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If you are worried about the radiation then you have another good reason to switch from coal to nuclear. "the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." - http://www.scientificamerican....

And then you need to consider the turnover time of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in centuries, not years. - http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...

There is far too much political crap going on for me to believe it's all man's fault.

Nonesense, there's plenty of unbiased pure science out there, try the WG1 report from the IPCC, it the only report they produce where the text is not negotiable by the diplomats from the ~150 donor nations (of every political persuasion) that fund the IPCC's measly $5M/pa budget. . A huge and very tedious effort goes into creating the WG1 report, none of the scientists are paid a dime by the IPCC. The WG1 report has a remarkable reputation for accuracy and quality, it has been issued 5 times in the last 25yrs, it receives intense global scrutiny every time it's issued, yet nobody has ever found a technical error in any of the final versions, errors such as the infamous glacier glitch have been found in the reports where diplomats have the final word on contents.

If you are like me you will need to listen to some of the more communicative scientists who wrote the reports before you can even begin to understand what the WG1 report actually says in plain english.

I kind of misspoke when I wrote that. The 0.2% is the difference between maximum solar forcing and minimum solar forcing in a Maunder Minimum scenario given the Sun's variability so the potential change is more like half of that.

I found several sources that seem to disagree with you:
http://www.pnas.org/content/10...
http://www.grida.no/climate/ip...
https://www.ipcc.ch/publicatio...

It's not clear if you think that CO2 doesn't cause global warming or that global warming itself isn't a significant problem.

I'm sorry, but how much clearer can I put it?

Of course [climate change] is happening. Global average temperatures are increasing, probably as much as the IPCC is predicting, and ice caps are melting.

[Nevertheless] rising CO2 is not a significant problem

You can look at the effects of climate change on the world in the IPCC reports:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm...

While there is indeed a higher total solar irradiance (TSI) with higher solar activity, that variation in irradiance is plus or minus one tenth of one percent. If, as you suggest, this is driving the observed warming, then there is a huge amplifier in the system.
But if there's a huge amplifier in the system, you have to explain why this doesn't amplify the contribution of infrared re-radiated by greenhouse gasses. Why would some input forcing get amplified, and other input forcing not amplified?
We measure all of this. When the scientists say "this effect can't account for the warming," this is because they are dealing with measured quantities.

(I will also note that TSI has a different warming signature from greenhouse effect: the greenhouse effect changes increase night time temperatures much more than TSI)

Basically, what you're saying boils down to "I won't pay attention to what the scientists actually say, and I haven't done a back of the envelope calculation showing it's plausible that they might be wrong, but I just refuse to believe them."

I'm a lukewarmist, I believe there is some effect.

And I'm a scientist. I look at the data.

But this is a huge factor to downplay.

One tenth of one percent.

I hate to keep harping on the same things, but the effect of solar variability has been analyzed in mind-numbing detail in the last few decades, and it just isn't there. Try the summary in chapter 8 of the WG-1 report
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

the sats are calibrated with ground data... Every year their numbers are adjusted up...

No, they're not. The measurements are going up, not the adjustments. The citations you yourself provided show only tiny adjustments to the trend, every few years, going both up and down - while the measured temperature trend is ever upwards.

The calibration is not re-done from scratch every year. That would be meaningless, as you say. The satellite data obviously must be kept comparable, both to itself and to ground measurements, so that any trends can be determined. Give these people some credit, would you? not to mention the expert reviewers who checked their methods.

I can't cross reference that information with any other source

Similar data is in the HadCRU and NASA datasets, not just NOAA. They're all cross-checked with each other and with related evidence. Perhaps you should look harder.

As to Vermeer, that contradicts what was in the Church paper that you cited yourself.

No, it doesn't. Church's Fig 5 and Vermeer's Fig 3 Lower are the same graph, though Vermeer has a blue trend line drawn over the red measurement line. You can see clearly they have the same values at the same decades. Fig 3 Upper is the derivative of that trend line, showing rate of change.

how long do you think CO2 remains in the atmosphere?

Individual molecules of carbon are being re-absorbed - and re-emitted - all the time, by plants and by the ocean, in large quantities (around 200Gt/year). This is normally in equilibrium, with a slow growth from geologic weathering and occasional volcanism. The rates of natural emission and uptake aren't fixed however, due to numerous feedbacks, so the best we can say is between 30 and 95 years for much of it, with perhaps 20% persisting a lot longer (thousands of years). It depends a lot on the atmospheric concentration, and how much we keep releasing. This page discusses the issue and provides lifetime graphs.

If true this implies the CO2 from our sources is being emitted at a lower rate than the biosphere's absorption ability.

Obviously that's not the case, because atmospheric levels have gone up sharply for 150 years See this ice-core data and more recent Mauna Loa data, showing a definite acceleration even in the last 50 years.
Regarding CO2 spectrum absorption, your questions were already answered by the citations I've given. Broad-spectrum sunlight is not only reflected, but also absorbed and re-radiated in infra-red (look up black-body radiation), which is then partially blocked by various greenhouse gases. This is well-understood science going back to the 1800s. and I'm not going to go over it all yet again. I've already cited papers that quantify the measured radiative forcing of CO2. There's no serious debate about this aspect, only about the feedbacks and resulting temperature rise.

Regarding ocean acidification, Turley et al 2006 is cited by many. Can't find a link to the paper, but here is a related presentation by Turley - see page 4.

Sorry, but I no longer have the time to spend with long explanations. It's taking too much time from my work. If the many peer-reviewed papers I've already provided haven't convinced you of anything, then providing more won't help. Either you're unable to follow the studies I've cited, or you're unwilling to to accept them as valid evidence, despite peer review and cross-correlation with other evidence. You claim that the broad agreement

Regarding sensitivity the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers says:

The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multicentury time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5C to 4.5C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6C (medium confidence)16. The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing. {TS TFE.6, Figure 1; Box 12.2}

The range given is 1.5C to 4.5C so your statement that it was "currently at around less than 1C" is wrong. Even the page you cited at landshape didn't show anything less than about 1.5C.

You will find in D.3 though:
"It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period. {10.3}"

Of course the last sentence of that quote implies that the warming since 1951 is around 100% due to human causes.

Figure SPM.5 from the SPM gives the forcings found for different causes of radiative forcing. Notice most of the change in forcing is due to anthropogenic causes.

No scientist (that I'm aware of) has said the warming will be a runaway. The fact that each increment of greenhouse gases (including water vapor) causes slightly less warming than the previous increment implies the warming will stop eventually when the level of greenhouse gases quits rising.

Regarding sensitivity the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers says:

The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multicentury time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5C to 4.5C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6C (medium confidence)16. The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing. {TS TFE.6, Figure 1; Box 12.2}

The range given is 1.5C to 4.5C so your statement that it was "currently at around less than 1C" is wrong. Even the page you cited at landshape didn't show anything less than about 1.5C.

You will find in D.3 though:
"It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period. {10.3}"

Of course the last sentence of that quote implies that the warming since 1951 is around 100% due to human causes.

Figure SPM.5 from the SPM gives the forcings found for different causes of radiative forcing. Notice most of the change in forcing is due to anthropogenic causes.

No scientist (that I'm aware of) has said the warming will be a runaway. The fact that each increment of greenhouse gases (including water vapor) causes slightly less warming than the previous increment implies the warming will stop eventually when the level of greenhouse gases quits rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Some of the corrections in there look like they're putting upwards of a .6 C temp bias on the sat data.

Sorry, you'll have to explain to me where in that link you're seeing hard figures for satellite corrections. You're not assuming "Global Temperature Anomaly" is a correction factor, are you? (it's the difference in temperature results from a mean value). All I see is that graph of those results, and some figures for trends. I followed some of the source links, but the methods they use are complex, and some of them only have abstracts available.

I have a big problem with the units you're using in that graph... Zeta Joules? Why aren't you citing this as temperature?

It's NOAA's graph, not mine, and they use joules because it's a measure of total energy change. This is helpful for discovering how much solar energy is being trapped by greenhouse gases and subsequently absorbed by oceans. Temperature is a less useful figure because it's dependant on the volume of water and thermal mass, but will show the same ongoing trend.

It's true that El Nino and La Nina cycles directly affect ocean heat, but these are relatively short cycles and can easily be smoothed out by averaging data over decades; similarly for solar cycles. There are also geologic cycles as you say, but those have a much slower effect, and can be accounted for by measuring the change in their causes (e.g. orbital changes). While we can't discount the effect of an undiscovered long-term climate cycle on what we're seeing now, nobody has yet found a natural cause that would result in such a relatively rapid change - but the effects we're observing match quite closely with the calculated effects of the rise in atmospheric CO2, so that's a sufficient and far more likely cause than postulating an unknown factor.

Similarly for sea level rises. Of course it has changed much more drastically in the past, and sometimes very rapidly too, but nonetheless the level of rise we're seeing helps confirm our hypotheses, and is still of concern to our many coastal communities.

show me the error I made here

Yeah, you're off by a factor of 1 million - 195,698,545,959 cubic meters of water is actually 195.7 cubic kilometres of water (there are 1000x1000x1000 cubic metres in a cubic kilometre). Though because the ice is freshwater, 200 Gt of ice would be closer to 200 km^3 when melted, or about 0.55mm when spread out evenly. There are of course other sources of meltwater than just Greenland + Antarctic, and thermal expansion is about 25% of the total rise too.

Where in there do they show any calculations?

The last link was to the IPCC AR5 paper; they don't do the calculations there, they summarise the conclusions of the papers that do, and cite those papers. (The link I gave you was actually a draft and was missing diagrams, so here's the relevant section of the final report).

If you look at section 13.3.6, that discusses the contributing factors to the total sea level rise, and cites a number of papers for their sources, including Shepherd et al 2012 (better link than earlier) and Church et al 2011a.

Hope that helps.

1. About climate sensitivity estimates, as you know, are all over the place, however whats important is they keep shrinking as we learn more.

https://landshape.files.wordpr...

2. About my 70s comment:
I did read it in there somewhere, however cannot pin point it right now.

You will find in D.3 though:
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assess...
"It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period. {10.3}"

Since there was a cooling phase from 1944 until about 1975 it is clear CO2 wasnt warming the planet before that... according to the IPCC.

3. You'll also see that the reference for the last claim I made is in there too.

Now, of course climate has always had an effect on climate. We aren't talking about natural forcing, we are talking about AGW.

Your last sentence is conjecture and speculation as are the supposed feedback's that is supposed to create this runaway warming.

The numbers above are from the IPCC (albeit from memory, correct some of they are wrong).

Correct in the last part: some of them are wrong.

The actual IPCC documents are here: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...

An interesting graphic comparing various sources of climate change is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/graph...

It's hard to trust anyone who's work is disseminated by the government or media today.

That's an assertion that's hard to challenge in the libertarian atmosphere of slashdot.

Research and reports are spun mercilessly for the gain of whoever needs it.

Indeed, it's always wise to track down the actual original data, and actually look at the data and see what we know, and how well we know it, rather than to trust the media interpretations.

It may not be scientist's fault but when you hear something like "the sky is falling" and then hear it refuted over and over, one starts to take things with a grain of salt.

The media does like to run doom and destruction stories-- they are more of a story than talking about things like "slow increase in temperature over a time scale of decades."

Take, for example, Global Cooling back in the 1970's.

OK, let's take it for an example. There was never a scientific consensus about global cooling in the 1970s. The American Meteorological Society did a review, trying to look for the origin of that. http://journals.ametsoc.org/do... They summarize: "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.

That was refuted with Global Warming in the 2000's

It was not really "refuted" per se, since it was never a scientific consensus in the first place.

and now it's simply Global Climate Change which seems to be a catch-all.

"Global Climate Change" was the term coined by the (first) Bush administration.

I don't deny GCC but I certainly want to see the data.

Excellent! That's the difference between deniers and skeptics: deniers will make any possible excuse to avoid looking at data. As it turns out, there are literally terabytes of data.

I will suggest starting with the Working Group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change, which summarizes what is known and how we know it. I'm most familiar with the 4th report (www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html), from 2007, but you might want to go directly to the more recent update, the 5th: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

From there, dive into the data from whichever source you prefer-- I'd suggest possibly the Berkeley Earth data, which does an interesting job of comparing alternative hypotheses against the temperature data: http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

What's the old adage that Regan grabbed from the Russian's; "Trust but Verify" I think was it.

Excellent. Much better than the denier's motto: "Never trust, never verify, never look at the facts."

It's hard to trust anyone who's work is disseminated by the government or media today.

That's an assertion that's hard to challenge in the libertarian atmosphere of slashdot.

Research and reports are spun mercilessly for the gain of whoever needs it.

Indeed, it's always wise to track down the actual original data, and actually look at the data and see what we know, and how well we know it, rather than to trust the media interpretations.

It may not be scientist's fault but when you hear something like "the sky is falling" and then hear it refuted over and over, one starts to take things with a grain of salt.

The media does like to run doom and destruction stories-- they are more of a story than talking about things like "slow increase in temperature over a time scale of decades."

Take, for example, Global Cooling back in the 1970's.

OK, let's take it for an example. There was never a scientific consensus about global cooling in the 1970s. The American Meteorological Society did a review, trying to look for the origin of that. http://journals.ametsoc.org/do... They summarize: "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.

That was refuted with Global Warming in the 2000's

It was not really "refuted" per se, since it was never a scientific consensus in the first place.

and now it's simply Global Climate Change which seems to be a catch-all.

"Global Climate Change" was the term coined by the (first) Bush administration.

I don't deny GCC but I certainly want to see the data.

Excellent! That's the difference between deniers and skeptics: deniers will make any possible excuse to avoid looking at data. As it turns out, there are literally terabytes of data.

I will suggest starting with the Working Group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change, which summarizes what is known and how we know it. I'm most familiar with the 4th report (www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html), from 2007, but you might want to go directly to the more recent update, the 5th: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/...

From there, dive into the data from whichever source you prefer-- I'd suggest possibly the Berkeley Earth data, which does an interesting job of comparing alternative hypotheses against the temperature data: http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

What's the old adage that Regan grabbed from the Russian's; "Trust but Verify" I think was it.

Excellent. Much better than the denier's motto: "Never trust, never verify, never look at the facts."

"When we look at the last 6,000 years, the impact of human activity on our climate is unmistakable. There are no major large natural cycles over the last 6,000 years ..." That's consistent with Marcott et al. 2013 (PDF) which shows that the world has been cooling for most of the last 6,000 years.

I have little doubt that it is. So what? It is also INconsistent with even the IPCC's early temperature reconstructions. It also "conveniently" leaves out the MWP and the Little Ice Age...

Good grief. After Jane objected to my statement that "Dr. Hayhoe is presenting mainstream science," I showed that Dr. Hayhoe's statements are consistent with those from the NAS and several peer-reviewed papers. I also showed that Dr. Hayhoe's statements were more accurate than Jane/Lonny's repeated claims about the last 6,000 years.

As usual, in response Jane simply ignores all that and jumps to the next regurgitated contrarian talking point. Jane seems to have abandoned his objection to my statement that Dr. Hayhoe is presenting mainstream science. Now, Jane is claiming mainstream science itself is inconsistent.

Once again, Jane is fractally wrong. Long ago, I shared an IPCC graph of temperature reconstructions. Note that the axes of these temperature reconstructions are labeled with actual numbers. Despite Jane's claims, Marcott et al. 2013 isn't inconsistent with IPCC reconstructions, and both Marcott et al. and the IPCC show the MWP and the Little Ice Age.

Why does Jane dispute this? Asking Jane for a link is unpleasant and unproductive, but Jane seems to be confusing the IPCC 1990 Fig 7.1(c) hand-drawn cartoon with an actual temperature reconstruction. Note that this cartoon cites two papers, both of which are mainly about the climate in Europe, and notes "... it is still not clear whether all the fluctuations indicated were truly global...".

Why is Jane surprised that an actual global temperature reconstruction from 2013 isn't identical to a hand-drawn cartoon from 1990 which appears to be mainly based on temperatures in Europe rather than the globe? Maybe Jane's surprised because he used to cite the "Wegman Report" before he realized they had blatantly misrepresented this cartoon by (accidentally?) adding numbers to the scale and redrawing the curve to make it look less like a cartoon.

But Wegman's (accidental?) "mistakes" don't change the fact that it was a hand-drawn cartoon mainly based on temperatures in Europe rather than the globe, and that its axis wasn't labeled with actual numbers.

It's strange that Jane confused this unlabeled cartoon with an actual temperature reconstruction, because Jane often criticizes graphs with no numbers and no labels on th

In Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5 Report The current status of tuning model performance notes the following, including a half dozen citations of peer-reviewed articles verifying the statement:
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 (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 reference, TOA energy imbalance is the entire driving force of long term climate change, and models still have to hand-tune cloud parameters to get TOA energy correct.

Without getting TOA energy correct, the only thing the models are telling us is how climate components respond to changing TOA energy. They do NOT tell us the much more important element of how TOA energy will respond in the future. The current state of climate models is a necessary step to getting there, and is step forwards from the past practice of directly inserting energy when needed, but let's not go claiming we already are there. The facts and evidence state that we aren't. Any actual modellers claiming that they can predict future TOA energy, and thus macro climate trends, is being dishonest and there's a reason you don't see any of them quoted as such. Instead you see their papers quoted as the IPCC did above, and other folks are the ones coming in and crowing about the importance of the climate model's prediction without grasping the underlying factors that are still being tooled.

More data is always good, but presenting any uncertainty and conditions on predictions is vital. Not only so we make properly informed decisions, but also so we don't tarnish trust by misrepresented predictions.

Climate models are really great science, but are also really ripe for this sort of problematic viewing from the public. Not just the laymen, but informed and educated public as well. To just quickly read and peruse climate model summaries you'd get the impression that confidence in models is really high. The reality is that confidence in PORTIONS of the models is really high. The whole however still has a long ways to go.

The IPCC fifth assessment report in chapter 9 notes the following: 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 (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).

That's taken context and backed up by over a dozen citations to relevant journal articles on model tuning. The short version is that tuning Top Of Atmosphere energy is still a required step to avoid climate models running out to unrealistic states. The journal articles all confirm this. With TOA energy being the ultimate overall driving force behind climate change, our predictions are still subject to the fact we aren't yet able to predict TOA energy. Without that we can make guesses what TOA energy might do, but the confidence in them is nothing like the confidence in other components of climate. Failing to qualify this though could leave us 20 years from now pointing at the AR5 projections and asking what went so terribly wrong with them, and the answer is that they had things largely right, save that TOA energy rose faster or slower than anticipated. That's in essence already the conversation over the IPCC First assessment projections from the 20+ years ago.

But isn't the TOA energy budget one of the most nailed down parameters, given that it is directly measured all over the place at all times by satellites? Unlike all the murky atmospheric transactions which have to be inferred and estimated and calculated from spotty measurements of varying characteristics?

Yes, but those transitions usually take place within thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Not so. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).

The inception of deglacial warming about 14.5 ky BP was also very rapid, leading to the Bölling-Alleröd warm period in less than twenty years (Severinghaus and Brook, 1999). Almost synchronously, major vegetation changes occurred in Europe and North America with a rise in African lake levels (Gasse and van Campo, 1994). There was also a pronounced warming of the North Atlantic and North Pacific (Koç and Janssen, 1994; Sarnthein et al., 1994; Kotilainen and Shackleton, 1995; Thunnell and Mortyn, 1995; Wansaard, 1996; Watts et al., 1996; Webb et al., 1998).

More data is always good, but presenting any uncertainty and conditions on predictions is vital. Not only so we make properly informed decisions, but also so we don't tarnish trust by misrepresented predictions.

Climate models are really great science, but are also really ripe for this sort of problematic viewing from the public. Not just the laymen, but informed and educated public as well. To just quickly read and peruse climate model summaries you'd get the impression that confidence in models is really high. The reality is that confidence in PORTIONS of the models is really high. The whole however still has a long ways to go.

The IPCC fifth assessment report in chapter 9 notes the following:
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 (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).

That's taken context and backed up by over a dozen citations to relevant journal articles on model tuning. The short version is that tuning Top Of Atmosphere energy is still a required step to avoid climate models running out to unrealistic states. The journal articles all confirm this. With TOA energy being the ultimate overall driving force behind climate change, our predictions are still subject to the fact we aren't yet able to predict TOA energy. Without that we can make guesses what TOA energy might do, but the confidence in them is nothing like the confidence in other components of climate. Failing to qualify this though could leave us 20 years from now pointing at the AR5 projections and asking what went so terribly wrong with them, and the answer is that they had things largely right, save that TOA energy rose faster or slower than anticipated. That's in essence already the conversation over the IPCC First assessment projections from the 20+ years ago.

Then rigorously show how this is the case. It's really that simple. The fact it has not been done yet should tell you something.

I'm not sure of the 'this' that needs to be proven, but I'm going to interpret it as the GP statement scientists don't have the climate models rightas something that isn't nuts or crazy.

From Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5, complete with more than a half dozen citations:
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 (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).
And later the IPCC goes on to note:
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.

So to recap, the singular driving force of all climate change, the energy imbalance at Top Of Atmosphere, is NOT an emergent property of the underlying climate models, but instead still requires hand tuning to avoid running out to an unrealistic state. More over, by the IPCC's own standards, quantities closely related to those tuned are only weak tests of model performance. How many components of the climate aren't at least weakly related to TOA energy?

It keeps going though, as if you hand adjust clouds or other parameters to balance energy, if your results were off you'd expect to get the macro of energy balance that was tuned correct on the mean, but because of compensating errors too high here and too low there. Read the entire IPCC chapter linked above and count the number of times compensating errors are observed in the unknown parameters like clouds.

If you further your reading beyond the IPCC chapter and read the linked journals you'll even find that climate models still regularly, as in more often than not, don't pass the conservation of energy test, it's even stated as part of the reason that tuning TOA energy is still necessary until bugs in code or algorithms can catch the leaking energy or additional energy that coming out of the ether.

All that said, climate models truly are still good tools. The steps taken above are still good steps, and I honestly and truly mean that. They all still contribute to testing theories and ideas of how components of our climate function and are vital tool to furthering our understanding. At the exact same time though, to declare that lacking confidence in future prediction from them today is nuts or crazy is just wrong. There's very good reason to place very big caveats and conditions on the projections currently being generated. In particular hindcast skill should NOT be expected to be a very good indicator of predictive skill at all.

But the modelers argue that this really wasn't a failure, because their predictions served as worst-case scenarios that mobilized international efforts.

so.... how about those climate models out there????

So, you're saying that climate models that do not reflect the mobilization of international efforts mean that we should not attempt to push for international efforts to ensure that those worst-case predictions do not happen?

Climate science is always evolving. Scientists learn more about the planet and how different aspects of our planet's behavior interact, and they discover new aspects through this process. I don't think there's a lot of argument that humans are taking huge carbon deposits that are the result of plants using carbon from the air as building material in their structures and reintroducing that carbon into the atmosphere again. The debate is what that does to climate.

I think the more salient point is our call to action should take into account uncertainties within the models. If the actions we call people to are costly, people should reasonably expect that the evidence brought forward is certain enough to justify the cost...

Modelling climate is insanely challenging as the scope is our entire planet, and the components involved number in the hundreds or thousands, and the interactions between them are again almost universally dependant upon one another. Climate models are a great tool for us to investigate and test theories about those systems and their interactions. We are getting pretty good at sorting the important/dominant components from the less significant ones. That said, there IS still a long ways to go. I would strongly advocate for continued study and development of climate modelling. I would also strongly caution against placing high confidence in specific model projections out into the future. Evidence follows:

Climate models fail the conservation of energy test. That's pretty fundamental, and models very widely still 'leak' energy.
From Mauritsen et al.
Among the model simulations whose data were available at the time of this analysis, there is a tendency for drift in the CMIP5 models to be less pronounced than in some of the CMIP3 models, and there is a reduction in the number of warm and cold biased models in CMIP5. Only a few models are close to zero imbalance, or likely to relax to near-zero imbalance. If a model equilibrates at a positive radiation imbalance it indicates that it leaks energy, which appears to be the case in the majority of models, and if the equilibrium balance is negative it means that the model has artificial energy sources.

Climate model tuning today normally uses adjustments to cloud parameters to balance the Top of Atmosphere energy. The single central driving force behind climate change still gets tuned by hand and is not yet an emergent property of the underlying understanding or simulation of the system.
From Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5, complete with more than a half dozen citations to articles on model tuning confirming exactly this.
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 (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).

It's tempting to take the above and declare all climate models are bunk and toss them out, which would be very bad. Climate models are doing an important job of

... you cherry-picked a quote out of it:

Of the two forms of pollution, the carbon dioxide increase is probably the more influential at the present time in changing temperatures near the earth's surface (Mitchell, 1973a).

While completely ignoring the very next sentence:

"If both the CO2 and particulate inputs to the atmosphere grow at equal rates in the future, the widely differing atmospheric residence times of the two pollutants means that the particulate effect will grow in importance relative to that of CO2."

If, Jane. If both the CO2 and particulate inputs to the atmosphere grow at equal rates in the future. But that didn't happen after ~1975 in the U.S.A. or in Europe.

... In the context of the recent GLOBAL COOLING, it states:

While the natural variations of climate have been larger than those that may have been induced by human activities during the past century, the rapidity with which human impacts threaten to grow in the future, and increasingly to disturb the natural course of events, is a matter of concern....

Now, I know you are completely inept when it comes to context, but that statement is the overarching context of their later comments (given above) about CO2 and aerosols. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-06-04]

Even if I'm completely inept when it comes to context, it seems to me like those statements apply to both carbon dioxide and aerosols. And they were right about both. Globally, we just stopped emitting so much SO2 after ~1975 but kept emitting CO2 even faster.

... They clearly express concern that man's influence is increasing, and suggest that aerosols could very well overwhelm CO2 if the current trends continued. So don't try to give me crap about what I understand and what I don't. I'm not cherry-picking, YOU did. I just gave the LARGER context of the statement that you cherry-picked out of it. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-06-04]

If the current emissions trends in 1975 had continued, the global dimming caused by aerosols could have overwhelmed warming by CO2. That's a perfectly reasonable if statement. But since global aerosol emissions declined after ~1975 (see fig 1), that if statement doesn't apply to our universe.

As I have stated so many times in the past, this is exactly the kind of behavior I have come to expect from you, and why I do not engage you in debate. I may make mistakes, but at least I am honest. I have pointed out many times where you were clearly were not. And that was one of them. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-06-04]

Good grief, Jane. It's bizarre to be accused of not being honest because I didn't quote an if statement from a report that doesn't apply to our universe where aerosol emissions declined after ~1975.

I quoted the 1975 NAS statement that CO2 warming could be "about 0.5C between now and the end of the century" because it applies to our universe. The 2007 IPCC estimate of radiative forcing up to 2005 shows that aerosol emissions roughly cancelled al

Here you go:

IPCC AR5 WG1 - Chapter 13: Sea Level Change [PDF]

The section on projections of sea level rise starts on page 1179 with references for the citations at the end of the chapter. The IPCC projections are largely thought by the scientists in the field to be very conservative estimates.

the largest single temperature spike in the past 45 million years.

You mean larger than this: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).

Hold up there. Climate has been changing since we first had some. The big question is "how fast?", and the current changes are very rapid. A few kilometers of ice go away over tens of thousands of years, that's natural. A variation of 2C over a few million years, that's natural. A variation of 2C in a century or two is remarkable, on a geological basis.

Not really, no. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).

Moreover, if we could reverse AGW, and prevent human impacts on climate, we wouldn't be keeping the climate static. We'd be keeping it pretty stable over millennia.

You realise you just said, "we wouldn't be keeping the climate static, we'd be keeping it pretty static over millennia".

The current rise in sea level is a little under 3mm per year, which puts us up close to a foot by the rest of the century. That's going to be significant in some respects. Storm surges will be almost a foot higher, and stuff that's on the beach close to the highest high tide mark is going to start getting wet. However, the increase seems to be accelerating, and there's no reason to think it won't be two feet or more by the end of the century. I wouldn't count on centuries before significant rise.

Wiki says 21cm to 34cm by 2100. It's really not an incipient threat, which is why we'd best start making longer term plans for adjusting to it, for ourselves and the other inhabitants of this blue marble. And once again we don't really know how everything fits together so the acceleration might not be constant. It might get worse of course but it's all speculation at this point.

For everyone worrying about our pending demise in 100 years based on climate models I would urge you to step back from the ledge.

Climate models are a great tool for expanding our understanding of climate processes and their interactions. They have been invaluable in gaining new knowledge and testing theories to better know how our climate behaves. At the same time, they also have a long ways to go.

The most basic primer on climate is that the greenhouse effect is basically the trapping of energy by gases in our atmosphere. The most basic and fundamental measure of this is the difference between energy coming in and energy leaving at the Top Of Atmosphere. This is more commonly referred to as TOA energy balance. This energy imbalance though is very small compared to the overall energy in and out, so measuring it is hard, let alone simulating it. Thus, parameters in climate models are hand tuned until TOA energy matches known and observed trends. This is a necessary step so that all the other modelled processes in the simulation operate under conditions that are reasonable and accurate and we can then compare their behaviour to the real world.

The alarmists, and maybe even some that don't count themselves such, will take huge issue with my next statement. With the climate models hand tuning TOA energy in order to avoid unrealistic conditions, and with TOA energy dominating long term climate trends, the climate models utility to long term predictions right now is poor at best and near nil at worst. You can't take a variable you've hand tuned and claim anything about it's predictive powers.

If you think I'm off my rocker, here's the IPCC saying the same thing:
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 (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).
and later....
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.
I needn't point out that TOA energy is closely related to pretty near everything in our climate.

you don't really understand anything about measurements, physics, or science if you have to ask this question. Perhaps you should learn what data correction commonly means before you just rely on your ignorance to confirm your political position. hint: its basically impossible to measure what we want to measure, but we can develop very good ideas from first principles about the differences between what we want to measure and what we actually measure. Thus, we can make corrections. First principles that have been effectively validated by 100s of years of scientific endeavor. (Heat transfer, thermodynamics, EM theory, take it down to quantum mechanics, if you want. etc). From basic tested physics theories, we can apply thousands of corrections, but there are several trade-offs, diminishing returns at play. Sometimes those may change over time. Sometimes we missed an important one. Shit happens. Deal with it. Or you can just remain willfully ignorant, which seems to suit you better.

That must be why every damn time temperature data is "corrected" it's in ways that support Chicken Little, alarmist AGW hypotheses.

Where the hell are the corrections in the other direction?

Hell, where are the scientific outliers? Why isn't there one published climate model out there that significantly differs from the "settled" consensus? Where's the model that actually produced predictions that matched the 15-year hiatus in measured warming? Why are all the predictions we see published closer together than the margin of error in the measurements?

Even Einstein himself famously thought quantum mechanics was BS. But nope - we have NONE of that with AGW.

For climate models they are so tightly grouped partly because of model tuning. One of the steps in preparing climate models is tuning parameters to get the correct/observed Top Of Atmosphere(TOA) energy balance. Most commonly parameters for clouds are adjusted until the climate model's TOA energy results match the known values. Without doing that, the energy imbalance rapidly drives the climate into unrealistic states. That is straightforward as incoming/outgoing TOA energy is of course the singular long term driver of climate change. Of course, with it being almost universal practice to hand tune TOA energy to the same trends and values it shouldn't be too surprising that on the macro level, the climate models follow the same trends...

Now just watch some idiot alarmist come call me out for lying or something. The IPCC fifth assessment report states the following in Chapter 9:
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 (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).

That's the IPCC saying exactly what I just did, and a list of fully 8 different peer-reviewed journal articles backing their specific statement up. You want to call me out as wrong or cherry picking then provide something significantly more substantial than the above references if you want to have any leg to stand on.

There are three problems with this article:

First and foremost, this result is achieved with "corrected commercial ship temperature data", " corrected ship-to-buoy calibrations", and other adjustments. However, I don't see any information on where we can go to examine their adjustment techniques.

Second, the statements at the end of the article make it plain that the goal of the authors is to show even more warming. This is not a neutral investigation, but an investigation with a desired outcome.

Finally, with their new adjustments, they claim to have established a warming rate of around 0.1 degree/decade, and they also say that this is what the warming was from 1950 to 1999. Oddly, they then claim that this is "more than twice the IPCC's estimate". Now that's just weird. The IPCC never predicted so little warming. The IPCC originally predicted ten times that amount, or around 4 to 5 degrees per century (See page xxii, figure 8 in the IPCC report); later reports did revise that down, but never by an order of magnitude.

So: we have people massaging data again, but they are also apparently trying to massage history. Credibility? Somewhere around zero.

First of all, the IPCC issues projections, not predictions.

Second of all, you're a partisan hack and you wouldn't accept evidence that goes against your biases if it flooded your own house.

But okay: info gathered from http://www.skepticalscience.co...

The IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR) was published in 1990.

FAR Scorecard

The IPCC FAR 'Best' BAU projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.25ÂC per decade. However, that was based on a scenario with higher emissions than actually occurred. When accounting for actual GHG emissions, the IPCC average 'Best' model projection of 0.2ÂC per decade is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, though a bit higher than the central estimate.

The IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) was published in 1995.

SAR Scorecard

The IPCC SAR IS92a projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.14ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) was published in 2001.

TAR Scorecard

The IPCC TAR Scenario A2 projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.16ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.TAR Scorecard

The IPCC TAR Scenario A2 projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.16ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.

I won't go on copying and pasting as it's 100% certain you'll not be convinced - I'm doing this for those that do have an open mind and are interested in evidence.

Again, the page at http://www.skepticalscience.co... has plenty of links to primary sources.

I'll paste one more thing: the summary:

IPCC Trounces Contrarian Predictions

As shown above, the IPCC has thus far done remarkably well at predicting future global surface warming. The same cannot be said for the climate contrarians who criticize the IPCC and mainstream climate science predictions.

PS, somewhere a village is missing it's idiot; he's on Slashdot and I'm replying to him.

First of all, the IPCC issues projections, not predictions.

Second of all, you're a partisan hack and you wouldn't accept evidence that goes against your biases if it flooded your own house.

But okay: info gathered from http://www.skepticalscience.co...

The IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR) was published in 1990.

FAR Scorecard

The IPCC FAR 'Best' BAU projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.25ÂC per decade. However, that was based on a scenario with higher emissions than actually occurred. When accounting for actual GHG emissions, the IPCC average 'Best' model projection of 0.2ÂC per decade is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, though a bit higher than the central estimate.

The IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) was published in 1995.

SAR Scorecard

The IPCC SAR IS92a projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.14ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) was published in 2001.

TAR Scorecard

The IPCC TAR Scenario A2 projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.16ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.TAR Scorecard

The IPCC TAR Scenario A2 projected rate of warming from 1990 to 2012 was 0.16ÂC per decade. This is within the uncertainty range of the observed rate of warming (0.15 ± 0.08ÂC) per decade since 1990, and very close to the central estimate.

I won't go on copying and pasting as it's 100% certain you'll not be convinced - I'm doing this for those that do have an open mind and are interested in evidence.

Again, the page at http://www.skepticalscience.co... has plenty of links to primary sources.

I'll paste one more thing: the summary:

IPCC Trounces Contrarian Predictions

As shown above, the IPCC has thus far done remarkably well at predicting future global surface warming. The same cannot be said for the climate contrarians who criticize the IPCC and mainstream climate science predictions.

PS, somewhere a village is missing it's idiot; he's on Slashdot and I'm replying to him.

People have been talking about global warming/climate change/politically-correct-term since the last two decades but some countries just keep their head in the sand.

They certainly have. But, to the best of my knowledge, none of the actual predictions made over these years by the "alarmists" have ever materialized.

Would you care to prove the above statement wrong? Try to post a list of link-pairs: first link in each pair shall point to a prediction and the second — to its materializing... Note, that entries containing only the latter will not be accepted — when a result is known, it is too easy to find somebody having "predicted" it.

The prediction and the materialization would have to be at least 3 years apart too — successfully predicting tomorrow's weather does not count, that is.

Game?

Easy.

Many posters have noted before that the IPCC has highlighted many good predictions from models over the last while. The CMIP5 temperature projections for last decade for example, you can find their assessment of the models here. They compare climate model runs against observed temperature and here's the summary:
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.

The HadCRUT trend is the observed record and as you can see 111 of 114 model runs had a trend since 1998 that was way higher than the observed...

Oh, I guess I did that wrong and may have made your point for you...

Since there have been multiple reports of temperatures being falsified to support the warming concept, perhaps it would be wiser to try physical predictions? Like the streets of Miami becoming flooded by 2010? Or that Polar Bear would have suffered an extreme population loss by now, simply because they allegedly eat nothing but seal blubber, and refuse to move inland?

Or how about a refusal on the part of the scientific community to address the possible impact on the ice from those Antarctic volcanoes found erupting underneath the ice for a period of years? Or the activity on the Mid Atlantic Ridge? Surely a few thousand degrees of continuous heat would do something ............ to ice.

You cannot have it both ways. Address these very credible issues, and then I will be very happy to listen. Numbers are numbers, and as a retired programmer, I am all too familiar with what we like to do with those. Show me something real, that defies any other explanation. That's all I ask. Is it so much?

Yes, 98-2012 period was unexpected - for some unknown reason atmospheric heating got uncoupled from the ocean heating. So Antarctic melting intensified and Arctic ice loss skyrocketed while the general air temperature growth slowed (it has NOT stopped). The last couple of years the coupling has returned with a vengeance and we'll all be seeing its results soonish.

So yes, if you want to nitpick IPCC then you should provide context and full information. Not just convenient sound bites.

The bigger nitpick should obviously be that getting one thing wrong is in absolutely no way evidence for the GP's boldly false claim that nobody has gotten ANYTHING right.

A more important point is that temperature is just a proxy measure of the actual greenhouse effect of increasing energy within the climate. Temperature, as the 'hiatus' demonstrates, is also very dependent on the oceans and how much energy they are absorbing or releasing in a particular time frame. The IPCC notes in this section that:
Satellite records of top of the atmosphere radiation fluxes have been substantially extended since AR4, and it is unlikely that significant trends exist in global and tropical radiation budgets since 2000.

Meaning that we've been taking in more energy than we are dumping out at an unchanged rate since 2000, so the overall greenhouse effect never slowed even though temperatures did. You've already mentioned some of the speculated reasons for this, but the general simplistic consensus is that if the energy wasn't heating the air the oceans obviously stored the energy somehow. Ocean heat measurements have generally confirmed this, with some investigation still on margins of error.

That's a pretty long winded and well documented way of stating I agree with your points. I still hold to my context being just fine though in observing that climate models systematically overestimated temperatures since 1998. I still stand that it very much IS a relevant and important observation and criticism. Here's why with some more references to the IPCC's assessment of models linked earlier. As mentioned before, the heart of the warming problem is the global energy balance, and how much extra energy CO2 and other processes are helping to add to our planet each year. It's generally referenced as the Top Of Atmosphere energy balance(TOA), and in the long term, it's virtually the only variable that really truly matters to what is happening to our planet. Ultimately more energy in in the long run will raise temperatures, similarly more energy out will lower them. How that energy gets distributed between air and oceans and globally is a secondary consideration. I state all this because when the climate models are being prepared, one of the last steps is 'tuning' parameters in them so that they are accurate. Here's a quote from the IPCC on that:
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 (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).

So, this leads me to one accusation, that hindcasting skill within the models is biased on the most important element(TOA Energy balance), by design. That's not declaring the models bad science, instead it is just observing that the climate models are merely hindcasting with the benefit of having the energy balance corrected by hand. M

The science is what it is and you can't change that. But a pretty rigorous statistical analysis doesn't show any distinguishable slowdown in the warming trend.

Well, the IPCC disagrees with you in their fifth assessment report:

The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.20, Table 2.7; Figure 9.8; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). Depending on the observational data set, the GMST trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012 (Section 2.4.3, Table 2.7; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). For example, in HadCRUT4 the trend is 0.04C per decade over 1998–2012, compared to 0.11C per decade over 1951–2012. The reduction in observed GMST trend is most marked in Northern Hemisphere winter (Section 2.4.3; Cohen et al., 2012). Even with this “hiatus” in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.19). Nevertheless, the occurrence of the hiatus in GMST trend during the past 15 years raises the two related questions of what has caused it and whether climate models are able to reproduce it.

Your rigorous statistical analysis doesn't look at the trend before 98 and after 98 and compare them, while the IPCC does. A linear trend at the rate from 1950-1998 would have warmed things faster than they have since 1998. That's what the IPCC says above. In your link you can clearly see the pattern. It's also true that things have continued to warm since 1998, it's just the linear average of warming from 1950-2012 is a slower warming than the linear average from 1950-1998 was. We are talking about climate and affects that span not just decades and centuries, but even millenia though so the divergence shouldn't be all that surprising.

What is more relevant and useful from it, as the IPCC goes on to note, is whether any of the existing climate models predicted the slower linear trend and if not why. Turns out 111 out of 114 overestimated the warming since 1998 and one of the biggest reasons is believed to be the already know poor understanding of clouds and water vapor.

You are specifying an entirely arbitrary condition.

The link I gave you gives sources for the predictions and sources for the data. The earliest prediction was made in 1990. The data is from 2013.

It's pretty hilarious that in order to "prove" that you are right, you have to impose arbitrary conditions that are of no relation to the topic and then jump up and down squealing about how those conditions haven't been met.

So far the only thing you've proven is that you're not interested in the truth. But since you're intent on digging a huge hole for yourself.

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

There's the first of the pair of links.

You now have two links, one from 1990 and one from 2013. The 1990 link has predictions of future temperature, the latter has measurements. The measurements lie within the predicted error.

Since this is obviously an emotional point for you and not a rational one, I look forwards for you rationalising reasons why thos doesn't count for some reason.

Ok, here's the IPCC third report published in 2001. You can compare the projections in it to current observations.

by "link" I assume you are using a colloquialism for directions to a specific resource. One might think of it as a "Universal Resource Locator".

For instance, there is a "link" to http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... but that does not identify the specific resources you are looking for. To do so, we would need to provide a more specific PAIR of links, for example:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, TAR predictions 2001-2030

and

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, Observed Temperature Anomalies

Now, you can argue the quality of the data, the accuracy of the models, and the legitimacy of the authors all you like. But these are TWO fully defined links to the exact information you are looking for.

If you would like to offer up your home address, I will personally pay for a special needs assistant to come to your residence, open a web browser for you, scroll to page 131, show you figure 1.4, and read aloud to you the text and description.

The burden of proof my friend, now lays on your shoulders.

-Rick

by "link" I assume you are using a colloquialism for directions to a specific resource. One might think of it as a "Universal Resource Locator".

For instance, there is a "link" to http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... but that does not identify the specific resources you are looking for. To do so, we would need to provide a more specific PAIR of links, for example:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, TAR predictions 2001-2030

and

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, Observed Temperature Anomalies

Now, you can argue the quality of the data, the accuracy of the models, and the legitimacy of the authors all you like. But these are TWO fully defined links to the exact information you are looking for.

If you would like to offer up your home address, I will personally pay for a special needs assistant to come to your residence, open a web browser for you, scroll to page 131, show you figure 1.4, and read aloud to you the text and description.

The burden of proof my friend, now lays on your shoulders.

-Rick

by "link" I assume you are using a colloquialism for directions to a specific resource. One might think of it as a "Universal Resource Locator".

For instance, there is a "link" to http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... but that does not identify the specific resources you are looking for. To do so, we would need to provide a more specific PAIR of links, for example:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, TAR predictions 2001-2030

and

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm... Page 131, Figure 1.4, Observed Temperature Anomalies

Now, you can argue the quality of the data, the accuracy of the models, and the legitimacy of the authors all you like. But these are TWO fully defined links to the exact information you are looking for.

If you would like to offer up your home address, I will personally pay for a special needs assistant to come to your residence, open a web browser for you, scroll to page 131, show you figure 1.4, and read aloud to you the text and description.

The burden of proof my friend, now lays on your shoulders.

-Rick

How about you look at the predictions made by the scientists rather than random pundits in the media.

I'd be happy to — could you post any? Being as "intellectually honest" as you are?

All you have to do to get the predictions made by scientists is to read the IPCC reports. Here's the latest one.

I'd be happy to - could you post any? Being as "intellectually honest" as you are?

I don't know why you put "intellectually honest" in quotes. I suspect you're accusing me of dishonesty because for some reason pointing out blatant flaws in your reasoning is dishonest.

Well, it's easier to attack the person than it is to attack the argument.

So, since you're happy to be intellectually honest will you go ahead and retract all your claims measured against media pundits rather than scientists?

If you want predictions by actual scientists, you should look at some actual scientific papers or reports.

Of course this is all moving the goal posts, which is another intellectually dishonest tactic. Nonetheless, I'll play ball.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm...

Go to Figure 1.4.

You can see predictions from 1990, 1996 and if you like more recent plotted alongside the actual temperature measurements. As you will see, the predictions match the observations.

Here is a pair of links. this one is a report including some predictions made in the past and this one is a report showing that the HadCRUT trend is the observed record and as you can see 111 of 114 model runs had a trend since 1998 that was way higher than the observed

Here is a pair of links. this one is a report including some predictions made in the past and this one is a report showing that the HadCRUT trend is the observed record and as you can see 111 of 114 model runs had a trend since 1998 that was way higher than the observed

People have been talking about global warming/climate change/politically-correct-term since the last two decades but some countries just keep their head in the sand.

They certainly have. But, to the best of my knowledge, none of the actual predictions made over these years by the "alarmists" have ever materialized.

Would you care to prove the above statement wrong? Try to post a list of link-pairs: first link in each pair shall point to a prediction and the second — to its materializing... Note, that entries containing only the latter will not be accepted — when a result is known, it is too easy to find somebody having "predicted" it.

The prediction and the materialization would have to be at least 3 years apart too — successfully predicting tomorrow's weather does not count, that is.

Game?

Easy.

Many posters have noted before that the IPCC has highlighted many good predictions from models over the last while. The CMIP5 temperature projections for last decade for example, you can find their assessment of the models here. They compare climate model runs against observed temperature and here's the summary:
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.

The HadCRUT trend is the observed record and as you can see 111 of 114 model runs had a trend since 1998 that was way higher than the observed...

Oh, I guess I did that wrong and may have made your point for you...

You are reading the 2007 "summary for policy makers" (I'm sure you'll be surprised to discover that the summaries are often at odds with the reports themselves).

Given you demonstrated inability to read an understand entire paragraphs, I sincerely doubt that the summaries are at odds with the reports as often as you believe them to be. I find it more likely that are motivated to see disagreements where there are none.

Here's a link to the latest report (pdf): https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assess...

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together"

I put that last bit in bold so you can see they are indeed talking about "the sum total of all anthropogenic factors".

Did you finish reading the paragraph? Apparently not. The next line says:

The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period (Figure SPM.3).

Then did you look at the graph? Apparently not. The graph shows total anthropogenic warming as higher than observed warming.

It's clear you've never read the consensus report (couldn't even find it!) yet you have the gall to say I'm an ass?

What else should I call someone who takes a single sentence out of context and tries to use it to prove the exact opposite of what his source says? You are categorically, 100% wrong. The source you chose to support your argument explicitly and in plain english says that I am right and you are wrong. Then they put a graph next to it to reinforce that fact, and somehow you manage to miss both? You're wasting my time, jackass.

Why can't we just have a normal conversation about this?

Because you choose to act like an ass? Your only source explicitly says you're wrong, so why are you wasting my time?

Most of the predicted heating comes from climate sensitivity estimates, not CO2 directly. And the climate sensitivity estimates keep getting lower. Example: http://link.springer.com/artic...

Here's a tip: If you want to provide evidence of a trend, you need more than 1 data point.

So do the impacts from aerosols. Example: http://journals.ametsoc.org/do...

Same here, this is a claim of a different trend with exactly one data point.

In other words, the latest research suggests even less warming than what the "muted" IPCC report predicts.

Personally, I wouldn't use a blog post that speculates about what a not-yet-released report might say as evidence for my case.

Obviously you have not done your research here either, although I can understand why a person might think that at first glance. They were behind that "97% agree" study that was quoted by Obama. Unfortunately it a was really really bad study. I like to think that even people who disagree will call out really really bad science when they see it, but apparently not. Integrity of science be damned.

The problem is that people like you who apparently wouldn't know science if it bit them on the ass, keep claiming that good science is bad and bad science is good, then you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of having no integrity...

Here is one of many scathing indictments of their "work":

You are reading the 2007 "summary for policy makers" (I'm sure you'll be surprised to discover that the summaries are often at odds with the reports themselves).

Here's a link to the latest report (pdf): https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assess...

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together"

I put that last bit in bold so you can see they are indeed talking about "the sum total of all anthropogenic factors".

It's clear you've never read the consensus report (couldn't even find it!) yet you have the gall to say I'm an ass? Why can't we just have a normal conversation about this?

Most of the predicted heating comes from climate sensitivity estimates, not CO2 directly. And the climate sensitivity estimates keep getting lower. Example: http://link.springer.com/artic...

So do the impacts from aerosols. Example: http://journals.ametsoc.org/do...

In other words, the latest research suggests even less warming than what the "muted" IPCC report predicts.

Actually, it's [skepticalscience.com] quite good. They provide clear, well written and referenced explanations based on actual scientific research.

Obviously you have not done your research here either, although I can understand why a person might think that at first glance. They were behind that "97% agree" study that was quoted by Obama. Unfortunately it a was really really bad study. I like to think that even people who disagree will call out really really bad science when they see it, but apparently not. Integrity of science be damned.

Here is one of many scathing indictments of their "work": http://www.joseduarte.com/blog...

SkS is a really, really bad site.

Actually, it's quite good. They provide clear, well written and referenced explanations based on actual scientific research. However, I can see why some people might consider that "bad".

Regardless, it appears they disagree with the IPCC. The latest IPCC report (which represents the consensus view) says that anthropogenic CO2 was responsible for at least half of the warming since 1950.

Speaking mathematically, 100% is more than 50% so there's no actual disagreement between what SkS wrote and what you claim the IPCC says.

I went looking for what you claimed and didn't find it, not that I tried very hard because, well, it's not like you bothered to provide a reference for your claims... However, what I did find supports what I wrote:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations

and

During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling.

Do you support the consensus view or not?

Are you trying to be an ass? The answer to both questions appears to be "yes".

I think I should further expand on these points, because you seem like a pedantic twit who will most likely focus on the fact that the IPCC report only says "most" of the warming is due to GHG concentrations increased by human activity. You should already know that GHG concentrations are not the only anthropogenic drivers of global warming, there are other anthropogenic contributions including land use changes and albedo changes due to air pollution, among others. The IPCC has attributing most of the warming to a single anthropogenic climate forcing, which does not, in any way, preclude the sum total of all anthropogenic factors from exceeding the actual observed warming, particularly when combined with the observation that the two most important natural factors would likely have contributed to cooling over the same period.

So, the real question is do you actually have anything to support your argument other than reading comprehension failures and a bad attitude?

You mean these?

Looks like there's a definite trend, with a pronounced rise since the start of the industrial revolution.

It only takes an honest man to say what everyone can see.

So off you go to IPCC and see what honest scientists are saying.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?

Which do you start?

We might, say, start by collecting an international body of experts and ask them to look into the issue. Maybe they could periodically write reports, maybe on the physical science side of the issue, but also on the impacts of the physical changes. Just a weird idea, of course, but if we had started early enough, we might have had a first overview by 1990! And if we don't quite trust those experts, we could e.g. ask some national science academies to evaluate the issue.If they all violently agree, we might start to consider actions.

As for Africa: Sure, Africa has done so well in the age of "burn it like there is no tomorrow", so continuing in the same direction is obviously the right thing to do. Or maybe this is the most cynical propaganda meme I've yet encountered.

Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?

Which do you start?

We might, say, start by collecting an international body of experts and ask them to look into the issue. Maybe they could periodically write reports, maybe on the physical science side of the issue, but also on the impacts of the physical changes. Just a weird idea, of course, but if we had started early enough, we might have had a first overview by 1990! And if we don't quite trust those experts, we could e.g. ask some national science academies to evaluate the issue.If they all violently agree, we might start to consider actions.

As for Africa: Sure, Africa has done so well in the age of "burn it like there is no tomorrow", so continuing in the same direction is obviously the right thing to do. Or maybe this is the most cynical propaganda meme I've yet encountered.

Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?

Which do you start?

We might, say, start by collecting an international body of experts and ask them to look into the issue. Maybe they could periodically write reports, maybe on the physical science side of the issue, but also on the impacts of the physical changes. Just a weird idea, of course, but if we had started early enough, we might have had a first overview by 1990! And if we don't quite trust those experts, we could e.g. ask some national science academies to evaluate the issue.If they all violently agree, we might start to consider actions.

As for Africa: Sure, Africa has done so well in the age of "burn it like there is no tomorrow", so continuing in the same direction is obviously the right thing to do. Or maybe this is the most cynical propaganda meme I've yet encountered.