I don’t intend to argue whether or not the planet is warming — certainly the data shows this. But to call the cause “undeniably human” or “never before seen” based on such small samples when there is data available that contradicts this notion (see Discover’s own article at http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-ice-age-flower-blooms-again about a plant that lay under the frozen Siberian tundra for 30,000 years until recent melting allowed the seeds to thaw) ignores basic scientific method, where true science does not try to prove a theory true, but tries continually to disprove that theory. This is what upsets the “deniers”more than anything.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3579042.htm

Climate Central’s chief climatologist Heidi Cullen joins Lateline to discuss the worrying new data about the extent of this summer’s arctic sea-ice melt.

Via Aussie ABC TV’s Lateline show which also mentions a recent Hansen paper, the US attitudes to HIRGO and more.

Hope y’all find it interesting /informative.

@56. Chris Winter :

I wonder if hypothetical alien civilizations, having attained the ability to image Earth-like planets in other star systems (as our scientists hope to do twenty or thirty years from now) would notice the change in brightness of our planet resulting from its rapid (in geologic terms) loss of ice cover and deduce that industry was the cause of that.

Yup. Imagine such a sentience may conclude that our favourite environment type is desert and we’re deliberately “terraforming” our own planet into one that’s mostly that environment type. Well, as “mostly” as can be on a planet that’s two thirds saltwater covered.

I believe this fact is jackhammered deeper into our skulls by people like Roy Spencer, who after being dismayed and downtrodden by Richard Muller’s findings related to AGW, have begun the denier chant to toss Muller into the ‘not trusted’ bin. I assure you, I knew this was going to happen from the second I heard Muller’s name mentioned and hearing the decision he had reached. It fits the denier pattern.

The fascination I have with Muller isn’t as much how/why Muller was “converted” (true skeptics don’t suddenly shed their skepticism but are “convinced” by the evidence/data to change their viewpoint), or why it took so long for him to ‘warm up’ to AGW when many of his peers reached his conclusion years ago, the tasty-bits is having a chance to observe the shocked and bitter reaction of the people who never desired to find any truth about climate change/global warming in the first place – the deceptive deniers who aren’t honest skeptics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?smid=pl-share

I agree that Conservapedia is a joke, but give Andrew Schafly some credit. He’s got degrees in engineering and law, from Princeton and Harvard respectively. It’s all about motivated reasoning. Chris Mooney explains that pretty well.

If that’s supposed to be sarcasm, it falls flat. The concern is how we will die, and whether or not we take our civilization with us.

What I would like to believe is that these non-deniers (as you call them) could come up with some actual evidence to support their position. But in that it seems I am doomed to eternal disappointment.

I wonder if hypothetical alien civilizations, having attained the ability to image Earth-like planets in other star systems (as our scientists hope to do twenty or thirty years from now) would notice the change in brightness of our planet resulting from its rapid (in geologic terms) loss of ice cover and deduce that industry was the cause of that.

Anti-Climatologers / Anti-Climatologisters after anti-vaxxers maybe?

Then they will complain about being compared to anti-vaxxers. I am sure someone, somewhere, used contrarians to refer to a currently-disliked group as well.