David Evans isn't a "rocket scientist", he isn't even a "scientist". He is an electrical engineer that wrong some computer code for the AGO.

BTW, After this recent string of denier articles, OLO is not looking very impartial any more.

I don't normally reply to comments about my comments, but since it appears that CJMorgan is unaware of the vindictiveness of our particular climate I would point out that my grandfather was born in this region in 1876 and I have a long historical knowledge of the climate. This region has experienced volatility in its climate for more than a century of record keeping. It has experienced frost in every month of the year. It has experienced a flood in every month of the year. True, June and July this year are not as cold as they were in 2007 when we measured -10Celcius, but in 2003 the weather was similar until August, when the cold weather hit with a vengeance. One has to go back to 1993 to find another winter as mild as the winter of 2008.

Shadyoasis. Why now Climate Change and not Global Warming? Surely CO@ emissions cannot produce both cooling and warming ... at the same time.

Sams. Are the denialists deniers of Climate Change or Global Warming?

CJ Morgan: Evans is a denialist of Global Warming and not of Climate Change.

Every man and woman, and their dogs, have experienced ups and downs in their local weather. And I am not exempt. I remember long icicles from leaking taps at my old pad on the Atherton Tableland seventy years ago; in 1962, a water bag hanging on the front of the land rover frozen at camp outside Clermont (QLD); during 1984 frosts down to minus 12 on a temperature inversion-persecuted patch twenty kilometers west of Mount Bartle Frere, and a similar vintage snow-fall on the hill behind MacKay. There were both hot and cold times there and then, as there will be now.

Weather oddities do not a climate make; but the aggregate of wide-ranging weather situations over an extended period does. Plants and animals have close experience of the totality of it all, and their adjustment to overall prevailing conditions is an interesting report on fluctuations. They, at least, will honestly follow trends as they occur, unable to filter data according to their predilections. That is vastly different from those with a campaign to discredit the honesty of the scientific community

Some refute by Lambert.

First of all he pulls out a couple of flashy graphs which the predominant feature was, from my initial glance, a clear hot spot covering approximately 25% to 40% of the plot area, but the feature he choses to suggest is the critical signature is the tiny blue line across the top of the plot, maybe at most 5% of the area.

The next fascinating point was that the graphs were not actual data, but modelled data. I am not sure what this technique is called, but refuting an arguement about the lack of actual hot spots (which in none of his following charts appeared, the ones proving cooling), by using modelled plots which clearly show one is breathtaking in audacity.

Then the greatest point of all.

"If the hot spot really is missing it does not prove that CO2 is not causing warming, but it would indicate something wrong with the models."

Having pointed out a major potential flaw in the model (when it does not suit his arguement) in which he has so much faith, he then uses the same model results to prove one and for all that global warming is definitely caused by CO2 (when it does suit his arguement).

I wouldn't mind if the end result of all this was some rabid debate in academia and/or blogland, but we are talking about destroying hundreds of billions of dollars in real world infrastructure, with absolutely no gaurantee that we will change anything.

The manner in which any questions to the orthodoxy are dealt with is stunning. Any challenges that the real world observations dont match the model predictions are treated as acceptable margins of error, then we are told with certainty that in 100 years time the impact will be X, with no range of possible results.

MOre to come

And then there is another round of model changes, back testing, and in a few more degrees of freedom so the model reproduces actual observations, but it still cannot predict the future.

Then we are told even if the model is wrong, it is good insurance, as the potential damage is huge, even if it is low risk. Well apply that brilliant logic to the following scenarios.

We should spend 50% of our GDP developing a comet shield, as if one hits earth there will be mass extinctions. Huge impact, low probability. Insurance anyone?

We should spend the remaining 50% of our GDP developing an earthquake stopping technology by stopping continental drift, as the known result of this, major earthquakes, causes huge impacts. Huge impact, low probability. In this case we KNOW the causality. Insurance anyone?

Stunning, I am getting close to the point where I will move to another country that is not so hellbent on destroying itself on the alter of feelgood environmentalism on far from proven science.

Where was all the CO2 that ended the ice age??