Panic Mongering by a Nobel Laureate. ROFLMAO!!!!! Really???.....Another winner of that creadible and distinguished Nobel Prize. (I have cookie tins and beer bottles that are worth more). Nobel Laureate. ***SCOFF*** That says it all right there. The insanity continues. Fight the good fight people. Pretty soon, the "Nobel Laureates" (you know who I mean) will come after you for breaking wind and leaving too much methane in the air. As we approach the "Dangerous Threashold" of 2 degrees warming. Meanwhile, it's October, and the snow is falling just north of hear (oh, back yard weather, back yard weather!!!!) What a CROCK!!!!!

Remember, unless you have a melting polar ice cap in your neighborhood, it's all back yard weather.

Love and Kisses,

Knuckles. Proud member of the MOB.

So now that CO2 forcing cannot cut it and temperatures are stable or falling we need to find something else to push our agenda, huh? No problem just divert attention away from reality and find other nasties that humans are up to. Never mind reality, nobody is going to notice.
Lets see if Copenhagen is snowed out or if the sea ice is recovering shall we. If so we can put some other spin on that also - its weather not climate.

You know Brett, what really gets me is how these people come out with with statements such as "could buy the planet 40 years". The science is not clear on CO2 forcing never mind all the rest but the arrogance/attitude of the author is astounding.
Telling though is the reference to Copenhagen and Biochar. There is a commercial interest here. Look it up.

If we pass the magic 2c threshhold, will we finally stop breaking 100+ year old cold weather/storm records?

I'm glad that these so-called "experts" are finally admitting there are greenhouse gases besides CO2. But what about water vapor (aka clouds), which is really the predominate greenhouse gas? According to the American Meteorological Society, CO2 makes up only 9 to 26% of Earth's total greenhouse gases.

From the United Nation's report titled Vital Climate Graphics, less than 5% of all atmospheric CO2 comes from manmade emissions. Most CO2 comes from decomposition of plants and other natural sources. This means the manmade CO2 that some want to control actually contribute less than 1% to the total amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

These proposed climate control initiatives are a bunch of bunk!

And 2 degrees C is important becuase??

Heck lets make it 1.75 degrees C!

Get real

I beg to Differ Brett.
It is all about Co2. Just ask Kipp.

CO2 is the only thing that can be used effectively as a guilt trip to change society.

And Brett: That white stuff is not snow, it is Global Warming particulate fall-out.

Balderdash!! (just had to use it) We are in a cooling trend folks. Quit falling for the Al Gore bull$hit. It's all income for him, as well as a Nobel for quackery.

It is hard to get on the band wagon for Global Warming when the Eastern US has experienced a cooler than normal summer followed by an early winter.
How do these "experts" come up with 20 year and 40 year predictions on Ice Flows and global temps when an accurate prediction of weather this coming weekend can't be done?

Good Day,

It is most ironic if not down-right funny when you apologize for a late posting on Global Warming because of power outage due to a freak snow storm in your area! When will you stop the alarmist news based upon junk-science, over the man-made, Global Warming. An expert with Accuweather recently announced on FoxNews that global temparatures have remained steady over the last 10 years and are expected to go down in the next two years.

Regards,
Keith

From my conversations with skeptics I'm finding that if they can't do the science they do the sarcasm. The win will be in the science data and summation. Skeptics just can't use the science well with someone well versed in climatology.

Recently I was reading to get a better handle on climate sensistivity. What's even more interesting is to go into the references and understand what I can in those papers.

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf

Stefan Ramstorf wrote a paper that didn't get too terribly deep and was a little more understandable for me. His argument based on observations and summations are very good. He has made a good case for why co2 effects the climate the way it does. Also interesting he explains why Lindzen is incorrect in his presentations of low climate sensitivity to co2.

I have been up against Phd's in physics who are skeptics, they are not able to make a strong argument for skepticism.

If you read the science daily every day for global warming, there really are no articles based in data that are showing global cooling or that AGW isn't true. Its about the effects of climate changing from AGW.

Lets face it Bret.The only time that is running out is screaming time before Copenhagen.

Chuck,

Because weather and climate are different, but then again they cant predict the weather nor predict the climate!

Brett,

Some of us understand what you where referring too in your last post about backyard weather, unlike markb who seems to be grasping for straws to keep the agw lies going!

Brett, I like your comments about air quality. With only a small percentage of the resources (cut pollution "quickly and easily") that would otherwise need to be used to combat AGW, we could have clean water and clean air for the entire world about five times over. The money, of the people, we save could be invested, by the people, for things like developing efficient heating systems to provide the additional warmth we are going to need over the next 20 - 30 years, for the people.

Hogwash. CO2 will never cause catastrophic warming. Now that their precious models are crumbling they're scrambling to make up new lies to compensate. Politicians want their carbon control and tax legislation and they want it now. Expect to see many more scary climate stories leading up to Cuff and hang 'em, er, I mean Copenhagen.

Environment
Climate Modelling Nonsense
John Reid

The less a thing is known, the more fervently it is believed.

—Montaigne

In effect a new religion has grown out of secular humanism. Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytising the new faith.

There are major differences, however. Whereas it is not possible to call oneself a Christian without entertaining the central belief in the Resurrection, it is certainly possible to be deeply concerned with the order and condition of humanity and so call oneself a humanist without entertaining a corresponding belief in anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Belief in a Resurrection which supposedly occurred some 2000 years ago is a matter of personal faith, whereas AGW is a scientific hypothesis which can and should be tested by observation. Imagine the consequences both to science and to secular humanism should this hypothesis turn out to be untrue and the dire predictions of the climate models fail to materialise.

The quasi-religious nature of AGW is evidenced by the rancour which is generated when people like me express scepticism about the theory. Scepticism is an essential part of science which has, until recently, been a “small-l liberal” pursuit in which the opinions of doubters were respected. Now we sceptics are called “deniers” and, by implication, lumped in with neo-Nazis who question the Holocaust. The accusation that we are somehow in the sway of the oil companies and similar big business interests is commonplace and indeed is the chief argument of non-scientist supporters of the AGW theory. This echoes the “work of the Devil” argument of fundamentalist Christians; it is a mental trick by which the faithful avoid facing the real issues.

Read rest of article here>http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/10/climate-modelling-nonsense

I wonder how these human-made/caused fluctuations
actually figure into the bigger climatic picture, on the scale of tens of thousands of years? My area, for example and most of the temperate zone was under glaciers that were a mile thick as early as twelve thousand years ago; a much colder phase of climate.
As well, extra solar heating and heat retention results probably in more convection, and wind speed and not just temperature. Severe weather may be another and more serious consequence.
What are your thoughts concerning these issues?
Sincerely, Jim Carswell Mississauga, Ontario, canada

bushy | October 16, 2009 11:38 AM --- The scientific experiments showing that CO2 is a global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas were first done by John Tyndall in 1859 CE. It is firmly established.

more like global whining!

Response to HarryL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrant_(magazine)

Quadrant online is quite the conservative rag. Hardly a science magazine. I read most of the article and there isn't really anything putting any great heat on the AGW theory.

There is an attempt to put doubt on computer models used by the scientists.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

Other results successfully predicted and reconstructed by models
•Cooling of the stratosphere
•Warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere

•Warming of ocean surface waters (Cane 1997)
•Trends in ocean heat content (Hansen 2005)

•An energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation (Hansen 2005)

•Amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region (NASA observations)

The scientific experiments showing that CO2 is a global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas were first done by John Tyndall in 1859 CE. It is firmly established, and accepted that it has a very small effect on global temperatures.
Further, Scientific evidence shows that it's effect diminishes exponentially as the concentration increases. Therefore the IPCC models must utilize large feedback assumptions to create the doomsday scenarios they warn of.
Since those feedbacks have been shown to be highly questionable and likely null or negative, the predictions of a large warming from manmade CO2 are no longer credible
Without the feedbacks the GCM’s can’t be made to show any problem.
Since computer model simulations are all they have, the CO2 hypothesis is no longer credible.

Just wanted to finish you thought David.

Expect to see many more scary climate stories leading up to Copenhagen.

REPLY: Ah yes! Copenhagen. A quaint charming little Danish city, with old world charm, architecture and culture. Here's hoping THE BLIZZARD OF THE CENTURY HITS DENMARK WHEN THOSE CRIMINALS GO OVER THERE TO PERPETRATE THEIR CRIMES!!!! Oh, I am praying to Jesus, The Wailing Wall, Allah, Buddah, and every God known to man (even the pagan ones) that it happens.

Remember, unless you have a melting polar ice cap in your neighborhood, it's all back yard weather.

With MUCH Love and Kisses from the Center of the Universe,

Knuckles. Proud member of the MOB.

NO to Crap and Trade. NO to Government Run Health Care and State Control of YOUR BODY. NO NO NO NO NO, Sentators!!!! No MR. PRESIDENT!!!! OR YOU ARE ALL FIRED!!!!!! F-I-R-E-D, FIRED!!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND???? FIRED!!!!!!

Ok MaRkB,your backyard weather argument just got slammed,LOL!!
The map of these records is very impressive and very unAGWish.

A cold start to fall: over 4500 new snowfall, low temp, and lowest max temp records set in the USA this last week

Record Events for Sat Oct 10, 2009 through Fri Oct 16, 2009
Total Records: 6257
Rainfall: 859
Snowfall: 297
High Temperatures: 369
Low Temperatures: 785
Lowest Max Temperatures: 3473
Highest Min Temperatures: 474

reference@www.wattsupwiththat.com

Harry L:

That was a very interesting link on the modelling of the atmosphere and oceans. As an engineer, I have been doing various types of modeling of physical systems since the early 80s using both computerized models and simpler hand calcualtions. In our business, we use these to help design things that will actually be constructed. Blind faith in a model could easily cause a structure to end up not functioning as designed (and often in the newspaper headlines at that point).

Very early on, I learned that a model is only as good as the various assumptions, equations, and data that go into it. We know that much of what we are modeling is being driven by things happening at the atomic level to microscopic level, but our laboratory testing, field testing, and model element sizes are all at the scale that can be measured with a tape measure. This is where the term "simplifying assumptions" kicks in.

Each formula subroutine will typically be based on an equation that has been developed over a period of years by researchers who will have worked through the basic mathematics of it and hopefully done some validation testing. There are many assumptions that have to be made throughout that process to try to isolate out variables that can be tested. In many cases, there simply isn't enough time and money for all of the variables to be thoroughly evaluated, so there may be pressure states, density states, temperature states etc. where there simply is no hard verifying evidence. Beyond that point it is assumed (that word again) that it will properly when extended to those conditions.

All of these little bits then get summed up into the big model which is then tested against a realtively small set of potential initial values and boundary conditions.

Usually, these models can work fairly well when they are working within the sets of conditions that it was designed for and tested. However, I have seen a lot of amusing results of models when they start to get stretched. I say amusing because we caught them - the results would not have been at all amusing if we had not caught them and the structure had been built based on that model.

We live in an interesting time when large complex computer models are playing huge public roles in two significant areas of our life, environmental policy and finance.

We have recently watched the global financial markets implode partially because of an over-reliance on complex computer models. Anybody who is interested in global warming debate should be watching and reading about this in great detail. These models were done by the same types of bright, well meaning people who might otherwise have been working at NASA on global climate modeling. An amusing article from the past week is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/14trillin.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=smart%20guys%20on%20wall%20street&st=cse

They really thought that what they were doing was making the world a better and safer place from a financial standpoint - they just happened to have missed on a couple of crucial "simplifying assumptions." Modelers tend to get wrapped up in the minutae of their equations and data sets while living in the moment. Only a few are really good at looking up and around to figure out where their model might stand in the really big picture. Thteir model can become a validation of themselves and attacks on the model means that they themselves are being attacked - as an extreme example, think of Colonel Bogie in "The Bridge over the River Kwai."

The most frightening thing that I hear in the global warming debate is the constant harping on the past 30 years of data as "norms" and baselining temperatures from the past 150 years. This is the same type of thinking that did in the Wall Street modelers and is termed "recency." Wall Street has been gathering more and more good data over the past thirty years which is the era of electronic data and they assumed that the statistical patterns within that relatively small period are indicative of the big picture. As a result, you hear crap like "1 in a billion year events" about what happened over the past couple of years - this is hogwash since a look at the history of financial markets clearly shows that these type of events routinely occurred in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Climate is more slowly evolving than financial markets, so you need to be looking at robust data sets that span thousands and tens of thousands of years to see if the patterns that you are modeling are unusual or not. Even then, we are in only one of several interglacial periods now from the past million years. That work has recently only begun.

I have been a skeptic for 10 years on the computer models used by Wall Street and by climate modelers. My skepticism regarding the efficacy of Wall Street models allowed my retirement funds to largely sidestep the two big market melt-downs in the past decade which has been beneficial for our family's finances. I am simply applying the same level of skepticism to the global warming debate as I have been applying to the financial sector. This is not "denial" - it is merely a recognition that computer models based on short-term sparse data sets are not the Alpha and Omega.

But will the AGW hype promoters accept a graceful end to their reign of terror?

Methane and black carbon differ from carbon dioxide in that they reside in the atmosphere for much shorter duration, so a sharp reduction in non-CO2 contributions to global warming will indeed have some strong short-term benefit but with much less long-term benefit. There's no reason why efforts need to be mutually exclusive.

Still looking for the PNAS paper referenced here...

Did any alarmists feel responsible for the cold and snow during the Patriots game, or do you only feel responsible when it's warm out?

BTW, Accuweather models were not even close to getting my local forecast right this weekend.

But enough of my backyard, let's get back to globull warming! Tax here! Tax now! Tax, tax, tax. All of you wealthy Americans must pay for a non-existant problem, ok?

An interesting analysis of temperature cycles and CO2.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html

David B. Benson: There is no doubt CO2 has a warming effect. It does. However the warming effect of CO2 is negligible. Scientists in the early 19th Century, including Niels Bohr (you may have heard of him), concluded that greenhouse gases such as CO2 can by their physical nature only have a slight warming effect. This is because CO2 doesn't form a "blanket" in the atmosphere and doesn't "trap" heat. CO2 can only radiate heat after it absorbs radiation. CO2 only absorbs radiation at particular bandwidths in the spectrum; it does not absorb ALL available radiation that comes in contact with it. Since CO2 can only absorb a limited amount of available radiation, once it reaches a saturation point it is already absorbing all the radiation it physically can, and adding more CO2 does nothing. The warming effects of CO2 are logarithmic not linear. Thus, the warming effects of CO2 are greatly exaggerated, fabricated and/or falsified to mislead the public into thinking there is a crisis when there is no crisis. Indeed the Earth has been in a cooling phase for about a decade while CO2 levels have continued rising. This contradicts the original anthropogenic global warming theory. Now of course climate alarmists are scrambling to make observations match their theories. That is not how science works. CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is an essential trace gas necessary for life on Earth, and our paltry emissions when compared to the Earth's own natural emissions will never have a catastrophic effect on climate.

http://www.grinzo.com/energy/index.php/2009/10/16/whither-the-weathermen/

Wow !- It's not only about CO2?!

I guess deniers can realize that not everyone is a monomaniac. Some people just care about the environment, instead of their egos. Try being compassionate instead of ARGUING right or wrong. I do believe that you do have a right-brain in you somewhere, (of course this is not yet proven and the models are shaky at best). Maybe your corpus calloseums are severed like "rain man". Do not be afraid, it is OK to 'feel'. Science was born from mans search for meaning, not vice-versa.

There are many drivers of Earths climate, unfortunately CO2 is the teen-aged 'driver' with a bad 'driving' record. Perhaps it is wise to take responsibility for all of our 'drivers', because no one element is disconnected from the others !

Knuckle head-
you are just jealous...LOL....HAha

Remember, there is always someone smarter than you are.

Sir Noble Nobel

HarryL-

Enough with the religion references, nobody cares.
Scientists have yet to prove that God exists.
Without proof, they are dumb as fence posts(according to 'skeptics' handbook 12:13).

Landin-

Very convincing...Hogwash ! ....LOL
Let's bring out some more convincing 'evidence', perhaps 'Bullpucky'?

idecline wrote:
Enough with the religion references, nobody cares.

I disagree. I find this discussion quite helpful in clarifying the intellectual foundations of our exchanges, and therefore the credibility of our participants.

Actually, a claimed resurrection of any historical figure is, at least theoretically, a scientifically testable hypothesis, as are any claimed manifestations of any deity. The fact that such hypotheses have failed every such test is one primary motivator of the enormous barrier between superstitious faith and science (others include the enormous quantities of bloodshed that have accompanied the various "faith-based" approaches and the similarly frequent abuses of basic human rights that have resulted from intermingling faith and government).

It is therefore not surprising that a disproportionate share of those who reject the results of scientific investigation into the foundations of religious belief also reject the results of scientific investigation of climate phenomena. It is no accident that so many "skeptics" of AGW are also "skeptics" of evolution, our own HarryL included.

Each and every person -- believer and non-believer, scientist and non-scientist, literate and non-literate -- brings personal biases, prejudices, hunches, intuitions, and plain old belief to every question. The methodology of science evolved and exists in order to identify, quantify, and separate those human attributes from questions of objective fact.

Science is most emphatically not common sense; it took thousands of years to emerge, and is imperfect today. "Common sense" told generations of men and women that heavier objects fall faster than light ones, that the sun revolves around the earth, and that the earth is flat. Scientific committees did not burn their skeptics at the stake, execute women for "witchcraft", nor create rivers of blood in the process of forcibly "saving" non-believers.

For better or worse, the tools of modern science -- peer review, modeling, highly ritualized debate following stringent standards and ground-rules -- are the best we've got. As imperfect as it is, I suggest that the scientific community has a much better track record of identifying and correcting its mistakes than any of the current alternatives.

Some of us are, in fact, committed to a scientific perspective towards the great issues of our time. Some of us are not. I find the distinction crucially important -- especially when it comes to setting national policy.

"Scientists have yet to prove that God exists."

Wrong. Scientists have yet to prove that God does not exist. Nor will they.

Idecline:
"Scientists have yet to prove that God exists."

True:
I don't believe in religion either but.....

The Bible and the Cur�an and the Hindu Gitas and many many other religious texts represent the greatest collection of PEER REVIEWED literature in human history.

As an AGW alarmist you surely must accept them as Gospel Fact in the same way you accept the IPCC Doctrines.

Right?

Hmmmm?

This is a reply to Keith Woodard's post on October 16, 2009 6:43 PM:

Why on earth would you cite something from Fox News???
Faux News is nothing but entertainment for conservatives. NOTHING they report is related to news at all. To insinuate that Fox Noise is a reputable news outlet is like saying that Donald Duck is a top brain surgeon. Or like saying that George Bush has a brain. Or that Dick Cheney isn't a psychopathic warmongering demon from Hell.

So just remember that citing any news story from Cluster Fox only is a guaranteed lie and just conservative propaganda that would make even Joseph Goebbels and Pravda blush. It only makes you look foolish to the rest of the world. If you want accurate reporting, professional journalism (not like Bill O'rielly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et. al.) , and want to overcome the conservative bias in mainstream media, you need to watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and Democracy Now, and Free Speach TV* and Link TV* (* available on satellite).

rd:

I appreciate your candor and knowledge concerning modeling.I worked as a instrument tech in the nuclear industry for 13 yrs.The first thing you are taught is to NEVER EVER ASSUME when performing testing,calibrations while the plant was in operation or working on energized equipment.

The majority of plant trips were due to wrong assumptions made by the tech.The biggest problem I have with the AGW theory is the amount of ASSUMPTIONS made in the modeling.

Assumptions don't mean a thing unless you assume correctly and then its just a lucky guess.

idecline: Enough with the religion references, nobody cares.
Scientists have yet to prove that God exists.
Without proof, they are dumb as fence posts

It's sad that you rely on scientits to prove the authenticity of anything.Have you read the bible?If you would take the time to use your God given mind and read his book you would see that it is true and factual.
By the way,there are many who care and there are also many scientists who believe in Gods existance.
Your thinking like a fence post when you don't decide things for yourself.

HarryL writes:

"...reference@www.wattsupwiththat.com"

Ever notice how Watts only seems to print stories of cold weather? During a week of record highs in the U.S. (more often than not), he's off looking for some other place in the world to find cooler weather, sometimes printing old stories when he can't find any. Reality check:

http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/community/2009/billgraph727a.png

...and it hasn't even been an exceptionally warm year in the lower 48. One might wonder what a record high/low chart for Australia, coming off their warmest summer on record, might look like.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_globalstats.html

Watts actually has his unquestioning choir believing that the Earth is cooling. As Mr. T would say, I pity the fools.

Frank | October 18, 2009 11:14 PM --- Atmospheric physics is hard; not for the faint at heart. But CO2 does have a sizable impact, about 33 K; without it the globe would be uninhabitable by any living creature. Here is a short, approximate description:
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Greenhouse101.html
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/NewPlanetTemps.html

GAry | October 18, 2009 1:22 AM --- The size of the feedback effect is known, partly by paleoclimatological studies and partly by atmospheric physics. It is quite well established, thank you very much.

Fortunately, the driver, CO2, has warming effect logarithmic in concentration since anthropogenic emissions of excess CO2 have been growing exponentially since about 1800 CE; the net result is the linear trend seen in the instrumental temperature products.

The result of this excess heat is already bad enough for its effects such as the typhoons hitting Luzon Island this summer/fall; it will become much, much worse.

You may care to read about it. Mark Lynas's "Six Degrees" is based on a study of paleoclimatogy papers.

Here is an interesting articles summarizing a National Research Council report looking at the non-AGW costs related to environmental health impacts of fossil fuels: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=askBI3llM0Lo

Instead of a cap-and-trade approach, we should be rebalancing the actual impacts of using the various fossil fuels through regulating their non-carbon dioxide impacts. This coupled with fuel taxes focused on reducing use of imported oil from overseas, would result in much of what the AGW alarmists are looking for while actually accomplishing good things. Let's see some imagination out there folks!

Hunter said:

But will the AGW hype promoters accept a graceful end to their reign of terror?

A very good question.

After years of hearing bold talk about "Stick to the science"; I suspect now that the science is not on their side they will simply change the propaganda message.
I really don't seen the real AGW Zealots accepting the science and moving on. They will more likely try talking around it. Sort of like Al Gore does all the time.

Knuckle head-
you are just jealous...LOL....HAha

REPLY: Jealous of what? That fraud that is in the white house? That fraud that is currently in the House and Senate? Don't think so, Slappy. Try again with another cop out.

Remember, there is always someone smarter than you are.

REPLY: Oh, sure. That is true. The difference is some of those people who are smarter than me deal with reality, and others, who think they have all the answers, don't. So tell me, Decline. Just how are things in UTOPIAN FANTASYLAND??????..See any unicorns and rainbows lately???.....;-D....Right back at ya, Big Shot!

Remember, unless you have a melting polar ice cap in your neighborhood, it's all back yard weather.

With MUCH Love and Kisses from the Center of the Universe,

Knuckles. Proud member of the MOB.

NO to Crap and Trade. NO to Government Run Health Care and State Control of YOUR BODY. NO NO NO NO NO, Sentators!!!! No MR. PRESIDENT!!!! OR YOU ARE ALL FIRED!!!!!! F-I-R-E-D, FIRED!!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND???? FIRED!!!!!!

HarryL about your records litany.

Single events like you posted have no value in climatology. For the single year of 2009, you can find as much warm (or hot) records matching those cold records - just look at what happened in Australia in the recent months during there winter.

Climate is not gauged on single events but on trends.

Here in Canada the western provinces (like central US) endured a very cold week (last week) with record breaking cold weather. So you could say, "ah HA it not warming". But if you look at the last two month average for a place like Calgary you will see that it is being warmer even with the very cold period they got for the past two weeks. Why is that, simply because what they did'nt told you was - temperatures were in the 80's and 90's during most of september - and that was way above there average. The average for that place is 17c and they got 22c for september alone.

So you can always put up a big front page with daily records... It's only anectdotical.

We are all in big trouble if the knowledgeable people posting at this sight have decided that AGW is a Republican or Democrat issue. It is equally dangerous to further degenerate the issue by ignorantly dividing this issue into a atheist and theist camps.

Are we saying Republicans cannot be AGW convinced or that a Theist cannot be misled by AGW claims?

Where does such nonsensical information come from and how did a scientific question get divided along such lines?

Brookline Tom disappoints me when he diverts attention or relevance to such division. He is well aware that this is not the debate. It affects CO2 levels... not at all.

Until Brett posts an "origin of the cosmos" article, can we not keep the postings and thread relevant. All I ask is that the professionals here act... like it. AGW sceptics- I'm referring to you, also. Please!
GK

"The scientific experiments showing that CO2 is a global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas were first done by John Tyndall in 1859 CE. It is firmly established, and accepted that it has a very small effect on global temperatures."

Because of the dynamic nature of the atmosphere, CO2 experiments (their effects on rising atmospheric temperatures) cannot be done in a lab somewhere. They must be done in the global arena. No doubt I would have problems with your cited experiment anyway, but this is irrelevant. I have the same problem with most CO2 plant experiments. And by the way, if its so accepted, then why are we here?

G. Karst writes:
Brookline Tom disappoints me when he diverts attention or relevance to such division. He is well aware that this is not the debate. It affects CO2 levels... not at all.

I welcome and join your effort to keep us focused on the methods of science.

Many of the participants here argue that CO2 levels are irrelevant to the debate. Most of the deniers here object to the methodology of science, citing "belief", "common sense", and their own religious faith. Many of those same deniers assert that climate science is itself a religion -- putting the distinction between the methods of science and religion squarely in the middle of the debate. "RICH" writes that "Scientists have yet to prove that God does not exist. Nor will they." -- providing a text-book example of a logical fallacy (the logical impossibility of proving a negative).

In a forum filled with frequent and obvious appeals to everything except the methods of science, I suggest that it is important to occasionally highlight the discipline that good science demands, and to highlight its stark contrast with the methods of religion.

2,000 years ago, Roman society had well established, extensive and fruitful vineyards at York, in the north of England. Wine made there was exported to other parts of the Roman empire. QED: the average temperature in England then must've been at least a few degrees higher than they are now. York in northern England is now fine for apples and pears, but it is not not France.

Gary | October 19, 2009 11:48 PM --- Continued observations and measurments confirm: its AGW.

David Benson:
" The size of the feedback effect is known,"

Really!!!!

Wholly Crap. You mean somebody somewhere has actually managed to work out the real feedback factor without the whole world going nuts and putting it in every headline in the world?

Care to link to this earth shattering new finding?
I am sure all of the Climate community would give their right arms to see it.

Since none of them have ever been able to come up with any more than wild guesses.

Please let us see it too.

Please.

G.Karst-

You are correct in your view(i believe?). But so many people bring their own biases to the table on this site that they don't realize that they are committing an injustice to the idea of scientific inquiry. When ones mind is already made up then there is no room for 'new' information.
I only rant because I want people to think for themselves, and not let dogma, consensus, or 'common sense' determine the progress of 'truth'. Sometimes non-linear abstract thought will give an individual an insight or 'new way of seeing' into an issue. All the great breakthroughs in thought are born out of 'thinking outside the box'. Otherwise we are stuck trying to defend 'truths' that are not reality, they are only 'true' for a point in time. The reality is that everyone on this site has something valid to say when it comes to 'their' reality. But 'true' reality is outside the scope of mans present way of being. I only ask that people try to see and embrace opposing viewpoints because they are like two sides of a coin, they still have the same issue at heart only a widely varying perspective. The angle from which we view something is often more important than what is really there, 'truths' are many, 'reality' is 'ONE'.
I also partially agree with BT's point about determining someones beliefs to be able to understand where their views come from. But I don't feel the need to judge anyone, only make them aware of their own inherent biases in their thought processes. I make many mistakes, mis-communications, and errors in comprehension every day; I say this because to be aware of ones own shortcomings is the way to eliminate the mistake of trying to convert or change peoples point of view, they must do so on their own. I only strive to maintain a bit of non-linear thought available, because most people are WAY too serious. There are many more important things than being 'right or wrong'.

p.s.- GK "origin of the cosmos"? I hate to say it but even that idea is debatable, perhaps the cosmos always has been and always will be...? Just a thought. THX idecline

HarryL-

Yes, i have read the Bible. I have also studied Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and read a large amount of religious and philosophical material from the world over. I don't fault your beliefs (i was raised Christian), but i find fault with your ignorance and nonacceptance of other points of view. My personal choice does and should not matter in scientific discussions, that would be presumptive of me. I feel no need to follow anyone or anything.....

idecline wrote:
I also partially agree with BT's point about determining someones beliefs to be able to understand where their views come from. But I don't feel the need to judge anyone, only make them aware of their own inherent biases in their thought processes.

In scientific discourse, belief doesn't matter. No scientist says "I believe in gravity". The purpose of identifying bias is not to judge the source, it is to separate belief from fact. When a particular scientific result is shown to be biased -- and a great portion of the methods used by scientists serve that very purpose -- that result is discarded.

It is the reluctance of many of the deniers to discard their cherished -- and unsupported -- beliefs that leads the scientific community to marginalize and ultimately ignore them. This is, for example, the fate that befell Dr. William Gray. Instead of adjusting his science to reflect the clear, fair, and accurate criticisms that initially greeted it (Dr. Michael Mann's response to Steve McIntyre comes to mind as an example), Dr. Gray instead attacked his critics and then broadened his attacks to include virtually the entire scientific community.

For an example of how the process works, consider Spencer and Braswell 2008, published in the Journal of Climate. A typical response is found on realclimate. Dr. Spencer and Dr. Braswell made their case -- in a peer-reviewed journal. The peer review process ensured that the researchers methods and data were available to readers. The folks at realclimate used the material published in the paper to demonstrate its shortcomings.

The fact that Dr. Spencer is also a creationist may or not be reflected in this paper -- the point is that the methods of science shift the focus away from his beliefs and towards the correctness (or lack thereof) of his published results.

That's how science works.

idecline Says,

When ones mind is already made up then there is no room for 'new' information.

That is you my friend,your the one who refuses to give any credibility to any and all information contrary to your belief in AGW.

Your entire rant is a reflection of you and you don't have the ability to see it.

You also state and I quote" I want people to think for themselves, and not let dogma, consensus, or 'common sense' determine the progress of 'truth'.

Since when does the use of common sense cloud ones ability to determine the truth of something.

"Basically, the authors are saying that some of these non-CO2 contributors can be cut much more quickly and easily. In addition, removing some of these contributors will certainly improve our air quality, which is always a good thing"
See what James Hansen and coauthors said 9 years ago:
"A common view is that the current global warming rate will continue or accelerate. But we argue that rapid warming in recent decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons, CH4, and N2O, not by the products of fossil fuel burning, CO2 and aerosols, the positive and negative climate forcings of which are partially offsetting. The growth rate of non-CO2 GHGs has declined in the past decade. If sources of CH4 and O3 precursors were reduced in the future, the change in climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs in the next 50 years could be near zero. Combined with a reduction of black carbon emissions and plausible success in slowing CO2 emissions, this reduction of non-CO2 GHGs could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of dramatic climate change. Such a focus on air pollution has practical benefits that unite the interests of developed and developing countries. However, assessment of ongoing and future climate change requires composition-specific long-term global monitoring of aerosol properties."
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/18/9875.full
Focusing on non-CO2 GHGs and black carbon isn't a new point of view.

Tom,

What part of "Nor will they" didn't you get? With logic (il) like yours, it's no wonder atheists make up only 10% of our population.

RICH wrote:
What part of "Nor will they" didn't you get? With logic (il) like yours, it's no wonder atheists make up only 10% of our population.

Here's RICH's original comment:
Scientists have yet to prove that God does not exist. Nor will they.

Presumably, RICH parses "Nor will they" the way the rest of do -- something like:
"Nor will they prove that God does not exist."

I offer an example, paraphrasing the Bertrand Russell original:

"An invisible and undetectable china teapot revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars."

Prove I'm wrong.

Tom,

Thanks for proving my point. It sounds like you are agnostic, not atheist.

Btw, I'm bilingual. I don't speak (or write) the best english. So back off.

Rich:

Your English is better than most. Don't give it another thought. At least your not describing orbital teapots. There are some here, who think the world consists of Democrats and Republicans who all read and write English perfectly. Bon chance. Viva la difference GK

Rich, you wrote:
What part of "Nor will they" didn't you get? With logic (il) like yours, it's no wonder atheists make up only 10% of our population.

Then, after I responded, you countered with:
Btw, I'm bilingual. I don't speak (or write) the best english. So back off.

I suggest that if you're uncomfortable with being in somebody's face, you avoid putting yourself there to begin with.

Your original statement -- "Prove that God does not exist" -- has a logical, not lexical, problem.

I'm not sure what "point" you think I've proved. It's certainly correct to observe that I am agnostic about the existence of Mr. Russell's china teapot.

Our exchange does, however, highlight the difference between scientific and religious thought. One can "believe" in an invisible and undetectable china teapot if one chooses. One can also ask for proof of the existence of such teapot, whether or not one is a "teapotist".

One cannot, however, prove that such a teapot does not exist. Science is about proving facts. Belief has no role.

"Science is about proving facts. Belief has no role."

Are you saying that before scientists had proof, they had zero (0) belief that water was on Mars?

"One can also ask for proof"

I have asked for and received my proof. Have you? Sorry for bringing bad news Tom, but the fact is, there are things science will never fully understand or prove.

"if you're uncomfortable with being in somebody's face"

Not at all. But I think criticism over ones writing skills is irrelevant when it comes to discussing climate. It's a cheap shot, like getting your ear bitten off during a fight.

GK,

Merci pour votre compliment.

Rich, you write:
What part of "Nor will they" didn't you get? With logic (il) like yours, it's no wonder atheists make up only 10% of our population.

and then whine when I highlight your own error?

You once again stuffed your foot so far into your mouth that it came out brown -- and it's not the first time. You committed an error of basic logic, not language. I highlighted it. When you challenge me, as you did above, to defend some claimed fault in my logic, I encourage you to either check your own logic more carefully before you post or grow a thicker skin when I do respond.

Regarding proof, you write:
Are you saying that before scientists had proof, they had zero (0) belief that water was on Mars?

I'm sure that scientists had a wide range of hunches, guesses, beliefs, and everything else -- just like the rest of us. Some scientists no doubt wrote "I don't believe there is water on Mars". Others no doubt wrote "I believe there is water on Mars".

The point is that both sides agree on what "water" is, both sides agree on experimental procedures for determining its presence or absence, and both sides said -- when those experiments returned positive results -- "We have proven that water exists on Mars."

I agree with you that "there are things science will never fully understand or prove" -- the existence of undetectable orbiting china teapots, for one. Anthropologists like Pascal Boyer have collected long lists of things that are believed by a multitude of people around the world, all just as sure of their beliefs as you are of yours. Not all of them can be simultaneously true. Like it or not, even religious believers need objective criteria for determining proof when it comes to certain domains.

There are some things science *has* demonstrated to be factual. These include:

• Gravity and the macroscopic physics of objects in a gravitational field.


• The geometric relationship between the motions of the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, and the planets.


• The (approximate) age of the Earth


• The existence of the fossil record


• Natural selection and evolution


• The chemistry and thermodynamics of atmospheric CO2 as a greenhouse gas

Each of these is now or was historically vigorously opposed and resisted by various groups who simultaneously assert(ed) the "failures" of science and the "truth" of their belief (based primarily on the fervor of their belief).

When it comes to climate and AGW, you apparently put a higher value on the predictions of your beliefs and sources who reinforce them. I place a higher value on the predictions and processes of science.

"You committed an error of basic logic"

Basic huh? What's the logic of bringing a teapot into outer space? I cannot speak for the coffee break habit of an astronaut, but I must conclude that your analogy is illogical.

"I place a higher value on the predictions"

That explains why you were incorrectly concerned for ski areas going out of business. Your "higher value", faith, is in the wrong hands.

As for the rest of your factual "things", they are not free of imperfection. Good day.

BrooklineTom

Please show me the factual demonstration of " natural selection and evolution"