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First of all nobody has predicted disaster to strike tommorow, now to your individual points:

Disruption of the gulf stream current - it has already slowed down, nobody expects it to stop.

Deep freeze in Europe - Is the same issue as the gulf stream.

Desertification of the US midwest - When is this supposed to happen, btw Australia is experiencing the "worst drought in 1000yrs", - score 1 for climatoligists.

US crop failures - same issue as the one above, so score another 1 for climatoligists since Australia's crop forcast has been halved (ie: they will loose 12 million tons of wheat this year)

More frequent/severe Atlantic hurricanes (were there any this year?) - one year is an anecdote although the pacific season this year was bad in S.China and Australia.

Inundation of coastal cities - Who said that would happen before 2050. btw: costal villages in Bangladesh have been pushed up to 5km inland due to rising sea levels - score another 1 for climatoligists.

Decline of coral reefs - Yep, by all accounts many are declining and may be gone in under 20yrs - score another 1 for climatoligists.

Disruption of Antarctic ice shelves - Perhaps you missed the ice shelf that fell to bits on the Antartic peninsuala - score another 1 for climatoligists. BTW: nobody predicts the imminent collapse of the larger shelves.

Pandemic skin cancer outbreaks (remember the ozone crisis?) - This is like saying the Y2K problem was a hoax because nothing bad happened. In case you hadn't noticed CFC's have been banned worldwide for over a decade and have nothing to do with GW.

Some other predictions that have panned-out in the climatoligists favour, melting of glaciers, a 40% reduction in the volume of ice in the north pole, hot-spots such as the Antartic penninsula and greenland's coastal areas av. +3C compared to gloabl av. +1C, increased precipitation in central greenland and east antartic, permafrost receding northward by 100km, earlier on set of spring and delayed onset of winter (about 2 weeks each so far), migration of species to new territories, massive increase of freshwater from Russian rivers entering the Artic sea.

Of course the outstanding bit of predictive work was done by Mann and his "hockeystick graph" in the early eighties, correctly predicting the increase in global average temps for almost 30yrs now!

As for peak-oil predictions an article in scientific american in the mid-nineties predicted that mining oil sands and extracting the oil would be economical in 2010 and oil would reach $100/barrel, guess what they are minning in Canada? BTW: Many of my climate claims above are backed up by peer-reviewed research available here, so go ahead tell me again how thousands of scientists are all fools becuse you can't be bothered to actually read what they say.

Just out of curiosity do you have air-bags and/or seatbelts in your car?

I thought the fact that the extra CO2 comes from fossil fuels and burning forests was well-established, by comparing carbon isotopes.

Any first course in physical oceanography goes through the derivation of western boundary currents like the Gulf Stream fairly early.

It's extremely robust. Unless the wind stops blowing from the east in the tropics and the west in the mid latitudes, you will have a Gulf Stream. It was qualitatively worked out by Henry Stommel around 1950, and the math was worked out in detail by Munk, Veronis, and other pioneers of physical oceanography in the 1950s. I don't have my library handy. I think Pond & Picard's Introduction to Dynamic Oceanography (or something like that title) would suffice, and should be understandable to anyone who got through undergraduate physics.

The CNN story is typical of the press's habit of confusing the Gulf Stream and the Thermohaline Circulation. I guess people just have an easier time pronouncing "Gulf Stream". It is conceivable that the Gulf Stream won't go as far north in the even of a massive meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, but recent evidence is shifting away from that.

See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /10/ocean-circulation-new-evidence-yes-slowdown-no /

Throughout history, CO2 levels have always lagged behind temperature increases. Even RealClimate admits it http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13.

Funny that the same people who point to alleged climate change on Mars and Venus as a metaphor for Earth's climate also belive there is not enough evidence to support AGW on Earth.

Accepting flimsy evidence from studying different planets and claiming it refutes strong evidence from studying the Earth is neither science nor common-sense.

So what motivates these people to jump on the discredited "solar" band wagon?

As the GP pointed out realclimate has plenty of esoteric and usefull data, their discussion of "how much CO2 is too much" can be found here.

I don't see how Mars or Venus can give us insights into Earth's current climate, Mars barely has an atmosphere, Venus has a surface temprature hot enough to melt lead, neither have an ocean. The red herring of variable solar forcing is also debunked on realclimate if you care enough to find it for yourself.

There will never (and can never) be precise enough answers to staisfy all comers, but we do know (to a very high degree of certainty) the outcome will be bad if we continue with "business as usual". Ressurecting old and invalid arguments on slashdot will not change that prediction.

"So far the only proof we have that co2 is linked to global warming[...blah, blah, blah,..]"

The "proof" comes from hard core physics, ie: the absorption spectra of CO2 molecules. Throw that out and you also have to throw out a lot of our notions about physics in general.

I find it sad that unsubstaniated dribble such as you post is modded +5 insightfull when there is such a wealth of information available to debunk such claims. However I do agree we are not certain about the effects on humans and the environment and therefore must look for the most likely outcomes rather than the extreme outcomes at either end.

Just for the record, Roger Pielke (Jr.) supports the very lowest end of estimates, he is at odds with most climate scientists on the issue of solar forcing but is at least arguing from a scientific viewpoint and not a political one. He often posts interesting comments and questions on the realclimate site.

Interesting you call the argument for AGW a religion, yet you use other peoples discredited objections to support the argument against it, further more you don't even link to anything that would proffess to support your "religion".

I will give you a hand in the link department. You will find all the myths you quoted debunked here. Also you will find the novelist Crichton is in a state of confusion over most things scientific. Lastly the predictions quoted in the origial article and credited to Hannsen are bald faced lies, if you want an accurate prediction that has come true (so far) go back and study at the "most likely" extrapolations of the original "hockey stick" graph by Mann (published in the early 80's and widely available on the net).

Interesting you call the argument for AGW a religion, yet you use other peoples discredited objections to support the argument against it, further more you don't even link to anything that would proffess to support your "religion".

I will give you a hand in the link department. You will find all the myths you quoted debunked here. Also you will find the novelist Crichton is in a state of confusion over most things scientific. Lastly the predictions quoted in the origial article and credited to Hannsen are bald faced lies, if you want an accurate prediction that has come true (so far) go back and study at the "most likely" extrapolations of the original "hockey stick" graph by Mann (published in the early 80's and widely available on the net).

"Science is not about consensus (which is a political thing) nor is it about an appeal to authority (which is a religious thing) but about data and the conclusions that can be drawn from that data."

You are confusing science with absolute truth, there is no such thing. Scientific "fact" is by definition a consensus amongst scientists on a particular question, the consensus can be wrong and any scientist worth his title will support a valid argument against it. The problem with both evolution and the earth's climate is not the science itself but a bunch of crackpots who (due to religion, politics or greed) attempt to shout down the consesus with arguments that were thouroughly discredited years ago.

CO2 and the ocean: The ocean is a net sink for CO2, leading to fears that it could become too acidic for the phytoplankton that convert CO2 into sediment, it's effect on climate is a hell of a lot more complex than releasing CO2 from a can of beer.

"Science is not about consensus (which is a political thing) nor is it about an appeal to authority (which is a religious thing) but about data and the conclusions that can be drawn from that data."

You are confusing science with absolute truth, there is no such thing. Scientific "fact" is by definition a consensus amongst scientists on a particular question, the consensus can be wrong and any scientist worth his title will support a valid argument against it. The problem with both evolution and the earth's climate is not the science itself but a bunch of crackpots who (due to religion, politics or greed) attempt to shout down the consesus with arguments that were thouroughly discredited years ago.

CO2 and the ocean: The ocean is a net sink for CO2, leading to fears that it could become too acidic for the phytoplankton that convert CO2 into sediment, it's effect on climate is a hell of a lot more complex than releasing CO2 from a can of beer.

"Science is not about consensus (which is a political thing) nor is it about an appeal to authority (which is a religious thing) but about data and the conclusions that can be drawn from that data."

You are confusing science with absolute truth, there is no such thing. Scientific "fact" is by definition a consensus amongst scientists on a particular question, the consensus can be wrong and any scientist worth his title will support a valid argument against it. The problem with both evolution and the earth's climate is not the science itself but a bunch of crackpots who (due to religion, politics or greed) attempt to shout down the consesus with arguments that were thouroughly discredited years ago.

CO2 and the ocean: The ocean is a net sink for CO2, leading to fears that it could become too acidic for the phytoplankton that convert CO2 into sediment, it's effect on climate is a hell of a lot more complex than releasing CO2 from a can of beer.

"Slashdot contains less that 1% climatologists"

It should be such that a BSc in any field gives one the basic capacity to sort the shit from the clay when faced with conflicting scientific claims. This is the normal outcome for psuedo-science posted on /. The exception to this is the environment and earth sciences, on this subject many of the early posts contain a similar form of logic to flat-earthers and creationists (see first post for a shining example). This is not because of a failure amoungst /.ers to understand science but rather a success for industry propoganda, astroturfers and fools. Come back to the article in a few days (when the mods are finished), read at +4 and you will see that a bunch of computer nerds do indeed understand the basics of climate science.

A BSc certaily does not give you knowledge about the climate but it should give you the ability to recognise and debunk psuedo-science when it smacks you in the face.

Disclaimer: I have a general interest in science and a BSc in computer science, I use this site ( > 1% climatoligists ) to help me with any unfamiliar concepts peculiar to climate science.

To recap, we use the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, the (measured) albedo of earth, the approximate mean temperature of earth, and the solar constant to estimate the effective emissivity of earth for infrared. We find it agrees with Earth's mean albedo. Using this value of the emissivity and the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, we estimate lambda as 0.29 K / (W / m^2), in good agreement with Monckton, and poor agreement with the other estimates he mentioned.

As discussed in www.realclimate.org things with the same units do not have the same
physical meaning. Suppose I drive from here to the store, get a beer, and drive back.
I measure my average speed, and my average accelerator pedal position,
and divide the two to get a 'lambda'. That isn't the same as asking, "how much faster
will I go right now if I press down the pedal by a certain small amount."

The issue for lambda is not integrating from zero to the current flux we have now, or even taking derivatives on an overly simplified model, but a much more complicated issue involving the physical mechanisms of all the feedfowards
and feedbacks starting now. The meaning of 'lambda' per Monckton is not the same as what climatologists care
about, which is a far more difficult and complicated thing to know.

Consider that if the average temperature is O(280K) that generic 'first principles'
physics computations can get reasonably close without details, because you
are looking in a part or two in a few hundred. And of course, it has to, since
the radiation has to go somewhere.

But those small percentages, and most importantly the feedback loops therein, are exactly what do matter,
0.2 or 0.4 degrees K on 280 is from first-physics a really small change.

Monckton pursues an 'easy' physics problem which is irrelevant to the issue and thinks he's cracked the puzzle.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /11/cuckoo-science/#more-367

"Climatology class is hard."

1. Someone will argue that the RealClimate article says that CO2 lag is only at the start of interglacials, and the rest of the time it is the driving force of climate change. This ignores the fact that they never explain a mechanism for this reversal, or explain how it isn't a continuous feedback process that results in run-away greenhouse. Nor do they explain how a constantly climbing amount of CO2 suddenly causes the next ice age...
2. Someone will argue that the second article comes from USA Today, hardly a credible source, without bothering to spend two minutes with Google http://www.google.com/search?q=co2+release+from+pe rmafrost finding the dozens of scientific papers.
3. Someone will claim I work for the oil companies (I don't.)
4. My post will be modded down as -1 Flamebait to make sure no one reads it.

... which brings us back here.

Man is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. I don't know of any alternative hypotheses that come close to fitting the data. There are large carbon natural fluxes and we've tipped the balance.

OK, climate sensitivity is something worth talking about. I'll bet you my house the sensitivity is closer to 5 degrees than .005 degrees if we go 3x baseline CO2 (closer on a log scale that is). If we could gain high confidence that the impact would be more like .005 degrees than yeah, you can rest your case, but we aren't exactly there yet. Of course, we'd still have to worry about acidification of the oceans (guess where a lot of the excess CO2 goes [CO2 + H2 = HCO3- + H+]), but that's another story.

So, to recap:

Increased CO2 concentrations: Our fault. I'll bet my wife and 1st born.
Increased CO2 concentration leads to higher temperatures: Yup. I'll throw in kids 2 and 3.
Climate sensitivity to 3x CO2 is Y degrees: There's pretty good science here, but there's room to haggle. I'll throw in my two cars and road bike that we need to be worried.
Impact of the sun: Obviously a factor, but if there's a smoking gun tying temperature to solar output this century, I sure haven't seen it. Here's a RealClimate article on the subject.
Ocean acidification: Definitely happening; this is basic chemistry. Severity of impact not well known, but think "Alka Seltzer'

There is big difference between "this is a potential issue that needs more research" and journalists sensationalizing out their wazoo in popular rags.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

Gee, that's a lot of broken links.

Ok, so I'll have to repeat my standard response to stuff like this.

I love this logic:

1. The climate has always been variable.
1a. The climate is variable on other planets.
2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!

QED, right?

Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an alternative explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago [nasa.gov] could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?

Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning the current consensus is great. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them (you have to do better than the M&M side show), and then we can have a conversation.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /11/cuckoo-science/

"This is /. buddy, what you'll get is a bunch of reasons why its right or wrong from people that didn't read the article."

Yep, I skimed the article and found "the UN abolished the medieval warm period", if the submitter found the article "convincing" then it does not reflect well on his knowledge of the subject. My view is the guy has nothing new to add and is very pissed off about suggestions we should pay the full costs of an industrialised society.

Assuming the submitter really does want a detailed rebuttal on the climate (psudeo)science in the article he could try a seach for the word myth on RealClimate. If it has not already been debunked in that list then the world renowned climatoligists from the site (many of whom he is attacking), may have a look at it for him.

Having said that I would be very surprised to see something new, similar articles have appeared since the Stern report, and (surprisingly?), have also been debunked by the "mainstream media". Now this may be coincidence but I do belive Rupert has gone pale green.

BTW: Apart from the Melbourne Cup, the headlines today in Australia are telling us about the "the worst drought in 1000yrs". My only advise is to invest in solid gold "bling" and hunker down for the population implosion that is coming our way (Exhibit A: the plethora of "surviour" type TV shows).

"This is /. buddy, what you'll get is a bunch of reasons why its right or wrong from people that didn't read the article."

Yep, I skimed the article and found "the UN abolished the medieval warm period", if the submitter found the article "convincing" then it does not reflect well on his knowledge of the subject. My view is the guy has nothing new to add and is very pissed off about suggestions we should pay the full costs of an industrialised society.

Assuming the submitter really does want a detailed rebuttal on the climate (psudeo)science in the article he could try a seach for the word myth on RealClimate. If it has not already been debunked in that list then the world renowned climatoligists from the site (many of whom he is attacking), may have a look at it for him.

Having said that I would be very surprised to see something new, similar articles have appeared since the Stern report, and (surprisingly?), have also been debunked by the "mainstream media". Now this may be coincidence but I do belive Rupert has gone pale green.

BTW: Apart from the Melbourne Cup, the headlines today in Australia are telling us about the "the worst drought in 1000yrs". My only advise is to invest in solid gold "bling" and hunker down for the population implosion that is coming our way (Exhibit A: the plethora of "surviour" type TV shows).

I didn't read the article, but I'll comment. Does that make me a real /.er? http://www.realclimate.org/ is a great resource for this sort of thing -- it's a platform for climate scientists to respond to media refutations of global warming. Each of the sources for any specific charges Monkton makes have probably been covered in the archives. hth!

There's also some discussion of it on a recent thread at RealClimate.

Monckton's rant is just the usual background noise. It's not hard to make up a story by selecting evidence carefully. The hard job is finding a story that is consistent with all the evidence. While we eagerly await the fourth IPCC assessment, the third IPCC assessment, the consensus of leading scientists in the relevant fields from 2001, is the best big picture we've got.

What some gadfly has to say should always be given due consideration, not less, but certainly not more. In the present case, not much.

Hi, welcome to slashdot.

I love this logic:

1. The climate has always been variable.
2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!

QED, right?

Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?

Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning it's results are fine. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them, and then we can talk. Debating from ignorance is... ignorant.

PS I think this proposed solution, like most geo-engineering quick fixes, is f-ing nuts. For starters, it doesn't exactly have an 'Undo' button.

PPS Let's forget about climate change. How does changing the pH of the ocean by half a point grab you? We're doing that, too (the excess CO2 is going into the oceans), and we don't really know what the impact will be, b/c it'll reflect conditions the oceans haven't seen in a loooong time (and I'm not talking 1000 years. If memory serves, it's been several hundred thousand to millions of years. We do know that calcifying species will likely not be so happy, which some might argue is a problem. But hey, we couldn't possibly harm the planet, could we?

It is possible for something to be correlated on short timescales, but not correlated on longer timescales.

Going from a correlation to a causation is not trivial, but Patterson seems very confused about this.

Note that even in his own department, Patterson is controversial.

Crichton's State of Fear is a now infamous piece of pseudo-science. Never cite it if you want to be taken seriously.

The Heartland Institute, which you sited, is a FUD site. You've been had.

300 year old trees in rainforest areas never used to burn down every decade or so--and the rainforests of the west coast that people are acting to preserve are precisely these areas. The brush which does burn down every 10 years or so is not preserved for environmental reasons, but because it is typically near housing developments which it will take down with it when it burns. British Columbia has been dealing with this problem for the past ten years--towns that are threatened by wild burns that have been prevented unnaturally. Frankly, we've gotten too good at fighting forest fires--but rainforests are too wet to burn. Old growth stands are taken down for lumber purposes. They are old growth precisely because they do not burn down regularly. But these are precisely the trees most valuable for lumber purposes. They're also very good at conserving water tables, which is of critical importance to Northwest agriculture.

Yellowstone scrub falls in the category of forests that typically burn down on a regular basis.

As for the fish, anyone who has been following reports on fish stocks could see this coming for the past ten years. The Salmon are dying off on the West coast, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, once the most plentiful fishing grounds on the planet, are dead, plankton, the basis of oceanic ecology, is dying off, the coast of China is pouring billions of tons of effluents into the Pacific, and bottom dragging nets have been destroying spawning habitats for decades. If this is a surprise to you, you really need to pull your head out of your ass once in a while and look around.

So, no trees, no water, no crops, and no livestock which depend on those crops. No fish, no seafood. What, exactly, did you think your kids were going to eat?

Your post is reasonably well informed, but in my opinion you make some mistakes which are crucial in estimating the effect of man-made climate change.

First, of course, you assert that water vapor creates 95% of the greenhouse effect. I do not know why you mention this number (except that it is given at several skeptic's sites), but most people seem to think that 70% is a better estimate. However, it should not be forgotten that the water vapor content of the atmosphere balances itself - as such it cannot have a direct effect on global warming and abrupt climate change. This is well explained here.

Some of your imformation is out of date. For example, the data of the temperature record for the last 18,000 years is ten years old, and is superseded by several studies. You're right that these temperature changes cannot be attributed to man, the strongest change is due to the fact that we have left an ice-age.

Because carbon dioxide gives a significant contribution to the greenhouse effect, and it has significantly risen, one can expect an abrupt change in temperatures around the globe. Lo and behold, this is what we observe! There is no, I stress, NO natural effect known that could have caused this. Also, the 0.6 C change is NOT within natural climate variation on this timescale, if you know of any events, please tell me when this has happened.

Most importantly, you already claim defeat, because CO2 has a long lifetime. But the most important effects, such as sea-level rise an large-scale shift in weather patterns occur at high CO2 concentration. It is of the utmost importance to avoid the doubling of CO2 concentrations with respect to their pre-industrial age levels. We should reduce our emissions immediately and by at least 50%.

Science depends on peer review. If Crichton's book hasn't been peer-reviewed before its publication could be permitted, it must be ignored. That's not ad hominem, that's just trying to keep afloat in the sea of crackpottery that results when anyone can get published.

a) Is "global warming" really happening?

Unless you are being perversely skeptical, the answer to that is "yes". We have historical temperature records going back to 1850. You can read the FAQ for such datasets and download the data for yourself if you like, or read the articles detailing data collection, analysis, and uncertainties. There is an obvious upward trend.

Going back further requires use of proxy data such as tree rings, ice cores, coral data, glaciers, etc. There have been numerous different studies by different scientists collecting, and cross referencing such data to create historical temperature reconstructions. Here is a plot showing 10 different reconstructions by various authors. There is some variability, but the recent upward trend is again clear. Again, you can get the datasets yourself, and read more reports detailing how they are analysed. At about this point skeptics point to Greenland being green, or Wine growing in Europe in 1000AD, but I've discussed those before, so I won't go into detail again.

The result is that, to claim that the earth is not presently getting warmer requires either a belief that limate scientists are almost universally incompetent, or that they are colluding en masse in a grand conspiracy to falsify data and delude the public. Either of those options would seem, to me, to be a much greater leap of faith than simply assuming that the world is, indeed, getting warmer. As I said, it requires a rather perverse skepticism more on par with 9/11 conspiracy theorists like the maker of Loose Change.

b) If "global warming" is really happening, is it due to anything mankind is doing?

An interesting question. Certainly mankind is doing something: since 1850 atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen from around 280ppm to 385ppm. That's a significant change - in fact given atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the last 650,000 years (via ice core data) the current levels are 5.5 standard deviations from the mean; that's significant! Are humans responsible for this change? Certainly it correlates with the industrial revolution, but still... As it happens we can do isotope analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide, since isotope ratios for fossil fuels are different from thoses of the rest of the carbon cycle. It turns out that indeed, the sudden increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is from humans burning fossil fuels. Now a little basic physics and the absorption spectra of carbon dioxide is enough to tell us that we should expect greater atmospheric carbon dioxide to result in a warmer planet. It turns out that is indeed what we are seeing, and that it correlates well. There's more than just that however. Have a read through the chapter on attribution of the IPCC Third Assessment report. A wide variety of techniques are used to attempt to attribute the observed warming to various potential causes. The end result is that the IPCC found that while warming prior to 1950 could possibly be accounted for by other factors, including solar variation, warming since 1950 can only be reasonably accounted for via anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide. Feel f

Crichton's novel is...well...a novel! It has not even an "informative" document, it has been soundly debunked. It has been used as a political tool of FUD.

Yes we need taxation and regulation of the economy, in fact we already have it. The problem is the current system of corporate welfare mearly maintains the status-quo for a chosen few and allows polluters a free ride at the expense of everyone else.

The prospect of GW actually improving the planet for humans is grossly exagerated, here in Australia we have halved our forecast grain harvest for 2006, our bannana crop was wiped out by a cyclone and now frost has killed off our apples, pears and wine grapes. Note that the unseasonal frost came just days after a short heat wave with record tempratures for October. We are also in our worst drought ever, 20% of dairy herds have gone, sheep and cattle are being sent to the butchers now, most already close to starvation. After several years of water restrictions, some rural regions being abandoned due to lack of water, Australia is already being hit hard by GW.

Our environment minister was on TV the other night announcing $500M worth of "green" money to build a 165MW solar power station, build the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, research CO2 capture at our largest coal fired plant and some other smaller projects such as geothermal. This from the same minister who had a Bush style "head in the sand" attitude not so long ago, I have to wonder how such an ignoramus could have been educated so quickly, perhaps it's because his constituents are farmers and their crops and livestock are dying.

Crichton's novel is...well...a novel! It has not even an "informative" document, it has been soundly debunked. It has been used as a political tool of FUD.

Yes we need taxation and regulation of the economy, in fact we already have it. The problem is the current system of corporate welfare mearly maintains the status-quo for a chosen few and allows polluters a free ride at the expense of everyone else.

The prospect of GW actually improving the planet for humans is grossly exagerated, here in Australia we have halved our forecast grain harvest for 2006, our bannana crop was wiped out by a cyclone and now frost has killed off our apples, pears and wine grapes. Note that the unseasonal frost came just days after a short heat wave with record tempratures for October. We are also in our worst drought ever, 20% of dairy herds have gone, sheep and cattle are being sent to the butchers now, most already close to starvation. After several years of water restrictions, some rural regions being abandoned due to lack of water, Australia is already being hit hard by GW.

Our environment minister was on TV the other night announcing $500M worth of "green" money to build a 165MW solar power station, build the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, research CO2 capture at our largest coal fired plant and some other smaller projects such as geothermal. This from the same minister who had a Bush style "head in the sand" attitude not so long ago, I have to wonder how such an ignoramus could have been educated so quickly, perhaps it's because his constituents are farmers and their crops and livestock are dying.

Yes, but most of us already know about him.

The requisite debunking and one reason why he does not deserve any respect on climate related matters.

To those screaming about their back pocket, how else can we direct the economy away from a destructive path other than taxation and regulation?

Yes, but most of us already know about him.

The requisite debunking and one reason why he does not deserve any respect on climate related matters.

To those screaming about their back pocket, how else can we direct the economy away from a destructive path other than taxation and regulation?

Temprature reconstruction for the last millenium.

Medieval wine in the UK

Temprature reconstruction for the last millenium.

Medieval wine in the UK

Just to complete the mythbusting, here is the one aboutthe sun getting hotter.

"By God are you implying that global temperature is a complex system with no single cause for temperature fluctuation?"

Over millions of years certainly, over a couple of hundred years the long term "causes" (orbit, tilt, tectonics, ect) simply drop out of the equation as irrelevant.

How not to attribute climate change, (nice graph). It's also interesting to note that 20th century warming would actually be a slight cooling if human CO2 emissions were removed from the models.

Thank you for repeating a classic anti-science myth, please come again.

We're having a special on "Teh scientists wur all claiming global cooling in the 1970s" if you'd like to try it.

I'm tired of hearing about the "New Ice Age". Please read: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
Basically, there was a period of cooling from the 40's to the 70's, but the majority of scientists studying it said that there wasn't enough information to make any predictions about the future of the climate. Of course, there were a few nutjob scientists who thought that the end of the world was coming, but none of them blamed it on the effects of man. Once the newspapers and fear-merchants got hold of it, they blew it all out of proportion.
As for people "inventing" climate change, have you actually looked at the data? They are pretty conclusive. Climate change is happening, and it's happening now, whether or not you actually believe in it.

It's the job of climatologists to consider things like natural cycles and what forcing effect CO2 has on climate vs. natural (usually short-term) fluctuation. New studies that refine their understanding have only reinforced previous evidence that the amplified greenhouse effect and it's feedbacks are primary. As for the argument that the temperature record isn't long enough, we also have multiple proxies that give an indication of climate back thousands of years (one of the points made here in response to that line of argument).
You say the sun is "getting hotter", but total solar irradiance has declined slightly over the last few years. Yes, it had been at a higher level, particularly in the late 20th century, but the change was apparently nowhere near enough to account for the trend. You can "believe" magnetic flux has increased radiation receipt, but where are the peer-reviewed studies indicating this, and that it's sufficient to explain a significant part of the multi-decadal change?
Regarding climate change on other planets, you can't really compare conditions on Earth with those of Jupiter and Mars, where there are other major factors at work other than solar irradiance, including orbital mechanics, and on Mars, higher temperature sensitivity due to the thin atmosphere and lack of oceans. Some detail on the Mars example here.
If memory serves, past regional fluctuation in Greenland was linked to a similar change in heat distribution as was largely responsible for 1930's warming in the U.S (an episode that was not as significant globally: http://globalwarmingtruth.org/anomalymaps.html). The magnitude of the current change not only appears greater, but it's also accompanied by a rapid worldwide glacial retreat. Confusing regional fluctuation with a protracted global trend is a common mistake - sometimes made purposely by fossil-funded doubt shops. This makes me wonder where you've been doing most of your research on the topic. As does your question about ice ages. You seem to be assuming climatologists think humans are the only influence on Earth's climate. It's pretty well understood that milankovitch cycles related to Earth's orbit are the initial forcing for glacial-interglacial cycles, and that this forcing is subtle and occurs over millennia.
What we have now is a significant long-term climate forcing (a carbon cycle imbalance), and an anomalous interglacial warming trend that's in it's early stages. Feedbacks and the oceanic distribution of extra heat over decades mean we aren't even seeing the full effect of recent emissions. The fact that we're still pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at such a high rate, and risking the release of more CO2 and methane from warming, is something worth paying attention to.

5.) Jupitor is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html) 6.) Mars is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_snow_011206-1.html)

>From strident predictions of an "immanent ice age" to "we're all gonna fry!" within the space of a few decades

Someone took the time to assemble a bibliography of climate change literature from the 70s with reference to predictions of cooling. In the scientific literature, as contrasted with Newsweek, the closest thing was a paper that pointed out the current interglacial could end in a few thousand years, or maybe even a few hundred. The overwhelming bulk reached the totally accurate conclusion that they didn't know enough to make a prediction.

The hard data on solar output from satellite measurements goes back fifteen years and is kinda-sorta constant over that period. Much earlier, and you're relying on horribly indirect proxy measurements like radionuclides. There are a lot of uncertainties about trends in solar output, although some climatologists think it could account for 10-30% of the temperature rise we've seen.

CO2 is the central climate gas. No, it doesn't have the largest warming effect; water does, nor the largest effect per molecule; SF6 is the current leader with 22,200 times the greenhouse effect of CO2. CO2 is the central climate gas because it is the reason why the Earth's climate has been mostly stable over geologic history.

CO2 is released by volcanic action, and removed by rock weathering. Rock weathering is a temperature dependant process. If the climate is warmer than the equilibrium temperature, more CO2 is removed by rock weathering, cooling the climate. Volcanic activity varies somewhat, which changes the equilibrium temperature. Human releases of CO2 are about 150 times that of current volcanic activity. The good news is that there is only enough fossil fuels to continue such releases for a few hundred years, far shorter than the effective lifetime of free carbon (as CO2 in the atmosphere, carbon in living and dead plants, etc), so the climate will not reach the equilibrium temperature.

Water acts to magnify climate change, as warmer temperatures mean more water vapor, and less snow cover. Methane is the joker in the pack, but probably not a good disaster movie. SF6 is produced in such tiny amounts as to be almost a non-issue, yet with a lifetime of about a million years, tiny amounts will add up.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=227 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_hexafluoride

Aside from all that, we'll cope with whatever comes our way, anyway. We always have; we always will. Barring asteroid impacts, of course.

RTFA: "Five times in the past 500 million years most of the world's life-forms have simply ceased to exist." Only one of these extinctions has a huge crater and other convincing signs of a killer asteroid. Perhaps there are even some events that might be harder to cope with than a killer sized asteroid. But H2S bubbling out of the oceans probably wouldn't make as good of movie as "Deep Impact".

--

This is not a sig. If it was a sig, it would say something witty.

"I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media"

Just in case you actually belive your "research", here is a handy mythbuster. A bit of research on that site will set you straight, the link itself points to a search on the word "myth", I'm confident the results will cover your objections and questions.

BTW: If you can come up with an original myth I'm sure the boffins at realclimate will be happy to try and bust it for you, if they can't then you may just end up famous.

Realclimate.org explains it — basically, there are other factors besides CO2 that affect global temperature. CO2 is released when warming starts and drives the majority of the later warming. 800 years is a small part of the warming cycles and all this lag shows us is that historically, global warming has been triggered by other factors. There's no doubt that increased CO2 traps more heat and it's a fact that CO2 concentrations are at historical highs due to human emissions.

RealClimate.org is an excellent source for busting the myths that appear with nauseating regularity in every climate related thread on slashdot.

RealClimate was started and is run by some of the best climate researchers on the planet, the study in TFA is by Hansen, yet another respected scientist that claims politicians have recently attempted to gag him.

The scientists predicted an ice age myth was made popular by a novel (ie: a work of fiction). A certain senator was so impressed with the novel that he intoduced the authour to a senate committee as an "expert on climate change" and asked him to advise them on the subject.

RealClimate.org is an excellent source for busting the myths that appear with nauseating regularity in every climate related thread on slashdot.

RealClimate was started and is run by some of the best climate researchers on the planet, the study in TFA is by Hansen, yet another respected scientist that claims politicians have recently attempted to gag him.

The scientists predicted an ice age myth was made popular by a novel (ie: a work of fiction). A certain senator was so impressed with the novel that he intoduced the authour to a senate committee as an "expert on climate change" and asked him to advise them on the subject.

RealClimate.org is an excellent source for busting the myths that appear with nauseating regularity in every climate related thread on slashdot.

RealClimate was started and is run by some of the best climate researchers on the planet, the study in TFA is by Hansen, yet another respected scientist that claims politicians have recently attempted to gag him.

The scientists predicted an ice age myth was made popular by a novel (ie: a work of fiction). A certain senator was so impressed with the novel that he intoduced the authour to a senate committee as an "expert on climate change" and asked him to advise them on the subject.

"Consider certain scientific journals, many times they won't publish things they don't "like". Those are the preachers and not the scientists. The latter (journalists) knows as little as I do..."

There is a world of difference between "not liking" and "failing peer-review". If you wish to be more informed than the average journalist then you have to do the hard yards and educate yourself about the scientific method and some of the historically important findings from said method.

"Without 2 or 3 PhDs in biology or geography it's difficult to understand the "facts"."

It's not that difficult in the case of climate change, try this FAQ written by some of the worlds best minds on the subject. The basic facts are that GW is occuring and human CO2 emmissions are the main cause, only the lunatic fringe belive otherwise these days. What the effects of these basic facts will be is not as clear cut, what the collective "we" do about the most likely effects is a political question that has roughly six billion different answers, all of which by definition have some validity.

"they won't switch to a different viewpoint in 20 years!"

Who has "switched viewpoints", and please don't bring up the scientists predicted an ice age in the 70's crap, I am also old enough to remember the "hysteria".

"The automatic assumption that anyone who isn't certain about global warming is a republican is one of the aspects of the debate that makes me so suspicious."

True, it is a weak minded assumption and nobody is certain about anything unless we are talking blind faith, but when you have republican senators blatantly hijacking science, it is obvious many people will follow thier lead and resort to partisan dogma themselves. Perhaps if you aquainted yourself with the science instead of the politics you would be less "suspicious".