Thank you, Poirot,

Yes, of course, we should take notice of what important people say, but we should also be prepared to try to assess WHAT they say according to what we think might be the best criteria.

Ultimately, we have to do our own thinking, based on the best information that we can gather.

Cheers :)

Joe

Loudmouth,

"Ultimately, we have to do our own thinking, based on the best information we can gather."

You're so right.

That's why there's a difference between a real skeptic and a fake skeptic.

That's also why I link to climate scientists on the subject of climate....ie they deal in "information" based on science - and their papers are usually peer-reviewed. (you know "peer-review", the process that has delivered us our post-Enlightenment world)

Complex systems made simple by the Rabett. The latest mantra is that a freezing Europe is consistent with a warming Arctic and Poirot links to the Rabett to prove this.

First of all a warming Arctic and freezing Europe is not evidence of AGW. This is contradicted by Jetstreams; Jetstreams work counter-intuitively and we don’t need AGW to explain some of the extremes of temperature. In a cooling world there is a lower temperature gradient between the equator and the poles; this reduces the power of the climate systems that move the heat polewards.

This in turn allows the circumpolar jet streams to expand equatorwards. This lengthens their path and wavelength and reduces their velocity. Then they are more susceptible to blocking by continental high pressure systems.

This explains why during the Maunder and Dalton minimums there did not seem to be a great reduction in average temperatures. There were however great frosts, capable of freezing rivers to a depth of eighteen inches, splitting oak trees three feet in diameter, causing the failure of winter crops, and then summer heat and drought causing the failure of spring plantings, with resultant famines.

All this has been documented by NASA:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_06/

"In our simulations, we find that the reduced brightness of the Sun during the Maunder Minimum causes global average surface temperature changes of only a few tenths of a degree, in line with the small change in solar output. However, regional cooling over Europe and North America is 5-10 times larger due to a shift in atmospheric winds."

And:

"So a reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the planet leads to a weaker equator-to-pole heating difference, and therefore slower winds. The effect on surface temperatures is particularly large in winter. Because the oceans are relatively warm during the winter due to their large heat storage, the diminished flow creates a cold-land/warm-ocean pattern (Figure 3) by reducing the transport of warm oceanic air to the continents, and vice-versa."

From Rabett's:

"Our analysis suggests that Arctic sea ice concentration changes exert a remote impact on the large-scale atmospheric circulation during winter".

cohenite,

Here's something else from NASA. It's from 2004, but pertinent to this subject.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/

A little more to chew on - fresh water release during the early Holocene.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n9/full/ngeo1536.html

Poirot, it's not pertinent. You posted a link to a 2001 paper recently as if it were important. It's Not. Science is a moving target and everyone is adding new data.

Thanks, Poirot, but I think you are still missing the point which is understandable, after all, since it's fairly complicated. To do one's 'own thinking' is not quite the same as 'defer to authority'. A genuine sceptic certainly takes on-board the findings of people who have done the hard yards, but always with the proviso that one should be prepared to admit of anomalies, improvements and refinements to findings, a better hypothesis, etc., in short, better explanations.

After all, this is not the Middle Ages, when one believed without question, and deferred without question to one's priest. But it is the Era of Sceptics, the post-Enlightenment, in which nothing is 'the whole answer', 'the last word', to be swallowed whole without thinking, - nothing is ever finally, once and for all, closed off. Yes, one hypothesis may answer more, explain more, resolve more, than others, but acceptance is always provisional, until a better hypothesis comes along.

I think that makes up one aspect of what they call the 'scientific method', Poirot, which you can read about on Wikipedia. It's quite interesting, really. Good luck with that.

Cheers :)

Joe