Slashdot Mirror

no, the arctic is not rebounding.

2013, 2014, and 2015 minimum ice extents were all higher than 2012...but that does not mean it is rebounding, especially when they are still part of a continuing downward trend as shown when graphed:

The 10 lowest minimums have all occurred in the last 11 years.
This year, 2015 is the 4th lowest minimum on record.
The lowest is 2012.
2015's MAXIMUM ice extent is also the lowest maximum on record.

In order the lowest minimums are:
1st: 2012
2nd: 2007
3rd: 2011
4th: 2015
5th: 2008

Relevant graphs to help you picture it:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-i...
http://skepticalscience.com//p...

Do we have the evidence that shows that the amount of CO2 increase should actually increase the temperatire by 1C?

Yes.

Maybe the amount of CO2 we released only accounts for 0.5 degrees and there is some other yet undiscovered source for the other 0.5 degrees unrelated to humans and to CO2.

No, it's actually more than 100% human contribution, because the natural contribution is negative. That means without anthropogenic green house gases (and other sources such as land use change and albedo reductions) the earth would be cooling. So it's not just us, it's entirely us.

I'm just saying, do we have proof of this?

Yes, enough proof to convince 97% of the scientists who study this. The other 3% are mostly libertarians who refuse to accept the evidence because it's ideologically unpleasant for them.

Do we really know there is no alternative explanation for sure?

Yes

Do we have the evidence that shows that the amount of CO2 increase should actually increase the temperatire by 1C?

Yes.

Maybe the amount of CO2 we released only accounts for 0.5 degrees and there is some other yet undiscovered source for the other 0.5 degrees unrelated to humans and to CO2.

No, it's actually more than 100% human contribution, because the natural contribution is negative. That means without anthropogenic green house gases (and other sources such as land use change and albedo reductions) the earth would be cooling. So it's not just us, it's entirely us.

I'm just saying, do we have proof of this?

Yes, enough proof to convince 97% of the scientists who study this. The other 3% are mostly libertarians who refuse to accept the evidence because it's ideologically unpleasant for them.

Do we really know there is no alternative explanation for sure?

Yes

Do we have the evidence that shows that the amount of CO2 increase should actually increase the temperatire by 1C?

Yes.

Maybe the amount of CO2 we released only accounts for 0.5 degrees and there is some other yet undiscovered source for the other 0.5 degrees unrelated to humans and to CO2.

No, it's actually more than 100% human contribution, because the natural contribution is negative. That means without anthropogenic green house gases (and other sources such as land use change and albedo reductions) the earth would be cooling. So it's not just us, it's entirely us.

I'm just saying, do we have proof of this?

Yes, enough proof to convince 97% of the scientists who study this. The other 3% are mostly libertarians who refuse to accept the evidence because it's ideologically unpleasant for them.

Do we really know there is no alternative explanation for sure?

Yes

The trick is that they are only useful for testing out how things work under a given energy imbalance or energy conditions. They are NOT useful for hindcasting energy imbalance

The source for the quoted nonsense above is WUWT, one of many denier/front sites funded by the (untaxed) anti-science lobbyists at the .

The fact is that hindcasting is how climate models are tested, how else would anyone test it? You can find the code for several important models here and run it yourself for the price of a decent server.

Not only can we model the evolution of Earth's past climate and routinely hindcast the last 500yrs with high levels of "model skill", we can also model the evolution of climate on other planets, in particular Mars and Venus. Here's a reliable and independent source that talks about hindcasting climate for testing purposes.

Note also that the uncertainty you quote is about cloud cover, the other common cherry pick used in this kind of FUD is the uncertainty surrounding the behaviour of ice. These two KNOWN uncertainties are discussed in great detail in the report you linked to. They are responsible for what scientists call "error bars". The WG1 report is however the best summary of the current state of climate science that anyone has to offer. If you want to debunk climate science that is the primary document to attack, it is the embodiment of the so called "consensus", good luck in your studies.

You are so wrong it's almost comical. As I already stated in my post as well as providing a link, the source for this is the IPCC WG1 you champion in your own retort:
Model tuning aims to match observed climate system behaviour and so is connected to judgements as to what constitutes a skilful representation of the Earth’s climate. For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system

As you state yourself, knock yourself out debunking it. The fact is that the errors from unknowns like clouds leaves hind casting that runs into unrealistic states unless you correct it manually. The seem to agree the source is sound, so not sure what your problem is aside from the conclusion maybe not being as open and shut as you'd like,

The trick is that they are only useful for testing out how things work under a given energy imbalance or energy conditions. They are NOT useful for hindcasting energy imbalance

The source for the quoted nonsense above is WUWT, one of many denier/front sites funded by the (untaxed) anti-science lobbyists at the .

The fact is that hindcasting is how climate models are tested, how else would anyone test it? You can find the code for several important models here and run it yourself for the price of a decent server.

Not only can we model the evolution of Earth's past climate and routinely hindcast the last 500yrs with high levels of "model skill", we can also model the evolution of climate on other planets, in particular Mars and Venus. Here's a reliable and independent source that talks about hindcasting climate for testing purposes.

Note also that the uncertainty you quote is about cloud cover, the other common cherry pick used in this kind of FUD is the uncertainty surrounding the behaviour of ice. These two KNOWN uncertainties are discussed in great detail in the report you linked to. They are responsible for what scientists call "error bars". The WG1 report is however the best summary of the current state of climate science that anyone has to offer. If you want to debunk climate science that is the primary document to attack, it is the embodiment of the so called "consensus", good luck in your studies.

Yes, let's take the word of a known fraud:
http://www.skepticalscience.co...

So, your statement destroyed by facts, you pivot to yet another argument. Suddenly the Arctic and Antarctic aren't important anymore because they refuse to play along.

You fail reading comprehension. That is not yet another argument. That is my central argument, which I made in my top-level reply. You don't get to claim it as your argument when it is in fact my argument. Since sea level rise is still ongoing, this is neither bad news nor good news, just news. It helps us understand that the ice thickness and extent in Antarctica are only a small part of the overall story. Here you and your lot are, having knocked over the pieces and shit on the board, you declare victory. Meanwhile, the water still rises, and it's easy to find out that land has massively lower albedo than does water or ice, and thus ice and snow melting on land is the most critical driver of albedo rise. Any more ignorant denialist bullshit you want a hole poked through?

The name change was initiated by Republican strategist Frank Luntz over a decade ago in a memo to the Bush administration:

"It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation.

'Climate change' is less frightening than 'global warming'. As one focus group participant noted, climate change 'sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.' While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge."

Background link:
https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Direct link to memo pdf:
http://www.motherjones.com/fil...

(Btw, apologies in advance. Although your comment was clearly tongue-in-cheek I figured it was worth posting in case others didn't know the background.)

Yes. It did.
You are full of BS.

The amount of apparent warming was reduced by ~20% because the data was adjusted to account for differences and changes in measurement techniques, instruments, locations, etc over time. The adjustments to the US data primarily increased temperatures, but the adjustments to data from the rest of the world generally lowered them, and the overall effect on the entire global average was to lower it.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Dyson has succeeded in destroying his reputation as a serious and credible observer and commentator of society and his times by propagating pseudo-science around climate change. His actual scientific achievements are of course spared.

Freeman Dyson is not a climate scientist. He's a scientist who dabbles in theorizing about the climate because he wants to. He is trading on his name and reputation, to the detriment of both. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how accomplished you are in other areas; if it's not your specific area of expertise, then you're in over your head.\

If you want to see Dyson's theorizing on climate systematically and thoroughly destroyed - (amongst other things he gets caught in just plain old logical fallacies) by actual climatologists, here's what that looks like:

http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

http://initforthegold.blogspot...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Dyson has succeeded in destroying his reputation as a serious and credible observer and commentator of society and his times by propagating pseudo-science around climate change. His actual scientific achievements are of course spared.

Freeman Dyson is not a climate scientist. He's a scientist who dabbles in theorizing about the climate because he wants to. He is trading on his name and reputation, to the detriment of both. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how accomplished you are in other areas; if it's not your specific area of expertise, then you're in over your head.\

If you want to see Dyson's theorizing on climate systematically and thoroughly destroyed - (amongst other things he gets caught in just plain old logical fallacies) by actual climatologists, here's what that looks like:

http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

http://initforthegold.blogspot...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Dyson has succeeded in destroying his reputation as a serious and credible observer and commentator of society and his times by propagating pseudo-science around climate change. His actual scientific achievements are of course spared.

Freeman Dyson is not a climate scientist. He's a scientist who dabbles in theorizing about the climate because he wants to. He is trading on his name and reputation, to the detriment of both. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how accomplished you are in other areas; if it's not your specific area of expertise, then you're in over your head.\

If you want to see Dyson's theorizing on climate systematically and thoroughly destroyed - (amongst other things he gets caught in just plain old logical fallacies) by actual climatologists, here's what that looks like:

http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

http://initforthegold.blogspot...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

I don't know whether that statement is actually true (but it is testable)

Good news, its already been tested!

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Coincidentally in response to Dyson's opinion. A blanket claim that models are wrong should cite at least one. And before anyone pulls up the "95% of climate models are wrong graph", that was thoroughly debunked here:

  http://blog.hotwhopper.com/201...

What will you do if the global temperature starts falling in the next five years while CO2 concentrations continue to rise exponentially? Will you admit you were wrong?

Are you open to the possibility that you are already wrong?
You raised two points worth checking out. IANACS so I choose to rely on sources that reference actual peer reviewed papers and I prefer sources that address comments or objections to minimize the chances I am being mislead by people using work with flaws I am not aware of.

You mean like the IPCC? Perhaps you could explain why the objective, full-coverage satellite data shows no warming for nearly 20 years while the CO2 level has continued to rise exponentially.

This seems to fit your question quite nicely: https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm

This suggests that the CO2 sensitivity used by the alarmists in their failed predictions is way too high, at the least. Also, the issue is not "AGW"; it's Catastrophic AGW caused specifically and exclusively by CO2 concentrations.

Language is getting a little loaded at this point but the gist seems to be that the model predictions are over estimating temperature increases due to human sources of CO2.
Addressed here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm

I would like to point out that the only two points you raised pertaining to the climate, as opposed to your predictions for the economic results of limiting CO2 emissions, both appear in the top 10 "MOST USED Climate Myths and what the science really says..." side bar on the site I linked.

At the very least I would suggest you read each of those 10 "Myths" so you can avoid raising invalid rhetorical points when voicing your very real concerns about the flaws in the current scientific understanding of climate.

What will you do if the global temperature starts falling in the next five years while CO2 concentrations continue to rise exponentially? Will you admit you were wrong?

Are you open to the possibility that you are already wrong?
You raised two points worth checking out. IANACS so I choose to rely on sources that reference actual peer reviewed papers and I prefer sources that address comments or objections to minimize the chances I am being mislead by people using work with flaws I am not aware of.

You mean like the IPCC? Perhaps you could explain why the objective, full-coverage satellite data shows no warming for nearly 20 years while the CO2 level has continued to rise exponentially.

This seems to fit your question quite nicely: https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm

This suggests that the CO2 sensitivity used by the alarmists in their failed predictions is way too high, at the least. Also, the issue is not "AGW"; it's Catastrophic AGW caused specifically and exclusively by CO2 concentrations.

Language is getting a little loaded at this point but the gist seems to be that the model predictions are over estimating temperature increases due to human sources of CO2.
Addressed here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm

I would like to point out that the only two points you raised pertaining to the climate, as opposed to your predictions for the economic results of limiting CO2 emissions, both appear in the top 10 "MOST USED Climate Myths and what the science really says..." side bar on the site I linked.

At the very least I would suggest you read each of those 10 "Myths" so you can avoid raising invalid rhetorical points when voicing your very real concerns about the flaws in the current scientific understanding of climate.

By the way... I don't care if the public knows what I think about you. But you removed the contexts. Yet again. It's very telling that you didn't include any of the things that prompted those opinions from me. No context. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

The context is that you were cussing at me because I refuted Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense. From the same conversation:

... if you can actually, successfully complete a refutation of Latour, and show us, and it checks out, I will be happy to declare to everyone that I was wrong and you were right about that issue. You have my word. I will shout it out loud. I'll admit it here on Slashdot and even open a Twitter account and post it there. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-09]

Jane/Lonny, you gave your word that you would declare to everyone that you were wrong about Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer claims. But over a year later you still haven't, even after seeming to realize your Slayer claims violate "kindergarten-level physics". That's how much Lonny's "word" is worth.

@DanaRohrabacher He has expressed the view that a scientist is only a worthy human being if he/she agrees with DumbSci. Else a criminal. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Unbelievable! Lonny baselessly whines about being "libeled" and maliciously lies about me to a member of Congress. Lonny can't link to me expressing that disgusting view, because I never did. Lonny Eachus is lying again. As usual, he's projecting his own hysterical claims:

YOU should be put in jail for the ethical equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater... when there wasn't a fire. THAT DOES HARM. Real cost, real damage. You're a criminal. And not in some hypothetical future, but right now. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-07-10]

In contrast, I've politely disagreed with scientists without once calling anyone a criminal or a "despicable human being" (presumably meaning "not worthy") like Jane/Lonny Eachus does.

@DanaRohrabacher You might ask him about his own comments re: scientists like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, etc. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Why? I've said Dr. Spencer is wrong. Lonny also clai

By the way... I don't care if the public knows what I think about you. But you removed the contexts. Yet again. It's very telling that you didn't include any of the things that prompted those opinions from me. No context. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

The context is that you were cussing at me because I refuted Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense. From the same conversation:

... if you can actually, successfully complete a refutation of Latour, and show us, and it checks out, I will be happy to declare to everyone that I was wrong and you were right about that issue. You have my word. I will shout it out loud. I'll admit it here on Slashdot and even open a Twitter account and post it there. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-09]

Jane/Lonny, you gave your word that you would declare to everyone that you were wrong about Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer claims. But over a year later you still haven't, even after seeming to realize your Slayer claims violate "kindergarten-level physics". That's how much Lonny's "word" is worth.

@DanaRohrabacher He has expressed the view that a scientist is only a worthy human being if he/she agrees with DumbSci. Else a criminal. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Unbelievable! Lonny baselessly whines about being "libeled" and maliciously lies about me to a member of Congress. Lonny can't link to me expressing that disgusting view, because I never did. Lonny Eachus is lying again. As usual, he's projecting his own hysterical claims:

YOU should be put in jail for the ethical equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater... when there wasn't a fire. THAT DOES HARM. Real cost, real damage. You're a criminal. And not in some hypothetical future, but right now. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-07-10]

In contrast, I've politely disagreed with scientists without once calling anyone a criminal or a "despicable human being" (presumably meaning "not worthy") like Jane/Lonny Eachus does.

@DanaRohrabacher You might ask him about his own comments re: scientists like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, etc. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Why? I've said Dr. Spencer is wrong. Lonny also clai

By the way... I don't care if the public knows what I think about you. But you removed the contexts. Yet again. It's very telling that you didn't include any of the things that prompted those opinions from me. No context. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

The context is that you were cussing at me because I refuted Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense. From the same conversation:

... if you can actually, successfully complete a refutation of Latour, and show us, and it checks out, I will be happy to declare to everyone that I was wrong and you were right about that issue. You have my word. I will shout it out loud. I'll admit it here on Slashdot and even open a Twitter account and post it there. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-09]

Jane/Lonny, you gave your word that you would declare to everyone that you were wrong about Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer claims. But over a year later you still haven't, even after seeming to realize your Slayer claims violate "kindergarten-level physics". That's how much Lonny's "word" is worth.

@DanaRohrabacher He has expressed the view that a scientist is only a worthy human being if he/she agrees with DumbSci. Else a criminal. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Unbelievable! Lonny baselessly whines about being "libeled" and maliciously lies about me to a member of Congress. Lonny can't link to me expressing that disgusting view, because I never did. Lonny Eachus is lying again. As usual, he's projecting his own hysterical claims:

YOU should be put in jail for the ethical equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater... when there wasn't a fire. THAT DOES HARM. Real cost, real damage. You're a criminal. And not in some hypothetical future, but right now. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-07-10]

In contrast, I've politely disagreed with scientists without once calling anyone a criminal or a "despicable human being" (presumably meaning "not worthy") like Jane/Lonny Eachus does.

@DanaRohrabacher You might ask him about his own comments re: scientists like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, etc. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Why? I've said Dr. Spencer is wrong. Lonny also clai

By the way... I don't care if the public knows what I think about you. But you removed the contexts. Yet again. It's very telling that you didn't include any of the things that prompted those opinions from me. No context. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

The context is that you were cussing at me because I refuted Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense. From the same conversation:

... if you can actually, successfully complete a refutation of Latour, and show us, and it checks out, I will be happy to declare to everyone that I was wrong and you were right about that issue. You have my word. I will shout it out loud. I'll admit it here on Slashdot and even open a Twitter account and post it there. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-09]

Jane/Lonny, you gave your word that you would declare to everyone that you were wrong about Latour's Sky Dragon Slayer claims. But over a year later you still haven't, even after seeming to realize your Slayer claims violate "kindergarten-level physics". That's how much Lonny's "word" is worth.

@DanaRohrabacher He has expressed the view that a scientist is only a worthy human being if he/she agrees with DumbSci. Else a criminal. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Unbelievable! Lonny baselessly whines about being "libeled" and maliciously lies about me to a member of Congress. Lonny can't link to me expressing that disgusting view, because I never did. Lonny Eachus is lying again. As usual, he's projecting his own hysterical claims:

YOU should be put in jail for the ethical equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater... when there wasn't a fire. THAT DOES HARM. Real cost, real damage. You're a criminal. And not in some hypothetical future, but right now. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-07-10]

In contrast, I've politely disagreed with scientists without once calling anyone a criminal or a "despicable human being" (presumably meaning "not worthy") like Jane/Lonny Eachus does.

@DanaRohrabacher You might ask him about his own comments re: scientists like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, etc. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-09-25]

Why? I've said Dr. Spencer is wrong. Lonny also clai

Remember "Hide the Decline"? That's when bona fide "scientists" came across an inconvenient truth.

Actually... Clearing up misconceptions regarding 'hide the decline'. I've linked to the "Basic" explanation, but there Intermediate and Advanced explanations that go into more detail.

In the 1970s, the majority of published climate papers forecast warming, not cooling. There were famous articles from Newsweek and Times Magazine that forecast cooling but that's not the same as the science.

See http://www.skepticalscience.co...

There are more recent papers (in 2013 and more recently) that debunk the debunkers. We could do that kind of back-and-forth forever. You've proved nothing. The issue isn't settled. ... again, there have been more recent papers as well. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Jane, don't you see the irony here? I repeatedly gave you links and even gave you ready-to-run source code with data included, all showing that Houston and Dean 2011 was a massive cherry-pick. In response, you actually cited Houston and Dean 2011! Why, if all these other more recent papers (which Jane doesn't even name) supposedly exist? Again, read the 2013 IPCC AR5 SPM:

"Proxy and instrumental sea level data indicate a transition in the late 19th to the early 20th century from relatively low mean rates of rise over the previous two millennia to higher rates of rise (high confidence). It is likely that the rate of global mean sea level rise has continued to increase since the early 20th century."

If Jane is hiding blockbuster peer-reviewed papers that overturn that latest 2013 literature review, why would Jane keep them secret? Unless they don't exist, and as usual Jane is just 100% bluster.

... if I am not mistaken the original Humlum paper wasn't even actually published until 2012. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-09-10]

Good grief. Jane, you're slipping again. The Humlum paper you and other Sky Dragon Slayers promoted had NOTHING to do with sea level rise! Here's what the Humlum paper was about:

Paper: atmospheric CO2 *lags* sea-surface temperature change by 12 months or so. Since surface temperature increases occur before CO2 increases, CO2 could NOT be the cause. bit.ly/YTcYvI [Lonny Eachus, 2013-02-25]

Lonny linked to Humlum et al. 2013 which mistakenly claimed that "Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980."

A real skeptic would wonder why Humlum et al. analyzed the long-term increase in atmospheric CO2 by taking its time derivative. Differentiation is a high-pass filter because it amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Here's why. If A(w) is the amplitude at angular frequency "w", its time dependence is A(w)*exp(i*w*t). Its time derivative is i*w*A(w)*exp(i*w*t). So taking the time derivative multiplies the amplitude by a large "w" for fast frequencies, and multiplies it by a small "w" for slow, long-term frequencies. This amplifies high frequency variations and attenuates slow, long-term variations.

Since our CO2 emissions increase atmospheric CO2 over the long term, Prof. Humlum's analysis can't even detect the rise he claims to be analyzing. However, his method amplifies the faster annual carbon cycle. Prof. Humlum "discovered" summer and winter.

Ferdinand

Wrong. A handful of peer reviewed papers did indeed predict cooling, though most did not.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

It would have been nice if you had written one true thing in that entire post, you have truly written a mighty gish gallop of ridicule and ignorance.

Some short notes because you're likely libertarded:

1. The predictions are more accurate than you would have us believe.
2. Of course, there is "no evidence" if you dismiss every piece of evidence "because communists".
3. The impact of global warming on hurricanes is an area of ongoing research, the results are not conclusive in any direction yet.
4. Authoritarians will tell you that anything can be solved by more authoritarian measures. Whether or not they want to use global warming to enact those measures has no impact on the existence of the phenomenon or the results of studying it. You are using the fallacy "appeal to consequences" to argue that people shouldn't believe in global warming because it might be used to justify measures that you disagree with. It's a bit insane to claim that something isn't true because "statists" have a solution for it.
5. When 97% of the experts agree on something it's an "appeal to authority", not an "appeal to popularity".

It would have been nice if you had written one true thing in that entire post, you have truly written a mighty gish gallop of ridicule and ignorance.

Some short notes because you're likely libertarded:

1. The predictions are more accurate than you would have us believe.
2. Of course, there is "no evidence" if you dismiss every piece of evidence "because communists".
3. The impact of global warming on hurricanes is an area of ongoing research, the results are not conclusive in any direction yet.
4. Authoritarians will tell you that anything can be solved by more authoritarian measures. Whether or not they want to use global warming to enact those measures has no impact on the existence of the phenomenon or the results of studying it. You are using the fallacy "appeal to consequences" to argue that people shouldn't believe in global warming because it might be used to justify measures that you disagree with. It's a bit insane to claim that something isn't true because "statists" have a solution for it.
5. When 97% of the experts agree on something it's an "appeal to authority", not an "appeal to popularity".

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Scroll down to figure 3... "Global mean sea level from 1870 to 2006 with one standard deviation error"

What is the first thing that you notice about the character of this plot? Is is linear? Does your statement make sense from what you know of trends and basic algerbra?

Looks pretty close to linear from where I sit. For absolute certain it's slight acceleration is grossly slower than temperature rise, so that's hopefull we aren't facing any grossly non-linear sea rise. Bonus is that in the IPCC latest report they graph instrumental to projected and it has tracked at the low end of projections.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Scroll down to figure 3... "Global mean sea level from 1870 to 2006 with one standard deviation error"

What is the first thing that you notice about the character of this plot? Is is linear? Does your statement make sense from what you know of trends and basic algerbra?

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

Oh how I wish people would stop quoting skepticalscience as if a blog is a scientific resource.

Skeptical science says exactly would you did, and most of what they say is sourced against another blog(RealClimate.org) which was at least started by a pair of actual scientists, but is still itself not subject to peer review either and really does not belong in your exhibit of evidences. This is is what is WRONG with the whole 'debate'. Way too many folks believe themselves to be protecting and promoting the science while waving their hands at blogs and re-hashing the summaries from them. :(

One of the scientists that started RealClimate is Michael Mann, here is his latest article on historic temperatures. Mann is (in)famous for the hockey stick graph. In his latest work here he's gone a long ways to trying to improve upon his original paper and although he only graphs the NA trend(citing that the SA data is of much lower quality), it very clearly shows temperatures as measured by proxy records matched or exceeded todays temperatures on multiple occasions in the last 2k years. He tries to down play this, but the data speaks for itself. Mann even notes himself that However, in the case of the early calibration/late validation CP

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

Oh how I wish people would stop quoting skepticalscience as if a blog is a scientific resource.

Skeptical science says exactly would you did, and most of what they say is sourced against another blog(RealClimate.org) which was at least started by a pair of actual scientists, but is still itself not subject to peer review either and really does not belong in your exhibit of evidences. This is is what is WRONG with the whole 'debate'. Way too many folks believe themselves to be protecting and promoting the science while waving their hands at blogs and re-hashing the summaries from them. :(

One of the scientists that started RealClimate is Michael Mann, here is his latest article on historic temperatures. Mann is (in)famous for the hockey stick graph. In his latest work here he's gone a long ways to trying to improve upon his original paper and although he only graphs the NA trend(citing that the SA data is of much lower quality), it very clearly shows temperatures as measured by proxy records matched or exceeded todays temperatures on multiple occasions in the last 2k years. He tries to down play this, but the data speaks for itself. Mann even notes himself that However, in the case of the early calibration/late validation CP

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

Oh how I wish people would stop quoting skepticalscience as if a blog is a scientific resource.

Skeptical science says exactly would you did, and most of what they say is sourced against another blog(RealClimate.org) which was at least started by a pair of actual scientists, but is still itself not subject to peer review either and really does not belong in your exhibit of evidences. This is is what is WRONG with the whole 'debate'. Way too many folks believe themselves to be protecting and promoting the science while waving their hands at blogs and re-hashing the summaries from them. :(

One of the scientists that started RealClimate is Michael Mann, here is his latest article on historic temperatures. Mann is (in)famous for the hockey stick graph. In his latest work here he's gone a long ways to trying to improve upon his original paper and although he only graphs the NA trend(citing that the SA data is of much lower quality), it very clearly shows temperatures as measured by proxy records matched or exceeded todays temperatures on multiple occasions in the last 2k years. He tries to down play this, but the data speaks for itself. Mann even notes himself that However, in the case of the early calibration/late validation CP

Denier misdirection and garbage modded insightful.

Water vapor is short lived and exists in dynamic equilibrium, regularly falling out of the air as precipitation in a very short cycle. It may be the largest holder of heat in the atmosphere (indeed the planet if you count the oceans) but it is not the largest driver. Left to its own devices it would not cause significant warming. The effect of water vapor is a reaction to other forces (such as CO2), not a first cause in itself. That is how a minor gas, CO2, can be the main driver of warming even while being a rather small portion of the atmosphere.

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

When skeptics use this argument, they are trying to imply that an increase in CO2 isn't a major problem. If CO2 isn't as powerful as water vapor, which there's already a lot of, adding a little more CO2 couldn't be that bad, right? What this argument misses is the fact that water vapor creates what scientists call a 'positive feedback loop' in the atmosphere — making any temperature changes larger than they would be otherwise.

How does this work? The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further—a positive feedback.

How much does water vapor amplify CO2 warming? Studies show that water vapor feedback roughly doubles the amount of warming caused by CO2. So if there is a 1C change caused by CO2, the water vapor will cause the temperature to go up another 1C. When other feedback loops are included, the total warming from a potential 1C change caused by CO2 is, in reality, as much as 3C.

The other factor to consider is that water is evaporated from the land and sea and falls as rain or snow all the time. Thus the amount held in the atmosphere as water vapor varies greatly in just hours and days as result of the prevailing weather in any location. So even though water vapor is the greatest greenhouse gas, it is relatively short-lived. On the other hand, CO2 is removed from the air by natural geological-scale processes and these take a long time to work. Consequently CO2 stays in our atmosphere for years and even centuries. A small additional amount has a much more long-term effect.

So skeptics are right in saying that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas. What they don't mention is that the water vapor feedback loop actually makes temperature changes caused by CO2 even bigger.

Firstly, the Earth has far more CO2 than Mars, both in raw mass, and per unit area. But while you're wrong there, its also not that relevant: Mar's climate, such as it is, is not driven by the sun or its atmospheric content of gases (CO2 or other), but by dust and albedo. , not the content of its atmosphere.

It's also much further from the sun, receiving far far less energy from it. If the energy on a unit area of Earth is taken as a unitary 1, then the relative energy intensity on the same unit are of Mars is 0.44, or 44%. Less than half as much energy per unit area. Additionally Mars has only 1/4th (roughly) the surface area of the Earth, which combined with that 44% of the energy per unit area, means the planet Mars as a whole is only receiving 11% as much energy as the Earth does. .

To expect the same driving patterns and effect is silly.
BTW, your arguments about water vapor and mars CO2 content actually rather undercut each other!!

http://environmentalforest.blo...

The myth that Mars has more CO

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

That applies to both sides.

Potentially, but not as much as you seem to think

When people point to a 15 year stabilization of temperatures as evidence in the climate change debate, the frequent response is "that's not climate, that's weather" or "that's normal variation."

The problem is those responses are actually reasonably true. In a noisy data set like yearly temperatures, we expect there to be periods of slow temperature growth and periods of fast temperature growth due to short term variability so "that's not climate, that's weather" is true, 30 year averages are generally used to minimize year-to-year variability that can drown out the long term trend. We have had a confluence of natural factors working together to slow the surface air temperature growth over that period. Perhaps more importantly it's important to look at more than just the air temperature since the atmosphere only contains a small fraction of the heat content the earth can store.

Or when they point out evidence that it was just as warm 1000 years ago as today, it will be derisively dismissed.

That's a northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction, so it only covers half the world, and one of the authors of that paper, F. C. Ljungqvist, doesn't agree with your analysis:

Since AD 1990, though, average temperatures in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere exceed those of any other warm decades the last two millennia, even the peak of the Medieval Warm Period”

But then there are those on the same side who will mention a 20-100 year period because it suits their argument.

Potentially, but those are periods that are long enough to cancel out year-to-year variability, though, I can't actually remember seeing anyone use a period that was longer than 30 years. Maybe it's not that the period suits the argument but that when you look at periods longer than 20 years, the evidence strongly supports one side in this debate? If that's the case, then the people who look at and accept the evidence have little choice but to end up on the same side of this debate?

Except for accurately recreating observations from 1900 to today, and getting more accurate over time, you're right, they've never been right.

Which is to say, you're full of it and completely wrong.

The gist is:

While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Sure:
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Though I'll note that I was thinking of generation cost(~$0.05) for coal, not retail. Remember, that $0.10 per kWh includes transportation, electricity from the natural gas plant next door and the nuclear plant down the road, as well as the coal generation.

Also, the following article give some insight to the high energy usage by at least hospitals:

Yes, hospitals use a lot of electricity, but consider that everything else about hospitals are more expensive than average commercial buildings as well. After all, you're paying a lot of wages for doctors and nurses with masters degrees, using expensive drugs and equipment, etc....

As for your anecdotal 'evidence', keep in mind that I'm mostly talking about averages - you get lucky and don't have any upper respiratory track illnesses, but you're also 50 miles away. 30% of asthma cases are blamed on poor air quality.

Relative to coal, Natural gas isn't a problem at all, and nuclear, well, I want to see more of it. Remember, I wasn't putting down nuclear, just mentioning that worrying about the CO2 production from the concrete that goes into building the plant isn't actually that big of a deal in the face of the sheer amount of power the plant will produce over it's operational lifespan.

Yes, please continue to oversimplify, overstate, and not read papers in their entirety.
It makes this task easier.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

You got balls

Daily Caller....They never saw a anti-environment position/myth they didn't like.
Linking to the Daily Caller for anything science/environmental is like referring Trump as an example of modesty.

When referring to this link

http://dailycaller.com/2015/07...

You didn't even read the damn title of the story

NY Times Edits Story To Tone Down Facts, Inject Bias

Keep at it prove yourself more of a zealot.

Yes, please continue to oversimplify, overstate, and not read papers in their entirety.
It makes this task easier.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

So your rebuttal is that in one specific eco region there's been some additional greenery?
Yay! We're saved!

Idiot.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water both to maintain their larger growth as well as to compensate for greater moisture evaporation as the heat increases. Where will it come from? Rainwater is not sufficient for current agriculture and the aquifers they rely on are running dry throughout the Earth.

  Unlike Nature, our way of agriculture does not self fertilize by recycling all dead plants, animals and their waste. Instead we have to be constantly producing artificial fertilizers from natural gas which will eventually start running out. By increasing the need for such fertilizer you will shorten the supply of natural gas creating competition between the heating of our homes and the growing of our food. This will drive the prices of both up

Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.

The worse problem, by far, is that increasing CO2 will increase temperatures throughout the Earth. This will make deserts and other types of dry land grow. While deserts increase in size, other eco-zones, whether tropical, forest or grassland will try to migrate towards the poles. However, soil conditions will not necessarily favor their growth even at optimum temperatures.

When plants do benefit from increased Carbon Dioxide, it is only in enclosed areas, strictly isolated from insects. However, when the growth of Soybeans is boosted out in the open, it creates major changes in its chemistry that makes it more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad...

Simply claiming increased CO2 will help plants grow while ignoring everything else it does is a stunningly tone-deaf argument, yet one deniers seem to use over and again. Looking at a few plants growing better due to more CO2 is like ignoring that you killed a patient while curing their hangnail.

Surface area of the world is around 510 million square kilometers. Half of that is exposed to sunlight at any given time. That sunlight averages around 250W per square meter. Do the math. A 0.2% change in output is a change of about 127 TW (yes, teraWatts) per day. I'd call that a pretty significant given it's about 7 times more than the entire energy consumption of humanity (in all forms). Doesn't take much solar output change to totally swamp all of humanity. Seems that would be quite a change to the climate, doesn't it?

and the recent increase in heat works out to about 0.73 W/M^2 more energy retained by the earth. Which is a 0.292% increase. http://www.skepticalscience.co...

You are correct that the temperature observations in the four datasets are not all statistically independent. There are a finite number of weather observation stations in the world, so of course there will be overlap in the raw data used to generate the datasets. That's why I described them as "methodologically independent datasets, all derived from raw temperature data from land and ocean surface temperature observations." The State of the Climate report uses similar language. In other words, they might share input data, but the methods used to generate the final datasets (e.g., how to perform data quality control, how to interpolate missing data, etc.) are independent. That was all I meant. So yes, you are correct that the data themselves are not all independent. The semantics are messy and annoying, so I am sorry if what I meant wasn't clear.

ALL the datasets they use in this study are directly controlled by the NOAA. They are each adjusted and calibrated... by the NOAA...

But that's objectively not true. Look at the methods used to generate the datasets. Yes, all four datasets use GHCN, but some of them use other data sources in addition to GHCN, and they don't all use ERSST. They take very different approaches to deciding which stations to include, how to correct for missing data, and so on. So yes, there is overlap in source data, which is probably inevitable if you are trying to compile a global dataset, but the final products certainly do not "come from the NOAA" or even rely exclusively on NOAA data. (Caveat: This is based on my non-expert readings of dataset summaries and descriptions.)

Look, I definitely see your point about the datasets not being statistically independent. That is absolutely correct. But claiming that they are all "directly controlled by the NOAA" and "adjusted and calibrated by the NOAA" comes across as disingenuous. It's probably best just to say that they're not statistically independent and leave it at that.

my bias corrects from 35 to 30. The figures based on the math alone were showing something around 35 to 38 percent. But given that we've had corrections to the models and the figures going on for years and they always correct them DOWN... I personally decide to read the numbers as being slightly lower than cited if only in anticipation of the next correction.

Whatever works for you, I guess, but applying an arbitrary 5% downward adjustment because your gut tells you the numbers might be biased is not very defensible. Unless you have actual evidence that the station readings are biased upwards, or that the datasets are fudging the anomalies upwards, you really have no idea whether a correction is needed, let alone how large of a correction to apply. You could be right -- I don't know, and neither do you. Arbitrarily changing the study results because of a hunch is sketchy, at best. Consider the opposite: Some have argued that the JMA dataset underestimates the true extent of climate warming, but I doubt you'd accept an arbitrary 5% upward correction as a result, and neither would I.

Regardless, I suspect we can both agree that, in the end, the precise probability that 2014 was actually the warmest year isn't all that important. The general trend probably matters more, and no one is disputing that 2014 was one of the hottest five or ten years on record.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting (and civil) discussion.

No, its actually very right, unlike basically anything you wiull find on WUWT.

Some adjustments are upwards.
But most are downwards.
Particularly those in the arctic which are are some of the largest magnitude adjustments.

The over all effect IS to reduce the apparent warming.
That is not a debatable statement, but it is easily verifiable by looking at the data yourself.

The primary source of adjustments upwards is the United States, when we switched from taking readings in the afternoon to doing it in the morning it introduces a very large bias. And in order to correct that bias in order to achieve the same base reference point so that our data is comparable to and can be combined with the rest of the world's data, it requires adjusting upwards:

It is clear that the shift from afternoon to morning observations in the United States introduced a large cooling bias of about 0.3 C in raw U.S. temperatures. As contiguous U.S. temperatures have risen about 0.9 C over the last century, not correcting for this bias would give us a significant underestimate of actual U.S. warming. While some commenters have hyperbolically referred to temperature adjustments as “the biggest science scandal ever”, the reality is far more mundane.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Thing is....the US isn't the world. If you recall.
And the majority of the rest of the world's adjustments are downward.
And the overall effect is to, just as I said, reduce the amount of apparent warming.

AGW "skeptics" have had more than a fair hearing over the past few decades, statistically their minority views have been given way too much attention in the MSM for the past 20 odd years, using exactly the same tax free 'think tanks' that tobacco companies used to perpetuate the lie that smoking doesn't cause cancer within the MSM.

Their long list of unsupported claims and illogical objections have been found wanting time and again. The national academies of science (and many, many, similar institutions) have stated on several occasions that AGW is "established science" in the same way as relativity, quantum mechanics, tectonics, evolution, etc, are 'established science', to the best of my knowledge the NAS were the first major institution to make that kind of statement, they have held that view since the late 1950's when spectrometers were finally sensitive enough to detect that the CO2 and H2O IR absorption spectra were interleaved and not overlayed as previously thought.

Every scientific institution on the planet that has an opinion in the subject has stated they agree with the basic claims that the earth is warming and human emissions are responsible for most, if not all, of the observed warming. Even the American Petroleum Institute (publically) agrees with those basic claims. The pentagon regards it as the greatest medium and long term threat to global stability, and has done so for over a decade.

How much longer are you going to sit on the fence deciding whether or not it's a serious problem?

And when you dismiss all data that doesn't agree with you-- which is what you're doing-- then it is completely impossible to ever overturn your conspiracy theory that all the science ever done on climate happens to be wrong.

Let me also note that apparently, it is possible to observe solar activity prior to direct observation by measuring carbon 14 in tree rings as a proxy. As a result, it is claimed that there were other periods of lowered solar activity from about 1000 AD through to the Maunder minimum.

So, what you're now saying is that the little ice age is not due to the Maunder minimum, but you're hypothesizing that it might have been due to some other sunspot minimum for which we have only proxy data.

Unfortunately,
(1) proxy data on solar activity is somewhat harder to interpret (see, for example, review article here: http://solarphysics.livingrevi... )
  (2) nobody looking at the record of proxy reconstruction has been able to find a firm correlation to global climate (although there are some regional climate correlations),
(3) there still isn't any accepted mechanism connecting sunspot number to climate,

For example, there were periods of alleged reduced solar activity between 1280 and 1350 and between 1460 and 1550.

This analysis looks like you have a result you want, and you're going back through the data trying to select data to try to fit the result. If this were actual science, you would need a correlation coefficient. How well does the variation in (proxies for) sunspot number fit the variation in (proxies for) climate?

All of the scientists doing the actual studies of this sort say the effects seen are far too small to explain the current warming trend: see, for example Solanki et al. 2004 study of sunspot numbers over the past 11,000 years and climate: http://www.nature.com/nature/j... "we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades", or the review of dozens of studies here: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

But, returning to the topic, we seem to agree: the little ice age cannot be attributed to the Maunder minimum.

No, 'they' had a mix of theories and conjectures (not really predictions) in the 1970s, and the media was intrigued with the cooling arguments because that seemed like the course of nature -- sans human impacts.

However, most of the theories even then were concerned with warming.

A link regarding that 1% number. Yes, in a year, humans emit about 0.5% of the CO2 compared to the CO2 emitted by non-human processes. The problem is we've been doing that for over 100 years, with nothing absorbing that extra CO2. Assuming that was a linear increase from 0%, you end up with humans contributing 25%.

I'll let you provide citations for the rest of your numbers.

For clarity, the numbers in my original post were from the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator. I am not a climatologist. My "otherwise, we're hosed" comment is personal opinion, based on
A) articles I've read on climate change and
B) the number of people like the AC above who won't trust climatologists until the planet is beyond hope.

Basically, if you don't trust climatologists, you shouldn't trust doctors, engineers, ... well pretty much any expert. After all, they're just in it for the money, right?

We know exactly how much effect CO2 has on incoming and outgoing radiation, because we can measure it in the lab, and via satellite. We know beyond doubt that it allows broad-spectrum energy in, but blocks much of the Earth's black-body radiation from escaping again.

We have measured precisely how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, and we can calculate accurately how much effect it should have. That's how we know that CO2 is such a significant problem; see this page for empirical measurements, a discussion of the maths, and a graph of the Earth's radiative forcings (all with fully cited sources of course, which I recommend you follow up).

The effect of CO2 is unquestioned. What is still being debated is only how much does this affect us? At what rate will surface temperatures change as a result? This is complicated by the myriad feedback cycles involved in the climate system. Current scientific opinion varies between "this could be a real problem" to "if we don't do something ASAP we're in for a very unhappy time".

Well, you took the time to write all that out, so I'll do you the courtesy of a response, but I will point out that none of it is worth saying without citations (which was the entire point of this thread).

You call it "common knowledge", but when it contradicts the published, peer-reviewed results from any number of studies, which are compiled, published and endorsed by organisations like NOAA, CRU, CSIRO, and the IPCC in numerous countries, then your "common knowledge" doesn't seem to be all that common at all. I provided linked citations of reputable sources for my claims, so you'll need data at least as reputable (please, no blogs or news articles). I've heard claims just like yours countless times, and nobody has yet provided any reliable data to back them up.

"[surface temperature stations] are mostly not very accurate" - a vague claim, but in aggregate they can still give a very accurate picture of the temperature trend.

"[satellites] have their readings INCREASED every year...The current "correction" is about .4 C" - citation certainly needed for this one, for both claims.

"the depths of the ocean are not warming... It rarely goes below 100 meters much less 200 meters." - the data shows that ocean heat content has been rising steadily down to 2,000m. Below that, NASA finds no significant change. But there's a huge amount of energy going into that top 2km of the world's oceans.

"there is no way to know how much [sea level rise] is the result of a climate change and how much is climate cycle." - well, we know that sea level rise accelerated significantly in the last 150 years. We know that it's consistent with predictions based on thermal expansion and measured ice loss. If it's part of a long-term cycle, there needs to be a cause, and there's no credible evidence of any cyclic cause at that timescale.

"There are regions that are losing ice and regions that are gaining ice... How much ice are you saying has melted... just give me your rough estimate." - Shepherd et al 2012 finds a net ice mass loss of over 200 gigatonnes/year for the last couple of decades, using multiple lines of evidence.

"ice extent is very easy to estimate. And ice extent doesn't show a decline." I cite ice mass because it's what matters, for rising heat content and for sea levels. Ice extent is a fairly inaccurate indicator of overall ice melt. That said, ice extent has been declining in the Arctic and Greenland while increasing in the Antarctic (despite overall ice mass decreasing there by around 70 Gt/y).

"if the ice packs were melting over all to any significant degree you'd see a great deal more sea level rise than we have seen thus far... We can look at the volume of water in the oceans and compare the change to your ice loss figures." - Yes, and it matches well with what we've observed, including accounting for thermal expansion (which, if you're tacitly admitting exists, requires significant ocean warming).

Citations - yes please. At this stage, if you have any further claims to make, I want to see only links to reputable published data and peer-reviewed studies, not talk of "common knowledge" or speculation from laymen or reporters.

The "only a trace gas" argument. Has Slashdot really become so ignorant that obvious fallacies like this get modded insightful?