Water, whether in a pond or in the ocean, will convect. So even if NiV’s contention that the water at the bottom of a pond will get hotter than the top (and, dur, this assumes that water is perfectly transparent to all solar radiation, which it so obviously ain’t) were correct, then as soon as a temperature gradient occurs, convection will begin and will even out the gradient.

One of the main reasons this differs from the atmosphere is that air gets warmed not by the sun but by the ground, because the air is transparent to most solar radiation while the ground is opaque to most of it. Combined with the low heat capacity of air, and its poor ability to cool land that is being heated by sunlight, the convection of air leads to fairly prolonged patterns of air movement that we call wind.

In fact, all of the blather about ponds suggests that NiV doesn’t actually understand the GH effect at all.

“The methodology and data mostly are public. Just get yourself to a good university library, and it’s all there in the primary literature.”

You’ve never checked that, have you?

Quick example – the climate database CRU TS2.1 is described in the primary literature as Mitchell and Jones 2005, and is cited in the IPCC WGI reports as such. Find for me a description in that same literature of the methodology, so that I can check the statements in the ‘Harry’ file regarding the missing files, unrecorded manual inputs, made up numbers, or the use of Delaunay interpolation for a supposedly gridded product. Why did Harry struggle to figure out how the code worked, if it’s all public?

So what?

You’ve never actually done real science, have you?

All that journal editors require one to publish is sufficient detail that another researcher can replicate your work. IOW, for methodology to be considered published, it doesn’t have to be a beginners’ guide. In disciplines such as chemistry, one is required to apply one’s own knowledge at the same time, rather than expect other researchers to fill valuable time and space with every last detail. I imagine the same applies in other scientific disciplines. Just because someone with no climatology experience cannot replicate the methods, doesn’t mean those methods aren’t published, in the same way that it applies for chemistry.

“Sure, there are differences over details, but pretty much all climate scientists will agree with these three points.”

They’ll agree with the first point. They’ll agree that humanity *contributes* on the second. They don’t agree on the third.

Prove it.

Who disagrees about points 2 and 3?

Come on, NiV, I’m getting tired of you spouting all your claims that go against what is established as mainstream science, but refusing to support them.

Here’s a specific question for you:
Which climate scientists have criticised the IPCC for overstating the AGW case?

#86,

“To take a different angle, perhaps you’d care to enlighten me about how maths improves one’s understanding of – for example – cell biology?”

It allows you to do statistical tests on experimental outcomes.

And?

Where’s the other 80% of your answer?

Seriously, you have claimed that one cannot do science without doing maths. Support your contention or retract it. ‘Cos, AFAICT, there are plenty of scientific disciplines – such as cell biology – in which the maths is a relatively minor “add-on”, and there is no impediment to doing real science without doing any maths beyond basic arithmetic.

Hmm. I seem to have been banned.

Or maybe a few of your comments got hung up. I’ve learned to compose in a text file and paste into here—the system seems to have a cutoff time for slow commenting.

I think it would have been more polite to say so openly, …

Phil is very polite—he’s caught a lot of abuse for politely suggesting that other people be less un-polite. But you are again dishing out an insult garnished with your assumption and wrapped in a tea napkin.

… but I know some people don’t believe in debate, …

Erm, Phil allows commenting on his blog, and has been posting things that he knows cause debate, and he hasn’t said to not do debates. He maybe disagrees with you, but he’s been providing you a forum for weeks. You could say thank you.

… and there’s no point in fighting it.

It’s not like the future of the human race is at stake or anything.