I happen to be one of those scientists who are predisposed to accepting the historically respectable proposition that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to influence the heat balance of the planet and hence its climate. That doesn't mean I think disaster lies ahead - but it might. In my contributions to the climate change 'debate' I usually make two claims: we don't know how bad climate change will be (as above), and we don't know what to do about it. Don tends to focus on the first aspect and consequently ventures, as here, into a field that to my mind is extremely complicated, needs a strong background in the specific science, and is littered with booby traps. Frankly I would not dare go there. The second aspect is actually more critical. According to the way they vote, over half the population of Australia seems convinced that the technical and economic problem of powering our economy with energy from the wind and sun has been solved, unequivocally. They vote accordingly and governments tend to respond accordingly. If they are right it simply doesn't matter if carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, if there is a hiatus in warming or not, and so on. If you like, we could all happily dis-include (great word!) those climate issues from our thinking. What I am saying is that the primary issue is not the detailed analysis and interpretation of climate data but the source and significance of our future energy supplies. That's where the debate should be. For the record, my own view is that renewable energy cannot possibly replace fossil fuels in powering our economy, or anyone else’s for that matter. I have recently been told that mine is a defeatist attitude. So be it.

Does any of this temperature stuff, or projections of temperature change over this century matter? Why and how do we know?

Temperature change is neither good nor bad. Temperature change is not a measure of damage or of economic benefit or loss. We need to know what are the impacts of temperature change. And we need to know the impacts locally.

I've been progressively coming to the conclusion over the past 10 years or so of following the climate debate that CO2 emissions are more likely to be net beneficial than net damaging for the planet. Certainly, fossil fuels are massively net beneficial for humanity and for the environment: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity.

Therefore, until there is a cheaper alternative to provide the worlds energy, fossil fuels are essential and the world will not be reducing their use. So for those who are concerned about CO2 emissions and want to replace fossil fuels, they need to focus on making the alternatives cheaper as well as fit for purpose. You should forget about renewables because the reality is they can have little impact on replacing fossil fuels or reducing global CO2 emissions.

I need to make a correction. On my website I have already accepted that Karl et al are not using the temperature records of Argo buoys, but of the drifting weather buoys, of which there are more than 1000. I jumped too quickly into an assumption. The error does not in any way invalidate the argument, apart from making me look silly!

Overlooked is the fact that the solar furnace has been in a waning phase since the mid-seventies. (NASA)

If it was just down to the solar furnace, we would see more summer ice, no melting permafrost, and weather events less not more severe!?

That said, it is always true that in the seeds of adversity, there's always an advantage.

And for us that is the fact we could power our industries for thousands of years with our (Cheaper than coal) thorium?

If reserved exclusively for them?

And coupled to micro grids, able to power our own (car, truck, ship, sub) industries for half the current power price!

Moreover, given direct reduction, the lowest costing lowest carbon emitting steel; and given aluminium is congealed electricity, the cheapest to make, aluminium.

Ditto all light metals smelting.

Copious NG would enable a smarter country, to rejig it's transport options to CNG, wherever much cheaper electricity couldn't be used? And the latter includes trains, trams and trolley buses!

CSG needs to be reconsidered, given new desal makes as much as 97% of the saline water potable and for quarter of the previous lowest possible cost.

Meaning, a whole host of new irrigation options becomes newly cost effective!

And wouldn't some of our drought ravaged farmers love some of that and the certainty it would provide?

And why wouldn't a smart country decide to convert it's biological waste into the world's cheapest domestic energy option, and follow that with broad scale oil rich algae production?

And with the oil removed, use the remaining biomass as the basis for an ethanol industry that needs no foodstuff, nor arable land for its production.

And all of it available to a country able to actually use the brains it was born with; as opposed to just denying this or that isn't happening?

And if it is or isn't?

How does that prevent us from choosing smarter less costly options, and just because they're far less costly, than how much they might reduce our (highest per capita) carbon output?
Rhrosty.

The so called hiatus finished in 2011, If you take 1997 or 98 date as the start date and use any of the 3 most widely accepted data sets, global warming has clearly resumed with 2014 being the hottest year on record since temperature data has been collected. Note for those who would quote the last IPCC report it was published in 2013 and the cut off for data was earlier.

There is however no need to rely on temperature data according to http://nsidc.org/

“Between 1979 and 1996 Arctic sea ice declined at around 36,000 sq km a year, on average. Since 1997, the rate of loss has accelerated to dramatically to 130,000 sq km per year.”

It just does not make sense that global warming stopped after 1997 but yet the Arctic ice started to melt 3.6 times quicker.

There is a similar problem with sea level rise where the trend has also been on the rise over the last 18 years with an increase from about 2mm per year to over 3mm over the period. Roughly half of the measured sea level rise is accounted for by ice melt the other half by thermal expansion. The sea level is simply not going to rise faster during a period when the globe is not warming.

Don unfortunately takes a political view of the climate science assuming it is some sort of left wing plot against the only true right science. Sorry but science could not care less what your politics are, and nature even less.

Note the eminent scientist, Tombee. Good one, mate. I always knew you were a scientist. Bet you didn't know that I'm Lord Spencer.

The twisting and turning the climate alarmists do. As soon as most people catch up to climate fraud, they 'discover' something new. They are like little kids caught out lying. They can't give in, so come up with an even bigger porky.

Coal got another belting on 4 Corners last night, so it looks as if we are are in for yet another round of scaremongering leading up to the scaremongersfest in Paris.

Thanks, Don, for updating us on the climate fraud, and bringing Tom Karl, another climate liar, to our attention.

We have warmair back again, with another dishonest fraud-backing post, where he mentions a slight trend in diminution of Arctic ice, but fails to mention the record increase in Antarctic ice.

L.L: Given a warmer globe, one would expect more or greater global convection!

And consequently more downward mixing of subzero stratospheric air at the poles!

And more so at the south pole where the much larger ice mass reflects back significantly more radiant heat!

Nonetheless, record ocean temperatures, as high as an unprecedented 4C in Antarctic waters; mean, more melting and more fresh water being added to the area, which by the way, is encircled by an ocean current, traveling west to east.

Now as you might know, fresh water freezes more readily than salt water, and given increased global convection, one would expect the increasing downward mixing subzero stratospheric air; coupled to the fact that much of Antarctica is actually a very large high plateau, one would expect significantly lower atmospheric temperatures at the south pole!

And given the capacity of fresh water to freeze far more readily, one would expect some increase in some ice, even as other parts were nonetheless melting away?

And it seems, exactly what is happening!

And exactly what the climate change models would predict. I mean, nothing occurs in isolation!

And something of a worry given some of the now melted ice shelf has exposed a huge fresh water lake; only held back by a melting ice sheet, which when released will allow enough water to escape to raise the worlds combined oceans by 3 metres?

And when released not as a trickle but a veritable tidal wave or tsunami, that won't stop until the oceans have risen around three metres; or enough water to put all the ground floor apartments in surfers or main beach, completely under water!?

Now nobody is predicting that will happen tomorrow or next week or next year. Just that it will happen if nothing else changes!

One also notes that none of this measured increase in water temperatures, [some as high as 2C,] or increased global convection, can't be put down to increased solar radiation, given the great solar furnace in the sky, has been in a waning phase since the mid-seventies! (NASA)
Rhrosty.

Rhosty,

I've not heard of an unprecedented Antarctic ocean temperature of 4 degrees C. Could you provide the reference?

As usual we have Leo Lane form cloud cuckoo land who's comments are endless versions of all the scientists are frauds and liars.

Just to clarify the Antarctic sea ice that reached a record area last year is seasonal ice and refers to the winter maximum, because the sea ice almost completely melts each summer, it is of little consequence except to mariners. The figures I gave previously are for Arctic summer minimums. Anyway what is of far more importance is the fact that Antarctic land ice loss has also accelerated over the last couple of decades.

Quote from http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/

"Ice-mass loss from Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has accelerated. The mean estimated rate of ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet has increased nearly five-fold from an estimated mean of 30 gigatonnes per year (Gt/yr) for the period from 1992 to 2001, to 147 Gt/yr for the period 2002 to 2011. The rate of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet has increased from 34 to 215 Gt/yr over the same period.

The average rate of ice loss from glaciers around the world, excluding glaciers on the periphery of the ice sheets, was very likely 226 Gt/yr over the period 1971 to 2009, and very likely 275 Gt/yr over the period 1993 to 2009."

This all goes to show that the idea that warming suddenly stopped some 18 years ago is nuts.

I'm not a scientist but I have a technical background. Climate scientists would have the greatest understanding of what's happening to our environment, and even that knowledge has it's limitations.

I understand our environment/climate is an entanglement of many closed loop systems, each with an influence on other systems.
All is well until one or more of these systems goes into a run-away condition.

Of interest, is the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, the increasing acidity of some oceans and the melting of the north and south ice masses.

It's not so much the quantity, but the rate of change which concerns me. We know these things do change over time, but it's the sudden rate of change which we are seeing that we must take as serious signs.

That's about the end of my current thoughts on it, except to say we must really increase the levels of our renewable energy targets. They are not high enough, and pollies should get a backbone and demand higher renewable energy targets.

Cartoon depicts a simple pollution solution . . . .

https://cartoonmick.wordpress.com/editorial-political/#jp-carousel-917

Cheers
Mick

Cartoonmick,

You say that 'the sudden rate of change which we are seeing' is what alarms you. In what exactly? And what is the reference? I do a lot of reading in this area, and there's no sudden rate of change — at least of any significance — that I can see.

I't often stated that the rate of change of global surface temperature experienced last century is unprecedented? How can we say it is unprecedented over geological time since we only have about 200 years of records (i.e. totally irrelevant)?

We know that there have been much more rapid changes over large regions in the past. For example, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland warmed from near glacial temperatures to near current temperatures in 7 years 14,600 years ago and in 9 years 11,600 hears ago. And guess what. Life loved it. Life thrived in the warming periods. See Figure 15:21 (p391) here: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/1983/1/McCarron.pdf

I am not persuaded there will be any net damage to the planet from GHG emissions this century. I'll support policies to mitigate GHG emissions only if they are economically beneficial for the whole world irrespective of any projected climate benefits. This can be achieved, but is blocked by the so called 'Progressives'.