Bugsy I accepted the consensus between qanda and Crumdgeon that the SRES projections were wrong and should be updated. You say that's not so, in which case I'll look for the three of you to argue it out. I don't have an axe to grind in this debate. It was a new fact to me, so I was interested to explore it. If it's not the case there is nothing to explore.

qanda, I was hoping you were going to be civil, but no such luck. I didn't put words into your mouth, I asked you a question, and a largely rhetorical one.

Interesting paper you reference. It doesn't actually demonstrate the robustness of some alleged multidisciplinary approach to determine whether and to what degree climate change is manmade. As the abstract makes clear, it just accepts the IPCC line and then infers that any changes in the world which are in the direction of warming are caused by manmade emissions of CO2.

"Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents."

So it's a derivative piece of work and nothing to do with proving that manmade global warming is real or will have significant negative consequences at all.

And if you don't want me to infer that you support Hansen, then don't quote him approvingly.

@Hasbeen, Friday, 30 April 2010 12:06:48 PM

Yes there were some very thick carbon clowns at ANU's Fenner School

Isnt change such are a hard thing..............NOT.

TTM

Actually Graham, while qanda did say that the SRES should be updated, I don't think there was anywhere that he said he thought they were 'wrong'. This 'consensus' between these two bloggers doesn't really appear to exist, at least not to me. Besides, I have found that before one goes exploring 'facts' from Mark, it's better to check them out yourself.

Amicus

>> how much research is done on CAUSES of Climate Change as opposed to papers using Climate Change as a leg up to get funding? <<

There is a lot of research being done on “causes of climate change”; in the scientific community more usually described as “attribution”. How much is attributed to natural causes and human induced causes, if you prefer.

To get an idea about how much research was being done on attribution (not to be confused with ‘detection’) of climate change leading up to AR4, you could look at the references in Chapter 9 of WG1: The Physical Science Basis – http://tinyurl.com/Chap9references

There has been more since.

Chapter 9 is here:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html

Note the difference between ‘attribution’ and ‘detection’.

As to the proportion getting a “leg up” for funding? Climate Change is a big issue and funding is necessary. An example of the importance the US, even under George W, can be found here (much bandwidth):

http://www.climatetechnology.gov/stratplan/final/CCTP-StratPlan-Sep-2006.pdf

I agree, you could say the Rosenzweig et al paper is “piggybacking”.
That does not mean their research should not be funded, nor is it unworthy of funding.
_____

Graham

>> Interesting paper you reference. It doesn't actually demonstrate the robustness of some ALLEGED (my emphasis) multidisciplinary approach to determine whether and to what degree climate change is manmade. <<

So what’s that got to do with the price of apples?

You asked me to provide an example of a multi-disciplinary effort in the preparation of a ‘climate science’ paper, I did.

You now want to change the goal posts.

First of all, I don’t think the Rosenzweig et al paper was trying to “determine whether and to what degree climate change is manmade”.

Nevertheless, when a paper is cited by so many others, it is an indication as to how robust it is ... and it is.

The Hansen thing? I’m a sceptic, I have read his book, and it is obvious you haven’t. I don’t agree with his ‘alarmism’, but I can understand why he is.

Now, which playing field do you want to go to now?

qanda, your citing of that paper was supposed to answer my point that "There are very few people in the world who have a sufficient grasp of the whole to be taken seriously." You claim they compensate for that by "most" papers being multi-authored and that the authors often come from different disciplines, and then the best you turn up is essentially a compilation of data from different fields that works from the basis that AGW is a significant factor.

I think you should come back to the playing field we started on. I would have less problems with you if you would just accept it when you're wrong.

As you're an alarmist yourself I'm not sure why you're trying to differentiate yourself from Hansen at the same time as using him as authority for your views.