“This is actually the consensus but I am becoming increasingly skeptical of this (well depends what you mean by benefit). If by benefit you mean that it would allow for greater human colonization of those areas, perhaps, but at the expense of the current ecosystems in the short term. In canada for instance it's projected they could grow a lot more food, but the warming winters are already leading to mass forest die offs (due to beetles and other things). It will be extremely expensive to pick everything up and move. “

First, I discount immediately any misconduct here in the States by the CDC, say, who rushes into the “global warming” or “climate change” political movement (as a respite from other misconduct, such as advocating gun control as a “public health” issue). Overall, warmer is better — the “area under the curve” (growing degree-days for agriculture, most notably) and the people hyping heat-related threats deliberately evade the greater problems with winter, which is what characterizes and distinguishes our temperate climates the most, and which presents the most hazards as well as impediments to living.

In addition to benefiting from a warmer climate for life, increased carbon dioxide levels are never going to threaten to reach levels toxic to plant life or to animal life (which includes us!), but should boost plant growth and yield (just as has been done by many of us for ages in greenhouses and other indoor kinds of environments when seeking better plant growth, yield, and harvest). You can probably encounter a number of people and studies already that say that plants and forests have improved and grown larger and more vigorously, rather than suffering, from increased heat and carbon dioxide levels. I discount this both as a threat and as a basis for claiming a new “green wonderland” (new Carboniferous Period), for the various plants respond differently (at the species level, as well as C3-C4-CAM differentiation). I'm on record as saying that anything good that come from a future warmer earth should not be already welcomed with glee, in advance, any more than the alarmist hysteria (and related political and economic goals) should be so treated. (That's why I've said that the opening of the Northern Sea Route, which I actually would like to think could be possible someday, shouldn't be the object of rushed views or policy decisions, for example.)

I don't believe it will be Nirvana for us, just better in places than it currently is. To repeat what I said about the West Coast alone, I suspect that California stands to suffer (it should be getting less rainfall in the winter season, more rain than snow than at present, so it would mean more, worse droughts — and more forest fires — as well as reduction of snowpack, on which the vast population of California and agriculture depend so much; that is why I've said that resurrection of the Alaska sub-sea pipeline, or transfer of water from the Columbia watershed, may be more likely sought someday). Meanwhile, “Cascadia” (the maritime coastal Pacific Northwest) stands to do quite well, with a longer summer (dry, sunny) season (meaning much more fabulous weather that is limited currently), but (especially if the Southern Oscillation shifts coldward at the same time) should be cooler with more rainfall than now, during the more brief winter season. (Whether the total would change for more or less is still questionable — there is no guarantee of Nirvana even there.)

I feel the possible warming earth (which our continued greenhouse gases may cause to happen to a significant level) stands to be good, but not necessarily everywhere — but that both the good and the bad must be kept at reasonable suppositional levels. The current problem is that the bad consequences are deliberately (and often greatly) hyped.

[DLS: "Another person you probably know of, Budyko, took pains to emphasize that the change that could from from man's alteration of the climate as part of environmental alteration is less than what we've seen in the past, but would be happening 100,000 times as quickly, so problems should be anticipated"]

“Exactly…the rate of change is most likely more problematic than the magnitude.”

(NOTE: Used books are gold, and used book stores are gold mines. Finding that book by Budyko was a great thing. The book even discusses what was an environmental subject for a while, long ago, which is “thermal pollution.” Simply the heat released from combustion, as well as from the “urban heat island” and other heating effects of mankind, was seen as a pollutant at one time and presenting a bigger future problem, about which Budyko briefly speculated — reaching a systemic “heat barrier” as an ultimate limitation to human development.)

While politics taints everything, there is a sound reason for asking if the abruptness may indeed cause some problems with not only the weather, but obviously with the ability of plant and animal life to adapt to the changes in their environment. As I've enjoyed the natural world as well as climate and related matters, to name one example, there is the risk that we could be modifying the climate too quickly for the charasteric vegetation (southern Pine forest, central eastern deciduous forest, all the variations of the deciduous forest, the northern spruce-fir forest, in the eastern US, for example) to migrate at the same rate as the anticipated shifting of the climatic zones. (Consider the coast redwood on the West Coast.)

I don't mind seeing the changes if the changes were meant to be (we're in an interglacial period, anyway, so we could be heading for another Optimum — note the tone that name implies — or another Ice Age). I've even wondered about more extreme alternatives that are limited to the conjectural or fantastic, but appeal intellectually, such as alternative values for our Earth's obliquity (more interesting to consider than eccentricity changes):

["High obliquity" is that in excess of 54 degrees, wherein the tropical-polar "insolation relation" is reversed. 54 degrees is a special case, where average annual insolation is the same everywhere, and overall could give us the warmest planet possible. Diagram related to "Snowball Earth" theory.]

http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffm…

[Figure 5a in this paper, about formation of the Moon, is simply beautiful -- print and enjoy!]

http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/ecp/pdf/EC0…

[Figure 2A, at one Astronomical Unit, shows a planet with a continental northern hemisphere and a maritime or oceanic southern hemisphere, with obliquity 90 degrees. Note that peak summer temp for the northern hemisphere is about 120F -- steam baking -- and for the southern hemisphere is about 180F -- char-broiling. Note that this writeup, about habitability, involves the CO2 greenhouse effect.]

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc1996/pdf/1…

(One of my books is a set of alternative Earths, one chapter of which involves the Earth with obliquity of 90 degrees. To illustrate the temperate zone, it describes a typical year in Atlanta, at latitude 34 [same as Los Angeles, for example].)

* * *

“DLS your posts confuse me because they are so squarely in agreement with scientific consensus yet you spend half your time attacking what is in large part strawmen.”

They're not straw men if you review the politics that unfortunately has infested this subject (and which has serious weight or momentum as a political movement, unlike, say, “acid rain”). Neither the many extreme words and phrases the activists have been saying, nor what has been sought as goals and what has been done already as deeds (including this year), is straw (fake or hyped). The politics, the actions, the threats are real.

“I have read a couple of scientists that argued for complete de-carbonization and when talking to people I called them radical and outside the mainstream.”

Complete de-carbonization is certainly radical and extremist, outside the mainstream — but there are many adherents of this position, or its relative, which is simply to minimize carbon use, which is either another way to attack Evil Industry or simply a lesser example of being naive or unrealistic, but which hurts us all when it is pursued as something not only desired, but real.

“The mainstream consensus is that if we start curbing emission growth through efficiency and newer power sources and roll it back over decades then we should be able to adapt. If we don't curb emission growth it could get to be really bad by the end of the century (a century in which we would have pumped 6x more carbon into the atmosphere than we have presently).”

I believe we need to distinguish hype and de-industrialization (and political, not sound, insistence on once again “alternative energy” sought since the 1960s, as well as “conservation” which actually is intentional deprivation and self-crippling, which is diseased behavior). I would support things like energy taxes if they were logical and soundly applied, and aimed at “harvesting” revenue from what is largely excessive consumption. (Not “excessive” because some activist doesn't like it, but true excess, which would be evident if demand for it were highly elastic, among other things.) I wouldn't mind taxes that would “internalize externalities,” put the price for pollution on the pollutants themselves, in other words. I do not accept what is in large part a reconstitution of the same kinds of politics and policy goals that have existed since radicalism of liberalism in the West since the 1960s. (We've had the “industry is evil” and “the West is greedy and gluttonous” mantras and the desire for “soft power” superiority since that time.)

“However I would disagree that the likely real consequences are being reduced, because even if there is mitigation, the positive feedback loops are stronger than previously anticipated. I've always said that GW is primarily a political problem, in that it will change the carrying capacity of the earth slightly (and geographically perhaps a lot) which will lead to conflict, and that conflict is the main threat.”

You may be right. Certainly there stands to be strife if the climate changes substantially and the climate zones were to shift. Though the threat is reduced each year, there would be problems in particular not only in (many?) selected spots in the temperate Northern Hemisphere (the same place where most of the possible benefits would also happen), but also in the tropics, especially the southern tropics (because of the northward rain belt shift that is anticipated). I will note, though, that future “water wars” and other resource problems are developing no matter what the climate does or does not do; even without explosive population growth, there still are going to be “mega-cities” as well as, for example, a Middle East that is an “urbanizing desert” to a much greater degree than our developing Western USA.

As to the duality of science and related politics, well, I do push back hard and harshly these days at wrongful excess and at wrongfulness, and I know it rankles as well as distracts, but the politics themselves are inescapable, and that's thanks to the protagonists, not those of us who take note (aloud) of it and object to it.

* * *
* * *

“DLS has the most interesting position which is he clearly has an understanding of the scientific arguments but believes the actual call to action is politicized and overblown. He seems rather nonchalant about rapid temperature change which I find odd, but that's his opinion.”

Yes, I understand the arguments. I would also insist that I understand (not merely believe) that the actual call to action is politiced and overblown. There is no “crisis,” or “catastrophe” (both words often being misused), no excuse for hype, alarmism, catastrophism, or of bile directed at industry and at the West and its attainment of high levels of development, progress, and energy use (as well as technology which fails the tests of political correctness). Everyone who is rational knows that there is no need for drastic “mitigation” measures, much less naive-to-perverse greater (worse) goals that are all too typical.

Because both Exxon and BP have commercial interests in the outcome. Industry does a lot of good research before academics (or commercializing it) and then the academics (or reality) validate it, but there are also many instances of them doing “research” that was mere propaganda and recruiting people with credentials to give it cover. The tobacco settlement wasn't that long ago.

By contrast, academics (the vast majority) have no commercial interests in the outcome. That's why I said it was a false equivalence to compare the peer review process to that.

Like I said, I actually am unaware of the Jones/Wigley stuff, and I will look into it more, but what I cited in this post was about observations this decade and new data that's been collected. I don't see what their data set has to do with any of that. Nowhere in the post did I talk about models or projections or anything else.

You claim that you don't have the scientific understanding to debate it, but that you “know politics” and then in the post below respond to CS that you didn't see them have predictive capabilities for the drop when I replied to her and said they aren't even outputting those oscillations in their graphs (let alone that the model run in 2005 they do have shows a flattening over the next 10 years from that point)! Well that's a pretty big piece of information to know before you claim that they haven't been correct.

You also pointed to observations that you felt contradicted continued warming, which I (and other people) addressed how they were looking at timeframes outside what is normally talked about, or are way below the 90s averages.

What I am taking away from your statement is that you “feel” it can't be right and you selectively look at arguments against it without synthesizing the scientific rebuttals. If you've read my stuff, obviously I'm not adverse to criticizing the consensus (especially about the economy) but the difference is that I focus on very pointed critiques that have an alternative cohesive hypothesis rather than random naysaying. I have yet to run into any alternative hypothesis that hasn't been adequately addressed (in my perception) by the community…other than the idea that predicting what will happen to regions is impossible due to microeffects. That is a different point than whether there is more energy being captured by the earth though.

DLS has the most interesting position which is he clearly has an understanding of the scientific arguments but believes the actual call to action is politicized and overblown. He seems rather nonchalant about rapid temperature change which I find odd, but that's his opinion.

I would have been happy if the scientists had predicted the changes they account for after the fact. I saw no evidence of predictive abilities within the current models used that predict future temperature rises, but I have seen these models be “adjusted” due to unforeseen drops in temperatures. If the models were accurate, wouldn't they be able to see these downward trends before they occur?

Maybe my ignorance makes me naive, but other computer modeling I've worked with require that kind of reliability.

” I also really object to your false equivalence between industry and basic research. The basic researchers don't really care what the result is. There is the old canard that their grant money depends on it, but the fact is that climate forecasting is so valuable in general, that there would still be tons of money in it. The people doing it work longer hours for lower pay than they could get in the private sector — per hour it's about half as much. contrary to what you characterize the peer review process as, it's a real pain that requires lots of sacrifice, sweat and tears.”

Where do you see my “false equivalence between industry and basic research?

I never wrote a single line about this subject. I think you're affronted by someone else. As to your debunking of grants driving findings, I guess you figure those that are supported through petroleum grants are also beyond reproach. Or do only “bad, unscrupulous” scientists only work against the global warming theory? Again, I don't believe I accused anybody.

” I have no idea what Jones and Wigley has anything to do with anything I cited.”

If you don't know who compiled the raw data that the IPCC reports base their dire warnings, I'm surprised to say the least. Tell me mikkel, when you show your idea that you have to doctors and hospitals, do you think they may want to check your solution based upon the data you used? Too bad we don't have the original data for warming predictions. You see this as science as usual?

I see no use in attempting to address each of your points. I've never pretended that my understanding was enough to argue this debate scientifically.

At the same time, I do know politics when I see them, and I do know the staunch defense scientists have historically put up against counter arguments to “established science.” Too bad they found out that “established science” was incorrect.

The global temperatures have risen since the little ice age, on that we agree. The cause is a whole 'nother issue.

I sincerely hope your idea knocks it out of the park! I appreciate your time.

This is actually the consensus but I am becoming increasingly skeptical of this (well depends what you mean by benefit). If by benefit you mean that it would allow for greater human colonization of those areas, perhaps, but at the expense of the current ecosystems in the short term. In canada for instance it's projected they could grow a lot more food, but the warming winters are already leading to mass forest die offs (due to beetles and other things). It will be extremely expensive to pick everything up and move.

“Another person you probably know of, Budyko, took pains to emphasize that the change that could from from man's alteration of the climate as part of environmental alteration is less than what we've seen in the past, but would be happening 100,000 times as quickly, so problems should be anticipated”

Exactly…the rate of change is most likely more problematic than the magnitude.

DLS your posts confuse me because they are so squarely in agreement with scientific consensus yet you spend half your time attacking what is in large part strawmen. I have read a couple of scientists that argued for complete de-carbonization and when talking to people I called them radical and outside the mainstream. The mainstream consensus is that if we start curbing emission growth through efficiency and newer power sources and roll it back over decades then we should be able to adapt. If we don't curb emission growth it could get to be really bad by the end of the century (a century in which we would have pumped 6x more carbon into the atmosphere than we have presently).

However I would disagree that the likely real consequences are being reduced, because even if there is mitigation, the positive feedback loops are stronger than previously anticipated. I've always said that GW is primarily a political problem, in that it will change the carrying capacity of the earth slightly (and geographically perhaps a lot) which will lead to conflict, and that conflict is the main threat.

Tyndall identified this years before Arrhenius (the earlier person best known).

We know that carbon dioxide is increasing currently in our atmosphere (it has been at such levels and higher, in the past).

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

That doesn't lead to the conclusion we need to de-industrialize, cripple ourselves (while leaving other, more politically favored nations alone), or interpret this in any way as some form of invitation (or excuse) to re-engineer our economy and society in politically preferred ways that have been sought for 40+ years.

The Flohn report mentions the change in winds (which are at least part cause of the cycle) and the disappearance of the warm part of the cycle (El Niño). I don't believe it necessarily would be gone forever, but that the shift (northward of anti-cyclones, climatic zones, and winds) would result in a shift also in the cycle itself, toward the cool or cold part, logically. (To what extent it might become even cooler or colder, i.e., a more marked La Niña at the cool or cold extreme, is a related open question.)

I see a shift toward the cool or cold (La Niña) direction for the cycle, but this would be superimposed on a general warming scenario (accompanied by changes to the climate primarily in the Northern Hemisphere).

Note that all these are speculative things and in no way constitute a legitimate basis for panic, hysteria, or an excuse for interventionism, de-industrialization or intentional deprivation of developed nations, or the flirting with totalitarianism (if naively, due to being enamored of socialism), as the fervent people want.

* * *

“It is unclear to me how much sustained warming we'll see or whether it will just make the switches more violent.”

Note that it's unclear to everyone, and, again, certainly no excuse for hysteria or rushing to overreaction, or misusing misinterpretation (or misstatement) as a mechanism for political-economic mischief.

Flohn believed the ice-free Arctic (Ocean) would become stable (and has been in the past), but that the change to it would be problem-ridden. (Another person you probably know of, Budyko, took pains to emphasize that the change that could from from man's alteration of the climate as part of environmental alteration is less than what we've seen in the past, but would be happening 100,000 times as quickly, so problems should be anticipated.)

“the already changing patterns are causing major ecological problems. Even if temperature itself doesn't rise catastrophically, shifting around the seasons and an increase in droughts/flooding will still destroy a lot.”

Actually, worse is probably to come, depending on if the climate gets warmer and by how much. The real-world “worst case” (not the “cooking the planet,” “Great Deluge,” “runaway greenhouse effect,” etc., alarmist lunacy) is the ice-free Arctic Ocean. Parts of the Northern Hemisphere actually would benefit, not become worse, but some could become worse. (On the West Coast, California stands to suffer while “Cascadia” stands to do quite well, for example.)

Both Flohn and Budyko have used strong language to indicate possible future problems (both of changes of state and due to the changing itself). Notably, the tropical regions, less affected by change than the Northern Hemisphere, nevertheless could compete with or surpass the northern temperate area as the sites of most possible strife (aridity, desertification, shifting of equatorial and tropical wind and rainfall belts, affecting the tropics and its huge populations and agricultural areas). Even there, what could happen is far from truly known, is subject to alarmism and other kinds of exaggeration, while with each year, each decade, the likely real consequences are reduced, not increased, as progress is made by people there.

The threat is over-hyped (as a pretext and rationalization for authoritarian interventionism and worse).

The consequences logically are much better faced by adaptation by mitigation (and de-industrialization and deliberate deprivation of the West, which is pathological, most notably the “de-carbonization” fad).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

This site provides a nice one paragraph summary of each point with a link to fuller text all with peer-reviewed citations.

To answer one of hemmD's questions, yes, I would fully expect climate scientists to change their opinion if there began to be consistent evidence against global warming. There would be a slight delay because the evidence has been so strong for so long, but if all the models were completely wrong and a new factor was found which “saved us”, then I wholly expect them to discuss it.

Finally, the green house effect with CO2 is a simple physical fact and can easily be reproduced in the lab. We are pumping out 26 gigatons of CO2 per year. Since it is a known green house gas, the only question left is whether the earth has the ability to absorb or adjust for all those emissions without disrupting climate patterns that humans depend upon.

There are two main ways to see if this is happening: 1) produce models that take into account every factor we can. Almost all of those models predict climate forcing. 2) If you can't model it, look for evidence that the climate is changing in unusual ways: warming seas, ice melt, glacier withdrawal, and more all strongly suggest it is.

Unfortunately, the extreme Left has not merely “adopted” but seized man's efffect on the climate (as part of how man has been altering the environment throughout history) as a political movement and a weapon.

Two things to note: La Niña (the cool or cold portion of the oscillatory cycle) to date has been woefully neglected. The subject is starting to be addressed, finally. One example (a book I have) is this one:

http://www.unu.edu/unupress/backlist/ab-nina.html

Note that Flohn's older work on global warming (that predicts shifting of the anticyclones and the climatic zones in the Northern Hemisphere if the Arctic becomes relatively ice-free) discusses the wind shift that would in turn shift this oscillation toward the cool or cold end (something probably not one in a million people believing ignorantly about “global warming” in general would consider — they'd ordinarily rush to believe we're headed for a permanent El Niño-like situation, instead). Despite this,

“… strong equatorial upwelling can be expected to occur permanently (with El Niño situations no longer arising), at least in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans …”

it clearly is associated with warming, and a stable, ice-free Arctic Ocean (not Greenland, not Antarctica, which could well increase its ice cover, from increased snowfall), and a shift northward of the Northern Hemisphere's subtropical anti-cyclones and climatic zones, as well as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (threatening to aridify or to”desertify” the area from the equator to latitude twenty degrees South).

* * *

“Now that El Niño has started, it has set new records and most likely next year will be the hottest on record.”

That remains to be seen. I choose to be preoccupied with know real-world hazards such as the state of soil conditions in Southern California, and the mud slide hazards that already have been elevated by the fiires this year. (Yes, a future warmed world stands to be more arid there, with a longer, worse fire season as part of that future.) If we do get a solid El Niño this year, I worry more about how it might resemble 1982, than any excuse for more media and activist shrieking-hype resembling the year 1988 (a hot year notorious for alarmism and worse). The El Niño conditions are an extra cause for concern, but I also worry about what would happen even in an ordinary year with rain after the recent fires, as well as how earthquakes would complicate matters there.

In any case, there is no excuse for the alarmism, catastrophism, the ridiculous hype, that we see with this phenomenon, and no excuse for overreacting with deeds, which is even worse than the wrongful words.

Yes, it is. It has its place (when considering a possible future ice-free Arctic — or generally ice-free, with some winter freeze-up here and there), but the rest of the atmosphere needs to be examined, as Flohn did, for example, when analyzing the consequences of possible global warming almost thirty years ago.

I also can't believe that you so casually refer to pro-warming “sites” when you know that what they are citing are studies done by NASA, NOAA, international consensus, etc. Even Bush's commissioned report agreed whole heartedly with the consensus! On the other hand the other studies are cherry picked and are often shown to have errors in them or a twisting of the facts of what the authors of that study actually believe. I encourage you to start reading climate progress — you only have to read the ones where he identifies where someone has been mischaracterized, he has them at least once a week. The one link about the Antarctic snowfall is a perfect example of this. These guys were just studying short term correlations with ENSO on snowfall melt. The author the post falsely conflated that with long term trends in old ice melt. The two are not comparable in the slightest. It's like having a hypothesis that most of the people that eat well don't get fat, while those that don't do. Then another study comes out correlating diet with Fridays during Lent. That shows a very strong correlation between the two groups. You could be like “Aha! This disproves diet matters they are the same!” Uh yeah, on Friday's during Lent for religious reasons, the rest of the time it's building up.

I also really object to your false equivalence between industry and basic research. The basic researchers don't really care what the result is. There is the old canard that their grant money depends on it, but the fact is that climate forecasting is so valuable in general, that there would still be tons of money in it. The people doing it work longer hours for lower pay than they could get in the private sector — per hour it's about half as much. contrary to what you characterize the peer review process as, it's a real pain that requires lots of sacrifice, sweat and tears.

I'm not saying that scientists are all saints, and quite a few can be extremely stubborn (but to protect their intellectual understanding, not for profit) but I've worked in quite a few environments and scientists are by far the most idealistic and trying to do things for the betterment of human understanding. If you look at the cases where data was manipulated or falsified (even the South Korean case) it's not about love of money, it's about lack of money…where something went wrong and the grants were due and they were worried about losing their life's work because of a temporary setback.

If people only knew how many times scientists work 50-60 hour weeks for 10 years, only to see their entire hypothesis fail and have to start over, then they wouldn't say what you are. It happens constantly and to each individual at least once (if they are lucky! Often times more than that).

I know a lot of scientists in many many fields, and not one goes a year without questioning whether what they are doing is worth it since it's so hard, there is so little reward and no one really cares. Even when they do find something, the majority of the time someone else swoops down and takes it and makes all the profit.

I currently have an idea that I'm trying to turn into a business that could literally save thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars a year. However it will require a lot of cooperation between hospitals. Explaining my idea to the researchers and doctors and they see its promise and are bending over backwards to help me develop it in their own time for no monetary stake. On the flip side, I have several people advising me from the business end and they are helping me figure out how to actually bring it to market. The problem is that because it takes a critical mass of adopters before it becomes very valuable, that no one is willing to go first. In the first few years it will be a (extremely negligible) cost, and I keep getting advised that no one will do that because it doesn't look good on their quarterly balance sheet. I could target the device manufacturers, but my contacts there say none of them are interested because it would allow for more power on a local level and cut into their dominance. I am making slow progress in changing the vision and hopefully I'll be able to eventually do it, but it'll take at least 10 years longer than ideally…and I only need as much money total as one major hospital would save in 3 months once the system is up.

I always appreciated the difference between the average scientist and business perspective, but it wasn't until I started dealing with this and seeing the discrepancy at the top levels that made it hit home fully. It's ridiculous.

cs: We currently have a poor understanding of what exactly triggers the onset of the cycle. It is somewhat predictable 5-7 year cycle, but it's still rather variable. They are trying to get better at it, but it's not the main focus.

“It just sure seems that global warming theorists have done themselves a disservice when they always appear to be making explanations for variances in hindsight, rather than being ahead of the trends.”

I agree with you that they have done a poor job of getting out in front of it. The issue is that none of the models even attempt to predict year by year output. Most of them output an average of 10 years (longer than an El Nino/La Nina cycle), or even 15 (which is meant to get close to reflecting two La Nina/El Nino cycles specifically because each one can be quite variable and lead to what happened in 1998). Personally I think 15 is more accurate on an intuitive level, but perhaps there are issues that I'm unaware of. HemmD asked on one post why all the models he's seen have shown a constant rise…well that's because of averaging.

Here is a post that shows how presenting it in a confusing matter destroys context. The important part is this picture. The green is this particular model, but “Third, the black line is one of the IPCC scenarios, A1B. It is a relatively high-CO2-growth model — but actual carbon emissions since 2000 have wildly outpaced it.”

As you can clearly see, the A1B scenario predicted flattening of temperatures around this 10 year centered mean from 2005-2010. What makes it hard to read is that the 2005 point is really 2000-2010 and 2010 point is 2005-2015. Thus, one of the official models actually predicted the flattening we are starting to see and suggests it'll last another 5 years! (With the caveat that greenhouse gas emissions are larger than what was in the model). To make matters more confusing even, in the official report they don't use a 10 year centered mean, they use 15 year trailing mean. I'm not sure why this particular author did what he did, but that explains the discrepancy as any 15 year period shows it's rising.

In any case, part of the problem is that scientists are focused on decade level dynamics, not year to year and that's what people pay attention to. A larger part of the problem is blatant obfuscation and lying of what is going on by people that have interests to do so. Every week that climate progress blog has at least one (most of the time more than one) where there is an article/book/blog post on major denier blog/etc where they take what the scientists are saying (particularly about this current leveling and how it may go on for a bit) and then completely twist and exaggerate it. You can easily follow the chain from that one guy I linked to saying that 2005-2015 will be flat compared to 2000-2010 and how that turned into “no warming for a decade” and how that ended up in George Will and other people saying that there would be no warming for possibly decades and how the whole thing was ruined.

At first it I was just shaking my head, but he's pointing them out more and more frequently even by people that should know better. They are just outright lies, and if I were those people quoted I'd be furious. Of course being scientists, they just shrug and go “well in the community we know I don't believe that” but that's not the point!

The Antartic ice is slightly increasing, but still below levels before the dramatic loses of the 1970's. The Southern Ocean is also subject to different dynamics.
http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/e046/reprints/Pol…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/09…

Not to mention that 40% of the US's weathermen don't accept AGW because we can't even predict next week's weather, the urban heat island effect, the influence of volcanoes on CO2 levels, AGW violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the climate has cooled since 1998, Hansen wants to jail climate change deniers, Benny Pieser found lots of dissent among scientists, the models don't take clouds (or heating from the earth's core, or lunar tidal heating, or menstrual cycles) into account, the high level of consensus is a sure sign of peer pressure (or a conspiracy, or desperation to generate grants, or atheist group think), everyone predicted a new ice age in the 70's, Mars is experiencing GW without any people, there is no order in chaos, CO2 levels always lag temperature, we need to wait a hundred years to be sure, a warmer earth will be a better earth, GW is actually caused by solar variation, the hockey stick is broken (or a fraud, or pulled out of Al Gore's place where the sun doesn't shine), the actions to correct AGW will bankrupt us (or cause more GW, or usher in a dark age of socialism (sorry that last one is for universal health care)),CO2 occurs naturally and cannot be a pollutant because nature is so kind and benevolent, the man produced CO2 is such a small percentage of atmospheric CO2 it cannot cause any problems, and finally, all of this research is in that commie inspired metric system so no common sense, red blooded, real American [registered trademark] can or has to understand it.

OK, I haven't seen the last one, — yet.

I have recently gone through discussions and research on the increasing ice in the Antarctic. The short form is that the Antarctic is warming. The extra heating has caused an increase in humidity in what is one of the driest places on earth. This increased humidity has caused an increase in snow fall and an increase in ice surface area. Whether there has been an increase or decrease in the volume of ice seems to be an open question.

First off, I appreciate your response and certainly don't take your criticisms personally. Likewise, any response from mikkel would never enter the personal realm either.

As to your criticisms.

1. The question concerning sources. Tell me one pro-global warming site you trust to publish information counter to their bias. Of course, one must account for bias, but bias works both ways.

As to the cited article, consider the first paragraph:
” In the early 1980s, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists at the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia established the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to produce the world’s first comprehensive history of surface temperature. It’s known in the trade as the “Jones and Wigley” record for its authors, Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, and it served as the primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007. It was this record that prompted the IPCC to claim a “discernible human influence on global climate.””

I see no bias in this text, and it provides the importance of the story. The data compiled by these guys is the basis for the IPCC's initial and ongoing findings concerning current temperature trends. The crux of the story is that the original data collected has been first withheld and then “lost.” If you don't see the significance of this, consider that all scientific findings are valid if and only if results are reproducible. No original data, no re-examination. Read the story, discount any perceived bias, but verify via the web the facts stated in the article. This loss of data is way too convenient.

2. The reason I used the cloning example was simple and pertinent; I remembered it and there is a strong parallel as to the motives involved in this story:

” The South Korean government, which promoted Dr. Hwang as a national hero and an international celebrity, has seen its investment wasted. The leading scientific journals that vied to publish Dr. Hwang's work are re-examining their acceptance procedures.”

I would assume you would agree that there is a definite correlation. The cap and trade legislation is built upon these findings. The various treaties are built upon IPCC findings. The peer-review process in Korea demonstrates similar problems to those found here. Peer review for most of the IPCC conclusions have come from group of scientists who have their own papers reviewed by the same people they review. Kind of self-fulfilling for those invested in the problem, don't you think? Sort of like having Republicans investigating Republicans, or Dems dems. You know how well that's worked.

3. You infer that an article complaining that the news media does not report findings that fly in the face of the official meme are dedicated to debunking global warming. Isn't that similar to saying the Washington Post investigated Watergate due to political bias on their part. Bill Mitchell said that was true back then, you think history is incapable of repeating itself? Check the graph accompanying this article, do you or mikkel dispute its authenticity? The famous hockey stick graph you have seen time and again has been shown to be manipulated. You heard about that problem, no? Why not if scientific analysis is open to challenge?

4. The graph here show data from 2000 to 2009. How do you cherry pick that? You may have concerns, but do you also have concerns with the other side? Is this data shown in any site on the other side? Don't think so, I've looked.

George, the bottom line on this subject is that a scientific study has taken on hugely political attributes. Mikkel argues that the science has been decided, and we have gone back and forth concerning that premise. I happen to believe the science may be half right, but the politics in play with this subject are all wrong.

If Exxon ran a study and had it reviewed by BP, I think you would criticize the lack of objectivity. Why isn't the same scrutiny legitimate in the incestuous relationship established in this case equally worthy of your skepticism?

Thanks again for your input.

It just sure seems that global warming theorists have done themselves a disservice when they always appear to be making explanations for variances in hindsight, rather than being ahead of the trends. Even skeptics, I think, would have to admit that they were accurate if they had said in advance that there would be a brief cooling trend followed by more record highs.

Good question. If you’ve read the work of prominent historian William Cronon or know much about environmental history, it becomes shockingly obvious the effects humans can have on the ecosystem—most without even realizing. For example: the invasive weed species and other transported here with cows and grain during the colonial period by both Spaniard and English completely ravaged the biota of the “New World.” By the mid-18th century, most of the native plant life in California had already been replaced by more hardy species from Eurasia having cascading effects thought the ecosystem. Another example, I’m sure you know the story of the Passenger Pigeon. Wildlife experts determined that they numbered upwards of 5 billion in the late-18th century. Early Americans scoffed at the idea that they could possibly ever deplete such a vast population, much the same way Americans thought about Buffalo, Midwestern forests, Sierran water supplies, beaver pelts, the Colorado River, oil, New England Cod, the Ogallala Aquifer, fertile topsoil, and countless other “commodities.” Yet, within a hundred years, the Passenger Pigeon had been virtually been wiped off the planet (the last, Martha, dying in the early 20th century).

Indeed, we humans are masters of hubris. Yet, we never fail to eventually be humbled.

I have no doubt in man’s capacity to harm—or at least change—their environment. And I have little doubt that we can and are having an effect on our atmosphere. I have heard directly from too many top climatologists to doubt as I once had. Nearly every reputable national scientific organization has concurred with this assessment, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, Canada, the French Academie des Sciences, Science Council of Japan, Russian Academy of Sciences, and a litany of others. Not to mention the assessment of most respected scientific organizations and research universities.

But then, who are they to know anything about climate change? It was 40 degree here last night. Feels cold enough to me.