If we’re “nowhere near enough [in our] knowledge to develop models of our complicated atmosphere”, do you think it is wise to dump these levels of CO2 in it? To me that seems incredibly irresponsible.

I can shoot holes in the rest of your argumentation, but frankly I suspect that will be a waste of time. Commenters on blogs (including you and me) are not “recognized authorities”, so nothing I have to say will change your mind. This is a general problem with threads of this sort.

“I am not a climatologist, so I have to rely on reputable sources. My recognized authorities are Nature and Science, and a friend who works in climate studies. They lead me to believe that AGW is a scientific fact.”

The trouble I have with the AGW scientific consensus is their supposed trump card that AGW is an established scientific fact that proves we’re in serious trouble.

I disagree and offer some other facts to consider:

The MBH hockey stick–which gave AGW warmists the perfect means of frightening people into paying attention–is officially broken. The NAS panel said Mann et al erred in (among other boo-boos) his use of statistics, so MBH’s premise that the current warm spell is the hottest in a millennium has been truncated by 60% to “hottest in 400 years.” That’s a “plausible” period of time considering the Little Ice Age ended 400 years ago and you’d expect it to be getting warmer. By the way, it took McIntyre of Climate Audit, not climatologists, to find the errors because peer review failed utterly.

Radiosonde and satellite data indicates we’re warming at 0.123 degree C per decade, which hardly qualifies as a runaway greenhouse effect!

Over the last 600 million years, atmospheric CO2 levels have gone from about 7000 ppm to the current 300 ppm while average global temps have remained within a 72°F (22°C) to 54°F (12°C) range. 19X the CO2 and yet we didn’t become Venus, so we certainly shouldn’t fear a tipping point at the current minuscule CO2 concentrations.

Finally, I’m a skeptic because the data is too equivocal and the AGW alarmists are too emotional. The settled science they trumpet is only a snapshot of our accumulating knowledge. We’re always finding out that things we thought we understood just ain’t so. For example:

- Until the mid 1800s, it was a fact that by bleeding a patient physicians could cure his infection by removing the ill humours. It wasn’t until Pasteur came up with the germ theory of disease in 1860 that a medico who disagreed with the bleeding consensus would have validation for bucking the status quo.

- More recently, scientists have realized that sailors’ tales of freak ocean waves hundreds of feet tall weren’t mass halucinations.

According to all scientific knowledge of the sea, such freak waves were practically impossible. Scientists have understood ocean waves for centuries, and in order to predict the biggest wave a ship will meet they use a set of mathematical equations called the Linear Model. Hence they refused to believe the eye-witness reports of freak wave survivors becaused that testimony went against the consensus. It wasn’t until long term radar observation proved that freak waves were common that nonlinear wave interactions have been explored.

- Finally, there’s our Sun. It’s a fusion reaction involving Hydrogen, the most common and simplest element busily working as a heat engine. By every scientific fact we know, the center of the Sun where the fusion is most concentrated should be the hottest zone, with temps cooling the farther out you go. But it doesn’t work that way.

One of the most puzzling features of the Sun is what has been dubbed “the solar corona problem.” There is a region around the Sun, extending more than one million kilometers from its surface, where the temperature can reach two million degrees.

The problem is, no one can really explain how this corona exists. Even if the temperature in the core of the Sun does reach 15 million degrees, it drops to a mere 5000 degrees at the surface. The temperature should be even lower farther away from the sun. But the temperature of the corona is measured at more than a million degrees. This incredibly hot temperature requires a permanent heating mechanism, or the plasma would cool down in about an hour. There are many mechanisms which could heat some gas above the surface of the Sun, but none of those mechanisms could account for the large rate of heating necessary to heat the corona.

===================

So give me a break with your settled science and the consensus, we’ve nowhere near enough knowledge to develop models of our complicated atmosphere, and wasting billions today in hopes of attenuating what is probably a natural temperature swing (or at worst an engineering problem in irrigation, dam, and dike building) would be worse than useless.

“I am not a climatologist, so I have to rely on reputable sources. My recognized authorities are Nature and Science, and a friend who works in climate studies. They lead me to believe that AGW is a scientific fact.”

The trouble I have with the AGW scientific consensus is their supposed trump card that AGW is an established scientific fact that proves we’re in serious trouble.

I disagree and offer some other facts to consider:

Mann et al’s hockey stick that got the warmist’s rolling is broken. The NAS panel said Mann erred in (among other boo-boos) his use of statistics, so MBH’s comment that the current warm spell is the hottest in a millennium has been truncated to “hottest in 400 years” or since the Little Ice Age ended. By the way, it took McIntyre, not a climatologist, to find the errors because peer review failed utterly.

Radiosonde and satellite data indicates we’re warming at 0.123 degree C per decade, hardly a runaway greenhouse effect!

Over the last 600 million years, CO2 levels have gone from about 7000 ppm to the current 300 ppm while average temps have remained within a 72°F (22°C) to 54°F (12°C) range. So should we fear a tipping point at current CO2 concentrations? Obviously that’s not a problem.

Finally, I’m a skeptic because the data is too equivocal and the AGW alarmists are too emotional. The settled science they trumpet is only a snapshot in accumulated knowledge. We’re always finding out that things we thought we understood weren’t so. For example:

- Until the mid 1800s, it was a fact that bleeding a patient would cure his infection removing ill humors, and it wasn’t until Pasteur came up with the germ theory of disease in 1860 that a medico who disagreed with the bleeding “consensus” would have facts that proved his side.

- More recently, scientists have realized that sailors’ tales of freak ocean waves hundreds of feet tall weren’t mass halucinations.

According to all scientific knowledge of the sea, freak waves were practically impossible. Scientists have understood ocean waves for centuries, and in order to predict the biggest wave a ship will meet they use a set of mathematical equations called the Linear Model. Hence they refused to believe the eye-witness reports of freak wave survivors becaused that testimony went against the consensus. It wasn’t until long term radar observation proved that freak waves were common that nonlinear wave interactions have been explored.

- Finally, the Sun. It’s a fusion reaction involving Hydrogen, the most common and simplest element working as a heat engine. By every fact we know, the center of the Sun where the fusion is most concentrated should be the hottest zone, with temps cooling the farther out you go. Ok so far, but it doesn’t work that way.

One of the most puzzling features of the Sun is what has been dubbed “the solar corona problem.” There is a region around the Sun, extending more than one million kilometers from its surface, where the temperature can reach two million degrees.

The problem is, no one can really explain how this corona exists. Even if the temperature in the core of the Sun does reach 15 million degrees, it drops to a mere 5000 degrees at the surface. The temperature should be even lower farther away from the sun. But the temperature of the corona is measured at more than a million degrees. This incredibly hot temperature requires a permanent heating mechanism, or the plasma would cool down in about an hour. There are many mechanisms which could heat some gas above the surface of the Sun, but none of those mechanisms could account for the large rate of heating necessary to heat the corona.

===================

So give me a break with your settled science and the consensus, we’re nowhere near competent enough to rely on current models of our complicated atmosphere, and wasting billions today in hopes of managing what is probably a natural temperature swing (or at worst an engineering problem in irrigation, dam, and dike building) would be worse than useless.

I would agree with this, but it doesn’t stop them from “gaming” the system. A friend of mine is the chief aero engineer at NASA Dryden, and about 10 years ago they wanted to develop an airplane that could fly on Mars (this was originally going to happen in 2003 to celebrate the centennial of flight, but that obviously fell through). This would require developing aircraft that could fly autonomously at around 10 millibars of atmospheric pressure.

Of course, such a proposal would never get funding, so they changed it to “exploring the ozone hole” since that region is at 110,000 feet (33,000 meters), right around 10 mB pressure.

They got the funding.

One of the contractors on the project Aurora Flight Sciences, actually produced some flight-testable hardware:

http://www.aurora.aero/AdvancedConcepts/Index.aspx

- Jack

I understand where you’re coming from, PK.
I know subjects like evolution vs creationism are touchy subjects; I don’t see where that analogy gets its strength, though. To my knowledge, those who endorse theories such as string theory, evolution, or creationism usually seem more than happy to present their evidence, along with every detail about it (reinforcing the reply that I got from Steve earlier). The authorities on the subject of, say, dark matter, to my knowledge seem to be genuinely attached and believe in their premise.
Climatology and anthropogenic warming just seems different to me. I can see an analogy to another field of science in that we can see climatologists “make up something on the spot” to bury their mistakes and divert attention elsewhere, as with Mann and the response to MM with Wahl and Amann 05. However, I’m at a loss of something comparable to the way climatologists will go as far as admitting that data does not support their premise, but continue to use it anyway knowing that pedestrian readers won’t know any better (NAS and IPCC on strip bark proxies). The only reason I can think of is that there is a substantial amount of credibility and money to be lost in climatology, but maybe that will end up being a naive statement.

As a side note, I can understand someone feeling as though they should take the climatologists’ word for it because, hey, they’re specialists. However, as anyone following the debate closely will tell you, it seems that it is more of a war of statistics and ethics. For the most part, no immense specialty is needed to understand where people like McIntyre are coming from. The irony is that the alarmist side hopes that the general public will dismiss all of his findings because he isn’t a scientist, completely omitting that the science isn’t even what is in question.