Sorry Machanick, although the Australia went overboard in claiming an ice age was coming, it did have a point. Both greenhouse and skeptic scientists now agree, more or less, that the next few years will feature cooling temperatures. The greenhousers say that after then the real warming will kick in. Whatever. It is also now clear that the sun is going towards a minimum - the sunspots aren't coming back as they should for the next cycle. We are getting perhaps three at the most at any one time and then they go again, and there is now an acknowledged link between solar magnetic activity and climate. However, the agreement noted above has more to do with the oceanic cycles than solar activity.
Now go and look at your graphs. the periods they cover are quite small and, although ice coverage is an indicator of temperatures, it seems to be a lagging indicator.
As we already have direct satellite measurements of global temperatures there is then no point in bothering with ice coverage.
Whatever scientists may conclude about the link between CO2 concentrations and climate it will certainly be far more complicated than first thought. This article is just green agit-prop, adding nothing to the debate.

What a sorry state for a researcher to be in.
Carbon dioxide is causing the planet to overheat? It is a pollutant? Where is your science to prove that?
I wrote to the IPCC asking them for the reference to the science that proves that CO2 is a pollutant and they advised that there is nothing noted in their records.
Refer to Dr Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts and their research into how the temperature raw data has been manipulated.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/policy_driven_deception.html
Also Dr Long's findings that rural temps have been artificially increased five fold.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Rate_of_Temp_Change_Raw_and_Adjusted_NCDC_Data.pdf
Then have a look at how 30% of the IPCC AR4 Report is not peer reviewed http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/ and
http://www.noconsensus.org:80/ipcc-audit/findings-main-page.ph

Where is all the ice going? It is going to Antarctica, as your readers could have seen for themselves if you had been honest enough to include the companion chart to the one shown in your article:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png

This shows that sea ice coverage in Antarctica has exceeded last year's figures and is now well above the long-term average.

Here's a tip: to be 'global', warming is supposed to apply to the whole planet. If it only affects the northern hemisphere -- which is where most of the action has been in the last couple of decades -- it's not 'global'.

Strange isn't it, just last week, the US navy, you know them, they're the blokes who sail their subs under the arctic, were saying there is much more ice than there has been for years. Don't you think they would know? After all, they hide a few of those nuclear subs under there, as part of the US global defence program.

Phil, the only thin green line I've been able to find anywhere is the one that the greenies are trying to use to garrotte western civilisation.

Like your claimed FACTS, you may be looking in the wrong place, & finding bullsh1t.

The CSIRO says that Australia is getting hotter, with a probable record hottest year to be recorded very soon. CSIRO scientists seem to think that the global warming is accelerated by man.

Even if the CSIRO is wrong, what is wrong with taking initiatives to lessen possible climate change?

The concluding sentence of the article "A big swing to the Greens..." is hilarious given the record of the Greens in the Senate - particularly in opposing the ETS and in going soft on over-population (siding with the Liberals for a review AFTER the election). For grandstanding, game-playing and time-wasting to exasperate elected governments, sure, vote for the watermelons.

Instead of unquestionably accepting what the warmists preach, why does not the author carry out some genuine research by studying what the climate realists have to say about anthropogenic global warming.
The warmists falsely assume that the atmospheric greenhouse effect is real, and consequently CO2 emissions must be capped. The simple truth is that the greenhouse effect only exists in a greenhouse because convective cooling is eliminated, whereas convection is the major process of heat transfer in the earth's atmosphere.
There is no scientific evidence that proves the supposed relationship between CO2 concentration and air temperature in the earth's atmosphere. Such a relationship only exists in the minds of those who have reached political consensus regarding acceptance of environmentalist ideology. Scientific experiments prove the lack of effect that CO2 content has on atmospheric air temperature.
Without the atmospheric greenhouse effect, there is no anthropogenic global warming and, consequently, no need to cap CO2 emissions.

phoenix94, you are being willfully obtuse on CO2 - no-one says it is a pollutant, but increasing atmospheric CO2 has serious effects, on temperatures, climate stability, the acidity of the ocean and the marine food chain. I'm sure you know all this, so why do you keep wittering on about it being a pollutant? And before you start on it being a plant growth enhancer, keep in mind that recent research has shown that increased growth from CO2 is accompanied by a decrease in plant protein, so no net benefit.

On the ice volume question, Antartica is currently losing 150 cubic kilometres of ice per annum, which is enough to chill quite a lot of martinis.

"Even if the CSIRO is wrong, what is wrong with taking initiatives to lessen possible climate change?"

Er... because it would cost an enormous amount of money that could be better spent on something with more likelihood of producing a tangible benefit?

Next question please.

Author response:

Some rather quick to jump to accusations of dishonesty here.

Antarctic sea ice: where do you suppose that comes from? The continent is losing land ice too fast for it to melt through accelerated iceberg calving, i.e., that ice is landing in the sea. The big deal with Antarctic and Greenland ice is it's mostly on land, so losing it means adding to sea level rise.

The problem with unreviewed publications like Dr Long's is that they often don't contain enough information to replicate their calculations, and this is the case with this one. To calculate temperature based on ground stations, you need to weight each for area. Did he do that? Did he do that correctly? Probably not, if he is calculating averages without adjusting for missing stations. If you calculate a simple numeric average without taking area into account, you answer is meaningless. Take a look at my blog http://opinion-nation.blogspot.com/2010/04/warmest-year.html where I review the latest satellite data from UAH, is not subject to bias from local warming. 2010 is increasingly looking like heading for a new record with no obvious cause in natural drivers.

Hasbeen: what's your source? At http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/ithi.html you can plot Arctic ice thickness at a given date. Thick ice on 31 May 2010 http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Thickness&year=2010&month=5&day=31 for example is a tiny fraction of the plot compared with 31 May 2007 http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Thickness&year=2007&month=5&day=31 , the year that was the previous low in ice extent.

Cornflower: every serious climate scientist knows that a real greenhouse does not trap heat the same way (trapping warmed air by a physical barrier) as the unfortunately named greenhouse effect (trapping heat by absorbing longwave radiation). Someone gave the effect the wrong name. So what?

Calling people "warmists" etc. is feeble. If you use insults I won't take the bait. I base my views on researching academic literature (I try as far as possible in articles like this to use references free to the public, but that isn't the limit of my reading). I don't base my views on unreviewed blogs where you can say pretty much whatever you like, or advocacy sites.

Lawson

Yes “it is now clear the sun is going towards a minimum”, unfortunately this does not explain the record temperatures we have been experiencing over the last decade. It is also acknowledged that ENSO/NAO/etc don’t drive climate. No climate scientist has ever said the Earth System is not complicated.
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Phoenix94

You continually spruik D’Aleo and Anthony Watts. The former at home with the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) and the latter with his popular blog, Watts Up With That (WUWT).

The SPPI is a self proclaimed neo-con think-tank whose roving front man, 'Lord’ Christopher Monkton, was recently shown to be fraudulently misrepresenting not only climate science, but the very scientists he cites to mount his fraudulent claims.

http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

WUWT is just a blog site that pseudo-sceptics and wannabe armchair scientists gravitate towards. Real science is done in the scientific institutions and academies around the globe, with their results published in recognised journals, not blogs.

The link to Dyson didn’t work for me.
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Jon J

Here's a tip: the Northern Hemisphere has more land mass than the Southern Hemisphere. Hint: heat capacity of water.
Next question please.
_____

Hasbeen

You obviously don’t understand what the satellite array measures.
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Cornflower

On all the available evidence, the CSIRO is not wrong.
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Raycom

No assumptions necessary, the greenhouse effect has been studied for well over 100 years.

You say “scientific experiments prove the lack of effect that CO2 content has on atmospheric air temperature.”

Really? Can you please give a link so that we may all see. There could be be a Nobel in it if someone has overturned 100 + years of atmospheric science.
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Candide

Perhaps phoenix is confusing CO2 with “carbon pollution reduction scheme”?
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Phil

Curmudgeon is the ‘science writer’ Mark Lawson – he says he has a book coming out this month. He hasn't given any details so I can't really comment, will just have to wait and see.

When I saw "There is a thin green line separating humanity from economic and environmental catastrophe." and also "a catastrophe that is inevitable if we carry on as we are"

I immediately suspected that here is another eco-exaggerator .. so went and looked at some of the author's other articles, got to the first one: "The Obama Landslide: With just under a week to go to the US presidential election, I now feel confident in predicting not only an Obama win, but a landslide of historic proportions."

Obama won with 50.9% of the vote - is that a landslide by anyone's measure? I didn't read any further .. the pattern is clear.

So I'll put this hysteric's opinions in the same light, if you think we're heading for a disaster Phil, then we'll probably get a sun shower and that's about it.

A swing to the Greens that's fine for a protest vote, but all you do is reinforce through deals with the ALP that the Greens are just a sub sect of the ALP. You might deny it, but the evidence is clear that's where your support goes.

A lot of the Green's actions are not seen as dealing with hard problems, they are seen as interfering with people's lives and people do get sick of it. I would suspect that the opposite to what the author wants will soon occur,that the Greens will become pariahs for all their meddling and sanctimonious finger pointing.

rpg, Obama won with 53% of the vote according to all sources I've found. Where do you get 50.9%? If you stop reading as soon as you find something that confirms your prejudices you won't learn much.

Jeez you actually go to the trouble to point that out?

You want to argue about mousenuts?

Since you've decided to bring it up, what happened to your "landslide of historic proportions" ?

Was that or was it not a wild exaggeration? Or just a delusion?

On reading .. No, you're wrong, I actually learn a lot by not reading hysterical exaggerated drama.

When the BS detector goes off, I move on to something with more class and quality in the work, there's a lot out there, why waste effort?

I'm pretty sure I would learn very little from continued reading of your material, I'm perceptive that way about Bullshyte.

I didn't start with any prejudices Phil, but you certainly convince people you have them.

A good article, Philip, but sadly, probably an exercise in futility as far as these pages are concerned.
People around here 'knows what they knows'. You might have thrown in some mention of how particulate matter (largely sulphates) in the upper atmosphere causing global dimming have actually lessened the warming affects of CO2 and methane etc; yet still the temperature goes up.
Might I direct your attention to a recent article in New Scientist?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html
Very illuminating.

Grim, those posting invective and half-truths aren't going to be convinced but there are readers who understand the difference between reasoned debate and insult; I hope they'll check the evidence for themselves.

Thanks for the pointer to the New Scientist article. I have had direct experience of dealing with tobacco and HIV denial, and commonality between these various denial movements is obvious (http://opinion-nation.blogspot.com/2008/06/sound-science-and-climate-change-or.html). They try to discredit the mainstream by exploiting ignorance of the public about the statistical nature of real-world scientific evidence, claim that there is a viable alternative theory without producing solid evidence to back it, repeat discredited claims in the hope of harvesting new innocents and generally create the impression that there is a vigorous scientific debate when their side of the argument is based on belief rather than rigorous assessment of the evidence. And accuse the other side of the flaws in their own argument.

The problem in general with taking on this sort of debate is you can't win: ignore the bogus claims and they go unchallenged; take them on and you reinforce the impression that there's no agreement among scientists (never mind that those shouting the loudest aren't doing the science). Media like The Australian have promoted a kind of post-modern science where there is no objective evidence and point of view is all that counts. I've seen blogs promoting the development of "conservative" or "right-wing" science. Ideological bending of science isn't purely a creation of the Right – I wonder how those attacking climate scientists relate to the Soviet Union's 1948 official declaration of genetics as "a bourgeois pseudoscience" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism). Extremist ideologies converge in practical application even if they start from a different point. Unfortunately the laws of physics don't subscribe to viewpoint; if the theory says adding CO_2 to the atmosphere should cause warming, it will do so independent our politics.

The best I can do is to point readers to direct data sources so they can see for themselves that the contrary argument lacks substance. For those willing to be conned, there's not much I can do.

I am a skeptic, insofar as I do not believe that our activities have "the extent" of the impact on the ongoing cycle of ice ages that some have suggested. We are inexorably moving into the downside of the cycle, we may have had some impact on that, but the cycle has been around a lot longer than Homo Sapiens Sapiens (eg http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Weber-Toba/ch5_bottleneck/textr5.htm).

The human race, as it exists now, has limited genetic diversity due to a volcanic winter, that should help people understand the issue (http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/india_deforested_73000yearold_toba_eruption_study_says). A heretical thought, which is slowly gaining credence, is that while the origin "may" have been Africa, the oldest "recent" trace of modern humans is in Australia (ie. the Southern Hemisphere). The genetic winter in question was due to the explosion of a "super-volcano" on the rim of fire (http://www.ecotao.com/holism/hu_sap.htm), and the current cycle of volcanic and seismic activity fits well with the known record (archeological), that there is about a 400 year cycle, and we are now in it.

Volcanic & seismic activity has increased, the severity of Northern Hemisphere winters has also increased. The severity of fires in the Southern Hemisphere have increased, so too the amount of smoke. The combination of smoke, ash and other debris (sulfate aerosols) in the upper atmosphere, exceeds by some magnitude anything we have contributed. Nature has always maintained a balance and will continue to do so, those species that cannot adapt are doomed.

qanda

In response to your comment, "Really? Can you please give a link so that we may all see. There could be be a Nobel in it if someone has overturned 100 + years of atmospheric science."
see Timothy Casey's paper entitled "Letting the Hot Air out of the Greenhouse: Historical Falsification of the Greenhouse Effect" at: http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
The 2007 IPCC Report cited over 18,000 references, but not one contained proof that CO2 emissions are the driver of climate change.

Thanks for that Raycom.

When Timothy Casey, geologist for the last ten years working in the petroleum industry (who, during quiet times runs his software business) publishes his yet to be updated website article in a real recognised journal, I might have another look.

As it stands, all I see is an opinion from a working geologist who has a subsea supervisor's BOP (sic) ticket, a senior first aid ticket and a 4x4 certificate.

Sorry, what he opines does not really enthuse me about his credibility in atmospheric physics/chemistry.

However, he has obviously convinced you that the vast majority of scientists in atmospheric physics/chemistry haven't got a clue what they're talking about. Maybe in his quiet time he could clean his mantle piece too, ready for the Nobel in Physics/Chemistry that you no doubt would nominate him for.

Now, I'm off to bed - good night.

China systematically scuttled international agreement. Period. A solution lies there, not here.

PhilipM - just caught up with all the responses. None of your replies did anything to help the article. The issue of the shrinkage or growth of the major ice sheets is essentially irrelevent, and only referred to by greenhouse writers because the temperature trends do not bear out their various gloomy predictions. Overall volumes of ice are shrinking because temperatures are still comparatively high, when climate cools you would expect volumes to grow again.
Glaciers are actually better because with them scientists can track the ebb and flow of climate cycles - on average, local conditions vary - by analysing markings on the rocks around the site. I have yet to see any evidence from those who track glaciers that present warming is higher than medieval times.
And now temperatures are expected to cool, leaving aside the present el nino effect.
Yes, the solar magnetic stuff can, potentially, explain recent high temperatures. That is the point. Activity was high and now it seems to have fallen off the edge of a cliff. Admittedly the theory is lacking a lot of details but at the very least it explains far more than CO2. The reason more isn't know about it is because, as I have discovered, researchers in the field cannot get funding.
In any case, as noted, the oceanic cycles have gone into cool modes (more or less) - which may be connected to solar magnetic, but no one really knows - so we are looking at cooling, not warming. The only really successful forecast in this area have come from those who track the ocean cycles, therefore we pay attention to those forecasts and dump the IPCC.
Yes, I am talking about two seperate issues there - solar magentic and ocean cycles. No I'm not going to link, but search on the names Keenlyside, Latif and Don Easterbrook. Also happy to send you a copy of my book when it comes out, which explains much of this. Send me an address on ecocriminal@optusnet.com.au.
Mark Lawson

rpg: you are very hard on my prediction yet consider it irrelevant that you have a factual error. This is a common bias: anyone arguing for the environment must be 100% correct 100% of the time, whether the point they are making is relevant to the science or not, whereas the opposition is permitted to argue based on fabrications and errors and corrections are nitpicks. I'd call an error of fact more serious than an error of prediction. If you disagree, give me a sound reason.

Curmudgeon: you are predicting cooling but that's not very specific. When? How much? If you can quantify these things you are way ahead of climate science professionals who freely admit they can't give accurate projections of these cycles and hence aim to model the shift in the long-term average. The various cycles and oscillations (which means variations that cancel out in the long run) can over a few years exceed the long-term CO_2-driven trend. The point of my recent articles here and on my blog is that we should be at a relatively cool point of both the solar and ENSO cycles yet temperatures remain at or near all time instrument record highs, and ice loss is accelerating. No one claims these natural cycles don't exist. That's why climate change is generally taken to be shifts in the long-term average. My worry is that if we are currently in a cool phase of natural variability but still setting records, what will happen in the warm phase?

Phil, I can admit to being wrong by 2% on the 2008 US election.

What were you wrong by in your prediction, or as I have said your serial exaggeration?

You can't just cop out and say, I was predicting the future and got it wrong, but this time I'll get it right, or I'm nearly right, or when I said "landslide of historic proportions", you can't hold me to account because I'm just trying to market or sell an idea, or you made an error too.

Did you or did you not make a HUGE stuffup?

Do you or do you not make HUGE exaggerations?

Mate there is only one way out for soothsayers, don't predict, and if you do and get called - don't try to weasel your way out of it.

That's a cop out and you know it, BS is BS, it smells like it and looks like it.

So why would anyone believe anything you "predict" now? As we can see, you don't stand behind it.

Get out of the prediction business, you don't have the backbone for it.

PhilipM - at the cool point of both the ENSO and the solar cycles? Where did that come from? the first point about the ENSO cycle is clearly wrong. We are in fact deep in an El Nino, which may be moderated by a cool phase Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).. the El Nino is warming things up somewhat, and that has led to hopeful pronouncements that this year will be very warm. We shall see, but its very clearly a warm part of the PDO. However, the PDO is, in turn, just a short term cycle. They recently releaised that its the PDO that matters.
Now as for the solar part, I think that's wrong too, but its a lot fuzzier because different scientists will tell you different things, no-one's quite sure what they should be measuring, and we are looking at the current activity in high resolution. But ther are indications that activity was high until comparatively recently.
As for specifying the degree of cooling, that's impossible! Climate science is in its infancy. All scientists will tell you is that its meant to be cooler. the IPCC projections require heaps of computer modelling and even then are so vague as to be meaningless.

Mark, your confirmation bias is simply unparalleled. I am not an expert in atmospheric physics like Raycom's geologist hero (I am awaiting an email to confirm this fossil fuel geologist's opinion is warped). However, I do have a tad more expertise on the guff you have been sprouting about. Please, take some advice for once; stop trying to confuse yourself and everyone else with something that is way over your head. Easterbrook and Latif, oh pulease! Noel, yes - but you have completely misunderstood what he has said to suit your own preconceived POV - as did the 'denialosphere'.

PHILIP

//There is a thin green line separating humanity from economic and environmental catastrophe, a catastrophe that is inevitable if we carry on as we are.//

err.. do you have shares in Envex or the CCX ?

sure sounds like it. The rest of your 'WE ARE ALL DOOMED' ilk seem to have them.

I note you use the term 'economic' and environmental.... umm do you subscribe to the UN Lima declaration and the UN Vancouver Action plan about the State taking over private property ?

I'm smelling a socialist rat around here somehwere..

Qanda
Scientists in atmospheric physics/chemistry are unable to explain why, as admitted by Phil Jones of Climategate fame, there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years, despite CO2 concentrations increasing over that period.

The 2007 award to extreme warmists, Al Gore and the IPCC, has debased the Nobel Prize somewhat

Raycom.. exactly!

I also came across recent information that most of the sensors used to obtain data were of a type which produced large errors, and they were replaced with improved units just recently.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/09/accuracy-of-climate-station-electronic-sensors-not-the-best/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/19/sensor-problems-with-ship-based-co2-flux-measurements-readings-too-high-affected-by-humidity/

but of course :) 'the science is in..and how any deluded idiot be a skeptic' says our brother CJ Morgan.

qanda - no what I said was right. Latif is on your side for heaven sake. The problem for you and Machanick is that the supposedly settled science of global warming is falling to bits. Happy to send you a copy of my book when it comes out so you can read up on this stuff. You can drop me an address on ecocriminal@optusnet.com.au

>> Raycom, exactly! <<

Exactly what, Boaz?

That both you and Raycom;

• Don’t know the difference between a Nobel Prize in Physics/Chemistry and a Nobel Peace Prize?

• Don’t know that to filter the noise (natural variation) from the signal (global warming) requires statistical analysis greater than 15 years?

Have you actually read or understood any of Philip's posts?

As to the WUWT links – so what’s up with that? Scientists continually check instrumentation for calibration, and adjust their findings accordingly. If we didn’t do these checks and balances, people would jump down our throats.
_____

Mark

Science is never "settled". You, like many, have taken that comment out of context – deliberately I would suggest. My apologies, Easterbrook is off the planet, while the denialosphere have misinterpreted and continue to distort the work by Keenlyside et al.

Thanks for the offer of the book, who is the publisher? Btw, you are encouraging all sorts of spam by giving your email address here, can attract all sorts of nutters

Raycom, 10-15 years is not a significant period in determining the state of the climate. You can pick arbitrary stretches that long and get an increase or a decrease. Do the stats, and it's not statistically significant. No big deal. We are on a long-term trend of 1.5°C increase per century. That's 0.15°C per decade, and short-term variation can easily be bigger than that for a few years.

rpg: I'd like to understand why you think you aren't biased. You are slow to admit to an error of fact, and regard one relatively minor error that has nothing to do with the topic at hand as totally invalidating my argument. There is no fixed definition of a landslide, and the Times for example, a conservative paper, was happy to call the Obama win a landslide http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5089277.ece and also noted it was the first time in 32 years that a Democrat had won the popular vote. So I don't see why you think mine is such a massive error.

Curmudgeon: El Niño warming lags SOI by about 12 months. SOI went negative (indicating a switch to El Niño) around April 2009, but only went strongly negative around the middle of the year http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi2.shtml so we should expect to start seeing warming from around April 2010, strengthening from now on; AMSU-A shows warming starting in January, and continuing strongly up to April (and to today).

qanda: good point about posting email addresses. That's why I put a contact form on my blog (very easy to set up using Google Docs, though inflexible, e.g., I can't find a way to narrow fields to fit the space on the page).

Phil, my point, which I keep making and you just cannot seem to accept is that you are a serial bullshytter, and an exaggerator of epic proportions, which are the trade tools of marketeers and it goes with the thick skin you also exhibit.

Here .. rpg: I'd like to understand why you think you aren't biased. *It's not about me Phil. Is this your form of efence, to attack? Weak.

You are slow to admit to an error of fact, *No I admitted it immediately, why do say this? Can't you read, or do you just have trouble with the bleeding obvious?

and regard one relatively minor error that has nothing to do with the topic at hand as totally invalidating my argument.*It is part of your schtick, you're an extreme exaggerator, like most in the eco-lefty/BS trade. Of course it invalidates anything you say, and you cannot admit it. Well, have you admited you're a BS artist, yet?

There is no fixed definition of a landslide, *oh come on mate, BS is BS, and that's what this is, admit it and move on. You called a landslide of epic proportuions and now say this, that's not just BS it's also gutless, admit you're wrong and a BSer.

So I don't see why you think mine is such a massive error *no point continuing is there, you just can't see what's in front of you, I have to call you what you are and you still try to dodge and weave around it.

BS artist ..