So a whole empire of government-funded technicians with a vested interest in more government programs, paid to find global warming, have by manipulating data sets unidirectionally *up*, found, global warming when the same manipulations down would find global cooling? So what?

So a wide variety of parasitic groups of many different states, with a vested interest in government junketing and redistribution from the productive class to their own benefit, all agree that more government junketing and redistribution is indicated. So what?

The proof that belief in policy action to address supposed catastrophic man-made global warming is irrational, is in the fact that the belief is immune against disproof: the same tedious refuted fallacies keep getting trotted out over and over and over again. Perhaps Michael Rowan would care to answer them?

The fact is, the so-called science is dodgy and bodgy, and suffers from a single international *non-scientific* trend of manipulating the data, destroying or hiding data sets or the algorithms used to analyse them, and blatant lying, to produce the desired results.

And again, the climate science is the least of the warmists' problems. Even if it were conceded, it does not and cannot establishing any justification of policy. The warmists' still haven't established that a rise in temperature of a few degrees spells ecological disaster - a complete furphy.

But the biggest fallacy of all is in the social, not the natural sciences. Every warmist appeal always talks in terms that "we" need to do something, as if mankind formed a single decision-making entity with unitary interest. This hides the conflict of interests, which is not between western governments on the one hand and non-western governments on the other, but between governments on the one hand, and their subjects the productive classes who must pay for their parasitic depredations on the other.

And no, Michael Rowan doesn't speak for everyone in the world, nor everyone who disagrees with him, nor everyone who would be robbed or killed by this 21st century re-birth of the idea of central planning of the economy.

How do you reconcile this article with the one that appeared in OLO on 26 November 2010 Tuvalu - the touchstone of global warming and rising sea level
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11282&page=1

A very succinct and concise summary Professor Rowan.

Will it open the eyes or unplug the ears of those that don't want to see or don't want to hear? No.

I do like references to the UK Met Office as an authority on climate. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, it has forecast mild winters with reduced snow and ice becoming a permanent feature. These have, of course, been the coldest, 'snowiest' and 'iciest' winters for decades with temperatures forecast to reach -26 C in parts of the UK in the next few days.

No doubt the riposte to this will be that weather isn't climate. Exactly! That's what realistic analysts of climate have been saying about the drought in Australia for the last decade. The IPCC computer projections continue not to represent the real climate. If, however, one were to look at the history of the world's climate since the end of the Little Ice Age, one would find today's weather patterns fitting neatly into the natural climatic variations experienced for the past 400 years or so.

no amount of evidence and embarassment for the alarmist seem to silence them. BOM has been proven wrong on so many accounts that they now rely on somewhere in the distance where they can't be held accountable. I am sure that 'new science' will make the astrology more accurate in the future. To think this fraudulent stuff will be used by the Gillard Government to hike electricity and gas prices. Victoria, England, France and America would be praying for more emissions to take them out of record snow conditions. The age of reason has long gone.

Dear Professor, as a qualified academic in the fields Education, Arts and Social Sciences what would you be able to tell us about AGW?

Your links, reports and opinions number less than 30 so you are clearly not making your case by quantity. Since you are not an expert in the field upon which you are commenting I cannot accept the case of quality.

That leaves you with some serious catching up to do. Should you be interested there are some 7,000 scientists in this field who have recently and publicly disagreed with you, 30% with PhD’s. There are also many sites with anything between 1,000 and 2,000 scientific papers that also disagree with you.

I don’t know if what you or your sources say is true or not, because like you I’m not qualified. So if you are interested in this subject, I will send you 10 contrary scientific conclusions each week and you can get your “scientists” to respond. Since this has never yet happened in this vexatious debate, we would be making significant progress.

You might want to ask yourself why any “well educated” person might need to proselytize

spindoc

Links please.

"All of the anti-AGW poppycock posted on this comment thread is thoroughly debunked on the SkepticalScience website: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

In the absence of any scientific evidence that convincingly illustrates that global warming has been caused by anthropogenic gas emissions, the author relies heavily on assertions made in IPCC reports. Assertion is not science.

Furthermore, the IPCC reports have been tainted with essentially false statements, for example:

. the deletion of a key consulting scientific reviewer approved statement, “none of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases... no study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change observed to man-made causes" from the final draft of the 1995 Report, and the insertion in its place of strong endorsements of man-made warming;

. the inclusion in the 1995 Report of a 1000-year climate history graph showing a warm period from 1000 to 1400 AD with warmer temperatures than today, and its replacement in the 2001 Report with a hockey-stick shaped graph (subsequently shown to be falsified) showing 900 years of stable global temperatures until about 1910 and then sharply rising temperatures thereafter.

Climate science is not settled. If the author and others of his ilk are convinced that it is, then they should have no hesitation in calling for a Royal Commission into the acceptance of climate science in Australia.

Raycom
So a couple of cherry picked out of context quotes disprove climate change.
Go to the web site above and read as there are multiple indications that climate is changing and is man made.
There is enough scientific evidence to indicate AGW not your misinformation.
Where is your evidence that is not due to humans? if you have any go to SkepticalScience website and talk to scientists they would love to hear from you.

PeterA
The question is not whether there is "climate change".

*Obviously* there's climate change - what sort of bald-faced mendacity is that?

The question is whether there is significant global warming that is man-made, whether and how anyone would know; and how you would know *that* given the vested interests of those people in the knowledge they purvey; if there is significant global warming, whether it spells ecological disaster or not, why, how they would know the conditions of the distribution and abundance of hundreds of thousands of species over thousands of habitats, how you would know *that* given the vested interests of those people in the knowledge they sell, and how you would deal with the value judgments required for their statistical operation.

And if there is all of that, whether government can make matters better rather than worse; what would be the advantages and disadvantages either way, how you would know; how you would decide the ethics of killing large numbers of people now, how you would weigh the value of a certain known life now versus an uncertain unknown life in the future, how far, why, how that is to be known or calculated, if it's not to be calculated how is it to be known or justified, who should have the authority to decide and why, how you could justify forcing people to obey when they don't accept it, how are we to know that the negative consequences of governmental action would not be worse, all things considered, how you would know that, what is the effect of vested interests in skewing debate either way, and how you conjure the ethics of knowingly killing large numbers of people.

Either the apologists for policy do, or do not cognise these issues and either way they are guilty of culpable ignorance, dereliction and intent.

The reason why 2010 was recorded as 'hot' was because the temperatures from weather stations at a few Arctic airports have been extrapolated over vast areas of frozen tundra. Since some of those weather stations are directly in the path of aeroplane jet streams as they turn, it's not hard to see where the extra heat is coming from.

The UK 'enquiries' into the Climategate emails demonstrated nothing except how gullible UK politicians think their voters are: no sceptics were on any of the panels, Phil Smith was called on to supply his own evidence, and the total amount of time spent just about added up to a long lunch for all the parties concerned. Can you say 'whitewash'? Hopefully the forthcoming US Republican-backed enquiry will manage to maintain more credibility.

The UK BoM, which predicted a balmy summer and a mild winter, is rapidly sliding downhill towards the same precipice of credibility that Al Gore and James Hansen disappeared over not long ago.

As to our own Bureau of Meteorology, they have just been advised by New Zealand that NZ's 'official' temperature series was wrong and biassed (largely by the efforts of one AGW fruitcake) and the 'correct' series now shows barely any warming in the last 50 years. This may act as a wake-up call for them too.

First we win: then we fight you; then we laugh at you; then we ignore you. We are laughing at you now.

Have you got a link for that Jon J? I hadn't heard that they have officially said it is biased, just that it is not an official set of figures.

I'm becoming less and less impressed with "computer models" given their failure to predict rainfall accurately over timescales of 4 days. If "models" can't get it right over 4 days, why should we have faith in models precicting climate 100 years out? I'm also mystified by the selection of the period 1961-1990 as some sort of magical baseline against which all climate parameters are compared. What's so special about this particular 30 year period? The Bureau's commitment to long-term climate monitoring must be questioned given its downgrading of many weather stations, and reliance on unreliable automated equipment.

Even if the earth is actually warming significantly (which is doubtful) I've seen no proof whatsoever that any such warming is anthropogenic. There have been periods in the past with somewhat warmer temperatures (Mediaeval Warm Period) and periods with significantly cooler temperatures (Little Ice Age), with nary a coal-fired power station in sight.

I also question the oft-repeated phrase "since accurate instrumental records commenced", the time for which is given as 1850. That far back, instrumental records are extremely sparse, and their accuracy doubtful. Witness the deletion of Australia's long-term "record maximum temperature" at Cloncurry in the 19th century, the reason, questionable equipment and siting. Actually, one of the reasons, perhaps, that 1961-1990 is used as a "baseline" is that there were actually enough "accurate" weather station sites upon which to calculate meaningful averages. Since that time, automation and satellites have taken over from "people reading thermometers", and the actual thermometers have changed too (from mercury and alcohol to electronic).

About the only good thing to come from the AGW debate is that nuclear power can be discussed without mass hysteria resulting.

You can find the details here: http://tinyurl.com/396szjk

'Official' may be the wrong word, but certainly the NZ Government were prepared to accept the doctored figures and use them as the basis for climate policy.

And of course it didn't happen without a fight:

“But we note that, after 12 months of futile attempts to persuade the public, misleading answers to questions in the Parliament from ACT and reluctant but gradual capitulation from NIWA, their relentless defence of the old temperature series has simply evaporated. They’ve finally given in, but without our efforts the faulty graph would still be there.”

Mr Treadgold described the replacement as a full exoneration of the criticism levelled at the Coalition by NIWA, saying: “All we ever asked for were the adjustments and the reasons for them. The discourteous reproaches and misleading academic references we received from them were surprising. For them finally to agree with us, throw away the series and recreate it is a complete vindication for us.”

PeterA, you are right. There are many websites that debunk the poppycock that other websites post. Then there are those websites that double debunk the poppycock that has been debunked on other websites.

“Link Wars” is a futile diversion and a safe haven for the true believers. You have your favorite links and others have theirs. You believe, they are skeptical.

Like our illustrious Professor, most of us have absolutely no qualifications to make any meaningful determination.

Believers are just that. Skeptics however, want to see both sides of the debate reconciled by those best qualified to do so, which clearly excludes us because we are not qualified.

Believers on the other hand do not want this reconciliation because it presents a “risk” to their belief. Why else would so many in the warming camp want to fight by proxy, my links against your links. Doesn’t this evidence that until and unless there is scientific reconciliation we cannot and will not know the scale of any warming threat?

Link Wars is a game for the public to enjoy, we channel our “champions” on forums like this. We all need to be aware that this is not reality and shouldn’t take it too seriously.

If those who “believe” wish to play the game that says, “I don’t need to visit nzclimatescience.com because I can just go to another link and have it debunked” then let the game continue, but please don’t try to make it some sort of reality.

It’s just a game for goodness sake.

For those of us who do wish take it seriously, we need to take the proselytizing howling amateurs out of the equation and bring both scientific persuasions together. That way you can see your scientists dealing directly with contrary scientists, not the public bashing each other over the head with “links”

Wasn't aware of that. Haven't seen it anywhere else, but it does look pretty damning. No warming in NZ since the 60s, and if the warming really is global there should have been.

Have you seen a copy of the graph? Have you got a link for that?

BTW, we might be veering a bit close to going off-topic here. Perhaps we should think about starting another thread.

I deal with donations in Virginia for local Eco projects, and the Climategate scandal eliminates the pool of un-tainted data. Thus, I find it hard to get mad at the people against global warming when it is the pro-grlobal warming people that admit to faking data and altering numbers that cause the most trouble. How can you respond to people that doubt you? Honestly, you cannot blame them. "I am sorry the data is deleted, but will you still give us your money in a failing economy. Sure, there is no solid information for comparison to back up the claims! We are nice guys, though." Most people define that as a scam.

The common response, a legit question, when I hear people ask about it involves the foundation of the science. It is hard to find material that does not link to the "altered" reports and findings to provide a good case for it at this point. So, you have hundreds of people that claim the fake reports all agree on something, but there is no way to check the results.

Graham Y, the latest on this saga is on the nzclimatescience site. The following does refer to a new set of temp.records and a graph but I don’t have the graph. Yet.

<< Spokesman for the joint temperature project, Richard Treadgold, Convenor of the CCG, said today: “We congratulate NIWA for producing their review of the NZ temperature record — more than a year after we challenged it — and we think it’s great that NIWA have produced a graph with full details behind it.>>

Graham Y, I think this is the latest graph from NIWA. Based on the associated comment this is looking increasingly curious.

http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/category/niwa/

GrahamY: try here;

http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/7-station-series-review

For a closer look at the "graph", put cursor over it and click to enlarge.

It seems some so called 'sceptics' get their information from 'anti-global warming' sites. Real sceptics would go to the primary source (in this case NIWA) - it is not that hard, really.

Perhaps you should start another off-topic thread Graham. 'Climate science' is complex though and I don't see any benefit other than to give armchair pseudo-scientists a box to stand on.

Yes, you'd have to say that the actual charts don't bear out the media release from the Climate Science Coalition. There's been barely any change at all, and it makes no difference to the trend.

However, there does seem to be something in the proposition that it hasn't warmed since the 60s and that all the warming was before that. Difficult to tell without having the data to plot, and if that is the case the Climate Science Coalition could have been making that point on the old data.

Peter Hume: 1.Scientists of the calibre of the IPCC lead authors would be funded for research and travel whichever field they were in; and thus their personal interest does not explain their working on global warming. 2. References to proofs that the science is dodgy? 3.You are right that the science does not dictate what the political or economic response should be. That is the main reason why the conspiracy theories are so weird.
EQ: See http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60033/IDO60033.2009.pdf The BoM says the sea around Tuvalu is rising at 4.7 mm/year. Not much – hard to see in the graphs – but enough to do damage over some decades.
Senior Victorian: 1. The step from the second to the third sentence in your para 2 is a non-sequitur. 2. Reference please for the claim re the historical temperature record.
Spindoc: 1. Which of my claims rests in any way on my authority? All are referenced to appropriate bodies such as national weather bureaus, peak scientific societies and so on. 2.You don’t need to be a scientist to know that the Royal Society is a reputable source of information. Ditto the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 3. Don’t send scientific claims to me. Get them published in reputable journals. That is where the science is made – and occasionally unmade.
Raycom: 1. In your view what would be ‘evidence that convincingly demonstrates that global warming has been caused by anthropogenic gas emissions’? 2. What did you think of the credentials of the people on the reviews of the CRU and IPCC. Aren’t they just the sort of people who would be on a Royal Commission? Why wouldn’t the outcome of a Royal Commission be rejected if it upheld AGW just as these reviews have been?
Peter Hume: On the causes and physical consequences of climate change I think you will find answers to your questions in the thousands of scientific papers summarised in the IPCC 4th report. On the political, economic and moral questions there are helpful discussions in the Stern and Garnaut reports. Happy to discuss these point by point.

Jon J: See above re enquiries. On NZ’s temperature record, their National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has an account rather different from what you claim. They say
The last overall review of the seven station adjustments was performed in 1992. In 2010, as a result of increased interest in the series, NIWA re-analysed the adjustments for the seven locations.
The key result of this revisiting is that the New Zealand-wide warming trend is almost exactly the same as in our previous assessment. In other words, either approach gives an accurate trend result. So without a doubt, on the basis of the 'seven-station' series, New Zealand did indeed get about 0.9°C warmer over the course of last one hundred years.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/nz-temp-record/seven-station-series-temperature-data
Please move on to the ignoring stage.
Graham Y: See link above. Why didn’t Jon J give it?
Viking13: 1. Try IPCC 4 Vol1 chap 8 on the computer models www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm 2. What would you take as evidence that warming is anthropogenic? 3. IPCC 4 Vol1 Chaps 3, 4 and 6 deal with evidence of warming.
Adderworks: Try referring your potential donors to the official reports (see article). In my experience they like facts not flummery.
Spindoc: agreed link wars is a game, but the science isn’t. Science is not decided here but in the refereed journals. One point of disagreement though. Those who accept (pending evidence to the contrary) the AGW theory should not be categorised as believers in contrast to the sceptics who reject it. AGW is supported by all the world’s senior scientific bodies. Find one national academy that does not. The so called sceptics are really gullibilists accepting evidence on the level of Chariot of the Gods as if it could be considered the equal of a paper in Nature!
Bonmot: thanks. Why can’t the gullibilists go straight to the site?

You can get the data here http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/

Happy plotting and Happy Christmas.

"Viking13: 1. Try IPCC 4 Vol1 chap 8 on the computer models www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm 2. What would you take as evidence that warming is anthropogenic? 3. IPCC 4 Vol1 Chaps 3, 4 and 6 deal with evidence of warming."

Given that the IPCC is discredited, and there is little evidence of sustained warming, why would I be silly enough to believe that any slight warming MIGHT be attributible to anthopogenic sources? As for AGW models, I have no trust in them whatsoever. As I said, I've been watching 4 day rainfall models over the past few months, falling over badly. Given that long-term models depend on a large number of factors, just as 4 day rainfall models do, the error 100 years out would be astronomical.

Thanks Bonmot. I'll have a look at it when I have some time.

Michael I have no idea why JonJ didn't give it, nor why Bonmot gave me a different one to the one you referenced, but I now have the data and I'll have a look at it. It's the only way to deal with this issue, and when you do you find that the IPCC reports are not particularly reliable.

Some of the blog sites around are even worse.

You also find that the land-based temperature measurements aren't the best either from a data collection and analysis point of view, which is why I prefer the satellite measurements.

I disagree with you on peer review. Facts speak for themselves. The peer review process has outlived its usefulness in its present form. It's not enforcing rigour so much as conformity in the climate debate, and maybe in lots of other areas as well.

I've peer reviewed. Not on climate change, but in new media. It's not a process that determines whether something is right, just whether you think it has enough merit to be published.

It is also slowing the process up. The Internet gives us the opportunity for an open publishing process and would lead to fewer mistakes being made.

If the peer review process wasn't so cumbersome the Mann Hockey Stick graph would have been debunked long before it was and at the very least saved the IPCC an embarrassing front cover.

viking13 Do I take it from this that no evidence would persuade you that the AGW hypothesis is true? If so, it follows that for you the falsity of AGW is an unfalsifiable proposition - that is to say, that it is an article of faith not a claim based on evidence. Thats's fine - lots of people have faith in lots of things - just don't confuse it with science. (See Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery for the importance of falsifiability as a way of demarcating science from non-science.)

Graham Y No process determines what is right. That is why science is never certain. Peer review weeds out arguments which are susceptible to obvious criticisms, especially that the proposed addition to science has not taken account of material already published. That is its value. Once published, arguments survive or fail depending on the criticism they receive. On the NZ temperature data, I gave the summary of the results of the revision and I think bonmot has given you the raw data. As s/he says, Merry Christmas and happy plotting.

I should have noted Michael is that another problem with peer review is that people use it as a proxy for truth in situations where they either don't have the intellectual tools to understand an issue themselves, or where they think they are talking to someone who doesn't.

But there is research around to show that most papers published in peer-reviewed journals are wrong. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915--most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong.html. Mind you it is itself peer-reviewed so one is presented with a species of the Cretan paradox!

So in and of itself peer review means very little.

And we also know from the Climategate emails that it is possible to stop even deserving papers being published in particular journals, and then, when they are published in other journals you can't influence you stigmatise those as being a lesser variety of peer review.

As I said, I think we need to move away from the whole process as it occurs at the moment.

Wikireview would work much better.

1.Scientists of the calibre of the IPCC lead authors would be funded for research and travel whichever field they were in; and thus their personal interest does not explain their working on global warming.

“…would be funded”?

By voluntary means? Good! Let them go into those fields, and a) their works be funded by people who willingly pay for them, not those coerced into paying for them against their will, and b) where they can measure their success in some other way than by hitching their wagon to the star of endless governmental intervention.

But if you mean funded by government, scientists have no other route for advancement than to further the ends of their political masters; and rationality requires some other method of falsification than to rely on government-funded science as you have done.

This is a known phenomenon in social science – government-funded functionaries alleging the need of supposed crises requiring massive governmental regulations, with the resulting interventions being worse than the original problem e.g.
• military/industrial complex
• in the medical field
• in animal health, Ovine johnes disease,
• in agriculture, introduction of cane toads, African lovegrass, Bitou bush, etc.

2. References to proofs that the science is dodgy?

What sort of proof will you accept?

3.You are right that the science does not dictate what the political or economic response should be.

Thank you. This shows the existence, not the conclusion, of all the normative issues that the advocates of policy contend are concluded, when they assert that the positive science proves that “we” should ever vest more power in government.

The argument is that, even if all the positive science were conceded, which it’s not, the policy advocates have not even begun to address, or even apparently to cognise, the issue whether government can provide a better than worse outcome, all things considered, and how one would know and demonstrate that.

But perhaps you will have a go at honestly trying to answer each of the questions of social science I have asked PeterA above?

In particular, the idea that government has
a) the knowledge
b) the disinterestedness, or
c) the capacity
to direct and control all oxidation and reduction of carbon on the planet, and all human action involving carbon, so as to provide a net benefit, compared with the status quo, is nothing better than a knee-jerk irrational superstition, a re-run of the god-state. The very idea is just a welter of layer upon layer of fallacies of social science.

“That is the main reason why the conspiracy theories are so weird.”
It is a misrepresentation of the argument to claim theories of “conspiracy”, which implies a common agreement to knowingly commit wrong.

Rather, the explanation is a common movement of hundreds of thousands of person with a vested interest in government funding of protean kinds, with significant elements of careerism, interests in forced redistributions, pork-barrelling and blatant corruption.

It arises from the science as follows. The data set is enormous and complex. By itself it consists of nothing but reams of numbers representing historical measurements of temperature by place. These data do not interpret themselves, and in their raw form are not intelligible by anyone. Sensible interpretation requires statistical analysis to bring out the significant aggregate trends, and leave out the insignificant.

But the process of statistical manipulation and aggregation are not merely technical. They are intrinsically normatively problematic. The necessary data manipulation necessarily requires many many value judgments which
a) are *not* supplied by the data or by the positive science
b) are supplied by the individual discretion of individual scientists according to their own lights
c) exercising their individual discretion, in hundreds of thousands of individual operations, in a way that just happens to align with their own interest, surprise surprise,
which elementary social science should teach us to suspect.

" Do I take it from this that no evidence would persuade you that the AGW hypothesis is true? If so, it follows that for you the falsity of AGW is an unfalsifiable proposition - that is to say, that it is an article of faith not a claim based on evidence.".

What, you're suggesting that my scepticism is faith-based? When AGW is the newest relgion? My sceptiocism is based on a number of factors, the major one being that I see nothing remarkable about climate change, as a former geography student at tertiary level, I came to realise that there have been massive swings in Earth climate over the past 10-15,000 years and beyond, without any help from man. I don't see any climate phemomena that are out of the ordinary, given that the instrumental re4cord is so ridiculously short. Warmistas have told us all sorts of things will happen- more frequent and severe tropical cycloes, for one, which hasn't come to pass.

To me AGW and associated carbon trading is a wealth distribution scheme, from wealthy nations to poor, and to creeps like Gore and Pachauri (a railway engineer, for God's sake).

The author obviously has great faith in the climate scientists who preach on AGW.

Foremost among the UK AGW disciples are the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit and the Met Office. This morning's Cut and Paste column of The Australian makes some interesting observations about both of these august bodies:

Why did God give us Climategate emails when we've got back copies of The Independent? March 20, 2000:
BRITAIN'S winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters -- which scientists are attributing to global climate change -- produce not only fewer white Christmases but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. According to David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

Nathan Reo in Britain's Daily Express, October 28:
THE Met Office, using data generated by a pound stg. 33 million supercomputer, claims Britain can stop worrying about a big freeze this year because we could be in for a milder winter than in past years. The new figures, which show a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer than average temperatures this winter, were ridiculed last night by independent forecasters. Positive Weather Solutions senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: "It baffles me how the Met Office can predict a milder than average winter when all the indicators show this winter will have parallels to the last one. They are standing alone here, as ourselves and other independent forecasters are all predicting a colder than average winter."

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, December 20:
WHY did the Met Office forecast a "mild winter"?

Michael Rowan, I think you might have either missed the point I was making about “channeling” our champions or chosen to ignore it. Since it is crucial to the case I was making I will put it another way. You say your champions are the best because they are “reputable”. If they were reputable they would not have destroyed their own credibility.

You went right back to champions and nominated yours. What you don’t seem to understand is that many do not agree that they are reputable, that’s the whole point.

It is utterly futile to promote your “opinions” based upon the CRU, IPCC, Met. Office and other “august bodies” when they are clearly tainted in the perception of many.

You keep peddling the myth that somehow, if you hit the public over the head often enough, they will agree.

You asked the question what would be <<evidence that convincingly demonstrates that global warming has been caused by anthropogenic gas emissions’? >>

Evidence? What on earth are you talking about? The public wouldn’t know evidence if it bit them on the bum. What is it about “we are not scientists” don’t you understand?

Which now brings you back full circle to the original point, all you will get from the public is Link Wars, so why don’t you send your links and your opinions to those scientists who disagree with you?

Please stop bullying the public. We have a game, we like it because it’s entertaining and the proof it’s a game is in the fact that nobody seems to “buy” the opposition argument.

You agree that Link Wars is a game, but the science isn’t. True, science isn’t a game but it has become a joke thanks to the “reputable” entities upon which you rely.

As I suggested, for those of us who do wish take it seriously, we need to take the proselytizing howling amateurs out of the equation and bring both scientific persuasions together.

The acid test of your science would be to agree to this.

Graham Y: Taking your paras one at a time: 1.how is this a fault of peer review itself? Won’t it also be true of the person’s favoured wikireview? 2. The NS paper is not very surprising, and actually says that publication is part of the process of eliminating error. It is not about peer review at all but the statistical likelihood that a given finding is incorrect.3.Which leaves the next para without support. What peer review does is eliminate the papers whose falsity is apparent to a competent reader, leaving the scientific community to focus their criticism on those that survive the cull to publication. Science is Darwinian and peer review is an important part of process. 4. I did not find that analysis supported by the reviews. No doubt this could happen, but it cannot be typical: science after all does undergo regular revolutions which upset the established view. Think of continental drift theory, or stomach ulcers being caused by bacteria for recent examples.5. I’d rather my doctor took her basis for practice from the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet, rather than wikisurgery. What about you?
Peter Hume.1. Are you really suggesting we stop the public funding of science? And you suggest the supporters of AGW are out to wreck the economy! 2. See my next in OLO. 3. I thought both the Stern and Garnaut reviews did a pretty good job of arguing the social science case. What is your criticism of these? For answers to a)-c) have a look at evaluations of the cap and trade system in the US covering SO2 emissions from power stations, and the reduction of acid rain.

You are right about data, but this is not a fact about global warming but rather all science. The facts rarely speak for themselves. Rather nature’s secrets have to be coaxed from her. A good treatment is Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening (CUP, some years ago). And all scientists have a vested interest in the facts coming out a certain way – its called ego. What has this to do with AGW rather than, eg, Millikan’s determination of the charge of the electron (to choose as non-political a case as I can imagine)?
Viking13. 1. I’m not suggesting that your ‘scepticism’ is faith based, I’m offering you a Popperian test you can try for yourself. 2. So where does the theory of AGW assume a stable climate in the past? 3. If your final para is intended as an argument against AGW it’s a non sequitur; whether you or I agree or disagree with the policies that some people say the science should lead us to adopt does not bear on the truth of the science at all.
Raycom. What counts as evidence is not the weather – neither the cold winter in the UK nor the record hot summer in Russia, nor the record floods in Pakistan – but the long term averages. On that basis a prediction of a mild winter can be correct even if it turns out to be cold. Predicting that 6 won’t turn up on the next roll of a fair dice is sound (and will make money in the long run) even if does come up after all.

Spindoc: 1. I deliberately chose to reference not the scientists themselves but the organisations and independent enquiries which have enquired into their work. If you think these are biased are you arguing thus?: Rowan only cites biased sources in support of AGW. We know they are biased because they support AGW. 2. The scientists are already getting together in the refereed journals as they always have. Some papers suggest AGW is a big problem, others that it is less so. If AGW is overthrown it will come from papers in this literature. It might happen like this: one paper reports an increase in a particular algae in the polar oceans; another attributes the increase to ocean acidification; a third points out that years ago a paper noted that areas of the ocean where this algae blooms reflects more sunlight back into space. Put them together and you have a negative feedback loop. Why wouldn’t Nature publish all of these papers if the science was good? 3. I’m not trying to play your game as you describe it. I’m trying to be reasonable given the evidence (which is all we can ask of scientists as well). If it turns out I’m right, good. If I’m wrong, even better! I don’t have shares in nuclear power or wind or solar power companies, and I like flying and driving my car.
All: thanks for reading and commenting. May you all have a Goldilock's Christmas - not too hot, not too cold, but just right - regardless of the forecast!

Michael, taking your points. 1. It is the fault of peer review because its closed architecture allows people to create that impression. Furthermore publishers exploit that to try to increase the standing of their journal.
2.No, this paper is about the peer review process. The fact that more than half the papers published are wrong says that peer review is not particularly good at weeding problem papers out. Open argument is what does that. Meaning that:
3. is supported.
4. Is supported by the facts. Read the Climate gate emails rather than relying on the secondary sources.
5. My doctor pulls his diagnosis from a diversity of sources, I'd hope he'd go to the most current, which given the speed at which open publishing works woud be likely to be wikisurgery. I've seen some rubbish come out of Lancet.

If you want to look at the new paradigm at work you can see one example, and references to others at http://www.egu.eu/publications/statement/initiatives-and-comments.html

When I say "new" in some ways it is like the old Royal Society method where one would orally deliver a paper and be examined on it. That's the system under which Darwin's theory was first presented to the Linnaen Society.

Open review has benefits over the current system of peer review in that it is quick and much more democratic, and is obviously contestable.

Michael, you might also be interested in this from my morning reading. "Classical peer review: an empty gun" http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/12/S4/S13 by Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal; and "The Truth Wears Off: Is there something wrong with the scientific method?" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?printable=true¤tPage=1#ixzz19SXuXddz by Jonah Lehrer from The New Yorker.

Both point to issues with not just peer review, but in the second case, how experiments are constructed.