“Through the snow, the wind and the cold of another below average year”

You mean the past year with it’s cooling from La Nina? The 9th warmest year since 1880?

I’m not a scientist and even I can see the dishonesty in that statement.

Cherry picking again are we? Or just tying to get away with using one year’s temps to suggest something about long term climate change? It would help your argument if it actually was a “cool” year.

jcak m

You might want to read the comments by Obama’s new White House Science Advisor John Holdren, (Highly regarded Nobel Prize winner: Former President- American Association for the Advancement of Science:
Current director of the Woods Hole Research Center. (Woods Hole is one of the premier oceanography institutions in the world.): Professor at Harvard and Berkeley on environment:)
on skeptics verses deniers. He points out that skeptic ideas do sometimes upset the “mainstream” science, but far less often than some people imagine.

Sandy

It is most definitely not getting cooler. Who told you that?

“The movement has become a cult and a political movement and not based in science”

And who told you that? It is entirely not true.
It is urban legend is what it is. What people like you do is read the garbage junk science of the deniers, swallow it whole hog, never bothering to read what the mainstream scientists say and never checking your sources.
You are the one in a cult. Period

The information that refutes what you are saying is readily available, but that might be inconvenient for you. Simply by looking at a chart of global temperatures you will see that
the uptrend has never been broken. This despite the fact that 1998 was an anomaly for two reasons. The most severe El Nino event in 100 years, which warms global atmosphere, and being close to the peak of a well know 11 year solar cycle. The past year was also a double anomaly for the same but inverse reasons, La Nina, which cools the atmosphere globally, and being near the bottom of the same solar cycle.
A fifth grader would be smart enough to understand that choosing those two years as starting and ending points is cherry picking.

How does this chart show anything remotely like cooling?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Still not sure?

Since this is such a popular skeptic argument presently, here are more links on supposed cooling of late. If it’s not too inconventient or doesn’t upset your belief system too much, you might want to read these too.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/the_australians_war_on_science_16.php

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/index.php?p=632

http://climateprogress.org/2008/08/21/debunking-the-myth-global-warming-stopped-in-1998/

http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/08/yes-the-globe-is-warming-but-how-fast/

http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-need-chill-about-global-cooling

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1866862,00.html

Debates mean nothing. They are media events and prove nothing about the science, just who is the most skilled debater and the most skilled at swaying the audience.

Todd
“Warm temps CAUSE an increase in CO2 levels, CO2 DOES NOT cause an increase in temps.”

It’s so reassuring that all that CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere is imaginary, and it’s all really coming from some other source. Get real.

Brad

“Just being a run-of-the-mill crackpot doesn’t qualify.”

LOL

Von

“(failed because you do not understand thermodynamics, chemistry, economics- you just are pushing for some stupid Gaien fantasy).”

Gee if only all those scientists had checked with you first, they might have been aware of the laws of physics and chemistry that you are so knowledgable about. Who are you parroting?

“Our drought has made it exceptional for the larva as the trees put out less sap and cannot defend the bark structure
Not global warming, so the AGW prophets can put down their Gore effigy crack pipes. Sorry”

So you are absolutely sure that the drought is not an effect of global warming, is that what you are saying? It may or may not be from global warming, but when the entire world is experiencing changes like this, it just might be true that it is from global warming. just maybe

And when any skeptic mentions Al Gore, you can be sure there is not any science in their opinion, but political ideology that blinds.
I’m sure that every major scientific organization in the world, the earth science faculty of every major university in the world, and the Academy of Science of every country in the world that has an Academy of Science are all just following Al Gore.
And you actually believe that right? And you think the scientists are a cult? You must be kidding. And you believe it’s a scam, conspiracy or hoax, right? And you think THEY are the alarmists? OH, MY GOD!

Have you ever heard of the dumbing down of America? It’s much worse than previously thought.

Here a little nugget of information you might need.

It took 60 million years for coal to develop in the earth, by precipitating out of the short term carbon cycle, and being locked away in coal deposits and into the long term carbon cycle. Now we are releasing this 60 million year accumulation of carbon back into the atmosphere and thus, back into the short term carbon cycle, in 150-200 years, or a geological nanosecond. This is an unprecedented occurance, probably in the history of the planet.

Can you explain how this is part of a natural cycle, or is anything like any natural cycle that the earth has been through before. I mean ones that didn’t wipe out 90% of life on the planet.

‘Basic chemistry leaves us in little doubt that our burning of fossil fuels is changing the acidity of our oceans,’ said John Raven, professor of biology at the University of Dundee, UK. ‘The rate of change we are seeing to the ocean’s chemistry is a hundred times faster than has happened for millions of years. We just do not know whether marine life which is already under threat from climate change can adapt to these changes.’

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2005/July/01070501.asp

Care to explain to these chemists how they are wrong?

Luis Dias

Think you know more about species extinctions than this fellow?

“Lomborg’s estimate of extinction rates is at odds with the vast majority of respected scholarship on extinction. His estimate, “0.7 percent over the next 50 years” — or 0.014 percent per year — is an order of magnitude smaller than the most conservative species extinction rates by authorities in the field.
Before humans existed, the species extinction rate was (very roughly) one species per million species per year (0.0001 percent). Estimates for current species extinction rates range from 100 to 10,000 times that, but most hover close to 1,000 times prehuman levels (0.1 percent per year), with the rate projected to rise, and very likely sharply.”

by biologist Edward O Wilson – Harvard professor for fourty years, author of 20 books, winner of two Pulitzer prizes, and discoverer hundreds of new species.

Oh, but maybe you would rather believe non scientist and much debunked Bjorn Lomborg.

Maybe you read the Skeptical Environmentalist
by Lomborg?
So complete you education with the following analysis of his book.

http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
A whole website devoted to debunking Bjorn Lomborg’s work.

Joseph Romm – Debunking Bjorn Lomborg Part 1 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/13/105130/672

Debunking Bjorn Lomborg Part 2 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/14/142514/357

Debunking Bjorn Lomborg Part 3 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/151133/245

NY Times aricle by Andy Revkin on Lomborg’s book.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE5DB123EF93BA35752C0A9659C8B63

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/bjorn-lomborg-admits-his-intellectual-bankruptcy/

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/lomborg-yet-again-tries-to-mislead-on-slr-gets-taken-to-the-woodshed-by-rahmstorf/

Truth may hurt but truth will set you free.
Go ahead dive right in. The water’s fine.

Keep those letters of appreciation coming!

Denialists:

This is not a list you are “put on” by the wonk room. This is a list with only one parameter – you were part of Marc Morano’s anti-science PR emailing. Your attitude to the details of global warming, or Al Gore, or anything, is not relevant.

In short, it’s not faked, and it’s not arbitrary. Unlike the petitions your crowd circulates, many of which are signed falsely, or by dead people, and which invariably cause people to have to threaten legal action because you put them on as signing something they don’t agree with. CF also your “documentaries.”

Hope this helps.

The lesson from all this is that cherry picking studies to support your (non-existent and ignored by actual scientists) case is a bad idea.

What do I have to do to encourage mud slinging in my diection – stick out my tongue? : P

IPCC Expert Reviewer is not a qualification. NOAA and the IPCC issued blanket invitations to everyone to look at the AR4 and submit reviews. They netted experts and clowns and everything in between. YMMV but a lot of people started calling themselves IPCC expert reviewers who sent in cereal box tops.

These denialists have shamed me with their lucidity and their grasp of what you posted, I tell you!

Shamed!

I meant to write skeptics not denialists! I blame you!

America really owes Marc Morano a lot. Among other things, his work helps to keep fuel proices low – so that people can survive snow storms like we see today!

Brian G Valentine

Phil Valentine is not an associate of Marc Morano.

I am an ethusiatic Morano supporter – as well as an absolute denialist.

Brad you are picking on the wrong people – and you’re making a MISTAKE.

You never know! You might be missing some really great material!

I might be a fraudulent PhD!

I might be a stooge for Exxon-Mobil!

I might be out ther helping to expose the fraud you are promulgating!

Brian G Valentine PhD PE
US Department of Energy
Washington, DC

If manmade global warming is wrong then so are various equations in the physics textbooks.

Statements like this are just lame attempts to dodge that fact:

“Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions do not correlate.”

Human co2 emissions define the overall rise, not the year to year variation.

Upon reading my post at 207 I notice that I made a serious misprint.

I wrote:

“Atmospheric CO2 concentration and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration do not correlate.”

Of course, I intended to write:

“Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions do not correlate.”

The fact that nobody has commented on this mistake suggests that my meaning was clear to all, but I apologise for the error.

And, whilst writing, I also apologise for my double post at 210 and 211. This resulted from problems I have had when posting to here (one of my posts disappeared for ever and I submitted another that was put here as the item at 207).

Richard

Ed. — Apologies again for the comment problems. I’ve deleted the duplicate post. Thanks for your forbearance, everyone.

You quote me as saying:

“And all the observed recent changes to global temperature are within the range of variation that has happened in recent millennia.”

And ask me:

“A link for this assertion, please.”

Well, the best link is at
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
It provides a compilation of hundreds of peer reviewed papers showing the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was warmer than now around the world.

However, I suspect you would be more willing to accept Chapter 6 of the most recent IPCCReport (i.e. IPCC AR4) which can be seen at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf

Richard

You labeled a bunch of people as “Climate Denial Jokers” just because one of Inhofe’s staffers sends them regular emails.

Isn’t that rather blatantly McCarthyist behavior?

If this type of behavior bothers you, I recommend doing the right thing. Apologize.

Otherwise, the next time somebody labels Obama a terrorist because he knew Bill Ayers, you should stand up proudly and say “I am glad that in this day and age people are categorized and judged based solely upon who they receive email from. My name is Brad Johnson, and I helped make things this way.”

And all the observed recent changes to global temperature are within the range of variation that has happened in recent millennia.

A link for this assertion, please.

Mark:

I respond to your points that – except possibly for the first – are each very mistaken.

Your first point corrects my having said:

“If by contrarians you mean “climate realists” then you are plain wrong”

when you respond:

“No. I mean contrarians – those intent on arguing like a lawyer would.”

OK, but I do not know of any such “contrarians” among those who dispute the AGW hypothesis.

Then you assert that the AGW hypothesis is a “theory”. Sorry, but you are mistaken. In science a theory derives from a hypothesis when it has some supporting evidence.

There is no evidence for man-made global warming; none, not any of any kind. Two decades of research have failed to find any.

A claim that man-made global warming exists is merely an assertion: it is not evidence and it is not fact. And the assertion does not become evidence or fact by being voiced, written in words, or written in computer code.

The existence of global warming (GW) is not evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) because warming of the Earth does not prove that human activity warmed it. At issue is whether human activity is or is not affecting the changes to the Earth’s temperature that have always happened naturally.

And all the observed recent changes to global temperature are within the range of variation that has happened in recent millennia.

You assert that there is a correlation between anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature. Sorry, but no. The IPCC uses 5-year smoothing of the data to create a correlation, but this cannot be justified because there is no known physical mechanism that would have that effect.

Please note that the annual anthropogenic emissions data need not vary precisely with the atmospheric rise. Some of the emissions may be accounted in adjacent years so 2-year smoothing of the emissions data is warranted. And different nations may account their years from different start months so 3-year smoothing of the data is justifiable. However, the 5-year smoothing applied by the IPCC to get agreement between the anthropogenic emissions and the rise is not justifiable (the IPCC uses it because 2-year, 3-year and 4-year smoothings fail to provide the agreement).

And you rightly say that correlation does not prove causation, but the important point is that lack of correlation indicates lack of causation. Atmospheric CO2 concentration and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration do not correlate.

I said;

“Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to global temperature at all time scales”.

And you replied;

“Both, actually. Between ice ages, for instance, CO2 represents a feedback – and a significant one.”

I fail to understand the meaning of “Both actually”.

The Vostock ice core indicates a lag of carbon dioxide change behind temperature change of ~800 years. And whether or not there is a feedback is not relevant to that (except that the feedback is too small to prevent a rising trend reversing).

At shortest time scales a change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration follows a change to global temperature by months (6 to 9 months depending on latitude). This was first discovered by Kuo. Linberg & Thomson (Nature, 1990) and has been independently determined by several others since.

It is important to understand the difference between correlation and coherence. Correlation is a mathematical relationship between changing parameters. Coherence is when one parameter changes whenever another changes, and the parameter that exhibits the latter changes cannot be causing the other parameter to change (in the absence of a time machine).

Coherence in the absence of correlation is common and is strongly indicative that neither parameter is causative of the other but both are being affected by an additional (often undetected) parameter.

For example, leaves fall off trees soon after children return to school from their summer break. This is clear coherence: it happens every year. But the number of children returning to school does not indicate the number of leaves that will fall: this is absence of correlation. In this case, the other (and causative) parameter is the time of year.

You wrongly assert that I made “a non-sequitur” and – sensibly – do not attempt to justify that assertion when in response to my accurate statements saying:

“Recent rise in global temperature has not been induced by rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present. This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1990. But atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a near constant rate and by more than 30% since 1940. It has increased by more than 4% since 1990, but there has been no significant warming since 1995 with global temperature falling since the high it had in the El Nino year of 1998, and it is now similar to what it was in 1990.”

You replied with:

“Aside from being a non-sequitur…First, global temperatures during mid-century only fell slightly and rose rapidly during the last 30 years (yes, since 1998 as well – see above). You’re presenting this as if both periods equate.”

But I did not say anything equates. I stated facts which demonstrate that if any AGW existed it has been overwhelmed by natural effects in the period since 1940 (i.e. the period when the anthropogenic emissions have been significant).

And the temperature has fallen since 1998 according to RSS, UAH, HadCRUT3 and even GISS.

Furthermore, the rise was not “rapid” in the short period of 28 years from 1970 to 1998 (i.e. the period ow warming in the time since 1940). The rise had a greater rate in the period from 1910 to 1940 which was before there were significant anthropogenic emissions.

You go on to assert:

“The CO2 effect was somewhat weaker mid-centuy, and was counter-balanced by the cooling effect of human-induced sulfates and a rise in significant volcanic activity.”

Well, the aerosol excuse is an enormous supposition with no supporting evidence and it is denied by evidence. The aerosol excuse claimed anthropogenic aerosol provides greenhouse cooling that masks the AGW predicted by the GCMs on the basis that – as you say – anthropogenic sulphates form aerosols that result in cooling. But that excuse foundered 8 years ago when Jacobson showed that soot (i.e. carbonaceous material from combustion) combines with anthropogenic sulphate aerosol in the air and the combination provides strong greenhouse warming. So, the aerosol should have increased GW, not reduced it as the aerosol excuse assumed. The globally averaged warming (i.e. radiative forcing potential) from the soot/aerosol is calculated to be powerful (0.55 Wm^-2) and is between the potentials of carbon dioxide (1.56 Wm^-2) and methane (0.47 Wm^-2) that IPCC had claimed to be the two major trace greenhouse gases.

(ref. Jacobson MZ, “Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols”, Nature, v409, 695-697 (2000)).

You continue by saying to me:

“An examination of the 5-year mean column below refutes your other arguments. One has to cherry-pick to make that sort of case

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt”.

The unadulterated data proves my case.

And your justification for taking a 5-year mean is? Anybody can make any data fit anything by adjusting it in a way that suits their case. The 5-year smoothing is a ‘fiddle factor’.

(And it is an act of gall for you to accuse me of “cherry picking” when I accurately described all the data for the period of significant anthropogenic emission, but you ignored the actual data and cited processed data that distorts reality.)

You then display a lack of logical comprehension when you say to me:

“Your argument 4 is similar to argument 3. Note that even cherry-picking a warmer starting period reaveals the 5-year mean to be 0.40 to 0.45 C warmer.”

My “argument 4” and “argument 3” are very different. One concerned atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and the other anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Your claim that these two parameters are “similar” suggests a prejudice.

Furthermore, I presented no “arguments”. I presented a list of empirical facts and described the data of those facts.

Additionally, the use of a 5-year mean to create a spurious fit (see above) is pure pseudo-science (i.e. adjusting data to suite a pre-conceived idea).

And you seem to be very confused in your response to my saying:

“The pattern of atmospheric warming predicted by the AGW hypothesis is absent.
The AGW hypothesis predicts most warming of the atmosphere at altitude distant from polar regions. Radiosonde measurements from weather balloons and MSU measurements from satellites both show slight cooling at altitude distant from polar regions.”

When you reply:

“Altitude or latitude? If latitude, it’s quite the opposite. More warming is predicted in the Arctic and in northern latitudes. There’s been warming at areas distant from polar regions as well.”

Clearly, you have no understanding of the issue of the ‘hot spot’. I explain it on pages 5 to 7 of the item at

http://co2sceptics.com/attachments/ftp/Heansen-Obama_letter_comments.pdf

Your confusion is further demonstrated when you add:

“If altitude, warming is only predicted in the troposphere, with more warming at lower altitudes. Cooling is predicted in the stratosphere, and substantial cooling has happened. This is consistent with AGW, a decrease in solar activity, or cooling from human-induced sulfates. If the latter 2 are big factors, then some other factor (i.e. greenhouse gases) are overwhelming other cooling factors. Stratospheric cooling is just one of the many pieces of observational evidence that climatologists use to come to the conclusion about human activities and global warming.“

Please see the explanation I provide at the URL above, and if that is not clear then refer to the NIPCC Report. It is at

http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC-Feb%2020.pdf

You conclude by asserting:

“Those who see the big picture, which would be nearly the entire scientific community, aren’t foolish enough to call it a “hypothesis”.”

Well, I do not look at the issue with the ‘Nelsonian eye’ that you so very clearly do. And AGW is a hypothesis, not a theory: this is a matter of definition and I explain it near the start of this message.

Richard