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World temperature gradient vs latitude is ~ +1 degree C per 145 km latitude toward the equator. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:Temperature_versus_Latitude_png

World temperature change since 1910 is ~ .7 degree C. http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/Climate-change-is-real.aspx'

Ohio is ~370km north-to-south, so that's about 3.6 times the temperature difference from 1910 to now.

Are people in southern Ohio 30-40% less productive than people in northern Ohio?

"if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression."

See also: Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Svante Arrhenius, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276.

Now, if you clean up your act and stop simply spouting lies, we might have a discussion.

No. Those who requested the data requested that if all the data couldn't be provided, then the freely available data should be provided. They were refused.

Bzzt. Wrong. Try again.

30.First, in answer to the question of whether the raw data are accessible and verifiable, Professor Jones told us that:
The simple answer is yes, most of the same basic data are available in the United States in something called the Global Historical Climatology Network. They have been downloadable there for a number of years so people have been able to take the data, do whatever method of assessment of the quality of the data and derive their own gridded product and compare that with other workers.

31.In addition, of course, there are the sources of the data, the weather stations, to which any individual is free to go and collect the data in the same way that CRU did. This is feasible because the list of stations that CRU used was published in 2008.

41. Professor Jones contested these claims. According to him, “The methods are published in the scientific papers; they are relatively simple and there is nothing that is rocket science in them”. He also noted: “We have made all the adjustments we have made to the data available in these reports; they are 25 years old now”. He added that the programme that produced the global temperature average had been available from the Met Office since December 2009.

51. Even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified.

When asked for a list of what data was used, but not the data itself, they refused. Even if the data is available for free on the net, how can the results be replicated if they will not say which data was used?

Jones PERSONALLY refused. The information about what data was used has been available since the original papers and research were performed! IT'S IN THE RESEARCH, DURRRR. Have you ever read any of it?

It has only been replicated by his buddies.

Bzzt! Wrong. Try again.

BEST was funded by the Koch brothers, owners of a giant oil/petrochemical company. Most DEFINITELY NOT "buddies" with Mann. Even still, being "buddies" in science doesn't mean diddly-squat; it's not about WHO you know, but WHAT you know, and HOW WELL you know it. So far, Mann's work has been REPEATEDLY vindicated.

There can be no vindication for trying to "hide the decline".

Ya know, for a minute there, I thought you might be trying to be genuinely serious and skeptical. Then you trot THAT out. /facepalm

It is a well established rule of science that you don't leave out data that casts doubt on your conclusion.

You are correct, it is, and the vast majority of climate scientists and their research faithfully follow that rule, no matter how many intellectually dishonest, ignorant, and gullible idiots falling for charlatans and snake oil salesmen lke Watts, Michaels, Singer, et cetera ad nauseum, try to spin otherwise.

You've fallen for their story.

No, I've fallen for the FACTS of the matter. I've done my homework; I've looked beyond anyone's story; what's YOUR excuse?

Many of us used to think the alarmists were good willed, and we assumed they were honest. I still think they are good

Funny enough the fact that there has to be a green house effect was discovered in the 19th century by our all time favourite Fourier and also later more accurately by Arrhenius.
Here are a few links:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf
http://geologist-1011.mobi/

So yes with the information from many disciplines we could have decided in the 1930s to not grow to 7 billion people and stay at 2 billion but who would have wanted this.

[Citation Needed] - show me the research that says we're entering a cooling period. Yes, we SHOULD be in a cooling period due to the longer-time Melankovich cycles, but the existing record shows otherwise

Of course, carbon dioxide is a bit more of a problem that we're feeling for real, RIGHT NOW, not some couple of degrees C in the next few decades. There's no denying that digging up ancient carbon sources and pumping them into the air directly results in higher carbon dioxide levels.

[Citation Needed] - show me the research that says we're entering a cooling period. Yes, we SHOULD be in a cooling period due to the longer-time Melankovich cycles, but the existing record shows otherwise

Of course, carbon dioxide is a bit more of a problem that we're feeling for real, RIGHT NOW, not some couple of degrees C in the next few decades. There's no denying that digging up ancient carbon sources and pumping them into the air directly results in higher carbon dioxide levels.

Unlike your 100 words, your link has no obvious errors. Your claim that we are still coming out of the ice age is incorrect insofar as global temperature is concerned. Global mean surface temperature probably peaked 5000 to 8000 years ago and was gradually declining until the abrupt 20th century rise. It is now a close call whether we have caught up to the 5ka peak, but we will likely surpass it soon enough.

I wonder whether our civilization will collapse. We have a problem. But instead of arguing about how big this problem is, and what to do about it, too many of us are in denial. It may be that the consequences are mild enough that we can get away with such behavior. If we acted that way towards every problem we face, we would die.

But I wouldn't care to bet on this problem being no big deal, particularly when we don't have to and it's actually more costly to do so. Contrary to the knee jerk thinking that this is all going to be very expensive, the solutions will make our civilization more efficient. That's right, switching to WWS (wind, wave, and solar) and weaning ourselves off of oil would be worth doing even if AGW wasn't real. We'll save money. We could leave the Middle East alone at a huge savings in money and lives.

Maybe you have not appreciated just how wonderful an electric motor is compared to a combustion piston engine? Engines are smelly, polluting, noisy, complicated, unreliable, bulky, cumbersome, expensive, dangerously hot, and hard to operate. An electric motor turns on and off in an instant, and is so quiet, smooth, steady, and small. Doesn't need oil changes. Doesn't vibrate its load, causing more wear and forcing the use of heavier components to withstand it. Converts more than 90% of its input into useful work, versus 30% for engines. If that isn't enough, to maybe better see how awful engines are, imagine using a fan powered by a gasoline engine. You'd be choking on the fumes it'd be blowing in your face. You'd have to rig up some kind of belt drive so you could put the engine outside, maybe add a flue to exhaust the fumes, maybe put it in a closet to muffle the noise. What is the matter with you that you can bear to continue living with piston engines and other assorted inferior tech if you don't have to? Is familiarity worth that much? It's not as big a change as you might think. Trains have been halfway there for decades, with the diesel electrics. For railroads, the advantages of driving wheels with electric motors have been so big that it's been more than worth the losses involved in the conversion. Everywhere we can, we use electric motors in preference. The reason they aren't yet widespread in cars is that their "fuel" is hard to store and transfer quickly.

I see little hope for us if a seemingly intelligent person (like yourself?) can't go see for yourself and be honest enough to admit that this information is not fake or wrong or flawed. It would help if there weren't all these liars out there pretending to be scientists-- and have no doubt, those sorts aren't making innocent mistakes, no. They are lying, and they know it. What they may not understand is that they aren't doing good science. Don't seem to get what good science is. They actually think that real scientists make up bull like they do, and that doing so is somehow not the same thing as lying, or that being careful with the facts is not important. There is no way a group as widespread, diverse, numerous, and contentious as real scientists could or would engineer a massive conspiracy to fake something like this, or that lies or mistakes could long go unnoticed and unremarked. Nor is it conceivable that all of us are so stupid as to be mistaken or wrong, and wrong in the same way when there are infinitely many contradictory and mutually exclusive ways to be wrong. Nor can you put this down to "groupthink". If you give that notion any credibility, you fail to understand how competitive and factual real science is.

If you've understood how improbable it is that we're lying or wrong, then how can you not see that our information on the climate does show a break from the past, and that it coincides with the rise of our fossil fuel usage and this is not a coincidence b

How long is this "no warming in last 15 years" half-truth going to survive?

I would be greatly pleased if someone who takes this as some sort of anti-gw proof would kindly review this graph: http://www.grist.org/article/global-warming-stopped-in-1998 then explain why they still hold that view.

Then there is this 2000 year graph showing the results of 10 different studies by different teams using different methodologies: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

Is there a claim that ALL of them are junk?

On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground
Svante Arrhenius
Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276.

Other commenters have taken apart your weird assurances that if it weren't for the masses of dollars spent on the climate, we'd all be living on solar domes in platforms in space, as well as your handwaving-away of the economic costs of catastrophic environmental disasters.

Anyway, the latest predictions I heard of our holy climate priests were an increase of 2 degrees centigrade in 2100. (no, not 2010).

The temperature changes aren't evenly distrubted around the globe. This doesn't mean that, for instance, on a day where it would have been 20 C, it will now be 22 C in my neighborhood. Relatively small changes in average global temperature can have large effects on the environment; two degrees' increase leads to a significant chance of ice sheets falling off Greenland (thus raising sea levels), the Gulf Stream ceasing to run (thus freezing Europe), and massively more intense hurricanes.

If the global temperature was a random walk with a delta of -0.1, 0 and +0.1 every year, we can and will obtain much greater deltas just by chance alone.

Why must you make me invoke Morbo?

GLOBAL TEMPERATURE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!

It's not a random walk. If you have some reason to believe that it is, or that a random-walk model would make an accurate model, I'm all ears, but so far as I'm aware, this is utter handwaving bullshit. It's not even accurate as a model of any sort. It's as though I decided to model my weight as a random walk and concluded that I might end up with negative mass, and am thus a valuable resource for physicists.

It seems that the normal state of affairs for our planet is an ice age.

Normal over the last few million years (modulo some brief interglacials like we're in now). It has had greenhouse periods in the past, too (e.g. here).

The increase in our greenhouse gases has REVERSED a centuries long cooling trend that over the centuries forced the vikings to abandon greenland, which 1000 years ago was warmer than it is today.

Greenhouse gases didn't end the Little Ice Age. That was mostly due to other natural effects, such as multi-century changes in solar output and volcanic activity, although greenhouse gases could have contributed a bit to the tail end of that. Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing since about 1850 or so, but didn't really become a major climate driver until around the mid-20th century.

Has anyone considered the idea that the greenhouse effect may help us avoid the next ice age?

Yes, but it takes many thousands of years to descend into a glacial period. If you're really concerned about preventing that, you'd want us to save our fossil fuels for later, when we need them, instead of using them all up now, when we don't. We're emitting them at a far greater rate than is necessary to stave off the next glacial period, even if one were due now, which it may well not be.

Global warming will open up vast areas of canada, siberia, and perhaps antarctica for human settlement.

It will also make a lot of areas less habitable. And just because more areas become habitable doesn't mean it's feasible to settle them. The people who are going to need to move the most will probably be in tropical developing countries. Is Russia going to allow them to resettle into new barely-habitable frozen Siberia, will they want to go, will they be able to afford to go, and can the land support them? Former permafrost doesn't make great agricultural soil.

This larger temperate area would greatly offset the loss of land area due to rising sea waters.

Many of the world's great cities are on the coast. I don't know that rebuilding New York City in Siberia would be an even trade. (Ok, slightly hyperbolic here, but you get the point.)

Technology and advances in water purification may allow areas affected by desertification to be reclaimed.

I think it would be quite expensive to expect "water purification" to compensate for global changes in precipitation patterns.

Climate change is coming, our earth has never had and never will have a stable climate. The quest is what type of climate change do we want?

Not too much, and not too fast.

..has caused me much hilarity, given that there was little man made CO2 pre- 1940's and at least half of the warming of the 20th century occurred then, and that post 1998 there has been no warming (cooling indeed, according to the satellite record) at all, despite increasing CO2.

Wrong.

• http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt (NASA sat. data)
• http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png (same data plotted on graph)

1900 (-.19 C) to 1940 (.07 C) difference of .26 C
1940 (.07 C ) to 2008 (.53 C) difference of .46 C
Seems like a lot less than half, maybe you are the one who is not letting the facts bother their opinions?

Here's a better chart

Does it strike you as interesting that human civilization and culture flourished during the prolonged stability of the last 10k years or so?

Same "debate", different forum.

- Don't confuse the scientists and the advocates (yes, the Venn diagram does overlap). Some advocates make insane claims. I stick with the science. Starting with the 1896 paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground", by Svante Arrhenius.

- The 1934 issue was for the US, not global data. The U.S. makes up what pct. of global land area (hint: it's much less than 100%). Sloppy on your part.

- No one argues that mankind is solely responsible for climate variability. That's the lamest strawman around, and represents either dishonest or incompetent thinking. The argument that is made is that human impact is now as large, and will become larger than, modern sources of climatic variability. Re: recent trends, see the flippin' original link- we're in a solar minimum, for starters. You keep talking about cooling. Where's your data?

- You play the "I'm a victim" card exquisitely. Honest debates on science and policy are welcome. Ad naseum repetition of debunked data points, without even the pretense of providing supporting data, is annoying.

And there have since been numerous reproductions of the past temperature record, quite similar to the Hockey Stick, look
here

The oceans are currently absorbing 7 billion tons of CO2 more than they outgas each year, with terrestrial absorption at 5 billion tons net per year.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCycle/carbon_cycle4.html (NASA's Earth Observatory site is currently offline)
(alternate link) http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=95

Solar irradiance does directly track historical temperatures; however, the past 30 years have shown increasing temperatures with steady solar irradiance.

Direct satellite measurements of solar irradiance find no rising trend since 1978, the start of measurements. Sunspot numbers have leveled out since 1950. The Max Planck Institute reconstruction shows that irradiance has been steady since 1950 and solar radio flux or flare activity shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.

An increase solar irradiance would warm all layers of the atmosphere as there would be more heat radiating through all atmospheric layers back out to space. An increased greenhouse effect would reflect more heat to the surface, thus warming the lower atmospheric layers and cooling the upper atmospheric layers. The second case is what is being observed.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY.PLT
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Solar_Cycle_Variations_png

The oceans are currently absorbing 7 billion tons of CO2 more than they outgas each year, with terrestrial absorption at 5 billion tons net per year.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCycle/carbon_cycle4.html (NASA's Earth Observatory site is currently offline)
(alternate link) http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=95

Solar irradiance does directly track historical temperatures; however, the past 30 years have shown increasing temperatures with steady solar irradiance.

Direct satellite measurements of solar irradiance find no rising trend since 1978, the start of measurements. Sunspot numbers have leveled out since 1950. The Max Planck Institute reconstruction shows that irradiance has been steady since 1950 and solar radio flux or flare activity shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.

An increase solar irradiance would warm all layers of the atmosphere as there would be more heat radiating through all atmospheric layers back out to space. An increased greenhouse effect would reflect more heat to the surface, thus warming the lower atmospheric layers and cooling the upper atmospheric layers. The second case is what is being observed.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY.PLT
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Solar_Cycle_Variations_png

Funny how there was a 20 year "scientifically accurate, data-driven" global cooling scare inbetween.

STOP MAKING UNDEFENDED CLAIMS. THEY HAVE NO VALUE.

You seem to be confused. Allow me to help you. Nobody said "humans aren't warming the earth." Nobody said "we have no part in global warming." Was was said was "our current climate models are so poor as to be unusable, and the international treaties we've made to stop this phenomenon are based on bad science."

You seem to be confused. Allow me to help you. Nobody said "humans aren't warming the earth." Nobody said "we have no part in global warming." Was was said was "our current climate models are so poor as to be unusable, and the international treaties we've made to stop this phenomenon are based on bad science."

Dude. Where to start?

Ok, historically CO2 has been part of the feedback to solar forcing of climate change. But the increased CO2 has been a positive feedback, sustaining the climate change well past the solar forcing. What's different this time is that due to human activity we are pushing CO2 directly, so if our understanding of physics is correct (as established by Arrhenius himself), the result is heating. This is basic theory and the temperature record, though noisy, hardly contradicts this over the 20th century. Now, there's uncertainty about feedbacks, clouds, etc., but the CO2 forcing is there.

Do you see the spike? My eyeballs tell me the slope is roughly 100ppm/century.

Natural gross CO2 fluxes are huge. Net fluxes are small (i.e. they largely cancel out, and that's not accidental). Human fluxes are large compared to the net flux. See above link.

If you really don't think that CO2 traps heat, you are wrong. Grab a physics textbook, or start here. It has pictures and everything.

Read the table. Look at the net flux of natural CO2 sources and sinks. Look at the manmade flux for comparision. Look here.

There are some people out there who dispute the human impact on atmospheric CO2 trends, but this particular issue is a smoking gun. The data fits, and there is no plausible alternative hypothesis that explains the very striking trend in CO2 emissions (highest in 400k years, by a lot). If you want to pick apart global warming, spend your time on the climate sensitivity bit, not on the CO2 concentration part.

"Mother Nature" taking care of the Earth, stopping us wretched creatures from destroying it. Ahh, what a nice picture.

But "Mother Nature" is ruthlessly indifferent. It has shaped us with billions of years of shifting climates and tectonic plates, meteors and droughts, pitting animal against animal in arms races.

Human civilization began around 8,000 years ago. A practically unheard of stability in the climate began around 10,000 years ago.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age _Temperature_Rev_png
It's rather a sobering thought.

Can we all just back up a second?

Current human emissions are around 7 billion tons per year ref 1 ref 2

The idea is to reduce our net emissions. Sucking 1 billion tons per year out of the air is just dumb (other than via the old fashioned natural way- trees and such). I haven't read TFA but if the prize is indeed for pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere is a waste of time. What matters is net emissions, and the best way to achieve that is to reduce/capture/avoid the emissions in the first place. You can capture coal CO2 for like a 20% energy/price premium and sequester it. You can go the Greenfuel route and use flue gas to grow algae used for fuel (thus greatly increasing the amt. of energy per unit CO2 emission). Conservation, solar, wind, the usual. Nukes too if you can magically figure out a political solution to widespread nuke opposition.

I can assure you that we are not going to run into a situation of having too little CO2 anytime soon. Current levels are way, way above anything we've seen for 400k years. And they will continue to rise and human emissions continue to increase under business as usual.

One could argue that any efforts that serve to minimize the trend in CO2 levels just might be a good thing. It's a matter of perturbing the system less, not more. I think the geological record shows that when the system is perturbed too hard (comet impacts, solar cycles, etc.), bad things happen (defined as bad if you are a living thing and like to stay that way). I'm not really into gloom and doom, but I do think that planning, foresight, and risk aversion are generally good things.

Can we all just back up a second?

Current human emissions are around 7 billion tons per year ref 1 ref 2

The idea is to reduce our net emissions. Sucking 1 billion tons per year out of the air is just dumb (other than via the old fashioned natural way- trees and such). I haven't read TFA but if the prize is indeed for pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere is a waste of time. What matters is net emissions, and the best way to achieve that is to reduce/capture/avoid the emissions in the first place. You can capture coal CO2 for like a 20% energy/price premium and sequester it. You can go the Greenfuel route and use flue gas to grow algae used for fuel (thus greatly increasing the amt. of energy per unit CO2 emission). Conservation, solar, wind, the usual. Nukes too if you can magically figure out a political solution to widespread nuke opposition.

I can assure you that we are not going to run into a situation of having too little CO2 anytime soon. Current levels are way, way above anything we've seen for 400k years. And they will continue to rise and human emissions continue to increase under business as usual.

One could argue that any efforts that serve to minimize the trend in CO2 levels just might be a good thing. It's a matter of perturbing the system less, not more. I think the geological record shows that when the system is perturbed too hard (comet impacts, solar cycles, etc.), bad things happen (defined as bad if you are a living thing and like to stay that way). I'm not really into gloom and doom, but I do think that planning, foresight, and risk aversion are generally good things.

Here's my fav site so far, has all the issues of Global Warming mapped out. A graph is worth a thousand pictures. Found it through wiki's entry on global warming.

Your quality of argument is low, implying that you are right by accident not analysis.

My source for the Stratosphere cooling was NASA; I'm sure they'll be happy to know they've been discredited. However it is true that NASA's graph only goes back to 1979; it is certainly not evidence of a longer period. In a way, however, this is irrelevent: the fact is that unless the Sun is doing something now that it has not done at all in the past 400,000 years its effects can be predicted and taken into account of in the models. We have reasonably accurate data for CO2 concentrations especially but also temperature in the last 400,000 years, and they correlate pretty exactly (compare http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png with http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age _Temperature_Rev_png). Historically, CO2 has oscillated from 190 to 290 ppmv with the ice age and Sun activity cycles; it is now 380 ppmv. Sorry, Sun activity cannot fully account for global warming.

My source for the Stratosphere cooling was NASA; I'm sure they'll be happy to know they've been discredited. However it is true that NASA's graph only goes back to 1979; it is certainly not evidence of a longer period. In a way, however, this is irrelevent: the fact is that unless the Sun is doing something now that it has not done at all in the past 400,000 years its effects can be predicted and taken into account of in the models. We have reasonably accurate data for CO2 concentrations especially but also temperature in the last 400,000 years, and they correlate pretty exactly (compare http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png with http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age _Temperature_Rev_png). Historically, CO2 has oscillated from 190 to 290 ppmv with the ice age and Sun activity cycles; it is now 380 ppmv. Sorry, Sun activity cannot fully account for global warming.

The previous sea level predictions for 2100 were still less than a meter. Given that most of the land on earth is more than 3 feet above sea level, sea level rise was never a major part of the near-term concern posed by global warming (except for specific coastal cities and vulnerable islands).

Most of the scientific concerns over climate change are, to be blunt, associated with the changing climate (e.g. temperatures, precipiation, storminess) and not associated with the incremental change in sea level, even if sea level is an easier threat to convey to the public.

The previous sea level predictions for 2100 were still less than a meter. Given that most of the land on earth is more than 3 feet above sea level, sea level rise was never a major part of the near-term concern posed by global warming (except for specific coastal cities and vulnerable islands).

Most of the scientific concerns over climate change are, to be blunt, associated with the changing climate (e.g. temperatures, precipiation, storminess) and not associated with the incremental change in sea level, even if sea level is an easier threat to convey to the public.

Except that the changes that are happening now far supplant the minor variations mentioned in the link you post. Have a look at http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png: historicalically, CO2 concentrations have oscillated from around 190 to 290 ppmv in the ice-age cycles; they're now at about 380.

One of the important underlying points is that other reconstructions have been done, using a variety of techniques by a variety of groups, and all of the groups feel that the modern period is unusual. The uncertainties involved are such that we can't rule out the idea that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today, but the available evidence suggests it was not.

To quote the NRC Report:

It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceeding four centuries. ... Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900."

>Look, we don't know half of what we think we do. The one great thing about science in this day and age is that we are continously changing what we know as fact as our ability to observe becomes better and better. Old theories that were hard to prove can be supported and previous "unalterable" facts are dismissed.

You are correct in theory, but you are drawing completely the wrong conclusions from it. Yes, theories change, become more refined, perhaps become obsolete. Newton's laws of motion were superceded by relativity. But does that mean that in the 300 years between Newton and Einsten everyone should have dismissed Newton because at some point a more refined theory is going to come along? No, of course not; in Newton's age his laws were the best science could offer, were well-supported by evidence, and thus were eventually universally accepted by Scientists. Ditto Global warming. Of course we don't have 100% perfect climate models and better ones are continuously being developed. But saying we should ignore the whole issue because of that; dismiss it because in the future we will be able to observe it better? Obviously not, and if you'll forgive me, that is an incredibly stupid argument.

>We can barely predict the weather from day to day let alone week to week. We can't accurately predict the number of hurricanes, typhoons, or the like. Yet at the same time you want me to believe that enough is known to tell me that we are all going to die in 10 years?

You are making the (quite common) mistake of confusing weather (local day-to-day and year-to-year variation) with climate (averaged systems over decades). The reason we cannot predict day-to-day weather is that weather is chaotic (in the mathematical sense; look it up). Climate, however, is not.

>Just admit you know about as much about the climate as the other side.

Who is "the other side"? It's certainly not climate scientists, the people actually studying it. Pick up ANY scientific journal -- Nature or Science are rather dense for non-scientists, so try New Scientist or Scientific American or any one of countless others. Attend scientific conferences. Go to lectures. Look at the graphs. Read the reports produced by any of the major scientific bodies, either US-based or international. Or the G8. Or the UN. They all say the same thing.

>Fact is, we are still discovering the variables. In no shape or form can you have the definitive anwser without all the variables.

I'm sorry, but to put it lightly, that is bullshit. Which variable exactly is it you are disputing? It is fact that burning fossil fuels gives out carbon dioxide. The amount can be calculated from the amount of fossil fuels burned. This goes into the atmosphere, and since the rate at which the World's fauna is converting this back into Oxygen is reasonably static (or even decreasing, since we're cutting down vast amounts of the rainforest every year), the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will rise. Independant confirmation of this is given by the fact that carbon dioxide levels are rising has been measured many times by laboratories around the globe (e.g. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/8/88/Mauna_ Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png for one example). This rising is far above the usual cyclic fluctations due to ice age cycles (see http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/d/d3/Carbon _Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png). Also, it is fact that greater levels of carbon dioxide lead to greater trapping of the Sun's energy. This is settled science, and can be independantly confirmed by anyone with a cylinder of carbon dioxide, a temperature probe, and an inquiring mind. Lastly, greater trapping of the Sun's energy will lead to a reasonably predictable rise in global ave

>Look, we don't know half of what we think we do. The one great thing about science in this day and age is that we are continously changing what we know as fact as our ability to observe becomes better and better. Old theories that were hard to prove can be supported and previous "unalterable" facts are dismissed.

You are correct in theory, but you are drawing completely the wrong conclusions from it. Yes, theories change, become more refined, perhaps become obsolete. Newton's laws of motion were superceded by relativity. But does that mean that in the 300 years between Newton and Einsten everyone should have dismissed Newton because at some point a more refined theory is going to come along? No, of course not; in Newton's age his laws were the best science could offer, were well-supported by evidence, and thus were eventually universally accepted by Scientists. Ditto Global warming. Of course we don't have 100% perfect climate models and better ones are continuously being developed. But saying we should ignore the whole issue because of that; dismiss it because in the future we will be able to observe it better? Obviously not, and if you'll forgive me, that is an incredibly stupid argument.

>We can barely predict the weather from day to day let alone week to week. We can't accurately predict the number of hurricanes, typhoons, or the like. Yet at the same time you want me to believe that enough is known to tell me that we are all going to die in 10 years?

You are making the (quite common) mistake of confusing weather (local day-to-day and year-to-year variation) with climate (averaged systems over decades). The reason we cannot predict day-to-day weather is that weather is chaotic (in the mathematical sense; look it up). Climate, however, is not.

>Just admit you know about as much about the climate as the other side.

Who is "the other side"? It's certainly not climate scientists, the people actually studying it. Pick up ANY scientific journal -- Nature or Science are rather dense for non-scientists, so try New Scientist or Scientific American or any one of countless others. Attend scientific conferences. Go to lectures. Look at the graphs. Read the reports produced by any of the major scientific bodies, either US-based or international. Or the G8. Or the UN. They all say the same thing.

>Fact is, we are still discovering the variables. In no shape or form can you have the definitive anwser without all the variables.

I'm sorry, but to put it lightly, that is bullshit. Which variable exactly is it you are disputing? It is fact that burning fossil fuels gives out carbon dioxide. The amount can be calculated from the amount of fossil fuels burned. This goes into the atmosphere, and since the rate at which the World's fauna is converting this back into Oxygen is reasonably static (or even decreasing, since we're cutting down vast amounts of the rainforest every year), the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will rise. Independant confirmation of this is given by the fact that carbon dioxide levels are rising has been measured many times by laboratories around the globe (e.g. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/8/88/Mauna_ Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png for one example). This rising is far above the usual cyclic fluctations due to ice age cycles (see http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/d/d3/Carbon _Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png). Also, it is fact that greater levels of carbon dioxide lead to greater trapping of the Sun's energy. This is settled science, and can be independantly confirmed by anyone with a cylinder of carbon dioxide, a temperature probe, and an inquiring mind. Lastly, greater trapping of the Sun's energy will lead to a reasonably predictable rise in global ave

See this figure for a breakdown of the sources of greenhouse gases in the year 2000.

But, what really got me was when I started looking at it this way: Civilizations sprang up for the first time all over the world simultaneously about the same time: 10,000 years ago and if you look at a graph of temperature with the scale showing recent ice ages but still showing the last 10k years as more than a line, you see what's unique about the last 10k years isn't hot or cold but stability. (Not the best but here's one: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age _Temperature_Rev.png)

I read once somewhere somebody had the theory that certain cultures have done very well (Europe, parts of Asia, not Africa) because the orientation of the continent they are on. Europe stretches east to west, Africa north to south. Small cultures who learned to domesticate the animals and crops in their climate were able to expand as far as the climate spread. If you live on a land mass that spreads north to south temperature and climate are much more likely to change than if it spreads east to west... so Europe had a big advantage over Africa. And to this day famines tend to strike those longitudinal areas (Africa, India)

If everything about us including the wheel, sliced bread, the steam engine, books, everything short of stone tools was actually a result of this stability in climate maybe this is a really really really big problem. We can't rely on breadbasket regions to be there from decade to decade and civilization will have to scale waaaaay down.

I'm a total layman so if somebody in the know can correct my misinterpretations please feel free to enlighten me.

>Yes I see the correlation. How ever I'm asking for the causation. Please provide that.

I have given you the theoretical reason of why rising CO2 causes higher temperature. I have given you the empirical data showing a correlation between rising CO2 and rising temperature to a degree that matches the theoretical predictions. I fail to see what more I could possibly give you. Science is, unfortunately, not like Maths, where it is possible to prove that A is caused by B; the only thing that Science can do is come up with a theory that explains A in relation to B and see if it matches the empirical data (i.e. if there is the expected correlation between A and B). In this case, there is.

>Also what proof do you have that temps are rising. Sure this is hottest year in the last 150 but it's not the hottest year ever. If we have such a high level of C02, record levels some would say, why is it not the hottest year ever?

The reason that you only hear that this is the hottest year in the last 150, not that this is the hottest year ever, is that records have only been kept for 150 years. Thus, the only thing it is only possible to say with complete certainty that this is the hottest year for 150 years (graph of recorded temperature in last 150 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrum ental_Temperature_Record.png).

It is, however, possible to extrapolate absolute temperature backwards with a reasonably high degree of accuracy to the recent past, of the order of thousands of years; if this extrapolation is accepted, it becomes possible to say that this is the hottest year for 2000 years, too (graph of extrapolated temperature for last 2000 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Ye ar_Temperature_Comparison.png).

>Yes I see the correlation. How ever I'm asking for the causation. Please provide that.

I have given you the theoretical reason of why rising CO2 causes higher temperature. I have given you the empirical data showing a correlation between rising CO2 and rising temperature to a degree that matches the theoretical predictions. I fail to see what more I could possibly give you. Science is, unfortunately, not like Maths, where it is possible to prove that A is caused by B; the only thing that Science can do is come up with a theory that explains A in relation to B and see if it matches the empirical data (i.e. if there is the expected correlation between A and B). In this case, there is.

>Also what proof do you have that temps are rising. Sure this is hottest year in the last 150 but it's not the hottest year ever. If we have such a high level of C02, record levels some would say, why is it not the hottest year ever?

The reason that you only hear that this is the hottest year in the last 150, not that this is the hottest year ever, is that records have only been kept for 150 years. Thus, the only thing it is only possible to say with complete certainty that this is the hottest year for 150 years (graph of recorded temperature in last 150 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrum ental_Temperature_Record.png).

It is, however, possible to extrapolate absolute temperature backwards with a reasonably high degree of accuracy to the recent past, of the order of thousands of years; if this extrapolation is accepted, it becomes possible to say that this is the hottest year for 2000 years, too (graph of extrapolated temperature for last 2000 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Ye ar_Temperature_Comparison.png).

It's not exactly disputed science. Carbon dioxide traps more of the sun's energy. It's a fact. You can test it in any science lab with a temperature probe, a clear box, an infrared lamp, and a cylinder of carbon dioxide. The temperature rise for a given increase in carbon dioxide is a perfectly predictable.

If you want graphical evidence that the CO2 is actually causing temperature rises in the atmosphere, the graph of CO2 concentration is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ History_and_Flux_Rev.png, and the graph of global temperature is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrum ental_Temperature_Record.png. See the correlation?

Incidentally, the AC is completely right - the CO2 rises are in no way normal. CO2 levels are historically between 180 and 270 ppmv, in a 100,000 year cycle. They are now 385 ppmv. See http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png.

It's not exactly disputed science. Carbon dioxide traps more of the sun's energy. It's a fact. You can test it in any science lab with a temperature probe, a clear box, an infrared lamp, and a cylinder of carbon dioxide. The temperature rise for a given increase in carbon dioxide is a perfectly predictable.

If you want graphical evidence that the CO2 is actually causing temperature rises in the atmosphere, the graph of CO2 concentration is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ History_and_Flux_Rev.png, and the graph of global temperature is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrum ental_Temperature_Record.png. See the correlation?

Incidentally, the AC is completely right - the CO2 rises are in no way normal. CO2 levels are historically between 180 and 270 ppmv, in a 100,000 year cycle. They are now 385 ppmv. See http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png.

It's not exactly disputed science. Carbon dioxide traps more of the sun's energy. It's a fact. You can test it in any science lab with a temperature probe, a clear box, an infrared lamp, and a cylinder of carbon dioxide. The temperature rise for a given increase in carbon dioxide is a perfectly predictable.

If you want graphical evidence that the CO2 is actually causing temperature rises in the atmosphere, the graph of CO2 concentration is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ History_and_Flux_Rev.png, and the graph of global temperature is http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrum ental_Temperature_Record.png. See the correlation?

Incidentally, the AC is completely right - the CO2 rises are in no way normal. CO2 levels are historically between 180 and 270 ppmv, in a 100,000 year cycle. They are now 385 ppmv. See http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png.

Burning fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide ends up in the atmosphere. This increases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What's there to dispute?

If you want to see the graphs, here's one showing CO2 variations from the last 4 or so ice ages including the recent jump: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png
And here's one showing the carbon flux compared to independently measured CO2 concentrations for the last 250 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ History_and_Flux_Rev.png. They both rise gently since 1850 and steeply since 1950.

Burning fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide ends up in the atmosphere. This increases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What's there to dispute?

If you want to see the graphs, here's one showing CO2 variations from the last 4 or so ice ages including the recent jump: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png
And here's one showing the carbon flux compared to independently measured CO2 concentrations for the last 250 years: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ History_and_Flux_Rev.png. They both rise gently since 1850 and steeply since 1950.

>Do those 500,000 years of C02 levels match with those temperature trends?

Yes. E.g. compare http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev.png (CO2 concentrations) to http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age _Temperature_Rev.png (Ice age temperature changes).

>What caused the C02 emission that warmed the globe enough to melt that glacier?

A combination of natural and manmade causes. Ice age CO2 fluctuations are historically between 180 and 270 ppmv, in a 100,000 year cycle. We are now at the top of that cycle. On top of that, in the last 150 years CO2 concentrations have jumped from the expected 270 (which it would be normally if man did not exist) to 385 ppmv -- a 42% increase -- due to carbon flux from the burning of fossil fuels.

So if your glacier alterately formed and melted in 100,000 year cycles in the past, it's current state of melting would have happened anyway, since we are at the top of the natural cycle. If, however, it has remained a glacier throughout the cycles and has only melted in the last 150 or so years, then its melting is caused by the higher CO2 (and CFC, etc.) emissions from manmade sources.