The new math – IPCC version

I also have a problem with drawing straight lines through data that obliously doesn’t follow a straight line. Where should the line go on this data?
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/Temp_0-400k_yrs.gif
If you ran it through the average it would say temperature should be 4 or 5 C colder than today. That would put us into an ice age. The only portions of the graph that are somewhat straight are the at the beginning of the interglacial warm periods when temperatures are shooting up like a rocket. If you projected any of those out to today it would show that todays temperatue should be 50 degrees C higher at least. But obviously that didn’t happen.

“By just looking at the graph, or by using old-fashioned calculus developed by Newton and Leibnitz, you might think that the slope of the graph is similar at both ends.”
I have a nit to pick with the the above sentence. Studies on the Archimedes Palimpsest show that the some of the essential concepts of *integral* calculus were formulated more than 2000 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_palimpsest#Mathematical_content
There is only one known copy of this work that has survived into the 20th Century. However there’s speculation that Isaac Barrow–mathematician, Archimedes scholar, and mentor of Newton–may have read another copy. If so, this would shed some light on Newton’s famous shoulders-of-giants quote.

David Middleton (13:55:42) :
Try looking at the cited paper:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal.pdf

Charney defined an idealized climate sensitivity problem, asking how much global surface temperature would increase if atmospheric CO2 were instantly doubled, assuming that slowly-changing planetary surface conditions, such as ice sheets and forest cover, were fixed. Long-lived GHGs, except for the specified CO2 change, were also fixed, not responding to climate change. The Charney problem thus provides a measure of climate sensitivity including only the effect of ‘fast’ feedback processes, such as changes of water
vapor, clouds and sea ice.

or

Atmospheric composition and surface properties in the late Pleistocene are known well enough for accurate assessment of the fast-feedback (Charney) climate sensitivity. We first compare the pre-industrial Holocene with the last glacial maximum [LGM, 20 ky BP (before present)]. The planet was in energy balance in both periods within a small fraction of 1 W/m2, as shown by considering the contrary: an imbalance of 1 W/m2 maintained a few millennia would melt all ice on the planet or change ocean temperature an amount far
outside measured variations [Table S1 of 8]. The approximate equilibrium characterizing most of Earth’s history is unlike the current situation, in which GHGs are rising at a rate much faster than the coupled climate system can respond.

Claims for the last 20,000 years do not apply to the last 540 million years – during this period, the Sun has increased in brightness more than 5%, plants have evolved (and the landmasses were covered with forests), and the continents have drifted – all major changes to the Earth climate system.
http://www.scotese.com/newpage12.htm
Milankovitch cycles and supervolcanoes also have large effects on the climate at these 500-million year time scales (see Permian extinction event 250 million years ago).
The problem before us is perturbing the existing Earth climate system with an appreciable fraction (34.5%) of total atmospheric CO2 on very short time scales – 1 to 2 centuries. And possibly increasing that perturbation to 100% this century.
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bubbagyro (11:16:38) : ...developed over the years, to guard against foul play,

So it’s useless here, then…

Richard:
I was referring to:
The Chinese Government suggested deleting this, pointing out that:
‘These two linear rates should not compare with each other because the time scales are not the same’.
Irrespective of slipping it past the main review, the Chinese comment gave somebody the opportunity to correct it. Did they understand the ciriticism? There is clearly a conscious effort to deceive, but what is not clear is where, and who honestly believes. This is a document is intended for politicians – are they demanding cover or being deceived?

Richard S Courtney (01:23:02) :
OK. I undertand that reasoning. It is that the value of research work is determined by the background of a researcher and the reputation of the journal in which the work is published.
So, using that reasoning, I now know that aeroplanes cannot fly because the principles of aeronautics were devised by two bicycle salesmen who published their work in a journal on bee-keeping because ‘reputable’ scientific journals rejected it for publication. Your argument has convinced me so, clearly, that thing I can see in the sky is Superman and is not a Boeing 747.
Knowing that, I can forget problems of AGW resulting from increased aviation. Thankyou for putting my mind at ease about this.
Incorrect premise, incorrect conclusion.
The Wright brothers were inventors, not scientists. They went out of their way to be secretive – their goal was patents, and profits, not publishing their results. Although they were avid readers of past research (work on the Chanute-Herring biplane hang glider, and aeronautical data on lift that Lilienthal had published, for example), they had no interest in publishing their work.
Here’s what they were after – patent # 821,393:
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT821393&id=h5NWAAAAEBAJ&dq=821,393
I will give credit to the beekeeper, A. I. Root, for recognizing greatness when he heard/saw it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wright/reporter.html
But you are completely wrong that the Wrights “published their work in a journal on bee-keeping because ‘reputable’ scientific journals rejected it for publication.”
A. I. Root was just being a journalist, using the “Our Homes” section of his obscure beekeeping journal to share exciting news for his readers:
The following comes from the “Our Homes” section of Gleanings in Bee Culture, January 1, 1905, edition, pages 36 to 39, alongside articles such as “How I Manage Swarming” and “Judging Honey at Fairs.” This excerpt, and the one that follows, has been edited for punctuation, to remove asides, and to break Root’s very long paragraphs into more manageable ones; otherwise they appear as he wrote them nearly a century ago.

What hath God wrought?—NUM. 23:23.
Dear friends, I have a wonderful story to tell you—a story that, in some respects, outrivals the Arabian Nights fables—a story, too, with a moral that I think many of the younger ones need, and perhaps some of the older ones too if they will heed it. God in his great mercy has permitted me to be, at least somewhat, instrumental in ushering in and introducing to the great wide world an invention that may outrank the electric cars, the automobiles, and all other methods of travel, and one which may fairly take a place beside the telephone and wireless telegraphy. Am I claiming a good deal? Well, I will tell my story, and you shall be the judge. . . .
…
When it first turned that circle, and came near the starting-point, I was right in front of it; and I said then, and I believe still, it was one of the grandest sights, if not the grandest sight, of my life. Imagine a locomotive that has left its track, and is climbing up in the air right toward you—a locomotive without any wheels, we will say, but with white wings instead, we will further say—a locomotive made of aluminum. Well, now, imagine this white locomotive, with wings that spread 20 feet each way, coming right toward you with a tremendous flap of its propellers, and you will have something like what I saw. The younger brother bade me move to one side for fear it might come down suddenly; but I tell you, friends, the sensation that one feels in such a crisis is something hard to describe.

Not exactly scientific research, but a good read nonetheless.
Why were the Wright brothers so secretive ?
Listen to the beekeeper once more:

I may add, however, that the apparatus is secured by patents, both in this and in foreign countries; and as nobody else has as yet succeeded in doing anything like what they have done I hope no millionaire or syndicate will try to rob them of the invention or laurels they have so fairly and honestly earned.

The Wrights built on the published work of others, but had no desire to give away their own ideas – not exactly “scientists”:

They not only studied nature, but they procured the best books, and I think I may say all the papers, the world contains on this subject. When I first became acquainted with them, and expressed a wish to read up all there was on the subject, they showed me a library that astonished me; and I soon found they were thoroughly versed, not only in regard to our present knowledge, but everything that had been done in the past.