popnperish - actually climate change is real and none of us are denying it. What we are questioning is whether industrial activity has added to present high temperatures.

Its now known and agreed on all sides that we are in the high part of a natural climate cycle. So how much warmth has been added by industrial activities? In any case, how can you tell the difference between natural climate change and induced change?

Despite billions pouring into the field very few of the papers you refer to actually address that point. Where they do, they use computer models, which say what the operators want them to say.

We are not the ones burying our heads in the sand.

popnperish, hate to pop your bubble but Glickson ain't a climate scientist. He has as much credibility on this as...me.

Just listen to the scientists who study earthquakes.They are very guarded about conclusions drawn.It is very complex and too many unknowns.

Climate is equally complex,if not more so.Why are some of these scientists so sure about outcomes? The figures have been cooked by a corporate agenda for a derivative scam called the ETS.It will condense more power and wealth into the hands of a few and not reduce even the acceleration of CO2 into the atmosphere.

We have wised up to this con and the GFC con.The world's 80,000 ships produce 5 times more pollution that the 850 billion cars and trucks.They use low grade bunker oil which is dirt cheap.No mention is made of limiting trade or cleaning up the shipping industry since the large corporate powers will lose out.Where is the Green movement on this issue? Total hypocracy!

perish the thought [pop]
hear your leader last night[juliar]
singing ...its *now ..or never*

think why
the science [and modeling bling] is fast unraveling

mate i was on your side for a longtime
then i read the science..and saw it was a huge con

its sad you apparently read the same spin
and refuse to see even if it was valid science
evenm if the models wernt fluffed up
even if there wasnt a huge new big tax
even if it clearly wassdnt to trade a new commodity for the money men

the tax and trading will still not cure a single thing
us paying up to 46 billion per year ..,will AT BEST
remove less than...*POINT.0001% .,of the carbon

how can we think that will change a single thing?

we get less value
more guilt..more useless solarcells
[that dont last as long as many marrages]
for what...near nothing...

and all the while the OTHER grenhouse gasses not being taxed
are left to do their worst[many are FAR WORSE than casrbon]

nitrouse oxide from farmers nitrogen is
300 times as bad per particle as carbon..

methane from leaky gas wells and home composting
is 150 times as bad as opne carbon

WE ARE BEING SOLD SPIN
just to get a new commodity
for the money market to get bonus upon
one that will increase in value ..as the govt imposed LIMITS apply

how much your kids will pay for carbon..depends on how greedy these carbon traders shall chose to become..

[govt only sets the minimum price]..
they set the max

and even worse..
we BAILOUT THE BIG USERS...lol

In articles I have written for OLO, I tried to keep scientific language to a minimum, provided links to other material in support of points being made and conclusions reached. Dr Glickson does not achieve this with his latest contribution. That is a pity since it prompts the same old response from the same old deniers spouting the same old rubbish – most of it off-topic. A shame really since OLO is a venue with potential to inform readers in easily understood language and promote intelligent debate.

Dr Glickson tells us “Earths climate is entering uncharted territory”. Not good enough! Nor is it a very convincing comment to come from a climate scientist, people who are primarily responsible for providing us not only with a chart but explaining what it means. Hansen (2011) does a far better job, giving us a clear outline of what can be expected by the end of the present century – in a word, disaster!

Hansen and Sato tell us that, based on what has previously occurred on earth, business as usual will produce 6C warming and around 5m rise in sea level by 2100. And you can say goodbye to the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets. Both will be on a one way road to melt-down. Oddly, they come to these conclusion without taking into account the feedback effects of methane emissions found by (Shakhova 2010).

She reports that rising sea temperature is already melting clathrate (an ice like substance) on the Arctic seabed off Eastern Siberia and releasing methane - a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Presently, over 1 million tonnes of methane is entering the atmosphere per annum from this source. That helps explain why polar warming is occurring more rapidly than in the rest of the world and why we should keep an eye on the rising rate at which the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting.

All of this has implications for sea level rise (SLR). Five metres is one helluva rise. That kind of increase spells major flooding of virtually every city and town on our coast. But come on! Could it occur when present SLR is only creeping along at 3.7mm a year? Since there are only 90 years left this century, shouldn’t we be looking at a harmless rise of less than a metre?

Not if the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets start melting faster, pouring their ice into the oceans. Not if average global temperature rises by 6C and expands ocean waters. By 2020, we are likely to be looking at SLR of about 7.5mm/year and by 2030 it could be 15mm/year - and accelerating!

These outcomes might be avoided, or at least slowed down, if we reduced CO2 and CH4 emissions. And when I say “we” I do not mean Australia alone. I mean the Top Twenty emitting countries, which includes us. Some of the TT emitters have already put a price on carbon and begun reducing their emissions but others have yet to do so and until they do – particularly the giant emitters (China, USA, India, Japan). If they do not act - and soon – my advice is … demand they act and move to higher ground.