very fact that he used that purile analogy should serve to convince...

Need some light entertainment? How about a podcast to listen to, one that will have you giggling? Tune in to Jo Nova, author of the "Septic's Handbook"(sic), at this page.

Wow @ 451 states...

"You're denying that the causation is appropriate and sufficient. You're denying that EVERYTHING has to be inferred. You never saw the bullet leave the gun, you heard a bang, you heard "I'm gonna kill you" and the person who is dead has a bullet hole through them and the gun has a missing bullet and smoke powder"

I ask Wow to provide a link of all the polar bears that have died from global warming, only to find out that I witnessed a murder...in more ways than one.

And then this:

"Tell me, what OTHER ways could polar bears die?"
"Now PROVE they died that way."

I don't know which dead polar bears we are talking about because Wow never provided the link I asked for while I was witnessing a murder. However, if I were to come across the extremely rare event of a polar bear being found dead in the water, I wouldn't assume the causation without all the facts (unlike Wow).

I would think that anyone with at least half a brain (unlike Wow) would know a polar bear could die/drown as a result of many different factors ie: A variety of natural causes, old, weak, sick, starving, caught in currents or storms, disoriented, injured in an accident or fight or from hunting, disease, rabies, parasites, environmental contaminants, shot with tranquilizer darts or any combination of the above...

Wow, this might help. Check out this police report describing the murder scene...

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/05/16/where-are-all-th…

"I ask Wow to provide a link of all the polar bears that have died from global warming"

And I ask for what evidence other than arctic sea ice melting means less is there is needed?

I guess you proclaim nobody has ever died of smoking, they just died of lung cancer, right?

Two articles just out today in Science: the first shows a significant effect of warming in the Meditteranean region on mountain plants, with a reduction in diversity:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/353.abstract

The second provides definitive proof that most Himalayan glaciers are indeed shrinking rapidly since the mid 19th century:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/310.abstract

Expect the anti-science non-peer reviewed climate change denial blogs to either ignore these studies or to bitterly attack them, as they so often do.

PS thanks for the blogroll. There's five minutes of my life I'm not going to get back.

Funny how they're not able to read the reports, mind. Just enough to see "...polar bear numbers increasing..." whilst missing "some".

Betula youtwerp: go away. You don't have a clue about what you are talking about. Whether ot not polar bears died due to climate change-induced drowning is NOT the point. The point is that future warming will decimate the bear's habitat in the blink of an evolutionary eye. As I said yesterday, scientists make projections. You are stuck in reverse. You don't understand basic ecology and yet for some reason you persist. Nobody here is folled by your stupidity. If you were to jump off a 100 story building and fall 80 floors, then look up and shout, 'everything's fine', you'd be clearly wrong.

The effects of ice loss on the bears will not be manifested so much in drownings but in a *per capita* loss in fitness. In other words, the bears are going to have to expend more metabolic effort to find prey, suitable habitat for hunting and reproduction. These costs will be borne out over time on demographic characters such as longevity and reproductive output. The deleterious effects of warming will be lagged temporily. This is because the animals are income breeders and have long lifespans combined with low intrinsic rates of increase. We are already seeing a demographic switch towards older bears as fertility rates decline. The numbers of bears is relatively stable - for the moment - but as these costs begin to impact the population we will see the populatiosn decline, as they appear to be beginning to do so in many areas.

The same thing is happening to Loggerhead Shrikes in eastern North America. Dueto habitat loss in the north, compeition for wintering sites between migrants and resident birds in the south meant that many of the migrants were physiologically depleted when they headed north again the following spring. As a result, brood sizes began to plummet and mortality soon exceeded natality. However, the birds persisted for some decades before the effects were manifested more widely. Now the shrikes are heading for extinction east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River. They were once found from the maritime provinces to the Gulf Coast and west to the Pacific Ocean. And this slow-motion extipration occured in a species which is much more R-selected than the Polar Bear.

This may be all above your simple little head but population ecologists understand it well enough. Finally, rabies has been found in 1 single polar bear since the 1980s.

Wow @462 states...

"I guess you proclaim nobody has ever died of smoking, they just died of lung cancer, right?"

Now you're imagining proclamations that don't exist. Interesting.

Wow, here are some numbers on deaths as a result of smoking:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/cirna/pdf/USA_Figures.pdf

Still waiting for some numbers on polar bear deaths as a result of climate change...

JH @463 states...

"You don't have a clue about what you are talking about. Whether ot not polar bears died due to climate change-induced drowning is NOT the point."

Obviously it is an important point, why else would the public be falsley led to believe they are currently drowning?

Betula, please explain to us how it would be possible that polar bears would not die if there were no Arctic sea ice.

Wow, here are some numbers on deaths as a result of smoking: http://www.med.upenn.edu/cirna/pdf/USA_Figures.pdf

Prove that smoking caused those deaths. Funny how, when we post graphs, people like you simply deny what they claim.

JH @463...

"Finally, rabies has been found in 1 single polar bear since the 1980s."

And how many polar bears have died from climate change induced drowning in that time?

C'mon Jeff, no need for a diatribe telling me how you're the only one who understands cause and effect in relation to the environment and Bengal Tigers. Just answer the actual question without inference.

The answer is not something made up, it's just a fact. If you want to talk about future projections that's fine, but why is it so hard for everyone here to admit the present?

Just answer it Jeff. Wow can't do it but I know you can.

ianam @466..

"Betula, please explain to us how it would be possible that polar bears would not die if there were no Arctic sea ice."

"If" I had claimed such a thing, I would explain it.

"Prove that smoking caused those deaths. Funny how, when we post graphs, people like you simply deny what they claim."

Because they aren't projections, they are actual deaths.

Still waiting for the actual polar bear death graph...

Betula, it's quite simple to understand really even for a layman like me.

When an environment, whether jungle, forest, savannah or icy wastes over deep water disappears, the inhabitants adapted to live in that environment must adapt to new conditions or die when it disappears.

The rate of anthropogenic climate change outstrips the ability of most species apart from fruitflies (who wouldn't like the cold) to adapt, which limits their available options.

Still, fuck'em,eh?
What have polar bears ever done for you? (Apart from highlight your denier-blog fed, narrow minded, uninformed stupidity).

Betula, Your posts are so utterly devoid of even elementary logic. From under what slimy rock did you emerge? Can you please go back there?

Here are important terms in the science of population ecology relevant to understanding the demographics of a species that clearly you do not understand:

- the extinction debt
- temporal lags
- r and k selection
- recruitment
- fitness
- physiological trade-offs
- area extinction models of exponential decay

Instead, our resident twerp (you, as it turns out) seems to think that warming-induced drowning is the only climate-related threat these great predators face. Betula, its clear that your world view with respect to climate-change effects is apparently gleaned from some anti-environmental blogs. The Polar Bear situation is somewhat symbolic for the myriad of other studies already showing deleterious effects of warming-related effects on species and species-interactions. TAs I said in an earlier post, I am sure you would be one of those dorks who claims that the projected loss of tropical forests back in the 1950s was nothing to worry about because it had not happened yet. Again, you argue as if you are ten years old - or 110. Your marbles are clearly rattling around a pretty empty noggin.

Betula, it's quite simple to understand really even for a layman like me.

When an environment, whether jungle, forest, savannah or icy wastes over deep water disappears, the inhabitants adapted to live in that environment must adapt to new conditions or die when it disappears.

The rate of anthropogenic climate change outstrips the ability of most species apart from fruitflies (who wouldn't like the cold) to adapt, which limits their available options.

Still, fukc em, eh? What have polar bears ever done for you? I mean apart from highlighting your crass, denier-blog fed, narrow minded, uninformed stupidity.

JH...
"Instead, our resident twerp (you, as it turns out) seems to think that warming-induced drowning is the only climate-related threat these great predators face"

I never said any such thing, so what would cause you to think it? It's pure speculation on your part, or more accurately, an assumption.

You know the answer to the question, yet you don't want to answer it. Why? I can only assume, but then I would be like you.

It's called humour Jeff

because the Mackmoron didn't really feel guilty about anything to do with Polar Bears at all. He was being ironic. You get the joke now, Jeff?

"Betula, please explain to us how it would be possible that polar bears would not die if there were no Arctic sea ice."

"If" I had claimed such a thing, I would explain it.

Then you concede that it isn't possible, and therefore there is no need for "direct evidence". And if you don't concede it, then you owe an explanation, because it certainly seems logical that the absence of Arctic sea ice would cause polar bear deaths.

"Prove that smoking caused those deaths. Funny how, when we post graphs, people like you simply deny what they claim."

Because they aren't projections, they are actual deaths.

Yes, of course they are actual deaths, but you claimed they are deaths from smoking ... now prove your claim. And unless polar bears are immortal, there are actual polar bear deaths, so those aren't projections either. Your dispute is with the cause, and yet you make unproven claims about smoking causing people to die ... how do you know that's what killed them? That's all I asked you, but like the piece of crap you are, you do nothing but evade.

And as for projections, you just conceded that it isn't possible for an absence of Arctic sea ice to fail to result in the deaths of polar bears ... nothing more is needed when one thing necessarily follows from another. But you deny even modus ponens.

Ah, so our resident Denialati are now experts of abstruse and arcane philosophy in the mould of Berkeley and Fossett, to wit...

...if a polar bear dies as a consequence of the rotten and reduced sea ice, but no one is present to witness the mortality, does global warming actually exist?

And Tom Fuller [wonders why scientists have short fuses](http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/dilemmas-in-science-…) when is comes to certain lay people's mangling of logic and fact.

It seems that one can drop a bear in the water, but one cannot make it survive there.

This week [the Australian ABC is airing something interesting](http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/i-can-change-y…):

Ex-conservative senator Nick Minchin and ex-lawyer Anna Rose travelled the world introducing each other to supporters of their opposing positions on climate. The result is a documentary film to be broadcast on ABC television April 26 2012. It will be followed by a live studio debate.

ianam @476..

"it certainly seems logical that the absence of Arctic sea ice would cause polar bear deaths."

Yes it does, I never said it didn't. Has it?

"Yes, of course they are actual deaths, but you claimed they are deaths from smoking ... now prove your claim."

I never claimed anything, I provided a link that claimed it.
Now see if you can provide me a link claiming the number of polar bears that have died as a direct result of climate change. I promise not to give you credit for creating the claim in the link.

Bernard...

"...if a polar bear dies as a consequence of the rotten and reduced sea ice, but no one is present to witness the mortality, does global warming actually exist?"

So Bernard, if you don't know there is a mortality, you can't claim there is one, yet, you can claim the cause. I can see the conversation now...

Bystander: Hey, Bernard, what are you doing?

Bernard: Writing a paper on the current mortality rate of polar bears as a result of melting ice.

Bystander: How many?

Bernard: How many what?

Betula.

That it completely escapes you how an ecologist can estimate mortalities, and even how s/he might ascribe them to particular causes, simply shows the depth of your ignorance.

Go to school.

Bernard J said:

And Tom Fuller wonders why scientists have short fuses when is comes to certain lay people's mangling of logic and fact.

Scientists have a lot longer fuses than dishonest Fuller. He has no fuse at all since he told me to "Bugg*r off" when [I exposed his series of lies over at Eli's place](http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2010/11/infra-digging-michael-tobis.html).

Sen. Inhofe: Bible Proves Global Warming Is A Hoax

I guess that's it then, argument over. We lost guys. Them with the Bible proof got us beat.

Ian Forrester,

Now, that was a truly entertaining little diversion! I'm still chuckling...

Becoming abusive when called to account; not generally regarded as a great indicator of veracity!

On another note: Tim, have we perhaps all become too much for you? I find it hard to believe The Australian hasn't printed anything Stupid for such a prolonged period...

During this peaceful, Scandi-free / de-Betty-ed lull, connoisseurs may enjoy Piers Corbyn's latest 'robust' exchange with the Met Office, Weather Forecasting in general, and The Independent.

As a non-drinker of Coca Cola I was particularly impressed by his argument.

Bill, the delusion in the comments is also quite impressive.

I'd temporarily forgotten about Cranky Corbyn until this May forecast. I then compared his March forecast with the UKMet summary for that month. Corbyn was seriously,hopelessly wrong.

Sounds like he's thrown the full bucket of entrails at this one.obviously his need for publicity is greater than his need for quality results.

Corbyn also predicted an exceptionally cold November-February period in western Europe (wrong on all counts; November was in fact the warmest or close to one of the warmest for most west European countries). His North American forecasts were equally wrong. He's about as accurate as the 'Farmer's Almanac', which even tries to pin down forecasts in week-long blocks. According to the Almanac, during my sled-hauling/camping expedition across Algonquin Park over 23 days with a friend in Ontario, Canada, we should have expected bitterly cold conditions and one or two major snowfalls (normal temperature was -7 C by day and -19 C at night). Instead, and to our benefit, it was mostly above normal temperature-wise and even rained on two occasions, something almost unheard of at that time of year in northern Ontario. The coldest night was -26 C, but most days it was 0 to -6 and -8 to -12 at night. Eminently bearable on a winter camping trip.

JH...

"Instead, and to our benefit, it was mostly above normal temperature-wise"

Jeff, you mean to tell me you benefited from climate change?

I never claimed anything

You're a flat-out liar. I'm done with you, you stupid sack of garbage.

Ianam, just for the record, I'm not the Surgeon General. It would be best to bring up your problem with her.

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/

*Jeff, you mean to tell me you benefited from climate change?*

Sure - for a few weeks. But the park's flora and fauna most certainly won't. They are found at the southern edge of the boreal forest zone, which is found on acid soils in the Canadian Shield. Climate warming is causing this zone to recede northwards, but the transition forests and the Carolinian forests to the south are found on very high pH soils on lime. They will certainly not be able to shift northwards very rapidly at all, if ever. There most certainly will be profound ecological consequences for regions bordering biome edges.

Again, this is certainly well over your head.

Somebody tell these alarmist scientists that there's no such thing as global warming. Look, they're all getting worked up about so-called "methane" being released into the atmosphere from cracks in the arctic ice.

>The researchers found significant amounts of methane being released from the ocean into the atmosphere through cracks in the melting sea ice. They said the quantities could be large enough to affect the global climate. Previous observations have pointed to large methane plumes being released from the seabed in the relatively shallow sea off the northern coast of Siberia but the latest findings were made far away from land in the deep, open ocean where the surface is usually capped by ice.

What nonesense. Everyone knows it's cooling/plateauing/coming out of the Little Ice Age and therefore absolutely nothing to worry about.

As Karenmackspot said:

>The IPCC is being proven wrong by the cold "CLIMATE" almost everywhere !!!!

and since when is he wrong about anything?

Ian Forrester @482

That is a very enlightening exchange WRT Fullers thought process limitations and that of others such as Richard Tol who wrote, in reply to Michael Tobis:

You have reviewed the evidence and reached the conclusion that climate change is undesirable. That's a perfectly respectable opinion, shared by a great many people, including me. But it is a political opinion.

The fact that climate change will see a more rapid deterioration in the biosphere that we have evolved with and thus likely cause a massive disruption of food sources and other services supplied by same seems to escape his narrow little mind. Which is fairly typical of the whole denier camp.

Meanwhile over at Skeptical Science we are informed that Knap Chippenberger has dropped more bubkas (or is it bubkis) by telling us that "âlonger, more intense and more frequent heat wavesâ may actually improve the public health and welfare"

Lionel A, in a way Richard Tol is right. If you are, for example, someone whose ideology states that life does not matter, you do not care about massive disruption of food sources and other services.

BTW, it's Chip Knappenberger

I may be off topic (if you can be off topic in an open thread), but Sydney Deltoids may be interested to take part in the ABC QandA audience following the program "I can change your mind about climate" on Thursday. See http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/ for details.

Everyone else from Australia might like to fill in their survey about attitudes towards climate change at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/

Currently about 51% are "dismissive" and only about 30% "alarmed" or "concerned".

Knappenberger is another one of those dimwits who thinks that humans must be exempt from the laws of nature. In other words, that our ability as a species to adapt to heat waves and other extreme weather-related events is independent of the effects that these events will have on natural systems that sustain us in a huge number of ways via the direct and indirect services that emerge from them.But Tol isn't a whole lot better IMHO. In exchanges I have had with him (he is Dutch, and I work here) he virtually admits that he has no knowledge of systems ecology. My question to like-minded economists is how they can therefore make estimates of the costs of warming on human civilization when they know nada about the link between the health and vitality of ecosystems and the effects that warming will have on them and the species that make them up. Economists ought to be working with ecologists to address these questions, and some indeed are (e.g. Herman Daly, John Gowdy, Geoffrey Heal, Stephan Viedermann, Thomas Bultman and others). However, many, like Tol, appear to be living in their own ivory towers and all-too readily dismiss the criticisms of their models from working on the natural economy.

JH...
"There most certainly will be profound ecological consequences for regions bordering biome edges."

Jeff, I don't doubt that plant zones are constantly shifting to some degree, but could you share some, if any, of the ecological consequences you experienced first hand?

Lionel A said:

That is a very enlightening exchange WRT Fullers thought process limitations

Fuller is a pathological liar as I showed over at the thread at [Rabbett Run](http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2010/11/infra-digging-michael-tobis.html). Whenever he was shown to be wrong, instead of admitting his error he confounded it with another lie over and over again.

I just do not understand why people like Bart allow such dishonest people to pollute their blogs with such scurrilous behaviour.

Fuller called me a liar and when I tried to show that I was correct Bart stopped me from posting by suggesting that what I was saying was slander. It was not slander since [all Fuller's lies could be documented](http://navysite.de/lst/lst1195.htm) by taking the time to source the actual facts of what he was describing. As can be seen from that link, the boat Fuller claimed to be on was nowhere near the location he claimed when he supposedly read a top secret signal telling the ship's captain that Nixon had resigned.

In my view, once some one has been shown to be a pathological liar everything they say from that point on should also be considered a lie unless they can back it up with honest and correct sources.

Marco @ 495 I know but I could have gotten it even more wrong as with Chip Krappenberger.

I just do not understand why people like Bart allow such dishonest people to pollute their blogs with such scurrilous behaviour.

Because he's the sort of fool who agrees with Keith Kloor that doubt about the science is the fault of "the Left".

Back to Corbyn for a moment ..... "Sounds like he's thrown the full bucket of entrails at this one"

I let the video run without sound for a short while and something struck me. The total absence of any equipment or facilities more modern than a laminated map. I sort of understand, sort of, people who have doubts about modelling by computers. (Let's leave aside the issue that Corbyn himself uses a non-computer 'model' all of his own.)

But no computers even for keeping records or displaying maps and other graphics? Is he some kind of Luddite?

Mike Mann wins Oeschger medal.

ianam:
"
I just do not understand why people like Bart allow such dishonest people to pollute their blogs with such scurrilous behaviour.
Because he's the sort of fool who agrees with Keith Kloor that doubt about the science is the fault of "the Left".
"

Huh? Now you're seriously twisting what I think. Care to ask me something?

Ian:

My objection is mainly that Fuller's military history is entirely unrelated to the topic of discussion and only serves to try to shoot his credibility down. I don't like those kind of games, whether it concerns Tom Fuller or Bill Clinton or whoever. If someone smoked a joint when they were sixteen shouldn't matter for their role in public office at age 50. Whether slander was the correct word in this context could be up for discussion, but it's not a discussion I'm interested in hosting.

Um, don't like to mention it but have you noticed how it echoes in your 'church' these days? I think it might be due to the dwindling numbers in the congregation which is hardly surprising when even the High Priest legs it out as fast as he can in the face of reality:

âThe problem is we donât know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books â mine included â because it looked clear-cut, but it hasnât happened,â Lovelock said.

âThe world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time⦠it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising â carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.â

James Lovelock???!!! The inventer of 'Gaia'???!!!

Oh no, say it ain't so!

(Still, I did offer you an alternative apocalyptic vision to keep you happy, er, I mean miserable, as global warming sinks slowly in the west. Remember I warned about all that detritus being thrown 'over the fence' (so to speak) by our neighbours in space, well, yesterday Fox News was reporting that a meteor the size of a washing machine hit California. Yes, CALIFORNIA, the greenest of greenie lands! I was shocked, shocked, I tell you!

Hello . . . hello . . . is there anybody there . . . ?

Ah Duffer, there you go again, sinking to the levels of stupid (as usual) where Watts' misdirection and dishonesty works best.

All you have to do now is tell us all Lovelock's contributions to the IPCC reports, and all about his climate science papers. Otherwise Watts is blowing it out of his arse (as usual) for riling up the stupids (as usual).

Yeah, Duffster - call us when Mike Mann or Jim Hansen says something similar. Now; surely you're due for a drink?

You see, Mr. Lovelock, how the rats desert a sinking ship? Once you were worshiped - new-agers like Bill and Chek clinked their cymbals and danced with flowers in their hair and prayed to the Great Mother Gaia. Now you are despised, a traitor and, even worse, an unlearn-ed traitor - a fool, a man of no scientific worth. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, they never said that in the past when you were forecasting doom 'n' gloom but, hey, that's how congregations are these days, bit like Praesidiums and Central Committees the world over, one wrong word and you're a non-person!

Anna Rose
"Anna is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and is a former Environment Ministerâs joint Young Environmentalist of the Year. Her passion for social and environmental justice was sparked at the age of 14".............

"She became a climate change campaigner after her grandparentâs farm in North Western NSW was affected by the Drought, and Anna connected the dots to climate change."

hahahaha, the farm is in central Australia, i.e. in the bloody desert !!!!

and....she joined the dots that climate change made the drought at the farm in the desert !!!

I'm thinking this moron is hidden behind the pseudonym of berenerd j

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/s3418579.htm

Surprisingly enough, Duff, your fey fantasies say more about you than anything else.

Now, if you'll kindly itemise all Lovelock's climate science papers we can take a look at what exactly his alleged revisionism is all about.

Oh that's right - there aren't any, and as usual you have nothing but huffing and puffing at Watts' behest.

I can say with complete honesty that I have never experienced the slightest urge to read anything by Lovelock.

May I also say I've never read anything by Al Gore and I haven't seen the movie.

Gaia

What journal was that published in?

Karen, please, show some pity! At 14 we all think daft things because our minds are full dots and so we believe in chimeras like "social and environmental justice", neither of which exist in the real world. But as you grow older you wise up, as our American cousins put it, although with 'Greenies' it can take a very, very long time - James Lovelock and his Gaia are 92 years old - I put it down to the increase in CO2!

Bill @511...

"May I also say I've never read anything by Al Gore and I haven't seen the movie."

I just checked the Alarmist's cookbook. Sure enough, Bill just called Al Gore fat...

...fat assed charismatic crank with a D in science.

Lets face it Bill, if you had done any homework at all on cc you would switch side's,
tiz only your faith holding you to the cause.

David, I pity them all.

Well, that was witty.

How dull you both are. Next.

So what about this zero, or infinitesimal, global warming over the last 12 years when all the wiseacres tell us that CO2 is achieving record heights?

As a well-known British admiral *didn't* say:

"Something wrong with our bloody thermometers today!"

Mickies trick

( http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/Cole123RF/Cole123RF0805/Cole123RF0805… )

@498 betula
I'm not Jeff but I live a couple of hundred km south of Algonquin Park.

The apple trees in Southern Ontario budded early this year do to the warm weather, perhaps two or three weeks or so. Of course, in the last few days we've had unusual frost and snow so it looks like most of the apple crop is lost in much of Ontario.

No information on the grape crops or other fruit crops. So Jeff may not have been inconvenienced but a few thousand fruit farmers have been.

..zero, or infinitesimal, global warming over the last 12 years..

Duff - when you say 'zero or infinitesimal global warming' what you actually mean in 'zero or infinitesimal increase in surface temperatures'. Do you see your error? I somehow doubt you do.

>So what about this zero, or infinitesimal, global warming over the last 12 years when all the wiseacres tell us that CO2 is achieving record heights?

What about it? Are you blind?

Anyway, I thought Lovelock was the enemy. After all, he did want democracy to be "put on hold" to dead with global warming. What is it with deniers only believing what they want to hear?

Speaking of which, how are those predictions of no sea level rise you made going? Still badly? I just can't imagine what is causing it!

Duff, wouldn't you agree, like Karenmackspot, that the recent heat wave is proof of global warming? Your argument, like his, has always been that temperature is climate.

Foulmackiekazzasunspot:

>I'm thinking this moron is hidden behind the pseudonym of berenerd j

This simply proves that not only are you supremely hypocritical, but that you're not qualified (either academically or biologically) to think.

you did link to that abc changeyourmind garbage bernadette

AND you do have a feminine style about you, did you notice the survey there ?

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/survey/

Judging by the result of the survey many warmers are cooling down.

Bart said:

Ian:

My objection is mainly that Fuller's military history is entirely unrelated to the topic of discussion and only serves to try to shoot his credibility down.

Surely credibility is very important in this whole discussion. One of the main reasons that climate change is being dissed by the general public is that they are continually fed lies by people like Fuller, Delingpole, Rose, Solomon, Gunter et al. As a scientist myself I find that honesty is absolutely essential. Anyone who is not honest should be anathema to scientists.

Science used to be at the top of the class in terms of honesty when compared with the legal system, business, politics and even religion. The high standards of science are being dragged down by the likes of Ball, Michaels, Lindzen, Singer, Pielkie (Jnr), Spencer and Christy. Most of them had very mediocre careers as scientists but suddenly find the exposure that they longed for but could never achieve till they met the dishonest reporters mentioned above. That is where the dilemma in science communication has occurred, dishonest scientists groomed and promoted by dishonest journalists who see nothing wrong in embellishing their "stories" with made up bilge to enhance their feeble self respect.

I have no respect for anyone who distorts the truth either for their own benefit or to cause a detrimental effect and harm to the world I and my future generations will have to live in.

Thus I will take every opportunity afforded me to expose lies when I find them no matter who is telling them. If that does not suit you fine, I don't need to post on your site.

Skeptical Science posted a great video of Naomi Oreskes explaining to former senator Nick Minchin, upfront, that the root of his denial is based in his ideology and not in science.

Gaia

What journal was that published in?

Hello . . . hello . . . is there anybody there . . . ?

Must have gone deaf or dumb.

@John 522

Funny you should mention sea levels - which, by the way, I did not forecast would rise, or fall come to that, because frankly I haven't a clue about it one way or t'other - because I have just been looking at a U. of Colorado graph which seems to show sea levels virtually levelling off since 2006. Typical - "water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink" or to add to dodgy hypotheses!

And Lovelock was, is and never will be an enemy. He is, or was, simply a dotty old man with a bee in his bonnet. Finally, after 92 years he decided to take hisbonnet off, teh bee flew away, fresh air entered his brainbox and lo, another 'warmer' cools!

@ Chris O'Neill:

Calm down, dear, you don't seriously believe that the only trustworthy scientific opinions are published in journals, do you? If so, you are in for some sad disillusionment. I was reading the other day the words of the head of research for one of the huge Pharmas who said that they followed up on 33 *published* papers alleging that this or that experiment indicated a cure for various cancers. When they attempted to replicate the experiments - 27 of them failed to work. Journals - heh!

[Karen](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…) apparently believes an on-line survey somehow approaches the rigor of a scientific poll.

How sad is that?

jrkrideau @520...

"The apple trees in Southern Ontario budded early this year do to the warm weather.

Did you mean weather or climate?

"Of course, in the last few days we've had unusual frost and snow so it looks like most of the apple crop is lost in much of Ontario."

Same thing happened in 2008:

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/hort/news/hortmatt/2008/07hrt…

And if freezing and frost damage is so unusual, why spend all the time and money on technologies to prevent it?

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/724481/leading-edge-technology-to-prote…

"So Jeff may not have been inconvenienced but a few thousand fruit farmers have been."

I think you should ask Jeff's travel partner if frostbite is inconvenient.

Duff ol' wise one WRT your #518 do you know which Admiral it was who didn't say that and why?

Never mind, our knowledge of climate change does not rely totally on the reading of thermometers don't you know.

What form of heat do thermometers NOT inform us about?

Why is this important?

And

how do we know this is important, or to put it another way what factors in our world are changing, and at an increasing rate, that tell us that the system as a whole is storing heat faster than getting rid?

What happens if this process continues to a conclusion? Hint Stefan-Boltzmann may help you there.

As for the Lovelock quotes if Alex Jones and Marc Morono are pushing this then it is certain to be a valid point of view isn't it. NOT!

Sorry but I could not bear to listen to that Alex Jones UTube imitation of a vapid bull-horn, one of similar brand to that displayed by Morono - their tones are an insult to the human voice and more equivalent to those of howler monkeys.

Sorry all howler monkeys for implying that you lack intelligence, is Duff amongst your number swinging through the canopy, he will let your side down if he is?

Duff @ 528 dropped this on the carpet:

...I have just been looking at a U. of Colorado graph which seems to show sea levels virtually levelling off since 2006.

Well maybe you would like to share the PRECISE citation of that with us, but I doubt you will for it is almost certain to have been excreted during a Monckton manoeuvre.

Stop lying Duff.

>I did not forecast would rise, or fall come to that, because frankly I haven't a clue about it one way or t'other

Why are you lying Duff? You have consistently supported Morner's conspiracy theories about tilted equipment and lies about the Maldives.

You boasted that his projections would turn out to be accurate, even though his observations were fraudulent and obviously manipulated to serve his conspiracy theories.

Funny how when you are wrong you suddenly have "no clue". At last, you've said something I agree with!

>because I have just been looking at a U. of Colorado graph which seems to show sea levels virtually levelling off since 2006.

Oh, suddenly you DO have a clue!

Except that your previous position was there there had been no sea level rise at all because scientists were tilting the equipment.

Truth:

>Willis said that while 2010 began with a sizable El Niño, by year's end, it was replaced by one of the strongest La Niñas in recent memory. This sudden shift in the Pacific changed rainfall patterns all across the globe, bringing massive floods to places like Australia and the Amazon basin, and drought to the southern United States.

>Data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) spacecraft provide a clear picture of how this extra rain piled onto the continents in the early parts of 2011. "By detecting where water is on the continents, Grace shows us how water moves around the planet," says Steve Nerem, a sea level scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

>So where does all that extra water in Brazil and Australia come from? You guessed it--the ocean. Each year, huge amounts of water are evaporated from the ocean. While most of it falls right back into the ocean as rain, some of it falls over land. "This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year," says Carmen Boening, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. Boening and colleagues presented these results recently at the annual Grace Science Team Meeting in Austin, Texas.

>But for those who might argue that these data show us entering a long-term period of decline in global sea level, Willis cautions that sea level drops such as this one cannot last, and over the long-run, the trend remains solidly up. Water flows downhill, and the extra rain will eventually find its way back to the sea. When it does, global sea level will rise again.

So you are right, but as usual, so wrong. Where's your scepticism?

You're an intellectual lightweight and a liar Duff.

>Calm down, dear, you don't seriously believe that the only trustworthy scientific opinions are published in journals, do you?

Yes. That's why the deniers gloat at length whenever they *do* get published, no matter how obscure the journal.

>Karen apparently believes an on-line survey somehow approaches the rigor of a scientific poll.

Karenmackspot also believes that Al Gore is behind the tugnsten/gold bar scandal, that governments are keeping free energy down, that the greenhouse effect doesn't exist and that the UN is using global warming to install a New World Order.

Amusingly I don't see the other deniers here call him up on any of this. I know they have to stick together against the horrible alarmists, but it's comical the way they look the other way when Karenmackspot's sockpuppetry and past conspiritorial nutbaggery is brought to their attention.

Betula,

Its not called weather when the trend overt the past 60 years has shown warmer winters and springs in a large region. The it becomes significant. In western and southern Europe there have been even more dramatic changes over the past 50 years. And of course we have the biological data to prove it - range and altitudinal shifts, changes in seasonal phenology etc. As I have said Nature does not lie, it just responds.

The trouble is, you deniers cannot make up your minds what you want to deny - that its warming or not or whether humans are responsible for it or not. You see, science is not on your side, and never will be, but the political and corporate establishment are. They don't want things to change, they like the short-term status quo and are using every means at their disposal to ensure their minority views are what matter. Its too bad that schmucks in the general population - like you, Duff, Sunspot/Karen etc., are happy to be duped.

As for Lovelock, the guy is 92 years old. His Gaia hypothesis, formulated along with Lynn Margulis in 1972, was groundbreaking at the time, in that it attempted to link various scales of organization in ecological systems, from individuals to communities to ecosystems to biomes. Given what we've learned since then, it was a remarkable contribution to the science of ecology. However, it shows you how desperate the deniers are when they cite a 92 year old scientist who is not saying now that humans are not driving climate change - he still thinks very much that we are - but that it might not occur as rapidly as he thought 10 years ago. One retired non-climate scientist mollifies his views and you sad lot are screaming from the rooftops? One down, another 500,000 plus scientists to go. And of all people Lovelock should realize that to force a system which operates over enormous scales out of sync takes more than a dozen years. In the long term, the rapid rise in atmospheric C02 concentrations will - indeed is - generate a rise in surface temperature, but in the short term (of which 12 years fits right into that category) there will be flux. Its too bad that the comic-book level educated deniers on this thread do not have a clue about the importance of scale in the Earth and life sciences.

Jeff @ 497

Yes and Chip, as if on cue, has jumped in here Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities , even managing to cite an article by he and Greening Earth has-been Michaels.

Jeff @536...

"Its not called weather when the trend overt the past 60 years has shown warmer winters and springs in a large region."

So you're saying jrkrideau @520 was wrong when he/she stated "The apple trees in Southern Ontario budded early this year do to the warm weather, perhaps two or three weeks or so". What he/she should have said is...."due" to the warm CLIMATE. Got it.

The good news is, it isn't the early budding that damages the fruit, but the frost that follows afterwards. As the climate gets warmer, perhaps there won't be any frost to damage the fruit. Of course, that's just me speculating on a hypothetical.

You continue with this:

"In western and southern Europe there have been even more dramatic changes over the past 50 years."

I thought we were talking about Ontario? What happened to Ontario?

Are you saying "the trend overt the past 60 years has shown warmer winters and springs" in Ontario? And if so, why didn't you answer my question @498 regarding your Algonquin trip:

"Jeff, I don't doubt that plant zones are constantly shifting to some degree, but could you share some, if any, of the ecological consequences you experienced first hand?"

If the approach offered for consideration by GingerBaker were ever enacted, I would hope for Chip Knappenberger to be one of the first in line.

Calm down, dear, you don't seriously believe that the only trustworthy scientific opinions are published in journals, do you? If so, you are in for some sad disillusionment. I was reading the other day the words of the head of research for one of the huge Pharmas who said that they followed up on 33 published papers alleging that this or that experiment indicated a cure for various cancers. When they attempted to replicate the experiments - 27 of them failed to work.

Being dumber than dirt, Duff confuses the assertion that, for a claim to be trustworthy it must be published in a peer-reviewed journal, with the assertion that, if a claim is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must be trustworthy ... his news item (as well as the denialist crap that has managed to make it into peer-reviewed journals) only refutes the latter.

ianam

Here's a trustworthy scientific claim that isn't peer reviewed but from a very good climate scientist. It's on the current state of climate models:

5.              more forest fires

We don't do yet, but could be important for changing ecosystems response to climate.
 
6.              melting permafrost

[For COe,CH4] we don't have in the GCM, but have some simple modelling of.
Too early to show any results yet, but we plan to publish later this year.
Bottom line is that both CH4 and CO2 will be released as permafrost thaws.
The magnitude is uncertain, but likely to be significant.
 
7.              increased decomposition of wetlands

We have in HadGEM2 but didn't enable as a fully coupled feedback,
but we can diagnose changes in wetland extent and CH4 emissions
 
I would add that although these things may be important, they are not always easy
to quantify, model, initialize  and validate, especially 5-7.
That is why is taking time to implement them.

I'd say that although it's not peer reviewed it's very trustworthy.

(My previous entry was the last time I'll try and use markdown)

ianam

Here's a trustworthy scientific claim that isn't peer reviewed but from a very good climate scientist. It's on the current state of climate models:

5. more forest fires

We don't do yet, but could be important for changing ecosystems response to climate.

6. melting permafrost

[For COe,CH4] we don't have in the GCM, but have some simple modelling of. Too early to show any results yet, but we plan to publish later this year. Bottom line is that both CH4 and CO2 will be released as permafrost thaws.
The magnitude is uncertain, but likely to be significant.

7. increased decomposition of wetlands

We have in HadGEM2 but didn't enable as a fully coupled feedback, but we can diagnose changes in wetland extent and CH4 emissions

I would add that although these things may be important, they are not always easy to quantify, model, initialize and validate, especially 5-7. That is why is taking time to implement them.

I'd say that although it's not peer reviewed it's very trustworthy.

Whatâs this about?

[Study Finds Surprising Arctic Methane Emission Source](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120424145145.htm)

Perhaps it doesn't exist because it's not peer reviewed.

...OK. I did use markdown here. I keep changing my mind. I can't have one of those [Republican brains.](http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science/dp/1118094514)

Geoff,

I'm about a third of the way through Mooney's book. Many of our Denier friends really should read it to find out why they are as they are; and why even overwhelming evidence can't change them.

If you think we're pathologising you, guys, I can only say: nowhere near as much as your performance here is!

Note the one-star 'I didn't read this book, but I did read the title and I know it's crap' reviews on Amazon there? Among the 4 or 5 star reviews from actual readers? Much like Mann's, no?

I rather enjoyed the one that says

The only thing that is going to prevent Republicans from hating this book is that they're probably not going to read it.

'Karen', is this you, perhaps?

Dumb Duff:

you don't seriously believe that the only trustworthy scientific opinions are published in journals, do you?

Yep, obviously still dumb. I wasn't asking about whether this was possible. I was asking about Gaia. Dumb Duff misses the point again.

Those interested in supporting Grahame Readfern over at his blog on the Anna Rose v Minchin I can engage in a flawed debate on Climate Change can follow the link to do battle.

I've had my say.

More popcorn moments - more baaaad News for Murdoch and Cameron.

Fran @ 547

I have had my say.

Well done for stepping in there.

But doesn't it feel like swimming against the current - in the limited sense of the many replies from those who cannot tell the difference between the state of the cryosphere fifteen years ago and now or who think pointing to Marano as an arch-propagandist using scatter-gun Gish Gallops is a strawman - the DK is strong with that one as Yoda might say. How little some realise that they are proving Graham's points - delta-kilo strong again.

Lord Lawson's "educational" "charity" the Global Warming Policy Foundation has submitted its annual accounts for the period to Jul 2011. Membership fees total £14,330. The annual memebrship fee is £100 pa plus "however much you feel you can afford", so they can only have a maximum of 143 members and likely even fewer. Hardly grass roots stuff. Donations from other sources - plutocrats, corporations, lobby groups, etc. - totals £140,834, down from last years total of £494,625 when they must have received very hefty seed donations from plutocrats, corporations, and lobby groups.

Bill @544...

"I'm about a third of the way through Mooney's book. Many of our Denier friends really should read it to find out why they are as they are"

Bill, just be sure to heed Mooney's advice in the conclusion...

Page 270. "Take Liberals and President Obama. He's the best hope-in fact, the only one."

"But guess what liberals: Obama needs you right now. He needs your trust, your devotion."

"You should defer to his judgement, and give him...your faith."

You see Bill, you should never question "The One".

Now bow and obey Bill... bow and obey. You are getting very sleepy...now bow and obey...

You see Bill, you should never question "The One". Now bow and obey Bill... bow and obey. You are getting very sleepy...now bow and obey...

.

Thanks for the free and entirely complementary illustration of The Moronic Brain, Betula.

Of course, urging collective political action to prevent extremist right wing nutters like Santorum and Palin and Gingrich and Paul and Bachman and cowards like Romney gaining real power is exactly the same thing as mindless hypnotic control by Barack 'Svengali' Obama. Of course it is ... if you're a moron.

And yes, some of those contenders have since dropped out - but they were serious possibilities for a while.

Now you're seriously twisting what I think.

I did not seriously twist anything, you accomodationist buffoon. If you don't want to own Keith Kloor's BS, then don't cite it approvingly.

Here's a trustworthy scientific claim that isn't peer reviewed but from a very good climate scientist.

I didn't say there are no trustworthy scientific claims that aren't peer reviewed, I merely pointed out that Duff's argument is fallacious.

That said, what makes it trustworthy ... you saying so? Lots of true and valid claims are made outside of peer reviewed journals, but the peer review process adds a level of trust.

Perhaps it doesn't exist because it's not peer reviewed.

Perhaps you're dim. Check the Journal Reference at the end of the article.

Those interested in supporting Grahame Readfern over at his blog

If he had to depend on the comments there for support then he would be in a very sorry way ... which is the essence of his argument against the show -- it's a flawed debate.

Many of our Denier friends really should read it to find out why they are as they are; and why even overwhelming evidence can't change them.

Because of that, they won't find out anything by reading it.

See The Uncertainty Monster Swallows the Sky Dragon courtesy of Rabett.

"And yes, some of those contenders have since dropped out - but they were serious possibilities for a while."

Shorter chek:

John Edwards for President....and Father of the year!

@545

There's a "Karen Bracken" who is a member of the Bradley County Tea Party ... that may or may not be our sunspot/Karen and/or the Forbes writer. The latter certainly sounds exactly like sunspot.

Give what turns up when one googles "karen bracken" + "global warming", I consider my previous comments about Karen/sunspot's gender to be vindicated. Even if that's not our Karen, some woman named Karen is capable of virtually the same nonsense.

sunspot IDed:

[link](https://www.google.com/search?q=karen+bracken+sunspot)

www.pinellaspatriots.org/members/10147492/

"I consider my previous comments about Karen/sunspot's gender to be vindicated. Even if that's not our Karen, some woman named Karen is capable of virtually the same nonsense"

The logic of ianam:

1. I'm vindicated because it might be Karen. And if it's not Karen, I'm vindicated because her name is Karen and she seems like the other Karen.

2. I'm certain polar bears are dying from climate change. And if it's not from climate change, I'm still certain that they are dying from climate change because they are polar bears and it seems like climate change would cause them to die.

3. Betula is a liar because I claim he lies. And even if he's not lying, he's a liar for claiming I claimed he lied.

ianam

Perhaps you're dim. Check the Journal Reference at the end of the article.

OK, that's was a sloppy mistake but what about the other comment on missing feedbacks: It's rare that scientists publish what they don't know, which is often crucial. Although the honest and decent ones will admit the failings. And the ones that don't have Republican brains will sometimes admit they are wrong.

However, it is possible to be too non-Republican (Is that "too Liberal"?) and change your mind too much. In my view James Lovelock has just shown that.

As for the sloppy mistake thanks for pointing it out.

I already responded in `#`553.

ianam

OK, you did answer - an answer with which I agree.

Sorry I missed it. I have a mild visual problem in scanning text - as well as being careless.

If at any point it had not been demonstrated that Betula is an imbecile, his/her/its next post would do the trick. Quite obviously to anyone who isn't one, since others have claimed that sunspot must really be a man because women don't (or rarely) write the sort of crap sunspot does, a woman writing crap exactly like sunspot's goes against them (and for me, since I rejected that argument).

Beyond that, the odds are pretty good that our karen/sunspot and the Tennessee Tea Partyer Karen Bracken who wrote to Forbes are the same person.

What a surprise. Karenmackspot is revealed to be an ideologically-bound nutcase. It certainly explains her unhinged behaviour.

Speaking of ideologically bound nutcases, I see Cameron and Osborne have managed to run the UK economy right through the ditch and into the long-grass beyond, where it may never be found again, and all by diligent application of the unkillable Zombie theorems of the likes of Rand and Hayek to a recession.

Result: absolute disaster, but The Rich continue to make out like bandits, which is what the parties of the Right are really all about, so chin chin, eh? Well done your team, eh, Duff?

Why mention it?

One; because if 'Karen' is indeed the person identified above, I'll point out - there's no point in warning, as heeding politically-undesirable information is, of course, impossible - that thanks to the gang of hapless mackerel your 'Tea Party' got elected to Congress last time around, and doubtlessly will again, should the Oval Office indeed be delivered to your guy - the almost universally unloved, but potentially pliable, Romney - your economy will doubtlessly shortly thereafter also do the Titanic thing, as a kind of belated commemoration, and for the same reasons.

The Rich, of course, will be fine - and some day you, and the rest of your little posse, may very well win the lottery, so, never mind, it's still a just world.

Two: because this is what all Zombie imbecility, and all zealot ideological aversion to incovenient facts gets you.

I mean, your team's latest article of faith is now apparently 'the Astrologers were right, after all'. Watts was in such raptures - read the introductory paragraphs - that he nailed the post to the head of his blog for a couple of days.

'Skeptics'? [*snort*]

Yep, given the right opportunity,this ruggedly self-possessed cadre - 'no Marxist'll be tellin' me what ta think'- just leaps at the chance to truly believe (it's what they're good at, after all!) some magic silver bullet - be it cosmic rays or ultra-deregulation - is really going to deliver them from the nasty, difficult liberal world of science, the lessons of history, and hard-won evidence...

"but The Rich continue to make out like bandits, which is what the parties of the Right are really all about"

Of course, that's what the New Left are all about too.

In fact, the problem is that we have a politician class. A class whose work experience is ENTIRELY politics. Look at Gordon. His expertise that put him as PM? A university degree on the History of the Labour Party.

In The Old Days (tm), the right had experience in leading (or at least financing and keeping tabs on) industry and landholds. And the left had experience in being workers, or at least officials in the union which had to work on issues for workers. So either side could bring some actual real-life experience to the table.

Now? We have people whose entire career (and, indeed their career choice) has been party politics.

And, once they get in power, they only meet the people with power enough to meet with the people with power.

So 100% of the people they meet and talk to about the issues of the country are the rich and powerful.

It is an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system and the homily that you need money to make money.

It's the reason why there are no political parties, just different branding of the same ones: the people who the ones in power meet are the same ones each time.

Wow, I essentially agree.

But I was glad that when the GFC struck Australia we had a PM and a Treasurer who both kept some dusty old copies of Lord Keynes* - one of the greatest Britons, to my mind - in their back-pockets, and still had some remnant notion that the Labor Party was something to do with justice and managing the economy in the interests of all. Between that and a healthy export partnership with China we've done amazingly well, a story that the incumbent party is apparently too dense to effectively broadcast.

The 'new' PM is, to my mind, a product of the very system your describe, but they're still the lesser of evils - and that's important, given the opposition; I shudder to think what manifestations of the Shock Doctrine would have been inflicted on the country had the other crew been in power in '08.

We'll probably yet find out...

*'karen' - sort of like Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin rolled into one! Not; but you'll think so, anyway...

"but they're still the lesser of evils"

It's still evil.

Until the UK gets a "None of the above" option WITH that being given some power (i.e. no seat if it wins, no parliament if it gains majority), there is absolutely no way to fix this problem.

Except with churn.

Keep churning through each and every voting term a new politician. Get them in, get them out as soon as possible.

It's the worst way of managing political reform, except for all the others.

"except for all the others"

Right. There's no use complaining about the lack of the one true, good, pure choice in politics, economics or evne personal moral decisions. By and large, when we'd really like a straight choice between good and evil, we don't get it.

On a good day, the choices are good, better or best. Doesn't happen often but mark the day in your diary with a big asterisk. Because most days it's between OK and marginally better, or between bad and least worst, and on very special days it's between OMG that smells and I-never-thought-I'd-say-this-but....

Oh, no, say it ain't so! Honestlly, guys and girls, I am searching desperately for anything to keep you well supplied with 'Apocalypse Now' stories but, and I know you'll find this hard to beleive, there really aren't that many around. Just today they tell us that all that crap about mobile phones causing brain cancer is, er, crap!

And now some unutterable swine has written a book on the history of New Zealand - must be a jolly slim volume, don'cha think? Anyway, apparently this cove found an old map (1912, so ancient by NZ standards, just yesterday to us Little Englanders) and guess what? When compared to a contemporary aerial photo it shows absolutely no sign of any sea level rise since 1912!

Now it's no good you all throwing your toys out the pram at me. I didn't write the bloody book. It comes out this week and is called "The Great Divide" so now's your chance not to read it!

Fear not Duffer, everyday is a Zombie (non-argument) Apocalypse of Stupid when you're around.

I wonder if you're even aware that [sea level increase in one area of the globe need not be the same as in another area,](www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/index.html)
and all that melting ice has to go somewhere.

Probably not - they wouldn't teach you that for when you're pontificating and playing pretend admirals.

Duff:

some unutterable swine has written a book on the history of New Zealand - must be a jolly slim volume, don'cha think?

Only an ignoramus or someone with a wildly inflated opinion of their own "wit" would believe so.

Anyway, apparently this cove found an old map (1912, so ancient by NZ standards, just yesterday to us Little Englanders) (etc etc)

Entertain my curiosity - is this cheap snobbery an artifice contrived to give the impression you're wittier than you really are, or is it an affliction you were born with?

When compared to a contemporary aerial photo it shows absolutely no sign of any sea level rise since 1912!

Gosh - a scaled down reproduction of a century old map derived using century old technology that you compared with a modern aerial at an unspecified scale that you claim backs up your own precooked dogma.

Obvious troll trolls. 1/10, must try harder.

So tell me, chek, how are the Maldives doing? Thinking of a hols for me and the 'Memsahib', you see, and everyone keeps telling me, well they have for the last 10 years, that they're about to sink under the ocean. Is that right? Only I notice that the airport was recently sold to an Indian and Malaysian conglomorate who are spending 'zillions' on up-grading it, and that 28 different airlines use it on a regular basis. So, doesn't look as though the sea is lapping round their ankles, does it?

Maldives? Just as well you can't see any effects there.

Remember, when it comes to sea level, the Maldives is in the same position as New York. At least the Maldives doesn't have subway transport systems or other tunnels to worry about.

"Right. There's no use complaining about the lack of the one true, good, pure choice in politics, economics"

That's why I

a) said that the lesser evil is STILL evil.

b) said that we need better ways.

c) said, until we have those better ways, we still have churn

I've just looked at the map that is getting Duff so excited. Itâs a lagoon separated from the sea by a bar made up of pebbles "less prone to erosion than shifting sands", but prone to erosion nevertheless (and long shore drift I shouldn't wonder). How anyone can draw any conclusion from a fairly crude map is simply beyond my comprehension.

There is an upcoming climate change conference in New Zealand focussing on sea level rise. No doubt this non-story of the 100 year old map has been dredged up to try to give NZ deniers some material, no matter how flaky, to work with.

Bill,

Ah yes, the recent howler I like to call "Svensmark's Cosmic Crackpot". He really has lost the story, hasn't he?

On the topic of sea level rise here is a story that is important:

[World's glaciers 'out of balance'](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17843648)

Earth's glaciers are seriously out of balance with the global climate and are already committed to losing almost 40% of their volume.

That is the assessment of scientists after studying a representative group of 144 small and large glaciers around the world.

Their figures assume no further warming of the climate.

However, if temperatures continue to rise as models predict, the wastage will be even higher, the team says.

Adelady, the Maldives may not have a subway, but its main island, Male, is losing its mango trees due to saltwater penetration, at least in part due to sea level rise. Reportedly, 90% has already died.

"Their figures assume no further warming of the climate."

I think, m'Lord, that would be a fairly safe assumption not least because there hasn't been any for the last dozen years when the, er, models all said there would be on account of CO2 production going through the roof!

Marco 582...

"Male, is losing its mango trees due to saltwater penetration, at least in part due to sea level rise. Reportedly, 90% has already died".

I was going to ask you to link your source, but that's okay, I decided to provide a link myself.

Is it possible something else may be the cause of all those mango trees disappearing?

I had visions of dying Mango groves dancing in my head, but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Open the link and click on the picture of Male, top left. Hilarity ensues...

http://alimata.fr/06-maldives/male-nord-atoll.htm

Duffer the puffer shows his ignorance of climate science once again.

Why not check out an actual science paper and see if there has been CO2 induced warming over the past dozen or so years?

You see ignorant deniers like you assume that only CO2 affects global temperature whereas as most scientists know, at any one time there are a number of factors, volcanic eruption, variations in solar output, oceanic cycles which all have to be included. The funny thing is that it is the cabal of deniers who claim that "scientists only include CO2 in their models" whereas the truth is the exact opposite, it is the deniers who only look at CO2.

[This recent paper](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022) shows what happens when you account for the short term natural variations.

lord_sidcup #579

How anyone can draw any conclusion from a fairly crude map is simply beyond my comprehension.

Didn't Pat Michaels try that, and similarly failed, with a bit of Greenland and ice awhile back.

Meanwhile,

David Duff behaves like a frog fish, flopping around on his pseudo limbs trying to frighten us whilst at the same time not having the wit to answer straight questions. That is all he can achieve - the occasional drive by. What a twerp.

Watching Betula and Duffer trying to be clever seems somewhat similar to watching a hippo trying to tap dance.

there hasn't been any (warming) for the last dozen years when the, er, models all said there would be on account of CO2 production going through the roof!

The...er...question...er...is then 'which models'.. er Duffer?

But as we know, Duffer is just a hopeless, hollow conduit repeater with no thinking ability or cranial activity whatsoever, and will just disappear for a month or two when challenged, like the coward he is.
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody deniers today" Cap'n 'beatoff' Watts might be entitled to comment as Duffer's hulk pops and sinks beneath the waves under the mildest of enquiries.

And of course there's Betula:

I had visions of dying Mango groves dancing in my head

who quite apart from wanting to share his unwelcome fantasies, further seems to think that the developed island of Male
(a)shouldn't have any trees to provide shade from the tropical sun
and
(b) is the sole constituent of both the north and south Male atolls.

Keep puttin' on the Ritz, fellas.
Hilarity always ensues.

Is it possible something else may be the cause of all those mango trees disappearing?

Yes, just as it's possible that, if someone shoots you in the head, you'll die of something else before the bullet reaches you. But that's irrelevant to the fact that shooting people in the head kills them and that saltwater penetration kills mango trees ... though it is a good illustration of your poor grasp of basic logic, the sort of failure of logic that permeates denier thinking.

"Their figures assume no further warming of the climate."

I think, m'Lord, that would be a fairly safe assumption not least because there hasn't been any for the last dozen years when the, er, models all said there would be on account of CO2 production going through the roof!

Again we see the fundamental inability of deniers to reason logically. Even if all the models did say that there would be warming over the last dozen years but there wasn't any (which is not true), that would not make it a safe assumption that there will not be any further warming of the climate -- that's a complete non sequitur. The "reasoning" of the duffer seems to be that if a model made an incorrect prediction, then it's safe to assume that future reality will be the opposite of whatever the model predicts it to be. How fortunate we would be to have such astoundingly reliable models.

In case Duffer the puffer likes [pretty pictures](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1999/trend/plot/hadcru…) here is the HadCrut4 global temperatures for the past dozen years.

Seems like temperatures have been going up at a rate of 0.1 degrees C per decade, which makes nonsense of [puffer's comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…):

that would be a fairly safe assumption not least because there hasn't been any [warming of the climate] for the last dozen years

I am glad to see that Wood for Trees has now got Hadcrut4 into their data base.

I somehow overlooked this Duffer gem:

So tell me, chek, how are the Maldives doing? Thinking of a hols for me and the 'Memsahib', you see, and everyone keeps telling me, well they have for the last 10 years, that they're about to sink under the ocean. Is that right?

Given that the President of the Maldives has declared his intention [to make his country carbon neutral by 2020](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7944760.stm), and while there haven't been any 'memsahibs' since 1947 at the latest, I'd suggest your old bones still just about have time yet - if you're not too busy indulging your preference for soaking up uncorroborated denialist trash information in the meantime.

Better yet and probably more economically justifiable, take her to Bognor for a long weekend and drop a couple of E's before you die in total retro-loving ignorance, if your heart could stand it.

because there hasn't been ANY for the last dozen years

He can't even get that right. What hope is there of him understanding something requiring an IQ higher than 50?

ianam @588...

"Yes, just as it's possible that, if someone shoots you in the head, you'll die of something else before the bullet reaches you. But that's irrelevant to the fact that shooting people in the head kills them and that saltwater penetration kills mango trees"

Again with the violence.

Anyhow, ianam and chek are vacationing in the overdeveloped isle of Male...

As they sit in their air conditioned high rise, chek looks out over the vast display of buildings, not thinking about how many plants were destroyed in the process of developement or the strain such overdevelopment must put on any fresh water supply or wondering where all the septic goes, when he notices a tree off in the distance...

chek: Hey ianam, is that a mango tree?

ianam: Could be, I heard there was one left after all the developement, however, I thought that died many years ago when someone shot it.

chek: I read a report from 1989, one year after reclaimed areas were flooded by storms, that a no named source claimed a mango tree died from exposure to salt water...

ianam: Saltwater? That would never happen on an island in the indian ocean where the highest point is 2.4 m above sea level unless someone in particular caused the salt water to reach the mango tree and then shot it.

chek: You know, that Betula thinks that "the island of Male (a)shouldn't have any trees to provide shade from the tropical sun", I bet he had something to do with this...

ianam: He must have used one of those CO2 powered pellet guns!

chek: Yes! Now it's all making sense...

I am curious, did anyone watch the half hearted mocumentary on ABC TV "I Can Change Your Mind About..Climate" link:-http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/

During the show, quite a few of the denialati canards were floated and went completely unchallenged. Although, I did like the conclusion of the small video of Richard Muller, being forced to formally admit the temperature database is not wrong. He validated the climate change data of HADCRU/NOAA/BOM/CSIRO and the work of Matthew Menne, to completely demolish JoNova and David Archibald/Anthony Watts alchemy fictional urban heat island myth.

Intriguingly, "Denial in Chief" Anthony Watts boasts not once but twice of how he commanded his tiny "spambot army" to corrupt the results not once but twice.

Link 1 first attempt :http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/22/on-earth-day-another-global-warmi…

Link 2 second attempt :http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/26/getting-your-mind-right-in-austra…

One can clearly see, the ABC TV applied a small touch of IP address filtering to eliminate non Australian Sources, to eliminate 99% of the majority of spambots sham voting.

John Cook, article "The how and why of climate denial" shows how Naomi Oreskes, in a short video interview, clearly nailed former retired Senator Nick Minchin's denial in this article.

link: http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/04/26/3489290.htm

Skeptical Science link to to the show includes Naomi Oreskes interview : http://www.skepticalscience.com/ABC-documentary-demonstrates-how-why-cl…

An old American Native saying :

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

I see Duff has spent the last two days Googling facts he can use to dispute sea level rise, even though he admits he has no idea, and the best he can do is a photo from 1912!

Come on Duff, you tepid, gormless little mouthbreather. Is that the best you can do? You are intellectually bankrupt. Do you think anybody is worried by a photo over the actual data?

Wow @571 said:

Until the UK gets a "None of the above" option WITH that being given some power (i.e. no seat if it wins, no parliament if it gains majority), there is absolutely no way to fix this problem.

That would certainly be a step forward. I'm not sure though that a more deliberative process isn't called for. Perhaps what is needed is a process in which people could be selected at random -- in something of the fashion juries are. Let's call it sortition -- though I've seen "demarchy" used.

Instead of candidates selecting themselves, people qualified to vote would tick a box to indicate their willingness to serve the electorate. About 2 years or so before the scheduled election, a short list of say -- 20 people -- would be selected. They'd get a case manager who could check out their skillset and advise them on what they needed to do the job, and then they'd be enrolled in relevant courses so they could get up to speed. The state would pay them an allowance so that they could take time off work to do this and provide them with a couple of PAs and researchers so that they could begin to refine their ideas and publicise them. About three months into the cycle we'd have a kind of you-tube based reality show going. They'd be running a website and blog where people could give them feedback on their ideas. During this time they'd nominate 10 policy areas they felt strongly about and what they would like to see happen in broad terms to address the issues. They'd also report on their skills and other things germane.

12 months out there'd be a vote -- in which people would (by electronic means) indicate their support for the person's ideas, the importance they attached to these policies relative to others (you'd get a score out of 100% to play with) and their confidence in the person successfully advancing them. You could vote for as many candidates as you wanted.

All the candidates would then be scored and ranked in order. A barrel with the candidates' id's in little lotto balls would be set up. A person who had, for argument's sake an average 60% support would get 50% more balls than someone with 40% and so forth. Six candidates would be drawn lotto-style from the barrell and they would be the candidates at the election. Should some became unavailable for any reason, a new draw would occur.

When the time for the election arrived, the process would be repeated and the winner would go to parliament. These folk would be obliged to devise a management plan for the next five years (or affirm/amend an existing one). When they did, that plan would be voted on in a plebiscite and if approved this would govern policy until the next election. Every year parliament would have to report on progress made towards realisation of the plan. Members who were underperforming could be removed by a common vote of the parliament in which an absolute 75% voted to expel someone. In that case, the replacement procedure above would be brought into play. The ministry would be answerable to the parliament not just in theory, but in practice. Amongst the tasks of members would be to chair committees on various matters of public importance to produce reports and lead debates over policy. Where proposals consistent with the national plan achieved 25% support in polling, they would be made the subject of a parliamentary commission of inquiry to determine their feasibility. If they were deemed plausible, they would be put to a plebiscite and if carried become specified in the national plan.

The beauty of a system such as this is that it would pretty much marginalise all of the political parties, reducing them to mere sources of policy ideas -- which is, in theory, what political parties are supposed to be -- rather than vehicles for the careers of supporters. Ideas that were both popular and plausible would have a chance of getting up because no political party would have a means to prevent it being discussed and examined or fear they could be wedged and lose power (since they wouldn't directly have any). Politicians would not fear speaking their minds because their chances of re-election would be near zero whether they were popular or not. The parliament would be composed of civic minded folk rather than careerists, and they'd be a lot more like the population as a whole rather than the elite. Nobody could count on winning a vote in parliament so they'd have to work out consensus principles and of course contentious ideas that left them deadlocked could be thrashed out via a plebiscite. The pool of people who missed out on getting elected would have learned a bit more about both their own ideas and the constraints on implementing them and the general wisdom of the populace over time should edge upwards as more and more people returned to their communities to explain how stuff works on the fringes of, or in, parliament. The idea that one person really could make a difference is an exciting one.

Most importantly the sortition method, as I've outlined it, while privileging the chances of those closest to the public consensus, would not prevent those well outside it from playing a role in debate. People who were original thinkers with novel and lateral ideas would not be excluded just because they were considered a bit eccentric or 'out there'. Even if it turned out that 90% of what they were saying was irredeemable nonsense, it would be no bad thing for that nonsense to get a public bollocking because there's a lot of nonsense going about. Having a parliament with absolute legitimacy debunk it would be a healthy thing. And of course, if the person proved a total ratbag he or she could be ejected. There's a lot to be said for democracies ensuring that significant minority opinion being catered to. The system as it stands struggles to do that.

In the final analysis -- on election morning, nobody could know for sure who would win. Even if the person you weanted to win in your electorate missed out, it could be that likeminded persons elsewhere would win. In a sense, in that election everyone could harbour the hope that their ideas might find favour. That would be an excellent reason for everyone getting involved in the polity.

@ #593, in which Betula demonstrates that he thinks a 'water table' is probably an item of garden furniture.

The point here Betula is that your ill-informed, third hand 'imaginings' are no substitute for how the real world works. Which pretty much sums up the Wattsian brand of denialism.

Oh dear, what a bunch of mouth-foamers you are! Do you ever read yourselves? You may be right or you may be wrong on global warming but why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?

Jest askin'!

Oh, and by the way, there doesn't seem to be as many of you as there used to be, just a dwindling band of the same tired, haggard 'faces' staring into the abyss. Cheer up, it may take me a while but I'll find you another 'End of the World' scenario to keep you all miserable! Pip pip!

Lionel #586

Didn't Pat Michaels try that, and similarly failed, with a bit of Greenland and ice awhile back.

Yes - [Michaels Mischief #3: Warming Island](http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1020http://www.skepticalsci…) - and this latest effort is very reminiscent of that. There must be a whole team of deniers scouring old photos and maps trying to find stuff like this.

I love the sound of a simpering denier demanding we all "cheer up!". I can picture Duff now - hunched over his keyboard, brow furrowed, spittle flying, angrily banging out his passive aggressive tirades with two fingers.

You don't fool anyone Duff. Behind the jolly exterior hides an angry, lonely, frightened man. You are a shameful disgrace.

why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?

Perhaps the unpleasantness you perceive may be related to your ridiculous affectation of an anachronistic, post-colonial, ignorant wannabee-military blimp, adding nothing but relaying the right-wing drivellings of a five year old book of drivel by ex-clown Christopher Booker and the even more right-wing drivellings of a well-fed, Republican has-been, ex-TV weather poppet pretending he knows climate science?

I can see why some might find such quite offensive and react accordingly.

"why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?"

Yes, it must be everyone else's fault, mustn't it. It's the only logical conclusion.

Why are deniers, without a single exception so thin skinned yet so prone to virulent, vicious abusive attacks on anyone who dares not accept the premise that AGW is false?

Thin-skinned?

I've long believed in the remarkable phenomenon of the one way thin skin. Noteworthy for grossly insensitive outwardly directed unpleasantness combined with tissue paper thin sensitivity for imperceptible wafts of the least breeze of possible impending bad weather from the other direction. A bit like those invasive plants with foliage that shivers even when there's no breeze but drops copious seeds everywhere to choke out and take over vast regions of surrounding natural vegetation.

@598

David Duff, as unpleasant as you appear to categorically state that I am despite my relatively rare posts here, I don't post a lot here anymore because, well, it is very much like arguing with young-earth creationists, tobacco denialists, vaccine denialists, and so on.

No matter how much scientific evidence, no matter how many empirical observations, and no matter how much contradiction is pointed out in your arguments, it just fails to have any effect.

Your entire position can be summarised thus:

I don't believe in global warming. So there!!

It really doesn't matter what is actually happening, or what the actual observations are, or what the actual scientific data says. You simply don't care. So what is the actual point in continually arguing with you? It is like arguing with someone who denies that smoking causes lung disease, right up until the day they die from lung cancer. They don't care. They don't want to hear about it. It's all a big lie. And..........(sound of flatline heart monitor). It's just so totally pointless.

It's worth arguing the points for someone else to read, Mikem.

However, after a while, the troll ensures that there is only repetition again to procure and at that point, it's wise to create a playground for the troll to be impounded in where nobody will go unless

a) to have a laugh at the idiot

b) they believe the idiot implicitly

in either case, others will go there to argue the troll as a form of recreation or to hone their arguments for other, less insane, interlocutors.

"why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?"

I wouldn't call them unpleasant.

There is a certain charm about someone who would consider "vigilante assassination" against those that disagree...

There is a certain charisma about those who's every thought about other people is based on assumptions...

There is something humorous about people who find the cause of everything bad to be based on one conclusion...

I find it invigorating to listen to someone preach about the evils of the rich, while discussing the non-polititical science of climate change...

There is something alluring about people who project all negative all the time...

There is a feeling of excitement while waiting for their next illogical comments followed by insults...

There is a certain thrill to discovering that every link they provide, to prove what the future will bring, is loaded with unknowns, doubts, uncertainties, projections, speculations, hypotheticals, incomplete data, one way scenarios, exaggerations, could's, if's, hopes, wishes and assumptions.

That's why I keep coming back.

Betula is so funny! (In his own mind.)

What is truly risible is that for solipsists like Betula and Duff, everything is axiomatically psychological projection.

> There is a certain charm about someone who would consider "vigilante assassination" against those that disagree...

[That's why you love them so much](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/09/983390/-Climate-Scientists-thr…) Betty.

Duff offers the Murdoch excuse:

'...why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?'

it is everybody else at fault not him.

LUMY!

"What is truly risible is that for solipsists like Betula and Duff, everything is axiomatically psychological projection."

Lumy, you're close, but I believe you meant to say "telepathic psychological projection"

It's simple really.

You see, when Gingerbaker (@239) wondered aloud if vigilante assassination was moral, and then advocated it with this statement: "it seems to me, no other way to stop them" - this was actually me, denying my own thoughts and then using telepathy to project them through the writings of Gingerbaker. So my responses to Gingerbaker were in fact responses to myself.

Boy, it's getting harder and harder to slip these things by you Lumy. A real genius you are. Kudos!

And thank you Gingerbaker! You have helped me by providing the vessel that has allowed me to deny my own denial, which, of course, must mean I'm cured.

Betula reveals himself in his final paragraph Gish-gallop to be overly influenced by what the french would call objections d'unfuckwit.

In a saner world, such people would occasionally murmur in the coffee shops and bars about what scientists were discovering and the inevitable lag in practical action.

Unfortunately in this actual world such people desperately and gullibly prefer to hang on to the wishful thinking of cynical industrial organisations and their mouthpieces, religious nutters, quacks, has-beens and fantasists. I can't think of a primary source for Betty's alleged 'reservations' that isn't covered by one or a combination of those.

Need better trolls. Down to asinine projection only. 3 out of 10.

why are you all, without a single exception, so deeply unpleasant?

Just try arguing against the propositions put up at websites like climateaudit, whatsup, etc and you'll find out all about unpleasant individuals.

Betula is proud of being a dishonest ignorant moron troll. Whatever.

Diddums, Duffer - drink up!

Tone-trolling coming from a living anachronism who wants - I kid you not - Rupert Murdoch for Prime Minister (Wormtongue - or, perhaps, 'Browntongue'? - here despises Leveson - 'the oleaginous little creep' - for daring to challenge his beloved dark lord) and thinks black lesbians are intrinsically funny.

One could barely hope to insult you enough, you silly, shallow, spiteful old man!

Hey, by the way - have you noticed the complete absence of 'karen' since we outed what I suppose we now have to assume is a 'her'?

Running on that assumption, here's a quote for you, assuming you're still lurking around, regarding the alleged 'Christian motivation' of that scrawny hybrid of Uriah Heap and a B-movie Lord Voldemort that you and your followers have have helped foist upon your Congress:

"I am afraid that Chairman Ryan's budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher Ayn Rand rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ," said Father Thomas Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown, in a press release Tuesday. "Survival of the fittest may be okay for Social Darwinists but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love."

Hang on - of course - it doesn't go far enough, does it? That's the Tea Party line?

Seriously - $15 million turkeys not only voting for Christmas - they're positively basting themselves for it!

With daft old Colonel Blimps cheering you on from across the channel...

I note that you're a pensioner*, Duffer. Succoured by the very teat of the State! Any reliance on the NHS, too, perchance?

Would that the consequences of your own advocated idiocy - and this applies across the range of issues confronting us and equally to 'Karen' and Betty and the Scandinavians - could be visited upon you alone!

Teh Stoopid - it burns...

*

Of course, I could do the decent, principled thing and send the money back but alas, dear reader, that would break an even higher duty to which I needs must bow the knee; it is enshrined in The Honourable Company of Second-hand Car Dealers: 'Never Give a Sucker an Even Break!' Perhaps one of my many well-educated readers could translate that into Latin, give it more of ring, 'know wot I mean, John?'

Begone, old man.

Duff, why are you so unremittingly unpleasant?

@615

One of the miserable old Duffer's readers - actually she/he appears to be the only one - has the sad old misanthrope worked out.

I've paid all my taxes all my adult life and am therefore rather pleased when I get a bit back, rather than much of it being handed over to undeserving twats.

Duff is a taxeater. Oh the irony.

And for those who still cannot grasp the peril that we are in here is an article that mentions something that I have been pointing out for some time at various places:

Nature: Antarctica Is Melting From Below, Which âMay Already Have Triggered A Period of Unstable Glacier Retreatâ .

Puts any supposed growth in Antarctic sea ice into context does it not.

Those topologically challenged can go find the application GeoMapApp which can also be used to find areas of tectonic activity such as earthquakes.

A wry smile: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/23/1085639/-In-the-beginning-?detail=hide

ianam:

"...as opposed to GingerBaker, who obviously is advocating putting people to death when he suggests rethinking the morality of doing so and offers justifications for doing so."

No. You still do not understand my point.

ianam:We've discussed the ethics ... it's unethical, like all "preventative" murder is unethical. ...you stupid dishonest jackass.

It it unethical? Always?

I think you might find this interesting. From a series of lectures at Harvard on ethics:

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?

Episode 01 "THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY

@GB,

"Is it unethical? Always?"

Yes it is. As soon as you accept a good argument can be made for 'bumping' people off, you become a very worrying individual indeed. Best to keep you under close supervision in my view.

Gingerbaker, I would suppose that many here take the view that most civilised countries and peoples (with glaring exceptions) have abolished the death penalty even for judicially proven crimes, so re-introducing it on the grounds you suggest is not going to happen, nor should it.

I'd personally also suggest that a system that says things would be better if only group 'x', 'y' or 'z' were killed is barbarism reborn, regardless of intent.

Nor is there even any need to. Widening company liability to include not just company assets and employees and directors as at present but also associate companies and shareholders (with appropriate safeguards to prevent shell corporations nullfying the intent) would provide the financial incentive to achieve what is needed.

@621

That post seems to have been stuck in the moderation queue for over week. I already wasted more than enough time on the topic, but I will say that GB seems to have misunderstood the point and purpose Sandel's lectures.

I hope the Austrailian Government are helped by the recent Fraser Economic Commentary which advocates taxing carbon to subsidise employment.

See [Tax carbon. Subsidise the jobs of the young](http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/tax-carbon-subsidise-jobs-for-the-young/).

GB @621..

"It it unethical? Always?"

Yes. And because you need to be told this, there is now a consensus among scientists that you're a moron, which of course, makes it a fact...

"As soon as you accept a good argument can be made for 'bumping' people off, you become a very worrying individual indeed"

So most people in the USA who whooped and hollered when OBL was offed are bad, right? And when Saddam was offed: bad again.

No ifs, no buts.

PS who and where are people saying "off with their heads" apart from you chicken-little deniers? cf Glenn Beck's "Not enough knives" comment.

It's because Betula is in fact a moron that there is consensus, just as it's because AGW is a fact that there is a consensus. Of course consensus is not universal, because there are always, ignorant and/or stupid and or/dishonest people who reject the valid inferences from the evidence.

As for what is unethical ... being ethical or unethical is not a fact, but there are facts about what ethical principles people adhere to, and whether people take these facts into account. It is fascinating that GingerBaker offers Sandel's lectures in support of a consequentialist view of ethics when Sandel's whole point is to undermine it in favor of a more categorical view by, as he puts it, "confronting us with what we already know" ... but it's not what we know, but what have been enculturated to feel. Well, some of us.

"just as it's because AGW is a fact that there is a consensus."

AGW could very well be happening, but since there is no consensus that AGW is a fact, we can say with "90% certainty" that ianam is an imbecile and "very likely" delusional.

Does it strike us that there no discernible content beyond 'nuh-uh / nyaah nyaah' in Betty's posts?

Seriously, this you think is a worthwhile way to spend your time? What on earth do you imagine you are achieving?

Betulant.

Human-caused global warming is a fact, just as gravity is a fact.

Put your semantic wrigglings about the word "consensus" aside and learn to deal with these facts.

Bernard...

"Human-caused global warming is a fact, just as gravity is a fact"

So, when scientist say with "90% certainty" that mankind is driving global warming, they really mean it as a 100% fact.

Does this mean for gravity to be a 100% fact, scientists need to say it "most likely" exists?

Bill, indeed any exchange with Betty is not worthwhile.

Well, Betula, nothing in science is ever 100% certain as you know, though we generally describe as "facts" things which have large volumes of overwhelming evidence supporting them, or because we define an observation a certain way.

While there are no known observations in the scientific literature of anyone leaping off a tall building and floating upwards, or levitating back to safety, we could never say with 100% certainty that this isn't possible due to a weakness in our understanding of gravity.

Why don't you try it out? Or are you suddenly willing to accept overwhelming scientific consensus as a sensible way of applying risk analysis? Let me guess......yes, but only if it doesn't contradict your political views?

This is so friggin' dense that I still wonder if it's not a satire and I've missed it! - Fox explains how wind farms 'Cause Global Warming'.

And here was I thinking no-one outside Fox would be dumb enough to run with this...

Still, the other day it was more-or-less 'the Astrologers got it right!'... ;-)

Bill, I'd go with 'cause global warming' being Fox's fossil-fuel-friendly spin. But presumably the SUNY paper shows some local effect, perhaps due to the cooling effect of wind being locally diminished?

In any event, the global surface area affected by wind farms is going to be miniscule.

I'll let one of the commenters at WUWT handle it.

Did anybody here read the paper[?]!

(And bless him or her for doing so!)

All very interesting, of course, and it may well be that frost-affected crops may do well adjacent to turbines, and vice-versa.

Plus, of course, as you said, the area affected is ludicrously small.

It all rather reminds me of the Freakonomics nonsense re solar panels.

Bill @638 links...
"Did anybody here read the paper[?]!"

I read the comment. He/she claims "This is a highly local event" and goes on to say..."In some contries you have to pay helicopters to do excatly this job, yet you would not ague that this would cause global warming."

So he/she is playing down the significance of this warming affect, as is Bill with this comment...."Plus, of course, as you said, the area affected is ludicrously small" and chek with this comment...."In any event, the global surface area affected by wind farms is going to be miniscule."

It would appear that the significance of the impact these things have on climate change (wind farms and comparatively, helicopters) correlates with how they are being packaged to meet the ideology. For example, they become very significant when selling carbon credits...

"The engines of your airplane or helicopter emit Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the exhaust, which is a greenhouse gas that has a significant impact on climate change and global warming."

http://www.carbonadvicegroup.com/us/ (under business solutions)

"Ludicrously small" and "miniscule" because wind farms are involved, yet, not small enough they we won't soon be selling carbon credits to wind farms in order to save the planet.

"So he/she is playing down the significance of this warming affect"

Effect, Betty. Effect.

And yes, this is the same "playing down" that you get when you do the back-of-the-envelope calculation to work out what the "warming effect" of lightbulbs in the home when people whine about how the banning of incandescents have a "problem" in that you then need to spent more to heat your home when using efficient lightbulbs.

Please try to keep up, Betty.

"in that you then need to spent more to heat your home when using efficient lightbulbs."

Spend, Wow. Spend.

However, unlike you, I then proceeded to educate you.

Well, tried to, Betty, but you don't want no learnin'.

What Betty, in his zeal to trash renewables, is missing is that wind turbines are not creating any extra heat, merely redistributing it: [âAt night, air above ground level tends to be warmer than the ground. Dr Zhou and his colleagues believe the turbine blades are simply stirring up the air, mixing warm and cold, and bringing some of the warmth down to ground level.â](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17871300)

Thank you, Betty, for taking the time to demonstrate to us all that you really, really don't get it. Not even at a junior-High-School science class level.

It's hard not to conclude that efforts such as those of Fox and WUWT are created specifically with cynical, ascientific and emotionally labile people like you in mind. Of course, there's a strong element of collaborative self-delusion in the mix, so to some extent the level of awareness / intentionality is neither here nor there.

Because the upshot is this: you'll always remember that 'hurr hurr, it turns out that its the Greenie's wind farms that are warming the planet, hurr hurr', and similarly 'hurr hurr, that paper totally proved the MWP was global, and that, like, totally proves there's no AGW now, hurr hurr', and 'hurr hurr, it turns out that everything's actually determined by cosmic rays, like evolution and temperature and everything, hurr hurr'.

The facts, of course, overwhelmingly lay elsewhere. That may be acknowledged - even cheerfully-conceded - back at the source, but will make little difference to your recollection, and none to your unshakeable belief.

Sadly, there's a lot of you. And, equally sadly, we may yet discover what happens when such a combination of manipulative/delusional elite cynicism/zealotry and populist idiocy is allowed to prevail...

Whoa @ 640...

"However, unlike you, I then proceeded to educate you.
Well, tried to, Betty, but you don't want no learnin'"

I do want learnin'! I remember everything you taught me, just like it was today...

Professor Whoa: And that class, is why we need to sell more carbon credits to the evil corporations to offset their helicopter usage. Any questions?

Betula: Yes professor, I read in a link provided by your friend Bill, that one would not argue that helicopters cause global warming,so why would you sell carbon credits to offset their usage?

Professor Whoa: For the same reason that any localized warming caused by wind farms is insignificant.

Betula: You sell carbon credits to wind farms?

Professor Whoa: No, because like I said, the warming effect is insignificant, the same way the warming of an incandescent bulb is insignificant in terms of saving money on heating bills.

Betula: But aren't we banning incandescent bulbs because they waste energy by throwing off a lot of heat?

Proffessor Whoa: Yes, a significant amount. By switching to CFL's, we will use less energy and save a significant amount of money on air conditioning bills.

Betula: So this is about saving money!

Professor Whoa: No, it's about saving polar bears.

Betula: But what about my original point, you know, selling carbon credits for helicopter usage even though one would not argue that they cause global warming?

Professor Whoa: We use the Helicopters to push warm air down to prevent frost on the crops, much the same way we believe wind farms do. Didn't you read the article Betula?

Betula: Yes I did. So the warm air redistribution from wind farms can be beneficial to crops...

Professor Whoa: No you moron, the warm air from wind farms is insignificant! Didn't you hear me say that in the learnin' I've been giving you?

I suppose that Betty at [#645](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…) effectively demonstrates how a Möbius strip of apparently infinite, point-missing stupid might appear.

Oh, for God's sake! It's like a little festival of Thick. If you're older than 16 Betty, your education was entirely wasted. Chek nails it.

Wow @642...
"However, unlike you, I then proceeded to educate you".

Bill @647...
"If you're older than 16 Betty, your education was entirely wasted."

So there you have it. Just as I expected, the learnin' Wow gave me @640, the link provided by Bill @638 and the comment by chek @643 - all nicely summarized @645... entirely wasted.

Fortunately, it didn't cost me a dime, but that won't stop me from filing a complaint with the Deltoid school board...

As this thread is past its use-by date, I'll use it to remind the courageous amongst us that the Jonas thread is also past its use-by date (it never had a 'best-before...).

I note from the 'Recent comments' list that Jonas is back. Has he tried to resurrect his false meme that climatologists haven't actually worked out the confidence intervals for human attribution of global warming? If so, there's no point engaging him - he's already been asked what literature he read and which professional climatologists he spoke to in order to arrive at his stance, and he's been shown a number of papers that do exactly what he says hasn't been done.

He's also ignoring a century and a half of physics, and the parsimonious inclination of the scientific process. No-one who's simply lurking to find information is going to mire themselves so deeply in that rat's-tooth of a thread, so the only numpties who will hear you are the galahs who can't hear reason.

Leave them to their screeching. Whilst they waste their time here, they're not gumming up the works somewhere else where it might actually matter.

Although, having said this, perhaps you are doing the world a favour by keeping the Scandinavian Troll Collective occupied... Yeah, ignore the above and just keep at it. We need to keep such serious Stupid off the streets.

Planet Under Pressure last week

"The conference brought together nearly 3000 leading experts and decision-makers to discuss global challenges and offer new solutions."

The end result - [State of the Planet Declaration](http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/state_of_planet_declaration…)

GSW - what gives? Have you had a change of heart?

The declaration echoes everything i have been saying in other threads. I know several of the authors personally, and their conclusions show that a suite of human activities are simplifying ecosystems, reducing their resilience and undermining key ecosystems services that sustain humanity. In particular, they emphasize that anthropogenic climate change is a part of the mix, as I and others have been saying. For instance, they want to build on the foundations of other major programs:

*In support of this, the international scientific community calls for a framework for regular global sustainability analyses that link existing assessments that build on the foundations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and other ongoing efforts*.

Leaving aside the broad range of issues raised by Monster's fascinating kick off, I can only assume that GSW's monstrous, gloating cynicism automatically categorizes something as inherently thoughtful, rational and constructive as that declaration - thanks for the link! - as a self-evident absurdity, hurr hurr, pertectin' plants'n'shit, as if! hurr hurr, and hence further mockery is superfluous, as well as being a mental strain, and all...

Do I win?

Can I suggest we don't let the troll hijack the thread? The paper's great as a subject, but GSW's asinine critiques of it - once they've been neurally-outsourced from a suitable outlet - will assuredly scarcely be worthy of consideration.

Just in case it's not obvious to some, #1 by Monster is link spam.

It's not April yet, so I'm not joining this thread.

It's been April for 12 hours here, and that's no foolin'.

GSW @ #2 Your linked to document is more evidence for the loonies push for "global governance".

The tin foil hatters in here think it's a conspiracy !

It seems that they now recognize that most of the world isn't swallowing the CO2 speculation, evidenced by the lack of mention of it so now they are going to broaden the scope of the fearmongering.

Mind you I do feel that there are many environmental issues that need to be dealt with, most of which have been put on the back burner while the big CO2 propaganda push has been the main focus, nothing in the human world works without energy and the extortion scheme is failing, as is the science behind it.

I found this a bit unsettling, on pg 10

"Regulate open access to knowledge in all arenas of business, policy, and science"

Hello Karen,
What is your educational background that allows you to question over one hundred years worth of research by thousands of scientists with integrity?

Karen, you have zero intellect and even less credibility.

*evidenced by the lack of mention of it so now they are going to broaden the scope of the fearmongering*

It seems like Karen-Spotty has had their head stuck up their you-know-where for the past 30 years. The areas covered in the State of the Planet Declaration have been the focus of empirical research since the 1980s - and perhaps even earlier. None of their conclusions are remotely controversial. It is a well established fact that humans are altering ecosystems across the biosphere at an alarming and increasing rate and that the ability of these systems to function effectively is being compromised. Read Stanford ecologist Peter Vitousek's Robert MaCarthur prize essay in the journal Ecology in 1994 and one should get a picture that was well known then.

Climate change is an important part of the Anthropocene in which we now live. Certainly human assaults across the biosphere are diverse, and, in spite of the bile spewed out by Karen and other deniers on Deltoid, a wide range of other threats to biodiversity are equally well studied but just do not get the same media attention as climate change. Threats posed by deforestation, over-harvesting, invasive species and other forms of pollution are also intensively studied and very well represented in the scientific literature. Climate change works in synergy with many of these other threats. Its just that the non-scientists who are driven by their own personal political ideologies and who hardly ever read any scientific journal promulgate their profound ignorance by suggesting that other environmental threats have been on the back burner. They most certainly are not.

Deltoid has been very tight lipped about the new IPCC report ?

SREX

FAQ 3.1 | Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? [...] None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here

( http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf )

Important breaking news at RC: the [wrong sign paradox](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/wrong-sign-parado…) appears to have been resolved. It looks like solar, cosmic ray and PDO influences have effects much closer to the "skeptic" position than previously thought, or at least they can't be trivially rejected any more. No word yet on what implications this might have for climate sensitivity.

So, do we finally have to admit it's all been a scam all along then? I have to admit it was all getting a bit tiring - and being paid in lentils wasn't all I'd hoped it would be - but I really thought we'd achieved out maximum aim of a total global Socialist empire ruled by behalf of Lord Gore and the Wind Farm industry for a moment there. Oh well, next time. No hard feelings I'm sure. We sure had you going, didn't we, 'Karen'?

Breaking, [Gillard Repeals Carbon Tax](http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/breaking-julia-gi…).

Did you notice, GSW, that while that first link was witty, the other was merely f'witty?

I see how GSW has used the Planet Under Pressure declaration to issue his usual, fanatical nonsense about left wing conspiracies and the like on the thread of his hero (seriously, methinks GSW has set up a closet shrine to you-know-who; scary thought, that). What is remarkable is how three deluded idiots write as if they have some sort of monopoly on wisdom when just about everybody else who contributes to Deltoid thinks they are a bunch of clowns. Talks about wearing blinkers!

Here's a little something to share with deniers.

Global-avg temp results that show the same warming that the official NASA "meteorological stations" index shows -- calculated via straightforward anomaly averages of raw temp data from just a few dozen *rural* GHCN stations scattered around the world.

Bonus kml files that show station locations in GoogleEarth included at no extra charge.

Linky here: http://forums.utsandiego.com/showpost.php?p=4657024&postcount=86

Results were the product of very rudimentary processing of raw data. Compute temp anomalies for each station/month ref the NASA-standard 1951-1980 baseline period and just average 'em together for each year. That's it.

Don't need very many stations at all to see the warming trend jump right out. No UHI or "homogenization" required. Just raw data from a small number of rural stations will do the trick.

Drive deniers crazy by asking them why they aren't able to figure out how to compute straightforward averages in all the years they've been attacking NASA/GISS.

Grammar boo-boo correction:

Drive deniers crazy by asking them why they **haven't been** able to figure out how to compute straightforward averages in all the years they've been attacking NASA/GISS.

Karen, you have zero intellect and even less credibility.

And GSW demonstrates the same by approvingly quoting Karen's conspiracy idiocy in a nearby thread.

Drive deniers crazy by asking them ...

That would require intellectual integrity, which they lack. Deniers are psychologically incapable of accepting fault in themselves or acknowledging error, so while there are things that you or I "can't deny", they always can.

Did you notice, GSW, that while that first link was witty, the other was merely f'witty?

The wittiest thing about it is that the graphs are real, and the sign being wrong goes against denialist explanations, a point that an f'wit like GSW is incapable of grasping.

I found this a bit unsettling, on pg 10

"Regulate open access to knowledge in all arenas of business, policy, and science"

That's because you're too stupid to understand what it means.

This guy has to be a serious contender for idiot of the millenium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i8RXjKG9i4&feature=g-upl&context=G28fa8…

Karenspot has been very tightlipped about the worldwide heatwave that has, by his own argument, proven global warming.

>This guy has to be a serious contender for idiot of the millenium. (link snipped)

Courtesy of CEI

Two things for you. First, a big 'thank you' for all that global warming you sent to southern England for the last ten days. Loved it! Send more - and more!

Second. This from Reuters:

"During a decade as head of [...], C. Glenn Begley identified 53 "landmark" publications -- papers in top journals, from reputable labs -- for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for [...] development.

Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated. He described his findings in a commentary piece published on Wednesday in the journal Nature."

Remind you of anything?

Actually, that story concerns a really scary subject, cancer research, as opposed to global warming which isn't the slightest bit scary - just boring! And here's a bit more that strikes me as particularly apt for this blog:

"On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.

Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.

"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior.""

Well, who'da thunk it?!

http://news.yahoo.com/cancer-science-many-discoveries-dont-hold-1742162…

I think I just heard the sound of a long bow snapping.

Of course Duff much prefers to get his science (which is so *boring* he obsessively blogs and trolls this website with froth mouthed religious fervour) from fraudulent dowsers in the pages of The Spectator.

Send more - and more!

The aphorism "be careful what you wish for" springs to mind here.

David Duff is an idiot and not worth responding to unless you are concerned he might influence people.

After the low impact PlanetUnderPressure week, Matt Ridley has posted [17 Reasons to be cheerful](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/reader%27s-digest.aspx).

Josh produced the accompanying [graphic](http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/4/2/optimistography-josh-15…).

Matt Ridley? The son of the late Nicholas Ridley, a former Conservative politician whose only green credentials were the nicotine stains on his fingers? (He was a chain smoker). And Bishop's Hill? Objective discussion? Give me a break. Neither of these sources has one scintilla of credibility. Ridley disqualified himself years ago, when he made some rather ridiculous assertions about environmentalists. Trust a nobody like GSW to dismiss the contributions of many of the world's leading scientists for a has-been and a web site that is a laughingstock.

Mark, your description of Duff also applies largely to GSW. The only difference is that his kind if willful ignorance most certainly will not influence anyone here. The opposite is true.

One aside: note that Halpern's kindergarten level illustrations depicted biodiversity on the basis of one species: the Polar Bear. And the only remotely similar comment was 'environment better than you think'. Not even an approximate description of what Halpern means by environment; but what would one expect from someone who clearly has no relevant expertise. Just write up some basic shite and paste it up on a blog. No wonder the deniers hang out there.

This kind of crap is so utterly vacuous that its almost - I emphasize that - hilarious. And of course the empirical evidence paints a very different picture. That evidence, gleaned from thousands of peer-reviewed studies, appeared in the recent report and in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2006).

This guy has to be a serious contender for idiot of the millenium.

What, when there's Cory Bernardi to consider?

Speaking of which - Duff's best ignored; let's leave him to his toy soldiers, re-enacting the Battle of Stalingrad to get it to come out right.

Duff and Dumber @ 26

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/?s=wegman

Jeff@32: you sure you meant to refer to "Halpern"? Me thinks you gots a different Josh in mind there!

Marco,

You areright. Sorry!!!!!! I meant whoever the mug was who drew that awful picture on the Bishop's Hill site.

As an aside, note who has returned.... the dreaded PentaxZ. I thought this dork had gone forever...

@Marco

Facts aren't jeffs thing it would appear, Matt Ridley is not Nicholas Ridley's son either. Even if he was, you can hardly make a 'credibilty' assessment of someone based on their fathers smoking habits, so much for empirical evidence.

A suggestion jeff, why don't you get your facts right before you start mouthing off. I know it has never stopped you in the past and likely won't stop you in the future, but it does say something about your 'credibility'. Incorrect 'Facts' and bizarre 'Reasoning' and very much your stock in trade I'm afraid.

Some trolls are so stupid that they forget that their nonsense has been refuted countless times past. It's the goldfish bowl all over again.

I usually refrain from expletives, but... once a fuckwit, always a fuckwit.

You might hear the slamming of Jeff Harvey's mind if he could actually find it. Warning: don't hold your breath waiting! He writes with breathless, doting admiration of "thousands of peer-reviewed studies" upon which he would stake his life if put to it.

So he didn't actually read the article to which I linked above where his life might have really been staked but for the fact that biotech companies actually *test* scientific assertions and claims despite them being checked by peer-review and the standards (heh!) of high falutin' scientific journals. Thus, 47 out of 53 claims for new cures for cancer made by so-called scientists could not be replicated. (Even Al Gore's pathetic little claim on TV could not be replicated either!)

So, Jeff, what makes you think climate scientists are any better?

By the way, it's suddenly turned chilly round here, could you please arrange for some more global warming. - thanks!

John @ #24 "Karenspot has been very tightlipped about the worldwide heatwave that has, by his own argument, proven global warming."

Here is the "Meteorological March Madness"
assessment from NOAA, if you follow the links you will find that they couldn't find AGW anywhere ! I fact they only mention CC because it's a prerequisite to do so for continued funding and for the ongoing membership to the "consensual climate cause cult".

1. What were the meteorological conditions associated with the heatwave?

It is first useful to place the heatwave into a Northern Hemisphere context (Fig. 1). The heatwave was clearly regional in scope and was not part of a pervasive hemisphere-wide warm regime. Rather, widespread cold conditions at the same time occurred over the western U.S., western Canada, Alaska, eastern Asia, and southeast Europe. In a similar context, it is useful to recall that the prior month of February 2012 which was generally very warm over the U.S., was very cold over Europe, and global land temperatures ranked 37th warmest in over a century, representing the coolest February since 1994............ ( http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/events/2012/marchheatwave/meteorology… )

2. What physical processes contributed to the heatwave's magnitude? ( http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/events/2012/marchheatwave/physical.html )

3. Was this extreme March 2012 U.S. heatwave event anticipated?

Here noaa anal yzes the tealeaves and scrutinizes their crystal balls.

( http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/events/2012/marchheatwave/anticipation… )

See John, it was only weather again, I note that your padded cell mate Jeff still thinks that the Russian heat wave was caused by CO2 ?

This needs to be repeated for all in here to see.

"and global land temperatures ranked 37th warmest in over a century, representing the coolest February since 1994"............

I'm sure Matt Ridley was similarly optimistic about the propects for the Northern Rock bank back in 2007. BTW, is don't think he is related to ex-MP Nicholas Ridley. Matt Ridley's father was Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley. Matt Ridley is now the 5th Viscount Ridley. Being in the top echelon of the UK class system does go hand-in-hand with the conviction that 'we know best'.

Oh my grovelling apologies, GSW. Ridley is the elder Ridley's nephew. Big difference. His background is still the British aristrocracy and the right wing 'establishment'.

And you digress. That doesn't make his or Bishop's Hills crap any more legitimate. There isn't a whole lot of credible science in there. The cartoon by Josh is pure and utter bulls***. And I have seen no proof from you that polar bears, frogs or coral reefs are doing fine. More hollow pontificating from you, GSW. Make things up, then run away when challenged. Your brainless hero makes similar accusations against me, but of course my views are at least held by most mainstream scientists. Yours and his aren't. The reason he's targeted me is because I am a 'real' scientist, a term he uses like a bad schoolboy. And the reason I don't take the bait directly is because I find it amusing more than anything else. Very few people read his rants, with the exception of a few self-minded idiots on denier blogs (you included). I can live with that.

Duffer: Before you open you big empty gob again I want to see proof of studies published in envrionmental science that are fraudulent. Its no use using an article on cancer research as fodder for your empty cannon. If you have examples, then cite them. And explain where the authors have 'made up data'. If you don't, then go away. Put up or shut up.

Like other deniers you grasp at any straws to support your profound ignorance and biases. Tomorrow you will cite (and probably misinterpret) a study that appears superficially to support the denial line but which, when read in more detail, doesn't. The deniers are a bunch of hypocrites.

Beg your pardon, Nicolas Ridley and Matt Ridley are related in the way Jeff states.

@jeff

"And the reason I don't take the bait directly"

It's not because everytime you 'engage' with Jonas, you get your arse handed to you then! ha!

Your 'means' of making a credibility assessment is quite fluid don't you think? First, if someone's dad is a 'chain smoker' that tells you everything you need to know, when you find out he isn't, you move onto something else. Can't you see everything you 'believe' is based on a prejudice? No facts required. Scientist? in what Universe is that the behaviour of a 'real' scientist?

Come on jeff, your 'I'm a Scientist' just doesn't play anymore, it's a "credibility" thing, you just, well, don't have any.

;)

Trolls.

You're still full of hot air, but are you willing yet to take me up on one of my wagers?

I'm a patient man, so the time frames don't phase me, and I can think of nothing better than parting you from your money.

You know the terms - all you need to do is to accept them.

If you pissants have the courage, that is...

by: pentaxZ

Wasn't this anus banished to Swedeland?

why don't you get your facts right before you start mouthing off

Troll projection.

Judith is onto it now,

"As shown by our analysis of observational data, an explanation that this heatwave was an outcome of a strong nonlinear feedback associated with a climate change induced reduction in snow cover or dry soil conditions must be rejected based on evidence and physical understanding regarding conditions associated with this particular heatwave event.

First, as noted above, much of the region which experienced record heat does not normally have snow cover in March, thus this mechanism does not apply for most of the area that experienced record March heat.

Second, the North American trend in March snow cover has been upward, not downward. The principal decline in snow cover extent emerges in late spring, when the climatological snow extent pushes well north into Canada. March and May snow cover changes have been materially different from each other over North America, and indeed of opposite sign in recent decades."

( http://judithcurry.com/2012/04/02/meteorological-march-madness/ )

Hands up all those in the "cause cult" that think NOAA should have covered up this assessment.

Foulspot.

If you are so clever, why are you not a professional scientist?

And if Curry actually believes her guff, why is she not formally publishing it in the peer-reviewed literature?

And I take it that your ignoring of my re-offering of my wager is a tacit concession that you are too scared to accept it.

Your cowardice is duly noted.

*First, as noted above, much of the region which experienced record heat does not normally have snow cover in March, thus this mechanism does not apply for most of the area that experienced record March heat*

Garbage. The heat wave extended over much of central and southern Canada - records were broken in Winnipeg, northern Ontario and Quebec as well as in all of the northern tier of states which normally have snow cover well into late March. For heaven's sake, the snow depth in Manitoba and northern Ontario is normally 30-40 cm even then! Curry is speaking out of her butt. Not a nice thought.

*It's not because everytime you 'engage' with Jonas, you get your arse handed to you then! ha!*

In pig's eye. Jonarse couldn't debate his way out of a soaked paper bag. I've met better debaters in primary school. Your objectivity is crap - blinded by your ideology and your adoration for him. But I won't go there - he seems to have a fanatic obsession and hatred for a large sector of the scientific community. Saying that Trenberth and Hansen aren't 'real scientists' is beyond the pale. This coming from someone who has refused categorically to say what their day job is, despite being asked a million times. Its not as if his identity would be outed telling us all what he does because he uses a pseudonym. He just doesn't want to do anything to shred his already fragile credibility.

Who is Foulspot ?

Are you having a chook raffle Bernard ?

Have you contacted Beyond Blue Bernard ?

Anyway onto a more important subject -

Bob Brown's "Global Government" voted on at the Global Greens Congress | Dakar 2012

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0FmFOGnf10&feature=player_embedded )

Jeff @ #51 said "Curry is speaking out of her butt. Not a nice thought."

Your having problems with your analysis Jeff, this seems to be a common theme with you.
The text was a quote from NOAA, you should take it up with them, I'm sure that they are used to dealing with cranks.

@ianamoron

You're not another jeff are you, what is it this time, base your judgement on the colour of someone's socks?

"why don't you get your facts right before you start mouthing off

Troll projection."

Either jeff gets his facts right, or he doesn't -and we know he doesn't. Jeff's flag waving for the cause over the US March weather looks misplaced, at least according to NOAA (pentaxZ's post above). Are you similarly afflicted ianamoron?

@jeff

Can't you get anything right? the statement you strongly disagree with is from NOAA, not judith curry. It's just an endless stream of being wrong about everything for you isn't it!

Anyway, I thought you said you didn't understand this stuff, defered to the experts I think you said, but you know better than NOAA now do you? "Garbage" was how you described their statement.

What a clown.

;)

The average February and March snow lines in North America:

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/54000/54642/MODIS1000…

Look at the map, Karen-Foulspot. Study it. Absorb it. The March line is well into the northern United States.

You are full of waste. A full-blown idiot. Go away.

Boy, the idiots are about tonight. Have another vat of wine, David.

Bill, you are correct. Its a bad day.

Its a shame that good scientific discussion is being marred by the dimwit brigade: PentaxZ, Karen and GSW. Why they come here is anybody's guess. They are full of it.

Jeff you are rambling on like an old derro.

It's already been pointed out to you that I did not write that, NOAA did, take it up with NOAA.

I would like to try to help you Jeff, click on the blue text here -

( http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx? )

If you want someone to support you I'm sure Berntard will accompany you.

@Karen

Apols, the Curry post was yours not pentaxZ's.
;)

@jeff

Karen's right, if you have problem with the NOAA statement take it up with them, don't go blaming everyone else just because it doesn't fit in with your prejudiced views. Love to know how you get on, a third rate activist zoologist telling NOAA they don't know what they are talking about when it comes to weather. As karen says "I'm sure that they are used to dealing with cranks."- In that respect you are in a super league of your own, Good Luck!.

;)

GSW have you noticed that Arctic ice extent is not declining ? It is more than one million km2 higher than 2007, and is right at the 1979-2006 mean.

( http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_… )

"On March 18, 2012, Arctic sea ice extent reached its annual maximum extent, marking the beginning of the melt season for Northern Hemisphere sea ice. [This yearâs maximum extent was the ninth lowest in the satellite record.](http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/)

"Multi-year sea ice hit its record minimum extent in the winter of 2008. That is when it was reduced to about 55 percent of its average extent since the late 1970s, when satellite measurements of the ice cap began. Multi-year sea ice then recovered slightly in the three following years, ultimately reaching an extent 34 percent larger than in 2008, but it dipped again in winter of 2012, [to its second lowest extent ever.](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/thick-melt.html)

The problem for 'Karen' and GSW is that they bandy words about that they don't know the meaning of in pursuit of their denier lies.

They would have us believe everything in the arctic is just hunky-dory, but once you peel aside their facade of confident ignorance, things there most definitely are not.

@karen,

I did see something on that, not sure what conclusions can be drawn from it though, other than perhaps sea ice extent is highly variable depending on the ocean circulation and 'weather'.

chek

There are many charts from many data providers here ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/ )

click on the charts to go to the originating data providers, and don't whine about the messenger.

GSW, currently the obvious conclusion is that the polar bears house is not on fire, as the doomsdayers in here would portray.

So, Karenspot, suddenly you're all for the NOAA when the science agrees with your opinion.

I don't know why you're saying it's the "weather again", because you previously blamed the "COLD CLIMATE !!!" for cold weather during winter. Why are you lying?

I stand by my claim that by your own argument, global warming has been proven by hot weather. This is the argument you made.

And Jeff, I respect your work but you have to stop being wound up by these clowns. They prod you because they always get a good reaction.

@karen

"GSW, currently the obvious conclusion is that the polar bears house is not on fire, as the doomsdayers in here would portray."

Agreed. Their hyping of every arctic variation into a Co2 induced armageddon is purely for political gain. They're running out of plausible fear stories to tell however. The more we learn, the more it all looks like bollocks.

@John

"I stand by my claim that by your own argument, global warming has been proven by hot weather. This is the argument you made."

Don't be such a cabbage john.

You gotta love this from GSW (gormless stupid wan***),

He calls me *a third rate zoologist*.

Tell me dimwit. How would you be able to tell a first from a second from a third rate *anything* in science? On the basis of your own right wing lunacy? If an idiot like you calls me 'third rate' then I take that as a compliment. Many thanks. It means I am doing well. Besides, I let my REAL peers in population ecology decide my standing in science, not some dork on the academic fringe. You qualify in the latter category. Now go back to the simpletons at Bishop's Hill where you belong.

As for NOAA, I showed mean data for the snow line in February and March. As expected, the latter averages the northern USA in March. All of Canada has snow on the ground well until late in the month on average, or even early April. The March heat wave extended up as far as Hudson's Bay. Temperatures were some 20-25 C above average for two weeks. Records were not only broken but smashed to pieces. The deniers can fart about all they want, but they are lost in their own pit of ignorance.

Foulspot.

The only person here who thinks that you have been successfully hiding behind a dress is yourself. Your pretense in the face of universal awareness is purile.

And if you're going to play with my name, you should be attentive to not repeating stylistic spottisms.

Seriously, does your mother know that you're staying up past your bed time and being silly on the internet?

Jeff, get someone to explain to you the difference between wevva and climate !

Try Wikipedia.

Posted Monday 2nd April 2012, 9:30 am by Dunx
Western Canadian ski areas are reporting extended seasons â meaning they now have up to two more months of skiing and boarding, record breaking snowfalls and lower lift ticket prices for spring.

Blackcomb Mountainâs operations have been extended to May 28, 2012, meaning thereâs still two months of the season left to allow skiers and riders to take advantage of what Whistler says are incredible conditions on the mountain.

âWe are in the midst of another fantastic winter season here in Whistler so spring will have to wait just a little bit longer,â says Doug MacFarlane, Whistler Blackcomb mountain operations manager.

( http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/news-11558.html )

I have another challenge for the trolls.

If you genuinely believe that there will not be an ice-free Artic pole at any time this century, explicitly state so on this thread.

So there's no doubt or wiggle room, I meant of course "Arctic"...

Foulspot,

Whistler is one small resort in British Columbia. The last time I checked an atlas, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec covered a much larger area and were much farther east. Check the status of most of their ski resorts. Closed. Over. Note also that lakes in the region melted completely a month earlier than normal.

You really are a moron.

Bernard, you seem like a nice chap, although grossly conspiratorially misguided, so how much for the chook raffle dear.

@jeff

For pity's sake, it's been explained to you, the statement was not from "deniers" as you call them, unless of course NOAA are now also "deniers".

Your last sentance should read.

"NOAA can fart about all they want, but they are lost in their own pit of ignorance."

Take it up with them.

"I let my REAL peers in population ecology decide my standing in science"

Peers in population ecology? How low is it possible to set the bar before you think you could get over it? It's like, not a bar at all, dream on Space Cadet.

;)

@Bernard

Aren't you a "population ecologist"? Apologies if I've remembered incorrectly, no offence intended. I'm not taking a swipe at you, merely enquiring.

Bernard @ #70

The arctic sea ice extent may get as low as it did when USS Skate visited.

( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/18/sea-ice-news-volume-3-2/ )

But then it will most likely freeze over again as it has in the past after it has melted, its a cycle Bernard.

*Peers in population ecology? How low is it possible to set the bar before you think you could get over it? It's like, not a bar at all, dream on Space Cadet*

Since when would you know how high to set the bar in science dickhead? Uh - never? Given that ecology is a decidely non-linear science, that bar is set way, way over your simple little head. You wouldn't last 5 minutes in a room with systems or population ecologists, sunshine.

By the way: in 2010 Watts wrote an article claiming thyat the snow line was 'moving south'. Strange he hasn't returned to that theme now. Well, not so strange at all. And the snowline graph I presented comes from NASA. So the next time you masticate science then take it up with them, as well.

From the NOAA website with respect to the March heat wave:

Our current estimate of the impact of GHG forcing is that it likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude of the heat wave during 12-23 March. *And the probability of heatwaves is growing as GHG-induced warming continues to progress*. But there is always the randomness.

This says it all. In their opinion GHG were a contributing factor that will probably increase in magnitude. End of story.

In case anyone is interested in USS Skate referred to by Karen the Credulous, here is something factual:

http://reallysciency.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/zombie-lies.html

Rather than open water, the Skate surfaced through ice in a frozen lead. And as Patrick Lockerby has chronicled over at The Chatter Box, in 'Surface At the Pole' Calvert (the commander of the Skate at the time) details how they didn't find any open water on their 1959 cruise until several days *after* they surfaced at the North Pole - and when they did it was hundreds of miles from the pole and the 'open water' was a hole in the ice about two-feet in diameter!

There was lots of ice at the North Pole in 1959.

This shows how IMHO Judith Curry has lost the plot:

http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/09/mark-lynas-gets-jared-diamo…

When she starts straying well outsdie her own little field, and writes some of the nosnense she does, then no wonder she is not taken seriously by many anymore. Same goes for Mark Lynas.

Foulspot.

Watts tries the USS Skate/thin ice gambit every so often, and is always smacked down for it: [Tamino took care of the task when Jeff Condon tried it recently at WWWT](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/how-fake-skeptics-fool-themselve…). For educational purposes, search the thread for references to the USS Skate, and learn how your Denialati mates like to misrepresent the image of '57...

That aside, your answer is disingenuous, because it doesn't actually address the question. And I'm not interested in a winter re-freeze - all I want to know is whether or not you think that the North Pole will be ice-free at any time in the 21st century.

Perhaps I need to make it easier for you and your buddies. What do you think will be the minimum Arctic sea ice extent, for any season, during the 21st century? And answer using a number in millions of square kilometres; not some guff about submarines popping up at locations where they did not in fact surface.

This is basic stuff. You're all hoity-toity about how your bunch of non-professionals all understand climatology better than the real climatologists and physicists, so tell us how much of the Artic ice will remain in the face of the lack of global warming that you claim is the case.

*You're all hoity-toity about how your bunch of non-professionals all understand climatology better than the real climatologists and physicists*

This is the crux of it Bernard. Its what the denialati/academic fringe-sters are pushing all the time. That a bunch of layabouts who don't do science seem to think that they know more than professional climate scientists. Several of them contaminate the Deltoid threads. We know who they are.

Earth calling jeff #79.

"Given that ecology is a decidely non-linear science, that bar is set way, way over your simple little head. You wouldn't last 5 minutes in a room with systems or population ecologists, sunshine."

Too right I wouldn't jeff, all that non empirical, doomsaying, huddled round the camp fire, who can tell the best CO2 biodiversity armageddon story would do my head in. Your speculative (non linear) scare-mongering is best targeted at the NGO's, the rest of us like to see some evidence. The NGO's, hopefully, won't laugh at you.

You just don't get it do you, although I assume you now know the statement you said was "Garbage" earlier was from NOAA and not Judith Curry -there was a NOAA bit you liked

"the impact of GHG forcing is that it likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude of the heat wave"

So what? They are clear the heatwave was not caused by CAGW and 5-10% is down amongst the noise, hardly 'Catastrophic' as you would have us believe. Got to pin your hopes on something though, only marginally better than whether someone's dad was a chain smoker, which is your usual, non-linear, fayre.

@Bernard

"What do you think will be the minimum Arctic sea ice extent, for any season, during the 21st century? And answer using a number in millions of square kilometres;"

What difference does that make to anything? who can guess the best sea ice extent? Population ecologists, more village fete "Guess the pennies in the jar", than a balance of wisdom based on the evidence.

>What difference does that make to anything?

For one thing, it will illuminate the degree to which you stand by your own anti-science nonsense...

And disparage population ecologists as much as you like - they are still far and away better able to assess the veracity of their climatological colleagues' research than are a motley band of disparate lay ideologues and vested interests, who can't stump up a coherent chain of empirical evidence to save themselves.

So, a number please. What do you think the minimum 21st century Arctic sea ice extent will be?

GSW:

There's no way of gauging whether 5% is a significant factor or not. As ecologists well know (meaning real scientists) critical thresholds for habitat loss on a range of important ecological processes such as nutrient cycling and other services can be as small as that or even smaller. Anyone disparaging an estimate of 5-10% does so out of profound ignorance of non-linear processes. Hence why polar bears are far from secure. If estimates of ice retreat in the Arctic are remotely accurate, then the species is pretty well doomed. And their demise will be rapid - a blink of an evolutionary eye.

And your belittling of thousands of ecological studies in some of the most rigid scientific journals is noted, along with your other routine quips that reveal a lot about your blinkered right wing views.

>Don't be such a cabbage john.

Ok. I'll just quote Karenspot verbatim:

>The IPCC is being proven wrong by the cold "CLIMATE" almost everywhere !!!!

>akerz, don't you read the world news, here's some headlines for you. I could find quite a few for the Southern Hemisphere for you if you like.

>Monster Storm to Strike U.S.

>Germany Brought To Near Standstill By Snow, Cold

>UK Big Freeze Could Last Until Mid-February

>European Deep Freeze - 2 Dec 10 - Thousands of homes lose electricity and heat.

>Will it be even colder than the winter of 1962-3?

>Near emergency-level snowfall in Ontario Shatters previous record

>Record-setting snowfall brings Paris to a standstill

>Scotland braced for three feet of snow

>Coldest in central England since 1659

>Hundreds Of New Cold And Snow Records In US

>Worst storm this century traps 300 motorists in Ontario

>Six straight days of record low temps in Cancun - more coming

>Freezing temps expected most of South Florida - 13 Dec 10

>Record cold tonight for FL, GA, SC and AL -

>Snow and storms cause chaos US midwest

>Helicopters Used To Warm Florida Crops

>Hard freeze in Tampa Bay area forecast for next two nights

>The Bitter Bite of Winter, Food Shortages Coming

>Cold snap hits Turkey with a vengeance

>Cold kills 8 in Poland - 1 Dec 10

>delayed flights across Europe, forced thousands of passengers in Germany to spend the night in trains, and left thousands of motorists stranded overnight in freezing temperatures.

>In Poland, the cold claimed 10 more lives, bringing the overall death toll to 18, and thousands of homes lost electricity and heat as temperatures hovered around -10C (14F).

>Several Romanian villages suffered a similar fate.

>In Denmark, the Danish army used tracked armored personnel carriers to help ambulances and other emergency vehicles cut their way through mounds of snow.

>In Lillhardal, Sweden, the mercury plunged to -29.6C (-13F).

>The Longest & Quietest Solar Magnetic Minimum in Recorded History

>mike, I often post things that destroy the aGW CO2 hypothesis and timmy just deletes them, so you should think yourself lucky to only get a disembowelment.

And:

>'Guess what - heavier snowfalls may actually be a symptom of climate change. And this has been known for some time.'

>yes pinocchio, the loons started with that bullshit when All their crappy predictions started failing !

>hmmm...........

>Storm Woes Continue Western Canada the latest to feel effects of Old Man Winter Last Updated: Thursday, December 16th, 2010 | 7:46am PST

>why is the CO2 in the atmosphere making it snow ? Weren't we told that the world would only get warmer ?

>So now as the ocean's cool, what do you think will happen to those warmer night time temperatures ?

>Heavy snowfall, bitter winds and temperatures dropping to -4F (-20C) have made road travel treacherous in Sweden, where meteorologists say the start of winter has been the coldest in more than a century.

>!!!!!!!!CLIMATE DISRUPTION!!!!!!!!

GSW, if you are in any doubt that Karenspot ran the argument "It's cold therefore AGW is a hoax!", then please read this thread. I know you won't, but it's full of goodies, such as Karenspot claiming the government is supressing free energy.

Most importantly, it goes on and on and on and on with Karenspot claiming cold weather is proof that AGW is a hoax. Now the cold weather has been replaced with hot weather and suddenly it's just that - weather! Meaningless!

Maybe you want to back this losing horse, but remember - *I never forget*.

At this point I say let's all point and laugh at the denialists. When you get down to it, that is the only response possible when they reach the level of denial I've seen.
For instance, one denialist I know had his trailer heavily damaged due to a tornado. Of course he didn't believe it was a tornado, just a tree that happened to fall. Then again he didn't notice the two paths of destruction going off in opposite directions from his trailer. Each bit of damage was just individual incidents that just happened to occur for no particular reason. All the flooding last year was each an individual occurance to him and in no way associated with the fact that the local dam was overflowing, flooding areas downstream.
I doubt he has noticed that the leaves had been coming out on the trees and the Spring flowers were blooming while it was still Winter. The Winter tornadoes South of us this year certainly haven't made an impression on him.
I have to laugh.

What did the suddenly trusted and reliable NOAA have to say about 2010's "Snowmageddon"?

>This is the second consecutive very wintry winter in the eastern United States. Last year, NOAA climate scientists concluded the record-breaking snowstorms most likely resulted from the combination of two natural climate patterns: El Niño and the Arctic Oscillation.

>So what about this year? Last winterâs El Niño has flipped to La Niña, as temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific have been cooler than normal. But the Arctic Oscillation seems to be in a repeat pattern, with conditions this December and January very similar to last winter, according to Deke Arndt, Chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at NOAAâs National Climatic Data Center.

Could they be *short term forcings* and not proof of no warming as Karenspot claims?!

Could Karenspot be *cherrypicking* and perhaps *lying* to us?

Ironically, the year Karenspot pointed to is now the warmest year on record. But whatevs! It's all Al Gore! Something something politics! Look over there!

@bernard

So you are a population ecologist?

"And disparage population ecologists as much as you like - they are still far and away better able to assess the veracity of their climatological colleagues' research than are a motley band of disparate lay ideologues and vested interests, who can't stump up a coherent chain of empirical evidence to save themselves."

Jeff doesn't even read the Climate Science 'primary' literature (it has numbers in it, jeff don't do numbers, duh!), his ignorance of even the most basic facts has been demonstrated again and again (see the Science thread). I don't think you faired any better?

Some of us actually have a proper 'Physics' education certainly enough to read and understand the papers, which are not remotely demanding. So forgive me, but I think I'm in a better position to evaluate than either you or "Irrational Pessimist" jeff.

"So, a number please. What do you think the minimum 21st century Arctic sea ice extent will be?"

Bernard, it's a blog, but I'll tell you what, if I wake up one morning and decide that I would like to make a bet with some idiot on a blog, I'll come looking for you, promise.

Hey, didn't some guy want to make a bet about model precipitation forecasts with you? what happened there, you two contracted?

;)

Hey, it's pile on GSW for being an ignorant moron time.
So, GSW, tell us what your theories are again? Why is physics different from population ecology?

As expected GSW is full of boasting about his comprehension (which he has never demonstrated), yet strangely silent when it comes to backing up his views with predictions.

If the papers are so easy to understand and the science so obvious, what are you afraid of?

It couldn't be that you're just here to troll and snipe about topics you don't understand becuase you're a politcal hack, could it?

@john

"then please read this thread. I know you won't"

You're right, I won't. It's of no interest, whether we have Hot or Cold events, "proof" is claimed for or against. You guys are the past masters at it - see jeff's flag waving on the March thread. It's all bogus, for all I know karen was making the point that you lot cheer each Hot event as climate change and each Cold event as weather, which you do. Either way it's of no interest to me.

@guthrie

You a population ecologist too?

"Why is physics different from population ecology?"

Well physics is a science, population ecology appears to be more of an environmental movement.

Physics is about understanding how things work. Population ecologists seem to accept they are unlikely to ever understand anything, so they fill the gaps with fear and a belief in Catastrophic non-linear phenomenom. That's my experience with you guys here anyway for what it's worth.

@john

"If the papers are so easy to understand and the science so obvious"

Who said the science was obvious? I said understanding what is being claimed, and the basis of those claims, in the papers is undemanding. Which it is. Some just scan the text looking for something that sounds bad, jeff's 5-10% above for example, he has no context to it, it's just the worst thing he could find.

A final tip, if you read that there is a high degree of uncertainty about something, it is Ok sometimes to interpret that as "we just don't know". I only mention this as many of you seem to struggle with difference between know, and don't really know.

*Well physics is a science, population ecology appears to be more of an environmental movement*

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

Gimme a break. GSW, you are one funny dude!!! No wonder nobody takes you seriously with this kind of asinine remark!!! Keep it up. The more you spew out this kind of trash, the more isolated you will be.

@jeff

No need to take it personally jeff. Amongst your many failings, being a population ecologist is the least of your worries.

;)

GSW,

I don't take it personally, at least from you. If you were a well known scientist with a good reputation in any field, then, yes, I might be a little concerned. But you? A schmuck with a basic degree in physics? No.

Unless I am mistaken, of course. How many peer-reviewed articles do you have in the scientific literature? Last time I checked it was zero. Is it still a big zilch?

GSW, you denied Karenspot made the argument at all. Suddenly you admit he did, but the argument is meaningless. I agree. However, it's the argument he set up, and by his own definition global warming has been proven.

Um, I don't get it; why is anyone arguing with these meringues?

By remarkable chance I just received a 2045 wikipedia entry through a wormhole in spacetime. I looked up 'inconsequential' and found:

The opinions of extreme science deniers; for example GSW, 'karen', and various Scandinavian nutbars that formerly infested Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog. All of these 'trolls' were eventually located and institutionalised in the mid-20's for their own protection. They afforded ample opportunities for studying the psychology of extreme and ineradicable Denial and led relatively comfortable lives, which in itself led to considerable controversy; perhaps unsurprisingly many felt their conditions to be far too luxurious given the chaos in the world outside they had helped to bring about. In what many see as a great irony, they all died during the Great Crop Failure of the early 2030's, and hence were duly converted to Soylent Green, making, many argued, a one-off positive contribution of a kind that they had never managed to achieve during their lifetimes. See also 'Dunning-Kruger' and 'wanker'.

*Well physics is a science, population ecology appears to be more of an environmental movement*

It beggars belief that you actually *wrote* this GSW. And you wonder (but never understand) why we laugh at you.

Bill McKibben discusses his new book, The Global Warming Reader (NPR podcast). Nice.

More Karenspot classics:

>From Their Own Mouths: AGW is a LIE.

>"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

And:

>hmmm......

>SPECIAL CLIMATE STATEMENT 33

>Coldest autumn for Australia since at least 1950.

>http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs33.pdf

>yep, so we have higher CO2 and lower temperatures, the climate must be scared of the new tax.

>i reckon there is a few in here wondering where and why the climate models failed, even the most diehard alarmist warmer trolls in here would be starting to doubt their own sanity.

>thoughts of of a diehard warmer

>"the IPCC has fooled us, and the real problems have gone unheeded"

>suggestion, never trust the UN or a government funded climate scientist !

And:

>i suppose that you have noticed that now your mob of alarmist's are trying to tell the world that the reason for the "missing heat" is sulfur from chinese coal emissions, or now aerosols are having a greater cooling influence.

And:

>As for the weather reports, if you look at the weather reports and then cross reference those with the GISS Temperature Anomaly Chart for that period, you will see that GISS indicates warm, when the fact is the local reporting states it's cold.

And:

>ps, pinocchio has been shown evidence that arctic ice has been less in the past, greenland has been warmer and the antarctic hasn't melted indeed it is still gaining ice

And:

>I don't suppose that the CO2 freak's in here have heard of THE NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION !

>Did you read that fella's ? "not an exact science", he should've added "especially where tax grabbing governments are involved".

But, you see, this heatwave is just *weather*! NOAA say so! They must be right! Their science agrees with my opinion for once!

>Bernard, it's a blog, but I'll tell you what, if I wake up one morning and decide that I would like to make a bet with some idiot on a blog, I'll come looking for you, promise.

I have not trying to make a bet with you - I am trying to get you to stump up some evidence of belief in the material that you claim as your 'science'.

>Hey, didn't some guy want to make a bet about model precipitation forecasts with you? what happened there, you two contracted?

Every chickenshit denialatus to whom I have offered my wagers has run away wimpering. It seems that not a single one of them have the courage of their convictions to enter into a legally-binding wager with me, blog entity or otherwise, that would take my money from me if they are correct and consensus science is wrong.

>It's of no interest, whether we have Hot or Cold events, "proof" is claimed for or against. You guys are the past masters at it - see jeff's flag waving on the March thread. It's all bogus, for all I know karen was making the point that you lot cheer each Hot event as climate change and each Cold event as weather, which you do.

Ah, but the basis for my wager is very much a profound alteration of hundreds of thousands of years of stable climate in a region of the planet sensitive to human-caused warming.

I'm not talking about weather. I'm not talking about a "hot event" or a "cold event". I'm talking about an irreversible change that would absolutely falsify your denialism, that will occur this century, and that you seem to deny is possible. All I want you to do is to put a specific number on the lack of warming that you perceive, but so far, wagers or otherwise, none of your crowd has the guts to actually stand by their propaganda.

Cowards, all.

>Well physics is a science, population ecology appears to be more of an environmental movement.

Heh. So you're more-than-tacitly admitting that you know nothing of population ecology.

Fair enough. Admission accepted.

>Population ecologists seem to accept they are unlikely to ever understand anything, so they fill the gaps with fear and a belief in Catastrophic non-linear phenomenom. That's my experience with you guys here anyway for what it's worth.

Hah, not only are you incapable of analysing your data correctly, you can't even logically interpret your flawed analysis.

The sad thing is that I doubt that you even understand where you go off the rails. I guess that's just an inevitable consequence of not knowing anything about that on which you're ignorantly pronouncing.

Oh, and if you really want to know what discipline of science I've trained and worked in, UTFSE. If even that's beyond you, then your're a piss-poor fact-finder indeed - although we knew that a long time ago...

>Either way it's of no interest to me.

Yes, it seems that actual science never has been of interest to you.

So, once more from the top, are you able to quantify the reliability of the 'science' on whch you purport to rely, by providing a minimum (summer, if you like) Arctic sea ice extent for the 21st century? If this is really just too scary for a Foulspot/GSW answer, you cissies are welcome to go over to the Scandinavian Troll Collective and ask them for their answer, and report back here.

>Um, I don't get it; why is anyone arguing with these meringues?

Sometimes it's just fun to rub their noses in their obvious willful ignorance. Don't worry Bill, once their 'intellectual' feedback loop is properly re-established (as it always is) I'll stop picking at the scab.

ianamoron

Yes, GSW, you moron, you got it right -- the m does indeed stand for "moron". Something else that, unlike you, I am not -- I am not a troll. Being a troll, you cannot win any debates here, even if you were to happen to be right about the facts ... it's a matter of sociology. So go ahead and attack me, it just makes me look good.

So, Karenspot, suddenly you're all for the NOAA when the science agrees with your opinion.

While we're all enjoying this spasm of argument from authority by the pair of feces stains, let's note this part of the NOAA statement that Curry quoted but they didn't:

There is no doubt that there exists an influence of human-produced greenhouse gases on evolving weather and climate conditions, as the IPCC reports have clearly enumerated. Yet, while acknowledging that climate change plays a role in every weather event ...

Well physics is a science, population ecology appears to be more of an environmental movement

Shades of David Duff!

Physics is about understanding how things work. Population ecologists seem to accept they are unlikely to ever understand anything, so they fill the gaps with fear and a belief in Catastrophic non-linear phenomenom. That's my experience with you guys here anyway for what it's worth.

It's worth nothing, because it's coming from someone who just proved (yet again) that he is an ignorant imbecile. What you call "experience" isn't, it's interpretation, the same sort of interpretation that a Creationist has of what he hears from evolutionary biologists (who, according to your co-moron David Duff, are also not scientists).

Bloody physicists, they're in on the scam as well: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

Thanks spottedquail for that.

But you know what the deniers on Deltoid will do? They will demand to know how the American Physical Society reached that conclusion. If you can believe it, they (meaning the usual suspects) have been hounding me over the same thing when confronted with statements released by *every National Academy of Science in every nation on Earth* with respect to the human fingerprint on the current warming.

They - or shall I say he - says that, unless I can vouch for how these academies reached their conclusion on AGW, then this conclusion is meaningless. This is like trying to win a pissing match with a skunk. You've got the most prestigious scientific bodies making statements of consensus on the one hand, and you've got a small coterie of non-scientist deniers on the other hand screaming foul. They want us to provide absolute, detailed evidence of every members vote. Lacking this, their escape valve is that the decision was poissibly made by only a few members and does not reflect the academy body as a whole. Yes, I know this is crazy, mad, ridiculous, plainly nutty, but this is what our little band of fecal deniers does. This is their debating style. Its a tried and trusted tactic of the anti-environmental lobby, and our Dunning-Kruger acolytes have honed it to a tee.

So yes, SQ, this is the level of intellectual discourse with which we are dealing, the same people who claim to be 'wiping the floor' with the rest of us in the debate over AGW. I wonder why we bother with these ninnies. They are like annoying gnats that need to be swatted.

John, I had a look at the Sunspot thread and the only mention of a free energy machine was from you and chek ?

I found your post fascinating, the one above where you say that GISS reports it is hot in an area but the news reports from that area are reporting that its colder than normal ? It makes you wonder how a big fangdangled organization like that can continually get it wrong ?

Bernard, do you hear voices in your head ? There is no one here called Foulspot, poor thing Bernard.

Never mind, here are a couple of science professionals predictions.

Jay Zwally he would tell you that the arctic ice would be melted in 2012, ( http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20071211/NEWS/71211031 )

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, reckons it will be gone in 2013.

"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

"Professor Maslowski's group, which includes co-workers at Nasa and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams.

These other teams have variously produced dates for an open summer ocean that, broadly speaking, go out from about 2040 to 2100. "
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm )

Now Bernard, could you please tell me how much ice was in the Arctic ocean at the height of the MWP ? The real MWP not the new, adjusted, mangled, hide the MWP MWP.

That's "quoll" Jeff, cute, furry, sometimes poor tempered Australian marsupial (well, I do get 2 out of the three).

Here's a question, or at least a thought for you, I'm interested in the other effects of increased CO2, I do a lot of work with (Australian) native grasses. C3 grasses (which include wheat, barley, oats) evolved relatively early under high CO2 concentrations, C4's (the summer or "tropical" grasses - of which over 60% of Australan pastures are composed) which include rice, corn and sugar cane evolved under relatively low atmospheric CO2 (around 200ppm)and have developed mechanisms to concentrate it for more efficient photosynthesis. I've found some, though not a great deal of, literature which suggests that as CO2 increases C4 grasses start to struggle (putting paid to the claim "it's only plant food"). Though water and nutrient availability have quite a bit to do with it as well. Have you heard much on this particular subject?

Climate is only one aspect of increased atmospheric CO2, acid precipitation and effects on crops (and weeds) are things we often neglect.

Anyway, as I said, just a thought (and the effect of climate change and increased CO2 on Hordeum vulgare and Humulus lupulus is of particular concern to me).

A brilliant nonsense answer from GSW.
WHich leads naturally to the question, what is a science? What are the processes of science?

Does GSW know? Stay tuned for the answer!

..could you please tell me how much ice was in the Arctic ocean at the height of the MWP..

Probably more than now:

[Arctic sea ice in longest decline seen over past 1,450 years: study](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/arctic-sea-ice-i…)

Unless you can come up with a photo of a nuclear "allegedly" sub surfacing at the north pole circa 1200AD.

Sorry, last sentence should read:

Unless you can come up with a photo of a nuclear sub "allegedly" surfacing at the north pole circa 1200AD.

Sorry SQ for getting your name wrong. My mistake!

Thanks for your questions. A lot of my research involves plant secondary chemistry ie. chemistry that is not involved in metabolism but in defense. Before I get to your questio directly, one area that is currently under investigation is how increases in atmospheric C02 will affect plant stoichiometry, with particular attention being paid to C, N and P. As I ahve said before, we know that plant defense chemisty in different plant families is N- or C-based. Thus plants with C-based defenses are likely to become more toxic as N and P are shunted from plant tissues, whereas the opposite is true for plants with N-based allelochemistry. Moreover, given that N is usually the limiting nutrient for insect herbivores, we can expect (and are finding) that insects do increase the amount of plant tissues they consume when reared in high ambient C02 conditions. This means a likely reduction in plant biomass and reduced fitness (seed set). All kinds of scenarios are going to be played out in natural and managed ecosystems as a result of the atmospheric experiment humans are conducting. And this is based only on the rapid and unprecedented increase in C02. Your question is an important one, because many of the most noxious weeds are C3 plants. They will certainly benefit from increased C02, whereas the fate of C4 plants is much less certain. You are right that the 'its plant food' argument is ridiculous, especially when speices-specific responses and consumers are factored in. Bazzaz and colleagues have worked in this area a long time and its the center of a lot of contemporary research. When we explore aspects of global change on plants, we have to incorporate a range of biotic interactions that are critical in determining the effects on communities. The deniers never do this. One of the reasons is that very few if any of them are ecologists, and thus they have no clue about systems. Instead, their ranks are dominated by people who appear to think that primary production is controlled exclusively by abiotic factors and primarily C02. This is, of course, kindergarten level science. But then again, in dealing with climate change deniers, we have to realize that most of them have little if any scientific pedigree, and, of those that do, its not in the life sciences.

Look at their arguments with respect to Polar Bears. Their take is so abominable that its actually embarrassing. The denialtwits apparently think ecological systems are in stasis. But of course, the current warming, if it continues at the current rate, will certainly lead to a meltdown in the Arctic as Bernard and others have posited here. The bears thrive under certain ice conditions, and the current amount of ice is probably at or only slightly below optimal for their survival and reproduction. But the extent of ice in the Arctic is expected to decrease precipitously over the coming 50 years. If it does, then the bears are doomed. Finito.

A similar analogy to the deniers arguments is this. Its like saying that the species inhabiting a 100,000 hectare forest are doing fine, when that forest is slated for destruction by a logging company in 10 years. Of course, the species are doing fine so long as the forest remains largely intact; however, as soon as the forest begins to get cut down, then the wild inhabitants will be anything but safe. The deniers are playing this kind of game. A hundred years ago there were 100,000 wild tigers. There are now less than 1,300. I am sure that deniers back in 1910 would have said that the tigers were doing just fine, that there was nothing to worry about, and Josh at Bishop's Hill would have drawn a childish cartoon showing a smiling tiger standing over India. But since 1910 the country's human population has increased by many factors and much of the tiger's wild habitat has been destroyed. The polar bear faces a similar fate if projections about the loss of Arctic ice are anywhere close to accurate.

Bernard, here is an arctic sea ice prediction from an ecologist, lol, are they all that loopy ?

Now, scientists believe the summer Arctic could be open ocean as soon as next year,(2013) "ecologist" Jim Porter told a crowd of more than 100 on the UGA campus.

( http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-01-19/global-warming-movng-fast… )

Here is another one, he he thinks that it is going to melt in 2008, ( http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/01/content_7696460.htm )

Bernard, I think this next guy may be a relation of yours.

Arctic specialist Burnt Balchen reckons it will be gone in 2000, ( http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zmI0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=L5wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=… )

cont.....

The New York Times predicted the same thing for 1970 ( http://www.real-science.com/berwyn-thinks-arctic-disappear )

and 1947 - "ARCTIC PHENOMENON Warming Of Climate Causes Concern LOS ANGELES, May 30.-The possibility of a prodigious rise in the surface of the ocean with resultant widespread inundation, arising from an Arctic climatic phenomenon was discussed yesterday by Dr. Hans Ahlmann, a noted Swedish geophysicist at the University of California Geophysical Institute.

A mysterious warming of the climate was slowly manifesting it self in the Arctic, Dr. Ahlmann said, and, if the Antarctic ice re gions ahd the major Greenland ice cap should reduce at the sam. rate as the present melting in the Arctic, oceanic surfaces would rise to catastrophic proportions and people living in the lowlands along their shores would be inundated. He said that temperatures in the Arctic had increased 10deg. Fahren heit since 1900--an "enormous" rise 'from a scientific standpoint.

The waters in the Spitsbergen area in the same period had risen three to five degrees in temperature and one to one and a half millimeters yearly in level. "The Arctic change is so serious that I hope an international agency can speedily be formed to study the conditions on a global basis." he added. He pointed out that whereas in 1910 the navigable season along western Spitsbergen lasted three months it now lasted eight months."
( http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46315410?searchTerm=global%20wa… )

that was kinda alarmist deja vu

Maybe you can read the future in a snow globe Bernard ? The crystals balls don't seem to be helping.

Excellent research Karen.

You have shown how science works. Gradual increase in knowledge and better predicitons about global warming.

Bravo, or did you not realise you just shot yourself in the foot?

"He pointed out that whereas in 1910 the navigable season along western Spitsbergen lasted three months it now [in 1947] lasted eight months."

The navigable season along western Spitsbergen now lasts [all year round](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ARCHIVE/20120331.jpg), you complete fuckwit.

For home viewers, Spitsbergen is the island just below dead centre on the linked image, to the right of Greenland. Note the west coast is all open water, despite this map being done just about the annual maximum.

Yes the 1940's were quite warm. It's a lot warmer now. Crap, its almost like, you know, it's warming or something...

Are we sure "Karen" isn't Sunspot? This level of self-defeating argument isn't easy to imitate.

For clarity: "the annual maximum" above = the annual maximum of Arctic Sea Ice extent. If Spitsbergen isn't iced in now, its not going to be.

"Yes the 1940's were quite warm. It's a lot warmer now. Crap, its almost like, you know, it's warming or something..."

And, since the sun is less active than it was in 1940, it can't be the sun that's caused the change.

Your co2 fingerprint for Spitsbergen is imaginary frank, do you know what the Little Ice Age was frank ?

I'll give you a clue, its the thing that made da 'ice' frank.

Here is a doc. from noaa, NOVEMBER, 1922

The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto un-
heard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth's surface........

The oceanographic observations have, however, been even more interesting. Ice conditions were exceptional.
In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far
north its Sl0 29' in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.
The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofore been practically unknown. Dr. Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81' north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.
Later a section was taken of the Gulf Stream off Bear Island and off the Isfjord, as well as a section of the cold
current that comes down along the west coast of Spitzbergen off the south cape.
In connection with Dr.Hoel's report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigtsen, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted wanner conditions in 1915, that since
that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that to-day the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same
re ion of 1868 to 1917.
Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared...........

He pointed out that formerly the waters about Spitsbergen were about 3C; this year recorded temperatures up to 15C, and last winter the waters did not even freeze over even on the north coast of Spitsbergen.

( http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf )

So there you have it frank, did learn something ? Like GW started a long time ago without CO2

"No Co2" in 1922. This is a novel new argument.

Sadly, arguing that sensationalist articles about cold weather are more accurate than the actual data is the same old for Karenspot. That is unless the data agrees with his opinion. Only then does he accept it.

Not even GSW buys your argument Karenspot. And he'll swallow anything.

Oh, now you don't believe free energy conspiracies? I am on my phone now, but I look forward to more embarrassing cutting and pasting tomorrow. Can you look worse? I haven't even scratched the surface!

Karen takes aim at her own foot, unloads a full clip into it, reloads.

And then asks breathlessly of GSW "Did I get it?!?!"

>Bernard, do you hear voices in your head ? There is no one here called Foulspot, poor thing Bernard.

Eh?! Total non sequitur, imbecile.

I've pinged you repeatedly for being 'Sunspot', and I listed the evidence for this. Ironically, you fall victim to [your own tell-tale idiosyncracies](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/wegman_heartland_update.php#com…) even in the quoted sentence above.

Idiot.

>Now Bernard, could you please tell me how much ice was in the Arctic ocean at the height of the MWP ? The real MWP not the new, adjusted, mangled, hide the MWP MWP.

Ah, so desperation has set in, and the straw man gambit has been resorted to...

Foulspot, no distractions, no "look, over there!", no "where's the pea?". No disembling by pointing at other people's opinions, no matter that you're yourself slowly creeping toward acknowledging what consensus science has for decades been telling the world, even if you don't understand that you are doing so.

Just answer the question. What's your opinion? What do you believe the minimum Arctic sea ice extent will be in the 21st century?

Wait wait wait. "Karen", when did you think AGW started?

Obviously when Al Gore invented it in 2006 to assume control of the Earth through one world government, Stu.

Got a question. I just got through reading a summary of the science for why the last Ice Age ended in Scientific American. The article substantiates its narrative with multiple links to peer reviewed research to Nature.

The article summaries recent findings that appeared in Nature and found that Co2 levels preceded the rise in temperatures. That is all well, but what I want to know is how is this reconciled with the 1990 article by Lorius, et al that predicted that initially temperatures would rise prior to Co2 levels and be further increased by the warming ocean releasing more CO2? Irrc, that prediction has been confirmed.

I am too much the amateur to know if I am misreading the science or if Scientific American has got it wrong somehow.
And yes, I do recognize the third possibility that new findings and and analysis have simply supplanted the earlier works.

I want to in advance thank all commentators.

Trent1492,

The earlier work on this looked only at Antarctic temps, this one looks at both Antarctic and global temps. The temp leading CO2 relationship still holds for the Antarctic, but globally CO2 leads temps.

Guys, read Chris Mooney's 'The Republican Mind'. You cannot possibly alter what approximates 'thinking' inside the heads of GSW and 'Karen'. There really is no point in geting stressed about it. You'd be better served - and more likely to succeed - spending your time teaching the cat to play Tchaikovsky.

Back in what passes for 'reality' in contemporary Australia, this piece describing an instance of the ABC's 'balancing' themselves into oblivion - with a little help from the IPA - is of interest.

So, free energy. Karenspot said:

>John, I had a look at the Sunspot thread and the only mention of a free energy machine was from you and chek ?

You mean you clicked the bookmark to your own thread? How nice for you. In case anyone wonders what I am referring to, Karenspot has previously expressed his belief that a lack of funding is keeping free energy down:

>and maybe the other moron's in here would prefer the working class to pay for this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/eqa this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/eqb and this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/eqc stealing resources requires massive funding, admit it, you all are only glorified bean counters that need dysfunctional computer models to see the future, Madam Harvey uses tea leaves.

>If Bearden, Tesla, Meyer and others had been given the budget for this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/eqd then you all wouldn't be suffering from aGw phobia's now. Not one of you has the foresight to look for real solutions.

Yes, Karenspot is a true sceptic.

:)

There is fun to be had at Carbon Brief where commentators - including Monckton of Brenchley - are leaping to Richard Lindzen's defence:

["A disservice to the scientific method": climate scientists take on Richard Lindzen](http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/04/climate-scientists-take-on-lind…)

An interesting article from The Drum that seems to shoot down severawl skeptical memes (http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/04/05/3471948.htm?topic=env…)

Brenard, so you want a wager do you ?

Brenard @ 104
"Ah, but the basis for my wager is very much a profound alteration of "hundreds of thousands of years" of "stable climate" in a region of the planet sensitive to human-caused warming."

Desperation Brenard ? stable climate ? for how long ?
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.svg )

That deluded spiel is now called jumping the shark Bwernard.

The experts said the Arctic would be ice free in 1947, 2000, 2008, 2012 & 2013, no doubt there
are many more similar expert predictions but I can't be bothered looking.
I'm sure you would be in good league with those conjuring cultists, are you an Arctic oracle Barnerd ?
Enlighten me with your prophetic prognostication of arctic armageddon.

Barnerd you look at 30 yrs of satellite data and shit your pants like a little baby, why do you ignore the
historical temperature record ? Is it the inconvenient truth that during the previous warm spells there
may have been less Arctic ice than today ?

My prediction for arctic ice is, more then less then lesser then morer and morer and then lesser ect.

Heres an easy one for you Barnerd, what will be the population of Tuvalu in 2056.

Where did you post your offering of the wager ? I must have been out getting my legs waxed and missed it.

malamuddy

Lowell Stott says Carbon dioxide did not end the last Ice Age.

( http://www.physorg.com/news110121579.html )

but you believe anything you want

John your very preoccupied with sunspot, so is Barnerd, but I think you might secretly be in love with him, I don't why your stalking me ? I'm a girl.

SunSpot was quite right when he said "Not one of you has the foresight to look for real solutions."

Are you just a follower John ?

But Karen, I didn't mention CO2. You said that Spitsbergen went from 3 months of ice free to 8 months over a period of 37 years as if that meant something and I simply pointed out that Spitsbergen is now ice free all year round along the west (and incidentally the north) coast. I just added simple context to you context-free posturing. Since the situation has got worse since 1910 and 1947, your claim of "alarmist deja vu" is pure bullshit.

So did YOU learn something by getting some context? Apparently not, since you respond with the tired old article from 1922. Again, only seems "wow" went stripped of context, so let me put that back in for you.

The article refers to an expedition that sailed as far north as 81º29 in ice free water. 81 Degrees! Good gravy! Oh, hang on - its been possible to beat this record for each of the last six years (probably more, but I didn't look), and in 2007 you could find open water above 86º N.

More context free but impressive sounding crap on temperatures. Yep 1922 was a hot one, at the time probably the hottest year ever recorded on Spitsbergen. Since the article was datelined October 1922, lets consider October 1921 to September 1922 - in that 12 month period, the average temp anomaly was 1.54 degrees above the 1912 to 2012 average. Impressive...or is it?

What does the Norwegian Bureau of Meteorology tell us about how that compares to today? Again comparing October to September for consistency, we find that since 1998 - you know, when global warming "stopped"- EVERY year has been hotter than that then record 1921-22. In the current 6 month period period - October 2011 to now, we are 7.82 degrees above average.

Yes 1922 was quite warm. It's a lot warmer now. Crap, its almost like, you know, it's warming or something...

And no, I didn't learn anything from your idiocy, one because it was idiotic and two because I'd read your link years ago. All you've done, in that special self-defeating way of yours, is show that Arctic amplification effects started to show up before warming in more temperate regions, exactly as the science says. Well done - on emptying the second clip into the other foot!

Seriously, trying to use Spitsbergen to deny accelerating climate change might actually trump the previously-stupidest thing I've ever read on Deltoid - when someone tried to say that the water level in a canal near them, but several kilometers from the ocean, somehow disproved sea level rise...just desperate...

And a little bit sad...

Karen @ 136: why do you ignore the historical temperature record

Me @ 139: we find that since 1998 - you know, when global warming "stopped"- EVERY year has been hotter than that then record 1921-22.

teh irony, how it burns...

;)

Foulspot.

>The experts said the Arctic would be ice free in 1947, 2000, 2008, 2012 & 2013, no doubt there are many more similar expert predictions but I can't be bothered looking.

Put your straw men aside. It's just embarrassing for you.

You have a stance - one that you maintain however incoherently - that human-caused global warming is no more than a conspiracy amongst the world's professional climatologists and physicists to perpetrate a scientific fraud on the planet's lay population.

You don't believe that our emissions of CO2 resulting from the combustion of fossil carbon affect the planet's climate: you certainly don't accept that the effect is significant at the ecological/biological level.

You don't acknowledge or accept that the planet is warming as consensus science describes it.

Ergo, you must by extension place limits on the degree to which a static, essentially equilibrium climate will be reflected by the variation of Arctic sea ice extent.

And yet you refuse to quantify your stance by putting any sort of limit at all to it.

You dodge and weave, dissemble and distract, but you don't ennumerate the strength of your apparent conviction that you - an anonymous and uncredentialled internet troll - are right and that thousands of professional scientists a re wrong.

Your Scandinavian mates exhibited the same cowardice. Your Denialist mates on this thread are as singularly unable to substantiate your anti-science claims as are you.

You have nothing. You can put forward nothing.

You're a lot of noise, trying to stop the world from changing the way it fast-burns through a once-off wonder of energy density, all because you don't want the truth to be true. You don't want to stop believing in the Easter bunny or in Santa Claus, and you'll spit and scratch at the big kid who's telling you that it's time to grow up, that at your age you should be getting a constructive job and not playing in the sandbox with the babies.

>John your [sic] very preoccupied with sunspot, so is Barnerd [sic], but I think you might secretly be in love with him, I don't [sic] why your [sic] stalking me ? I'm a girl.

Keep telling yourself that Foulspot, even with the employment of predictable repetitions of your many and varied signature illiterate tells. The only person you're fooling is yourself.

But if making a fool of yourself in public is your thang, then by all means continue to do so. The only person harmed by such behaviour is you.

Stott writes, *I donât want anyone to leave thinking that this is evidence that CO2 doesnât affect climate,â Stott cautioned. âIt does, but the important point is that CO2 is not the beginning and end of climate change*.

Nowhere does Stott argue that the current warming does not have a human fingerprint. Karen, or whoever the hell you are, you might as well be Sunspot. Your are as ignorant, and saturate (or should I say contaminate) this thread with nonsense. You say that you are a 'girl' - so what's your background in science? Like the other deniers who spread their gospel of stupidity here, there doesn't seem to be much more than a basic science-level education or less. If the situation was different, we'd sure as heck know all about it. Deniers never hesitate to blow up the credentials of the puny number of scientists in their ranks, but when it comes to the infinitely larger number of scientists on the other side, it always comes down to arguments like 'they aren't REAL' or else their funding sources are cited as a feeble excuse.

The fact is, as climate scientist David Cromwell explains to day on Medialens, there are very, very, very few statured scientists with relevant expertise who are climate change deniers. He was in the field for 20 years and said that during that time he met hardly any colleagues who denied the human fingerprint over the current warming. This profound ignorance is mostly confined to the blogosphere, as for example at Bishop's Hill, where GSW actually pasted a link to a drawing that was so execrable that it was hard to know which of the many nonsensical claims to demolish first. Everything on it was wrong, whether it was future projections for Polar Bears, poverty in Africa, the basic state of wild nature, etc. Essentially the artist, 'Josh' made things up as he went along. Poverty in Africa for example. In 1983 Africa contributed a measly 4% to the global economy. Twenty years later, as a result of economic globalisation, described through free market absolutism and nakedly predatory capitalism, that figure had shrunk to a nearly invisible 1.3%. Economist Patrick Bond explains why in the book, "Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation".

But I digress. Whoever you are, 'Karen', you write utter bilge. Your posts do not convince anyone other than the already converted right wing nincomoops on Deltoid who are a sad fixture. In the 10 or so years I have read threads at Deltoid, I have yet to encounter here one bonafide scientist with any relevant expertise or publications in climate science who is a denier. I am prepared to be viciously attacked by the usual morons for this but the point is that this is a telling statistic. Sure, there are contributors amongst the deniers who think they are world-class experts and who regularly denigrate the credentials of peopel who have worked in the field for decades. But these are Dunning-Kruger acolytes.

I have been attacked as a working scientist for daring to stand up for the vast majority of other scientists in climate science who are in broad agreement - like it or not - that the current warming is largely human-mediated. That is my big crime in their eyes. The deniers spend a lot of time citing ridiculous petitions (the Oregon Petition comes to mind) when it suits their purpose but when far more legitimate organizations and scientific bodies release statements of consensus over the warming, all hell breaks loose.

I really shouldn't give a damn what the deniers think anymore. I can see why James Hansen, Michael Mann and many other esteemed scientists are fed up to the teeth with them. This is a concereted attack on science in support of a nakedly political agenda. As long as I am a scientist I will continue to try and defend it from the likes of those who wish to mangle it in pursuit of short-term private profit. I've learned in the past 10 years since entering the public arena that one will be attacked, denigrated, smeared and more for speaking out. This goes with the territory. But I commend those scientists who are fighting back. More kudos to them.

http://www.physorg.com/news110121579.html includes:

âYou can no longer argue that CO2 alone caused the end of the ice ages.â

No-one ever argued that in the first place. The only question is, why is this strawman brought up? I can only think that it is to suck-in brain-dead people like Karen.

@lord_sidcup

Did you have to link to that carbon brief piece?

I've read Monckton's bibbling and now I feel physically sick.

The denialati are currently in executive session, trying to decide whether to deny this or not.

Karen, or whoever the hell you are, you might as well be Sunspot.

Karen is in fact Sunspot ... the stylistic resemblance is unmistakable and overwhelming. And while I argued in the past against the assumption that Sunspot is male merely because anuses like Sunspot are usually male, his recent comments about leg waxing and "I'm a girl" are rather strong evidence that he is in fact male.

...and, in themselves, rather a strong case for getting his own call-out box in the DSM 6, I'd have thought. ;-)

Of course I periodically read our resident idiot's latest attack on me. His last is a feeble attempt to denigrate the projections of polar bear demographics in future:

Regarding polar bear demographics:

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/will-polar-bears-sur…

So much for his latest attack. Demolished again. Sadly enough, polar bear populations are under immense threats from the loss of sea ice and pollution. If trends continue as they are expected to do, then their future is indeed bleak.

So much four the master debater. No wonder he'd in his own padded cell.

They must be on vacation at Nunavut

Western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers "stable," Government of Nunavut survey shows

( http://www.canada.com/technology/Western+Hudson+polar+bear+numbers+stab… )

This [article](http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/04/03/1) on ecologist Paul Kareiva is doing the rounds at the moment. Dot Earth article and [video](http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/peter-kareiva-an-inconveni…).

This ecologist actually seems to be a 'real' scientist, numbers and facts count, not 'tall-tale' doomsayer stories.

"We love the horror story," Kareiva said. He was dressed in New Balance running shoes, a purple sweater and rumpled tan trousers. "We just love it. The environmental movement has loved it. That, I think, is ... [a] strategy failure. And it's actually not supported by science."

...

"Kareiva was at home in partial differential equations and fieldwork, a rarity in the 1970s. He was struck by how ecology had built up 40 years of theory on how animals and plants spread, while rarely bothering to test it. His experiments, limited to two dimensions by plant rows, were among the first to ever test these theories.

'His papers are still classic today,' Levin said."

...

"He is never vulnerable to orthodoxy, even his own orthodoxy," said McCormick, the conservancy's former president. "He's constantly challenging himself, and therefore it gives him legitimacy in challenging those he works for."

Some (we know who) appear to think there is nothing but concensus/orthodoxy, What a guy!

Frank here is a paper that will demonstrate to all that you speak total crappola and like most/all in here you know very little/nothing about Spitsbergen the variable sea ice or the variable temperatures of the Arctic.

Two ice-core d18O records from Svalbard
illustrating climate and sea-ice variability
over the last 400 years

( http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=spitsbergen%20%22sea%20ice%22… )

Here is a 100 Year Arctic Temperature chart from,

James E. Overland; 2006, âArctic change: multiple observations and recent understandingâ, Weather, Vol. 61, p. 78-83.
(http://www.arctic-warming.com/poze/pozaGg.jpg )

If you still think that the current Arctic ice levels are unprecedented then maybe you need to do your own studies on the subject. You are expected to believe that the 30yr satellite record is an accurate record, it is short and cannot give a true average of the Arctic Sea Ice extent.

Fact, Arctic Ice Extent was lower 70yrs ago than now.

Questions,

1/ What caused the big melt off 1920 -1940 ?

2/ Are the same mechanisms involved today ?

3/ Will the Arctic refreeze as it did after 1940 ?

4/ Given the high temperature anomaly currently in and around the Arctic, why is it that Arctic ice extent is not declining and is more than one million km2 higher than 2007, and is right at the 1979-2006 mean. ?

6/ Why won't Branerd give me the link to his blathering rant about some form of arctic ice wager ?

inaman @ 146

are you male, female or wot ?

now give me the twoof

Innumerate as well as illiterate.

very witty riposte Bernerd.

Have you gone cold on the ice gamble ?

I was thinking about passing the hat around and really sticking it up you.

Fact, Arctic Ice Extent was lower 70yrs ago than now.

More a lie than a fact.

Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years

Chris your study - "and show thatâalthough extensive uncertainties remain"

that was pretty poor, where is the full study ?

read the links from my post @ #151

I might return for more welcome and informed abuse on [Climate officials and climate provisionals](http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/climate-officials-and-climate-provisional…) sometime but this concerns a possible rejection on Joe Romm's Climate Progress, which I often read and sometimes comment on.

I find it difficult to get through the moderation process when I mention that the "rebound effect" on energy efficiency - Sometimes energy efficiency will cause an increase (rather than a decrease) in energy consumption.

Is there an American problem here? One of the leading economists on the rebound/backfire effect told me they will not go to another conferences in the US because over there they can't stand the truth.

Now I have another rejection. I believe that Bill McGibben is wrong on one particular point in his excellent [How You Subsidize The Energy Giants To Wreck The Planet](http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/04/05/458893/bill-mckibben-how-you-s…). But it looks like it's going to be difficult to tell him. Here's the posting.

Do they have a problem with âsubsidiesâ too? If so, why?

My ârejectedâ CP comment:

"2. Donât subsidize people forever."

Why not, if it's good for society? We subsidise schools so we are subsidising education in the early years of our lives. Shouldn't we do this forever?

Similarly we should subsidise labour when there is unemployment. We should subsidise employment because it is good - and do this forever.

But we should tax carbon because it is bad for the world.

As many economists say "Tax bads. Subsidise goods".

See [Tax Carbon Subsidise jobs](http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/jobs-and-carbon-taxes/)

"and show thatâalthough extensive uncertainties remain"
that was pretty poor

Another ignoramus who thinks uncertain means unknown.

read the links from my post @ #151

Sorry, I don't waste my time reading cartoon graphics from science-denial websites. BTW, what was the Impact Factor of "Weather"? My microscope isn't handy.

Karen...

Can't you see this site is much like the movie Groundhog Day. It's the same dribble by the same unhappy people day after day,year after year...only more doom and gloom.

You should be more like the Polar Bears and just ignore them...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/healthy-polar-bear-count-c…

Chris, just for a laugh I'd love to read your study with "extensive uncertainties".
Have you got the link to the study ?

Did you notice the level of confidence in the extensively referenced study that I provided the link to ?

Yes Betula thats fantastic news, here is a link to the study.

http://env.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/foxe_basin_polar_bears_2012.pdf

I think the people in here will be very sad that the polar bears are not heading towards extinction.

Trying to change the subject, Karenspot? Shucks! I was having a lot of fun ridiculing your contradictory views on weather and conspiracy theories about free energy!

Another topic of discussion might be why you are terrified of having your previous opinions tied to you. Then again, I'd be embarrassed if I'd ranted about cold weather in a year that turned out to be the hottest on record.

Tomorrow - back down the rabbit hole of your kooky predictions!

Betula and sunspot are complete idiots. I debunked this crap just last week, and then they cite a right wing Canadian paper that wears its corporate arm on its sleeve by using the term 'doomsayer'.

You two sad sacks don't understand the terms 'transient' and 'dynamic'. As I said last week, the bears would be expected to do well *under ice conditions that are probably slightly less than occurred 30-40 years ago*. Clearly, a slight reduction in ice benefits these apex predators because it provides better conditions for catching their main prey, seals. But get this through your Pachycephalosauran heads (same goes for you, Jonas, whose thread I do not read anymore, but whenever I see your name 'pop up', I know it's a long winded rant in reference to me, because (1) I am a bonafide working scientist, and (2) as such I actually reach many people through my research, through my science whereas you don't; on Tuesday I am presenting an invited seminar at Free University, Amsterdam; in August I present an invited seminar at the Ecological Society of America Conference in Portland, Oregon; in December at the British Ecological Meeting in Birmingham, UK. You don't speak anywhere except to spew out your crap on right wing blogs. Stick that in your craw).

But of course the ice is expected not to remain in stasis but to descrease rapidly over the coming several decades. When that happens, its curtains for the bears, except for those hanging on in zoos. You two twerps would have probably said that tiger populations were doing fine a century ago when more than 100,000 roamed the forests of the Indian subcontinent. Now there are only 1,300 left. Their demise could easily be projected from the impending habitat loss, much as it can for the Polar Bear. The fact is that scientists make projections for species demogrpahics on the basis of projected conditions for their habitat. The continued loss of tropical forests will doom many species which are so far doing OK.

If you two want to argue at kindergarten level, bugger off to WUWT or Bishop's Hill. And for heavens sake take the legend in his own mind with you. His audience is down to three, and that includes himself, marvelling at his own 'brilliance'. Its too bad only a few sad schmucks are around to bolster his bloated ego.

Still more...

If we are to estimate the relative health and fitness of a population, we need to know these facts: what are the age demographics of the bears? How much recruitment is there? What is their *per capita* physiological state? What is their realized fitness? Note that the article, in keeping with the usual trash spewed out by deniers and anti-environmentalists, says nothing about this. They estimate the health of the polar bear on the number of extant animals. But this is meaningless unless the above criteria are evaluated.

In some national parks in tropical regions, cattle are allowed to graze. The cattle are generalist herbivores, and in some parks they preferentially graze young shoots and saplings on the ground. This means that there is little recruitment for some of the trees in late succession. One could enter a mature forest in which there are stands of massive trees and be very impressed by their size and number. But the destruction of the lower shrub layer under the canopy by overgrazing turns the forests into the 'living dead' by removing the next generation of trees. If current projections of Arctic ice loss are anywhere close to accurate, then the current generation of bears, no matter how numerous they are now, represents the 'living dead'.

'Karen' and Betula are the intellectual equivalent of the 'living dead'.

For instance, in the journal Ecology (Hunter et al., 2010):

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/09-1641.1

This the real science lacking in the G & M trash. Enough said.

For the viewers at home, please give due appreciation to the effort Karen is putting in dragging those goal posts around. First its the navigability of the west coast of Spitsbergen in the 1940's. When that turns out to be fail, its temperatures in 1922. More fail and suddenly its a 400 year proxy record (wait...so Karen supports paleoclimate reconstructions as valid? Well thats something at least).

To spare the need to read at length, the executive summary is that Karen's latest is just a faily as the others. But if you want to know more, ask me how!

The Overland paper you "cite" can be found in full [here](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/wea.206.05/pdf), and does not contain the cartoon graph you lnked to. Nor does it contain any information that would allow the creation of such a cartoon. It does contain some graphs though, such as the one that shows that the Arctic was 0.3ºC warmer in 1999 than it was at the hottest point of the 40's, and of course, it has got warmer since.

Here's a suggestion Karen, if you are going to link to sources, you should read them first, rather than assume some denialist site got it right. Cite papers that refute your own argument and you run the risk of been seen as some sort of floppy-shoed clown who is only trolling for the lulz. It's like you meant to hit yourself in the face with that cream pie, but the crowd isn't quite sure yet...

The other paper convinces me that it was intentional though. The first line of the conclusion: "The d18O records from both Lomonosovfonna and Austfonna ice cores suggest that the twentieth century was the warmest century, at least during the past 600 years."

Nothing in either paper supports the claim that "Arctic Ice Extent was lower 70yrs ago than now". And as we have seen in post 120:
>"He pointed out that whereas in 1910 the navigable season along western Spitsbergen lasted three months it now [in 1947] lasted eight months." The navigable season along western Spitsbergen now lasts all year round, you complete fuckwit.

Simply repeating your mistake (or lie) doesn't make it true, Karen. It just makes you look like a bigger fuckwit.

1922 was quite warm. 1940 was warmer. But it's even warmer now. Crap, its almost like, you know, it's warming or something...

In answer to your grade 1 questions: Heat, yes, no, spreading, can't count I see, ask him.

Karen:

Did you notice the level of confidence in the extensively referenced study that I provided the link to ?

I'm sorry but once you made your "Fact, Arctic Ice Extent was lower 70yrs ago than now" crap statement, I lost interest in any of your other goal posts.

And so the latest denier tactic (as if we're to have forgotten all that has gone previously) is that the arctic has always been ice-free.

And in breaking news Eastasia has always been at war with Eurasia.

To deal with Karens Q4 in more detail
>4/ Given the high temperature anomaly currently in and around the Arctic, why is it that Arctic ice extent is not declining and is more than one million km2 higher than 2007, and is right at the 1979-2006 mean. ?

Firstly note that it contains several false assumptions so its worth breaking down.
>Arctic ice extent is not declining

It is, on any scale that could reasonably be descibed as climate.
>is more than one million km2 higher than 2007?

April 2007 was lower than April 2012. But then January and February of this year were both lower than 2007. So unless you can prove a climate trend with a month of data, the claim is meaningless. In any case the margin is about 700,000 km2 and falling.
>and is right at the 1979-2006 mean

It isn't. It is 350,000 below the mean for 1979-2008 (can't even get the baseline period right!) and falling. That is higher than any point last year, but lower than 2010. How typical of deniers to call "recovery" when it is the highest in two whole years. "OMG! we've almost climbed all the way to zero! Shhh, don't mention that we're falling again."

Setting aside all of the above errors that Karen copy-pastes from people who don't know much more than "she" does, the question of why we have a higher ice extent than last year is an interesting one. Of course, weather comes into play, as does interannual variability, just like with global temperatures. But having looked a a lot of satellite images, I consider that part of the reason is what might be described as "spreading".

When thick ice is pushed together by wind and weather, one slab will raft over the other making it even thicker (its a bit like a group of deniers that way). When thin ice is pushed together, it has no mechanical strength and simply shatters, leaving a slurry of crushed ice.

So think about it, if you throw a 1 ton cube of ice into a pool it will have a 1 sq metre extent. If you throw 1 ton of crushed ice into a pool it will spread out over a much wider area. Of course, that wide area increases the expanse over which heat can be exchanged with the water its in, and it will melt faster. My tip for this season is when the melt gets underway, it will drop like a stone.

>maybe you need to do your own studies on the subject.
I did, some of which were recently included in a submission to a parliamentary enquiry. Tired of looking like a dickhead yet, "Karen"?

Data on Arctic Ice extent from 1870 onwards as determined by Kinnard et al. (2008) was graphed in an easily accessible paper by Polyak et al. (2010).

Given the high temperature anomaly currently in and around the Arctic, why is it that Arctic ice extent is not declining

Because physics is a UN conspiracy! They've tried to pull the wool over our eyes, but wily folks like Sunspot know that heat does not melt ice!

Either that or the moron scores another own goal.

Notice how the dog answers when called...?

@Chris O'Neill,

Thanks for those links they will come in handy.

I am finding evidence of shenanigans ongoing at Skeptical Science. Apparently someone is giving bogus citations to the skeptical papers categories found on their Interactive History of Climate Science. Some slug has been double counting skeptical citations by placing decades old papers in 2011, citing non-peer reviewed sources, and opinion articles found in unrelated professional journals such as Law journals.

I have notified SKS with about a dozen examples, but I have not received any response yet.

Here's an example of what Trent1492 noticed. The following paper is in the "skeptic papers published in 2011" category:

"Climatic change in Britain: Is SO2 more significant than CO2?", Balling, R. C.; Idso, S. B., Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 45, Issue 4, pp.251-256, 1992

Is the [list of contributers](http://www.skepticalscience.com/stats.php?Action=peerreviewlinks) illuminating? I see one infamous individual has added 5 papers, for example...

OK, to be fair, I don't think that particular paper appears in the 1992 category. It's therefore only been counted once. Even so, it's sloppy at the very least.

I'm just wondering how many of these trolls here are paid. I mean we know some of them are professional deniers but how many are (unknown because undeclared) paid troll labourers? If you haven't listened to [this program on the ABC on astroturfing from last September](http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/dont-tr…) it's actually very good.

I really admire the scientists who take everyone on here. And I have watched growing media savvy. Yet sometimes the problems lie elsewhere than the science (which is of course, already resolved). It might be great to have more engagements between climate scientists and media specialists around this. Or maybe this is already happening?

Harvey @ 163...

Jeff, you spent half of your post writing about how brilliant you are, only to end it with this brilliant statement...

"And for heavens sake take the legend in his own mind with you. His audience is down to three, and that includes himself, marvelling at his own 'brilliance'"

Of course, you would never be talking about yourself, so I suspect (with an audience of three) this must be who you were referring to:
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/04/05/gore-current/

ON #177's point: Yes, I too appreciate that real scientists turn up to explain the case, even to the denialist morons. It may be a case of 'pearls before swine' as the denialist morons will never listen to evidence or change their tune, but I hope that Jeff Harvey etc. can take heart knowing there are a lot of lurkers who appreciate the efforts you go to.

As for the 'media savvy' of scientists, I'm in partial agreement. As professionals, scientists do have some measure of responsibility to maintain a professional reputation among the general public, but, and it's a BIG but...there is also an even bigger responsibility for journalists to become 'science savvy', since if they want to call themselves "reporters", then it's their job to know when someone is bullshitting them, and a lot of these journalists appear not to know their job very well...certainly not as well as the scientists know *their* job, which is to do, and to publish, real science!!

Betula.

Long time no see.

You're another denier of human-caused global warming. As it seems to be beyond the capacities of your mates, are you interested in quantifying the strength of your believe in the anti-science that you expound, by providing a value for minimum Arctic sea ice extent during the 21st century, or perhaps by taking up one of the wagers that so scared your denialist mates?

Or are you yet another denialatus who happens to be willing to gamble with the security of the biosphere, but who is too morally upstanding to engage in the vice of a little flutter?

Right on cue, "Betula" shows up driving a clown car of fail.

Please explain the relevance of Keith Olberman getting the boot from a US Cable channel, to global warming? No, wait, don't bother, there isn't any. But I'm sure that won't impact on how pleased you feel with yourself for pointing out...something.

Betula, do you have anything to offer besides irrelevant shite?

The relevance is something something Al Gore.

The level of hatred and obsession for Gore these clowns have is quite amusing. It was only last week Karenspot told us that we should stop listening to Gore when it came to the great Tungsten/gold bar conspiracy, seemingly suggesting Gore was knee deep in it despite never having made a public statement on it.

John you should add links so that everyone can see the lies you spew forth.

Thanks for the link to that study Chris, I will read it shortly.

Frank there was less ice than now in 1985 on the west coast of Spitzbergen, and elsewhere.

( http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ARCHIVE/19850305.png )

Now there is also much more ice in the Bering Sea and elsewhere.

( http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_latest.jpg )

So much for unprecedented melting !

I will get back to you soon, seems I have other more important duties.

Jeff @164:

'Karen' and Betula are the intellectual equivalent of the 'living dead'.

When he first started commenting here, I was entertained to see that Betula is so clueless that he used a Latin feminine noun for his name, then got upset because everyone thought he was female.

[Richard Simons](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…).

It seems that Betula and Foulspot have more than a little in common - beyond a mutual intellectual failing in the realm of physics.

In Foulspot's case though their shared transvestitism is based on deliberate sockpuppetry: Betula is probably just a fan (understandably so) of the genus, and who doesn't realise the difference between masculine and feminine Latin forms.

Lies? Karenspot, I'm insulted!

Bill ridiculed ranting about tungsten filled gold bars on a denier website. You responded by quoting reports of tungsten filled gold bars and finished by saying "Try getting your info from someone other than fat Al."

I still can't work out what Al Gore has to do with the tungsten/gold bar conspiracy. Perhaps you could enlighten me. Maybe chief One World Government conspirator Al Gore is stealing the gold to fund his free energy machine, another of your conspiracies?

You're a laughing stock, Karenspot. Even GSW has abandoned you, although I encourage him to return to this thread so I can ridicule your nutty beliefs at the same time.

BJ@185: Does that make Betula a fellow traveller of the Joan Birch Society? The Koch brothers will be so pleased.

Note that Betula's response was, as expected, not to challenge the science I put in front of his face but to make a witless denigrating comment. You see, when confronted with irrefutable scientific questions the deniers run for the hills, leaving in their wake a few smears and rebukes. GSW did it after he posted a similar moronic comment about the status of coral reefs, frogs and Polar Bears. Challenged on this point, he responded as Betula did, then fled to the asylum thread. Be prepared fro pouty little Betula to do the same.

On the you-know-who thread I challenged the tiny coterie of deniers to explain the demographics of Polar Bear population within the context of an eco-physiological and evolutionary framework. I asked them to estimate bear populations using the predictions of models of exponential decay (originally postulated from the theory of island biogeography from MacArthur and Wilson, later refined by Soule and Terborgh). The Arctic bear habitat makes an excellent model system for testing this because its dynamics are being clearly affected by a warming climate. The area-extinction models have been tested elsewhere (Puerto Rico, The Mata Atlantica Forests of coastal Brazil, Singapore, Eastern North American Carolinian Forests and West Africa) and have been shown to be quite robust in estimating extinction rates for habitat specialists. In fact, they often *underestimate* extinction rates because they exclude other factors that drive extinctions, such as pollution and invasive organisms. Polar Bears are habitat specialists, so the loss of Arctic ice will certainly test the veracity of these models. Moreover, since the health of the bear population is directly related to the availability of their main prey, seals, then the models should also be tested in relation to the important trophic interactions between the bears and the seals.

I asked these and other relevant questions earlier (ie. pertaining to the effects of habitat change on r- and K selected species and with respect to other models of biodiversity - for example Hubbell's neutral model - in testing the effects of habitat loss). And the response from the 'master debaters' (no pun intended)? Nil. Nix. Well, at least in scientific terms, Instead, I was personally attacked with the usual smears. Now Betula wades back in here, his posting is shredded, and off he goes. These guys are a real hoot.

Yeah , "nutty beliefs" John
Like a trace gas wafting around in the air above the ocean waves by means of some "back-radiation" (a term you won't find in any physics textbooks) warming the water beneath more than otherwise by the sun.
Those sorts of nutty beliefs?

Are you now denying the greenhouse effect Karenmackspot? Are you denying basic physics that are agreed upon by everyone, from Singer to Lindzen to Spencer to Monckton?

No, I'm sure to you the idea that scientists are fraudulently inventing a science to assist governments force a new world order makes a lot more sense. You are a kook. Every other "skeptic" has abandoned you. You are embarrassing yourself, ans every sockpuppet you create is only worsening the embarrassment.

I, however, am enjoying this immensely.

Richard (Dick) @184...

Dick, I have never been upset that you would believe I am a female (apparently gender is an issue with you), however, it is a bit frightening that you believe I'm a female tree...

'Mack', even Monckton and Fred Singer now label people like you as unhelpful loonies.

What you have - just like SunsKaren, another 'person' with some coincidentally quite bizarre , punctuation , habits - is an advanced case of Dunning-Kruger. Which means, of course, that you can never know you have an advanced case of Dunning-Kruger.

Seriously, you'd be out of your intellectual depth in a sponge bath...

Who is this alarmist?

>Now let me turn to the deniers. One of their favorite arguments is that the greenhouse effect does not exist at all because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- i.e., one cannot transfer energy from a cold atmosphere to a warmer surface. It is surprising that this simplistic argument is used by physicists, and even by professors who teach thermodynamics. One can show them data of downwelling infrared radiation from CO2, water vapor, and clouds, which clearly impinge on the surface. But their minds are closed to any such evidence.

And...

>Then there is another group of deniers who accept the existence of the greenhouse effect but argue about the cause and effect of the observed increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. One subgroup holds that CO2 levels were much higher in the 19th century, so there really hasn't been a long-term increase from human activities. They even believe in a conspiracy to suppress these facts. Another subgroup accepts that CO2 levels are increasing in the 20th century but claims that the source is release of dissolved CO2 from the warming ocean. In other words, they argue that oceans warm first, which then causes the CO2 increase. In fact, such a phenomenon is observed in the ice-core record, where sudden temperature increases precede increases in CO2. While this fact is a good argument against the story put forth by Al Gore, it does not apply to the 20th century: isotopic and other evidence destroys their case.

And...

>Another subgroup simply says that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is so small that they can't see how it could possibly change global temperature. But laboratory data show that CO2 absorbs IR radiation very strongly. Another subgroup says that natural annual additions to atmospheric CO2 are many times greater than any human source; they ignore the natural sinks that have kept CO2 reasonably constant before humans started burning fossil fuels. Finally, there are the claims that major volcanic eruptions produce the equivalent of many years of human emission from fossil-fuel burning. To which I reply: OK, but show me a step increase in measured atmospheric CO2 related to a volcanic eruption.

Denier Fred Singer.

Is he part of the scam Karenmackspot? Has Fred Singer been fooled into believing the horrible lies of that nasty conspirator Al Gore?

Good show, Mack, packing so much ignorance of science into one sentence.

karen@183. Spitzbergen, huh? Western side of Svalbard? So that's the Greenland Sea.

Just in time, Cryosphere Today now shows long term graphs for all the individual areas of the Arctic. Here's the Greenland Sea. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5…

I'm quite happy to believe that there were several occasions when Spitsbergen had a bit less ice than usual in 1985. Doesn't matter really. But do have a good look at that anomaly graph. You don't need any fancy equipment to see the differences in the Greenland Sea over the last 3 decades.

adelady thank you for the chart, it does show a slight down trend, pity the data doesn't go back to 1880.

Bernerd may be able to see for himself from the chart that the melting ice is not at an "unprecedented low", at least for that part of the Arctic.

Bernerd says "Ah, but the basis for my wager is very much a profound alteration of "hundreds of thousands of years" of "stable climate" in a region of the planet sensitive to human-caused warming."

In other words adelady, Bernerd thinks the climate has never changed and he denies the LIA and the MWP, it's people like him that give climate science such a bad image.

Here is a look at the separate Arctic sea ice region's in relation to the 1979 - 2008 mean.

The Arctic Basin, on the mean.

Bering Sea, 350000 klm2 above.

St. Lawrence, slightly below the mean but rising.

Baffin/Newfoundland Bay, just dropped below the mean.

Greenland Sea, slightly below.

Barents Sea, 3000000 klm2 below.

Kara Sea, slightly below.

Laptev Sea, on the mean.

East Siberian Sea, on the mean.

Chukchi Sea, on the mean.

Beaufort Sea, on the mean.

Canadian Archipelago, on the mean.

Hudson Bay, on the mean.

Sea of Okhotsk, slightly above.

No doomsday scenario is happening here.

Karen:

adelady thank you for the chart, it does show a slight down trend, pity the data doesn't go back to 1880.

As if you don't know there is Arctic ice data back to 1880 after I told you there was. At least you demonstrate the level of intellectual dishonesty that is required to deny climate science.

>In other words adelady, Bernerd thinks the climate has never changed and he denies the LIA and the MWP, it's people like him that give climate science such a bad image.

Ah, still trying to verbal people are you, Foulspot?

If you were familiar with my comments on Deltoid (and you should be - you've been infesting the place long enough) you'd know that I explicitly acknowledge time and time again both the variability of climate, and the MWP and the LIA. I also acknowledge and emphasise that human-caused warming is occurring orders of magnitudes faster than has been experienced at any time in our species' evolutionary history, and that current temperatures already surpass the maximum that was reached during the MWP.

That means either that you are a liar, or an ignorant. Or both - the two are not mutually exclusive.

And I'm not a climate scientist, so whatever I might say it does nothing to harm the reputation of climate science. Amongst those who are educated and not blinkered by ideology, climatology is a respected discipline. It is only amongst the ignorant, the ideologues, and the vested interests that disparagement of climatology occurs.

It's interesting that you feel pressured to misrepresent people so grievously. You obviously have no data with which to construct and defend a valid case of your own, so you have to invent a fantasy in order to support your ideology.

Pathetic.

>No doomsday scenario is happening here.

So, you're blind as well as being a liar and an ignorant?

[Look harder](http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/september-2011-sea-ice-volume-lo…).

Bernerds quote is from his ranting/jabbering post at #104

"a profound alteration of hundreds of thousands of years of stable climate"

"hundreds of thousands of years"

"stable climate"

( http://www.astronomynotes.com/solarsys/pastclimate.png )

That chart in the link above indicates higher and lower temperatures in the past, 20 degrees Celsius from one extreme to the other, "stable climate" eh !

It also indicates that we are overdue for a cold spell.

Bernerd, what was the Arctic Sea Ice Volume in the year 1000 BC ?

Here is a 1000 yr Temperature Chart from EPICA
( http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20… )

What do you think the thousand year temperature average would be from the MWP to the LIA ?

One Thousand years is a very short time frame compared to your "hundreds of thousands of years" of a "stable climate".

Admit you were using ALARMIST rhetoric again !

"The sea ice and snow is so thick throughout this region that it is difficult to discern where land gives way to sea, especially in the low resolution image."

"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) data indicate that the ice extent in the Bering Sea for most of the winter of 2011-2012 has been 15-25 percent above the 1979 to 2000 average. The past several months have included the second highest ice extent in the satellite record for the region."

LoL, I know, it's the weather !

Foulspot.

You have a comprehension disability, and your piecemeal distractions and quotes are nothing but straw men.

I am talking about the melting of the Arctic sea ice. If you don't understand this just check my posts above.

In this context the planet has been very stable, and for hundreds of thousands of years - yes, even though it's been cycling through [the current ice age](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation).

You really need to learn some lessons in context.

So, do you know when last the Arctic was ice-free? And more importantly, do you know why an ice-free planet is of profound consequence to humans?

Come now Bernard, these 'Karenspots' don't have the support of a consistent narrative, just memes to be spread.

Even entirely mutually contradictory ones like 'global cooling' and a disppearing cryosphere are no problem for the lo-rent intellects so motivated.

Lets go to the videotape...(good times!)

@118, "Karen" pointed out that in the first half of the 20th century navigable period for the west side of Svalbard went from three months to eight months in 1947. "Karen" suggested that this shows warming is not unprecedented.

@120, I point out that in the 65 years since we have moved to a state where that coastline is navigable all year round (ie even in winter), suggesting that this shows a warming climate.

@183, "Karen" now responds by linking to a map showing the coast was navigable in March 1985 (although as Adelady rightly pointed out the Greenland Sea (and the Barents for that matter had a higher ice extent overall than today).

But here's what struck me - "Karen" thinks that you can show something didn't get worse between 1947 and 2012 by showing it got worse between 1947 and 1985 and claiming (wrongly) it hasn't got worse since 1985. I mean...seriously...is it possible that anyone can be that stupid and still use a keyboard?

Karen's idiocy has consumed my finite proving-a-fucktard-is-a-fucktard time for this thread. But since "Karen" posts such self defeating links, she will pretty much save me the trouble by continuing to prove it herself. I'd say "knock yourself out", but on past form, she would probably actually do that...

seriously...is it possible that anyone can be that stupid and still use a keyboard?

We have the confirming evidence.

I wish the alarmists would stop trying to impose an ENVIROFASCIST CAVE-DWELLING ANTI-CAPITALIST ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT LED BY AL GORE.

It's so irresponsible the way these panic-merchants try to scare the public, all in order to bring about an ENVIROFASCIST CAVE-DWELLING ANTI-CAPITALIST ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT LED BY AL GORE.

Stop listening to the doomsayers, or we will all end up slaves to an ENVIROFASCIST CAVE-DWELLING ANTI-CAPITALIST ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT LED BY AL GORE.

Also, WATER VAPOUR!!! CLOUDS!!! THE SUN!!! BIBBLE!!!

Still more devastating news for the deniers...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404

As the science vanquishes them, we can only wonder what nonsense they will spew out to defend their ever shrinking position....

As 'karen' says "It also indicates that we are overdue for a cold spell."

Just in case it has escaped anyone's notice, that's actually true. We are supposed to be cooling at the moment. The Milankovitch cycle is pushing us that way, and sunspots have been decidedly downish for a good while. We should be on a slow but steady move towards colder rather than warmer if natural cycles were to have their usual way.

And we're not. We're moving rapidly in the other direction. So much so that it's likely we'll skip the next couple of icy periods (loooong after we're gone).

I wonder why.

@ #202 Bernerd said,

Karen, sweetheart, "You have a comprehension disability,"

Bernerd I see where your lack of comprehension stems from, lack of knowledge.

you said "I am talking about the melting of the Arctic sea ice."

so was I Bernerd, I even showed you @ #197 that the sea ice may be low in one region and high in another, most regions are on the mean, that means normal Bernerd, that seems to be where your having a bit of trouble keeping up.

Here, this might explain it to you, maybe?

The map below shows the regional seas that make up the Arctic Ocean, along with other geographical features. NSIDC scientists often refer to the different seas within the Arctic Ocean when they discuss sea ice extent. ( http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/map-of-the-arctic-ocean/ )

So now you know something new Bernerd, the Arctic ocean has regions "that make up the Arctic Ocean".

When you ask "So, do you know when last the Arctic was ice-free?"

Are you asking about a particular region or the combined regions that make up the entire Arctic ocean that differ and vary from one another because of altering regional weather patterns ?

Foulspot.

Stop playing silly games.

[This link](http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/september-2011-sea-ice-volume-lo…) shows what is happening to the Arctic ice. The parameter that I am discussing is describing by the graphics there. As it seems to be escaping you still, the melting of ice described there preludes a world in which humans are not at all well-adapted. That is the type of "variation" to which I refer, and it is certainly the type of variation that has not been experienced by the planet for millenia.

So, when do you think this magnitude of melting last occurred? And when do you think it will happen again?

For those interested, Richard Dawkins has just debated George Pell on [the ABC's Qanda](http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/).

Pell Gish-galloped to a fine degree, and whilst he had a few hits a jetlagged Dawkins missed many easily-summoned dismissals of Pell's childishly flawed logic. The entire program is worth a point-by-point analysis/rebuttal, and a gargantuan task it would be.

It's astonishing to see how poor the thinking is that a theologian like Pell operates by. Think climate change denial, extended version...

Bernard @210...

I checked out your link and made a few observations:

I noticed your link refers to the PIOMAS model with a link to it's website. The "Model Validation and Uncertainty" section states..."Comparison of winter total volumes with other volume estimates need to account for the fact that the PIOMAS domain currently does not extend southward far enough to cover all areas that can have winter time ice cover. Areas in the Sea of Okhotsk and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are partially excluded from the domain"

Information without all the information...

Isn't this what Karen was talking about @210 when she asked..."Are you asking about a particular region or the combined regions that make up the entire Arctic ocean that differ and vary from one another because of altering regional weather patterns?"

And did you notice the link to sea ice extent and it's statement on future predictions?
"Projecting such trends into the future is purely a what-if exercise, interesting as conjecture but not grounded in physical understanding."

So the models consist of incomplete data and the future projections are pure guesswork based on this data...

And do I detect a hint of bias in the following statement?

"actual ice volume can be expected to vary randomly around this tendency in the future as it has in the past, producing periods of faster decline or temporary recovery"

Based on our guesswork derived from our incomplete models, we have speculated that future ice volume can vary randomly in one direction only, and that is with "faster decline or temporary recovery." Never let it be said that we would use our lack of understanding and incomplete models to speculate about future random periods of "temporary decline or faster recovery"...flat out impossible.

Silly games indeed.

Betula quotes PIOMAS:

Comparison of winter total volumes with other volume estimates need to account for the fact that the PIOMAS domain currently does not extend southward far enough to cover all areas that can have winter time ice cover.

And there was me taking it from what Bernard actually wrote (e.g. in #180) that he was refering to minimum future ice-cover conditions...which tend to occur in the summer!

Silly old me!

@211. Just watched the recording. Some of Pell's comments made my head implode. Nothing unexpected there. Deh stupid......it burns.

[Betula](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…).

The only sensible thing that you said was your summary sentence of your overall post:

>Silly games indeed.

The rest of your post is an exercise in pointing into the distance and yelping "look, over there!". Are you really trying to pretend that there is not a serious net melting of ice in the Arctic?!

Seriously, buy a clue. [Hasis](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…) is very kindly trying to help you along...

To follow on from [my post and link above](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/april_2012_open_thread.php#comm…), the direct link to the Dawkins/Pell discussion is [here](http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3469101.htm).

Ensure that a head-vice is mounted and that a rubber apron is secured before watching.

Jeff,

The paper you refer to so (Shakun, et. al.) so worried the deniers that it has spawned a cottage industry over at Watts' place trying to show it is wrong. They are scared.

The ABC's "I Can Change Your Mind About...Climate" web survey has been swamped by the denialati with the vast majority "Dismissive" of the subject. Take a few minutes please to make your view known.

Silly games indeed.

Betula, you're a moron. The ice volume is only varying randomly in one direction because it's melting because of the heat. Even if you don't believe that (because you are ignorant, stupid, and blind ... just what do you think the blue line on that PIOMAS graph of Arctic sea ice volume shows?), certainly the people who wrote that article and posted that graph do, so they aren't playing silly games, they are just making a statement consistent with what they believe (which, unlike a blithering cretin like you, is based on the evidence, as shown in that graph).

@`#`218

Unfortunately for Ms. Rose, Mr. Minchin is a dimwit and an intellectually dishonest ideologue, as is clear just from the snippets of the arguments he gives in that clip, which have nothing to do with science: We're slandering deniers, so there's no AGW! It would mean changing industry, so there's no AGW!

Karenmackspot says:

>It also indicates that we are overdue for a cold spell.

I thought your argument was we are already in the midst of the cold spell, but Al Gore was fabricating false temperature records in conjunction with NASA and the reverse vampires.

Some consistency, darling, please!

Anthony @ 218
I would be inclined not to participate. It is difficult to beat the deniers at that game - they are mostly retirees with plenty of time on their hands. Better to let them stooge the survey - a 90% result dismissive of climate science is like some tinpot dictator being elected with +90% of the vote - everyone laughs.

This more of the same old crap false balance from the ABC

RattusN,

*The paper you refer to so (Shakun, et. al.) so worried the deniers that it has spawned a cottage industry over at Watts' place trying to show it is wrong. They are scared.*

That the deniers would try and debunk the Nature paper was as expected. But note how they won't write a rebuttal in Nature; the deniers never do that or appear to even try. What they do is attack papers in the top journals by blog, where there is no peer-review. WUWT is a master at this kind of thing. In my years as a scientists I have met deniers in many areas of environmental science, denying not only climate change but other forms of pollution, high extinction rates, the impacts of losing tropical forests, the extent of coral reef destruction etc. Essentially, many of the climate change deniers fall into the broader camp of cornucopian anti-environmentalists who deny that human activities pose a threat to natural systems. But one thing they have in common is to hate much of the science in peer-reviewed journals, to make a big noise in attacking many of these articles on the internet, but rarely if ever writing their own rebuttal and submitting it to any of these journals. They would argue that it won't get in; the fact is that in virtually every instance they know their science is shoddy and that their article won't withstand the scrutiny of peer-review.

The internet is a great thing, but it has its downsides too. It has enabled science to largely bypass peer-review and to give some aura of credibility to some of the most appalling garbage you could imagine. It has also enabled those who fall solidly in the ranks of the Dunning-Kruger study to profess vast expertise in fields they have never studied formally at a university. One just has to read some of the stuff written by the climate change deniers on Deltoid to see that.

I've been on the 'net since it consisted of 4 hosts attached to IMPs (I wrote OS software for one of those hosts), back when ARPA built its network so that the university scientists it funded could communicate more effectively. It's a great thing that it has expanded its user base to the whole world, but one of the double-edged consequences is that it has given us a window into the minds of the mentally bankrupt and corrupt.

I've been over at WUWT trying to suggest that Pat Frank send his latest "final nail in the CAGW coffin" for peer review in the scientific literature. Guess what? He's reluctant to do this!! I wonder why?

Note also that Willis Eschenbach, who apparently has never published a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal in his life, is now weighing in attacking the Nature paper on WUWT. Note also that he won't go anywhere near a peer-reviewed journal with his garbage - instead, like pretty much all of the deniers, he's content to spew out his nonsense on a contrarian web site.

A couple of years ago Eschenbach wrote a cringe-inducing article on biodiversity and extinction rates on WUWT. It seems like many of the deniers show no constraints in wading into many fields outside of their competence when anti-environmental blogs provide a forum for them.

A Nature [interview](http://blogs.nature.com/from_the_lab_bench/2012/04/06/old-news-for-carb…
) with Jeremy Shakun worth reading.

What is even more sobering is that today, humans have brought CO2 levels up another 100 part per million more. "So we have done just as much," Shakun said. "And in a century, we are looking to go up, going on as we are, by several hundred more. So 100 parts per million to end an ice age, and we are talking about people bringing it up many times more... this is NOT small potatoes what we are talking about here, what we are doing with CO2. This is big stuff, big changes."

...is the best thing that's happened to this blog since I was banned.

I will agree that you being banned was a good thing. So keep us all happy and p-ss off.

Hey, Fatso, does Tim Lambert know that you are violating his ban?

Tsk, tsk.

And what's so special about a bloke who pretends to be a woman, and who can't string any scientific coherence together at all? Is it because he's tresspassing too, and has thus far been able to avoid being put back in the box?

And whilst you're here, what do you think will be the minimum Arctic sea ice extent (or sea ice volume - I prefer that measure anyway) during the 21st century? If you manage to come up with a figure you would actually be the first of your bleating brethren to do so, after the months of prevarication in which they have indulged.

And please provide some testable basis with which to back your estimate. After all, this is a science blog and we expect you to produce science, rather than the ideology and manure that characterises your corner's position.

There an interesting news item in the latest issue of 'New Scientist' magazine - April 7th 2012, page 5, top of the "60 seconds" column - on the Heartland Institute losing GMH sponsorship - just in case folks hadn't seen it.

There's also apparently something on page 7 about plans for drilling for oil in the Arctic & an item by Chris Mooney on brains and politics and implications thereof or something like that. Reading that mag. now, myself & haven't actually read those last two items yet but thought I'd let y'all know.

@218. Anthony David | April 10, 2012 1:28 AM :

The ABC's "I Can Change Your Mind About...Climate" web survey has been swamped by the denialati with the vast majority "Dismissive" of the subject. Take a few minutes please to make your view known.

Thanks for that link - looks like it will be a potentially really good doco.

Did their survey there and turns out I'm in the "Concerned" class FWIW. Probably because I put down a few "don't knows" & must admit it could have done with some other options but pretty reasonable as on-line web surveys go.

"Karen is the best thing that's happened to this blog since I was banned."

That's like saying gonorrhea is the best thing to happen to you since you came down with syphilis.

Barnerd I gave you my sea ice forecast @ # 136

Do you prefer the volume measure because the sea ice extent is above average ?

Arctic Sea Ice 433000 sq kms below average, that is only slightly below the 1979 to now average.

Antarctic Sea Ice is 452000 sq klms above average, that suggests that the global sea ice extent is 19000 sq klms above average.

Couldn't you work that out ? Or did you and you just kept it quiet ?

Isn't that fantastic Barnerd :)

Glowbull Warming has stopped :)

By the way, how accurate do you think that volume graph is, it looks a bit dodgy to me.

I suppose.... given that there is a 95% consensus, climatologically speaking, that that the AGW evidence is so much in favour of your ice melting hypothesis, or should I say your mystical vision of a future burning cryosphere, that your confidence levels will permit you to offer me and who ever else wants to kick in, a wager with the odd's of 95:1, we put $1 in the pot and you kick in $95, winner takes all.

Oh, of coarse we will have to work out the finer details.

I've just had quick add up of my bingo winnings, I have about $4500, so you will need to throw in $427500, I'm sure others would like the opportunity to have a wager with you so I will pass the word around and see what I can do, meanwhile you could see if fat Al and mikey would like to kick in alongside you.

Karen the Credulous #149:

Western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers "stable," Government of Nunavut survey shows

I have a reading assignment for you:

[Scientist Responds To Misleading Polar Bear Coverage](http://mediamatters.org/blog/201204090004)

@234. Karen | April 10, 2012 10:17 AM :

I suppose.... given that there is a 95% consensus, climatologically speaking,

Actually that's close but its 97-97% of climatologists that agree with the Global Overheating consensus position.

What they're finding though is that the Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than they expected.

See : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRc_9nNTZg0

^ Especially watch the graph at the 2 minute 30 second mark on that above clip - 2011 Arctic Ice Minimum on youtube by Greenman3610.

its 97-97% of climatologists

Oops that's 97-98% of climatologists following the HIRGO consensus. (Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating)

Source : http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

There you go. Thread closed. Karenmackspot has graciously conceded that the odds of an ice-free summer are heavily - no, *overwhelmingly* - in Bernard's favour.

Whatever led to this stunning reversal?

I would like to explore something a bit different, as re-explaining science to people who are either morons, paid shills, reflexive contrarians or simple borderline personality sufferers is getting b-o-r-i-n-g.

And more importantly, it is an enormous waste of time and energy. The science is settled on this. Can this be emphasized enough? It is time to move forward and damn the torpedoes, as there are literally billions of people and millions of species depending on people of rational mind to take necessary action.

I would like to talk about the people who are in the way of progress, who are deliberately stalling the reforms certainly necessary to sustain civilization as we know it, and possibly the very existence of humanity itself. These are people of enormous political and economic power who have manipulated the very bulwarks of democratic society for their own ambitions.

These are people who not only sneeringly disregard the consensus opinion of virtually every qualified expert in the field, but who have cravenly sustained massive propaganda campaigns to further their global global objectives. These are people who will have blood on their hands. Blood on their hands to a scale almost unknown in the entire history of the human race.

These are the Adolph Hitlers of climate change denial. Make no mistake about it.

And so I would like to ask a question:

Would it be ethically wrong or ethically mandated to kill people like this to protect humanity?

There is, it seems to me, no other way to stop them. They have the legal right to fund propaganda networks, overwhelm our election system with legal donations, escape litigation in almost any court. There is no other way to influence these people, and they are killing humanity on a truly dreadful scale.

In WWII, it was considered completely ethical to carpet bomb cities, to plot to assassinate Hitler even if that meant a hundred innocent bystanders would perish in the explosion. The stakes for us are actually much higher than losing to Hitler.

It is time to redirect the national conversation about global warming away from arguing about scientific facts, and toward a discussion of the ethics of consequences for climate denial up to and including arrest and even vigilante assassination.

Gingerbaker @ 240 wonders if it would be ethically wrong to kill people who disagree about a hypothetical speculative future scenario....vigilante assassination.

Nuff said.

Hypothetical? Speculative?

If business as usual continues, we will hit 1000ppm CO2 by about 2100 according to MIT.

Do you think you could find a single qualified scientist who would say that when the earth eventually heats up to that forcing, that billions will not almost certainly die?

You deniers have one thing in common - you never have an answer for where all the heat that the extra CO2 past 280 ppm will go. To you it is just "speculative" and "hypothetical" to suggest that there will be undeniable ramifications of this CO2 build up. The plain fact of the matter is that that extra heat will not magically disappear. It will warm the planet, and that much heating will make it impossible for billions of people to survive.

If you can not explain how the laws of physics are going to be magically averted, and the planet will therefore NOT heat up beyond redemption, you need to STFU and get out of the way. Or consider yourself partly responsible.

"Gingerbaker @ 240 wonders if it would be ethically wrong to kill people ..."

That is correct. I am wondering if it is ethically wrong to imprison or kill people who, left unchecked, will be the cause for billions to die.

BTW, they don't "disagree" about a "scenario". They have no bona fides to disagree - the science on this is overwhelming. They don't "disagree" - they simply don't give a shit about anyone else. Why should they be allowed to kill billions of people? They are certainly guilty of crimes against humanity. That their crime is occurring in slow motion, as opposed to, say, a military massacre of a village, makes their crime no less heinous.

Nuff said.

About what? You're just the sort of moron who would infer from Gingerbaker's comments that AGW is false. And you're just the sort of dishonest feces stain on humanity who comments on Gingerbaker's post rather than respond to the substance about the decline of Arctic sea ice volume, which is not hypothetical or speculative, it is observed.

In WWII, it was considered completely ethical to carpet bomb cities

Gingerbaker, this passive voice is as dishonest as anything that comes from garbage like Betula or Foulspot. You cannot establish mass murder as being ethical merely by universalizing the ethics of mass murderers who justified their mass murder as preventing other mass murder.

Who would you put to death, Gingerbaker? Evey member of Hitler Youth? Every German who called a Jew vermin or took their property or merely stood by as the crimes happened?

If you think that killing people like Betula is justified, do you also think that killing everyone who drives a car or doesn't turn out the lights is justified? It's one thing to criticize the morals of garbage like Betula and Foulspot, or much worse garbage like Monckton and Morano, but what you are doing is in another category and is itself morally condemnable.

I call sockpuppet on Gingerbaker. Comes out of nowhere, says unhelpful and morally repugnant things, leaps to a tasteless Nazi comparison.

Gingerbaker most likely wants someone on this forum to appear to agree with his stupid and contemptible ravings so that he can go back to some denialist site and point to the radical warmists who want to kill people they disagree with.

Foulspot:

>Barnerd I gave you my sea ice forecast @ # 136

All you did was say:

>My prediction for arctic [sic] ice is, more then less then lesser then morer and morer and then lesser ect [sic].

which, granted, is about as much science as you are capable of.

Note however that it does not address my question, which is "what will be the minimum Arctic sea ice extent (or volume, for the brave) during the 21st century?".

In case you don't yet comprehend Lola, you were expected to provide a numerical value. Yes, I know that will require you to use your fingers and even your toes for that weird counting/numbers thing that grown-ups do, but that's just the way it is.

And as for:

>given that there is a 95% consensus, climatologically speaking, that that the AGW evidence is so much in favour of your ice melting hypothesis, or should I say your mystical vision of a future burning cryosphere, that your confidence levels will permit you to offer me and who ever else wants to kick in, a wager with the odd's of 95:1, we put $1 in the pot and you kick in $95, winner takes all.

it seems that you completely and entirely miss the point of my odds. If you are so convinced that the planet is not warming, you should be convinced that the chance of an ever lower record minimum extent/volume is proportionately lower. If you are correct, taking a lower value for minimum is a higher risk to me than it is to you, and hence you should be putting more on the table in support of your claims.

That you are attempting to reverse the nature of my wagers either shows that you actually have no belief in your own nonsense, or that you don't understand the logic of odds calculations - or both.

I seriously doubt anyone here is likely to fall for the gingerbaker ruse of getting some warmist to appear to subscribe to utterly contemptible ideas, and then to cut and paste the results across the Deniosphere.

Gingerbaker @242 asks the following:

"Hypothetical? Speculative?" and then follows it with this: "If business as usual continues"...

That's right Ginger, "IF".

Sounds like a hypothetical to me.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go kill myself...

Since we're apparently in the ideological area; ah, Fox - 'There's another civil rights group in town - the National Socialist Movement'.

What can you say? The Stupid über alles!

Oh dear, Arctic ice still.

Here's a couple of not so pretty pictures. This one for the current end of winter, ice should be at maximum thickness ('cos the sun's not over the horizon yet for much of the region) from one well-established group. Note the size and shape of the multi-year ice map, and the vast regions where the ice is 2 metres or less thick. http://www.aari.ru/odata/_d0015.php?lang=1&mod=0&yy=2012

And for the much beloved historical data. This one for both end of summer and end of winter. Not this year obviously, only up to 2010. But the trend is pretty clear. Once again note the size and shape of the multi year ice and first year ice on the maps in the first 2 comments here. http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/another-source-of-info-on-myi.ht…

If you want to play with the animations yourself, the maps are here - http://polarbear.colorado.edu/IceAge.html

>I call sockpuppet on Gingerbaker. Comes out of nowhere, says unhelpful and morally repugnant things, leaps to a tasteless Nazi comparison.

This.

Come on trolls. I know we are a useless group of putzes who swallow whatever Al Gore says, but you're going to simply have to try harder.

Incidentally, here's a neat animation that shows visually the record breaking US heatwave and proving, per Karenmackspot's argument, that global warming is happening.

I think Gingerbaker is genuine, just suffering a hellish dose of Koolaid.

I'm always ready to credit the opinion of someone who believes CO2 is a harmless trace gas that cannot influence the climate. I rather think you missed your opportunity to point out 'it's plant food' there. Learn anything from those comments and links provided? Didn't think so.

Let's face it - you're wasting your time, guys; your little fishing trip has failed.

On that Fox news link, I went after them over the weekend and over the course of a couple of hours it changed from "Civil Rights Group" to "White Rights Group" to "Neo-Nazi". I thanked them when they made the final change and fleshed out the story. Funny who people seem to have forgotten what the NS in NSDAP stands for.

I seriously doubt anyone here is likely to fall for the gingerbaker ruse of getting some warmist to appear to subscribe to utterly contemptible ideas, and then to cut and paste the results across the Deniosphere.

You, Dave H, Twiggy, and John are being silly, reactionary, and unperceptive and are suffering from your own form of cognitive dissonance. Gingerbaker has posted occasionally at Pharyngula and is genuine, and what he/she posted here is not something that could plausibly be written by a denier even as bait -- and to what end? Some other denier could cut and paste Gingerbaker's comments to the Deniosphere with the same effect. No, Gingerbaker's reaction to the threat of GW and its potential costs, while quite irrational, is also quite understandable of someone who genuinely believes that billions will die. Like denialists, you don't believe this simply because you don't want to.

"Hypothetical? Speculative?" and then follows it with this: "If business as usual continues"...

That's right Ginger, "IF".

And what's to stop business as usual from continuing, cretin, especially when feces stains like you oppose any change? Business is likely to continue as usual unless Gingerbaker has his/her way.

Sounds like a hypothetical to me.

So does "The sun will rise tomorrow if it doesn't wink out of existence", because you're an imbecile, too stupid to distinguish between a subjunctive and a hypothetical, and you're a feces stain on humanity, too dishonest to admit that, if something would be the consequence of business as usual, then it should be expected.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go kill myself...

I'm all for it. It would spare us the debate about whether we would be justified in doing it to you ourselves.

You, Dave H, Twiggy, and John are being silly, reactionary, and unperceptive and are suffering from your own form of cognitive dissonance.

Overreach ianam.

My initial reaction to Gingerbaker's post never having encountered him before was similar to the others - that he was a provocateur. Turns out he is just a fool.

For GB's benefit - the people he fantasises about bumping off are just the street dealers for denialism. They are not exceptionally bright and are easily replaced.

Here is some insight on the "big fish".

âA cap on carbon emissions designed to limit warming to 2 degrees C. will mean sovereign states and public corporations must strand 80% of their $27 trillion of proven (global) reserves and related assets, a loss exceeding $20 trillionâ

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/29/454476/a-message-from-a-rep…

The way to fight this vested interest is to convince a majority of the world's population that climate change is real and it is going to affect them - not just a poor peasant in a third world country.

Turns out that most of us - the 99% - do not have a direct stake in a carbon future anyway. We do however have a stake in a stable climate.

"Three systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have taken a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide and analyzed all 43,060 transnational corporations and share ownerships linking them. They built a model of who owns what and what their revenues are and mapped the whole edifice of economic power.

They discovered that global corporate control has a distinct bow-tie shape, with a dominant core of 147 firms radiating out from the middle. Each of these 147 own interlocking stakes of one another and together they control 40% of the wealth in the network. A total of 737 control 80% of it all."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-tha…

Forget the childish fantasies GB and join your local climate action group.

@259
See what I mean about not exceptionally bright. As I recall el Gordo was banned for serial stupidity.

*My money is on global cooling and you all know why*

Because, fatso, you are an idiot...

FWIW I think Gingerbaker is a little too articulate and well informed to be a denier troll. One should never say never -- one has to grant the possibility that someone who is a complete ethical bankrupt might be able to ignore their own logic in pursuit of a different agenda -- but on balance, I am going to guess that he/she really believes what he/she is saying.

That doesn't make it right though. Gingerbaker is probably sincere but what(s)he proposes is no less criminal and repulsive for that. The entire aim of mitigation is to protect human civilisation and its usages. We had to burn the village to save it comes from the ethical antecedents of the denier movement and has nothing at all to do with us.

We will, as a species, act rationally, and foreclose disaster, or we will, as a species, suffer the consequences of failing. It's as simple as that.

I did a quick search and yep, it's spreading like wildfire !

Hansen and Schmidt of NASA GISS under fire for climate stance: Engineers, scientists, astronauts ask NASA administration to look at empirical evidence rather than climate models

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASAâs history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASAâs advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate..............

read on.......

( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-u… )

Karen (#263)

And not one of the signatories has any credibility in this area. Lots of engineers and astronauts. The very few (3?) who have any science credentials at all are geologists or in other non-relevant areas.

Ho Hum

Neil White

@239.Gingerbaker | April 10, 2012 1:20 PM : Ever heard of Godwin's law?

See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Which notes :

..there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison [To nazis -ed.] is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.[8] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law. It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized corollary that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's law will be unsuccessful.[9] Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis.

So, yeah, don't go there.

I'm not sure if you are doing this deliberately to provoke and cause trouble or end this thread. (Hint : its called the April open thread meaning it is going to last all month most likely.) Or if you really don't know and are just new to the net & discussing things generally.

But whatever the case, again, don't pull a Godwin online. Don't go there - ever. Its bad form and generally frowned upon. Its also a logical fallacy and in virtually every case a hyperbolic, unimaginative, ridiculous comparison to make.

Now to answer your question :

"Would it be ethically wrong or ethically mandated to kill people like this to protect humanity?"

Yes, it would be ethically very wrong.

No it isn't okay to kill people for saying stupid things, even really, really horrible, hateful, destructive stupid things.

There are better ways to deal with them than killing.
I can think of quite a few - if you are being serious here then put a bit of effort in and I'm sure you'll think of a number of other possibilitries as well. Apart from anything else if there wa sthedetahsentence for saying stupid things the executioners would never catch up to the number neeeding their services!

Incidentally, FWIW, I used to be a climate contrarian myself once. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who has changed their mind on this issue over time and with increasing knowledge either. Would you want me dead already?

Typo. D'oh! That's :

Apart from anything else if there was the death sentence for saying stupid things then the executioners would never catch up to the number needing their services!

For clarity.

Blotspot,

Where are the climate scientists in the 'petition'? Astronauts? You have got to be kidding me? These people are a joke.

Moreover, look at the infantile poll that accompanies the article on WUWT. Should James Hansen be fired? Is Watts serious?!?! This is beyond the pale. It shows precisely what we should have known all along: that there is no depths of fecal matter to which the deniers will not stoop. I wish Tim would send you back to your hole where you belong.

How appalling of Watts to put such utter repugnant bilge up on his 'scientific' web site. Its clearly all about advocacy. Why does he just not come out and say that he, like 99% of the other deniers, is a free-market absolutist who despises any form of government regulation. Moreover, how many qualified scientists do you see who stoop to this basal level of discourse? Howm many university web sites or scientific bodies have petitions where voters can decide whether Watts or other deniers deserve to have a forum for their crap? Seeing this kind of childish stuff makes me appreciate what it means to be a trained scientist and not a wannabe. I certainly despise those who are distorting it to bolster their own political agendas. Its as if the deniers cannot but wear their anti-scientitic hatred on their sleeves. What a sordid, sick, twisted lot you all are.

@259. el Gordo | April 11, 2012 2:43 AM :

'We do however have a stake in a stable climate.'
Is that an oxymoron? My money is on global cooling and you all know why. {Link snipped}

Well El Gordo I clicked on your link and got :

ERROR 404PAGE NOT FOUND
You may not be able to find the requested page because of:

-An out-of-date bookmark/favorite
-A search engine that has an out-of-date listing for us
-A mis-typed address
-or a broken link
We think navigating to our site's homepage will better help you on your search.

Looked like a NASA webpage. So, no, I don't know why. Can you try to explain a summary of your reasons in simple english in your own words please?

They'd better be pretty durn good reasons to go against the 98 out of 100 expert climatologists though!

In fact of the very, *very*, few dissenting qualified climatologists I don't think I'm aware (from memory) of any that aren't saying the planet is heating up - even Lindzen and Patrick Michaels (right name /spelling?) conceed that much debating only the extent and severity of the process.

Couple of analogies to consider

- If 98 out of a 100 doctors told you you had a medical problem and needed to have surgery would you really ignore them based on the other two?

- Do you often bet on 100 : 1 horses and see them win?

I would be betting with the majority and here - that we will be warming over the next few decades and NOT cooling.

We'll see I guess in time. Thermal inertai means we're locked into some serious overheating I'd say.