Hansen: "not interested"

It is obvious then that Mr Hansen knows that he is discredited and in no position to add to the debate….. Sometimes it is good to allow people to save face and bow out gracefully…. ; )
The Debate will continue without him.

Dr. Hansen’s patterns of behavior seem rather above average on the narcissism scale. I suspect to even entertain the thought that there would be anything at all worth debating would be seen as a “failure” in his view. I believe he is afraid. But that’s okay, it isn’t going to come undone by anything he does or doesn’t do. It will come undone on its own because it will become increasingly obvious that the climate simply isn’t warming they way he has been saying it would, if at all.
At that point, nobody is really going to care what Dr. Hansen chooses to say or not to say. He will simply fade into obscurity. What disappoints me most is that I have always had great respect for science and actors like him raise my cynicism level considerably.

I compared Dr. Hansen’s 1988 testimony before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to his 20th anniversary comments, particularly the part about (and I quote vertabim) “Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99%,” then added the GISS data over the same period. For those of you who have done like wise, can anyone tell me what’s going on with this man? Has he abandoned all reasonable sense of science?
For those who have not made the comparison, he predicted a temperature anomaly of a bit more than 1°C higher than the 1951-1980 mean by 2008 (Scenario A, i.e. continued emissions at the 1988 rate). However the GISS data is showing essentially little or no anomaly in 2008, yet he says in his 2008 statement that (and I quote verbatim again) “Warming so far, about two degrees Fahrenheit over land.”
What am I missing? How can the director of NASA’s GISS say something so contrary to his own underlying data set?

Re “What am I missing? How can the director of NASA’s GISS say something so contrary to his own underlying data set?”
You forgot to add “… and get away with it?”.

I think Mr Hansen’s apparent terseness is entirely understandable…
Can you imagine the pressure he’s under, what with changing the temperature record, attempting to justify changing the temperature record, inventing impossibly convoluted codes as a smokescreen for what us unscientific types call “cooking the books”, all the time looking nervously over his shoulder at the steadily cooling climate and wondering what new and more fantastical equations can he invent to somehow fend off the impending collapse of his ivory tower.
Frankly, it’s a wonder the poor chap’s got the time to reply at all!
I bet he needs a cup of tea and a lie down.

Hansen did the only possible option open to him.
First thing first: Hansen can be either one of two things: either he’s stupid or he’s intellectually dishonest/politically corrupt.
To get where he is at, he could not have been stupid, thus, he is politically corrupt and dishonest. For him, the ends justify the means, including bad science, disregarding evidence. The end might be financial or political glamour, but it does not matter…
In that context, the answer he gave is the only one his guru persona could possibly give. He knows that he will get professionally killed if he goes out in public.
For any guru to survive scrutiny and reach his political goals in such a situation, he has to bluff to the very end.
It is imperative for him that he keeps fooling his blind followers and maintain the trust that his corrupt puppetmasters have vested in him. The consequences he faces if he fails either of them would be devastating to him.
The blind followers will keep their faith in him simply because he will claim moral high ground, providing the worshiping crowd with the confirmation bias it craves.
The blind followers provide the plebian moral sanction that the puppetmasters need to justify their plans. What are these? I have no idea, but money is involved in it, as it the the motor of all wars. And probably much ideology too, for it never hurts.

Perhaps Hansen is so muzzled by the government and NASA, that those were the only two words allowed to sneak through NASA’s draconian email monitoring software?
Or perhaps he wrote a lengthy eloquent response, but his temperature-record algorithm ‘corrected’ it?

Some context here.
Hansen and others thought CO2 driven global warming was a slamdunk. Therefore, questionable practices in relation to past data didn’t matter, because future data would prove them right.
Their problem is future data didn’t prove them right and they are circling the waggons to defend their position in the hope data from here on in does prove them right.

Apparently, debate is avoided by those who do not like having their science questioned, or do not wish to have their beliefs undermined. Joe Romm over at ClimateProgress accepted a technical comment I made on a recent thread, posted it, then a few hours later returned it to awaiting-moderation limbo. The next day he deleted it.
I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t spouting skeptic dogma. I simply noted a few of his misunderstandings, errors, and omissions and backed it up with graphs. More here.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/07/climate-progress-posts-my-comment.html

They all won’t debate, because they all know that they are wrong.
They would rather save their pride than save the planet.
With that sort of attitude, when Hansen asks for funding/assistance from any organisation in the future he will be surprised to find their reply to be “not interested”

Give Dr. Hansen a second chance to prove himself !

Every effort to effort should be made by readers of this blog to pass this information on to their elected officials. Hansen is nothing more than a coward who has no problem going to Washington to participate in a forum where his lies will not face scrutiny. I have had enough of this snake oil salesman. It is time he is exposed and discarded.

“not interested.” Translation: bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuckaah!

If Dr. Michaels is so insignifgant, then Dr. Hansen should be able to stomp him like a bug. That’s the upside. Not all fights are title fights.

Being vested in the tatters of an education in English language and literature, I offer an historical figure from the Elizabethan Era (the first and glorious one) as a counterpart to James Hansen. The man was John Dee; he was the P.T. Barnum of his time, a dabbler in Hermetic magic, astrology and other razmataz. He was also an accomplished courtier, and eventually became Court Astrologer to Her Majesty.
Of course in a democracy, we don’t have courtiers…. Say that until you truly believe it.
But can’t you picture Hansen in a conical cap with suns and moons embossed on it? Or hurricanes and tornados.

Such public debates on complex science does not show anything, other than who is more eloquent and who can make it appealing and how good they are with stage theatrics. I have seen many debates on creation vs. evolution, and the creationists win in almost all those debates – but I doubt whether that shows anything in one way or other. Scientific debates are carried out in a different venue – in journals and other publications; not in front of general public with each group cheering one side or the other. Just my opinion.

Alex says, “They all won’t debate, because they all know that they are wrong” and other posters here repeat similar sentiments. If this sort of logic were correct, then I guess we would also have to conclude that evolutionary theory is also wrong. (Try typing “evolutionists refuse to debate” into google.)
The appropriate forum to debate science is the peer-reviewed literature. Usually it is the losing side in the debate in this venue that then asks for debates in the public sphere instead. This is because debates of science in the public sphere tend to favor not the better science but the better presenter.
It is also intrinsically much easier to defend a negative position of “We don’t know much because therea re too many uncertainties” than a positive one of “We know enough to be able to say certain things with confidence”. This is because the public expects science to have “smoking gun” evidence and no uncertainties or apparent contradictions. In reality, science in complicated fields is often built on the preponderance of evidence, none which taken alone is without uncertainty or deficiency.
There are very good reasons why policymakers have decided to use organizations like the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences to inform them on the state of the science in a given area rather than trying to glean it from debates or other such forums.

Real headline, then:
James Hansen; “not interested” in global climate change and its implications.
Was he not interested in the debate, or not interested in the subject?

Hansen’s a fake… like the Wizard of Oz.

A decade ago Hansen was hot for any microphone time. This latest response is decidedly cool. Correlation or causation?
What we need from him is a definitive answer as to how much money it would take to get him to defend his positions. From there we can get lots of “evil” companies to pony up and thereby put him in their pay. Win-win.

Pieter Folkens, my reading of Hansen’s 1988 testimony is that the 99% certainty he spoke about referred to the first five months of 1988 being on average 0.4 degrees above the 1950 to 1980 average. He worked out that without any long term warming trend at all the chances of five months with an average anomaly of 0.4 is less than 1%. I am no expert on statistics, but it seems that he was saying that he had disproved at the 99% level the null hypothesis that the trend was equal to zero.
Obviously he was making a lot out of, what was at the time, just a smoothed warming trend of a little over a decade.

Al Gore claims the debate is over, but when did it happen? When was there an open and public debate between climate scientists over AGW? It seems to me that this never happened. But before we spend billions, if not trillions, of dollars trying to reduce CO2 emissions, shouldn’t there be such a debate?
Two of the leading proponents of AGW theory, Al Gore and now Jim Hansen, have both refused to debate the subject. Isn’t that a bit disturbing? This should be a very newsworthy item. We should make a big deal out of this, because it is a big deal.
I e-mailed the local paper with a link to this story and my suggestion that a public debate between climate experts should take place. This is a very reasonable thing to do before before we make a huge commitment to reducing CO2 emissions.

Hansen is quite the jerk. I’m sure some of the crazies at DotEarth are cheering him on though.
Wish he’d just go away.

OT on Geomagnetic Field by way of sondrak one of my favorite filters:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080630-earth-core.html

Can’t say I blame him. He’s probably not interested because he knows there’s no point in holding a debate when everyone in the room has already made up their mind. Would this be anything more than another occasion for personal attacks like the ones on this blog? Sounds about as interesting as a debate between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump.

“There are very good reasons why policymakers have decided to use organizations like the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences to inform them on the state of the science in a given area rather than trying to glean it from debates or other such forums.”
There are also very good reasons for those groups to openly convey the uncertainties in the science. The subject of evolution has cropped up here, and no one seems to have remembered that many very BAD decisions were made by policymakers based on an incomplete understanding of that science. Have you forgotten that evolution was twisted by Hitler to justify his “Master race” ideal? Similar reasoning was advocated by certain policymakers in our own country. There were papers in scientific journals that gave “evidence” for the intellectual inferiority of certain races, based on the evolutionary principles of the time. Fortunately, that science has advanced, though I’m sure there were those who argued “the science is settled” 70 years ago.
When any government or academic body creates a policy which will have far-reaching impacts on the populace, it is the right and obligation of the populace to examine the veracity of that body’s evidence through any available forum. This elitist attitude that Hansen is too great a personage for debate, or that only a select few “climate experts” have the right to examine and comment on the data does nothing to advance understanding or increase the well-being of humanity. What special skill or talent does Hansen have that other scientists do not possess? He has access to data. He interprets data. He has access to really big NASA computers.

joel shore,
We’ve already been given the “smoking gun” by Hansen himself in his own words. This was “proof” of AGW. This was the basis for IPCC AR4 and is directly referenced.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Imbalance_20050415.pdf
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
“This energy imbalance is the ‘smoking gun’ that we have been looking for”
and
Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse
gases and aerosols, among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing
0.85 T 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it
is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of
increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. Implications include (i) the
expectation of additional global warming of about 0.6-C without further change
of atmospheric composition; (ii) the confirmation of the climate system’s lag
in responding to forcings, implying the need for anticipatory actions to avoid
any specified level of climate change; and (iii) the likelihood of acceleration of
ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise.
Now Hansen and IPCC must account for why Earth is NOT “absorbing 0.85 T 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space.”
The reason Hansen and other CO2 AGW demagogues will not publicly debate this issue is because observational evidence, the bane of “consensus”, disagrees with their conclusions.
It doesn’t matter how many “peer reviewed” articles exist for either side. If the hypothesis cannot be supported by experimentation and/or observational evidence, it is just that, a hypothesis. Many of the pro-AGW “peer reviewed” articles use climate models as evidence for which they themselves are a hypothesis.
Is using a hypothesis to form a hypothesis part of the scientific method? I think not.

I have several thoughts running around in the unscientific head of mine.
One is that Dr. Hansen is very rude to some one that has bent over backwards to attempt to accommodate him.
Dr. Hansen has been for years and still is attempting to conceal his methodology. (Yes he did produce some codes after waiting several weeks to make them more “readable to the public”) So far they have been unreplicable.
Dr. Hansen is a government employee spending government taxpayer funds and must be accountable for them. I expect that when the accounting comes there will be some short falls.
If the raw data is no longer available for the historical record where did it go. Was it destroyed by convoluted algorithmic corrections? Why were no data sets archived? GISS or NOAA
Why should I trust the peer reviewed process when I have read the Wegman report.
I can understand Why Dr. Hansen doesnt want to debate. He hasn’t had to answer any serious scientific questions thus far why start now. I believe that our government has let us down by not demanding that all the science be put on the table. There are other scientists that have views that do not agree with Dr. Hansen and in his public funded role he is responsible to look at all the science and he refused to at least publicly acknowledge that there is any. Dr Hansen should be directed to by his employers while he is supposed to be in the public trust to defend his conclusions against all questions leveled by other scientists. This hasn’t been done. It has been to long since this department has been audited. It is time that this director and his department should have to defend their position. Let the audit begin.
You never know he may be correct but let’s be sure.
Bill Derryberry

“PS – I challenge everyone on the internet to debate me on the existence and interactions of aliens. I am very flexible on the date, but it needs to be by my residence in Washington, DC. If you do not accept then clearly aliens are among us!”
In order for this to be a valid point, you must clearly be a world-reknowned expert in alien research at NASA, with numerous essays, papers, and reports in the peer-reviewed and popular literature. You must also have received large monetary awards from politicians and benefactors for your work in alien culture and communication. And I’m sure you have been warning us for over 20 years about the “alien tipping points”, and have recently excoriated public officials and private citizens for ignoring the alien problem. And you certainly have had a major role in popularizing your alien theories with you starring role in oscar winning documentaries (like, say, “The Inconvenient Truth … Is Out There!”).

I find it ironic that the similarities between the debate about AGW and the debate between materialistic evolutionary theories vs. design is lost on most people here.
Keith posted above about lack of evidence of gradualism, and was promptly put in his place by a moderator claiming punctuated equilibrium – as if the problem isn’t real. The crux of the debate though is about mechanism. What is causally adequate to produce the engineering marvels we see in the biological world (especially sub-celluar). In my opinion (and that of many others), material evolutionary processes are completely impotent to account for novelty and innovation.
However, there is such a strong Darwinian orthodoxy supported by political, cultural, academic and financial pillars that a defense of data is practically unnecessary. As in the AGW debate, it’s settled. Don’t tell that to the heretics in Altenberg this month…
Point taken~Charles the moderator, however, gradualism is a straw man and that’s all I pointed out. On another note, I’m guessing Anthony will prohibit a debate on evolution at this site.
REPLY: That’s correct, evolution and climate science are separate topics, and I have no interest in evolutionary debate here. – Anthony

“The appropriate forum to debate science is the peer-reviewed literature”
So what happens when one gathers a group of a dozen or so like-minded cronies who “peer review” each other’s work? We all give each other glowing praise and maybe point out an error in grammar or punctuation here. Any criticism from someone outside the group would be ignored or rejected outright. Oh, and we can forget about enforcing any data archival requirements by the core group, but anyone challenging our conclusions must abide by the rules to the letter and any failure to do so means the complete rejection of any points they might raise.
Now, how is that for “peer review” … it is fine as long as they get to select the reviewing peers.

Crosspatch is correct. The NAS chief statistician examined the inter-relationships of all the GW types involved in the hockeystick debacle, and guess what! In exceedingly non-scientific terms, it was a giant circle jerk! All the published papers were basically reviewed by others who then would go on to co-author papers with those whom they reviewed, who in turn would be reviewed by their former co-author! What a great racket!

I am not going to be able to persuade you to accept the science any more than I can persuade a creationist to accept the science behind evolution.
No, trollbot, you can’t persuade us to accept your AGW religion for the simple reason that it doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. Now, run back to your troll cave. There you go.

Brendan:
Amen comrade! (Oh wait, they weren’t religious)

Perhaps it’s simply that Dr. Hansen is not solely motivated by money, and therefore how much is offered is irrelevant; and doesn’t care to debate with “a vocal global warming skeptic” anymore than he cares to debate the sphericity of the planet with the Flat Earth Society?

Stan Jones says: “Sorry, thirdrobot, but most of us here recognise who are the ‘creationists’ in this argument. And I’m afraid it’s your side.” This is a strange claim given that the only people in this thread who have defended the creationist / intelligent design argument are clearly on “your side” on AGW. And, one of the most respectable scientists who is a skeptic (one of the few skeptics in fact with a respectable publication record in the field), Roy Spencer, has made it very clear that he believes in intelligent design over evolution (see http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I ).
Furthermore, in regards to the analogy between the two, might we ask which side of the AGW debate organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society, … (which are all on the evolution side of the evolution/creation debate) are on?

Seems to be some news concerning the sun:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm
And this in German about Russian scientists:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/?WCMSGroup_4_3=6&WCMSGroup_6_3=1247&WCMSArticle_3_1247=388

The debate is over.
He is now busy focusing on his primary NASA job description of “prosecuting oil execs” and “targeting” members of Congress in the next election. The very core of climate science.

Joel Shore: You seem to want to talk about evolution vs creationism. No one else is interested in that discussion, nor is that even close to the topic at hand. It’s a red herring, and a typical tactic AGWers use when they feel outmanned and outgunned.
It is hilarious how, whenever the AGWers gods, Hansen and Gore come under attack, they rush in full of spit and venom. Pathetic, really.

Here are some interesting points in English from the above German website:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/?WCMSGroup_4_3=6&WCMSGroup_6_3=1247&WCMSArticle_3_1247=388
According to Russian scientist Chabibullo Abdussamatow, Director of Pulkowo:
1. Over the last 12 years, the Earth has experienced a lack of solar radiation, equaling on average 18 million nuclear power plants.
2. Solar energy reaching the earth has had a downward trend since the beginning of the 1990s.
3. Every sq. m. of the earth’s upper atmosphere gets on average 0.16 watts less solar radiation than during the last “short” solar cycle.
4. Before industrialisation there were regular climate changes, caused by the solar cycles.
5. Based on solar measurements since 1979, the scientists have come to the conclusion that solar intensity will continue to sink, in sync with the 200-year and 11-year cycles.
6. According to Abdussamatow’s projections, solar radiation will reach its minimum at about the year 2041.
7. The 200-year decline in solar intensity according to Abdussamatow will trigger a gloabl climate minimum, which because of the ocean’s thermal inertia will take effect in about 15 to 20 years.
8. According Abdussamatow’s projections, the temperatures will bottom out sometime around 2055 to 2060.
9. Abdussamatow disagrees with scientists who claim the anthropogenic greenhouse effect significantly influences the global temperature of the earth.
10. According to Abdussamatow projections, the cooling will lead to a significant increase in ice worldwide.
11. According to Abdussamatow the earth’s climate changes every 200 years. “It is not man’s fault, rather it is due to the 200-year cyclic changes in solar intensity.”
So there you have it, from Abdussamatow the Terrible, Russian denier, enfant terrible. Got to be a stooge of Gazprom or Lukoil.
It’s late here, so if you’d like, I could translate the entire report, but not before tomorrow. Maybe there’s an English version already available someplace else.

Once upon a time, God used to talk to quite a few people, quite often, so the scriptures told us. Then he stopped. Immanence, I think, is the term.
Now, apparently, he only talks to people who have some mental imbalance, readily maintained with careful administration of pharmaceutical preparations, and support from highly trained professionals.
However, I cannot recall any reference to God saying anything like: “Not interested”, except in a certain novel by Kurt Vonnegut – “The Sirens of Titan”.
I believed in “God the Utterly Indifferent” inasmuch as if I could believe in any god, that was the type of god that fits the world as I see it.
Why then, do I still have difficulty with Dr Hansen?

The Russian report was back on June 25, 2008. I don’t recall any blogs mentioning it. Used to be every time Abdussamatow opened his mouth, the blogs would be a humming.
The German title:
Russlands Wissenschaftler wollen These der anthropogenen Klimaerwärmung widerlegen
In English:
Russian scientists wish to refute the subject of anthropogenic climate warming.
Has anyone heard of this Russian June 25 report?

No big surprise that he doesn’t want to debate. Does he ever? What a joke.
Don’t feel guilty about living life. Help the earth. Be GreenHG.

It is an strange world when “computer model simulations” are mistaken for “science” and when one is supposed to “believe in” the computer model simulations or one becomes a flat-earth denier type.

“If it is substantially warmer, or colder, all will be revealed.”
That’s what they were saying ten years ago. And according to NCDC, temperatures in the United States have dropped with a trend of -0.63 degrees over that time period, or a rate of -6 degrees per century if extrapolated over 100 years. So in the past ten years we have seen cooling at a rate of about 3 times faster than they were predicting the climate would warm. And yet they still claim it is warming. I suppose the cooling is evidence of the warming … or something.

Joel Shore:
“…The appropriate forum to debate science is the peer-reviewed literature.”
The problem is the peer-reviewed literature has been heavily steered through the grant stream toward *validating* AGW since the early 1990’s, but not establishing a solid foundation for all the various subfields supporting the overarching theory.
Only recently is field data being acquired via in situ equipment like the Argo floats, or V. Ramanathan’s brown cloud robotic airplanes, etc., but there are continued efforts to use computer models in lieu of collecting field data or worse – to even to supersede existing, actual field data (like using calculated wind speed temperatures to supersede balloon sonde data).
The level of scientific understanding of internal cloud dynamics is largely unchartered territory, and yet instead of putting more money & effort into developing & gathering basic data to address this large discrepancy in climate knowledge, the money has been poured into making computer models.
So guess which has generated a mountain of peer-reviewed data? Cloud dynamics or computer models? And what are the skeptics complaining about outside of the peer review system? The lack of data on cloud dynamics!!!
The same goes for deeper heliophysics, aerosol and continued hurricane research – neither have been as well-funded as the AGW computer time of the 1990’s and they are just as important – and more fundamental to a full understanding of climate sensitivity – as sitting around in front of computer models proving something we already know: That warmer air can be more humid and humid air can get warmer than drier air.

I agree with Bruce Cobb. Joel how can you bring religion into this? This is about CLIMATIC FACT, THEORY AND OBSERVATION, not fossil record or faith. It is absolutely ridiculous to bring up creationism vs evolution as these are personal beliefs which go beyond science! That is a completely different case.
And anyway this debate is about theories, measurement and concrete evidence of climatic trends/patterns, causes and implications.
Hansen screams on television to the gullible masses: “CO2 causes global warming!!”
When in fact the Vostok Ice Core Data screams in a cold dark filing cabinet (or climate realism blog/site): “CO2 lags global warming!!”.
Hansen knows full well about this and so refuses to debate because he knows that the damn facts will destroy his entire argument!
As Old Construction Worker has shown us : all parts of the CO2 driving climate theory can be disproven by cold, solid, hard data evidence!
Hansen knows this therefore instead of commiting “scientific suicide” he cowers away because he knows that he is wrong. Simple, thats what common sense dictates. There is no hidden agenda or hidden thought process.
It just boils down to “Look Hansen, your predictions and theories are downright rubbish and if you go out there in public you will be obliterated! Run. Now!”

What are we all worried about? As Hathaway says about the lack of sunspots to date; ‘We have already observed a few sunspots from the next solar cycle,” he says. (See Solar Cycle 24 Begins.) “This suggests the solar cycle is progressing normally.”

thirdrobot if you want to believe in space aliens it is of no concern to me. No debate is necessary. Its a free country and you can believe whatever you want. However if you start convincing congress to extract trillions of dollars from taxpayers for an alien defence system, well then we need to have the debate.

Perhaps science should be debated primarily in journals and conferences, but climate science has unquestionably been dragged into the public/political/policy realm. Hansen himself is partly responsible, if only by calling for prosecution of oil execs. It’s only fitting that he defend his views in a public forum.

Hansen spoke at a small private college in my town earlier this year. I’m not sure what he was paid, but I’m sure it was more than a thousand dollars. I did not attend as I knew he would not take questions.

As a tax payer, I just got ripped off again…..Dear Mr. President, fire Jim Hansen on Monday morning.

What are Dr. Hansen’s theories ?????
NOT INTERESTED.

Sorry, I was trying stay in my old thread, but I could not resist- just one post here.
From what one can find from William and Mary and other sources, Mr. Katz is a student, not a staff person (to graduate in 09). I cannot find a society named “Academic Freedom and Diversity” in their web; it could be an unofficial society established by a few students (which of course anyone can do). The title “Director of the WM Society for Academic Freedom and Diversity” seems highly misleading to me – usually those titles are for paid staff, not for students. I have a fear that there is more here than what we know.
I strongly advise caution (like requiring pdf letter with appropriate letterhead), before the AGW skeptics in this forum to give their support on this issue. Of course, I could be wrong, but I don’t like to see the potential to diminish your cause by being in the wrong side with an issues unrelated to the main scientific theme.
In any case, if Hansen accepts every invitation from informal student organizations for debates (if that is what this is), he will not have any time to do anything else.

” if Hansen accepts every invitation from informal student organizations for debates (if that is what this is), he will not have any time to do anything else.”
Eureka! Problem solved.

Smokey, you say: “Next, for those in need of peer reviewed papers falsifying the CO2/AGW hypothesis, here is a good [and unrefuted] one to start with: click”. Wow! Talk about confirmation bias in action. There are hundreds of peer reviewed papers each year that support AGW but because you find one that doesn’t, you think this falsifies AGW? And, it is particularly strange how, amongst a group of people who are so suspicious of models, there would be so little questioning of a particularly simplistic one when it happens to give the result that you desire. As for Schwartz’s paper being unrefuted, it was only published last year, but here is a comment on it, apparently now in press (according to Annan’s website) that pretty much tears it to pieces: http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/comment_on_schwartz.pdf

Oh…And, I just discovered that a preprint of Schwartz’s response to the various comments on his paper is available here: http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapCommentResponse.pdf
In it, he revises upward his estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity from the 1.1 +- 0.5 C to 1.9 +- 1.0 C, so while the central value is still on the low side of most estimates, it now overlaps significantly the IPCC range of 2 to 4.5 C. (My guess is that most of his critics would argue that Schwartz’s time constant for the system…and thus his climate sensitivity…still seems to be on the low side of what seems most realistic from other considerations.)

it’s interesting that Hansen is the climate scientist who most resembles the sceptics’ paragon of the scientific method: Galileo. Both men offer a positive, counter-intuitive theory, both are certain of their position, somewhat acerbic and dogmatic, and ready to mix it in non-scientific field
Except that Galileo’s theories are holding up, and Hansen’s are collapsing badly, after a mere 2 decades. Hansen is a pop tart going down for the last time.

Doctor Sigmund Freud explains:
hummmmm
I love…………… http://www.surfacestations.org project
Regards; Mr Anthony Joule ( energy pure)

Joel Shore: “The appropriate forum to debate science is the peer-reviewed literature. Usually it is the losing side in the debate in this venue that then asks for debates in the public sphere instead.”
This is nonsense. Many scientists, politicians, journalists etc. are arguing that policy should be made based upon their assertions of what the “science” tells us, and significant policy at that. To suggest that there is no place for public debate about the certainty of that science, outside of published, peer reviewed articles is just an astoundingly silly thing to assert. By this logic, debate over tax and economic policy should be limted to peer reviewed economic journals; debate over the wisdom of subsidies for medical research/drugs should only be discussed in medical journals. Need I go on?
For that matter, I am not aware of a climate change “debate” taking place in peer reviewed literature, as such. The debate takes place outside of the literature, e.g. Hansen publishing data on calculations of heat content in oceans, but saving his “smoking gun” comments for reporters. To follow that example, see if you can find anything approximating the phrase “smoking gun” in the article itself. If scientists like Hansen can publicly characterize the certainty of published research in stronger terms than the papers that present that research, if the IPCC can “review” the research so as to attach 90% confidence intervals to AGW, even though (to my knowledge anyway) no published peer reviewed paper says anything so bold, what kind of arrogance does it take to criticize people for giving their own assesments of the certainty of the science behind AGW, simply because it isn’t in a peer-reviewed journal?
On this last matter, let me say one more thing. The IPCC bases their condfidence assesments in results or in the state of scientific knowlege on what is essentially a poll, i.e. the authors say “We believe that the likelihood that human CO2 emmissions caused most of the warming over the last decade is 90% or greater.” The report is clear on this – these assesments are based on “expert judgment.” The opinion of a scientist is not science. If there is no data from which these confidence measures can be calculated, then the science falls short on what is essentially the heart of the AGW debate.
Neither are scientists, per se, experts on the subjects they study, but on the procedure by which those subjects are studied. If that procedure itself can’t produce the numbers that are relevant, i.e. the likehood of “x” amount of CO2 causing at least “y” temperature increase, and the likelihood of “y” temperature increase cauzing “z” catastrophe, then there is nothing magical about being a scientist that gives a person the ability to simply divine the results anyway (or more coarsly, to pull it out of their rear end) If someone wants the public to pay any heed to their “expert judgment” they had better first demonstrate that their judgment is actually worth something.

Joel Shore (19:38:28) :
“Smokey, you say: ‘Next, for those in need of peer reviewed papers falsifying the CO2/AGW hypothesis, here is a good [and unrefuted] one to start with: click’. Wow! Talk about confirmation bias in action. There are hundreds of peer reviewed papers each year that support AGW but because you find one that doesn’t, you think this falsifies AGW?”
In a word, yes.
When one hundred eminent scientists wrote an open letter to Albert Einstein stating that his Theory of Relativity was wrong, Einstein wrote back: ”To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.”
The AGW/CO2/disaster hypothesis that Hansen hides out from debating has been falsified repeatedly. Even the empirical evidence, as cited in my 19:46:55 post above, repeatedly falsifies Hansen’s computer model-based prognostications.
Climate deceivers like Hansen seem to forget that the Scientific Method requires that those putting forth a new hypothesis are the ones required to justify it. Skeptics know that the status quo is the status quo; if there is a brand new hypothesis, which claims that CO2 causes runaway global warming, then it is up to them to prove it — not the skeptics. I am not sure you understand this.
So far, the proof is entirely on the side of the empirical evidence: the Earth is cooling. There is no “runaway global warming” despite the steady rise of beneficial carbon dioxide.
As Einstein pointed out, all it takes is one fact to disprove a hypothesis. Below are more than fifty [50+] papers falsifying the failed catastrophic global warming hypothesis.
I have more when you’re finished with these. Keep in mind that only one refuting fact is necessary to discredit Hansen’s entire CO2/climate disaster scenario. So read, and learn:
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12, Number 3, 2007)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Willie Soon
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Climate Research, Vol. 13, Pg. 149–164, October 26 1999)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson, Willie Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas
Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous?
(Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology,v. 50, no. 2, p. 297-327, June 2002)
– C. R. de Freitas
Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 94, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Can we believe in high climate sensitivity?
(arXiv:physics/0612094v1, Dec 11 2006)
– J. D. Annan, J. C. Hargreaves
Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics
(AAPG Bulletin, Vol. 88, no9, pp. 1211-1220, 2004)
– Lee C. Gerhard
– Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply
(AAPG Bulletin, v. 90, no. 3, p. 409-412, March 2006)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Climate change in the Arctic and its empirical diagnostics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 469-482, September 1999)
– V.V. Adamenko, K.Y. Kondratyev, C.A. Varotsos
Climate Change Re-examined
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723–749, 2007)
– Joel M. Kauffman
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 69–82, 199
– Sherwood B. Idso
Crystal balls, virtual realities and ’storylines’
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 343-349, July 2001)
– R.S. Courtney
Dangerous global warming remains unproven
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 167-169, January 2007)
– R.M. Carter
Does CO2 really drive global warming?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 351-355, July 2001)
– R.H. Essenhigh
Does human activity widen the tropics?
(arXiv:0803.1959v1, Mar 13 200
– Katya Georgieva, Boian Kirov
Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: Impacts on the biosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 287-310, July 2001)
– C.D. Idso
Evidence for “publication Bias” Concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 287-301, March 200
– Patrick J. Michaels
Global Warming
(Progress in Physical Geography, 27, 448-455, 2003)
– W. Soon, S. L. Baliunas
Global Warming: The Social Construction of A Quasi-Reality?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 805-813, November 2007)
– Dennis Ambler
Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate
(Topics in Catalysis, Volume 32, Numbers 3-4, pp. 95-99, March 2005)
– Chung-Chieng Lai, David Dietrich, Malcolm Bowman
Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
– Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong
Global Warming: Myth or Reality? The Actual Evolution of the Weather Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 297-322, May 2003)
– M. Leroux
Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
(arXiv:0803.1239v1, Mar 10 200
– Serge Galam
Global warming: What does the data tell us?
(arXiv:physics/0210095v1, Oct 23 2002)
– E. X. Alban, B. Hoeneisen
Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 80, Issue 16, p. 183-183, April 20, 1999)
– S. Fred Singer
Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, L05204, 2004)
– A. T. J. de Laat, A. N. Maurellis
Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
(Physical Geography, Volume 28, Number 2, pp. 97-125(29), March 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1023-1048, December 2007)
– Indur M. Goklany
Methodology and Results of Calculating Central California Surface Temperature Trends: Evidence of Human-Induced Climate Change?
(Journal of Climate, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, February 2006)
– Christy, J.R., W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, K. Gallo
Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties
(Climate Research, Vol. 18: 259–275, 2001)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Risbey (2002)
(Climate Research, Vol. 22: 187–188, 2002)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Karoly et al.
(Climate Research, Vol. 24: 93–94, 2003)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?
(Environmental Geology, Volume 50, Number 6, August 2006)
– L. F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar
On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the Earth climate system
(Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering. Vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 260-268. Sept. 2007)
– Olavi Kamer
Phanerozoic Climatic Zones and Paleogeography with a Consideration of Atmospheric CO2 Levels
(Paleontological Journal, 2: 3-11, 2003)
– A. J. Boucot, Chen Xu, C. R. Scotese
Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, D24S09, 2007)
– Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels
Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
(arXiv:0707.1276, July 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 281-286, March 200
– Klaus-Martin Schulte
Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 71, Issue 3, pp. 288–299, March 1990)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system
(Central European Journal of Physics, Volume 3, Number 2, June 2005)
– Olavi Kärner
Statistical analysis does not support a human influence on climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 329-331, July 2002)
– S. Fred Singer
Taking GreenHouse Warming Seriously
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 937-950, December 2007)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 707-714, September 2006)
– Vincent Gray
Temporal Variability in Local Air Temperature Series Shows Negative Feedback
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1059-1072, December 2007)
– Olavi Kärner
The Carbon dioxide thermometer and the cause of global warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1-18, January 1999)
– N. Calder
The Cause of Global Warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 613-629, November 1, 2000)
– Vincent Gray
The Fraud Allegation Against Some Climatic Research of Wei-Chyung Wang
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 985-995, December 2007)
– Douglas J. Keenan
The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: Limitations of correlation-based approaches
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, No. 18, Pages 2319–2322, 1997)
– David R. Legates, Robert E. Davis
The “Greenhouse Effect” as a Function of Atmospheric Mass
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 351-356, 1 May 2003)
– H. Jelbring
The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 217-238, March 2005)
– A. Rörsch, R. Courtney, D. Thoenes
The IPCC future projections: are they plausible?
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 155–162, August 199
– Vincent Gray
The IPCC: Structure, Processes and Politics Climate Change – the Failure of Science
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1073-1078, December 2007)
– William J.R. Alexander
The UN IPCC’s Artful Bias: Summary of Findings: Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics in the Summary for Policymakers
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 311-328, July 2002)
– Wojick D. E.
“The Wernerian syndrome”; aspects of global climate change; an analysis of assumptions, data, and conclusions
(Environmental Geosciences, v. 3, no. 4, p. 204-210, December 1996)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Uncertainties in assessing global warming during the 20th century: disagreement between key data sources
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 685-706, September 2006)
– Maxim Ogurtsov, Markus Lindholm
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (Physics, arXiv:0707.1161)
– Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner

Ya know, the interesting part of this debate has some historical analogies. The Titanic, Challenger, and Discovery among others. In each case, a major death event was sparked by people working in a vacuum who thought they knew more than anyone else. Titanic was designed essentially by one man, who designed the rudder too small for the ship. It handled like a pig. The Discovery was launched despite cries to the contrary, by people looking at the “political” fall out. (cold, “O” rings, and burn through were known at the time). The Discovery was downed by someone with a flawed computer model “proved” that the hole wasn’t important if there was one.
The cause of these, and other examples was a failure to face facts. I think the AGW crowd and Hanson are in that mode now. I just hope my taxes don’t go up too much before the truth is known.
There are some good things going on though. Some of the solar, wind and biological technologies are getting dollars to improve. That can’t be all bad. We have to start somewhere for alternative energy because fossel fuels are finite and will run out sometime.
Just thought a blast of sunshine (pun intended) would help the debate….

Is there a bit of el nino developing?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.10.2008.gif
but temps still going down… I thought AGW’s maintained current drop due to La Nina?

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.10.2008.gif
Do we have El Nino developing?

As Steven Goddard (22:26:20) makes clear, the climate deceivers are extremely insecure. They understand that their hypothesis will not stand up to scientific scrutiny, as Gavin Schmidt makes very clear every day on his RealClimate blog.
A few days ago I attempted to make my very first post on the NY Times’ website, responding to a global warming article. The very same thing occurred; I simply stated that according to these four agencies, the globe was cooling, not warming. I was unfailingly polite, suspecting that they would use any excuse to delete my post.
It didn’t matter. The result was exactly the same as Mr. Goddard’s. Out of literally hundreds of pro-AGW comments, mine was deleted.
They’re running scared.

John McLondon (22:31:40) wrote: “Don’t know. Sometimes busy colleagues use very short communications like this. … Etc..
I tend to go along with your opinion here, John. Nicely balanced reason in your words.

Potential debate scenarios like this are ridiculous and prove little more than who’s good at debating. Furthermore, Dr. Hansen knows this and fires back the only possible sane answer, and, may I add, with the respect that it deserved.
The readership here slams the idea of consensus science and then embraces debate? The irony is palpable.
(Consensus and debate are the stuff of politics. Not science.)
This thread is making me re-examine what I think about my fellow skeptics.

Every time I show anyone data which disproves the CO2 driving theory my responses are ” How do you know this isn’t some fake data? “, “This is obviously doctored data.”
Well the truth is I don’t but then surely the same could be said for contrary AGW data?
Like Einstein said: one fact is enough to discredit a hypothesis.
Well to be fair I will use Al Gore’s own data, (the AGW supporter’s own data).
The exact same data I will use, the Vostok Ice Core. Except CO2 and Temperature will be superimposed as to not give any illusion and be split apart like what Gore did.
Superimposed, this “universal” evidence shows
***Fact: Carbon dioxide rise lags temperature rise by 800 to1000 years.***
This fact destroys the FUNDAMENTAL base of the AGW theory.
So Brendan H, there it is. One fact destroys a hypothesis and with it, an empire.

randomengineer
“Dr. Hansen knows this and fires back the only possible sane answer, and, may I add, with the respect that it deserved.”
In this age of cut and paste it would have cost nothing to insert a stock reply. ‘Pressure of time, blah, blah, blah. Thanks for your invite, blah, blah. Unable to attend.’
Instead this ‘sane’ man insulted the institution, the host and gave the sceptics something to laugh at. So, not very good at debating or even simple manners. It gives credence to the suggestions that there are other areas where he fails to apply basic common sense or caution.

Evan Jones (21:33:03) :
Has anyone heard of a guy called Lyndon LaRouche?
Unfortunately. (Let’s just say, “not mainstream”.)
Many thanks. just what I needed to know.

vincent: “Do we have El Nino developing?”
Last 3 month index, MJJ (-0.5), still a La Nina. Current conditions above that, and need to remain so thru October (5 consecutive indicies) before La Nina officially a Neutral as I am given to understand. Kristen Byrnes said this was a seasonal remix following SO summer and will again cool in NH fall.

The readership here slams the idea of consensus science and then embraces debate? The irony is palpable.
(Consensus and debate are the stuff of politics. Not science.)
randomengineer , don’t you find it just a bit too convenient that the “the debate is over, there is an overwhelming consensus” crowd now not only refuses to debate, but tries to squelch it whenever and wherever it occurs, and hypocritically cries “I thought you said that debates and consensus don’t matter in science”, conveniently ignoring the fact that normally, if science is allowed to progress without the injection of politics into it, that would be true. Like it or not, this is now in the public sphere and the stakes are enormous. The normal scientific process has been subverted by those who have a self-interest in AGW. Those interests are many and varied, but boil down to politics and money. Hansen’s entire career is invested in AGW, so do you really think he is interested in the truth? Most people believe the AGW lie because that is all they hear, and indeed it is everywhere – in the news, in the schools, and in politics. Many more believe it because they want to, as it seems to offer them some sort of religious or psychological void.
The fact is, the AGW hypothesis does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. People need to see that, but how? Well, a public debate is one possible way, but Hansen and his cronies don’t want that, of course. No, what they want to do is throw people in jail for even questioning the AGW dogma. Think about it.

One reader here mentioned Michaels isn’t the ideal debater. I agree.
I’d like to see Richard Lindzen, or Phillip Stott.
Or what about Lindzen-Stott against Hansen-Gavin?
Come to think of it, there was a similar event not long ago:
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=12
Listen to it and you’ll know why Hansen is running and hiding. He knows full well he aint got a snowball’s chance in climate hell in a debate.
REPLY: Put all those folkjs together and a hiockey game will break out.

Steven Goddard
Censorship is done because of MISBEHAVIOUR. The big problem at RC is that facts and tough questions are precisely that: misbehaviour. Amazing huh?
The RC folks are into defending fantasy, and not advancing science.
It’s Lucy-In-The-Sky science and nothing else. They’re on climate-crack or something. To me it seems mentally ill.

Oops, I meant “offers a way to fill” some sort of religious or psychological void. That’ll teach me (I hope) to always proofread before hitting the submit button.

For a report from the 6/26 Meteorologist’s Meet at the Marriott Marquis, featuring Harry van Loon, milder short term, cooling next year and long term, see this url:
http://www.houstonenergyanalyst.com/Global_Warming.html
H/t Bill in Az.
=========

I am a non-scientist but read this site almost daily.
Reading any article the attitude of the writer is often clear from the choice of words and use of language. Hansen’s intemperate language toward oil executives speaks volumes and for me cancels out any accreditation from the “peer review” system he parades as evidence.
I would imagine that “Peer review” is an important but crude tool to sweep out chaff that is probably not worth reading, it is unlikely to tell me if the conclusions of the article is right. That can only be done through open and wider scrutiny and further investigation, which is how I imagine science to work.
But to the public at large Peer Review has a different meaning. The public see Peer Review as meaning the conclusions have been checked and verified by the scientific community and have been established as factually true.
Isn’t it ironic that Public Relations and Peer Review share the same initials: PR

The topic of debate has occured several times in this thread.
I suggest that there is no doubt that between scientists informal debate (discussion) is both common and useful. However I agree that on scientific matters public debate is probably irrelevant.
Two thoughts:-
1) Those advocating debate – the sceptics- see it as a means of exposing to the public what they see as the false science being pushed by the AGWers.
2) In science a theory can be falsified (Karl Popper) or a paradigm overturned (Thomas Kuhn). However the whole matter of ‘climate change’ has entered the political arena and so the science becomes only the background with the result that falsification and paradigm shift are no longer relevant. The sceptics want to see the science moved back into the foreground and see debate as a way of achieving this. (By debate I would really hope for open discussion in the media).
I am a ‘sceptic’ and for the above reasons support debate.

Jeff Alberts: “Of course we can discuss this till we’re blue in the face, and no one will change their positions…”
Well you are right, which is the main problem. We have stopped to be reasonable.
But I think we all agree (although many of us, including me, do not want to admit it) that to be nice, especially to a student, Hansen should have thanked for the invitation. But I suspect he is probably suspicious of such invitations and very sensitive of all the criticism, this is probably a natural reaction than a thoughtful response.

Hi Smokey,
I do not want to get into this (since I may not be able to get out) but the ACS news magazine that was cited (if that is what you mean) is not a blog. American Chemical Society is one of the most credible societies, their journals are the top journals, so are their other publications.

Thanks for the invitation. Regrettably, my schedule doesn’t allow time for this type of meeting, however here is a list of a few people that would be delighted to throw some light on the science of climate change:

OldJim: “…but the unsmoothed version does show cooling from 1998 to 2007.”
As the first link explains: “Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate estimate of the year as a whole.” Since the data only covered the first two months of 2008, and that data was abnormally low, the earlier graph gave a misleading impression of a precipitous drop in the trend. The same of course can happen the other way, that is, a couple of data points of abnormally high temperatures can skew the trend upwards, as also explained in the first link.
Therefore, it is valid to identify a “continued warming of 0.1 °C per decade” for 1998-2007, since that is an accurate description of the trend, and it’s the long-term trend that counts.

Alex: “How do you know this isn’t some fake data…Well the truth is I don’t but then surely the same could be said for contrary AGW data?”
I wasn’t implying the data was faked, rather that blog graphs in particular involve an interpretation of the data. The IPCC process involves peer review of the original studies, and the reports are open to comment by independent reviewers, many of them sceptics. Blog presentations — from whichever party — are another matter, and should be viewed with correspondingly greater caution.
“***Fact: Carbon dioxide rise lags temperature rise by 800 to1000 years.***
This fact destroys the FUNDAMENTAL base of the AGW theory.
No need to shout. You’re assuming that the chicken always precedes the egg. The explanation you mention refers warming periods that follow ice ages. These periods are probably precipitated by changes in the earth’s orbit, and the resulting warming flushes out CO2 from the oceans.
These warming periods lasted around 5,000 years, and it’s likely that CO2 and other greenhouse gases were part of a feedback system, amplifying the warming that was already underway.
Currently, we are not emerging from an ice age, and global CO2 levels – mostly from human sources — have risen sharply in the space of a hundred or so years, along with rising global warming.
Keep in mind that AGW theory is a specific claim. In the words of one eminent climate scientist: “Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming.”
We should certainly use past data to inform our understanding the earth’s climate, but relying on one-to-one correspondences can be misleading, as it is in this case.

Smokey,
I have read parts of the Wegman report. But the latest one is the National Academy report of 2006, which pretty much agreed with Mann but then criticized the way it was used. If you can, see a summary of it in Nature 441, 1032-1033 (29 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/4411032a; Published online 28 June 2006, Academy affirms hockey-stick graph: couple of lines to quote: “the committee has a “high level of confidence” that the second half of the twentieth century was warmer than any other period in the past four centuries. But, he adds, claims for the earlier period covered by the study, from AD 900 to 1600, are less certain.” and again ” ” NAS also confirmed some problems with the statistics (OF MANN). But the mistakes had a relatively minor impact on the overall finding..”
The National Academy’s statement to the U.S. Congress is here: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Surface_Temperature_Reconstructions.asp (which says among others “In fact, man-made climate change is quite real. “) and the whole report is here: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676
I think overall this report endorses the hockey stick graph, but leaves a large part, from AD 900 to 1600, open to further debate, which probably could help AGW critics.

[Sorry, the first link above didn’t post for some reason: click here]

Brendan H
“Currently, we are not emerging from an ice age, and global CO2 levels – mostly from human sources — have risen sharply in the space of a hundred or so years, along with rising global warming.”
Well, actually, that’s the conventional wisdom brought to you by the IPCC, the Siple curve, and somebody named Callendar. It’s kind of a hockey stick redux.
During the 19th century the average PPM was 335, not the 280-290 most people think (I did too).
In 1890 it was about 328. And Mauna Loa actually shows that level as late as 1973.
So CO2 levels haven’t risen so ‘sharply’ after all. And whether you wish to believe it or not we are currently cooling. For how long we don’t know but Keenlyside, one of you, and others think we’re in for at least a decade of cooling if not more.
http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm
Oh, and before you pooh pooh Jawarowski, think it through.

I wasn’t shouting, merely highlighting… I was refering to the people I have asked personally who use that as an argument (laymen), I was not replying to your comments and I’m sure you wouldn’t say such things anyways.
Actually , we are emerging from an ice age and we have been doing so for quite some time. Sallie Baliunas, who herself deals with climatology has pointed out this lag, so then, John, there is clearly scientific disagreement among parties with regards to its relevance.
I see how John has given an interesting explanation which i will look into but, the point is that the lag occurred. The lag is clearly visible when the earth was exiting the ice ages into a “warmer” period.
At the beginning of the Silurian Era the average global temperature was 12deg C. Whilst the CO2 concentration was 4500ppm, this doesn’t hold up with the theory.
John there are other factors which affect deglaciation, CO2 cannot be accounted as the main factor.
However short the lag may be there is a lag.
Our current increase started around the 19th century, man’s addition to the CO2 content only really began takin effect circa 1950, 800 years ago we saw the Medieval Warm Period. So it is likely that the current increase is the natural lag occuring after the increase in temperature circa 1180s and would occur even if humanity didn’t release CO2 (although , yes at a smaller rate)
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas in comparison with H2O (95%) and Methane (+-2%), and 2% of CO2 is from human origin (ie: 2% of 380ppm)
CO2 displays a lag throughout the data, not merely during deglaciation.
It is important to note that yes CO2 has small warming capacity, but that the data does not show a “temperature caused by CO2” effect. Currently since 1998 we have seen no increase in temperature (now since October 2007 a decrease). Whilst CO2 has gone up 4%. Yes i agree 10 years is much too short a timespan but according to the theory the increase which we see since the beginning of the 20th century should be taking effect by now…which it has not.
Your earlier argument about 1998 and 2007 being the warmest years etc etc…that is not a valid argument because it depends on the baseline and what we classify as warm. Historically there have been much warmer periods and using a timeframe of 120 years of dodgy land-based data is not reassuring. NASA themselves were left red-faced when USA data had to be re-calculated , which now shows that in the USA 1934 was the hottest year.

http://www.abd.org.uk/co2_cause_or_effect.htm
(link includes a conclusion from Caillon et al article in which a lag is acknowledged)

Smokey: “So, who are you gonna believe? Hansen? Or your lying eyes?”
Keep it civil. You will notice three things about the graph:
1. The period is for ten years only. This is not sufficient time to establish a climate trend.
2. The graph begins in 1998, an el Nino year that experienced an anomalous spike in temperatures. By choosing that year as the starting point, the following years will appear as a cooling. Choose 2000 as your starting point, and the picture changes.
3. The graph fails to provide a trend line for temperatures. A five-year rolling average calculated across, say, 30 years, will provide a more accurate picture of a climate trend. And it’s the trend that counts.
Remember that the topic under discussion is climate, which is a long-term phenomenon.

Alex: “If the lag of CO2 is irrelevant or more complicated than what appears to be the case and if CO2 does drive the system then how do you explain the coincidence between methane gas and CO2???”
I’m not sure what you mean by “coincidence”. Human activities such as energy use and agriculture have led to an increase in methane levels, but I don’t see that this is a coincidence, more a result of similar industrial and other sorts of activities.

Alex, From what I understand, the CO2 lag occurs only in the southern hemisphere, which is mostly covered with water. The trigger had to be natural, since we were not around, but the CO2 released from ocean intensified and prolonged the warming. This I have no trouble in following. But, one has to assume that at the end of the warming period, it was also a natural cause that triggered the reduction of CO2 and temperature also. I have not seen anyone explaining this part of the story extensively, may be I haven’t looked at the right sources.
BTW, we have trouble in determining exactly what happened between 900 and 1600 AD. So, I am not really sure to what degree we can rely on the data from the Silurian Era. I assume that is why we have this never ending debate.

Syl, I met Paul Siple once, almost half a century ago.
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A better, more informed discussion of the Wegman report, the NAS report and the motivations and implications of each is available at CA from last year.
That Mann has any support from the statistics community is disinformation or worse.

Alex, “This article does give a few opposing views and does raise questions and uncertainties on both sides but nevertheless the above cannot be ignored.”
I have to agree, we cannot ignore it. It certainly raises some interesting questions.

John, agreed, there are many uncertainties which should be tackled in future papers, we will have to wait and see! It is a complex system but I see some of your points.
Brendan, sorry let me clarify: I totally agree with you that recently have we disturbed the natural amount variations of greenhouse gases due to industrialisation.
By “coincidence” I mean that in pre-industrial data we see a very similar pattern between CO2 and Methane, meaning that these two gases increase and decrease at approximately the same times, ie the two gas curves are the same. In this case I do not see how CO2 could be driving methane. My point being that temperature would be a more likely driving influence on the gases rather than one gas driving temperature and another gas especially considering that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas.

Evan, Alex, Smokey,
What is your take on this paper? I know it is a few years old, but still. Thanks.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Brendan H:
I was attempting a little humor with the statement: “who are you gonna believe, etc.” Now I know better, and will avoid the jokes. Being thin-skinned is an affliction, and I don’t want to be accused of discrimination.
OK, seriously now. You stated:

“By choosing that year [1998] as the starting point, the following years will appear as a cooling. Choose 2000 as your starting point, and the picture changes.”

No. It. Doesn’t. How many times do I have to post graphs like this: click Or this: click
And:

“CO2 levels have more or less steadily risen by about 30 per cent over the past 150-odd years, most of the increase from human activities.” [my emphasis]

In fact, only about 2.75% of atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic in origin [source] Why do you continue to make false statements such as this? Is it deliberate? Or is it your opinion, since your numbers don’t come close to the actual data?