Dear ant,

I'm afraid in Leo Lane you are talking to a bloke who has his hands clamped firmly over both ears, eyes scrunched tightly shut, intoning “la, la, la, la” for all he is worth. There is not one single scrap of evidence you could lay in front of him to convince him AGW is happening, and you have furnished ample on this thread.

His problem of course is that he is so deeply invested in the anti-AGW mantra that to accept any proof, no matter how convincing, would possibly damage him psychologically, or should I say damage him further.

Best go gentle on the poor chap.

SteeleRedux, I realize what you say about Leo, he provides a good strawman in helping get a message across.
His Tuvalu example, showed two things; the unreliability of news.ltd articles and and how completely wrong he was about no flooding in Tuvalu.
In his last post he acknowledged something is going on in the Polar region, but says it's not through human action. But, he cannot disprove that it has not been caused by anthroprogenic actions. His fraud claims look pretty lame.
That is quite a jump for Leo. It now is hard for him to suggest that scientists should not be investigating further what’s going on in Polar regions, or studying climate change elsewhere.
In a previous post I wrote about an epidemiological study of the Inuit in Canada; they had been experiencing more rain, less snow, and faster thaws (equals warmer conditions); and those kind of studies do not occur until a notable trend is noticed.
For climate change deniers they tend to see it as a political matter rather than a scientific one. Any claims coming from those associated with the IPA, a neocon “think tank”, are not reliable.
Willard Anthony Watts is often provided as a reference by climate change deniers, the interesting point is that he has no official qualification. He has a belief that the sun determines any changes in climate, a somewhat difficult position to hold at present as on that basis we should be going into an ice age. There has been a lack of sun spot activity which in the past has been associated with much colder conditions.
Copy and paste:

https://theconversation.com/is-misinformation-about-the-climate-criminally-negligent-23111

You still haven’t read the paper cohenite. This seems to be typical of your posts. You skate across things without ever attempting to get an understanding of what you are writing about and then make things up.

Where you first claimed that Meehl et al. showed “CO2 delaying the GPCS” now you are claiming Meehl et al. speculates “the GPCS would have happened much earlier if CO2 forcing was not compromised by NV”. Which claim of yours should we believe?

I suggest we should believe neither, because neither is accurate. The second is closer to correct than the first.

Meehl et al. made no claims about a great climate shift that should have happened in the Pacific in the 1960s. Their speculation is that the shift in the 1970s was bigger than it might have been because natural variation was inhibiting the CO2 forcings from being effective in the 1960s. The 1960s saw a fairly dramatic cooling due to natural forcings and only when these turned around in the later 1970s was an increase in surface temperatures seen

cohenite, I have asked Leo to debunk my information in relation to the Polar regions and I am asking you to do the same.
The Polar areas are where climate change has been happening; scientists and the Inuit believe it to be the case.

If you are not able to debunk it then your comment: "My guess it is AGW science which is possessed"... doesn't stand.

I'm particularly intrigued how you will argue against the epidemiological study I gave reference too, and the concern about culture being impacted on because of changed circumstances along coastlines.

cohenite, I'm just coming back to this and thank you for the references (tho' the Dutch one didn't work).

The abstracts make for turgid reading but I do not pick up anything in them to suggest Arctic methane emissions cannot occur through our warming.

Regarding clathrates the IPCC make reference to p163-201 of http://downloads.globalchange.gov/sap/sap3-4/sap3-4-final-report-front.pdf (can't get the full publication, sorry) which concluded that it was "very unlikely that such a catastrophic release would occur this century" but argued, however, that "anthropogenic warming will 'very likely' lead to enhanced methane emissions from both terrestrial and oceanic clathrates. Furthermore it states "While difficult to formally assess, initial estimates of the 21st century positive feedback from methane clathrate destabilization are small but not insignificant...(reference given.." and "Nevertheless, on multi-millennial timescales, the positive feedback to anthropogenic warming of such methane emissions is potentially larger"

Here's the thing tho', cohenite, why do you refer to the IPCC as an authority on this when you reject all else that doesn't suit you? The IPCC has been more than reserved in its conclusions, to the extent it even upsets "alarmists" by its moderation (who think there is a conspiracy!). Even Jo Nova refers to the IPCC as an authority, http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/source/ipcc/5ar/graphs/table-12.4-v2.gif when it suits her purpose.

I make the distinction between "alarmists" and "alarm sounders". I am a member of the latter group. To be completely unconcerned shows a lack of duty of care for our descendants, IMO. Humanity will survive if our direction doesn't change, as it survived in the Younger Dryas, but are we really willing to risk such upheaval that may return us to hunter gatherer status? I just don't get the certainty of the "denialist's" position, which grasps at any nuance as an excuse for us to continue on our merry existence.

TGIF.

cohenite, while answering my questions in relation to Northern areas of the American continent; you might also like to indicate what is wrong with The Lancet article that comments on tick borne encephalitis in Sweden. Higher levels of tick borne disease is associated with climate change.
The article is in The Lancet Vol 358 July 2001.