Bill Nye is the anti-science guy when it comes to global warming and hurricanes

R. Gates says:
August 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm
How is the fact that CO2 is a non-condensing greenhouse gas, and water vapor is not, dogma? It is not dogma to state that CO2 is critical to maintaining the wonderful greenhouse world we enjoy, and without it, not only would we all never have existed, the world would be quite cold.

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Since the CO2 IR window is overlapped by the H2O IR absorption spectrum, I doubt the removal of CO2 would have much effect on climate by itself. H2O would capture CO2’s missed IR, and backscatter additional GHE However, the death of all plant and animal life would have a dramatic effect on the climate. It is because H2O, is a condensing gas that it is the great stabilizer of climate. If temperature begins to cool, H2O begins to condense, releasing huge quantities of latent heat into atmosphere, providing a strong stabilizing negative feedback.
As I said, any fairy tale will do, as they are non falsifiable statements. We cannot remove all CO2 from the atmosphere, and so any fiction will fly.
Of course you are an intelligent, motivated, ideologically directed individual who already knows all of this. So therefore, the question: What ideology is motivating your disinformation, and what do you hope to achieve at this skeptical gathering?
You have already stated:

If you honestly believe that the earth would not become an ice planet without CO2, then whatever odd laws of physics you believe in do not match this reality and we have little common ground.

So I repeat, since you admit no common ground, with this group, why do you insist on hanging out with us. It must be on powerful ideological and political purposes, or you would be over at RC, where everyone will suck up your ejaculated nonsense, with a great slurping delight.
There is plenty of room here for dissenting opinion and contrary evidence, however everyone has had quite enough dogma, to last multiple lifetimes. Stick around, if you feel you must, but give us a break, with the gaia religious prattle and propaganda.
I certainly hope you are retired, as you are rapidly making yourself unemployable as a researcher or any scientific methodology dependent career. GK

DAV;
My point is: it’s the correlation of the variables itself that’s important. Nothing else is required. Judea’s book explains the why and how of that. IOW, your On its own correlation says nothing about causation is not true.>>>
At a large family reunion I noticed two picnic tables lined with large aunties, all well over weight, and each and every one drinking diet soda.
Correlation being 100%, I concluded that diet soda causes obesity.

davidmhoffer says: September 1, 2011 at 7:57 am …Correlation being 100%, I concluded that diet soda causes obesity.
Ooops, when I said “nothing else required” I forgot about “reasoning”.
It’s HOW they are correlated and WHEN (that is, in relationship with OTHER variables) that’s important. The old adage “Correlation does necessarily not imply causation” is only true for TWO variables (note the “necessarily” part). You always need at least three variables to reach a conclusion and sometimes more.
A simple example: if you have three variables: A, B and C of which all are mutually correlated but A and B are independent (i.e., no longer correlated) when given C then C is at least one of the causes of A and B. C itself may have its own cause(s) (and probably does) but knowing C is sufficient for determining A and B provided it is the lone cause.
Richard S Courtney September 1, 2011 at 9:44 am Correlation indicates NOTHING about causality. Live with it.
Your dead wrong about that. Correlation is EVERYTHING (with proper reasoning, of course).

Richard S Courtney;
perhaps you missed the sarcasm?

Dave Worley says:
August 31, 2011 at 10:22 pm
“Like any house of cards, you might successfully remove a few here and there, but take away a few of the key cards, or enough other ones, and down it comes.”
One of the advantages of the human mind is its ability to view (and rotate) objects solely within our imaginations in three dimensions. That advantage may also be used by manipulative individuals to conjure images such as a “house of cards” climate system, with “tipping points” looming on the horizon.
Too bad the house of cards is a poor metaphor for our planet. It assumes that the climate and the ecosystem that adapts with it are inherently unstable. The many peaks and valleys in the climate record (and the fossil record) indicate that it just is not so.
Notice also that Gates’ statement quoted above includes sublime imagery of humans “taking away” things from the planet. The imagery skillfully implies that we are a destructive lot.
One simple example that I like to bring forward when confronted by folks attempting to portray humans in that manner is the wonderful gardens that most folks tend at their homes. They range from simple decorative shrubbery to some of the most extrordinary works of living art. Regardless of their level of complexity, all are an attempt to improve and beautify, not destroy, our world. There are too many similar examples in art, architecture, music, etc to name, and they are real, not imagined. That is our real nature, so don’t let any cynic get away with using hypothetical imagery of a destructive mankind to convince you otherwise. It’s simply not so.
______
You’ve extended my post into your “ass-sumptions” of what my feelings were about human destructiveness, etc. when I said nothing of the sort. Human are capable of great destruction and great creation as well (as you aptly point out with your illustration of gardening).

R. Gates;
My apologies, it seems my list of R. Gates tactics was incomplete, I need to add a fourth category:
1. BS. Present statements as if factual, but without supporting evidence.
2. When challenged on 1. (above) reply with sneering condescension regarding the inability of the critic to understand the basics of a variety of vague references.
3. Change the subject.
….and, when completely exposed for having not answered a single claim with a single supporting fact….
4. Silence.
I never thought he’d get to 4. since he repeated his position that responding (integrated with sneering condescending remarks) was not worth his time. If only he’d get to #4 with alacrity in the future!

R. Gates says:
August 30, 2011 at 8:07 pm
But, I would suggest you check your rationale for why you think Arctic sea would be increasing in year-to-year extent over the next few decades, and then, if it fails to do so, consider that there might be something to the notion that a 40% increase in CO2, and large increases in methane and nitrous oxide over the highest levels they’ve been at in at least 800,000 years might indeed be having an impact on the global climate, as every single global climate model tells us they will.
If I had the time.., have you got this from a script sheet? (The non sequitur). Go on, tell us, who is actually involved in producing these?
[For 800,000 thousand years of massive changes every 100,000 years from ice age to interglacials with accompanying hundreds of feet sea level rises, etc. etc., and then massive changes back into our Ice Age, these gases were irrelevant.]

R. Gates says:
August 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm
How is the fact that CO2 is a non-condensing greenhouse gas, and water vapor is not, dogma? It is not dogma to state that CO2 is critical to maintaining the wonderful greenhouse world we enjoy, and without it, not only would we all never have existed, the world would be quite cold.
The “non-condensing greenhouse gas”, another scripted meme hiding non sequitur, has a crush on water in the atmosphere and oceans and on land, and water’s penchant for the non-condensing gas grabs every opportunity to hold its gassy darling really, really close, and when in that clinch a loving heat appears between the two getting ever stronger the hot and frenzied rapture raises them up into the skies where as they climax they fall apart, exhausted, but content, releasing all their heat they cool down and as they cool they look again to hold each other tight, to find the way to renew those wondrous feelings now but a vaporous memory, but what sorrow, the lovers are so far apart they can’t rejoin, but as their plaintive cries of separation echo louder and louder through the atmospheric realms an arm appears holding the book of instructions turned to page 8885bCSection453 which clearly states in no ambiguous terms, should water vapour desire to hold its beloved again in an embrace of mingled passion the solution is to do the housework first, clean up the dust and dirt around and the object of desire will be swept up too, and colder but wiser now the vaporous water condenses into tears of relief in sweeping up the debris in the skies and becoming again irresistably attractive to its lover scoops the non-condensing gassy darling into its very being and in their acid high fall to earth again as rain, content once more to be together, until a memory stirs..
The Earth would be 67°C without the water cycle taking away the heat delivered by the Sun’s thermal infrared energy warming the land and oceans.

DAV;
I don’t need luck, all I need is real world experience. I was clowning around of course, but still making a point. Things are not always as they appear, and your 3 variable model while sound from a strictly mathematical perspective, is a really good way to get into deep deep trouble in the real world. This is the stuff that the “law of unintended consequences” is made of.
The problem with your theoretical explanation of A, B, and C being correlated as a group, but A&B not being correlated when C is removed is pretty simple. In the real world however, we have to define A, B, and C, which is not so simple. Sometimes C is comprised of D, E, and F, but we don’t realise it. Sometimes A, B, and C are correlated, but only in the range we examined, not the complete range. Sometimes C causes X, or better still, some portion of X, and it is X that is root cause, not C. Removing C may result in A&B becoming uncorrelated because X went away, but when H, I or J increase to some level, causing X to be restored to the same level as C previously caused, suddenly A&B become correlated again.
As an example appropriate to this forum, the average global temperature has risen over the last 150 years, with what seems like “acceleration” from about 1980 to 2000. Loosely, but not well, correlated with CO2 increases. We can easily make the “acceleration” go away by realising that “average global temperature” is comprised of (for this example) North and South Hemisphere averages. Let’s call “average global temperature” A, which is comprised of the average of NH and SH.
If we look at NASA/GISS or HadCrut, and break NH and SH apart, we find that NH has about a 60 to 75 year warm/cool cycle. But SH has more like a 90 105 year cycle. Hard to tell with only 150 years of data of course, but the point is that for much of the global temperature record, NH was rising while SH was falling, and vice versa. But around 1980 or so (I’m going from memory here) both SH and NH entered warming phases. So….
If we make the assumption that “A” is a single factor, we see accelerated warming for the latter part of the 20th century. But when we understand that A is actually comprised of the average of NH and SH, and that for most of the record they tend to cancel each other out for the most part, but for that last little bit they happen to be additive instead, we get a different perspective.
And that is just scratching the surface of the difference between theoretical math, and the real world.
Regards,
dmh

davidmhoffer September 1, 2011 at 10:17 pm … your 3 variable model while sound from a strictly mathematical perspective, is a really good way to get into deep deep trouble in the real world.
You keep referring to it as a 3-variable model. I still guessing you missed the “at least 3” and “sometimes more” parts. It is also possible to poke your eye out with a screwdriver when used improperly. So what? Does that mean a screwdriver doesn’t work or shouldn’t be used when appropriate?

The problem with your theoretical explanation of A, B, and C being correlated as a group, but A&B not being correlated when C is removed is pretty simple. … Sometimes C is comprised of D, E, and F, but we don’t realise it.

C is still a cause of A&B if it renders them independent when present. I did NOT say it was the ONLY cause. In fact, I was careful to avoid that. It is irrelevant that C has its own causes.

Sometimes C causes X, or better still, some portion of X, and it is X that is root cause, not C. Removing C may result in A&B … but when H, I or J increase to some level, causing X to be restored ..

if C ==> X ==> A&B then C is still a cause of A&B. It really doesn’t matter that X may have other causes unless you need to know ALL of the causes of A&B. That in itself is irrelevant to determining if C is a cause A&B. (please do note the “a cause” part — it’s NOT the same as “the only cause”). Pulling the trigger causes the gun to fire if all else is working properly. It is still true regardless of whether the gun might fire when dropped.
Indeed, determining correlation, and subsequently, independence is the tricky part. I did not say it was easy. My whole point is that correlation is the ONLY factor used in determining cause. It is tiresome to keep hearing that it is irrelevant to the task.

Richard,
Think about what you are saying.
If “Absence of correlation disproves causation” then the opposite (i.e., its presence) must imply the possibility of causation. IOW: correlation is a requirement for causation. You can’t have it both ways.
It also wouldn’t hurt to think about what I’ve been saying — at least a little more carefully.
If it’s any consolation you are not alone. Conversations like this crop up everywhere. It lead me to write this review:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2915
I still recommend that book.