Rog,

Hmm. Yeah, that did sound confrontational, didn't it? My apologies. Sincerely.

By way of explaination: like many, my buddies and I have a rather controntational-yet-chummy style when we talk to each other, and when I'm in a hurry it tends to come through when I write informal stuff like this. It doesn't transmit well in text, though. That's one reason I endorse emoticons, even though I think they look juvenile.

My bad.

Back on the offensive...

I tried to back you against a wall precisely because I CAN'T tell what your position is, except that you seem to contradict me whenever possible. I went back through your posts before I wrote my last one, and I still can't tell. No kidding. I swear it seems as if in one breath you deny that global temperatures are rising and in the next claim that rising global temperatures are due to solar phenomena or are due to some other natural process.

In your defense, you are posting A LOT of text, and answering comments from A LOT of people, so I may be getting mixed up in other debates.

Someone, please, either back me up here or let me know that I'm being thick.

I wouldn't ask anything of you that I wouldn't do my self, so...

FOR THE RECORD:
I believe that global temperature averages have been trending upwards in the past century or so due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas production. I acknowledge that the precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution to these rising temperatures is not well established (i.e. it has big error bars) but it IS statistically significant.

Anyway, there it is- I showed you mine, so show me yours. Succinctly, please. I tried to be precise in my use of language, but I'm sure I missed some miniscule equivocation that you can gleefully pounce upon. :-)

*Note Emoticon*

If your position is something like "I can't decide if there REALLY is a warming trend or not, but it seems unlikely, and if there is then this greenhouse gas malarky is still a bunch of crud", well, I can accept that. But going back and forth like you are is confusing me. All I'm asking for is a clarification rather than an equivocation.

Further Disclaimers:
I once stole a Snickers when I was eight. Sometimes I don't put the toilet seat back down. I consider myself almost exactly middle-of-the-road, politically. I'm a heterosexual white male. I'm a doctor, so you can imagine my position on U.S. healthcare reform. Perhaps most damning: I work for the U.S. government and I'm here to help. (See my avatar and make your own conclusions.)

Another one that puzzles me is this graph you posted:



The atmospheric temperatures that I was referring to were stratospheric temperatures, not troposhperic. Your graph shows troposheric temperatures. Also, your graph shows temperatures dropping near the end there (your *up to date* data) which would support my position rather than contradict it if it were, in fact, stratospheric temperatures on the graph. Or am I missing something?

Here are data straight from the NOAA website:



If you want the link, here it is:

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#q1

Recall, current models of the greenhouse effect predict falling temperatures in the stratosphere with an increasing greenhouse effect from greenhouse gases, even as temperatures at lower altitudes rise.

If you try hard enough you can poke holes in the legitimacy of anything (including the IPCC). I honestly thought given what you had wrote that you were acknowledging those websites you posted to be rather attractive targets, and I tried to make a kind of joke of it. For the record, they really are easy targets, but perhaps I could have been more politic (again, mea culpa). Further, I maintain that they aren't very convincing when compared to the National Academy of Science, etc., etc.

OF COURSE the corporations that are the biggest greenhouse-gas emitters are going to resist, including resistance with tenuous science via think-tanks such as those you mentioned. (Witness Philip Morris.) They are caught in a Prisoners' Dilemma. Clearly the right thing to do, even if global warming isn't 100% proven, given the serious consequences if it is true, is to err on the side of caution. (If you disagree, I would voice serious doubts about your judgment or motives.) But if only one company does so and the rest don't, that one responsible company will be driven out of business because being environmentally responsible costs a lot. Prisoners' Dilemma. Thus, even though I'm a laissez-faire kind of guy I admit that corporate environmental policy needs to be legislated. It can't be left to the free market.

Moving on.

I don't buy your claim for using *up to date* data, though. When you add a few years of observations to a 100 year series (or worse, a thousands-year series) then try to claim that it's significant, that is rather obfuscating. It's also confusing, when you have admitted that data about natural phenomena have a certain variability and granularity about them (which is why we sometimes use smoothed graphs). And, while I'm feeling confrontational again :-) and while we're criticizing odd scales on graph axes, how about this thing:



It has NO scale on the vertical axis. How can it be critiqued?

Also, you don't have a monopoly on critical thinking. I am an educated man with a science background, so I am trained to look for things like misleading graph axes, check sources, point out conflicting data, etc., just as you are. I am NOT a climatologist, so if you are then you can clamour about your vast experience with climatalogical data. But you would STILL be in the minority of climatologists. (I would *almost* say "fringe minority.") And, if you want to revel in your outsider status among your peers, then all the more power to you, but I don't find you very convincing. I have seen the kinds of data that you are posting beore and, I will admit, it is very interesting on a lot of levels and made me think, but ultimately I found it unconvincing compared to the avalanche of contrary data. (In fact, one of the reasons I started debating with you was to see if you had any new information I hadn't heard of.)

So honestly, when you protest that you are the only guy on this forum who is actually looking at data and thinking for himself it is rather condescending.

> Good suggestion, why don't you follow your own advice?

Yawn back at you.

The weight of evidence is on my side. The world is big enough and there are enough people publishing data, that we can both for all practical purposes on this forum produce an infinite amount of it. But my infinity is still much bigger than your infinity. To make a geek joke: You are all possible integers, and I am all possible real numbers.

Wow. That was bad, eh?

Examples of being able to throw conflicting data around:

You like to cite data from prestigious sources showing decreasing global temperatures. Here's NOAA:



Here's one that (I think) you mention, NASA:



For that matter, concerning your data on temperatures falling in the southern hemisphere, here's NASA again:



Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that (speaking scientifically, not theologically) you agree that modern homo sapiens has been around well less than a million years. Possibly less than a quarter of that, actually. So, can we stop debating the contribution of atmospheric CO2 to global temperatures hundreds of millions of years ago? In which case I refer readers to:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html

This is the Crowley paper on the NOAA website, and it corrects for things like the various solar cycles, ON A HUMAN TIMESCALE. I can't post the full text because I don't have an online subscription to Science magazine, so this is just the abstract and graphs. I would post the graphs here, but I can't figure out how to copy the high-resolution ones.

Frankly, I've gotten to the point now that I'm just sick of wasting my time throwing data like this back and forth with you. Neither of us is going to convince the other, and it takes too much time looking up all the primary sources, many of whom aren't available on the web, etc. This discussion has become futile. I'd rather play peek-a-boo with my daughter. And, I would prefer not to have her sunbathing on Baffin Island some day. :-P

I suggest that we both return to our other avocations.

At any rate, I'm returning to MY other avocations. If you have any parting shots that aren't redundant, take them, and I will certainly be courteous enough to answer anything addressed directly to me.

Cheers.

Edited by acrosome on 04/22/2008 09:10:03 MDT.

Hi Dean, a post worthy of a considered response, thankyou :-)

>it seems as if in one breath you deny that global temperatures are rising and in the next claim that rising global temperatures are due to solar phenomena or are due to some other natural process.

The reason I deny that global temperature are rising is because they are falling, at least for now. We've just seen the biggest single fall in recorded history from Jan 07 to Jan 08, by an amount equivalent to the entire warming over the last century. I'm fully aware that thuis is due to ENSO, you may not be aware that there are some worthy and interesting hypotheses which link ENSO and the El Nino - La Nina phenomena to the activity of the sun

Also:
2007 was cooler than 2006.
2006 was cooler than 2005.
According to hadCRUT

I am aware that temperature could resume an upward trend which will make these few cooler years a merely temporary respite, and that on a five year averaged graph would all but vanish as skots pointed out.

However you need to be aware that against all odds, and in spite of the majority being on your side, temperatures might fall some more, following the inevitable bounce from the current La Nina, in which case I'm vindicated, and you're in the dunces corner. ;-)

>FOR THE RECORD:
I believe that global temperature averages have been trending upwards in the past century or so due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas production. I acknowledge that the precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution to these rising temperatures is not well established (i.e. it has big error bars) but it IS statistically significant.

FOR THE RECORD:
I believe that global temperatures have been trending upwards in the past century or so mainly because of increased solar activity. I acknowledge that human activity including CO2 emissions may have contributed to this warming, and that one day we may be able to properly quantify that contribution or at least approximate it, but I confidently expect it will turn out to be a relatively small factor in comparison to the solar influence.

One of the many reasons I'm confident that I'm right, is that back in the early 1700's, Central England (a reasonably good proxy for the northern hemisphere) at this scale, warmed 3.25C in 40 years, despite a negligible rise in atmospheric CO2. It makes the 0.7C rise since 1900 look a bit dull really.... Later on in the record, the temperature fell for several decades on a couple of occasions while the industrial revolution was in full swing and CO2 was rising. This shows that there is some more powerful climate forcing agent at work apart from CO2.

The fact of the matter is: Atmospheric CO2 concentrations just don't correlate very well with Global temperature over time, whereas solar activity does correlate very well indeed. So well in fact, that it leaves little room for a CO2 driven climate forcing. In any case, if CO2 concentrations doubled tomorrow, the temperature wouldn't go up more than a third of a degree or so, since it's absorption window is nearly closed, and because of it's spectral overlap with the water vapour that accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect anyway. Put it this way, if cloud cover increased 1%, it would have more effect.

>your graph shows temperatures dropping near the end there (your *up to date* data) which would support my position rather than contradict it if it were, in fact, stratospheric temperatures on the graph.

But they're not. GCM's require that the troposhere be getting a lot hotter for the CO2 induced global warming theory to work. Observation by satellites since 1979 says otherwise.

>When you add a few years of observations to a 100 year series (or worse, a thousands-year series) then try to claim that it's significant, that is rather obfuscating.

It is significant if the trend has been going all one way for that period and then the last few years indicate it may be starting to go the other though. ;-)
When was the last time the global average temperature fell like it has recently?

>while we're criticizing odd scales on graph axes, how about this thing: It has NO scale on the vertical axis. How can it be critiqued?


In fairness, it does have a maximum to minimum reading written on it complete with error range, and when dealing with such timescales, precision is neither possible or entirely relevant to the point being made, which is: The temperature might be going up now, but on the average, it's been going down for 8,000 years. Since very few credible scientists talk about 'runaway positive feedbacks' any more, it seems likely that temperatures will return to their 8,000 year trend at some point, and on the balance of probability, dump us in another ice age. Gotta keep an open mind on these things and look on the bright side of life though. One thing is for sure, a warmer planet is preferable to a cooler planet when there are 5 billion hungry mouths to feed ;-)

>For that matter, concerning your data on temperatures falling in the southern hemisphere, here's NASA again:

Yep, surface data, I was posting the satellite data for the troposphere in the southern hemisphere. I hear the sea ice in the antarctic reached a record extent last winter. I didn't see it reported in the maintream media though...

Cheers

Rog

Edited by tallbloke on 04/22/2008 10:04:27 MDT.

Good points by all, but the winner of the debate is Rog.

George:
"Good points by all, but the winner of the debate is Rog."

Except that I'm simply not seeing this temperature fall that he is talking about. And if he is "winning" it is only because he is *marginally* more pigheaded than I am, and thus more willing to continue to flog a dead horse. :-)

Rog:
"It is significant if the trend has been going all one way for that period and then the last few years indicate it may be starting to go the other though. ;-)
When was the last time the global average temperature fell like it has recently?"

Just plain wrong. Since you ask, temperatures waver up and down on the yearly timescale pretty often, actually. Look at how wavy all the graphs are. THIS is why I thought you were making conflicting statements of the murder-defense variety, i.e. "I didn't kill him, but if I did he deserved it." But I think I get what you're trying to say, now. I still disagree, but I get it. More on this in the next paragraph, too...

Rog:
"Yep, surface data, I was posting the satellite data for the troposphere in the southern hemisphere."

Well, isn't it surface temperatures we're talking about? You are cherry-picking data, and going off on a tangent, simultaneously.
First, posting tropospheric data STILL doesn't contradict my point about how stratospheric observations match very well what is predicted by the greenhouse model. It's like you're saying "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." See the NOAA website that I posted. And I am totally unfamiliar with these tropospheric model predictions that you are referencing, and it's not googling easily- where did they come from?
Second, you're cherry-picking because you are focusing on southern hemisphere temperature observations that A) I dispute, see my graphs and maps several posts ago, and B) if they are anything are probably a La Nina effect, and thus local and limited, as you have said. (Here I get to use the murder defense! :-)) Look at global temperature averages. And, did you see my NOAA graph? Tropospheric temperatures ARE rising. Here it is again:



The single empirical event that you describe for the 3C temperature rise in England in the 1700s is another episode of cherry-picking, and seems to correlate with the end of the little ice age, which everyone agrees was kind of weird. (And I admit I haven't yet fact-checked this 3C rise but, hell, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now.) I will not, however, acquiesce to central England as a good model for global or even northern-hemisphere climate. Sorry. Too many other big influences affect England, not the least of which is the Gulf Stream- a rather significant one. So let's talk about global temperature averages.

Rog:
"The temperature might be going up now, but on the average, it's been going down for 8,000 years."

EXACTLY! The current temperature spike doesn't jive with that recent trend, and certainly isn't the smooth transition to warmer temperatures that some long-term natural process would imply. If anything, temperatures took a sharp upturn. Even the first graph you posted would seem to imply that a 1C change should take a million years or so (at least) at the bottom of the curve.

So, lets throw out that hundreds-of-millions of years stuff, again. All kinds of complex effects are working over those timescales. Who can possibly prove what affects climate over such lengths of time? (Not to mention solar activity has changed dramatically since then- not like the relatively minuscule changes you're talking about.) Here's recent data, showing the downtrend:



Note that in all of these, the horizontal axis is going into the past, so modern day is on the left. Let's zoom in a little:



Note how if the trend continues temperatures should still go down a bit or at worst level off. Instead, we have a sharp swing upward. Now, zooming in again to something on the same timescale as the existence of the human race:



NOAA, again.

So say what you will about greenhouse gases in the age of the dinosaurs, on practical timescales (i.e. the holocene) CO2 levels equate pretty well.

Now, can I prove that the past 300 years haven't been an aberrant spike down in temps, and that things are now correcting back to a warmer baseline? Well, to the same standard as the Heliocentric Theory or something like that, no, of course not. But can you prove the opposite, either? Again, no, of course not.

Coupled with that NOAA analysis by Crowley that I posted in my last manifesto, however, my data looks pretty convincing. Incidentally, I puzzled out how to post that graph from the Crowley paper that rates the relative contribution of various factors to global temperatures for the past thousand years. Note the sharp rise at the end of the line for greenhouse gases:



Also, note how all the various kinds of solar contribution are pretty stable. Here is the link to the abstract on NOAA's website, and it includes links to his raw data in case you want to see it (and no claiming that the graph is invalid because it ends at 2000AD - that's a spurious argument, other data show the trend continuing,anyway):

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/crowley.html

So, I still think you are wrong (nothing personal) and the vast majority of the scientific community agree with me (which, in your defense, you haven't ever really disputed).

Damn. You're sucking me into this again.

Tell you what- just say that you agree to disagree, and I'll walk away. My daughter misses me.

P.S. The Heartland Institute?!? I'm still stunned. Frankly, I have come to expect better from a man of your caliber. :-)

Edited by acrosome on 04/22/2008 14:18:49 MDT.

Dean comes back!

It's a dead heat again. Please excuse the pun : )

I Wrote:
"So, I still think you are wrong (nothing personal) and the vast majority of the scientific community agree with me (which, in your defense, you haven't ever really disputed)."

To come back to this subject, let's stop slinging random *conflicting* raw data back and forth, and discuss peer-review.

Obviously the global warming issue is something that people have strong opinions about, and are very passionate about. In that way it is rather like the abortion and gun-control issues in the U.S. It is difficult to have a civil discussion.

As I have said, Rog, to your credit you have never tried to claim that your opinion isn't in the minority. The whole peer-review issue is sort of the point of my *notorious* list of organizations. (To which I guess I could now add NASA and NOAA, but I won't, since they are governmental agencies rather than scientific organizations.)

Earlier, I didn't ask you for a list of organizations supporting your theories. What I asked you for was a list of *reputable* *scientific* organizations of at least *national standing*. I hesitate to say this, but I might be convinced to accept a state-level organization (though I'll attack the Texas Board of Professional Geologists or it's equivalent, on the obvious grounds).

Nor will I accept 20-man corporate mouthpieces, such as CEI or Heartland. Which is, presumably, the best that you could come up with. I'm trying to make a point about peer-review, not economics. :-) *Note Emoticon* And all of these professional scientific organizations on my list have, presumably, evaluated ALL relevent data, necessarily imperfect though some of it may be, and come to a conclusion that disputes yours. All of them. (To clarify: all of the organizations, not all of your conclusions. I'd have to read back through the forums a bit before I could make such a Bold Statement.)

On the other hand, are the studies that support global warming perfect? No, of course not. I would propose that no data are perfect, and minor criticisms can always be leveled. However, as you collect so much of it, it becomes more and more compelling. As I alluded to earlier, we really have no "proof" of the Heliocentric Theory, either, because "proof", scientifically speaking, is impossible. You can't "prove" a theory- all you can do is support it or *disprove* it.

And, does consensus equate to truth? Again, no, of course not. A great exaple is the role of the H. pylori bacterium in peptic ulcer disease. That Australian guy (you gota love Australians) had to infect himself and thus give himself ulcers before anyone would listen to him, and it still took decades. Nowadays it is recognized medical truth, and has saved many lives and spared untold suffering.

There is a scientific saying: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." And I just don't think that you have met that standard. The Australian guy did.

So, the mountain of data has been evaluated and the experts have come to truly *remarkable* degree of consensus (considering how acrimonious their debates can get) to the detriment of your position.

Edited by acrosome on 04/22/2008 23:29:57 MDT.

Hi Dean,

I'm running short of spare time here so this will be my final response before I have to finish preparations for my backpacking trip to Sardinia to study the bronze age structures up in the mountains there. (and I get to mix some work on archeo-astronomy with some pleasure, as my girlfriend is coming with me. See, I have a life too :-)

I'll pick up on lots of the other stuff you got wrong on my return, but for now I'm going to concentrate on one main issue raised by your posts.

Dean said: zooming in again to something on the same timescale as the existence of the human race:


>So say what you will about greenhouse gases in the age of the dinosaurs, on practical timescales (i.e. the holocene) CO2 levels equate pretty well.

It's true that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere correlates quite well to temperature viewed on this timescale, but there's just one teeny problem for man made CO2 driven global warming true believers here. If you look at the graph carefully, you'll notice that the increses and decreases in CO2 levels lag behind the rises and falls in temperature. By between 700 - 1900 years in fact.
Where does this leave the "CO2 drives climate change" argument? Pretty much nowhere. Cause precedes effect. For you to continue to say increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide drives the worlds temperature up is like saying,
"The ball flew upwards towards the goal, and caused the place kicker to run up and kick it."

To be sure, once the carbon dioxide is up there, it will cause a small amount of further warming at the top of the temperature trend, but the point is, it's not the prime mover. Anyway, the first 20 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere accounts for most of it's effect. To double it's effect, you have to add another 580 parts per million. Just to put those figures into context, the current level is around 400ppm. The 3.4% mankind has added to atmospheric CO2, which contributes around 0.012% to the greenhouse effect is just not significant. (Water vapour accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect, without which, we'd all be dead on a block of ice).

Don't believe me? Well the judge in the court case in the UK in the case where a lorry driver took the UK government to court for trying to force his daughter to watch the AL Gore fantasy-disaster movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' told the government that unless they agreed to send a guidance note to every school in the land to be read out at each showing of the movie explaining that Gore had got it all wrong on this point (and 8 others), *according to main stream science*, he would find them in breach of a law preventing the political indoctrination of children.

Don't believe the judge either? here are some references for you.

* Indermühle et al. (GRL, vol. 27, p. 735, 2000), who find that CO2 lags behind the temperature by 1200±700 years, using Antarctic ice-cores between 60 and 20 kyr before present (see figure).
* Fischer et al. (Science, vol 283, p. 1712, 1999) reported a time lag 600±400 yr during early de-glacial changes in the last 3 glacial–interglacial transitions.
* Siegenthaler et al. (Science, vol. 310, p. 1313, 2005) find a best lag of 1900 years in the Antarctic data.
* Monnin et al. (Science vol 291, 112, 2001) find that the start of the CO2 increase in the beginning of the last interglacial lagged the start of the temperature increase by 800 years.

I'm sure you'll agree that 'Science' is not a fringe publication with a website run by cranks, conspiracy theorists and pikers. ;-)

There is however, one organisation of international standing which chooses to ignore this evidence and these peer reviewed papers in it's reports. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But then, it's reports aren't peer reviewed by any scientists before publication, and it's final editing work is done by policy makers and politicians, not by scientists. Funnily enough, your big list of organisations of great standing seem to refer to these IPCC reports which ignore mainstream science quite a lot....

Now some true believers, unable to let go of their central tenet of faith, claim that it's all different in the modern period, and somehow, magically, man made CO2 is different to all the rest of the CO2 and can drive the climate instead of following it as it has done throughout very long periods of earth's history including the ice ages your graph shows.

They still haven't come up with any good science to back this article of faith up with though. Please don't start quoting computer modelers and weather guessers, they couldn't even tell you if a bear was going to take it's next dump in the woods or in the popes hat.

So that's it, you're banged to rights my old beauty.
Hoisted on your own petard by your own evidence.

The game is up, case closed.

:-)

Edited to add: I just can't resist this one though.

Dean said:
>The single empirical event that you describe for the 3C temperature rise in England in the 1700s is another episode of cherry-picking, and seems to correlate with the end of the little ice age, which everyone agrees was kind of weird.

"Kind of wierd"? Is this a technical term? Peer review? References??

Let me help you and 'everyone' out. The sunspot count flatlined for 40 years while the population of earth shivered in the icy grip of the Maunder Minimum, or 'little ice age' as it was known. Then the sun got all active again just as the temperature shot up. Also, it's been at it's most active since the mediaeval warm period during the last 70 years. Fancy that for a 'coincidence'.

Have fun.

Rog

Edited by tallbloke on 04/23/2008 05:17:04 MDT.

Unfortunately, your CO2 lag is mythical.

First, it is an isolated phenomenon of antarctic ice cores- Taylor Ice Dome, Law Ice Dome, etc. It has not been demonstrated anywhere else. Cherry-picking again. (I think... I'll look into it some more and make sure before I finalize that statement. Hopefully I'll be done by the time you get back...)

Second, the temperature observations you are talking about are based upon CO2 and deuterium/hydrogen isotope ratios of the ice cores, an imperfect measure of temperature. It has been shown that when the deuterium/hydrogen ratios are corrected for the influence of temperature changes at the ocean surface (from which the water in the ice cores that fell as snow originally evaporated), the apparent drop in temperature hundreds of years before the drop in CO2 disappears.

Cuffey and Vimeux, Nature, 2001.

Wups, I missed that 2005 paper. Give me a bit to look it up...

Anyway, I think you will agree that Nature isn't a piker, as well. :-) So if this was the basis for your "hoist on your own petard" comment, I would suggest that it was premature...

Thirdly, even the guys who believe in the CO2 lag during the holocene have said that CO2 accounts for at least 5/6 of the temperature rise during the periods in question. They may doubt that a spike in CO2 *initiates* the climate change, but acknowledge that the CO2 nonetheless accounts for most of the temperature change once it gets going in response to whatever the theoretical initiator is (Malinkofsy [sic] cycles, or whatever). They also acknowledge that the "tipping point", if you will, is brittle, and once the CO2 rises a little (certainly less than 100ppm) the temperature rises precipitously and CO2 shoots up rapidly. And what are we doing now? The human race is *artificially* duplicating the CO2 rise. As I said, this is *even if* the lag is real, which it probably isn't.

Again, I get to use the murder defense. I'm trying to be transparent about it, though.

> The game is up, case closed.

I'm glad that you feel secure enough to declare victory. Self-confidence is so very important. :-) I do agree that this discussion is getting boring, though.

> "Kind of wierd"? Is this a technical term? Peer review? References??

How droll.

Kudos on Sardinia. I've never been there- the nearest I've been is Sicily. And archeo-astronomy sounds utterly fascinating, actually. (I presume that it is the study of the astronomical observations made by prehistoric peoples?) What specifically will you be looking into?

Sorry this post seems haphazard- I'm responding between patients in my clinic. I also plan to come back to the whole solar hypothesis stuff, too, eventually.

Edited by acrosome on 04/23/2008 06:14:57 MDT.

Dean said:
>Unfortunately, your CO2 lag is mythical.

Oh yeah?

* Siegenthaler et al. (Science, vol. 310, p. 1313, 2005) find a best lag of 1900 years in the Antarctic data.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5752/1313

Another important parameter elucidating the coupling of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature is their relative phasing. Because of the enclosure process of air in ice, the phase relationship of CO2 and {delta}D is associated with uncertainties. Because the enclosed air is younger than the surrounding ice (30), CO2 is plotted on a gas age chronology, whereas deuterium is plotted on an ice age chronology. For Dome C and the period under investigation, the gas age/ice age difference ({Delta} age) is in the range of 1.9 to 5.5 ky (fig. S1). The estimated uncertainty of {Delta} age in the upper 800 m of the Dome C ice core is about 10% (31), neglecting uncertainties in the thinning rate. Deviations from the modeled thinning would introduce systematic errors in {Delta} age.

By shifting the time scales of the entire CO2 and deuterium records between 390 and 650 kyr B.P. relative to each other, we obtained the best correlation for a lag of CO2 of 1900 years. This lag is significant considering the uncertainties of {Delta} age. Over the glacial terminations V to VII, the highest correlation of CO2 and deuterium, with use of a 20-ky window for each termination, yields a lag of CO2 to deuterium of 800, 1600, and 2800 years, respectively. This value is consistent with estimates based on data from the past four glacial cycles. Fischer et al. (5) concluded that CO2 concentrations lagged Antarctic warmings by 600 ± 400 years during the past three transitions. Monnin et al. (9) found a lag of 800 ± 600 years for termination I, and Caillon et al. (32), with use of the isotopic composition of argon in air bubbles instead of deuterium, calculated a value of 800 ± 200 years for termination III. Overall, the estimated lags over the entire Dome C record between 390 and 650 kyr B.P. and over the three terminations in this time period are small compared with glacial-interglacial time scales and do not cast doubt on the strong coupling of CO2 and temperature or on the importance of CO2 as a key amplification factor of the large observed temperature variations of glacial cycles.

An apparent exception of the lag of CO2 to deuterium observed over most of the record occurs around 534 to 548 kyr B.P., where CO2 seems to lead {delta}D by about 2000 ± 500 year. We cannot conclude with certainty whether the observed lead of CO2 at this time is real or an artefact in the EDC2 time scale. To make the CO2 and the {delta}D peaks simultaneous, we would need to increase the modeled depth offset of the gas record and the ice record ({Delta} depth) from 4.3 m to 7 m (fig. S2). This can be achieved by a reduced thinning rate, an increased accumulation rate, a decreased temperature, or a combination of them. However, because accumulation and temperature are strongly positively correlated at present (33), the required change in accumulation or temperature, or a change of both, is rather unlikely. An anomalously low thinning rate is therefore the more likely way to produce such an artefact in the EDC2 time scale.

>It has been shown that when the deuterium/hydrogen ratios are corrected for the influence of temperature changes at the ocean surface (from which the water in the ice cores that fell as snow originally evaporated), the apparent drop in temperature hundreds of years before the drop in CO2 disappears.

Cuffey and Vimeux, Nature, 2001.

My B_llcr*p detector is trembling.

CO2 always lags temperature changes, never leads, be it that there are large overlaps in most cases and sometimes synchronism. And that a change of 40-50 ppmv CO2 had no measurable influence on temperature (during the onset of the last glaciation), while several models imply that CO2 was responsible for halve of the change in temperature (or halve of the 8 degr.C for 80 ppmv increase in CO2 at the onset of the last deglaciation). But as CO2 acts the same for both ways (cooling and warming), either current climate models overestimate the (historical) role of CO2, or the measurements need some correction.

In fact, Cuffey and Vimeux did not solve the lag, they only corrected the temperature derived from deuterium/hydrogen ratio, which gives a more sinusoidal curve for temperature changes (and a better correlation between CO2 and temperature), but it didn’t change the timing.


>> "Kind of wierd"? Is this a technical term? Peer review? References??
>How droll.

How lame. If it couldn't have been CO2 lifting the temperature 3.25C in 40 years what was it, the sun, or "weirdness"? Pick one, dude. ;-)

But anyway, gotta go. See you in a week or two.

Edited by tallbloke on 04/23/2008 06:41:32 MDT.

> My B_llcr*p detector is trembling.

Really? Because mine is going off the SCALE!

Ok. So, we're going to degenerate into quoting contradictory papers and flinging data back and forth again, eh? Very well. Give me a few hours- I have patients to see.

You really have yet to address my whole consensus/peer-review point. I suppose because you really can't. (Heartland?!?) :-) Man, I'm never going to get tired of that one... I do mean the whole Heartland thing as a sort of friendly teasing, so if it truly bothers you, let me know.

> How lame. If it couldn't have been CO2 lifting the temperature 3.25C in 40 years what was it, the sun, or "weirdness"? Pick one, dude. ;-)

Again, very droll. (As in, "I acknowledge your dry wit", not as in "that's lame." Don't get all defensive on me, again. My initial "wierdness" comment, since I am being misunderstood, was merely an acknowledgement that I do not know enough about the little ice age and relevent solar data to comment intelligently. Yet. And clinging to one particular data point when so many others are available STILL stinks of cherry-picking.)

Enjoy your trip.

Edited by acrosome on 04/23/2008 06:54:20 MDT.

>> My B_llcr*p detector is trembling.

>Really? Because mine is going off the SCALE!

Probably needs calibrating, when did you last change the battery?

>I do mean the whole Heartland thing as a sort of friendly teasing, so if it truly bothers you, let me know.

As I told you, I simply googled some 'anti MMGW' sites to satisfy your demands. I have no attachment or investment in them, so flame away to your heartlands content.

>I do not know enough about the little ice age and relevent solar data to comment intelligently. Yet. And clinging to one particular data point when so many others are available STILL stinks of cherry-picking.)

Ok, no problem, same story at the begininning and end of the Dalton Minimum, rapid decline of sunspot activity, followed by recovery. And don't forget the big rise in irradiance coincident with increased sunspot activity over the C20th, coinciding with the 0.75C rise in global tamperatures you and the true believers blow so much hot CO2 into the air about.

Or is an entire century "cherry picking" too? ;-)

Look for yourself:

Edited by tallbloke on 04/23/2008 07:42:59 MDT.

Hi, Rog,

A few comments on your post.

>”The reason I deny that global temperature are rising is because they are falling, at least for now. We've just seen the biggest single fall in recorded history from Jan 07 to Jan 08, by an amount equivalent to the entire warming over the last century. I'm fully aware that thuis is due to ENSO, you may not be aware that there are some worthy and interesting hypotheses which link ENSO and the El Nino - La Nina phenomena to the activity of the sun

Also:
2007 was cooler than 2006.
2006 was cooler than 2005.
According to hadCRUT”

And also according to HadCRUT: “A simple mathematical calculation of the temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1 °C per decade.” Validity of the importance that you afford current annual temps in climate science, would demand a “make over” of the disciplines of climate study and statistical analysis. I wish you well! Have you seen the latest numbers? The GISS anomaly for March 08 is .52C higher than January 08. The planet as re-warmed about two thirds of what it cooled in 07. In sixty days! Yes, my example is silly, and, as valid as yours.


>”However you need to be aware that against all odds, and in spite of the majority being on your side, temperatures might fall some more, following the inevitable bounce from the current La Nina, in which case I'm vindicated, and you're in the dunces corner. ;-)”

Continuing falling temperatures would not necessarily put Dean in the dunce’s corner. Neither, would falling temps necessarily invalidate GHG warming. If a solar cooling forcing, or other, is greater than the warming effect of the GHG, temps could fall.

>” I believe that global temperature averages have been trending upwards in the past century or so due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas production. I acknowledge that the precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution to these rising temperatures is not well established (i.e. it has big error bars) but it IS statistically significant.”

The physics of greenhouse warming is a century old, well established, and predictable. Anthropogenic contribution of GHGs is established. Atmospheric thermodynamics is a challenge. Precise percentage of temperature gain? No. Shrinking error bars? Yes.


>”I believe that global temperatures have been trending upwards in the past century or so mainly because of increased solar activity. I acknowledge that human activity including CO2 emissions may have contributed to this warming, and that one day we may be able to properly quantify that contribution or at least approximate it, but I confidently expect it will turn out to be a relatively small factor in comparison to the solar influence.”

Your “confident expectation” has little current scientific standing. If another, (other than TSI), solar/climate connection(s) and mechanism(s) is/are established, the solar forcing will stand beside the warming effect of GHGs in the atmosphere. It won’t replace it. In fact, the current understanding of GHG warming will likely “contribute” to the any discovery of unknown or currently un-established solar/climate connections.

>”One of the many reasons I'm confident that I'm right, is that back in the early 1700's, Central England (a reasonably good proxy for the northern hemisphere) at this scale, warmed 3.25C in 40 years, despite a negligible rise in atmospheric CO2. It makes the 0.7C rise since 1900 look a bit dull really.... Later on in the record, the temperature fell for several decades on a couple of occasions while the industrial revolution was in full swing and CO2 was rising. This shows that there is some more powerful climate forcing agent at work apart from CO2.”

Again, this is small place to stand. Placing confidence on a “reasonably good proxy for the Northern Hemisphere? And then, there’s the issue of connecting North to global. England is hardly regional, and subject to many influences: North Atlantic Island, NAO, temperature uncertainties, aerosols, methane, volcanic activity. The validity of the proxy is tenuous. Additionally, our high confidence level today, that increasing atmospheric CO2 is warming the planet, doesn’t mean that CO2 was or will be responsible for every warming in Central England. I don’t understand the implicative theme of solar vs. CO2. In climate science, the exclusionary dichotomy of “solar or GH” is simply false.

>”The fact of the matter is: Atmospheric CO2 concentrations just don't correlate very well with Global temperature over time, whereas solar activity does correlate very well indeed. So well in fact, that it leaves little room for a CO2 driven climate forcing. In any case, if CO2 concentrations doubled tomorrow, the temperature wouldn't go up more than a third of a degree or so, since it's absorption window is nearly closed, and because of it's spectral overlap with the water vapour that accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect anyway. Put it this way, if cloud cover increased 1%, it would have more effect.”

I disagree with your first sentence. And again, with the solar/CO2 exclusivity. The absorption window of CO2 will not close. With increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 the bandwidth of long wave radiation that CO2 will absorb, expands. With warming, the tropopause will rise, and with it, its capacity for CO2. And then there’s the stratosphere. The effect of the last molecule of CO2 will not be as effective as the first; effective nonetheless. Water vapor is 95 percent of GHGs by weight or volume? Aren’t we concerned with the radiative effect? About 20% for CO2 and 40% for water vapor. And, as increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the atmosphere, more water vapor is evaporated into the atmosphere to add more warmth to the atmosphere. Yes, clouds are a critical and powerful component, and again, not exclusive of the GHG effect. The effect of one does not diminish the effect of the other. How about a market in cloud futures?



>”But they're not. GCM's require that the troposhere be getting a lot hotter for the CO2 induced global warming theory to work. Observation by satellites since 1979 says otherwise.”

Based on principles of physics, the models show that the “tropical” troposphere will warm at a higher rate than the tropical surface. This increased tropospheric warming would result from a solar forcing as well as a GHG forcing. It is not “GHG global warming theory dependant”. The effort to measure atmospheric temps has been fraught with difficulty, and the uncertainty associated with atmospheric temps reflects that difficulty. They have not been considered as reliable as surface temps, for example. And they are largely in the range of model expectation.


>”It is significant if the trend has been going all one way for that period and then the last few years indicate it may be starting to go the other though. ;-)
When was the last time the global average temperature fell like it has recently?”

Vertical, horizontal, and everything in between, a trend line is a trend line is a trend line.
When was the last time you saw the global average temperature rise like it has recently? At the current rate of growth it will warm over 3C by the end of the year.


>”In fairness, it does have a maximum to minimum reading written on it complete with error range, and when dealing with such timescales, precision is neither possible or entirely relevant to the point being made, which is: The temperature might be going up now, but on the average, it's been going down for 8,000 years. Since very few credible scientists talk about 'runaway positive feedbacks' any more, it seems likely that temperatures will return to their 8,000 year trend at some point, and on the balance of probability, dump us in another ice age. Gotta keep an open mind on these things and look on the bright side of life though. One thing is for sure, a warmer planet is preferable to a cooler planet when there are 5 billion hungry mouths to feed ;-)”

In fairness, none of the graphs posted was really documented. A number said NOAA, HadCRUT, Lean etc., but none linked back to the original web sites. Runaway feedbacks! I’m wary of the few feedbacks that would take the temps another 1.5C higher, solar or GHG forced. Call me an old stick in the mud, Rog, but I like the stability of the Holocene climate.

Have a good trip, Rog.

Hi skots,
I don't go 'til saturday, so you guy's don't have the field to yourselves yet. ;-)

>” Validity of the importance that you afford current annual temps in climate science, would demand a “make over” of the disciplines of climate study and statistical analysis. I wish you well!

Sure, and I acknowledged that.

Rog said in reply to Dean:
I am aware that temperature could resume an upward trend which will make these few cooler years a merely temporary respite, and that on a five year averaged graph would all but vanish as skots pointed out.

>If a solar cooling forcing, or other, is greater than the warming effect of the GHG, temps could fall.

Yep :-) Time will tell.

>The absorption window of CO2 will not close. With increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2

I didn't say it would. I did point out in a later post to Dean that the effect of the first 20ppm is the greatest, and to double it's effect would require the addition of another 580ppm though. Well above current levels. And since the contribution to the greenhouse effect of mans emissions is around 0.012% of the total greenhouse effect, it doesn't seem as much of a worry as some would have us believe. Certainly not worth shutting our economies down for, especially as the Chinese won't join in the sack cloth and ashes scenario.

>Yes, clouds are a critical and powerful component, and again, not exclusive of the GHG effect. The effect of one does not diminish the effect of the other. How about a market in cloud futures?

True, they can be powerful cooling forces too.

>In fairness, none of the graphs posted was really documented. A number said NOAA, HadCRUT, Lean etc., but none linked back to the original web sites.

The Lean solar irradiance one has the source url at the top of the graph. It's a shame your not prepared to discuss it.

>I like the stability of the Holocene climate.

Don't worry, change is the norm for earth, it'll soon be back to being even more unpredictable. ;-)

Edited by HechoEnDetroit on 04/23/2008 13:36:38 MDT.

Rog:
"The Lean solar irradiance one has the source url at the top of the graph. It's a shame your [sic] not prepared to discuss it."

Jesus, Rog, I can see being rude and condescending to me, but what has this guy ever done to you? Other than disagree with you, which I know is unacceptable... :-) 'Not prepared to discuss it'?!? Climb down off of your cross and stop trying to present yourself as the only logical man on Earth, because you're failing. As a matter of fact I think that he discussed quite a bit in one post. You just hated that he did it so well and, unforgivably, disagreed with you.

His best point was something that I mentioned earlier: You seem to assume that if you can prove that solar forcing drove climate change in the past that it will somehow disprove that anthropogenic GHGs are driving the current rise. This is a logical absurdity. Anthropogenic GHGs are new- they have never been seen before in the history of the Earth. The current rise is not behaving like the previous holocene events. (Which I still maintain have no CO2-lag, anyway.) That's why I cite the Crowley paper- he did the analysis and concluded that the current rise has a majority contribution from the works of man. Even if I were to grant, for the sake of argument, that the little ice age was largely a solar phenomenon, it would STILL be irrelevent. (And, I still haven't read up on it...)

And stop getting bent because everyone is disagreeing with you- You obviously LOVE this kind of debate. Why else would you pop up on a forum where people are debating environmental issues a post a whopper like 'anthropogenic GHG forcing is bunk'? Because you WANT this, you LIVE for this. You LONGED for someone to try to contradict you so that you could post your fringe conclusions and all this aberrant data that you've squirreled away. So, sit back and enjoy! This is what you asked for! :-)

And, pointing out the *one* exception where your graph has a url is another example of your cherry-picking behavior. Skots, I think, picked up on this tendency of yours, too, and thus made his comments about your England-as-northern-hemisphere model and the criticisms about your obsession with short-term temperature trends.

And, posting smilies and terse little agreements with what he says neither disputes skots nor somehow adopts his points as proving yours, as you seem to think it does. I'm sure that you have counter-arguments. Or do you concede to skots on these points? (More on that, later...) I admit that it can be difficult to address everything at once, since I'm doing the same thing with your claims, but at least make an effort, or go away.

Anyway, the only way I can figure out to post pictures is to save the file to my box, then load them from there. That's why I just posted the link to NOAA once, and then subsequently labeled the graphs as coming from NOAA. (They were all on the NOAA global warming FAQ page, I think.) If anyone knows how to link directly to the source websites, let me know, and I'll try to keep skots happy. (I'll try to play around with it, too.)

Rog:
"As I told you, I simply googled some 'anti MMGW' sites to satisfy your demands."

Then you did an exceptionally poor job. As I have repeatedly said, I am curious if you can come up with a respectable scientific organization of national standing. And you can't. Perhaps I could have been more politic, as I said, but what you came up with was, in fact, hilarious. :-)

One thing that you do exceptionally well (and there are others) is go off on tangents. For instance, if you want to vent about the bizzare behavior of British jurisprudence, Friend, you are in the wrong forum.

Anyway- can you name a reputable scientific organization that agrees with you? Also for the sake of redundancy: a twenty-man corporate mouthpiece is neither reputable in character nor respectable in scope.

If you can't, then just admit it. It's not that much of a concession. I'm just trying to get you to acknowledge that your opinion is quite the minority one, and thus make one small point about scientific consensus and peer-review. Frankly, it doesn't weaken any of your other arguments. (I may disagree with your ultimate conclusions, but you do have some great points.) I just don't think that you are psychologically capable of conceding a point. :-)

Eventually, I will try to post some more science, but I'm starting work in the trauma-ICU this week so I suspect that my time will be extremely limited. I just got home from work as it is.

Rog, you keep telling me to look at the data, and give condescending remarks when I point out that I am looking at the data and that most of the data contradicts you:

me>> Look at the vast preponderance of the evidence, not the odd stuff.

you> Good suggestion, why don't you follow your own advice?

It may shock you, but I used to be a global warming apologist, too, about a decade ago. And then I read up on it, and changed my mind. Now, I'm probably still only about 80% convinced, because I retain my critical attitude. You, on the other hand, are starting to act like this is a theological issue for you.

After all that verbage, I gues my two points are:
1) Scientific consensus puts you in the minority.
2) Let's talk about the current temperature rise, which you have conceded to be real. Do you have data that THIS rise is solar? (I honestly have no idea as of yet.)

Damn. My patience is wearing thin, and it shows.

Want to take over, skots? (If not, I understand...)

P.S. I saved that picture, Steve. :-)

Edited by acrosome on 04/23/2008 23:04:50 MDT.

Hah! Touché, HechoEnDetroit.

I do think it's clear which heads are being stuck into which sand; some folks will go to great blustering lengths to avoid the broader - and obvious - truth.

I hope that all of us can agree that, regardless of the resolution of this particular argument, we share a love of the outdoors and want to see it protected, and that we as humans can have a great impact on that, for good or for bad.

And, regardless of the resolution of this argument, I think we'd all agree that conservation and lowered consumption is prudent (and dovetails well with the ultralight philosophy).

Cheers.

Amen to that.

Despite whatever impression anyone reading the later parts of this thread might have, I have as I said earlier in the thread, sold my car, plant my own vegetables, have built an electric bicycle that I recharge from a solar panel as much as possible, have installed a solar hot water system, and walk a lot. In short, I am concerned about my enviroment and do as much as I can to minimize my impact.

I also care passionately about scientific honesty and truth, and I am concerned that by aligning itself with the IPCC's flawed output, the environmental movement is in danger of becoming tarnished, and is in danger of finding itself with a big credibility gap.

The IPCC (let's remember the 'I' in IPCC stands for inter-governmental not international) is a creature of policy direction, not an organ of scientific veracity, and the reasons our governments are taking us in the direction they are aren't at all altruistic. They reflect the way our governments intend to deal with the forthcoming energy gap and resource pinch. It currently suits them to have the environmental movement 'onside', but I have to say, they make strange bedfellows.

I fear that the CO2 induced global warming hype is distracting us from more important environmental issues which deserve our attention as concerned citizens, and which we should be taking our governments to task on as a matter of higher priority. On the other hand, I do see how environmental activists percieve the global warming issue as a useful catch all umbrella with which they can focus public concern. My worry is that when the scientific truth and the observed reality come back to bite the IPCC on the bum, the environmental baby will be thrown out with the IPCC bathwater.

But I may be wrong. Time will tell.

Best wishes to all and apologies to anyone I've upset.

Rog tallbloke

I certainly agree with the statement that everyone here feels a great sense of stewardship towards the environment. And I will be the LAST person to doubt Rog's zeal on environmental issues. :-)

Strange bedfellows, indeed. Two decades ago, for instance, the U.S. environmental movement and the U.S. government were at each others' throats. The U.S. is schizophrenic about the issue, though, in that most applicable governmental agencies are promoting green programs, or at least endorsing things like the IPCC position, but federal policy still protects irresponsible behavior on the part of industry. I will leave everyone to form their own opinions on the influence of the likes of Exxon and Halliburton upon the Bush administration. (I can't speak intelligently about things in Europe, but my impression is that Europe has been greener for longer. Lord knows, I devoutly wish that the U.S. recycled on the same scale as Western Europe.)

My one conflict with Rog's last post: I'm not just talking about the IPCC! But, I've beaten it to death, so I'll let it go.
I will agree that there are very important environmental issues other than global warming. Given the assumption that global warming is real and the implications of it if it is, then my mind boggles trying to think of issues MORE important, but I can certainly name issues that are AS important. Further, I can name issues that are much more acute.

There, that leaves us both with nonconfrontational posts, and actually in agreement. *gasp!*

Later, everyone.

Bon voyage, Rog. Let us know about Sardinia, and whatever archeo-astronomical findings you produce. (I'm still intrigued.)

Rog, Dean,

Wow! This may be the fastest glaciation in......

I, too, fear the distraction of CO2 "hype".

I, too care about open, good faith, scientific research, observation, and result.

I've come to think that energy/environment, is the same issue. Global strategy/initiatives paired with local integration. It would be messy. Changing our individual behavior is necessary, but not enough. This will take strong institutional leadership. ( I'm not trying to start anything. This is as distasteful to me as most.)

And you're right about strange bedfellows, Dean. You'll probably end up sharing a bunk with guys ( and gals) like Rog! But, you know that once you get to know them, they're all right.

I'm sorry that I missed the obvious, Rog. I did not intend to misrepresent your posts. If my count is correct, the sentence should read that one out of thirteen of the graphs posted was documented. :-)

We can save Lean (and her updates) for the next interglacial. Stay warm.

Enjoy your trip, and Dean, your family!

Well. Since “consensus” requires a position to which everyone agrees, any consensus on responsible energy policy vis a vis climate will necessarily be so watered down as to be ineffectual. CO2’s influence on climate is by now well and truly linked qualitatively, with the quantitative lagging behind as would be expected.

What looms are numerous so-called “tipping points” which can speed this change from its present jogging pace to a full gallop. Seawater acidification, massive release of arctic and subarctic methane (which sports a GWP an astonishing 24 times that of CO2), uncontrolled arboreal wildfires…the list of possibilities is quite large.

We dally at our own peril, and shame on us for doing nothing should we choose the easy path.

Let’s put some canards to bed.

1. 2007 was NOT cooler than the year before. To the contrary, it tied for second hottest on the modern record, trailing only 2005. The last decade saw six of the hottest years of the last nearly 130. We are not cooling; saying we are a hundred times does not make it so.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Previously

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/

With much, much more to come

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007050924907.html

2. We are losing net glacial ice in both polar regions, Antarctica included, and the pace of glacier loss is accelerating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7261171.stm

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007092025613.html

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007092525664.html

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007050924907.html

3. The theory of a solar-sourced cosmic ray impact on cloud cover and therefore, its being the primary cause of temperature shifts doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2008/2008040226520.html

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/3/2/024001/erl8_2_024001.pdf?request-id=1a904d41-dc89-4626-91c0-15a40c8b3baf

http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf

4. Al Gore is a big fat liar; whoops, not so fast.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/10/al-gores-inconvenient-truth.html

The oil companies know all this. The coal companies know all this. The auto companies know all this. Commercial utilities know all this. Certain folks in the US administration know this, but the seven years of stalling, obfuscation and pointing at China ends next January. Once NASA, NOAA and EPA scientists are ungagged I have little doubt we’ll see a flood (pun unintended) of data and reports that have been spiked for years.

Get ready.

I live in one of many, many regions worldwide already experiencing anthropogenic climate change, change that is all disruptive. For the sake of my family, myself and my fellow citizens I refuse to sit idly while self-interest, paranoia, arrogance, or the desire to speed up the path to “end times” (see Watt, James) thwart progress towards prudent energy policy and serious, coordinated development of non-carbon based energy. Anything less is unacceptable.