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Arctic Ice Cap Rebounds From 2012 — But Does That Matter?
bricko writes "There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, the equivalent of almost a million square miles. In a rebound from 2012's record low an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia's northern shores, days before the annual re-freeze is even set to begin. The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year, forcing some ships to change their routes. A leaked report to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seen by the Mail on Sunday, has led some scientists to claim that the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century." "Some scientsts" in this case do not include Dana Nuccitelli, who blogs cogently in reaction at The Guardian that the 60 percent increase observed in Arctic ice is "technically true, [but] also largely irrelevant." He has no kind words for the analysis in the Daily Mail (and similar report in The Telegraph), and writes "In short, this year's higher sea ice extent is merely due to the fact that last year's minimum extent was record-shattering, and the weather was not as optimal for sea ice loss this summer. However, the long-term trend is one of rapid Arctic sea ice decline, and research has shown this is mostly due to human-caused global warming." If you want to keep track of the ice yourself, Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis offers frequent updates.
Out there on some Canadian glacier with a bon fire and fans trying to get them to melt again.
60% increase. Yet no relevant data for scale to understand the shift. No wonder someone else called it 'technically true'.
Looking at a single year doesn't tell us much about the trend. Here is some real data.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2000/09/Figure31.png
And makes this year look good in comparison but the overall trend is still downwards.
Pointing at year-to-year variations in order to prove or disprove a phenomenon that has a time-scale of decades is stupid, no matter which side of the argument you're on. This is like saying you don't believe winter will be cold, because the weather is actually warmer today than it was last week.
You won't find an analysis in Daily Mail. Use some other word.
To put this in some context, have a look at Jim Pettit's "spiral" graphs and consider that the grey zone in the NSIDC plots linked from the summary are still two standard deviations from the norm, and this year we're almost touching that (if that doesn't mean much to you now would be a good time to brush up on your statistics). So compared to last year we've gone from holy shit batshit insane outlier to just plain old holy shit.
https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/sea-ice-volume
To anyone about to complain that the number of samples is too short, 1) these measurements start when humanity invented the satellites to measure it - can't change that, and 2) we have deep Greenland ice cores for a pretty good idea of what was going on before.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
We have been heading for the next Ice Age, and a disastrous period of global cooling. It is only by the release of more CO2 that we can save ourselves. Some people with their own self interests (research budgets) are trying to stop that, as well as some people doing so simply because they are pure evil (Al Gore).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Exactly.
It gets warmer = Global Warming caused by us.
It gets colder = Climate Change caused by us.
It gets warmer, but not as much as predicted = Global Warming and Climate Change, caused by us.
Climate stops changing = game over, planet is dead.
For all they care, the ice cap could return to the extent of 1980 wthin a couple of years and all they'd say would be:
See, an extreme weather event! This proves climate change is true!
No. Climate is the mean value of a long series of datapoints observed over a long period of time.
Any one datapoint can vary up to several standard deviations from the mean, without affecting whether climate change is occuring or not.
Climate is by definition the long term pattern.
Climate change is a change in the long term pattern as time progresses. Therefore: no observation of a single datapoint is capable of saying much at all about the climate.
Observing a massive loss of ice or massive increase in ice one year is neither capable of proving, and also not capable of disproving climate change.
Furthermore; we know that climate change naturally occurs --- that is, there are natural cycles such as Milankovitch cycles; precession of earth's orbit, variation of Earth's tilt naturally effect climate over long periods of time.
There may be numerous things that contribute to natural climate changes.
The whole global warming argument; is there is some non-natural, or human created factors perturbing the natural climate changes that have and are occuring; because some correlation might have been observed with rising temperatures over time, and human development: measured from ice core samples.
This is already highly speculative; even relying on long-term data, that human activity has significantly accelerated or altered the natural climate change.
The trouble is: we don't fully understand what the natural change is, therefore: what mechanism allows us to measure how much humans supposedly affected it?
If it's so hard to show climate change based on long term data, then it's nigh impossible to infer ANYTHING from datapoints about what happened during 1 year.... there's no reason 2013 is a magic year where you can take an observation capable of showing that climate change isn't happening; it's simply not true that you can observe what happens in 2013, and infer from that any fact about climate change.
One, two, three, even 4 or 5 years in isolation does not establish a new climate pattern.
We're talking about 100-year trends here.
Why should we listen to fossil-fuel sponsored shills like Nuccitelli?
Or
Why does the above question only matter when a person questions AGW?
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
But the loss of sea-ice is at most measured over the last 30 years. So therefore by your statements, the apparent loss of Arctic sea ice cannot be proven to be related to climate change, whether natural or not.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
no, it really is largely irrelevant. here are the numbers up to and including last week:
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv_annual_polar_graph.png
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2000/09/Figure31.png
Or see third chart on left if that link dies:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Ah, this reminds me of the dicussion about evolution. One side has a scientific model - or actually a heap of scientific models based on the same idea - they keep tweaking and rejecting all the time but no matter what weird creature shows up evolution can be tweaked to fit. While the other side has picked a story and is sticking with it and because it's been literally unchanged for the last 2000 years that "proves" it's the right answer while the other side is constantly fudging their numbers to make it look right. I mean it's not like the other side brings any alternative models or explanations to the table, it's the same beat up record that natural changes are large and unpredictable while your data is short and weak and you're just chasing statistical blips and coming up with fancy explanations. There's no data about AGW that can't be explained away either.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Climate change is reality - there is overwhelming evidence that the earth is currently warming. There is overwhelming evidence that the climate in the past has changed e.g. 10,000 year ago there was an ice age. Some of these cycles are well understood and related to natural phenomena e.g. precession of the earth's axis of rotation. The question which is being debated is how much of the current warming is natural vs. man-made.
The debate is complicated by the media's lack of reporters with any level of scientific training or competence. They have trouble distinguishing weather (day to day conditions) from climate (average over multiple years). They also seem unable to distinguish between pseudo-scientists and real scientists. This by itself is pretty typical but, unlike many cases (e.g. LHC black holes destroying the earth) there is no clear scientific consensus yet with which to counter the pseudo-scientists which makes it very hard for those of us not involved in the field to really understand what the current state of the real scientific debate is.
> No. Climate is the mean value of a long series of datapoints observed over a long period of time.
Oh. Would you care to point me to the hoards of level headed climate activists who say this about Hurricane Katrina or Sandy? I seem to have missed them. For what you say implies that they should be out there on the streets, shouting at the top of their lungs that hurricane activity is a mean value in a long series of datapoints observed over a long time and that "Any one datapoint can vary up to several standard deviations from the mean, without affecting whether climate change is occuring or not."
> Furthermore; we know that climate change naturally occurs --- that is, there are natural cycles such as Milankovitch cycles; precession of earth's orbit, variation of Earth's tilt naturally effect climate over long periods of time. There may be numerous things that contribute to natural climate changes.
Of course, there have never been variations over the course of 100 years. Such as the last 100 years. The climate has always been stable and people have always been able to easily adapt to anything nature threw at them, because it happened over a much longer time frame. Archeology begs to differ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture
> The whole global warming argument; is there is some non-natural, or human created factors perturbing the natural climate changes that have and are occuring; because some correlation might have been observed with rising temperatures over time, and human development: measured from ice core samples.
Well no. The whole global warming argument, as put forward by the IPCC and the rest of the climate change community, is that human created factors far outstrip any natural causes. In fact the IPCC argues that there is a strong natural tendency of climate cooling at work.
If we assume that CO2 was the sole cause of warming in the last 130 years and nothing else was going on, this would imply that a doubling of CO2 would cause a rise of 1.6K. Temperatures rose by 0.8K while CO2 rose by 42% (Which is one half of 100% in a logarithmic relationship. If CO2 concentrations rise by another 42% you have more than doubled the concentration). The climate models of the IPCC claim that a doubling of CO2 will result in a rise between 2 and 4.5K, with the most likely value being 3K.
Taking this at face value, this means that the IPCC claims that there is a natural process at work that would have cooled the world by about 0.6 ... 1.2K in last 130 years, if it wasn't for CO2 emissions, which counteracted this trend. Then again, all climate models and predicitons the IPCC put forth failed to predict the stagnating temperatures of the last 15 years.
If climate models are incapable of predicting short term developments, then certainly the predictions in the IPCC reports should have as many scenarios predicting that global temperatures cool down over the next 10 years as there should have been scenarios showing a rising trend over the next 10 years. None of the former exist. If the claim that climate models can't predict short term changes is true, then climate scientists certainly don't act as if they believe this claim. Because in this case, they should have had many scenarios included in the first, second and third IPCC assessment report predicting a stagnation or decline in temperatures in the first decades after their respective release.
Whatever those "scientists" in the inter GOVERNMENTAL panel on climate change claim (for those are politicians or people who act as politicians, certainly not as scientists), has been in bad faith. They use their claims of uncertainty to hide their mistakes and to defend inflated claims of the capacity of CO2 to cause global warming.
How about this guy:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Asbeck
And the austere little hut he calls his home:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remagen,_Schloss_Marienfels.jpg
You may now proceed to delude yourself into thinking that Germans would have spend over $500bn on "renewable" energy (that will be a large heap of trash after 20years, when state-mandated funding runs out), if it hadn't been for the frantic claims of climate disaster that saturated media for the last decades. And that noboby benefits at all from any of this. Least of all farmers who managed to convince the public that food should be burned as "bio"-ethanol and "bio"-diesel, while at the same time being cheered and applauded.
Agreed but try to convince people who swallow this stuff whole without any critical thinking.
Manmade CO2 being the cause doesn't make sense when you learn about CO2.
We have just discovered through new satellite surveys that Antarctic ocean currents wrap around the world and take up to a thousand years to complete.
From what I've read we can't even do a true climate simulation until the advent of quantum computing.
There is so much we don't know and too many are afraid to admit that.
Thank god we have decades of research proving that an overactive massive industrial infrastructure is just the solution to this sort of thing. A few more coal plants should fix this, right?
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
Because it means there's high potential for conflict of interest. If however they're defending the theory of AGW then there's clearly no conflict of interest is there?
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv_annual_polar_graph.png Cliamte change is the overall trend : starting from the 1980 to today each decade there has been a lower volume and extent than the previous decade. YOU are looking at the orange line in the center and the red line , and saying "woooot 1 year with more ice see global warming don#t exists thx k bye".
You sir are ignorant.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Would you care to point me to the hoards of level headed climate activists who say this about Hurricane Katrina or Sandy?
Hoards? Hidden in a pirate's chest somewhere?
Maybe hordes? But do level-headed people come in hordes?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
It does remind me of the EARLY phase of the discussion of evolution.
Do you remember those days? When people pushed policians to immediately impose drastic measures on the population to prevent genetic decline? Do you remember that this was an undeniable fact shared by a broad scientific consensus?
Do you remember Eugenics?
Thanks. You've made the only post that this article needs. All the rest is just a waste of time
Watch this Heartland Institute video
If that is all you can muster, the argument must have been a good one.
The failure of global warming proved climate change, and the failure of climate change proves climate disruption.
It is always worse than we thought.
Or that the term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts.
See, if everything has a natural holarchical order (wholes made of parts) then it became obvious that the European Colonials had to take their natural place at the top of the stack, in South Africa, and Apartheid became justified.
Used to be multi-year ice, now it's one-year ice. Major difference.
Oh. Would you care to point me to the hoards of level headed climate activists who say this about Hurricane Katrina or Sandy?
You're misunderstanding how science works and what the claims were. You make a prediction (e.g. pumping loads of extra energy into a chaotic system will cause more extreme weather) and you then look at the new data to see what it does to your hypothesis. Each data point will do one of three things:
The scientists you are referring to are saying that they have more data points in the first category when these events happen. They don't conclusively prove their hypotheses (but then, that never happens in science), but they do lend it some extra weight.
If we assume that CO2 was the sole cause of warming in the last 130 years and nothing else was going on
No one is claiming this. There's a reason why these models take very large compute clusters to run: they have a huge number of variables and input data from a very large number of experimental inputs.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
80% of climate scientists who were asked last year expected more ice this year than 2013. So this is hardly an unforseen event. The blog link mentioned in the summary explains why, but I'll repeat it since you didn't read it.
Arctic ice volume has a falling long-term trends, but on top of that there are short-term year-by-year changes. You effectively have a long-term signal with short-term noise on it. As you can see from this figure, the trend is about -0.065 million square kilometers per year, while the year-to-year variations are 0.5-1 million square kilometers. Hence, on a short timescale you can basically only see the yearly random variations. If you suddenly see a large jump, it is much more likely to be a short-term change than a long term one, and several years of observations are needed to see if the long-term behavior has changed or not.
The point now is that if you happen to get a particularly low value of the random yearly variations one year, you are likely to get a larger value the next year. Much like if you roll a die and get a 1, you are likely to get a larger value the next time you roll, simply because there are more values (2,3,4,5,6) that are larger than 1 than those that aren't (1). In general, extreme values are unlikely, and the chance of getting several of them in a row is much lower than getting one of them followed by less extreme values. This is called regression toward the mean.
So to summarize, this was expected, and predicted, and no models will have to be changed based on this observation.
If however they're defending the theory of AGW then there's clearly no conflict of interest is there?
Most of the 'fossil-fuel companies' are actually energy companies now, and will happily sell you solar panels, wind generators, and so on, and be the first in the queue for government subsidies on these things. There's a conflict of interest when they make claims in both directions, the difference is that in one case they are making the same claims as people with less of a conflict.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You're an idiot. The human-made factor in the current climate change is a measurable, empirical fact. The only to explain it away is to come up with a different mechanism, and explain why it would overwhelm the effect of human-contributed CO2 concentration increases.
For those who are interested, this is the chain of causality:
That's the basics of AGW theory. There are lots of interesting things to study around the basics, and a lot of them are not well understood yet, but the CO2 hypothesis is over a century old, and all the opponents have produced against it is think-tank sponsored media smears.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Perhaps sea ice extent oscillates between the North and South Poles
Yes, it's also been noted that the frequency of that (rough) oscillation seems to be synchronised with the seasons, weird huh?
Seriously, the ice at the two poles behaves in totally different ways. Just pause for a second and think about the geography, Antarctica is a land surrounded by deep oceans and a strong circumpolar ocean current, the Artic is a (relatively) shallow sea surrounded by land. Melting at the south pole INCREASES* the extent of the Antarctic sea ice.
This is because in Antarctica the majority of the sea ice comes from glacial outflows, this ice breaks up with the mechanical action of the waves and floats away as icebergs. Whatever bergs (or ships) that are still close to the coast in autumn become part of that years sea ice. The mouths of these glaciers are enormous and create permanent ice shelves that are several hundred feet thick.
These ice shelves are the best indicators that the warming trend is impacting Antarctica, we are seeing Antarctic ice shelves that have existed for at least 4kys breaking up disappearing at the rate of roughly one a year for over a decade now.
OTOH Greenland and the Antarctic peninsula have a lot in common and are both effected by something called Polar Amplification, a phenomena predicted by the much maligned climate models BEFORE it was observed in the data. There are a whole bunch of such phenomena that were predicted by models and subsequently observed in the real world, "stratospheric cooling" is another well known example.
In other words sea ice extent is basically meaningless without some context, What you really want to know for the Artic is sea ice volume. I've been following the subject for over 30yrs and the best estimates of volume that I have seen use data gleaned from cold war sonar maps that were declassified sometime in the last decade. According to those figures Artic sea ice volume is now less than 1/5th of what it was when I was born (1959).
Some (perhaps unwelcome) advise, forget about climate science for now and spend a year or two working on your technical research skills, the best way I know of doing that is to skip church (or some other overrated social club), and spend the time browsing WP and "double checking" the theories and assumptions you hold most dearly. Science is intelligently designed to evolve towards the ideal of "truth" (google "the relativity of wrong" and read it, I can't be bothered to link it). Not only that but for the last couple of centuries the rate of these changes has been increasing over time, Meaning that the older you get the faster it changes, and the more neural archives you will need to update (a personal "theory" that I use to explain my "senior" moments).
I jumped on the quote above because I first heard it in the mid-90's, I'll concede that on the surface it sounds plausible as it did to me when I first heard it. However as with most of the anti-science "talking points" pushed by a minority group within the FF industry via extremely effective (but surprisingly cheap) professional lobbyists, the theorised "oscillation" soon melts under a skeptical eye. This is why "deniers" don't normally give an alternative explanation. let alone one that stands up to rigor of broader peer-review process. I strongly suggest you use a reputable source to check out the next climate meme before you infect others with it. As stated in the title your particular meme is #113.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Where are my mod points when I need them. +5 Insightful
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Finally, a graph showing volume rather than area!
Sure, I wasn't commenting on the company and question though, the GGP was talking about people who work for fossil fuel companies.
I agree that anyone working for a solar panel firm similarly has a conflict of interest in defending the theory of AGW, but to date they've been strangely absent from the debate - presumably because they're way smaller in size and so don't have the money to pay the shills like the classic oil/gas companies do (and those with fingers in both pots probably simply give not a shit). Or perhaps they're just more professional and realise that sticking their nose in would raise conflict of interest arguments and simply only harm their viewpoint. Who knows, but either way there's an obvious reason why it's fair to take with a pinch of salt the opinion of someone with a vested interest which is a simple concept yet one that seemed to baffle the GGP.
>> If we assume that CO2 was the sole cause of warming in the last 130 years and nothing else was going on
> No one is claiming this. There's a reason why these models take very large compute clusters to run: they have a huge number of variables and input data from a very large number of experimental inputs.
You do not seem to realize that this assumption was entirely in favor of the hypothesis that CO2 causes global warming.
If it is true, as you say (and I also assume), that CO2 was not the sole cause of global warming, then the effect of CO2 must have been even weaker. On the order of 1K rise after a doubling of CO2 or less. But people who say that are usually called "denialists" or "lukewarmer".
If your claim was serious, you should seriously consider how a 42% rise in CO2 concentration could possibly result in less than 0.8K warming - if a 100% rise of CO2 is supposed to result in 3K warming or more.
By the prudent norms of science, this is an excellent first approximation. For the first hundred years, the satellite data will support at most modest convictions. Our accumulated climate record will really hit its stride two centuries from now. And actually, from nearly every perspective of human progress, this represents a tremendous leap over what was known previously. Why should the earth's climate prove easier to decode than Mendel's peas? We finally found the actual genes and we're still pretty sketchy about how they really work. Complicated little buggers they are.
That said, the satellite data isn't actually bad, it just falls way short of historical norms of scientific prudence. We're stuck wandering around in the uncanny valley between one sigma and five sigma.
This doesn't mean society can't choose to draw a tentative, intermediate conclusion and act on that basis. However, the consequences of human political resolve are even murkier than the climate science itself, and the scientists can't help up sort this out, unless they have a giant boner for N=1. We have no control planet. Any choice we made can only be compared to counterfactual outcomes grounded in a proto-science itself still slowly gaining clearance from the null hypothesis on its major claim and with error bars a mile wide on the magnitude and immediacy and severity of the presumed effect.
I think we should be paying plenty of attention to the impacts of climate variability whether or not the cause is anthropogenic. Let's just not put the knee-jerk "all change is bad" types in charge who once decided that forests should never burn. Blockading change is change, too. One of the consequences of embarking upon a global economy is that you soon reach the situation where there's no such thing as somebody else's problem, whether the root cause is anthropogenic or not.
I have severe reservations about whether it's a good idea to instigate novel political initiatives on a global scale (e.g. abandonment of the hydrocarbon economy) against a back-drop of alarmist proto-facts. Much of the time our best, well-cured, time-proven facts barely suffice to move the political dial in any coordinated way. That's going to radically change over the twenty years? I highly doubt it. Of course, change has to begin somewhere, however bleak the early returns.
I was reading about some dude yesterday knowingly infected with HIV who had sex with 300 partners, none of whom he informed, and many he lied to. The ultimate self-gratifying scumbag. But what if he only worried he had HIV and never got himself tested? Would he still be a scumbag? Yes, I think so. Even if his worry is only 1.5 sigma? Yes, I think so.
But if Exxon has only 1.5 sigma belief that carbon emissions could prove disastrous, it's business as usual. "We didn't know!" Not with scientific certainty, anyway, which is unfortunately true. Any certainty worth having is late to the party. This is, however, entirely the wrong standard of prudence and concern. While 1.5 sigma is merely a proto-fact, not yet conclusively proven, it nevertheless demands proper consideration. Facthood in the moment is way too high a standard (and harlot to corporate convenience).
In retrospect, we will know the difference. Just as we do now about the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer. Whatever doubt remained about this in 1970 is now totally busted. We could confiscate their profits in retrospect. That would make them think twice about not knowing in the first place. I understand that it's bad form to suddenly shout "New rule!" so we could instead begin by suggesting that existing companies take out insurance against future confiscation of profit derived from embarking upon unproven, potentially destructive lines of business—as soberly judged by a future generation with a vastly superior knowledge base (subject to the same hor
Ahem: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120828-arctic-sea-ice-global-warming-record-environment-science/
I don't need to consider facts or consensus to be an AGW skeptic. I just need angry geeks like you. The angrier you get, the bigger the car I drive, because I love watching how angry it makes you. My approach is far easier than having to wade through climate science and geopolitics.,
This doesn't mean society can't choose to draw a tentative, intermediate conclusion and act on that basis.
But it doesn't provide a reason to do so.
But if Exxon has only 1.5 sigma belief that carbon emissions could prove disastrous, it's business as usual.
What 1.5 sigma belief? What is Exxon's responsibility supposed to be here? And Exxon is scooping renewable energy funding as well.
> That said, the satellite data isn't actually bad, it just falls way short of historical norms of scientific prudence.
That is WHY it is actually bad. Scientific prudence is no joke, but results from hard-earned experience of heads hitting desks at significant velocities, when it turned out that "scientific discoveries" of confident scientists turned out to be figments of illusion and statistical artifacts.
when they tell me "yes we're ok with nuke power." (I know I know, we can't do nuke because Fukushima) BTW Kyoto was stupid because all you had to do to comply was move your plants to China and India.(Which come to think of it happened anyway, I guess we should have signed on with Kyoto to shut up Al.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
DID HAPPEN, your assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.
There is 'some argument' coming from Koch-sponsored think tanks. Show me a peer-reviewed article making your case, and I might start taking it more seriously.
We have ice core samples showing larger CO2 concentrations than today correlating with fossil finds showing that temperatures were higher in regions not accounted for by mere geological drift. So the observable facts already shoot holes in that theory.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Pedantry is the sign of a lost debate.
"There is 'some argument' coming from Koch-sponsored think tanks."
Show arguments pro-AGW that aren't from fund seeking people/organizations. Your point works both directions.
And while peer-review provides some modicum of control, we all know from a large number of articles posted here on SlashDot that it does not prevent absolute bullshit from making it to the top (Bell Labs and more).
That's an interesting argument, and apparently it took until 1956 until more work was done on that. I googled "CO2 extinction coefficient" and got: http://www.skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect-advanced.htm. In short: the CO2 IR spectrum is not monochromatic, and there are plenty of wavelengths where the IR radiation still comes through and is dependent on concentration, so no.
You'll need to consult a real IR spectroscopist to study more, because this stuff is not trivial.
I do remember vaguely that there was this enormous C-O double bond stretch vibration band around 1800? reciproke centimeters. But it was a bit different in -COOH and aldehydes than in CO2 itself.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Yeah, and if Hitler were alive today, he'd probably be a "Warmist" as well, what with his vegetarianism and long walks in the woods.
Give me a break.
This whole Slashdot discussion today, based on a Daily Mail article, seems to be mental preparation of the public so that they're properly revved up for global warming denialism,
before the next IPCC report gets published in a few weeks.
So that on 2013-09-27, Joe Public will say to Jane Public: "but it's all rubbish; wasn't that in the newspaper a few weeks ago?".
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Oh. Would you care to point me to the hoards of level headed climate activists who
I'm always deeply suspicious of people who bring up points like this. Yeah, non level headed activists do not have level heads. News at 11. Also, dog bites man.
The things is rabid activists are just noise plain and simple. They do not affect the science in any way whatsoever.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The failure of global warming proved climate change, and the failure of climate change proves climate disruption.
WTF? Global warming didn't fail. It still seems to be continuing apace. Global warming causes climate change. In some regions, the change is not a positive increase in temperature.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Who gives a shit about activists? You point me to the hoards of climate scientists who say that about individual storms. The best you'll be able to do is a handful of papers (which the media loves to take out of context) about an increase in the rate of major weather events and a couple of scientists who say something like "we expect more storms like this as global warming intensifies".
I'm sorry, but where does this bull shit about the altruistic scientist who is only interested in finding the truth come from? I'm currently working on my masters. At a university none the less. Yes, I work in evil, evil industry so everything I say cannot be trusted because I'm only motivated by money and greed and obviously the academics I'm surrounded by when I'm at school are the epitome of altruism. But here's what I can say. Ever semester I have been there, the same talk has been given by the senior research staff. The talk is titled "how to secure funding for your research". It really does come down to, how can you convince people that your research is worth funding. The main methods. Either convince them that they can monetize it, or convince them that they will die if your research isn't carried out. There's several ways on the "you will die" front, and saying the world will end like AGW likes to do is one of the more popular ones. Mapping asteroids for impact hasn't been as successful, hence why they're funded so badly comparatively.
But in short, I'm sorry, if you think the scientists have no agenda motivated by money, you're an effing idiot.
But that means scientists are human, and are as motivated by basic survival instincts as the rest of us. That can't be right.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
A few loose comments:
Very well put; although according to a previous poster, w.r.t. arctic ice we're at two sigma already, so (if I'm not making a stupid mistake and the data has a normal distribution) it's 4.6% likely that this year's values are normal, assuming a long-term stable arctic ice extent.
Well, there is a whole guild of people who specialize in determining the statistical pay-off between high-damage low-probability events (black swan?) and low-reward high-probability events (maximum squeezable insurance premium), and they're called actuaries . I'd like to know if, say, Lloyds can insure you against global warming affecting your business, and how much it would cost qua premium. What do the actuaries think?
Lastly a loose comment (not based on your essay): one of the global warming denialist talking points is "the necessary effort to stop global warming would bring our society back to the stone age, which is what YOU tree-hugging hippies want". You mentioned "putting the long view out of mind"; the long view is that, 300 years ago, we were before the "age of petroleum" and we didn't live in the stone age, either. (Although maybe in the whale oil age, I don't know). Who knows what the 21st century may bring technologically; maybe a mixture of high-tech low-energy-use equipment and low-tech low-energy-use 19th century technologies.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Climate models have long said that as we trend towards very bad extremes (high temperature, low sea ice and melting glaciers) that you WILL see wild intra-value swings with higher frequency of those swings happening.
Adding a single event into a pile of extreme weather/climate conditions makes sense. But to say "Aha! See the ice went way up this year, so how does that fit into your theory?" is silly. It fits nicely with the wild swings mentioned above. If the theory holds true then you'll see record lows yet again in a year or two. Followed by possible another year of "60% ice growth ZOMG AGW isn't real!" but again -- it fits the pattern.
This isn't to say that every extreme weather event fits like a glove into this mold. It's just to say that when you get extremely unusual weather events of colossal size every year (like we've been seeing) and wild statistical swings in any one direction, then it gets easier to explain.
BUT -- and this is size 600 font "but" -- you have to watch the trend lines over the years to understand where things are headed. The recent (i.e. 100 year) trend lines are all headed to very bad places. Even worse -- the only surprise in the trend lines has been how quickly they're happening.
Does it matter? Well, tell me: if the amount decreased by 60%, would that matter? I think it would be in every headline, along with pitches from nearly every prominent client scientist (plus Bill Nye) for global economic governance to avert this oncoming tragedy.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
not mass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
a you pull 1 scientist out of your ass and the 95% of other scientist who didn't say that would happen are now wrong? Are you really that fucking stupid?
DId you even red that damn link? 1 scientist make prediction. 1. no consensus, one guy running 1 group. Oh, and he was using his own models.
This isn't apocalyptic cult, it's science. Many prediction have happened, and consensus is 95%.
Unlike actual Apocalyptic cults that have little to no science, no consensus, no actual facts, and no predictions.
The cult is people who don't think man spewing trillions of tons of CO2 has no effect. Even though the science cant show you it does have an impact and it does trap heat.
Pay attention and think. Look at the case at hand. 60% 'comes back' is completely incorrect.
"There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, they equivalent of almost a million square miles."
yes AREA not in MASS.
"If correct, it would contradict computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming. The news comes several years after the BBC predicted that the arctic would be ice-free by 2013."
And t refers to the same link from 1 guy.
Learn how the fuck science works.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It only matters when the amount of ice is lessening. That way we can create the impression that the world is being destroyed, get more money for research, and pass ever more restrictive and controlling laws!
Yes, that was happening. And even Pluto seemed to be following along. And I never heard a good explanation for it. One AGW Alarmist tried to explain about orbits. And that Mars was just moving closer to the sun. However, these warming results in all cases were warming retrospective to what was expected.
Yes, hoards, as in all the "celebrity authority" reinforcements they send in to get all the skeptical Gen Xers on board, like Bill Nye (the engineer with no climate credentials whatsoever). They have Paul Zaloom in the wings if "the science guy" continues to tank. I heard they had Mr. Wizard and Mr. Rogers in the pirate's chest too, but it started to smell funny.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Given the constant complaints about the people who support AGW, it obviously doesn't only matter when someone questions AGW.
Learn to love Alaska
Consensus is not science. Science starts with the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement...which I'm betting dollars to donuts you don't have :)
We're not interested in predictions that happen - astrologists have many predictions that happen. We're interested in what predictions would exclude your central conceit, if *they* failed. Give me the *important* predictions that your hypothesis cannot survive without, and then show me how the lack of failure of those predictions must logically lead us to believe that your hypothesis, and none other, is true. /crickets
In the case of Pluto it was absolutely because of its orbit which is very eccentric for a planet. Pluto relatively recently (Sept 5, 1989) passed perihelion where is passed inside of the orbit of Neptune and now is headed back out.
Arrgh, return of the climate zombies.
Zombie #28
Zombie #43
Zombie #92
Watch this Heartland Institute video
DERP INTERNET Is there an invisible army of retards on /.
such that trash like this gets marked funny on any article about warming?
- There is no "proof" there are theories, based on computer models, that do do not, as of yet, reflect reality or fit reality in any way, shape or form.
- Go read on Patrick Moore and show us which Fossil fuel he works for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)
Screaming does not make your right.
Yelling and calling names, does not prove your point.
Telling lies (namely about Patrick Moore) just makes you sound like an idiot
Why should we consider anything you say??
No, there is no moral equivalency here. The peer-reviewed papers are out there for all to see, yet the likes of Watts do not ever engage with the science in them.
It is a simple fact that there is more money in denialism, so even if I would grant you your point, it would be belied by the empirical observation that most climate scientists choose a relatively underpaid career and right-wing vilification over a cushy job at a think tank.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
And to supplement my other post, I notice you don't address the content of my argument, but instead are trying to poison the well with a false equivalency.
It's fairly obvious where you stand and what ideology you have chosen to rationalise your blindness.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I mean WTF, some positive environmental news, but we should just dismiss this because it doesn't fit with the current trend of hyper-reactive green environmentalism that want's us all to act like the end of the world is nigh. I'd like to read more similar reports before I say its a trend, but why all the hate to discredit an actual scientist doing actual research opposed to some website regurgitating environmental hyperbole.
Besides, discrediting global warming will only ruin the billion dollar industry of green guilt products. Being green is just as much about corporate greed as oil or mining, green marketers just do a good job to make you think you are trying to save the planet and not simply throwing thousands of dollars into the green eco-friendly schtick.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
that the 60 percent increase observed in Arctic ice is "technically true, [but] also largely irrelevant."
Well, then why the hell should I have cared that 2012 was such a 'low ice' year?
This is where the whole global warming debate gets me frustrated. One year the ice is melting, and all of the global warming scientist wave their hands and scream about how the end is near. Yet the next year we get the opposite (ice rebounds), and it doesn't matter because of 'long-term trends". Well, if long-term trends are the only thing that matter, STOP YELLING ABOUT ONE YEAR ANOMALIES!!!
I feel like the Guardian article's mention of "regression toward the mean" is incorrect because it attributes this effect as a causal one. The wikipedia link cited warns against using this effect as a predictive one under "misunderstandings." Past deviations do not predict future returns to the norm, just like rolling a high number with dice doesn't predict that the next roll will be below average. Dana makes it sound like climatologists predicted this year's rise as a consequence of last year's fluctuation.
I do agree with the conclusion that the 2013 sea ice level remains consistent with a decreasing trend.
Oh. Would you care to point me to the hoards of level headed climate activists who say this about Hurricane Katrina or Sandy? I seem to have missed them.
Most of the climate scientists that I've heard interviewed say, very strongly, that we can't attribute any single event to our understanding of the current climate situation. That is, we don't know if Katrina or Sandy happened because of climate change or if they would have happened anyway. Instead, they rely on statistical models to understand what the probability of such events is, and how likely it would be that something like that would happen in the absence of the climate change that we believe is happening.
Actually, I would challenge you to find a quote from an actual climate scientist--and not a re-written or misattributed quote, since the media is incredibly bad at reporting ALL science. How many times have you seen a headline that says something like, "X and Y PROVE Z is occurring, say scientists." 99% of the time after reading the article, the researcher in question says something like, "we believe that factors X and Y increase the chances of Z by n%, and thus may be among the possible causes of Z over the long term." This happens in medicine, physics, climate, whatever. Science reporting (particularly in newspapers) is far more hyperbolic than the papers that inspire them.
Again, I've yet to hear even a single scientist make as strong a statement as you claim. Every single one I've heard hedges by saying certain things are likely, or are of increased likelihood. A lot of 'maybes', 'could bes' and 'possiblys' are thrown around. Never trust a scientist that's absolutely sure about anything (unless it's a mathematician with a proof in hand).
Is anyone but a tiny, tiny minority really concerned about CO2/global warming? Where are the marches demanding that we as quickly as possible replace coal power plants (the biggest single source of CO2) with nuclear power plants? No, the marches I see are all against nuclear power.
Arithmetic denialism.
Jupiter's moons (with the notable exception of Io) are completely covered in ice tens to hundreds of km deep. They do not have ice "caps" that could be shrinking. If they were losing ice, it would be more like the south polar plumes of Enceladus. In that case, we'd be far more likely to observe the plume of escaping material than to measure the mass of ice remaining. No such plume has been observed on any of the Galileans. Io has no ice to speak of, and therefore cannot be losing any.
Moreover, the orbital period about the Sun is about twelve years, and the tidal periods about Jupiter are several days. Variations on an Earth year cycle would not be astronomically significant.
"Ice caps are melting, it's a catastrophe!! Humanity could end in a few centuries!!"
"Ice caps are reforming... oh, but that doesn't matter, though! We're still fucked!!"
But the loss of sea-ice is at most measured over the last 30 years. So therefore by your statements, the apparent loss of Arctic sea ice cannot be proven to be related to climate change, whether natural or not.
I can't dispute that. I agree that the apparent loss of arctic sea ice over a short amount of time is no proof of human-induced climate change.
It can be argued, that it suggests a "shorter term" climate change; which is not what the global warming proposition is about.
I don't intend to make an argument either way that climate change is or is not occuring; or that it is or is not being caused by humans.
My only objective at this point is to point out and reject flawwed thinking and flawwed arguments.
To do that; it is not necessary that I draw any conclusion whatsoever about whether or not global warming happens, or whether or not it is human-induced; only that the most "convincing" arguments by both sides are without merit.
You're completely right that a low value on a die roll does not predict that the next roll will be below average. After, all, each roll of the dice is independent. However, we are asking a slightly different question: What will the next value be relative to the previous one? And this comparison with the previous value introduces correlations. For example, if you roll a 1, the probability that the next value will be smaller than that is 0. But if you roll a 6, the probabiliy that the next value is smaller will be 5/6. And if you roll a 1 or a 6, the probability that the next value will be less extreme is 2/3.
Similarly, if you draw a random standard normal distributed number and get -3, then you will be right 99.87% of the time if you bet that the next number will be higher. Even though all the numbers are completely independent. In general, if you see an extreme value, it is a good bet that the next value will be less extreme, because that is where most of the probability volume is. And this observation is what is called regression to the mean.
I think the way the term was used in that article was completely consistent with this. It was a pretty safe bet that this year would see a rise in the ice coverage because last year was a large negative fluctuation compared to the long-term trend, and most fluctuations deviate less. So regression towards the mean can be used to make certain kinds of predictions, though they all boil down to the banal "the next value will probably be inside the most probable range of values".
You're an idiot.
This is definitive proof that you have lost the argument. Anyone who has to stoop so low, to an ad hominem remark or "criticism against the person", has no leg to stand on.
The human-made factor in the current climate change is a measurable, empirical fact.
Anyone who truly believes in finding the truth, and understands what science is all about; should know that with science there is no such thing as a synthesized proposition that is "measurable empirical fact"; all measurements have a degree of uncertainty. The only definitive facts are mathematical laws, within a system of axioms; which reside outside physics.
For those who are interested, this is the chain of causality:
This is a proposed chain of causality; but it is not proven as to the historical CO2 concentrations, or mean temperature rising; the pieces just fit, and it sounds like a good story: that does not mean the story as a whole is true or relevant.
The C13/C14 ratio is also not definitive proof about the reason for the presence of CO2; or the hypothesis that the concentration has changed to a degree that is significant.
That is: it is not proven that CO2 concentration would not increase similarly over sufficient time or very similarly in the long term: if fossil fuels were not being combusted. There may very well be some circumstances where the higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2 cause the rate of natural concentration increase to decrease ----- that is, less fossil-fuel produced CO2 feeds photosynthesis at a lower density/rate; resulting in still a steady state with CO2 gradual concentration increase over time (with no fossil fuels being burnt).
the CO2 hypothesis is over a century old, and all the opponents have produced against it is think-tank sponsored media smears.
It doesn't matter. If you propose a scientific theory, the burden of proof rests with you to show how it is actually a theory --- that is how it can be tested, and under which conditions you could show it to be false. The "Human generated CO2 causes global warming" hypothesis, cannot realistically be falsified; therefore, it is more speculation than science -- and is also more snakeoil than legitimate theory.
There is much more legitimate science supporting evolution than global warming, and look how hotly evolution is contested....
IPCC made dire predictions about global warming driving stronger hurricanes in 2007. but no hurricanes over cat 1 have made landfall on the USA since 2005. here we are halfway through hurricane season and exactly nothing has happened. oops.
It was not an ad hominem, just a statement of fact.
Everything I have stated can be backed up by scientific, verifiable sources. That the denialist nutjobs like you refuse to do the science and just want to go "LA-LA-LAA I DON'T HEAR YOU" is empathically not my problem.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
By statistical modeling correlated to rising CO2 that shows trend lines antithetical to Global Warming modeling predictions. You'll need a large data sampling to reduce sensitivity to individual weather events. There's a reason such statistical modeling hasn't been done yet -- the data doesn't correlate antithetically to Global Warming models.
That infinitesimally small number of scientists that aren't part of the "consensus" by and large don't disagree with the data, just the cause.
It was not an ad hominem, just a statement of fact.
You are a flagrant liar. This is going into my book of all-time favorite quotes:
Everything I have stated can be backed up by scientific, verifiable sources
If you're so confident of that, then why didn't you bother to do so?
There are plenty of wrong things that can be backed up by scientific, verifiable sources. Hell; there are peer-reviewed articles showing humans have ESP.
And I can show you verified sources suggesting man-made CO2 is not a driver of global warming.
The theory that humans cause global warming cannot be taken as a serious theory, until it is shown in a reliable manner, using basic science: that does not require a stretch of the imagination, or a more complicated explanation of a phenomenon than necessary -- that human activity, and not possibly anything more common and widespread in nature, is a predominant source of climate change.
It's not necessary to come up with the complicated explanation that these human activities relate to climate change; when much simpler more believable explanations are available.
Since I never said "you're wrong because you're an idiot" you just have proven that you are indeed an idiot. An illiterate one at that.
Now fuck off.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Even worse -- the only surprise in the trend lines has been how quickly they're happening.
Speak for yourself. I have long complained about the inherent conservative biases in modeling. I think the most worrying predictions are overly optimistic, and I am usually an optimist.
Let's just hope the next few generations are literate and informed enough to condemn us for our actions... and to engineer a more hospitable climate. As an optimist geek, I have sci-fi fantasies that the technologies developed to respond to climate change will be useful for terraforming.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
By statistical modeling correlated to rising CO2 that shows trend lines antithetical to Global Warming modeling predictions. You'll need a large data sampling to reduce sensitivity to individual weather events. There's a reason such statistical modeling hasn't been done yet -- the data doesn't correlate antithetically to Global Warming models.
Oh, is that why the lead author of the IPCC report said explicitly that their models don't match reality over the last 20 years?
That infinitesimally small number of scientists that aren't part of the "consensus" by and large don't disagree with the data, just the cause.
Not only are you wrong about the number of scientists, but you take it upon yourself to speak for them, as well. Do you even know about the lies behind the "consensus"?
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
If we assume that CO2 was the sole cause of warming in the last 130 years and nothing else was going on
No one is claiming this. There's a reason why these models take very large compute clusters to run: they have a huge number of variables and input data from a very large number of experimental inputs.
Is that like a reverse strawman there? The IPCC is indeed claiming that 90-100% of global warming is anthropogenic.
Oh, well, they use a "huge" number of variables, so their models must be correct.
Except that the lead author of the IPCC report said their model doesn't match reality for the last 20 years.
But I'm just in denial.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
You're an idiot. The human-made factor in the current climate change is a measurable, empirical fact. The only to explain it away is to come up with a different mechanism, and explain why it would overwhelm the effect of human-contributed CO2 concentration increases.
"...about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun.” --Nicola Scafetta, Duke University
Never mind, I must be an idiot.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Oh, the good ol' "I didn't mean what I said, I meant what I meant" defense.
Or you're saying the "fact" that he's an idiot is irrelevant. Ok, cool. I don't understand why you said it, but oh well, sometimes your fingers go faster than your brain.
Wait, he's illiterate too? He can't read? Oh, I guess he's using an amanuensis, then. Either that or your words really are meaningless. In which case, you just poisoned your own well.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
It is a simple fact that there is more money in denialism
Is it really? I don't know. Considering how much of the world's energy is provided by fossil fuels, I'd say the potential to make money by switching people to "green" energy and all the associated carbon-reducing technology is very high. Not to mention the power to control people that forcing compliance with expensive new rules provides.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I'm not an expert here, but isn't that graph misleading? Projecting onto a circular graph makes it appear less than linear, because the circumference increases faster than the radius.
Besides, how can volume be measured from space? Can a satellite see through the ice deep below the surface of the ocean?
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
No, the good old "I actually didn't say that" defense.
But hey, apparently ability to think and read is inversely correlated with support for a scientific view on climate.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Ok, so he's not an idiot because he's wrong...why is he an idiot then? Because he disagrees with you? Is he an idiot but not wrong?
What even is "a scientific view on climate"? One that is pro-AGW? Is anyone who doesn't believe in AGW "anti-science"? What about the scientists who are not pro-AGW? Are they also illiterate? Are they "anti-science"?
Your arguments are simply assertions and ad hominems. Oh, wait, your insults were orthogonal to the rest of your comments, so your arguments weren't ad hominems...right.
I consistently see the pro-AGW crowd base their arguments on ad hominems and appeals to ridicule and appeals to emotion, with simple "no evidence against!" and "consensus!" assertions thrown in. But I do not see the anti-AGW (or even the merely skeptical crowd) resort to such irrational ploys nearly as often; instead they tend to make logical arguments. Then, instead of making rebuttals, the "alarmists" say things like, "You're an idiot. The science is settled; we have consensus. The only question is whether it's too late to do anything."
Sadly, many "sheeple" are convinced by such empty rhetoric.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
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Troll and flamebait for simple logic and common sense. Pathetic. But that's what you have to resort to when you can't argue logically.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
You hadn't noticed maybe, but I did give the scientific thinking behind AGW theory.
Of course, being a whiny little right-wing bastard, all you see is the insult. And being an idiot, you think using a fancy name for an insult makes you right, no matter that you pick a fancy name that does not mean what you think it means.
That, and behaviour like that, is what makes you deniers idiots.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Debunked
Yes, you are an idiot.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Funny thing is, the "deniers" or "denialists" or whatever the word-of-the-day is don't have to resort to petty insults to make their point. You should listen to Hans von Storch when he says that the AGW crowd have overstated their case and lost the public's trust.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I read through most of that page. I'm not sure if you did. It mostly focuses on Scafetta's planetary orbit ideas and his "widget." My quote of Scafetta was about the sun, not planetary orbits.
I also think that article has a major flaw--or they're just being misleading--in that it projects Scafetta's predictions backwards to year 1 AD, and compares it to "hindcasting" models which attempt to reconstruct temperatures that far back. I don't think Scafetta intended his projections to work in reverse, so it's plain silly--or simply disingenuous--to do so. This diagram looks ridiculous, and I'm sure Scafetta would agree. But it seems to me that he's limiting himself to the data he actually has, and isn't attempting to go beyond it. These reconstructions they compare it to are not only intended to go far back in time, but they are also guesses. We have no temperature data going back that far; and you can talk about ice cores all you want, but while interesting, that data is still not reproducible without a time machine, so it isn't conclusive.
Two other observations: 1) They ridicule him for publishing in a journal about atmospheric and solar-terrestrial physics rather than a journal about climate--as if the physics of the atmosphere and sun and earth aren't closely-enough related to the climate! That seems disingenuous to me. 2) I wouldn't call the Skeptical Science site an impartial source--they're clearly trying to sell stuff, as you can see from the multiple books they offer for sale on every page. Now no one is truly impartial--even research scientists have to earn a living, so they have to sell their grant proposals--but Scafetta isn't selling to the general public like Skeptical Science is. So I think SS deserves to be taken with an extra grain of salt.
In short, I don't think that article you cited debunks his claim about the sun's influence. At best it rebuts some of his other ideas; at worst it's a gross misrepresentation of his ideas and a great example of how any data can be presented in a misleading way to make whatever point you want.
If you have a rational rebuttal--rather than more of "you're an idiot"--I'll be glad to discuss it further.
By the way, your continued reliance on calling others "idiots" says more about you than it does about the "idiots."
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I actually read the linked papers. That's why you are an idiot.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I rest my case. All you do is make assertions and childish insults while ignoring evidence that contradicts your position. You haven't made a logical argument in rebuttal yet. It's because of people like you that Hans von Storch said that the AGW crowd has overplayed its hand and lost the public's trust.
Of course, there are indeed many people who are convinced by, "You're an idiot."
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."