Readers may recall this WUWT story: Nature’s ugly decision: ‘Deniers’ enters the scientific literature.
Meanwhile, the discussion continues at John Nielsen-Gammon’s Climate Abyss website on Skeptics are Not Deniers, with part 3 now posted. Part 4 will likely be at this link today
At Jo Nova’s she has a response from Dr. Paul Bain. She writes:
Dr Paul Bain has replied to my second email to him which I do most appreciate. (For reference, see the letter he is replying to here: “My reply to Dr Paul Bain — on rational deniers and gullible believers” ). He deserves kudos for replying (it’s easier to ignore inconvenient emails), and also for taking some action to improve the article he published. I will reply properly as soon as I can. For the moment, and for fairness’s sake, it’s here for all to see.
… No, I don’t think there is any scientific reason (or definition in the English language) that validates the term “denier”, but Nature is going to publish an addendum this time, and that will be noticed by other researchers in the field. That is progress. Though there is a long way to go. — Jo
Bain writes:
As we all know, after publication it quickly became clear that the “denier” label was causing offence, and I contacted the journal’s editors to canvass options for addressing this. As the article was already published, it was agreed that the most practical option would be to include an addendum to the paper where we publicly expressed our regret about any offence we caused. This will be appended to both the online and printed versions of the paper. As you said, you yourself did not mention a link with Holocaust denial (and I myself did not hold such a link), but this was by far the most common association made by people who took the time to write to me personally to express their offence. By doing this, I don’t expect this to resolve (or even reduce) any issues (I fear that the damage is done), but I thought this was an appropriate thing to do nonetheless.
Full story here at Jo Nova’s
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I can understand why our opponents want to use strongly emotional labels such as “Denier.”
I am just as emotional myself about the environazis (see?) who do not merely exaggerate warming, thus killing tens of thousands of people by panic stricken destruction of the food supply (corn ethanol) causing the Arab Spring riots.
The most crucial aspect of the whole question is the effect on living organisms–and that has been overwhelmingly positive.
There is considerable reason to doubt the temperature claims (UHI, falsification of records, cherry-picking of weather stations, etc.). But we do know that CO2 has increased at least 20% over the last several decades–and that the leaf surface area has correspondingly increased. So has human life expectancy, all over the world.
You would not print what I call the environazis in my own mind, but I did tell my Congressman to vote against anything “green” because it is harmful to the biosphere more often than it is beneficial.
I fantasize turning those people into hamburgers and feeding them to hyenas and Tasmanian Devils. I care that much about the living world–so do they.
Teaching them the fundamentals of redox chemistry and the source of life is CO2 and other basic science, plus logical reasoning–that is the challenge.
She’s back and kicking some serious ass.
This is an incredibly sophomoric statement to make in response to this post. You’re trying to claim that skeptics are offended by the term denial due to the fact that they are actually in denial. Skeptics, especially skeptics on this website, aren’t in denial. We’re critical of the definitive claims being made after careful, scientific consideration.
I could definitively state that you’re a clinical idiot. If, after objective consideration regarding certain intelligence metrics, you deny that you’re a clinical idiot, then I could merely claim that you’re in a state of denial. Then, if you take offense to my claim of denial, I can offer that as further evidence that you’re in denial. After all, “telling someone who is in denial that they are in that state will almost always give offense.”
What’s funny is that your comment was so stereotypical psych fail.
docrichard wrote:
“First, a quick reply to David Ross. The Theoden/Lovelock is not a suggestion that Lovelock is dementing, it is using a device used by a UK publication, Private Eye. Here is an example: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=lookalikes&issue=1315#215 ”
Doc, I’m British, a long time reader of Private Eye and I’m not convinced by your explanation. Your caption reads:
“Am I alone in noticing the remarkable and growing similarity between James Lovelock, the nuclear-obsessed inventor of Gaia, and King Theoden of Rohan during the time when he was under the influence of Saruman? Could their condition in any way be related?”
The choice of King Theoden (a zombie-like character)… the timing (just after Lovelock’s epiphany) … “obsessed” … “influence” …”condition” … yet you claim you are not questioning Lovelock’s mental health? I think you are in denial doc.
Just to clarity, it is quite rational to deny something that is wrong, and it is quite rational to deny the definitiveness of something that is questionable. Your above claim implies (and I’m sure you meant to imply) that all denials are irrational – which is incredibly stupid.
Frankly, your entire thinking is frightening. You remind me of the Thought Police in 1984 faulting Winston for denying the party’s claim that 2+2=5. It didn’t matter if Winston was right or not, and apparently, it doesn’t matter to you if skeptics are right about their skepticism – you still insist on labeling their offense to being called a denier as an “irrational” defense mechanism.
I challenge you to admit that the offense might instead be a perfectly rational reaction.
I can understand why our opponents want to use strongly emotional labels such as “Denier.”
I am just as emotional myself about the environazis (see?) who do not merely exaggerate warming, They have killed tens of thousands of people by panic stricken destruction of the food supply (corn ethanol) causing the Arab Spring riots.
The most crucial aspect of the whole question is the effect on living organisms–and that has been overwhelmingly positive.
There is considerable reason to doubt the temperature claims (UHI, falsification of records, cherry-picking of weather stations, etc.). But we do know that CO2 has increased at least 20% over the last several decades–and that the leaf surface area has correspondingly increased. So has human life expectancy, all over the world.
You would not print what I call the environazis in my own mind, but I did tell my Congressman to vote against anything “green” because it is harmful to the biosphere more often than it is beneficial.
I fantasize grinding those people into hamburger and feeding them to hyenas and Tasmanian Devils. I care that much about the living world–so do they.
Teaching them the fundamentals of redox chemistry and the source of life is CO2 and other basic science, plus logical reasoning–that is the challenge.
Frank Kotler says: July 12, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Speaking of whom … Gore laid the groundwork (albeit perhaps inadvertently) for the Holocaust denier smear in an Op Ed in the NYT 23 years ago, when he gave himself licence to inappropriately and appallingly invoke memory of – and word-images from – the Holocaust [h/t Richard Drake via Climate Audit]:
So, Louise July 12, 2012 at 11:18 am
The blog you found you found so “interesting” – is one which the author, Micha Tomkiewicz, decided to start on Apr. 22 “the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day” which marks him as an activist who has shamelessly chosen (as I wrote in response to his First Post) to appeal to his own authority as a survivor of the Holocaust in order to:
He has a PhD, and has written a (very pricey) book on “climate change”; but his areas of expertise have no relationship to any of the relevant issues. Not surprisingly, nor do any of his peer-reviewed publications. Nonetheless – just like Al Gore 23 years ago – Tomkiewicz firmly believes in “impending climate change disaster.”
Tomkiewicz is so “knowledgeable” about climate change that, not unlike Gore, he resorts to ludicrously over the top hype:
He doesn’t even know that the IPCC gave up making “predictions” in favour of “projections” quite some time ago. And he seems to think that the IPCC is a “Plan” which – presumably – if we don’t follow may well result in genocide.
As a Holocaust survivor, Tomkiewicz – more than most – should be cognizant of the inherent perils of the derogatory labelling he’s given himself licence to apply to those who don’t share his opinions.
And as a scientist, he should be ashamed of himself for recycling such unmitigated emotionally laden green-tinted drivel.
I’m a bit confused. Are all “skeptics” created equal, and none are “deniers” of AGW ?
There are skeptic people who acknowledge basic physics of AGW, but doubt that it will make much of a difference in our lives, let alone being ‘catastrophic’, as is promoted by the ‘alarmists’.
Then, there are skeptic people who want to see compelling observational evidence of anthropogenic climate change, before they accept that projections based on elementary physics in a complex system such as planet Earth’s climate system, are correct.
Then there are skeptic people who look at scientific findings that supports their beliefs, and discard other findings as coming from ‘alarmists’ with a political agenda.
And then there are skeptic people who discard any scientific evidence presented by anyone, and only believe the evidence that they themselves collected, which is pre-selected to confirm their pre-conceived belief that humans cannot make any discernible difference on this planet’s climate systems.
Now, is the term ‘skeptic’ appropriate for all of these people ?
Dr. Brown thinks not, and that there should be a distinction between ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers’, after which he immediately got engaged in an argument with people who disagree with his acceptance of the physics of AGW.
What are we to think ?
Should there be any differentiation ?
And if we can’t use the word ‘denier’ for the latter category, then what should use ? ‘ultra-skeptic’ ? ‘mega-skeptic’ ? ‘super-climate-realist’ ?
Do you think that all skeptics are created equal ?
Further to my reply to docrichard the psychiatrist above, I offer a bit of new physics I deduced yesterday. What people must remember is that the engineering data derived by the great Chemical Engineer Hoyt C. Hottell in the late 1940s at MIT are also The Key Science of the IR physics of GHG mixtures in air. These data were replicated in the 1970s by Leckner.
First a bit of background: they used a heated chamber holding the gas mixture and measured the IR emitted using a detector. Because the IR spreads from the apparatus window, the detector and the rest of the field of view of the emitter is also an IR radiator and the measured fluence is the result of equilibrium of the interior of the apparatus with part of its surroundings. This isn’t news to competent engineers but will be to climate science which clearly has very limited understanding of physics.
The observation is that above ~200 ppmV, CO2 in dry air,at ambient temperature, the emissivity asymptotes because of the well-known IR phenomenon of self-absorption. Climate science knows of this but has kept quiet about it. However, you can’t buck experimental data.
The new bit is the deduction that part or all that self-absorption is turned off when you emit IR to the gas mixture.This is an absolute certainty because self absorption is due to the shielding from the detector of IR from behind the dense unexcited molecules near the detector. If you excite these molecules from the detector direction, there must be less absorption of thermally-generated IR from the other direction.
But something else happens. The increased fluence of IR towards the Earth;’s surface as self absorption reduces fills the sites at the surface which emit the IR thus reducing surface emissivity in those bands. This is how IR is regulated by Prevost Exchange, a bit of understanding totally missed by Aarhenius and the IPCC hence the ludicrous heat transfer physics in the models.
This is how self–absorption phenomenon regulates this bit of GHG warming, making it highly non-linear. I’m doing the maths but what I expect at the end is that Hottell’s experiments already show the result in that the whole IR detector – emitter path has the maths built in because the detector was also an emitter.
The conclusion is that above ~200 ppmV CO2 in dry air at constant temperature there can be no increased GHG absorption warming no matter what CO2 concentration. So, in answer to diocruichard’s question, yes I do deny there will be extra warming from increased [CO2]. This is because the physics is clear, the process is self regulating at a low level because of the simplicity of the band structure. As you decrease temperature and reduce 14 micron absorption, this concentration will fall, minimising at ~270K.
Deniers Rule OK because we have physics on our side!
The denier term is an ad hom to distract from scientific critic.
Don’t spend to much time on this off topic?
Rob Dekker
I would say that anyone even thinking the term ‘denier’ about someone not subscribing to the ‘climate orthodoxy’ thereby implicates that there is a political agenda at work in his … ehrm … for lack of a better word … ‘reasoning’.
That is particularly obvious for people posing as scientists because derogatory labelling has no place in science, especially when trying to making or conveying an argument. It’s natural place is in quarrelling and political infighting.
You talk about ‘the physics of AGW’, even the ‘basic physics’ and it is difficult to determine what those could mean beyond very banal observations about the IR-radiative properties of the CO2 molecule. And you could argue that the A is somewhat related to it, but hardly the G or the W. At most, I think you can argue that ‘the basic physics of AGW’ pertain to the sign of the expected response to a perturbation. There are no ‘basic physics’ making any quantitative statements about this effect. And basic physics not even specifying the magnitude just aren’t!
Moreover, I think you are reading more noble purpose and differentation into Bains labelling, as well as more understanding of ‘the basic physics’ than there obviously is.
But no, the skeptics are definitely not all equal. Why should that even need to be pointed out?
Rob Dekker says: July 13, 2012 at 12:20 am
I’m not familiar with anyone who would fall into this category of skeptic. I doubt anyone matching this description exists outside your imagination. But my guess is that if anyone like this does actually exist, they are about as numerous as the group of people who think CAGW is occurring and who also molest small children.
So by your own logic, Rob Dekker, a proper and acceptable term to use when referring to you or any other CAGW proponent during discussions would be “child molester” (or perhaps just the shorter, generic “molester”).
So the question naturally follows, Rob Dekker: are you a child molester, or a denier?
The piece above that was snipped by the moderator for containing the d-word made the following argument:
Skeptical scientists like Lindzen, Spencer and Michaels all agree that the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere commits Earth to a warming of ~0.8*C. They agree because it is standard textbook physics.
The debate is over the effects on climate sensitivity – the amplification of this 0.8*C by positive feedbacks.
The skeptic hypothesis is that negative cloud feedbacks will reduce the 0.8*C increase to ~0.5*C.
The consensus climatology position is that positive feedbacks will raise the 0.8*C to ~3+*C through increased water vapour, increased cloud, albedo changes, vegetation changes, methane releases from permafrost and clathrates, and secondary CO2 releases from soil and forest fires.
There are a number of separate lines of evidence, from study of past temperature changes, that arrive independently at the ~3*C figure.
Attempts to find evidence consistent with the 0.5*C figure have been few in number, and have been found to be flawed.
The weight of evidence therefore points towards the consensus position.
A bit of explanation: in the above post, 200 ppmV CO2 means in a long physical optical path.
Hottell used Atm.ft units to scale his data. Leckner used Bar.cm. What this means is that it’s all to do with the projected areal density of the molecules. Once you get 2-D space filling, you get self-absorption and you can turn it off by shining IR from the other side.
There can be no CO2-AGW. The same principle applies to other GHGs but the spectrum complexity sets the critical concentration. The same principles apply to atomic absorption spectroscopy.
docrichards
I see that you too make claims about what ‘standard textbook physics’ should say about the earth’s climate and how it functions, fluctuates and changes in response to various (or in this case, certain) pertubations of the atmospheric composition.
This claim is in it self nonsens. What you (probably? unknowingly) refer to is the a radiative transfer calculation of an idealized 1D-system, under all-else-equal assumptions (lab-conditions)
Your talk about the large positive feedbacks is however the CAGW proffered hypothesis, but ‘line of evidence’ or ‘independent’ is wrong. There are some highly tentative, speculative models and simulations that try to argue this based on scanty and selected data, and simplified assumptions about cause and effect among those. Some call this ‘sonsensus position’. Which in it self signifies how weak and non-accepted it is. Your talk about ‘weight of evidence’ is again nonsens.
All real evidence points in one way: We are not even close to adequately, quantitatively understand the simplest things about how the climate system functions and what governs its changes.
To spare you rehashing all those and similar talkning points, which you seem to have picked up and memorized, and which readers here have seen/heard countless times, I suggest we instead turn to your alleged field of expertise:
Why do you think people so many like yourself, with an at best only very shallow understanding of the topic, and almoste none about the issues under debate, feel so strongly about one side of an issue they clearly don’t understand at all, and on top of that the side that claims to be expert on the future, and has a very poor track record on predicting things hitherto?
You are certainly not the only one attempting exactly the same approach, trying to substitue lack of understanding and knowledge with labelling and using foul language? The study under discussion is a similar example. And even published in a ‘scientific journal’, n.b. passing as so called ‘climate science’.
Why do you think so many come into the issues with only a rehearsed list of activist talking points the probably picked up at various alarmist web-sites? And think they are equipped with strong arguments?
Its the approach of a relgios follower, preaching to ‘the heretics’ that they are in denial of devine truth …
docrichard: in science, the pecking order goes: experimental data, theory, consensus.
Experiment shows IR self-absorption is complete at ~200 ppmV CO2 in 1 Atm. dry air at ambient temperature in a long physical optical path, a fact replicated by independent experiment and proved in metallurgical engineering. Climate science apparently knows of this but has invented spurious excuses to dismiss it because it interferes with the IPCC fairy tale.
The physics is the same as other optical absorption/emission phenomena, not new science: just new to climate science. The neat bit is tying it into the Prevost exchange which controls the interaction between radiating bodies. That science is totally missing from climate science which uses Victorian concepts pre-dating Planck, who by the way did not complete the work.
So, don’t tell me about Lindzen, Spencer and Michaels: I make up my own mind. Llindzen apparently believes in direct thermalisation and back radiation: he’s wrong. Spencer apparently believed the same but we have convinced him ‘back radiation’ is wrong. Michaels is the furthest from physics but appears to have a keen eye for hogwash and supremacy of experimental fact.
To summarise; my current thinking is that when a GHG is above the self-absorption concentration, IR emitted from the Earth’s surface in the specific IR bands causes increased Prevost exchange from the atmosphere in those bands to the Earth’s surface,setting a limit to that IR emission by switching off the emitter sites. This applies to all GHGs.
There can be no CO2-AGW because 200 ppmV is below the concentration at the start of the industrial era. The IPCC has got virtually every bit of physics wrong..Its worst mistake is complete failure to understand radiation physics and how this sets a limit on the energy emitted in the IR bands thus GHG warming is self limiting. If I’m wrong I expect someone to tell me!
As for past and modern warming, you really must unlearn your indoctrination. Once you’ve fixed Sagan’s incorrect aerosol optical physics it’s easy to show it’s clouds, not the GHE is responsible, Hence the Arctic is starting to cool just like it did in the 1940s, a 70 year cycle.
Consensus is a concept absent from science, the last home of rugged individualist DENIERS!.
@turnedoutnice
What a pleasure to finally meet. I work in a field dominated by enthusiastic, partially informed pseudoscience and it too needs to be overturned and set upon a new base of proper science and engineering. All it takes to gain traction is to have two or three practical experiments to go with the training classes. One is to reproduce the failure of Al Gore’s ‘proof’ and another is to perform the hot furnace experiment you describe. Another is to consider why double-pane windows have Argon in them, not CO2.
Hypo: “The radical enviros who lead the CAGW movement are a dangerous anti-human cult.”
More supporting evidence for my above hypo, written by… … DocRichard!
http://greenerblog.blogspot.ca/2010/08/image-of-stephen-hawkins-in-zero.html
A species that devastates its planet with climate change, nuclear or biological warfare does not deserve to survive. Evolution, remember? Survival of the fittest? Are we fit to survive if we destroy ourselves and our life support systems in order to maintain the profitability of oil companies, and assorted Dr Strangelove think-alikes? No, we are not. We must either alter our security paradigms, something that is quite possible, or we should accept the verdict of evolution and bow out. – Dr. Richard Lawson (aka “DocRichard”)
_______________________
Note to file: What a miserable, pessimistic, and narcissistic worldview – full of self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. Put DocRichard on Ignore List.
Note to Doc Richard: Don’t be a Dick!
@turnedoutnice
Based on the same approach, surely you can also make the same calculation for H2O vapour, yes? It has a more complex absorption spectrum but the principles still apply. I note your comment that it was done in ‘dry air’. That did not surprise me because the H2O would have interfered with the CO2 to the point of making its influence undetectable, or swamped by noise.
Hi Crispin: thermal conductivity of Ar = 0.018 W/mK, CO2 = 0.017 W/mK. I suspect Ar is used because air is 0.026 W/mK and CO2 is reactive. Your comment about H2O is spot on. I’m trying to get the data.
It’s an intriguing issue, if I am right, that the last bit of thinking about AGW is that it is self-limiting because of known physics which was waiting to be transferred from another area!
All that IPCC money wasted because the bozos in charge like Trenberth, a climate personality cult, were too poorly trained and didn’t do the right project management which is to think deeply about all possible causes and eliminate them one by one….
But who sets out to solve a problem in academic science when that shuts of the money?
@docrichard
>Skeptical scientists like Lindzen, Spencer and Michaels all agree that the CO2 that we have added to the atmosphere commits Earth to a warming of ~0.8*C. They agree because it is standard textbook physics.
Being in a textbook is not a guarantee of correctness. Different textbooks (for example those on heat transfer and insulation referred to by turnedoutnice and my favourites, the works of Prof Bejan (i.e. Convertive Heat Transfer ISBN 0-471-27150-0) have ‘different’ standard physics. One problem has been that ‘climate scientists’ have not consulted experts in the subject they claim ‘is settled’. I agree with turnedoutnice that most well informed engineers do not accept the IPCC version of climate reality, and I have never met a geologist who was not disturbed by the IPCC’s outlandish claims for the present temperature being ‘unprecedented’ and ‘dangerous’.
>The debate is over the effects on climate sensitivity – the amplification of this 0.8*C by positive feedbacks.
There is indeed debate and it is about the difference between real world experiments and modelled outputs. Even the 0.8 degrees is subject to the result of further investigation. It may turn out to be over-estimated. L, S and M do not constitute the sum of all human knowledge.
>The skeptic hypothesis is that negative cloud feedbacks will reduce the 0.8*C increase to ~0.5*C.
I am not sure why you call that a ‘skepical view.’ It is a view calculated from known physics and tested against the real world. It is not ‘calibrated’ against the real world, it is ‘real’ observations and explanatory mathematics.
>The consensus climatology position is that positive feedbacks will raise the 0.8*C to ~3+*C through increased water vapour, increased cloud, albedo changes, vegetation changes, methane releases from permafrost and clathrates, and secondary CO2 releases from soil and forest fires.
This is a modelled view and is based on come of the physics involved and not all. When compared with hte real worl the models are invalidated. The models are calibrated to past events with a number of what are called ‘fudge factors’. Personally I have no problem with fudge factors if the result is a model that predicts what happens in the real world. The failure of the models is the problem. With regard to the list of CO2 sources, you have (of course) failed to mention that the uptake of CO2 by trees on melted permafrost territory, absorption of CO2 by the soil, the increase in growth of all known plants, the mass increase in ocean plants will pull huge amounts of CO2 from the air. Further, the absoption of CO2 by newly melted ice is enormous. One ‘threat’ is that Greenland will lose all its ice, as it did before several times. If so, it will pull down the CO2 something like 200 ppm. Perhaps you can comment in this aspect of ice loss. The physics are very well known. Ice contains zero CO2 and fresh water immediately absorbs it – within seconds.
>There are a number of separate lines of evidence, from study of past temperature changes, that arrive independently at the ~3*C figure.
Please provide sources for this statement. I have not yet seen a single model output that predicts the current temperature stasis for about 15 years. I am also given to understand by others that the models cannot predict most of the 20th century if they are tuned to the previous one, nor the second half of the 20th century if they are tuned to the first half. The models are interesting but they have not demonstrated the skill needed to believe their 50 or 100 year forecasts.
>Attempts to find evidence consistent with the 0.5*C figure have been few in number, and have been found to be flawed.
Do you speak of flaws as large as the flaw in the +3 degree models, i.e. failure by IPCC approved models to make any valid predictions at all? If so, then they stand on equally soggy ground.
>The weight of evidence therefore points towards the consensus position.
There is a) no weight of evidence, there is only the output of models th eoutput of which does not conform to reality and b) no consensus position. The models, inaccurate and unskilled as they are, do not agree within a factor of 6. In my line or work a disagreement of 600% across a range of methods is not considered ‘skillful’ nor ‘a consensus’. Surveying a thousand armchair quarterbacks does not improve a football team’s performance.
Allan MacRae wrote:
“Put DocRichard on Ignore List.”
Docrichard’s “[humanity] does not deserve to survive” statement caught my eye as well. I agree some of his writing does appear to be “radical” and “anti-human.” But I think it is wrong to ignore him or not to attempt to engage him in debate. Unfortunately, similar views are held by many environmental “activists”. He is not exceptional in that regard but he is exceptional in posting on WUWT. Very few warmist even make the attempt to debate. As much as I disagree with him, I do not think we should shun him.
Crispin, you seem to believe that climate science consists only of modelling. It does not. Evidence for climate sensitivity can be calculated from changes in the earth’s energy budget from investigations into paleoclimatology, Ocean heat uptake, solar cycles, changes over the last century, and volcanoes.
The fact is that models point to the same value as these investigations.
Models are tested by hindcasting – that is, by setting them running with data from a historic starting point and seeing how close they come to the observed record. More here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
You say “‘skepical view.’ It is a view calculated from known physics and tested against the real world. ” This seems to contradict what you say in your second paragraph.
docrichard says:
“The skeptic hypothesis is that negative cloud feedbacks will reduce the 0.8*C increase to ~0.5*C.”
Wrong. That may be the view of some individuals. But there is no “skeptic hypothesis”. Skeptics have nothing to prove. The onus is entirely on the alarmist crowd’s conjecture: that CO2=CAGW. But there is zero scientific evidence supporting that nonsense. Next, docrichard says:
“The consensus climatology position is that positive feedbacks will raise the 0.8*C to ~3+*C through increased water vapour, increased cloud, albedo changes, vegetation changes, methane releases from permafrost and clathrates, and secondary CO2 releases from soil and forest fires. There are a number of separate lines of evidence, from study of past temperature changes, that arrive independently at the ~3*C figure.”
Wrong again. ‘docrichard’ has no understanding of the scientific term “evidence”, which specifically refers to empirical, testable data, not pal rviewed papers, or computer models, which are not evidence. Thus, docrichard’s ignorant comment:
“Attempts to find evidence consistent with the 0.5*C figure have been few in number, and have been found to be flawed.”
Wrong a third time. The real world is falsifying the conjecture that CO2 is causing a rapid rise in global temperatures. For the past 15 years, global temperatures have been flat to declining. Thus, any effect from rising CO2 is minuscule. It is, in fact, too small to measure.
The fact is that there is zero evidence supporting the UN/IPCC’s preposterous 2xCO2=3ºC. None. It is a baseless, wild-eyed conjecture with no supporting evidence in the real world. As harmless, beneficial CO2 rises, global temperatures are not following, as they certainly would have to if sensitivity was anywhere near that high.
Finally, docrichard falls back on the typical – and provably wrong – appeal to authority:
“The weight of evidence therefore points towards the consensus position.”
I have shown docmartin that there exists no such “evidence”. The alarmist “consensus” is a canard. Now I will educate docmartin: any putative ‘consensus’ is entirely on the side of scientific skeptics. More than 31,400 professionals with degrees in the hard sciences [no psychiatrists allowed], including more than 9,000 PhD’s have co-signed the following statement:
The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
That is the true consensus. The alarmist crowd subsequently tried to get a like number of co-signers on several of their competing petitions. They failed badly. All of their attempts put together totaled but a small fraction of the number of OISM’s co-signers [and most of the same names were on all the different alarmist petitions].
There is no “consensus” that CO2 is harmful. In fact, CO2 is harmless and beneficial to the biosphere, as the OISM Petition makes clear. Skeptical scientists [the only honest kind of scientists] reject the CO2 scare, which is motivated by grant money, not science.
The page here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm has an interesting set of three graphs, imaging the model results when models are run with natural variation only, anthropogenic forcing only, and both combined. The best fit occurs when the two are combined.