January 2014 Open Thread

Look - no "pause" or "hiatus" - just a slight slowing in the rate of surface warming, aka natural variability, which nobody every said would stop. Nor did anyone ever say warming would be monotonic. This whole discourse has been warped by contrarians into a "challenge" to estimates of S and even of the fundamentals of radiative physics. Both "challenges" are scientifically absurd. Please try and remember that you cannot meaningfully quantify ECS from a short time-series, eg a couple of decades.

At that we're talking about just a few percent of total AGW heat accumulation, the part that heats up the (lower) atmosphere.
Another little fraction went into melting land- and sea ice.
Rest into the oceans which will release some during next Niño.
There is no 'hiatus'. There is, actually, acceleration in total heat gain of the climate system.

ianam, #89, being right in something doesn't mean you are going to be right in everything. Being sane and reasoned in one subject of interest does not make it certain that you are sane and reasoned in all subjects of interest.

The reverse is true, too.

We're just "blessed" with such moronic samples as Betty and Woof Woof here, who evince no glimmer of rationality in any of their claims on any subject whatsoever raised on this site, that it seems that if you're (in)sane on one point, you must be similarly (in)sane on all others.

As a short cut to weed out comments that are worth spending time and effort on, the assumption of " constant momentum of intellect" works quite well.

"constant momentum of intellect"

Uncertainty tell us that since we can measure Betbet's and Woofwoof's "intellectual"positions quite easily, it should be impossible to measure any such momentum. The available data certainly supports that.

Remember, you can total the uncertainty of Batty and Woof Woof's statements (as in they are 100% certain that NOBODY knows whether humans are causing AGW) and the uncertainty of their positions in that equation.

Therefore you can still determine the momentum because of the massive "uncertainty source" of their ignorance.

So how come we may mix up 'intention', 'intentionality' and 'intensionality' though this used to be the sin up for capital punishment in (western!) philosophy?
It is all unified into the concept of autopoiesis:

"... an autopoietic system is autonomous and operationally closed, in the sense that there are sufficient processes within it to maintain the whole. Autopoietic systems are "structurally coupled" with their medium, embedded in a dynamic of changes that can be recalled as sensory-motor coupling. This continuous dynamic is considered as a rudimentary form of knowledge or cognition and can be observed throughout life-forms."
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis ]
Knowing, doing, intention to get to know or to do are the same things. Enjoy.

Since there is no such capital punishment for that, what the hell answer would you expect other than "Elephant proboscis"?

#7, Questions? No questions. Alright, continue.
So what can we attack using the concept of autopoiesis, and/or the work done on cognition science by e.g. Dennett? We can blast things like 'soul', 'the manifestation of God('s) spirit in us' et cetera.
If the phrase 'life after death' does not suffice in itself as a 'proof' there is of course no life after death (cf the word 'supernatural being' as the contruct meaning 'that being doesn't exist') autopoiesis conceptuology may help you on this one, too.

But let us teach on a level that is slightly more adjusted to your knowledge of the matter. Leaf a bit through: http://godisimaginary.com/index.htm e.g. 16, 17, 36 for some primers. #28 is a nice try at using full induction (cf. the metaphor of NP-C) to do away with all deities. O and go fight that true atheist then.

Well, last Thursday, for a start, was a particular day.

Therefore you have your answer.

Strange. I couldn't find the word "hiatus" in my link on the previous page, yet it shows up over a dozen times in the latest IPCC report...
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/30/ipccs-pause-logic/

It's almost as if there were a form of denial being used to maintain the Deltoid autopoietic system...

Strange. I couldn’t find the word “hiatus” in my link on the previous page,

Likely because you have very little comprehension of what you're reading.

yet it shows up over a dozen times in the latest IPCC report…

Draft report Betty - AR5 as such has not been released yet. And I'm not wasting my time looking for a context for a fictional statistical canard invented by deniers.

http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/30/ipccs-pause-logic/

Get back to us when you can quote an actual paper from published Curry, not the imbecile blog Curry.

#11, just in: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports… .

Betty, you need to keep up. AR5 is obsolete.

Betty

Please explain which part or parts of my #1 you didn't understand:

Look – no “pause” or “hiatus” – just a slight slowing in the rate of surface warming, aka natural variability, which nobody every said would stop. Nor did anyone ever say warming would be monotonic. This whole discourse has been warped by contrarians into a “challenge” to estimates of S and even of the fundamentals of radiative physics. Both “challenges” are scientifically absurd. Please try and remember that you cannot meaningfully quantify ECS from a short time-series, eg a couple of decades.

The graph came from this article. Please read it carefully before responding because understanding what is being said is vital to a productive exchange.

Garth Paltridge did his best work many decades ago, then developed one of those almost-crankery self-regulating climate hypotheses that nobody else took seriously. He got pissed off, went emeritus, and the rest, like GP, is history. You are listening to marginalised, fringe contrarian noise again instead of mainstream science. How many times, Betty...?

#15, what a shame. He's not the only emeritus to have done such scientific self destruction. But this phenomenom is emotionally tractable to some degree. When actual profs commit this kind of thing, it really is too sad to bear. E.g. Curry.

cRR Kampen

It is a shame, but GP is being tricksy, which sharply reduces any sympathy I might otherwise feel for him.

Consider this, carefully:

Bear in mind that the representation of clouds in climate models (and of water vapour, which is intimately involved with cloud formation) is such as to amplify the forecast warming from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide—on average over most of the models—by a factor of about three. In other words, two-thirds of the forecast rise in temperature derives from this particular model characteristic. Despite what the models are telling us—and perhaps because it is models that are telling us—no scientist close to the problem and in his right mind, when asked the specific question, would say that he is 95 per cent sure that the effect of clouds is to amplify rather than to reduce the warming effect of increasing carbon dioxide. If he is not sure that clouds amplify global warming, he cannot be sure that most of the global warming is a result of increasing carbon dioxide.

See what he did there? He seems to acknowledge that WV is the key amplifying GHG feedback to an increase in the non-condensing GHGs, but then switches emphasis to clouds *alone* - but it is water vapour feedback not cloud formation that is the key amplifier. So his final sentence is a false assertion based on a strawman argument.

It is very easy to debunk the argument at face value. If net cloud feedbacks are negative, we would would see little variability in climate behaviour because warming would be damped by increased low marine cloud formation and cooling would be reduced by increased stratospheric cloud etc.

This isn't what happens. Early Cenozoic hyperthermals or more recently, deglaciation under orbital forcing are clear evidence from paleoclimate behaviour that this is not what happens. Paltridge should and probably does know better.

BBD - I read carefully so I got wounded by that last sentence, thank you.
Why tf are we discussing that dung at all? - forget it, I know it has to be done.

I was at the NIPCC symposium beginning of October last year in The Hague. Saw Singer and Carter from up close. The cult leaders.
Carter said with these but only more words effectively this: 'Imagine you take all telephone numbers of the country of Holland and average them, you'd get a number. But what does it mean? It means nothing, obviously!'.
So, he simply talked the very concept of 'average' out of everybody's mind. Now imagine this guy delivering this brainwash with all the time this *smirk* on his face, you know, like some of those tv priests..
It IS a scam. Nothing else.
It's just bloody hard, hard in all kinds of ways, to pry the naive believers loose.

chek..."Draft report Betty – AR5 as such has not been released yet"

BBD..."Betty, you need to keep up. AR5 is obsolete"

Meanwhile, BBD's links to a Leon Clifford article that "suggests"....."the so called global warming pause is actually a period of slower warming and not a pause at all"

Yet Leon Clifford, just last week wrote..."Make no mistake about it, the pause is real and it has moved out of the climate sceptic community and into the mainstream of climate science."
http://leonclifford.com/2014/01/22/global-warming-pause-goes-mainstream…

So here we have an obsolete AR5 report that has yet to be released and a climate science writer who appears to be arguing with himself...

Very impressive.

Once you get the hang of the concept of 'context' Betty you'll be worth arguing with. So:
my comment - I wasn't aware AR5 is officially released.
BBD's comment - AR5 will have had a cut off point for compilation purposes. Further research has occurred since then.
Clifford's comment - if read carefully - acknowledges a statistical flat due to a particularly strong El Nino in '98.
Whatever else you attach to that is a figment of denier blogs.

The thing is Betty, CO2 is responsible for the current situation of more energy entering the Earth system than is leaving it. Once you comprehend that and what 'Earth system means in terms of its components - land, ocean, atmosphere cryosphere etc. - you'd be less confused, assuming good faith.

But then I don't, not from you Betty.

Leon Clifford is an irrelevance, Betty. Cowtan & Way is relevant. And you are blanking it.

* * *

Please answer the question at # 14.

Betula, methinks you spend way too much time searching under every rock to find some obscure blogger who claims that the warming stopped in 1998. One thing you don't do, is tread the primary literature. OK, OK, its beyond your meager understanding of science, but can't you at least give it a try? Or are we endlessly stuck with you linking every comment from bloggers or old academics on the fringe or whose views fall outside the mainstream?

It seems that the hiatus-freaks clearly do not understand the concept of transitions between stochastic and deterministic processes. And since most of them can't tell a dung beetle from a moose they clearly cannot explain the range and altitudinal shifts of plants and animals that has continued unabated to the present day. The empirical literature is full of these studies. You and the blogging brigade just don't tend to read or understand them.

Jeff #98, Yes, I read Deltoid. ;-)

Thanks for the link BBD. This is exactly what I am talking about. Scientists doing the actual research versus a small army of people who don't. Instead, Betula is stuck on the blogging circuit.

Its pathetic, really.

Olaus: for every Deltoid you read you read 100 WUWTs. BHs. CAs et al.

And like Betty, you don't read the primary literature. Why? Simple. Because you don't understand it. I've asked you countless times to tell us all here what you day job is. And the reply is always the same: silence. Same for your Scandinavian troll collective of which you are a part. What does Jonas do for a living? He's been asked even more times than you. And he's refused to tell us all as well.

The reason is obvious: because both of you have no qualifications anything remotely scientific. If you did, we'd all hear about it alright. It also explains why you constantly snipe away at my professional background: because it puts yours into the shade. You see, we scientists ARE the biggest enemies, because we are the ones of the front lines. And because most of us have moved well beyond the 'is it warming or not'? question, or 'what is the primary forcing'?, that leaves the inevitable following questions: 'what are the potential consequences of the warming'? and 'how should we deal with it'?

You and your acolytes are desperate to keep the debate mired in uncertainty. That's why every effort is being made to inflate the ranks and qualifications of those with any scientific background into the denial camp, as well as to try and belittle the far greater number of scientists who, like me, have moved on.

Shorter Jeff:
Olaus is an uneducated nobody whose malformed opinions and bitter personal attacks are worse than worthless.

Shorter Betty: "Journalist confused about climate, opines anyway".

News at 11.

Excellent discussion that is accessible to someone without a background in science and minimal acquaintance with statistics on the issue of the trend of near surface temperatures over the past fifteen years at Real Climate and Open Mind. It is definitely warming up.

So we see the "pause" or "hiatus" revealed as another all-too-successful language hijack by the deniers. So much so that even actual climatologists are sloppily and inaccurately adopting this framing.

Sure, a "slowing in the rate of surface warming" is a bit of a mouthful but it is technically correct whereas wittering on about pauses and hiati just allows deniers to push their nonsense memes about low S or "AGW stopped in 1998" etc. Bollocks, all.

Variability in ocean heat uptake modulates the rate of surface/tropospheric warming. All there ever was to it. And the current slight slowdown won't last forever.

It is fascinating to see how every lunkhead denier pushes these memes. Until the next one is devised for them.

"So we see the “pause” or “hiatus” revealed as another all-too-successful language hijack by the deniers. So much so that even actual climatologists are sloppily and inaccurately adopting this framing"

So the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate. Ok, I'll agree.

So the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate. Ok, I’ll agree

And that's why you're condemned to always be a moron Betty. All contained in that one sentence and the cognitive processes that formed it..

"So the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate"

No, your take on the IPCC report, as dictated to you by the denier echo chamber is sloppy and inaccurate.

Odd how none of the names pushing "hiatus" was pushing a meme for "surge" earlier when the trend for 15 years was nearly 0.3C per decade...

So the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate. Ok, I’ll agree.

You need to fucking well read it, you lazy and intellectually dishonest denier:

AR5 WG1 SPM:

In addition to robust multi-decadal warming, global mean surface temperature exhibits substantial decadal and interannual variability (see Figure SPM.1). Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends. As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to +0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).

And:

The observed reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998–2012 as compared to the period 1951–2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from internal variability, which includes a possible redistribution of
heat within the ocean (medium confidence). The reduced trend in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions and the timing of the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of changes in radiative forcing in causing the reduced warming trend. There is medium confidence that internal decadal variability causes to a substantial degree the difference between observations and the simulations; the latter are not expected to reproduce the timing of internal variability. There may also be a contribution from forcing inadequacies and, in some models, an overestimate of
the response to increasing greenhouse gas and other anthropogenic forcing (dominated by the effects of aerosols). {9.4, Box 9.2, 10.3, Box 10.2, 11.3}

Read the words, Betty.

Why the fuck am I having to do this for you? Why? As yourself that. What does it tell you about yourself? About your complete lack of intellectual honesty? What?

Fuck but you annoy me sometimes, Betty.

#35 I must pay more attention. You take Bets that seriously, BBD?

I'll bet Bets'll not even answer but think 'why-ah thanks for running around again mate like ur supposed to do'.

I may be wrong but I think climate revisionism is being utterly underestimated STILL. Or overestimated from both intellectual and moral perspective.
Dialogue and debate are over.

BBD - "So we see the “pause” or “hiatus” revealed as another all-too-successful language hijack by the deniers. So much so that even actual climatologists are sloppily and inaccurately adopting this framing."

IPCC and the "hiatus"...

"Nevertheless, the occurrence of the hiatus in GMST trend during the past 15 years raises the two related questions of what has caused it and whether climate models are able to reproduce it"

"In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012, is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgment, medium confidence). "

"The causes of both the observed GMST trend hiatus and of the model–observation GMST trend difference during 1998–2012 imply that, barring a major volcanic eruption, most 15-year GMST trends in the near-term future will be larger than during 1998–2012

So, according to you, the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate. Ok, I agree...

"Dialogue and debate are over"

I would ask you to define dialogue and debate, but I can't.... it's over.

#38, yes. And you, too, just need a Sandy, or a strongest tornado ever or a biggest, or a strongest typhoon landfall ever, or a Boulder flooding, or a Californian drought to lose the brick on your nose. You just lucked out so far, like Holland unfortunately, but hypocrisy is a luxury like no other.

#37, how about the final report?
I bashed that hacked draft for being far too conservative so in separate ways we could agree. Even for the few % of the climate system we are actually talking about. Miss the heat? Nah. You miss the ice ;)

#37, or go see Singer in person...

Hi all,

A bit off topic, should probably be filed in the "belief in the ignorance of experts" category, or "power of could" section. From the University of Leicester

"Expert: rats could grow bigger than sheep "
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/expert-rats-could-grow-big…

Unfortunately, hiding under the stairs may not protect you from the Giant Rats which "could" be on their way.

Even if there is only a 2% chance of it happening, maybe Giant Rat insurance is worth considering.
;)

So, according to you, the IPCC draft report is sloppy and inaccurate. Ok, I agree…

There was no hiatus, so that choice of word is technically incorrect. But as I explained to you - and as the other quotes I provided demonstrate unequivocally, AR5 describes the slowdown in the rate of surface warming that has occurred as a consequence of natural variability.

Your usual fucking intellectual dishonesty is once again, the only substantive problem here.

* * *

When are you going to answer my direct questions to you at #14?

Why have you not answered my question to you at #35? I repeat:

Why the fuck am I having to read the SPM for you? Why? Ask yourself that. What does it tell you about yourself? About your complete lack of intellectual honesty? What?

Answer me that.

Read your own quote mining properly, Betty:

In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012

How was that non-hiatus defined Betty?

Read the words.

Just to be absolutely clear - there has been no "pause" or "hiatus" surface temperature warming. A slight slowing of the rate. The rest is poor word choice (AR5) and denier misrepresentation so total and so vociferous as to have distorted the framing of the entire discourse. See AR5. To the fucking shame of the editors responsible.

You're starting to go all Barney again BBD...

I read the article you linked at #14. It's misleading. If you were truly going to ask about temperature trends since 1998, you wouldn't start with temperatures from 1979....

... and then again, you'd only ask about temperature trends since 1998 in order to be misleading.

Haven't you dimwits realised by now that the escalator graph cuts you off at the knees when you try to pull these short term stunts?

I read the article you linked at #14. It’s misleading.

No, that's a lie. There is *nothing* remotely "misleading" about that article. Dishonest, dishonest, dishonest crap. Denial. Lies. Why the fuck do you think I react to you the way I do? Can't you see that your behaviour is vile?

Cowtan &Way, Betty, Cowtan & Way.

The laugh's on the fucking deniers after all: there *are* problems with the surface temperature reconstructions... they are biased cool.

Actually, this is so fucking stupid, and so fucking dishonest I'm not going to let it go:

If you were truly going to ask about temperature trends since 1998, you wouldn’t start with temperatures from 1979…

Are you truly so moronic that you don't grasp the point of the analysis? How do you establish a trend without data going back previous to 1997? You *need* to go back or you would have nothing on which to base the projected trend. Thus rendering it impossible to explore the claim that warming paused, ceased or entered a hiatus post-1998.

Can you be that thick? Or are you just being completely, shamelessly dishonest?

Please clarify.

"Unfortunately, hiding under the stairs may not protect you from the Giant Rats which “could” be on their way"

Yes, in about 4-5 million years. And by that time humans will long have passed into extinction. In fact, the way we are trashing the planet right now, we won't last a fraction of that.

One might add that Baluchatheres were the largest mammals ever to inhabit the planet or that flightless birds like Diatryma and Phorhoracus evolved into giant predators some 2 meters tall. But these species lived some 50 million years ago, and took 5-10 million years at least following the extinction of dinosaurs to evolve to occupy the vacant niches the giant reptiles left behind.

When it comes to warming and other anthropogenic assaults across the biosphere, we are talking about a century or less. Trust GSW to get his time frames all mangled up. But heck, like the other deniers, including his hero, Jonas, he hasn't got anything close to a remote understanding of evolutionary ecology.

"How do you establish a trend without data going back previous to 1997?"

It's easy. Just like the IPCC, you look at the last 15 year period and call it a trend:

" the occurrence of the hiatus in GMST trend during the past 15 years

"In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012

"most 15-year GMST trends in the near-term future will be larger than during 1998–2012"

Science is funny like that.

Betty

You either haven't understood that article at all or you are simply lying your arse off.

Now go back and read it again. See what was done. Understand why what you are saying is either insane or stupidly dishonest.

Try harder. I am tired of your bullshit.

The analysis is a demonstration that warming has not stopped Betty. For that you need an established trend to project forward to test the hypothesis that warming has not stopped. There is NOTHING "misleading" about this.

I cannot make this any plainer for you: you face a stark choice here - either you are revealed as a complete idiot hopelessly incapable of having this discussion, or your are revealed as a stupid and desperate liar. There are no other alternatives. You did this to yourself.

Now which is it? Moron, or liar?

Please clarify.

Once again, I repeat: there was no pause or hiatus. AR5 should not have used the latter term, but it *did* define what has happened exactly as I have always done here:

In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012

Defined as the REDUCTION IN GMST TREND. Reduction in trend. Reduction in trend. Reduction in trend. Not a fucking pause or fucking hiatus or fucking stop. A REDUCTION in TREND.

Read the words Betty. Read.

You keep blanking this when I point it out to you. More intellectual dishonesty. More evidence that you are scum. I am tired of your bullshit.

Not to worry about giant rats people, there will be very large snakes around to help take care of the problem:

"GLOBAL WARMING COULD LEAD TO SNAKES THE SIZE OF BUSES"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2551024/Rats-one-day-big…

"Defined as the REDUCTION IN GMST TREND. Reduction in trend. Reduction in trend. Reduction in trend. Not a fucking pause or fucking hiatus or fucking stop. A REDUCTION in TREND"

You seem to have left out "during 1998–2012":

"defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012", which, according to the IPCC, is a 15 year "hiatus"

Why all the denial Barney?

Kerrr-ist.
At least the deniers aren't ashamed of showing themselves to be both stupid and dishonest.
Which is, it must be said, never in the history of the world past present or future, a winning combination.

@Betula #56

Thanks Betula, very sobering article link indeed. I think what jeff has missed is that these are not ordinary rats, they are "super-adaptable".

"The terrifying scenario could become a reality as super-adaptable rats take advantage of larger mammals becoming extinct, an expert predicts."

Trust jeff to play down the risks of a giant "super adaptable" rat plague as predicted by a fellow scientist. The chilling scientific narrative continues,

"So there will be future thin rats, future fat rats, slow and heavy rats, fast and ferocious rats, probably future aquatic rats - the list goes on"

Yes, a veritable "climate model ensemble" of future rat types; we should all be very concerned by this bollocks no doubt.
;)

Mind you I'm wondering now if deniers could be fast-tracked into giant feral rats and mega-snakes.
Or perhaps their own behaviour has already done it for them.

we should all be very concerned

There are plenty of things - including climate science and giant rats - that you needn't be bothering your empty little head about. Griselda. It's all way beyond your meagre understanding and ability to put into a context.

Okay Betty, I'll choose for you:

You are stupid *and* intellectually dishonest.

You really don't understand that article at all do you? You should not be here, having these kinds of conversations you know. You do not have the basic skills or native intelligence for it.

Some facts:

- The rate of surface warming has been *underestimated* since ~2000

- There has been no pause or hiatus - warming did not stop in 1998

- AR5 defines the term "hiatus" (which should not have been used) as a reduction in trend over the recent period.

These are facts. The rest is misinformation and denial by liars and idiots.

The rest is misinformation and denial by liars and idiots.

Quite.
And it's always been a case of seeing which wagon they tie their horse to.

"Trust jeff to play down the risks of a giant “super adaptable” rat plague as predicted by a fellow scientist. The chilling scientific narrative continues"

I play it down, you pseudo-academic ninny, because selection on this scale would take millions of years. You won't suddenly find mutant genotypes of Rattus rattus or Rattus norvegicus that are giants compared to their parents, and even larger individuals must overcome a suite of selective constraints to survive.

I am doing what scientists do: disagreeing with someone whose work is splashed in a trashy right wing corporate paper. The headline is explicitly aimed at ht lowest common denominators. I guess you and Betula fill those criteria.

Moreover, had Homo sapiens existed at the K-T boundary, I am sure there would have been equally lurid headlines about the evolution of giant man-eating flightless birds that would fill the vacant niches left by the theropods. As I said, they did evolve - about 5 to 10 million years later.

You clowns aren't really worth debating, since nether of you knows very much about evolutionary biology. But its quite embarrassing for me reading some of the tripe you paste up here for 'discussion'.

By the way, Betty there are snakes almost as long as buses: they are called mature Anacondas (in South America) and Reticulated Pythons (in SE Asia). And its now know that giant snakes did exist during the Cretaceous Period.

As it turns out, the Leicester University scientist who wrote the piece said nothing about the time scales involved for such rapid evolutionary change. Trust the corporate media to hype it up as if we are talking about near future scenarios. This kind of crap sells newspapers. The article did mention the K-T boundary, but did not say how long it took mammals to achieve gigantism following the extinction of the dinosaurs. Again, we are talking about several million years at least.

The problem with people like GSW and Betula is their inability to understand the concept of 'deep time' in terms of macro evolution. Most people cannot reconcile temporal scales anyway when it comes to massive evolutionary changes. For instance, if you asked people how long it took dinosaurs to become extinct following whatever abiotic calamity affected the biosphere (e.g. meteoroid impact, widespread volcanic activity) I am sure that many would say that it was an almost instantaneous event - say over a few months or years. But its now widely believed that dinosaurs persisted for quite some time - perhaps as long as 20,000 years - after the calamity that suddenly led to huge climatic shifts. That's more than twice as long as human civilization has been around.

These distorted articles, aimed at sensationalizing science, are aimed as far as I can see at the lowest common denominators. Its an example of taking a very interesting area of evolutionary biology and trashing it to shift copies of a crappy newspaper.

Nothing more needs to be said, really. That Betty and GSW bring this crap up and interpret it the way they do says a lot about them, really.

If you were truly going to ask about temperature trends since 1998, you wouldn’t start with temperatures from 1979…

Uh, if you want to include satellite temperatures, then you'd have to start from 1979, since there weren't any satellites covering the globe measuring temperatures before then.

Or do you expect numbers to be made up when you demand it?

Betty's too lazy to have bothered to understand the first graph I put up (#1; #14). He doesn't get that this is the Cowtan & Way kriging reanalysis of HadCRUT4 which was developed in conjunction with the satellite data. But I actually think it's worse than that. Betty's problems are even more fundamental; eg. see my #50, #53 and #54.

As I said earlier, he is lazy, dishonest and not smart or well-informed enough to have this conversation.

BBD, this is an excellent graph. It completely demolishes the deniers arguments. But what they are doing is not working from long term regression analyses but from a single data point: 1998. This of course is totally dishonest chicanery, but what do you expect from this bunch of deceivers? Honesty is not in their intellectual make-up.

To correctly assess the significance of any trends, it is necessary to use regression analyses. By cherry-picking any starting point, is possible to manipulate the degree of significance (P 0.05). If they want to play that game, why not start at 1999? Or 2000? I could just as easily argue that its been warming since then, using their twisted logic.

What the hiatus crowd are doing is clutching at any straws to downplay AGW. It should be accepted that no empirical evidence will ever satisfy them. This charade is going to continue for many more years to come, whatever science throws at them. They lost the scientific argument years ago. But that little truth will not get in their way.

Still more evidence for AGW:

http://www.the-cryosphere.net/8/167/2014/tc-8-167-2014.pdf

I can't wait to see how the deniers try and spin this one. Of course they will....

"That Betty and GSW bring this crap up and interpret it the way they do says a lot about them, really."

It's was a fellow scientist that brought it into the limelight Hardley....and the only one unable to interpret anything here(in this case a mockery) is you...

BBD -

"Some facts:- The rate of surface warming has been *underestimated* since ~2000"

From your link at #13...

"Cowtan and Way use satellite data and a data analysis known as Kriging Interpolation to estimate the temperature in the regions where there is little surface data"</blockquote"

"Cowtan and Way made headlines at the end of 2013 with a paper that suggested global temperatures have been underestimated"

"This approach of filling in the gaps in polar coverage must be better than ignoring the gaps, according to climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf"

An estimate, a suggestion and an opinion do not make a fact...

"Some facts - There has been no pause or hiatus – warming did not stop in 1998"

Depend on your definition of hiatus. The IPCC felt that the "slowdown" was enough to warrant using the term "hiatus". And anyone who questions the IPCC is a denier (now that's a fact).

" Some facts - AR5 defines the term “hiatus” (which should not have been used) as a reduction in trend over the recent period."

So you're saying the IPCC shouldn't have used the term "hiatus" because their definition of "hiatus" proves there wasn't a "hiatus"? Um, ok.

#72, "An estimate, a suggestion and an opinion do not make a fact…" then go read from the bible like you was told to.

Batty man, the scientist was interviewed by a right wing tabloid rag (the Daily Fail). For you the Daily Fail is probably pretty heavy intellectual reading, but for anyone with half a brain its trash.

Nowhere in the article was any mention made of a time frame. That's the major oversight. I am sure had some early proto-sauropods been able to pen an article in the late Triassic, they might have written some sensationalist article warning that predatory theropods might soon evolve to be as big as dump trucks - as eventually happened. Um... after many millions of years. Therein lies the rub.

The scientist in question in the Fail article was not asked or did not discuss time scales. I am qualified to do so. And if the 'several millions of years' caveat had been added, then my guess is that the editor would not have allowed the article to pass even the Fail's miserably low standards of publication.

Fact is Batty man, you aren't qualified to discuss anything remotely scientific, as your feeble attempt to push the temperature hiatus also shows.

Nowhere in the article was any mention made of a time frame

Do you mean Betty was LYING? Or that they were lied to but UNSKEPTICALLY swallowed the lies??

That's unpossible!!!

And anyone who questions the IPCC is a denier (now that’s a fact).

Ah, well, here's your problem: that's a load of bullshit you're spouting there, Betty.

Anyone who denies the evidence merely because they don't like the results is a denier.

The IPCC have evidence and made it available.

Deniers deny the evidence the IPCC provides.

But it isn't the questioning that makes them a denier, it's the failing to listen to answers that does. And nothing to do with the IPCC either.

Hardley...

Your link gives satellite imagery results for a 20 year period...20 years. What ever happened to long term trends?

In addition, the numerical data they used before 1991 isn't quantified....except at one point they refer to the measurement of 15 lakes...?

Do you mean Betty was LYING?

About what? Giant snakes the size of buses eating rats the size of cows?

“An estimate, a suggestion and an opinion do not make a fact…” then go read from the bible like you was told to."

So we agree. An estimate, a suggestion and an opinion can indeed be construed as fact, depending on your beliefs...exactly.

Your link gives satellite imagery results for a 20 year period…20 years. What ever happened to long term trends?

Still there.

But if a satellite series is only 20 years old, how the hell can it give any more information than 20 years?

And please explain why 20 years is well out of order, but 15, sorry 16, oops, no, 17, aargh, no 16. Ish years is just swell?

"About what?"

Can't you read, Betty?

An estimate, a suggestion and an opinion can indeed be construed as fact, depending on your beliefs…exactly.

Yes.

Where YOU fall down, Betty, as do so many other deniers, is whether this applies to you or the science.

Apparently you'll accept it but never act on it and change your assertion of facts.

So in what sense do you agree with the statement?

Answer: in no sense.

Betty

So you’re saying the IPCC shouldn’t have used the term “hiatus” because their definition of “hiatus” proves there wasn’t a “hiatus”? Um, ok.

Actually, yes. As I said very clearly above. It was not the correct term. AR5 goes on to *define* what it means correctly, but somewhere an editor needs his arse kicking extremely hard.

* * *

I'm offering you scientific evidence (eg C&W) and yet again, without the slightest counter-evidence or a scintilla of professional expertise you are denying its validity, so once again, no points for you. Denial is not an argument. Learn this, Betty.

Your link gives satellite imagery results for a 20 year period…20 years. What ever happened to long term trends?

Let's see, shall we?

Here's UAH satellite data presented on a common 1980 - 2010 baseline with GISTEMP and HadCRUT and NOAA global.

The recent slowdown in the rate of surface warming is clearly an irrelevance at centennial scale. So why all the hysterical fuss about non-existent hiati and pauses? Unless you are obfuscating the scientific evidence about the centennial-scale effects of CC by hyperfocus on short-term variability. Which is, of course, exactly what you and the rest of the denier chorus are desperately trying to do.

New smart Google Earth add on for CRUTEM 4 data.

Stick that on your lying eyes Betula, the purveyor of stupid,
the leading video in this article is talking to YOU.

BBD at #84...you do realize I was referring to Hardley's link at #70, don't you?

"So why all the hysterical fuss about non-existent hiati and pauses?"
....and you do realize you are the one making all the fuss about the term hiatus being used by scientists, don't you?

"I’m offering you scientific evidence (eg C&W)"

You offered a suggestion and an estimate followed by an opinion...

It's scientific evidence and you are denying its validity without any basis for doing so other than some kind of problem with your mind or your politics.

Re your guff about #84 - there are the long term trends - why is it that all you can do is dodge and deny? There's the evidence. More evidence. More than enough evidence.

Betty, you do realise that BBD's post #84 was addressing YOUR claims, right?

Denial is not an argument, Betty. You have nothing so you are saying nothing. All I hear is noise.

#89 Yes, he knows - that's why he's trying to dodge the point. He does this every single time a point is raised which challenges his denial. That's why I call him intellectually dishonest - because he is.

Betty, you do realise that BBD’s post #84 was addressing YOUR claims, right?

Wrong.

My comment was directed to Hardley based on his link about the "Response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska" based on 20 years of satellite imagery and other numerical data not explained. If Hardley is constantly lecturing about long term timeframes, then why link to proof of something based on a short term timeframe. It's called hypocrisy...

BBD'S response had nothing to do with this....

#92, it's called encirclement. CAGW is everywhere on any scale, see.
Re the Alaska article, it is of course already outdated. Assess the heat of 2014 there, it is new regime.

BBD, Harvey, Wow, Lional A et cetera, it is not even necessary anymore to dick on about 15 years or 20 years or 30 years. Things are going on now that could not have happened without AGW, simple.
Betty has a right not to see it.

Hypocrisy is now called encirclement? Was it General Custer's tactical use of the hypocrisy defense that caused his men to be slaughtered?

#95, yes.

Was it General Custer’s tactical use of the hypocrisy defense that caused his men to be slaughtered?

In a way, YES. If not hypocrisy then certainly hubris, but a bit of both.

History not your strong suit then either, clearly.

#96 - Actually, you may have a point there..

#97, Bets came up with something there didn't she.

#98, mirror.

Bets came up with something there didn’t she

Nah - just Betty's usual tired old technique of confusing language usage for data and ignoring the bigger picture.
He imagines that employing high/secondary school debating tricks disproves AGW, bless his socks.

#1, I meant Bets fell into her own Last Stand...

Betty, you do realise that BBD’s post #84 was addressing YOUR claims, right?

Wrong.

Yes, you are, betty.

He was addressing your claims, beddy.

He was addressing your claims, beddy.

Then he was addressing Hardley's h̶y̶p̶o̶c̶r̶i̶s̶y̶ encirclement.

Nope, he was addressing your claims.

Or are you now (not?) claiming to have claimed nothing at all?

Perhaps you should clam up about claiming to know what I have claimed...

BBD, Wow, CrKampen, etc. Its a waste of time engaging Betula here on topics that are beyond his depth of understanding. He has no idea how basic linear regression works - instead he thinks data should connect lines starting at points of convenience - and he hasn't got a clue about evolutionary biology and the timescales required for massive physiological changes in species. I'm sure that in Betula's simpleton world the giant sauropods evolved from their primitive ancestors in about a few hundred years or maybe a thousand. That true birds radiated from Archaeopteryx in a couple of centuries.

Scientifically illiterate people don't understand the importance of scale and the significance of rapid changes in largely deterministic systems. Betula can't debate his way out of a soaking wet paper bag, but he thinks he can. That's the problem. He's a model subject for Dunning-Kruger. But even thinks that D-K doesn't apply to him, but to scientists like me who have studied evolutionary biology for the past 25 years. His world is denier blogs.

A total waste of time debating and discussing anything remotely scientific with him. He thinks that North American ecosystems are doing fine on the basis of three utterly appalling examples. No scientist would take them seriously. When called out on them, he moves on. He's teflon Betty.

#7 Jeff, yes. Now ignorance is no sin at all, of course. But arrogance by ignorance and nil will to learn anything are something else.
Dunning-Kruger fed by the merchants of doubt. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. In the AGW 'debate' I judge guilty (of merchandising) until proven innocent (by showing a) a will to learn and b) a proof of having learnt something by using it). Those who get shot as collateral damage by me, like happened at Sou's with one 'lolwot' yesterday, don't get wounded anyway.

You're a broken record Hardley. That's no excuse for claiming to witness climate change first hand over a 28 day period in Algonquin where the average temperature was " -2 oC during the day and -10" at night and your buddy got frostbite....now that's a time scale.

Do you really want to go through this again? Weren't you embarrassed enough the first 3 times?

I'm not sitting through that shite again Betty.

You’re a broken record Hardley. That’s no excuse for claiming to witness climate change first hand over a 28 day period in Algonquin where the average temperature was ” -2 oC during the day and -10″ at night and your buddy got frostbite….now that’s a time scale.

Do you really want to go through this again? Weren’t you embarrassed enough the first 3 times?

Perhaps you should clam up about claiming to know what I have claimed…

FFS stop it Betty.

This is you, to Jeff:

Your link gives satellite imagery results for a 20 year period…20 years. What ever happened to long term trends?

And this was my response to your silliness:

Let’s see, shall we?

Here’s UAH satellite data presented on a common 1980 – 2010 baseline with GISTEMP and HadCRUT and NOAA global.

The recent slowdown in the rate of surface warming is clearly an irrelevance at centennial scale. So why all the hysterical fuss about non-existent hiati and pauses? Unless you are obfuscating the scientific evidence about the centennial-scale effects of CC by hyperfocus on short-term variability. Which is, of course, exactly what you and the rest of the denier chorus are desperately trying to do.

Later, when you continued with your never-ending dance of evasions, I said this:

#89 Yes, he [Betty] knows – that’s why he’s trying to dodge the point. He does this every single time a point is raised which challenges his denial. That’s why I call him intellectually dishonest – because he is.

But here you are, still at it, still demonstrating that you are intellectually dishonest to the core. Why do this? Do yourself a favour and just stop.

"Here’s UAH satellite data presented on a common 1980 – 2010 baseline with GISTEMP and HadCRUT and NOAA global."

What does that have to do with determining the response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska?

"So why all the hysterical fuss about non-existent hiati and pauses?"

The only one hysterical here is you. All I did is link to the IPCC draft report...

If scientists are talking about a pause or hiatus, which they are, then I recommend you take it up with them.... in less hysterical fashion of course.

@Jeff

"and he hasn’t got a clue about evolutionary biology and the timescales required for massive physiological changes in species. I’m sure that in Betula’s simpleton world the giant sauropods evolved from their primitive ancestors in about a few hundred years or maybe a thousand. That true birds radiated from Archaeopteryx in a couple of centuries."

What are you talking about you Cabbage?

This is all you! Fantasies about sauropods, theropods, archaeopteryx, it's all you!

All that's happened is that someone has posted a couple of "Scientist's say" links, to hopefully make a point of how cheap these claims can be, and you get all defensive and want to show how "Sciency" you are.

The stories are meaningless rubbish jeff! only an idiot would take them on, and in this case that seems to be you as usual.

"A total waste of time debating and discussing anything remotely scientific with him."

For goodness sake jeff, the waste of time here is you!
;)

What does that have to do with determining the response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska?

Long-term temperature trends, obviously. You asked Jeff:

Your link gives satellite imagery results for a 20 year period…20 years. What ever happened to long term trends?</blockquote.

Unless you are profoundly stupid and don't grasp this, you must just sit there working out dishonest dodges like #12. I can scarcely imagine what it must be like to be trapped inside your head.

If scientists are talking about a pause or hiatus, which they are, then I recommend you take it up with them…. in less hysterical fashion of course.

The problem here is with lying climate change deniers making false claims that boil down to "global warming has stopped". AR5 does not say that. "Scientists" who know what they are talking about do not say that. So, lying climate change deniers are the problem. People like you, Betty. People who misrepresent and distort the science in order to further their unpleasant political agendas.

Why won't you say anything about the long term temperature trends I keep showing you, Betty? Why do you keep blanking this?

I'm reminded of the way you just *denied* the validity of the scientific evidence presented by Cowtan & Way even though you have no professional expertise on which to base your rejectionism and have not actually read the study in question.

Which just leaves politics, intellectual dishonesty and climate change denial, doesn't it, Betty.

Nasty.

"Long-term temperature trends"

I was talking about the long term trends of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska....based on 20 years of satellite. That's is the topic of the article that was linked. That's the topic I was responding to. That was the topic of discussion. That's why I called him a hypocritical encirclement....do try to follow along before you comment.

"The problem here is with lying climate change deniers making false claims that boil down to “global warming has stopped"

Show me where I stated that. Go ahead. Ahem, intellectual dishonesty...

Again. I linked to scientists claiming a hiatus. You can't deal with it.

"I’m reminded of the way you just *denied* the validity of the scientific evidence presented by Cowtan & Way even though you have no professional expertise on which to base your rejectionism and have not actually read the study in question."

I did read it. That's why I linked the words "suggest" and "estimate"..... And you will note that I didn't get into Gavin Schmidt's response and the whole NASA GISS - Earth Institute/ Hansen/Sachs/Pachauri/Soros/ U.N. collaboration and I didn't mention RealClimate and the Fenton Group... not once. So you should be proud of me...

do try to follow along before you comment.

Ice cover of lakes everywhere is influenced by long term temperature trends. I've already explained this to you, so why you suggesting that the comprehension problem lies with *me* is a mystery.

Actually, it's not, of course. You are doing this because you cannot bear to discuss the FACT that long term temperature trends demonstrate AGW very plainly indeed.

Which is why you blank this information just as you denied the validity of the scientific evidence presented in Cowtan & Way and continue to do so. You are a denier. You actually DO think that AGW has stopped, which is why you go on endlessly about pauses and hiati even though I've shown you that there has not been a pause or hiatus at all.

But I am glad you kept your crazy conspiracy theories out of it this time. Small mercies and all that.

Two facts: the long term trend is up, up, up and there has been no pause or hiatus.

Actually, here's a third fact: ocean heat content fairly rocketed up in 2013. That's anthropogenic *global* warming. As natural variability in ocean heat uptake slows down again, surface temperatures will start to rise *fast*.

GSW, the entire discussion is over your head. That's hardly surprising, since you are a dimwit. You are so dumb you cannot even understand my analogies which relate to deep time.

If Betty had tried to argue that the rat story was utter nonsense in the way the paper reported it, then fine. But he didn't. And I am sure that like him, you believe that macro-evolutionary processes on this scale can occur in the blink of a temporal eye.

As for the article I linked, what it shows is that 20 years is more than enough provided critical thresholds are reached and exceed, for measurable effects of one abiotic process on another. This is actually kindergarten level stuff, but perhaps not surprisingly, Batty didn't get it. Any more than he will be ale to explain clear cut biotic responses to warming that have been also recorded since the 1990s. I can list dozens of them, clear proof that is is warming and that the warming is ongoing.

What is also amazing is how easily you denier cranks dismiss peer-reviewed studies in journals that you don't like. Jonas, your hero, is a master of the art. You all act like some deities who sit on high and don't do any primary research yourselves but feel ably qualified to be able to simply dismiss a large body of empirical and theoretical literature in rigid journals whilst giving a nod of approval to a much smaller body of literature often published in bottom-feeding journals.

No matter how many times any of us here link to papers in Nature, Science, PNAS, Global Change Biology, Ecology Letters or any other top journal that supports AGW theory, we can be sure that the armchair denier brigade - all of whom aren't qualified to say a ting about any of them - will still be there to dismiss the scientific merit of them all.

@Jeff

"You are so dumb you cannot even understand my analogies which relate to deep time."

Jeff, the only person that thought it worth making analogies, deep time or otherwise, was you.

[article] “The terrifying scenario could become a reality as super-adaptable rats take advantage of larger mammals becoming extinct, an expert predicts.”

[article] “So there will be future thin rats, future fat rats, slow and heavy rats, fast and ferocious rats, probably future aquatic rats – the list goes on"

[article] "Dr Jan Zalasiewicz predicts that rats could one day become equal to, or bigger, than cows. The average cow is around 147 cm (58 inches) in height and 152cm (60 inches) in length"

Personally, I think the size of the average cow stuff is a nice touch of reality, something tangible for the "man down the pub" to get his teeth in to.

Its junk science jeff, not that I'd expect you to be able to spot the difference (and that was the point). By all means Analogy away! Enjoy!
;)

"Its junk science jeff,"

Damn! And here I was I just beginning to accept the fact that it was my lack of understanding of time scales and changes in largely deterministic systems that was causing my paranoia of snake buses and cow rats...

"Ice cover of lakes everywhere is influenced by long term temperature trends"

So Ice cover everywhere on earth is influenced equally by GAT? Is that what you're saying? Then why didn't the scientist just use long term GAT to determine the response of ice cover on shallow lakes of the North Slope of Alaska? It would have been so much easier!

Silly scientists.

So Ice cover everywhere on earth is influenced equally by GAT?

That's not what was stated.
You really are dishonest, aren't you Betty.

You’re a broken record Hardley.

There writes a person with a complete and utter lack of self-awareness, demonstrated immediately as the comment continues on to execute the umpteenth replay of his favourite broken record...

I'd be tempted to imagine that the comment was a Poe, but unfortunately based on past evidence Betula appears to be all too sincere.

“Its junk science jeff,”(sic)

More likely, junk journalism in a junk right wing paper pandering to their junk-headed readers by punting yet another junk anxiety.

deltoid, the No.1 open thread blog. Where the CAGW tin foil hats meet and praise the warm mongering church. Amen!

First, what chek said about your deliberate and dishonest insertion of "equally" into your false framing of what I actually said.

Second, the reduced freeze in these Alaskan lakes is caused by AGW. ORLY? you say. How so sure? Well, let's review the natural mechanisms in play:

- "Cold phase" PDO (check)

- Uprecedentedly low solar activity (check)

- Increased negative aerosol forcing from equatorial volcanism (check)

- Increased ocean heat uptake (check)

And yet the ice cover is *still diminishing*. Unless you have some magical fairy-farts-driven process for us, you have nothing and are going to have to accept some physical climatology for once.

then remind yourself of the general state of the cryosphere as evidenced by global glacier recession.

Now go back and click on that graph of long-term GAT.

Here's another view of that comparative GAT graph, this time with a decadal running average. This removes most of the decadal noise of natural variability and reveals the underlying trend. This is what you are trying and failing to deny.

As I said earlier, it is pointless and you should stop.

Since you are making a fuss about the cryosphere, let's look at the global picture. The World Glacier Monitoring Service has now updated its mass balance survey to 2012:

Preliminary mass balance values for the observation period 2011/12 have been reported now from more than 120 glaciers worldwide. The mass balance statistics (Table 1) are calculated based on all reported values as well as on the data from the 37 reference glaciers in ten mountain ranges (Table 2) with continuous observation series back to 1980.

The average mass balance of the glaciers with available long-term observation series around the world continues to be negative, with tentative figures indicating a further thickness reduction of 0.6 metres water equivalent (m w.e.) during the hydrological year 2012. The new data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades and brings the cumulative average thickness loss of the reference glaciers since 1980 at 16 m w.e. (see Figures 1 and 2).

Fig. 1 Mean annual mass balance of reference glaciers 1980 - 2012

Fig. 2 Mean cumulative mass balance of ALL reported glaciers (blue dashed) vs reference glaciers (red) 1980 - 2012

Actually, its not junk science at all. But, as Chek says, its tarnished by the source, a far right rag that caters to the lowest of the low. The term junk science is the purview of Stephen Milloy, so it tells you what kinds of crap GSW reads.

There's every chance that in vacant niches rats could radiate to evolve into huge animals - in a few million years. I see nothing suggesting that, under certain conditions, this could not be the case. But its a shame that science like this gets the Daily Fail treatment. Its these same rags that deniers often cite for their information on climate science, and its equally egregious.

Jeff Harvey

While you are there, I have just had Richard Tol confirm directly to me that he is indeed on the advisory board of DGR. Please see here.

"deltoid, the No.1 open thread blog"

Yet before you and the slug horde were claiming that this site was never visited and was a wasteland.

Please make your mind up.

do try to follow along before you comment.

Ice cover of lakes everywhere is influenced by long term temperature trends

Gosh, it appears Betty doesn't think that temperature has any role in freezing or melting, THAT'S why Betty doesn't comprehend your point, BBD!

Also, Jeff, WRT hot climates and gigantism in poikilotherms - specifically snakes, specifically the evolution of titanoboa during the Paleocene, have you seen Matthew Huber on 'snake paleothermometry'? Short article here. Really big snakes appear to need a hotter environment than any currently available, hence no giant snakes today. It's interesting, although novel and Huber only says that it's a tentative piece of evidence for a hot Paleocene equator 60 - 58Ma. He also points out that the much hotter conditions during the PETM probably killed off many species already at the edge of their thermal envelope during the upper Paleocene.

Perhaps you should clam up about claiming to know what I have claimed…

Just because YOU don't know what the hell you're saying doesn't mean nobody else can work it out, luv.

#33 BBD, thanx.

#38 cRR

My apologies - that comment should have been addressed to you both.

#39, oh, well, I just took myself to have been adressed : ) .

BBD, I replied to one of Tol's nauseating comments about environmentalism on the blog. That he is associated with the Groene Rekenkamer tells me a lot about him. Nothing surprising, of course. Tol's is an economist and not a scientist. Yet IMHO he writes about topics that have clear environmental implications as if he has some kind of innate wisdom to understand the natural economy,

As an economist, though, has Tol EVER shown proof of the alarmist claims that any of the proposed solutions to overproduction of CO2 would cause the devastating economic impact that the alarmists insist would take place?

Jeff

I'm very pleased to see you over at ATTP. The comments policy is pretty hot on civility (see the strapline of the blog) so don't let the idiots wind you up visibly. But with that caveat in mind, you might enjoy the conversation over there. Worth putting on your watch list, at the very least.

"Tol’s is an economist and not a scientist. Yet IMHO he writes about topics that have clear environmental implications as if he has some kind of innate wisdom to understand the natural economy,"

Are you sure you're not talking about Rajendra Pachauri?

Encirclement.

"Are you sure you’re not talking about Rajendra Pachauri?"

Yes, he is.

Why aren't you?

#44, not a single day mean below freezing in de Bilt, Holland till now: another record.
Drowned Cornwall is taking another drenching as we speak.
Once more Friday/Saturday.
Once more Monday/Tuesday.
Those will include the further demolishment of Irish sea defences too - stuff that had survived over 150 years of Atlantic violence.

Encirclement.

I just *love* the way Betty gets hammered into the floor on any given topic - eg long temperature time-series and cryospheric diminution, above - and then carries on as if fuck-all had happened.

It is the very essence of intellectual dishonesty.

#46 -
4406 U.S. record cold temperatures in January.
1073 snowfall records.
150 years of Atlantic violence might have an affect on sea defenses. And it's amazing that after 150 years of Atlantic violence, Atlantic violence surprises you...
And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?

Encirclement.

Betty, are you seriously arguing that MSL isn't rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?

There are two factors at work - thermal expansion, driven directly by OHC increase - and the contribution from ice sheet melt.

Both are driven by the ongoing and increasing radiative imbalance caused by the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Sometimes I have to stop and re-calibrate. What is it that you are denying exactly? Because to me, at times like this, it *sounds* as though you are denying radiative physics (aka the 'greenhouse effect').

You seem to be implying that either there is no GHE, or if there is, that CO2 is not an efficacious climate forcing. Which is it?

#48, then there must be about 44.060 US record warm temps in January because that would reflect the typical trend of ratio of warm vs cold records. The heat records, incidentally, are MUCH more impressive. Have a look in the west e.g. California and Alaska.

Snowfallrecords, they are in Austria too (where January was 4th to 1st warmest in at least 300 years) and they are usually AGW. More precipitation, remember?

150 years of Atlantic violence taking suddenly effect this past month, Bets?

"And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?"
Astronomically much in terms of preparation. After the floods of 1953 killing almost 2000 in our country huge money goes into protecting the country.
We CAN withstand a rise of 1 metre do you know. Except... The rivers get a harder time every year flowing out the water to the ever rising sea (which on our coast is about the global average). In January 2012 a #6 wettest December following a record dry November already resulted in almost disaster in
weather conditions that used to be unremarkable.
Go speak with the Dutch Delta Commission.

As you know Central Europe got the two worst floods of a millenium (at least) last year and in 2002. We in Holland are just waiting for our turn. The quarter million evacs from the river floods in 1995 will mean nothing in comparison. And we have nowhere to run, mate.
Neither have you, actually, except into silence. Please.

#49, Bets is denying a very inconvenient truth. The defense has all the hallmarks of utter panic including incoherence. At this point all climate revisionism is in a state of decomposition.

#50 - 44,060 (decimal and mille separators in Holland are used the other way round).

"Betty, are you seriously arguing that MSL isn’t rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?"

No. I asked a question:

And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?

"then there must be about 44.060 US record warm temps in January because that would reflect the typical trend of ratio of warm vs cold records"

4406 U.S. record cold temps in January...
1259 U.S. record warm temps in January...

But you were close.

Btw we and Belgium got the highest storm surge since the 1953 disaster last December. Damages nil, investment into protection everything. Still the southwest of the country, which was hit in '53, stayed awake that night. So did many in the northeast, there not only from the surge but because this century has begun featuring earthquakes from winning methane in our famous gas field. Houses have already been destroyed, and there is great fear for dykes rolling over because of quake during a surge.

#54, well I would be close if we considered a little more than a few percent of the global surface, now wouldn't we.

#53, you have your answer. For more information contact the Delta Commission.
We are at about 1.5 billion USD/year for now.

"well I would be close if we considered a little more than a few percent of the global surface, now wouldn’t we"

But you weren't. Were you.

And you act like dealing with water problems is something new in Holland. Are you sure you know where you are?

"Btw we and Belgium got the highest storm surge since the 1953 disaster last December"

So the 1953 storm surge was due to Global Warming?

"you have your answer".
"Damages nil"

Thanks for the honesty.

#58, you were obsessed with that tiny part of earth called the US. Not me. So I gave you some food. You will never forget about the ratio again, see. And you are quite unlikely to ever come up with such nice numbers again. Although, the jet getting stuck ever more might produce some cold waves, yet, while compensation of course with much larger and greater hot anomalies.

#59, no.
So a much weaker storm resulting in almost the same levels as '53 a half century later, was. Get it?

#60, you do understand that about 0.2% or slightly over of Dutch GDP goes to sea and river defenses?
GDP is worlds #18.

It does not think. It simply does not think. #59 nails it.

Answer the question at # 49 please Betty.

Stop being so absurdly evasive all the time.

Here you go again. Answer properly this time:

Betty, are you seriously arguing that MSL isn’t rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?

There are two factors at work – thermal expansion, driven directly by OHC increase – and the contribution from ice sheet melt.

Both are driven by the ongoing and increasing radiative imbalance caused by the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Sometimes I have to stop and re-calibrate. What is it that you are denying exactly? Because to me, at times like this, it *sounds* as though you are denying radiative physics (aka the ‘greenhouse effect’).

You seem to be implying that either there is no GHE, or if there is, that CO2 is not an efficacious climate forcing. Which is it?

As we know, when Betty crows, you know that behind the front, he's on a loser. But then flashes-in-the-pan are all deniers are lucky to get these days.
according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center.

"For the first year since 1993, there were more daily record lows than daily highs that were either tied or set in 2013," reported Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton, who keeps track of the data from the climate center.

Through Dec. 28, there have been 11,852 daily record lows in 2013, compared with 10,073 daily record highs, according to Walton. A "daily" record occurs when a specific location sets a record high or low temperature for a particular day; other types of records include monthly and all-time.

Walton said that an unusually cold spring was the main factor in the "cool" 2013. The year 2013 was a stunning turnaround from the USA's amazingly warm year of 2012, when more than 34,000 record highs were measured across the country, as compared with only about 6,600 record lows.

Overall, the year was likely a blip in a long-term warming trend: "The ratio of daily highs to daily lows continues to be near 3 to 1 for this decade, so far," Walton said. Also for the decade so far, there have been 700 all-time record highs set, compared with only 74 all-time record lows. Worldwide, since the USA is only about 2% of the Earth's surface, what happens here is far from representative of the planet as a whole.

Through November, the most recent month for which national and global climate statistics are available, the world was having its 4th-warmest year on record, while the USA was seeing its 35th-warmest on record, the NCDC reports.Climate records go back to the 1880s

In 2013, the nation's hottest temperature was 129 degrees, recorded at Death Valley, Calif., on June 30, while the coldest was the -58 degree mark in Chicken, Alaska, on Dec. 26, according to Christopher Burt, weather historian with the Weather Underground.

True to form, I expect Betty will attempt to deflect this by denying he's a denier.

"you do understand that about 0.2% or slightly over of Dutch GDP goes to sea and river defenses?"

I would hope so. You live below sea level and are sinking. And how many years has this been going on?

"Here you go again. Answer properly this time"

I love it. I ask a question. You answer my question with a question. I repeat the question. You ask me to answer your question.
Answer the question:
And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?

Do try to follow along chek, I know it's tough.

Ralph Kramden wanted to discuss weather at #46 so I returned in kind.

The numbers I were talking about were for January. Again January. That would be why Ralph responded with this:
" then there must be about 44.060 US record warm temps in January because that would reflect the typical trend of ratio of warm vs cold records"

However, I do appreciate you posting the information regarding the record cold temperatures for the year and proving Kramden wrong on a much larger scale.

Thanks.

Betty

And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?

Betty, we are at the beginning of the process. You are doing the usual denier fuckwit thing where you look backwards over the last half century and try to argue that this will tell us about the future. Really, it won't. Especially not where sea level rise is concerned. The clue is in the word "rise". So stop being evasive and playing silly rhetorical games with me and answer my perfectly reasonable question arising from your odd statements above.

And remember, the more you evade, the more dishonest you look, even to yourself. So answer the question. It's in your own interest to do so:

Once again - are you seriously arguing that MSL isn’t rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?

There are two factors at work – thermal expansion, driven directly by OHC increase – and the contribution from ice sheet melt.

Both are driven by the ongoing and increasing radiative imbalance caused by the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Sometimes I have to stop and re-calibrate. What is it that you are denying exactly? Because to me, at times like this, it *sounds* as though you are denying radiative physics (aka the ‘greenhouse effect’).

You seem to be implying that either there is no GHE, or if there is, that CO2 is not an efficacious climate forcing. Which is it?

However, I do appreciate you posting the information regarding the record cold temperatures for the year and proving Kramden wrong on a much larger scale.

Blah, blah, blah. Weather isn't climate. Look at the long-term trends in global average temperature. It's only early days yet, but you can see what is starting to happen.

Now, back to GHE denial...

And for FUCK's sake stop using the USA as a proxy for the entire planet.

Do you know how much of the planet's surface area is covered by the contiguous US? Any idea at all? Go on - guess.

It's less than 2%. Stop being so utterly fucking stupid please.

Now, back to your GHE denial...

Good ol' Betty, who reliably crows over the carefully framed and meaningless micro-point while avoiding the macro-point.

BBD, you are wasting your breath with Batty man. Asking about the damage done to the Netherlands by seal level rise thus far reveals a complete inability to grasp the notion of thresholds and predictable events. Batty's the kind of guy who would sit by and watch someone throw matches into his house after pouring fuel on it and then casually ask, 'where's the damage?' just as the first flames started to flare.

Essentially Batty wants us all to wait until water is lapping at our windows, ecosystems are collapsing and general chaos is occurring before waking up and saying, "Aha! Now I see the proof! Let's do something!". By then, of course, its too late. The damage is already being done, as illustrated by numerous studies in the empirical literature, which as is well known is full of research on existing effects on biotic and abiotic parameters. The important point is that critical thresholds have not for the most part yet been exceeded, or else technology has delayed the manifestation on the human economy. But this can't go on indefinitely. Unfortunately, for people like Batty, 100% proof is required; nothing less will do. Science and policy of course should not work this way, but I have encountered enough Batty-types over the past 20 years to know exactly where they are coming from.

I had an online interaction - for lack of a better word - with a libertarian guy in Canada a few years ago who argued that acid rain never posed much of a threat to terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. I disagreed. He said he wanted proof. I supplied quite a few papers, but of course they all came with the usual caveats: the processes are still poorly understood and clearly more research is needed to fully quantify the effects of acid precipitation on nature. This was a cue for the guy to say: no problemo. Not enough evidence, business-as-usual. But science is rarely absolute. Yet the anti-environmental/pro-development/less government/right wing brigade demand absolute certainly. Until it is provided, the problems either don't exist or are overblown.

Yes, this is the mentality of Batty and other AGW downplayers or deniers.

actually seals are rising... but sea level is!

Batty, over here in western Europe we are experiencing the second warmest winter on record - after 2006/7. So both in the last decade. But again, like the USA, a small percentage of the world's land mass.

And again, you are citing a blip of one data point in a small part of the world in one season. Can you not get your head around long term trends?

Speaking of encirclement, look in the mirror.

"Once again – are you seriously arguing that MSL isn’t rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?"

Where did you get this? Because I asked how much damage has happened to Holland to date? It's below sea level and fragile, I wanted to be clear about where we were at this moment in time. It would be the same as asking how many polar bears have died as a direct result of climate change to date....a reference point. Of course, if you were to ask the average person on the street how many polar bears have died as a direct result of AGW, what do you think they would say? Zero?

I realize MSL has been rising, in fact it's been rising for 20,000 years, and it will continue to rise IF OHC continues...how it follows the long term trend is a question mark.

"And for FUCK’s sake stop using the USA as a proxy for the entire planet"

Did you read #46 Barney? Did you read what I was responding to, or are you being intellectually dishonest?

Good Ol' chek, who can't tell the difference between a month and a year...#69.

" Asking about the damage done to the Netherlands by seal level rise thus far reveals a complete inability to grasp the notion of thresholds and predictable events"

Hardley, I thought for sure someone would have witnessed climate change damage first hand in Holland by now. Especially you....

#69, factor ten.

~79 ... in which Betty puffs up the stupid to enable him to still miss the larger picture.

I realize MSL has been rising, in fact it’s been rising for 20,000 years, and it will continue to rise IF OHC continues…how it follows the long term trend is a question mark.

Why the "IF"?

I repeat:

Sometimes I have to stop and re-calibrate. What is it that you are denying exactly? Because to me, at times like this, it *sounds* as though you are denying radiative physics (aka the ‘greenhouse effect’).

You seem to be implying that either there is no GHE, or if there is, that CO2 is not an efficacious climate forcing. Which is it?

* * *

You have again blanked the important part of what I said above, so I will simply repeat it:

We are at the beginning of the process. You are doing the usual denier fuckwit thing where you look backwards over the last half century and try to argue that this will tell us about the future. Really, it won’t. Especially not where sea level rise is concerned. The clue is in the word “rise”. So stop being evasive and playing silly rhetorical games with me and answer my perfectly reasonable question arising from your odd statements above.

And remember, the more you evade, the more dishonest you look, even to yourself. So answer the question. It’s in your own interest to do so.

I cannot make it any clearer than that. Please answer my questions without further wriggling.

how it follows the long term trend is a question mark.

Yes, we can argue about whether the WAIS collapse will begin by the end of this century or sometime next century. What is inarguable is that the last time GAT was 1 - 2C above the present, mean sea level was at least six metres above late Holocene levels. This occurred because the WAIS collapsed, at least partially, there was ~2m contribution to MSL from the Greenland ice sheet and possibly 1 - 2m from various bits of East Antarctica. The big mystery these days is how much came from the WAIS relative to the EAIS.

It does not think. It simply does not think.

Either that, or it deliberately clings to bad thinking after the badness has been pointed out repeatedly.

(Mind you, that provides much the same result in the end.)

Good ol’ Betty, who reliably crows over the carefully framed and meaningless micro-point while avoiding the macro-point.

Exactly. It is a lovely illustration that the denialists don't have a leg to stand on with respect to the key conclusions of climate science, so we can thank Betula for at least providing that ongoing service. And with such enthusiasm and commitment too!

I said somewhere Dutch sea level rise is about global average. I meant the AGW rise only. The sinking of the country aggravates the problem.

PentyPoos:

deltoid, the No.1 open thread blog. Where the CAGW tin foil hats meet and praise the warm mongering church. Amen!

This 'ere video is talking to YOU.

“Betty, are you seriously arguing that MSL isn’t rising now and will not continue to rise as OHC increases in future?”

No. I asked a question:

And speaking of Holland, how much damage has been done by sea level rise to date?

Speaking of Holland, how much damage was done to New Orleans behind a levee that wasn't kept up to the changing climate at huge expense?

Are you willing to have taxes raised to pay for the entirety of the at-risk coast of your home country to be behind a levee like Holland's risk areas are?

BirchBrain:

Hardley, I thought for sure someone would have witnessed climate change damage first hand in Holland by now. Especially you….

There is certain to be some. Right now we are witnessing climate change damage in the UK:

Here is a once familiar stretch of railway hanging in space after sea wall was washed away UK storms: Dawlish railway line 'like theme park ride'.

Sad to see that. As a child I enjoyed many a holiday there and at nearby Owlish Warren when building sand castles competed with logging the locomotives pulling the trains along the sea wall. I was lucky enough to spot the last of the GWR Star Class, forerunner of the later Castle Class some of which are still in steam, in traffic there in the mid 1950s.

This was the only rail link into Cornwall, thanks to cuts by another Tory administration which savaged the rail network, the then Minister for Transport had a decided conflict of interest by being into road haulage at the time.

Then there is this:

Aerial pictures show scale of Somerset flooding, maybe I should just come over and slap you around the head with one of these dead fish being picked up in the road.

Somerset is one of the UKs prime agricultural regions, having been based at a nearby air station (all weather fighter in my time) the names I hear on the news are oh so familiar. That ol' farmer near Huish Episcopi who used to sell good ol' scrumpy cheap to we hard up sailors. The that other farmer who drove his battered pick up fast past the sailor on point at the gate to throw battered Sea Vixen fuel bay panels (sizeable bits of structure which had come adrift in flight - metal fatigue) onto the Quaterdeck with the shout of 'Nigh on hit me cows'. Shore stations, aka Stone Class Frigates, also had quarterdecks, special tidily laid out areas in front of main admin' with the ensign mast, polished cannons and black painted balls behind white picket fence and chain.

Why is this happening, some explanation here:

UK Weather Report, Stuck Jet Stream, and Warm Arctic Update.

Now stop jerking us around with your crass comments.

Oh! Crap!

BirchBrain:

Hardley, I thought for sure someone would have witnessed climate change damage first hand in Holland by now. Especially you….

There is certain to be some. Right now we are witnessing climate change damage in the UK:

Here is a once familiar stretch of railway hanging in space after sea wall was washed away UK storms: Dawlish railway line 'like theme park ride'.

Sad to see that. As a child I enjoyed many a holiday there and at nearby Owlish Warren when building sand castles competed with logging the locomotives pulling the trains along the sea wall. I was lucky enough to spot the last of the GWR Star Class, forerunner of the later Castle Class some of which are still in steam, in traffic there in the mid 1950s.

This was the only rail link into Cornwall, thanks to cuts by another Tory administration which savaged the rail network, the then Minister for Transport had a decided conflict of interest by being into road haulage at the time.

Then there is this:

Aerial pictures show scale of Somerset flooding, maybe I should just come over and slap you around the head with one of these dead fish being picked up in the road.

Somerset is one of the UKs prime agricultural regions, having been based at a nearby air station (all weather fighter in my time) the names I hear on the news are oh so familiar. That ol' farmer near Huish Episcopi who used to sell good ol' scrumpy cheap to we hard up sailors. The that other farmer who drove his battered pick up fast past the sailor on point at the gate to throw battered Sea Vixen fuel bay panels (sizeable bits of structure which had come adrift in flight - metal fatigue) onto the Quaterdeck with the shout of 'Nigh on hit me cows'. Shore stations, aka Stone Class Frigates, also had quarterdecks, special tidily laid out areas in front of main admin' with the ensign mast, polished cannons and black painted balls behind white picket fence and chain.

Why is this happening, some explanation here:

UK Weather Report, Stuck Jet Stream, and Warm Arctic Update.

Now stop jerking us around with your crass comments.

Now WRT SLR BirchBrain, we have appreciated that Greenland's glaciers have been speeding up (look up James Balog of Extreme Ice Survey) over recent years but things now looking worse:

Redefining ‘Glacial Pace’: Greenland’s Fastest-Moving Glacier Sets New Speed Record Of 150 Feet A Day.

The next huge system, little over 940 hPa is now attacking the stricken areas in Britain and Eire. The sea, having done with the defenses in places, will start eating homes by tomorrow morning local time.

The jet stream pattern is not remarkable. Its persistence for almost four months now is unique.
The monotony of this winter in Holland is unique, with 90% of winds between SSE and SSW (record was 79%).
The lack of frost is unique.

Warmest winters of Holland:
2007: 6,5° C
1990: 6,0
1989: 5,6
1975: 5,5
1998: 5,4
1995: 5,3
2008: 5,1
2000: 5,0
1999: 5,0
2002: 4,8

The top 3 in at least 308 years.

2014 is moving third place and attacking second. An AGW list like any other what with only recent winters there and seasons this century bumping around in the top ten.

Betty refuses to acknowledge every graph of long term GAT trends I post up, so here's another one. This one has forcings too!

;-)

Key: GAT (decadal means) are shown at the top (green). The three lower curves are coherently-scaled forcings. Well-mixed GHGs (blue) and solar (yellow; bottom) bracket the total net forcing (red).

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/cowtan-way/

Betty won't read (or will refuse to understand) the link, but anyone else can see it displayed simply how this haitus is no pause in the temperature record.

#94, she'll take the usual bunk from wuwt wrt Tamino's work. Don't look or take the Sou route.

#88, Katrina, so what? Earns us gold. They've Dutch contractors and advisors there, of course. Sandy, same story. Go, Koch, hurl one of those on a US city every year, so we can pension at age 48 here. Et cetera, et cetera.

Somerset floods are good for grain prices so let's go sell beer. Cheers Wow.

Interesting interactive tool for people to see how much warming has occurred in their environment:

http://warmingworld.newscientistapps.com/

"I realize MSL has been rising, in fact it’s been rising for 20,000 years, and it will continue to rise IF OHC continues…how it follows the long term trend is a question mark."

If sea level has been rising for so many years, how come the fish tanks near Rome that were built by the Romans are still at sea level? Why aren't they under the metres of water they would be if MSL had been rising throughout the last 2000 years.

Here's a nice video. No papers to read, but a simple clear presentation. You should like it because Jerry Mitrovica gives a nice thank you to denialists for raising questions that led to interesting research results. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhdY-ZezK7w

"If sea level has been rising for so many years, how come the fish tanks near Rome that were built by the Romans are still at sea level? Why aren’t they under the metres of water they would be if MSL had been rising throughout the last 2000 years."

Because your Harvard Professor is choosing his time frame:

"Recent studies of Roman wells in Caesarea and of Roman piscinae in Italy indicate that sea level stayed fairly constant from a few hundred years AD to a few hundred years ago."

"Based on geological data, global average sea level may have risen at an average rate of about 0.5 mm/yr over the last 6,000 years and at an average rate of 0.1–0.2 mm/yr over the last 3,000 years."

"Since the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen by more than 120 m (averaging 6 mm/yr) as a result of melting of major ice sheets"

And thanks adelady, for raising questions that lead to interesting research results...

“Based on geological data, global average sea level may have risen at an average rate of about 0.5 mm/yr over the last 6,000 years and at an average rate of 0.1–0.2 mm/yr over the last 3,000 years.”

Sea level rise over the last 150 years is ~1.5 mm per year, and has accelerated to >3.0 mm per year for the last 20 years. Thats 15 times the background rate over the last 3000 years.

What do you think is the cause of the increased rate, Betula?

FWD from FrankD:

What do you think is the cause of the increased rate, Betula?

Let's remember that water expands when it warms up and ice melts when it warms up, both of which cause mean sea level to rise.

Let's factor in that pesky long term GAT graph that you won't talk about, plus any OHC reconstruction you like for the last few decades, and those world glacier mass balance graphs you don't want to discuss and...

What is it that you are denying Betty? Radiative physics or the efficacy of CO2 as a climate forcing?

You *still* have not told us. Please answer those questions before we continue further.

in the uk, we are seeing another massive climate change related event, and there is still zero mention of the ultimate cause on the mainstream news or linking it to all the other frightening climate events around the globe. they have predictably diverted attention away from climate change, (and doing something rational about it), by blathering on about a trivial and peripheral issue, dredging rivers. pathetic.

andyuk

...there is still zero mention of the ultimate cause on the mainstream news or linking it to all the other frightening climate events around the globe.

Not quite, Met Office: Evidence 'suggests climate change link to storms' .

Now, avoid food or drink whilst visiting the next link:

Climate science is for second-raters says world's greatest atmospheric physicist .

Delingpole bis now flailing around and should be retired but Lindzen deserves greater sanctions for this exchange if the quote is not munged by Delingpole, my emphasis:

Was Lindzen suggesting, asked Tim Yeo at this point, that scientists in the field of climate were academically inferior.

"Oh yeah," said Lindzen. "I don't think there's any question that the brightest minds went into physics, math, chemistry…"

WTF does Lindzen think underpins climate science? If he believes what he says then this could be evidence that Lindzen has thoroughly lost the plot. Habitual tobacco use has been implicated in the onset of degenerative brain diseases, maybe that is it. Whatever it is clear that Lindzen is no longer credible, at any level, and Curry is chasing his shadow.

Lionel A

From the BBC link:

At Prime Minister's Questions last month, Mr Cameron said he "suspected" that the recent storms to batter the UK and the extreme weather in North America were connected to global temperature changes - an argument challenged by some Conservative MPs and peers.

The political right, digging its own grave with its bare hands. But too stupid to see the writing on the sea wall.

As I've noted on several other sites, there is no hiatus, no pause in global warming.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/pacific_trade_winds_stall_global_surface_wa…

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2106…

Betty, I challenge you to prove that the IPCC predicted temperature trend of +0.17C per decade is wrong from the temperature records of the surface temperature records.

Feel free to use any global dataset of surface temperature records.

"Betty, I challenge you to prove that the IPCC predicted temperature trend of +0.17C per decade is wrong from the temperature records of the surface temperature records"

Why? Did I say this was wrong somewhere? I don't remember that conversation, please provide the link.

Thanks.

Why?

Because if you can't prove the IPCC wrong, then you can't say the IPCC are wrong.

OR is evidence something you don't believe in?

Did I say this was wrong somewhere?

Yes.

I don’t remember that conversation

Really? I don't believe you.

please provide the link.

Sorry, you never showed that the IPCC was wrong, so how can I show the link where you show the IPCC wrong?

Betty

Please answer the questions *repeated* at # 1.

"Because if you can’t prove the IPCC wrong, then you can’t say the IPCC are wrong"

Right. You can't prove a prediction of future scenarios based on incomplete data. Not right. Not wrong.

Thanks for agreeing.

"What do you think is the cause of the increased rate, Betula?"

Don't know. But I do know that data doesn't include an unexpected drop of 7mm in 2011. Supposedly because Australia is a sponge or something...

Also, remember..." It is unclear whether the increased rate reflects an increase in the underlying long-term trend."

Won't allow me to link, but source is wiki "Current Sea Level Rise"

"What do you think is the cause of the increased rate, Betula?”

Don’t know.

But you insist you know it isn't AGW, Betty, dear.

How can you know that if you don't know what it was?

You can’t prove a prediction of future scenarios based on incomplete data.

Maybe not, but that's not what you or I were talking about, we were talking about PAST data: neither of us think there has been any temperature haitus.

But somehow you're unable to actually express your disbelief in a temperature haitus because that means the temperature has been climbing and climbing all along.

What is it about that which makes you incapable of saying what you think, when you so clearly will repeat any old rubbish you think of if it comes up with the opposite conclusion?

You..."Because if you can’t prove the IPCC wrong, then you can’t say the IPCC are wrong"

Me..."You can’t prove a prediction of future scenarios based on incomplete data"

You..."Maybe not, but that’s not what you or I were talking about, we were talking about PAST data"

Me...We were talking about proving the IPCC wrong, and since the IPCC is all about predicting future scenarios, there is nothing to be proved.
As far as IPCC and "hiatus", it's a fact that they use the term "hiatus" over a dozen times in their AR5 draft summary. Prove me wrong.

You..."you so clearly will repeat any old rubbish you think of if it comes up with the opposite conclusion"

Me...I repeated the IPCC'S own words, so now you think the IPCC is "rubbish"?

Encirclement.

You…”Maybe not, but that’s not what you or I were talking about, we were talking about PAST data”

Me…We were talking about proving the IPCC wrong

Yes, and that is in the past, so your whine "You can’t prove a prediction of future scenarios based on incomplete data” is irrelevant, betty dearest.

Me…I repeated the IPCC’S own words, so now you think the IPCC is “rubbish”?

No, you're speaking rubbish and hiding behind nonsense you spout, dearie.

You've agreed with the scientists that there has been no haitus, then you put quotes around words that say there has been a haitus, then you claim you've never said a thing.

Please make up your mind yourself, or are you incapable of that?

As far as IPCC and “hiatus”, it’s a fact that they use the term “hiatus” over a dozen times in their AR5 draft summary. Prove me wrong.

Yup, when you morons squeal with delight "there's been a haitus", then someone who says "there is no haitus" has used the term haitus in their rebuttal.

Mentioning the word haitus is not proof that the haitus exists.

Prove me wrong.

PS is this the best your chums could do to dig you out of this shithole you've dug yourself (and filled with their excrement)?

Betula
February 11, 2014

Will you start trying to blockquote so that your unintelligible is at least readable?

Now answer the questions in the Feb thread.

Lionel,

Don't care about avoiding blockquote. If someone takes something quoted as something said because the formatting betty can manage is a bit shit, well, that's betty's problem. If they wanted to be clearer, there are better ways of doing it, but otherwise, any "mistake" engendered by the poor presentation betty manages to pinch out here are not failures of others but itself.