National Academy of Science demands equal access to the climate trough for geoengineering

“…the time has come to look at options for a planetary-scale intervention…”

feeding-troughGuest essay by Eric Worrall

The National Academy of Science has demanded that scientists from disciplines other than climate modelling get a fair turn at the grant trough.

According to The Guardian;

“Climate change has advanced so rapidly that the time has come to look at options for a planetary-scale intervention, the National Academy of Science said on Tuesday.

The scientists were categorical that geoengineering should not be deployed now, and was too risky to ever be considered an alternative to cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. But it was better to start research on such unproven technologies now – to learn more about their risks – than to be stampeded into climate-shifting experiments in an emergency, the scientists said.

With that, a once-fringe topic in climate science moved towards the mainstream – despite the repeated warnings from the committee that cutting carbon pollution remained the best hope for dealing with climate change.

“That scientists are even considering technological interventions should be a wake-up call that we need to do more now to reduce emissions, which is the most effective, least risky way to combat climate change,” Marcia McNutt, the committee chair and former director of the US Geological Survey, said.

Asked whether she foresaw a time when scientists would eventually turn to some of the proposals studied by the committee, she said: “Gosh, I hope not.”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/10/geoengineering-should-not-be-used-as-a-climate-fix-yet-says-us-science-academy

I can understand Marcia’s point – it might be fun to build a doomsday machine, but you probably wouldn’t want to switch it on.

But the frustration of Physicists, Engineers and Chemistry majors is obvious and understandable – in my opinion they’re simply demanding that they get fair access to the climate trough, rather than seeing all the money, women, swanky holiday outings and the fancy new offices, go to the climate muddlers.

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Alex
February 11, 2015 12:09 pm

The NAS does this even as the Climate Emperor sheds the last of his fictitious clothes (i.e. the “pause”-er- shelf). What a sad testimony to the power of corruption and institutional inertia.

Reply to  Alex
February 11, 2015 2:05 pm

Every Tuesday. You can even sign up to get the announcements on all these panels and conferences designed to justify government intrusion into every aspect of life.

Jimbo
Reply to  Alex
February 11, 2015 10:26 pm

IF these folks are really into looking at reducing / slowing down our co2 output then why not plant more trees and promote research into greater energy efficiency? There are parts of the world that used to be covered in trees; were later turned into farms that have now been abandoned. Use those areas to re-plant trees. As always follow THEIR MONEY.
On a related issue do keep a close eye on anyone proposing to use geoengineering schemes – they may have a special interest, ie ready to get paid for schemes they propose and stocks in any companies created. Just look at some climate scientists and their business interests – carbon this and carbon that.

Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 6:29 am

Right. The Altiplano was once forest. Seems potato growers burned all the trees. Introduced eucalyptus grows fast there Now quinoa is on the rise. –AGF

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 8:09 am
Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 9:46 am

Everybody benefits from something. Fossil fuel companies benefit greatly when we do nothing.
But I am pleased that we agree completely on the idea of re-forestation.

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 2:44 pm

Sir Harry Flashman
February 12, 2015 at 9:46 am
Everybody benefits from something. Fossil fuel companies benefit greatly when we do nothing.

\
Fossil fuel companies benefit greatly no matter what you think or execute. India, China, Africa consume fossil fuels to raise their people’s living standards. How well off are you? Are you Indian, Chinese or African? If not then please do not reply otherwise I will catch you in my trap…………………………again. Shhhhh all that humbugary!

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 2:49 pm

Furthermore Larry, here are the folks that also BENEFIT when fossil fuel companied DO SOMETHING…………………..like hand out money. What do you have to say about this??? Can I call this hypocrisy? Look in the mirror and look at the log in their eyes.
Fossil fuel funded climate change and green bodies(25 of them)

July 9, 2013
200 Climate Campaign Groups All Funded by a Single Source
Source: The Rockefeller Brothers
………350.org…Friends of the Earth…..Greenpeace Fund…Grist Magazine Inc……Sierra Club…..Union of Concerned Scientists…

Flashman, please don’t rub me up the wrong way. I have lot’s more to say but I will be kind today.

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 13, 2015 2:28 am

Sir Harry Flashman
February 12, 2015 at 9:46 am
Everybody benefits from something. Fossil fuel companies benefit greatly when we do nothing.
But I am pleased that we agree completely on the idea of re-forestation.

Sometimes I do wish you would take your blinkers off Sir Harry. No read and smell the latte cafe. Oil companies benefit no matter what we do or don’t do. Oil companies have been experimenting with pumping co2 into oil wells for over 40 years – it’s called enhanced oil recovery. Even if the USA and Europe shunned petroleum completely there is a growing market in India, China, Africa etc. as more and more people own cars etc. Now read on….

2013
Obama’s Carbon-Capture Plan For Coal Plants Has Dirty Trade-Off; Oil Production
DE KALB, Miss. (AP) — America’s newest, most expensive coal-fired power plant is hailed as one of the cleanest on the planet, thanks to government-backed technology that removes carbon dioxide and keeps it out of the atmosphere.
But once the carbon is stripped away, it will be used to do something that is not so green at all.
It will extract oil…………
To help the environment, the government allows power companies to sell the carbon dioxide to oil companies, which pump it into old oil fields to force more crude to the surface. A side benefit is that the carbon gets permanently stuck underground.
The program shows the ingenuity of the oil industry, which is using government green-energy money to subsidize oil production.

http://oilprice.com/The-Environment/Global-Warming/The-17.6-Trillion-Solution-To-Climate-Change.html

Jimbo
Reply to  Alex
February 11, 2015 11:49 pm

The NAS has someone called Ken Caldeira sittting on it. Read about this climate scientist HERE. He has business interests tied to Bill Gates in geoengineering ventures. He gets paid over $300,000 a year from Gates as well as holding patents in geoengineering solutions. Ken has been an IPCC contributing author in recent years too.
More here.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering
FOLLOW THE MONEY ALRIGHT! >>>>>>>>>>>>

hsaive
Reply to  Alex
February 12, 2015 2:41 am

[Please do not discuss chemtrails here, per site Policy. — mod.]

Jimbo
Reply to  hsaive
February 12, 2015 2:54 am

It means that the climate is already being altered by jet aircraft “dumping aerosols into the upper atmosphere”. The issue about geoengineering is the DELIBERATE alteration of the climate. I have mentioned this already downstream.
hsaive, how many times have you flown by plane in the last 10 years? Do you promise not to fly by plane as from today?
Do some research on iron sulfate and algal blooms and red tides and oxygen and sunlight. Then tell me about how life below sea level will prosper.
http://www.livescience.com/24025-illegal-iron-dumping-phytoplankton-bloom.html

Rowland Pantling (UK)
Reply to  hsaive
February 12, 2015 12:06 pm

And see http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org which shows that the poisoning of the atmosphere and consequently the Earth has been going on for some time and it needs to be STOPPED!

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Rowland Pantling (UK)
February 12, 2015 2:19 pm

And see http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org which shows that the poisoning of the atmosphere and consequently the Earth has been going on for some time and it needs to be STOPPED!
What poisoning?
The recent release of CO2 to fertilize plants?
The terrible smoke pollution in China that Oboma wants to increase for dozens of more years?
The terrible oil pollution in Russia and China and the deadly coal mines of China that Oboma wants to continue?

February 11, 2015 12:16 pm

I can understand Marcia’s point – it might be fun to build a doomsday machine, but you probably wouldn’t want to switch it on.

It would be wise to first build a Constellation Class starship to blow up in it’s guts before it was switched on…just in case. 😎
http://www.ask.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_%28Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series%29?o=2801&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com

asybot
February 11, 2015 12:18 pm

Please keep giving it the “climatologists” at least they can’t do any damage I can just imagine a “bacteria” that eats C02 to slow down “Global Warming”. Nut cases like Gore would probably fund it . Lets NOT go there.

skorrent1
Reply to  asybot
February 11, 2015 12:25 pm

No. Gore would be selling the stock of the company that is researching the bacteria.

Reply to  asybot
February 11, 2015 12:30 pm

Well, her name could hardly be more appropriate – McNutt!

Reply to  asybot
February 11, 2015 12:42 pm

Don’t they call that plankton?

Reply to  asybot
February 11, 2015 4:12 pm

Er, it’s called blue-green algae. We have that already.

Donb
Reply to  asybot
February 11, 2015 7:09 pm

We have living organisms that “eat” CO2. They’re called plants.

Anything is possible
February 11, 2015 12:20 pm

Geoengineering. What could possibly go wrong?
https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.608047793387932401&pid=15.1&P=0

starzmom
Reply to  Anything is possible
February 12, 2015 7:34 am

Back in the 1970s, the geo-engineering types were seriously discussing building a dam across the Bering Strait to keep all that cold Arctic water and ice up in the Arctic Ocean, to slow our descent into another ice age.

Shinku
Reply to  Anything is possible
February 13, 2015 6:10 am

So you watched Snowpiercer lately? 😀 I would rather have Waterworld than Iceworld anyday.

Latitude
February 11, 2015 12:20 pm

Climate change has advanced so rapidly …..by standing still
So the very people that are complaining about man’s effect on the planet….are going to invent ways for man to just control it completely…while they are all pissing and moaning about GMO’s

Tom J
Reply to  Latitude
February 11, 2015 12:56 pm

‘Climate change has advanced so rapidly …..by standing still’
She’s conflating climate change with climate change funding: something I think we can all certainly agree has indeed advanced rapidly – to the detriment of all.

Stephen Richards
February 11, 2015 12:23 pm

These guys are too slow or too honest but have finally decided to throw off their principles and go for the money.

Reply to  Stephen Richards
February 11, 2015 8:07 pm

Yes, they have finally found where the big taxpayer is…

Jimbo
Reply to  Stephen Richards
February 11, 2015 10:41 pm

Climastrologists are hopeless at predictions. Here is one prediction from a politician over 50 years ago. Join the dots and learn from history.
The above linked Guardian article says:

“Climate change has advanced so rapidly that work must start on unproven technologies now, admits US National Academy of Science

The US National Academy of Science says:

National Academy of Science
The federal government funds about 85 percent of our work.”

In his Farewell address to the nation President Eisenhower said:

Eisenhower‘s Farewell Address to the Nation – January 17, 1961
……In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. …..

Reply to  Jimbo
February 12, 2015 10:01 am

“.. danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
I do believe it is the other way around: The scientific-technological elite has become the captive of public policy.

Jimbo
Reply to  Stephen Richards
February 11, 2015 11:15 pm

A day after the Guardian article we see this from the Guardian written by a climate scientist named Ken Caldeira.

Guardian – 11 February 2015 15
Climate engineering: it could be a money-making opportunity for business
The longer we take to tackle climate change, the more likely we are to need climate intervention technologies. That may yet be a viable business opportunity, says Ken Caldeira
[Ken Caldeira is a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University]
………..Small start-up companies, such as Carbon Engineering and Climeworks, are attempting to develop technologies that could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in centralised facilities. …….

Feb 26, 2013
Ken has ties to some of these ventures as well as having a seat on the NAS. He promotes geoengineering ideas that he could profit from while having sat on the IPCC and the US National Academy of Sciences. He is dispensing advice and I see a conflict of interest. Do you?

How Bill Gates is engineering the Earth to resist climate change
….Gates is also an investor in Carbon Engineering Ltd, a start-up company formed by David Keith to develop technology to capture carbon dioxide from ambient air on an industrial scale. In addition to advising Gates and dispensing his research funds, Ken Caldeira is linked to Gates through a firm known as Intellectual Ventures, formed by former Microsoft employees and led by Nathan Myhrvold, one-time chief technology officer at Microsoft. Caldeira is listed as an —inventor“ at Intellectual Ventures. Lowell Wood, once Myhrvold‘s academic mentor, retired from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2007 to team up with Intellectual Ventures. Gates is an investor.
The company, whose motto is —inventors have the power to change the world“, has developed the —StratoShield“, a hose suspended by blimps in the sky to deliver sulphate aerosols. The device is marketed as —a practical, low-cost way to reverse catastrophic warming of the Arctic – or the entire planet“. Intellectual Ventures has patented several geoengineering concepts, including an ocean pump for bringing cold seawater to the surface. That patent lists Caldeira, Myhrvold and Gates as inventors…..
http://www.sauberer-himmel.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Bill-Gates-is-backing-David-Keith-and-Ken-Caldeira-to-geoengineer-the-earth-extract.pdf

Guardian – 6 February 2012
Caldeira says he receives $375,000 a year from Gates, holds a carbon capture patent and works for Intellectual Ventures, a private geoegineering research company part-owned by Gates and run by Nathan Myhrvold, former head of technology at Microsoft.

—-

Ken Caldeira’s bio page
Caldeira serves on the U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel on Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts. He is also a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira_bio.html

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 11, 2015 11:17 pm

CORRECTION:
The date “Feb 26, 2013” should appear on top of the second of my blockquotes.
Feb 26, 2013
“How Bill Gates is engineering the Earth to resist climate change…..”

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
February 11, 2015 11:20 pm

Now you see why I don’t listen to climate scientists promoting geoengineering. They have a conflict of interest and follow the money. Why should I agree to their proposals? If Ken worked in the stock exchange he would be in hot water.

FerdinandAkin
February 11, 2015 12:29 pm

Standard warning:
If it is not broken, do not fix it.

JJM Gommers
February 11, 2015 12:47 pm

Suzanne Goldenberg(Guardian) keeps the pressure on the cooker, Doomsday is near. The silent majority has to be brainwashed for support and the money.

Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 12:48 pm

Or maybe, per Occams’ Razor, everybody just recognizes that this is a huge problem.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 1:06 pm

SHF:
Since more than 32,000 scientists and engineers have stated in writing and by name that human CO2 emissions are most likely not a problem, and in fact are beneficial, then there is something wrong with your statement: either “everybody” is wrong, or “a huge problem” is wrong.
Which?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  dbstealey
February 11, 2015 1:19 pm

We’ve had this conversation before. The Oregon Petition that I assume you’re referring to is widely known among the reality-based community to be a hoax and a joke. if you’re talking about something else, by all means reference it and we can have that conversation.
Either way, the idea that tens of thousands of scientists are somehow being bought into supporting AGW is laughable, considering all the money lies on the other side with fossil fuel companies and their shills. Even the Koch brothers pet skeptic scientist, who was hired to disprove AGW, came away from his research acknowledging he’d been wrong.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0730/Prominent-climate-change-denier-now-admits-he-was-wrong-video

Admin
Reply to  dbstealey
February 11, 2015 3:20 pm

Thats what PBS thought when they randomly produced a signature of support for the Oregon Petition on a documentary, while dissing the quality of the scientists who signed the Oregon Petition. Unfortunately the signature they pulled out at random was Edward Teller, one of the lead scientists in the Manhattan Project, otherwise known as the father of the Hydrogen Bomb.
PBS apparently tried to cover up their embarrassment with a rather desperate post production hack, blurring out the signature of one of the most distinguished scientists in American history.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/25/why-did-pbs-frontline-electronically-alter-the-signature-of-one-of-the-worlds-most-distinguished-physicists-in-their-report-climate-of-doubt/

Mac the Knife
Reply to  dbstealey
February 11, 2015 4:05 pm

We’ve had this conversation before. The reality based community recognizes there has been no global warming for +18 years. The reality based community recognizes global warming and cooling as natural cycles.
In the face of no ‘threat’, you have only fear mongering and the profligate waste of taxpayer dollars supporting your discredited AGW hypothesis. But don’t let reality stop you, Shaman. Keep shaking your gourd rattle and decrying humanity’s industrial ‘original sin’ as the cause of ‘impending doom’.

nutso fasst
Reply to  dbstealey
February 11, 2015 6:27 pm

Flashman:
Richard Muller was “hired” by the Kochs to “disprove AGW?” If funded = “hired” then there have been a lot more researchers hired to prove AGW.
The Kochs fund a lot of research, most of it medical. Muller talked them into funding Berkeley Earth, after which he became a believer. He and his daughter Elizabeth now profit from concern about warming.
In an interview after Muller’s conversion, Elizabeth said she and father consider Anthony Watts and his team “heroes” for their work on station siting issues.
Jealous of Muller’s opinion pieces in the NYTimes, Michael Mann wrote in HuffPo that Muller is ignorant about climate science because he still doesn’t believe in Mann’s hockey stick.
That “all the money lies on the other side with fossil fuel companies and their shills” is laughable. In the runup to the failure to pass the 2009 carbon cap and trade bill, environmental groups outspent the bill’s opponents by $139 million. (It helped proponents fundraising, of course, that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the bill would have been Goldman Sachs.) 90% of news and opinion articles in the NYTimes, WaPo, and CNN favored passage of the bill.

KevinK
Reply to  dbstealey
February 11, 2015 8:31 pm

This is directed at both Mr. Stealey and Sir Harry,
I signed that petition several years ago and I CAN ASSURE you that my informed opinion as a skilled engineer with many successful designs utilizing “radiation physics” under my belt that my opinion and that of many others was NOT A HOAX. I will gladly sign such a petition again with ever firmer conviction this time that CO2 emissions is NOT NOW AND NEVER HAS BEEN A PROBLEM.
“Geoengineering” is a complete farce and anybody that wastes taxpayer money on it should be tarred and feathered BEFORE they get the chance to “flip the switch”.
Once the “bright engineers” at Google ™ took a look at “renewable energy” they quickly found that the energy expended (with the associated CO2 emissions) to “replace” fossil fuels would far outweigh any “savings” in CO2 emissions.
Likewise all of these harebrained geoengineering schemes have the same problem multiplied by several orders of magnitude. Even if injecting sulfur into the atmosphere “could” correct the alleged “AGW problem” the infrastructure costs and energy needed would make it a self defeating proposition. Every Joule of heating prevented would require 10 Joules of energy consumed (with all the evil CO2 emissions, of course).
Oh, and the chances that the governments of all the countries with expensive space-borne assets (weather satellites, GPS, Communication, Imaging, etc.) would let somebody launch a bunch of free flying (ie uncontrollable) mirrors into space to eventually SHRED all of those assets on impact is smaller than the chances of a “climate treaty”.
It is a FARCE, written large. The good news is they can never purchase enough of the necessary materials to even attempt this. There is not enough production capacity (factories) to produce enough aluminum or glass to make enough mirrors to launch into space to “control the sunshine”.
It might actually be a bit easier to reverse the rotational direction of the Earth by getting everybody to drive/fly in only one direction for a month, or two. “My grandmother, at the age of 90 starting walking 5 miles everyday, now nobody has any idea where the heck she is” (not my joke I forget the original author, but full credit to Him/Her is due).
Cheers, KevinK.

Rowland Pantling (UK)
Reply to  dbstealey
February 12, 2015 12:16 pm

With reference to KevinK’s comments, geo-engineering has been widespread for many years with appalling consequences that are already being identified. See http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org

Reply to  dbstealey
February 12, 2015 3:51 pm

Kevin K,
Recently I tried to sign the petition. I sent it in but my name didn’t appear, and I never heard anything back from them. So I sent an email to Noah at the site, but again I never received any reply.
I don’t think they’re taking more co-signers, mainly because the petitition was directed to the U.S. government prior to the proposed 1997 Kyoto Protocol [which failed, in part due to the opetition]. The petition language makes it that clear that the intent was to derail Kyoto.
You are correct, the CO2 scare is a farce. But the petition was very serious — so serious that the alarmist crowd has gone out of their way to try to destroy it. It drives them crazy to see that more than 32,000 scientists and engineers do not buy their ‘carbon’ scare. As the Flashman says:
The Oregon Petition that I assume you’re referring to is widely known among the reality-based community to be a hoax and a joke.
In fact, it was not a joke. The OISM site lists the name of every co-signer, and it includes more than 9,000 PhD’s. As with any list of tens of thousands of names, there were a few hoaxes. But those fake names were quickly weeded out in the vetting process. Also, there were a few examples of common names [Jim Smith, etc.], in which another person of the same name protested that he had never signed. That, too, was vetted.
The true “consensus” that alarmists are always claiming, is actually heavily on the side of scientific skeptics. I have repeatedly challenged alarmists to produce a named list of even 10% of the OISM numbers, contradicting their statement. No one ever responds. Then I challenged them to produce just one percent of the OISM’s numbers — about 300 names. Again, no response.
Clearly, the consensus regarding CO2 is on the side of skeptics. Maybe Flashman didn’t know that before he commented. But he knows it now.

mpainter
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 1:06 pm

What problem, pray tell?
Seriously, would you care to give specifics, flash man? Without the usual alarmist hype?
Repeat, what problem?

ChrisDinBristol
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 1:12 pm

Or maybe, per Ockham’s Razor, natural factors are the major influence on earth’s climate, which might explain why a definitive CO2 signal has never been empirically demonstrated (despite near 30 years of trying).
Or maybe, per recent surveys, most people either rrealise this, or simply aren’t that interested.
Or maybe, per usual, you are misrepresenting the real world. Perhaps you should review definitions of the words ‘everybody’ and ‘huge’.

ChrisDinBristol
Reply to  ChrisDinBristol
February 11, 2015 1:16 pm

oops-type on rrealise. (Talking to SHF, of course, in case of any confusion)

DaveS
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 1:15 pm

No they don’t.

CodeTech
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 2:05 pm

Definitely an inappropriate and erroneous use of Occam’s Razor…

DonM
Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 2:17 pm

You got to it before me ….
Why is the “Occam’s Razor” so appealing to people that don’t understand it (and have probably only seen it in its simplified paraphrase)?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 5:01 pm

I knew everyone was gonna jump on the Occam’s Razor thing, that’s what I love about wikipedia – it makes everyone a genius. But in fact it’s entirely appropriate – AGW requires far and away the fewest assumptions to explain the current changes in the planet’s climate, since there are no natural forcings that can account for them. That’s why “skeptics” spend so much time parsing tiny data points in mostly fruitless attempts to deny it’s happening, or to find other mechanisms to explain it, or to admit it’s happening but call it harmless. Or to do all three, even though the ideas are mutually contradictory, which is possibly the most comical thing about the convoluted web of pseudo-science and conspiracy theory that is the denier echo-verse.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 8:45 pm

What recent changes in the world’s global average temperature anomaly?
It’s been 18 years of rising CO2… and no change in temperature.
Before that, CO2 rose, and temperature rose a little bit.
Before that, CO2 rose, and temperatures were steady.
Before that, CO2 rose, and temperatures fell.
Before that, CO2 was steady, and temperatures were steady.
Before that, CO2 was steady, and temperatures rose – just as much as now.
before that, CO2 was steady, and temperatures fell.
The old Occam’s razor is slicing your theory to little itty bits.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 6:07 pm

SHF says:
AGW requires far and away the fewest assumptions to explain the current changes in the planet’s climate, since there are no natural forcings that can account for them.
Of course, you are talking about your own planet, not Planet Earth. Because the simplest explanation by far is natural variability, which requires no assumptions or extraneous variables like CO2 or methane.
You’re just talking through your hat, asserting that there are no natural forcings to account for observations. The real truth is that there is no verifiable evidence showing that anthropogenic CO2 has any effect. [It may. But if so, the effect is far too minuscule to measure.]
There are no data points to parse with natural variability. There is no magic gas required in the simplest explanation. If I’m wrong about that, the onus is on you to show where, using empirical, terstable measurements. But as we know, you ain’t got nothin’ there. Because there are no measurements of AGW, not even one.
The fact is, Flash, that you are despearately grasping at straws. Every sentence in your comment above is nothing but a baseless assertion, with a dash of Appeal to Authority and ad hominem fallacies thrown in.
You certainly don’t understand Occam’s Razor, or the climate Null Hypothesis, or even the Scientific Method. If you did, you wouldn’t make fatuous comments like you just did.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  dbstealey
February 12, 2015 6:16 am

I’m pretty sure noone in these comment sections understand Null Hypothesis.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 6:52 pm

dbstealey,

There are no data points to parse with natural variability. There is no magic gas required in the simplest explanation. If I’m wrong about that, the onus is on you to show where, using empirical, terstable measurements.

No, not really because your argument is self-refuting. Hint: the magical thinking is in the first sentence, not the second.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 7:28 pm

Ok SHF, I haven’t been reading WUWT as regularly lately and have missed your arrival.
I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing here, but believe me when I say, you should stop. If you think you’re representing your “side”, you’re actually just making alarmists look bad. If you think you’re “educating” skeptics, I haven’t seen you post anything verifiable, science-based, or even very intelligent.
My recommendation for you is to quietly read and learn things. As long as you keep posting as you are, more believers will begin to understand why skeptics are more knowledgeable. You’re not exactly covering yourself with glory here.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 11, 2015 8:03 pm

Nice try, Gates, but you’re starting to sound like Trenberth: “…the onus must be placed on skeptics…”
No. Runaway global warming and climate catastrophe are your conjectures. Skeptics simply say, “Show us.” Provide convincing evidence that your conjecture has merit.
But so far all you’ve done is tap-dance around your lack of empirical evidence, and obfuscate. The onus is on you to support your MMGW beliefs.
The reason you try to put the onus on skeptics is because you have no credible evidence. All your comments demonstrate that lack of solid evidence. What’s more, Planet Earth has been busy debunking the MMGW belief for almost twenty years now [I’ll give you 10, if you can’t handle 18].
Most people will go with what the planet is clearly telling us. And if the planet begins to heat up again, I will reassess the situation; maybe change my mind by 180º, if new evidence appears.
But in the mean time, skeptics have won the debate. Why is it impossible for you to admit that? Is your sensitive ego so important to you? Seems so. What else could it be? It can’t be evidence. Because you have none.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 6:44 am

dbstealey,

Nice try, Gates, but you’re starting to sound like Trenberth: “…the onus must be placed on skeptics…”

Nice try, Stealey, but you assume the burden of proof with statements such as, “Because the simplest explanation by far is natural variability, which requires no extraneous variables like CO2 or methane.” Parsimony is only useful for forming efficient hypotheses. They must still be tested. Until you do that, invoking “natural variability” is magical thinking, which is a no-no in science.

The reason you try to put the onus on skeptics is because you have no credible evidence. All your comments demonstrate that lack of solid evidence.

The circularity is dizzying. A wise man once said something about casting pearls before swine.

And if the planet begins to heat up again, I will reassess the situation; maybe change my mind by 180º, if new evidence appears.

And maybe pigs will sprout wings and fly.

But in the mean time, skeptics have won the debate.

Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it not a pig.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 10:35 am

Gates says:
…you assume the burden of proof…
Wrong, as usual.
Your basic premise/conjecture is that a rise in anthropogenic CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. The onus is on those who believe that. You are one of them, Gates.
Skeptics do not ‘assume the burden of proof’, no matter how much you wish it. Skeptics simply say, “Show us in a convincing way that your conjecture is valid.”
You have failed to do that. All you have is your baseles conjecture. So now you are at the point of trying to blame skeptics for your failure. That won’t work here; we know better.
Natural variability is the default position. There is nothing occurring now that has not happened before, and to a much greater degree. Nothing has changed. Natural variability is still the reason for all observations, and there is no need for an extraneous variable like your magic gas to explain anything.
As Prof Lindzen says, there is no need for any other explanation. Heat moving through the massive oceans fully accounts for the tenths of a degree fluctuations being observed. Nothing is in stasis, as you seem to believe would be the case without human emissions.
If CO2 causes any warming, which it might, it is simply too minuscule to measure. Therefore, CO2 emissions can be completely disregarded for all policy purposes.
The carbon scare is going down, and nothing you and your pals write can stop that now. The scare has run its course. It will take time, just like heat moving through the oceans. But it is over.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 2:45 pm

dbstealey,

Your basic premise/conjecture is that a rise in anthropogenic CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.

That is not my position.

Skeptics do not ‘assume the burden of proof’, no matter how much you wish it. Skeptics simply say, “Show us in a convincing way that your conjecture is valid.”

Except “skeptics” do not simply say that. Here’s an example you wrote from above:
Since more than 32,000 scientists and engineers have stated in writing and by name that human CO2 emissions are most likely not a problem, and in fact are beneficial, then there is something wrong with your statement: either “everybody” is wrong, or “a huge problem” is wrong.
That’s a claim. Your burden of proof.

There is nothing occurring now that has not happened before, and to a much greater degree.

Oh look, another claim. Again, you assume the burden of proof.

Heat moving through the massive oceans fully accounts for the tenths of a degree fluctuations being observed.

Oh look, another claim. Again, you assume the burden of proof.

If CO2 causes any warming, which it might, it is simply too minuscule to measure.

Oh look, another claim. Again, you assume the burden of proof.

Therefore, CO2 emissions can be completely disregarded for all policy purposes.

And finally a conclusion reached on the basis of unsubstantiated claims. Any more stupidly silly lies like, “Skeptics do not ‘assume the burden of proof’, no matter how much you wish it,” you’d care to share with us, DB?

Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 4:24 pm

Gates says:
That’s a claim. Your burden of proof.
That has been proven so many times that only a religious True Believer like you would still refuse to accept it.
Next, regarding the climate Null Hypothesis:
Oh look, another claim.
Go argue with Dr. Roy Spencer, who wrote that “the null hypothesis has never been falsified”. Dr. Spencer has the credibility that you lack.
Next, regarding the long quote I posted by Prof. Richard Lindzen:
Oh look, another claim.
That is such a lame response that it can be completely disregarded without further comment.
Next, regarding my statement that “If CO2 causes any warming, which it might, it is simply too minuscule to measure,” Gates says:
Oh look, another claim.
Produce a verifiable, testable measurement showing the fraction of global warming that is AGW, and I’ll concede the point. I’ve asked repeatedly, but you never post any testable measurements. If you could quantify AGW out of total global warming, you would be Nature and Science journals Poster Boy of the Decade. But of course, you can’t do it. So far, no one has been able to produce an empirical, testable measurement specifically quantifying AGW.
And as I stated: “Skeptics do not ‘assume the burden of proof’, no matter how much you wish it.” That is still the case. Wishing won’t make it so. Desperately wishing won’t make it so, either.
Gates, you don’t even understand how the Scientific Method works. Obviously. AGW is your conjecture. Skeptics have no burden to prove anything. Trying to explain reality to you is like trying to teach a dog trigonometry. Frustrating, and a complete waste of time.
You live in your own strange and irrational world, Gates. Have you noticed that no one seems to agree with you here? Being flat wrong about everything doesn’t make you another Einstein, arguing with the Russian Academy. It only makes you an iconoclast.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 5:44 pm

dbstealey,

That has been proven so many times that only a religious True Believer like you would still refuse to accept it.

Vintage unintentional hilarity.

Go argue with Dr. Roy Spencer, who wrote that “the null hypothesis has never been falsified”. Dr. Spencer has the credibility that you lack.

Shirley you’re not appealing to authority now are you? Nawww … Real “Skeptics” don’t do that.

Next, regarding the long quote I posted by Prof. Richard Lindzen:

Well I don’t know. Two appeals to experts in a row. Are you sure you’re really a “skeptic”?

Produce a verifiable, testable measurement showing the fraction of global warming that is AGW, and I’ll concede the point.

Been down that road with you before. You know direct measurements are not possible. All we have are estimates. You snark, “guesstimates” and declare victory. Except you don’t really require measurements for your so-called “science”, else you wouldn’t write such thoroughly illogical self-refuting bullcrap as: There are no data points to parse with natural variability.
Aaaaaabsolutely priceless.

Have you noticed that no one seems to agree with you here?

Science isn’t a popularity contest according to you, anti-consensus boi. Consistent much?

Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 6:51 pm

Flashman says:
I’m pretty sure noone in these comment sections understand Null Hypothesis.
“noone”?? Better watch out, rodmol will give you a spelling lesson.
anyway, I understand the Null Hypothesis. We’ve discussed it here for the past couple of years. Many others here understand it, too. So if you would like a fairly short definition, just ask. This is where you can really learn things. But you have to ask.
===================
rodmol says:
…Gates has you beat.
In what way? Gates doesn’t even understand the scientific method’s hierarchy.
You have to be more specific than that. I understand you’re probably miffed because you were set straight regarding your grammar critique, but a drive-by comment like that is immature. Admit it: you’re just trying to get even for being wrong.
====================
Someone hand Gates a hanky. He’s gone into projection mode, poor boy. His tantrums indicate that he’s run out of any arguments, credible or not.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 6:58 pm

“In what way? ”

1) He is more knowledgeable than you. He has more exposure to the subject matter than you.
2) He has a better command of the English language than you
3) His posts are enlightening, yours are boringly repetitious
He has you beat

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  rodmol@virginmedia.com
February 12, 2015 7:39 pm

No.
Yes, in your opinion, “he” has “has you beat”.
But, on a weighted average of “your opinion” and infinity, I don’t care what your opinion is. I “care” only what the facts are. But, as a writer, I need only care about the accuracy of the information transferred. And you, sir, are proving an impediment in the transfer of both knowledge and information. Which are two different things.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 8:14 pm

rodmol@virginmedia.com,

3) His posts are enlightening, yours are boringly repetitious

Well thanks. I’m afraid the only illumination I can provide when talking to Smokescreen Stealey is the sort that happens when one flicks on the kitchen light for a midnight snack and observes the roaches scurrying for the floorboards. Damnable thing about it is, they come right back out when the lights go off as if nothing had ever happened. The boring repetition isn’t great, but the dreary predictability can be useful.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 12, 2015 8:46 pm

R. Molyneux <–[actually, the sockpuppet 'David Socrates'] says:
1) He is more knowledgeable than you. He has more exposure to the subject matter than you.
Flat wrong, socks, and how would you know, anyway? Really, how would you know? You certainly don’t know much.
I have been here far longer than Gates. Years longer. I also worked in a closely related field for more than thirty years. It’s very easy to run circles around Gates, which is why he gets so flustered. So your #1 is wrong. But nice try Rodney, and thanx for playing. Next:
2) He has a better command of the English language than you
Don’t make me larf. You have been set straight on your own faulty grammar by a half-dozen other commentators. I didn’t pile on with them, because they were embarassing you way too much already. You were flat wrong. So you don’t even have the knowledge to know who has a better command of English and who doesn’t. Besides, this isn’t an English 101 blog. If it was, you would fail twice.
3) His posts are enlightening, yours are boringly repetitious
To you, maybe. And thanx for your juvenile opinion. Repeating facts is very uncomfortable to someone like Gates, who has no credible facts at all. So I’m not surprised that you and your pal think that my scientific evidence is “boring”. Gates’ posts are very enlightening, for sure: they clearly show that all he has left are insults and name-calling. Every factoid he’s posted has been thoroughly debunked, many times over. He’s out of gas.
He has you beat
I have you both beat, and I’m not even trying.
What I still want to know is: what goosed you? Your comments came out of the blue, completely unsolicited. Why? You never say. A moderator even told you:
[The mods note you have started, then promoted, 25 interruptions in this thread. Are you finished? .mod]
Make that 27 now. You can finish any time. Or maybe they will finish you. But if you keep posting, I will keep asking: what goosed you? Why did you suddenly start with your bogus, incorrect grammar criticism? And why have you continued? There is more to this than you are admitting. Why are you being sneaky about it?
I think you are David Socrates, AKA: beckleybud, AKA: Edward Richardson, etc., etc. A sockpuppet pest who has been banned repeatedly. That’s what I think.

rooter
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 12:18 am

dbstealey says:
“Dr. Spencer has the credibility that you lack.”
How is that credibility wrt his temperature index UAH? When did dbstealey use that credibility and presented UAH TLT instead of or together with RSS?

rooter
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 12:32 am

dbstealey says:
“Produce a verifiable, testable measurement showing the fraction of global warming that is AGW, and I’ll concede the point.”
What kind of measurement dbstealey?
How do you measure your natural variability?

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 2:41 am

rooter,
Your problem is that Planet Earth is debunking your religious Belief system.
Who should we believe? You?
Or Planet Earth?
One of you is flat WRONG.
Which, rooter?
Also: you don’t measure natural variability. You measure against natural variability. It’s called the Null Hypothesis, which has never been falsified.
You don’t understand that. I’ve tried to teach you, but it’s like trying to teach a dog to juggle chainsaws.

rooter
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:02 am

dbstealey has problems:
“Also: you don’t measure natural variability. You measure against natural variability. It’s called the Null Hypothesis, which has never been falsified.”
dbstealey cannot even say what measurements he is referring to. Is it temperature? In that case dbstealy is just assuming that the temperature rise is “natural variability”. And the so called null hypothesis can never be falsified because dbstealey’s measurements equals his explanation.
But I could of course be wrong wrt what kind of measurements dbstealey has in mind. That is: does he have any measurements in mind at all?

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  rooter
February 13, 2015 6:11 am

of course.
You measure the (untampered!) global average temperature anomaly (each month) against the global average temperature anomaly from the same instruments over as wide an area as possible. Then you plot the results and find …. that global average temperature has NOT risen for the past 18 years + 2 months!
Yet CO2 continues to increase steadily.
There is NO measurable relationship between man’s recent or past release of CO2 and the global average temeprature.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:17 am

rooter says:
dbstealey has problems
No, rooter, YOU have problems. Psychological problems. Big ones.
You’ve been bird-dogging my comments again — six times tonight alone. It’s like that every night. You need to get a real life. I don’t chase you around the threads, pestering you with inane comments. Why do you do it? You are certainly convincing no one of anything with your religious climate beliefs.
The planet is debunking your Beliefs, rooter. There has been no global warming for many years now. Rational people will look at that and start to wonder why all the predictions of runaway global warming have failed so spectacularly.
But skeptics don’t wonder. We observe. rooter should try that. But he can’t; cognitive dissonance would make his head explode.
Get a life, rooter. The planet says you’re wrong, not me. I simply observe.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:37 am

dbstealey, I think I know why they do it, why they chase you.
It’s because the debate isn’t for you or him but for the lurkers. The curious who come and observe. They are the ones who must be kept onside.
There are only a few ways to persuade a lurker of your rightness:
1) Prove clearly, logically and from unquestionable axioms that you are right. This is very hard for anything that is complex because the reasonable answer may well be that we don’t know if the evidence is right. and also, if the logic were that clear then the lurkers would already have made up their minds. So that is out.
2) Keep on preaching with unbearable fanaticism until all your opponents lie dead or bored. Then the field is yours and you win. But you are here a lot. You won’t concede the field. So fighting you is the next best thing – being a witness. And it protects others from you – others who may also take part of the field and so catch the attention of the lurkers.
3) Overwhelm the lurker with your personality, wit, fame, beauty (hard in text), compassion, regality or general reputation. The appeal to authority fallacy in miniature. But this blog can easily match anyone who dares take the field. Even my own poor word-smithing can sometimes sparkle shinier than the dull prose of unchallenged academics. This option is too risky.
4) Something else I haven’t thought of:
5) Make the enemy angry. This is the tone of the text – people respond to it emotionally, not intellectually. If lurkers see someone get angry they automatically recoil from Mr Angry’s argument. My father was the favourite tool of the wind-up merchants for years. He was very easy to bait. In his absence you were the next obvious choice. (Well, actually they tried me but I’m not around so much and rather more tolerant of people who hate me).
That’s my opinion as to what is going on here. It’s not about you. They follow you for the benefit of the lurkers.
Remember the failing of RealClimate? the arrogance and incompetence of those self-proclaimed experts was the greatest recruiting sergeant for scepticism we ever had. The Alarmists aren’t stupid (and a lot study social sciences); they will have learnt from that.
And they will be trying to attack on WUWT. If I was one of them, I would be, anyway.
Now back to the Guardian, for me.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  M Courtney
February 13, 2015 6:06 am

Good summary. Thank you.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 6:23 am

RACookPE1978, was that to me? It’s a long thread so it’s hard to tell.
If it was, thank you for the compliment – and have you a better point 4?
If it was not, please ignore my presumption.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 8:00 am

M Courtney,

5) Make the enemy angry.

A tried and true tactic much used by all sides, including myself. It’s easy when I’m already angry. The supreme irony I have been attempting to point out is that WUWT loyalists apparently do not recognize that it’s a tactic they use every day, including post authors themselves. If you’re going to throw stones, don’t act surprised when the intended targets hurl them right back.

That’s my opinion as to what is going on here. It’s not about you. They follow you for the benefit of the lurkers.

Speaking for myself, whenever I engage here it’s mostly about my own satisfaction. Then yes, any lurkers. Of course I’d like to convince whoever I’m talking to directly but long experience tells me that’s a fool’s errand.
As for db specifically, it is more than just him being a soft target — he actively runs interference. I’ll be having a perfectly reasonable discussion focused on the relevant issues and in he swoops with distracting comments such as, “Don’t listen to Gates, he and his ilk are hung up on their egos and cannot be convinced. All they know how to do is incessantly ask why like children … blah blah blah.”
Which is odious behavior. Stupidly dishonest. And transparently vacuous. He only gets the attention he richly deserves in my view. I don’t expect any kinder treatment here either, it’s abundantly clear to me most readers here feel quite the same about my own activities. So be it.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 8:13 am

dbstealey,

Also: you don’t measure natural variability. You measure against natural variability.

ROFL!!! Measuring against something is the same as measuring that thing. No evidence is required to rebut so many of your arguments, all one need to is keep you talking and let you tie your own shoelaces together.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 8:28 am

Brandon Gates, I really try not to use the “make people angry” tactic. Because I don’t think it’s very nice (it makes someone feel bad) and it doesn’t help lead anyone to truth.
What’s the point in wining the thread if the thread is tainted?
When I fail I try to apologise because the web truly needs to be a better forum than it is.
I can’t speak for dbstealey but I suggest you consider other, less scornful, interpretations of his actions.
He is here a lot and he knows who we are. Many newcomers don’t know us and so need an introduction. He is very partisan so playing any other role in introductions would be “concern trolling” or even, maybe, deception.
And I speak as someone who has clashed with dbstealey over politics, but we have still maintained a friendly, online relationship. It is possible to disagree and be cordial. I am a self-proclaimed socialist but dbstealey is not.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 8:34 am

Mind boggling, Gates.
The whole point here is that it is impossible to separate the influence of CO2 and natural variation. A large part of that is that the majority of natural variation is not understood, because the “climate scientists” got stuck on CO2 as if it was the only player in the game.
Your mocking of that, although I’m sure it seems logical and intelligent to you, demonstrates that you haven’t got a clue what you’re even debating. Not even remotely.
When you can demonstrate ANY demonstrable influence of CO2 on climate, outside of a laboratory and outside of theory, then ALL skeptics will pay attention. But you CAN’T, because it is not possible. Your continued posts here are doing the skeptic side a great service, sadly for you.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 9:02 am

M Courtney,

I really try not to use the “make people angry” tactic. Because I don’t think it’s very nice (it makes someone feel bad) and it doesn’t help lead anyone to truth.

I would prefer not to use rhetorical techniques at all. Some day I may be able to set aside my own emotions well enough to play it absolutely straight most of the time, today is not that day.

What’s the point in wining the thread if the thread is tainted?

My view is that the thread was tainted before the first comment posted. Was depicting scientists as slop-feeding hogs designed to spread good will and erudite debate of issues? This is an example of the notorious WUWT self-blind spot I spoke of in my previous post.

When I fail I try to apologise because the web truly needs to be a better forum than it is.

Look no further than the editorial policy of this very website. If the intent is to police the behavior of others, it behooves one to police their own just as aggressively, if not more so. I’m not saying I think you should do this. My comment is more along the lines about thinking about what it would entail.

I can’t speak for dbstealey but I suggest you consider other, less scornful, interpretations of his actions.

I already have. My charitable view is that, like me, he strongly believes his position is correct. So when I tell him that his brand of stupid dishonesty cannot be fixed it’s deeply offensive and personal to him, for he does not think he is lying, nor does he think he’s stupid.

He is here a lot and he knows who we are. Many newcomers don’t know us and so need an introduction.

That’s a fair point. I well understand the need for the same things to be said over and over in the same forum for this very reason.

He is very partisan so playing any other role in introductions would be “concern trolling” or even, maybe, deception.

One reason why I don’t often comment directly on what I see as WUWT smear tactics is that I myself would consider that concern trolling. And hypocritcally so, it’s no secret I talk trash about WUWT and the personalities here on other blogs.

And I speak as someone who has clashed with dbstealey over politics but have still maintained a friendly, online relationship. It is possible to disagree and be cordial.

Yes it is. I’m not capable of doing that with all people, db is one that I can’t.

I am a self-proclaimed socialist but dbstealey is not.

Something I would not have guessed in a million years. The downside of stereotypes and prejudice bite me again.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 9:35 am

CodeTech,

The whole point here is that it is impossible to separate the influence of CO2 and natural variation.

I know very well the underlying argument. I don’t buy it when self-proclaimed “experts” make such assertions. Appeals to personal incredulity don’t interest me, what does interest me are the estimates produced by trained experts in the relevant fields who have published thousands of papers in peer-reviewed journals documenting the painstaking work they’ve done tease the human signal out of the “noise” of internal variability and naturally varying external forcings. The very fact that DB, you, and others don’t distinguish between those essential concepts which I know from literature makes it very easy for the hand-waving assertions of impossibility quite easy to dismiss.

A large part of that is that the majority of natural variation is not understood, because the “climate scientists” got stuck on CO2 as if it was the only player in the game.

And now you’re making easily falsifiable statements of fact:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.gif

Your mocking of that, although I’m sure it seems logical and intelligent to you, demonstrates that you haven’t got a clue what you’re even debating. Not even remotely.

I’m sorry. You were saying something about people not knowing what they’re talking about? Go read Milankovitch theory and tell me that’s ignoring “natural variability”. Good grief, if you want to claim that “my” theory is reality-impaired do try to not demonstrate your own much more clearly evident departure into fantasy-land by utterly failing to recognize what the literature you’re disputing talks about in the first place.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 9:57 am

As I said. Keep talking. You’re making skeptics, daily.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 11:04 am

CodeTech, I’m well aware that people who have already decided to reject reality will run from it further when their easily falsifiable statements of fact are refuted. You claim that climate science focuses solely on CO2, I’ve shown you evidence that your statement of fact is clearly false. You dig in your heels and cling to a clearly false reality.
My comments aren’t for you. I know convincing you is an exercise in futility. See the discussion about lurkers I’ve been having with M Courtney.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 11:40 am

mpainter,

I note that this thread consists of commendable science given by dbstealey in response to insults, sneers and snarks by Gates and rodmol, who otherwise offer no science and do not respond to the solid scienceof dbstealey.

Here’s what “mod” has to say: This is a science site. The internet’s Best Science’ site. Facts rule over opinions here. -mod
Here’s an example of the Best Science in the World:comment image?w=720
Get stuffed yourself, Painter.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 2:04 pm

Gates, that pic is *very* mild, compared with the usual death threats against skeptics, and other vicious propaganda. It makes a cogent point, too: the NAS has been corrupted by government money. BIG money.
Note also that Anthony did not write that article. You are welcome to submit a guest article here too, promoting your own views. I sincerely wish you would. You’ve already written enough coments for a dozen articles. Why don’t you give it a try? You will be read by thousands upon thousands of readers, for free.
If that picture is the best you can do, then it matches your other less than convincing arguments. The NAS is on the dole. Taxpayers have the right to express their opinions, and a picture of piggies makes a good point.
And yes, this is the internet’s 3-time winner of the Best Science & Technology website. In only eight years it has rocketed upward, to far more than a million reader comments. It obviously fills a need. Your point of view has been the media narrative for the past twenty or more years. But that narrative is now losing traction because of Anthony Watts, and other skeptics’ sites.
But the biggest reason the mainstream narrative is fading is because the planet is simply not doing as had been incessantly predicted. The real world does not match the predictions. Far from it. This would be self-correcting — if the media and the alarmist crowd paid attention to facts and evidence. But for whatever reason, they do not.
Unless global warming begins to ramp up sharply, and soon, things will only get worse for the rapidly diminishing clique of climate alarmists. But there is no indication of any runaway global warming happening. Or any global warming, for that matter. And once the public loses interest, that’s the end of the scare. When the worm turns, it will go far to the opposite extreme. It always does.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 2:22 pm

dbstealey, glad you are still on this thread. Hoping you read my comment to you.
You may not agree with me (that’s fine) but please ponder over my thoughts..

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 2:58 pm

M. Courtney,
Your comment @5:37 am today was very incisive. Their arguments have nothing to do with facts or evidence. When the debate is confined to those, skeptics win walking away. The most basic fact is that Planet Earth is not doing anything remotely as predicted by the alarmist crowd.
You are right, I won’t concede the field, any more than Anthony will. To concede would be to admit that alarmist propaganda, lies, and name-calling wins arguments. But as we see repeatedly, when each and every point is argued using scientific evidence, the alarmist crowd ends up name-calling and engaging in projection. That takes the place of their non-existent facts. How many times have I been labeled as “stupid”, and “dishonest”, among numerous other insults. Gates even seems to be proud of his insults and his name-calling! Others who disagree are told by him to “get stuffed”, and so on.
Speaking only for myself, those nasty pejoratives are like water off a duck’s back. They are amusing, because they clearly indicate that the name-caller has completely run out of credible arguments. They certainly avoid discussing things like the Null Hypothesis, or the lack of any global warming [unless it’s to lie about it, and claim that MMGW is still rising].
B. Gates constantly tries to claim that I am the one doing the name-calling, but it’s very easy to see from his own posted comments, that is merely projection. Whatever I might occasionally do in that regard, that he routinely does… doubled and squared [then he scolds the moderation — conveniently forgetting that free speech trumps most everything here]. He would no doubt be very happy with censorship [so long as skeptics are the ones censored]. But there are millions of blogs that censor. This just is just one of the very few that truly gives free speech wide latitude. And of course, no one is forced to comment here, or to read comments.
So I agree with your analysis, Matthew. We’re on the same page there. I’ve been told before that I wear my heart on my sleeve. That is my nature. There is no hidden agenda or game-playing when I post. I tell it exactly as I see it, using verifiable facts and scientific evidence. The alarmists’ response shows that I’m on-target. Some of them get mad, and label me as ‘stupid’, ‘dishonest’, and worse. I am neither; I just point out the truth, and that stings.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 3:05 pm

dbstealey,

Gates, that pic is *very* mild, compared with the usual death threats against skeptics, and other vicious propaganda.

Death threats are an abhorrent practice and I roundly condemn anyone on any side of any debate who engages in them. That said, I’m not interested in your lame justifications, i.e., “Anthony didn’t write this article.” It’s his damn website, DB. He owns its content. Your weak apologia on his behalf means you approve of the content of this post at the very least. Face reality and admit that you have no problem with public expressions of opinion via mockery. I don’t. I don’t need sniveling excuses to do it. If I think someone’s position is illogical, stupid or otherwise patently ridiculous that’s the only justification I need to ridicule it.
Double goes for people like you who engage in mockery but get bent when someone returns the favor. Strap on a pair and own what it is that you do and what it is you support others here doing. Anything else makes you a thin-skinned, cowardly sissy.

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 3:21 pm

Gates, you’re a parody of yourself. You keep ratcheting up the name-calling and the juvenile insults. You’ve confirmed everything I wrote above, in the most pathetic way you can.
I suppose when insults and name-calling are all you’ve got, that’s what you will use.
Me? I have plenty of facts and evidence:
Exhibit #1: global warming has stopped. And not just recently, but many years ago. The alarmists’ consternation over that plain fact is so thick that skeptics could cut it with a knife. You simply cannot admit that you were so completely wrong.
Exhibit #2: The climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified. There is nothing either unprecedented or unusual happening. In fact, our current climate is a real “Goldilocks” climate. We are very fortunate for that.
Exhibit #3: There are still no measurements of AGW. Not one! After more than 50 years of searching for verifiable, testable measurements, AGW remains only an unproven conjecture.
Sorry for your failed world view. If you were a skeptic, you would have no trouble accepting that you were wrong. But after every alarmist prediction has been repeatedly debunked, you still cling to your falsified belief system. Honest scientists don’t do that. They re-assess. What would it take for you to re-assess?

Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 3:44 pm

dbstealey, thank you for answering my comment. I wasn’t meaning to challenge you – rather talk to you.
I respect what you do. If I didn’t I would,mock you, and maybe even fight you. But I don’t.
Yet I fear you are not adapting to those who oppose you and so miss that they are beginning to try and entrap you. Entrap you into mis-presenting your argument by the medium of tone.
Not reason but emotion.
This hypothesis was confirmed in the comments.
My hope had been that we could cross the divide and talk like friends with the alarmist but that was not to be. Still, no faux pas!.
I am proud that I am childish…
No-one, but us, is left watching this thread. It is effectively as private as anything,
[No. There is still yet another. /Star Wars .mod]

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 3:47 pm

:”Exhibit #1: global warming has stopped. ”

Does that mean 2015 will be the warmest year in the record?

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:09 pm

dbstealey,

… global warming has stopped.

At the surface and in the lower troposphere. Not so much in the upper two kilometers of ocean where heat continues to accumulate unabated:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/itemp2000_global.png

The climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified.

I quote you from above: Next,you are claiming, as usual, that coincidental corellation is causation. I won’t waste pixels setting you straight.
Explain to the class how one can falsify H0 when there’s a strong correlation. One that was predicted in 1896 on the basis of physical theory and observation. Take your time.

There are still no measurements of AGW.

Changes in radiative fluxes measured at the surface: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/full
Changes in radiative fluxes measured from space: https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/physics/Public/spat/John/Increase%20in%20greenhouse%20forcing%20inferred%20from%20the%20outgoing%20longwave%20radiation%20spectra%20of%20the%20Earth%20in%201970%20and%201997.pdf
Two papers out of thousands doing such measurements. And yet you say no such measurements have been done. Yours is credible behavior how, exactly?

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:18 pm

“global warming has stopped”……??????

Not according to RSS
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2011/plot/rss/from:2011/trend

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:25 pm

Cherry-picked lies!!

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:31 pm

Long term shows warming too Brandon
..
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/trend

mpainter
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:42 pm

MCourtney:
I admire dbstealey’s persistence and equanimity under the sort of low-trash provocation dealt out by the likes of rooter, Gates, rodmol, and their kidney.
He sets a good example of responding to their trash talk with irrefutable science. They wind up making themselves look bad. Stealey has taken their measure and he knows how to deal with them.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 4:58 pm

Bbbbbuttt … Paraguay!!

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:09 pm
Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:21 pm

You can’t distract me with Big Macs, warmist.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:23 pm

So, Gates, the hand-waving BS you spewed up there to counter my post is enough to you, but it’s completely useless to the rest of the world. The childish insult was also humorous, but not very creative.
See, after having an epiphany I walked away from a very lucrative business opportunity related to “global warming” back in 2001 or 2002. I realized where the problems were with the science, or as I like to say, “science”. See the quotes? They’re important.
Your childish claim that I’ve somehow been denying reality? That’s YOU. You will say or do whatever it takes to avoid having that epiphany. Of course you will. You have blinded yourself to reality, because reality doesn’t fit your naive worldview.
The louder you spin, the more desperate your claims (you may not see it this way, but you reek of desperation) the more sane people start to wonder why you’re so gullible. So keep spinning. Unlike you, I want my opponents to put it all out there. I study both sides. If you had something credible I’d look. But you have presented NOTHING CREDIBLE, and you are unlikely to, ever.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 5:33 pm

CodeTech,

Your childish claim that I’ve somehow been denying reality?

Here’s your original statement: A large part of that is that the majority of natural variation is not understood, because the “climate scientists” got stuck on CO2 as if it was the only player in the game.
Here again is the evidence that your creative opinion of reality is false:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.gif

I realized where the problems were with the science, or as I like to say, “science”.

Now you’ve moved the goalposts. Yet somehow it’s my worldviwew that’s naive. Good one.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 13, 2015 9:10 pm

Go ahead – increase your desperation. Eventually you’ll get it… today is not that day.
And you’d be wise (for once) to stop assuming I’m an idiot.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 6:10 am

CodeTech, dishonest not stupid is more what I’m going for here.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 1:22 pm

Well you’re succeeding in both. You definitely appear dishonest.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 8:20 pm

CodeTech,
Well sure. I believe something that you don’t, just by virtue of me talking about it I must be lying.

CodeTech
Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 9:17 pm

Why even bother, Gates? You’ve already called me ignorant and a liar. Do you think there’s ANYTHING you could possibly type that I would give a crap about?
Personally I think you’re hopelessly stupid, but I’d never come out and throw that in your face.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 9:59 pm

CodeTech

Why even bother, Gates? You’ve already called me ignorant and a liar. Do you think there’s ANYTHING you could possibly type that I would give a crap about?

My default assumption is that people who have already decided that AGW is a farce will not be convinced of anything anyone has to say to the contrary, no matter how “nice” they are about it.

Personally I think you’re hopelessly stupid, but I’d never come out and throw that in your face.

lol, and that comment itself is exempt …. why, exactly?
Now this little spat between us is real easy to understand. You made the claim: A large part of that is that the majority of natural variation is not understood, because the “climate scientists” got stuck on CO2 as if it was the only player in the game.
This plot shows far more than CO2 being the only player in the game:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.gif
So your statement is false. Rather than cop to it, you whine that I’ve called you a liar or reality-impaired. Well … is there another option?

Reply to  CodeTech
February 14, 2015 10:58 pm

Gates says:
…people who have already decided that AGW is a farce…
…have generally done a lot of research to arrive at their conclusions. Also, Gates’ typical strawman response tries to ignore the fact that most skeptics think AGW exists. The problem for alarmists is that if AGW exists, it is obviously minuscule — too tiny to measure. Thus, it can be completely disregarded as a waste of time and energy.
Gates continues to be his obnoxious and despicable self, by labeling others that he is incapable of refuting as stupid liars. I don’t know about CodeTech, but I have no doubt whatever that Gates would never dare to call me those names if he was in my presence, unless he was considerably larger than my 6’3″, 198# frame. And if he was, then he wouldn’t be the kind who needed to call names. Would he?
I have found that people likre Gates, who call others names from the satety of their keyboard, are total cowards in person. Gates shows no indication of being any different.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 2:34 pm

Sir Harry Flashman, Not in Boston

RWTurner
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 3:23 pm

Sooo, what you’re really saying is that you do not know what Occam’s Razor is.

george e. smith
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 3:45 pm

Well Sir HF, I agree with you that it is a huge problem for the NAS to be demanding anything.
But as far as the climate goes, I haven’t experienced any problems with it.
To me, change in the climate (AKA weather) will always occur and we can’t change it or predict it, so we might as well just live with it.
Here in Northern California, we have just had two; count ’em two “unprecedented” 100 year soaker rainstorms in just the last three weeks, and neither one of them was worth writing home about.
Don’t see where “Occam’s Razor comes into the discussion.
G

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 4:10 pm

Actually no, Occams’ Razor as applied to climate is that natural variation, which has always driven climate change is what is driving climate now. That is the null hypothesis. The conjecture that we humans are doing something to the climate is just that; conjecture, nothing more. There has been a bit of warming, some of which has been exaggerated, but even that exaggerated warming is not a problem, except to the climate bedwetters. Cooling, on the other hand, would be a problem, and that is probably what is in store for us. Hopefully, it won’t be a severe one, such as the LIA.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 4:51 pm

What drives climate is not natural variation, but forcings, which can take many forms, most of them natural. However, currently the critical forcing is human greenhouse gas emissions; generations of work in a multitude of scientific disciplines have proven it. It’s not actually conjecture at all.
The idea that the planet is cooling is just a fantasy, short of a nuclear war or a supervolcano eruption.

lee
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 5:15 pm

SHF, Can you quantify these ‘forcings’? Both natural and unnatural of course.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  lee
February 11, 2015 5:22 pm

If I had a dime for every time someone asked me to “prove” something on this site then dismissed the linked papers as merely part of a corrupt conspiracy, I’d be living on a private island, Meanwhile, everyone else is saying pretty much whatever random thoughts come into their head and getting hearty pats on the back for it. Seriously it doesn’t seem fair, and it’s certainly a waste of time.
But I don’t want to leave anyone hanging – if you want proof check out the IPCC reports or for that matter google natural vs anthropogenic climate forcings and read to your heart’s content.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 6:22 pm

SHF says:
What drives climate is not natural variation…
Wrong.
To help educate someone who really needs it, here is the world’s preeminent climatologist, MIT’s director of atmospheric studies, Prof. Richard Lindzen:

Climate is always changing… For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work suggests that this variability is enough to account for alll climate change since the 19th Century.

So there is no need whatever to invoke an external variable like CO2 to explain anything. Natural climate variability is the natural condition of the planet.
Finally, ‘Harry’ sez:
…if you want proof check out the IPCC reports…
This guy is so deluded that he believes the IPCC reports are “proof”. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we ever hope to educate the closed-minded. Is it worth it?
No, probably not.
But in case new readers might be influenced by his kind of illogical comments, it’s necessary to set the record straight. SHF lives in his own universe, and he has his own ideas. They don’t compute, but that’s the kind of nonsense we’re confronted with every day.
Fortunately, the public is coming around, as shown by the 122,000+ reader comments in the recent Telegraph article, and their poll, which skeptics are dominating by a 12:1 margin.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 6:56 pm

The fictitious character Sir Harry Flashman is technically correct, in that “natural variation” is not an explanation, or even a list, of the factors that may drive climate changes. It is merely a label for the Null Hypothesis, which is essentially that the same factors that have driven climate changes for ages have done so, without any contribution from mankind or fossil fuel burning, in the few decades since the 1970s.
That being said, Bruce Cobb is also correct that the Climateers’ claim, that the principal driver of climate changes since the ’70s is anthropogenic CO2, is pure speculation—not even an hypothesis, because there is no evidence for it. It is basically a variation on the Argument from Ignorance, i.e. “We cannot build models that generate a few decades of warming without introducing extra CO2” (“given our limited knowledge of Earth’s climate[s]”—unspoken, of course).
This, however, was really an excuse. The plan, since the ’70s, led by globalists like Maurice Strong and Margaret Meade, was to create a supposedly ‘scientific’ argument that Mankind was endangering the Earth with our fossil fuels, and that it would take a concerted worldwide political and scientific effort to prevent a planetary catastrophe. It was brilliantly successful, enlisting a coterie of ‘climate scientists’, and jumping on the bandwagon of the new ‘Environmental’ movement; it quickly because a cause celebré of the world’s political and academic elites.
Thankfully, Mother Nature has made it hard to sustain the myth of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, and the population at large has grown weary of “The End is Nigh!” proclamations (despite the exhortations of the President of the United States). So we now have academics suggesting that they stir up some new hysteria, by throwing out suggestions that they may have to fight “climate change” by “geo-engineering” the world.
Lord knows they are not serious, but myths like these can take on a life of their own. Remember the suicide of the Xhosa who killed off all their cattle because of a prophecy:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-parallels-in-our-time-the-killing-of-of-cattle-vs-carbon/
It could happen here.
/Mr Lynn

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 7:00 pm

Flashman,

If I had a dime for every time someone asked me to “prove” something on this site then dismissed the linked papers as merely part of a corrupt conspiracy, I’d be living on a private island.

An evil game that one, innit. One of DB’s favs is, “Hey Gates, show me some evidence that everyone on all sides can accept and I’ll believe your story.” Which makes me want to self-lobotomize with a pitchfork just to make the pain stop.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 9:58 pm

Well, please then, SHF, if generations of work in a multitude of scientific disciplines has proven that human emissions of greenhouse gases are a critical climate forcing, then it should be no problem to produce a single data set which shows a clear CO2 signal in the temp record, right? In other words, since such a thing does not exist, where is the proof?

bones
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 5:22 pm

SHF, I checked out all of the Ph.D. level Oregon petition signers from my state and they were legit.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  bones
February 11, 2015 5:23 pm

Bones – I give you credit for that. I just did a quick onceover, maybe there’s more to it than I know. But I remain skeptical.

Reply to  bones
February 12, 2015 7:11 pm

@SHF,
Here is how it works, at least among professionals: bones says he checked his state, and he shows that your assertion was wrong. Fair enough, right? He did the work to show you that your belief is mistaken.
Now the ball is in your court. You need to either acknowledge that he’s correct, or you need to show where bones is mistaken. He did the work. So by still questioning it, without any data, you look petty.
If you have something to refute bones, then post it here. If not, then accept his work. That’s what a professional would do. If you don’t, you will look like Gates. No one wants to be that unprofessional.
=================
Mr. Lynn, you’re correct, natural variability is the default explanation — but it is not a list of forcings. It doesn’t need to be. Skeptics are not obligated to provide a list of forcings since skeptics do not have anything to prove, but the alarmist crowd needs to show convincingly that human CO2 emissions are the cause of temperature fluctuations. That is their claim; their conjecture. Their opinion. But they have never been able to provide anything more than baseless assertions, which is why their conjecture is foundering.
Prof Richard Lindzen provided a good explanation of why global T fluctuates by a few tenths of a degree. No one has ever demonstrated that he is wrong. They won’t even try.

Reply to  bones
February 13, 2015 5:08 am

Lee says:
SHF, Can you quantify these ‘forcings’? Both natural and unnatural of course.
No, he can’t. It’s all speculation. Opinion. Conjecture.
There are no measurements of AGW, after more than 50 years of searching. Reasonable people will look at that and conclude one of two things:
1. AGW is just too minuscule to measure, or
2. AGW doesn’t even exist.
I’m in group #1. But for all practical purposes, they are both the same.

Eamon Butler
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 5:33 pm

A huge problem? really? Compared to what exactly?

Alx
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 6:51 pm

Occam’s Razor suggests the simplest explanation is the best explanation, not a random explanation primarily supported by wishful thinking.
Natural variation is by far the simplest explanation, since I don’t know, natural variation has been occurring for millennium.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 11, 2015 6:55 pm

“Natural variation” isn’t an explanation. It’s a way of saying, “I don’t know, I lack the curiosity to find out, and wouldn’t know where to start even if I wanted to.”

Reply to  Alx
February 11, 2015 7:16 pm

Wrong, Gates. What we are observing is natural climate variability in action. You just prefer the magic gas explanation.
Arch-warmist Dr. Phil Jones shows us that natural variability causes the same changes in trend whether human emissions are low, or high:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
Go argue with Jones about natural variability. You’re wasting your time here unless you have evidence of your own.

pochas
Reply to  Alx
February 11, 2015 7:52 pm

“And thirdly, Occam’s Razor is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner . “
Barbossa

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 7:01 am

dbstealey,

Arch-warmist Dr. Phil Jones shows us that natural variability causes the same changes whether human emissions are low, or high …

There’s just no fixing your particular brand of stupid dishonesty, is there.

mpainter
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 9:51 am

Gates presents his brand of ‘science’.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 10:10 am

Gates says:
There’s just no fixing your particular brand of stupid dishonesty, is there.
I posted a graph, and your response is to call me stupid and dishonest? You have nothing to counter the facts I posted, so now you call names.
Your comment style lately is to inject a nasal snarkiness. I imagine comments like yours as being spoken by Peter Lorre to Humphrey Bogart:
Gates-Ugati hissed, ‘You’re stupid and dishonest! You despise me, don’t you Rick?’
‘If I thought about you, Ugati, I probably would.’

Your comments are devolving into juvenile complaints, Gates. That’s because you have no good answers to my posts.
Your can label me as being dishonest and stupid, but I think even someone like you knows that I am neither of those things. Your problem is that you are trying to support an indefensible narrative with insulting name-calling. You have no facts, or you would have posted them by now.
Run along back to Hotwhopper, Gates, where you make *much* worse insinuations and insults about the commenters here. That’s really your home turf. Here, you’re getting whipped by facts.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 2:26 pm

dbstealey,

I posted a graph, and your response is to call me stupid and dishonest?

It’s not the posting of the graph, it’s the “argument” you made with it which is stupidly dishonest.

Your comment style lately is to inject a nasal snarkiness.

I should fit right in here then, don’t you think?

That’s because you have no good answers to my posts.

Ok wise one, how do you respond to gibberish?

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 7:23 pm

Gates keeps digging:
It’s not the posting of the graph, it’s the “argument” you made with it which is stupidly dishonest.
Despite your climbdown, I’ll be happy to answer that: Dr. Phil Jones showed that the same warming trend has occurred repeatedly, whether CO2 was low, or high. That is the argument I made, and despite your immature name-calling, saying it is “stupidly dishonest”, it is, in fact, an extremely good argument — one that you cannot refute. So you fall back on your usual commentary.
Also, this isn’t your home at Hotwhopper. Calling my comment “gibberish” is just your own way of admitting that you have no credible response. They like tantrums like that at your whopper blog. But here we prefer facts and evidence — things you don’t have.
You’ve run out of arguments, Gates. Now all you have left are your insults and your name-calling. If you had any credible facts refuting what I posted, including the Jones chart, you would use them. But you don’t. Really, you have nothing at all.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 7:42 pm

rodmol,
That’s just your opinion. And you know what they say about opinions
Just like your grammar critique, though, no one else agrees with you.
I posted facts, such as the fact that you tried to nitpick my grammar here. But nobody agreed with you. I even felt bad about it, seeing so many folks monkey-piling on your obvious error.
So now you take a pot-shot to try and get even. But just like your previous comment, this one has zero content. It was just a nasty drive-by.
Why would you do that? I’ve seen other comments of yours, and they seemed reasonable. So why would you post something that is not only wrong, but which has no evidence? Do I remind you of someone who beat you up in high school?
You can certainly see that Gates is arguing by insult, calling names because he is not able to refute anything I’ve posted. He’s in over his head, but like a typical alarmist, he is totally incapable of admitting that he’s got nothin’.
But why you? Why now? It’s because you were set straight by a lot of other readers, isn’t it? But if you go and re-read their comments and mine, you will see that I’m not arguing with you there. But everyone else is.
If you have any specifics, post them. Otherwise, you’re just being petty.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 7:49 pm

“If you have any specifics, post them”
Yes, there is one specific.
..
Gates is not suffering the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 8:05 pm

rodmol,
That is just another insult. Once again: do you have any specifics? Or are you just trolling?
Really. You’re just unhappy because you were wrong in your grammar critique. So now you’re going all Gates on us, and using insults to argue. Why?

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 8:10 pm

“That is just another insult.” ????

Please explain how my comment about Mr Gates is an “insult”

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 8:31 pm

dbstealey,

Despite your climbdown, I’ll be happy to answer that: Dr. Phil Jones showed that the same warming trend has occurred repeatedly, whether CO2 was low, or high.

Which is stupidly dishonest. Any fool can see that temperature ends up higher at the end of it all, and anyone with a passing familiarity with CO2 concentration knows that’s the same end where it’s highest as well. You’re talking nonsense of the highest order here and getting butthurt about getting called out for it. Your arguments are weak. You are acting weak. Stop whining and fight a stand up fight if it’s insults you want (because you give plenty), or go actually learn some real science and have an intelligent discussion. It really is just that simple.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 9:06 pm

Gates, you call me names like “stupidly dishonest” because you lack any credible facts. If you truly believe that I am either stupid or dishonest, then psychological projection is your problem. So let’s stick to verifiable facts, shall we? I don’t think you’re capable. But give it a try.
Now, when I posted Dr. Jones’ chart, I was trying teach you that “the trend repeats”. Trend, get it? No one is arguing that temperatures are no higher now than in the 1800’s, near the end of the LIA. That is just your strawman fallacy. Skeptics know that global T has been rising since the LIA. But we know much more than the alarmist cult. We know that the planet is recovering from one of the coldest episodes of the Holocene — naturally. CO2 has nothing measurable to do with it. And we know that the trend is the same whether CO2 is low or high. That fact alone debunks your ‘carbon’ scare.
Next,you are claiming, as usual, that coincidental corellation is causation. I won’t waste pixels setting you straight.
Next, the entire remainder of your comment is as follows, verbatim:
You’re talking nonsense of the highest order here and getting butthurt about getting called out for it. Your arguments are weak. You are acting weak. Stop whining and fight a stand up fight if it’s insults you want (because you give plenty), or go actually learn some real science and have an intelligent discussion. It really is just that simple.
Gates, that is just more name-calling. YOU are doing the insulting. It’s all you’ve got left. As usual, you do it because you have no credible facts; you’ve really got nothin’, just your juvenile tantrums. I dispute your nonsense with verifiable facts. You say that’s getting ‘called out’. heh. As if. You could hardly be more impotent. All you are doing is being a crybaby because you don’t have verifiable, testable evidence, and skeptics do. In fact, you’ve got nothin’.
I recommend Hotwhopper for you. They are insane there, so they will love your comments. Or the neo-Nazi’s blog. But here, we want credible facts. That’s your weakest point by far, because you have none. All you have are comments like the one I cut ‘n’ pasted. Are you proud of that? You shouldn’t be. Really.
By all means, keep digging your hole. It gives you somewhere to climbdown again.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 9:13 pm

dbstealey,

Now, when I posted Dr. Jones’ chart, I was trying teach you that “the trend repeats”. Trend, get it?

For the love of all that is holy, how does the temperature end up higher at the end of it if the trend is simply repeating? Simple math suggests that the downward trends after each runup are not the same? Simple arithmetic.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 9:23 pm

Gates, if you can’t understand the difference between a trend and a coincidental corellation [and it’s clear you can’t], then you are hopelessly behind the curve.
I recommend reading the WUWT archives for a few months, to try and get up to speed on the subject. But I’ve made that recommendation before and you have consistently ignored it. It’s still good advice.
I don’t know why I keep trying to teach dogs algebra. It never works.
Run along now, you need to get back to SkS or tamina, or wherever you get your misinformation from. You ned some new talking points. The ones you’ve been using are old and busted.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 9:53 pm

dbstealey,

Gates, if you can’t understand the difference between a trend and a coincidental corellation [and it’s clear you can’t], then you are hopelessly behind the curve.

A third-grader could figure out the flaw in your “argument” about “repeating trends” by doing simple sums. As for coincidental correlations, Arrhenius figured it out in 1896 with a slide rule, which puts you and your magical “natural variability” just shy of 120 years behind the curve. Are you really telling me that you and your “skeptical” brain trust can’t do better than 19th century good old-fashioned pencil and paper calculations? Looks to me like 16th century alchemy is more your style. I can see where this might present a challenge.

Reply to  Alx
February 12, 2015 10:13 pm

@3rd Grader:
Anyone who calls natural variability “magical” can and should be disregarded as a crank.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Alx
February 13, 2015 8:24 am

dbstealey,

Anyone who calls estimated forcings and feedbacks due to all known, measured systemic factors can and should be disregarded as a crank.

Fixed it for you.

mpainter
Reply to  Alx
February 13, 2015 9:22 am

I note that this thread consists of commendable science given by dbstealey in response to insults , sneers and snarks by Gates and rodmol, who otherwise offer no science and do not respond to the solid scienceof dbstealey.
I have seen dbstealey request of Gates on many occasions for evidence of AGW, and Gates has never provided any. The last request for such evidence, on this thread I believe, elicited the response from Gates that such requests leave him with the feeling of having been “lobotomized”.
This is the measure of those who come here to espouse the AGW line. Confronted with the science of skeptics, they have no response but insults, sneers and troll tactics, such as displayed on this thread.

mpainter
Reply to  Alx
February 13, 2015 4:01 pm

At 11:40 am Gates responded to this comment and concluded with “Get stuffed yourself, painter”.
This to show my assessment of Gates is confirmed.

u.k.(us)
Reply to  Alx
February 13, 2015 4:28 pm

Wow, you guys done now ?
It’s kinda hard to get a word in edgewise.
Then again, when it comes to pissing contests, distance can be a good thing, less chance of being splattered.

mpainter
Reply to  Alx
February 13, 2015 4:48 pm

Piss, vinegar and beans, punctuated by the occasional flying t*red.

Jimbo
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 11:38 pm

Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 at 12:48 pm
Or maybe, per Occams’ Razor, everybody just recognizes that this is a huge problem.

Or maybe, per Occams’ Razor some influencial people sitting on the National Academy of Sciences, like Ken Caldeira – a climate scientist – stand to gain from proposed solutions. Read it all HERE. He has investments in geoengineering solutions start-ups and patents. He gets paid $375,000 a year from Bill Gates to do geoengineering work, holds a carbon capture patent and works for Intellectual Ventures, a private geoegineering research company part-owned by Gates. He was also a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
Sir Harry Flashman your Occams Razor needs sharpening. Now open your eyes and FOLLOW THE MONEY! >>>>>>>>>>>>
Read more
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/06/bill-gates-climate-scientists-geoengineering
http://www.sauberer-himmel.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Bill-Gates-is-backing-David-Keith-and-Ken-Caldeira-to-geoengineer-the-earth-extract.pdf

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 12, 2015 10:14 am

This hairyflesh guy crawls out of his hole, posts a couple comments, gets everybofy all riled up, then crawls back into his hole happily fed. As he said himself, he is an awful person. Take him at his word on that!

Mick
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 12, 2015 11:35 am

“everybody” is the code word for upstart companies looking for research grants

Tom J
February 11, 2015 12:59 pm

How about a planned mission to Mars instead?

george e. smith
Reply to  Tom J
February 11, 2015 1:16 pm

So long as it is a planned and NOT a manned mission.
Life support is not needed to study Mars from the ground; or whatever they call all that red stuff.

CodeTech
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 2:13 pm

I just finished watching a fascinating series called Moon Machines, 6 parts all about Saturn V, the LEM, the command capsule, space suits, guidance, etc. I can’t help but think that virtually every aspect of a new manned space flight program would be far easier, and if there wasn’t a blank cheque written to cover it, far less expensive and reliable.
With the advances made in materials, aerodynamics, computers, manufacturing, etc. it would be interesting to see.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 4:00 pm

Darn it man it must be manned. It is now believed that there was live there. What if we find fossil fuels there? Now Won’t that turn the Greens for a tizzy. On Mars they couldn’t be “Greens”, they would have to call themselves REDS!
with evil laughter
michael

Tom J
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 4:01 pm

I respectfully disagree, sir. A manned mission to Mars would capture the public’s imagination, and while it would suck funds out of the treasury at least it would cause no mischief. I believe it was Lindzen who said that the scientific community became alarmed about its continuing collective employment with the wind-down of the space missions, and thus this partly resulted in the CAGW funding snare. While the moon flights were criticized at the time for directing resources away from critical domestic concerns I think we can all agree that nothing has misdirected resources like CAGW; and at least the moon program caused no harm. Additionally, while yet to be clearly stated, we are involved in a fight of ideologies in which the Enlightenment principles of the West are pitted against a much more brutal and primitive, but in human history longer lasting and pervasive, ideology. A Mars mission would disrupt any arguments about all cultural beliefs being relative and present itself as a beacon for a favorable future in which reason and humanity itself is defined as reaching for the stars.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 4:02 pm

oops meant life there. not live
michael

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 4:09 pm

Well said Tom J.
I want the stars to be my grand children’s playthings.
michael

Mac the Knife
Reply to  george e. smith
February 11, 2015 4:53 pm

George,
I disagree. We very much need a manned mission to Mars and back, using nuclear rocket technologies that can reduce transit times to ~ 6 months. Why? We need to focus the energies of the next generation beyond our current horizons. Humanity needs a new frontier to conquer, rather than being inundated with AGW propaganda that leads to little more than planetary navel lint gazing and a profligate waste of taxpayer dollars.
The link below provides a historical summary of the developments leading up to NERVA nuclear rocket technology. This is 45 year old demonstrated technology, viable today.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910017902.pdf

Glenn999
Reply to  Tom J
February 11, 2015 2:35 pm

yes, let’s send all the climatologists to Mars and study what happened to its atmosphere.

Rick K
Reply to  Glenn999
February 11, 2015 5:13 pm

Yeah, and since Mars’ atmosphere is 95% CO2 they’ll be warm and toasty!

Reply to  Glenn999
February 12, 2015 10:19 am

No, only send half to Mars and the other half to Venus, to study the atmospheress. I mean, we’re heading one way or the other, but only one of them makes any sense.

Dr.Dave
February 11, 2015 1:02 pm

Biologists were very early arrivals at the grant trough. The same is true for atmospheric chemists (e.g. the CFC imbroglio). We’re talking about gobs of “free money” here. Can you blame them? It ain’t scientific or even “professional”, it’s greedy human self interest..

Gamecock
Reply to  Dr.Dave
February 11, 2015 5:05 pm

Indeed! Biologists invented “environmentalism,” convincing the world that we were pissing in our own mess kit.
Climatologists, seeking relevance, and money, invented CAGW, and succeeded wildly.
Dieticians/nutritionists invented an “obesity crisis,” seeking relevance, and money, and succeeded wildly. Physicists, engineers and chemists, and many, many, other disciplines would love to emulate the model.

Alx
Reply to  Gamecock
February 11, 2015 7:00 pm

Obesity crisis occurred not because of people suddenly gaining weight, but because the threshold for obesity was adjusted downward. Look at that, instant crisis, just by changing numbers on a graph.
A similar thing happened with blood pressure. Imagine my surprise when after a lifetime of having normal blood pressure, I was one year notified I was pre-hypertension. Turns out blood pressure was also re-classified, turns out my blood pressure did not change, just what passed for a blood pressure problem changed.
Obesity crisis, blood pressure crisis, climate crisis, insurance companies love this stuff, it means higher premiums, governments love this stuff cause it means they get to lobby for more control.

mpainter
Reply to  Gamecock
February 14, 2015 8:58 am

Alx,
I suspect that this is the health professionals’ tactic of generating additional revenues for themselves.
I have seen enough to make me wonder if these types are nice people.

Dr. Richard Rounds
Reply to  Dr.Dave
February 11, 2015 8:05 pm

This split probably won’t happen any time soon. But- coming soon to your TV set is the POTUS and Kerry saying that the science is settled and the “problem is so grave that the NAS has asked for research into mitigation”. Just in time for Paris. Note how they hope they never have to use geo-engineering techniques- better get after that CO2.

Alex
February 11, 2015 1:08 pm

Can they not see that the wheels are falling off this wagon? Greedy human self interest is indeed powerful, Dr. Dave, but I dread the long-term consequence for the reputation of science as a philosophy. Then again, in the age of “vaccines cause autism” and “eight glasses of water” and just so many other mass delusions, well . . .

Newsel
February 11, 2015 1:11 pm

“The Lunatics have (are trying to) taken Over The Asylum”. OK, lets go screw with Mother Nature….really a bad idea.
Just came across this UNESCO publication from 1973 which includes an article by H. Lamb starting on page 17 and which talks of a cooling trend. “For the past 25 to 30 years the Earth has been getting progressively cooler AGAIN” (my caps). Must have missed that in the IPCC graphs.
Went to Wiki for an overview on Lamb: Compare what is written in Wiki to his statement in the 1973 article re CO2 (see bottom of page 18) to his subsequent statements on this subject a few years later when at U of E A.
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000748/074891eo.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hubert_Lamb&redirect=no

lee
Reply to  Newsel
February 11, 2015 5:18 pm

Obviously a shill for the Koch Bros. /sarc (if necessary)

whiten
February 11, 2015 1:15 pm

How can these guys be blamed when most of everyone else have resolved in maverick conning and extortion of the AGW bank!
They just want they share in it.
Besides as it seems they have lowered their selling pitch to a point that the whole business plan and subject consist only in the sale of idea, lately.
Buy the idea and you can use and serve it to depolarize the public.
Is not their fault if the “Eskimos” have become so polarized over the political argument in the prospect of a certain future with no any ice for them in it.
How can they be blamed with their clever business plan of selling ice to “Eskimos” when they clearly not asking for more than a fair price only for the idea and in the same time with the same clarity can show that that will be good for anyone concerned, even for the “Eskimos” them self as they will be pacified, depolarized and turn to be an obedient following flock, certified beyond any doubt that whatever happens one thing will be there always for certain….enough ice for any “Eskimo”!
Is only human to cheat, fool, extort and manipulate another human.
The only problem this time is that it is happening in a massive wide spread scale and from the ones we consider as the brightest and the cleverer minds to be trusted, and it is done in the most vulgar and arrogant possible way.
Probably is the right time for the term ” Joe public” to be replaced by some other term like “Skimo public”.
cheers

cnxtim
February 11, 2015 1:22 pm

OK I have a BIG secret, I want you to take a peek at my humongous, NanoTech AGW reflecto mirror I have been building in my granny’s backyard shed…
“They’re coming to take me away ha ha,
They’re coming to take me away he he,
to the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time,
And I’ll be happy to those nice young men, in their clean white coats”.

February 11, 2015 1:27 pm

Anyone have the RFP? /sarc

February 11, 2015 1:28 pm

So, we have (previous thread) a paper partly (and indirectly) funded by the NAS saying geo-engineering should a bigger part of the climate discussion, followed by a plea from NAS for more money for geo-engineering…

Reply to  davidmhoffer
February 11, 2015 1:30 pm

Ah, strike that, my error. The previous paper was indirectly funded by NSF not NAS.

knr
February 11, 2015 1:30 pm

To be fair it is not just climates ‘modellers ‘ getting their snouts in climate trough, there is wide scale of others who have learnt there is grant gold in them there hills , providing your ‘research gives the right results ‘ Has the IPCC is always looking for ‘evdainced ‘ which means it needs to carry on.

February 11, 2015 1:56 pm

“Marcia McNutt”, yes, I think that the name helps to explain quite a a lot.

February 11, 2015 1:57 pm

It’s already too late to stop climate change. We should have started with that 4.5 billion years ago.

whiten
Reply to  Per Strandberg (@LittleIceAge)
February 11, 2015 2:23 pm

But as these guys may tell you…..”Better late than never”……besides it will pacify and depolarize the public.
That is worth some funds….don’t you think! 🙂
Why can’t they have some “gravy” when many others have had much more for not much in return!
cheers

logos_wrench
February 11, 2015 1:58 pm

These idiots and their current lack of planetary climate understanding proposing geoengineering for a problem that doesn’t exist is frightening. It reminds me of that Nirvana album cover with the baby and .44 magnum.

masInt branch 4 C3I in is
February 11, 2015 2:23 pm

Here is a “Training Film” for N-A-S. Should put Marcia in good “Geo-engineering” mood too. Ha ha 😉

Alx
Reply to  masInt branch 4 C3I in is
February 11, 2015 7:07 pm

I bet our man Flint could stop the Climate Hoax, save the world and be back in time for Martinis and beautiful women by 7:00.

Jim G
February 11, 2015 2:24 pm

We may need that star ship if these wackos get enough money to start fiddlin with the climate. Evidently many of them never heard of photosynthesis.

Bruce Cobb
February 11, 2015 2:29 pm

They are using geoengineering as a stick to beat people with. They are saying “you don’t like climate mitigation”? OK then, how about geoengineering instead? Because those are your choices.
No, there’s a third choice – reality and actual science, not myths and fairy tales.

Leigh
February 11, 2015 2:30 pm

And if Physicists, Engineers and Chemistry majors spoke out about the global warmists and alamist scientists, it would make life a lot easier for all of them.
They know what these charlatans are doing, more so than the average mug in the street.
They know if they practiced the same shonky science in their chosen disaplines they’d be quickly “slapped” into line by government.
With a please explain or two.
It is their collective silence that is killing the publics confidence in science right across the board.
Physicists, Engineers and Chemistry majors can change it only if they speak up and expose the absolute fraud of catastrophic anthropological global warming.

Jim G
Reply to  Leigh
February 11, 2015 3:05 pm

Leigh,
You have the Bully Pulpit of Obama the Magnificent and the media and the educational system all against you, plus some of those in the sciences put their jobs on the line going against consensus science. Not so easy as you think. It is also difficult to actually talk real science to the great unwashed masses, at leasy half of whom are relatively illiterate and very innumerate ( math illiterate), know little or no science and no accurate history. Better to ask them who is on Dancing with the Stars or some such rubbish.

Barry
Reply to  Jim G
February 11, 2015 3:26 pm

And some physicists and chemists also consider themselves climate scientists. And now you will also have “geoengineers.” It will be tough to convince them, en masse.

Michael Bentley
February 11, 2015 2:32 pm

All,
“Life support is not needed to study Mars from the ground; or whatever they call all that red stuff.” Uh, here we would call that “red stuff” mostly rust….
Mike

Peter Miller
February 11, 2015 2:41 pm

How can anyone be anything other than disgusted with this Guardian article?
The trough is already so huge and overflowing and money is thrown at the most feeble of research subjects on the sole condition that the conclusion states Thermageddon is imminent, the direct result of almost non-existent man made climate change.

Ralph Kramden
February 11, 2015 2:48 pm

I saw on the news an arrest warrant was issued because of all the snow in the North East. I thought maybe it was for Al Gore but it turned out to be for Punxsutawney Phil.

Doug Proctor
February 11, 2015 2:51 pm

During the witchcraft mania, first came the priests, then the professional “prickers”, i.e. the witch hunters, then came the inventors of torture and death devices for witches. We have devolved to the stage of the makers of ovens large enough for whole families.
Each stage of a mania has its economic opportunities.

Troy
February 11, 2015 4:00 pm

Hello, sorry to get off topic, I am a skeptic that is always visiting this website for information. We are experiencing unusually high tempertures in Wyoming right now. Bill Nye coincidentally spoke to a large green audience in our community recently. He spoke of the unprecedented temperature changes in our area, it is true we do not see 40 below zero now, it is more 20 below when it gets really cold. Someone tried to counter his arguments, he shut them down with look outside, it’s 40 degrees and there is no ice on the streets, we need to get going on fixing the problem. Of course the crowd cheered. He wants carbon taxes on anything that is powered by carbon based fuels. My question is, from my own reading and what I have learned from the articles on this website, there is no evidence that CO2 is raising temperatures, it is an assumption, is that correct? He used some study that used measurements from 1911 to present. He said that 2014 was the warmest ever. But with weather like we have been experiencing it is very difficult to speak freely about what I have learned. Does anyone have any thoughts as to why we might be experiencing these weird temperatures in Wyoming?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 4:43 pm

It could be many things, but it’s almost certainly influenced by climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. This is basic science, has been predicted since the 60’s and is now unfolding just as predicted, and understood as fact by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists (in spite of the fact that the dollars are all on the other side of the argument.) This is an interesting site, but not a good place to look for facts on climate change.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 5:37 pm

so, what are good places to look for facts on climate change?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Bubba Cow
February 11, 2015 5:44 pm

Bubba – you’re on this site, so you have this point of view. For some balance, I would suggest http://www.skepticalscience.com. SKS isn’t very popular around here but you can look at it and make your own judgment.

Eamon Butler
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 6:07 pm

SHF.
Given that the bogus science has predicted literally everything under the sun is because of CAGW, and still manage to get it wrong, that screams, ”We haven’t got a clue”. This, in spite of the obscene funding from all angles being pumped into the alarmist pseudoscience.
There ye go. Fixed it for ye.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 6:31 pm

SHF,
So that’s where you get your misinformation from.
Thought so.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 6:36 pm

SHF –
because I am on this site does not mean I have this point of view – whatever that might be, I read lots.
I visit Jo Nova, Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, the Pielkes, Susan Crockford, Bishop’s Hill, and also SKS and more . . . not interested in Main Stream – that is all marketing anymore.

Alx
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 7:11 pm

SHF,
You keep reciting the same pablum. Instead of coming here to post empty rhetoric, try reading the articles and contradicting specific points in the article. There are people who do that quite well.
Just a suggestion, I understand many find ignorance is bliss.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 8:36 pm

“…overwhelming majority of government-funded climate scientists…” There, fixed.

Hugh
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 12, 2015 7:23 am

“now unfolding just as predicted”
There are so many predictions that failed that your statement fails without further specifying who predicted, what exactly and how you measure the success.
‘Person with a sea-view (predicted)’

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Hugh
February 12, 2015 7:48 am

How about the 1990 IPPC prediction, analyzed in 2012 in a paper in Nature and found to be remarkably accurate? Discounting it as part of a conspiracy will automatically disqualify you from credibility.http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n4/full/nclimate1763.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201304

Mac the Knife
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 5:06 pm

Troy,
Is there no prior record of 40F days in Wyoming in February? Really??
It is almost certainly not influenced by climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. This is basic science, AGW has been refuted since the 60’s and natural climate cycles continue unfolding just as predicted, and understood as fact by the overwhelming majority of climate realists (in spite of the fact that the profligate waste of taxpayer dollars are all on the AGW side of the argument.)

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Mac the Knife
February 11, 2015 5:17 pm

That’s simply not true. Which is why ever major scientific body on the planet publicly endorses AGW. So either they are all wrong, or tens of thousands of scientists are corrupt and maintaining a giant conspiracy to get grant money, and the only ones brave enough to oppose them are a handful of multi-billion dollar fossil fuel conglomerates. Which explains why all the Ferraris are found in the parking lots of university labs and the executive lots at ExxonMobil are jammed with Hyundais. Yep, that’s plausible.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
February 11, 2015 8:39 pm

That’s simply not true.

No, that is right.

Which is why ever (sic) major scientific body on the planet publicly endorses AGW. So either they are all wrong, or tens of thousands of scientists are corrupt and maintaining a giant conspiracy to get grant money, and the only ones brave enough to oppose them are a handful of multi-billion dollar fossil fuel conglomerates.

Yes, that statement is correct. 92 billion dollars buys a lot of corrupt “scientists”, and silences the rest.

Which explains why all the Ferraris are found in the parking lots of university labs and the executive lots at ExxonMobil are jammed with Hyundais. Yep, that’s plausible.

No, the Ferraris are bought by the corrupt politicians who fund their Big Science supporters and the hedge fund operators who need carbon taxes for their Big Government donors, money for their Big Government voters, and profits for Big Finance.

Mac the Knife
Reply to  Mac the Knife
February 11, 2015 8:22 pm

We’ve had this conversation before. The reality based community recognizes there has been no global warming for +18 years. The reality based community recognizes global warming and cooling as natural cycles.
In the face of no ‘threat’, you have only fear mongering and the profligate waste of taxpayer dollars supporting your discredited AGW hypothesis. But don’t let reality stop you, Shaman. Keep shaking your gourd rattle, repeating your well rehearsed mantra, and decrying humanity’s industrial ‘original sin’ as the cause of ‘impending doom’.

Reply to  Mac the Knife
February 11, 2015 9:08 pm

Sir Harry Flashman February 11, 2015 at 5:17 pm
That’s simply not true. Which is why ever major scientific body on the planet publicly endorses AGW.

You dropped the “C” Harry. Why is that? Not CAGW anymore?

Chris
Reply to  Mac the Knife
February 12, 2015 8:20 am

“92 billion dollars buys a lot of corrupt “scientists”, and silences the rest.”
What is your source for the 92 billion dollar figure?

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Chris
February 25, 2015 8:23 am

Chris

(Challenging Mac the Knife)

“92 billion dollars buys a lot of corrupt “scientists”, and silences the rest.”

What is your source for the 92 billion dollar figure?

Well, you’re right. 92 billion is the most common estimate for the US government’s global warming research and development bribery (er, budget). But we’ve recently found that the Obola administration actually spent more than 60 billion just the past three budgets alone, so you are right. It is far higher than 92 billion available to buy Big Government self-selected scientists to produce results for Big Government bureaucrats to justify 1.3 trillion in higher taxes for Big Government donors to get a cut for Big Finance. But only the left’s Occupy Wall Street complains about Big Finance, don’t they?
Now, what is wrong with the science that Willie Soon wrote up?

Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 5:10 pm

How much did Billy get to speak to the rooters?
Carbon tax is all about $$$ – and some for the “science guy” – possibly he is stumping, maybe commission.
There is plenty of info for you here – look around – links at top and to the right.

lee
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 5:24 pm

Bill Nye believed NASA and NOAA? And repeated it? He must be some Science Guy.

garymount
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 5:47 pm

If warm weather in Wyoming proves global warming, then the current cold weather in the eastern United States proves the coming ice age.
But seriously though, how does global average increase of temperature since 1880 of 0.8 C cause that amount of warming in Wyoming? I have heard that the same nonsense about out temporary warmth in south western British Columbia is a result of climate change, yet a couple of months ago we were having record cold temperatures.

Alx
Reply to  garymount
February 11, 2015 7:17 pm

That is not how climate science works with weather. Note the simple 2 step process:
1.Climate science is the only entity allowed to use local weather as proof.
2. Whether the local weather is hotter, colder, drier, or wetter, it proves climate science is true.

Eugene WR Gallun
Reply to  garymount
February 11, 2015 8:59 pm

garymount
How does a global average increase of temperature since 1880 of 0.8C casue that amount of warming in Wyoming??
Best line of the night.
Eugene WR Gallun

Mick
Reply to  garymount
February 12, 2015 11:54 am

Garymount, look at the province weather page and look at record temps for the day. You will notice most winter records are still outstanding with double digits in every decade since records have been kept in Vancouver

mebbe
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 5:56 pm

We are free to believe what we want.
Casper Wyoming saw -40 in 1949 and again in 1972. That’s it.
We have the same problem here in Canada, where Forty below is the go-to temperature that everybody invokes, and they’re convinced they’ve seen it many times. They haven’t.
I lived in the Yukon in the 1970’s and January and February often saw minimums of -40 or -45, just as they do now. That’s north of 60 degrees latitude. Even Winnipeg tends to bottom out around -35C.
In 1958 Casper didn’t get colder than +5 F. Silly Sir Harry will tell you how that came to be and what will happen next year.
Not even the most extreme warmist thinks it has changed 20 degrees in 30 years.

Bill Murphy
Reply to  Troy
February 11, 2015 10:43 pm

Troy, Interesting you mentioned 1911 — more in a sec… How about last November. If Nye had shown up then, his reception might have been a bit cooler (sorry…) Over 400 record lows for date were set in Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska and points East. Specific to your area, “Casper, Wyoming, dipped to -27 at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, shattering their all-time November record low of -21 on Nov. 23, 1985” an all-time monthly low. http://www.weather.com/storms/winter/news/arctic-cold-outbreak-november-locked-20141110
All that happened around Nov 11th 2014. On another Nov 11th “Many cities broke record highs, going into the 70s and 80s early that afternoon. By nightfall, cities were dealing with temperatures in the teens and single-digits on the Fahrenheit scale. This is the only day in many midwest cities’ weather bureau jurisdictions where the record highs and lows were broken for the same day. Some cities experienced tornadoes on Saturday and a blizzard on Sunday. A blizzard even occurred within one hour after an F4 tornado hit Rock County, Wisconsin.” [ http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=nov_11_1911_cold_front ] or the wiki page on that storm.
Classic CAGW violent weather, right? Proves CAGW, right? Except that happened on Nov 11th 1911. Well before anybody claims AGW could have started.
It’s called WEATHER, and it changes. Sometimes drastically. Climate changes all the time as well. A thousand or so years ago the Vikings lived and farmed in Greenland and the natives in Chaco Canyon, NM had a vibrant farming community. Then the climate changed, Greenland weather and ice drove the Norse out and the rains dried up in Chaco and it was abandoned. What CO2 caused that? Climate went from colder than today to warmer than today to colder than today to what we have now. All in only 1200 years and for most of that without so much as a lawn mower adding to the CO2.
You can talk to people about propaganda and deliberate falsifying of data, as shown by the climategate scandal. And it’s still being practised by those like “Sir Harry Flashman,” claiming that petro dollars are behind all sceptic science when the provable facts are that big oil is putting a LOT of money into both sides, while government is putting nearly all their money into his side. Only in Harry’s rhetorical world is Big Oil bigger than Big Government.
Speaking of Sir Harry, I’m amused and conflicted by that screen name. Why would a “Deacon of CAGW Truth” pick the name of a fictional character best known for being a liar, a scoundrel, “cad and bounder” and a cheat? I toyed with the idea that he is really a sceptic using a sort of reverse psychology to make the alarmists look bad (which he does quite well with his semi-skilled use of the standard (tired) rhetorical tricks of ad hom, misdirection, bait and switch, appeal to authority and etc.) but on further reflection I decided he is just another ideologue that stumbled across a copy of “Rules for Radicals” and, since he knew that he was a genius, he came hither to save us from our selves. I wonder if that choice of screen name is what they used to call a “Freudian slip”???
How’s that workin’ for ya, Harry?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Bill Murphy
February 13, 2015 10:44 am

“It’s called WEATHER, and it changes. Sometimes drastically. Climate changes all the time as well.”
Noone has ever disputed that. Climate changes based on forcings, which can mean all kinds of things. Currently the forcing that is driving the change towards a warmer planet is human-generated greenhouse gases, and much work has been done to prove this.
” Why would a “Deacon of CAGW Truth” pick the name of a fictional character best known for being a liar, a scoundrel, “cad and bounder” and a cheat? I toyed with the idea that he is really a sceptic using a sort of reverse psychology to make the alarmists look bad (which he does quite well with his semi-skilled use of the standard (tired) rhetorical tricks of ad hom, misdirection, bait and switch, appeal to authority and etc.) but on further reflection I decided he is just another ideologue that stumbled across a copy of “Rules for Radicals” and, since he knew that he was a genius, he came hither to save us from our selves. ”
Firstly thanks for the new title and list of skills, I will add those to my business card and CV. Secondly, I just really enjoy the Flashman books and figure by using the name I may encourage others to read them. There’s no other motive there. Finally, I don’t think I’m going to “save” anyone here, even if I wanted to. I’m just in it for the lulz.

mpainter
Reply to  Bill Murphy
February 13, 2015 11:10 am

Flash man:
Good news if we get a warmer planet. Warmer is better for all life forms.
It means lower heating costs, less winter mortality for all life forms including humans; less winter misery.
It means a longer growing season and more food for a burgeoning world population.
So tell, us, SHF, when will we see this heaven on earth? Because we have surely not seen much lately.
So tell us, when we we see this heaven on earth, our promised warmth?
Or maybe you are talking about climate models. Is this what you mean? Climate models?

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 1:38 pm

I’m talking about 9 of the 10 hottest years since measurement began taking place between 2002 and 2014. Even “skeptics” know it’s getting hotter; I was under the impression the excuses had moved on to “Sure, but it’s not our fault” pending the inevitable “Too late to do anything about it now!”.

mpainter
Reply to  Bill Murphy
February 13, 2015 1:58 pm

SHF:
Getting better and better for humankind and nature’s own, do you say?
Great!
Thank you for this wonderful news.
All the while I’ve been fearful of a descent into another Little Ice Age, or worse, which cooling is the scythe of death for fauna and flora. But now you show that sort of fretfulness is just climate alarmism, thank you for your revelation.
PS: my poor, over wrung hands thank you, too.

Mick
Reply to  Troy
February 12, 2015 11:51 am

You are worried about not having -40 degree weather? Wow…just wow.
I guess -60 would be better. And Bill Nye would no doubt blame that on global warming.
These guys are nuts.
The arctic was -67 C (wind chill) a week or 2 back. Yet they keep claiming that it is hotter than ever.
When it is -67 (wind chill), that is just weather. When it is -20 in BF Wyoming, THAT! is Climate change.

DRE
February 11, 2015 4:37 pm

“…the time has come to look at options for a planetary-scale intervention…”
I used to find all this climate hoopla slightly amusing and extremely irritating now I’m scared. Funging data and heating server rooms running simulations is one thing but this is asinine.

noloctd
February 11, 2015 4:51 pm

Somebody remind me again why we have a National Academy of Science? Or why anyone reads the Guardian?

February 11, 2015 4:53 pm

Dooms Day machine, huh? I think the NSA may be working on a “solution” to the end of civilization caused by climate change.
John Holdren: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy…heh, heh… at the bottom of ah…some of our deeper mineshafts. Climate change would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in drilling space could easily be provided.
Obama: How long would you have to stay down there?
Strangelove: …I would think that uh, possibly uh…one hundred years…It would not be difficult Mein Fuehrer! Solar panels could, heh…I’m sorry, Mr. President. Solar panels could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses, excuse the term, could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and SLAUGHTERED! A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country, but I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.
Obama: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide…who stays up and…who goes down.
John Holdren: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men and climate scientists be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition.

F. Ross
Reply to  lancifer666
February 11, 2015 5:31 pm

I so hope that Peter Sellers is enjoying a well deserved laugh at your post in his well deserved after life – if such there be.

thingadonta
February 11, 2015 5:00 pm

I’ve always wondered why something like the Haber process couldn’t be used to take c02 out of the air. Nitrogen works, so what are the issues?

Rick K
Reply to  thingadonta
February 11, 2015 5:17 pm

I dunno… maybe the end of all plant life…

thingadonta
Reply to  Rick K
February 11, 2015 6:21 pm

my question was, is it economic to take c02 out of the air.? Necessity is the mother of invention, I cant see why nuclear power in a stable place (such as the Australian outback) couldn’t be used if it takes up a lot of energy.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  thingadonta
February 11, 2015 8:29 pm

thingadonta
my question was, is it economic to take c02 out of the air.?
No. Taking CO2 out of the air is a waste of time, money, effort, resources, energy, and space. There is no gain from the effort, and the CO2 removed will not change the climate, the world’s global average temperature, nor the world’s future.
On the other hand, removing CO2 from the atmosphere and compressing it to dangerous levels while trying to “store” it underground in expensive leaking cracked rock only endangers any future living thing near the storage area, and harms the plants and animals who otherwise would be able to live on the fertilizer wastefully compressed and pumped underground.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  thingadonta
February 11, 2015 8:46 pm

I’ve always wondered why something like the Haber process couldn’t be used to take c02 out of the air. Nitrogen works, so what are the issues?

Money, time, energy, resources, people would be wasted. For no value produced.

PiperPaul
Reply to  thingadonta
February 11, 2015 8:48 pm

Back when I was liquefying carbon dioxide we’d get the feed stream from refineries and fertilizer plants. There’s just not enough PPM CO2 for atmospheric extraction to be feasible. Nitrogen, at ~78%, on the other hand…Oh, and plant food, etc.

thingadonta
Reply to  PiperPaul
February 12, 2015 12:17 am

Thanks for the replies.
However there may be a benefit to removing c02, that is, to placate the alarmists.
I don’t think c02 is a problem until well over 1000ppm anyway, but it might be able to be extracted from the air using nuclear energy to make limestone or something else, to keep it around 400ppm, at the very least to placate the alarmists. I haven’t read of the issues in many places on how to achieve this.
It wouldn’t be the first time resources were spent on un-necessary mitigation. In the mining industry this sort of thing occurs all the time whenever a mine project has to get approved, but they usually do it anyway because otherwise they aren’t allowed to operate. It’s part of the cost of doing business. 9/10 of the mitigation measures are usually done from either an over-abundance of caution, or simply to placate those who won’t have it any other way. I have a feeling this is ultimately where c02 mitigation is going.

F. Ross
February 11, 2015 5:27 pm

“Climate change has advanced so rapidly…”

[+emphasis]
What the h*ll does that mean? It has been pretty well documented that there has been essentially zero warming for the last 15, 17, 18 years or so — depending on which data set and who is analyzing it.

Randy
February 11, 2015 5:28 pm

“Climate change has advanced so rapidly that the time has come to look at options for a planetary-scale intervention, the National Academy of Science said on Tuesday.”
Amazing that someone from such a source can say this with a straight face when we are well under the rates of change needed for the claimed dangerous end of the estimates.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Randy
February 11, 2015 10:06 pm

And yet, how many times has NAS been cited when some heaterist starts slinging appeals to authority?

KenB
February 11, 2015 5:28 pm

Just musing – as American politics is a bit embarrassing with many of my long term American friends being equally divided to political alignment with democrats and republicans so we try to be neutral unless your politics or politicians intrude into the Australian political sphere, so mostly avoid commenting or supporting either.
But from an outsiders perspective it seems there is a huge opportunity for the democrats to use issues such as saving the world from mad “scientific/scientists” fiddling with dangerous nature environmental quick fixes to non existent problems and also, the extreme danger of being sold out economically at Paris.
A new leadership model to re-invent their political aspirations by rediscovering the scientific method, declaring the manipulated climate schemes of the past 10 years or so as a monumental mistake for their party and use both issues to remove Obama and present a shiny new rebadged party and leader for the next series of elections.
Perhaps even endorsing and sponsoring a great economic leap forward to beat China in its present leadership in nuclear fusion reactor development – “a space race to abundant energy and a new era of prosperity” all based on jobs, living conditions, and capable economically to supporting those that fall by the wayside in technologically rich countries.
Interesting to see some of the issues crying out for spin. I guess that could also be open to other political aspirants, but so inviting when the public like dramatic statesman like announcements, better than having wars.
Food for thought or just idle musing.

Mike the Morlock
February 11, 2015 5:51 pm

Eric Worrall, I have looked at the picture with the article several times and find it a distraction. It is hard to concentrate, and pay attention to the comments. I see the picture and my mind screams “Bacon”!
michael

Reply to  Mike the Morlock
February 11, 2015 8:24 pm

and PORK

jmorpuss
February 11, 2015 6:08 pm

For those that are interested in what were been doing .
http://www.weathermodification.org/wmanewsarchives.php
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/weather/frontline.html
https://climateviewer.com/2014/03/26/cloud-ionization-electric-rainmaking-laser-guided-weather-modification/
We always get to see the stealth of yesterday,only after something better has come along that can do a better job . One thing electronics uses is a step up or down transformer, for reducing or increasing voltage. A good example is the microwave oven and the magnetron used to increase wattage/volts. It’s hard to calculate how many watts our wireless comes and remote sensing pump into the atmosphere. We only measure the grid power at the metre.

SAMURAI
February 11, 2015 6:14 pm

Geoengineering is a REAL bad idea…
This is just the last gasp of CAGW grant hounds trying to grab as much CAGW research funding as possible before CAGW collapses like a house of cards.
It’s hilarious to see phrases like, “Climate change has advanced so rapidly that the time has come to look at options for a planetary-scale intervention”
Really? “advanced so rapidly”? Just 0.8C of warming since the end of the LITTLE ICE AGE in 1850 is, “advanced so rapidly”… That’s a temp trend of just 0.049C/decade over the last 164 years.
What’s funny is that a large portion of this “0.8C” of global warming can be attributed to the homogenization of global temp data. If scientists had just stuck with the raw data, actual global warming would probably be closer to 0.5C~0.6C over the past 164 years, with CO2 perhaps contributing just 0.2C of the total… Who cares?
CAGW has become a joke that’s in its final death throes. As CAGW’s demise becomes more imminent, the shrill protestations from the Left will become crazier and more absurd.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  SAMURAI
February 13, 2015 11:54 am

SAMURAI,

Geoengineering is a REAL bad idea…

That’s been the prevailing consensus opinion for quite some time now. Nice of you guys to finally get it. Now if we could just convince this crowd that desequestering gigatonnes of CO2 per annum is similarly inadvisable, we might not need to research such last-ditch efforts. Eh?
Sorry, I’m making sense again. I understand that’s a no-no.

mpainter
Reply to  Brandon Gates
February 13, 2015 12:09 pm

No need to apologize when you make sense Gates. It’s a welcome change.
Atmospheric CO2 is entirely beneficial Gates, so relax and enjoy the benefits.
If you disagree, why please specify your disagreement. We would like to hear your views. But Gates, you need to make sense. None of this alarmist incoherence which you are prone to. No sneers, insults or snarkiness or your usual troll tactics but cogent, well supported reasoning. If you can.

nutso fasst
February 11, 2015 6:47 pm

Geoengineering was being seriously proposed on Usenet newsgroups back in 1999. It was my first inkling that hard-core believers in catastrophic global warming were insane.

Louis
February 11, 2015 6:56 pm

When you chum the waters with grant money, don’t be surprised if all kinds of hungry predators show up.

Neo
February 11, 2015 7:41 pm

Why should ‘gender studies’ be confined to humans. We must ready to examine the gender problems of climate change.

knr
Reply to  Neo
February 12, 2015 3:25 am

Its already been done , its a very big gravy train with lots of seats for those looking to cash in .

February 11, 2015 9:38 pm

To stop global warming, implement the following “geoengineering”
1. Remove global warming fanatics in scientific institutions that keep temperature data
2. Put thermometers in unpopulated areas far away from man-made structures
3. Measure air temperature 5 km above the sea, not water temperature under the sea

David Chappell
February 11, 2015 9:40 pm

The fundamental guiding principle should be: do not screw with Mother Nature, she will turn round and bite you on the arse (or worse).

Mervyn
February 11, 2015 11:49 pm

National Academy of Science … sounds more like a kiddy’s club of imbeciles that have jumped on the dangerous man-made global warming gravy-train, that is rolling along … destination unknown!

February 12, 2015 3:27 am

Whenever one sees the use of the following terms, one can dismiss the commentary as a deliberate attempt to mislead the gullible and the technically incompetent.
“Climate change” is a deliberately misleading term that describes a non-falsifiable hypothesis that includes both global warming AND global cooling, both of which have occurred naturally over historic and geological time. To be precise, one must specify if one is concerned about global warming or global cooling, how much, and what is the alleged cause.
“Carbon pollution” is another deliberately misleading term that attempts to equate carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless gas that is the feedstock of virtually all life on Earth with carbon, which occurs naturally with associated impurities as coal, lignite, etc., a black or brown solid.
_____________________
On Climate Science, Global Cooling, Ice Ages and Geo-Engineering:
[Also posted by Joe d’Aleo on Icecap.us on 18Dec2014]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/15/paleo-study-past-global-warming-similar-to-todays/#comment-1816677
David Socrates asks on December 16, 2014 at 7:57 am
“Will all the folks saying that ∆CO2 follows ∆T ([temperature]. explain why in the past 15/16/17 years, ∆T = zero and ∆CO2 is 30-34 ppm?”
Already answered in my posts on this page David:
“I suggest that at a practical level, atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
In the modern data record, the rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months.
For verification, please see my 2008 paper at
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
CO2 also lags temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record on a longer time scale.
Therefore, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. CO2 does not drive temperature; temperature (among other factors) drives CO2.
….
It appears that CO2 lags T at all measured time scales. This still allows for other significant drivers of atmospheric CO2, such as fossil fuel combustion, land-use changes such as deforestation, ocean outgassing, etc.”
*************
The details of this issue have been ably argued on wattsup and other sites between Ferdinand Engelbeen and Richard S Courtney – one can search under “mass balance argument”.
The issue is one of magnitudes – how can we fully explain the current rise in atmospheric CO2 – your “∆CO2 is 30-34 ppm” – when the ∆CO2 magnitudes observed in both the modern data record and the ice core record in response to ∆T are allegedly too small to solely account for this 30-34 ppm CO2 – some parties allege that other drivers of this ∆CO2 such as fossil fuel combustion must also exist (and they may be right or wrong).
Many pages have been written and it is an interesting argument, which is of great scientific importance. However, for policy discussions I suggest all we really need to know is that global temperature T is clearly insensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and the IPCC / alarmists’ fear of catastrophic humanmade global warming is without scientific merit, and is highly counterproductive, wasteful and foolish.
As we clearly stated in our 2002 PEGG paper:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.
As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on Earth, I feel it is my duty to advocate on our behalf. To be clear, I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms, but I really do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. They could be very nice. 🙂
Best, Allan
Icecap comment:
This season beat out 2004 and 2009 for US crop yields with a global glut of produce. Ideal weather conditions combined with higher CO2 has improved productivity. CO2 is plant food. Even in drought ridden California, CO2 helped to limit losses by enhancing growth and reducing water needs. The losses would have been much greater with lower CO2 levels.

Reply to  Allan MacRae
February 12, 2015 2:17 pm

Your ‘paper’ does not appear in a peer-reviewed Journal, and for good reason –no Scientist working in the field would support the preposterous notions that ‘CO2 as plant food’ is relevant to AGW, or that “all we really need to know is that global temperature T is clearly insensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2 ”
The sensitivity of Global temperature to CO2 ppmv is clearly evident as a follow-on response to natural temperature-driven CO2 increases in the ice core record, and clearly visible in the modern day record as leading Global temperature rise.
Being a ‘skeptic’ is one thing, Ignoring data entirely is another.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 2:22 pm

Hey warrenlb.
How many hundred research papers have you actually read?
How many have you written?

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 2:59 pm

Warrenlb cites ice core records as proof of AGW. Tell us all we need to know about his state of mind.
How many peer reviewed studies can you muster to support that fanciful idea, warrenlb?

Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 7:08 pm

Hey RACookPE1978:
How often have you looked at the Vostok Ice Core Data?
Did you understand its implications for the 2-way cause and effect relationship between atmospheric CO2 ppmv and Global Temperature?

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 7:33 pm

Yes. And part of it I disagree with. And part of the consensus “so-called resolution” I agree with.

Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 7:47 pm

. “And part of it I disagree with”. How can you disagree with DATA?

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 8:03 pm

Not with “data’ … With the presentation and interpretation of the so-called “data” as written up.
For example, you have written comments some 300 times claiming only “peer-reviewed literature” as the Bible of your religious belief. Well, I’ve read those papers and those articles you claim to cite. Some several thousand of them by now. And, no, the “words” in the conclusions do not represent the “world” as it exists in the real world of the planet earth. So, which days were clear and sunny? Which were cloudy, but only part of the time? What latitude? What albedo was “summarized” and which was “averaged” and which was taken on a clear day under what conditions? What is an area albedo, and what is a measured albedo under what kind of cloud cover?
What sentences in the abstract are the “we need more funding for next year’ and which were “inserted by the peer-previewer-we-were-saddled-with-despite-the-data”?
Are you competent and experienced enough in the sciences and technologies and techniques and equations involved to critically review the science literature? Are you capable of finding the errors and omissions and assumptions within the “peer-reviewed” literature you claim is “”Authority” ? I am. Are you?

Reply to  warrenlb
February 12, 2015 8:00 pm

RACook says:
Hey warrenlb.
How many hundred research papers have you actually read?

I would like an answer to that question, too. I know that Robert Cook reads literally hundreds of papers every year. I would be willing to bet that warrenlb doesn’t read very many; certainly not hundreds. From warrenlb’s comments, he doesn’t know much, but his mind is made up and it cannot be changed by all the facts and data in the world.
================
mpainter says:
Warrenlb cites ice core records as proof of AGW.
Yes, I would like to hear more about that conjecture. If the ice core records tell us anything at all, it is that human emissions have no measurable effect on global T. But if warrenlb believes otherwise, by all means, post your evidence here.

Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 5:47 am

: So you’ve looked at the Vostok Ice Core data, and can’t see the secondary wave of temperature increase following the upsurge in CO2 after the initial temperature rise due to the Milankovitch cycles? And you haven’t noted in the modern data that Global temperature started to rise in 1880, well after CO2 started to rise??

Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 9:59 am

Sorry Warren, I will not respond to you because I do not have conversations with imbeciles.
Thanks to the rest of you for your comments.
Please note that atmospheric CO2 has been increasing since prior to 1940, and yet global temperature declined from ~1940 to ~1975, increased to ~2000, and has since been flat – hence there is no apparent sensitivity of temperature to CO2. Next, we can expect global temperature to cool – and when it does the warmists will still continue to bleat about the demon CO2, even though they have already been proven wrong in all their warming predictions – by the “pause”.
My January 2008 hypo is gaining traction with the recent work of several researchers. We don’t always agree on the fine details, but there is clear agreement in the primary hypothesis.
Here is Murry Salby’s address to the Sydney Institute in 2011:

Here is Salby’s address in Hamburg 2013:

See also this January 2013 paper from Norwegian researchers:
The Phase Relation between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Global Temperature
Global and Planetary Change
Volume 100, January 2013, Pages 51–69
by Ole Humluma, Kjell Stordahlc, Jan-Erik Solheimd
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
A paper by a group from three Dutch universities published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics that they have found that only about 3.75% [15 ppm] of the CO2 in the lower atmosphere is man-made from the burning of fossil fuels, and thus, the vast remainder of the 400 ppm atmospheric CO2 is from land-use changes and natural sources such as ocean outgassing and plant respiration.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/7273/2014/acp-14-7273-2014.html
*****************

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 11:51 am

Warrenlb
Ice core data shows that continental glaciation returns when atmospheric CO2 is at its highest point during the interglacial. That is to say that by this index, CO2 causes ice ages.
How about that!
Note to bloggers: I predict warrenlb will never respond to this comment

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 1:39 pm

Can you link to your source or sources on this?

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 2:13 pm

My source is my memory.
Any ice core (Greenland ice cores have the best resolution) data chart shows that glaciation returns when CO2 is highest.
There was a post on WUWT that showed this several months ago.
Sorry, can’t be more specific but I don’t make this stuff up.
I got to say, SHF, you come across very much as someone who is uninformed or badly misinformed on the issues.
Furthermore, I do not mean to say that CO2 causes glaciation. But the data clearly refutes the notion that CO2 amplified interglacial warming or that it can prevent a return to glaciation.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  mpainter
February 14, 2015 6:42 am

Gotcha. Its the opinion of a random internet commenter based on something he claims have read somewhere but can’t really remember. I certainly can’t refute evidence like that.

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 3:33 pm

To continue my comment @2:13 pm:
The post showed the ice core record of the last interglacial and that temperatures plunged unto the last ice age while CO2 stayed steady at their highest. There was an 8,000 lag before CO2 levels declined, with respect to the temperature decline.

Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 3:39 pm

Murry Salby Presentation – Sydney Institute August 2011 is located at

Murry Salby Presentation – Sydney Institute July 2012 is located at

Brandon Gates
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 7:02 am

mpainter,

Ice core data shows that continental glaciation returns when atmospheric CO2 is at its highest point during the interglacial. That is to say that by this index, CO2 causes ice ages.

Problem with that is it makes it difficult to explain how temperatures rose in conjunction with CO2 levels in the first place.

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 8:47 am

SHF:
Seems to be past your skills to use the internet or the WUWT search engine.
I am content for the world to have your “gotcha” response as a means of judging betwixt you and me.
Ice core data is most easily retrieved from the web. The world notes how squeamish you are in this respect.
As far as the idea of your refuting any skeptic, you’ve got to be joking.

Reply to  Allan MacRae
February 13, 2015 10:41 am

MacRae: How is that NO ONE in the scientific community seem to recognize your genius (or lack of imbecility)?

Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 11:32 am

Macrae:
You cite Salby in a forum about ‘Hogs at the Government funding trough’??
” In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby’s federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed “a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity” in his handling of federal grant money.He resigned his position in Colorado in 2008 and became professor of climate risk at Macquarie University in Macquarie Park, New South Wales. In 2013 he was dismissed by the university on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.”
And:
“The National Science Foundation investigation report issued on 20 February 2009 found that Salby had overcharged his grants and violated financial conflict of interest policies, displaying “a pattern of deception, a lack of integrity, and a persistent and intentional disregard of NSF and University rules and policies” and a “consistent willingness to violate rules and regulations, whether federal or local, for his personal benefit.” It debarred Salby from receiving federal assistance and benefits until 13 August 2012.[2]
After leaving Colorado, Salby joined the faculty of Macquarie University in Australia, where he was appointed Professor of Climate Risk in 2008. Salby’s employment at Macquarie was terminated in 2013; Macquarie University stated that he was dismissed for refusing to fulfill his teaching responsibilities and for inappropriate use of university resources including a corporate credit card.

Bill Junga
February 12, 2015 3:49 am

There are scientists and there are “scientists”.
Looks to me like a select group of “scientists” have been spending too much time in cushy climatically controlled offices, probably set at 72 degrees F, known to those in the HVAC trade as the “dead zone” want to remain on the gravy train.
Wise up, the climate is always changing. We don’t know many things about the Earth and its atmosphere yet. What folly to think they are capable of taming nature.
Perhaps, the saying of create a fictitious unsolvable problem or crisis and money will flow to the recipients.Until it becomes an apparent scam.

nutso fasst
February 12, 2015 4:37 am

When carbon can be removed from air and turned into useful materials at reasonable cost, its harvesting will make perfect sense–at which point it will happen without government mandates.

Guess
February 12, 2015 8:32 am

We’ve been wasting money on climate models that don’t work, Isn’t it time we come up with geo-engineering projects that don’t work?

rtj1211
February 12, 2015 9:23 am

The time has come to call the NAS’ bluff.
Including the wholesale witholding of research funds from any academic who has previously published fraudulent global warming bullshit.
There are zero people on this planet capable of intervening ‘on a global scale’ with any understanding of what they are doing or unleashing. Zero.
The world has existed happily for billions of years without this.
It can do so for hundreds of years more…..

Reply to  rtj1211
February 13, 2015 9:01 pm

rtj1211 says:
The time has come to call the NAS’ bluff.
Exactly. Here is an article showing the names of 160 scientists who did just that.

February 12, 2015 11:26 am

Sorry Eric but this is the sort of nonsense post that makes skeptics look silly.
I am referring to troughs and pictures of pigs and money.
As a rational person one would embrace any thought into alternative solutions to the “possible” threat of climate change especially if they are likely to be far more cost effective than destructive drastic co2 cuts. I would ask for a fair assessment of nuclear power for the same reasons. I know you would agree with that.
If we have viable and safe technological solutions to what may we be a non problem then that blows out of the water the mitigation just in case argument and further strengthens the sensible wait and see approach.
R&D (not deployment) into geoengineering would be a much better waste of money than building windmills.

Reply to  Embarrassed skeptic
February 12, 2015 11:53 am

I could only agree with that if you could agree to fund research on mitigating global cooling. Ice is more to be feared than fire. 50 years ago it was the only concern. –AGF

Metric
Reply to  Embarrassed skeptic
February 12, 2015 12:54 pm

Excellent points. This development only serves to diffuse the manipulative sense of panic. My immediate reaction to this article was that WUWT is shooting itself in the foot.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Embarrassed skeptic
February 12, 2015 1:54 pm

Wrong, wrong , wrong. That is a backdoor attempt at using the precautionary principle. There is no problem with our climate, therefore no “solutions” are required.

Metric
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 12, 2015 3:49 pm

Al Gore said on Wednesday it would be “insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme” to turn to geo-engineering projects to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Why do you think that all the usual suspects like Gore, Mann, etc. don’t want people to even discuss the possibility of climate engineering? It’s precisely for the reasons posted by “embarassed skeptic.” If people start thinking about geoengineering, the sense of panicked “do something NOW” urgency is diminished. It also forces people to admit that the climate models are not to be trusted.

DirkH
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
February 13, 2015 4:09 pm

Metric
February 12, 2015 at 3:49 pm
“Why do you think that all the usual suspects like Gore, Mann, etc. don’t want people to even discuss the possibility of climate engineering?”
Because Gore isn’t invested in the geoengineering action.

DirkH
Reply to  Embarrassed skeptic
February 13, 2015 4:10 pm

Embarrassed skeptic
February 12, 2015 at 11:26 am
“As a rational person one would embrace any thought into alternative solutions to the “possible” threat of climate change ”
As a rational person I demand that you set the geoengineering climate dial such that we can grow pomegranates in Germany again like we did in the middle ages.

Metric
February 12, 2015 12:41 pm

This is not bad news. It highlights an important inconsistency in the climate modelers. On the one hand, they are prepared to “trust the model” for the purposes of seizing control of industry globally, but on the other hand they are absolutely TERRIFIED of “trusting the model” for purposes of climate engineering. Why is that?

Reply to  Metric
February 13, 2015 7:10 am

So do you recommend geoengineering?

Metric
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 7:45 am

I don’t see a need for it now, and of course the present-day models are in no way good enough to do engineering with (that’s part of the point — any climate engineering discussion has to start with an admission that the current models are garbage). But I’m not against the *concept* for some point in the distant future — CO2 will likely never be an issue due to peak fossil fuel production in the relatively near term, but it seems like humanity and technology in general is set to experience some fairly radical changes within the next century, so it’s not a bad technological concept to keep in mind.

Alan McIntire
February 13, 2015 7:49 am

After reading Henrik Svensmark’s “The Chilling Stars” and
“The Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, Cosmic Rays, and Ice Age Epochs on Earth” by Nir J. Shaviv, I was perverserly hoping Astronomers would try to cash in by stating it was the sun, cosmic rays, etc seriously affecting climate and that more grant money was needed for astronomers to study the potential pending climate swings.

mpainter
February 13, 2015 10:58 am

So Gates, what evidence can you offer for AGW via CO2?
(39 times previously Gates has been asked this without giving a response. This will make forty.)

Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 2:14 pm

So, Mpainter, what is your position on AGW?
1) Earth is not warming
2) Earth is warming, but Man is not the cause
3) Earth is warming , Man is the cause, but the effects are not worth worrying about
4) Earth is warming, Man is the cause, the effects will be harmful, but not to me, and I don’t care what happens to my grandchildren or theirs.

mpainter
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 8:15 am

My position on warming:
The late warming trend ended circa 1997 and there has been no warming since then.
The late warming trend has been shown to be due to reduced cloudiness, on a global scale, since the mid-eighties. These studies are published and peer reviewed in the fashion so beloved of the warmists and they are based on detailed cloud data records publicly available.
The reduced cloud cover means increased insolation from 2.5 W/ m2 to 5W/m2, which more than accounts for the warming during that interval.
This increased insolation is also is the source of increased SST. CO2 cannot contribute to SST because of the opacity of water to LWIR.
My grandchildren are not frightened by the alarmist propaganda.
I am willing to wager that your grandchildren wet their beds nightly, out of fright over the CO2 bugaboo.
Imo, the dominant characteristic of the alarmists is ignorance compounded by superstition.

mpainter
Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 4:54 pm

No response yet from Gates.
Shall we conclude that he has none to offer?

Janice Moore
Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 9:07 pm

Gates is over here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/13/new-paper-unprecedented-21st-century-drought-risk-in-the-american-southwest-and-central-plains/#comment-1859259
mixed up about what Asybot was saying about Gates’ “time travel” assertion.

mpainter
February 13, 2015 5:51 pm

Gates:
Code tech is right. The CO2 issue has stalled climate science. There has been no advance in this field for twenty years except through the work of skeptics. The field has otherwise experienced a setback by the insistence that CO2 determines climate. This is monumental error and it has been thoroughly refuted through peer reviewed science, so beloved by you.

Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 8:13 pm

What peer-reviewed science refutes the Greenhouse Effect and CO2 driving climate, please?

Janice Moore
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 8:51 pm

Warren Pound — you have skipped Step 1 (a fatal error — sorry):
1. What peer-reviewed science proves that CO2 drives climate shifts?
2. IF 1 = 0, THEN End.
The End.

Reply to  mpainter
February 13, 2015 8:39 pm

mpainter is correct, CO2 is a discredited issue. Some folks try to argue radiative physics, which would be fine — except the planet is acting nothing like they repeatedly predicted. So something is very wrong with their belief.
The reason that CO2 has no measureable effect is due to radiative physics, but not in the way Gates believes. The CO2 concentration could rise by 20% – 30% with no measurable change in global temperature. This chart explains the situation clearly.
The screeching and hand-waving by the alarmist cult is due to the fact that global warming has stopped:comment image
[Click in any chart to embiggen]
Even mainstream newspapers like the Washington Post admit that global warming has stopped:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2014/06/newchart.jpg
Next, the “carbon” scare ignores the fact that we are in a cold phase of global temperatures:
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2839/28392301.jpg
And the current Holocene shows that we are at the cool end:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
Next, the alarmnist crowd was simply lying when they claimed that 2014 was “the hottest year EVAH!!” [Are you paying attention, Rodney Molyneux?]comment image
Next, there has been no acceleration in natural global warming. The planet has been warming naturally at the same rate, and within well defined parameters, since the LIA:comment image
Next, there is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening now:comment image
Next, there have been at least twenty ‘hockey stick’ rises in global temperature during the Holocene. The current natural rise is neither unprecedented, nor unusual:
http://i.snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
Next, this animation shows clearly that there is nothing to be concerned about. The ‘carbon’ scare is simply a deceptive method of taxing the air we breathe. Honest science has nothing whatever to do with the global warming scare.
Finally, on ALL time scales out to a million years or more, ∆CO2 follows ∆T:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Past_740_kyrs_Dome-Concordia_ice_core_temperature_reconstructions.png
See in graph: [Note: TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2 CHANGE]
Empirical evidence shows that cause and effect relationship on time scales from years, to hundreds of millennia. Effect cannot precede cause. Therefore, changes in atmospheric CO2 do not cause global warming or cooling. That is such an irrefutable fact that the alarmist crowd usually ignores it.
If facts change, or if new facts emerge, scientific skeptics [the great majority of readers here] will change their minds. That is the basic difference between skeptics and the climate alarmists here: the alarmist crowd never changes their minds, no matter how many irrefutable facts are presented. Their minds are made up, and closed tight. How many times has anyone seen them post, “I was wrong about the MMGW scare”? I have never seen that, and I’ve been here since the very beginning.
The debate is not really about science. Scientific skeptics argue using facts and evidence, while alarmists argue their true religious climate beliefs. That is the reason there is never any agreement.
[PS: Matthew C., I never took your comments as any sort of challenge. We are on the same page WRT the science.]
[PPS: clipe, funny! Thanx for posting.]

[“Embiggen the chart.” ? Is that permitted in mixed company? .mod]

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 3:03 am

Thank you db for this excellent and informative post. You wrote:
“Finally, on ALL time scales out to a million years or more, ∆CO2 follows ∆T.”
I wrote the same above, based on my 2008 paper:
“In the modern data record, the rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and CO2 lags temperature by about 9 months.
CO2 also lags temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record on a longer time scale.
Therefore, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. CO2 does not drive temperature; temperature (among other factors) drives CO2.”
____________________
We wrote with confidence in our 2002 paper:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
____________________
But here are my points from above that, I suggest, require consideration:
“Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.”
I see two problems for humanity and the environment in the next very few thousand years:
1. Another Ice Age
and
2. Possible CO2-deficiency (if not in this next Ice Age, then in the following ones).
[Note to mod: “embiggen” is Old German 🙂 ]

mpainter
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:27 am

Allan McRae,
You are correct and it cannot be overemphasized that:
1. Atmospheric CO2 is entirely beneficial and the more, the better.
2. The real danger for life on this planet is a plunge into another ice age. As you pointed out, the last half of the Holocene shows the temperature stepdown that characterizes the termination of previous interglacials, as determined by the ice core record.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 9:52 am

dbstealey,

The CO2 concentration could rise by 20% – 30% with no measurable change in global temperature. This chart explains the situation clearly.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gTUlBKPEW8/VN9lJ_h0lgI/AAAAAAAAAVM/qoliBpysQb4/s1600/logco2.jpg
If it’s not measurable, how is it that the y-axis of that graph is in units of temperature?
While Stealey is thinking about that, for the rest of us, here are the CMIP5 projections for temperature response to CO2 out to 660 ppm:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SZQS7bzEf1U/VMtageyyD9I/AAAAAAAAATk/QPvS-LfWFxs/s1600/TMEAN%2Band%2BCMIP5%2BRCP60%2Bvs%2BCO2.png

The screeching and hand-waving by the alarmist cult is due to the fact that global warming has stopped:

What dbstealey doesn’t want you to see is that global warming has “stopped” before:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MW_NJp28Udc/VNS3EAEqpOI/AAAAAAAAAUs/hjhuLZFkdoM/s1600/hadcrut4%2Bhiatuses.png
He doesn’t want people to understand that surface temperatures are only one indicator of global warming, especially since the upper 2,000 meters of ocean have been accumulating heat unabated since about 1985:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/itemp2000_global.png
dbstealey thinks that people who look at more data than he himself is wiling to present belong to some sort of “alarmist cult”. Bizarre behavior on his part, isn’t it?

Next, there have been at least twenty ‘hockey stick’ rises in global temperature during the Holocene. The current natural rise is neither unprecedented, nor unusual:

Here’s db’s original plot:
http://i.snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
The data for that plot come from here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Buried in the bottom right corner of the plot DB posted is a caption which says “Mann’s Hockey Stick”. Which it isn’t of course, it’s just the tail end of the data from the GISP2 ice cores used in this particular study, which only contains temperature estimates up to 1850.
The infamous reconstruction from Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) represents the entire Northern Hemisphere, not just the tippy top of Greenland. Because temperatures at the poles are known to be more sensitive to change than the entire planet, naively comparing Alley 2004 to MBH98 would not be appropriate. Using data obtained from KNMI Climate Explorer for the Cowtan and Way infilled version of HADCRUT4, and the coordinates 70-75 N, 30-35 W for Greenland Summit, the full Holocene to present looks like this:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hksiecM4u3Q/VLYC3ecYOKI/AAAAAAAAAP4/ZsJFpmrxgZo/s1600/GISP2%2BHADCRUT4CW%2BHolocene.png
Both data series have a high degree of uncertainty, GISP2 being a proxy reconstruction from cored ice, HADCRUT4 C&W being the result of infilling. One should be skeptical of claims of “unprecedented” rates of change. As well, however, one should be equally skeptical of confident claims that, “The current natural rise is neither unprecedented, nor unusual.” Uncertainty cuts both ways, you see.
Because I suspect the ice core data are somewhat noisy, and what we’re really interested in here is rate of change since pre- vs. post-industrial times, I used a 160-year sample to calculate decadal rate of change over both datasets and combined them into a single plot for comparision:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G1qMbhCpQ-k/VLYSTfkAj-I/AAAAAAAAAQI/NSaunzIV6t8/s1600/GISP2%2BHADCRUT4CW%2BHolocene%2BRate.png
The sharp-eyed reader will notice that amplitude increases the further one goes back in the ice core record. One reason for this could be increasing uncertainty in the data the further back one goes in the record, another reason could be that the beginning of the Holocene really did exhibit rapid temperature fluctuations at Greenland Summit as seen. Or it could be a combination of both. When such questions arise, it’s best to not limit skeptical and critical thinking to eyeballing plots and turn to the literature itself. Alley, et al. (2000) is paywalled and unfortunately I have not been able to find a pre-print version, however we can still read the abstract together: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379199000621
Greenland ice-core records provide an exceptionally clear picture of many aspects of abrupt climate changes, and particularly of those associated with the Younger Dryas event, as reviewed here. Well-preserved annual layers can be counted confidently, with only ≈1% errors for the age of the end of the Younger Dryas ≈11,500 years before present. Ice-flow corrections allow reconstruction of snow accumulation rates over tens of thousands of years with little additional uncertainty. Glaciochemical and particulate data record atmospheric-loading changes with little uncertainty introduced by changes in snow accumulation. Confident paleothermometry is provided by site-specific calibrations using ice-isotopic ratios, borehole temperatures, and gas-isotopic ratios. Near-simultaneous changes in ice-core paleoclimatic indicators of local, regional, and more-widespread climate conditions demonstrate that much of the Earth experienced abrupt climate changes synchronous with Greenland within thirty years or less. Post-Younger Dryas changes have not duplicated the size, extent and rapidity of these paleoclimatic changes.
From that my conclusion, as a lay observer of the science, is that the volatility seen in the rate plot I show above may very well be less due to estimate uncertainty and “noise” and more due to actual variability. Note however that whereas the Younger Dryas ended about 11,500 years ago, the plot that DB posted as well as my plots only go back to 10,000 ybp (present = 1950). From Alley (2000) itself comes the following plot which does show the YD as seen in the GISP2 ice core data:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
We don’t need a rate plot to infer that the rates of change very likely are not an artifact of uncertainties in the estimate. So what is dbstealey referring to when he says, “The current natural rise is neither unprecedented, nor unusual.”? We don’t know, he makes no citations for further independent skeptical inquiry — we’re to just take his word for it that someone said something about unprecedented something in some unknown context and conclude that whoever said it was lying. Proper skeptics should not be satisfied with the incompleteness of DB’s argument on this point.
The plot DB posted implied that MBH98 data were included in the plot, which is false. Here’s what the plot would look like had MBH98 data been included:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Iwu98liKyZg/VLc5_rQcK9I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/U2Kigt7-3rU/s1600/GISP2%2BHADCRUT4CW%2BMBH98.png
As a bonus the instrumental data are also shown. Finally, note again that it’s improper to naively compare a NH proxy reconstruction to a single proxy ice core reconstruction from a high latitude. Polar regions are far more sensitive to both external forcings and internal variability. Not taking polar amplification into account when eyeballing such plots is folly.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 2:36 pm

Allan MacRae, thanks. I notice that the *ahem* ‘refutation’ to my empirical evidence consista of projections for temperature response to CO2. That is amusing. Those charts are simple overlays on top of R.B. alley’s data, with ‘projected’ future temperatures laid on top of the ice core evidence.
Next, Gates cherry-picks temperatures from the 1800’s. That proves nothing at all. We know there has been a recovery since the LIA. Implying that human emiisions are the cause is wishful thinking at best.
I note that all the additions in purple to the charts Gates posted are similar to the CMIP5 “projections”. They are not ice core evidence. And despite the desperate attempt to show that human activity is the cause, they still were unable to exceed prior global warming events during the Holocene — when human emissions were non-existent. Thus, they are fabricating charts in order to promote the alarmist narrative.
Finally, Gates writes:
…my conclusion, as a lay observer of the science…
Funny! The most amusing thing is that Gates “observes” whatever feeds his confirmation bias, and he rejects everything else. He is a True Believer in runaway global warming, despite the plain fact that Planet Earth is still debunking his belief system: global warming has stopped. And, I might add, not one alarmist prediction has ever happened! They were all wrong. When someone is consistently, 100.0% WRONG in every prediction they make, but they still insist on repeating their pseudo-science, there is something seriously wrong with them.
Nothing to be done about Gates’ misrepresentations, except to point out his endless errors to others. I enjoy setting the record straight here, and I intend to be at it longer than he is. ☺ 

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 2:50 pm

“We know there has been a recovery since the LIA.”
..
What is the cause of the “recovery??”

John M
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 3:01 pm

What is the cause of the “recovery??”

A reversal or continuance (in the case of inherent variability) of any one of these:

Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, an inherent variability in global climate, or decreases in the human population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

John M
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 3:07 pm

Brandon Gates said:

He doesn’t want people to understand that surface temperatures are only one indicator of global warming, especially since the upper 2,000 meters of ocean have been accumulating heat unabated since about 1985

You might want to look up the actual definition of “global warming”.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:08 pm

Rodney Molyneux asks:
What is the cause of the “recovery”??
Why don’t you tell us, Rodney?
What I know is that the LIA was one of the coldest episodes of the entire Holocene. What caused the LIA, Rodney?
I don’t know. What I do know is that the Null Hypothesis has never been falsified, which means this: there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening now.
Further, Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation is almost always the correct expalnation. By far the simplest explanation is natural climate variability, cf Lindzen. There is no need to add an extraneous variable like CO2 — the alarmist crowd’s magic gas. That needlessy complicates the issue.
Finally, Planet Earth is still debunking the alarmists’ nonsense. The planet is the ultimate Authority, and it flatly contradicts the “carbon” scare. Debate over, except among the True Believers.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:16 pm

dbstealey,

I notice that the *ahem* ‘refutation’ to my empirical evidence consista of projections for temperature response to CO2.

Oh, what empirical studies drive the results of this chart then?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gTUlBKPEW8/VN9lJ_h0lgI/AAAAAAAAAVM/qoliBpysQb4/s1600/logco2.jpg
You may wish to review your previous responses to similar questions about this plot before you answer anew.

Those charts are simple overlays on top of R.B. alley’s data, with ‘projected’ future temperatures laid on top of the ice core evidence.

Which chart are you talking about, DB? This one?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hksiecM4u3Q/VLYC3ecYOKI/AAAAAAAAAP4/ZsJFpmrxgZo/s1600/GISP2%2BHADCRUT4CW%2BHolocene.png
Sorry old boy, best you’ve got me on there is interpolated data from Cowtan and Way on HADCRUT4. As clearly noted in the legend of the plot. As discussed quite openly in my original post.

Next, Gates cherry-picks temperatures from the 1800’s.

There isn’t a single plot in this entire thread from me which limits the time period to the 1800s. Whatever are you on about? When in doubt say, “cherry pick” and call it good? lol.

I note that all the additions in purple to the charts Gates posted are similar to the CMIP5 “projections”. They are not ice core evidence.

Correct, they’re not ice core evidence. The purple series (magenta really ….) are from modern instrumental data, but with interpolation. Both methods introduce uncertainty, as I noted in the original post, but you’ll note that the instrumental portion is at much higher (annual) resolution. So it’s noisier, which noise I left in to illustrate that ice cores inherently smooth out annual variability. I could, and have, smoohed out the instrumental data but decided to “err” on the side of leaving the data as-is and let others’ eyeballs decide for themselves.

Funny! The most amusing thing is that Gates “observes” whatever feeds his confirmation bias, and he rejects everything else.

Right. I posted this plot …
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
… which shows higher temperatures than present at the GISP2 site on Greenland Summit showing hotter temperatures there than at present, and significantly higher rates of change during the Younger Dryas. All of which does call into question statements like “unprecedented warming” and “unprecedented rate of change”. Hooo boy, yup, that’s me stroking my own beliefs there. You caught me red handed on that one.
Now, if you’d be so kind as to provide a quotey quote of some “warmist” using the unprecedented meme in a sentence, I’d surely appreciate it so that I can do my own skeptical research into it. Bonus points if it comes from literature, not some breathless hyperbolization from an activist on tee vee — what matters most to me is what the researchers themselves are actually saying, not talking heads in media. Thanks.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:24 pm

“I don’t know”
….
Excellent response.

Since you “don’t know” I suggest you stop using the word “recovery”

Just use the words “recent warming” because if you use the word “recovery” it implies something caused the cooling which is not happening now. Unless you know what cause the LIA, there is no such thing as “recovery”

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:27 pm

John M
February 14, 2015 at 3:07 pm
Brandon Gates said:

He doesn’t want people to understand that surface temperatures are only one indicator of global warming, especially since the upper 2,000 meters of ocean have been accumulating heat unabated since about 1985

You might want to look up the actual definition of “global warming”.
dbstealey
February 14, 2015 at 4:08 pm
Rodney Molyneux asks:

What is the cause of the “recovery”??

Why don’t you tell us, Rodney?

Only on WUWT does one find so much reserved wisdom. Gosh, someday I hope I’m this smart.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:29 pm

rodmol@virginmedia.com,

Unless you know what cause the LIA, there is no such thing as “recovery”

Yeah, especially since human populations have a tad more than “recovered” from the LIA. Just sayin’. 😀

John M
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:51 pm

Brandon Gates,
Regarding the definition of Global Warming, I guess you’re choosing the path of either deliberate or actual obtuseness rather than engaging, so I guess I’ll have to spoon-feed you:
“Global Warming
The recent and ongoing global average increase in temperature near the Earths surface.”
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/glossary.html#G
Now do I have to repeat the quote that prompted me to suggest you look up the definition?
And with regard to the recovery in world population and the ice age, that was in the citation I provided to “rod” as a possible reason for the “recovery” from the little ice age. Yes, the World’s population has increased since the LIA. Why are you smiling at “rod” about that?

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 7:16 pm

Gates says:
Now, if you’d be so kind as to provide a quotey quote of some “warmist” using the unprecedented meme in a sentence, I’d surely appreciate it…
Sure, no problem. But I don’t want to provide the quote for nothing in return. Otherwise you will start pestering me like “Socrates” constantly did, demanding citations every time I made a comment.
So, if I provde the quote, will you go away? That’s the deal. Agree, and I will post it. Don’t agree, and you can do your own quote mining. Simples.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:23 pm

dbstealey,

So, if I provde the quote, will you go away?

lol, no. Especially not now that you’re trying to cut a deal to get rid of me. Oh my, that’s simply delightful. Thanks for making my day.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:34 pm

Then my statement stands. Go do your ownh homework, and you will find the quotes I found.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 9:29 pm

dbstealey,
Oh I’ve read plenty of them. I simply figured that a resident of the Show Me state would be all too happy to oblige a formal request. Such a maverick you are.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 11:01 pm

Why should I ‘oblige’ you, Gates? “Socrates” used the same tactic [before he was banned]. I’ve found that providing requested information should be done for people who are reasonably polite.
You don’t qualify. So you don’t get what you want.
[Wrong again, Gates. You don’t know what state I’m from. But I know where you’re from.]

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 11:45 am

dbstealey,

Why should I ‘oblige’ you, Gates? “Socrates” used the same tactic [before he was banned].

I was wondering why I hadn’t seen Socks around these parts of late. Makes sense now.

I’ve found that providing requested information should be done for people who are reasonably polite. You don’t qualify. So you don’t get what you want.

Well see, we understand each other perfectly then. Of course there’s more to divining intent than just “tone”. Pretty sure you actually understand that as well, but to be completely honest some days I really can’t tell if you’re as illogical and idiotic as the guy you play on the Internet.

[Wrong again, Gates. You don’t know what state I’m from. But I know where you’re from.]

Coulda swore you told me once you were from Missouri. Lifting IP addresses is free for you guys, so I’ll spare you the time and expense of the next obvious step:
Brandon Robertson Gates
2120 Bonar St.
Berkeley, CA 94702
See what a nice guy I really am? Come by and see me any time.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 12:27 pm

Gates says:
I was wondering why I hadn’t seen Socks around these parts of late. Makes sense now.
Clearly you don’t follow the comments very closely. Anthony made that decision public, based on serial violations of policy. He posted it recently. You could find it if you wanted to.
There is very little difference between “Socrates’ ” posting style and yours. Very little. And I have no doubt that he will be back, using another sockpuppet name. He has posted under at least a dozen different screen names already. He gives trolls a bad name.
Honesty is not a concern to some commenters, and that moral failing seems to appear exclusively among the alarmist crowd. Their inability to accept reality is one of the causes.
So here’s a challenge for you: stop insulting other commenters, and stop incessantly calling people names. You do it constantly, trying to goad others into doing the same thing, so you can snivel about it. If you’ve noticed, no one is taking the bait.
I don’t have a need to insult like you do. All I ever do is post facts and evidence, and that is what generated your hatred. I could give you chapter and verse, but there is no need. I know what you write, and I see your intense frustration. You hate the fact that Planet Earth is contradicting everything the alarmist clique predicted.
You could disagree using whatever facts you can find. Of course, if you don’t have verifiable facts that support your beliefs, then name-calling is easy. You’ve already said you enjoy it. You’ve already said that you will continue that despicable practice. The fact is, you like to poison the well.
The reason is clear: you are a hater. That basic fact drives your comments. You hate people who post facts and evidence that you are completely unable to overcome or refute. The rational response is to acknowledge that if you have no credible facts, then your belief must be mistaken. A real skeptic will change his mind if new facts and evidence show him he was wrong. If new evidence appears showing me that I’m wrong, I will have no trouble at all saying that. But so far, I’ve seen no credible evidence that the CAGW crowd is right about anything.
Really, you aren’t very far from the run of the mill commenter’s opinion here. I think that a doubling of CO2 will result in a less than 1ºC rise in global T. I think AGW exists. I doubt that your view is much different.
That puts us pretty much on the same page. So it is only your personal hatred that causes you to call names and try to goad people. You are a hater, Gates, pure and simple. You could argue the finer points of disagreement rationally, using whatever evidence you can find. But you don’t. Because it’s much easier for you to hate. You are a hater by nature. That comes across clearly in your comments. It’s pretty despicable, and it’s a personal failing that you really should try to correct.

February 13, 2015 8:56 pm

@Janice Moore. Sorry, Janice, you got it backwards. ALL Peer-reviewed science concludes CO2 drives Climate. Only in the world of WUWT amateurs is the Greenhouse Effect non-existent.

Janice Moore
Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 9:02 pm

Mr. Pound: “prove” PROVE — not “conclude” — is the term in the little macro above. Sorry, you have only written an endless loop: fatal error.
Please see your instructor.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
February 13, 2015 9:16 pm

Further to Mr. Pound:
You responded down here
to my comment up here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/11/national-academy-of-science-demands-equal-access-to-the-climate-trough-for-geoengineering/#comment-1859254
Another coding error. I would advise you to drop Programming 102 (I would be happy to sign a waiver for the Office of Reg. and Rec.) and take Programming 101.
You appear to be eager to learn. This advice will help you succeed: listen to your teachers. 🙂

Reply to  Janice Moore
February 14, 2015 6:41 am

Sorry, Janice. Multiple errors by you, again:
1) ‘Proof’ is for math, ‘evidence’ is for Science.Science works by the accumulation of evidence in support of a hypothesis, or set of hypotheses. In the case of AGW, the IPCC assesses the probability, based on the accumulated evidence, at 95%.
2) Nor did I offer such ‘proof’ as you incorrectly implied — I said that peer-reviewed science concludes (based on evidence) that CO2 drives climate. Your arguing against the Greenhouse Effect is equivalent to arguing against Physics — the Greenhouse Effect has been well established science since the 1800s.

Reply to  Janice Moore
February 14, 2015 2:40 pm

Janice, disregard warrenlb’s nitpicking. He is a true know-nothing.
His arguments consist of his endless Appeal to Authority fallacies, and… well, nothing else, really. Take away that fallacy and he has nothing worthwhile to say.

Reply to  warrenlb
February 13, 2015 9:05 pm

@warrenlb:
I just posted solid empirical evidence showing conclusively that ∆T is the cause of ∆CO2. But you give your usual response. I doubt that you could think for yourself if your life depended on it.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 7:20 am

Come now DBS. You previously posted that you ‘beiieve’ CO2 causes a bit of warming (but not very much) , but now you deny it entirely. Actually, you’ve been wrong with both contradictory positions:
1) That CO2 both lags and amplifies temperature was predicted in 1990 in a paper “The ice-core record: climate sensitivity and future greenhouse warming” by Claude Lorius):
“Changes in the CO2 and CH4 content have played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes by amplifying, together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the relatively weak orbital forcing”
The paper also notes that orbital changes are one initial cause for ice ages. This was published over a decade before ice core records were accurate enough to confirm a CO2 lag.
2) Your post uses time scales WAY to large to observe that about 90% of the temperature rise in the Milankovitch cycles occurred AFTER the CO2 rise caused by the initial temperature rise due from the Earth’s orbital changes, in time scales of a few thousand years.
Yours and Janice Moore’s argument that ‘Temperature only leads CO2 increases’ is equivalent to “Chickens do not lay eggs, because they have been observed to hatch from them”.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 2:47 pm

warrenlb once again misrepresents:
You previously posted that you ‘beieve’ CO2 causes a bit of warming (but not very much) , but now you deny it entirely.
Wrong, deluded boi. I wrote that I think that AGW exists — to a very minuscule degree. I also wrote that there is no measurable evidence of AGW, because the effect is so tiny. BIG difference.
If you can’t get simple concepts like that straight, your comments are not worth reading. Are they?
Nexxt:
Yours and Janice Moore’s argument that ‘Temperature only leads CO2 increases’…&etc.
warren, WAKE UP. I posted verifiable empirical scientific evidence. I have repeatedly posted data showing that ∆T leads ∆CO2 on all time scales, out to hundreds of millennia.
You have posted nothing in the way of testable evidence contradicting what I posted. All you ever do is give your silly opinions. If you can contradict what I wote by using empirical data like I did, then produce it now.
Otherwise, your opinion is worthless pablum.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:32 pm

dbstealey,

If you can contradict what I wote by using empirical data like I did, then produce it now.

But only if it’s from ice core data, doesn’t look like it comes from a computer projection, and isn’t presented as an “overlay”. Whatever that means.
No wait, I got it. Only show me data that both sides of the debate can agree on. Yes, I recall that being one of your criteria.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 4:50 pm

warrenlb,

Yours and Janice Moore’s argument that ‘Temperature only leads CO2 increases’ is equivalent to “Chickens do not lay eggs, because they have been observed to hatch from them”.

One of my absolutely most favoritest quotes ever. And you are not alone in noticing that db changes his tune on whether CO2 has any effect at all, or if it does it can’t be measured or any of a dozen other variations on, “just show me the empirical data and I’ll believe you.” Of course upon dutifully honoring your own burden of proof there are any of about a dozen ways he dismisses them as invalid from, “it only shows what your confirmation bias says” to “it’s not x (arbitrary) kind of data” to “it’s not data that both sides can agree on”. That last one is a particular “favorite” of mine.
But this … this one he’s outdone himself on: Otherwise, your opinion is worthless pablum.
The master of soothing bromides doesn’t like the opposition’s pabulm, eh? Whodathunkit. What does he expect when he asks for data and then simply turns his nose up at it Every. Single. Time?

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 7:23 pm

Gates and warrenlb:
I have posted several charts based on empirical data, showing conclusively that ∆CO2 follows ∆T. On all time scales, from years to hundreds of thousands of years.
In response, you both… asserted. That’s all.
If you have verifiable data proving that CO2 is the cause of changing temperatures, I challenge you to produce it. Now.
Otherwise, I have posted the data which strongly supports my statement. You have done nothing but emit pixels. As usual.
I have data. You have Belief. No wonder you’ve lost the debate.

philincalifornia
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:01 pm

Come on then mutual mental masturbation club – are you going to run away from stealeys challenge or are you going to run away like girls again, you blowhards

philincalifornia
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:13 pm

…. why don’t you spend two days discussing how my spellchecker took out the apostrophe in stealey’s, because that’s about as much evidence as you have for CO2 levels going from 280 ppm to 400 ppm having any effect on ANY climate parameter.
There are third rate scientists, maybe even 5th rate who can still convince their mommy’s knitting circle they’re scientists. Then there are people below that …..
… and then below that there are people like you two. Go look in a mirror.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 8:42 pm

philincalifornia,
You have them pegged. Neither one is any kind of scientist at all. They are just noisemakers who pucker up and run away [or more often, deflect and change the subject] any time a challenge is issued.
The whole debate is about whether CO2 causes global warming. More to the point, the true debate is about whether CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. Because if the rise in [harmless, beneficial] CO2 only brings about less than a 1ºC rise in temperature [my position], then there would never have been a debate in the first place.
The “carbon” scare began as a way to frighten the populace. For a while it was succeeding. But now it has morphed into an abject failure.
Who knows why a small, insignificant handful of wild-eyed Chicken Littles here are still hand-waving over a completely harmless trace gas? I certainly don’t know. All I know is that they are flat wrong.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 9:06 pm

philincalifornia,

Come on then mutual mental masturbation club – are you going to run away from stealeys challenge or are you going to run away like girls again, you blowhards

The simplest relationship to show is one pretty much everyone on WUWT should have seen a variation of at some point:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_temp_1900_2008.gif
I already know that dbstealey is going to say, “that’s a simple overlay chart designed to trick the eye into thinking that T responds to CO2” or that it’s just a “coincidental correlation”. I’ve been down this road with him several times in the past, his “answers” are variations on the same theme. He knows full well that causation and attribution cannot be directly measured like temperature itself can because of the scale of the system and all the confounding climate factors which constantly affect temperature.
So it’s not an honest question because he knows the answer is quite difficult to explain. And he also knows that I don’t deny that literally all paleo data show CO2 lagging temperature, so he can just bury me, or anyone in plots showing that relationship.
It’s a stupid game, and only people who are disposed to falling for such idiotic rhetorical tricks will gobble up his brand of tripe. I can’t fix that. So I refuse to play his dumb little game, once through it was enough — I gave him a chance to play it straight with me and he failed to debate me in good faith. Others here get different treatment depending on how well I recall my previous interactions with them. If I don’t remember, I assume they’re new and play it straight because I give everyone at least one shot to have a real discussion. Otherwise I go into snark mode, or try to draw them out until they mess up and trap themselves.
You, I remember and …

Go look in a mirror.

… that’s pretty much the most sensible thing I’ve ever seen you write. As for myself, I’ve recognized for a long time that I’m an arrogant pain in the ass pontifcating know-it-all blowhard asshole. Thing is, I consider those to be amongst my most endearing qualities, and I’m constantly amused that I’m not welcomed here with open arms for it.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 10:51 pm

@ Brandon…Even those that is the well adjusted GISS graph, there is still enough uncorrelated points on that graph to cause scepticism about the connection. First off the first warming period on that graph certainly has no correlation to co2. Then look at the slight cooling from the late 1940s to the late 1970s. During that entire span of years the addition of co2 into the atmospheric accelerates. Now comes the part that you and your warmist friends like the most. From the late 1970s up to around 2005/07, global temps rise at a heightened pace. The rate of growth of atmospheric co2 does the same. If you only look at that time period, then anyone would wonder about a connection. But then we finally arrive at the reality of the years which have passed since then. Since 2005/07 to the present, the last 9 to 10 years, the co2 connection has once again gone astray from what the models have projected. Yet co2 keeps skyrocketing. From 2005 up to today, co2 has risen by 25 ppm. That is a very large gain for so short a time, and certainly a significant % of the total atmospheric gain since 1900. Now I suppose the first counterpoint that you will make is that natural variation can always lead to discrepancies between the co2 theory and reality. Maybe yes, and maybe no. At the very least a wait and see policy should be in order as that graph is insufficient proof for what you are claiming until more years can pass to either verify, or falsify the story.

John Whitman
February 14, 2015 9:02 am

The chair of the Geoengineering Climate committee of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcia McNutt said,
“That scientists are even considering technological interventions should be a wake-up call that we need to do more now to reduce emissions, which is the most effective, least risky way to combat climate change,”

Do institutional scientists, like McNutt, actually think in an integrated manner from fundamental concepts to other concepts in a coherent chain of reasoning? McNutt posits prima fascia that there are some scientists thinking about crazy schemes is evidence that we need to take action now on a severely observationally challenged theory of significant climate change. If she wishes to increase trust in science, she needs to begin to think.
John

John Whitman
February 14, 2015 10:27 am

Richard P. Feynman said,
“It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can’t go on without the facts … if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly.”

Yet Marcia McNutt talks of the observationally challenged theory of significant climate change as proven. She should concentrate on facts that show the theory as insufficient to be seriously held much less proven.
John

February 14, 2015 2:52 pm

John Whitman says:
…Marcia McNutt talks of the observationally challenged theory of significant climate change as proven.
In other words, Marcia McNutt is no different from a lot of Nutts who post here. They actually believe that MMGW is ‘proven’. It’s not. And the more evidence and facts that appear, the more likely it is that any global warming due to human emissions is so minuscule that it can be completely disregarded.

John M
February 14, 2015 3:08 pm

OK, the picture causes me to say it once again…
We are clearly at the beginning of the anthroporcene epoch…

philincalifornia
Reply to  John M
February 14, 2015 7:56 pm

Which, unfortunately for humanity is not mutually exclusive with, and has strong overlap with both the idiocene and illiterocene epochs

February 14, 2015 8:09 pm

@Brandon Gates. DBStealey’s ‘position’ that the ‘Greenhouse Effect is real’ but ‘insignificant’ is classic . It allows him to reject the findings of Science while claiming ‘Oh, I’m pro-science, I believe in the Greenhouse Effect’.
I keep asking if he, or any of his cohorts, have attempted to publish their remarkable findings that CO2 doesn’t lead the Industrial Age’s Global Temperature rise–and of course they haven’t. They love to claim ‘no one has shown data ‘proving’ AGW’, but they haven’t shown the scientific world their data and arguments that contradict AGW.
I WONDER WHY?

philincalifornia
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 8:40 pm

What a stupid argument. Why would anyone have to go out to prove something that’s unproven is wrong ?
Please post a falsifiable conjecture, hypothesis or theory of anthropogenic carbon dioxide causing any measurable effect on any climate parameter ….
…. I mean, just so we can completely eviscerate you in public

Brandon Gates
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 9:20 pm

warrenlb,
I have a standing challenge to dbstealy — anyone on WUWT really — to produce an climate model which produces gridded output that beats the CMIP5 ensemble. Closest I’ve seen is Monckton et al. (2015) linear trend curve-fitting exercise. Which they themselves claim was not designed to be a full-blown GCM replacement. So it’s peer-reviewed FUD. Other than that [crickets].
I too wonder why. But not really.

Reply to  Brandon Gates
February 14, 2015 11:06 pm

I don’t produce models, Gates. That’s YOUR problem: you believe model output is reality.
I know better.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  Brandon Gates
February 15, 2015 11:55 am

dbstealey,

I don’t produce models, Gates. That’s YOUR problem: you believe model output is reality.
I know better.

So you think the model presented by Monckton et al. (2015) is garbage too. Thanks for that confirmation.

Reply to  Brandon Gates
February 15, 2015 12:18 pm

Gates says:
So you think the model presented…&etc.
Listen up:
I don’t produce models, Gates.
You are constantly putting words in peoples’ mouths. That is just another of your usual misrepresentations. Models are useful. I don’t produce models. Get it?
I listen to the real world above everything else, and the real world is busy debunking your belief system.
I am a total realist. Whatever the real world tells me, I accept. The planet has never told me that there is anything to be concerned about WRT rising CO2. OTOH, you believe in things for which there is no evidence. Witch doctors used to make their living off people like you. Modern ones like Mann still do.
You are a true hater, Gates, with a very thin veneer of being a normal person. But you lay the hate on everyone who disagrees with you. That’s where all your insults and name-calling come from. You hate.

Brandon Gates
Reply to  warrenlb
February 14, 2015 9:22 pm

philincalifornia,

Why would anyone have to go out to prove something that’s unproven is wrong ?

That my friend is the null hypothesis approach in a nutshell, and pretty much how properly skeptical scientific research works.

February 14, 2015 8:30 pm

@warrenlb:
Explain: what is the “position” of science? Do you know? If so, please enlighten us.
Is your self-anointed assumption that the “position” of ‘science’ that CO2 caused the Industrial Age’s Global Temperature rise?
If so, post evidence, as I challenged you to do.
But instead of accepting my challenge and posting evidence, you have once again made baseless assertions.
So try again. Produce evidence, showing strong evidence that changes in CO2 are the cause of subsequent changes in temperature. I don’t think you are capable of doing that. You are all talk, and no substance.
I have already posted plenty of data showing that changes in global temperature are the cause of subsequent changes in CO2. Unless you can counter that with the opposite cause-and-effect, you are posting your usual baseless pablum.
This is a science site, not a wishful thinking blog. Either post facts as I have — or you lose yet another argument.
You haven’t won one yet. Try harder.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 14, 2015 11:10 pm

Re: the Null Hyothesis. Gates has zero understanding. If he understood the Null Hypothesis and was honest about it, his entire world view would come crashing down around his ears.
Because the Null Hypothesis totally DEBUNKS the alarmists’ entire narrative. Anyone who understands it knows that. Thus, ipso facto, Gates doesn’t understand it.

Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 9:03 am

In statistical inference on observational data, the Null Hypothesis refers to a general statement or DEFAULT Position that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena.
Occam’s Razor states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the FEWEST ASSUMPTIONS should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe.
THEREFORE, one should start by assuming that the minor warming and cooling of Earth’s atmosphere observed since the Industrial Age is predominantly natural and NOT significantly humanmade.
One might then hypothesize that that there is a significant human influence on climate and attempt to prove it, but this key step has been skipped by the global warming alarmists.
The claim that 97% of imbeciles believe that fossil fuel emissions are causing dangerous global warming is NOT a scientific statement – it is nonsense.

philincalifornia
Reply to  dbstealey
February 17, 2015 5:10 pm

Correct again dbstealey
His understanding is so bad it’s not even wrong.
Yet another POS-t to pile on his colossal dung-heap of worthless, obfuscating, straw man, passive aggressive bullish!t comments that he and the other parasites seem so proud of constructing.
If only they knew.
For the benefit of other readers with no scientific training, if you need further elaboration of my point please Google – Richard Courtney moon is made of green cheese WUWT. I think we can all (well almost all) agree that the null hypothesis is not that the moon is made of green cheese.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
February 15, 2015 12:54 pm

(Snip. -mod.)

Reply to  rodmol@virginmedia.com
February 15, 2015 1:04 pm

Trolling again, I see. I caught that before a moderator snipped it.
Why is it you folks can never argue facts and evidence?…
…oh, I get it. You don’t have credible facts or evidence. So it’s all ad-hom, all the time.
Carry on.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 1:09 pm

Why don’t they ban you for sockpuppetry?

Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 1:23 pm

Why don’t they ban you for sockpupperty, Rod M/Rod Molyneux/rodmol@virginmedia.com? And maybe other fake names?
Years ago I used a screen name, like lots of folks. Then Anthony began telling people he did not like screen names, so I started using my own name. I’ve never played games with it or overlapped names, and if that’s the best you’ve got, no wonder you’re getting destroyed in the real debate.
Stick to facts and evidence, and make your best case… oh. Right. You don’t have much in the way of facts or evidence. Neither one of you do. So Gates insults and calls people despicable names, and you become a self-anointed grammar critic — something you’re not cut out for, as we’ve seen. I didn’t join in the monkey-piling on you for your incorrect grammar comments. But a half dozen others readers did, and they set you straight.
So astick to science. If you can. I can whip you either way, but I prefer the science. It’s why most of us are here.

rodmol@virginmedia.com
February 15, 2015 1:43 pm

“So astick to science.”
..
Tsk tsk tsk, did you forget to turn on your spell checker?
[Begin that disruption again and you will get cut off. .mod]

Reply to  rodmol@virginmedia.com
February 15, 2015 2:07 pm

LOLOL!!
THAT is the best you’ve got?? No wonder you’re losing the science deabte… oops.
As if YOU have never made a typo1 <–[oops! That was supposed to be an exclamation point].
So I made a typo — and you're wrong about your MMGW nonsense. Can we call it even? ☺ 
[And FYI: I don’t use a spellchecker.]

rodmol@virginmedia.com
Reply to  dbstealey
February 15, 2015 2:10 pm

I don’t have to do anything.
.
Gates is obliterating you…
..
I’ll just make some more popcorn and watch you struggle.

philincalifornia
Reply to  dbstealey
February 17, 2015 5:12 pm

He is db
In rod’s world the competition is who can post the most cr@p