This is excellent:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA75A0DDB89ACCD7&sort_field=original&page=1

I watched the first brief intro to the lesson, and hopefully I can watch one of the 10, 45 to 50 minute lectures per week, over the next ten weeks.

I hope the lecturer gets more at ease when he gets into the subject matter than he is with the overview, because my initial response to his style was that he is not a natural speaker, and his halting, ummhing style could get annoying if the subject matter does not carry me past that first impression.

But thanks for the link, I have it bookmarked now, so will give it a go, it never hurts to try and learn something new.

If we could find experts who are good speakers then half our communication problems would be fixed.

It's a common problem. Trying to communicate a technical subject to a non technical audience is not easy. I take my hat off to him.  

mozzaok wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 10:26am:

it never hurts to try and learn something new.

Apparently, when scrubbing down a female elephant, you should never touch her vagina... You can try it if you like, but few living elephant handlers have been there and those that have... they've only tried it once.

Handy to know if I ever find myself in that position.
I have been warned.

I suppose that is another similiarity between elephants and menopausal women.

mozzaok wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 11:29am:

Handy to know if I ever find myself in that position. I have been warned. I suppose that is another similiarity between elephants and menopausal women.

Yeah, I wouldn't try them once either... Got a feeling it might hurt.

A great line from the film Love and other Catastrophes:

"Try anything once, except incest and folk dancing."

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 11:19am:

Apparently, when scrubbing down a female elephant, you should never touch her vagina...

Or possibly vica versa, if that's the expression I'm groping for...

---

Yes, some forwarding links use low level tunneling protocols via generic routing encapsulation direct from the trunk card.

Such an approach is more likely to lead to broken pipe errors.

What are the key questions about climate change, and what are the answers? ...Willis Eschenbach oulines his views »  Walt Meier responds »  Eschenbach replies »

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/31/18010/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/08/nsidcs-walt-meier-responds-to-willis/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/10/my-thanks-and-comments-for-dr-walt-meier/

Intelligent debate..

Final Conclusions, in no particular order

1. Reading Dr. Meier’s answers to the questions has been very interesting and very productive for me. It has helped to identify where the discussion goes off the rails.

2. Understanding how the guy on the other side of the table sees the situation is valuable for everyone concerned.

3. Dr. Meier’s answers were well thought out and well expressed. He obviously has considered these matters in detail, answered honestly and fully, and taken the time to lay them out clearly.

4. As I didn’t discuss most of the questions where Dr. Meier and I were in basic agreement, it likely appears that I disagreed on almost all points. This is absolutely not the case.

5. I wish that Dr. Meier had included citations for his assertions. Not having them makes it harder to discuss his ideas.

6. I sincerely hope that I have not offended Dr. Meier. I am a reformed cowboy, but despite going to the cowboy reform meetings and following the twelve steps,  sometimes the raw ranch kid shines through. I am passionate about these matters, and sometimes I overstep the bounds. I apologize for any sins of omission or sins of commission I may have committed, and I hope that Dr. Meier considers my words in the spirit of vigorous scientific debate.

7. Since the null hypothesis that the climate variations are natural has not been falsified, the AGW hypothesis is still a solution in search of a problem.

8. As I have found out more than once to my own cost, putting one’s ideas out on the web for people to find fault with is a daunting prospect, and one which may not always end well. I offer Dr. Meier my profound thanks and my respect for his courage and willingness to put his ideas on the firing line, as it is not an easy thing to do.

Once more we see Soren suitably baffled by BS.

It is frankly stunning how you accept the guff of each and every denialist you read, but are absolutely closed minded on all evidence from real science.

Not each and every. Only the ones that say the same thing: climate is not controlled by that one variable, CO2.

No climate scientists could ever say that the climate is controlled by a single variable, CO2. But reading your posts and muso's it seems that CO2 is the one ring to rule them all (to allude to another discussion). But that is preposterous nonsense. Nevertheless, you and muso will trace every other variable back to CO2.

If you really were concerned about the climate itself and not AGW, you would list, in your own minds, all the variables that make up the climate and would allocate some sort of influence to them. You would include the little understood variables, of which there are many, apparently. I have never, ever seen this from any boooster. I have only seen discounting of every other factor but CO2. You elevate CO2 from being a factor to being THE only factor that matters.

This is why it is a Catch 22 - no matter what you do or say, it will be taken as proof that it's the CO2 that did it - no matter if you are mad or not, you'll have to continue flying.

You cannot even honestly conceive of a scenario where AGW may turn out to be an incorrect hypothesis. This is why none of your arguments are primarily scientific but epoistemological and political. If you were really scientific you would have said what it is that would prove to you the falsity of AGW.

(stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by all sorts of things, for decades, until relatively recently, when they turned out to be caused by bacteria. Everyone who was NOT working in bacteria research poo-pooed the idea.  Or despite scientific testing and trial, how often do you hear about drugs that turn out to have completely unpredicted consequences in the medium to long run? I mean science is a great method but it is not a magic wand. But you have transfered your faith from the cassock to the labcoat. Freud could regale you about tranference for hours, I am sure.)i

Soren wrote on Apr 20^th, 2010 at 1:07pm:

(stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by all sorts of things, for decades, until relatively recently, when they turned out to be caused by bacteria. Everyone who was NOT working in bacteria research poo-pooed the idea.  Or despite scientific testing and trial, how often do you hear about drugs that turn out to have completely unpredicted consequences in the medium to long run? I mean science is a great method but it is not a magic wand. But you have transfered your faith from the cassock to the labcoat. Freud could regale you about tranference for hours, I am sure.)

Sorry to piss on your parade, but it's not absolutely as black and white as that. Granted, up to 80% of stomach ulcers are caused by helicobacter pylori, but still approximately 15% of them are caused by the abuse of pharmacy medications such as aspirin and about 5% are caused by alcohol or other drug addiction.

I recently had a test for h. pylori (although I don't have an ulcer) and my GP provided the above statistics.


How many times have I said that climate is not caused by just one variable up to now? How many times have you asserted that I have said the opposite?

There is also a distinction between climatic variations over thousands of years of prehistory and climate variations over the last 50 years.

Denialists like to confuse the two.

You are only pissing in the (head)wind. The point is that for decades bacteria were not thought to be the cause and certianly not to the extent that they turned out to be. Despite decades of resaertch. autopsies and research projects. And I reckon the climate in man's stomach is a lot less complex than the Earth's climate. Plus you have a very lange supply of stomachs to experiment with. And still, it turned out to be bacteria to an unexpected extent and the reaction was 'blow me down wiv a feather, gov', followed by a rush knowing nods. Nobody want's to be left behind when the consensus changes.

As to how many times you said/I said:

You may have said thay there are other influences. yet you mention them only to discount them or trace them back to CO2.

You do take CO2 to be the overwhelmingly most important variable that drives change at the present. But the proportion of that responsibility you actually attribute to CO2 is unknown. Is it 85% ? 10? 50? 99%? (or is 99% is the degree of certainty that CO2 has SOME impact?)

As Lindzen says, uncontrobersially, the debate is about the how much influence human CO2 has. That is not settled by a very long shot.

well I sat down to watch the first installment today, and I sat through the first 3 or 4 minutes where he prattled on about finding a chair, and what room they would be using for prac work, then he started with basic, basic science, which I kept up with for ten minutes, and then the rest flew by so fast, because I fell asleep.

I may wait for the abbreviated version to come out, but there is no way I could sit through 8 hours from that guy, he could make sex sound dull.

;D

Soren wrote on Apr 20^th, 2010 at 3:02pm:

You are only pissing in the (head)wind. The point is that for decades bacteria were not thought to be the cause and certianly not to the extent that they turned out to be. Despite decades of resaertch. autopsies and research projects. And I reckon the climate in man's stomach is a lot less complex than the Earth's climate. Plus you have a very lange supply of stomachs to experiment with. And still, it turned out to be bacteria to an unexpected extent and the reaction was 'blow me down wiv a feather, gov', followed by a rush knowing nods. Nobody want's to be left behind when the consensus changes. As to how many times you said/I said: You may have said thay there are other influences. yet you mention them only to discount them or trace them back to CO2. You do take CO2 to be the overwhelmingly most important variable that drives change at the present. But the proportion of that responsibility you actually attribute to CO2 is unknown. Is it 85% ? 10? 50? 99%? (or is 99% is the degree of certainty that CO2 has SOME impact?) As Lindzen says, uncontrobersially, the debate is about the how much influence human CO2 has. That is not settled by a very long shot.

Before you can answer that question for a relatively short period such as 1950 to 2010, you need to be able to filter out the 'noise', by taking a running mean over a long enough period to remove El Nino Oscillations and Sunspot minima and maxima. You need to filter out the corrugations before you can work out the slope.

What we are not talking about is the natural Greenhouse effect. We are talking about additions to that effect, and for that, most of the action occurs high in the atmosphere.

Taking about an 11 year running mean, it becomes obvious that the additional warming effect of carbon dioxide is around about 72% of the greenhouse gas warming. Methane is around 18%, and nitrous oxide accounts for about 9% (on Year 2000 figures, calculated on a 100 year horizon)

On a global basis, Power Stations account for about 21% of the GHG emissions, Industrial processes account for about 17%, transportation 14% and agricultural practices 12.5%. Land use and burning of biomass accounts for 10%, fossil fuel processing and distrubution about 11% and waste disposal and treatment 3.4%.

(again on Year 2000 figures.)

muso wrote on Apr 21^st, 2010 at 8:56am:

We are talking about additions to that effect, and for that, most of the action occurs high in the atmosphere. Taking about an 11 year running mean, it becomes obvious that the additional warming effect of carbon dioxide is around about 72% of the greenhouse gas warming. Methane is around 18%, and nitrous oxide accounts for about 9% (on Year 2000 figures, calculated on a 100 year horizon) On a global basis, Power Stations account for about 21% of the GHG emissions, Industrial processes account for about 17%, transportation 14% and agricultural practices 12.5%. Land use and burning of biomass accounts for 10%, fossil fuel processing and distrubution about 11% and waste disposal and treatment 3.4%. (again on Year 2000 figures.)

Soooo.... how much is that additional warming? 0.75 degree C over a hunderd years?

What is the natuaral warming rate? - we have been coming out of all sorts of cold periods for all sorts of length of time. It was warmr than now in the Middle Ages, in Europe at least. What stopped that warming? ANd then it was colder in the Baroque era than in the 20th century. What reversed that?

Soren wrote on Apr 21^st, 2010 at 9:08am:

muso wrote on Apr 21st, 2010 at 8:56am: We are talking about additions to that effect, and for that, most of the action occurs high in the atmosphere. Taking about an 11 year running mean, it becomes obvious that the additional warming effect of carbon dioxide is around about 72% of the greenhouse gas warming. Methane is around 18%, and nitrous oxide accounts for about 9% (on Year 2000 figures, calculated on a 100 year horizon) On a global basis, Power Stations account for about 21% of the GHG emissions, Industrial processes account for about 17%, transportation 14% and agricultural practices 12.5%. Land use and burning of biomass accounts for 10%, fossil fuel processing and distrubution about 11% and waste disposal and treatment 3.4%. (again on Year 2000 figures.) Soooo.... how much is that additional warming? 0.75 degree C over a hunderd years? What is the natuaral warming rate? - we have been coming out of all sorts of cold periods for all sorts of length of time. It was warmr than now in the Middle Ages, in Europe at least. What stopped that warming? ANd then it was colder in the Baroque era than in the 20th century. What reversed that?

There is no such thing as a natural warming rate, and again you take it outside the scope of the last 50 years.

The natural warming rate for the last 50 years was slightly negative. Superimposed on this was a strong warming signal due to the effects of greenhouse gases, as confirmed by satellite data.

The answer to your question is mainly related to variable solar activity, with some explosive volcanic activity thrown in for good measure. Even the beginning of the 20th century had a small bump due to solar activity. How do we know that the current warming is not due to solar changes? - well nowadays we can measure the solar output. It's really that simple.

A lot of things have gone out of whack in the last 50 years, including tree rings.

As has been said before, it's the rate of change rather than the absolute global temperatures. The species of coral has gradually changed with the changing global climate.  If the warming effect were more gradual, then corals could certainly adapt. Evolution requires a large number of generations.  

We're talking about a temperature rise of about 2 degrees C as soon as 2050 depending on what action is taken.

With another rise of 2 degrees C , 97% of the worlds coral reefs will be obliterated.

One million of the earth’s species could be annihilated by 2050.

At a rise of 2 degrees, the projection is for economic losses for some countries and gains for others. At 3 degrees rise,  virtually all countries would suffer considerable economic loss.