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For the last couple of years I have made a hobby of 'global warming'.

What I can tell you is this: There is bad science verging on outright fraud being perpetrated on BOTH sides of the question.

It is dismaying that the scientists on the skeptical side are, in the majority, obviously on the right of the political spectrum. The alarmists seem to me to be mostly on the left.

The other thing that dismays me is that both sides have become less scientists and more advocates. When that happens, you really can't trust their science any more. IMHO, the alarmists have badly overstated their case and it is much more likely that we are heading for a long period of cooling.

If you want someone who is trying to get some kind of constructive dialog going, check out http://judithcurry.com/

Believing Science is a really well thought out article on the subject.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/21/psuedo-science-versus-skepticism/.

Be careful with the term, please. Not saying you're wrong, just be careful.

'My dad did this and it didn't happen, and sample size of one + personal knowledge = true in all cases!' I bet you're a climate-change fanatic (link or it isn't true, remember?), too. Mod parent 'dumb'.

A poignant post about the same subject here: http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/20/believing-science/

Warner seems to be arguing two points

A) There are lots of climate change deniers out there B) Postmodernism has caused lots of people to think that science is all relative, and the folks in A) have adopted that banner.

I'll really argue the link here- I doubt that *anyone* in A has really, seriously read the literature from B. A is comprised primarily of folks who are either highly religious and refuse to adopt a scientific worldview at all (and would be totally horrified by the philosophy of B if they actually read it) or people who have massive financial incentives

You may be pigeon holing them a bit. There has been some traction towards post-modernism. Here is Judith curry introducing a post normal conference that focused on bridging the gap between the scientists and their extended peer group (the skeptics in this case): http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/24/lisbon-workshop-on-reconciliation-in-the-climate-change-debate/

Here is a more critical view of post normal science: http://shewonk.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/pns-pretty-nonsensical-stuff/ So now we learn who comprises the extended peer community — all relevant stakeholders. They have “extended facts” that involve local and anecdotal knowledge. But but but you mean non-scientists can put their facts forward on the same footing as scientific facts? Who judges which facts — scientific and non-scientific — are more valid and more relevant to the issue at hand? A vote of hands? Who decides who the legitimate stakeholders are? This feels all very muddled and unclear, indeterminate.

so even if you're not concerned about the real cost of a more energetic global weather system

And I'm not so concerned. Perhaps you should read up on how the research in this particular area was blown out of proportion in order to support the AGW narrative.

you should consider the other issues

I have. The key thing to remember here is that while there is some evidence of global warming and ocean acidification from human activity, no evidence of an urgent need to do anything has come up.

so even if you're not concerned about the real cost of a more energetic global weather system

And I'm not so concerned. Perhaps you should read up on how the research in this particular area was blown out of proportion in order to support the AGW narrative.

you should consider the other issues

I have. The key thing to remember here is that while there is some evidence of global warming and ocean acidification from human activity, no evidence of an urgent need to do anything has come up.

Sure, I'll watch your links as soon as you finish reading:
Hiding the Decline Part I
Hiding the Decline Part II
Hiding the Decline Part III
Or are you in 'denial'?

Sure, I'll watch your links as soon as you finish reading:
Hiding the Decline Part I
Hiding the Decline Part II
Hiding the Decline Part III
Or are you in 'denial'?

Sure, I'll watch your links as soon as you finish reading:
Hiding the Decline Part I
Hiding the Decline Part II
Hiding the Decline Part III
Or are you in 'denial'?

The 20th century had two main warming phases, one between 1910 and 1940 and one between 1970 and 2000, both with a warming rate of approximately 0.15C/deg while the former period had much less AGH forcing than the latter. This raises questions (by the likes of Judith Curry) regarding the underlying causes of the warming. Regarding the 1000 trend, the following except from Raymond Bradley (contributing IPCC TAR author specializing in dendrochronical reconstructions) is illuminating:

"Furthermore, it may be that Mann et al simply don’t have the long-term trend right, due to underestimation of low frequency info. in the (very few) proxies that we used. We tried to demonstrate that this was not a problem of the tree ring data we used by re-running the reconstruction with & without tree rings, and indeed the two efforts were very similar — but we could only do this back to about 1700.

Whether we have the 1000 year trend right is far less certain (& one reason why I hedge my bets on whether there were any periods in Medieval times that might have been “warm”, to the irritation of my co-authors!). So, possibly if you crank up the trend over 1000 years, you find that the envelope of uncertainty is comparable with at least some of the future scenarios, which of course begs the question as to what the likely forcing was 1000 years ago. (My money is firmly on an increase in solar irradiance, based on the 10-Be data..)."

Meanwhile, the number of scientists expressing significant issues with that '95% confidence level' continues to swell, most recently Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, who maintains the blog Climate Etc.

The real problem is the mass suffering in third world countries will be less mitigated as we throttle back technological advancement to set policy in line with shoddy politically-driven characterizations of the science (i.e. like truncating, splicing, and smoothing two data sets to 'hide the decline' or to put it more precisely, hide correlation issues with a proxy). Not to mention the blow that science will take when it's announced that "whoops, there's no crisis."

In addition to that, it is the oceans that are supposed to keep all the accumulated heat. But according to the best available measurements (the ARGO probes), it is just not showing up: http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/07/wheres-the-missing-heat/
I guess the old adage applies: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Well, pretty much all historic temperature and forcing data, paleotemperature and forcing data, and direct observations of feedbacks. Stop pretending to have read the IPCC report and actually read it. With a 0.5 C climate sensitivity, you can't reproduce any past or present climate changes.

There is no such data, unless you are talking about data output from models. But models are conceptual representations of the entities as we currently understand them. They have little predictive power when it comes to climate. The one firm fact we have is that the models are wrong; this should be obvious from their many predictive failures. How can they be right when they don't operate at anywhere near the required resolution and so many of the forcings are just guesses at unknowns? It's an exercise in curve fitting, nothing more. At least Lindzen works with actual data, not models. If more people in Climate Science actually did this what a fucking difference it would make!

As has already been pointed out to you, this result has already been disproven.

No, it hasn't. The paper in question was criticised (at real-climate amongst others), but the revision dealt with all of the criticisms without changing its central finding. It has not been retracted, has it?

I could ask you the same about Lindzen.

His position is more reasonable. He says he's a denier. What's not to like? I note Judith Curry ("high-priestess of global warming") is asking how it's going lately in the warmist community. She's really distancing herself from you alarmists at quite a speed.

Rather, you rely on picking the studies that support your prejudices and ignoring the ones that don't. You are aware that there are estimates other than Lindzen's, right?

I'm a layman. I can have an opinion. I can say, yes, I agree with what you say or no, I think you're talking horse-shit because you underestimate the uncertainties in your work and furthermore, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you because I've read the ClimateGate emails and the associated books. If this scare was about Human affects on plate tectonics, I'd be all in. The thought of Scotland flying off into the Arctic Ocean, taking our naval bases with it really scares me. But to my (left-brained) mind, the idea that we can control what are probably natural climate cycles is absurd. No, it's ridiculous... and I don’t understand why you don’t question it.

P.S. I’m not a neo-con.

I honestly wonder if people who resort to ad hominem attacks ever actually study the science or just repeat what they are told to believe. There was a time when "skeptic" was a GOOD thing in science. Remember how we're supposed to question assumptions, test those assumptions, and test them again to prove or disprove a theory? Come on, drop the "denier" tag and engage in real science discussions.

Try reading some of the more prominent opposition, such as Anthony Watts' Watts Up With That or Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit or Roger Pielke Sr.'s climate blog.

Are you aware that prominent AGW proponent Judith Curry has turned on her colleagues and is now questioning their findings? Of course they call her a heretic; she's not just parroting what they want her to say. Are you aware that sea ice is not retreating at all, but growing? Have you given any thought to wondering why the AGW community keeps needing to change the terminology? In the wake of decreasing temperatures and increasing snowstorms, it's no longer global warming but climate change. Now *any* weather event can be blamed on AGW, or is that AGC?

So to answer your question, yes, I'll believe you when we have freighters sailing the arctic. Then, just like the vikings, we can start farming Greenland again. In the meantime, I'll continue to watch the numbers and see how they don't add up. If you have any constructive proof, pay a visit to any of the skeptical blogs and have your say. You'll find that unlike AGW blogs, your comments will not be removed and people who attack you ad hominem will not be tolerated.