Thank you Steven, you have clarified the issues very well, at least for me.
What is fascinating is not the scientific debate but the non-scientific and barely rational reactions on both sides. Both are well represented in the comments.
I very much like the way you have stuck to the science and avoided the politics. Quite a few scientists have damaged their reputations by failing to do that.
Politicians make bad scientists and scientists make bad politicians.

Tim/Tom: On the contrary, I am very interested in the statistical analysis of our climate data, and how it is applied. However, it is deceiving to the readers here to assert “there is an amazing absence of actual data in AR4, and no sign of regression results”. You would (or should) be aware that much of the data (and analysis) is contained in the very many papers that the IPCC references.

I would agree that the “statistics” needs to be explained more fully in AR5, and I am of the understanding it will. However, to carry on as though you have ‘discovered’ something that the experts in their respective fields are unaware of is simply the arrogant hubris of ‘look at me, look at me’.

But, I may be wrong – so prove it. Write that paper and submit it to the appropriate journal. It is not enough, really, to jump on the internet and spout your opinions and expect the world’s experts to stop, look and listen (I doubt very much they are watching anyway) particularly on ‘opinion sites’ like this. They have more important things to do with their lives.

I have read enough of your ‘comments’ (here and elsewhere) to come to my own opinion, Tim. I suggest you examine the work of people like Ammann, Wahl, Ruppert, Carroll, Akritas, Cubasch, and others. You may discover you have not re-invented the wheel. I encourage you to keep trying though, that is what the scientific method and the peer review process is all about. Best wishes.

Bonmot: thanks, I have submitted my paper, and await its rejection! You know how to ask for a copy, and it shall be sent to you. BTW, at Bart Verheggen's Blog <My View on Climate Change> there are several very perceptive comments yesterday by a Steve Fitzpatrick all of which are confirmed by my ongoing regressions in my next paper.

Likewise at WUWT yesterday/today you can find Richard Lindzen's testimony at Congress on Wednesday, and I could almost sue for plagiarism! - in fact of course all my paper does is provide extensive empirical support.

Geoff, you're being more than a little disingenuous, here.

Firstly, you might acknowledge that Lord Oxburgh has a massive vested interest in exonerating (more on that later) Phil Jones and his cronies, including paid directorships of two renewable energy companies, a paid advisorships to Climate Change Capital, the Low Carbon Initiative, Evo-Electric, Fujitsu, and is an environmental advisor to Deutsche Bank.

Also, the actual scientists on Oxburgh's panel, such as Michael Kelly and Graeme Stringer, both dissented quite strongly with the majority findings.

Finally there is the slightly eyebrow-raising admission by an investigating panel - whose examination amounted to little more than asking those accused if they had done anything wrong, then giving them a pat on the head when they replied, 'no, sir! Honest, sir!') that the panel's remit didn't extend to examining the actual science!

Then there is your use of the word 'exonerated': the investigation into Jones' treatment of FOI requests concluded that he had broken the law, but that the statute of limitations meant that he could no longer be charged. Also, the investigation criticized the scientists involved in 'climategate' for 'a reprehensible culture of withholding information', and also noted that in an area of research that relied heavily on difficult statistical methods, they had failed to collaborate with professional statisticians.

Seems even the most heavily stacked whitewashing crew had to admit that something was rotten in Denmark.

Regarding your second claim that 'Australia can cut its greenhouse emissions for little cost to the economy', reports that make such claims, such as Zero Carbon Australia's, or the Stern report, have been heavily criticized by economists for their fanciful assumptions and dubious conclusions.

Ken Nielsen

Thank you for your kind words

Geoff Davies:

Excerpt of email from Phil Jones, 16 Nov 1999.

Start

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

End:

Good scientists do not usually use tricks to hide data in scientific papers. Phil Jones ought to be sacked. Any inquiry which “clears” him is itself discredited. The recipients of this email – which includes Michael Mann of “hockey stick” fame – likewise cannot be trusted. They should have blown the whistle on Jones.

Climate scientists need to clean house in order to regain their credibility.

Geoff

Fossil fuel companies are behaving like cigarette companies before them – they are spreading “FUD” (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Like big tobacco they have their useful idiots who repeat their disinformation parrot fashion. All this is to be expected. After all if we are attacking their livelihoods.

Think about this Geoff. How would you react if your livelihood was threatened?

However we need to be certain that the good guys, the scientists, really are the good guys. At the moment some of them are proving to be as shonky as the “merchants of doubt” employed by the fossil fuel companies. There is enough genuine uncertainty in any case. We should not have to worry about whether climate scientists are fudging their data.

Keeping Phil Jones as head of the Climate Research Unit is like keeping a player against whom there is credible evidence of match fixing on your cricket team.

Tom Tiddler

Bonmot has said what I intended to say. Submit your research to a reputable peer reviewed journal. I look forward to reading it.

Here’s the thing, Tom, I am not a climate change ideologue. I would prefer if there was no such thing. If you can demonstrate that my fears are groundless I would be delighted.

But, with respect to the various posters who have impugned my understanding of the physics, I do understand the physics of the greenhouse effect. It is as I have described it. Therefore, even if there were no evidence of AGW I would be concerned about the effects of adding ever more CO2 to the atmosphere.

However if there were no evidence of global warming I would be less concerned. I would figure there are probably negative feedback mechanisms of which we are unaware that mitigate the effects of added CO2 and suggest we try and find them.

But, despite your comments, and despite the HUGE inherent uncertainties, there IS evidence – especially in the north polar regions that the planet is warming up and the most liely cause is AGW.

One of the most dramatic examples concerns vegetation in Alaska. Starting in in 1944 the US Navy undertook a detailed aerial survey of parts of Alaska. The survey was repeated in recently and showed clearly that vegetation has responded to warming over a period of decades. (See for example Arctic Plants, Scientific American, May 2010).

Tom, any individual example from glaciers moving faster to changes in polar ice cover can be dismissed. The totality of the evidence is harder to dismiss. Thus I stick to my thesis.

--The claims of climate scientists notwithstanding, AGW has not been proved beyond all reasonable doubt.

--The underlying physics of the greenhouse effect makes it reasonable to suppose that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would have a significant effect on climate.

--The claims of the many sceptics notwithstanding, if we look at the available evidence as a whole (no cherry picking) it tends to support the underlying physics.

But I look forward to reading you paper.