That is so pathetic, Graham.

So you “went looking for the most recent evidence” and surprise surprise, found Mr William DiPuccio, ex-weather forecaster/ex-science teacher (now self publisher) who is a guest poster on “denialist” blog sites, including ‘Watt’s Up With That’ and Jennifer Marohasy’s – well done Graham, maybe you can get an article from him as well.

Yet, I have the audacity to actually go to some of the real “most recent” peer reviewed published scientific papers so that others (if not you) can read and comprehend them, in context to what you and Mr DiPuccio have said.

And you come back with:

<< If he's so smart perhaps he could explain it to the rest of us. But he won't because the paper doesn't demonstrate what he implies it does. >>

Graham, you are playing the man again. I did not imply anything from either the Willis or Wijffels et al papers. It is you who are doing the implying, not me.

You say:

“... This is a problem for global warming enthusiasts because it means that the rate at which heat is escaping into space is increasing ...”

I see you were “not necessarily thinking straight”. I was about to say:

No. You are implying this. If not, maybe you should just give everyone here a citation, particularly since we have the technology to measure this “escaping heat”.

Or maybe someone just got in your ear and pointed out your statement was so far off the planet.

Incidentally, if you are implying I am a “global warming enthusiast” then I assert you really don’t understand what a scientist working in the field does.

Oh no! Sparkyq is failing to put forward a substantive argument or address the glaring deficiencies of his previous post! Instead, he's lumping 89% of Australians into a hippie stereotype that's at least 30 years out of date!

Run, my dreadlocked comrades! Hide behind the wind turbines before he calls climate change a religion!

Please, Sparky, have mercy. I beg you - don't continue to produce no facts or data, or rely on trite and childish insults to move your argument forward. Your primacy is so great that you needn't back your argument up with anything like proof!

You have brought the sustainability movement to its knees. Don't humiliate us any further with your complete lack of scientific knowledge or recycled statements that were disproved decades ago.

You're torturing us with your bald lack of evidence! Do the humane thing and stop proclaiming that 9 in 10 Australians are vegan solar power fanatics!

How much more can we bear? I beseech you not to destroy us by labelling climate change an "industry", or implying that research scientists live in gold-plated mansions by dint of their Marxist conspiracy to destroy Western society.

Your intelligence, articulation, and marshalling of facts is breathtaking to behold. With Sparkyq on their side, the AGW denialists will surely march to victory over the ignorant majority.

Q&A, that's as close to a concession as I have seen you make. The argument is whether ocean temperature has been decreasing. It has. You've obviously given-up trying to prove that it hasn't or you wouldn't have launched the diatribe above which avoids the substantive point altogether.

Mr DiPuccio actually references the paper that you claim you turned-up, but you couldn't read the graphs in it and claimed that Josh Willis had been "misrepresented". You've obviously gone back for a closer look!

If you find it too hard to argue the facts and want to rely on reputation I'd rather rely on the analysis of DiPuccio, who is demonstrably a real person, than you a pseudonymus poster to our forum who claims to be a scientist. There is nothing in what you post that suggests you understand science. Maybe you're employed in the field, but that doesn't make you a scientist.

The only fault you could point to in my post was the one I picked-up. If you want to punish people for making mistakes in the conversational space that is a forum, then you are going to make it difficult to have a civilised conversation online. Pity that you don't hold Al Gore to the same standard for his "documentary", even though one would have to say that a documentary was in an entirely different position for accuracy than a forum thread.

It wasn't "off the planet" to suggest that more energy is escaping into space, just less likely than the alternative explanation that there is less energy getting through to the earth.

The latter proposition is supported by Spencer's work with clouds and then there is the aerosol proposition which the AGW enthusiasts like yourself push.

Whatever...you have to provide an explanation as to why global heat has declined while CO2 has increased. Blustering might drive a wind turbine, but it proves nothing.

About some of these 'facts', Graham, I am trying to reconcile a few of these that seem to have been quoted by various posters.

Has the 'cooling' been going on for 6 years as you claim, or since 2000-2001 (8-9 years) as Mark Lawson claims or 11 years (since 1998) as various other posters claim?

I looked at the data that Mark Lawson posted that he said was from Hadley, apparently a source that he feels is accurate and saw that the second hottest year on record (that is, since scientific measurements of temperature have been made directly) was 2005. This means that the years flanking 2005 were cooler does it not? If this is the case, how can it be cooling before 2005? Surely the 'cooling' represents the 3.5 years after 2005?

In any case, how does the number of years that are claimed as 'cooling' years differ? I have my personal suspicions, but I would like to hear yours.

Hi Bugsy. The six or so years of cooling that I am referring to is for ocean temperature, not atmospheric temperature. 1998 was definitely a peak of the previous warming trend as far as we know at the moment. It could start warming again, in which case it will no longer be a peak.

The Hadley data is handily graphed on their website at http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html. They graph a 21 point binomial filter over it as well which is equivalent to a 10 year average. The binomial figure is showing that a down-trend has started, but of course it says nothing about how prolonged such a trend might be.

Averages always pick downtrends after they have started.

Lawson would presumably pick 1998 as the point that the downtrend started. 2005 can't be the start because it isn't the highest point, but as it is lower than 1998 is still part of the cooling trend. The 10 year average starts to turn down just before 2005, and keeps going down even after accounting for it.

Cooling can't have been going on for 11 years, because for that to be factual we would need to know this year's average temperature, which we won't for another 6 months.

But I think the argument about whether there is a cooling or a warming trend is a distraction from the real argument which is the complete disconnect between air temperature and increases in greenhouse gases. To explain that disconnect you have to find a reservoir where the extra heat that is supposed to be in the system can be hiding, which is why ocean temperature is crucial to whether there is any sort of correlation.

I make these comments from the point of view that I would expect increased CO2 in the atmosphere to increase global temperature. In that context the real argument is by how much, whether this matters, and if so, is it beneficial or damaging to human life.

No Graham.

I have not tried to prove (or disprove) whether ocean temperatures have been decreasing (or increasing). You really should stop putting words into my mouth.

As I pointed out to all and sundry, you were the one who “went looking for the most recent evidence”. And it was you who came up trumps with a ‘denialist’ blog site. All I did was to suggest that it may have been more scientific (if not prudent) to go to the primary source in question, in this case – Josh Willis, who incidentally says in Mr DiPuccio’s own citations:


“Call me Embarrassed. Some years ago ... I co-authored a paper with two colleagues that documented a rapid and recent cooling in the watery part of the world (Lyman et al., 2006). Our results were met with a certain amount of surprise and scepticism by the climate science community, but they caused a great deal of excitement among deniers of global warming.”

“So you can imagine how I felt when I finally discovered that the result was wrong. After more scrutiny of the data, we eventually showed that the cooling was caused by a small warm bias in the old ocean observing system, along with a huge cold bias among a few instruments in the new one.”

“Now that humans have become a major force in the Earth’s climate it is of paramount importance to build and maintain observing systems that can keep track of our ever- increasing impact.”

As I have consistently said on OLO, so called ‘alarmists’ AND ‘deniers’, should pull their collective butts out of their nether-nethers. Including (for your information) the political activist Al Gore, and the frustrated author of this current article.

As for my pseudonym – I am playing by the rules you yourself allow for OLO (without which the vast majority of posters would rather not engage, imho). Notwithstanding, you persistently want to ‘play’ me and go for my jugular – methinks you protest too much, Graham.

cont'd