"The burden of proof is on the IPCC...to prove that this rise is anything other than part of a natural cycle".

Hadz it is documented that climatic changes of this magnitude have occurred before but never in such a timeframe, and never without a trigger event such as volcanic eruption, asteroid etc. Unless skeptics can point to something else which has caused GW the only remaining explanation is the A.

In addition to this it is anticipated the north polar ice cap will shrink to nothing within around 30 years, possibly a lot less. It would be the first time in, oh, say sixteen million years this has happened.

Dunno about others but that seems kinda significant.

I've been simply expressing this opinion for some time. I simply want good honest science getting the available tax payer funding not some bogus alarmism rorting the system and destroying the careers of especially young promising people entering the profession. We need to focus on hard science projects.

When i read Emma Pittaway's comment here that "scientific theories can never be proved, only disproved." then surely some people out there, if they are fair dinkum on anything, should be seriously concerned for it is now no longer decisions based on hard evidence. Now, despite the fact that we spend all our lives continually immersed in cause and effect situation we get exceptionalism at its best with causality being replaced what she call a "moral question". Cripes one would think the true more question was to get proof and evidence first. Her fabricating something that doesn't exist and then asking everyone disprove it is very much behaving immorally.

On the subject of these CSIRO pious unseen models that cannot be challenged our Jones boy refers to in this article, let me say that they have been challenged and found to have no credible basis for their claims in their Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report.
i.e. Go here for details and be alarmed ... re Guano
http://landshape.org/enm/

originalMT;
I have seen one graph showing the temperature from about
1990 to 2007 that had a moving average laid over it.
It certainly showed a small fall from 1998 to Jan 2007.

Of course that only relates to that period and does not mean anything
as far as global warming is concerned as it is too short a period.
There almost certainly will be moving average graphs from say 1900
somewhere.

rstuart;
quote; If I see someone like you say all the experts are wrong my
reaction is "remarkable claims require remarkable evidence".
You of course aren't offering much in the way of evidence, so I
loose interest very quickly.
unquote
I did not say all the experts were wrong. However I do have doubts.
I am not offering any evidence, I am just offering the observation
that if the graph to which I referred is correct and as you say it is
almost certain that the IPCC models will have it built in. But then
if so and that graph is correct then "CO2 global warming" should have
stopped or at least show a slowing that lock steps with the graph.

http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

If global warming continues then it would not be caused by CO2.
Methane perhaps ?
That is my reasoning of the effect of the rollover of the graph at
450 ppm.

Bennie

'Hey Runner, any comment on last night's 4 corners?'

I did not see it however the ABC would be among the biggest scaremongers when it comes to GW. No doubt they had many leading 'scientist' warning of the global freeze just 25 years ago.

Bazz,

You forced me to read the bloody thing. We agree that "Absorption of light follows a logarithmic curve". (Stuff in quotes is taken literally from the article.) No argument there.

He then says: "a linear increase in temperature requires an exponential increase in carbon dioxide". This does not follow from the earlier statement. The first statement said the _rate_ of energy capture from terrestrial radiation increases logarithmically with CO2 concentration. However temperature is not measure of a rate, ie of how fast energy is captured. It is a measure of a thing, in this case how _much_ energy has been captured.

So the question becomes: since we are increasing the rate at which the atmosphere absorbs energy, what is the final temperature reached? The method T.J.Nelson used to determine this is: "Between 1900 and 2000, atmospheric CO2 increased from 295 to 365 ppm, while temperatures increased about 0.57 degrees C ... It is simple to calculate the proportionality constant (call it 'k') between the observed increase in CO2 and the observed temperature increase". In other words, he seems to be assuming it the atmospheric temperature immediately settles to its final value once the CO2 concentration is set. Obviously it doesn't and won't for decades. Quite apart from anything else, the ocean has roughly 2000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, and so far only the surface has been effected. He then uses this proportionality constant k to predict future rises.

The climate system isn't a toaster you feed energy into and it rapidly stabilises. Energy goes in, oceans heat up, ocean currents change, water vapour increases, ice caps melt ... one thing feeding into another for decades. This is why we need unbelievably complex models to predict the climate. Nelson is effectively saying we turned the fish heater up a notch, immediately measure the temperature without waiting for it to stabilise, we can then use the increase to predict the temperature rise if we turn the heater up to full.

The guy writes numerical modelling software. Ahhhhh! Words fail me.

It is good to see climate scientists standing up for themselves. We have to fight for this planets future. We need to reduce our pollution across the board, not just in terms of the atmosphere (eg the floating sea of rubbish in the northern Pacific).

The scientific concensus is clearly that our world is warming and we are responsible. Having followed the blog argument recently, there is a lot from skeptics but some support from science as well. Go and look for yourself at the articles, read the IPCC reports and make up your own mind.