BTW, Demonstrable AGW = 0. Again.

[palladin9479]

Real world data shows warming (including the data linked at the top of this thread).

There is a theoretical mechanism to explain the warming and humanity is tweaking that mechanism as hard as we possibly can.

So of course since every little wiggle in a global weather system with a variation of almost half it's absolute value must individually support this warming trend or AGW is a lie.

I call shenanigans.

The first is up for debate, too much of the "data" comes from land based weather stations sitting next to urban heat islands. The "correcting" methods have already been demonstrated to be unreliable at best, and a down right lie at worst.

That all being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the average temperature is going up by fractions of a degree. Variations in solar cycles (energy input) would easily account for that.

Nobody is debating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, what we're debating is the effect is the magnitude of the effect it has on the worlds temperature. Doubling the CO2 content won't budge the temperature, you need to return to per-historic levels to get it to rise at all. Water vapor has such an overpowering effect that all other green house gases are miniscule by comparison. AGW theory relies on tricks in math to create false positive feedbacks, unproven feedbacks btw, such that a small change in CO2 snowballs into a huge change in water vapor content.

Literally, someone turns on their car and a cloud is formed. And that if we turn on enough cars that so many clouds will be formed that it goes into a run away feedback loop. More CO2 = more clouds = even more CO2 = even more clouds = Venus atmosphere. None of which has been proven, not even in a lab. If anything the opposite has been demonstrated, that as atmospheric CO2 rise's cloud formations tend to happen higher and higher which reflect more energy away from earth, a negative feedback loop.

What I want done is more actual studies and experiments. Real reviewed experiments involving physics, atmospheric physicists, chemists and so forth. What we have now is people cherry picking data, manipulating that data then feeding them into closed secret "models" and putting that data onto a graph. Parading that graph around the world while asking everyone to lower their quality of life and give them all their money. Having conventions about "what to do to lower the worlds usage of fossil fuels" where all the attendees fly in on private jets and get driven around in limos.

In short, too much god darn money and politics in science. That's how junk science gets made.

[Diogenes]

I do. I wasn't really arguing that your notion that the specific ad referenced wasn't terrible. It obviously was. That was a valid point and one that I don't discredit.

What I was pointing out was that you seemed to imply that the ad was an indictment of ALL liberal AGW proponents. It wasn't. It was specific stupid ones, not necessarily the masses. Further, when you generically used the word "they" to refer to all AGW proponents as if they were both necessarily liberal and necessarily as extremist as those sponsoring those horrible ads, I found it a disturbing generalization. As an argument against the generalization, I think pointing out that "they" is too inclusive by expanding the notion of "they" is not that bad an argument. I was just pointing out the irony of that generalization by using one of my own, that all conservative skeptics of AGW would run an ad comparing believers in AGW to the Unibomber. I suppose that you can consider this an ad hominem attack against your hypocrisy if you want. But since your original argument was so muddied by your generalizations, it is hard to even figure out what position of yours I was apparently using a logical fallacy to discredit.

Further, the ad I referenced was NOT comparing green extremists to the Unibomber. It was comparing ALLl believers in AGW to the Unibomber. There are tons of people who accept AGW theory who would not qualify as either green or extreme. The ad says "believe". As to whether the Unibomber is a green extremist, I really don't know. I have read a summary of his Manifesto and it does seem to have some evolutionary roots perspective to it, but I didn't think that equated to a back to nature conclusion similar to the Move group. Whatever. As I said, I am not a Unibomber scholar.

I am pretty sure that if he was grouped with Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, and Osama bin Laden, who were the next planned "believers" in AGW for the heartlands campaign, that you wouldn't be making the claim that they were simply comparing greens to green extremists.

Finally, I don't think that you can really say that the joke of the ad that you reference was the equivalent of advocating for murder. The ad was obviously a joke that, despite being in very bad taste, was so over the top that it obviously didn't represent any real advocacy. At least that the impression of this particular AGW skeptic.

Fair enough. At one time I was believing it myself. I suppose there must be many people who believe in it, and who are not part of an agenda.

Mea Culpa.

[Diogenes]

...I was willing to concede the possibility that even a blind squirrel might find an acorn once in a while.

Then I saw the spectra-graphic absorption characteristics of Water Vapor and I realized, "Yup. Liberals are idiots. They are wrong about this too."

Look up the Spectral-graphic absorption characteristics of Water Vapor and tell me why we aren't an 800 degree inferno, like Venus.

Looking at anything beyond water vapor is a waste of time.

When you argue about water vapor overwhelming CO2 or that CO2 is saturated, you are arguing against a simplified explanation of AGW theory not against actual AGW theory. Actual theory basically agrees with you for the lower atmosphere but things change higher up.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -argument/

I'm not saying that the theory is correct. I am just saying that you shouldn't dismiss global warming due to your brief perusal of spectra-graphic absorption characteristics without a little deeper look.

Water vapor does better what CO2 or Methane does in terms of absorbing Solar Energy. It does it better qualitatively and it does it better quantitatively. As a result, if the AWG theory were correct, whatever it is that increases in these gases are supposed to do to us, Water Vapor would have already done.

The fact is, Water Vapor is a positive feedback effect up to a point at which it flips and becomes a negative feedback effect.

My argument is that the negative feedback effects of water vapor are, and will seemingly always be the overwhelming dominate effect. By what mechanism can any other gas compete?

[randomencounter]

Real world data shows warming (including the data linked at the top of this thread).

There is a theoretical mechanism to explain the warming and humanity is tweaking that mechanism as hard as we possibly can.

So of course since every little wiggle in a global weather system with a variation of almost half it's absolute value must individually support this warming trend or AGW is a lie.

I call shenanigans.

The first is up for debate, too much of the "data" comes from land based weather stations sitting next to urban heat islands. The "correcting" methods have already been demonstrated to be unreliable at best, and a down right lie at worst.

That all being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the average temperature is going up by fractions of a degree. Variations in solar cycles (energy input) would easily account for that.

Nobody is debating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, what we're debating is the effect is the magnitude of the effect it has on the worlds temperature. Doubling the CO2 content won't budge the temperature, you need to return to per-historic levels to get it to rise at all. Water vapor has such an overpowering effect that all other green house gases are miniscule by comparison. AGW theory relies on tricks in math to create false positive feedbacks, unproven feedbacks btw, such that a small change in CO2 snowballs into a huge change in water vapor content.

Literally, someone turns on their car and a cloud is formed. And that if we turn on enough cars that so many clouds will be formed that it goes into a run away feedback loop. More CO2 = more clouds = even more CO2 = even more clouds = Venus atmosphere. None of which has been proven, not even in a lab. If anything the opposite has been demonstrated, that as atmospheric CO2 rise's cloud formations tend to happen higher and higher which reflect more energy away from earth, a negative feedback loop.

What I want done is more actual studies and experiments. Real reviewed experiments involving physics, atmospheric physicists, chemists and so forth. What we have now is people cherry picking data, manipulating that data then feeding them into closed secret "models" and putting that data onto a graph. Parading that graph around the world while asking everyone to lower their quality of life and give them all their money. Having conventions about "what to do to lower the worlds usage of fossil fuels" where all the attendees fly in on private jets and get driven around in limos.

In short, too much god darn money and politics in science. That's how junk science gets made.

The "study" at the top is just a re-analysis of the US temperature data with the "heat island" stations removed.

It still shows warming.

Water vapor (unlike CO2 and Methane) forms clouds that reflect sunlight back to space before it can be converted to IR. This means that water vapor counts on *both sides* of the greenhouse gas analysis.

CO2 only counts on the retention side, since it does not form reflective clouds at Earth temperatures.

CO2 also has a different absorbtion spectrum than water vapor. So increased CO2 blocks IR radiation that the water vapor would ordinarily let through.

It's obvious that none of you have actually done thorough research into the topic, or even really read the skeptic papers thoroughly (since they often show things in the guts of the paper that aren't mentioned in the press release).

[Edit]
I looked back at the paper again and see how he tricked you.

The boundary between warming and cooling there is between light blue and dark blue. Light blue on the graphic is still warming.

Clever psychological tricks like that are part and parcel of deceptive practices, you should be angry with these people for trying so hard to fool you.

[seedload]

Real world data shows warming (including the data linked at the top of this thread).

There is a theoretical mechanism to explain the warming and humanity is tweaking that mechanism as hard as we possibly can.

So of course since every little wiggle in a global weather system with a variation of almost half it's absolute value must individually support this warming trend or AGW is a lie.

I call shenanigans.

You just repeated what I said.

<agreement>

Yes, there has probably been warming over the last century.

Yes, there is a theoretical mechanism that increased CO2 would account for part of that warming.

Yes, there is additional theory that amplifies the theoretical warming of CO2.

Yes, many people on both sides of the argument invalidly use local or temporary extreme fluctuations in weather to either support or discredit the other side but that has nothing to do with the argument. How people act doesn't justify or discredit the theory IMHO. Simply calling shenanigans really doesn't settle much.

</agreement>

I am not sure why you keep ignoring my point that for the acknowledged warming to be significant in and of itself, it has to be unprecedented. If it is not unprecedented, it has no meaning to the conversation. Potentially, there may have been this warming without CO2 increase. Potentially, there may have been cooling without CO2. You can't use the warming, even at a global scale, to demonstrate anything without establishing what the system would have done without added CO2.

[randomencounter]

The same thing can happen due to different causes.

If you go back far enough you can find any weather pattern you want (literally).

This means that requiring "unprecedented warming" as a prerequisite for accepting AGW as a likelyhood is just another way of distracting people from the current facts.

Oh, and about those charts?

The colors fooled me too. I was wrong about it showing cooling in the south east, it still shows warming there.

The boundary between warming and cooling is actually between the dark blue and the dark blue.

This is with the most favorable data set the authors could manage without simply pulling numbers out of their behinds.

[seedload]

This means that requiring "unprecedented warming" as a prerequisite for accepting AGW as a likelyhood is just another way of distracting people from the current facts.

I am not saying that unprecedented warming is required to accept AGW theory, I am saying that current warming is not significant to the question of AGW theory unless it is unprecedented.

If the climate system warms and cools in cycles or with randomness through other causes, then arbitrarily picking a time of observation (now) and attributing the warming or cooling to any particular theory is not evidence for the theory.

Curious why you think that it is not important that the temperature change be unprecedented when the IPCC does think it is important that it be unprecedented. The AR4 Summary to Policymakers follows the section on Direct Observations with one titled "A Palaeoclimatic Perspective". Obviously they think that this perspective is necessary. Here's a quote from the perspective section:

Palaeoclimatic information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years.

It is somehow a distracting tactic to discuss what the IPCC considers to be a reasonable tactic?

[choff]

When it gets too hot for farming in Greenland AGW proponents will have a case. The vikings claimed they could get from Norway to Greenland by travelling North then East!

I'm stuck in one of the coldest, dampest summers I can remember living in the same area all my life, frost on the windshield in the mornings, never had it in August before.

[ScottL]

More water vapor in the Stratosphere = bad.

[ScottL]

When it gets too hot for farming in Greenland AGW proponents will have a case. The vikings claimed they could get from Norway to Greenland by travelling North then East!

I'm stuck in one of the coldest, dampest summers I can remember living in the same area all my life, frost on the windshield in the mornings, never had it in August before.

Anecdotal, climate change doesn't state we're all heating up everywhere, but that on average the Earth has warmed. This means you can still have extreme cold or other weather effects.

[Diogenes]

[hanelyp]

Another point to consider, absorption spectrum == emission spectrum. The same molecules that intercept IR radiation from the ground emit IR up in the atmosphere.

[tomclarke]

AGW proven again to be an invention from whole cloth.

From WUWT.

When will those who wanted for the "best" of reasons to kill billions by deliberate impoversihment be made to pay?

Wow. This site, I thought, respected hard science? Forgive me for sounding off but Watts pisses me off by pretending scientific credentials when he has no respect for science - either he is totally ignorant or deliberately distorting. I would not say which. He is detestable.

I find the best antidote is to read here. Not fair, I know, but replying in kind with insults identical to those heaped on the climate scientists. Only the scientific flaws in Watts' arguments are so very obvious it is very easy to pick holes in them.

To return to the main argument.

There are some valid reasons to argue about AGW. The science is not certain. If climate sensitivity comes out 1/2 the value of the current "average" value (according to IPCC this is quite possible) then although AGW will happen we have much more time, and much less to worry about. Let us hope this is true, because sure as hell dramatic reductions in CO2 emmission will not happen, politically, independent of the strength of the science case. Bad things happenning 50 years down the road is outside the timescale of all elected politicians, and most of the electorate.

The IPCC reports tell you the science is not certain (if you bother to read the science). If, on the other hand, you read the political spin you will get nowhere.

however not certain does not mean nonexistent. There is lots of evidence of AGW.

The physical effect of CO2 (discounting all feedbacks) is 100% certain from direct calculation. And it is a warming effect. I can and will argue through the science with anyone so ignorant as not to have gone through it carefully.

Also, the increase in atmospheric CO2 due to anthropgenic emmissions, and the lifetime of that CO2, is equally certain.

So what is less certain is the effect of feedbacks (there are many). These could either amplify or (in principle) reduce the exactly known CO2 warming effect.

IPCC is clear about this. Go read the report. There is so much uncertainty in this because the feedbacks (things like clouds, but also bio-feedbacks) are very complex. So direct calculation of these feedbacks is not clear - easy to miss something out. Having said that detailed climate models get better and more powerful (the two things are not the same - computer power increases, as does the level of sophistication of the modelling) every year. So there is some direct evidence for H2O feedbacks being positive - as the globe warms, so increasing water vapour in the atmospjhere, cloud cover overall tends to increase heat trapped. This is BTW the naive conclusion as well, but when you look in detail at what clouds do they warm or cool according to whether they are low down or high up in the atmosphere. And the formation or not of clouds is very complex.

So we then have indirect evidence for positive feedbacks. this rests on whether climate over last 100 years can be explained by natural changes other than CO2 + high climate sensitivity. Effectively, you model all possible causes of variability, find other ways to validate as many causes as possible, and what is left is the CO2 signature.

This entreprise is extremely difficult, and requires very greta care. It is NOT certain (as the climate scientists all agree - political spin aside). The variability in the climate feedback parameter between different studies is large.

So, thus far I can agree with the skeptics - but thus far I am not disagreeing with IPCC AR4 (actually there is one important issue where I side with James Annan and other climate scientists - that of thinking the uniform Bayesian prior used in IPCC AR4 to be wrong, and this has a significant effect on projections - downwards thank god). AR5 will address the matter or there will be trouble within the mainstream climate science community.

But the best that can then be said is that we can't know what is climate sensitivity to forcing. We DO know that atmospheric CO2 has very long lifetime and will be a forcing factor increasing global temperatures just as surely as changes in the earth's orbit, or changes in solar radiance.

That is cause for concern and lots of research to reduce the uncertainty - because the way we have changed, and continue to chnage, atmospheric composition is so large.

Humans have not till the 20C had the ability to make globally significant changes to the ecosystem. Now we can, it is really stupid not to be careful. Unlike every other previous effect of the human race this one is (potentially) irreversible, affects the whole globe, and has a long time constant so we won't know whether to be worried till after we are committed to change. Now that is unarguable, and if you care about +50 years timescale it is scary.

Personally, I don't feel scared. I'll be dead. But sticking my head in the sand like an ostrich (as many on this thread argue is apropriate) seems to me a really stupid idea.

But then, when has the human race not been really stupid?

Anthony Watts, welcome to the human race. You are behaving on form.

[tomclarke]

Here, for example, is mainstream climate science looking at the semi-direct forcing effect of CO2. This sort of work is completely independent of tendentious historical temperature reconstructions. It rets on current detailed temperature data, and atmospheric models which are grounded in physics.

I'm not saying this paper is right BTW, it is 4 years old and newer work may have changed its conclusions somewhat, I have not looked. Climate science does not rest on any one line of argument, but on multiple independent supporting threads.

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/43313/2/ ... 5B1%5D.pdf

[Skipjack]

My take on this is: There clearly is a warming effect, whether it is natural or man made. If we can do something to reduce it, or slow it down, then we should, since in the long term, too hot is not a good thing either.
Personally I favor geoengineering as a solution, but that would require us to solve a few other problems first.
Getting nuclear fusion online would help one way or the other. So that is the highest of all on my priority list.