So we have a greenhouse hypothesis, we have the math and then the good old scientific method testing the hypothesis.

That was done here:

http://smsc.cnes.fr/documentation/IASI/Publications/LBL_EX.pdf

But there was a problem:

...This result suggests that most of the discrepancies with measurements are not due to the particular code mechanics but to insufficient knowledge in basic spectroscopy...

More problems were found here by Douglass et al
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf

Models did not match reality in the tropical troposphere. It may be well known that this paper was subject to a sickening blog war and I'm really looking forward to exposing the mud throwing, should anybody challenge it.

So yet another paper emerged, telling the same story for Antarctica:

http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/PolarMet/PMGFulldocs/2007GL032630.pdf

However, 20th century (1880–1999) annual Antarctic near-surface air temperature trends in the GCMs are about 2.5-to-5 times larger-than observed, possibly due to the radiative impact of unrealistic increases in water vapor

What's wrong with the greenhouse? That's what Ferenc Miskolsczi must have thought after publisihing that first study and he came up with this:

http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf

Some quotes:

....The new equation proves that the classic solution significantly overestimates the sensitivity of greenhouse forcing to optical depth perturbations....

...In the radiation scheme of Eq. (10) the runaway greenhouse effect is impossible,..

...On local scale the regulatory role of the water vapor is apparent. On
global scale, however, there can not be any direct water vapor feedback
mechanism, working against the total energy balance requirement of the
system....

Anyway a lot of people have sunk their teeth in the tough stuff of Miskolsczi, for instance, David Stockwell:

http://landshape.org/enm/modeling-global-warming/

The energy of the surface/atmosphere system cannot continue increasing as energy inputs and outputs must remain the same to keep the energy of the system in balance. So the temperature of the atmosphere must remain fairly constant, as confirmed by the observed trends for the troposphere shown on the Douglass figure above (blue lines).

In practice, the observed 5 % increase in CO2 can be compensated with ~0.005 prcm decrease in the global H2O content. This amount is so small it cannot be measured or monitored.

This means that in the long run the Earth has a saturated greenhouse effect with fixed optical depth, with profound consequences for global warming. As long as we have an atmosphere with a virtually infinite water reservoir, neither nature nor humans can influence the greenhouse effect.

So the global warming frenzy has to go on with completely refuted science, but no doubt that it will survive that too after the bogus explanation of the cold spell since December last year.

Good to see that even when the science was supposedly settled, science continues working to find the truth, even when (pardon the irony) the truth might turn out to be inconvenient. This kind of thing just goes to show how robust the scientific method is.

Whether these three papers manage to overturn the overwhelming body of peer reviewed work that preceedes and contradicts it remains to be seen, and I for one look forward to and welcome the exercise, but we do need to remember that the climate IS changing, and regardless of what's causing that change, our reliance on fossil fuels is a cause of great social, political, and economic strife right now - indeed many nations (mine included) are committing mass murder to secure those resources.
Setting ourselves on a the kind of course that we would have to take if atomspheric CO2 WAS the cause of climate change would only be beneficial to us.

The energy of the surface/atmosphere system cannot continue increasing as energy inputs and outputs must remain the same to keep the energy of the system in balance. So the temperature of the atmosphere must remain fairly constant Assuming whoever wrote that meant waht they were saying, and that the context doesn't seriously modify it somehow, that piece of stupidity (or irrelevancy) is enough to make it unnecessary to read the link, IMHO.

Good to see that even when the science was supposedly settled, science continues working to find the truth, even when (pardon the irony) the truth might turn out to be inconvenient. This kind of thing just goes to show how robust the scientific method is.

Whether these three papers manage to overturn the overwhelming body of peer reviewed work that preceedes and contradicts it remains to be seen,

of course not, good science is chanceless against groupthink.

and I for one look forward to and welcome the exercise, but we do need to remember that the climate IS changing, and regardless of what's causing that change, our reliance on fossil fuels is a cause of great social, political, and economic strife right now - indeed many nations (mine included) are committing mass murder to secure those resources.
Setting ourselves on a the kind of course that we would have to take if atomspheric CO2 WAS the cause of climate change would only be beneficial to us.

There is the mix up. The idea was that climate is very sensitive to increasing greenhouse gasses, 0.3 degrees per decade at the present rate of increase. but proven wrong with actual data for the last decade, models predicting global temperatures proven wrong, hypothesis wrong, end of story. Nowhere in that equation is denied that "climate is changing, and regardless of what's causing that change, our reliance on fossil fuels is a cause of great social, political, and economic strife right now -" etc etc

That's not the point. The point is the academical scientific method, not to be confused with politics, ideology, dogma, etc. Changing the world should be done by tackling the problems directly, not by by a ghost hunt on a hype.

That's not the point. The point is the academical scientific method, not to be confused with politics, ideology, dogma, etc. And not to be confused with the type of analysis visible in those quotes you chose to represent the article's arguments.

The net feedbacks are eventually negative, the climate for any CO2 level equilibrates, therefore there can be no global warming from the CO2 boost.

You find that persuasive ?

Nowhere in that equation is denied that "climate is changing, and regardless of what's causing that change, our reliance on fossil fuels is a cause of great social, political, and economic strife right now -" etc etc

Never said it was old son - merely pointing out that even if it does turn out that the CO2 theory is wrong, behaving if it is right wouldn't be such a bad thing


That's not the point. The point is the academical scientific method, not to be confused with politics, ideology, dogma, etc. Changing the world should be done by tackling the problems directly, not by by a ghost hunt on a hype.


I think you are lacking in a bit of perspective to be honest - no offense intended.

Remember that while plenty of people jumped on the bandwagon some considerable time ago, as a generally accepted scientific theory, anthropogenic climate change is very much in its infancy - at best it's 5 years old - frankly I'd be astonished if a theory as nascent as this WASNT hotly debated, highly hyped, and even eventually abandoned or heavily modified to fit the data.
I can imagine the same would be happening now if Relativity or Natural Selection were recently hypothesised

- its simply how the world works old son

Never said it was old son - merely pointing out that even if it does turn out that the CO2 theory is wrong, behaving if it is right wouldn't be such a bad thing

I understand the position but I could not disagree more. In Dutch there is a saying: "Terror is the worst counselor". On the background there is that energy depletion/ security issue which will catch up with us sooner or later. However the current catastrophic lunacy of biofuels and highly back firing -near zero yield- renewable stuff is not nearly going to solve the first 10% of the energy demand. There is really only one semi permanent solution, nuclear, to maintain current energy supplies. But how to get there?

People who you get scared and get fooled with the climate scam are just as scared and fooled with the nuclear scare scam. You just can't steer those things. Thatcher was wrong (http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm).

Apart from some other fringe lunacy like carbon sequestration and putting reflective mirrors in the lagrange point to shield the sun, the real problem is when the truth finally has its boots on. The current prolonged cold spell, may be the most effective debunking the myth. But peopled don't like being fooled. How to repair the damage of science being exposed as mendacious? They knew that the cardinal evidence for global warming (hockeystick) was faked. "So now they are telling that we should go nuclear, go fool some-one else". Trust crisis

There is really only one way to get ahead, to have a crisp clear terror-free, politics-free picture of reality. That's unreal, I know. But trying that is a lot better than scare manipulation as because fear is irrational so cannot be overcome by rational argument (sic) (http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm).

anthropogenic climate change is very much in its infancy - at best it's 5 years old

IPCC has identified CO2 as the singlemost dominant cause of warming. This idea is 112 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect_as_cause_for_ic e_ages) old. The math was done 86 years ago (http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wron g/article10973.htm).

- its simply how the world works old son

No it's how we want the world to work for us, unfortunately the world isn't listening. Incidentely, my dad is 81 years old.

Assuming whoever wrote that meant waht they were saying, and that the context doesn't seriously modify it somehow, that piece of stupidity (or irrelevancy) is enough to make it unnecessary to read the link, IMHO.

It's astonishing beyond belief how accurately Irving Janis identified the mechanisms (symptoms) of groupthink:

Mindguards (http://home.comcast.net/~evansmgmtutor/wsb/lettersandopeds/mindguards.html)

Finally and most injuriously the group develops the MindGuards. These are the people who filter the information coming to the group. They make sure that outside information is suppressed or reinterpreted if it fails to support the cherished assumptions of the group. As a result of this process, the group makes its decision only upon information that is supportive of that decision. This builds up a self-fulfilling cycle of correctness. The illusion of rightness and unanimity is preserved; no disruptive questioning or information is admitted by the group.

I understand the position but I could not disagree more. In Dutch there is a saying: "Terror is the worst counselor". On the background there is that energy depletion/ security issue which will catch up with us sooner or later. However the current catastrophic lunacy of biofuels and highly back firing -near zero yield- renewable stuff is not nearly going to solve the first 10% of the energy demand. There is really only one semi permanent solution, nuclear, to maintain current energy supplies. But how to get there?

Agreed on the nuclear point - as are most serious environmentalists - no controversy there.
Mostly in agreement on the "Terror is the worst counselor" apart from one ironic point - here in the UK Tony Blair pushed through legislation to allow the building of more nuclear power stations - he managed to use the excuse of the threat of international terrorism to avoid too much inconvenient debate in Parliament - the irony of using the fear of a non-existent threat (international terrorism) to push through legislation for a real threat (dependence upon and scarcity of fossil fuels) wasn't lost on me. :bugeye:


People who you get scared and get fooled with the climate scam are just as scared and fooled with the nuclear scare scam. You just can't steer those things. Thatcher was wrong (http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm).


I don't buy the Thatcher connection - the web page seems to quote pretty much verbatim the "Global Warming Swindle" documentary - which has been thoroughly discredited in terms of content and contributors - even the genuine scientists on the same side of the debate as the doc were dissapointed by the fact that it relies on outdated and already discredited theories and science, and the "global scientific consipracy" it tried to present is patent garbage - I'm working on my Phd at a university in a department that includes Geographic (human and physical) subjects, environmental science, and biology - you can't even get the biologists to collaborate with the geographers here - so the idea that you could orchestrate a global conspiracy is laughable.

While an anthropogenic connection to climate change may be wrong, its not a scam - its simply what the majority of data has pointed to so far - I have no doubts that over time we'll get closer to the truth - in the meantime - pardon the pun - expect more hot air.


Apart from some other fringe lunacy like carbon sequestration and putting reflective mirrors in the lagrange point to shield the sun, the real problem is when the truth finally has its boots on. The current prolonged cold spell, may be the most effective debunking the myth. But peopled don't like being fooled. How to repair the damage of science being exposed as mendacious? They knew that the cardinal evidence for global warming (hockeystick) was faked. "So now they are telling that we should go nuclear, go fool some-one else". Trust crisis


Indeed there are plenty of crazy schemes - my favourite is iron enrichment - but that's how we get to the workable ones - science is one of the few areas that provides a genuine example of the survival of the fittest.
I have yet to see anything that debunks the "hockey stick" that hasn't been shown to be either a selective version of the facts or a complete fabrication - happy to stand corrected though.
What prologed cold spell are you talking about? The one that's making my alaskan friends house sink into the ground due to retreating permafrost?



There is really only one way to get ahead, to have a crisp clear terror-free, politics-free picture of reality. That's unreal, I know. But trying that is a lot better than scare manipulation.


Indeed a pipe-dream in todays political climate


IPCC has identified CO2 as the singlemost dominant cause of warming. This idea is 112 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect_as_cause_for_ic e_ages) old. The math was done 86 years ago (http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wron g/article10973.htm).


The science was started some time ago but in terms of a widely accepted theory, it is still very young - younger than tectonic plate theory for example and no-one complains (except perhaps creationists - but who gives a fuck about what they say) is going nuts that we don't have all the answers to that yet - but then of course TP theory doesn't tell us to use our cars less :(

Bear in mind it took something like 30 years from the time that DNA was proved to be the macromolecule responsible for carrying genetic information for that fact to be accepted by science, so getting hysterical that science doesn't yet have the answers, and lags behind the most current research lacks - as I said previously - a bit of perspective on your part.

That it's going to take a lot of words to reply to all of that.

he managed to use the excuse of the threat of international terrorism to avoid too much inconvenient debate in Parliament - the irony of using the fear of a non-existent threat (international terrorism) to push through legislation for a real threat (dependence upon and scarcity of fossil fuels) wasn't lost on me.

You know the Kalkar tragedy?

In 1995 the Dutch businessman Henny van der Most bought the DM10 billion (US$5 billion) ruins of Kalkar for about DM5 million (

...The decision to scrap the Kalkar project was made in 1991 after construction had been finished five years earlier. It could never begin operation because the government of Northrhein-Westfalia refused the last license. ....

Kalkar had been one of the main focal points of resistance against nuclear power in Germany during the 70s and 80s.

You can think that you can push anything through the troat of the population by scare management like a nuclear program. But one nuclear Al Gore type demagogue out of thousands of potential candidates, exposing the scare scam and Tony Blair's program follows Kalkar, down the drain. You got to have the thrust of the population based on honest and accurate decision making to make them resilient against this kind of fear mongering.

Much more later.

What prologed cold spell are you talking about?

This one:

http://gallery.myff.org/gallery/245142/corrected-10y.PNG

Remember that the IPCC happily predicted a warming trend of 0.3 degrees per decade. This is the last decade, three top ones the groundstations and the lower ones the satellite lower troposphere. Currently investigating if the trend of the upper one is indeed pure based on data or on Orwellian party line of the ministry of truth (http://www.sysdesign.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html):

Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.

Still a lot to come.

That's this cold, BTW:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL0982254220080509?sp=true

So what else is left. Is the movie the-great-global-warming-scam debunked? I could show that the extend of the scam is likely even greater than that. Take Niels Axel Mörner for instance:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL0982254220080509?sp=true

Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their [IPCC’s]
publications, in their website, was a straight line—suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the same as from the tide gauge. And that didn’t look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something; but they hadn’t recorded anything. It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a “correction factor,” which they took from the tide gauge. So it was
not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow— I said you have introduced factors from outside; it’s not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don’t say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!

That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set.

Anyway Niels is in the book "Deniers" (http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/dp/0980076315) of former alarmist Lawrence Solomon.

The hockeystick is a long story told numerous time but it has to wait. For the moment I'm in the process of trying to understand and simplify the work of Miskolsczi.

Remember that the IPCC happily predicted a warming trend of 0.3 degrees per decade. This is the last decade, three top ones the groundstations and the lower ones the satellite lower troposphere. The IPCC did not predict a steady .3 degree rise every decade consecutively.

Those satellite readings you conveniently start at '98 and end in the winter of '08 conflict with a great deal of biological and geographical phenomena other than temperature readings, btw. If you care.
Assuming whoever wrote that meant waht they were saying, and that the context doesn't seriously modify it somehow, that piece of stupidity (or irrelevancy) is enough to make it unnecessary to read the link, IMHO.
”
It's astonishing beyond belief how accurately Irving Janis identified the mechanisms (symptoms) of groupthink: I'm not in a group, andre. I' m just one guy, responding to obvious bullshit that is printed right here in front of me on this forum, a great deal of it linked by you.

I have no personal expertise, no background in the relevant sciences. All I am responding to is the logic and arguments right here. And this beauty is one of your best finds yet: The energy of the surface/atmosphere system cannot continue increasing as energy inputs and outputs must remain the same to keep the energy of the system in balance. So the temperature of the atmosphere must remain fairly constant, as confirmed by the observed trends for the troposphere shown on the Douglass figure above (blue lines). Without reading the article, I can't tell whether that is merely irrelevant to the warming of your obsession, or fraudulently stupid like that conference of "400 scientists" with the "petition" you dredged up and linked here - while complaining about the influence of politics and hype on the matter.

You seem to find it persuasive enough to quote out of context, as making sense all by itself. How do you explain that ?

1: I stand corrected for the .3 it was .2. Good catch.

2: Yes you are in a group, the group of the world savers. Since the world is full of greedy selfish hoodlums like me, who don't hesitate to destroy it for their own profit. So you have no choice to line up, one of the headquarters here (http://www.realclimate.org/) and fight. Two lines of strategy: discredit anybody who is not in the group of world savers and destroy or conceal any information that may cast doubt on the correctness of the line of groupthink (http://www.12manage.com/methods_janis_groupthink.html), see symptons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink).

Rather convincing that you first concede not to have any scientific knowledge, and dismissing immediately after that one of the basic principle laws of physics.

1: I stand corrected for the .3 it was .2. Good catch. That wasn't the the catch. The catch is that the IPCC did not predict a steady, consecutive decade warming for arbitrary decade intervals.

I cannot tell whether your misrepresentation of IPCC predictions is incomprehension or dishonesty - either are possible, given your past links and arguments here.
Two lines of strategy: discredit anybody who is not in the group of world savers and destroy or conceal any information that may cast doubt on the correctness of the line of groupthink, I destroy or conceal no information - cannot and have not. You seem to be mistaking denigration of lousy argument for dismissal of information.

I do not know what your motives are for linking to that political hupe convention of "400 scientists", or claiming that recent Arctic sea ice extensions wiped out the withdrawals of 2007, or claiming that because CO2 reradiated its absorbed infrared it was not trapping heat in the atmosphere, or this latest: appearing to claim here that findings of homeostasis and equilibrating feedbacks in the earth's climate system imply that the CO2 cannot warm the lower atmosphere by trapping heat energy.

But whatever they are, the arguments are silly. Whether or not the CO2 boost is warming the atmosphere, whether or not the more dire predictions of the alarmists bear out, these arguments against it do not add up.

Let facts never obstruct a good AGW story.

Koutsoyiannis et al (itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850) re the IPCC crystal ball:

As falsifiability is an essential element of science (Karl Popper), many have disputed the scientific basis of climatic predictions on the grounds that they are not falsifiable or verifiable at present. This critique arises from the argument that we need to wait several decades before we may know how reliable the predictions will be. However, elements of falsifiability already exist, given that many of the climatic model outputs contain time series for past periods. In particular, the models of the IPCC Third Assessment Report have projected future climate starting from 1990; thus, there is an 18-year period for which comparison of model outputs and reality is possible. In practice, the climatic model outputs are downscaled to finer spatial scales, and conclusions are drawn for the evolution of regional climates and hydrological regimes; thus, it is essential to make such comparisons on regional scales and point basis rather than on global or hemispheric scales. In this study, we have retrieved temperature and precipitation records, at least 100-year long, from a number of stations worldwide. We have also retrieved a number of climatic model outputs, extracted the time series for the grid points closest to each examined station, and produced a time series for the station location based on best linear estimation. Finally, to assess the reliability of model predictions, we have compared the historical with the model time series using several statistical indicators including long-term variability, from monthly to overyear (climatic) time scales. Based on these analyses, we discuss the usefulness of climatic model future projections (with emphasis on precipitation) from a hydrological perspective, in relationship to a long-term uncertainty framework.

I have no personal expertise, no background in the relevant sciences. This hardly qualifies you to call Andre's arguments bullshit, in fact bullshit is not a scientific qualification, more a sign of frustration from a true believer.

Well, concerning predictions lets go back here:

http://gallery.myff.org/gallery/244100/scam.PNG

The scenario A-C is from the 1988 prediction of Hansen, showing a >0.33 degrees warming trend per decade, iceaura, between 1980 and 2010 for scenario A (business as usual). So my *dishonesty* was not that big. It's only that the 4AR predicted 0.2 degrees per decade.

Now we see that the reality cought up with the Hansen '88 prediction, refuting the whole thing.

Now we see that the reality cought up with the Hansen '88 prediction, refuting the whole thing.What "reality" caught up with what prediction?

Building an argument out of straw and setting it alight doesn't achieve all that much. What's this "refuted the whole thing"? What exactly is the "whole thing"? What are you drawing conclusions from, because I can't see where you're making the connections?

Is it ok to predict that if you increase the heat content of a mixed gas, it will get warmer (if you warm it) because it can hold more heat - since its heat content, or ability to store heat before re-radiating it has increased?
Is adding a gas like CO2 to the mix going to increase or decrease this heat-storage? Or no change at all even if the mixture is saturated with CO2?

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001413global_cooling_consi.html

April 30, 2008
Global Cooling Consistent With Global Warming

Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

For a while now I've been asking climate scientists to tell me what could be observed in the real world that would be inconsistent with forecasts (predictions, projections, etc.) of climate models, such as those that are used by the IPCC. I've long suspected that the answer is "nothing" and the public silence from those in the outspoken climate science community would seem to back this up. Now a paper in Nature today (PDF) suggests that cooling in the world's oceans couldthat the world may cool over the next 20 years few decades , according to Richard Woods who comments on the paper in the same issue, "temporarily offset the longer-term warming trend from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere", and this would not be inconsistent with predictions of longer-term global warming.

I am sure that this is an excellent paper by world class scientists. But when I look at the broader significance of the paper what I see is that there is in fact nothing that can be observed in the climate system that would be inconsistent with climate model predictions. If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun.

This means that from a practical standpoint climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global climate policy. I am sure that some model somewhere has foretold how the next 20 years will evolve (and please ask me in 20 years which one!). And if none get it right, it won't mean that any were actually wrong. If there is no future over the next few decades that models rule out, then anything is possible. And of course, no one needed a model to know that.

This hardly qualifies you to call Andre's arguments bullshit, Anyone who can follow them can call them bullshit - no particular expertise required.

Take a look at the last post there with the graph - not only is he "refuting" a twenty year old model forecast (IIRC the models didn't include clouds at all, at the time) as if it represented "global warming" predictions in general, but he's pretending that I objected to his .3/decade figure over the allegedly (I haven't checked) correct .2, instead of my actual objection that no one (with any credibility, anyway) is or has been predicting monotonic anything with respect to the climate.

That's completely typical.
If there is no future over the next few decades that models rule out, then anything is possible. And of course, no one needed a model to know that. There are several futures that the models rule out - it's just that a spate of atmospheric cooling in itself is not one of them.
If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun. That's not quite true - continuation of the climate patterns of the past few thousand years would be inconsistent with all the models.

And it overlooks the major point - before the detection and evaluation of the human CO2 boost accumulation in the lower atmosphere, a global atmospheric warming of 3 degrees C over the next century would have been inconceivable. Now it is possible - even predicted with some (small) probability.

Large and rapid alterations of the earth's climate - larger and more rapid than anything in the paleontological record - are quite possible, even likely, now. That is a new situation.

Anyone who can follow them can call them bullshit - no particular expertise required.Only because you say so? Hardly if ever scientifically convincing, except for yourself maybe.
instead of my actual objection that no one (with any credibility, anyway) is or has been predicting monotonic anything with respect to the climate.You begin to sound monotonic. Can you produce an IPCC graph or model where a 1998-2015 cooling is predicted?

You seem to have an immense confidence in computer climate models.

GIGO = Garbage In Gospel Out.

Can you produce an IPCC graph or model where a 1998-2015 cooling is predicted? Can anyone produce any sort of graph that predicts a trend of any sort over the next 2 decades?

Can you?

Can anyone produce any sort of graph that predicts a trend of any sort over the next 2 decades?

Can you? "PS. you don’t need climate models to know we have a problem. - gavin (Schmidt from Real Climate (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/))]" yeah right....

Re GMC's, the first (USA) National Academy of Science review of the brand-new topic of global warming in 1979 put the climate sensitivity at 1.5C to 4.5C per doubling. After 30 years and kazillions dollars of tax payers money spent to pay climate modellers their dazzling new computers with megaflop memory and lightspeed processors, the IPCC AR4 came up with a climate sensitivity of.....(drum roll).... 2.0C to 4.5C!! (mentioning values less than 1.5C are very unlikely). Oh well.....

So, regarding my earlier question: what does this model predict? What's your prediction and how much did it cost?

If the IPCC or you have a prediction of a trend, how reliable is it, or how worried should we all be - not at all, a little bit, a whole lot...?

The paleontological record is only useful for establishing long term trends in temperature. That doesn't mean rapid, short term change never happened, or can't happen.

If the global climate is as flimsy as modern research says then I'd be shocked if climate didn't change rapidly in the past. One event can trigger a chain reaction in climate, and such a chain reaction wouldn't take millions of years.

Anyone who can follow them can call them bullshit - no particular expertise required.
”
Only because you say so? I have referred to a few of the many examples - if you are willing to take that sort of thing as persuasive, nothing else I say is going to make any difference to you.

You seem to have an immense confidence in computer climate models. No. I have a certain disrespect for people who deliberately ignore them for silly, essentially political, reasons, though.

I would like to hear from someone who can conjure up reasonable conjectures for what an anthropogenic doubling of the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere will do to the planetary climate without using a computer model or two.

The paleontological record is only useful for establishing long term trends in temperature. The resolution of the paleontological temperature record is down to a year or smaller, in some places.

And nowhere does it include the consequences, if any, of the kind of CO2 boost we are now experiencing.

The resolution of the paleontological temperature record is down to a year or smaller, in some places.
Only in the very young records, a few hundred thousand years or so. Even if we're generous and say 1 million years (the limit of glacial ice records) that's a blink of an eye in the history of the planet. Such a short record certainly doesn't rule out a CO2 boost like the one we have now, and we know CO2 levels today are still some of the lowest of the last 500 million years.

Only in the very young records, a few hundred thousand years or so. Even if we're generous and say 1 million years (the limit of glacial ice records) that's a blink of an eye in the history of the planet. Such a short record certainly doesn't rule out a CO2 boost like the one we have now, and we know CO2 levels today are still some of the lowest of the last 500 million years.

This is a real question, because I'm not sure :
Isn't it true that only 5-8% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere is from human emissions, and the other 92-95% is from natural sources ?

No, it isn't true. There was an estimated 400 Gigatonnes before we started burning all that coal and oil.
We've added 200 Gigatonnes since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
So we're responsible for about 50% of the current CO2 loading.

Of course, total CO2 is still a very small percentage of the atmospheric volume; but how does increasing it by 50% alter the climate? How sensitive is the atmosphere, and climate patterns, to these kinds of changes?

We don't really know, is the answer to both questions.

No, it isn't true. There was an estimated 400 Gigatonnes before we started burning all that coal and oil.
We've added 200 Gigatonnes since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
So we're responsible for about 50% of the current CO2 loading.

200+400=600, so we'd be responsible for 33% not 50%. And that's assuming nature itself hasn't added more since the industrial revolution.
And that's assuming you're right, do you have a source confirming those figures ?

And that's assuming you're right, do you have a source confirming those figures ?
Yes, as you point out, that makes our actual percentage 33%, but it doesn't alter the 50% more CO2, than before we started changing it.

BTW if you sincerely have to ask for references to that claim, then you obviously are out of your depth in this discussion. Or you don't read much about the subject you appear to profess knowledge of.

Yes, as you point out, that makes our actual percentage 33%, but it doesn't alter the 50% more CO2, than before we started changing it.

BTW if you sincerely have to ask for references to that claim, then you obviously are out of your depth in this discussion. Or you don't read much about the subject you appear to profess knowledge of.

I asked the question about our contribution of CO2 because I didn't know, therefore I didn't "profess" knowledge about that.....
And if you're figures are so prevelant in reading material, than you shouldn't have much trouble finding a link backing your claim, should you ?
This was your claim :
"No, it isn't true. There was an estimated 400 Gigatonnes before we started burning all that coal and oil.
We've added 200 Gigatonnes since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
So we're responsible for about 50% of the current CO2 loading."

OK those figures are actually wrongly attributed, it's ppm not Gigatonnes that I should have connected them to.

But we've nonetheless added enough since the Industrial Revolution, so that if we add the same amount again - which at about 200 Gigatonnes a year shouldn't take too long - then we'll have doubled the pre-industrial (i.e. 1800s) level, that's 100% of the "natural" CO2. You work it out.

Hint: there's a bit more bs in the above, and if you check it somewhere, you should see it sticks out like balls on a dog.

Bigger hint: the biosphere turns over >200 Gt p.a., but we puny humans output <10 Gt in the same period. There's the odd volcanic eruption to stuff up the equation, as well.
Can you spot the difference?

The other side of the coin is the deforestation and land development we've been doing. Less trees mean less CO2 is removed from the atmosphere each year.

I've no doubt we've added to the amount of CO2 in the air over the last century, what I don't agree with is the various doomsday predictions floating around these days. CO2 levels right now are what? 380 ppm? 50 million years ago they were around 700 ppm, 100 million years ago they were as high as 2200 ppm, 500 million years ago they were well over 4000 ppm.

If you want to talk about natural, we've been in an ice age this whole time. Temperatures are bound to go up some time, because no ice age lasts forever.

CO2 levels right now are what? 380 ppm? 50 million years ago they were around 700 ppm, 100 million years ago they were as high as 2200 ppm, 500 million years ago they were well over 4000 ppm.
Humans as we know them go back a few hundred thousand years at most - maybe a few tens of thousands in current form. If we change the climate to what it was 60 million years ago in a couple of centuries, catastrophe doesn't begin to describe it.

I don't think even the wildest of the alarmist folks predict that.