How can that not be true?

Science progresses through observation and experiment, and is validated by replication, and by honest attempts to falsify the observations and experiments. This cannot be done without argument; debate, if you prefer. The goal is a meeting of the minds, which has certainly not happened in the climate debate.

And that, my friend, is why skeptics are suspicious of AGW claims. Those making the AGW claims resist attempts to replicate their claimed observations and experiments, by not willingly archiving their data and methodologies for other scientists to review, which is necessary for the Scientific Method to work. Instead, they want everyone to simply take their word for it; the science is settled.

Grant money, which is funneled primarily to those espousing the AGW/global warming hypothesis, and the well documented hijacking of the climate science peer-review process, has created a great deal of suspicion about all climate science.

The responsibility for the public’s distrust must be laid directly at the feet of those who connive to promote their agenda. In their scheming for money and status, the small clique manipulating the system are unfairly making all scientists look dishonest.

Glad to see the big picture clearly stated here: “The ice extent is declining significantly and the ice is thinning.”

…you left out the pertinent fact that the comment only referred to the Arctic, not to global ice extent.

That pretty much negates your “big picture.”

Sarah

http://www.craigslistdecoded.info

“Glad to see the big picture clearly stated here: ‘The ice extent is declining significantly and the ice is thinning.’”

Append “since the 1970s” and you’ve alluded to an even bigger picture. (Ditto with surface temperatures.)

But, if science = falsification–and purported falsification–then argument must be a large part of science. No?

Clearly, it has not declined “significantly” or it could never have been equal to 1979 a couple of months ago. Why does it matter if it melts a little more in the summer than it did 30 years ago if it all freezes up again. There are literally dozens of reasons for this that have absolutely nothing to do with CO2.

We know so little about the multitude of variables that impact climate. This becomes more apparent each and every day.

Glad to see the big picture clearly stated here: “The ice extent is declining significantly and the ice is thinning.”

Changes in the arctic maximum will be compressed
Changes in the antactic minimum will be compressed
Mike

Heres a plot showing average september total sea ice for N S hemispheres:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3866/totalnsseaiceextentsept.jpg

This shows 1979 toal sea ice as 25.5 and 2008 toal sea ice is 23.17

data available here:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
Mike

Allan M R MacRae (19:00:25) :

“We know that 1934 was the warmest year in the lower 48 states of the USA.”

I suggest you check GISS Allan. Last time I checked, it was tying with 1998.

DaveE.

Thank you Dave,

It’s difficult to keep up with all the changes in GISS data. Last I read, Steve McIntyre found serious errors in the GISS data and caused GISS to admit that 1934 was warmer than 1998 for the “lower 48″. I don’t use GISS ST data – too many problems with lack of quality. Anyway, let’s assume 1934 and 1998 are now considered a tie by GISS, as you say.

Global average surface temperature (Hadcrut3 ST) shows ~0.2C more warming than lower tropospheric temperature (UAH LT) since 1979. This suggests a warming bias of ~0.07C/decade for global ST. See Figure 1 at
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf

Adjust to the lower 48 land-only area, and the ST warming bias will be much greater than this global average bias. Michaels and McKitrick (2007) suggest a global warming bias for land-only ST’s of 0.13C/decade.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGR07-background.pdf

For the 5.5 decades between 1934 and 1998, the land-based warming bias is ~~0.7C.

I would conclude that ST for the lower 48 was much (~~0.7C) warmer in 1934 than 1998.

This conclusion is further supported by historical evidence. Does anyone remember a huge US Midwest drought in 1998? No? How about in the 1930′s? John Steinbeck, “Grapes of Wrath” and all that.

Regards, Allan

I don’t think I’d be too willing to publish a paper refuting the editorial line I’d been following for a number of years. An editorial line which had in fact been followed and adopted by politicians all over the world with the results that citizens everywhere were being taxed good dollars on the forecasts of my contributors.

Nature refused to publish McIntyre and McKitrick 2005, firstly because it was too complicated and then because it was too short. That paper’s conclusions were subsequently endorsed unequivocally by an eminent statistician and by Gerry North of the NAS. (who it has to be said has since watered down his endorsement once out of the glare of public gaze).

Another reason could be that the editor holds a scientific view contrary to the proposed paper, I believe you’ll find that Robert Hooke, when president of the Royal Society refused to publish a paper on the nature of light put forward by Issac Newton which proposed that white light was made up of multiple colours. Hooke, and the scientific consenus of the day believed that white was the purest form of light so simply refused to publish the paper.

Newton’s revenge was to say, “If I have been able to see a little further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.’

Hooke was a diminutive hunchback.

As an aside, what is with all this rhetoric of exclusion? “They” won’t publish the skeptic’s “truths” because it goes against “prescribed dogma”? Pure sour grapes. Show me ONE journal editor or scientist who wouldn’t LOVE to be hailed for writing or publishing research that replaces conventional understanding with a better one. At the “pointy end” of science, that’s what it’s all about.

Back to the lauded paper. The first paragraphs flat-out state that the IPCC is wrong and ascribe natural causes in defiant italics. Soon we see straight lines “intuitively” assigned to curving data trends (this shows up often in the paper). The interpretation of CO2 data charted on page 5 ignores the concept of rate of change while trying to prove that CO2 and temperature are not linked.

Fundamentally this is argument, not science.

My mind started to wander, as I am learning here that I’m quite dim-witted and emotional, but it is clear that he’s pulled together a lot of data sources, particularly on anecdotal glacier retreats (I’m not saying this critically). One thing, by chance, did catch my eye on page 16. The blossoming dates of Japanese cherry trees is described as indicating a linear temperature increase from 1830 but to me it seems clearly flat until the middle of the 20th century when it turns notably upward. It’s just one data set among many, and comically refers to actual cherries, but it’s awkward for his premise of purely natural and linear recent temperature trends.