JKJ,

"The problem is, that ALL warmist argument takes the same form: entering the discussion assuming that someone somewhere somehow sometime must have established the validity of it, but then immediately unable to cope with even the most basic tests of rationality on being challenged; and fleeing into circularity, appeal to authority, and ad hom."

This is the guy who jumps onto all the climate threads with his kit bag of generic spiel, and proceeds to lay lashings of ad hom while accusing others of the same.

He wouldn't go near an actual science site and argue there, because he wouldn't know or understand the data if it jumped up and bit him.

Same old same old rhetoric no matter what the subject at hand.

Pete's famous line is "You've lost the argument" (coz he says so!)

Lol!

JKJ, you may have established in your own mind that there is no rational justification for climate change but it's not about rationality, it's about science. As a scientist (geologist, zoologist), I have no doubt that human activities are responsible for between 40 and 70% of the warming that has occurred over the last 200 or so years. On this basis, I then asked myself the various questions I've outlined in my previous posts and come to the conclusions that I've come to. If you see the science differently than me and say there has been no climate change since the start of the industrial revolution, you're entitled to your belief and of course will argue for no action to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Isn't living in a democracy wonderful?

Bernie Masters,

I am pleased to hear I am dealing with a geologist. However, you damage geologists by making a statement line this:

" I have no doubt that human activities are responsible for between 40 and 70% of the warming that has occurred over the last 200 or so years." That's not a statement based on science. You cannot substantiate it. So it's belief.

Did you see yesterday's post on Climate Etc.: "Words of wisdom from Charles Lyle" (commonly referred to as the father of modern geology) http://judithcurry.com/2014/10/14/words-of-wisdom-from-charles-lyell/. He makes exactly the relevant point in this article about belief v science, and how moder geology moved on. But your doing exactly what geologists did before they adopted the scientific approach . I'd urge you to read it.

I'd also urge you to substantiate your belief that 40% to 70% of climate change is caused by humans.

I'd refer you to the PNAS articles about abrupt climate change:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=14
Gelogist Harry Broeker: http://www.slc.ca.gov/division_pages/DEPM/Reports/BHP_Port/ERRATA_CSLC/Vol%20II/EDC%20Attachments%20Vol%20II-02.pdf
Geologist: Peter Coxon: http://eprints.nuim.ie/1983/ (refer to Figure 15:21 and note the massive abrupt changes.

Many people who argue "the science is settled" do not realise that climate change doesn't behave like the IPCC's projections. The climate is wild. It changes suddenly and quickly. However, we do not have sufficient resolution to detect the sudden changes over the distant past. But the resolution is improving.

Here is an example:
Coxon and McCarron (2009), ‘Cenozoic: Tertiary and Quaternary (until 11,700 years before 2000)’ (see Figure 15:21)
http://eprints.nuim.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf

"Figure 15.21 The stable isotope record (∂18O) from the GRIP ice core (histogram) compared to the record of N.pachyderma a planktonic foraminiferan whose presence indicates cold sea temperatures) from ocean sediments (dotted line). High concentrations of IRD from the Troll 8903 core are marked with arrows. After Haflidason et al. (1995). The transition times for critical lengths of the core were calculated from the sediment accumulation rates by the authors and these gave the following results: Transition A: 9 years; Transition B: 25 years; and Transition C: 7 years. Such rapid transitions have been corroborated from the recent NGRIP ice core data."

This and other figures and the related text suggest:

1. Abrupt warmings occurred in the past before human GHG emissions; in fact, the climate as recorded in paleo data in Ireland, Greenland and Iceland, warmed and cooled in rapid changes many times. This includes the two marked A and B in Figure 15:21, when the climate warmed from near glacial temperatures to near current temperatures in two events in 7 years at 14,500 and 9 years at 11,500 years ago.

2. Life thrived during the warming events (Life loved warming and warmer conditions).

3. There is a periodicity of about 500 to 1000 years represented by minimums at about (eyeballed from the chart):

Years before present:
16,000
15,500
14,500
13,800
13,000
12,600
11,600
11,200
11,000
10,600
10,200
9,500
9,200

The science is far from settled. The evidence for catastrophic climate change is weak and getting weaker (climate sensitivity is decreasing, the burning embers diagram has been doused, and the policies advocated by the alarmists are not viable and have little chance of being implemented let alone sustained.

"The climate is wild. It changes suddenly and quickly"

Globally? Regionally? Ireland?

Climate sensitivity is really, really low for CO2 but any other forcing and it's crazy, Irish wild?

What mystery is responsible for the rate of global temperature rise of the last 150 years, unprecedented in this interglacial period?

Could it come from below? Oh, the deep ocean hasn't warmed. Ah, it's from above, it's the sun! Oh, but no, temperature's risen when the sun's waned. Must be its cumulative beating down, day after day, making things hotter, and hotter. Oops, wither the hiatus?

CO2 is rising and rising but that couldn't be us, and warming can't be us and CO2 has nothing to do with it anyway. The hiatus is doing the job and why fix the roof when it's not raining?

Lang and Co. throw pixie-dust at a tsunami of science, and they've got rationality and they've got a hiatus, and a mantra by golly, "Climate change is not caused by humans! Climate change is not caused by humans! Climate change is not caused by humans! Climate change is not caused by humans! Climate change is not caused by humans!climate change is not caused by humans .......!"
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NgIqKD_aX4M05NNmsyRXQxWm8/edit

Lucerface,

"Globally? Regionally? Ireland?"

Yes. All of those. Clearly you haven't read what doesn't support your cult's beliefs, eh? Apparently haven't read anything about abrupt climate change or about how life thrives as the planet warms and struggles as it cools. Or of the mounting evidence of the abrupt changes. You display all the symptoms of a denier - i.e. you deny the relevant facts and try to use FUD instead.

As I said before, discussion with you and other deniers, zealots for their cause, doomsayers and those who adopt cults beliefs is pointless.