I believe it's largely natural cycle too but this does not detract from the fact that we are engaged in a global experiment of atmospheric thickening. At some point in the business as usual scenario, Earth will surpass the natural gelogic background of co2 not to mention other human generated ghgs. Thus, efforts to reduce human co2 and other ghgs are laudable especially from a pollution standpoint ( e.g. hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide etc ) We should not fear natural warming but maybe we should fear an unrelenting human ghg emission that has potential for harm in this context. This may become unchartered territory, fast!

Dr Fred Singer is an Electrical Engineer, who has held a long series of academic and political post, but not much else. A senior fellow at a conservative think tank, he has no peer reviewed works in atmospheric science related to global climate changes (warming or cooling).

He�s also argued that there is no link between second hand smoke and lung cancer or between radiation and melanoma. However, anybody with a PHD making such claims will be able to get more than a few $$ for saying so.

No wonder he likens himself to Galileo and Einstein; as nobody else would ever draw such a conclusion about his work.

In other words, Dr Fred Singer is a classical quack.

Fred Singer also holds a PhD in Physics from Princeton. I would take his word on how so-called man-made global warming defies all known physics of the Greenhouse effect.

Anyone who believes that second-hand smoke isn't carcinogenic is a quack in my book.

There was an interesting article in a recent conservative magazine, National Review, that deniers should read. It points out how AGW is real, conservatives (re: deniers) need to accept this reality, and join the debate on finding solutions to the problem. If they continue their fruitless argument that AGW isn't occurring, the National Review argues, then they're missing an opportunity at offering "conservative" solutions to the problem.

I've been trying to make this point for quite some time now. I'm glad at least some of the right-wing is starting to get it and agree with me.

A summary is availabe at the following link -- for once in your lives, you can't question the source's "bias."

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120668.html

Dr Fred Singer is a classical quack.

REPLY: You mean like John Kerry supporter Dr. James Hansen, right Andrew?....;-D....

Andrew,

I see you are resorting to the usual AGW last line of defense - i.e character assassination based on wild misinformation.

Here is Singer's actual quote-
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/singer_interview.htm
"The most serious form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, is produced by solar radiation"

Dr. Singer is an extremely accomplished atmospheric physicist. From the article-

"Dr. Singer, you are a scientist who has achieved great renown for pioneering research in atmospheric and space physics. You were among the very first to study the cosmic radiation outside of the Earth's atmosphere using rocket-borne instruments. You developed the method of dating the origin of meteorites and showed how the Moon might have been captured to become a companion of the Earth. You pioneered instrumented satellites before Sputnik and devised instruments for measuring ozone and other atmospheric constituents from space. More recently, your research group measured the interplanetary dust and detected clouds of orbiting debris particles near the Earth. You predicted the existence of radiation belts before they were found by satellites and first published on the human production of methane, an important greenhouse gas. Your career has included academic positions and several government posts. You served as Chief Scientist in the Department of Transportation and were the first director of the US Weather Satellite Service. You have served as a consultant to the Secretary of Energy, the White House Science Adviser, and other government officers, and were for several years the vice-chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. Since retiring from government and the University of Virginia, you founded a think tank, the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), in Fairfax, VA."

Ah, yes, I see Marx went out of his way to find a blog that shows that some so-called "conservatives" are jumping on the panic monger bandwagon, in an effort to make themselves look good, a la Rupert Murdoch. Like this Mr. Manzi that this blog mentions, who makes his living in marketing. Hey, who ever pays the most money (which I might at I DON'T have a problem with), that's who we will spin for! Even if it is a bunch of BS. Also, our Mr. Manzi is a graduate of MIT. Doesn't Noam Chomsky teach at MIT? Sounds pretty fish to me!

One other thing. Marko, I need to ask. The term "Right Wing" that you love to use in excess, please explain. Because my observation of history shows that prior to the 1960's Marijuana Marxist revolution giving birth to the political radicals in this country, the USA politically was what you deem as "Right Wing" today. Translation, there was no "Right Wing" until your big hero's came along with their drugged out hippie tripe and called this country an Imperialist state that is the reason for the world's problems. So again, I ask you, Please Explain "Right Wing" to all of us. I am very eagar to hear your response.

The DENIER

Andrew,

Why are you so fascinated with a person's "credentials" than what is actually being said. If a liar tells you that 2+2=4, are you going to go on about how they are a liar or focus on the statement at hand? Lemme guess, first you would question if they voted for Bush and then let everyone know that they were a liar ( Oh my gosh, did I tell you he voted for Bush??), what? 2+2 what? Nobody peer reviewed his work, he's a total quack!

BTW - Great "report" you directed me to. Was that reviewed by peers? Did you review it? :) Did you check their credentials? Oh, voted Democrat, super, must be A-Okay! ( With a thumbs up and a wink :)

Care to tell me what you thought of my "review"? Note: Not peer reviewed, I would not classify the person(s) who wrote that my peer :)

Regards,

Steve

Mark,

Someone needs to show that there is a problem before anyone can join in to help. I understand that is getting warmer. How about showing me why? Causation is a key factor here. There is a mere correlation between CO2 levels and Temperatures. This correlation can only be made up to 200 years ago because before that Temps rose and fell independent of CO2 levels. CO2 levels rose and fell because of temps (Henry's Law).

What point have you been trying to make? That even though there is NO evidence that GW is caused by man that we should just believe it? So someone who is trying to prevent votes from being transferred from one idiot party to the other idiot party writes an article trying to show that "conservatives" do care about GW. That's the proof I was looking for, thank you.

Regards,

Steve

>> Dr Fred Singer is an Electrical Engineer,

Andrew, the argument by authority is a classic logic fallacy. You need to read more about "critical thinking skills".

>> he has no peer reviewed works

"peer review" is not part of the scientific method. You need to read more about the scientific method. Besides, as the Wegman report exposed, the scientific proponents of AGW are a small number of advocates, forming a clique, all reviewing each others "work".

>> He also argued that there is no link between second hand smoke and lung cancer

Again, extremely bad logic. Newton advocated many theories that were completely wrong. Does that make him wrong about everything?

>> In other words, Dr Fred Singer is a classical quack

You certainly haven't made that case. In fact, ad-hominem attack is last resort of someone who cannot deal with the substance of his argument.

And his argument is simple: Only the scientific method is a credible way to achieve scientific knowledge. This means that a real scientist tries to falsify his hypothesis. Only failed falsification attempts give a hypothesis credibility to move to the theory stage, after many years. After many more years, it moves on the "law".

AGW has not even achieved the level of hypothesis, since it violates Henry's law.

Really there are only two things that must be evaluated here. It matters not what educational or scientific background Mr. Singer has. It matters only what his stance is in the American political system. The other item of concern is what is the lean of the source.

According to the AGW religion, that is the only thing that matters.

Singer's argument has been dealt with over and over. He's not the first person that has thought there was a correlation between solar activity and climate. However, it's been proven that the change in solar forcing since 1750 amounts to 0.1 Watt. By contrast, Greenhouse gases are 20 times that amount.

So, a person that wishes to compare himself to Einstein had better start thinking of something original. Sunspots is nothing new.

And yes, peer review is part of the scientific process. If it weren't then there would be no way to tell the differance between a real science and garbage.

Dr James Hansen is another example. He's got a theory about a global tipping points and sea level rises of inch/year. But, he can't get that into a peer review science journal and I doubt you'll ever see anything like that in the IPCC report.

Here is a good interview with Dr. Fred Singer on PBS.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/debate/singer.html

>> thought there was a correlation between solar activity and climate.

Thought? The fact is completely undeniable. There is night and day, winter and summer, even deep ocean temperatures vary according to the seasons. Neptune has similarly warmed lately. How do you explain that?

>> However, it's been proven that the change in solar forcing since 1750 amounts to 0.1 Watt. By contrast, Greenhouse gases are 20 times that amount.

Oh really? Show me the scientific proof. Vezier makes a convincing case that C02 is not a climate driver. The sun, cosmic rays, orbital variation and the water cycle are all much more important.

http://www.friendsofscience.org/documents/veizer2.pdf

>> had better start thinking of something original. Sunspots is nothing new.

Science isn't about thinking of creative new ways to blame man for something. "Sunspots is nothing new" is not an argument. Since the laws of reality have not ever changed, it's always true that "scientific reality is nothing new".

>> And yes, peer review is part of the scientific process. If it weren't then there would be no way to tell the differance between a real science and garbage.

Ahh ha. I said "scientific method". Peer review is a very recent practice used by scientific magazines as a QA process for scientific literature. Nothing more. It is NOT part of the "scientific method".

>> He's got a theory about a global tipping points and sea level rises

He has a speculative idea. It doesn't qualify as even a hypothesis, since if there were such a tipping point, we would experience it every summer. The climate would be completely unstable. If you come up with an idea that is falsified by direct observation, then it is falsified by the "scientific method", not by "peer review".

Steve,

You asked for some type of mechanism for Co2 to cause warming rather than a simple correlation. This can be done by searching for "CO2 Infrared Radiation Absorbtion Spectrum" on Google. It is a known physical characteristic of the molecule CO2 that it absorbs infrared energy (the kind that is reflected off the surface of the earth from sunlight).

This means that adding to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to slight warming over time -- even a slight warming over a long period can cause dramatic ecological changes. The rest of climate science is just details, how the other variables... cloud cover, rain patterns, soils, and other atmospheric gases will react to this imbalance.

We know that almost all changes in climate in the past were accompanied by changes in the content of the atmosphere. Denying this is just denying fact. We also know that humans place about 70 million tons of CO2 daily into the atmosphere and that this is changing our atmosphere. It's a perilous experiment. Fossil fuels will run out this century anyhow... shouldn't we begin the transition away from them for our children's sake for that reason alone?

Bill

Bill:

As I recall, in the 1970's and early 80's, the experts, scientific consensus, and accepted fact was that oil would run out about 7 years ago. I sincerely doubt that anyone has a handle on the quantity of fossil fuels left on this planet.

WE are not conducting an experiment by the way.

>> It is a known physical characteristic of the molecule CO2 that it absorbs infrared energy

Yes, but the water cycle dominates to such an extent that it makes C02 almost irrelevant, and certainly not a climate driver

>> This means that adding to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to slight warming over time

You forget that the greenhouse effect has a saturation point, ie 20 feet of glass will not make a greenhouse warmer.

>> -- even a slight warming over a long period can cause dramatic ecological changes.

The argument that slight warming is very beneficial is quite compelling. You have no real evidence to the contrary.

>> The rest of climate science is just details, how the other variables... cloud cover, rain patterns, soils, and other atmospheric gases will react to this imbalance.

You have it reversed. Cloud cover and rain patterns are orders of magnitude more important than C02. Henry's law requires that any C02 we add to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans.

>> We know that almost all changes in climate in the past were accompanied by changes in the content of the atmosphere. Denying this is just denying fact.

Accompanied! Henry's law requires that oceans outgas somewhere between 20 and 60 PPM of C02 for every degree C of ocean temperature rise. Sun heats ocean, oceans increase atmospheric C02.

>> We also know that humans place about 70 million tons of CO2 daily into the atmosphere and

I think it's more like 5.5 GT each year, which is only 15 million tons per day. Irregardless, human effect is very small, one paper calculated it at .2%. The AGW idea postulates that it is possible to externally increase and accumulate atmospheric C02. Henry's law requires that equilibrium with the oceans be maintained.

>> that this is changing our atmosphere. It's a perilous experiment.

For that to be true, Henry's law must be invalid. So, you're speculative idea (AGW) requires that Henry's law be invalid, and that we ignore contradictory observation: the depression cut human C02 output in half, yet no effect on C02 measurements. China and India greatly increase human C02 output, yet no effect on C02 measurements.

>> Fossil fuels will run out this century anyhow...

Oil is not a fossil fuel. Oil is abiotic, not the product of long decayed biological matter. It, like coal, and natural gas, is replenished from sources within the mantle of earth. In essense, it will never run out.

>> shouldn't we begin the transition away from them for our children's sake for that reason alone?

The essense of "reason" in science is the scientific method. Look it up. Teaching our children critical thinking skills is far more important than teaching them old falsehoods like "oil is a fossil fuel", and "man is capable of defying Henry's law" and "earth's climate is unstable".

"it's been proven that the change in solar forcing since 1750 amounts to 0.1 Watt"

Andrew,

Where do you come up with this stuff? According to the IPCC the solar constant is up by 3W/m2 over the last 100 years.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/IPCC/FORCING/solar.constant.png

I encourage you to check the facts for yourself, instead of just repeating AGW propaganda, rumor and innuendo.

Thor,

At some point in the business as usual scenario, Earth will surpass the natural gelogic background of co2 not to mention other human generated ghgs.

What exactly is the natural geologic background of CO2? Let me see... I'm guessing that you think that the number would be approximately 280 ppm. Is that correct? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news (for you), but the average CO2 concentration (geologic background) over the past 600 million years is in the the range of 1500 to 3000 ppm. Only twice in the last 600 million years have CO2 concentratins been below 400 ppm, that would be during the Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian) and during the Quaternary. Somehow during the Ordivician when another ice age was in progress, CO2 concentrations averaged a mere 4,400 ppm. Now, what is the natural geologic background concentration of CO2?

I eagerly await your response, however, if you're not up to it feel free to send in bt or Stevie B or maybe even Mark. Although bt chose to ignore this a while back; he must still be doing his research.

Andrew, FYI Jim Hansen has no problem getting his work (even the more speculative stuff) published in peer-reviewed journals.

Andrew, FYI Jim Hansen has no problem getting his work (even the more speculative stuff) published in peer-reviewed journals.

It worries me greatly that as a concerned member of the public and a scientist, although not a climate scientist, that when i come on to a discussion forum like this one to learn more about what might and might not be happening to our climate, that instead for most of the time al i see is name calling, character assassination, point scoring etc. You guys are the people that myself and my family look to for information on what is happening to our world, for perhaps guidance on what we can, or need to do to change it. If half the energy expended by some of you people on name calling, hair pulling and the likes was spent on actually discussing what matters, even if you don't happen to agree, then we might actually achieve something.

I see many people arguing that ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) is obviously a carcinogen. This is an excellent example of how good marketing works. As John Brignell at Numberwatch likes to say, "Using the same statistics that show that 400,000 people a year die from smoking, you can also show that 200,000 people per year are saved by smoking". All that truly has been demonstrated with smoking is that people who smoke are much more likely to get lung cancer. The question though is not so much "Is smoke a carcinogen", but what factors do the victims have that smoke enhances.

Fred Singer is not a quack. Arguing that he is shows a distinct lack of respect for science.

The science is not settled. SCIENCE is never settled. Engineers will excercise the practical side of science and make it appear that it is settled, but we constantly refine our understanding. In the case of global warming due to human activities, the science goes beyond not being settled.

When a weather forecaster can predict the weather a month in advance and actually have some accuracy, I might start to listen to the Climate Modelers. Until such time, I will continue to doubt those who say they can accurately predict climate 100 years from now. Climate is just the aggregation of weather. If you can't predict the weather, you cannot predict the climate. There are too many factors that are complete unknowns -- Volcanic activity, Sun spot activity, Underwater volcanic activity, and many many others. Any one of these can turn the model completely on its head.

The problem for modelers though is that they need funding. You don't get funding walking in and saying that your model is worthless.

TNT

brad