Well, well! How farcial!

*****

Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"

"What a marvellous train!"

"And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.

A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.

"The Emperor is naked," he said.

"Fool!" his father reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:

"The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!"

The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.

yup - that's The Word. :-)

An interesting experiment Jennifer, if its carried out appropriately.

Perhaps you could formalise your criteria of what exactly a "causal link" is a bit better, and have a separate post detailing those criteria very clearly and explicitly, maybe with examples. And then you could also put a control into your experiment.

e.g. you could ask your readers to come up with a scientific paper that examines the causal link between smoking and lung cancer. (I'm assuming you are happy to agree that there is a causal link between smoking and lung cancer), but if nobody can find a paper that fits your "causal link" criteria to demonstrate this, then maybe your criteria and definition of "causal link" aren't very appropriate or useful.

Also, if someone does come up with a paper that you agree adequately describes the causal link between smoking and lung cancer, then people would have a better idea of the level of paper you are looking for with respect to global warming, and can compare your judgements.

Without doing these sorts of things, its far too easy for your experiment to be dismissed as biased and invalid.

In other words, Dr Marohasy, if I had left out the "discussion" at the end of the paper you would not have been able to find any fault with it.

Dr Marohasy writes:

"However, it is clear from the discussion section within the paper that Mr Callendar’s findings were not peer reviewed, and furthermore not accepted by his colleagues. Indeed, the following comments are included as part of the discussion within that paper which is presented as 'a reading' followed by discussion (pg 237): 1. the numerical results could not be used to give an indication of the order of magnitude of the effect of carbon dioxide, and 2. it is not clear how absorption energy by carbon dioxide is calculated. These are important points that the Callendar paper explains have not been properly examined."

1) The discussion process, which took place, IS peer review. It was clearly considered sufficiently robust to be published in a scientific journal after this peer review process.

2) What you, Dr Marohasy, write about global warming is not currently accepted by a majority of your colleagues (for example, CSIRO, or Barry Brook). Do you therefore argue that your writings should be ignored? You are adding an additional criterion of "accepted by one's colleagues" that was not present in your original request, and moreover would be hotly disputed if it was used as a criteria. You don't list "acceptance" as one of your causal criteria in your footnote.

Callendar was, at the time, in a minority as he clearly acknowledges at the start of his paper. Global warming has since become the majority belief through the accumulation of evidence.

3) You have misquoted the discussion by Sir George Simpson. He actually said:
"he felt that the actual numerical
results which Mr. Callendar had obtained could not be used to give a definite indication of the order of magnitude of the effect."

You have omitted the significant phrase "the actual numerical results which Mr Callendar had obtained", which acknowledges that he quantified the warming resulting from CO2.

In other words, Mr Callendar produced actual numerical results (which is what you asked for in your initial call for papers), and Sir George is not sure of their accuracy. That was his perogative. That doesn't mean that the paper does not fulfil the criteria of quantifying the warming caused by carbon dioxide.

In regard to your second point from Sir George Simpson, that it was not clear how Figure 2 was obtained, Mr Callendar answered that at the end of his paper on page 239 where he provided answers to the discussion:

"As *stated in the paper* the variation of temperature with CO2 (Fig. 2), was obtained from the values of sky radiation, calculated for different amounts of this gas, substituted in expression (5) at S1, S2. If the changes of S shown in Table V are used for expression (5), it will be found that the temperature changes lie on the curve of Fig. 2 when the total sky radiation is 7/10 of the surface radiation. The sky radiation is calculated as a proportion of that from the surface, hence, at constant heat supply, a change of sky “ temperature ” involves an equilibrium change of surface temperature as in expression (5).

It was found that even the minimum numerical explanation of the method used for calculating sky radiation would occupy several pages, and as a number of similar methods have been published from time to time, it was decided to use the available space for matter of more direct interest."

Sir George did not dispute this explanation.

(* - my emphasis)

Really Jennifer, have you ever read an important scientific paper that was not followed by discussion in which people ask for clarification or dispute this or that point? It is standard practise!

Mr Duffy: $1000, please.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your comment, but instead what about having a read of S Marshall Adams or just think about his criteria for establishing causality and in the context of carbon dioxide and global temperatures:

1.strength of association,

2.consistency of association,

3.specificity of association,

4.time order of temporality,

5.biological gradient,

6.experimental evidence, and

7.biological plausibility.

The paper is 'Establishing causality between environmental stressors and effects on aquatic ecosystems', Human and ecological risk assessment. Feb 2003, 9, 1, pg. 17-35.

Cheers,

Up to you Jennifer - but I'm not sure how biological gradient or biological plausibility relate to a proof that anthropogenic CO2 causes climate change.

Surely adopting a good, common sense experimental approach (ie clearly stating your criteria and providing a control reference case for comparison) will be more valuable than adhering to the ideas in a random paper?

I'm not familiar with the literature on causation, do I have to go and read half the content of the peer-reviewed literature on causation to ascertain whether the paper you cited is any good?

James,

The 1938 paper is interesting in that it includes a results section, and then a discussion which is something of a post-publication peer-review.

It is clear from the discussion section in that paper that the results don't pass peer-review and were NOT peer reviewed before publication.

In short, the paper does not fit the criteria as a reasonable person would understand I made the request on August 10 in good faith, that is asking for an examination that had passed peer reviewed i.e. been accepted by those with appropriate expertise within the scientific community before publication.

Steve,

Why not throw caution to the wind and just think about these criteria in the context of popular AGW theory:

1.strength of association,

2.consistency of association,

3.specificity of association,

4.time order of temporality,

5.biological gradient,

6.experimental evidence, and

7.biological plausibility.

Now how does it shape up, in your opinion, given these criteria?

"that had been was peer reviewed"?

If the discussion was considered by the editors of the paper to invalidate the paper presented, it would not have been published.

The discussion was clearly not "post-publication", or else the discussion could not have been included in the *same* publication as the paper. The discussion quite obviously took place before the paper was published, or it would have appeared in a later edition of the journal. Therefore, it was peer reviewed before publication.

That this paper is still being cited 70 years later is evidence of its robustness and acceptance by those with appropriate expertise.

According to Google Scholar, the paper has been cited 104 times since being reprinted in 2002, let alone all previous citations.

[CITATION] THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TEMPERATURE
GS Callendar - Climate Change: Critical Concepts in the Environment, 2002 - Routledge
Cited by 104

http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=Callendar+1938&hl=en&lr=

The paper fits your criteria quite well.

I also note that you are now, to be frank, quibbling about definitions of peer review rather than admit that the paper fulfils the substantive criteria you asked for in its content and analysis.

Steve; I do not think the definition of causal link needs definition to rational people, I saw no criteria listed in Dr. Marohasy's article. If you wish a series of questions to be answered I will post an article of mine which requires information to establish a causal link by the IPCC.( again sorry about the length but this subject cannot be abbreviated)
The subject of global warming and in particular human influence on it has become a very emotional issue which has caused a great loss of objectivity. In addition, since it has entered the political arena the alarmist press releases have become a staple of the news media. It is not surprising therefore that the public are so ill informed since not only is this a very complex subject with new discoveries being made regularly but, with respect to the news media, bad news is good for business so that is where the emphasis is placed.
The principal reason for transferring the emphasis from science to politics is the enormous sums of money involved in the cap and trade programs being sponsored by the United Nations. In the first version of the Kyoto accord the developing countries like India and China were given a free ride and excluded from the countries required to reduce their emissions. Russia was given 1990 as its target CO2 allowance and since 1990 they have modernized their industry consequently they are under target and have $60 Billion in carbon credits to sell. Thus over 50% of the worlds CO2 emissions are not effected by the Kyoto accord and the western developed nations can continue business as usual as long as they buy the carbon credits from the underdeveloped countries.
The real test will come when the second Kyoto accord is finalized in 2012, this time there should be no free rides and targets should be reset. This will cause the accord to fail, a prelude to this was seen at the Bali conference when the Canadian prime minister suggested that we need to set as a target everyone sharing the load and create a level playing field. This suggestion was greeted with overwhelming objection and criticism by the news media and environmentalists.
The International Panel for Climate Control ( IPCC) is a part of the united nations which is comprised of about 170 have not countries and a dozen haves so in a democratic vote guess who has the majority. The very name of the panel assumes we can control our climate which is far from proven. Basically the IPCC is a political organization with a thin veneer of science, the assessment report was prepared by 22 authors and co-authors with approximately 630 contributors. The IPCC now proudly proclaim that there is a consensus of opinion in the scientific community and there is no longer any requirement to debate the issue. In 2007-8, however, a petition known has the Oregon petition was put out on the web for people to declare their opposition to the Kyoto accord and to date over 32 000 degreed professionals, of which over 9 000 were Ph.D’s, have signed the petition, surely the claim of a consensus is an exaggeration.
The IPCC media relations team are masters of deception, examples of this are given here.
“ carbon dioxide the major greenhouse gas” This phrase is included in a vast number of news articles. In the IPCC report the statement is “carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas in anthropogenic emissions” The first statement is totally false the second true, who actually made the edit is not known but the IPCC never correct the news releases.
The statement that there is a consensus and there is no further need for debate, yet the IPCC report is filled with statements to the effect that little is known on many subjects and much more research is required. In addition the range of uncertainty is given for much of the data published and it can vary as much as +/- 75% of the stated value, this range of uncertainty is more like a shot in the dark.
Computer programs are compiled based on the knowledge as described above, therefore the accuracy of these programs must by definition be virtually zero and yet the 23 global models produce a very wide range of results for the same scenario then these predictions are scattered around the news media as if they were cast in stone certainties. In the computer world there is a basic premise “ garbage in garbage out” the computer is incapable of making reasoned decisions it will only process the data input in accordance with its programs which are manually input. The IPCC report conclusions rely heavily on computer simulations, in reality the computer programmers tell the computer what they want to hear, then the computer dutifully produces the result they want and IPCC claim they have solid scientific proof. All they have is circular logic which is not scientific proof.
There is a fundamental process in the world of science whereby an idea or hypothesis is generated, usually by making some observations then trying to explain the observations by some mathematical formula.
The next step is to validate the formula by the strict application of the laws of science and developing a logical mathematical proof. In most cases the proof will contain some assumptions which require careful scrutiny to determine if the assumptions were reasonable. This is part of the peer review process.
Next, experiments are designed and conducted to provide additional data which must fit the original formula. This can be considered as the prediction and verification stage. The methodology and data analysis is again subject to careful scrutiny by independent experts and is part of the ongoing peer review.
At this point one has a working hypothesis or a theory.
Unfortunately this process has been severely short circuited by the IPCC. Although a very large amount of data has been collected and is presented in the form of graphs of temperature v’s time ; CO2 v’s time ; sea level v’s time etc. when the data bases from which some these graphs were constructed are required for independent peer review they somehow go missing or the author refuses to produce the data. Frequently when data bases are disclosed the manipulation of the data to obtain a predetermined result is apparent.
The methodology in obtaining the data is also examined and when obvious flaws in the accuracy are demonstrated by IPCC peer reviewers or other experts the edits, which are supported by peer reviewed papers from other scientists, are simply cast aside by the political editors of the IPCC report.
An effort has been made by the IPCC to formulate an empirical formula from the carefully edited data previously described which is used in the computer programs to predict the increase in global temperatures for a given increase in CO2 . The IPCC has not included any reference to this formula or the resulting graph in the 4th report. It seems a little strange that the entire subject revolves around the effect of atmospheric CO2 on global temperatures and yet in over 1000 pages it cannot be specifically addressed. There is absolutely no correlation between the classical laws of physics and the IPCC’s empirical formula although many papers have been written and peer reviewed by eminent physicists based on the laws of physics using different approaches and all basically coming to the same conclusion which is that the effect of the CO2 in our atmosphere levels off with respect to effect on temperature before 100ppm and thereafter has little or no effect.
In 1998 the IPCC published the predictions resulting from their computer programs, over the past 10 years all their predictions have been drastically wrong so even the attempt to leap frog the classical proof has backfired.
Thus the IPCC have failed to address legitimate peer review comments with regard to their basic data, methodology or conclusions from their data. They have failed to make public the basic data on some of their critical presentations. They have failed to validate their hypothesis using the classical laws of physics. They have failed to make any valid predictions.
At this point one has to ask where is the solid scientific proof?

I wonder if the world will be able to stand the shock if AGW is disproved?

As a past B.U.G.A.U.P. activist, it must be said that Steve's analogy with the supposed lack of causal link between smoking and cancer is pure sophistry. The link between smoking and cancer is found in the contents of the smoke, not the act of smoking. Ingesting creosote in any form can cause cancer, ditto for Polonium, and all the other toxins found in tobacco smoke.

So once again we have the climate zombies repeating one big lie to justify another big lie.

And perhaps Haughton might like to suggest which of the seven criteria listed above are not appropriate or suggest some additions? If he cannot then he is just another shonkademic on day release.

"I do not think the definition of causal link needs definition to rational people"

I didn't read the rest of your comment yet barry, but on this point, i couldn't disagree with your more.

In formal logic the idea of cause is in a strict, deterministic sense ie if A happens, then B must also happen (A implies B).

But in real life (and in many disciplines e.g. medicine), most people do not use 'cause' so formally. So most people are happy to say that smoking causes lung cancer even though Uncle Bob lived to the age of 96 and smoked every day.

The real life usage of the word 'cause' leaves room for enormous confusion -especially for complex problems and systems with multiple causes - because it is used so subjectively. What is a causal factor for some, is only a risk factor, a vulnerability or a contingency for others.

You see this in the papers every day, when you see headlines like

(today's paper) "Oxygen tank blamed"
instead of
"Dodgy quality control blamed".

or (i made these up)

"Single mothers cause an increase in youth crime" "television causes obsesity"
"gambling causes crime"

It would appear, Jennifer, that you're not looking for papers which establish a causal link between ACO2 and GW and reading what they have to say. Rather you're looking for any way you can discredit or diminish anything sent your way, regardless of how the scientists in the field the work in question, in order to protect your ego and Duffy's chequebook..

"It has been. 50 billion dollars and no evidence is pretty much a falsification. Sometimes I use understatement for effect." Bird

Yep, I'm willing to lay some money down. I think my STUPID, PURITANICAL country (but I am a patriot) forbids online gambling. How about Australia?

The Marshall Adams criteria are based on the work of Bradford Hill who did much of the original research on smoking and cancer: Austin Bradford Hill, “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58 (1965), 295-300.
Richard Peto's paper Smoking and Death gives an overview of the smoking story with the key references. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/309/6959/937

for an interesting comment

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/math99/math99276.htm

For the record, I am happy to say that "smoking causes lung cancer". I am not trying to suggest it doesnt. I'm just trying to ensure we all use the same idea of what a 'causal link' is, because i think it is a subjective concept (unless you are into formal logic). I suggested a control to calibrate everyone's definition of 'causal link'.

It was an excellent idea too Steve.

For a start, it could avoid confusion between Bird's ludicrous empiricism on stilts and what is actually possible. A paper could argue that moving the Earth closer to the sun would warm it. Most would find that uncontroversial and accept that it describes a causal relationship between proximity to the sun and global climate.

It would however fail Bird's test of having been empirically demonstrated.

It might also fail Jennifer's brand-spanking new test of being uncritically accepted by the entire scientific community. Someone in peer-review might, after all, question the precision of the mathematical model, rendering the whole thing unacceptable.

Jennifer writes:

"It is apparent, however, that a body of science published in peer-review journals, establishing a causal link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and warming and quantifying the extent of this warming, is lacking but would be expected to exist to support popular AGW theory."

There is, very obviously, a body of scientific literature claiming to do those things, whatever the merits of the three papers that you list (and dozens more were suggested in comments here). You may find a fairly systematic statement of what is to be proved here:

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf

Here's Rahmstorf's analysis of what is to be proved:

First, a proposition about the past: "human activities already have noticeably changed global climate", which is to be inferred from two subsidiary propositions: "global climate is warming", "most of the observed warming over the past fifty years is anthropogenic".

Second, a proposition about the future: "anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to significant global warming", which is to be inferred from three subsidiary propositions: "the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is rising", "the recent rise in CO2 is entirely anthropogenic", "carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; doubling its concentration will warm global climate in equilibrium by 3°C ± 1.5°C".

It's that last sub-proposition which *quantifies* the expected relationship between CO2 and temperature change. And in my opinion it is the one that should be of the greatest interest to skeptics. The attribution of the mild climate changes of recent decades to human beings is also of interest, but the case for AGW being catastrophic rests upon the argument that climate sensitivity is several degrees strong. That is where the "climate auditing" should focus.

Steve stop trying that old red herring of smoking and cancer to distract people from the subject at hand talk to the point please. I agree with you completly that causal link must incorporate solid scientific proof, that is the whole point, IPCC has no solid scientific proof. All they have is correlation which is not scientific proof. I really do not know how much clearer this definition can be.
Now with regard to Callendar If you look at Zbigniew Jaworowski's paper "Ice Core Data Show No Carbon Dioxide Increase" you will see Callendar's total data base from which he cherry picked his data thus totally invalidating it as a reputable scientific study.Callendar like so many others was a total FRAUD.

Jennifer you should have ended this blog one post ago...

Barry, since Callendar nowhere discusses ice cores I infer that you haven't read his paper...

Graeme (to break my own rule for a moment in order to save you from an aneuryism) since you have shown yourself incapable of having a discussion without resorting to abuse, despite repeated requests to be polite, I have no intention of responding to anything you write.

But since I've broken this rule for this post, why don't you READ CALLENDAR'S PAPER and FIND OUT?

Smoking being a cause of lung cancer was
established by autopsy. They found the incidence of lung cancer icreasing which led to a series of
investigations which established smoking
as being a major cause. If they had simply used rats , the link would not have been definitvely
established .
RRP

Smoking being a cause of lung cancer was
established by autopsy. They found the incidence of lung cancer icreasing which led to a series of
investigations which established smoking
as being a major cause. If they had simply used rats , the link would not have been definitvely
established .
RRP

I know this will be ignored, but here are two papers I found on the infra red properties of carbon dioxide gas.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tmph/1981/00000044/00000001/art00009

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1721794

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0486480

This book would also have references if you cared to find it.
http://www.gbv.de/dms/ilmenau/toc/509264093.PDF

Graeme, have you ever considered that it is actually your contributions that have led to the downfall of this blog?

Mitchell; O.K. so after $50 Billion in research and 4 assessment reports there is no proof. Just a lot of correlation smoke and mirrors from manipulated unsupported proxy data. Frankly I would expect more from $50 billion. Rhamstorf is exactly correct these questions need to be definitely answered before we sink hundreds of billions of dollars into this fraud, the trouble is these questions have not even been remotely answered. Just repeating valid questions does not answer them.

Jennifer, my congratulations. A debate.

NT I actually went to your web sites They were just selling papers $43.75 was the first one the others were just simple high school physical properties I am starting to believe Graeme is absolutely correct you people are absolute morons and you publish nothing but garbage. Honestly I try to be rational and positive but you folk make it very difficult. Give me another few weeks of this childish nonsense from the AGW lunatic fringe and I will be cussing like Graeme.

NT I actually went to your web sites They were just selling papers $43.75 was the first one the others were just simple high school physical properties I am starting to believe Graeme is absolutely correct you people are absolute morons and you publish nothing but garbage. Honestly I try to be rational and positive but you folk make it very difficult. Give me another few weeks of this childish nonsense from the AGW lunatic fringe and I will be cussing like Graeme.

NT I actually went to your web sites They were just selling papers $43.75 was the first one the others were just simple high school physical properties I am starting to believe Graeme is absolutely correct you people are absolute morons and you publish nothing but garbage. Honestly I try to be rational and positive but you folk make it very difficult. Give me another few weeks of this childish nonsense from the AGW lunatic fringe and I will be cussing like Graeme.

I find Steve's argument about "causation" very tedious.

The question is very simple: does CO2 causes GW?

If so prove it!

Sorry about the repeat in ran into some screening which I had not encountered before I do not mind it I just was not expecting it.

Johnathan the answer is no and I have tried very hard to present, unfortunately at length, on this and other blogs in strict scientific terms why it does not look around you will find the answers.

After all this we have one paper from 1938 that might fit Jen's criteria 'quite well' (although I would dispute paying out $1,000 if it was me). So, that's it then?

Well, the bits without Graeme in are a debate (and a far better one than usual). Sadly the bits with Graeme in taste more like burnt toast.

C'mon all you warmers! You can do better than this. Give us something with meat on its bones!

Why don't you go over to Deltoid and ask all of the "scientists" over there to help. I'm sure they can each rattle off dozens of papers that show anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming. You can be back here with the citations before dinner.

Lazlo; I agree with you and I have already posted proof that Callendars paper presented very biased data thus I think that it is disqualified.

Graeme Bird - I find it hard to take anything you say seriously purely because of the way you say it.

James Haughton I note you use the term "infer" thus you have no proof but you infer. This is a very common unscientific ploy, why don't you just ask the question instead of assuming remember to assume make an ass out of u and me. Therefore this is a very unscientific thought process. I gave a reference why don't you just check it out. If you are unfamiliar with the peer review process let me remind you that you never take a paper on its face value one must examine the data from which the paper was written, that is what I was demonstrating.

Great Blog this. Think I will come back. I have waited for years with great anticipation for some real evidence for any significant man-made CO2 Global Warming. Bet I'll be waiting a long time yet though. I expect a much longer wait to see any measurable difference Australia can make to the impact on reducing global levels of CO2. What evidence is available to show sending our industry and jobs overseas will make any difference? Why should Australia's economy be ruined and our standard of living slashed for no evidenced based reason at all? Got me buggered!

Lazlo: It's not easy to find a single paper (as opposed to, say, a book full of them or referencing lots and lots of them, like the IPCC reports) that covers all the major points as opposed to one specialist point. Which is why I went back in the historical record to an early, "seminal" paper (also to avoid the two most common reasons for rejecting evidence out of hand - "AGW's just a computer model" which a paper published in 1938 certainly is not, and "AGW was invented in 1988 by Al Gore and James Hansen", which the existence Callendar disproves). I also supplied a second, recent paper which gave up-to-date CO2 data (the Hofmann et al paper), but Dr Marohasy inexplicably insisted on treating these as two separate entries in the contest rather than a complementary pair.

Dr Marohasy did not receive many entries, because very few people believe that she and Mr Duffy would ever pay up (see here: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/duffy_does_a_hovind.php ). Instead, as predicted, she appears to be moving the goal posts - for example, insisting that the Callendar paper must suit her re-definition of "peer review" rather than her original criterion of "published in a reputable scientific journal", which the Quarterly Journal of Meteorology certainly is.

There is a discussion of the historical evolution of climate science (including the place of Callendar's paper in it) and the various pieces of evidence that gradually changed the scientific community's minds about CO2's role in climate change here: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

HTH

I thought this blog was ending... Why is it still here?

In a less passionate way but equally sincere I agree with Graeme. The proof that the Kyoto accord is totally without foundation is overwhelming.
I started this investigation 10 years ago with a personal commitment just to learn the truth, I have no other ulterior motive.
I am still ready to change my mind if anyone can provide the EVIDENCE.
I have read technical papers until my eyeballs fell out I have gone to university courses by fanatical IPCC believers. I have struggled through the IPCC reports, in all honesty I can find no scientific proof of the IPCC hypothesis. In fact I am more convinced today than ever that the IPCC is a total political farce and con job.

"I thought this blog was ending... Why is it still here?"

I think Graeme is doing is best.

Graeme, did you go to the link James suggested at the end?

This one: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

It gives references to the information.
So you then look up those references and read them.

Thing is I know that both you and Jennifer aren't not actually interested. So you won't and then you'll shout and rant a bit more and damage Jennifers reputation even further.

Hi Jennifer. Asking for the casual connection is pivotal in science. It has to be there before anyone does a thing to change the climate one way or another.

There is a good medical joke. A lot of doctors are at a conference in the country. They decide the papers are all boring and so they go on a duck shoot. A psychiatrist steps and yells "Quack! Quack!" Birds fly everwhere. But he pscyh says, "I can't shoot them - they would feel pain."

A physcian steps up, yells "Quack! Quack!" and birds fly everywhere. He looks and says, "Are they ducks? Or are they geese?" And doesn't shoot and moves off to poner the difference.

Finally a surgeon steps up and yells "Quack! Quack!" Birds fly everywhere and the surgeon shoots everything. When the smoke clears, he turns to the pathologist and says "Make sure they are ducks!"

And so it is with climate science. There are hundreds of papers demonstrating causality and they are all ducks.

"And no-one offered up any study that could win it."

and that's because jennifer will happily tweak her definition of 'causal link' to an arbitrary level of strictness so that whatever paper is offered doesn't qualify.

Here's how the competition works:

"Gimme a paper to prove a causal link between co2 and AGW! Cmon! Prove it! I'll give you $1000 if you do!"

"Here's a paper."

"Nup, i dont reckon it proves it!. You fail!"

"I thought it did prove it. What exactly are the criteria for a causal link as you understand it anyway? Can we agree on them and make them clear and unambiguous?"

"Stop being tedious! Just prove it! Its simple! Cmon, give us just one paper!"

repeat until everyone gets bored, then claim victory.

Haughton; I have said it once and I will say it over and over again " Correlation does not prove causation" The IPCC reports are nothing but a collection of correlation reports and computer simulations based on IPCC's interpretation of those correlations. This is not scientific proof. Callendar's paper was based on selected data which was not in any way representative of the original data base , I have already posted proof of that which you chose to ignor since you have no rebuttal. I find it incredible that you and people like you categorically refuse to answer direct and specific challenges to your statements. We are specfic and to the point but you waffle and ignor those many questions and challenges which you cannot answer. In all honesty Sir I have to consider you a complete FRAUD.

"But mitchell. Does he come up with the evidence? If so where? The changes in climate are not unusual in the 20th century. In fact if anything they are feeble given the extraordinary solar activity."

With respect to the 20th century, Rahmstorf argues as follows:

1) There has been a rise of 0.8°C since the late 19th century.

2) The radiative forcings due to a doubling of CO2, due to the increase in CO2 so far, due to ocean heat uptake, due to aerosols, and due to the sun during the 20th century, are respectively +3.7, +2.6, -.6, -1, +0.3 W/m^2. The sources for those numbers are Rahmstorf's footnote 20; an article by Lindzen in the same volume, to which Rahmstorf's article is a response; and Rahmstorf's footnotes 21, 22, 23. (Footnote 20 just leads to IPCC 2001, but Steve McIntyre dug up some of the primary literature, see his postings on "Lacis et al 1981".)

3) These numbers are said to imply a climate sensitivity of 2.3°C - this is calculated on p.40-41 of Rahmstorf, but he's just solving for X in 0.8/X = (2.6-.6-1+.3)/3.7. (I can't quite figure out why those -.6,-.1,+.3 corrections aren't in the denominator as well, but at this point I'm just trying to reproduce Rahmstorf's argument.)

4) Furthermore, the uncertainties in aerosol and solar forcing are such as to increase the numerator on the right-hand side, which would increase the value of X, climate sensitivity, and thus the anthropogenic component of the 20th-century warming.

There's other stuff in the article but this looks to me like the central chain of reasoning.

First of all; thanks to Jennifer for posting this topic; it is astounding that the basic mechanism by which AGW is supposed to work has somehow been assumed to be; I say that without re-reading Callendar's 1938 in detail; but as I have said before Callendar only works if his assumption that pre-industrail levels of CO2 were lower than today and evenly mixed; and he hasn't, IMO, resolved the logarithmic limit to CO2, or for that matter, all GHG's.

So to NT and his Weart piece; Weart revisits Callendar and reinforces the semi-infinite opaque model which AGW relies on; we have talked before about how both Miscolczi and Chilingar, for all their faults, establish that the AGW model is problematic; it is also the case that Miscolczi and Chilingar are not mutually exclusive as some pro-AGW commentators assert; Chilingar is about heat transfer, Miscolczi is about heat balance.
NT's other reference is more to the point of this crucial topic;

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0486480

This Taylor paper confirms a number of things in the way that CO2 interacts with IR which are contradictory to AGW; firstly it shows that the kinetci/vibrational transfer of heat from the CO2 to the relatively IR inert bulk of the atmosphere, N2, occurs; but here is the kicker; this transfer "forces the two components to subsequently approach equilibrium with the same rate." One of the stumbling blocks to those arguing against the opaque atmosphere was the difference between the rate of collisional excitation and collisional deexcitation, with the former being much slower than the latter; this meant that there was no saturative limit to a layer of CO2, with more CO2 not being subject to the logarithmic limit. With an excitional/deexcitional equivalance there is no bar to the logarithmic decline. This decline is not solely due to Beer's Law because the absorption and emission is not uniform or able to be averaged as if the Earth were a grey body; it happens because 99% of CO2 absorption occurs within only a few tens to hundreds of meters of the surface; at this level 2 things happen; firstly, transmission is inversely proportional to concentration and wavelength; so with CO2 absorption restricted to 14.7 mu ( and note pressure smearing may broaden that peak, but the total amount of IR absorbed and reemitted is not changed), a doubling of concentration means half gets through; but with the near atmosphere effectively opaque that saturation prevents further absorption; the second thing is not even disputed by AGWer's; as Chilingar's paper shows, a convective driven heat transfer takes the near surface saturated air to the upper atmosphere where the IR is radiated to space;

http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=268#p5125

Arrhenius thought that a doubling of CO2 would have a forcing of 5.5K; the IPCC forcing is between 3.5 and 5C; since 1900 CO2 has increased by 40%; there should have been, on this basis, an increase of about 2C; even the corrupt NASAGISS shows only an increase of .7C, which is easily accounted for by solar and PDO; given this, AGW is shown not to be.

"3) These numbers are said to imply a climate sensitivity of 2.3°C -......."

No you cannot DO that mitchell. I warned you about that already. There is no such things as a climate-senstivity. We want to know about the effect of SPECIFICALLY CO2.

You cannot infer the behavour of CO2 from the behaviour of aerosols.

No good.

Try again.

Let me explain mitchell. Climate sensitivity is an almighty fudge factor. Its a correction after the fact to make up for a model that bears no relation to earth or any other planet.

In this model only gasses and light matter. The planet is a black body. It is twice as far from the sun as the earth is. It is noon all the time. There is no conduction or convection on this planet. There is no insulative capacity at all of the non-greenhouse gasses. There is no water. No 7000 kilometres of earth down to the centre. No overturning where warm air is forced back down under therefore creating a heat budget.

Everything else is added back in a very clumsy way later on in the model. But the first step starts on this ethereal non-planet.

There is enough greenhouse effect in this model already to raise the temperature of this hypothetical surreal planet at least 30 degrees at the surface more than it otherwise would be. Since in our planet there is a great many other things maintaining that warmth, then on this planet already there is a powerful greenhouse effect the likes of which we don't know.

Now because this model bears no relation to anything we've seen before or will ever see they go through some steps. One of them is to hypothesise a fudge factor called a CLIMATE SENSITIVITY aka LAMDA.

But Lamda does not exist. We have evidence that aerosols will cool. We have evidence that solar activity changes will cool or warm. We have evidence that orbital cycles make a difference.

What we do not have is evidence that a slightly higher CO2 level will make a difference.

The climate sensitivity is therefore a myth. Where these guys attempt to use evidence from aerosols to prove evidence for CO2. Evidence which they do not have.

Well, thanks to Cohenite for at least reading the stuff.

The whole saturated gas thing is something that has kept me awake at night. OK, not really, but I haven't resolved it in my mind.
What I think, and I certainly can't back this up, is that because the Sun acts like a pulsed heat source it isn't so important. Just before dawn the Earth should be at it's coldest, as the sun rises it warms, I figure with increased CO2 it will warm faster and reach 'saturation' quicker. What this means is there is a longer period during the day time that the atmosphere is warmer which in turn acts to slow the release of heat from the surface. There will be a lower thermal gradient between the surface and the atmosphere. And in reverse as the sun sets the additional CO2 will act to retain heat for longer.

This focus on CO2 alone is unhealthy however. As all real AGW zealots know, there are other gases involved and other feedbacks.

Graeme, you're the one who ruins the debate here. Jennifer is going to be pretty mad with you.

"Arrhenius thought that a doubling of CO2 would have a forcing of 5.5K; the IPCC forcing is between 3.5 and 5C; since 1900 CO2 has increased by 40%; there should have been, on this basis, an increase of about 2C; even the corrupt NASAGISS shows only an increase of .7C, which is easily accounted for by solar and PDO; given this, AGW is shown not to be."

Precisely. Its just not there. And they don't want to find it. Because to find it you'd have to look for times when the CO2 was higher than usual in the past. They are not going to recognise Becks evidence that CO2 has moved around enough for them to get a fix on it.

So either way they will refuse to look for the evidence and do not care about it.

"I figure with increased CO2 it will warm faster and reach 'saturation' quicker. What this means is there is a longer period during the day time that the atmosphere is warmer which in turn acts to slow the release of heat from the surface. There will be a lower thermal gradient between the surface and the atmosphere. And in reverse as the sun sets the additional CO2 will act to retain heat for longer."

Well OK. So why haven't we seen this. That ought to make a mighty difference if you were right.

So where is that difference?

What about the 40's where Beck has the CO2 climbing high. Thereafter the CO2 didn't keep the warming continuing. Rather the CO2 and the temperature plunge.

That doesn't sound much like your scenario.

One place that is just a tiny bit closer to their otherworldly model is the far north during the long daytime of summer when the midnight sun dances around in the sky.

Consider:

1. Not much overturning. Since pretty much all the air is dry. So we don't have a situation where humid air is rising next to dry air and causing this overturning.

2. Not noon all the time but for many weeks the sun is always in the sky.

3. There isn't the water vapour up there to mask and make irrelevant the effect of CO2.

So while it isn't the same as their nonsensical models assumptions its closer to it.

"Quack! Quack!"

Now what is that all about gavin?

Graeme, just substitute the phrase "temperature increase per CO2 doubling" for "climate sensitivity". It's not a fudge factor, it's a way of quantifying what happens to temperatures when you double CO2 without changing anything else, and it will be well-defined for situations far more complicated than the unrealistic model you describe. The question is whether it is valid in the real world or not. Rahmstorf thinks it is, you think it isn't, but I don't actually know why. I can think of various hypothetical scenarios under which it is not a valid concept, but I don't see why that would be so even for your paradigm.

Their must be more coherence to this issue of co2 forcing and it seems to me after reading all the alarmists views above that illogical thinking seems to prevail.
If you want to find out if you can get positive feedback to increased co2 in the real atmosphere ( in real 21st century time, not 1938 theory ) why not look at Spencer's research and findings from the AQUA satellite program?
If every climate scientist agrees that there must be a hotspot over the equator at a height of 10- 12klms to prove co2 forcing why can't it be found?
Is the .7c of warming in the last 100 years unusual ( mostly in NH btw ) when the planet is just recovering from the LIA which even Wiki says lowered the temp by 1c to 1.5c, plus the planet has recieved more radiation in the last 100 years than at any time in the last 10,400 years?
So logically just the recovery from the LIA more than covers the .7c of warming with at least .3c at least left over to ponder and strengthen the skeptic's case.
The alarmists case is based on religious nonsense and certainly not on practical, observable, real atmosphere science.

"Graeme, just substitute the phrase "temperature increase per CO2 doubling" for "climate sensitivity". It's not a fudge factor, it's a way of quantifying what happens to temperatures when you double CO2 without changing anything else, and it will be well-defined for situations far more complicated than the unrealistic model you describe."

But it doesn't happen Mitchell. Thats the problem. You see you've unwittingly already included the conclusion within the working out. So the argument is circular.

You see we can see the evidence for the volcanic aerosols. For the solar variability. For the orbital cycles.

But there is no evidence for CO2-warming. So you cannot include that which you do not already have. You cannot merely assume warming from CO2 from evidence taken from cooling from aerosols.

I know they do it. But this is religion and not science.

See if I say the evidence for CO2-warming comes from the warming the CO2 would have due to a doubling.... thats circular reasoning. When what we wanted was the evidence that CO2 warmed the planet globally.

I mean if you are already going to include the answer in the question you ought not be surprised that you find out what you thought you already knew.

But this is not science.

"Rahmstorf thinks it is, you think it isn't, but I don't actually know why. I can think of various hypothetical scenarios under which it is not a valid concept, but I don't see why that would be so even for your paradigm."

Rahmstorf can think what he likes. But him thinking something cannot be a substitute for evidence. The thing is I'd LOVE IT if CO2 had that effect. That would be the best dumb luck that the human race had ever experienced. What it would mean is we had a thermostat to avoid the glacial periods. Just as Arrenhius and Callendar hoped. Arrenhius would be absolutely dumbfounded by what these guys are trying to do in his name. He wouldn't want anything to do with these people. He'd be totally mystified by them. The idea is to avoid glacial periods.

I was the same. I hoped it had an effect and surmised that it did. GREAT. Like Callender and Arrenhius I thought it was just a great bit of luck that we almost didn't deserve.

But no-one has the evidence so the effect must be tiny.
Negative or positive it has to be tiny.

Graeme the co2 effect is covered by Spencer's work, he found a small negative feedback, so panic stations we'll just have to stop athro co2 because we might enhance our way into the next ice age.

"See if I say the evidence for CO2-warming comes from the warming the CO2 would have due to a doubling.... thats circular reasoning. When what we wanted was the evidence that CO2 warmed the planet globally."

Talking about the warming that a CO2 doubling would produce is just a way of quantifying the relationship. You could talk about "warming due to CO2 increasing by half" and you would have a different set of numbers, but it would be the same concept.

It does sort of presuppose that temperature goes up logarithmically with CO2 concentration. So Rahmstorf needs to show that this is a valid or at least a plausible assumption for the real world. The argument about paradigms might be relevant there.

But talking about temperature-increase-per-CO2-doubling does not presuppose anything about the *magnitude* of the increase; it only presupposes that the concept makes sense. Having made that supposition, Rahmstorf then calculates the magnitude and finds it to be large rather than small. It is not circular reasoning but it does assume the validity of certain concepts.

"Talking about the warming that a CO2 doubling would produce is just a way of quantifying the relationship."

Stop right there. Circular reason. The problem is it doesn't produce any warming. A doubling doesn't produce anything.

We have the evidence for a number of things impinging on temperature. You cannot take aerosol COOLING and infer CO2-WARMING from that?

So just back up. Because we needed the evidence for CO2-warming IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Thats what we were after. Thats what we were looking for. We cannot mentally wish it into existence.

You cannot ontologically conjure the Sasquatch. You cannot bring him into being by logical argument. Or mathematically derive him. You need evidence for the Sasquatch. Carelessly scattered bananna peels. Giant footprints. A big steaming shit in the snow. You cannot conjure CO2-warming through a mathematical model or derive it through logical reasoning.

There was enough of an indication to form the hypothesis. It was an ok hypothesis. The problem came with trying to find evidence for it. The evidence didn't show up. It should have shown. But it didn't.

As soon as you need to plug in numbers to do with a doubling than you've already blown the detection and attribution.

Its like saying that God exists because the bible says so. And God must exist because he's said something in the bible which implies his existence.

Thats not going to fly. Its circular. A paradigm cannot be proven by reference to itself.

I haven't examined the paleoclimate stuff yet. But I gave Rahmstorf's calculation above. There is an observed temperature increase, an observed increase in CO2, and there are values for solar, aerosol, and ocean contributions to temperature change. From all of that he derives a number which represents the strength of CO2-warming. But it's just what's left over when you account for solar, aerosol, and ocean. So unless there's some other cause of warming that he left out, he has proceeded empirically as well as logically. You might attack his numbers or his paradigm or both, but he does actually have an argument.

"I haven't examined the paleoclimate stuff yet. But I gave Rahmstorf's calculation above. There is an observed temperature increase, an observed increase in CO2, and there are values for solar, aerosol, and ocean contributions to temperature change. From all of that he derives a number which represents the strength of CO2-warming."

But you already told us that he brought this climate sensitivity into it. Which means he didn't do the exercise straight. But used the aerosol-cooling business to conjure a CO2-warming inference.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yeah thanks for that Neville. A slight negative. Well at least thats consistent with the record.

Supposing he's doing the numbers straight.

The transmission goes like this.... Solar increase....reduced cosmic ray amplication of the solar increase ..... buildup in oceanic heat budget..... buildup in water vapour......... warmer troposphere.....

Now from there is where he needs to start adding and substracting.

If he hasn't gone through the above transmission than he's treating the deal like its a mythical flat-earth black body.

NT said:-
>The whole saturated gas thing is something that >has kept me awake at night. OK, not really, but I >haven't resolved it in my mind.
>What I think, and I certainly can't back this up, >is that because the Sun acts like a pulsed heat >source it isn't so important. Just before dawn >the Earth should be at it's coldest, as the sun >rises it warms, I figure with increased CO2 it >will warm faster and reach 'saturation' quicker. >What this means is there is a longer period >during the day time that the atmosphere is warmer >which in turn acts to slow the release of heat >from the surface. There will be a lower thermal >gradient between the surface and the atmosphere. >And in reverse as the sun sets the additional CO2 >will act to retain heat for longer.

I've been led to believe that all of these matters are fully understood. The debate is over! We understand the climate well enough to know, within 1C or so, what the average temperature will be in 50 or 100 years. So, NT, why are you feigning ignorance over such simple concepts as these?

They have all be factored precisely into the models and their effects are known with an unprecedented degree of precision. How else do you think we managed to project 100 years intot the future? Surely you don't think we just took a straight-edged ruler and drew an upward-trending line, do you? [Some people!]

>This focus on CO2 alone is unhealthy however. As >all real AGW zealots know, there are other gases >involved and other feedbacks.

Halle-freakin-jah for someone on the AGWing side admittin to that! However, I don't suppose you're talking about water vapour here, are you?

>Graeme, you're the one who ruins the debate here. >Jennifer is going to be pretty mad with you.

He can be a complete SOB and may well be one of the reasons Jennifer is having misgivings. I think he might suspect that (he's evidently intelligent, if opinionated and abrasive) and that's why he's being on his best behaviour today.

[Would you like to add anything to my description of you, Graeme? Hobbies, favourite foods, last thing you bought at Bunnings, etc.]

Graeme, Rahmstorf's argument is just this: Assuming that temperature change is arising from the combined effects of CO2, solar, aerosol, and ocean, and that the magnitudes of the contributions from solar, aerosol, and ocean are like so, how big is the contribution from CO2?

He performs that calculation within a certain paradigm. So you can criticize the paradigm or the numbers or both. When you object to talk about "climate sensitivity", does that mean you're objecting to the logarithmic paradigm, which says that *multiplying* the amount of CO2 *adds* to temperature in a consistent proportion?

"This can be demonstrated in a laboratory, but when you scale up laboratory experiments to the real world, what happens? We know from ice cores that global temperatures have decreased in the past even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise. There are some so-called skeptics who claim that in the real world the radiation forcing of carbon dioxide is overwhelmed by the more powerful constraints of evaporation cooling from the tropical oceans."

ouch. with this approach, it would be basically impossible to show that smoking causes cancer. there could be a minority of scientists, who believe that the increased cancer rate in smokers might have some other reason.

basically you would need a test. with MANY people. under completely controlled conditions. with them not knowing, whether they are smoking or not. until sufficently of them develop cancer, to make a statistically stable claim.

good luck.

oh and i would love to hear the answers of Jennifers students, about papers that "prove" evolution....

Motl has a good take on the 'dispute' between Lindzen and Rahmstorf;

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/03/lindzen-vs-rahmstorf-exchange.html

Motls' last comment about the hypocrisy of AGW supporters comparing their 'science' with general relativity is particularly telling; Einstein was troubled by one assumption, the cosmic constant; in AGW there is nothing but arbitary assumptions; speaking of which, relooking at the Taylor paper and the collisional transfer between CO2 and N2; this transfer occurs at fairly high pressure;

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0022-3700/10/3/018

Thus, between N2 and O2, which has similar properties, about 20% of the emitted photons are absorbed by the inerts; this makes this process another of the long list of AGW mitigating mechanisms; a list of them is instructive;
1 the N2/O2 collisional transfer.
2 the logarithmic decline.
3 the dominance of the convectional heat transfer a la Chilingar over the CO2 heating.
4 the operation of various -ve feedbacks from water, albedo, decline in RH, enthalpy.
5 the uneven mixture of CO2, or as the AIRS sampling shows, "substantial spatiotemporal variability."

http://yly-mac.gps.caltech.edu/A_EGU2008/YungEGU08CO2/SCIENCE%20CO2_Paper_V2F%20copy.pdf

6 Steve Short's 'Little Mothers', the cyanobacteria.

Surely such a list, combined with the total predictive failure of AGW, and the manifest lies, obfuscation and lack of transparency, and the, at best, ambiguity of the AGW mechanism, extra CO2, should put this thing down. Nah.

Well I'm not objecting to it. But we need evidence for it. See it might not go like that.

No doubt it would go like that if it was noon all the time, there was no conduction or convection. It was a flat earth. Twice as far from the sun. And so forth. We cannot take these things for granted bipartisan or not. On our planet there may be a great deal of serendipity about it.

Where is the heat budget buildup in the ocean, the cosmic ray amplification, the water vapour buildup... all this in a certain sequence.... Where is all that coming into it.

You see thats what happens on THIS planet. He ought not be doing things on the basis of an otherworldly flat earth.

"Solar increase....reduced cosmic ray amplication of the solar increase ..... buildup in oceanic heat budget..... buildup in water vapour......... warmer troposphere.....

Now from there is where he needs to start adding and subtracting."

OK great, I think there is some basis for further dialogue and discussion here. Unfortunately I'm not Rahmstorf so my ability to act as his proxy has its limits. Still, we've at least managed to arrive at the quantitative part of the argument for catastrophic AGW. Up until now, I haven't seen any AGW advocates here locate a single, simple calculation like that.

To bring in the cosmic rays and the troposphere and so forth, we first need to understand the internal logic of Rahmstorf's calculation. I'm not at that point yet. (Though if anyone's wondering about the absence of water vapor from the list of causes considered, that just goes back to the difference between forcings and feedbacks. Feedbacks are influences whose magnitude is dependent on the forcings, and H2O falls into that category because of its very short atmospheric lifespan.) I would need to be absolutely clear on the physical basis of the logarithmic paradigm, and the logic behind the algebra, before I could then examine whether adding more physical detail is going to violate the premises behind the calculation. But at least I see a way forward now.

Spencer, R. W., & Braswell, W. D., "Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration", in press, Journal of Climate, November 2008. I claim this fits Jen's criteria. $1,000 to a mutually agreed cause Michael.

Steve, August 29, 2008 01:33 PM.... You said this amid your post...

"e.g. you could ask your readers to come up with a scientific paper that examines the causal link between smoking and lung cancer."

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/143/3603/247

In among the reams of material I read, I came across a paper (not the one above. I just grabbed that one) that detailed the mechanism for lung cancer..... It explained it, as my imperfect memory will endeavour to remember, as this.

All plant material is exposed to the breakdown products of uranium in the form of Radon gas, which further breaks down into Polonium 210 Because Polonium 210 (remember Alexander Litvinenko), is amazingly toxic it's effects will cause cancerous changes to tissue in anybody exposed to burning plant material over long periods of time.

Tobacco, because it's leaves are particularly furry on the undersides, accumulates more uranium decay products than other plants...

So, in actuality, the link to Tobacco and lung cancer is a generic process comparable to all growing plants. Non smokers exposed to a lifetime of open cooking fires would have increased risks of cancer, etc.

It is also necessary to add that there is no link between nicotine and lung cancer... But of course nicotine is addictive, thus it is understandable that using smoking as a delivery method for nicotine and the habit formed, would increase the risk of cancer if the above mechanism is correct.

Anyway Steve.... What's the Causal link between CO2 and the AGW Hypothesis?

Hate to put this, but the initial hypothesis was first proposed by Arrhenius in 1906.

So when are the illuminated idiots here going to look at the facts.

sod:-
"ouch. with this approach, it would be basically impossible to show that smoking causes cancer. there could be a minority of scientists, who believe that the increased cancer rate in smokers might have some other reason."

Well, technically it still is impossible to prove that smoking causes cancer. Technically, we still cannot describe the processes behind cancer, at a cellular level.

Therefore, all we can say is that there is an association between certain things and cancer. In fact, lung cancer is still a minority cause of death in smokers (approximately 8%-10%).

Therefore, it is completely correct to say that smoking is correlated with a significantly higher rate of lung cancer than in never-smokers.

However, it is completely incorrect to assert that smoking causes cancer, because we don't fully understand cancer and it only correlates strongly with a minority percentage of lifetime smokers. [One day, when we truly understand cancer, we might be able to say something about causation with precision, however we cannot say it with our present state of cancer knowledge.]

Feedbacks are influences whose magnitude is dependent on the forcings, and H2O falls into that category because of its very short atmospheric lifespan.

I think that Spencer outlines an exception to that;
"internally-generated radiative forcings, which are uncorrelated to the temperature variations which result from them." These are cloud formations which are due to "other, chaotic, internally generated mechanisms."; that is, other than CO2 or greenhouse caused temperature increase. These causal factors have a Hurst quality; Spencer establishes a -ve feedback correlation by doing what Tamino did in a recent post; by scaling or interpolating over a less than infinite sample; Spencer uses a 100% correlation; examples would be a combination of surface hydrology and evaporation; these are long-lived process and their atmospheric proxy would have both a short-term and long-term effect.

cohenite; your first mention of motti had me rolling the mouse again

bed time hey

somebody may wish to look up the latest theory on fruit bat population stress and virus protection in my absence

TheWord

My late father was a physician and commented, from his extensive experience, that people who developed cancer, tended to smoke cigarettes.

I accept this anectodatal evidence from a physician at the coal-face of human existence more than the hypothetical crap proselytised here.

Oh Sorry, we empiricists form our conclusions from the waste of humanity, as opposed to, the sterile deliberations of the progressive abstractions favoured by the CO2 freaks here.

NT Blurts... "I thought this blog was ending... Why is it still here?"

I say..... Go away NT. ;-)

That should be, Spencer developes a +ve correlation.

Yes, gavin, it's bedtime. I'll stay up and find some more Motl pearlers.

Louis,

Don't worry - I don't doubt the association, nor the added risk.

However, we're talking about "causation" here. That has a very particular meaning in scientific terms.

It does not mean correlated, nor associated, nor implicated. It means "caused".

There are loads of words in the English language and I've found that people who are passionate about certain things will often choose the stronger words and overstate their case.

When X causes Y, it is a matter of some substantial (if not absolute) certainty and inevitability.

"Cause" is science's strongest and most abused word.

TheWord

I am a practising scientist - so misuse of the verb cause, causes all sorts of reactions, especially by those who don't.

But, writing that, no evidence has been put here by way of a refereed scientific paper supprting Arrhenius' 1906 proposition - that a reduction in atmospheric CO2 content causes ice ages. Nor that increasing atmospheric CO2 content avoids ice ages.

Turns out that people in AI are interested in inferring causality (for the purpose of having the robot build proper models of its world automatically). There's quite a sophisticated theory (see Judea Pearl's
eponymous book, for example).
I'm working on that sort of stuff myself in the context of robots whose knowledge representation is in the form of dynamical systems. I have a few ruminations about causality inference (click thru my name to the page),
which include an application of a possible technique to the CO2/temperature case.

Hey, why isn't Spencer and Braswell fitting the bill? Jen didn't say it had to support the link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and global warming, just examine it. This paper examines and disproves the link. OK I'll waive the $1K if that's a problem..

Future history of AGW

There was a big tree limb;
it seemed very strong.
So, many climbed on it;
how could they go wrong?

But then came a cold spell
and the limb shattered.
Many reputations
now hang in tatters.

Lazlo; do you have a link to or preview of the paper?

Folks, from my view point we have seminal paper(s) in the G. S. Callendar set. He, along with S. A. Arrhenius, appear be the seminal fathers of the CO2 and AGW theory. Are their efforts correct using today's technologies? Still TBD.

Jenn, "?I believe?" we do have a winner of the bet. Of course, it is easy for me to say that as it isn't my money.

"I understand that the author of one of the papers, Thomas Crowley, posted comment at John Quiggins site acknowledging that his paper did not deal with causation." - Jen

Oh Jennifer, misleading to the end.

I emailed Prof Crowley for a comment on your hand-waving dismissal of his paper and then posted his reply. He certainly did not "acknowledge that his paper did not deal with causation". Quite the opposite. He stated the general principle that science deals in evidence and probabilities, and that in the case of AGW, the evidence supports it.

Just to recap,
"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.

There are various ways to derive the basic effect of CO2, and they all lead to numbers close to 1.2 Deg C for CO2 doubling, as shown in IPCC and derived by Monckton among others (discussed ad nauseum at Climate Audit)--BUT: to get more warming than than one must invoke a water vapor/clouds positive feedback that can NOT be calculated analytically and is just assumed in the GCMs without proof. It is never ever in any literature laid out explicitly how this works with a demonstration of proof. Roy Spencer's work by contrast supports Richard Lindzen's theory of the infrared iris--that as it warms the hydrological cycle speeds up and more clear sky is produced, allowing more heat to escape, a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, not positive.

",,, to get more warming than than one must invoke a water vapor/clouds positive feedback that can NOT be calculated analytically and is just assumed in the GCMs without proof. ..."

But its worse than that. Because cumulative warming can only come from the ocean. The air could never hold enough energy to last even a single weak solar cycle. And water vapour is proof of massive refrigeration of the water. Hence if the troposphere termperature is pretty much a function of the amount of water vapour in the troposphere there cannot be a positive feedback of water vapour that leads to cumulative warming.

See they look at the metric of atmospheric temperature and they miss out the metric of imbedded energy in the ocean. Only the latter metric can even possibly lead to cumulative warming, because the atmosphere cannot hold enough energy.

So how can you even POSSIBLY get cumulative warming from water vapour feedback? You cannot. The idea is dead-in-the-water.

But thats all nonsense Michael. It sounds all right but its not true. The IPCC don't have any evidence whatsoever. As we have seen. Since it would be right there on your browser if they did and you could make that case.

As I've shown the CO2 CANNOT lead to long-term cumulative warming via water vapour feedback.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now we know right of the bat that negative or positive the effect must be small. And Spencer thinks its small and negative and has come up with the evidence for it apparently. This poses a problem for policy. It means when this deal swings around the leftists will be demanding the destruction of humane civlisation on the basis that its cold.

I want to suggest that the jury might still be out on this if Spencer hasn't had imbedded energy in the oceans front and centre. If he's thinking about air temperature alone.

"Roy Spencer's work by contrast supports Richard Lindzen's theory of the infrared iris--that as it warms the hydrological cycle speeds up and more clear sky is produced, allowing more heat to escape..."

Heat to escape from the ATMOSPHERE. But clearer skys might lead to more heat energy being punched into the ocean. So we want to see if when the CO2 is cooling the atmosphere by one mechanism as a net negative, whether it might not be letting the ocean to warm. You see we are used to this watts-per-square-metre jive which robs our thinking of all sorts of overlapping influences working over different time periods.

But when you look at the historical record.... Sadly its inherently more consistent with a small NEGATIVE feedback.

There.......

I've said it.

"Hey, why isn't Spencer and Braswell fitting the bill? Jen didn't say it had to support the link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and global warming, just examine it. This paper examines and disproves the link. OK I'll waive the $1K if that's a problem.."

Good point. But note that we don't want to slip into the deal where we invest the phrase "global warming" with all sorts of cosmic meaning. We want it to be a technical term. And the Spencer study seems to relate CO2 to COOLING. Global warming is about warming not cooling. As a matter or original intention Duffy would be being fair not to hand over the money if he didn't feel like it.

Still if we looked back and found out who mentioned the Roy Spencer study Duffy might be willing to hand over the money purely to promote a more sensible view of the situation.

All this fuss drummed up internationally because someone practices the heresy of asking for evidence. If the prize-winning study suggestion is a study that says its a negative feedback that could get real publicity.

"I would need to be absolutely clear on the physical basis of the logarithmic paradigm.."

I'm sure that you'll find its a good inference that unfortunately relates to a flat earth, noon all the time, black body, no overturning, conduction etc.

I can just see the little wheels the the AGW heads whirling; "less clouds means more sunlight how can this be negative" Although it is true there will be less reflection, during the day, so more sunlight energy reaches the surface. Clear skys do however mean that much more IR escapes both during the day and night so the net balance is a loss of heat. Graeme's note about water vapour being proof of refrigeration could get lost on some people too, when water evaporates the liquid left behind cools down, when it condenses i.e. forms clouds it gives off heat this is a primary mode of transporting heat from the surface to the lower troposphere. As Craig says this cannot be analytically determined or even measured experimentally at the present time or for the forseeable future so here is another example of a critical component in the computer models which is just a wild guess, how anyone can assign credibility to GCMs with so many unknowns is totally beyond my comprehension.

You want evidence for the greenhouse effect (of which co2 plays a role)?

Why is the hottest part of the day (on land) around 2:00 or 3:00pm, instead of 12:00pm, when the solar intensity peaks?

Because of the soil temperature regime and the water vapour and co2 about the soil surface.

Now you think 280ppm to 380ppm co2 is going to make big a difference? I don't think so.

However, it will have an effect, although I dont need a scientific journal to tell me the sky is blue.

I'm not relaxed in this august company but fairly certain that Spencer does attribute some of our weather, climate to the various oscillations, particularly the PDO, so there's his ocean connection as well.
I add climate above because the last cool phase PDO ( 1945 to 1978 )lasted at least 30 years.
That cool phase tracked our very wet thirty year period in Australia when the Murray flooded many, many times.
No drought worries then I can assure you having lived on the Murray over the entire period.

Let me try that again; Spencer finds a +ve correlation of a -ve feedback.

"Why is the hottest part of the day (on land) around 2:00 or 3:00pm, instead of 12:00pm, when the solar intensity peaks?"

Its because the joules keep accumulating. Thats why the ice in the Arctic has its greatest melt in September and not in July. The joules keep accumulating.

This is what this watts-per-square metre jive has robbed us of. The understanding of joules accumulating.

Bird,

The heat also accumulates in the land on an annual regime, over the summer and autumn, and then heat is lost over winter and spring...

And then theres the ocean, which has currents!
Arrrrggg

Right. And we should surmise that the average temperature of the globe taken as a whole ought to hit its highest point, not WHEN the earth is closest to the sun. But some time after that.

None of these peaks hit all at the same time. This is not due to the god-of-gaps that industrial-CO2 has become. But just due to accumulating and decumulating joules.

This is where the outrageous furphy of CO2-magnification is introduced when it comes to Malinkovitch cycles. These guys say that the "forcing" is insufficient to cause the glacial-interglacial cycle. So who steps in the make the difference? Why its god-of-gaps CO2-amplification to the rescue.

All rubbish of course.

And not needed when accumulating and decumulating joules are brought back into the scene after being banished from their make-believe flat-earth radiation-only model.

Its just amazing how the curse of the lone paradigm can throw blinkers on people. Often on both sides of the argument.

And when you consider the role of the ocean, and how it can acummulate heat for thousands of years,
we start to understand how the warmists are wrong on so many levels. They say it cant be solar...but the sun's output now may effect temperature in 10,000 years time....so how can they dismiss all these things. The world is non-linear, chaotic, not some static rock.
Corelations are positive for decade....then negative for a decade!

As Craig Loehle at August 30, 2008 02:37 AM points out >>"There are various ways to derive the basic effect of CO2, and they all lead to numbers close to 1.2 Deg C for CO2 doubling, as shown in IPCC and derived by Monckton among others (discussed ad nauseum at Climate Audit)">I will pay $1,000.00 to the first person to provide a reference to the sort of paper Jennifer has described.

Posted by: Michael Duffy at August 11, 2008 09:06 AM

>>Anyway, he says there must be some work/some research results that have been published in reputable scientific journals that:

1. examine the causal link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and warming, and

2. quantify the extent of the warming from anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

What he really want is links to research papers or citations to research papers.

Posted by jennifer at August 10, 2008 10:14 PM>>

The IPCC defines climate sensitivity as equilibrium temperature change ΔTλ in response to all anthropogenic-era radiative forcings and consequent “temperature feedbacks”. This is the basis for meeting the criteria supported by the IPCC.

However as GraemeBird has repeatedly pointed out, this is in the most real of ways, a circular argument. Just how do you measure this ΔT, and how do you prove equilibrium? The principle of conservation of a quantity S states that accumulation of S is equal to the flow of S in the system minus S out of the system plus amount of S generated in the system minus the amount of S consumed in the system. But specific heat, latent heat, heat of evaporation are about energy not temperature. In fact, mass and energy balances are done in units of mass and energy, because temperature at equilibrium exists only with reference to a state of mass and energy that is in equilibrium. The atmosphere is not such a system. Not only does water changing state impact equilibrium, but air in a non-ideal state (typical state of the atmosphere) acts as a refrigerant under certain conditions. GB is also correct pointing out that W/m^2 as though it is in equilibrium as the standard, presuposes an equilibruim known not to exist in the real earth environment, especially the temperature relationship to outgoing energy at TOA (top of atmosphere).

One can see from this, that at some point, a decision was made that this ΔT was due to CO2 produced by man. How was this done? Reading the IPCC, it is stated that basically they could not find something else so it must be CO2. This is the collolary of trying to place your opponent into proving a negative, while maintaining a circular argument. I think this is one of the reasons GB is ranting about fake science. The proposer must provide the proof. This reasoning of the IPCC is proven a fallacy everyday in the work place. Just went through one today. They looked in their area, and could not find the problem, therefore it had to be in my area. Later, the lab data came back and showed that it was not in my area, but it was in their's. I agree with GB, this argument is anti-science. Science is data, science is demonstrating a realtionship, not just a correlation. And most definetly science is not saying I couldn't find anything else that explained it, so my circular argument must be true, and you are wrong.

Right. Look at the great ocean conveyer. Doesn't it take about 5000 years to circulate? When it gets deep down in the ocean and under pressure it must be like some sort of giant mass of toothpaste the way it moves.

In fact we know that the accumulation and decumulation can be on the order of 1000 years for some things else we wouldn't have an 800 year lag between temperature and CO2 as the strongest longer-term signature. And we wouldn't have the Milankovitch cycles peaking at about 6000 years ago but the holocene optimum only ending about 5000 years ago.

Hardly evidence for the slavish devotion to a flat-earth black-body-model instantaneous-radiative-heat-balance model.

Here is another reason why after a period of the most powerful solar activity for at least 1000 and possibly 8000 years, that there ought not be a one solar cycle delay before the temperature finally peaks and turns down.

In fact I saw one Sami Solanki paper that I cannot now find that makes it that the correlation with air temperature and the PRIOR solar cycles activity is a little bit better than the corellation with the current cycles activity. Which makes perfect sense and ought not be construed as a CO2-god-of-gaps thing.

But despite all that chaos we ought to be able to sort out the more important from the less important and build up a body of knowledge that way.

J.Hansford: "Non smokers exposed to a lifetime of open cooking fires would have increased risks of cancer"

You used the expression "increased risks of". Is that the same as causation?

Does a lifetime of exposure to open cooking fires "cause" cancer? From reading what you posted, I think I would be happy to answer yes.

Jen's answer as to the level of "increased risk" that equates to "cause" is fundamental to this competition.

PS. That was fascinating info by the way, thanks for that!

I think it is easier to just assume that increased CO2 will lead to some amount of warming which is greater than Zero.

The real question is how much?

If it is only 1.2C per doubling as the basic physics (without feedbacks) indicates, then global warming will not be a problem at all. Within the next 1,000 years, we will reach 2 doublings and temps will have increased by 2.4C, nothing to worry about over 1,000 years.

The warming which has occured over the past 150 years, 50 years etc. also points to a low sensitivity number (1.0C to 1.5C).

The historical climate over the past 500 million years also points to a low sensitivity figure (1.0C to 1.5C).

The warmers cannot produce a real paper demonstrating the 3.5C sensitivity figure - it is ALL based on CLIMATE MODELS.

The EMPIRICAL data shows 1.0C, 1.2C or 1,5C per doubling is the correct CO2 impact.

"I think it is easier to just assume that increased CO2 will lead to some amount of warming which is greater than Zero...."

No we cannot simply ASSUME that. We have to DISCOVER that or the contrary actuality.

"....If it is only 1.2C per doubling as the basic physics (without feedbacks) indicates....."

No we cannot assume that either. Despite how many climate rationalists sign onto something like this. This conclusion doesn't come STRAIGHT from basic radiative physics as is commonly claimed on both sides. It comes with a whole set of bizzare and inapplicable simplifying assumptions...'

"... then global warming will not be a problem at all......."

This we can assume but for other reasons.

"....... Within the next 1,000 years, we will reach 2 doublings..."

We can rule that out strongly. In fact Hansen has CO2 levels peaking at less than 600 ppm and falling. This on the false basis that CO2 levels would be low and stable but for the human race.

"....The warming which has occured over the past 150 years, 50 years etc. also points to a low sensitivity number (1.0C to 1.5C)....."

A generalised sensitivity is not even a valid concept. We want to know about the influence of specific factors. We cannot assume that EXTRA CO2 warms or cools in the first instance. We can only assume that the influence is small either way.

"The warmers cannot produce a real paper demonstrating the 3.5C sensitivity figure - it is ALL based on CLIMATE MODELS."

Right. In other words on computations applied to stupid assumptions.

"....The EMPIRICAL data shows 1.0C, 1.2C or 1,5C per doubling is the correct CO2 impact...."

No it doesn't.

I'm not saying you are being illogical. You are precisely where I was at with this not long after beginning to investigate the matter. Thats approximately the Patrick Michaels thesis.

“This is what this watts-per-square metre jive has robbed us of. The understanding of joules accumulating.”

Well, yes and no, I’d say. Exposed to a continuous beam of 530 watts per square meter, an object will reach a maximum temperature of 100 F and no more — it can’t get hotter. Certainly a massive object takes time to warm up, so accumulation is a relevant factor. But radiant energy and temperature obey set limits. Trace-gas heating theory was invented because the earth’s near-surface temperature does appear to exceed this limit, which is an ongoing problem. The theory is full of holes and ought to be dismissed, but the temperature mystery still remains.

Since the air pressure vs temperature profiles of other planets are similar to ours, I think Heinz Thieme could be on the right track.
http://www.geocities.com/atmosco2/atmos.htm

Does anyone have a good understanding of hydraulics where in part of the system you have a large body of water moving slowly and in another part of the system you have a small body of water moving fast?

You have resistance to circulation and you have factors pushing the circulation. You have pulsing of circulation.

In our real-world example of the great ocean conveyer you have the further complication of the large slow-moving part of the system being under intense pressure. And the smaller-faster-moving part of the system not being under much pressure.

A Priori the average global temperature of the upper oceans and the air can go on increasing after the solar activity has dropped and is falling if the surface-flow of the conveyer (particularly the Gulf Stream) maintains a strong, if pulsing momentum. This via Stefan-Boltzmanns law.

So part of the potential for further warming can be tied up some way in the momentum of the great ocean conveyer.

In which case you would expect continuing warming in the Far North even after the global peak in temperature has been reached. And I think we had that to some extent.

But it would be good to get a conceptual understanding of such hydraulic systems in the general sense.

"Well, yes and no, I’d say. Exposed to a continuous beam of 530 watts per square meter, an object will reach a maximum temperature of 100 F and no more — it can’t get hotter."

I'll certainly believe that. But you are thinking a flat object twice as far away from the sun getting a continuous beam, and its always noontime everyewhere. The mystery is solved when we realise thats not what we have. So we have the potential for heat buidup and retention in various strata.

Also we can surely learn things by looking at other planets. But our planet, with its liquid water, is quite unique.

Well apart from Europa. But its liquid water is not on the surface and I don't think you have that liquid-water/atmosphere interaction.

"Hi Jennifer. Asking for the casual connection is pivotal in science. It has to be there before anyone does a thing to change the climate one way or another."

To carry on the smoking analogy, do you know how smoking causes cancer? Apart from that, we know that CO2 is a GHG, all the more reputable anti-AGW scientists acknowledge that, due to it's physical properties.

"Also we can surely learn things by looking at other planets. But our planet, with its liquid water, is quite unique." Bird

A book called "Rare Earth" by two non-theists argues that earth maybe the ONLY planet in the universe capable of supporting intelligent life.

How long has SETI been searching without success? The silence is deafening. I hope we do checkout every body of water in the solar system. The results should be very interesting since current evolutionary theory claims that life is almost bound to arise in the presence of liquid water.

"Son, quit poking the atheists."
"Sorry, Mom, I couldn't resist."

"Apart from that, we know that CO2 is a GHG,....."

Wordgame. Trying to conjure the Sasaquatch. Invalid. Already dealt with. You are irrantional.

"... all the more reputable anti-AGW scientists acknowledge that, due to it's physical properties...."

Invalid. Appeal to authority. We know what happens in the lab. The question was whether this translates to the climate system globally with more than negligible effect. The hypothesis needed evidence for it. That evidence wasn't forthcoming.

So you are using the hypothesis as justification for itself. Circular reasoning.

Attempt not to be irrational.

How about tommorrow SJT? Are you going to pull the same irrationality tomorrow.

You are essentially saying that the hypothesis proves itself without empirical evidence. You are just irrational.

"A book called "Rare Earth" by two non-theists argues that earth maybe the ONLY planet in the universe capable of supporting intelligent life."

Well I wouldn't buy that. But one beloved Professor, much-cited and the receiver of volumnous research-grants, uses the CO2-god-of-gaps cognitive tool to solve just this mystery. The beloved Professor Barry Brook put forward the concept of CARBOCIDE. After already noting another hypothesis to do with an intelligent species developing nuclear warfare. And nuclear warfare being another threshold of sorts. This latter theory has legs so Australians ought to be planning with nuclear intimidation as the central fact in our plans.

Other theories explaining this seeming lack of intelligent life would be the exploding planet hypothesis. And we have with the idea of planets suitable for life also being capable of blowing up the idea that our technology is not separate and distinct from our capital accumulation. That technological development is imbedded in capital update. And capital update in the extent of the market.

We start going backwards with these things we can lose it all. And even return to being basically animals.

Each star is held to go through whats known as "the main sequence". This is where our sun, for example (under current theories) is held to increase its output every billion years by about 4%.

If a combination of these paradigms were true it might leave any one planet only really suitable for macroscopic life for a few hundred million years. So that if capitalism failed under those circumstances there would be even further to fall than there is now.

Alan Siddons; the Thieme paper is very interesting; there are a host of papers about Venus's atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, but very few on atmospheric weight/gravity as a cause of temperature; the corollary is that Mar's atmosphere, although as CO2 rich as Venus's, is vastly lighter; here is a paper which compares the 3;

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ea.15.050187.001131

As an adjunct to Venus's temperature being approx 750K; at that temperature surface CO2 would exist as a supercritical liquid. An interesting comparison would be between the Heinz Thieme paper and Smith's paper endorsing the greenhouse as the cause of the temperature conditions on Earth;

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf

John Pittman; a post which reveals the contradiction at the heart of AGW; for AGW, climate sensitivity is paramount because the forcings for increased CO2 are based on it; underpining this is the notion of a radiative equilibrium which CO2 caused opaqueness disrupts; this in turn creates a deviation in the heat balance as measured by global average temperature; none of these indices have any meaning outside a computer model; and even if they did they can be disproved by application of Kirchhoff and Stewart's Laws. In the real world a recent paper by Pielke shows that neither the radiative equilibrium or the average temperature paradigms have any meaning; Pielke uses the simple elegance of Stefan-Boltzman to show that the effect on temperature of radiation leaving a surface, be it the Earth's surface, a parcel of air or TOA, will depend on the temperature of the emitting surface; thus radiation leaving the poles will have less consequence than radiation leaving the equator; a TOA radiation balance model will have no meaning because it does not regionalise the incoming/outgoing flux; this is why uniform mixing of CO2 is so important to AGW; if the opaqueness is universal Pielke's thesis will not be applicable; but as AIRS shows CO2 is not uniformly mixed so an opaqueness caused by an increase in CO2 does not necessarily have the climate sensitivity ramifications on temperature that the AGW model relies on. Pielke's paper is here;

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf

"The beloved Professor Barry Brook put forward the concept of CARBOCIDE." Bird

The eggs have been scrambled.
The crow has been stewed.
The guests are arriving
to get their just due.

One day, many will try to recant.
But will they give back
those government grants?

Bring on the cold! Chances are we can survive that easier than the leftists.

Posted by: SJT at August 30, 2008 12:19 PM
says >>To carry on the smoking analogy, do you know how smoking causes cancer? Apart from that, we know that CO2 is a GHG, all the more reputable anti-AGW scientists acknowledge that, due to it's physical properties.<<
But as expressed correctly "Smokers exposed to a lifetime of smoke have increased risks of cancer." This is the scientific conclusion. The mechanism can be radioactive, it can be alpha or beta toxins, it can be from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other known chemicals with known properties. Data, tests, stats, real science and a real conclusion. Compare with climate science that claims that antropogenic CO2 causes the warming seen in the last 50 years (SPM IPCC). Not that it increases the risk, but that it causes. This statement requires more proof than the correct assessment of smoke increasing the risk of cancer. Where is it? It is in a scientific false statement that nothing else could be found, therefore it is CO2. If the statement was CO2 increases the risk of warming, it could not be contested. But it is claimed it does and has been measured, and that it is 90% likely. Where is the proof, where is the data, how and where are the confidence intervals of 90% determined. Oh yes, 90% was by a show of hands, sorry that I forgot. Other sciences have to provide this, I know I do, but not climate science.

"a TOA radiation balance model will have no meaning because it does not regionalise the incoming/outgoing flux" - WTF - which is why there are models with 3D grids?

Cohers - stop buggering around and make with the guest post.

I