BTW, Demonstrable AGW = 0. Again.

[tomclarke]

The political things is bad - but it cuts both ways. I agree some (not all) climate scientists have developed a defensive "us against them" mentality in which they are engaged in polemic argument. I regret this.

But it is easy to see why this happens when you read the vast amount of well-funded political and clearly false disinformation on the skeptic side.

That's absurd, Tom. Seriously, get some facts. Almost all the money is on the side of the AGW people, and all of this is because of politics, not science.

I don't think the got funded scientists are paid to provide rhetoric, though a few do. Whereas some other places, e.g. heartland institute, do nothing else.

Furthermore, claiming that the anti-agw people are full of false claims when the demonstrated facts are that the AGW arguments have been demonstrated to be false again and again, and their proponents to be fraudulent, and collaborating together to make fraudulent arguments, is just absurd.

I think you are looking at political slurs and ad homs, not science. In fact I' m pretty sure from the above that you have not taken an overall view of the science.

For a skeptical view of the science which however goes into the science of your favourite "why AGW is wrong" claims try:
scienceofdoom.

As for people being fraudulent, the worst that can be said is that they have indulged in politics to combat what they see as harmful disinformation.

Have you, for example, gone through all the science of the original 1998 Mann hockey stick paper, the various criticisms, the demolition of the criticisms, the small (no chnage to results) error from Mann, and how his work matches up to state of the art 10 years later (Wahl & Amman 2007)? In the process taking in the NAS report + the incredibly biassed wegman report which is scientifically ignorant and methodologically biassed? I have.

Likewise, your claims that the critical position is to "assume therefore that AGW is not a problem" is obviously not true. The anti-agw position has always been "show me".

What does that mean? let us suppose, for sake of argument, the scienve saus that CO2 as normal could result in anything from 2C to 6C warming by 2010, with best guess average 4C but high uncertainty over that range.

What would the anti-AGW position be?

If you want to tax carbon and pretend it's a pollutant, if you want to drive energy prices so high that people can't heat their homes and the costs of all items in society skyrocket, if you want essentially to impoverish the middle class, then you darn well better have some evidence that shows this is necessary, and thus far, the AGW crowd has not come up with this.

The politics is separate from the science, and I notice on the anti-AGW side always, and teh AGW side sometimes, the two get conflated. Lets leave politics out of deciding what is the science.

However, as far as politics go take the case above, science says with reasonable certainty that CO2 as normal will result in 2C-6C warming. It is impossible to know what it will be, both sides of range look equally likely.

Suppose that 6C warming will certainly flood all low-lying eastern seabord area in US, London in UK, may other large low-lying cities and areas. That it will dramatically change weather patterns with unpredictable results, some previously fertile areas (say mid-US farming states) will become infertile and of course vice versa. There is a good chance of middle-eastern wars over water (the Pentagon seems to think this is a likely threat to the US medium-term).

Now, we don't know this scenario will happen. If it does, we don't know how bad it will be, though some things (sea-level rise) are certain.

What is necessary? It is a difficult political decision. But not one best served byy an attitude of "I don't want to believe it and will shut my eyes till its 90% certain".

Economically, higher carbon costs are not disastrous. The world has moved away from oil price dependence as in the 1970s. In fact very high oil prices happen anyway from time to time for reasons nothingto do with AGW policy. What is so disastrous about encouraging a move away from oil with a redistributive tax which penalises oil and gives money to other things? The economy has no less money. Just it spends it in a different way. And how do the costs of such a policy measure up which the much larger costs of higher temperature rises?

I myself don't have clear answers to these questions. But I'm wondering why you think you do?

And I will remind you one more time, this above, to deliberately force energy prices sky high in order to cut back on consumption, has been the plan for more than 25 years. When I was TAing Environmental Ethics at PSU, all of the texts we used explained this was the only way to stop the catastrophe facing the planet. Pretending the way you are that there is some neutral position, is ridiculous. You either believe that the science shows we need to take dramatic action, or you don't.

With respect, that is like saying "pretending grey can exist is ludicrous, things must be black or white". If you believe action is needed then it will be over 50 years, and teh speed of the action will depend on many things, it is not simple. If carbon taxes and wealth redistribution to otehr forms of energy are gradual tehre is no need for lage energy price rises. PV, for example, has every prospect of being as cheap as any energy form (though not for base load, which needs nuclear, with costs unclear).

When faced with future uncertain but maybe very very large costs, and expensive ways of reducing them, the decision is difficult and certainly not black and white. I wonder why you are so sure it must be?

People who haven;t looked at the evidence like yourself; believe we need to take dramatic action because that's what the pseudo-scientists, politicians and mass media have told you to believe.

politicians are not yet taking dramatic action. It is too difficult. they are doing token things.

So gas is twice as much now as it was a couple years ago, heating oil is so expensive that people will be icy cold in their homes this winter, and every industrial process that dumps CO2 into the air is going to be taxed. The EPA has started treating CO2 as a toxin, and we're all going to pay.

Oil and gas prices have gone throiugh the roof because of supply and demand. Nothing to do with AGW. US has gas from fracking to reduce privces, so theya re now low again. Oil will be expensive because there are limeted cheap sources and they are running out.

All without evidence we could easily have, if we'd just launch the sat that was grounded during the Bush years.

The AGW people forced this issue without making a real scientific case, and because they knowingly forced people into an adversarial position, they never got their sat launched. What this does is promote more of the bullshit pseudo-science coming from both you and Diogenes, neither of which have a clue to what you speak--just like all the other clowns pretending they know what they're talking about.

I'll take you up on that. I believe I know a fair amount about what I speak, though of course much less than somone who had spent 5 years studying the literature. But I have at least read some of the real literature, rather than blog disgests. Have you?

You two are not part of the solution. You are the problem.

You seem to be objecting to my views. I'm not sure where you disagree with them, other than in my not seeing this issue as white and black, and my not seeing high oil and gas prices as the result of AGW policies.

Best wishes, Tom

[GIThruster]

Tom, I am not an AGW person, nor am I an anti-AGW person. What I'm saying is, that those pressing the AGW position have believed for decades that stopping AGW can only occur with severe restrictions on all sorts of energy, and the costs are astronomical. For you to present they're anything less demonstrates that you do not understand the AGW position.

AGW's official position is that the severe, extreme, catastrophic results of AGW can only be avoided by severe, extreme, catastrophic measures and that these measures are surely called for. People who promote the AGW position, and don't understand this, are pawns. You're a pawn.

According to the foundational AGW crowd, the only solution to AGW is population control, elimination of fossil fuel use, vegetarianism, elimination of animal products, etc. If you haven't seen the literature on this, it's because you're reading only the literature that has been put forth the last dozen years or so, since use of the term "AGW" has gone out of use in favor of the more benign seeming "climate change".

AGW proponents haven't altered their position. They've merely repackaged it. They've stopped telling people we're all gonna die when the human population hits 8 billion, because they know this can't be stopped. They're still fanning the flames, but they believe that there is no way to avoid catastrophe. They're still sucking up billions in funding, producing models that never work and castigating opponents who call for evidence. People are being drummed out of academia for doubting the doctrines of the pseudo-scientists.

None of this is necessary. I turned my back on the now radical environmentalist movement 20 years ago, because I recognized it cannot survive without the adolescent self-righteousness that it gathers by preying upon kids in school and qualifies chiefly as a hate movement. There's no sense to it, and most of academia is now sold out to it.

It's a shame, because all we need to do to have real answers is launch the sat that was built years ago. OBama could have accomplished that during his first month in office, so it's obvious the strings being pulled here are not what you'd guess.

[choff]

I was reading in the climategate emails how the CRU scientists were using privacy rules to avoid FOI requests of data. How when they did try to comply they had some junior person given the job of organizing the data. In the emails he was saying things like 'this is the most disorganized set of data I've ever seen', or 'am I the first person to ever look at this data.'

I wasn't too far away from Mt. St. Helens when it blew, if you ever have the experience, you will realize that 8 billion people have little impact on nature.

[tomclarke]

I was reading in the climategate emails how the CRU scientists were using privacy rules to avoid FOI requests of data. How when they did try to comply they had some junior person given the job of organizing the data. In the emails he was saying things like 'this is the most disorganized set of data I've ever seen', or 'am I the first person to ever look at this data.'

I wasn't too far away from Mt. St. Helens when it blew, if you ever have the experience, you will realize that 8 billion people have little impact on nature.

choff, if you had ever been subject to harrassment as the CRU people have, you too would not wish the burden of publishing every single last A4 sheet you have covered with ink. Further you would not want those shets to get in the hands of people who you know will spend 100s of hours of time crawling through them and extracting anything that looks bad (out of context).

Have you never written e-mails that are colourful and liable to misinterpretation?

Volcanos have an enormous impact on nature - which the climate scientists have quantified, with evidence. they can relate that to other impacts, again with evidence. I'm afraid I would not support your gut feeling based on holiday anecdotes over evidence. And nor should you.

[tomclarke]

Tom, I am not an AGW person, nor am I an anti-AGW person. What I'm saying is, that those pressing the AGW position have believed for decades that stopping AGW can only occur with severe restrictions on all sorts of energy,

Imprecise. Severe restrictions on CO2-emitting forms of energy. That excludes renewables & nuclear. And that is sever restrictions eventually, not now.

Also imprecise. "the AGW position" is held by 99% of scientists working in the field. Most do not have the political views you claim. Of course some, particularly those who are high profile, do. But politics is as varies amongst scientists as anyone else. The difference is that most scientists can put politics aside and be interested in the scientific case. I would rspect the "anti-AGW" position more, if a large rproportion of those arguing put science first and ignored politics.

and the costs are astronomical.

Imprecise. Thus far, the costs are real but insignificant. Whether the costs will be very large depends on things we don't know - how cheap renewables/nuclear become over the transition period. Fossil fuels will over time get more expensive anyway, for obvious reasons.

For you to present they're anything less demonstrates that you do not understand the AGW position.

Sigh. You are doing it again. Confusing politics - what we should do given reality of AGW - with science - what is the consequence on climate of given CO2 emmissions.

I will argue both, of course. But the political case I argue less strongly, because I don't know much about economics and it is clearly a complex issue.

The science case I argue strongly, because although it is also complex I've spent a lot of time looking at it, I have the ability to do so, and also large numbers of other scientists have done the same and broadly agree, though with much disagreement on detail, which is why expected given the science case contains a good deal of uncertainty. I've talked to many of those scientists. they are good guys, interested in intellectual questions, not politically inclined. (I'm not saying I am a real expecrt here, but know enough to follow arguments by critically appraising the source papers, and checking inconsistencies).

The economics of the political case has none of those assurances, so I will question your strong statements asking for real evidence, but not be very sure myself.

AGW's official position is that the severe, extreme, catastrophic results of AGW can only be avoided by severe, extreme, catastrophic measures and that these measures are surely called for. People who promote the AGW position, and don't understand this, are pawns. You're a pawn.

What official position? Where? There are lots of eco-freaks who think this. Governments, I notice, have toned it down and never agreed to changes that cause more than slight discomfort. what a surprise!

The IPCC report does two things: it quantifies risks. It looks at the science of mitigation etc. I've paid no attention to the latter so far.

It does not recommend policy.

You (from your previous post, not the one I'm replying to now) appear the pawn of a very common internet meme which rewrites all these issues in black and white terms, and in the process replaces rational appreciation of the science with a politically-driven agenda. Where, for example, you conflate views about the science of AGW with political views about whether extreme measures now are appropriate.

According to the foundational AGW crowd,

Wow! Of the 10s of thousand of scientists contributing to the consensus, which are in this elite group? And are those not so, too, pawns?

Sorry for the rhetoric, but you invite it with comments which categorise and impute motives.

the only solution to AGW is population control, elimination of fossil fuel use, vegetarianism, elimination of animal products, etc. If you haven't seen the literature on this, it's because you're reading only the literature that has been put forth the last dozen years or so, since use of the term "AGW" has gone out of use in favor of the more benign seeming "climate change".

OK. No doubt there are a few scientists who are also eco-freaks, ideological vegetarians, in favour of top-down population control.

As a scientist you would probably (non-ideologically) agree that:
*Water and/or food scarcity are possible in a world with ever-increasing population. (We have seen signs of food scracity in increases in commodity proices recently)

*In terms of land and water use animal meat is grossly inefficient (though chickens not too bad if battery farmed).

*Fossil fuel use will inevitably continue to up the CO2 level in the atmosphere, this level even now is unusual because has not been the case for the last 1,000,000 years.

*Fewer people in the world would put less pressure on resources.

*The best way to reduce population increase is to educate women so they are empowered, to provide easily available population control, and to alleviate poverty so bad that all thought of consequences is less important that surviving the next day.

You don't have to be an eco-freak to believe that stuff. In fact you have to be a prog-freak to disbelieve it.

AGW proponents

Sorry, I'm now confused. Is this scientists who conclude AGW is real and significant, or people with a specific political view about what should therefore be done?

You don't separate the two groups, and when you change terminology I wonder which you mean.

haven't altered their position. They've merely repackaged it. They've stopped telling people we're all gonna die when the human population hits 8 billion, because they know this can't be stopped. They're still fanning the flames, but they believe that there is no way to avoid catastrophe. They're still sucking up billions in funding, producing models that never work and castigating opponents who call for evidence. People are being drummed out of academia for doubting the doctrines of the pseudo-scientists.

Lots of internet memes here. No evidence. I've studied some of these memes, and when you look dispasionately at the evidence it does not hold up. And the whole paragraph is a rant. It is far from rational asessment. You have a view that there is a powerful bad group of people out there whom you must fight. That may or may not be true, but it sure makes it difficult to rationally consider the issue.

None of this is necessary. I turned my back on the now radical environmentalist movement 20 years ago, because I recognized it cannot survive without the adolescent self-righteousness that it gathers by preying upon kids in school and qualifies chiefly as a hate movement.

OK. I understand now your passion. No-one stronger in hate than a follower now disillusioned.

You see, I've never been an ideological eco-freak, but always had some sympathy with the "small is better, tread lightly on the world" view. Alas when followed logically there are inherent inconsistencies. The most efficient way to use resources is to have everyone living in tiny boxes in very large towns. That is treading lightly, but not that nice. Having said that there is room for optimising things other than extreme positions - which tend not to be optimal.

There's no sense to it, and most of academia is now sold out to it.

I agree no sense in the eco-freak extreme. Disagree most, or even a large minority, of academia follows it. Scientists are people.

It's a shame, because all we need to do to have real answers is launch the sat that was built years ago. OBama could have accomplished that during his first month in office, so it's obvious the strings being pulled here are not what you'd guess.

Sorry, I don't know this specific issue. I'm sure that scientists are in favour of more data, and politicians in current climate are under great pressure to cut expense. Specifically in the US - I remember the issues!

[Diogenes]

IMHO the toughest selling point of all for global warming is I will be long dead before it affects me.

Well the world climate is always changing, though the change is often slow with sudden small bursts. That's why everyone's freaking out now, they thing this is some sudden change and not realizing that it's been changing for centuries with little ups and downs. It'll get hotter and eventually it'll get colder until it hits another ice age, then it'll get warmer again. We might not even be around as a species by the time that happens.

The scales involved here dwarf humanity so severely, it's impossible not to feel like an ant when thinking about it.

Funny, that's what I say about Human Social dynamics. People don't understand the effects of morality changes because the scale is too large.

[tomclarke]

IMHO the toughest selling point of all for global warming is I will be long dead before it affects me.

Well the world climate is always changing, though the change is often slow with sudden small bursts. That's why everyone's freaking out now, they thing this is some sudden change and not realizing that it's been changing for centuries with little ups and downs. It'll get hotter and eventually it'll get colder until it hits another ice age, then it'll get warmer again. We might not even be around as a species by the time that happens.

The scales involved here dwarf humanity so severely, it's impossible not to feel like an ant when thinking about it.

Funny, that's what I say about Human Social dynamics. People don't understand the effects of morality changes because the scale is too large.

Humanity is pretty good at making fast large-scale changes. Fossil carbon that took 100s of millions of years to be deposited, in solid form from CO2 in the atmosphere is being pushed back to the atmosphere in only 100 years.

Not bad.

[GIThruster]

Sigh. You are doing it again. Confusing politics - what we should do given reality of AGW - with science - what is the consequence on climate of given CO2 emmissions.

I will argue both, of course. But the political case I argue less strongly, because I don't know much about economics and it is clearly a complex issue.

The science case I argue strongly, because although it is also complex I've spent a lot of time looking at it, I have the ability to do so, and also large numbers of other scientists have done the same and broadly agree, though with much disagreement on detail, which is why expected given the science case contains a good deal of uncertainty.

You still don't get it Tom. There is no science case. There are NO working models. People who are not scientists decided AGW must be happening decades ago, with no evidence and no working theory. The simpleton model they had back then has been shown many times to be broken and yet the argument "from science" maintains. It's obviously not an argument from science. Since this all began, politics have convinced the majority of Western scientists to jump on the band wagon despite they have no relevant training (are you suddenly a meteorologist?)

There is NO SCIENCE CASE. With no working model of climate, the only way to have a useful answer is to measure the energy entering and leaving the planet. This requires a sat at a Lagrange point. The sat is built. All it needs is clearance to launch. It was put on hold by Bush. OBama could have cleared it for launch his first week in office if he had wanted to. So what you need to do is ask yourself why this is happening.

Stop being a pawn. This is not science. It's politics.

[hanelyp]

There is no science case. There are NO working models.

Bingo. Among the problems I've heard is a mismatch between upper atmosphere temperature measured and the models.

When they get a working model that matches reality within the margins of measurement error I'll take it seriously as something other than a political threat.

[choff]

I was reading in the climategate emails how the CRU scientists were using privacy rules to avoid FOI requests of data. How when they did try to comply they had some junior person given the job of organizing the data. In the emails he was saying things like 'this is the most disorganized set of data I've ever seen', or 'am I the first person to ever look at this data.'

I wasn't too far away from Mt. St. Helens when it blew, if you ever have the experience, you will realize that 8 billion people have little impact on nature.

choff, if you had ever been subject to harrassment as the CRU people have, you too would not wish the burden of publishing every single last A4 sheet you have covered with ink. Further you would not want those shets to get in the hands of people who you know will spend 100s of hours of time crawling through them and extracting anything that looks bad (out of context).

Have you never written e-mails that are colourful and liable to misinterpretation?

Volcanos have an enormous impact on nature - which the climate scientists have quantified, with evidence. they can relate that to other impacts, again with evidence. I'm afraid I would not support your gut feeling based on holiday anecdotes over evidence. And nor should you.

Actually, for publicly funded work, I believe that by law they are required to honour FOI requests unless the material has a official secrets classification.

Extraordinary claims(the worlds on fire) require extraordinary proof, any scientist who has ever made such claims knows he's going to be put on the hot seat by other scientists and the general public.

As the emails disclose, they have no difficulty employing dirty tactics on scientists who disagree. Furthermore, if it was only a few emails you could say they were being quoted out of context, only we're talking hundreds of emails with a very common theme. Probably some IT admin simply got disgusted by what he was seeing to the point his professional ethics became overwhelmed.

I have no difficulty with anything I've blogged or emailed, my aluminum foil hat has excellent reception, and you will search in vain for an embarrassing A4 sheet written by me.

The explosion of Mt. St. Helens was no holiday anecdote.

[GIThruster]

Extraordinary claims(the worlds on fire) require extraordinary proof, any scientist who has ever made such claims knows he's going to be put on the hot seat by other scientists and the general public.

As the emails disclose, they have no difficulty employing dirty tactics on scientists who disagree.

This is a huge portion of the problem. If you'll recall, even more than a decade into this debacle, the Japanese were laughing at Western scientists because of the shabby pseudo-science they're putting forward in the name of climate science. When I was at PSU in the late 90's, it had what they claimed was the country's foremost environmental sciences PhD program, specializing in what little climatology there was, and after dozens of length conversations with PhD candidates in that program (the Environmental Ethic class I TA'ed was a 4/500 seminar), I was shocked to find there was no real science going on. There was instead a lot of bullshit, where people were passing around figures to support positions they came to before looking at the data.

This is what nearly all western scientists do now, though it is not 99.9% It's more like 85% with 5% anti- AGW and 10% couldn't care less. Of those who are swimming down stream, virtually 0% could call themselves qualified to make real judgements about climate, and when you recognize there are no working climate models, the figure drops to 0%.

[tomclarke]

Extraordinary claims(the worlds on fire) require extraordinary proof, any scientist who has ever made such claims knows he's going to be put on the hot seat by other scientists and the general public.

Here we can agree. Now tell me why the AGW claims are extraordinary (=> highly unexpected, contrary to what we currently know, etc).

I agree they are uncertain, in the sense that aspects of the science are not fully understood. But extraordinary? There is nothing unexpected. We know that we have changes the atmospheric composition. We know that that affects climate. We can quantify the effect based on standard physics. What we can't quantify is all the complex feedbacks that can amplify or (highly unlikely) reduce that effect from its default value.

The consensus chooses (on average - there is no consensus on precise values) entirely sane and reasonably values for all these parameters and results in AGW being significant.

What is extraordinary?

[tomclarke]

There is no science case. There are NO working models.

Bingo. Among the problems I've heard is a mismatch between upper atmosphere temperature measured and the models.

When they get a working model that matches reality within the margins of measurement error I'll take it seriously as something other than a political threat.

My point on this thread is that if you ignore all the GCMs and historical data we have some physics which is well understood and shows CO2 to have a warming effect. The magnitude of that effect is uncertain but the consensus value is about the middle of what is possible, without info from GCMs.

I agree the GCMs are very complex and tendentious inasfar as they are validated using deep historical data. Of course they are validated many other ways - deep historical data is not very significant, because not very precise.

The emphasis on temperature reconstrauction is to prove that current temperatures are extraordinary. That may be politically important, and is probably true, but it is not something AGW science rests upon.

If, for example, natural variability is +/- 2C we don't expect an AGW signal currently of 1.5C to be distinguishable from noise.

Before you squeal - note that we can (in principle, and mostly in practice) quantify the AGW signal from the physics. We can be sure from physics that the warming is proportional to log(CO2 concentration proportional change).

Rational people are capable of appreciating the basic science (which, unlike GCMs, is not that complex) and see that CO2 can be a physical cause of warming without anecdotal evidence. It is unfortunate that AGW politics waxes or wanes according to whether the previous year was hot or cold. People are like that. But those who think can rise above unscientific propaganda used by both sides of the political battle.

BTW I am not saying GCMs give no extra information, or are incorrect. Just that understanding how correct they are is very complex. I am absolutely certain that you cannot state how correct they are: blog science does not cut it. For every pseudo-problem there will be a long scientific trail of issues, mostly solved, possibly with some remaining and admitted uncertainty. I'll debate any one such issue with you if you like, on the understanding that one swallow does not a summer make so the result of such an investigation is not going to help you much.

[seedload]

Tom,

I tend to agree with you on a lot of what you are saying. I think the physical science for warming due to increased CO2 is fairly well established. Additionally, I accept your propositions about much of climate science being a legitimate endeavor with legitimate scientists proposing and attempting to validate legitimate theory. I suppose we would be in complete agreement eccept that you seem to have no doubts about ANY of the dubious claims that have been made by climate science.

Particularly, you have said that Mann's work has been verified and that any errors found were minor to the end result of his reconstructions. I believe his methods to be faulty and that the issues are logical not statistical. While I understand that you say that temperature reconstructions are not important to the more pertinent arguments of CO2 warming and feedbacks, I am surprised by the fact that you do not recognize the flaws in paleo reconstructions, particularly those of Mann, as faulty despite what I consider obvious problems.

Secondly, I am surprised by your defense of the issues that came up during the climate gate scandal. While I agree that some of the reactions to climate gate are over the top I would argue that the other side of the discussion, that which defends climate gate participants as simply people who were reacting badly to being harassed, shows an incomplete knowledge of the contents of some of those emails. Climate gate shows a specific intent of a few scientists to intentionally deceive the public by presenting as strong a case for AGW as possible. It goes way beyond anger at being bothered by skeptics. The information is there and obvious. More concerning is that these specific scientists were having direct input into the IPCC conclusions. The fact that you are defending the climate gate participants weakens my overall perception of the integrity of your opinions on climate science in general.

Third, I don't believe that H2O feedbacks are as well established as you claim. There is a very short record of the way that H2O behaves as compared to temperature change. We only have satellite measurements for this and some sliver of data from balloons. The time period of gathering this data is limited. The physical argument, while compelling, is incomplete and not confirmed by long term data simply because this data does not exist.

Finally, a confession. There seems to me to be a logical fallacy in both skeptical and confirming opinions on climate change. It seems to me that skeptics tend to argue for low or negative feedbacks at the same time as they argue for large natural variability. Supporters tend to argue for high natural feedbacks at the same time as arguing for small natural variability. At times I find myself in the first camp, complaining that any observed warming is well within the realm of natural variability while at the same time thinking that feedbacks were not as positive as many climate scientists suspect. I suppose the second camp simply waves away their own seeming inconsistency by saying that it doesn't matter that climate sensitivity is high if the forcings are small. A stable historical climate is quite possible if the forcings are tiny even with a high sensitivity. Thereby, only the skeptical argument is inconsistent. I bet that is what you think.

With my confession made, I still have doubts about this entire subject. I believe that there is a high degree of natural variability in the system. I also feel that there is not a very good and complete understanding of feedbacks as suggested by the current paradigm of climate science. I suspect that the lack of understanding of feedbacks is due to an invalid assumption that feedbacks are linear in nature. I suspect that the answer is that there is large natural variability because feedbacks are far from linear and behave in ways that are complex and chaotic. As with many chaotic systems, complex interactions can be stabilizing in ways that are difficult to understand but are predictable in degree. How increased CO2 would affect a system behaving the way I describe is a lot more complicated then simply claiming that H2O adds x W/m2/K. My impression is that climate science doesn't think this way. It thinks that things are predictable based on forcing and linear feedback. To me, we all probably have it wrong.

In the end it doesn't really matter much. The same side that predicts catastrophe from global warming hates nuclear and proposes solutions that can't possibly work. Meanwhile, the side that doubts catastrophe buries their head in the sand and says drill drill drill, not bashing nuclear but not giving it the support it needs either. The answer is nuclear, but neither side will get us there. There is hope. To bad that hope is in China.

Regards

[GIThruster]

Before you squeal - note that we can (in principle, and mostly in practice) quantify the AGW signal from the physics. We can be sure from physics that the warming is proportional to log(CO2 concentration proportional change).

No Tom, you can't. And this is the problem with people pretending there is such a thing as climate science. they feel they're justified in massaging the data to suit what they want to say. The fact is that while proponents of AGW have been pressing this point, a correlation between CO2 and the planet's temp, all indications are that the planets temp has been going DOWN. It's the data analysis that is faulty and trying to show what is plainly not so.

The real issue Tom, is that without any information whether the sun is heating or cooling over decades of data, there is no way to make CO2 correlations with temp. We believe the Sun is in a cooling period, and since the planet is cooling, it likely is; but until we have data about the albedo of the Earth and the power from the sun over time, it's all just guesswork. It's not real science, Tom. And it is people pretending it is science that have hurt this issue. If people would stop pretending that we have answers when we plainly do not, that sat that's been sitting for near a decade would have been launched long ago and we would start to have real answers by now.

It's important to note that both Bush and OBama are behind the move to keep that sat grounded, and we should all be asking why that is. It appears to me someone with very deep pockets has s stake in keeping us all in the dark. I would posit there is an excellent probability that the people with the purses already know AGW is a hoax, but they are personally invested in the hoax and want to continue to propagate it. Were it to come out that there is no AGW, billions of dollars in public funds would cease to flow overnight and Al Gore would lose his entire fortune.