No doubt the alarmists are correct on all points.

Which explains the record Antarctic ice, record Northern Hemisphere snow cover, record Arctic ice recovery, and below normal worldwide temperatures.

An excellent summary. Switching away from fossil fuels should also minimize the amount of money flowing into the Mid-east with much of it being used for terrorism. Granted, this will not happen immediately, but more of an effort needs to be made to start using renewable fuels, and it would be beneficial if the government could at least take some small role in supporting that effort. As the price of gas increases, market forces will enhance that effort.

Paul:

I would like to point out that the source of this article, the BBC, has been shown to be an organization biased toward the belief in AGW. Therefore, their articles tend towards advertisement for AGW in lieu of actual neutral reporting.

I note this primarily because we have often experienced that when a thread starter presents a skeptical point of view, we are given a disclaimer that the source is either conservative or guilty of being a denier source of information.

As far as the article, the responses sure sound like the debate is over. In fact, it seems that the doth protest too much.

I mean look at the first counter response it sums it up... Warming is unequivocal. Really, then why go into a full paragraph?

I especially like the link under the picture of the sun, unravelling the sceptics. Yeah, that's not a biased statement. And why, if the sun plays NO part in the warming of the planet, put the statement under a picture of the full sun looking all hot and stuffy?

The responses would be persuasive if the reader didn't have the facts to show that they are false.
1. Lindzen just reported that the lower troposphere is not warming as the models predict.
2. McKitrick has reported that the urban heat island effect is not being accounted for fully.
3. Pielke has reported that none of the temperature measuring systems (except GISS) show as much surface warming as even the IPCC's lowest projection predicts.
4. In fact, the temperature trend is down if you go back 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years.

Ahhhh if only the counter points actually had a modicum of truth and science behind it or a relevant response .
Example
Point- “Ice-cores dating back nearly one million years show a pattern of temperature and CO2 rise has always come after the temperature rise, not before…..,”
Counter point
“This is largely true, but largely irrelevant. Ancient ice-cores do show CO2 rising after temperature by a few hundred years …However, the situation today is dramatically different. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere (35% increase over pre-industrial levels) is from human emissions.”
LOL Absurdity ad infinitum! SO WHAT?
How is CO2 from Human emissions different from “natural CO2”?
How is Combustion different when it is from a forest fire or when Humans throw a log on the fire to keep warm?
How does the earth know the difference? And the AGW side wonders why people who spent their lives in a real science question the so called “peer reviewed science” that claims; ‘This time the CO2 rise is different from all the other CO2 rises’ in the earth 4.5 billion year history because humans made it! What is this guilt by observation?
Apparently the author of this article believes the public cannot differentiate between the usual AGW fictions and shear unadulterated fantasy. The counterpoint presented is not an answer. Saying because humans “produced it “(i.e. they controlled the combustion) it somehow causes CO2 to work differently in the atmosphere?
LOL Anybody with 3 attached and functioning neurons can see the sheer absurdity of that non-answer.
The sad part is somebody thinks these are answers
I am not even going to address the other nine.
Folks read, learn, ask questions, and think for your self….
Nonsense is nonsense no matter where you read it.

Who fact-checked the counter arguments? Why is the BBC gets to write both the skeptics arguments and their answers? And why no counter-point?

Here's my counter-point to the BBC's answers:

1. The UHI effect is probably much larger than accounted for. Many global warming advocates actually adjust temperature estimates up for urban areas, with little justification.

2. Is it still warming slightly, cooling slightly or staying about the same? Depends upon who you ask. But it's certainly not warming as predicted.

3. Many recent studies indicate the MWP is warmer than today. Many recent studies also indicate the MWP was not confined to just Europe and North America. The science is not settled and is open to debate.

4. The computer models are really the crux of the matter. Catastrophic consequences of future warming are all based upon computer models which are programmed to show that warming increases as CO2 goes up. However, the last decade hasn't warmed as predicted. It will be decades before the accuracy of these models can really be determined. There is little reason to believe these models are accurate, despite the good intentions of the modelers.

5. The atmosphere isn't warming as predicted. The models aren't being verified (see #4).

6. There is little to backup the unqualified statement "solar forcing cannot be responsible for the recent temperature trends". Some studies indicate the sun may be responsible for over 60% of the recent warming.

7. This answer is pure sophistry. Greenhouse
gases, especially CO2 have not been proven to be a major force in climate change. Perhaps the effect is inconsequential? The levels are high but the temps may be no warmer than other recent warm periods.

8. Hurricanes have not been shown to be stronger or more frequent due to global warming. Modelers are now scrambling to show that warming causes weaker hurricanes. (Or stronger, or both).

9. Here's another answer that is not well supported with facts. Water vapor is accounted for in climate models, but is it properly handled? A small increase in relative humidity traps a great deal of heat.

10. The objection and the answer are both matters of opinion, not science. Only if you believe the climate models which indicate a run-away greenhouse effect and global warming be considered a serious threat. If that's true, adapting to climate change may the best strategy.

1. Lindzen just reported that the lower troposphere is not warming as the models predict.

Can you post a cite for that, please? Has it been peer-reviewed yet?

2. McKitrick has reported that the urban heat island effect is not being accounted for fully.

We've gone over this at length. None of the claims of McKitrick or Watts change the facts reported in the thread-starter:

The urban heat island effect is real but small; and it has been studied and corrected for. Analyses by Nasa for example use only rural stations to calculate trends. Recently, work has shown that if you analyse long-term global temperature rise for windy days and calm days separately, there is no difference. If the urban heat island effect were large, you would expect to see a bigger trend for calm days when more of the heat stays in the city. Furthermore, the pattern of warming globally doesn't resemble the pattern of urbanisation, with the greatest warming seen in the Arctic and northern high latitudes.

a) No difference between windy and calm days -- i.e., no significant UHI effect.
b) No relationship between warming patterns and urbanization -- again, no significant UHI effect.

McKitrick, Watts, et all are distracting us by an argument about the fourth decimal digit of accuracy in a measurement whose noise has already been accounted for.

3. Pielke has reported that none of the temperature measuring systems (except GISS) show as much surface warming as even the IPCC's lowest projection predicts.

Again, a cite please.

4. In fact, the temperature trend is down if you go back 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years.

a) 1, 3, 5, and 10 years are not long enough periods to reveal any climatic change.

b) The AGW signal is superimposed on other contributors. The question is not whether the temperature has gone up or down on an absolute scale, the question is whether it has gone up or down more or less than it would have without an anthropogenic component.

All in all, ten canards -- very effectively rebutted. Again. Of the four objections that Mr. Sund raises, two (1 and 3) are, at the moment, unsupported by anything except by a claim on the blog. Item (2) has been argued at great length and is demolished (again) by the piece cited in the thread-starter. Item (4) is no more than thinly-disguised cherry-picking -- another favorite tactic of our contrarians.

Paul, thanks for reposting this. It would be great if we could keep these ten items permanently on the front page someplace and redirect comments to them, in order to clean up the noise and clutter of the rest of the threads on the blog.

Darren, the NY Times, BBC and Washington Post are perhaps the three best journalistic institutions in the world. You're grasping at straws if you want to compare the BBC with tabloid journalism like the NY Post.

Those who have been around the world realize that the American media is quite conservative. However, the Radical Right will never acknowledge this because, if they did, it would take away their ability to play the victim.

I guess that stock answers ....regardless the basis of the question, are better than insult, discredit and attack climate realists

Ever notice how alarmists always rephrase the statement to match a stock answer ......I've noticed a few here as well

Another strange aspect of these stock answers is that they rarely address the real questions !

What is normal temperature? Averages have nothing to do with this!

What is the ratio of man-made CO2 emissions and how does it fluctuate within natural CO2 emissions?

How does a carbon tax, offset or credit help AGW? If you notice carefully, all attemps in the last 20 years had the money directed toward anything but AGW.

Looks like global redistribution of wealth and power in its simplist form. The UN is at the base of all these "global" projects but no one appears to be responsible or accountable to anyone.

Doesn't anyone else find this strange?

The IPCC is an "appointed committee" to collect, standardize and report scientific data specically pertaining to AGW and AGW only! Other causes to climate change have to be discounted simply because they do not fall within their mandate.

http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm

Is this what they call science?

We did beat this one to death before. My comment then, which still stands, is the AGW arguments should have been on the left with the 'sceptic' rebuttals on the right. Giving the alarmists the last word in every case is not balanced reporting. Incidentally, this is the same BBC that will not use the word 'terrorists' in case it implies a judgement on the perpetrators of violent acts. Political Correctness and AGW Alarmism go hand in hand.

BT.

The Lindzen cite is at www.ecoworld.com. Click on editor post -CO2 and global warming.

The Pielke item was blogged here on Jan 11.

The McKitrick report was not debunked. People just said it was wrong without addressing his findings.

4. Computer models are not reliable.
5. The atmosphere is not behaving as models would predict.

Aren't those sorta the same point?

I would be way more surprised if the models were dead-on. OMG, computer models can't 100% accurately predict the climate decades in advance, what a shocker!

Wait a minute. I hate to use the phrase, "the debate is over", but it sure seems close to over if in response to skeptics claims that CO2 amounts rise AFTER temps go up, is countered by the AWG crowd, that "this is largely true". Isnt what started the recent outcry the main result from the AWG crowd saying CO2 amounts rise BEFORE temps go up? If both sides NOW agree with this critical fact than what both sides agree upon is that CO2 doesnt cause temps to increase, but rather is the other way around.

Nothing else matters including hurricanes, ice sheets, coral problems, deaf fish, carbon taxes, Harry Potter developing asthma, etc. All of those are offsprings based on man causing temps to rise. Which both sides now agree isnt the case.

This is my 1st post, but I'm been reading them for a long time now and for me at least, the relationship to CO2 and temps has been the whole key to the debate. So now what is the debate? If its how to improve the environment, than fine and I'm all for it, but getting CO2 levels down isnt the problem. We agree now. Cool.

I provided a link to this BBC article a few posts back and JP posted a fairly through response, so I'm copying over to this thread:

JP:
Charles,

Here's my response(s) on the BBC article:

1)The UHI adjustments are flawed. The UHI has been demonstrably proven stronger than NASA's adjustments. NASA cannot even categorize correctly what constitutes an urban vs rural station. Over 35% of the audited USHCN stations do not even meet the USHCN minimum requirements.

2)Half of AGW trend since 1900 can be found in the TOB adjustments that NOAA, GISS, and HadCrut make. The TOBs adjust the 1930s downard and the post 1990 temps upward. Remove the TOB and you remove half of our warming.

3)The Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand has signals of both the MWP and LIA. This can also be seen in the drought patterns in Arizona,cedar proxies from the Tidewater States of the US, as well as from ice cores in Peru. Only if you follow Michael Mann's MBH9X reconstructions can you say the MWP and LIA were only regional events.

4)The computer models cannot forecast the beginning or the ending of any major change in atmospheric teleconnections. A change in state in any of the major teleconnections has implications in regional climate that can be multi-decadal in scope.

5)The problem is that the AGW footprint for the tropics is aloft and not at the surface. The tropical tropesphere has shown no indications that AGW is occuring there. As a matter of fact, if anything the tropical tropesphere has slightly cooled in recent years.

6)Since the 1960s solar activity has been higher when compared to earlier centuries. However, there is a direct correlation between lack of sunspots and a cooling climate. During the LIA, 3 minimums occured (Sporer, Maunder and Dalton). There is a 200 year cycle known as the Gleissberg Cylce. During the last negative phase of the Gliessberg Cycle the 3 solar minima occured. The Gliessberg Cycle went positive in 1820. It is expected to go negative (according to the Russians) by 2030.

7)No arguement here.

8)In light of recent TS seasons, there is no indication that AGW acts to a)diminish storm activty but b)cause more intense storms.

9)Europe's warming coincides with a peak in the positive phase of the AMO. The interaction of the AMO and NAO determines the North Atlantic storm track. To say Europe's warming is due to the positive feedback of water vapour is ludicrous. Just two Winters ago record lows were set, and last summer was unseasonably cool in most of Northern Europe.

10)Kyoto and the IPCC are incestiously linked. The IPCC give political cover to nations that sign Kyoto. To this date, none of the signees have even come close to meeting Kyoto standards.

BT said:

"a) 1, 3, 5, and 10 years are not long enough periods to reveal any climatic change."

How long is long enough BT? If we consider the time frames as a percent of the existence of earth, 1, 3, 5 and 10 years is a very tiny percent of time. As is the time frame of records we have, as is the time period of the industrial revolution. Does 150 years make a climate? It does for 150 year period of time.

To me, the time period of climate is infinte, and impossible to know what actual is, what is normal so to speak.

Yet you spout off about cherry picking and all that as if you are arrogant enough to know. This is all cherry picked information, you could go back in time and have this same discussion at any interval that temperatures were rising and create a holistic scare as to why it was being caused. Dinosaurs were large beings, they exhaled massive amounts of CO2, that caused global warming.

You want to know what AGW is, AGW is theory that constantly changes so that whatever happens on a day to day basis, AGW is right.

BrooklineTom:

a) No difference between windy and calm days -- i.e., no significant UHI effect.

Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Toshihisa Matsui cast considerable doubt on Parker's data and conclusion by showing that even without any UHI effect, temperatures should be significantly different on windy and calm days.

b) No relationship between warming patterns and urbanization -- again, no significant UHI effect.

The claim is refuted by Peterson's own data. Steve McIntyre graphed the temperature difference between the stations Peterson classified as urban and those he classified as rural. The result is a clear trend.

I think the article/list addresses the skeptics questions in a fair manner without getting into specific scientific discussions. Maybe they were trying to keep it simple and concise?

Hi Paul B,

I don't think that is what the IPCC mandate is saying.

The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage

A key phrase is: "relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation." I don't think that they are ruling out non-human induced changes. The IPCC isn't making policy decisions or conducting science. They report findings.

from the C.onventional O.n O.rganized enL.ightnment,

Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change
"Global warming" is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend --

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as "An Inconvenient Truth."

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

couldnt said it better myself...

Brookline Tom,

You say 1, 3, 5, and 10 years are not long enough to determine a climatic trend. I would have to agree on a logical basis that if it is global yearly average temperatures being compared, then certainly 1 year is not a trend, it is a data point. A point is not a trend. However, 10 years is 10 data points and one could certainly see a trend if it existed in those 10 data points. Most sources I see use a base data set of 1961-1990 or 1951-1980 to establish climate trends occurring today. Assume we use 1961-1990. If 10 years is not a trend and there have only been 17+ years since 1990 to gather data from, how can we call that a climatic trend? If the average temperature now is warmer than 1990, are the 7 years of upward movement (I don't dare call it a trend since 7 is less than 10), which are less than the 10 years of downward movement in temperatures (again not a trend), enough to make a "trend" out of the 17 years since then? At what point between 10 and 17 years does data become a climatic trend and not "noise?" If 17 years isn't a trend, how about 20, 30, 50, 100? Is there a non-arbitrary point where the data "reveals dramatic climate change?" If so, who decides what this point is and how? If you go back about 30-35 years, the previous 30-35 years were "trending" down and the previous 30-35 years before than were "trending" up. I theorize that if the next 30-35 years don't continue this pattern of up and down, we have a solid case that indeed the climate patterns are changing. This new phrase "climate change" really has no meaning to me. When does the climate not change?

Another point you made is that if there was significant UHI effect on temperatures, one would "expect" calm days would show it more than windy days. The use of the word expects demonstrates that you are saying this is a hypothesis, not a fact correct? There is more to UHI than wind; e.g., during summer heat waves in the northeast, the air is very stagnant with little or no wind, but the temperature might only range 2-3 degrees from New York City to the east end of Long Island (not much range and not much wind). This time of the year, on a still night, it is not uncommon to see a 25 degree difference between New York City and the east end of Long Island (a big range and not much wind). Clearly, there is more to UHI than wind, or lack thereof. You seem to be saying that since something you expect about the UHI effect is not true based on a study that shows it as such, then the effect does not exist.

Paul,

Yes, I find it very strange that the answers to "solving" AGW always seem to be a global redistribution of wealth starting right here in