Carbon dioxide is in fact good for the flora. However and obviously it is also good for the big business that found new niche for making money. This year freeze European winter weakens the point about global warming. There are aslo statements that comparative temperature is measured by the thermometers that are now in the urban setting while ages ago used to be in the open. One does not need “scientific” proof that temperature in the unheated room with petrol engine on is higher then in the unheated room with petrol engine off. That is almost axiom. One-three degree error in the measurement of temperature in the open likely is acceptable error and shall be taken as +/- to the scientific results. Also there is proven movement in the earth’s natural cycle from ice period to flood period.
Of course, I do not suggest that we are not responsible for the ecology and rubbish on the beach.

Andrew - its time to give this theme away. The view of the carbon cycle and the connection between CO2 and other climate issues is not nearly as settled as you would have us believe in the article, but let me take one point. You say, correctly, that CO2 concentrations are increasing at 2ppm a year .. quite so. Its been that way for about a decade. No real sign of any acceleration despite repeated assurances that CO2 emissions are increasing faster than expected. At that rate of increase, existing CO2 concentrations will not double for 200 years. They will not reach 1,000 for another century beyond that.. And the additional increase has to come from CO2. Concentrations in the other big greenhouse greenhous gas, methane, leveled off some years back. A point you neglect to mention. Check the NOAA graphs if you don't believe me.
The projections used by IPCC for CO2 and methane concetrations on which its climate projections depend are a decade old, depend on economics as much as science and are already looking decidedly off.. leave it with you..

Curmudgeon

Perhaps you would like to look at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ and scroll down to "Annual Mean Growth Rate for Mauna Loa, Hawaii". I didn't closely analyse the data, but a quick look does not show a linear growth rate over the last 50 years. What it does show to me that rates vary over time, the growth rate is always positive and it is certainly greater than 50 years ago.

We just have to keep our parks in place and to preserve them from building out by the wealth which simultaneously makes money from the CO increase due to increase of personal transport or industry. We should plant the trees on both sides of the roads instead of build out sides of the road with highrises etc. That might be enough to resolve the emerging "probblem" which is in fact never presented from each and every aspect.

Anthony - a sensible comment. That's quite so.. in fact about 1960 it was about 0.5 ppm a year but it reached its present rate of increase before 2000, so there was a big upward kick about the same time as temperatures increased and it has since stabilised.. The problem is that the forecasts for CO2 concentrations were made in 2000 (the IPCC's special report on emission scenarios, its on the IPCC site), and those forecast assumed the CO2 increase would not only continue but accelerate. Not only that but Methane levelled off completely. Those projections have not been updated, so you still see concentration figures given for 2030 that now connot possibly happen. People are quoting the top range of the IPCC projections when actual concentrations are running near the bottom, not the top, of the IPCC projections.
Then we have the problem that what is known of the geological record and CO2 concentrations, major temperature changes actually preceed those of the CO2 concentrations. This is notable in the Vostok ice core material. Global warmers get around this by claiming that the CO2 increases are first triggered by temperature increases (caused by other factors) then take over the warming. Andrew's stuff deals with the geological record where CO2 concentrations are linked to temperature to some degree but its not possible to say one leads the other. In fact, its more likely temperature leads.

More cherry picked data, which this scientific area is becoming known for and around the world at all levels of communities, is losing all credibility.

How can anyone trust any temperature data coming out of this area, when the "peer review" process is accepting of people making up their own datasets, if they are a member of the club and mates with the reviewers.

How can Phil Jones state you should go make up your own dataset since he doesn't want to give out his well manicured home grown, loosely based on the odd factoid here and there, dataset - obviously years in the making and supports all manner of HIS and HIS MATES theories.

What a joke this is on all the taxpayers around the world supporting this so called "research".

No wonder the chief scientist in the UK, is upset about science's reputation being degraded (our chief scientist is a political appointee and thinks whatever she is told)

What a disservice to Australian scientific progress is a paper like this, as Curmudgeon points out, being "pruduent with facts and the truth."

Given that I am not a climate scientist I will accept DR.Glickson’s statement as true.
“Humans can not argue with the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere.”

None-the-less humans can and must question the processes that lead to this conclusion.

• Firstly, we can ask questions about methodology. What are the methods used to measure atmospheric CO2. What is their accuracy and sensitivity? What are the smallest detectable differences? What are the errors and assumptions made in the measurement? What are the sampling (statistical) methods employed? How frequently are instruments calibrated? etc.

• Secondly, there is the argument of cause and effect. It is well recognised that a correlation by itself is not a proof of causality. The eminent statistician the late Sir Austin Bradford Hill suggested some nine criteria that can be applied in the discussion of causality. Of course not all of his criteria apply to every situation. The last word is that decisions regarding cause and effect relationships require scientific judgment. In the other words there is an inevitable subjective element in decision making.

• For instance the sixth Hill criterion is called ‘plausibility’; clearly what is plausible to me, may not be plausible to you or vice versa.

I have seen some ridiculous articles, but this is a front runner in packing so much nonsense into so few pages.

If you wish to advocate reduction of human emissions, Andrew, give some scientific basis for it.

If there is now some scientific proof that human emissions make any difference to the carbon cycle, the IPCC would have heard about it and told us.

After billions of taxpayers dollars poured into research, to prove that human emissions have any significance, the answer, so far, is that they do not.

Even the mendacious IPCC would not venture more than an unscientific “very likely”. They depended for this on an allocation of unaccounted warming to human emissions. This warming has now been accounted as natural, by a published, peer reviewed paper, so any basis for impugning human emissions is non existent.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml

Professor Robert Carter comments:

“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”

Your paper reads like low grade science fiction, Andrew.

Curmudgeon

There are a wide range of scenarios listed in the emissions paper you referred to. As they say, they are very difficult to make predictions from as it is an attempt to forecast not only natural systems, but also human activity systems which are in many ways even more complex and less predictiable. Not all of them assume the worst-case scenario.

If the emissions growth were linear, 2ppm/pr would still see 568.63 ppm by 2010. Not an attractive scenario. If you look at the paper, Implications of Proposed CO2 Emissions Limitations of 1997, Figures 5 and 6 show the exponential curves of projected CO2 concentrations, 388ppm in 2010 is right near or at the upper scenario curve IS92e. I am using these curves because it plots CO2 concentration over time.

Note that the Mauna Loa record is non-linear. The ocean response to changes in atmospheric CO2 is non-linear due to its carbon chemistry and bilogical systems. Anthropogenic CO2 production rates at this stage is also nonlinear. I would be loathe to make a linear projection based on ten years of data. All changes can be linearised over a small enough time scale.

Stable isotope chemistry tells us the CO2 is from fossil fuel and not expelled from the ocean, if the rise in CO2 was strictly due to a change in ocean currents, for instance. This has been suggested as the major contributor to the rise in atmospheric CO2, probably due to outgassing from the Southern Ocean, at the end of the last ice age.
The rise in global temperature ove the last century is twice that seen at the end of the last ice age and the increase in CO2 is more than twice the rate seen then. The major solar input cycle peaked about 16,000 years or so ago, bringing the planet out of the last ice age. If you have another suggestion for the driver of these rates of change in carbon dioxide and heat, then I would be happy to hear it.

When will these people wake up.

Andrew youve been caught out. Shouting more often, louder, or with more people is not going to work.

Get used to it. It's over.

Find another line of work. You've had so much experience with this garbage, perhaps you could get a job driving a garbage truck. At least you'd be doing something useful, for a change.

Hasbeen,

As some spindoctor noted elsewhere ... it's called shooting the messenger - good stuff maaate.

You want to gag Dr Glickson and suggest he finds another line of work, driving a garbage truck? Even better.

From where I stand, the shrill is coming from the promoters of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) - often deliberate, sometimes unintentional, never constructive ... you're doing just fine.

Dr.Glickson.
Reasoned, coherent argument. Thank you.

The problem you face here is that of armchair experts (AEs) who don't understand the nature of scientific theories, the questions let alone the answers/conclusions. As you say the chemistry physics is beyond reasonable dispute.

AEs believe good old fashioned, down to earth sense, tops years of training, specialization, quadruple checked careful research then ore expert scrutiny by other qualified scientists. By their thinking why have scientists? Let's just have average folks run science. What could go wrong? Apart from everything.

They believe that science theory is binary either absolutely correct or absolutely wrong. Regardless of endless explanations to the contrary, including details of what we know, what we can surmise and areas needing more work or don't know.

Many still have difficulty distinguishing between weather and Climate.
Also, they don't comprehend that weather/climate changes at either of the spectrum are explained by the theory.

As you say, the science and chemistry is beyond question as are the observable facts.

Now the AEs, contrarians etc, are claiming it's all natural. Yes of course it is, we don't make the climate we are *affecting* it. We don't make water either, but we can pollute it or cause its distribution to change, by changing the hydrology or climate.

Dr, If I understand you correctly you are agreeing that high CO2 levels have been as high (er) before.Even agree that many of the observable events (facts) have also happened before and the *world* survived.

Part2 following

It seems to me the essential difference is also a fact,that last time it did, it created mass extinctions.It doesn't seem to have sunk in that the among the differences between now and then is 6.something billion people. But hell, That's alarmist(spit).
Part 2
The Dr appears to be saying in common sense terms, that we should, on solid scientific grounds, stop aggravating the situation now, while we can.

The theory of Anthropomorphic Climate Change (AGW if you must) give us scientific hope of how we might avoid the alarmist consequences.
That is before we *have* to deal with 300 million + hungry, thirsty angry desperate refugees *in our area*.

PS
Currently we have approximately 12 million external refugees world wide and we aren't doing a terrific job coping with them.

Whilst it is true that the World has survived large increases in atmospheric CO2 in the past, it is also true that these events have also coincided with mass extinctions. Unfortunately, there is also a high probability that mankind will be included in the next mass extinction.

The deniers seem to be quite oblivious of the fact that ice is melting all around the globe. As has already been pointed out, it is the remaining ice which is acting as the earth's thermostat and when that is gone we will really know what temperature rise is. We are only just beginning to get a glimpse of it so far.

A good article, wholy lost on the scientifically ignorant, who unfortunately seem to congregate on OLO.

David

What I want to know is how Dr. Glikson can pinpoint so accurately what was happening 250 million years ago, not just to carbon dioxide levels but also to species numbers. So CO2 went up and lots of species died? Are you sure that happened simultaneously? Could it have been delayed by a thousand years? What about a million years? -- after all, we are talking about a long, long timescale here. Could it have happened BEFORE the CO2 level rose? How long before? A thousand years? A million years? And what else was happening over that period? A million years is a long time.

Trying to extrapolate events over a vast time scale like this to what's happening in human lifetimes at the beginning of the 21st century is simply nonsense. It's as specious as saying: 'large mammals died out in the Pleistocene; therefore tall humans will die off next week'. All that Dr Glikson can tell from his graphs is that a lot of species died off at some time within a few million years before or after a CO2 peak. The relevance that has to making AGW-related assumptions and decisions here and now is precisely zero.

Here we go again, another same old, same old, from another scientifically illiterate.

David

David VK3AUU, as one of the “scientifically illiterate” or, as examinator puts it “armchair experts (AEs) who don't understand the nature of scientific theories”, I do believe your scientists.

As a non scientist I have to believe in Jones, Briffa, Wang, Trenbarth, Santer, Pashauri, Harris, Salinger, Mann and Hansen.

I believe them when they admit there is no consensus, that their peer review process is flawed, that they admit including in their last report, 24 (out of 36) non-peer reviewed references, that data is missing from the Russian, Canadian, NZ, Chinese and Australia temperature data sets. I believe their admissions relating to the use of some of the proxy studies.

I believe their admission that their databases and systems are in a “hopeless state” and that they have “invented data”. I believe them when they admit there has been no warming since 1995 and that this is not the warmest period on record.

Your problem David, is that you and others on this thread do not believe these scientists, you do not believe what they have admitted, that makes you “de….r’s, no, sorry, I just can’t bring myself to say the “d” word.

Dr. Glikson should keep his “reasoned, coherent argument” on the pages of OLO, rather than sending it off to the IPCC, that way he might retain a little credibility

dave tanner, VK whatever "there is also a high probability that mankind will be included in the next mass extinction."

What scientific basis is this dire prediction based on? (Extreme Exageration Theory? is this another area of Climate Science?)

Or is it more of the usual warmist disaster propaganda and cherry picked facts rounded up to disaster and doom?

"Change your ways or the world will end", doesn't that sound like some old religious prattle we all thought was quaint when viewed from a different age, or is this current age warmist scientology?

As you say "Here we go again, another same old, same old, from another scientifically illiterate." (mass extinction ooooooooooh!)

You got it right there, though you are in good company here with the other data botherers.

In short, Andy and company are so far off into the world of "Wild Exgeration", you now think it's science - science is based in skepticism and examination of fact, not exageration, not making up your own data and predicting the future, leave that to the clowns and religious nuts .. oh

Anthony - you are quite right to point out that the IPCC's emission scenarios report contains many, many different paths.. and none of them are considered more probable than the others. However, the fact remains that the projections for methane are already hopelessly wrong and the projections for CO2 are below the mid range of that host of projections not near the top as is constantly alleged, and that only a decade after they were made.
As for natural drivers, it has occured to me that Andrew is not be keeping up with literature in his own field.. in fact its been conceeded that solar magnetic theory is a major driver of climate - albeit with the connection supposedly breaking down in 1985. See the paper by Mike Lockwood, a physicist at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory and Claus Frolich, of the word radiation centre in Davos, Switzerland.
The paper, "Recently opposite directed trends in climate forcings and the global mean surface temperature" (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, July 13, 2007) s available online. It does not try to argue against the mass of evidence for a link throughout pre-history but alleges that it breaks down in 1985.. there is considerable argument about that but the paper was well received by global warmists.
Andrew would have done well to explore that link rather than rant about CO2 again. Leave it with you..

Andrew Glikson’s article continues his alarmist agenda-driven crusade and use of selectively quoted science, starting from his first paragraph, where he refers to the human caused increase in the original 590GtC carbon inventory of the atmosphere . What and when was the ‘original’ carbon inventory? His own graph shows atmospheric CO2 levels up to 12 times higher than at present during the last 600 milllion years, and before that it was even higher.
He says that the present rate of CO2 rise of 2ppm/year is unprecedented in geological history. He cannot know this because there are no geological or other investigative techniques that can determine such changes in the geological past over periods as short as a year or a century or a millennium. He has tried this stunt before and compared CO2 rises in recent decades with changes over 10’s of thousands of year in the PETM. He has no idea what CO2 changes occurred during individual ten year periods during the PETM, and he can never know. The more recent time period when higher resolution is possible for example from ice cores shows that temperature rises preceded CO2 rises.
He refers to a critical threshold for CO2 but does not say what this is. He goes on to say that ‘further release of CO2 from the oceans .... warms the oceans and induces ocean acidification’. This is new science which needs to be explained!
He says the poles are warming three or four times faster than low latitudes. There is no observed evidence that the Antarctic is warming, although he would probably refer to the Antarctic peninsula which is almost 3000 km from the pole. He is selective in referring to ice loss in the Antarctic when most research is showing an increase overall. And for the Arctic he ignores the recent research showing that the 2007 sea ice loss was caused by wind changes which blew the sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean where it melted in the warmer waters of the north Atlantic. It did not melt in the Arctic.

There are significant paragraphs repeated in the article from a previous piece written by Andrew and one can question whether repetition of this type is an appropriate use of OLO. He paraphrases a number of paragraphs from the references to which he provides links – and what references they are! Wikipedia, which maintained a climate alarmist editor who allegedly edited over 5000 articles that did not comply with the alarmist agenda. And extremist Joe Romm’s Climate Progress. And advocacy group WWF. Not a good look Andrew.
In paraphrasing from one of his links he even converts the original 9 metres of alleged ice melt to 30 feet. Why? Because it sounds like a bigger number? Or does it say something about what he thinks of the predominantly non-scientific audience he is writing for? Don’t underestimate that audience Andrew. Most of them are clearly better than you are in their understanding of the changes that are now happening rapidly in the climate debate, from the doubts emerging about actual temperatures during the last hundred years, to the discrediting of so many of the IPCC’s pet theories and forecasts, and the disgraceful behaviour of the high priests of global warming as exposed in the CRU emails. And many of us are well aware that the science as you portray it on matters such as climate sensitivity and feedbacks, extreme weather events and other factors is far from settled. You portrayal of it as such, especially when speaking science to a predominantly non-scientific audience, does you no credit. The IPCC has given itself a credibility problem by its use of advocacy groups for some of its source material and its refusal to take into account conflicting but quality science. The same applies your increasingly strident contributions to the debate. Yes there is a tipping point coming and I suggest it will be the collapse of the AGW edifice.

MalRob - good points, well made, and the usual trickery by the author.

What's is interesting is all the warmists who readily sign up to this prattle and gobbledegook and state what wonderful science it is.

An example "Reasoned, coherent argument. Thank you. The problem you face here is that of armchair experts (AEs) who don't understand the nature of scientific theories, the questions let alone the answers/conclusions. As you say the chemistry physics is beyond reasonable dispute."

The deluded lap it up, like mana from heaven, without thinking thorough the obvious - perhaps I'm being unkind and they are just so fixated in their religious warmist scientology beliefs, that they don't think unless one of their high pristes tells them to do so.

Such is science in Australia now .. how sad.

Not much to be gained by arguing with climate deniers!

Suggest join the NewAustralia Party instead. Currently membership is free.

We are promoting a revenue neutral tax swap as a way to provide an appropriate carbon price without having a massive net tax rise or bogus 'ETS'.

Our web site is here: www.NewAustralia.net.

Curmudgeon

Thanks for the reference to the paper. The variability of solar activity is no doubt and influence on climate in the past and into the future. No climate scientist has ever said that atmospheric CO2 is the sole driver of changes to climate. As you say, the paper does dismiss this small scale solar variability as a significant influence since 1985, In the absence of any other mechanism, one would expect a drop in global average temperatures since that time.

I haven't looked at cosmic fluxes too much or the effect of changes to the earth's magnetic field on those fluxes. One thing I have observed while looking at papers where people used paleomagnetism to date ocean sedimentary cores to determine sea level changes over the last few million years, is there is definitely no correlation to changes in the earth's polarity and implied sea level. This has been understood since at least Shackleton and Opdyke, 1973. As an aside, there is definitely no correlation of these changes with extinction events either.

Have to make practical post once again. Whole theory sound as “what if” one. Article has started with assumptions and finished with assumptions.
It is not likely that human population can significantly affect natural climate change cycles or if we could, then better not play with it. What we can do is to reduce negative effect of human activity locally but much attention paid by theoretics. Everyone wants to make theories and conclusions that not possible to verify or where not possible to see the end result. That is of course interesting but ,OLO or not OLO, sorry no belief that “what if” is scientific approach.

'The deluded lap it up, like mana from heaven, without thinking thorough the obvious - perhaps I'm being unkind and they are just so fixated in their religious denialist scientology beliefs, that they don't think unless one of their high pristes tells them to do so.'

with apologies to Amicus for the one-word change.

VK3AUU (David) said: "The deniers seem to be quite oblivious of the fact that ice is melting all around the globe. "

David have a look at the Southern Hemisphere sea ice anomaly:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

Antarctic ice has been on the increase for over thirty years; you don't hear about it because it doesn't fit the AGW plot.

Remember, it's always the end of the world as we know it (for some reason). At the moment it's CO2 - an invisible, life-sustaining gas.

The responses to this article show how popular the idea that all the people who study climate are wrong is - or is it a matter of how loud a relatively small number of people who think the science is wrong are? As far as science goes, AGW stands as solidly or more solidly than ever despite the various claims that it's somehow seriously flawed. No scientific arguments are needed to believe the wholly unsupported orthodoxy that the Earth's climate can't be changed by anything humanity does, just an ongoing belief in the sciency sounding arguments of the high priests of climate change denial. Most of the 'irrefutable' claims I've been reading here crumble with even minimal efforts to find out from actual climate scientists or their publications. Sorry but getting all your 'science' from blogs that are advocates for the non-existence of AGW and who select and interpret climate science with bias doesn't count as anything but listening only to what you want to hear.
I'll take the scientists and institutions that actually study climate and the critiques by real experts like the US National Academy of Sciences - real scepticism properly applied - over the sciency sounding arguments of scientific hacks like Carter or mining company directors like Plimer.

Anthony
sure.. just to correct one impression.. I mentioned the breakdown from 1985 to be fair to Lockwood et al.. There have been plenty of counter arguments. The correlation between solar and the last couple of decades is far from clear cut but that may well be because the data for those decades is far higher resolution that previous decades so we are seeing the complications.. In other words it is possible Lockwood is just putting on a rearguard action.. However, even as it stands the Lockwood paper basically destroys the greenhouse case, as all the forecasts now have to be withdrawn and completely re-cast. It acknowledges that there is another climate factor.

The following quotes have been extracted from the Institute of Physics evidence to the UK Parliament. The London based IOP has a membership of 36,000.

“2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions”

3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges: those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of 'proxies', for example, tree-rings.

4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.

13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.

Curmudgeon

This solar material is not something I have spent a lot of study on. Are you are getting your information from “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”, For another take on this statement check out http://polesapart.com/files/5_lbc_review.pdf . In particular, they cover further work by Lockwood and his colleagues.

Response by author:

1. Points made in my article are supported by references from the peer reviewed literature (see list below).

2. Not every detail in the history of the atmosphere is known, but the main trends are elucidated by multiple proxy studies (C and O isotopes, plant pores (stomata), organic compounds, fossil soils etc). The state of knowedge is akin to that with Darwinian evolution or plate tectonics - established theories for which further evidence is continuously elalborated.

3. There is a fundamental difference between the CLIMATE and the WEATHER regionally and with time. The climate in each particular region over long periods (decades or longer) is defined by a range of variabilities in terms of temperatures, evaporation, rainfall, wind patterns, frequency of storms etc. The weather is a term referring to these variabilities on shorter time scales, i.e. a day or a week. Typically variations in the weather are far greater than variations in climate.

4. For example, the recent snow storms over NE USA and western Europe result from formation of large vapor-rich air masses over the warming Atlantic Ocean, colliding with masses of cold dry Arctic air. An increase in storminess as atmospheric energy levels rise has been projected by climate science over the last 30 years.

5. The article repeats some points made elsewhere - a reflection of the repeated responses climate scientists had to make over the last 5 years or so to about 20 standard long-discarded arguments made by those who do not accept: (1) the basic laws of physics and chemistry (mainly the Stefan-Bolzmann and Kirscher laws which govern atmospheric radiative forcing by greenhouse gases); (2) the paleoclimate evidence as defined by multiple proxies, and (3) direct field observations of climate change around the globe

A recent reference in this regard is: Glikson, A.Y., 2008. Milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere with reference to climate change. AJES 55, 25-39.http://www.zeroemissionnetwork.org/files/MILESTONES_19-6-07.pdf

Andrew Glikson
2 March, 2010

A good article, lost on many. Sometimes I think that this phoenomenon should have been named "climate de-stabilisation" rather than "global warming" which sounds a bit too cosy. Then maybe more people would understand how dangerous this is. Humanity is running an uncontrolled experiment with the atmosphere. Surely, less carbon pollution can only be a good thing? Less people would die of air pollution, for a start, if we cleaned up our act. Unless you have shares in petro-chemical companies, why exactly would you oppose the adoption of clean energy sources?
For myself, I care deeply about the numerous species which have existed on earth for millions of years, currently being threatened with extinction solely because of human activities on this planet. The threatening processes are all human-related: global warming, destruction of habitats (including deforestation) and the introduction of foreign species to new environments. If you take enough threads out of the web of life, the web will eventually collapse. We kid ourselves that we are somehow "separate" from nature, and yet we can't even digest our food properly without other living creatures (the bacteria we all carry within us).

andyone "For example, the recent snow storms over NE USA and western Europe result from formation of large vapor-rich air masses over the warming Atlantic Ocean, colliding with masses of cold dry Arctic air. An increase in storminess as atmospheric energy levels rise has been projected by climate science over the last 30 years."

So was that Climate or Weather .. you seem to be vague about it?

Are you having a bet each way?

Before the big snow storms in the northern hemisphere, the UK Met had predicted a "mild winter", so what happened there, and then even a week before the storms, still didn't see it coming, didn't see the second round either. (had they not heard of the doom predictions?)

no because it was WEATHER, not CLIMATE CHANGE!

You certainly have 20/20 hindsight don't you and then quickly roll the theory in sparkles to make it all fit in and then claim of course you knew that would happen.

The big storms in the US for instance are not becoming more frequent, but less frequent, but do go on predicting them, like Al Gore, we'll hold them up to ridicule you.

The "storminess" is not increasing - mind you other climate scientists are predicting less storms, so somewhere in climate science, are all sets of solutions - you guys crack me up.

Little wonder so may people are becoming skeptical of such tricky words and contrived data that everything supposedly sits on.

May be the science (physics) is sound, but not the resulting product when you use polluted data, which now we know through CRU is the way of climate science, make a "good set" of data, regardless of what's in the real world, then use that data to show .. whatever you like. Peer review by mates, and away you go - tenure!

Except the world is not co-operating, so you have to postdict (?) predict the past, as you do and claim a win for your science.

What a career path this is, I wonder that anyone would want to be a part of it.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER

The time scale and the geographic extent is what distinguishes the WEATHER from the CLIMATE.

The North Atlantic snow storms, lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks, constitute extreme weather events.

The CLIMATE constitutes a longer term regional state of the atmosphere, reflected by the mean conditions and the extent of variability. However, the climate can change in the medium or longer term, as in the following examples:

1. The "Younger dryas" (12,900 - 11,700 years ago) - a period during which melting of the Greenland ice resulted in sharp cooling of the Northern Atlantic Ocean, leading to colder climate in North America and Western Europe.

2. The shift in climate zones toward the poles during the 2nd half of the 20th century, estimated as about 400 km, in Mexico, Mediterranean and Australia, results in lower precipitation and thus drier climate.

3. The increase in ocean and atmospheric tempratures recorded for the second part of the 20th century (NASA/GISS http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10104&page=0)
results in an increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, including storms (Webster, P.J., Holland, G.J., Curry, J.A., Chang, H.R., 2005. Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment, Science, 309, 1844–1846.)

4. Those who wish to criticize climate science and scientists ought to look first at authentic datasets (NASA, Hadley, NSIDC, CSIRO, BOM, Potsdam etc.) and see whether they can interpret these data in any other way than climate change.

5. Within limits CO2 rise benefits plants, i.e. in glass houses, but above these limit, i.e. above about 350 ppm, atmospheric CO2 rise results in elevated temprature, decrease precipitation, prolonged droughts and demise of vegetation, i.e. the southeast and southwest Australian eucalypt forests, the Amazon.

Andrew Glikson
3-3-2010

P.S.

The NASA/GISS land/ocean temperature website is at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

It allows users to plot maps of land and ocean temprature variations in most parts of the world relative to the period 1950 - 1981 or any other selected parameter.

andyone "Those who wish to criticize climate science and scientists ought to look first at authentic datasets (NASA, Hadley, NSIDC, CSIRO, BOM, Potsdam etc.) and see whether they can interpret these data in any other way than climate change"

I don't doubt these datasets now all reflect climate change, but is it AGW? No one doubts the climate changes as it has always done, why do you keep changing tack here on this - you know it is not in dispute but AGW is - you flip back and forth on this as if skeptics of AGW are also skeptical on Climate Change - not very constructive and I wonder at your motives doing this.

If it is supposedly AGW, then let's get objective review of the datasets, because right now it looks like all the datasets have been manufactured to reflect AGW.

That's the issue with the CRU emails and data release into the wild.

Why did Phil Jones want to protect his carefully hand wrought dataset, because it is a magnificent construction isn't it - not reality, more a work of art reflecting his view of what climate is doing, rather than what it is doing. Same with Hadley, we've seen adjustments constantly of that dataset to steepen the rate of temperature rise - is it reality, not likely.

It makes people wonder, why are all the datasets different? Different goals, different fudge factors, different things to accomplish, like grants?

Let's go back to using actual measured data without the "special adjustments" that your little cliques may all find acceptable, but no one else seems to, hence the skepticism.

Therein lies a problem though, the temperature records, raw, do not show AGW do they? They are a huge amount of noiy measurement, that to get an average out of, you have to discard many results, who decides which to discard and which to use, and what's their motive? ($, grants booksales, directorships, special consultancies, advisorships, tenure, professorships etc, usual human nature drivers)

The author says:

"Because CO2 is cumulative, with atmospheric residence time
on the scale of centuries to millennia, stabilisation of the
climate through small incremental reduction in emissions
may not be sufficient to avoid runaway climate change
and possible tipping points."

Interestingly, he includes amongst his recommendations for remediation, in the last-but-one paragraph of the article, the ".... application of biochar.". This recommendation is particularly interesting in the light of a claim made by Scott Bidstrup in an essay titled 'Saving The Planet While Saving The Farm: How soil carbonization could save the planet while it restores agricultural profitability', that "Millions of farmers, all [carbonizing their farm waste and plowing the charcoal under], could have an enormous impact, bringing atmospheric carbon dioxide right back to its pre-industrial levels.". A basis for optimism?

Bidstrup offers prospects of avoidance of the stand-off between 'warmists' and 'denialists', one all too readily apparent even in this comments thread, in a short preface to his essay, which says:

"It is not enough to try to browbeat business as well as
the population into giving up fossil fuels... Fossil fuels
are simply far too convenient, cheap and easy to use for
their use to end anytime soon, no matter how repressive
government gets. If we are going to solve the problem of
global warming, it won't happen by denying the problem,
as conservatives tend to do, or by browbeating people into
spending more money on less convenient alternative energy sources,
as liberals would seem to prefer. The only realistic solution -
what must be done - is to make the addition of carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere a non-problem."

Bidstrup's essay can be viewed here: http://www.bidstrup.com/carbon.htm

It occurs to me that the large scale conversion of farm wastes and/or deadfall to biochar may also reduce methane emissions that would without such intervention normally result from the natural decomposition of such biomass. Is anyone able to post a link to any studies that may have been done on the methane contribution to GHGs from this source?

No wonder we won't pay any attention to these so called climate scientists, the self declared experts.

Last year they were claiming the warming was causing more cyclones.

Some real research, or simple collating, has disproved this, so now it's increased intensity that will get us all.

Get ALL the research released for scrutiny, if you want any acceptance of your stuff, otherwise pull the other one, it may yodel.

TO THOSE QUERYING WHETHER A CHANGE OCCURS IN THE INTENSITY OF TROPICAL STORMS:

Nature 455, 92-95 (4 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature07234; Received 25 January 2008; Accepted 27 June 2008
The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones
James B. Elsner1, James P. Kossin2 & Thomas H. Jagger1

Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger on average, with a 30-year trend that has been related to an increase in ocean temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere1, 2, 3, 4. Over the rest of the tropics, however, possible trends in tropical cyclone intensity are less obvious, owing to the unreliability and incompleteness of the observational record and to a restricted focus, in previous trend analyses, on changes in average intensity. Here we overcome these two limitations by examining trends in the upper quantiles of per-cyclone maximum wind speeds (that is, the maximum intensities that cyclones achieve during their lifetimes), estimated from homogeneous data derived from an archive of satellite records. We find significant upward trends for wind speed quantiles above the 70th percentile, with trends as high as 0.3 0.09 m s-1 yr-1 (s.e.) for the strongest cyclones. We note separate upward trends in the estimated lifetime-maximum wind speeds of the very strongest tropical cyclones (99th percentile) over each ocean basin, with the largest increase at this quantile occurring over the North Atlantic, although not all basins show statistically significant increases. Our results are qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind.

gosh you're a tricky one aren't you Andy - did anyone actually question he INTENSITY of storms in the US?

I said "The big storms in the US for instance are not becoming more frequent, but less frequent, but do go on predicting them, like Al Gore, we'll hold them up to ridicule you."

frequency not intensity - or couldn't you find anything on that so are skewing the debate, what a surprise!

Since you offering up an examination of that is "qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind" Which may or may not support intensity, I haven't seen the caveats or assumptions on that paper.

let me respond with "Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions"

Thomas R. Knutson, Joseph J. Siruti s, Stephen T. Garner, Gabriel A. Vecchi & Isaac M. Held quote "Our results do not support the notion of large increasing trends in either tropical storm or hurricane frequency driven by increases in atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations."

frequency not intensity OK?

Off you go ..

RPG, I'm not sure what 'large increasing trends in either tropical storm or hurricane frequency driven by increases in atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations' (at end of your post) actually means. What, for example, qualifies as a 'large increasing trend'? I ask this because I know that a brain tumour can increase in volume by 25 percent before its growth is regarded as 'significant' by an oncologist, at which point your average patient is considering him or her self gravely ill. Also, does the reference to 'atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations' encompass sea surface temperature warming, - or was the author separating out air temperature from sea temperature?

Candide - read the paper

If it can read, it probably can't comprehend, like so many others on this thread.

David

Tush, rpg, refusing to engage? Something to hide? If I were communicating with you, David (which I wasn't), I would have the courtesy not to insult the intelligence of a fellow poster merely on the basis of a difference of opinion. The phrase 'grow up' has just drifted out of my keyboard - I wonder why that happened?

candide, I don't mean to brag, but I'm not a climate scientist.

My understanding, reading the paper may be different to yours, since I have an engineering and company director background, I don't know yours and I would not consider myself skilled enough to explain to you the nuances of climate papers. That's more an educator's role.

Not a matter of engaging or not engaging, just a practicality.

Whenever a non climate scientist offers a technical opinion on these pages against AGW, they are howled down and drowned in derogatory sewerage. Which is why I keep my comments out of that zone. You note, I did not offer an opinion, just a quote and reference, not even a link.

Mind you if a non climate scientist offers technical climate science opinions supporting AGW, they are defended by the same lot, in fact their opinions are lauded.

So if you want the article explained to you, please appeal to any climate scientists who post on OLO, if you can find any.

good luck.

All the fortysix of you commentators will die twice, as individuals and as species, if you like it or you don't.

We all, like the dinosaurs, will be truly stoned in due time, no worries!

The question is: will we annihilate ourselves before the geological clock ticks for us?

"Yes we will"

Thanks for the reply rpg - any help out there from a scientist?

If you want a more cheerful outlook, sceptic, just think of the indestructibility of matter. The stuff we are made from will endure beyond our own passing, individually and as a species. I'm torn between wanting us to do something about global warming,overpopulation etc for the benefit of future generations, and thinking that it might be better for the survival of all the other lifeforms on the planet if homo sapiens was around for as short a time as possible.

The saying is that one good picture is worth a thousand words.

Figure 4 of the article, a graph titled 'Sea Level Rise 1993 - 2009', has superimposed over it a small-scale map of Australia showing what would appear to be the extent of inundation by the sea at some unspecified future time. The text on this map that may contain such information is too small to decipher. See:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10104&page=0

Judging from a knowledge as to the extent and elevation at the edge of the Cobar High shown in the NSW part of the map, I assess the rise in sea level projected to be of the order of 600 feet, or 183 m, above present levels. If the 3.2mm/yr rate of increase in sea level claimed remains linear, it would appear that it would take around 57,000 years for the sea to reach the level shown on this map.

CSIRO claims that sea levels were around 140 m lower than presently during the last glacial maximum can be found here:
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_intro.html

My question is:



Is there enough ice remaining in the Antarctic and Greenland icecaps to raise sea levels to the extent of the 183 m indicated on the superimposed map?



This site claims that if the entire Antarctic icecap melted sea levels would rise by around 61 metres, only one third of what appears to be the rise shown on the small-scale map:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

What, in the circumstances of both these sites that I have provided links to being approximately correct, is the purpose of the superimposed map in Figure 4? Is it reflective of good science, or scaremongering propaganda? Or have I entirely misinterpreted the projection as applying to sea level rise when in fact it shows something else?

Gross leaps of logic based upon cherry picked data. Packed with tangential scientific information about climate and barely relevant theories of human migration,etc. Pseudoscientific opinions portrayed as facts. A theological article of the fire and brimstone variety born of zealotry not logic.

1. Antarctic Ice is increasing and will continue to do so.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
also how the IPCC got it wrong despite massive evidence to the contrary.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/02/16/another-ipcc-error-antarctic-sea-ice-increase-underestimated-by-50/

2. Sentences which make no sense
"...when temperatures rose by about 1 degree C and sea levels by 6-8 metres relative to pre-industrial." ?

3. Nature has lost a lot of credibility as a scientific journal due to its clear bias. No wonder he quotes it so much. He also quotes Climate Progress who, despite all the evidence still believe Antarctica has less ice now.

4. Article outlining the lack of evidence for bird extinction as a result of climate change.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses

anti-green

Tuesday, 2 March 2010 4:34:45 PM http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10104#163563

It comes back to bite

http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2010/03/institute-of-physics-regrets.html

cheers btw!

• Yes, the climate does change.

• Yes, with out atmospheric “greenhouse gases” the earth would be a lot colder place.

• The “greenhouse gases” include water vapour (most significant), CO2, CH4 and O3.

• The term “greenhouse” is a misnomer, because terrestrial greenhouses are based on limiting heat flow by convection and NOT radiative effects.

• Assume that the principal absorption and emission of infra red radiation is in the upper atmosphere. Roughly 50% of emitted energy is radiated back into space 50% radiates back to earth, where it contributes to planetary warming.

• The radiative effects are not linearly related to concentration. I.e. doubling the concentration does not double the effect. The relation is logarithmic.

• The atmosphere has both natural and man made sources of carbon dioxide.

• The gas is removed from the atmosphere by both biological and physical processes (sinks).

• All this is a long way off proof that atmospheric climate change is driven solely by man made CO2 additions to the atmosphere. Or that moderate changes in CO2 concentrations will have a significant forcing effect on climate.

• Further climate gate has shown that the data bases for surface air temperature (SAT) are seriously flawed.

• I understand that IPCC conclusions are for the most part based on SAT.

• It is my view that until the problems with SAT data bases has been thoroughly investigated by appropriate expert committees a moratorium should be imposed on all proposed climate legislation.

Fair enough anti-green.

Just to nit-pick:

• All this is a long way off proof that atmospheric climate change is driven solely by man made CO2 additions to the atmosphere. Or that moderate changes in CO2 concentrations will have a significant forcing effect on climate.

No one is saying "climate change is driven SOLELY by man made CO2 additions to the atmosphere". Do you accept the 'consensus' view from atmospheric physicists regarding 'climate sensitivity', or do you think the Lord Christopher Monckton is more on the mark?

• Further climate gate has shown that the data bases for surface air temperature (SAT) are seriously flawed.

That is your opinion, and I could strongly argue otherwise. However, I am prepared to wait for the outcome of the various inquiries.

• I understand that IPCC conclusions are for the most part based on SAT.

No, they are not - there are plenty of sites (not blogs) you can go to verify that.

• It is my view that until the problems with SAT data bases has been thoroughly investigated by appropriate expert committees a moratorium should be imposed on all proposed climate legislation.

Reasonable AG, but reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is also reasonable, don't you think?

qanda,

It may be off topic, but to respond.

"Reasonable AG, but reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is also reasonable, don't you think?"

Agree for reasons of health and safety and for many other reasons too, let us go nuclear!

Agreed