bonmot; I am glad you verify G&T's statement that the atmosphere of Venus is opaque to visible light, which csteele strove to disagree with; and it is true that Venus's albedo is largely due to suphur content in its clouds; other then that however, I don't think your scenario for runaway on Venus can be laid at its previous ocean/cloud based surface and atmosphere [if indeed that was the case]; for 2 reasons.

Firstly, it is now beyond doubt that water clouds are a NEGATIVE feedback to warming through IR thermalisation.

Secondly, your scenario ignores the tectonic structure of Venus; which is to say it has no tectonic structure which allows internal heat to be removed and CO2 sequestration to occur [see Craig O'Neill's work on planetary tectonics]. That lack is sufficient in itself through geologically periodic upheaval and planetary volcanic activity to have produced the current conditions on Venus, although, no doubt there was some greenhouse contribution.

Anyway, you have not answered my query about why Venus does not continue to heat if its greenhouse atmosphere is still 'greenhousing' with a solar constant, as it should if AGW theory is correct.

Anthony, I understand why you do it, you really don't understand what you are talking about.

"you really don't understand what you are talking about."

Well, explain why; I mean I'm still waiting for any analysis by you; you keep linking to sites and expect that to mean something; for instance you linked [on another thread] to the CSIRO site on sea rise, as though that repudiates Houston and Dean's paper on sea level when they use the same data which the CSIRO site refers to.

I mean that doesn't make sense; do you even know what Houston and Dean did; let's talk about that paper since I'm not going to get any sense out of you about Venus. So, do you think Houston and Dean have answered Rahmstorf's critique of their paper? If not, why not?

"Climate science and policy: the tension between argument and debate."

http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-science-and-policy-the-tension-between-argument-and-debate-8761

Dear Leo Lane,

http://pubs.giss.NASA.GOV/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal.pdf

Actually Loopy Leo Lane does have a certain ring.

You are off the scale my friend and really need to dial it back more than a few notches.

Dear Don Aitken,

I have answered your objection just not well enough to have it understood it would seem. I'm happy to accept that is my fault as you haven't thus far indicated you are a 'la la la' intoning, fingers in ears, rocking back and forth, rabid denialist like some who will remain nameless.

This is my understanding of the paper. As a physicist Hansen takes the properties of CO2 and its impact on a planet's greenhouse effect calculations as a physical given. He provides an explanation of the effect but rightly doesn't see his job as proving the mechanics of effect in this paper.

It is like someone explaining why Australia is hotter in summer. There may well be vast differences in temperatures throughout the season but the underlying 'forcing' is the fact the daylight hours are extended during that part of the year. Discussion of the tilt of the earth is of course warranted but offering proofs about this tilt is not.

At the top of fig 5 Hansen presents the effect of CO2 completely unencumbered from natural variability only later entangling it to help overcome peoples “difficulty in accepting this theory” because of the 'absence of observed warming coincident with historic CO2 increase.” and of course to help ground his model for the projections he then made.

Hansen is saying with a doubling of CO2 the world will be around 3C warmer than it would have been without it. For instance he was not to know that a ban on CFCs would come into effect years later (seeing a plateauing and now dropping of their concentrations) thus affecting projections, indeed there is evidence he may have even underestimated their impact back then.

But while the base temperature of the globe may well change due to other factors the elevating effect of the physical ramifications of a doubling of CO2 will not.

csteele refers to Figure 5 of Hansen's 1981 paper and confirms that he does not know what he is talking about. The climate sensitivity from that Figure is 2.8C for 2XCO2, which is less than the 3.2C from the IPCC.

In any event that IPCC figure has been undermined by Foster and Rahmstorf's [F&R] latest paper which shows "no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global warming".

The significance of that finding in respect of the difference between transient climate sensitivity [tcr] and equilibrium climate sensitivity [teq] is that F&R, by removing all possible feedbacks in the system, except ocean heat uptake, have produced a ‘pure AGW’ [or as csteele puts it: "completely unencumbered from natural variability"] signature which is different from both tcr and teq. The temperature response to 2XCO2 which F&R have isolated BEFORE feedbacks are considered is 1.4-1.8C.

You're a dope csteele.