1. Good point Bugsy.

2. Relevance of the MWP? While you're looking down your nose at my technical ineptitude, you could at least bother answering the questions that prove relevance.

3. "The sea is hotter than the atmosphere on average so there can be no net transfer of energy to it from the atmosphere. The re-radiation of infra-red in the direction of the sea will slightly increase its temperature."

Well I'm glad we got there eventually. No net transfer of energy except... when there's global warming increasing the atmosphere's re-radiating more infra-red back into the ocean.

So other than rambling on a heck of a lot longer than I did, what's new?

Tell me, how much is this "slightly" you mention? Anything like this...

"The ocean is warming about 50 per cent faster than reported two years ago, according to an update of the latest climate science.
A report compiling research presented at a science congress in Copenhagen in March says recent observations are near the worst-case predictions of the 2007 report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In the case of sea-level rise, it is happening at an even greater rate than projected - largely due to rising ocean temperatures causing thermal expansion of seawater."

"While that looks like a modest figure, that would correspond to something like 15 to 20 times more heat going into the ocean than has gone into the atmosphere," Professor Steffen said.
"Well over half of the increase in ocean temperature occurred in the last 10 years, so the system is accelerating."

* Sea level is predicted to rise by about a metre by 2100, though it notes models of the behaviour of polar ice sheets are in their infancy.
* Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have not been substantially higher than now for at least the last 20 million years.
* Global average surface temperature will hardly drop in the first thousand years after greenhouse gas emissions are cut to zero.

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/rising-ocean-temperatures-near-worstcase-predictions-20090619-cmcs.html

Eclipsed Now,

Here’s an example of climate change proponents tripping over themselves:

1)Steven Chu -US Secretary of Energy (TIME Aug 24,2009-p32)
--"When I asked Chu about the earth-is-actually-cooling argument, he rolled his eyes and whipped out a chart showing that the 10 hottest years on record have all been in the past twelve years and 1998 was the hottest. He mocked the skeptics who focus on that post--1998 blip while ignoring a century-long trend of rising temperatures; "See? It's gone down! The earth must be cooling!" But then he got serious, almost plaintive:” You know, it's totally irresponsible. You're not supposed to make up facts"

The message here is the earth is not cooling –even in the short-term. And to even suggest it is “irresponsible”.

2) Then we have our own resident OLO –expert-- Eclipse Now:
“Not only is the myth of cooling since 1998 factually incorrect..."

Message again loud and clear (he’s learnt by heart all his Climate Change For Children notes)The only problem is, the science has moved on – he’s been eclipsed !

3) This NewsScientist (12 Sept 2009 – p10) reporting a gathering of 1500 climate scientists at the UN’s World Climate Change Conference in Geneva “last week”.

Firstly : Mojib Latif – Author for the IPCC & climate change physicist .
“Latif predicts that in the next few years a natural cooling trend will dominate …the cooling would be down to cyclical changes in the atmosphere& ocean currents know as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) & the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation (AMO)…the NAO was probably reasonable for some of the strong warming seen around the globe IN THE PAST THREE DECADES . “But how much? The jury is still out,” …The NAO is now moving into a that phase that will cool the planet “
Secondly: Pope- “Another favourite climate belief was overturned when Pope warned the conference that the dramatic Artic ice loss in recent summers was partly a product of natural cycles rather than global warming .Preliminary reports suggest there has been much less melting this year than 2008 or 2008.”

HO HUM!

Eclipse Now,

I am not an academically qualified scientist either but that can be an advantage. Instead of being trained to focus on a specific field of expertise, lay thinking is often lateral and it is possible to see and understand some things a trained mind might miss.

In my opinion AGW is occurring. Of course pea soup is much thicker than ocean algae but how much thicker? Algae blooms on top of the ocean you refer to are just a small part of the total mass. Micro algae exists generally but now in unprecedented quantity in some ocean currents and in bays and lagoons. General micro algae permeates deeper that just in surface waters.

Algae is matter that exists in addition to ocean water. Matter has ability to absorb heat. Additional matter has ability to transfer additional heat. Ocean currents transport algae including absorbed heat. Young people have not seen previously blue water that is now often green or shades of green. A change has occurred, how much green algae is involved in that change may one day be indicated by science. How watery is the pea soup? Even a slight amount of vegetable matter can make a difference retaining warmth for a longer time, time enough for a current to transport that algae and warmth from one area to another.

Ocean algae is producing CO2. Can you figure that one? Has anyone noted IPCC assessment of CO2 produced by ocean algae?

Eclipse Now, sorry I have not heard the You Tube link you posted as my sound system is down.

Having established the reasons why Fred Singer's views on AGW require assessment with considered skepticism, the following article discusses the whys and wherefores of the impact of CO2 levels on our atmosphere in the current state of the planet's water and ice levels. As there are varying levels of understanding regarding this impact, I found this essay to be very succinct and helpful.

""Modern-day levels of carbon dioxide were last reached about 15 million years ago," Tripati says, when sea levels were at least 25 meters higher and temperatures were at least 3 degrees C warmer on average. "During the middle Miocene, an [epoch] in Earth's history when carbon dioxide levels were sustained at values similar to what they are today [330 to 500 ppm], the planet was much warmer, sea level was higher, there was substantially less ice at the poles, and the distribution of rainfall was very different."

Further, "at no time in the last 20 million years have levels of carbon dioxide increased as rapidly as at present," Tripati adds; CO2 concentrations have climbed from 280 ppm to 387 ppm in the past 200 years. And "our work indicates that moderate changes in carbon dioxide levels of 100 to 200 parts per million were associated with major climate transitions and large changes in temperature"—indicative of a very sensitive climate."

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-sensitive-is-climate-to-carbon-dioxide&sc=CAT_ENGYSUS_20091015

The article concludes:

""Climate systems are well linked worldwide, such as sea-level, CO2, ice sheet[s], the Asian monsoon, regional temperature and precipitation," Cheng (Paleoclimatologist Hai Cheng of the University of Minnesota) says. "So a change in one of them could trigger changes in others." And that might mean the climate is too sensitive to tolerate current levels of CO2 without changing the conditions that have allowed human civilization to flourish in the past 10,000 years.

Bugsy

GY can throw ad hominems at any with whom he disagrees; behaviour of which we are all guilty occasionally.

Back to playing-the-ball'.

Fred Singer disagreed with the prevailing wisdom of the scientific community regarding passive-smoking, in the early 1990's and currently denies AGW.

"Singer ... appeared on a tobacco industry list of people who could write op-ed pieces defending the industry’s views, according to a peer-reviewed commentary by Derek Yach and Stella Aguinaga Bialous, W.H.O."

(http://www.tobaccoscam.ucsf.edu/pdf/9.6-JunkScience-Yach.pdf - pages 2 & 3 under heading Distortions)

Singer is undoubtedly an intelligent and highly qualified man:

"In the 1940s and 50s, Singer designed the first instruments used in satellites to measure cosmic radiation and ozone. He invented the backscatter photometer ozone-monitoring instrument for early versions of US weather satellites. By the early 1960s he was a leading figure in the early development of earth observation satellites, .... establishing and becoming the first Director of the National Weather Bureau's Satellite Service Center (1962-64)".

Nevertheless he remains at odds yet again with scientific consensus; as one of the few qualified scientists that vested interests (GE, Ford, GM, Exxon, Shell, Sun Oil, Lockheed Martin and IBM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer) have in their arsenal of denial of anthropogenic influence of the ecosystem known as planet Earth.

His confirmed associations with the "usual-suspects" in the above mentioned industries and with Tobacco industry (as referenced above) does leave much room for doubt as to his credibility regarding the impact of human pollution on our planet.

Healthy scepticism is vital to any claims, especially those as critical as climate-change, however it is prudent to simply check on whose interests are being served or represented.

The majority of credible scientific organisations may be wrong about the extent of AGW or even that humans have any impact at all on climate.

However, we can stop polluting (which would reduce algae blooms JF Aus) as well as moving towards renewable resources. Is that so wrong?
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Note:

This post was originally posted prior to the one above and reworded in accordance with OLO guidelines.

**JF Aus**
I asked you to watch "Crude".
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/
Massive oceanic algae blooms actually COOL the earth. Watch Part 3, only 30 minutes.

**Fractelle** Good points, especially on Singer’s strange behaviour. One just has to read the wiki and follow the footnotes to check just how bizarre this fellow’s views are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer#Views

**Horus**
1) You raise 1998 again? Really? Wow.

This *was* the hottest decade on record.

NASA *did* record 2005 as *hotter* than 1998.

Even fellow Denialists are worried about pushing this myth. You must have missed previous discussion about it.

Denialist Dr Patrick J Michaels explained that El Nino and La Nina cycles can, in the short term at least, disguise the longer term trends and concluded:

"Make an argument that you can get killed on and you will kill us all…
If you loose credibility on this issue you lose this issue!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnrpwctIh4

Learn to tell the difference between reading 6 year data-picked trends and climate change over 15 to 20 year trends.

2) I have repeatedly stated that I am not even a scientist, let alone climate expert, just that I can call a crock when I see one.

For example, quoting only *part* of the picture that you want to admit. EG: You quote Mojib Latif.

Again, we’ve already discussed this on this thread.

But I have to ask, did you just rip this "Mojib Latif" quote off some Denialist blog because it sounded good and serves your purpose for this 5 minutes of this debate? Did you actually read his speech in context?

This is just another example of Denialists cherry-picking the bits they want to hear without actually taking home the *complete* message that even a 10 year old could comprehend.

Watch this youtube for his actual speech, and then tell me about his projections for *this century*.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khikoh3sJg8&feature=sdig&et=1255382545.77