The Oregon Petition

The 30,000 Global Warming Petition Is Easily-Debunked Propaganda:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_…

Harumph, it's ORE-gun, not OR-i-gone.

I'd add the following links:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12#feature
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/07/petitioning-on-climate-…
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/07/petitioning-on-climate-…

Bottom is that petitions don't allow one to draw conclusions about consensus (one needs a well define survey), and despite the fact that 30000+ signatories seems like a big number, given the size of the relevant populations it is an exceedingly small number.

You guys are a laugh. In case you haven't read the news, the IPCC has shown to be telling porkies all along. They are no longer to be trusted. Event the chief science adviser of the UK government has just announced that the IPCC findings are questionable. It's all snowballing as more and more evidence is being uncovered of the corrupt science of the IPCC. Don't take my word fo rit - read the news, if you dare.

Can Peter of Sydney tell us who he trusts?

Can Peter of Sydney tell us who he trusts?

Not his own sources, apparently. Here's what John Beddington *really* said.

âItâs unchallengeable that CO2 traps heat and warms the Earth and that burning fossil fuels shoves billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. But where you can get challenges is on the speed of change.

âWhen you get into large-scale climate modelling there are quite substantial uncertainties. On the rate of change and the local effects, there are uncertainties both in terms of empirical evidence and the climate models themselves.â

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7003622.ece

The 'skeptics' Beddington encourages interaction with are those who look at specific implications of climate change. Our dear Peter here--in classic denier style--got his information secondhand and couldn't wait to run home and tell us off. I doubt we'll see him again, though.

@Skip:
but this is in the Times!
They are not to be trusted when it comes to quoting:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/ResponseToTimes.html

LOL. Thanks for the link. That is pretty sad.

I know the feeling, too. My own research has been misquoted in the media and I even had to correct the Wickipedia entry about it. I does make you wonder.

But even the quotes the Times provide in the Beddington case show he was *not* saying IPCC findings are questionable, as claimed by our discussant above.

If 97% of scientists agree I do not know why everyone on this blog gets so exercised about a few people disagreeing with them. Why are people so obsessed that this blog has to have sections about "How to talk to a climate skeptic" (although of course the phrase is nonsense as what you presumably mean is "how to talk to a man-made global warming skeptic")?
You will not convert them!
Just keep calm and carry on secure in the knowledge that the sheer persuasive force of the peer-reviewed settled science will eventually triumph over the "arrogant" " voodoo science" of the "deniers". If everyone who matters already agrees with you, what exactly is the problem?
More science and less talk of heresy,please.

Jack, I think you know very well that scientists may agree on something, but that action needs to be taken by politicians. And if politicians aren't convinced (read: their constituency are not convinced), nothing happens.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that vaccination is a REALLY good idea. ONE(!) false claim linking MMR and autism has led to 15-20% of the UK population stopping vaccination of their children against measles, mumps, and rubella.

Who do I trust? I trust no one. I trust the scientific method, which has been deliberately and unambiguously corrupted by the IPCC. As the UK chief scientists said, "I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper scepticism. Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed"

He also said that the false claim in the IPCCâs 2007 report that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 had exposed a wider problem with the way that some evidence was presented.

If you don't agree with what he said then you are against the scientific method and the pursuit of the scientific truth.

More at; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7003622.ece

Who do I trust? I trust no one. I trust the scientific method, which has been deliberately and unambiguously corrupted by the IPCC.

Since the IPCC doesn't do science, how can they corrupt the scientific method?

Enquiring minds want to know ...

There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed

Yes, that uncertainty has always been made clear by climate scientists, and that uncertainty is reflected in the IPCC WG1 report on the state of the science.

The uncertainty is that climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is most like about 3C, with a range of about 2C-4.5C.

The uncertainty isn't that basic physics that's been known since the 1950s (with its roots having been developed a century earlier) is suddenly going to stop being true and that there will be no warming.

Denialists - including yourself, I'm sure - constantly insist that climate sensitivity will be much less than 2C, entirely outside the range given by mainstream science, and have nothing but handwaving and political ideology to back up that claim.

If the basics of the physics underlying CO2-forced warming is wrong, why isn't the earth an iceball? It's CO2 that keeps the planet from being one.

Most of you are all still in 2009 mode. This is 2010 and things have changed dramatically. The IPCC has been caught out several times now as preaching falsehoods. There's no question about that since the IPCC has admitted they got it wrong on these accounts. So don't try and divert attention to the real issue: the IPCC has broken all rules in scientific debate and review. Peer review to them means a closed and tightly knit group of people who all agree with the AGW thesis and discourage and expel criticism made by climate scientists. It's time for a complete review of the IPCC and the for the chairman to resign. Take note of what's said here:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/01/26/t…

Yes, the IPCC has been caught with two or three errors in the nearly 1,000-page Working Group II report.

Anyway, it's quite likely your side will win and no significant US commitment to limiting CO2 emissions will be the result.

The world outside your window doesn't care, though, it's still going to melt ...

It's more than just two or three. In fact it's now getting hard to find anything that they have said is correct. As is being realized by many well renowned scientists around the world, it's time to review the whole process of the IPCC and start again. The false cries of a man-made global warming catastrophe are gone on for too long and too loud, and people are sick of it. We need to find out what is really happening, not follow some propaganda peddled by a political organization which rejects all criticisms made by well informed and highly professional climate scientists.

So Peter of Sydney, by your logic if we can find any errors in anything denialists say, the whole case against climate change falls apart. Is that a fair summary, or does it only count if the other side says something wrong?

And if you want to find out what is really happening, here's a thought. Read some studies and papers which contain actual data, not the opinions of others on blog sites.

Oh, and another thing, if you are going to link to articles from the press, try to actually read the article itself, and do a little background reading. That article from Terence Corcoran says nothing substantial, other than being a personal tirade against the IPCC. It offers no evidence, and is just personal abuse. But then, I would expect nothing more from someone who is a business writer (ie knows nothing about science), who argues against Government and for free markets, and who argued against Kyoto on the grounds that "..carbon dioxide was released in general by animal respiration and taken in by plants during photosynthesis.." and that Kyoto would make breathing illegal.

Hardly the stuff to inspire confidence (I would say downright moronic, but I'm too nice a guy).

Show me one report or article by the IPCC that shows man-made CO2 has caused all the global temperature to rise over the past 100 years or so, and explain why natural forces ceased to be influential, while only natural forces impacted climate change prior to this period. If you can provide me with such a reference I will consider the AGW thesis that man is at least the primary cause if not the only cause of the rise in temperature (which happens to be well within normal operations parameters of natural variation).

Oh, gosh, Peter of Sydney says "show me one report that science claims something that science doesn't claim, and then I'll believe in science!"

You're saying the equivalent of, "show me one report that the next time I drop an apple it will fly off to the moon, and if you can do so, then I'll believe in gravity".

Presumably you have no idea as to how stupid your post is.

To PoS,

Dont hold your breath waiting for a response to your question in post 18.

I wont hold my breath waiting for Dhogaza to explain this:

"If the basics of the physics underlying CO2-forced warming is wrong, why isn't the earth an iceball? It's CO2 that keeps the planet from being one."

To Mandas,

The "appeal to authority" position is a double edged sword, you constantly have "Ah-ha" moments were you berate every sceptic for the use of non peer reviewed studies/opinions and yet it now seems the IPCC is riddled with the very same from the likes of WWF etc.

The IPCC claims to be THE authority, the central plank of its so called evidence is based on model outputs, model outputs that are formed in part on assumptions. So in support of its assumptions it has gathered up as much circumstantial evidence that it can find, examples of which are "himalayan glaciers to melt by 2035" etc etc.

In its haste to do this it just grabbed any headline grabbing story it could find, unfortunately some aspects of its work was based on mere speculation and exaggeration.

So does this incompetence/deception challanged the central issue of AGW based on model assumptions? No of course not but what it does do is severely damage the IPCC's credibility.

By the way the next time you decide to have a "Ah-ha" moment with me dont bother if it is good enough for the IPCC to use non peer reviewed stories by non scientific people then it is good enough for the rest of us.

As I suspected there is no such report or paper that even comes close to showing that man-made CO2 has even caused a significant proportion of the global warming, let alone all of it. Funny how all this appears to be based on conjecture and faith, not scientific evidence. No wonder some call AGW a religion.

BTW, I do agree we should reduce our greenhouse gases and pollution to minimize man's impact on the environment. This does not mean I agree with the AGW thesis. It's just that I like to breathe clean air, drink clean water and avoid any possibility of impacting the climate no matter how small. Having said that I see no concerted effort by any government going down this path. All I see is Western governments trying to introduce a new tax structure to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, while the other major contributors like China and India continue to expand their emissions at an unabated rate. Let me know when China, India, and the US agree to stop building any more fossil fired powered stations. I can't see it in my life time. Forget about renewable forms as they are too expensive. The only real option if one was serious about reducing CO2 emissions is nuclear.

Peter
You do know that the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and climate has been understood for over a century, right? So anyone can go back over that time and find dozens of papers on the subject. You asked for just one and you will accept that climate change is anthropogenic? Ok, here you go:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v398/n6730/abs/398799a0.html

http://www.philosophicalturn.net/CMI/Environment/Nature_Attributing_Ant…

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;289/5477/270

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;292/5515/267

I included more than one because I didn't want you to get bored. Now, based on what you said in post #18, you will now accept that climate change is anthropogenic, or will you adopt the position of most denialists, of not accepting evidence even when it is shown to you?

Oh, and I am really confused by this statement in post #20:
"...I do agree we should reduce our greenhouse gases and pollution to minimize man's impact on the environment..."

If greenhouse gases are not causing climate change, why do we need to reduce them? Surely not to minimise man's impact on the environment, because there would be none (and no, CO2 does not cause the air or water to become less clean). So what DO you believe?

crakar
No, it's not good enough for the IPCC to use non-peer reviewed information. I have said so here and I stand by that remark. So you can get back in your box about your 'ah-ha' comment. However, the difference between the scientific and the denialist position is that we appear to have incorrectly used non-peer reviewed work on occasion(wow, you have found one!!). The denialist camp NEVER uses peer reviewed information. I think that says it all.

"The false cries of a man-made global warming catastrophe are gone on for too long and too loud, and people are sick of it. We need to find out what is really happening" - POS.

You can start here:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

Peter,

While nuclear energy is certainly one serious option it is hardly the only one. The construction of a nuclear power facility (purely on a technical basis) can take many years and that is AFTER you negotiate the political complexities of where to locate it - they are not the preferred suburban neighbour.

In this regard nuclear power is not a good short term option.

These papers are worth consideration (they don't necessarily conclude for any ideological side of the arguement, but consider lifecycle aspects of energy generation) also when considering comparative emissions of energy generation:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2004.07.020
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0306-2619(00)00016-7
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2006.06.022
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0920-3796(00)00158-7

"As I suspected there is no such report or paper that even comes close to showing that man-made CO2 has even caused a significant proportion of the global warming, let alone all of it. Funny how all this appears to be based on conjecture and faith, not scientific evidence. No wonder some call AGW a religion."

Seriously - I think you are approaching this from an ideological rather than scientific perspective.

Thanks Dappledwater I'll have a look. It won't change one aspect of the debate though - it's well and truly alive! No one can really dispute that - well at least most thinking people don't dispute that. BTW, here's an interesting analysis of the IPCC computer models:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/evidence-for-natural-climate-cycles…

I've always consider climate models as incomplete, inaccurate and crude. One thing that's missed by most today is the fact the IPCC predicted temperatures are now already way too high compared to observed temperatures. So if the models are right, we should see a huge jump in global mean temperature very soon to play catchup. Time will tell.

Crakar:

I wont hold my breath waiting for Dhogaza to explain this:

"If the basics of the physics underlying CO2-forced warming is wrong, why isn't the earth an iceball? It's CO2 that keeps the planet from being one."

You could do worse than read about Tyndall's discovery of GHGs 150 years ago. He measured the IR absorption of CO2, N, O2, water vapor etc and correctly concluded that water vapor was the most important GHG in the atmosphere, and CO2 next.

By about the 1950s the physical process was worked out in detail.

You really don't accept that GHGs in our atmosphere keeps the earth about 33K warmer than it would be otherwise? That the very fundamentals laid down by Tyndall, including his laboratory work, are wrong?

Oh, and as far as 33K being enough to cause a snowball earth, keep in mind that the average global temperature during the last ice age was only about 5K colder than today.

Crakar:
"However, the difference between the scientific and the denialist position is that we appear to have incorrectly used non-peer reviewed work on occasion(wow, you have found one!!). The denialist camp NEVER uses peer reviewed information. I think that says it all."

1. The IPCC report is full of references to WWF documents. The latest that is being blown up is the Amazon claims.

2. CO2 Science is full of peer reviewed documents that contradict the AGW orthodoxy.

3. Spencer, Lindzay, Loehle, Pielke, Christy have all published peer reviewed papers that contradict the AGW claims.

4. Considering that peer review is a secret, manipulated program and considering that publication in major science periodicals is also manipulated, the publication of peer reviewed material is hardly a measure of the worth of an idea.

5. When the peer review and the publication process misses things like Mann using proxie series upside down, it doesn't make being a climate scientist or publishing in major journals very confidence inspiring.

6. I'm only a software engineer, but even I can blow up peer reveiwed papers from the AGW side as I do here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-inconvient-truth-…

Corey, how ya doin? Nice to see that your blog is still alive. Went to Jo Abbass' blog last night and found that it had died. But Jo hasn't realized it yet.

PoS and Crakar,

So you guys feel competent to evaluate the science of AGW, do you? Sorry, but you're both conspicuous victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Don't be too discouraged, because you may be able to overcome D-K:

If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

It won't be easy, though. You'll need to start with the introductory material in physics, chemistry, oceanography, biology and climatology, and work your way up at least to the graduate level. You'll also need to become intimate with the massive amount of empirical data, from multiple independent sources, that AGW theory draws on. That only comes from reading all the historic as well as current literature, conducting experiments, and developing and testing models. Of course, in the process, you'll have to participate fully in the community of professional peers who've been working on this for decades: not only in informal discussions, but by presenting your ideas at the same conferences and publishing articles in the same journals they do, all of which unavoidably entails exposing yourself to their unsparing criticism - hoo, boy 8^(!

That's what it will take for you to have any credibility with the experts, boys. Until you pay your dues, you're just advertising your ignorance every time you post. The D-K effect keeps you from recognizing that, but it's perfectly clear to the rest of us. Doesn't that concern you a little?

Sorry, got my reference person wrong. It should be mandas.

Yes, I recognize my own lack of HTML skill. See how easy it is to escape the Dunning-Kruger effect 8^)?

Mal,
Problem is, those are the folks you need to convince, by and large. And I wouldn't recommend starting by insulting them. But, hey, that's just me.

PaulinMI,

Problem is, those are the folks you need to convince, by and large. And I wouldn't recommend starting by insulting them. But, hey, that's just me.

Sure I'd like to convince PoS and Crakar, but the D-K is strong in them, and anyway how do you tell someone they're a D-K victim without insulting them? Resistance to recognizing their relative lack of expertise is a feature of D-K.

What I really hope is that other, lurking non-climate-experts will recognize their own non-expert status, and consider carefully whom they'll choose to believe.

Mal:
"What I really hope is that other, lurking non-climate-experts will recognize their own non-expert status, and consider carefully whom they'll choose to believe."

So, what you are saying is that if I just study hard enough that I will be able to use upside down proxy series and cherry picked proxy series like Mann. And I will be able to no longer tell the difference between 2035 and 2350. And I will be able to claim that warming is proof of AGW because - hey, what else could it be. That I will be able to use iadequate data sets for my ananlysis method, like Briffa. I will be able to extrapolate a sea shore ice effect all over the polar areas and claim continued temperature rise like Hansen. That I'll be able to claim that 12 years of no warming is just natural variation - even though I can't identify the natural variation that is responsible. I can't wait.

PaulinMI:
"Problem is, those are the folks you need to convince, by and large. And I wouldn't recommend starting by insulting them. But, hey, that's just me."

Unfortunately, you don't understand why Mal is an AGW zealot. It allows him to puff up his ego while pretending that he is helping to save the world. His attacks on skeptics are not designed to accomplish anything. He simply wants to make himself feel superior. And in the vastness of his illogic he thinks he can do that simply through arguments from authority. Now he's read about something call a Dunning-Kreuger effect, and like a man who only has a hammer, everthing begins to look like a nail.

Tilo,

The argument from competence is not the argument from authority. When I point out that a denier is a victim of the D-K effect, I'm saying the denier is arguing from incompetence.

Note that a feature of D-K is that, if a victim makes the effort, they can become competent. Unfortunately, the effort required to become competent in climate-related science is much greater than many deniers are willing, even if they're able, to make.

It's as clear as day follows night that the notion man is causing our climate to get out of control and create massive destruction to life on this planet via storms, rising sea levels, runaway temperature, etc., are all pure speculation and have no credible scientific foundation let alone evidence. Anyone who knows how climate has always changed well before man even used the first fire understands this. The climate changes we have experienced ever since the start of the industrial age are nothing unusual. Anyone who says they were needs to provide evidence. Ever since the infamous hockey stick charts have been completely debunked, the IPCC have not a shred of evidence to support the notion that man has altered the climate in any significant way.

The IPCC claims to be THE authority, the central plank of its so called evidence is based on model outputs, model outputs that are formed in part on assumptions.--Crakar

Utterly wrong.

The IPCC is rendering the *consensus* of scientific authority; they are not claiming to be it. That is very, very different. And the models are *not* the key âevidenceâ for AGW. The evidence for AGW is our current climate compared to the pre-industrial age and the well-understood physical properties of CO2. The exact details (degree of forcing relative to other factors; the precise impacts over the next 100 years) are indeed subject to the uncertainties of model assumptions. But I will not let you get away with sneaking in that kind of false presumption into this discussion.

Come on, Crakar; all youâre straw men burn just as brightly, so there is no need to keep erecting them.

So in support of its assumptions it has gathered up as much circumstantial evidence that it can find, examples of which are "Himalayan[sic] glaciers to melt by 2035" etc etc.

Just plain wrong.

This was cited by the IPCC (wrongly, I think we all agree) as a *precautionary concern*. Iâm sorry but Crakar you have utterly missed the point of this mistake. They were not using the projected melting as proof of AGW. They were using to warn of *prospective consequences*. Youâve just flat out misread this.

Its another example of flawed logic and straw-man reasoning. Find a mistake (and this definitely is one) and reject everything else through guilt by association.

âThe IPCC was wrong about this; therefore I donât have to believe the IPCC on anything.â

I think we call this the âfallacy of the consequentâ but correct me if Iâm wrong, Crakar.

Hereâs an analogy thatâs close to home.

Step 1âThe Mistake

While dodging a direct question on another matter, (you might even say, in haste to do this [he] just grabbed any headline grabbing story [he] could find), Crakar plagiarizes a document that shows a glaring misunderstanding of the distinction between the residence time of an individual CO2 molecule and the overall atmospheric concentration of CO2.

Similarly, IPCC makes unsubstantiated, apocalyptic claim about Himalayan glacial melt based on nonscientific partisan groupâs claim. The statement occurred within the larger document and was never a central feature of the IPCCs fundamental claims about the AGW thesis.

Phase 2âthe Reaction

I and several others harangue Crakar about this, requesting clarification/admission of wrongdoing.

Similarly, various global warming skeptics pounce on the IPCC error, declaring victory against IPCC âfraud.â

Phase 3âthe Response

After months, Crakar finally does the right thing (again, bravo) and admits the error and apologizes and promises to strive to avoid such pranks in the future.

Likewise, within days, IPCC lead admits the error, and also agrees to exercise more quality control in future assessment report claims.

Conclusion:

Both parties made a mistake. Both parties admitted error. Both parties agreed to try to improve.

Weâre all human, Crakar, but by *your very own logic* I can now declare, any time I wish, that your credibility is âseverely damagedâ, and therefore I can use that to dodge any other argument you make, no matter how strongâjust as you are doing by focusing on this mole hill of admitted IPCC error and ignoring the mountain of scientific evidence in support AGW upon which the IPCC derives its *central* claims.

But I have not, and will not, do that, Crakar. I think your skepticism toward AGW is ideologically driven (narratives again), but where I think I have something to say in response I will address *your arguments*. I wonât just cite your previous mistakes as proof that anything you say now is wrong. I respect your intellect enough to give you that--and the authors at the IPCC have a lot more clout than you.

See my point?

Mal:
"I'm saying the denier is arguing from incompetence."

That's what we call and unsubstantiated assertion. Competence is not bestowed through a degree. The kinds of errors that have been made by the climate scientists can be found with nothing more than all around competence and common sense. Also the errors of climate scientists can be found by statisticians when the error is in statistics. They can be found by physisicts when the error is in physics. They can be found by software engineers when the errors are in programming. They can be found by journalists if the journalists want to check their reference trail - as is the case with the glaciers error. They can even be found by people like me when the assumptions behind their work are just plain dumb, as I demonstrate both here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-inconvient-truth-…

and here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/giss-temperature-record-d…

Mal:
"Unfortunately, the effort required to become competent in climate-related science is much greater than many deniers are willing, even if they're able, to make."

The same is true for you. This is why you continue to argue only from authority.

Paul of Sydney:

You said, "the IPCC have not a shred of evidence to support the notion that man has altered the climate in any significant way."

So did you read the scientific papers Grendel linked to for you? What specifically is wrong with the research in those studies?

Tilo Riber

You're kidding us right?? Your link at post #29 is your evidence? A bunch of graphs of different periods showing how you can apply different trend lines if you change the trend period?

Is that it? Wow. Not only do you need to get a science education, you also need to get an education in basic statistics, as well as read a little more on the science of climate change.

As for all your claims about the IPCC Report being "...full of references to WWF documents...", and "...CO2 Science is full of peer reviewed documents that contradict the AGW orthodoxy....", being a (I like to think) open minded scientist, please provide a little more information, including references for this view here, so I can read and review them and perhaps come to the same conclusions as you.

Peter of Sydney

Have you read all those papers I provided for you at post #25? You know, the ones you asked for and said would convince you to agree with anthropogenic climate change if we showed you just one?

I'm very disappointed, Corey. I never took you to be a "victory through censorship" kind of guy.

So did you read the scientific papers Grendel linked to for you? What specifically is wrong with the research in those studies?

Yes I have. I've also read lots of other papers and articles disputing the IPCC findings. This is just hot of the press:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm

Nice to see the debate is still raging. Whoever said the science on AGW is settled is clearly a fool.

mandas:
"A bunch of graphs of different periods showing how you can apply different trend lines if you change the trend period?"

LOL! Well, mandas, now that we have established that you have no reading comprehension, we know why you are a warmer.

mandas:
"please provide a little more information, including references"

Here is a link to the WWF references in the IPCC AR4:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/the-scandal-deepens-ipcc-ar4-ridd…

But you are going to have to do a little of your own leg work. CO2 Science is nicely laid out so that you can find things.

http://www.co2science.org/

Peter,

Didn't you find that the conclusions of both the second and the third papers directly contradict your positon?

How do you respond to the model proposed by Voorspools, Brouwers and D'haeseleer?

Paul of Sydney,

You said, "Yes I have. I've also read lots of other papers and articles disputing the IPCC findings."

So then your statement that "the IPCC have not a shred of evidence to support the notion that man has altered the climate in any significant way" is blatantly false, is it not?

Then you said, "Whoever said the science on AGW is settled is clearly a fool."

You do realize that there is plenty of uncertainty in areas such as predictions for the future, climate sensitivity, best solutions, etc, right? You do realize that in these areas even the IPCC says "less likely" "somewhat likely" and so forth, right? You realize that the only place the science is "settled," if it can be called that, is that CO2 is the strongest driver of climate since 1970, right?

Tilo,

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that every skeptic, or even every denier, is incompetent. I've placed three commenters here in the "incompetent" category. The evidence of their incompetence is in their comments.

Also note I'm not claiming any expertise myself, nor have I made any scientific arguments here. My own scientific experience extends to two years in a doctoral program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, plus some radiative-transfer modelling at NASA in the late 80's. That was enough for me to realize what it takes to be an expert, either in EEB or in Climatology, and I opted for an easier way to make a living!

BTW, both fields deal with phenomena that are orders of magnitude more complex than what's covered in, say, a typical physics curriculum. The natural sciences rely much more on consilience for their theoretical underpinning. That is, they pull together multiple, independent lines of evidence to construct a robust theory, one that doesn't stand or fall on a single argument. The commenters who insist on picking away at trivial errors that are limited in scope, as if that could bring down the whole edifice, clearly don't have the knowledge to be considered competent. It's not enough just to be "smart", you actually have to know as much as the experts do, if you're going to challenge the whole theory.

Hammiesink:
"So did you read the scientific papers Grendel linked to for you? What specifically is wrong with the research in those studies?"

I assume you meant the papers that mandas linked. I read the second one and I found nothing of interest in it.

Their approach is to say that they found all kinds of physical and biological systems that showed anthropogenic warming. How did they do this. Well, all they really did was show all kinds of systems that showed warming. They did absolutely nothing to show that it was anthropogenic warming.

Their argument goes like this. We show warming. The IPCC shows that warming is anthropogenic, therefore the warming that we show must be anthropogenic. Of course the IPCC anthropogenic connection goes back to models that have never shown that they can predict anything.

They also throw in some references to the amount of warming that we are experiencing and how such warming cannot be due to natural variation. But they do nothing to show that the warming cannot be due to natural variation.

Furthermore, the whole natural variation argument goes out the window because we have had 12 years of no warming and the climate science community claims that it is natural variation, but they cannot identify the natural variation that is overriding the supposed CO2 signal. This tells us that they either don't understand some very powerful elements of natural variation, or they have a climate sensitivity number that is much to high.

Most of these kinds of papers are exercises in futility. They basically say, we can't identify the cause so the cause must be AGW. Nonsense. Or they claim that the current warming is unprecedented in the historical record. More nonesense.

By the way, here is a quote from one of the hockey team.

Briffa:
"We donât have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate."

Its hard to keep up sometimes, just finished reading the posts and thanks to Mal Adjusted for adding a link to Dunning-Kruger effect. At first i thought i had some nasty disease but it turns out all i am is mentally retarded, what a relief.

Whilst at Wiki i looked up the definition of the pre industrial age mentioned by Skip. I think what Skip meant to say was that we humans are causing CO2 to rise and hence the temp. Now CO2 did not begin to rise until after the 1940's and therefore it is generally accepted by most that before this we had very little if any affect on climate. So now if we turn to the instrumental temp record we can see 3 warming periods and they are:

1860 to 1880 (no records before 1860)
1910 to 1940
1975 to 2000

Now what is interesting is that the rate of warming from 1910 to 1940 when man had little or no effect on climate was 1.52327C/century and the warming rate from 1975 to 2000 when man produced enormous amounts of CO2 was 1.54963C/Century and inbetween all this the temp went DOWN for 30 years. But how can this? and now even as i type man is still pumping out tremendous amounts of CO2 and yet the temp wont budge.

Now i know Skip will respond to this but it wont be an attempt on his part to delve into this conumdrum it will simply be more sarcasm and name calling. As for the rest of your post Skip, you are starting to sound like a broken record.

And now onto Mandas and his response to Pete's post (22)at first i got all excited, finally we could see a study which shows empirical evidence that an increase in atmospheric CO2 WILL cause and is causing an increase in atmospheric water vapour thus causing catastrophic climate change (CCC). Alas however Mandas's links merely took us to the vitual world of a computers hard drive. I am somewhat dissapointed in you Mandas as a self proclaimed scientist i would have thought you would know the difference. This would have to be one of your worst posts i have seen from you to date.

I offered Dhogaza to respond to this statement and to his credit he did:

"If the basics of the physics underlying CO2-forced warming is wrong, why isn't the earth an iceball? It's CO2 that keeps the planet from being one."

Unfortunately he does not give much detail in his claim so i have had to fill in the blanks. I am not sure what Dhogaza meant by iceball, does he mean an ice age (IA) or does he mean something resembling Pluto? Either way from what i can see CO2 levels were as low as 180ppm during the last IA and temps varied from 10 to 2C lower than today.

Now as we all know the current "consensus" is that a doubling of CO2 will lead to about 1.1 or is it 1.2C increase, thats the non feed back increase of course. So lets say the temp has gone up by 10C since the last IA and CO2 has doubled that would mean that the sensitivity (+ve feed back) would have to be gigantic, enormous, humongous even ginormous and way beyond anything the IPCC could ever pluck out of their arse. So how in hell could CO2 cause the very things Dhogaza speaks of?

Of course i may be wrong so please feel free to point out my mistakes and correct them.

Tilo,

You said, "Their argument goes like this. We show warming. The IPCC shows that warming is anthropogenic, therefore the warming that we show must be anthropogenic."

This is a strawman.

Anthropogenic warming is concluded because more heat is coming into the earth than is leaving it, the missing heat is of the same wavelength that CO2 absorbs, and heat of this wavelength is increasing at the surface level. Also, the C13/C12 ratio in atmospheric CO2 is increasing, which is the fingerprint of anthropogenic as opposed to natural CO2.

You also said "They also throw in some references to the amount of warming that we are experiencing and how such warming cannot be due to natural variation. But they do nothing to show that the warming cannot be due to natural variation."

Another strawman. There are many natural drivers of climate as well as anthropogenic and these are all well laid out in the AR4. Anthropogenic drivers are just currently the most dominant, not the only.

And then you said, "Or they claim that the current warming is unprecedented in the historical record. More nonesense."

A third strawman. No one claims that current warming is unprecedented in the historical record. This must be some kind of skeptic meme that just keeps getting repeated without getting fact checked; if you look at the AR4, the only claim you'll find is that radiative forcing, not temperature, is unprecedented in at least 10K years.

Don't waste your time with Tilo. People like Gavin Schmidt over at RC, and any number of scientifically-trained people in any number of blogs, have tried to educate him, without success.

He's convinced he knows more about atmospheric physics, etc, than scientists working in the field, despite having no formal training himself (as he says, he's a software engineer).

dhogaza,

Oh, I'm aware of the futility of it. It's just that it's so easy to debunk the skeptics simply by looking at whether the original source actually says what they say it does. You don't even have to know anything about climate science to do it! :)

Peter of Sydney

I am going to give you the same advice I keep giving to crakar - do your research and stop relying on blog posts and news articles for your information. If you had done that, you might have found out a bit more from your link at post #44. Far from supporting the denialist cause, this is what Dr David Frank actually has to say:

"...It's well known that the CO2 increase will cause a temperature increase. This additional CO2 acts to further increase the temperature in what is sometimes called a "positive feedback" loop. We found that for every degree of warming, the CO2 concentration increased by [a median of] 7.7 parts per million...."

From follow on reports:

"...Australian expert Professor Andy Pitman of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre in Sydney says the findings are both "good news and bad news". It is good news because it suggests amplification is at the lower end of previous estimates, says Pitman. But bad news because it confirms there is an amplification..."

"...Dr Mike Raupach from CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research says an interesting by-product of the study is that it shows that the much-discussed Medieval Warm Period was not as warm as the current period..."

So, according to Dr Frank, AGW is a confirmed fact, but some climate models over-estimate the temperature increase from CO2 feedback , while others underestimate it. He believes that global temperature increases will be in the lower range of the hypothesised increases, but well within the predicted range.

Is there anything else you need to convince you that anthropogenic climate change is a confirmed fact? Or will you now deny the data FROM YOUR OWN SOURCE???? You keep asking for proof; looks like you found it yourself.

I would say that, in stark contrast from your own stated position, "...whoever said the science on AGW is settled is clearly a fool...."; whoever denies their own evidence and say that AGW is not a fact is a fool. I think that includes you.

Crakar,

You said, "...the warming rate from 1975 to 2000 when man produced enormous amounts of CO2"

That's because sulphur aerosols dominated in the atmosphere from 1940 to 1980.

Dunning-Kruger; the less you know, the more cocksure you are of your own abilities.

Tilo
Thank you for that link (post #45) on the references in the IPCC report to WWF papers. Now, to be clear, did you actually look at them yourself?

Well, I did (thanks for the information), and not one of them was on the science of climate change. Of the 16 papers mentioned, 8 were about the potential impacts of climate change on the ecosystem and wildlife (a subject on which the WWF is an authorative source), 6 were about policy and financial aspects, 1 was about alternative energy sources, and 1 was about glaciers in the Himalayas.

So, is this your scandal?? Is this the best the denialist cause can some up with to discredit the IPCC? Wake me up when you come up with something interesting please.

Hammiesink:
"Anthropogenic warming is concluded because more heat is coming into the earth than is leaving it, the missing heat is of the same wavelength that CO2 absorbs, and heat of this wavelength is increasing at the surface level. Also, the C13/C12 ratio in atmospheric CO2 is increasing, which is the fingerprint of anthropogenic as opposed to natural CO2."

This is a strawman. No one denies that man is putting CO2 in the atmosphere and no one denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The entire debate is around the level of feedback and if the resulting climate sensitivity is of a level to be of concern.

"There are many natural drivers of climate as well as anthropogenic and these are all well laid out in the AR4."

Another straw man. Showing that there are many drivers of climate does not show that we understand all the drivers of climate. It doesn't show that we can assume that we have covered them all so well that we can isolate the magnitude of an AGW signal.

"Anthropogenic drivers are just currently the most dominant, not the only."

False assertion. If anthropogenic drivers were the most dominant, then they would override any natural variation and we would continue to see warming. Since there has been no warming for 12 years, the anthropogenic signal - whatever it's magnitude - cannot override the natural variation. And worse yet, no one is able to identify the natural variation that is overcoming the the supposed AGW signal.

"No one claims that current warming is unprecedented in the historical record."

Another straw man. Here is the statement from Michael Mann as given to the US Senate in 2003

"The proxy reconstructions, taking into account these uncertainties, indicate that the warming of the northern hemisphere during the late 20th century... is unprecedented over at least the past millennium and it now appears based on peer-reviewed research, probably the past two millennia."

Mann doesn't say the historical record, but the implication is that what we are seeing can only be due to anthropogenic causes because of what he has shown with regards to past warming. And he is talking about the temperature. And yes, the warmers have run with this to conclude that 20th century warming must be man made because of the unprecedented nature.

In any case, you have failed to show that the paper that I read has anything of value to add to the debate.

And yes, the warmers have run with this to conclude that 20th century warming must be man made because of the unprecedented nature.

Just one example of the kind of lies Tilo tells.

Really, he's just not worth it.

mandas:
"and not one of them was on the science of climate change."

"Is this the best the denialist cause can some up with to discredit the IPCC?"

We are talking about one issue here - the credibility of the IPCC. Where do you get off on the silly tangent of "is this all you can come up with"?

The IPCC is suppose to base ALL OF THEIR FINDINGS on peer reviewed literature. None of it should be based on the unscientific publications of an advocacy group. Obviously the IPCC will accept any junk, as long as it agrees with their agenda. They will even lift charts out of wiki without knowing their source. They have no credibility because they are agenda driven. Their science is hand picked to produce an effect. Their reviewers blow off criticism that warns about errors or overstatements. With all of those WWF references, why would you think that those are the only places where their science is questionable. Showing you those does not mean that you have seen everything. More is coming every day. Stay tuned.

Hammiesink, you better be careful Skip has a thing about plagiarism. Oh and by the way congratulations are in order you have just solved the problem we can spray aerosols into the air to stave off AGW.

All we have to do is reverse the Montreal protocol and job done.

Of course this still leaves a few questions unanswered:

How could the 1910 to 1940 rise be attributable to natural forces but yet have the same warming rate as 1970 to 2000, if it was caused by AGW?

And so far no warming since?

Hmmmm these are interesting questions.

Religious fervor;the more questions you avoid, the stronger your faith.

mandas:
"Is there anything else you need to convince you that anthropogenic climate change is a confirmed fact?"

No one denies it. It's the magnitude that counts. The only thing that the paper concludes is that the carbon feedback is probably one fifth of what we thought. In other words, when temperature goes up, CO2 levels follow. The question they dealt with was - how much CO2 follows - because this is another feedback factor beyond such things as more H2O in the air. It doesn't give us a climate sensitivity number. It only tells us that climate sensitivity numbers that have carbon feedback as one of their elements are probably too high. In other words, the chance that the climate sensitivity number is something to be alarmed about is reduced.

crakar opened his mouth and the following rubbish spewed out:

we can spray aerosols into the air to stave off AGW.

All we have to do is reverse the Montreal protocol and job done.

crakar, the Montreal protocol had nothing to do with aerosols.

Go and do some reading and come back and tell us what you found about the Montreal protocol.

Hammysink said,

"Another strawman. There are many natural drivers of climate as well as anthropogenic and these are all well laid out in the AR4. Anthropogenic drivers are just currently the most dominant, not the only."

You mean these climate drivers with their associated Level of scientific understanding:

LLGHG's High
Stratospheric ozone Medium
Tropospheric ozone Medium
Stratospheric water vapour from CH4 Low
Direct aerosol Med to low
Cloud albedo effect (all aerosols) Low
Surface albedo (land use) Med to low
Surface albedo (BC aerosol on snow) Low
Persistent linear Contrails Low
Solar irradiance Low
Volcanic aerosol Low
Stratospheric water vapour from causes other than CH4 oxidation Very Low
Tropospheric water vapour from irrigation Very low
Aviation-induced cirrus Very Low
Cosmic rays Very Low
Other surface effects Very Low

Gee whiz from the above i can see why your faith is so strong.

Tilo Reber was wrong again:

PROCEDURE FOR USING NON-PUBLISHED/NON-PEER-REVIEWED SOURCES IN IPCC
REPORTS
Because it is increasingly apparent that materials elevant to IPCC Reports, in particular, information about the experience and practice of the private sector in mitigation and adaptation activities, are found in sources that have not been published or peer-reviewed (e.g., industry journals, internal organisational publications, non-peer reviewed reports or working papers of research institutions, proceedings of workshops etc) the following
additional procedures are provided.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf

Why do you deniers never, ever check to see if what you report is accurate and true? Is it because if you resorted to only things which were accurate and true you would have nothing to support your ideology?

I like way Ians rubbish filter is stuck half open, no mention of fellow believer Hammy and what he said, i also noticed that Ian's filter failed to detect the question i asked.

Oh well i guess Ian cannot explain why two warming periods seperated by climate (30 years) can have exactly the same warming rate with the first caused by nature and the second caused by nasty humans. I suggest he get a new filter.

As well informed people already knew, Climategate scientists did in fact break the law:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comme…

Say no more.

Ian...Ian...Ian...What are we to do with you.

"1. Responsibilities of Coordinating, Lead and Contributing Authors
Authors who wish to include information from a non-published/non-peer-reviewed source are requested to:
a. Critically assess any source that they wish to include. This option may be used for instance to obtain case
study materials from private sector sources for assessment of adaptation and mitigation options. Each chapter
team should review the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source into an
IPCC Report."

So when Hasnain colludes with the scruffy rail road engineer to bullshit about glaciers so they can then gain funding based on such bullshit for their company (TERI). The statement "Critically assess any source that they wish to include" is ignored?

And then we have Amazongate, Will 40% of the Amazonian forests react drastically to even a slight change in rainfall? Is there a tipping point for the Amazon? The reference turns out to be an Australian forest specialist, who works for not just the WWF, but also for the World Conservation Union, and who according to his CV mostly works in Australia and Asia, and not the Amazon. His co-author is a journalist whoâs worked on Greenpeace campaigns and for the WWF. Then, to top it off, the assertions that the IPCC attributes to them canât even be found in the report that they wrote." Courtesy to Jo Nova.

So in short yes the IPCC can use non peer reviewed documents with the caveat that the authors do the peer reviewing, this has not happened at least twice and people are still digging. I suspect there will be more, a lot more.

mandas:
"Well, I did (thanks for the information), and not one of them was on the science of climate change. Of the 16 papers mentioned, 8 were about the potential impacts of climate change on the ecosystem and wildlife (a subject on which the WWF is an authorative source), 6 were about policy and financial aspects, 1 was about alternative energy sources, and 1 was about glaciers in the Himalayas."

Ian:
"Because it is increasingly apparent that materials elevant to IPCC Reports, in particular, information about the experience and practice of the private sector in mitigation and adaptation activities, are found in sources that have not been published or peer-reviewed "

So, let's see, the 8 concerning the impacts on eco systems and wildlife would not qualify. The 1 about the Himalayan glaciers would not qualify. The other 7 are maybe's. Still sounds like the IPCC is not following it's own rules. And even with the 7 that may qualify, using information from an advocasy group is clearly shoddy work on the part of the IPCC. And where does it say that they can pick technical charts out of wiki without the source being known?

Of course IPCC members could look at that exception more broadly as saying that the IPCC can use any old trash that suits their taste. And with their use of the WWF, many have obviously made that interpretation.

Pete you asked aquestion about models and temp in post 26 which has been completely ignored by the believers so i will answer it for you.

First of all you need to know that the model that produced the 100 year temp prediction is modelling the temp IN 100 years (2100) and not the temp over the course of 100 years. Therefore the error seen in the years 2001-2099 have no bearing on the models accuracy only the temp in 2100 can be compared for accuracy, understand.

And yes i know this makes the model unfalsifiable but try telling them that. Personally i think there are two reasons why it is wrong one is because the model prediction for CO2 levels has also gone pear shaped after only 10 years coupled with an over exaggerated assumption of sensitivity.

crakar24:
"How could the 1910 to 1940 rise be attributable to natural forces but yet have the same warming rate as 1970 to 2000, if it was caused by AGW?"

Spencer seems to be concerned with that as well.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/evidence-for-natural-climate-cycles…

If you think that relying on the WWF looks bad for the IPCC, how about referencing Greenpeace?

http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/01/greenpeace-and-nobel-wi…

What I love about deniers is they can't even get their own stories straight, and they disagree even with themselves. How about these gems:

Tilo (post #61) "...Is there anything else you need to convince you that anthropogenic climate change is a confirmed fact?... No one denies it. It's the magnitude that counts...." (So it seems Tilo accepts anthropogenic climate change as fact, but has concerns about the exact scale, which I wouldn't argue with myself!).

Tilo (post #57): "...Since there has been no warming for 12 years, the anthropogenic signal - whatever it's magnitude - cannot override the natural variation. And worse yet, no one is able to identify the natural variation that is overcoming the the supposed AGW signal..." (so no-oone would argue with anthropogenic climate change except...... you!!)

So come on. What do you believe? Do you accept that climate change is anthropogenic, as you stated at post #61, or not?

Tilo
And sorry - despite what you said at post #61, there are PLENTY of people who deny the fact of anthropogenic climate change. Are you going to take them to task as well?

Looks like Phil Jones is has not escaped the law just yet:

http://www.climategate.com/climategate-professor-phil-jones-could-face-…

Personally, I prefer to see Al Gore charged with fraud as he's told so many porkies it's a wonder anyone with half a brain still listens to him.

Mandas it's funny how you try to ignore all the exaggerated claims made by AGW alarmists as if they are irrelevant or worse still never happened. Yet the only reason why the AGW thesis came about is because of those very same exaggerations. If you are showing signs of admission they were wrong and that you are now moving to a more moderate standing on man's impact on climate change then I welcome it. It's the first step to get back on track on the search for the truth using all available means and data via the scientific method and open debate. That is the only way science will progress, not by politics or pre-conceived conclusions that are based on faith. Leave the politics to politicians and the faith to religions please. Science deals with questions via healthy skepticism and the scientific method.

"Furthermore, the whole natural variation argument goes out the window because we have had 12 years of no warming" - Tilo Reber

Tilo's years of no warming:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/

2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade

"Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade, due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years â 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 â as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began."

"January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record."

What? No mention of Project Steve?

http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve

Sure those are "Steves for Darwin", but surely you can start your own list of "Steves for Global Warming"?

Peter
So, you ask me if I am adopting a 'more moderate standing' etc. A more moderate standing than what? What is my stance? Could you check back on my posts and tell me what it is. Because you seem to have formed an opinion without actually reading the evidence. That's fairly typical for a denier, so I don't expect much more. But if you had done your research - as I keep telling people over and over and over again, you might have discovered I am VERY moderate in my position, and I ALWAYS check links and so-called evidence.

Go on, have a look. Reading evidence doesn't hurt. Ok, I will help you out. Here are some of the things I have said so far on this site and others:

My post#72, I said:
"....it seems Tilo accepts anthropogenic climate change as fact, but has concerns about the exact scale, which I wouldn't argue with myself!..."

You might also go back to my post #23, where I said:
"...No, it's not good enough for the IPCC to use non-peer reviewed information. I have said so here and I stand by that remark..."

You could also read some of my posts on other threads were I state that there are statements in An Inconvenient Truth which are exaggerated and just plain false (I also single Martin Durkin out for criticism - is that ok by you?). As well as my long and sometimes heated argument with dhogoza about the veracity of tree ring data and the breakdown in correlation over the past 50 years (I suggested that the CRU had done the wrong thing and the datasets from dendrochronological sources were questionable.

Obviously you think this is an extreme position to adopt. In what way do you think needs moderating? I guess then that Tito should moderate his position as well. Or maybe - just maybe - you should read a little more before you put your fingers on the keyboard.

Speaking of reading and thinking before you put fingers to keyboard, how are you going with your promise in post #18 where you said you would accept AGW if we showed you one report or article, and my response in post #22 where I showed you four? I guess you don't keep your promises do you? Just as you don't read evidence, don't read other people's posts before commenting, and adopt an extreme position based on a complete lack of reasoning and/or common sense. You assert in post #75 that:

"...the search for the truth using all available means and data via the scientific method and open debate. That is the only way science will progress, not by politics or pre-conceived conclusions that are based on faith...."

How about you practice what you preach and read the evidence, not the assertions of denialist bloggers and journalists. And how about you open your mind and accept the evidence when it is thrust in front of your face.

Marco,
The MMR /autism scare is a bad example. The bad science of ONE small group was picked up and run with in a populist alarmist way by the mainstream media. The mainstream media have ,up until very very recently, been studious,relentless and unanimous (in the UK, anyway, and I suspect in the USA also ) in the promotion of man-made global warming.

http://www.badscience.net/2010/01/the-wakefield-mmr-verdict/#more-1491

@Jack Savage:
I guess you do not consider the Telegraph (e.g., Christopher Booker) as part of the mainstream media? Or Fox?

To better explain my comparison: the mainstream media have been filled also with positive stories about vaccination, and the importance of vaccination. One deviation from those messages, and 20% of the UK population stopped vaccinating their children. And it isn't really going up (yet?), even though people have been made very well aware, through the same sources as the 'scare', that there actually is no link.

Oh, and rest assured that people are blaming the scientists for not giving a uniform message, not the media for creating a scare where there was none.

Dappledwater: #76
"January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record."

Dappledwater, Hansen has created a nice illusion for you and you need to recognize it. When he says that it has been the warmest decade on record, he is comparing seperate decades. He is not showing you what happened within the decade. No one disputes that temperatures went up in the 90s. But the rise stopped in 98 and we have been flat since then. Regarding the GISS numbers for the hottest year, etc. GISS is wrong. It is divergent since 98 and it is the outlier. It disagrees with HadCrut3 and with UAH and RSS. I explain why GISS is in error here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/giss-temperature-record-d…

If you really want to see what has happened since 98, I show you here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/twelve-year-satellite-tem…

mandas: #72
So come on. What do you believe? Do you accept that climate change is anthropogenic, as you stated at post #61, or not?

You do confuse easily. If you have an anthropogenic number that is low you could have it overcome by something like solar or PDO. If you have an anthropogenic number that is high, that wouldn't be a possible answer for a 12 year flat trend.

The deniers on this thread once again show their arrogance and inability to discuss things in an honest manner.

For example, crackar has refused to comment on my post #62 where I ask him to explain his views on the Montreal protocol. He doesn't, of course, since his knowledge of the science behind the Montreal protocol is as lacking and distorted as his knowledge about climate science.

Tilo Reber does not acknowledge that I showed that his comment in his post #59:

The IPCC is suppose to base ALL OF THEIR FINDINGS on peer reviewed literature.

is completely wrong and goes of on a tangent which has nothing do to with his wrong statement.

It is a good job that the intellectual ability of the deniers is so low, if they had any intellectual ability at all it would be a little bit harder to show how wrong they are.

Dappledwater:
"January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record."

Dappledwater, what you have to realise is that Hansen is feeding you an illusion. He is arming you to respond when people claim no warming since 98. But he's actually comparing apples and oranges. He is comparing seperate decades. The statement that there has been no warming since 98 is not contradicted by comparing seperate decades. No one denies that there was warming during the 90s. We are saying that there has been no warming since 98. Can you understand the difference?

Dapplewater:

I show you what has really happened since 1998 here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/twelve-year-satellite-tem…

"Tilo Reber does not acknowledge that I showed that his comment in his post #59:
The IPCC is suppose to base ALL OF THEIR FINDINGS on peer reviewed literature.
is completely wrong"

You were right, Ian. I was wrong to assume that the IPCC had a rule to base it's work on reputable sources. You get a pat on the head.

Tilo Reber tells more lies and cherry picks:

We are saying that there has been no warming since 98. Can you understand the difference?

Reber, do you understand what cherry picking means? No, I didn't think so. Are you just dishonest or merely stupid.

Foolish question, since he is obviously both.

Ian Forrester: #86
"Are you just dishonest or merely stupid."

You are certainly both Ian, and I explain why here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-inconvient-truth-…

Crakar: I will happily engage you on the previous warming periods . . . again . . . later. (Talk about broken record . . .)

First, let me ask a very, very simple question.

Did you, or did you not, read my post in its entirety? If not, I understand. We're all busy people. But its a very simple question.

Skip

Dappledwater:
"2009: Second Warmest Year on Record;"

Dappledwater, I hope you know that the "warmest year" ratings that GISS has disagree with HadCrut3, as well as with UAH and RSS. It turns out that GISS is wrong. I explain why here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/giss-temperature-record-d…

So, after we have had one paper that wants to lower the climate sensitivty number just a couple of days ago, here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm

We have another paper that wants to lower it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/29/water-vapour-climate-…

Apparently the paper was published in Science. But the guardian doesn't give us a link.

"The research, led by one of the world's top climate scientists, suggests that almost one-third of the global warming recorded during the 1990s was due to an increase in water vapour in the high atmosphere, not human emissions of greenhouse gases. A subsequent decline in water vapour after 2000 could explain a recent slowdown in global temperature rise, the scientists add."

"Satellite measurements were used to show that water vapour levels in the stratosphere have dropped about 10% since 2000. When the scientists fed this change into a climate model, they found it could have reduced, by about 25% over the last decade, the amount of warming expected to be caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."

"The scientists also looked at the earlier period, from 1980 to 2000, though cautioned this was based on observations of the atmosphere made by a single weather balloon. They found likely increases in water vapour in the stratosphere, enough to enhance the rate of global warming by about 30% above what would have been expected."

Climate sensitivity numbers seem to be dropping as fast as IPCC credibility.

So, after we have had one paper that wants to lower the climate sensitivty number just a couple of days ago, here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100127134721.htm

We have another paper that wants to lower it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/29/water-vapour-climate-…

"Dappledwater, what you have to realise is that Hansen is feeding you an illusion. He is arming you to respond when people claim no warming since 98" - Tilo Reber

No need to worry about that, I'm already aware that NASA GISTEMP and the NCDC have 2005 as the warmest year on record.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/index.php?report=global&year=2005&month=a…

"But he's actually comparing apples and oranges. He is comparing seperate decades" - Tilo Reber

Kind of the whole point of the claim "warmest decade recorded" Tilo.

"We are saying that there has been no warming since 98. Can you understand the difference?" - Tilo Reber

Yes, except that two data sets have 2005 as the warmest on record, and furthermore when looking at the 30 year record of the satellite data (i.e - climate) we see that your no warming claim disappears:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Satellite_Temperatur…

Hi Tilo

Its not as easy for a layman like me to keep up with this thread (been at it all morning), but when I went to your link posted in #87 the first link your article provides was the graphic

http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/lambh23.jpg

in support of this opening statement:

When the IPCC came out with it's first report it presented a proxy reconstruction of past temperatures that showed the climate of the Medieval Warm Period to be warmer than today. As they quickly figured out, they had presented a chart that was counterproductive to their objectives.

I stopped reading at this point (yeah I know; not a lot of endurance) because I need something clarified. I've seen that before somewhere and you obviously got this from climateaudit but where did McIntyre get it? Did the IPCC really publish that cheesy graph? I mean, ew . . .that *is* embarrassing.

Dappledwater:
"Yes, except that two data sets have 2005 as the warmest on record,"

I explain why 2005 is not the warmest year on record here:

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/giss-temperature-record-d…

"and furthermore when looking at the 30 year record of the satellite data (i.e - climate) we see that your no warming claim disappears:"

I don't make a 30 year no warming claim. I make a 12 year no warming claim.

Skip:
"Did the IPCC really publish that cheesy graph? I mean, ew . . .that *is* embarrassing."

Well, skip, that's probably why the IPCC has AR3 and AR4 on the net but no longer has AR1 on the net. Guess you will have to go to your library to see if we are telling you the truth.

@Tilo and Skip:
The embarrassing thing is that supposed 'skeptics' are still using that graph. It's Lamb's reconstruction of temperatures of CENTRAL ENGLAND.

Marco:
"The embarrassing thing is that supposed 'skeptics' are still using that graph."

I don't know of any skeptics that are using it - except to point out that the IPCC used it. I prefer Loehle's reconstruction myself. But let's not get off on a reconstruction fight for now. Oh,oh! Looks like I'm up on WUWT. Need to go see if I have to answer any questions. Bye for now.

I'm sorry, Tilo, but I need a little more clarification. I'm patient and can wait until you return.

Just to clarify: Were you/are you saying this graph substantiates your statement I cited--the one about the IPCC and the MWP?

Anyway, at your leisure.

I just took a look at Tilo Reber's website. There's now more than sufficient evidence to place him in the unskilled and unaware of it* category also.

*The original paper by Kruger and Dunning is now behind a paywall.

Skip:
"Just to clarify: Were you/are you saying this graph substantiates your statement I cited--the one about the IPCC and the MWP?"

Other than the fact that it has a contracted horizontal scale, compare the red one in wiki with the one that I gave you. We know that the blue one by Mann is a global reconstruction. The black one by Moberg is a global reconstruction. William Connelley, who is a warmer, tells us that it came from IPCC 1990, figure 7.1c. Just exactly what are you looking for, skip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipcc7.1-mann-moberg.png

Mal Adapted:
"I just took a look at Tilo Reber's website. There's now more than sufficient evidence to place him in the unskilled and unaware of it* category also."

If that is your idea of a technical analysis, then you definitely belong in your own shoe box.

Of course the most unskilled and unaware of it people on the planet are the ones who read a piece of pop psychology and then consider themselves psychology experts, ready to go and categorize the world.

I'm still waiting to see if Peter of Sydney is going to bother reading the papers I posted links to and answer my questions.

Tilo
Would it help if I repeated my call (once again) for people like yourself to actually DO YOUR F*#@ING RESEARCH before posting here, and not rely on blog posts and news articles??

Well, lets go and have a look at your post #92, where you link to this article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/29/water-vapour-climate-…

If you read the article, it claims that a paper published in "Science" on 29 January that:
"...Scientists have underestimated the role that water vapour plays in determining global temperature changes, according to a new study that could fuel further attacks on the science of climate change...."
It further claims:
"...The new research, led by Susan Solomon, at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who co-chaired the 2007 IPCC report on the science of global warming, is published today (ie 29 January) in the journal Science, one of the most respected in the world...."

Well, unlike you it seems, I actually read the 'Science' issue of 29 January, and guess what, THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE IS A COMPLETE FABRICATION!!!!

The article in 'Science' was not authored by Dr Susan Solomon, it was authored by Alan Robock, Martin Bunzl, 2en Kravitz, Georgiy L. Stenchikov, and is entitled "A Test for Geoengineering". The paper relates to testing of aerosols in the stratosphere to combat climate change, and does actually reference several works by Susan Solomon, the most recent of which was published in Science in August last year and was entitled "Risks of Climate Engineering". There is no article in the current issue of Science authored by Dr Solomon.

In Dr Solomon's paper in August, she states, inter alia:

"...The 20th-century climate record shows the different effects of shortwave and longwave forcing on temperature and on precipitation. Global surface temperature responds in a quite straightforward way to changes in the energy budget, irrespective of whether shortwave or longwave radiation changes are involved. Thus, temperatures in the latter part of the 20th century were dominated by anthropogenic warming (interspersed with short-term cooling after volcanic eruptions) (14)..."

So once again, go away, do your research, then come back when you have something interesting and relevant to say. Alternatively you could keep doing what you are doing, and making a complete fool of yourself for me and others to laugh at.

Tilo
I must apologise. I looked at your post #95 and realised the error of my ways. All this time I had been looking at temperature increases over too long a period. You indicated we shouldn't be looking over 30 years as we have been doing (and in some cases even more), but you selected a 12 year trend to point out how wrong we were. I was a little confused by this at first, because 2 years ago most denialists wanted to use a 10 year trend, then a year ago they wanted to use an 11 year trend, and now it is a 12 year trend. I guess 1998 is an important year from which to start any trend line, right?

Anyway, I took a leaf out of your book, and decided to shorten the period from my previous long term look at climate, to have it more focussed as you suggested. What the heck!! I decided to use a 1 year trend. That would really tell us what was happening, right?

But when I did this, I realised that climate change was a LOT worse than anyone even suspected. When I drew a trend line from 2008 - 2009, I realised that the earth was warming at something like 14 degrees per century!!!! That truly is scary. Thanks for setting us all straight there.

The alleged claim that the chairman of the IPCC lied about the events surrounding the glacier issue has now been given another boost. He must go.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

Mandas #104, maybe the reference was to this study:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488

"Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming"

Susan Solomon,1 Karen Rosenlof,1 Robert Portmann,1 John Daniel,1 Sean Davis,1,2 Todd Sanford,1,2 Gian-Kasper Plattner3

"Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change."

Looks like more pieces of the puzzle (climate variability) are coming to light, which will of course be misrepresented by the deniers.

Tilo,

Your illusion of superiority is transparent to everyone but you. Consider some ancient wisdom, as expressed by "psychology expert" Robert Burns in the 18th century:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see ourselâs as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.

Hi Tilo:

You wiki graph comes with no explanation.

What is the red line--tree ring data?

Just to clarify: Are you claiming the graph you linked in your article appears in the first AR?

@Skip:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_of_the_Medieval_Warm_Period_an…

Note the little addition
"Some fluctuations lasted several centuries, including the LIA which ended in the [19th century] and which appears to have been global in extent. The MWP is mentioned in the executive summary to chapter 7, as MWP around 1000 AD (which may not have been global)."

Oh dear.
"So once again, go away, do your research, then come back when you have something interesting and relevant to say. Alternatively you could keep doing what you are doing, and making a complete fool of yourself for me and others to laugh at."
I am so glad I do not say things like that in my comments. Do you think there will be an apology from "mandas"?
All so easily avoided if people were only to be polite.

Skip:
"Just to clarify: Are you claiming the graph you linked in your article appears in the first AR?"

Okay, Skip, now you are boring me. I gave you this in my last post.

Connelley, who is a warmer, tells us that it came from IPCC 1990, figure 7.1c.

That is the end of the conversation about the chart.

"I guess 1998 is an important year from which to start any trend line, right?"

Nice rant. If you had read the link I gave you and if you had understood it, then you would realize why it is a foolish rant. Or at a minimum, we wouldn't have to start at base zero with all the misconceptions that have been spoon fed to you by the AGW propaganda machines like RC.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-inconvient-truth-…

If you actually understand this link, then we will have a starting point for a conversation. You don't have to agree with me, but you should at least be able to tell me that I'm wrong based upon your understanding of ground that I have already covered. And then you should be able to point out specifically where you think I am wrong. I'm not going to start at the same old propaganda line for everyone that I talk to. I've answered all of that nonsense, and there are simply too many of you for me to repeat it again and again.

Dappledwater:
"Looks like more pieces of the puzzle (climate variability) are coming to light, which will of course be misrepresented by the deniers."

What is there to misrepresent. It's one more case of natural variability that was unaccounted for by the climate models and one more case of natural variability that will lower the climate sensitivity numbers. This is happening a lot lately. The paper about reduced carbon feedback to temperature increase is only about a week older. It also indicated a lower climate sensitivity number.

mandas:
"There is no article in the current issue of Science authored by Dr Solomon."

Gee, mandas, you do like to put your foot in your mouth and then shove it down real deep.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488

Tilo

Firstly, thank you for that link. I apologise, I did check 'Science' yesterday and there was no evidence of any paper by Susan Solomon (and there still isn't by the way). But your link clarified it for me; I failed to check 'Science Express' (I should have), in which "...Science Express provides electronic publication of selected Science papers in advance of print. Some editorial changes may occur between the online version and the final printed version..." (hence my confusion - I apologise again).

Anyway, thank you. I have now read the article - the whole thing, and not just the abstract. Have you read it?

The first thing to say is that crakar will completely dismiss it, because it is largely based on modelling for its findings. Notwithstanding that (and crakar's opinion is not really relevant anyway), it has some interesting things to say on what is occurring in the climate around the world - and for Dr Solomon's work on geoengineering - and if its findings are confirmed (some of it's analysis is based on very limited data), will help move the science forward. For your interest, so you don't have to rely on news articles and blog posts, here are some of the findings of the paper:

"...It is clear that carbon dioxide has been increasing for more than a century, while the water vapor changes are far shorter in duration, and both the magnitude and time scale of radiative forcing perturbations are important to the resulting surface climate response. The comparison of these radiative forcings nonetheless suggests that the decadal changes in stratospheric water vapor have the potential to affect recent climate..."

"...the relationship between SSTs in the warm pool region and stratospheric water vapor changes character (from negative to positive short-term correlations) from 1980â2009, suggesting that other processes may also be important, or that the correlation may be a transient feature linked to the specific pattern of SSTs at a given time rather than to the average warming of SSTs around the globe. It is therefore not clear whether the stratospheric water vapor changes represent a feedback to global average climate change or a source of decadal variability..."

"...The drop in stratospheric water vapor observed after 2001 has been correlated (25) to sea surface temperature (SST) increases in the vicinity of the tropical âwarm poolâ (see Fig. 1C) which are related to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)..."

"...This work highlights the importance of stratospheric
water vapor for decadal rates of warming based directly upon
observations, illuminating the need for further observations
and a closer examination of the representation of stratospheric water vapor changes in climate models aimed at interpreting decadal changes and for future projections..."

You can interpret this anyway you like (and I am sure you will), but I interpret it as saying that decadal influences such as ENSO influence the amount of stratospheric water vapour, and some of the radiative forcing influences of this are poorly understood, but their work provides both an explanation for you '12 years of no cooling', and assist with better modelling for the future. It does nothing to undermine the science of climate change - on the contrary it reinforces it - but suggests that the magnitude of future temperature increases may be at the lower range of predictions. It actually leads very nicely into my second point, - your comments in post #113. And it is interesting, because a lot of Dr Solomon's work nicely answers many of the points you raised in your link. That's another reason why you should do your research. Its a bit of a problem when you try to use something to support your case, only to discover that (if you had actually read it) it undermines it.

Also, if you want to keep referring to an arbitrary point such as 1998 as a starting point for calculations, could you do it for everything? Unfortunately, I guess that would mean no more claims that Arctic sea ice is recovering, because it is FAR below the levels of 1998 (about 20% in fact). That's unfortunate for the denialist cause, because the current projections from NOAA are only around 8.9% reduction per decade.

Tilo:

You are correct and I was confused. I was mixing up my reports.

I don't take anything at Wicki for granted, but according to the entry Marco sent me the source of that original reconstruction is unknown. But Marco, didn't you say its from central England? Are we even talking about the same thing? Sorry guys I'm not an expert (if that weren't obvious enough) on either the science or the history or the debate.

So one more question Tilo: Is it your contention that the original reconstruction from AR1 is *better*--that is, more scientific or more accurate, than the ones later used--and thus its elimination in later ARs shows

As they quickly figured out, the [IPCC} had presented a chart that was counterproductive to their objectives.?

Because if so, itjust shows complete paranoia and narrative construction. It has been lodged in your head, Tilo, that the IPCC "wamers" are an agenda-driven cult of "alarmists", so eliminating the chart shows deception.

But what about the *simple* explanation--that they had *better* reconstructions available for later reports? Even those later reconstructions do show the MWP. So whats the BFD?

Getting better by the day. Soon the whole world will know the only deniers of the truth will AGW alarmists.

http://www.openthemagazine.com/emag/2010-01-30

mandas:
I've got a response to your 116, but let's first try to understand this concept a little better.

This is one education piece:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1421…

This is from commenter Pekka Kostamo at RC and looks like it is worth considering on this subject.

"There is a reference to balloon borne radiosonde data. I consider these data to be quite unreliable in the stratosphere. The sensors have slow time constants (minutes) at tropopause temperatures. An sensor improvement in this respect would show up as lower humidity just above the tropopause (where the humidity abruptly drops to the typical stratospheric 2 %RH value).

Besides, the sensors are subject to partial or total icing whenever the probe traverses a liquid water cloud during its ascent. Liquid water in clouds does occur naturally down to about -38 degC. Some of the data becomes obviously wrong and is rejected, other readings are just unreliable. Improvements is this respect have also been made over the years, resulting in lower humidity readings in the stratosphere. I believe some new (improved) instrument types were introduced extensively into the network over the past 10 years. Removing old biases is not always a good thing.

I do not trust radiosonde sensor calibrations, either, at the extremely cold and low humidity conditions. It is not a trivial operational matter.

Like in almost all routine weather observations, the requirement driving the performance development has not been global climate science needs.

Satellite measurements could be more reliable.

As to humidity transport through the tropopause, there are several possible ways. I interviewed a number of meteorologists back in the 1970âs, trying to understand what would be reasonable in observation data provided by some new sensors.

Insertion of humidity into stratosphere by strong convection events was stated as certain but rare by a tropical forecaster. A more speculative comment from another source was about possible horizontal (tunneling) transport via channels formed by double tropopauses, rather common at 30âs latitudes. Yet another idea was insertion i.e. in Greenland, where the tropopause effectively hits the ground at times in winter season. (How about high mountain ranges?) There are also infrequent (3 â 5 times per year) tropopause folding events associated with strong fronts, bringing stratospheric air down and thus resulting in extremely low humidity layers close to the ground. (Evidence is radioactive dust found in those layers, normally circulating near the tropopause). This is observed in sounding profiles just about everywhere. The folding events might disturb the tropopause locally and cause transport of humidity into the stratosphere.

My conclusions were that the stratospheric humidity is not constant enough to serve as a reference point in measurements. The extremely low (1 â 10 %RH) readings close to the ground are real. Good enough for my purposes, then.

In my opinion, there is an issue about the variability of water vapor. In the long term relative humidity probably remains constant even when warming occurs, so water vapour is a positive temperature feedback. Short term change is another matter and a likely factor in the unforced variability."

skip:
"But what about the *simple* explanation--that they had *better* reconstructions available for later reports?"

As I said in the link I gave you, you can't stampede the population of the earth if what you are telling them about has happened before with no ill effect. And the IPCC clearly wants action. Mostly it wants a money tap for the UN.

Yes, I would certainly expect better reconstructions to come along with time. Unfortunately, the hockey team were not producing them. They were producing agenda driven reconstructions. Let me give you a quote from a Briffa email:

Briffa:
"I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards âapparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy dataâ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We donât have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate."

So here we have a card carrying member of the hockey team telling us in his private correspondence that the MWP was as warm as today. But in public he is churning out hockey sticks that contradict what he believes in private.

And he says that there is pressure to "present a nice tidy story as regards âapparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy dataâ"

Where do you think that pressure is coming from. Does this sound to you like a climate scientist that is persuing a disinterested path to the truth?

"What is there to misrepresent. It's one more case of natural variability that was unaccounted for by the climate models and one more case of natural variability that will lower the climate sensitivity numbers." Tilo Reber.

That's exactly what I meant, it didn't take you very long did it?.

From the study abstract (again):

"Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change."

30 years of a positive feedback, followed by 10 years of negative feedback. How do you deduce a negative feedback only, from that?.

Oops, "20 years of positive feedback".

Tilo

You keep referring me to your article (as per post #113) discussing the '12 year no warming trend', but I am not sure what you are hoping to achieve. I have read it several times, and understand what you are saying, and I agree on several points while disagreeing on others.

I believe you are perfectly correct when you say things like:

"...A person would have to be a complete fool to believe that the current global 12 year flat trend has no cause other than that thing are just kind of drifting around......Climate does not vary without a reason.... Natural variability are things like ENSO, PDO, AMO, volcanoes, solar, etc. Natural variability is not some unknown element of unidentified noise. Especially, it is not a 12 year global element of unidentified noise..."

I would suggest that no truer words were spoken, and if only most people (especially those in the denialist community) accepted that, we would all be far better off.

Perhaps some of the work of Dr Susan Solomon provides data to explain the relatively flat trend of recent years, but I don't think the link at post #119 adds anything to the debate. It is essentially just a restating of much of the paper without any further information.

What I don't agree with you on is ."..The latest inconvenient truth that needs to be disappeared is the 12 year trend of no warming in the planet's surface temperature....". I neither see it as an inconvenient truth or that it needs to be disappeared, and I don't agree with your criticism of Easterly and Wehner. I believe your criticism of them completely misses the point of their paper, which was simply a statistical analysis to show that short term variations can and would be imposed on any long term trends - and I don't think anyone other than the most ardent of extremists on any side of the debate would argue with that. I think they were trying to make the point to some that, just because you see a steady increase in CO2, you will not see a corresponding steady increase in temperature. There are other factors involved (once again, who would argue?).

You say of Easterly and Wehner "...Our authors seem to not understand the meaning of "natural variability"...". I think you are being harsh here, because they do not make any attempt in their paper to describe any of these processes, so its not that they don't understand 'natural variability', (they may or may not, I don't know) its just that it is outside the scope of the paper.

So, where are we at? It would appear that there is a period of little or no temperature increases. No surprises there - I would suggest that not one rational scientist would believe that would not occur. However, what happens next is the most important issue. Solomon's work MAY provide an explanation for the current observations, but it is limited in scope and would need to be confirmed. More importantly, IF her suggestions are true, it may well be that we will shortly be due in for other decades like the 90s which demonstrate steeper rates of increase.

Itâs worse than I thought. So much for an authority on climate science. I suppose next the IPCC will be taking "expert" advice form school children. Conclusion: the entire AR-4 report is fiction at best, corrupt science at worst.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-c…

Dappledwater:
"20 years of a positive feedback, followed by 10 years of negative feedback. How do you deduce a negative feedback only, from that?."

We don't know if those 20 years are any kind of feedback. We don't know what the moisture level in the stratosphere was before that time. In fact, saying that it is a positive feedback to CO2 is just plain irrational. CO2 has continued to rise sharply since 2000, and this effect obviously went against it. This tells us that the effect may be a negative feedback to warming, or it could simply be cyclic, like other elements of the climate system. It's highly unlikely that it was ever a positive feedback, since it would have to switch feedback modes while the thing that it is a feedback for (CO2) continued up without switching.

mandas:
"I think you are being harsh here, because they do not make any attempt in their paper to describe any of these processes, so its not that they don't understand 'natural variability', (they may or may not, I don't know) its just that it is outside the scope of the paper."

Okay, well at least your are trying to understand the link. I'll accept that. The way in which Easterling and Wehner use the term "natural variability" goes outside of the way in which we usually use it. For example ENSO, clouds, PDO, volcanoes, solar, etc. would be natural variability. When they start talking about natural variability in regard to models, it's as thought they are using it to mean random noise.

So let's get back to E&Ws main point:

"Claims that global warming is not occurring that are derived from a cooling observed over such short time periods ignore this natural variability and are misleading."

You should have noticed that I said this:

"Oddly enough, I agree completely with this statement."

and:

"But if there were a strong AGW signal, then it is entirely possible for a natural element of variation to overcome it for some time period. But here is the million dollar question - what is the element of natural variation that has overcome the signal for the last 12 years?"

E&W justified their claim of flat trends produced by natural variability by giving us two examples of it happening before. Their implication being that this flat trend is no different. I showed why that wa not true. For one, their flat trends were not all that flat, and they were not as long. But putting that aside, the most important part was that their flat trends could be explained in terms of natural variability. I showed that one of their flat trends was due to ENSO and the other was a volcano artifact. But when it comes to the current flat trend, no one has been able to explain what elements of natural variation were responsible. So the claim about natural variation was just so much handwaving. To be continue.

Then, for the sake of you people that are impressed by authority, I threw in the Trenberth quote that makes the same point:

"why is the temperature not continuing to go up? The stock answer is that natural variability plays a key role [1] and there was a major La Niña event early in 2008 that led to the month of January having the lowest anomaly in global temperature since 2000. While this is true, it is an incomplete explanation. In particular, what are the physical processes? From an energy standpoint, there should be an explanation that accounts for where the radiative forcing has gone."

I also asked Gavin Schmidt what the natural elements of variability were that were causing the current flat trend. No answer.

Then I said this. And it was predictive with regards to the Solomon paper:

"Looking at the evidence, one must arrive at one of two conclusions. Either the AGW signal is not nearly as strong as is claimed by the IPCC; or there are strong elements of natural variation that are unidentified and undefined. If the former is the case, the AGW alarms need to be turned off. If the later is the case, then we cannot assume the continuation of the AGW trend at any particular time because we don't know what the cycle time for that natural element of variation is."

To be continue.

Tilo, I guess I'm still not clear how you think the elimination of that graph proves there were nefarious "objectives" motivating it.

I mean, stop and think for a moment, and put yourself in my shoes and think about what I see here. Here's a non-specialist--however brilliant and fervent--who shows me a cruddy IPCC graph which was apparently not even accurate in the first place and argues that its elimination shows sinister "objectives", when in fact its elimination from the first AR was more likely consistent with the simple "objective" of giving accurate reconstructions of global temperature.

He then quotes Briffa admitting by email no more than what I would expect any scientist to say--privately or otherwise: that the science and data are imperfect and this is in tension with the normal "pressure" to make the presentation simple for the average policy maker. (I mean, I face that dilemma in my own research. There is certain information about my data that is tedious to explain and has no bearing on my conclusions but which my readers arguably have a right to know.)

Furthermore, his email shows that he was *honest* and wanted the IPCC to be equally open. Amazingly, you elsewhere cite Mann's testimony before the Senate in which he *publicly* acknowledges the possibility of the MWP by saying that modern temps are "probably" highest in the past millenium. You're seeing coverup where the simply isn't one. It just seems like you've constructed a fairly narrow and distorted worldview for yourself, and you're seeing things that just aren't there.

Your quote of Trenberth is similar. The absence of a physical explanation for where the energy goes strikes me as reminiscent of intelligent design theorists' arguments against macro-evolution: We don't know how Mechanism X evolved, so macro-evolution is not true. In the same sense, citing Trenberth, who does not dispute the fundamental science of AGw, as arguing that we cannot explain the fate of the radiative forcing, and that therefore this disproves significant AGW caused by CO2, just strikes me as a terrible argument from ignorance.

To wit, having followed the dispute over the meaning of the average heat of 2001-2010, the extent to which CO2 is a primary driver, etc I must say I am fundamentally baffled at your key contention--that lack of linear warming disproves the thesis that CO2 is a primary driver of temperature change in the *long term*.

I mean, Jesus, Tilo. Of course over the relatively short run that is true. The temperature rose by 30 degrees in Reno today. The primary driver was not CO2 but a recurring phenomenon we call "sunrise". I expect average temperatures will increase by about 90 degrees by the time we get into August, and the primary driver won't be CO2 but another recurring phenomenon called "summer". Why cannot the effects of ENSO, atmospheric water vapor, and *things we still do not completely understand* be regarded as mid-range variations on the same basic idea: In the long run temperatures increase because of energy trapped by CO2, (which is, we are 90 percent sure, according to the IPCC, the primary diver) with natural variation occurring on shorter time scales because of the still-incompletely-understood complexities of weather systems?

It just seems like your pouncing on any discrepancy as proof that the conclusions of a century of physics and a numerically overwhelming consensus among climate specialists is driven by nothing but "hysteria", "alarmism", and "agenda".

I also see a disputant full of venomous interpretations of the IPCC that might have been lifted from a JFK conspiracy theory book ("the hockey team", "agenda-driven reconstructions", "a money tap for the UN", "will accept any junk"). It looks a lot to me like the paranoid militancy of the type of folks who think the moon landings were faked, except it comes in an atypically articulate and well-informed presentation. You're almost like a Super-Crakar.

All that said, I wish you luck in your endeavors; I would, in the end, rather *not* believe in AGW. But in deciding my position on these matters I am afraid that, yes, I will make an "appeal to authority". You've not given me much that compels me to do otherwise.

...lack of linear warming disproves the thesis that CO2 is a primary driver of temperature change in the *long term*.

Perhaps he's a believer in the Polite Theory of Climate Forcings and Feedbacks, in which each forcing or feedback takes its turn. If it were truly CO2's turn at affecting the climate, all else would stand aside and make sure it wasn't doing anything. Hey ENSO and solar cycles! Knock it off! It's CO2's turn now! You're confusing the idiots!

mandas:

So now we get back to the Soloman paper. Remember that I said the critical thing about the 12 year flat temperature trend was that it had no physical explanation. In other words, there was no element of natural variation that we understood that could account for it. And that meant that either the climate sensitivity number was too high or that there were strong elements of natural variability that we were unable to account for.

Well, clearly, Solomon presented us with a strong element of natural variability that we had not accounted for. And this is another element that is not in the models. Again, the less that the models account for, the more likely they are to be wrong. But going one further, Solomon tells us that from 1980 to 2000 that 30% of the warming could be accounted for by this phenomena. That gives us another 30% of the total that does not need to be accounted for by AGW. Since the 1980 to 2000 period is part of the crucial period of observation for the effects of AGW, this is another indiction that climate sensitivity numbers will need to be dropped. Even if it is a cyclic effect within the cliamte system, the numbers will need to be dropped. Since we only have one transition point for this we cannot tell if it is cyclic, however, or if there is a negative feedback to the warming here. Either is possible. I don't think that it can be a positive feedback to CO2, because the CO2 rise never changed direction. In fact, even methane, which can produce more water vapor in the stratosphere, has continued to rise. And yet the water vapor in the stratosphere declined.

So Solomon's paper covered my statement, in the link, from both sides, first we don't understand very large chunks of the climate system; second, the climate sensitivity number will have to be lowered as a result of this study. The earlier paper about a decline to positive CO2 feedback concentrations as a result of warming will do the same thing.

Now Solomon's paper does help to explain 25% of the missing temperature rise that the AGW community expects due to climate sensitivity. But 75% is still missing and unexplained. This means, stay tuned. The science is far from settled. Also, remember that we don't know if the Solomon observed effect will simply go away in a couple of years and give us back that 25% of expected warming, or if it will go on for a few decades, or if it will become even stronger and give us even less water vapor in the stratoshpere.

pough:
"If it were truly CO2's turn at affecting the climate, all else would stand aside and make sure it wasn't doing anything."

So tell me what the other effects are that are not standing aside and are instead overriding the effect of CO2. No handwaving. Give me the specific effects.

Of course your remark is a dumb remark considering that I have linked the post where I said this many times:

"But if there were a strong AGW signal, then it is entirely possible for a natural element of variation to overcome it for some time period. But here is the million dollar question - what is the element of natural variation that has overcome the signal for the last 12 years?"

And I even cut it out and pasted it into #127. But then warmers can never divert from the company line because that would require them to think for themselves. "Hey, RC, how do I answer these guys. Natural variation? Okay, got it!"

Ugh! Can any 'believers' or 'deniers' disagree that big corporations and the world banks are the only winners here? They want to tax your breathing! We exhale the poison! Plants live on the poison! Companies can buy carbon credits to pollute all they want, while the little guy gets taxed. Get your heads outta the sand and remember the phrase, 'Qui Bono'. I don't believe a thing about this global warming. Everyone here debates the science, well you can do that till you're fingers a nubs. The real issue should be debated, Who is going to make billions off this scam? And why should we pay for something that is shoved down our throats?

Peace
J.

Get your heads outta the sand and remember the phrase, 'Qui Bono'.

He's the lead singer of U2.

Tilo

I think there is a lot of sense in many of the things you are saying about climate observations. There are some aspects of the climate that we don't fully understand - but I don't think any rational person would disagree with that. Alternatively - and this is my main gripe with the denialist community - there are many things about it that we do understand, especially that atmospheric CO2 is an important driver of temperature, and that increasing atmospheric CO2 (and other trace gases) will lead to an increase in temperature (in the absence of other factors, to be discussed below).

Having said that, of course there will be other factors involved. Some of these are short term and/or cyclical (such as the 11 year solar cycle, ENSO or volcanic eruptions), while others are longer term (such as orbital pertubations, changes to solar irradiance). However, factors like these are unrelated to changes in anthropogenic CO2, and while they must be considered in any calculations of future climate trends, they are separate inputs to the equation, not modifications of CO2 forcing.

It is these feedbacks which are the complications, and which is where I tend to partially agree with you re Solomon's paper. There are two possibilities here. The first is that Solomon has observed a cyclical phenomenon which has suppressed temperature increases in the short term, but which will eventually be reversed and the main forcing mechanism (ie CO2) will once again become dominant. Of course, it may also mean that there could be an acceleration in warming as has also been suggested as a possibility by Solomon. In either case though, the phenomenon could be a purely cyclical modification of the long term trend, and is not an important factor when we speak of century long changes in climate, rather than annual or decadal changes.

The alternative is that the observed variances in stratospheric H2O act as a negative feedback of CO2 forcing ie that any increases in CO2/temperature will lead to a correlating change in stratospheric H2O, and this will suppress the effects of CO2 on temperature. I tend to discount this as a possibility. There is insufficient evidence to suggest this - there certainly isn't enough in Solomon's paper to support such a hypothesis. The data from pre 1990 is inadequate for fine grain analysis, and in any case the post 1990 data does not show any correlation with CO2 or temperature (ie it appears to be cyclical and more closely correlated with ENSO than a linear increase in CO2).

My view, and it is generally supported by Solomon, is that this IS a cyclical phenomenon, and it helps to explain the current (and perhaps other) relatively flat warming trend. This means that, far from assisting the denialist cause, Solomon's work is another nail in it's coffin. It shows that climate change is real, that it is anthropogenic, and it helps us to better understand the climate system.

You are correct - more work should be done to better understand some of these factors. Climate is complicataed, and no model can perfectly replicate it. As more information comes to hand, we can use that to update our knowledge so we can make better predictions of the future. That's how science works. Of course, you appear to know this only too well, its a pity that others don't.

Yes Skip i read your post 39, would you like me to summarise it?...OK.

You made a bold statement about temps pre and post industrial i then refute your statement with a few facts and then you no longer wish to discuss the matter.

You then go on about "mistakes", you first state that we all make mistakes and this is true. As an example you then compare the mistakes i have made with the raunchy romance novelist (formerly known as the rail road engineer).

But the point you have not covered here is that it is not the mistake made which is important but the consequences or ramifications of the mistake.

First of all in regards to the romance writer, he did not just simply apologies for allowing speculation into AR4. In response to the Indian Gov. statements that he was completely wrong about "2035" the novelist accused the Indian Gov. of practising voodoo science among other things and he eventually begrudgingly apologised.

Of course his apology came but a day after he and fellow bullshitter Hasnain had secured millions of dollars in research funding for TERI. Research funding which was based on the "2035" and other IPCC speculation.

Skip i do not recall my mistakes allowing me to have access to millions of dollars, have your mistakes ever been so profitable?

Not to mention that it would appear that AR4 has quite a few mistakes in it with many more to come i am sure. The latest mistake was taken from a story in a mountineering magazine WTF?

So when we finally add up all the mistakes i wonder how much influence these mistakes will have had on Gov. policy to fight AGW? How much could we have spared and used on more meaningful topics? I am sure we will never know the true cost.

"We don't know if those 20 years are any kind of feedback." - Tilo Reber

Correct, nor the 10 years after that.

"We don't know what the moisture level in the stratosphere was before that time." - Tilo

Yup.

"In fact, saying that it is a positive feedback to CO2 is just plain irrational. CO2 has continued to rise sharply since 2000, and this effect obviously went against it." - Tilo

The 1990's saw a similar rate of CO2 increases yet the net effect, according to this study, was a warming influence up to 2000.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/SIOMLOINSITUTHRU2008.JPG

"This tells us that the effect may be a negative feedback to warming, or it could simply be cyclic, like other elements of the climate system. It's highly unlikely that it was ever a positive feedback, since it would have to switch feedback modes while the thing that it is a feedback for (CO2) continued up without switching." - Tilo.

What it tells us is that the race horses aren't even out of the starting gate and yet you're wandering up to the bookie to collect your winnings. Whoa there buddy!.

You have earmarked the period after 2000 as the beginning of some negative feedback, based on wishful thinking perhaps?. The preceding 20 years you conveniently ignore. The positive/negative feedback comment was merely illustrating the illogicality of your claim.

And if you look here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/role-of-stratospheric-water-vapor-in-gl…

Figure 3. (from the Solomon study) indicates that the net effect of stratospheric water vapor, throughout the period in question, is that of a positive feedback.

Crakar:

To clarify: What was my "bold statement", and how was your response a "refutation"?

Does your last post mean you are no longer claiming that the IPCC was using the projection of melted Himalayan glaciers by 2035 as proof of global warming? It was a blunder on your part, Crakar, but if you're admitting it we can move on and talk about pre/post industrial CO2 and temps.

carakar

"...Of course his apology came but a day after he and fellow bullshitter Hasnain had secured millions of dollars in research funding for TERI. Research funding which was based on the "2035" and other IPCC speculation..."

You really don't believe in doing your research do you? Even the Pulitzer Award winning idiot James Delingpole only claimed the grant was $500,000, not millions as you claim. Unfortunately for both of you, the money was not given to TERI, but to 'Global Center', which is an Icelandic-based research organisation. Here is a link discussing the grant from the Carnegie Corporation:

http://carnegie.org/grants/grants-database/

And if you want to know a little more about TERI, you might have a read of this interesting press release:

http://www.teriin.org/index.php?option=com_pressrelease&task=details&si…

So, see how easy research is? And fun too; you learn so much. You should try it some time.

Skip,

How can i make this any more clearer, the IPCC headed by the romance novelist and ably assisted by Hasnain claimed the glaciers will melt by 2035. This claim was mere speculation on the part of an NGO.

We have seen this type of behaviour from the IPCC in other areas. The lifting of Wiki graphs, cut and pasting a Berne students fictional story and last but not least an anecdotal story lifted from a mountineering magazine.

So what started out as "oh this is just one tiny mistake" is showing us that the IPCC's claim glacial melt being caused by AGW is completely fictional. It could be because there is no evidence to support this claim or it could be that there was very little research on the subject at all. Either way the IPCC has been caught with its hand in the till. Well i should the novelist and Hasnain have been as they both profited handsomely through research funding based on these so called mistakes.

So ask yourself Skip would you not think to check the validity of a story from a student? or the validity of a mountineering magazine?

Now i understand your need to defend the IPCC as you would your faith so there is no need to debate this anymore. But you do have all the facts to determine your own conclusions, what you do with these facts is up to you.

This is your bold statement Skip

"The evidence for AGW is our current climate compared to the pre-industrial age and the well-understood physical properties of CO2."

I refuted what you said in post 50

Mandas, here we go again with the "ah-ha" moments, the one million of our tax money given to TERI with love from KRUDD was a mere illusion?

How can i make this any more clearer, the IPCC headed by the romance novelist and ably assisted by Hasnain claimed the glaciers will melt by 2035.

You're dodging as usual.

Crakar, this again is the beauty of a written debate. When you contradict yourself, its availble for all to see. This is what you *really* said before:

The IPCC claims to be THE authority, the central plank of its so called evidence is based on model outputs, model outputs that are formed in part on assumptions . . . .

So in support of its assumptions it has gathered up as much circumstantial evidence that it can find, examples of which are "Himalayan[sic] glaciers to melt by 2035" etc etc.

Your understanding of the issue was so shallow you thought the IPCC was using "models" of the Himalyas to prove global warming. Its all there on the record, Crakar; you can't run away from this. No one disputes it was a mistake to use a poor source to warn of the potential hazards; but you totally blundered by assuming they were using a poor source to establish the scientific basis of AGW. You were just plain, utterly wrong. When will you simply admit it?

Your post 50 refuted nothing but any notion that you can see the futility of the "linearity" argument. You are referring to temperature variations that everyone is aware of, for which numerous theoretical mechansisms have been forwarded to account for, and which are neither mystery nor confound to climate scientists. These temperature variations within the longer term effects of global warming are no more profound than pointing out that the temperature rise from 6 to 11 am is not caused by CO2 nor is that between January and August. Other things affect temps, Crakar. Everyone understands that. This is what I mean by straw men.

i agree, you all make a very valid point. Its great to know that people care so much!!