Hasbeen,

You promised me some research that demonstrates that increasing CO2 levels are cancelled by declining water vapour levels. YOU HAVE NOT DELIVERED.

I have given you links to websites that explain the science and allow you to do you own calculations. This physics has been known for more than 100 years. It has nothing to do with some (not all) climate scientists playing hanky panky with data.

Increasing CO2 levels can, and everything else being equal, WILL, cause global warming. Increasing cloud cover MAY mitigate global warming. It MAY also trap more heat. It's a two-edged sword.

Another factor that may mitigate or delay CO2 driven global warming is increasing dust levels in the atmosphere.

BTW where did you get this figure of 95% or 98% or whatever of the greenhouse effect being caused by water vapour? It has no basis in reality.

What is true is that hot air can hold more water vapour than cooler air. More water evaporates from a hotter ocean surface than a cooler surface. The water vapour content of the air IS increasing. This IS AMPLIFYING the greenhouse effect.

The difficulty with climate science is this:

We are trying to detect what is still a weak signal from a noisy background. We are trying to detect the signal while it is weak precisely because if we wait for it to get strong it may be game over for human civilisation.

Scepticism is good.

Denialism is dysfunctional.

Any dispassionate individual looking at the evidence thus far should be able to see that the basic physics, coupled with observation, is strong enough to mandate action.

I WISH IT WEREN'T SO HASBEEN.

I truly do.

But it is what it is. Those of us in the reality based community will simply have to push ahead on this issue to the best of our ability.

To quote you back at yourself, you won't believe it no matter what the evidence.

we heard the media cry wolf too often

recall sadman insane..
and his weopens of mass destraction..
standing in the un ...with drawings?

recall the bird fluke..when pigs flew
it seems the latest children overboard media beat up

lets face it the spin merchants test market their proffitable spin
to sell us down the creek...im over their beat ups...if the media cant begin delivering real news...not sport.,,and spin...

and the 50/50 weather..[wether?...for casting..[or is it spinning]...todays talking points...econo-mists giving business certainty...lol...a new tax to rebuild yet more industry

a new cash cow...yes chicken little the moon is falling...maybe tghis time...maybe next time...itr may be true...but then it might be lies /spin and delusion...again

one thing is for sure....the media gets it on the fear side everytime..dosnt attempt to get it right..as the 5 media companies..entertaintment/conglomerates consolidate their powers..into 3...running their spin machine

now for the latest wepons of mass destraction...ho ho ho..yeah its media silly season...still...consumers..driven by fear..from the lackluster panic medium/media...to seek out comfort food...

let us alone...go spin your delusions to your kids...were trying to die in dignity here...from natural causes..if possable...with the air con on full if need be...and the heater..if you got it wrong again

If you are fair dinkum about global warming, well do something about it.
Don't wait for govt; to come up with mass ideas,It all starts with you.
What the general public has to do is cut down or out co2.
When the public achieves this there will be enough co2 savings for industry to continue. That is why they are collecting carbon credits.
It's far easier for the public members to cut down first, then work on business. Filthy diesel engines can be converted to LPG now.
Get a KW of power on ya roof, and solar ot water.
New houses should come standard with these things.
Run ya toilet with tank water.
It's all to easy to wait for govt; to tell you what to do, do something for yourself.

Climate scientists, enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame, have let the glare of the spotlights blind and befuddle their thinking.

Climate scientists are hell bent on threatening us all with the consequences of ignoring their prophecies of doom

However, they are very silent on the benefits to us all of implementing their strategies

So we lower some theoretical measure of supposed pollution?

What are the anticipated benefits?

Where are the “Cost : Benefit” analyses?

What is the added value of all this hysteria?

If, setting up a ETS and following headlong into reducing supposed emissions back to 80% what they were theorised to be 20 years ago means that a seal colony will survive in Greenland and the Moose will continue to migrate from an icy wilderness I must ask – will it all be worth it ?

will Canada once again see a return of the fabled "northern penguin"?

Will it be worth a brass razzo when the supposed pollution limits are either exempted or ignored by the nations who represent 75% the world population and 100% the world population growth?

It sounds more and more like just a plan of self abuse of the developed world

Now, we all know the only outcome of self-abuse is to go blind

And with the tattered reputation for ethicacy of the so-called “science" of climate change,

I cannot help thinking that would just be another example of

The blind leading the blind.

We have in Australia a Cult, one that is anti-authoritarian and consequently anti-intellectual.
I say cult, because it has gone beyond healthy suspicion, to the point of fingers in the ears and la la la-ing with extraordinary ferocity lest something intelligent seep through.

Due to an environment bombards the public with so much false and or dubious information, they don't know who to believe.

This is exacerbated by a dysfunctional political system, a the government fails to lead, through fear of an interest groups lead backlash which might, heaven forbid, put them out of power.

On the other side, an opposition, it's now official (Abbott, Lateline), that sees its whole focus on being oppositional and discrediting the government regardless, to the exclusion of the interests of the country.

Abbott, last night admitted that he hadn't sought any scientist advice on AGW. He also admitted to changing his mind several times. This will undoubtedly appeal to the anti intellectualism of the cultist rump of Liberal support.

Who, from reading this and other sites, go to extraordinary irrational levels avoiding actual science (101 et al) to justify business as normal.

The denialists/sceptics (title is irrelevant) call the other side, without really understanding what they're inferring, alarmists, catastrophe-ists.

Ask yourself , if the alarmists et al are such, what is their motive? Do alarmists have some immunity to the drama of change? Or do you really believe that the majority of scientists and alarmists are insane, that they WANT to suffer uncertainty and traumatic change?

While the Anti-intellectual cultists are busy doing what their doing, global warming (anthropomorphic or not) is melting 150 cubic kilometres of ice extra each year from the Antarctic, adding to the Arctic and glaciers melting (observable, science fact, not opinion). What do they think is going to happen? What was telling on Lateline after Abbott was the new scientific data (worth a look).

Like it or no,t we need to prepare and that will cause massive expenditures, that in turn will affect our lives. So I ask What are you going to do about that?

eyejaw: "One example among many concerns the origin and residence time of CO2 in the air"

With respect to how long CO2 remains in the atmosphere, a year ago I heard an interview with Freeman Dyson, an AGW sceptic, which discussed among other things his debate with Robert May about the subject.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/inconversation/stories/2008/2444172.htm

I'll quote what Dyson said in that article directly, as he puts it much better than I can:

"Oh it's just a simple confusion between two ways of measuring the lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He says carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 100 years, I say it stays in the atmosphere for 10 years and the difference is very simple in that any particular molecule of carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 10 years, that's a fact that is easily measurable. But it turns out for every carbon dioxide molecule that disappears into vegetation another one is released by what they call respiration which is essentially decay of leaves and grass so that every carbon dioxide molecule that's absorbed by a tree is replaced by another one except for a small fraction. So the 10-year lifetime is the lifetime of a molecule without replacement, the 100-year lifetime is the lifetime with replacement. It's a very simple confusion that we happen to use different definitions of lifetime."

Thus as far as I tell, there is no disagreement about the facts. Obviously, when it comes to whatever Green House effect the CO2 is going to have, the 100 year measurement is the more useful one. However the fast rate of recycling does effect arguments about how responses by vegetation could influence CO2 in the medium term. Disagreements about these potential eeffects of vegetation is where the true difference between May and Dyson lay.

As for Tom Segalstadt - his position is just plain weird. You can find a list of reasons why the CO2 rise is believed to be caused by humans here: http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.CO2rise.html I find the isotope evidence the most convincing.