In my Forbes article a few weeks ago, I showed how the arguments alarmists most frequently use to “prove” that skeptics are wrong are actually straw men. Alarmists want to fight the war over whether the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is true and whether the world has seen warming over the last century, both propositions that skeptics like myself accept.
The issue for us is whether man is causing a catastrophe (mainly due to large positive feedbacks in the climate system), and whether past warming has been consistent with catastrophic rates of man-made warming. Both of these propositions are far from proven, and are seldom even discussed in the media.
I found a blog I had not read before on energy policy issues that had a very sensible article on just this issue
The most frustrating thing about being a scientist skeptical of catastrophic global warming is that the other side is continually distorting what I am skeptical of.
In his immodestly titled New York Review of Books article “Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong,” economist William Nordhaus presents six questions that the legitimacy of global warming skepticism allegedly rests on.
- Is the planet in fact warming?
- Are human influences an important contributor to warming?
- Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
- Are we seeing a regime of fear for skeptical climate scientists?
- Are the views of mainstream climate scientists driven primarily by the desire for financial gain?
- Is it true that more carbon dioxide and additional warming will be beneficial?
Since the answers to these questions are allegedly yes, yes, yes and no, no, no, it’s case closed, says Nordhaus.
Except that he is attacking a straw man. Scientists (or non-scientists) who are “skeptics” are skeptical of catastrophic global warming—not warming or human-caused warming as such. So much for 1 and 2. We refuse to label CO2 a “pollutant” because it is essential to life and because we do not believe it has the claimed catastrophic impact. So much for 3. And since 4-6 don’t pertain to the scientific issue of
Did you post too early. The article seems to
This is similar to the common assertion that 97% of scientists agree that AGW is real. But the 97% claim relates to whether the planet has warmed and if the extra CO2 can increase the planet’s temperature. But neither assertion gets to the heart of the debate. You could say that 97% of climate sceptics agree with the same propositions that 97% of scientists agree on.
The other point is that climatists don’t feel confident in being able to rebut claims that are not strawmen. What does that say about their confidence in their position?
It is well known by all climate scientists both skeptical and not that a doubling of CO2 will only cause 1 ° C of warming without feedbacks.
Water vapor is theoretically supposed to increase temperatures rise and multiply this puny warming by 3 or 6 . The rest of the feedbacks are trivial.
I isn’t happening because water vapor has been going down since 1948.
http://tiny.cc/nxsbbw
Specific
http://tiny.cc/11f8aw
From the NOAA website
http://tiny.cc/xibdbw
http://climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericSpecificHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
http://climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
Without massive positive feedback the catastrophe in CAGW will never happen !
It’s not just the straw men. It’s the combination.
The claim justifying action is complex and interrelated. Catastrophic Unprecedented Anthropogenic Global Warming due to Carbon Dioxide.
A skeptic could, and many do, accept nearly all of the claim, but reject one piece. Perhaps the CAGW is true, but due to soot, or soil tillage instead of CO2. Perhaps the world is generally warming but not globally, in which case who’s region sees how much warming would determine how catastrophic, or beneficial, the change might be.
The true believer must believe EVERY part of the claim. If the situation today is demonstrated to have comparable past precedent, then there is little reason for drastic action. If the change is natural and cyclic rather than anthropogenic, why bother? Etc.
It drives me crazy when some or another advocate for drastic action like UN global tyranny says something of this sort: The snow line is retreating, that proves “it”.
Even accepting the data regarding that one aspect — provisionally, and subject to review — that data certainly does NOT prove the intended “it”.
Suppose your claim depends on the card being red, AND the coin showing heads, AND the die rolling up greater than four. MY claim is that your claim is less likely than my own, which is — stuff happens.
CO2 is a pollutant? He has obviously taken leave of his senses.
Skeptical science had an amusing graph which is amazingly accurate in one way.
http://www2.grist.org.s3.amazonaws.com/grist-images/2011/November/7-11/SkepticsvRealistsv3-a.gif
http://tiny.cc/5pqn2
Notice how it warms despite occasional setbacks and actual cooling. In the earth this low rate of actual warming will allow us to find alternative fuels and avoid punishing taxes.
The overall rate of warming is ½ ° per century if you include at least one whole cycle of the PDO.
The IPCC actually used the ‘scepticalscience’ type logic in an attempt to justify the idea that warming was accelerating out of control. Oops. It’s hard to make fun of ‘debunk’ sceptics when your own side uses the same logical form for their arguments.
https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/_/rsrc/1259250343991/faq3.1fig1.jpg
Will
I saw that phony logic.
By that logic a sine wave with no trend is rapidly warming if you measure from the bottom to the top !
Alarmists will stoop to any illogic to sell their mousemilk.
Regardless of whether recent minuscule global temperature changes are cyclical or not, it is very funny that Sceptics are ‘bad’ when they use argument A but Climatists are ‘good’ when they use the same argument form. You see it constantly… the only parallel I can draw attention to is political discourse.
I think that if Mann’s hockey stick were valid the earth’s climate is very very stable.
This alone would refute the climate models which posit positive feedback multiplying any slight warming by 3 to 6 !
A slight increase in sunspots should create slight warming which would be multiplied by 3 to 6 and temperatures would be vary volatile.
The alarmists want to have the climate to be stable when it suits them and unstable when it suits them.
We are told that sunspots change solar input by .1 so if we multiply that by 6 possibly all warming has been solar !
Well that strikes me as a pointless hypothetical to speculate about. You can decide that Mann’s team got it right about the hockey stick or you can choose the work of every other scientist on the same topic who seem to argue the opposite. The IPCC choose to highlight Mann’s work, so go figure.
If you look at the recent work done by the BEST temperature reconstruction, you see a temperature change of around 1C between circa 1820-1830. We have not seen temperature change that rapid in the modern era.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Berkeley-GISTemp-NCDC-and-CRUTEM4-Comparison.png
Will
Tho me the alarmists seem to have circled the \wagons around Mann.
My point is that if Mann is correct the climate is very very very stable.
This contradicts the models which were built to be unstable.
Any slight variation in sunspots ETC would be multiplied by 6 times and temperature would change rapidly and greatly.
The point is that the alarmists want us to believe that the climate was very ultra stable until about 1978 when mankind used significant CO2, then it became unstable.
Feedbacks have nothing to do with CO2, if present they would have operated on solar output or any source of warming.
The El Nino in 1998 should have been multiplied by 6 so 1999 should have been warmer !
There is a tendency to “circle the wagons around Mann” because it would be embarrassing to concede that the IPCC poster child – the hockey stick – was wrong in AR3. Rather it was easier to quietly drop it from prominence in AR4. If my memory serves me right, it only then showed up in a “spaghetti” graph which later got hammered due to the “hide the decline” fiasco.
But, it doesn’t follow that the 1998 El Nino would have to cause a tipping point of any kind. The idea is that the climate oscillates naturally between warmer and colder periods and CO2 will tend to push temperatures up gradually. Which is all true as far as it goes. The argument is over the degree of expected warming, not that there will be some warming. The high climate sensitivity scenarios that the IPCC promote are their weakest claims scientifically.
when confronted ” mainstream ” quote !. the arbiter of scientific debate is peer reviewed scientific literature , which does not currently support a role for planets in events such as the asian tsunami
or el nino .
my pdf proving planetary involvement :- “short & longer-term planetary effects on sun & earth ” has never been challenged , despite it being on google since mid 2006 ?.
Tee-hee. I just love it when I come to CS and find some poster who sounds just like one of the Zodiac Killer’s letters.
If hee haw is a horse donkey X then wot’s a tee hee X if hee’s the donkey ?.
Waldo , if your out of your depth my advice is to keep your mouth shut or chances are you will drown in it .
like I stated it’s been 6.5 years & no takers , just gurgling noises coming from all the meadow mayonaise pats .
This is the Zodiac speaking. I am writing to you from a balloon of magnetized plasma inflated by the solar wind. I am an emeritus farmer from Australia, and I am an amazing killer troll—Fear me! No one has challenged my paper because I am clearly wandering quite far off the beaten path and no one takes me seriously.
But seriously, man, congrats! That is a sweet attempt at a troll-hoax. Hat’s off to you.
results of prediction as described on page 72/ fig 5
unusual conjunctions for june 6 – 2006 .
early onset of indian monsoon, huge storms on jupiter converging on red spot , M x class flares on
the sun , ss 892 = flame shaped prominence around the limb , 9 volcanic eruptions including :- Mt Merapi 11,000 evacuated , Mt Bulusan Philipines Evac
Mt Sakurajima Japan Evac & Floods China.
Check these events out for yourself or does thinking give you a head ache .
Thinking gives me a head ache. Sometimes a foot ache.
However, I think you are definitely onto something there. I’m sure super-charged solar particles bouncing off Mercury cause all sorts of earthquakes, hallucinations, and premenstrual cramps.
Now, if you can figure out how planet alignment explains the evils of Obama-care, you will make Mr. Meyer very happy.
If you can isolate the effect of Mars on lukerwarmers and fake memo writers, Pauld will never argue.
If you can theorize about the relationship between cosmic electricity, the DOE, taxpayer money, and the supremacy engineers, Ted will love you long time.
Perhaps you and netdr can arm-wrestle over the Noble Prize—I’d give you both about the same chances there.
And Will Nistscheke can only be explained by alien abductions and mind probes, so don’t bother.
Anyway, you’re really onto something there, Dick, I can’t wait for you to post something else. Cheers.
gladly , I don’t know where your coming from but I know how far your attitude will get you , you haven’t addressed how all those events occured due soley to planetary alignment , if you know anything about the process & lead time to do a ” portable Document Format ” , mine had to be at the printers 6 months pryor to printing , by the way , I haven’t seen yours yet , or isn’t there one to see ? , solar phenomena isn’t new , the Planet Mercury intersected the 165 deg ” beam on the 24th august 79 AD ” THAT ” triggered Mt Vesuvius & it was the same planet that intersected the same beam that caused the Asian Tsunami 2004 & the 2005 Sichuan ( China ) pryor to China’s olympic Games . During WW2 , about the most important date to shorten the war was set for Operation “Overlord” , the weather scientists were consulted to fit in with the long range planned attack on “Fortress Europe” even the tide was crucial to the success of the plan , they decided on June 5 1944 to go , they couldn’t have selected a worse day weatherwise if they tried , a change came in from the Atlantic delaying the attack for 24 Hrs , the men had to stay in the boats for 24 Hrs & then had to attack the heavily guarded French coast ” SEASICK ” & because
of simple people like you who have been hounded into man made boundry’s, they would make the same mistake all over again .
Woah….
Dude: comma splice.
There has been slight beneficial AGW !
CAGW has never happened and there is no scientific reason to believe it will ever happen.
I keep getting unintelegable gurgling noises from the cow pats again , like I said your out of your depth on solar stuff , if you want to get on my page
look up BINDING ENERGY , read it, understand it & we
can start from there , it’s becoming obvious to me
how far the US is lagging behind , even NASA has stooped to copying my stuff on solar max .
Thank you netdr , nice to see there is still hope ,
the IPCC’s computer model would never have got to first base if mainstream’s solar physics were pitched in the right direction , converting hydrogen
to helium would only serve to lock up Ev’s & the sun
would die , but to convert both Hydrogen & Helium to
MeVs = problem solved .
Dr Mann’s hockey stick shows that temperatures didn’t vary over a thousand years.
If the climate was as unstable as postulated and multiplying any slight warming from an source by 6 or so the record would reflect this. If Dr Mann is correct the climate is very very very stable and cannot multiply slight warming by 6 or more !
The climate alarmists want the climate to be very stable and very unstable at the same time.
Consistency is too much to ask for ?
little ice age (maunder minimum 1645 – 1715) 297years
ago estimated temp aprox -1 -1.5 degs below average and the Thames froze over .
MtTambora April 5-10 1815 36 ml3 ejecta atmosphere
1816 year without summer 82,000 + died starvation .
carbon saturated atmosphere caused cooling “then”
Earth warming through carbon “now” aprox +.06 above average , and the glaciers retreated .
Mann was playing with his stick handle me-thinks.
if not Mann then who ?
The point I was making is that the alarmists positions are contradictory.
The hockey stick needs extreme stability to exist but CAGW needs extreme instability !
They want the climate to be both stable and unstable.
This is the Zodiac Speaking. :And Will Nistscheke can only be explained by alien abductions and mind probes, so don’t bother.
Wow with this well researched scientific study to deduce this claim how could I possibly refuse to be on your excellently argued side.
At this point everyone here is writing like a serial killer.
By far the strangest thread on CS.
the point I was trying to make was the cause of these 3 definite climatic conditions over 297 years .
1645 – 1615 no sumspots for 70 years the 3 outer planets at aphelion simultainiously, very rare event.
glaciers advanced , crop failure & the great frost.
1815-1817 volcanic dust blocked the sunlight & frost caused crop failure .
1966 – 1986 ( planet reversal) , neptune furtherest from the sun at aphelion , while both pluto & uranus
at perihelion simultainiously , another very rare event , sunspots increased & glaciers retreated .
all of these events originated from the sun .
somebody at mainstream took their eye off the ball
allowing all this anthropological rubbish to fester.
Mainstream solar physics scientists are a discrace to
their profession when they denyed John H Nelson’s planetary angular separation code breaking science , by using the ” peer review process ” fraudulently .
In my view we need to focus on the assumed problem, namely carbon dioxide and, to a lesser extent, methane perhaps. If I refer to trace gases take it to mean these, because I refuse to call them greenhouse gases.
We have what we have in the Earth’s total system. Somehow, in some way we may never fully understand, a long-term near equilibrium situation has developed. We have some energy being generated in the core, mantle and crust, most likely by fission I think, but I won’t go into that. But it does set up a temperature gradient from the core to the surface which is very stable below the outer kilometre or so of the crust. However, it may vary in long-term natural cycles that have something to do with planetary orbits. Likewise, the intensity of solar radiation getting through the atmosphere to the surface may also vary in natural cycles which may have something to do with planetary influences on the Sun, and on the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit and on cosmic ray intensity and on cloud cover, ENSO cycles etc.
There is much to be learned about such natural cycles, and we have seen papers by Nicola Scafetta for example which appear to provide compelling evidence of the natural cycles. I believe that in fact such natural cycles are quite sufficient to explain all observed climate change, including what has happened in the last half century or so, right up to the present. The world has just been alarmed because the 1000 year cycle and the 60 year cycle were both rising around 1970 to 1998, just as they did by about the same amount 60 years earlier, and 60 years before that and no doubt further back. We cannot escape the obvious fact that there is a ~1000 year cycle which is due for another maximum within 50 to 200 years. Then there will be 500 years of falling temperatures.
But the central issue is whether or not trace gases are really having any effect at all on climate.
In my paper I have explained the physics of heat transfer and demonstrated why trace gases cannot have any effect whatsoever on what we call climate.
Climate may be thought of as the mean of temperature measurements, usually made in the air between 1.5 and 2 metres above the ground. Thermometers are affected by the thermal energy in that air near the surface. As you can read here thermal energy is distinct from heat. It is transferred by molecular collision processes (conduction and diffusion,) by physical movement (convection) and by radiation. . The energy in radiation is not thermal energy. Thermal energy is first converted to electromagnetic (radiated) energy and then that EM energy has to be converted back to thermal energy in a target. Hence, in a sense thermal energy only appears to be transferred by radiation.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT) tells us that in any (one way, independent) spontaneous process, entropy cannot decrease unless external energy is added. There are no two ways about it. If spontaneous radiation emanates from a cooler object (or atmosphere) its EM energy cannot be converted back to thermal energy in a warmer target, such as Earth’s surface. This point is not debatable. A violation of the SLoT cannot be excused on the grounds that there will be some subsequent independent process (maybe not even radiation) which will transfer more thermal energy back to the atmosphere. If you disagree, you are mistaken.
However, the radiation from a cooler body can affect the radiative component of the cooling of a warmer body. Although such radiation undergoes what I call “resonant scattering” this does involve the “resonators” in the warmer body and uses up some of its radiating capacity. Because the incident radiation supplies the energy, the warmer body does not need to convert an equivalent amount of its own thermal energy. Hence it cools more slowly.
But, the resonating process involves all the (potential) different frequencies in the incident radiation. There will be far less effect when there are limited frequencies as is the case for radiation from a trace gas in the atmosphere. Furthermore, the effect depends on the temperature of that gas and is less when it is cooler. It is far less from space (equivalent to about 2.7K) and so there is no slowing of cooling for that portion of radiation which gets through the atmospheric window.
The remaining radiation (when we look at net figures, not all that backradiation) represents less than a third of all the cooling processes from the surface to the atmosphere. The other non-radiative processes can, and will, simply speed up in order to compensate, because they do so if the temperature gap increases. There are further reasons discussed in Q.3 in the Appendix of my paper.
So there is no overall effect at all due to trace gases on the rate of cooling of the surface. Thus there can be no effect upon climate.
Discussion on this continues on this thread.
I just read your article on Forbes and then followed up on some of your references and looked up some of the evidence and theories you espoused. Tip of the hat for the level of obfuscation and misdirection you achieved. You are great at sewing doubt and misrepresenting the science. I hope you are well paid by the oil and tobacco companies for the noble work that you do.
Thanks for wrapping up the stupid discussion about CO2 as a GHG. It was getting old and quite annoying having a discussion about something so grounded in simple physics and so well measured by satellite data.
I especially loved how you pretended that 800ppm would be a mere doubling of CO2, when the pre-industrial level was 280 so that would be more like 3x CO2. Does your obfuscation story still work with 3 degrees of CO2 forcing?
Your feedback points though were amazingly disingenuous. Were you lying intentionally or do you truly misunderstand the scientific record so badly? Water vapor? The negative and positive effect of cloud cover, tipping more towards a warming effect than a cooling effect? Melting permafrost?
And the ocean heat budget. How did you convince yourself of that one? That took some willful effort to get that so wrong. Let’s pretend the oceans are not measurably warming, where do you think the satellite measured heat imbalance is going?
Kudos to your buddies Fred Seitz, Ellen Merlo, Art Robinson, Steve Milloy et al for their amazingly effective campaign to discredit real science and scare people away from dealing with serious issues. You are doing God’s work.
“Alarmists want to fight the war over whether the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is true and whether the world has seen warming over the last century, both propositions that skeptics like myself accept.”
Yes, at high concentrations in a pure state CO2 is definitely a greenhouse gas. But I have never seen evidence that you can extrapolate to very low concentrations of CO2 in a complex/dynamic mixture like our atmosphere.
I think the best hypothesis for climate change is solar resonant diffusion waves. (Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 69, Issue 7, May 2007 , Pages 759-766 Robert Ehrlich.)
Another point is that the surface and oceans are warming while the atmosphere is cooling – more evidence that diffusion waves and NOT Milankovitch cycles or CO2 are the cause of climate change.
slow Planet orbital forcing for climate variability .
Fast planet orbital forcing for weather events .
electric sun
based on orbital forceing the next complete solar minima ( nil sunspots ) will be centred on 2099 .
for the first time since 1645 – 1715 the 3 outer slow planets will be in aphelion simultainiously.
Pluto 40 degs Neptune 163 degs Uranus 17 degs Saturn 189 degs Jupiter 166 degs = mini ice age !.
The publications at Principia Scientific International show why carbon dioxide has absolutely no effect on climate, so sensitivity is zero. See, for example, my peer-reviewed paper Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics on the site.
I am proud to be an active member of PSI and, as such, I am in daily email contact with many of these main stream scientists, including professors and PhD’s in various disciplines such as physics, applied mathematics, chemistry, climatology and astro physics. The numbers are approaching 40, including well known new members just announced.
What I write are not just my theories. We are all in agreement that standard physics and empirical results back us up.
D C how will your new discussion for independant free thinkers operate , when the Arbiter of scientific debate is PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE LITERATURE & does not currently support a role for planets in events on Sun &
Earth , when I pay the Sub $ 20 , will that mean my Portable Document Format ( PDF ) will be accepted into
a Peer Reviewed Journal for Scrutiny ?.
This place just gets weirder and weirder…
Are any of you people taking anti-psychotics?
I don’t know of any other source that produces a magnetic field than the flow of electrons & the sun produces the grand daddy in our region , I thought that was basic stuff , it’s no wonder then that the
arbiter of scientific debate does not currently support a role for planets in events that effect the sun & earth , the solar wind is electrically charged , as a matter of fact so are you , my compass needle is dominated by the direction in which electrons are flowing , sun shine is produced
by the ” binding energy ” process :- Hydrogen @ 13.6 Ev & Helium @ 25 Ev = MeV/amu.
to D C & all that brass , it’s like show & tell way back in the kindergarten days , the gang of 40 has peere reviewed your pdf & given it the big nod , but where do you use all that rubbish ?, when I retired in 1980 after 41 years working for a living ( you should try it sometime , it’s most rewarding )the mett office couldn’t see further than their noses & 32 years later & despite all their expensive wizedery they still manage to get it wrong quite often , ( I personally wouldn’t be happy going into battle on their calculations )
on the other hand & with the methods I adopted over some 20 years now ( multiple planetary angular separation together with the dickman cross technology )my “Atmosiesmic” predictions are very close to perfection, all because planet movements are predictable , John H Nelson , an American electrical engineer working for RCA at the end of WW2 had the monumental task of figuring out the connection between sunspot proliferation & short wave radio interference & within a few years was able to advise RCA which wavelengths to use on a 6 hourly basis , the work nelson started back then I was able to finish by discovering his missing 25% in mid’
2005 .
NOTE THIS PLEASE ! I have been for some years now drawn up Atmosiesmic prediction dates with startling results , on March 13 – 2012 I dispatched 2 charts to my believers , the first was for 17 – 20 march , resulting in devastating flooding NSW Australia , chart no 2 for April 11 – 15th , so far we see a 8.6 earthquake off Sumatra plus many more aftershocks following .
All aboard! Hahaha
Crazy, but that’s how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe. it’s not too late
To learn how to love, and forget how to hate
Mental wounds not healing
Life’s a bitter shame
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I’ve listened to preachers,
I’ve listened to fools
I’ve watched all the dropouts
Who make their own rules
One person conditioned to rule and control
The media sells it and you live the role
Mental wounds still screaming
Driving me insane
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I know that things are going wrong for me
You gotta listen to my words, yeah, yeah
Heirs of a cold war,
that’s what we’ve become
Inheriting troubles,
I’m mentally numb
Crazy, I just cannot bear
I’m living with something that just isn’t fair
Mental wounds not healing
Who and what’s to blame
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
Crazy, I’m crazy for feeling so lonely
I’m crazy, crazy for feeling so blue
I knew you’d love me as long as you wanted
And then someday you’d leave me for somebody new
Worry, why do I let myself worry?
Wond’ring what in the world did I do?
Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you
I’m crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I’m crazy for loving you
Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you
I’m crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I’m crazy for loving you.
THE BIG OZZY PREDICTION COMPETITION .
D C the only way to separate the chiefs from the indians is to let the competition begin , I challenge you & your 40 mainstream scientists to a deadly game of guess the next years tally of seismic events , the rules could go somthing like this & to keep it simple let us stick to earthquakes over 7.4 on Charles F Richter’s scale & within a 24 hrs time span , at the end of 12 months the winner will be the one with the most accurate predictions. if you think the odds are stacked against you at 40 – 1 , just stay out of it & let another more confident & dare I say quallified to take up the challenge .
You accept that AGW is real (rejecting CAGW at this time) but many of the commenters on web sites do not accept AGW and is the main reason the media and people like myself constantly argue about the main points of AGW (is the planet warming, is it caused in part by CO2, is man-made CO2 partly responsible). If you can’t even agree on the basis for AGW how can you have a debate on the nuances of CAGW? If you don’t accept the fact of AGW then there is no where to start for CAGW. You can debate CAGW with others but until the population of the US accepts AGW we can’t move on to the real discussion that needs to be had.
I think AGW is real but beneficial.
There is no rational reason to believe it will cause CAGW ever.
Citing models whose outputs have been worthless so far is a non argument !
I’m with the few people here that are expressing frustration with the skeptics arguments. I can never pin them down exactly. Do you not think CO2 absorbs in the infrared, that human industrial activity causes an increase in CO2 partial pressures in the atmosphere, that increases in CO2 concentration are likely to cause increases in global temperature, that increases in global temperature are not going to cause upheaval in countries– particularly poor countries that can’t do things like build dams and make infrastructure improvements to deal with global warming.
Further, many of the presentations I heard from skeptics are overly personal– attacking good scientists who are trying to deal with limited data and apply models to this data. I don’t see evidence that the vast majority of scientists working on AGW are driven by greed, tunnel vision, or a desire to misrepresent. I wouldn’t make that argument about the contrarians that are promoting skepticism about global warming so why the particular venom when talking about this subject? There’s alot of unknowns in this field and trying to impugn scientists who employ models to figure out which way the thermometer is going to go isn’t promoting good understanding of a complicated subject.
Hi netdr
>Citing models whose outputs have been worthless so far is a non argument !
So… you think that stuff like this is the result of a cabal at Nature? Somehow I find that unlikely. Aren’t scientists just trying to use limited data in a complex system to take a stab at what’s likely in the future?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n4/full/ngeo1430.html