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So show us some of that stalactite data too.

That will be my pleasure. But this is how it works: I have made a statement and presented some data. You dispute this statement and now you present your supporting data. Then I will gladly respond with the oodles of data from Oman (near equator) to New Zealand (mid-southern) to support the Greenland data (far northern) data. So now you simply need to provide the data you say proves that Greenland was regional only. It should be easy for you, right? opinions don't count, only data.

Wow, I don't have a clue how you could claim that AGW proponents and Michael Mann have said there is no natural warming for the last x amount of years. I've never read anything like that from him/them.

Have you never heard of Michael Mann's notorious "Hockey Stick". Surely you know that in IPCC reports from 2001 to 2007 it featured prominently, but then has been quietly removed because it has now been thoroughly debunked both on improper (to the point of fraudulent) analysis technique and improper sample selection. Here is the Hockey Stick from the IPCC reports:
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreport...
https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

Don't you think it is wonderful that the Internet never forgets? that every denial and false and disingenuous statement that climate Alarmists make is going to live on forever for all to see - like the claim you just make that Michael Mann's Hockey Stick doesn't exist (he used to caim that natural variability has been negligible for the last two millenia and all change must be anthropogenic in origin).

Yes, in the long run the quantity of most interest in the Arctic is the summer sea ice minimum but generally the Arctic sea ice hits its maximum extent in February/March. 2016 is threatening to set a new record for the lowest maximum extent on record. Here's the report. [nsidc.org]

Thank you for the reference. The reference I gave was from the Danes and is not corrupted like the NSIDC who are funded by NASA and NOAA who are now known to altering data to support their Lysenkoist agenda. The Danish data shows that the 2016 ice cover for this month is GREATER than 2015, so it is IMPOSSIBLE for the ice to become "teh lowest evah !" unless something unrelated to cold produces a large change (such as winds in the Barents sea driving ice northward which increases ice concentration but reduces surface cover). However, these are details, the point is abundantly clear - the Arctic summer ice has not disappeared as was predicted to happen by 2015 AGW theorists. AGW has not only failed another prediction, it has got it 180 degrees away from reality, again. Just as AGW failed in its prediction of LTT warming faster than the surface and got it 180 degrees wrong when the surface warmed naturally more than the LTT.

The internet is remembering what you post, riverat1 - this will be a very good thing in the future.

So show us some of that stalactite data too.

That will be my pleasure. But this is how it works: I have made a statement and presented some data. You dispute this statement and now you present your supporting data. Then I will gladly respond with the oodles of data from Oman (near equator) to New Zealand (mid-southern) to support the Greenland data (far northern) data. So now you simply need to provide the data you say proves that Greenland was regional only. It should be easy for you, right? opinions don't count, only data.

Wow, I don't have a clue how you could claim that AGW proponents and Michael Mann have said there is no natural warming for the last x amount of years. I've never read anything like that from him/them.

Have you never heard of Michael Mann's notorious "Hockey Stick". Surely you know that in IPCC reports from 2001 to 2007 it featured prominently, but then has been quietly removed because it has now been thoroughly debunked both on improper (to the point of fraudulent) analysis technique and improper sample selection. Here is the Hockey Stick from the IPCC reports:
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreport...
https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

Don't you think it is wonderful that the Internet never forgets? that every denial and false and disingenuous statement that climate Alarmists make is going to live on forever for all to see - like the claim you just make that Michael Mann's Hockey Stick doesn't exist (he used to caim that natural variability has been negligible for the last two millenia and all change must be anthropogenic in origin).

Yes, in the long run the quantity of most interest in the Arctic is the summer sea ice minimum but generally the Arctic sea ice hits its maximum extent in February/March. 2016 is threatening to set a new record for the lowest maximum extent on record. Here's the report. [nsidc.org]

Thank you for the reference. The reference I gave was from the Danes and is not corrupted like the NSIDC who are funded by NASA and NOAA who are now known to altering data to support their Lysenkoist agenda. The Danish data shows that the 2016 ice cover for this month is GREATER than 2015, so it is IMPOSSIBLE for the ice to become "teh lowest evah !" unless something unrelated to cold produces a large change (such as winds in the Barents sea driving ice northward which increases ice concentration but reduces surface cover). However, these are details, the point is abundantly clear - the Arctic summer ice has not disappeared as was predicted to happen by 2015 AGW theorists. AGW has not only failed another prediction, it has got it 180 degrees away from reality, again. Just as AGW failed in its prediction of LTT warming faster than the surface and got it 180 degrees wrong when the surface warmed naturally more than the LTT.

The internet is remembering what you post, riverat1 - this will be a very good thing in the future.

...accuracy is unknown, but probably exaggerated. The study doesn't claim what you think it claims.

Says the guy who never even looked at it. You want numbers; where are the numbers backing your claims? Only got blog pages to "cite"?

no one who uses the IPCC reports as primary support can find anything in there.

Here are a handful of the many studies I found with 10 minutes of browsing through IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapter 2.6:

Heatwaves
Donal et al 2013: Updated analyses of temperature and precipitation extreme indices since the beginning of the twentieth century
Choi, G., et al., 2009: Changes in means and extreme events of temperature and precipitation in the Asia Pacific Network region

Precipitation
Allan, R. P., and B. J. Soden, 2008: Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes
Pryor, S. C., J. A. Howe, and K. E. Kunkel, 2009: How spatially coherent and statistically robust are temporal changes in extreme precipitation in the contiguous USA?

There are many more, on many areas. E.g. intense tropical storm frequency? Try Kossin et al 2007. All the pretty graphs, tables, and citations to peer-reviewed studies you could ever want - if you can be bothered to take a look.

Claims of "obfuscation" are pure bullshit. You obviously haven't checked for yourself, because you've already decided that nothing you want to see is going to be there (and heaven forbid that new data might pop your worldview bubble!).

Very first quote from your blog link:

“Overall, the most robust global changes in climate extremes are seen in measures of daily temperature, including to some extent, heat waves. Precipitation extremes also appear to be increasing, but there is large spatial variability"

Thus, more extreme heat waves and floods, at least in some areas. But who wants their information filtered through a biased agenda (apart from denialists)? If you read the source itself, you can see they state very plainly that we're seeing "a decrease in cold temperature extremes, an increase in warm temperature extremes, an increase in extreme high sea levels and an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events in a number of regions" (emphasis theirs), and that, globally, heatwaves, extreme precipitation, and extreme sea level events are all increasing.

Second, don't know what you were reading, but the link I provided was not a description of a computer model, it was a "meta-analysis of the literature on projected future extreme weather events", as the introduction plainly describes itself. It analysed the conclusions of multiple studies, providing a good summary of the current scientific opinion. And guess what? It finds increases in strength and frequency of the most intense cyclones, more droughts and heatwaves, more severe thunderstorms and heavy precipitation events.

And the storm I linked to? Sure, a single datapoint of weather. But ask yourself - in a stable system, what would be the likelihood of a record-breaking, strongest-ever cyclone being recorded just as you were claiming that extreme weather increases were all "hysteria"? After all, events that exceed all previously-recorded events should become increasingly less likely as time goes by - and yet we're seeing new records set every year, breaking records set only a year or two earlier. How many more record-breaking datapoints do you need to make an increasing trend? (hint: ask the scientists, read the meta-analyses, and stay away from the denialist blogs).

Re: Suncorp, rate hikes are a reasonable and rational response to insuring areas with increased and increasing risk. Since you mention Emerald, the 2008 flood events there were described at the time as a "1 in 100 years event". Then in 2010 they were hit by an even worse flood, which got worse still over the next month of torrential rain - prompting experts to decry how the Emerald locals had continued building more houses in what was all-too-clearly now a flood-prone area. No surprise that insurance companies wanted nothing further to do with the place.

But this still has nothing to do with the assertion of yours that I was challenging, where you claimed they were "angling for government swag", and "sucking on the public teat".

An impossible task since there wasn't any one paper that convinced me AGW is real. It's a subject I've been following since the late 1980s. At first I was skeptical but over time the pieces started fitting together into a coherent whole so overwhelming evidence works for me.

You might try Spencer Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming" for starters. I also recommend the papers cited in the IPCC WG1 report (look for the "All Citations" link). If you're worried about computer models you can download the GISS ModelE code and tell me how it's "cooked". There is code for other models available as well.

I had thought that land subsidence was largely responsible for regional differences, although it looks like you are right that other factors may be involved:: Interannual variability in northeast Atlantic sea level records exhibits a clear relationship to the air pressure and wind changes associated with the north atlantic oscillation, with the magnitude and sign of the response depending primarily upon latitude (Andersson, 2002; Wakelin et al., 2003; Woolf et al., 2003) - https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

Of course they also said that the sea levels were going up to 100ft by now, and haven't seen that either.

Bullsh!t. No one in the world, not even the the very alarmist of alarmists, ever predicted "100 feet of sea level rise by now." Did not happen.

The IPCC predictions are for about 0.5 meters by 2100.

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assess...
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc...

Of course they also said that the sea levels were going up to 100ft by now, and haven't seen that either.

Bullsh!t. No one in the world, not even the the very alarmist of alarmists, ever predicted "100 feet of sea level rise by now." Did not happen.

The IPCC predictions are for about 0.5 meters by 2100.

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assess...
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc...

>> the real misinformation would be continuing to spread the lie that CO2 will have a significant impact on temperature increase,

Is this some attempt at humour that I'm just not getting, or do you _actually_ believe that CO2 is having no significant impact?

http://climate.nasa.gov/causes...
http://www3.epa.gov/climatecha...
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm...

"Ignore the facts" meaning "healthy skepticism".

There's nothing "healthy" about your "skepticism". It is entirely one-sided and engineered to insulate your from inconvenient truths.

Like when the CRU at UEA was caught manipulating the numbers (and then conveniently "lost" them) ? Those facts?

I would refute your claims, except that you left out all specifics other than the target you wish you discredit with vague allegations, however, assuming you're referring to "climategate", eight separate investigations found that the claims you are repeating were invented bullshit based on quote-mining thousands of emails.

or the fact that the Polar Cap has more ice now than it should given Global Warming? (should be gone according to Al Gore!) Those facts?

More facts that aren't. Arctic ice losses are consistently out-pacing actual predictions, so there is less sea ice in the Arctic than the IPCC predicted there would be. Also, Al Gore (who is not a scientist) actually said that one study predicted ice could be gone in less than 22 years, and a second study by a U.S Navy researcher warned it could happen in as little as seven years.

Or the "starving polar bear" facts ?

What about starving polar bears?

Or any of the other 97.4% of the predictions gone wrong. Those facts?

http://www.westernjournalism.c...

Yea, a link to a conservative blog post written three years ago about a Fox News article about a Nature Climate Change article, is certainly evidence of something... It took me a while to find it, but the actual commentary article says that runs that they did of the CMIP5 models over-estimated warming from 1993 to 2012 according to the HadCRUT4 temperature data. So, it's 97.4% of the predictions from a single set of models as run by three researchers that are overestimating observed warming, and they then point out a number of reasons why that might be the case.

Go to IPCC 5th Assessment report, chapter 9, page 28, graph (a) Observed and CHIMP5 Simulated Global Mean Surface Air Temperature, you'll see that there is at least a .3C difference between the CHIMP5 model mean and HADCrut4 and GISTEMP. Most consider the period of 1951 to 1980 to be the global average temperature baseline which has a value of 14 degrees Celsius and 2015 has warmed a supposed 0.98C that gives 0.3/0.98*100= 30.6% error!

I have problems excepting a 30% errors as predictive value

Wow, first I have to say, your catachresis is absolutely brilliant. "I can't accept the error, because it would except the error."

The quoted error bars on the climate prediction are plus or minus 50 percent. So, you are just saying that the quoted error bars mimic the difference in models.

Yep. The graph you refer to compares the results of 40 cases from 23 different models. The overall trend is clear-- up-- but different models vary on how much.

When people agree with the science of global warming, that is not excepted: the error bars are part of the science.

Go to IPCC 5th Assessment report, chapter 9, page 28, graph (a) Observed and CHIMP5 Simulated Global Mean Surface Air Temperature, you'll see that there is at least a .3C difference between the CHIMP5 model mean and HADCrut4 and GISTEMP. Most consider the period of 1951 to 1980 to be the global average temperature baseline which has a value of 14 degrees Celsius and 2015 has warmed a supposed 0.98C that gives 0.3/0.98*100= 30.6% error!

I have problems excepting a 30% errors as predictive value

You failed. Game over.

The "garbage" article that pretty much all the climate scientists refer doubters to is this one: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

And you haven't read it. You're like every other moron that thinks they know something but is really just following the crowd. Good job.

I notice that, although you claimed you could debunk it in two minutes... you didn't.

Game over.

Citation needed.

The latest IPCC report included predictions about future climate change for six different scenarios, ranging from "no further increase in atmospheric CO2" to "ongoing rapid global development, mainly powered by fossil fuels." The different scenarios led to radically different predictions, with the expected temperatures in 2100 differing by more than 3 degrees between the best case and worst case scenarios.

So please, don't go around spouting nonsense about, "relative to natural processes human contributions to greenhouse gases are a drop in the bucket." It's simply not true. If you don't know what you're talking about, either look up the facts (it would have taken you all of about three minutes), or else remain silent. But don't make things up and then spread disinformation online.

The IPCC papers cannot go more than a few sentences without throwing in something about income inequality, rich country vs poor countries, redistribution...

Climate change may be a serious issue, and it may impact people (countries) with differing income and wealth differently, and it is obviously intertiwned with economic issues--i.e., developed countries produce more carbon dioxide than undeveloped ones--but the climate change science is rapidly taking a backseat to the goals of SJWs.

One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.

(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

Economic development in B1 is balanced, and efforts to achieve equitable income distribution are effective. As in A1, the B1 storyline describes a fast-changing and convergent world, but the priorities differ. Whereas the A1 world invests its gains from increased productivity and know-how primarily in further economic growth, the B1 world invests a large part of its gains in improved efficiency of resource use ("dematerialization"), equity, social institutions, and environmental protection.
A strong welfare net prevents social exclusion on the basis of poverty.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The distributional dimension of global poverty was illustrated vividly by the Human Development Report 1989 (UNDP, 1989), in the form that has come to be known as the champagne glass (Figure 1.4). This representation of global income distribution shows that in 1988 the richest fifth of the world’s population received 82.7% of the global income, which is nearly 60 times the share of the income received by the poorest fifth (1.4%). More recent statistics indicate that inequality has widened further since then and that in 1999 the richest quintile received 80 times the income earned by the poorest quintile (UNDP, 1999).

The IPCC papers cannot go more than a few sentences without throwing in something about income inequality, rich country vs poor countries, redistribution...

Climate change may be a serious issue, and it may impact people (countries) with differing income and wealth differently, and it is obviously intertiwned with economic issues--i.e., developed countries produce more carbon dioxide than undeveloped ones--but the climate change science is rapidly taking a backseat to the goals of SJWs.

One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.

(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

Economic development in B1 is balanced, and efforts to achieve equitable income distribution are effective. As in A1, the B1 storyline describes a fast-changing and convergent world, but the priorities differ. Whereas the A1 world invests its gains from increased productivity and know-how primarily in further economic growth, the B1 world invests a large part of its gains in improved efficiency of resource use ("dematerialization"), equity, social institutions, and environmental protection.
A strong welfare net prevents social exclusion on the basis of poverty.

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The distributional dimension of global poverty was illustrated vividly by the Human Development Report 1989 (UNDP, 1989), in the form that has come to be known as the champagne glass (Figure 1.4). This representation of global income distribution shows that in 1988 the richest fifth of the world’s population received 82.7% of the global income, which is nearly 60 times the share of the income received by the poorest fifth (1.4%). More recent statistics indicate that inequality has widened further since then and that in 1999 the richest quintile received 80 times the income earned by the poorest quintile (UNDP, 1999).

That's true... but what I've noticed is that far too often, the people who call themselves climate skeptics aren't skeptical at all; they are absolutely credulous-- to anything they hear that denies the reality of global warming. Garbage articles that could be debunked in two minutes of thinking get picked up and passed along with notes of "see? it's all a HOAX!"

Most people who are worried about climate change are absolutely credulous-- the read garbage articles that could be debunked in two minutes of thinking and they pass it along.

The "garbage" article that pretty much all the climate scientists refer doubters to is this one: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... Which part of this do you think can be "debunked in two minutes of thinking"?

You can tell that most people aren't looking at the science because of how cleanly opinion is divided along political lines. I'll bet I can guess which political side you favor, too.

OK. In American politics, my side is that I hate pretty much all the politicians. If there's a side that's pro-nuke, pro-solar, pro-space, pro-technology, and pro liberty in general, that's my side.

It would help if any of the climate models demonstrated some degree of predictive ability. The difference between model projections and reality have grown to ridiculous proportions.

Let's look at that. The very first numerical greenhouse effect model was Manabe and Wetherald 1967-- That's the classic, the model from which pretty much all current climate models stem. Since the paper was submitted in 1966, that's 50 years ago-- definitely long enough to see how well the prediction worked. They predicted that the climate sensitivity to CO2 (assuming constant relative humidity) was 2.3C. Comparing that to the actual carbon dioxide, for the rise from 320 ppm to 400 ppm (here) using the Arrhenius relation, we get 0.74C for the temperature rise from 1966 to 2015. The measured temperature rise (here) is 0.7C, with the error bars in the figure 0.1C.

Looks like not merely a good prediction, but an outstandingly accurate prediction.

For comparison, the current IPCC 5th Assessment report estimate of sensitivity is that it is the range 1.5C to 4.5C with "high confidence", so Manabe and Wetherald's value of 2.3 is still is the range of current estimates.

It's a turn of phrase in this case, but we know that man's emissions cause some aspect of the climate change we're seeing.

"Some aspect" where the exact amount is undefined.

Over a time scale of years, natural variations dominate. Over a time scale of decades, there aren't any other hypotheses that can explain the observed rise in temperature-- all the other proposed explanations have been ruled out by data. So, the answer to the "exact amount" of "some aspect" is "the temperature rise on a scale of decades is due to human emissions."

Oh, and the total amount of warming we'll see is undefined..

Known to within current error bars of plus or minus fifty percent (3C per doubling, plus or minus 1.5. See http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... ). The largest uncertainty is how much carbon dioxide and methane we will emit in the future, not what the effect will be.

Oh, and the amount of warming that is harmful is undefined..

Yep. That needs more work, including better bounds on the definition of "harmful".

Oh, and the benefits to the world from a warmer climate are undefined.

Yep. That needs more work.

Oh, and the mechanism that triggers an ice age is undefined.

Nope. That was unknown years ago, but now is pretty well established to be Milankovitch variations.

Solar output is stable, at least over the modern era, and there is no connection between it and "the Pause" (that would actually be a crackpot theory). Long term shifts in Earth's climate have historically been the product of either volcanism or changes in Earth's orbit.

As for the "Pause", do you see how those lines in the graph you showed don't always match up? And yet they exhibit a high degree of correlation. Funny about that. Also, and I know that this has been explained to you, because it's explained to anyone that mentions it, "the Pause" is an artifact of picking what is now the fourth warmest year on record as your baseline. Picking any other baseline would show warming, and even with the cherry-picking, the hiatus in warming ended in 2013. Also note that 14/15 of the warmest years on record are since 2000 and that we haven't had a candidate for a coldest year on record in the last century: the 'new normal' is considerably warmer.

The idea that no one understands feedback mechanisms is as absurd as saying no one understands evolution. For an introduction to the topic, see chapter 8 of the IPCC Report[pdf]. It is admittedly pretty dense, but only 23 pages.

Do note that any further reference to a 19-year pause will not merit any response: lying with statistics is still lying, and if you don't understand why picking an extreme outlier as a baseline is dishonest then it's not worth my time explaining anything.

If you really are not a troll: start here.
It is the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the IPCC. It is very readable and neutrally written. But despite what climat change deniers would like to imply it shows very clearly what the expected impact is with mostly a high degrees of certainty.
The conclusions in this report are (with the indicated uncertainties included) very reliable.
If you do that you have a choice:
* I want absolute certainty before I want to believe anything about climate change ==> Climate change denier (science doesn't work that way).
* Not everything is cleared out but the conclusions are clear if you look at the total amount of evidence ==> your average neutral observer

If you really are not a troll: start here.
It is the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the IPCC. It is very readable and neutrally written. But despite what climat change deniers would like to imply it shows very clearly what the expected impact is with mostly a high degrees of certainty.
The conclusions in this report are (with the indicated uncertainties included) very reliable.
If you do that you have a choice:
* I want absolute certainty before I want to believe anything about climate change ==> Climate change denier (science doesn't work that way).
* Not everything is cleared out but the conclusions are clear if you look at the total amount of evidence ==> your average neutral observer

The "graph" you are referring to in the first IPCC report was a schematic diagram from Hubert Lamb with no scale on the y-axis. You can see it described as a schematic diagram in the IPCC's first archive report on page 202, Fig. 7.1. Also it is now known that the MWP was not a global phenomenon but was mostly limited to the the North Atlantic and Europe. Current science indicates the Little Ice Age was driven largely by volcanic activity with a small added impetus from the Maunder minimum. Solar activity has been low for a decade now yet temperatures continue to rise. What will be your response if as some predict solar activity remains low into the 2030s yet temperatures continue to rise?

I don't know where you got your 1.2 K ECS from (I suppose from Lewis & Curry) but the latest IPCC report give a range of 1.5-4.5 K for ECS. Gavin Schmidt has an interesting commentary on Reconiciling estimates of climate sensitivity over at RealClimate talking about the recent Kate Marvel paper in which he had a part.

Coal is absolutely horribly in every way, and "death" is the absolutely correct association people should have.
That is in NO WAY a scientific position, it is 100% a POLITICAL position. Coal produces CO2 which causes global warming is a scientific statement. Coal power plants dump out more radioactive materials into the environment than any nuclear power plant is a scientific statement. Equating that to excess deaths ignores the bigger picture though. Coal power plants also provide very cheap electricity. In China that has meant employment and a better life for millions. In developing nations cheap energy enables development which greatly benefits everyone. Honestly, to hear guys like Hansen and yourself tell it the world is buying and burning coal because killing people is a hobby or something.

The problem is that we need to hammer the point "your children will die from this shit" into the heads of people who don't care about the science.
The problem is when scientists start claiming "Your children will die!" but the evidence is a hell of a lot more mundane and pedestrian than that. We aren't talking about the seas rising by metres in our kids life times. Even the IPCC worst case scenario projects sea level rise by 2100 as less than a metre, and that worst case has us accelerating our fossil fuel usage indefinitely. The assumption that technology will stop progressing and electric vehicles and nuclear power won't start changing out oil and coal power isn't exactly the most probable scenario. In the last 100 years we've come from horses and books by candle light to space craft and the internet.

We're burning gigatonnes of carbon. CO2 levels are rising. Which part do you dispute? There have been lots of studies to determine this. See here, here, and here.

Determining what percentage of the CO2 is from burning fossil fuels is actually easier than you might think; the isotope ratio is much lower for carbon sources that haven't been in the atmosphere for millions of years. Humans burn about one cubic mile of oil per year. Do you really think that has no effect?

We're burning gigatonnes of carbon. CO2 levels are rising. Which part do you dispute? There have been lots of studies to determine this. See here, here, and here.

Determining what percentage of the CO2 is from burning fossil fuels is actually easier than you might think; the isotope ratio is much lower for carbon sources that haven't been in the atmosphere for millions of years. Humans burn about one cubic mile of oil per year. Do you really think that has no effect?

... warmer weather is expected to weaken cyclonic activity, not make it stronger. Until about the end of the century, anyway. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-11-01]

No, read your own link: "It is likely - in my opinion - that manmade global warming has indeed caused hurricanes to be stronger today."

I've answered the more important question of "how much stronger?" by repeatedly showing Jane a paper by Prof. Judith Curry which concludes that "the increasing trend in number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes for the period 1970-2004 is directly linked to the trend in sea-surface temperature".

And once again, Grinsted et al. 2012 helps to answer the question of "how much stronger?" by measuring hurricane surges back to 1923 using tide gauge instruments. This yields a homogeneous record of empirical observations which is totally independent of models and confirms that "warm years in general were more active in all cyclone size ranges than cold years." (By the way, measuring instruments like tide gauges and thermometers aren't proxies.)

Jane, years ago I said that it's not clear how global warming will impact hurricane frequency because of factors like wind shear. I also said that hurricanes (overall, Cat 1+) might not be more frequent in the future for the same reason. That's also what Dr. Landsea's 2010 abstract said: [Dumb Scientist]

I know. You just proved my point: you were contradicting yourself. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-28]

No, those links show that I've been consistently agreeing with Dr. Landsea and the IPCC when they say that hurricanes (overall, Cat 1+) might not be more frequent in the future because of factors like wind shear. But once again, the IPCC and Dr. Landsea also agree that "the most intense cyclones" are different. That's why the "global" box at the bottom center of Fig. 14.17 has two metrics which go in different directions: Cat 1+ (metric #1) and just Cat 4/5 (metric #2). Again, that's what I've been saying for years, along with the IPCC and Dr. Landsea:

"... future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2-11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6-34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre. ..."

Jane

Scientists gain their reputation partly by being smart, but the way they show that they are smart is by being right.

The science isn't the issue here, it's the politics.

You seem to be arguing some point that is different from the point I was addressing.

The issue I was talking about was the science. Not the politics.

Science doesn't say we need to create large statist institutions to reduce carbon emissions; that's a political choice.

That's correct.

In fact, if anything, science tells us the exact opposite.

Nope, you were right the first time: science doesn't address this, that's a political choice. The science can tell us how much the world will warm as a function of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and (just as important) tell us why we know it, and with what error bars. How much it will cost to correct it is an economic calculation. And how we chose to correct it-- or even whether we chose to correct it-- is a political decision.

First, if we don't act on climate change, the costs won't be any worse (and likely be lower) than if we do act;

The science tells us nothing of the sort. The science does tell us what the physical and biological effect of warming will be (although predicting the detailed effects is much harder than, and hence is quite a bit less precise than, the simple prediction of how much the warming will be.) A review of what we currently know is covered in the IPCC Working Group II report, for what it's worth: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... ("Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability").

The science does not tell us the societal or economic costs, and in no way does it tell us the cost of acting-- that's economics and politics, not science. Among other things, that first would require examining alternative plans to addressing the problem, and there really isn't any political consensus on that.

I will blame the deniers for that, by the way. By shouting "NO! IT'S A HOAX!" every time the issue of how to address the problem comes up, they have totally drowned out any substantive discussion of how, or even whether, we should deal with it; and completely derailed any discussions of the cost benefit ratio of various potential methods to deal with it. If you are arguing that all the proposed solutions are "statist"-- well, that's because the people who might have other ideas are too busy shouting "IT'S A HOAX."

...(As for the science itself, although I generally believe the climate models are fairly reasonable as far as climate modeling goes, whether they are "right" on predictions for 2100 can only be determined in 2100, not today.)

Well, that's true, but it's true because it's a tautology. The only way to tell whether any prediction for the future is right is to wait to see whether it happens.

It does seem a bit strange that the late 1800's are most definitely the ideal global temperature we should achieve for peace and love and whatever. Who's to say a slightly warmer planet won't have as many benefits as downsides?

It's not per-se the "ideal" temperature. It is, however, the temperature to which we've adapted our current society and land use. Changing the temperature will entail massive disruptions, and that will be expensive.

If nothing else, 32 percent of the world's population lives within 37 miles of the coast-- having three billion people migrate due to rising sea levels is going to be pretty disruptive. Not to mention the trillions of dollars of real estate value submerged.

If you really are interested in the current thinking about what the effects of climate change will be, the best summary is in the IPCC Working Group II report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. You can download it here: www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml

BUT, we do know full well that crops will grow, oceans will harbor life, and weather phenomenon will be mostly survivable at those temperatures, so why mess with a good thing?

We have an agricultural system pretty well adapted to present climate. If, say, the desert zones of the planet moved even five degrees north, this would wipe out about half of the world's food supply. Yes, that could be compensated by new agricultural areas opening up, in Canada and Siberia and Scandanavia. But, again, it will entail massive disruption.

I'm hardly on the doom and gloom side, but this just doesn't seem like something you mess with willy nilly because 'fuck it, why not.'

Exactly. "Fuck it, why not change everything about our climate, because why not" is not a very good reasoning. We have things working pretty well now.

...and that Angels exist, and Elvis can get your wash whiter with this one weird trick.

Science is INTERESTING, chaos theory even more so, and it's easy to see the changes if you know what to look for. The increased energy in the system is already turning all of weather to a parade of freak outliers and unpredictable quirky events that occasionally spike off the charts, and that's exactly in line with the 'chaotic system' model.

I wouldn't have called the 'Earth turning to an alien planet that doesn't support life' thing in thirty years, but if you specify it's to happen in particular (unusual areas) then I'll believe that. Some areas of the planet are already close to uninhabitable and it doesn't take that much to push 'em over the brink. The thing to watch for is not places being rendered uninhabitable by weather extremes, it's more about masses of people/animals displaced because the change is a new thing that nobody's prepared for.

You can probably, right now, buy a 40-year lease on land that might as well be the Moon in 40 years. If you want a real picture of the plausibility of man-made global climate change, don't check scientists or Al Gore, consult actuaries and insurance companies. Pretty sure you'll find they're believers, because they have to actually pay for it if they choose wrong.

I continue to try and point out the very worrying uncertainty in climate models. The IPCC's fifth AR has a chapter on climate models. In assessing the state of the art, they have the following to say(Box 9.1 for those wanting to follow along:
Model tuning aims to match observed climate system behaviour and so is connected to judgements as to what constitutes a skilful representation of the Earth’s climate. For instance, 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

They then go on to cite a half dozen peer reviewed articles confirming this.

Now, it doesn't take much better than a layman understanding to know that the entirety of the greenhouse effect is about the energy balance. More energy entering the planet than leaving it will warm, and more leaving will cool it. The trouble is that if the energy imbalance is the driving force behind climate change, you really want to get to a point where the models can get that part right without being specifically tuned to correct it. When the models energy imbalance for hindcasting causes unrealistic drift until modellers tune and tweak things by hand to get the known 'right answer', it ain't good enough for predictions.

It's not wrong to tune models this way, nor are models not useful at this stage. The trick is that they are only useful for testing out how things work under a given energy imbalance or energy conditions. They are NOT useful for hindcasting energy imbalance, let alone for predicting it for the next 30-100 years.

So we have a very abstracted estimate of future economics that is derived from already abstracted estimated models of temperature. Sounds compelling...

According the IPCC's 5th assessment report in Chapter 9 models have problems with the TOA energy balance. Specifically if you look in Box 9.1 they say:
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
They follow up with a half dozen citations verifying this.

Read that closely because it is telling. Read the cited articles, and it's even more so. Climate models still can NOT predict TOA energy imbalance. To even get hindcasts correct, requires manual corrections to unknown or poorly understood processes like clouds. Let me observe that long term climate change driven by the greenhouse effect works ENTIRELY through the TOA energy imbalance and trapping more or less energy as gas concentrations change.

Forgive me if I believe we lack sufficient evidence and understanding to justify carbon taxations and other economic controls to try and rectify something we still can't even quantify,

The only things this demonstrates is your lack of understanding. You then take that ignorance and formulate it into something that fits your rather obvious bias and hand-wave away any troubling things like "context".

In addition, you an others like you treat the model runs as the end all be all of climate science. They're not. Models are just one tool that is used, just like any other branch of science that you care to name. All models have errors since all models are imperfect representations of reality, and they never ever have perfect data. That's why any non-trivial scientific model has numerous parameters and settings that can be set and tweaked, and why a EXPERT is required to run them and analyze the results. Otherwise you'd have Joe Sixpack claiming he developed an infiniglider since he changed a parameter in an aerodynamic model and the airfoil generates lift even at rest.

You are the one using a waving of your hands to dismiss things. Providing anything like a concrete reason you or anyone else believes that the problems with projecting TOA energy imbalance is not a problem is ignored. Meanwhile I very specifically point out a summary of the current scientific literature that clearly states that hindcasting historic climate REQUIRES manual corrections for accurate TOA energy. My link even references more than a half dozen peer-review journals verifying this.

Heck, you couldn't even be bothered to explain in what context you think TOA energy errors of that scale aren't important to predictions.

Take your faith based chest thumping somewhere else and at least be willing to discuss the actual science and not just the fore gone conclusion your world view dictates.

So we have a very abstracted estimate of future economics that is derived from already abstracted estimated models of temperature. Sounds compelling...

According the IPCC's 5th assessment report in Chapter 9 models have problems with the TOA energy balance. Specifically if you look in Box 9.1 they say:
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
They follow up with a half dozen citations verifying this.

Read that closely because it is telling. Read the cited articles, and it's even more so. Climate models still can NOT predict TOA energy imbalance. To even get hindcasts correct, requires manual corrections to unknown or poorly understood processes like clouds. Let me observe that long term climate change driven by the greenhouse effect works ENTIRELY through the TOA energy imbalance and trapping more or less energy as gas concentrations change.

Forgive me if I believe we lack sufficient evidence and understanding to justify carbon taxations and other economic controls to try and rectify something we still can't even quantify,

The only things this demonstrates is your lack of understanding. You then take that ignorance and formulate it into something that fits your rather obvious bias and hand-wave away any troubling things like "context".

In addition, you an others like you treat the model runs as the end all be all of climate science. They're not. Models are just one tool that is used, just like any other branch of science that you care to name. All models have errors since all models are imperfect representations of reality, and they never ever have perfect data. That's why any non-trivial scientific model has numerous parameters and settings that can be set and tweaked, and why a EXPERT is required to run them and analyze the results. Otherwise you'd have Joe Sixpack claiming he developed an infiniglider since he changed a parameter in an aerodynamic model and the airfoil generates lift even at rest.

So we have a very abstracted estimate of future economics that is derived from already abstracted estimated models of temperature. Sounds compelling...

According the IPCC's 5th assessment report in Chapter 9 models have problems with the TOA energy balance. Specifically if you look in Box 9.1 they say:
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
They follow up with a half dozen citations verifying this.

Read that closely because it is telling. Read the cited articles, and it's even more so. Climate models still can NOT predict TOA energy imbalance. To even get hindcasts correct, requires manual corrections to unknown or poorly understood processes like clouds. Let me observe that long term climate change driven by the greenhouse effect works ENTIRELY through the TOA energy imbalance and trapping more or less energy as gas concentrations change.

Forgive me if I believe we lack sufficient evidence and understanding to justify carbon taxations and other economic controls to try and rectify something we still can't even quantify,

I am unsure what should I debunk and what I am failing in. The report you refer to is very insightful though (I am looking at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... ). I don't see anything I should disagree with? They report human-made global warming and its measurable effects. Thanks for the resource, it is very detailed and interesting.

Debunk this - smarter people with far more resources than you have tried and failed.

As promised, are this year's high temperatures due only to El Nino with "nothing particular" connecting them to anthropogenic global warming? If that's true, it should be easy to confirm by comparing this El Nino to past El Ninos. This graph (backup) shows global mean surface temperature (GMST) during just El Ninos in recent decades (excluding Pinatubo). It has a positive slope. If this year's high temperatures are due only to El Nino, why are El Nino years getting warmer at about the rate projected by the IPCC? Once again, ocean heat content (OHC) reveals much more of the cumulative radiation absorbed over the last few decades than GMST does.

In response to a request for peer-reviewed literature, Lonny Eachus quotes from the same opinion piece that "Jane Q. Public" quoted above without linking. Will Lonny Eachus admit that he wasn't quoting peer-reviewed literature, despite the clear request? [Dumb Scientist]

You neglect to mention that before that, I cited IPCC's own statement on the matter. Are you also going to claim IPCC's comments aren't based on peer-reviewed papers? For example, will you now claim that their summary is not based on peer-reviewed science? You really can be an idiot sometimes. And the more you try to prove somebody wrong, the more idiotic you have tended to get. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-25]

No, you repeated the same IPCC link I gave you hours earlier and (innocently?) misrepresented it while calling Eric Holthaus a "bozo":

I'd be fascinated to read peer-reviewed literature saying CC will cause fewer Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Doubt it exists, but may have missed it. [Eric Holthaus]

IPCC, you bozo: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment...
"it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease... or remain ... unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in ... maximum wind speed and rain rates."
That's one. ... For somebody who likes to insult others so much, you sure don't know much about the subject. [Jane/Lonny Eachus, 2015-10-24]

Eric Holthaus asked about Cat 4/5 hurricanes, but Jane/Lonny Eachus couldn't/wouldn't answer the actual question. Instead, Lonny called Eric a "bozo" and desperately tried to deflect attention away from Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Ironically, Lonny's quote should have been a clue that answering an imaginary question about the frequency of all hurricanes (Cat 1+) isn't the same as answering Eric's actual question about Cat 4/5 hurricanes because those have the maximum wind speeds and rain rates which will "likely increase".

Prof. Adam Sobel answered Eric's actual question with TS.26 on p. 108 here, which is also Fig. 14.17 on p. 1250 of Ch. 14.

The "global

As promised, are this year's high temperatures due only to El Nino with "nothing particular" connecting them to anthropogenic global warming? If that's true, it should be easy to confirm by comparing this El Nino to past El Ninos. This graph (backup) shows global mean surface temperature (GMST) during just El Ninos in recent decades (excluding Pinatubo). It has a positive slope. If this year's high temperatures are due only to El Nino, why are El Nino years getting warmer at about the rate projected by the IPCC? Once again, ocean heat content (OHC) reveals much more of the cumulative radiation absorbed over the last few decades than GMST does.

In response to a request for peer-reviewed literature, Lonny Eachus quotes from the same opinion piece that "Jane Q. Public" quoted above without linking. Will Lonny Eachus admit that he wasn't quoting peer-reviewed literature, despite the clear request? [Dumb Scientist]

You neglect to mention that before that, I cited IPCC's own statement on the matter. Are you also going to claim IPCC's comments aren't based on peer-reviewed papers? For example, will you now claim that their summary is not based on peer-reviewed science? You really can be an idiot sometimes. And the more you try to prove somebody wrong, the more idiotic you have tended to get. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-25]

No, you repeated the same IPCC link I gave you hours earlier and (innocently?) misrepresented it while calling Eric Holthaus a "bozo":

I'd be fascinated to read peer-reviewed literature saying CC will cause fewer Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Doubt it exists, but may have missed it. [Eric Holthaus]

IPCC, you bozo: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment...
"it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease... or remain ... unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in ... maximum wind speed and rain rates."
That's one. ... For somebody who likes to insult others so much, you sure don't know much about the subject. [Jane/Lonny Eachus, 2015-10-24]

Eric Holthaus asked about Cat 4/5 hurricanes, but Jane/Lonny Eachus couldn't/wouldn't answer the actual question. Instead, Lonny called Eric a "bozo" and desperately tried to deflect attention away from Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Ironically, Lonny's quote should have been a clue that answering an imaginary question about the frequency of all hurricanes (Cat 1+) isn't the same as answering Eric's actual question about Cat 4/5 hurricanes because those have the maximum wind speeds and rain rates which will "likely increase".

Prof. Adam Sobel answered Eric's actual question with TS.26 on p. 108 here, which is also Fig. 14.17 on p. 1250 of Ch. 14.

The "global

As promised, are this year's high temperatures due only to El Nino with "nothing particular" connecting them to anthropogenic global warming? If that's true, it should be easy to confirm by comparing this El Nino to past El Ninos. This graph (backup) shows global mean surface temperature (GMST) during just El Ninos in recent decades (excluding Pinatubo). It has a positive slope. If this year's high temperatures are due only to El Nino, why are El Nino years getting warmer at about the rate projected by the IPCC? Once again, ocean heat content (OHC) reveals much more of the cumulative radiation absorbed over the last few decades than GMST does.

In response to a request for peer-reviewed literature, Lonny Eachus quotes from the same opinion piece that "Jane Q. Public" quoted above without linking. Will Lonny Eachus admit that he wasn't quoting peer-reviewed literature, despite the clear request? [Dumb Scientist]

You neglect to mention that before that, I cited IPCC's own statement on the matter. Are you also going to claim IPCC's comments aren't based on peer-reviewed papers? For example, will you now claim that their summary is not based on peer-reviewed science? You really can be an idiot sometimes. And the more you try to prove somebody wrong, the more idiotic you have tended to get. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-25]

No, you repeated the same IPCC link I gave you hours earlier and (innocently?) misrepresented it while calling Eric Holthaus a "bozo":

I'd be fascinated to read peer-reviewed literature saying CC will cause fewer Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Doubt it exists, but may have missed it. [Eric Holthaus]

IPCC, you bozo: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment...
"it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease... or remain ... unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in ... maximum wind speed and rain rates."
That's one. ... For somebody who likes to insult others so much, you sure don't know much about the subject. [Jane/Lonny Eachus, 2015-10-24]

Eric Holthaus asked about Cat 4/5 hurricanes, but Jane/Lonny Eachus couldn't/wouldn't answer the actual question. Instead, Lonny called Eric a "bozo" and desperately tried to deflect attention away from Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Ironically, Lonny's quote should have been a clue that answering an imaginary question about the frequency of all hurricanes (Cat 1+) isn't the same as answering Eric's actual question about Cat 4/5 hurricanes because those have the maximum wind speeds and rain rates which will "likely increase".

Prof. Adam Sobel answered Eric's actual question with TS.26 on p. 108 here, which is also Fig. 14.17 on p. 1250 of Ch. 14.

The "global

As promised, are this year's high temperatures due only to El Nino with "nothing particular" connecting them to anthropogenic global warming? If that's true, it should be easy to confirm by comparing this El Nino to past El Ninos. This graph (backup) shows global mean surface temperature (GMST) during just El Ninos in recent decades (excluding Pinatubo). It has a positive slope. If this year's high temperatures are due only to El Nino, why are El Nino years getting warmer at about the rate projected by the IPCC? Once again, ocean heat content (OHC) reveals much more of the cumulative radiation absorbed over the last few decades than GMST does.

In response to a request for peer-reviewed literature, Lonny Eachus quotes from the same opinion piece that "Jane Q. Public" quoted above without linking. Will Lonny Eachus admit that he wasn't quoting peer-reviewed literature, despite the clear request? [Dumb Scientist]

You neglect to mention that before that, I cited IPCC's own statement on the matter. Are you also going to claim IPCC's comments aren't based on peer-reviewed papers? For example, will you now claim that their summary is not based on peer-reviewed science? You really can be an idiot sometimes. And the more you try to prove somebody wrong, the more idiotic you have tended to get. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-25]

No, you repeated the same IPCC link I gave you hours earlier and (innocently?) misrepresented it while calling Eric Holthaus a "bozo":

I'd be fascinated to read peer-reviewed literature saying CC will cause fewer Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Doubt it exists, but may have missed it. [Eric Holthaus]

IPCC, you bozo: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment...
"it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease... or remain ... unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in ... maximum wind speed and rain rates."
That's one. ... For somebody who likes to insult others so much, you sure don't know much about the subject. [Jane/Lonny Eachus, 2015-10-24]

Eric Holthaus asked about Cat 4/5 hurricanes, but Jane/Lonny Eachus couldn't/wouldn't answer the actual question. Instead, Lonny called Eric a "bozo" and desperately tried to deflect attention away from Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Ironically, Lonny's quote should have been a clue that answering an imaginary question about the frequency of all hurricanes (Cat 1+) isn't the same as answering Eric's actual question about Cat 4/5 hurricanes because those have the maximum wind speeds and rain rates which will "likely increase".

Prof. Adam Sobel answered Eric's actual question with TS.26 on p. 108 here, which is also Fig. 14.17 on p. 1250 of Ch. 14.

The "global

The connection between "global warming" and hurricane intensity has been well established (PDF) by Dr. Chris Landsea and many other authors. Can Jane link to a peer-reviewed paper refuting Dr. Landsea? [Dumb Scientist]

How about your vaunted IPCC, and its "low confidence" rating for same? Further, that isn't a demonstrated connection. It says right in the abstract that it's a speculative projection based on models. And we know very well now that the models are severely flawed. There are papers on both sides of the issue, but of course you only want to present those on your side, as always. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-23]

As expected, you can't (or won't, which is indistinguishable) link to a paper debunking Dr. Landsea when he points out that higher temperatures cause more intense hurricanes. But you can't/won't admit that, so you just vaguely insinuate that other papers (which you don't have time to link, of course) deny that higher temperatures cause more intense hurricanes. Please consider reading Dr. Landsea's abstract again to look for "speculative" and try to read the bolded part:

"Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate - and if so, how - has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2-11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6-34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre. For all cyclone parameters, projected changes for individual basins show large variations between different modelling studies."

How about your vaunted IPCC, and its "low confidence" rating for same? Further, that isn't a demonstrated connection. It says right in the abstract that it's a speculative projection based on models. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-23]

Jane, please consider searching the whole paper for "speculative". And are you absolutely sure the IPCC gave a "low confidence" rating to the "same" statistic Dr. Landsea's paper mentioned, that the "globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2-11% by 2100"? Maybe the IPCC split up their TFE.9 table 1 into early and late 21st century? Would the "same" statistic as Dr. Landsea's "2100" quote be early or late 21st century? Are you absolutely sure the relevant box is rated "low confidence"?

What's really ironic is

I know it's considered heresy in the church of CAGW to say this, but climate models are still very uncertain about trends for future warming. The 'consensus' within the modelling community is that the models are very good tools for testing out our understanding of how climate works. They're predictive reliability is another matter entirely.

The IPCC that the CAGW church heralds for it's Nobel Prize on climate change says the following on climate models. Go see for yourself here under Box 9.1 if you don't believe me.

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.

The IPCC go on to reference more than a half dozen peer reviewed papers verifying this assessment. They later add:

Model tuning directly influences the evaluation of climate models, as the quantities that are tuned cannot be used in model evaluation.
Quantities closely related to those tuned will provide only weak tests of model performance.

For an even more layman break down, climate models still have troubles modelling TOA energy balance. TOA energy balance is the ENTIRE driving force of climate change. The greenhouse effect is completely and entirely a function of energy entering and leaving our planet at the edge of space. That places virtually everything within our climate system as at least partially related to this quantity.

All the warming and cooling trends in climate models of the past and projections into the future are driven by TOA energy imbalance. And the scientific consensus is that our models still can not get it correct and require hand tuning and tweaking to manually correct it.

That doesn't seem strong enough evidence to me to warrant advocating for drastic taxation and economic cut backs...

Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet

I may be both, but you are neither — presumably. And you've accepted the challenge, so go on.

Temperature predictions

Great, now we've made some progress.

I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

This would've worked, if I could find an actual prediction there. Can you help? What are you referring to — what is being predicted there successfully? I don't want to make my own conclusion and end up fighting strawmen of my own creation...

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions. Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Again, the same problem. What are they predicting? I see the acknowledgement of difficulties in making predictions:

Uncertainty in predictions of anthropogenic climate change arises at all stages of the modelling process described in Section 10.1. [...] At each step, uncertainty in the true signal of climate change is introduced both by errors in the representation of Earth system processes in models and by internal climate variability

But I can not identify an actual prediction in the rest of the chapter... Please, help. Thank you.

Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet

I may be both, but you are neither — presumably. And you've accepted the challenge, so go on.

Temperature predictions

Great, now we've made some progress.

I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

This would've worked, if I could find an actual prediction there. Can you help? What are you referring to — what is being predicted there successfully? I don't want to make my own conclusion and end up fighting strawmen of my own creation...

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions. Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Again, the same problem. What are they predicting? I see the acknowledgement of difficulties in making predictions:

Uncertainty in predictions of anthropogenic climate change arises at all stages of the modelling process described in Section 10.1. [...] At each step, uncertainty in the true signal of climate change is introduced both by errors in the representation of Earth system processes in models and by internal climate variability

But I can not identify an actual prediction in the rest of the chapter... Please, help. Thank you.

Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet

I may be both, but you are neither — presumably. And you've accepted the challenge, so go on.

Temperature predictions

Great, now we've made some progress.

I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

This would've worked, if I could find an actual prediction there. Can you help? What are you referring to — what is being predicted there successfully? I don't want to make my own conclusion and end up fighting strawmen of my own creation...

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions. Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Again, the same problem. What are they predicting? I see the acknowledgement of difficulties in making predictions:

Uncertainty in predictions of anthropogenic climate change arises at all stages of the modelling process described in Section 10.1. [...] At each step, uncertainty in the true signal of climate change is introduced both by errors in the representation of Earth system processes in models and by internal climate variability

But I can not identify an actual prediction in the rest of the chapter... Please, help. Thank you.

(Grumble, grumble. Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet.)

The IPCC reports are large complex reports and maybe you're having trouble drilling down to the pertinent sections. I'll help you find them but the IPCC reports are not amenable to simple quoting and sound bites so you'll have to read them to understand what the projections are.

Temperature predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 9: Projections of Future Climate Change I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Sea level predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 11: Changes in Sea Level Particularly Sub-Chapter 11.5.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.6.

(Grumble, grumble. Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet.)

The IPCC reports are large complex reports and maybe you're having trouble drilling down to the pertinent sections. I'll help you find them but the IPCC reports are not amenable to simple quoting and sound bites so you'll have to read them to understand what the projections are.

Temperature predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 9: Projections of Future Climate Change I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Sea level predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 11: Changes in Sea Level Particularly Sub-Chapter 11.5.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.6.

(Grumble, grumble. Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet.)

The IPCC reports are large complex reports and maybe you're having trouble drilling down to the pertinent sections. I'll help you find them but the IPCC reports are not amenable to simple quoting and sound bites so you'll have to read them to understand what the projections are.

Temperature predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 9: Projections of Future Climate Change I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Sea level predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 11: Changes in Sea Level Particularly Sub-Chapter 11.5.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.6.

(Grumble, grumble. Either this guy's too lazy to to do his own search or he's too stupid to use the internet.)

The IPCC reports are large complex reports and maybe you're having trouble drilling down to the pertinent sections. I'll help you find them but the IPCC reports are not amenable to simple quoting and sound bites so you'll have to read them to understand what the projections are.

Temperature predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 9: Projections of Future Climate Change I direct your attention to Sub-Chapter 9.3.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.5.

Sea level predictions:
IPCC AR3 WG1 Chapter 11: Changes in Sea Level Particularly Sub-Chapter 11.5.

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10: Global Climate Predictions Particularly Sub-Chapter 10.6.

If you want to see climate change that would have a devastating impact on our civilisation, look no further than the Dryas events which took place not only relatively recently but entirely without any influence from humanity. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...