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Comments 38801 to 38850:

  1. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Another analogy... I can "sample" a spoonful of the soup to get a rational estimation on whether I would like to have a full bowl of it for lunch. It's very unlikely that, once I sample it, the rest of the soup is going to taste substantially different.

    The sample of 1200 researchers is something akin to eating a full bowl of the soup to estimate the taste of the full pot back in the kitchen. It's extremely unlikely we're going to have a nice bowl of cream of potato and then go back to the kitchen and find it came from a pot of french onion soup.

  2. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut...  I have to ask, do you understand the idea of "sampling?"

    You don't have to test every last bit of the ocean to see if it is salty. You can make a reasonable estimation of ocean salinity by taking very small samples.

  3. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    And Vonnegut said, "You seem to be convinced that all climate scientists would say man was the cause but many havent had an opportunity to have any input either way."

    When you have a sampling of 1200 researchers you are virtually guaranteed to have captured the dominant positions on the issue. Any position that might have slipped through such a large sampling is going to be an extreme minority position.

    It's just a basic fact that you do not have to ask every single last person their position in order to understand the dominant conclusions.

  4. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut said, "would you believe the theory of gravity if only 10% of scientists studying gravity agreed with it?"

    Do you require a vote by every single scientist stating their position on gravity in order to believe the theory?

    If you did a sampling of 10% of scientists (a huge portion, by the way) then I would definitely trust that as being representative of the scientific community overall.

  5. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    And you, Vonnegut, don't seem to understand that only a handful of those 30,000 actually perform attribution studies.  In other words, the opinion of the rest--whatever it means--is just as meaningful as those who did answer the surveys or engage in assessing their own work.  

    Note that no one of any of the minorities in any of the studies has actually produced an attribution study that counters the "more than 50% since 1950" claim.  In other words, that position has no scientific basis. 

  6. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonegut,

    As others have said but you will not hear there is a complete census of scientific opinion about AGW.  It is called the IPCC report.  Every scientist in the world is allowed to contribute.  That report is reviewed by every government in the world and the summary is approved word by word.  How could you get a more consensus document??  Even the oil producing countries accept the result.  There is no other science that has a comparable document summarizing what the scientists feel.  If anything, the IPCC document is too conservative since it must be approved by oil governments.

    Pleae suggest how you would be satisified by a survey of scientists that is not already done in the IPCC report.

  7. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    @292 would you believe the theory of gravity if only 10% of scientists studying gravity agreed with it?

  8. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    @291

    If you're truly concerned that the 97% figure does not reflect the actual science, by all means do engage the science on attribution.

    Im not saying it doesnt reflect the science Im saying it doesnt reflect all climate scientists views.

    You seem to be convinced that all climate scientists would say man was the cause but many havent had an opportunity to have any input either way.

  9. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    And how many of those 30,000 would it take to convince you, Vonnegut?  If 29,000 responded, and 97% of those agreed with the IPCC assessment?  20,000?  15,000?  

  10. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    What Rob says, Vonnegut.  

    The consensus studies--those that are simple opinion surveys (not Cook et al.)--are performed in part to counter the idea that no consensus exists.  That idea is spread by people who have not read the work on attribution.  I've directly confronted at least 150 people who have made that "no consensus" claim publicly.  Not one attempted to defend their claims with science.  Not one.  Yes, they did say things like "It's volcanoes" or "It's the sun," but they couldn't provide a single reference.  Many provided links to "sciencey" blogs like WUWT, blogs designed (and paid) to sway public opinion rather than advance the science.

    So the consensus studies may be "mularky" as far as their use as actual evidence for anthropogenic global warming goes, but they do serve a role in communicating the science to those members of the general public who have not the time, energy, training, means, and/or motivation to engage the actual science.

    If you're truly concerned that the 97% figure does not reflect the actual science, by all means do engage the science on attribution.  You'll find that the IPCC conclusions are actually conservative: humans are responsible for close to 100% of the warming since 1950.

    Without engaging the science, it's easy to stand back and be incredulous.  Guffaw to your heart's content, but if you want to be right, you'll need to actually stick your head in paper or two.  I think you'll find people here more than willing to be open minded about the science if you're actually discussing the science.

  11. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Rob why do you keep mentioning 97% it only has relevence if you know how many people is involves. 'Your' 97% doesnt mean 97% of climate scientists does it? I believe there are 30,000 scientists involved in the climate field.

  12. airscottdenning at 05:10 AM on 4 February 2014
    Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    Here's another "proof" that's very simple: weknow the greenhouse effect is there because we can survive at night!

    If the ground temperature at sundown in summer is 60 F (about 15 C or 288 Kelvin), then by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law it is emitting sigma * T^4 = 6.67e-8 * (288)^4 = 390 Watts per square meter.  If this cooling were felt through a 10 cm thick layer of soil, the ground temperature would cool by 75 Kelvin over 8 hours of darkness, reaching -60 C (-78 F) by morning.

    Luckily for us CO2 and water vapor molecules in the air emit infrared radiation downward at over 300 Watts per square meter, so we can survive night on Earth!

    To be fair, only the really wacky fringe actually deny that CO2 emits heat. But I have actually met a few, and of course the original post links to some of these claims.  

  13. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut...  Hypothetical situation: Your friend goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with cancer. He's referred to an oncologist. The oncologist says, "Here is the treatment I recommend. This treatment is what is recommended by 97% of practising oncologists."

    Doctors regularly recommend treatments that are based on the consensus of the current research. No vote is taken. Some researchers even disagree on the treatment they would recommend. But based on a thorough reading of the existing research, there is a "consensus position" on how treatment should be approached.

    Does that mean the 97% is "mullarky (sic)?"

    If you take the time to read a sampling of the existing research, you will find that nearly all the published research agrees that humans are the primary cause of the warming of the past ~50 years. 

    It's just a fact.

  14. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    Read the paper linked to in the comment.

  15. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Yes.  It would have been difficult.  It is difficult.  Many scientists see this sort of project as catering to the whimsy of a handful of conspiracy nuts.

    And you dont think they think the same with this 97% mullarky?

  16. Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    Given that, as already said, it's rather difficult to write anything that will convince a skeptic, I keep on mulling whether it's possible to build some sort of `greenhouse room' that could be used in science museums to illustrate the effect. Can someone actually able to do the science sums tell me if this is nonsense? I have a feeling you'd need lots of other factors like cold enough co2...

    Would it be possible to have: (a) the bottom half of a 20 foot high ceiling room open to people via a door (with air controls, see below); (b) the top half a sealed container with two separate compartments, one containing the same air mix as the room itself, the other pure co2? Each part could be moved over the room, hiding the other, with some powerful light source above it. The floor of the room could be something that's reflecting back more of the IR. (You'd also need to carefully define the in-out flow of air to the room itself so you're not suffocating people while also allowing for a predictable change in temps as the IR bouncing back heats things up).

    What would it take for that to show a measurable effect? Given I don't much know what I'm talking about, are there are other similar room setups that might allow people to directly experience the effect of a CO2 blanket on the air temp of the room they're in? (If I were being cruel, I'd quite like one where skeptics who claim no such effect exist could be put in one where the temp could be raised to 60C this way...)

    Of course, I suppose if you build such a thing, skeptics would simply say "the atmosphere's completely different, don't be silly". As a general rule, though, it'd be targetting sensible waverers to innoculate them against FUD, not skeptics themselves, who are beyond our aid I suspect.

  17. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut: "Would it have been so hard to get the whole scientific community involved in climate research to vote on what they thought? and then publish the results?"

    Yes.  It would have been difficult.  It is difficult.  Many scientists see this sort of project as catering to the whimsy of a handful of conspiracy nuts.  It's a waste of time.  How much research work has been done just to provide a response to the fake skepticism generated by the highly successful rhetorical project of the Heartland Institute, SPPI, GWPF, CA, WUWT, FoS, and other opinion-shaping organizations?  Too much.

    If you want a summary of the science, go to the summary of the science: IPCC AR5 WG1 -- composed by 300+ unpaid scientists, experts in their fields.  

  18. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut, you want a consensus and you don't accept the existing attempts to establish one.  The best place to go to find a consensus is one which summarizes the existing science--not the existing opinion.  The 5th IPCC Assessment Report does that.  It references several thousand publications directly, and thousands more indirectly.  

    Have you read the attribution studies that form the basis of the claim that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years is human-sourced?  Do you understand that anyone who provided a response for the Cook et al. study--and other "consensus" studies--was not required to have read the existing literature on attribution?  Nor was anyone required to give evidence for their answers.  The ~3% may not have read a single attribution study.  Are you willing to blindly trust that ~3%?  Or are you trying to point out that a consensus study has limitations?  

    If so, then duh.  That's why you go to the science itself.  If you don't understand the science, then you're at the mercy of opinion-makers.  If you have no basis for trusting or mistrusting the 3% or the 97% or whatever %, then how is it that you are able to generate a dismissive attitude?

    If you do have science-based reasons for doubting the clear consensus of evidence (represented in IPCC AR5), then bring it (to the appropriate thread).  If you can't, then at least have the integrity to recognize that you can't.

  19. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut @283...

    You're making a really common error about the project. The Concensus Project was not about the opinions of scientists, it was a project researching the positions of research papers (or their abstracts). 

    TCP is saying that 97% of published research agrees with AGW. It's not making a claim about the opinions of the researchers. 

    It's an important distinction.

  20. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    I would add here, TCP asking researchers to self-rate their papers was an act in self skepticism. We went though and rated these 12,000 papers but who was to say that we were not biased in our ratings? We asked ourselves that question (unlike Vonnegut here). So, to test that, we asked for self-ratings.

    What would have happened if the self-ratings had been significantly different that the TCP ratings? I have to admit, I was a little nervous about that potential outcome. We would have had to report that finding. If we had found 97% in our ratings and then found a figure significantly lower with self-ratings... that would have been an existential crisis for SkS.

    While it wasn't an unexpected result that our ratings agreed with researchers' self-fatings, it was certainly a confirmation that we were doing things right.

  21. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    @280 its not for me to do anything, I was highlighting what others say about the 97% looking fishy.

    Would it have been so hard to get the whole scientific community involved in climate research to vote on what they thought? and then publish the results?

    It 'looks' like the elephants have just been asked if they would like a bunshop closer to the zoo.

  22. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    What you may not understand is, the response rate of 15% is a huge number. Most voter polls are considered robust when they have far below a 1% response rate of registered voters.

    Indeed, I seem to recall Nate Silver at the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog used aggregates of such polls to very accurately predict the outcomes of a majority of US elections (including the Presidential election and several Congressional elections) in the fall of 2012.

  23. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut - "...who am I to argue with it?"

    You appear to be someone who strongly dislikes the conclusion of this and similar surveys - that those who spend time studying the subject find the evidence for anthropogenic global warming to be convincing. Unfortunately, wishing otherwise doesn't make it so - and neither does recycling arguments repeatedly demonstrated to be erroneous in this and other discussions. See the previous 280 comments...

  24. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut...  What you may not understand is, the response rate of 15% is a huge number. Most voter polls are considered robust when they have far below a 1% response rate of registered voters.

    I'd venture to guess you're not really interested in the truth here. If you were, though, you could easily just try to test the results yourself. Pull up your own list of published research. Rate the abstracts. Tally them up. See what your results are. You certainly don't need to do 12,000 of them to get a statistically significant sampling. A few hundred papers should more than adequately prove the results.

  25. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Youve got your much misquoted headline figure who am I to argue with it?

  26. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut - Papers on aerodynamics don't restate the density of air in every publication. Nor do astrophysicists rederive the inverse square rule of gravity on a daily basis, nor articles on dentistry recapitulate tooth decay in every journal. 

    As was stated in a recent court case“This is how science works. The E.P.A. is not required to reprove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question.” No need to reinvent the wheel. 

    97% of those abstracts and those surveyed scientists who expressed an opinion agree with the basic principles of AGW, and that we are the cause of most of the recent warming. Perhaps 3% argue to the contrary. If you wish to support for your (obvious) disagreement with the generally understood anthropogenic basis of climate change, then you would need a lot more material than those 3% have supplied. 

  27. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    @274 you asked 8500 authors and 1200 scientists responded? , just 15% responded? and of those 15%, 97% supported AGW.

    Ok thas clear now. 1164 supported AGW and what about the rest the 6300 ?

  28. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Michael Sweet wrote: "The data to support the 97% number is overwhelming."

    Though it is interesting to note how the result changes over time. For example, the OP gets 97% from a study of papers written 1991 to 2011. The separate study I linked covered November 2012 through December 2013 and found 99.9% agreement. On the other hand, if you go back to Arrhenius in 1896 then AGW was almost universally rejected.

    It seems likely that there has been a fairly smooth progression of climate scientist views from near 100% rejection in 1896 to near 100% acceptance in 2013 as the evidence has piled up. Public understanding is another matter entirely, because too many consider the latest weather report valid evidence upon which to base their views.

  29. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut says: "I realise I wont get the answer im looking for here"

     

    ...reminds me of Doctor Who takling with the Tardis, in the episode "The Doctor's Wife":

    The Doctor: You know, since we're talking with mouths—not really an opportunity that comes along very often—I just want to say, you know you have never been very reliable.

    Idris: And you have?

    The Doctor: You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.

    Idris: No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

    The Doctor: You did.

     

    Although Vonnegut is accusing scientist of only wanting to accept information that backs up their theories, it seems pretty clear that Vonnegut is the one that has preconceived notions of what constitutes an acceptable answer.

  30. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    vonnegut,

    The simple numbers you ask for are clearly specified in the OP.  If you have no interest in learning why are you so angy about the answers you are given?

    The OP states:

    "As an independent test of the measured consensus, we also emailed over 8,500 authors and asked them to rate their own papers using our same categories. The most appropriate expert to rate the level of endorsement of a published paper is the author of the paper, after all. We received responses from 1,200 scientists who rated a total of over 2,100 papers. Unlike our team's ratings that only considered the summary of each paper presented in the abstract, the scientists considered the entire paper in the self-ratings."

    1200 scientists gave self ratings.  About 97% of the self ratings were supportative of AGW theory.  Just because you are not interested in reading the data does not mean that everyone else does not read the OP.

    The data to support the 97% number is overwhelming.  Your complaining about this number indicates that you are not interested in the data and are only trying to score political points..

  31. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Just simple numbers is all I ask how many scientists were asked and how many said yes how many said no. 97% is a meaningless number if the truth isnt told. How many times is it misquoted as 97% of all scientists agree. It looks like its been dont to generate a headline, yes it did that but it still looks disingenuous.

    Perhaps if you wanted the truth you would have been better to poll all scientists, you know all those who believe in gravity?

  32. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut, can you list the critical/essential papers not referenced directly or indirectly (1-2 levels) in IPCC AR5 WG1?  

    Your statement is odd.  You claim to want an "answer," but you do not accept the answer given.  You then claim that SkS is unscientific.  You either know the answer you want to hear (but refuse to provide evidence for such an answer), or you never did want to hear the answer.  Not very skeptical of you.  Kurt is rolling in his grave.

  33. Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating

    Rob Painting (and others who responded).

    After my comment @7, I did an eye-watering search of images to be sure I wasn't missing the obvious-- no luck, so let me elaborate on what I'm looking for.

    The myth about 'trapped' or 'excluded' heat energy in the ocean relies on confusing people about the most basic facts and physics principles.

    What I would like to see is a series of illustrations or animation that emphasize

    1) That what is being transported is water at some temperature T1(not 'heat')

    2) That when it is mechanically forced by your gyres to a lower stratum, which is above water at T3, it displaces the water at that stratum upward, which is at some T2, <T1 but >T3.

    3) That this is a continuous process, so we are really seeing a vertical circulation, where the original surface water is going to reach an equilibrium T2a (dependent on turbulence), but which is >T2, and it will eventuall be diplaced upwards as well.

    Now, that's my non-specialist understanding, which I'm happy to have corrected in the main (I know it's simplistic). But for this (and other) mechanisms, for the hypothetical naive but open-minded reader, a clear picture should do a much better job than all my words.

    The problem is, all the pictures I can find tend to support the mythological position; in attempting to portray the various vertical changes in a single, static, image, they create this illusion that the temperature changes but the water remains in place. Hence my reference to "caloric theory"-- that's what the pictures remind me of.

     

  34. Climate's changed before

    Vonnegut, of course my answer was only about the really short term in versus out of CO2 from the oceans.  Over longer periods, other processes remove "CO2" (really, the chemical byproducts of CO2) from the ocean into sediments.  That is covered by the OA is Not OK series, and also by other posts such as the place of that process in the even longer period cycling through the crust--explained in "Understanding the long-term carbon-cycle: weathering of rocks - a vitally important carbon-sink."

  35. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    The atmospheric greenhouse effect has been confirmed in theory, experiment, and empirical measurement for a century and a half. Why should every climate scientist, down to the present day, try to disprove it? Why waste time in their short careers trying to publish a "we tried to disprove the greenhouse effect and failed again" paper?

    Methinks, Vonnegut, you are setting up an impossible expectation for rhetorical, rather than scientific, purposes.

  36. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    I thought as a scientists youre supposed to start out to dispove a theory, not decide the result then find the papers to back up your theory.

    I realise I wont get the answer im looking for here

  37. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

    The pic below is of a pteropod (sea butterfly) captured from waters around Antarctica recently:

    I dont see a ph reading do you happen to know how alkaline the water was where this pterapod was collected??

  38. Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    Damn it bjchip, I'm a scientist not a linguist. Thanks for the catch, correction made.

    There have been so many articles devoted to explaining the greenhouse effect. What I hoped to get across here was how thsoe who don't like it have completely failed to present any explanation for the spectral measurements. Aside from denying that these measurements exist or are possible.

  39. Climate's changed before

    Vonnegut:  Not necessarily.  Oceans always release CO2 and absorb CO2--both processes.  Oceans are able to hold less CO2 the warmer they are.  Whether the net effect is more CO2 in than out depends not only on the temperature but on the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2--how much CO2 is in the air.

  40. Climate's changed before

    So If I understand this correctly, Co2 is released from the oceans with extra heat so the oceans will become more alkaline, or more acid if it gets colder and more co2 is dissolved in the oceans?

  41. Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    "it has been attached using loads of"

     

    perhaps "attacked" ???

  42. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Sorry, messed up the link;

    http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/startling-number-scientists-dispute-human-caused-global-warming-20140122

  43. Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut wrote: "Will there ever be a basic break down of how many climate scientists actually disagree and how many actually agree and the total climate scientists involved in proving AGW true or false?"

    Sure. That's been done for various years. See here for the most recent.

  44. Climate's changed before

    Vonnegut @395.

    Question 21 on the web page you link to doesn't provide the best answer in the world but the whole exercise is trying to be attractive to kids at the same time as keeping to the straight and narrow. (Thus Question 4. Do people farts contribute to climate change, too?) And it does fail to answer some questions it poses (eg Question 7) despite answers being readily presentable.

    Question 21 is in error by failing to differentiate between CO2 uptake into the oceans (which is mainly a temperature thing) and the transfer of that CO2 into the deep oceans (which is better understood than is suggested by the question). But this isn't the sort of detail you would expect to throw at kids. I see no case for classing it as "misinformation".

    BTW, thank you for the demonstration of how my cold oceans question works with deniers.

  45. Climate's changed before

    Vonnegut, I'm not sure why you would think that might be "misinformation". The only part I'd question is, "How and why CO2 gets stored and released from the deep oceans is something scientists are still working on." It is well established that colder water absorbs more CO2. I suspect what they are questioning is how the CO2 then gets mixed into the deep ocean, but I'd think that would happen inevitably happen over time... leaving the relevant mechanism just the warming and cooling of the water itself.

  46. Climate's changed before

    This for me highlights one major problem for sceptics and parents

     

    As the planet cools into an ice age, CO2 is transported to the deep oceans, helping to cool the planet.  As the planet again warms at the end of an ice age, this CO2 is released from the oceans into the atmosphere, helping the warming process along.  How and why CO2 gets stored and released from the deep oceans is something scientists are still working on.  Increased wind, driving more ocean circulation and changes in marine algae that take in CO2 may be parts of the process.

     

    From this 'educational' site

    Does this class as misinformation?

  47. Models are unreliable

    Vonnegut @666:

    1)  Antarctica does not have a simple climate, not even in relative terms.

    2)  Quoting a 2004 interview and assuming comments made regarding models in 2004 are relevant now represents a specious argument.  If you cannot find a relevant modern quote, your Find a relevant modern quote or your questions are without basis.

  48. Models are unreliable

    Thank you @665 Tom

    Global climate computer model predictions of how the Antarctic climate may change over the next 100 years differ in detail from model to model. Most models, however, indicate relatively modest temperature increases around Antarctica over the next 50 years. Over this time period, the models predict increased snowfall over Antarctica, which should more than compensate for increased melting of Antarctic ice. However, many natural processes occurring in the Antarctic are not well represented in present climate models and further research is needed to improve our confidence in these predictions

    This link

    I just find it odd that being a simple climate in relative terms that its not easier to model.

  49. Doug Hutcheson at 18:07 PM on 3 February 2014
    Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

    Vonnegut @ 266

    1. No, I meant what I wrote, not what you wish I had written.
    2. There will always be people with different views and that is a precious part of the scientific milieu. A few of the 3% may be committed to denial before reason (just as a few of the 'pro-' crowd might be swayed by ideology), but the majority would arrive at their positions through reasonable, logical extrapolation from the results of their experiments and research. Only those who have the facts before them and yet deny their meaning (or even their existence) deserve to be in the rogues gallery, as you put it. The number of papers contradicting the AGW theory, published in expert, peer-reviewed journals is vanishingly small. If you disagree with this, where is your supporting research?
  50. Doug Hutcheson at 17:54 PM on 3 February 2014
    Why rainbows and oil slicks help to show the greenhouse effect

    Like Andrew Mclaren, I am not a scientist (poet here ...), but I agree that this is a useful article to be able to link to. Sadly, the committed denialospheroids will dismiss it as just more spin and claim it has been 'widely discredited' (though so far they have been curiously unable to point to the scientific papers discrediting anything about which they make this claim). Neverthless, I will gladly add this arrow to my quiver of links to post in rebuttal of denialist comments on other sites I haunt, such as The Conversation, on the basis that any ambivalent people reading such a thread of comments need to be pointed to reliable information, to counter the ridiculous denialospheroid claims.

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