Update: AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again hyping Antarctic melt fears – Recycles same claims from 2014, 1990, 1979, 1922 & 1901! – Climate Depot’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal

The Associated Press and Seth Borenstein are at it again. The article by Seth Borenstein and Luis Andres Henao titled ‘Glacial Melting In Antarctica Makes Continent The ‘Ground Zero Of Global Climate Change’‘ was published on February 27, 2014.

The AP left out contrary peer-reviewed studies, inconvenient data and trends that counter the articles ‘worse than we thought’ narrative. The AP paints an erroneous picture of potential sea level rise, omits potential volcanic causes of any melting and the current state of Antarctica and the geologic history of the continent.

Why did the AP not include any ice specialists with differing views? See: Prominent Scientist Dissents: Renowned glaciologist declares global warming is ‘going to be a big plus’ – Fears ‘Frightening’ Cooling – Warns scientists are ‘prostituting their science’ – Dr. Hughes is an internationally renowned glaciologist who pioneered many of the modern ideas currently under study in the field.’ Dr. Hughes has travelled to the Arctic ten times and the Antarctic thirteen times since 1968, mostly as the principal investigator of NSF-funded glaciological research.

Of course this was no surprising given the article was co-written by Seth Borenstein who’s recent reporting on ‘hottest year’ claims had to be corrected. See: AP ‘clarifies’ ‘hottest year’ claims: ‘Kudos to Marc Morano for keeping the heat (heh) on about this’

AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again! Claims ‘global warming means more Antarctic ice’ — Meet the new consensus, the opposite of the old consensus

Borenstein has a long history of promoting global warming fears at the expense of journalistic ethics. See: ‘Long sad history of AP reporter Seth Borenstein’s woeful global warming reporting’ More on Borenstein here.

Climate Depot Analysis:

First off, no mention of all=time record sea ice (not land based ice sheets) expansion in Antarctica. See: Feds: ‘January had largest Antarctic sea ice extent on record’ – NCDC: ‘Antarctic sea ice during January was 890,000 square miles (44.6 percent) above the 1981–2010 average. This was the largest January Antarctic sea ice extent on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2008 by 220,000 square miles.’ & National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC): Past 3 years in a row set ice record! ‘Sea ice in Antarctica has remained at satellite-era record high daily levels for most of 2014′

And yes, AP’s Seth Borenstein has previously tried to claim that more Antarctic sea ice is caused by global warming. See: AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again! Claims ‘global warming means more Antarctic ice’ — Meet the new consensus, the opposite of the old consensus

Of course this claim ignores contrary data. See: Brian Gunter: ‘Antarctic Continent Has Not Warmed In The Last 50 Years’ — ‘Zero temperature trend for the main regions of the Antarctic continent’

And by just focusing on the smaller West Antarctic ice sheets, the AP seems to be intentionally misleading readers by ignoring the conditions on the vast bulk of Antarctica. See: 2013: New paper finds the majority of East Antarctic glaciers have advanced in size since 1990 – A new paper published in Nature.

Climate Depot’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal of latest Antarctic melt fears:

AP claim: ‘In the worst case scenario, Antarctica’s melt could push sea levels up 10 feet (3 meters) worldwide in a century or two…Scientists estimate it will take anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years to melt enough ice to raise seas by 10 feet, maybe only 100 years in a worst case scenario.’

Climate Depot Response: This is just speculation, unproven predictions amped up with extreme scenarios and not based on current climate reality. According to the AP’s article, the melt rate has slowed down. See: Sunshine Hours blog: Antarctica Losing 130 gigatons of ice per year (last Year it was 159 gigatons per year) 1) Last year it was 159 gigatons per year (Almost all of it where there are volcanoes under the ice)

2) NSIDC: “The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice.” A gigaton of ice is approximately one cubic kilometer of ice.

So … at 130 gigatons per year, how long before Antarctica melts? That would be 30,000,000 / 130.

The Answer: 230,000 years until Antarctica melts.

Why did Associated Press Borenstein fail to mention that?

This is not the first time the AP’s Borenstein has done this type of misleading reporting. In 2008, Borenstein was criticised by scientists for similar journalistic efforts.

From 2008 report: Climate scientist Ben Herman, past director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and former Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona, stated, “It is interesting that all of the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) stories concerning Antarctica are always about what’s happening around the [western] peninsula, which seems to be the only place on Antarctica that has shown warming. How about the net ‘no change’ or ‘cooling’ over the rest of the continent, which is probably about 95% of the land mass, not to mention the record sea ice coverage recently.”

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AP Claim: ‘130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That’s the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools.’

Climate Depot Response:  Sounds scary, right? Well, that is what the AP reporters want you to be scared. But just how alarming is  that melt rate? The AP answers that question many paragraphs later.

“At its current rate, the rise of the world’s oceans from Antarctica’s ice melt would be barely noticeable, about one-third of a millimeter a year. The oceans are that vast.”

So all of these analogies about Empire State Buildings and Olympic swimming pools amount to ‘barely noticeable.’  Of course the rate of sea level rise is not noticing anything unusual in Antarctica. Even the IPCC concedes that there was no significant anthropogenic influence on climate prior to 1950, thus man is not be responsible for sea level rise beginning 150-200 years ago, at the end of the Little Ice Age.

Via The Hockey Schtick: The sea level rise over the past ~200 years shows no evidence of acceleration, which is necessary to assume a man-made influence. Sea level rise instead decelerated over the 20th centurydecelerated 31% since 2002 and decelerated 44% since 2004 to less than 7 inches per century. There is no evidence of an acceleration of sea level rise, and therefore no evidence of any man-made effect on sea levels. Sea level rise is primarily a local phenomenon related to land subsidence, not CO2 levels. Therefore, areas with groundwater depletion and land subsidence have much higher rates of relative sea level rise, but this has absolutely nothing to do with man-made CO2.

Scientist counters media hype on Antarctic ice sheet ‘collapse: ‘It has been in progress for several thousand years, and is neither new nor man-caused’

Some Perspective on the Headlining Antarctic Ice Loss Trends – The press coverage is aimed to make this sound alarming—“This West Antarctic region sheds a Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years, study says” screamed the Washington Post. Wow! That sounds like a lot. Turns out, it isn’t. The global oceans are vast. Adding a “Mount Everest-sized amount of ice every two years” to them results in a sea level rise of 0.02 inches per year.

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels Mocks climate claims: ‘Sea levels have been rising since before the end of the last ice age, about 11,600 years before the Industrial Revolution’

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AP Claim: ‘The world’s fate hangs on the question of how fast the ice melts.’

Climate Depot Response: Drama queen nonsense not rooted in scientific evidence.

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AP claim“I was last here 10 years ago,” Convey said during a rare sunny day on the island, with temperatures just above freezing. “And if you compare what I saw back then to now, the basic difference due to warming is that the permanent patches of snow and ice are smaller. They’re still there behind me, but they’re smaller than they were.”

Climate Depot Response: This is just anecdotal evidence based on personal observation and an extremely short 10 year window which tell us nothing about climate time scales of 20, 50, 100 years or longer. Misleading Hype Over Antarctic Ice Loss: ‘Antarctic land ice has been steadily disappearing since the end of the Ice Age, some 18,000 years ago’ – ‘Their new survey covers just three years, up to 2013. The previous period, that they compare against, was 2005-11. Would any serious scientists use such short periods to make claims about trends?’

Also, the AP article failed to mention that climate is not a one way street. Other variables can contribute to a sea level reduction. See: Paper predicts increased precipitation in Antarctica will slow sea level rise by > 1 mm/yr & New paper finds East Antarctic ice sheet will have negative contribution to sea levels over next 200 years – Published The Cryosphere

Why did the AP leave out peer-reviewed studies that were inconvenient to the their ‘worse than we thought’ narrative? See:

Mankind Not Causing West Antarctic Glaciers To Collapse: ‘The warming and cooling in the South Pole is well in line with historical trends dating back thousands of years’ – ‘Study from British Antarctic Survey released last year found that the current melt in the western Antarctic is within the “natural range of climate variability” of the last 300 years.’

Also, why did AP leave out studies revealing that current temperatures in Antarctica are not ‘unprecedented.’ See: Latest Research: Antarctica Was Warmer During Medieval Period

New paper finds most of Antarctica cooled over the past 1,000 years: A new paper published in Nature Climate Change reconstructs temperatures in Antarctica and South America over the past 1000 years and shows that most of Antarctica has cooled over the past 1000 years.

And even further back: Antarctic palm trees: 52M years ago: ‘New paper in Nature: ‘Persistent near-tropical warmth on the Antarctic continent during the early Eocene epoch’ – Analysis: ‘The finding, if true, proves that all existing climate models are complete rubbish because they obviously don’t allow the continental temperatures to naturally change by this much’

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AP Claim: ‘Now scientists in two different studies use the words “irreversible” and “unstoppable” to talk about the melting in West Antarctica.’

Climate Depot Response: AP says ‘now’ those apocalyptic terms are being used as if Antarctica ice sheet melt fears were new or something. Far from it.  Borenstein is not the first one to hype these same Antarctica melt fears. Virtually the exact same claims and hype have were recycled in 2014, 1990, 1979, 1922 and 1901. Yes, the same recycled Antarctic ice melt and catastrophic sea level rise scares have been around since 1901!

2014: Let’s start with 2014: Flashback 2014: Watch: WUSA 9 DC TV station on Antarctic melt fears features images of DC monuments underwater. ‘It’s our choice how fast the seas rise’ – We control sea level rise? Watch Now: Local DC News Schlock Report on Antarctica & Sea Level Rise ‘It’s our choice how fast the seas rise and that gives us time to prepare and protect our communities in a smart way.’ – Brenda Ekwurzel – Union of Concerned Scientists

The same claims about Antarctic ice melt and DC landmarks were made in 1990.

1990Flashback January 11, 1990: NBC’s Today Show features Paul Ehrlich warning of impacts of Antarctic ice melt: ‘You Could Tie Your Boat to the Washington Monument’ – Paul Ehrlich: ‘As global temperatures rise, they may cause the massive West Antarctic ice sheet to slip more rapidly. Then we’ll be facing a sea-level rise not of one to three feet in a century, but of 10 or 20 feet in a much shorter time. The Supreme Court would be flooded. You could tie your boat to the Washington Monument. Storm surges would make the Capitol unusable. For Today, Paul Ehrlich in Washington, DC, on the future shoreline of Chesapeake Bay.”

And the same Antarctic melt and sea level rise fears in 1979.

1979 NYT: “Boats could be launched from the bottom of the steps of the Capitol’ in DC –‘Experts Tell How Antarctic’s Ice Could Cause Widespread Floods – Mushy Ice Beneath Sheet’ – Jan. 8, 1979]

ScreenHunter_164 May. 26 20.50

1922: And the same story was told in 1922 warning of ‘Biblical deluge’ and a ‘Worldwide flood’ due to a potentially melting Antarctica.  1922: ‘Today’s scare of the day is that Antarctica is going to collapse and drown us all – in about 1,000 years. Scientists told exactly the same story in 1922′ – The Mail Adelaide, SA – April 29, 1922 – 1922 Article Excerpt: ‘We are now, it is believed, slowly approaching another warm epoch, when, if it becomes universal, affecting both hemispheres together, the ice will again melt, and the sea rise to its ancient level, submerging an enormous portion of what is now dry and thickly populated land. According to another view the melting of the ice and rise of the sea may occur comparatively suddenly instead of being a very gradual process, spread over many centuries…With [Antarctic] ice ever forming above and a sea gradually growing warmer below, the process must eventually over balance, the undermined glaciers disintegrate, and the ice-cap break up. Mountain after mountain of ice will fall into the sea, be swept northwards by the currents, and melt, thus bringing about, but at a much more rapid rate, the threatened inundation of the land by the rising of the sea to its ancient level.

ScreenHunter_388 May. 12 17.28

1901: And the same story on Antarctic melt fears was being hyped in 1901. ‘London On The Border of Destruction’: ‘To Be Wiped Out By A Huge Wave’ – Queanbeyan Age – August 10, 1901 Excerpt: ‘According to a recent theory of some geologists London is on the border edge of destruction, the destroying angel being the great Antarctic icecap which has been forming itself for centuries, and which holds at present in its grip all the waters drawn from off the Northern Hemisphere. Geologists believe that this great ice sucker has reached the stage of perfection when it will, break up again, letting loose all the waters of its auction over the two hemispheres, and completely flooding the low-lying lands of Europe, Asia, and North America. This being the case, London will be swept out of sight in less time than can be calculated by this great wall of water a mile high, and huge blocks of ice be hurled here, there, and everywhere.’

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Also, there is nothing new scientifically: See: Flashback 1932: West Antarctic Ice Loss Has Been Occurring For Centuries

‘The Western Antarctic Ross Ice Shelf retreated 30 miles before 1932. It has nothing to do with CO2’

ScreenHunter_7963 Mar. 16 23.07

21 Jul 1932 – A Warmer World. – 21 July 1932: “SOME great world change is taking place on the Antarctic Continent. Its glaciers are shrinking. Commander L.A. Bernacchi, who visited the South Polar land 30 years ago, says that the Great Ice Barrier which fronts the continent with a wall of ice for 250 miles has receded at least 30 miles since it was first seen and surveyed. Sir James Ross, who went out on the earliest Antarctic expedition of the nineteenth century, and those who fol lowed him, left clear descriptions of this tremendous ice frontage and its position. It was a cliff 150ft. high and 1000ft. thick. But now it appears to be continuing its century-long process of shrinking; and that process may have been going on for centuries.

Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook’s new paper: ‘The West Antarctic ice sheet is NOT collapsing, the retreat of these small glaciers is NOT caused by global warming’

Even the New York Times cringes at use these types of alarmist terms about Antarctica. See: NYT’s Revkin on Antarctic sea level scare study: ‘Awful misuse of “Collapse” in headlines on centuries-long ice loss in W. Antarctica. See rates in papers. Same as ’09′

‘Irreversible Collapse Of Climate Alarmism’ – Antarctica & Sea Level claims – ‘Yet another non-crisis crisis’ – ‘Truth sacrificed in the name of sensationalism’

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AP claim: ‘What’s happening is simple physics. Warm water eats away at the ice from underneath. Then more ice is exposed to the water, and it too melts. Finally, the ice above the water collapses into the water and melts.’

Climate Depot Response: ‘Simple physics’? Is the AP serious? What about simple data that counters  their ‘simple’ propaganda? See: No Warming In Antarctica During Satellite Record – Since 1979 – ‘According to GHG theory, it is the poles which should be warming fastest. Apparently, nobody told the South Pole.’

MIT Scientists Confirm Antarctica Is Cooling – ‘Antarctica has cooled and has gained some ice recently’ – Abstract excerpt: ‘The eastern Antarctic and Antarctic plateau have cooled, primarily in summer, with warming over the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia . – Abstract excerpt: ‘The eastern Antarctic and Antarctic plateau have cooled, primarily in summer, with warming over the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia .

NOAA Data Show Southern Oceans Getting Colder…Contributing To Rapid South Polar Sea Ice Expansion

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AP claim: ‘Over at NASA, ice scientist Eric Rignot said the melting “is going way faster than anyone had thought. It’s kind of a red flag.”

Climate Depot Response: The old ‘faster than anyone had thought’ canard. Who is ‘anyone’ and how ‘fast’ was their ‘thought’ about melting? All sounds very unscientific and more like political campaigning than scientists dispassionately looking at evidence.

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AP claim: Rignot, of NASA:  “We have to stop it; or we have to slow it down as best as we can.”

Climate Depot Response: ‘We have to stop’ ice from melting? How? Through EPA regulations? UN Treaties? What about multiple peer-reviewed research countering claims that the West Antarctic melt is due to human activity?  See: New Study finds West Antarctic Ice Sheet outlet glacier being melted by magma – not co2 global warming after all – Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

New paper finds West Antarctic glacier likely melting from geothermal heat below from volcanoes – Published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Study: ‘Earthquakes suggest magma still churns beneath a previously unknown subglacial volcano in West Antarctica’s Executive Committee Range’

West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting From Geothermal Heat, Not Global Warming

Studies indicate collapse of West Antarctic ice sheet is typical of interglacials: ‘Thus, the complete collapse and disappearance of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet is typical of interglacials, there is no evidence that man has anything to do with the cause, nor that man can stop this phenomenon by forsaking use of fossil fuels.’

What about the rest of Antarctica? New Study Finds ‘Surprisingly Thick Antarctic Sea Ice’ – Published in journal Nature Geoscience

The AP left out contrary peer-reviewed studies, data and trends that counter the articles claims and serious doubts by even warmist researchers about attributing any potential melting in West Antarctica to human causes. See: AGW link ‘is pretty tenuous’: Researcher ‘has a problem’ with attributing West Antarctic Ice Sheet ‘collapse’ to human activity – “I have a problem with the widespread implication (in the popular press) that the West Antarctic collapse can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change,” said Mike Wolovik, a graduate researcher at Lamont-Doherty who studies ice sheet dynamics. “The marine ice sheet instability is an inherent part of ice sheet dynamics that doesn’t require any human forcing to operate. When the papers say that collapse is underway, and likely to last for several hundred years, that’s a reasonable and plausible conclusion.”

Geochemist: Chilling the melting Antarctic hysteria – ‘Thawing of glaciers is historically followed by refreezing’ – ‘Erosion of Antarctica’s glaciers has proceeded unabated since the end of the last ice age and continued slowly through the past century to the present day. Passage of time, even millennia, would be required before enough ice melted to raise sea levels by the 12 to 13 feet mentioned in recent news accounts, assuming the rate of about 7 inches per century remains constant…Statements suggesting man-made carbon dioxide somehow triggers high-velocity circumpolar winds over the Southern Ocean is speculative for a region already notorious for high winds and treacherous seas. But, he said, the link between CO2 levels and the loss of ice in West Antarctica “is pretty tenuous.” The upwelling of warmer waters that melt the ice has been tied to stronger westerly winds around Antarctica, which have been linked to a stronger air pressure difference between the polar latitudes and the mid-latitudes, which have in turn been linked to global warming.

AGW: more Wind & Rubbish: ‘By far the biggest piece of rubbish from the alarmist camp has been the release of a new paper about Antarctic winds’ – ‘This paper is co-authored by Matthew England. England has written other papers on wind. His past papers describe how winds have driven the missing heat to the ocean bottom which explains the temperature hiatus. The absurdity of that proposition is critiqued here.’

Related Links:

Watch Now: Morano on Fox News rebuts study claiming ‘Unstoppable’ Antarctica melting & Sea Level Rise: ‘When current reality fails to alarm, they make a bunch of scary predictions’

We control sea level rise? Watch Now: Local DC News Schlock Report on Antarctica & Sea Level Rise: ‘It’s our choice how fast the seas rise’ – WUSA Ch. 9 DC: ‘It’s our choice how fast the seas rise and that gives us time to prepare and protect our communities in a smart way.’ – Brenda Ekwurzel – Union of Concerned Scientists –Junk Science Analysis: ‘We have a President who said he could stop the seas from rising and now a Concerned Scientist who says it’s our choice. ‘

Atmospheric Physicist Dr. Fred Singer on Antarctica melt claims: Old news, new panic

Real Science: ‘Tracing The Antarctic Scam’

Flashback 1929: ‘Primitive Peoples’ Have Always Had Flood Myths: ‘The Antarctica is melting and is going to drown us all story has been a useful tool for generating research money – for as long as scientists have known about Antarctica.’

NYT in 2014: ‘Sometime between 200 and 900 years from now the rate of ice loss from this glacier could reach a volume sufficient to raise sea levels about 4 inches (100 millimeters) a century. At that point, according to the paper, ice loss could pick up steam, with big losses over a period of decades.* But in a phone conversation, Joughin said the modeling was not reliable enough to say how much, how soon. “Collapse is a good scientific word,” he told me, “but maybe it’s kind of a bad word” in the context of news. There’s more on this work ina well-written news release from Joughin’s university. We are talking about a retreat that is unstoppable because we think we have enough evidence to say that these glaciers will keep retreating for decades and even centuries to come…. We’re talking about a slow degradation of ice in this part of Antarctica. Disturbingly, you can backtrack to 2009 and see a similar burst of “collapse” news around the release of two Nature papers, even though the science then also spoke of sea-level changes over millenniums. Click back to “Study: West Antarctic Melt a Slow Affair” for a bit of déjà vu.

Flashback 2009: Study finds West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As Fast As Once Thought

New study: Antarctic ice shelves showing no sign of global warming – June 2009

Scientists: ‘Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing’

Shock: Real Climate touted Steig et al ‘Antarctica is warming’ study ‘falsified’ — ‘the paper’s premise has been falsified’ ]

Study finds: West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As Fast As Once Thought – October 19, 2009 – University of Texas at Austin Press Release

Flashback: Gore’s ‘melting’ Antarctic claims refuted by reality — Climate Depot counters Gore’s claims

 

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301 Responses

  1. The only thing more laughable than this “reporting” is the drooling mouth breathers commenting on the HuffPo story… I’ve never in my life seen a bigger group of ignorants who are so smug and self-satisfied.

  2. Most reputable news sources have pretty much dropped the ‘we gotta present the ~3% as a viable source’ and don’t cite fringe junk with a false equivalency.

    1. “reputable news sources” is an oxymoron. News is entertainment and propaganda pretending to be truth. None of it is. It is totally dominated by collectivist parasites. Other voices are not allowed. Parasites need to dominate in order to feed.

    2. The alleged “3%” is an urban myth promulgated by enviro-fascist thugs. Anyone who bothers to read science literature on the subject knows there’s plenty of disagreement on pretty much everything in climate science. In truth only about 0.3% of climate scientists subscribe uncritically to the “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory (CAGW).” The major problem with it is that it is clearly disproved by observations. Not a single prediction of “CAGW” proponents has panned out.
      They know it. We know it. This is why they are so keen to suppress any open discussion. Too much money (and a lot of taxpayers money too) and power has been invested in various shoddy scams rooted in “CAGW.” It’s time to flush the shysters and racketeers involved in this travesty.
      One, Rajendra Pachauri is already gone. Let’s drink to it.

      1. Let’s walk through the unsupported claims in your post.

        But first,perhaps you could explain why you find it necessary to use namecalling?

        Does the personal attack add to the science?

        1. Robert, citing Cook as an authority is just plain ignorant. He is a cartoonist that should have stayed with cartoon drawing. Besides, his ‘paper’ has been thorough dissed for the dishonest claptrap that it is.

        2. The Cook data is available for anyone to review.

          It shows that 0.5% of papers explicitly endorsed AGW as more than 50% human CO2 caused.

          Adding in papers explicitly endorsing AGW without quantifying it brings the total to about 8%

          24% of papers “implicitly” endorsed AGW without quantifying it.

          2/3s of the papers (66.7%) on the topic of global climate or global warming had no stated position on AGW.

          From this, we are told 97% of scientists agree on AGW and that it it the fault of humans and their CO2 output since around 1950.

          This is the ludicrous publicized result of the Cook study. It is good enough science for the Roberts and Obamas of this world, but by my standards, this 97% conclusion does not in any way follow from the actual results of the study.

      2. ” plenty of disagreement on pretty much everything in climate science”

        You are trying to use a false equivalence argument here. Yes, you can find studies saying a range of sensitivities, a range of probabilities of one effect or another, a plethora of effects -some even contradictory.

        But the vast majority of the research winds up showing, through multiple threads of evidence, that your and my co2 emissions are currently effecting the climate, multiple studies. show that effect is overpowering any natural forcing, project that the effects are growing stronger, and that we still have the capability to reduce the worst of the possibilites.

        NOW, IF you have a solid – a comprehensive body – set of papers that support any alternative hypothesis, you should post them.

        You didn’t. All you have are petitions, resignation letters, a spotty record of spotty papers, opinions from people far from their area of expertise.

        1. Robert, you mom is calling you in to brush your teeth … be a good boy and go home. If you feel that your CO2 is detrimentally effecting the climate, mine isn’t, then do the honorable thing and take steps to permanently curtail your breathlessness. Enough of you climate jihadis.

          1. “take steps to permanently curtail your breathlessness”

            Yeah, that adds to the strength of your argument.

            Though showing you don’t have a firm grasp of the C cycle is sorta, well in a word; priceless.

      3. “The major problem with it is that it is clearly disproved by observations”

        And then, you jump topics without even a para change.
        And without a single citation to anything that would have supported your claim.

        Model runs are well discussed in Chapter 9 IPCC AR5 WG1.. If you think that discussion is flawed, post your research. Or publish your research.

        Again, a talking point that doesn’t bear scrutiny.

            1. The same twat that provides the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers as evidence … did you hit your head on something? There is zero correlation between the ‘Summary” and the Chapters.

              1. “same twat ”

                If you can’t hold a conversation as a mature adult, don’t bother responding.

                This was a science discussion. You moved it to the back fence of the playground. And you can stay there. Your turf. Not mine.

      4. “Not a single prediction of “CAGW” proponents has panned out. ”

        CAGW?? Basically, you are trying to use namecalling again.

        And again, Chapter 9 AR5 puts the lie to your claim.

          1. You can start with the Executive Summary.

            “The ability of climate models to simulate surface temperature
            has improved in many, though not all, important aspects relative
            to the generation of models assessed in the AR4. There
            continues to be very high confidence1
            that models reproduce observed
            large-scale mean surface temperature patterns (pattern correlation of
            ~0.99), though systematic errors of several degrees are found in some
            regions, particularly over high topography, near the ice edge in the
            North Atlantic, and over regions of ocean upwelling near the equator.
            On regional scales (sub-continental and smaller), the confidence
            in model capability to simulate surface temperature is less than for
            the larger scales; however, regional biases are near zero on average,
            with intermodel spread of roughly ±3°C. There is high confidence that
            regional-scale surface temperature is better simulated than at the time
            of the AR4. Current models are also able to reproduce the large-scale
            patterns of temperature during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), indicating
            an ability to simulate a climate state much different from the
            present. {9.4.1, 9.6.1, Figures 9.2, 9.6, 9.39, 9.40}
            There is very high confidence that models reproduce the general
            features of the global-scale annual mean surface temperature
            increase over the historical period, including the more rapid
            warming in the second half of the 20th century, and the cooling
            immediately following large volcanic eruptions. Most simulations
            of the historical period do not reproduce the observed reduction in
            global mean surface warming trend over the last 10 to 15 years. There
            is medium confidence that the trend difference between models and
            observations during 1998–2012 is to a substantial degree caused by
            internal variability, with possible contributions from forcing error and
            some models overestimating the response to increasing greenhouse
            gas (GHG) forcing. Most, though not all, models overestimate the
            observed warming trend in the tropical troposphere over the last 30
            years, and tend to underestimate the long-term lower stratospheric
            cooling trend. {9.4.1, Box 9.2, Figure 9.8}”

            1. The IPCC, by its own admission, said that 39 of the 40 models are unreliable. As it conceded, ” … of 114 ‘runs’ of those computer models, 111 wrongly predicted more warming for the period 1998 to 2012 than actual temperature data indicates. ….” [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769, and in full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8]

              The IPCC report not only says that the models exaggerated warming but that “some models overestimate” the influence of greenhouse gases [SPM, section D.1, page 13, and full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8] and that the failure of models might be due to “missing or incorrect radiative forcing” or “model response error”, [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769] all of which cast doubt on the supposition that greenhouse gases cause significant warming.

              1. Wanna see something funny?

                Google search MrFendster’s quote…..

                Then go read the non ellipsised version that he doesn’t link to (but at least cites).

      5. ” Too much money (and a lot of taxpayers money too) and power has been invested in various shoddy scams ”

        Rhetoric and no evidence. And namecalling yet again.

      6. Gus, well said. The AGW kooks adhere to that hypothesis like it is their religion. Time and observation is showing their pet hypothesis to be a fraud. That 97% figure is a joke and anyone who has researched it can find out the truth. The big question is why are they continually trying to shut down debate. What are they so afraid of? Anybody who cites John Cook as a source is ignorant.

  3. Most reputable news sources have pretty much dropped the ‘we gotta present the ~3% as a viable source’ and don’t cite fringe junk with a false equivalency.

    1. “AGW is a scam”

      The fact that CO₂ warms planets was first conclusively proven by a man named John Tyndall in 1859:

      “In January 1859, Tyndall began studying the radiative properties of various gases… Tyndall’s experiments… showed that molecules of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ozone are the best absorbers of heat radiation”

      earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Tyndall

      This has been the established scientific understanding ever since.

      Are you saying he was engaging in a scam that all scientists on Earth have been part of for over a century?

      1. Oh spare me with your garbage. Of course CO2 absorbs/reflects IR. That DOESN’T make it a DRIVER of climate change. Educate yourself and read what Dr. Roy Spencer writes about it.
        .
        The over blown hype about catastrophes happening due to a rise of 100 parts per MILLION of a trace gas is a SCAM. YES IT IS.

        1. “Of course CO2 absorbs/reflects IR.”

          Lol! You know those are 2 different things… right?

          If you understand CO₂ warms planets, but think there is a stronger driver of planetary temperature, point to a single moment in Earth’s history when this driver caused polar ice caps to form with CO₂ as high as we have today.

          If what you say is true, this should be happening all the time, right?

          …so why doesn’t it?

            1. “I DON’T KNOW and NEITHER DO YOU!”

              That’s not how the world works, and you already know it.

              Just because you’re ignorant of a fact doesn’t mean everybody is.

              Here is 800,000 years of CO₂ concentrations taken from polar ice cores, going back to the oldest significant ice on Earth:

              ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2-2008.txt

              Find a single point in the data where CO₂ goes anywhere near as high as it is today.

              If polar ice caps can withstand CO₂ so high, why don’t the polar ice caps record a single instant of CO₂ so high?

                1. “You have no clue”

                  You are talking about yourself in the wrong person, and I disagree.

                  I think you know very well that your dishonesty is going to have a negative effect on your well-being. I’ve already given you too much information for you to be ignorant of that fact.

                  I think you are actually trying to destroy the ecology you depend on for survival.

                  If you weren’t, why wouldn’t you be interested in estimating how dangerous climate change is likely to be?

                  1. Nah, I’m talking about YOU. You and Robert are intellectual light weights. As your savior Obama says, you are punching above your weight. With your constant references to mental health, then I surmise you must work in the field. You aren’t very good at it either. You have absolutely no clue about climate dynamics. The sad thing is that you think you know a lot more than you really do. You are a fool, an arrogant one too!!

                    1. Dr. Spencer is reliable enough. He isn’t “wild and baseless”. The amount of ice in or on Antarctica is NO proof of AGW. How come you are so dense that you can’t realize that? Have you ever heard of correlation and causation? You confuse the two. It seems you are the one making the “wild” claim.
                      .
                      Looks like Mr. Graves has you figured out…..LMAO!!!

                    2. “Dr. Spencer is reliable enough”

                      That is not in evidence.

                      What is in evidence is that you didn’t cite “Dr. Spencer”… or anyone, for that matter.

                      If you were telling the truth, why should that be?

                      The proof that humans are warming the planet is in the infrared absorption bands of CO₂, which can clearly be seen from space as CO₂ keeps the Earth from cooling down:

                      http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05

                    3. It is much more complicated than that. Something you don’t seem to comprehend.

                    4. Please do tell us all of the other complications. And cite some references for your proof. Thank you, I can hardly stand the suspense waiting for you to do that.

                    5. That’s evidence that SUGGESTS that something (it’s been ATTRIBUTED to CO2) is interfering with transmission of IR at certain frequencies. Not proof anything is warming the atmosphere. As you can see from your own diagram, heat continues to escape at other frequencies.

                      Apparently you have not bothered to study what happens to the entire spectrum when a body heats up.

                      All this graph shows is that less heat is escaping at certain frequencies. The fact that the Earth still cools every night and every winter proves nothing has “trapped” heat, it still escapes as I explained, as your diagram shows.

              1. “If polar ice caps can withstand CO₂ so high, why don’t the polar ice caps record a single instant of CO₂ so high?”
                Uhhh….I know, I know!! Because for the time period for which your citation is constrained CO2 never went that high. Hey…wait. In your insipid effort to appear relevant, you asked a circular question. So fallacious, heh?

              2. You are cherry picking, as usual. There are plenty of times in the past CO2 was much higher than today. And the world survived and even thrived.

                In fact some of the most notable explosions of life were those times when CO2 was very high.

                And we are yet again seeing that warmer temperatures and more atmospheric CO2 are actually GOOD for the biosphere, yet some choose to be willfully blind to it:

                There are signs of global IMPROVEMENT, even in the deserts:

                http://m.phys.org/news/2013-07-greening-co2.html

                http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geophysics/science-carbon-dioxide-desert-greening-01209.html
                http://principia-scientific.org/tag/us-geophysical-research-letters/
                A new study, based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU) reported that the rising levels of carbon dioxide have caused deserts to start greening and increased foliage cover by 11 percent from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa.

                http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=1804 Northern Hemisphere Greening
                http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2001/09/greening-in-the-northern-hemisphere.html Northern Hemisphere Greening

          1. The great ice expert, CB, has provided the answer in her own words!

            CB • 15 days ago Tues, 3-27-14 3:56 PM

            “Yes, during the Eocene-Oligocene transition roughly 34 million years ago, polar ice caps formed with levels of CO₂ at roughly twice today’s levels, or around 800PPM.”

            OH…wait! CB…YOU said that, didn’t you? So what was the driver that forced the result you claim, irrespective of the relatively high level of CO2. Gee…you will be able to answer your OWN question!

            1. That’s a quote-mine, Mr. Graves. It’s not a reason to believe you. For that you’ll need a peer-reviewed citation.

              Here is peer-reviewed evidence polar ice caps persisted for 800,000 years with CO₂ under 400PPM:

              ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2-2008.txt

              If you think polar ice caps persisted with CO₂ over 400PPM, please provide the following 3 things:

              1. A point in time before 1750CE polar ice caps were able to withstand levels of CO₂ over 400PPM.
              2. The length of time these ice caps persisted.
              3. The peer-reviewed paper from which you get this information.

              Because you have a habit of spamming threads about climate science with non sequitur and unsupported claims, if you cannot provide all three of these things or admit my characterisation of the history is accurate, you will be ignored.

              1. Don’t you just hate it when you are caught out? You have to come up with some inane misdirection like “quote mine”. Pathetically humorous.

                You citation is irrelevant, CB. Unless you believe that the “Earth’s history” is only 800ky. Is that what you believe?

                However, here’s another from the consummate expert on the EO transition…Pearson;

                “Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene-Oligocene transition, 33.5-34.0 million years ago. … During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2atm was between approximately 450 and approximately 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of approximately 760 p.p.m.v.”

                http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26807829_Atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_through_the_Eocene-Oligocene_climate_transition

                Now, CB. Do you have ANY science that actually supports your position about ice caps and the Earth’s history? Relevant science. Not something that is temporally constrained to a period less than “the Earth’s history”…unless you believe that the Earth is only 800ky old. You know…something other than your opinion or irrelevant citations aimed to misdirect and obfuscate? Anything? No….?

                1. I realize this is an old conversation, but the self-appointed expert CB is still at it spewing her nonsense. I, too, thought it was amusing that when you quoted her directly she accused you of “quote mining” to avoid admitting that you had caught her out with no way to explain herself.

                  Below she makes the claim that

                  The proof that humans are warming the planet is in the infrared absorption bands of CO₂, which can clearly be seen from space as CO₂ keeps the Earth from cooling down

                  Only it doesn’t.

                  Every day the Earth cools down – at night.

                  Every year the Earth cools down – during the winter.

                  Is the Earth in an overall warming trend?

                  I hope so. The alternative, since climate is ALWAYS changing, is potentially a return to the time when much of Europe, Asia and North America were covered with up to 2 miles thick sheets of ice and snow.

                  There are indications some are coming to their senses:

                  http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2296034/norway-ditches-moon-landing-carbon-capture-project

                  Also even more significant, fluctuations in solar climate drive on millennial, century and decadal scales. The 20th century had the strongest solar activity in 11,000 years. Those who are full of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Alarmism are full of lies and propaganda denying this but it remains a fact despite their pathetic denials. And they call climate realists deniers!

                  1. Interesting that you somehow found this thread. Actually, I enjoyed going back and reading it again.

                    Thank you for the interesting and informative take.

                    Yes, CB is all over these boards with her inane version of the Socratic Method. The difference between what she does and what Socrates practiced is that S. was after the TRUTH. CB is just a spewer of BS and uses her perverted technique to attempt to bludgeon the unsuspecting.

                    1. My path here was somewhat circuitous. A reminder that the INTERNET can be “forever”, or at least very long.

                      There is proof – for those not willfully blind to it – that CO2 is NOT the “thermostat” for the atmosphere.

                      … the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade) … is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).

                      SOURCE: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full.pdf (page 2, bottom, is where it starts)

                      The response to this admission by the IPCC was an attempt to “correct” the records and a paper revealing that fraud (as “science”) was released in 2015 by a lead author from NOAA, KARL.

                      The response to the KARL 2015 paper from more honest persons was swift:

                      It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims. A large body of scientific evidence — amassed before and since the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that the surface warming slowdown, also sometimes referred to in the literature as the hiatus, was due to the combined effects of internal decadal variability and natural forcing.

                      http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html

                      To be honest though, these individuals all are stuck on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Alarmism, they’re just starting to slowly admit that natural variation is really what we are seeing. It’s hard to admit an idea you’ve dedicated yourself to for decades is nonsense.

                    2. Anthony’s website discussed that more recent paper in February. Interesting and informative. Excellent citation.

                      CB is just a liar. She makes her ice caps and the history of the Earth claim over and over. I have provide her with relevant and decisive science debunking her totally unsupported nonsense. She continues to spew the same nonsense, e.g., she’s lying.

                      Here’s some relevant peer reviewed work expressly contradicting her unsupported claim. There is lots more, of course.

                      http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/full/nature08447.html

                    3. Time and time again her responses follow this pattern:

                      A juvenile “nuh-UHHHH!”

                      Nonsense about prostitutes – she seems to be obsessed with them.

                      Accusations of guilt by association.

                      Smears at organizations dedicated to bringing honesty and sense back to climate science.

                      Accusing the person to whom she is responding of being a prostitute. Back to her obsession!

                      It is fairly apparent that while she might know to some degree what the Socratic Method is, she has no clue how to implement it.

                      Her method is more appropriately identified as the spoiled brat kindergartner method.

                    4. There is proof – for those not willfully blind to it – that CO2 is NOT the “thermostat” for the atmosphere.

                      Smart people know science doesn’t prove.

                      And that physics tells us CO2 is the control knob.

                      Best,

                      D

                  2. “CB is still at it spewing her nonsense.”

                    If that were true, you could have met my challenge.

                    I asked Mr. Graves to point to a single moment in Earth’s history when polar ice sheets were able to withstand CO₂ as high as we have today.

                    Why did neither he nor you do that?

                    “The continent of Antarctica has been losing about 134 gigatonnes of ice per year since 2002, while the Greenland ice sheet has been losing an estimated 287 gigatonnes per year.”

                    climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/land-ice

                    1. Not sure why you continue to post lies and propaganda that I have already debunked:

                      http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses/

                      A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers…

                      …the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

                      The top ice expert at NASA trumps your link.

                      He and his co-authors state that not only is Antarctica gaining ice mass, it is gaining enough to make up for ALL GLOBAL LAND ICE LOSSES.

                      Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

                    2. “The top ice expert at NASA trumps your link.”

                      lol! …but that’s now how science works, sweetheart. There is one study that says Antarctica is gaining ice! It’s vastly outnumbered by studies that say precisely the opposite. Why is that one study so much more persuasive to you than all the rest?

                      http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theodore_Scambos/publication/301825903/figure/fig1/AS:358827716300800@1462562602016/Fig-1-Recent-mass-balance-estimates-for-the-Antarctic-ice-sheet-L-Trusel-personal.png

                    3. that’s now how science works, sweetheart

                      Sorry, I’m not your “sweetheart”, the first requirement for me to be interested in a woman is she has to have an IQ above room temperature.

                      You seem to have fallen for the lunatic liberal idea that we get to vote on what is true and what is false.

                      It is what is PROVEN by DATA – and Zwally’s study has the data.

                      And the other reason why, in your words,

                      one study so much more persuasive

                      is that the studies you rely on tend to come from people proven to have falsified data to fit their preconceived notions, just as the web sites where you get your information are by people of the same ilk.

                      And the most compelling proof is that there WOULD be a more rapid sea level increase were the claims of the papers you rely on true. In fact a lot of what some perceive as sea level increase is actually tectonic changes in elevation of sea shores. Isostatic rebound.

                    4. “Zwally’s study has the data.”

                      Dr. Zwally’s data is altitude data; extremely tiny measurements in altitude which depend to a massive degree on ice compaction and isostatic rebound.

                      Other studies don’t suffer from these problems.

                      What does Dr. Zwally have to say about people misrepresenting his findings?

                      Do those findings mean Antarctica is not in trouble?

                      “The findings do not mean that Antarctica is not in trouble, Zwally notes. “I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this, and say this means we don’t have to worry as much as some people have been making out,” he says. “It should not take away from the concern about climate warming.” “

                      http://www.nature.com/news/gains-in-antarctic-ice-might-offset-losses-1.18486

                    5. I asked Mr. Graves to point to a single moment in Earth’s history when polar ice sheets were able to withstand CO₂ as high as we have today.

                      Why did neither he nor you do that?

                      Why are you lying… AGAIN?

                      You claim we never came up with an example – my first post here, I believe, or at least one of my first, was a mention of THE FACT that when he provide one such example…

                      IN A DIRECT QUOTE FROM YOU!

                      you responded by accusing him of “quote mining” instead of addressing THE FACT that you deny what you previously admitted!

                      Here is a cut-and-paste:

                      The great ice expert, CB, has provided the answer in her own words!

                      CB • 15 days ago Tues, 3-27-14 3:56 PM

                      “Yes, during the Eocene-Oligocene transition roughly 34 million years ago, polar ice caps formed with levels of CO2 at roughly twice today’s levels, or around 800PPM.”

                    6. CB…you are lying. That was a rhetorical question per your bogus “Socratic Therapy” parody of the Socratic Method. That fake question stated you clear and often stated POSITION!!! Where’s the evidence that your position is correct? You have posted NONE!!

                      As I said a year ago on the matter;

                      —The great ice expert, CB, has provided the answer in her own words!

                      CB • 15 days ago Tues, 3-27-14 3:56 PM

                      “Yes, during the Eocene-Oligocene transition roughly 34 million years ago, polar ice caps formed with levels of CO₂ at roughly twice today’s levels, or around 800PPM.”—

                      YOU ADMITTED THEN THAT YOUR CURRENT POSITION IS WRONG!! Now that’s fun, CB…and funny of you contradict yourself.

                      More recently, you stated your current position. “”….there isn’t a single example in Earth’s history of ice sheets withstanding CO₂ so high.”

                      As Robert said; “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

                      And YOU have provided NO evidence for your original claim…just drivel. Why didn’t you provide relevant scientific support for your bogus ice caps and the history of the Earth claim, CB? If what you claim is true, you could have provided that…but you can’t, can you?

                      Your quote from NASA above is nice…but simply an effort to misdirect with a straw man argument. Pathetic of you.

            2. CB was correct and your continual stalking her and spamming that same comment for months on end is very tiring Graves…… Yes; CO2 levels were more than twice that of today during the MID portion of the Eocene Oligocene but the ice caps formed during the LAST or third portion of that period when the atmospheric CO2 level had dropped below 260ppm.___ You cannot get it through your thick skull that the atmospheric CO2 level along with other potent greenhouse gases is the “thermostat” for the planet’s surface temperature…… And then here you are again accusing others of being shills,,, you are shilling for Anthony Watts and the fossil fuel industry and it is painfully obvious.

              1. Stoner…You just made all that BS up. Stop…please! Just read the peer reviewed work…and there’s lots of it. Again, here’s peer reviewed work that contradicts you unsupported nonsense;

                “Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition, 33.5–34.0 million years ago. …

                Our data suggest that a reduction in CO2 occurred before the main phase of ice growth, followed by a sharp recovery to pre-transition values and then a more gradual decline. During maximum ice-sheet growth CO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.”

                http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/abs/nature08447.html
                Your nonsense above is hereby debunked…unless you can find work that supports it. And you CAN’T!

                —You cannot get it through your thick skull that the atmospheric CO2 level along with other potent greenhouse gases is the “thermostat” for the planet’s surface temperature.—

                Stoner, that’s not the argument…just misdirection. The argument is whether CB’s ice cap nonsense spammed over these boards literally hundreds of times is accurate…and clearly it’s not. You can provide NO science…just your ill-founded opinion.

                —And then here you are again accusing others of being shills—
                Are you JOKING, Stoner!?? Or are you just a complete dunce? I was responding to Hope For Peace. HFP stated; “That’s hilarious. He is an oil industry shill dressed up in a journalist suit.” You jack hole…why don’t you make your inane accusations in HER direction. She’s the one who made the accusation. I simply responded to her comment in kind. An then you show up…stalking me and complaining that I am “spamming” the same comment wrt CB’s ice cap BS. What you clearly and disingenuously ignore is that my response is ONLY to CB’s continued “spamming”…using your term…of the very same ice cape nonsense on board after board. She is the one spamming, by your definition. I COULDN’T CONTEST HER CLAIM IF SHE DIDN’T MAKE IT. You demonstrated yourself to be a very disingenuous blowhard, Stoner.

                  1. But you can’t provide anything but your feckless opinion when confronted w/ peer reviewed work? Pathetic Stoner. But it’s what you fanatics have in the end.

                    1. You shouldn’t misquote the peer reviewed paper you occasionally quote Graves.

                    2. Stoner…just provide the misquote and I will humbly apologize. Or stick you head back from whence it came. You simplistically provide NO science or facts for you inane opinions. That says it all about you.

      2. Tyndall proved no such thing – though he is one of the early people who expressed this now thoroughly debunked hypothesis.

        Try to keep up:

        … the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade) … is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).

        SOURCE: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full.pdf (page 2, bottom, is where it starts)

        It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims. A large body of scientific evidence — amassed before and since the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that the surface warming slowdown, also sometimes referred to in the literature as the hiatus, was due to the combined effects of internal decadal variability and natural forcing.

        http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html

  4. Now that the socialist jew media has control of the ObamaNET, this site will be shut down.

    THE SOCIALIST JEW MEDIA CAN’T HAVE YOU TELLING THE TRUTH, CAN THEY?

    https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GUEA_enUS629&q=seven+jews+media+control&gws_rd=ssl

    Gerald Levin, CEO and Director of AOL Time Warner
    Michael Eisner, Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company
    Edgar Bronfman, Sr., Chairman of Seagram Company Ltd
    Edgar Bronfman, Jr, President and CEO of Seagram Company Ltd and head of Universal Studios
    Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom, Inc
    Dennis Dammerman, Vice Chairman of General Electric
    Peter Chernin, President and Co-COO of News Corporation Limited

    1. Why would “socialist Jew media” side with the current US administration that is doing its best to have Israel wiped out by an Iranian nuclear bomb?

      1. Gus, you’re like the lone voice of reason, aka logic, rising above the gobbly gook. Thank you.
        To Robert: Then you’d agree to a debate? That’s all this homemaker has asked of Al Gore since 2008. All the climate “realists” I’ve asked agree to debate, all the AGW believers refuse. Do you know why? Are the refusers hiding something? Like verifiable scientific findings that debunk that which they’re hiding?

  5. There is no credible experimental proof that the Greenhouse gas effect exists!

    Revised
    Why material heat when they absorb IR

    Fri,
    Aug 30, 2013 at 6:03 PM

    Fri,
    6:03 PM

    Message
    starred

    The
    problem with EMR

    FROM
    BERTHOLD Klein TO You

    The
    purpose of the following is to explain why “When a gas absorbs IR
    or any other form of Electromagnetic radiation the gas does not
    “heat”.

    To
    start with here is a bit of philosophic thought.

    Scientists
    and engineers always simplify the world to try to come up with a
    “correct equation” to explain some phenomena. They want things to
    be in “equilibrium or “steady state”. They choose to ignore
    what appears to be small items- setting them to Zero.

    The
    only condition when this can be “true” which never exists is if
    all the mass and energy in the known and unknown universe became
    “ZERO”. Even at any temperature or the presents of mater there is
    some form of energy being exchanged, thus no equilibrium, no steady
    state.

    Section
    1-Absorption of EMR by a solid

    In
    the last 200 years of science and engineering there have been
    billions if not trillions of experiments and industrial applications
    where electromagnetic radiation (EMR) has been used to “heat”
    solids.

    The
    examples would fill 100’s of thousands of books, from using IR to dry
    paint on cars to melting metals to purify ingots, to cooking food
    with microwaves etc.

    So
    what is happening when the EMR impacts a solid. A knowledge of
    quantum physics which began before the turn of the last century gives
    us the answer when carefully examined.

    The
    photons in EMR have mass and velocity thus any events related to them
    must follow the laws of physics related to conservation of energy and
    momentum. When the EMR approach the surface they will in-counter a
    lot of voids and some mass that makes up the material. When the
    photons strikes the nuclei energy is transmitted to it along with
    momentum. Because there are many photons striking the surface aka the
    molecules of the solid action occurs in the molecule , it causes
    components of the molecule to vibrate with more amplitude or in
    different directions ( see appendix A for a more detailed study of
    what happens with water).

    Because
    this is a solid it is understood that molecular forces are holding
    everything quite close together. Outer shells ( electrons) are
    intermingled with many different molecules. As the photons are added
    to the molecules vibrations of part cause friction and convert some
    of the energy to heat. At the same time every molecule is radiating
    some of the energy as IR (Kickoffs law). If the amount of EMR hitting
    the surface is greater than heat (energy) being lost to the
    surroundings by IR radiation and conduction then the solid will heat
    up. The friction and collisions of molecules is the cause of the
    heating.

    As
    the material heats molecules start to get enough kinetic energy that
    they escape the surface of the solid and the absorption
    characteristics change. Quantum physics explains that each atom or
    molecule can only accept a specific amount of energy, any additional
    EMR will pass through the structure of the molecule to be latter
    absorbed by other molecules in the solid.

    When
    the solid absorbs enough energy that all of the molecules are moving(
    higher kinetic energy) ,it is no longer a solid but it is a liquid.

    Section
    2-Absorption of EMR by a liquid

    As
    a liquid is at a higher temperature, more kinetic energy, the
    absorption of EMR changes,(again see the appendix containing the
    study of water by Martin Chaplin It is better to go to the original
    as there are some animations that are helpful to understanding ).

    A
    detailed study of the heat verse temperature increase will be
    different than for a solid. The molecules are not as close together
    ,are at higher kinetic energy, thus collisions of molecules will be
    different than in a solid. The molecules are moving in all
    directions.

    As
    the liquid heats more molecule will escape at the surface, resulting
    in a cooling effect to the liquid. As more energy is added at some
    point boiling will result in rapid conversion to vapor. Unless energy
    is continually added the water(liquid)will cool below the boiling
    point. The vaporization is removing 44.010kj/mole of water
    evaporated. The energy to keep the water boiling can come from thermo
    sources as a flame or EMR as microwaves,IR,UV and many more sources.

    The
    concept is the same adding energy to the molecule, transferring the
    energy to other molecule and accelerating the molecules -more kinetic
    energy aka “heat”. The vapor near the surface will have the same
    temperature as the surface of the liquid.

    .

    heat of vaporisation – heat absorbed
    by a unit mass of a material at its boiling point in order
    to convert the material into a gas at the same temperature

    heat
    of vaporization

    heat
    of transformation, latent
    heat – heat absorbed or radiated
    during a change of phase at a constant temperature and
    pressure

    Section
    3-Absorption of EMR by a gas/vapor

    The
    gas/vapor moves away from the boiling surface by buoyant forces as
    cooler denser air displaces the lighter gas/vapor(g/v). This is true
    of water but would not be true for a heavier vapor as iron.

    At
    some temperature and pressure all g/v can be converted back to a
    liquid and a solid.

    The
    g/v will be losing energy to the surroundings by EM
    radiation(IR,microwave,UV depending the temperature) at the same time
    there will be EMR’s being absorbed from impinging “light”.

    Lets
    look at kinetic energy -velocity of the molecules of g/v. Each
    molecule will have a different vector and momentum. Even in a strong
    wind, the molecules can be and are going off on their merry way with
    a component of their vector in the direction of the majority of the
    wind. The combined effect can be some very powerful forces.

    Now
    it is apparent that on earth with the sun sending light “EMR”
    which is very directional hitting the molecules in the atmosphere
    which may be at rest or may be moving as wind. Any collisions of
    photons with molecules will change the momentum and kinetic energy of
    the molecule. If the vectors of the photons parallel the vectors of
    the Air molecules when they collide and are absorbed there is an
    increase of kinetic energy and momentum. If the vectors are opposite
    each other there will be a decrease in kinetic energy and momentum of
    the molecule as a”Whole” but the laws of physics say that each
    has to be conserved. Therefore either there is an increase energy
    within the molecule or the energy is reradiated back into space.

    To
    the best of my knowledge science is not yet able to measure the
    energy and momentum of a single molecule in the atmosphere, we
    measure the collective effect which we call”heat” or the
    temperature of the air.

    Because
    there are some molecule that are absorbing more EMR and others that
    radiating EMR. The net effect is that a g/v does not “heat” when
    they absorb EMR. We also have to account for the fact that all atoms
    and molecules are radiating IR and other EMR’s according to the
    fourth power of their absolutely temperature(Kirkoff’s law). This
    means that the trees and everything else both living and inanimate
    are both radiating and absorbing EMR.

    This
    dissertation has not covered the laden heat of all the molecules in
    the atmosphere which is well covered by The Hidden Flaw in
    Greenhouse Theory

    By
    Alan
    Siddons

    from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html
    at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST

    Other
    source of pertainet information are as follows”

    The
    Greenhouse Effect Explored

    Written
    by Carl Brehmer | 26 May 2012

    Is
    “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?

    Exploiting
    the medium of Youtube
    Carl Brehmer is drawing wider attention to a fascinating experiment
    he performed to

    test
    the climatic impacts of water in our atmosphere.

    Carl
    explains, “An essential element of the “greenhouse effect”
    hypothesis is the positive “water vapor feedback” hypothesis.
    That is, if something causes an increase in the temperature this will
    cause an increase in the evaporation of water into water vapor.”

    Another
    important website is www. The Great Climate Clash.com -G3 The
    Greenhouse gas effect does not exist.

    Dr.
    Vincent Gray on historical carbon dioxide levels

    Posted
    on June 4, 2013 by Anthony Watts

    NZCLIMATE
    TRUTH NEWSLETTER NO 312 JUNE 4th 2013

    CARBON
    DIOXIDE

    There
    are two gases in the earth’s atmosphere without which living
    organisms could not exist.

    Oxygen
    is the most abundant, 21% by volume, but without carbon dioxide,
    which is currently only about 0.04 percent (400ppm) by volume, both
    the oxygen itself, and most living organisms on earth could not exist
    at all.

    This
    happened when the more complex of the two living cells (called
    “eukaryote”) evolved a process called a “chloroplast” some 3
    billion years ago, which utilized a chemical called chlorophyll to
    capture energy from the sun and convert carbon dioxide and nitrogen
    into a range of chemical compounds and structural polymers by
    photosynthesis. These substances provide all the food required by the
    organisms not endowed with a chloroplast organelle in their cells.

    This
    process also produced all of the oxygen in the atmosphere

    The
    relative proportions of carbon dioxide and oxygen have varied very
    widely over the geological ages.

    Oxygen_earths_atmosphere_historical
    CO2_temperature_historical

    It
    will be seen that there is no correlation whatsoever between carbon
    dioxide concentration and the temperature at the earth’s surface.

    During
    the latter part of the Carboniferous, the Permian and the first half
    of the Triassic period, 250-320 million years ago, carbon dioxide
    concentration was half what it is today but the temperature was 10ºC
    higher than today . Oxygen in the atmosphere fluctuated from 15 to
    35% during this period

    From
    the Cretaceous to the Eocene 35 to 100 million years ago, a high
    temperature went with declining carbon dioxide.

    The
    theory that carbon dioxide concentration is related to the
    temperature of the earth’s surface is therefore wrong.

    Appendix–
    A

    Water
    Absorption Spectrum

    Water
    and global warming

    Absorption
    spectra of gaseous, liquid and solid water

    The
    vibrational spectra of liquid water

    The
    visible and UV spectra of liquid water

    Water
    and global warming

    Water
    is the main absorber of the sunlight in the atmosphere. The 13
    million million tons of water in the atmosphere (~0.33% by weight) is
    responsible for about 70% of all atmospheric absorption of radiation,
    mainly in the infrared region where water shows strong absorption. It
    contributes significantly to the greenhouse effect ensuring a warm
    habitable planet, but operates a negative feedback effect, due to
    cloud formation reflecting the sunlight away, to attenuate global
    warming. The water content of the atmosphere varies about 100-fold
    between the hot and humid tropics and the cold and dry polar ice
    deserts.

    Absorption
    spectra of gaseous, liquid and solid water

    The
    water absorption spectrum is very complex. Water’s vapor spectroscopy
    has been recently reviewed [348].
    The water
    molecule
    may
    vibrate in a number of ways. In the gas state, the vibrations [607]
    involve combinations of symmetric stretch (v1),
    asymmetric stretch (v3)
    and bending (v2)
    of the covalent bonds with absorption intensity (H216O) v1;v2;v3
    =
    0.07;1.47;1.00 [8].
    The stretch vibrations of HD16O refer to the single bond vibrations,
    not the combined movements of both bonds. Gas phase rotations [1701]
    are complex and are combined with these vibrations. Rotations in the
    liquid phase are totally dominated by hydrogen bonding.

    Look
    up the entire paper by Dr. Martin Chaplin on the Internet.

    1. “TIME CUBE 4ce”

      In 1884, meridian time personnel met

      in Washington to change Earth time.

      First words said was that only 1 day

      could be used on Earth to not change

      the 1 day bible. So they applied the 1

      day and ignored the other 3 days.

      The bible time was wrong then and it

      proved wrong today. This a major lie

      has so much evil feed from it’s wrong.

      No man on Earth has no belly-button,

      it proves every believer on Earth a liar.

      Children will be blessed for

      Killing Of Educated Adults

      Who Ignore 4 Simultaneous

      Days Same Earth Rotation.

      Practicing Evil ONEness –

      Upon Earth Of Quadrants.

      Evil Adult Crime VS Youth.”

      http://timecube.com/

    2. The greenhouse effect is a measured fact. It’s the difference between the surface and the top of the atmosphere of ~33K or ~155W/m², depending on whether you want to express it as temperature or radiative flux.

      1. I see they ran you off WUWT. You couldn’t handle the elevated dialogue. So you come to these sites spouting your usual nonsense. AGW is NOT proven no matter what you write. The Earth’s climate is VERY POORLY understood at this time. CO2 represents a miniscule part of the climate and is NO WAY the driver.

          1. YES, it exists. So what? It doesn’t make it the driver of climate change. There is NO ONE on the planet who can assert that. WHY aren’t the catastrophic scenarios occurring as predicted by AGW proponents 20 years ago? W H Y ???? Why is your side so fervent in shutting down debate? W H Y ???? Your pet theory is ALL ABOUT POLITICS, that’s why. The scary thing is YOU know it too!!

            1. Human activity is the dominant influence on global climate and is responsible for around 100% of the global warming of the last half century. That much is settled (IPCC AR5). What happens in the future depends on what we do, in terms of emissions and any geo-engineering that might be attempted. There is plenty of room for debate over what, if anything, we can or should do about it.

              1. IT is NOT settled. No one can say for sure what the extra CO2 is doing, YOU included. You have NO CLUE as to what the climate would be doing without the extra CO2. THAT is a FACT. I see you conveniently didn’t answer EITHER question I posed. Why is that?

                1. Why not have the debate over what you can actually influence, i.e. the future? You can’t change the fact that we are now the dominant influence on global climate.

                    1. It’s already a proven fact. You may object to that, but it’s your problem and no-one else’s. I would actually encourage debate on adaption/mitigation as I’m happy to acknowledge that I don’t know the best strategy.

                    2. Right. You know there are many highly educated people who aren’t buying it. NONE of the catastrophic predictions made 20 years ago have come to pass. THAT is a fact. Observational FACT. All you can say is “it’s settled” without one bit of REAL proof. Now, YOU may object to THAT but it is the truth.

                    3. It’s too late for denial. It’s already a settled proven fact, and nothing you can do or say will change that. Read AR5, Chapter 10. Why not focus on what you can still influence?

                    4. Why would I waste my time with propaganda? YOU know there is PLENTY of contrary evidence by scientists who dispute the theory. You just wish it wasn’t so. It is interesting that your side is resorting to ‘witch hunts’ of those people. I have yet to see anyone REFUTE Dr. Soon’s paper. It is all about “funding”. What BS!! The debate is FAR from over and YOU KNOW IT !!!

                    5. The anthropogenic signal now exceeds natural variations in global temperature by more than 5 standard deviations, so it’s a confirmed fact by any normal scientific standards. There is no evidence to the contrary.

                    6. That is pure BS. I really like the fact that you TRY to assert things as an absolute fact. You and EVERY other human on this planet has a very rudimentary understanding of climate dynamics. It is humorous that you think you really understand it. Amazing really!

                    7. This is what the world’s scientific community has concluded, based on the evidence. There is not nearly so much consensus over what the future impacts will be, or how we should deal with them. Surely that’s what we should be focusing on now?

                    8. The world’s scientific community is NOT entirely represented in that assessment and you know it. Yes, you can cite various organizations but NOT ALL of the members are agreeing with what the directors are saying. Again, you know that. Your attempts to call it a done deal are very shallow at best and again, you know that.
                      .
                      Your second sentence, “There is not nearly so much consensus over what the future impacts will be” is quite revealing. IF there was such certainty that humans are changing the climate then why don’t they know what the impact will be. YOU try to claim that it is known what the difference is between what should naturally be happening and what man is contributing YET you can’t say what the impact will be. How disingenuous of you. You are really just a fraud, not be taken very seriously.

                    9. Scientific organisations are cautious and conservative – they haven’t made all those position statements on global warming without being very, very confident that the evidence supports them.

                      As for the future, I’ve already pointed out that it depends on what we do, but also some of the uncertainty is because we are changing the climate at a speed that has no precedent in the geological record. Even the PETM was caused by a much slower release of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than we’re causing now. We know that the climate is heating up, sea level is rising, ice is melting, atmospheric water vapour is increasing and so on, but the details and the timings cannot be predicted exactly.

                    10. “We know that the climate is heating up, sea level is rising, ice is
                      melting, atmospheric water vapour is increasing and so on, but the
                      details and the timings cannot be predicted exactly.”
                      .
                      None of that proves that CO2 is the cause. You know, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. That is what they’ve sold you and many others. They are very slick in their presentation. Yet they conveniently say details can’t be predicted exactly. What a house of cards!!! The whole mess is POLITICAL and open minded people can see it for what it is. Only the sheep are buying into this garbage. You are one of them. Temperatures have NOT risen at rates predicted 20 years ago. WHY??? Because they don’t EXACTLY KNOW. The hypothesis is flimsy at best, based on ONE known factor of a TRACE gas that isn’t driving the climate. One miniscule part in a huge chaotic system that can’t even be modeled correctly. Yet you would like to see the United States cripple its economy in an effort to halt something that isn’t even happening. Amazing!

                    11. As I pointed out, it’s already a proven fact, at the 5σ level of significance, that we are the dominant influence on global climate, and that we are responsible for all of the global warming of the last half century. You missed the boat on arguing about this.

                      Why not share with us what you think we should do about it?

                    12. Interesting. You mimic your masters at the altar of AGW. Shut down debate on the hypothesis and accept it as fact. Only it isn’t. YOU KNOW IT. Time itself is showing us to be right. You want to know what to do about it? NOTHING!!!

                    13. The planet has accumulated a lot of heat over the last half century – much more than could possibly be explained by random unforced variability. It must have been caused by a large planetary energy imbalance. None of the natural forcings of climate have had a warming influence over this period. Anthropogenic forcings, on the other hand, have had a substantial warming influence – primarily the large increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

                      The observed warming is now at least 5 standard deviations outside the range that could have been caused by natural influences, but it is consistent with what would have been expected from natural plus anthropogenic influences. This is why it’s a settled fact that human activity is now the dominant influence on global climate, and that we are responsible for all of the global warming of the last half century.

                      There is plenty of concern over the risks associated with future warming. Your strategy to do nothing (and presumably deal with impacts as they arise) is a valid proposition. Scientists generally disagree but I’m happy to concede that no-one knows for sure.

                    14. “The planet has accumulated a lot of heat over the last half century –
                      much more than could possibly be explained by random unforced
                      variability”

                      Not proven and not known at this time. Don’t bother with any bogus links, they’ll be false.

                      .

                      . “Anthropogenic forcings, on the other hand, have had a substantial
                      warming influence – primarily the large increase in atmospheric
                      greenhouse gas concentrations.”

                      Again, not proven nor known at this time. “FORCINGS”?????? more AGW BS!!! Nothing is proven about “forcings”. How do I know this? You folks can’t even produce a half way accurate model that duplicates the climate as already known. In other words, what has happened here in the recent past. YOU ADMIT that future impacts are UNKNOWN. If that is true how can you even be positive about AGW. YOU CAN’T.

                      .

                      I think you are such a fervent believer in this flimsy hypothesis and can’t see the inconsistencies of your OWN STATEMENTS.

                      .

                      “The observed warming is now at least 5 standard deviations outside the range that could have been caused by natural influences,”
                      . Are you serious??? My God! Where do you come up with this nonsense!!!! No REAL scientist says crap like that because the honest ones admit THEY DON’T KNOW. Yet YOU do!!! Incredible.
                      .
                      Finally, it is VERY apparent to me you are a fraud.

                    15. Sorry but the scientists say that your claims are false, and they have presented abundant evidence to prove it. Your rejection of that evidence is not persuasive.

                      “It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide. The most important of these over the long term is CO2, whose concentration in the atmosphere is rising principally as a result of fossil-fuel combustion and deforestation.”

                      An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

                      “The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.”

                      Modern climate change is dominated by human influences, which are now large enough to exceed the bounds of natural variability. The main source of global climate change is human-induced changes in atmospheric composition.

                      Modern Global Climate Change

                      Thomas R. Karl, Kevin E. Trenberth

                      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/302/5651/1719.short

                      “There is very high confidence that industrial-era natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing except for brief periods following large volcanic eruptions.”

                      IPCC AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, p. 662.

                      “… there’s a better than 90 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth’s temperatures over the past 50 years.”

                      http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

                      Most of the global warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities“.

                      American Astronomical Society.

                      “The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century.”

                      American Geophysical Union.

                      The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human ‘fingerprints’ also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.”

                      U.S. Global Change Research Program

                      2009, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies

                      So there is no realistic doubt that human activity is now the dominant influence on global climate.

                    16. Some scientists, NOT ALL. You choose to believe certain ones as all-knowing. I don’t. I told you your links would be bogus. THEY ARE. Those people haven’t proven ANYTHING. You’ve been suckered and can’t see it. Find your converts somewhere else. You can’t prove your scam here.

                    17. I haven’t just accepted those pronouncements on faith – I have been persuaded by the evidence. What evidence can you produce, that persuaded you to the contrary?

                    18. Oh yes you have! I don’t need to cite evidence that the hypothesis is false. I’m still waiting for the proponents to prove it. They haven’t. All they do are make pronouncements of it being fact.

                      .

                      This is an example: a paper by Douville in Feb. 10th Geophysical Research Letters
                      The paper is Douville et al. (2015) The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability? [paywalled]. The abstract reads (my boldface):

                      The observed global mean surface air temperature (GMST)
                      has not risen over the last 15 years, spurring outbreaks of skepticism
                      regarding the nature of global warming and challenging the upper range
                      transient response of the current-generation global climate models.
                      Recent numerical studies have, however, tempered the relevance of the
                      observed pause in global warming by highlighting the key role of
                      tropical Pacific internal variability. Here we first show that many
                      climate models overestimate the influence of the El Niño–Southern
                      Oscillation on GMST, thereby shedding doubt on their ability to capture
                      the tropical Pacific contribution to the hiatus. Moreover, we highlight
                      that model results can be quite sensitive to the experimental design. We
                      argue that overriding the surface wind stress is more suitable than
                      nudging the sea surface temperature for controlling the tropical Pacific
                      ocean heat uptake and, thereby, the multidecadal variability of GMST.
                      Using the former technique, our model captures several aspects of the
                      recent climate evolution, including the weaker slowdown of global
                      warming over land and the transition toward a negative phase of the
                      Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Yet the observed global warming is
                      still overestimated not only over the recent 1998–2012 hiatus period but
                      also over former decades, thereby suggesting that the model might be
                      too sensitive to the prescribed radiative forcings.
                      .

                      THAT should show you how there is still DOUBT.

                    19. Gee, none of these quotes say “100% of the warming is anthropogenic.” Not one of these quotes therefore agrees with you.
                      Furthermore, the warming of the recent decades is non-existent if we’re talking the last 2 decades (any warming of the oceans is totally an artifact of insolation at the surface, which is the ONLY thermal process at the ocean/air interface that doesn’t COOL the oceans).
                      You are totally full of beans.
                      Of course there’s been some industrial age warming and of course there’s been an anthropogenic contribution. So what. Such warming has we’ve had has been mild an on balance beneficial. Climate sensitivity is about 1.1C and could be half that when you factor in hydrological negative feedbacks.

                    20. “IPCC AR5 says that the best estimate is that 100% of the global warming of the last half century is anthropogenic -”
                      .
                      “best ESTIMATE”????? Are you kidding me???? Why don’t they come out and say they are guessing? That is what it amounts to. Amazing!!

                    21. This is just mumbo jumbo. I especially love the error bars on GHG …. as big or bigger than the signal!!!! (ditto with “OA”).
                      And of course, there’s been no GW for 18 years and during that period CO2 emissions amounted to 1/2 of all the CO2 EVER EMITTED BEFOREHAND —- EVER!!!!!!!

                      What horse manure. The IPCC does no science. What are all these conclusions based on?

                    22. The only “accumulated heat” is ‘heat in the oceans (and possibly ice, oddly). CO2 back-radiation can have no part in ocean warming as the oceans are impervious to IR. So whatever you are talking about HAS NOTHINT TO DO WITH AGW. Q.E.D.

                    23. Here is the breakdown of accumulated heat in the climate system in recent decades:

                      Atmosphere: 1%
                      Cryosphere: 3%
                      Surface: 3%
                      Oceans: 93%

                      All of this heat is anthropogenic. There have been no natural warming influences on climate over this period.

                      A warming signal has penetrated into the world’s oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and volcanic forcing, but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences.

                      Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World’s Oceans
                      Barnett et al
                      Science 8 July 2005:
                      Vol. 309 no. 5732 pp. 284-287
                      DOI: 10.1126/science.1112418

                    24. @vardarac:disqus: Thanks! 🙂 Yes I do follow Robert’s blog. I think he can be a bit prone to hyping things at times, but he has a lot of good stuff too.

                    25. There is no physical means for CO2 IR to penetrate the oceans so Barnett has to be wrong. CO2 15 micron IR penetrates only 3 microns of the ‘ocean skin’ which is typically and on average cooler than that waters below. There can therefore be no net heat flow from the skin downward to the warmer waters below (2nd law of thermodynamics).

                    26. “There is no physical means for CO2 IR to penetrate the oceans”

                      You know that’s false because I’ve told you the physical means numerous times. In response you have claimed that other processes (evaporation or whatever) offset the warming thus caused, but you haven’t disputed that it happens. It *has* to happen, simply due to the laws of physics, since a warmer skin layer inevitably reduces the flux of heat across it from ocean to atmosphere.

                    27. “I’ve told you the physical means numerous times.” So prove it. Post it again. Let’s see how it holds up. I double dare you.

                    28. What evidence? GCM’s that can’t predict the present from the past? ….. untested and unproved positive feedbacks which do not occur in the historical CO2/temperature record?…..phony-Baloney retroactive temperature adjustments that adjust the past records downward to make it look like ‘more warming’ (as in ‘man-made-up’ warming)?…. what?
                      We’ve had some mild warming since the end of the LIA. Hooray. The LIA sucked. Humanity has never had it so good under the current climate regime.

                    29. “You know there are many highly educated people who aren’t buying it”

                      Would have been a great place to point to a list….

                    30. Simple question. Your claim. Guess spouting is easier than supporting….

                      Thanks ….

                    31. The only science denier is YOU! Not only that, you have no clue……LMAO!!!!

                    32. Readers, read. Look at the arrogant troll who thinks he knows all about climate dynamics. He doesn’t. But just like the outgoing director of the IPCC it IS his religion. He needs to make converts to the scam known as AGW. Mind you he can’t prove his hypothesis. All he can do is cite the political manuals of the IPCC…..LMAO!!

                    33. I think 3 days of your insulting pretty much makes your case. Unfortunately, real science uses data and analysis, not playground behavior.

                      Sorta funny when you consider all the opportunities to learn physics while on a playground.

                    34. You know, you use the typical liberal tactics. Humorous really. Whine when you can’t make your case. You think you know physics. You really don’t. All you can do is regurgitate what you read from the IPCC. You exposed your true ignorance when you cited John Cook, a fraud if there ever was one. That is why I called you a fool. The shoe fits. Wear it with your arrogance and hubris.

                    35. “typical liberal tactics”
                      Funny, given that this was, at least three days ago, a science discussion…..

                      Speaking of science, where, exactly is the quotes and cites in support of your claims?

                  1. Our dominance looks a bit shabby for the last 18 years…. no AGW during that period, despite a 50% increase in CO2 emissions. An inconvenient truth.
                    You are the denier now.

                    1. Global warming accelerated over this period, as you know. Current planetary energy imbalance (i.e. the driver of global warming) is between 0.5 and 1.0W/m², based on several studies.

                    2. That’s totally irrelevant to AGW. Said .5W/M2 is the implied amount of ocean surface forcing to achieve the OHC increase observed. But CO2 IR cannot warm the ocean. So this has nothing to do with AGW. Q.E.D.

            2. “There is NO ONE on the planet who can assert that.”

              No assertion necessary. Just read the science.

              IPCC’s AR5 SPM Figure 5 and text discussion.

              If you have a source claiming otherwise, post it.

                    1. We are showing you are acting like a name calling bully who can’t bring science to a science query.

                      Good going, that.

                    2. Why don’t you go to Dr. Roy Spencer’s website and argue with him? Hmmmm? Why not? He’ll be glad to debate the merits of AGW. You won’t. Know why? Because he knows 10 times more on the subject than you do. All little Robert can do is cite the IPCC and John Cook…..who????…..a fraud……LMAO!!!!

                    3. I was discussing with you.

                      Are you done w stating and not supporting your claim?

                    4. Dr. Spencer says what I believe. THAT supports my claim. Something you CAN’T refute. Take it up with him, if you can….LMAO!!!

                    5. This thread started basically with this:

                      “AGW is NOT proven no matter what you write.”

                      and

                      ” It doesn’t make it the driver of climate change. There is NO ONE on the planet who can assert that.”

                      So, you are asserting that anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuels isn’t the main driver, right?

                      And that there is no body of research that supports this basic tenet of ACC, right?

                      I responded with:

                      “There is NO ONE on the planet who can assert that.”

                      No assertion necessary. Just read the science.

                      IPCC’s AR5 SPM Figure 5 and text discussion.

                      If you have a source claiming otherwise, post it.

                      And, so far, all we’ve gotten from you is insulting, namecalling and being told to go argue with Dr. Spencer.

                      So, again, thanks for show us that you can’t take a scientific point, write it clearly, and then bring a substantive body of research to support it.

                      So again. Figure 5 shows the relative strengths of drivers. Easy enough to understand. The body of the SPM cites WG1 and that sends you to the original research.

                      Or, we can just ‘believe’ you are right because you say so.

                      Really sciencey, especially when most of your replies are playground level taunting.

                    6. Right. Write a lot and dodge my point. Typical. Thanks for showing us you really have nothing but talking points from the IPCC…..LMAO!! Think you can hang with Dr. Spencer? I know and YOU KNOW, you can’t. Again….L M A O !!!!

                    7. Your claim, your responsibility – if you value intellectual honesty and rigor – to support it.

                      “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” C. Sagan

                    8. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” C. Sagan

                      Yeah, something your side has yet to supply
                      .

        1. It’s simply an observation. Earth’s mean surface temperature is around 288K, or 33K higher than its effective radiating temperature at the top of the atmosphere, which of course is around 255K, in approximate equilibrium with absorbed solar radiation. You can express it as a difference in temperature or radiative flux, but either way that is the greenhouse effect, by definition.

            1. 255K is equivalent to a radiative flux of 240W/m² (which is also the magnitude of absorbed solar radiation, so the planet is approximately in energy balance). 288K is equivalent to 395W/m², hence a difference of 155W/m² between the surface and TOA.

                1. “You leave out albedo”

                  Oh dear! Let’s not do that:

                  How much will albedo decrease due to the massive amount of sea ice lost in the Arctic over the last 36 years?

                  How high above sea level do you live, David Russell?

                  1. The idiot CB speaks. At current rates of sea level rise I live about 30,000 years above sea-level. As most idiots (but not you) know, sea ice does not affect sea-level one iota. Go sit at the kiddie table and leave the thinking to the big boys.

                    1. Funny, I don’t see an elevation in your post.

                      Why not?

                      How high above sea level do you live, David Russell?

                    2. I revise my prior comment. You are a SHAMELESS idiot. And Skyhunter and Robert are co-conspirators.

                    3. It’s so strange! It’s almost as if you fear the question. It’s not like I asked you to provide exact coordinates or anything. I can tell you I live around 700 feet above sea level.

                      How high do you live above sea level, David Russell?

                      Give your best estimate.

                    4. Where I live the long term sea level rise is 0-3mm/year. So taking the mid-point, that’s 1.5mm per year x 30,000 years = 45,000mm or 45M. At say 13.5′ per floor, that would put the sea-level here in 30,000 years at the 10th floor. I live on the 20th floor.
                      So I was wrong. I live more like 60,000 years above sea-level.

                    5. “I live on the 20th floor.”

                      Are you saying you live 20 floors above sea level?

                      How high above sea level is the exit to your building?

                    6. You really are a demented doofus. At 5 cm per century, this building will turn to dust before the waters rise to the level of the exit.

                    7. Again, no answer! So odd!

                      How do you think it makes you look when you run from such an innocuous question over and over again like a coward?

                      How high above sea level is the exit of your building, David Russell?

                    8. I expect you to be a doofus. I’m surprised to see that Sky-Hunter has drunk the doofus-draught as well.
                      In my building everyone has a terrace on both sides of the building….. an exit on every floor in other words.

                    9. I think I’ve given you ample opportunity to provide a number that indicates how high above sea level you live. Ask yourself why you weren’t able to provide that number.

                      You are quite welcome for giving you another private therapy session! Your therapy is now complete for this thread.

                      Your homework, as always, is to read back over the thread and evaluate for yourself how your responses make you appear.

                      If you need help locating professional mental health resources in the greater Jacksonville area or wherever, just let me know. I’ll see what I can dig up for you.

                      Remember, there’s no need to struggle with suicidal feelings alone and nothing wrong with asking for help if you need it.

                    10. What difference does the floor he lives on make? He’s right, you are a doofus. A real dumbass.

                    11. The most dangerous feedback loop to global warming is starting to kick in… That is the Arctic methane “time bomb”.

                      When a trillion tons of CH4 releases from the melting Arctic permafrost we will see the polar ice caps start melting like a sack of ice cubes lying in the hot sun.

                      Sea levels will begin to rise very rapidly, up to ten feet by 2025 or sooner. Then trillions more tons of CH4 will release and the planet’s surface temperature will soar by 10 degrees C or more.

                      By 2050 or sooner, sea levels will have risen more than 200 feet…. Check it out, google Arctic methane ticking time bomb.

                    12. Hi Star Thank you for the link…. It is the same “denialism” speak from arm chair scientists who have never set a foot in the Arctic and deny what Drs Shakova and Semiletov and the 400 scientists who have worked with them during the past 22 years are warning us of.

                      Drs David Archer and Ed Dlugokencky are over educated idiots and when Dlugokenchy says > (“So far, neither of these approaches suggests a detectable increase in emissions from the Arctic,”), he is either lying to save his former written opinions or he’s just stupid… The Atmospheric CH4 level in the Arctic in 2010 was at 2,000ppb over 1400ppb higher than it has ever been during the past 800,000 years.
                      And whne another idiot says there isn’t a lot of methane hydrates in shallow ocean water, he clearly does not have a clue… There are over 50 giga tons in the East Siberian shelf area alone. Juat a fraction of that entering the atmosphere would raise the planet’s surface temp by over 4 degree C.
                      Then they say it doesn’t last long in the atmosphere…BS… After 100 years in the atmosphere it is still near 35 times more potent trapping heat than is CO2. It starts off at 105 times more potent.
                      These guys have denied it for over 20 years and if they now admit Shakova and Semiletov are correct their credibility is shot and flushed down the toilet. They are actually very dangerous people. The Arcti cmethane threat is the most dangerous by far issue humanity has ever faced and we may have another 4 years before that bomb goes off. We may not have that much time.

                    13. You poor dumb puppy. Haven’t you got a welfare check to pick up or some baby seals to bash? I’ve answered your questions. You’re just too dumb to understand.

                    14. Funny CB. In the past you have stated that you live on the side of a mountain…sometimes 200′ up and other time 700′ up. Have you decided on a number yet?
                      Oh…and you efforts at mental health quips are just too insipid.

                    15. You are such an obnoxious twit Graves….. All you live for is to stalk CB and spout off lies about her in your continual attempts to try and discredit her….. She must be a real threat to your corrupt GW denying agenda for you to do that month after month.

                    16. Because Graves you have been stalking CB for months now and spamming your corrupt lie over and over so I wish to correct you every time you do it so any reading the comments can see the flip side of your corrupt coin…. You don’t like stalking, stop it and I will do the same…. Anything there that flew over your head Digger?

                    17. “…so I wish to correct you every time you do it…”

                      YES Stoner! You got it! That’s JUST WHAT I’M DOING for CB!!

                      NO…I love to see you follow me about and post your nonsense. The more people see you, the more they understand the BS spewed by CAGW religious fanatics of the Pachauri school of climate fanaticism.

                    18. You DO hate it when I continually catch you out, don’t you Stoner. Just start now telling the truth and citing the science to support your nonsense opinions…if you can…and you will be demonstrated to be sensible. Otherwise, you will continue to demonstrate that your opinions are nonsense. Simple as that.

                    19. Hey Mr. Russell, at the current rate of global warming and feedbacks loops kicking in, expect to see that 20th floor under water by 2040, give or take a couple of years.

                    1. I’m not even a little bit surprised.

                      Those guys did so much with so little.

                      It’s embarrassing that dishonest propaganda outlets like Climate Depot would even attempt to sow doubt about science so well-established.

                      It suggests the propagandists have begun drinking their own Kool-Aid… and we know what happens after a person drinks poison, as surely as we know what happens after adding a massive amount of greenhouse gasses to the air…

                  1. On further consideration you are right and I am wrong. However, the calculation works out to be 150W/M2 difference (390 W/M/2 vs 240 W/M2) — a minor quibble.
                    Interestingly this works out to only a .22C warming for each W/M2, suggesting climate sensitivity for 2X CO2 of .825C based on 3.7W/M2 x .22.

                    1. “Interestingly this works out to only a .22C warming for each W/M2…”

                      No, what you’re citing there is just the relationship between an object’s temperature and the infrared radiation it emits, as denoted by the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship (R = σT⁴). It’s important to climate science, to be sure, because it represents the Planck feedback which makes it very hard to get ‘runaway’ global warming… but it’s not the same thing as climate sensitivity to an imposed forcing.

                    2. Why don’t you go to Dr. Roy Spencer’s website and argue with him? Why have you stopped your attempts on WUWT? I know why. Because the VERY knowledgeable people there were able to refute your garbage.

                    3. I disagree. The 33C difference in temperature from the emission attitude to the surface is the very best metric for climate sensitivity because ALL THE FACTORS (feedbacks, aerosols, everything) are accounted for in it, and because this 33C has been relatively stable for a very long time.
                      I do agree that CO2’s specific forcing characteristics are not necessarily the same as the forcing characteristics of the existing blend of GHGs in the atmosphere.
                      I speculate that the specific forcing characteristics of each GHG in the mix is much higher than the blended rates of all of them, specifically because of all the NEGATIVE feedbacks (mainly hydrological) the keep the earth cooler than just considering the radiative forcing factors alone.

                    4. OK. thanks. I respect your knowledge on Climate. I know CO2 acts as a GHG but the so little amount we put into the atmosphere is hardly doing anything. I believe what Dr. Spencer writes on the topic.

                    5. Dr. Spencer doesn’t dispute the forcing from CO₂ (or any other greenhouse gas). He just claims that the net feedback is much smaller than generally agreed, so the warming from a given forcing will be correspondingly less.

                    6. The IPCC does not say any such thing. Shame on you. You just made that up. Show us where in the IPCC that the 17 cited papers are categorized as ‘unreliable.’
                      Indeed it is beyond the scope of the IPCC to characterize ANY peer-reviewed paper as unreliable.

                    7. I quoted it earlier:

                      “Most studies find a lower 5% limit for ECS between 1°C and 2°C (Figure 10.20). The combined evidence thus indicates that the net feedbacks to RF are significantly positive. At present, there is no credible individual line of evidence that yields very high or very low climate sensitivity as best estimate.”

                    8. What a load of hogwash. Well what do you expect from a political body. The IPCC is speaking out of school here. They are not mandated to make such conclusions. Given there are dozens of peer-reviewed papers (which I cited — more in the comments section thereto), the above claim doesn’t meet the straight-face test. And given a 50% increase in CO2 emissions in the past 18 years with essentially NO CLIMATE RESPONSE, the folks at the IPCC should be ashamed of themselves. Anyway, “What evidence?”

                      The IPCC merely ignored all the citations I gave IMO. Therefore the above quote fails to say these peer-reviewed articles are ‘unreliable.’

                    9. He’ll say the temperatures have been rising all that time. What he won’t say is that they haven’t risen as predicted they would 20 years ago. THAT is a FACT.

                    10. He says the increase in OHC has been happening, but as the oceans are impervious to CO2 back-radiation warming, OHC is outside the purview of AGW.

                    11. It’s not the IPCC ‘mandating’ anything – they are reviewing the literature and pointing out where studies purporting to have found a very low CS have been shown to be inadequate due to limited data, over-simplified models etc. Read AR5, 10.8.

                    12. Ok. I read it and it says no such thing. Nor should it or could it, given its mandate. The inadequacies you mention are what get weeded out anyway by peer-review.

                    13. “The inadequacies you mention are what get weeded out anyway by peer-review.”

                      Evidently not always.

                    14. I see an unsourced chart on ocean heat content. Presuming you didn’t just draw this up yourself, it has nothing to do with AGW since oceans cannot be warmed by GHG back radiation. AGW is and always has been about surface air temperature…that is until the surface air temperature stopped cooperating with the dogma.
                      As experts in this matter know, the only ocean surface thermal process that warms the oceans in direct insolation (i.e., the sun warms the oceans, not CO2 IR [or any IR]). All other ocean surface thermal processes serve to COOL the oceans — evaporation, conduction, and net IR.
                      Thank you for a polite but cryptic and irrelevant post.

                    15. http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/images/fig10.png

                      “oceans cannot be warmed by GHG back radiation.”

                      From the article you cited:

                      “Much of the radiation from the atmospheric gases, also in the infrared range, is transmitted back to the ocean, reducing the net long wave radiation heat loss of the ocean.”

                      There is “net IR” loss, as you said in your penultimate sentence. More “radiation from the atmospheric gases, also in the infrared range, is transmitted back to the ocean” will result in less IR loss. The net IR doesn’t have to be positive, just less negative, to warm the oceans. This is the same as greenhouse gases over land, they reduce the heat loss, just as a blanket does in bed.

                      You are welcome.

                    16. You’ve mis-read the article. And you’re making up your own science. The article specifically says that it’s the direct insolation that provides all the warming of the oceans (at the surface) and no CO2 back-radiation. When I say you are making up your own science I mean you haven’t a clue how all theses processes interact. For example, more back radiation produces more evaporation which actually cools the ocean.
                      The energy of IR is totally absorbed in the tippy-top of the ‘ocean skin, which is a 500-1000 micron layer which is typically and on average COOLer than the waters below. Therefore NONE of the IR energy entering the surface can be transfer to warm waters below (2nd Law — net heat moves only from warm to cool objects, not cool to warm objects). CO2 radiates in the 15 micron bandwidth and that band-width penetrates only 3 microns of ocean ‘skin’ — less than the width of a human hair. Sunlight penetrates up to 200 meters, effectively 60,000,000 times more ocean volume.

                    17. “all the warming of the oceans (at the surface) and no CO2 back-radiation.”

                      I missed the “all” and the “no” parts. Would you, please, quote the parts of the article that said those things?

                      By the way, thanks for the reference. It is a very interesting article.

                    18. Key take-away point #2:
                      Fluxes across the sea-atmosphere interface: Heat exchange between ocean
                      and atmosphere is a product of a number of processes: solar radiation
                      heats the ocean; net long wave back radiation cools the ocean; heat transfer
                      by conduction and convection between the air and water generally cools
                      the ocean as does evaporation of water from the ocean surface

                    19. That is not “all” and “no”. My point is that if the net loss of IR heat is reduced, the ocean will be warmer. If the amount of evaporation increases, it will not increase enough for the ocean not to be warmer.

                    20. Now you are being sophistical and intellectually dishonest. Were someone you trust to read this exchange they would tell you you’re just being contentious. I’ve revealed some science to you that you were obviously unaware of. Now it would be better for you just to reflect on what you’ve learned and hopefully make an adjustment in your beliefs to reflect the science on the issue. …. assuming you want to be right and not merely partisan.

                    21. “you want to be right and not merely partisan.”

                      Neither. I am a scientist, I just want to understand. I will put more time in on what you cited.

                    22. Then you might enjoy my full-blown argument on the subject (below):
                      CO2 back-radiation does NOT warm the oceans

                      CO2 ‘back-radiation’s’ contribution to ocean heat content
                      [OHC] increase during the last ~16 years since global warming stopped is almost
                      nothing, while solar radiation has contributed almost all the warming.

                      First we’ll look at the portion of ocean that each can
                      affect. We’ll see that any radiation energy from CO2 ‘back-radiation’ just
                      doesn’t impact enough of the ocean to matter, as it is miniscule when compared
                      to the portion of the ocean that solar radiation impacts.

                      The wavelength of CO2 long-wave ‘back-radiation’ is 15μm
                      ( bit.ly/1fsjaI8 ). This wavelength is essentially blocked from
                      penetrating into the ocean. OK, not completely, it penetrates ≈3μm deep ( bit.ly/133RtMo ). That is 3 millionths of a meter. That is 1/10th the
                      thickness of a human hair. Now consider that solar radiation penetrates up to
                      200 meters deep. Therefore the energy from solar radiation heats 67,000,000
                      times more water than it is theoretically possible for CO2 to heat.

                      Next we’ll see that the upper “interface layer”
                      of a few microns does not transfer any heat down into the ocean. This top
                      interface layer that CO2 influences is less than 1% of the skin layer of the
                      ocean.

                      “…the
                      skin SST, SSTskin, is a temperature measured at some depth, within a thin layer
                      (~500μm) at the air-sea interface” – Donlon2001

                      Now it must be noted that the interface layer is always
                      cooler than the layers just below it, as this diagram from Donlon2001 shows ( disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/… ).
                      The reason the interface layer is always cooler is because of evaporation. And
                      since heat transfers from warmer objects to cooler objects, this interface
                      layer does not transfer any heat down into the ocean. Thus GHGs can’t directly transfer heat INTO the ocean.

                      Peer reviewed science says:

                      “Energy transfer at the Earth’s surface is examined from first principles. The effects on
                      surface temperature of small changes in the solar constant caused by the
                      sunspot cycle and small increases in downward long wave infrared (LWIR) flux
                      due to a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration are considered in
                      detail. The changes in the solar constant are sufficient to change ocean
                      temperatures and alter the Earth’s climate. The surface temperature changes
                      produced by an increase in downward LWIR flux are too small to be measured and
                      cannot cause climate change. … It is also straightforward to show that a 1.7
                      W/m2 increase in downward LWIR flux at the ocean surface cannot cause
                      measurable changes in ocean temperatures… Water is almost completely opaque
                      to LWIR radiation.¹⁹ The LWIR absorption/emission depth is less than 1 mm…
                      This heats the surface layer… The ocean responds by RAPIDLY increasing the
                      surface EVAPORATION rate… It is
                      therefore impossible for an increase in downward atmospheric LWIR flux of 1.7
                      W.m−2 to heat the ocean.” – Clark2010

                      Clark attributes the cooler interface layer to increased
                      evaporation that offset any heating due to GHGs. I rather refer to the basic
                      principle of thermodynamics that says cooler objects don’t transfer heat to
                      warmer objects, so the radiating CO2 molecules in the atmosphere don’t transfer
                      heat to the warmer water molecules on the ocean surface, so there is no
                      “extra” heat from CO2 ‘back-radiation’ to lose due to increased
                      evaporation. Either way, GHGs don’t directly add heat to the ocean. This
                      leaves the only possible way that GHGs could influence ocean temperature as
                      reducing the rate of cooling due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

                      In order to evaluate if that is the case, we’ll look at
                      the overall ocean heat transfer processes using a Columbia Univ. Earth &
                      Environ. Science lecture on ‘Ocean-Atmosphere Coupling’. ( bit.ly/10Sr1a4 )

                      It explains that the only heat exchange process
                      that adds heat to the ocean is solar radiation:

                      “Fluxes across the sea-atmosphere interface: Heat exchange between ocean
                      and atmosphere is a product of a number of processes: solar radiation heats
                      the ocean; net long wave back radiation cools the ocean; heat transfer
                      by conduction and convection between the air and water generally cools
                      the ocean as does evaporation of water from the ocean surface”.

                      Every ocean-atmosphere process cools the ocean except for
                      solar radiation. And here’s the quantification of those heat exchange processes
                      from the lecture that we will use in our later calculations:

                      “Solar
                      heating of the ocean on a global average is 168 watts per square meter. … Net
                      back radiation cools the ocean, on a global average by 66 watts per square
                      meter. … On average the ocean is about 1 or 2 degrees warmer than the atmosphere
                      so on average ocean heat is transferred from ocean to atmosphere by conduction.
                      … On global average the oceanic heat loss by conduction is only 24 watts per
                      square meter. … On global average the heat loss by evaporation is 78 watts
                      per square meter.”

                      Now we’ll begin our calculations to quantify the effect
                      of “reduced ocean cooling” due to increased GHG concentration in the
                      atmosphere.

                      According to the IPCC’s formulas, changes in CO2 forcing
                      over the last ~16 years is only ≈0.4W/m² ( 5.35*ln(396/367)=0.4W/m2 ). Per the
                      IPCC, base GHG back-radiation is 324W/m² ( bit.ly/1a0jcCV ). Thus over the GGWH (Great Global Warming Hiatus), the
                      GHG ‘back-radiation’ to “reduce ocean cooling” only changed to 324.4W/m².
                      This increase is a factor of 1.0012 (324.4/324) or less than a 10th of a
                      percent. Now according to the both the IPCC diagram (390-324=66) & the
                      previously cited Columbia ocean-atmosphere lecture, “net back radiation
                      cools the ocean, on a global average by 66 watts per square meter”, the
                      net back-radiation from the ocean to the atmosphere was 66W/m². Applying the
                      1.0012 factor to determine the change in net back radiation available to
                      “slow” ocean ‘back-radiation’ cooling & allow additional heat to
                      build up, shows that the net change in GHG CO2 forcing to the ocean is
                      0.08W/m². (66/1.0012=65.92; 66-65.92=0.08).
                      That is insignificant.

                      Moreover some of
                      this additional .4W/M2 forcing should be allocated to additional out-going IR
                      and additional evaporation presumably using the same ratios of their current
                      out-going values. ( bit.ly/1a0jcCV ) pro rata. It’s plausible then that this .08W/m2
                      ‘reduction’ impact on the sea-surface/air interface delta-temperature will be
                      substantially less and more than offset by changes to other sea-surface thermal
                      processes.

                      So
                      what caused the increase in OHC that has been observed? The Sun, as we will
                      see.

                      So what caused the increase in OHC that has been
                      observed? The Sun, as we will see.

                      Now the objection that one might raise is that the Sun
                      has been slightly decreasing its activity over the last couple decades. That is
                      true, but it’s not the TSI [total solar insolation] at the top of atmosphere
                      that is relevant, it is the solar radiation that reaches the surface of the
                      Earth that counts.

                      Global mean cloud amount during the last 15yrs has
                      averaged ≈65% vs ≈67% during the late 20th century says NASA ( bit.ly/19tIZBw ). This has allowed ≈3% (0.67/0.65=1.03) more solar
                      energy to reach the surface of the oceans. This 3% increase in solar energy
                      reaching the oceans means the net global average solar heating of the oceans
                      was 173 W/m² vs the 168 W/m² figure in the Columbia lecture. (168*1.03=173) So actual
                      change in solar heating of the oceans was ~5 W/m² vs. max theoretical
                      change in GHG base radiation of ≈0.08 W/m², in other words solar heating was
                      ~60X greater than the max theoretical heating due to GHGs.

                      That
                      was a rough calculation. What does peer reviewed science say?

                      “Applying a 3.6% cloud reflectivity perturbation to the
                      shortwave energy balance partitioning given by Trenberth et al. (2009)
                      corresponds to an increase of 2.7Wm-2 of solar energy reaching the Earth’s
                      surface” – Herman2013, “A net
                      decrease in the Earth’s cloud, aerosol, and surface 340nm reflectivity
                      during the past 33 yrs (1979-2011)”

                      And
                      then there is:

                      – “The linear regression analysis applied to 204
                      global averages of monthly mean DSR fluxes, reveals a significant decadal increase
                      in SW radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, equal to 2.4 Wm², associated
                      with a corresponding decadal increase in surface solar absorption of 2.2 Wm²,
                      over the 17-year period 1984-2000. The performed analysis has shown that the
                      increased surface solar heating, indicated by positive DSR and net DSR
                      anomalies, started after the year 1992, and it has been caused by a
                      significant reduction in cloudiness during the last decade of the 20th century…
                      Our results are in agreement with surface observations (Wild et al., 2005),
                      also indicating an increase in DSR starting after 1990. A further analysis has
                      demonstrated that the reduction in low-level cloud amounts, accounts for about
                      70% of the computed increasing trend in DSR.” – Hatzianastassiou et al.,
                      2005 “Global distribution of Earth’s surface shortwave radiation budget”

                      So two peer reviewed papers quantified the increased
                      solar radiation reaching the surface was about half the ~5 W/m² of my rough
                      calculation. That still means that solar radiation is 97% of the cause of OHC
                      increase, and ~3% could be attributed to “reduced cooling” from
                      increased GHGs. Clearly the empirical evidence shows that the Sun has been the
                      overwhelming cause of the increase in OHC.

                      The bottom line is that increased GHGs are NOT a
                      significant cause of ocean heating and the increase in OHC does NOT explain the
                      absence of GHG-induced warming over the last ~16 years.

                      annual megatons of AGW CO2

                      36,000

                      this is 36 gigatons, the 2013 figure

                      Percentage CO2 aborbed oceans

                      25%

                      I’ve seen 40% and 50% here, but 25%
                      is just for oceans

                      ocean hydration equilibrium contant

                      0.0012

                      this is the “hydration
                      equilibrium constant” -ratio of H2CO3/CO2 in sea water

                      MEGAtons carbonic acid formed
                      (annual)

                      10.8

                      this is product first 3 rows

                      ratio weight H2co3 to co2

                      150%

                      molecular weights

                      (66 vs 44)

                      – carbobic acid vs CO2

                      MEGAtons carbon acid from AGW

                      16.2

                      product last 2 rows

                      area oceans (sq mi)

                      139,000,000

                      public info

                      tons carbonic acid/cu mile oceans

                      0.12

                      averag depth oceans (miles)

                      2.65

                      14,000′ / 5,280

                      tons/cu mile oceans

                      4,717,694,362

                      uses 64.1 lb/cu-ft x
                      5,280-cubed/2000

                      tons water below each sq mile ocean

                      12,509,038,080

                      product last 2 rows.

                      parts AGW carbonic acid to ocean
                      water

                      1 part per

                      107,330,635,378

                      Wow!
                      1 part per 100B

                    23. “I rather refer to the basic
                      principle of thermodynamics that says cooler objects don’t transfer heat to
                      warmer objects, so the radiating CO2 molecules in the atmosphere don’t transfer
                      heat to the warmer water molecules on the ocean surface, so there is no
                      “extra” heat from CO2 ‘back-radiation’ to lose due to increased
                      evaporation. Either way, GHGs don’t directly add heat to the ocean.”

                      One again, it is not net transfer of head, it is a reduction in net heat transfer.

                      A blanket doesn’t transfer heat to your body, it reduced heat loss.

                      “Skeptical Arguments that Don’t Hold Water”, number 2 of 10.

                      THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS.

                      The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.

                    24. You have this all bollixed up. The GHE does not in fact violated the 2nd law, of course, but the IR being absorbed in the top 3 microns of the ocean skin is NOT the GHE. In thermodynamics heat flow is always a ‘net’ concept (except when one object is at absolute zero). Heat flows IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION in the oceans—- from below to above (warmer to cooler). There is no heat flow from the ocean skin downward therefore. Icebergs radiate IR. They don’t warm the oceans, now do they?
                      The IR energy hitting the ocean surface never results in any net heat, but rather in evaporation. Just like with a pot of boiling water, turning up the heat doesn’t increase the temperature, only converts more water to steam.

                    25. “never” All the heat goes into evaporation?

                      “Just like with a pot of boiling water, turning up the heat doesn’t increase the temperature, only converts more water to steam.”

                      It is not possible (at 1 atm) to have liquid water above 100 ℃. The ocean surface is not that hot. As a gedanken, what happens when atmospheric IR is absorbed by the ocean at a location where the relative humidity is 100%.

                      “Heat flows IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION in the oceans—- from below to above (warmer to cooler).”

                      And the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the smaller the heat flow.

                    26. Pedagogically speaking the atmosphere at the ocean/air interface is always at 100%, but this air rises (and/or the wind blows) and this high humidity air is replaced by cooler less humid air and this whole process repeats ad infinitum.
                      Isn’t it the same with a pot of boiling water? The steam at the surface constitutes 100% humidity (more, because some of it immediately condenses — that’s why we ‘see the steam’). But the heated mix rises quickly…. and as you say, absent a cover the boiling water never gets above 100C. Turning up the heat just makes it boil faster.
                      You keep saying ‘the more CO2, the smaller the flow” but that’s just you opinion, right? What about “the more latent heat is created?”

                    27. What about “the more latent heat is created?”

                      I haven’t thought this through enough, but my chemist’s intuition tells me that it is both.

                    28. “Both” sounds like good philosophical intuition as well. Point is, no one has done this work….. to my knowledge. I’ve read that the way it works is that the IR is used up bringing the surface of the ocean skin to phase shift temperature and that to make the shift requires using the residual heat from the water itself. Since the phase shift energy is much higher that the energy to bring the water for say 80F to 212F, the skin ends up always ‘cool’ — cooler than the water below and therefore the CO2 IR energy can have no warming impact on the bulk of the oceans below the ocean skin.

                    29. David Russell, when the atmosphere over the ocean warms, does that ocean cool faster or slower?

                    30. “when the atmosphere over the ocean warms,
                      does that ocean cool faster or slower?”

                      Perhaps, the air warms the ocean. Similar to, net warming
                      of the atmosphere is from above the Troposphere, where
                      there is more energy/molecule.

                    31. This is what Dr. Spencer says:

                      Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2
                      is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated
                      theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate
                      system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration
                      would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F).
                      This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate
                      scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward
                      a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)

                      There are disagreements as to how much feedback CO2 causes. The article that I’ve told you about on Geophysical Research Letters talks about it.

                      .

                      He goes on to say:

                      Finally, if the climate system is insensitive, this means that the extra
                      carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause
                      the observed warming over the last 100 years — some natural mechanism
                      must be involved. Here you can read about my favorite candidate: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

                      The science is NOT SETTLED.

                    32. “if the climate system is insensitive…”

                      The data shows that it is in fact quite sensitive, so we do have a problem.

                    33. The data does not show that. How come temperatures haven’t risen as predicted 20 years ago?

                    34. Your first chart shows the actual temperatures for the past 18 years have been flat. Of course it’s a deceptive chart because the guide-lines obscure this. But we’re not fooled.
                      The temperature increase since 1940 has been about .6C and assuming CO2 provides 75% of the human GHE effect that would be .45C. Using the Mhyre formula for CO2 radiative forcing you get .4C…. close enough.

                    35. We discussed this before –

                      You’re forgetting a couple of things. First, the net forcing is not just the CO₂ forcing – you have to include all the other forcings, both natural and anthropogenic. Second, the 0.6°C of observed warming is the transient warming, not the full ‘fast feedback’ warming. This is how to work it all out:

                      ΔT = ΔF × FFCS × TW

                      … where:

                      ΔT is the observed warming (0.6°C)
                      ΔF is the net forcing (~1.4W/m² since 1940)
                      FFCS is the fast feedback climate sensitivity
                      TW is the transient warming factor, about 0.6.

                      Re-arranging to find the FFCS:

                      FFCS = ΔT / (ΔF × TW)
                      = 0.6 / (1.4 × 0.6)
                      = 0.71°C/W/m², or 2.6°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂.

                      I made a slightly more sophisticated calculation using a 2 box climate model and the instrumental record back to 1880, and got 0.77°C/W/m², or 2.85°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂.

                      So the instrumental data gives a climate sensitivity nowhere near as low as 1C per doubling.

                    36. Here’s what I did.
                      1) Used 310ppm for 1940 and 400ppm for today. Thus forcing from CO2 would be 5.35 x Ln(400/310) = 1.36W/M2
                      2) Used the CO2-alone relationship of 3.7W/M2 =1.1C, and thus 1.36/3.7 x 1.1 = .40C — the expected warming for the given increase in ppm for CO2 alone.
                      3) Used the assumed figure that CO2 is 75% of the enhanced forcing effect, which for a .6C actual temperature increase since 1940 would be .45C.
                      .4C vs .45C without any required feedbacks is……..
                      Close enough.
                      I like using 1940 for several reasons (rather than other dates as starting date): 1) it’s long enough ago — 75 years for much of the noise to wash out; 2) it’s the tail end of a long warming period, like we have today; and 3) it’s when the really big input to atmospheric warming started (most of the warming post LIA to that date was due to variations in insolation). I’d also add that the farther back you go, the less reliable the temperature (and CO2) records are.

                    37. “The 33C difference in temperature from the emission attitude to the surface is the very best metric for climate sensitivity…”

                      But it’s not a metric of climate sensitivity at all. All it’s telling you is the relationship between an object’s temperature and the infrared radiation it emits, which is the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship. Do you see? You can’t derive climate sensitivity from it.

                    38. We’re having a conceptual mismatch here. CS is defined typically as the temperature response to CO2. So you are literally correct. However, the sensitivity to all GHG’s (and aerosols) with all feedbacks includes is mathematically 33C/150W/M2, which is .22C per W/M2. On the simplifying assumption that CO2 is “typical” (which is not literally true), then the 3.7W/M2 of forcing from 2X CO2 also mathematically .22 x 3.7 = .81C. Anything above that value has to be an artifact of the specific difference in CO2 vs other GHGs and not some mumbo jumbo about feedbacks. And I would aver that the only relevant difference among the gases is captured by the coefficient in the Myhre formula for radiative transfer for CO2 (to wit, 5.35), and that coefficient is captured in the 3.7W/M2 for 2X CO2.
                      Otherwise climate sensitivity is completely disconnected from reality and is just pseudo-science.

                    39. “However, the sensitivity to all GHG’s (and aerosols) with all feedbacks included is mathematically 33C/150W/M2, which is .22C per W/M2.”

                      No, these figures do not give you climate sensitivity. To figure out the sensitivity, you have to know how much the surface temperature rises (at equilibrium) for a given climate forcing.

                    40. Well we know that the surface temperature has risen 33C for a 150W/M2 forcing….. all in. And we know all W/M2’s are equal. So why don’t we know that 3.7W/M2 equates to .814C …… in point of fact …. in the REAL WORLD?

                      And we know 2X CO2 produces 3.7W/M2 of forcing. And we know that Climate Sensitivity is the temperature response to 2X CO2.

                      Seems like we’ve got the whole package above. What more would we need?

                    41. Climate sensitivity must include feedbacks. Everyone agrees that a forcing of 3.7W/m² requires a warming of about 1.1°C to restore equilibrium, without feedbacks (0.3°C/W/m²). The best evidence indicates that with just the fast feedbacks taken into account, climate sensitivity is about 0.8°C/W/m², and that slow feedbacks at least double that again.

                      Most studies find a lower 5% limit for ECS between 1°C and 2°C (Figure 10.20). The combined evidence thus indicates that the net feedbacks to RF are significantly positive. At present, there is no credible individual line of evidence that yields very high or very low climate sensitivity as best estimate.

                      In conclusion, estimates of the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) based on multiple and partly independent lines of evidence from observed climate change, including estimates using longer records of surface temperature change and new palaeoclimatic evidence, indicate that there is high confidence that ECS is extremely unlikely less than 1°C and medium confidence that the ECS is likely between 1.5°C and 4.5°C and very unlikely greater than 6°C.

                      IPCC AR5 10.8.2.5

                      You can see from IPCC AR5 Figure 10.20 that the median values for fast feedback climate sensitivity are clustered around 3C per doubling. There are a couple of studies which have a median value just below 2C per doubling, but as the text says, there is no credible evidence for a very low value for climate sensitivity.

                    42. The evidence (33C total GHG effect equal to 150W/M2) is that the feedbacks are negative because the 1.1C turns out to be in fact .814C as your information provided proves — 3.7 x 33/150 = .814C. QED.

                    43. You’re still missing the point. Your calculation is not a calculation of climate sensitivity. It’s physically meaningless. To get climate sensitivity you have to know how much the surface will warm, with a given climate forcing. Your calculation does not give you that. All it tells you is that IR radiation is proportional to the fourth power of temperature. Do you see?

                    44. With respect, I just don’t see it. I sense you are trying to be helpful. And so I’m trying to be fair.
                      Now of course I know how to get the 150W/M2 from the temperature difference of 33C (and vice versa) by applying the Stefan-Boltzmann formula.
                      What I don’t ‘get’ is your characterization of this as “all this tells you…..” and then ‘distinguishing’ what it tells you from ‘climate sensitivity.’ But climate sensitivity IS the temperature response to forcing by 2X CO2 and this is well-established as 3.7W/M2. The feedbacks are not established and merely assumed. They do not appear in the historical temperature/CO2 record.
                      In the context of CO2 alone currently at ~400ppm that’s 9.5 doublings from 1 (1 > 2 >4 >8 >16 >32 >64 >128 >256 >512). So that would be 9.5 x 1.1 temperature effect or 10.5C… about 1/3 of the total 33C GHE. I don’t know if this is correct, but it’s at least plausible. But if the feedbacks were 3X the CO2-alone forcing as the IPCC avers, then the ENTIRE GHE is explained by CO2 alone, and that’s just absurd.
                      The fact that the total GHG effect all in with feedbacks and solar variation and aerosols and the kitchen sink amounts to only a .22C surface warming per W/M2 of radiative forcing foots very well with a 1.1C CO2 forcing mildly reduced by net negative feedbacks on balance.

                    45. Also with respect, I can see what you’re driving at. However, to put it in English, this is what your calculation is saying:

                      For every 1°C that an object warms up, its emitted infrared radiation increases by 4.5W/m².

                      Conversely, to get a 1W/m² increase in emitted infrared radiation, an object has to warm up by 0.22°C.

                      Well that’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s a linear approximation to an exponential function (because radiation is proportional to the fourth power of temperature). It’s roughly right over that short interval of 255 to 288K (graph it, if you don’t see what I mean). The main problem though, is that it’s not giving you any real world data about how the climate actually responds to warming and cooling influences.

                      Suppose the sun heats up by 1% – that’s a climate forcing (an imposed perturbation of the planet’s energy balance) of 2.4W/m². The simple assumption would be that after everything has come to equilibrium, the Earth’s infrared radiation to space must also have increased by 2.4W/m² – I know you understand this, it’s perfectly straightforward thermodynamics. However, the warming of the surface inevitably has other effects – it increases atmospheric humidity at the rate of 7% per °C of warming, and water vapour is a greenhouse gas, so that makes the atmosphere more opaque to infrared from the surface. The surface therefore has to heat up more than it otherwise would, to restore equilibrium. Another feedback is the reduction of snow and ice cover, which reduces albedo and means that absorbed solar radiation has increased by more than the initial 2.4W/m². No-one doubts that these other effects occur. They’re not “merely assumed” at all – they are obvious, observed facts. A warmer planet really does have less ice cover. A warmer atmosphere really does hold more water vapour. It’s basic physics. The water vapour feedback just by itself doubles the initial response.

                      So you can either attempt to model all the processes and derive climate sensitivity from the model, or you can look at historical/palaeoclimate data and work it out from that. Either way, it comes out to around 3°C per doubling, from fast feedbacks.

                    46. Dr. Spencer and many others wouldn’t agree with your assessment and you know it. I realize you like to state things as absolute facts when they aren’t. Some of what you say is true, the rest, nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The climate is NOT as simple or straightforward as you claim. I think you are smart enough to know that.
                      .
                      In other words you are trying to explain things in a linear way when they are very nonlinear. The climate is a chaotic system that doesn’t lend itself to modeling very easily.

                    47. The problem for Dr. Spencer and others who argue for a very low value for climate sensitivity, is that their estimate is not consistent with the palaeoclimate data, nor with the modern instrumental data. For example, a FFCS of ~1C per doubling could only account for about a third of the observed global warming in the instrumental record.

                    48. The paleo-data is just guess work and for the most part shows the opposite of the alarmist case — namely that warming causes CO2 increase, rather than CO2 increase causing warming. The warming since since the big increase in human Co2 emissions (1940) is totally consistent with a 1.1C climate sensitivity.

                    49. Perhaps. But you can’t assert it as absolute fact either.
                      .
                      Off topic here. I’ve said this to you elsewhere. You are one of the few AGW advocates that I can respect. You are sincere and a gentleman. I respect your knowledge on the topic even though you refuse to answer my question as to whether you are a climate scientist. The other people on here (AGW kooks) I regard as nothing more than Lemmings. I still believe that you are off base on a lot of what you assert but wish YOU no ill will (I can’t say the same for the others). Icarus, I know you are British and wish YOU well. I would like to converse with you about other things but not here. Take care.

                    50. Thank you Isandhlwana79 – I do appreciate your comments and I much prefer to have a civilised debate than exchanges of abuse, which are just pointless. I’m not a climate scientist (or any kind of scientist, in fact) but I’m fascinated by the subject and it’s gratifying that at least some of it is accessible to the layman with a bit of study.

                      I think all the evidence shows that modern human civilisation has developed in a period of unusual climate stability – the last 10,000 years or so – and you might speculate that is is more than mere chance. Perhaps civilisation developed in this period because of that stability. In the long term though, climate is actually rather sensitive to changes, and we’re now tipping the balance quite dramatically. Resulting changes are relatively slow on human timescales but very fast on geological timescales, i.e. compared to most of the geological record. That’s a worry for us. I readily admit that there is uncertainty about just how bad the consequences will be, and how soon. Also there is a valid debate to be had about adaption vs. mitigation, and about how serious global warming is compared to other problems.

                      I wish you well too! Cheers…

                    51. Ok. Then how about…. just wrong? (regarding climate sensitivity). We have real records going back to the mid 1850’s. We
                      “don need no stinkin’ paleo reconstructions.”

                    52. As you pointed out yourself in a recent comment, unlike with models, the observations necessarily include all the physical processes that operate in the real world. So, palaeoclimate data is actually very important for deriving climate sensitivity –

                      Fast feedback climate sensitivity is ~0.75°C/W/m²
                      Climate sensitivity including slow albedo feedback is 1.5°C/W/m² (6°C per doubling)
                      Climate sensitivity including slow albedo feedback & non-CO2 GHGs is 2°C/W/m² (8°C per doubling)
                      Climate sensitivity including all feedbacks between Holocene & ice-free state is ~2.4°C/W/m² (9.5°C per doubling).

                      Hansen & Sato 2011
                      http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120508_ClimateSensitivity.pdf

                    53. Hold on there, Cowboy. Your point about the paleo guesswork is sophistical. We have actual measurements since 1850.
                      The rest of your post is circular reasoning — assuming what is to be proved (and I’d guess doing so based on said ‘paleo-data’).

                    54. I don’t see any circular reasoning.

                      Read Hansen’s paper. Scientists have been able to quantify both the climate forcing and the associated temperature change over many thousands of years, so they derive climate sensitivity from that. It’s not perfect but then neither are modern measurements, and palaeoclimate data has the advantage of being over a wider range of temperatures and forcings.

                      It’s still not ‘guesswork’.

                    55. It’s guesswork. For sure. The modern instrument record is flawed as you aver, but it’s what we have and there’s nothing in it that comports to the paleo-story. That’s why the paleo story is mere malarkey.

                    56. ” warming causes CO2 increase, rather than CO2 increase causing warming. ”

                      That’s mostly true in the geological record, since greenhouse gas changes have usually been a feedback to other changes – especially orbital forcings. However, it’s also irrelevant, since the warming is just the same whether the greenhouse gas increase comes first (as is happening today) or in response to a different cause (as in Milankovitch cycles).

                      Incidentally you might note that your comment here directly contradicts your earlier assertion that feedbacks are just unfounded assumptions 🙂 Warming causing CO2 increase is a feedback.

                    57. Interesting point. However, if (better: “to the extent”) warming causes increase in Co2, then we are left with the puzzle about how much of the current warming is CAUSED by increase in CO2, which pretty much puts the whole AGW thesis in disarray, no?
                      There is something called Henry’s Law which defines the relationship for a given temperature (and pressure) of a liquid’s ability to retain dissolved gas (CO2 here). As the temperature goes up, the ability to retain dissolved gas goes down. For all I know the increase in OHC due to increased surface insolation is more of an explanation for GW. After all the ocean surface temperature is typically and on average 1-2C warmer than the atmosphere. SInce the oceans cover 70% of the earth, there’s a sense in which it’s the oceans warming the air and human have nothing to due ocean warming (it’s the sun that warms the oceans, not CO2 back-radiation).

                    58. The oceans are becoming warmer and yet they are also becoming more acidic, because they are absorbing CO₂, not emitting it. That’s simply because our emissions have risen so far and so fast. In any case we know that the rise in atmospheric CO₂ is entirely anthropogenic for the simple reason that the increase is less than the sum of our emissions, meaning that nature must be a net absorber, not an emitter.

                    59. You are a great straight-man for me. Your comment sets me up to present my paper on “Human CO2 emissions cannot produce any meaningful ocean acidification” (below). In a nutshell, the annual amount of human CO2 emissions that make it into the oceans that eventually become carbonic acid amount to 1 part carbonic acid to 107 billion parts of sea water. BFD. And if you want to say that all this ocean acidification happens in the ‘mixing layer’ (first 200 meters), then it’s 1 part carbonic acid to 5 billion parts sea-water per year. Not meaningful.
                      The oceans may be acidifying, but human CO2 emissions are not causing it. Q.E.D.

                    60. AGW CO2 cannot produce any meaningful ocean acidification

                      Introduction

                      The claim is made that AGW CO2 emissions are acidifying
                      the oceans, which may have adverse impact on marine life. Specifically the claim is that due to AGW
                      ocean ph has dropped 30% (a .1 increase in acidity on the pH scale). The below argues annual CO2 related ocean
                      acidification is on the order of 1 part per 100 billion – less than a drop of
                      acid in a swimming pool 4M x 20M x 2M…. actually you’d need 40 such pools!!!

                      Pure CO2 is not acidic – there’s no hydrogen in CO2 and
                      as those who remember high school chemistry know, acidity is a function of
                      hydrogen ions. However in water ~1 in
                      1000 CO2 molecules becomes the weak acid 2HCO3 (carbonic acid). Ocean acidification from AGW thus is an
                      artifact of this carbonic acid. If this
                      carbonic acid were well-mixed in oceans, it would be 1 part in 100 billion.

                      The case:

                      The ratio of carbonic acid created from CO2 introduced into
                      a liquid is called its hydration
                      equilibrium constant, which for sea water under standard conditions is
                      1.2 x 10-3. That is, for 1,000 CO2
                      molecules entering the ocean from AGW, 1.2 will become carbonic acid under
                      standard conditions.

                      Human CO2 emissions in 2013 were 36 gigatons, 25% of
                      which were [considered] absorbed into the oceans, or 9 gigatons. Now if only 1.2
                      molecules in 1000 becomes carbonic acid, that’s 9X1.2/1000= 10.8 megatons
                      of carbon dioxide molecules in the ocean from AGW that get converted into
                      carbonic acid per annum. CO2 is about
                      2/3 the mass of carbonic acid, so the 10.8 megatons of CO2 becomes 10.8X3/2 =16.2
                      megatons of carbonic acid…. introduced over 139mm square miles of ocean. Per
                      square mile that’s about .1165 ton. A
                      cubic mile of sea-water weighs 4.718B tons and as the oceans’ average depth is
                      about 14,000’ or 2-2/3 miles, 12.509B tons of seawater is beneath each square
                      mile of ocean surface on average. We know that pH varies in different parts of
                      the ocean, but let’s hold this fact in abeyance until the end. And let’s ignore
                      the non-standard conditions generally in the oceans. Each square mile of CO2 entering the ocean then
                      is going to dilute the 2-2/3 cubic mile of ocean below it. The .1165 ton of carbonic acid per square mile
                      if mixed with 12.5B tons of sea-water beneath it results in 1 part per 12.5B/.1165,
                      or 1 part per 107 billion carbonic acid annually from AGW sourced CO2 into the
                      oceans. Adding 1 part of even a strong
                      acid to 107B parts pure sea water results in….no measurable increase in ocean
                      acidity, even if you do this annually for the 5-10 decades or so of heavy AGW.

                      Now maybe the oceans ARE getting more acidic. Maybe it’s from something other than human
                      CO2 emissions. Still,…

                      IF the oceans are acidifying, it can’t be the
                      result of added carbonic acid from AGW. Q.E.D.

                      Postscript;

                      The above analysis needs refining to account for the
                      facts that: a) the actual distribution of pH in the real world oceans is not
                      even; and b) the real world oceans of course are not ‘standard conditions’ for
                      the hydration equilibrium. But even if
                      in some places the analysis is off by a factor of 1,000 it still leaves an
                      annual dilution factor of 1 to 107,000,000.

                      Maybe the issue is confined to the top 200 meters of the
                      ocean (the mixing layer). Since the oceans average 4000 meters, one should
                      reduce the results to 200/4000ths or 1 part carbonic acid per 5 billion parts
                      sea-water. Still …BFD.

                    61. Well I learn something new every day. I majored in philosophy. So congratulations for taking on something really hard. I learned most of the chemistry I know by home-schooling my son. I was amazed by the logic of the periodic table.
                      Anyway, that’s for this nugget of information. It doesn’t have any bearing on my case though, does it?

                    62. Someone once said that “Liars figure and figures lie.” This chart is pretty useless. I never said the oceans were not acidifying. Indeed my paper starts out saying exactly that. My point is that human CO2 emissions can’t be responsible as the annual carbonic acid formed in the oceans only amounts to 1 part carbonic acid to 107 billion parts sea-water. You did read my paper, no?
                      Regarding my quote…. where’s the missing blue and turquoise data from 1960 to 1900? Worse, the guidelines are deceptive. Note how the atmospheric CO2 goes up linearly while the sea-water pCO2 levels out in the mid-1990’s but the acidity keeps going up almost linearly. The chart without the guidelines would show that clearly. Don’t trust NOAA.

                    63. “1 part carbonic acid to 107 billion parts sea-water.”
                      That is not what determines pH.

                      “Don’t trust NOAA.”
                      Whom should I trust about CO2 in the oceans if I can’t trust NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s Carbon Program? These are the folks who do the research. The only reason for not trusting them is that the science is not what one wants.

                    64. You might want to try trusting your own eyes and your own expertise as a chemist and your own experience in life to be skeptical. I pointed out the deceptiveness of the chart and you let that go right past you. Why?
                      And if the carbonic acid doesn’t determine pH then we have no increase acidity due to CO2. I have a feeling you don’t really mean this and are being cute. Why don’t you spell out what you mean rather than being cryptic?

                    65. It is not carbonic acid, it is the increase in hydrogen ion concentration? That calculation you gave was for the amount of H2CO3. Very little of that is formed, but CO2 does produce hydrogen carbonate ion and hydrogen ion.

                    66. CO2 (aq) + H2O H2CO3 HCO3− + H+ CO32− + 2 H+.
                      The way I read this is that CO2 and water become carbonic acid which in turn produces everything else. It sounds to me like you need to review your chemistry. Your cuteness here in no way impacts the logic or force of my paper, to wit 1 part in 107 billion.

                    67. [more on my comment below to your above].
                      So you included a link explaining the carbon chemistry in the oceans. Was that to suggest that something erroneous in my “AGW can’t meaningfully add to ocean acidification” paper?

                    68. It is to show the real and present harm being done to marine life by CO2 rise in the oceans.

                    69. It shows no such thing. It’s a propaganda piece. If you want to know what real experts say in coral scientists have to say, I recommend Craig Idso’s “Global Warming, CO2 and Coral Reefs.” The story is much more complicated than presented in your link. Corals have been around for 100’s of millions of years in up to 7X levels of Co2 and much warmer seas.

                    70. I am going to believe Craig Idso ,who is the founder of the global-denying, family business, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, over professionals? He is a geographer, not a marine biologist.

                    71. I see. I you merely going to believe what you want to. Some scientist.
                      Craig Idso’s book is a survey of the scientific literature, not his pontifications. You might at least read a review or summary of it.
                      So you’ll believe NOAA on faith in their authority (argumentum ad authorititem) and reject Idso knowing nothing of what he said based on ad hominem considerations. Pretty shabby.
                      I see you continue not to engage with the deceptiveness in the NOAA chart you posted. Why is that?

                    72. A question for you. In one statement you say pure CO2 is not acidic then in another you indicate the oceans are becoming more acidic due to additional CO2. What would be the chemical reaction between CO2 and salt water that would create that condition? Thanks.

                    73. You didn’t respond to the link to Geophysical Research Letters about an article on radiative sensitivity. The authors speculate that current models assume too high a sensitivity for CO2 causing them to run too hot. THAT shows the science as NOT settled

      1. “Carbon Dioxide Trapping Heat in Air”

        Near the surface, some surface emitted photons interact with CO2 and other gases. Most of the absorbed, thermalized, energy is radiated back down. Some is conducted back down ( perpetual conduction )

        However, high above, extra greenhouse gas radiation to space, cools the air and lowers clouds, which results in lower surface temperature .Is the IPCC is willfully wrong, about extra greenhouse gas warming?

        1. As water vapor increases, as a feedback to heating from increased CO2, cloud cover may increase. This cloud cover may provide a small negative feedback. High clouds tend to warm, lower clouds tend to cool. However, the increase in water vapor causes a much larger increase in temperature that any possible negative feedback from clouds.

          1. “This cloud cover may provide a small negative feedback.
            High clouds tend to warm, lower clouds tend to cool.”

            Higher clouds are an indicator of higher temperature.
            drive by a swamp — there is a definitive haze layer.

            The warming cloud forcing as from global chem-trail dimming?

            Ferenc Miskolczi Greenhouse Factor=1/3 is in agreement with Kieh and Ramanathan 0.33

  6. Outstanding summary of the Antarctic science. Every person who wants to debate Warmists should study this post and commit it to memory. Thank you for a terrific source of information.

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