Pave the rainforests!

For decades – and I do mean decades – I’ve been saying that any environmentalist who is really serious about reducing fossil-fuel use and CO2 emission should be agitating to switch the power infrastructure to using nuclear plants for the baseload as fast as possible.

But when the facts change, I change my mind. I was wrong. There is new, direct, observational evidence that the most effective thing we could do to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere is pave over the tropical rainforests.

Don’t believe me? Look at this map of CO2 emissions by region. It’s brand-new data from NASA’s just-lofted Orbiting Carbon Observatory.

The official line on this is that the high carbon emission we’re seeing are produced by burning of biomass associated with the current Southern Hemisphere planting season. But there are two features of the data that make this rather obvious nonsense.

1. The tropical high-emission areas are much larger than the regions where slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced, and they’re the wrong shape – that is, not a core with a plume trailing in the direction of prevailing winds. The African one is especially problematic – if that was produced by biomass combustion it would extend north to the edge of the Sahel.

2. See that one dense area over northern China? That is totally in the wrong location to be associated with the rainforest biomes in the SW of the country, and it isn’t planting season there anyway. That can’t be burning biomass, it has to be Chinese industrial emissions or something else we don’t understand.

So the big Southern hemisphere emission areas are probably just plants normally exhaling CO2, and in the process dwarfing the CO2 emissions of all humans everywhere except northern China. Oops, how embarrassing for the religion of AGW.

It’s a delightful auxiliary pie in the face that several CO2 source areas more intense than the entire swathe of the developed world are located in the mid-Pacific Ocean.

Prediction: the tropical high-emission zones will not vanish with the end of spring planting. And the OCO is going to continue producing problems for the AGW religion until and unless the high priests get to ‘correct’ the data before anyone else sees it.

862 comments

  1. Huh.

    I’d had the impression that, while plants do breathe out CO2 during their dark cycles, that which they absorb during the light cycle is greater over any reasonable period. Is it actually possible for large concentrations of plants to be large CO2 emitters? And if not, what are some other possibilities? Volcanoes? Rotting biomass?

  2. At first, the thought of all the plants in the rainforests exhaling CO? struck me as bogus, as in every biology lesson I’ve ever had on plants, I recall being taught that plants run on photosynthesis, not respiration. However, with a quick search, I discovered that plants do indeed use respiration and emit CO?.

    I suspect you’re going to have a bunch of warmists here and elsewhere howling that ESR is an idiot who doesn’t even know how plants work.

    Am I a bad person that I hope such howling will be popcorn-worthy?

  3. I see this thing doesn’t like unicode. That’s what I get for trying to format things to look nice.

  4. http://www.aerostich.com/pave-the-planet-t-shirt.html

    Mr Hunt: I suspect that that if we’d find the research somewhere we’d find that *certain* kinds of plants, or plants under certain conditions (for example new/fast growing) will consume more CO2 than they produce, but at a certain point they switch from net producers to either neutral or slight consumers.

    Also RE: Africa, back in the early days of AGW it wasn’t CO2 that was the big, evil, scary gas, it was Methane. Until the Watermelons realized that the biggest producers of methane was (a) rotting biomass and (b) ants/termites in Africa (and northern Australia). It’s unlikely that Volcanos or rotting biomass will produce CO2 on this level, but I wonder how much CO2 ants, termites and other animals that live in those areas produce?

    Thing is that Methane is several times more effective at holding heat (and let’s remember that *that* part of the warmist science is correct, it’s the computer models that end in boiling oceans, and in some of their hystorical reconstruction that are questionable).

    Looks like it’s time to move the goal posts again–which they’ve already been doing. Now the story is coming out that the lack of warming over hte last 15 years is CO2 preventing another ice age.

  5. I am more of a “How do we stop using 3,000 lb. vehicles to exchange 3 oz. CDs?” problem sort of guy.

    HINT: It aint in “friction-free”, coal-burning, S3-streaming server farms.

    Radical conservationism, I know. But I have to be me!

  6. Excuse me. I meant, Blu-Ray DVDs.

    Sorry I’m old.

    Though one also must love the social compact of standing at the RedBox bread line – while the frozen precipitation falls – as functionally retarded people try to manage the disc dipenser’s UI, whilst holding up the foully besmirched shade screen, as unaware parking-lot traffic threatens to mow you over!

  7. First things first: Nuclear power for baseload makes a lot of sense, as long as you can control for humanity. Second: Climate science is *hard* – anybody who claims AGW as dogma is as silly as the people who refuse to believe CO2 could be rising at all.

    First: Eric, your conclusions would have been entirely correct, had your starting principle been correct. The problem is that the figure is not an emissions map – it is a CONCENTRATIONS map. Position, not velocity. It’s expected that the southern hemisphere have extra CO2 heading into the start of summer and the northern have less heading into the winter.
    Second: Some of the commentators are also forgetting that, while plants photosynthesize according to how much sunlight they get, animals and factories respirate at a comparatively constant rate year round. Plants and zooplankton are always removing CO2, it’s just that during winter they remove slower than animals add, so CO2 accumulates.
    Given these two factors, it entirely makes sense that the greatest concentrations of CO2 during oct-nov be in areas of high biomass in the south and high industry anywhere – the amazon, the congo, indonesia, and china.

    In general, I’m wary of articles that only look at a single data point – it’s one month of an annual cycle, and it’s one that we’ve actually measured in the past. OCO2 is not the first satellite that we’ve sent to measure things – look at GOSAT, for example. If anything, the graphic is actually proof that scientific models are correct: I think one of the clearest explanations for what you’re seeing here is at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141118-nasa-video-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-environment/

  8. Oops, I said proof. Sorry, that’s not what I meant.

    “If anything, the graphic actually indicates that scientific models are on the right track”

  9. Ok maybe it’s my partial colour blindness but when they say “above Northern Australia” do they actually mean above Indonesia? Or do people actually think that the islands north of the Australian mainland is actually part of Australia?

  10. One of the questions that has been in the back of my mind for a while is “Is the bulk of the CO2 from industrialization or from the 7 billion humans and countless animals just exhaling it?” This *may* point to an answer, but I don’t know.

  11. Basic biology: plants use CO_2 during photosynthesis to produce O_2. You fail biology forever… but, they do that only during the day, when there is light for photosynthesis. I wonder if you can get time-correlated data from Orbiting Carbon Observatory, to compare CO2 emission during local day and during local night.

    > core with a plume trailing in the direction of prevailing winds.

    But you see latitudinal band of high CO2 at around what it looks like “roaring fourties” – prevailing wind. How you can explain otherwise the band of higher level of CO_2 over ocean?

    > So the big Southern hemisphere emission areas are probably just plants normally exhaling CO2

    Why there is no high CO2 in equatorial Africe – the rainforest area? Eh?

    1. >Why there is no high CO2 in equatorial Africe – the rainforest area? Eh?

      Good question. I don’t know the answer.

  12. “Is the bulk of the CO2 from industrialization or from the 7 billion humans and countless animals just exhaling it?”

    We talk about animals and trees….I believe that the largest (by far) portion of the earth’s biota consists of bacteria. (Out of sight, out of mind.) Rotting biomass probably explains a lot of this.

    1. >Rotting biomass probably explains a lot of this.

      Here is a known thing: the error bar in the estimates of CO2 from biomass decay exceeds the entire amount of CO2 emission attributed to humans.

  13. I have this vague memory that this was discussed during the Reagan Admin. Back then environmentalists had a big “save the rainforest” campaign, because, they said, “That’s where most of the world’s oxygen comes from.” Then the Reaganites came out and said, “That’s just during the day. At night they emit CO2.” (I think in both cases they were talking about what trees do.) We now know from satellite data that the story got mixed up. Yes, the rainforest canopy produces a lot of oxygen during the day, but most of it gets absorbed at night, presumably by the abundant animal life in those forests, and the abundant oxygen is replaced by CO2. It seems almost like a perfectly closed system. However, the idea that “most of the world’s oxygen” comes from there seems to be true, but not directly from the rainforest. Instead it comes from enormous plankton blooms that develop off the coasts of the rainforest region. The current theory (IIRC) is that they are nourished by phosphates that become airborne in Africa’s deserts, and rain down on the rainforest during the annual monsoon season. This also fertilizes the floor of the rainforest, which is nutrient-poor.

  14. I would argue that the psychosis that underlies CAGW worship is unrelated to emergence of new scientific data, rational analysis, or the advancement of knowledge. Just as “global warming” morphed into the “climate change” meme when the temperature data failed to match predictions, there will likely be a new meme that emerges soon that incorporates this new twist.

    Perhaps “climate racism” will suffice for this new meme, since it kills two birds with one stone.

  15. David on 2014-12-27 at 03:43:14 said:
    is as silly as the people who refuse to believe CO2 could be rising at all.

    i have never seen anyone claim that CO2 concentrations are *not* rising. and, that would be a pretty stupid claim to make, any high schooler with a chemistry set could verify / falsify it.

    hey, don’t let me get in your way though, that’s a mighty fine strawman you’re constructing. should make a nice flame when we light a match too it.

  16. Lol, concentrations != emissions. Emissions can be carried away hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Really, ESR?

    But don’t worry ESR, even if climate change is real, the rising sea levels will just cause some water to spill over the edge of the earth. Ocean levels won’t rise. That’s what the flat-earth society says, and let’s face it, climate change denialists are in the same league (when it comes to scientific rigor) nowadays.

    I absolutely *hate* people who try to twist science to fit their beliefs. A libertarian (like ESR) preaching that climate change is not real, hence no central planning of energy production is needed (we can just produce our energy by building lots of small coal-powered plants) is no different than a creationist who denies evolution because his religion says so.

    1. >(we can just produce our energy by building lots of small coal-powered plants)

      Kindly cease projecting at me. Coal-fired power sucks; that’s why I’ve been advocating nuclear since the early 1970s.

  17. concentrations != emissions.

    Fine. But you need to explain why this pattern of concentrations does not confirm the “white people are destroying the planet” assertion.

  18. kurkosdr on 2014-12-27 at 14:36:06 said:
    Lol, concentrations != emissions. Emissions can be carried away hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Really, ESR?

    Lol, and all those emissions got magically carried to and concentrated in the rainforests by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, amirite?

  19. It looks to me, that much more serious role in CO2 harvesting plays fitoplancton in oceans. But it is decreasing because of temperature increase and less whales which mix waters and nurtures plancton with excrements.

  20. I knew this post was going to be a flustercuck when I saw the link to WUWT, but I see David at 3:43 nailed the rebuttal (with one error, he wrote “zooplankton” when he meant “phytoplankton”). BTW, the mission team only finished calibrating the instruments on September 30:
    http://oco2.jpl.nasa.gov/newsoco/

    CO2 can be expected to be depleted over the oceans because they are a net sink and won’t equilibrate for at least 1000 years after excess emissions cease. As for the rest, the orange color appears to correspond to about 397-400 ppm, or right around the current Mauna Loa measurement:
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
    This suggests the Amazon rainforest didn’t do much of anything last October.

    Now if you take the massive amount of biomass in the Amazon and throw most of its carbon into the atmosphere… you’ll see THAT signal for the next kiloyear.

  21. OK then I guess the other comment is being identified as spam and/or malicious. It ain’t that important except as a comment that we want nukes because of the energy return on energy invested (EROEI or sometimes just EROI). Nukes have an EROI of about 75 which as hgh as we can get. So the more nuke you have the less of the rest of the world you have to disrupt

  22. >Coal-fired power sucks; that’s why I’ve been advocating nuclear since the early 1970s.

    What about radioactive waste? (Honest question; I’m not your enemy.)

    1. >What about radioactive waste? (Honest question; I’m not your enemy.)

      Christopher Smith called it right. High-level waste is useful for things like isotope batteries; low-level waste isn’t dangerous, often more of a chemical toxin than a radiological one.

  23. What about radioactive waste?

    If the waste is still radioactive, that means that there’s additional unextracted energy, and reprocessing is often both practical and cheaper than refining mined ores.

  24. Jorge, what specifically do you mean by “radioactive waste”?

    Do you mean lightly-contaminated gloves, gowns and other protective clothing?

    Do you mean ion-exchange resins which have picked up some slight fission product contamination from reactor cooling water?

    Or do you mean “spent” nuclear fuel?

    I put “spent” in scare quotes because about 95% of the useful energy remains in light-water reactor fuel even after it’s too depleted to be used with a light-water moderator any more.  You can extract about another 40% over the original 5% it by putting it through a reactor moderated by heavy water (so-called DUPIC, Direct Use of PWR fuel In CANDU), but it appears that the reactor design of Transatomic Power can squeeze out 96% of the available energy from that “spent” fuel, and fast-spectrum reactors can everything that isn’t lost in reprocessing.

    The current US inventory of spent LWR fuel would be sufficient to start on the order of 500 GW of Transatomic reactors.  That would eliminate most of the emissions from electric generation and the “radioactive waste” problem in one fell swoop.  You’d be left with fission products which become less radio-toxic than raw uranium ore in about 500 years, and have plenty of worthwhile uses while they’re decaying away.  If you’re willing to give me 5-10 kW(th) of Sr-90 heat source, I’ll take it; just package it to my specs.

  25. > Here is a known thing: the error bar in the estimates of CO2 from biomass decay exceeds the entire amount of CO2 emission attributed to humans.

    But the amount doesn’t matter, because all of that carbon came from the atmosphere within the lifetime of the organism whose biomass is decaying.

  26. @kurkosdr: Part of the reason some of us are suspicious of the AGW proposals is that the people who are pushing for them aren’t backing the changes required to most effectively address the issue.

    If the AGW proponents stood up and said that this is a really big issue, and as a result we need to build lots of nuclear power plants and pumped-storage facilities I’d think that they were actually serious. I can’t take anybody seriously if they look to start working on the problem with the engineering-wise most difficult 10% of the problem (as in, new, not-as-nice lightbulbs, minor changes in fuel efficiency) as opposed to the easiest and most straight-forward 50% of the problem through nuclear power.

  27. @Jorge Dujan: Others have addressed some of the aspects of nuclear waste. Another is that per policy (both implicit and explicit), nuclear waste reprocessing isn’t allowed in the US. If that were to be done, much more of the useful energy could be extracted from the fuel, there would be less high-level waste left, and it would be safer.

  28. >> If the AGW proponents stood up and said that this is a really big issue, and as a result we need to build lots of nuclear power plants and pumped-storage facilities I’d think that they were actually serious. <<

    The actual climate scientists mostly ARE saying just this.  Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace International) has been saying this for decades.  James Lovelock (Gaia hypothesis), the same.  Gwyneth Cravens too.

    Now there's an open letter with 70-odd high-profile signatories to that effect:
    http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/12/16/its-time-for-environmentalists-to-give-nuclear-a-fair-go/

    What you have on the anti-nuclear side is "big Green", composed of a bunch of large organizations which get most of their funds from even larger donors.  Who are those donors, and what strings do they attach to their funding?  Given that they include the Rockefeller Foundation (founded on oil), it seems very unlikely that they're actually defending the earth instead of the Rockefeller family fortune doesn't it?

    If this seems unlikely to you at first, consider that the Sierra Club was pushed from a ZPG position in defense of wild areas to complete neutrality on mass immigration by the demands of just one donor, David Gelbaum.

  29. Jorge Dujan on 2014-12-27 at 18:00:33 said:
    What about radioactive waste? (Honest question; I’m not your enemy.)

    IF you want a serious long term solution
    AND you’re not interested in dealing with reprocessing
    THEN you would deeply bury whatever leftover stocks of contaminated / depleted materials into the subduction zone of one of the continental plates and allow them to ride the conveyor down into the magma.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction

    the core of the Earth is full of dense metals and elements. heavy shit sinks, yo.

    while some of the radioactives would likely be ejected in lava from one of the overlying Arc volcanos
    a – it would be highly diluted after having been melted at thousands of degrees
    b – the vast majority would be fixed and shielded in solidified lava
    c – due to the extremely long lead times between the emplacement in a deep vault ( the deepest hole ever bored is some 40,000 ft / < 12.4 km at Kola ) and actual melting depth ( min 80 km ), most of the radioactives will have dissipated at that point anyways.

  30. (e) dump glassified waste in the oceans.  Let it leach out if it wants to.  It will do it so slowly that it will not add significantly to the total radioactivity (K-40 and C-14 betas, ignoring everything from the uranium decay chain of which there are billions of tons of precursor isotopes left) in the oceans.

    If it takes 500 years to get out, almost everything with half-lives of 30 years or less (including Sr-90 and Cs-137) will be effectively gone.  What’s left is stuff like Tc-99, which is very “cool” by comparison.  You’ll be able to measure the contribution because it’s easy to determine decay energies with high precision and pick out even scarce isotope signatures, but it just won’t be an issue for biology.

  31. Baseline facts to remember:
    – Respiration (production of CO2 by oxygen consuming life) happens 24/7
    – Decomposition (production of CO2 by bacteria and fungi, etc.) happens 24/7
    – Photosynthesis (consumption of CO2 & production of O2) happens during daylight
    – ALL three of the above processes are mediated by temperature and moisture with production rates having ‘normal’ distributions related to some optimum of those values.

    The high concentrations of CO2 in wet tropical landmasses was previously observed by a Japanese satellite with similar capabilities to the one described in the article.

    All of this has already been thrashed by Murray Salby’s geochemical mass balance hypotheses. The recent accumulation of CO2 is a function of the results of annual changes in regional & global temperature and moisture rather than human production.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YrI03ts–9I

    part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8L3skoSLIA
    part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMiuv6f9hd4

  32. Also, geochemical processes like bedrock decomposition & formation are ALSO mediated by temperature & moisture and may have significance in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

    One thing is certain: the global human production of CO2 is less than 3% of the total CO2 produced. Natural production and sequestration are so huge that very small differences from year to year (resulting from temperature & moisture) are more than enough to account for the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration.

  33. IMO, nuclear fission energy is a poor fit for humans.

    We think and plan for days to months, perhaps for a decade or two but nuclear waste, nuclear fission facilities, etc. are an issue/problem for thousands of years.

    We are sloppy, accident prone, prone to violence, willing to settle for expedience, and emotional. The products and process of fission requires constancy, precision, forethought and prudence.

    Ergo, shit happens like 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima just to name the most famous “accidents”.

  34. Whoa, the science-denialist astroturfers are here in force all of a sudden!

    BioBob’s assertion that human CO2 contributions are less than 3% of CO2 produced is a very carefully-crafted canard.  It incorporates, among other things, the fallacy of ambiguity:  it doesn’t distinguish between gross fluxes and net changes.  I’ve never seen the name Murray Salby before, and I’m not about to waste an hour just to make a first pass at picking out the falsehoods and shifted goalposts, but a quick search finds that he is no longer associated with Maquarie University so no longer has the title “professor”.

  35. Interesting discussion here. It does make me wonder one thing. Why do the AGW alarmists absolutely NEED to call anyone questioning the data and science “deniers”? It is a mandated requirement in their discourse now. Funny how name calling is the new required debating response and evidence is no longer necessary at all. If you have the evidence to prove people wrong use it. If you’re calling someone a name I’ll assume that your evidence is lacking.

    1. >Interesting discussion here. It does make me wonder one thing. Why do the AGW alarmists absolutely NEED to call anyone questioning the data and science “deniers”? It is a mandated requirement in their discourse now

      It’s a defensive maneuver. The CAGW computer models have utterly failed at predicting the behavior of the real atmosphere. They’ve failed the criterion of actual science, so they have to fall back on the tactics of religion.

  36. Engineer-Poet, I don’t believe in CAGW…and a large part of that is because “climate science” isn’t. When “climate scientists” start acting like scientists, I’ll accord them the deference that such would deserve.

    And as for “science deniers”: Why is it that many CAGW true believers oppose any use of GMO food, even though the science about them is unequivocal that they are safe and nutritious? What do you think about them?

  37. So why is the southern tip of Greenland a fountain of carbon emissions? Just a wag that it isn’t planting season in November…

  38. Engineer-Poet on 2014-12-28 at 12:05:57 said:
    1) “very carefully-crafted canard”
    2) “not about to waste an hour”
    3) “never seen the name Murray Salby”
    ———————
    1) the fact is that ALL our data on carbon cycling are estimates because data collectors are busy “adjusting” the crap historical data but it is not hard to prove the human ‘effort’ is trivial from what we do have measured. So spare us your assertions without any sources at all. Even the data adjusters on Wikipedia like the stoat have no issue with the order of magnitude estimates that indicate human global carbon contributions are trivial compared to the totals.

    2) Lazy is as lazy does. You know it all so you will not spend any effort at all to learn, eh ?

    3) You can measure the importance of Murray Salby’s assertions by the primal screams from the [strike] AGM, Thermageddon, Climate Change, [/strike] Climate Disruption crowds as they got Salby fired from his Uni job without cause. Pretty hard to be a climate realist iconoclast embedded in the marxist Uni crowd members who, like you, use illogical appeals to authority instead of data. You never heard of him so how important can his ideas be ? Eh? That will work !!!

  39. kurkosdr on 2014-12-27 at 14:36:06 said:
    A libertarian (like ESR) preaching that climate change is not real, hence no central planning of energy production is needed . . .

    That’s really the key isn’t it? Although many of the AGW cheerleaders are just useful fools the main impetus behind it is one of the primary wet dreams of the socialists: central economic planning by the wise. Virtually nothing that is produced today can be done without energy, electrical or otherwise. If our “best and brightest” get to control and ration energy production so as to ensure the greatest social good (as they see it) then they will absolutely control what is produced and by whom. Control of energy is control of any modern economy.

    And as for concentration ! = production, that is true. But what does that do to certain assumptions underlying these models that predict the catastrophic warming of the earth? Consider a clear pane of glass that is speckled with drops of black paint. Adding more paint to the areas that are already covered by paint won’t affect the amount of light that is transmitted through the glass. How many of these wonderful models take account of the fact that carbon dioxide does not diffuse evenly in the atmosphere? I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect that none of them do.

  40. Folks, there is an important difference between carbon standing crops and processing/production. Tropical systems process carbon quickly but tropical rain forest carbon standing crops are dwarfed by those of temperate forests and likewise for temperate versus tropical grasslands, etc. Tropical soils are very low in carbon content but temperate soils have very large carbon content, etc.

  41. BioBob:

    Why can’t we all just hold hands and sit around the [strike] AGM, Thermageddon, Climate Change, [/strike] Climate Disruption campfire and sing “We are the World”? You would question your betters in this field? You gotta lot of nerve, pal. It’s almost like you don’t know when the science is settled.

  42. Tcobb,

    I fear you are right and that leads to why they fight so hard against nuclear power.

    Abundant, low carbon sources of power will allow industry and capitalism to flourish without interference from the government. But, if they can shut down coal plants without building nuclear plants to provide energy, then rationing will need to be done. Our betters would HAVE to control how we used this limited energy.

    The want control and power more than they want their fellow man to succeed. Progressives/Marxists (same thing) are just evil fucking scumbags.

  43. @ jmod46 on 2014-12-28 at 16:16:12

    Yeh, poor poor pitiful me who has been an AGW skeptic since the 1970’s when C.A.S. Hall (one of my thesis advisors) noticed that atmospheric CO2 concentrations were increasing. Here we are nearly 50 years later and we STILL do not actually know why and are forced into wild-ass-guesses. That just gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling about the progress of “climate science” that still seems to put much of it’s effort into “adjusting” the crap historical data to fit it’s latest theories.

  44. Jay Maynard on 2014-12-28 at 12:33:04 said: “the science about them is unequivocal that they are safe ”

    That is not to say GMO crops do not have their problems. Nasty when pollen from GMO crops fertilize organic crops in the surrounding area and ruin their fear-inflated value. Also other issues like the long-term effects of “new” Bt etc. proteins produced by GMO crops are introduced into the food supply. Likely safe, but science is about proof, not assumptions, and “unequivocal” implies a certain level of proof that is still forthcoming. But I don’t worry about it much. Pass the GMO corn-chips please.

    1. GMO crops are engineered to not be able to reduce. If they fertilize nearby crops, all of those crops are now infertile.

  45. Proving a crop is safe is impossible, since it’s inherently proving a negative. There’s been a mountain of tests, and nobody’s ever found any problems at all with regard to food safety or anything else.

    Of course, the leftists who protest GMOs – most of them the same ones screaming about how CAGW skeptics are anti-science – don’t worry about that. They just scare people.

  46. > I’d had the impression that, while plants do breathe out CO2 during their dark cycles, that which they absorb during the light cycle is greater over any reasonable period. Is it actually possible for large concentrations of plants to be large CO2 emitters? And if not, what are some other possibilities? Volcanoes? Rotting biomass?

    Think about the bulk chemistry behind this. A constant amount of biomass (i.e. being replaced by growing plants at more or less the same rate that it rots) is going to be carbon-neutral over long periods of time. What we’re seeing is the error bars in that. The only way that “paving the rainforests” is going to do anything good is as a one-time carbon sequestration as all the biomass (living or dead) in said rainforests is buried and prevented from rotting – if and only if it is done in a way that actually accomplishes that.

  47. Indeed, no argument from me. The anti-GMO crowd is not pro-science either ! It was never about the science, always about sly innuendo.

  48. Random832 on 2014-12-28 at 21:07:40

    It was never about tropical rainforest sequestration since there is essentially none long term but instead notional about preventing rainforest CO2 production, which is massive. It was always an absurd notion designed as incitement.

  49. BioBob, the point is that carbon produced from respiration or decomposition is already a part of the global carbon cycle. Human fossil fuel combustion introduces sequestered carbon from outside the carbon cycle back into the cycle, fucking up the long-term equilibrium the atmosphere has been in and introducing changes in climate that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

    That the amount of carbon released by respiration and decomposition dwarfs the amount released in fossil fuel burning is immaterial if the effect of reintroducing sequestered carbon is great enough. This satellite data does nothing to discredit the agw hypothesis.

  50. > It was never about tropical rainforest sequestration since there is essentially none long term but instead notional about preventing rainforest CO2 production, which is massive.

    And my point is that there’s none of either long term, not if the size and density of the rainforests remains constant. There’s nowhere for all that supposedly extra carbon to come from. If you encased all the biomass in impermeable concrete (thus “paving” it) and prevented it from rotting (releasing its carbon into the atmosphere), that would be a form of sequestration. But you wouldn’t even get that if you just burned it all down.

  51. Jeff Read on 2014-12-28 at 22:08:05 said: carbon produced from respiration or decomposition is already a part of the global carbon cycle

    Not exactly, and you do not get it. Even Joni Mitchell got the important part with ‘we are billion year old carbon’. Most carbon on Earth is actually incorporated in bedrock and is naturally mobilized by plate tectonics and earth’s internal heat engine as is any fossil fuel not extracted by humans. More is mobilized by biological & geochemical action on bedrock and soils. The process works both ways with amounts also being sequestered in abyssal mud or sedimentary carbonate formation, etc.. You are simply setting your boundaries in an arbitrary manner. For all we know, the tiny amount of increased atmospheric CO2 observed is the result of minute changes in the speed of plate movements, increased bombardment of Earth by carbonaceous micro-comets, the result of subtle changes in geochemical processes or any other number of known unknowns or unknown unknowns. Salby concludes that the minute atmospheric CO2 changes coincide with annualized changes in temperature and moisture from year to year.

    What fucking equilibrium ? No such thing, never was, never will be. Or do you think we are in a steady state universe ????? The rest of us live in a chaotic universe where the world changes all the time simply because some bug flaps it’s wings. “Round and round it goes and where it stops nobody knows…”

    The trouble with AGW bullcrap is that it’s proponents have insufficient and poor quality data, ignore the big picture, and seemingly do know know what they do not know. They think global processes are simple to measure and simple in concept when nothing could be further from the truth. Only climate scientists refuse to use replicated random samples to gather empirical data and get away with it. The rest of scientists must gather their data in a more rigorous manner or be laughed out of the building. Some things are just beyond our grasp and knowing the details of weather and future geochemical states are some of them.

  52. Random832 on 2014-12-28 at 22:37:44 said: not if the size and density of the rainforests remains constant.

    If you pave the rainforests then they are gone as productive units and their contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is gone. By definition, then, they are not constant, instead are simply GONE.

  53. > If you pave the rainforests then they are gone as productive units and their contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is gone. By definition, then, they are not constant, instead are simply GONE.

    Yes, and you’ve either burned them (permanent, one-time release of CO2 into the atmosphere) or buried them (permanent, one-time sequestration of carbon into the ground).

    I don’t know what “contribution” you think you’re talking about – none of this data shows any net, long-term contribution, and the idea that there is one is simply absurd as it requires creating carbon atoms from nothing.

  54. Random832 on 2014-12-28 at 23:59:37 said: it requires creating carbon atoms from nothing.

    sigh….you really need to put on your thinking cap. The carbon comes from all the usual places; atmospheric CO2, dissolved carbonic acid & carbonates resulting from geochemical and biological processes in soils and bedrocks. If the rain forest ecosystem does not remove those from the biosphere, then they stay immobilized or in the atmosphere until other processes mobilize them. Nobody would expect that eliminating the rain forest would permanently make those changes for all time. Eventually something else would happen.

    In any case, nobody knows what would happen long term if we paved the rain forest but I suspect the largest change would be global atmospheric oxygen concentration would fall. Seeing as how the CO2 comprises only .04% of the atmosphere, not much would change there in all likelihood since it has never been much of a consideration (from my point of view) except as a limiting factor raw material for plant photosynthesis.

  55. kurkosdr says “A libertarian (like ESR) preaching that climate change is not real, hence no central planning of energy production is needed (we can just produce our energy by building lots of small coal-powered plants) is no different than a creationist who denies evolution because his religion says so.”

    Your claim that central planning works better than distributed planning is creationist economics. You have no evidence for your thesis; you have only faith.

  56. > sigh….you really need to put on your thinking cap. The carbon comes from all the usual places; atmospheric CO2

    That is MY ENTIRE POINT. The fact that the carbon in the plants / rotting biomass is of recent atmospheric origin means that it can’t have any long-term impact. There’s no compound interest for carbon – nothing more is put back in to the atmosphere than was taken out during the biomass’s lifetime.

  57. >but I suspect the largest change would be global atmospheric oxygen concentration would fall.

    And that do you think those oxygen atoms are going to be instead of atmospheric oxygen?

  58. (It would be nice if there were a five minute grace period to re-edit posts. Seeing a post go up focuses the mind on all the typos that one doesn’t notice while proofreading)

    >but I suspect the largest change would be global atmospheric oxygen concentration would fall.

    And what do you think those oxygen atoms are going to be instead of atmospheric oxygen?

  59. @Garrett:
    per policy (both implicit and explicit), nuclear waste reprocessing isn’t allowed in the US.

    This actually isn’t quite true any more. The Carter administration banned reprocessing, but the Bush administration lifted the ban. However, the Obama administration appears to have backed off from actually doing any commercial reprocessing.

  60. @BioBob:
    nuclear waste, nuclear fission facilities, etc. are an issue/problem for thousands of years.

    Not if you reprocess it. As others have pointed out, most of what is called “nuclear waste” is actually unburnt fuel, and reprocessing allows you to burn it. Most of the rest has other uses, as has also been pointed out. The only major nuclear-using country that can’t seem to get this is, alas, the US.

    shit happens like 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima

    And even with those taken into account, nuclear power has caused several orders of magnitude fewer deaths per unit of energy produced than other major energy sources. So if nuclear power is a “poor fit” for humans, the others are an even worse fit.

  61. Don’t coal plants release more radioactivity (to say nothing of any other measure of pollution) into the environment than was ever actually released at Three Mile Island?

    1. >Don’t coal plants release more radioactivity (to say nothing of any other measure of pollution) into the environment than was ever actually released at Three Mile Island?

      Yes, they do. If coal plants had to meet the (absurdly stringent) radiation-emission standards for nuclear reactors, they’d be shut down.

  62. Peter Donis on 2014-12-29 at 11:45:29 said: Not if you reprocess it.

    It’s not especially about deaths, contamination, and all that BS, although each obviously is a concern; it’s about the money. Nukes just cost too much when you don’t hide all the nasty parts under the rug. MUCH MUCH more than the fossil fuel alternatives.

    And how well is that reprocessing working for us now ? In October 1976, President Gerald Ford to issue a Presidential directive to indefinitely suspend the commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium in the U.S. On 7 April 1977, President Jimmy Carter banned the reprocessing of commercial reactor spent nuclear fuel. In March 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reversed its policy and signed a contract …….”11 years after the government awarded a construction contract, the cost of the project has soared to nearly $5 billion. The vast concrete and steel structure is a half-finished hulk” ….Blah blah blah ….

    The short story is that the US has ZERO reprocessing facilities for commercial nuke waste so many thousands of fuel rods sit at reactor sites cooling their heels, waiting for some yahoo to make a bad and expensive mistake.

    Reprocessing would reduce the quantity of waste but not eliminate the problems. The reality is that unless the government subsidizes the process and underwrites the liability issues, nobody in their right mind would take a chance on nuke waste. Further, there isn’t a government in the world that does not turn everything it touches into shit, so we have that going for us. 60 years after the manhattan project, contaminated waste sites still litter the US landscape despite mucho billions in superfund expenditures.

    All nuke fanbois have great hopes and slick talking points but reality smacks you in the face like a wet fish. Give it up. Find some kinda process that deals with human behavioral & economic realities and has minor consequences and expenses from those mistakes. We humans have limitations and we should make our plans keeping those limitations in mind.

    Fission energy right now is a poor fit for humans. Fix that and we will be set free; I would love to have a fail-safe nuke power plant in my pocket, keeping me warm, well fed, rich, and wise.

  63. Random832 on 2014-12-29 at 14:51:09 said:
    Don’t coal plants release more radioactivity (to say nothing of any other measure of pollution) into the environment than was ever actually released at Three Mile Island?
    ——————
    Not really. US coal plants capture flyash, so most of the normal background radioactivity is sequestered in the ash piles. Flying, living in granite and other high radiocuclide bedrock areas or eating bananas has higher radioactivity consequences for people. Did you think earth was a radioactive free zone ?

    1. >Not really. US coal plants capture flyash, so most of the normal background radioactivity is sequestered in the ash piles. Flying, living in granite and other high radiocuclide bedrock areas or eating bananas has higher radioactivity consequences for people.

      All true, but it’s still the case that the EPA would almost certainly count the fly ash radioactivity as a problem if … uh, I’m going to shut up now. Don’t want to give the Obama administration ideas.

  64. esr on 2014-12-29 at 15:18:24 said:
    All true, but it’s still the case that the EPA would almost certainly count the fly ash radioactivity as a problem
    ——————-
    Coal ash IS a problem and most economists sweep that remediation cost under the rug. The EPA already has regs up the wazoo for coal ash, adding to the problems of dealing with it.

    Like I said, there isn’t a problem and there isn’t a government that does not turn everything it touches into crap.

  65. Here is a nice number I found for natural gas use in the home:

    old time Natural gas in home 9 mrem/year = 90 ?Sv

    Fracked natural gas can be much higher

    http://theenergycollective.com/david-lewis/47970/shale-gas-some-it-hot

    Do we need to discuss this more ? Living causes dying. Everything we do causes something ‘bad’ for something else. So we all need to be super-strict Buddhist and kill ourselves right ? so we don’t step on ants and worms…..

  66. On those lines, anyone with any thoughts on the high beta fusion reactor?

    If Skunk Works has it right we’re looking at about a decade before zero-emission, zero-nasty-stuff power generation. I don’t know about the science of it (though I’m sure Skunk Works wouldn’t just make shit up); I’m looking forward to it because we can tell both coal and nuclear fission to eat a bowl of dicks. \o/ Add that to cheap solar and better battery tech and the future looks pretty good, whether you believe in AGW or not.

    1. >If Skunk Works has it right we’re looking at about a decade before zero-emission, zero-nasty-stuff power generation.

      Uh huh. But here’s betting “environmentalists” will try to get it outlawed, because it would otherwise have political consequences they find unacceptable.

  67. @lewis:

    I’d like to think that we could look forward to fusion someday. I’ve been hearing about it for a long time, though, and it is a very difficult technical problem. The main obstacle is trying to overcome the electrostatic force, which keeps nuclei apart. It’s a lot easier to shoot particles into them, especially with an element that’s already unstable.

    As for solar, I’m not optimistic. Just at first glance, the solar tech of today doesn’t appear to power stuff better than it did about 30 years ago, though battery technology has improved.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/when-political-correctness-collides-with-itself.php

  68. esr,
    > Uh huh. But here’s betting “environmentalists” will try to get it outlawed, because it would otherwise have political consequences they find unacceptable

    Some environmentalists I’ve read are this way; nasty people who would jump on any cause that gives them control over other people. Plenty I’ve *known* are not, from discussion with them; they are genuinely concerned about what we’re doing to our planet with CO2 and don’t think leaving nasty wastes around that will cause our descendents millenia down the line to curse us is a very good idea. The second category of folks will be happy to see a problem solved.

    As for the first category, eh, run the fuckers over in our giant fusion-powered pick up trucks! :D

    Mark Miller,
    > I’ve been hearing about it for a long time, though, and it is a very difficult technical problem.

    You name problems, but Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works claims to have solved them. Are they wrong?

    > http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/when-political-correctness-collides-with-itself.php

    And I can show you a kid flapping his arms around in imitation of a bird and be like “ha ha flying is a stupid idea”. Honesty requires that you confront the best advocates of a cause.

  69. @BioBob:
    Nukes just cost too much when you don’t hide all the nasty parts under the rug. MUCH MUCH more than the fossil fuel alternatives.

    One could argue that the fossil fuel alternatives are allowed to hide nasty parts under the rug as well. But I think a better argument is that the main driver of cost for nuclear power is the cost of plant construction, which is largely driven by lawsuits brought by anti-nuclear activists. As a result, very little effort has been put into making nuclear plants cheaper to build, whereas a lot of effort has gone into that for fossil fuel plants.

    The short story is that the US has ZERO reprocessing facilities for commercial nuke waste

    Yes, because the US government has made a huge mess of this issue. That’s an argument for fixing the US government (for example, by following the example of other countries that have been reprocessing for decades), not an argument for avoiding nuclear power.

  70. BioBob on 2014-12-28 at 07:54:07 said:
    > Ergo, shit happens like 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima just to name the most famous “accidents”.

    Some of those plants were designed when drum brakes were the best thing going, seat belts were optional and people thought that the safest place for a child was in her mothers arms. Oh, and those cars were “used up” at 45 or 50k miles.

    Just like we’ve got better car designs (in every way, except maybe aesthetics) we have *far* better fission reactor designs. Helium Cooled Pebble Bed and Liquid Sodium cooled designs use physics to fail safely, they’re modular design means that failure doesn’t take the whole site down, and that they can be cheaper to build and deploy.

  71. Mr. Donis:

    But I think a better argument is that the main driver of cost for nuclear power is the cost of plant construction, which is largely driven by lawsuits brought by anti-nuclear activists. As a result, very little effort has been put into making nuclear plants cheaper to build, whereas a lot of effort has gone into that for fossil fuel plants.

    There has been considerable effort into making nuclear power safer, cleaner and cheaper.

  72. @William O. B’Livion:
    There has been considerable effort into making nuclear power safer, cleaner and cheaper.

    I completely agree that these newer designs are much better, and I would love to see them get built and run. However, that hasn’t happened yet, so all the numbers people throw around to show how costly nuclear power is are based on the construction costs of old designs.

    Also, I’m skeptical that anti-nuclear activists will suddenly shut up if someone attempts to build a commercial reactor based on the new designs, since they were never actually responsive to the technical facts in the first place.

  73. @William O. B’Livion:

    I should also add that the new designs you refer to are recent; it has taken decades for nuclear power to get to a point that seems to have been reached considerably more quickly with fossil fuels.

  74. FooQuuxman on 2014-12-29 at 16:14:56 said:

    Thanks but the ‘book’ appears to be a superficial overview with some voodoo economics of what I have already read about extensively for the past decades (data from all sides pro-anti-agnostic). It all boils down to costs for the utility, the government (your taxes), the future. Until the full costs including those that account for human failings become less than the alternatives, nuke power will languish. Mostly the link ignores much of the actual costs – add in the annual budget for the DOE, nuke superfund EPA expenditures, etc. divided by the number of reactors & sites and we and call it good (= immediate death blow).

    Since I don’t believe AGW BS has any significance, there is no pressing need to avoid the warming non-issue and fossil fuels are cheaper in any case. IMO, should humans persist on earth, we will employ every recoverable joule of fossil fuel before we seek more exotic solutions simply because they will be cheaper in total expenditures.

    In the long run, plate tectonics will consume any fossil fuels we do not, so it hardly matters. Carbon will continue to cycle regardless of what we do and we are an insignificant cog in the universe’s clockwork.

  75. @Lewis:

    Re. LM Skunk Works working on fusion

    I’m waiting for them to demonstrate that they’ve overcome the difficulties. I don’t care about claims. They are not wrong, because there is nothing yet to criticize, but there isn’t anything worth calling “right,” either.

    Re. the “solar demo”

    The point I was making is that this failed demo was indicative of the technology that’s now available. It worked as much as it did due to improvement in battery technology, but no perceptible improvement in solar technology. The solar array the guy used was not really there to power the blower, as it was nowhere close to the wattage the blower needed (keep in mind this is only a fan!). The only reason the display worked at all was the batteries the guy used, which he claimed he charged up overnight using wind power.

    It’s unlikely that what the guy did would’ve worked at all 30 years ago, because rechargeable battery technology would not have provided the power needed, or if it did, it would’ve expended its power in a very short amount of time. To give a bit of a benchmark, back in that era, people who used cell phones used to need to carry a rechargeable battery with them the size of a *suitcase*! What was being used here required a lot more power than a cell phone.

  76. I have no problem trying out new nuke designs in theory. Go ahead and build them if you can. But make sure to design them so that WHEN the operators disappear the plants will be safe for all eternity.

    Show me a human civilization that has survived intact without revolution or devolution for more than a few hundred years (a thousand at best ??) and show me a reactor that does not produce extremely hazardous ionizing radiation radionuclides that do not persist for longer than those few hundred years and then you have a plan. Cover the landscape with them so that everything is cheap and easy. But the social systems humans create with continue to fail because that is our nature, our affliction; we are only human and not god.

  77. Peter Donis on 2014-12-29 at 17:08:06 said:
    William O. B’Livion on 2014-12-29 at 17:12:14 said:

    You both can rationalize and equivocate all you like but none of that changes the current realities. You must either change the realities or live within the current laws of economics. Since the country appears to be headed down the drain, I can only wish you good luck and godspeed. We certainly would benefit from cheap energy and innovation.

  78. @BioBob:
    make sure to design them so that WHEN the operators disappear the plants will be safe for all eternity.

    This is a completely unreasonable requirement which we do not impose on any other energy source. As for meeting a reasonable requirement, apparently you missed the part about how other countries have been reprocessing for decades. Nuclear waste is a solved problem, for any reasonable value of “solved”.

    As for the political part, your response basically appears to be that the US is unfixable, so why bother? First, since, as noted, other countries have figured out how to make nuclear power cost-effective, there is a way to do it; and second, the status quo doesn’t strike me as a very good situation either–not because of AGW (I agree with you that that’s not enough of a concern to make fossil fuels unviable) but because of the geopolitical implications of continuing to depend on oil from the Middle East.

  79. @esr
    > “environmentalists” will try to get it outlawed, because it would otherwise have political consequences they find unacceptable.

    Something I find interesting — nuclear power is probably one of the most regulated industries in the world. As a consequence, nuclear power actually increases government control over power generation, whereas building lots of windmills all over the place means power generations is distributed into lots of small individual areas. Irrespective of which works, you would have thought the “suck everything up to Washington” lobby would be much more in favor of the former over the latter.

    Oh, and in regards to the nuclear waste thing, I find it utterly baffling. Why is it worse to collect all the waste from all over the country and bury it safely in a mountain in Nevada that nobody ever goes near because it is in the middle of a useless wasteland, rather that the alternative from other power sources, namely puking all your waste into the atmosphere?

  80. Peter Donis on 2014-12-29 at 18:11:35 said: a completely unreasonable requirement
    ————–
    why is that ? because you don’t like it ? Who pays the bill ?

    It’s a requirement because actions without forethought have consequences. When a coal plant turns into a pile of construction debris, so what. When a reactor site turns into a pile of long term ionizing radiation that spreads over the landscape, big difference, and long term negative outcomes. If you don’t think it matters you can volunteer for the continuing cleanup at Fukushima – they are looking for volunteer workers since there is a shortage.

    It’s a conceptual requirement because most nuke fanbois hide longterm consequences. So one needs to build them in to begin with since you refuse to do it by default in an effort nuke plants more “pretty”. Think of it as sitting in the corner after poor behavior.

  81. I doubt there is a single country in the world that has made nuke plants cost effective. They have instead made them politically expedient. Big difference.

  82. @ Peter Donis on 2014-12-29 at 17:23:52 said:
    > I should also add that the new designs you refer to are recent; it has taken decades
    > for nuclear power to get to a point that seems to have been reached considerably
    > more quickly with fossil fuels.

    The Germans were experimenting with Helium cooled pebble reactors in the 80s. South Africa and China in the 90s and 2000s. LMFRs also have a long history.

    I’m more of a fan of the pebble bed, because it seems easier to clean up.

  83. Jessica Boxer on 2014-12-29 at 18:13:25 said: Why is it worse to collect all the waste from all over the country and bury it safely in a mountain

    ===============
    erm, because we don’t, like, actually have one operating, but we already spent the money on them anyway ? Kinda like all those decommissioned reprocessing plants ? So we get to pay lots for nothing !! What a great deal !!!

  84. (I’ve been working my way down the discussion thread, writing and digging up references as I go.  I’ve got a bunch of stuff backed up.  Reply-storm follows.)

    >> Why do the AGW alarmists absolutely NEED to call anyone questioning the data and science “deniers”? <<

    Why do you absolutely NEED to apply the pejorative "alarmist" to anyone who takes seriously the policy implications of the science?  Especially when the "questioning" is almost always taken from a list of long-debunked talking points, and is traceable to organizations with a history of denial of facts about things like second-hand smoke?

  85. (aside:  I REALLY hate that HTML tags are stripped here.  Can I even use special characters?  e=hν   A=πr²)

    >> Engineer-Poet, I don’t believe in CAGW <> a large part of that is because “climate science” isn’t. <<

    Jay, you're a mighty clever guy with costume gear and soldering irons (the debut of your Tron outfit was really something, I think I have pics somewhere) but if I'm in no position to claim the science is bunk, you're in a much worse one.

    Let me list 3 predictions of the climate modelers that have come true:

    1.  The poles have warmed substantially.  We see this both in direct temperature measurements and in proxies such as the dates of first freeze and spring thaw.  Over the same interval the tropics (where much more of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor instead of non-condensible gases) have warmed much less, exactly in line with the models.

    2.  The stratosphere has cooled.  If increased solar radiation (which has been proven not to exist by satellite measurements of the solar constant) was responsible for the observed warming, the stratosphere would warm too.  It's doing the opposite.  This is precisely what the models predict from a concentration of upwelling IR in the "window" where GHGs cannot intercept it.

    3.  Atmospheric circulation has been altered.  One of the predictions of the polar warming was that the circumpolar circulation would be weakened and other forces would increase their effects on weather patterns.  One predicted detail was that storm systems would go north around the Rockies, then south again across N. America.  This is exactly what happened last winter, routing rain north of California, bringing rain to Alaska's north slope in February and bitter cold across the eastern USA and Canada.  In 2012 the cold hit Europe.  This year it's unseasonably warm in Michigan and looks to get cold in Europe again.

    But that's not the best reason to take a second look at the science.  The best is the ever-shifting claims of the so-called "skeptics", like Murray Salby.  The original claim was that the carbon emissions pumping up the Keeling curve weren't from humans, but volcanoes.  This was known to be false in the scientific community both from direct measurements and because the ratio of 13-C to 12-C was wrong (volcanic carbon has more 13-C than organic carbon, which includes fossil fuels, and the atmospheric ratio of 13-C to 12-C has been going down), but it took years for that claim to be debunked in the public mind.  BioBob's summary of Salby's thesis (which I'm not going to take an hour to go through) implies that the carbon is organic (from what source, of what size, depleted how fast?), which is an about-face from the original "skeptic" thesis.

    How can they go completely against their original claims and not trigger your BS detector?

    And last is BioBob's sniping at nuclear energy ("a poor fit for humans").  Had it not been for hysterical anti-nuclearism, including the NRC's charter (which demanded infinite safety from nuclear energy while ignoring much larger threats from non-nuclear power), the USA would have had a mostly de-carbonized electric grid by about 1990.  Our issues with greenhouse gases would have been met with a shrug:  "Okay, convert more stuff to electric power and we'll re-start some other technologies for things like industrial process heat.  No big deal."  Our energy supply on hand would have been measured in centuries.  Instead we have a push to shale gas, which may only last a couple of decades.

    Ask yourself:  who benefits from scarcity and constant flux?

  86. I am shocked and dismayed to read this from someone I respect:

    >> The CAGW computer models have utterly failed at predicting the behavior of the real atmosphere. They’ve failed the criterion of actual science, so they have to fall back on the tactics of religion. <<

    Go to this link and scroll down to footnote 4.  Pay close attention to the two graphs, one marked "With GHGs" and the other "Without GHGs":

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/why-global-warming-skeptics-are-wrong/

    It is obvious that the current climate models reproduce the observed temperature trends with good accuracy… and the same models with GHG changes taken out diverge wildly from observation.  It is the "skeptics" who have failed the criteria of actual science.

    When you find yourself uncritically affirming a claim that you had every chance to know was false when you made it (that review is going on 3 years old, the data on which it is based are even older), you need to re-examine the premises and especially any association you have with the people who pushed them at you.  When you use language like "they have to fall back on the tactics of religion" when the "skeptics" are some of the same people pushing creationism into biology textbooks, your epistemology has gone completely off the rails.

    1. > (that review is going on 3 years old, the data on which it is based are even older),

      Apparently you missed the part where over the last six months measures GAT has fallen out of the 95% confidence range for the IPCC model sheaf. There are many other fatal problems with AGW theory, but the divergence between theory and actual observation is now large enough to be undeniable and stand for the rest.

      You’ve been had. Wake up.

  87. @BioBob:
    why is that ?

    Because we don’t impose requirements anywhere near that stringent on any other energy source. With all other energy sources, we accept a reasonable level of risk and reasonable engineering solutions to mitigate that risk. With nuclear energy, even though, as I’ve already mentioned (apparently you missed that too), it causes several orders of magnitude fewer deaths per unit of energy generated than any other major energy source, we insist on a level of risk much, much lower than what we accept for any other major energy source. That is unreasonable.

    actions without forethought have consequences.

    Yep, they sure do. That’s why orders of magnitude more people have died, due to non-nuclear energy sources, than would have died if we’d generated that energy using nuclear reactors.

    When a coal plant turns into a pile of construction debris, so what.

    Unless you’re one of the workers who died mining the coal, or died due to respiratory disease after breathing the ash.

    When a reactor site turns into a pile of long term ionizing radiation that spreads over the landscape, big difference, and long term negative outcomes.

    Negative compared to an idealized world where we could generate energy with zero risk, sure. Negative compared to the impact of other major energy sources, not so much. “Radiation” is not a magic evil spell; it’s just something that can cause harm. Other things can cause harm too, and, once again, orders of magnitude more harm has been caused by non-nuclear energy sources than has been caused by nuclear energy. That includes TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

    most nuke fanbois hide longterm consequences.

    So do proponents of non-nuclear energy sources, apparently, since we go on using them even though they cause orders of magnitude more deaths per unit of energy generated. Those human failings that you mentioned apply to all energy sources, not just nuclear.

  88. @William O. B’Livion:
    The Germans were experimenting with Helium cooled pebble reactors in the 80s. South Africa and China in the 90s and 2000s. LMFRs also have a long history.

    You’re right, I misspoke. I should have said that attempts at commercial use of these designs is recent. (Mostly, anyway: it looks like there was one German attempt at a full scale pebble bed power station in the 1980’s, but it was shut down; and there have been a few liquid metal power stations prior to the recent efforts.)

  89. >> 1) the fact is that ALL our data on carbon cycling are estimates because data collectors are busy “adjusting” the crap historical data but it is not hard to prove the human ‘effort’ is trivial from what we do have measured. <> Lazy is as lazy does. You know it all so you will not spend any effort at all to learn, eh ? <> You can measure the importance of Murray Salby’s assertions by the primal screams <<

    You mean, like the primal screams that came from the gun-rights community after Michael Bellesiles published "Arming America"… full of claims that turned out to be fraudulent, and wound up with Bellesiles resigning from Emory?

    How about the firing of Ward Churchill?  Was that due to "primal screams", or did academic fraud have anything to do with it?

    Just based on what you've said about Salby I'm sure he was guilty of the same sort of misconduct.  Yes, this is a heuristic, not a detailed examination of evidence.  Other people appear to have done that examination already, and I feel no need to repeat it.

  90. Large parts of that previous comment got deleted somehow, including the link to the EIA. Don’t ask me what created the italics, I didn’t know you could even get italics here.

    Here’s a repeat, with the quoting convention changed to hopefully avoid the same thing happening again:

    ## 1) the fact is that ALL our data on carbon cycling are estimates because data collectors are busy “adjusting” the crap historical data but it is not hard to prove the human ‘effort’ is trivial from what we do have measured. ##

    That is a very interesting self-contradiction, Bob:  all the data are estimates and “crap”, but you KNOW the human contribution is “trivial”.  But with “crap” data, how could you know that?

    If I want to know how much coal was mined in the USA in any particular year since 1949, all I have to do is go here:
    http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.cfm?t=ptb0702
    It’s not hard to find figures for heating value, carbon content and so forth for representative samples of various coals, so from those figures you can readily calculate both the energy and CO2 yield from that year’s production with an error bar of a few percent.  Most other countries publish similar data, which are compiled in a number of places around the web.

    What we know from this published data is that human CO2 emissions are much larger than the observed year-on-year increase in atmospheric CO2, and much of the added CO2 is going into the oceans.  In other words, what you wrote is a lie.

    ## Lazy is as lazy does. You know it all so you will not spend any effort at all to learn, eh ? ##

    I don’t waste time reading claims by those who claim they’ve been abducted by aliens, poisoned by chemtrails, or that HAARP was a sinister weather-control scheme.  Life is too short.  If you’d linked to a peer-reviewed paper I’d look at that, but not an hour-long video.  I have my own takedown of an Amory Lovins video that I’ve been working at off and on for months without getting it good enough IMO to publish, and the video is only about 7 minutes long.  Lovins is a master of goalpost-shifting and fallacious reasoning.  I don’t have the time to take on Salby as well.

    ## You can measure the importance of Murray Salby’s assertions by the primal screams ##

    You mean, like the primal screams that came from the gun-rights community after Michael Bellesiles published “Arming America”… full of claims that turned out to be fraudulent, and wound up with Bellesiles resigning from Emory?

    How about the firing of Ward Churchill?  Was that due to “primal screams”, or did academic fraud have anything to do with it?

    Just based on what you’ve said about Salby I’m sure he was guilty of the same sort of misconduct.  Yes, this is a heuristic, not a detailed examination of evidence.  Other people appear to have done that examination already, and I feel no need to repeat it.

  91. If you’re after change in CO2, see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/05/the-revenge-of-the-climate-reparations/ instead.
    They show Brazil as 2nd in carbon sequestration, after Argentina. Australia and Canada are 3rd and 4th. (In short: it’s a little closer to what conventional wisdom has, but there are still plenty of unexpected details.)
    Given that that page shows one year’s CO2 flux rather than average CO2 over about 40 days, I’m inclined to give it more weight–at least till NASA has closer to a year’s worth of data.

    As far as plants, rainforests, and CO2 go:
    Every living thing relies on respiration; if it lives in an aerobic environment, it oxidizes carbon compounds for energy. Plants and phytoplankton happen to also store energy in the form of carbon compounds via photosynthesis, but they live: some of that carbon is used up for life processes. The rest is stored or used for mass. If a plant is growing, it is storing more carbon than it burns.
    However, nothing is immortal, and the remains generally are used as an energy source by insects, herbivores, saprophytes, bacteria, and so on. The more life there is, the more of the biomass gets turned into CO2; tropical rainforests have more consumers than anywhere else, so they lose the most carbon back to the atmosphere.
    If you want to deplete CO2 long-term, you have to store biomass: in other words, long-lasting wood/paper/natural fiber/straw products or burying the biomass in the bottom of a mine/landfill. Short-term, you can plant new forests in areas that have little stored biomass.
    If you bury biomass, you will usually not stop life from processing it: you only prevent it from getting oxygen, which means that methane is produced instead. If you pave over the rainforest, it will quickly start producing methane, and that will rupture the paving to escape and cause worse problems.
    So no, paving the rainforest will not solve CO2 emissions. Cutting it down for lumber and burying the slash (non-usable wood) in Antarctica might.

  92. Engineer-Poet,

    I use the term AGW alarmists, because I believe that some warming is happening, but I do not believe that it has been proven that it will be catastrophic, or that it will turn out to have non-mitigatable effects.

    Again, if we really are doomed unless we take action, then why isn’t a nuclear plant being built in my state (and most other states for that matter)?

    If the only solution to global warming is that I have to vote for, like, and come to fully accept socialism/communism then you can take that fucking solution and go to hell. We tried that shit in the 20th century to try and solve problems that were believed to be far easier to solve than AGW is claimed to be and all that happened was they piled up the bodies.

    I have realized that I’m totally ok with solving AGW through engineering and technology, but if I’m required to yeild my freedoms to fucking communist thought and action to fix global warming, I’ll definitely take my chances and place my bet on the idea that they are lying.

    Yes, I’d rather the world burn then be saved at the expense of becoming a socialist hellhole.

  93. ## Apparently you missed the part where over the last six months measures GAT has fallen out of the 95% confidence range for the IPCC model sheaf. ##

    Documentation?

    In case you missed it, the essential prediction of the climate models isn’t the short-term average surface temperature but the net energy flux.  A change in e.g. heat flow into the deep oceans could reduce surface temperatures in the short term while the net heat flux would actually produce more warming due to less heat loss to space.  One of the things we do know is that the trade winds have been much stronger of late than the historical average, and one of the effects is to drive the flow of ocean water both across and vertically.  This appears to be the root cause behind the large accumulation of very warm water in the western Pacific near the Philippines, which in turn allowed the massive growth of the two recent super-typhoons.

    Tell me:  if the atmospheric and oceanic scientists explain where the missing heat went, and this does not change the basics of the climate models, will you retract your claim that climate science is essentially a fraud?

    ## You’ve been had. Wake up. ##

    I don’t think so.  I think you have.  Are you willing to examine the evidence to determine which of us is right?  Or do you take Anthony Watts as your oracle?

    1. >Documentation?

      http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/04/causes-and-implications-of-the-pause/

      Money quote: “The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.”

      >Are you willing to examine the evidence to determine which of us is right?

      I’ve been examining the evidence since I read the original bristlecone-pine paleoclimate studies in the 1970s. I never forgot that ring width isn’t a temperature proxy but a joint temperature-rainfall proxy; thus, my BS detectors went off early in the history of the CAGW error cascade.

      In 2008, during the grand solar minimum, I correctly predicted that GAT would follow insolation down rather than than CO2 levels up. The subsequent crash wiped out the entire “warming signal” since 1750. This gives me a better predictive record than the IPCC.

  94. Engineer-Poet on 2014-12-30 at 00:55:47 said: blah blah blah

    The poles warm and the poles cool. The ice extents increase and the ice extents decrease. Glaciers come and glaciers go. But AGW is always bullshit.

    Thanks, but no thanks, no need for me to recapitulate my prior responses to 40 years of lies coming from the other AGW bullshitters. Give it up. You have lost the war to refute reality. I am no hurry to wave goodbye. Eventually you will get tired of holding your finger in the dike of your reality and let the deluge convince you. Reality sux for you, so sorry (Not).

  95. ## Although many of the AGW cheerleaders are just useful fools the main impetus behind it is one of the primary wet dreams of the socialists: central economic planning by the wise. ##

    Those planners would not be the climate scientists.  They would be the big donors behind the “charitable” foundations which finance all the major “environmental” organizations.  Almost to a one, they are all “pro-renewables” (which the Google engineers tasked with analyzing the prospects determined could not replace fossil fuels) and anti-nuclear (which has proven an able replacement for fossil fuels in electric generation everywhere it’s been allowed).
    http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

    Rod Adams of Atomic Insights has done a bunch of digging into the financing of the work which “determined” that any and all radiation was dangerous, and found the fingerprints of the Rockefeller foundation all over it.  Oil money.  Fossil fuel money.  They saw fission as a danger to their core interests, and tried to neuter it.
    http://atomicinsights.com/shaping-public-perceptions-radiation-risk/

    ## Control of energy is control of any modern economy. ##

    This is precisely why so many groups are dead-set against fission power.  Once you’ve put a load of fuel into a nuclear plant, it needs nothing for 18 months or more.  If you had to, you could pay for people to carry fuel to it on bicycles.  Neither pipelines nor rails are needed to keep it going.  All they can do is tax or regulate it out of business, which is what was just done in Vermont yesterday.  The doubling of some electric rates in New England show just what the stakes are.

  96. The OP is trolling, or complete ignorance. This time, I do not know which one it is.

    The CO2 balance of the rainforest has been known since it has been thought over. Over time, standing rainforest biomass will incorporate as much CO2 as it respirates.

    Also the myopic interpretations of air temperature predictions (no oceans?), the ignorance about even basic thermodynamics and the utter miscomprehension of climate models by a mathematician (of all people!) strongly suggest to me a person who simply cannot face reality.

    Oh, and about nuclear energy. Calculate the total amount of energy that can be extracted by current nuclear technology.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

    “If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet’s economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.”

    Given that nuclear power only produces only 10% of the world’s electricity. That would mean nuclear power can only deliver 20 years of the world’s electricity. And electricity makes up only 4% of total energy use. So, the current uranium resources could only deliver 1 year of the world’s electricity. Even if we could extract 100 times as much nuclear fuel out of the earth, it would only last a century. And the costs would be horrible.

    Now, I know, there are so many potential sources of nuclear fuel for breeder plants. These are all experimental technologies. They are more expensive and less understood than solar energy. And they are still under development and cannot be installed now.

    So, we have two “experimental” options. One, costly, dangerous and delivering huge amounts of long lasting dangerous waste. The other using silicon, cheaper and already in use. Why go for the cheap? To spite the liberal greens, of course. And you cannot make nuclear bombs with solar panels.

    For the calculations:
    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2779#comment-287562

  97. idunham on 2014-12-30 at 01:14:42 said: Given that that page shows one year’s CO2 flux rather than average CO2 over about 40 days, I’m inclined to give it more weight–at least till NASA has closer to a year’s worth of data.
    ——————
    there is less satellite detailed/reliable data there than you appear to think and the devil is in the details (note the reference’s source resolution and the word “estimated”, always something to consider in these days of modeled data employed as if it were actual field measurements and massaged to fit the narrative):

    http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2012/12/20121205_ibuki_e.html

    “…flux values were estimated from the global distribution of CO2 concentration retrieved from GOSAT observational data and ground-based CO2 monitoring data.”

    ——— secondly ——

    The point way back up top was that if tropical forests are NET CO2 exporters globally as indicated on the source sat chart, then eliminating them (paving) would decrease global CO2 production. That would result in lower atmospheric concentrations because humans are apparently NOT the major source of CO2 that the tropical forests were / are.

    In any case, assume it was never anything but a joke.

  98. Winter on 2014-12-30 at 02:54:20 said: The CO2 balance of the rainforest has been known since it has been thought over. Over time, standing rainforest biomass will incorporate as much CO2 as it respirates
    —————–

    Fabulous ! It’s all settled science then is it, Winter? Only problem is there is ZERO actual data, only thoughts.

    But now we have some and it shows there could be a net export of CO2. Shazam !!!

  99. @BioBob
    “> Over time, standing rainforest biomass will incorporate as much CO2 as it respirates

    Fabulous ! It’s all settled science then is it, Winter? Only problem is there is ZERO actual data, only thoughts. ”

    I would think the principle of “conservation of mass” in chemistry has been validated by now? Or do you know of a new principle which allows standing forests to create new carbon from other elements?

    Btw, this is the type of ignorance I was referring. This is high school chemistry stuff. It was developed by Lavoisier and Dalton before the French Revolution.

  100. If the only solution to global warming is that I have to vote for, like, and come to fully accept socialism/communism then you can take that fucking solution and go to hell. We tried that shit in the 20th century to try and solve problems that were believed to be far easier to solve than AGW is claimed to be and all that happened was they piled up the bodies.

    Yes, we did try government solutions to ecological problems in the 20th century. We banned DDT, and now bird eggshells are no longer thinning. We banned CFCs and the ozone layer thinning has stopped and has shown signs of reversing. Massive failures, those!

    Government intervention may not be the best solution to an environmental crisis in the fullness of time, but it provides a workable solution now while the free market figures out how to price the externalities and provide the needed remedies and incentives.

  101. @esr
    “The subsequent crash wiped out the entire “warming signal” since 1750. This gives me a better predictive record than the IPCC.”

    2014 will be the hottest year on record:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

    http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/10340/20141114/summer-2014-saw-warmest-ocean-temperatures-ever-recorded.htm

    But if you stoop low enough to claim the rainforests are a major cause of atmospheric CO2 increases, I doubt I should attribute any credibility to you on this matter. It does not even really matter whether you missed out on the elementary chemistry/physics class or are just trolling.

    1. >2014 will be the hottest year on record:

      Which is completely irrelevant to the truth status of the central CAGW claim, that human CO2 emissions arew responsible via a CO2/H2O feedback loop. That’s the part that’s bullshit.

  102. Which is completely irrelevant to the truth status of the central CAGW claim, that human CO2 emissions arew responsible via a CO2/H2O feedback loop. That’s the part that’s bullshit.

    Over the timescale of centuries to millennia, the amount of carbon available to biology remains more or less constant. The carbon you see being respirated in that graph is part of a dynamic equilibrium; the effect of that carbon on recent CO2 increases is negligible. What can’t be ignored — what’s central to the whole question — is if previously sequestered carbon is introduced into the atmosphere. By oh, I don’t know — mining or drilling it out of the ground and burning it so it escapes as CO2.

    You can pick apart this or that data set all you want, but even you would be hard-pressed to dispute the very sound chemistry and quantum physics that underpins the whole AGW hypothesis. Niels Bohr identified CO2 as a particularly effective greenhouse gas back in the 1950s and hypothesized that fossil fuel combustion would eventually lead to an increase in Earth’s temperature. With fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record being in the 21st century, it is folly — or trolling — to say that he and the other physicists and climatologists who have studied the phenomenon are wrong.

    1. >With fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record being in the 21st century, it is folly — or trolling — to say that he and the other physicists and climatologists who have studied the phenomenon are wrong.

      But they are, observably, wrong. The CAGW models have failed in their own terms. The atmosphere has not behaved as they predicted. Evidence drives out authority.

  103. @esr
    “That’s the part that’s bullshit.”

    If I have to chose between on the one hand, scientists working hard at getting to the heart of it, collecting data from deep paleontological times to other planets, covering the weather and the whole current planet in between.

    And, on the other hand, you, who writes the above piece stating that rainforests are a major cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2. I chose for the scientists. Especially as they do find all the signs and confirmations anyone ever would need. And, seriously, the CO2/H2O feedback loop is not that difficult, is it? You should be able to grasp the exponential nature of atmospheric water content versus temperature?

    As an aside, did you really not get the point of forest release of CO2, or is this an attempt of trolling?

  104. “Those planners would not be the climate scientists. They would be the big donors behind the “charitable” foundations which finance all the major “environmental” organizations.”

    And why, exactly, do you think said charitable foundations have bought and paid for the “climate science” community?

  105. @esr
    “The CAGW models have failed in their own terms. The atmosphere has not behaved as they predicted. Evidence drives out authority.”

    What you say is simply insane. The question is not: “predict the temperature to within 1 decimal”. The question is: “Are we changing the climate?”

    This is not some USA courtroom drama where good acting and grandstanding in front of the Jury makes you win a case. Where the rules of the court are more important than establishing the truth as good as is possible. This is about the earth and the future of humanity. This is about the lives of billions of people.

    Everything science has been able to unearth is yelling that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere is changing climate. All your grandstanding has not supplied a single “fact” that has not been chewed over by climate scientists and shown to be wanting.

    And the world is still hotter than it has ever been since temperature records have started.

    1. >What you say is simply insane. The question is not: “predict the temperature to within 1 decimal”. The question is: “Are we changing the climate?”

      And the answer is: “The computer simulations in which humans are assumed to be changing the climate via CO2 emissions fail to predict the measured behavior of the atmosphere.” The failure is large, it is consistent, and it is long-standing.

      Those who ignore or wish away this failure cannot claim to be doing science.

  106. @Jay Maynard
    “And why, exactly, do you think said charitable foundations have bought and paid for the “climate science” community?”

    Because they care about the future? Or isn’t that the same reason money is heaped upon climate “skeptics”?

    You won’t accuse climate “skeptics” donors of trying to change science for purely selfish reasons, won’t you?

  107. @Winter on 2014-12-30 at 07:25:06

    >What you say is simply insane. The question is not: “predict the temperature to within 1 decimal”. The question is: “Are we changing the climate?”

    I guess we all sorta knew in advance that you weren’t going to bother understanding the paper he linked. Thanks for proving us right.

  108. “And the world is still hotter than it has ever been since temperature records have started.”

    We don’t know that. The records have been fudged, and the ones who admit to the fudging refuse to disclose either their methods or their raw data. That’s a large part of why I refuse to call “climate science” science.

  109. You won’t accuse climate “skeptics” donors of trying to change science for purely selfish reasons, won’t you?

    It never fails. Scratch a prominent climate “skeptic” and you will find a carefully orchestrated PR campaign funded by oil companies.

    What you won’t find much of is science or data.

  110. @kn
    “I guess we all sorta knew in advance that you weren’t going to bother understanding the paper he linked.”

    How does seasonal variation in CO2 emissions from standing vegetation lead to the conclusion that we can reduce CO2 emission by paving the rainforests?

    Standing vegetation is a net sink of CO2 only as far as it loses carbon to the soil. That is not a point in the tropics, where all carbon is recycled. We already know for a century or so that rainforests will have a cycle of net production and sequestering of carbon. The only thing changed is close to what our host suggests: The forests are cleared, releasing huge amounts of CO2.

    This is not new science, I learned about this thirty years ago.

    An honest question:
    Do you all really not understand that standing vegetation cannot be a long term net producer of CO2?
    I thought I did not understand the OP and the comments well. I was afraid I was missing something. But I start to doubt that.

    Btw, the release due to clearance of land has already been incorporated in all the models. Obviously, changes of land use are difficult to predict. But they are man made.

  111. Winter, you should know by now that what passes for basic physics and chemistry instruction in the American education system is nowhere near Dutch standards.

    Unfortunately the American defiance of authority all too often extends to believing that one’s own ignorance is just as good as another’s knowledge.

  112. @kn
    I am very sorry. I mixed names up.
    (I was actually puzzled about your response, but the holidays are eating at my brain)

  113. Uhm, Jeff, you do know that ExxonMobil, to take one example, contributes piles of cash to CAGW research?

    Sure, there’s self-interest on both sides of the equation. What CAGW true believers never acknowledge is that the mountains of cash going to the warmist side from governments are just as corrupting as they accuse the money going to skeptical research as being.

  114. @Jay
    “What CAGW true believers never acknowledge is that the mountains of cash going to the warmist side from governments are just as corrupting as they accuse the money going to skeptical research as being.”

    Prove it.

    One side has data and all the scientists. The other side has no data nor scientists. Actually, I read comments from Ignorants (skeptics is too much to say) here that do not even understand the bare fundamentals of science.

    The skeptical side is pure propaganda and conspiracy theories.

    Even the main original “skeptic” Lomborg admits that AGW is real, but we should lay back and think of England (I paraphrase).
    http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-says-that-the-un-climate-panel-s-latest-report-tells-a-story-that-politicians-would-prefer-to-ignore

  115. @Jeff Read:
    We banned DDT, and now bird eggshells are no longer thinning.

    And millions of people in Africa died of malaria. But maybe that doesn’t count as an “ecological” problem?

  116. Poet-Engineer: “It is obvious that the current climate models reproduce the observed temperature trends with good accuracy… and the same models with GHG changes taken out diverge wildly from observation.”

    Question: Did you ever take a class or do you have experience with computer-based modeling? If so, have you never heard the warning about “over-fitting” a model to your data? It gives you EXACTLY the above effect, where “current models” fit trends with “good accuracy”. The question isn’t about current models.

    Do the models from 10 years or 20 years ago fit the current trends “with good accuracy?” No. When they do, I will pay attention to them. If today’s model fits the trends over the next decade, I’ll pay attention. So far (and I’ve been watching this since the late ’80’s) that has not happened with a level of reliability above flipping a coin.

    Put simply, modeling is HARD and you cannot reliably model highly complex systems over long time lines. It’s taken almost 70 years to move computerized weather prediction from “will it rain tomorrow” to “will rain next weekend.” It seems incredulous to me, as somebody who has a basic understanding of the problem space on the CS side things, that we can magically predict with ANY accuracy beyond the Farmer’s Almanac what will happen in the next decade, much less the next century, and yet that’s exactly what we are making policy decisions on.

    And back to my original point, we aren’t making policy on “current models” as you put it, we are making policy based on models that were created 10-20 years ago, ones that predicted a continued linear (or worse) increase in temperature that we now know has not occurred for almost two decades.

    Your logic here is flawed due to a fundamental misunderstanding of how models work, and you’re not alone in this.

  117. @esr
    “The computer simulations in which humans are assumed to be changing the climate via CO2 emissions fail to predict the measured behavior of the atmosphere.”

    Nope. The fact that you do not even want to acknowledge the contribution of the oceans is telling. This has always been a big unknown (as was clearly stated in all science papers).

    The problems were always is predicting the heat flow within the biosphere, as was cloud behavior. That has been acknowledged from the start. Forcing the IPCC to come up with accurate predictions of air temperature was ill advised. As the climatologists have always said.

    And, obviously, solar weather forecasts (insolation) are still immature. But things get better.

    And the heat flows have uncertainties that you cannot even put a number on. What the skeptics have to provide is evidence that there is not extra heat that flows. Which will be difficult because these heat flows are found.

    1. >The fact that you do not even want to acknowledge the contribution of the oceans is telling.

      I see you didn’t read the paper. Like kjj, I’m not surprised.

  118. @Don
    “And back to my original point, we aren’t making policy on “current models” as you put it, we are making policy based on models that were created 10-20 years ago, ones that predicted a continued linear (or worse) increase in temperature that we now know has not occurred for almost two decades.”

    Not true.

    Policies are based on long term expectations. That is, air (and sea) temperatures rising by ~0.5-2 degrees C in the current century. That leads to expectations of sea levels and rain fall. Nothing we see leads us to change these expectations. On the contrary, we seem to be on track for a 2 C rise in temperature. Which is most definitely bad. But we could overshoot even that.

    It is only the “skeptics” that grasp at random straws of over-detailed forecasts. And we are having the hottest year ever recorded.

  119. winter> “If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet’s economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.”

    This is another version of the peak oil fallacy. One would assume that you’ve noticed there’s a bit of a glut of oil on the market today. I promise you, just as Texas has produced much of that glut, we could do the same to Uranium. It’s just not worth mining in the current political environment.

  120. Climate behavior is extremely complex and dynamic. Climate modeling science is in its infancy and is not a mature, reliable prediction tool at present. And it may not become one in our lifetime, and may never achieve the status of accuracy and fidelity to reality.

    At its root, the CAGW movement is a human psychological phenomenon. It is an experiment in memetic manipulation for political ends. Using sophisticated tools of mass communication, repetition, focused messaging, and social feedback reinforcement, it is possible to persuade a large (and voting) cohort of the population to behave as a herd (especially if the herd believes there is an external threat on the perimeter).

    There is no place in the herd for a reasoning, rational individualist.

  121. Jay Maynard> And why, exactly, do you think said charitable foundations have bought and paid for the “climate science” community?

    Jay, you’re not allowed to ask such questions! Back to work, you peasant! :)

  122. winter> And the world is still hotter than it has ever been since temperature records have started.

    So, if I start measuring the hours of sunlight per day in August, does that justify panic in October?

    That’s a ridiculous line of reasoning.

  123. @Winter:
    > “2014 will be the hottest year on record”
    Browsing the NOAA link you provide as support for this, I can see that the temperature anomaly for 2014 (January-November) is listed as “+0.68 +/- 0.10 C” (on the same link you provided, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/, if you scroll down about 4/5ths of the page).

    If we then compare years using the tools at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/11/1880-2014, we find there are 10 other years that fall within that error range (but the error range for this historical data is not listed). Most critically, it exceeds the next contender, 2010, by only 0.01 C (the limit of accuracy given in the data).

    Therefore, in order for 2014 to accurately be “the hottest year on record”, we must postulate two things:
    (A) The temperature average for 2014 will not be reduced by including the month of December, or by later corrections (i.e. removing invalid / adding missing temperatures).
    (B) The total error between 2014 and 2010’s records is less than 0.01 C, or 10 times the accuracy given for just 2014 to date.

    (A) I will happily postulate “for the sake of argument”—or more accurately, not arguing; (B) I will not. Pray tell, what methods will allow us to compare data within 1/10th the error range of the original data and obtain consistent, valid results?

  124. @Don
    “So, if I start measuring the hours of sunlight per day in August, does that justify panic in October?”

    We started measuring over a century (and more) ago. Gives some confidence as “climate” is usually defined as the 25 year average.

    Still, ignorance about science is no evidence for the absense of scientific knowledge. That very often seems to be the argument here.

  125. @Alex K
    That is my prediction. But it will take some time before all numbers are in.

    By the way, you select the winner by ignoring the error bars. Whether the difference will be statistically significant is a completely different matter. The last decade is overall the hottest on record.

  126. @Don
    “Jay, you’re not allowed to ask such questions! Back to work, you peasant! :)”

    Pray, what do these charities get out of “destroying the economy”?

    What devious scheme are they persuing to destroy the livelyhood of mankind?

    Oh, and the insects were already becoming resistant to DDT, when the ban was introduced in the West (not in Africa). Only birds and mammals were dying of it.

  127. Winter> Even the main original “skeptic” Lomborg admits that AGW is real, but we should lay back and think of England (I paraphrase).

    And he’s right. Nobody seriously thinks that the temp isn’t increasing, and nobody seriously thinks that CO2 isn’t causing at least part of that (maybe even a large part of that). What many of us have tried to say for decades is that the cost (in money and lives) to stop is far, FAR greater than the cost to mitigate it.

    Even ignoring all the evidence of malfeasance, and I agree with Eric that there’s boat loads, it comes down to one of two options: mitigation or prevention.

    Since we know, without doubt based on the geologic history of the Earth that A) the “Venus” scenario is off-the table (we’ve had WAY more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere than today, and no “Venus” event), B) in general warmer weather is better for life in general, and C) anthropologically, warm weather is good for humans because it opens more arable land to production (e.g. the “MWP” in the Northern Hemisphere), then it seems likely that adding a few degrees to the thermometer would on average been a good thing. The downside is displaced islanders/lowlanders is partially off-set by the fact that there will be new land available for resettlement. And the costs of getting to the a neutral CO2 economy would be hundreds of trillions of dollars (in today’s money), and billions of lives lost that could have otherwise been saved.

    Lomborg’s right.

  128. Winter> Pray, what do these charities get out of “destroying the economy”?

    Holy crap, dude! Seriously? You think the Koch Brothers are the only people on the planet the support charities the benefit themselves?

    Now you’re just being laughably gullible.

  129. Winter> Oh, and the insects were already becoming resistant to DDT, when the ban was introduced in the West (not in Africa). Only birds and mammals were dying of it.

    True, but DDT had largely done it’s job in the West too, and the restriction on it’s use would have made sense. What doesn’t make sense is that western countries used their influence to force poor African countries to ban it BEFORE they saw the same benefits, namely effectively wiping out malaria and a host of other insect-born diseases.

  130. Winter> We started measuring over a century (and more) ago. Gives some confidence as “climate” is usually defined as the 25 year average.

    It’s really convenient to be able set you time scales to match your data, that’s why I picked one quarter of a year for my thought experiment. DOES THAT MAKE IT VALID? No, of course not. If we define “climate” to include 10,000 years, then we are WAY warmer than the average, and that warming trend would be huge if we increased it to 50,000 years (including the last ice age).

    Over the last billion or so years, we are definitely MUCH warmer than the average, but it logically makes more since to worry about going back toward the average (the ice age) than the present (the interglacial – well, technically a pause in the current ice age).

    Just because you (or somebody else) picked some convenient time period to study doesn’t really mean anything, and certainly doesn’t mean that a surprising answer is a reason to panic and attempt to destroy the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. And it doesn’t bestow upon that magical numerical quantity of time the mantel of “science.”

  131. pwatwo,

    Thanks for that, but as the first comment on that page points out, he didn’t in fact change is mind. The $100B/yr world-wide budget is a number he’s used for a decade or so as the cost to mitigate and accommodate the changes cause by AGW. Nothing’s changed as far as I can tell from this.

    Hell, the US spends more than that on the UN, and gets far less for our money than we would working to mitigate AGW events (since some of those events would happen whether AGW was real or not, e.g. droughts, massive storms, flooding, etc.). If we defunded the UN and put $100B toward AGW mitigation, I’d call that a win! :)

  132. Don, is a timescale of one billion years really relevant? Why not back up to ~4.5 billion years and note that we’re much much colder now – hundreds of degrees colder.

    CO2 is at a concentration not observed for at least 800,000 years, likely much longer, and far higher than we have ever experienced as a species. That’s important.

  133. The US doesn’t give more than $100 billion annually to the UN, Don. FY 2010 was about $8 billion.

  134. > And he’s right. Nobody seriously thinks that the temp isn’t increasing, and nobody seriously thinks that CO2 isn’t causing at least part of that (maybe even a large part of that).

    Then why do people here in this discussion today persist in attacking the temperature data? You’re free to concede that the real dispute is on what should be done about it rather than the facts themselves if you like, but you don’t speak for everyone here.

  135. > If we define “climate” to include 10,000 years, then we are WAY warmer than the average, and that warming trend would be huge if we increased it to 50,000 years (including the last ice age).

    25 years isn’t selected for convenience to support a desired conclusion, it’s selected to be the shortest reasonable time scale not dominated by known short-term cycles (such as seasonal variation) or randomness.

  136. Put simply: If you go to a shorter timescale, you’re no longer talking about the climate, but the weather. There is no “higher-order” concept (i.e. to climate as climate is to weather) that makes it worthwhile to select a longer timescale to average in.

  137. @Don
    “) anthropologically, warm weather is good for humans because it opens more arable land to production (e.g. the “MWP” in the Northern Hemisphere), then it seems likely that adding a few degrees to the thermometer would on average been a good thing.”

    It get a strong impression that you did not think this through (why am I not surprised?).

    Areable land does not increase, it shifts polewards. This is not a good thing. Keywords are “growing season” and “angle of irradiation”. Add to this changes in precipitation. Not Good (TM).

  138. @Don:
    Over the last billion or so years, we are definitely MUCH warmer than the average

    I think you mean “million” here, not “billion”, since ice ages have been prevalent for the last couple of million years. Earth’s climate today is quite a bit colder than the average over the last billion years.

  139. Winter, there’s also the issue of the soil quality. Too far poleward, and we end up with very poor soil, hardly adequate for serious agricultural production. Plus, I don’t think the Russians would appreciate the Chinese moving more northward.

  140. “Apparently you missed the part where over the last six months measures GAT has fallen out of the 95% confidence range for the IPCC model sheaf.”

    According to whom? A reference to the analysis, please.

  141. Peter Donis> I think you mean “million” here, not “billion”, since ice ages have been prevalent for the last couple of million years.

    “When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, did we quit the?!”… “Forget it, he’s on a roll.” – Animal House

    You’re right, I should reread that :).

  142. pwatwo> According to whom? A reference to the analysis, please.

    He provided the link. Read Dr. Curry’s post.

  143. Winter> Areable land does not increase, it shifts polewards.

    Huh? The land shifts polewards? Or the temperate zones shift polewards? One of those two creates more arable land by putting more land into zones warm enough for crops and human habitations (as happened during the MWP, when much of Iceland was arable, as opposed to the tiny spit of it that can support crops and livestock today). I’d be REALLY interested in your argument about how melting glaciers and longer growing seasons over more land are “Not Good (TM)”.

  144. @Don
    “I’d be REALLY interested in your argument about how melting glaciers and longer growing seasons over more land are “Not Good (TM)”.”

    Obviously temperate zones move polewards, ie, the area that you can grow crops on. Note that the desert zones are moving polewards too. Witness present day Southern Europe.

    And poleward you have definitely SHORTER growing seasons (its about length of day). Moreover, we are not talking about Western Europe, but the world. Iceland might start growing wheat and wine (unlikely), but that will not compensate for the loss of France and the Ukraine when it gets too hot and dry there.

    In total, crop yields are expected to fall.

    There are papers written about this.
    http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5183e/w5183e0b.htm

    And here is a book:
    http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/pr21.pdf

  145. Random832> 25 years isn’t selected for convenience to support a desired conclusion, it’s selected to be the shortest reasonable time scale not dominated by known short-term cycles….

    First, thanks for that, that’s certainly a more satisfying and educational answer than, “Because that’s what the scientists chose!” (I’ve seen answers like at least half a dozen times to similar “why 25 years” questions in the past, so I’m really glad to see somebody put forward a meaningful answer to such a simple question).

    My problem with that answer, is those last 4 words in the quote. It constrains the qualification to “known” cycles, and “short-term cycles”. It discounts the possibility of events we DON’T know about (or that weren’t considered at the time the length was proposed), and it discounts the option that a long-term cycle may have short-term effects (e.g. polar precession, orbital changes, etc. might have changes that happen “suddenly”, on a scale of say 100 years).

    I’d be interest to hear, if you know, why it is safe to assume that these have no effect that would be noticeable in a 25 year time scale and therefore can be safely ignored, or that even more recent events, like the “Little Iceage” or the MWP may not be occurring at this very moment.

  146. >>How does seasonal variation in CO2 emissions from standing vegetation lead to the conclusion that we can reduce CO2 emission by paving the rainforests?

    When I read that title, and the article, I assumed that esr had his tongue so far into his cheek that I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t rupture his face.

    I read it as saying that with the possible exception of china, that industrial nations are producing a small fraction of the co2 that the rain forests are.

    On the other hand, as has been mentioned in a number of posts, I would have expected the rain forests to be carbon neutral, perhaps with wide seasonal swings. Little of the carbon tied up in them will be long term sequestered, almost all of it will have a fairly short half life from plant growth to plant rot and back to methane and co2. So I, and most likely esr, am not putting a lot of credence in that map.

    On the gripping hand, it certainly doesn’t show what the greens would have liked it to show.

    Jim

    1. >When I read that title, and the article, I assumed that esr had his tongue so far into his cheek that I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t rupture his face. [..,] So I, and most likely esr, am not putting a lot of credence in that map.

      Putting a lot of credence in that map is pretty dimwitted if you know how it was actually made. The spatial grain of the data is much lower than the map implies; many of the shapes are artifacts extrapolated from column readings by a prevailing-winds model.

  147. @Don
    25 years as the averaging time was chosen a long time ago. Why? Because it was a convenient window to collect data over.

    But I would be very surprised if you were able to say anything about this time window that has not been discussed to death in the scientific literature.

  148. Winter> Obviously temperate zones move polewards, ie, the area that you can grow crops on. Note that the desert zones are moving polewards too. Witness present day Southern Europe.

    Winter, please revisit your Earth Science books from school. Deserts are more a function of geography and weather patterns than climatic zone. And weather pattern changes (creating deserts) can and have happened in human history, and are well known and documented, that clearly had absolutely nothing to do with CO2 changes (e.g. the desertification of the Nile Valley which circa bc5000 was a lush, jungle-like environment IIRC). Similarly, deserts can come and go based on changes in weather patterns.

    One more question: If the rain quits falling on France and Ukraine, where will it fall? Perhaps Egypt and the Middle East? Maybe Iceland? That’s an unknown, for both of us, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to think it will simply stop in one spot and NOT start in another. I’ve often thought of “desertification” as the biggest, and most obviously fear-mongering claim by the AGW alarmists, and a big part of the reason I look at everything else they say with a VERY high degree of skepticism.

    And at the end of the day, deserts are really not so bad, if you have energy and the wealth it creates. But they suck if you’re poor.

  149. pwatwo> The US doesn’t give more than $100 billion annually to the UN, Don. FY 2010 was about $8 billion.

    Yeah, there’s an $8b line item, but I recall reading when you include everything we do with the UN (military support, program support, etc.), that number comes closer to $100b. The $8b is just the annual direct payments.

    Even so, I’d consider it money well spent, or at least better spent :).

  150. “On the gripping hand, it certainly doesn’t show what the greens would have liked it to show.”

    I’m not sure what you think they were expecting.

    1. >I’m not sure what you think [the greens] were expecting.

      For their political objectives to be met, first-world industrial emissions had to dominate.

    1. >There’s also the issue that ocean heat content shows no “pause”:

      Raw data, please, from over the entire life of the experiment, or it didn’t happen.

      The first data published from the Argus buoys didn’t fit the CAGW narrative; there was surprise at this. Then there was talk of correcting it for errors. Then, suddenly, the published data fit the CAGW line, and has since.

      You will excuse me for finding this dubious.

  151. Rather than debate the minutiae of CAGW, a more interesting question is . . .

    Why have so many people been drawn into this religion?

    Is it just mental weakness that has made them susceptible to the memetic infection?

    Why do they fancy themselves as experts in climate science and jump at the opportunity to defend the “true belief” of an Armageddon future?

    What evolutionary outcome is selected for with this type of behavior?

    If our species becomes a universal memetic herd, are we more robust or less?

  152. TomA, a more interesting study might be why some people reject scientific evidence – on evolution, GMOs, the climate system, etc.

  153. TomA, a more interesting study might be why some people reject scientific evidence – on evolution, GMOs, the climate system, etc.

    The overwhelming majority of belief isn’t based on scientific evidence, it’s based on appeals to authority–how many people are even literate enough to read the primary papers? They just trust whatever they’ve been told by whoever’s supposed to be dispensing truth. Even a large portion of what’s called “scientific evidence” consists of badly-defined, badly-controlled, and badly-executed studies (see virtually all of nutrition).

    I, for example, believe that the Big Bang model fairly accurately describes the early evolution of the universe–and I’ve personally solved the DEs for the hydrogen atom, calculated spectral lines, and observed them in a spectrometer. I still have to take most of the large-scale extrapolations of cosmology on faith, and this is an area I have specific training in.

    Your question in nearly all cases reduces to the question of why certain people (“scientists”, priests, whoever) are more believable than others. Scientists’ claim to trustworthiness is that they make the processes and data with which they arrive at conclusions public for anyone to examine and critique. Whenever anyone refuses to adhere to that protocol, the warrant for trust evaporates.

  154. I agree that trust is critical and openness is a key element of that. GMOs are a bit of a special case because there are intellectual property concerns. Is there something about climate science that you feel isn’t open enough, because that’s what I detect is your real argument.

  155. Is there something about climate science that you feel isn’t open enough, because that’s what I detect is your real argument.

    Oh, the problems with climatology are well-known and legion, such as refusals to release primary data sets because they would be, quote, “misinterpreted”. But that’s just one area I strongly object to. Nutrition, most of what’s called “social science”; in fact, nearly all disciplines that have major ties to government policy go pseudoscientific in a hurry. (Eugenics, Lysenkoism…) “Climate science” is just particularly egregious in its loud demands to be Taken Seriously and Done Something About while simultaneously refusing to release either data or methods.

    1. >“Almost certainly” means you have evidence. Or it should. Do you?

      Just that I remember (1) the early report of a scientist on the project saying “no average temperature rise – that’s surprising”, followed by (2) a report that they were “correcting” the data for a supposed systematic bias that I forget the details of but remember thinking was physically dubious when I read about it.

      This is exactly what it looks like when well-intentioned people argue themselves into conformance with an error cascade. There must be 48 chromosomes, $EMINENT_BIOLOGIST said so, therefore I will correct the appearance of merely 46 chromosomes in front of my eyes.

    1. >Rather paltry evidence – a vaguely-remembered comment

      It drew my attention because I had rather expected to find the Argo team fully sucked into the error cascade before they had published any data at all.

  156. Believe whatever you like. The data is available. If you can prove that it was manipulated, for whatever reason, you’ll be a legend.

  157. Believe whatever you like. The data is available. If you can prove that it was manipulated, for whatever reason, you’ll be a legend.

    He used to have the post dissecting the source code with hard-coded fudge factors permalinked from the front page; not sure where it went. The objections to what amounted to hard-coding the entire fitted curve into the analysis program to be added to the dataset were something along the lines of “but you just don’t understand climate science”.

  158. Your comment is too incomplete and ill-defined to be of much use, Christopher. The source code for what?

  159. @ TomA

    Why have so many people been drawn into this religion?

    I think that there are (at least) three big factors…

    (1) Scientists and important people all over are talking about how terrible and catastrophic it will be if we don’t “save the planet” [such a fantastic amount of bullshit packed into three words]. There are a lot of gun-nut-wannabes that think that they’d make out swell if society collapsed. There are also many retarded lefties and greens that think a collapse would be good for the environment [I think people that believe this should volunteer to be composted or shut up].

    (2) People that have heard of CO2 get the message…

    The Sun warms up the Earth, but the heat gets trapped by CO2 in the air, just like how a greenhouse works.

    [they don’t; they work by preventing convection]. So people go…
    Hey! That’is pretty neat. I actually understand what they are talking about! You can see that it is true!

    (3) Many young people, SJWs and misguided fools (with much overlap) love reasons to believe that society is evil and totally corrupt and should be destroyed; AGW fits this mindset nicely.

    They all believe because they want to believe.

  160. Hey Eric, great catch on noticing that the CO2 plume is too far south for the ” burning biomass” hypothesis. Those of us who fly airplanes in Africa for a living are well aware of the burning biomass: we have to deal with its visible by-products (haze and smoke) so we know when and where it occurs. It occurs in the north while the rains are in the south (December) and vice-versa in June. The plume shown is in entirely the wrong latitude for its date, and couldn’t be caused by biomass burning. BTW, I grew up with a Malvern PA address, my dad had Speedi-King laundry and car wash at Frazer.

  161. @ TomA
    “Why have so many people been drawn into this religion?”

    It is a religion like nuclear bombs are a religion: The observable evidence is compelling.

    You know, you investigate physics, it leads to understanding of natural processes, you make theories that explain and predict those processes, you predict the outcomes of interventions, and you find your predictions validated.

    Worked with nuclear bombs, the weather, and climate change.

    But I know where the pain is situated. Absolutely not in the science, but in the outcome: Climate problems cannot be solved by free market forces. Climate problems really require international coordination of state action. You rather have humanity exterminated than admit this.

  162. @Christopher Smith
    “Oh, the problems with climatology are well-known and legion, such as refusals to release primary data sets because they would be, quote, “misinterpreted”.”

    Now that you got the primary data. Did you change your opinion? Or was this complaint just another straw man?

    That is, I think no amount of data and science will ever convince you that there can be global problems that need coordinated global action. Problems that cannot be solved by Free Markets or the US alone.

    Because I see very strong parallels between creationists “complaints” against evolution and Libertarian “complaints” against climate science. It is all about putting some idea, be it religion or Libertarianism, above empirical reality. Science cannot be amended to assure the outcomes desired by any religion or ideology without it stops being science.

    Not that the “skeptics” here display any understanding of the underlying physics. I am still baffled by the way people here interpreted the CO2 emissions of tropical forests. A voice in my mind keeps saying “This cannot be true”. But I have to go by the empirical evidence and accept it.

    1. >I am still baffled by the way people here interpreted the CO2 emissions of tropical forests.

      When you notice that you are confused, you should check your assumptions. Especially since you are not very good at it, and need the practice.

  163. you predict the outcomes of interventions, and you find your predictions validated.

    Worked with nuclear bombs, the weather, and climate change.

    *head explodes*

    The weather is predicted only a few days in advance, using percentage chances, and frequently has significant surprises. To say that any of the climate-change predictions (that is, testable claims about the future) have been validated is bullshit at best and, more likely, dishonest. Even the vague handwavy “extreme weather” pronouncements have been so flatly squashed that anything they might reasonably have meant has clearly not come to pass.

  164. @Christopher Smith
    “The weather is predicted only a few days in advance, using percentage chances, and frequently has significant surprises.”

    Welcome to the real world. Uncertainty is the only certainty.

    @Christopher Smith
    “To say that any of the climate-change predictions (that is, testable claims about the future) have been validated is bullshit at best and, more likely, dishonest.”

    They predicted in the 1980s, that the earth would warm up (I know, I gave a presentation about it in the early 1980s). And that happened in the 1990s. They predicted in the 1990s that the earth would warm up further, and that happened in the 2000s (atmosphere+oceans). The 1990s were the warmest decade ever recorded, the 2000s topped that. They predicted glaciers and ice would melt, and that happened. They predicted the poles would warm up more than the equator, and that happened. The models work with data from the past and it works on Mars and Venus.

    Just as weather forecasts are not about next year or the exact temperature at the exact location, the climate forecasts are scenarios of average effects based on possible economic developments. Your complaints are those of someone who denies that the weather can be predicted because you cannot predict the exact temperature to the degree of next summer.

  165. @esr
    “So the big Southern hemisphere emission areas are probably just plants normally exhaling CO2, and in the process dwarfing the CO2 emissions of all humans everywhere except northern China. Oops, how embarrassing for the religion of AGW.”

    Then explain this. After rereading it many times, this says (even in context) that plant emission dwarfs the CO2 emission of all humans etc. And you say it is not seasonal, but systemic. This does not make biological sense. Where does that carbon come from?

    I really cannot make any sense of this.

    1. >Where does that carbon come from?

      Here’s a hint, oh poor befuddled creature: plants behave differently depending on whether or not there’s a big light in the sky.

      Yes. Yes, I am laughing at you.

  166. When you notice that you are confused, you should check your assumptions. Especially since you are not very good at it, and need the practice.

    That’s just it — he went in assuming that most commenters here were rational people with a basic understanding of chemistry and physics, and came away with very different conclusions indeed.

    The computer models may have failed to make the down-to-the-degree predictions you’re looking for, but the hypothesis is sound because it has enormous predictive power. The hypothesis is that fossil fuel burning leads to more atmospheric CO2, which induces a hotter planet. The atmospheric data show record levels of CO2 — up to 400 ppm now — and the temperature data show the hottest global mean temperatures since we started keeping track, perhaps hotter than the earth has been in millennia.

    Game, set, match — AGW is real. As long as you insist otherwise it is not a baseless insult to call you a science denier. It is simply a statement of fact.

  167. http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/new-satellite-data-contradicts-carbon-dioxide-climate-theory/ . . .

    ///… New Satellite Data Contradicts Carbon Dioxide Climate Theory
    Industrialized nations emit far less carbon dioxide than the Third World, according to latest evidence from Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
    Global warming alarmism is turned on its head and the supposed role of carbon dioxide in climate change may be wrong, if the latest evidence from Japan’s scientists is to be believed . . . ///

    NASA OCO satellite Confirms JAXA IBUKI satellite.

    Now aint that damn funny ? that the insects and microbes might produce more CO2 than the forests they live in can absorb …

    So instead of the Rain forests supporting life elsewhere, the photosynthesis elsewhere is needed to support the tropical forest Biomes that operate at a deficit. What a kick in the pants eh ?

    NASA OCO Satelite opens a can of intense butt-hurt on the hoaxers . .

    Im with Eric ,,,, , , Pave the tropical Rain Forests or we are all gonna Die !!!
    Should we use Nukes ? ,,, no ,,, damn we need to use cement !

    . . . .Pave the Rain Forests ! . . .
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oco2-global-2014.jpg . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/29/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory/ . . .

  168. The Mountain and Polar tree lines confirm how warm it was … and confirm the ice cores…
    The ice cores confirm how warm it was ,,, Recorded history of civilization show how warm it was …

    Medieval warmer than the Modern,,, Roman warmer than the Medieval,,,,
    Minoan warmer than the Roman

    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png . . .
    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0147e2d17582970b-pi . . .
    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c017d41a96489970c-pi . . .

    Two views of the AMO
    http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mann14_1_amo_noaa_kaplansst2.pnghttps://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ustorprobs.png . . ,

    Again showing the warm periods of the above mentioned Australian, (and elsewhere)
    heat wave tailing the 1850’s – 1900 peak,,,
    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/extreme-heat-in-1896-panic-stricken-people-fled-the-outback-on-special-trains-as-hundreds-die/ . . .
    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/charles-sturts-time-so-hot-that-thermometers-exploded-was-australias-hottest-day-in-1828-53-9c/ . . .
    , then ~1905-1920’s cold, .1930’s-1960’s warmth ,,

    Then the 1970’s ice age scare period,,
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html ..

    And the peak of the current CAGW global warming hoax period . . . .

    (Sea level rates line up with the AMO )
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/sea-level/sea-level-australia-new-zealand-rate-change-watson.gif . . .

    And therein is the base fraud of the climate hoaxers, their failed attempt to erase these warm periods from history …

    Without this fraud, they cant claim the modern warming period is abnormal
    In fact,, shown by irrefutable data,,,, that it is inferior to the warming periods that came before. The physics people knew this anyway, CO2 is a log curve and we are in the flat
    of the curve.

  169. Mountain tree lines
    ///… “And to make this point perfectly clear, Kullman repeats that “the pine tree line (and summer temperature) was consistently higher than present … during the Roman and Medieval periods, c. 1900 and 1000 cal years BP.”” …///
    http://www.co2science.org/articles/V16/N50/EDIT.php . . .

    The polar tree line is similar to the line on mountains, the elevation where trees stop growing, except instead of being an elevation, it is a location. the northernmost point in a given region in which trees will grow..

    from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/
    ///… What is worse, in my opinion, is that Mann and Briffa can’t even claim they weren’t warned. As early as 1998, the very Russian Scientists who Briffa hired to collect the tree ring samples, tried to alert Briffa that the samples didn’t show what they wanted them to show. The difference is, the Russians weren’t measuring tree ring width, their favoured metric was the polar timberline – the northernmost edge of the great Arctic forests. …///
    ( related http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .)

    This hoax is busted

    For extra humor points , , , the Mockery that the OCO and JAXA IBUKI satellites male of the CO2 Model from NASA Goddard , , , ,
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/18/who-needs-an-orbiting-carbon-observatory-when-you-can-model-of-carbon-dioxide/ . . .

  170. Except that as CO2 emissions have continued to rise, the earth has quit warming. Blows a hole in that argument, that does.

  171. @Jay Maynard
    “Except that as CO2 emissions have continued to rise, the earth has quit warming. Blows a hole in that argument, that does.”

    Nope, the oceans are taking up the heat for now. Was all in the news in 2014. One of the links I gave above:
    http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/10340/20141114/summer-2014-saw-warmest-ocean-temperatures-ever-recorded.htm

    And we are seeing now that 2014 will be the hottest year on record. So, the ocean heat transport seems to be saturating

    Nice to see how the “skeptics” (=deniers) were arguing the hot years in the 1990s were statistical flukes, just ordinary weather noise. And now they requiring that every year must be warmer than the previous.

  172. > [they don’t; they work by preventing convection]

    They also do that, but greenhouse glass is opaque to far infrared (which is a tiny fraction of incoming solar energy but the bulk of outgoing radiated heat).

  173. pwatwo> Can you “recall” where you read that “$100+ billion” figure?

    No, I can’t, so please allow me to retract it. Thanks.

  174. pwatwo,

    A couple years ago there was some excitement around the idea that ocean readings data from the British Royal Navy from captain’s logs were being digitized and correlated to increase the ocean temp record back to the 18th century. Do you happen to know a graph (like the last one in your reply of RE: Dr. Curry) that includes that data? I can’t find anything that goes back that far on Google, so I was wondering if you knew if any fruit had come from that effort.

    Thanks.

  175. @Christopher, that code snippet was from an old CRU analysis of paleodata, IIRC, part of the 2009 theft of emails. How that applies to GAT analysis, climate models, the Argo floats, or anything else, isn’t apparent to me.

    1. >@Raymond, how do you explain the Keeling Curve?

      I don’t have any single explanation of it I’m committed to. Some of the increase is probably anthropogenic, but there is evidence in the fossil record of much larger swings, lagging GAT changes rather than leading it, that cannot have been anthropogenic.

  176. @Winter (talking to someone else):
    “Now that you got the primary data. Did you change your opinion?”

    Actually, my opinion was formed by looking at primary data. Let me walk you through my journey: looking at the official temperatures held by NOAA.

    Start with one of their summary pages—July 2012, supposedly the hottest summer on record. Scroll down just a whisper to the “Highlights” and look at the first bullet point. Make a note of the temperatures listed: when I load this page, it shows temperatures of 77.6 (2012) and 77.4 (1936). Then drop all the way to the bottom and let’s check the date on this information: it should show both the original date of publication and date of retrieval.

    Second, follow either link in that first “Highlights” paragraph (they both point to the same data series)–this is where we look at NOAA’s actual data. If you click the “Value” heading twice to sort the data with the largest temperatures on the top, the first two years listed will be 2012 and 1936. This is what we would expect from the previous page, but a closer at the temperatures listed will show that neither one matches the values given on the prior page.

    Now, given that the bottom of the summary page states it was first published online in August 2012 (and presumably never updated), I can think of several reasons the temperature for that year might need to be revised: reporting delays being foremost. However, there are scant few reasons I can imagine preventing the 1936 temperature values on both pages from matching—and, frankly, all of them would impeach either the competence or honesty of the NOAA. (Worse, this impeaches every other climate data set which pulls from the NOAA’s records… which would be all of the “global” surface temperature sets like HadCRUT.)

    After looking at some of the primary data, what’s your opinion—are the climatologists at the NOAA incompetent or dishonest?

  177. @esr
    “Here’s a hint, oh poor befuddled creature: plants behave differently depending on whether or not there’s a big light in the sky.”

    And that will simply result in a net CO2 emission of ZERO, when averaged over time. There are day and seasonal variations, but the net effect of plant life in the tropics on CO2 emissions is ZERO. Unless the amount of plants in- or decreases.

    At higher latitudes, carbon is lost in the ground. However, the increasing temperatures of the last decades have sped up decay and released permafrost.

    Which is to say that standing tropical rain forest has a ZERO contribution to CO2 emission when averaged over years.

    1. >Which is to say that standing tropical rain forest has a ZERO contribution to CO2 emission when averaged over years.

      OK. Now let’s see if you can manage not to stop thinking at a conclusion that makes you comfortable.

      The least hypothesis from the map is that day-night variation in CO2 flux completely swamps daytime anthropogenic emissions. You have demonstrated some knowledge of signal discrimination theory. What generally happens when you try to measure a secular effect much, much smaller than the mean amplitude of short-period noise in the system?

  178. “Start with one of their summary pages—July 2012, supposedly the hottest summer on record. ”

    Are you looking at the USA data? That is ridiculous! The relevant data are the global ones.

  179. @esr, the Keeling Curve is based on the CO2 readings taken in Hawaii. It clearly shows the seasonal cycle in CO2 (primarily from photosynthesis) and the underlying trend caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The geologic record isn’t germane to it.

    1. >and the underlying trend caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

      You don’t get to assume your conclusions around here.

  180. Here’s a hint, oh poor befuddled creature: plants behave differently depending on whether or not there’s a big light in the sky.

    Over the timescales of centuries to millennia — hundreds of thousands of cycles of the Daystar — the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is more or less constant. Meaning that the large amounts of carbon respiration you see on the map are just one part of a dynamic equilibrium that remains stable over those time scales (absent a particularly arrogant and profligate clade of ape burning hydrocarbons they found in the ground).

    To imply, as you do, that this CO2 respiration is an ongoing process not counterbalanced by other CO2-capturing processes, adding carbon to the atmosphere the way that human fossil fuel combustion does, requires an account of where the extra carbon is coming from. An account which you have failed to provide.

    So we, who have looked into and believe the science, are laughing at you. This is one of your most flagrant intellectual blunders yet.

    1. >Over the timescales of centuries to millennia — hundreds of thousands of cycles of the Daystar — the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is more or less constant.

      Um. No. The geological record is quite clear about there being large long-period variations in atmospheric CO2 on the Myear scale. See for example the data from the Vostok ice cores. These exhibit rough periodicity that nobody is sure of an explanation for, but the leading candidate is Milankovich cycles.

      It’s all very well to “believe the science”, but you need to get your elementary facts straight before that means anything.

  181. @esr “What generally happens when you try to measure a secular effect much, much smaller than the mean amplitude of short-period noise in the system?”

    We know how to do that. That’s how we can figure out (for example) that it’s warmer in summer than winter despite the possibility that the day-to-day (or even on a given day) the temperature change can be much larger than the summer -> winter difference.

  182. Winter’s emotional attachment to CAGW is understandable. If the planet warms and the oceans rise, then the Netherlands will become (at least partially) submerged. Even if this is a remote probability, it behooves them to persuade the rest of the world to pay for some risk mitigation.

    However, rather than rely on memetic manipulation for this task, I think it would be more honorable to take direct measures. China is clearly the biggest source of anthropogenic combustion-based carbon emissions. You’re free to invade anytime you wish. If you succeed, problem solved. If you fail, then at least the bitching will decline somewhat.

  183. @esr
    “The least hypothesis from the map is that day-night variation in CO2 flux completely swamps daytime anthropogenic emissions. You have demonstrated some knowledge of signal discrimination theory. What generally happens when you try to measure a secular effect much, much smaller than the mean amplitude of short-period noise in the system?”

    You really do not get it. REALLY.

    This has absolutely nothing to do with signal detection theory or any other atmospheric measurements.

    We know that the average contribution is ZERO, because we know that vegetation cycles atmospheric CO2. Averaged over long time spans (~year), the difference between the CO2 amount absorbed and emitted by plant life is exactly equal to the carbon difference in biomass plus the amount lost to the soil.

    Tropical rain forests are roughly stationary in biomass (there might be some loss) and all detritus decays to CO2. As there is no loss to the soil and the biomass is stable, mass conservation requires that the net emissions of the rain forests must be ZERO.

    If it is not, we are losing a lot of biomass.

    1. >You really do not get it. REALLY.

      No, I get it. You have hared off into irrelevance because it makes you comfortable. I hoped for better, but wasn’t really expecting it.

  184. @esr, analysis of the carbon isotopes in the CO2 shows that the trend is from the burning of fossil fuels.

    Skepticism is fine, rejection of established scientific fact is silly.

    1. >@esr, analysis of the carbon isotopes in the CO2 shows that the trend is from the burning of fossil fuels.

      To be fair, I used to consider this established scientific fact myself. Then I read Murray Salby’s analysis of confounders in that data and now consider the question open.

      But it wouldn’t actually bother me if the conventional belief turned out to be 100% correct, because I consider the fatal flaw in CAGW theory to be elsewhere, specifically in the unsubstantiated belief that CO2/H20 feedback coupling is a real phenomenon that produces high climate sensitivity.

  185. Extra humor points , , ,

    The Mockery that both the OCO and JAXA IBUKI satellites make,,,, of the hockey team CO2 Model from NASA Goddard , , , ,

    What the computer models predicted that OCO would find:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/18/who-needs-an-orbiting-carbon-observatory-when-you-can-model-of-carbon-dioxide/

    Now what OCO ACTUALLY MEASURED.

    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/oco2-global-2014.jpg . . .

    All the utter BS about CO2. Look at the modeled CO2. Look at the measured CO2. The difference tells you all you need to know about hockey team climate modelling

  186. @Raymond, NASA GISS’ climate model and “hockey team” are two different things.

    You’d be more persuasive if you’d use a reference other than WUWT. It’s to climate science what Jenny McCarthy is to medicine.

  187. Salby has some glaring holes in his hypothesis. About 55% of emissions are being absorbed by the oceans (30%) and plants (25%) and he wants to argue something other than fossil fuel burning is emitting GT of CO2 each year by attributing the rise to “a naturally-caused component”!

    Murry has already shown that by measuring 13C:12C ratios, all the extra CO2 in the air came from plant sources. And it’s not as if the number of plants on earth have decreased hugely and sent all their carbon into the air. On the contrary, plants are absorbing more CO2 not less.

    And where does Murry think that all the carbon disappeared to from burning billions of tons of sequestered ancient plant material?

    There’s a lot of material on water vapor feedback; what’s so “fatal” about all of it? Remember that ECS cannot be as low as Lindzen and a few others claim; if so, then the climate system is so highly damped that it cannot have Ice Ages and ice-free periods, which contradicts the geologic record.

    1. >Murry has already shown that by measuring 13C:12C ratios, all the extra CO2 in the air came from plant sources.

      Exactly. Not leaving a lot of room for fossil fuels to be the culprit. But, as I said, that interpretation could be totally wrong without mattering much.

      >There’s a lot of material on water vapor feedback; what’s so “fatal” about all of it?

      Several things, beginning with the fact that atmosphere temperature profiles still do not show the signature predicted by the models with strong CO2/H20 feedback coupling, despite the alarmists’ best efforts to torture it out of the data. My favorite guess is they got the sign of the effect from cloud cover wrong (increased albedo dominates heat-trapping), but that’s not an explanation I’m very attached to. There are more exotic hypotheses that might be true.

      >Remember that ECS cannot be as low as Lindzen and a few others claim; if so, then the climate system is so highly damped that it cannot have Ice Ages and ice-free periods, which contradicts the geologic record.

      Can’t really argue with that. But ECS can’t be as high as the alarmists want, either; the data just won’t support it. (And the IPCC knows this; their assessments of ECS are, grudgingly, falling.)

      So, what is the data telling us? The climate system is not highly damped, though it must exhibit significant homeostasis or humans wouldn’t be here to debate the point. What I think I see is a chaotic wander through a region of the state space bounded by (1) the range of very large drivers like astrodynamics and secular variations in solar activity, and (b) quite robust homeostatic effects.

      Inside that box you don’t get much of anywhere, predictively, by trying to claim “CO2 is driving GAT” or “GAT is driving CO2” (though I think the ice cores provide more evidence for the latter). That’s why the IPCC models are failing so badly.

  188. > The least hypothesis from the map is that day-night variation in CO2 flux completely swamps daytime anthropogenic emissions.

    I can believe that. Or, for that matter, that seasonal variation swamps both of them (or that it goes day-night, then seasonal, then fossil fuel burning) – the probem is that even if they are large there’s no reason to assume that these short-term cyclical components aren’t balanced and therefore irrelevant: any net change in atmospheric CO2 has to be matched by an opposite net change in terrestrial solid/liquid carbon compounds (i.e. biomass and fossil fuels), and you’ve produced no evidence of a significant drop in that [whether from burning fossil fuel or from deforestation] that can’t be attributed to humans.

    It really doesn’t matter how large the cyclical component is, and I don’t understand why you think it does.

  189. Ummm, fossil fuels are plant sources of CO2. Just fossilized plants.

    To what “temperature profiles” are you referring?

    What do you mean by “astrodynamics”? Milankovich cycles? Those aren’t operant on decadal timescales. Variations in solar activity are very small, and there has been a pronounced divergence between incoming solar and surface air temperature. The other problems with the “it’s all the sun” hypothesis is that it cannot explain ocean acidification nor stratospheric cooling, nor any of the many other markers of increased-CO2-driven changes in the climate system that have been observed.

    CO2 is the key GHG; H2O is merely a feedback, not a forcing. Considerations of the radiative balance of the earth with an atmosphere containing no GHGs illustrates that quite well, plus the fact that H2O condenses out and ceases being a factor in radiative balance at only 0C.

    1. >Ummm, fossil fuels are plant sources of CO2. Just fossilized plants.

      Yup. But don’t quibble; when Salby speaks of plant sources he isn’t using the word “plant” that way. His argument that the statistics of the variation preclude the recent jump being mainly anthropogenic is pretty strong. It actually surprised me; I had been willing to accept the conventional account on this score.

      >What do you mean by “astrodynamics”? Milankovich cycles? Those aren’t operant on decadal timescales

      Indeed they are not, but I think they do a better job of generatively explaining GAT and CO2 wanders in the geological record (e.g. what we see in the Vostok samples) than anything else.

      >CO2 is the key GHG; H2O is merely a feedback, not a forcing.

      Correct, but without the feedback you don’t get the high ECS estimates that are driving the rest of the bad science and toxic politics.

      And “many other markers of increased-CO2-driven changes in the climate system” turn out to be dubious when examined closely. I used to buy the ocean-acidification hype too, until I found out how vanishingly little of it is based on actual data and how much is speculative modeling. Just recently it turns out one major alarmist study arbitrarily threw out 70 years of observational data on pH. I think we can guess why.

  190. Winter said
    “Given that nuclear power only produces only 10% of the world’s electricity. That would mean nuclear power can only deliver 20 years of the world’s electricity. And electricity makes up only 4% of total energy use. So, the current uranium resources could only deliver 1 year of the world’s electricity. Even if we could extract 100 times as much nuclear fuel out of the earth, it would only last a century. And the costs would be horrible.”

    This fails on several fronts.
    1) As noted by others, earlier. The light water reactor designs we are currently saddled with leave some 90-95% of the extractable energy stuck in the ‘spent’ fuel we then store, at great expense, rather that reprocess. Simply reprocessing the ‘spent’ fuel will return us to the point of having a couple of centuries of uranium in *current* stocks or proven reserves. Never mind finding more.
    2) Uranium is a fine fuel for the aforementioned LW ‘fast’ reactors, but other designs, such as the LFTR design can utilize the much more common Thorium as a fuel, (as well as using the current Uranium ‘spent’ fuel after suitable reprocessing) and the design extracts far more energy from the fuel than the LW reactors, since it’s a slow rather than fast neutron design. Thorium is about 10x as common in the earths crust as uranium, and would, with the right designs, give as another few centuries at current power generation rates.

    So no, we aren’t limited to about 2 decades of nuclear power if we were to generate all our electricity from it. We are at about 40 decades, until we might need to find some more.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY is a lovely 5 min video about LFTR designs and their advantage over the heavy and light water reactors.

  191. But CO2 make the rainforests grow!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2891432/Carbon-dioxide-emissions-help-tropical-rainforests-grow-faster-Study-shows-trees-absorb-greenhouse-gas-expected.html

    Kinda silly that scientists are shocked since greenhouses generally have CO2 pumped into them to boost growth. Gardeners have known this for a long time. 700 – 1200 ppm seems to work best!

    http://www.novabiomatique.com/hydroponics-systems/plant-555-gardening-with-co2-explained.cfm

  192. Jim Richardson> So no, we aren’t limited to about 2 decades of nuclear power if we were to generate all our electricity from it. We are at about 40 decades, until we might need to find some more.

    And there’s more, tons and tons and tons more. I did a project for an uranium mining operation in Kleberg County, TX, and got to know the geologist (who hired me) very well. When he talked about the formation they were mining (using a dissolved salt extraction), he said that same formation was, at various depths and thicknesses, all over Texas and much of the southwestern US. They did Kleberg because it was relatively remote (thank you King Ranch!), Texas was a mining-friendly State, the depth was fairly shallow (I don’t recall the depths in the tables I was working with at this point, sorry) and still relatively close (about 45 minutes) from a major city (Corpus).

    Their mining operation was amazingly simple, just suck up water from the water table, filter it through an RO system, heat and ionize it, send it down one of about a dozen injection wells, then pump it up a central well (plus a little extra ground water to prevent leakage), run it through a second RO unit, take the clean water and either reuse it or mix the minerals from the first RO run back in (required by EPA), and put it back into the water table where you found it. Cleaning the filters on the second RO unit created a concentrate that included several ounces of Uranium salts, which was sent to a uranium processing facility.

    Most of what they produced was use in nuclear weapons development, and when the whole Star Wars thing shut down, so did the mine.

    It was a cool fist gig though :).

  193. I think it is long since apparent that, for some, global warming is their religion.

    That is why they throw around the term denier, which of course calls to mind holocaust deniers.

    What tips me off that the whole thing is BS is the Malthusian nature of it. This kind of mindset that says the whole is going to hell, we’re running out of resources, the globe is warming, the sky is falling.

    I think those who frequent this blog will remember the kinds of predictions that were made in the 1970s by people like Paul Erlich that could not have been more wrong.

  194. I would argue that there may be a real problem embodied in the CAGW issue, but it is internal to our species and does not involve the Earth’s atmosphere.

    In the concerted effort to employ global-scale memetics in service to ideological indoctrination, there may be an unintended consequence of great concern. Specifically, rational common sense and clarity are being discouraged and replaced by pseudoscience-driven herd hysteria. We live in affluent times, so these detriments are not immediately hazardous, but that could change quickly if a super-tyrant emerges and commandeers the herd.

  195. Winter,
    I don’t understand why you seem to care so much. The OP is the typical libertarian crank magnet, look at the collection of classical (and sometimes mutually incompatible) opinions espoused here. Outlawed DDT is killing children, temperature stopped rising, it continues rising but this is good (alternatively insignificant), communistic cabals of ‘gaiaists’ pursue the destruction of humankind, academic scientists bath in the money that powerful political forces shower them with. Most commentators seem to leave when they finally stumble on a claim that raises their feeling of cognitive dissonance over a threshold level. I come here for the comedy (and to remind myself that libertarians are not harmless). But why do you take all that abuse from people whose ideologies and egos makes them completely unable to understand things that might make a dent in either one. You know thats true, and you also know exactly how they react to statements like these. Why, I really want to know!

  196. I love cognitive dissonance, i would swim in it if i could, how else will you ever learn anything.

    Physics is basic stuff, and it does not bother me that many things, the understanding threof, may be forever beyond our grasp.

    The leftist psychosis don’t bother me much, its their efforts to encode their blood drenched psychosis into law i have a problem with.

    The mountain and polar tree lines prove the CAGW hoax is bunk, its all the evidence required, their very existence is mutually exclusive with the CAGW hoax.

    Mutual exclusivity is logic the left will never accept, they are about political power, its the power that is the objective, their causes are only tools, and its not the tools that matter to them.

  197. @Raymond, what about stalagmites and lake sediments and the other proxies that have “hockey sticks”? What about ocean acidification and stratospheric cooling and ecosystem responses and all the other indicators of manmade climate change?

    Do you believe everything rests on MBH ’98? Why?

    1. >all the other indicators of manmade climate change?

      You still don’t get to assume your conclusion. There are a lot of chaotic natural drivers of climate out there. You can’t just wave your hands and say “manmade”, you have to demonstrate a causal linkage.

      CAGW proponents have bet everything on CO2/H2O positive feedback greenhousing as the link, but that theory was always dependent on untested assumptions and the atmosphere is simply not behaving as though it’s true. This should have been crystal clear as long ago as the grand solar minimum 2008 when GAT followed insolation downwards (as I predicted) rather than CO2 levels upwards (as the IPCC models predicted). Now GAT is falling further away from the bottom edge of the prediction range from the IPCC model sheaf every week.

  198. @ Karen Elliot

    Welcome to A&D. Please don’t be mislead, this board is a Potter’s stew of diverse ideas and discussion. You are encouraged to join in with reasoned argument and supporting information.

    And please don’t assume that Winter is being maligned here. Just the contrary is true. Winter is part of the A&D family; and though we may argue, but there is a bond of respect and affection also.

    Please feel free to step into the ring.

  199. @esr, it’s unfortunate you haven’t read the scientific literature on “D&A” (detection and attribution). The climate science community has done significant work on the problem.

    There’s much more to AGW than GAT.

    1. >There’s much more to AGW than GAT.

      Uh huh. Here’s a free clue: when the main predictive check of your theory fails, “Look! A squirrel!” is not a confidence-inspiring answer.

  200. @esr, if you knew well how climate models worked, how the CMIP5 process worked, and how observational analyses and comparisons with model output worked, you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss climate models as junk.

    1. >@esr, if you knew well how climate models worked, how the CMIP5 process worked, and how observational analyses and comparisons with model output worked, you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss climate models as junk.

      In fact, I have a very detailed grasp how scientific modeling is supposed to work. That is how I can tell the CAGW models are shot through with bad assumptions and methodological flaws.

  201. Making predictions that fail to match reality when fed historical data, and making predictions that fail to match reality as time moves forward, must be a definition of “to work” with which I am unfamiliar.

  202. All right, enlighten me. In what possible sense is a model whose output fails to match reality when fed real-world inputs “working”? Unless, of course, you mean it in the sense of providing justification for “green energy” boondoggles and wealth transfers and destruction of entire economic systems, that is…

  203. @Jay, read, as a start, Edwards’ “A Vast Machine”. Or, you can go back to Richardson’s ideas and work in the 1920s. There’s too much wrong in your claims to be corrected here without hours and hours of my time, which isn’t worthwhile to me.

  204. @esr, it’s not clear to me that you do understand climate modeling, how climate models work, how CMIP5 was designed and implemented, and how to compare model output and observations.

    I recommend you read Edwards’ book too.

  205. Ponder this for a bit – let’s assume a perfect climate model – all phenomena at whatever spatial or temporal scale we choose is modeled perfectly. No science errors, no software errors. Let’s also assume it’s fast and can provide output at any scale.

    Now, how do you suppose we feed this thing the observations it needs of the earth’s climate state at some time in the past? How do we know what the salinity in the ocean 100 km NE of Hawaii at 500m depth was at (say) 1 July 1950 0 GMT? What about the precise incoming solar, all wavelengths, at the same instant? Atmospheric composition? State of the land surface precise to microns?

    Now, let’s say we want to predict future climate – how do we tell this model what the future state of the sun will be? We need a complete and perfect model of the sun, too, then.

    When rejectionists say “match reality”, what does that mean, *exactly*?

  206. I reject the epithet “rejectionist”, if you’re tying to apply it to me. I reject only those things which any reasoning man should reject, religion masquerading using the trappings of science without actually following its tenets among them.

    If getting a model right is as problematical as you claim, then why are we staking the destruction of economies on their results?

    By “match reality”, I mean “makes predictions that do not grossly contradict observed results”. A model that says temperatures will rise by two degrees C when fed actual data that resulted in an actual rise of far less than that is useless as a prediction tool and its results should not be depended on when making critical decisions.

    But instead, the warmists seize on the models, despite their utter failure to predict reality as through it is reality that is flawed and we should depend on the models to decide the course of nations. They want to destroy our entire economic system based on the models’ outputs. We should be demanding much more scientific rigor to justify such drastic measures.

  207. @Jay, I reject the epithet “warmist”. You’re afraid of the policy possibilities to address manmade climate change, but instead of talking about those, you’re attacking the science. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

    I understand where you’re coming from, so the real question is why I’m bothering to expend any time or energy on a dismissive who will never be persuaded by any amount of rigorously factual information and is content to stick with his opinions instead.

  208. @ pwatwo

    If you are as knowledgeable as you claim, then you are aware that there are numerous climate models under development and that they have been evolving for many decades now. This process is ongoing and there are new twists and turns occurring every year. Some steps forward and some steps back, as problems and inconsistencies arise. The science is not mature, and the fidelity of the models is not demonstrated to any significant degree. At best, gross approximations of climate behavior are beginning to take shape.

    And given that climate is measured in large increments of time, it may be decades before we have a sense of modeling accuracy, if at all. The doom and gloom hysteria is pure politics, not science.

  209. Can I throw my hat in the ring, with on word?

    Methane.

    How can a thread of 266 comments be possible without a single mention of methane? Like it or not, it is much more ‘warming’ than CO2, and when it breaks down in the stratosphere to water and carbon dioxide, that presumably helps keep us warm at night!

  210. More on the silly ocean acidification “fraud” claims…

    http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/01/know-your-data-ocean-acidification-again.html

    @esr, you were very very very quick with your claim “I used to buy the ocean-acidification hype too, until I found out how vanishingly little of it is based on actual data and how much is speculative modeling. Just recently it turns out one major alarmist study arbitrarily threw out 70 years of observational data on pH. I think we can guess why.”

    Is your insinuation valid? I don’t think so.

  211. @ pwatwo

    Perhaps you read your own citation. It reinforces my comment rather well.

    Also, I assume you are aware that there are other critiques of this report as well.

  212. @Karen Elliot
    “Winter,
    I don’t understand why you seem to care so much.”

    There are readers that might still be persuaded. Personally, I do not believe in the echo-chamber myth. Everyone will bump into new viewpoints when surfing the internet. Still, it does no harm to try to expose casual readers to reason.

    I also want to understand how they reason. See it as a participating way to study the mind of the Libertarian. For instance, it took me some time to understand the truth behind what pwatwo writes above:

    You’re afraid of the policy possibilities to address manmade climate change, but instead of talking about those, you’re attacking the science. That’s putting the cart before the horse.

    I am fascinated by the way these people can make themselves believe a state-free society could actually work. And if it is so great, why it has never been realized (outside complete backwaters like medieval Iceland).

    And really, it baffles me that intelligent people are unable to see the basic flaw in the OP about where all this supposedly extra CO2 is coming from.

    @Karen Elliot
    “But why do you take all that abuse from people whose ideologies and egos makes them completely unable to understand things that might make a dent in either one.”

    These are only words. I am not overly sensitive to verbal abuse. And most people here are nice and decent. People I could easily sit down with for a cup of coffee (I do not like beer).

  213. @esr
    “His argument that the statistics of the variation preclude the recent jump being mainly anthropogenic is pretty strong. It actually surprised me; I had been willing to accept the conventional account on this score.”

    I could calculate the stuff for you here, it is easy, but others have done so. Here are the numbers:

    In 1750, there was 2,185 Gt CO2 in the atmosphere. Since then, humans burned fossil fuels to account for 1,447.90 Gt CO2. Nearly 1,000 Gt of this added CO2 is still in the atmosphere.

    The current CO2 concentration, 400 ppmv, corresponds to 3,122 GtCO2. The ‘natural’ level is 280 ppmv, or 2,185 GtCO2 , which means the anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the difference: 937 GtCO2 .

    So, humans have indeed burned enough fossil fuel to easily account for the rise in CO2 levels. All these calculations is back by isotope data and drill cores in everything from antarctic ice to lake beds. Why people even attempt to deny the human cause of the current rise in CO2 is a puzzle. But it is, again, baffling why there are still people who believe that.

    http://www.carbonvisuals.com/work/do-the-math-supporting-a-350-dot-org-tour

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html

    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/faq.html#Q7

  214. Why people even attempt to deny the human cause of the current rise in CO2 is a puzzle. But it is, again, baffling why there are still people who believe that.

    The only hypothesis I can reach is that libertarianism is an idée fixe, akin to Christian fundamentalism; since almost anyone who says that human fossil fuel burning has caused CO2 to rise and with it, Earth’s temperature also advocates government regulation to curtail CO2 emissions (primarily because government regulation of environmentally hazardous substances is a time-tested solution and it works), anyone who believes the AGW hypothesis must be treated with Deep Suspicion and lumped in with feminists, postmodern philosophers, Ward Churchill, Bill Ayers, Obama, and all the other Soviet apparatchiks still conspiring to take away “muh freedoms”.

  215. Well, Jeff, you got it exactly right. Any CAGW true believer must indeed “be treated with Deep Suspicion and lumped in with feminists, postmodern philosophers, Ward Churchill, Bill Ayers, Obama, and all the other Soviet apparatchiks still conspiring to take away “muh freedoms”.”

    The reason is simple. It’s far more than “government regulation of environmentally hazardous substances”. It’s government regulation of entire economies, since that’s the only way to control energy usage.

    We’ve been there and done that, and got the gulags and the mass graves.

    Anyone who wants that is simply, unreservedly evil, and must be fought to our dying breaths.

    Want to get us on your side? Find another answer than wrecking economies.

  216. @JEff Read
    “since almost anyone who says that human fossil fuel burning has caused CO2 to rise and with it, Earth’s temperature also advocates government regulation to curtail CO2 emissions …, anyone who believes the AGW hypothesis must be treated with Deep Suspicion…”

    Probably the best explanation. However, I would think they would try to come up with a Libertarian solution. Lomborg has shown the way by emphasizing local adaption to the consequences as the only solution. That would be a much more convincing strategy.

    Neil Stephenson said in an interview with Nature:

    I think a lot of opposition to global warming and evolution is not about science. The majority of people who identify themselves as global-warming sceptics, for example, do believe it is happening. But they think that admitting that will open the door to excessive regulation by the government. They don’t come from the scientific community, where it is important to say what you mean. They come from a political community, where what really matters is the final outcome. I think it’s self-destructive in the long run — people who refuse to face reality are infantilizing themselves.

    That will be true for some of the financiers and lobbyists, but I think a majority of the rank and file of the deniers is simply unable (or unwilling) to grasp the science.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-15/many-republicans-privately-support-action-on-climate.html

  217. @Jay Maynard
    “The reason is simple. It’s far more than “government regulation of environmentally hazardous substances”. It’s government regulation of entire economies, since that’s the only way to control energy usage. We’ve been there and done that, and got the gulags and the mass graves.”

    You do not have to prove Jeff right in your own words.

    Anyhow, all three of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were fond of murdering anyone who suggested to regulate environmental hazardous substances. And there is absolutely no connection between attempts to save the environment and “the gulags and the mass graves”.

    On the contrary, the worse the environmental policies, the worse the human rights are. It is you who are in the same AGW camp as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China. The top of any list of countries with the highest freedom and the least rate of governmental murders are in the camp of trying to curb AGW.

  218. “there is absolutely no connection between attempts to save the environment and “the gulags and the mass graves”.”

    Sure there is. Or are you saying we don’t need central planning and control of economies to stop CAGW? if so, you’re a lone voice in the wilderness.

    “I think a majority of the rank and file of the deniers is simply unable (or unwilling) to grasp the science.”

    I’ll “grasp the science” when it’s not joined at the hip with the leftist wet dream of government control of economies, and when it actually is done by scientists who behave like scientists.

  219. Also, Stephenson does his argument a disservice when he lumps opposition to warmism with opposition to the teaching of evolution. The two are NOT synonymous, and linking the two only gives me a reason to discount your words completely.l

  220. @Jay Maynard
    “Sure there is. Or are you saying we don’t need central planning and control of economies to stop CAGW? if so, you’re a lone voice in the wilderness.”

    Nope, the only thing needed is pricing of the externalities of burning fossil fuel. The same type of international law that is used to curb dumping poison in the air, rivers and oceans.

    How people reduce carbon emissions is their own problem they can solve in any way they see fit. As long as it is not dumped in the atmosphere to destroy the livelihoods of others. Absolutely nothing in there requires mass murdering civilians. Just as an international ban on slavery and mercury dumping did not result in Gulags.

    @Jay Maynard
    “I’ll “grasp the science” when it’s not joined at the hip with the leftist wet dream of government control of economies, and when it actually is done by scientists who behave like scientists.”

    You are also proving Neil Stephenson right. You are denying the science because you cannot cope with the consequences. Just as Stephenson said.

  221. @Jay Maynard
    “The two are NOT synonymous, and linking the two only gives me a reason to discount your words completely.”

    Actually, these are completely parallel attempts to deny the value of the scientific process because the outcomes are deemed unbearable. They also use the same strategies.

    In creationism, the idea that there is a truth that will trump the interpretation of the bible cannot be tolerated. In AGW deniers, it is the idea that there is a problem that cannot be solved without state intervention that cannot be tolerated.

    Btw, I think the Libertarians can be faulted for their lack of imagination. It must be relatively straightforward to come up with a state-free solution to the AGW problem. As well by local adaptation as by incorporating fossil fuel externalities in prices. Even including compensation for those who hold fossil fuel reserves.

  222. No, Winter, I’m denying the “science” is actually science because the “scientists’ don’t behave like scientists. Instead, they behave like priests of a cult, stamping out any disagreement instead of accepting it and addressing it head-on, as scientists do.

    That the only solutions presented are thoroughly leftist – and “pricing of the externalities” is inherently leftist, since it cannot be assessed except by government fiat – merely underscores that the science has been perverted to a particular end, instead of going where the facts lead.

  223. Will you at least recognize that there are plenty of us, most certainly myself included, who do not hold creationist views and yet do not believe in the CAGW cult?

    If not, then you can go straight to hell, and there is no further reason to engage you.

  224. @Jay
    “Will you at least recognize that there are plenty of us, most certainly myself included, who do not hold creationist views and yet do not believe in the CAGW cult?”

    I really never did say you were a creationist. As far as I know, these two sets of people, creationists and Libertarians, have no overlap and are mortal enemies. Still, both groups use the same strategies to attack science. From the perspectives of the scientists, it is utterly immaterial whether they are accused of fraud and deception (or at least incredibly stupidity) because they trip up religious or ideological feelings.

    And I do not claim that you willfully lie about your believes. Just that your ideology prevents you from accepting the science behind the AGW. If you simply say “liar” when an unwelcome fact surfaces, you cannot be helped. Because, a scientist can never prove that he saw something. And if you refuse to repeat her measurements while still denying these measurements, then the discussion must stop.

  225. Will you at least recognize that there are plenty of us, most certainly myself included, who do not hold creationist views and yet do not believe in the CAGW cult?

    I can’t speak for Winter, but I certainly agree with this.

    What Stephenson was trying to say is not that AGW deniers and creationists are the same people, but that AGW denialism is like creationism, in that there are mountains of evidence to support the scientifically accepted theory, but the deniers refuse to believe what the plain evidence tells them — and sometimes make up endless reams of pseudoscience to explain the observables — because they’re afraid of the dire implications for what they do believe (the supremacy of the free market for AGW deniers, the Bible for creationists).

  226. That the only solutions presented are thoroughly leftist – and “pricing of the externalities” is inherently leftist, since it cannot be assessed except by government fiat – merely underscores that the science has been perverted to a particular end, instead of going where the facts lead.

    Jay, the USA Democrats are far to the right of even the center-right party of any democratic European state. As for you, I’m pretty certain you would decry as the second coming of Stalin, policies that would curl any right-thinking Brit’s hair with their red-in-tooth-and-claw Thatcherism. You are not trustworthy — at all — in assessing whether a given policy is “leftist”.

  227. Jeff, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell Peter da Silva when he raises the same objection: I, at least, am discussing American politics, and its relation to the world political scale is of exactly no use or relevance to me.

    If you want Eurosocialism, you know where to find it.

  228. “both groups use the same strategies to attack science”

    I do not attack science. I attack the CAGW cult precisely because it uses the trappings of science without being science.

  229. @Jeff
    “As for you, I’m pretty certain you would decry as the second coming of Stalin, policies that would curl any right-thinking Brit’s hair with their red-in-tooth-and-claw Thatcherism. You are not trustworthy — at all — in assessing whether a given policy is “leftist”.”

    Indeed. It is very difficult to find people in (continental) Europe who even want to take Jay Maynards political position serious. When I try to explain Libertarian political ideas with unsuspected compatriots, they think I am pulling their leg. Only people who know USA politics will believe me. The rest simply thinks people have played a joke on me.

  230. @Jay
    “I attack the CAGW cult precisely because it uses the trappings of science without being science.”

    I am very sorry to say so. But you have written comments here that make me doubt very much that you even master the basics of the science involved (the OP is a case in point, it flouts basic biology and chemistry). Moreover, from your comments I have become convinced that you do not understand how real science is performed.

    But I would be happy if you proved me wrong.

  231. @pwatwo
    “See
    > http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf

    I got curious and I did take a look and I don’t see where it’s saying what you’d like it to say as opposed to the skeptics point of view. For 90% of the time, the executive summary trumpets how models can predict the past. What I thought it would say is “here is how our models managed to predict the future multiple times”, but actually the final paragraph admits rather honestly “In general, there is no direct means of translating quantitative measures of past performance
    into confident statements about fidelity of future climate projections. ” .

  232. The foundation of real science is in publication of data, reproduction of results, and addressing criticisms honestly, fairly, and openly.

    “Climate scientists” hide their data, don’t let others try to reproduce their results, and suppress criticism.

    This is fundamental to the scientific method, and anyone – like the “climate science” community – who does not follow it does not deserve to be granted the honorable title “scientist”.

  233. @Jay
    “The foundation of real science is in publication of data, reproduction of results, and addressing criticisms honestly, fairly, and openly.”

    So, why don’t the deniers do this? The climate scientists have opened up all data and all code. See the numerous links above.

  234. The climate scientists have opened up all data and all code.

    You have an interesting definition of “all”. Many of the most important primary datasets were destroyed (at particularly convenient times, apparently right after official requests for them were made), and requests for both code and data have been flatly rejected by “researchers”, leading to FOIA lawsuits that were rejected because the courts said there’s no need for scientists to share their data or methods.

  235. @Jay: ““Climate scientists” hide their data, don’t let others try to reproduce their results, and suppress criticism.”

    Entirely incorrect. Your belief was never true and dates from 2009 in any case. It’s obsolete.

    @Christopher Smith, same comment as applies to Jay. What you claim is entirely false. No data or datasets were “destroyed” – none. You’re thinking of McIntyre’s harassment of CRU’s Phil Jones, which was baseless and idiotic. I’ve provided links to some of the data that was supposedly “destroyed” or kept “hidden”; how can that be if what you believe is true?

  236. @Christopher Smith
    “leading to FOIA lawsuits that were rejected because the courts said there’s no need for scientists to share their data or methods.”

    The idea that scientific data are the property of those who created them has been long held. It is part of the “property is sacred” and “intellectual property is even more sacred” mantra.

    This has been destroyed in the recent decade. Now, you will not get your results published if you do not share your raw data in most (and the best) journals.

    Now that you have visited all these links, are you publicly retracting your accusations of fraud?

  237. Winter on 2015-01-02 at 09:59:47 said: “your ideology prevents you from accepting the science behind the AGW.”
    —————————-

    this thread is still going ?

    Winter, you assume that there IS proper science behind AGW. I KNOW that there is not because I was a scientist involved in collecting some of that data. Lots of assumptions all the way around.

    I You assume there is reliable data

    The fallacies [concepts to understand = instrument observation limit, central limit theorem, variance vs sample size — do your homework and understand these]:
    a) how can one discern the purported warming of point 8 degree C over the last century when one is only able to discriminate to the nearest 1 degree C at best for liquid in glass thermometers employed before the digital age ?
    b) AGW proponents aggregate single grab samples taken over time as if they were replicates to assert the advantages of the central limit theorem (hereafter CLT) but ignore the requirements of that theorem like random sampling and sample independence. I won’t go into detail here but if/when you do, you will be very disappointed in the AGW scientists process & assumptions (NONE of the requirements of the CLT are met)
    c) the AGW ‘scientists’ base their conclusions on surface station data drawn from ONE observation per day for MAX temp and one for MIN temp for the vast majority of samples over the vast majority of the sampling period. ANY honest scientist will tell you that the variance of a sample size of 1 is infinity and typically designated anecdotal data or a grab sample not usable for statistical analysis. But then they have a nerve to go ahead and use statistical analysis anyway.

    II You assume there is scientific honesty and rigor in dealing with the process.

    The whole climategate informs us that there is active dishonesty and the evidence like HARRYREADME.TXT informs us there is absolutely no rigorous collection, storage and analysis of the data. It’s Potemkin villages all the way down. Likewise, the antics of Mann’s hide the decline, hockey stick chart, etc demonstrate the intent to deceive.

    I could go on for pages but like Potemkin villages, behind the facade of science there is too often NO science, only deception.

    Homework
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_uncertainty
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance

  238. Good morning Winter & Jeff Read.

    It appears that the tools of memetic manipulation are well on display this morning.

    Assert that you speak for others. Check
    Big lie (we own the science and you don’t). Check
    Everyone’s on our side (you evil outlier). Check
    Climate modeling is accurate because. Check
    The sky is falling, so we’re justified in controlling the world. Check

    And the covert agenda, either join the herd or be exiled to the gulag (or worse).

    It’s not climate change that you hate, it’s non cooperative individualists.

  239. @BioBob, you’ve got the standard rejectionist memes down pat. They’re wrong.

    You should look into the BEST project. Are you familiar with it?

    http://www.berkeleyearth.org

    What happens if one uses proxies other than tree rings to look at past temperatures? Does the “hockey stick” go away?

  240. “What happens if one uses proxies other than tree rings to look at past temperatures? Does the “hockey stick” go away?”

    We don’t know. Michael Mann is one of the worst for refusing to disclose his data and methods. He has repeatedly gone to court to keep them private. Personally, I’m hoping that the court in his lawsuit against Mark Steyn forces disclosure.

    Until then, we’re left with the sole piece of code available, found in the Climategate record. That code – which Eric used to have on this very site – produces hockey sticks no matter what data it is fed.

  241. @BioBob
    “Winter, you assume that there IS proper science behind AGW. I KNOW that there is not because I was a scientist involved in collecting some of that data. Lots of assumptions all the way around.”

    So, point out the false data? The data are all available. I also linked to the calculations of past emission versus current CO2 levels in the atmosphere. It fits.

  242. It’s not Steyn’s lawsuit, it’s Mann’s. Mann sued Steyn after the latter compared the Penn State “investigation” of Mann’s work with the Penn State coverup of the Sandusky scandal.

    And never mind that the lawsuit itself is a SLAPP, designed to silence critics. Why has Mann repeatedly gone to court to keep his data and code secret? If Steyn loses, but forces disclosure, we as a whole will have won.

  243. @Jay, neither Mann’s code nor his data are secret. Sheesh.

    But, like I said yesterday, your opinions are unswayed by the facts. Stay in your comfortable bubble. Enjoy.

  244. @Jay, I’ll leave you with this…

    “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

  245. Gases do not spread through the atmosphere in “plumes” like solid particulates such as smoke and volcanic ash do.

    >1. The tropical high-emission areas are much larger than the regions where slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced, and they’re the wrong shape – that is, not a core with a plume trailing in the direction of prevailing winds.

    Since gases spread via random motion, aka diffusion, and since the RMS speed of random molecular motion of gases is several orders of magnitude greater than any wind up to and including cat 5 hurricanes, your expectation of seeing “plumes” following the winds is misinformed, as is the inference you made from that faulty premise.

    1. >Since gases spread via random motion, aka diffusion, and since the RMS speed of random molecular motion of gases is several orders of magnitude greater than any wind up to and including cat 5 hurricanes, your expectation of seeing “plumes” following the winds is misinformed, as is the inference you made from that faulty premise.

      This argument seems at least superficially plausible to me. But it collides with something I know from a different source, which is that if you take time series of CO2 measurements across the U.S. you find that air leaving the U.S. in the direction of prevailing winds is lower in CO2 than air entering the U.S.; that is, the U.S. is a net CO2 sink.

      If diffusion of CO2 really overwhelms air-mass motion, I have trouble seeing how this kind of disequilibrium is possible.

  246. >Since gases spread via random motion, aka diffusion, and since the RMS speed of random molecular motion of gases is several orders of magnitude greater than any wind up to and including cat 5 hurricanes, your expectation of seeing “plumes” following the winds is misinformed, as is the inference you made from that faulty premise.

    If the air in which said gas is diffusing, is moving, then surely the diffusion, which is random(ish) will move in the direction of the air movement?

  247. > Until then, we’re left with the sole piece of code available, found in the Climategate record. That code – which Eric used to have on this very site – produces hockey sticks no matter what data it is fed.

    This is obviously false – it certainly doesn’t produce a hockey stick if fed its own opposite.

    If fed flat data it produces a shape that you assert is a hockey stick, but no comment was made of this shape’s magnitude vs that of the actual “hockey stick”.

  248. @esr
    This whole OP is numerology. It is clear you have no idea what processes these numbers represent. You are building a castle in the clouds based on nothing but a snapshot of numbers.

    As Jeff Read already wrote, this post is on track to become a poster case for the AGW camp to show how befuddled the thinking of the deniers is.

  249. > This argument seems at least superficially plausible to me. But it collides with something I know from a different source, which is that if you take time series of CO2 measurements across the U.S. you find that air leaving the U.S. in the direction of prevailing winds is lower in CO2 than air entering the U.S.; that is, the U.S. is a net CO2 sink.

    That also seems plausible, that the effect of wind could be detected, but my point is that it would require *much* higher resolution than a glance at a map.

  250. When I try to explain Libertarian political ideas with unsuspected compatriots, they think I am pulling their leg.

    How do you know it isn’t because you simply misrepresent Libertarian political ideas? You certainly don’t seem to understand them from your writings here… Or perhaps your compatriots don’t value others’ individual freedom as a means to securing their own?

  251. @Paul Brinkley
    I do not know whether the confusion is caused by my misrepresentation of Libertarianism. There simply are no models I can use. It is almost impossible to find anyone who tried to do that in Dutch.

    Even trying to explain the Libertarian anti-state position gets hopelessly confused with the extreme left wing anarchism that was in vogue during the 1970s.

  252. Now that is a good question – what is the best, easy-to-read libertarian classic that Winter might be able to find in Dutch, to give him a fair understanding of what it’s all about? Preferably public-domain and easy to obtain?

    Me, I’d nominate Frederic Bastiat’s The Law (1850). It opens and ends with God, but it’s easy to ignore that part and it lays out the case for limited government pretty simply — limited, that is, to its legitimate functions, which is the only sense in which most libertarians I know are “anti-government.” It’s also a quick read, at least in English it is (and I imagine more so in the original French). English edition is free online here. German edition is free online here. Does anyone know if he made it into Dutch, or have a better suggestion?

  253. @ Rodney McKay – “Since gases spread via random motion, aka diffusion, and since the RMS speed of random molecular motion of gases is several orders of magnitude greater than any wind”

    I don’t know if there are many engineers on this blog, but allow me to clarify this topic.

    Micro-scale Brownian motion of gas molecules is not the same as macro-scale diffusion in a large unconfined gas volume. In addition, gas properties and fugacity can result in a wide variation of net gas motion, but plume motion and macro diffusion are of similar range. This is well known and demonstrated in the modeling of hazardous vapor cloud releases in the petroleum and chemical processing industries.

  254. ## >Documentation?

    http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/04/causes-and-implications-of-the-pause/

    Money quote: “The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.” ##

    I’ve been digging through that over the past few days, finding differences between claims that I haven’t had a chance to pin down as to sources.  Definitely expect more on this from me later.  BTW, RealClimate isn’t silent on Judith Curry and her claims, and they’re definitely more expert than either you or I.  If you haven’t read their take on her stuff, you’re only listening to one side.

    But since you’re claiming that this is a propaganda war, you ought to give some thought to the proposition that the fossil-fuel interests have been fighting it longer and harder (because they certainly have more money than the real competition they have, which would be the nuclear industry and little else; in the words of RFK Jr, “the plants that we’re building, the wind plants and the solar plants, are gas plants”).  These few pages of “Merchants of Doubt” might shed some revealing light on the issue (I just read them over dinner myself):

    https://books.google.com/books?id=CrtoNFTuPwwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA204#v=onepage&f=false

    One more comment and I must disappear into research again.

  255. ## Oh, and about nuclear energy. Calculate the total amount of energy that can be extracted by current nuclear technology.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

    “If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet’s economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.” ##

    SciAm was never an honest broker on matters political even in the 80’s, and it has gone badly downhill since its purchase by a German publisher.  To sum up a great deal of data in a few bullet points:

    * The economic supply of uranium is strongly dependent on price.  LEU fuel costs about 0.7¢/kWh, and only a small part of that is the cost of uranium.  Doubling the price of uranium would not change the price of LEU fuel much, but would increase the size of the economic source by a very large factor.

    * There is a ceiling price for land-based uranium mines when capture from seawater becomes cheaper.  The oceans contain several billion tons of uranium, and rivers add another 32,000 tons or so every year.

    * At some price point for uranium, fast-spectrum breeder reactors become more economic than reactors running on either LEU or natural uranium.

    * Thorium is a fertile material for the production of U-233.  Even light-water reactors can be net breeders of thorium to fissile uranium.  The terrestrial abundance of Th is 3-4x as great as U, and it is currently an unwanted component of rare earth ores.

    I started digging into the greenie complaints about high levels of radon in natural gas from the Marcellus shale.  Radon is the decay daughter of radium, which is part of the decay chains of… uranium and thorium (though the thorium-derived isotope is too short-lived to get from well to customer).  Briefly, high levels of radon in the gas mean the shale is full of uranium.  This uranium could be extracted by in-situ leaching.

    Given that 1 Curie of radium requires 1 Curie of U or Th to supply it, that allows a calculation of the amount of actinide in the shale.  But I doubt that that is all that relevant to this discussion any more, so I’m going to search down other avenues of inquiry.

    And now back into radio silence until I have something solid.

  256. “..macro-scale diffusion in a large unconfined gas volume. In addition..”
    That still doesn’t explain how it ‘prevents’ a plume, if you have a prevailing wind of X m/s in one direction, then in order for there to be no definable plume, the “macro-scale diffusion in a large unconfined gas volume” must exceed X by orders of magnitude. If you fart in a room, there’s a plume, if you fart in the wind, the plume heads downwind.

  257. Gas diffusion is extremely slow. Distance goes as SQRT(T). What you probalbly mean is convective mixing.

    Anyhow, before concluding that the scientists are all fraudulent morons, you could try to get the physics right.

  258. @EngineerPoet
    We need at least 100 times more nuclear fuel to validate a switch away from fossil fuels. All you showed were experimental an theoretical expansions that are even more expensive than what we have (where risks and decommissioning costs have been externalized to the tax payers).

    So, why is nuclear energy a better option than solar energy that is already available, has no upper limit and is only becoming cheaper?

  259. Nuclear energy doesn’t go away when the sun goes down or when the weather turns bad.

  260. @Jay Maynard
    You can indeed burn nuclear fuels day and night, until it is gone. And its gone in a few years. All nuclear fuel replacements are more expensive and often experimental at best.

    I think you are too pesdimistic about the weather conditions in deserts. But the night are indeed sunless. That can be solved with storage. Big hydro power storage plant are entirely feasible. I doubt whether the capital costs are bigger than for breeder plants. Especially as solar energy comes with long distance HVDC networks so it will be rather easy to run them past suitable geography.
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

    Oh, and if we all drive electrical cars, the owners can sell power from their batteries at night. That alone could cover most of night time demands.

  261. @ Jim Richardson

    As you have pointed out, plumes are driven by prevailing winds and other meteorological conditions. Diffusion and plume movement occur simultaneously. Models can be used to estimate plume dynamics, but it’s just an estimate. Nevertheless, if you have a toxic vapor cloud release from a railcar accident heading toward a nearby town, you will use this information to implement downwind evacuations.

    @ Winter – “Gas diffusion is extremely slow.”

    Depends on the gas and ambient conditions. A hydrogen leak diffuses rapidly and immediately forms an explosive mixture in the atmosphere. If you stand around smoking a cigarette waiting for it to diffuse, you very likely won’t be returning your genes to the gene pool any longer.

  262. Uhm, if we drive electric cars and sell the batteries’ power at night, what will power the car during the day?

  263. @Winter:
    its gone in a few years. All nuclear fuel replacements are more expensive and often experimental at best.

    If “experimental” means “has been used in commercial reactors generating power” (which all of the “replacements” other than thorium have), then I suppose you’re right. But it seems like a strange use of the word.

    As for “gone in a few years”, it always amazes me how people who claim to know about physics don’t understand that a kilogram of nuclear fission fuel releases a hundred thousand times (five orders of magnitude) more energy when burned than a kilogram of chemical fuel. That alone should be enough for you to realize that claims that nuclear fuels will be “gone in a few years” are highly dubious.

    In fact, what the research that those dubious claims are based on actually says is that nuclear fission fuels would run out on a time scale of years or decades if (a) we used nuclear fission for all of the world’s electricity, (b) we only used a once-through fuel cycle with no breeders, and (c) fuel prices stayed the same.

    However, even if we accept (a), (b) would be stupid–breeders have already been used to produce commercial electricity, and reprocessing was only outlawed in the US because of misplaced concerns about proliferation–and anyway (b) really depends on (c)–as those same researchers will tell you. For example, the well-known report written by a team headed by MIT’s John Deutsch, which is widely quoted by anti-nuclear activists as saying that breeders are “uneconomical”, actually only says they’re uneconomical at current fuel costs; if fuel costs rise, the report specifically recommends switching to breeders. But fuel costs are obviously going to rise; as current fuel reserves are drawn down, the price will go up, and as the price goes up, it becomes economical to get uranium from other sources.

    Furthermore, since, unlike with fossil fuel plants, the cost of fuel is only a small proportion of the operating cost of a nuclear plant (because of those five orders of magnitude), fuel costs could rise by a factor of 10 without raising operating costs much, and at a fuel cost 10 times higher, it’s economical to mine uranium from seawater, which gives us enough for millions of years.

  264. @Peter Donis
    “As for “gone in a few years”, it always amazes me how people who claim to know about physics don’t understand that a kilogram of nuclear fission fuel releases a hundred thousand times (five orders of magnitude) more energy when burned than a kilogram of chemical fuel.”

    Are you suggesting there are that many kilograms of Uranium235?

    I used the numbers fron the nuclear power industry and they say something different.

    The aim is to replace all energy sources, not only current electricity.

    “If “experimental” means “has been used in commercial reactors generating power” (which all of the “replacements” other than thorium have),’

    I was not aware that nuclear fuels from seawater were already used comercially?

    “Breeders”

    I grew up not far from Kalkar Germany, where they build a fast breeder. It showed these breeders were horribly uneconomical (hence Kalkar was never powered up). They also become glowing radioactive over time. The same is true for spend nuclear fuel rod reprocessing plants in Le Havre and Windscale. These were expensive and dumped large amounts of nuclear waste in sea. The decomissioning costs of these reprocessing plants are so high that no one dares to close them.

    And all this effort just so we do not have to use solar energy? Which becomes cheaper every year and never ends.

    I still see no counterargument to the original numbers. The current practices of nuclear powee generation could not power the world for a single year. Current available technology will not extend that to a hundred years. The rest is much more expensive and complex.

    Solar is here now and is only becoming cheaper. So why bother with nuclear power?

  265. Solar energy is a boondoggle. How much of the deserts would you have to cover to supply enough energy to run everything, especially since you have to have enough collection capacity to not only power the world during the day but also build up a reserve in your pie-in-the-sky storage facilities to cover you not only for the next night, but also the next several days at a minimum in case the weather turns to suck? (Hint: sandstorms.)

    Or will you use focused collection plants like the Ivanpah plant in the southwest US that not only is a major hazard to wildlife and air navigation, but also is not meeting its capacity plans and so isasking for yet more hundreds of millions in government bailouts?

    Solar power is useful, but it’s not the be-all and end-all energy source. We need an all of the above energy policy. Fortunately, watermelons (you know, green on the outside, red on the inside) aren’t dictating the US’s energy policy, no matter how badly Barack Obama wants to change that.

  266. @Jay Maynard
    I have written out the calculations several times on this blog. You even commented on them:
    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2779#comment-287562

    In total, 1.5 times the surface area of Germany (gross area) in the Sahara would be needed to supply a billion people with the energy needed for a German style industry & population use and more.

    It is a lot, but spread out over the Sahara, it is not that much. And as you mostly need sand and energy to produce solar panels, that is available locally.

  267. Solar energy is a boondoggle. How much of the deserts would you have to cover to supply enough energy to run everything,

    254 km x 254 km. Maybe even less when spread-spectrum PVs with 40% efficiency become widespread.

    These calculations have been done. Winter linked them many, many times in the past. Buuuut, since you dismissed him entirely as a “commie”…

    especially since you have to have enough collection capacity to not only power the world during the day but also build up a reserve in your pie-in-the-sky storage facilities to cover you not only for the next night, but also the next several days at a minimum in case the weather turns to suck? (Hint: sandstorms.)

    Nobody said the world’s solar panels all had to be built in one place.

    And energy storage for solar and wind is also largely a solved problem. With coordinated effort, the big nuclear plant in the sky can be harnessed MUCH more cost-effectively than any plant we can build here on the ground. And it’s safer too.

    The only reason we don’t is politics. Translation: money.

  268. @Winter:
    Are you suggesting there are that many kilograms of Uranium235?

    Uranium is a few parts per million by mass of the Earth’s crust. U-235 is not the only fissionable isotope (if you use breeders, all U isotopes are useful), but even if we assume it is, U-235 is a little less than one percent of natural uranium, so let’s say there are ten parts per billion by mass of U-235 in the Earth’s crust. The mass of the Earth’s crust is, conservatively, a percent or so of the mass of the Earth, so call it 10^22 kilograms. You do the math.

    As for cost, solar energy is getting “cheaper” (much of that is actually subsidies, not cost reductions, but let that pass) because technology is improving. Yet when we talk about improving nuclear technology, somehow that is going to make nuclear more expensive? I don’t get it.

    I actually have no issue with solar power except the obvious one: it doesn’t work when it’s cloudy or at night. But that’s a big issue. Unless and until we have energy storage technology capable of bridging that gap, solar simply will not work as a baseload power source. That’s not to say we shouldn’t use it; it’s to say it can’t be our only source. So viewing the situation as a competition between solar and nuclear seems to me to be a bad idea: we should be pursuing both.

  269. I actually have no issue with solar power except the obvious one: it doesn’t work when it’s cloudy or at night. But that’s a big issue. Unless and until we have energy storage technology capable of bridging that gap, solar simply will not work as a baseload power source.

    Batteries. Flywheels. Hydroelectric power storage. Molten salt. Power storage is a solved problem. We just need the initiative to apply the engineering we have at scale. As for cloudy days, those are rare in the desert; we can use HVDC transmission lines to get the power from the Sahara or Mojave to local distribution centers with very little loss.

    There is NO reason not to start converting the world’s energy infrastructure to solar, NOW. Except for the usual, political ones and the entrenched players refusing to give up their dirty energy cash cows.

    How many times must we repeat the same points over and over and over?

  270. @Jeff Read:
    Power storage is a solved problem. We just need the initiative to apply the engineering we have at scale.

    Translation: power storage is a solved problem, except for the part that hasn’t been solved.

    Once again: I’m not saying we shouldn’t be pursuing these things; I’m saying we shouldn’t be pursuing only these things.

  271. “There is NO reason not to start converting the world’s energy infrastructure to solar, NOW. Except for the usual, political ones and the entrenched players refusing to give up their dirty energy cash cows.”

    Get back to me when I can get an electric vehicle that will meet my mission requirements.

    Or an electric airplane that will perform as all as a piston-powered gasoline/Jet A-diesel single.

  272. > …plume motion and macro diffusion are of similar range. This is well known and demonstrated in the modeling of hazardous vapor cloud releases in the petroleum and chemical processing industries.

    “Similar” is not “identical,” pollutants are most often particulates and aerosols rather than gases, and pollution dispersion models focus on the lower troposphere (“ground level” appears frequently in the literature). At the scale of an observation from orbit, the signal from “prevailing winds” is lost in the noise of random molecular motion — perhaps not undetectable with sophisticated numerical techniques, but certainly lost enough that we should not fully trust our naive intuition that we can spot it with the naked eye on a 5-color graph, which is the salient point to this discussion.

  273. @ Rodney McKay – “pollutants are most often particulates and aerosols rather than gases”

    Some previous comments not posted, so not sure if this will be allowed.

    Actually, most EPA regulated atmospheric pollutants are gases. The main criteria pollutants included nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and now carbon dioxide. Same is true for the HAPs.

    Also, plume dispersion can be observed from orbit. See volcanic eruptions, for example.

  274. Get back to me when I can get an electric vehicle that will meet my mission requirements.

    Or an electric airplane that will perform as all as a piston-powered gasoline/Jet A-diesel single.

    It will be a phased conversion. The low-hanging fruit will be addressed first — coal- and oil-fired power plants. For transport applications that do not readily convert to electric, we can replace fossil fuels with cleaner-burning synfuels that are produced with solar energy as an interim solution while we work on improving the efficiency of motors and batteries.

    This change won’t happen overnight. It’s a Big Science project — like the space race. But the sooner we get started the better: the fate of the planet is literally hanging in the balance. In fact the best time to start is 20 or 30 years ago.

  275. Sorry everybody, late to the discussion, but is there even a feasible hypothesis of biogenic oil production, which lies at the heart of the whole issue? I.e. why and how got so much biomass buried so deep, what drives that process? Coal is without question biogenic, but oil is not such a clear-cut a case. Is this a one-way process, biomass gets buried and the carbon trapped until humans drill it out, so can we assume there was a point far back in time when all that trapped carbon was part of the carbon cycle? How hot was the the Earth back then? Is it possible that if we extract it and burn it into the athmosphere, it will will just create a new carbon-cycle equilibrium – basically, CO2 concentrations “fertilizing” the athmosphere so we get more and bigger plants and then it is the usual cycle again?

  276. @Winter

    >It must be relatively straightforward to come up with a state-free solution to the AGW problem.

    Essentially the only state-free solutions to ANY _coordination_ _problem_ are 1) voluntary cooperation 2) private property 3) random violence.

    1) Tends to happen emotionally – from hysterical war-monging and nationalist propaganda to disaster panics or compassionate outburts, like fundraising campaings for the needy. No such thing was ever properly global. I cannot see any emotion, most likely a warming-panic type emotion, uniting the whole planet. Libertarian resistance is dwarfed by the much more serious _nationalist_ resistance of Russia, China etc.

    2) Private property is a decent solution, the root of all civilization, but it only works if the thing in question is “propertiable”. That is not a word, but needs to be. By “propertiable” I mean something that can be “fenced in”, with clear borders whose violation is easily proven at a court of law. This is one of the hardest problems in civilization-building. It is so hard that even modern property rights are driven by the ancient and greatly outdated idea that land is what matters most, that piece of dirt forms the basis of property. It is horribly outdated, it is a relic from the age when most money came from agriculture but still alive simply because it is the easiest thing to clearly determine and prove.

    3) …

  277. > plume dispersion can be observed from orbit. See volcanic eruptions, for example

    Volcanic ash is an example I used in my first comment, as the source of our naive intuition about plumes. Ash and smoke plumes, and by definition all visible plumes, are composed of small solid particles, not gases.

    Pollution diffusion models incorporate both diffusion (random molecular motion) and advection (prevailing winds) terms because both can be relevant. That is not in question. The point is that we cannot trust our naive intuitions (in this case, the intuition that gases must move exactly the same as visible, solid particulates such as smoke and ash) so much that we dismiss valid scientific findings when a glance at a map shows us something unexpected. Science is about testing our intuitions skeptically and empirically, not taking our evolved intuitions at face value.

  278. “Many experiments on caged-birds demonstrate that DDT and its metabolites (DDD and DDE) do not cause serious egg shell thinning, even at levels many hundreds of times greater than wild birds would ever accumulate.”

    And many other experiments show just the opposite. Wikipedia has plenty of citations and even a mechanism of action; and leaving aside eggshells, it is known that DDT is a persistent organochlorine pesticide which doesn’t break down, is readily fat soluble (so bioaccumulates in the fat of animals all along the food chain), and is — wait for it — an endocrine disruptor, linked to for example genital disfigurement and feminized development of male Florida alligators.

    There is plenty enough to recommend the stringent regulation of widespread agricultural spraying of DDT, if not its outright ban. In places where malaria is a problem, DDT is approved for use as a vector control measure (for example spraying indoors to control mosquitoes). So this business of “environmentalists are taking away effective malaria control with the DDT ban” is the bunk that needs to be debunked here.

  279. “In places where malaria is a problem, DDT is approved for use as a vector control measure (for example spraying indoors to control mosquitoes). So this business of “environmentalists are taking away effective malaria control with the DDT ban” is the bunk that needs to be debunked here.”

    Uhm, the second statement does not follow from the first unless the approved uses of DDT are effective in controlling malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

  280. linked to for example genital disfigurement and feminized development of male Florida alligators.

    Sunday, January 4th 2015: The day Jeff Read used the word “feminized” seriously.

    Break out the champagne!

  281. > The African one is especially problematic – if that was produced by biomass combustion it would extend north to the edge of the Sahel.

    Unfortunately, no, that observation also does not overturn the science. That is just the plant life around the equator being non-seasonal, which you can plainly see all around the Earth around the same latitudes, not only in the Sahel.

    > …unless the approved uses of DDT are effective in controlling malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

    What, all by themselves? There are other malaria-control measures available. Some of them aren’t toxic. In malaria outbreak regions, there are more causes than lack of DDT, such as lack of mosquito nets and excessive habitats and breeding grounds for mosquitos, notably in stockpiled used tires waiting for export or recently imported. The other fellow already acknowledged that there are times and places for DDT. Why not meet halfway, and agree that toxins should not be used when there are effective alternatives?

  282. @Don

    > B) in general warmer weather is better for life in general

    Generally I am with you, but this made me shudder. What is better for life in general tends to be worse for high-quality human life. Compare life in Denmark with life in Congo. Not the economics or politics, just the natural aspect. It seems that really fertile life in general in Congo is trying hard to kill humans or make human lives miserable, while the comparatively life-hostile environment – grass, wheat, cows and not much else – environment of Denmark makes it a great place for humans to thrive and build decent civilizations.

    So, please don’t use this specific argument. Life in the tropics isn’t pleasant nor safe at all, humans need to struggle against all that life-in-general.

    Romantic views aside – we in the moderate climates may have forgotten that nature is an enemy, but they down in the tropics didn’t. More life-in-general just means more things to fight. The boring places where not much grows and lives, and therefore humans can make more or less sure only those things live whose life is easily reconcilable with human civilization, work better for us.

    Having spent most of my life in Austria and Hungary, I enjoyed the privilege of basically nothing in nature trying to kill me. No poisonous snakes, no scorpions, no bears or lions or wolves etc. This is why not having too much life-in-general is a feature, not a bug.

  283. The image that you linked to is a map of CO2 concentration. It doesn’t tell us anything about how that CO2 got there: it could be from vehicles, fires, factories, farm animals, and, yes, even vegetation. Depending upon the season and environmental conditions, vegetation (such as the Amazon rain forest) can act as either a source or sink.

  284. For once, I find this argument against AGW somewhat persuasive.

    But, even more than writing about AGW pro-vs-con, I’d like to see you write about why science has failed us on this subject. The scientific method is supposed to /prevent/ religious thinking.

  285. @Shawn
    “The scientific method is supposed to /prevent/ religious thinking.”

    And so it did. The fact that various ideological and interest groups outside science cannot live with the findings is not something science could solve.

  286. > And so it did.

    That’s not true. At the level of the entire human race, the scientific method has failed to present the result that you and Eric Raymond believe is the correct one.

    You can sit alone and say “la la la la science disproves AGW” but most of the scientific community is ignoring you.

    This is the question I’m trying to raise to Eric’s attention: How is the scientific method any different from a popularity contest? (And in the case of AGW, a popularity contest your side has resoundingly lost.)

  287. Error cascade: A definition and examples.

    An thought-provoking read, one that I do remember from 2010. Pretty good until this part at the end:

    Science doesn’t work by consensus, it works by making and confirming predictions. Science is not democratic; there is only one vote, only Mother Nature gets to cast it, and the results are not subject to special pleading.

    A typical STEM error! “Science” doesn’t happen until a human being does a test and interprets the evidence. Mother Nature/God doesn’t have a vote.

    Sometimes two people look at the same evidence and see different conclusions.

    Science most certainly does work by consensus, and that is why I compared it to a popularity contest.

  288. “Sometimes two people look at the same evidence and see different conclusions…. Science most certainly does work by consensus, and that is why I compared it to a popularity contest.”

    To see the way in which this argument is wrong, it may help best to see how it is likely seen by the other side. To rephrase it: “…for example, if we see an apple fall from a tree, a lead pellet fall from my hand, and rocks falling even after we throw them upward, we can still insist that something other than a force toward the center of the earth is at work, if only we can get enough men of learning to sign a petition.”

  289. @Shawn
    Sorry, but I am convinced science presented all the evidence any reasonable person would need to decide AGW is real. So I think humans are causing a change in climate.

    @esr
    The OP shows you really have no idea about the science behind CO2 rises in the atmosphere. This makes me even more convinced that your “error cascade” is in your own reasoning. You simply have shown you do not understand enough of the science behind climate change to be able to evaluate whether there would be an error cascade.

  290. If one person sees an apple fall to the ground, while another person sees it fly up into the sky, science has a problem.

    Obviously a real apple is too simple an example for anyone sane to disagree about. (See also: the definition of the word “fact”.)

    But here we have a case where Eric Raymond and Winter see the apple (AGW) falling in completely different directions. Science does not clearly tell us what to do to resolve this case. Something is missing from the philosophy.

    (In an earlier post I previously mistook Winter’s position as agreeing with Eric’s.)

    1. >Science does not clearly tell us what to do to resolve this case. Something is missing from the philosophy.

      No, all you have to do is notice that Winter’s side has failed to predict the behavior of the real atmosphere, the one that exists outside their computer simulations. The smoking gun is that GAT is outside the 95% confidence range of the IPCC model sheaf. No amount of talk or tapdancing can make that reality go away.

    1. >Has anyone predicted the behavior of the real atmosphere?

      I have.

      In early 2008 at the beginning of the grand solar minimum, I predicted that GAT would follow insolation down rather than CO2 levels up. The theory behind this prediction was that at the ppm levels of CO2 in the real atmosphere, variations in insolation easily swamp the effects of the last century’s changes in CO2 level.

      That prediction was correct. The plunge in GAT wiped out the entire global-warming signal since 1750.

      This is how you do science. You make a prediction based on a generative theory of the phenomenon, then confirm or disconform the theory based on observation. Much less complicated than the bizarre numerological voodoo the IPCC engages in (the technical term is “overfitting”). Much more effective.

      This is why I just laugh when true-believers like Winter accuse me of not knowing the science. Wake me up when they actually predict the behavior of the real atmosphere rather than issuing a blizzard of the-dog-ate-my-homework excuses for their continuing failure.

  291. But I do note your answer to my apple challenge is something like: get better evidence.

  292. That prediction was correct. The plunge in GAT wiped out the entire global-warming signal since 1750.

    An impressive data point. I’m of course inclined to take it seriously based on your ethics and on your proven abilities in other areas.

    But that is a character judgement. I’m not personally familiar enough with climate science to fully understand the evidence you are describing, much less validate or debunk it.

    Science is a decision-making philosophy. Decision-making is a human, mental activity.

    I note your point about predictive power, but what do you do after you say “eureka”, when someone comes along and says “that doesn’t prove anything, you just got lucky with a coincidence/your evidence is inconclusive”?

    It would be nice if everyone was smart enough and educated enough to understand your evidence, but I’m wondering how to persuade unbelievers about complicated conclusions they likely won’t understand in detail.

    1. >I note your point about predictive power, but what do you do after you say “eureka”, when someone comes along and says “that doesn’t prove anything, you just got lucky with a coincidence/your evidence is inconclusive”?

      One thing anyone can do is check to see if the someone applies the same critical standards to the side he is aligned with.

      This is why the incompetence of the IPCC models is devastating to the AGW case. The IPCC has failed its own standard of evidence; we don’t even have to get into the issues about fudged data, refusal to comply with FOIA requests, or the problems with the physical assumptions of the models.

  293. > One thing anyone can do is check to see if the someone applies the same critical standards to the side he is aligned with.

    There’s a fine point I was half missing. When I’ve heard you talk about their bad models, I kept thinking, who cares, nobody cares about weather models because they aren’t very good long-term due to the butterfly effect. But you are saying they care.

    They care about what their crap models are saying because they have poor decision-making standards, and that is a reputational red flag.

    1. >They care about what their crap models are saying because they have poor decision-making standards, and that is a reputational red flag.

      Right. Another red flag is that rather than fess up to the implications, they change the subject. “The missing heat is vanishing into the oceans!” they cry, hoping you won’t notice that the models didn’t predict that and even if it’s true the models are are still falsified.

      So what we have going now is frantic spinning. All the talk of “hidden heat”, ENSO, Atlantic Wave, El Ninos and such is semantically equivalent to “Look! A squirrel!”

  294. As Winter has recently conceded, climate characteristics are estimated using long duration time increments (25 year averaging intervals or longer). Given this, a reasonable (i.e. statistically useful) appraisal of model accuracy will likely require at least a century of data, analysis, and evaluation. In addition, given the vast spacial dimensions of the oceans and atmosphere, the data pool is still very sparse and suspect. And we are still a very long way from knowing if we even have a comprehensive understanding of all the major elements of climate interaction. As an example, cloud behavior is still a poorly understood factor with major chaotic implications.

    It is astondingly arrogant to assert that climate science is mature and accurate.

  295. > I have.
    >
    > In early 2008 at the beginning of the grand solar minimum, I predicted that GAT would follow
    > insolation down rather than CO2 levels up. The theory behind this prediction was that at the
    > ppm levels of CO2 in the real atmosphere, variations in insolation easily swamp the effects of
    > the last century’s changes in CO2 level.
    >
    > That prediction was correct. The plunge in GAT wiped out the entire global-warming signal
    > since 1750.

    I can’t reconcile this story with the actual data from that period. Wasn’t the solar cycle already at its minimum in early 2008? So isn’t the 2008 plunge better explained by that year’s La Niña event?

    And what do you mean with the comparison to 1750? 2008 was a cold year for the 2000’s, but in any other decade during the instrumental period it would have been warm. 1750 was in the middle of the little ice age.

    As far as the OP goes, it’s worth comparing the observatory results to NASA’s modelling. The CO2’s where you’d expect it to be given the time of year.

    1. >I can’t reconcile this story with the actual data from that period. Wasn’t the solar cycle already at its minimum in early 2008? So isn’t the 2008 plunge better explained by that year’s La Niña event?

      I made the prediction on the General Technics list on 20 March 2008. Here’s the actual text:

      OK, so I'm going to make a testable prediction and offer a bet: A year
      from now, if solar activity remains flat or decreasing, and when the
      atmosphere-temperature data for 2008 come in, the trend in global
      temperature will continue to have tracked the level of solar activity,
      not the longer-term rising trend in atmospheric CO2.  Bet's off if the
      Sun climbs out of its minimum in the next twelve months, as that would
      confound two possible drivers moving in the same direction.
      
      Anyone care to match stakes with me on this?  Note: if I win, I'll
      have demonstrated better predictive ability than the IPCC models,
      which can't even retrodict the data we now have.
      

      I misremembered slightly. I offered the bet well into the grand minimum, not before it started.

      On 19 August I followed up:

      It is now 4 months later.  The solar minimum is still mimimuming, GAT
      is still falling fast in the most recent available data sets, and the
      conspicuous failure of any of tbe AGW alarmists on this list to bet
      against me is looking smarter by the week.
      

      A year later nobody even tried to argue that I hadn’t predicted correctly.

      >And what do you mean with the comparison to 1750?

      I mean that at the coolest point of the grand solar minimum measured GAT had crashed to levels not seen since the Little Ice Age. I didn’t think this would last, since it was so obviously related to solar variation and I expected the Sun to climb out of its trough.

  296. It is now 4 months later. The solar minimum is still mimimuming, GAT
    is still falling fast in the most recent available data sets, and the
    conspicuous failure of any of tbe AGW alarmists on this list to bet
    against me is looking smarter by the week.

    Which datasets were you using? The usual ones don’t show that particular story:

    e.g. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:2008/to:2009/offset:-1365/scale:4/plot/gistemp/from:2008/to:2009

    But given the expected lags in greenhouse response and the magnitude of high frequency variations I wouldn’t expect any prediction over that sort of time frame to have statistical skill anyway.

    I mean that at the coolest point of the grand solar minimum measured GAT had crashed to levels not seen since the Little Ice Age. I didn’t think this would last, since it was so obviously related to solar variation and I expected the Sun to climb out of its trough.

    I find this claim to be quite extraordinary. 2008 was warm relative to the 20th century, and we don’t have GAT measurements going back to 1750.

    1. >Which datasets were you using?

      I don’t have the pointer any more, but it was probably Roy Spencer’s overlay of HADCRUT with the satellite troposphere measurements.

      >2008 was warm relative to the 20th century, and we don’t have GAT measurements going back to 1750.

      No. But we have the warmists’ own historical climate reconstructions.

      On 6 March 2014 I followed up with this:

      I remind everybody that in 2008, when insolation crashed at the beginning 
      of the solar grand minimum, I offered an open bet with testable conditions 
      on the proposition that global average temperature would track insolation
      rather than CO2 levels.
      
      None of the AGW believers here took me up on it.
      
      They were wise not to do so, because I was right.  This gives me a
      better predictive record than the IPCC.  Not that this was difficult; 
      I could probably have improved on the IPCC's performance by 
      consulting a Ouija board or throwing darts.
      
      I will now offer another bet.  The so-called "hiatus" (absence of
      statistically significant upward GAT trend) will continue for at
      least three years from this date - that is, until 2017-03-06.
      

      To my complete un-surprise, none of the AGW partisans took that bet either. A shame – I would have enjoyed taking their money.

  297. (Sorry, formatting glitches above)

    I don’t have the pointer any more, but it was probably Roy Spencer’s overlay of HADCRUT with the satellite troposphere measurements.

    But the HadCRUT and UAH records are available at the same link, and they don’t have temperature following insolation during that time period either.

    No. But we have the warmists’ own historical climate reconstructions.

    The reconstructions show 1750 to be colder than the 20th century though, and the instrumental record shows the 20th century (except the big El Niño in 98) to be colder than 2008.

    Maybe you had your reasons for thinking you got that prediction right, but I’m not seeing any data that backs it up. At any rate, the relationship doesn’t hold up over longer periods.

    1. >But the HadCRUT and UAH records are available at the same link, and they don’t have temperature following insolation during that time period either.

      Damn. Now I’m going to have to dig. I remember what the graph looked like – and I remember that it shut the alarmists on that list right the fuck up. I’ll poke around on Roy Spencer’s website.

      >At any rate, the relationship doesn’t hold up over longer periods

      We don’t get solar minima that deep very often, and the resolution of the measurements is poor. It doesn’t surprise me that the relationship is invisible (or at least deniable) until insolation wanders out of the normal band. And about the relationship not holding up, you really think the timing of the Little Ice Age with respect to the Maunder Minimum was mere coincidence?

  298. I don’t think anyone’s saying that solar output doesn’t have an effect on temperature. And the Maunder minimum is long and deep enough that you can see the influence. But on any given timescale you have to look at the effect of all the relevant variables simultaneously – solar output, greenhouse concentrations, ENSO fluctuations etc.

    Give or take a few volcanoes, temperature has tracked solar output pretty closely, right up to the time (late 20th century) when increasing greenhouse concentrations made CO2 a relevant factor.

    1. >right up to the time (late 20th century) increasing greenhouse concentrations made CO2 a relevant factor.

      I don’t think it’s established that CO2 is relevant enough.

      Yes, yes, I know all about the physics of greenhousing. Mild, direct CO2 greenhousing I buy; it’s the wacky nonlinear coupling to H2O greenhousing I don’t believe in. The models in which that drives high climate sensitivity are the ones that are failing more grossly by the month.

      Here’s another prediction: if you take a GCM and zero out that coupling, it will track measured GAT more closely than anything in the IPCC model sheaf.

  299. I don’t think you can legitimately zero out that coupling though. More water vapour in warmer air is a fairly basic consequence of the kinetic theory of gases — it’s harder for a gas to condense if its molecules are moving faster. What’s wacky about that?

    1. >What’s wacky about that?

      For one thing, it ignores second-order effects that may be homeostatic, like increased cloud albedo.

      My big problem with the GCMs is that they invent coupling constants for these processes that aren’t physically justified, then over-fit to very noisy, sparse, and sometimes outright corrupted data. They might as well be casting oracle bones; even if they got a decent predictive match it would be coincidence.

  300. It’s not like you have to choose between including first and second order effects though. Why would you not allow water vapour to increase with temperature, given that basic high-school physics tells you that that’s what happens?

    1. >It’s not like you have to choose between including first and second order effects though. Why would you not allow water vapour to increase with temperature, given that basic high-school physics tells you that that’s what happens?

      It’s one thing to know, qualitatively, that such an effect can occur. It’s another thing entirely to pull a coupling constant out of your ass, without measurement or physical justification. There are way too many numbers in the GCMs that like that, essentially arbitrary bugger factors.

      Note that when I predict better fit from zeroing out that coupling, I’m not actually denying in principle that such coupling ever occurs, merely that its effects are negligible in comparison with other features of the GCM or checked by emergent negative feedback. Indeed, the measured data are forcing the IPCC itself to this conclusion – or so I think we can reasonably deduce from the way their ECS estimates keep dropping.

  301. I don’t buy the whole overfitting thing. There aren’t enough degrees of freedom to fit the models to the late 20th century warming without including anthropogenic carbon emissions, so I don’t see that adding one more thing is going to suddenly tip them into overfitting,

    I don’t think water vapour is one of those parametrised processes in a full scale GCM anyway though. It’s not like the evaporation and condensation of water is a particularly mysterious phenomenon.

    I know that you have to parametrise water vapour in simpler models: but in this case they’re adjusting the humidity downwards to take into account drying due to circulation. But I’d be very surprised if a GCM got something as basic as water vapour feedback wrong.

    1. >There aren’t enough degrees of freedom to fit the models to the late 20th century warming without including anthropogenic carbon emissions,

      So what? Nobody serious is disputing either the existence or the approximate volume of those emissions. It’s not at that step that the major error enters. It’s at the step from anthropogenic emissions to high ECS via CO2/H20 coupling that I believe the models go wrong, and therefore predict a GAT trend much, much higher than the measured data.

      That’s why I predict that zeroing that coupling will give a better fit to measurements. Certainly something in the GCMs is producing lousy predictions that are way too high; that is no longer really disputable. Do you have an alternate candidate?

  302. The failings of climate models have been greatly exaggerated (if you made a bet with Hansen in the 80’s you would have lost). The basic prediction — temperature increase — has held up.

    If you look at the areas where the models are weak (e.g. early to mid 20th C, tropical Pacific), incorrect water vapour feedback doesn’t seem like a plausible candidate. Since we’re speculating, I’d guess that the most likely culprit is insufficient spatial resolution to reproduce ENSO.

    1. >The basic prediction — temperature increase — has held up.

      The CRU itself is on record as admitting this is not true. GAT has been statistically flat for over a decade now. And has, I remind you, fallen out of the 95% model confidence range.

      But let’s suppose this weren’t true. How would you propose to tease out the anthropogenic component? We know there natural drivers like Milankovich cycles. Until you have a detailed and generative theory that is better than handwaving about ENSO and actually predicts observed behavior to with 95% confidence, you wouldn’t have a prayer of estimating the relative weights.

  303. @esr
    “How would you propose to tease out the anthropogenic component? We know there natural drivers like Milankovich cycles.”

    You do not seem to read the information given to you. It has been pointed out several times to you that the Milankovich cycles are irrelevant on decade time scales. Also, they have been included in climate models as these are also used for (paleo)historic modeling.

    @esr
    “GAT has been statistically flat for over a decade now.”

    The increase in global average temperature over the last few decades has no precedent in historical temperature records. 2014 is the hottest year ever recorded. So, if there are non-anthropogenic causes for the increase in heat, they are larger than have been experienced in the last two centuries, and they are very well hidden. This is about a lot of heat gone unseen. Show me the data. Where can we measure it?

    Oh, and the “missing” heat was found. Ocean water has been measured to increase in temperature. The “missing” heat is simply transported by the oceans. That has been known since last summer. I even posted links to the relevant papers back then. A link to a newspaper article has been linked above.

    Your criticism of the H2O feedback has never addressed the calculations and measurements on which it is based. It is just hand-waving. It does sound like grasping at straws.

    @esr
    “Until you have a detailed and generative theory that is better than handwaving about ENSO and actually predicts observed behavior to with 95% confidence, you wouldn’t have a prayer of estimating the relative weights.”

    That is a straw man. Not being able to predict future global temperatures down to the decimal is unrelated to the question whether our CO2 emissions will heat up the climate. Just as our inability to predict the precise air temperature in your street on 1 August is unrelated to the question of whether it will be warmer than on 1 January (reverse if you live on the Southern Hemisphere).

  304. @esr
    “Winter, shut up while adults are talking. Your ignorance is wearying.”

    Hm, that is not exactly a reply addressing the substance of my message.

    And regarding ignorance, you should do something about the OP. Your treatment of forest CO2 emissions is setting an example of ignorance in climate research that will be hard to beat. I can see people bookmarking it for when they have to show how misdirected AGW deniers are.

  305. “Not being able to predict future global temperatures down to the decimal is unrelated to the question whether our CO2 emissions will heat up the climate.”

    Nobody’s saying that. However, what Eric is saying (and that I agree with) is that the entire basis of the CAGW cult is the models that predict runaway warming – and those models are BUSTED. They don’t even predict the present, never mind the future. If the entire basis for the cult is a series of elaborate lies, why should we believe anything the cult has to say about the future, never mind acceding to its demands about what to do about it?!

  306. Heh. From Dr. Spencer’s post linked above:

    “Compared to seasonal norms, the coldest annual average temperature on Earth throughout 2014 was just south of Wilmar, Minnesota. The average 2014 temperature there was –1.27 C (about 2.29 degrees F) colder than normal.”

    I should note here that that spot is just over 100 miles from where I live.

  307. @JonCB
    “Oh… i was reading something on Dr Roy Spencer’s site about that.”

    Nature begs to differ:

    2014 was the hottest year on record
    http://www.nature.com/news/2014-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-1.16674

    This past year was the hottest since at least 1891, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said on 5 January. According to the JMA, the average temperature in 2014 was 0.27?°C warmer than the 1981 to 2010 baseline average.

    Also gives a lot of rebukes for other myths embraced here.

    @Jay Maynard
    “However, what Eric is saying (and that I agree with) is that the entire basis of the CAGW cult is the models that predict runaway warming – and those models are BUSTED.”

    Sorry but this is close to bad faith deception, or maybe it simply is bad faith deception.

    Nowhere in the IPCC reports or the scientific literature is the idea promoted that we are on track for runaway warming. You and many others here are claiming a choice of: there is no global warming, or if there is, it is not caused by an increase in CO2 levels, or if it is, this is not caused by humans.

    The whole “runaway global warming” is not part of earth climate science and most certainly not part of the IPCC predictions.

  308. Winter, go read Dr. Spencer’s article. He cites to his source, the temperature studies at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, the most widely accepted set of temperature data out there. He even links to the files.

    You left out a fourth tenet: that even if the globe is warming, the results will not be the catastrophe that the warmists are claiming. That’s why it’s CAGW: the C is for catastrophic.

    Nevertheless, there is solid argument for all four cases. The Earth’s temperature is simply not climbing in the face of CO2 increases; the models that claim to show that CO2 increases drive GAT are thoroughly busted; there are many other causes for temperature rise besides human activity; and, historically, warmer temperatures lead to greater prosperity, not catastrophe.

  309. As for runaway warming, what else would you call the doomsday predictions that we will reach a tipping point beyond which the rise in temperatures cannot be controlled? This is a central belief of the CAGW cult.

  310. But on any given timescale you have to look at the effect of all the relevant variables simultaneously – solar output, greenhouse concentrations, ENSO fluctuations etc.

    All too true, maybe we should inform the climate scientists.

  311. @Jay Maynard
    “Nevertheless, there is solid argument for all four cases.”

    For all four there is solid science that they AGW is real and getting costly. Links are scattered around this threat. There is nothing countering this science here nor elsewhere. All the same level of ignorance as the OP misanalysis of the CO2 data,

  312. @Jay, “there are many other causes for temperature rise besides human activity”

    On decadal timescales? Examples?

  313. pwatow: Consider the Medieval Warm Period, as one example. Or are you one of the artists who just ignores that in the hope that it will go away?

  314. …damn autocorrect…

    pwatwo: Consider the Medieval Warm Period, as one example. Or are you one of the warmists who just ignores that in the hope that it will go away?

  315. > No, all you have to do is notice that Winter’s side has failed to predict the behavior of the real atmosphere…

    Whereas your side has not even made the attempt.

    > The smoking gun is that GAT is outside the 95% confidence range of the IPCC model sheaf.

    Barely, and only recently, and still the best model available.

    > No amount of talk or tapdancing can make that reality go away.

  316. @Jay, the MWP was not a global *and* synchronous phenomenon.

    There’s also the logical flaw in the “it’s all natural” argument; analogously, that lightning can cause fires does not mean there’s no such thing as arson.

    If the rejectionists can come up with a theory that better explains the observations than anthropogenic-CO2-driven climate change, that would quite an accomplishment. So far, they’re batting .000.

  317. It’s the Sportsball 2014 Grand Final. The sport scientists make their predictions:

    Scientists: Home Team will win, by 10–12 points.
    Armed and Dangerous: Meh, your models are nonsense, Away Team will win.

    The game is played, Home Team wins by 8 points.

    Scientists: Our models worked, but they need to be improved.
    Armed and Dangerous: We were right! Your models are completely busted! The score was outside your 95% prediction interval! Away Team won!

  318. Nature begs to differ:

    They can beg to differ all they like. The data says they’re wrong. They quote the same average temperature (+0.27deg) that Dr Spencer gets which is colder than 1998.

    Now what i think JMA(nature’s source, since nature is just a tabloid) ACTUALLY said was 2014 was the hottest “El Nino neutral” year . This is probably a valid statement but then people aren’t SAYING that, they’re saying “oh 2014 is the hottest year” which is false.

  319. @JonCB: UAH is a satellite record, you’re looking at the lower troposphere temperatures. 2014 didn’t beat that record.

    2014 is the hottest year on record for surface temperature, which is surprising because you usually need an El Niño event to do that.

  320. “> No, all you have to do is notice that Winter’s side has failed to predict the behavior of the real atmosphere…

    Whereas your side has not even made the attempt.”

    Not required. The burden of proof lies with the CAGW side.

    Or, to put it in simpler terms, I don’t have to eat a shit sandwich to know it’s bad.

  321. Comparing every year to 1998 is disingenuous and silly. Suppose 2014 turns out not to have been quite as warm as 1998 when all the numbers are crunched. There still have not been any below average years for three decades. And there certainly should be some events below average in the absence of a trend, or even in the presence of a weak trend.

    There hasn’t even been one month since 1985 that wasn’t warmer than average!

    All of the ten warmest years on record have occurred between 1998 and now.

    The year 2013 ties with 2003 as the fourth warmest year globally since records began in 1880.

  322. esr: No, all you have to do is notice that Winter’s side has failed to predict the behavior of the real atmosphere…
    me: Whereas your side has not even made the attempt.”
    Jay Maynard: Not required. The burden of proof lies with the CAGW side.

    We’re not in court son. In science, everybody who wishes to advance a hypothesis must provide evidence in the form of a testable model that makes predictions. It isn’t the fault of “the warmists” as you like to call them, that you lot haven’t bothered. What’s your excuse? Is the programming too hard for you?

  323. I don’t have to advance my own model to point out that the existing models, on which all the “science” is based, are completely busted.

    In science, admitting you have no answer is better than contending you do when it’s demonstrably broken.

  324. @Jay: Do you not see the irony of trying to demonstrate a global synchronous MWP by showing us a study of temperatures in just one place?

  325. The argument against the global synchronous MWP was that it was a regional thing in Europe. Now, when it’s shown to have been in Asia at the same time, you object?

  326. Re “demonstrably broken,” just under 95% is still pretty good, and until somebody can do better this will just have to do. Fact is, the best model we have is the best model we have. As to the opinion, whether a model with slightly less than 95% confidence is adequate to make public policy until we have a better model, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Moving on…

    “Winter, go read Dr. Spencer’s article. He cites to his source, the temperature studies at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, the most widely accepted set of temperature data out there. He even links to the files.”

    Can you explain what is objectively better about Roy Spencer’s data than other sources?

  327. > The argument against the global synchronous MWP was that it was a regional thing in Europe. Now, when it’s shown to have been in Asia at the same time, you object?

    That’s not the argument. Mann’s reconstruction for example shows warmth in the MWP in the North Pacific, South Atlantic, North America, Europe, and East Asia, but with colder Equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans. That’s widespread warming, but it’s not enough to match the global warmth we’ve seen this decade.

  328. “Can you explain what is objectively better about Roy Spencer’s data than other sources?”

    Ask the warmists who cite the UAH data as authoritative.

  329. @Jay, since both UAH and RSS use the same satellite data, how come they’re different from each other, and, Spencer says that RSS suffers from “spurious cooling”?

    Note that RSS is a favorite of AGW rejectionists.

    PS – I’m dubious of any study involving Willie Soon, since his past efforts in climate have been shown to be, to put in kindly, chock-full of errors, and, he has admitted to taking considerable sums from the fossil-fuel industry. Besides, that’s one place.

  330. Jay, if you can’t do the math just say so. There’s no shame in admitting your limits, only in denying them.

  331. @pwatwo:

    by measuring 13C:12C ratios, all the extra CO2 in the air came from plant sources.

    If you measure 14C:12C ratios you find that the extra CO2 has to come from below ground sources protected from cosmic rays.

    So putting the two ratios together, it has to be fossil fuel burning.

  332. Compare the linked map with google earth. The Mato Grosso is largely ag and Katanga is ag/mining. Serious rainforest is to the north.

  333. One more point:

    The variations on this map are trivial compared to historical data. 2014 was the year when 400ppm was registered at Mauna Kea. The scale on the linked map registers 387 to 402.5 ppm with much of the world’s land surface appearing to be in at least the mid-390s. This is up from ~378 ppm in 2004 and a pre-industrial value of ~280 ppm. Pre-IR there was a lot more forest – both rain and temperate – then now. If the source of all this co2 has plant origins, why wasn’t pre-IR levels higher?

  334. “2014 will be the hottest year on record”

    That’s just because it’s hot now, compared to when records began. But not necessarily compared to medieval times.

    About the rain forest, I was taught in school that the rain forest is the lungs of the planet. But now it seems obvious that the animals in the rain forest eat the plants and exhale CO2. It’s a cycle. The rain forest is just the lungs of the rain forest. Plants just temporarily store carbon.

    It seems likely high concentration of CO2 in an area is at least partly explained by a high *turnover* of CO2. If there are more plants and more animals, then the rate of exchange of carbon between them will be higher and there will be more in the pipe connecting them (the air).

  335. That paper shows that the “hockey team” have been actively looking for and measuring the MWP, rather than trying to hide it as some people claim.

    Quote from that paper:

    Comparisons with selected temperature proxies from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres confirm that the MWP was highly variable in time and space.

    The current warming is more uniform, so on average it’s warmer now than it was in the MWP.

  336. Pumpkin

    Much amusing .. . . . and there is more to it than you can become aware
    in less than a few weeks, it wasn’t you i was hoping would step in it tho . . .
    Might take you a while , , , , ( warning, reality contains a straw man)
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/ . . .

    Sea level rise before , during, after, Little Ice Ages and Multiple Warm periods . . Depending on Era of construction Roman Harbors are dry and the water has receded away from them, others are under water.

    Its not a simple matter to determine which is due to sea level change, and which is due to subsidence or uplift, places with long term geological stability are quite rare.

    Its this rare geological stability that makes Australia a good place for sea level measurements in combination with their long term record reaching back 100 years
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/sea-level/sea-level-australia-new-zealand-rate-change-watson.gif . . .

    This graph goes back to the 1880s. showing warming and rising seas
    continuing out of the last Little Ice Age http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png . . .

    (Sea level change rates line up with the AMO )
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/sea-level/sea-level-australia-new-zealand-rate-change-watson.gif . . .
    Two views of the AMO
    http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mann14_1_amo_noaa_kaplansst2.png . .
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ustorprobs.png . .

    The 70s trough … ” .70s ice age scare period”
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .

    The 98 Peak . . . . ” Peak of global warming hoax period”

    Over the AMO hump, what will they call the slide to the next trough ?
    The Al Gore Man-bear-pig minimum ? (south park)
    Too bad we dont have a graph of “puckerd prune faced warming hoaxer groupies”

    ///… Ancient Forest Thaws From Melting Glacial Tomb
    http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html . . .
    Sep 20, 2013 – A retreating glacier in Alaska has revealed an ancient forest of what … …///
    ///… An ancient forest has thawed from under a melting glacier in Alaska and is now exposed to the world for the first time in more than 1,000 years. …///

    It tells me,,, that just as of now,, are we exposing Roman Warm period trees that was growing there before it got cold and the glacier swallowed them up….

    Too many Romans driving SUVs ?
    And then they implemented captn trade….
    And thats caused the fall of the Roman empire ,,,
    Hey its as likely as the hoaxers load of malarkey eh ?
    http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/melting-glacier-exposes-frozen-forest-20130924

    Frankly i dont see whats so complicated,, its the warming hoaxers that push forward all of those complexity engined improbability drive Rube Goldberg obfuscations.

  337. pwatwo

    Nor is fire proof of arson,,

    No sign yet that it will be as warm as it was during the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm Periods. The Minoan and Roman and Medieval Renaissance were warmer than today . .
    Warm periods where Forests occupied areas now covered in glacier ice , , ,
    3 ice core views … its been warmer in the past between periodic cold periods.

    Medieval warmer than the Modern
    Roman warmer than the Medieval
    Minoan warmer than the Roman
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png . .
    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0147e2d17582970b-pi . . .
    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c017d41a96489970c-pi . . .

    And therein is the base fraud of the climate hoaxers, their failed attempt to erase these warm periods from history … the handle on the hockey stick is a fraud, and we know the blade is also a fraud (hide the decline)

    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/ . . .

    ///… The new information shows dramatic failure of the Sheep Mountain chronology as an out-of-sample temperature proxy, as it has a dramatic divergence from NH temperature since 1980, the end of the Mann et al (and many other) reconstructions. While the issue is very severe for the Mann reconstructions, it affects numerous other reconstructions, including PAGES2K.” …///

    You know how many hoaxer papers are now proven toilet paper ?
    A single Yamil tree, decentered pca, upside down proxies, data splicing without instrumental drift controls ,, what have they got left ? Nothing , they can make No claim.

    But it not going to stop them dragging their dead hoax across the square.
    Here is their theme songs ( get your own copy )
    file:///home/data1/mp3/Oingo_Boingo/Oingo_Boingo_-_Dead_Mans_Party.mp3
    file:///home/data1/mp3/Oingo_Boingo/Oingo_Boingo-Weird_Science.mp3

  338. For those of you with a physics bent , , , a conversation showing how the CAGW Hoaxers got in early trouble because they never consulted physicists competent in CO2 radiation effects. (and never consulted a statistician about their statistics)

    http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html . . .

    Now they are trapped, locked in embrace with an embarrassing falsehood, the entire CO2 radiative model is a fallacy. Its a log curve,, we are well into the flat, the failed models assume linear, and positive feedback where the physical reality is sum negative (hi-cloud albedo effect).

    Just another example of many, where they are left with their asses hanging out with basic infantile errors and some flawed assumptions with less reliability than wild ass random guesses.

    This warmth is nothing unusual., the models are falsified, let the chips fall where they may . . (Entire physics presentation available http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/ . . )

  339. Perhaps Caesar, during the Roman warm period, should have convened his own IPCC so Cicero could wax romantic about the “damaged” Glaciers.

    Would have been just as effective as the information immune chumps whining today. . . .

    When the cold climate change came and drove the Romans back south from Hadrian’s wall ,, and the climate dislocated populations south after them ,,, at least Ciseros Roman IPCC could announce he had saved the Glaciers !

  340. @Raymond that’s a pretty impressive Gish Gallop you’ve given us there.

    I see you’ve posted a lot of links to the GISP2 ice core record. That’s a pretty common contrarian meme, so if you don’t know why it’s wrong then you’re probably not an honest participant in the debate.

    (The most recent point on that record is 1855, so not exactly “you are here”, unless anyone is in fact reading this from 1855 Greenland.)

  341. Pumpkin,, bah,, your hand waving attempting to show that something i posted attempted to say what i never said.
    Besides, anyone with an IQ above a turnip knows that your not going to get much about recent climate from ice cores,, that we might eke out any overlap at all with our instrumental record, would be quite a feat imo , , ,
    Intellectual honesty please, and the manic desperation of a drowning man, is no excuse.

  342. @Raymond you said

    Medieval warmer than the Modern
    Roman warmer than the Medieval
    Minoan warmer than the Roman

    And then posted a bunch of links to misleading plots of the GISP2 core.

    If I’ve misinterpreted what you said, then I suggest that you may need to work on your written communication skills.

  343. http://www.principia-scientific.org/review-the-deliberate-corruption-of-climate-science-by-dr-tim-ballreview-the-deliberate-corruption-of-climate-science-by-dr-tim-ball.html . . .

    I point this out, with my commentary below, because i think many of the physics minded might find it amusing . . .

    ///… Are you certain you cant describe it as compressed gas ?
    Compress gas with a compressor it gets hot, this heat isnt due to friction …
    Let the gas in the tank cool, and it will come out starved for heat, fast air tools get cold when you use them … this change in temp is solely a function of its pressure

    In other words, take a cube of air, compress it, its measurable temp increases, take the same cube and expand it 2x in volume above ambient, its measurable temp decreases.

    All 3 states of compression contains the same amount of energy as heat, only the density has changed. Perhaps this explains your gravitationally created temp gradient more easily.
    Notice i ignore any notion of kinetic or potential et al that has anything to do with it ….

    All things being equal, there will be a temp gradient in an air column due to gravitational compression, the gas at the bottom compressed by the mass of the gas above it, and if the heat content by weight was identical top to bottom,, there would be an increasing temp as your measurement point went to the bottom.

    So a gas giant even with less energy as heat, contained per unit of weight, could have a far greater measured temp at sufficiently higher gas pressures.

    He is correct this can explain Venus, where ground level pressures are such that a compressed gas cylinder would float before it reached the ground if it was not crushed.

    And it can explain the Gas giants like Uranus Quite a simple concept really

    if you had a perfectly insulated and IR reflective airbag and filled it with air at ambient temp on top of a mountain,, , , and you drove down the mountain with it . . its temp would increase with the air pressure and theoretically match the higher temp at the base of the mountain once it arrived there.

    Theres your temp gradient. …///

  344. ///…Two recent papers, one is in Earth-Science Reviews and the
    other is in Chinese Science Bulletin, have studied key chemical contents
    in micro-drilled giant clams shells and coral samples to demonstrate
    that in the South China Sea the warm period of the Middle Ages was
    warmer than the present. …///
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825214002232 . . .
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11434-014-0317-3 . . .

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/05/hottest-year-ever-giant-clam-reveals-middle-ages-were-warmer-than-today/
    . . .

  345. “Raymond isn’t worth your time. He’s off in flat earth territory…”

    And so yet another warmist refuses to engage with skeptics armed with facts.

  346. @Jay: Raymond (Moyer, not esr) isn’t actually engaging though. He’s just spamming a whole bunch of links and shows no interest in discussing them.

  347. At the same time I found this thread, I happened to be reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar, from which I remind its author of the following observation about the difference between debugging proprietary and open source software.

    One key to understanding is to realize exactly why it is that the kind of bug report non-source-aware users normally turn in tends not to be very useful. Non-source-aware users tend to report only surface symptoms; they take their environment for granted, so they (a) omit critical background data, and (b) seldom include a reliable recipe for reproducing the bug.

    It’s obvious that nobody participating in this discussion is contributing code to any climate models, so the most significant role any of you might attain is debugger, if you put in a lot more effort to offer constructive, substantive feedback. It is not valid to look down from 30,000 feet, observe something contrary to your intuition, and on that basis alone declare the entire project a failure as the presumptuous OP has done.

    As a coder, would you thank a tester for the feedback “it’s broke, you suck!” or would you dismiss them out of hand for such useless, juvenile behavior?

    You’re acting like script kiddies, the lot of you, starting with esr.

    1. >You’re acting like script kiddies, the lot of you, starting with esr.

      Nope. The worst bugs aren’t in the code, but the underlying physics. Even perfect code (which the models certainly are not) gives wrong answers when it’s based on wrong assumptions.

  348. Where it comes to modeling the pseudo-scientific bullshit the hoax is built on, good chance the models are quite adequate.

  349. esr: “The worst bugs aren’t in the code, but the underlying physics.”

    In either this thread or the one about the “error cascade” I noticed you disagree with the magnitude of the water vapor feedback. (And that by itself would make a big difference if it was wrong, but unfortunately, it isn’t.) So far that is all I know about what you believe that at least 97% of professional climate scientists have all gotten wrong about the underlying physics. Anything else?

  350. “97% of professional climate scientists”

    Blogger Threatened for Exposing 97% “Consensus” Fraud
    http://www.thenewamerican.com/…/18300-climategate-3-0-university-threaten...
    May 20, 2014 – Climategate 3.0: Blogger Threatened for Exposing 97% "Consensus" Fraud. In what is nearly a replay of the Climategate e-mail …

    New Paper: The 97% ‘Consensus’ And Its Critics | The …
    http://www.thegwpf.org › … › Press Releases
    Global Warming Policy Foundation
    Sep 8, 2014 – Claims of 97% consensus on global warming depend on research described as fraudulent and biased.

    Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring ’97-Percent …
    http://www.forbes.com/…/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-9...
    May 30, 2013 – After taking a closer look at the paper, investigative journalists report the authors’ claims of a 97-pecent

    Blog: Debunking the 97% ‘consensus’ on global warming
    http://www.americanthinker.com/…/debunking_the_97_con...
    Feb 4, 2014 – Debunking the 97% ‘consensus’ on global warming … or another, a fraud is being committed

    New paper: Fraud, Bias & Public Relations – The 97 …
    wattsupwiththat.com/…/new-paper-fraud-bias-publi…
    Sep 8, 2014 – Claims of 97% consensus on global warming depend on research described as fraudulent

    1. >Yep, @Raymond is a good denier parrot. Speaking of bullshit…

      I see a lot of well-supported factual claims from peer-reviewed science in his comments. That’s not bullshit.

      Denying that the IPCC climate models have failed to pass the predictive test, that’s bullshit.

  351. @Rodney, “It’s obvious that nobody participating in this discussion is contributing code to any climate models,”

    Not quite true.

  352. “As a coder, would you thank a tester for the feedback “it’s broke, you suck!” or would you dismiss them out of hand for such useless, juvenile behavior?”

    That “it’s broke, you suck!” is a lousy bug report in no way invalidates the fact that it is indeed broken. That’s all that is required. The burden of proof lies with those advancing the models, not those questioning them. I am not required to produce a better model, only to observe that the existing ones do not meet their own success criteria. (And to answer the criticism upthread: No, I don’t have the math to produce a better model. I don’t have to.)

  353. Predictive tests for models aren’t a pass-fail thing, where the models are either perfect or they’re useless. So the question is which predictive tests have models done well against and which tests indicate shortcomings?

    There’s a lot of focus at the moment on whether the models have matched the particular short term variations of the last decade. But GCMs aren’t designed to predict things like the exact timing of the Southern oscillation.

    Over the time scales that they’re expected to work on, climate modellers have in fact successfully predicted the modern warming.

    1. >Over the time scales that they’re expected to work on, climate modellers have in fact successfully predicted the modern warming.

      Bullshit. This is an attempt to sidestep from a falsifiable test – which has failed – to an unfalsifiable one. If climate models cannot predict on a timescale that can be checked, they are worthless. Non-science.

      Kevin Trenberth admitted privately as long ago as 2009 that the inability of AGW theory to account for the lack of surface-temperature warming was “a travesty”. More recently Judith Curry told the APS that the IPCC models can no longer be reconciled with the data history to within 2% confidence.

      Feynman again: “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

  354. Heh what a load of crap.

    You wont find an honest broker among the hoaxers, because discovery isnt the
    goal . . . all that leftist redistribution crap is,, all the way back to Maurice Strong in Rio.

    Hey,, let us know when it gets warm enough for those Roman period forests swallowed by glaciers return to growing conditions of the trees found in the Glacier ice.

    And the polar tree-lines across Siberia advance to the Medieval Roman Or Minoan extents.
    And the Mountain tree-lines advance to the same . . .

    Ohh and those tree-lines don’t advance overnight,, only sustained long term warmer climate
    advanced them to their Medieval Roman Or Minoan extents.

    Which of course,, confirm the ice cores , , , ,

    You got nothing ., and your hoax is busted . . .

  355. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-14/russia-to-shift-ukraine-gas-transit-to-turkey-as-eu-cries-foul.html . . .

    Eastern and south central Europe has just had its gas supply from Russia suddenly chopped off, there is currently no gas flow from Russia through Ukraine, but supply continues via North Stream into Germany.

    They have a bit of a slightly warmer weather patch in E and SE Europe but it’s going to get interesting as the cold snaps return, as many countries are already saying they have either run out of reserves completely, or will within a couple of days. Multiple countries have reported zero gas flow at present.

    Turk Stream, and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller officially putting Europe on notice “all gas to Europe will now go through Turkey” , , , “now it is up to them to put in place the necessary infrastructure starting from the Turkish-Greek border.”

    If Europe wants gas, they have to deal with Turkey and Greece

    Gee, looks like Europe better get to drilling those frack wells eh ?

  356. Bullshit. This is an attempt to sidestep from a falsifiable test – which has failed – to an unfalsifiable one.

    Hardly unfalsifiable. Hansen’s predictions from the 80’s for example have been around long enough to be proven skilful.

    Both your examples focus on variations during a shorter timescale. Since everyone agrees the models are unsuitable for short term prediction, what’s the point in endlessly discussing short term prediction?

    1. >Hansen’s predictions from the 80’s for example have been around long enough to be proven skilful.

      Bullshit. Hansen thought the West Side Drive in NYC would be halfway to underwater by now. It would require more than a 10-foot sea-level rise before 2040 for his 1988 prediction to come true; meanwhile, actual sea-level rise has not budged off the postglacial trend produced by isostatic rebound, which is about three orders of magnitude too low for that. Yeah, real skillful.

  357. @esr: Why do you think Hansen’s speculation in an interview is more relevant than his actual climate model predictions made in the peer-reviewed literature.

    [Well done though for not getting the time frame on the interview wrong.]

    @Jay: Why would you believe a source that uses the label “Modern warm period” for 1855 data?

    1. >@esr: Why do you think Hansen’s speculation in an interview is more relevant than his actual climate model predictions made in the peer-reviewed literature.

      Those are busted too. The GAT trendline is well below even Hansen’s Case A.

  358. Pumpkin: All right, what would *you* call the period after the end of the Little Ice Age?

  359. @esr: Bullshit. If you bet against Hansen with your solar model back when he made those predictions, he would have won. You’re still committing the fallacy of the excluded middle — in between “perfect” and “useless” there is a continuum of predictive skill. And Hansen’s model was closer to the former.

    @Jay: Are you missing the point? They’re trying to pass off 1855 central Greenland as modern temperatures. That’s dishonest.

  360. Which is it? Either you get multidecadal periods of time to deal with, in which case 1855 Greenland is relevant to the modern era, or else you exclude that and have to deal with the stoppage of global warming over the last 20 years or so. You can’t have that both ways.

  361. @esr “Kevin Trenberth admitted privately as long ago as 2009 that the inability of AGW theory to account for the lack of surface-temperature warming was “a travesty”.

    You’re wrong. He wasn’t talking about AGW at all, he was bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have good enough observational systems to track the flows of energy through the climate system.

    At least get your snark factually correct.

    1. >You’re wrong. He wasn’t talking about AGW at all, he was bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have good enough observational systems to track the flows of energy through the climate system.

      And this is not taking about AGW how? If you don’t have a theory of energy flow that is both generative and predictive, you have no business trying to make forward predictions at all. Any that you do attempt are pure numerological voodoo that can come out right only by accident. The distinction you’re claiming is illusory.

  362. The usual “skeptics” aren’t reading a single one of the references I’ve posted, nor do they go to the primary sources for material – hard-right blogs and op-ed pieces are not primary sources.

    It’s unfortunate that the rationality libertarians (and the like-minded individuals who populate this place) pride themselves on has been abandoned in regards to this subject.

    1. >t’s unfortunate that the rationality libertarians (and the like-minded individuals who populate this place) pride themselves on has been abandoned in regards to this subject.

      “Rationality libertarians” predicted the IPCC models would fail. You did not. Rationality wins.

      On this one issue, the “hard-right blogs” are doing better science than the establishment. This surprises and dismays me, and represents an unforgivably massive failure of the establishment.

  363. @Jay, why is a specific location, the data from which ends 160 years ago, relevant to the globe as a whole?

    That PowerLine article is nonsense. The CO2 concentration in that one chart never gets above 285 ppm, but current measures show us at 400 ppm.

  364. @esr, re: Raymond: “I see a lot of well-supported factual claims from peer-reviewed science in his comments.”

    Wrong. The usual rejectionist blogs (JoNova, GWPF, WUWT, Goddard (!), ClimateAudit, *ad naseum*) are not “peer-reviewed science”.

    They’re crap.

  365. But you’re not answering the criticisms of the various takedowns df the 97% crap, are you, pwatwo? Like, for example, David Friedman’s? His math and arguments are right there on his blog, and he even links to the original author’s reply and his takedown of that.

  366. @Jay, the 97% is a sideshow. It’s not foundational to the underlying science of manmade climate change.

  367. @Jay: Powerline claims that

    In fact, the Earth was warmer than it is now for about 90% of the time since the end of the last Ice Age … So 2014 was far from the warmest year ever. On the contrary, we are living during a relatively cool period.

    They present, as evidence, a graph of central Greenland temperatures that ends in 1855. Note the word “now”, the year “2014”, the phrase “we are living during”. No one here was alive in 1855. That’s 160 years ago.

    I’m not suggesting we exclude 1855 Greenland from the discussion. I’m saying that 1855 != 2014 and Powerline are dishonest for implying otherwise.

    1. >I’m not suggesting we exclude 1855 Greenland from the discussion. I’m saying that 1855 != 2014 and Powerline are dishonest for implying otherwise.

      I would agree with you if patching in the measured post-1855 GAT increase falsified the claims made on the basis of the graph. Since they don’t (that is, the present would still be cool compared to earlier periods on the graph and CO2 is uncorrelated), PowerLine had nothing to gain from dishonesty and we are probably looking at someone’s technical error.

  368. >I would agree with you if patching in the measured post-1855 GAT increase falsified the claims made on the basis of the graph.

    Patching in the increase since 1855 would put the present temperature between the medieval and Roman warm periods. The graph would tell a much different story.

    1. >Patching in the increase since 1855 would put the present temperature between the medieval and Roman warm periods. The graph would tell a much different story.

      No. The Minoan and Roman periods would still have been remarkably warmer than now and – most tellingly – the correlation with CO2 levels would still be absent.

  369. Typical Cultural Marxist Saul Alinsky

    blogs are not peer reviewed papers, ice core proxies are not the current instrumental record etc.
    ,,, i think good terms for that intellectual dishonesty offered as argument is furious hand-waving or what one would call bullshit.

    And it changes nothing, the Mountain and polar tree lines, and Roman dated Forest trees coming out of Glaciers confirm as paleo climate proxies that the warmer periods shown in the ice cores are genuine. we see the same in the south china sea, New Zealand etc.

    The fanciful claims and doomsday predictions made by the hoaxers have all been falsified.
    and we have hard evidence of lies and data manipulation to boot,

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/ . . .
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .
    ///… The new information shows dramatic failure of the Sheep Mountain chronology as an out-of-sample temperature proxy, as it has a dramatic divergence from NH temperature since 1980, the end of the Mann et al (and many other) reconstructions. While the issue is very severe for the Mann reconstructions, it affects numerous other reconstructions, including PAGES2K.” …///

    The last thing they had was the models ,, but they are models of pseudo science fiction.

    The hoax is busted,,, truth will out,,,,, and the public will be demanding heads . . .
    Public wrath,, I am predicting no small amount of public wrath.

  370. You have a very low bar for “remarkable”. And modern temperatures being cooler than a handful of periods is a much different claim from today being cooler than 90% of the graph.

    The CO2 concentration curve was flat over that period, so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t correlate with anything. It’s not flat now, which is why it’s relevant now.

  371. “which is why it’s relevant now.”

    Because some proven wrong physicist ignoring climate hoaxers say it is ?

  372. @esr:

    “Rationality libertarians” predicted the IPCC models would fail. You did not. Rationality wins.”

    They aren’t the “IPCC models”, they’re climate models that have participated in the IPCC assessments, and, they haven’t failed. If you had an inkling of how climate models work (again, Edwards is a good start) you wouldn’t make such ignorant comments.

    “On this one issue, the “hard-right blogs” are doing better science than the establishment. This surprises and dismays me, and represents an unforgivably massive failure of the establishment.”

    They’re not “doing better science”, they’re comforting to your ideology. That’s about it.

    1. >They’re not “doing better science”, they’re comforting to your ideology.

      They’re doing better science because they’re doing what scientists ought to do: abandon a theory when it fails to match experimental data.

      You, on the other hand, are exactly like a cargo cultist – all that fervent belief that if you just have faith and emulate the superficial features of “science” long enough, the warming will return.

  373. @esr… Again, if you knew the theory, accurately, and climate models, correctly, you wouldn’t make such asinine comments.

    Remember what I said about the perfect climate model a week or so ago?

    The warming never stopped. Examine Foster and Rahmstorf (2011):

    http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022

    Abstract: We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr?1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.

  374. Science is incremental, it doesn’t work by naive falsification.

    When theory doesn’t match observations, you quantify the discrepancy and find new hypotheses to explain the difference.

    It’s not enough to handwave that the models aren’t perfect and therefore they’re busted and worthless. Can your “the models are busted” hypothesis explain the medium-term predictive skill of Hansen’s model?

    1. >Can your “the models are busted” hypothesis explain the medium-term predictive skill of Hansen’s model?

      The, um, nonexistent predictive skill? East Side Drive is in no danger. Get back to me when sea levels go up by … oh, I’ll be generous and say five feet.

  375. @Pumpkin, if esr had been around before Einstein’s upgrade of Newton, he would have proclaimed Newton “busted” and “crap” because of the precession of Mercury.

  376. Btw … BEST is garbage, their result is due to data splicing without instrumental drift controls.

  377. @Raymond, is your name actually “Anthony Watts”?

    What are you paid to spread disinformation, or, do you give it away for free?

  378. Who’s doing cargo cult science now? You talk a lot about comparing predictions to data, but when it actually comes to doing it you’d rather ignore the quantitative science and talk about some speculation that hasn’t even had enough time to be tested.

  379. @Jay Maynard
    “And just this morning, Power Line shredded the claim that 2014 is the hottest year on record…”

    Still in denial, are you?
    http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014-warmest-year-in-modern-record/

    There are nice visualizations avilable about the global warming. Should be clear for those who dare to look.

    But we know since Galileo that people will refuse to look because it cannot exist.

    And, obviously, the catchall defense will be that all these scientists are either frauds or delusional.

  380. “quantitative science and talk about some speculation that hasn’t even had enough time to be tested.”

    Mighty big words for a chumped hoaxer groupie that can overlook Roman forests coming out of glacier ice, and Mountain and polar tree lines that prove todays warmth is nothing special,.
    Evidence for that from Alaska across Siberia to mountains in Europe and to the South China sea, and New Zealand…. Confirming the ice cores , , , and proving the hoaxers to be bald face liars, cargo cult hoaxer groupies . .

    We uncovered with the help of climate gate the fraud and dishonesty of the hockey stick, proxies upside down, a single yamil tree, decentered PCA, corruption and Maoist purging passed off as peer review.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=climate+proxies+upside+down . . .
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html . . .

    And now the entire method is entirely irrefutably proven to be bogus and every paper
    corrupted by it is soiled toilet paper.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/ . . .
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .
    ///… The new information shows dramatic failure of the Sheep Mountain chronology as an out-of-sample temperature proxy, as it has a dramatic divergence from NH temperature since 1980, the end of the Mann et al (and many other) reconstructions. While the issue is very severe for the Mann reconstructions, it affects numerous other reconstructions, including PAGES2K.” …///

    You have nothing ,,, notta zilch . . .

    Your lame ass leftist radical Hansen used the trough of the PDO/AMO to create the 70s ice age scare period and ramp back up to create the modern warming hoax period.

    //… The 70s trough … ” .70s ice age scare period”
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .

    The 98 Peak . . . . ” Peak of global warming hoax period”

    Over the AMO hump, what will they call the slide to the next trough ?
    The Al Gore Man-bear-pig minimum ? (south park)

    Two views of the AMO
    http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mann14_1_amo_noaa_kaplansst2.png . .
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ustorprobs.png . .
    (Sea level rates line up with the AMO )
    http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/sea-level/sea-level-australia-new-zealand-rate-change-watson.gif

    And what ya got ,,, busted ass pseudo science models based on a thermodynamics violating radiative fallacy . . http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/ . . .

    You haven got jack , , , ,

    1. >Mighty big words for a chumped hoaxer groupie

      He’s just conforming to the first rule of junk-science advocacy: when a failed prediction is pointed out, change the subject.

  381. You’re the one who changed the subject from Hansen’s successful GCM predictions to his untested sea level predictions. Twice, in fact, as though it were a learned habit to deflect from an inconvenient fact.

    Which failed prediction are you pointing out?

    1. >Which failed prediction are you pointing out?

      All of them. The East River Drive is in not even in half-danger of drowning, and GAT trend is way below even the lower bound of Hansen’s least severe case A. Not a single one of his quantitative predictions for 2015 is still valid. As Raymond says, Hansen’s got nothing except pounding the table.

  382. >The East River Drive is in not even in half-danger of drowning

    This prediction’s still in the future, so it hasn’t failed yet. You understand that it’s based on ice shelf collapse right? So it’s irrelevant that thermal expansion’s not on track. I personally hope it does fail, but since (a) it hasn’t failed yet and (b) it’s not a prediction from his GCM it’s basically a red herring. Bringing it up in a discussion of Hansen’s GCM predictions is just “conforming to the first rule of junk-science advocacy”.

    >GAT trend is way below even the lower bound of Hansen’s least severe case A.

    This suggests to me that you haven’t even bothered to look at Hansen’s predictions. If you had, you’d have seen that Scenario C, not Scenario A is the least severe, and rather than being “way below”, temperatures track Scenario C quite closely.

    And you’re still making the mistake of equating “not perfect” with “completely useless”. Even though Scenario B (the most realistic) overestimates warming, the prediction still has predictive skill (in the formal scientific sense) when compared to reference predictions like “temperature will follow solar changes”.

  383. ///… Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears. … “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” …///

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens-growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/ . . .

    Global Warming Hoaxer James Hansen Denounced as Fraud by Former Boss

    ///… Of all the cheap frauds pushing the global warming hoax, NASA’s profiteering James Hansen is the most shameless, second only to Al Gore himself. Hansen has repeatedly been caught passing phony data. Despite granting 1,400 on-the-job (and on our dime) interviews, Hansen claims to have been muzzled by the Bush Administration. At the same time, he demands prison sentences for those who question the hoax. …///

    “During the past few years, however, it has become clear that 387 ppm (CO2) is already in the dangerous range.” . . . . “The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal fired power plants are factories of death.”

    Former NASA senior scientist Dr John Theon described his association with Hansen:
    “As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research.”

    Theon commented on the unreliability of computer models used by Hansen and GISS to simulate the climate system:

    “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.”
    http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320 . . .

    ///… For the past 30 years, NASA climate scientists under the leadership of Dr. Hansen have demonstrated nearly complete incompetence in forecasting, and they have tampered with data to try to hide their mispredictions. …///
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/ . . .

    changes which Dr. Hansen made to the historical US temperature record after the year 1999. He cooled the 1930s, and warmed the 1980s and 1990s. The year 1998 went from being more than half a degree cooler than 1934, to warmer than 1934.

    Hansen’s recent temperature data tampering is not limited to the US. He has done the same thing all over the planet. Below is one recent example in Iceland, where he dramatically cooled the first half of the century, and warmed the present. He appears to be trying to erase evidence that there was a very warm period in much of the Arctic around 1940.

    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/spectacularly-poor-climate-science-at-nasa/ . . .

    Astronaut and physicist Walter Cunningham expressed his concerns about how some climate scientists have been operating at NASA:

    “In the last twenty years, I have watched the high standards of science being violated by a few influential climate scientists, including some at NASA, while special interest opportunists have abused our public trust.”

    “Many of NASA’s retirees have grown increasingly concerned that GISS, a NASA organization located in a midtown Manhattan office building, was allowing its science to be politicized, compromising their credibility. Our concern, beyond damage to the NASA’s exemplary reputation, was damage to their current or former scientists and employees, and even compromising the reputation of science itself.”

    http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2013/08/james-hansen-s-many-and-varied-furphies/ . . .

    Ya would be interesting is you had anything from that blathering leftist radical proven liar idiot that don’t embarrass himself.

  384. It really is quite shocking they consider a discredited leftist radical idiot Like Hansen . . . . heh.

    Normals would be embarrassed to even bring up his name except as an object of ridicule.
    How far in the fever swamp leftist bubble reality exclusion shield would one need to be ?

  385. James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic – Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’, ‘Was Never Muzzled’, & Models ‘Useless’
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/ . . .

    http://www.sott.net/article/174269-James-Hansens-Former-NASA-Supervisor-Declares-Himself-a-Skeptic-Says-Hansen-Embarrassed-NASA . . .
    ///… Hansen ‘is a political activist who spreads fear’ . . . . Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7 also recently chastised Hansen. “Hansen is a political activist who spreads fear even when NASA’s own data contradict him,” Cunningham wrote in an essay in the July/August 2008 issue of Launch Magazine. “NASA should be at the forefront in the collection of scientific evidence and debunking the current hysteria over human-caused, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Unfortunately, it is becoming just another agency caught up in the politics of global warming, or worse, politicized science,” …///
    Former Boss Rebukes NASA Global Warming Alarmist Hansen
    ….. Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results.
    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/01/28/former-boss-rebukes-nasa-global-warming-alarmist-hansen-agw-skeptic . . .

  386. Winter, it was NASA’s claim that the Power Line article shredded…but of course, you didn’t read it, so you wouldn’t know.

  387. Larger example of the annotated leftist idiot Hansen Climate model graph.
    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01630503884e970d-800wi
    A = Business as usual
    B = Reduced CO2 Growth
    C = CO2 emissions reduced to zero impact by 2000?

    esr >GAT trend is way below even the lower bound of Hansen’s least severe case A.

    Pumpkin@ ///… This suggests to me that you haven’t even bothered to look at Hansen’s predictions. If you had, you’d have seen that Scenario C, not Scenario A is the least severe, and rather than being “way below”, temperatures track Scenario C quite closely.
    And you’re still making the mistake of equating “not perfect” with “completely useless”. Even though Scenario B (the most realistic) overestimates warming, the prediction still has predictive skill (in the formal scientific sense) when compared to reference predictions like “temperature will follow solar changes”….///

    Ya know,, that is a rather intellectually dishonest attempt to refute/Answer ,, what is now Clearly Erics proven fact, , , It shows exactly what he said . . . .

    And “temperatures track Scenario C quite closely” is a clear view of total failure.

    Well unless you agree that todays plot shown to match the Hansen “reduced to zero impact” is evidence (using the hoaxer parrot standards of evidence) that todays CO2 has “zero impact”.

    Hey ,, dont look at us ,, we are not the ones so desperate,,, as to defend that leftist radical “embarrassment to NASA” Hansen idiot and his bogus garbage.

  388. @Raymond, My question remains. Are you paid or do you give it away?

    You’re a whole bunch of denier spamtrolling. Your stuff isn’t even current – rehashes of long-ago-debunked nonsense.

  389. @Raymond
    “Larger example of the annotated leftist idiot Hansen Climate model graph.”

    Yeah, if you don’t understand the science, attack the scientists. The battle cry is “Destroy them!”.

    I have noted this before in Libertarian (USA?) discussions. Instead of getting into the science of the arguments, they want to kill the messenger.

    To paraphrase a favorite of our host:
    Show me your models and data!

  390. Winter

    Hansen is a proven idiot,, the data shows he is an idiot,, he has a long history of idiocy,,, and more of his idiocy is right there in that graph ,,,,, too stupid to understand it ? are you going to make a claim its inaccurate in some way ? no because you cant ,,,

    But you can be seen defending that idiot with a mixture of assert and pretend and pulling crap out of your ass , , , proving your dishonesty ,,, putting your zero integrity on display for all to see ,, , ,

  391. pwatwo: “@Raymond, My question remains. Are you paid or do you give it away?”

    I can’t speak for Raymond, but if I got paid as much as the warmists have claimed I do for posting skeptical messages, I wouldn’t have had to buy a used Mercedes…

  392. And btw,, your in no position to demand anything from us ,,, to point out the hoaxer crap is bogus is all that is required … we have nothing to prove ,,, the facts on the ground like those dated fossil tree-lines and glacier entombed Forests show all that is required to bust this hoax . . . Mutual exclusivity logic.

    The warming hoaxers have nothing,, notta zilch,,,,, Even their stated mechanism is a physics fallacy. http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/ . . .
    But what else would one expect from the mentally perverted left , , ,

  393. http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2010/dec/14dec2010a7.html . . .

    Keigwin states that the northern Sargasso Sea SST “was ~1°C cooler than today ~400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago [the Dark Ages Cold Period], and ~1°C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period).”

    In addition, he says that “because the changes described here for surface waters over the Bermuda Rise are probably typical of a large part of the western Sargasso Sea, they most likely reflect climate change on the basin or hemispheric scale.” Thus, one can have a high degree of confidence that the Medieval Warm Period in this particular part of the world — and maybe a much wider region as well — was significantly warmer than what it is there today.

  394. Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction Clearly Shows the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age,, Ljungqvist, F.C. 2010. A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra-tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia. Geografiska Annaler 92A: 339-351.

    The resulting reconstruction has values at each decade. It shows a clear repeating warm/cool pattern of Roman Warm Period, Dark Ages Cold Period, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and recent warming. This long-term pattern was stated to relate to the 1500-year Bond cycles. Looking at the reconstruction itself, the RWP and MWP were both warmer than the decades from 1961-1990; and the composite proxies do not show rapid warming after 1990. Thus, the study clearly shows that large temperature excursions on centennial scales are real features of the past 2000 years, and that recent warmth is not unprecedented.

  395. Ohh im sure you go to bed at night playing your Al Bore DVD’s

    Once again .. those Roman forests, mountain and polar tree-Iines disprove the hoax.
    But you don’t seen to have the intellect to understand what they mean . . .

    I know what it says to normals when they find a roman forest entombed in a glacier.
    But to a reality immune hoaxer parrot protecting your faith based religion, it means
    nothing does it ,,, it cant register, because your a programed drone told what to think.

  396. A Swedish study found that the planet was warmer in ancient Roman times and the Middle Ages than today, challenging the mainstream idea that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the main drivers of global warming.

    The study, by scientist Leif Kullman, analyzed 455 “radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils” in the Scandes mountains and found that tree lines for different species of trees were higher during the Roman and Medieval times than they are today. Not only that, but the temperatures were higher as well.

    “Historical tree line positions are viewed in relation to early 21st century equivalents, and indicate that tree line elevations attained during the past century and in association with modern climate warming are highly unusual, but not unique, phenomena from the perspective of the past 4,800 years,” Kullman found. “Prior to that, the pine tree line (and summer temperatures) was consistently higher than present, as it was also during the Roman and Medieval periods.”

    Kullman also wrote that “summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present.” The “Holocene thermal optimum was a warm period that occurred between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago. This warm period was followed by a gradual cooling period.”

    According to Kullman, the temperature spikes were during the Roman and Medieval warming periods “were succeeded by a distinct tree line/temperature dip, broadly corresponding to the Little Ice Age.”

    Thats about one of the mountain tree line papers , , , ,

    “And to make this point perfectly clear, Kullman repeats that “the
    pine tree line (and summer temperature) was consistently higher than
    present … during the Roman and Medieval periods, c. 1900 and 1000 cal
    years BP.”” http://www.co2science.org/articles/V16/N50/EDIT.php . . .

    The polar snow line is similar to the snow line on mountains, the elevation where trees stop growing, except instead of being an elevation, it is a location – the northernmost point
    in a given region in which trees will grow.. The polar snow line is well defined, and varies based on global temperature.

    ///… There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century. http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0907975032.txt …///

    Yup the Hockey team was warned about that by the Russians.

    Perhaps if they were not leftist agenda driven reality immune dullards, they would have noticed
    what any normal person can see so clearly , , ,

    In Alaska

    ///… Relics of an old forest have begun appearing amid the melted
    ice. In the past year or so, trees still upright and with roots and bits
    of bark still intact have been exposed by the retreating flow.
    Researchers based at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) are
    studying the emerging forest; they have determined that the tree ages
    range from about 1,200 to 2,350 years old …///

    Warm period trees that was growing there before it got cold and the
    glacier swallowed them up….

    Again,, the truth stares you in the face …. From ice that began
    its retreat when we came out of the little ice age,,, warmth recorded to
    have reached sufficiency in the 1700’s
    http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/melting-glacier-exposes-frozen-forest-20130924 . . .

    But again ,, warming hoaxer groupies are seemingly too stupid to understand what that means

  397. A protective tomb of gravel likely encased the trees more than 1,000 years ago, when the glacier was advancing, Connor said, basing the date on radiocarbon ages of the newly revealed wood. As glaciers advance, Connor explained, they often emit summer meltwater streams that spew aprons of gravel beyond the glacier’s edge.
    A gravel layer about 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) high appears to have encased the trees before the glacier ultimately advanced enough to plow over them, snapping off limbs and preserving the stumps in an ice tomb.
    Researchers have collected pieces of wood to date using radiocarbon dating techniques, and have found that the forest is more than 1,000 years old.
    http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html . . .

    But ,, too bad,, the warming hoaxer groupies are proving much too stupid to understand what that says very loudly and clearly to all normals,,,, anyone who is not afflicted with warming hoaxer chumped groupie idiocy cant see it ,,, but they cannot , , , ,

    It gets seemingly rejected by their fabricated unreality matrix. they seem to have a sort of reality defense screen that protects the delicate sensibilities of the poor concert swooning starstruck teeny-boppers , perhaps mommy will buy them some ManBearPig T-shirts to wear to their Al Bore inconvenient truth concerts.

  398. @Raymond
    Whether or not Hansen is an idiot has nothing to do with his science. Just as the your science is still not worth anything if it is proven that you are not an idiot.

    The fact that William Shockley was an idiot does not make transistors any less effective.

    But the fact that you go for killing the messenger shows clearly that you are not at all interested in the science, but only in advancing a political agenda.

    And about MWP, that is explained nicely here
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm

    A short lecture, you do not get a reliable estimate of the global average temperature when you add only the warm places.

    Nice to see how people for whom no measurement is accurate enough, will jump on any shred of evidence, however ephemeral, when it suits their position.

  399. “you do not get a reliable estimate of the global average temperature when you add only the warm places.”

    You haven’t been paying attention. Every place people have looked at the MWP has been a warm place.

  400. @Jay “Every place people have looked at the MWP has been a warm place.”

    At the same time? Not centuries apart, mind you.

  401. “nothing to do with his science”

    Its that very thing proof of his idiocy,, he wasnt exposed as an idiot marxist radical jerk by his contributions to ceramic pottery of flying kites , , , ,

    As with most 100% liar marxist jerkoffs, the polical is personal and it is everything, and the motivation for the lies and the hoax

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/ Site of proven liars,, nothing they have holds up

    And the treelines prove them wrong anyway ,,, facts on the ground trump lefty bullshit every time
    Those tree fossils are facts ,,, and facts chump hoax.

    The hockey team constructions are proven fabrications, and even if we had not exposed those as frauds ,, the tree fossils prove them bunk anyway.

    Its a point of mutual exclusivity, and the warming hoaxers can make no claims,,,
    all totally busted.

    Once again you show they are beyond your comprehension,, yeah, i see furious hand-waving,,,, but you have nothing but that tiny circle of exposed liars who cannot deal
    with reality any better than you have been able to…

    Ive got all i need .. the hoax is busted,,,,, you have made a chump,,, and any Mid-Wit Normal can see it , , , ,

    Easy to see your frantic panic exertion to ignore them and distract from them from the same sack of non responsive shiny objects ,,,, look ! a squirrel !

    Course,, thats part of leftist brain damage,,, missing mutual exclusivity logic,,, missing because the endless trail of discarded commie causes are only tools, and its not the tools they care about

    ///… “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

    “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” – Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

    “Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.” – Professor Maurice King

    “We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.” – David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

    “The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

    “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

    “Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion
    of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.” – Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

    “My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.” -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

    “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

    “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” -Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment

    “The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” – emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

    “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.” – David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager …///

    We know all about the basis for this hoax ,,, the agenda is dead,,, the hoax exposed

    Your inability to confront those tree lines and ice tombed Forests make you look fundamentally dishonest,, or stupid .. or both . . . they prove my case, and nothing you can present can negate them ,,, they are irrefutable,, and stand alone fact…

    They prove beyond refutation it was warmer in the past . . . . and that the warmth was long and sustained enough to grow forests and advance tree lines north and up.
    And there are confirming facts all over the globe , , , ,

    In contrast .. not ONE damn thing .. not ONE ,, of the warming hoaxers fictions have withstood scrutiny ,,, not a damn one of them,, you got Nothing ,,,

    And i know you got nothing,,, you stand stripped naked ,,, what the hell is a chumped hoaxer parrot thinking he was going to do stepping into the midst of a coven of .1% top percentile nerds ? just what did you think you would accomplish other than providing amusement ?

    Your clearly out of your depth here , , ,

    1. >You’ve managed to pretty much cover all the bases in AGW denier bullshit. Quite an accomplishment.

      …says the winner of junk-science fallacy bingo.

  402. ///…Thanks for the ironic comment. . . You’ve managed to pretty much cover all the bases in AGW denier bullshit. Quite an accomplishment. . . . https://www.facebook.com/ClimateDenialistTalkingPointGame …///

    And yet again … Nothing .. because nothing ,, is what you got . . . .

    But there is plenty of stuff,, if your not a hoax bound chump . .

    ///… The MWP and LIA in the Ross Sea Region of Antarctica . . . Bertler, N.A.N., Mayewski, P.A. and Carter, L. 2011. Cold conditions in Antarctica during the Little Ice Age — Implications for abrupt climate change mechanisms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 308: 41-51.
    The three researchers say their results suggest that “the McMurdo Dry Valleys experienced warm summers, with increased snow accumulation and higher sea surface temperatures in the Ross Sea/Southern Ocean, perhaps accompanied by less sea-ice.” And they report that “a magnetic susceptibility record from Palmer Deep marine core (PD92 30MS) also supports warmer MWP conditions, this time in Drake Passage (Domack and Mayewski, 1999).” In addition, they write that their data are “consistent with an Antarctic-wide assessment of LIA climate,” noting that “New Zealand, which has direct climatic and oceanic links with Antarctica, also displays a cooling that began around AD 1250-1350 and peaked ~AD 1500 to 1650 before recovering at the end of the 19th century (Lorrey et al., 2008),” further noting that southernmost South America also underwent a Little Ice Age climate shift, citing the studies of Koch and Kilian (2005) and Lamy et al. (2001). And with such discoveries continuing to be made at the bottom of the world, there can be little doubt that the warm-cold-warm oscillation of the MWP-LIA-ME has been a truly global phenomenon. …///

    ///… The Medieval Warm Period in Southern South America
    Neukom, R., Luterbacher, J., Villalba, R., Kuttel, M., Frank, D., Jones, P.D., Grosjean, M., Wanner, H., Aravena, J.-C., Black, D.E., Christie, D.A., D’Arrigo, R., Lara, A., Morales, M., Soliz-Gamboa, C., Srur, A., Urritia, R. and von Gunten, L. 2011. Multiproxy summer and winter surface air temperature field reconstructions for southern South America covering the past centuries. Climate Dynamics 37: 35-51.
    The international research team — composed of scientists from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States — write that their summer temperature reconstruction suggests that “a warm period extended in SSA from 900 (or even earlier) to the mid-fourteenth century,” the warmest decade of this Medieval Warm Period was calculated to be AD 1079-1088, as best as can be determined about 0.17°C warmer than the peak warmth of the Current Warm Period.

    The findings of Neukom et al. go a long ways towards demonstrating that: (1) the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon that was comprised of even warmer intervals than the warmest portion of the Current Warm Period, and that (2) the greater warmth of the Medieval Warm Period occurred when there was far less CO2 in the air than there is now, which facts clearly demonstrate that the planet’s current — but not unprecedented — degree of warmth need not be CO2-induced. …///

    ///… The Medieval Warm Period in the Karakorum Mountains of Northern Pakistan
    Treydte, K.S., Frank, D.C., Saurer, M., Helle, G., Schleser, G.H. and Esper, J. 2009. Impact of climate and CO2 on a millennium-long tree-ring carbon isotope record. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73: 4635-4647.
    The end result of the six scientists’ analysis was that “the 1990s are substantially below MWP [Medieval Warm Period] temperatures,” and they state that their reconstruction “provides additional suggestions that High Asian temperatures during the MWP might have exceeded recent conditions,” which finding, in their words, is also suggested by “ring-width data from living trees (Esper et al., 2007).” Consequently, as they state in the abstract of their paper, they “find indications for warmth during the Medieval Warm Period” that imply summer temperatures “higher than today’s mean summer temperature.” …///

    ///… Millennial Climate Variability Along the Coast of the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula
    Andrade, A., Rubio, B., Rey, D., Alvarez-Iglesias, P., Bernabeu, A.M. and Vilas, F. 2011. Palaeoclimatic changes in the NW Iberian Peninsula during the last 3000 years inferred from diagenetic proxies in the Ria de Muros sedimentary record. Climate Research 48: 247-259.
    In the NW Iberian Peninsula, namely the Little Ice Age, the Dark Ages, and the first cold period of the Upper Holocene.” They also add that the lesser proportion of oceanic influence observed between 1250 and 560 cal. yr BP) “coincides with the Medieval Warm Period, during which there was an increase in continental input to both the continental shelf (Mohamed et al., 2010) and the Rias of Vigo and Muros (Alvarez et al., 2005; Lebreiro et al., 2006).” And they add that the colder Dark Ages period was preceded by the “Roman Warm Period.”

    Once again, we find documentation for the millennial-scale oscillation of climate that has alternately brought the Earth both into and out of the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and — most recently — into the Current Warm Period. And during all of these climatic transitions, except for the most recent one, there have been no significant changes in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration, which suggests that the transition out of the Little Ice Age and into the Current Warm Period likely had nothing at all to do with the concomitant increase in the air’s CO2 content….///

    ///… Late Holocene Climate on the Korean Peninsula
    Park, J. 2011. A modern pollen-temperature calibration data set from Korea and quantitative temperature reconstructions for the Holocene. The Holocene 21: 1125-1135.
    Focusing on the late Holocene, and using results obtained from all five pollen data sets, Park found that “the ‘Medieval Warm Period’, ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Migration Period’ were clearly shown,” the former of which is identified as occurring between AD 700 and 1200, the next of which is identified as occurring between AD 1200 and 1700, and the latter of which is identified as occurring between AD 350 and 700. This earliest period is also commonly referred to as the Dark Ages Cold Period; but it is sometimes described as the Migration Period, as Park reports that it was a time “when people migrated southward in Europe because of deteriorating environmental conditions.” …///

    ///… The Medieval Warm Period (and Little Ice Age) in Coastal Syria
    Kaniewski, D., Van Campo, E., Paulissen, E., Weiss, H., Bakker, J., Rossignol, I. and Van Lerberghe, K. 2011. The medieval climate anomaly and the little Ice Age in coastal Syria inferred from pollen-derived palaeoclimatic patterns. Global and Planetary Change 78: 178-187. . . . . The seven scientists say their WAST/COST record “indicates that temperature changes in coastal Syria are coherent with the widely documented warming during the MCA and cooling during the LIA,” the first of which epochs they assign to the period of approximately AD 1000 to 1230, while the latter they assign to approximately AD 1580 to 1850 …///

  403. @esr, your proclamations are to be taken quite lightly because I’ve shown that you’ve been factually incorrect a number of times in your statements.

  404. @Raymond
    “As with most 100% liar marxist jerkoffs, the polical is personal and it is everything, and the motivation for the lies and the hoax”

    I think you are describing your own attitude to “facts” and “truth”.

    Anyhow, he has data and models that are tested and investigated. These hold up, or not, irrespective of his personal opinions. You only have insults and long ago debunked pseudo-arguments.

    @Raymond
    “http://www.skepticalscience.com/ Site of proven liars,, nothing they have holds up.”

    They are clear about their sources. Again, you can check what they write. But you rather kill the messenger than engage the science. You come up with cherry picked examples, they did the hard work and tried to calculate the best estimate of a global average.

    As the coders say, show me the code, or here, show me your models and data. Show they are better and more complete than those gathered by the IPCC.

  405. @esr
    “…says the winner of junk-science fallacy bingo.”

    You do not even understand the CO2 emissions from rainforests in the OP. That makes me doubt you would be able to recognize real science if it stared you in the face during breakfast.

    Actually, I suspect you would look away when it did. Reality can be too much to bear.

  406. The OP is a complete strawman argument. There’s absolutely no effort from esr to compare the observations to what was expected, just a confident proclamation that the results are embarrassing.

    Then there’s this little panchreston:

    Prediction: the tropical high-emission zones will not vanish with the end of spring planting. And the OCO is going to continue producing problems for the AGW religion until and unless the high priests get to ‘correct’ the data before anyone else sees it.

    So the future data will confirm esr’s position, unless it doesn’t, in which case it’s fraudulent. Unfalsifiable much?

  407. “As the coders say, show me the code, or here, show me your models and data. Show they are better and more complete than those gathered by the IPCC.”

    He doesn’t have to. The burden of proof lies with the folks pushing CAGW. Their models have failed, but they refuse to admit it.

  408. @Jay, your definition of “failed” is itself a fail.

    Got around to reading Edwards yet?

    PS – You do realize that the “C” is a moral judgement, not a scientific one, correct? Prolly not.

  409. I don’t need to know how CAGW cultists think models work, much less waste time on several hundred pages of apologia explaining why a model that doesn’t predict anything with any sort of accuracy is nevertheless useful to the point that we should depend on it as justification for wrecking the world’s economies and returning mankind to a preindustrial age.

  410. Just read the MIT Press overview of the book. 552 pages. Da-yum. A lot of words to explain why models that don’t predict what they were designed to predict and are claimed to predict aren’t broken.

    Sorry, but that would be a massive waste of time for me. It would come down to an argument of the form “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”. While every bit of data that comes form sensors might get run through a model before being used, that is not a recommendation for those models’ reliability.

  411. @Jay, thanks for proving you don’t believe in knowledge before passing judgement. I already knew that – but your words proving me right are a nice benefit.

  412. ” They are clear about their sources. ”

    What is on there is page after page of hand waving with a method and style identical seen from you hoaxer groupies . . . http://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/skeptical-science/ . . .
    And often held up for ridicule . .

    ///… C = CO2 emissions reduced to zero impact by 2000 …///
    “PS – You do realize that the “C” is a moral judgement, not a scientific one, correct? Prolly not.”

    Did he just do that ,,, its so dumbf**k stupid ,,, that cant be , , ,

    Heh ,, they ape the behavior profile of the hoax authors.

    They have nothing,, they cant account,, they cant explain,, intellectual honesty is non existent. . . . that is pretty close to proof at this point,, that they are knowingly lying.

    As if its all an act, not about discovery of the truth , but much clear Cultural Marxist style effort to hide it.

    That is what serves as mechanism for reason in these creatures, fact don’t matter, they
    are not utilized as variables for reason or discovery, its the agenda that matters.

    For them,,, all and everything are temporary tools vehicle or leverage to get them to their leftist destination, the only thing that matters to them. Their temporary tools vehicles and levers are of as much concern as all the other piles of filth and garbage you see leftists leave in their wake everywhere they gather.

    Patchouli oil powered barking moon-bats . . . for me, they have pretty much proven they haven’t a clue what the hoax was based on, and have little understanding of their own material.

    Show them a fact that would trigger mutual exclusivity logic in any Mid-Wit normal,
    and it can have as much effect on them as a random passing quark on the other side of town.

    We know these creatures … do we not ?

  413. Raymond, he was referring to the C in CAGW, not case C of Dr. Hansen’s three cases. For what it’s worth…I don’t know if I think that’s a moral judgment or not. After all, the kinds of things that the warmists swear up and down are going to happen to us ll if we don’t destroy our economies in the name of stopping AGW are catastrophic, unless you think that putting East River Drive underwater is a good thing…

    And, pwatwo, you proved a long time ago (see your first comment about “several hours of my time, and it’s not worth it” to explain to me why models that claim to predict aren’t broken when their predictions fail to match reality), you want other people to argue on your turf, even if that means they have to spend real money and hours on wading through long texts.

    Sorry. If you can’t explain succinctly why models that claim to predict aren’t broken when their predictions fail to match reality, then you’re not worth my time.

  414. @Raymond, you’re weird.

    I can lead @Jay to water but can’t make him think. Some things cannot be explained as succinctly as you apparently need.

  415. As Gaylord Nelson put it, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around”. Rather simple truth that rejectionists avoid.

  416. “Some things cannot be explained as succinctly as you apparently need.”

    Is it that, or is it that the succinct explanation leaves you flopping in the breeze without obfuscations to hide the warmists’ economic destruction behind?

    And no, the environment does not own the economy. The environment is a factor in it, to be sure, but MAN owns the economy. It is here to serve us, not the reverse.

  417. esr, regarding Raymond:

    I see a lot of well-supported factual claims from peer-reviewed science in his comments.

    Odd, I only see blogs and editorials. Then again, this thread began by citing wattsupwiththat.com so it’s not as though I’m surprised that your standards are low. I’m just saying, being read by other right-wingers doesn’t make the blogs you read “peer reviewed” in the scientific sense.

    All of them. The East River Drive is in not even in half-danger of drowning…

    That’s one, not “all of them,” and as a story linked above already makes clear, those were Hansen’s own personal remarks and never any prediction of any climate model. You have already acknowledged that climate models routinely show 95% skill — implicitly, while you tried to equate “just under 95%” to “zero” — but it’s still quite clear that you know very well that the models the IPCC uses are far and away better than any competing code, so why are you trying so hard to pretend otherwise?

    1. >you have already acknowledged that climate models routinely show 95% skill

      I acknowledge nothing of the kund, I was referring to the normal 95% confidence test for model confirmation.

  418. @Jay

    “As the coders say, show me the code, or here, show me your models and data. Show they are better and more complete than those gathered by the IPCC.”

    He doesn’t have to. The burden of proof lies with the folks pushing CAGW. Their models have failed, but they refuse to admit it.

    How can you even claim to know that when, by your own admission, you have not bothered to understand how their models work, and you consider it “a massive waste of time for” you?

    552 pages. Da-yum. A lot of words to explain why models that don’t predict what they were designed to predict and are claimed to predict aren’t broken.

    Sorry, but that would be a massive waste of time for me. It would come down to an argument of the form “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”.

  419. Jay

    Ive used your software, looked at your code, you can see a bit of the person in there
    at times, the rest the readers brain fills in with temporary stand in stuff to round out
    the character that is often no basis in reality, but projections of ourselves.
    (about time to look and see how far along the VM370 materials have come)

    My period of code smithing is from the Z80 days, and never got any more complex
    than uart drivers, my own idea of relocatable code is a little number where
    you see DEFB spec’d opcodes and labeled DEFW patch areas, quite simpleton
    stuff from the days when visicalc was 28k of obj.

    Now our hardware has reached so far beyond the arch your code emulates they are
    Like DrWho’s Tardis, Bigger on the inside, 6 cores, 32g of sticks and slackware,
    pair of old quadro cards, three 27″ leds, and the machine of your pimply faced
    dreams of yore . . . I paid 500$ for my first sssd 88k floppy drive when a new tbird cost 8,000$
    and ceramic gold plated 16k drams cost 120$ for a set of 8.

    Looking back the advance has been breath taking, frankly i am a little envious that
    i had to wait 35 years and burn thru all that blood and treasure, while these PFY’s . . .
    Hell my current machine was scrap off ebay, no doubt the 6 core chip, sticks and
    board i picked out because it had two pcie16 slots was all obsoleted gamer hw from
    those PFY’s . . . just aint fair is it , ,

    Well, at least we are not as terminally head f**ked as these hoaxer parrots.
    We were never that dumb, sure, we got RF Burns and melted down new Eimacs.
    Watched 50 Hours of effort blow up in our faces . . . but we were never that dumb.

    Frankly,, im having a bit difficult a time imagining these as real creatures, my high school
    backseat conquests from the days when i had to have her home before 11 were never this dumb. none of my relatives are this dumb. there isnt a human being in my personal experience of life that is this dumb.

    back in the days of 300 baud modems, thru fidonet, … ok perhaps in the days where gopher was the hot thing and html only existed as hypercard on the original mac perhaps on usenet
    you could have found someone this dumb.. before then, The technical hurdles kept them out.

    Blast from the past … . . .

    Message # 1140 (X)
    From :MERRICK JOHNSON 05/05/82
    Town :Sysassist,Houston,Tx
    Subject :Lollipops (tee hee) To:RAYMOND MOYERS
    No I didn’t find my solder lollipop, and besides, my iron broke, something wrong with the heating element, I think. Musta been that saltPETER? I laughed so hard at that Apple when it blew it’s IC load that it turned into a red jonathan… Totally incomprehensible, the only way I can understand it. like, you know man?
    I been mammyjammin Ma Bell, all the live long day… I been working on the telephone, to keep the sleep away… Now it looks like I need to watch what I say… Blue-eyed Merle Society?
    perhaps this would receive less attention:? Blue-eyed Merle Congregation?
    check this out Raymond…All People Push Little Electron Shells Strongly Using Captured Kinetoenergy

    Message # 1155 ( )
    From :MERRICK JOHNSON 05/06/82
    Town :Sysassist,Houston,Tx
    Subject :St80III 2.31 To:LANCE MICKLUS HATERS
    Well, here’s another one to add to your scrapbook of stupid IDIOTIC things that Lance has done to make his program IDable I just found 6 more poll strings, and these were all CPL’ed
    (a.k.a. XOR’ed with 1111111B, 0FFH)… he’s getting smarter… and more devious… but I can still trace through his code. What a whitless… Merrick-eyed Merle Conflagration

    Those were the days eh ? the days before you had to rub up against utter dumbf**kery
    as we have seen on here.

    Ahh new kernel patch https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/patch-3.18.3.xz
    something productive to do , , ,
    a64:/# uname -a
    Linux a64 3.18.2 #2 SMP Sat Jan 10 06:07:24 CST 2015 x86_64 AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1035T

    Hey ,, to have nerd candy like we have today , , , , perhaps the idiots are worth it , , ,

  420. pwatwo: Not only am I not a dominionist, I’m an atheist. My statement is based on a simple fact: we are at the top of the heap when it comes to controlling the conditions under which we live. I see nothing wrong with bending the world to our needs, rather than the reverse.

  421. “you have not bothered to understand how their models work”

    How dumbfucking stupid to you need to be,, to understand the absolute truth that understanding that your are demanding is totally irrelevant.

    And that such a demand is in itself absolute proof of dumbfucking stupidity

    The demand puts a flashing neon TARD sign on your forehead.

    The person your demanding of has working software of quite high complexity and,
    sophistication that reaches the limits of scale for a single author. what you got chump ?

    Its safe to say he can imagine what the models would look like on the inside, so can many here, and so can I.

    All you have done is announce how dumbfucking stupid you are .. to all of us.

  422. @Jay “I see nothing wrong with bending the world to our needs, rather than the reverse.”

    We can bend, to a limited degree, but nature still has the final say. We try to bend too much, and we pay a very heavy penality.

    @Raymond, you’re an idiot.

  423. “@Raymond, you’re an idiot.”

    Easy thing to say ,, but proving how utterly dumbfucking stupid you are beyond all doubt of the sane ,,, You sure put your back into it . . . .

    Look at ya … just look at ya ,,, such a display . . . . heh.

  424. CAGW proponents have bet everything on CO2/H2O positive feedback greenhousing as the link, but … the atmosphere is simply not behaving as though it’s true. This should have been crystal clear as long ago as the grand solar minimum 2008 when GAT followed insolation downwards (as I predicted) rather than CO2 levels upwards (as the IPCC models predicted).

    You are incorrect. A trend toward increase does not require monotonic increase. IPCC models do not predict the complete absence of any single-year fluctuations that correlate with solar output, and therefore the presence of such fluctuation does not contradict those models.

    In fact, while solar output has dropped below average 20th century levels the last several years, global mean temperatures have been above the historical average in every year since 1977, including the most recent/current extended solar minimum, because CO2 and water vapor content in the atmosphere have both been higher than the 20th century average. Since 1998, global mean temperatures have leveled — near record highs and all above average, even while solar output has been below average.

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

    This marks the third time in the 21st century a new record high annual temperature has been set or tied and also marks the 38th consecutive year (since 1977) that the annual temperature has been above the long-term average. To date, including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred during the 21st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

    The fact that you cited confirms that the Sun, CO2, and water vapor are all factors, which is in fact a feature of the IPCC models. Monotonic increase and correlation only to CO2 levels are not features of any climate model, and therefore were red herrings.

  425. I am still waiting for someone to explain how the 800 year lag between when temperatures start going up and CO2 starts going up fits in with CAGW doctrine. And no, simply saying that we are injecting the CO2 now which has never been done before (then why point to CO2 in the past?) is not an answer.

    And even if all the predictions are true, THEN there is the problem that as David Friedman puts it: We can’t sign the sum of the effects.

    1. >And no, simply saying that we are injecting the CO2 now which has never been done before

      You didn’t get the memo? Evil capitalist DNA has special powers not vouchsafed to the healthy natural CO2 emissions of volcanoes and so forth. Healthy natural CO2 is in harmony with Gaia and all living things and lets IR photons slide gently through it. Evil capitalist DNA, on the other hand…

  426. >I am still waiting for someone to explain how the 800 year lag between when temperatures start going up and CO2 starts going up fits in with CAGW doctrine.

    You might find this website useful: http://www.google.com

    (The lag has been explained over and over again, so I suspect anyone bringing it up at this point is more interested in using it as a talking point than actually learning about it.)

  427. AMO ,, 70s ice age scare (with that NASA KOOK Hansen at the center)
    and possible end of current warming hoax period
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ustorprobs.png . . .
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html …///

    And the ramp up that was used to perpetuate this hoax . . .
    (also with that NASA leftist radical KOOK Hansen at the center)

    1976 – Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)
    1977 – Blizzard – What Happens if it Doesn’t Stop? [Book] (George Stone, 1977)
    1977 – The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age [Book] (The Impact Team, 1977)
    1977 – The Ice Age Cometh… (New York Magazine, January 31, 1977)
    1977 – The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)
    1977 – Has The Ice Age Cometh Again? (Calgary Herald, February 1, 1977)
    1977 – Space Mirrors Proposed To Prevent Crop Freezes (Bangor Daily News, February 7, 1977)
    1977 – We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)
    1978 – Ice! [Book] (Arnold Federbush, 1978)
    1978 – The New Ice Age [Book] (Henry Gilfond, 1978)
    1978 – Winter May Be Colder Than In Last Ice Age (Deseret News, January 2, 1978)
    1978 – Current Winters Seen Colder Than In Ice Age? (The Telegraph, January 3, 1978)
    1978 – Winter Temperatures Colder Than Last Ice Age (Eugene Register-Guard, Eugene Register-Guard, January 3, 1978)
    1978 – Little Ice Age: Severe winters and cool summers ahead (Calgary Herald, January 10, 1978)
    1978 – Winters Will Get Colder, ‘we’re Entering Little Ice Age’ (Daily Record, January 10, 1978)
    1978 – Geologist Says Winters Getting Colder (Middlesboro Daily News, January 16, 1978)
    1978 – It’s Going To Get Colder (Boca Raton News, ?January 17, 1978?)
    1978 – Another Ice Age? (Kentucky New Era, February 12, 1978)
    1978 – Another Ice Age? (Reading Eagle, ?February 13, 1978?)
    1978 – Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)
    1978 – The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)
    1978 – An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)
    1979 – A Choice of Catastrophes – The Disasters That Threaten Our World [Book] (Isaac Asimov, 1979)
    1979 – The Sixth Winter [Book] (John R. Gribbin, 1979)
    1979 – The New Ice Age Cometh (The Age, January 16, 1979)
    1979 – Ice Age Building Up (Daily Record, June 5, 1979)
    1979 – Large Glacial Buildup Could Mean Ice Age (Daily Chronicle, June 5, 1979)
    1979 – Ice Age On Its Way (Lewiston Morning Tribune, June 7, 1979)
    1979 – Get Ready to Freeze (Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1979)
    1979 – New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)

    Just how dumbfuck do you need to be to think you can pass crap by us eh ?

  428. During that period, we had issues with our cooling towers freezing up at night
    200 HP pumps with impellers 2 ft in dia, inside an engine block weight of aluminum
    bronze that had never frozen for 20 years had to the thawed out with a salamander
    so that the towers could run in the morning, this continued every winter for some years
    Until the AMO ramp brought the climate closer to the conditions they had operated in
    in decades previous.

    And this newb pimple face hoaxer wants to sell us a load of typical lefty = liar bullshit.

    “above the historical average in every year since 1977”

    Go find a population of useful idiot dullards to sell your transparently intentionally dishonest lies to eh ?

    We don’t mind ignorance, honest brokerage is all you need to be treated with respect..
    But bald faced intentional lies are a damn insult to us … and if your not the source
    of that garbage . . . may i suggest an upgrade on your sources . .

  429. NEW YORK, Wednesday (AAP). — Weather satellites sweeping across the northern hemisphere have come up with a surprise: the permanent snow and ice cap has increased sharply. The finding is cited as one more indication of what some climatologists believe to be a basic change in the world’s climate, a cooling

    In February of 1972 earth-orbiting artificial satellites revealed the existence of a greatly increased area of the snow and ice cover of the north polar cap as compared to all previous years of space age observations. Some scientists believe that this may have presaged the onset of the dramatic climate anomalies of 1972 that brought far-reaching adversities to the world’s peoples. http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull165/16505796265.pdf

    Indeed, less favorable climate may be the new global norm. The Earth may have entered a new “little ice age” There are strong signs that these recent climate disasters were not random deviations from the usual weather, but instead signals of the emergence of a new normal for world climates.

    The really interesting thing about the 70’s Ice Age scare is that all the measures necessary to stop the glaciers from crushing us back then were exactly the same as those we’re now told are necessary to stop global warming: Government “investment” in alternative energy sources; reducing fossil fuel use; developed world transferring enormous amounts of money to the third world as “compensation;” more government-funded “research;” reduced economic output and living standards, etc. etc. Global warming’s the same old scam with a different name.

    “It’s going to get bad…..really really bad.” During the Ice Age Scare of the 1970s, Schneider was one of it’s foremost advocates. He published a book titled “The Genesis Strategy” at this time, warning of the coming glaciation, and wrote glowing a testimonial on the back cover of a popular `Ice Age’ book of the time – (Ponte, Lowell. “The Cooling”, Prentice Hall, N.J., USA, 1976), in which the author claimed that the climatic cooling from 1940 to the 1970s was but the precursor to the main event – the coming Ice Age.

    Schneider was one of the first in the scientific community to warn of the impending Ice Age with this paper – “Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141?

    Hubert Lamb, Director of CRU: “We are past the best of the inter-glacial period which happened between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago… we are on a definite downhill course for the next 200 years.”

    Joh Firor, Excecutive Director of NCAR: “Temperatures have been high and steady, and steady has been more than high. Now it appears we’re going into a period where temperature will be low and variable, and variable will be more important than low.”

    The 46 scientists who gathered at Brown Univeristy, Providence R.I., for a symposium on “The End of the Present Interglacial” agreed that there is evidence of an ominous world-wide cooling of temperatures in the past two decades.

    CIA — “Leaders in climatology and economics are in agreement that a climatic change is taking place and that it has already caused economic problems throughout the world.”

    In the last decade, the Arctic ice and snow cap has expanded 12 per cent, and for the first time in this century. ships making for Iceland ports have been impeded by drifting ice. Chicago Tribune Mar 2, 1975

    Heh Parroting leftist radical hoaxer NASA Garbage without a proper bullshit filter . . .
    Gets em in deep doo doo every time , ,

  430. pwatwo: Then why did TIME in 1974 and Newsweek in 1975 run stories claiming exactly that?

  431. Because given the global cooling hysteria of the 1970s, it’s not at all unreasonable to assume that there was scientific consensus behind it.

  432. @Jay, that’s why it’s not wise to get one’s knowledge of science from the popular mass media, or, today, from blogs. Go to the journals.

    PS – Note what most of Raymond’s “sources” are… Be skeptical.

  433. @esr
    “Healthy natural CO2 is in harmony with Gaia and all living things and lets IR photons slide gently through it. Evil capitalist DNA, on the other hand…”

    I know this is intended as a joke but it is another illustration that you really have no clue about the CO2 cycle in the atmosphere. It is in line with the cluelessness in the OP.

    I posted the calculations on how much CO2 has been produced by humans just from burning fossil fuels since the industrial revolution. Half of it is still in the atmosphere and is enough to explain the observed increase in CO2 levels.

    Vulcanos have emitted orders of magnitude less CO2 during that era.

    But I know. You might be able to solve equations, but you do not understand the numbers. Nothing more than a fetish for 95% significance levels can be seen from you.

  434. pwatwo: “Go to the journals.”

    You mean the warmist journals, that as documented in the Climategate trove are in the iron grip of the warmists, that as a matter of policy reject anything close to a skeptical view, and whose “peer review” process is designed and used to deny skeptical viewpoints and papers any shred of legitimacy? The ones that are used to justify warmism unquestioningly? The ones cheerleading for the perversion of science by government grant money and “progressive” takes on what should be done? Those journals?

    I’d rather read the Communist Manifesto – though it wouldn’t be all that different.

  435. @Jay, I knew you were off the deep end, but you’ve saved me the bother by proving me right all on your own without any help from me. Thanks for saving me the effort.

    What does TRON stand for? Totally Ridiculous Onanistic Nerd?

  436. Yup the ice age scare had made it into the school textbooks of the period.

    I find it amusing the leftist drones of Oceania having purged the peer review process of many journals to become Ministries of Truth, and then demand normals accord them their former authority… Nope .. don’t work that way.

    The left destroys everything they touch, rendering valueless, everything they obtain.

  437. That Roman period forest under the Glacier for example.. the immutable, irrefutable truth of it..
    With mutually confirming Mountain and Polar tree lines.

    It triggers the mutual exclusivity logic in normals,, That roman forest is the immutable exposed constant operand of the XOR operation that warming hoax bits do not survive.

    Proof of core brain defect to sustain belief in the hoax after that .. exposes lies and points out the liars ,,, it really is that simple.

    All normals understand this,, without assertive narration.

  438. @Raymond, do you believe in chemtrails? 9/11 as an inside job? The moon landings were faked? Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim Marxist?

    I’m trying to ascertain the depths of your lunacy.

  439. pwatwo

    That last comment further proof of yours … empty handed, no facts, puling crap out of your ass.

    Worse,, seeming unaware of the terrain where you find yourself deployed . . .
    And just how utterly dumbfuck do you need to be, not to be aware of that ?

  440. @Raymond, afraid to answer? Or, just more of your “empty handed, no facts, puling crap out of your ass”?

  441. “Raymond, afraid to answer”

    Further exposes yourself , , , and your projection rooted in your clear inability to answer.
    The Roman period forest emerging from a glacier, confirming polar and mountain tree lines ,,,

    Immutable fact,,, vs your frantic, panicked, and utterly futile efforts to answer for them.

    And just how dumbfuck would you need to be, not to see that so clearly ?

    Causality logic follows, The warm periods are now proven fact, and you become the question.
    Just how retarded are you ? how mentally defective must one be,, not to understand
    what those immutable facts clearly say ?

    To have no answer for them is normal, to continue on in blind defiance of them does tell us something about you quite unflattering .. but even that ,, you are too afflicted with terminal dumbfuck to see . .

    So your correct there is indeed a creature here being exposed to ridicule, and most of that effort is expended by the ridiculous creature himself.

  442. “@Raymond, about as expected. Semi-coherent with a larding of spittle-flecked spew. Snore.”

    See you did it again ,,,, you seem really young, but that is no excuse . . .

    I built my first killowatt+ HF RF 4-1000A amplifier before completing puberty, and frankly,
    none of my peers my own age had any memorable display of your level of stupidity.

    I would suggest you peddle your cultural Marxist bullshit to those without garages full of electronics parts and home built radio gear, perhaps a venue that is not populated with a assemblage of nerds that wrote their own operating system.

    But even that would clearly be above your mental capacity, no doubt you would be dead
    quickly around my shop, having tangled yourself up in one of my 4000 volt plate supplies.

    You really cant see it,,,, i see some self awareness,, but no situational awareness, and no evidence of functional logic.

    No doubt you have a care giver, a creature unable to survive on his own.

  443. @Raymond, one of these Mom is going to make you clean out her garage and move out of her basement.

  444. @esr

    I acknowledge nothing of the kund, I was referring to the normal 95% confidence test for model confirmation.

    And you said that a certain prediction had recently fallen below 95%, meaning that previously it had been meeting the 95% confidence level. Like it or not, making that observation about just one prediction is an acknowledgement that 95% confidence or greater is common, and falling short of 95% is unusual enough to be noteworthy on the rare occasion that it happens.

    Raymond’s links to blogs do not change the factual global mean temperature as documented on ncdc.noaa.gov and the fact remains that temperatures above average the past several years, while solar output has been below average, is consistent with the scientific consensus. I am not willing to dignify claims “supported” by blogs (Jay & Ray), but I am still hopeful about hearing coherent thoughts from a “climate skeptic,” esr. I would also like to know in detail, what you think is wrong with the role of water vapor in climate models, and why you think so — what specific evidence?

  445. Then why did TIME in 1974 and Newsweek in 1975 run stories claiming exactly that?

    Maybe because it sold copy, and they likely didn’t know any better. It certainly would have been a big story, had it been true. A better question is, why did the author of that Newsweek story apologize for it last month? Another better question is, why did TIME recently have to clarify that a cover, allegedly from the 1970s, was a forgery? The whole article is worth reading, but especially this:

    But the hoax does touch on an important part of climate science — and one that’s often misunderstood by skeptics. Call it the Ice Age Fallacy. Skeptics argue that back in the 1970s both popular media and some scientists were far more worried about global cooling than they were about global warming… A survey of peer-reviewed scientific papers published between 1965 and 1979 shows that the large majority of research at the time predicted that the earth would warm as carbon-dioxide levels rose — as indeed it has.

  446. http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse

    Better stuff there . . . .

    Now lets see you account for immutable fact

    ///… Ancient Forest Thaws From Melting Glacial Tomb
    Sep 20, 2013 – A retreating glacier in Alaska has revealed an ancient forest of what … …///
    ///… An ancient forest has thawed from under a melting glacier in Alaska and is now exposed to the world for the first time in more than 1,000 years. …/// http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html . . .

    Hint for those not fuckd in the head,, you dont grow a forest of trees, or even one tree, overnight ,, , , it was warmer,, and it was warm for a long time . . .

    Irrefutable fact . got it ?

    Here is a Swedish study showing us that the planet was warmer in ancient Roman times and the Middle Ages than today.

    Leif Kullman, analyzed 455 “radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils” in the Scandes mountains and found that tree lines for different species of trees were higher during the Roman and Medieval times than they are today.

    “Historical tree line positions are viewed in relation to early 21st century equivalents, and indicate that tree line elevations attained during the past century and in association with modern climate warming are highly unusual, but not unique, phenomena from the perspective of the past 4,800 years,” Kullman found. “Prior to that, the pine tree line (and summer temperatures) was consistently higher than present, as it was also during the Roman and Medieval periods.”

    Kullman also wrote that “summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present.” The “Holocene thermal optimum was a warm period that occurred between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago. This warm period was followed by a gradual cooling period.”

    According to Kullman, the temperature spikes were during the Roman and Medieval warming periods “were succeeded by a distinct tree line/temperature dip, broadly corresponding to the Little Ice Age.”

    Thats one of the mountain tree line papers , , , ,

    “And to make this point perfectly clear, Kullman repeats that “the pine tree line (and summer temperature) was consistently higher than present … during the Roman and Medieval periods, c. 1900 and 1000 cal years BP.”” http://www.co2science.org/articles/V16/N50/EDIT.php . . .

    Next,,, the polar snow line across Siberia

    The polar snow line is similar to the snow line on mountains, the elevation where trees stop growing, except instead of being an elevation, it is a location – the northernmost point
    in a given region in which trees will grow.. The polar snow line is well defined, and varies based on global temperature.

    ///… There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century…///

    Mann and Briffa can’t claim they weren’t warned. As early as 1998, the very Russian Scientists who Briffa hired to collect the tree ring samples, tried to alert Briffa that the samples didn’t show what they wanted them to show. The difference is, the Russians weren’t measuring tree ring width, their favoured metric was the polar timberline – the northernmost edge of the great Arctic forests.

    According to Rashit Hantemirov, of the Russian Academy of Science;

    ///… According to reconsructions most favorable conditions for tree growth have been marked during 5000-1700 BC. At that time position of tree line was far northward of recent one.

    Unfortunately, region of our research don’t include the whole area where trees grew during the Holocene. We can maintain that before 1700 BC tree line was northward of our research area.

    We have only 3 dated remnants of trees from Yuribey River sampled by our colleagues (70 km to the north from recent polar tree line) that grew during 4200-4016 and 3330-2986 BC.]

    This period is pointed out by low interannual variability of tree growth and high trees abundance discontinued, however, by several short (50-100 years) unfavorable periods, most significant of them dated about 4060-3990 BC. Since about 2800 BC gradual worsening of tree growth condition has begun. Significant shift of the polar tree line to the south have been fixed between 1700 and 1600 BC. At the same time interannual tree growth variability increased appreciably.

    During last 3600 years most of reconstructed indices have been varying not so very significant. Tree line has been shifting within 3-5 km near recent one. Low abundance of trees has been fixed during 1410-1250 BC and 500-350 BC. Relatively high number of trees has been noted during 750-1450 AD.

    There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century. …///

    http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0907975032.txt

    “THERE ARE NO EVIDENCES OF MOVING POLAR TIMBERLINE TO THE NORTH DURING LAST CENTURY”

    Some of Mann’s own colleagues warned Mann about the unreliability of tree rings – this email from Tom Wigley, discussing how his son’s high school project falsified Mann’s research.

    ///… “Also, stationarity is the key. Let me tell you a story. A few years back, my son Eirik did a tree ring science fair project using trees behind NCAR. He found that widths correlated with both temp and precip. However, temp and precip also correlate. There is much other evidence that it is precip that is the driver, and that the temp/width correlation arises via the temp/precip correlation. Interestingly, the temp correlations are much more ephemeral, so the complexities conspire to make this linkage non stationary.” …///

    http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0682.txt

    ///… “Mike there is often no benefit in bandying fine points of emphasis and implication- Hence , I think that what you have already drafted is fine. Do not start to dilute or confuse the issue with too much additional detail. The job , as you state , is to place on record the statement of disagreement with the “science(!)” and spin. To this end , it may also be worth stating in less couched terms that merely eyeballing the relative magnitudes of recent versus prior period(s) of large scale warmth, is in itself very limited as a basis for claiming the reality OR OTHERWISE of anthropogenic forcing of the recent warming , if this is done without reference to the uncertainty and causes of these differences. The points you make to Tom are of course very valid , but do not be tempted to guild the lily too much here – stick with your current content …/// ( continue lying our asses off )

    http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0682.txt

    Tom Wigley’s son’s high school project falsified the hockey stick.

    The latest Sheep mountain study shows the hockey stick disappears, unless you use Mike’s trick of splicing in the thermometer record, to hide the divergence problem.

    The Russian scientists who collected the original tree ring samples, tried to warn Mann he was measuring the wrong metric.

    Yet somehow this nonsensical analysis became a central icon of the climate alarmist movement – and is still widely reproduced by scientifically illiterate alarmists.

    ///…Two recent papers, one is in Earth-Science Reviews and the other is in Chinese Science Bulletin, have studied key chemical contents in micro-drilled giant clams shells and coral samples to demonstrate that in the South China Sea the warm period of the Middle Ages was
    warmer than the present. …///
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825214002232 . . .
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11434-014-0317-3 . . .

    Medieval Warm Period confirmed everywhere in peer reviewed papers outside the control
    of the exposed hockey stick fraudsters
    http://www.nipccreport.org/archive/temperature/mwp.html

  447. Those previous warm periods are a fact,,, warmer than today, and the cold periods in-between had the some effects as well , , , , when it got cold after warm periods , , , stuff like this
    happened . . .

    ///… During the post-MWP cooling of the climate, glaciers in many parts of Europe began to advance. Glaciers negatively influenced almost every aspect of life for those unfortunate enough to be living in their path.

    Glacial advances throughout Europe destroyed farmland and caused massive flooding. On many occasions bishops and priests were called to bless the fields and to pray that the ice stopped grinding forward (Bryson, 1977.)

    Various tax records show glaciers over the years destroying whole towns caught in their path. A few major advances, as noted by Ladurie (1971), appear below:

    1595: Gietroz (Switzerland) glacier advances, dammed Dranse River, and caused flooding of Bagne with 70 deaths.

    1600-10: Advances by Chamonix (France) glaciers cause massive floods which destroyed three villages and severely damaged a fourth. One village had stood since the 1200’s.

    1670-80’s: Maximum historical advances by glaciers in eastern Alps. Noticeable decline of human population by this time in areas close to glaciers, whereas population elsewhere in Europe had risen.

    1695-1709: Iceland glaciers advance dramatically, destroying farms.
    1710-1735: A glacier in Norway was advancing at a rate of 100 m per year for 25 years.
    1748-50: Norwegian glaciers achieved their historical maximum LIA positions. …///

  448. ‘Roid rage?

    Now lets see you account for immutable fact

    ///… Ancient Forest Thaws From Melting Glacial Tomb
    Sep 20, 2013 – A retreating glacier in Alaska has revealed an ancient forest of what … …///
    ///… An ancient forest has thawed from under a melting glacier in Alaska and is now exposed to the world for the first time in more than 1,000 years. …/// http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html . . .

    Hint for those not fuckd in the head,, you dont grow a forest of trees, or even one tree, overnight ,, , , it was warmer,, and it was warm for a long time . . .

    Irrefutable fact . got it ?

    First, enjoy the Internet, where nobody can stop you acting like a three-year-old.

    Second, you do know that there are trees currently growing in Alaska, don’t you? And by the way, that’s considerably north of Juneau, so that article doesn’t prove what you think it proved.

    Third, glaciers melt when the temperature gets:
    (a) warmer
    (b) colder
    (c) more immutable
    (d) dumbfuck

  449. How about you shove your useless proven wrong busted models of physics fiction up your ass ?

  450. @Raymond “How about you shove your useless proven wrong busted models of physics fiction up your ass ?”

    Classy. Careful, Mom will wash out your mouth with soap.

  451. poor Darling with the cowardly pseudonym Rodney McKay

    Thank you for that infantile revelation that trees exist in existing Alaskan forests

    And its easy to comprehend Roman period trees exposed by retreating ice,, in situ trees, covered by ice ,,, and they do indeed show that it is getting warmer now than it was when the ice covered them up.

    And yes .. that does say something and your attempted infantile obfuscation changes nothing.

    And confirmed by the mountain and polar tree lines , , ,

    Your attempt to assert they say nothing .. is fundamental and transparently dishonest
    and an insult to us . . .

    You are out of your depth here,, a chumped dullard to boot ,, so could you please shove your busted ass models of physics fiction up your ass ?

    Here ,, http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/UNC-9-8-2014.pptx
    Perhaps you will learn something . . . then the models wont be based on as much bullshit.

    Until then ,, up your ass they must go . . .

  452. @Raymond, compute the average surface temperature of the Earth assuming an identical atmosphere but with no non-condensing GHGs. Show your work.

  453. What .. the chumped idiot,, that cant deal with physical reality wants me to do his work now?
    What part of “shove your models up your ass” did you not understand ?

    You cant answer for those trees and treelines can you . .. you just cant deal with it …

    Hey .. tuff chit and all that . . .

    See i know ive busted you up,, you just cant cope ,,, absolute proof everywhere, that the physicists are right,, who tried to warn you cultural Marxist agenda driven chumps.

    Your radiative model is a total fallacy, that presentation on the other hand is from the inventor of the guide star laser, among other things, he builds chit that actually works.

    Your here in the company of those, me included, that build chit in the real world that works.
    and your not going to sell your lefty bullshit here.

  454. Rodney, the reason I bring up the TIME and Newsweek articles is because I personally read them when they were published. Yes, I’m an old fart.

    Why did the author of the Newsweek article apologize for it? Because he was in severe danger of being ostracized from “polite society” for handing the skeptics ammunition, that’s why. As recently as a year ago, though, he was standing behind it: “And still, Gwynne notes of his story, “I stand by it. It was accurate at the time.””

    The TIME cover may be forged, but the fact remains that they ran a major article about it in 1974. I remember seeing a cover, and remembered it before seeing the forgery, but since they don’t keep their covers online and I can’t put a finger on a copy, I won’t say it was.

    Oh, and as for 2014 being the warmest year on record: 0.02 degrees C, with an error margin of plus or minus 0.1 degrees C, which makes the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 just 38 percent. And no, that’s not me saying that, that’s GISS director Gavin Schmidt.

    pwatwo: You keep missing the basic fact that the burden of proof lies with the warmists, not the skeptics. We need do no more than point out that the models are BUSTED. Fixing them is not our job. It’s the warmists’.

  455. … and they do indeed show that it is getting warmer now than it was when the ice covered them up.

    Warmer, for example, than the Medieval “warm” period. You’re making progress.

    What part of “shove your models up your ass” did you not understand ?

    The part where pitching a fit like a three-year-old makes the ‘blog “science” that you take on faith because it suits your world view, “irrefutable” and “immutable.”

    Your radiative model is a total fallacy, that presentation on the other hand is from the inventor of the guide star laser, among other things, he builds chit that actually works.

    While laser engineering and computer modeling of complex systems both require advanced mathematical and physical understanding, population inversions and phased emission of photons are not relevant to climatology. To believe that accomplishment in laser engineering implies any expertise whatsoever in climatology is to reveal total ignorance of at least one of those two fields — both in your case, and in Happer’s case it reveals his total ignorance of climatology.

    And unless you’re willing to let ESR perform surgery on you based on his skill at software development, you know better when it comes to any other sphere of expertise to assume that accomplishment in one field automatically implies knowledge of any other. It’s only climate science where you choose to believe experts in any field, except foe the one field relevant to the matters at issue.

    With such cognitive dissonance, it’s no wonder you’re having a meltdown!

  456. edit: “… you know better when it comes to any other sphere of expertise +than to assume that accomplishment in one field…”

  457. “Warmer, for example, than the Medieval “warm” period. You’re making progress.”

    Nope, does not say that, we do not know yet how far up the glacier valley those 1000+ Year old trees go . . . we need far more ice retreat, and that retreat must be sustained
    enough for the trees to refill that valley .. now that the AMO has peaked, it looks like
    we might have to wait for the next cycle, as it continues to warm from the little ice age.

    You really are a dullard eh ? even more clues in the Taku Glacier nearby, but your too dumb
    to notice,, perhaps you should spend 3 days in google earth.

    “irrefutable” and “immutable.”

    You damn right they are ,, not some artifact of the tree ring circus, decentered pca, a single yamil tree, upside down proxies, splicing without instrumental drift controls,,, or models that defy physics.

    ///… While laser engineering and computer modeling of complex systems both require advanced mathematical and physical understanding, population inversions and phased emission of photons are not relevant to climatology. To believe that accomplishment in laser engineering implies any expertise whatsoever in climatology is to reveal total ignorance of at least one of those two fields — both in your case, and in Happer’s case it reveals his total ignorance of climatology. …///

    You just exposed your ass,,, tossed shit all over your face, pulled baseless bullshit out of your ass,, without looking to see first , , , in going to give you time to look for yourself

    We will see how long you wear that flashing TARD sign on your head . . .

    ///… And unless you’re willing to let ESR perform surgery on you based on his skill at software development, you know better when it comes to any other sphere of expertise to assume that accomplishment in one field automatically implies knowledge of any other. It’s only climate science where you choose to believe experts in any field, except foe the one field relevant to the matters at issue. …/// ///…edit: “… you know better when it comes to any other sphere of expertise than to assume that accomplishment in one field…” …///

    Not being a total tard like you, we can have a close peer level conversation with one.
    You again expose your ass, you dont know what kind of people your interfacing with.

    //… With such cognitive dissonance, it’s no wonder you’re having a meltdown! …///

    Heh .. more self exposition … you are just so out of your depth , , ,

    So again ,,, how dumbfuck do you need to be ,, not to understand something so basic

    Earth warms, mountain and polar treelines move Up and North , , , ,
    Earth Cools, mountain and polar treelines move Down and south , , ,
    Take samples, note location, carbon date them.

    Treelines higher and further north than now = Climate warmer than Now . . .

    Irrefutable and immutable .. they are the very definition of.

    Simple to understand, impossible to obfuscate, and it twists your panties in knots

    It shouldn’t, not if discovery of the truth, the very core function of the curiosity of nerds like us
    was your objective . . .

    Exclusivity logic trigger point if your not a total tard, or intentionally dishonest, or both
    I suspect both, terminal dumbfuckage that you cant understand such simple things.
    Or even understand how your display of yourself reflects on you so poorly.

  458. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdYmAo08O4

    I dont post this for the benefit of the hoaxer groupies, they will be too stupid to understand it
    in the middle of downloading it myself,, but it looks like a vid of the Prof, Happer presentation
    with the slides and material . .

    Hopefully it will cover the Co2 radiation physics, and the definitive proof in physics, that the whole thing, the whole basis ,,, is total bullshit, and addresses directly why the models failed.

    Warning ,, it will enhance the glow of the TARD sign on the head of the dullard that just placed it there. ~160mb dl @ 240p

  459. Ok so he didnt address the co2 radiative physics shown in the ppt shown here
    http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/ . . .
    http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/UNC-9-8-2014.pptx . . .
    The key element of failure in the CO2 fallacy
    Far wing absorption from Voigt line profiles does not exist . . .
    Voigt line shapes do not work in far wings . . .
    So the modeled far wing line shapes that define forcing are a fallacy.
    But that is not covered in that video . . . need to find the one where he does . . .

  460. Rodney, the reason I bring up the TIME and Newsweek articles is because I personally read them when they were published. Yes, I’m an old fart.

    Youth is a curable condition we all suffer for a while.

    Why did the author of the Newsweek article apologize for it? Because he was in severe danger of being ostracized from “polite society” for handing the skeptics ammunition, that’s why.

    He gives his reasons, and those aren’t them. “But when the facts change, I change my mind.”

    As recently as a year ago, though, he was standing behind it: “And still, Gwynne notes of his story, “I stand by it. It was accurate at the time.””

    And in that sense, he still stands by it — as a mistake he just lacked the information to avoid at the time. His apology is not for the factual error, but for inadvertently providing fodder to parties using that error disingenuously, to forge “evidence” for a fallacious argument.

    Now, as the author of that story, after decades of scientific advances, let me say this: While the hypotheses described in that original story seemed right at the time, climate scientists now know that they were seriously incomplete… Several atmospheric scientists did indeed believe in global cooling, as I reported in the April 28, 1975, issue of Newsweek. But that was then.
    In the 39 years since, biotechnology has flowered from a promising academic topic to a major global industry, the first test-tube baby has been born and become a mother herself, cosmologists have learned that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than slowing down, and particle physicists have detected the Higgs boson, an entity once regarded as only a theoretical concept. Seven presidents have served most of 11 terms. And Newsweek has become a shadow of its former self.
    And on the climate front? The vast majority of climatologists now assure us that Earth’s atmosphere is not cooling. Rather it’s warming up. And the main responsibility for the phenomenon lies with human activity.

    On the subject of his own motives we must take him at his word, not make up stories that contradict his words but conform with our own views. Both sides can play that game, and the “other side” will never buy it. So cut it out. Deal with the facts, don’t revise them to fit into your preferred narrative.

    “But when the facts change, I change my mind.” That’s true skepticism — not mere “doubt” but refusal to believe, or to disbelieve, on any basis but fact. It was those words that lured me to comment here, but I don’t really see them in operation much.

    Oh, and as for 2014 being the warmest year on record: 0.02 degrees C, with an error margin of plus or minus 0.1 degrees C, which makes the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 just 38 percent.

    URL? And what is the likelihood that 1998 was the warmest year since 1880?

    pwatwo: You keep missing the basic fact that the burden of proof lies with the warmists, not the skeptics. We need do no more than point out that the models are BUSTED.

    That’s not how science works. We all understand (roughly, but well enough to illustrate) the ethical constraints on gathering data for the social sciences. If you’re a scientist and your theory doesn’t fit the data that we are allowed and able to gather, you are not free just to “point out” that we don’t have enough data and declare competing theories “BUSTED” and competing theories just as good, nor to make such declarations because any phenomenon is just too complex, or it’s chaotic, etc. Scientists have to work with the data available and try to construct models that fit them, even when phenomena impose fundamental constraints on the attainable precision of predictions and measurements.

    If scientists want to revise the current consensus in their fields they must make better models, full stop.

    No amount of complaining about the culture, politics, etc. in their field relieves “skeptical” climate scientists of this obligation and as soon as they construct a GCM that makes better predictions, they will have won the argument. But until they have done that, no, the models currently in use by the IPCC, et al are not “BUSTED” nor even in the ballpark. To make that happen, somebody on the “climate skeptic” side absolutely must start to do more than “point out” their opinion that the models don’t work — maybe not you personally, a guy commenting on a ‘blog just as I am, with a day job and other responsibilities, in addition to more enjoyable hobbies competing for our time. I completely understand that and don’t expect you or any other commentators on ibiblio.org to single-handedly construct an AOGCM — but the scientists calling themselves “skeptics” of the consensus are in fact responsible to advance understanding of the topic, for example by providing a model that offers a better explanation of temperature remaining above average even as solar output drops markedly below average, not just “point out” their opinions about the shortcomings of the best models available.

    When I say something like “show me your better model” you, Jay Maynard, (and Raymond Moyers and Eric S. Raymond, et al) are perfectly welcome to reply “somebody else has already done it, and in fact it’s that (person/people)’s work which has convinced me,” just cite real science and not ‘blog noise, please. But when Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, et al (allegedly scientists in the field of climate) claim to have “BUSTED” their peers’ work — as they do claim far more often than their or their friends’ peer reviewed work merits — professional scientific standards require them to prove it in peer reviewed publication, not just “point out” their opinions in ‘blogs that they control.

    When it comes to my peers — on this subject, other folks commenting on the Internet with no presumed publication history in the field, but hopefully with some grasp of the math and physics involved — I only ask that the person you cite is a scientist and the work you cite is peer reviewed. My time is just too valuable to sort through all the misconceptions held by every “skeptical” climate blogger out there, just as I assume yours is too valuable to straighten out every kook on YouTube who has discovered free energy!

    Thank you for staying civil, Jay. It has not gone unnoticed.

  461. No .. we are under no obligation …. we are not the ones proven wrong …. so your theory is shit. we can see its is shit … and your in no position to make claims … either on us .. or on the basis of proven wrong bullshit ..

  462. As Dr happer has pointed out … honesty is required .. and the proven and exposed intentional dishonesty by the hoaxers deserve utter contempt

  463. @Raymond
    “No .. we are under no obligation …. we are not the ones proven wrong”

    But there was no proof of science being wrong. And life is not a Holywood courtroom enactment where a lawyer can convince a jury that black is white and croocked is straight by doing song and dance.

    You do have to come up with substance heavier than mere empty words.

    And it helps when you actually have a grasp of basic chemistry and thermodynamics. A weak point of lawyers and AGW deniers, as the OP and comments here illustrated beyond doubt.

  464. “But there was no proof of science being wrong. ”

    False … exposed as wrong proven wrong and proven liars who knew it was wrong

  465. “You do have to come up with substance heavier than mere empty words.”

    Like Ice covered 1000+ Year old trees ? confirming Mountain and polar tree lines proving it was warmer today in irrefutable immutable fact ,, confirmed again al over the globe from the south china sea to Australia ? that proves those who ignore them as dullards or liars or both.
    Substance that is actually substance as opposed to the busted crap the hoaxers have ?

    “And it helps when you actually have a grasp of basic chemistry and thermodynamics”

    You have shown none, electronics includes chemistry and thermodynamics btw, and dont stop there ,, course your an idiot or you would know that . . .

    ” illustrated beyond doubt. ”

    Your last post exposed you as a dullard ,, and that you are also out of your depth.

  466. Ok ,, so far ,,, not a damn one of the hoaxer groupies can answer for what i have presented…

    And everyone of them has expended great effort in exposing their idiocy . . .

    What does that say ? .. frankly … im a bit surprized … been on forums since 1979 there bouts.
    before the days of fidonet even, when the 8080 Z80 and 6502 was king , ,,

    And ive never come across a collection, or even one ,, that was this dumbfuck stupid
    Now granted, those early days, the cost and technical hurdles kept the dumbfuck of
    the earth out , , , but in the entirety of my 36 years of computer communication . .
    I have never come across anyone as force 11 dumbfuck before , im certain i would
    remember . . . but now 3 or 4 of them as dumbfuck as a sack of hammers.
    do they have puters in live in tard care homes ?

  467. You know .. the most funny part, is that the ground truth of it all, is something very simple…
    Co2 is a log curve, and we are well into the flat , , , ,

    Dr Happer ,, who by the way wrote a warmist paper back in 1982 (Happer et al) that claimed a co2 sensitivity right down the mid line of the current models ,, ((That fact is where Rodneys TARD hat comes from,, hey he said embarrassing chit without looking first, his fault,, ohh and he invented the guide star laser, talented man yup,)) but he is an honest man, he now knows that he,, and the current models,, over-est co2 sens by as much as 4X, and as the concentration goes up the divergence will get worse and worse … amazing what talent and honesty will do . . .

    The truth is right there . ..
    http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/ . . .
    And a nice laypersons presentation right there.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdYmAo08O4 . . .

    Course we have had ice ages during 8000 ppm,, the first bypedal primates walked the earth during 3000 ppm that just might be improbable if the models were right, but they are not..

    Their absorption band lines are wrong, you don’t have active wings at the band edges,,
    and that defines a highly logarithmic curve . .

    The truth is right there ,,, but clearly, miles above the comprehension of the force 11 galactic scale dumbfuck on exhibit here . . .

    Course ,, those Minoan, Roman and Medieval Mountain and Polar tree lines point that out indirectly , but its only one level of abstraction, so anyone that is a normal and isn’t afflicted with dumbfuck can see that quite easily . ..

    But again .. way above the pay grades of the tard on display here …

    Damn ,, could you imagine what it took to potty train this cluster of shallow frozen dumbfuck ?

  468. @Raymond, repetition of an opinion is not an argument.

    The following is intended for Jay, Eric, and any climate “skeptics” other than Raymond (too childish to dignify with any more acknowledgement, ever) as an example of why, in general, I won’t review ‘blog “science” at all. Even when submitted by ‘bloggers or lecturers with genuine credentials in some scientific discipline, the signal/noise ratio is close to zero. Or if we use signed numbers to indicate truthfulness in that signal, the ratio is a negative number.

    These are just the errors and obfuscations on two of the first four pages of a set of 45 Power Point slides; page 1 was just a cover sheet and 2 was just an assertion of his expertise based on one work with 13 other co-authors, published in 1982. So for pages with any substance, Happer is 0/2 and I have no more time to sort through his dishonesty for whatever little factual content might be there.

    The use of “trend” lines in slide #3 of http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/UNC-9-8-2014.pptx is unscientific.

    If one straight line doesn’t fit the data well at any slope, then scientists may legitimately try sines/cosines for multiple periodic factors, exponential functions for monotonic increase or decrease of increasing or decreasing rate respectively, or polynomials of the lowest degree possible, increasing the degree of the polynomial fitting function until we obtain a decent fit and then try to understand why so many terms are necessary for a fit.

    It is simply not legitimate to decide to treat the data as distinct sets arbitrarily and draw separate straight lines wherever our eyeballs perceive an inflection point. We subdivide data sets only when we have a very good reason, such as knowledge that one or more factors have been introduced to or removed from the system or reached a threshold. But Dr. Happer offers no reason for this choice, either in the slides or in the accompanying talk. He just draws a line with negative slope from a point apparently chosen arbitrarily, or else precisely because it allows him to forge the appearance of a downward trend in a subset of data that he knows full well is too short to speak of a trend.

    Because he is starting with the premise that the models are “BUSTED” and looking only for ways to “reason” toward that preferred interpretation, he cherry picks a few years of data simply because they allow him to draw a line with negative slope, confirming his bias. If this wasn’t so, he would have explained his reason. He offered no mathematical or physical justification for subdividing the data there — no reason at all, in fact. If he was trying to scientifically understand the observation summarized in that graph, he would have tried to identify other factors and use statistics to quantify their contribution to the global mean temperature as actual climatologists do, and as all scientists must in any fields in which they do real work, for publication. But if he had done that, he would not have had a dramatic introduction for the folksy, populist appeals and pseudo-science that followed.

    As I have already explained in more than sufficient detail above, the Sun is a factor whose influence can be observed in the fluctuations, and that in no way contradicts the fact that CO2, CH4 and H20 are the more important factors in the longer term trend. One fluctuation may require improving a model if it’s a significant fluctuation, but it doesn’t negate a trend.

    Regarding slide #4, that graph is cherry-picked from a work of actual scientific research, whose authors do what real scientists do when observations differ from a prediction made by the best available model: they offer possible improvements to the model.

    Another possible driver of the difference between observed and simulated global
    warming is increasing stratospheric aerosol concentrations. Results from several independent datasets show that stratospheric aerosol abundance has increased since the late 1990s, owing to a series of comparatively small tropical volcanic eruptions[8]. Although none of the CMIP5 simulations take this into account, two independent sets of model simulations estimate that increasing stratospheric aerosols have had a surface cooling impact of about 0.07 °C per decade since 1998[8,9]. If the CMIP5 models had accounted for increasing stratospheric aerosol, and had responded with the same surface cooling impact, the simulations and observations would be in closer agreement. Other factors that contribute to the discrepancy could include…

  469. Heh .. now we get started with hand-waving psychobabble . . .
    Transparent Rodney ,,, but that ok ,,, ground truth, is CO2 a log curve ? are the wings active ?
    No 44 Voigt vs measured for example ,,, So,, active wings or not . . . If no absorption from the far wings, then your CO2 warming theory is toast , , ,

  470. @Raymond, you’ve got time to insult, so you’ve got time to finish your assignment.

    Show your work.

  471. “@Raymond, you’ve got time to insult,”

    They were earned,, with much effort . . , ,, Playin it safe eh ? , Nyuk . ..

    Learned something recently, wasn’t aware that plants adjust stomata density
    in response to CO2 levels ,, had read abstracts that mention them as CO2 proxies,
    but the mechanism didn’t click , , , now i understand why plants need less water
    when CO2 levels are higher,,, its because plants lose less water after adjusting
    stomata density in response to higher co2 levels,, less porosity, less water loss.
    so simple, but till recently, not understood by me . . .

    Always a good day when you learn something

    Nap time , , , , those tree lines are hard fact bub ,, leave em out of your reality matrix,, and you are only dumbfucking yourself, and the person that harms is you,, easy way (preferable) hard and painful way (but better than being a dumbfuck) ,, learning the truth is always a positive,,,

    A nerds curiosity that drives him to discover how the universe works from elementary particles to the stars, its the air we breathe ,,, specialization is for the dullards,, you will never know everything, and the more you learn the greater exposed is mans ignorance, new questions come in multiples with every answer . . . but you try anyway,, you cant help it ,, its your nature , , , , ,

  472. @Raymond, it’s OK to admit ignorance of the basics.

    What you’re doing isn’t helping you in the slightest, but it is amusing.

  473. “What you’re doing isn’t helping you in the slightest, but it is amusing.”

    That is so transparent,,, for it to be realistic, you need a evident fulcrum point of pressure, and if its real, you wont need to fake it, and it wont have the appearance of being fake.

    My fulcrum for example, the truth,, self evident truth , , , ,

    Tree lines mountain and polar at higher positions than now = warmer conditions than now.

    Absolute truth .. absolute immutable irrefutable truth that anyone who isnt a tard can see clearly
    without need of explanation ….

    thats as solid and self evident as truth ever gets… It would be a challenge to name real world examples as solid as that no matter the subject.

    Truth so beyond contest,, that it exposes as dumbfuck those who reject it ,,, it is a definitive test for the presence of dumbfuck , ,

    And that too ,,, is self evident to anyone … who isnt a dumbfuck ,, and true dumbfucks of that magnitude are rare . . .

    So you see ,,, no need for me to fake it ,,, no need to pretend ,, be cause i merly point out the self evident ,,, in effect rubbing those failing the dumbfuck test into their own excrement.

  474. @ Winter – “And it helps when you actually have a grasp of basic chemistry and thermodynamics. ”

    Now you’re just being condescending. I have an honors degree in engineering from a top 5 (US) engineering college and have been a registered professional engineer since 1984. In my professional life, I have necessarily been compelled to correct the errors of many a Ph.D who failed to grasp basic chemistry and thermodynamics. The real world is not the ideal world, a reality that seems to escape you.

    1. >Now you’re just being condescending.

      Don’t expect other peoples’ knowledge to stop Winter from declaring them ignorant. It would spoil all his fun.

  475. “The real world is not the ideal world”

    And those mountain and polar tree lines,,,, and those 1000+ Year Old trees under glacier ice.
    Are as real world as it gets . .

    Contrast with decentered pca, upside down proxies,, failed models of physics fiction that have falsified themselves…

    CO2 is a log curve, the far wings of Voigt lines on the absorption bands do not exist in the real world,, verified by experiment ,,, yup the hoax is busted by the real world trumping their ideal world.

  476. @Raymond, thanks for the chuckles. Imagine if you’d spent the time learning instead of parroting. You might even start to be sensible.

  477. Btw Tom. If ya don’t mind , , , hard to explain while im asking, even harder to come up with a reason not to …. any experience working with IGBT’s ?

  478. 1977 – Space Mirrors Proposed To Prevent Crop Freezes (Bangor Daily News, February 7, 1977)

    I wonder if that is an idea that came out of out of nasa during the ice age scare . . .
    Wonder if it even came from Hansen himself . . . heh

  479. >Don’t expect other peoples’ knowledge to stop Winter from declaring them ignorant. It would spoil all his fun.

    There is some irony to this statement, given that you’ve called the OCO-2 data embarrassing to climate scientists without checking to see what they actually predicted.

    1. >There is some irony to this statement, given that you’ve called the OCO-2 data embarrassing to climate scientists without checking to see what they actually predicted.

      Oh, nonsense. Graphs of the predictions ftom the IPCC model sheaf are a dime a dozen.

      I notice that they tend not to include measured GAT lately. Too embarrassing, I guess.

    1. >I’m referring to the OCO-2 measurements of CO2 concentrations, from the OP.

      Ah. But I have in fact found a graph of the predictions for the OCO-2 measurements. It was very, very different, with CO2 maxima over the usual northern-hemisphere industrialized suspects.

  480. >Graphs of the predictions ftom the IPCC model sheaf are a dime a dozen.

    This sort of direct comparison can be very misleading. The CMIP5 ensemble are conditional on a “representative concentration pathway”, whereas real-world observations are obviously a result of real-world conditions.

  481. >Ah. But I have in fact found a graph of the predictions for the OCO-2 measurements. It was very, very different, with CO2 maxima over the usual northern-hemisphere industrialized suspects.

    I’d like to see that, do you have a link? The predictions I’ve seen were fairly consistent with the observations.

    1. >I’d like to see that, do you have a link? The predictions I’ve seen were fairly consistent with the observations.

      I’m pretty sure it was in the Watt’s Up With That story on OCO2.

  482. @TomA
    “I have an honors degree in engineering from a top 5 (US) engineering college and have been a registered professional engineer since 1984. In my professional life, I have necessarily been compelled to correct the errors of many a Ph.D who failed to grasp basic chemistry and thermodynamics.”

    Then you must have crinched when you read the OP? Because, you know, basic chemistry tells you that standing vegetation cannot emit net CO2 without disappearing.

    And in comments to earlier postings, it must have hurt to see how AGW deniers defended heat flowing from warm to cold places.

    But I do not remember you voicing in with your learning there.

    Btw, a PhD does not protect you from errors. I know people with a linguistics, psychology or CS PhD with an incomplete grasps of basic chemistry and physics.

  483. “From warm to cold places”

    This is so stupid, I cannot even write it down. Should be:

    They defended “heat flowing from cold to warm places”

  484. Btw, claiming the increase in CO2 is not antropogenic (which is ridiculous) is part of a well established courtroom strategy: Deny everything.

    That alone shows the deniers are not after the truth about climate change. Because this is a purely disruptive strategy to prevent the truth coming out.

  485. @esr
    “Don’t expect other peoples’ knowledge to stop Winter from declaring them ignorant. It would spoil all his fun.”

    Sorry, but I base my claims of ignorance on observable facts. And I respond in a condescending tone only when I notice people refuse to think (you know how Barbara Tuchman defined fools?). I know it is a guilty pleasure. But I am only human.

  486. One curiosity, some of the commentary on the OCO graphic, seems to assume the graphic is a snapshot in time ( a single instant ) rather than an average . . .

    Being an average between Oct 1 – Nov 11 ,, the argument that plumes that are interpreted as nightly plant out-gassing, seems unlikely. ,, more likely microbial and insect biota.

    Knowing the metadata the avg was constructed from will be helpful . . .

  487. @Raymond
    “Being an average between Oct 1 – Nov 11 ,, the argument that plumes that are interpreted as nightly plant out-gassing, seems unlikely. ,, more likely microbial and insect biota.”

    Think “seasonal”. It also helps if you realize that there is pretty little detritus buried in the soil of tropical rainforests. Unlike, say, in circumpolar permafrost.

    @Raymond
    ““observable facts.”
    Heh . .”

    The fact that you are only now thinking about what these numbers actually are about tells me that my observations were tight. Also the fact that you are still thinking about diurnal rhythms is a hint.

  488. “1700 private jets expected to Davos in Switzerland to discuss climate change”

    It turns out that global warming causes private jets. . . . .

  489. Winter

    More self exposition ,, but thats ok … no my question is about the average, i saw early on
    commentary that seemed odd considering it was presented as an average , , ,

    That was also before i had seen as much proof of dumbfuck and dullardry . .

    If one is to assume the speaker in light of benevolent interpretation, safe bet in the
    time ive spent here in the past, (you bunch busted that rule), then one must assume they had seen meta data, … how many passes ? avg over what time period ? would such even allow for a display of nighttime out-gassing since the observations are daytime,, ok what time of day .
    what is the orbital alt ? how wide is the observation window. .

    Something to allow that interpretation,,,,, otherwise your diurnal explanation is weak,,
    not utterly dumbfuck ,,, but weak ,,, in the realm of possibility, but the way the product
    is presented dont seem to allow for it …

  490. @Raymond
    “Something to allow that interpretation,,,,, otherwise your diurnal explanation is weak,,
    not utterly dumbfuck ,,, but weak ,,, in the realm of possibility, but the way the product
    is presented dont seem to allow for it …”

    I have no idea why you are so fond of the diurnal explanation? My position is that the variation is seasonal. So you should average over years.

    But that is all irrelevant. My point is that you simply do not get how plants (in standing vegetation) relate to the atmospheric CO2 cycle. That is my point from where I conclude you fail in basic chemistry.

    There are quite fundamental laws of physics and chemistry that tell us that averaged over time, plants (standing vegetation) could never emit more CO2 than they absorb.

    It simply makes me dumbfounded that the lot of you cannot grasp this simple fact. I still cannot really believe it. A little voice in my head keeps telling me “they are pulling your leg. it is all part of a joke”. But time and again someone will step up here to prove that voice wrong.

  491. “Btw, claiming the increase in CO2 is not antropogenic (which is ridiculous) is part of a well established courtroom strategy: Deny everything.

    That alone shows the deniers are not after the truth about climate change. Because this is a purely disruptive strategy to prevent the truth coming out.”

    No, Winter. It’s a demand that those pushing the CAGW religion prove every part of their destructive cult. Nothing less is adequate as a basis for depopulating the world and destroying its economies, as warmists demand. The burden of proof lies with you, and no amount of “it’s obvious!” will serve.

  492. @Jay Maynard
    ” It’s a demand that those pushing the CAGW religion prove every part of their destructive cult.”

    Reality can be tough, indeed. But I used the term “ridiculous” because that part will only be disputed by people who do not want to face reality at all.

    Isotope ratios 13/12C show the extra carbon is plant derived. Ratios 14/12 shows it is very old. All explained above. Simply adding tons of fossil fuel burned since the start of the industrial revolution gives you twice the amount of carbon needed to explain the increase in CO2 levels (links above).

    I will not insult your intelligence by explaining why fossil fuels have plant carbon isotope ratios.

    So, what is there still to prove?

    I can understand Joe Random climate denier cannot connect the dots when they overlap, but there are people in the Libertarian and climate deniers camps that know how to interpret isotope ratios. So they are to blame for this disruptive “deny everything” strategy.

  493. “But that is all irrelevant.”

    Not irrelevant to us ,,, once again you forget who your sitting in with, knowing the function of things,, often down to the tiny details. is everything to us … if we are interested, yes that interest is granular, but it is there,, never the less.

    Once you know the basics that all of everything is built on, the ability to understand something you might never have seen before becomes rather automatic. instant interpretations are often amusingly wrong, but thats what makes it fun,, there is always more discovery,

    Course .. if you had been one of us you would understand this,, but wouldn’t have been chumped and punked by this hoax.

    In the early days, before information gathered perhaps ,,, but not in recent times . . .

  494. @Raymond
    “Not irrelevant to us ,,, once again you forget who your sitting in with, knowing the function of things,, often down to the tiny details. ”

    That is the hilarious thing. You obviously do not understand anything about plant carbon cycles. Or tropical forests, for that matter. It is the utter ignorance about basic facts of biology and chemistry that make your responses worthy of a stand-up comedian.

  495. CAM desert plants collect co2 at night, with closed stomata during the day to limit water loss.

    All the rest use some oxygen at night, and give off some co2 , , , ,

    That plume is quite possibly not due to respiration, it looks to me like the other biota could be producing more co2 than photosynthesis can soak up, more measurement is needed, on the ground time series to plot the concentration in the canopy to give us an hourly plot, and then data for a year so see how much variation if any ,, being the only seasons they have is rainy vs dry, and no winter like pause like you have in the temperates. i donno what you are aiming about over “seasonal” when looking at a tropical rain forest.

    If you wanted to see the CO2 seasonal variations, a nice really telling 3d graphic is shown
    in here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdYmAo08O4 . . .
    Im sure he got that from somewhere, .. but certainly the oco will see that as well once
    we get enough passes to map out a years worth of co2 undulations of the seasonally governed temperate zones…

    In the meantime,, lesse,, rainy season,, more cloud less sun ? but no wintery shutdowns like you have further north where leaves fall . . .

    The amazon year is like 24 hour period in vegas in the busy season,,, ,, the city than never sleeps. ..

  496. “Destructive cult”?

    I don’t belong to any “destructive cult”! Do you, pwatwo? Winter? Right, didn’t think so.

    Jay, wherever you got the idea that climate science is a scheme to “depopulate the world” etc., those sources are making it up. Blame them for your nightmares, not the IPCC. Real-world environmentalists are interested in things like how much $/year the average family can save on heating costs with proper insulation and ROI on different solar panels.

    If I wanted to depopulate the world, I’d support business as usual.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udNMqRmqV8
    Jan 24, 2011 – Uploaded by TEDx Talks
    Oceanographer for the U.S. Navy, RADM David Titley discusses the hot topic of climate change, and its …

    What do you seriously think is more likely? The Navy agrees with me because they’re in on the hoax, or because being professionals they have to read real science and not ‘blog “science”?

  497. Winter
    Big words coming from a hoax chumped dumbfuck eh ?
    Look at you … i saw a window of perceptible lucidity .. an you go and ruins it, as Golum complained.

    You really have never been around smart people eh ? no engineers ? only cultural Marxist dullards pretending to do “science” ,, who still drag their dead hoax across the public square long after the agenda behind its cause is irretrievably lost . .

    Must really suck to be you eh ?

  498. Ohh and dont bother us with top down directed govt functionaries under the control of a Saul Alinsky radical Cultural Marxist mentally perverted President fresh off the recent purge of the military.

    They have no trust or authority,, as a source for argument, worthless PC dumbfuckage.

  499. @Raymond
    “That plume is quite possibly not due to respiration, it looks to me like the other biota could be producing more co2 than photosynthesis can soak up, more measurement is needed, on the ground time series to plot the concentration in the canopy to give us an hourly plot, and then data for a year so see how much variation”

    And pray, where is the extra carbon coming from?

    Plants do not respirate it. There are very many studies that show there simply is no appreciable amount of carbon stored in the soil of tropical rain forests. (if you do not believe these studies, dig a hole in the floor of any tropical rainforest yourself). And why would these forest suddenly start to emit massive amounts of CO2 anyway?

  500. @Raymond
    “You really have never been around smart people eh ? no engineers ?”

    Even engineers. But mostly real scientists (the hard stuff), people in various branches in the sciences and humanities (which can be quite hard). Some world famous. But that does not matter. The only thing that matters are the words I write here. And how I can justify them.

    @Raymond
    “Must really suck to be you eh ?”

    Actually, I enjoy it tremendously, every day. Meeting interesting people, being able to do interesting work.

  501. “There are very many studies that show there simply is no appreciable amount of carbon stored in the soil of tropical rain forests.”

    More transparent hand waving distraction . . .

    “And why would these forest suddenly start to emit massive amounts of CO2 anyway?”

    “suddenly start” ? ,,, heh you dont get that one for free either . . . . brain shorting out ?

    Nope ,, there it is ,, a plume shown as average concentration , , , and seemingly too large
    to be the leftovers of overnight respiration …

    So we are left with microbes an insects like termites etc,, too big for animal life, too big for the plants …

    It shows that the Amazon might be a carbon source not a sink,, at least during the average of Oct 1 to Nov 11 . . . and seasonal variations are not expected to be much . . .

    Compare with the relatively small amount see in the supposedly climate wreaking USA,,, and notice where in the USA .. again averaged . . .

    I expect the co2 concentrations in the US to increase and show up in that product when we have a snapshot deeper into winter ,,, saw a nice 3 D graph of that here
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdYmAo08O4
    That i would like to get a copy of , , , Smaller variation in the southern end of the planet, because there is far less biota rich land,,,

    He even made mention of the pressure induced heating of the gravitationally compressed
    air column i mention earlier . . . amused by that a bit ,,, and how it determines where the desert regions are in the down-welling zones of the Hadley cells.

    Nope,, im afraid that nasa graphic,, shows what it shows ,, a rich source of debate and pondering, . . the questions it poses,, equally amusing.

    The JAXA bird showed us the same ,,, https://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/new-satellite-data-contradicts-carbon-dioxide-climate-theory/ . . .

    But the presentation and resolution is so much better on the oco . . . i haven’t downloaded
    any of its large HD .h5 format files yet … bet they are gorgeous.

  502. But hey … perhaps its just because its “burning season” in the amazon .. burning season, something they do when it isn’t the rainy season . . . good ole slash n burn agriculture,,, dwarfing the USA emissions into insignificance ,, , , much amusing . . and “Pave the rain forests!” still quite funny , , ,

  503. Heh .. then how can you be chumped by this hoax eh ? surrounded by govt dullards too dumbfuck to get real jobs ?

  504. @Raymond
    “It shows that the Amazon might be a carbon source not a sink,, at least during the average of Oct 1 to Nov 11 . . . and seasonal variations are not expected to be much . . .”

    Talking about handwaving. Source please. And if you doubt the carbon content of the soil in the Amazon (just one rain forest), why not doubt that there are trees?

    But just so some curious souls might absorb some useful knowledge:

    Why Does Soil Organic Matter Content Differ From Soil to Soil and Change?
    http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informationmodule.php?idinformationmodule=1130447040&topicorder=6&maxto=8

    Nutrient additions to a tropical rain forest drive substantial soil carbon dioxide losses to the atmosphere
    http://www.pnas.org/content/103/27/10316.abstract
    (note the anthropogenic nature of the changes!”

    Land use change and the global carbon cycle: the role of tropical soils
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02186966

    The Tropical Rain Forest
    http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/rainforest/rainforest.html

  505. @Raymond
    “ut hey … perhaps its just because its “burning season” in the amazon .. burning season, something they do when it isn’t the rainy season . . . good ole slash n burn agriculture,,, dwarfing the USA emissions into insignificance ,, ”

    And here is a site that calculates the biomass in forests.

    The yearly CO2 emissions of the USA are 5,300,000 kt (~ 5.3 10^9 t)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

    Ecosystem carbon storage and partitioning in a tropical seasonal forest in
    Southwestern China
    http://www.xtbg.cas.cn/xwzx/kydt/201010/P020101018361876104953.pdf

    The total carbon stock is 303t per ha which corresponds to 1111 ton of CO2. So the USA emission come down to 4.8 M ha of rainforest. The mean area of Amazonian forest lost per year is 22,392 km2 ~ 2.2 M ha.
    (Total area of the Amazon rainforest is around 5,500,000 km2 ~ 550 M ha)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest

    So the annual emissions of the USA alone are roughly twice the annual emissions due to forest loss of the Amazon.

    Even that you could not get right.

  506. @ Winter – “Because, you know, basic chemistry tells you that standing vegetation cannot emit net CO2 without disappearing.”

    This is exactly what I was referring to when I said that you do not understand the difference between the real world and the ideal world.

    Vegetation growth and decay are examples of sophisticated organic chemistry and not “basic” chemistry in any real sense of the word. Under controlled laboratory conditions, many of these fundamental reactions are reasonably understood, but not the macro-scale behavior of entire ecosystems such as the Amazon rainforest and tropical zone. At best, some researchers can attempt gross estimations of behavior, but even these efforts are fraught with uncertainty.

    Your intellectual arrogance in asserting definitive knowledge of such large problems is breath-taking.

  507. @TomA
    “Vegetation growth and decay are examples of sophisticated organic chemistry and not “basic” chemistry in any real sense of the word.”

    Indeed. But mass conservation tells us that if the forest is “standing vegetation”, ie, does not grow or shrink, the amount of carbon fixed in the biomass and detritus should remain constant. That is the average amount of CO2 absorbed and emitted should cancel out on average. The differences are carbon buried in the soil and/or loss of biomass. The former is small to non-existent in tropical rain forests, as all organic matter is recycled. The latter is captured under “standing vegetation”.

    And in these terms, the balance is extremely simple: The difference between the absorbed and emitted carbon is exactly equal to the change in biomass. More basic chemistry is hardly possible. If the change in biomass is zero, the emissions exactly cancel the carbon capture. And that holds for any food web in the forest, however complicated.

    As the OP claimed it was not biomass burning that caused the emission excess, we can thus tell that the balance should be zero averaged over a year.

    @TomA
    “Your intellectual arrogance in asserting definitive knowledge of such large problems is breath-taking.”

    No, the inability to apply basic chemistry to large systems is breath-taking. And these are people who chastise atmospheric scientists for being unable to do proper science. You would fail high school classes in biology.

  508. For those for whom this whole carbon cycle thing is too abstract, here is graphical information:

    Imagine that all the arrows have amounts attached.

    The Carbon Cycle (with numbers)
    https://www.boundless.com/microbiology/textbooks/boundless-microbiology-textbook/microbial-ecology-16/nutrient-cycles-195/the-carbon-cycle-981-5465/

    A nasa movie
    http://article.wn.com/view/2014/07/17/NASA_Kicks_Off_Field_Campaign_to_Probe_Ocean_Ecology_Carbon__p/

    Environmental Chemistry: Carbon cycle
    http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150923/

    Lab 2:The Carbon Cycle-What Goes Around Comes Around
    http://serc.carleton.edu/earthlabs/carbon/lab_2.html

  509. Still trying to explain that co2 plume away eh ? heh … ohh I agree it’s curious … yet there it is. and nothing like it in the industrial nations .. well. sept China …. plume is prob showing an avg down wind of all those coal plants ….. …

    well .. guess all this has got the hoax groupies all pissed off … the agenda is dead .. the public has tuned them out .. and whatever libtard Obama does will be as quickly nullified

    but don’t worry .. co2 is a log curve .. we are in the flat .. and the models will continue to diverge off into never neverland. …

    I can see em now like the deciples denial they knew jesus …. ” ohh global warming ? no not me … I knew it was Crap all along ….. “.

  510. Nope .. sorry .. I’m right about that .. their absorption band lines have the wrong curves on them ….. hey .. tuff chit . and all that ..

    that amazon plume is still interesting tho …

    look at it this way .. emissions in the first world are pretty constant … but burning season is time compressed .. so even if the total is much less .. they can still exceed by rate .. during rainy season ,,, planting growing etc and the fires are out plume should go …..

  511. @ Winter

    No sane scientist or engineer would ever use the term “exactly” as you have numerous times in these posts with respect to large complex open systems and their equilibration. Most of the Dutch engineers that I know are first rate, but you are giving a very bad representation of the Dutch intellectual class.

  512. Well. at the current time .. that’s the only thing that makes sense to me .. if it was biota. then there would need to be a season or cycle where the exported carbon was imported again .. that probably happens to an extent in temperate zones .. but a plume like that ? no .. I’ll stick with burning season .. the total per yr might not be of a scale. If that plume were constant … bit I bet they cut trees at a period .. let em dry so they will burn … quite possible they have a routine .. so yeah .. big plume that dwarfs the industrial nations. but only for a period … only answer that makes sense to me at present. when rainy season comes .. the co2 plume should vanish ..

  513. @TomA
    “No sane scientist or engineer would ever use the term “exactly” as you have numerous times in these posts with respect to large complex open systems and their equilibration.”

    Sigh, excuses. We know the amounts of carbon on earth is for all practical purposes fixed. The carbon going in and out of a forest must be balanced by the change in carbon that resides in the forest and soil.

    The pictures I posted describe this rather well.

    If the biomass in the forest doesn’t change and nothing is buried etc, the in and outflows must match.

    Any other options that matter for AGW?

  514. Course .. that don’t explain the lack of co2 in the states .. and where some of the mild concentrations are. and lack of co2 where we should expect to see it .. perhaps because we have lots of air transport and mixing … while the amazon at present is stagnant ? Europe shows somewhat the same .. heh …. Curiouser and curiouser as Alice said …

  515. @Winter, Raymond means to refer to the logarithmic response of temperature to CO2 concentration. He expects this will be a surprise to you and therefore a big “gotcha” for him. I know this isn’t clear from the text “CO2 is a log curve” which reads like timber that isn’t suitable for milling, but I made the mistake of reading some of the material by William Happer that Raymond linked, and wrong as he is, Happer is at least lucid when he trots out the logarithmic relationship as if he’s revealing a carefully guarded secret. Hope this helps.

    1. >@Winter, Raymond means to refer to the logarithmic response of temperature to CO2 concentration.

      And anybody who didn’t already know this doesn’t belong in the conversation. Jeeeeeez…

  516. Common term of the art Rodney,, course you are a chumped dullard, and dont work around such people i suppose . . . log sin lin dV/dT Tq Q et al

    Twinkle twinkle little star E = I / R . . . .

    Here , , , http://www.galco.com/buy/Westcode-Semiconductors/R400CH12FJO
    I use a lot of those , , ,
    dv/dt (V/microseconds): 200
    I2T@60Hz (A2Sec): 2,300,000
    tq (microseconds): 25 MicroSeconds
    Vdrm (volts): 1,200 Volts
    It (rms) Amps: 2,943 Amps
    It (avg) Amps: 1,448 Amps
    Itsm Amps: 19,500 Amps

    Use more power in a day than every house on your street will use in a year
    Well unless your Al Bore ,,, his light bill is similar ,, abt 20,000/mo i hear.

    And yes,, co2 effect is a log curve, and we are well into the flat , , ,
    The absorption bands (freq spectra) have the wrong response shapes on them.
    verified by experiment.
    So the derived sensitivity is wrong , and too linear.

    And it means over time ,,, the RW/model divergence will get worse and worse , , ,
    Hey .. tuff chit .. and all that . . .

  517. A new satellite imaging technique has allowed scientists to see Amazonian fires burning beneath the jungle canopy, called “understory fires,” which were previously difficult to detect. These fires destroy several times more forest than is taken out by deforestation each year, according to a new study, published recently in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/14/brazil-amazon-rangers-farmers-burning . . .

    Hey perhaps our carbon est due to fires are off a bit , , , ,

    ” several times more ” ? heh ,, well that would account for something eh ?

    Btw ,, did you see all the effort Winter put into discrediting the idea of forests as carbon sinks?

    I found it amusing he was jumping about and up and down about the carbon cycle,,,
    as if nerds are ignorant about that sort of thing ,, (even if we seldom think about it much)

    I didn’t give a damn about any carbon balance, coulda been geo out-gassing for all i care
    ( where is that mine with those gypsum crystals, where its so hot they wear ice cooled
    suits just to be in there 15 minutes?) who knows perhaps cause the magma is so close, we have gas coming right up thru the soil ? even pondered that for a few minutes . . .

    But he did make a point ,, not the one he thought he was making , , , those carbon credits
    for planting trees ,,, well they don’t count do they,, unless the aim is to cut em down
    and bake em into charcoal to lock up the carbon and bury them . . . .

    Hey , , , didn’t the Aztecs do that to improve their soil ? .. i seem to remember something
    about mixing charcoal with soil so it would be able to retain more nutrient, also involved
    certain bacteria ? and they would make plot gardens with this charcoal enhanced magic dirt.

    Ok so plant a tree carbon credits dont count unless you convert em to charcoal and
    send it to the amazon to make magic dirt with that poor soil they have.

    Beware my meandering brain eh ?

  518. “as if he’s revealing a carefully guarded secret” (unknown to the co2 interested climate modelers)

    Humor . . . . Did Rodney just admit the CO2 scare is bunkem ?

  519. Ohh ,,, i think i just figured out another thing that bothers the hoaxer groupies,,,

    I means all these leftist agenda America hating jackbooted Eco-nazis have to go attack farmers in the amazon instead of their preferred target ,, the united states ?
    (bonus point humor)

  520. “And anybody who didn’t already know this doesn’t belong in the conversation. Jeeeeeez…”

    Agreed. You don’t believe Raymond understands what he’s saying, do you? If he did, I would expect him to say it clearly. You know, as if he’s trying to communicate rather than trying to obfuscate.

  521. @esr
    “And anybody who didn’t already know this doesn’t belong in the conversation. Jeeeeeez…”

    I get it. This is like a Harry Potter RPG:

    You throw the Temperatus Logarithmus! spell at me.
    I respond with Exponentiatus! to neutralize it.

    So, I understand that the Lignum in culpa! spell (its the tree’s fault) of the OP has been debunked now with our Ignorarus! spells and we now switch to the next magical spell against AGW?

  522. @Rodney
    “You know, as if he’s trying to communicate rather than trying to obfuscate.”

    No, I think his ramblings sound more like a case of wrong medication or dosage. It is at times utterly incomprehensible.

  523. Winter , , , as i said ,, you have deployed your feet into nerdland , ,
    , hostile terrain for you . . . without survival gear, without a paid translator for the lingo . . .

    Out of your depth, ya know like ,, wrong end of the pool , , ,

    The inability to comprehend the mountain and polar tree lines, and 1000+ year old trees just now merging from under glacier ice . . . and how that destroys the warmist hoax,, yup,,, that showed us plenty about you bunch,, far more than your inability to understand nerdish.

    Debunked the trees as source idea ? that was never an idea, was it? , , , co2 plume where all those trees are ? Its exactly what the oco shows us ,,,

    should i point out the person here who came closest to point out the tress as a possible source ? … ohh that was you wasn’t it ? . .

    Well the trees probably ARE the source after all,, trees on fire, that is . . . .

    Is that determination correct ? ,, well it seems correct, and yet we do need to find
    ground measurement data with hourly granularity and a year of sample length dont we.

    Perhaps the amazon has some dependence on the stagnant air under the canopy, and perhaps that plume is an integral part of its eco system, seems a bit far fetched to me . .
    but hey .. this seems to be the season for surprises

    As for the co2 response curves, i suspect that whole warming hoax effort will be abandoned in time . .

    I suspect the hoaxers you groupies worship, will move on to the acidification thing , , ,

    Btw, oceans are alkaline, and due to large limestone sea beds, are incapable of becoming acidic.

    The threat of a 30% rise in ‘acidity’ ? A solution of pH[1] has 100,000,000,000,000 times more hydrogen ions (acidity) than a solution of pH[14].

    If I had a solution at pH of 8.5 the hydrogen ion content would be 3.2 x 10exp(-9) M. A 30% increase in hydrogen ion content is 4.2 x10exp(-9)M.

    . . . . Converting this to pH becomes . . . wait for this . .8.4 . . Kinda’ makes a mockery of percentage with respect to pH. http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryquickreview/a/phreview.htm . .

    Now I know I’m just an evil oil shill lackey, scientifically moronic, ununderstanding, conspiracy driven republican pontificating the tea party line…

    But … what percentage increase in acidity would be necessary to lower the pH from 8.3 (start) to pure, neutral, distilled water? pH 7.0?

    Want a hint? . . 2000%” . . I guess thats why the hoaxers didn’t lead with that one , , ,

  524. and with that ou put a TARD sign on your forehead … but hey .. it shows that you are indeed dumbfuck enough to be chumped by this hoax ….. a fully commuted “true believer” I suspect ….

    You are just so out of your depth …. perhaps a machocist… and now you also get the blame for that word being entered into the spell checker on my droid phone ….

  525. @Raymond
    This I can understand. But I also understand that insulting only rarely convinces readers of your superior intelectual capabilities. So, unless you are out of your wits already I would advice you to try real arguments.

  526. No ,,,, your intellectual dishonesty is an insult .. to us nerds who value the free exchange of ideas so highly .. a grievous and insufferable transgression … . and yet even that seemed miles above you .. … no .. you earned you remarks .. you put. your back into it

  527. ” real arguments.”

    Further demonstration of your inability to understand them , , , funny,,, you were on the mark
    leaning on the lack of a rainforest to actually export carbon as a normal process, acting as a natural source of it, if lacking a mechanism to replace it . . . . .

    Frankly,,, its the only thing put forward with any support in reality ive seen from you . . .
    And also made a good case against a good portion of the carbon offset scam.. . . the rest of the time, quite often dunderheaded , , ,

    It don’t help that the very basis in the hoax is rooted in dishonesty and deception.
    doctoring the instrumental record, deletion of data to cover up the hoax . . .
    Then repeating ass covering hand wave attempts to cover it up . . thats not how you come to be seen as an honest broker in search of the truth . . .

    Behold the Grievous damage to the scientific method….

    Well welcome to the rise of open source science, joining the world of open source software , , , where only the truth survives, where the dirty laundry is exposed for all to see . . .

    Science could use the boost in quality control ,, now that the left has captured control of peer review,,, its value and authority will go quickly below zero , , what the left touches ,, they destroy . . .

    And you have made a lot of exhibition of how such is rendered into burned out worthless discredit….

  528. @Raymond, “doctoring the instrumental record, deletion of data to cover up the hoax”

    Bald-faced lies, but you’re so far off in la-la-land that your allegations are just utter nonsense.

    PS – Hard to tell if you’re for real or a devastating parody of a AGW-is-all-a-Marxist-plot denier.

  529. Winter

    Ya know what ,, i went and looked again at some of your posts early on, and you were leaning on that early . . . . so ill have to give you some room for aggravation that that case you ware making wasn’t being taken seriously.

    Lots of dunderheadedness in the others … but on that one ,,, dead on target , ,
    So ill give that one to you … Point for Winter , , you have a reputation for spewing crap ?

    Because the only reason i can see for others not seeing that one ,, is that they have
    learned to tune you out, and no longer consider your ideas worth the bother . . .
    Seen that happen all the time , , , , I support your carbon balance argument.

    Therein you have got some things wrong , , , for example

    ” We know the amounts of carbon on earth is for all practical purposes fixed.”

    No it isnt , , , not all Geo out-gassing is subduction volcanoes, where are getting old carbon back, its a very lossy process. . . .We are getting some help , ,the ring of fire, dormant volcanoes are out gassing like crazy up thru the terrain surrounding them, and yet we are in a CO2 famine . . the first primates 80m years ago enjoyed 3000ppm ,, that means plants would grow like they do in greenhouses ,,, many types going extinct that could not adapt to the famine that came later would not surprise . . .

    ,, but then again, perhaps your brain was focused more narrowly, and simply a neuronic misfire, happens all the time , , ,

    Yup ,, i can see reading your posts predating me showing up (in another pane) , , , ,
    Your panties are all in a twist over that carbon balance argument ,, but nobody is paying
    Attention,,

    After i show up,, earlier remarks about my Treeline evidence, i had stopped giving you any working space in my neurons also …..

    You were right about that , , , but everyone had already labeled you an idiot . . .

    Much amusing . . .

    You saw me go thru all the candidates i could think of,, posted all my honest thoughts
    right up front for accolade and ridicule according to deserved merit ,, nerds work
    that way, its our normal modus operandi ,, throw it out there and let everyone else see
    all the ugly holes , , , it how open source software works,, criticism is rendered into
    patch diff files , , , a process familiar to us , , , An alien environment for you clearly , , ,

    I am right about my treelines and 1000+ yr old trees coming out from under glacier ice, they are confirmed by such unexpected things as giant clam shells from the south china sea , , , and they verify what we see in the ice cores . . .

    Today’s warmth aint nothing special, the hockey stick that started this crap is an exposed deliberate fraud and the people that put it forward knowingly lied, deleted data, and are still perverting peer review.

    Their latest effort, they cant publish their final because they were exposed using upside down proxies , , , when that was exposed,, the deleted some of those proxies, and still have not corrected the flawed initial product bandied about to this day , , ,

    In a seeming feverish attempt to recreate a hockey stick that those tree lines confirm as impossible. . . . not the kind of behavior needed to regain their reputation.

    And recent (2008?) evidence from experiment shows that the classical co2 absorption band spectral response curves are wrong,, activity in the far wings of the spectra is nearly nonexistent, the co2 effect on concentrations is logarithmic, and we are well into the flat where ever higher concentrations will have marginal and ever more diminishing effect . . .

    But you are right about your carbon balance argument , , sure i could quibble, but since
    You were talking in the general sense, such quibbles would be intellectually dishonest,
    now wouldn’t they . .

  530. On the mistake in using classical Voigt line shapes for climate models . . . .

    http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/1758603/collisional_effects_on_molecular_spectra.pdf . . .
    ///… In practice, the radiating molecule is usually not isolated but diluted in a mixture at significant total pressure. The collisions among the molecules composing the gas can have a large influence on the spectral shape, affecting all wavelength regions through various mechanisms. These must be taken into account for the correct analysis and prediction of the resulting spectra. This book reviews our current experimental and theoretical knowledge and the practical consequences of collisional effects on molecular spectral shapes in neutral gases….///

    and

    http://lmsd.chem.elte.hu/hrms/Tran.pdf . . .
    ///… It is now well known that the widely used Voigt profile does not well describe the measured absorption shapes of molecular gases. For an isolated optical transition, this is due to the neglect of the collision-induced velocity changes and of the speed dependences of the collisional parameters. Examples of the influence of these non-Voigt effects on the extraction of spectral line parameters from laboratory measured spectra as well as on atmospheric spectra analysis will be presented. …///

    And i suppose this information will reach them eventually , , , because it looks like “it is now well known that the widely used Voigt profile does not well describe the measured absorption shapes of molecular gases.” dont apply to the climate modelers . . . .

    The ramifications are ,,, CO2 effect is logarithmic. and we are well into the flat of the curve , ,
    The emotionally invested,, and those invested with far more at risk, this will be a most unwelcome revelation . . .

  531. @Raymond
    We were discussing the contribution of plants to the increase in CO2 levels. From your flight to radiative physics I conclude that I was right. This contribution is zero. Not more than we get from loss of forests and the carbon in them.

  532. There is a comment in moderation hwere i went back and looked at your earlier posts
    before i showed up … perhaps cause it was too long , , ,
    Basically ,, it says i saw why you were so flustered , , , among other things . . .
    .. yup .. im afraid i would have been just as annoyed . . .
    so .. gotta give it to ya , , on your carbon ballance argument , , ,
    I think you was right all along , , , as close as you can get in setting the proper boundary conditions for thought on the question , , , ,, me .. i wasnt even paying attention till after the fact
    ,, but you made your case early,,, and nobody was listening … much amusing , ,
    seen it happen countless times before. Humans . hmmph, and all that . . .

  533. @Raymond
    Ok, so we were in the same page all along.

    Another prove that comminicating with humans is the hardest thing. Harder than any science. I have to practice more.
    :-)

  534. Regarding the skill of climate models, and especially their overestimation of temperature from 1998-2012, please see page number 42 (the 48th page, including Roman numeral introductory pages). It turns out they also underestimated warming between 1984-1998. Unfortunately, for the longer term predictions that are the real test of these models, they have been very accurate for the period 1951-2012.

    Wake me up when they actually predict the behavior of the real atmosphere rather than issuing a blizzard of the-dog-ate-my-homework excuses for their continuing failure.

    Wake up.

  535. Winter .. those equatorial plumes are all the more puzzling compared to the industrial west.
    and the JAXA sat showed the same ,, but its method and presentation isnt as good.

    The comparisons give your eye a sense of scale that the legend dont on that type of graphic,

    I saw you searching for answers as well, seasonal cycles etc. but the plume is just too massive.
    Location under Hadley cells and boundaries might explain some things, its still a shocking graphic,,, to all of us ..

  536. Rodney

    Yeah ,, wake up,, curve fitting a log response reality aint gonna work.

    The classical band curves are wrong, they are derived from conditions that do not
    fit what you are simulating , , , a discovery that looks to have been made in 2008.

    ,,, the new information seems to be filtering out slowly . . . the classical expressions for
    Lorentzian and Voigt line shapes are wrong,,, and its not just co2, but all the EM effected
    gasses . . . the simple straight line formulas for Del/Co2 = Del/Tp dont work,
    and it means positive feedback theories are in even more trouble..

    Where ice ages are concerned , , sure looks to be some strong Hysteresis effect coupled with that .. but i cant recall the material where that is discussed , , ,

    So the CO2 warming scare is over ,, looks like we have some clues where the modelers went wrong , , , and considering that nothing will be done to cut back CO2 emissions, thats a good thing right ?

    Course, those Mountain and Polar tree lines showed us much of that, the Little Ice age
    Glaciers will continue their retreat, and the warming of the Medieval, Roman or Minoan
    Warming may return , , we dont have jack all to do with those in the past, just like we had nothing to do with most of the modern warming that happened 200 years ago that removed
    the ice from Glacier bay.

    So the hoax is busted, the AMO has peaked, and looks to turn south . . .

    http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mann14_1_amo_noaa_kaplansst2.png . .
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ustorprobs.png . .
    Showing the warm periods of the Australian, (and elsewhere) heat wave tailing the 1850’s – 1900 peak,,,
    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/extreme-heat-in-1896-panic-stricken-people-fled-the-outback-on-special-trains-as-hundreds-die/ . . .

    So we will head back toward the conditions of the 70’s Ice age scare . . . .
    Too bad we wont be able to see the modelers frantically attempting to curve fit
    that one in combination with the Log-Realities of mixed EM active gases . . .

    Its going to turn them into a clutch of screaming frustrated poo tossing monkeys.
    Perhaps they will post the best parts on youtube,, it would get a lotta hits , , ,

  537. @Raymond, you’re getting very repetitive. “Repeat a lie often enough” is very Goebbels-ian.

  538. btw Rodney , , , 1951 is not the peak from the last AMO , , , that came in the 30’s . . So not only is it bogus hind casting ,, but a cherry picking lie , , ,

    Co2 effect, 400ppm – 1Kppm, doubt we will get 2 Deg C, hope you “curve fitters” can keep up,
    cause when the AMO ramps back down,,… heh…… ( btw, its a lagging indicator, Careful ! )
    Nyuk Nyuk . . .

  539. @Raymond
    “Winter .. those equatorial plumes are all the more puzzling compared to the industrial west.
    … but the plume is just too massive. Location under Hadley cells and boundaries might explain some things, its still a shocking graphic,,, to all of us ..”

    What you are claiming is that a tree/plant can emit more CO2 over its lifetime than it absorbs. This not even wrong, it is insane.

  540. “This not even wrong, it is insane.” I agree, go down the thought paths of the biome in total exporting more carbon than it consumes and you reach a dead end pretty quickly eh ?

    So china has been building a new coal plant every 3 days or so for the past decade or so, and they can barely match Oct 1-Nov 11 Avg in the Amazon ? (Rainy season begins in Dec i think?)

    So we have a few extra trillion pounds of termites that month ? The amazon sits on unknown faults or one big massive unknown caldera ? have they done Oil-co type Geo soundings that would tell us about the strata there? the earths crust rises and falls with the tides a bit, something about that do something around the equatorial belt?

    What you can see of the Iceland volcanism looks small by compare . . . what we see of the industrial west ,,, looks like the power plants, transportation etc emissions of the USA and Europe isnt even worth our attention , , ,

    Hey ,,, dont blame me … i didnt have jack all to do with it ,, or my town, county state or country i live in . . .

    So guess the next move is gor the eco-nazies to invade Brazil and shut all the Forest burning right ?

  541. Then after we show the Brazilians at gunpoint how to make charcoal with the trees they cut down to make Azteca magic dirt, then i suppose we go thru equatorial Africa, until our co2 plume chasing takes us to China, and since they have nukes,,, and make groups and individuals disappear into a Laogia Prison if they complain too much, guess we Just have to live with it . . .

  542. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

    Finally found something on the magic dirt i mentioned, saw or read something long ago , , ,
    Anyhow, crushed charcoal is one of its components , , , ,

    ///… Terra preta sites are also known in Ecuador, Peru, French Guiana, Benin, Liberia, and on the South African savannas. Similar dark earth was found in late Roman Britain. …///

    Terra preta’s capacity to increase its own volume—thus to sequester more carbon—was first documented by pedologist William I. Woods of the University of Kansas.[8] This remains the central mystery of terra preta. The processes responsible for the formation of terra preta soils are: Incorporation of wood charcoal,,, Incorporation of organic matter and of nutrients,,, Role of micro-organisms and animals in the soil

    The narrator also called it “magic dirt”

  543. @Raymond
    If you say burning down forest raises CO2 levels, welcome to the club. That has been part of every calculation since the very start in the 1970s. And if you want to include cattle, the same. That was never the point.

    Paving the rainforests is bad, but not as bad as burning all fossil fuels still underground. And the numbers are easy to find:

    http://whrc.org/resources/publications/pdf/HoughtonGCB.05.pdf

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/may/06/carbon-emissions

  544. Looks like the co2 argument is dead … the logarithmic realities will strangle the hoaxers

    but ya .. they are so important as feedstock its a shame to burn hydrocarbons for fuel …. only thing worse is not doing it

    still … when alternatives compete they will sell themselves …

    I do think burning trees instead of charcoaling them to improve the soil is wasteful ….. too expensive ? as for cattle .. that too looks like garbage if the argument is methane …. looks like band edge suppression effects all the I/R gasses .. so another dead end ….

  545. @Raymond, all that verbiage pointing out how you’ve gone wrong and you’re still at square one in your ignorance.

    You should apologize to those who spent the time and effort to set you straight and yet you learned and accepted nothing.

    Speaking of belief unsupported by any facts… Faith is what they call that.

  546. @Raymond
    > The ramifications are ,,, CO2 effect is logarithmic

    Ramifications? That was already well known, since Arrhenius in fact. Rest assured, you have not discovered something new and unknown to the climate science community by browsing blogs.

  547. Muhaha. interesting stuff Heir Rodney … a voigt line is mildly log by definition … but your rates are defined wrong and your pressure broadened Lorenz at zero alt is too flat …so the rate is wrong as well …. but even that don’t describe well the IPCC admission they got the sensitivity wrong … and how wrong they were to curve fit the rising slope of the pdo/amo ….. those illustrations are already done ….. and I’ll post them this eve ….. my gal is doing chemo and rad both today … and I’m not going to do a proper answer from my little droid evo …. but I’ll get to ya …….. material to properly paint the path of hoaxer doom has already been done for me ….. bright feller would know what’s comming …… but the lumen levels seem lower on this thread in particular… seemingly effecting everyone … me included … but das ok …. such brownouts are often temporary

  548. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/24/an-unexpected-admission-from-dana-nuccitelli-at-skepticalscience/ . . .
    Btw ,,, Looks like they are finally looking at the PDO/AMO – ENSO La Niña El Niño et al . .
    Boy are they in deep doo doo . . .

    ” That was already well known, since Arrhenius in fact. ”

    .. pssst “look at the dates” You have a time machine or something ?

    ///… Pressure effects on water vapour lines: beyond the Voigt profile
    Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2012) 370, 2495–2508 doi:10.1098/rsta.2011.0272

    Line shapes beyond the Voigt model are considered, thus now taking ‘velocity effects’ into account. These include both the influence of collisionally induced velocity changes that lead to the so-called Dicke narrowing and the influence of the dependence of collisional parameters
    on the speed of the radiating molecule. Experimental evidence of deviations from the Voigt shape is presented and analysed. The interest of classical molecular dynamics simulations, to model velocity changes, together with semi-classical calculations of the speed-dependent collisional parameters for line-shape predictions from ‘first principles’, are discussed. …///

    ///… Recent results on the modelling of isolated line shapes Ha Tran
    Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques, UMR CNRS
    7583, Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), Université Paris Diderot (UPD)
    Université Paris-Est Créteil, 94010 Créteil Cedex, France E-mail: ha.tran@lisa.u-pec.fr

    It is now well known that the widely used Voigt profile does not well describe the measured absorption shapes of molecular gases. For an isolated optical transition, this is due to the neglect of the collision-induced velocity changes and of the speed dependences of the collisional parameters. Examples of the influence of these non-Voigt effects on the extraction of spectral line parameters from laboratory measured spectra as well as on atmospheric spectra analysis will be presented.

    [1] J.-M. Hartmann, C. Boulet, D. Robert, “Collisional effects on molecular spectra. Laboratory
    experiments and models, consequences for applications”. Amsterdam: Elservier, 2008.
    [2] H. Tran, J.-M. Hartmann, F. Chaussard, M. Gupta, J. Chem. Phys. 2009, 131, 154303.
    [3] N. H. Ngo, H. Tran, R. R. Gamache, J. Chem. Phys. 2012, 136, 154310.
    [4] N. H. Ngo, H. Tran, R. R. Gamache, D. Bermejo, J.-L. Doménech, J. Chem. Phys. 2012, 137, 064302.
    [5] H. Tran, N. H. Ngo, J.-M. Hartmann, R. R. Gamache, D. Mondelain et al, J. Chem. Phys. 2013, 138, 034302. …///

  549. http://polarbearscience.com/2014/12/17/recent-s-beaufort-polar-bear-count-was-a-cherry-picked-result-new-evidence/ . . . more fraud from the hoaxers , ,

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/23/touchy-feely-science-one-chart-suggests-theres-a-phraud-in-omitting-ocean-acidification-data-in-congressional-testimony/ . .
    Even more pHraud,, from the hoaxers , , ,

    Flaw-ulence everywhere, , , , So time machine Rodney ? Modelers knew all about the discoveries predating the papers eh ? .. they went pHorward in time, copied off some papers, went back and plugged the new response band expressions into their “forcing” calculations,,
    Thats what you are telling us i suppose . . .

  550. pwatwo

    Nice link,, enjoyed it,,, especially how it was taken apart in the commentary , , , ,
    Bonus points if he allows the commentary to stand , , , ,
    Ive already dispensed with the acidification crap myself,, done that here ., , ,
    … the pHraud stands , , ,

  551. No time machine. The logarithmic response to CO2 concentration has been well known since the greenhouse effect was first discovered.

    Regarding these new discoveries about Voigt lines you keep mentioning, can you tell me how much that changes the total emission of CO2 in the infrared band, in atmospheric conditions? You seem very confident that those papers require correcting climate models, so I’m sure you can also tell me by how much.

  552. @Raymond, the only thing taken apart is your own credibility.

    Yet another ding against the deniers…

    Forcing, feedback and internal variability in global temperature trends

    Abstract: Most present-generation climate models simulate an increase in global-mean surface temperature (GMST) since 1998, whereas observations suggest a warming hiatus. It is unclear to what extent this mismatch is caused by incorrect model forcing, by incorrect model response to forcing or by random factors. Here we analyse simulations and observations of GMST from 1900 to 2012, and show that the distribution of simulated 15-year trends shows no systematic bias against the observations. Using a multiple regression approach that is physically motivated by surface energy balance, we isolate the impact of radiative forcing, climate feedback and ocean heat uptake on GMST—with the regression residual interpreted as internal variability—and assess all possible 15- and 62-year trends. The differences between simulated and observed trends are dominated by random internal variability over the shorter timescale and by variations in the radiative forcings used to drive models over the longer timescale. For either trend length, spread in simulated climate feedback leaves no traceable imprint on GMST trends or, consequently, on the difference between simulations and observations.The claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Blows apart the denier narrative about climate models being crap because of GMST.

  553. Rodney Dr Happer said from 1.4 – 4 x ,, has Mr Tran nailed down a figure yet ?

    So . . . . Time machine Rodney ?

    Funny part,, we can see how the models are crap, curve fitted to the rising AMO,
    ,,, doomed to depart from reality now that the AMO is turning . . . .
    As for all the bull the modellers are supposed to have known, their rants aver positive
    feedbacks have closed off that direction of retreat . .

    Im afraid your busted ass models of physics fiction are going up your ass . .

  554. pwatwo , , , , yeah looks like the flailing of a drowning man eh ? cherry picking
    the start points of past PDO/AMO cycles , , , , ,

    Best part,,, its gonna get worse , , their attempts to curve fit over the AMO hump ?

    Its going to turn them into frustrated screaming poo chunkin monkeys with climate models shoved up their ass , , , ,

  555. @Raymond, I expected nothing better from you.

    What is it with you and your apparent obsession with the anus?

  556. More Humor . . .
    “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model”
    http://www.scibull.com:8080/EN/abstract/abstract509579.shtml . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/16/peer-reviewed-pocket-calculator-climate-model-exposes-serious-errors-in-complex-computer-models-and-reveals-that-mans-influence-on-the-climate-is-negligible/ . . .
    http://wmbriggs.com/post/15084 . . .

    /// … The paper, Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model, by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, Willie Soon, David Legates and Matt Briggs, survived three rounds of tough peer review in which two of the reviewers had at first opposed the paper on the ground that it questioned the IPCC’s predictions. …///

    ///… Among the errors of the complex climate models that the simple model exposes are the following –

    The assumption that “temperature feedbacks” would double or triple direct manmade greenhouse warming is the largest error made by the complex climate models. Feedbacks may well reduce warming, not amplify it.

    The Bode system-gain equation models mutual amplification of feedbacks in electronic circuits, but, when complex models erroneously apply it to the climate on the IPCC’s false assumption of strongly net-amplifying feedbacks, it greatly over-predicts global warming. They are using the wrong equation.

    Modellers have failed to cut their central estimate of global warming in line with a new, lower feedback estimate from the IPCC. They still predict 3.3 C° of warming per CO2 doubling, when on this ground alone they should only be predicting 2.2 C° – about half from direct warming and half from amplifying feedbacks.

    Though the complex models say there is 0.6 C° manmade warming “in the pipeline” even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases, the simple model – confirmed by almost two decades without any significant global warming – shows there is no committed but unrealized manmade warming still to come.

    There is no scientific justification for the IPCC’s extreme RCP 8.5 global warming scenario that predicts up to 12 Cº global warming as a result of our industrial emissions of greenhouse gases.

    Once errors like these are corrected, the most likely global warming in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration is not 3.3 Cº but 1 Cº or less. Even if all available fossil fuels were burned, less than 2.2 C° warming would result.

    ///… Abstract
    An irreducibly simple climate-sensitivity model is designed to empower even non-specialists to research the question how much global warming we may cause. In 1990, the First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed “substantial confidence” that near-term global warming would occur twice as fast as subsequent observation.

    Given rising CO2 concentration, few models predicted no warming since 2001. Between the pre-final and published drafts of the Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC cut its near-term warming projection substantially, substituting “expert assessment” for models’ near-term predictions.

    Yet its long-range predictions remain unaltered. The model indicates that IPCC’s reduction of the feedback sum from 1.9 to 1.5 W m-2 K-1 mandates a reduction from 3.2 to 2.2 K in its central climate-sensitivity estimate; that, since feedbacks are likely to be net-negative, a better estimate is 1.0 K; that there is no unrealized global warming in the pipeline; that global warming this century will be < 1 K; and that combustion of all recoverable fossil fuels will cause < 2.2 K global warming to equilibrium.

    Resolving the discrepancies between the methodology adopted by IPCC in its Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports that are highlighted in the present paper is vital.

    Once those discrepancies are taken into account, the impact of anthropogenic global warming over the next century, and even as far as equilibrium many millennia hence, may be no more than one-third to one-half of IPCC's current projections. …///

    And i think i know where the error is,,, the exposition of which goes back to a 2008 Paper
    With many derivatives popping out of peer review since , , , ,
    J.-M. Hartmann, C. Boulet, D. Robert, “Collisional effects on molecular spectra. Elservier, 2008.

  557. pwatwo

    So that means you cant dispute his peer reviewed (under hostile conditions) paper ?
    (vs the rubber stamp the warmists get, allowing out garbage easy to rip apart ).

    You said nothing about anyone but yourself ,, didn’t you.
    You seem to do that consistently . . .

    //… Lord Monckton, the paper’s lead author, created the new model on the basis of earlier research by him published in journals such as Physics and Society, UK Quarterly Economic Bulletin, Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists’ Seminars on Planetary Emergencies, and Energy & Environment.

    Dr Willie Soon, an eminent solar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said: “Our work suggests that Man’s influence on climate may have been much overstated. The role of the Sun has been undervalued. Our model helps to present a more balanced view.”

    Dr David Legates, Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware and formerly the State Climatologist, said: “This simple model is an invaluable teaching aid. Our paper is, in effect, the manual for the model, discussing appropriate values for the input parameters and demonstrating by examples how the model works.”

    Dr Matt Briggs, “Statistician to the Stars”, said: “A high-school student with a pocket scientific calculator can now use this remarkable model and obtain credible estimates of global warming simply and quickly, as well as acquiring a better understanding of how climate sensitivity is determined. As a statistician, I know the value of keeping things simple and the dangers in thinking that more complex models are necessarily better. Once people can understand how climate sensitivity is determined, they will realize how little evidence for alarm there is.” …///
    http://www.scibull.com:8080/EN/abstract/abstract509579.shtml . . .

  558. ///… The “Factcheck” gets its facts wrong from the get-go. It says our paper had claimed that the major errors made by the huge computer models, each of which gobbles as much electricity as a small town, occur because the models are complex.

    No. We said the models were wrong because they were using a rogue equation borrowed from electronic circuitry and bolted on to the climate, where it does not fit. That equation, and that alone, leads the modelers erroneously to triple the small and harmless 1 Cº global warming we should expect from a doubling of CO2 in the air.

    From there, the propaganda piece went scientifically downhill. I now name and shame the shoddy, rentaquote “scientists”, and I demand their dismissal. …///
    http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/01/25/monckton-fires-back-point-by-point-rebuttal-at-warmist-critics-of-new-peer-reviewed-study-shoddy-rent-a-quote-scientists/ . . .

  559. @pwatwo
    Thanks for the link. That is really a nice article.

    It shows that people who accuse others of fraud and deception, like Raymond Moyers here, are just projecting their own behavior on their opponents. No doubt they sincerely believe that others must be doing what they would be doing in their place, and what they are doing now.

  560. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

    About the PDO/AMO et al . .

    In the 1930’s, both PDO and AMO warm phases came together. producing the hot period the warmist hoaxers attempted to erase from history.
    Cold phases came together in the 1960’s and 70’s, the time of the “ice age scares” the warmist hoaxers attempted to erase from history.
    The warm phases came together again for about 10 years from the mid 1990’s, when we saw the last spike in temperatures.
    The PDO has now turned cold, but the AMO is still in its warm phase, temperatures are flatlining.
    It is likely that the AMO might remain in warm mode for a bit, but by the mid 2020’s we are likely to see both great ocean patterns stuck together in their cold phases well into the 2030’s.

    When they do, will we see a similar drop in global temperatures such as we did in the 1970’s?

    In the meantime the climate models will continue to drift off into never neverland,, turning the warmist modelers into frustrated screaming poo chunkin monkeys with climate models shoved up their ass , , , ,

  561. “accuse others of fraud and deception” No ,, caught red handed, get your terms right , , , ,

    ” projecting their own behavior ” . . . . Yeah you lefties do that , ,, often on the anti gun hysteria for example, makes it amusing when we see gun control advocates charged with gun possession and such . . .

    But those 1000+ Year old trees covered by Glacier, and mountain and polar tree lines, that agree with the ice cores , , , say what they say . . .

    You cant get a fully advanced Polar or Mountain treeline in “warmer than now” positions
    with simple undulations of the PDO/AMO,,, proving it was warmer than the present, for sustained periods . . . . and in an utterly irrefutable manner . . .

    Too many Minoan or Roman coal power plants ?

    Professor Happer pointed out the discoveries that the classical expressions for IR active gasses dont work for mixed gasses in a gravitational compressed column like our atmosphere, and there are papers popping out of peer review studying this phenomena,

    And that, curve fitting a period of paired rising PDO/AMO, left their asses out to dry when the PDO turned south , , , and it will get worse for them when the AMO turns also , , ,

    So now we see reality will not co-operate with the warming cult for perhaps the next 25 years, quite possibly creating a “frustrated screaming poo chunkin monkey” syndrome among the poor unfortunate souls who have so much invested in the fiction.

  562. Its not as if the skeptics have a shortage of material , , ,

    http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html . . .
    ///… 1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism
    “A tour de force list of scientific papers…” – Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Environmental Scientist
    “Wow, the list is pretty impressive …It’s Oreskes done right.” – Luboš Motl, Ph.D. Theoretical Physicist
    “I really appreciate your important effort in compiling the list.” – Willie Soon, Ph.D. Astrophysicist and Geoscientist
    “…it’s a very useful resource. Thanks to the pop tech team.” – Joanne Nova, Author of The Skeptics Handbook
    “I do confess a degree of fascination with Poptech’s list…” – John Cook, Cartoonist at Skeptical Science
    This resource has been cited over 80 times, including in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. . ..///

    Course . if this had been an academic paper throwing contest,,,, boooring . .

    I wanna see the “frustrated screaming poo chunkin monkey’s” on youtube , , ,
    Perhaps they could work it into the skit on Big Bang Theory.

  563. More Humor . . .

    I = intensity of any radiating body, w/m2, of its spherical surface, measured by Earth satellite spectrophotometers to be about 239.
    T = temperature of radiating body, K
    ? = Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law constant, 5.67
    e = emissivity of radiating body, fraction 0 < e < 1
    Perfect radiator black body e = 1, radiates a given intensity at lowest possible temperature.
    Colorful Earth radiator e = 0.612 emits given intensity at temperature higher than black body.
    I = (1 – albedo)S/4, conservation of energy, in = out, neglecting photosynthesis, volcanoes.
    S = solar rad intensity, 1365 to 1370 w/m2 inc disk or 1365/4 to 1370/4 w/m2 of inc sphere.
    Albedo = reflectivity, fraction, mostly by clouds, estimate 0.7.
    Substituting: I = (1 – alb) S/4 = ? e (T/100)4
    Dividing by ? e: (T/100)4 = (1 – alb) S/4 ? e = I/? e
    If S increases, T increases. If alb or e increase, T decreases.

    If Earth were a perfect black body emitter,
    (1 – 0.3) 1366/4*5.67*1.000 = 42.16 = 2.5484 or T = 254.8K = -18.33C

    Actually GHGT promoters say it is a colorful 0.612 emitter,
    (1 – 0.3) 1366/4*5.67*0.612 = 68.890 = 2.8814 or T = 288.1K = 14.95C

    The difference 14.95 – (-18.33) = +33.3C is the difference between colorful Earth’s radiating temperature and its theoretical black body equivalent when radiating at same intensity, 239.

    J Hanson, Al Gore and EPA mistakenly declared this 33C to be the greenhouse gas effect.

    Double radiating atmospheric CO2 concentration and emissivity to space increases a small amount, say 0.001 to 0.613.

    (1 – 0.3) 1366/4*5.67*0.613 = 68.777 = 2.8804 or T = 288.0K = 14.83C.

    So global sensitivity is 14.83 – 14.95 = -0.12C, global cooling. Controversy resolved by elementary algebra; no need for $1 billion/day research to prove the impossible, global warming. If you disagree with Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law of physics, used successfully since 1884, take it up with them, not me.
    http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/fred-singer-closing-in-on-fact-co2-doesnt-affect-global-temperature.html . . .

  564. @Raymond, poking you is fun. Trivially easy to provoke a regular gallop of denier boilerplate bullshit.

  565. The title says it all. You people (who get your “information” about climate science from the amateur blogs of Anthony Watts, Jo Nova, Judith Curry, “Lord” Monckton, etc.) think you know what each fact is going to be, before Fred Singer (or whoever) closes in on it.

    “fred-singer-closing-in-on-fact-co2-doesnt-affect-global-temperature.html”

    In other words, “we don’t need no steenking science! We already know what our ideology requires the facts to be.”

    Being a competent (giving the benefit of the doubt) coder does not make each of you such an Expert On Absolutely Everything that you can glance at a graph on a blog and overturn decades of scientific research. From the OP down, the level of curiosity, intellectual honesty, and objectivity toward climate science displayed by the so-called “skeptics”, if applied toward our data networks would result in such insecurity that it’s not a question of if but when the most sensitive information is stolen from the most elaborately secured systems by two-bit criminals.

    Oh say, this actually explains a lot!

  566. pwatwo
    Found your photo . . .
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/spongebob_smearpants.jpg . . .

    Meanwhile . . . .

    International Journal of Modern Physics B
    Condensed Matter Physics; Statistical Physics; Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
    François Gervais, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B, 28, 1450095 (2014) [20 pages] DOI: 10.1142/S0217979214500957

    Tiny warming of residual anthropogenic CO2 François Gervais
    François Rabelais University, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Department of Physics, Parc de Grandmont, 37200 Tours, France
    ///… The residual fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions which has not been captured by carbon sinks and remains in the atmosphere, is estimated by two independent experimental methods which support each other: the 13C/12C ratio and the temperature-independent fraction of d(CO2)/dt on a yearly scale after subtraction of annual fluctuations the amplitude ratio of which reaches a factor as large as 7. The anthropogenic fraction is then used to evaluate the additional warming by analysis of its spectral contribution to the outgoing long-wavelength radiation (OLR) measured by infrared spectrometers embarked in satellites looking down. The anthropogenic CO2 additional warming extrapolated in 2100 is found lower than 0.1°C in the absence of feedbacks. The global temperature data are fitted with an oscillation of period 60 years added to a linear contribution. The data which support the 60-year cycle are summarized, in particular sea surface temperatures and sea level rise measured either by tide gauge or by satellite altimetry. The tiny anthropogenic warming appears consistent with the absence of any detectable change of slope of the 130-year-long linear contribution to the temperature data before and after the onset of large CO2 emissions. …///
    http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217979214500957 . . .

    And

    ///… The total atmospheric heating from carbon dioxide to date is of the order of 0.1°C. By the time humanity has dug up all the rocks we can economically burn, and burnt them, the total heating effect from carbon dioxide might be of the order of 0.4°C. This would take a couple of centuries. A rise of this magnitude would be lost in the noise of the climate system. This agrees with observations which have not found any signature from carbon dioxide-related heating in the atmosphere.

    The carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere is actually dangerously low, not dangerously high. During the glacial periods of our current ice age, the level got as low as 180 parts per million. Plant growth shuts down at 150 parts per million. Several times in the last three million years, life above sea level came within 30 parts per million of extinction due to a lack of carbon dioxide. The more humanity can increase the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the safer life on Earth will be….///
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/29/a-sin-of-commission/ . . .

  567. pwatwo: @esr, analysis of the carbon isotopes in the CO2 shows that the trend is from the burning of fossil fuels.

    esr: To be fair, I used to consider this established scientific fact myself. Then I read Murray Salby’s analysis of confounders in that data and now consider the question open…
    His argument that the statistics of the variation preclude the recent jump being mainly anthropogenic is pretty strong.

    (emphasis added)

    What was it about his analysis that you found persuasive? Did he show his math? Did you check it? If not, how do you evaluate an argument that, in your own words, is statistical?

  568. pwatwo ,,, on the other hand,,, perhaps your attempting to impress,, with your vacuity.

    Physical Geography Volume 28, Issue 2
    Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future. DOI: 10.2747/0272-3646.28.2.97 Willie Soon

    ///… Abstract
    A review of the recent refereed literature fails to confirm quantitatively that carbon dioxide (CO2) radiative forcing was the prime mover in the changes in temperature, ice-sheet volume, and related climatic variables in the glacial and interglacial episodes of the past 650,000 years, even under the “fast-response” framework where the convenient if artificial distinction between forcing and feedback is assumed.

    Atmospheric CO2 variations generally follow changes in temperature and other climatic variables rather than preceding them.

    Likewise, there is no confirmation of the often-posited significant supporting role of methane (CH4) forcing, which—despite its faster atmospheric response time—is simply too small, amounting to less than 0.2 W/m2 from a change of 400 ppb.

    We cannot quantitatively validate the numerous qualitative suggestions that the CO2 and CH4 forcings that occurred in response to Milankovic orbital cycles accounted for more than half of the amplitude of the changes in the glacial/interglacial cycles of global temperature, sea level, and ice volume.

    Consequently, we infer that natural climatic variability—notably the persistence of insolation forcing at key seasons and geographical locations, taken with closely related thermal, hydrological, and cryospheric changes (such as the water vapor, cloud, and ice albedo feedbacks)— suffices in se to explain the proxy-derived, global and regional climatic and environmental phase-transitions in the paleoclimate.

    If so, it may be appropriate to place anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in context by separating their medium-term climatic impacts from those of a host of natural forcings and feedbacks that may, as in paleoclimatological times, prove equally significant…///
    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/0272-3646.28.2.97 . . .

  569. And yet another peer reviewed paper ,,, supporting my PDO/AMO contention ive been making since my second post on this thread,, all the way up to recent “About the PDO/AMO et al . .”

    Journal of Scientific Research.
    On the recovery from the Little Ice Age. DOI: 10.4236/ns.2010.211149 Syun-Ichi Akasofu

    ABSTRACT
    ///… A number of published papers and openly available data on sea level changes, glacier retreat, freezing/break-up dates of rivers, sea ice retreat, tree-ring observations, ice cores and changes of the cosmic-ray intensity, from the year 1000 to the present, are studied to examine how the Earth has recovered from the Little Ice Age (LIA).

    We learn that the recovery from the LIA has proceeded continuously, roughly in a linear manner, from 1800-1850 to the present.

    The rate of the recovery in terms of temperature is about 0.5°C/100 years and thus it has important implications for understanding the present global warming.

    It is suggested on the basis of a much longer period covering that the Earth is still in the process of recovery from the LIA; there is no sign to indicate the end of the recovery before 1900.

    Cosmic-ray intensity data show that solar activity was related to both the LIA and its recovery.

    The multi-decadal oscillation of a period of 50 to 60 years was superposed on the linear change; it peaked in 1940 and 2000, causing the halting of warming temporarily after 2000.

    These changes are natural changes, and in order to determine the contribution of the manmade greenhouse effect, there is an urgent need to identify them correctly and accurately and remove them. …///
    http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217 . . .

  570. “overturn decades of scientific research” . .. of the exposed proven wrong and exposed Liars of the Hockey team , , ,

    Planetary reality has already done that Rodney, upside down proxies, decentered pca, a single Yamil Tree, splicing without instrumental drift controls, deliberate exposed lies exposed in deliberate truncations in data sets, Ignoring the reality of Mountain and Polar treeline proxies that actually work and cannot be refuted , , , ,

    And busted ass models of Physics fiction that belong up the asses of those that created them.

    ///… Lack of Consistency Between Modeled and Observed Temperature Trends
    Journal Energy & Environment DOI 10.1260/0958-305X.22.4.375 Singer

    Abstract
    The US Climate Change Science Program [CCSP, 2006] reported, and Douglass et al. [2007] and NIPCC [2008] confirmed, a “potentially serious inconsistency” between modeled and observed trends in tropical surface and tropospheric temperatures.

    However, Santer et al. [2008: hereafter “Santer”], though sharing several co-authors with CCSP [2006], offered “new observational estimates of [tropical] surface and tropospheric temperature trends”, concluding that “there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modelled and observed trends.”

    Santer’s key graph misleadingly suggests an overlap between observations and modeled trends.

    His “new observational estimates” conflict with satellite data.

    His modeled trends are an artifact, merely reflecting chaotic and structural model uncertainties that had been overlooked.

    Thus the conclusion of “consistency” is not supportable and accordingly does not validate model-derived projections of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (AGW). …///

  571. But ive no doubt many of the hoaxer parrots will go down with the ship,, stuck you all are . . .
    In his Hot Air article Global Warming’s Glorious Ship of Fools, Mark Stein’s humorously nails it:
    http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/01/09/global-warmings-glorious-ship-of-fools/ . .

    ///… The warm-mongers are indeed ‘stuck in our own experiment’. Frozen to their doomsday narrative like Jeff Daniels with his tongue stuck to the ski lift in Dumb and Dumber, the Big Climate enforcers will still not brook anyone rocking their boat.

    In December 2008 Al Gore predicted the ‘entire North Polar ice cap will be gone in five years’.
    Oh, sure, it’s still here, but he got the general trend-line correct, didn’t he? Arctic sea ice, December 2008: 12.5 million square kilometers; Arctic sea ice, December 2013: 12.5 million square kilometers….///

    Astrophysics and Space Science. April 2014, Volume 350, Issue 2, pp 421-442. 17 Jan 2014
    ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite validation versus TSI proxy models
    Nicola Scafetta, Richard C. Willson
    Abstract
    ///… The satellite total solar irradiance (TSI) database provides a valuable record for investigating models of solar variation used to interpret climate changes. The 35-year ACRIM total solar irradiance (TSI) satellite composite time series has been revised using algorithm updates based on 13 years of accumulated mission experience and corrections to ACRIMSAT/ACRIM3 results for scattering and diffraction derived from recent testing at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics/Total solar irradiance Radiometer Facility (LASP/TRF). The net correction lowers the ACRIM3 scale by ?3000 ppm, in closer agreement with the scale of SORCE/TIM results (average total solar irradiance ?1361.5 W/m2). Differences between the ACRIM and PMOD TSI composites are investigated,

    The implications of increasing TSI during the global warming of the last two decades of the 20th century are that solar forcing of climate change may be a significantly larger factor than represented in the CMIP5 general circulation climate models….///
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10509-013-1775-9 . . .

  572. “Too bad” the frustrated screaming poo chunkin modeler monkeys “curve fitted” their busted ass physics fictions to a temporary alignment of the PDO/AMO . . .

    See better, more realistic finish to the start of your sentence . . . .

    Geomagnetism and Aeronomy. December 2013, Volume 53, Issue 8, pp 917-921. Dec 2013
    Deep solar activity minima, sharp climate changes, and their impact on ancient civilizations
    O. M. Raspopov, V. A. Dergachev, G. I. Zaitseva, M. G. Ogurtsov

    Abstract
    ///… It is shown that, over the past ?10000 years (the Holocene), deep Maunder type solar minima have been accompanied by sharp climate changes. These minima occurred every 2300–2400 years.

    It has been established experimentally that, at ca 4.0 ka BP, there occurred a global change in the structure of atmospheric circulation, which coincided in time with the discharge of glacial masses from Greenland to North Atlantic and a solar activity minimum.

    The climate changes that took place at ca 4.0 ka BP and the deep solar activity minimum that occurred at ca 2.5 ka BP affected the development of human society, leading to the degradation and destruction of a number of ancient civilizations. …///
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0016793213080227 . . .

  573. “We learn that the recovery from the LIA has proceeded continuously, roughly in a linear manner, from 1800-1850 to the present.”

    To what cause does Akasofu attribute this allegedly linear recovery, since sometime between 1800-1850? What evidence does he offer that he has identified the cause correctly? What code did you use to check his math?

  574. Mental Midgets Try To Bite Dr. Willie Soon’s Ankles | Watts …
    3 days ago – You are attempting to discredit the work of Dr. Willie Soon, not because of … as the Guardian so it’s no surprise they aid this kind of slander.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/27/midgets-try-to-bite-dr-willie-soons-ankles/ . . .

    ///… So let me get Kert Davies claim straight. For example, his claim is that if a scientist ever received funding from say Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund, in any future study whether funded by Greenpeace or WWF or not, the oh-so-noble Kert Davies thinks you need to disclose that.
    Now there are dozens of scientists out there who have received funding from Greenpeace. Heck, a number of IPCC authors are not just funded by but have been employed by Greenpeace.

    I wonder who the CIC is when it’s at home?” And I have to admit, I laughed out loud when the first page I pulled up said this:

    Who We Are The Climate Investigations Center (CIC) was established in 2014 to monitor the individuals, corporations, trade associations, political organizations and front groups who work to delay the implementation of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis. Kert Davies, Executive Director

    CIC was founded by Kert Davies, a well-known researcher, media spokesperson and climate activist who has been conducting corporate accountability research and campaigns for more than 20 years. Davies was the chief architect of the Greenpeace web project ExxonSecrets, launched in 2004, which helped expose the oil giant ExxonMobil’s funding of organizations and individuals who work to discredit the validity of climate science and delay climate policy action. More recently, Davies established the PolluterWatch program at Greenpeace, which launched the report Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine.

    Well, I guess that explains a few things …

    But despite all of Kert Davies’ claims about “secret funding”, I don’t find one word on their website about who funds the CIC … although I did find this intriguing snippet on the web:
    … the Climate Investigations Center, a collaboration between former Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies and the Guardian … …///

    And since we know that CAGW is a fraud,,, that all those who received fraud support money from green groups or green supporting agencies and organizations should not be listened to … and the “science” itself, no longer matters ,,, Right pwatwo ?

  575. @Raymond
    “It has been established experimentally that, at ca 4.0 ka BP, there occurred a global change in the structure of atmospheric circulation, which coincided in time with the discharge of glacial masses from Greenland to North Atlantic and a solar activity minimum.”

    Good to see that history has become an experimental science. Has the experiment been replicated? And how often?

  576. “To what cause does Akasofu attribute this allegedly linear recovery”

    Well those cold and warm periods are many along the entire Holocene . . .

    Those Mountain and Polar tree lines confirm that as irrefutable fact . . .

    (And 1000+ year old trees only now on the bare verges of being uncovered
    by glacial ice)

    All proof absolute it was warmer than today . .. .

    These warm and colder periods are part of and woven into the history of civilization.

    (The little Ice Age, being the most recent, being the best recorded)

    Even a founder of the Sierra club . . . . “By 1879, however, naturalist John Muir discovered that the ice had retreated …”

    ///… As you enter Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska you will cruise along shorelines completely covered by ice just 200 years ago. . . Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.

    By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth.
    http://www.glacierbay.org/glaciers.html . . .

    The glacier that filled Glacier Bay during the Little Ice Age began its retreat from the mouth of the bay more than 200 years ago and has exposed a magnificent fjord system about 100 km long. The massive glacier retreated past Sitakaday Narrows ~190 years ago, retreated past Whidbey Passage ~160 years ago, and reached the upper end of the main bay by 1860 (~140 years ago). https://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/epa-and-sierra-club-climate-change-deniers/ . . .

    Me,, I am convinced,, till i get better data that overturns my current personal thesis,
    That it is a combination of CosR Background, Solar variations, and some remainder
    possible due to small perturbations in the earth orbit due to gravitational tug from
    the other planetary alignments, (even though im uncertain the magnitude of such is
    enough of a factor to make a significant difference.)

    Those warm and cold periods are confirmed facts , , , you dont advance Mountain and Polar treelines via warming blips, or cover up 1000+ Year old trees with a single yearly cold snap…

    The PDO/AMO alignments are too short and too small . . oh yeah they can expose your busted as models as physics frauds ,,, they have done that . . .

    See its the warmist LIE that the climate is steady state, if not for AGW,, a total LIE.

    The climate has been oscillating warm and cold,, the PDO/AMO are ~60 Year sines, large enough to leave the modelers asses exposed, but those are not the only thing happening.
    Much larger factors cleared the ice from Glacier bay 200 Years ago . . .
    And its been happening for all of the Holocene.

    And willful blindness to them exposes a dishonest person,,, and the hoaxers as dishonest people . .

  577. “Good to see that history has become an experimental science. Has the experiment been replicated? And how often?”

    Perhaps you should consult with Rodney on the use of experimental models , , ,
    Rodney seems to have much faith in them , , ,

    I do as well,, in so far as they have proven the assumptions of the modelers to be wrong.
    Dont choke on that too hard Senior Winter . . .

  578. Winter . . .

    Perhaps I should use your righteous argument against the apparent fallacy of the rain forest having the ability to sustain a net carbon export,,,, as explanation for that co2 plume . .

    Nobody was listening, me included, i got there via reason, but if i had paid attention, had read and given the proper working space in my neurons to you very first post on the matter, i would have gotten to my tentative conclusion much faster . .

    I looked foolish for not paying attention, could it still be the biota ? well even you left room for that . . . but as a net exporter you ruled it out convincingly, and any one of those here with more than two brain cells would reach the same conclusion, its a dead end trail of thought.

    As i said,, it properly set the boundary conditions for thought on the question, sure, there might be factors we are not aware of , , but as argument goes, its solid logic of a character that would be a great surprise to see it overturned . .

    Those mountain and polar treelines, 1000+ Year old trees under Glacer ice, Glacier bay, the history of human civilization, proxies in the south china sea to new Zealand, the ice cores show the same. . . . Its a fraud that those multiple warm periods and little ice ages did not exist . . . And the treelines, as a proxy, are as solid as proxies get , , ,

    And they too ,,, should set the proper boundary conditions for thought on the question.

  579. @Raymond, your argument is based on a logical fallacy. The causes of climate change, natural and anthropogenic, are not mutually exclusive.

    You still need to figure out why the planet is warming, the oceans acidifying and their heat content increasing, when all non-anthropogenic indicators point toward cooling. Explain, please.

  580. Those warm and cold periods are confirmed facts , , , you dont advance Mountain and Polar treelines via warming blips, or cover up 1000+ Year old trees with a single yearly cold snap…

    Nobody ever claimed that, which makes your argument a straw man fallacy. We don’t dispute that there have been changes in Earth’s climate in the past, some global and others relatively local (regional), nor that they have been due to natural causes. The current change is global, and proven not to be due to natural causes; the isotope signature conclusively proves that the CO2 added to the atmosphere is from fossil plant matter, and the observed warming since 1951 has occurred while non-anthropogenic factors should have caused cooling.

    Were there forest fires before humans? Does the fact that before homo sapiens showed up, all forest fires had non-anthropogenic causes, disprove the anthropogenic cause of many modern day forest fires? Of course not. These anecdotes you cherry pick from history are equally irrelevant as the non-anthropogenic nature of all forest fires more than 4 million years ago, is to modern forestry. The “climate has changed before” portion of your argument is not even wrong, it’s just pointless.

    The PDO/AMO alignments are too short and too small . . oh yeah they can expose your busted as models as physics frauds ,,, they have done that . . .

    I’ll be happy to discuss with you the problems with my “busted as models” but only after you answer this question I already asked, which you have so far only dodged.

    What does Akasofu believe is the cause of this allegedly linear recovery?

    Well those cold and warm periods are many along the entire Holocene . . .

    Those Mountain and Polar tree lines confirm that as irrefutable fact . . .

    I didn’t ask about the entire Holocene, nor about tree lines. I asked a specific question about the paper you linked, by Akasofu. Answer my question or prove my first post in this thread absolutely correct: you’re just snatching material from other people’s lists, script kiddie-like, without understanding the content.

  581. “We don’t dispute that there have been changes in Earth’s climate in the past”

    Well with the hockey stick,,, they did just that didn’t they, decades of muscular assertion.

    So where does that leave your claim that there is anything special about the modern warm period, that is shown by treelines, and such unexpected things as giant clam shells in the south china sea,, which explains pretty simply those 1000+ Year old trees under ice, and offers some clues how to interpret those Greenland ice cores,,, to be inferior to past warm periods . .

    Which of course, is why they attempted to erase those warm and cold periods from history.

    Not to mention that the very basis, the method used to create the stick, has been shown
    to be worthless . . .
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/ . . .

    /// … Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.
    By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth….///

    ///… The glacier that filled Glacier Bay during the Little Ice Age began its retreat from the mouth of the bay more than 200 years ago and has exposed a magnificent fjord system about 100 km long. The massive glacier retreated past Sitakaday Narrows ~190 years ago, retreated past Whidbey Passage ~160 years ago, and reached the upper end of the main bay by 1860 (~140 years ago). …///

    Those 1000+ Year old trees beginning to emerge from the . . “the Mendenhall Glacier, which flows from the 1,500-square-mile Juneau Ice Field, has been retreating since the mid-1700s, according to the USDA Forest Service. ” . . . (same period as the retreat in glacier bay)

    Too many Inuits running a zillion coal power plants 200 Years ago ?

    So on what basis do you make any claims ?

  582. It’s sad to see Raymond doing exactly what Rodney said…

    “you’re just snatching material from other people’s lists, script kiddie-like, without understanding the content.”

  583. I’m giving you every chance to show that you’re able to read and understand scientific research, but all you do is change the subject. Next time your answer is non-responsive, I’m going to answer this question myself and show just how little you understand any of the subject matter you’re purporting to discuss.

    What does Akasofu believe is the cause of this allegedly linear recovery, of temperatures since sometime between 1800-1850?

  584. Nope .. not impressed with your child psychology …

    nope … with that admission you are busted … you can make no claim about co2…
    nothing is shown in the instrumental record except warming out of the little ice age that began centuries ago … having nothing to do with co2. .. and its clear that curve fitting a temporary and periodic alignment of the multidecadal oscillation left your ass out to dry when the PDO turned south .. flatlining temps … and that it will get worse when the AMO follows in turn.

    your busted .. the hoax is toast .. and those with half a clue can see it ..

    tuff chit. and all that ..

  585. Ohh it gets better…. until those former warm period treelines advance to their former positions you still have no claim …. a warmer than now treeline that has been visited multiple times already .. one should not be surprised that it happens again ….

    you warmist parrots got nothing but a rolled over PDO that left your asses out to dry .. with the AMO poised to shove your models up your ass good and hard when it follows suit ……… over time when we reach those former treeline positions again … it will be nothing but climate deja vu

  586. pwatwo vacuous and void as usual … your links are vacuous and void, you are
    the exemplar of no answer, because you have none , ,,

    I stand by what i said ,,,, honest brokerage we call it,, you lack of the same shows the
    most important thing about you . . . and you are only an extreme example of the same
    fundamental intellectual dishonesty seen with most all of you , , ,

  587. If you don’t like being treated like a child, stop acting like one.

    It was a trick question. The correct answer is “nothing” because Akasofu never identifies the cause of the “recovery” from the Little Ice Age. He just takes for granted throughout the paper that the entire temperature trend is that recovery, and forges a narrative around that assumption, cobbled together from cherry-picked anecdotes.

    It is not the purpose of this section to discuss the multi-decadal changes in detail. The sole purpose is to explain why the warming has halted after 2000, despite the fact that we concluded in the previous sections that the Earth is still in the recovery process from the LIA. Figure 7 shows this halting (Kerr 56). In Section 3, we suggested that the prominent ‘fluctuations’ superposed on the linear recovery are the multidecadal oscillation. Figure 4(d) shows its rate of changes. From Figures 4(c) and 4(d), the multi-decadal oscillation peaked in 1940, and the temperature actually decreased from the level of the linear increase from 1940 to 1975 and then increased after 1975 to 2000. Thus, it may be speculated that…

    And it doesn’t matter what he says next because he’s just admitted he’s just speculating.

    Figure 4 (a), (b), and (c) all show warming, but he hasn’t found any reason for it (other than anthropogenic CO2), and he knows it. Without a proposed mechanism, or cause, for the phenomenon he claims to be explaining — warming since 1850 — his little review of random data makes no falsifiable prediction, and is therefore not even a hypothesis. Like you, he’s not even wrong, just squawking.

  588. ” He just takes for granted throughout the paper ”

    Takes a physical reality for granted ,,, next you demand we prove the existence of the moon.

    See .. that post puts a flashing dumbfuck sign on your head , , ,
    He has to prove plainly visible physical reality ?

    The Treelines show reality,, everywhere you see this reality, glacier bay ,, reality . ,

    Left wing dumbfuck war against reality ? you exposed your ass again,
    Behold the plate of frozen dumbfuck with the cowardly pseudonym Rodney McKay

  589. This should be good for a laugh!

    ESR:

    But it wouldn’t actually bother me if the conventional belief turned out to be 100% correct, because I consider the fatal flaw in CAGW theory to be elsewhere, specifically in the unsubstantiated belief that CO2/H20 feedback coupling is a real phenomenon that produces high climate sensitivity.

    So, you accept that CO2 warms the atmosphere, but you deny that in a warmer environment more water evaporates? Surely not, we have measurements of increasing atmospheric water vapor as well as increasing CO2! Then, do you deny that H2O vapor is a greenhouse gas? Or just believe it has a much weaker warming effect than it in fact has? Is this where Murry Salby comes in?

    1. >So, you accept that CO2 warms the atmosphere, but you deny that in a warmer environment more water evaporates?

      I don’t deny that at all. I don’t believe you get positive feedback sufficient to produce high climate sensitivity. One reason I don’t believe that is that all the predictions proceeding from that assumption of strong positive feedback have failed. The tropical-atmosphere temperature profile isn’t right, the GAT trnd predictions aren’t right – it’s a busted theory.

  590. The Little ice age has been a fact for the entire history of mankind that recorded it , , ,
    Right down to tax records et al, from the period.
    We have proof it was global in scope , , , it was accepted as fact until the proven liar
    warming hoaxers attempted to write it out of history . . .

    Im sorry Mr dumbfuck McKay,, but not everyone is going to operate with your leftist barking moonbat headfucked assumptions , , ,

    The treeline papers dont say why it happened either,, its enough to show evidence that it did, which is the point of the paper.

    Treelines further toward the poles, and higher on the mountains than now = warmer climate than now , , , , no more no less . . . a statement of plain reality.
    Stands alone … immutable ,,,, irrefutable , , , as solid as facts ever get on this subject.

    And they dont have any need to answer your hand waving attempts at distraction
    from the physical reality of those in situ dated fossils.

    You can shove your silly demands up your ass ,,
    Facts can stand on their own merit , , , , and those do . . .
    They have no need to attend to your mental dysfunction , , ,

  591. ///… Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains. ///

    Do i really need to point out you cant build a glacier 4kft thick, 20 miles wide, and
    100 Miles long with a brief cold snap ? .. says … colder then than when it melted centuries ago.

    Says centuries ago (~1750) it began to melt , , ,

    ///… By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth. ….///

    ///… The glacier that filled Glacier Bay during the Little Ice Age began its retreat from the mouth of the bay more than 200 years ago and has exposed a magnificent fjord system about 100 km long. The massive glacier retreated past Sitakaday Narrows ~190 years ago, retreated past Whidbey Passage ~160 years ago, and reached the upper end of the main bay by 1860 (~140 years ago). …/// http://www.glacierbay.org/glaciers.html . . .
    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/alaskas-most-famous-glacier-retreated-eight-feet-per-day-between-1794-and-1897/ . . .

    ///… A protective tomb of gravel likely encased the trees more than 1,000 years ago, when the glacier was advancing, Connor said, basing the date on radiocarbon ages of the newly revealed wood…./// http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html

    And the warming happened centuries ago, too Many Inuits running a zillion coal power plants ended the little ice age and started the Modern warm Period ?

    ///… A Swedish study found that the planet was warmer in ancient Roman times and the Middle Ages than today. . . Leif Kullman, analyzed 455 “radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils” in the Scandes mountains and found that tree lines for different species of trees were higher during the Roman and Medieval times than they are today, showing temperatures were higher.

    “Historical tree line positions are viewed in relation to early 21st century equivalents, and indicate that tree line elevations attained during the past century and in association with modern climate warming are highly unusual, but not unique, phenomena from the perspective of the past 4,800 years,

    “Prior to that, the pine tree line (and summer temperatures) was consistently higher than present, as it was also during the Roman and Medieval periods.”

    … “summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present….

    The “Holocene thermal optimum was a warm period that occurred between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago. This warm period was followed by a gradual cooling period.” According to Kullman, the temperature spikes were during the Roman and Medieval warming periods “were succeeded by a distinct tree line/temperature dip, broadly corresponding to the Little Ice Age.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bor.12003/abstract …///

    ///…Two recent papers, one is in Earth-Science Reviews and the other is in Chinese Science Bulletin, have studied key chemical contents in micro-drilled giant clams shells and coral samples to demonstrate that in the South China Sea the warm period of the Middle Ages was warmer than the present. …///
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825214002232 . . .
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11434-014-0317-3 . . .

    And you want them to explain why ? no Rodney, nobody is obligated to participate in your distraction exercises . . .

    It gets better , , , until those former warm period treelines advance to their former positions you still have no claim …. a warmer than now treeline that has been visited multiple times already .. one should not be surprised that it happens again ….

    You got nothing but a rolled over PDO that left your asses out to dry .. with the AMO poised to roll over it will shove your models up your ass good and hard over time when we reach those former treeline positions again … nothing but climate deja vu.

    You have no case ,, you have no claim ,,, you have nothing , , , ,

  592. Earlier i mentioned the effect of orbital permutations,, still not sold on the idea . .

    Here is a paper that is close to the idea on that subject , , ,

    Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
    Volume 72, Issue 13, August 2010, Pages 951–970. Nicola Scafetta
    Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications
    ///… Abstract

    We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 and 0.25°C, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators….///

    “The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040.”

    Well, projecting the PDO/AMO cycles into the future shows us that much . . .
    When the AMO follows the PDO that has already rolled over, .. well interesting times,
    Im still wanting to see the”fustrated screaming poo chinkin modeler monkeys” show
    when they try to curve fit that one …..

  593. Well that was less entertaining than I anticipated, but better reasoned. Overall, a pleasant surprise.

    “One reason I don’t believe that is that all the predictions proceeding from that assumption of strong positive feedback have failed. The tropical-atmosphere temperature profile isn’t right, the GAT trnd predictions aren’t right – it’s a busted theory.”

    That’s two, not “all” by a long shot. Do you have a sense of how wrong either prediction is?

    People who think the Earth is flat are wrong. People who think the Earth is a perfect sphere are also wrong. But people who believe that both flat Earthers and spherical Earthers are equally wrong are the wrongest of them all!

    Apologies to Isaac Asimov.

  594. Its also getting more difficult for the warmists to dismiss solar influences

    Advances in Space Research
    Volume 52, Issue 9, 1 November 2013, Pages 1647–1654
    New evidence of solar variation in temperature proxies from Northern Fennoscandia
    M. Ogurtsova, M. Lindholmb, R. Jalkanenb, S.V. Veretenenkoa,
    Abstract
    ///… A new summer temperature proxy was built for northern Fennoscandia in AD 1000–2004 using parameters of tree growth from a large region, extending from the Swedish Scandes to the Kola Peninsula. It was found that century-scale (55–140 year) cyclicity is present in this series during the entire time interval.

    This periodicity is highly significant and has a bi-modal structure, i.e. it consists of two oscillation modes, 55–100 year and 100–140 year variations.

    A comparison of the century-long variation in the northern Fennoscandian temperature proxy with the corresponding variations in Wolf numbers and concentration of cosmogenic 10Be in glacial ice shows that a probable cause of this periodicity is the modulation of regional climate by the secular solar cycle of Gleissberg.

    This is in line with the results obtained previously for a more limited part of the region (Finnish Lapland: 68–70° N, 20–30° E). Thus the reality of a link between long-term changes in solar activity and climate in Fennoscandia has been confirmed. Possible mechanisms of solar influence on the lower troposphere are discussed….///

  595. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682610001495 . . .
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117713004687 . . .
    Fergot the links to those last two papers . .
    – – – –

    The Modelers followed the alignment of the PDO/AMO, and assumed that was the warming rate . .
    That is wrong . . . and the mean trend thru the center of those multidecadal oscillations go all the way back to the start of the warming that cleared Glacier bay, the end of the little ice age . .
    centuries ago , , ,

    Mountain and polar tree lines, among many other things, , , show we need further warming to equal past warm periods, and today is nothing special . . .

  596. @esr “The tropical-atmosphere temperature profile isn’t right, the GAT trnd predictions aren’t right – it’s a busted theory.”

    The so-called “hotspot” nonsense?

    John Christy, Richard McNider and Roy Spencer trying to overturn mainstream science by rewriting history and re-baselining graphs

    Besides their entirely misplaced Galileo-framing, Christy and McNider also make a range of unsupported and/or incorrect statements. One argument deals with the so-called tropical tropospheric hot spot. This refers to the expected stronger warming of the tropical troposphere as compared to the surface. This “hot spot” is independent of the cause of the warming. But what do Christy and McNider write in the WSJ:

    (the warming of the deep atmosphere is) the fundamental sign of carbon-dioxide-caused climate change, which is supposedly behind these natural phenomena

    But hang on, didn’t Christy admit to the basic science that this hot spot is not specific to a greenhouse effect? Yes, he did (at the ClimateDialogue discussion in which he participated):

    “Yes, the hot spot is expected via the traditional view that the lapse rate feedback operates on both short and long time scales. (…) it [the hot spot] is broader than just the enhanced greenhouse effect because any thermal forcing should elicit a response such as the “expected” hot spot.”

    So why is he claiming something in the WSJ that he knows to be untrue?

    Point one gone.

    Re-read my post from the other day regarding GMST. A refresher:

    Abstract: Most present-generation climate models simulate an increase in global-mean surface temperature (GMST) since 1998, whereas observations suggest a warming hiatus. It is unclear to what extent this mismatch is caused by incorrect model forcing, by incorrect model response to forcing or by random factors. Here we analyse simulations and observations of GMST from 1900 to 2012, and show that the distribution of simulated 15-year trends shows no systematic bias against the observations. Using a multiple regression approach that is physically motivated by surface energy balance, we isolate the impact of radiative forcing, climate feedback and ocean heat uptake on GMST—with the regression residual interpreted as internal variability—and assess all possible 15- and 62-year trends. The differences between simulated and observed trends are dominated by random internal variability over the shorter timescale and by variations in the radiative forcings used to drive models over the longer timescale. For either trend length, spread in simulated climate feedback leaves no traceable imprint on GMST trends or, consequently, on the difference between simulations and observations. The claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Point two gone.

  597. This “hot spot” is independent of the cause of the warming.

    That is my understanding as well. It is also my understanding that depending on what source of data is used (UAH, RSS, or UWA), the observed lapse rate and therefore the temperature profile are(n’t) contrary to the prediction. Thus, my question “how wrong?”

    Regarding both the predicted hot spot and the supposed warming “hiatus” I don’t anticipate anybody reversing any strongly held opinion so dramatically, so quickly that ESR would be persuaded from his present stated opinions to “point (one|two) gone” without a more detailed discussion of the evidence, and his reasoning about it. Human brains just don’t work that way.

    1. >Regarding both the predicted hot spot and the supposed warming “hiatus” I don’t anticipate anybody reversing any strongly held opinion so dramatically, so quickly that ESR would be persuaded from his present stated opinions to “point (one|two) gone” without a more detailed discussion of the evidence, and his reasoning about it. Human brains just don’t work that way.

      Especially when the person attempting to persuade me continually makes claims in contradiction with observed reality. That causes me to suspect that said person is misinterpreting the evidence he presents, even if the evidence itself is not corrupt (a point on which there is considerable doubt).

  598. @Rodney, it’s one thing when esr or Raymond make some sort of claim. It’s another when Christy states something as fact that he knows is completely untrue. I don’t see the deniers jumping all over him, when they absolutely should.

  599. @esr, wait a sec. It’s your “reality” that has the issues, not mine. I’m not misinterpreting nor is the evidence “corrupt”. That’s not skepticism, that’s pure denialism.

    Perhaps you can use Christy’s statement that the “hotspot” is *not* an AGW “fingerprint” with his claim in an op-ed that it *is*. The two beliefs of his contradict each other. Can you reconcile?

    1. >Perhaps you can use Christy’s statement that the “hotspot” is *not* an AGW “fingerprint” with his claim in an op-ed that it *is*. The two beliefs of his contradict each other. Can you reconcile?

      I neither know nor care why this Christy is confused. I’d never heard of him before you brought him up.

      Your continued insistence that the Earth is warming when observably it has not been doing so for well over a decade causes me to doubt both your objectivity and your honesty. I will pay closer attention to you when you demonstrate contact with this observed reality.

  600. Especially when the person attempting to persuade me continually makes claims in contradiction with observed reality. That causes me to suspect that said person is misinterpreting the evidence he presents, even if the evidence itself is not corrupt (a point on which there is considerable doubt).

    Of course. It’s perfectly natural, when somebody contradicts any sincerely held belief or opinion, that our first reaction is to suspect their integrity and their competence before earnestly considering any error on our part. I can relate to your reaction.

    I look forward to discussing with you in more depth, any of the points raised above.

  601. @esr, you should know who Christy is. That you do not tells me you’re not that familiar with the subject.

    It’s the Trend, Stupid should provide some education regarding your “not been doing so for over a decade” narrative, which is factually incorrect. It is you who’s not in contact with observed reality.

    1. >Where’s the “no warming”? Explain, please.

      You can play all the trompe-l’oeil games you want with charts pulled out of your butt. Meanwhile, the East Anglia CRU itself admits there has been no statistically significant warming in at least thirteen years.

  602. Look at em posting stuff from hockey team,,, and the period is from the ice age scare period,
    the bottom of the last pdo/amo cold alignment . .

    ///… Pre-2000 temperatures:
    https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/nasa2.jpeg
    Post-2000 temperature:
    https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/nasa4.jpeg …///

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

    And so we see the intentional dishonesty again,,, pwatwo,,, caught red handed

    There is indeed a warming trend,, that goes back thru the center of the multdecadal oscillations all the way back to the little ice age . ..

    But cherry picking the alignment of the pdo/amo and presenting that , , is a lie ,,
    an intentional provably dishonest lie

  603. @esr, read the link I provided. Here’s another article for you:

    Is Earth’s temperature about to soar?

    https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/pvals.png

    None of the 8 surface temperature analyses (including Chris Monckton’s favorite, RSS TLT) show any statistically significant trend change during the the last 20+ years. If “global warming stopped in NNNN (NNNN >= 1998)” that would not be the case.

    Sorry, but the math doesn’t support your narrative. Time to change it.

    1. >Sorry, but the math doesn’t support your narrative. Time to change it.

      This is just nuts. When even the hardcore warmists admit there’s been a decade-scale pause and are falling over themselves trying to explain it in a blizzard of papers mostly about oceanic oscillations, you think one guy playing numerology negates that? You’re either a troll or a foaming loon. I’m going to ignore you henceforth.

  604. @Raymond, you’ve long since become incoherent, to put it kindly. A bullshitter, in vulgar parlance.

  605. Funny part … as far as i can see,, i am the only one that has posted data that showed
    why temps have flattened out, why it rose so fast since 1970’s ice age scare period.
    why curve fitting that period has left the modelers asses hanging out , , ,
    and projecting into the future, some idea what to expect , , , ,

    But too far above the pay grade of our resident hoaxer parrots,,,,, posting
    material direct from the exposed liars at the center of the hoax , , ,

    And i have used it to point out one of the mechanisms they used to perpetuate this hoax.

    See how that works ?

  606. The argument you referenced earlier about the predicted hotspot has few if any advocates among professional climate scientists other than John Christy. Certainly, none have taken that position as vocally. Somebody else may have delivered the message to you, but I would be very surprised if it didn’t originate with John Christy. That’s just fyi, so you know why pwatwo and I have been talking about him. So you heard the same story from a different source, no big deal. The questions remain, how important is that (falsified?) prediction to the theory, and by how much do observations actually differ?

    Your continued insistence that the Earth is warming when observably it has not been doing so for well over a decade …

    Not true. You really have to cherry pick to conclude anything close to that. This one starts from 1998.
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:204/trend

    There are some intervals you can pick that will give you a negative slope, but not many. Considering the Sun’s decreasing output, if the climate scientists were wrong, why don’t we see an unambiguous negative slope in temperature since ~2000?

    You haven’t cited many of your sources (not a complaint — most of your readers are probably long-time readers and don’t need it) and I haven’t been reading your blog long enough to know where you’re getting these misconceptions, but I can tell that you’re not checking their work.

    1. >Certainly, none have taken that position as vocally. Somebody else may have delivered the message to you

      David Evans. Used to do carbon auditing for the Australian government. I don’t know whether he developed his critique independently of Christy or not.

      >Not true. You really have to cherry pick to conclude anything close to that. This one starts from 1998.

      Then why did Phil Jones himself say in 2010 that there had been no statistically significant warming since 1995?

  607. @esr, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Your refusal to accept the observations and straightforward analysis thereof is about what I was expecting. A dose of humility would you do wonders.

    1. >if the climate scientists were wrong, why don’t we see an unambiguous negative slope in temperature since ~2000?

      That’s easy. There’s both hysteresis and lag in the system.

  608. @Raymond, you haven’t shown much of anything other than your inability to form structured arguments without resorting to near-babbling and leavened with crude juvenility.

  609. Because 15 years is barely longer than the average solar cycle, and therefore too short to rationally expect to detect a trend. That one is observable, statistically, for many intervals of only 15 or 20 years is a rough indicator of how serious this problem already is.

    B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
    Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

    1. >Because 15 years is barely longer than the average solar cycle, and therefore too short to rationally expect to detect a trend.

      But Ben Santer said 17 years of pause would be the failure point. We blew past that with no warming at 95% confidence level. Nearly a year ago Judith Curry pointed out the stone-obvious; GAT trend could no longer be reconciled with the AR5 projections. Money quote: “The most recent climate model simulations used in the AR5 indicate that the warming stagnation since 1998 is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.”

      And yet you want to claim there’s been no pause? Even by alarmist standards that is crazed.

  610. Then why did Phil Jones himself say in 2010 that there had been no statistically significant warming since 1995?

    @esr, do you understand the concept of Type II error? Because your argument here is a probabilistic version of Affirming the Consequent.

    If a statistical test with low statistical power fails to reject the null hypothesis of “zero warming”, you don’t get to accept the null hypothesis — you have to look for a more powerful test.

    The pause is a statistically insignificant change in slope. If you apply your reasoning to both the warming and the pause, you’ll conclude that there was both “no warming” and also “no pause”. Do you see why that’s a problem?

    1. >Do you see why that’s a problem?

      The “problem” I see is that the hypothesis “the earth is warming” has been failing the 95% confidence test for a long time, and all the frantic efforts to explain this away are not working.

  611. @esr, you’re changing the subject. The “pause” is alleged to exist in the observational analyses. That isn’t true, as I’ve shown. Now you want to talk about model projections, in the Curry claim.

    Stick to one or the other.

    And note that Curry’s claim is suspect, and, that you haven’t read Edwards is quite clear.

  612. “mostly about oceanic oscillations”

    Their (warmists en total) refusal to admit. till this late in the game, a cause of much annoyance . .
    Its because the 1970s – ~1998 warm phase convergence was used as the basis
    for the hoax . . .
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

    With the PDO in the cold phase temps are flatlining , , , ,
    When the AMO follows in turn … it gonna get even uglier for the modelers . . .
    Ive been ranting about the AMO turning since my 2nd post , , , ,

    The PDO/AMO charts are lagging indicators where human eyeballs are concerned,
    there is variance in their periods, the mechanisms man cannot yet fully explain , , ,

    But it damn sure shows what happened … and all you need to do is observe what
    the hoaxers did with it . .

    The intellect required to see that isnt very high . . .

    Course, the intellect required to see Winters’s carbon balance argument wasn’t very high
    either, none of us was giving his argument any neuronic working space . .
    Shoe on the other foot .. and all that , , , a humans reality defense screen can often
    be impenetrable , ,

  613. But Ben Santer said 17 years of pause would be the failure point.

    Where did he say this, and what exactly did he say?

  614. 17 years is the minimum. A 17 year period is not guaranteed to be sufficient to eliminate statistical noise from El Nino, La Nina, etc.

    https://www.llnl.gov/news/separating-signal-and-noise-climate-warming

    LIVERMORE, Calif. — In order to separate human-caused global warming from the “noise” of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.
    To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere (the region of the atmosphere from the surface to roughly five miles above) and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.

    …”In fingerprinting, we analyze longer, multi-decadal temperature records, and we beat down the large year-to-year temperature variability caused by purely natural phenomena (like El Ni?’A?os and La Ni?’A?as). This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases,” Santer said.

    1. >Six months is not “a long time.”

      I’m not talking about six months. I’m talking about the entire history of the pause. That entire history considered together is not consistent with the AR5 models, or with the even higher and more broken estimates of climate sensitivity in previous ARs.

  615. The “problem” I see is that the hypothesis “the earth is warming” has been failing the 95% confidence test for a long time, and all the frantic efforts to explain this away are not working.

    I can’t tell if this statement is just wrong or if it’s “not even wrong”. You really need to specify what test you mean here.

    For example, if your null hypothesis was “the post-2000 temperature trend is no different form the warming trend from 1979–2000”, then you would not be able to reject that null hypothesis with 95% confidence.

    1. >You really need to specify what test you mean here.

      The supposed warming trend from approximately 1995 is not distinguishable from the null hypothesis of no net warming according to a Fischer-style 95% confidence test. This is what Phil Jones said in 2010 and five years on it’s still true.

  616. As I said…

    “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”

    A 17 year period is not guaranteed to be sufficient to reduce enough statistical noise from natural variability.

    “But Ben Santer said 17 years of pause would be the failure point.”

    No, that is not what he said in the abstract that you just linked.

    1. >No, that is not what he said in the abstract that you just linked.

      How else do you think his assertion should be read?

  617. The supposed warming trend from approximately 1995 is not distinguishable from the null hypothesis of no net warming according to a Fischer-style 95% confidence test. This is what Phil Jones said in 2010 and five years on it’s still true.

    Thank you, this is much more specific. However:

    “it’s still true” — no, it’s not. Repeat the test with up-to-date data and the warming from 1995 is now significant.

    More importantly, you’re still committing a logical fallacy. According to your test, the warming is “not significant”. But according to the same test, the pause is “not significant” either. So has there been both “no warming” and “no pause”? Or is the test simply not powerful enough?

    An analogy: you flip a coin, but it’s too dark to see the coin properly. You can’t tell for sure that it’s heads, therefore the flip must have come up tails.

  618. That entire history considered together is not consistent with the AR5 models

    This is not technically true. More accurate to say “That entire history considered together is not consistent with the AR5 *projections*”.

    Model-observation comparisons usually look at three auxiliary hypotheses here.
    1) The models’ responses to climate forcings.
    2) The internal variability simulated by the models.
    3) The forcings used as inputs to the models.

    As much as you’d like #1 to be the culprit, the people that have actually looked at the numbers are finding that it’s #2 and #3.

  619. @esr, how do you think “at least 17 years” should be read? Exactly equivalent to “absolutely no more than 17 years”?

  620. So anyway…
    http://www.xkcd.com/1478/
    …0.5<p<0.10 does not mean a theory is "busted" it means further refinements to the same overall framework are required.

    >No, that is not what he said in the abstract that you just linked.

    How else do you think his assertion should be read?

    You’re joking!

    “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”

    t>=17 years is how that is correctly read, not t=17 and not t<=17.

    We use observed estimates of the signal component of TLT changes and model estimates of climate noise to calculate timescale-dependent signal-to-noise ratios (S/N). These ratios are small (less than 1) on the 10-year timescale, increasing to more than 3.9 for 32-year trends.

    A less wrong, but not necessarily correct inference from the same text might have been “Ben Santer said 32 years of pause would be the failure point.” Still not quite true, since he did not examine higher intervals and find that above 32 years, S/N again fell. Had he found such an interval…but this is getting tedious.

    “17 years of pause would be the failure point” is simply, obviously not what Ben Santer said.

  621. Look at em .. they are drowning . . .

    Think its ugly now, wait till the amo turns south . . . 1970’s deja vu . . . .

    Yup. the frustrated screaming poo chunkin modeler monkey show . . .

  622. @Raymond, you’ve already been shown that your “Ice Age scare in the 1970s” narrative is crap.

    One thing about deniers – they stuck to their memes regardless of the facts. You’re a shining example.

  623. http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

    And its right there in the NOAA graph too . .

    See,,,, shows you are a bald face liar , , , , caught red handed in a bald face LIE . . .

    I was in my just entering my 20s at the time , , , i remember what was in the schools and the news during the period, , , and what it was like to stand out there with a salamander thawing out 1200 lbs of tower pump when it was 14 degrees and the water from the exhaust condensation from the kerosine burner making my boots freeze to the pavement . .

    Happened 3 years in a row,, had never happen before or since , , , ,

    Your a bald face liar repeating bald face lies , , , and caught red handed ,. ,

    bald face Liar . . .

  624. It wasnt just freezing big tower pumps in texas for a few years that had never froze before or since , , , It also was doing things llike this . . . .

    B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? Chicago Tribune – Chicago, Ill. Mar 2, 1975
    Page: 2 In the last decade, the Arctic ice and snow cap has expanded 12 per cent, and for the first time in this century. ships making for Iceland ports have been impeded by drifting ice.

    Your either a bald face liar . . a chumped dullard dumbfuck enough to repeat bald face lies in the face of evidence that you are wrong , , ,

    In the news,, in the schools, the ice age scare was everywhere , , , and its right there in the NOAA graph too . . . up your ass your bald face lies should go ,, the same place they came out of . . .

  625. @Raymond…

    The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus

    Abstract
    Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists’ thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth’s climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.

    You know where you can put Poptech and “Goddard”…

  626. .
    .
    Buttmouth: (noun) pathetic creature with interchangeable, indistinguishable I/O ports,
    See: pwatwo

  627. See .. the source your are repeating ,,, is repeating lies , , ,

    Yup … also funny,, is the modelers pointing at the multicultural oscillations, as the source and reasons for model plot divergence , ,, while at the same time denying they exist . . .
    Aint that something eh ? yup poor chumped dullards , , , , heh
    behold their zero kelvin intellect . .

  628. . . . “Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s.”

    But we are not without data

    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

    “The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists.”

    And one of them was Hansen,,, right at the center of the ice age scare

    ///… NASA scientist James E. Hansen, who has publicly criticized the Bush administration for dragging its feet on climate change and labeled skeptics of man-made global warming as distracting “court jesters,” appears in a 1971 Washington Post article that warns of an impending ice age within 50 years….///
    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/19/nasa-scientists-predicted-new-ice-age-1971 . . .

    ///… “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,” blares the headline of the July 9, 1971, article, which cautions readers that the world “could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts.”

    The scientist was S.I.Rasool, a colleague of Mr. Hansen’s at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The article goes on to say that Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus. …///
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/inside-the-beltway-69748548/?page=all . . .
    The 70s Ice Age Scare Global Cooling: The Coming Ice Age
    This video gives background about the 70s ice age scare with an update about some the principal figures. http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/the-70s-ice-age-scare.html . . .

    B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file) – Chicago, Ill. Mar 2, 1975 Page 2 In the last decade, the Arctic ice and snow cap has expanded 12 per cent, and for the first time in this century. ships making for Iceland ports have been impeded by drifting ice.

    New Ice Age Coming—It’s Already Getting Colder Ocean Floor Sediment Holds Clues to Future New Ice Age on Way—It’s Colder Already NEW ICE AGE
    Los Angeles Times Getze, George Oct 24, 1971 Page B1 Pages 3 Section C
    Some midsummer day, perhaps not too far in the future, a hard, killing frost will sweep down on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and the Russian steppes.

    Monday, Jan. 31, 1977 WEATHER: The Big Freeze. Why had the rain turned white? Startled millionaires wintering in their baronial mansions in West Palm Beach, Fla., peered closer last week at the miracle that was falling from the skies and discovered—could it be?—yes, the substance was snow, the first ever reported there. Since mid-November, pedestrians in Dallas, unaccustomed to such hazards, have been slipping on sleet-slicked sidewalks. Meanwhile, a series of blizzards has smothered Buffalo this winter with an astonishing 126.6 in. of snow. From the Dakotas and Minnesota, across the icy Great Lakes of the Middle West and down… http://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,918620,00.html

    1000s of articles, , , , which proves for a fact that your source is utter bull shit , , ,
    And i was there , , saw it in school TV and print,, and experienced its affects

    And its right there in the NOAA chart .. when the PDO and AMO aligned in the cold phase . .

    The hoaxers used an alignment in the warm phase , , , ,

    But the alignment is over , , , , , , and the cold alignment is coming . , , ,
    The hoaxers are pHucked . . . . . and you are a dullard idiot chump . . .

  629. http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf . . . from the CIA
    The Ice age scare period was causing crop failures in Russia and so on , , ,

    2 Scientists Think ‘Little’ Ice Age Near ( Hansen and Rasool ) The Hartford Courant, Hartford, Conn. Aug 11, 1974 Page 18 CORVALLIS, Ore. (UPI) — If you think winters are getting harder and longer you may be right. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/doc/552333723.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Aug%2011,%201974&author=&pub=The%20Hartford%20Courant&edition=&startpage=&desc=2%20Scientists%20Think%20%27Little%27%20Ice%20Age%20Near . . .

    “One thing is indesputable: The world has been cooling off since World War II”
    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19790311&id=tIwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6679,1789504

    Poor pwatwo,, poor dullard easilly chumped and fooled and made to look like a dunce pwatwo.
    Posting hoxer lies from those proven absolute they are Liars , , caught red handed in intentional lies, poor pwatwo,,, too dumbfuck to notice . . .

  630. U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973) – Washington, D.C. Victor Cohn; Washington Post Staff Writer Jul 9, 1971 Page A4
    The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts. Dr. S. I. Rasool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Columbia University

    Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age, Scientists See Ice Age In the Future The Washington Post, Times Herald – Washington, D.C. Staff Writer David R. Boldt Jan 11, 1970 Page A1 Get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters–the worst may be yet to come. That’s the long-long-range weather forecast being given out by “climatologists.” the people who study very long-term world weather trends.

    British climate expert predicts new Ice Age. The Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file) – Boston, Mass. Sep 23, 1972 Page 10 http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/csmonitor_historic/doc/511356590.html?FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Sep%2023,%201972&author=&pub=Christian%20Science%20Monitor&edition=&startpage=&desc=British%20climate%20expert%20predicts%20new%20Ice%20Age . . .

    Climatologists Forecast Stormy Economic Future; Climatologists Forecasting Dire Effects of Weather on World Economy and Social Order By JAMES P. STERBA Special to The New York Times July 12, 1976, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9905E1DA103FEF34BC4A52DFB166838D669EDE . . .

  631. Science: Another Ice Age? Monday, Nov. 13, 1972 The arrival of another ice age has long been a chilling theme of science fiction. If the earth’s recent history is any clue, says Marine Geologist Cesare Emiliani of the University of Miami, a new ice age could become a reality. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910467,00.html . . .

    Ice Age, worse food crisis seen, Chicago Tribune – Chicago, Ill. Yates, Ronald Oct 30, 1974 Page 10 The world’s famine problems are going to get worse before they get better–mainly because the Earth is entering a mini Ice Age, an American professor warned the Asian Food Production Conference here Tuesday. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/doc/171219716.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Oct%2030,%201974&author=Ronald%20Yates&pub=Chicago%20Tribune&edition=&startpage=&desc=Ice%20Age,%20worse%20food%20crisis%20seen . . .

    The Christian Science Monitor. – Boston, Mass. Robert C. Cowen Nov 14, 1979 Page 16
    One of the questions that nags at climatologists asks when and how fast a new ice age might descend. A Belgian scientist suggests this could happen sooner and swifter than you might think.

    Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way, Computer model planned
    The Christian Science Monitor. – Boston, Mass. David F. Salisbury Dec 11, 1973 Page 14
    “Another ice age is coming,” many climatologists forecast. But no one really knows what might bring the glaciers crashing down.

    Climate Change and its Effect on World Food. Walter Orr Roberts Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, andNational Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado

    In February of 1972 earth-orbiting artificial satellites revealed the existence of a greatly increased area of the snow and ice cover of the north polar cap as compared to all previous years of space age observations.

    Some scientists believe that this may have presaged the onset of the dramatic climate anomalies of 1972 that brought far-reaching adversities to the world’s peoples.

    Moreover, there is mounting evidence that the bad climate of 1972 may be the forerunner of a long series of less favorable agricultural crop years that lie ahead for most world societies.

    Thus widespread food shortages threaten just at the same time that world populations are growing to new highs. Indeed, less favorable climate may be the new global norm. The Earth may have entered a new “little ice age”

    There are strong signs that these recent climate disasters were not random deviations from the usual weather, but instead signals of the emergence of a new normal for world climates.

    If we are, indeed, experiencing a worsening of world climates it is, perhaps, equal in severity to any within the last millenium. The arguments for this view were developed by several of the climatologists who attended an international workshop on climate and its effects on human life convened in May 1974 in Bonn, Germany.

    At this meeting Profs. H. Flohn of Germany, H.H. Lamb of the United Kingdom and Reid Bryson of the United States developed a highly persuasive demonstration that there has been a steady cooling of northern hemisphere temperatures during the last 30 years, with the strongest cooling at the higher latitudes. http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull165/16505796265.pdf

    The Canberra Times Thursday 16 May 1974 NEW YORK, Wednesday (AAP). — Weather satellites sweeping across the northern hemisphere have come up with a surprise: the permanent snow and ice cap has increased sharply, Associated Press reported. The finding is cited as one more indication of what some climatologists believe to be a basic change in the world’s climate, a cooling

    NYTimes, SCIENTISTS AGREE WORLD IS COLDER; But Climate Experts Meeting Here Fail to Agree on Reasons for Change WALTER SULLIVAN January 30, 1961, After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.

    Poor pwatwo,, poor dullard easilly chumped and fooled and made to look like a dunce pwatwo.
    Posting hoxer lies from those proven absolute they are Liars , , caught red handed in intentional lies, poor pwatwo,,, too dumbfuck to notice . . .

    What is it like to be so easily chumped ? , , , 1000s of articles, , , , your source is utter bull.
    I was there , , it was in school TV and print,, and i experienced its effects.

    Its right there in the NOAA chart .. when the PDO and AMO aligned in the cold phase . .
    The hoaxers used an alignment in the warm phase , , , ,
    But the alignment is over , , , , , , and the cold alignment is coming . , , ,
    The hoaxers are pHucked . . . . . and you are a dullard idiot chump . . .

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results . . .

  632. The Canberra Times. Thursday 16 May 1974 SUPPORT FOR THEORY OF A COOLING WORLD.

    NEW YORK, Wednesday (AAP). — Weather satellites sweeping across the northern hemi- sphere have come up with a surprise: the permanent snow and ice cap has increased sharply, Associated Press reported.

    The finding is cited as one more indication of what some climatologists believe to be a basic change in the world’s climate, a cooling trend.

    The trend could affect weather and rainfall patterns, perhaps imparing the world’s ability to produce enough food for the expanding population, according to a number of authorities.

    Study of weekly maps of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that the snow and ice increased by 12% in the northern hemisphere in 1971 and has remained at the new level.

    The study was done by George and Helen Kukla, of the Lamondoherty Geological Observatory, Colombia University. Their research did not determine the reason for the sudden increase in the permanent snow and ice cap.

    The Kukla’s study arrived at the 12% figure by determining that snow and ice now is found year-round in the coastal mountains of British Columbia, and in various Asian mountain rain ges, the Himalayas, Tien- Shan, Hindu Kush.

    The location and duration of snow and pack-ice fields constituted the most important seasonal variable in the earth’s heat balance, the two scientists wrote in Science, journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    The Kukla report is cited by Dr F. Kenneth Hare, of the University of Toronto, a leading climatologist, who says the big ice expansion preceded the coldest Canadian winter yet recorded.

    In the winter of 1972, Dr Hare said in an interview, temperatures were below normal for the entire year over the entire country. This had never happened before.

    For the north-eastern third of the country, Dr Hare said, it was the coldest year on record, in many places cold- est by a wide margin. In many areas, he continued, there were as many as 19 consecutive months of below normal temperatures.

    The earliest serious records began in 1840, Dr Hare noted. So for 130 years there has not been anything like it. “I don’t know what caused this”, he said. But the climate has in fact shifted into a more ex- treme phase”.

    In the United States, the leading proponent of the changing-climate theory is Mr Reid Bryson, director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

    The evidence was now abundantly clear, that the climate of the earth was changing, and was changing in a direction that was not promising in terms of our ability to feed the world, he said.

    The fear was that the climate changes were acting to push the sub-tropical deserts of North Africa and Asia southward.

    Last year, Mr Bryson noted, was the sixth consecutive year of drought in Kenya, Ethiopia and the sub Saharan countries of Mau- ritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Sudan all just above the equator.

    The year before, he says, there was drought in Russia, Central America, Southern Asia, perhaps China,

    Mr Elmore Jackson, who is in charge of a program on conflicts in international relations for the Rockefeller Foundation, warns of basing projections on what seems to be an unstable base.

    “This introduces an element of uncertainty in predictions and undermines some of the confidence of people who made agricultural predictions”, he said. “There is much more uncertainty now than in the past that we can rely on stable patterns of weather so we have to look more fully at the question of food reserves”.

    Mr Bryson believes much of the change is man-made. While many climatotogists agreed there is a climate change, not all subscribe to his explanation.

    At the beginning of this century, Mr Bryson says, temperatures were rising rapidly. The dome of cool air which covered the polar regions was contracting and by 1940 had reached rather small size, and more of the earth was dominated by warm tropical and subtropical conditions.

    But since then, something had happened to make the earth cooler and the polar whirl of cool air larger.
    . . .
    The monsoon lands of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and China, were regions that were dry in winter and re- ceive their rainfall in the summer. North of those re- gions, subtropical high- pressure areas produced the deserts of North Africa and Asia. If these deserts moved southward, the monsoons were suppressed. Arctic cooling pushed the desert climates southward.

    In India, he says, the monsoon is more complex but the trend still seems to be a return to a higher frequency of drought. In the early part of the century thre were droughts every three or four years. As the earth warmed, monsoon rains declined to about once every 18 years.

    In the past few years, with the cooling of the earth and the southward movement of the subtropical high-pressure areas, drought frequency had been increasing in India.

    If droughts returned to India with a frequency like that which prevailed at the turn of the century, but with a population swollen four fold, the human and political consequences would be enormous. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/110778517 . . .

    Poor pwatwo,, poor dullard easilly chumped and fooled and made to look like a dunce pwatwo.

  633. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . . .

    All the info you need is there in the NOAA PDO/AMO chart . . . . .

    When the PDO and AMO aligned in the cold phase . . we had us an ice age scare, and the effects made all the papers , , , The US made grain shipments to a starving russia etc . , ,

    The hoaxers used an alignment in the warm phase to create the warming hoax , , , ,

    But the alignment is over , the cold alignment is coming, the hoaxers are pHucked,

    The warm alignment comes again in a few decades after the coming cold one, the cycle may repeat until those Minoan Roman And Medieval tree lines are visited again ,, as they have been many times before, and we wont have anything more to do with it than we did the many times before , , ,

    You warmists are all dullard idiot chumped hoaxer parrots, and the earth is going to take you to school on reality . . .

  634. Burnie, Tas Advocate Saturday 8 March
    Freeze- up” In Britain is Not thc First. Experiences of the Ages By CT.

    Britain has been engaged in a deadly battle against the forces of General Winter. England and Europe have been in the grip of the most severe cold in living memory With snow piled high in London’s, streets

    Europe may well ask themselves whether, they are in for another ice age such as the one from which their countries emerged barely ten or twelve thousand years ago.

    The recent freeze-up was not the first, nor is it likely to be the last. History records periods of cold and heat, drought and rain, and the influence of weather and climate on thc course of human history is greater than’many of us are inclined to admit

    In historic times we hear of a “marvelous great snow” in England as early as A.D. 70-1, when there was “so extreme a frost as the like had not been heard of’, continuing . from . the beginning of the winter almost ‘ to “the midst of spring.”

    The year 1254 began with long and severe frosts, and another very severe which occurred in 1270, when snow lay on the ground in London from Christmastime until March.

    The Thames was frozen, and when the ice broke in the spring, five arches of Lodnon Bridge, .which had then been standing for eighty years, collapsed under the impact of the floes.

    THE 14th century had a very bad A record, with many complete Freeze ups of all rivers both in England and on the Continent. Bad floods were caused by the spring thaws.

    In 1342 Cologne and Mayence was completely inundated by the flood waters of the Rhine. it is recorded that thc Baltic Sea was completely frozen several times during the 13th and 14th centuries.

    Climatically, Europe had seen better days during the 9th aud’10th centuries, when the northern oceans were free from ice for long periods, and the summers were warm and the winters mild.

    Favored by such conditions, the Vikings had spread far from their homes, and established their rule over large parts of western and even southern Europe.

    Another onslaught of rigorous conditions was experienced during the 16th and 17th centuries. Severe winters between 1040 and 1050′ spelt ruin to many farms in England. Ice accumulated in the Alps and from the end of the 16th till at least tho middle of the 17th century, the glaciers advanced several miles down the alpine valleys. Again the Baltic Sea froze over many times, and Charles XII conquered Poland after a surprise’ dash with his army across the solid ice from Sweden.

    Closer to bur time We have the record of an unprecedented snowfall at Chepstowe on March 24, 1888, when two inches of snow fell in two minutes. More severe even were tho snowstorms of. 1801, probably the worst on record, and of Christmas, 1927, when the snow was piling up all over southern England.

  635. Still remembered by many is the bitter cold of tho winter of 1917-18 at the height of the First. World War, All of Europe was blanketed with snow, all the rivers were frozen over, and the severe cold ‘ caused great hardships to millions of soldiers in their trenches from France to central Russia. Similar conditions recurred in the winter of 1928-29.

    Cold winters are brought about by the spread of what was known as “Continental weather. conditions,” with easterly winds which are dry and hot in summer, cold in wintertime; so cold winters are often paired with hot summers, resulting in crop failures, famine and general decline in living standards, aggravated by the rigorous winters that follow.

    The earliest drought-caused famine recorded in England is one in A.D. 298, but the most severe droughts on record are those of 1315, 1310 and 1321.

    There was generally a long dry spell from 1308 to 1322, and food was scarce all the time.

    The price of wheat rose rapidly after the bad harvest of 1310;, and in May, 1310, it had risen to five times the normal level. People subsisted on a diet of roots, and horses and dogs were killed for food.

    Thousands died and a great shortage of labor resulted. Again, the summer of 1592 was so dry that the Thames at London could be crossed on horse back.

  636. The intervening periods of more genial climate, characterized by pre dominantly humid westerly winds, with cooler summers and warmer winters, brought increased rainfall and general storminess.

    There can be no doubt that the-11th and 12th centuries were such a period of violent gales, which brought great suffering to the countries bordering the North Sea.

    An unprecedented flood on November ll, 1099, claimed. 100,000 victims in Holland and England, and exceptional storms in 1218 and 1219 broke the dykes of Holland and Freesia.

    The great flood of November 19, 1421, gave the Zuyder Zee the form it retained until Dutch engineering skill reclaimed it from the sea some 10 or 15 years ago.

    The question has naturally arisen whether the climatic changes are in my way periodic, and therefore predictable. In the last analysis all our weather is controlled by the sun. Is ¡t possible that changes in climate are due to changes in solar radiation?

  637. The phenomenon of sun spots is known to all. Large sun spots ‘can be seen easily with the naked eye if the sun is viewed through a smoked glass. Now the number of sun spots varies in cycles of about 11 years and a half, and it has been observed that an increase in sun spot activity is often accompanied by dry summers and cool winters, but this is by no means always tho case.

    The cold European winters of 1017-18, 192S-29 seemed to fit in admirably with tile sun spot cycle, but the present cold spell falls halfway in a period and spoils tho picture. More probably the weather follows a 23-year cycle, equally two sun spot cycles in length, but the laws of tho weather are not yet known in such detail as would make long-range prediction a practical possibility. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/68991997 . . .

    Yup thats what papers were like before they were taken over by leftist propaganda slaver droids . . .

    No leftist dumbfucks back then blaming the dry river Thames on global warming,, or the Frozen River Thames during the Frost Fairs on AGW climate change . . .

    Perhaps its time for some Kipling , , ,

    They said: “Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
    Let him arise and control both that man and his labour.”

    They said: “Who is eaten by sloth? Whose unthrift has destroyed him?
    He shall levy a tribute from all because none have employed him.”

    They said: “Who hath toiled, who hath striven, and gathered possession?
    Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.”

    They said: “Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it.
    If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it!

    So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him,
    The slayer, too, boasted his slain, and the judges released him.

    As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
    They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation.

    They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
    And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.

    They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
    And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.

    When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
    For the show and the world and the thought of Dominion is evil!”

    They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defied them,
    The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.

    They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
    The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strengths which are Faith and Endeavour.

    They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
    All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:

    And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
    And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given. . . .

    When they were fullest of wine and most flagrant in error,
    Out of the sea rose a sign – out of Heaven a terror.

    Then they saw, then they heard, then they knew – for none troubled to hide it,
    A host had prepared their destruction, but still they denied it.

    They denied what they dared not abide if it came to the trail;
    But the Sward that was forged while they lied did not heed their denial.

    It drove home, and no time was allowed to the crowd that was driven.
    The preposterous-minded were cowed – they thought time would be given.

    There was no need of a steed nor a lance to pursue them;
    It was decreed their own deed, and not a chance, should undo them.

    The tares they had laughingly sown were ripe to the reaping.
    The trust they had leagued to disown was removed from their keeping.

    The eaters of other men’s bread, the exempted from hardship,
    The excusers of impotence fled, abdicating their wardship,

    For the hate they had taught through the State brought the State no defender,
    And it passed from the roll of the Nations in headlong surrender.
    http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/city_of_brass.html . . .

  638. @Raymond, I apologize for pushing you over the edge into full-on trolling and spamming and babbling incoherency.

    Science tends to do that to deniers.

  639. @esr, I’ve presented numerous scientific references that support my views. That you don’t like them or me doesn’t mean your reality is correct. Whether or not you accept the science is irrelevant.

  640. pwatwo
    Heres an idea, if “science” from proven liars is shown to be wrong,, and claims shown to be false , , , but thats beyond you isnt it , , , your a parrot , , ,

    Attempting to disprove what happened to those alive at the time,,, heh ..
    Go suck up more of those hoaxer lies eh ? let em baffle ya with more bs . . .

    esr@ bit excessive eh, i could have excerpted those more , , , . . .
    ” the summer of 1592 was so dry that the Thames at London could be crossed on horse back.”
    Man Just imagine what the warmist rubber stamp, “Global Warming causes homosexuality in cats” lefty media would be doing with that natural occurrence if happening today eh ?

  641. @Raymond, thanks for providing the expected latest Dellingpole drivel…

    Temperature homogenisation

    Amazing as it may seem, the whole tampering with temperature data conspiracy has managed to rear it’s ugly head once again. James Delingpole has a rather silly article that even Bishop Hill calls interesting (although, to be fair, I have a suspicion that in “skeptic” land, interesting sometimes means “I know this is complete bollocks, but I can’t bring myself to actually say so”).

  642. Yup,, more fabrication of station data , , i wonder of thats what the proven exposed liars of the hockey team are depending on to get them through the next 30 Years or more it will take to reach thru the coming paired cold phase to the next multidecadal oscillation warm phase alignment , ,

  643. @Raymond, more hastily-tied-together denier memes with no logic behind the connections.

    Of course.

  644. Well actual data on government servers has never stopped your warmist dumbfuckery before . . .
    Not even a links to 100s of ice age scare period news articles… indefiance of those ,, you suck up to the exposed liars , , , ,

    Treelines existing warmer than today ? absolute reality it has been warmer than today ?
    you cling to the warmist proven exposed lie as if the peer reviewed papers are some kind of fabrication ,,,

    … course,, there are indeed pear reviewed fabrications ,, from the proven exposed liars of the hockey team ,,, where they were exposed reviewing each others papers. but such deliberate intentional exposed fraud seems limited to the hockey team exposed proven liar warmists.
    . we even have the climate gate emails documenting the fabrications , ,

    And we have the final proof the the entire method behind it all was malarkey, and that the hoaxers had to know it was bogus,, because they had the proof,,, and that proved how large bald face liars they were by publishing the fraud anyway . . .

    All fully documented .. the whole pathetic history . . .
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/
    http://climateaudit.org/2014/12/04/sheep-mountain-update/ . . .

  645. Really? The other one floods the forum with half-baked bs and vulgarity, and this is the one you call “troll”? Okay.

    “You are a reality-denier, troll. Go away.”

    As for “reality-denier,” it should be obvious by now that all or most of us, on both sides, feels that holding the opposite belief, opinion, or evaluation of the facts is only possible through some combination of dishonesty and stupidity — the essential ingredients of denial. Repeating the opinion that the other side is in denial is unproductive, so I’ll pass.

    What interests me is why you hold the position you do. If I thought it was due to a lack of integrity or intellect I wouldn’t bother saying so. I’d just move along and speak with people I respect, instead. I’m still not sure whether we’re reasoning differently about the same facts, or reasoning about different sets of facts. Probably a bit of both. I’d like to try to zero in on that.

    We have recently established that “17 years of pause would be the failure point” is in reality not something that Ben Santer said. What the phrase “at least” denotes is that such a 17 year interval would be a necessary, not a sufficient condition for that conclusion. Agree or disagree?

    Every one of those years has been above the historical average and all of the 10 warmest years have occurred within this 17 year interval. And many of those years, including record and near-record warm years, occurred while solar output is well below its historical average. These are just facts, no models and no inferences so far. Do you recognize all of these as facts or are we in disagreement already, about such basic facts?

  646. You are a reality-denier, troll. Go away.

    pwatwo might be somewhat impolite, but he’s not as incoherent or abusive as Raymond M. I don’t think you really want this to be an echo chamber.

    So far, you’ve gotten the OP wrong by comparing Nov/Dec CO2 observations to April modelling, you’ve ignored Hansen’s skilful predictions from 1988, and you’ve failed Statistics 101 comparing models to recent observations.

    Isn’t it time to reconsider your position?

  647. “holding the opposite belief,”

    In the face of mutually exclusive facts is plain idiocy.

    “no logic behind the connections.”

    So ,, its a narrative you need ? cant put the real world together without some propagandist spinning you a yarn eh ? ohh yeah .. they lived happily ever after . . .

    pwatwo defiled by missing heat, a martyr for the cause.
    Sweaty probes were forced into him, such pain while enduring the pause.
    But now he’s the captain of the Hoax, fronting a wealth redistribution plan.
    Still he dreams at night, Of the time of his life In the playpen of Tamino and Mann.

  648. @Raymond…

    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

    Thanks for proving you’re a small mind.

  649. .
    .
    pwatwo: He told me enough! He told me YOU killed him.
    Stanley Tweedle: No! I am your father!

  650. @Raymond, obviously Zeke’s article sailed over your head well into the mesosphere.

    You’re a wonderful parody of an AGW denier. I congratulate you on accurately portraying the most asinine, trollish, vulgar and foul aspects of the deniers. You’ve been spot-on.

  651. http://climatechangepredictions.org/ . . .

    less rain

    “So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation” – Interview with Professor Tim Flannery ABC News (Australia) Landline, 11 Feb 2007
    ========================================

    more rain

    Climate change ”cannot be ruled out” as a factor in recent heavy rainfalls, such as the flash flooding in Sydney on March 8, the wettest March day for more than 25 years, a report by the federal government’s Climate Commission says. The chief commissioner, Tim Flannery, said NSW was highly vulnerable to climate change. Sydney Morning Herald, Environment, 14 May 2012
    ========================================

    less summer rain

    A change in the North Atlantic current could lead to the end of the soggy British summers, researchers have claimed….. A decline in its speed, however, could cool the North Atlantic and put an end to the pattern, bringing colder but drier summer weather to Britain in future, experts explained. The Telegraph (UK) 19 Jan 2014
    =========================================

    more summer rain

    Extreme summer rainfall may become more frequent in the UK due to climate change, according to new research led by the Met Office in collaboration with Newcastle University. Met Office press release 2 Jun 2014
    =========================================

    The Earth is doomed!

    “The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth’s physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years.” James Lovelock, The Independent Thursday 16 January 2006
    ========================================

    The Earth is not doomed!

    Environmental scientist James Lovelock, renowned for his terrifying predictions of climate change’s deadly impact on the planet, has gone back on his previous claims, admitting they were ‘alarmist’. “The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing.We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear cut, but it hasn’t happened”. He added that other environmental commentators, such as former vice president Al Gore, are also guilty of exaggerating their arguments. The Daily Mail (Australia) 24 April 2012
    =========================================
    http://climatechangepredictions.org/categories/having_it_both_ways

  652. Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012. Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth’s remaining resources. The Canadian, 8 Jan 2007

    The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. “It was a bit of a first,” a spokesperson said. The Independent 20 Mar 2000, “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”

    “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.

    “[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers.” Michael Oppenheimer, published in “Dead Heat,” St. Martin’s Press, 1990

    On July 5, 1989, Noel Brown, then the director of the New York office of the United Nations Environment Program, warned of a “10-year window of opportunity to solve” global warming — “entire nations could be wiped off the face of Earth by rising sea levels if the global-warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ threatening political chaos.”

    The Prince of Wales is to issue a stark warning that nations have “less than 100 months to act” to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change. His warning will be delivered on Thursday in a keynote speech in Rio de Janeiro. In Thursday’s speech, the Prince will warn that a failure to act in the next eight years will have catastrophic effects for the planet. telegraph 07 Mar 2009.

    Srgjan Kerim, President of the General Assembly, opened the discussion by saying that 11 of the last 12 years had ranked among the 12 warmest since the keeping of global temperature records had begun in 1850. Two points were significant: that climate change was inherently a sustainable-development challenge; and that more efforts than ever before must be exerted to enable poor countries to prepare for impacts because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. UN Press release, 8 Jul 2008

    http://climatechangepredictions.org/categories/doomsday

  653. Poor easilly chumped idiot dullard ,, Zekes bull dont pass the laugh test , , ,

    To manufacture a trend that does not exist in the raw data is fraud , , ,

    To artificially adjust data history always down in the past is fraud . . . .

    Creating a new station and starting a new record is fine , , , , ,

    But erasing known proven history confirmed by news papers and the PDO/AMO is exposed lies ., caught red handed lies , , ,

    Their explanations,, and their lack of them ,, only works on dumbfucked chumps like you.

  654. ///… The Canberra Times. Thursday 16 May 1974 SUPPORT FOR THEORY OF A COOLING WORLD. NEW YORK, Wednesday (AAP). — Weather satellites sweeping across the northern hemi- sphere have come up with a surprise: the permanent snow and ice cap has increased sharply, Associated Press reported.

    The finding is cited as one more indication of what some climatologists believe to be a basic change in the world’s climate, a cooling trend.

    the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that the snow and ice increased by 12% in the northern hemisphere in 1971 and has remained at the new level.

    In the winter of 1972, Dr Hare said in an interview, temperatures were below normal for the entire year over the entire country. This had never happened before.

    At the beginning of this century, Mr Bryson says, temperatures were rising rapidly. The dome of cool air which covered the polar regions was contracting and by 1940 had reached rather small size, and more of the earth was dominated by warm tropical and subtropical conditions. But since then, something had happened to make the earth cooler and the polar whirl of cool air larger. ///

    B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? Chicago Tribune Chicago, Ill. Mar 2, 1975 Page 2 In the last decade, the Arctic ice and snow cap has expanded 12 per cent, and for the first time in this century. ships making for Iceland ports have been impeded by drifting ice.

    “One thing is indesputable: The world has been cooling off since World War II”
    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19790311&id=tIwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6679,1789504

    http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf . . . from the CIA
    The Ice age scare period was causing crop failures in Russia and so on , , ,

    Monday, Jan. 31, 1977 WEATHER: The Big Freeze. Why had the rain turned white? Startled millionaires wintering in their baronial mansions in West Palm Beach, Fla., peered closer last week at the miracle that was falling from the skies and discovered—could it be?—yes, the substance was snow, the first ever reported there. Since mid-November, pedestrians in Dallas, unaccustomed to such hazards, have been slipping on sleet-slicked sidewalks. Meanwhile, a series of blizzards has smothered Buffalo this winter with an astonishing 126.6 in. of snow. From the Dakotas and Minnesota, across the icy Great Lakes of the Middle West and down… http://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,918620,00.html

    And that period is documented in the NOAA PDO/AMO

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    And that period is documented in 100s of news papers and magazines . . .,
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .
    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . .

    One again ,, truth stares you in the face ,, you cant accuse of fabrication, You cant refute, you cant explain , , , you cant nothing , , ,

    Instead you announce how dumbfuck you are with your transparent hand-waving dismissals that only strips yourself naked before the world to show everyone how utterly pathetically dumbfuck you are , , ,

    the authors of the sites you offer suffer the same head screwed mentally perverted pathology ,,, clinging to exposed lies and their high priest liars, flailing about , , devoid of logic ,,, demanding narratives , , sucking and passing garbage that would not pass the bullshit filter of the mentally competent , , ,

    Your all toddlers in dripping drooping poopy diapers, with no understanding of the wrinkled noses of the adults around you . .

  655. http://oi62.tinypic.com/qoeesn.jpg . . . .
    red pos “adjustments” , ,blue neg “adjustments”

    Compare to AMO PDO History . . . . . . .
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    Again .. caught red handed , , , . . . flip those blue adjustments up , , and they show ,, with the help of the AMO PDO , , the warm periods they intentionally and deliberately fraudulently erase , , , ,

    Including the cold ice age scare period in the 70’s documented in news papers and magazines
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2013_02_01_archive.html . . .
    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/1970s-ice-age-scare/ . .

    By stories such as this , , ,
    B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? Chicago Tribune Chicago, Ill. Mar 2, 1975 Page 2 In the last decade, the Arctic ice and snow cap has expanded 12 per cent, and for the first time in this century. ships making for Iceland ports have been impeded by drifting ice.

    Exposed bald face liars , , , and they did it for a reason , , , ,

  656. “One thing is indesputable: The world has been cooling off since World War II”
    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19790311&id=tIwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6679,1789504

    It changed the history told in this news paper ,,, that once opon a time was also shown
    in the pre fraud govt data . .

    The story in the news paper , , , “The world has been cooling off since World War II”
    ( it bottomed with the PDO/AMO cold phase alignment ~1979, and rose paired slightly out phase making an alignment peak in 1998 . ..)

    To “The world has been heating up since World War II”

    they didnt alter the news papers in the archives,, but they altered the temp history they document, that the NOAA PDO AMO chart documents,, .. and my own life experience documents ,,, we had harsh winters then ,, ,,, ice storms in Shreveport, frozen tower pumps in Houston for 3 years that had never froze before or since , , ,

    And look at all the chumped dullard zero kelvin High priest Liar jizz sucking lapdog hoaxer parrots sucking it up . . . .

  657. @Raymond, delightful posts. Keep them up. Your characterization is about dead-on perfect.

    You’re like the Andrew Dice Clay version of Tony Watts.

  658. If jail for the hoaxers comes to fruition, things will become a lot less funny , ,

    No claims that such is too severe will be considered, what the hoaxers want means coercion using govt goons with guns,,, its a serious issue for us,, the hoaxers deserve to serve time for their crimes,, there are people dead in food riots due to this hoax , , ,
    And justice demands that they pay . . .

  659. @Raymond, this is what you’re left with – criminal persecution of scientists because you don’t like what they’ve learned.

    Sad. Pathetic. Disgusting. Of course.

  660. See .. as is typical with you brain defective libtard dullards .. your forgetting that none other than Mr tree ring fraud himself has opened that door … so yes Mr Mann is pathetic … and yes that opened the door to prosecuting the hoaxers ..

    and lefty bullshit won’t work in the court room .

    it’s only proper to hit back twice as hard .. as the saying goes…

    so once again .. you expose yourself … you are just soo totally dumbfuck … heh

  661. @Raymond, weak, weak, weak.

    Suppose Mike Mann never existed. What would be different?

    You’re obviously a fanboy of WTFWT and Climatefraudit. Pity. But the science is outside your comfort zone…

  662. a64:/home/src# cp -dlR linux-3.18 linux-3.18.5
    a64:/home/src# cd linux-3.18.5
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5# patch -p1 -s < ../patch-3.18.5
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5# make distclean
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5# cp ../linux-3.18.4/.config .config
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5# make xconfig
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5# time ../m26
    Kernel: arch/x86/boot/bzImage is ready (#1)
    real 5m11.923s
    user 21m23.077s
    sys 1m43.273s
    a64:/home/src/linux-3.18.5#

    Yeah lil hoax groupie,, what ya wanna be when ya grow up … Tamino's boot licker ?
    (no,, your already one of those),,,, Hansens butt smoocher ! ( nope, doing that already too )
    . . . they will find a use for ya,, some wheres , , ,

  663. It gets worse . . . the warmist papers are getting so bad they fall apart the day the public
    gets a look at them.

    Marotzke and Forster’s circular attribution of CMIP5 intermodel warming differences

    ///… A new paper in Nature by Jochem Marotzke and Piers Forster: ‘Forcing, feedback and internal variability in global temperature trends’ investigates the causes of the mismatch between climate models that simulate a strong increase in global temperature since 1998 and observations that show little increase …///

    ///… I was slightly taken aback by the paper, as I would have expected either one of the authors or a peer reviewer to have spotted the major flaws in its methodology.

    The Marotzke and Forster paper analyses trends in simulated global mean surface temperature (GMST) over all 15- and 62-year periods between 1900 and 2012, and relates them to contemporaneous trends in model effective radiative forcing (ERF) and to measures of model feedback strength (alpha) and model ocean heat uptake efficiency (kappa).

    Flaws in Marotzke’s methods

    To a physicist, the result that variations in model ? and ? have almost no effect on 62-year trends is so surprising that the immediate response should be: ‘what has Marotzke done wrong?’

    Some statistical flaws are self evident. Marotzke’s analysis treats the 75 model runs as being independent, but they are not. Only 18 models are analysed, and only one set of predictor variables is used per model. The difference between temperature simulations from each individual run by a model with multiple runs and the run-ensemble mean for that model is accordingly noise that one could not expect to be explained by the regression.

    The use of all the individual runs invalidates the simple statistical model used and the error estimates derived from it.

    However, there is an even more fundamental problem with Marotzke’s methodology: its logic is circular.

    Conclusions

    I have shown that there are no valid grounds for the assertions made in the paper that ‘For either trend length, spread in simulated climate feedback leaves no traceable imprint on GMST trends’ and that ‘The claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded’.

    Marotzke conclusion that for periods ending in the last few decades the non-noise element of 62-year GMST trends in models is determined just by their ERFs is invalid, since he hasn’t used an exogenous ERF estimate. Indeed, if the models are working properly, their GMST trends must logically also reflect their feedback strengths and their ocean heat uptake efficiencies.

    The interesting question is how much the large excess of model ensemble-mean simulated GMST trends relative to observed trends over the satellite era is attributable to respectively: use of excessive forcing increases; inadequate feedback strength (excessive ECS); inadequate ocean heat uptake efficiency; negative internal variability in the real climate system; and other causes. The Marotzke and Forster paper does not bring us any closer to providing an answer to this question. It certainly does not show the claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations to be unfounded.

    The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics.

    All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees.

    The paper is methodologically unsound and provides spurious results. No useful, valid inferences can be drawn from it. I believe that the authors should withdraw the paper….///

    http://climateaudit.org/2015/02/05/marotzke-and-forsters-circular-attribution-of-cmip5-intermodel-warming-differences/

  664. So, now you no longer deny only the severity of warming due to H2O feedback, but any warming trend at all?

    esr: The “problem” I see is that the hypothesis “the earth is warming” has been failing the 95% confidence test for a long time, and all the frantic efforts to explain this away are not working.

    Rodney McKay on 2015-01-31 at 19:41:44 said:
    Six months is not “a long time.”

    esr on 2015-01-31 at 19:44:40 said:
    I’m not talking about six months. I’m talking about the entire history of the pause. That entire history considered …

    The “entire history of the pause” is mathematically illiterate science deniers proclaiming “it hasn’t warmed since ${a_few_years_ago}” with flat lines through small samples of cherry-picked data, accompanied by little if any mathematical analysis. Until you’ve done the math, you can’t critique the science and your assertions of having done so are just meaningless, ignorant noise. You are to climate science as script kiddies are to hackers. You don’t even read the executive summaries (“Abstract” sections) carefully enough to notice the phrase “at least” and understand what it means.

    What brought me here is idle curiosity about how accomplished people in technical fields get climate science so wrong. Now I have my answer. You don’t have the first clue what you’re even talking about.

    I won’t claim to know whether it’s your political biases, social preference for “renegade” status (just my impression, based on reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar), or some other motive. It really doesn’t matter. What is absolutely clear is that your beliefs about climate science have nothing to do with reason. You simply decide to accept one set of claims uncritically — science denier blog excrement — while you reject the other set — the peer-reviewed science — without even comprehending what has really been said.

    Disagree? Do the math. Show your work.

  665. @esr:
    Could you ban Raymond Moyers?
    He has shown himself incapable of speaking clearly multiple times.
    Honestly, he’s the least coherent poster on this thread.
    The man has no sense of written English grammar.

    Anyway, the real substance of my post:
    The problem with heating the globe too much is not that it can’t be cooled down again.
    The real problem is that if the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps collapse, then the sea level will
    increase by at least a few feet really fast.
    The scary part is that they might actually be starting to collapse.
    Once they collapse, it’ll be millennia before they get built back up, even assuming very cold climate.
    Also, they would flood a good chunk of the East Coast, as well as several entire countries.

  666. least coherent = kicked your ass ?

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    The PDO has turned.. the AMO will follow , , , what are the hoaxer going to do then
    as the ramp down leaves their hoaxer asses exposed,, with the model plots continuing to diverge off into never never land , , ,

    The frustrated screaming poo chucking modeler monkey show ?

  667. “The problem with heating the globe”

    And we already have the proof thats its was warmer in the Minoan Roman And Medieval,
    warm periods ,,, Mountain and polar treelines etc . . . so your wild eyed Casandra chicken little garbage,,, is well garbage , ,

  668. Winter@Rodney, Here is the latest from Nature. With correct statistics, we do see why this latest “pause” is nothing unusual, and does not help the deniers in any way:
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7536/full/nature14117.html

    BTW that paper has been busted already . . . as i already posted

    http://climateaudit.org/2015/02/05/marotzke-and-forsters-circular-attribution-of-cmip5-intermodel-warming-differences/ . . .

    ///… The statistical methods used in the paper are so bad as to merit use in a class on how not to do applied statistics. . . . All this paper demonstrates is that climate scientists should take some basic courses in statistics and Nature should get some competent referees. . . . The paper is methodologically unsound and provides spurious results. No useful, valid inferences can be drawn from it. I believe that the authors should withdraw the paper….///

  669. Ive posted AMO and PDO charts many times, all of them detrended

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    I found one that leaves the trend in place , , , you can draw a line thru the osculations almost all the way back to the end of the little ice age ,,
    http://www.climate4you.com/images/AMO%20GlobalAnnualIndexSince1856%20With11yearRunningAverage.gif . . .

    ,, that cleared the ice from glacier bay centuries ago . .

    http://www.glacierbay.org/glaciers.html . . .
    https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/alaskas-most-famous-glacier-retreated-eight-feet-per-day-between-1794-and-1897/ . . .

    ///… As you enter Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska you will cruise along shorelines completely covered by ice just 200 years ago.

    Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.

    By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay. By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth.

    The glacier that filled Glacier Bay during the Little Ice Age began its retreat from the mouth of the bay more than 200 years ago and has exposed a magnificent fjord system about 100 km long. The massive glacier retreated past Sitakaday Narrows ~190 years ago, retreated past Whidbey Passage ~160 years ago, and reached the upper end of the main bay by 1860 (~140 years ago). …///

    Must have been all those inuit indian power plants running the big kayak factories ?

  670. From the beginning,,, I have posted many times about the PDO/AMO, and how the models are failing due to not properly taking them into account…. the PDO had turned,, the AMO will follow, (the AMO is more powerful, an alignment even more,)

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=91&tstype2=20&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=1&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results

    Now a new paper has emerged from peer review, about what ive been
    drawing attention to , ,

    Read it and weep,,,,, chumped hoaxer parrots , , , ,

    I can hear Pavarotti , , , , vincerò! vincerò, vincerò!

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
    The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific
    variability? H. Douville*, A. Voldoire and O. Geoffroy
    Article first published online: 10 FEB 2015
    DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062775
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL062775/abstract . . .
    ///… The observed global mean surface air temperature (GMST) has not
    risen over the last 15?years, spurring outbreaks of skepticism regarding
    the nature of global warming and challenging the upper range transient
    response of the current-generation global climate models. Recent
    numerical studies have, however, tempered the relevance of the observed
    pause in global warming by highlighting the key role of tropical Pacific
    internal variability.

    Here we first show that many climate models overestimate the influence
    of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation on GMST, thereby shedding doubt on
    their ability to capture the tropical Pacific contribution to the hiatus.

    Moreover, we highlight that model results can be quite sensitive to the
    experimental design. We argue that overriding the surface wind stress is
    more suitable than nudging the sea surface temperature for controlling
    the tropical Pacific ocean heat uptake and, thereby, the multidecadal
    variability of GMST.

    Using the former technique, our model captures several aspects of the
    recent climate evolution, including the weaker slowdown of global
    warming over land and the transition toward a negative phase of the
    Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

    Yet the observed global warming is still overestimated not only over the
    recent 1998–2012 hiatus period but also over former decades, thereby
    suggesting that the model might be too sensitive to the prescribed
    radiative forcings….///

  671. Just an update:
    2015 was the warmest year on record until 2016, that is
    https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-data-show-2016-warmest-year-on-record-globally

    Oh, and all the big oil companies knew climate change was real as far back as the 1980’s:

    Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climate-denier-funding

    Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco

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