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I have a hard time trusting historical temperature records because they are not calculated every year in the same way. Furthermore, every single weather station is not audited to make sure that it is has the same conditions over time. For example, some stations have been moved without attribution.

I'm sorry but you're going to have to provide some evidence that temperature records are not calculated the same every year. As I know it they are calculated the same and if there is a change in methodology they go back and recalculate all of the previous years so they have a consistent record. Anything else wouldn't make sense scientifically.

There are 5 major surface temperature records that are independent of each other. HADCRUT, NASA, NOAA, JMA and Berkeley Earth. While the first 4 are selective of the temperature stations they use Berkeley Earth uses every single station they can. All 5 records are in substantial agreement.

Go read up on the Berkeley Earth group. They are independent of government, industry or philanthropic ventures. They post all of their raw data and analysis code online. They use 5 times more data than other groups. Yet their results are still in agreement with the other major temperature records. After you investigate them come back and tell me what you think they're doing wrong.

The only thing that is worrying about the sats is the way they're calibrated which also sometimes changes on a year to year basis which is again questionable. I'd rather look at a raw output of the system over time without modification and then see their suggested calibration. Absent that... I'm a little too paranoid about the whole thing to just take it on faith that everything was done properly.

As I said the raw output of the satellites is measurements of microwave emissions of O2. I have no doubt the raw data is available but it takes knowledge to be able to use it. It takes a lot of processing to convert that raw data into temperatures.

I've read that piece by Judith Curry before. I'm not particularly impressed. She spins things from her POV. I have some respect for Dr. Curry as she has the training to understand climate science. She stands out as a contrarian to mainstream climate science and it's good to have people like her (and Roy Spencer to name another) to make it more likely to catch egregious errors. Yet the contrarians haven't been able to make much headway against the mainstream.

As I said in the previous response 2014 is just another year in the data that makes up climate. Human nature primes us to take note of record events even if they're not particularly meaningful by themselves. I'm guilty of that myself from time to time.

You're still ignoring the Shaping Tomorrows World article.

I'd say that instead of falsifying data NASA and NOAA need to start being honest.

The difficulty is that once you decide that you can selectively ignore facts because of a huge conspiracy to falsify data, it becomes impossible for any amount of information to ever change your mind. So, the NASA data is falsified? And, the NOAA data, that's falsified too. And the University of East Anglia, of course. And the Berkeley data-- that was done specifically to address the problems people had with the NASA and NOAA data-- http://berkeleyearth.org/ That's faked too.? How about the Japanese data? http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/t... Also faked? The Australians-- fake too?

Once you conclude everything that disagrees with you is fake, your opinion is incontrovertible-- since nobody can confront it.

Why does the chart only go back to 1950?

Here's the Berkeley Earth graphic, with temperatures going back to 1870:
static.berkeleyearth.org/graphics/figure9.pdf

(also comparing models to measured data)

I know this is off-topic slightly, but in that graph, what caused the big temp drop between 1880 and 1900 that shows up? Strange.

> > Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius)
> In over 100 years the average has warmed 8/10's of a single degree.

This is actually a bit more than that because the chosen +0C is the average temperature during the 20th century that was reached around 1950, only 60-70 years ago:

http://static.berkeleyearth.or...

On that graph we are now at +0.8C but in 1910-20 we were around -0.4C so the last 100 year increase is more like 1.2C.

If the +0C was the average of the first measured century (1880-1980), it would be -0.2C or -0.3C.

Why does the chart only go back to 1950?

Here's the Berkeley Earth graphic, with temperatures going back to 1870:
static.berkeleyearth.org/graphics/figure9.pdf

(also comparing models to measured data)

I find you quite arrogant and condescending.

So, basically, you consider it condescending that I insist that you should actually look at data. Real data. Not blog posts.

And you complain that I only gave you a link to one source of data. OK, here are data from four continents:

Berkeley Earth: http://berkeleyearth.org/
Hadley Center Climate Research Unit: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/d...
Goddard Institute for Space Studies: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist...
Japanese Meteorological Agency: http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/t...
Australian Meteorological Agency: http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of...
NOAA: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/t...

The New York Times has been caught lately fixing the facts to meet the narrative.

Well, first I'd like to see a citation for that, since I have no idea what you're talking about. But you post as anonymous coward, so I doubt you have any references. Anonymous cowards should be assumed to be making stuff up unless proven otherwise.

But, in any case, that was just a convenient link to an essay from Robert Muller. Any other link would be just as good. If you want data, try http://berkeleyearth.org/

The narrative is what is important to Leftists not the facts. Leftists run the New York Times and Leftists are behind the whole of AGW politics.

Basically, anonymous posters whose main argument is "It's all a leftist conspiracy" should be ignored, since you don't have any interest in actual science.

Satellites "measure" temperature of nebulous areas of the atmosphere based on a model of microwave emissions of gases (primarily 02 I think). From that they calculate a temperature. Satellites have to make adjustments for a number of things. Orbital variation, degradation of the instruments, the angle of view of the surface, effects on the microwave emissions by clouds and the background being measured against, land elevation rising into the area of the atmosphere being measured and probably several other things.

Satellite temperature measurements and surface measurements are complimentary. They serve as a check against each other and so far what they show isn't that different.

HadCRUT definitely does include sea surface temperatures.

HadCRUT is the dataset of monthly instrumental temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the land surface air temperature records compiled by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.

If you want to include all possible stations worldwide then BEST is your friend. That's what they did and their findings are significantly different than HadCRUT.

"The raw, unadjusted temperature records always have said 1937" ??? That's a hell of a lot of adjustment, given that no year from the 1930s makes it into the top TWENTY warmest years globally. Are you sure 1937 was ever really a contender?

The raw data sources AND the code for the GISTEMP rankings have been available for years. Surely the acute minds of the warming skeptics would have long since ferreted out the deliberate falseness in their work.

There is someone who has taken the time to analyze data independently as objections have been raised. It's been a few years since he did the bulk of the work but it should still be valid - http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

More recently, there are the findings of the BEST project - http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

I agree, we should stick to the science. Here you go:

• The peer-reviewed Journal "Nature Climate Change" includes and references thousands of scientific papers on the subject.
• The IPCC's 1,500-page "Physical Science Basis" report cites hundreds of references and is authored by hundreds of experts. It clearly states what we know, don't know, and how we know it. It reviews its past predictions, notes where its models have errored, and takes into account an incredible wealth and scope of scientific observations over 150 years.
• The IPCC also makes all of its data and models available for review. So you can see for yourself.
• The US Government also recently updated its regularly scheduled report written by over 300 experts.
• The USGS has a Climate Model Browser that lets you try out all the different simulated predictions for Global Warming. You'll notice the specifics vary widely, but they all predict dramatic temperature rises.
• The NOAA has a National Climate Data Center where you can watch the temperature trends. Here's a visualization based on the data.
• The United States Defense department has several reports on the risks posed by Global Warming (see here, here, here, and here).
• The Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM) has produced some excellent reports on sea level rise due to Climate Change to inform local communities like Norfolk VA, where flooding is already a major issue, what to expect in the near future due to Global Warming.
• You can also watch the sea levels rise at the NOAA's Sea-Level Trends website.
• If you don't trust the government, then I recommend The Berkely Earth Project. It was funded by the liberal's favorite bad guys, the Koch Brothers, but its results were so compelling that the lead Climatologist, Richard A. Muller, wrote a piece for the New York Times announcing he was no longer a skeptic.
• Of course, it's always good to have a contrarian viewpoint in the mix, and for that, I recommend AGW skeptic Judith Curry, who presents valid challenges to the consensus with her strong scientific background. I don't find her convincing, but her challenges make for good food for thought.

If you dispute this science, then I recommend publishing your own peer-reviewed papers, your own models, and your own alternative hypotheses in the scientific journals. I see a lot of skeptics nit-picking the science, but not many actually taking the effort to publish in the scientific forums.

I eagerly await one of the skeptics out there to please post an equally substantive list of references to "balance" my citations, so everyone can review and compare them.

If you're interested in the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming, I suggest you read the science, not blog posts. I've read both WattsUp and SkepticalScience, and they are both very poorly written and lack rigorousness. If you are reading these two blogs, you are reading the work of bias amateurs.

Here's what you should be reading:

• the peer-reviewed Journal "Nature Climate Change," which includes and references thousands of scientific papers on the subject.
• he IPCC's 1,500-page "Physical Science Basis" report, clearly states what we know, don't know, and how we know it. It reviews its past predictions, notes where its models have errored, and takes into account an incredible wealth and scope of scientific observations over 150 years. I highly recommend downloading this 0.5 GIG report and at least skimming it. I consider it the model of good science.
• The IPCC also makes all of its data and models available for review. So you can see for yourself. Take this data and give it to a machine-learning algorithm. The science of AGW is actually shockingly simple.
• The US Government also recently updated it regularly scheduled report written by over 300 experts.
• If you don't trust the government, then I recommend The Berkely Earth Project. It was funded by the liberal's favorite bad guys, the Koch Brothers, but its results were so compelling that the lead Climatologist, Richard A. Muller, wrote a piece for the New York Times announcing he no longer a skeptic.
• Of course, it's always good to have a contrarian viewpoint in the mix, and for that, I recommend AGW skeptic Judith Curry, who presents valid challenges to the consensus with her strong scientific background. I don't find her convincing, but her challenges make for good food for thought.

Science, published peer-reviewed science, not blogs, is where we should keep this discussion.

Grant money is NOT given out to disprove AGW.

Sure there is.

The publications won't accept anything that doesn't support AGW.

Or anything arguing that the earth is a flat pancake resting on the back of a turtle for that matter. Really, a stage where even an arch-skeptic such as Richard Lindzen concedes that AGW is "trivially true" how could you expect non-science to be published in science journals?

A scientist being skeptical is like a politician using the word Niggardly. Everyone loses their shit and funds dry up ...

And yet the aforementioned Prof Lindzen was left on his chair until he retired last year at the oh so early age of 73; Chris Landsea has been awarded by the NOAA and promoted to a senior position at the National Hurricane Center and is regularly published in leading science journals; Judith Curry retains her chair at Georgia Institute; etc; etc; etc.

Is there a global conspiracy ... No

You say this. But your entire post is a on paranoid (and counter-factual) conspiratorial rant motivated by your reality denying inability to accept that there remains no currently active climate scientist of any repute (from Lindzen on down), who is able to sustain serious doubt as to the basic propositions of AGW (which is not to say they are not skeptical about much of the science, and in particular the issue of climate sensitivity).

All you are is a shill for Al Gore ...

Al Gore ... ? Hmm that name rings a bell. Didn't he used to be someone way back in the days when it was still possible to mount a scientific argument against the human influence of observed warming?

I wonder if I'm replying to a post sent in about 1991?

Muller looked at station quality specifically, and found that you get the same warming signal using good quality and poor quality temperature stations. But of course you already know this since you are interested in getting to the bottom of the debate.

I was quite please to get so far through the comments before a post by an idiot denier.

Then you find the "proof" of warming down at the bottom. A carefully excised anomalous temperature chart that. 0.5C total range with a tail pointing down.

The "tail" seems to be wagging your dog.

This graphic illustrates the stupidity of your view. http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Plot the temperature folks. It ain't hard. BEST has it available for free. http://berkeleyearth.org/data

BEST, a study financed by deniers, hiring the team and setting the goals in the hope of producing an anti-AGW result. And the conclusion was: AGW is real.

I have been pawing through the data from each station.

As you're not a scientist, that's a sure sign that your denial comes from mental illness.

Hah! Throw out everything Phil Jones has ever done or reproduce it independently like the BEST group did and the answers still come out the same. There are thousands of scientists around the world who are studying the problem intensely. The thought that all of them are in on a conspiracy to bugger the science for political reasons strains credulity to the breaking point. It would have to be the biggest conspiracy ever and it would be impossible to hold a conspiracy that big together for any length of time.

Regarding hurricanes there was some speculation a decade ago about more of them but the IPCC has been ambivalent about that. Mostly what they say is that there is likely to be an increase in the average strength in the future. The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season was pretty quiet but the 2013 Pacific cyclone season wasn't. However, 2010, 2011 and 2012 are all tied for the 3rd most named storms in the Atlantic season so your "Reality is quieter hurricane seasons each year" statement is just wrong.

As for "No record lows anymore", I challenge you to find any scientist in the field that has actually said that. It hasn't happened. At most what they would say is that there will very likely be more record highs than record lows in the future.

I have read plenty on the subject but obviously not the stuff you read. Actually I have read some stuff from your side and most of it I find pretty laughable. Roy Spencer has some interesting stuff occasionally. I do read papers on the subject from time to time and I have read the IPCC AR4 WG I completely but they're a part of the conspiracy, aren't they?

I have no idea what you mean by "... you just repeat crap that has been debunked for over 5 years ...".

People who claim that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will cause catastrophic climate change at some unknown point in the future (but soon!), have no necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement. Any observation can be explained by their hypothesis - up, down, left, right, more, less, black, white, they're all simply consistent with their hypothesis.

This same charge is made be creationists. Evolution theorists joke that every fossil discovery creates two new gaps in the fossil record (one on each side), because when you listen to creationists, that's how they carry on. When creationists say that evolution cannot be falsified, and specific examples are _given_, they are _ignored_. Because, every creationists is too wedded to their ignorance, of course.

There are numerous way to falsify the AGW hypothesis. Richard Muller recently (and famously) tried and failed to do so. Gee, perhaps he's incompetent. In fact perhaps all those career scientists and other academic experts are so incompetent that they don't know that they are incompetent. Or maybe that's you.

Your argument is typical for what "skeptics" carry on about. Devoid of content, and simply wrong.

The overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology today get paychecks that rely on people being focused on their alarmism.

This is such a stupid claim, because scientists in general are hungry for grant money, and oil companies are hungry for shills. You want money, you just have to sell your PhD, and feed at the trough. But if you have real integrity like Muller did, then watch the deniers turn on you when you fail to say what they want to hear.

But sure, scientists are all just paid off by a government conspiracy.

Here is that NASA data you're referring to:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/ [nasa.gov]
or here, comparing various data sets:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/0/h/compare_datasets_new.jpg [metoffice.gov.uk]
I would not seriously characterize this as "the earth has been cooling for the past decade." Most notably, the increase in temperature observed from the 1960s has not reversed.
Here, from the BEST project, is the comparison of theory and data:
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/img/annual-with-forcing-small.png [berkeleyearth.org]

Dude, the data certainly does not support warming either. At 95% the data can support BOTH, you just believe ONE SIDE.

Over a time period of decades-- which is the time scale of relevance-- I see clear warming: a rise of about 0.6C in global temperature over the last 50 years. So, no, I disagree. I'd say "the data supports warming" quite clearly and unambiguously.

Here is that NASA data you're referring to:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
or here, comparing various data sets:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/0/h/compare_datasets_new.jpg

I would not seriously characterize this as "the earth has been cooling for the past decade." Most notably, the increase in temperature observed from the 1960s has not reversed.

Here, from the BEST project, is the comparison of theory and data:
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/img/annual-with-forcing-small.png

Several decades

And I was admonishing the IPCC for being so slow to correct an unambiguous error.

When Arrhenius posited AGW in 1896 it was surely still in the realm of conjecture. But the indictment was ready by Hansen to congress in 1988. The reasonable objections that were made have all been met (and the science is the stronger for these objection, scepticism being a necessary ingredient of good science). And we have a clear finding from the expert scientific community at least about the basic science and the direction of change.

We've had your "several decades."

We'll just have wait for independent confirmation of the IPCC's projections

We've had that too, at least with regard to the basic science. As far as projections per se are concerned the only time can confirm them --by which time, of course, we shall have failed to have acted. No one can inerrantly project into to the future. But you can act in accordance with what is currently the best available science. Or you can choose to deny it, like Steve Jobs did.

But this isn't a discussion about climate science. This is a discussion about whether it is appropriate to deploy psychology to explain the surprising level of inaction in the face of very clear science pointing to the danger of such inaction, or whether this is merely an attempt at medicalising dissent. And as the example of Jobs illustrates, this tendency to reject reality for wishful thinking is hardly confined to climate change.

Given there are people out there who have expressed an intention wilfully to maintain in incorrect position "for several decades," who prefer to substitute their own opinion for the facts of science and at the same time display so stunning a lack of self-awareness as to pontificate "part of the problem being people who confuse their own opinion with fact," I think it very clearly falls within the purview of psychology.

They obviously do. The only project ever to disprove the climate statistics ended up in confirming their projections. So far no one else has proven the statistics wrong. And no, "I don't like the results, so they must be wrong" is no proof for anything.

i first read about global warming sometime around 1990. have any of the original predictions come true?

Temperture is up about 0.7C since then, which is right on the predictions. http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/

The claims, the experiments of the climate science could not be reproduced, could not be reproduced. In fact, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was a successful reproduction of the experiments of climate science.

First Phase
The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund ($20,000)
William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation ($100,000)
Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (created by Bill Gates) ($100,000)
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($150,000)
The Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation ($50,000)
We also received funding from a number of private individuals, totaling $14,500 as of June 2011.

Second Phase
William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation ($100,000)
The Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation ($50,000)
Anonymous Foundation ($250,000)

So the two single largest specific funders are Koch related and an unnamed group.

Your bad! LMAO

Exactly. Look at global temperature for the last 250 years plotted with CO2+volcanos and a simple fit:

http://berkeleyearth.org/images/annual-with-forcing-small.png

There's almost no modelling there, it's just plotting two sets of measurements together.

If you think CO2 is not the cause, you need to find two things: another warming effect that fits the data at least as well as CO2 (and it has to be a huge warming effect that no one's noticed before), plus an equally large cooling effect to cancel out all the heat that we know the CO2 will have added to the atmosphere. This is possible, of course, but not very likely.

"Queue the military-industrial complex lobbying for money for volcano-nuking projects."

The study is funded by the Koch brothers and the Charles Koch foundation.
http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#funding

I rest my case.

The article shows a correlation between volcanoes and dips in climate. Also they attribute all climate rise to mostly CO2 and say that solar/urbanization/etc has not caused noticeable climate change. They attribute CO2 increase to both humans and volcanoes.

See correlation here: http://berkeleyearth.org/volcanoes/ The theory is that the recent (1956+) rise is mostly AGW.

It's sad this got modded informative. The data that Jones deleted was from temperature stations he wasn't using in his analysis and is still available from the original sources. In fact the BEST study used data from all sources so it included the data that Jones deleted. BEST's results were very similar to Jones's. You have to remember, back when Jones deleted it that data storage was still quite expensive.

Name one that has come true, if you can.

"The world will get warmer."

Proof: Domingues 2008, Nuccitelli 2012, NASA GISS, NOAA NCDC, Hadley Centre, and BEST 2011 (preliminary).

The BEST study confirmed that the heat-island effect is "nearly negligible". That link has a good discussion of the analysis and related criticism.

If you read the next paragraph of my original link, you'll see that the BEST heat-island paper in particular was "technically rejected", but was encouraged to re-submit the paper with suggested changes that do not affect the basic results. There is no reason to doubt their analysis at this time.

Unless of course you are in the habit of automatically distrusting anyone who says something you don't like, as it appears. It's ironic that you accuse them of propaganda for releasing their results before full peer review, as Watts and most other deniers have been doing exactly that all along.

As for the BEST dataset, it's been available for many months. As has the data of the other major studies, all of which agree. How many more lines of evidence do you need?

The BEST study confirmed that the heat-island effect is "nearly negligible". That link has a good discussion of the analysis and related criticism.

If you read the next paragraph of my original link, you'll see that the BEST heat-island paper in particular was "technically rejected", but was encouraged to re-submit the paper with suggested changes that do not affect the basic results. There is no reason to doubt their analysis at this time.

Unless of course you are in the habit of automatically distrusting anyone who says something you don't like, as it appears. It's ironic that you accuse them of propaganda for releasing their results before full peer review, as Watts and most other deniers have been doing exactly that all along.

As for the BEST dataset, it's been available for many months. As has the data of the other major studies, all of which agree. How many more lines of evidence do you need?

All around, alarmists and deniers. 30 second sound bytes work great for both, but are horrible at actually delivering the truth... which is damn complex.

A look at a statistical fit study that implies man-made CO2 is the most likely cause: http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/.

"BUT IS IT MAN-MADE AND REAL!!?"

Probably.

Sooo, why'd the Beeb pull that crap then?

"BUT IS IT MAN-MADE AND REAL!!?"

Probably.

One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data.

And one thing you're missing is that there are multiple sources of data from independent methods of measurement, with data analysis being done by multiple independent groups around the globe. This is not simply one single data set that is ambiguous; there is everything from balloon measurements to satellite infrared, and even gravity measurements of the thickness of polar ice taken by satellites.

Most notably, there is the Berkeley independent reanalysis of temperature data ("Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature"), which was done explicitly to try to address the claims of bias in the data: http://berkeleyearth.org/ . This is the work of which climate skeptic Anthony Watts said--before the results were released-- "I will believe this study", and which, as it turns out, shows results that pretty much lie exactly on top of the graph produced from the NOAA data, the NASA data, and even the CRU data. (see the comparison here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071 )

There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues

All of which are addressed.

, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.

And that is an "800lb gorilla" for what reason, exactly? The question is about the effect of human-generated carbon dioxide over time scales of decades-- questions about the temperature record over time scales of millions to billions of years ("geologic time frames") is of great scientific interest, but not really relevant to criticizing the record over time scales five to eight orders of magnitude shorter.

So we must proxy, and normalize, and adjust, and model. Really, I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet.

Sorry, but this is what science does: take data, analyze it, and compare it to models. Science is remarkably good at this.

Another thing science is remarkably good at is comparing two different models and determining which one works. The problem is, there isn't a credible model that doesn't show global warming. The deniers don't have any models. (Haven't you ever wondered how come the results from climate modelling are often critiqued, but the critics never show their own models? That's because they don't have any.) There have been many attempts to find a model with negative feedback loops that cancel out the greenhouse effect, but none of these have ever worked even at the top level.

The "denier" claims aren't falsifiable, because there isn't actually any model to falsify. Their entire model consists of "you're wrong".

Yes, Just because the Petroleum Institute believes tomorrow will be just like yesterday does not make it so... [note I say 'believes' for without any corresponding proof or research it is belief not science -- see http://berkeleyearth.org/ for a skeptic's results]...

What are you talking about? Here are Muller's papers

This paper, in addition to three of the papers posted online in October 2011, have been revised based on input received through the peer review process. A fifth paper has been provisionally accepted for publication,

Provisional acceptance is a post peer review stage associated with getting the paper properly typeset,choosing which graphics to print in color, signing copyright transfer fees and other minutia that don't bear on the scientific value of the work.

And if you think I'm blowing hot air (haha), first check out Berkeley's OWN description of the state of the study, and then check out Judith Curry's discussion of Muller's comments.

I think the fact that Richard Muller was a known skeptic of global warming led them to believe he (and his team) would do an honest study of global temperatures as opposed to all of the other "politically motivated" studies they didn't like. And BEST did do an honest study. Richard Muller turned out to be a skeptic in the true sense of the word. Once he personally vetted the data he was willing to change his mind about it. The Koch's may not like the results but they're hard to argue with.

Maybe this will convince you ?

Your assumption would be incorrect. Natural variability means that short term temperature variations occur. A true measure of the temperature of the Earth would look not only at atmospheric temperatures but ocean temperatures as well (and even land temperatures). On average about 90% of the warming that occurs each year goes into the oceans. But cycles such as El Nino/La Nina cause large transfers of energy between the oceans and the atmosphere so in the short term the atmosphere can cool. A recent statistical analysis found that it takes 17 years of temperature records to distinguish the signal of the global warming trend from the short term noise of natural variability. So it's not realistic to expect temperatures to monotonically increase year after year. It's only examination of the longer term records that will give you the true trend in temperature.

True skepticism is not irrational. For example Richard Mueller of the BEST study was skeptical of the existing temperature analyses (CRU, GISS, NOAA) until he got the results from his work which matched the others well. He was willing to be convinced by the evidence. What's irrational is using the same old arguments time and time again which have been thoroughly debunked or are just unscientific to begin with. What's irrational is to be unwilling to be convinced by the evidence because it doesn't fit your worldview.

Speaking of graphs, I find this one really scary, and would want to see it flatten out or drop for a good few years before I stop caring about my energy usage.

Just taking a quick gander at that particular graph, I notice that it covers 200 years of surface temperature. This brings a couple of points to my mind:

1) How accurate can we judge the entire planet's average temperature in the year 1800? The graph shows swings from year to year in the 0.2 C range. Can we really judge the average surface temperature of the planet with 0.2 degrees Celsius?

2) Also, the chart shows 200 years. This is a blip on the scale of climate science. If you look at the climate history on a much, much larger scale, you'll find that 200 years means nothing. For example, the chart on this page shows that we are much cooler than the average. An sharp increase in average temps would help put us "right". Or this chart which goes back 4500 years, shows that we just came out of an ice age, so a temperature increase would be expected, and also negates your Berkely graph. Or, finally, this page which shows a whole slew of charts, most of which show that we are in a cold period of climate history, and an increase in average temperature would get the earth back to the "normal" range.

The mainstream climate scientists are not and have not been mispredicting the rate of climate change. If you look at the data from models from 1979 (the National Academy of Science study), or even the models from 1967 (the Manabe greenhouse-effect calculation)-- the actual data fits the model very nearly exactly.

Here's a checkup on a Hansen prediction from 1981. I wouldn't call it near-exact, but still pretty good for a 30-year-old model of a very complicated set of things.

Speaking of graphs, I find this one really scary, and would want to see it flatten out or drop for a good few years before I stop caring about my energy usage.

Correct me if I am wrong but in simple terms the planet warmed a little over 10 years ago and at which time the warming leveled off.

Not much point in replying to posts by anonymous coward, since even if, as you say, "I am willing to listen to evidence that refutes it," how would I know? I don't even know what data you're willing to look at, and what data you have decided to ignore because you claim it is (quoting from the previous post) "...lying with statistics... fabricating temperature readings... committing scientific and financial frauds."

However, taking you at your word for just a moment, here is the data for the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project:
http://berkeleyearth.org/images/berkeley-earth-land-surface-average-temperature-60yr.jpg

Would you say, based on this data, that "the Earth warmed a little ten years ago and the warming stopped"?

What about if you draw a line from the 1998 data point to the 2008 data point? Would you say that this line is, or is not, representative of the data?

This despite the fact that present day CO2 levels are now even higher than worst case scenario predictions 10 years ago.

Actually, no; check your data source. It turns out that the global recession had a negative impact on the CO2 emission growth rate. It's not "higher than worse case predictions," it ended up being "slightly less than predicted." (Not enough to make much of a difference in the predictions, though).

That graph came from the BEST FAQ, which can be found here: http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#stopped
You can also try the NASA data, NOAA data, CRU data etc. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) graphs, for example, compare data taken by several different methods; they are here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

Correct me if I am wrong but in simple terms the planet warmed a little over 10 years ago and at which time the warming leveled off.

Not much point in replying to posts by anonymous coward, since even if, as you say, "I am willing to listen to evidence that refutes it," how would I know? I don't even know what data you're willing to look at, and what data you have decided to ignore because you claim it is (quoting from the previous post) "...lying with statistics... fabricating temperature readings... committing scientific and financial frauds."

However, taking you at your word for just a moment, here is the data for the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project:
http://berkeleyearth.org/images/berkeley-earth-land-surface-average-temperature-60yr.jpg

Would you say, based on this data, that "the Earth warmed a little ten years ago and the warming stopped"?

What about if you draw a line from the 1998 data point to the 2008 data point? Would you say that this line is, or is not, representative of the data?

This despite the fact that present day CO2 levels are now even higher than worst case scenario predictions 10 years ago.

Actually, no; check your data source. It turns out that the global recession had a negative impact on the CO2 emission growth rate. It's not "higher than worse case predictions," it ended up being "slightly less than predicted." (Not enough to make much of a difference in the predictions, though).

That graph came from the BEST FAQ, which can be found here: http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#stopped
You can also try the NASA data, NOAA data, CRU data etc. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) graphs, for example, compare data taken by several different methods; they are here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

The actual source elaborates:

Continued global warming "skepticism" is a proper and a necessary part of the scientific process. The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed by one of us (Muller) seemed to take the opposite view with its title and subtitle: "The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism -- There were good reasons for doubt, until now." But those words were not written by Muller. The title and the subtitle of the submitted Op-Ed were "Cooling the Warming Debate - Are you a global warming skeptic? If not, perhaps you should be. Let me explain why." The title and subtitle were changed by the editors without consulting or seeking permission from the author. Readers are encouraged to ignore the title and read the content of the Op-Ed.

http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#disagreement

The BEST study used all of the stations available including the ones no longer used by the other temperature records. Their temperature record is within the margin of error of the others. They concluded that the other temperature records had made valid cuts in their sample size. Next.

cold fjord, you should know that any given link you might provide from the senate.gov website is hardly a neutral source. The link you provided, in fact, is specifically the republican-dominated minority version of the environment and public works committee. I.e., Inouye who is beholden to the petroleum lobby. Do us a favor and refrain from using a senate resource to try and make a point as it will merely be political bullshit on one side or the other. If I were trying to bring political bullshit, I would refer you to the majority page at the same exact site. What I mean is this: please don't be a retard.

If you want to bring facts into discussion, please do find the data from those 400 (or is it 650?) scientists which proves the world is not getting warmer. As I recall, the research conducted by global warming skeptic Richard Muller (funded by the Koch family) agreed that the earth has in fact grown warmer. More here. If you can actually find such graphs, let's take a look at them and assess them base on their merits. Please don't bother linking senate.gov or the national review and I won't bother linking huffington post or moveon.org.

When citing someone, go to the source:

Continued global warming "skepticism" is a proper and a necessary part of the scientific process. The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed by one of us (Muller) seemed to take the opposite view with its title and subtitle: "The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism -- There were good reasons for doubt, until now." But those words were not written by Muller. The title and the subtitle of the submitted Op-Ed were "Cooling the Warming Debate - Are you a global warming skeptic? If not, perhaps you should be. Let me explain why." The title and subtitle were changed by the editors without consulting or seeking permission from the author. Readers are encouraged to ignore the title and read the content of the Op-Ed.

http://berkeleyearth.org/faq/#disagreement

A better link than HuffPo is straight from the horses mouth:

http://berkeleyearth.org/

In particular look at the findings page.

Look at the dataset used for the project. The vast majority of data is manually adjusted, "corrected", estimated, or otherwise fucked around with.
It's a pathetic farce, yet everyone thinks the "data" is sacred, and everyone thinks that the data has been "reviewed" when in fact all the reviews have centered around the stastical modelling applied to the bad data.

And of course, there's the complete lack of a usable model.

It's not science, it's politics. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron who has never done a lick of science in their lives and never will.

A better link than HuffPo is straight from the horses mouth:

http://berkeleyearth.org/

In particular look at the findings page.