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Who's arguing that?

I've seen a few people in this very thread arguing that, although the person I was responding to above to actually meant something else, if you look at the replies. But look around: you'll see people who insist that just because we can measure the greenhouse properties of CO2 in lab, doesn't mean that the greenhouse effect actually works in the atmosphere.

In fact, the scientist being discussed in this thread also denies the greenhouse effect, with some mumbo-jumbo about how CO2 rises in the atmosphere and releases all the heat it has stored.

Is the planet getting warmer? This is the only "consensus" that exists, and even that one isn't so monolithic when the question of "over what time period" is addressed. By itself, this is nothing new; the planet is dynamic and will always be changing.

That's true, but it's also true that we are causing an accelerating warming right now and have been for a century or so, which is not necessarily something we would prefer to happen.

The implied premise that there exists some sort of ideal state for the planet and that any change from that state is a Bad Thing, is the enviro-cult's equivalent of the Eden myth.

There is no such premise. It is, however, a fact that civilization on Earth right now is adapted to a particular climate, and there are costs to adapting to a different climate, especially when the climate change is rapid.

Is the warming being driven by the CO2 input? There is no consensus whatsoever on this point, as it hinges on how dominant that input is.

Far to the contrary, there is a widespread scientific consensus on this point. Pretty much the only people who dispute it are American conservatives.

From what I've seen, it's a pretty small one, likely negligible.

On the contrary, it is the dominant factor. It's pretty obvious that "what you've seen" on the matter does not include any actual climate science.

Try reading the IPCC FAR SPM (here), such as Figure SPM-2. The increase in CO2 forcing is very large compared to the other changes in forcings over the industrial period.

We already know that CO2 is swamped out by H2O on that front.

Wrong.

I get really tired of explaining this, but here goes again:

There is more H2O in the atmosphere than CO2, but that doesn't mean that global warming is attributable more to H2O than CO2. The H2O in the atmosphere provides much of the baseline natural greenhouse effect, which totals about 30 C, and explains why the planet is not a frozen iceball. To understand the warming that has occurred since 1850, which is a change in temperature (of about 1 C), you have to see what has changed since then. The change in CO2 far outweighs the change in H2O, and is responsible for most of the change in temperature.

IMO the presumption that all other inputs have been steady-state is absolutely preposterous.

There is no such presumption, once again pointing to your total ignorance of climate science. But hey, whatever reinforces your ideology.

In point of fact, climate models use variable time series for solar irradiance, anthropogenic and natural aerosols and particulate matter, anthropogenic and natural greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon cycle, land use change, and so on. They do not fix the inputs as "steady state".

Will the consequences be catastrophic?

Probably not, unless Greenland's ice destabilizes more readily than we thought (which is possible, there is unexplained rapid ice loss going on, but if it happens it probably won't be for a few centuries).

It will, however, likely be economically unfavorable, and even hardline economists who specialize in climate change agree with that. It's not going to be so unfavorable that we need to cut all emissions, but all the o

Without knowing why it's happening you don't know what to fix or if you even can fix it.

It's a great thing we've got scientists digging into the subject all the time. And by the way, we do know that radiation from the sun has been strengthening lately. It's been strong enough to explain about 7.5% of the warming we're seeing (with some possibility for error, but not enough to change the conclusion). That's strong enough to warm up Mars, but far too feeble to explain the warming of Earth.

Source: IPCC summary, the Radiative Forcing chart on page 4.

It turns out that cows produce many times more methane than humans do.

Does it now? Then please explain why the hell the amount of atmospheric methane has more than doubled after the industrial revolution? Damn cows! It's better we kill them all and go vegetarian!

One large volcanic eruption produces more CO2 than we would produce in a hundred years at our current rate of production.

We're currently emitting something like 26 gigatons of CO2 every year (that's 7.2 Gt of C), while Wikipedia speaks about 145-255 megatons of CO2 per year from volcanoes. The source for my other numbers is the IPCC summary.

The mass media have been of negative value on this issue. I'd be surprised if a majority of USians know what is uncertain and what is known with reasonable confidence.

Anyone who wants an accessible overview of the science can do much better than watching the shouting heads by taking a look at the IPCC summary for policymakers.

And any story that talks about one Siberian town getting colder, or about one single hurricane, is an insult to your intelligence and should be treated as such.

What I mean by conservative is the "certainty" estimates are conservative, I didn't intend to give the impression that it is conservatively certain.

The recent IPCC is a summary for policymakers (SPM), contributed to and endorsed by every national science body on the planet. What it says to policymakers is there is at least a 9/10 chance that we can make a significant difference by drastically reducing emmissions, and conversely, if we don't reduce emmission there is at most a 1/10 chance civilization is facing a collapse and an associated "population correction".

I certainly don't recommend jumping at every "quick fix", pollution and large scale engineering have some odd side effects, SE Australia (where I live) is losing 500yr old river gums (a type of tree) to drought, the massive river system that runs through the countries "breadbasket" has run dry. The drought has run for 10yrs in some parts and the massive hydro schemes in Tassie are having to import electricty over cables that were built to export it to the mainland.

In the meantime the N & NW of the country is getting record floods, this BTW is in line with climate models and is a trend that has been observed since the 50's, yet overall the national average rainfall has remained fairly constant. One bizzare peice of the puzzle is that SE Asia's slash and burn fires, and heavy polluters have been shown to be partly responsible for increased rainfall in the north of our country.

I expect very few people will be totally happy with whatever the "policymakers" do, their efforts (like those of the scientists) must be conservative to gain a critical level of acceptance. OTOH: If they do nothing, a violent machine smashing end to civilization just becomes all the more likely.

It's not all doom and gloom, the corporate world (starting with insurers a few years back) is lining up against the FF industry and have been making a noise about "certainty" in regulation, even the Aussie PM is saying a trading scheme is "inevitable". As soon as "I never back down" Bush is gone (if not before), the US public (and the media's) opinion will "flip-flop" just like we have seen here in Australia over the last year or so.

"I have no idea what is causing the current warming trend"

Neither do I, I have followed this subject since the early eighties when I was ironically working at a saw-mill, it always turns out that someone else thought of "my idea" first. However, lacking my own thesis I am forced to put a great deal of faith in the scientific method, meaning I have to treat my own ideas and my faith in science with the genuine skepticisim it deserves. Here is a pdf link to the 2007 IPCC SPM, take a few minutes to examine figure SPM-2.

There is still NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that the temperature changes we're seeing nowadays aren't part of some long term cyclical effect that we haven't yet been able to detect

That is quite true. In fact evidence disproving something we aren't able to detect is difficult to find at the best of times. It is just as true to point out that there is still NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that the temperature changes we're seeing aren't being caused by heat rays emitted by flying saucers we haven't yet been able to detect, belonging to an alient species we haven't yet been able to detect.

Fortunately Science doesn't spend too much time trying to find evidence to disprove the undetectable. There being, as you point out, no evidence (either way) of some undetected (or undetectable) long term cyclical change, we will have to consider other causes for "the temperature changes we're seeing nowadays." As it happens anthropgenic greenhouse gases (AGGs) go some way towards filling that gap. So much so that we are now 90% certain that AGGs are a major cause of the currently observed (for which see the SPM to the IPCC's AR4.)

The strongest argument though for wind (with regard to golbal warming) is that it displaces fossil fuel use and thus greenhouse gas emissions. Your argument about direct energy input is a less important effect. Had it been important it would have been included in Fig. 2 here http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf though the number is getting to be a little bit like the value for the change in the solar irradiance so that at a finer level of detail you are correct that it probably should be included. If so, it is important to subtract the contribution of hydro, biofuels, tidal, solar and wind from the total energy use because, while your previous correspondent was correct that all of it degrades to heat anyway so that there is no real cooling from using these sources, what you are getting at is that there is no additional heating.

I think it makes sense to bring in additional arguments in this debate but when they are physical arguments they need to be kept in a physical perspective. There are philosophical arguments as well for renewable energy use that can be taken as independent of the global warming problem though I'd guess that the warming has had something to do with their application. Have a look at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-real-e nergy.html to see how William McDonough's thinking might work into this.

Regarding #2: I would hardly say that getting published in J Roy Soc is tantamount to being shut out of the science journals. J Roy Soc is an important family of journals. Maybe they failed to publish in Nature or something, but so do 95% of the people who try. There's no evidence of discrimination here.

Regarding #3: No reasonable person would say that there aren't scientists who disagree with the developing consensushttp://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf on climate change. But an unreasonable person (like you) would claim that there isn't a scientific consensus on climate change.

Regarding #4: crap.

The energy distribution of cosmic radiation is pretty steep and its is the low energy end that is affected by the magenetic field transported away from the Sun by the solar wind. So, in a way you can say that the Sun's wind affects the most abundant cosmic rays. This is a plus for the theory. The history of of the cosmic ray flux can be reconstructed from ice core measurements of beryllium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_Activity_ Proxies.png suggesting that, for example, the Sun's magnetic cycle continues even when sunspot activity is reduced. C14 can also be used albeit at a lower time resolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon-14_with_ activity_labels.png. Note that Years Before Present can be ambiguous.

The reason this theory can be excluded from the recently released report on climate change is that the report looks at warming after 1750 where the solar activity has had lower variability, modulo the 22 year cycle (Be data). This means the variables (cosmic radiation and GHG concentration) are seperable in modern times (because we've changed the CO2 concentration so much). The effect of the Sun is small compared to what we are doing ourselves in the current warming http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/executive-summ ary.html.

It seems to me that the link in the original article must be misrepresenting the recent IPCC climate report so while the experiment is certainly interesting, not much can be said regarding its impact on the conclusions drawn there http://www.ipcc.ch/.
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Get solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

"The measurements are not accurate..."

Agreed, and that is why NASA should drop the "man on Mars" crap and refocus on our own biosphere.

"...enough --- that is one reason why global warming proponents have to *declare* that the debate is decided, rather than let the evidence speak for itself."

This is a totally assinine assumption on your part, "not accurate" != "not usefull".

As for "evidence speaking for itself" please refer to figure SPM-2(PDF warning) in the 2007 IPCC SPM.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations 12 . This is an advance since the TARs conclusion that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns...

IPCC AR4, rather (see here). The summary for policymakers is here (PDF). (Most of the emphasis is on the evidence for AGW, but the last part talks about future consequences.) Later this year the supporting chapters with detailed scientific predictions and their justifications will be released.

IPCC AR4, rather (see here). The summary for policymakers is here (PDF). (Most of the emphasis is on the evidence for AGW, but the last part talks about future consequences.) Later this year the supporting chapters with detailed scientific predictions and their justifications will be released.

This is simply the summary report or abstract if you will for policymakers (SPM). In other words, the document that is directed to and approved by the government representatives. The real report won't be out for another 3 months - it is still being edited. What is most disturbing, however, is the process being used to "edit" the final report. From Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work comes the following:

Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.
(page 5) ...

The Session of the Panel will review and adopt the longer report of the Synthesis Report, section by section,
i.e. roughly one page or less at a time. The review and adoption process for the longer report of the Synthesis
Report should be accomplished in the following manner:
- When changes in the longer report of the Synthesis Report are required either to conform it to the
SPM or to ensure consistency with the underlying Assessment Reports, the Panel and authors will
note where changes are required in the longer report of the Synthesis Report to ensure consistency
in tone and content. The authors of the longer report of the Synthesis Report will then make changes
in the longer report of the Synthesis Report. Those Bureau members who are not authors will act as
Review Editors to ensure that these documents are consistent and follow the directions of the
Session of the Panel
- The longer report of the Synthesis Report is then brought back to the Session of the Panel for the
review and adoption of the revised sections, section by section. If inconsistencies are still identified
by the Panel, the longer report of the Synthesis Report is further refined by the Authors with the
Assistance of the Review Editors for review and adoption by the Panel. This process is conducted
section by section, not line by line.
(page 8)

Think about this for a moment. What this means in practical terms is that the detailed reports, the science, if you will, are being edited so that they are consistent with the policy summary, the summary by the way that is edited in part and approved by policy wonks not scientists. In other words, the data/reports are being made to fit with the conclusions. This is known as cooking the data.

Since the early drafts of the IPCC FINAL report are somewhat available, it will be an interesting exercise to do a comparison between those and what the final "consistent" report has to say.

You're wrong. Global warming IS caused by humans, it's not just a meme. If you disagree with science, then yes, you are likely to be cut off from good positions and grants. Citing previous warming cycles on the Earth and other planets in our solar system does not prove your theory that humans aren't causing global warming, because that isn't science--it's rhetoric. Finally, global warming 'stuff' is not 'soft' in any way. It is a conclusion overwhelmingly supported by climate scientists because that's what the EVIDENCE says. Now, allow me to point to some EVIDENCE to back my claims up. If you disagree with me, you disagree with the world's leading scientists in this field. You can try to impugn their motives if you want, but until somebody presents some EVIDENCE disproving these conclusions, then their conclusions are valid. Your opinion in this case doesn't make any difference.

I really think we're at the point of arguing about which method of suicide is best, and that is not my point. There is still a little breathing space before this link hits the slashdot front page http://www.ipcc.ch/. So, I'll just say right now, read http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/ for a bit.

From a technical call two nights ago I can say that cost per peak W for solar has hit $1.53 (fabrication not installation) and the time to pay back the energy to produce the panels is now about 1 year. This is cheap! Worrying about clean up for solar strikes me as a little silly. A defunct solar panel is defunct owing to lattice disorder caused by cosmic rays. It still has many more useful cycles after recrystalization. I would even guess that it does not have to be fully remelted, but this is a problem that we have not faced yet owing to our rather clueless addiction to fossil fuels and nuclear power. This report http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/renewables/r eports/kpmg8.pdf explains the basic economics of large scale solar power production.

If you want to help, go to http://www.powur.com/mdsolar and click on "Become an Ecopenure."

Especially:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/308.htm

And this was 2001.

BTW, couldn't find any communists there, though.

Especially:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/308.htm

And this was 2001.

BTW, couldn't find any communists there, though.

• See here for a summary of the scientific basis for global warming.
• See here for a summary of the predicted outcomes of global warming (eg sea levels, global temperature).
• And see here for a summary of the expected impacts on humanity (eg droughts, migration) and mitigation.

My spouse is a research scientist whose work is directly related to climate change issues. She is not a climatologist, but she is well published and her work is used by climatologists.

I thought there still was quite a bit of legitimate controversy on this issue.

Its a broad issue. Be more specific. If you are referring to AGW (anthropogenic global warming) as I suspect, you are wrong. It is pretty settled that AGW is happening and to a large degree. The extent of which is not completely clear, but it is happening.

My understanding is that, while it is generally accepted that global warming is real, it is not nearly as accepted that the warming is "manmade" as the article puts it.

See above, your understanding is not right. There certainly is a cyclical component to the current warming trend, however, there is nothing in the historical record (~>100,000 years) compares to the current rate of warming.

The other leading claim is that it is merely part of the normal warming and cooling cycle of the earth, similar to what takes place at the end of each ice age.

How many times does this have to be debunked before people will quit saying it? Seriously.

To strip meteorologists of their certifications is irresponsible abuse of power

There are qualifications to get a certification. How can modifying those qualifications, according to what scientific research shows be irresponsible? Irresponsible is people like Geogre Taylor, Oregon's state "climatologist" who is a skeptic. He does not have a PhD in the field, has not published any scientific, peer-reviewed research. Yet he cherry-picks data points that fit is pre-concieved notion of what is happening and he has enormous influence on public policy. THAT is an irresponsible abuse of power.

The debate is over folks. Its all about mitigation at this point.

The first volume of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assesment Report is to be released on February 2nd (URL: http://www.ipcc.ch/)

Also check out (url: http://www.realclimate.org/)

As to if decertification is extreme? Possibly, but essentially what you have is people that have been certified, providing misleading information to the public under the banner of that certification. This is a legitimate grief.

**disclaimer: I know of Heidi Cullen, I have never met her and until now didn't even know she had a blog. My wife has had professional contact with her, but I have not spoken with her on this issue yet.....its news to me.

The current observations are largely inline with the median projections of the IPCC. See http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/online.htm/ for the full shebang.

yes, that was a stupid mistake, im back at home at the moment and people keep distracing me.
personaly i am convinced by the current models (this graph is quite convincing for me: http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001syr/large/ 05.18.jpg ). but more importantly i think even if you are skeptical, it would be hugely immoral not to reduce our carbon dioxide emmisions and just hope that the modals are wrong. we are gambling with the lives of hundreds of millions of people if we do this.

The trouble is: how do we make up our minds about the issue if we reject scientific consensus as proof? The only thing I can think of is to understand as much of the issue as we can for ourselves rather than from the media. That's something I definitely need to work harder on.
You will find a lot of homeworks here:
http://www.realclimate.org/ "Climate science from climate scientists"
Click on the "archive" link at the top.

Try this recent one first, as it debunks several common unscientific claims:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/
Then you can also use their search engine with keywords like "myth".

Please also note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives references to the studies that its reports are based on.
http://www.ipcc.ch/

the maths behind c02 and global warming do not provide enough warming to have a significant impact.

http://newton.nap.edu/books/0309075742/html/
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/reports.htm

My personal belief is that YES, global warming is a reality. But I also believe that it is more to do with the Sun, than with our burning fossil fuel. I also believe the consequences are/will be less severe than predicted.

Also, I do not believe that science is yet at the stage where a prediction about efforts to stop global warming are anywhere near accurate.

Now, you want us to accept that THIS time the scientists are right,

and that we should expend a significant proportion of the world's income on reducing emmissions

- when we have no idea if it will do what we hope it will?

Far better to invest that money in protecting humanity from global warming, and to continue to develop strategies and techniques to live on a changeable and changeing world - just as we have always done.

I could probably summarise the whole story again, but that would take forever and still wouldn't be as thorough as forinstance reading an IPCC report. The issues you bring up have also all been resolved more then a decade ago by now, the doubters were never heard really in scientific circles until lo and behold we might actually need to expend large amounts of money to fix our mistake. Awful coincidence that, but more seriously try to otherwise look into some of the work from the IPCC at http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm, or http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/online.htm to get a look at some more serious research.

I could probably summarise the whole story again, but that would take forever and still wouldn't be as thorough as forinstance reading an IPCC report. The issues you bring up have also all been resolved more then a decade ago by now, the doubters were never heard really in scientific circles until lo and behold we might actually need to expend large amounts of money to fix our mistake. Awful coincidence that, but more seriously try to otherwise look into some of the work from the IPCC at http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm, or http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/online.htm to get a look at some more serious research.

Now, I may seem to be a little circular here, but, I think we need a little more evidence that: 1. Warming will hurt chances for human galactic domination. 2. Warming is even happening. That's all!

Not so much circular as just (wilfully) ignorant. Really! How much more evidence do you need? Are you waiting for someone to come over and physically stuff the reports of the IPCC down your throat?

PS Well trolled!

The article you link to misrepresents the statistics. They have deliberately chosen 1998 as their starting point, because it was an abnormally hot year, i.e. a statistical outlier, and then noted that no year has been hotter since 1998. But they have ignored that the trend in global temperature has continued to rise since then.

In terms of the overall global warming debate, these are the facts:
fact 1 The mean global temperature has increased by almost 1 degree celsius in the last 100 years. And the global temperature is clearly trending up.
fact 2 Since the industrial revolution, human activity has significantly altered the composition of the atmosphere. "Green house gases" have dramatically increased. Carbon dioxide has increased by 30%, methane by 230% and nitrous oxide by 20%. The increasing rate of emissions has accerelated their growth in recent years.

Other studies (of ice cores and tree xylon rings) point to the current rise in tempartures as being more rapid than anything else that has occured in the last 1000 years. This contradicts people who argue that the current phenomenon is just part of a natural long term climate cycle.

We have sound scientific theories explaining how greenhouse gases retain heat in the atmosphere. (The extreme case of a greenhouse atmosphere being Venus.) There are many models projecting that the temperature will continue to increase as a result of the greenhouse gases.

That said, everyone recognises that it is an extremely complex system. For example, small variations on the sun can have a large impact on the Earth's temperature. It has not been proven that human activity has caused global warming. However, it does seem highly probable that human activity is at least contributing to global warming. Furthermore, we are significantly changing the atmosphere. That is going to change the system, although the exact nature of these changes is hard to predict.

Reference document: http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf

Concentrations of long-lived gases like CH4, CO2, and N2O are fairly well-mixed globally - hemispheric mixing times are on the order of 1 to 2 months, global mixing times are on the order of 1 year (Seinfeld & Pandis, a standard atmospheric chemistry textbook). We measure them all over the place (from the peak of Mauna Loa to Antarctica) and come up with similar results. Google "Keeling" and "CO2" to see information on studies since 1955 in this area.

And yes, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. But water vapor concentrations are a function of the state of the system, and most scientists agree that increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases will lead to an increase in water vapor too. But given that you don't even have basic comprehension of the carbon cycle and our ability to measure concentrations, I would suggest you consider whether your "lick of common sense" may be totally useless without some real scientific understanding to back it up.

try RealClimate.org and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

I've read all the papers (a few in summary form only) from the conference on which this report is based. The BBC report accurately reflects what I have read.

Correct. Who said it? "All scientific discoveries did not start with 'Eureka!' , but with 'That's funny...'"

However, this is only true in retrospect. When we look back to the double-slit expirement, we realize that this was the moment that the wave-particle duality was proven. However, at that time, it was merely one more link in a long chain composed of multiple experiments, discussions, refutations and refinements. Science does not exist as a single experiment. Why do you think that cold fusion is regarded as a joke? Because the single experiment that did show a net energy gain could never be properly reproduced.

In short, the single anomalous experiment can be start, but also a dead end. Only hind sight can show which it is. In the meantime, consensus is all you can go on. Unless you're willing to do the research yourself. And at that point, you'll realize that what matters is neither 100% consensus nor a single paper or data set. What does matter is whether the current data has been thoroughly analyzed, and that the conclusions have been independently verified.

More importantly your link doesn't address the fundamental questions: to what extent is the climate changing, what kinds of effects will this have, to what extent can or should we prevent it?

Absolutely. It also wasn't intended to. It was simply intended to provide a counterpoint. The fact that it was easy to find underscored the fact that simply throwing quotations is not only easy, but also completely pointless. It doesn't advance the discussion. However, there are plenty of articles on the points you mention. Specifically, the two biggest studies done on the subject so far are the IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/) and UN (http://unfccc.int/). It has plenty of info on all your questions.

The IPCC report is published roughly every four years.

From your post it is obvious you have not seen the horse let alone have any evidence as to it's state of health. The credibility problems do not belong to the IPCC, you may find it surprising that a large proportion of the the reaserch in the reports has come from the cream of US institutions. Read or even just skim the reports, find out who wrote them, find out why they are so confident and compare their previous predictions to the actual outcomes. Don't just spam people with "junk science" propagnda, it makes you look nieve.

Thanks for the link but I already knew about the MET conference. I don't know where you got your information about the "presence of a large number of falsifiable hypotheses" at the MET confrence. Can you provide a link that gives a concrete example or perhaps one that points out the "serious proplems" with the 1991 IPCC report.

BTW, due to past experience I consider links that simply parrot the FUD from Fred Singer and/or ExxonMobil as SPAM and will ignore them. Here are a few myth busting links from Real Climate to get you started.

The IPCC report is published roughly every four years.

From your post it is obvious you have not seen the horse let alone have any evidence as to it's state of health. The credibility problems do not belong to the IPCC, you may find it surprising that a large proportion of the the reaserch in the reports has come from the cream of US institutions. Read or even just skim the reports, find out who wrote them, find out why they are so confident and compare their previous predictions to the actual outcomes. Don't just spam people with "junk science" propagnda, it makes you look nieve.

Thanks for the link but I already knew about the MET conference. I don't know where you got your information about the "presence of a large number of falsifiable hypotheses" at the MET confrence. Can you provide a link that gives a concrete example or perhaps one that points out the "serious proplems" with the 1991 IPCC report.

BTW, due to past experience I consider links that simply parrot the FUD from Fred Singer and/or ExxonMobil as SPAM and will ignore them. Here are a few myth busting links from Real Climate to get you started.

"I've read this article before. I tried to find a copy of it with google scholar. I recommend everyone shut their faces until they read the article."

I read the WSJ article and it was rubbish, the WSJ is a newspaper not a scientific journal. You wont find any peer-reviewed paper from the people Barton is quoting. Thier argument has already been discredited (see link below), that is why they make these kind of attacks via newspapers.

"As a scientist, it sickens me.....I would love to see a good astrophysicist's paper on cyclic variation in the earths average temperature. Or maybe a well done statistical analysis."

I hold a BSc. but I am not a climate scientist, it sickens me that a "scientist" cannot do simple research before telling others to "shut thier faces", kinda ignores the "republic of science" don't you think? The Mann paper can be found here, along with many other quality papers including some that address sunspots, etc. The most authoritive review of the science is found in the IPCC report "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis", here.. Even GWB cautiously endorsed the IPCC conclusions at the recent G8 meeting (is hell getting colder?).

"Investigating changes in the earth's climate is important. I just don't like secular religions (actually, I just don't like religion) propped up by "science"."

Can't agree more, realclimate.org is apolitical and is open to all scientists and laymen. Maybe you should write to Congressman Barton and ask him to keep his well known anti-warming religion to himself and offer something constructive. To quote Mann and the other climate scientists in the link above ...

"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/451.htm

...from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the largest, international, consensus-based scientific body ever to review all the evidence on climate change. In the part of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report specifically about anthropogenic effects on radiative forcing:

Summary
Well-mixed greenhouse gases make the largest and best-known contribution to changes in radiative forcing over the last century or so.

The debate about climate change is over.

1. Evidence will certainly appear exaggerated when you see projections which (although I am not a meteorologist) feature predictions that do not at first appear mathematically sound. It's difficult to seem unbiased with cases like journals suppressing dissenting opinion on global warming. It's hard to present yourself as even-minded when you attract support for your cause with slogans like "save the planet."

The IPCC does an outstanding job of researching it, but too few listen to reason and most of the rest content themselves with predicting the end of the world based on incomplete data, and demand that actions be taken which are likely to be either ineffective or excessively costly.

2. There are scientifically literate people on both sides of the equation. The Cooler Heads Coalition, while hardly unbiased, demonstrates that in its selection of articles.

No, the IPCC's task is to report on human-influenced climate change. Look at the IPCC Principles in their About page.

This graph may help:
http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001syr/large/ 05.18.jpg

It is one of my favorites, showing how the temperature varies both from natural causes and by human activities.

Only a few loudmouthed cranks are keeping the idea that "there really is debate on the issue" alive, in the sense you mean.

Indeed, and here are some of those cranks:

Chris Landsea contradicts public statements by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), denying any evidence that global warming increases hurricane activity, and makes a big show of it by resighing

Other cranks maintain that global climate change existed in the middle ages, before humans increased atmospheric CO2. (link might require free registration)

Fortunately, dissenters such as Landsea are either voluntarily surrendering their positions, or, as in the case of the editors of Climate Research mentinod in the second link, being forced out of their jobs for allowing the crank viewpoint into print.

Disclaimer: I am one of said scientists. -But I prefer to remain anonymous here. Please mod down the above two trolls! There most certainly is a scientific consensus about the fact that the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is real and will heat up the Earth significantly in the future. True, there is some discussion about how significant the recent global warming is when compared to natural variability (though I will still claim that there is a consensus); but the number of scientists claiming that society will not heat up the Earth in the future is quite small. The claims that I and hundreds of colleagues would spend our entire careers knowingly producing bogus science to keep meagre government salaries (I am European), well, let's say they are wrong. I may of course just be left out of the inner circle... BTW, I can assure you that plenty of funding is available for the people that do not agree with setting limits on economic growth. Of course, this is not an issue that can be decided by referendum; the science behind global warming is well founded. If you want to learn more about this science, please have a look at http://www.ipcc.ch/, e.g. the technical summary of the WG1 report, or follow the more up-to-date discussion at http://realclimate.org/. The latter is run by climate scientists and discusses the science in connection with media talk about climate change.

> > Do you doubt the extraordinary spike in greenhouse gasses since the beginning of the industrial revolution?

> Please provide a reference that describes the *source(s)* of pre-industrial revolution measurements. Who was measuring greenhouse gasses then and why? What was the nature of the instrumentation used to make the measurements and good/accurate was it?

> Without reliable pre-industrial revolution data, the "spike" is meaningless. Ditto for temperature measurements. They call it GLOBAL warming. How good was the instrumentation in undeveloped countries 100 years ago? How dilligent were the measurement takers? If 100-year-old data from technologically backward regions around the world is part of the model, the model is irreparably flawed.

Please get informed before you rant. The source of the data is ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, not Neanderthal thermometers. Here, for example, is a graph of CO2 vs. time, one of many graphs you can find by spending a few minutes with Google.

The fact of the matter is, all the computer models in the World and wildassed guesses mean that we know very little about how the planet, and solar system for that matter, are warming and what the ultimate side effects of that warming are.

Computer models are not, in fact, wildassed guesses. If you know otherwise, please explain. I'm sure the world's climate modellers would love to know what you're basing that assertion on... unless it's a wild-assed guess, of course? Just a hunch.

Of course the models aren't perfect, and of course there is more to learn about the past & present climate. Yes, climate's a very complex, non-linear system, with emergent features, unexpected interactions, and the model's grids are getting finer and finer each year. Still, we know much more than you suspect, with much more certainty than you seem to think. As I keep saying, if you know better than tens of thousands of very intelligent, dedicated, hard-working scientists, with massive amounts of data, published in peer reviewed journals, I'm sure we'd all love to hear about it. If you're just spouting off on Slashdot cos you just don't like hippies, well enjoy your drought (if you're in the west of the US), your -30 degrees big freeze if you're in the NE, your thaw if you're in the arctic north, and your crumbling economy wherever your are.

YAAT (BYHL). HAND!

The article states that since 1790 the earth's global temperature has risen 0.8 degrees. In almost a quarter of a millenia this is the change. Excuse me if I remain skeptical that this was caused by human activity.

Sadly, the BBC's once excellent Horizon series seems to have shilled out to misrepresenting real science in the interests of sensationalism and keeping Soho's post-production CGI and compositing shops in work; the jury on Real Climate is still out (see the two detailed articles there) but it seems likely that (a) the supposed amazing new research is in fact not terribly new and is already taken account of in the computer models; and (possibly) (b) that Dr Peter Cox, a highly respected climatologist, was deliberately misrepresented. I am a firm adherent to the scientific orthodoxy on anthropogenic climate forcing (broadly: it's happening, fast, and bad consequences are likely to follow) but, as with the IPCC reports, it behoves those of us trying to educate the rest of the population to be cautious and conservative (small 'c') in predictions. The IPCC's middle trend line will cause disasterous enough consequnces as is, without needing to invent any more of it (as Marvin would say.) If the real-world climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing turns out to be greater that assumed, or other unpredicted non-linear effects show up (which is quite likely) it will become obvious fairly rapidly. Arguably the last decade's run of record high temperatures, dramatic off-expected trendline warming in the arctic, apparent signs of increased loss of Greenland ice, western European heatwaves, and the various other datapoint 'straws in the wind' are now starting to add up to that evidence - that we're at, nearing, or just past a tipping point - but the oil, SUV and US military-industrial industries will jump all over any perceived weakness or exaggeration in the scientific case for urgent, immediate action. There's no need to give them any more ammo.