keith,

You don't need Andy to answer the first two questions. It is easy enough to find your answers yourself.

keith: "Haven't there been periods when there has been less ice cover than there is currently?"

Yes. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triassic#Climate

keith: "If all that ice has melted why hasn't the ocean level risen?"

It did rise. It is actually lowish by geological standards. See the graphic on the right and its comment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level#Changes_through_geologic_time

rstuart

Your references to wikipedia are enlightening. Just goes to show climate changes... naturally.

I doubt any scientist worth anything would be happy with references to wikipedia to support his contentions.

keith: "I doubt any scientist worth anything would be happy with references to wikipedia to support his contentions."

Partially correct. If Andy was conversing with another scientist in his area of expertise both would be well aware of everything Wikipedia had to say on the subject, so there would be no point in quoting it.

But for anything else Wikipedia is an excellent first stop. Particularly as it does cite the references, usually published peer reviewed papers. For example, in the case of sea levels these two papers are cited:

# Hallam, A., Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. B 325, 437-455 (1989).
# Harland, W.B. and many others, A Geologic Time Scale, (1982).

So if you really feel the urge to look at the original source material, go for it.

Have you actually ever done this? It is really heavy going. The published papers are written for other experts in the field. A lay person like myself find himself spending an inordinate amount of time reading background material just so I can understand the words on the page. Peter Doherty, Australian scientist and Nobel Prize winner, says he has the same difficulties when reading material outside of his area of expertise: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2009/06/26/2609568.htm .

Anyway, the point of my post wasn't to provide a complete and authoritative answer to your questions. The point was to demonstrate that if you are really interested in the answers, it is isn't hard to find them yourself. There is no need to unload that task onto Andy or anybody else here. But of course if your goal is merely to score points in a debate while not being too interested in investigating the subject being debated, then you went the right way about it.

Keith, there are inherent problems with Wikipedia in that it relies on outside sources for their information often not actual scientists nor is it up to date on all topics. As a general source for a 'quick reference' it's fine.
a better scientific source is http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/ and then select from the topics for the latest news.

There is no one source that is authoritative on everything. You need to have several *specific* discipline sites. Hence my Bookmarked sites are grouped on topics often with multiple in each discipline.

note too that the integrity of the site. i.e. Moncton's site is not authoritative. for the reasons Rstuart gives.

Almost everything Ian Read says is wrong and much is deliberately deceptive. I'll go on taking my climate science off the people and institutions that study climate, the vast majority of which have not been implicated in anything sinister.

The fundamental conclusions of climate science are still true, the urgent need for action is undiminished and the efforts of people like Ian Read to smear reputations are the desperate tactics of those who can't present a scientifically credible case otherwise.

Scientific debate is traditionally settled by evidence. Of course this may take years before a defining experiment is performed and confirmed by repetition by other research groups.

However, climate science has long ceased to be an entirely a matter for scientific adjudication. The climate arguments are taken up by politicicians, economists, financial or banking businesses and so on. The implications of this or that political decision on the conduct of business enterprises, or the social impact on ordinary citizens are enormous.

It is because of the societal impact of climate decision making and the uncompromising attitude of the principal proponents a judicial solution has to be sought.

Therefore the only valid response is the setting up of a Royal Commission with wide terms of reference. The Commissioners must have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence on oath. The evidence before the commission is subject to the test of cross examination. It is possible that individual countries will conduct their own investigation in accord with their individual legal systems. One can not trust the United Nations in this matter.

The leaked emails known as “climategate” make this a matter of urgency. Until such a Commission, as proposed above can complete its work, I suggest a strict moratorium on all so called climate change matters. Therefore the Copenhagen Climate Conference should be abandoned.