*What Ian is really saying is the most climate scientist are lying, that they are doing it for the money and that they are all dumb and he has found the magic bullet that proves it all*

Sheesh, I never interpreted the article in that way at all. The
way I understand it, what Ian is saying is that scientists, as other
humans, sometimes act in their own self interest and we should
be skeptical. Sometimes assumptions are made and claimed as facts,
when that is not the case, as in this case.

Climate science is not my area of expertise, but I find the
questioning and nit picking going on, very valid. Climategate
is indeed exposing a rort of some of the figures and includes
vanishing data, so the alarm bells should surely ring. The
science needs to stand to all scrutiny, or its just an assumption
and not valid.

If this was just about a minor issue, nobody would care. But given
the money involved and the politics involved, IMHO the more
questions asked, the better.

It certainly seems to me that some of this Climatechange story is
becoming a bit of a religion for some, for its blamed for just about
everything.

What I like about the skeptics that I have read, is their reasoning
skills. None of them are denying that climate changes, our historical
records show that it does. What is claimed is that we simply arn't
sure about how much of this is due to human influence and how
much is natural, like effects of the sun etc. Given that the
scientists making claims about climate are seemingly unable to
forecast its changes accurately, using their models, I would
have to agree with the skeptics that there are flaws in the system,
which we simply don't yet understand.

Trying to cover up these flaws, is not the way to go about it.

Jon J: "in Australia, where we have had our coldest October for some time"

From http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/archive/200910.summary.shtml describing the Australian weather this October 2009:
"monthly mean temperatures for the [Australian] continent were still slightly above average"

From http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml describing November 2009:
"it was still Australia’s hottest November on record with a mean temperature anomaly of +1.87°C"

Over 2yrs ago I have questioned the logic of this populist science of AGW theory and now it seems that I'm right.

Money it seems, can buy almost anything,even scientific fraud.

Comment by Andrew Glikson
Earth and paleoclimate scientist,
Australian National University

The article overlooks direct observations and recent climate trends around the globe, as well as the basic laws of physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. Models are used to project future trends, not to substitute for direct observations.

Since the industrial revolution the combustion of fossil fuel resulted in the emission of more than 320 billion tons of carbon (BtC) as CO2. This is more than half the pre-industrial carbon content of the atmosphere of 590 BtC. About 200 BtC stayed in the atmosphere, raising CO2 levels from 280 parts per million (ppm) to the current level of 388 ppm. When the effects of methane are included the total rise of greenhouse gases is equivalent to 460 ppm CO2.

Since the 18th century mean global temperature rose by about 0.8oC. A further rise by about 0.5oC is masked by short-lived effect of sulphur aerosols emitted from fossil fuel combustion, and which reflect solar radiation back to space. It is the aerosol effect, combined with a solar minimum, which resulted in a lull in global warming during 1965-1975.

The polar regions warm about 4 times faster than low latitudes, to date by as much 3 to 4oC, with consequent large scale melting of the sea ice and ice sheets. Thus the Arctic Sea ice cover was reduced by some 32% from 1979 to 2007, far in excess of IPCC projections (Figure 3), rendering the latter conservative. Greenland September melt area increased from 14 to 21 million square km from 1979 to 2007. The west Antarctic ice sheet and East Antarctic ice sheet lost between 113 and 267 billion tons of ice per year since 2006. Both ice sheets have been loosing more than 0.5 meter ice thickness per year and in parts up to 1.5 meter per year. The polar ice sheets constitute the "thermostats" of the Earth's climate. Once they are gone, the climate shifts to a new state contrasted with that which allowed agricultural cultivation and thus the rise of civilization.

Andy

1. Haven't there been periods when there has been less ice cover than there is currently?
2. If all that ice has melted why hasn't the ocean level risen?
3. Where has your raw data come from?

Yabby ,

Perhaps you need to listen to this 2 min answer to the impact of 'climate gate' on the data.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8396035.stm

The author has overstated much of *his* assumptions and therefore his conclusions are biased. He needs a scandal to justify his book much like Chariots of the Gods and the Lapsang Rampa sagas
Recent data is far more accurate than he claims.
Also note he is a geographer only an interest in climatology.

You might like to look at http://www.realclimate.org/

The major source for the 'terrible crime' is at best over stated at worse cherry picking By Christopher Moncton trained as a classics scholar and a dipl. of journalism.

Most are based on some spurious notion that there is a large scale fraud or a conspiracy.