Man-made climate change is done for. Dead.

[Badjelly]

No not at all, just dismissive of anyone who doesn't think like them. You can quote other people's research until the cows come home and it's the same on both sides - "they're" wrong.

Makes for hilarious debates.

The problem is, it's hard to point out that a piece of nonsense that's been refuted many times over is nonsense without being dismissive.

Which is not to say that every point that's ever been raised by the sceptics is nonsense, but in my opinion, the vast majority are. Case in point: Quasi's assertion that mankind's emissions of CO2 are only 1.9% (or whatever) of natural emissions. It probably does refer to an actual piece of data, though I've given up trying to find out what. But it's thoroughly irrelevant to the question of whether the recent rise in CO2 in caused by humans. Yet it refuses to die.

[James Deuce]

The problem is, it's hard to point out that a piece of nonsense that's been refuted many times over is nonsense without being dismissive.

Which is not to say that every point that's ever been raised by the sceptics is nonsense, but in my opinion, the vast majority are. Case in point: Quasi's assertion that mankind's emissions of CO2 are only 1.9% (or whatever) of natural emissions. It probably does refer to an actual piece of data, though I've given up trying to find out what. But it's thoroughly irrelevant to the question of whether the recent rise in CO2 in caused by humans. Yet it refuses to die.

No, you misunderstand what I'm saying. There are sides, which is hilarious. A "scientist" should understand inherently that there are no absolutes, and the more they know the less they understand. Seeking understanding has been replaced with collecting knowledge and distributing "facts". The fact that sides have been allowed to develop and been encourged is very discouraging.

I think the climate change (the climate will change, there's nothing you can do about it) is bad and we must reverse it crowd are bonkers, personally. They'd be better advised to put their energy into shaping and adapting to change.

[mashman]

The problem is, it's hard to point out that a piece of nonsense that's been refuted many times over is nonsense without being dismissive.

Which is not to say that every point that's ever been raised by the sceptics is nonsense, but in my opinion, the vast majority are. Case in point: Quasi's assertion that mankind's emissions of CO2 are only 1.9% (or whatever) of natural emissions. It probably does refer to an actual piece of data, though I've given up trying to find out what. But it's thoroughly irrelevant to the question of whether the recent rise in CO2 in caused by humans. Yet it refuses to die.

That's because 20 years on, nobody has an answer!

Now the researchers are looking for more funding! so we're just about to go through another funding phase... Carbon Tax anyone?

The documents/emails released recently contain conversations between scientists at the forefront of WORLD GLOBAL CHANGE.

Many of these scientists are still trying to look at things objectively and have found that there is data missing. They are now being hung out to dry by the CEI... a serious shame, but the one thing they never factor into scientific equation is human fallability! Bugga!

[Badjelly]

No, you misunderstand what I'm saying. There are sides, which is hilarious. A "scientist" should understand inherently that there are no absolutes, and the more they know the less they understand. Seeking understanding has been replaced with collecting knowledge and distributing "facts". The fact that sides have been allowed to develop and been encourged is very discouraging.

I think the climate change (the climate will change, there's nothing you can do about it) is bad and we must reverse it crowd are bonkers, personally. They'd be better advised to put their energy into shaping and adapting to change.

The fact that there are "sides" in the public "debate" on climate change is the thing that is most frustrating to actual climate scientists (which I am not, by the way). In scientific circles the debate about one thing is over: We are poking the climate system with a big stick.

You think people are proposing to reverse climate change? No-one is suggesting that that's possible or maybe even desirable (except for the gung-ho geoengineering people). Some scientists are suggesting we shouldn't poke so hard.

[Jantar]

...
Many of these scientists are still trying to look at things objectively and have found that there is data missing. They are now being hung out to dry by the CEI... a serious shame, but the one thing they never factor into scientific equation is human fallability! Bugga!

If that were true then there wouldn't be such an issue. But Mann decided to fill those blanks with data from tree rings that were known to be false, inapropriate and even from the wrong period. Then fed that data into a model that would produce a hockey stick result even if purely random data was used.

Trenberth released the results of a study on the effects of global warming on hurricane intensity and frequency before the study was even halfway through. The lead author of that study resigned from the IPCC because the results announcerde by Trenberth did not agree with the data he was seeing. Trenberth's results were included in the 4th IPCC report despite the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

[mashman]

From what i read in some of the emails Trenberth stipulated that his research wasn't complete because he knew something was wrong

From: Tom Wigley
To: Kevin Trenberth
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:01:24 -0600
Cc: Michael Mann , Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , "Philip D. Jones" , Benjamin Santer , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by ueamailgate01.uea.ac.uk id n9E71pl4015864


Dear all,

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent
lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at
the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend
relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second is to remove
ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the observed data.

Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second
method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of
warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not
agree with this.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> Hi all
> Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are
> asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two
> days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high
> the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also
> a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January
> weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday
> and then played last night in below freezing weather)

[Badjelly]

I think this guy puts my point of view rather well

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...comment-142309

[Pixie]

I'd have thought that CO2 would be higher a bit BEFORE the intergalcial peak. Otherwise we have a very tricky question to answer, what REVERSED the interglacial.

The fact is they don't know.All these climate change predictions are just models running on supercomputers and based on very limited understanding of how climate works.
In other words guess work.

[scissorhands]

Its like the old arguement about the moon is full of cheese. Who can prove it eitherway?

[Mikkel]

Considering that they apparently managed to access the contents of an entire server filled with research information I dare assume the following:

a) A ~62Mb zip file downloaded through bittorrent will constitute only a selection of that content.
b) Manipulating a body of data of that size in such a way as to discredit or undermine its origin is doable.
c) Considering that climate change is a hot subject in the political arena there is plenty of incitement to "not look for the truth".

I don't know how real it is, but I generally don't go reading other people's private letters - even if someone broke in, stole them and published them in the Press. NMFB.

As for the whole climate debate - I don't know what the answer is. Consequently I am not going to dismiss either hypothesis out of hand. Does anyone know what the scientific consensus was before the whole thing was turned into a political media circus populated almost entirely with pseudo-skeptics and doomsday-prophetising con-men? And let's not forget to mention the very vocal "common-sense" amateur scientists who apparently has figured the entire thing out while the real scientific community have a hard time actually agreeing on anything.

1000 years ago there was a mini ice age and Greenlad and Iceland got the covering of snow and ice they have today. Proior to that Greenland was known by the Vikings as "vinland" as they grew grapes there and made wine.

Ahem, not quite correct.

In regards to Greenland - they came in summer, the coastline is green and looks inviting in summer. However, they could not grow crops efficiently and their livestock died. The whole colonization attempt was abandoned fairly quickly.

In regards to grapes and Vinland - yes, but here we are talking North America, not Greenland. The Vikings went far afield, they made it all the way to Arabia as well.

[Jantar]

..... Does anyone know what the scientific consensus was before the whole thing was turned into a political media circus populated almost entirely with pseudo-skeptics and doomsday-prophetising con-men? ......

There has never been any concensus. If there is concensus, then its not science, if its science it can not have concensus. That is the difference between science and engineering or mathematics.

[Hans]

As for the whole climate debate - I don't know what the answer is. Consequently I am not going to dismiss either hypothesis out of hand. Does anyone know what the scientific consensus was before the whole thing was turned into a political media circus populated almost entirely with pseudo-skeptics and doomsday-prophetising con-men? And let's not forget to mention the very vocal "common-sense" amateur scientists who apparently has figured the entire thing out while the real scientific community have a hard time actually agreeing on anything.

[/SIZE]

As far as I am aware, there was no consensus. Just as there is no consensus now.

[Mikkel]

There has never been any concensus. If there is concensus, then its not science, if its science it can not have concensus. That is the difference between science and engineering or mathematics.

So you are saying that engineering and mathematics aren't science?

But I must disagree, there can be a scientific consensus - if there is general agreement due to the evidence being strong enough and the underlying assumptions, in regards to interpretation, are irrefutably reasonable.

As far as I am aware, there was no consensus. Just as there is no consensus now.

Well, let me then put it to you this way: before there could be an "anti-climate-change" camp there must have been a "climate-change" camp. If either of these were established before the politicking began, it would add to it's credibility.

[Hans]

So you are saying that engineering and mathematics aren't science?

This is a large part of the problem...

Consensus in engineering, mathematics and physics exists mostly in those aspects that have been established by repeatable experiment.

No-one will argue, if you say that member X will fail under N load if its thickness is < Z.

But you can't say, for example, that the Higgs boson will appear at energy E. You can at best establish an energy range within which it is likely to appear, based on well founded assumptions. BUT BASED ON THOSE ASSUMPTIONS, NO-ONE CAN GUARANTEE THAT IT WILL APPEAR, OR THAT IT EVEN EXISTS.

[mashman]

The fact is they don't know.All these climate change predictions are just models running on supercomputers and based on very limited understanding of how climate works.
In other words guess work.

It's not that difficult to understand is it? Now, of whom would you ask the question: How much does all of this cost? and why would you want to know?