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> Reality has a well known liberal bias. Of course conservatives are going to distrust
> science. This is going to be the case anywhere and everywhere conservativism is popular.

Correction. so-called "reality" will be modified to conform to liberal dogma. Have you ever read Orwell's novel "1984"? The main character was Winston Smith, whose job it was to re-write history to suit the whims of The Party. Ask conservatives if we don't believe the data "proving" global warming...
From 1997, *AT THE GISS WEBSITE* http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/ James "handcuffs" Hansen says "The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934."

We can't have that. The data's got to get with the program. USA 1998 annual temp anomaly *MUST* be made to exceed that of the 1930's. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/25/do-we-care-if-2010-is-the-warmist-year-in-history/

====
1) Sato's first report, dated July 1999, shows 1934 with an impressive lead of over half a degree (0.541 C to be exact) above 1998.

2) The year 2000 was a bad one for 1934. November 2000 analysis seems to have put it on a downhill ski slope that cooled it by nearly a fifth of a degree (-0.186 C to be precise). On the other hand, it was a very good year for 1998, which, seemingly put on a ski lift, managed to warm up by nearly a quarter of a degree (+0.233 C). That confirms the Theory of Conservation of Mass and Energy. In other words, if someone in your neighborhood goes on a diet and loses weight, someone else is bound to gain it.

3) Further analysis in January 2001 confirmed the downward trend for 1934 (lost an additional 26th of a degree) and the upward movement of 1998 (gained an additional 21th of a degree), tightening the hot race to a 28th of a degree (0.036 C).

4) Satoâ(TM)s analysis and reporting on the great 1934 vs 1998 race seems to have taken a hiatus between 2001 and 2006. When the catâ(TM)s away, the mice will play, and 1998 did exactly that. The January 2006 analysis has 1998 unexpectedly tumbling, losing over a quarter of a degree (-0.269 C), and restoring 1934âs lead to nearly a third of a degree (0.305 C). Sato notes in her email âoeThis is questionable, I may have kept some data which I was checking.â Absolutely, let us question the data! Question, question, question ⦠until we get the right answer.

5) Time for another ski lift! January 2007 analysis boosts 1998 by nearly a third of a degree (+0.312 C) and drops 1934 a tiny bit (-0.008 C), putting 1998 in the lead by a bit (0.015 C). Sato comments âoeThis is only time we had 1998 warmer than 1934, but one [on?] web for 7 months.â

6) and 7) March and August 2007 analysis shows tiny adjustments. However, in what seems to be a photo finish, 1934 sneaks ahead of 1998, being warmer by a tiny amount (0.023 C). So, hooray! 1934 wins and 1998 is second.

OOPS, the hot race continued after the FOIA email! I checked the tabular data at GISS Contiguous 48 U.S. Surface Air Temperature Anomaly (C) today and, guess what? Since the Sato FOIA email discussed above, GISS has continued their taxpayer-funded work on both 1998 and 1934. The Annual Mean for 1998 has increased to 1.32 C, a gain of a bit over an 11th of a degree (+0.094 C), while poor old 1934 has been beaten down to 1.2 C., a loss of about a 20th of a degree (-0.049 C). So, sad to say, 1934 has lost the hot race by about an eighth of a degree (0.12 C). Tough loss for the old-timer.

===

After the original data was posted, it was "re-analyzed" 7 times in 10 years until 1998 beat 1934. And this "re-analyzed" data ends up in global temperature databases, which boosts global warming statistics.

In the real world, acc

Bad form to reply to oneself, but I found the discussion of the methods I believe the article was referencing in this comment on the Watts Up With That article.

So, MIT has basically recreated what a 7th grader has previously done.

although we can indirectly increase water vapor concentration in the atmosphere by warming the climate with CO2 emissions, increasing evaporation and shifting the ocean/atmosphere equilibrium to increase atmospheric water vapor--which amplifies the warming effect of CO2

That's a vague assertion - and apparently based on incorrect premises:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/

"Computer models of AGW show positive feedback from water vapor by incorrectly assuming that relative humidity remains constant with warming while specific humidity increases."

We are, however, releasing lots of CO2, and about half of what we release is accumulating in the atmosphere.

Put $4 worth of quarters in your left hand. That represents 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Now put $9960 worth of quarters in your right hand. I'll let you guess what that represents.

What, exactly, is your definition of "lots"?

And this could be a concern if the earth's biomass were changing appreciably. But it isn't.

That's another vague assertion. Do you even *have* a biomass index for the globe?

On the contrary, climate models make numerous testable predictions which have been confirmed by observation.

You're doing it backwards. Don't tell me about the ten-thousand white swans you saw - tell me about what *black* swan would falsify your hypothesis. Climate models make numerous testable predictions which have *failed* to be observed...yet you ignore those as irrelevant?

"Null hypothesis" has a meaning. It means "no change."

No, it doesn't. Null means "no relation". We have null hypotheses about all *sorts* of things that obviously change (say, the relationship between average gas prices and stock market averages) - you are truly torturing the definition if you're blithely asserting that it means "no change".

The null hypothesis is that average global CO2 levels have no causal relationship to average global temperatures. The burden of your falsifiable hypothesis is to show that it *does* have a causal relationship, and you must consider not only *necessary* factors, but also all factors required to *sufficiently* show there is no other possible explanation.

Which specific physical mechanism of climate change that has operated in the past do you imagine to be responsible for the current warming?

What specific physical mechanism of climate change that has operated in the past do you imagine to be responsible for any other period of historical warming? Have you cataloged all of those possible mechanisms? Have you excluded all of those possible mechanisms?

Your passionate belief that you can simply wave your hands, redefine "null" to mean "72F every day, unchanging, day or night, for all of eternity", and your clever bit about "oh, and now CO2 must be correct because you haven't identified the magical "nature" leprechaun of climate change that has never existed before" is amusing, but not convincing :)

CO2-caused global warming? Falsifiable predictions include the stratosphere getting colder due to longwave absorption in the troposphere, nights getting warmer, and drops in longwave re-radiation measured by satellites.

Any greenhouse gas warming will cause that (or even terrestrial warming from oceans) - what makes any of that specific to CO2? Why not H2O?

More importantly, if CO2 causes global warming, why does the historical record show a lag of CO2 to temperature? How did CO2 know when to stop warming in the past?

Anthropogenic? Falsifiable predictions include an isotope ratio in the new CO2 compatible with fossil fuel use, and that non-anthropogenic CO2 sources aren't the cause of the increase.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/

"BOTTOM LINE: If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??"

Catastrophic? Falsifiable if the measured sensitivity of temperature to CO2 falls outside the calculated error bars, or if there's an observed epoch or calculated mechanism where the temperatures we're about to experience coexisted with sea levels that would not be catastrophic

We have observed epochs where temperatures that we are about to experience coexisted with sea levels that were not catastrophic - Holocene optimum and Medieval Warm Period for example (arguments as to the regional nature of the MWP are subject to the same scrutiny that say, paleo records of certain trees in regional areas would be subject to).

So, now that your falsifications have been shown, are you ready to give up your beliefs?

Oeschger was just doing what a good scientist does, asking questions.

You misunderstand his question - it was *rhetorical* not scientific. He *presumes* the answer, he doesn't look for it.

A good scientist does not ask rhetorical questions (although a good teacher might).

The urban heat island effect has no effect on global warming.

I'm sure you can't possibly mean that. Human activity generates heat, and that heat will, all other things kept equal, warm the planet. It may be that those things that tend to increase average global temperature are minuscule, and possibly undetectable against the background of natural variation, but they *must* have some nonzero, positive effect.

That's why CO2 levels remained around 280 ppm during that period.

That's proxy data, not real data. And further, it simply cannot be taken as a proxy with a high sample rate - http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/ICE-Core-CO2-Records-Ancient-Atmospheres-Or-Geophysical-Artifacts

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/01/antarctic-ice-cores-the-sample-rate-problem/

Adding CO2 to the atmosphere slows down the re-radiated infrared energy on it's way back out causing the Earth to get hotter. That's simple physics.

Here's another simple physics problem - you can place the end of an object in a pot of hot water, and measure the amount of time it takes for that heat to go from one end of the object, to the end that is not in the water.

Given a human is mostly just water, how long will it take for the left hand to warm up if you put the right hand in a pot of hot water? Now what happens when you test that simple physics guess :)

And there's no reason to expect that heavy rainfall will stop suddenly (especially if you assert that hotter means more humidity, and therefore more rain over land). It's one of those truly neat negative feedbacks :)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/

"Computer models of AGW show positive feedback from water vapor by incorrectly assuming that relative humidity remains constant with warming while specific humidity increases. The Miskolczi theory of a ‘saturated greenhouse effect’ instead predicts relative humidity will decrease to offset an increase in specific humidity, as has just been demonstrated by observations in this paper. The consequence of the Miskolczi theory is that additions of ‘greenhouse gases’ such as CO2 to the atmosphere will not lead to an increase in the ‘greenhouse effect’ or increase in global temperature."

Certainly it deserves more study, but these are very interesting results.

Well, they took the SMB from the model and claim it aligns with empirical measurements:

"The modeled SMB is in good agreement with ±750 in-situ SMB measurements (R = 0.88), without a need for post calibration."

But hey, if you want to throw all models out, I'm good with that too!

Steven Goddard gives short shrift to GRACE:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/29/amazing-grace/

So does Tom Fuller:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/grace-under-fire/

Well, they took the SMB from the model and claim it aligns with empirical measurements:

"The modeled SMB is in good agreement with ±750 in-situ SMB measurements (R = 0.88), without a need for post calibration."

But hey, if you want to throw all models out, I'm good with that too!

Steven Goddard gives short shrift to GRACE:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/29/amazing-grace/

So does Tom Fuller:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/grace-under-fire/

You have to take into account how much CO2 we emit, and it is in fact a shitload. It's probably over 150 times as much as volcanism.

Still, not impressed. You've essentially got an ocean that can buffer more CO2 than you can possibly imagine, as well as hold orders of magnitude more heat than the entirety of the atmosphere.

We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we know that we produce a great deal of it, what more do you need to know?

1) where is the missing CO2 - http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/06/the-ipccs-missing-co2-remains-a-major-embarassment-of-its-consensus-science-its-still-awol-maybe.html

2) will an increase in the average global temperature statistic be a bad or a good thing

3) what other negative feedbacks are in play - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/09/declining-global-average-cloud-height-a-significant-measure-of-negative-feedback-to-global-warming/

I know that cities create local weather effects through UHI, and we've built a lot of cities - what more do you need to know before we decide that we've got catastrophic anthropogenic global warming due to city building? :)

Again, simply stringing together two things we might agree on, in order to claim a third thing we don't agree on, isn't the way the science game is played. Start off with your falsifiable hypothesis statement (and "AGW could be falsified by showing that humans don't exist" is just as silly as "AGW could be falsified by showing that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas" - the existence of physical constants or emitters of CO2 isn't sufficient to lead to catastrophe or causality.)

Just precisely how you can continue to live your selfish, self-centered existence at the cost of all others?

The same way you do :) I'm breathing out CO2, enjoying the trappings of 1st world living with my huge ass carbon footprint, only I'm not being a snoot about it :)

Look, how has the past 0.8C of temperature rise over the past 100 years negatively effected you? Why should we assume that another 0.8C of temperature over the next 100 years will be bad if the last 0.8C wasn't bad?

Hope you're ready to apologize to your grand children when they're living through a Maunder minimum that lasts until 2050 :)

You know, and I know, Monckton is fighting a straw man.

Monckton has a huge following of rabid denialists. He isn't fighting a straw man, he /is/ the straw man. It is absolutely laughable. Monckton also believes he has a cure for cancer, aids, graves disease and multiple-sclerosis. He is constantly contradicting himself (as the need arises). There is a hilarious conversation between Monckton and Peter Hadfield on WUWT. Search for all the references for Thatcher for a truly mind-numbing example of fantasy land.

As for your solutions -- I'm not sure drilling for oil is going to solve the coming energy crisis. We have been using exponentially more energy for a long time. If we double every 20 years, then that means we will use more energy in the next 20 years then we have used since the beginning of civilisation. Obviously something is going to break there eventually.

The price of energy should reflect its future availability. Markets get this wrong. E.g.: scientists warned that we should not be using trawlers back in the 70s, because it is not sustainable. Only took 20 years for the North Atlantic fish populations to tank, and we needed a moratorium on fishing. The investors in the 70s walked away with the cash, and the fishermen lost their livelihood and their towns.

Same thing will happen with a "drill-baby-drill" mentality. We will hit a brick wall due to exponential growth, the investors will walk away, and the government will be forced to do something. (And then Republicans will complain about the big arm of government.)

"Look, we don't think human CO2 has any measurable effect on natural climate change, but even if it did, nothing we can possibly do will stop it now. If people want to start focusing on adaptation (designing hurricane proof shelters, planning dikes, raising people out of poverty to they can survive natural weather disasters), great. Mitigation is a non-starter."

This is perfect example of how stupid the debate is. You complain that AGW isn't happening or it isn't a problem. But what you really mean is that you don't want to do anything about it. Hence the attack on the science. This is an obvious misdirection, and it is very dishonest and frustrating, and scientists are well aware that this is the score. Their work is attacked because lassez-faire fundamentalists don't want to deal with the reality of what their work might say. The evidence just doesn't matter. This is perhaps the most well studied phenomenon in all of human history.

So just be honest and say: "Yeah AGW and perhaps CAGW could happen, but I don't think that there is anything that can be done about it except adapting to whatever happens." That is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Denying the science is just counter-productive.

Personally I don't think anything will ever happen because it is hard enough to get people to save up for their retirement. Just remember what you said and where you stood today, and tell it to your grand-children, when you give them sage advice about politics. (I imagine you will say that the science just wasn't settled, when this is just a lie that you tell yourself.)

Monckton thinks he's "broken" the science. If his claims were supported by the evidence (or indeed his references), then he would be correct. He /would/ have falsified the AGW argument.

You know, and I know, Monckton is fighting a straw man. He's built it because nobody on the warmist side has bothered to specify a falsifiable hypothesis statement that contains all necessary and sufficient factors to show AGW or CAGW, but what he's done is broken straw men he's inferred from the various alarmist exclamations made without much thought. He's fighting a PR war, not a science war.

Again, no big deal. We're looking at a hypothetical forcing that might occur, and that warrantees further investigation.

It is a big deal if you insist (as some alarmists do), that "the science is settled". A potential negative feedback of this magnitude has immense consequences on what the actual climate sensitivity to CO2 is, and can easily bring temp increases down from "OMG" to "meh". The fact that the models don't even consider this factor is an indictment of their possible accuracy (even if they've overestimated the magnitude of negative feedback, it's still got real world implications that should be part of GCMs).

Yet they all (97%) agree that AGW is happening. Not CAGW. Just AGW.

97%?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/21/gmu-on-climate-scientists-we-are-the-97/

Okay, but forget that nitpick for a moment. AGW is happening. If defined as a nonzero and positive amount, I'll stipulate that to be true, in the same way that BYBGW (back yard butterfly global warming) is happening, and is nonzero and positive. Assert that it's happening at a rate of 1.5C per doubling of CO2, and I'll doubt you. Assert that it's happening at a rate of .8C per doubling of CO2 and I might believe you. Assert that it's happening at a rate of .000001C per doubling of CO2, and I might believe you.

My guess (and it is a well-informed layman's guess) is that we have a 10% chance of CAGW, 30% of nothing problematic, and 60% somewhere in-between.

My guess (also well-informed layman's guess), is that we've got a 0% chance of CAGW, a 60% chance of hitting something akin to a Maunder minimum between now and 2050, and a 40% chance of business as usual.

My further guess is that even if there was a 10% chance of CAGW, nothing we could do now could stop it from occurring - the only option would be adaptation, not mitigation.

I'm talking /solutions/. Practical.

Throw away your mitigation solutions for a moment. What practical adaptation solutions do you have?

But when you look at Fox News, /and/ the Republican primaries -- we get a blanket denial that there is any problem at all! 100% certainty that there is no problem.

Would it be less offensive to you if they simply said, "Look, we don't think human CO2 has any measurable effect on natural climate change, but even if it did, nothing we can possibly do will stop it now. If people want to start focusing on adaptation (designing hurricane proof shelters, planning dikes, raising people out of poverty to they can survive natural weather disasters), great. Mitigation is a non-starter."

I am *sure* that there are some great solutions that conservatives can come up with, and am ready to have that conversation.

Well then, as your token conservative (well, really a libertarian, but I get lumped in as conservative even though I support abortion rights, gay marriage, and the separation of church and state), here's my great solution:

Drill, baby, drill. Get the cheapest energy out of the ground as

Well, the results of Lenaerts et al. (2012) really aren't that surprising. Plenty of ice melting in other places of the world. Antarctica is huge and benefits from increased precipitation (from warmer oceans) enlarging the entire ice sheet.

Okay, so I don't want to caricature your particular belief in AGW (lesser or greater), but you've got to admit, that the public face of global warming has been talking about "ZOMG, sea levels are gonna get crazy high because ice in Antarctica is all gonna melt!" Nobody said in 1990 "hey, the antarctic is going to melt along the edges, but it's gonna gain just as much ice mass as it loses because of increased precipitation inside". The worry was always that the ice would melt, into the sea, and raise sea levels:

"But according to evidence developed in the 1990s, during a dramatic episode at the end of the last ice age, something had once raised the sea level 16 meters within three centuries. The rate of rise might have reached two feet per decade. Antarctica was the most likely source of all that water."

The caveat that "oh, all that melting ice will be replaced by fresh snow" is nowhere to be found.

You gotta find something on Watts' site that actually /breaks/ the science

"Breaks"? Without a clearly falsifiable hypothesis statement, no matter what I find, you'll claim some other ad hoc special pleading (ice melting in other parts of the world, for example). Watts talks a lot about science, and for the most part, he and his compatriots do a good job of being scientific about it (although certainly some of the comments are just as shrill as realclimate.org or desmog).

Here, try another one, which finds a significantly overlooked negative feedback:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/09/declining-global-average-cloud-height-a-significant-measure-of-negative-feedback-to-global-warming/

Okay, I'll bite. Why not the current topic of Gleick's confession?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/

Or, if you want to skip to something a little more sciency:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/new-paper-a-high-resolution-surface-mass-balance-map-of-antarctica-shows-no-significant-trend-in-the-1979-2010-ice-sheet/

Do you disagree with his emphasis on the money quote?

"We found no significant trend in the 1979–2010 ice sheet integrated SMB components, which confirms the results from Monaghan et al. [2006]."

As per his cite, full paper here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL050713.pdf

Okay, I'll bite. Why not the current topic of Gleick's confession?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/

Or, if you want to skip to something a little more sciency:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/new-paper-a-high-resolution-surface-mass-balance-map-of-antarctica-shows-no-significant-trend-in-the-1979-2010-ice-sheet/

Do you disagree with his emphasis on the money quote?

"We found no significant trend in the 1979–2010 ice sheet integrated SMB components, which confirms the results from Monaghan et al. [2006]."

As per his cite, full paper here: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL050713.pdf

Important information has come forward.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/#more-57113

Here's the gist:
Gleick posed as someone on the board of the Hearland Institute and had someone send him internal documents. He then wrote his own document, bolstered by information gleamed from other true documents, threw it in the mix and claimed it as theirs. To hide his authorship, he scanned a print out into PDF and released the scanned document. Of course, the most objectionable content about targeting teachers and the like are all Gleick's words and not the Institutes.

He has now come forward and admitted his actions.

Important information has come forward.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/#more-57113

Here's the gist:
Gleick posed as someone on the board of the Hearland Institute and had someone send him internal documents. He then wrote his own document, bolstered by information gleamed from other true documents, threw it in the mix and claimed it as theirs. To hide his authorship, he scanned a print out into PDF and released the scanned document. Of course, the most objectionable content about targeting teachers and the like are all Gleick's words and not the Institutes.

He has now come forward and admitted his actions.

It is very likely faked. It was not gotten through the same channel as the other documents and there are many inconsistencies which make it of doubtful authenticity including metadata: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/ That said, it serves Heartland right after the fuss they made over Climategate.

Oooh, busted.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/

Yes. And yes, we're crazy enough to enjoy it. :)

Next question.

You mean like this:

Dr. James Hansen’s growing financial scandal, now over a million dollars of outside income

Feedbacks are a consequence of the forcing. Both should be counted. Also, keep in mind that 2C is the difference between a glacial and interglacial period - not insignificant. Human influence is both positive (greenhouse gasses) and negative (aerosols). Damn I hope you read through this post - it took way too long to compile :)

Granted, they are not a coherent movement so I can't say that all skeptics have predicted global cooling. The leaders of the movement who are willing to predict anything at all have predicted or promoted global cooling. They are right of course. If CO2 is not a major driver then global cooling has indeed been imminent for the last couple decades. Here is the solar output since 1985: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/from:1985

Here are examples from leaders of the skeptic movement predicting or promoting global cooling:

Joseph D'Aleo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_D'Aleo

John McLean: http://www.skepticalscience.com/mclean-exaggerating-natural-cycles.html

Christopher Monckton: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/monckton-global_warming_has_stopped.pdf

Anthony Watts: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22global+cooling%22+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com

Piers Corbyn: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/global-warming-skeptic-predicts-brutal-winter-warns-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet/

James Dellingpole: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/

Don Easterbrook: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/

Henrik Svensmark http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/

David Rose: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

Alan Caruba, "An Icy End for Mankind?" Science and Environmental Policy Project, November 26, 2005; and Robert W. Felix, "Not by Fire, But by Ice: The Next Ice Age Now," Bellevue, WA: Sugarhouse Publishing.

Lawrence Solomon: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/05/03/lawrence-solomon-arctic-ice-sets-records-in-april-could-auger-global-cooling.aspx

The only notable people missing are McIntyre, McKitrick, Spencer, and Lindzen. None of these people are willing or able to make predictions.

My prediction? We've just had the hottest La Nina on record - hotter even than all but one of the El Nino's of the previous century. La Nina's are cooler part of the ENSO. ENSO neutral 2010 was tied for hottest year on record. Even a small El Nino (warm part of ENSO) will push us into the hottest year on record. So the hottest year on record will come with the next El Nino. Probably within 2 years?

Really -- A lot of the stuff I read on his site is the links to the emails written by these so called authority discussing how to "hide the decline.".

So, what decline would that be?

Go on, tell us, we're dying to know.

Really -- A lot of the stuff I read on his site is the links to the emails written by these so called authority discussing how to "hide the decline." I'm sorry but I think the side that has been more discredited in recent years is the AGW side, further by the release of their own emails describing non-scientific methods used to prop up their arguments.

It is obvious that either quantum mechanics, or general relativity or both have problems, but it is not clear where those problems lie.

*Exactly*. As it stands, there is no theoretical physicist who would *dare* assert "the science is settled", and this is with a field that makes bold statements and predictions, and for the most part, has ranges where things are accurate descriptions.

Finding these things papers took all of five minutes. If you had wanted to know what climatologists actually think you could have done the same.

I've read the papers as well, and they're not at all convincing. I understand what the warmists believe, but because they can't even formulate a falsifiable hypothesis, one simply cannot call their position scientific.

What I can point out is that suggesting that a dispute about small anomalies in the present data somehow invalidates the entirety of climate science is absurd.

Who said the entirety of climate science is absurd? The entirety of "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming" is absurd, but we knew that already.

Or do you believe "climate science" means "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"?

If you want to come back with objections then I will be all ears

Sure.

1) Your CaillonTermIII.pdf cite simply asserts that "This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that CO2 plays, through its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing." That's weasel talk. The fact of the matter is that not *once* in the paper do they specify any observation that would falsify their hypothesis. They claim that things are "consistent with", rather than making a prediction, and accepting the consequences. If they were doing *science*, they'd say "if you saw, such and such and such int he historical record, obviously our hypothesis would be wrong." Instead, they play astrology.

Obligatory popper ref: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

2) Ocean heat content is not rising as predicted (even though, as with any post mini ice age period, it is on the rebound), plus you're citing a 2008 paper when we have more recent data showing a break in the expected trend of increase:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/26/october-to-december-2011-nodc-ocean-heat-content-anomalies-0-700meters-update-and-comments/

3) Reductions in cyclone frequency definitely isn't the warmist story - the idea has been pushed time and time again that a warmer world means more extreme weather. Now, if you're saying that a warmer world means less cyclonic activity, and concede that cyclonic activity is a *bad* thing, are you categorically in *favor* of doing everything we can to make the world a warmer place?

4) Claims that the UHI effect are negligible are capable only if one throws away data which refutes that hypothesis. Any rigorous analysis of the UHI effect shows that it is both real, and significant.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/new-paper-uhi-alive-and-well-in-china/

Now, I'm perfectly happy to trade cites with you, but honestly, if you want to credibly attack this problem, you need to start off with your falsifiable hypothesis. Thus far, you've avoided taking any concrete position - are you willing to?

It is obvious that either quantum mechanics, or general relativity or both have problems, but it is not clear where those problems lie.

*Exactly*. As it stands, there is no theoretical physicist who would *dare* assert "the science is settled", and this is with a field that makes bold statements and predictions, and for the most part, has ranges where things are accurate descriptions.

Finding these things papers took all of five minutes. If you had wanted to know what climatologists actually think you could have done the same.

I've read the papers as well, and they're not at all convincing. I understand what the warmists believe, but because they can't even formulate a falsifiable hypothesis, one simply cannot call their position scientific.

What I can point out is that suggesting that a dispute about small anomalies in the present data somehow invalidates the entirety of climate science is absurd.

Who said the entirety of climate science is absurd? The entirety of "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming" is absurd, but we knew that already.

Or do you believe "climate science" means "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"?

If you want to come back with objections then I will be all ears

Sure.

1) Your CaillonTermIII.pdf cite simply asserts that "This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that CO2 plays, through its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing." That's weasel talk. The fact of the matter is that not *once* in the paper do they specify any observation that would falsify their hypothesis. They claim that things are "consistent with", rather than making a prediction, and accepting the consequences. If they were doing *science*, they'd say "if you saw, such and such and such int he historical record, obviously our hypothesis would be wrong." Instead, they play astrology.

Obligatory popper ref: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

2) Ocean heat content is not rising as predicted (even though, as with any post mini ice age period, it is on the rebound), plus you're citing a 2008 paper when we have more recent data showing a break in the expected trend of increase:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/26/october-to-december-2011-nodc-ocean-heat-content-anomalies-0-700meters-update-and-comments/

3) Reductions in cyclone frequency definitely isn't the warmist story - the idea has been pushed time and time again that a warmer world means more extreme weather. Now, if you're saying that a warmer world means less cyclonic activity, and concede that cyclonic activity is a *bad* thing, are you categorically in *favor* of doing everything we can to make the world a warmer place?

4) Claims that the UHI effect are negligible are capable only if one throws away data which refutes that hypothesis. Any rigorous analysis of the UHI effect shows that it is both real, and significant.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/new-paper-uhi-alive-and-well-in-china/

Now, I'm perfectly happy to trade cites with you, but honestly, if you want to credibly attack this problem, you need to start off with your falsifiable hypothesis. Thus far, you've avoided taking any concrete position - are you willing to?

our climate is controlled by things well outside man's control and to posit the fantasy that man is wholly responsible for the recent warming trend is madness... Look at the graphs in the linked article and you will see that there are LONG TERM CYCLES at work here... and the overall temperature is directly as a result of them adding and subtracting...

Watts objected to the publication of the paper and was disregarded.

Watts objected to the publication of a paper he is co-author of?

Citation fucking needed.

Watts own site, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/11/the-long-awaited-surfacestations-paper/ contains no objections that I can see.

Yes you are absolutly right about the damage and here is the proof right here.
Proof

First, the IPCC is actually a very conservative document.

It's already been established that a) the IPCC puts crap in and b) the executive summary is always sexed up to exaggerate global warming and support a particular set of mitigation strategies.

The IPCC does not predict "a couple of degrees," in the sense that 2.0C is the upper boundary. That's about a midline case. The upper predictions (which may themselves be inadequate to describe the situation) range from 4C to 6C, depending on the scenario. 2C is probably the very upper reaches of what the ecosystem can handle without large-scale extinctions, so yeah, "we're fucked" is a pretty apt turn of phrase.

I'd say 10C is more the limit and I'm probably setting it a bit low. Remember that most of the current and forecast warming is in the upper northern hemisphere which doesn't have a lot of biological diversity (both because of the arduous environment and because most of it used to be ice-covered ten thousand years ago). Also, your "mass extinctions" do not include humans or species we depend on.

Also, it's worth noting that the projections IPCC depends on, tend to consistently exaggerate the degree of warming. I treat the IPCC's median forecasts as an upper bound.

But currently closer to 25%. And where the hell do you get 1% from? I can't see 1% happening unless Dennis Kucinich wins the next ten presidential elections.

You have to keep in mind that alternative energy approaches might actually work on that time scale.

First, we only spend about 8% of GDP purchasing energy. So if we did indeed double our energy costs, we would lose about 8% GDP. Leaving us essentially as well off as we were in 2005. You call that "crippling the economy?"

Note that you just transitioned from a growing economy (no developed world economy grows at 8% a year) to a shrinking one. So yes, that is "crippling the economy".

Second, your projections assume that alternative energy technology will remain at its current cost. That simply will not happen. The cost of photovoltaics has been dropping by 50% every six years pretty much since the things were invented. It's a veritable Moore's Law of solar power, and it hasn't shown any sign of slowing. So within ten years, it's very likely that the cheapest way to add new energy to the grid will be with solar power. Within twenty years? It's a certainty.*

So what is it? Is solar going to vastly reduce costs or not? If it does, then the whole argument about reducing carbon dioxide emissions can be tossed. Because it will happen anyway as solar replaces fossil fuel burning for more and more applications.

Third and most important, we could be spending a lot less on energy without significantly impacting our quality of life. Right now, the cheapest form of energy isn't coal or natural gas: it's energy efficiency. There are so many ways to reduce our CO2 footprint at a profit that it is absurd to be talking about CO2 reductions "crippling the economy" until all that money we're flushing down the proverbial toilet is reclaimed. For example, the $20M they sunk into an energy retrofit of the Empire State Building is yielding up $4M/year in dividends.

There are plenty of ways we can reduce energy consumption, but so what? No one has demonstrated a need to do so. Energy cost is cheap which means right there, that there's no reason to waste a lot of effort conserving energy.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Anti-science is a tactical position; anti-climate change is a core message from their corporate sponsors.

No, the issue here is "anthropogenic climate change". ie. man made global warming as it was called before they lost the argument and started calling it anthropogenic climate change... "Climate Change" per se is a given... whether man is causing it is NOT a given... please don't try and twist the argument of the poster you are replying to... we want to see *your* falsifiable hypothesis statement of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming... I would like to point you in the direction of this web page: In China there are no "Hockey Sticks" and try and dispute the evidence shown there that there are long term cycles involved and that the current recent warming trend is about to end and we are now going into a cooling cycle...

[citation needed]

Last time I checked, it's the AGW proponents - not the skeptics - that get big paychecks. Have you actually verified your statement?

Example: James Hansen of NASA collecting over a million dollars in personal income for work he's already been paid for with his public salary

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

"Everything is happening faster than the "alarmists" have been predicting." hmmm.. how about no. /quick google search/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/ http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/how_to_talk_to_a_skeptic_hansens_prediction http://braincramps.net/?p=1292 http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/20014-how-has-the-ipcc-done/

Why not? Who is more authoritative, and why?

wattsupwiththat is. They don't illegally hide their data or methods like the IPCC does.

Duh...

The science was so bad in this report it's already been torn to pieces. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/20/this-is-glacial-tap/

"Over and over, we read of hidden, manipulated, and cherry-picked data, refusals to abide with having outsiders vet their work, and allowing naked advocacy into the IPCC reports on climate change as if they were peer-reviewed science. "

Yes indeed. And anyone who claims otherwise--such as the parent--is either ignorant or dishonest. Here are some sources, but it feels unfair to only list these few.

The Hockey Stick Illusion (book about the "hockey stick")
The Delinquent Teenager (book about IPCC being infiltrated by extreme advocates)
"Understanding Climategate's hidden decline" (article about "hide the decline")
Watts Up With That? (leading blog)
Letter to the Science and Technology Committee (on fraud)

Etc. Etc.

For some reason /. hates Al Gore.

Al Gore is the Dems version of Dear Leader and is full of fail.

One of the most technically literate people in office.

Wonders why someone so technically literate had to fake his c02 experiment
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/replicating-al-gores-climate-101-video-experiment-shows-that-his-high-school-physics-could-never-work-as-advertised/

And of course we have his Jan 26th, 2006 'end of the world' prediction.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/10/al-gores-doomsday-countdown.html

To see what lawyers and experts can do to petroleum in your water supply: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/13/national-academy-of-sciences-appointee-caught-making-up-stuff-to-win-lawsuit-rico-lawsuit-follows/

@NeutronCowboy could never be objective about the science. He is a cult zealot that believes the magic tree rings!

Here is a great email spoken from the grave if you will:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/23/john-l-dalys-message-to-mike-mann-and-the-team/

Most ppl are on to the scam and you NeutronCowboy will be held accountable with them when it all comes tumbling down....

That's your line?

1. No statistically significant warming since 1995. BBC interview.
2. BEST confirmation of no global warming for 13 years. Prof Curry confirmed her objections to Prof Muller's assertions, and the quotes used in the published interview:

   ‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’

   .

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/29/uh-oh-it-was-the-best-of-times-it-was-the-worst-of-times/

http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-denver/dr-james-hansen-takes-final-leap-from-scientist-to-activist

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

Definition of a scientist: A political activist that also wants to take credit for advances actually developed by engineers, entrepreneurs and lay inventors.

http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-denver/dr-james-hansen-takes-final-leap-from-scientist-to-activist

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

For a fun preview of what we're in for, check out the events of 1315-22.

Im intrigued. Did co2 cause this event as well?


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/26/co2-ice-cores-vs-plant-stomata/

It's quite simple: The request was filed with the wrong department.. But this does go to show that bureaucracies tend to exhibit a collective lack of common sense.

IPCC's Prediction That CO2 Will Cause High Temperatures Found Wildly Wrong, Scientists Confirm 'New peer-reviewed research has found that the IPCC's climate models are wrong, and the prediction of 'accelerating; global warming due high climate sensitivity is wrong' http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/11/08/a-new-lower-estimate-of-climate-sensitivity/

How does it feel to be the one "being deliberately confused"? they are feeding you lies dumbass and real science keeps exposing them!



want more? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/10/new-study-shows-temperature-in-greenland-significantly-warmer-than-present-several-times-in-the-last-4000-years/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/16/i-need-your-help-for-a-short-research-project/

Well, this entertaining blog post provides estimates for an ice-free arctic starting from the 1980s through to the 2100s.

Are they all right too?

I'm not going to bother providing you with citations, though I seem to recall New Scientist doing a special report on potential benefits of climate change. Haven't read it in a few years, but you can go look that up if you want, I'm sure it has several citations.

How would you even begin to quantify any of these proposed observations - or for that matter, apply them to the modern world? Even if you demonstrated a net benefit to a world of half a million hunter-gatherers, I very much doubt you could directly apply that to a globalized world of 7 billion. Same with the medieval warm period, but as that's generally considered a localized phenomenon anyway, it doesn't really count.

As for comparing tundra with rainforest, shouldn't you be comparing it with desert? Regardless, given that the vast majority of land-based human food production is done between these extremes, it's presumably the extent of temperate areas suitable for farming that's the most important factor in such calcuations.

1) Oceans are not acidic, so a drop in pH is not "increasing acidity", it's "less alkalinity".

Presumably you'd also telling me off for saying that something got colder instead of getting less hot? I'm no chemist, but I'm convinced that your pedantry backfired here. "Decreasing alkalinity" is synonymous with "increasing acidity!"

2) The historical record doesn't support any sort of assertion that high CO2 in the atmosphere is going to cause the oceans to become acidic: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again/

That page ... well, where to start? The first sentence is a mouthful, that's for sure. It almost sounds like it's suggesting that anthropogenic CO2 was the main driver of climate change in the past, but that cosmic rays and the sun have taken over recently! It also uses an apostrophe to pluralise a number: 1700s. My inner pedant really hates that one!

The author accuses multiple peer reviewed papers of blatantly obvious cherry picking, yet picks only specific studies to cite, offering no independent verification of his own conclusions. He claims that there is no evidence that increased ocean acidification and temperature can affect coral, yet offers no explanation as to the reef deaths that have been observed, and credibly attributed to these causes. He suggests that increased atmospheric CO2 may not affect ocean acidity, seemingly ignoring the massive interactions between ocean and atmosphere, and the very concept of carbonic acid.

Seems like blatant denialism of observed data, to me.

I'm pretty sure I recall studies suggesting that we're better off keeping things temperate.

Citation? And more importantly, what observations would falsify that hypothesis? Perhaps a Holocene Optimum that coincided with an improvement in life for humanity? Or a Medieval Warm Period that coincided with increased agricultural productivity? Or how about the comparison of biodiversity between arctic tundra and tropical rainforest?

And I think most everyone agrees that a global increase in ocean acidity is bad news for fish (and the people that eat them) everywhere

1) Oceans are not acidic, so a drop in pH is not "increasing acidity", it's "less alkalinity".

2) The historical record doesn't support any sort of assertion that high CO2 in the atmosphere is going to cause the oceans to become acidic: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again/

So the consensus view now is that:

-it is ok to fudge models after the fact as long as it still shows the trend you want, but we can certainly trust your models now

-it is ok to blame natural trends in the data as long as it supports your agenda, but there are no other natural trends to worry about

-it is ok to blame weather on climate change, but only the violent weather. Like hurricane predictions that never came through.

I especially like the way even the data gets massaged to show a warming trend. Look at GISS from 1999 vs GISS in 2011. That is supposedly "pure" data, not modeled data.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/05/ncdc-data-shows-that-the-contiguous-usa-has-not-warmed-in-the-past-decade-summers-are-cooler-winters-are-getting-colder/