My last on this thread. Here is another Plimer book review;

Ian MacDougall has done a reasonable job (imo) in breaking up the review into six parts (see Plimer's climatology series in the right pane).

Some may just prefer to follow the links below.

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-101/

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-102/

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-103/

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-104/

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-105-lard-franklins-dream/

http://noahsarc.wordpress.com/plimers-climatology-6-his-lordships-list/

Real sceptics would read the review ... maybe the OLO "sceptics" will too.

Thanks for the links Q&A.

DENIALISTS won't read them because they've got their dogma to protect! My feeling is genuinely sceptical technical minds would have turned their sceptical attention to the level of BELIEF required by the *conspiracy theories* necessary to debunk the comprehensive, worldwide peer-review process. They have to *believe in* an amazingly organised and deceptive worldwide movement involving scientists, politicians, independent universities and science institutes, all dedicated to deceiving the public for "some" grand purpose.

Or else they are *arrogant* enough to actually think the climatologists are so stupid they've "just forgotten" to check solar variation / water vapour / cosmic rays (or whatever other pixies and fairydust Plimer wants to sell as THE real driver of climate).

That they call themselves 'sceptics' makes me laugh. They've got more BELIEF than Fox Mulder.

Should I be looking at 1999 as my reference point (last ten years) for temperature changes instead of 1998?

Q&A, Eclipse,

The following is a bit self indulgent so apologies in advance, but some of the recent criticism of my 'endless questions' left me feeling the need to explain where I'm coming from.

Q&A said "You just seem to be creating noise…, why?"

It seems to me people write/read on these opinion threads for two main reasons (trolls aside): 1 to persuade, and 2 to learn. I am mainly here to learn. Thanks to Eclipse, I have definitely learned at least one key fact that had been buried deep within all the rhetoric and melodrama of this subject – CO2 levels are the highest they have been in millions of years (20 million on my further enquiries). This is serious food for thought, and I'm still thinking about it. If that's all I learn from my ramblings and readings on this thread and its many links, it will have been worth it.

However, I'd love to learn more, and that is why I ask questions? It's true I haven't spent months looking for all the answers, but sometimes, on threads like this, I find people who are both knowledgeable and helpful. My earlier questions were directed at you, Q&A, because I had the impression you were one of these rare people.

I am a lawyer by trade and argumentative by nature, but in my school days I was a bit of science buff and studied electrical engineering at UNSW for a couple of years before changing direction. My scientific knowledge is now all rusted up with the passage of time and not worth much, but I did learn a few scientific principles along the way, and am much more comfortable with numbers, statistics and reading scientific material than the average lay person. The principle that has served me best over the years, both as a science student, and as a lawyer, is that examining the truth of any proposition should be begun by examining all the assumptions that underpin it, and all the assumptions that underpin those assumptions, all the way back to first principles

(continued)

My asking questions, often challenging the assumptions behind the answers to my previous question, is not directed at being annoying (though you aren't the first I've annoyed by any stretch), but is a necessary part of understanding the first principles underpinning this whole debate. It's why I have tried to read much of the material that is linked to in this thread.

Many of the answers I have received, whilst well intentioned, are off the mark in ways that suggest a lack of fundamental understanding of what the question is directed at (e.g. I raised the issue of clouds and was directed to a site about water vapour – indicating that the person who referred me does not understand that clouds have a distinctly different effect than water vapour). Whilst I don't expect people on a thread like this to know all the answers, it amazes me that so many people have such strong opinions when they plainly don't have all the answers.

So enough of my 'white noise.' I would really appreciate answers to my previous questions, but if you don't have the time or inclination, or would be offended if I inevitably have further questions, then so be it. I'll just have to struggle on through the tears and hope I find answers elsewhere.

Kalin,
you're ahead of me in having some years of science behind you. However, from the little reading I've done on global warming I just can't accept that they've forgotten the effects of "clouds" in global warming theory. There is too much discussion about them.

For example: some of the previous links were to aerosol impacts on cloud formation. This means that while one might assume that more heat = more cloud = cooling = short circuit, we're already stuffing up the ability of nature to form clouds by our aerosols (in Indonesia's "Burning Season" and the Brown cloud across Asia).

Also, various real climatologist blogs had to respond to the silly assertions in "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that it was all down to a link between cosmic rays and cloud formation... leading to this article.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/recent-warming-but-no-trend-in-galactic-cosmic-rays/

But for now I'll leave you with this... until I find something more recent.

The last paragraph reads:

"Since the changes in low- and high-level clouds mostly cancelled each other out, the net global effect of the clouds did not differ very much in the warmer climate scenario from that in today's climate. This scenario differs considerably from what many climate scientists had been assuming in the 1990s. It had been thought that brighter clouds would partly "save" us from significant global warming, by reflecting more energy into space. Instead, these results suggest that clouds are not necessarily the white knight that will rescue us from climate change. Therefore, our society should seriously consider reasonable steps to limit future emissions of greenhouse gases and soot aerosols as part of an overall strategy to reduce air pollution."

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/delgenio_03/

(3 studies linked to at bottom).
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2000/DelGenio_Wolf.html

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1999/Yao_DelGenio.html

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1998/Tselioudis_etal.html