Where's the science? You're now resorting to Wiki?!

I can see I'm not going to get any sense out of you 2; the fact is the official [sic] measurements of climate are problematic, the evidence is plain, yet, here we have 2 intelligent people naively and gullibly accepting the authority of these tainted sources.

Very sad.

Dear cohenite,

A big weekend spent slaying a few more brain cells has kept me from replying to your earlier post. This is the first chance I have to get into the papers you have cited as deserving of your fulsome and unqualified support.

Happy to take them one at a time.

McKitrick et al 2010

My problem is I'm having a real issue trying to find a copy of the paper that is not behind a pay wall. Even going to his own site brings no joy. Could you please furnish a link so I might have a chance to examine a non-abridged version?

Thanking you in advance.

I have washed around the AGW debate for a while and hadn't heard of McKitrick et al 2010 though I can see why he might be big in some circles. I must say though that in searching for the paper I did find some pertinent facts.

After the Germans I had been hoping for someone at least well versed in the physics of climate change and global atmospherics so I was a little disappointed to find McKitrick is yet another economist.

You need to understand cohenite that for a layman like my self, who through a degree of personal research has by now formulated a particular view on the topic, it is a really big ask that an economist is going to carry much weight.

However there is something to be said for some dry, dispassionate number crunching, even from an economist so I thought it would still be worth a look.

However I was particularly dismayed to find he is a signatory to the Cornwall Alliance's 'An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming'
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/

cont...

cont...

“We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.”

“We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.”

“We call on Christian leaders to understand the truth about climate change and embrace Biblical thinking, sound science, and careful economic analysis in creation stewardship.”

He also co-wrote an Interfaith Stewardship Council letter in 2006 including the line: "The role of the IPCC in climate studies is similar to that of the Jesus Seminar in New Testament scholarship in the 1990s and Darwinism for the past century."

Well that just chucked 'dispassionate' out the window.

Now normally I would have given him the flick by now but in keeping with our more civil discourse I felt it was important we should attempt to carry on regardless and see where that leads though I must ask cohenite if you are a practising Christian?

Anyway looking forward to casting an eye over the full paper.

Cohenite,

We might as well accept it, CSteele knows too much for us.

When he says:
<< I have washed around the AGW debate for a while >>

This is what he means:

<< Quite a few years ago I too had been wavering on the issue, especially given the hype from both sides. I forced myself to sit through over 20 one hour long MIT lectures plus other readings to get a better handle on the mechanics. >>
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5123#138827

So there you go: << over 20 one hour long MIT lectures>>

How can we possibly match that ;-]

And as for the Bonmot/ Poirot sideshow

Why-oh-why am I always reminded of this cartoon when I hear the two of them together?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuWZdzNzji0&feature=relate

SPQR; I must say I am non-plussed by csteele's concentration on McKitrick's Christian background, which I did not know anything about, just as I did not know about Christy's or Spencer's religious beliefs until they were raised by alarmists as though that meant the science these people produced was tainted.

I mean it would be like me saying that Flannery is a gaia worshipper and pagan. I read and listen to what Flannery has to say and I make my mind up that he is a ratbag on the strength of that not his religious beliefs, or lack of them.

Personally, I'm not religious, don't smoke, rarely drink, but I do exercise religiously; what has that got to do with anything? Likewise, on the blogs I read what people say and then make my mind up on that basis; I don't care if they have 2 heads or not.

Anyway, anyone who knows anything knows that the best statisticians are in econometrics, where the money used to be; now they are coming to AGW because idiot governments are throwing tax-payers' money into AGW research. McKitrick is a smart person, smarter than most of the innumerate, pretentious clowns pretending to be climate scientists.

I don't expect much but here is his 2010 paper:

http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf

Dear cohenite,

Thank you.

I had gone to his site and ended up trying the link presented but all to no avail;

http://www.rossmckitrick.com/model-testing.html

Your claim for this paper is that it is one “of a number of papers which I think conclusively debunk part or the whole of AGW”.

What are you seeing in this paper that I'm not?

The paper seems to be offering an opinion on the most appropriate method for trend analysis for climate data. This is one of the few areas I concede that an economist might contribute to climate science. “for the purpose of multivariate trend comparisons in climatology, we particularly recommend that the VF05 method enter the empirical toolkit.”

I'm fine with that.

The paper is appropriately cautious about the robustness of the real world data “Possible reasons for RSS/UAH differences include treatment of inter-satellite calibration, orbital decay and other processing issues”, again all good.

Note the paper doesn't question that warming is continuing; “In this case the 1979-2009 interval is a 31-year span during which the upward trend in surface data strongly suggests a climate-scale warming process.”

My main issue is with the statement; “comparing models to observations in the tropical troposphere is an important aspect of testing explanations of the origins of surface warming.”

No way gentlemen. You can't concede an upward warming trend on the surface then then say the lack of a definitive signature of that surface warming, i.e. a tropical hotspot, invalidates the science saying why the surface warmed in the first place. From my reading the Tropical hotspot (TH) effect is almost entirely one of the physics of a warmer surface and far less concerned about the Green House effect or CO2 concentrations.

The best we can say of this paper is that it questions the anticipated impact of greater surface temperatures on the troposphere. To claim it “conclusively debunk(s) part or the whole of AGW' is really gilding the lily.

Finally criticising my point about religiosity impacting research with the accusation that money is the driver for those working in the climate field is strange.