The sun is slowing down, because George Bush failed to sign Kyoto.

What will it take for Americans to stop killing the sun?

First, the amount of temperature change due to any changes in solar luminosity is tiny. Let's take the figure offered by the second source you cite (Geerts and Linacre):

"Direct measurements are uncertain, but estimates are that the Sun's radiant energy varies by up to 0.2% between the extremes of a sunspot cycle."

That's the absolute maximum variation possible. How much temperature change can that cause on the earth? Just use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the first-order calculation: power per unit area equals the Stefan-Boltzmann constant times the absolute temperature to the fourth power, apply an increase in power per unit area of 0.2%, and calculate the increase in absolute temperature that results. You'll get 0.15 degrees Kelvin -- about one-tenth of the already observed increase. In other words, changes in solar radiation are not causing the observed global warming.

More important, if they were causing the change, then we'd see periodicity in the earth's temperature related to their changes -- every eleven years we'd go through a heating and cooling cycle. That has not been observed. The correlations cited in the article are very weak and their significance is belied by the lack of correlation in the great majority of data. For correlation to have significance, it must be broad, not cherry-picked. If I get to cherry-pick my correlations, then I can select just the right people to prove that membership in the Libertarian party is correlated with child molestation.

The third source provided here criticizes the IPCC report; this in itself is enough to discredit the source. The IPCC report is not some random collection of wild claims thrown together by a few nut cases. The IPCC process involves thousands -- I do not exaggerate, THOUSANDS -- of scientists coordinating enormous amounts of data, more thousands of scientific papers, arguing over their meanings, and hammering out the conclusions step by agonizing step. The amount of effort that goes into every IPCC report exceeds by several orders of magnitude the amount of effort that goes into a Supreme Court decision. The community that puts these together represents a broad cross section of scientific opinion. There's lots of disagreement, and they only put down what they are confident of.

Yes, there remain some fringe people who still reject the IPCC findings. There are always fringe people. If you're willing to accept what the fringe people say, you will accept creationism, a flat earth, 9/11 conspiracies, the shot from the grassy knoll, and government thought control rays.

Frob,

There are reports that the sun's output increased around 1860 and the increase was about .5% which would mean around .4 deg C change, based on radiation balance.

If the cloud stuff is real (experimentally proved awaiting further confirmation) that might account for another .2 deg C. i.e. the sun has done it to us.

BTW you have left out the correlation between lower sunspot numbers (Maunder Minimum) and global temperatures. The AGW guys are working hard to bury that one.

The IPCC stuff is very solid science - if you leave out conflicting data. Like the fact that the ice core data shows an 800 yr (+/- 200) delay between global temperature rise and the rise in CO2. Which is what you might expect if the CO2 was being evolved from warmer oceans.

Then you have the geological data over the last 100 million years or so which shows 7X as much CO2 and falling temps.

I guess the IPCC doesn't do geology. Or ice cores.

Also the IPCC has yet to explain falling global temperatures from 1940 to around 1970 while CO2 was rising. However, they are working hard to adjust their data sets to get it to come out the preferred way.

"There are reports that the sun's output increased around 1860 and the increase was about .5% which would mean around .4 deg C change, based on radiation balance."

I'd sure like to learn the source of those reports, as they didn't have the technology back then to measure solar radiative output with that kind of accuracy. The bolometers and radiometers available back then were pretty clumsy devices. And of course, not being able to correct for atmospheric changes, they'd have a real problem figuring out that any changes actually came from the sun.

"If the cloud stuff is real (experimentally proved awaiting further confirmation) that might account for another .2 deg C. i.e. the sun has done it to us."

Cloud formation is an extremely complex subject. Yes, this is a possibility. There are a lot of possibilities working in both directions. The IPCC doesn't engage in speculation; they hew close to what is scientifically reliable.

"BTW you have left out the correlation between lower sunspot numbers (Maunder Minimum) and global temperatures. The AGW guys are working hard to bury that one."

That correlation is addressed in the text of my previous comment, which I repeat here for your convenience:

The correlations cited in the article are very weak and their significance is belied by the lack of correlation in the great majority of data. For correlation to have significance, it must be broad, not cherry-picked. If I get to cherry-pick my correlations, then I can select just the right people to prove that membership in the Libertarian party is correlated with child molestation.

"The IPCC stuff is very solid science - if you leave out conflicting data."

Yes, there's lots of inconsistency in the huge array of data available to us. But the IPCC doesn't ignore those inconsistencies -- it takes into account the relative reliability of various interpretations of the data and renders an overall judgement -- based on the aggregate opinions of a great many scientists -- of the overall conclusion.

I'd like to comment here on several mistakes common with those unfamiliar with the workings of science. First, science never proves anything. If it were that simple, we wouldn't need so many scientists. Instead, science produces a huge amount of data that must be evaluated by people who understand how that data was determined. No single measure is absolutely reliable. We don't really know what the solar output really is. What we do know is that a satellite measured some quantity that we then use to calculate a number that we think is close to the solar output. In order to do that, we make assumptions and approximations. Understanding those assumptions and approximations is crucial to understanding science.

Another common mistake is to assume that science is either right or wrong, black and white. If you can find one scientist who claims X, then X must be true. This is horribly mistaken! Scientists disagree on everything -- they cherish disagreement because they know that it keeps them honest. But when a solid majority of scientists (a lot more than 51%!) agree on something, then they proceed on that conclusion, even though you can still find some perfectly good scientists who disagree.

This is exactly why we have organizations like the IPCC and the NAS. Their function is to gather the judgements of many scientists and render the best overall judgement. It's sort of like the Supreme Court, except that the IPCC or the NAS won't publish a conclusion based on a 5 to 4 decision -- they prefer something more like 8 to 1 before they give it the seal of official approval. Yet nonscientists will seize upon that one dissenter and claim the matter "controversial" or "unproven".

"Then you have the geological data over the last 100 million years or so which shows 7X as much CO2 and falling temps."

I'd sure like to see that data; I know of no such information. Please provide your source.

"I guess the IPCC doesn't do geology. Or ice cores."

This guess is incorrect. The IPCC reports include a great deal of material on geological factors in paleoclimate. There's also a great deal of material on ice cores in the IPCC reports.

"Also the IPCC has yet to explain falling global temperatures from 1940 to around 1970 while CO2 was rising."

Perhaps you have missed the sections of the IPCC reports dealing with this issue.

"However, they are working hard to adjust their data sets to get it to come out the preferred way."

If you can find a flaw in the models or the datasets, I suggest that you write up a paper revealing that flaw and submit it for publication. There's certainly a Nobel Prize waiting for anybody who pulls the rug out from under the IPCC reports.

There's a great send-up of the craziness of all this solar-cycle correlations at here. It shows just how silly these oft-cited correlations can be.

Correlation is an easily-abused technique. The classic cautionary tale that statisticians love to tell about the misuse of correlation is the data from late nineteenth century Massachusetts showing a strong and undeniable correlation between teacher's salaries and total expenditures on liquor. "See, you pay them more and they just spend it all on booze, the sots!"

Well Frob I think the AGW data is weak. I guess that makes us even.

However you can look at CO2 and temperatures through the ages.

How did they figure solar output in 1860? They used one of the favorite methods of the AGW folk. Proxy data. The story came out last year around Nov or Dec. and again in about Feb of this year. I blogged it:

Power and Control

Do a search.

BTW could you please explain the current global warming on Mars, and Neptune? Is it because Congress voted 95 to 0 against joining Kyoto? Or is it Bush in cahoots the the coal and oil people.

Or is he covering for the Chinese who have surpassed us in CO2 output?

"Well Frob I think the AGW data is weak. I guess that makes us even."

Not quite. I am relying on the opinions of thousands of scientists, themselves relying on peer-reviewed published papers. You are relying on your own personal opinion.

"Do a search."

I take it that you do not have the data to support your claim.

"BTW could you please explain the current global warming on Mars, and Neptune?"

I am not aware of any evidence in support of the hypothesis that surface temperatures on Mars are increasing. Please provide such evidence.

The notion of surface temperatures on Neptune is nonsensical, as Neptune is a gas giant that may not even possess a surface in any sense that we think of one.

Here's what the IPCC report says about solar variability (Section 2.7.1, pg 188):

"The estimates of long-term solar irradiance changes used in the TAR (e.g., Hoyt and Schatten, 1993; Lean et al., 1995) have been revised downwards, based on new studies indicating that bright solar faculae likely contributed a smaller irradiance increase since the Maunder Minimum than was originally suggested by the range of brightness in Sun-like stars (Hall and Lockwood, 2004); M. Wang et al., 2005). However, empirical results since the TAR have strengthened the evidence for solar forcing of climate change by identifying detectable tropospheric changes associated with solar variability, including during the solar cycle (Section 9.2; van Loon and Shea, 2000); Douglass and Clader, 2002); Gleisner and Thejll, 2003); Haigh, 2003, Stott et al., 2003, Coughlin and Tung, 2004; Labitzke, 2004); Crooks and Gray, 2005). The most likely mechanism is considered to be some combination of direct forcing by changes in total solar irradiance, and indirect effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the stratosphere. Least certain, and under ongoing as discussed in the TAR, are indirect effects induced by galactic cosmic rays. (e.g., Marsh and Svensmark, 2000a,b; Kristjansson et al., 2002; Sun and Bradley,2002)."

After explaining in detail some of these factors, the section concludes with estimates of the net effects of solar forcing:

"...the most likely secular increase in total irradiance from the Maunder minimum to current cycle minima is 0.04%."

Note that in the above calculation I was using a value of 0.2%, but the IPCC value is only 0.04%. In other words, solar forcing is much smaller than I had calculated -- roughly 0.03 degrees Kelvin.

Simon, you have the patience of Job to even ATTEMPT to point out that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a false god to 'Froblyx'. My cap is off to you. I would have just patted him/her on the head and pointed him/her towards Climate Audit to find out just how much 'science' and 'IPCC' don't agree. Of course, he/she may have to read up a bit before he/she could understand half of what is at CA.
Langmuir's Laws are coming down the pike Frobee! (You may want to get out of the road.)

In my original post on global warming I cite the Geocraft site for its carbon dioxide/global temperature graph over the course of 500-600 million years. These are well derived numbers using the basis of insolation for shifting isotope percentages in seawater over time. An example of this is best done with oxygen with lighter isotopes in water allowing those molecules to shift from liquid to vapor phase in preference to the heavier isotopes. This is also true for carbon dioxide (ensuring that proper adjustment for radioactive isotopes and their changes are done) in deposits of calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonates because of the variation of isotopes for each of the atoms allows for a good reading of what average temperature was over long periods of planetary history. By looking at changes in isotope percentages overall global temperature, dissolved solids in sea water, carbon dioxide, methane and other gases be derived. The Geocraft numbers fit very well with the various courses I took in geochemistry, mineralogy, structural geology, stratigraphy and sedimentation, paleontology and a grad course in extinctions and diversity of life.

Those numbers tend not to change much as they are driven by physics and chemistry and are reflective of the impact of life, but even that life must exist in the climate of its time and so ingest proportions of isotopes that have a good matching for their environment. That is *not* meteorology, it is physics and chemistry, along with Boyle's law and a few other things to help determine atmospheric density by dissolved mineral concentrations.

Previous inter-glacial periods have demonstrate very fast global temperature changes within a relatively narrow band above the average global temperature of glacial periods, but far below the start of this glaciation cyclicity which is driven by multiple factors not readily taken into account by any model. I go over those in this post and point out the numerous things going on now that were only starting up 70 million years ago when the entire planet was 14 degrees higher in temperature than it is today and relatively stable at that due to things like slow plate movement allowing for continental subsidence and the formation of vast, shallow seas that served as a large energy storage buffer. It is actually extremely difficult to raise the global temperature above that point with just atmospheric densities of carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane. The carboniferous saw the highest densities of all three of those due to the beginning of plant life which had a veritable field as witness to the huge coal beds and oil fields attributable to that era, plus the high amount of calcium carbonate rock witnessed then. The oceans serve to naturally change the amount of carbon dioxide via absorbing it and then forming calcium carbonate from the dissolved minerals washing off the continents. Sea life uses that to make shells, and places like the chalk cliffs of Dover in the UK and equivalent beds in continental Europe point to long standing, relatively quiescant oceans over millions of years that saw life happily dying and depositing shells on the seafloor which was taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. That is yet another thing not accounted for easily is the thickness of foraminifera shells due to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide dissolved in sea water. Forams and other unicellular critters do that far better than the larger fauna because they go through lifecycles so quickly.

Minor solar fluctuation is just another part of that larger, overall cycle that is witnessed in inter-glacial periods. Because there are no inland seas to create an energy buffer, the expectation is for somewhat wider swings to follow solar output due to the lack of water vapor in the air to serve as a reflection source because of said seas sitting in deeper basins due to plate speeds.

That is just basic geology and the mechanics of it... simple to understand. Meteorologists *still* can't make a reliable model for Earth's history so I rather expect them to be unable to do a good job beyond the 5-day forecast.

I normally don't address commentators directly but I will make an exception in SMSgt Mac's case, as he seems quite sure of himself. I put the question directly to you:

Do you believe that the direct application of the Stefan-Boltzmann law as I used it in the above calculations yields reliable results? If not, please offer your criticisms of my calculation.

Barring a response, I propose that we may dismiss you as an ignorant fraud.

"Meteorologists *still* can't make a reliable model for Earth's history so I rather expect them to be unable to do a good job beyond the 5-day forecast."

Your post was very informative until you got out of your field. If you have criticisms of the science in the IPCC reports, by all means present those criticisms. Speculation is unwarranted.

BTW, I want to apologize to the readership for my uncivil response to SMSgt Mac. While I normally adhere to strict standards of courtesy, I must admit that I am less tolerant towards posturing ignorance. Science is a big, complicated, messy business and there's plenty of room for disagreement among scientists. But when non-scientists without even a basic grounding in the principles make grand statements about scientific results, I tend to respond ungraciously. But then, what can be graciously said about ignorant, pompous charlatanry?

Froblyx,
The reason that some people doubt the scientific consensus is simple: Politics. Or, more accurately, politics and money. It is hard to argue that there is not a strong political pressure group rooting for AGW to be fact, and money has increasingly flowed to scientists who report that it is.

Also, it seems to me that when I engage in these debates or watch them, both sides often commit the same crimes they accuse the enemy of. For example, everyone seems to love their own proxy data and hate everyone else's.

Personally, my own view is that CO2 doesn't fit well with the warming we've seen, though human action may be to blame, and it may be a real problem in the future.

"It is hard to argue that there is not a strong political pressure group rooting for AGW to be fact, and money has increasingly flowed to scientists who report that it is."

This represents another common misconception among non-scientists. Scientists are not motivated by money; if they were, they would have left academia long ago for much higher-paying positions in industry. Scientists are motivated by the desire for professional stature, and that stature is not obtained by parroting the party line. The way to get ahead in the world of science is to successfully refute the conventional wisdom, or to come up with something that nobody had expected. There is no such thing as a 'research industry' among scientists pursuing global warming. Getting scientists to conform to any agenda is like herding cats. They each want to distinguish themselves by coming up with something unorthodox.

"Also, it seems to me that when I engage in these debates or watch them, both sides often commit the same crimes they accuse the enemy of."

Perhaps this is true of the non-scientists arguing the issues, but it is certainly not the case with the peer-reviewed scientific results. If you can find any crimes in the IPCC reports or the NAS reports, by all means identify these crimes.

Your use of the term 'enemy' is revealing. Among scientists, there are few real enemies. There is strong disagreement but most scientists genuinely respect those with opposing points of view. Personal vendettas do occasionally develop, and there can certainly be a lot of passion in the arguments, but you should see scientists after a furious debate at a conference sit down together to argue some more over a beer.

"For example, everyone seems to love their own proxy data and hate everyone else's."

The phrase "proxy data" is a bit misleading; almost everything is proxy data because you almost never directly measure what you're looking for. And again, if there's any questionable usage of proxy data in the IPCC reports or the NAS reports, please identify it.

Froblyx,
So "Scientists are not motivated by money". How very naive. Academic funding is driven by "No problem, no grants". Ergo, no AGW, no funding for Hockey Stick junk science. "Scientists are motivated by professional stature". How about egos and the fear of falling out with peer reviewing competitors, losing grants and professional empires.
Reality is, the IPCC, just like the large enironmental NGOs, is not a scientific body, but a large political organization with an agenda. When politics are allowed to drive science, the very basis for sound scientific inquiry: "when the data don't support the hypothesis, modify your hypothesis", gets tossed out. What you get instead is cherry picking and cooking the books, something which the IPCC has a demonstrated track record of doing.
As far as scientists selling their soul to the political devil, Al Capone was dead on: "every man has his price, it's a matter of finding it".

Frob says:

Scientists are not motivated by money;

Ah, we have finally found a supply of the New Socialist Man.

Seriously - every scientists wants more money to enlarge his research and a new car every few years wouldn't hurt either.

BTW if scientists are not motivated by money how come so few work for free?

==

Well keep up the good work Frob, every new post you just proves my point better.

==

Suppose the government "climate change" money stopped tomorrow. You don't think all these scientists would howl?

==

OK Frob, what is it you don't like about the ice core temperature/CO2 data?

And did you notice that one of the folks involved in the "movement" said no proof was required? It was bloged here.

Did you notice the critique of Lumborg in Scientific American was not based on critiqes of his points but an attack on him for not towing the line?

So to get back to real science: how 'bout dem ice cores?

And what about the geological record when temperatures were falling and CO2 was 7X current levels. How is that possible if we are near catastrophic proportions of CO2 in the atmosphere?

Got science?

Simon

"So "Scientists are not motivated by money". How very naive."

On the contrary, my statement is based on my personal involvement with scores of working scientists over the years. I know lots of these people as friends, I talk with them about their work, and I participate to a small degree in their efforts. My name appears on one published scientific paper as a second author. I know what I'm talking about.

"When politics are allowed to drive science, the very basis for sound scientific inquiry: "when the data don't support the hypothesis, modify your hypothesis", gets tossed out."

This is so true, and it is the very heart and soul of those who deny the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. The fact that the great majority of scientists do accept that hypothesis is indicative of the non-political nature of that school of thought.

Even if you don't like IPCC, there's another source that's even more reliable: the National Academy of Sciences, which was established by Congress with the express purpose of providing the government with reliable scientific judgement about important issues. The NAS is composed solely of senior scientists who have already proven themselves through a distinguished career; membership is by invitation only and is usually considered the crowning acheivement in a scientist's career (unless they get the Nobel Prize).

The NAS has been issuing reports on many subjects for decades. The NAS is to science policy as the Supreme Court is to law: if the NAS says so, that's the last word on the subject. Except, the NAS is much more careful than the Supreme Court. They bring many experts to bear on each report they issue, and they take as long as they feel necessary. Moreover, they only publish what they're really certain of. As a consequence, in the entire history of the NAS, not one report or official declaration has been shown to be incorrect. Their batting record is perfect.

And yes, the NAS is unequivocal in its support for the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. The only people who reject that hypothesis are a few scientists on the fringe and a great many rabid right-wingers who are ignorant of scientific principles.

"BTW if scientists are not motivated by money how come so few work for free?"

Silly argument. The fact that they work for much less in academia than they can earn in industry is proof of their incentives.

"OK Frob, what is it you don't like about the ice core temperature/CO2 data?"

I have no objection to the use of ice cores; they are a very useful source of data, and in fact you will find many references to ice core data show up in the IPCC report in support of its conclusions. See in particular Chapter 6, whose executive summary states,

"It is very likely that the current atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (379 ppm) and CH4 (1,774 ppb) exceed by far the natural range of the last 650 years. Ice core data indicate that CO2 varied within a range of 180 to 300 ppm, and CH4 within 320 to 790 ppb over this period. Over the same period, antarctic temperature and CO2 concentrations covary, indicating a close relationship between climate and the carbon cycle."

The entire chapter makes many, many references to the ice core data. Was there something in particular that you found objectionable in this chapter?

"And what about the geological record when temperatures were falling and CO2 was 7X current levels."

I have already requested the source for this information and no such source has been presented, leading me to suspect that the statement is unsubstantiated. Please present a source.

Froblyx,
Over the past 30 years I have had the mixed pleasure of becoming intimately familiar with the academic system, from the inside out and the outside in. Having done my share of due diligence [i.e. finding the fatal flaw[s] in the data being presented] often where serious investments where at stake, I stand by my observations.
Since you appear to hold the NAS in such high regard, allow me to point out that it was the NAS who put the final nails in the coffin of the "Hockey Stick" swindle [data concocted by Mike Mann and his Hockey Team and first exposed by MacKindrick and MacIntyre as a remarkable scientific fraud]. The IPCC used this swill as the poster child for its previous report, and in spite of the findings of NAS report, has yet to retract it. If you really believe this kind of junk science, and that it actually confirms the AGW hypothesis, I have a bridge you should buy from me...

"Silly argument. The fact that they work for much less in academia than they can earn in industry is proof of their incentives."

This is simply false. Scientists work for less in academia, but calling it much less is a joke. Also, most of the non-monetary incentives are in the form of flexible hours and better benefits (most universities offer free tuition for children of profs, which is not a small amount of money for most).

Anyway, I never meant personal bribes or direct payments to Swiss accounts. I meant scientific empire building-research funding. Have you noticed recently that many articles you read mention global warming in the summary, but then have little or nothing to do with it? I remember reading several recently on squirrels and sheep that mentioned global warming once and then never mentioned it again. This is quite probably a result of the flow of research dollars; claim that you want to study squirrels and you get blank stares. Claim that you want to study global warming's effect on squirrels and it might be a very different matter.

Froblyx,

"I am not aware of any evidence in support of the hypothesis that surface temperatures on Mars are increasing. Please provide such evidence."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

I think Simon meant Jupiter, not Neptune:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html

Also, no one is saying ice cores samples don't show CO2 moving with temperature. The problem is that the causal arrow points the wrong way in each of the six data sets I've seen from six different ice core samples.

CO2 concentration millions of years ago:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/04/we_are_doomed_a.html

Also, if the NAS has come out in full support of the idea that there is warming, it is man-made, driven by greenhouse gases, and we can estimate future impacts accurately, I'd love to see anything other than your word that says that.

"Over the past 30 years I have had the mixed pleasure of becoming intimately familiar with the academic system, from the inside out and the outside in. Having done my share of due diligence [i.e. finding the fatal flaw[s] in the data being presented] often where serious investments where at stake, I stand by my observations."

The experience you describe has nothing to do with how the scientific world operates. You appear to be talking about investment analysis, which is certainly a worthy effort, but has nothing to do with understanding the motivations of scientists who choose to remain in academia.

"Since you appear to hold the NAS in such high regard, allow me to point out that it was the NAS who put the final nails in the coffin of the "Hockey Stick" swindle"

Very well, and if YOU hold the NAS in such high regard, then you must also accept their conclusions. I am consistent in accepting all the NAS findings. Are you similarly consistent, or do you accept only those scientific conclusions that match your political prejudices?

"This is quite probably a result of the flow of research dollars;"

Mere conjecture.

Well Frob,

I notice you have answered none of my scientific questions.

Every time I bring it up you find it more convenient to change the subject.

Interesting.

Froblyx,
I am quite familiar with the behaviour and motivation of academic scientists once they discover that more money will become available to their laboratories if they follow certain lines of inquiry. Money talks.
Any bona fide, peer reviewed science that runs counter to the IPCC political gospel should be of great interest to anyone with wanting to understand what is actually going on. There is no such thing as consensus in science, and a hypothesis is only valid until falsified. Co2 continues to go up and temperatures are stalling or falling....[latests satellite data]. Not much AGW there I'm afraid.

"I am quite familiar with the behaviour and motivation of academic scientists once they discover that more money will become available to their laboratories if they follow certain lines of inquiry. Money talks."

And who is dishing out the money that is talking so much? In America, that would be the US government, under an Administration that until recently did not believe in global warming. So was this Administration deliberately funding research that contradicted its political position? Was this Administration unable to control the way the bureaucrats were spending the money? Come now -- be reasonable! This entire line of thinking is balderdash.

"Any bona fide, peer reviewed science that runs counter to the IPCC political gospel should be of great interest to anyone with wanting to understand what is actually going on."

You bet. It would also be of interest to all the scientists working on the problem. Can you recommend any such research? Can you also explain its relationship to other relevant research?

"There is no such thing as consensus in science"

Technically, no, because consensus usually implies near-universal agreement. However, there is certainly broad agreement among scientists in favor of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. That's what the IPCC and NAS reports say.

"a hypothesis is only valid until falsified."

Yep, and a lot of people have been trying to falsify this hypothesis, and so far they've all failed.

"Co2 continues to go up and temperatures are stalling or falling [latests satellite data]"

You know, if you grab the Dow Jones index on Tuesday and compare it with Wednesday, you can prove that the Dow is rising. And if you compare Wednesday with Thursday, you can prove it's falling. You can lie with statistics by cherry-picking whatever data set you want. But if you look at the broad secular trend, there's no question at all that global temperatures are rising.

Moreover, the interpretation of satellite data is an especially tricky business. And do you even know what satellite data you're talking about? You provide no citation -- are you just making this up? Is it infrared data or microwave data? Which satellite is it from? Is it ocean skin temperature, lower tropospheric temperature, or stratospheric temperature?

So far, I have confined myself to responding to other people's claims, but now I'd like to go on the offensive.

The case in favor of anthropogenic global warming is now overwhelming. The great majority of scientists now agree on this. Even Mr. Bush admits this. Yet there remains a small cadre of pig-headed, ignorant people who simply refuse to accept the obvious. I have mentioned specifics from the IPCC report several times now, to be met with silence; it would seem that nobody here has even read the IPCC reports. And I very much doubt that most of the people here could understand them if they did read them (although I can think of at least one good exception).

Especially irksome is the manner in which these people mindlessly parrot tidbits that they've picked up on some wingnut blog, without even understanding what they mean; the chap who was babbling about ice cores seemed to fall into that category. These people argue about stuff they don't even understand -- but that doesn't stop them from arguing as if they're experts.

Would you people please get your act together, round up some facts, support them with citations, and stop playing kiddie-toy science games?

Back in November, I thought I was being cynical:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2006/11/skeptics_are_de.html

We need Kyoto right now! Before it's too late!

Why is that? Might there be something even worse than the non-occurrence of the "dramatic rise in temperatures across the world in the very near future."

There might be.

What if temperatures dropped in the near future? Is such a thing possible? I think it is possible (as Dominic Lawson notes, "between 1945 and 1975 global temperatures fell") and I suspect there may be a legitimate worry among environmentalists that if the Kyoto restrictions are not in place in advance, the resultant public outcry might prevent them from ever getting them.

On the other hand, with Kyoto in place, any drop in temperature will mean only one thing.

Environmentalists saved the world!

Of course, there appear to be some who might actually believe the greenie weenies' doom and gloom claims.

Hey, I have a bridge for sale!

Frob says,

And who is dishing out the money that is talking so much?

Evidently the people dishing out the money and the administration don't have the same policy.

Happens.

Read what Lindzen says on the subject.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

Which is just a short excerpt.

Global Warming On Neptune

"What if temperatures dropped in the near future?"

Would that they would. Unfortunately, there's no reliable evidence that they are.

"Evidently the people dishing out the money and the administration don't have the same policy.

Happens."

I see. So you are positing a conspiracy of bureaucrats and scientists operating under the very noses of their political paymasters, secreting funneling millions of dollars towards fake research efforts to prove a political agenda that you disagree with.

I am definitely in tin-foil hat territory.

The lengthy quote from Mr. Lindzen is from an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Lindzen's article was torn to shreds on a number of sites; here is one of the most thorough analyses of the many errors in Mr. Lindzen's paper. His accusations that scientists who wish to publish papers opposing global warming are threatened are simply without any substantiation. In other words, he's making it all up.

Lastly, the article on global warming on Neptune is truly idiotic. The fellow obviously knows a good bit about statistics and nothing whatever about astronomy. Here are a few of the more egregious flaws in his reasoning:

First, Neptune is a gas giant. It has an atmosphere thousands of kilometers deep. But the upper layers of the atmosphere are opaque, which means that we see only the very top layer of the atmosphere. We know from Jupiter that there's a great deal of energy release in the atmospheres of these planets. But whatever is happening inside, we don't directly know; we only know what's happening at the topmost layers.

Second, and most stupid, is the fact that the luminosity presented is the b-magnitude. The b-magnitude is the BLUE magnitude of the planet. There are a variety of brightness systems; one of the common ones is UBV, for ultraviolet, blue, and visible light. The b-magnitude is the brightness in the blue end of the spectrum. That blue light is NOT blackbody radiation -- it's reflected light! It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the temperature of Neptune! Sheesh, what a blithering idiot that man is.

Let me explain it in simple terms. Imagine that you're looking at a sheet of ice on a vertical wall. You see, vaguely reflected in the ice, the reflection of a flame. Do you conclude that the ice is flaming hot? NO!

What a bunch of idiots... blithering idiots who act like know-it-alls and don't even understand freshman physics...

I hasten to assure all that my "blithering idiots" are directed solely at the Neptune-warming people.

Frob,

But Mars is warming too. Let me see Mars, Jupiter, Neptune (and others you can look it up). I wonder if there is any connection?

Frob mentions

So you are positing a conspiracy of bureaucrats and scientists operating under the very noses of their political paymasters, secreting funneling millions of dollars towards fake research efforts to prove a political agenda that you disagree with.

Why no Frob. I'm positing that there are a lot of things going on in government Bush doesn't control. You think he controls it all. You got a tin foil hat I can borrow?

Say. Didn't you leave out ice cores again? Dang. Musta been an oversight.

Eric,

There are a lot of bridges for sale here. Certain people are depressing the market. Now I'm going to have to cut the price on mine. However, I'm told there is a good market for tinfoil hats. So maybe a new line of work is in order.

Frob,

Are you saying Neptune is reflecting more sunlight?

I'll bite. Is it greater reflectivity or increased solar output?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Well wadya know Frob. Not only is Neptune reflecting more sunlight. Its infrared signature is up too:

As seen in Figure 1, Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004. As they say on Neptune, global warming has become an inconvenient truth. But with no one to blame, Hammel and Lockwood explored how variations in the output of the Sun might control variations in the brightness of Neptune.

The dang planet is warmin' Frob. How the heck did that happen?

How you doing on ice cores?

BTW How could we have 7X as much CO2 in the atmosphere and declining global temperature? According to the geologic record. How the heck is that possible?

I bet I know. The geologist's computer models are not as good as the "CO2 causes climate change" guys models. Them geologists need to spend some more money and start getting the right (I mean left) answers.

If people really believed in AGW they should cover their roofs with tin foil. To increase the earth's albedo. If they can't do roofs heads are a good place to start.

If the concensus was as great as you say for AGW why aren't people taking direct action? No rush, eh?

"But Mars is warming too. Let me see Mars, Jupiter, Neptune (and others you can look it up). I wonder if there is any connection?"

Perhaps you failed to read my previous comment in which I explained that Neptune is NOT warming up. And if you think that Jupiter is warming, please provide some support for your claim.

"Say. Didn't you leave out ice cores again? Dang. Musta been an oversight."

No, you failed to notice my comments on ice cores. For your benefit, I shall re-enter them:

This guess is incorrect. The IPCC reports include a great deal of material on geological factors in paleoclimate. There's also a great deal of material on ice cores in the IPCC reports

I have no objection to the use of ice cores; they are a very useful source of data, and in fact you will find many references to ice core data show up in the IPCC report in support of its conclusions. See in particular Chapter 6, whose executive summary states,

"It is very likely that the current atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (379 ppm) and CH4 (1,774 ppb) exceed by far the natural range of the last 650 years. Ice core data indicate that CO2 varied within a range of 180 to 300 ppm, and CH4 within 320 to 790 ppb over this period. Over the same period, antarctic temperature and CO2 concentrations covary, indicating a close relationship between climate and the carbon cycle."

The entire chapter makes many, many references to the ice core data. Was there something in particular that you found objectionable in this chapter?

I am still waiting for any indication that you have read or understand the IPCC report and its material on ice cores. You'll find it in Chapter 6. From everything you've said so fair, it appears you have not read this chapter and couldn't understand it anyway.

"Are you saying Neptune is reflecting more sunlight?

I'll bite. Is it greater reflectivity or increased solar output?"

Most likely increased reflectivity (known as 'albedo'), because our other sources of information on solar luminosity do not show any such changes. But there could be other factors at work as well: changes in the density of gas in the region between us and Neptune; changes in Neptune's color (due to changes in the chemical constitution of the upper layers of Neptune's atmosphere.) And there could be an energy source inside Neptune's core similar to Jupiter's -- although it's not likely.

Frob,

I noticed you skipped Lindzen. Too many inconvenient truths?

Yeah Frob,

Good job on ice cores.

Except you skipped the most important point:

The rise in CO2 follows temperatrure rise by 800 +/- 200 years. According to the ice cores.

Another small oversight, I'm sure. To be rectified in your next evasion no doubt.

BTW why is Neptune's infrared output increasing along witht reflected light. Is Bush screwing with the solar system again?

Man that guy is the stupidest evil genius we have ever had as president.

How you coming with the geology data? Other than to affirm that such data does in fact exist.

Why didn't we have a runaway greenhouse effect with 7X as much CO2 in the atmosphere? Why was the temperature declining for significant periods with CO2 so high? I look forward to yopur next evasion on that question.

How did you like the Lindzen bit? You should read the whole thing. To think that such things could happen in blessed, apolitical, altruistic science. It almost makes you doubt human nature.

Mr. Simon, have you ever seen the old arcade game "Whack-a-Mole"? Little wooden mole figures pop out of holes and you whack them with a bat before they pop back into their holes. It's great fun. And you're exactly like one of those little moles. You keep popping out of your hole with an idiotic grin on your face, repeating the same old lies over and over again, and I whack you with references to scientific authorities, and you just keep coming back, making up more lies, refusing to answer my requests for any kind of documentation.

Perhaps I have been too subtle for you, so I'm going to express it in very simple terms:

YOU'RE A LIAR. YOU'RE MAKING UP "FACTS" THAT DON'T HAVE ANY SCIENTIFIC BASIS. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE.

I've been going round and round with you in good faith, responding to your claims with documentation and references. But I am starting to realize that you are not interested in discussing this issue, you're just playing a game. You like to argue. You don't follow any logical rules, you just make things up.

I am giving up on you. You're not worth my time. I will continue to discuss this issue with those who respond in good faith. I don't mind disagreeing with people. I do mind wasting my time with a lunatic. I invite you to continue your mad ravings to your heart's content. But I'll be ignoring them.

Froblyx,

"So you are positing a conspiracy of bureaucrats and scientists operating under the very noses of their political paymasters, secreting funneling millions of dollars towards fake research efforts to prove a political agenda that you disagree with."

I'd like to make two points. First, if you can answer a few honest questions, you could easily sway me to believing in AGW. This is because I'm, at best, an interested observer on the topic. Second, don't ever tell me I don't know anything about American government, because on that topic, I am not just an interested observer.

When it comes to the executive, every President from either party has to deal with individuals who have been a part of the massive federal machine for years before the new President came to office, and who will likely be there years later. Presidents last eight years, tops. Middle and upper management folks at every government institution act as a sort of perennial, unimpeachable government, thwarting the ambitions of many a President of both party. Old Presidents hired and appointed individuals they agreed with, and if new Presidents kicked out all the old guys, the unemployment rate would spike up by a tenth of a percentage point nationally, and the greater D.C. metro area would economically collapse.

My point is, there are a few guys kicking around in obscure but high-ranking posts who were appointed by LBJ. Bush, like every President before him, doesn't have magical, absolute authority.

Now, for my questions.

1. Planets:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/08/neptune-news/#more-241
And, obviously, Earth.

That makes four planets in our Solar System which exhibit signs of warming or possible warming at the same time. All of them must take most surface temperature energy from the Sun, so why is it so unlikely or insane to think that the Sun may be behind the changes on all four planets?

I admit that the sun warming us just at this point in our development seems like a coincidence, but then, so does even the hint of warming on all four planets at once.

2. On ice cores, I'm afraid everything I've seen supports M. Simon's post. Six different ice core data sets show CO2 lagging temperature. Why or how am I wrong?

3. If CO2 is such a powerful driver (forcer, whatever) of temperature, why is it that CO2 used to be many times what it is today while temperatures weren't much higher than today:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/04/we_are_doomed_a.html

4. You bring up the NAS a lot. Can you show me a link which supports the idea that the Earth is warming, that man is the culprit, and that we know with decent certainty the role or at least the strength of individual gases in forcing temperatures?

I don't ask this question as an impossible test; these things must each be known before any legislation can be passed intelligently (if we limit CO2, but another gas is more important, we have had a cost with no benefit, you see, and the limitation of CO2 must be based on some real analysis of the cost of various projections of the relation of CO2 and temperature).

To me, this is the real question; if mankind is causing warming by some unknown means or with the strength of individual forces being unknown, than more time and research is needed.

Hey, It looks like I missed a party! Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

“ajacksonian”-- Great comment AND I like your blog. If you had chimed in a little earlier I might have just posted ‘yeah, what he said’. I might only have added how it has also been interesting to see increasing recognition that the use of CO2 ice core samples may not be everything that we’ve been led to believe it is. I am looking forward to seeing how the Hockey Stick crowd will eventually develop a rationale to address the uncertainty and then how a ‘calibration’ might be applied. One can only hope that against the existing pattern it will be undertaken within a sensible framework.

Froblyx! You came back?

Well now, as to your enquiry 'way back when', your ‘Stefan-Boltzmann’ strawman isn’t really important is it? I mean, other than as a vehicle for you to conveniently ignore the thrust of the post.

For the record, I viewed the intent of the post as being thus:

The Sun’s impact on climate is not as easily dismissed as before with the emergence of new information, evidence and experimental data that indicates, among other things, there may be some substance to the “solar activity-cosmic ray-cloud cover” interrelationship. Also, now with an apparent downturn in temperature that also correlates in favor of those who think there just might be something not fully understood in the sun-climate relationship, and that ‘something’ is a significant factor in climate, over which Climate Alarmists are becoming increasingly agitated and shrill.

Does this sound about right to everyone?

You simply used Stefan’s Equation in an attempt to shield what is only part of the solar-climate relationship question and derail further exploration of the points in the post.

Getting down to brass tacks, the real problems I have with your ‘arguments’ are:

1. First and foremost your childlike use of Appeal to Authority:

“The IPCC process involves thousands -- I do not exaggerate, THOUSANDS -- of scientists coordinating enormous amounts of
data, more thousands of scientific papers, arguing over their meanings, and
hammering out the conclusions step by agonizing step."

“This is exactly why we have organizations like the IPCC and the NAS. Their function is to gather the judgements (sic) of many scientists and render the best overall judgement (sic). It's sort of like the Supreme Court, except that the IPCC or the NAS won't publish a conclusion based on a decision -- they prefer something more like 8 to 1 before they give it the seal of official approval."

2. Your Ad Hominem attacks:

“Yes, there remain some fringe people who still reject the IPCC findings. There are always fringe people. If you're willing to accept what the fringe people say, you will accept creationism, a flat earth, 9/11 conspiracies, the shot from the grassy knoll, and government thought control rays.” (You do get extra points here for obliquely implementing “Poisoning the Well”: a special case of Ad Hominem attack)

3. Your contradictory assertions. For example (and combined with yet more Appeal to Authority:)

“The IPCC doesn't engage in speculation; they hew close to what is scientifically reliable.” [this isn’t just an ‘opinion’ now is it? ]

Followed later by:

“Yes, there's lots of inconsistency in the huge array of data available to us. But the IPCC doesn't ignore those inconsistencies -- it takes into account the relative reliability of various interpretations of the data and renders an overall judgement (sic) -- based on the aggregate opinions of a great many scientists -- of the overall conclusion.”

4. Still even MORE Appeal to Authority (and could cite Appeal to Popularity as well, since you seem to like 'numbers’ of authorities), combined with an Ad Hominem attack:

"I am relying on the opinions of thousands of scientists, themselves relying on peer-reviewed published papers. You are relying on your own personal opinion.

[Note: Not giving in evidence the source data or citing the source of one’s position hardly means someone is merely giving a singular opinion. For all we know the point in question could have been made based upon careful review of thousands of peer-reviewed papers, or after recalling a conversation with James V. Hansen ‘hisself’ over dinner last night.]

[Note Too: When I read things like your statement above I always think of Einstein’s retort to 100 Nazi ‘scientists’ who denounced his work: “If I was wrong, they would need only one”.  If you are swayed by bright shiny numbers of scientists (personally, I am not), you can go
here and be happy.]

5. Your Appeal to Ridicule

"The correlations cited in the article are very weak and their significance is belied by the lack of correlation in the great majority of data. [there's another fallacy in this first sentence as well: I bet you can guess which one] For correlation to have significance, it must be broad, not
cherry-picked. If I get to cherry-pick my correlations, then I can select just the right people to prove that membership in the Libertarian party is correlated with child molestation.

6. Even MORE Appeal to Authority (Sheesh!) combined with Appeal to Belief

“This is exactly why we have organizations like the IPCC and the NAS. Their function is to gather the judgements (sic) of many scientists and render the best overall judgement (sic). It's sort of like the Supreme Court, except that the IPCC or the NAS won't publish a conclusion based on a 5 to 4 decision -- they prefer something more like 8 to 1 before they give it the seal of official approval. Yet nonscientists will seize upon that one dissenter and claim the matter "controversial" or "unproven". [Most revealing: an interesting attitude as to how science “works”…]

7. Your Argument Ad Ignorantiam (Burden of Proof)

“If you can find a flaw in the models or the datasets, I suggest that you write up a paper revealing that flaw and submit it for publication. There's certainly a Nobel Prize waiting for anybody who pulls the rug out from under the IPCC reports.”

Ahem…The burden of proof is on the snake oil salesm, um, I mean ‘modelers"; But there are plenty of flaws if YOU LOOK for them.

So now, setting aside all of the still unanswered technical questions on just exactly how climate ‘works’ and just dealing with HOW climate is ‘studied’, I just HAVE to ask (for starters):
1. Given information that is widely available concerning the past (PDF) and current hijinks of the IPCC that clearly illustrate that the reports coming out of the IPCC are political and not “scientific”,
2. given the incredible paucity of truly independent research data;
3. given the near-incestuous (PDF)relationships within the global warming research community.
4.and given the documented obfuscation of source data and methodology by many of the prominent practitioners of ‘climate alarmism’,

How on this Good Green Earth can any rational being bring themselves to read anything the IPCC puts out without a very healthy dose of skepticism or regurgitate it without a bigger dose of sarcasm?

Consensus is NOT Science.

Science IS Skepticism.

Where is your skepticism?

In parting, as anyone on the thread can readily observe and as I have iterated above, I assert your tone was uncivil long before I ever showed up. However, I am still wiling to help you with your question:

“…what can be graciously said about ignorant, pompous charlatanry?”.

The answer is:

“That’s your pat on the head Frobee. Now if you want to learn something, go ask questions at Climate Audit.”

Mr. Thompson, I greatly appreciate your civil approach to the issues, and I shall endeavor to provide the answers you request.

But first, let me respond to one item: the ability of the President to impose upon the bureaucracy. Yes, I'm very aware of the enormous inertia in the Federal bureaucracy; Presidents have struggled to impose their will upon that bureaucracy and have regularly failed. But let me point out that this Administration has been particularly intrusive, and on the matter of global warming, they have become so intrusive as to forbid NASA scientists to speak on global warming without prior approval from political appointees. Of course, the funding process is a much harder bureaucracy to crack, but I would still think that if there were some grand conspiracy to deny funding to global warming opponents, this Administration would have found a way to do so. After all, they've gotten money to churches...

But on to the serious issues:

1. Planetary warming. The link you present does not imply that Jupiter is warming. What it says is that some areas are warming and some are cooling. Here's a direct quote:

"As a result, areas around the equator become warmer, while the poles can start to cool down."

Jovian weather is not understood at this time, and we know that thermal flow from the interior is much greater than solar input. Jupiter is actually generating energy in its interior, probably from low-level thermonuclear reactions (although it could be nothing more than core compression.) That internal energy generation is far more important to Jovian weather than solar input.

Martian warming. First, you must remember that a single report from a single scientist does not mean very much; science is very much a collaborative effort and you can only be confident in a result that has been confirmed by numerous scientists. This report is coming from a single scientist and your source says,

"Abdussamatov's work, however, has not been well received by other climate scientists.
"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.

"And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." (Related: "Global Warming 'Very Likely' Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)
Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."
The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" [September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

Moreover, I'll point out that the claim is based on just three summers' worth of data. That's far too little data to be drawing any grand conclusions. After all, if scientists based terrestrial global warming theory on three summers' worth of data, they'd deserve our utter contempt.

On the matter of Neptune, please see my dismissal of this crazy idea in my post of 7:50 PM last night.

"That makes four planets in our Solar System which exhibit signs of warming or possible warming at the same time. All of them must take most surface temperature energy from the Sun, so why is it so unlikely or insane to think that the Sun may be behind the changes on all four planets?"

No, there is no reliable evidence that ANY of the other three planets are warming. Only for the earth do we have any reliable evidence of warming, and for the earth that evidence is overwhelming. Moreover, the implication of this supposition -- that the sun is releasing more energy -- is contradicted by direct satellite observations of solar radiance.

2. The ice core lag. This is a very common point raised by global warming deniers, and it does seem at first glance to raise some doubts about the relationship between CO2 and global warming. The catch is that in earth's history there have been many triggers global warming other than CO2. For example, the earth's orbit undergoes some minor wobbling that periodically moves it closer to or further away from the sun. Obviously, moving closer to the sun will cause the earth to warm, irrespective of any CO2 in the atmosphere. This doesn't mean that CO2 can't cause global warming; it means that CO2 wasn't the cause in those historical cases. There weren't any people burning fossil fuels to release CO2, so we COULD NOT have had this trigger for global warming. That does not mean that the trigger doesn't work, it means only that it wasn't triggered.

The fact that CO2 rises in response to initial temperature increases is especially significant. As temperatures rise, the carbon cycle changes and various places that store carbon start to release it. In other words, the increase in temperature causes MORE CO2 to go into the atmosphere, and that in turn amplifies the effect. The CO2 causes even more global warming than we would have otherwise had. That's why the data show the CO2 lagging the temperature increase by only about 800 years, but the temperature increase continues going on for 5000 years. The first 800 years of warming were caused by some other factor, but the CO2 helped continue the warming for another 4,200 years.

Thus, it's not just the CO2 we release that causes the trouble. As the earth warms in response to our CO2 releases, it will release even MORE CO2, making matters even worse! That's called positive feedback.

There is a detailed explanation of this stuff here

3. Ancient high values of CO2. I suggest that you follow through on the links presented in the article you link to. What you'll find is that the whole thing hangs on temperature data for times hundreds of millions of years ago. I was surprised to see this data; I was unaware of any such information. Well, if you follow the trail to its source, what you'll find is a geologist who is speculating about the general range of temperatures based on the kind of fossils we find. For example, he states that we find lots of coal from the Silurian and Devonian periods. He therefore concludes that it must have been pretty warm back then. How warm? If you look at his graph, you''ll find that it cycles between 12 degrees C and 22 degrees C. Where did he get these numbers? He doesn't say. In other words, the entire argument rests on a number taken from a single scientist that is not documented -- which means that it can't be relied upon. If he had shown where he got that number, we could have some faith in it. But it looks to me as if he just grabbed a number out of a hat. These are not measurements, these are very rough guesses based on the fact that there was a lot of foliage back then. But the presence of foliage doesn't tell us that the temperature was 22 degrees, it tells us that the temperature was warm. His numbers are not based on measurements, they are very rough indicators. I have emailed the scientist who produced that graph; I'll report his response when it arrives.

There's a much better presentation of the data on page 441 of the IPCC report. The only data they use for assessing ancient temperatures is the degree of glaciation, and they refuse to make any guesses as to temperatures.

I have to go now; I'll respond to your other questions a little later.

Continuing:

4. The National Academy of Sciences. You can find the joint declaration of the national academies of science of the G8 nations plus Brazil, India, and China, which you can find here. There's a pdf file you can download containing the entire statement. This represents not just the US NAS, but those for ten other countries. Together, these represent most of the top scientists in the world.

I remind you that the NAS was created in 1863 with the explicit purpose of advising the government on science matters as they relate to public policy. They have done their job. Now all we have to do is listen to what they're saying.

Next, turning to SMSget Mac, I'll begin by noting that you attempt to dodge the issue raised by the Stefan-Bolzmann equation with the limp claim it isn't really important. Right. The basic equation for blackbody radiation isn't important to the global warming issue. Do you even know what blackbody radiation is? Do you know what the greenhouse effect is? Yeah, right -- they're not important, either. None of the science is important to you, is it?

You criticize me for making an "appeal to authority". I can understand your reasons for making that criticism; when the great majority of authorities say that you're wrong, you can either admit that you're wrong or you can deny the authorities. You choose the latter course.

You criticize me for making ad hominem arguments. Actually, however, the statement I made (referring to those who disagree with the IPCC and NAS findings as "fringe people") is right on the mark. There's a distribution of authorities on this question, and the great majority accept the bulk of the IPCC findings. So what DO we call that tiny minority of people who reject these findings? Mainstream people? No, they're on the fringe of the distribution and so it's perfectly accurate to call them "fringe people".

Besides, I should think that "the pot calling the kettle black" applies here.

Your claims of contradictions in my arguments arise from a misunderstanding of English vocabulary. The word "speculation" is not synonomic with "judgement".

"But there are plenty of flaws [in the IPCC reports] if YOU LOOK for them."

Great. Show us the flaws. Quote the text and give the page number. But you haven't even read the IPCC reports, have you?

Your claims that the IPCC reports are unreliable are not shared by many scientists. However, I can certainly understand why you want to try to discredit this group.

"given the incredible paucity of truly independent research data"

The link you give refers to overlap between three studies of tree rings. They each rely on different combinations of sources, but some of the sources are common to all three. You call this incredible? You obviously haven't read many scientific summary papers. And you're trying to base your case on three studies of tree rings?!?!

"given the near-incestuous (PDF)relationships within the global warming research community. "

This is absurd. Yes, scientists talk to each other. Some scientists come from the same institution. The statistical analysis provided in the testimony is actually one of a type that has been carried out many times before. Scientists do worry about cliques forming. That's why they use double-blind referreeing. Neither the referee nor the writer know the name of the other. The phenomenon described is real, but is so small as to lack any power to discredit the scientific process. To suggest that such linkages constitute "near-incestuous relationships" is utterly absurd.

Basically, you're claiming that scientists are a bunch of liars and crooks. I'm sure you honestly believe that. I am not trying to convince you of anything; I know full well that all the facts and logic in the world will not budge you one inch. I am instead pointing out to other readers just how wild-eyed your reasoning is.

"and given the documented obfuscation of source data and methodology by many of the prominent practitioners of ‘climate alarmism’,"

The claims made in the article you cite are just speculative accusations devoid of any substantiation.

Froblyx,
Well, I'll be honest. You've pretty well convinced me by tackling the last few things that were niggling at me.

So, thank you.

Minor point: "further away from the Sun" should be "farther away from the Sun." Farther is distance, further is non-physical advancement (I furthered myself or my education, etc.).

"Minor point: "further away from the Sun" should be "farther away from the Sun.""

Oops. Damn, I STILL make that mistake after all these years.

Frob,

Are you saying that scientists might not shade their opinion if it means more grant money?

I guess you have forgotten the golden rule.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

BTW what about Lindzen.

And ice cores.

And CO2 in geological history?

BTW another excellent evasion. Keep up the good work!

Frob quotes:

(Related: "Global Warming 'Very Likely' Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)

Frob,

The report is not due out for a few days.

You are quoting the political summary. Not science old boy.

Plus, have you read the mandate of the IPCC? Its purpose is not to determine the cause of global warming. It is to determine the cause of man made global warming. Seems like they have already made up their minds about the cause.

That is not science:

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

IPCC statement of purpose.

Fortunately the IPCC doesn't claim to be scientific:

The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.

Now what are the odds that you will find papers that contradict the organizations purppose. Since the IPCC can pick which documents to include.

BTW, Mr. Thompson, I'll be happy to answer questions or explain some of the other intricacies of this, should you wish.

I have a few observations to add to this discussion, and I would especially appreciate Frobxyl's retort.

Since I first learned about the natural history of the Earth, it has been pummelgated to me that our planet condenced out of the Sun's accretion disk. In the process all of the constitutent elements in their various proportions were collected. Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and their amounts, found on Earth were set very early, while the planet was still molten. This must mean that they were in the form of gas or plasma in a thick blanket of atmosphere wrapped around our planet.
If CO2 is a positive feedback forcing, how did the Earth ever cool down enough for life to exist?
Keep in mind that on the primordial Earth there were no carbon deposits in the ground; coal and oil didn't exist yet because they are the residue of dead plants and animals. There were no oceans to sequester the other 75% of CO2, because any water would have been in the form of vapor, which would have acted as another enormous blanket of heat feedback.
If what the IPCC claims is true about CO2's effects on climate, why isn't the Earth still hot?

It's an excellent question, Papertiger. And it points to another interesting question.

Since the recent BBC documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle" pointed out that the ice core data actually shows a lag of several hundred years between temperature rise and CO2 rising - with CO2 coming -after- the temperature raises... well, this so obviously rebuts the entire theory of the chicken littles that it's sent them into spasms. And their response, as far as I can tell, has been to sneer snidely and then insist, as if any moron should simply know, that CO2 isn't the initial warming catalyst, it just -reinforces- the warming trend.

So the obvious question becomes: if global warming causes CO2 to increase, and CO2 increase reinforces the global warming so it warms even more... how the hell has the Earth ever escaped from one of these infernal cycles? Why is the Earth not pretty much resembling Venus now?

I share the opinion that they're screaming so loudly right now because they know that the trend will soon end on it's own and the Earth will start cooling. They have to get some of their proposed plans (which always lie in the direction of bigger government) in place so they can then take credit for the cooling and implement even more socialism. But if their plans don't go into place, and the earth cools, they'll have a very hard time recovering. Then again, maybe not. After all, in the 70's they were all predicting global cooling, and then the earth got warmer, and somehow they managed to completely escape any critical media attention of that. Funny how it always works out that way for the Left.

Qwinn

On ice cores:

The general understanding on the relationship between the rise in temperature indicated in the Vostock ice cores and the increase in C-O2 concentration captured samples of atmospheric gas is as follows:
- For reasons unrelated to C-O2, such as orbital forcing (Milankovitch cycles), the temperature of the Earth rose. Orbital forcing basically means increase in solar radiation due to change in distance, change in angle (the more land is exposed directly to the Sun, rather than at a tilt, the more the heating).
- As a result of the warming of the ground and the oceans, C-O2 is driven out of the water, out of the thawing tundras, and produced in greater quantity due to the increased biological activity.
- As a result of the increase in C-O2, the initial warming is given a boost, that increases the warming beyond the point that it would have stopped at, based only on the increased orbital forcing.

So in previous cases, documented by the ice cores, the lag between temperature rise and C-O2 increase indicates correctly that C-O2 was not the initiating cause of the increase. However, the further enhancement of that increase in temperature is an expected result of the additional C-O2.

In the current case, combustion of fossil fuels has caused a 33% increase of C-O2 over the last 100 years. Since each doubling of C-O2 concentration is expected to give rise to an additional 3.8 Watts/sq.meter of radiative forcing (out of a total of about 343 Watts/sq.meter from the Sun), this is noticeable. This expectation comes from the straightforward application of atmospheric physics, conservation of energy, radiative transfer. The translation of this additional heating into temperature increase is more complex (because the Earth/atmosphere/ocean system is complex), but if more solar power is coming in than is going out, something should be warming up, right?

On the film, "The Great Swindle":

You might want to take that film with a few lumps of salt. It's been challenged by, among others, one of the professors interviewed in the film, who states that his words were edited to imply the exact opposite of what he had meant.

Some sources:
from http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070425/global_warming_film.html?.v=1 :

AP
Film on Global Warming Is Challenged
Wednesday April 25, 3:22 pm ET
By Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer
Scientists Demand Changes to Global Warming Skeptic's Film

LONDON (AP) -- A group of British climate scientists is demanding changes to a skeptical documentary about global warming, saying there are grave errors in the program billed as a response to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

"The Great Global Warming Swindle" aired on British television in March and is coming out soon on DVD. It argues that man-made emissions have a marginal impact on the world's climate and warming can better be explained by changing patterns of solar activity.

An open letter sent Tuesday by 38 scientists, including the former heads of Britain's academy of sciences and Britain's weather office, called on producer Wag TV to remove what it called "major misrepresentations" from the film before the DVD release -- a demand its director said was tantamount to censorship.

Bob Ward, the former spokesman for the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science, and one of the letter's signatories, said director Mark Durkin made a "long catalog of fundamental and profound mistakes" -- including the claim that volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than humans,, and that the Earth's atmosphere was warmer during the Middle Ages than it is today.

"Free speech does not extend to misleading the public by making factually inaccurate statements," he said. "Somebody has to stand up for the public interest here."
Durkin called the letter "loathsome."

"This is a contemptible, weasel-worded attempt to gag scientific criticism, and it won't work," he said. "I don't believe they're interested in quality control when it comes to the reporting of science -- so long as it's on their side."

Durkin acknowledged two of the errors highlighted by the scientists -- including the claim about volcanic emissions -- but he described those changes as minor and said they would be corrected in the expanded DVD release.

But the scientists do not want the DVD released without edits to completely remove the material they object to -- something Ward said would fatally weaken the film's argument.

"The fact is that it's a very convincing program, and if you're not very aware of the science you wouldn't necessarily see what the errors are," Ward said. "But the errors are huge. ... Without those errors in, he doesn't have a story."

On feedback:

Just because something causes positive feedback does not mean that it "runs away". There can be a point where the feedback saturates.

For the enhanced greenhouse effect, the increased radiative forcing is only logarithmic in the amount of C-O2, so unless the amount of added C-O2 is increasing exponentiallly (which is not normally the case with naturally occuring mechanisms for C-O2), at some point the additional warming effect stops increasing. Over time (roughly 1000 years), the C-O2 level starts to decline, and the temperature begins to drop. Eventually what has happened is that the initial cause, the adjustment to the orbital forcing, shifts (it's cyclical) and the temperature starts to drop further. Then the feedback works in the opposite direction: increased cooling results in reduced C-O2 which feeds back to increased cooling...

So it's not a conundrum as to why the Earth would return to a cooler period after a warm spell boosted by C-O2 increase.

"If CO2 is a positive feedback forcing, how did the Earth ever cool down enough for life to exist?"

Excellent question. The earth's atmosphere was very different two billion years ago. We know that it was hotter, that it had a lot more CO2, and that it had very little free oxygen. However, we can't measure how hot it was 2 billion years ago or how much CO2 was in the air back then. Our best evidence is a mineral called banded iron, which has layers of iron oxide (rust). This indicates free oxygen in the atmosphere (which caused exposed iron to rust). These rocks are about 2 billion years old, which means that free oxygen first appeared in the atmosphere about 2 billion years ago -- which means that photosynthesis started around then.

But there's no need to require that early life be just like current life. It is tautological to assume that early life was adapted to its environment -- whatever that was. Indeed, there are plenty of living systems being discovered that exist in environments we thought to be impossible, such as life near deep oceanic vents, with temperatures so high as to kill anything else, or living systems inside deep Antarctic lakes living in total darkness and near-freezing temperatures.

So the answer to your question is as follows: the first life appeared about two billion years ago and started using the abundant CO2, taking the carbon and releasing free oxygen. They thereby reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere. The earth therefore cooled. Nowadays, we don't see any creatures capable of living in a high-temperature, high-CO2 atmosphere. Those critters did the exact reverse of what we're doing: they pumped CO2 OUT of the atmosphere and triggered global COOLING. The end result in each case (if not corrected) is ultimately the same: extinction.

"After all, in the 70's they were all predicting global cooling"

This is a falsehood. There were a couple of scientists who grabbed up a lot of media attention with this contrarian claim. Most scientists regarded the idea as poppycock. When the proponents of the idea failed to substantiate their claims, the whole thing was forgotten. Yet now we see global warming skeptics misrepresenting what really happened. Global warming was first anticipated in the nineteenth century, and physics undergraduates were long taught that theoretically the release of CO2 into the atmosphere should cause global warming, but no evidence of that warming had yet appeared. It was only in the 1980s that the first real evidence began to appear. The idea of global warming is not new, it is very old. Scientists have not rushed to judgement, they have taken decades to assemble mountains of data, refine the theory, and cross-check everything.

My thanks to Mr. King for his useful information.

"If CO2 is a positive feedback forcing, how did the Earth ever cool down enough for life to exist?"

Excellent question. The earth's atmosphere was very different two billion years ago. We know that it was hotter, that it had a lot more CO2, and that it had very little free oxygen. However, we can't measure how hot it was 2 billion years ago or how much CO2 was in the air back then. Our best evidence is a mineral called banded iron, which has layers of iron oxide (rust). This indicates free oxygen in the atmosphere (which caused exposed iron to rust). These rocks are about 2 billion years old, which means that free oxygen first appeared in the atmosphere about 2 billion years ago -- which means that photosynthesis started around then.

But there's no need to require that early life be just like current life. It is tautological to assume that early life was adapted to its environment -- whatever that was. Indeed, there are plenty of living systems being discovered that exist in environments we thought to be impossible, such as life near deep oceanic vents, with temperatures so high as to kill anything else, or living systems inside deep Antarctic lakes living in total darkness and near-freezing temperatures.

So the answer to your question is as follows: the first life appeared about two billion years ago and started using the abundant CO2, taking the carbon and releasing free oxygen. They thereby reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere. The earth therefore cooled. Nowadays, we don't see any creatures capable of living in a high-temperature, high-CO2 atmosphere. Those critters did the exact reverse of what we're doing: they pumped CO2 OUT of the atmosphere and triggered global COOLING. The end result in each case (if not corrected) is ultimately the same: extinction.

"After all, in the 70's they were all predicting global cooling"

This is a falsehood. There were a couple of scientists who grabbed up a lot of media attention with this contrarian claim. Most scientists regarded the idea as poppycock. When the proponents of the idea failed to substantiate their claims, the whole thing was forgotten. Yet now we see global warming skeptics misrepresenting what really happened. Global warming was first anticipated in the nineteenth century, and physics undergraduates were long taught that theoretically the release of CO2 into the atmosphere should cause global warming, but no evidence of that warming had yet appeared. It was only in the 1980s that the first real evidence began to appear. The idea of global warming is not new, it is very old. Scientists have not rushed to judgement, they have taken decades to assemble mountains of data, refine the theory, and cross-check everything.

My thanks to Mr. King for his useful information.

My apologies for the double-posting. There's something on this site (something with the ads, I think), that makes my browser (Firefox) hiccup.

[fixed - Simon]

Frob,

i remember the great cooling scare of the 70s. While CO2 was still increasing. It sold a lot of newspapers.

Of course now we have the great warming scare. It sell a lot of newspapers.

And just as in the cooling scare contraty opinions by reputable scientists are buried.

You do a good job of making my points.

BTW there are a nomber of scientists who wish to be removed from the IPCC reports - saying their views ar not in accord with the repport.

So what do we know? We know the science is not settled.

We also know that a CO2 emitter greater than the USA (China) is not interested in cutting back on CO2. So we should export energy intensive industry to China (which is not big on environmentalism) for possibly a net increase in CO2 output from less efficient plants, plus the loss of capital as existing plants in the developed world are shut down and new ones built in China? Makes no sense.

M. Simon,

- The only scientis I'm aware of that has asked to be taken off is Dr. Sealand. He was upset about how one chairman of an IPCC subcommittee conducted a press conference - which was not under IPCC auspices. He has a different point of view on one point: the question of whether the current hurricane intensity reflects global warming YET. He doesn't question the general picture of global warming as depicted by the IPCC's 4 reports, the most recent of which was released in April 2007.

- The "global cooling" scare was a media-driven effect, which was publicized in Newsweek and TIME - but not in scientific journals. The attitude in the climate-science community was, "It's too soon to tell." However, today the most important scientific societies in the world, including the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and a long list of others have taken the unusual step of taking a position on this question, because they're concerned about how much disinformation has been spread (rather like the case of the disinformation program engaged in by the tobacco companies to discredit the cigarette/lung cancer connection). So the difference between the scientific views on "global cooling" and global warming are like night and day.

I would give a less complicated answer to the question of why a C-O2 blanket can cause global warming without preventing the Earth from cooling down after its original formation.

Global Warming

In this case, the source of power is the Sun. Prior to the increase in C-O2, the amount of solar power absorbed by the Earth was balanced by the amount radiated away in infrared radiation, so there was no net heating or cooling. When additional C-O2 was added (about 33% over the last 100 years), it impedes the escape of the infrared radiation. That impedance will remain until the temperature of the Earth (including the atmosphere) rises enough that the radiation escaping the top of the troposphere has increased to what it was 100 years ago, at which point temperature will stabilize.

(Of course, it can't stabilize until the amount of C-O2 has stopped increasing. And even if it stabilizes, it can be changed later by other events, such as changes to the Sun's radiance, or unusually large volcanic eruptions, or pollution of other sorts (like sulfate aerosols). But we're talking about C-O2 right now.)

When the 33% increase in C-O2 is taken into account with the increase & decrease in sulfate aerosols (associated with the unscrubbed burning of coal), variation in solar activity, and large volcanic eruptions (like Pinotuba), there is a good match between the observed average global temperature and the models, for the last 100 years.

Cooling down from Formation
At this time, the source of heat was almost entirely the heat from the Earth itself, that was left over from the kinetic energy in the original pieces as they fell together to form the planet. The C-O2 still had the effect of impeding the escape of infrared radiation, but the band of infrared of interest is pretty limited, and there was no heating of equivalent magnitude. So the energy flux was all outwards, and you get cooling.

Summary
- In the case of global warming, the C-O2 blanket shifts the balance between incoming power and outgoing power towards the incoming, so there is a heating effect.

- In the case of cooling from formation, the C-O2 blanket can only slightly slow down the cooling. But there is no incoming radiation of magnitude comparable to the escaping radiation, so although it can slow it down slightly, the blanket is not going to be able to do much.

Neal
Just because something causes positive feedback does not mean that it "runs away". There can be a point where the feedback saturates.

I find that comment very comforting. Whew!
So it will take more carbon dioxide then we can possibly burn to create further noticable warming. Good.
However I must admit a twinge of regret that we humans aren't able to create endless summer.

Frob
The earth's atmosphere was very different two billion years ago. We know that it was hotter, that it had a lot more CO2, and that it had very little free oxygen. However, we can't measure how hot it was 2 billion years ago or how much CO2 was in the air back then.

Your comment piqued my interest so I went looking for a little info about the oldest rock. It's a zircon dated at 4.4 billion years old. For comparison, the Earth is believed to have formed sometime between 4.5 to 4.6 billion years ago. The tiny grain of zirconium silicate is the result of magma being contaminated by sedimentary rock.
Scientists were able to measure oxygen isotopes and rare earth elements and found that the chemistry of the mineral and the rock in which it developed could only have formed from material in a low-temperature environment at Earth's surface.
"This is the first evidence of crust as old as 4.4 billion years, and indicates the development of continental-type crust during intense meteorite bombardment of the early Earth," says John Valley, a geologist at UW-Madison "It is possible that the water-rock interaction (as represented in the ancient zircon sample) could have occurred during this bombardment, but between cataclysmic events."
"This is an astounding thing to find for 4.4 billion years ago," says Valley, "At that time, the Earth's surface should have been a magma ocean. Conventional wisdom would not have predicted a low-temperature environment. These results may indicate that the Earth cooled faster than anyone thought."

Frob
It wasn't my intention to bust on you for getting the dates wrong. It happens to me all the time. I am sure when you said "two billion years ago" you were meaning it as a generic term for along time ago, rather then a specific point in time.
So I am wondering how long does it take for a specie of life to form and evolve and is one hundred to two hundred million years enough time for a heat loving plant to suck enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to allow oceans to form?

Neal
-In the case of cooling from formation, the C-O2 blanket can only slightly slow down the cooling. But there is no incoming radiation of magnitude comparable to the escaping radiation, so although it can slow it down slightly, the blanket is not going to be able to do much.
Venus says you are wrong. Are you saying that the newly condenced sun wasn't at least as powerful a heat source as the power of gravitational contraction on Earth? I find that comment questionable.

There were quite a number of "scientists" who asked to be taken off the IPCC list.

Sorry I don't have a url.

In any case the IPCC is not a scientific body. They are not interested in global climate. Their mandate is only human effects on the climate.

All this is backed by dubious computer models which do not have terms for known solar cycles and have no definite term for water vapor (positive, negative, or zero feedback). The models assume positive. Why? Well it does make the global warming effect worse.

Then the recent cosmic ray/cloud connection (influenced by solar manetism) has not been included because.

1. It is too new.
2. Only one experiment has been done.

Let me say this about models:

A really good servo system model where all the parameters are under control and well understood and easily measured is doing very good to come within 1% of the final value. 5% is more typical and is considered adequate.

Yet with poor models and data of uncertain provenance, we are expected to believe that the models can come in at better than 1 deg C where the 1% error band would tell us that +/- 3 deg C is probably the minimum error band. With +/- 6 deg C more likely.

Given the fact that we do not even know the sign of the water vapor feedback/cloud mechanism let alone its magnitude, such unknowns say that the predictions we are getting are probably not worth what we are paying for them.

Then there is the matter of China. They have coal. They need electricity.

Until we have something to offer them to support their energy needs such as:

Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion

Man made CO2 output is going to rise faster and there is not much the USA can do except cripple its economy. The Germans are already not happy with Kyoto due to its economic effects.

It may be that the best thing to do about CO2 is nothing. Let economies grow. Let technology evolve. Solve our problems as we go. The way technology is evolving, Lumborg predicts we will be off fossil fuels by 2100. Why not let natural technological change take care of the problem if in fact once the addition of CO2 stops so will the additional "forcing"?

Maybe clean water and mosquito eradication in the Third world gives us more bang for the buck.

Frob,

As long as you are answering questions:

CO2 went up from 1940 to 1970.

Yet temperatures were stable or went down.

Also note: 80% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere is natural. The remaining 20% added by man is supposed to account for 100% of the "observed" temperature rise.

The 80% added by nature just keeps the temperatures from falling I'm told by AGW believers.

Well you know me. I'm sceptical.

Papertiger,

- What happens wrt warming in the future depends on what happens with C-O2. If it grows at 1% per year (not an unreasonable "business as usual" scenario), it will double in 70 years, and quadruple in 140 years. That will certain produce a noticeable effect, because it will a net 1% / 2% imbalance in the radiation.

- Venus does not prove me wrong. Venus has cooled down considerably from the period that it "fell together". Think of how hot meterorites get when they fall from the sky, or think about the heating up of the heat shields of the space shuttle. That comes from the kinetic energy of the object falling into the gravitational field. Venus is considerably cooler than that now. Like the Earth, it's getting its heat from the Sun. It's considerably warmer than the Earth, because of