Wow popnperish
Amazing proof that the world faces catastrophic global warming - your mere unqualified belief. That's real "science", isn't it? You guys are a joke. Black is so fashionable these days, isn't it?

Candide, you complain about sceptics not knowing or caring about the science and you say this:

“increased snow is one of the markers of global warming. Let me spell it out for you: more heat means more evaporation from the oceans means more moisture in the air means more precipitation,”

This is wrong at many levels:

1 Stewart Franks has shown that extra warmth does not cause extra evaporation; the reason is explained here:

http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2009/11/shock-murray-darling-warming-not-due-to-co2/

This is confirmed by Pan Evaporation studies:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169411007487

2 Specific and Relative Humidity are generally falling:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/

The NASA data shows a slight increase in SH and RH near the surface but declines at every other level. There are 2 things to take from this; firstly evaporation over land is declining but evaporation over water may still be increasing; but secondly that water precipitates very quickly due to saturation near the surface.

3 SH and RH at higher levels is crucial for the Earth’s energy balance because it is high water which blocks outgoing infra-red radiation; high water levels are declining as numerous studies have shown, eg:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract

4 In respect of increased snow; this has nothing to do with evaporation but an increased lapse rate or temperature decline with altitude; a decreasing lapse rate CONTRADICTS AGW because AGW says the Troposphere should be warming faster than the surface and producing a THS. This isn’t happening and more snow is falling.

Now, I have gone to some effort to show how and why you are wrong but I bet you will not admit it because you BELIEVE in AGW and the lack of evidence will not bother you at all.

Geoff; you have linked extensively to the new Marcott paper which purports to show that the current warming is quicker and higher than anything over the last 100,000 years; a critique of the paper has been made by Easterbrook:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/11/validity-of-a-reconstruction-of-regional-and-global-temperature-for-the-past-11300-years/

Generally a technique which uses century smoothing will remove all temperature trends especially with the unsmoothed instrument record spliced on at the end. It is a bad paper. Sorry.

Hi Candida,

So, AGW causes both warmer conditions AND heavier snowfalls ? Shrinkage of the Arctic Ice-Cap AND record cold weather in Europe and the US ?

Okay, I can see that. What you say is plausible. I'm a sucker for any half-baked explanation :) I don't even mind watching Dr Who.

AGW also causes extreme weather events ?

Now all we need is a few years of calm weather and somebody will explain to us how that's also caused by AGW. After all, until Sandy, there had not really been a devastating hurricane in the US since Katrina.

I wonder how they are going to do it: maybe winkle out whatever the opposite of whatever the causes of extreme weather events are supposed to be, and somehow relate this to AGW.

Maybe someone will find that the weather during those periods in the earth's history when CO2 levels and temperatures were high, that it was quite a calm period, for millions of years on end. Just a hint.

It's a bit like believing that god is ever-present - he/she rewards you with good times, and punishes you with bad times, and it's all the one god. I couldn't possibly comment, being an unbeliever, but it's just as plausible.

Are we still allowed to joke about all this, or has the Roxon Bill been passed ?

Cheers,

Joe

Earth has only been inhabitable by humans for about 500,000 years. It took all the preceding millions of years to cool, build up and then bury billions of tons of carbon, to produce sufficient oxygen and remove poisonous gasses, to maintain the balance of other gasses, and have weather calm and stable enough to permit long term survival of our species. We inhabit a very delicately balanced system that is about to tip over the edge and once again turn earth into a place hostile to humans. The lack of action on reduction of greenhouse gasses is a deliberate ploy by USA free marketeers to buy time while they grab all the patents on climate modification technologies such as spraying the stratosphere with sulphur, painting the mountains of Peru white and so on. These technologies, while achieving little and exacerbating the problem, will garner trillions of dollars for
the inventors and investors like Bill Gates, when desperate governments search for a quick fix.
It's now too late to do anything radical. If every CO2 producing plant was stopped tomorrow, there would be a sudden increase of global temperature by about 3.5 degrees, due to residual effects and the removal of the Asian cloud of pollution that is reflecting heat. And this would destroy most of life as we know it.
Deniers, like those on this post, are unable to face facts that oppose their world view that our present way of life is just about perfect; therefore they reject them. It's why religionists refuse to accept evolution. Dumb, but that's humans for you.

Loudmouth et al

Global warming can indeed lead to increased cold in some areas. For example, the warming of the Arctic has led to a decrease in both the area and depth of the North Polar icecap and more melt water from Greenland. This fresh water is messing with the flow of northern section of the Gulf Stream, which hitherto has been responsible for the remarkable difference between the climate of Canada and the climate of western Europe. If you take a moment to look at a map, Ottawa and Bordeaux are on roughly the same latitude. Take another moment to imagine them with the same climate. Food for thought.

In case you are hoping to goad me into joining you in the gutter with your rudeness and bile, hope on. It isn't going to happen. Please feel free to make yourselves look stupid and childish, but you would serve your cause better if you were civil and took the trouble to argue your corner.

Hi Candida,

I apologise for my rudeness and bile, and hope to be more civil in future.

Now to get back to what you hypothesise: the early, and late, winter weather in north America and Europe is quite consistent with global warming, you say.

All I am suggesting, half in jest, half in 100 % support of your assertion, is that, somehow, global warming can explain pretty much everything:

* if we had a period of heavier-than-average rainfall - AGW. And if we had a period of drought, like Australia has had every few years since long before whitefellas came here - AGW.

* If we had a run of extreme weather events - AGW. And if we had a long period (i.e. longer than usual in Australia's up-and-down climate) of boringly unextreme weather - AGW. Someone could explain it, perhaps Dr Flannery, when it happens.

Yes, Candida, I do believe that AGW is occurring, not at fearfully outrageous rates and with utterly horrific consequences, but enough to cause concern amongst us for our great-grandchildren, IF we do little or nothing now. IF.

But hey presto ! capitalism IS doing something about it, even in China - solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, hot rocks - even our own progressive and far-sighted government is investing R. & D. in renewable technologies, and I certainly applaud all those efforts.

Just don't over-egg the pudding. Stick to the truth, it never hurts :)

Joe