Herbert Stencil,

As I have made clear I am an amateur. I am not in a position to evaluate the significance of much of the research you mention. I suspect neither are you.

However I'll try and address some of your concerns.

I do know that calibration of weather station temperature readings to account for changing conditions is an ongoing process. Are you implying there is fraud involved?

Land use and its impact on climate is an area of intense research. If you're truly interested – as opposed to merely trying to make debating points – there was a fascinating piece on this topic in the March 2005 issue of Scientific American.

How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate? By William F. Ruddiman

http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=F9374686-2B35-221B-635B1D2A02A8B6D5

(Subscription required)

The sensitivity of the Earth to CO2 changes is also a topic of intense research.

If CO2 were the only factor temperature rises would not be an issue. The rise in average temperature for a doubling from present already elevated levels would be less than one degree Kelvin. (Ocean acidification might however be a problem if CO2 levels doubled)

The 3.5 degree "assumption" to which you refer is based on estimates of likely positive feedback loops. These appear to magnify the effect of the rather small temperature rise due to CO2 alone.

Whether 3.5 degrees for the effects of positive feedback loops will turn out to be correct I cannot say. It is probably a reasonable estimate given what was known at the time of publication.

Imajulianutter

As I stated in my article, a critique I have levelled against climate scientists is that they an exaggerated opinion of their ability to forecast the future.

My personal, AMATEUR opinion is that climate is too complex to be modelled in detail. The best you can is estimate general trends. Based on the laws of physics the trend points to a hotter world. But don’t expect a smooth trend. In the real world no trend is ever smooth.

LEO LANE, ATMAN

As WOBBLES has pointed out, Plimer's book is riddled with lies. Not errors, but outright lies. Ian Enting, a researcher at the University of Melbourne has exposed many of Plimer's tricks and deceptions.

One of the most common frauds Plimer practises is footnotes that do not support his statement. When Enting followed up on the footnoted references in many cases he found articles that either did not support Plimer's statement or sometimes even contradicted it.

Here is a link to Ian Enting's home page.

http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~enting/

Compared to Plimer's compendium of codswallop even the IPCC report is a model of scientific reporting.'

And here is one important difference between the IPCC and Plimer.

--When errors are exposed in the IPCC report a retraction is issued.

--Plimer has, so far as I know, NEVER addresses the manifold untruths in his book. (Why do you think that is?)

If you choose to believe in Plimer well and good. But you're going against the teeth of the evidence.

SALTPETRE

Glad you like i

THE DOG THAT DOESN'T BARK

A CONUNDRUM

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

From "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm planning another piece on the way the pharmaceutical industry corrupts the scientific process. Here is how Richard Horton, then editor of The Lancet, put it in 2004:

>>Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry>>

See: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138

The Lancet is one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world.

The pharmaceutical industry is a dog that barks loudly indeed.

There is another industry whose resources exceed that of the pharmaceutical industry, who are able to hire the best scientists, have access to the best lobbyists and have a strong interest in falsifying the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). That is the fossil fuel industry.

If they had found a SMOKING GUN that definitively falsified AGW we may be sure it would be published in the most prestigious peer reviewed journals and would be hyped across the media.

The fossil fuel industry certainly does its best to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about AGW. But it has never found a smoking gun that stands up to peer review.

If you want to make a few (million) bucks and you believe you've found the smoking gun get in touch with Exxon-Mobil. I think you'll find they'll be generous.

The fact that such a powerful industry with such a strong motivation to falsify AGW has yet to come up with a SMOKING GUN that passes peer review should give posters pause for thought when they believe they've found one. Why isn't the fossil fuel industry hyping it across the media.

Why isn't the dog barking in the peer reveiwed literature?

"Why isn't the dog barking in the peer reviewed literature?"

Because the ones doing the reviews
1. do not want to alienate mates, who might be right
2. do not want to alienate an industry responsible for paying their mortgages and continuing to help get grants
3. may not be any more knowledgeable about climate science than the paper writers.

If you surmise that climate scientists know everything there is to know about climate, viewed through your angry rose tinted glasses, and you seem to be, then you're right there is hardly reason for skepticism.

However, if they do not know as much as is possible to know, and that certainly seems the case in reality. No climate scientist, without hindsight of course (sarcasm), picked the current plateauing of temperatures in the face of soaring CO2

If they actually understood climate better, their models would reflect it, the IPCC would have real scientists instead of politically appointed scientists and lots of activists.

This all makes people suspicious and skeptical .. you're attacks on skeptics is unreasonable, because we do not all subscribe to the infinite wisdom of climate science today. It clearly makes you angry and you should do something about that, since it's not the skeptics problem that climate science is immature.

" .. climate is too complex to be modelled in detail. The best you can is estimate general trends. Based on the laws of physics the trend points to a hotter world. But don’t expect a smooth trend. In the real world no [climate] trend is ever smooth."
stevenlmeyer, Thursday, 17 Nov, 6:48:18am

Good summary.

"If CO2 were the only factor temperature rises would not be an issue."

CO2 is as much an indicator - water vapour is likely more important (as a greenhouse gas), yet is harder to quantify.
.

You are ahead of yourself, Steven. It is not up to the realists to disprove AGW, it is up to the proponents of AGW to produce proof that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate, which so far they have failed to do.

Certainly they have engineered statements from prestigious bodies to the effect that human emissions affect climate, but these statements are unsupported by science.

We need a Royal Commission into how this travesty is brought about. How does it come about that reputable entities issue statements, unsupported by science, and against the wishes of their scientist members?

Remember when the mendacious IPCC announced that AGW was “very likely”, and that this would be borne out when the “hotspot” in the troposphere was demonstrated, which would be the “signature” for AGW?

Of course there has been no “hotspot” shown to exist, no “signature” of the effect of human emissions, and no retraction from the IPCC, whose estimates were obviously far too high, and thus not borne out by the real world.

Everyone knows that, Steven, even you, but it is not sufficient to prevent you from diversions and obfuscations to hide the truth. There is no scientific proof for the assertion that human emissions have an effect on climate which is other than negligible. You are also aware that the onus of proof is on the alarmists who put forward the proposition.

It has been shown, in peer reviewed papers, that climate including current climate, conforms to established natural cycles. This leaves little room for the assertion that human emissions have any measurable effect, and attempts to back the assertion on any scientific basis have failed.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide comprise 3% of the natural CO2 cycle. The CO2 cycle has a 10% natural variation. It is little wonder that the alarmists are unable to demonstrate any effect from the contribution of human emissions, and their dishonest attempts are less than admirable.