Joe Bastardi comments are very refreshing - yes, we need validation, not just models and narrow minded single stat point of views - keep the information coming.

Yeah I think Joe is a skeptic, but so am I! Wouldn't it be really cool if one week Joe could have a debate with an AGW'er. I would love to see that, I like debates a lot more than just one person sitting down telling their point of view. I agree with Joe completely and I like the way he thinks.

P.S. I can't wait till next week's video with the interview. So pumped up for that!

Hansen's computer models Wrong??? Another error by Hansen How can that be???
Say it ain't so!
Mr. Bastardi puts AGW where it belongs…
"GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT!"
AGW is all glitz and show without substance.
Mr. Bastardi used facts, logic and rational thought. All he is asking for is to show the science and debate the merits. Yet I believe that will not happen.
I can’t wait for the AGW Folks to comment. It will not refute the science or call for debate. I suspect it will try to vilify him, start name calling(usually about age or politiks) and try to marginalize him. Remember: If you can’t answer the question kill the messenger.

Again, where is the science for AGW???? Don’t you just hate it when your golden ox is gored so easily with just a few sentences of common sense?

Hansen's computer models Wrong??? Another error by Hansen How can that be???
Say it ain't so!
Mr. Bastardi puts AGW where it belongs…
"GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT!"
AGW is all glitz and show without substance.
Mr. Bastardi used facts, logic and rational thought. All he is asking for is to show the science and debate the merits. Yet I believe that will not happen.
I can’t wait for the AGW Folks to comment. It will not refute the science or call for debate. I suspect it will try to vilify him, start name calling(usually about age or politiks) and try to marginalize him. Remember: If you can’t answer the question kill the messenger.

Again, where is the science for AGW???? Don’t you just hate it when your golden ox is gored so easily with just a few sentences of common sense?

Go Joe!
Meteorologist and climatologist are putting good science on the shelf for the sake of political and media hype. It will be interesting to see how our understanding of these incredibly complex systems evolves over the next ten years. I think we will see quite a few scientists asking themselves what were we thinking and where was the science in all of this.

Have you seen this story? Seems a bit strange that a Denier would be one of the principal authors of the IPCC report. What do you think of this? Is this global warming thing for real or just a bunch of hype?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html

Quote from article: "I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time." - Dr. John Christy

One needs only to read Joe's blog on the Pro site to understand that he has a tendency and history to be wrong, sometimes very, very wrong on his interpretations of how climatic events will play out. Part of me respects Joe's abilities and his willingness to offer an "out of the box" perspective, but I mostly feel he's a big time hype artist and doesn't adequately respect others' points of view on climate issues.

So in essence take what Joe says with a grain of salt.

Two very different points.

The remarks about the Today show are telling you that what is happening at NBC these days "Green Week" ,broadcasting Al Gore's concert etc. No wonder all the their news reports claim that the scientific debate is "over" and Newsweek who partners with MSNBC on their website had their "science" columnist write an blistering article ironically claiming that the "deniers" movement was based on oil industry profit motive.

While as shown above I am very much a skeptic that humans are causing climate change and am happy this point of view is finally getting at least some press I find one charge leveled against us skeptics to have merit specifically that to many of us want to "do nothing" about climate change. Here are some preliminary ideas based on as Joe said "what we know". No more new Glass buildings and if at all possible replace the ones that are there. These buildings will kill and injure a lot of people in a major East Coast hurricane. As has been said before no subsidies for people building properties near the coast. Send out some of our best scientists to Holland to figure out how to build proper levees and dikes so the 23rd worst hurricane does not flood 80% of a city. Insanely the rebuilt levees are not any better then the ones that failed. And the remaining scientists that do not go to Holland are sent to France to figure out how 80% of their power supply comes from safely run nuclear power plants. Now my solutions will cost a whole lot and will have to be paid for by eliminating a bunch of popular programs and or raising taxes. That is why they will not happen and Al Gore's feel good ones will. A point that is openly one of thier main selling points.

Joe MUST be censored!!
It is this kind of irresponsible attitude that is the real problem in the world.
I don�t resort to scare tactics but, We Are All Going to DIE if we don�t buy carbon offsets!
As a new offset provider (buymyfarts.com) I fear that Joe�s comments will hurt my sales which of course will be disastrous for the planet.
Just look at the Evidence.
Tripping point after tripping point passed.
Ice melting, dry brush burning, warm summer days, Gaia�s libido decreasing!!!!!
These disasters are unprecedented. Deniers have to be silenced.

"Global Warming" man induced or not can still be regulated with my "TUNNELS" due to fact of the huge natural resource of cooler water in our oceans at about 500 feet. This reserve of cooler water can regulate our climate to best suit mankind. The "TUNNELS" tap into this huge reserve thus regulating SSTs.

Joe Bastardi does a good job of putting things in perspective. So far, all of the dire predictions attributed to AGW are:

1. Based on models, not the real world.
2. So far into the future that we can't verify.
3. Are pure speculation, not science.
4. Promote a political, social, economic agenda.

Today's New York Times reports on Mayor Bloomberg's call for a national tax on carbon emissions. If that happens then we will have reduced every American's spendable income based on the unproven AGW hypothesis. It's ridiculous to think that we are that stupid. Maybe those poor math and science test scores we've been reading about for years are finally coming home to roost.

Here's a link to the NYT article:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/bloomberg-calls-for-tax-on-carbon-emissions/index.html?hp

One only needs to look at predictions of climate modelers to recognize that they have a tendency and history to be wrong. Sometimes very, very wrong on their interpretations of how climatic events will play out. Mostly I feel they are big time hype artists and don't adequately respect others' points of view on climate issues.

Ron, it seems even more strange that someone would describe Christy as a "principal author," noting that Christy himself made no such claim. Why just make stuff up like that?

But speaking of Christy, those reading this who have a subscription to Eos will know that his recent paper on warming in the California Central Valley was thoroughly refuted on the front page just a couple of weeks ago. That must have really hurt since the paper was not only a huge amount of work for him (because of the need to digitize old records) but was intended as a vindication of sorts after the embarassing public corrections involving his main area of work (air temperature data gathered by satellites). So was the WSJ piece a case of sour grapes?

I know its silly and off topic, but isn't Joe's last name the perfect name for someone that you want to insult?

"That darn AGW denying Bastardi!!!

Ok. I got that out of my system.

So Hansen's models could not even correctly predict last year's El Nino ??? Add it was wrong on the. . . surprise, surprise - the WARM side ???

How pathetic.......................

Gary,

Very, uhhh, interesting comment. Very interesting indeed. Lot's of sarcasm.

Did anybody notice that Joe does not actually deny that global warming is caused by increasing CO2 levels?

That is very telling.

Notice he talks about hurricanes and El Ninos well enough, but all one has to do is to look at global temperature trends to see the warming over the last 30 years. Likewise, the science of how CO2 works in the atmosphere is clear enough that it is commonly called a greenhouse gas.

See the following for details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Likewise, sea levels rise has been measured, the trend is clear (it has accelerated since the 1800s) and the cause is from warming of the oceans and net melting of ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

Rick,

If you actually read your own article, you'll see that Bloomberg proposes a national consumption-based carbon tax, coupled with a payroll tax reduction.

Everyone pays payroll taxes. Every corporation pays payroll taxes. Reducing those means that every single employee and business will have a tax cut of some sort. Whether or not they'll have less disposable income compared with the current system will be directly related to how efficient they use energy. Some may pay more, some pay less, but in all cases, their tax burden is a reflection of their choices.

If the corporate-apologist flank of the right-wing would stop frothing at the mouth and turn off Limbaugh for one second, they'll realize that this is a step towards the type of tax system they've always wanted.

Andrew,

Everyone understands that increased CO2 levels will lead to higher temperatures as a first order effect. It is a question of magnitude.

Some interesting FAQ's from NOAA-

Global temperature extremes have been found to exhibit no significant trend in interannual variability, but several studies suggest a significant decrease in intra-annual variability. There has been a clear trend to fewer extremely low minimum temperatures in several widely-separated areas in recent decades. Widespread significant changes in extreme high temperature events have not been observed. There is some indication of a decrease in day-to-day temperature variability in recent decades.

tropical storm frequency and intensity show no significant long-term trend in any basin.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#Q1

Mark,

You said: "Some may pay more, some pay less, but in all cases, their tax burden is a reflection of their choices".

You said it, another "tax" to add to the "burden".

Don't you get it, Mark. We don't want more dictated choices. They make you think their doing you a favour, by putting money in your front pocket while they slip money from your back pocket to pay for it.

Out of every 12 months that folks have to work, every penny they make the first 7 months of the year, is to pay their total annual taxes. That's burden enough. Folks only really start making money for themselves the last 5 months of the year.

People don't have enough money to throw at the sky to try and change the weather back to the good old days, just because some cult leader say's that's what we should be doing.

It's real easy to make profound statements about how others should be spending their money, when those folks are not telling you how to spend yours.

Your tax system would be easier to swallow if we all worked in Taiwan and only paid 4% income tax, or had a rich Mommy and Daddy to look after us.

Mark,

You said: "Some may pay more, some pay less, but in all cases, their tax burden is a reflection of their choices".

You said it, another "tax" to add to the "burden".

Don't you get it, Mark. We don't want more dictated choices. They make you think their doing you a favour, by putting money in your front pocket while they slip money from your back pocket to pay for it.

Out of every 12 months that folks have to work, every penny they make the first 7 months of the year, is to pay their total annual taxes. That's burden enough. Folks only really start making money for themselves the last 5 months of the year.

People don't have enough money to throw at the sky to try and change the weather back to the good old days, just because some cult leader say's that's what we should be doing.

It's real easy to make profound statements about how others should be spending their money, when those folks are not telling you how to spend yours.

Your tax system would be easier to swallow if we all worked in Taiwan and only paid 4% income tax, or had a rich Mommy and Daddy to look after us.

Steve Bloom says:

But speaking of Christy, those reading this who have a subscription to Eos will know that his recent paper on warming in the California Central Valley was thoroughly refuted on the front page just a couple of weeks ago. That must have really hurt since the paper was not only a huge amount of work for him (because of the need to digitize old records) but was intended as a vindication of sorts after the embarassing public corrections involving his main area of work (air temperature data gathered by satellites). So was the WSJ piece a case of sour grapes?

I haven't seen the Eos article, and couldn't find any reference to it on the internet, but if Bloom follows his usual pattern, "thoroughly refuted" simply means someone disputed it. Consider his repeated claim that Christy was was embarrassed and discredited by having to correct his satellite temperature record. What actually occurred was that Wentz and Schabel discovered the need for an adjustment due to orbital decay, which Christy (and Spenser) then incorporated into their calculations. I wonder if Bloom considers Hansen discredited, since he had to make as least as significant a correction to his surface temperature record when Steve McIntyre discovered a computation error.

Also, the expression "sour grapes" means disparaging something because you can't have it. If Christy hadn't been part of the IPCC, and said he was glad he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize because it's often given to loons, that might be sour grapes. Or it might be true.

Mark

Everyone doesn't pay payroll taxes. Retirees for instance.

Joe again thank you for speaking what is rarely heard these days, which is the truth. Computer Models using incomplete or biased data with poorly understood systems will produce garbage. I am a computer analyst by trade and am not surprised by the amount of computer illiterates who have no concept of how computer modeling or even computers work but latch on to them because the word "Computer" is used. Using the words "Multi-Million Dollar Computers" is even more convincing to the naive. Because we all know computers cannot be wrong! Well not only can errata exist in the hardware, bugs can exist in the software which can produce computational errors but that is besides the point. They do not even know if they have the right numbers or how to use them because climate science is not fully understood. In essence they are guessing.

The easiest way for me to explain this to people is to imagine using the wrong numbers to try to get a right answer on a calculator by not knowing if you should add or multiply them. Sound crazy? Welcome to long term (100 year) climate modeling.

Oh and please everyone do not fall for the "thoroughly refuted" propaganda. The tactic of taking the existence of someone attempting to refute something does not make it reality. RealClimate.org is notorious for refuting everything by posting something about it. This does not make it refuted and merely fools the naive.

Wikipedia? Please no one with an ounce of understanding would use Wikipedia (which a 5 year old can edit at will) as a reliable source for anything.

Tidal Guage measurements show NO acceleration of sea level. The nonsense of acceleration came from one paper where specially selected hand picked tidal guage measurements were combined with satellite sea level measurements and some math to "model" the acceleration. Yep you heard that right they threw out the direct observation of tidal guage measurements and created their own "reconstructed" ones using a computer model. Why? Because another computer model showed that there should of been an acceleration of sea level rise but none of the tidal guage measurements showed it. So of course the observations must be wrong not their computer models. What a SCAM!

It cracks me up at how many computer illiterates fall for this hype. It is like selling "magic elixirs" to the poor decades ago.

Having just read the article by John Christie, I would just like to add that even closer to the North Pole, the annual migration of pink footed geese has begun early because it is much colder than usual this year. You don't have to look far for many such contradictions.