Herr Glickson lost a debate on this matter with Science Journalist Jo Nova. Seems he still can't get over the loss, the same old arguments keep appearing. See http://joannenova.com.au/tag/glikson-dr-andrew/

There is now serious talk of getting the government to issue
charges of treason (typical teapartyer term) to those in academia who knowingly lead us to a false war against climate variation. The scientists who condemned billions to a death for 25 years by unstoppable warming have not responded like concerned professionals to Obama’s abandoning of their recommendations for climate mitigation and the loss of IPCC funding. Only stubborn and out dated political ideologues, new agers and lazy copy and paste news editors still pay attention to the CO2 mistake and now we even see media generating their own stories about climate hell just to keep the feeding frenzy alive. And how odd is it that fringe fear mongers and news editors take the “crisis” more seriously than the lab coat consultants (scientists) who started this madness in the first place. And how ironic is that these are the same scientists who were demonized by enviro groups for poisoning the planet in the first place with their chemicals and pesticides. Scientists were always the enemy but this mass insanity of climate blame made them into gods to worshiped unquestionably like eco Greenzis. Scientists produced cruise missiles, cancer causing chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, cluster bombs, strip mining technology, Y2K, Y2Kyoto, deep sea drilling technology and now climate control.

"There is now serious talk of getting the government to issue
charges of treason (typical teapartyer term) to those in academia who knowingly lead us to a false war against climate variation."

That would appear to be as senseless as the alarmists insisting that anyone who is not a believer be charged with treason, as they call for regularly on the ABC and other leftie blogs, to make skepticism of AGW a crime.

Pretty graphs, but it's clear in the "debate" now, that no one cares any longer about the science, it's all about the tax, who will and won't pay and whether the ALP can sell us on the idea that only polluters pay (like we're not all breathing out CO2).

We will still not get any closer to proving CO2 is a danger, we will get more projections, predictions and forecasts, all about as reliable as the BOM telling us the weather in 2 weeks, as if!

Thanks for the science, Andrew.
It is unfortunate that it is not given the consideration it deserves by those who have the power to lead the community towards adequate precautions.
Not that there is anything new about that. Nine hundred years ago a gifted astronomer declared that people in his society were in an age when men of science were discredited, while others spent their time mixing truth with falsehood

No point arguing about it.
The IPCC has the wrong figures for the amount of fossil fuels available.
Until they fix that no one knows what they are talking about.

Oh come on colinset, the mainstream "science" today for climate is involved in a consensus of thought, against anyone who declares skepticisml - your analogy is the exact opposite of what happened then to now.

Anyone who dares question the consensus faith, AGW and Alarmism, is drowed out, given no room on say our national broadcaster, who appears to be running now a campaign again Bob Carter.

Bob Carter is more like Galileo questioning the consensus faith, that of alarmism and AGW.

How does that support your notion that:

"Nine hundred years ago a gifted astronomer declared that people in his society were in an age when men of science were discredited, while others spent their time mixing truth with falsehood"

The ones who mix truth with falsehood, like Flannery who can never remember what he has said, like the ABC's Robin Williams "you have to scare people to get their attention" who predicts 100m of sea rise.

Like the many prophets who all keep creeping their "projections"

Talk about trying manipulate and twist the truth.

How often have you heard a skeptic actually given a reasonable run on the ABC, usually they are picked out of context with a panel of alarmists allowed to comment and slander uninhibited.

What a dreamworld some people live in, if you think there is actually a debate going on at all. The ones who control the "science", have all the funding in the world, complete control over the ABC and Fairfax press.

You even have a lobby group organizing stupid people to protest, well not protest, but gather as group to demand to be taxed .. and you think there is no mindset against anyone who questions the faith.

In the advertising to organize the "demanders" they clearly state it is to counter people who are skeptical, and they call them extremists, to question the consensus is now "extremist", and done by .. what did Greg Combet say, oh yes, "ratbags"

Sounds like your exact description, reversed.

Should global warming be completely disproved, for many years after everyone has stopped talking about it Andrew Glickson will still be producing articles "proving" that really it is all happening.

The articles won't be tailored to the audience, such as make even the slightest concession to its known scepticism, or aim at making a particular point. Nope, the articles will start from the point of view that its all proven.

Even for those who agree with the orthodoxy much of what he writes is a collection of wild-eyed assertions. I was under the distinct impression that scientists have had a lot of trouble making past CO2 levels fit with known ancient climactic conditions, under the existing theory.

In any case, it has been tacitly accepted by the global warming side (by the non-extremists) that past changes in climate have a lot to do with changes in solar magnetic activity, at least over the holocene, with the important caveat that the link is supposed to breakdown sometime in the 1980s.

Then there is the problem is that the mechanism for the switch between galacial and intergalacial conditions is still very controversial. The orthodoxy is Milankovitch cycles but that has taken a battering of late.

In the face of all that, and I've only touched the surface of the problems with the theory, Glickson could be at least a little humble. He could have added in a few maybes or perhapses but nope, he powers straight in..

Perhaps he could move into the same building on campus that houses the academics still insisting that socialism was never really given a chance.

All very interesting and Andrew Glikson rightly draws attention to Arctic amplification but in doing so makes no mention of the role salient and increasing role of methane in that process. Shakhova et al (2010) report that as a result of melting offshore clathrates of central east Siberia and onshore permafrost in that region, methane is currently entering the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, currently 1.1 million tones (7 teragrams) per annum.

As a result, methane concentration in the Arctic now averages 1.85 ppm compared to pre-1750 level of 0.7ppm. Further, until recently it was thought that seabed clathrates below 300m were stable. However recent studies show that off Svbalbad, instability is noted at 400m. This not only confirmss ocean warming but a significant increase in the volume of clathrates exposed to melting and the potential of methane emitted to cause sudden climate change.

One would expect that such emissions could result in massive loss of oxygen, particularly in the oceans but also in the atmosphere as methane oxidized to CO2 Hypoxic conditions of this magnitude may cause large extinction of fauna, especially water breathing animals. Some have suggested that we are already witnessing the start of an extinction event and that Shakhova may well be describing the precursor to a sudden, massive release of methane occurring over decades rather than centuries. This has occurred before as described by Carozza et al (2011).

The effect of such an event on average global temperature would be significant, as would its effect on stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This could well result in decadal doubling of ice loss postulated by Hansen et al (2011) producing a sea level rise of 5m before the end of this century. The implications of such an occurrence are catastrophic for coastal areas where most of the worlds great cities are located. They are highly vulnerable because they can not be defended against inundation caused by such sudden rise in sea level.

The second omission by Andrew Glikson is that he makes no mention of the fact that previous thermal maxima have been initiated by the earths changing orbital paramaters exposing the northern hemisphere land mass and polar ice to increased solar radiation. Over centuries, possibly millennia, this produced ocean warming and higher atmospheric temperatures resulting in release of methane producing sudden climate change.

Decline of those effects has always a much slower process. It resulted from slow reversal of orbital parameters producing cooler atmospheric and ocean temperatures, permitting the latter to absorb and reduce CO2 concentration of 280 ppm by upwards of 100 ppm producing ice age conditions.

Changing orbital parameters are not causative factors in the present global warming which has been relatively rapid since 1980 and continues to accelerate. Indeed, during this period solar activity has been relatively quiescent. Moreover the earths orbit around the sun has become almost circular and the tilt of its axis continues to move away from the 25.1 maximum, is now at 23.45 degrees and continuing to decline. This movement reduces the level of solar radiation reaching higher latitudes.

Present global warming has been accompanied by rapid increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2, from 280ppm to the current 390ppm as a result of human activity. There will be no mitigating reversal of orbital parameters and on-going refusal of humans to either stop or reduce their emission of greenhouse gases raises the specter of future runaway global warming, uncontrollable by human action or present technology.

In summary, what we have started we can neither control nor stop, unlike previous global warming events which were self-regulated by natural events. We are fast approaching irreversible tipping points which Hansen predicts will have dire consequences. - and Hansen has been proven right on too many occasions to ignore.

Agnostic of Mittagong

Um, re your post, I dunno if anyone's told you this but you did know that the concentration of methane in the atmopshere has been stable for the past decade or so? See the link
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/ and look down the page.
NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Methane concentrations have picked up a bit in the past few years but, as you can see, there were flattening out well before 2000. Present figures are far below projections made for them in the IPCC 2000 report. The 2007 IPCC report contains a detailed discussion of the failure of methane to perform as expected which ads up to scientists not knowing why methane concentrations are doing what they are doing.

You also mention orbital cycles. Milenkovitch cycles have been under fire of late. Although they are still orthodoxy, as I pointed out in the earlier post you don't want to cite them as if they are established fact.

Methane emissions have dropped/flattened mostly because the Russian oil (and drilling) industry has become more professional- less leaky pipes and so on . So far there is little sign of a runaway methane, positive feedback, loop - if there was it would be well and truly be all over for red rover. The worst mass extinction of all time the Permo-Triassic Extinction (252 million years ago ) was provably a runaway positive feed back loop, methane, green house - about 90% of all life died.

Negative feed back loops ; famine, disease, war and pestilence will provably greatly reduce civilization and thus CO2 emissions, long before methane could become a problem.

Examination of proxies, according to Andrew, “demonstrate abrupt changes between climate states over periods as short as a few centuries, decades and even few years”

Obviously these have nothing to do with human emissions, which have only been alleged to be capable of affecting climate over the last 160 years.

I say “alleged” because there is no scientific basis for the assertion that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate.

The best estimate of the proportion of human emissions to the CO2 in the natural cycle is that human emissions contribute about five per cent. As the variation in the natural CO2 cycle is 10% the human emissions have no significance. They form part of the natural cycle, and blend in with it.

The best comment which could be made on this article is that it has about the same relevance to science, as human emissions have to climate, namely, negligible.

You might be best to look for a new field of endeavour, Andrew. You will make no difference in the field of science.

Leo Lane - good point.

pedestrian - others have suggested to me that better management of the pipelines was the reason for the methane concentrations no longer growing, although my own thought is that the amounts involved would be too small to make a difference. However, I am prepared to be persuaded. Was there any source on that point??

This is an interesting dilemma.

Are ocean currents affected by climactic conditions, or are climatic conditions a result of ocean currents?

I would think that records of localised weather conditions going back many thousands of years must take into account the prevailing ocean currents at that time.

This author continues to post jumbled conglomeration of 'stuff' perhaps hoping it is somehow convincing. Its not coherent and needs to be proof read. Here's an example:

"Inherent in IPCC climate change projections are continuous trends toward mean global temperatures of 1.8 to 3.6 degrees C by 2100"

That's pretty cold in my book!

Dear Andrew, what is it about advocates with such stunning academic qualifications, that they fail to recognize that they are flogging the proverbial “dead horse”?

Is it because you nailed your colors to the mast prior to Climategate and are now left with nowhere to go except to keep on “selling” the single orthodoxy? Is it because you have so much academic credibility at stake that academia simply “has to be right”?

The shear volume and effort being invested by those who promote the CAGW syndrome is truly astonishing. What is even more astonishing is the fact that although this highly contentious and divisive debate has changed dramatically since November 2009, the advocacy block has not moved forward at all, it has simply been left behind fighting its “link wars”.

Yes you are well qualified, yes you have lots of “research” to support your theories, yes you have some nice graphics, yes there is evidence of warming, yes there may be a human contribution and yes climate change happening, yes, yes, yes and sodding yes. For goodness sake stop proselytizing that which is generally accepted and move on!

Acceptable “quantification” of magnitude can only come from scientists from BOTH sides, please get on with this next stage.

Why are you hitting the non-scientific public with your science? Should you not be answering the questions raised by “other” contrary minded scientists? Is this because as a scientist you can “impress” the non-scientific flat earthers? Is this not like the one eyed man being King amongst the blind?

Like so many advocates you join the march of folly, the pursuit of which is contrary to self interest. The grinding single source of advocacy science lacks context, relevance, rationality and common sense.

Advocacy has nowhere else to go of course, it cannot move forward, it cannot embrace change, it cannot consider other input and clings desperately to the IPCC, it cannot be open and it survives only through political and not scientific sponsorship. That must be truly terrifying.

Fundamentalism offers only one response to challenge, more fundamentalisms.

Just ask any dictator

anyone looking at these graphs should be able to draw the obvious conclusion that there is an oscillation factor internal to our climate that operates on a 100 000 year cycle, the odds of some external factor occuring every 100 000 years ten times is remote