Trust and Mistrust

At first I thought Anthony wrote this, but then the past profession as commercial fisherman showed up.
Written by Willie Eschenbach, right?

A man can bring a lamp into a room and lighten the room. He can not bring a can full of darkness into the room and darken the room.
I suspect it is possible to warm the planet a bit. I suspect that increased evaporation and clouds will cool it. I can’t pay taxes and cool the planet.
Models create nothing. Here is a site that tells us crude will be 40 dollars a barrel in 2010. It is twice that. They are wrong. Joe Romm says they are correct when they tell us how much crude will sell for in 2030 if we dabble in increadsed drilling.
Joe is not an honest person. He cherrypicks dishonest claims.
In 2005 the Energy Information Administration said crude would be 30 dollars in 2030.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/aeo_2006analysispapers/wop06.html
The EIA has only proven to me they have a verified history of being wrong.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/aeo_2009analysispapers/aongr.html
I do know that Warmist folks claim to know more and be superior to people that find glaring errors in their false predictions.
14. What action should be taken?
Tell the wackos that if they can’t get anything right, they sure can’t dictate action. I remain commited to conservation of resources. I still strongly dislike seeing people behave slovenly and that always included all the messy plastic water bottles and trash.
There are many folks on this board that get the bigger picture. The article above is a great summary of the bigger picture. Judith Curry doesn’t get it but could if she was open minded. I won’t put her on the list of people that can’t accept some wisdom. The ones that predict temps CO2 oil prices etc for 2030 0r 2090 have too large a block to wrap their minds around reality and the present.

As regards question one: temperature is an intensive quantity of a system in equilibrium. You can not average the temperatures of different systems in any meaningful way. Thus the earth, which is never in equilibrium, does not have an average temperature. Energy balance as affected by cloud cover, solar insolation, albedo and so one are the parameters of importance. It has just been too easy to play games with temperature recording stations whose only use are for local weather forecasting.

Excellent exposition! But please do not give temperature changes as percentages–meaningless numbers-must give absolute values.In SI units give in kelvins(or equivalently degrees Celsius)

You forgot one.
Briefs or boxers?

Interesting article, much to agree with.

Is climate science a physical science?
Well, sort of. It is a very strange science, in that to my knowledge it is the only physical science whose object of study is not a thing, not a physical object or phenomenon, but an average. This is because climate is defined as the average of weather over a suitably long period of time (usually taken to be 30 years.)

Some parts of climate science are statistics. But a large part is physics.
-Reflection and absorption of solar radiation
-Longwave absorption and emission by trace gases
-Humidity and latent heat
-Cloud formation and effect
-Rain
-Ocean currents
-Stratospheric effects on the troposphere
-Ice melting
Then there’s some chemistry especially stratospheric and ocean chemistry. Most of the climate scientists (who’ve been around a while) studied physics.
Most of what gets studied and written about is teasing out the physical processes in the atmosphere and oceans.

Willis:
“First, we have a responsibility to be good guests and good stewards here on this amazing planet.”
We are not guests on this planet. We do not have a responsibility towards this amazing planet. We are not visiting this planet. You are just suffering from a mild form of Stockholm syndrome.
I quote from paper (in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine):
Maibach EW, Roser-Renouf C, Leiserowitz A
Communication and Marketing As Climate Change–Intervention Assets: A Public Health Perspective Am J Prev Med 2008;35(5):488–500
“Choosing message frames for climate change that are consistent with the values of target groups is one important way to make the recommended behaviors or policies easier to accept.” …
“Conservation messages, for example,
can use an economic frame (This is an excellent way to save money);
an energy independence frame (This is a means for our country to free itself from dependence on foreign oil);
a legacy frame (This is a way to protect our children’s future);
a stewardship frame (This is how I honor my moral obligation to protect the abiding wonders and mystery of life);
a religious frame (This is a way to serve God by protecting His creation);
or a nationalist frame (Innovative technology will keep our nation’s economy strong).
You’ve been ‘framed’ and ‘messaged’, that’s all

This may be slightly off topic, but relevant nonetheless.
____________________________________________________________________
Lovelock: ‘We can’t save the planet’
Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet.
The man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism now believes that we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change.
Interviewed by Today presenter John Humphrys, videos of which you can see below, he said that while the earth’s future was utterly uncertain, mankind was not aware it had “pulled the trigger” on global warming as it built its civilizations.
What is more, he predicts, the earth’s climate will not conveniently comply with the models of modern climate scientists.
As the record winter cold testifies, he says, global temperatures move in “jerks and jumps”, and we cannot confidently predict what the future holds.
Prof Lovelock does not pull his punches on the politicians and scientists who are set to gain from the idea that we can predict climate change and save the planet ourselves. Scientists, he says, have moved from investigating nature as a vocation, to being caught in a career path where it makes sense to “fudge the data”. And while renewable energy technology may make good business sense, he says, it is not based on “good practical engineering”.
At the age of 90, Prof Lovelock is resigned to his own fate and the fate of the planet. Whether the planet saves itself or not, he argues, all we can do is to “enjoy life while you can”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm

Willis, I really wish writers on scientific matters would avoid the word ‘believe’. I understand that colloquially ‘believe’ usually means ‘think’, or ‘it is my view that’, or ‘it is my firm, well-considered understanding’, or some such locution, but science is really not a matter of belief in the same way that religious convictions, matters of ‘faith’, are. The latter are not in principle dependent on the kind of empirical verification/falsification that propositions in science require. When you say, “I believe the entire current climate paradigm is incorrect,” and that you are an “heretic,” it casts the entire argument in quasi-religious terms. However much the alarmists resort to such language, it is to be regretted.
Otherwise, an excellent piece; your facility for writing directly and succinctly on complex topics is much to be admired.
/Mr Lynn

Excellent article! Thanks for publishing this.
I noticed a typo in question 10. “obervations” should be “observations”.

Lovely!
I like your answer to question 1, and the data seems to support it.
http://www.2bc3.com/warming.html
The regulating mechanism is offset by the fact that the regulation is based on the CO2 level at the equator and heating is caused by CO2 at the higher latitudes. This makes the warming attributable to CO2 proportional to the rate of production of CO2, not the absolute amount in the atmosphere.

I’m neither entirely comfortable nor entirely uncomfortable with the null hypothesis as a basis for action.
I’m more comfortable with it as a basis for not remaking the world economy on a rapidly accelerated basis.
I’m not comfortable with it if it is used as a basis to not take a keen and heightened research effort. Not being able to exclude a reason for change is not the same thing as being able to prove it is the reason.
As to the precautionary principle, the opportunity cost has to be considered. If you spend trillions, you *will* kill people by lost opportunity cost. A great many of them. Count on it. The insurance cost better be pretty reasonable.
I’m more comfortable with the precautionary principle re energy security, except of course most of the people who cry out for it hate nat gas, hate drilling, and hate nuclear. And if you say “clean coal” to them you better scurry out of spittle range. They only really want “energy security” if they can flash it now and then for color, and then quickly send it back to hiding before you start poking holes in how it doesn’t fit so very well with an anti-carbon agenda.
But sure, I’m ready to spend a lot of money on conservation, also on nuclear, also on transitioning to more nat gas usage.
My latest favorite bon mot is “Sure, I trust science. . .but only in multi-decadal time frames”.

I have problems with the whole climate monitoring thing.
I been saying for some time that temperature alone means nothing and Max Hugoson brought the same thing up recently on another thread.
I will in the following example refer to what I call mass balance, the concentration of H2O in terms of kg H2O/kg air.
Starting at 28°C & 63%RH you get an enthalpy of 66.6J/g
After an increase to 29°C maintaining the same mass balance you get an RH of 59% & an enthalpy of 67.3J/g
To maintain roughly the same enthalpy, the mass balance has to reduce giving an RH of 58% Enthalpy 66.7J/g
Without a minimum of RH, temperature means nothing.
I guess I must be an heretic too.
DaveE.

“scienceofdoom (18:17:29) :
[…]
It’s not really different from the theory of gravity. The model is the equations and the observations need to be matched to the solution to these equations under certain conditions. Correct match = evidence.
So not a trick question”
It depends. Solving an equation is one thing, iterating millions of simulation steps with an imperfect simulation of physics is a different thing. Even in the absence of deterministic chaos any robotics scientist can tell you that his simulation of a robotics cinematic will be good only for so many steps and then the errors accumulate enough to lead to significant deviations from the real thing.

Willis
Zounds, being a heretic has a nice sound to it – and I urge people here to get Thomas Sowell’s latest book about Society and Intellectuals – Climate Science is essentially an intellectual contrivance, a science of an abstraction and it’s no wonder it has been so comprehensively embraced by those who sincerely believe in post normal science, pseudoscience I mean.
Seems I must be a heretic as well as I, along with Willis, reckon they have the physics basically wrong – it’s the plasma folks.

DirkH:
I agree there is a huge quantitative difference. But it’s still not a trick question. If climate models could match observations then I believe we could call it “evidence” of something.

It is just me or Josh used hockey sticks as flag poles.
BTW, well balanced article. I missed the term empirical when you talk about computer models, but that is just me being picky.

“”Environmentalist” – short definition.
A counter-culture or a sub-culture, a person, well-meaning, and varied in degrees of dedication towards the theorized problems on Earth and the environment.
What most environmentalists have in common is a communal, casual concern through an individual to almost religious zeal, roughly based upon the 1960’s industrial and cultural backlash. Such persons can be as moderate as a person who occasionally donates to an environmentalist fund and generally agrees with such notions, to extremists such as Greenpeace and the Earth Liberation Front, which have a history of interference and even endagerment of it’s opponents. Many environmentalists are classified as being “liberal” or “democrat,” in the United States, with a few fringe groups on the contrary to that generalization. ”
…
“There is a small U.S. political party dedicated to generalized environmentalist organization, the “Green Party,” known as “Greens” and “Greenies,” headed by Ralph Nader.
…
Worldwide, they currently have to battle politics, science, and opinion based upon cabinets and legislation, and private-sector funding which battles both sides of any given issue. Their biggest enemies are industry and economics from mining, fishing, ranching, farming, and oil production, right-wing politics and the so-called “science community.” ”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=definition+of+environmentalist
I would say that being a environmentalist is sort of like believing in climate change- it doesn’t have any meaning. Who doesn’t want a clean environment or when has climate not changed.
An environmentalist doesn’t care for the environment [though may do various rituals which “demonstrate they care for the environment”]. An environmentalist is someone who believes in environmentalism-
“political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment of the environment by humans..”
Or in other words humans need to controlled by govt because humans do harmful things to nature.
I contend that “environmentalism” has done nothing to improve the environment, and similarly that unions have done nothing to improve labor conditions.
Instead what has actually caused change is an improved standards of living- rather than some vague “change of awareness”.
Ie: China will have better “pollution controls” when it’s people have a better standard of living

Excellent post, Willis.
I knew you were a good bloke when I saw that you had been a commercial fisherman, as I was, and can therefore understand your conservationism. Most of the fishermen I knew were the same, much to the consternation of those who see the industry as a bunch of pillagers of the planet.
Thanks

RE: scienceofdoom (18:17:29)
I think that Willis is referring to GSM which are very complicated and deal with the interaction of systems. A model is not just a model. In fact the simpler the model the more scientific it is. When models become complicated they become more and more prone to error. This is especially true for trying to simulate complex systems (the earths climate) from basic laws (the greenhouse effect) where there are a number of processes involved and the interactions among processes can have greater effects than the processes themselves. You can’t conclude that because you can calculate the downwards flux of various molecules that CO2 is a super greenhouse gas that if any extra is added to the climate system by man it will cause a huge warming feedback cycle that send us on a runaway path to destruction. You have skipped a heap of steps. You can’t reference a simplified model and use it to argue proof of a complex model. Science lends itself to simplicity because simple models have a high empirical content whereas complex models do not. Your model cannot depend on as many variables or more than the measurements you are trying to make. To put it simply I can’t prove that something follows a linear trend if I have only made two observations. That is the fundamental scientific principle that Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen are trying to instil in climate science. As they demonstrate by that approach you can’t argue that CO2 is a super greenhouse gas.
Also please top referring to the theory of gravity to try and prove theories by proxy. There is no provision in science to do that.

“Also, engineers should be invited to review papers as well. Many theories would benefit from practical experience”
As an environmental engineer I would love the oppurtunity to comment on scientific papers, often scentists seem to be unable to see the big picture or are practically minded enough to see the elephant in the room, and they often hold onto sacred cows that need to be slaughtered!
I often review the work of scientists in the fields of hydrology and hydraulics (we employ a number of specialist scientists to support us) and am often amazed at their poor grasp of how things work in the real world or even how to analyse rainfall data correctly, and on other ocassions they reinvent the wheel! The scientific peer review process often fails to see these problems, because the reviewers are like minded. Hence, when I am involved I manage to spot those serious flaws that were missed and in some cases I put an end to their research proposals as their just wrong from the outlay!

willis –
this is the ‘scientific establishment’ – weep:
31 March: Institute of Physics: Response to report on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit
In response to the new report, Dr Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive at the Institute of Physics, said: “We welcome the clear statement in this report that there is independent verification, through the use of other methodologies and other sources of data, of the results and conclusions of the Climatic Research Unit. This solid body of evidence allows us to be confident in the scientific consensus on climate change…
http://www.iop.org/News/mar10/news_41077.html
lord rees in australia for talks and lectures:
31 March: ABC Radio Australia: President of Royal Society perplexed by climate sceptics
MARTIN REES: Well, I am perplexed by it because of course, although not an expert, I have talked to a great deal of the experts and there is a general consensus that climate change is something which could have very worrying consequences if the world goes on burning fossil fuels at the present rate….
I mean obviously there are some people who are not experts who are sceptical about this but the analogy I’d give is if you’ve got some medical problem, you look on the Internet, you find a whole variety of remedies and ideas but if you’ve got any sense, you go for treatment to someone who has got real credentials; you don’t take account of the bloggersphere and I would say that those who are not experts should respond to the bloggersphere and the debate about climate change in the same way.
They should look for the people who have credentials and among them you would find a consensus that there is something we need to worry about. It is an unprecedented effect on the climate that carbon dioxide is being produced by fossil fuels…
TONY EASTLEY: The head of the UN’s climate change panel has accused politicians and prominent climate sceptics of a new form of persecution against scientists who work on global warming. Have you felt that heat?
MARTIN REES: I don’t think so. I think we want robust debate on how we respond to this. I think if you look towards the second half of the century we are going to have a combination of problems, shortages of water, problems with food production, all aggravated by climate change and growing population and I think we want to look further ahead.
And certainly it is my experience also and I am a university teacher, that it is the young people who are more aware of this, people under 30 will still be alive 50 years from now. So it doesn’t surprise me that the so-called sceptics tend to be among the older people and that the younger people have much deeper environmental concerns. So they, in my view, are the hope for the future.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2860819.htm

Willis: your
However, the fact that her early (and true) claims that DDT was being misapplied and overapplied by many farmers were used by unscrupulous politicians like William Ruckleshaus to make points by banning DDT based on inadequate and exaggerated claims is their fault, not hers.
I agree that DDT was overused, and misapplied. I also agree that Carson believed what she wrote. However, the science did not back what she believed. (perhaps like today’s climate scientists?) But she did have good intentions. Which of, course, are the raw material for the paving machine going to a particular destination.
Ruckleshaus, I agree, did it for political reasons. For this reason, yes, he is the greater villain in this play.
I divert attention from the main theme of your excellent essay, and for that I apologize.

Re: GaryT (20:02:33) who asks, … #14 – “I believe that the earth actively maintains a preferred temperature.” Would you please explain what that even means?
Seems that what Willis means when he states the following is that the earth is naturally buffered against various factors that would be expected to cause dramatic temperature changes: “Despite millennia-long volcanic eruptions, despite being struck by monstrous asteroids, despite changes in the position of the continents, as near as we can tell the average temperature of the earth has only varied by about plus or minus three percent in the last half-billion years. Over the last ten thousand years, the temperature has only varied by plus or minus one percent. Over the last 150 years, the average temperature has only varied by plus or minus 0.3%. For a system as complex and ever-changing as the climate, this is nothing short of astounding.”

Willis,
I admire that you say who you are (non-anonymous) and you openly tell us about yourself, experiences and personal ideas. You set a good example in that regard to establish identity and background in human discourse.
At the same time, one must keep a strict separation between professional discussion when it is needed from personal life. That requires discipline that is hard to achieve.
Here at these sceintific blogs, we are trying to do something that tests that professional discipline of separation from the personal.
Written communication uses many tools. Humor breaks tension. Parody can highlight the absurd. Satire can be priceless in illuminating just like a picture can be a 1000 words. Metaphor and similies and analogies have uses in explaining ideas more clearly. But, professional discourse must have very tight discipline.
So, I think we need a clear marker in any comments/posts that gives the readers a simple notification when some statement is meant professionally or it is reverting to some personal or communication tool that may not be per se a professional statement.
In your Preface Questions 1 and 2, you attempt to address the premises that need to be identified prior to discussion. Stating premises up front is a honest way to start a discussion. Thank you, it should be done more often.
Comment on Preface Question 1 – Environmentalism: Man is just as much part of nature as any other living entity is and just as an inanimate object is. We are the products of earths nature and a natural extension of it. Implying a non-natural basis for mankind’s existence on earth implies we are somehow intruders external to earth and nature. We are the earth. Not visitors or custodians.
I have found that virtually all the people I personally know have an almost instinctual attraction to “make-where-I-live-a-healty-place”. They associate with like minded individuals. Sounds healthy to me. : )
Caution: the movements of militant environmentalism / ecological activism have many philosophical bear traps. Intentionally so. Caution.
John

Bob Highland;
It takes no great leap of the imagination to understand that most of the action that counts is in the tropics, plus a bit more out to say, 35 degrees N and S>>
Agree with everything you said… but that. The fact that there is some sort of thermostat mechanism seems obvious (which isn’t proof) but assuming there is, no model is going to be right until the thermostat mechanism is understood. Then the question becomes, what can affect the thermostat mechanism and by how much?
But I remain convinced that it is the arctic regions that are the key, not the tropics. Consider that:
l) the earth gains heat at in the tropics, loses it at the poles
2) the tropics have been the most stable temperature wise, the poles have shown the most variability.
3) earth radiance varies with T^4. See 2) above.
4) the area of the earth we know the least about historicaly, temperature record, satellite data…. is the poles.
5) the major climate cycle is glaciation… which extends from the poles and then retreats.

…and on models.
I can build a model of a canon ball and pretty accurately predict its behaviour in response to a variety of conditions. I can build a model of a combine that accurately mimics how it works and how it interacts with swathed grain as it goes across a field.
But there is no way in you know what that I can throw the canon ball into the combine and predict the results with a model.
The physics of CO2 in isolation are well known. The physics of changing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and modeling the results would make the canon ball in the combine problem look like tiddly winks.

Without reading any of the comments… This is a genuine call to understanding. Willis, thanks for this clear explanation of the questions that must be answered to move forward in our understanding of climate. I look forward to Judith’s responses, and also to the responses of all earth or climate scientists…
Thanks again,
Mike Bryant

Very nice article.
The only thing I’d nitpick about is that, while I agree with your suggestions on peer review, I don’t think they’ll do much to fix climate science.
I’ll suggest to you the idea that peer review is nothing more than a traditional activity that is neither sufficient nor necessary to produce good science.
Instead, the fundamental key to good science is reproducibility. If claims cannot be reproduced, even in principle, by third parties, then the original activity may have been carried out by scientists, but it is not science. That is the shape of much of science, not just climate science, today.
Making changes to peer review does nothing one way or the other to make a paper’s results reproducible.

BTW, I think the first question to be answered should be: do we have any reason to believe that we have the tools needed to change the climate in a predictable way? If so, I’m all for using them, independently of global warming issues. If not, then it would clearly be too dangerous to fiddle around.
And why should it matter whether global warming is anthropogenic or not? Does this mean that non-anthropogenic warming would be no danger?

AlexB (19:07:34) :
RE: Willis Eschenbach (18:35:36)
Totally agree. I must say I was very impressed with the honesty and understanding you conveyed by the use of the word belief. The difference between belief and theory is that the two words are spelt differently. It is impossible for humans to know natural laws. Science is simply made up of various degrees of belief. . .

Or rather, all statements about the world are theories (in the general sense), so in science “various degrees of belief” are possible. My point is that in religious (and pseudo-scientific) discourse ‘belief’ is not at all like ‘theory’; the religious maintain that their belief is absolute, so there are no degrees: either you believe, or you don’t.
It is not wrong for Willis to use ‘believe’ like ‘theorize’, or ‘conclude’, because he is speaking as a scientist. Nonetheless, the term leads to the kind of questions the pollsters like, which Willis (correctly) dismisses as ‘trick questions’, e.g., “Do you believe in global warming?”
In my view it is better to avoid the absolutist connotation that ‘believe’ and ‘belief’ carry with them.
/Mr Lynn

Overall, a good article. Couple of observations though.
1. Science is not statistics. Statistics is a tool only, and a science left with mostly tools but little understanding is like an infant. Understanding and explaining the physical processes behind the science is the key to good science. Without that understanding, GIGO (garbage in garbage out) is the computer models output. No matter you use super quantum computing power, you will never get a correct answer.
2. The null hypothesis is an example of bad science through statistics. All hypothesis should be considered and tested, with periodic reviews of which is the most likely. It is not just A or B, but A, B, C, etc. Climate is too complex. Occams razaor says simplify by removing what you don’t need, Einstein said don’t remove that which you need, and I say when in doubt, keep it around until you understand it a bit better. Maybe you need it.
3. Climate science involves many disciplines, not just atmospheric science. To predict the fiture, one must understand the present and the past, so geologists, astronomers, solar physicists, oceanographers, chemists, physicists, biologists, agricultural scientists, petrologists, etc all have inputs into the understanding of climate past and present. We only have 30 years of good data, and even that is subject to uncertainties, estimates, and scarcity.
4. If you believe the current paradigm is incorrect, or better yet, simply question it, you are a skeptic. Science is about skepticism, religion is about beliefs.
5. Science by peer review does not work. Peer review does not and can not prove a hypothesis in a paper is correct or not. There are many cases where incorrect or disproven hypothesis, even fraud, have passed peer review. Peer reviewers have a lot at stake in protecting the old paradigm, since that is how they built their reputations. Einsteins greatest theories were not subject to peer review. If peer review existed in 1905, what are the odds a patent officer from Switzerland gets his views published.
6. Funding. Most research funding is provided by government. Until biases are removed in approving research grants, which is part of the peer review process, we will continue to get one sided climate science.

A conservationist walks the walk: Cut down one tree, plant two. Take an animal, breed two. An environmentalist is just a mentalist.

Willis Eschenbach (21:14:34) :
GaryT (20:02:33)
Gary, please see my post “The Thermostat Hypothesis”, which explains this in detail.
But none of that explains the extreme cold that caused the ice ages. I am sorry to be a thorn but I am a firm believer that it is sun activity and more importantly, the distance from the sun that causes major climate changes here on earth. Secondarily is major volcanic activity and then of course, asteroid collisions.
Meteorology is our best guess for future weather/climate. Freedom, liberty, and the ability to put food in mouth and shelter overhead should take precedence above all other gibberish.

Willis Eschenbach;
In the tropics, the clouds act as a throttle are able to regulate the amount of incoming solar energy. This, to me, is the main control mechanism. I show in my article how the tropical clouds can cause a widespread change in forcing of 60 W/m2 in the course of one hour.>>
Agreed, it is one of many mechanisms, but you just prompted the oddest thought. I’ve always wondered why glaciation doesn’t cause a tipping point, but in reverse, toward cooling. As the glaciers grow, they reflect an increasing amount of solar energy back to space. In addition, one would think ocean heat content would fall as well, since the Sun’s rays can’t penetrate the water anymore being blocked by the ice. Same goes for landmass that would normally heat up. So once glaciation starts, why wouldn’t it just keep on going? What stops the advance from going right to the equator?
Knowing diddly squat about clouds, I started wondering… would the decreased temperatures severely limit cloud formation, causing the earth to start heating up again? The oceans in particular would heat up at depths of as much as 300 meters due to increased penetration of shortwave. Once the oceans absorbed enough heat to start pushing the glaciers back, they would continue to do so for centuries after tropic cloud cover returned to normal?

As a staunch conservationist, I agree. The nutcases that are involved now are mere leftists. Statists. In their hands all would die except for themselves. They are simply too important. Think of Congress excepting themselves from laws. That is what it is really about. The silly local Sierra Club chapters just think they are included in the Arc. Like Trotsky and Russia, the Commies in Iran, etc.

President Obama announces today that he will “allow” oil drilling off the coast of Virginia. AFP Vice President for Policy Phil Kerpen issued the following statement:

“Obama is talking about lifting a nonexistent ban! Bush lifted the executive ban in July 2008, and Congress lifted the legislative ban in October 2008. There is no legal impediment to drilling now, except that the Obama administration refuses to offer leases. So the idea that this is a big concession in exchange for which Congress should jumpstart climate legislation is ridiculous. I’ll believe they are really allowing drilling when they actually offer leases. Also, the 50-mile restriction means he is actually ADDING a NEW moratorium on waters inside of 50 miles.“

Re: Mr Lynn (Mar 31 18:15),
Willis, I really wish writers on scientific matters would avoid the word ‘believe’. I understand that colloquially ‘believe’ usually means ‘think’, or ‘it is my view that’, or ‘it is my firm, well-considered understanding’, or some such locution, but science is really not a matter of belief in the same way that religious convictions, matters of ‘faith’, are.
I agree, both about beliefs and about the good summary.
I think that instead of “I believe that” a scientist should say “my weighted opinion is that”. This shows an oneness to a change in axioms.
In fact that is what science should be:
a system of axioms with derivations and corollaries that are checked against measurement.
One does not believe in axioms, one accepts them as foundation stones and builds from there. If reality disagrees, change the axioms.

How did those inverted commas get in my reply? – Very very important article. – No quotes.

I have two substantial reservations, Mr. Eschenbach:
1) “Stewardship” is not a viable philosophy; we are not servants of our planet, we are its original inhabitants, free to modify it according to our preferences.
Wild nature and wild ecosystems are often very unpleasant and dangerous to human beings. There’s nothing wrong in keeping the nature a bit tamed and civilized, at least around human habitation.
This is not to say that I approve of terrible overpopulated cities, pollution, and runaway industrialization. Certain moderation, guided by our system of cultural values, is necessary, but without any centralized political coercion, and without quasi-religious appeals to “stewardship.”
2) The stability of Earth’s temperature, averaged over long periods of time, seems to be quite meaningless from the human point of view. On human scale of generations, and even historical epochs, the climate can change drastically — and quite naturally.
Earliest known frescoes in the Middle East (dated before 6000 BC), found in the famous Chatal-Huyuk settlement in Central Anatolia, show lively naked people (some in loincloths made from leopard skins) hunting deer and wild cattle with dogs’ help.
Since these people are depicted teasing bulls and even jumping over bulls, it very well may be that they already started to domesticate cattle somewhat. They worshiped Mother Goddess and Bull (incidentally, “bull” in Turkish languages is “bog,” while “bog” in Slavic languages means “God”; Zeus and Jupiter were also bull-gods).
Biological studies in the same region prove that there were lush, humid, almost tropical forests at that time, populated with monkeys, leopards, and even hippopotamuses.
This was just 8000 years ago! The climate, from the human point of view, changed drastically. Now Central Turkey is very arid, almost desert-like land, with some widely dispersed oases of greenery and Sufi craziness. No animals larger than goats and sheep survive there.
What, then, the stability of Earth’s temperature, averaged over millions of years, means for us, humans? Practically nothing.
But climate can change, naturally and with some human help (mostly coming from the land usage), resulting in rises and falls of civilizations, expansions and extinctions of whole peoples, languages, and cultures.
We must be ready for surprising climate changes; nobody knows, when the next catastrophic volcano eruption or huge asteroid will re-design the face and the character of our planet.
Trying to conserve what must naturally change, and blaming ourselves for natural changes, is a wasteful exercise in futility. First and foremost, we must conserve civilization, liberty, and human comfort. Nature must be a pleasant background but not our primitive, ruthless Mother Goddess.
No “stewardship”: Man is the measure of all things.

Ric Werme;
Second, the researchers suggest, light-scattering clouds covered much less of Earth’s surface long ago – another net gain for surface warmth>>
Bingo! Low end of thermostat, cloud formation drops and SW penetration of the oceans increases. This takes a looong time as SW penetrates deep into ocean and ocean current spreads the heat around. At some point they retain enough heat that they start pushing the glaciers back.
At some point the oceans give up enough heat to raise sea surface and atmospheric temperatures, and Willis’ cloud regulator kicks in limiting the amount of energy that can be driven into the oceans, They start cooling as a result, but they are still warm enough to continue pushing the glaciers back, which reduces the amount of energy being reflected back to space, heating the planet still more. The warmer it gets, the wider the range of Willis’s cloud cover, so limiting the rise in ocean heat content still more. But even though this causes oceans to start cooling, they are still warm enough to push back the glaciers. Since Willis’s clouds are limiting heat gain over the tropics, and ocean and atmospheric circulation moves excess heat to the poles, this causes the glaciers to retreat and the arctic zones to heat up out of proportion to the rest of the planet due to both decreased ice coverage allowing more solar to be absorbed. Since the temperature rise becomes so pronounced at the pokes with raidance rising in proportion to the T^4, the amount of energy increase being radiated from the poles would go up exponentially since there isn’t enoough heat to create the cloud cover clamp on the throttle like at the tropics, it is provided by the poles heating up and beaming huge increases in radiance to space and causing the planet to cool, defining the upper end of the thermostat.
I would expect that open water at the north arctic zone would probably be the sign that we are at max,
So there you have it. When Willis’s clouds get too cool to form, heating oceans goes up, driving glaciers back, When its too warm, Willis clouds clamp down on additional warming and the poles heat up causing additional cooling.
When the oceans are cold, they soak up CO2. When they are warm they release it. As the glaciers retreat, they leave behind the dead biomass they have been sitting on which promplty rots in diret sunlight, releasing still more CO2 and accounting for the Co2 cyle we see in the long term record.

GaryT
“Geologist are the best climatologist. The rest are all just pseudo.”
I could grow to like this man 🙂

AlexB:
On my comment about if model results match observation that should be “evidence”

You can’t conclude that because you can calculate the downwards flux of various molecules that CO2 is a super greenhouse gas that if any extra is added to the climate system by man it will cause a huge warming feedback cycle that send us on a runaway path to destruction. You have skipped a heap of steps. You can’t reference a simplified model and use it to argue proof of a complex model.

I didn’t do any of those.
People can read a whole lot of stuff into my statements – or they can read my statements.
I was arguing about the role of models as having the potential for evidence. And not being a trick question.

Most people throughout history just resigned themselves to the capricious nature of fate. It says a lot about the arrogance of today that we can ‘stop climate change’ or ‘save the planet’. The Greeks had a word for this – hubris. Individually, every living creature is nothing in the long term scheme of things. In a hundred years we’ll be forgotten just like most people who have been and gone. We are not in charge here.
Having said that, good luck with expecting members of the science bureaucracies (NASA, NOAA etc.) to engage in real (sceptical) science. It’s not the nature of the beast. Freer scientists will stick with the theory they have in the face of all evidence until a replacement theory comes along so they can jump from one belief system to another.
Willis’ thermostat theory is one of the best candidates for that. The two great nonlinearities are sigma T^4 and the evaporation of water. Both interact and work as a thermostat.

””””Willis Eschenbach (21:49:07) : . . . . . That to me is environmentalism.””””
Willis,
I would agree we share some fundamental similarities on the rational principles of ‘environmentalism’. : )
All is not as it seems, though, with the movements that have ulterior economic/political/social/moral aims while merely using the save the earth theme as a vehicle to achieving those ulterior aims.
Those movements have a flip side that have anti-man scenarios. Bear traps!!!
John

Thank you Willis for commenting specifically to my points (at 21:33:41). However, please clarify something for me. Over the past 6,000 years, there is good evidence that the sea level has varied from 3 m higher than now and more than 1 m lower than now. It would take more than 1°C +/- variation to result in a 4 m range of sea level change. That sea level variation is driven by temperatures at the high latitudes. Is your 1° +/- a tropical temperature stasis? I might buy that, but not at the poles.
Also, the sea level record (by geology) does not support the notion of the warmest part of the Holocene at 8,000 ybp. If you reference the GRIP data, does the Vostock data confirm it? I like Rhode’s Fairbridge’s work on the Holocene climate variation as recorded in sea levels. By his work, the climate optimum 4,000 ybp included a sea level that was 6 m higher than 8,000 ybp. But we’re comparing sea levels with temperature proxies. Lots of room for inconsistencies there, but I find many reasons to question the notion that 8,000 ybp was the warmest of the Holocene. But is that relevant to the conversation? What is important is as you’ve pointed out: the slight recent warming is insignificant.

The global warming monster is being revived and will be appearing in your carbon taxes soon.
This is from the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office:
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=21983288
***************************************************************************
First meeting on funds for climate action
31 Mar 2010
The Prime Minister will join UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia today for the first High Level Advisory Group meeting on Climate Change Financing.
The group’s meeting follows the agreement reached at Copenhagen that $100 billion a year of public and private finance will be needed by 2020 to help developing countries.
The Prime Minister said: “The commitment in the Accord to the goal of $100bn in annual finance flows to developing countries by 2020 is one of its most important elements.”
Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, a member of the High Level Advisory Group, explains the group’s purpose. “The High Level Advisory Group is charged with studying new sources of finance to support the process of adaption and mitigation.”
The group includes Heads of State and Government, high-level officials from Ministries and Central Banks as well as experts on public finance, development and related issues. They will explore solutions on how to scale up long term financing for mitigation and adaptation for those most at risk.
Group members have been appointed for 10 months and are expected to produce a mid-term report in May and a final report containing recommendations before the next Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Mexico this December.
***************************************************************************
Notice the complete lack of scientists, climate scientists, environmentalists or anyone who might actually support any “global warming” science. This meeting, and all further meetings like it, will be entirely composed of politicians, bureaucrats, money movers and investment bankers. Their attitude is simple; The science is settled, so pay up.

Your review is very clear and understandable. My question is: Why is it that politicians and alarmists cannot understand the simplicity of your message and how do we change the message to ensure they do understand it? PML

Another nice article, thanks.
Unlike GaryT I think it’s good to be a ‘generalist’, because cross pollination of sciences and other subjects allows you to see a bigger picture.
For those like Willis who are interested in many things, there is a great BBC programme about the mathematics of chaos. It discusses Mandelbrot, the Butterfly Effect and many other issues that are relevant to modelling climate.

There’s another good programme here, it’s not quite as good but worth a watch.

Re-Energize Iowa: An Opportunity to Lead the Nation in Stewardship of the Earth
and Creation Jim Hansen, 5 August 2007
A price on carbon emissions is needed to stretch oil and gas supplies as we develop technologies needed for the world ‘beyond petroleum’. The carbon price will drive efficiency and low-carbon or no-carbon energy sources. If instead we continue business-as-usual, addicted to more and more fossil fuel use, as oil begins to run out we will be unprepared,
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2007/Iowa_20070805.pdf
Richard Nehring (16:30:08) :
“Traversing the Mountaintop: World Fossil Fuel Production to 2050
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/23/loehle-on-hoffman-et-al-and-co2-trajectories/
Pricing carbon as CO2 operates as a Proxy (of sorts) for HC Depletion. If one wanted to use an environmental Ruse/Hoax as a Proxy for HC Depletion , there is no option but to demonize C as CO2, as there are good technical solutions for most real pollution problems (even if not all implemented as perhaps they should have been )
cheers
brent

>has only varied by about plus or minus three percent in the last half-billion years. Over the last ten thousand years, the temperature has only varied by plus or minus one percent. <Woooah! 3% change in temperature is of the order of 30c….remember temperature starts at absolute zero, not the arbitrary freezing point of water upon which the celcius scale is based. If you are going to talk about a change in temperature you need to talk in Kelvin. Absolute zero starts at -273c.

Question 11. Is the science settled?
“To this one I would answer no, no, a thousand times no. We are just a the beginning of the study of climate. New information and new theories and new forcings are put forward on a regular basis. See e.g. Lu. The data is poor, short, and full of holes. The signal is tiny and buried in a huge amount of noise. We don’t know if the earth has a thermostat. In short, the study of climate is an infant science which is still poorly understood.”
———-
As well as no computer model predicted the last 15 years of lack of warming puts AGW on thin ice indeed. By the way the IPCC reports are packed full of the word “uncertainties.”

Excellent post, Willis.

Epicycles come to mind: They were close in thier days, but were not totally precise. They had data problems which Copernicus exposed. The biggest problem was that as a model they mimiced the process to a certain extent and led to a false conclusion. They had 2000 yrs to perfect them, but they were still wrong.
This is the same problem with GCM’s. They are wrong and lead to the wrong conclusions. The climate, to the warming climate modeler, appears to be precessing, but that’s just a wild guess, as the nature of the process eludes them.
In the end, we will have to go back to the data (what’s left of it) and start from scratch.

Great job cutting through the BS.
I look forward to seeing the answers from Curry, and perhaps others in the mainstream (would “mainstream” be better described as “government funded”?) Climate Science community.
I would especially like to hear their answer to the question “… what am I denying?”.

Willis Eschenbach (01:48:33)
I agree with a great deal with what you have said.
Unless you incorporate everything into the mix, just firing off on one gas is like selling snake oil to the masses. Very incompentent to say one gas comes off of everthing that man has touched and is the cause of planetary disruption.
You missed a biggie in your list and that is “Atmospheric Pressure Increase”.
This does not show on the surface of the planet do to rotation. Being an enclosed biosphere pressure increase or decrease does “funky” things to the eco-system. Many cases of changing pressures in experiments can change whatever is being put into this experiment that is fragile in nature. Our atmosphere is also pulled along by the planet so, any increase in density can have a change in speed of atmosphere being pulled along.
Darwin’s hypothsis is wrong. Animals didn’t evolve.
This planet did and is still in a constant change.
The theories we are working with today will not work in the past nor will they work in the future due to this planet’s constant changes( I am talking millions of years).
Also for some unfathomable reason, scientists believe that sun and planets will rotate forever due to nuclear???? The MOON slows the planet????
Our core is 2 billion years younger than the planet(head scratchers)????
When studying rotation, there are only 2 forces. Input energy into the object and letting that infused energy to be used up. This gets into a whole different set of changes as well. Mass density changes due to speed of rotation.
So science itself that we believe right now iis not 100% correct.

Willis,
You shoud write a book.
Anthony,
you should collect the best articles that appear on your site into an an annual book and sell it at Christmas time. Everyone is always looking for a 15 to 30 dollar present for their uncle (or favourite warmista).
You have I don’t know how many uniqe visitors per month. Is it 100,000? If 10% bought a book at 20 bucks a go that’s 200K gross with a tidy profit if you self publish.
I would probably buy several for a number of warmistas.
40 Shades

Rob R (03:18:24) :
Or better yet, how does an ice-age progress?
As the climate turns colder, there is less evaporation, and more ice isn’t melted.
Sea levels drop, and relative elevations above sea level therefore increase. Ice would advance to lower latitudes as well as in absolute elevation. Remember our current mode of representing elevation is relative to sea level. Large ice masses are resistant to melting and persist. Runoff would be minimized, and therefore parching of low-lying areas would dominate. Sublimation is my guess for the equilibrium point of ice-age advance. Higher relative elevations would make for a windier planet???
Cold, windy, dry & dusty would be the dominant feature of such a scenario.
Now, how de we get back out of that fix?
Someone some decades back put forth the weight of ice pressing down continents and reducing relative elevations leading to slow melting as they slowly sank. Made sense as they showed the “Greenland Ice Cap Bowl” feature.

I think there was one question missing in the article:
Question 15: Is it possible to change the composition of the atmosphere without causing any changes whatsoever in the climate system?
I guess Willis’ answer would be “yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”.
My answer, on the other hand, would be: “nope”.
And just to clarify – I do not believe that the climate threat is a threat to the very existence of life on Earth. But I do believe that there is one species that is very sensitive to climate change, especially in the short run: namely, H. sapiens.
We have very recently witnessed an episode where the entire financial system almost collapsed as a result of careless lending and borrowing in the USA. What would happen if manmade rapid climate change threatened the stability of some of the biggest nations on earth? Quite a number of those nations who are likely to be hardest hit by AGW already have nuclear weapons, and others are surely eager to follow.
I absolutely agree with Willis that the Earth’s climate changes constantly, and that we, just as all other living creatures, have to cope with those changes. But that is not a good reason to make everything even worse.

climate science is in conflict with the the rest of us because they see climate scientists as the guardians of the earth and we are trying to destroy the earth. I have no objection to scientists quitely doing their work but with climate scientists anything they do has to have media coverage, it is a moral crusade.The way that climate scientists have gone about their science has put me off what are trying to say .The idea that humans are altering the climate of the earth is proclaimed but up until the last century most of us lived at a subsistence level and some still do
I can look at how weather is changing where I live and not see any reason to worry about climate change but a climate scientist measures temperature anomalies for the whole world over a long period of time and if it goes up by a fraction of a degree they panic .Why the Earths climate changes in the way that it does is a good question but the answer does not have to be AGW and it does not have to mean climate disaster and then there is no need for my energy use to be taxed.

As other commentators above have mentioned regarding Question 1, the term “environmentalist” doesn’t mean what it used to years ago. The term has morphed somewhat like the term “feminist” has. In the ’70s being a feminist meant that you were in favour of equality for women. But some time in the ’80s being a feminist meant being anti-man and residing on the far left of the political spectrum. Eventually you started hearing moderates say, “I’m all for women’s rights, but I’m not a feminist.”
So, in that vein, I will say that I care about the environment, but I’m not an environmentalist.
Paul

Rob R (03:18:24) :
davidmhoffer
Regarding clouds and glacial periods. The balance of paleoclimate evidence is that the Earth’s atmosphere is both drier and dustier during glacial periods, as shown by the dust content of ice cores in ice dating back over 400,000 years. This might imply less cloud as you suggest. Whether this causes heating (more heat getting through to the surface) or more cooling (less of a cloud blanket) I wouldn’t be able to say>>
I think it is less a matter of “less or more” than it is a matter of “what kind”. Cloud cover I assume interacts with both longwave and shortwave, so the question does it produce net cooling or net warming gets complicated. But by blocking SW and LW, but only emitting LW, when cloud cover exists it must diminish the amount of SW interacting with earth surface and raise the amount of LW. This is key because LW only penetrates a millimeter or so of water and mostly just causes it to evaporate. Absence of cloud cover increases the amount of SW that interacts with earth surface, and SW will penetrate sea water to 300 meters. So, in terms of surface temps, cloud cover has one effect. In terms of ocean heat content, a very different effect. Oceans being really big and having strong currents that redistribute heat, it would take a very long time to warm them up, and once warmed up, a long time to cool off.
So cloud cover could very well have a “warming effect” when it comes to surface temperatures, and a “cooling effect” when it comes to oceans. In brief, perhaps a very small “net effect” but a very large distribution effect (land and ocean surface versus 300 meters of ocean depth).
I would think also that an increase in SW would have a major effect on plant biomass on both land and ocean, so assuming that is net positive, would tend to cause agressive growth, sucking the CO2 out of the atmosphere and explaining why CO2 levels lag temperature increases.

Judith Curry.
Swish.
and thank you.

Climate change??? I can only say “Be Prepaired” for any thing.
To maintain civilization, food and energy are required. Energy to keep warm if it gets colder or to keep cool if it gets warmer.
Food — we need grains that will grow under many harsh conditions, warmer, colder, wetter or drier.

How can a more complex situation be modeled more easily and accurately than a simpler situation? That makes no sense at all.

Well I wonder that that right there, is the pin in the grenade; pull that out and the whole AGW “limits of growth” thing explodes.
We all know that we see what we look for, which is to say, our point of view on reality will determine what things about reality we can perceive.
There is indeed a reality, but we can only ever approach it through a paradigm (or view), and that view determines what we can and can’t see. Our paradigm might be, “a 12 inch ruler is the best measuring device”, so we’ll know the dimensions of anything that can be easily measured with a ruler, and anything much smaller or much larger will be “hard to detect” or nonexistent.
So it is all a matter of trying to construct the best possible paradigm or view from which to obtain the most useful information about reality.
The “grenade pin” in the AGW paradigm is the assumption that we can model the complexities of growth and resources and expertly determine for practical purposes what those limits are, and where they’ll be encountered. This is the one point I’ll never agree with, and I don’t have to be an “expert in the field” to know they’re wrong — the whole paradigm that such a field even exists and that it is populated with experts is simply not a view I take.
Imagine deciding that bacteria doesn’t exist because I expertly measured everything to be measured with my ruler. Imagine deciding that global warming is real because I looked at some surface temperatures over 100 years from sparse stations, and can think of no other reason for warming. Imagine deciding that climate can be modelled because eventually all that weather noise must even out into a trend, and I can draw a graph-like “straight line” over about 30 years.
Yes, objects exist at the 12 inch scale, but that doesn’t mean all useful objects exist at the 12 inch scale. We still don’t know whether those 30 year “straight lines” on graphs are anything useful. A paradigm needs to be self-aware of what its purpose is supposed to be, otherwise what use is it for anything practical?
Yes I know there’s multiple lines of evidence, but that still leaves out everything that wasn’t measured. Yes I know it doesn’t have to be omniscient, but it has to include enough relevant stuff for its intended purpose. And the intended purpose here is that the experts and politicians want to decide what is “sustainable”. It has so far failed to provide anything useful for that purpose. The paradigm does not do what it says on the box.
The AGW paradigm also includes a belief that average people are too selfish and stupid to do the right thing, so the experts need to tell us. That paradigm has also failed. How do the experts propose to influence the stupid people? By calling them deniers? See how that’s working. (If a stupid person becomes a climatologist, does that automatically make them smart? If a teenager starts talking about global growth, does that automatically make them wise?) Even if they were right about AGW, they failed to make it useful. And that’s not our fault, that’s theirs. They failed in their mission to show the world the “expert view of the limits of growth”.
In my view, I look for complexity. I assume complexity. If something looks simple, I am wary — it could be more complex! So you want to understand climate? Assume it is complex! So you want to make recommendations for world development? Assume it is complex! So you want to influence the world’s stupid uninformed selfish people about the limits of growth?
Assume people are more complex and smarter and moving in hard to predict and innovative ways that solve problems with a globally distributed and diverse intelligence.
That’s my paradigm. Anyone care to join?

Willis, can you explain what you mean by a 3% change in temperature, please? 3% of what and when?
Thank you.

Willis Eschenbach (23:45:54): “That’s just twaddle”? Gosh, I love it when someone comes up with a well reasoned, well cited scientific argument against something I’ve said.
Oh, I see. You make some airy-fairy granola bar comment like, “I believe that when you cut down a forest, you cut down the clouds,” and that is supposed to be science, and furthermore I am supposed to supply scientific proof that you’re wrong.
No, Willis. If you want to join the gay scouts and put daisies in your coffee, that’s fine with me. But please don’t call it “science”. And don’t hide behind the pathetic argument that I have to prove your dingdong religious belief assertions wrong.
Risible, man. Positively risible. Stick to what you know. Don’t become a Lovelockian.
That goes for all you other guilt-ridden skeptics. You want to prove that you love the planet as much as any hippie, even though you don’t think the seas are going to boil from glooooobal waaaarming. Forget it. You will never make the grade. Stick to rationality. It’s what you do best. Don’t backslide.

Thanks, Willis, you’ve managed to cut through to the core issues and explain them very well.
I’ll politely disagree with a couple of commenters who dislike the use of the word “believe” because of its supposed religious connotations. Belief is all we have. The confidence level may be higher for some beliefs than others, but its still all belief.
It bothers me when religious belief is singled out as being irrational. I’m a religious person, and religious belief, in my experience, comes about in precisely the same manner as any other kind of belief. One evaluates the evidence, considers voices of authority, acts on the basis of theories and evaluates the results, and ends up with religious belief. It’s true that many people accept religious tenets with little or no evidence, but it’s also true that many people blindly accept the notion that climate catastrophe is imminent with – all together, now – little or no evidence.

@Mike D. – calm down, I think you’ve inferred the wrong thing from what Willis said. My inference is that he said, e.g., that if you clearcut (or burn) a million acres of contiguous land, there will be local climate changes. Seems reasonable enough.

Judas priest!
Before all I had to worry about was unshaven hippie chicks stealing lumber from the lumberyard and building tree forts in my crop trees and perching up there and singing songs about butterflies and cookie dough in order to protest my responsible science-based professional forest stewardship.
But now I have to concern myself with Oedipal CAGW skeptics who claim I’m CUTTING DOWN THE CLOUDS!!!!!!!!!!!
Take it back, Willis. Take it back or I will hound you unmercifully and discount everything you ever said or ever will say.
Give science a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Good piece Ellis. You already addressed Pieter F (20:36:09) :, but I find that trying to discern whether the warmest part of this interglacial was at one point or another is missing the big picture.
We spend 90% of the time glaciated, so end up with 10% of the time having a more inhabitable planet. We are looking at climate change here. The big change happened at the minimum temperature and the following 10-15K years when the temperature shot up 12-14°C. This brought our interglacial period, and it has been cooling since then. It seems to me that every 100K years something dumps a lot heat into the system, It goes up for 10-15K years, flattens for 10-12K years and then over the next 75K years it is lost.
All of this focus on GHGs is interesting because they seem to lend stability to the climate by setting a heat retention mechanism, but misses the big picture. Since the warmth we enjoy does not come from our planet, we need a blanket to insulate us. I suspect that blanket is about as insulating as it’s going to get, i.e. GHG effect is near maximum. IMO, Warmth is a virtue not a curse.
Without understanding the main inducement of warmth, all else seems like arguing over the number of angels on the head of a pin. CO2 isn’t a player unless warming at 200ppm and cooling at 300ppm makes sense, per Vostok ice cores.

Shub Niggurath (04:55:21) :
“…the stewardship ethic found in Genesis and the moral duty of Christians to help the poor and needy (i.e., those millions likely to be most affected by climate change).”
Do not the poor and needy exist without climate change? Have they not for 30,000 years? The need for moral behavior does not rely on temperature.

Bravo, Willis. Nicely done. Who knows, maybe Judith will surprise us.
I really don’t see how any of them can be trusted, though. They haven’t been doing science, and have pulled every trick in the book, (cherry-picking, obfuscating, hiding things, withholding data, hockey-sticking, etc.) and some not in the book. Clearly, they have had an agenda, and it hasn’t been science.

ThinkingBeing,
” What Phil Jones said was that the warming since 1995 is not yet statistically significant, but only just so… because the period is too short to achieve statistical significance. This is very different from saying no warming.”
It is true that it is very different from saying no warming, but it is not true that the lack of statistical significance is because the period is too short. It is because the error bars are so large that we cannot say whether the “trend” is due to chance or not. If the errors were smaller, the 15 year period would be fine.
If we wait a further period and temperatures rise sufficiently then we would be confident that the trend is not due to chance. However, if there is little or no warming, then no matter how long we wait, the trend will not become statisticallly significant.

Right on, Willis. Thanks!

Bruce Cobb (10:41:34) :
Bravo, Willis. Nicely done. Who knows, maybe Judith will surprise us.
I really don’t see how any of them can be trusted, though. They haven’t been doing science, and have pulled every trick in the book, (cherry-picking, obfuscating, hiding things, withholding data, hockey-sticking, etc.) and some not in the book. Clearly, they have had an agenda, and it hasn’t been science.
Agreed. I’m still hoping for a strong, explicit affirmation of the Scientific Method from Dr. Curry, but don’t think it will occur. It doesn’t necessarily count for much, but so far I don’t think I’ve seen any Climate Scientist even mention it’s name.

Willis
I know you are only speaking for a sensible approach to the problem of the environment. But it would be nice if you could see what people have been saying in this thread, instead of becoming defensive about eye-gouging etc
You said initially that “we should care for this planet” or some words to that effect.
“I am a passionate environmentalist,…”
“First, we have a responsibility to be good guests and good stewards here on this amazing planet…”
Your own words imply ownership or at the least a custodian-ship. Of what? – ‘The environment’. Which includes pretty much everything and anything on earth.
Look at the Yale Project on Climate Change, for example:
http://environment.yale.edu/climate/
Read through their brainwashing publications and reports. The Yale Project on Climate Change is a project of the The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
what is the objective of this school?
“…marshal[ed] the expertise of diverse disciplines in the service of responsible stewardship of the environment.”
Here you are, talking about a few trees and fishes, when organizations such as these plan to control human minds and the climate of the globe. And yet, you both speak the same language. How did that happen?
Regards