Bottom line is that the fanaticism displayed by many of the Climate Change scientists, insisting that catastrophic consequences are looming, is something that is rightfully open to logical questioning. The sceptic is at the core of scientific process, any attempt to forcibly silence the sceptic is an affront to the process, and usually a sign of cracks in the theory that one so adamantly defends. Even Newton’s theories on gravity were later displaced by General Relativity. Certainly the murky models of climate change forecasting are rightfully subject to the same level scrutiny.

The person who wrote this particular article appears to see the world in black and white, at least when it comes to this topic. Spending significant effort to silence the sceptics, the critics, and anyone else who has any doubt about what is going to happen to the climate and why it is going to happen. Indeed, it could not be worse than a world consumed by flames.

For more informed arguments, everyone who has an interest in the topic of climate change should refer to this article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle

or search for “Concerned Scientists Reply on Global Warming”.

And Professor Singer agrees with that:

S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics.

An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere.

In 2007, he founded and chaired NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change). Dr. Singer is the author of numerous books including Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years (co-authored with Dennis Avery) & Climate Change Reconsidered (co-authored with Craig Idso). His most recent writings can be found at American Thinker.

251: Scottar, I disagree with so much of what you said that it’s hard to know where to start.

But you should note that I have been deleting your past few comments because they have been invective and insulting. That violates the one single rule I have here: don’t be a jerk. If you cannot comment without violating that rule, then please take your ideas somewhere else.

I guess that answers the question. Short memory you have!

Phil:
“The claim that the Earth hasn’t warmed in 10 years is complete and utter garbage; I have posted on this several times. The people making that claim are cherry picking the data to make it look like warming hasn’t occurred, without looking at real trends. In fact, most claims like that from the denialist side are grossly misinterpreting data. ”

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html

NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record

And look at the chart, it’s essentially flat for 2000 decade.

Extract from:

NASA Games- icecap.us

Jan 25, 2012

E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatie Research Unit (CRU)—the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails—and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.

The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA’s data “was more accurate” than other climate-change data sets, NASA’s Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said “the National Climatic Data Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate,” admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings. “My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means,” Ruedy told the reporter.

Hansen seems to have a teflon coat. Despite all his failures (including predictions of the West Side Highway being underwater by 2010 made in 1980 – sea level rises are about 1 inch) and data issues, he escapes scrutiny.

Just to put some numbers to this global manipulation, here is a selection from Iceland the change since last year’sversion. Enhancing warming trend by cooling off the past.
Reykjavik (degrees C)

Year Last This Diff
1911 5.31 4.21 1.1
1941 5.28 4.09 1.19
1971 5.85 4.65 1.2
1991 6.12 4.92 1.2
2011 5.58 5.58 0

NASA was not alone. the 3 data centeres collaborated as the climategate emails suggest.

The CRU global records changed similarly.

The chart on icecap shows temperature bias manipulation after 1980

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Science_story.jpg

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CRU_Temps.jpg

They accomplished this ‘kockey sticking’ by cooling off old data and warming later data, in part through elimination of a UHI adjustment in the US. They also cooled ocean temperatures near the bothersome warm blip around 1940, The climategate emails included one by Wigley of UEA and later NCAR suggesting a cooling then of about 0.15C would be effective but still plausible.

This is like Obama trying to paint a rosy color on the economic picture by distorting the facts.

The fact is surface temps are not very good indicators of climate trend till you get solid good reliable records for a century or more. But since many stations here in the US and more so world wide have been sited for insite violations and intermittancy the best records remain some rural stations, balloon radio sonar and satellites, despite minor drift errors.

And here is the concern:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/abduss_APR.pdf

Bicentennial Decrease of the Total Solar Irradiance Leads to Unbalanced Thermal Budget of the Earth

Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory of the RAS

Applied Physics Research Vol. 4, No. 1; February 2012

From the early 1990s we observe bicentennial decrease in both the TSI and the portion of its energy absorbed by the Earth. The Earth as a planet will henceforward have negative balance in the energy budget which will result in the temperature drop in approximately 2014. Due to increase of albedo and decrease of the greenhouse gases atmospheric concentration the absorbed portion of solar energy and the influence of the greenhouse effect It will additionally decline.

After the maximum of solar cycle 24, from approximately 2014 we can expect the start of the next bicentennial cycle of deep cooling with a Little Ice Age in 2055 plus or minus 11.

Evident that the sea ice is increasing not declining. The Arctic has stopped decreasing from the influence of the ADO-PDO oscillation. It’s just another ending of a cycle and another beginning. It’s buried in historical documents that MSS ignores.

You’re accusing me of deleting posts I don’t like? I assume you have solid evidence of that? And that you also understand the nature of automatic spam filters on blogs?

Otherwise, you’re starting to sound like a troll. And at the very least you are violating my one commenting policy. Either way, clean it up, or I will in reality start marking your comments as spam.

There where a couple of previous posts you censured and you know what I’m talking about.

Peer Review, no it’s Pal Review:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2011/06/16/peer-review-and-pal-review-in-climate-science/

I don’t know where you stand in it but it’s a factor, especially with the IPCC.

The scientists’ final draft of the 1995 Report said plainly, on 5 separate occasions, that no evidence of an anthropogenic influence on global climate was detectable, and that it was not known when such an influence would become evident.

However, a single scientist, Dr. Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, rewrote the draft at the IPCC’s request, deleting all 5 statements, replacing them with a single statement to the effect that a human influence on global climate was now discernible, and making some 200 consequential amendments.

These changes were considered by a political contact group, but they were not referred back to the vast majority of the authors whose texts Dr. Santer had tampered with, and whose 5-times-stated principal conclusion he had single-handedly and unjustifiably negated.

This is a constant theme with the consensus science groups board members. They don’t want scientists, they want ‘yes’ researchers.

“The claim that the Earth hasn’t warmed in 10 years is complete and utter garbage”

Depends on whose temp chart your looking at.

http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/01/nasas-research-substantiates-trend-towards-global-cooling-human-global-warming-from-co2-has-disappea.html

NASA’s Research Substantiates Trend Towards Global Cooling – Human “Global Warming” From CO2 Has Disappeared

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25940

Global Temperature And Data Distortions Continue

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

NCDC Data Shows USA has not Warmed in the Past Decade, Summers are Cooler, Winters Colder

http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/cherries-are-not-the-only-fruit/

Sep 20, 2011
Cherries Are Not the Only Fruit

This came from a PDF file: It’s recent oand on the web

CONTIGUOUS U. S. TEMPERATURE TRENDS USING NCDC RAW AND ADJUSTED DATA FOR ONE-PER-STATE RURAL AND URBAN STATION SETS
by Edward R. Long, Ph.D.

What warming has happened has not showed up as a result of CO2 forcing, the alleged forcing is way out of line of actual increases, which show no acceleration over the last 2 centuries. Besides, the temperature data is heavily biased when you look at GISS graphs.

http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/01/cet-temperatures.html

I could go on with example after example but the reality is: You can shove the truth to the back of the closet, but sooner or later someones going to come along to clean out the closet and discover it.

Your denials are just awful Phil, ad hoministic, as is most of the rest of the AGW crowd, there’s money and power behind it.

And your “facts’ are completely wrong. The claim that the Earth hasn’t warmed in 10 years is complete and utter garbage; I have posted on this several times. The people making that claim are cherry picking the data to make it look like warming hasn’t occurred, without looking at real trends. In fact, most claims like that from the denialist side are grossly misinterpreting data.

The WSJ OpEd you quote is so bad, so awful, so wrong, it’s hard to believe someone could write it with a straight face. Plenty of other sites debunk it, so I haven’t bothered, but that “16 scientist” claim is also really disingenuous: only a couple are climate scientists, and the WSJ turned down an OpEd by 255 climate scientists stating global warming is real and human-caused. Now why would that be? If you guessed that the WSJ is hugely biased against reality, then you win.

And on and on.

Blah-blah-blah!

Hopefully Phil Plait won’t pull another RealClimate trick on me and this rebuttal gets printed intact.

Write a Peer review paper? Typical defensive crap from you fantasy land green necks. The problem is the peer review process has been hijacked by bureaucratic ‘Goldman Sacks wannabes’ who are after the money, not real science.

Did you not even look at the chart at http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/map-the-climate-change-scare-machine-the-perpetual-self-feeding-cycle-of-alarm/

Did you not visit this site with the non consensus peer review papers that show otherwise what the GravyTrainScientists consensus claims:

900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

Proof, there’s tons of proof when you venture past the AGW clown sites:

http://antigreen.blogspot.com/

Notice how before the industrial ramp-up of emissions of 1940 the warming was just as steep and presently it has flattened out, even thought CO2 has risen over 18% over the past decade? We where suppose to be lucky to see snow again LOL!

Just last September, Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) over that organization’s climate change orthodoxy. In his resignation letter to APS, Giaever explained: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/12797/Exclusive-Nobel-PrizeWinning-Physicist-Who-Endorsed-Obama-Dissents-Resigns-from-American-Physical-Society-Over-Groups-Promotion-of-ManMade-Global-Warming

“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”

In the Wall Street Journal, a group of sixteen prominent scientists, including physicists, meteorologists and climatologists, come forward to express solidarity with Giaever, writing that:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

“…large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

So why do so many still cling to the hope of climate change catastrophe? The scientists offer their own view, again in the Journal:

“Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet.”

And that is what you AGWers fail to admit along with green renewable energy advocates. More seminary science and ad hominem then objective science. But those legislative clowns both in state and federal positions have made sure the pseudo science will persist as the science, industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against has become entrenched in so many factions of government. Too many, such as you, are drinking the koolaide.

“I think Phil Plait is half full of baloney if he can’t see the sun climate relationship and exaggerates the CO2 forcing effect. Especially when he calims (sic) climategate Is manufactured.”

So Phil is half full of baloney. That makes you completely full of it then, because if you really had a knock out full on megadestructive argument, that 100% battered AGW into submission you would have written it up into a scientific paper, gotten it peer reviewed and published and would now be basking in the warmth and limelight of a Nobel prize and much media interest. Instead you’re posting tired old denialist cut and paste arguments that have been posted many many many times before on this site.

Here’s what’s really happening:

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/map-the-climate-change-scare-machine-the-perpetual-self-feeding-cycle-of-alarm/

And it’s not just the AGW climate gate stuff. This is what’s happening all across the political spectrum. It’s called cronyism.

I go out beyond the mainstream to do a factcheck. Contrived science is rotten science, just like contrived legislation got us to where we are today. That’s why I’m basically independent with Libertarian leanings.

Yah, and the black booted, AGWer thought police have invaded a persons private property, all in the name of PCism.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/14/uk-police-seize-computers-of-skeptic-in-england/

But you should note that I have been deleting your past few comments because they have been invective and insulting. That violates the one single rule I have here: don’t be a jerk. If you cannot comment without violating that rule, then please take your ideas somewhere else.

WattsUpWithThat, icecap.us, drtimball.com, livescience, co2science.org, ect; these are science sites, just like Discover is a science site. You are trying to deflect the relevance of the sources and content, a typical AGWer tacit of diversion. Do you know Sorros of moveon.org?

If the Register had an article that referenced an article of Discover that claimed Al gore was right you’d be jumping up and down saying- see, see, I told you so. so you are being silly with that claim of political media. I could claim realclimate.org was political just as easily as Dr. Roger Pielke claimed it exaggerating the warming trend although the link was to whatsupwiththat.com website. But that’s political to you.

And how many periodicals deal with science issues from credible organizations and other? You are just trying to demonize science articles and reports that don’t support your beliefs, they are also echoed on other science periodicals. They have just as many pro AGW articles on news sites like the Register-UK, maybe more. And to be fair, Phil probably does have some good articles on subjects of Astronomy but I take him like the Science Guy.

http://et4u.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/phil-plait-gets-negative-review-on-his-book-bad-astronomy-ufo-sighting-news/

But guys like Al Gore, Hansen, they are not political, they are scientists, –right! Where science and money is involved, politics tends to follow. Politicians typically want more power, how else could they justify automatic raises where Social Security recipients have not seen in 3 years? Oh it because they have very important, life changing positions for the “welfare of the people and children.” Some scientists have the same basic premise on their pedestals of eliteness. Connelly is a good example, remember, he got expelled from Wikipedia for his pseudo, cherry-picking science.

I just handed you your head on several gaffs you made on science facts but all I get is the typical AGWer cheap whine. It’s all just cut and paste denier comments no matter the source.

And here’s the gist of the most reveling review of Weart book on Amazon

Fascinating but scientifically disappointing, October 12, 2005
By
James D. Bushnell “Chemical Engineer”
This review is from: The Discovery of Global Warming

“I found this book to be very well written and interesting. I am glad to have read it, for I now understand much better the evolution of the current reasoning on the subject of global warming. The book does not reveal these important facts (data) , and I wonder if it is not because the basis is so flimsy that the proponents do not want it to be known. ”

It appeals to emotionalism which most artsy fartsies and enviros knee- jerk off on. It leads to expensive measures and regulations like carbon taxes and expensive, unsustainable renewable energy for although the fuel is free the equipment needed to capture it is not and it’s not 24/7.

All these proposed government regulations will endup making energy essentially unfordable for the masses all based on bogus claims. It ends up in the UN proposing world wide carbon taxes and control. That’s why I respond to flatbrainers like you, if not to convince you, then others the madness of AGW claims that are being overhyped by many as it’s a hot news item.

It’s about people using the fears and ignorance of the basic scientific lowbrow to scam money. But with the web one can research and find put what really going on. It’s like do I trust government with either party? The more I read and research the less I trust the established party hierarchy. I am strongly considering the Libertarian party for that reason. Cronyism has sunk too deep in all facets of government and the scientific, financial, defense and industrial sectors.

You want some climate history, here’s a great site for that:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_Part1_PreHistoricalRecord.htm

Here’s a good book for you: The Great Global Warming Blunder by Roy Spencer, a scientist among others I refereed to. Rut they can’t be a real scientist as they are skeptics—- right!

And I’m still interrogating the web for better info on the greenhouse effect which is constantly being updated as new research tools are employed. One things for sure, the models are way off.

Geez Metzler.

All you are doing is echoing AGW denier talking points and pseudo-science. Please, do yourself a favour and try reading up on the real science behind AGW. Spencer Weart’s “The Discovery of Global Warming – A History” would be a great place to start (follow the link there at A GOOD PLACE TO START).

I think Phil Plait is half full of baloney if he can’t see the sun climate relationship and exaggerates the CO2 forcing effect. Especially when he calims climategate Is manufactured. LOL

Solar Cycle 24 Update

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/08/26/lawrence-solomon-science-now-settled/

Aug 29, 2011
Lawrence Solomon: Science getting settled

http://drtimball.com/2011/svensmark%E2%80%99s-cosmic-theory-confirmed-explains-more-than-solar-role-in-climate-change/

Svensmark’s Cosmic Theory Confirmed; Explains More Than Solar Role in Climate Change

The majority of CN were salt particles, kaolinite, the smallest clay particles and other particulates. Now the CT provides the missing nuclei. The amount of cosmic radiation is reduced as it passes through the Sun’s magnetic field and then the Earth’s magnetic field and then the upper atmosphere. In the atmosphere the cosmic rays become muons or heavy electrons that penetrate to sea level. They are the missing CN.

{That’s why the fact that 2010 was the hottest year in recorded history is all the more amazing.}

2010, really, LMAOAROTF! You got that from the Hansen-GISS temp. factory.

UAH HADCRUT3

1 1998- 0.515 1998- 0.515
2 2005- 0.341 2005- 0.479
3 2002- 0.315 2003- 0.457
4 2007- 0.284 2002- 0.455
5 2003- 0.277 2009- 0.436
6 2006- 0.263 2004- 0.432
7 2009- 0.260 2006- 0.422
8 2001- 0.200 2007- 0.403
9 2004- 0.195 2001- 0.400
10 1991- 0.122 1997- 0.355

The 2010 claim is only by 0.1F where temperature measuring stations can vary by 0.5 of a degree in accuracy. Even that 1.0 warming is being contested by scientist like Roy Spenser who say it’s more like 0.7C when you remove all the cooked data that GISS and the IPCC provides. This issue is covered expertly at surfacestations.org and here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/the-impact-of-urbanization-on-land-temperature-trends/#more-52564

This is also why temps based on world wide stations show warming while NCDC does not for over the last decade. Arctic temps don’t reflect this.

{You’ll notice in this graph of atmospheric CO2 readings that the values at sea level (LJO) are no higher than at 9,000 ft (SPO) or 11,000 ft (MLO).}

The Troposphere is approx 65 km over the tropic latitudes while it’s approx 20 km over the polar latitudes. Yet for all the increase in fossil fuel burning the rate remains essentially constant, where do you suppose all the CO2 is coming from? And the PPM chart shows no significant increase in step with fossil fuel burning.

http://www.co2web.info/

(Ref chart near bottom)

{Furthermore, the “light” molecular weight of water vapor has virtually nothing to do with the formation of clouds. Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon, the 3 biggest components of the atmosphere are all much lighter than water vapor, yet none of them form clouds.}

Lets see Metzler:

H2O 16+1+1=18

N2 14+14=28

O2 16+16=32

Ar 40

Trying to reinvent physics and chemistry here Metzler? Also the temperature decreases to zip with the pressure, most of the thermal action is at the surface. And a final note with water. The specific heat of water is 1 calorie/gram °C = 4.186 joule/gram °C which is higher than any other common substance. As a result, water plays a very important role in temperature regulation.

{A volcanic eruption the size of Mount St. Helens releases about 10^17 J. The heat of fusion for ice (the energy required to melt it) is about 334 J/g. }

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Lassen/EruptiveHistory/eruptive_activity_1914.html

The most recent eruptive activity occurred at Lassen Peak in 1914-1917 A.D..

“Disruption of the sticky lava on the upper east side of Lassen Peak on May 19 resulted in an avalanche of hot rock onto a snowfield. A lahar was generated that reached more than 18 kilometers down Lost Creek. On May 22, an explosive eruption produced a pyroclastic flow that devastated an area as far as 6 kilometers northeast of the summit.”

I’ve been there and it’s impressive.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110711104755.htm

Speaking at the International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences in Edinburgh Dr Phil Leat from British Antarctic Survey said, “There is so much that we don’t understand about volcanic activity beneath the sea — it’s likely that volcanoes are erupting or collapsing all the time.

http://www.livescience.com/2242-buried-volcano-discovered-antarctica.html

Although ice buried the unnamed volcano, molten rock is still churning below. David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the BAS and a co-author of the new study, said the discovery might explain the speeding up of historically slow-moving glaciers in the region.

Researchers also think that magma-heated rock beneath Greenland’s massive ice sheet is accelerating its melting, but whether a volcano or just a pool of magma is responsible is still a matter of debate.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/22/surprise-theres-an-active-volcano-under-antarctic-ice/

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Antarctica/description_antarctica_volcanoes.html

{The WAIS has been losing at least 42 km^3 per year for the past decade (see Shepard, Wingham, and Rignot 2004).}|

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/page3.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/antarctica_and_the_myth_of_dea_1.html

“On Monday, scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute reported that they’d measured sea temperatures beneath an East Antarctic ice shelf and found no signs of warming whatsoever. ”

It’s sea ice and not mainland ice, it’s not even 1% of the total mass. And as Goddard shows the mainland ice has been increasing. And this has happened it the past with decadeal ocean circulation cycles, nothing new here. And notice where the volcanoes are and most of the heating.

{We don’t. The data aren’t reported as absolute temperatures, but as anomalies from an arbitrary baseline. The two datasets use different baselines.}

Your telling me1

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/

A Tale of Two Thermometers

How about some real science instead of the 7th grade bugger factory science you AGWers usually come up with.

Your talk about the cosmic rays being connected to global warming has been ”covered” here at the Bad Astronomy blog:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/31/no-a-new-study-does-not-show-cosmic-rays-are-connected-to-global-warming/

Also you seem to incline that all of CERN now is against AGW, which I’m quite sure isn’t the case.

Really, CO2 is only about .04% of the atmosphere and even less at higher altitudes. So would that extra 7% increase over the past decade show up at higher altitudes? And as I pointed out CO2 is the heaviest component of the Atmosphere. Water vapor is the lightest which is why clouds form.”

1. Gases in the atmosphere aren’t sorted by molecular weight, and it’s a good thing they aren’t since CO2 is heavier than oxygen. You would find it very difficult to breathe, especially at sea level, if they were.

You’ll notice in this graph of atmospheric CO2 readings that the values at sea level (LJO) are no higher than at 9,000 ft (SPO) or 11,000 ft (MLO).
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/other_stations/global_stations_co2_concentration_trends.html

In other words, the increase in CO2 does show up at higher altitudes.

Furthermore, the “light” molecular weight of water vapor has virtually nothing to do with the formation of clouds. Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon, the 3 biggest components of the atmosphere are all much lighter than water vapor, yet none of them form clouds.

2) In terms of a percentage of the total atmosphere, CO2 actually increases with altitude because water vapor condenses out (the readings above don’t reflect this because they’re reported in terms of a dry atmosphere- meaning the water vapor has already been removed). By the time you reach the stratosphere there’s essentially no water vapor, but still plenty of CO2 because it’s unaffected by the adiabatic lapse rate.

I was alluding to the fact that ice in the Antarctic is increasing over land. The ice lost on the Wester self occurs periodically and is most due to warm water upwelling near the Western peninsula and the ring of fire runs around there, aka underwater volcanic activity.

A volcanic eruption the size of Mount St. Helens releases about 10^17 J. The heat of fusion for ice (the energy required to melt it) is about 334 J/g. Care to do the math to show us how plausible it is that underwater volcanoes are heating the water enough to cause significant melting of the WAIS?

I’ll save you the effort and tell you that an eruption the size of Mount St. Helens only has enough energy to melt about 1/3 of a km^3 of ice. The WAIS has been losing at least 42 km^3 per year for the past decade (see Shepard, Wingham, and Rignot 2004). That means a minimum of 140 Mount St. Helens sized eruptions every year for a solid decade- all undetected by seismologists- to explain the ice loss. That’s even assuming 100% efficiency of transferring volcanic energy into melting ice rather than creating noise, pulverizing rock, warming the water which will be dispersed by currents or radiate its heat to the atmosphere, etc.

If temp stations are so accurate why do we see a big difference of NCDC temps from GISS?

We don’t. The data aren’t reported as absolute temperatures, but as anomalies from an arbitrary baseline. The two datasets use different baselines. If you use a common baseline, they’re virtually identical. The minor differences come from how areas are weighted and how areas with sparse coverage are treated (are they ignored or assumed to be similar to neighboring areas).

It’s analogous to measuring your height as 6 feet from the floor or 16 feet from sea level. The two measurements are very different if you compare them on their own baselines, but if the floor is 10 feet above sea level, the two measurements are identical when compared on a common baseline.

Clouds and GHGs don’t insulate deep bodies of water like they insulate land surfaces. This is Trenberth’s Travesty (the missing heat). He expected to find it in the ocean but it just isn’t there.

His travesty isn’t that the heat is missing because it isn’t in the ocean. His travesty is that its missing because we have no way of measuring if it’s in the ocean or not.

Blackcat claims that the extra anthropogenic CO2 rise is the main cause global warming. That this addition is driving and accelerating the climate change to dangerously projected future heat levels that are forecast by climate models. But Kevin Trenberth, like many of his IPCC AGW comrades recently admitted that there exists many shortcomings and failures with the climate models’ inadequacies in regards to precipitation.

You have to admire the tenacity of your average AGW denier. Here we are on… what, the 5th page of the Bad Astronomer’s site, with no apparent let-up on this thread. Why? Only because it’s a thread on AGW, which apparently is a like a dog whistle to any loon with a conspiracy theory. But for the moment, OK, I’ll try to play your silly little game (of which, by definition, there can be no winners. Because a conspiracy theorist can never be proved wrong, right? )

So rather than try to debunk the whole ‘too long, didn’t read’ cut-and-paste screed you just posted there, which, admirably, TheBlackCat has done on several previous occasions… let’s just see how we get on with your very first point which I just block-quoted.

For starters: what does observing that the global average temperature has risen by about 1 deg C since the 1950′s, a rate unprecedented for *millions* of years, have anything to do with *models*? And… the fact that no known factor in the *natural* variability of the Earth’s eco-system can account for that unprecedented warming.

Please explain.

“all models contain large errors in precipitation simulations, both in terms of mean fields and their annual cycle, as well as their characteristics: the intensity, frequency, and duration of precipitation”

“relates to poor depiction of transient tropical disturbances, including easterly waves, Madden-Julian Oscillations, tropical storms, and hurricanes”

“confidence in model results for changes in extremes is tempered by the large scatter among the extremes in modeling today’s climate, especially in the tropics and subtropics”

“it appears that many, perhaps all, global climate and numerical weather prediction models and even many high-resolution regional models have a premature onset of convection and overly frequent precipitation with insufficient intensity,”

“model-simulated precipitation “occurs prematurely and too often, and with insufficient intensity, resulting in recycling that is too large”

“a lifetime of moisture in the atmosphere that is too short, which affects runoff and soil moisture”

and finally, he has a NSS moment “major challenges remain to improve model simulations of the hydrological cycle.”

Sooo, climates models can’t do precipitation (rain/snow/hail). That’s not much of a surprise to skeptics, plus it is widely known throughout the scientific world that climate models are also unable to do: water vapor, wind, clouds, ocean oscillations, atmospheric oscillations, ocean currents, polar ice sheets, positive feedback, negative feedback, climate sensitivity, aerosol impacts, submerged volcano impacts, solar/cosmic impacts, monsoons/ hurricanes/ typhoons, ocean heat, missing heat, missing CO2, minimum surface temperatures, maximum surface temperatures, regional warming/cooling, and of course, global warming.

But Blackcat claims:

{The logarithmic decrease is only an issue if you pretend the atmosphere is infinitely thin. But of course it isn’t, so even if the CO2 at one altitude has reduced absorption due to already absorbing some radiation, CO2 at higher altitudes can still absorb it. Increasing CO2 concentrations means more energy is absorbed at higher altitudes where the logarithmic decrease is much smaller.}

Really, CO2 is only about .04% of the atmosphere and even less at higher altitudes. So would that extra 7% increase over the past decade show up at higher altitudes? And as I pointed out CO2 is the heaviest component of the Atmosphere. Water vapor is the lightest which is why clouds form.

Blackcat claims:

{Water has higher heat capacity than air, but the energy does not just disappear, the energy will cause the water heat up (just more slowly than the air). If the water is warmer than the air, energy will flow from the water to the air, heating the air. If the air is warmer than the water, the opposite will occur. Energy will flow in such a way to make the temperature in two bodies equal. As I already explained, this will only slow things down temporarily, in the end the temperature of the air will still rise and the result will be the same. It is the energy in the air that ultimately determines when the temperature increase will end, not the energy in the water.}

Lets look at what’s really going on past his fluff physics.

There is a significant difference between land and water. Downwelling longwave has little effect over the ocean. The primary means of heating and cooling over land is radiative, absorption of shortwave by day and emission of longwave day and night.

The ocean is different. First of all ocean absorbs nearly 100% of shortwave that hits it and it is absorbed to a depth of 50-100 meters (the mixed layer). Land absorbs about 20% less shortwave because it is higher albedo and it only heats it down to a few centimeters in a single day. Land gives up this heat very quickly at night. There is very little diurnal temperature variation over the ocean because the shortwave radiation is absorbed to great depth and can’t readily escape radiatively because water is essentially a brick wall to longwave infrared.

The ocean cools primarily (70%) through evaporation. Because downwelling longwave cannot penetrate water beyond a depth of a few micrometers the primary effect of downwelling longwave radiation from low clouds or CO2 is increased evaporation rate.

Clouds and GHGs don’t insulate deep bodies of water like they insulate land surfaces. This is Trenberth’s Travesty (the missing heat). He expected to find it in the ocean but it just isn’t there. It’s being rejected by the skin layer of the ocean in latent heat of vaporization and it remains insensible until it rises far enough for adiabatic lapse rate to cool it below the dewpoint.

In the released CRU emails NCAR climate scientist Kevin Trenberth says:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

So Blackcats claim that clouds are mostly positive in feedback is largely pretentious.

Then there is this new peer reviewed paper:

Clouds Have Large Negative Cooling Effect on Earth’s Radiation Budget
Posted on September 20, 2011 by Anthony Watts

This new paper by Richard P. Allan of the University of Reading discovers via a combination of satellite observations and models that the cooling effect of clouds far outweighs the long-wave or “greenhouse” warming effect. While Dessler and Trenberth (among others) claim clouds have an overall positive feedback warming effect upon climate due to the long-wave back-radiation, this new paper shows that clouds have a large net cooling effect by blocking incoming solar radiation and increasing radiative cooling outside the tropics. This is key, because since clouds offer a negative feedback as shown by this paper and Spencer and Braswell plus Lindzen and Choi, it throws a huge monkey wrench in climate model machinery that predict catastrophic levels of positive feedback enhanced global warming due to increased CO2.

So clouds are largely negative in their feedback. And where do clouds come from, why water vapor of course. But what causes clouds formation and condensation?

Dr Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Centre in Copenhagen has pioneered the study of the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. Tthe latest research from the CERN cloud seeding experiment that confirms the Svensmark claim that cosmic particles form condensation nuclei (CN) in the lower atmosphere. This creates the low clouds that controls the amount of cloud cover and thereby the global temperature; like a screen in a greenhouse. The IPCC consistently ignore the relationship between sunspot and global temperature. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done, demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the suns magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

The IPCC proponents claimed there was no evidence that cosmic radiation was creating as condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. The problem was given to a supposedly neutral agency. However, an important part of the discovery is missed, partly because of lack of focus on water vapor and precipitation, but mostly because the IPCC control of climate science blocked knowledge and advances for 30 years. A major problem in early meteorology and weather and climate research was there were more clouds than nuclei.

Evaporation occurs when water molecules use energy from the Sun to escape from a surface. This is a phase change, as water in liquid form becomes a gas, water vapor. The energy is not lost but becomes latent heat in the water vapor. If the air temperature is cooled below the Dew Point Temperature then a reverse phase change occurs called condensation and water vapor becomes liquid. The latent heat is released, which is why temperatures usually rise when precipitation occurs. The problem is this process requires a critical component, a solid surface. In the atmosphere this is provided by the CN. Water vapor condenses on to them to form water droplets, which are microscopic. They’re visible as clouds and remain suspended because they are so small – it’s estimated 1 million must combine to form a moderate sized raindrop.

The majority of CN were salt particles, kaolinite, the smallest clay particles and other particulates. Now the CT provides the missing nuclei. The amount of cosmic radiation is reduced as it passes through the Sun’s magnetic field and then the Earth’s magnetic field and then the upper atmosphere. In the atmosphere the cosmic rays become muons or heavy electrons that penetrate to sea level. They are the missing CN.

Proof that cosmic rays provide CN to form clouds in the lower atmosphere is an ugly fact that even the professional scientific spin-doctors cannot avoid. These clouds vary with the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere and act like a shade in the global greenhouse to control temperature. We now have proof of the mechanism or cause and effect for what was previously only a correlation. Sunspots are not the cause but a manifestation of changes in the Sun’s magnetic field that in turn modulates the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth. So another ugly fact creates a large cloud that destroys the politically driven AGW hypothesis.

Another fact of the bogusness of AGW is that Cumulonimbus clouds act as irises for heat release. Any pilot will tell you there are strong updrafts under big cumulus clouds. The updraft very likely continues to the top of the cloud where the upward velocity drops to zero, cooling occurs, and the velocity of the droplets subsequently becomes negative. If the droplets get big enough, you get rain falling out of the center.

Cumulonimbus clouds can have a shape like a stovepipe top hat with rain falling from the center and hot moist air flowing up the walls of the stovepipe. The idea is some clouds can act more like a heat conveyor, and other clouds can act more like a blanket. It is important to distinguish between the two and accurately handle the heat flow. I think that was an important point this paper was making, if not explicitly. Using optical density alone will be insufficient for some cloud types.

So the AGW religious fanatics are under a big could of credibility in their claims, much like the Catholic Inquisition tried to claim domain over science and enlightenment. Don’t dare go aginst his holiness the Pope!

And Metzler, I said that fossil burning is a good thing because in several million years, without the injection of additional CO2, the oceans would sequester the CO2 out of the Atmosphere via chemical reaction with calcium, of which the oceans are well buffered with, which would affect the mean temperature. I also read if Humans could burn all the fossil fuel possible in an instant it still would not be enough to double the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Gas mixture Surface temperature/K oC
Total atmosphere 288.2 15.0
Atmos. without water 275.5 2.3
Atmos. without CO2 277.7 4.5
Atmos. without water and CO2 264.2 -9.0
Atmos. without CH4 287.7 14.5
Only N2O present 263.2 -10.0
No GHGs present 253.7 -19.5

I guess your right. I always thinks TheBlackCat seems to be to one explaining things in the best way.

I also got really surprised when Scottar typed ”So fossil burning is a good thing.”
How can you know that? Sounds totally backwards.

Thanks so much for your recommendations! I’d happy to learn more about this.
I’ll check out both sites you recommended.

Vigorously awaiting TheBlackCat’s response to Scottar.

It’s interesting to see two people with (seemingly to me at least) quite a bit of insight in the subject.

Don’t be fooled by Scottar’s supposed ‘insight’. It’s all pseudo-science cobbled together from fake “skeptic” sites like wattsupwiththat (WUWT). You can be quite certain that anyone citing WUWT as a source is only recycling denialist talking points. And that “900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm” list has been debunked so many times before it’s getting beyond tiresome.

We have, in fact, been experiencing abnormal cooling for the past few years due to one of the most extended solar minimums in a long time. That’s why the fact that 2010 was the hottest year in recorded history is all the more amazing. Rest assured that mankind’s continued use of fossil fuels will prevent us from sliding into the next ice age no matter what the sun does. Unfortunately, that’s about the only positive side effect of AGW. The other consequences of at least 2 deg C of warming will all be negative, some devastatingly so, like severe drought, more severe storms, and rising sea levels.

I would recommend Spencer Weart’s “The Discovery of Global Warming – A History” page (to get a grounding in the science) and/or the greenman3610 channel on YouTube, especially the stuff tagged as “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” (if you want to see the denier lies and disinformation debunked one by one in an entertaining video series).

It’s interesting to see two people with (seemingly to me at least) quite a bit of insight in the subject.