Some great comments from Dr. Richard Alley.

Here are links to various sections of the report.

Summary for Policy Makers

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.pdf

Historical Overview of Climate Science

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch01.pdf

Changes in the atmosphere

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf

Observation of climate changes

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch03.pdf

Observed changes with snow and ice

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch04.pdf

Observed changes with the oceans

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch05.pdf

Climate Models

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch08.pdf

Attributing Climate Change

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf

Global Projections

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch10.pdf

Regional Projections

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch11.pdf

By the way, Richard Alley is 1 of 9 lead authors on chapter 4.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch04.pdf

As he mentioned, the acceleration of the melting ice sheets was not taken into account when sea level rise predictions were made. This is likely due to a good model and weak understanding on how the acceleration will look like. However, it will obviously make the curent half meter prediction higher. My guess is that we are looking at a meter.

Still, I don't believe that sea level rise will be a major concern for the world. Instead, falling agriculture production be more of a problem. Good news is that it is not expected for about 70 years or about 3.5F of warming from where we are now.

air and sea surface temperatures near western Greenland show a significant cooling trend, and sea ice concentrations in Baffin Bay have increased significantly since 1953
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06arctic/background/edu/purpose.html

Eastern Greenland sea ice is also above normal.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5.html

Temperatures in Western Greenland are declining. Temperatures in Eastern Greenland are declining. NOAA and Cryosphere Today must be funded by evil oil companies.

Enhanced CO2 + increased growing season = falling agricultural production?

When the USA has to pay to keep land out of production to avoid even worse tariffs against our food exports?

Gee, I wonder why keeping hot climate controlled spaces and enriching the space with CO2 gives higher growth and yields in hydroponic systems?

Heh.

Andrew, why don't you pick just one section and comment on it. Let's take your last link, turn to chapter 11.5 (regional effects over North America) and I'll let you explain the variations in predicted effects, problems with the inability to properly model the various known weather features such as AO, NAO, ENSO, PDO, AMO, etc. Also, explain why some parts call for warming in some sections of N America and then say it might be cooling in the same areas. Please touch on the predictions of both reduced and increased rainfall over the same areas.

Oh yeah, why is the Southeastern US virtually ignored in these predictions? Damned Rebels don't get the courtesy of predictions?

Pretty much in general, the models that "settle" AGW cannot handle known and observed weather features, let alone their teleconnections, which have historical effects on regional, continental, hemispherical and global climate patterns. Yet still predictions are made off of it.

I'll be waiting. Your link, you defend it.

I also looked at Chapter 8 again. It is still as funny as I remembered it.

kamatu,

Decreased agriculture production is expected after about 3.5F of warming. Before then, as in right now, we are looking at increased production.

No doubt, regional projections are very crude. There are lots of problems involved with making regional projections. However, all the oscillation index events will be tend to stay on the warm side.

Figure 11.3 is probably the best figure to look at for North America.

In summary, winters will warm more than summers.
Extreme warming expected around the Arctic and the Hudson Bay. During the summer, greatest warming will be the Central US.

For precipitation, the largest increase will be in Canada during the winter.
They also show a huge decrease in precipitation in Mexico. However, considering that areas proximity to the humid Gulf, it is hard for me to see how that could happen.

Believe the reason that the southern US is not addressed is that it too close to the tropical convergence zone to make a call. In other words, the region is a toss up between desert and rain forest like climates.

However, from the last 10 years of observations, it is looking like the SE US will be drying out. Too bad for everybody in Atlanta and North Carolina.

Now how did I know that Andrew would be the first to post on this thread. LOL

I'm struck by several things. One, the abject futility of the UN. Layer upon layer upon layer of structure, as he says, leads only to inefficiency and a waste of resources. Two, the mushiness of the data relating to economic considerations. Granted, it would be tough to decipher, but he implied that the mushiness goes beyond just the economics.

And lastly, his conclusion,(paraphrased), "No it's not perfect, but we tried really hard". That is the most telling thing about the entirety of the report. It's not really about the facts but about the effort. Classic liberal mindset where effort is more important than reality. It is this thinking that leads to not keeping score in a game or giving ribbons to everyone who participates in whatever contest.

Hey Brett,

How about checking out this link and starting a new thread about this article (letter) by IPCC reviewer/scientist, Dr. Vincent Gray, who has switched sides, and is now calling for the abolition of the IPCC due to its corrupt nature and unsound scientific methods. Sounds just like when Dr. Landsea of NOAA's NHC also quit the IPCC for the same reasons.

How about Katie Fehlinger interviewing him too, in order to achieve some balance to the interview with Dr. Richard Alley..............
Reply: I'll mention it to her, certainly cannot promise anything, but I will check out your link. BTW, Katie will be interviewing Dr. Fred Singer in the next week or two.

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1

Andrew, Mark, BT, Bloom and all other IPCC-bible toting AGW'ers take note.

I had the opportunity to travel wtih Dr. Alley to Greenland and I wrote this report following the trip.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=175B568A-802A-23AD-4C69-9BDD978FB3CD

Greenland has COOLED since the 1940's. And the chance of Greenland melting as Dr. Alley suggested on the trip is not even possible in thousands of years.

Note what Ivy Leage Geologist Dr. Robert Gigengack has said:
Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania rejected fears of a catastrophic 20 foot sea level rise. "Sea level is rising," Giegengack said, but it's been rising ever since warming set in 18,000 years ago, he explained according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. But the Earth's global ocean level is only going up 1.8 millimeters per year -- less than the thickness of one nickel, Giegengack further explained. �At the present rate of sea-level rise it�s going to take 3,500 years to get up there (to a rise of 20 feet) So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn�t know it. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming," he said. (LINK) Giegengack also noted that the history of the last one billion years on the planet reveals "only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice." (LINK)

There is much more evidence to coutner the UN view.

See also:

Prominent scientist Professor Nils-Axel Morner, declared "the rapid rise in sea levels predicted by computer models simply cannot happen." Morner, a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion who headed the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, noted on August 6, 2007: "When we were coming out of the last ice age, huge ice sheets were melting rapidly and the sea level rose at an average of one meter per century. If the Greenland ice sheet stated to melt at the same rate - which is unlikely - sea level would rise by less than 100 mm - 4 inches per century." Morner, who was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution from 1999 to 2003, has published a new booklet entitled "The Greatest Lie Ever Told," to refute claims of catastrophic sea level rise. (LINK)
# # #

Remember there were only 52 UN scientists who wrote teh last IPCC Summary for Policymakers and remember that many of the "hundreds" or "thousands" of UN scientists are also prominent skeptics like Patrick Michaels, Vincent Gray, Fred Singer, etc.

The UN is first and foremost a political body, not a scientific body. For info on how poltical it is, see this post:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=79C41A1E-802A-23AD-40C1-210D91AC6AFE

Final thought: Computer model predictions are not evidence.

Sincerely,
Marc Morano

Patrick Henry:
Once again posting false data! Learn how to read the chart you posted for Greenland's Ice cover. It is actually below the average from 1979 to 2001 or whatever it was. lol. If you can't understand that chart you posted on here then you probably shouldn't be posting at all on this site.

Scary and terrifying......there is no hope for real science. The report is badly a compilation of written prose with No science, no incontrovertible data, math mistakes galore and a continuing litany of assumptions without rational thought! ...and the masses are falling for it. This pop science nonsense proves the old adage of, “If ignorance is bliss, you must be very happy”.
Dr. Alley should be ashamed to ask that billions be spent when the report is written with a collection of qualifiers such as: probably, maybe, hope, possibly and we think.
Instead of following the party line and showing links with just more supposition and unproven theories, think for yourself. This is not science!

Great link Bill. I can't fathom how anyone who believes in this scam can read that and not question the whole process and how we got this far today with it. It's evidence like this that is coming out more and more every day that will finally shine the sanitizing light on this that it so seriously needs.

Marc Morano of all people. Well, well. Current employee of Jim Inhofe (R) and former employee of Rush Limbaugh, right?

Morano's characterization of the state of the science and even of the material he quotes is *such* a pack of lies. I'll just touch on the low points he highlighted:

Greenland cooled since the 1940s? Perhaps slightly and temporarily depending on which period you choose, but the statement is fundamentally misleading since it warmed again more recently. Chylek et al (2006) did find that there had been a period of Greenland warming in the early 20th century of about the same magnitude as the recent one and a *slight* cooling trend in between. The problem is that this provides no evidence that the present warming is about to stop, especially since the primary cause of the earlier warming has been found to be different from the present one.

But since the Chylek paper was based on a very limited dataset for the early part of the century (due to there being so few weather stations), it may be better to look at the broader Arctic trend: "This period has been the warmest since at least the 17th century. In particular, 2005 was an exceptionally warm year (>28C in relation to the 1951?90 mean) and was warmer than 1938, the warmest year in the 20th century."

See here for a thorough discussion of Greenland warming.

Giegengack is a retired geology prof with no publications relating to either sea level or ice sheets. He's entitled to his opinion, but it's not an expert opinion. As well, sea level rise is accelerating, with the current rate at over 3 mm/yr, so Giegengack's quoted 1.8 mm figure is based on...? 3+ mm/yr still isn't a lot, but the issue is whether there are indications of a rapid acceleration in ice sheet melt. There are, and plenty of them, including this new paper that just completed peer review. The upshot is that the rate of melt in southeast Greenland alone has quadrupled since 2000. What are the upper limits to this process? No one knows, although Richard Alley and others are hard at work finding out.

I hesitate to call Nils-Axel Morner (also retired) but he is a dowser (AKA a "water witch"). Morano mentions Morner's former status with INQUA, but fails to mention INQUA's formal repudiation of Morner's views.

Regarding Morano's remark about numerous "UN scientists" who object to its conclusions, I will simply note that anyone, scientist or not, can submit comments, i.e. doing so confers no particular status. Authorship is a different matter, and there are about 2,000 of those. Authors are selected from among the top scientists in their respective fields, and I'm afraid the quality of the scientific work done by Michaels, Gray and Singer fails to qualify them for that status (or to be called "UN scientists").

Finally, regarding the remark on models, just consider the source.

Barack Obama also talks about his proposed energy plan to combat global warming.

Is this the plan to combat peak oil, pesented in greenwash?

Marc,

Are you subscribing to Nils-Axel Morner's conspiracy theory as published in Lyndon Larouche's magazine?

Bill,
Thanks for the links!

How can you the reader can find links like this questioning AGW when the moderator cannot?
Could opposing points of view be shown as a lead article occasionally?
I guess unbiased is only in the eye of the biased.

First off, Giegengack is not retired, check your facts.

Second, Greenland has cooled based on studies beyond just Chylek. Please read the whole report on Greenland: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=175B568A-802A-23AD-4C69-9BDD978FB3CD

Yes, Greenland has warmed in the past two decades, but the rate of warming in the early part of 20th century was twice as fast. All Greenland fear is based on unproven computer models. Keep that in mind, nothing current in Greenland is cause for alarm unless you play with computer model predictions.

Again, sea level rise fears live exclusively in computer models. You should be embarrassed to look at data since 2000 and extrapolating that 50, 100 or more years into future. Imagine if in 1941, scientists had used computer models to predict Greenland's melt, they would have been completely wrong because it went into a decades long cooling trend.

As for smearing Morner, anyone can pick up articles and reprint. Please, come up with something a bit more high brow than your guilt by assocation attack. We will have a report of hundreds of scientists who are speaking out against the UN very soon. It is jsut a sampling of scientists who have spoken out since January.

I challenge you to list "2000 scientists" of the UN! You cannot. To get to that number you have to include government officials, delegates, etc. There are certanily not 2000 authors, there are hundreds of expert reviewers, but it is now documented that the UN ignores many of the skeptical comments. The fact is there was 52 scietnsts who wrote the alarmist Summary for Policymakers. Maybe next time check the facts before you write incorrect data.

For a complete list of how the latest peer-reviewed studies are completely debunking CO2 and warming fears, please read this Senate report.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8

It is quite humorous to see the proponents of computer model fears having to deal with the flood of new studies undercutting their fears.

Also, note how even top UN lead authors conced climate models do not account for half the variability in nature and thus are not reliable.

Thanks,
Marc

“I hesitate to call Nils-Axel Morner (also retired) but he is a dowser (AKA a "water witch"). Morano mentions Morner's former status with INQUA, but fails to mention INQUA's formal repudiation of Morner's views.”

Amazing! If you don’t have the science, assassinate a man’s reputation with Innuendo.

The paper Prof. Morner submitted had this attached to it:
Memorandum by Professor Nils-Axel M�rner, Head of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden President, (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, Leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project.
His original paper was written in '03 when he was President so it was properly labeled.
Clearly nothing was misrepresented. So I guess to refute science one just needs to damage a man’s reputation.
Did anybody bother to read the professors paper? Maybe you should.
Funny but the new latest AGW fudge factor “an inferred factor from tide-gauge interpretation” was added to the satellite data in 2003 (the same year the professor became “persona non grata”)
The sea levels only started to rise after this new factor was added. If you take that factor away the satellite the seas levels are not rising as of this morning.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we18.htm

How come that little caveat is conspicuously missing when the lay public is informed?
But then you know the masses are easily confused with any polysyllabic gibberish spewed under the guise of science and AGW. "Why confuse them with the facts when our mind is already made up!

This whole thing smells of fraud.

How about the AGW folks try science that is reproducible and without new fudge factors to prove their point? Prove your point! Convince me with science and facts without fudge factors.
The only point so far being proved is that the AGW crowd is acting more like the Queen of Hearts, “Off with their head!” a very convenient way to stifle science.

If this is truly the same "Marc Morano" who we know from Limbaugh and Inhofe, then his status as paid spokesperson for the extreme right should, in my opinion, be noted by the moderator.

Reply: Yes, Tom this is indeed Marc Morano from Senator Inhofe's office. He has posted here before and his association with Senator Inhofe has been noted by him and this blog in the past.

I invite Mr. Morano to cite a peer-reviewed publication in a major journal to support his claim that Greenland has cooled. I hope Morano will forgive me for being unimpressed by cites of his right-wing blog. He can, similarly, skip cites from Limbaugh and LaRouche.

As Steve Bloom has observed, I also invite Mr. Morano to provide a citation for any peer-reviewed publication that qualifies Giegengack to provide anything more than lay commentary.

Regarding Morner, it was Morano who cited his affiliation with INQUA -- in a clear effort to buttress Morner's denialist claims. Morano apparently neglected to cite INQUA's complaint about Morner's lies.

Here's what the President of INQUA wrote about Morner's stance:
Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, does not subscribe to Morner's position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth's climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Morner's point of view.

Instead of "guilt by association", what we see instead is more right-wing lies about climate change.

Again, Brett, I would hope that ANY participant here who is a paid shill should be so noted. If this is the same Marc Morano, then he is not an expert and is, instead, a bought-and-paid-for spokesman of the far-right.

BT:

Takes a lot of gall to whine about the moderator not noting the supposed bias of either a post, a poster or an article.

Especially when it has been pointed out on multiple occasions that there is a decided lack of these sort of qualifying statements with regard to the comments and articles put forth by sources and individuals that could be considered to be the extreme left or liberals.

And by the way, to all interested, peer reviewing in the modern era means very little. Why not simply state facts that we all can correlate? Case in point, when Newton wrote those little laws of his, did he use the peer review process by which to win over the hearst and minds of the people. Nope, he put forth his laws, people correlated them and voila, real science.

Andrew, Mark, BT & Bloom -

Any of you going to address Dr. Vincent Gray's letter posted on nzclimatescience.net ? You're awfully quiet regarding one of your own becoming a vocal turncoat.........

Brett - did you read the letter yet and verify its authenticity ? Is it unworthy of its own thread ? (Reply: I have not read it yet Bill, but will do so.) The Dr.Singer interview is fine, but a former IPCC reviewer speaking out against them is especially noteworthy and brings more balance (vs. Dr. Alley) then a nonmember.

Bloom - I sure do regret Dr. Pielke retiring his blog, climatesci.colorado.edu. It was such a pleasure seeing Dr. Pielke continuously stomp your drivelous remarks ! The archives are still available for anyone here wishing to peruse the topics/comments. </