Have you bothered to look at any of the information put to you by Nexus6? Or even better, have you directed your queries to a mainstream climate scientist with an extensive record of contemporaneous peer-reviewed publications?

No?

I thought not.

Hang on Jen - you've called it on Editorial III with the reading of one paper supplied?

You haven't said what you'd accept as proof yet either?

You're dealing with a global size problem and a temporal scale of decades if not centuries. So what would you take as proof? Your question is not clear.

At the molecular level CO2 doesn't heat because a CO2 molecule emits as it absorbs, and also loses energy through vibration; at a macro level Miscolczi establishes that there will be no heating through various balancing principles; virial, Kirchhoff and the equipartition principle; the rotational equlibrium is maintained via kinetic weight loss from the crust and increased potential energy in the increased weight of the atmosphere; as well there is Chilingar's convective heating mechanism working in combination with Henry's Law and atmospheric weight, which answers NT's mantra of partial pressure issues with CO2 absorption by the ocean. As well CO2 follows temp; the enhanced greenhouse is defeated by water feedback, even if CO2 did heat; the Weart model is a dud; Callendar and his RC groupies didn't understand Beck was talking about regional CO2 concentrations and Koutsoyiannis has shown that AGW has no predictive validity at all; AGW has not been proved. Jennifer is correct, the dissonance continues.

What is causal linkage? Jen, can you provide some examples from your field of expertise?

Hmmm...it appears my simple request has failed again. It's almost like you don't want to answer. Now, why would that be? ;)

Cohenite, you might be interested in this post at RealClimate regarding the Koutsoyiannis paper. In a nutshell, the research merely confirmed a well-known property of climate model projections. It's not that they have no predictive ability, it's that they cannot be used for point-forecasting. They're not NWP's; they are more than appropriate for projecting long-term trends and shifts in the climate.

It's hardly as earth-shattering a conclusion as many skeptics tend to insinuate.

Eh, blog gobbled my link :(

It's the Aug. 10 posting at RC.

Jennifer,

First you're being unfair to this paper.

If we look at a collection of physical laws, and note that these physical laws including a CO2 component lead to a reasonable approximation of past climate whereas these physical laws without a CO2 component lead to a poor approximation of past climate we have some decent evidence that the CO2 is important; this paper attempts to quantify this degree of importance. Absent half-a-dozen spare Earths to experiment on and a time machine there can be no better way of arriving at a collection of physical laws to describe the Earth.

I don't see what's wrong with using a model here. How do you propose we understand reality except through a model? What are Newton's laws if not a model of the principles of motion? Do you accept that Newton's laws as a causal description of moving objects, or the ideal gas laws as a causal description of temperature and pressure? If not, then you've degenerated into some kind of post-modern ultra-skepticism and this is all a bit pointless.

Second if you want the answer to this question and trace causality more directly i.e. you're unhappy with energy balance models, you will need to read several papers, get on top of the basic equations of a GCM and (to repeat myself) you will find a textbook a useful guide here. Otherwise you will have to confine yourself to simpler descriptions.

The fundamental work in describing a collection of equations which describe climate was done in the early to middle part of this century. The tricks required for adapting the finite difference method to these were worked out in the 60s and 70s. You'll need to read papers from this era. You'll need to read something describing each of atmosphere, ocean, land and sea-ice modeling, something else describing the interactions, and something else again describing how to set the initial conditions for such a thing. These large scale simulations are not described in single papers. I'd guess at two reasons for this, first the work was done in parts, and second it would be too long (over 250 pages to summarize) for a journal article.

The body of work is there, it is just *LARGE*.

I've given you some references which describe a tiny part of this, how to use physical laws to describe the motion of atmospheric gases in 3 dimensions. You could read them and say "these don't answer my question". They're a tiny part of the puzzle, you then need to read a hell of a lot more.

The place where these are all brought together in digestible form is in a textbook.

To add another angle on “anthropogenic warming,” consider Kirchhoff's Three Laws:

A hot opaque body produces a continuous spectrum
A hot transparent gas produces an emission line spectrum
A cool transparent gas in front of a continuous emission source produces an absorption line spectrum.

And in this third case, what happens to the energy absorbed — is it "trapped"? Of course not, that energy is simply and immediately radiated off in all directions, diminishing the linear light beam you’re observing but not diminishing the QUANTITY of light being emitted.

Since carbon dioxide produces a few absorption lines over the earth’s continuous blackbody spectrum, this means that CO2 is a cooler gas standing in the way. The very fact that CO2 ABSORBS some terrestrial infrared means that it’s cooler. That's how heat transfer works, being a movement from greater to lesser energy. Thus a cool body cannot heat a warm body. This would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Adding CO2 to the air might have a modest effect on radiatively heating the air because it will catch slightly more of the surface’s infrared energy. But the infrared this CO2 radiates in turn cannot heat the surface because this gas is being heated BY the surface. Surface heating by so-called “back-radiation” is tantamount to the surface heating itself.

For CO2 (or any similar gas) to be capable of heating the earth’s surface, it would have to be at a higher temperature than the surface. Its spectral signature alone shows that it isn’t at a higher temperature.

"Absent half-a-dozen spare Earths to experiment on and a time machine there can be no better way of arriving at a collection of physical laws to describe the Earth."
-----------------

@Patrick Caldon
This argument is essentially incorrect. The Earth has made many well measured "experiments" for us, for example during the massive eruption of el Chichon (1982) or Pinatubo (1991) which led to 0.5°C cooling for more than 2 years, or the huge el Nino of 1998.

The problem is these "experiments" contradict the AGW theory, so they are swept under the carpet. In 1998 for example, el Nino has injected vast amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere and has warmed it about 0.5°C in one year. If the climate is dominated by a positive feedback by water vapor as predicted by the AGW proponents, it would have entered in runaway warming loop.
But it has not. Current GCM models (which assume positive feedback by setting relative humidity=constant) are unable to take into account such "experiments" apart from lumping the unexplained in a versatile "natural variability".

--------------------------
"The tricks required for adapting the finite difference method to these were worked out in the 60s and 70s."
--------------------------

Sorry but this claim is simply absurd. The problem of numerically solving the equations describing (even very coarsely) climate is simply not resolved and will never be. I am afraid you don't have the slightest idea of what modelling means. Please read : eg Tennekes

A detrended cross-correlation of CO2 and temperature series clearly shows causality, with temperature fluctuations lagging CO2 by about 10 years. This can be demonstrated in a way that is clear, decisive and easy enough for just about anyone to reproduce. How long do you think it will take for this type of analysis to make it into the literature?

http://residualanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/06/anthropogenic-global-warming-is.html

Joseph,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but all you've managed to show is, given enough choices of data and statistical tools, you can correlate practically anything to anything else.
Correlation does not mean causation, and it's causation that Jen's been asking for evidence of.

Nexus 6

There is no causal linkage thereby explaining Jennifer's lack of evidence for it.

And for those of you who think they understand science, Arrhenius proposed that a reduction of CO2 from the atmosphere caused ice-ages. This is the same as stating that increasing CO2 causes warming.

Arrhenius did not bother to prove his hypothesis but demanded that if all the CO2 were removed from the atmosphere and no drop in temperature occurred, then that would refute his hypothesis.

He asked critics to perform an impossible experiment to falsify his hypothesis. This is not science.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, we have a clear case of "If I can't/won't understand it you can't prove it".

Jennifer has now reduced herself to a pale imitation of Graeme Bird.

"I was disappointed with the paper when I read it this afternoon. The paper essentially compares output from a reconstruction of past climate with output from an energy balance climate model. In other words, the paper looks at the fit between output from two models. So the paper is about correlation not causation."

One paper..............one paper. Unbelievable. There is a reason the IPCC reports are so large, it's a highly complex problem that involves the whole globe. You are going to have to read more than one paper.

SJT, answer me one thing:
If the IPCC paper, in all its size and complexity, adequately and unequivocally described causation, then how come they haven't, by now, condensed all the salient points into an easy-to-read document which all can understand and none can reasonably argue against? That would have shut the skeptics up, once and for all. Why do they still feel the need to obfuscate matters by hiding the truth within tons of arcane documentation?
And, if the science is so settled, how come they're still spending obscene amounts of taxpayer's money on more and yet more 'research'?
Surely, now that they've supplied all the proof necessary for governments to take up the baton and 'save the planet', they can now take up other challenges to their intellect?

Alan: "The very fact that CO2 ABSORBS some terrestrial infrared means that it’s cooler"

cooler than what, space? we need to be carefull regarding Earth's inward/outward radiation

Gavin: "cooler than what, space?"

No, cooler than the emitter of the infrared, ie the surface.

Cohenite in particular should know that searching for a bit of AGW evidence in all the branches of physics and associated climate science is like seeking truth in the balance with right and wrong. The laws are only there to help us and that’s it with all such judgments.

Back to those comparative spheres of Earth and its fluids for a mo; we should see both the atmosphere and the oceans as thin films being pulled around the surface with all the imperfections interfering and creating dynamic patterns of infinite variety.

The casual observer hasn’t got much to stand on. Our weather chief commenting on the ACT said on AM radio today, “it’s a bit dryer in Autumn, a bit wetter in Spring and Winter seems shorter by the number of warmer days over the last ten years”

Joseph

Your well meaning statistical proof is meaningless. First of all you are using Nth Hemisphere temperature not global - why? Secondly we just dont know what the temperature or CO2 levels were 150 yrs ago with enough precision to conduct this sort of analysis. The errors in both data series are much larger than the size of this ten year lag you are trying to prove. That is why it isn't in the peer reviewed literature.
Undoubtedly there is a correlatrion between CO2 and temps over the past 150 years, but there is just as good a correlation between solar activity and temps.
If CO2 does lead temps by 10 years, then why have temperatures fallen this decade, even though the rate of CO2 increase has been accelerating?

Can I approach this AGW fiasco from another angle and ask the obvious question "what's all the fuss about"?
The planet emerged from the Little ice age about 150 years ago and is said to be in period of recovery.
All the info I've been able to find attributes the LIA temperature to be about 1- 1.5C colder than normal (?). In the intervening 150 years the planet has warmed perhaps .7 degrees C so compared to the above LIA temp record we haven't even reached full recovery mode yet.
Also in the 20th century we have experienced the highest levels of Solar radiation in the past 11,000 years, so once again what is the fuss about?
Many solar experts tell us that at least a third of that .7C must be attributed to increased levels of solar activity and remember the increase in co2 we are talking about in the last 2 centuries ( man made or not) is .01% i.e. one hundredth of 1% of the atmosphere.
All the above is pretty straight forward but we still can't find that pesky hot spot and with the most advanced technology available we can't find any positive feedbacks either.

Exactly, Peter.

Let me explain it to you, Gavin. Without so-called greenhouse gases, the surface would heat the air, first conductively and then convectively as currents got set up. So the atmosphere would be the first recipient of thermal energy due to the way heat flows, from warmer to cooler. The air’s acquired heat cannot heat the surface (except of course if currents carry this air to where the surface is cooler). Having nowhere else to go, then, the thermal energy that the air acquires is radiated to space.

Adding a greenhouse gas changes nothing in this dynamic, however. Being largely transparent to infrared, air cannot be heated by radiation from a greenhouse gas, so this radiation could only heat the surface. And yet it cannot heat the surface because the surface is the very source of this energy — the gas is only passively responding to radiated surface heat. Consequently, the thermal energy that the air acquires is radiated to space. As before.

There’s no net gain in either scenario. The surface has only a finite amount of energy to transfer to the air. To the extent the air acquires heat conductively and convectively, that much less is available for radiative transfer. Since a greenhouse gas cannot stifle the other two heat-transfer mechanisms, then, whatever the air does not gain by conductive and convective transfer is an index of what energy is left for a greenhouse molecule hovering at a distance. Which isn’t much energy to begin with, considering the narrow range of wavelengths that carbon dioxide in particular is able to absorb.

Relative to the earth’s surface, CO2 is a cooler gas. A body of cooler gas cannot heat that warmer surface.

Alan - "Adding a greenhouse gas changes nothing in this dynamic, however. Being largely transparent to infrared, air cannot be heated by radiation from a greenhouse gas, so this radiation could only heat the surface."

I am a bit confused here. Is water vapour a greenhouse gas or not? Is there such thing as a gas that absorbs some IR or is the whole field of IR spectroscopy completely wrong?

Gee Alan Siddons - well I guess it's all over for the greenhouse effect totally then. Just wonder why the Earth isn't a tad colder then. Sigh ...

Jen's having fun by remaining silent.

Wow, you read one whole paper... I guess that just proves it doesn't it...

Luke, isn't it great to get an insight into how Jen conducts a scientific investigation? I think we should call it the Jen-vestigation technique.

So now due to "Jen-vestigation" we can say there is no greenhouse effect and no global warming. What else will Jen-vestigation reveal? I put my money on "no crisis in the Murray River"

"Several papers were suggested to me, I believe in good faith.."

Don't sugarcoat these people. They are just lunatics, barely reconstructed communists and anonymous frauds. Look at Nexus. He's just a complete idiot.

They cannot be so stupid that they don't know what evidence is. So they are frauds. Thats why they are always showing up anonymously. They must know they ought to be sacked from their day-job.

There was nothing good faith about the wild-goose chases these people try to send the rest of us down. There is nothing good faith about the aspersions that they cast on you specifically and others more generally.

These guys are just Gramscian anti-science pack-animals. Utopian-Eschatologists wrong-footed by the collapse of Soviet Communism.

This global warming racket is the longest evidence filibuster in all history.

Several dozens of papers were suggested to you. Not one of them in good faith.

"Don't sugarcoat these people. They are just lunatics, barely reconstructed communists and anonymous frauds. Look at Nexus. He's just a complete idiot.

They cannot be so stupid that they don't know what evidence is. So they are frauds. Thats why they are always showing up anonymously. They must know they ought to be sacked from their day-job.

There was nothing good faith about the wild-goose chases these people try to send the rest of us down. There is nothing good faith about the aspersions that they cast on you specifically and others more generally.

These guys are just Gramscian anti-science pack-animals. Utopian-Eschatologists wrong-footed by the collapse of Soviet Communism.

This global warming racket is the longest evidence filibuster in all history.

Several dozens of papers were suggested to you. Not one of them in good faith"

I shall print that off and put it up on my toilet wall.

Luke boy, has remained silent on his CO2 quota from his high priests. Just seems he has never found anything in his life. Why need evidence?

luke, ender, SJT, Venus doesn't have a greenhouse effect; it has no atmospheric water vapor and its CO2 is mostly a supercritical fluid; Venus's warmth is due to atmospheric weight; Earth has a modestly heavy atmosphere too; all those greenhouse gases are heavy.

counters; RC have been gunning for Koutsoyiannis for some time; here is a 2006 exchange;

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=310#comment-14081

The exchange begins at comment 34 onwards; Koutsoyiannis's point 6 is revealing; generally AGW is about refining autocorrelations; a repeating signal, as Bob Tisdale has shown, can have a multitude of possible explanations, many of which may not be the original signal; Bob's work with regional climate patterns, PDO, IPO, AMO, SAM and the residuals shows that a repeating signal can be tandem, residual, counterpoised etc; Koutsoyiannis's work on Hurst has shown that the repeating signal may in fact be a one off, or a signal which operates in a time frame beyond the context of other repeaters, or, as in the case of the '98 super El Nino, it may be an extention of a otherwise well extracted signal; Hurst is therefore a proxy for stochasism. The essence of AGW is to overcome this and to substantiate the predictive quality of its models ; this is where RC is particularly disingenuous by saying that GCM's do not seek to predict, or if they do they don't on a regional basis; by attempting to resolve Hurst you are predicting; Tamino has offered a solution whereby a massive interpolation can extract a signal satisfying a 0.5 benchmark; the use of benchmarks is problematic as Ammann and Wahl's deceit has shown but it cannot be avoided; as soon as you refine the range of autocorrelatives you are basing your solution on a prediction; this is how models work; a cause is selected from the range of possible autocorrelatives and then a comparison is made between data of the selected cause, CO2 increases, and the effect, temp increases; to deny this involves a prediction is hypocritical; this is why RC has ad homed Koutsoyiannis on the regional furphy basis; RC's argument, like AGW, is predicated on global integers, ave temp, uniform CO2 etc; they also say that Hurst can only be dealt with on a sufficiently large scale, not regionally; this is, of course wrong, as this Runnalls and Oke study shows;

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3663.1

Hurst, stochasism and climate are manifest regionally; the GCM's extract their data regionally and manipulate it to fit global autocorrelative refining programs; and this is the crux that RC missed; if the GCM's define what climate will be globally using regional data, how can it be that on no occasion have they been able to match what has happened in respect of what the climate has been doing in any of those regions? Koutsoyiannis has proved that the GCM's have not adequately dealt with Hurst and the interdependence of regional climate factors which may have a global effect but which are stubbonly resistant to a global cause and effect scenario; that and the fact that AGW is simply based on the wrong cause: CO2 increases.

"They seek it here, they seek it there,
those climate nutters seek causation everywhere. Is it proven? - Is it mere sensation?
That damned, elusive CO2 causation".

Well you ought to. Because you are a fraud. Or an idiot. You choose. I'm no mindreader.

I'm impressed that Michael Duffy is on top of the situation. Because when I first found out that you guys had no evidence whatsoever when I'd try to tell people about it they wouldn't believe me. Like they'd assume that the leftists must have some sort of evidence. But they have nothing at all.

I went to Deltoid to ask the mysterious dwarf-Oracle where the evidence could be found. He referred me to Annan who had one estimate of 3 degrees increase with a doubling of CO2 based on Bayesian statistics... entirely inappropriate.

Then his other estimate wasn't based on what CO2 had done in the past. But instead on the basis of the cooling from volcanic eruptions. Nothing to do with CO2.

It wasn't the first time the mysterious Deltoid Dwarf had sent someone astray.

I don't know whether Dr Marohasy is just waking up to the enormity of this confederacy of arch-stupidity matched up with the outer limits of human dishonesty. Or perhaps she's running a giant rope-a-dope. But the fact is that people are being lead astray even when they disagree. They are disagreeing but thinking that there is something in it. That the opposition has some sort of knowledge or argument up their sleeve.

Its hard to convince them that the leftists have nothing at all. Just a big fat zero.

Cohenite, use Google Scholar and search "+Venus +greenhouse effect".
As you can see you are not in agreement with many scientists.

It is so funny that people who blog here think that physics is sometimes applicable.

NT - "It is so funny that people who blog here think that physics is sometimes applicable."

Whats even funnier is that we have one group of people claiming that water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas and Alan and Cohenite who deny that a whole field of physics is wrong and there is no such thing as greenhouse gases.

I guess anything is possible in nu-physics.

".. deny that a whole field of physics is wrong and there ..."

Sorry that should read

.. deny a whole field of physics and there ...

"Luke boy, has remained silent on his CO2 quota from his high priests. Just seems he has never found anything in his life. Why need evidence?"

Luke has provided numerous references to research and papers here. They have all been ignored. His only role here for the deniers is a bit of argy bargy.

So is the argument here that there is no greenhouse effect at all? Removing all CO2 from the atmosphere would not affect the temperature at all?

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but that's what it sounds like.

Look, I'm a sceptic but I cannot buy this. And I haven't heard such an argument from any of the major sceptics.

And I'll have to take sides with the warmers that asking questions on a couple of blogs is no way to research a matter like this. (Although you could do worse than look at Lubos Motl's calculations on this subject.)

Demesure,

GCMs do not set relative humidity to be constant. They model an evaporation/precipitation process. Which might give you a hint as to where the El-Nino water vapor went.

" For example, when establishing causality between an environmental pollutant and an effect on an animal species, scientists would be expect to establish not only a correlation between the presence of the pollutant and an effect (for example an illness in the population), but be also able to demonstrate a dose-response relationship and describe a credible toxicological basis for the proposed mechanism linking the proposed cause and effect" - Jennifer

" Climate change was also beginning to affect whales because it was bringing exposure to new diseases, inter-species competition and changes in prey populations. As an example the Antarctic great whales were dependent on krill for food but this was alongside rising water temperatures.

Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN director general, said: "To save whales for future generations, we need to work closely with the fishing industry, the military and offshore enterprises including shippers and oil developers - and we need to fight climate change."

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth

Well said Braddles.

This "Jen-vestigation" is no more than a publicity stunt.

I think as far as real science is concerned, the actual question that is unanswered is how big an effect CO2 will have. They have estimates, but no definitive answer. I don't think there ever will be a definitive answer either, it's like asking an economist to give a definitive estimate of the effect of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. They kow it will have a big negative impact on growth, but you can't expect an exact answer.

Greenhouse gases are supposed to trap heat in the atmosphere. This is impossible in a system that is not in thermal equilibrium.

Radiating gases actually cool faster than non radiating ones, so CO2 and CH4 should cause cooling, everything else being equal.

"Radiating gases actually cool faster than non radiating ones, so CO2 and CH4 should cause cooling, everything else being equal."

They are cooling? What are they cooling from, and down to?

To tag onto Louis’s comment, this "trapping" business might owe to confusion about what radiant absorption means. An absorption line in spectroscopy doesn’t imply anything but an emission line from another viewing angle. The two phenomena are identical. But apparently people get this mixed up with black holes or something, thinking that an infrared wavelength (a "heat ray") is absorbed ("trapped") by certain molecules so that heat is prevented from exiting to space. No, at the molecular level absorbed necessarily means emitted. The "heat trapping" theory people have been handed is a conceptual mess.

NT; I don't want to google Venus; I thought you and ender might send me a postcard; anyone who knows so much about the place must be living there.

So when are you publishing then Cohenite and claiming the glory. LOL. So many theories - such little time. Every new paper uncritically added to an overwhelming pile of interlinked complexity. Head spinning mate.

Cohenite,
Ahhh ignorance is bliss isn't it...

Here's a couple of papers that won't interest you

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2233863

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997GeoRL..24..289H

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980JGR....85.8223P

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0469(1969)026%3C1191:TRGAHO%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1967ApJ...147..782S/0000782.000.html

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0469(1992)049%3C2256:ASOTGE%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/286/5437/87

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0469(1975)032%3C1248%3AEOTAOV%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983vens.book.1003D

Seems there is a lot of detail on the greenhouse effect on Venus. Still you wouldn't be interested would you?

This is really not my field of expertise but I checked out a Norwegian unbiased scientific paper on the issue.

One scientist posed almost the same question as Jen " What catastrophes can these 4% of antrophogenic contribution to the atmospheric CO2 content cause?"

Other scientists replied: " This is really a strange interpretation of the issue. The thing is that the athmospheric CO2 has increased with 100 ppmv.( See Canadell 2007). It is this increase that affects the climate."

" Even if 4% of the atmospheric CO2 content can directly be traced to human made actions , the main explanation of the net increase of the atmospheric CO2 content is human made"

Ann, are you claiming that of the 100ppm rise in CO2 levels since industrialization only 4ppm is directly attributable to humans?

What do you think is the source of the other 96ppm?

Hi NT,

The 4% of the atmospheric CO2 content can directly be traced to human made actions THROUGH ISOTOPES ( not my field, sorry). I see the net increase of the atmospheric CO2 content is 36% ( human made). Now back again to whales:)!!!

Ann, 4% of the 100ppm increase, or 4% of the 386ppm total?

So you see the 100ppm increase as 'human made'?

Jen, can you provide a link to this paper, like you did with the Hoffman et al paper.

Then we can see if we agree with your analysis ;-)

Braddles:

"So is the argument here that there is no greenhouse effect at all? Removing all CO2 from the atmosphere would not affect the temperature at all?

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but that's what it sounds like.

Look, I'm a sceptic but I cannot buy this. And I haven't heard such an argument from any of the major sceptics."

Again, I must agree. Just to look at the long term paleoclimatic history of the Earth suggests that the CO2 sensitivity (temerature rise for a doubling of CO2 levels) would be about 1.5 C (GEOCARB III modeling). Until very recently this seemed like a reasonable estimate - even though it would have a precision of about 1.0 C at the 2 standard deviation level.

However, quite recently a flaw has been found in the reasoning behind this because GEOCARB III does not take into account the emission of gases other than CO2 and the relatively short lived SO2 from volcanic action and the associated lightning.

The recent discovery of creation of large amounts of fixed nitrogen (nitrogen oxides) from volcanic action and the associated lightning, all of which will have pronounced feedback effects on terrestrial carbon fluxes, suggests that the GEOCARB IIII estimate of paleoclimatic CO2 sensitivity is itself also probably an over-estimate.

T.A. Mather, Volcanoes and the atmosphere: the potential role of the atmosphere in unlocking the reactivity of volcanic emissions, Philosophical Transactions A. In Press.

We also need to remember that the human race itself has more than doubled the global fixed nitrogen flux.

Vitousek, P. M., Aber, J. D., Howarth, R. W., Likens, G. E., Matson, P. A., Schindler,
D. W., Schlesinger, W. H. & Tilman, D. G. 1997 Human alteration of the global
nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences. Ecol. Appl. 7, 737-750.

The human race has not experienced volcanism on the scale that the planet is capable of, since the advent of civilization. The most recent magnitude 8 explosive eruptions (sometimes
popularly know as ‘supereruptions’) were approximately 74 and 26.5 thousand years
ago (Toba, Indonesia and Taupo, New Zealand, respectively, from compilation by
Mason et al., 2004).

Studies of the aftermath of Pinatubo (1991) have already tended to reduce the best estimates of CO2 sensitivity towards the lower edge of the IPCC (2007) 'band'.

More intensive paleoclimatic studies of the global climatic effects of Toba and Taupo might well also trend the best estimate of CO2 sensitivity in the downwards direction.

Gruber and Galloway (2008) An Earth-system perspective of the global nitrogen cycle. Nature , 451, 293-296

Steve, yes that's true, the problem has always been to determine how much of an effect CO2 has (the climate sensitivity) and never whether CO2 would have a warming effect. So good on you for highlighting where the science sits.

The problem with this Blog is that people won't even acknowledge a greenhouse effect AT ALL. Jennifer can't seem to acknowledge that rasing CO2 will raise temperatures.

NT; curb your arrogance; I'll have a look at your papers; but just for the record I find it galling that AGW supporters accuse people who question the shibboleths as being rigid and inflexible; the AGW propoganda about comparisons with the garden greenhouse was a deplorable misrepresentation; I readily admit that atmospheric H2O vapor has a wonderfully varied feedback mechanism to thermal stimulus whether it be radiative sourced (and let's be clear here, radiation isn't heat) or otherwise; but you guys won't even entertain that H2O can work against increasing thermal stimulus because that would contradict the enhanced greenhouse effect that we're all still waiting for; apart from that, anyone who says that CO2's reaction to radiative stimulation is straightforward is ignoring reality; now, off to Venus!

There were some rather bizarre comments on an earlier thread which compared belief in the greenhouse effect to belief that HIV causes AIDS or that the universe was formed in a Big Bang. This has led me to wonder how much agreement, crossover and similarity there might be between these various camps of "skeptics".
In the light of Jen's repeated requests for a single paper that proves causation, I found these quotes eerily similar:

"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document." (Sunday Times (London) 28 nov. 1993) - Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

I'd like to note that Dr Mullis agrees with Our Jennifer that the greenhouse effect doesn't exist.

Dr. Serge Lang, Professor of Mathematics, Yale University:
"I do not regard the causal relationship between HIV and any disease as settled. I have seen considerable evidence that highly improper statistics concerning HIV and AIDS have been passed off as science, and that top members of the scientific establishment have carelessly, if not irresponsible, joined the media in spreading misinformation about the nature of AIDS." (Yale Scientific, Fall 1994)

Note the contention that statistics can't show a causal relationship.

A general comparison of HIV/AIDS denial and AGW skepticism can be found here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-ostertag/global-warming-denialism_b_107385.html

I would like to ask Jennifer what her position on HIV/AIDS is - and how is an outside observer such as myself to tell the difference between the argument presented by her and the argument presented by the HIV/AIDS skeptics.

Alan - "An absorption line in spectroscopy doesn’t imply anything but an emission line from another viewing angle. The two phenomena are identical. But apparently people get this mixed up with black holes or something, thinking that an infrared wavelength (a "heat ray") is absorbed ("trapped") by certain molecules so that heat is prevented from exiting to space"

I think you need to consult a few textbooks. An emission spectrum is completely opposite to an absoption spectrum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum
"An element's 'emission spectrum' is the relative intensity of electromagnetic radiation of each frequency it emits when it is heated (or more generally when it is excited)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_spectrum
"A material's absorption spectrum shows the fraction of incident electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the material over a range of frequencies. An absorption spectrum is, in a sense, the opposite of an emission spectrum"

If the outward bound photon of IR radition is absorbed by a gas that has a dipole moment then it will certainly not make it out to space. The molecule that aborbs that energy will transfer it to surrounding molecules which will increase their movement, hence their temperature. This will then radiate energy in all directions. Some of this will be straight back down again. All in all the actions of greenhouse gases do prevent a portion of the exiting IR radiation to be blocked. This alters the Earth's radiation balance causing it to warm up to keep the outgoing radiation equal to the incoming radiation. This is the reason, along with heat storage in the oceans and the action of circulation in the atmosphere, why the Earth does not have the same surface temperatures as the Moon.

The black hole you refer to I assume is your mistaking black body radiation. The Earth is actually a grey body due to its albedo and the action of greenhouse gases.

The mere fact that absorption spectrum exists shows the action of greenhouse gases.

All of this is very basic physics that even a layperson such as myself knows. For you not to know this and confuse black holes with black bodies makes a mockery of the calibre of people that get to guest post here.

Steve Short - "More intensive paleoclimatic studies of the global climatic effects of Toba and Taupo might well also trend the best estimate of CO2 sensitivity in the downwards direction."

Dismissing for a moment the practioners of nu-physics your guess of climate sensitivity is great however you cannot know that you are correct. I read your skepticism, is not of AGW, but of the eventual effects of that AGW - which is fine in my book.

Climate sensitivity is the great unknown however it does not change our actions. The actions of AGW people is to try to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere just in case you are wrong and CS is higher that you think.

As you are in the same boat as us metaphorically and actually about uncertainty with CS then surely you must agree that action to reduce CO2 emissions are sensible in the face of this uncertainty.

NT,
Methinks that human activity is the main factor/ reason for the increase in atmospheric CO2 content. This according to the article that I quoted that was pretty convincing and with good references:

Referanser:

Bates, N. R. (2001). Interannual variability of oceanic CO2 and biogeochemical properties in the Western North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Deep Sea Research II 48 (8-9), 1507-1528.

Beck, E. G. (2007). 180 years of atmospheric CO2 gas analysis by chemical methods. Energy and Environment 18 (2), 259-282.

Broecker, W.S. & Peng, T.-H. (1993): Evaluation of the 13C constraint on the uptake of fossil fuel CO2 by the ocean. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 7 (3), 619-626.

Canadell, J. G. m. fl. (2007). Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth
from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks. PNAS 104 (47), 18866-18870.

Endersbee, L. (2008). Global climate has natural causes. EIR Science, 52-55.

Friis, K. m. fl. (2005). On the temporal increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the subpolar North Atlantic. Deep Sea research I, 52, 681-698.

McNeil, B. m. fl., (2001). Accumulation and uptake of anthropogenic CO2 in the Southern Ocean, south of Australia between 1969 and 1996, Journal of Geophysical Research, 106, 31431-31445.

Meijer, H. A. J. og Keeling, R. F. (2007). Comment on ”180 years of atmospheric CO2 gas analysis by chemical methods” by Ernst-Georg Beck. Energy and Environment 18 (5), 635-646.

Olsen, A. m. fl., (2006). Magnitude and origin of the anthropogenic CO2 increase and 13C Suess effect in the Nordic Seas since 1981. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 20 (GB3027), doi:10.1029/2005GB002669.

Peng, T. H. m. fl., 2003, Increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the Pacific Ocean over the last two decades, Deep-Sea Research II, 50, 3065-3082.

Sabine, C. R. m.fl., 1999, Anthropogenic CO2 inventory in the Indian Ocean, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 13, 179-198.

Skjelvan, I. m. fl. (2008). Inorganic carbon time series at Ocean Weather Station M in the Norwegian Sea, Biogeosciences, 5, 549-560.

Revisiting Philipona et al.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL018765.shtml

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL020937.shtml

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023624.shtml

www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034228.shtml

I would have thought despite the complexities of solar brightening (aerosols), water vapour etc we do have a demonstration of increased longwave commensurate with the additional increase in CO2 over the period measured.

So would not that at least give one some confidence in the energy balance of that aspect?

"Cohenite, use Google Scholar and search "+Venus +greenhouse effect".

As you can see you are not in agreement with many scientists"

No evidence can be found that way you idiot. One study is good enough if it has evidence. So we've proved outright that this is just a leftist fraud. Both sides of the argument have to get used to this. Its not some collegial disagreement of opinion.

Lukes a dishonest moron. As is NT as is Nexus, Karoly and all of that crowd. This is not a situation where some decent people are just having a mental block.

Is this now only a guys blog, laughing at fart jokes etc? :)

Patrick Caldon said..."How do you propose we understand reality except through a model? What are Newton's laws if not a model of the principles of motion"?

Patrick...I don't follow your logic. Newton's Laws model real phenomena but they are extremely accurate and verifiable on a macro level. The Bohr model of the atom also serves its purpose for teaching basic electronics, but it does not in any way replicate reality. From those perspectives, models both accurate and imaginary, have their uses.

Electronics depends heavily on models for obvious reasons. When you repair an electronic circuit, you can do it by a method called 'shotgunning'. That means changing parts till you get the right one, and it's a hacker method. The proper way to troubleshoot is to measure voltages/currents and to observe waveforms. Using theory, you then deduce what 'might' be wrong. I say 'might' because anyone who has done it has encountered 'dogs', a reference to circuit problems that are illogical.

If you can have so much trouble understanding a fault in an electronics system, where the components are right in front of you, and the theory is well-documented and understood, how can you possibly expect to do it in the atmosphere, where the components are not anywhere in particular and some of the theories have yet to be corroborated?

Furthermore, when you repair electronic circuits you need to flip mentally between theory and practicality. For example, I was repairing a circuit once and the first thing I noticed was a large electrolytic capacitor with its guts blown out. I thought theoretically, "I'll get back to that when I find out what the problem is". That's one of those Homer Simpson 'Doh!' situations.

That's how I regard computer modelers. They are so caught up in theory, they fail to recognize reality when it is handed to them. Satellite and sonde data is telling them their theory is incomplete and they are dismissing the data. Not only that, they are looking for negative feedback to explain why the atmosphere is wrong. I was an experienced technician when I encountered the blown capacitor, and it 'should' have been a red flag that it was the problem. Instead, my mind was in theory-mode and I bypassed it to look elsewhere.

There is no substitute for practical experience. You can have all the theory in the world, but until you encounter the real thing, beyond the model, you have little hope of understanding how it works. I think that is the problem with AGW theory and I think it's why there are no papers showing how CO2 warms the atmosphere.

When Dr. Joanne Simpson was studying clouds, she got in a plane and flew into storms. She did measurements in the storms and retrieved valuable practical data. John Christy and Roy Spencer retrieve ambient data from the atmosphere using very accurate satellite receivers.

Gavin Schmidt is publishing papers on the climate and he calls himself a climate scientist. All I can see listed for his qualifications is that he is a mathematician. I don't think he has any practical experience at all. I am willing to bet that any papers out there on CO2 warming theory, if there are any, come from people like Schmidt.

James Hansen, Schmidt's boss at NASA GISS, is an astrophysicist, As far as I know, from a one year undergraduate course in Astrophysics, atmospheric physics is not part of that curriculum. Neither is the study of ancient glacier systems or ice ages, which is in the domain of Geology and Geophysics. Yet Hansen bases his tipping point theory on what theoretically happened eons ago.

I am becoming deeply concerned with the influence sheer theoreticians are having on science. I think Jennifer's point is valid.

What are you talking about An?. And why are you posting heaps of studies without the evidence when just one good one with the evidence would do?

Thats a wild goose chase. Thats not evidence.

Pick your very best one. Just one. Which one do you reckon shows CO2 to be a warming agent on a global scale. We know what happens in the lab. Now which one makes the link on the global scale rather than just speculates about it.

Ender:

"As you are in the same boat as us metaphorically and actually about uncertainty with CS then surely you must agree that action to reduce CO2 emissions are sensible in the face of this uncertainty."

Not really. This is where we part company. You see I don't think that a relatively piddling sensitivity of the order of 1 C (or possibly less) is reason enough to drive the entire world into an apocalyptic panic and to embark on a highly hypocritical, and morally deeply suspect exercise in global 'moral blackmail' of the poor by the rich.

I especially don't think it is reason enough to require India, China and rest of the developing world to curb their CO2 emissions and thus deny them their fair chance to reach a level of civilization (in terms of food on the belly, freedom from disease and the right to an education).

Basically I'm with the level headed Bjorn Lomborg (and definitely not with the likes of the ineffably silly 'Annimal Ann" with her lonesome blog).

I say: burn the fossil fuels and allow humanity to reach a reasonable level of affluence overall.

Sure, develop sustainable energy sources as fast as possible, sure try scrubbing power station emissions (with algae would be best ;-) and sure try 'trading carbon credits' especially if it makes you 'feel good' Rudd-spin style.

We have had two millenia of immoral material and religious exploitation and oppression of human by human. Enough already!

I am deeply suspicious of the deafening chorus of greenie hatred which rises up whenever anyone promotes things like experiments on injection of aerosols into the atmosphere, expanding nuclear energy (including the thorium cycle), stimulating the oceans's 'standing crop' of cyanobacteria with iron, nitrogen etc (clearly my favourite by far) etc.

It is always comes from the same forever nay-saying pin-heads that would ban GM crops forever, ban nuclear energy, try to turn us all into vegans etc.

I seriously suspect that a lot of AGW alarmism is really a nasty sort of Malthusianism 'that dare no speak its name'. Taking the longer view, it may even be a cynically manipulated attempt to permanently (!) arrest the development of much of humanity before the equally probable slide into lower temperatures post-Holocene interglacial - which will probably occur in this millenium anyway.

I'm not getting in your stinking boat and that's why I'm working hard to secure the welfare of myself and family with a survivalist 'Plan B'.

Actually what this blog ever has been good at is posting ad homs and unscientific nonsense.

One person asked Jennifer to be anonymous when she posted a guest post on Jen's blog.This was the case with Adele Major from Greenpeace , who told Jennifer that she didn't want to have her name published , due she was afraid of hate mails . Despite of Adele's request, Jennifer published her entire name.

R e my own guest posts , Jennifer always change the headlines of my posts and edits the content so its more in view with her opinion.

Gordon,

If Newton's laws are accurate and verifiable why should I not take Newton's Laws, the ideal gas laws, etc, plug them into a finite difference model of the Earth and watch what comes out? Why will it be nonsense?

Steve Short - "You see I don't think that a relatively piddling sensitivity of the order of 1 C (or possibly less) is reason enough to drive the entire world into an apocalyptic panic and to embark on a highly hypocritical, and morally deeply suspect exercise in global 'moral blackmail' of the poor by the rich."

So you are 100% certain that CS is under 1degC?

Also putting aside your paranoid hysterics over what you call greenies why, when we can easily power a technological society with renewable power, would we need dirty energy like nuclear?

Additionally anyone that thinks that throwing energy at the poor will solve all their problems is woefully naive. The problems that keep poor people poor are not energy related so a nuclear power plant is unlikely to help the poor where the political system is unable to provide the stability to allow the poor to better their lot.

If anything the huge push for solar and wind which has made all components of renewable power such as solar panels, inverters etc much cheaper than they were 10 years ago will improve the life of the poor far more than nuclear energy. A solar panel in a village with an LED light can vastly improve life in more ways than one.

The current programs that are supplying village level power stations that do not need massive distribution systems helps the poor more than grandiose central power station projects that are foisted on a country by the World Bank that usually end up lining the pockets of the corrupt.

Your attempts to secure the welfare of your family with a Plan B seems to contradict your conviction that CS is below 1deg. Why would you need a survivalist plan? Also your pathetic attempts to link action on climate change with the poor is just sad. As I said in a previous post we in the West have used the resources of the poor and ignored them long before climate change came around. How else can approx 20% of the world's population use 80% of the resources. Do you imagine that there is even enough nuclear and fossil fuels available for 100% of the world's population to use as much energy as we do presently? The only reason we can use as much as we do is because they use so little. A lot of our present problems is that 2 large low energy countries are now trying to clay their way up to our level of energy use and the world economy is feeling the strain.

NT; goodness, nary a word about the phenomenal atmospheric pressure of Venus as a contributor to its temperature gradient; lots of inferences; for example; Venus's atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 to 65 km above the surface of the planet is nearly the same as that of earth's surface; due to that similarity in pressure and temperature and the fact that breathable air (21% o2, 78% N2) is a lifting gas on Venus, you could live there. Anyway, back to greenhouse; the Nakajima et al paper proposes a radiative-convective model similar to Miscolczi's, and has this to say; "the outgoing infrared radiation has an asymptotic limit as the surface temperature increases." The logarithmic limit applies on Venus as well. So to ender who says; "if the outward bound photon of IR radiation is absorbed by a gas that has a dipole moment then it will certainly not make it out to space. The molecule that absorbs that energy will transfer it to surrounding molecules which will increase their movement, hence their temperature. This will then radiate temperature in all directions." Some confusion here; the logarithmic decline is a measure of Wein wavelength shift; if a layer of CO2, opaque, has warmed then sensitivity will decline no matter the dipole moment; it's true that the temp will cause a pressure broadening so CO2 will absorb over a wider bandwidth but the process must be symmetrical and emmissions will also increase; but since that absorption also involves a kinetic movement, the source of the heat, the parcel of air will convectively rise; the opaque trap is bypassed by that; as to the transfer of kinetic energy to another particle; the odds are that particle will not be a CO2 molecule but a N2 molecule; N2 does not emmit, but it will cool by rising and replacing itself with descending air; the radiative trapping and heat transfer is much slower than convective heat transfer (cm/s compared with many metres per second) so the convective, adiabatic heat transfer and exchange will constantly overcome the opaque barrier/trap.

The question which needs to be asked of the AGW supporters is; do they think there is a risk that Earth will end up like Venus if humans continue to increase atmospheric CO2? This perhaps is a better, or at least anchillary, way of looking at the alleged causal connection between CO2 increases and temp and enhanced greenhouse.

Steve Short - "I seriously suspect that a lot of AGW alarmism is really a nasty sort of Malthusianism 'that dare no speak its name'. Taking the longer view, it may even be a cynically manipulated attempt to permanently (!) arrest the development of much of humanity"

This is absolute and utter garbage. I really think that you need to drop the paranoid stuff and really have a look at what we do. We waste so much energy. Using renewables forces us to use energy in a far more economical way to do the same thing. Do you disaprove of energy efficiency or should be just continue to use more and more because we can?

If Western civilisation used much less energy to do the same as we do now AND stops emitting so much CO2 to reduce the chance of climate change then we will be doing two things to help the poor that you succesfully make out you care about.

1. Us using less energy means that there is more to go around and more appropriate technology to kick start the poor at a village level. Right now the true victims of Peak Oil are the poor where energy costs can be 50% of their income. We whinge about high petrol prices - they starve

2. Avoid the possibility of climate change and sea level rise that you are not 100% certain will not happen. Both these things will be far more devasting for the poor that us as we have the resources to cope with them. People on the ragged edge of survival have no such margin.

So please spare us the false concern for the poor and the paranoid rantings of right wing libertarian extremists.

"And why are you posting heaps of studies without the evidence when just one good one with the evidence would do?"

It's like saying just pick one good paper about quantum theory. It's an absurd question.

and a lot of work goes into any dicipline including the LAW

"Hang on Jen - you've called it on Editorial III with the reading of one paper supplied?

You haven't said what you'd accept as proof yet either?"

EVIDENCE you idiot Luke! No-one said anything about proof. Show up with some evidence you moron or resign.

"2. Avoid the possibility of climate change and sea level rise that you are not 100% certain will not happen. Both these things will be far more devasting for the poor that us as we have the resources to cope with them. People on the ragged edge of survival have no such margin."

So Ender you have just seen three threads where none of you idiots could muster a scrap of evidence and you are still pretending that CO2 is going to lead to climate change when the climate always changes.

Look. Climate rationalists who pretend that they are dealing with anything but liars and morons when they argue with these people are just doing more harm then good. More than ever now we have to identify this racket as a moronic cult. Like those comet-watching cultists who all killed themselves. Something like that.

I mean hows Enders form. Day after day lunatics like this and Luke just constantly talking their anti-science trash-talk.

Three threads, no evidence. It doesn't phase this lunatic Ender.

Ender:

I notice this drew an equivalent rant out of you - but you allocated yourself two posts to get it off your chest.

Just one, teensy, weensy little question, please.

You say:

"Also putting aside your paranoid hysterics over what you call greenies why, when we can easily power a technological society with renewable power, would we need dirty energy like nuclear?"

Here is my question:

Please show me, out of the vast be-sandled horde of high-minded, high-thinking Gen-X or Gen-Y greenies like yourself that has been around since - well let us arbitrarily say 1975 - just a mere 33 years ago, show me one, (just one is all I ask for) who has made a world name (and a fortune) for him or herself out of 'sustainable energy'?

Please tell me, where are the Bill Gates's or Richard Branson's or Annita Roddick's of solar power, or wind power, or tidal power, or wave power, or geothermal roof power, or hot rock power, or pig poo power, or compost power, etc, etc.

Surely, if a few roach-sucking hippies like Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne could found Apple in a garage, one of y'all could have founded the 'great global success story of renewable power'?

After all, you lot have had a third of a century to do it! But not one!

So please spare us the false concern for the planet and the gutless fantasies of shit-useless suburban green goons.

James Haughton wrote..."A general comparison of HIV/AIDS denial and AGW skepticism can be found here"

James the only reason I am replying is that I took licence by posting an article about AIDS on Jennifer's blog. I thought about it carefully before doing so but I felt the parallels between the two debates were so similar that people should know we've been down this CO2/warming path before.

That link you provided is one of the worst I have read in the HIV/AIDS debate. I'd like to have an intelligent conversation with someone like you but I find the possibility of that remote. People like yourself seem to enjoy dismissing theories out of hand without considering the facts. You did not reply to one fact I listed, or check one out. You dismissed my post out of hand because the 'consensus' is that HIV causes AIDS. Sound familiar?

Take this quote from your link...please (as Henny Youngman would have said):

"What is most remarkable about AIDS denialism is how it has persevered through 25 years of the epidemic".

The HIV/AIDS theory has been in place for 25 years yet no vaccine has been found and no cure for AIDS is on the horizon. No one has a clue how HIV operates. Furthermore, no alternate theory has been seriously investigated.

In another part of the link article, the author claims that people who have been treated have survived. I beg your pardon? Does the guy have a clue what he is saying?

HIV is supposed to be a virus. AIDS is a set of opportunistic infections that invade a weakened immune system, yet most people talk as if they are one and the same. NO ONE HAS SURVIVED FULL BLOWN AIDS!! There is no treatment for it.

What the author is refering to is the highly controversial treatment for HIV, which viral expert Peter Duesberg calls a harmless virus, with potent chemicals that are extremely dangerous to the body. The real name for them is 'chain terminators', it sounds sinister and it is. BTW...did you read the number of citations Peter Duesberg has won as a researcher?

Anthony Faucci, one of the staunchest supporters of the paradigm has backed off recently on treating people with antiviral drugs simply because they test positive. I think the truth is slowly seeping in, after 25 years, that the drugs themselves may be what has killed so many people, not the virus.

Is that a chance you want to take? It's a downright shame that people are being made sick through the administration of those potent chemicals. Peter Duesberg, a top-class viral researcher, has called it 'AIDS by prescription' and has suggested that anyone infected would be alright without the drugs if he/she stopped high-risk behavior.

Even if Duesberg is completely wrong, which is highly unlikely given his record, why has that hypothesis not been tested? Why have alternate hypotheses not been tested? The main-stream HIV/AIDS researchers wont even consider it. The scientist who discovered the most recent type of those antiviral drugs, called protease inhibitors, claimed he'd never put them in his body.

The proof in the pudding however is the people who have been brave enough to refuse treatment. If the diagnosis was only an HIV infection, and the person refused treatment, that person has survived. Magic Johnson, the US basketball star, is a prime example.

The saddest case I have read about was the plight of a mother in New York whose two kids were diagnosed as being HIV positive. Medical authorities took one child and treated the kid with aniviral drugs. The kid died. They wanted to treat the second child and the mother refused. It went to court and a judge wisely overruled the authorities. The kid lived.

Unfortunates who are suffering from full blown AIDS don't have a chance. It's critical to understand the difference between HIV and AIDS. There's a reason why 66% of North American AIDS deaths are homosexual males. There's no known virus that can distinguish between men and women or between homosexual men and heterosexual men. The disease has simply not invaded the male heterosexual community as predicted, and there's no explanation for that from the HIV/AIDS side.

If you want to ignore those inconvenient facts that's up to you, but it explains why you can't understand the problem with the AGW theory. The thing that bothers me about people like you is that poor souls are dying from AIDS and no cure is in sight after 25 years. Yet people like you make light of it. You should be angry about the dicking around that is being done in the name of consensus. Shame on you.

BTW...you did not mention that Kary Mullis won a Nobel for discovering the PCR test for DNA amplification. Does it surprise you that someone with his brilliance would think the AGW theory was flawed? It seems that only tuly intelligent people can see that.

Mullis was involved directly in the debate. A theory was developed, the viral overload theory, based on his PCR test. Someone had assumed that the real level of HIV was somehow hidden in the body and used the PCR method to amplify cell culture. They reported finding a large amount of HIV that was not apparent.

When Mullis told them they had applied the test in the wrong manner, they told him he was wrong. He invented the test and he's the expert, but the HIV/AIDS zealots told him he was wrong. That was the HIV/AIDS version of the hockey stick.

The thing that boggles my mind is how you can infer a virus is hiding, then amplify nothing to get something. Big Bang anyone?

That "boy who survived" died a couple of years ago Gordon:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/03/10/nikolas_emerson_11_case_led_to_legal_fight_over_hiv/

The former Editor of The Journal Of Scientific Exploration, Henry Bauer, published a book on the HIV/AIDS issue not so long ago - It supports Gordon's summary of the situation.

AS for Africa, AIDS is defined by the same symptoms produced by starvation and malnutrition.

As always scientific facts and beliefs/faith are different things.

Gordon

As for the Big Bang, it was literally invented by George Le Maitre in order to reconcile his theology with his faith (he was a Jesuit).

I wonder how many AGW supporters here support this belief because it isn't a scientific hypothesis because such things are derived from prior observations.

(This might cause a cerebral short circuit in some here).

Whoops - reconcile his physics with this theology (he was a Jesuit physicist).

Patrick Caldon said "If Newton's laws are accurate and verifiable why should I not take Newton's Laws, the ideal gas laws, etc, plug them into a finite difference model of the Earth and watch what comes out? Why will it be nonsense"?

Patrick...if you're asking me, I haven't got a clue. From what I've read, from atmospheric physicists like Lindzen, Spencer and Christy, models are useful and feasible, but either not enough is known about the processes involved in climate, the wrong assumptions are being made, or the project is too unwieldy with modern technology.

In one of the books I read by Patrick Michaels, he described the resolution used in a typical computer model (GCM). In a GCM, the world is divided into areas of latitude and longitude. The earliest GCMs were only 2-D but modern types are 3-D and try to take in cloud conditions of different types, as well as precipitation systems, etc. Not only that, they try to account for feedbacks and a doubling of CO2.

At the time his first book was written (The Satanic Gases), circa 2000, the smallest area programmed into a GCM was the size of the state of Iowa,USA(about 56,000 square miles). That's an area roughly 236 mile by 236 miles (more likely 560 x 100 for Iowa). Think of a similar area in your neck of the woods and consider the different weather patterns available.

In my area, Vancouver, Canada, the coast is moderate with about 72" rainfall annually. About 250 miles inland (NE), it is desert country. Even 60 miles down the road(E), going along the US border, conditions can get extreme in the winter. We have mountains, lakes, major rivers, forests of different kinds, all in that area. Do you see the problems with trying to program that into a computer?

Michaels pointed out that major weather events take place in areas of 5 square miles, never mind 56,000 sq. mi. On top of that you have vertical space above that area and all the wind and heat circulation, etc. There's no way to reduce the resolution appreciably because the computing power isn't there.

Lindzen, an expert in atmospheric systems, figures the modelers are applying certain feedbacks with the wrong sign, hence the warming they predict. Modelers are also hypothesizing an unknown negative feedback that is acting for real, and keeping the atmosphere cooler than it should be. Aerosols have been investigated but most have short life spans and exist primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. If the negative feedback from them is real then the Northern hemisphere should be cooler than the Southern Hemisphere, but it's not.

I'm trying to say that, in my understanding, the problem is a lot more complicated than applying existing valid laws. Roy Spencer makes the point that warming by means of the greenhouse effect is much more complex than what modelers are allowing for. He claims it's not just a matter of radiant heat from the surface warming CO2 in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect itself comes from complex precipitation systems that transport heat into the upper atmosphere via water vapour and release it. In doing that, the condensation causes cooling. On top of that, clouds formed by the precipitation system tend to reflect heat from the Sun, cooling the joint.

Lindzen has hypothesized an iris effect that cools the Earth naturally, but modelers laugh at him. Unfortunately for them, Spencer and Christy recently noted evidence for that by satellite. Furthermore, GCM's don't take into account other natural factor like El Nino/LaNina, or the Atlantic and Pacific oscillations. There is ample evidence that the melting Arctic ice is due to the Atlantic oscillation.

Spencer and his partner John Christy admit that CO2 'should' warm the atmosphere, but they are finding the evidence is not there in the data sets they make from satellite temperature measurement. I'm confused as to why no one in the AGW camp is listening.

In case you think I'm against models, I'm not. I am against basing a serious theory on them at this time, especially considering the financial ramifications of the AGW theory. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't really give a hoot. I don't think anyone has to worry about the kind of world they will be leaving their grandchildren given the current warming. I do think they will be leaving them a financial mess if they proceed on the current course.

Bird - the acceptance of your views is reflected in your recent election results (LOL). Now off you toddle you eccentric nong and try to come up with something different as an approach at dialogue.

Cohenite - you hoo ! do we have any longwave action (see above). Step #1.

Patrick Caldron said..."That "boy who survived" died a couple of years ago Gordon"

That's sad. Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

There was a similar case with Christine Maggiore (Google her), a woman who has been HIV positive for a long time and who doesn't take treatment. Her little girl died and Christine was roundly chastised for not getting her treatment. However, the child was well, and died in very mysterious cicumstances, and suddenly, from an ear infection.

That kind of death is not the signature of AIDS. I noticed the other young kiddie died from pneumonia, one form of which is listed as an AIDS opportunistic infection, but normally incurred by male homosexuals who inhale amyl nitrate. I really hate the fact that a kid dies like that and I have to wonder if his immune system was compromised at birth. I know what the theory claims, but the thought of a virus hanging around for 10 years and killing somone makes little sense to me.

The Los Angeles coroner presumed the death was from AIDS even though there was no evidence of that. After watching another LA coroner in the O. J. Simpson trial, who I thought was a hoot, but a questionable coroner, I've had little faith in LA coroners.

I don't want to be naive about this when people's lives are at stake, and it's not the right medium to be theorizing in, but I'm pretty ticked at the theories that have prevailed in the HIV/AIDS paradigm. I would think the first priority would be cooperation to find a cure for this miserable condition, but researchers and politicians have been playing games with it.

They should be pulling out all stops, researching all possibilities. Instead they have focused on one theory and ostracized any scientist who suggested otherwise. Please read Duesberg's qualifications and what he has to say. I'm sure you will find sanity in his reasoning.

Steve - (and just asking in case you see this as some life threatening personal assault_ - your comment - "I'm not getting in your stinking boat and that's why I'm working hard to secure the welfare of myself and family with a survivalist 'Plan B'."

errr - was that a serious comment. Do you really think Australian society is that bad. And if you do - do you think anything short of a full personal platoon will prevent it (whatever "it" is?). So this seems pretty radical sort of statement from yourself. Ender doesn't seem like much of a threat to me.

And why get overheated about renewables - how much as gone into fusion research with very little to show (IMO). What have greenies done to incur such wrath?

Graeme - "So Ender you have just seen three threads where none of you idiots could muster a scrap of evidence and you are still pretending that CO2 is going to lead to climate change when the climate always changes."

The problem is not that there is no evidence it is that you cannot/will not accept what is there no matter how it is presented to you.

Peer reviewed papers were presented detailing the science and you do not accept them. Case and minds closed.

Fortunately for the rest of us that accept real physics rather than nu-physics the science goes on with this blog a rather quaint backwater of septics. As you seem to be the captain of the swill please let forth with your next string of insults that I am sure are the height of your wit and intelligence.

Peer Reviewed - making sure the paper agrees with agreed theory.

Steve Short - "Please show me, out of the vast be-sandled horde of high-minded, high-thinking Gen-X or Gen-Y greenies like yourself that has been around since - well let us arbitrarily say 1975 - just a mere 33 years ago, show me one, (just one is all I ask for) who has made a world name (and a fortune) for him or herself out of 'sustainable energy'?"

Apart from that fact that you are judging the worth of a project by the amount of money they made from it how about David Mills? He attracted Vihnod Kosla to supply some venture capital.

David Green is another who does research into solar panels and invented the laser grooved panels.

What is your point anyway? Your a scientist so read Dr Mark Diesendorf's papers and produce a critique that shows that he is wrong. You could also show up David Mills as he is obviously wrong.

http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/about/staff/mark.htm

http://www.ausra.com/technology/reports.html

Louis - "As for the Big Bang, it was literally invented by George Le Maitre in order to reconcile his theology with his faith (he was a Jesuit)."

Not really - why is the sky dark at night? If you can answer this then you are on the trial that lead to the big bang.

luke; eh?

Ender

You really have no knowledge of the history of science, it's a documented fact.

Therfore you are a creationist.

Cohenite - I was trying to tiptoe among the many exciting sub-skirmishes here to engage you in a discussion on longwave re Philipona - see above.

Many, many years ago now I attended a public lecture by Dr. Mark Diesendorf at the University of Wollongong (where he briefly worked) during which he showed a whole lot of slides and raved on at length about the highly dangerous piles of 'yellow cake' i.e. uranium oxide clearly visible (in his photographs) in the vicinity of the Ranger No. 1 mine near Jabiru in the NT.

When I pointed out out to Mark (as ostensibly just a mug punter from from the audience) that:
(1) the yellow cake he was referring-to was actually (finely ground) sulfur and not actually uranium oxide ore; and that
(2) this sulfur in his photographed stockpiles was used for combustion to make sulfur dioxide to feed into a sulfuric acid plant producing sulfuric acid subsequently used to leach the as-mined ore (to make yellow cake); and that
(3) hey, 'yellow cake' is not actually yellow but more a sort of real dirty green colour,
he just about had a heart attack in front of the entire audience.

Naturally I was too easy going at the time to hammer the point home by telling him I had also just done a PhD on the uranium geochemistry and hydrogeology of un-mined uranium ore bodies in the Alligators River Region (Crocodile Dundee country for Mexicans)!

So tell me more me about all these fantastic 'green heroes' of yours', mate (;-)

Ender supports Nu-Science of which one example is quoted:

"The layer of CO2 emissions in our atmosphere reflects the sun's rays back down to the earth. This is a natural temperature-regulating mechanism which makes the earth inhabitable. The CO2 layer is made up of different greenhouse gases, e.g. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4)."

Source: http://www.no-co2.com.au/

It is impolite to laugh raucously, but permissible twitter a little.

Steve,

And how was Jabiluka found? By geochemical sampling in the creeks draining Jabiluka - it was only found it because it was polluting the waterways!

But let's not let proper science get in the way, let's do Nu-Science, AKA Ender-Science in which the Second Law of thermodynamics is ignored. No that is really NU!

luke; I presume you mean this one;

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL018765.shtml

The thing that puzzles me is, how did the LW get into the atmosphere to be, presumably, reemitted downwards according to quantum effect, when there is no evidence experimentally detected of increasing greenhouse concentrations at the Earth's surface?

Gordon and Louis: thanks for your responses. I must admit I have never thought about HIV/AIDS from the perspective you suggest. I can only agree that the level of evidence for, and lack of scientific community support for those who dispute, the consensus position on each is remarkably similar, though I would still be interested to know if our esteemed hostess agrees.

Perhaps HIV/AIDS is outside her field of expertise. Gordon, you would I am sure be aware that atmospheric scientist Roy Spencer, whom you refer to, is a supporter of Intelligent Design, as is climatologist Tim Ball, as are many of the journalists who support greenhouse skepticism, such as Mark Steyn, Julia Gorin, Andrew Bolt and Tom Bethell. I am sure many of them would argue that intelligent design has been suppressed by a so-called "scientific consensus" who ignore the lack of evidence for evolution - and certainly if there is no evidence for the Big Bang it would support their position.
As biology is Jennifer's area of expertise, perhaps she would care to comment, at least on how one is to identify the difference between skepticism of AGW and skepticism of evolution (since, as Gordon has obligingly demonstrated, there is no apparent difference between skepticism of AGW and skepticism of HIV causing AIDS).

"but the thought of a virus hanging around for 10 years and killing somone makes little sense to me. "

Once again, "If I can't understand it, you can't prove it".

HIV compromises the immune system, since it attacks it directly. Any opportunistic infection can come along and kill.

James Haughton,

There should be a paper by Henry Bauer in one of the JSE journals - I am a member so I'll see if I can extract it. By memoery it is a summary of his book, (which I have but not to hand).

Bauer noticed from the medical statistics that AIDS did not spread in the US as predicted, and double checked the stats which were quite correct, and to which the US medical authorities agreed.

That said, AIDS seems to be a collapse of the immune system from particular modes of excessive sexual behaviour, drug ingestion and etc - rather than some virus targeting certain demographics.

It's also restricted to specific demographics in the West, and presumably elsewhere.

But Bauer's work is a necessary one to read to get an idea of the science, or actually lack of, in this area.

The parallels with AGW are somewhat striking.

"The thing that puzzles me is, how did the LW get into the atmosphere to be, presumably, reemitted downwards according to quantum effect, when there is no evidence experimentally detected of increasing greenhouse concentrations at the Earth's surface?" - huh - this is the point actually. Measured by radiometers. Empirical evidence of the greenhouse effect.

Now we haven't skipped off to temperature or climate sensitivity but if we have an increase in downwards longwave close to theoretical that's pretty good for me as a start when we have a whole discussion here denying the basic greenhouse effect.

Perhaps Louis can explain the observations?

Louis (and Gordon, and Jennifer), would you agree that the case against HIV/AIDS is similar to the case against evolution?

luke; I was quoting from the Philopona paper; to wit;

"Nevertheless, changes in radiative forcing related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations could not be experimentally detected at Earth's surface so far."

The rest of the paper's conclusions that cloud-free longwave downward radiation is significant would seem to suggest uneven mixing of atmospheric CO2 and a regionalised effect over the central alps. The paper's maths is also a bit odd; they deduct 2/3's for temp and humidity on the basis that their model calculations show a LW flux increase 3 times what they expected from a purely anthropogenic effect; that's a convenient assumption; so basically their deduction that there is an anthropogenic imput is entirely based on that arbitary 3 way split between what they have isolated as the 3 salient possible causes for the effect their model has found.

Finally, global warming has become an afterthought, and the "Politics and Environment Blog" has become a complete and utter joke. Someone really needs to blog most of these comments - even taken in context they are hilarious (and are probably worthy of a publication in Energy and Environment). Jennifer - aren't you slightly embarrassed by all this? Even if we are supposed to believe that half of these people aren't your own creation, surely this is taking it too far?

"Don't sugarcoat these people. They are just lunatics, barely reconstructed communists and anonymous frauds."

"These guys are just Gramscian anti-science pack-animals. Utopian-Eschatologists wrong-footed by the collapse of Soviet Communism."

"This global warming racket is the longest evidence filibuster in all history. "

"No evidence can be found that way you idiot. One study is good enough if it has evidence. So we've proved outright that this is just a leftist fraud. Both sides of the argument have to get used to this. Its not some collegial disagreement of opinion."

"I'm not getting in your stinking boat and that's why I'm working hard to secure the welfare of myself and family with a survivalist 'Plan B'."

"So please spare us the false concern for the planet and the gutless fantasies of shit-useless suburban green goons"

"I noticed the other young kiddie died from pneumonia, one form of which is listed as an AIDS opportunistic infection, but normally incurred by male homosexuals who inhale amyl nitrate."

"You really have no knowledge of the history of science, it's a documented fact. Therfore you are a creationist."

Probably the most telling of all:

"Actually what this blog ever has been good at is posting ad homs and unscientific nonsense.

R e my own guest posts , Jennifer always change the headlines of my posts and edits the content so its more in view with her opinion."

A gourmet poster hey

Hey, it's the luvverly English language - more words and meanings than any other language on the planet!

Cain'tcha dig it, babe?

Ooohhh aaahh take a gander at the Bristols on that Stephanie, mmmmmm.

Stephanie what is your point? Are you in fact another failed analyst who was too stupid to spot this racket right from the getgo?

You diminish yourself with these comments. Its time for people like you to rewrite history and pretend that you were always somewhat dubious about the panic.

The good Doctor didn't bring skeptics into being. In here conservative way she is likely not yet ready call these hateful frauds out for who they are in mixed company.

I was calling this a fraud when calling this a fraud wasn't cool.

Casual readers; with great patience lets add, may wonder how we went from -

“Causal Linkage between Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming (Part 3): Causal Criteria Still Wanting”

to

“That said, AIDS seems to be a collapse of the immune system from particular modes of excessive sexual behaviour, drug ingestion and etc - rather than some virus targeting certain demographics”

I came across this article while hunting links to groups and posters on “climate change” That may well explain it

“Death Rattles of the Climate Change Skeptics”
By Clive Hamilton 19 May 2008

http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/19/death-rattles-climate-change-skeptics

James

Yes I would agree with that statement.

Stephanie

You will find that the bulk of the abuse comes from the AGW supporters - and of more recent times, similar responses from some of the sceptics.

Some of us have shown the other cheek for too long, and have decided to fight fire with fire.

If the blog has "deteriorated" in standards, which it hasn't except in the eyes of the mendacious, then it's principally due to a small group which, from an absence of training and qualification in science, post quite problematical comments here, usually in the form of an ad hominemn, or if not understanding the science per se, post vast quantities of links to por AGW publications in support of their position.

A frequent issue is the inability to see contraditory evidence, and when confronted with such evidence, the groups then displays extreme cognitive dissonance.

Steve Short - "So tell me more me about all these fantastic 'green heroes' of yours', mate (;-) "

So of course you dismiss all of his work from one mistake? I guess this is par for the course with you.

Have you got anything against David Mills? What about the thousands of unpaid voluteers working with the poor to set up renewable energy? I guess because they do not get fame and fortune their work is not worth talking about - by your standards.

Just one small example - these are some of the green 'heroes' that you would utterly dismiss.
http://www.ata.org.au/projects-and-advocacy/international-projects-group

So go ahead and mock.

Gavin,

I think you will find that it might do your case a little better than posting unsource quotes, then taking those out of context, to finally quote the writings of Clive Hamilton as evidence that the sceptics are becoming - what? - desparate.

SO I will rub your ancient snozz into it - none of your AGW supporters have come up with one refereed paper demonstrating the causal link established from the conduct of appropriate physical experiment, to demonstrate that increasing CO2 causes warming of the atmosphere.

Clive Hamilton's article is thus similar to your own post - a last ditch effort to rescue the impossible by painting the sceptics as desperate in order to distract from the total failure to produce the evidence that there is a causal link between CO2 and atmosphere temperature.

"You will find that the bulk of the abuse comes from the AGW supporters"

Always good for a laugh, Hissink.

Louis - "You really have no knowledge of the history of science, it's a documented fact."

Well then Louis as a keen student of the history of science perhaps you can tell us why the sky is dark at night?

Stephanie; I thought Graeme and Steve's admonishments were amusing; for my own part I thought I raised some, as least interesting, points about Koutsoyiannis and Hurst scaling; the Venus discussion is also interesting and I think I rebutted ender's quaint exposition of radiative processes; luke wants to talk about Philopona's work on downward flux, which is slightly anomalous to say the least, but I suspect may be just another example of model creativity; there's plenty to get your teeth into; or do you have false ones?

gavin; IMO Hamilton is a rather horrid man; his censorious and imperious attitude about the temerity of OLO allowing McLean and his associates to question the shibboleth of the vast numbers of IPCC scientists writing the IPCC reports was very revealing; a good summary of Hamilton's social and political agenda is here;

http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/spr03/polspr03-7.htm

At the end of the day, I don't think Hamilton likes other people and the 'utopian', happiness-inducing measures he proposes are merely reincarnations of the tried, tested and failed utterly collectivist gibberish roughly packaged under the new banner of environmentalism. Hamilton is an elitist and he demonstrates that the most dangerous people are those who think they know what is best for other people. Unfortunately, a lot of these sorts of people are gathered under the AGW banner and they give old naturalists like yourself a bad name.

Louis; thanks for making your position clear; I do hope Jennifer, Gordon, Graeme, Cohenite and the other regulars will also clarify their positions on these contentious issues, or, if they disagree with you, explain why being skeptical of AGW is legitimate but being skeptical of the connection between HIV and AIDS, the big bang, and the theory of evolution is not.

I am now wondering about other fields of inquiry that are characterised by a few skeptics struggling to be heard above suppression by so-called experts. For example, the physicists of The International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics have published papers claiming to use torsion fields to produce anti-gravitic effects, yet their claims have been ridiculed by the science industry. As a reader of the JSE, is this something that you have investigated?

No it's not anomalous Cohenite - it's fundamental components. One would expect an increase in longwave if the effect is changing. So an attempt to measure and isolate is very interesting.

And there you go "I suspect" you say. So why debate - just wait till the latest skunk ruse drifts past and jump on it and rut it to death.

Thomas Crowley has posted a reply to Jennifer's criticism of his paper. It can be read on John Quiggin's blog here: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/08/10/the-cis-and-delusionism/#comment-215676

I reproduce it here for the record:

I disagree with the assessment of my paper.

If you consider the observational reconstruction as model output, the reader is correct. But the statistical reconstruction of observations is completely independent of the climate model, so any statistics derived from a correlation are still legitimate to assess, and the correlations are highly significant.

The correlation with my own reconstruction is obviously not dependent on Mann et al.; the purpose of the study was to show that it is a reconstruction-independent conclusion.

The Wegman committee, at which I attended and testified, did not disprove Mann. Wegman merely pointed out that there was an error in the Mann approach. But another person testified that the error did not matter much, and I further showed my own reconstruction done in an entirely different manner.

The skeptic is correct that correlation does not PROVE causality (although comparison of individual years of cooling with independent assessments of volcanism - which cause the cooling - shows a remarkable level of agreement). I suppose “blackening” of skies by volcanism and cold years is just accidental? You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink it.

No one can PROVE global warming. It is like using circumstantial evidence in court and the conclusion is based on the weight of evidence in favor of the conclusion - the melting of Greenland and the Arctic ice cap, independent evidence from proxy data, record temperature increases, increases in precipitation in northern mid- and high latitudes, the near-global scope of the warming, decreases in precipitation in the U.S. southwest, increases in global ocean heat storage, and sea level, the agreement in global warming trends over the last twenty years with a model prediction from 1988 - all consistent with model predictions, one can go on and on. The pile of evidence in favor of global warming is quite convincing, which is why IPCC made such a strong statement.

Alternate explanations do not wash either, nor does the natural variability argument, which I showed cannot explain the unusual nature of the 20th century warming (when compared against the background of the last 1000 years).

One can choose not to believe in global warming, but it is a choice, a believe, and trying to change the minds of people with that mindset generally does not work because very often (although not always) their mindsets are grounded in emotions, resentments, political leanings, etc that are concealed under a hazardously thin cover of “logic”.

Tom Crowley

James - now don't try an appeal to common sense. They'll have a collection of inconsistent contradictory explanations to all of these by days end. :-)

Hamilton is an elitist and he demonstrates that the most dangerous people are those who think they know what is best for other people. Unfortunately, a lot of these sorts of people are gathered under the AGW banner and they give old naturalists like yourself a bad name.

no, Hives isn't any of that. Hives is an idiot and people like Ender bender ought to be laughed out of this site for even suggesting the unhappy creep has any credibility. Hives deserves the most utter contempt.

Louis Hiisink said..."The former Editor of The Journal Of Scientific Exploration, Henry Bauer, published a book on the HIV/AIDS...."

I found a short article by Bauer. It's mind-blowing to see how connected the HIV/AIDS and AGW environements are. There's no doubt that we have politicized science to a point where truth is no longer the criterion.

http://www.duesberg.com/articles/new/2007,%20Bauer,%20JAPSfinal.pdf

I copied these gems from the article:

Page 4, under 'Why Does Antiretroviral Treatment Not Improve Patients’ Health?

Bauer commented on the fact that antiretroviral treatment tends to escalate AIDS rather than retard it. He says,

"Rather than questioning the HIV = AIDS connection, researchers invented a new, highly implausible phenomenon, “immune restoration disease,” whereby for some strange and unspecified reason, resuscitation of immune function supposedly worsens clinical outcomes in certain instance".

No kidding, they're pumping people full of some of the most deadly chemicals ever invented for human use. The logic of HIV/AIDS researchers is unbelievable. Instead of noting the obvious, they invent a new theory, which Peter Duesberg calls 'moving the goalposts'.

However, the saddest commentary in the article comes from the tendency of HIV/AIDS dogmatists to call dissenters 'Holocaust deniers'. Bauer quotes Jacob Bronowski as he squats next to a pond at
Auschwitz. Scooping from it a handful of ashes he muses:

"Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods".

Seeing as you have raised the topic, Gordon, what exactly is the difference between denying that HIV causes AIDS and denying that 6 million people died in the holocaust? In both cases we have the vast majority of people who have studied the issue on one side, and a tiny group of skeptics who claim that they are being suppressed by a consensus based on politics, money and faith on the other. The number of lives at stake is about the same, too.

Tom Crowley...you guys sure like to understate the fact, don't you? Here's what the Wegman report said:

“Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”

With regard to McIntyre and McKitrick (M&M), they said:

"In general, we find the criticisms by MM03, MM05a and MM05b to be valid and
their arguments to be compelling. We were able to reproduce their results and offer
both theoretical explanations (Appendix A) and simulations to verify that their
observations were correct."

With regard to Mann's pals, with whom he collaborates for his data, Wegman said:

"there is a tightly knit group of
individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is
that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work
has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions
without losing credibility."

What Wegman could not foresee was that the nepotism would extend to AR4, where Mann's gaffe was swept under the rug.

You said Wegman et al did not say Mann was wrong. What's left to be right? You seem to be participating in the damage control that Wegman refered to.

You finish with this..."One can choose not to believe in global warming, but it is a choice, a believe...."

It has nothing to do with belief or choice and everything to do with looking at the facts. Mann erased The Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age that was backed by 100's of peer reviewed papers. Both were even acknowledged in an earlier IPCC assessment. That's why you can claim that "Alternate explanations do not wash...". How about Loehle's paper, done without tree rings, that defintely established the MWP and LIA?

Mann just got his Ph.D. in 1998, while TAR was in review. He made a mistake, and unfortunately for him, it was a huge mistake. I would have respect for the guy if he admitted his gaffe and got on with it instead of hanging out at realclimate and moaning, while indulging in the belief syste