This is absolute proof of the power of blogs. As more review of the raw data and the adjustments that were used become known, the powers that be within the UN and the climate industry lose the ability to duck behind the peer review charade.

If the "geeks" can peel back the skin of the onion and show that there has been as much manipulation of data as most of us suspect, we might finally see the end of the "Climate Change" histeria and be able to start a reasoned discussion based on validated facts and verifiable theories. Sort of like, you know, real science.

That sound you hear is all the people at the Democrat party headquarters screaming "NOOOO!" in unison.

I'm strongly reminded of the time Arthur Kellermann was compelled by Congress to produce the data from his various studies on gun control. Heard the same sound too. :)

Between this and Osama Yo Mama's little TV show, I'd say there's some major scrambling going on down there in Warshingtoon today.

Here come all of the keyboard climate scientists!

Quick: Write down the diffusion equation, describe its form, and solve its relative, the heat equation, for a flat metal plate heated on one edge.

It's like watching armchair warriors criticizing MMA fighters...i.e., it would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Came across a interesting British comment site that covers much the same topics of interest that Kate does and is also ascerbic on Climate Hysteria. He actually got a letter published by Steyn!... anyway,
http://monkeytenniscentre.blogspot.com/
worth a peek.
Anon, I am not a climate scientist, rather an amateur historian with a great interest in the neolithic/ holocene. In other words a passion for what can be known about the paleoclimate and it effect on contemporary humans. One thing this teaches is that climate change is real and the swings and variations can be violent, sudden and profound. And this was long before any industrial age added it piddling share of CO2 or water vapour to the atmosphere ( piddling in comparison to that spewed by any self respecting volcano or the effects of methane). The legitimate question has always been " do we spend our resources on adaptation or avoidance?"
My position and that of many others is that King Canutes' lesson was real and apt ( albeit largely misunderstood by modern educators), you cannot hold back the tide. As our suns' radiant output fluxes, as various volcanos (Toba, Yellowstone) can devastate whole hemespheres and decades, as a largeish meteor stike on the wrong tectonic plate boundary can set in motion tsunamies lasting millennia causing mass extinctions... I concede that certainly locally men may be a problem and cause of pollution, but that globally he is as the flare of a pocketmatch held up before the sun on a clear day at noon from a mountaintop and that our scarce resources must be applied with the best intelligence we can muster. (And yes I know that even the smallest lit match can cause a fire that can get someone kilt, but if we have to spend billions I would rather have those billions to hand and applied to adaptation. And dont tell me that the polar bears dont have that option, as a species they may be only 100,000 years old but the Arctic Ocean was mostly ice free 7000 years ago and had been since shortly after the end of the last glaciation 10000 years ago).
But then I am no expert
Sincerely,
Robert Albin
Calgary

Came across a interesting British comment site that covers much the same topics of interest that Kate does and is also ascerbic on Climate Hysteria. He actually got a letter published by Steyn!... anyway,
http://monkeytenniscentre.blogspot.com/
worth a peek.
Anon, I am not a climate scientist, rather an amateur historian with a great interest in the neolithic/ holocene. In other words a passion for what can be known about the paleoclimate and it effect on contemporary humans. One thing this teaches is that climate change is real and the swings and variations can be violent, sudden and profound. And this was long before any industrial age added it piddling share of CO2 or water vapour to the atmosphere ( piddling in comparison to that spewed by any self respecting volcano or the effects of methane). The legitimate question has always been " do we spend our resources on adaptation or avoidance?"
My position and that of many others is that King Canutes' lesson was real and apt ( albeit largely misunderstood by modern educators), you cannot hold back the tide. As our suns' radiant output fluxes, as various volcanos (Toba, Yellowstone) can devastate whole hemespheres and decades, as a largeish meteor stike on the wrong tectonic plate boundary can set in motion tsunamies lasting millennia causing mass extinctions... I concede that certainly locally men may be a problem and cause of pollution, but that globally he is as the flare of a pocketmatch held up before the sun on a clear day at noon from a mountaintop and that our scarce resources must be applied with the best intelligence we can muster. (And yes I know that even the smallest lit match can cause a fire that can get someone kilt, but if we have to spend billions I would rather have those billions to hand and applied to adaptation. And dont tell me that the polar bears dont have that option, as a species they may be only 100,000 years old but the Arctic Ocean was mostly ice free 7000 years ago and had been since shortly after the end of the last glaciation 10000 years ago).
But then I am no expert
Sincerely,
Robert Albin
Calgary

Mortified, cover eyes with hands, avert head, sphincter clenching, slowly crawl mewling off to the side of the road, back broken... a double posting!
Sorry all,
( see I told you I was no expert; what I am is red of face)
Robert Albin

Anon

Your point? The science is tougher than it looks?

Granted.

The fact that scrutiny of the data and technique of Hansen found a foothold on the web is the story. McIntyre seemingly deconstructed a flawed methodology.

Let the factual debate begin.

Or are you of the school of thought that dictates the first knee to the groin wins?

A strange analogy...only surpassed by the seemingly weird science of the catastrophists.

Syncro

Apparently then the sky is not falling... who let chicken little out of his cage???

Moonbats, on their latest "free the poultry" binge.

Anon, you have your hands on your ears singing LALALALALA...

Let's see, this global warming isn't apparent in the US, South America, Africa.....

....not very "GLOBAL" then is it?

anon,

I am sure there are people on this blog who are capable of reviewing the code, are you one of them?

Even if there arent anyon that wasnt the point of McIntyre's challenge. It is about making the information available. Which actually was one of the original purposes of the internet in the first place, so thatacademics could easily share data and communicate...original purpose being defence communications but thats another story.

The info is now available in its original form and can be peer reviewed or layman reviewed....does it really matter? It beats being lcked away in some climate vatican so that only priests can see it

The reason s/he posts under anon is the same reason as the poor suckers who get caught in any scam....they can't stand the fact they are non thinking fools. The AGW cultists are seeing their scam fall apart slowly,the same as the priests did with Gallileo etc. Exclude over half the earth's area,and say you have "settled science"? Try that with your taxes next year anon,and see how fast you have to reveal facts/formulae for your "settled amount owing"!!

Go to the NDP website to see a picture of Jack Layton side by side with a 90 horsepower motor as he tools about on his Artic Tour on Climate Change. heh heh
http://www.ndp.ca/page/5693

Hey Anon, it must suck to watch your hobby horse get shot out from under you by morons like us, eh?

Let me tell you the future, bunky. Between now and November '08 these revelations about global warming science being crap are going to come fast and furious. Won't be hard for the little elves to do this because it IS crap. (No, I'm not giving you a linky. No links for ill mannered trolls)

After this election no DemocRat will ever mention Global Warming again, same as they never mention gun control after the 2000 election.

Liberals and the NDP will naturally stay behind the curve a few more years to try and wring some more votes from the dead horse. We have a much more...cooperative... media than the Yanks. No Rush Limbaugh, no Fox.

Sleigh ride's over. Find a new issue to express your hate, jerk.

test

In the face of all the overwhelming counter evidence to prove the theory of MMGW to be flawed, I notice the weather channel still pumping out the daily hysteria gruel.........I had pretty much boycotted this shrill source of hysterics but I was stuck in a motel room and wanted a loacal weather reading (which the weather channel got wrong)...and there we were being told by the talking head that southern Ontario had a "hot spell" attributed to global warming.....Now you don't have to be a resident of Onterrible to know their southern "peninsula" is surrounded by 3 great lakes...these control the weather there. So I went to the government weather site online and ran their seasonal radar model to see what was going on in Ontario this summer...apparently it has been hot...mostly due to humidity from the lakes and no wind for extended periods...when they do get a wind it is a north wind which lofts the humidity high and carries it off to rain somewhere other than southern ontario...so they have had less rain than normal because of north winds carrying it out of the region..temperatures were normal for the season but felt hotter because of the humidity and windless days.( Seems the weather channel broadcasts weather "perceptions" rather than indices)

But no, this is MMGW causing "hot spells" according to the weather channel...who has commercials for hybrid cars on every 1/2 hr. :D

good one phantom, this is a very big 5 billion year old earth, been through asteroids volcanos floods whatever, only a moronic liberal stinking environMENTAList would be stupid enough to believe the big lie. Goebbels would be so proud of these suzuker types and their new hobby horse. As we fill the bank accounts of sheiks and terrorists for oil here in the west, we are shut off from drilling in so many places that would free us of dependance on these countries. The environMENTAList is the real enemy, what is really wrong with the environment, gets hot in summer cold in winter, same as it always has. These gores and suzukers will be seen as the most destructive to the econmy over time.

Interesting, too, is how the code had to be dragged out of him. I seem to remember several months ago, that Hansen released some dribs and drabs of his method, but only the barest minimum he was required by the conditions of his grant to release. Also noteworthy in the climateaudit comments is that much of the released code was time stamped only in the last few weeks and days. I ain't no expert, but that smells fishy to me.

The whole point of academia is to be able to look at someone else's methods and published data. If it holds up under scrutiny and reproduction then it becomes more reliable. That is a fundamental part of the scientific method.

I am an academic, I'd be insulted if someone denied me his data or methods after it was published. It would be unacceptable if I refused to do the same after i published data.

People that hide data have something else to hide.

Why are some lefties so against this?

All I want out of this is some advance warning on the next UN/leftard worldwide cause celebre' . A guy needs time to set up the companies ( offsets anyone ? ) , to properly fleece the well-heeled overindulgers .

Hiding something ?? Yup. The fudge factors. Same method as 2nd year science students sometime use.

The Kult is unraveling --- that is for sure.

It has been a long haul in dragging down the media-enhanced scam, but the truth always wins eventually.

The darkest days were during the United Nations' Montreal Dec 05 meeting where PM Matin made a complete ass of himself on the world stage. (have not heard from him since)

The most difficult part was seeing TV "interviews" (script) featuring the "iconic" Suzuki telling lies and knowing others were denied access to both the meeting and the media because they were not "stake holders". (aka, they were not taken in by the Kult)

Name two, you say ?

Nancy Green Raine and Tim Ball.

I suggest we try running the programs in reverse; perhaps this will reverse global warming.

It's kind of a non-issue don't you think? But hey, anything that gets Steve McIntyre,
a self promoting attention seeker with connections to the petroleum industry some headlines. This guy has done absolutely nothing to advance his argument against man made global warming. In fact he has at times become a bit of an embarrassment to those trying to convince you that the debate is still open. Many are either too lazy, stubborn or simple minded to make the paradigm shift to recognising that AWG is real and to understand the problem they along with their children will face.
Steve McIntyre may have found very a minor correction in the temperature record, but that has not changed the science behind AGW. The earth is still warming and you don’t need a code to see evidence

www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=5492&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=Dissecting%20the%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%27s%20Mannhunt&Cache=False

The day our local weatherman can start batting 900 on weather for the next day or two, instead of the 300 they have been averaging here in the Frazer Valley, this so called summer {it has been the coldest, wettest I can remember}. I will start considering the predictions of someone who claims to be able to predict the climate 50 years from now.

"a self promoting attention seeker with connections to the petroleum industry" You mean like the goracle right alby?"The earth is still warming and you don’t need a code to see evidence"
Yeah like the frost on my windshield this morning or the snow in the mountains to the west of me, You have to download this pic, not quite 2 mb I took it about an hour ago.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/d38ff1/
all signs of global warming for sure or is that global cooling? Oh wait a minute, I work for a oil company! Oh well I guess I'll have to eliminate myself as an unbiased character. But if I'm eliminated because I work for an oil company, alby, does that mean I get to eliminate the fruit fly guy seeing as he takes money from oil companies as well? good reading here http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover022207.htm and a list of donors here http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/DSF-AR0506-final-web.pdf
I must admit that I find the reports of people freezing to death during extreme cold snaps slightly bewildering, plus worries that the extremely cold temperatures over the artic will expand the ozone hole mystifing. Why would either of these events occur with gobal warming? Sort of like the line "sun so hot I froze to death"

Albatros:
Thank you for expressing your opinion. It's actually a very big issue. We are being asked to make large scale changes to our lives based upon what we are told is science. The problem is there is not much resembling science involved. If the methods and means are not published (what has been released is still not the actual code) then there is no way to verify. Scieence must be verifiable. It is imperitive that we insist on open access to the government funded "science". I'm also glad you pointed-out the "connection to the petroleum industry". Everyone should note that big money is available for those telling the right story, problem is the multibillions are for the pro AGW crowd.

Albie did not just drink the Gore potion,he guzzled it.

Albatross,

Please make your name and address public while making the follwoing statement

"Steve McIntyre is knowingly making false statements denying Anthroprogenic Global Warming because he is in the pay of the Petroleum Industry."

This is what you mean right?

If not then stop implying motives to someone.

McIntyre himself says the world is warmer than before, he also said his find reconfirming 1934 as the warmest summer on record in North America is not an earth shattering development.

The nice thing about Steve is he would say that 2006 being the warmest on record wouldnt have been earth shattering either.

Find me one, just one measurable prediction that the AGW crowd have made successfully without having to revise downward later and I will grant more credibility to the theory.

As it stands right now, the data is questionable, the predctions havent worked out and there are significant other theories challenging AGW as the pre eminent explaination for the warming we have seen, which is less than AGW predicts and nowhere near as global as the theory would imply.

All due respect Albatross but the epithets of lazy, simple minded and stubborn are probably better descriptions of AGW idealogues.

Albatross, you try to deflect the argument into a warming/colding cul de sac, which is your falacy.

My, and many other skeptics' position is:

Well, it may be warmer at the moment, by how much and why are not clear. It gets warmer and colder all the time. Here in Ottawa, it goes between -30C and +30C every six months. I think this is part of a natural cycle. So, some piddling little 0.xC over 150 years, after a prolonged "cold" period, doesn't seem so weird.

Also, a warmer planet would be good for every living thing. And CO2 is not a pollutant, but a necessary gas for all living things; more is better.

What we are opposed to is hysterical rantings based upon ignorant computer models fed with bad data, all for very obvious political reasons.

Lysenko? Albatross?

Alby favors sterilizing Africa to reduce the surplus human load on Mother Gaia, don'tch Alby?

Your bridge is falling, you better go check on it.

Colour me surprised. Not one person here could even verify a simple diffusion or transport model. This means that everyone is taking some OTHER climate-denying expert's opinion as their own, since they are incapable of doing the analysis themselves.

This would be okay were it not for the fact that they happily chastise their opponents for
'towing the line' of the AGW conspiracy, and compare the climate scientists and their supporters to priests and their followers.

Exactly who is doing the mindless following? If you can't check their results, you're just as guilty. And if you're not writing journal articles and doing research, you really aren't up to date and your contribution is minimal. Whenever a group wants to skirt the regular scientific peer-review process, it should raise suspicion; c.f., Intelligent Design.

No qualitative or quantitative response from anon...I suspect he's a busy giy...just like other self important climate pontifs...too busy running data set calcs in the dark, warm, moist and smelly place where his head resides. (Victim of cranial recal displacia)

No need to remove it from it's smelly isolation from the rest of the world...the data sets never lie...no need for objective investigation.

Anon: let me know when you hear the "pop" and see light for the first time. :D

Okay anon, I've watched you be all higher and mightier--or at least appear to think so for long enough.

Anyone who spouts anything about models in reference to the GW/AGW debate automatically loses credibility.

The fact is, the equations governing the atmosphere and the climate, including diffusion and transport, are all based on differential equations and/or integrals. The dirty little secret that the model followers ignore is that no computer in the world can explicitly solve any of these equations. They are solved by either finite difference approximations or parameterizations. Finite differences incur truncation errors which build up with each time step. In other words, errors, minute at first, balloon out of control. In order to solve this problem, modelers introduce filters which dampen these errors. This in itself introduces error into the solution. Parameterizations are introduced because of either incomplete understanding of the actual things going on (in other words, fudge factors) or because of insufficient computing power to solve the equations explicitly. In other words, errors.

So your imploring people to verify models is disingenuous at best, and a dead wrong lie at worst. The fact is, whatever the models say (and even they don't agree), we can't blindly accept them like so many AGWers do. I mean, maybe the climate is changing due to us and maybe it isn't. But we cannot say so at this time. Anyone who says so and, even better, says "the science is settled" is ignoring or denying the fact that science is never settled--that's what makes it science. 100 years from now, when we have a half-decent record of surface observations (rigorously sited and monitored and maintained and quality-checked and with constant local conditions, e.g. not near an airport or near an airport or in a field or in a parking lot but never changing from one to the other--which has not yet occurred) we can maybe speak with more intelligence on the subject. Until such time, I ask that you and your looking-down-the-nose "intelligentsia" who seem to know more than the rest of us (surprise! educated!) peons just STFU!

Anon - perhaps you should visit this thread before you damage a tooth with that foot.

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006355.html

Dave

thanks for your post

you said wot I'v said many times, just much more eloquently

I say"there isn't a program that will accurately run a climate model in it's full complexity, and if there were, there isn't a computer capable of running said program"

Stop the presses. I have just developed a computer model in which the Ross Ice Shelf melts off crashing into Patagonia and sending it spinning into the Pacific, eventually grinding into Easter Island. Meanwhile Antarctica, now unbalanced, tips over on its side sending a Tsunami which causes Brazil to split off from South America, cross the Atlantic and run into the west coast of Africa where it bursts into flames. London is swamped. Calgary is unaffected. Conclusion: 1. I need more grant money. 2. No, I will not share the code.

"Anon - perhaps you should visit this thread before you damage a tooth with that foot.

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006355.html"

[Posted by: Kate at September 9, 2007 7:37 PM]

Whoops... the web-footed bird with the hooked beak and inadequate wings just tried out as a walk-on goalie, but discovered he was in the NHL. ("Damn, those people can shoot")

Hm-m-m-m-m... back to the playbook. ;-)

Someone elses knowledge.....and you have checked Newton and Einsteins math? Come on, Philo 101 argument....whats next the idea that we are all creatures of our senses and therefore here is no objective reality...I mean man we could all just be someone elses dream man....oh this is good shit put on some more Phish will you.

Anon, you are stupid to assume people here don't have advanced scientific education, and maybe even be good at mathematics and physics and, even more importantly, critical thinking.

"If you can't check their results, you're just as guilty."

Hilarious! Now we've just seen a new variation of the bullsh*t "chickenhawk" argument - "if you can't solve that differential equation then shut up".

Anyone ever hear this old Engineering joke?
Q: How do you know you have failed Engineering?
A: You try to cancel the "d"'s in dy/dx.

Seriously, the irony is the fact that Hansen et al should be readily sharing their data and code to prove the science.

All McIntyre is doing is simply saying "show your work".

First he pointed out flaws in Mann's "hockey stick" that no one else in the climate science community found (basically you could feed random numbers into the model to get the hockey stick).

Second he raised questions about the methodology NASA used to determine the hottest years. Again, no else in the climate science community had addressed these until AFTER McIntyre flagged them.

Now he (and anyone else feeling like doing the math) will be trying to find out what temperature corrections Hansen applied to temperatures. And once again, no one else in the climate science community seemed to be pushing hard demanding the code.

You see this trend repeating (climate scientists not asking the questions the mathematically inclined "jesters" are asking), and you have to wonder why. I certainly do.

Dave (a different Dave from the 7:10pm comment - but I completely agree - who spent far too much of my youth staring at differential equations)

@Dave:

A trivia point. Technical analysis of stocks was impugned by exactly the same method: using random numbers to produce fake stock charts that looked like real ones. This debunkment was part of the early research that led to the Random Walk hypotheis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Fama

In trolling through the code, I note most of the fortran (.f) files were edited recently. I also note they are almost entirely comment-free.

Coincidence?

RicardoVerde:

I agree that policy should come from good science. However I disagree with your statement ”The problem is there is not much resembling science involved. The very basic science of AGW is the physics of the CO2 molecule and the chemistry of burning fossil fuels. These are always overlooked in their importance and how rock solid they are.

Stephen:

You said there were significant other theories challenging AGW. What ones did you have in mind? I try to keep up with the science but I am not aware of any. I would appreciate a reference if you have one.

To keep it on topic, great that NASA has made public the codes, I am all for open work. I tend to agree with Steve McIntyre comments about the current warm period, but good of him to check it out.

However in response to a couple of posts above, I will say that I find the number of items that "disprove AGW" over the last month is amusing. Remember this one ? (As Kate said, this is one to share and recommend.) Or perhaps this one. We are continuing to check his work over at Deltoid, but it is not looking good for Dr. Schulte right now. Or even http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006859.html this one.

Regards,
John

Why doesn't anon try solving the Navier-Stokes equations and get himself a Nobel Prize in Mathematics?

The reason some of the equations don't have a solution is that they are damned difficult.

The computer modeling of analytical solutions necessarily introduces errors and hence climate change modeling.

Ergo the conclusions are suspect, by the very nature of the modeling.

How in God's name is the science ever settled?

It is difficult enough to solve a system of 5 or 6 variables let alone several hundred with their codependencies.

Anon is suffering from adventures in dream-scape.

"Posted by: RicardoVerde at September 9, 2007 4:24 PM"
-“. It's actually a very big issue. We are being asked to make large scale changes to our lives based upon what we are told is science. The problem is there is not much resembling science involved.”

There have been dozens of papers published over this subject, just by James Hanson. That is in addition to the thousands of papers published globally by climate science telling us humans are destroying this climate through emissions of greenhouse gases. These are peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals available to anyone that wishes access to them. For whatever reason James Hansen has up until now not released his codes. They are likely codes still being used in ongoing studies that he doesn’t want let out into public hands until those studies are completed, but this is simply a guess. The fact that he has not released these codes does not invalidate the science of global warming. Hanson is only one scientist among thousands whose studies have shown humans are responsible for global warming.
You talked about changes we are supposed to be making to fight climate change based on the science presented. What changes will there be in our lives if we ignore the warming. There are many armchair climate sceptics who will tell us that there have been climate changes in the past so obviously it should change again. For some reason these sceptics trust the climate scientists enough to parrot them about past climate, yet refuse to recognise their expertise predicting future climate.
Ask yourself where the scientists are that have gone through the peer-reviewed process explaining global warming with explanations other than greenhouse gases. Don’t give me names such as Tim Ball because he hasn’t published anything on the subject. You will find people spouting off ridiculous claims like “mars is warming” or volcanoes spewing CO2, but none of those people are backing up these explanations through the recognised scientific process. All they end up doing is displaying their ignorance of the problem. Sure you will find people like McIntyre nitpicking the odd minor details, but that is all they are, minor details that get headlines, but have no effect on the science. The problem is the sceptics are not burdened with backing up their claims through the peer-reviewed process.
So without the need to back up there words the way a real scientist would be required to do, people like Ball and McIntyre can say whatever they like, as long as they can make the Financial Post, Exxon will still cover them.

Just watched a fifth estate (CBC) documentary on climate change. Apparently the science is now definitely settled and debate is simply being orchestrated by big oil. Chretien was a hero, Harper is an environmental ultra villain. Comparisons also drawn between big oil and big tobacco. Plenty of usage of the words "consensus", "settled" and "deniers". Unfortunately no informative discussion between the qualified scientists with opposing viewpoints. The most nefarious implication though is debate itself on the issue is evil or inspired by it. I guess that's why I pay my taxes to support CBC as it seems they're entitled to do the thinking for all us little people. Truly frightening.

--Posted by: The Phantom at September 9, 2007 6:37 PM

I do??? When did I say that? I think you're full of it.

--Posted by: Stephen at September 9, 2007 4:54 PM

à"Steve McIntyre is knowingly making false statements denying Anthroprogenic Global Warming because he is in the pay of the Petroleum Industry."
This is what you mean right? ß

No it’s not, and why do you have quotations around that sentence, it’s not a quote? See my above post.

“Find me one, just one measurable prediction that the AGW crowd have made successfully without having to revise downward later and I will grant more credibility to the theory.”

Ok, here’s one. That if left unchecked CO2 levels could reach 1000 ppm by century’s end.

-->Posted by: Wimpy Canadian at September 9, 2007 5:16 PM

That has been hashed over too many times to repeat them. Your argument is deeply flawed. See pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/ for the explanations.

"Unfortunately no informative discussion between the qualified scientists with opposing viewpoints."

That's because there are no "qualified scientists with opposing viewpoints" they all agree on AGW. But really, open discussion between scientists is justifiably rare. It’s not showmanship the way Fox News would like it to be, it’s about science and scientific discussion is not done on a stage for entertainment purposes.

albatros39a wrote:

"Ask yourself where the scientists are that have gone through the peer-reviewed process explaining global warming with explanations other than greenhouse gases. Don’t give me names such as Tim Ball because he hasn’t published anything on the subject. You will find people spouting off ridiculous claims like “mars is warming” or volcanoes spewing CO2, but none of those people are backing up these explanations through the recognised scientific process. All they end up doing is displaying their ignorance of the problem. Sure you will find people like McIntyre nitpicking the odd minor details, but that is all they are, minor details that get headlines, but have no effect on the science. The problem is the sceptics are not burdened with backing up their claims through the peer-reviewed process."

Do yourself a favor and go have a look at Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.'s research group blog archive at http://climatesci.colorado.edu/

Click on the "climate change forcings and feedbacks" entry under "Categories". There are *many* of peer-reviewed publications referenced there that deal with climate change forcings other than CO2.

Read some, then come back here and eat some crow.

For the "you gotta blame the weather" file, or the future-audit-of-talking-points inbox:

"While praising the superiority of French medical care and the fact that French doctors make house calls—almost as an aside to praising the superiority of every element of French society compared to America's—Mr. Moore forgot to mention that 13,000 Frenchmen died of heat prostration and dehydration during a heat wave in the summer of 2003, when most French physicians were on summer vacation and did not show up in emergency rooms, let alone make house calls."

- An excerpt, with italics added, from "What Michael Moore forgot to tell you" by Richard E. Ralston. Published by Steve Martinovich's Enter Stage Right.

I was wondering why that mass of death didn't travel over the border to Spain, Italy, Austria or Germany.

Same old spew from Albatross....debate over. nobody who is qualified disagrees and anyone who does disagree is in the clutches of big oil.

Convenient argument...lazy, stubborn and simple minded to quote someone. Cut the slander Albatross.

There are only two broad facts that are agreed in this whole debate

1) It is warmer than since the last ice age

2) There is more CO2 in the air

After that there is not a lot of agreement, cause, effect or models.

The problem with saying there is a consensus is it is too easy to pull the argument down by finding people who disagree. For lists of articles, academic peer reviewed articles, that eat away at many of the dearly held pillars of AGW go to www.worldclimatereport.com

Sorry Albatross, AGW may be true but it isn proven yet, not by a country mile.

Humm, my last post got censored - possible due to too many links in it. Where necessary I will just use LPUR (link provided upon request). Anyway,

RicardoVerde:

I agree that policy should come from good science. However I disagree with your statement ”The problem is there is not much resembling science involved. The very basic science of AGW is the physics of the CO2 molecule and the chemistry of burning fossil fuels. These are always overlooked in their importance and how rock solid they are.

Stephen:

You said there were significant other theories challenging AGW. What ones did you have in mind? I try to keep up with the science but I am not aware of any. As you might gather from above I would strongly disagree with your comment about what facts are agreed upon. I would modify your second point to be that CO2 levels are increasing and the source is anthropogenic. Also, I would add a third that adding CO2 will cause warming. Those, I would agree that those are solid facts.

Nathan:

Dr. Pilkey Sr. does agree with the basics of global warming but he tends to think that land use effects are larger than generally accepted. (Aside, I think it is ashame that he shut down his blog. He had some interesting thoughts.)

However, to get back to the topic of this post, great that NASA has made public the codes, I am all for open work. I tend to agree with Steve McIntyre when he says that we are currently warmer than it has been in the past, but good of him to check it out.

However in response to a couple of posts above, I will say that I find the number of items that "disprove AGW" over the last month is amusing. Remember this one ? (As Kate said, this is one to share and recommend.) Or perhaps this one (LPUR). We are continuing to check his work over at Deltoid, but it is not looking good for Dr. Schulte right now. Or maybe this one (LPUR) regarding climate sensitivity. Or even this one (LPUR) talking about a DOS attack on Steve McIntyer when it now seems that it was listeners to Rush. (And someone please bring up 1934).

So if I have not changed my position, perhaps you can forgive me based on the above.

Regards,
John

John Cross, as a professional engineer myself, I find it difficult to believe that YOU are a professional engineer. Though you are polite, you seem to feign open-mindedness...you're willing to discuss but seemingly not to change your mind. This is typically NOT a characteristic of professional engineers.

When I see the BS regarding the measuring stations, I immediately throw my hands up and say "I cannot trust the data that is coming from those measuring stations and, since in part this is what the science of AGW is based on, I am concerned about the veracity of the AGW claim".

Can you not even muster up an "I'm seriously concerned about the accuracy of the temperature readings and how this impacts the AGW debate"?

Just how many peer-reviewed scientific articles were there about any number of scientific issues before a discovery was made that "radically changed our understanding of the issue". Remember, dinosaurs were once considered cold-blooded reptiles, while now they are considered the forerunners of birds...how many peer-reviewed articles were there that agreed with the cold-blooded reptile conclusion?

As an engineer, I will remain skeptical about AGW until the claims are exhaustively reviewed and tested with predictions that are proved in the real world.

For some reason these sceptics trust the climate scientists enough to parrot them about past climate, yet refuse to recognise their expertise predicting future climate.

Huh, that's like saying historians are qualified to predict the future.

Eeyore: I think your comment about being a skeptic is valid. I would say that in fact I came from a skeptical background. Just a little while ago, I actually wrote of my "journey" which you can read here if you are interested.

In regards to temperature readings, I am interested in seeing where things are going. However, there are so many different bits of evidence that says we are warming that I am not going to change my mind about that yet. For example, ocean heat content, glaciers retreating, polar ice, frost free days, traditional ecological knowledge, accelerating ice flows in Greenland, MSU records, Stratospheric temperatures, etc. Just one or two of these by themselves does not present a very strong case, but taken together they are quite strong (recall the Bayesian post from a while ago).

So let Steve McIntyre audit them and see what comes out. Then I will consider what he has done.

I would disagree with your point about paradigme shifts (I believe this is what you are talking about). While we can never rule them out, we can not make a decision based on the chance that one will take place. From an engineering point of view, if I went to my client and said that we should go with plan B since there may be a paradigme shift in fluid mechanics next year, I would not last long.

I consider myself openminded in that there are true areas of the science that are important and not well understood. In these areas I will continue to read and try to understand, but if I may quote Fermi: Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge. . My second favourite Fermi quote.

Regards,
John

John,

Agreed that the some of the recent increase in CO2 is anthroprogenic. SOme of it comes from Oceans as they warm....nobody has an exact measure yet.

Also agreed that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with water vapour and methane and ahost of others

Those are definite facts

The measured effect of an increase in CO2 is not an agreed item, there is lots of debate over whether it is additive or if there is a saturation point.

Competing theories....solar output one theory is direct the other is indirect (reduced shielding effect from lower sunspot activity)

Of course the biggest theory is that this is just part of a cycle, probably caused by the sun. We still havent been able to adequately explain previous warm and cold periods adequately, so it makes one wonder why we are ascribing an apparent correlation (churches and liquor stores are also correlated)to a cause.

Lets look at the popular evidence for a second

1) Kilimanjaro's ice cap disappearing.....sublimation is the cause

2) Glaciers retreating...depends on where you look, I bleieve most are increasing with some shrinking. And they have been smaller in the past, the recently discovered Silver Mine in the Alps is a good example

3) Polar Ice shrinking....well northern polar ice has been at a low point but is highly variable. This year the section north of the Bering straight is significantly smaller than last year, but 2006 was bigger than 2005. The southern cap is stable and bigger this year than last and apparently thickening.....so much for the Global part of global warming

4) Polar bear pop shrinking....not true see Kate's post

5) More hurricanes....ooops wrong again...fewer recently and there have been more and worse ones in the past

6) Sea Surface Temperatures increasing.....ooops they have dropped after an high in 2005, likely part of a cycle...but the point being they are lower, where is the runaway?

7) Increasing temperatures....at rural stations this seems to not be the case....the primary data used to drive the models is under pretty significant question right now based on the use of urban stations

8) CO2 correlated with temp increases....the timing was off, Vostok shows CO2 following temp increases....due largely to warmer seas being unable to absorb as much CO2 and in fact gassing off CO2

So I am not saying there isnt a problem, we are adding to the gases in the atmosphere....I just dont think we (humanity) has shown that it is really a big issue that requires massive changes in behaviour and costs...especially when those costs either hold back wealth creation in Wetsrn countries without imposing the same limits on developing countries or not allowing developing countries to build wealth which comes from having infrastructure like an electricity grid.

Everywhere the wealthier a country the cleaner the environment (from a pollution perspective)

Dont destroy wealth creation and productivity in the quest to bring about pastoral bliss.

@John Cross (7:02 AM):

Try previewing your comments before sending them in: you'll see, inside the anchor tag in any link you provide, an added snippet of code that says "nofollow." That means you can only have one link per post without it being diverted for editor approval.

It's standard operating procedure at SDA, designed to trap linkdumps. Since I'm a high-strung fellow at times, I had thought that Kate had something against LewRockwell.com when I first bumped into it. I later figured out, though, that it's - well, standard operating procedure.

Daniel: Thanks - most useful! I guess I will just use my LPUR.

Stephen: Thank your for your comments. I will post a result shortly (damn day job for taking away posting time).

I read that antarctica is getting colder. Maybe its becuase AL GORE and GREENPEACE are not there

Stephen:

You covered a lot of ground in the last post, but lets start by takeing a look at your first statement. You say that “some of the recent increase in CO2 is anthroprogenic.” Accepting any reasonable definition of some, that is not correct. You can prove it by calculating the amount of fossil fuels burned each day and then comparing this to what shows up in the atmosphere. In fact less shows up than is produced so we know that we are responsible for all the increase. You can also use isotopes to look at the C14 ratio which shows that the carbon introduced into the atmosphere is much older than 15,000 years.

In regards to CO2, there is no argument about the fact that it will act to warm. Lindzen, Pilkey, Christy and most of the other scientific skeptics accept this. But I can go into it if you wish. One of the things that makes posting about this topic so interesting is that on another thread last week I responded to a comment by Hans Erren (a well known skeptic) who was saying that no-one was using the old saturation argument anymore.

You gave two examples of Competing theories....solar output one theory is direct the other is indirect (reduced shielding effect from lower sunspot activity)

In fact, there are no measurements that show solar output in increasing (beyond what would be expected in a sunspot cycle)(LPUR). In regards to your shielding, I assume you are talking about cosmic rays making clouds? If so, there is a lot of work to do on this hypothesis before it should be taken seriously. (LPUR)

In regards to your numbered points, a couple of comments.

1) Kilimanjaro – I don’t think anyone is certain what is going on here. Anyone who uses it as evidence of global warming is not correct as is anyone who uses it to counter AGW. (LPUR)

2) Glaciers retreating... Please see Tamino’s blog – Open Mind and his post Glaciers (Al Gore got it right)(LPUR)

3) In regards to the thickening of the Antarctic, lets see. Warmer air will transport more moisture. Thus we would expect more snow to fall. The average elevation of the Antarctic is over 2 km and the air temperature is fairly cool up there so I would not expect much melting. Thus there is nothing inconsistent about the Antarctic ice thickening.

4) Polar bears? Don’t know one way or another. I am happy to accept increasing populations for now.

5) In regards to hurricanes, I am not sure about your terms (i.e. more, worse, etc.) If you can provide a reference I would appreciate it.

6) Sea Surface Temperatures - This is an interesting one in that the authors of the paper published a correction in July 2007. To quote from the abstract Two systematic biases have been discovered in the ocean temperature data used by Lyman et al. [2006]. These biases are both substantially larger than sampling errors estimated in Lyman et al. [2006], and appear to be the cause of the rapid cooling reported in that work. (LPUR).

7) As you point out the surface temperature readings are under question right now so I will reserve comment until the analysis is finished

8) In fact the lag is in question as I have posted here before (LPUR). However even if we accept the lag, it still does not provide evidence against the link between CO2 and Temperatures (look up Milankovitch cycles – LPUR).

I agree with you that a wealthier a country makes for a cleaner the environment (from a pollution perspective). That is the key – from a pollution perspective. Greenhouse gas production does not fall under this category. I think that there are lots of things that we should be looking at to reduce oil consumption now while the cost to the economy is low.

You finish by saying “Dont destroy wealth creation and productivity in the quest to bring about pastoral bliss.” That is something we can both agree on (although we may disagree about some of the interpretation).

Regards,
John

Alby says I'm full of it, and he never said nuttin' about sterilizing Africa.

M'kay, lets see Alby.

//www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006800.html#c186

Oopsie, looks like your trollery was worse than usual that day, bad enough that Kate deleted it. Bad Alby!

But that's ok, I saved some of it at Jeff Davidson's blog. Bwahaha!!! Check it out:
//www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=31964437&postID=4055738766673430998
Quoth Alby:

"For many [African and Asian] nations with the fastest growing populations there tends to be a high demand for male children. Imagine if you could sell to those nations a drug that allowed couples to have only male children by encouraging just the production of sperm carrying the “Y” chromosome."

Yeah, just imagine how great that would be. This section of the quote doesn't contain the word "sterilize", but this is arguably worse.

Back to your bridge Alby, your white hood and robes need a cleanin'.

Alby says I'm full of it, and he never said nuttin' about sterilizing Africa.

M'kay, lets see Alby.

smalldeadanimals.com/archives/006800.html#c186

Oopsie, looks like your trollery was worse than usual that day, bad enough that Kate deleted it. Bad Alby!

But that's ok, I saved some of it at Jeff Davidson's blog. Bwahaha!!! Check it out:
www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=31964437&postID=4055738766673430998

Quoth Alby:

"For many [African and Asian] nations with the fastest growing populations there tends to be a high demand for male children. Imagine if you could sell to those nations a drug that allowed couples to have only male children by encouraging just the production of sperm carrying the “Y” chromosome."

Yeah, just imagine how great that would be. This section of the quote doesn't contain the word "sterilize", but this is arguably worse.

Back to your bridge Alby, your white hood and robes need a cleanin'.

John,

I will dig for a couple of the links

On Antartica, we arent just talking about lack of evidence based on high elevation glaciers.....the essence of that argument is, if it melts it is hot, if it grows it is hot, hardly convincing, but yes it is not inconsistent with a warming world, nor is it inconsitent with a cooling world.

However lets got to Sea Ice, which isnt affected by what high elevations and should be reflective of general temperatures.....from the IPCC report

"Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region"

So the ice at the south pole isnt shrinking, which would be consistent with AGW or even GW

Speaking of A versus non A....yes most of the increase in CO2 is A....I just wouldnt say all. Not trying to drive a point just saying that not all of the increase is A driven.

Hurricanes....one example that we really are just sitting in the middle of normal

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/07/03/lessons-from-a-5000-year-hurricane-record/#more-252

Regarding solar irrandiance....agreed much work needs to be done but this is an interesting little article that says there is more than meets the eye, including some AGW

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/08/17/climate-change-chaos/#more-259

Finally, lets try some glacier stuff....oops some unfortuante data from South America http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/21/actual-south-american-snow-cover-data-show-no-climate-change/#more-242

and the classic Kilimanjaro

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/06/12/a-kilimanjaro-we-told-you-so/#more-248

Glad you agree that Klmanjaro cant be used for AGW, Gore does, and I am not saying it can be used for non AGW.

My whole point is that it is not proven, and in fact isnt near being proven. Is there an GW effect from CO2...of course there is. Is it saturation or additive, I dont know and I dont think others know. That is one of the key questions that need to be looked at.

As well, then there are all the other effects, the sun, clouds moistrure etc. Some effects wash others out.

GW exists due to GHG, if it didnt the earth would be about -35 degrees on a regular basis I believe.

The real questions surround runaway effects, cumulative nature of changes and the weighting of different forcings.

In the absence of these questions being clearly answered or largely answered, they arent, then at best we should be engaging in simple low cost mitgation measures to buy some more time while we figure it all out.

The mania that surrounds this is ridiculous and quite frankly will do more harm to the movement if it is true but takes longer to show its effects. Schemes like international carbon trading are hokum, till we work out the human stuff (rule of law across the planet)

There are too many questions, I would rather there be research done and a simple 5 cent per ton of carbon tax put in place, just so we can get used to it and then raise it as more or lower it as the eveidence clarifies the issue.

I just dont react well to the its all over but the crying arguments from the more radical AGW crowd. It just isnt that straightforward.

Yes Phantom you are indeed full of it. Now where does it say anything about sterilizing Africa? Funny how you decided not to include the rest of that post so it could be put into it's intended context.
Now be gone little fruitcake and back to the topic.

Stephen: Sorry, I misunderstood your Antarctic ice comment. Yes, I can accept that the sea ice around most of the Antarctic is stable. That is actually a worthwhile discussion if you wish to pursue it (whether it is consistent with GW or not). The exception is of course the peninsula. But I disagree with your comment about it not being inconsistent with global cooling. Can you produce a mechanism that would cause an increase in Antarctica ice in a cooling world?

Regarding the CO2 being A or non-A I am afraid I still disagree with you on this. The recent increases are all – 100% - A. Again, if we produce X, but the increase in the atmosphere is X-Y, then can you envision any mechanism where if we didn’t produce X, something else would produce Y?

The Donnelly and Woodruff paper is interesting but only looks at data from one specific geographic point. It would be hard to draw general conclusions from that. In addition it does not actually show that increased SSTs do not drive hurricanes but that there are other possible mechanism that can drive hurricanes as well.

The Tsonis paper is unusual. They seem to be rejecting observations and physics in favor of mathematical models.

In regards to glaciers, I will note that your link does not mention glaciers at all, only the maximum snow water equivalent.

I am not sure what you mean when you say .” Is it saturation or additive, I dont know and I dont think others know.” It is of course both. The main bands are saturated, but some of the side bands are not. However this is well known.

I can agree with and share your aversion to the “its all over but the crying” crowd. However I also am averse to those who blindly repeat scientific arguments without trying to dig in and understand the details as I am sure you do as well.

Regards,
John

Stephen I took a look at the source document in "Climate Journal" that "World Climate Report" was referencing in their blog and I can tell you the facts have indeed been distorted. Where "World Climate Report" does indeed focus on the increased snow pack, it leaves out some key details. One, that the increased snow pack is a result of increased incidence of el Nino events attributed to climate change and second, that the increases is only seasonal, meaning that through increased temperatures melting of that snow pack results in a net loss of snow pack 0n the glaciers. There is a distinct difference between glacial ice and snow pack. The article does indeed talk of glacial reductions in the Andes due to increased melt, but the main focus is the potential threatened water supply to the 10 million people who depend on the melt water. The souce document does not disagree in any way with the conclusions of the IPCC.
The blog "World Climate Report" has once again cherry picked the information and misrepresented the science.

Kilimanjaro can not by itself be used to prove global warming, but what is being seen on the mountain does indeed fit within climate models as indicated in the IPCC AR4..

"Antarctic. The the IPCC does indicate a net loss of ice on the Antarctic ice sheet.
IPCC from Page 364, Para 4.6.2.2.2
“Zwally et al. (2006) obtained SRALT coverage for about
80% of the ice sheet, including some portions of the Antarctic
Peninsula, and interpolated to the rest of the ice sheet. The
resulting balance included West Antarctic loss of 47 ± 4 Gt yr–1,
East Antarctic gain of 17 ± 11 Gt yr–1 and overall loss of 30
± 12 Gt yr–1. If all the ice thickness changes were low-density
firn rather than ice, the loss would be smaller (14 ± 5 Gt yr–1).”

Albatros39a: Thanks for tracking down the journal article from the world climate. I had the Donnelly and Woodruff paper on hand but didn't go searching for the other World Climate Report references.

If I may ask (and if you have the time), just to be clear, what specifically does the article state about glaciers? Would it be fair to say that they think some (the ones they looked at/have knowledge of) are melting? Does it say anything about any growing? Thanks,

Regards,
John

And Alby remains silent about climate forcings other than CO2...

For the IPCC's take on other forcings, check out Figure SPM.2 in the Summary for Policymakers (http://www.ipcc.ch/WG1_SPM_17Apr07.pdf). Make special note of the column labelled "LOSU" or "Level of Scientific Understanding", and you'll see how much they *really* know about these forcings. I especially like the note below the table that states "Additional forcing factors not included here are considered to have a very low LOSU."

Yes, really, the science is settled.

John sorry to take so long to get back to you but, the article refers to

Casassa, G., 1995: Glacier inventory in Chile: Current status and
recent glacier variations. Ann. Glaciol., 21, 317–322.

which looked at seven glaciers between 32° and 35°S and states that they have lost 16% of their mass in the second half of the twentieth century. This he attributes to-
Direct quote- "Mean annual, summer, and winter temperatures show significant positive trends (>0.3°C decade1) west of the cordillera centered at around 33°S."

Nathan Schmidt at September 11, 2007 11:24 AM
What would you like me to comment on, methane? Perhaps you wish me to comment on the solar irradiance that has increased, contributing to global warming. Solar irradiance has in fact increased by +0.12 [+0.06 to +0.30] W m–2, an increases that is extremely insignificant.
The motion of the planet around the sun is an ellipse, the plant wobbles and combined it’s known as Milankovitch mechanism, which has been the primary driver of past climate change. We are presently in an interglacial period and at this point in the interglacial we should be cooling to an eventual ice age. The problem is we are warming, not cooling and either way you look at it, the sun is not the problem, it's greenhouse gases.

Alby,

My, you've got a short memory. You previously wrote:

"Ask yourself where the scientists are that have gone through the peer-reviewed process explaining global warming with explanations other than greenhouse gases. Don’t give me names such as Tim Ball because he hasn’t published anything on the subject. You will find people spouting off ridiculous claims like “mars is warming” or volcanoes spewing CO2, but none of those people are backing up these explanations through the recognised scientific process. All they end up doing is displaying their ignorance of the problem. Sure you will find people like McIntyre nitpicking the odd minor details, but that is all they are, minor details that get headlines, but have no effect on the science. The problem is the sceptics are not burdened with backing up their claims through the peer-reviewed process."

I don't require a comment from you other than a deserved acknowledgement that there exists a great deal of solid research regarding climate forcings other than CO2.

In Dr. Pielke Sr.'s wrap-up summary at his Climate Science blog (http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/09/02/summary-conclusions-of-climate-science/), he stated:

"Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur."

This conclusion is supported by his own research and review of a multitude of peer-reviewed papers. The link I provided previously documents the IPCC's own acknowledgement that their level of scientific understanding is low or very low for many of the potential forcings. This is consistent with Dr. Pielke's conclusions. It is counter to the high level of certainty ("settled science") with which climate predictions are presented by the IPCC, our loyal opposition parties, Al Gore, David Suzuki, the CBC, et al.

Nathan Schmidt, it's well known that the IPCC is a conservative view of climate change in order to take into account any unknown variables. What this means is it is likely that the IPCC assessment of climate change understates the problem.

Of course there are other factors affecting climate besides CO2, I don't believe I stated anything to the contrary. The problem is, other than that +0.12 W/m2 increase in solar irradiance, which is clearly stated in AR4, the greatest factors are anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

Albatros39a: Thanks. I would guess that one of the glaciers that they looked at was Echaurren Norte (lat 33.5 S). This one is part of the world glacial monitoring service and as of 2004 (the latest year available) it was still showing a large negative mass balance.

Regards,
John

John if you don't mind me asking, what is your connection with climate science?
Echaurren Norte (lat 33.5 S)? The article is on my laptop and right now I'm not. I'll take a look when I fire the thing up tomorrow and let you know.

Albatros39a: No connection - in spite of the fact that few on here seem to accept it I am an engineer with a background in fluid mechanics. You are welcome to e-mail me (as is anyone here) at john dot croix at hotmail dot com with the dot and at replaced.

Regards,
John