Just curious: Are either of them scientists? Engineers? Math majors? Factory managers?

I'm guessing "none of the above."

None of the above.

My short term memory is, alas, disappearing but I read here, or BH, that GW adherents always **believe** in it. It is an article of faith.

Had an interesting conversation with one such apostle a few months ago. She was trying to get signatures for a ballot initiative, and enthusiastically approached me in front of my supermarket (not Ralphs) for my signature.

"I don't believe there is man made global warming", was my opening volley.

She looked at me like, well, I was challenging the fact that the world was a sphere.

I went on - "Have you ever heard of the dust bowl in the 1930s?"

I gave a few more examples.

She replied that she studied GW for 4 years in her college, but would not engage me in my conversation.

That could be the subject of another post; how colleges these days don't so much encourage debate of the issues, but are more indoctrination centers.

Anyway she didn't get my signature, and I have not seen her group again.

Robert, I guess our agreeing that Liberalism is a Cult was more accurate than what we were saying.

Science, REAL SCIENCE, does not support Al Gore or his cultists.

Robert, thank you so much for the kind words and the link. As always, they are very much appreciated.

A commenter on the radio this morning related a story about the beginnings of the Green Party in Germany in the early nineties whose symbol was a green tree. They used to say of the Green Party, "The green tree has red roots."

All Avodah Zarah, (idolatry), eventually espouses, in fact requires, human sacrifice.

Global warming true believers have been scolding people who dare to reproduce for years. Recently, a cabinet minister in Britain proposed severe penalties for families with more than two children.

This is indeed not only human sacrifice, but child sacrifice. And for what? A theory that humans are destroying the Earth by driving cars and making fire?

Environmentalism is indeed a religion, and thus science is becoming less and less of a reference point for it. You're either a believer or your not.

The fact that many Jewish schools and shuls, and not just the Reform here... I sadly include my own alma mater of the Yeshiva of Flatbush... are encorporating "green theology" into lesson plans and student activities is disgusting. We Jews believe in the rule against "Ba'al Tashchlicht" - we do not destroy things for no good reason. But with the science definitely not "in" on global warming, how even some religious Jews can give this pagan religion any attention at all is very disturbing.

Robert, your friend has put considerable effort in enumerating his thoughts and he should be applauded for this. However I think he is misunderstanding a few things.

1. The Medieval Warm Period was as short as 15 years. It is statistically improbable to establish any correlation for such a short period, with or without data. The same goes for the stagnation of temperatures for the last ten years. The fact that global warming models cannot account for trends during such short periods hardly discredits global warming; the models have been validated for far larger periods. Unlike what your friend says, AGW hardly loses its validity for not accounting for this short period with sparse data. As for the hockey stick graph, it deals with not one but dozens of independent studies. Plus, the paleoclimatological evidence in the graph is not the only kind. In addition, the criticisms by McIntyre and others that are cited have been addressed and discredited in many papers in the past years which I will be happy to reference.

2. The Urban Heat Island effect has been carefully investigated, and studies including ones in 2004 and 2006 recording temperatures in cities with and without wind have found no difference in temperatures. The urban heat island effect is extremely unlikely to contribute to GW.

3. The statements by Trenberth, Jones and others about the temperature stagnation are again out of context. The "travesty" was simply disappointment that the last ten years could not be modeled. As I mentioned, not being able to explain a decade's worth of stagnation hardly discredits an entire body of work, and even if that were the case, the fact remains that the decade was still hotter than most others preceding it.

4. Yes, the climate scientists in question botched up the way they responded. But a handful of scientists expressing concerns about well-known phenomena hardly refutes the massive body of science collected by the thousands of IPCC scientists worldwide.

Republican,

The simple fact is there is NO definitive scientific proof that harmful global warming is the result of human activity. There is also no definitive proof that there's anything humans can do to reverse warming or cooling. The world has fallen for this green sham in part because of animus against corporatism and industrialization that have been around for centuries. The fact that trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, and billions of people are being adversely effected by these theories that should remain in the academic arena only is an atrocity.

Jake, I would probably agree with your second statement, that we probably cannot do much to reverse what has happened. In fact James Lovelock has suggested that we need to beat a "sustainable retreat" and that's all we can do. But the best available evidence suggests that humans have most likely contributed to global warming. The greenhouse effect is a simple law of physics and there is no doubt that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased because of human activity. Sure, no conclusion is perfect, but science proceeds on a most probable basis and this is what seems most probable right now.

And actually it's corporations which perhaps can do something to reduce global warming, so there are actually lots of corporate opportunities there. For instance reducing greenhouse gases can also mean building more efficient cars, power plants and machines, which means lots of incentives for companies to make money. In addition a few corporations are also investigating methods for CO2 capture and the bold new concept of geoengineering; only time will tell which of these technologies will work out.

Regarding ClimateGate:

Global warming is real. Scientists have been measuring rising temperatures at thousands of locations on Earth for decades.

The effect of global warming is also evident: Glaciers in the Southerm hemisphere are melting quickly. Huge chunks of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antartica have melted away. Meanwhile, the Sahara and other deserts are expanding.

The cause of global warming is debatable. Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" blames industrialization for global warming. Other explanations are plausible, including the notion that Earth has been warming for millenia, as the planet recedes from its most recent glacial period, only 12,000 years ago.

Global warming affects life on Earth. People should be interested. It is possible to accept the scientific evidence of global warming while rejecting the political ballyhoo.

Goldbrenner:

If you think the science can possibly be separated from the politics, well you gotta be kidding.

I appreciate your comments because they are rational and sincere. But the proponents of "climate change" are almost all politically motivated and malicious to humans.

... and some of my best friends are humans.

Goldbrener - I read that global warming has stopped in 1995.Plus the warmest decade in the last 100-200 years was not the 1990s, but the 1930s.

Once the world started getting record cold temperatures the GW adherents started referring to it as "climate change". That certainly isn't scientific.

"Global Warming" has occurred for the last 200,000 years. In 975, an area of Greenland was settled by the Vikings for farming. 200-300 years later it was abandoned due to cooling.

The book I have been struggling through (it is dry) suggests that the earth for the last 200,000 years has undergone some dramatic change every 1500 years +- 500 years. Scientists have several ice cores from several parts in the world backing this up.

There is still speculation as to what causes **this**, although the sun's activity is the first logical place to look.

Certainly don't ignore scientific evidence on either side of the debate (man-caused or not?) but the way the adherents have handled this has been anything but "scientific".

I see a real parallel between the scientists who are pushing global warming and the financial analyst who developed (fancy-looking but amazingly simplistic) mathematical models for valuation of Collateralized Mortgage Obligations. In both cases, there was a failure, caused by arrogance, to realize or admit just how difficult it is to capture reality in a model, no matter how clever the modeler may be.

The sun's activity is certainly a logical place to look but satellite measurements have demonstrated that there has been very little change in solar irradiation since 1978, and probably since 1940. As for natural cycles, unless we come up with a mechanism for the temperature changes it remains a hypothesis. Plus, there is no theory of climate in which an increase in CO2 does not cause a temperature rise because of heat trapping and the natural cycle proponents need to come up with a mechanism for how a 35% increase in CO2 does not affect the temperature.

And warming has indeed stagnated around 1995 but such short time frames cannot prove or disprove the theory. Also, I am not sure the 30s were the hottest years; there certainly was a blip in the temperature then, although still much less than the last 50 years.

Speaking of climate change and energy, there is one surprisingly heartening piece of news from the Obama administration; they seem to have approved construction of new nuclear reactors for the first time since the 70s. For once the man did something right. Check out today's NYT.

Republican:

1. I am unsure how you conclude that the MWP was as short as 15 years. Indeed, I have never seen it addressed as less than 300 years and most refer to a period of 400 years. Indeed, I provide a link in my post to a round-up of MWP related research encompassing hundreds of studies on the issue. Feel free to click on it. As to the criticisms of McIntyre, those "papers" you cite are the type of scientific back and forth that should have been freely going on for the past decade.

I do not have a profit motive to support or attack AGW. But I now have a very strong fiscal motive, given the potential costs to our economy and my family personally, to demand that AGW be reasonably proven before it fully entangles our economy and raises energy costs substantially. In that light, I trust nothing that calls itself science, yet does not make itself completely open to the traditional "scientific method."

In that light, it took more than seven years and an act of Congress to get Mann to publish enough of his data that the scientific method could be applied to his study. And as to MNB98, there were, if I recall, two Congressional hearings on that study that supported the majority of McIntyre's criticisms. Thus here is the rub. I am sure you can find numerous papers attacking McIntyre from among the AGW community. I can show others in support. Who is right? Given the most recent admissions of Phil Jones, I think you at least have to admit that the hockey stick cannot today be consdiered reasonable proof that AGW exists today.

Unfortunately, we do not have Congress to intervene on each and every occasion that AGW scientists have stonewalled in providing their data, meta data, protocols and computer programs so that their work could be reproduced. What proponents of AGW have done is substitute a bastardized and corrupt peer review process as evidence of the reliability of their work in place of the "scientific method." That prevents me and everyone else not part of that process from being able to reproduce their work and requires that we accept the "settled" science on the basis of faith. Sorry, but before anyone reaches into my meagre purse, I require a bit more than that.

2. I find your dismissal of the "heat island" effect to be disingenuous at best. Climategate revelealed that the Jones-Wang study Chinese study that found urban heat island to be minimal appears to be fraudulent. This from the Guardian:

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”.

The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN’s embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.

Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.

It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.

The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.

The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC’s latest report in 2007.

Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.

The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang’s 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.

The IPCC’s 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that “any urban-related trend” in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two “coordinating lead authors” for the relevant chapter.

The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang’s work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. “Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?” he asked Jones. He continued: “Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?”

This is an issue that should be of easy resolution. But it has not been. The two documents that I cite to in my post seriously call into question any claim the UHI is negligible. Studies by Pielke, Watts and others relating to this issue have previously been rejected and kept out of the peer reviewed literature, short circuiting yet again both debate and ultimately, arriving at conclusions via the scientific method.

To the extent that you are claiming that UHI doesn't matter because the institutions garthering our climate date, NASA GISS, etc., apply corrections to that data, my objections in par. 1 still apply. We are being fed the normalized data and not being fed the raw data or computations to allow us to verify the corrections being made. There are numerous instances where, in those cases were raw data has been made available, it beoomes apparent that the "corrections" all seem to point towards a bias of making it appear hotter in recent years, cooler in past.

3. It is a decade and a half wherein temperatures have plateaued, all the while carbon dioxide has increased in the atmosphere. What that means is that all of the computer models AGW proponents have relied upon and that all show a direct relationship between amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and global temperatures are at the very least, unproven. I should think that nothing could be more plain. And unless you can explain that, with it goes the proof of a link between warming and carbon dioxide emissions as the prime driver of global temperatures. Facts don't choose sides, and you can't ignore the ones that are inconveinient, if not fatal. When you do that, you are no longer practicing science.

4. I refer again to paragraph 1. And indeed, the claim of work of "thousands of climate scientists" rings hollow indeed when the work of any who challenged them or posited alternative theories faced very high bars against getting their work published.

One example is Henrik Svensmark whose theory that solar activity, sunspots, cosmic rays and cloud cover are the dominant driver of global temperatures has been blacklisted - even though his computer models match perfectly with the climate evidence of the past 1500 years, including the current plateauing of temperatures. This from an interview of him in Discover Magazine in 2007 http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/the-discover-interview-henrik-svensmark :

Q. In 1996, when you reported that changes in the sun’s activity could explain most or all of the recent rise in Earth’s temperature, the chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel called your announcement “extremely naive and irresponsible.” How did you react?

A: I was just stunned. I remember being shocked by how many thought what I was doing was terrible. I couldn’t understand it because when you are a physicist, you are trained that when you find something that cannot be explained, something that doesn’t fit, that is what you are excited about. If there is a possibility that you might have an explanation, that is something that everybody thinks is what you should pursue. Here was exactly the opposite reaction. It was as though people were saying to me, “This is something that you should not have done.” That was very strange for me, and it has been more or less like that ever since.

Q: So it’s difficult to do climate research without being suspected of having a hidden agenda?

A: Yes, it is frustrating. People can use this however they want, and I can’t stop them. Some are accusing me of doing it for political reasons; some are saying I’m doing it for the oil companies. This is just ridiculous. I think there’s a huge interest in discrediting what I’m doing, but I’ve sort of gotten used to this. I’ve convinced myself the only thing I can do is just to continue doing good science. And I think time will show that we are on the right track.
. . .

Q: How do you see your work fitting into the grand debates about the causes of global warming and the considerations of what ought to be done about it?

A: I think—no, I believe—that the sun has had an influence in the past and is changing climate at the present, and it most certainly will do so in the future. We live in a unique time in history, because this period has the highest solar activity we have had in 1,000 years, and maybe even in 8,000 years. And we know that changes in solar activity have made significant changes in climate. For instance, we had the little ice age about 300 years ago. You had very few sunspots [markings on the face of the sun that indicate heightened solar activity] between 1650 and 1715, and for example, in Sweden in 1696, it caused the harvest to go wrong. People were starving—100,000 people died—and it was very desperate times, all coinciding with this very low solar activity. The last time we had high solar activity was during the medieval warming, which was when all of the cathedrals were built in Europe. And if you go 1,000 years back, you also had high solar activity, and that was when Rome was at its height. So I think there’s good evidence that these are significant changes that are happening naturally. If we are talking about the next century, there might be a human effect on climate change on top of that, but the natural effect from solar effect will be important. This should be recognized in the models and calculations that are being used to make predictions.

Q: Why is there such resistance to doing that? Is the science that conflicted or confusing? Or is politics intervening?

A: I think it’s the latter, and I think it’s both. And I think there’s a fear that it will turn out, or that it would be suggested, that the man-made contribution is smaller than what you would expect if you look at CO2 alone.

You would have appreciated our favorite T-shirt that we saw while in Disney:

"All Gore didn't invent the internet, but he did invent global warming."

I trust that you have seen the Audi "Green Police" commercial that ran during the Super Bowl.
If not, I believe that everyone should see it.
They have seen the Future...

From the young right, I've recently been shocked by an approval of McCarthyism. They say that McCarthy was right and there wasn't any abuse of power.

If I'm wrong, please email me, thanks. Do you know about this stuff?

Dear Robert: You might point out to your friends who say "The science is settled," that science is very rarely settled. For years, the paleontologists believed that dinosaurs were stupid and cold-blooded. Then along came a theory that dinosaurs were intelligent and warm blooded. There was a certain fish that was supposed to have been extinct for millions of year; then a boat caught a live specimen, in 1938. For centuries, astronomers believed that there were seven planets in the solar system. Then Neptune was discovered and later, Pluto, and the latest theory is that Pluto is a dwarf planet, not to be counted any more.
You might also point out to your friends that even if global warming is happening, it may not be caused by those horrible, evil Republicans riding around in their SUVs. It may merely be one of the periodic warming-cooling cycles that the planet passes through, like the one that melted the glaciers after the last ice age and the one in around Chaucer's time.

It sometimes amuses me the childish lengths the left will go to steal crediblity, such as using the name, "Republican", to espouse a distinctly not Republican view point. I count Republican another one of Al Gore's cultists to whom true facts are heresy and opposition to the Insane One (Gore) is sacrilidge.

Republican:

GW: Thanks for your response. I have a few comments and questions below.

PCD: If you think it's so childish, it should not be so hard for you to refute me with some data; if you do so I will gracefully accept it. I have no idea why rejection of AGW should be synonymous with Republicanism just like I cannot understand why fiscal conservatism is anathema to the left.

GW:
1. I am unsure how you conclude that the MWP was as short as 15 years. Indeed, I have never seen it addressed as less than 300 years and most refer to a period of 400 years. Indeed, I provide a link in my post to a round-up of MWP related research encompassing hundreds of studies on the issue. Feel free to click on it. As to the criticisms of McIntyre, those "papers" you cite are the type of scientific back and forth that should have been freely going on for the past decade.

-Apologies, the 15 year time period referred to the stagnation from 1995 onwards. The point however was that to my knowledge there is no consensus whether the MWP was local or global, and the lack of widespread data to me makes it a non-issue anyway, especially because it is one 300-400 period; even if were global, that single observation would hardly point to a "cycle". I think you will agree that grapes growing in Britain and the Vikings settling Greenland are local effects which are anecdotal. Plus, you refer to the Jones BBC interview in which what Jones is saying is that there is no conclusive data that the MWP was global or not. A 2008 PNAS paper by Mann also said the same thing. To my knowledge there are no peer reviewed papers which definitively state that the MWP was global. In any case, even if it were global, I am not sure how a definitive decision on this fact would prove to be the hugely consequential nail in the coffin for AGW. It's not as if all of AGW depends only or even dominantly on MWP.

I am sure you can find numerous papers attacking McIntyre from among the AGW community. I can show others in support. Who is right? Given the most recent admissions of Phil Jones, I think you at least have to admit that the hockey stick cannot today be consdiered reasonable proof that AGW exists today.

-You are right. The debate between McIntyre and Mann has been going on for a long time and is fairly technical. I agree that the hockey stick graph was used as a huge selling point by AGW proponents (and I even agree that they probably oversold it a little), but again, Mann's hockey stick is simply one of many hockey sticks; there are probably a dozen reconstructions (and not just Mann 98 and 99) which all show the same qualitative result. Jones does not mention the hockey stick in his BBC interview. Plus as I mentioned before, the paleoclimatological data for the hockey stick is not the only kind of data used by AGW. I think you are focusing too much on Phil Jones and Michael Mann without looking at the scores of other articles published that corroborate the general AGW conclusions even if we take Jones and Mann's papers out of the equation.

What proponents of AGW have done is substitute a bastardized and corrupt peer review process as evidence of the reliability of their work in place of the "scientific method." That prevents me and everyone else not part of that process from being able to reproduce their work and requires that we accept the "settled" science on the basis of faith. Sorry, but before anyone reaches into my meagre purse, I require a bit more than that.
--Do you have evidence that the process used in the hundreds of papers in journals like Nature and Science was indeed "bastardized and corrupt"? My point is that if we are to make a large-scale allegation of subversion of the peer review process, then we would need evidence of such subversion for at least a few dozen papers, which would be a fraction of the hundreds published on the topic. Even if we prove that such a process was underway for a few papers, I think you will agree that it does not automatically mean that the vast majority of the articles succumbed to such dishonesty.

2. I find your dismissal of the "heat island" effect to be disingenuous at best. Climategate revelealed that the Jones-Wang study Chinese study that found urban heat island to be minimal appears to be fraudulent.

-Firstly, I would like to ask you what you think about some basic features of this effect if it were to be significant. For instance simply consider a map of the world illustrating the major urban centers. Now compare it to a 2005 NASA GISS map of temperature anomalies. I think you will agree that there is no way to correlate urban heat islands with warming. Plus, I have yet to see a serious criticism of the 2004 (Nature) and 2006 (J. Climate) studies by David Parker; there are many more in the IPCC. Even in the most optimistic assessment, I think the data shows that the UHI's contribution to heating is uncertain; given the number of studies supporting a small UHI though, I think the burden of proof rests on those who posit a significant contribution of the UHI to warming. You also say that corrections were applied to the UHI. I would be interested in knowing about the numerous instances where such corrections were applied; as you know "normalization" and "correction" can mean anything from making a graph scale logarithmic to intentionally adding numbers to a graph.

Also, in response to the Guardian article that you extensively quoted, Jones and his colleagues have a recent reply about the purported invalidity of the Jones-Wang study. They say:

"The 2008 study undertook additional analyses using more extensive data and did conclude that there was a likely urbanization trend in China of 0.1 degrees Celsius per decade for the period 1951-2004. But allowing for this, there was still a large-scale climatic warming of 0.15 degrees C per decade over the period 1951-2004 and 0.47 degrees C per decade over the period 1981-2004". The paper concluded that much of the urbanization trend was likely due to the rapid economic development in China since the 1980s, after the period analysed in the 1990 paper."

It's also worth noting that the Jones 1990 paper is only one of several cited by the IPCC. We will have to show fraud or manipulation in several of these papers to support evidence of wrongdoing.
3. It is a decade and a half wherein temperatures have plateaued, all the while carbon dioxide has increased in the atmosphere. What that means is that all of the computer models AGW proponents have relied upon and that all show a direct relationship between amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and global temperatures are at the very least, unproven.

- I don't think so at all. I think you will agree that it would be a huge folly to reach any kind of conclusion (pro or anti AGW) based on ten years worth of observations. Plus, if someone really wants to discount the role of carbon dioxide in raising temperatures, then the burden of proof is again on him to come up with well-validated alternative mechanisms.
4. I refer again to paragraph 1. And indeed, the claim of work of "thousands of climate scientists" rings hollow indeed when the work of any who challenged them or posited alternative theories faced very high bars against getting their work published.

-Again, this may be true if there is a good amount of evidence to support such subversive activity. Simple pointing to East Anglia cannot invalidate studies done by others if they are not directly contradicted.

One example is Henrik Svensmark whose theory that solar activity, sunspots, cosmic rays and cloud cover are the dominant driver of global temperatures has been blacklisted - even though his computer models match perfectly with the climate evidence of the past 1500 years, including the current plateauing of temperatures. This from an interview of him in Discover Magazine in 2007

- Thanks for the link. I remember reading the interview before. Svensmark claims that the sun indirectly influences cloud cover through cosmic rays. Firstly, this mechanism is not as fundamentally established as the mechanism of CO2 trapping heat, so one would have to very carefully show that it's in fact responsible. But there are at least some studies which are not consistent with his hypotheses. For instance, a 2008 Lancaster University study found no strong correlation between cloud cover and cosmic ray intensity, something that forms an important part of Svensmark's studies. In addition there has not been a decreasing trend for cosmic rays over the last couple of decades, so it's hard to understand how Svensmark's proposed mechanism is working. As for Svenmark's detailing of the reception he received, perhaps it was too harsh, but as you know scientific ideas are almost received with widespread skepticism. If Svenmark is complaining, he should remember that AGW proponents received exactly the same kinds of reaction ten or twenty years ago. I am sure that if other studies validate his hypotheses they would (and should) get attention. However the sun as a plausible source for global warming is a factor often debated and discussed. If solar irradiance has not increased at least until 1978, how could it be responsible for the warming? At the very least, those such as Svensmark who are advancing tentative hypotheses will have to do a lot of careful work to validate their proposals.

PCD: FYI I voted twice for Bush and also for McCain. However I just don't think that AGW should be a democratic or republican issue. Thirty years ago the relationship between CFCs and ozone was also an intensely partisan issue, but today most of us accept that reality irrespective of our political beliefs. Just like others on this site I care about my grandchildren being able to live on a habitable planet. I know I am in the minority on this, but I do have Republican friends who also "believe" in AGW. I am proud to be a Republican who believes in fiscal conservatism, an unregulated economy and the war against Islamic terrorism, but I am also not ashamed to be concerned about AGW.

GW: Thanks for your response. There's some comments in moderation.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/16/key-climate-change-data-laden-errors/?test=latestnews

"republican", just like Buck Johns and Doris Allen were Republicans. Anyone who NEVER questions the AGW liars on why they have to alter data, lose inconvient data, and pervert "science" to make their point is not honest or helping their grandchildren.

Honestly, you want your grandchildren living like the Unabomber in Montana?

Regarding Climategate:

@Bill Brandt raises an excellent question: What is an appropriate timeframe to measure warming?

Practically speaking, people are concerned about things in their lifetime, and what might affect their children. Given current trends, it is conceivable that Chilean glaciers and New Zealand fiords may melt away in our lifetimes. If the Ross ice shelf in Antarctica melts, it is plausible that some South Pacific atolls will become uninhabitable.

Scientists will study the cause of these events. Politicians will argue about what to do, or who is to blame. However, nobody has successfully challenged the fact that these ice packs are melting.

Temperature data collected at various locations on Earth show a general increase over time. This does not mean that every single locale on Earth is warmer than it was before. It means that the average surface temperature on Earth is rising.

There are many theories as to why Earth temperatures fluctuate (besides the ones I mentioned previously). We know that seasons result from Earth's poles tilting to and from the sun. Some scientists believe that a wobble in Earth's orbit causes long-term irregularities in the seasonal cycle. So, it may be entirely natural for the Sahara to go dry for a few hundred years. Maybe the greenery will return in a few centuries. This seems fine on the grand scale, but provides no comfort to the people living in Mali today.

"Brown shirts in green", that's a great line. Mind if I use it Robert? Note, I may not get the chance to attribute it.

It's even better than 'watermelons' - green on the outside, red inside.

PCD, instead of calling me names, how about taking a close look at what you are referring to? In the link you pointed to, correction of the errors significantly did not change the original conclusion which was still within 95% confidence limits as Fox itself says. Uncovering a few errors cannot be tantamount to directly exposing widespread fraud. Simply saying "I wonder how much more of the data has such mistakes" is a far cry from actual demonstration of those mistakes.

As usual for a Global Warming Cultist, you move the goalposts. You can't admit the entire fraud of the IPCC. You can't admit the falsified data. You can't even admit the computer models were rigged. No you are no Republican that I would recognize. You are too dishonest.

RE: Republican

Thank you for the response.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). As to it being a non-issue, I disagree strongly. Indeed, doing away with MWP has been central to AGW theory. For example, David Deming was the man who pioneered the use of boreholes to determine climate history. He later wrote, in a 2005 article in Journal of Scientific Exploration that, after his groundbreaking article in 1995 on boreholes:

With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

It is easy to understand why – it is at the center of establishing that today's warming is anthropogenic. If the MWP shows a natural, global, cycle of warming and cooling that is equal to or hotter than modern day (something shown even by the IPCC in their 1990 graphs) – than that would logically refute the claim that there is anything to differentiate the modern period of warming – complete with human contribution of CO2 – from the prior period of warming without anywhere near the human contribution of CO2. It would not be definitive proof that humans are not today contributing both to warming and cooling in various ways, but it would show more likely than not that the primary driver of global warming is not man. If you disagree with that premise, please explain why.

I did provide a link to numerous studies on the issue of MWP. Just for example, one of the more recent studies I've seen is A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies (PDF) (Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1049-1058, December 2007) - Craig Loehle. It is a peer reviewed study that looks at, as it says, non-treering proxies and finds the MWP duplicated in both hemispheres, including the tropics. It is one of many studies that finds MWP to have been global.

It is possible to point to numerous examples of the peer review process being bastardized just looking at the released tranche of CRU e-mails. For just a few of the more egrigious examples, see http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/16/climategatekeeping/ That particular example involves gatekeeping.
As to your point that we need more than just a few examples, I concur. Would you agree that there is enough evidence that, before reposing trust in the peer review process, this deserves a far reaching investigation? In the alternative, I think Roger Pielke Sr. provides a reasonable alternative:

This episode shows there are problems with the peer review process when editors (who are “judges”) introduce their own biases in the review process with their selection of referees and with their decisions. One suggested improvement is to publish the reviews and papers (at least electronically) of all rejected papers and reviews of all accepted papers
The other issue, equally as important, involves in my view the attempt by some in the upper echelons of climate science to use “peer review” as a standard of objective truth in place of the “scientific method.” Why should we have to make FOIA requests for data and code to reproduce experiments? Again, read through the tranche of CRU e-mails and you see the primary cabal of AGW scientists continuously stonewalling. There is a reason that GIT's chief climate science professor, Judith Carter, has made a call for climate scientists to act like scientists in every other discipline, as I point out in my post http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2010/02/summary-of-not-so-settled-science-of.html . Actually, if you follow the links in my post to her statements and read through the comments, an amazing number of which are negative, you will come away with the distinct impression that this desire to withold data is indeed fairly pervaisive. But the bottom line is that it is only when experiments can be reproduced, that I can repose a measure of trust in them. I know that Phil Jones, Michael Mann and Ken Briffa, three of the top names in AGW, have all engaged in the practice of stonewalling in response to requests for data and code – in several cases, quite egrigiously. For example, it took Briffa nine years to finally archive his data for Yamal. That is hardly conducive to the scientific method, nor to the trustworthiness of the conclusions.

As to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, the 2005 GISS graph that you point to at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/ is based on adjusted data showing continuous upticks in temperature right through 2005. I have seen other data and, of late, heard from among others, Phil Jones, that contest such adjustments and who believe that warming stopped about 1995. If that is true then adjustments made to data reflecting the lack of UHI are called into question. As to the papers you site, I would point to several others that would contest that. Several I cited in my post http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2010/02/summary-of-not-so-settled-science-of.html
For some other examples:

Watts, A. 2009: Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? 28 pages, March 2009 The Heartland Institute,

Klotzbach, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841.
Pielke Sr.: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.
Davey, 2005: Microclimate Exposures Of Surface-Based Weather Stations, American Meteorological Society, April 2005, 497-504

But again, this is an issue that a robust back and forth in the scientific community ought to be able to resolve. My point in citing the above is not to offer them for proof of their findings, but to show that this is hardly an issue of “settled” science. The AGW proponents have done their area of science a tremendous disservice by their actions in regards to peer review and stonewalling requests for information that would allow their experiments to be subject to the scientific method.

As regards the fact that IPCC computer models - those forecast increases in temperature caused by increases in CO2, you note “if someone really wants to discount the role of carbon dioxide in raising temperatures, then the burden of proof is again on him to come up with well-validated alternative mechanisms.” No Sir. The burden of proof is on AGW proponents to establish the relationship between CO2 and steadily rising temperatures. The fact that those models have proven wrong over the past 15 years leaves, at a minimum, AGW proponents with the duty of explaining why, while carbon dioxide levels have risen, temperatures have not. We are being asked to trust the results of these models a century into the future and to change our lives based on it. You seem to wish to treat this as a meaningless anamoly, I see it as a gaping chest wound.

RE: Goldbrener: Actually, it appears that Antarctica is increasing in the mass of its ice at twice the speed estimated by the IPCC. And it further appears that the IPCC estimate was not based on peer reviewed literature. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/17/ipcc-gate-du-jour-antarctic-sea-ice-increase-underestimated-by-50/#more-16486

And it further appears that the big piece of the Ross Ice Shelf that broke off a bit ago may have had more to do with a specific type of waves pounding the ice shelf rather than melting. http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1046.

Why are the liberals (progressives)so defensive about "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" as they now call it?

What is their main goal? ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT! I believe the "unseen powers behind all politics" got together and asked:"What can we come up with that would make EVERY person on earth be willing to accept that we NEED to unite all nations into a Global Government?"

Only the threat that our entire planet was in peril and could be destroyed!

Thus "Global Warming" began to scare most people into believing that we had to start accepting and changing everything into a GREEN culture. And they wanted a treaty whereby the RICH nations would pay the bill and also give money to those nations who had NOT caused CARBON FOOTPRINTS because they were not industrialized like AMerica, Britain, Israel, etc. (Redistribution of wealth: Socialism)

IT IS ALL ABOUT CONTROL! The same as the Obama Health Care Bill is about control here in America!

Both plans are to get the camel's nose in the tent! Obama and his cronies want to bring AMerica down as we are the main country that would stand in the way of a One World Government.

Christians and Jews also need to be removed or neutralized, as they will not come under the control such a tyranical government.

Far too many people are willing to accept what they are told and don't think to really examine the WHYS or REASONS behind these claims. They are willing to give up freedoms for security. And sadly, if you do this you end up with neither one!

When Yahweh called people sheep...it was not a compliment!

Hoorah for all the "goats" who will not go along quietly with such agendas!

In conclusion: Global Warming is a myth and lie!

The Almighty Creator formed earth and has set cycles and seasons and natural laws to maintain it.

Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Psalm 74:17 Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

Isaiah 45:17....world without end.

-You can't admit the entire fraud of the IPCC. You can't admit the falsified data

Again, PCD, "falsified data" and "entire" fraud needs ample evidence, not anecdotes. Where is it? As far as I can see you have provided me with a single news link until now. Maybe like GW you would like to take a stab at some actual data? Would it be ok for anyone to say that corruption in Enron implies corruption in all corporations by default?

Well, Democrat, you are certainly showing yourself not to be a Republican. You are trolling here. You demand specifics when you are moving the goal posts and fighting a rear guard action.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/warming_meltdown_iD1hypJAstOrvovafbIbGK

Oh, I can go on and on Democrat, but trolls like you never accept defeat, you just keep lying until you find an uninformed, gullible audience you can con.

This is my second reply to "Republican", who isn't one. I cite a different article than in the held for moderation comment.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-and-the-law-senator-inhofe-to-ask-for-congressional-criminal-investigation-pajamas-mediapjtv-exclusive/

A nice little synopsis of the troubles and lies of the Al Gore Cult.

PCD, cherry picking again. Tell me one thing, how many climate change papers from Nature Geoscience were *not* retracted? You are indulging in the classic fallacy of looking only at misses and not the hits. Secondly, the study shows that sea-levels could have been underestimated *or* overestimated (the retracted paper had in fact suggested very conservative estimates for sea-level rise), which makes the conclusion regrettable but not saying anything definitive about sea-levels not rising. Thirdly, it is one of several sea-level studies cited by the IPCC. Where is the evidence against the others? Fourthly, Ramstorf and Vermeer who criticized the paper have themselves done work before on rising sea levels. As before, you are declaring the possible unethical behavior of a few scientists tantamount to refutation of global warming. Plus, the Inhofe link you provided has no scientific data in it. Would you agree then that because Enron was corrupt, the very idea of capitalism is a flawed one? I am just trying to use your logic here. I think you need to take a hard look at who is the troll here, based on who has argued mainly based on name-calling (unlike GW, a Republican who has argued in good faith based on actual data and references).

GW, thanks for the links. I would like to address your last point first. I find it remarkable that you think that the relationship between CO2 and warming should be doubted based on only 15 years of non-explanation. It is pretty clear to me (and from your statements, it seems to you too) that not being able to explain warming for 15 years could not provide any serious evidence against CO2 and warming due to its statistical insignificance. Plus, you don't seem to have addressed the mechanistic point; the greenhouse effect is a pretty fundamental law of physics; it's not an empirically derived model in itself. In the absence of other equally fundamental warming processes which have been proven to operate over large swathes of time, I think that Occam's Razor would dictate that we have to accept CO2 as the primary driver for warming, with 15 years being too short a period to claim any statistically significant association or lack thereof between the two. So the burden of proof certainly is on those who are arguing against Occam's razor, who are arguing against the fundamental law of physics that CO2 traps heat.

MWP: I would only say here that you are greatly overemphasizing the importance of the MWP which even if global would still not refute the vast other tracts of relatively cool period, while in addition providing no mechanistic explanation for why it was warm. But as you said, we can agree to disagree there :)

Scientific dishonesty: One thing I will agree that the scientists did a pretty awful job with the PR and they did occassionally engage in some sloppy work. But firstly, several of the most controversial statements like "hide the decline" have now clearly been shown to be taken out of context ("hide the decline referred only to the very limited tree ring data that did show an unexpected decline). I would think you wouldn't need to to be told about the great distinction between evidence for dishonesty (even if true) and disproving a theory. As for Judith Gardner, while transperancy is what she is proposing, she has also not denied AGW based on her criticism of these individual scientists. Also note that she says that "I’m not implying that climate researchers need to keep defending against the same arguments over and over again". She does say that yes, metadata and raw data should be made available and agrees that some of the scientists in question did not do this, but she also does not reject any of the basic AGW conclusions. I do like your and others' idea of making rejections and failed data also available. But as you know, most science that is published in fact does not make every single piece of raw data (which would mean actual lab notebook jottings for instance) available. Does that mean all this science is also wrong? Again, it may be, but unless someone actually demostrates this it would just be a belief, and climate science should not regarded as being any different from cancer research or genetics in this regard.

UHI:It's not just Parker whose paper was not challenged by Watts or others. It's also Paterson (J. Climate 2003) who corroborates Parker's basis for minimal contribution for the UHI with a more comprehensive study. The paper by Watts and D'Aleo is interesting, but firstl;y it's been published very recently and we have to wait for more analysis. However there are even more recent studies challenging it, for instance check the paper by Menne, Williams and Palecki (J. Geophys. Res. 2010) which indicates that the surface temperature trends don't seem to be inflated by station citing as hypothesized by Watts and D'Aleo. What I find compelling about the Parker studies from 2004 and 2006 is that indicate a very simple observation that argues for a minimal UHI at the very least; the fact that globally, temperatures over land have risen as much on windy nights as on calm nights, indicating that the observed overall warming is not a consequence of urban development.

I am also not sure that there is an active, widespread campaign to "suppress" anti-AGW article; Henrik Svensmark whose complaints you cited for instance, has published 56 articles between 2007-2009 on his solar theory in journals like Geophys. Res. and Phys. Rev. Lett. according to a Google Scholar search. Those are quite respectable mainstream publications.

PCD, more name-calling please! Response in moderation. Maybe you should learn from GW, a Republican who is actually arguing in good faith based on peer-reviewed data and references. Where are yours?

Elitist snob troll who falsly calls itself Republican. I have dealt with Democrats like you for a long time. You are not honest. You are not looking for debate but surrender to your elitist self.

You are a dishonest debater. When shown a pattern of deceit and outright data manipulation by the IPCC and its supporters (YOU), you deny that invalidates you Cultist Agenda and Philosophy. There is no Global Man Made warming, except for the hot air you and your God Al Gore emit.

Wow, PCD, that's a lot of peer-reviewed data there. Especially that impeccable piece that says that anyone who disagrees with AGW is not a Republican even if he otherwise has Republican credentials. Keep up the good work! I have also dealt with condescending Republicans like yourself for a long time, those who think that ad hominem attacks and allegations amply substitute for actual evidence. And maybe you have love for that country boy Gore, I don't. I still remember praying out loud that the Supreme Court would not rule in his favor during Bush v Gore. But I understand; this is another rookie mistake made by ad hominem experts, mistaking support for a philosophy with support for every one of its proponents.

And by the way, you have not shown any "pattern" of deceit. You linked to exactly two studies; way to fixate on the misses by blithely ignoring the hits. Maybe you need to read some elementary statistics. It takes more than a few studies among hundreds to approach statistical significance.

Project much, Republican? Another trait of Liberals attempting to foist a falsehood upon the community.

-Project much, Republican?

You would know...

I find your grasp of facts eminently amusing, so please continue. And keep on looking online for those statistics books.

Another troll tactic, "democrat"? You are running out of plays from your Soros Seminar. I will not do your work for you. You prove your assertions with clean data, not the disgraced fakery you take as Gospel for your Cult.

Wow again, "PCD". Your untramelled grasp of all the talking points (which now includes "Soros") is impressive. And rest assured, I know you will not do my work. I think you have clearly demonstrated that you lack the ability.

Republican: I apologize for the delay in my response. I did not realize that you had responded and other matters took my attention.

1. As to the criticism of my seeing significance in the 15 years of temperature plateua - we will have to disagree on that. Again, if increasing CO2 = increasing warming, then there should be no significant anamolies. Mann's hockey stock purports to show not merely that temperature is incredibly sensitive to CO2, with the massive spike occurring as industrialization went into full swing. Moreover, looking back through history on a geological scale, is there anything to tie the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere with temperature. As you know, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere has varied greatly. As a recent study I cited, they found C02 levels lower than today, but sea level 1 meter higher.

As to the "greenhouse effect is a pretty fundamental law of physics" - true, but it is hardly one that can be called settled either. For example, does the dominant green house gas, water vapor, produce a positive or a negative feed back. This from MIT Prof. Linzen:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html

The notion that the earth's climate is dominated by positive feedbacks is intuitively implausible, and the history of the earth's climate offers some guidance on this matter. About 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was 20%-30% less bright than now (compare this with the 2% perturbation that a doubling of CO2 would produce), and yet the evidence is that the oceans were unfrozen at the time, and that temperatures might not have been very different from today's. Carl Sagan in the 1970s referred to this as the "Early Faint Sun Paradox."

For more than 30 years there have been attempts to resolve the paradox with greenhouse gases.

Some have suggested CO2—but the amount needed was thousands of times greater than present levels and incompatible with geological evidence. Methane also proved unlikely. It turns out that increased thin cirrus cloud coverage in the tropics readily resolves the paradox—but only if the clouds constitute a negative feedback. In present terms this means that they would diminish rather than enhance the impact of CO2.

On a related note, I have seen, but do yet have a cite to an article accepted for publication by the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology, by Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking and Michael Pook. Using data from weather balloons accumulated over 35 years, these researchers find that "long-term water vapour feedback is negative - that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2."

Also see Michael Beenstock and Yaniv Reingewertz from the Hebrew University, in a little-discussed paper in Nature, ( http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf )

and amplified in a powerpoint presentation delivered by the pair,

http://www.patrickminford.net/Business_Topics/BusinessTopicsCOctober2009.pdf

have re-evaluated methods used to show a relationship between CO2 levels and temperature rises. Their article, "Polynomial Cointegration Tests of the Anthropogenic Theory of Global Warming", posits that the wrong statistical methods are being used, showing up a "spurious correlation". Using more sophisticated procedures, they find that there is no permanent relation between the two. However, they do find temporary effects, related to the rate of increase in CO2 levels. Since this is not expected to increase, "a doubling of greenhouse gas" will not permanently increase global temperature."

2. Again, we fundamentally disagree on the MWP. As I view it, the MWP establishes that there is nothing at this point to suggest that our current warming trend since the little ice age is in any way unprecedented. Further, that it occurred in the absence of significant human CO2 contribution nor a rise in CO2 levels, suggests that the prime driver of climate is not CO2. Three, from what we see in Greenland ice cores, the MWP itself was hardly anamolous, but is a cycle that has been repeated often during the Holocene and farther back into geologic history.

3. I am in no way saying that all of the science is dishonest. And yes, I fully realize that Prof. Carter believes in AGW - as does Roger Pielke Sr. for that matter, though he believes that CO2 is not the only driver and that man causes both warming and cooling. But there is a significant disconnect when it takes 7 years and an act of Congress to get Mann to publish the data for his original hockey stick graph, or 9 years to get Briffa to post his Yamal data. I would refer to the statement by the Institute of Physicists sent to the British Parliament in light of their review of the CRU e-mails:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/27/16772/#more-16772

What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.

2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. . . .

We have had over a decade of shennigans where it appears, at the very highest levels of AGW cabal, for lack of a better term, and the truth is that we do not know what we can trust at this point. The only thing that we can say with finality is that there has been a concerted effort by those at the top of the AGW food chain to overstate their case, to keep others from attacking their data, to keep at least some articles from making it into peer reviewed journals on grounds other than their worthiness, and to keep their data, meta data, etc. from public scrutiny.

What all of this calls for is full disclosure, substantive changes to the ways climate scientists do business, and a thorough reexamination of the supposedly "settled science." Could carbon dioxide be the primary driver of our climate - as I view it, it is not out of the realm of possiblity. But it is not proven at this point and the matters above scream out for a full scale reassessment. Particularly in light of the fact that the people involved in AGW are pushing their hardest to place onerous burdens on us that would drastically raise energy prices and result in a massive transfer of wealth to a combination of rent seekers (Al Gore produces nothing of value), the UN and other countries.

4. As to UHI, I will review the cite as soon as I have time and respond. I'll also ask Mr. Watts to respond. Even assuming that UHI is minimal however, that is only part of the problem with the trustworthiness of surface temperature data. For example:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/27/spencer-spurious-warming-demonstrated-in-cru-surface-data/

GW, thanks for the response. As you indicate we will have to disagree about the importance of the MWP; I personally don't think it sinks or floats AGW.

1. I think we will also have to disagree on the predicted lack of warming for the last 15 years. You may think that it's a problem that we cannot explain such an anomaly. However where we basically seem to disagree is in me and many others thinking that this small period is not statistically significant for *any* kind of judgement, either pro or con. I don't think it is long enough to be called an 'anomaly' in the first place.

2. However, I think my primary objection to CO2 still stands. Unless a sound plausible mechanism is suggested for temperature changes in the present, and surely the past, pending further data we will have to consider CO2 as the primary driver. As you know, science proceeds on the basis of the best available data, not necessarily data that is known with 100% certainty (what data is?...). Could CO2 not be a driver? Certainly possible, but in the absence of other definitive forcing mechanisms and in the presence of the simplicity of CO2 forcing, we will have to accept this forcing for present.

3. I would be interested in having a link to the weather balloon study you cite. In case of water vapor again, the main argument is that excess water vapor simply precipitates out. Thus the lifetime of water vapor in the atmosphere (about 10 days) is much shorter than the lifetime of a CO2 molecule, which is about 12 years, a lifetime much longer to absorb and retain thermal radiation. Almost everything I have read seems to suggest that water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing. When surface temperatures change (whether from CO2 or solar forcing or volcanos etc.), you can therefore expect water vapour to adjust quickly to reflect that. To first approximation, the water vapour adjusts to maintain constant relative humidity. It’s important to point out that this is a *result* of the models, not a built-in assumption of forcing. As for the Beenstock et al. paper, I recall reading that they seem to assume a rather pre-defined statistical relationship between warming and forcing, rather than let the models discover this relationship.

4. As for the Early Faint Sun paradox, I would think that it only underscores the lack of correlation between solar activity and warming!

5. As I said before, I do agree with you that the scientists could surely have been more forthcoming in their disclosure of data. As I also indicated, it's also true that their behavior has dealt a blow to public attitudes towards AGW. But I have seen a disturbingly large number of people (not you) who simply equate unethical behavior of a small group to refutation of a scientific framework. As you know, Mann, Briffa or Jones's work builds on the minor, under-appreciated work of thousands of scientists worldwide (as an aside, I would also like to mention the 2008 PNAS paper by Mann which indicates that his much maligned hocket stick reconstruction is far from the only such reconstruction). Simply from a statistical perspective it would take a lot of work to demonstrate large-scale fraud or to falsify most of the other data.

Republican:

1. Thank you for the response - and for that matter, engaging in this little debate. You raise many good points and it is nice to debate someone on this issue who debates rationally.

2. I will attempt to get that cite. I saw this study and made my notes, but I do not know if it is on the web yet. As soon as I find it, I will forward it.

3. Early on after CRU e-mails came out, there was some very intelligent discussion on the net regarding confirmation bias by scientists in the Climate science field. I don't know whether it is a valid explanation of what has occurred, but it certainly seems within the realm of possibiliity. See http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/12/09/rocket-man/

4. As an aside, the utterly worst spokesman for AGW at this point has to be Al Gore.

GW, thank you for the debate too; you also raise many interesting points. As you say, it's good for a change to engage in respectful and rational debate with someone with whom you might disagree but who argues with facts. It's especially refreshing in this era when many Internet "debates" boil down to name-calling.

Thanks for the very interesting link. I think we all suffer from confirmation bias; it's human nature. However it can be hard to actually isolate confirmation bias itself. But yes, it's definitely something that we have to remember all the time.

If it means anything, I am definitely not a fan of Gore. He overstated and oversimplified the case for climate change in my opinion, and by emphasizing the issue as a moral one, also automatically declared skeptics as being "immoral" in some way. Although I support his climate change goals, I don't think of him as being anything more than a slick country cracker. As I mentioned sometime before, I enthusiastically voted against him.