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Think of the impact this would have, if many of the data-recording points for temperature were slowly surrounded by urbanization or in the 'heat shadow' of urban areas?

http://www.john-daly.com/ges/surftmp/surftemp.htm

He makes a compelling case, the refutation of which has been on the order of "of course they considered this, they're experts"...when there's no trace of such analysis or correction applied to East Anglia conclusions or IPCC reports through at least 2005 (after which I stopped bothering to read them).

But if you REALLY want to lay the blame for Global Warming Theory. . . .blame Margaret Thatcher

Now, could we get back to talking about popularizing real science and maybe getting the species a foothold off-planet ???

The locations that ice cores are taken are all well away from any local sources and sinks.

I'm not sure if that's particularly true, but I'd be open to the idea.

My layman's understanding is that we observe gases trapped in ice cores to run through some formula or function to get what we believe is the atmospheric CO2 level that applies to when that gas was trapped (i.e., we don't measure ppm of CO2 in trapped ice core gas - I could be mistaken, but can't find relevant cites - interesting notes here: http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm).

In order to assert that ice cores represent areas that have no local sources or sinks, I'd expect that the *exact* same trapped gas data (direct measurement, not calculated), would have to exist in *every* ice core we find. So, if you took, say, two ice cores, 50 ft apart, they should be identical, and if we took, say two ice cores, from opposite poles, they should be identical.

Vostok is generally taken as the gold standard (much as Mauna Kea is today), and it may very well be that it's not just a single ice core, but a cluster of them in Vostok they're talking about - but I'd love to see a graph of them compared to ice cores elsewhere.

Of course, the real problem, apparently, is that ice cores can't be directly compared to modern instrumental records from Mauna Kea, and have been subject to unfounded data manipulation:

"An ad hoc assumption, not supported by any factual evidence[3, 9], solved the problem: the average age of air was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped. The "corrected" ice data were then smoothly aligned with the Mauna Loa record (Figure 1 B) , and reproduced in countless publications as a famous "Siple curve". Only thirteen years later, in 1993, glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the "age assumption"[10], but they failed[9]."

At the rate we are currently going we'll hit 590 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere well before 2100. The warming from doubling of CO2 is more likely to be around 3C when you take feedbacks into account.

Well, let's take a look at the data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

For the 50 year record, we've probably added 70ppm (1960 - 2010). The trend looks linear, not exponential, so straight line it from there. Take today, 390, and add 100 years worth of CO2...say, 140 (round up to 150 if you want).

Now we're at 2112, and we've got a CO2 ppm of 540, tops.

Your jump from 280 - 390 (+40%, over a hundred or so years), caused a change in temp of about 0.8C. Going from 390 to 540ppm is about another 40% bump, so we can expect, probably another 0.8C. Asserting 3C has no basis in reality.

I don't get what you mean by "AFAIK, human CO2 emissions have only been asserted to by > 50% by even the most alarmist people".

I believe the IPCC stands by the thought that *most* of the temperature change is due to human CO2, but nobody has ever said *all* the temperature change is due to human CO2. I'll roughly define "most" as >50%. By that definition, if we've had 0.8C of temperature rise, and we're going to assume human responsibility for say, 50%+1 of it, that's only 0.4C of temperature rise that is "unnatural" and the other 0.4C of temperature rise that is "natural" (i.e., non CO2 based).

So, what this means is that the 0.8C observed increase during the 150 year period when we went from 280 - 390ppm has to be subdivided further - up to 0.4C of that was completely unrelated to CO2, and just part of natural cycles.

However, even if you assume that 100% of the temperature change was due to CO2, you can see by the math that it simply isn't alarming. +0.8C in 2112 isn't anything to worry about.

Actually the desert in the western USA does expand North into Canada. It always has. That area in Canada is called the Okanagan of British Columbia. In that area the desert has created a flourishing wine industry in Canada that produces some of the best wines in the world. So if Climate change is man made, and I'm not prepared to admit such a thing, Its been one of the best things that has ever happened to Canada.

One thing that people need to realize. If Canada had stayed in Kyoto the country would have had to pay upwards of $14 billion in penalties for not reaching its targets. The agreement was writen in a way that was very bad for the Country and agreed to by a government who didn't care about the economic consequences that would have happened if we had stayed in that agreement. They were more concerned with Canada's reputation in the world then with what is good for the people who live in the country. Hence the reason why they are no longer the government and the political party responsible for Kyoto is now fighting for its very existence.

I think people need to understand something about green techologies. We need the oil industries to produce the components that will make up much of that so called green techology. There is no such thing as green energy. From the plastics that coat the magnet wire to produce your wind turbines to the copper that is heated up to create the oxides that create solar cells its all done by burning oil. We need oil and Canada has lots of it. In fact oil has been the primary reason why Canada is doing far better then all the other western countries during the financial slow down.

Keep something else in mind. CO2 constitutes less then 2% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Its about 350-400 parts per million. There have been studies now that have said that the effects of CO2 have been over estimated. None of these so called climate scientists take into consideration the effects of the sun. The thing that is by far the most important thing to govern climate change on this planet. They didn't take into consideration for instance the increased number of sun spots on the sun over the last 20 years. Climate scientists keep trying to prove that climate change exists. Ok It exists. What they haven't tried to prove is what the cause is. They just assume its man made and don't take into account possible natural causes. But if you don't take my word for it perhaps you will take the work of scientists who are reported skeptics and have the numbers to back up what they say. http://www.john-daly.com/

One thing. I am not a global warming denier. I am a person who just believes that the world is complex place and we still don't have a complete understanding of how the ecosystem works. Saying we are the cause of climate change seems to be a little far fetched to me. We also don't know if the effects are negative or positive so taking such drastic measures seems a bit premature to me as well.

+ Insufficient radiative forcing of CO2
+ Warming attributed to Sun (correlated change is solar irradience)

I don't think you're being very honest with yourself here. Let's be more specific about your two points, and see if we can get some clarity.

"Insufficient radiative forcing of CO2", I take it, means simply calculating based on spectral analysis, a proposed theoretical radiative forcing. (References below from: http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm)

Wigley (1987): Delta F = 6.333 ln (C/C0)

So in 1987, one might say, "if Delta F does not equal 6.333 ln (C/Co), radiative forcing of CO2 is insufficient to support the AGW hypothesis". That's a specific prediction, and an acceptance of falsifiability. What happens next?

Houghton et al 1990: Delta F = 6.3 ln (C/Co)

So now it's 1990. Radiative forcing has now been calculated slightly lower. Has AGW been falsified? Nope, we simply lower the bar (or shift the goalposts), and now we state "if Delta F does not equal 6.3 ln (C/Co) radiative forcing of CO2 is insufficient to support the AGW hypothesis". Another specific prediction but an avoidance of responsibility for the first one. What happens next?

Myhre et al 1998: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/Co)

So now it's 1998. Radiative forcing has now been calculated even more significantly lower. Has AGW been falsified?

How much lower do we need to go before we can no longer avoid responsibility for our predictions, and accept AGW as falsified?

Lindzen and Choi 2011:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf

If Lindzen is correct that sensitivity is 0.7C per doubling of CO2, the corresponding change in forcing should be

delta F = (1.2)(delta T) = .84 W/m2 = 1.2*ln(2)

thus the “IPCC formula” “should be” approx.

delta F = 1.2*ln(C/Co)

So now we're even farther away from the original prediction. Has AGW been falsified? How about this devil's advocate position - it isn't falsified until Delta F goes negative, because it is theoretically possibly to attribute 100% of all CO2 in the atmosphere to humanity, and if we accept that CO2 *always* adds warming (a stipulation at this point), then no matter how small the warming effect of CO2, we can assert AGW is at the very least technically true.

Now, are you arguing for the "at the very least technically true AGW"? Again, I don't want to put up a straw man you're not trying to defend, but you're not being specific enough in your assertions of what AGW really is.

+ Warming attributed to Sun (correlated change is solar irradience)

Okay, this one is a pretty obvious logical fallacy - the argument from ignorance. Saying that "if you don't have a better explanation, then my explanation must be true" is not a scientific argument, even if it *is* clever. The null hypothesis, I think we can both agree, is that climate changes due to natural forces. We can trivially observe that climate change existed before humanity, and there is no particular reason we should believe that humanity (as opposed to say, the rise of the arthopods, or dinosaurs, or any other widespread lifeform on the planet) has the unique ability to suddenly take control of the weather and climate. Note, I'm not saying it isn't *possible*, I'm simply saying that it must be held to strict scrutiny.

And again, devil's advocate - even if solar irradiance explained 99% of the warming observed (assuming we has some rock solid understanding of all the other confounding variables), even 1% of uncertainty there could leave AGW *technically* true, even if miniscule.

So here are the questions outstanding to you:

1) did the change in the calculated forcing over the decades falsify AGW?
2) can any change in the calculated forcing falsify A

It's already there. The science is cold and factual, and clearly shows that human activity is causing warming.

Including the science that rejected core sample analysis in favor of simple tree ring analysis, which is a lot less accurate and less meaningful? That was important: by eliminating reliable data, we eliminated the medieval warm period 800 years ago that showed hotter global temperatures than we're experiencing now.

My cite for this particular instance is this particular piece of analysis, which cites 33 sources and gives a calm and rational analysis of the politics twisting the facts. There is plenty of debate over this even, with other sources bouncing around talking about how "some people claim statistical errors generated the Hockey Stick, but they're wrong" to so far as actually having citations to papers that support their points. The interesting part is that you can actually find enough respected scientific papers to prove that the bathtub curve AND the hockey stick are both correct, and thus prove both that the medieval warm period was hotter than temperatures today AND that it was barely any hotter than the past 500 years.

For clarity, that means somebody is fucking with the data.

I'm not sure that's what science tells us. CO2 ppm in the atmosphere is a somewhat hotly debated issue - today - but in reality we have both older direct measurements than what's normally reported, as well as a problem where we graft direct measurements onto proxies (i.e, the same problem as with tree ring proxies for temperature) without discussing what that means.

There are proper papers discussing diffusion of CO2 levels in ice cores available, but as a primer this writeup should do: http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

(disregard the site, the information is valid and sourced)

We also need to remember that for modelling reasons we claim CO2 to be well mixed in the atmosphere, even though we know from satellite measurements that it isn't (AIRS) - of special interest, of course, is that it's lower at the poles.

If we switch from the dubious ice core proxies for historical CO2 levels, things become much more interesting. It seems we're currently in a very CO2 starved atmosphere where most plant life (and animals) evolved when CO2 levels were much higher. On the order of ten magnitudes higher even: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/GCMD_NOAA_NCDC_PALEO_2002-051.html

As to the issue of volcanoes, you're correct, but thinking of single eruptions. If we instead talk about "volcanic activity" the issue becomes clearer. There are always eruptions happening at someplace on earth, but the level of activity waxes and wanes. Here are some telling quotes from a book on the effects just the volcanoes on Iceland have on the (european) climate: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6387

(again, disregard the site - it's not the source)

There's no such thing as a "scientific consensus" (Popper spins wildly in his grave) with regards to our climate. Usually those words are uttered by the same people who claimed acid rain would kill all plant life, that we would all die from exposure to UV radiation through the ozone hole (and no, we didn't "fix" it - it has a completely natural sun influenced cycle) or any one of the other scares from the "humans are a pest and the earth would do a lot better without us"-movement.

I'd rather do science.

How does H20 in the atmosphere absorb CO2 ?
CO2 + H2O <-> H2CO3, thus

According to the IPCC-model, we do not live in a yellow submarine, we all live in a bottle of beer.
  Absorption of Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere, Dr. Jarl Ahlbeck

1 true, 2 true
3/explain how this does NOT lead to a higher greenhouse effect?
3. this is a matter of debate,
A) The GW activist camp will say it doesn't, it's CO2 stupid what are you a denier or something?
B) The GW skeptic camp will say of course it will H20 in the atmosphere completely overwhelms any effect that CO2 has, it's water stupid, what are you an alamists or something?
C) The Climatology as Science camp, The increase in albedo caused by cloud cover appears to reduce insolation caused heat absorption during daylight hours and seems to reduce heat radiation loses during nighttime; more research is needed to determine the exact net effect.
Personally I tend to think that C is closer to the correct answer than B and much closer than A.

CO2 has caused sea level rise which has been accelerating lately

No, and no.

(Reference links in the same order)

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_few_hundred.html

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html ... and this debunking of one of the major "omg sea level rise!"-sources is an absolute must:

http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/hobart-msl.htm

Well, there is a political conspiracy surounding it. But when the hypothesis of observed facts starts to not react in the predicted ways, then it is time to rethink it. That's just sound science. This isn't on the order of the conspiracy or me claiming it isn't happening, it is on the order of we got something wrong or are missing some force and don't completely understand what is happening as much as we thought. Of course the importance of the evidence and predictions are being overstated by the political agendas which might bring us to a conclusion of facts that just don't exist, But on the evidence alone, we have these observed effects; temps seem to rise in correlation to Co2 levels; Something happened in the last ten years that seems to break that cycle; the explanations so far seem to be attributing something that would also effect the previous statements.

Throughout the years we have had other scientists making claims that the sun was part of the problem and to one point even cause some of the climate models to be reworked in order to account for new evidence. Then we have what should be a forcing with water vapor increases for atmospheric content which has been attributed to solar activity . There were a few other claims but the most recent one which seems to be supported by the Co2 global warming crowd is that (multi)decadal oscillations like El Nino and La Nina are the causes for the disparaging results.

Well, we have at least one notable effect of that in that the oceanic oscillations have been thought to be effected by the solar activity since the late 80's to mid 90's. That link is to a sort of on a biased site but it has been validated by further research published in the AGU JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH in 2000/2001

A problem I have with this is that we know the cooling effects and warming effect of these oscillation patterns aren't completely cyclical in that they don't cancel each other out. They can warm longer then cool and cool longer then warm producing a larger effect to one side over the other. Another issue is in how we changed the way of calculating surface water temperatures in the oceans which both El Nino and La Nina effect on a very large scale. This doesn't seem to be taken into account when averaging the global temperatures but they don't seem to have a problem invoking the same effect when attempting to discount the last decade of stale warming where the Co2 levels increased but the temperatures didn't. Now, this knowledge bucking the trends of heating the earth is relatively new specifically because when the bulk of the research was done to show the warming and form the models, the data sets where a few years old based on the shear complexity of gathering it, organizing it, and extracting it from the various sources to make it usable (read no conspiracy, just the nature of the game).

The data sets have finally caught up with the time and we are able to make comparisons without strong anomaly influences that have cause the 90's to be labeled as the warmest period on record before it was found that an error on adjustments for compiling US temps was made and the 30's held that title. The interesting thing here is that the 90's was caused by global warming, or at least that is what the political organizations like the UN's IPCC and advocate like Hansen and Realclimate.org. But now, it is not global warming because it is El Nino and La Nina. It like having their cake and eating it too. It just doesn't make sense that it is global warming when it suits your needs and something else when the pieces don't fit.

So we need to rethink this situation without the bias of political agendas and determine a proper cause and effect even if it invalidated the Co2 model and it is found that Co2 levels follow warming trends instead of causes them. That is also something floating around in recent times by the same scientist who once

What does '10-20 years' have to do with anything?

Since the prevailing theory was global cooling in the 70's, global warming couldn't have existed for much more than 20ish years. But I suppose that can be debated. From another source, "The hypothesis of man-made global warming has existed since the 1880s. It was an obscure scientific hypothesis that burning fossil fuels would increase CO2 in the air to enhance the greenhouse effect and thus cause global warming. Before the 1980s this hypothesis was usually regarded as a curiosity because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that mean global temperature should have risen more than 1C by 1940, and it had not. Then, in 1979, Mrs Margaret Thatcher (now Lady Thatcher) became Prime Minister of the UK, and she elevated the hypothesis to the status of a major international policy issue."

In short, you fail.

No. Go see my other post about the difference between fact and theory.

The sad part is that you believe what you wrote.

Man-made CO2 represents 4% of the annual output of CO2 on the planet. 96% of all CO2 is generated by natural causes.

The Earth has gone through more massive changes in it's history than you seem to be capable of conceiving. CO2 levels have been as high as 7000ppm in the past. Yes, we have a bunch of arctic ice cores that may indicate CO2 levels have been mostly invariable in the past, but, as one PhD Chemist I know pointed out, "All that may be measuring is the level of CO2 dissolution in water at 0 degrees C." In other words, CO2 in ice is more likely to be the function of how well CO2 dissolves into ice water than any other mechanism like atmospheric density.

I'm not saying that there aren't some signs of warming, but I am highly skeptical of the supposed disastrous consequences.

Sea levels are "noticeably rising"? Not according to the 1841 sea level marking in Tasmania found here. Even the IPCC only claims a maximum of 15 millimeters over the 6000 year average. If you can see 2/3rds of an inch difference, more power to you, but calling it "Noticeably Rising" is a vast overstatement. The 2007 IPCC report is claiming a maximum rise of about 18 inches, or about the same as during the Medieval Climate Optimum. Al Gore is claiming 20 feet, but he also claims to have created the Internet...

Weather, overall, is not getting worse. The 1930's saw worse hurricanes then even the 2005 season. The difference being that now we can name storms 2,000 miles out to sea that never touch land, whereas, the 1930's used ships that passed storms in the ocean and very few storms were measured until land-fall. In fact, the largest hurricane (Typhoon Tip) occurred in 1979, in the midst of a "slow period". In 2005, the increase in Atlantic hurricanes was matched by a decrease in Pacific Typhoons (hurricanes), meaning that overall, the number barely increased. The link to storms and global warming is hotly debated.

In fact, were anthropogenic global warming a reality, we'd find that storm severity would decrease because storms are driven by the heat engine effect, namely the flow of heat from the equator towards the poles. Global Warming, as predicted by the models and climate scientists, indicates that the majority of warming occurs at the upper latitudes, with the largest increases at the poles. This means that the gradient of temperature from equator to poles would be less, and thus, the storms would decrease in severity. In fact, this was the prediction published in several papers up until about 1999, when they suddenly reversed themselves.

I could speculate that it was because they had seen a record storm year with the 1998 El Nino season, and they wanted to use the connection between strong storms and global warming to sell the science, but that would be a correlation vs. causation fallicy. Of course, in 2006, those same scientists predicted a "killer" Atlantic hurricane season, and not one single hurricane touched North American soil. (Yes, one storm was a hurricane when it approached Cuba, but by the time it made landfall it had been downgraded to a tropical storm.) Suddenly we were back to the climate scientists, and they actually said, "The reason we had so few hurricanes was because of global warming." So, now we have global warming if there's more hurricanes, global warming if there's less hurricanes, and, we must assume, global warming if there's no hurricanes. That's called non-falsifiable, and there's a name for its practice, but it's not science. The word is religion.

Is the Earth warming up? Satellite measurements continue to show, at most, a mild and limited warming, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, and mostly in the middle latitudes. Claiming that glaciers melting (which they are)

I know, I know, it's counter to the popular Religion of Man-Created-Climate-Change, but maybe, just MAYBE there's something else at work? I mean, the magnetic field, solar cycles, and lots of other things should be factored in there, too...

And who knows? Maybe, just MAYBE the current climate is not the "right" climate? Maybe we're supposed to be a LOT warmer, like say 800 years ago? Why is today's climate determined to be "right"?

Carbon exhaust is causing climate change. Okay.
1) there is no scientific consensus on this
2) I seriously doubt that consensus will be forthcoming withing less than 10 or 20 years

Here's my problem with your statement, you ask me to provide cold hard facts that global warming isn't all it's cracked up to be. Well, I can do that with a dozen studies and web sites http://www.junkscience.com/, http://www.john-daly.com/, http://www.climateaudit.com/ are all quick and easy to pull off the top of my head.

In addition, it's recently been pointed out that there's no Nobel Prize waiting for the person who proves anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a crock, in fact it's like a death knell to your carreer to pursue global warming skepticism, even if you are totally right.

McIntyre and McKittrick, the two people who have (respectively) a PhD in Statistics and PhDs in Math and Geology were told that they had no qualifications to argue the quality of Mann's "Hockey Stick". This work was done by climate change scientists who had degrees in, hmmm, one has a PhD in Math and Geology (Mann) and the other has a degree in Statistics (the et. al. of the report.) McIntyre and McKittrick have received dozens of death threats from the AGW crowd, especially after they proved that Mann's equation would produce a hockey stick, even with totally random data.

The reason gravity, and relativity, and evolution haven't been "shot down" is very simple. They are falsifiable theories. It takes a single fact that lies outside their purview to devastate the theory. Gravity - at least Newton's version - was ruined by the fact that the planet Mercury was in the wrong place. Look up the Planet Vulcan sometime and see why Relativity knocked Newton out of the ballpark.

The current AGW debate is based on two facts. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased by approximately 80PPM over the last 160 years, and during the last 140 years, there's been an increase in temperature of about 0.6 degrees C. However, there's a big caveat in these two pieces of data. It's called "Correlation does not imply causality." It's one of the first things any good statistician should be taught. However, it's plain that the climate scientists decided to jump on the bandwagon and scream "CO2 is wrecking the Earth!".

To "prove" this, they've turned to computer models of the atmosphere. These, they say, prove that global warming is real, yet even they admit that most of their models "go runaway" and have to be thrown out. I'm sorry, but if your model is so fragile that given the same inputs it can "go runaway", then the model isn't accurate. It's equivalent to tossing a coin. It's meaningless. Who decides what is a "runaway result". Climate Prediction even admits that they threw out any run of their model that showed cooling with an increase in CO2.

Even the most powerful simulator in the world, the NEC Earth Simulator, only works on 50 kilometer wide grids. They had never even seen a hurricane on their "simulated Earth" until two years ago, and even then, they didn't call it a hurricane, they called it a "hurricane precursor" known as a "curl" because the simulation wouldn't support the actual hurricane formation and flow. Now, hurricanes are responsible, annually, for 30-40% of the rainfall in portions of the Southern United States. Their model admittedly doesn't handle this, those areas never receive that rainfall, and precipitation is responsible for a large amount of ground-cooling in models, as well as hundreds of other effects that simply aren't modeled. And that's just one of a dozen things I could list that are wrong with computer models. I've had this argument before. (And it's dropped off my lis

Here's my problem with your statement, you ask me to provide cold hard facts that global warming isn't all it's cracked up to be. Well, I can do that with a dozen studies and web sites http://www.junkscience.com/, http://www.john-daly.com/, http://www.climateaudit.com/ are all quick and easy to pull off the top of my head.

In addition, it's recently been pointed out that there's no Nobel Prize waiting for the person who proves anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a crock, in fact it's like a death knell to your carreer to pursue global warming skepticism, even if you are totally right.

McIntyre and McKittrick, the two people who have (respectively) a PhD in Statistics and PhDs in Math and Geology were told that they had no qualifications to argue the quality of Mann's "Hockey Stick". This work was done by climate change scientists who had degrees in, hmmm, one has a PhD in Math and Geology (Mann) and the other has a degree in Statistics (the et. al. of the report.) McIntyre and McKittrick have received dozens of death threats from the AGW crowd, especially after they proved that Mann's equation would produce a hockey stick, even with totally random data.

The reason gravity, and relativity, and evolution haven't been "shot down" is very simple. They are falsifiable theories. It takes a single fact that lies outside their purview to devastate the theory. Gravity - at least Newton's version - was ruined by the fact that the planet Mercury was in the wrong place. Look up the Planet Vulcan sometime and see why Relativity knocked Newton out of the ballpark.

The current AGW debate is based on two facts. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased by approximately 80PPM over the last 160 years, and during the last 140 years, there's been an increase in temperature of about 0.6 degrees C. However, there's a big caveat in these two pieces of data. It's called "Correlation does not imply causality." It's one of the first things any good statistician should be taught. However, it's plain that the climate scientists decided to jump on the bandwagon and scream "CO2 is wrecking the Earth!".

To "prove" this, they've turned to computer models of the atmosphere. These, they say, prove that global warming is real, yet even they admit that most of their models "go runaway" and have to be thrown out. I'm sorry, but if your model is so fragile that given the same inputs it can "go runaway", then the model isn't accurate. It's equivalent to tossing a coin. It's meaningless. Who decides what is a "runaway result". Climate Prediction even admits that they threw out any run of their model that showed cooling with an increase in CO2.

Even the most powerful simulator in the world, the NEC Earth Simulator, only works on 50 kilometer wide grids. They had never even seen a hurricane on their "simulated Earth" until two years ago, and even then, they didn't call it a hurricane, they called it a "hurricane precursor" known as a "curl" because the simulation wouldn't support the actual hurricane formation and flow. Now, hurricanes are responsible, annually, for 30-40% of the rainfall in portions of the Southern United States. Their model admittedly doesn't handle this, those areas never receive that rainfall, and precipitation is responsible for a large amount of ground-cooling in models, as well as hundreds of other effects that simply aren't modeled. And that's just one of a dozen things I could list that are wrong with computer models. I've had this argument before. (And it's dropped off my lis

The facts point the the extreme liklihood that human beings are responsible for the current warming trend, and the facts suggest that CO2 is the likliest cause. The levels of CO2 and the global temperature are strongly corrrelated.

I can see why you were upset with the pro global warming statment. Acording to this, there isn't realy that big of a data trail supporting CO2 being the sole cause of the warming. It apreas that other things like sun cycles and volcanic eruptions as well as inconsistancies in data colection contribute more then anything else combines.

This is a problem I have with global warming as it stands. There is no room in the current theory being presented for factors other then human imposed ones. When anyone points to some natural phenominom preseting some changes in the climatate they are branded as a non believer or in denial and pushed aside pointing to his esimates or science as being junk. Now the stuff at the above link could be wrong but I havn't been able to find any reference to it being wrong that have ground going deeper then I said so or a blanket "they are using junk science" with no hint of were thier science is wrong. But there are a numberof reasons to be skepticle of those claiming global warming exist in it's current state. It is more likley temperature changes have something to with the sun then with just CO2 alone.

That doesn't mean that people who accept this are pro Global Warming. What would someone have to gain by being pro Global Warming?

Your right, those people who accept it are more likly just misinformed. Or partialy misinformed anyways. But there are lots of things advocates of global warming can gain. First and probably the most common root of coruption (on either side of any issue) is money. Those claiming global warming are using thier findings to get funding from different groups inclusing the governments of the world as well as oversite bodies set up by those governments. Certain memeber can advance thier own religious teachings about being one with the earth and some may be looking for just fame (prizes and awards from scientific comunities. Who wouldn't want to be remebered as the man who saved earth) and fortune (fortune derived from speaking engagments). But in either way, there is no possiblility for them to lose. If global warming doesn't happen they can say we saved the planet give us more money and we will make sure it doesn't happen again. If it does happen they can say you should have listened to us give us more money and we will fix it. So either way, they benefit.

As far as I see it, higher levels of CO2 favor plants, not humans, so maybe all the scientists (and it really is ALL the scientists) that simply agree with the data are secretly working for the super-secret plant-world agenda. The only arguments against the facts are that they might make certain pollutors adopt certain precautionary behaviors, and that might be momentarily expensive for certain industries, and we simply can't inconv

The facts point the the extreme liklihood that human beings are responsible for the current warming trend, and the facts suggest that CO2 is the likliest cause. The levels of CO2 and the global temperature are strongly corrrelated.

I can see why you were upset with the pro global warming statment. Acording to this, there isn't realy that big of a data trail supporting CO2 being the sole cause of the warming. It apreas that other things like sun cycles and volcanic eruptions as well as inconsistancies in data colection contribute more then anything else combines.

This is a problem I have with global warming as it stands. There is no room in the current theory being presented for factors other then human imposed ones. When anyone points to some natural phenominom preseting some changes in the climatate they are branded as a non believer or in denial and pushed aside pointing to his esimates or science as being junk. Now the stuff at the above link could be wrong but I havn't been able to find any reference to it being wrong that have ground going deeper then I said so or a blanket "they are using junk science" with no hint of were thier science is wrong. But there are a numberof reasons to be skepticle of those claiming global warming exist in it's current state. It is more likley temperature changes have something to with the sun then with just CO2 alone.

That doesn't mean that people who accept this are pro Global Warming. What would someone have to gain by being pro Global Warming?

Your right, those people who accept it are more likly just misinformed. Or partialy misinformed anyways. But there are lots of things advocates of global warming can gain. First and probably the most common root of coruption (on either side of any issue) is money. Those claiming global warming are using thier findings to get funding from different groups inclusing the governments of the world as well as oversite bodies set up by those governments. Certain memeber can advance thier own religious teachings about being one with the earth and some may be looking for just fame (prizes and awards from scientific comunities. Who wouldn't want to be remebered as the man who saved earth) and fortune (fortune derived from speaking engagments). But in either way, there is no possiblility for them to lose. If global warming doesn't happen they can say we saved the planet give us more money and we will make sure it doesn't happen again. If it does happen they can say you should have listened to us give us more money and we will fix it. So either way, they benefit.

As far as I see it, higher levels of CO2 favor plants, not humans, so maybe all the scientists (and it really is ALL the scientists) that simply agree with the data are secretly working for the super-secret plant-world agenda. The only arguments against the facts are that they might make certain pollutors adopt certain precautionary behaviors, and that might be momentarily expensive for certain industries, and we simply can't inconv

And it's not like the Earth hasn't been warmer before in human history. In the 12th century there were orange groves in Berlin and vineyards in England. http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm [john-daly.com]

Funnily enough the Food Program (radio program) dealt with global warming's effect on wine makers this week. In the show they mentioned how England had been much hotter when the romans first introduced vinyards in England. This was the first concrete evidence I had heard that 'global warming' was - ' the sky is falling ballyhoo' that I felt it was.

The Earth's climate is not static!

And here is a chart of carbon dioxide going back several million years. And, oh look, the planet is just as cool now as it ever was before. And when we hit levels of 4500 ppm back in the Silurian era, we were colder then any other time on the planet.

Sheesh. The largest increase in CO2 emissions by humans was between 1900 and 1940. Yet, the Earth somehow responded with a massive wave of cooling from 1950-1980 that caused many scientists to worry we were plunging into the next ice age. You are extrapolating 30 years of data out by a century or more. Bad Science! No Doughnut!

The fact is that we are in a period of CO2 starvation on the planet. Recent estimates have suggested that the increase in CO2 in the modern era is responsible for as much as 30% of the "extra" food that has helped to feed more than a billion people in the last 50 years. If Gore had his 280 ppm, we might be able to lay one billion people who starved to death at his feet. The law of unintended consequences runs rampant in this "catastrophe". http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V4/N8/EDIT.jsp

And it's not like the Earth hasn't been warmer before in human history. In the 12th century there were orange groves in Berlin and vineyards in England. http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

The IPCC, in Chapter 6 of Climate Change 1995 (Kattenberg et al) make two alternative assumptions for the future behaviour of sulphate aerosols for their future projections to 2100. One assumes a moderate continued increase in aerosols and the other that aerosol values will remain constant at 1990 levels,. If it is assumed that aerosols remain constant up to the doubling of carbon dioxide, then the modifications to the range of climate sensitivity are -0.8C to -1.6C, giving a revised IPCC range of -0.1C to +3.7C, with a "Best Estimate" at 0.9C to -1.7C. This time the "Best Estimate" almost equals the "Best Fit" from the temperature data, at its lower end. The IPCC avoids admitting that the models can predict a zero temperature change or a temperature drop by selecting a figure for the sulphate aerosol effect which is above the extreme high figure, for the future predictions.

"The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead', Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004. Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre."

See photos to go with caption.

• Trees only grow in summer, thus the tree ring reflects only summertime temperatures.
• Tree growth depends on many factors, precipitation, soil condition, storm severity, etc.
• Tree growth is also spurred on by the "fertilizer effect" of CO2, and is thus a poor measure of any single variable.

Evidence:

http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm

John Daly's evidence is absolutely compelling. Note that it has been presented at Royal Society and generally praised. It's a very thorough work, not some crankish confabulation. So far nobody has been able to present good argument why Daly's work was wrong.

Note the interesting censorship by the BBC reporters:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/467007.stm

BBC version:

"... John Daly's interpretation has been dismissed by Dr David Pugh, from the Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK. Dr Pugh has gone over Lempriere's original work which had been buried in the Royal Society's archives. The Southampton scientist is now assisting CSIRO in their current research programme. "John Daly has taken the mark, which is a nice clear bench mark, and said 'that is the mean level of the sea at that time', and it wasn't," says Dr Pugh. "From all the evidence we know it was the high water level at that time - it's like the difference between mid-tide and high-tide. He's wrong." "

Daly's remarks:

" In rejecting the Ross testimony, Pugh et al. are essentially rejecting two items of information given in that narrative, not just one. They reject the notion that the benchmark was stuck at Mean Sea Level (MSL) as stated clearly (and several times) in the narrative, and they reject the method described by Ross, namely the use of previous tide data to arrive at an estimate of MSL. Pugh et al. base this rejection on two grounds - the height of water in Lempriere's tide gauge (6ft 1in), as given by both witnesses who read the now-lost `curious little stone' and, the time given by one of them, 4.44 p.m. in Mr. Mason's version [4, 7]. That for them was enough to negate the Ross narrative both as to the height struck and the method by which it was struck, even though Mason reported the stone and the writing on it as being damaged. Instead they believe Lempriere acted alone, and contrary to what Ross said. But the above narrative shows that to be a risky option for Lempriere - "the Governor, whom I had accompanied on an official visit to the settlement, gave directions to afford Mr. Lempriere every assistance of labourers he required, to have the mark cut deeply in the rock in the exact spot which his tidal observations indicated as the mean level of the ocean." An order from your colonial Governor in the context of the British Empire of Victorian days is not something to be flouted lightly, and definitely not in a convict colony like Port Arthur where the authorities already had suitable accommodation for recalcitrants."

" In rejecting the Ross testimony, Pugh et al. are essentially rejecting two items of information given in that narrative, not just one. They reject the notion that the benchmark was stuck at Mean Sea Level (MSL) as stated clearly (and several times) in the narrative, and they reject the method described by Ross, namely the use of previous tide data to arrive at an estimate of MSL"
------------

See the trick? The original researcher (Ross) stated CLEARLY HE WAS MARKING MEAN SEA LEVEL. John Daly presented the evidence as well as described that in his paper. Dr Pugh has simply denied it, BBC faithfully reported denial ignoring Ross' own writing plus all the illogical problems with it found by Daly, and that was it.

Do NOT trust the journalists.

Do/did you have a better source of data than the atmospheric scientists?

1. Well, have you bothered to read the links I posted?

2. Do YOU have claims of any?

3. How do you know you can even trust them? There is evidence of fraud and "sagecraft" for publicity and grants after all:

Improper manipulation of data, and arbitrary rejection of readings that do not fit the pre-conceived idea on man-made global warming is common in many glaciological studies of greenhouse gases. In peer reviewed publications I exposed this misuse of science [3, 9]. Unfortunately, such misuse is not limited to individual publications, but also appears in documents of national and international organizations. For example IPCC not only based its reports on a falsified "Siple curve", but also in its 2001 report[14] used as a flagship the "hockey curve" of temperature, showing that there was no Medieval Warming, and no Little Ice Age, and that the 20th century was unusually warm. The curve was credulously accepted after Mann et al. paper published in NATURE magazine[15]. In a crushing criticism, two independent groups of scientists from disciplines other than climatology [16, 17] (i.e. not supported from the annual pool of many billion "climatic" dollars), convincingly blamed the Mann et al. paper for the improper manipulation and arbitrary rejections of data. The question arises, how such methodically poor paper, contradicting hundreds of excellent studies that demonstrated existence of global range Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age, could pass peer review for NATURE? And how could it pass the reviewing process at the IPCC? The apparent scientific weaknesses of IPCC and its lack of impartiality, was diagnosed and criticized in the early 1990s in NATURE editorials [18, 19]. The disease, seems to be persistent.

http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

Read the whole paper. It's pretty enlightening.

"I think that you misunderstood most of the skeptics. I don't think anyone is doubting that the globe _is_ getting warmer. You can't really argue with hard facts." ..except the facts are not really that hard: http://www.john-daly.com/ Look at section " `Global Mean Temperature' - Disputed Data " (no direct link). It appears that where the meteo stations have been properly maintained in last two centuries - Western Europe and United States - there is no observable global warming right up to 1990s. It's only if you factor in the poorly maintained stations elsewhere that you get the effect. Data should read "global warming everywhere except where the major industrial powers have been producing its CO2" - come on!

There's more data than that, but the darling of the global warming scare maniacs is the CO2 level claimed to supposedly have been 280-290 ppm in the preindustrial. The problem is - this is bollocks. The "scientists" in question have falsified the data and this single lie has been repeated over and over in the same publications, trying to create impression of many independent original sources, whereas in reality there was just one: http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm "The problem with Siple data (and with other shallow cores) is that the CO2 concentration found in pre-industrial ice from a depth of 68 meters (i.e. above the depth of clathrate formation) was "too high". This ice was deposited in 1890 AD, and the CO2 concentration was 328 ppmv, not about 290 ppmv, as needed by man-made warming hypothesis. The CO2 atmospheric concentration of about 328 ppmv was measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii as later as in 1973[8], i.e. 83 years after the ice was deposited at Siple. An ad hoc assumption, not supported by any factual evidence[3, 9], solved the problem: the average age of air was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped. The "corrected" ice data were then smoothly aligned with the Mauna Loa record (Figure 1 B) , and reproduced in countless publications as a famous "Siple curve". Only thirteen years later, in 1993, glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the "age assumption"[10], but they failed[9]."

"Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances."

One of the actions of the US that is declared "anti-science" is the refusal to ratify Kyoto. I find that very strange since one of the lead scientists doesn't agree with kyoto. Lindzen's senate testimony is an extremely disturbing look into how politics shape science. Couple that with the bad data found in the Mann report and it's enough to make anyone doubt good science is being done.

At the end of the day, the US isn't anti-science it's a system that has been built around science in much of the developed world that doesn't promote enough skeptisism or honesty. Peer review in some circles just means you belong to the right clique, with the right point of view. Put that together with funding that often comes from political circles filled with "true believers" and you have a recipie for disaster.

Lindzen's quote "There is a certain charm when politicians are so certain of the science when the scientists are not" seems rather apt.

cluge

You have three complete cycles. That is more then enough for the Nyquist Limit

This cycle is known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The theory is that this is caused by interference effect between the sunspot cylces and El Nino/La Nina.

And this would seem to affect fishery catches fishery catches

What I meant is that quantitative CHANGES in the amount of water vapour is not being modeled. This is in chapter 7 of the report.

They clearly are saying that while they are doing their best they have a ways to go. The GCM assume water vapour changes are short lived in the atmosphere and that water vapour levels themselves are forced by other green house gasses. The paleoclimate record shows that water vapour concentrations will change with mountain building and ocean current changes. Thus the water vapour itself would be expected to drive climate change.

A for instance is that if we were to remove the mountains and high plateaus then both the atmospheric circulation patterns that create rain shawdow desserts would dissaper and the arid conditions would also disappear because the temperture increases over these land masses would allow the air to hold considerably more water than it does now.

Water Vapour has a powerful feedback mechanism. If we melt the poles for instance then the extra heat trapped in the atmosphere keeps these poles melted. If we freeze the whole planet then the loss of water vapour keeps it frozen for millions of years until CO2 levels can build up.

We have had several million years of erosion on the high elevation land areas and it is possible that the earth has passed the point where the next glacial cycle will kick in. If this is the case (which I doubt) then we may well revert back to the hothouse climate that the earth enjoyed over 80% of the last 540 million years.

As for the GCMs. re-read chapter 7. They keep saying positive things on each of the points they have addressed - yet in every instance they point out that they have serious weakneses. Maybe this is because they want to do more research and want more funding. To me it means they don't have the problem licked. In fact - often the GCM's don't even predict the correct direction of change and this is illustrated in many websites that talk about why we are still waiting for greenhouse.

eg http://www.john-daly.com/

wrt water vapour itself 7.2.1.3

Since the SAR, appraisal of the confidence in simulated water vapour feedback has shifted from a diffuse concern about upper-tropospheric humidity to a more focused concern about the role of microphysical processes in the convection parametrizations, and particularly those affecting tropical deep convection. Further progress will almost certainly require abandoning the artificial diagnostic separation between water vapour and cloud feedbacks."

wrt cloud cover ch 7.2.2.1

Measurements of cloud drop size distribution indicate a significant difference in the total number of drops and drop effective radius in the continental and maritime atmosphere, and some studies indicate that inclusion of more realistic drop size distribution may have a significant impact on the simulation of the present climate (Hahmann and Dickinson, 1997)."

wrt Convection processes ch 7.2.2.2

"The general effects of the convection parametrization on climate sensitivity are difficult to assess because the way a model responds to changes in convection depends on a range of other parametrizations, so results are somewhat inconsistent between models"

wrt Boundry layer mixing and cloudiness ch 7.2.2.3

"This points to the need for new approaches for boundary-layer turbulence, both for clear-sky and cloudy conditions"

wrt rainfall. ch 7.2.3.3

" These aspects have been explored only to a limited extent in climate models. No studies deal with true intensity of rainfall, which requires hourly (or higher resolution) data, and the analysis is typically of daily rainfall amounts."

wrt cloud processes 7.2.2.5

" In spite of these improvements, there has been no apparent narrowing of the uncertainty range associated with cloud feedbacks"

wrt precipitation ch 7.2.3.3

"Accordingly, it is important that much more attention should be devoted to precipita

very true, thankfully there is nothing to worry about in that area as there is no evidence that sea levels are rising signifigantly. In fact all current measurements show that it has risen a maxumum of 15 milimeters in 7 YEars, and even at that it peaked higher than that in conjunction with the 1998 El Nino, and that the temprature of the water is the most signifigant factor in both short and long term measurements. Global mean sea level variations 1993 - 2000 I don't like this graph as it is variation, and the 0 point is not explained, however deviation from 1993 - 2000 is ~ 15mm

In fact Tuvalu is in the epicenter of a large area of falling sea levels. That has been falling for 50 years.

Find Tuvalu Below is a mean sea level mark as made in 1841 in Tasmania. Current measurements of mean sea level are below that mark.

Isle of the dead

There is still no certainty at all that a global warming is taking place. Refer to These skeptical documents.

Obviously you stopped reading after about two sentences. My whole point was that the scientists noted a trend, the public over-reacted. Now we see the same thing, and you claim I didn't read the whole page. I read it. If the scientists "didn't believe in global cooling" why were there over 900 published papers on it during the 1970's? By that argument, scientists don't believe in global warming today...

Amazing. You claim much better climate models today. This is on the same topic where (on a separate thread) a global warming advocate is telling me I can't understand climate models, because no one understands them. If we understand the climate model so much better, explain how temperatures dropped in the 1950-1970 period while CO2 emissions were continuing linearly upward.

You claim "universal consensus" among scientists. Proof please? The article you will undoubtedly site hand-picked 900 articles out of 4800 climate articles published over three years. Among those, there was still disagreement. Amnong the full 4800 there is outright "fisticuff-style" debate.

Several climatologists who disagree with global warming have also been ostracised from the group. They have banded together to write articles that tell how the "Peer Review" system has become "Friend Review", and anyone that upsets the gravy train of funding is suddenly found out in the cold.

Go to John Daly's web site to see a good example of what happens when someone says, "Wait a minute, that's bad science." Learn how he was refused the right to even *be* reviewed. This from a guy who spent years proving that "The Rising Oceans", the doomsday of the late 1980's, was a fraud. How? Well, he did something that all these modern scientists seem to lack the ability to do. Field Research.

If you're worried about something, why not look into the frightening overuse of dihydrogen-monoxide and work towards banning that? dhmo.org It seems like that'd be right up your alley.

here is an article the disagrees with the paridime that modern co2 consentrations are abnormaly high

http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm

He(she) can't because there isn't any.

On a related topic, here is a site that describes the world's oldest known benchmark of Mean Sea Level (MSL):

Tasmanian Sea Levels: The `Isle of the Dead' Revisited

It also debunks the recent politically correct publications by Pugh & Hunter that ignore the evidence and conclude that the MSL has risen. In doing so it gives an eye-opening perspective on how facts and history are manipulated to produce the desired politically correct results.

The problem with John Daly, is that he is a liar.

For example, take his critique of a paper by Micheal Mann.

He makes three statements that are all incorrect

"Using tree rings as a basis for assessing past temperature changes back to the year 1,000 AD, supplemented by other proxies from more recent centuries, Mann completely redrew the history, turning the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age into non-events, consigned to a kind of Orwellian `memory hole'..."

"At that point, Mann completed the coup and crudely grafted the surface temperature record of the 20th century (shown in red and itself largely the product of urban heat islands) onto the pre-1900 tree ring record."

Both of which are untrue according to the paper which Mann and coworkers published in 1999 (several ice-core proxies were used, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were specifically noted, and the surface temperature record was not grafted onto the tree-ring record (which extends past 1900)).

Required reading for anyone entering this thread: Still waiting for Greenhouse which has a pretty comprehensive treatment of the whole greenhouse show.

Here's a site that discusses, among other related issues, the very mark you mention. In fact, the webmaster had begun writing about it over a year ago, with somewhat different conclusions than those reached by alarmists recently.

Still Waiting

We could conceivably be over-estimating the effect of human activity on the Earth's climate, but alternatively we could also be under-estimating it. -- IPCC Chair

What kind of ridiculous statement is that? He might as well say he doesn't have a clue what is going on. Don't rely on UN bureaucrats, get the facts for yourself. John Daly is a noted opponent of the IPCC's shenanigans and has a web site chock full of hard facts and data. Interesting things the IPCC has completely ignored include the satellite temperature records which show no net warming since they were sent up in the late 70's. Mysteriously enough, only a highly-questionable surface record cobbled together from equally questionable sources, many in third world countries, actually shows any warming. Here's a nice graph to look at. Why doesn't the surface record agree with the satellite records? Hmmm....

All of John Daly's site is a good read, with many guest writers that don't tow the IPCC line. The IPCC is hardly an honest, unbiased group. They are a political agency of the UN. Nothing more and nothing less.

And Slashdot, please stop mimicking the liberal media mindset that the earth is undeniably warming, and furthermore that "everyone" agrees with that statement. They don't. Climate science is still a region of massive debate and we can't just say with certainty what the climate will be like in 100 years. Current climate models are trying to extrapolate from very limited datasets. If we had, say, a 1000 years of hard, reliable data, then we could estimate the next 100 with some accuracy. But we barely have 100 years of data now....and never forget that the climate changed far before man ever was around.