Climate Change – Another Asymmetric Dialogue

George Rebane

Bjorn Lomborg is an internationally recognized and much published environmentalist.  He even believes that AGW is a factor in climate change.  Recently he wrote an article that was critical of President Obama’s inaugural “three horsemen of the climate apocalypse” listed as the "devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms".  The astute reader knows that there have been no such increases in fires, droughts, and storms with which the Left likes to decorate its calls for greater government control of everything under the sun.

And Lomborg does a fine job of again summarizing the data on all this.  But that is not what I want to talk about.  The vagaries of the climate change data and its in/correct interpretations have been argued for years by qualified scientists and technically savvy bloggers (locally by Russ Steele and Anthony Watts).  What I want to reprise is how substantive reports on issues – here about the misinformation spewed by AGW True Believers – are treated in today’s polarized public debate.

Lomborg’s assertion concludes, “Fear-mongering exaggeration about effects of global warming distracts us from finding affordable and effective energy alternatives.”  As an AGW skeptic I wholeheartedly agree with that.  Unfortunately, fear-mongering is the only stock in trade that the Left has for making its collectivist policies palatable to the general public, even if it means outright misrepresentation of the record.   But more important, it is the asymmetry of how the debate is conducted that makes the fear-mongering stick.

The skeptics of any such larger government control policy will respond with data, studies, and analyses based on reason and an open look at the science involved.  The predictable and inevitable response from the collectivists is a total silence on the substance of the skeptics’ argument.  Instead, their return is a volley against the individual skeptics, their supposed sponsoring moneyed interests, or at best the citing of some form of consensus that purports to oppose or invalidate the skeptic’s argument.  The consensus cited is usually of some group of scientists, physicians, lawyers, …, all the way to public opinion polls.  In short, what comes back is a reference to a previous conclusion that does not address the most recent substance of the matter, instead using that previous conclusion as a premise for reasserting its truth.

This circling of the same barn, with the same type of responses from the Left, is technically known as begging the question.   In such a go around, for whatever the issue may be, the Right then busily goes back to the drawing board, digs up more data, cranks up another compelling analysis of that, and presents its case.  And again, the Left’s response is the same old same old.

But the Left’s response has an advantage with the rank and file audience – it requires no deeper understanding of the numbers, processes, and logic that sustains the skeptic’s case.  Specifically, understanding the Left’s response requires a skill set first developed in kindergarten, and then honed in the primary grades.  The result is what we have in Washington today as recently epitomized by SecState Clinton’s “What does it matter?”  Easily three out of four Americans would accept that counter charge because they could not give the correct answer to Clinton's question which successfully parried the inquiry about how our government prepared for and responded to the attack on our Benghazi consulate.  And so goes the larger debate for the benefit of the sheeple.

Comments

[Russ Steele]

Found on Watts Up With That this morning.
I am James Lovelock, scientist and author, known as the originator of Gaia theory, a view of the Earth that sees it as a self-regulating entity that keeps the surface environment always fit for life… I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation. – Bishop Hill,  James Lovelock, 12 December 2012 (in a letter noted by Phillip Bratby)
Here is yet again another example of how the left took the good intentions of an environmentalist and used it as a weapon in their quest for power over the sheeple.

Link to WUWT: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/26/newsbytes-global-warming-downgraded-james-lovelock-recants/

Link to Bishop Hill and full Love Lock Letter: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/1/25/lovelock-recants.html

[Jesus Betterman]

An ice cube at 32 degrees. A puddle of water as that ice cube melts, is still at 32 degrees. Basic truth from high school physics and chemistry. But a lot of heat went into melting that ice. With the evidence of all the ice melting all around the planet, even though the temps may appear to be remaining the same, the absolute heat content of the planet as a whole may well be increasing, at least on the part we know as the biosphere. Time to put away the thermometers and start counting calories.

[Russ Steele]

Pew Poll: Deficit Reduction Rises on Public's Agenda for Obama's Second Term

. . . as Obama begins his second term, only the economy and jobs are viewed as more important priorities for the coming year. Currently, 72% say that reducing the budget deficit should be a top priority, up 19 points from four years ago.
ooo
Dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom of the public’s priority list. Just 28% say it should be a top priority for the president and Congress, little changed from 2012.

Obama puts the least important issue of the American people at the top of his priority list. This is not going to work out very well for Obama or the American people

[Account Deleted]

George - I think you do have Doug on the payroll. He is always so quick to jump in with proof to back up your posts.
"With the evidence of all the ice melting all around the planet, even though the temps may appear to be remaining the same..."
I thought increased temps were 'settled science'? Now there is none. What a difference a day makes. Ice melting? Yes, that pesky sheet of ice that covered North America is gone. And what of the glaciers that are increasing in size? They don't count? Bjorn Lomborg believes in AGM, yet is vilified by the greens. Why? Because he also is educated in history and economics and is not burdened by hatred and bigotry. He understands that free market capitalism is the best way to afford that which is needed to take care of our planet including the humans that inhabit the planet.

[Jesus Betterman]

Scott (9:53 am), which glaciers increasing in size where, and what is their volume as compared to those that are disappearing?

[Gregory]

Scott, Bjorn Lomborg did a great job of demonstrating that, even if one accepted the IPCC's conclusions and restricted carbon, spending trillions world wide, all that would be gained is a delay of a few months of the high temps the IPCC was forecasting. Better to take that money and do what humans have been doing for thousands of millenia... adapt to whatever the climate is doing.

Even the US Warmist-in-Chief, the showman James Hansen of NASA-GISS, has published recently that yes, the five year running average of world temps has been flat for the past decade.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/01/16/hansen-on-the-standstill/#more-10934

Wait until we actually have a cooling trend; the alarmists at Stanford will dust off their ice age scares from the '70's and be at it again.

[Russ Steele]

JB@10:20

Check the charts in this document on page E-31: http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386e/alps.pdf

Alps glaciers are advancing.

[Walt]

Dougy,,, ya' might want to check on those Himalayan glaciers that
were supposed to be all gone by now. Please do so personally, so there will be no doubt in your mind about their current state of being.

So... Some don't like the idea of a warmer Earth, and would LOVE to see a return of Alaska type climate to good ol' Ca. .
( I guess they don't remember when we had close to five feet
of snow 20 or so years ago in downtown GV. NC, had close to six.
And these geniuses want to see that all Winter, Every Winter.

If Man, can influence " climate" ,, prove it by stopping drought right here in Ca. First. All you need to do is control the high and low air pressure over the Pacific, and be able to kick the Polar Jet stream up or down as we see fit.

Hell,, The ECO conspiracy nuts think that network of radio towers up North can do it, just by turning up the kilowatts on their radio transmitters.

" Man can do this,, man can do that,,, yadda, yadda, yadda.....

How long ago did people with the same ECO mindset, think stopping all forest fires was in the forests best interests, when the exact opposite is true?

" OOOPPPSS!! ya' we were slightly mistaken, But THIS time we KNOW we are right. Never mind evidence to the contrary, and most of our claims have blown up in our faces,,, But we just know we got it right today."

I have a huge library of what was considered " facts" when they were printed. ( National Geographic) you can pick any old issue
and find what they believed as fact then, isn't so today.

If you happen to have in your possession one of the first five issues
of NG,, let me know. Those are the ones I'm missing from my collection. ( if you have #1, don't bother. I could NEVER afford that one.)

[Jesus Betterman]

And the volume of the Alps, French, Swiss, German, Austrian, and Italian advances compare how to the losses in Greenland, Antarctica, and the American glaciers?

My rough understanding of the dynamics is that global warming warmed up enough of Greenland such that runoff as screwed with the climate of Europe, as the Gulf stream has been diverted to the poles. The gulf stream used to be a warming factor for Europe.

[Walt]

LOL Dougy,,, the Himalayan glaciers were supposed to have melted into history by now, according to a GW " expert*".
As usual, you go off on another rant, avoid the fact in contention, and start with " ya,,, but look over here. never mind what was claimed as fact before."

Ever watch Deadliest Catch? If so, did you catch the comments from a few of the Captains? " Never seen sea ice this far South, and this thick".

[Walt]

On a side note, and for those that love the AR,and cringe
at the price of ammo, This will be of interest.

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/brass-vs-steel-cased-ammo/#reliable

[Gregory]

Typical redirect by Keachie when in a losing state, referencing random catastrophic theories du jour of the past that have appeared and accepted uncritically by alarmists. Not only that, but there's also a wide chasm between weather changes and attribution to anthropogenic CO2.

Global sea ice extent is currently almost exactly at the average since 1979:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

[Gregory]

Walt, I believe that late Nevada County snow was in early 1991, 22 years ago. I moved here the next winter and heard all about it from my coworkers. That was long before Keachie moved here from Baghdad by the Bay.

[Walt]

"Baghdad by the Bay"?... Now THAT'S a good one ...LOL!!!

Yes, My first kid was just less than a year old, and we had most of the neighbors hold up at our place for about a week. ( 10 or 15 people) We had the room, heat, and provisions.

No,, that was NOT a fun two weeks. And these GW people want it to get cooler, so our Winters will put even more snow on the ground for longer periods?
Dougy would get a great education on "life in the cold" if he just goes to Alaska for one year.
Dougy,, forget the RECORD COLD recorded just last year?
Ya' want to bring that to all the Ridge rats? UUhhaaaa How deep was the snow on the ridge that year? And you want that ALL the time??
YUP!,, Bring back the dog sleds from NSJ to N.C.
That "sled" would most likely be a VW bug short one engine.

Be careful of what you wish for. ya' just might get it.
This Winter isn't over yet.

And we all love to see the gripe letters in the paper complaining the power was out for more than 24 hours, and usually from the fresh bay aria transplants who have never experienced live in the hills.

I can handle a good snow storm that can bring this aria to it' knees. The real question is ,can you?

[Gregory]

Walt, one of my coworkers at US Robotics Advanced Development mentioned he had 10 foot snowdrifts against his garage, up Red Dog Road apiece.

"Baghdad by the Bay" was a title of a book the Chronicle's Herb Caen wrote in the '40's, I think it was largely based on his columns. He coined the very useful term "beatnik" and disparaged the near universally understood "Frisco" enough that the neo-Friscoids decided to abandon it, though it may be on a comeback roll... The local Hell's Angels chapter still uses it.
http://www.friscohellsangels.com/

[Walt]

Now there is a name I haven't heard in a long,long time.
Dad and Hurb were good friends. They also were members of
a "vary" exclusive club. At the time (I think) there were
only five or six members. They all had a kid AFTER they reached
the age of 60. ( Dad was a member X2. Pops was 62 when I came along, and I have a brother two years younger.)
Guess what? NO Viagra was around back then to put lead in your pencil.

Then Dad got us out of S.F within a year of my birth, saying "the city is NO place to raise my kid. ( or any other for that matter)"
I had a shovel in my hand at three," helping" with the chores, and a gun by 5. ( it teaches you responsibility)

[Walt]

Dougy,, one more wild GW claim from the past. " Snow in Washington D.C. will soon be a thing of the past, and children will only read about it in history books."

Monday 20 March 2000
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

Yes, some of us keep track of stupid claims from Leftist nut cases.

[Walt]

for what it's worth Dr. R, thanks for giving the GW crew a chance
to belly up to the bar and give us the red meat that GW is
NOT like bigfoot. "they" got proof, and it's "we" humans that are the mistake of nature.

Too bad,,, hardy any showed up, and the ones that did had to go home early. I was just starting to have fun.

BTW,, just how close did those " high tech" computor models
that they claimed showed "ten years out, we will be this hot" play
out? ( aperanty,, "not" so hot...LOL!! get it?? No so hot?
Just for you Dougy,,LOL)

[TheMikeyMcD]

If the solution requires additional government, count me out.

[Jesus Betterman]

From the same page where Greg got his no change from1979 to present (and where we ignore 2007)

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png

where you can see a pretty dramatic change during the summers these days.

BTW, area covered by sea ice, and the absolute volume of said ice, are not one and the same.

When you find thick chunks further south, which ocean are you talking about, Walt?

[Gregory]

To answer Walt's question, the leaked IPCC AR5 draft report has the latest (2011 by the graphic) observations graphed along with past projections.

There are no error bars shown but those 2011 observations are below the lowest ranges of past projections:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/14/the-real-ipcc-ar5-draft-bombshell-plus-a-poll/

When theory and observation match, the theory has held; when they don't, the theory is falsified.

The theories behind the general circulation models has not held up very well.

[Bill Tozer]

The climate is always in flux, always has been, always will. After that last cold snap, I was praying for some good old fashioned global warming. That crazy Mayor of London says we are entering a mini-ice age cause of all the snow and hundreds of people across Poland and Eastern Europe that done got frozen to death. I am one fella waiting for some nice nice global warming.

[Douglas Keachie]

With all the great scientists and engineers here, how come no one attacks this?

"An ice cube at 32 degrees. A puddle of water as that ice cube melts, is still at 32 degrees. Basic truth from high school physics and chemistry. But a lot of heat went into melting that ice. With the evidence of all the ice melting all around the planet, even though the temps may appear to be remaining the same, the absolute heat content of the planet as a whole may well be increasing, at least on the part we know as the biosphere. Time to put away the thermometers and start counting calories."

[George Rebane]

DougK 930am - What is there to attack? To make your case using the specific heat of water argument, you need to put up some numbers showing the net amount of ice that has melted, and then tying that to specific heats of the quantified masses (oceans, atmosphere, soil, rocks, ...) that affect the input temp measurements from which the aggregate global temp is computed. At that point some argument might be made about what has caused world temps to not increase in the last 15 years.

Attempting to do all that is one of the dicey areas of unresolved science about climate change that True Believers try to hide under the rug, and gives lie to the claim of scientific consensus on AGW.

Your dangling a piece of high school physics out there does not constitute an argument one way or the other.

[Douglas Keachie]

George, I'm assuming you are busy finishing up the cage sweeping job before you, but you seem to have missed the point that I have already effectively made, "Why aren't these items being scientifically investigated, regardless of whether you are pro or con on the GW issue?" You and I both know that virtually no such world wide data of any scientific significance on net caloric gain in the biosphere is being complied as I have outlined, but it should be.

[George Rebane]

DougK 1015am - You're right, I didn't catch your point of recommending the caloric approach. From your previous comment I (and others?) understood your assertion that such a net caloric approach had already been taken, and that it explained away the recent global temp record. If so, you'd need to provide a link or two to support that.

I'm not aware of any such explicit analysis, but others who follow climate science doings more carefully might be. But I am very aware of the science involved (including the measurement problem(s) required by estimation theory) in the attempt to compute such energy storage and transfer dynamics to deliver sufficiently reliable answers.

Where I would look for prior work in the area would be in some PhD dissertations in the fields of climatology and meteorology (maybe even physics). I don't think people with degrees in 'earth sciences', 'ecology', etc have the technical horsepower to contribute much.

But you can be certain of one thing, any general circulation model (GCM) worth its salt, such as used by NASA and cited by the IPCC, would IMPLICITLY involve such energy budgets and dynamics - digging them out to support your proposition re global specific heats and heat dynamics would be another matter. If they didn't, their worth would be less than a warm bucket of spit.

[Gregory]

Douglas Keachie, I think George's 9:55 understates the case to be made: your insights are more in line with a middle school science class, not even to the level of a traditional high school physics class for students on a math & science college prep track.

Only some of the IPCC work is substandard science; the use of unverified (and now, essentially falsified) computer models implementing unverified (now falsified) theories assuming positive feedbacks (involving clouds and aerosols) and the underlying solar science (they only had one solar physicist in AR4 and it wasn't one of the many skeptics) are my nominations for that category. I'd suggest anyone interested in the science actually read the AR4 and draft AR5 reports; they have detailed energy flow diagrams and calculations; the catastrophe is all from a very small current amount of heat that the GCM all think that will become huge because of those falsified but assumed large positive feedbacks.

[Douglas Keachie]

"Where I would look for prior work in the area would be in some PhD dissertations in the fields of climatology and meteorology (maybe even physics). I don't think people with degrees in 'earth sciences', 'ecology', etc have the technical horsepower to contribute much." ~George~ 10:57

I rather doubt that anything less than a moon shot sized budget, jointly undertaken by major research facilities all around the planet, would yield enough data to provide a basis for a scientific conclusion on the issue. Both the deniers and the GW'ers are at fault in not spotting this obvious strategy.

[Gregory]

"neither George nor Greg are willing to say that the caloric content of the biosphere is static, and not rising. While dissing and dismissing the concept, they're playing it safe."

Keach, no one has EVER claimed the thermal energy of the biosphere was static, and it never has been. This is just another one of your straw men.

James Hansen, in a recent paper, let fly with a clear statement that the five year averaged air temp has been essentially constant over the past ten years, so I suggest you take it up with him if you disagree.

Since the Little Ice Age, the planet has warmed. It warmed quickly in the latter 20th century, almost to the level of the Medieval Climate Optimum but below the Roman Warm Period. That 20th century warming has now stalled an a lot of smart money is on a cooling for the next few decades.

[Douglas Keachie]

Never said it was static, Greg, but you seem to have taken a position that the current situation indicates no increases, on the basis of thermometers and lack of sunspots, alone, which do not tell the whole story.

BTW, while you think this is taught in middle school, the only reference I can find for it is in Chemistry, as it might be taken in grades 9 through 12, according to the California State Education Standards. There might be a gifted class every here and there where it shows up in middle school, but at least at Berkeley high, 1st year Algebra completed was a requirement for taking any chemistry or physics classes.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

[Gregory]

"I rather doubt that anything less than a moon shot sized budget, jointly undertaken by major research facilities all around the planet, would yield enough data to provide a basis for a scientific conclusion on the issue."

Well over $80billion has been spent to date on research intended for IPCC inclusion, and some of it is on the energy budget. Some of it is thesis work but IIRC most is granted to the usual tenured suspects who are the rainmakers for their departments.

My gawd, it's amazing how some people have such fully formed opinions without having bothered to actually look into what people are doing.

[Douglas Keachie]

Information No results found for "caloric increases in the biosphere".

Doesn't look that way to me, Greg.

[Gregory]

"Never said it was static, Greg, but you seem to have taken a position that the current situation indicates no increases, on the basis of thermometers and lack of sunspots, alone, which do not tell the whole story."

What a bizarre misunderstanding of *everything*. Trying to give you a basic science education on blogs is an endless game of "Whack-a-mole". I once suggested to you on the late lamented The Union blog that you go enroll in the Sierra College basic math (calculus on up), physics and chemistry classes that would prepare you to transfer into the UC system as a 3rd year student. You'd at least have a basis to understand some of the subjects but you instead chose to continue your random Wiki hop, hoping for a different result.

[Gregory]

"Information No results found for "caloric increases in the biosphere"."

That's what comes of being hopelessly ignorant of even basic terms.

Try:

'joule climate budget'

I got on the order of 1.22E9 hits.

[Douglas Keachie]

Information No results found for biosphere "joule climate budget".

Obviously the physicists are not paying attention to what really counts for the general public.

[Douglas Keachie]

In fact, no results found for Information No results found for "joule climate budget". As you know, Google often thinks that two out of three terms is good enough to list an item. Why did you put it in quotes in the first place, Greg, that's very misleading.

[Douglas Keachie]

If you put in all four terms, with no quotes, then you do get 580,000. I thought something was fishy there. Thanks for the Red Herring, Greg, very Norwegian of you.

[Gregory]

With apologies to Python(Monty): the script for "How to balance the climate energy budget", from an education point of view.

Cut to a sign saying 'How to do it'. Music. Pull out to reveal a 'Blue Peter' type set. Sitting casually on the edge of a dais are three presenters in sweaters - Noel, Jackie and Alan - plus a large bloodhound.

Alan Hello.

Noel Hello.

Alan Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to balance the climate budget.

Jackie Hello, Alan.

Alan Hello, Jackie.

Jackie Well, first of all become a physicist and discover how everything works, and then, when the IPCC really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any confusion ever again.

Alan Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.

Noel Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.

Alan Bye.

Jackie Bye.

[Douglas Keachie]

Greg, you're no Mel Brooks. sorry.

[Walt]

Doughy has no concept of the moneys thrown into the proverbial fire box.
From grant money public, private, and suckers, to state and Fed laws
written all on the pied piper BS. The trillions of untold dollars that
every business had to comply with. ( except Doug of course)
CARB is the worst offender when it comes to taking the bait of GW.
" This law is based on credible info form the GW "experts" ".
But when that info is proven to be invalid, think CARB would resend the law?
NO way in hell dude,,,,. And they keep on writing more by the day, all because of GW... Uh,, climate change.. Ya,, that way no matter what happens they can claim to be right.

Hear the good news? Oil and gas refiners don't have to pay the heavy fines for not using a non existent material. Another loss for the EPA in court.

[L]

Doug, I'm following along here. Why not take your idea over to WUWT and run it past a world-class group of folks who debate this stuff all the time? Ask your question politely and you will recieve a plethora of good information on the exact subject. George, Russ and I (at least) will read the responses to the last. Why not give it a try? L

[L]

And, Doug, don't use any "sock puppets" in the process or the mods will bounce it instantly. L

[Gerry Fedor]

Walt, I find it rather "interesting" that someone who barely graduated from his school wants to try to speak about, and give us his "interpretation" of issues that most climatologists are now starting to define (and most of these people have a doctorate degree's).

The past 50 years have shown us that there are changes, and these changes are happening at an accelerated rate unlike any other time in the history of this planet.

now In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released nearly unanimous findings that it is "unequivocal" that the climate is and will continue to change, and that human generation of greenhouse gases is responsible for most related changes since the 1950s. Climate change will affect national security in the broadest sense, potentially affecting everything from economic growth to social stability. More narrowly, global climate change may spur sudden onset (i.e., hurricanes and floods) and slow onset (i.e., droughts and famines) disasters around the world, provoking humanitarian crises that will require military and other governmental responses. Climate change will alter the military operating environment, as well, requiring advanced planning and ongoing reevaluation.

Does it really matter whether these changes are man-made or not, as the effects of humans will be the same.

Will it matter that we will have to spend hundreds of billions to protect US infrastructure from rising sea levels, or other issues such as the loss of fresh-water systems (i.e Mississippi river levels, and the recent heat wave in the mid-west are a interesting coincidence...

[Russ Steele]

This is how liberals think:

Left-wing "Scientific" American Blogs Editor Bora Zivkovic on why he deletes comments from people who disagree with him: "It demonstrates I care for the truth"

Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all. | A Blog Around The Clock, Scientific American Blog Network

It is a fact that global warming is true. And it is also a well established fact that humans played a big role in it. And the notion that if we broke it we should fix it is what responsible humans do. Thus, an article about a new study about climate or weather or energy or infrastructure is not a proper forum for debating the well-established facts. There is no debate there. Thus, such comments need to be deleted.

...I am a biologist, so I don’t write specifically about climate science as I do not feel I am expert enough for that. So, I am gradually teaching my spam filter to automatically send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmist”, “alarmist”, “Al Gore” or a link to Watts. A comment that contains any of those is, by definition, not posted in good faith. By definition, it does not provide additional information relevant to the post. By definition, it is off-topic. By definition, it contains erroneous information. By definition, it is ideologically motivated, thus not scientific. By definition, it is polarizing to the silent audience. It will go to spam as fast I can make it happen...If I think something I have to say does not really fit here, I post it on my Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus or Tumblr. And even there I am aware that I am still seen as a public face of SciAm so I am careful what kind of language I use, how I behave, etc. Deleting trolls, and not providing a platform for anti-science ideas, is good behavior for a scientist, a science writer, and an editor at Scientific American. It demonstrates I care for the truth.

Only liberal thinking is the truth, the rest of us, including highly recognized scientist are lying. This why I dropped Scientific American yeas ago and refuse to buy off the newsstand to this day.

[Russ Steele]

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that climate models have little to no ability to provide skillful forecasts of global surface temperatures on timescales of a decade or more. According to the author, "These results suggest that current coupled model decadal forecasts may not yet have much skill beyond that captured by multivariate red noise." Translation: state-of-the-art climate models that simulate the ocean and atmosphere together [called "coupled models"] offer little predictive ability beyond simulating a random walk [also called "red noise"] over periods of 10 or more years.

[George Rebane]

RussS 359pm - Good find that illustrates how the Left filters their 'truth', no other perspective need apply.

That belated find in the Journal of Climate is important. From first principles in numerical computation, that conclusion was warranted years ago. But then, I'm talking about another field here. Thanks Russ.

[Gerry Fedor]

Come on Russ, as how much predicting do we need when we have the hottest summers on record, and recorded temperatures that support these findings?

It does not seem that we need to look at the standard deviations or models to understand that something is happening, and at a rate that this planet has never seen before.

I find it interesting and telling that you would drop your subscription to a world renown scientific journal because you seem to know more than these people when I haven't seen it.

See in the scientific world they don't just "drop their subscriptions" as they tend to take a look at the empirical evidence and deduct a basis from that.

[Gregory]

"Bora Zivkovic" is why the warmist community is so insular; Detroit had the same problem when Californians started buying Toyotas and Hondas.

No, Gerry F, the science is not settled. Even James Hansen has had to publish this month that the running five year average temps have been flat for the past 10 years, the IPCC AR5 report draft has been leaked and it looks like they're going to have to admit that the temps from 2011 are below the lowest projections of any of the computer model scenarios they had been relying upon.

You see, warm temps in a couple of USA summers are only weather over a very small fraction of the world's surface, and the homogenized dataset that shows that record high temps are the ones with Hansen's thumb weighing on the scale; he may not even admit to himself that it's there: as Feynman noted, the easiest person for a scientist to fool is himself.

There *is* an anthropogenic warming signal in the mix but it is small compared to natural variations and isn't poised to boil over. It's warmer in the early 2000's because the Atlantic and Pacific were in warm phases (see AMDO and PDO) until recently, now they'll both be heat sinks, not sources, for perhaps as long as 20 years. Warming from the oceans and sun were mistaken for the theorized (but never actually proven) signal from positive feedbacks the computer models were coded to and the IPCC expected to be there.

Oh, and worldwide sea ice is almost spot on the average for this date over the past 34 years, since satellite measurements began. But that's just weather, too.

[George Rebane]

re GerryF's 1143pm - "Come on Russ, as how much predicting do we need when we have the hottest summers on record, and recorded temperatures that support these findings?" I don't think one could find a better summary statement of how the Left argues what to them is science. All of the facts presented in the counter arguments are simply and sweepingly sidestepped.

[Gerry Fedor]

I got one question for both you Greg and George......

George there is a 100 years of data that show this, not the couple years you claim so how can you explain this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly_1880-2010_(Fig.A).gif

In the words of my good friends as NASA "Houston we got a problem....."

[George Rebane]

GerryF 1222am - Pray, what would you like to have explained?

Are you claiming that in, say, the last 10K years there are not equivalent temperature records using a baseline in an arbitrarily sized and selected data window?

There is no argument here that the earth has not gone through a recent (and minute) warming spell that has at least paused, if not ended. I don't want to repeat all my arguments for AGW skepticism. They are readily available. Cite them individually, and I'll defend them.

But really, what does that plot say to you that compels you to support certain public policies? (Posit that we know what we're talking about when we extract a single number to represent 'global temperature' given the inputs by type, epoch, reliability, regularity, ... .)

PS. also see inputs like
http://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/1843/

[Gregory]

Gerry, just where was the thermometer placed to get those readings? That's only slightly snarky; you see, any global temp is going to be a manufactured number, a mix of many measurements.

What would the temperature be without any people on the planet driving Hummers? Flat and stable?

"Global warming" melting Andean glaciers uncovered 500 year old mummies of Inca child sacrifices... so, think that might mean the Little Ice Age global glacier expansion circa 1550 might have covered them?

The Little Ice Age only ended in the 19th century; some claim early 20th. Yes, it got warmer in the 20th; there was also something of a Grand Solar Maximum starting sometime in the '30's, and it only ended sometime around 2006. Didn't cause much more luminant energy to hit us but it did block more high energy galactic cosmic rays than normal, and we now know (only the past few years) that these influence cloud formation, and GCR flux, varying with where we are in our solar system's orbit around the Milky Way, is associated with about a 9F swing in *equatorial* ocean temperatures in geologic time.

In short, the "graphical proof" (a phrase used by one local biologist turned warming alarmist) of temperatures going up, CO2 going up, "By golly, CO2 is causing the temperature to rise!" is confusing coincidence with causality. The IPCC process has been trying to prove that link for something like 25 years but the scariest claims keep getting rolled back.

For the record, I've no doubt human activity has contributed to the warming since the beginning of the industrial age, but it's been swamped by larger natural variations that IPCC senior scientists (including the Climategate principals) have been minimizing.

[Gerry Fedor]

Let me try to understand your point Gregory as you seem to be saying that the this data was generated because of a "misplacement" of the thermometers?

It that your premise to discount the data that several completely different agencies have reported independently of each other?

Sorry, but having a MS in a scientific field I'm trying to correctly understand the basis for your argument as well as try to understand your and George's point of view as I seem to have a difference conclusion than you have, especially when you look at the reported rate of temperature rise.

No one has every said that the temperatures would not change through normal deviations within the sphere of environmental changes (if that is your argument) as these changes have gone on for billions of years, but I think the concern is with the speed / rates of these changes as these rates of recent changes, have never been recorded at such an accelerated rate.

[George Rebane]

GerryF 615pm - I fear your concern about the uniqueness of any claimed rate of change is misplaced. To the extent that we can measure temps over past epochs with useful reliabilities, rapid changes have occurred. The very rapid cooling/freezing of Greenland a thousand years ago comes to mind.

[Russ Steele]

Gerry@06:15PM
Can you please provide a link the accelerating rate of climate change? According to the data the rate has been relatively flat for the last 17 years. Where is the rapid change?

[Russ Steele]

Gerry@12:22AM

One need to take Wiki climate data with a grain of salt. A warmer William Connelly have been editing it for years, removing any other points of view. You can see how the data has been manipulated here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/data-tampering-at-ushcngiss/

[Gregory]

"Let me try to understand your point Gregory as you seem to be saying that the this data was generated because of a "misplacement" of the thermometers?"

I'm afraid you misunderstand and underestimate the artificiality of any "global" temperature. There are thousands of terrestrial temperature recording locations, and they have come and gone over the years. Each individual keeper of a dataset have their own way of stitching them altogether; when an antarctic station, or a Siberian station, drops out, you need to adjust the average of all the others, and a similar but opposite action has to happen when a Saharan station is decommissioned (not to mention a Wynnan or a Tropicanan). And, on top of that complication, there aren't may temperature measurement stations out in the middle of the oceans and in the most inhospitable hot and cold terrestrial sites.

Satellite records don't have the siting problems that Watts and his minions like Russ Steele have documented, and include the atmosphere over the oceans but they only go back to 1979. You might notice they don't have the same scary peak, for some reason:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

But even the scary peaking terrestrial records have stalled in the last 16 years.

In short, it isn't as cut and dried as that one chart in wikipedia might lead you to believe.

[Gerry Fedor]

Flat for the past 17 years? Sorry Russ, you may have a chart or two and I'm sure that I have something similar, but if you look at the past 125 years these changes have been shown to be real.

This is not something that is unknown, and if you look at the last 17 years of the following chart you may have a point, but the overall trend is one of upward progression:

http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_GISS_trend_latest.png

The past 17 years have had a slower progression, but the trend and data still show that we are in a progressively upward trend.

Now we all know that there has been climate changes as I've heard the stories of the great forest across Africa (in what is now the Sahara Desert), but again the rates of these changes are the alarming issue. The weather has undoubtedly had a changing pattern from the effects of La-nina and the solar activity, but again even a Charles Koch funded study found there temperature changes to be accurate.

http://www.blogforarizona.com/.a/6a00d8341bf80c53ef016768e6b94e970b-pi

There have been recording on solar activity for the past 150 years and how this inter-acts with the raised CO2 levels is still a issue of much discussion, but the issue is does this really matter either way?

Will is save us from having to stop the damage (and not spend a huge amount of money fixing the problems that it will create) from this issue, whether man-made or not, will cause?

[George Rebane]

It appears that GerryF's 649pm is the next salvo in talking past each other. Please structure your point. What is the public good that you're trying to achieve, and how can you tell when you're getting closer to achieving it (i.e. give us something we can put numbers in)? The climate change, or worse, the AGW debate is going nowhere because the True Believers, those who want their hands in our wallets and guns to our heads, will not respond to such rigorous inquiries on the issue.

[Russ Steele]

Gerry@06:49PM

I would be interested in your views on this latest publication examining the solar influence on global temperatures. Links at the Next Grand Minimum. http://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/new-book-finds-at-least-63-of-global-warming-was-due-to-the-sun/

It leaves the door open for some CO2 influence, but we have to remember that water vapor has the strongest of all influence of all the global warming gases and it has been declining according to NASA. Here’s the full paper http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012GL052094-pip.pdf See the chart starting at about 2005.

I think we can all agree that the planet has been warming since the Little Ice Age, when the sun was much quieter, with fewer sunspots and now we are again entering a period of reduced spots. Solar cycle 24 is the lowest in a 100 years. History has shown when the spots decline the sun’s energy output declines and the earth gets colder.

The ice core history has also shown that warming preceded the out gassing of CO2 from the ocean. It is possible that human caused CO2 could have some small influence on the global temperatures, but it is much smaller than the solar influence.

Please let me know what you think about the findings in this publication?

Oh, yes while you are on the Next Grand Minimum web page look around. You will find links to a paper showing that the 20th century solar activity was at the highest levels of the past 9,4oo years. No wonder we have seen a little bit of solar warming.

[Gregory]

Russ, I think it likely that GF is quite sure the people with NSF funding, the experts hired by the Feds, got it right, and that the 'deniers' are motivated by something other than a healthy scientific skepticism.

Russ, (George too), I'm guessing he thinks you only disbelieve because you're a right winger, and he probably firmly believes the fact that he's on the left has nothing to do with his acceptance of what he's been told is settled science, on par with evolution, whose proscriptions just happen to be congruous with those of the Left over recent decades. GF's playbook is a common one: he need only keep pulling alarmist claims out of the bag, and eventually, you'll either understand the science or be unmasked as a partisan player uninterested in the truth.

GF, your problem is that the science is not settled, there is a large body of evidence that calls into question the basic claims of IPCC alarmists, and there was enough evidence in 2007 for me to decide that, on the basis of clouds and aerosols alone that the IPCC-cited general circulation models were false and the alarmism was not justified which moved me quickly from lukewarmer, to skeptic, to scoffer. Since '07, none of the research that caught my attention has been falsified; it's held up and been strengthened far beyond that of the earlier IPCC claims which are being walked back as I write.

Gerry, the only reason there seems to have been a consensus is that working scientists who didn't believe couldn't afford to speak up due to the blistering personal and professional attacks they could be expected to endure for their apostasy. That has eased but the coast is not yet completely clear.

You might be interested in sitting through a fascinating debate that took place a few years ago before some of the best contrary science was published, but this Intelligence Squared formal debate including RealClimate's Gavin Schmidt for the warmists and MIT's Richard Lindzen and the now late author Dr. Michael Crichton on the realist side, swayed the relatively sophisticated NYC audience from believing in the alarm away from their original opinion.

There's a reason there have not been more of these: alarmists lose badly when they face the knowledgeable opposition directly.

"In this debate, the proposition was: "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis." In a vote before the debate, about 30 percent of the audience agreed with the motion, while 57 percent were against and 13 percent undecided. The debate seemed to affect a number of people: Afterward, about 46 percent agreed with the motion, roughly 42 percent were opposed and about 12 percent were undecided."

Get the NPR podcast at
http://www.npr.org/2007/03/22/9082151/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis

[George Rebane]

Gregory (1237pm) makes an excellent point. Were the True Believers at all confident about their science (and not ashamed of their political agenda), they would seek to have public debates at every opportunity. Their best tactic continues to be what Stalin advised, just keep repeating the lie until it is believed.

[Gregory]

George, there you go again ;)

There's no need to call it the big lie. In fact, if you read the Climategate emails, the senior IPCC scientists chatting amongst themselves, it's clear they believe in their conclusions, and are quite sure that delay, better instrumentation and better data will bear their theories out.

[Russ Steele]

Gregory@01:14PM

Climate Scientist lying for the cause:

James Annan, who was one of the warmer team, writes on his blog here: http://julesandjames.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-sensitive-matter.html

“Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action.”

More here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/03/josh-on-lying-for-the-cause/

If one of the IPCC team was lying, how many more joined the big lie. We know that the IPCC models exaggerate CO2 sensitivity, and the data is proving that point. So, more than one must have lied about the "probability of high sensitivity' for the cause.

[Gregory]

C'mon Russ, that "lying for the cause" when you look into it was the comparably small lie about the probability of the most catastrophic predictions. There's no reason to think they didn't think it was still going to be bad when they exaggerated the probability of the worst just to make sure their audience leaped into action the next day, afraid not to.

Also, it is just plain wrong to stretch that anecdote into fitting all who preach doom. Many really do believe it, and many of those may suspect the reality isn't going to be the worst that they fear but are afraid if they let up, really bad stuff will still happen.

Many of those have also drunk the koolaid of believing if we just stay the course, we'll have affordable alternative and renewable energy, but haven't figured out it will only be affordable if they get used to being hot in the summer, cold in the winter, work within walking distance of where they sleep and be asleep when it's dark unless they want to read by LED lamps. In short, back to the Bronze age.

[Michael Anderson]

"In short, back to the Bronze age."

I call False Dilemma.

There are any number of different paths that could lead us out of the wilderness. Greg, I know you like to keep this discussion narrowly focused on C02, but the problem is much broader than that, as we've discussed.

Bottom line, it is irrefutable that humans are a huge factor in the ecosystem, and we absolutely must spend precious resources on discovering how to best leverage that factor toward a positive outcome, and that a variety of disparate political systems can support.

This is not a futball match, it is a discussion about our very future as viable organisms on planet earth.

[Gerry Fedor]

Russ,

I am away on business travel, but I will review this as soon as possible, and give you my thoughts.

Thanks for your links!

[George Rebane]

MichaelA 831pm - Your use of "irrefutable" piqued my interest. You seem to be stating that it's irrefutable that humans have had a 'bad' (however that's defined) impact on the ecosystem. If that's not true then what kind of "huge factor" are you talking about, because, absent humans, we don't know what kind of huge factors would have impacted the ecosystem in what way.

But then humans are an existential part of earth. And now scientists are concluding that fossil fuels have kept earth from becoming an Easter Island, or Haiti, or most of Madagascar - in short, given humans, fossil fuels have saved the planet. So that's a shot in the shorts to all those econuts who have not seen a shred of benefit in our burning of such fuels. Don't get me wrong, we have been cleaning up our use of fossil fuels, and should continue to do so, but to abandon them?! come now.

But anyone (perhaps not you) who claims that anything having to do with the complexities of human energy management and the earth's climate has now become "irrefutable" should be prepared to have their reputation appended to those in history who taught the earth is flat, or 'centered' (Ptolemy), or night airs spreading disease, or the scientific consensus against relativity or quantum mechanics, etc. Al Gore of "the debate is over" fame also comes to mind.

And hear the latest? The UN is finally, FINALLY admitting that the sun may play a significant role in the dynamics of earth's climate. My, my, my. Anybody recall all the gallons of vitriol that was poured over all of us who dared suggest that? Russ Steele and Anthony Watts have been publicizing such reports for years now.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/01/report-show-un-admitting-solar-activity-may-play-significant-role-in-global/

[Gregory]

Mike, what chutzpah. No, the ugly rhetoric and character assassinations aimed at all who have argued against the so-called consensus is not justified because all the claimed remedies are claimed to be necessary even without the threat of catastrophic warming.

Look at the bright side, if you think this might be a bright side; if a Maunder Minimum is in our near future, millions if not billions may die from starvation as first winter then summer crops begin to fail. Will that brighten your day?

[Michael Anderson]

George,

What is irrefutable is that humans are part and parcel to the earth ecosystem. For example, the wooly mammoths would probably still be around if it weren't for the fact that human hunters loved to herd them off cliffs, and then build their houses out of their bones, and eat their meat, and make clothes and other products from their hides.

Not a big problem for the mammoths day to day, but over 50 or 70 centuries, yeah, game over.

Now you have 7 billion plus humans going after diminishing resources. Burning coal is probably not the best approach. It's a tough balance, as GG notes often, between rising standards of living brought on by greater energy usage, vs. the tough consequences of bringing those energy resources to bear.

Michael A.

[Russ Steele]

Micheal@10:24PM

The last ice age played a significant role in the demise of the Wooly Mammoths. Scientist are still digging them out of the ice.

[JesusBetterman]

"character assassinations" an obvious fail, or else we are dealing with Zombies, hmmmmm.....

The humans also took down Wooly Mammoths, see story about bones found with 8 clovis points inside. These are substantial in size, 10 to 20 cm long. If you got hit by one, you'd be extinct too. Ban the Clovis Points!

Now everybody, what is the maximum number of humans the planet should have on it, alive at one time? Are we crowded enough yet? Are we all happy campers?

[Michael Anderson]

Russ,
Agreed that climate change was a contributing cause of their demise. But it took the human hunters to make them extinct: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0060099

[Gregory]

Being slow and good tasting didn't doom Gallus gallus or Bos taurus to extinction, and it's amazing Mike had to reach back to prehistory to find an extinction that had a rhetorical punch.

Burning coal might not be the best approach, but solar and wind may well be the worst approaches. In the absence of coercion, the market currently chooses coal over wind or solar, in short, low price and reliability over high price, high maintenance, low efficiency and known variability since the wind doesn't always blow and the sun shines less than half the time on any given location.

It is fundamentally wrong to use bad science as a political cudgel. Carbon isn't a threat to the world, but the war on carbon is a threat to humanity. It's time to stop it.

To the Gallus galli out there, thanks. The wings yesterday were great.

[Gregory]

Maybe Mike should have cited polar bears as a species in danger from mankind. Maybe not; from an NPR story:
"My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental movement. I was going to go up to the Canadian Arctic, I was going to write this mournful elegy for the polar bears, at which point I'd be hailed as the next coming of John Muir and borne aloft on the shoulders of my environmental compatriots ... So when I got up there, I started realizing polar bears were not in as bad a shape as the conventional wisdom had led me to believe, which was actually very heartening, but didn't fit well with the book I'd been planning to write."

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-inconvenient-truth-about-polar-bears.html

[Russ Steele]

Hey, Warmers, Listen Up: New paper finds natural variability controls CO2 levels, not man

Abstract: Tropical explosive volcanism is one of the most important natural factors that significantly impact the climate system and the carbon cycle on annual to multi-decadal time scales. The three largest explosive eruptions in the last 50 years - Agung, El Chichón, and Pinatubo - occurred in spring/summer in conjunction with El Niño events and left distinct negative signals in the observational temperature and CO2 records.However, confounding factors such as seasonal variability and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) may obscure the forcing-response relationship. We determine for the first time the extent to which initial conditions, i.e. season and phase of the ENSO, and internal variability influence the coupled climate and carbon cycle response to volcanic forcing and how this affects estimates of the terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks. Ensemble simulations with the Earth System Model CSM1.4-carbon predict that the atmospheric CO2 response is ~60% larger when a volcanic eruption occurs during El Niño and in winter than during La Niña conditions. Our simulations suggest that the Pinatubo eruption contributed 11 ± 6% to the 25 Pg terrestrial carbon sink inferred over the decade 1990-1999 and -2 ± 1% to the 22 Pg oceanic carbon sink. In contrast to recent claims, trends in the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon cannot be detected when accounting for the decadal-scale influence of explosive volcanism and related uncertainties. Our results highlight the importance of considering the role of natural variability in the carbon cycle for interpretation of observations and for data-model intercomparison.

[George Rebane]

re RussS 735pm - this has been the point all along. We have known so little about earth's carbon cycle - huge sources and sinks of the natural variety have been recently discovered - that to ascribe measurable temp variations to the tons of CO2 we pump out is at best grant driven scientific hubris.

As I've tried to educate readers here, citing seemingly big numbers (like tons of CO2 generated by man) without a basis of total tons generated (by terrestrial processes and extra-terrestrial influences) is penultimate pandering to the innumerate. Good update Russ.

[Michael Anderson]

Greg,

Humans have been a prehistorical cause of extinction, and they are a cause today:

http://www.livescience.com/13038-humans-causing-sixth-mass-extinction.html

https://people.ifm.liu.se/permi/PlantEcology/Ecography93.pdf