Interesting reading, but the comment I have is that the article 'assumes' at the outset of the paper the the observed warming during the period 1970 - 2004 (which is not in dispute) is anthroprogenic. I think they would have been better off simply referencing the 'observed warming'.

The other question I have is that the references to the 'lower Polar Bear numbers' seems odd in the face of other 'peer reviewed' studies that show Polar Bear populations increasing in 7 of the nine regions in to which they are divided, while falling in two. The two regions in which Polar Bear populations have decreased have observed temperature decreases during the period (the other 7 have observed warming).

This paper outlines an extremely robust case for linking a range of observed physical and biological changes to human-induced climate change, specifically warming," says Roger Jones of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research. "Unfortunately, the coverage of such data is not global and many regions of the world, including Australia, are not very well covered. Many of the regions that lack coverage are also thought to be highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change."

The climate is always changing and the climate is supposed to change. We can blame climate change on the extinction of the saber-tooth tiger. Or we can blame the saber-tooth tiger's failure to adapt for it's extinction. Species either adapt to changing conditions or become extinct. That's the way of the world.

Studies like these are designed to confuse, trick and scare the uninformed. Nowhere is it shown that climate-change is human-induced, it's just accepted by the authors without any supporting evidence.

Human-induced climate change through greenhouse gas emissions is not a demonstrable fact but an hypothesis that is invalidated by many facts and studies. It is irrelevant that many facts and studies support the premise; all facts and studies must support the premise for the hypothesis to be scientifically valid.

Your first paragraph employs the phrase " man-made climate change". Assuming that the planet is warming (which by the way is debated by those who cite that it is too brief of a cycle observation since 1850), are you totally dismissing those reputable scientists who theorize that natural causes such as solar activity are causing warming ?? It seems to me that the insertion of your subtle "man made" adjective is not only biased but Orwellian in that if one repeats something enough times, then the masses will eventually believe it.

Reply: I am just relaying what the article is saying. Read it!

We are having one of the latest springs on record here. Mid-May and most of the trees haven't leafed out yet. The mountains are buried in snow and it keeps piling up day after day. The southern hemisphere is having it's second coldest autumn on record. China had it's coldest winter in 50 years, and Baghdad had it's first snow in 100 years. The northern hemisphere set the record for most snow extent ever recorded this winter. Antarctica has the most sea ice ever recorded.

But why worry about minor details like "reality" when you want to get published and keep your funding going?

I agree with Bill. It's not hard to imagine that most biological systems will adapt somewhat to the natural warming and cooling of earth's climate over time. To report observations of these adaptations doesn't affect my view of AGW one way or the other. We're all in agreement that there has been at least some observed warming over the last few decades. The question that remains very much open is, "why?"

I wonder what the effect on the natural systems will be when the global climate experiences its next long term cooling phase?

DC

Bill's comments above are spot on. I would add thatplants will always react to climat whether warming or cooling. One does not need to spend thousands of dollars on research to prove that plants flower earlier when it is warm and later when it is cold. If this research was meant to prove global warming then it failed by its own admission and if it was meant to prove AGW it also failed because it was looking in the right places.
So, a lot of people spending a lot of money for absolutely no gain. Ah well, perfectly normal then.

Bill: The reason that the paper takes as a given that the observed warming is anthropogenic is that there exists overwhelming evidence that the observed warming is anthropogenic. Anyone who isn't sitting behind the smoke screen thrown up by corporate America is aware of this--and since Nature, a British publication, has a worldwide audience, the editors do not feel it necessary to pander to the American political right wing. A similar phenomenon can be seen in most of the news coverage of the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s: everywhere but the US, the press truthfully stated that Pres. Reagan lied to the American public, whereas the American press felt it necessary to temporize.

The IPCC can provide biological evidence of climate warming but not manmade climate warming. They are indistiguishable biologically.

So they knew in advance what they would find? Please tell me how this evidence of "warming" equals evidence of GW?
I don't see anything that shows it wasn't a natural trend which might be linked to man's presence more than any causation due to man made GW.
It was 47 degrees here for the high last Sunday, does that prove Global Cooling?
No.
GW is a cult theory (dogma) and not science based.

Thanks once again for more of the voice of reason, and some facts to back it up.

quote:
In a news release, the Nunavut government said the U.S. decision is based on "misinformed public opinion which disregarded sound science and Inuit traditional knowledge."

"Our scientists in the field as well as Inuit elders have observed an overall increase in the polar bear population," Premier Paul Okalik said in the release.

"It is unfortunate the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] has decided to disregard facts collected by those who have the greatest contact and longest history with polar bears. The truth is that polar bear populations are at near record levels."

It's estimated that there are about 25,000 polar bears in the world, about 15,000 of which are managed or co-managed by people in Nunavut.

end quote. That was from:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/15/bear-reax.html

DECREASE IN KRILL POPULATION-i recently read an article in one of the bay areas newspapers about the decling population-the article talked about an ice sheet that broke off in one of the bays and that the lack of the ice sheet for the krill to hide from their predators was a cause of the problem-of course the ice sheet was a victim of global warming. about 5 paragraphs later the article went on to discuss that humans began netting the krill in the 70s-it went on to say that now in 2008 that one ship can now capture as much krill in one haul as was capture durin an entire season in the 70s. DUHHHHHH!!!!!!
NEED I SAY MORE

The "conclusions" of this article are based on subjective and incomplete criteria, missing out on other factors that could cause the observed change in behaviour/environments. This alone renders this report meaningless. It also uses projections of future climate changes which have clearly been shown to be less than accurate.

Merely sounds like CYA work to back up their so called predictions. Have been doing my own research on the plant flowering times and have found it is what the weather is doing at the time as to when plants begin flowering. Cold springs and it has been later blooming while warm springs have caused earlier blooming. Once again their research here is not amounting to much in the way of science.

Jep:
How can you prove that these warming effects are not a part of the anthropocene, and that CO2 does not cause warming. Every time there is a raise in CO2 emissions there is an increase in warming. And please don't tell me about the water cycle that people love to refer to. We know there is a greenhouse effect and a water cycle that is a part of the natural Earth. How can you actually deny that from the beginning of the industrial revolution, there has been an egregious warming trend; born out from ice cores, and observed events. Can you tell me how much CO2 can be absorbed in the atmosphere before it to becomes part of the greenhouse effect. Can you tell me that when all of the snow melts, that has been observed, that the sun, the infrared spectrum, will not reflect, but be absorbed. Doesn't this mean warming. Please explain?
KIPP

I am surprised that the comments to this point don't mention the carefully cherry-picked dates. Starting the study when there was an impending ice age panic and ending it during the temperature plateau guaranteed that they would find exactly what they were looking for. This is not science, this is AGW public relations.

Mediocre and dull. These "predictions" have being published many times:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
yet the authors have the nerve to add their "me too" gibberish.

It is not like there no bright personalities, interesting events, breakthrough research around anymore. It is the media somehow tends to pick the lame ones.

HI Bill,

Can you provide the "peer reviewed studies" you refer to in your comment? "...the references to the 'lower Polar Bear numbers' seems odd in the face of other 'peer reviewed' studies that show Polar Bear populations increasing in 7 of the nine regions in to which they are divided, while falling in two. The two regions in which Polar Bear populations have decreased have observed temperature decreases during the period (the other 7 have observed warming)."

The reason I want to see those references because they seem to contradict an interesting story on the Polar Bear issue in the Washington Post this morning:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051401596_pf.html

"Part of the uncertainty surrounding the polar bears' fate stems from the fact that there are 19 sub-populations in five different countries -- Norway, Russia, Canada, Denmark and the United States -- and these groups are faring differently.

Researchers estimate that the world population of the bears ranges from 20,000 to 25,000, although the exact figure remains unknown. In Canada's western Hudson Bay, their numbers are declining, but in Norway they are on the rise.

Still, climate scientists are increasingly concerned that melting sea ice could lead to the polar bears' demise within decades. Northern latitudes are warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the world, according to a 2004 assessment, and some computer projections forecast that ocean temperatures in the Arctic may rise 13 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

In September, reports by the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that polar bears living in two of the four regions under analysis would be extinct by 2050, and in a third by 2075.

Steven C. Amstrup, a senior polar bear researcher at the USGS's Alaska Science Center, said scientists are beginning to see signs that polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea -- which stretches from Barrow, Alaska, to the Canadian border -- may be mirroring earlier declines in Canada's western Hudson Bay."

The following report backs up the estimate of the 20,000-25,000 polar bears in Washington Post story:
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/statusofthepolarbear_14thworkingmtg_iucn_pbsg.pdf

In regards to the Bush Administration's listing the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, the story quotes the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne as saying the following:
"...the loss of Arctic sea ice in a warming climate could drive them to the brink of extinction in less than four decades.

"The fact is that sea ice is receding in the Arctic," he said. "As you can see, when we have looked at what is actually happening in the Arctic, we have found considerably less sea ice than the models are projecting. Because polar bears are vulnerable to this loss of habitat, they are, in my judgment, likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future -- in this case, 45 years."

I find the next comment by Sen Inhofe from that same story to be most interesting:
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading congressional skeptic on climate change, said that "the decision to list the polar bear as 'threatened' appears to be based more on politics than science," adding: "With the number of polar bears substantially up over the past 40 years, the decision announced today appears to be based entirely on unproven computer models."

What Sen. Inhofe fails to recognize in making such statements is that modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the 1980's. So the assumption that the polar bear population 40 years ago was so much smaller than today's is based on very skimpy and most likely unreliable population data. I think that the assumption was around 5,000 - 10,000 polar bears back in the 1950's & 1960's. Yet Sen. Inhofe puts it out there like it is based on factual information. Talk about putting politics over science.

If it wasn't for the protection already provided the polar bear by way of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the several international conservation treaties including the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Conservation and Management Act of 2006, as well as conservation, education, and outreach agreement with native peoples, the polar bear may have well become extinct already.

I suppose Sen. Inhofe would have opposed those polar bear protections as well if he was able to vote against them. But then he wouldn't be able to make those comments about the supposed increase in polar bear population that he so proudly hails about would he? Who is in favor of reducing the required senatorial population in the Senate by one, by only needing 1 senator to represent Oklahoma? That's the kind of protection I think we can all benefit from.

Rob: I, and many who post on this blog, can run you through a series of graphs, citing IPCC references as we go, and remove natural causes of climate change from 1970 to 2000, the poster boy period of your AGW crowd. At the end, there's at most 10 to 15% left for anthropogenic warming. Papers are nibbling away at that every month. Last month there was a big bite.

If you'd spend the time to research the subjects yourself, download the data, run the graphs, actually investigate the topics being presented in the AGW trade publications and do the math, you might have a different outlook on this.

Regards

Here in the Central Appalachians where I live no trees are out in full, most have just now begun to develop little leaves Oak tree have basically done nothing yet, very small maple leaves and this is slightly behing schedule, not that there is a schedule. High temps for the most part for the past month have been in the 40-65 range and from the sounds of it alot of the country has been like this. I know, I know, global warming causes cooling also, silly me. At least all the rain has pretty much kept the pollen to a minimum.

Reply: Josh, what is your elevation?

Brett:
After reading the article and the assessment part again I find it profound how lightly some of these bloggers regard the reality of what is being said, as well as who is saying it?
KIPP

In a warmed world, many plant species will not be able to adapt, which would mean lost crops, and a serious impact on our food supply. But don't panic yet. There is an effort underway to relocate our crops to areas where they will survive in the future. The orange trees of Florida will be moved to Georgia, the peach trees of Georgia will be relocated to apple country in Virginia, the apple trees in Virginia will be moved to Michigan, the cherry trees of Michigan will be moved to Canada, and so on. This project will be known as American Liberals' Growth Oriented Replanting Effort, or Project AL GORE.

Patrick,

China had it's coldest winter in 50 years.

The northern hemisphere set the record for most snow extent ever recorded this winter.

Isn't weather a funny thing?

"Typhoon Neoguri brought torrential rains and flash flooding to Hainan, China, April 18. This was the season's earliest and perhaps the strongest typhoon to strike China since 1949."

"Snow cover extent over Eurasia during April 2008 was the lowest on record for April, following a record low March extent, and a marked contrast to the record January expanse. For the Northern Hemisphere, this month was the eighth least extensive April snow cover extent in the 42-year historical satellite record."

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/apr/apr08.html

Of course the eco-system adapts to warming and cooling periods. Is this news? It doesn't prove to me that man is to blame.

In the MWP some species of plankton survived north of Iceland, and when it died its tiny skeletons rained down to the muck on the b