Slashdot Mirror

AMOUNT or degree of climate change is not capable of establishing that a cause of a change is due to humans. You think that CO2 is the only thing released into the atmosphere, and Humans are the only things affecting the composition of the atmosphere and dissipation of sunlight/energy?

Really? On one had we have mountains of theories and studies filled with facts & figures, tables & graphs, predictions & observations; all of which are summarised in the IPCC reports. On the other hand, we have an unverified claim based on.... what, your gut feeling??

Large volcanic eruptions are completely natural and can have a huge impact for centuries.

What makes you think that scientists haven't thought of the influence of volcanoes? Oh wait, they have:

Volcanoes produce abrupt climate responses on short time scales. The surface cooling effect of the stratospheric aerosols, the main climatic forcing factor, decays in one to three years after an eruption due to the lifetime of the aerosols in the stratosphere. It is possible for one large volcano or a series of large volcanic eruptions to produce climate responses on longer time scales, especially in the subsurface region of the ocean (Delworth et al., 2005; Gleckler et al., 2006b).

As you see, the main climatic forcing factor of volcanoes is to cool the surface, and it usually dissipates relatively quickly. That is because it prevents the heat from the sun hitting the surface, which is the opposite of the greenhouse effect. Of course, volcanoes also release greenhouse gases like CO2, but human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes. A few years ago when that volcano in Iceland erupted and shut down airline flights across Europe, it actually have a positive effect on the climate because the amount of greenhouse gases emitted were offset by the savings caused by shutting down all the airlines. Also, from the link above:

Scientists tracking the effects of the major 1991 eruption of the Philippines' Mt. Pinatubo found that the overall effect of the blast was to cool the surface of the Earth globally by some 0.5 degrees Celsius a year later, even though rising human greenhouse gas emissions and an El Nino event caused some surface warming during the 1991-1993 study period.

First of all by default the assumption should not be No man-made factor at all; the assumption should be No major new man-made factor, or No conclusively man-made major influence.

That is a good assumption, and it was one that the scientists had when the idea that our emissions could enhance the natural greenhouse effect was first proposed 120 years ago. It was either dismissed or assumed that this would be a benefit. As the decades went by, the accumulation of evidence and our understanding of the scientific principles have convinced those experts that not only is this happening, but it will not be an overall benefit. If you want to come in now and assume that it isn't happening, then you are 120 years late.

Over that period, our technology has progressed so that much of our lives is dependent on using power that generates greenhouse gases. Over that period, the human race has nearly quadrupled in size. We went from just under 2 billion to 7.5 billion people. Is it really so hard to believe that all those people using all that power would be unable to affect the environment in which we live?

Skepticism against some theory which has been inadequately proposed does not require proof.

When that skepticism goes against established scientific understanding then yes, it does require proof. You might think that the theory has been inadequately pr

Nobody has ever said that it is only man who is causing climate change

Actually the tsunami of climate change bollocks in the media and on most websites 24/7 implies precisely that. Nobody talks about natural variation at all.

Chapter 8 of the Working Group I report in the most recent IPCC report is titled: "Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing" so it addresses natural causes of climate change as well as anthropogenic. You think nobody is talking about natural variation just because you haven't bothered to check to see if they have. But the scientists know you can't understand anthropogenic climate change if you don't at the same time understand natural climate change. Ignoring it would give you an incomplete picture making it harder to square your expectations with observations.

For example, this image from IPCC AR4 shows that there was a spike in methane from 400 ppb to 600 ppb at the end of the last glacial period.

For example, this image from IPCC AR4 shows that there was a spike in methane from 400 ppb to 600 ppb at the end of the last glacial period.

So if someone could please post links to the most persuasive proof that we should all be worried about carbon dioxide levels, I'll take a look.

So far nobody has posted any links to CAGW proof....

I guess part of the problem is in what you consider to be proof.

This probably doesn't count, and if that didn't then almost certainly this won't either.

However, perhaps once you've read them you could let us know what their failures are, as specifically as you can, and what more you'd require for them to be considered 'proof'.

Meh.
The real situation is what it is, and that seems to be plenty to discuss; I don't see the point in fantasizing catastrophe scenarios that have very little real science behind them.
For a look at what the best actual expectations are for the impact of warming and loss of sea ice, the WG-II report is still the best review: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...
(that's rather long, but the 32 page summary is here: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images... )

Well, let's see now:

The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase

The strongest RCP 8.5 scenario assumes continued and increasing (business-as-usual) emissions reaching 936ppm CO2 by 2100. This is likely to result in 3 to 5 degrees temperature increase by 2100 - but will certainly keep increasing well beyond that, even if we suddenly stopped all our emissions. So no, 5 is not the max. Also, that's an average, and thus specific areas can climb well beyond 5C (see Fig SPM 8 [a]).

never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility

Citation needed. The first IPCC report in 1990 predicted a temperature increase between 1 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures (see Figure 8), with a rise rate of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade. Right now we're about 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and rising at 1.7 degrees per decade.

the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes

Again, citation needed, because Fig SPM 8 (a) shows pretty clearly that tropical land temperatures can expect 4C to 7C average rises (again under RCP 8.5).

The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing.

But solely for the purpose of identifying past forcings, so that we can evaluate them in the context of today's increases (obviously there is no direct effect). Past changes can (and did) have entirely different causes to current changes. Every natural and cyclical cause that we've identified from the paleontological record has been evaluated in the context of modern warming, and found to be insufficient to cause the observed changes.

If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift

It definitely isn't (surely you knew that much?) See IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 8, particularly section 8.5.

a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man

I welcome any suggestions that climatologists may not have considered. But considering you seem to believe they didn't even check solar flux, I'm not hopeful you'll think of anything new.

that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica)

Again I say: so? Why do you think that current climate changes must have the same cause as past changes? Is it not conceivable to you that we could be seeing an entirely different proximate cause? I remind you once again that we've accounted for all known natural forcings, and found them insufficient to cause current observations.

BTW, palm trees grew on Antarctica 52 million years ago (not 500k), and atmospheric CO2 was at least 600ppm. That doesn't bode well for the scope of changes we're likely to see.

all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted

Even if we assume (against all evidence) that current warming is unrelated to human activity, transitioning our energy infrastructure to renewable and/or carbon-neutral sources is hardly wasted. Simply getting off coal will save hundreds of billions in health costs every year, in the US alone. Removing oil-burni

Well, let's see now:

The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase

The strongest RCP 8.5 scenario assumes continued and increasing (business-as-usual) emissions reaching 936ppm CO2 by 2100. This is likely to result in 3 to 5 degrees temperature increase by 2100 - but will certainly keep increasing well beyond that, even if we suddenly stopped all our emissions. So no, 5 is not the max. Also, that's an average, and thus specific areas can climb well beyond 5C (see Fig SPM 8 [a]).

never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility

Citation needed. The first IPCC report in 1990 predicted a temperature increase between 1 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures (see Figure 8), with a rise rate of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade. Right now we're about 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and rising at 1.7 degrees per decade.

the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes

Again, citation needed, because Fig SPM 8 (a) shows pretty clearly that tropical land temperatures can expect 4C to 7C average rises (again under RCP 8.5).

The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing.

But solely for the purpose of identifying past forcings, so that we can evaluate them in the context of today's increases (obviously there is no direct effect). Past changes can (and did) have entirely different causes to current changes. Every natural and cyclical cause that we've identified from the paleontological record has been evaluated in the context of modern warming, and found to be insufficient to cause the observed changes.

If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift

It definitely isn't (surely you knew that much?) See IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 8, particularly section 8.5.

a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man

I welcome any suggestions that climatologists may not have considered. But considering you seem to believe they didn't even check solar flux, I'm not hopeful you'll think of anything new.

that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica)

Again I say: so? Why do you think that current climate changes must have the same cause as past changes? Is it not conceivable to you that we could be seeing an entirely different proximate cause? I remind you once again that we've accounted for all known natural forcings, and found them insufficient to cause current observations.

BTW, palm trees grew on Antarctica 52 million years ago (not 500k), and atmospheric CO2 was at least 600ppm. That doesn't bode well for the scope of changes we're likely to see.

all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted

Even if we assume (against all evidence) that current warming is unrelated to human activity, transitioning our energy infrastructure to renewable and/or carbon-neutral sources is hardly wasted. Simply getting off coal will save hundreds of billions in health costs every year, in the US alone. Removing oil-burni

Well, let's see now:

The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase

The strongest RCP 8.5 scenario assumes continued and increasing (business-as-usual) emissions reaching 936ppm CO2 by 2100. This is likely to result in 3 to 5 degrees temperature increase by 2100 - but will certainly keep increasing well beyond that, even if we suddenly stopped all our emissions. So no, 5 is not the max. Also, that's an average, and thus specific areas can climb well beyond 5C (see Fig SPM 8 [a]).

never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility

Citation needed. The first IPCC report in 1990 predicted a temperature increase between 1 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures (see Figure 8), with a rise rate of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade. Right now we're about 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and rising at 1.7 degrees per decade.

the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes

Again, citation needed, because Fig SPM 8 (a) shows pretty clearly that tropical land temperatures can expect 4C to 7C average rises (again under RCP 8.5).

The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing.

But solely for the purpose of identifying past forcings, so that we can evaluate them in the context of today's increases (obviously there is no direct effect). Past changes can (and did) have entirely different causes to current changes. Every natural and cyclical cause that we've identified from the paleontological record has been evaluated in the context of modern warming, and found to be insufficient to cause the observed changes.

If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift

It definitely isn't (surely you knew that much?) See IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 8, particularly section 8.5.

a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man

I welcome any suggestions that climatologists may not have considered. But considering you seem to believe they didn't even check solar flux, I'm not hopeful you'll think of anything new.

that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica)

Again I say: so? Why do you think that current climate changes must have the same cause as past changes? Is it not conceivable to you that we could be seeing an entirely different proximate cause? I remind you once again that we've accounted for all known natural forcings, and found them insufficient to cause current observations.

BTW, palm trees grew on Antarctica 52 million years ago (not 500k), and atmospheric CO2 was at least 600ppm. That doesn't bode well for the scope of changes we're likely to see.

all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted

Even if we assume (against all evidence) that current warming is unrelated to human activity, transitioning our energy infrastructure to renewable and/or carbon-neutral sources is hardly wasted. Simply getting off coal will save hundreds of billions in health costs every year, in the US alone. Removing oil-burni

Well, let's see now:

The wildest projections for global temperatures predict a max of 5C global temperature increase

The strongest RCP 8.5 scenario assumes continued and increasing (business-as-usual) emissions reaching 936ppm CO2 by 2100. This is likely to result in 3 to 5 degrees temperature increase by 2100 - but will certainly keep increasing well beyond that, even if we suddenly stopped all our emissions. So no, 5 is not the max. Also, that's an average, and thus specific areas can climb well beyond 5C (see Fig SPM 8 [a]).

never mind that these models have been wrong and every 10 years they have to turn them down to avoid losing all credibility

Citation needed. The first IPCC report in 1990 predicted a temperature increase between 1 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures (see Figure 8), with a rise rate of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade. Right now we're about 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, and rising at 1.7 degrees per decade.

the tropics aren't going to get much hotter due to the effects of evaporation, most of the rise will be seen at the poles and further latitudes

Again, citation needed, because Fig SPM 8 (a) shows pretty clearly that tropical land temperatures can expect 4C to 7C average rises (again under RCP 8.5).

The past is massively important to what we are currently seeing.

But solely for the purpose of identifying past forcings, so that we can evaluate them in the context of today's increases (obviously there is no direct effect). Past changes can (and did) have entirely different causes to current changes. Every natural and cyclical cause that we've identified from the paleontological record has been evaluated in the context of modern warming, and found to be insufficient to cause the observed changes.

If this global warming is due to increased solar flux/frequency shift

It definitely isn't (surely you knew that much?) See IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 8, particularly section 8.5.

a myriad of other factors not directly or indirectly caused by man

I welcome any suggestions that climatologists may not have considered. But considering you seem to believe they didn't even check solar flux, I'm not hopeful you'll think of anything new.

that argument can be made easily looking at the global temperatures over the past 500k years; hint: palm trees used to grow on Antarctica)

Again I say: so? Why do you think that current climate changes must have the same cause as past changes? Is it not conceivable to you that we could be seeing an entirely different proximate cause? I remind you once again that we've accounted for all known natural forcings, and found them insufficient to cause current observations.

BTW, palm trees grew on Antarctica 52 million years ago (not 500k), and atmospheric CO2 was at least 600ppm. That doesn't bode well for the scope of changes we're likely to see.

all the resources we pour into fighting global warming are 100% wasted

Even if we assume (against all evidence) that current warming is unrelated to human activity, transitioning our energy infrastructure to renewable and/or carbon-neutral sources is hardly wasted. Simply getting off coal will save hundreds of billions in health costs every year, in the US alone. Removing oil-burni

Warming water also raises sea levels. Water is most dense at 4C. Raising the temperature causes it to expand and hence sea level rise. Much of the deep ocean is at 4C due to the higher density and this cold water is formed at the poles. According to the IPCC, thermal expansion accounts for about a quarter of observed sea level rise between 1961 and 2003. Between 1993-2003 thermal expansion accounted for around half of the sea level rise.

IPCC report [1] and related material. However, the final end day is influenced by how fast we reduce CO2 emissions. The faster we are in the beginning the longer we can rely on them in some areas. In essence the earth has an CO2 -> O2 capacity and we have a maximum limit on CO2 (with a precision range) (co2_max) and we have CO2 emissions. co2_max >= present concentration + pollution(t) - cap(t)

[1] http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

Why do you claim the models ignore clouds? Of course they're included. The problem is their effect is difficult to predict precisely, as they trap heat as well as increase albedo, so the net contribution can vary significantly. There are a great many studies about their contribution though, and confidence is very high that the increasing humidity is a positive feedback even with the resulting extra clouds factored in.

I'm glad you agree that the climate is steadily warming. Obviously all record temperatures will be on El Niño years, just as La Niña contributes to the cooler periods between them (which some have mistakenly labelled a "pause"). The important part is that this El Niño year has been hotter than all the previous El Niño years - just like 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005 and 1998. Such a string of broken records can only be a sustained warming trend.

And may I suggest less complaining about others examples, and more looking for citations to back up your own claims.

Why do you claim the models ignore clouds? Of course they're included. The problem is their effect is difficult to predict precisely, as they trap heat as well as increase albedo, so the net contribution can vary significantly. There are a great many studies about their contribution though, and confidence is very high that the increasing humidity is a positive feedback even with the resulting extra clouds factored in.

I'm glad you agree that the climate is steadily warming. Obviously all record temperatures will be on El Niño years, just as La Niña contributes to the cooler periods between them (which some have mistakenly labelled a "pause"). The important part is that this El Niño year has been hotter than all the previous El Niño years - just like 2015, 2014, 2010, 2005 and 1998. Such a string of broken records can only be a sustained warming trend.

And may I suggest less complaining about others examples, and more looking for citations to back up your own claims.

Again with the magic fairies !
  Look you said "Whoever gave you that number was lying through their teeth."
I showed the number while not exact was very far from lying through their teeth, and referenced it through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a scientific and intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations, in their 4th Assessment Report, as referred to via a well known Climate Change Alarmist's website.
If you want to talk about lies, take a look at this Infographic USA CO2 emissions trending down, European Union CO2 emissions trending down, Japan's CO2 emissions trending down, Russia's CO2 emissions trending down? How about China and India CO2 emissions trending up sharply; where are the lies of omission now.

Past catastrophic predictions of sea level rises have been false, as this one will be.

Well, except that statement is incorrect. Previous predictions of sea level rise-- read the IPCC reports for reference-- were for a "sea-level rise of 0.25 to 1 meter possible by the end of the next century"-- that means, by the year 2100. They didn't make predictions as near to the present as 2016.

Reference: here's the First IPCC (1990) report on effects of global warming: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... (Oceans are chapter 6)

and here's the most recent: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

Past catastrophic predictions of sea level rises have been false, as this one will be.

Well, except that statement is incorrect. Previous predictions of sea level rise-- read the IPCC reports for reference-- were for a "sea-level rise of 0.25 to 1 meter possible by the end of the next century"-- that means, by the year 2100. They didn't make predictions as near to the present as 2016.

Reference: here's the First IPCC (1990) report on effects of global warming: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... (Oceans are chapter 6)

and here's the most recent: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

Take the ever-changing value over the CO2 forcing value. Is it 1.1 W/m^2? Is it 8.5 W/m^2?

The first order forcing of CO2 is 5.35*ln(C/C0)Wm^-2 . Not a lot of controversy there. You've given it as a constant without regard to relative C. Are you sure you understood what you were looking at?

Now, does anyone have a link to those charts which show the models continue to run much hotter than the real climate?
The IPCC's Fifth Assessment has it for you in Figure 11.9. They graph the instrumental record against an ensemble of 42 models and the instrumental consistently falls on the lowest end of the error margins for the predicted warming. IE, the very, very coldest models are the closest to matching the instrumental record.

Now, that is working from a short term prediction, which isn't where we expect the models to really start showing their promise, but the IPCC saw fit to print it regardless. You can compare the IPCC's first assessment from back in the 1990's, if you want a longer term prediction to compare against. The trouble is the IPCC back then hard referenced their predictions to the year 1975. Practice since then is to show anomaly against something like a 10 year average, so you don't cherry pick a particularly hot/cold year as your initial reference. IF you do use 1975 as the reference for the IPCC FAR predictions from 1990 though their predictions that come closest to the last 25 years are the ones using a CO2 sensitivity of 1.5C.

Maybe the best way to get certain folks on board is to present information with a sense of self-skepticism and talk about the uncertainties rather than having movie starts tell us disaster is upon us and not even acknowledge those uncertainties.

Right there you're showing that you're not familar with the actual science. If you would read, for example, the IPCC Working Group 1 report, there is exhaustive discussion of the uncertainties-- the whole report repeatedly addresses how well do we know what we know, what are the sources of uncertainty, how much uncertainty is there, and what do we need to do to reduce our uncertainty.

If you want "talk about uncertainties", look at the actual science, where uncertainties are laid out in detail, not at the popular media (and certainly not at the blogger commentary.)

All I see is you repeating what you said, over and over, waving away any the research that disagrees with you, and never citing any of your own - just more flat declarations that we're supposed to take on faith.

I understand what you're claiming quite well, but I disagree. I cited research that supports my opinion, whereas you dismiss it all as "a bunch of people with an agenda". How is this not pure denial?

Bangladesh is gaining sedimental land in some parts (which will take decades before it's useful farmland) - but it's still low-lying, and at the mercy of storm surges like this one. And that's still only one example. If you want to convince me that these analyses are flatly wrong, you'll have to do better than more unsourced declarations.

I said that it will do so independent of any policies we adopt.

I heard you the first time, and you still haven't provided any reason for me to believe you. Whereas adopting policies that restrict and phase out fossil fuels absolutely will greatly slow atmospheric CO2 level rises, since that is demonstrably the largest source.

the cost of dealing with climate change and the cost of avoiding it are about the same

That same report also says:
* that the costs are very likely to be greatly underestimated,
* that costs will scale up dramatically past 3-4 degrees of warming,
* that unmitigated warming adds numerous risks and uncertainties that could potentially add greatly to the bill,
* that there are numerous mitigation strategies with net-negative costs (i.e. they save more money than they cost),
* and that the financial costs do not take into account the significant human and social costs, which can also be reduced by mitigation.

Your clear example of cherry-picking the one quote you want to hear just highlights your own agenda.

the incorrect assumption that without government intervention, people won't switch to renewables

And how do you think people can switch to renewables when they have no choice about their electricity source? How do you propose to convince the fossil fuel companies to abandon their campaign of discrediting renewables at every point, to compete fairly in the market (they're currently given a free pass for offloading their external emissions costs, which costs us hundreds of billions annually), and to not make full use of their existing infrastructure, vast scale, and trillions in assets to do their utmost to block renewables from displacing them completely from the energy market?

Government intervention would not be required if the market were actually free, but it will never be free as long as carbon emitters don't have to pay for the costs of their emissions. Governments around the world have already intervened in numerous similar cases (sulfur emissions, ozone emissions) with highly successful results, yet some people remain utterly convinced that in this case any possible action is somehow doomed to failure.

Have you looked at the likely impacts with a mere 1K of warming? Because those are real problems and potentially very expensive - a long way from "meh", and particularly for the global poor who can least afford to adapt.

But there's absolutely no reason to assume the lowest outcome in that range - in fact, competent disaster planning would more likely work on the assumption of the worse case of 4.5K, even if we can hope for a lower result.

Nobody is claiming all the science is done and complete - the only thing that's completely "settled" is whether it's happening at all, though we've got a pretty good idea about how & why, and of the range of things that could happen. But if you think it should be better, then shouldn't you join the call for more focus and investment in climate research, rather than trying to undermine what's been done so far?

From the IPCC's first assessment report from 25 years ago we were supposed to hit this point by 2010. Look for the graph in chapter 1 where CO2 concentrations are graphed for various scenarios. The scenario with human emissions increasing every year by 2% hits 400ppm in 2010.

On the whole, that's not a terrible estimation though given the limits folks were working under back then. Doesn't sound as scary though in the papers to declare that we are about 6 years behind early estimates of when we'd hit this point...

BOOM! I gave you evidence that your positions are counter-factual, such as the Canadian Geographic article that polar bear numbers are indeed up, and that the surface temperature data is being fiddled as stated by Iceland's chief meteorologist, and that the climate sensitivity keeps getting adjusted down and still claimed as a far too high value (which means, CAGW is falsified).

Unfortunately, you didn't give me any evidence to contradict my views, I'm just tried of correcting you. For example:

1. The Canadian Geographic article says of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, 8 are in decline, 3 are growing, 2 are stable and 6 are unknown. You seem to only see that 3 are growing while ignoring that 8 are in decline, and that seems to be simple confirmation bias on your part

2. something which seems to be common thread running through all of your arguments. All evidence that you are wrong is ignored and any evidence that you might be correct is accepted without question or even examination.

3. You showed one instance where the climate sensitivity estimate had it's lower range dropped. It was raised onc (4th report) e and lowered once (5th report), it was 1.5 to 4.5C in the first report and 1.5C to 4.5C in the fifth report, which is explicitly what I told you. Now, I don't know why you are arguing about this but like everything else you have written about climate change you are clearly, factually, and demonstrably wrong, but I'm sure you'll invent another excuse to justify your refusal to accept reality.
4. The article you linked is a crock, it wasn't Iceland's chief meterologist who said it was being fiddled with, it was Christopher Booker, who's a columnist for the Telegraph and an anti-science crank, Here's a video explaining what the adjustments that Booker is complaining about are and why they are needed.

That's three major mistakes in one sentence, and it's one of your better sentences. A fact which should horrify anyone with half a brain. The simple fact is that everything you think you know is wrong but I am no longer willing to spend my time correcting you (and having the corrections ignored).

1. What you are experiencing is called "cognitive dissonance". You know the statements I make are true, but they conflict with your indoctrination, so you reject reality and instead decide to continue with your programmed responses. You claim others are "crazy" yet it is you who is unable to accept facts due to your programming. That makes you the irrational one who is acting "crazy".

No, what I am experiencing is a condescending jackass who thinks he's clever, but is actually particularly ignorant, dense and, I suspect, more than a little bit slow. I have become weary of your boorish behaviour and your plain fucked up insane bullshit. You are consistently and endlessly wrong, but I don't have the time to debunk 20 or 30 insane claims in every single one of your posts. You pile on the disinformation and insanity and it's just not worth my time to debate you any more.

The Scientific Method requires me to examine your arguments and evidence. You will notice I did, that I read through the sources you gave. What you didn't understand was how the sources were dissembling, but when their data was interpreted properly they support the climate realists position, and require that the Null Hypothesis be selected over the alarmist's empirically falsified CAGW. You are on the wrong side of history.

You wouldn't recognize the Scientific Method if it bit you on the a

BOOM! I gave you evidence that your positions are counter-factual, such as the Canadian Geographic article that polar bear numbers are indeed up, and that the surface temperature data is being fiddled as stated by Iceland's chief meteorologist, and that the climate sensitivity keeps getting adjusted down and still claimed as a far too high value (which means, CAGW is falsified).

Unfortunately, you didn't give me any evidence to contradict my views, I'm just tried of correcting you. For example:

1. The Canadian Geographic article says of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, 8 are in decline, 3 are growing, 2 are stable and 6 are unknown. You seem to only see that 3 are growing while ignoring that 8 are in decline, and that seems to be simple confirmation bias on your part

2. something which seems to be common thread running through all of your arguments. All evidence that you are wrong is ignored and any evidence that you might be correct is accepted without question or even examination.

3. You showed one instance where the climate sensitivity estimate had it's lower range dropped. It was raised onc (4th report) e and lowered once (5th report), it was 1.5 to 4.5C in the first report and 1.5C to 4.5C in the fifth report, which is explicitly what I told you. Now, I don't know why you are arguing about this but like everything else you have written about climate change you are clearly, factually, and demonstrably wrong, but I'm sure you'll invent another excuse to justify your refusal to accept reality.
4. The article you linked is a crock, it wasn't Iceland's chief meterologist who said it was being fiddled with, it was Christopher Booker, who's a columnist for the Telegraph and an anti-science crank, Here's a video explaining what the adjustments that Booker is complaining about are and why they are needed.

That's three major mistakes in one sentence, and it's one of your better sentences. A fact which should horrify anyone with half a brain. The simple fact is that everything you think you know is wrong but I am no longer willing to spend my time correcting you (and having the corrections ignored).

1. What you are experiencing is called "cognitive dissonance". You know the statements I make are true, but they conflict with your indoctrination, so you reject reality and instead decide to continue with your programmed responses. You claim others are "crazy" yet it is you who is unable to accept facts due to your programming. That makes you the irrational one who is acting "crazy".

No, what I am experiencing is a condescending jackass who thinks he's clever, but is actually particularly ignorant, dense and, I suspect, more than a little bit slow. I have become weary of your boorish behaviour and your plain fucked up insane bullshit. You are consistently and endlessly wrong, but I don't have the time to debunk 20 or 30 insane claims in every single one of your posts. You pile on the disinformation and insanity and it's just not worth my time to debate you any more.

The Scientific Method requires me to examine your arguments and evidence. You will notice I did, that I read through the sources you gave. What you didn't understand was how the sources were dissembling, but when their data was interpreted properly they support the climate realists position, and require that the Null Hypothesis be selected over the alarmist's empirically falsified CAGW. You are on the wrong side of history.

You wouldn't recognize the Scientific Method if it bit you on the a

And still no cited studies. For someone who raves about the scientific method so much, you don't care much for actual data or observation - just the same empty claims, repeated louder each time. You still haven't even stated with any clarity which hypothesis you think has been falsified, let alone by what.

For example, the 1990 IPCC report makes not one but four projections about future temperature rises, right there in the Executive Summary. The most extreme of those (Scenario A, Business as Usual) predicts a 1C rise by 2025 - and we're already getting close to that. However the other scenarios predict rises as low as 0.1C per decade (depending on global emissions), and we're well ahead of those. So yeah, 1990 IPCC predictions so far confirmed by real observational data, rather than the mysterious numbers in your head.

Though of course, models of any system with underlying randomness aren't invalidated by a couple of outlier numbers anyway, only by a sustained series of observations that collectively fall outside the three-sigma probability range - since the scientific method isn't nearly as black & white as your hugely over-simplified idea of it. Go talk to some particle physicists; you might learn something about that.

Hey I'm no scientist, but don't they say Venus' atmosphere has very high pressures and lacks water and Mars is 95% CO2 also? IOW, there's more to it.

Correct. What's your point here, exactly? Indeed, Venus had a very high greenhouse effect: due to the large amount of carbon dioxide, its atmosphere is pretty much opaque in the thermal infrared. Mars has a greenhouse effect as well, although not a large one, primarily because its atmosphere is so thin, and lacks appreciable water vapor.

The problem with the rest of your post is that from "don't trust the media and politicians because 'the truth is very hard to obtain'," you slide to "don't trust scientists either." The science of the greenhouse effect is not on "shaky foundations". You ask Too often we hear there's a consensus, yet what we should really be being told is "how do they know that?" Why all the emphasis on "consensus" and not on "how they know" ?... but you give no evidence that you have made any attempt whatsoever to learn "how they know that". Try, as a start, the IPCC report Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis . If you don't want to read that, there are textbooks on climate science.

Yes, you are right: it's hard. But too many people are arguing "Oh, those reports are too long to read; they're boring; I don't have time to learn the science" and then going from that to conclude "I don't understand it, so I will say it's on shaky foundations."

No, actually: it's not.

...So excuse my ranty tone but whether I'm right or not isn't the point...

A rant is excusable if you follow it up by showing some expertise in the subject you are talking about.

Point to accurate modeling (with reasonable error bars) of cloud feedback that supports your point. (source)

A good place to start would be the IPCC report. The quick summary: cloud feedback is, indeed, the largest single source of uncertainty in the models. But that is incorporated in the error bars.

Again: the fact that we don't know everything doesn't mean that we don't know anything. The way science progresses is by increasingly more accurate models.

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... if you're interested.

"The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible." I wonder who wrote that and what about it is so hard to understand.

We're dealing with a belief system here, and no amount of logic is going to dissuade any of the True Believers from their eco-religion, especially when there's so much taxpayer money being flung about to study and "solve the problem".

And nobody wants to be "on the wrong side of history" now, do they? Plus it's fun to abuse your ideological enemies, isn't it?

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
- Aldous Huxley

Now go on, accuse me of cherry-picking and misrepresenting the facts. Oh, no, wait - it's Dunning-Kruger. Or false consciousness. Or I want to kill the planet. Or I'm just evil. Hey, why not just go for all those things!

Incidentally, I've read (although I can't remember where, but I'll have to put the effort into finding it sometime) that if you use ice core proxy data for the last 150 years, this spike is completely gone. Meaning, of course, these kind of "unprecedented, rapid" fluctuations could have been happening the entire time, and we'd never know, because we don't have anything other than low resolution proxy data for that time period.

That's a great argument style - blatantly lie and claim you'll look up the source of the lie later. Oh look, a graph with proxy data extending into the most recent 150 years, and showing a spike. https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

IPCC Emissions Scenarios

Ok, I've done some of your work for you. Here is the page on "11.5 Future Sea Level Changes 11.5.1 Global Average Sea Level Change 1990 to 2100" from the IPCC Third Archive Report from 2001. If you click on the graph on that page you get an enlarged versionhere. If you take a straight edge to the graph you can estimate that the projected sea level rise from 1990 to 2016 was around 0.05-0.06 meters or 50-60 mm. Here is a page that shows the methods they used for projections.

Here is a page from NOAA that shows sea level rise as measured by tide gauges from 1880 to the start of 2016. You can hover your mouse over the graph to get the exact numbers for a point in time. You can also use your mouse to squish the graph to zero in on the 1990 - 2016 part for better resolution. By my calculations the sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 is around 80 mm, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

But you'll probably reject the data from NOAA so here is another graph that shows sea level rise as measured by satellite altimeters from 1993 (when the first one went up) to mid 2015. It clearly also shows around 80 mm of sea level rise since 1993, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

So there is your prediction from 2001 of sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 and two observational datasets that show the IPCC predictions were on the low side.

Are you happy now?

Ok, I've done some of your work for you. Here is the page on "11.5 Future Sea Level Changes 11.5.1 Global Average Sea Level Change 1990 to 2100" from the IPCC Third Archive Report from 2001. If you click on the graph on that page you get an enlarged versionhere. If you take a straight edge to the graph you can estimate that the projected sea level rise from 1990 to 2016 was around 0.05-0.06 meters or 50-60 mm. Here is a page that shows the methods they used for projections.

Here is a page from NOAA that shows sea level rise as measured by tide gauges from 1880 to the start of 2016. You can hover your mouse over the graph to get the exact numbers for a point in time. You can also use your mouse to squish the graph to zero in on the 1990 - 2016 part for better resolution. By my calculations the sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 is around 80 mm, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

But you'll probably reject the data from NOAA so here is another graph that shows sea level rise as measured by satellite altimeters from 1993 (when the first one went up) to mid 2015. It clearly also shows around 80 mm of sea level rise since 1993, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

So there is your prediction from 2001 of sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 and two observational datasets that show the IPCC predictions were on the low side.

Are you happy now?

Ok, I've done some of your work for you. Here is the page on "11.5 Future Sea Level Changes 11.5.1 Global Average Sea Level Change 1990 to 2100" from the IPCC Third Archive Report from 2001. If you click on the graph on that page you get an enlarged versionhere. If you take a straight edge to the graph you can estimate that the projected sea level rise from 1990 to 2016 was around 0.05-0.06 meters or 50-60 mm. Here is a page that shows the methods they used for projections.

Here is a page from NOAA that shows sea level rise as measured by tide gauges from 1880 to the start of 2016. You can hover your mouse over the graph to get the exact numbers for a point in time. You can also use your mouse to squish the graph to zero in on the 1990 - 2016 part for better resolution. By my calculations the sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 is around 80 mm, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

But you'll probably reject the data from NOAA so here is another graph that shows sea level rise as measured by satellite altimeters from 1993 (when the first one went up) to mid 2015. It clearly also shows around 80 mm of sea level rise since 1993, clearly greater than the projections from the IPCC in 2001.

So there is your prediction from 2001 of sea level rise from 1990 to the start of 2016 and two observational datasets that show the IPCC predictions were on the low side.

Are you happy now?

"That's nice because nobody has the time or expertise to do all of that either. If you want a summary of current state of the science read the IPCC reports which are available to for free. Here's a like to the latest, the IPCC AR5 report.

Successful predictions include surface warming and stratospheric cooling coincident with a rise in CO2 levels, and stronger warming effects at the poles. Are you under the misapprehension that producing fine-grained projections of global temperature is the only thing that climate scientists do?

The challenge I put forth asked for correctness of just 80% for any cited prediction

Studies usually already include their error margins. If a prediction comes in within its own error margin, that is a successful test. Surely you don't apply your own arbitrary standards to other physical sciences? As it happens, results within the error margins of prediction are true for Hansen et all (1988), linked previously, for Plass (1956), Arrhenius (linked previously), and most accurately by Sawyer (1972), who managed to get both the magnitude of increased emissions and the resulting temperature increase exactly correct. I apparently wasn't clear when I gave you the temperature predictions earlier for Sawyer, Plass, and Hansen. I assumed that you would be able to find a graph of global temperatures for the 20th Century. Here's a graph for you, which corroborates their findings. I hope it's not too much trouble to be able to look at my previous posts for the numbers.

Also, Arrhenius (1896) and Callendar (30s-40s) were confirmed in the mid-50s with CO2 and temperature measurements. You could also consider Plass and Kaplan (1952) to be confirmation of the previous work on the matter. Also, you will note that Hansen's spacial distribution of the temperature anomaly was very accurate. Looking at graphs in the 1995 IPCC report their prediction (p40) of the warming trend matches the observed warming through to the present quite well.

We see scary predictions published — even on Slashdot — about once a week.

If you're getting your scientific information from the popular press, you're probably being misinformed in some manner. In my experience newspaper articles are rarely peer reviewed, and I don't think I've seen very many cited, or that have citations. As it happens, I believe most of the articles on Slashdot are concerned with weather events and annual records.

does this mean, you admit, no predictions I seek have been made until "just recently"?

What you want isn't actually a test of the science in the way you think it is. Global climate models cannot be used to disprove AGW any more than epidemiological models can be used to disprove the germ theory of disease, and Kerbal Space Program is similarly not a test of relativity. Economists can construct models to show that rapid expansions of the monetary supply cause harmful inflation, and there is empirical evidence to support this idea. Constructing a model to predict the exact effects of the Fed's Quantitative Easing program would be something of a challenge. Failure to model something accurately means that your model is inaccurate, not that the theory is wrong. Are climate models inaccurate? Of course they are! Every model is inaccurate. All of science is inaccurate, it's inherent to empirical observation. The question is to what degree they are useful, and to begin to be able to answer that, I would suggest you start here or

Well, if number 3 is true, it's probably time to consider killing yourself.

That scenario suggests firstly that some undetectable phenomena is driving climate change, and also that some undetectable phenomena is preventing the warming that should have occurred from rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, there is a century long conspiracy plot...

Let's stop there and be a little more honest. The GP was more honestly asking what are the unknowns. How much of current warming do we attribute to human activity and how much to natural fluctuations. Are best metric for that are the models, and here's the state of the art from the IPCC's fifth assessment. From Box 9.1:
maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).

When using the models to hindcast past temperatures, unknowns like clouds drive the energy imbalance into "an unrealistic state". The energy imbalance is the driver of climate change and the models still have to make hand tuned corrections to keep hindcasts realistic.

There's not some undetectable or magical force acting to confound all our current understanding of CO2 impact on recent warming. There IS however a lot we still don't understand properly, enough that the impact of those unknowns drive the models HARDER than the CO2 we've been dumping. Now in all likelyhood the unknowns aren't pushing temperature one way or another, but that's an assumption at this stage(and a reasonable one). However, when tryign to map out the next 100 years and our impact on it, we might want to hold a large caveat on the possibility that the unknowns we are working at are a major factor and most certainly impact our confidence in any projections.

I know, right? Three years without an ice cap, not a single Seychelles island left, constant category seven hurricanes. The AGW have been making nothing but accurate predictions for decades.

Nobody has made any of those predictions as things that would happen by 2016.

If you want to see what was actually predicted, it's not hard-- the IPCC reports are all available on the web. Here's the 1990 predictions-- twenty six years ago-- for example: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...

We must start listening to their calls for global economic destruction!

It would be useful if the people who are saying that addressing the problem would result in "global economic destruction" would, rather than attacking the science, instead propose approaches to the question "what are the range of possible options available to us that would not result in global economic destruction?"

Again, what is the "right number" as a target

Here are the costs associated with climate change: https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio... . The ideal goal would be to advance a transition to the new energy economy at a rate where the costs of doing so are commensurate with the costs of delaying.

Any record is going to be a result of the combination of some cyclical effects, some random noise, and the secular steadily rising trend from human activity. You can use deviation from the trend to determine how much of that is human activity and how much is cyclical:http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1970/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1970

You can look here for economic consequences of climate change: https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

Regarding what to do about it, my preference would be to let the market decide the solution. A revenue neutral carbon tax would reduce income and sales tax (we ought to be encouraging income and spending so this is good) and it would send a price signal to move us from carbon into the new energy economy.

all the EPA grants on climate change research already presume that it is happening and that it needs to be stopped

Well yeah, that was firmly established long ago. It's been taken for granted in the science community for ages (hence TFA), and issuing grants to determine if it's still actually happening would be like researching whether the sun will shine tomorrow.

people who don't agree with the party line on climate change find it almost impossible to publish, get academic positions, or get research grants.

That isn't true, or at least the first part isn't. Further research establishing the (non)existence of AGW would never be ignored - if it's sound. If (and only if) your methodology is good and your evidence is strong, you'll get published, even - nay, particularly if you can actually show clearly that current warming is natural or not happening (and of course explain all the existing evidence to the contrary). Journals would love to publish a bombshell like that - if it's bombproof, and not just a bomb. Granted, for funding you may have to look outside mainstream sources unless you've got a strong case to start with, but I don't doubt Exxon, the Heartland Institute, Koch bros et al would happily pony up. For academic positions, likewise. Of course, that would change fast if you were The Guy who published evidence strong enough to be taken seriously.

government budgets that run into the trillions

Right, because the government would devote trillions to overblowing a crisis so that they could put a price on carbon /s. They already did that with SO2 emissions for far less money, and nobody freaked out. While it's true the government could potentially pressure researchers (as Bush did), that would come to light very quickly - and would have minimal effect all those climate researchers everywhere else in the world...

But the fossil fuel industry's very existence is at stake. They really are risking trillions, so their motive for pushing back is huge. And the industry isn't exactly short of funds either, so they have means as well as motive. When you add in the existing examples of them already funding misinformation, the case against them is far from laughable. So it's curious that you put more stock in unfounded claims of climate researchers falsifying results, despite the only specific accusations being thoroughly cleared of any wrongdoing.

Let ME be clear about it: the people speaking out against the "AGW FUD" have yet to show any good evidence to back their claims. All they've been doing the whole time is attempting to cast doubt on the reams of evidence that the climatologists have produced over the last forty years. That is the very definition of FUD. You might be one of the rarer people who accepts AGW yet thinks the consequences aren't so bad, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against that too. If you want people to listen, end your own FUD & vague accusations, and come up with real evidence for a change - if you can.

Well, Cook is a Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute, plus there's also the qualifications of the eight other authors on his paper. That's somewhat more expertise than Duartes has demonstrated. And that doesn't mean "nobody has the qualifications to challenge him", only that Duartes doesn't. And the whole point of said expertise is that it enables a more correct interpretation of the "mountains of evidence" you claim. Without a solid knowledge of the field, a layman has no real idea if a particular claimed fact is even relevant, let alone not merely cherry-picked to support a contrary position.

I don't think the evidence for a vast consensus is very strong.

Despite Cook's findings being corroborated by five other surveys, as TFA points out.

Other evidence I have seen shows little or no consensus.

Is it peer reviewed? If so, do please cite it.

this constant bleating about consensus rather than evidence

You are clearly trying hard not to see all the evidence then. That's been available for many, many years. The consensus merely makes clear that this evidence is taken seriously by the vast majority of climatologists.

In fact, the consensus view at present is that the impact of CO2 is overestimated.

Nope. That's not the current consensus view. There have been some studies which have rejected the more dire models for CO2. But your links are a few years old. Basically, your links are referring to issues where models didn't predict the "slowdown" in climate change that happened in the early 2000s. It has now picked up again.

And this is likely just due to random elements in a chaotic system. Subsequent studies have suggested that randomness in the earth's climate from year-to-year probably has multiple times the amount of impact that alterations to the CO2 model (or other factors, like sunlight absorption models, ocean absorption models, etc.) have.

Bottom line: the validity of these models has to be judged over longer timespans, to avoid the year-to-year blips in a chaotic system. With that taken into account, the general CO2 models likely aren't that far off.

The models didn't just fail to predict the 'slowdown'. 111 out of 114 of the models the IPCC evaluated overestimated the only 15 years of data they had to compare them against. You are correct though, the models need to be judged over longer time frames...

The IPCC has an entire section devoted to evaluating models in their last assessment report. If you look down to Box 9.1 they discuss model tuning, and the example of comparing longer time frames through hindcasting, like pre-industrial model runs. The IPCC says the following:
maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).

For the record, the sum of all natural and human climate forcings act together by changing the TOA energy imbalance. It's the fundamental physics behind more CO2 trapping more energy means warmer temperatures. The part I'd like to draw attention to is that the part of the models that we 'tune' is still sufficient to cause drifting to an unrealistic state.

With 111 out of 114 models underestimating the only dataset we DO have to compare them against, and with the models requiring manual adjustment to hindcast longer time frames realistically, I lack your confidence in their predictive power. The models tell us lots of important things about what we know and what we are trying to test and understand. Don't reject that one of the things they tell us however is that the sum of the unknowns we still tune the models by are important enough to drive the climate to unrealistic states.

How about some solutions people?

Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes, ...
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger ;)

You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.

How about some solutions people?

Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes, ...
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger ;)

The models do NOT have strong evidence to help us predict the impacts of climate change.

So in fact, the outcome could be worse than what the models are predicting?

And THIS is the reason we should do nothing?

I never said a solitary thing about what I thought should or shouldn't be done. I merely pointed out some of the things we are certain about, and some of the things we are less certain of. That you immediately presume I'm lobbying for inaction says every thing about yourself, and nothing about me or the IPCC results I pointed to.

With us being very confident that things are warming and that our continued emissions will continue to contribute to the warming, we obviously SHOULD be taking action. With us lacking certainty on the severity of future warming, we should probably use past trends as a benchmark for the future and see what it tells us about the 'best guess' the models have. If you look at the IPCC evaluation of models they include the following observation: ...an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (augmented for the period 2006–2012 by RCP4.5 simulations, Section 9.3.2) reveals that 111 out of 114 realizations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble...

Since the IPCC wrote that, global averages have trended up again, but we still need several more years like this one to bring the 20 year average in line with the model predicted LOW end. So, if we are to make a guess, it seems we have reason to estimate that the model predictions are, if anything, a bit pessimistic when benchmarked against reality.

If you want my recommendations, I would advocate a shift to nuclear power, like yesterday. Doubly so the more worried we believe we should be about future change. I would advocate for a large shift to electric cars, again starting as soon as possible.

If we could find workable nuclear power that could run an entire country like, say France, we should adopt that more broadly. If we could build an affordable electric car, we should try and get hundreds of thousands of them out to people right away. These of course being things that have ALREADY happened. I vote strongly that these two fronts be the focus as they would massively reduce global emissions, and are financially profitable businesses already today. Unlike solar or wind or all the other 'green' alternatives out there today, they are ready now and require no new research and are not subject to any hedging or what ifs. What is more, the stronger you feel about the urgency of our actions, the more important my path is for the fact it is the fastest and most certain route to lowering our emissions.

No question that liquid fuel is more energy dense then batteries. But what is the conversion ratio of that stored energy to thrust. From here, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports..., I get average efficiency of 30-37%.

If it is 37% though you are down to an effective energy store of 14 MJ/KG. Electric engines can be in the 98%+ efficiency level. So while it is still a huge distance to span it's not as big as the pure fuel density implies.

Also when you compare energy density per litre vs per kg batteries do better. Kero is 37 MJ/L and Lipoly is up to 2.25MJ/L. Given that you are now down to a difference of 13.69 vs 2.2ish. Potentially you are in the vicinity of batteries allowing different air frame designs that the higher weight can be, to some degree, compensated.

There is a long way to go before we are replacing jets but I don't think it is quite as insurmountable as you put it.

So I have to argue your side for you? lame.

Are you really so ignorant of your own sides predictions that you are defending something you don't understand ? that would make you zealot no less than any religious nutbar. No wonder the Climate Realists call you guys members of the "Cult of Climate Alarmism". Your anger is based on 'righteous fury' and not on the Scientific Method.

But since the ability to Google simple claims is apparently beyond you I'll do you the favor

For global observations since the late 1950s, the most recent versions of all available data sets show that the troposphere has warmed at a slightly greater rate than the surface, while the stratosphere has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling; ozone depletion also contributes substantially to stratospheric cooling.

From: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...

Oh, and I bet you don't even know why the IPCC doesn't care about the science and why it was set up by sociopath Maurice Strong
http://green-agenda.com/

IPCC:

https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

So, yes, there are in fact natural fluxes orders of magnitude greater than human activity. And as for evidence that we have an actively adaptive system:

http://theresilientearth.com/?...

Our observations have shown a matching increase natural sinks as we've input more CO2 from human activity. The absorption isn't marginal, it is literally proportionate to the increases in emissions.

What does this mean? It means that it is quite possible that CO2 levels on the larger scale are driven by other factors, and in fact the biosphere and geosphere react dynamically to keep CO2 at a given set point which may change over time unrelated to any given source or sink.

That means add CO2, and some sink may reactively absorb it. Remove CO2, and some source may reactively release it. Just like a buffered solution, perturbations in either direction are neutralized.

Imagine for a moment, that rather than CO2 driving temperature, that temperature drives CO2 - and that it is the temperature level that drives the appropriate sources and sinks to behave in a way that brings CO2 levels in the atmosphere to a specific point. It's almost trivial to think of this in terms of partial pressures (where the temperature of the oceans drive outgassing and absorption).

Oh, as for ocean pH neutralization, even if you burnt every molecule of petroleum on this planet, and shoved the CO2 directly into the oceans, you wouldn't change the pH appreciably - the oceans are *literally* a world wide reservoir that outweighs any amount of CO2 we could conceivably throw at it.

The IPCC declares the loss of the Greenland ice sheet before 2100 virtually impossible.

Citation please.
Or well, safe your breath. The IPCC declares nothing like that.
Also keep in mind: the IPCC is only the agency that is "distributing the bad news in 'digestible' chunks".
They are not "the climate researchers" who actually lay open the bad news.

The IPCC fifth assessment declares exactly that in Chapter 12.
Exceptionally unlikely that either Greenland or West Antarctic Ice sheets will suffer near-complete disintegration (high confidence)
Note they state both that it is exceptionally unlikely AND that assessment has high confidence.