Nice to see you have added your own addendum to the Global Warming facts Soren.

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The causal link has been well explained, and well understood for a long time now, but, the bit, "to the exclusion of all other factors" is the usual distortion we have come to expect from denialists.

We have to face the fact that we cannot stop the process that is happening, but we still should be trying to minimise the extent of it, as much as we can, and if we can reverse the current growth of CO2 emmissions, then we are merely giving the planet the best chance we can in the circumstances, and how anyone can disregard that is beyond me.

The denialists claim that unless we continue to grow our use of fossil fuels, and continue to pump ever increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, we will all have to revert to stone age lifestyles, and forgo all the technological advances of mankind, which is utter nonsense, like all their propaganda is.

We will still have "natural" cycles if we reduce our carbon emmissions, but we may just avert some of the nastier ones, if we make the necessary changes, before it is too late.

The balance in nature is delicate, and the tipping point scenarios are not mere fancy, but they are judicious warnings about what could happen, if we continue to expect the earth to magically cope with any amount of environmental abuse we subject it to.

Your inability to grasp the scientific principles involved does not mean they are not real, and in effect right now, Soren, anymore than a primitive man's inability to understand the physics of aviation would nullify their validity, and make planes suddenly fall from the sky.

muso wrote on Dec 1^st, 2009 at 8:24am:



I understand all that. What I also notice is that the predictions or the reasoning behind the predictions or both are always changing. As UNPREDICTED new information comes to hand, as the climate unfolds in UNPREDICTED ways, failed past predictions are explained in terms of new predictions. Something unpredicted will always scuttle the previous predictions but it will be co-opted to make a new, firmer, larger, smoother, more jutting, er, I mean more scientific prediction.

"Unforeseen and unpredicetd natuaral variations prevented previous predictions to be fulfilled? Never mind, we assure you that the science is all settled and simple and well in hand this time . The current truth is fully reliable and based on irrefutable science.  Look at this graph. See?"

Soren wrote on Dec 1^st, 2009 at 10:02am:


The problem is that most 'skeptics' (your term) conveniently ignore what we know about natural variations. They take the temperature record and say "See- there is no correlation" ignoring the fact that there is natural variation, and that this is very well understood.

If we looks at periods of ten years or shorter, such short-term natural variations can more than outweigh the anthropogenic global warming trend. For example, El Nino events typically come with global-mean temperature changes of up to 0.2 °C over a few years, and the solar cycle with warming or cooling of 0.1 °C over five years.

We can account for the influence of these natural influences, not by some iterative approach, but by measuring the changes, in some cases quite accurately.  

The global ocean surface temperatures in 2009 broke all previous records for three consecutive months: June, July and August. The years 2007, 2008 and 2009 had the lowest summer Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, and in 2008 for the first time in living memory the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage were simultaneously ice-free.

This was repeated in 2009. Every single year of this century (2001-2008) has been among the top ten warmest years since instrumental records began.

This trend is set to increase even more as the greenhouse gas induced warming trend and the solar output start to increase in unison in the next few years. Sunspots numbers this month have continued to ramp up from October as predicted.

In Science, we work on the basis of self correction. The overall predictions are refined as time goes on.

In the 1920's, a book was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein. His remark was, ‘If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!’  As Stephen Hawking pointed out however, that one opposing scientist would have needed proof in the form of testable results.

These attributes of science can be used in assessing competing assertions about climate change:

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If the answer to any of these questions is no, then less credence should be given to the assertion until it is tested and independently verified.

Soren wrote on Dec 1^st, 2009 at 11:52am:


Don't try to obfuscate the issue. I was not referring to what you believed, but what you inferred that the main body of climatology believe.

To clarify my last statement: The problem is that most 'skeptics' (your term) conveniently ignore what we know about natural variations. , we refers to our current knowledge base of climate science. I was making the point that you are trying to simplify the matter by implying that nobody can predict what these natural variations will be and that the prediction was useless as a result.

Basically you originally inferred that the IPCC, or climatologists in general (you used the term 'warmists') failed to account for natural variability.  

What anybody actually believes is immaterial anyway. It's more about what can be observed and tested.

If you read every single IPCC report since AR1, natural variation has been accounted for pretty comprehensively. Perhaps there was more uncertainty in the first two reports. IPCC WG1 reports have chapters entitled: 7: Observed Climate Variations and Change (1990); 3: Observed Climate Variability and Change (1996); 2: Observed Climate Variability and Change (2001); 6: Paleoclimate (2007).

Nothing much came as a surprise, except pehaps the Mt Pinatubo eruption in 1991, and that only had a short-term effect on global temperatures.

In fact the cooler temperatures in 2008 were predicted over a year before that. The natural variation is of such a short duration (about 10 years)  that it doesn't affect the validity of the prediction of an underlying warming effect. Climatology is not about short term trends (10 years). The minimum baseline considered by the IPCC reports is 25 years (from memory) Short term noise is irrelevant because it doesn't add to the long term trend in any way. It makes the road bumpy, but it's still climbing up the mountain as predicted.

Besides that, almost every current generation climate model makes allowances for these short-duration influences nowadays anyway.

Monbiot is a journalist - It's his job to be surprised. The quote from Tim Flannery was interesting, but I think they were off the cuff remarks, or possibly taken out of context.

People are entitled to say what they like. It's what is testable and verifiable that counts in the end.

That's where your opinion that there is no link between atmospheric CO2 and global warming comes in. It's an opinion. It's not backed up by any evidence, and in fact is contradicted by literally hundreds of peer reviewed papers.

If you can find a paper that argues that atmospheric CO2 does not cause warming, I'd be very surprised.

Your opinion lies with the fringe dwellers. Even Richard Lindzen agrees that CO2 causes warming.

The basis of the argument is physics.

The temperature record is not the main argument. It merely serves as a confirmation.

Your claim that the data was manipulated is a total fabrication.

It has been explained in a previous post. The data that was ignored was data that the author of a proxy tree ring study said should be ignored. It was a question of ignoring suspect data. Apart from that, it wasn't even being used for an IPCC report.

There is no question of raw Hadcrut data being manipulated. Nobody is actually saying that.

Hadley is separate to the CRU, and and we've discussed before, it's only one dataset, and not a very good one at that because it has incomplete coverage of polar latitudes - hardly data that was central to IPCC reporting.

Your post was decidedly dodgy because it hints of impropriety without providing any details.  

The CRU hacking stunt was a carefully orchestrated lie. Nothing more.

Don't get all excited there Soren. You're losing your rational approach and coming up with totally baseless accusations.

It's obviously timed to coincide with Copenhagen of course. Basically if somebody  hacked into you email, I'm sure they could come up with all sorts of distortions. Things that you were not really saying.

Once again - the data was not raw climate data. It related to proxy studies, and the data that was ignored was suspect. That's why it was ignored. No IPCC reports were influenced by any alleged misconduct.

What data was 'destroyed'? - none.


It's a storm in a teacup.

Dr Pachauri, Head of the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC, eh?  


Steyn nails him: