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Comments 51 to 56 out of 56:

51. Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Chris> I don't know Spencer's history, so I can't comment on that. The scientific question remains unclear to me. No, I don't know of any concrete evidence of long term natural variation of the climate. But this is not the same as that such things do not exist. There seems to be natural variations which cannot be explained by external forcing on the time scale of years or even decades (eg. pacific decadal oscillation), so how can we be sure that there are no such natural variations on bigger time scales, like centuries? I'm not claiming any deep insight here, its just my impression that this is an area of uncertainty.
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52. kampmannpeine at 20:52 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Yes, the other three. The problem with the 2007-IPCC-process was that there was some "unopenness" towards the other three. They definitely now learned from that and when you look at the www.ipcc.ch page you will find some hints that I observed this correctly ... What also seems very interesting is what Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West found: Celestial magnetic influence by the local panetary system ... for instance there seems to be a 60-year periodic fluctuation in the temperature observations. and interestingly also the same fluctuation in the longterm measurements of the LOD (Length of Day) - which is about some millisecond difference of fluctuations... Could it be that there is some "slow down/speed up" generated by the interaction of planetary and terrestrial magnetic fields? Interestingly enough, there was already a newspaper article in the German "Die Zeit" from *1967* which is online available ... And there is already the talk about the influence of the Jovian magnetic field on our ionosphere which - then quoted - influences the terrestrian troposphere ... This influence generates en electromagnetic resonance chamber of about 8-12 Hz ... strangely enough the same frequency as the human brain waves ... (not kidding!)
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53. skywatcher at 21:19 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Marcel: John Cook's response to post #5 neatly deals with your point I think. It's not just a case of explaining away everything else and being left with inferred CO2, but it's a case of actually directly observing the CO2 causing the warming at it's specified wavelengths. So your mystery natural variation has to both cancel out a CO2-induced warming that we see (ie be a cooling), and then create an entirely different warming all on its own, therefore it's net effect is zero??? The PDO, so far as I understand it, is a spaial variation in temperature distribution, not an absolute measure of heat gained or lost by the North Pacific. This seems a common misconception. Its consequence is to change the pattern of warmer/cooler weather in related regions, but not to make the overall system substantially warmer or cooler. For the last 15 years, more or less, the North Pacific has been warmer than at any time in the past, including all previous PDO 'positive' phases, yet for most of this time the PDO has been neutral or slightly negative. I would think of it like having a radiator and a cooling air conditioner in the same room, set to the same setting. One way round, your sofa's warm and your dining table is cold, swap them over and the dining table is warm and your sofa cold. The overall effect on the room may be close to zero (but dependent on the heat capacity of neighbouring objects), but an index like the PDO records the fact that the warmer and cooler regions have switched around.
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54. Cornelius Breadbasket at 21:20 PM on 22 July, 2010
    100 climate deniers go into a bar. Spencer goes up to the landlord and asks "do you sell pure alcohol?" "No mate, just the usual wines, beers and spirits" he replies. "Right lads, next pub" says Spencer. The landlord is stunned. "What's wrong?" he asks. "Nothing mate" replies Spencer, it's just we require 100% proof".
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55. chris at 21:20 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July, 2010 Yes, fair enough. I would say that the bottom line is that enhanced persistent surface warming can only come from changes in external forcings (solar or greenhouse gas and Milankovitch variation), or from massive tectonic events that release large amounts of greenhouse gases (or extraterrestrial impacts that slam into carbonate rich deposits). Volcanic activity and solar variation can result in cooling on medium to long (solar) timescales. But we can assess all of these things in detail in the context of 20th century and contemporary warming and establish their contributions, and determine that they have made little net contribution to global warming. Natural internal variations (e.g. ocean currents like the PDO/AMO) can pretty much only redistributed heat. It's difficult to conclude anything other than that these effects average temporally to near zero. That's not to say that the particular phase of an ocean oscillation might not have a significant regional effect depending on the "phase" that the oscillation happens to be in. For example some of the current Arctic warming likely has some contribution from the AMO which involves residtribution of heat into the N. Atlantic. But one would have to conjure up some rather extraordinary thermodynamic arguments to satisfy a notion of persistent accumulation of heat into the climate system by internal variations! Since we know that that is exactly the effect of enhancement of the greenhouse effect it would be silly to attempt to pretend that this isn't dominating contemporary warming, all uncertainties about the true climate sensitivity notwithstanding. I'm away until Sunday so won't be able to respond any more til then...
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56. CBDunkerson at 21:32 PM on 22 July, 2010
    HR #24; "Theories around 20th century hurricane numbers and intensity were recently debunked." Debunked? No. They were disputed... only 'skeptics' (who by such behavior prove that they AREN'T skeptics) assume that the alternate viewpoint MUST perforce be correct. In reality there isn't much foundation for that. Basically, Landsea argued that the data showing increasing hurricane activity over time was incorrect because he ASSUMED that earlier data, before satellite tracking, 'missed' some hurricanes which did not make landfall. He offered no real scientific evidence of that and also did not consider the equally 'valid' possibility that some pre-satellite hurricanes were counted TWICE when they were spotted in different regions. Once you exclude the pre-satellite records the remaining trend, while still increasing, is not statistically significant and thus also dismissed. Also note that pre-satellite counts have been validated not just by observations, but also by analysis of the frequency of sediment deposits being carried inland by storms... a physical science confirmation of increasing storms which Landsea just ignored. Essentially it is the classic 'deny the data' tactic. Hardly a 'debunking'. As to the oddity of three climate scientists actually saying that humans are NOT causing warming... note that this is based on one of those petitions sent around. Several skeptic scientists have stated that they signed on to such petitions, even though the wording wasn't entirely correct, to help demonstrate that 'there is no consensus'. In short, they wanted to make a political statement badly enough that they were willing to put their name to something they knew to be inaccurate. Which I think is an important point... I cannot think of a single skeptic scientist who is not extremely 'partisan'. Sure, there are also plenty of AGW scientists who are equally partisan... but there are also alot who are NOT emotionally invested and still find strong AGW solely on the basis of the evidence.
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57. Marcel Bökstedt at 22:00 PM on 22 July, 2010
    skywatcher> There is no doubt in my mind that the greenhouse gasses are producing warming, and that we can calculate the resulting forcing pretty accurately. But I do have some doubts about the amount of positive feedback. There is still the possibility that the feedback is smaller than we think, and that some unknown natural variation is added to that to produce the observed warming. Maybe not likely, but possible. Chris> Why can natural internal variation only redistribute heat? By playing with redistribution of temperature between sea and land or between high and low latitudes, I can offhand think of several conjectural scenarios where total cloud cover, snow cover, humidity etc. could change, and then influence the global temperature. And I've got a slow imagination. Besides, one could equally argue that the Milankovitch cycles only redistributes heat, they do not change the total amount of received solar radiation, only its distribution.
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58. skywatcher at 22:27 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Marcel - why do you feel the need to find an unknown natural forcing when there's decent evidence for positive feedbacks (e.g. water vapour, albedo)? Presumably you don't doubt that a dark object reflects radiation more poorly than a white one? You also have coincidence of timing. I agree that Milankovitch cycles redistribute heat - but they do this globally - such as shifting insolation preferences from the NH to the SH, namely to a place where it cannot easily redistribute back. Regional redistributions have much less of an effect. Why should the PDO -ve of the present have a global cooling effect when the North Pacific as a whole is warmer than all previous PDO +ve phases?
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59. Alexandre at 22:28 PM on 22 July, 2010
    I think it's worth keeping in mind that this 97% is the result of a poll asking for these scientists opinion. If you look for what they've published, you get something closer to Oreskes' 100%. The rare contrarian paper that survives the peer review scrutiny falls into at least one of these categories: - does not conflict with what's known about GHG influence on temperature and climate - just count on e.g. a huge cloud negative feedback, which is also climate change. - it's a lonely conclusion that does not survive replication.
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60. Alden Griffith at 22:30 PM on 22 July, 2010
    John - I think you should quickly convert this into an op-ed (with the graphic!) and send it out to a major paper like the NY Times. (also your responses to questions 1 and 5 are worth weaving into the text). Just a thought!
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61. kampmannpeine at 22:49 PM on 22 July, 2010
    wanted to add the link to the "Die Zeit": http://www.zeit.de/1967/23/Wieviel-Schicksal-bestimmen-die-Planeten
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62. kampmannpeine at 22:57 PM on 22 July, 2010
    corrected the link in 61 - sorry: Article in Die Zeit of 1967
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63. canbanjo at 23:01 PM on 22 July, 2010
    i asked my mother what she thought of rounding up one hundred scientists and putting them in a room and she said well at least they won't be doing any harm. glass is always half full with her.
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64. adelady at 23:27 PM on 22 July, 2010
    Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July, 2010 "The scientific question remains unclear to me ..... its just my impression that this is an area of uncertainty." Well I'm not a scientist either, but I really don't expect to master all areas of 20+ scientific disciplines. Let alone understand them well enough to make serious judgements about the remaining areas of uncertainty. Like most non-scientists here, I'm able to follow good explanations well enough. Too much maths or physics and we have to make a decision. Do we put in 6 or 12 hours of brain pain just to read the details of something that's already well-known to experts? I don't, some do. As for uncertainties or unsettled details. If I'm making a sweater for someone and they complain that it's not yet finished, I reckon I'm right to get a bit testy when I point out that it just needs the last seams sewn, edgings on and a few threads neatened off. If the lucky recipient could learn to sew, knit and crochet for themselves it would all be done sooner if not better. My view is that the patterns shown by agricultural and ecological researchers, oceanographers, physicists, chemists, biologists and the thousands of other scientists and technicians are complete enough. Maybe not finished enough to wear if it was a garment- ...... -But we are absolutely certain that it *is* a garment and not a billiard cue or a jar of jam. 2 things we must live with. Uncertainty is one of the few certain things in life. Expertise in anything is hard to come by and should be respected in others. Moaning about doubts or uncertainties is a very unscientific thing to do. In science, uncertainty is an opportunity for interest or even excitement. In life, if we face uncertainty we take out insurance or we over-engineer the foundations for our house extension or we leave an hour earlier to catch our plane.
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65. sebastian.tyrrell at 23:48 PM on 22 July, 2010
    100 climate scientists in a room? Surely you mean "under Al Gore's hollowed out volcano"?
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66. Svatli at 01:51 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Well, I'm going to try to go for the joke ;) What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room? ... 3 nuts in a shell. Remember,this is a joke :)
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67. TruthSeeker at 01:59 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Frankly, I think the question stacks the deck so the 97-3 is meaningless. If Climate Gate showed one thing, its that there was a "siege mentality" held by the scientist at the heart of the controversy. They proved a pattern of not only black listing publications that disagreed with the conclusions of AGW, they willingly to publishing in the IPCC report many fallacious claims that went unscrutinized but supported the AGW agenda. Of course they later needed to be pulled. Corruption of the "Peer Reviewed" publication process was the real crime of climategate. The impact of the "Siege Mentality," they were willing to censor data they didn't agree with, while not questioning conclusions that they did agree with.
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68. shawnhet at 02:07 AM on 23 July, 2010
    "I agree that Milankovitch cycles redistribute heat - but they do this globally - such as shifting insolation preferences from the NH to the SH, namely to a place where it cannot easily redistribute back. Regional redistributions have much less of an effect. Why should the PDO -ve of the present have a global cooling effect when the North Pacific as a whole is warmer than all previous PDO +ve phases?" Personally, I don't see the problem you're having here. If you think that a large change in the distribution of heat(where forcing is held more or less constant) can have a large effect on global temperature, what is difficult about claiming that a smaller(but still substantial) change in the distribution of heat will have a smaller(but still substantial) effect on the global temperature. IAC, empirically, it is pretty easy to demonstrate a strong correlation btw PDO index and global temperature. Cheers, :)
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69. Philippe Chantreau at 03:03 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Truthseeker, you have your facts backwards. The corruption of the peer-review process resides in the publication of such nonsense as Soon-Baliunas (the subject of the e-mails you allude to), or Carter et al or G&T. The anger in the e-mails refer to that kind of paper. It is entirely justified. The siege has been on for quite a while and is still happening. That includes: Hansen being gagged by the governement. The oil producing countries holding undue influence on the formulating of the IPCC reports. The media frenzy around the non-existing climategate, and that same media lack of reporting on the 3 separate enquiries that concluded there is nos such thing as climategate. The attempts at shutting up Mann by a zealot attorney general. The lynch mob culture at WUWT, where Anthony Watts gives to his public the places of work of scientists he dislikes so that his crowd can harass them. The abuse of FOI requests in organized fashion for the sole purpose of harassment. Rush Limbaugh calling on scientists to be drawn and quartered. It goes on and on. If you don't want scientist to have a siege mentality, you shouldn't besiege them.
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70. skywatcher at 03:04 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Don't think there's a strong correlation between PDO and global temperature. If you remove the trend in temperature there is a beter relationship... but hey, that's what McLean et al did. Trouble is, you're finding a relationship with the variability about the trend, rather than the trend itself (see Foster et al 2010). A better explanation on this very site! And of course, correlation is not causation...
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71. Philippe Chantreau at 03:31 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Chriscanaris early in this thread said "having heard a few things about the safety culture of a well known Australian airline from an engineer ostracised by its management." I hope this is not about Qantas. It would be a fine example of how facts and one disgruntled individual's view can not hold the same significance. Facts: The company has neither lost a jet airliner nor had any jet fatality, ever. To my knowledge, no other long established international jet operator can make such a claim. Total fatalities between the creation of the company and 1945 number 63, mostly owed to WWII and operational considerations in which safety did not have the same place. Total fatalities since WWII is 17, the last fatal accident was in 1951: a DHA-3, center propeller failure. This can be categorized as a design flaw; the prototype airplane had a similar accident in 1952. Despite such acccidents as the 1999 Thai landing, the facts clearly indicate that Qantas must be doing something right. Whatever the version of one disgruntled individual is, it can't be the full truth. The facts are still there. Kinda like with GW.
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72. werecow at 03:34 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Hmmm.... You get a cold reception, followed by increasingly heated arguments? I'm sorry, I'll try to do better next time.
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73. TruthSeeker at 06:01 AM on 23 July, 2010
    PC #72 I respectfully disagree, and so did the report following the official investigation of Climategate, as it expressed dissapointment in the siege mentality. "If you don't want scientist to have a siege mentality, you shouldn't besiege them" They weren't under siege, they had all the power and misused it. Debate is required, and it is entirely inappropreate to react in a retalitory way, by black listing scientist and threatining publications that produce papers that don't support your conclusions. If the Soon-Baliunas paper is so scientificly flawed than address it in the debate, but they didn't stop there. Furthermore, the fact that they didn't even do Peer Review on several of the claims made in the IPCC report, clearly shows that these scientist suffer from group think and have a big blind spot. This is truley not justifiable behaviour, I am supprised you would defind it. As a result they by there actions completely corrupted the integrety of the
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74. shawnhet at 06:30 AM on 23 July, 2010
    skywatcher:"Don't think there's a strong correlation between PDO and global temperature. If you remove the trend in temperature there is a beter relationship... but hey, that's what McLean et al did. Trouble is, you're finding a relationship with the variability about the trend, rather than the trend itself (see Foster et al 2010)." Well, that's the point isn't it? - whether changes in the *distribution* of heat on their own can affect temps without a change in forcing. I am not arguing that temp change isn't also forced. The fact that there may not be a trend in the PDO doesn't establish that the PDO does not affect temps. Cheers, :)
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75. scaddenp at 07:05 AM on 23 July, 2010
    HR - since you seem more familiar with "natural variation" hypotheses than me, can you explain how these theories account for the OHC record? Is there a creditable theory or just playing to the crowd?
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76. dhogaza at 07:32 AM on 23 July, 2010
    TruthSeeker seems to be saying that journals should publish every paper that's submitted, regardless of quality. Sorry, that's a non-starter.
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77. TruthSeeker at 08:12 AM on 23 July, 2010
    #77 - dhogaza, no that isn't what I am saying. I don't even know how you can suggest that. I am confused how my desire to have the scientist refrain from using threats and coerrsion aginst thoes that disagree with them could be interpreted that way.
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78. TruthSeeker at 08:14 AM on 23 July, 2010
    #77 dhogaza, Do you really want the use of threats, coerrsion, and censorship to be part of the "Peer Review" process? That isn't concensus, and it isn't science.
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79. Mangeclous at 08:14 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Thanks again for reassuring us Science-illiterate people in our trust for Science. :)
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80. John Russell at 08:34 AM on 23 July, 2010
    There's a popular denialist meme that those 3% of scientists who cannot accept that humans are heating the planet are today's Galileos, bravely standing up to persecution. The argument seems to be that because Galileo was subsequently proved right about the planets orbiting the sun, it somehow proves that all noble mavericks who argue against the consensus view must be right, by definition. This is an illogical argument, of course, because it fails to account for the huge number of scientists who challenged one consensus or another then were subsequently proved wrong -- and thus their names have been forgotten. So it's a complete red herring. It's yet more evidence that the deniers' favourite modus operandi is cherry-picking.
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81. TruthSeeker at 08:52 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Its Menne 2010 and the issue is covered on this site, which reports it as the end of the story. Menne 2010 The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process. Which is too bad, because the data was incomplete and uncontroled. Here is some of what Watts has said about the miss-use of his data. As for the Menne et all 2010 paper itself, I’m rather disturbed by their use of preliminary data at 43%, especially since I warned them that the dataset they had lifted from my website (placed for volunteers to track what had been surveyed, never intended for analysis) had not been quality controlled at the time. Plus there are really not enough good stations with enough spatial distribution at that sample size. They used it anyway, and amazingly, conducted their own secondary survey of those stations, comparing it to my non-quality controlled data, implying that my 43% data wasn’t up to par. Well of course it wasn’t! I told them about it and why it wasn’t. We had to resurvey and re-rate a number of stations from early in the project. .... Menne et al 2010 mentioned a “counterintuitive” cooling trend in some portions of the data. Interestingly enough, former California State Climatologist James Goodridge did an independent analysis ( I wasn’t involved in data crunchng, it was a sole effort on his part) of COOP stations in California that had gone through modernization, switching from Stevenson Screens with mercury LIG thermometers to MMTS electronic thermometers. He sifted through about 500 COOPs in California and chose stations that had at least 60 years of uninterrupted data, because as we know, a station move can cause all sorts of issues. He used the “raw” data from these stations as opposed to adjusted data. He writes: Hi Anthony, I found 58 temperature station in California with data for 1949 to 2008 and where the thermometers had been changed to MMTS and the earlier parts were liquid in glass. The average for the earlier part was 59.17°F and the MMTS fraction averaged 60.07°F. Jim A 0.9F (0.5C) warmer offset due to modernization is significant, yet NCDC insists that the MMTS units are tested at about 0.05C cooler. I believe they add this adjustment into the final data. Our experience shows the exact opposite should be done and with a greater magnitude. I hope to have this California study published here on WUWT with Jim soon. I realize all of this isn’t a complete rebuttal to Menne et al 2010, but I want to save that option for more detail for the possibility of placing a comment in The Journal of Geophysical Research. When our paper with the most current data is completed (and hopefully accepted in a journal), we’ll let peer reviewed science do the comparison on data and methods, and we’ll see how it works out. Could I be wrong? I’m prepared for that possibility. But everything I’ve seen so far tells me I’m on the right track.
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82. TruthSeeker at 08:56 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Watt's full list of issues with how Menne used his data, sounds like cherry picking to me. And excluding Watts from the Peer Reveiw process stinks of corruption. Watts
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83. KR at 09:05 AM on 23 July, 2010
    TruthSeeker - there's a thread here on just that topic, Watt and Menne 2010. You might find that interesting. I personally can't take Watt seriously unless he does some numeric analysis to demonstrate his point. I eagerly await a paper from him - if it appears. Until then it's anecdotes versus statistics, and I put more weight on actual statistics.
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84. TruthSeeker at 09:27 AM on 23 July, 2010
    KR #84 Thanks for the link, and I see that some of Watt's statements raise criticism and appear to be proven false. That, however, doesn't mean he is wrong about the data he collected. I don't see how his comments about his analysis of his own data are anecdotal (really, you can disagree with it but its not anecdotal). He should have been part of the Menne peer review team, and to exclude him is a corruption of the Peer Review process. I find it Hypocritical that Soon-Baliunas is considered "nonsense" based on how they used a data set contrary to the advice of the data generator, while Menne is given a pass for the same offense. Its self serving and stinks of corruption.
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85. TruthSeeker at 09:29 AM on 23 July, 2010
    KR #84 "Watt seriously unless he does some numeric analysis to demonstrate his point." He does in the link I provided, you should read it.
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86. KR at 09:50 AM on 23 July, 2010
    TruthSeeker - I read it. There's no analysis on Watt's part, just copies of other peoples graphs, complaints about 'station adjustments', and his personal issues with how Menne obtained the data. I still await a Watt's paper with actual analysis of temperature records. If he can show a problem based on station siting, or the UHI effect, more power to him. In the meantime, since the GISS data agrees with two different satellite data sets that have completely independent calibrations, and some independent surface records (can't find the link right now, but it involved a lot more data stations than GISS...), I believe the burden of proof is on Watts.
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87. Jeff Freymueller at 10:26 AM on 23 July, 2010
    TruthSeeker said: "The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process." No, it is not the normal peer review process. Reviewers need to be knowledgeable in the field, but there is not and has never been a requirement that whoever collected some data or made some classification of data/stations/whatever must be a reviewer of any paper that uses it. In fact, that is rarely the case, and repeating this claim will not make it true. Watts is welcome to submit a comment on Menne et al., and if he is able to point out substantive errors in Menne et al., then I'm sure it would be published. But I agree with KR (#83 and #86), he simply hasn't done it or even come close.
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88. dhogaza at 10:52 AM on 23 July, 2010
    "The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process. " Splurf ... TruthSeeker, if I were drinking coffee when reading your post, you'd owe me a keyboard. There's no polite way to say this: you don't know what you're talking about. And chastising journal editors for publishing crap is perfectly acceptable, as is boycotting journals that publish crap. Because scientists publishing in a journal have their careers judged in large part by their publication record, and if a journal they publish in starts getting a reputation for publishing crap, their reputation will to some degree sink along with the journals. So if "Nature" or "Science" started publishing "scholarly" papers supporting astrology or homeopathy, legit science would react violently against the editorial staff for allowing such crap into the journals' pages. And rightly so.
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89. dhogaza at 10:53 AM on 23 July, 2010
    "Watt's full list of issues with how Menne used his data, sounds like cherry picking to me." Wrong fruit - I think you meant sour grapes ...
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90. Philippe Chantreau at 10:57 AM on 23 July, 2010
    Watts is not qualifed to review the Menne paper or anything with somewhat advanced maths. He finds averaging percentages a good enough procedure to keep a post in it on his site. WUWT is the place where carbonic snow on Earth had to be debated as a serious possibility. The "threat and coercion" BS is total bunk too. If it was really happening (which it isn't), how could you find in the litterature such stinkers as G&T or Carter et al, whose lack of quality alone is ground for rejection? As for the Soon/Baliunas thing, it led to the resignation in protest of most of the editorial board, including Von Storch, who is a rather independent thinking guy. The way that this is spun around by the deception artists in the denialosphere would be amusing if it didn't sway so many people. I listed a few of the real threats and attempts at coercion out there. WUWT's outing of scientists' places of work and incitation to harass them is a prime example. McIntyre's abuse of FOI requests is equally shameful.
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91. Marcus at 13:42 PM on 23 July, 2010
    Truth Seeker (what an ironic name), can you provide *proof* that any threats or coercion were used by Climate Scientists to prevent anti-AGW people from getting published? Sure they might have said what they *wanted* to do-in private e-mails to friends & colleagues-but that doesn't mean they *actually* do it. If I'm feeling angry about someone, I'll sometimes say "I'm going to kill that guy"! Doesn't mean I'm guilty of murder though. This is why so many of us treat the climate-gate fiasco as such a joke, because the real *crime* was that someone hacked into the computers of a research facility-not what people said, in e-mails, in the heat of the moment. Seeing Papers like those of MacLean get published suggests that, if anything, publications are being TOO SOFT on the anti-AGW crowd-by holding them to a much lower standard. Perhaps they do it so as to stop the Denialists from crying out that their voice isn't being heard, & that its all a conspiracy. Problem is that it HASN'T WORKED, & the denialists still cry CONSPIRACY!
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92. gallopingcamel at 14:43 PM on 23 July, 2010
    While I believe that mankind does influence the global climate, via aerosols and CO2 emissions, the size of the effect is much smaller than the IPCC wants us to believe. If John Cook had asked "What percentage of scientists do not believe in the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming?", the answer might have come out rather differently. The answer to this question would likely be 97% non-believers and only 3% believers. See the article below: http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/07/18/97-of-scientists-do-not-believe-in-the-theory-of-catastrophic-man-made-global-warming/
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93. scaddenp at 14:58 PM on 23 July, 2010
    "While I believe that mankind does influence the global climate, via aerosols and CO2 emissions, the size of the effect is much smaller than the IPCC wants us to believe." And what is the evidential basis of this belief?
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94. kdkd at 17:57 PM on 23 July, 2010
    gallopingcamel #92 Please use the Skeptical Science List of Arguments to see how many of the points in the mensnewsdaily article you cited are clearly the result of credulity or dishonesty on the part of the author. I got two paragraphs in and already spotted two discredited arguments before I gave up. If after that, you find it's published something with any credibility whatsoever, please do come back and enlighten us. Repeating dishonesty however does not make them magically come true.
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95. skywatcher at 19:06 PM on 23 July, 2010
    #74 - shawnhet, your last sentence does not make any sense. There's a huge difference between distribution of heat and addition of heat. One can cause a long-term change in a system, the other can't.
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96. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:57 PM on 23 July, 2010
    I agree to the consensus - for convenience - if it does not slow down (necessary in the scientific process) the process of falsification - skeptical "treatment" theory of AGW. “Also, even if AGW was disproved tomorrow, I'd still argue for a reduced reliance on fossil fuels on the basis of *general* pollution & resource sustainability!” The current problem is in how fast warming will proceed (called "second floor"). If very fast (here, I believe that will not be collected up to 50 "white" scientists in the room - so minded), the major resources should be allocated to the CCS (there is no other way to the rapid reduction of CO2). If we're wrong - is the money will be lost ... If the warming will be slower (and it is much more than he wants IPCC), we should (mostly) spend money on alternative energy sources - it's never hurt us. As noted by Marcus, fossil fuels have many other serious defects. So I agree - I am the "white" in the room. I'll have less problems with getting money for research. And the truth, and so once ... But if I am to be fair to the arguments of those who say: "for the current warming corresponds to the natural cycle of warming, much more than the IPCC says - convincing me. These are often carried out very precisely, logical processes of evidence.
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97. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:00 PM on 23 July, 2010
    @Chris „Natural internal variations (e.g. ocean currents like the PDO/AMO) can pretty much only redistributed heat.” “But one would have to conjure up some rather extraordinary thermodynamic arguments to satisfy a notion of persistent accumulation of heat into the climate system by internal variations!” This is not the whole truth. AMO affects the accumulation of energy in the oceans, water vapor content in the atmosphere (the main greenhouse gas), albedo (the desert - and the increasing amount of dust in the atmosphere - such as the Sahara - in the negative phase of the AMO - the vast ash cloud reaching up to America; positive AMO - a significant drop in the number and extent of dust and surface area of the Sahara and the duration of the retention period of snow, keeping the leaves on the plants, the growing season, etc.), ENSO - including water vapor and the quantity of sea (plankton) sulfurous cloud condensation nuclei - the clouds ... - I probably not omitted anything important ... Subsequent cycles of AMO, PDO are different in time (duration: 50 - 90 years) and the range of the temperature anomalies. We are talking about the so-called: cyclical occurrence of extreme El Nino .... Even the IPCC report, in assessing these factors, it is said has a huge range of uncertainty ...
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98. Philippe Chantreau at 22:55 PM on 23 July, 2010
    "If we're wrong - is the money will be lost ... " Well, that was the modus operandi for a while with the world's banking industry and Wall Street. Funny enough, it still is to a large extent, even though they were wrong. We might as well try it with the energy industry, at least there would be a bunch of good reasons to do so.
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99. batsvensson at 23:28 PM on 23 July, 2010
    What is the definition of a 'climate scientists'?
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100. TruthSeeker at 00:51 AM on 24 July, 2010
     #88 "The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process. " Splurf ... TruthSeeker, if I were drinking coffee when reading your post, you'd owe me a keyboard. There's no polite way to say this: you don't know what you're talking about." Maybe so, I didn't fully research that before I posted it. That, however, doesn't undermine the argument that Watt's makes regarding the quality of data that Menne used. In fact it is the same argument that undermine the Soon paper. I find it self serving to claim its bad for Soon but not for Menne. Like you all have said, I too am curious to see if Watt's gets a paper published. That being said, non of you point to where Watt's criticism of Menne's paper isn't valid. All you do is ad hominid attacks on his credibility, but you don't address the argument that Menne's paper is flawed based on a skewed and uncontrolled dataset.
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