re:

"global warming zealots are stifling debate".

not here, it seems, so we clearly have the exception which demolishes the rule.

Here on OLO as just a little nobody, it has been my expressed view that the solar/cosmic driver should influence our behaviour and understanding of our place in an infinite connected environment. However, whilst "mainstream" astrophysicists continue with their failing "gravity only" big bang hypothesis with ever more absurd fictions, not only will future historians of science judge this era insane but rather by being so false, just how can humanity collectively ensure a continued appreciation of the beauty of existence?

There is voluminous evidence that the universe is more than the standard solid, liquid and gas ..... i.e. that ignores all electrical mechanisms. Is it because the bigbang priests and astronomers have regarded electric fields as too difficult to measure or that arrogantly we didn't need to know? However, my point is that being uneducated in plasma and electromagnetic field theory, all now filters down to this apparent pressing issue of climate in our galaxy, solar system and earth's atmosphere, surface and subsurface environments.

The Durkin doco's strength was to take us out of some self imposed guilt mindset and to see the bigger picture which is hardly controversial. Any perceived errors, anomalies, exaggerations or chart misinterpretations in the doco deserve investigation but in the end, these point to how little we know about the solar/cosmic environment where earth is but a small part player.

There is a growing realization that the cosmos is highly electrical in nature. A starting point for those interested is ......

http://www.plasmacosmology.net/index.html

..... where there is much find and ye shall seek. (i.e. People with eyes wide open and actually able to find things.)

Kieran,

"Any perceived errors, anomalies, exaggerations or chart misinterpretations in the doco deserve investigation but in the end, these point to how little we know about the solar/cosmic environment where earth is but a small part player."

I think you meant to write:

"in the end, these point to how little DURKIN knows"

Kieran, can you please stop SPAMMING your incessant nonsense about a completely irrelevant topic? You've got like, far out ideas about the interconnectedness of the cosmos man, like wow. Good for you. But we are talking about Global Warming here. So go somewhere else to recruit for your new UFO cult. Please go away.

I live in hope that Alzo will try to answer the last questions I put to him.

"brown clouds may actually contribute to warmer temperatures"
snowbird this is a very interesting paper. It reminds me of another out not too long ago in the Journal of Geophysical Research which found:
"Snow becomes dirty when soot from tailpipes, smoke stacks and forest fires enters the atmosphere and falls to the ground. Soot-infused snow is darker than natural snow. Dark surfaces absorb sunlight and cause warming, while bright surfaces reflect heat back into space and cause cooling."
and
"In the past two centuries, the Arctic has warmed about 1.6 degrees. Dirty snow caused .5 to 1.5 degrees of warming, or up to 94 percent of the observed change, the scientists determined."

It seems the climate scientists may be long way off understanding aerosols which seem to have a much greater impact on climate than poor ol' CO2. Aerosols combined with increased solar activity during the late 20th century don't leave much room for a large CO2 driven component of warming.

"There are many different kinds of aerosols, some just water droplets."
The IPPC quotes the following for aerosols:
"Sulphate, fossil fuel organic carbon, fossil fuel black carbon,
biomass burning and mineral dust aerosols were all identified
as having a significant anthropogenic component and exerting
a significant direct RF."
and
"Key parameters for determining
the direct RF are the aerosol optical properties, which vary as a function of wavelength and relative humidity, and the atmospheric loading and geographic distribution of the aerosols in the horizontal
and vertical, which vary as a function of time"
So dimming is regionalised according to the functions described here. They may contribute to global temperature but only in a statistical way. Most of the key anthropogenic aerosols that cause "dimming" are produced in the Northern Hemisphere. Please describe how they affect the SH temperatures.

"Why did the ocean SUDDENLY and CONVENIENTLY switch on its delaying effects..."
Oceans take a while to warm up...
I am not defending Durkin, just solar activity which has been so comprehensively dismissed as a possible cause of recent warming.

I apologize Alzo if I misled anyone on the list about sulfuric aerosols. My understanding was that they spread through the upper atmosphere causing a fairly consistent global dimming, but it may be that you and the IPCC are right and that they cool more locally, dimming whole regions where sulfur has been emitted on massive scales.

Maybe human sulfuric particles don’t get as high as huge volcanic events, and that's why the effect is more local? Maybe that’s why Lowell Wood was suggesting flying particles up in 747’s?

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12343892/can_dr_evil_save_the_world

However we know dimming occurs. You keep banging on about the hemispheres... did you ever consider that the answer is simple, and that increased dimming in the Northern Hemisphere may have disguised even more drastic effects of global warming that would have occurred there otherwise? We know the NH warms first.

Also, the dimming effects of some aerosols are under question from a very recent study that has yet to pass the test of time, other aerosols like sulfuric particulates have already survived this test.

What hasn’t survived the test of time is the theory that solar activity was the main driver. The solar graph he used was doctored. Even the author of that graph dislikes the emphasis Durkin put on it, and subscribes to standard climate science. You have not quoted a convincing study that explains away the solar discrepancies.

Dozens and dozens of independent government bodies and universities and climate think tanks have all come to the same conclusion. If it was ONE convention where ONE group of scientists may have got a bit over-excited about CO2, then maybe the “stifling of scientific debate” has some credence. But please explain a worldwide hoodwinking of thousands of different scientists and a couple dozen of organizations?

You are clutching at small margins of error in one forcing to try and disprove an established theory. The role of CO2 has been proved. If you wish to trash an established theory, you’re going to have to come up with a better argument.

"Maybe human sulfuric particles don’t get as high as huge volcanic events"
Thats true...they don't. Volcanic events put stuff into the stratosphere. Humans messing with the climate artificially is a bit scary and will probably do more harm than good.

"increased dimming in the Northern Hemisphere may have disguised even more drastic effects of global warming that would have occurred there otherwise?"
So the SH is cooling while the NH is warming. I'm afraid this doesn't fit the CO2 enhanced greenhouse theory as it is supposed to be a well mixed gas ie. the same amount of CO2 is at either end of the Earth. I know I know, you will point to the Southern Ocean as being the reason for the difference. This would indicate that the oceans have more effect on climate than the atmosphere. So if the oceans aren't heating then there isn't much to worry about? Since 1978 satellites have been measuring the temperatures of the oceans and guess what? Global ocean anomaly is +0.1, SH ocean anomaly is -0.2, NH ocean is +0.28. Not much worth getting excited about.
According to the ARGO ocean monitoring network there has not been any warming withing the world's oceans since the early 2000's. Wake me up if global warming cranks up again will you and I'll have another look.

"But please explain a worldwide hoodwinking of thousands of different scientists and a couple dozen of organizations?"
They've done it before (eg. eugenics) and they'll do it again. Believe it or not, it is not a consensus that progresses science.