Poll: global warming

[SaigonSaddler]

3 - there is a much closer correlation to climate from both solar and cosmic ray activity

This is very controversial. Again why leap to this as a valid explanation so readily but reject other information?

Giles Harrison, a cloud specialist at Reading University said that he had carried out research on cosmic rays and their effect on clouds, but believed the impact on climate is much smaller than Mr Svensmark claims.

Mr Harrison said: "I have been looking at cloud data going back 50 years over the UK and found there was a small relationship with cosmic rays. It looks like it creates some additional variability in a natural climate system but this is small."

The impetus comes primarily from a book by Henrik Svensmark but there is plenty of more recent primary evidence that refutes it.

“According to our research, it does not look like reduced cosmic rays leads to reduced cloud formation”, says Jon Egill Kristjansson, a professor at the University of Oslo.

Conclusion - dodgy at best, with no real remit for a effective theory at present. Obviously requires more research and can have a small effect on cloud formation, but a substantial part of global warming it appears not.

[SaigonSaddler]

Saigon - it's not careless abandon, it's analysis that leads me to my conclusions. What's new facts to you I've known for some time, so I appreciate it'll take time for you to digest.

Keep taking the tablets

No need for that - why the cheap jibes all the time? Do they support your position or demean you?

Here's the crux of the matter for me...

1 - The AGW model favoured by the UNIPCC says that carbon dioxide contributes hugely to global warming and that man made emissions are "highly likely" to be the cause. If this is the cse, then how could it be that the planet has been warmer in humankind's past, such as Minoan optimum (2000BC ish without checking), Roman optimum (BC-AD turn without checking), Medieval optimum (800-1100AD) without CO2 levels as present?

2 - If CO2 has been rising since the industrial revolution and has such an effect on climate, why would it be that the temperature record for this period shows no direct correlation with CO2 emissions?

3 - All IPCC climate change models predicted a temperature hotspot in the upper atmosphere. Measurements have shown that this does not exist.

On each one of those three counts the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis fails. It has failed on all three.

I think that the more people that look into climate change the better, as they'll eventually see the truth as I do - mankind isn't responsible. Unfortunately for most, their sources of information are the broadsheets, the BBC and their friends. That's a problem. Already the BBC has said 'the consensus says it's man made so we don't need to report the other side of the argument any more'. That's not journalism, that's publishing press releases! If the IPCC model is wrong, do you think you'll hear about it from the BBC? I don't. Same goes for most newspapers, although I do sense a small change in the tide there. When that's the level of investigative journalism and reporting I find it a relief that the internet includes science bloggers and websites to provide information that counters the status quo in journalism.

1 CO2 isn't the only cause of climate change. It accounts for an estimated 9-26% of warming. There are a whole host of other reasons for climate change, including vulcanism, el nino, earth tilt and distance from sun and many more.

2 But CO2 has been increasing - agreed? The MET office, the neutral collector of such info, uses the average temp from 1961-1990 and then charts anomalies to it. There is an increasing warming over this time, the trend is ever upwards. You spontaneously reject this data though because of perceived government interference. Is everyone involved in this arena completely under the spell of government dictat? And not just here, but across the rest of the world.

3 Does this really matter? So far the models predict warming and they've got it pretty much right, we're warming. You may be blowing this way out of proportion, having read it on a website dedicated to finding all sorts of info that doesn't quite add up. Does this mean the general conclusion is automatically wrong? I think not, most others agree.

The evidence is there, and it has been building up from decades of meticulous research by 1000s of scientists all the over the world. If you choose to reject this in favour of some other, far less reliable information, then that's up to you. But I do have to question your ratonality in doing so. You dismiss one set and accept another.

[sj]

This is UTS at its best. Simple people from Walsall :D :mrgreen: :oops: :?: :?: :?:

[SaigonSaddler]

1 - there is no correlation between CO2 and global warming (which, for the umpteenth time, I belive has occurred, quite naturally over the last 100-150 years.). CO2 tends to lag warming by up to 800 years.

The MET office supplies data which shows a clear link. At worst, it's a massive coincidence which has lead to statistical significance by accident. When the law of probability moves away from this, which it must if you are right, then I'll rethink my conclusion. Expect cooling soon then?

But you won't believe anything they say though, because despite being in agreement with the interested parties in all the unis up and down the land, they are (in your view) making up data, cooking data and dismissing out of hand stuff that doesn't support the current view.

Yes, I did post a list of men and women at the peak of intellectual curosity in this field that fully support the MET offices' findings. This was scoffed at, as expected, by some on here. Where are the people of equal position in Britain that support your view and the other deniers out there? There doesn't appear to be many due to the fact that the main adherents are people with limited information surfing the internet looking for alternatives, or individuals with a vested interest in denial, either for financial/professional gain or to play devils' advocate.

[aaaae]

Crikey I only stepped out for five minutes and the place went mad.

Found this an interesting read.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/monckton_what_hockey_stick.pdf

The first half is a very interesting description of the shenanigans of the IPCC and their modus operandi.

Pages 17 - 30 show numerous studies (16 I think) showing that temperatures were higher during the Medieval warm period than today, in the absence of man made CO2 of course.

[canadiansaddler]

A few points missed amongst the arguments of CO2 levels, ice shelf's and the like

Until 5-7 years ago climate change was not even seen as being a mainstream political issue. it is only since an "inconvenient truth" was released that climate change has become a central platform for politic parties, so why is the argument that the data is government based and funded by special interests, the data put forward was collected at a time when there was no government interest and throughout much of the 90's it was not funded. Why was the Kyoto agreement one of the most ignored treaties in the world.

If governments are trying to control us through climate change arguments then why wasn't there a meaningful agreement at Copenhagen , if anything we had two weeks of deliberate stonewalling by the major parties and then an accord which is effectively meaningless, this does not strike me as leading us down the an unproven path and forcing unproven science on us, if anything it is the opposite. Major parties and SJ's bankers and oil money do not want a change in the status quo. If there is all the concern about the funding for climate change , who is questioning the funding of the skeptics.

I no longer sit in either camp as the arguments on both sides are to polarized and we are simply in the midst of a public popularity poll, I do like the concept however of some of the ideas on taxation for tackling climate change which if people stop thinking its a tax grabbed make sense. If only the politicians had addressed it in a different manner it would probably be more acceptable to all.

What is the most highly subsidized mode of transport in the world - not rail, not shipping but yep youve got it road. Think logically who actually pays for all the thousands of KM of tarmac laid down each year and yet who fails to fund major rail projects (which can move freight and people more effectively and efficiently than road).

The argument was put forward about changing tax bases would lead to only the rich driving and the rich flying.

On the driving front so what, if I had a reliable modern efficient public transit system to use and you choose to drive on a road network which was no longer funded by my taxes then great go ahead, I have spent too much of my life sat on the M5, M6, M3, M25, Highway 401, 404 and 400 and nowadays the Northern motorway to worry. Why is it that an inter coastal freight is not funded anywhere in the world. Moving freight up and down the coast could be as efficient as rail and is already far more efficient than road, so why isn't it encouraged.

As for flying, there would be very few airlines left if only the rich were flying, the economic model of Easyjet and Ryan air is over time fundamentally flawed, it may take 20 years but it is simply not sustainable (economically speaking), the old / cheap jets used by the discount airlines have to eventually be replaced, due to there activities and other factors, the traditional airlines have been buying new jets in lower numbers so the "second hand" jet market supply is becoming more limited couple with an increasing demand, this can only lead to significant capital costs for the budget airlines. The air travel cycle will over time go full circle.

A tax on carbon - please go ahead, it may re leave some congestion around the worlds cities , direct funds more productively. If you pay a tax on gas and dont sit in traffic for an hr or two a day you may actually save money in the long run. If as a result of the tax on gas I get a better public transit system I am more than happy, if as a result i get a better inter modal transport system allowing me to move goods quickly and efficiently by rail / ship making the cost of goods cheaper I am well chuffed. If as a result of tax changes I encourage production of power by sustainable means (wind, tidal etc) and replace old gas and coal powered power stations which pollute the local environment, then great. If in addition I now make industry more efficient in power usage and encourage new technology then bonus. If as a result of the excuse of climate change I actually see meaningful aid being given to developing countries then big plus. Whether I believe in climate change or not I naively believe some of the changes it may bring about are beneficial to us all.

I say naively as I know there are those out there who would take advantage of the tax base change, the aid budgets but if what we have now as a tax system is broken, why not change our taxation model to make it fairer and more productive.

To please the wife and keep her in the lifestyle she is not accustomed to I also want to make a mint on the Global Carbon market, which sadly is not currently possible because of these damn skeptics.

[Exile]

Aplogies, canadian, your post will be left in the aether due to incorrect facts stated - the IPCC kicked in over 20 years ago, most scientists get their funding (and by default salary, honours, kudos and future funding) from proving the status quo, the governments are rightly suspicious of the UN which drives this, and bankers stand to make the most money on the back of trading percentages on the carbon trade scheme. I'll add that if you have concerns about the funding of climate change research here's a very inconvenient fact: Money provded by US government for climate change research in last ten years: USD30bn. Money provided by oil companies: less than USD100mm. The vast majority of current [government] research money is given to scientists whose research goes toward the effects of climate change, not the cause of climate change, and nobody whose research tries to disprove AGW gets much at all! Go figure!

1 - there is no correlation between CO2 and global warming (which, for the umpteenth time, I belive has occurred, quite naturally over the last 100-150 years.). CO2 tends to lag warming by up to 800 years.

The MET office supplies data which shows a clear link(1). At worst, it's a massive coincidence which has lead to statistical significance by accident (2). When the law of probability moves away from this, which it must if you are right, then I'll rethink my conclusion. Expect cooling soon then? (3)

But you won't believe anything they say though, because despite being in agreement with the interested parties in all the unis up and down the land, they are (in your view) making up data, cooking data and dismissing out of hand stuff that doesn't support the current view.

Yes, I did post a list of men and women at the peak of intellectual curosity in this field that fully support the MET offices' findings (4). This was scoffed at, as expected, by some on here (5). Where are the people of equal position in Britain that support your view and the other deniers out there(6)? There doesn't appear to be many due to the fact that the main adherents are people with limited information surfing the internet looking for alternatives, or individuals with a vested interest in denial, either for financial/professional gain or to play devils' advocate.(7)

[refer enumerated points above]

1 - No it doesn't - please provide evidence.
2 - No it isn't - it's scientific fraud.
3 - yes. refer my bet.
4 - you posted a list of a minority of students, phds, doctors and professors in the UK. There are far more scientists, either students or employees of their respected universities, who did not sign their names to the Met Office petition. I will not go into the background of some of the signatories to that petition.
5 - for good reason -see (4) above
6 - twofold response - (i) why are people in Britain automatically better than anyone overseas, and (ii) 'Deniers' is an ugly word. Really judgemental.
7 - those who propone the AGW hypothesis have most to gain - in the media it is Al Gore, carbon trader extraordinaire, and in charge of the UNIPCC it's their chariman, also a carbon trader, and the man who stole thousands of British jobs to set up the exact same steel mill, emitting more carbon and pollutants, in India. Go figure.

Your viewpoint is the one the mass media have told you to believe. You've not looked behind the headlines and you're sold on what you've been told. Please, take a look at the links I've sent you, and I hope you embrace them with an open mind, although I admit that I sent them with trepidation, expecting you to sneer and denigrate without reading too far. No matter - I know what I'm talking about and I'm certain I'm right in my opinion.

[canadiansaddler]

Aplogies, canadian, your post will be left in the aether due to incorrect facts stated - the IPCC kicked in over 20 years ago, most scientists get their funding (and by default salary, honours, kudos and future funding) from proving the status quo, the governments are rightly suspicious of the UN which drives this, and bankers stand to make the most money on the back of trading percentages on the carbon trade scheme. I'll add that if you have concerns about the funding of climate change research here's a very inconvenient fact: Money provded by US government for climate change research in last ten years: USD30bn. Money provided by oil companies: less than USD100mm. The vast majority of current [government] research money is given to scientists whose research goes toward the effects of climate change, not the cause of climate change, and nobody whose research tries to disprove AGW gets much at all! Go figure!

1 - there is no correlation between CO2 and global warming (which, for the umpteenth time, I belive has occurred, quite naturally over the last 100-150 years.). CO2 tends to lag warming by up to 800 years.

Not sure which facts are incorrect - during the 90's climate change was not accepted by many mainstream politic parties and from recollection government funding of Climate change did not start (at least in the US in a big way) until 2001 and then it direction was set by a skeptical Bush administration and republican congress. If $30BN has been spent in the last ten years - at least 6b of those 10 would have been controlled by the Republicans.

As for the taxation arguments, I recognize I talk crap sometimes (its way boring in the office) but I stand by a simple belief that our transport systems support the automobile above all else which is not the most efficient means of moving goods or people, car / truck transport is the most publicly funded transport mechanism in the world and the most costly to operate yet it is still the choice of the vast majority who have no alternative.

Any way - time for a curry soon isnt it.

[canadiansaddler]

Aplogies, canadian, your post will be left in the aether due to incorrect facts stated - the IPCC kicked in over 20 years ago, most scientists get their funding (and by default salary, honours, kudos and future funding) from proving the status quo, the governments are rightly suspicious of the UN which drives this, and bankers stand to make the most money on the back of trading percentages on the carbon trade scheme. I'll add that if you have concerns about the funding of climate change research here's a very inconvenient fact: Money provded by US government for climate change research in last ten years: USD30bn. Money provided by oil companies: less than USD100mm. The vast majority of current [government] research money is given to scientists whose research goes toward the effects of climate change, not the cause of climate change, and nobody whose research tries to disprove AGW gets much at all! Go figure!

1 - there is no correlation between CO2 and global warming (which, for the umpteenth time, I belive has occurred, quite naturally over the last 100-150 years.). CO2 tends to lag warming by up to 800 years.

Not sure which facts are incorrect - during the 90's climate change was not accepted by many mainstream politic parties and from recollection government funding of Climate change did not start (at least in the US in a big way) until 2001 and then it direction was set by a skeptical Bush administration and republican congress. If $30BN has been spent in the last ten years - at least 6 of those 10 would have been controlled by the Republicans.

As for the taxation arguments, I recognize I talk crap sometimes (its way boring in the office) but I stand by a simple belief that our transport systems support the automobile above all else which is not the most efficient means of moving goods or people, car / truck transport is the most publicly funded transport mechanism in the world and the most costly to operate yet it is still the choice of the vast majority who have no alternative.

Any way - time for a curry soon isn't it.

[SaigonSaddler]

Aplogies, canadian, your post will be left in the aether due to incorrect facts stated - the IPCC kicked in over 20 years ago, most scientists get their funding (and by default salary, honours, kudos and future funding) from proving the status quo, the governments are rightly suspicious of the UN which drives this, and bankers stand to make the most money on the back of trading percentages on the carbon trade scheme. I'll add that if you have concerns about the funding of climate change research here's a very inconvenient fact: Money provded by US government for climate change research in last ten years: USD30bn. Money provided by oil companies: less than USD100mm. The vast majority of current [government] research money is given to scientists whose research goes toward the effects of climate change, not the cause of climate change, and nobody whose research tries to disprove AGW gets much at all! Go figure!

1 - there is no correlation between CO2 and global warming (which, for the umpteenth time, I belive has occurred, quite naturally over the last 100-150 years.). CO2 tends to lag warming by up to 800 years.

The MET office supplies data which shows a clear link(1). At worst, it's a massive coincidence which has lead to statistical significance by accident (2). When the law of probability moves away from this, which it must if you are right, then I'll rethink my conclusion. Expect cooling soon then? (3)

But you won't believe anything they say though, because despite being in agreement with the interested parties in all the unis up and down the land, they are (in your view) making up data, cooking data and dismissing out of hand stuff that doesn't support the current view.

Yes, I did post a list of men and women at the peak of intellectual curosity in this field that fully support the MET offices' findings (4). This was scoffed at, as expected, by some on here (5). Where are the people of equal position in Britain that support your view and the other deniers out there(6)? There doesn't appear to be many due to the fact that the main adherents are people with limited information surfing the internet looking for alternatives, or individuals with a vested interest in denial, either for financial/professional gain or to play devils' advocate.(7)

[refer enumerated points above]

1 - No it doesn't - please provide evidence.
2 - No it isn't - it's scientific fraud.
3 - yes. refer my bet.
4 - you posted a list of a minority of students, phds, doctors and professors in the UK. There are far more scientists, either students or employees of their respected universities, who did not sign their names to the Met Office petition. I will not go into the background of some of the signatories to that petition.
5 - for good reason -see (4) above
6 - twofold response - (i) why are people in Britain automatically better than anyone overseas, and (ii) 'Deniers' is an ugly word. Really judgemental.
7 - those who propone the AGW hypothesis have most to gain - in the media it is Al Gore, carbon trader extraordinaire, and in charge of the UNIPCC it's their chariman, also a carbon trader, and the man who stole thousands of British jobs to set up the exact same steel mill, emitting more carbon and pollutants, in India. Go figure.

Your viewpoint is the one the mass media have told you to believe. You've not looked behind the headlines and you're sold on what you've been told. Please, take a look at the links I've sent you, and I hope you embrace them with an open mind, although I admit that I sent them with trepidation, expecting you to sneer and denigrate without reading too far. No matter - I know what I'm talking about and I'm certain I'm right in my opinion.

1992.

That's when I began my undergrad studies at Liverpool and first studied global warming in a scientific context, with data and info that could be evaluated. You speak with great authority about items gleaned from a variety of internet sites, any of which you have yet to link to. I speak with knowledge of what I've learned in academic institutions.

1996. That's when I started a Masters in Environmental resource assessment, completed in 1997. So please don't cast aspertions on my intellectual qualifications in this area as it is both erronous and dismissive and I came to my own conclusions well before the media began demonstrating the effects.

The entire crux of your argument appears to be and I quote 'massive fraud'. Assuming you haven't gained access to the raw data itself, your foundation for this is a film and the role of the media in connecting seamlessly with the ideology of politicians. Flimsy at best, if you don't mind me saying so - and I'm no stranger to viewing governments with scepticism.

By doing this you are not only denegrating the independance of the world's scientific community but propelling some supposition (again generated by internet floss) and excusing it as fact. That list dated 9th December 2009, may or may not include the most important climate change experts in the land, but you dismiss them all as lapping up the funding as if that is the sole motive for scientific research. Again you adhere stubbornly to conjecture and pith, while erasing information gathered over decades at a sweep, because of minor issues. No discernable alternative is provided - other than the discredited solar impact hypothesis.

:?

[SaigonSaddler]

Anyway Exile, let me try and get some sense of how you view evidence.

A simple question, nothing to do with 'massive fraud' or media hysteria about man's influences.

Ice caps and sheets. Please briefly go through again on what your position is, as these are something that can be measured and quantified reasonably confidently. I really want to know, because despite evidence to the contrary, you believe that these are stable or growing. Is this correct?

[SaigonSaddler]

Cheers for that Exile, I shall take a look at these links you've supplied.

http://www.wattsupwiththat.com
http://www.co2science.org
http://www.friendsofscience.org
http://www.climateaudit.org
http://www.omniclimate.wordpress.com

[Exile]

Saigon - it's not careless abandon, it's analysis that leads me to my conclusions. What's new facts to you I've known for some time, so I appreciate it'll take time for you to digest.

Keep taking the tablets

No need for that - why the cheap jibes all the time? Do they support your position or demean you?

Here's the crux of the matter for me...

1 - The AGW model favoured by the UNIPCC says that carbon dioxide contributes hugely to global warming and that man made emissions are "highly likely" to be the cause. If this is the cse, then how could it be that the planet has been warmer in humankind's past, such as Minoan optimum (2000BC ish without checking), Roman optimum (BC-AD turn without checking), Medieval optimum (800-1100AD) without CO2 levels as present?

2 - If CO2 has been rising since the industrial revolution and has such an effect on climate, why would it be that the temperature record for this period shows no direct correlation with CO2 emissions?

3 - All IPCC climate change models predicted a temperature hotspot in the upper atmosphere. Measurements have shown that this does not exist.

On each one of those three counts the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis fails. It has failed on all three.

I think that the more people that look into climate change the better, as they'll eventually see the truth as I do - mankind isn't responsible. Unfortunately for most, their sources of information are the broadsheets, the BBC and their friends. That's a problem. Already the BBC has said 'the consensus says it's man made so we don't need to report the other side of the argument any more'. That's not journalism, that's publishing press releases! If the IPCC model is wrong, do you think you'll hear about it from the BBC? I don't. Same goes for most newspapers, although I do sense a small change in the tide there. When that's the level of investigative journalism and reporting I find it a relief that the internet includes science bloggers and websites to provide information that counters the status quo in journalism.

1 CO2 isn't the only cause of climate change. It accounts for an estimated 9-26% of warming. There are a whole host of other reasons for climate change, including vulcanism, el nino, earth tilt and distance from sun and many more.

2 But CO2 has been increasing - agreed? The MET office, the neutral collector of such info, uses the average temp from 1961-1990 and then charts anomalies to it. There is an increasing warming over this time, the trend is ever upwards. You spontaneously reject this data though because of perceived government interference. Is everyone involved in this arena completely under the spell of government dictat? And not just here, but across the rest of the world.

3 Does this really matter? So far the models predict warming and they've got it pretty much right, we're warming. You may be blowing this way out of proportion, having read it on a website dedicated to finding all sorts of info that doesn't quite add up. Does this mean the general conclusion is automatically wrong? I think not, most others agree.

The evidence is there, and it has been building up from decades of meticulous research by 1000s of scientists all the over the world. If you choose to reject this in favour of some other, far less reliable information, then that's up to you. But I do have to question your ratonality in doing so. You dismiss one set and accept another.

1 - agreed (but man made CO2 I think is near to irrelevant)
2 - Yes it's been increasing but so what? There is no increasing warming to correlate from 1998 to now, so again the Hadley mob hypothesis fails. I've not mentioned government or conspiracy so I fail to see why you try to cast aspersions on my viewpoint by bringing it up (unless of course you're part of it :wink: )
3 - YES OF COURSE IT FREAKING MATTERS! This whole thing led to Copenhagen, which was trying to allot a carbon tax on each and every one of us for no apparent reason. If the earth warms for any reason other than CO2 what right has anyone to tax it? If there's another reason for warming that is not man made why the heck are we taxing CO2 instead of concentrating resources on mitigation instead of a lame 'cap and trade' scheme that will beggar consumers in the developed world (that's me and you) whilst enriching bankers (on the trade floor) and tinpot third world dictators? Robert Mugabe got a standing ovation at Copenhagen - how f*****d up is that?

The evidence is not there - god knows you've never linked to it despite denigrating my salient points, and many dedicated scientists have had their papers ignored, squashed and otherwise obfuscated by the baying mob. If you choose to believe the throughly disreputed and tattered hypothesis of mann made warming thorugh CO2 then I have to respect your stubborn loyalty to a discredited idea. You accept one set yet fail to even consider another.

I look forward to your evidence.

please don't cast aspertions on my intellectual qualifications in this area as it is both erronous and dismissive

I believe you are the one making regular attacks on character, not me....

The entire crux of your argument appears to be and I quote 'massive fraud'

A bit like that. One comment in a ten page thread yet you fixate on it ignoring all else. Is that called distraction?

Read the thread again then perhaps you'll see the varied and colourful thinking, argument and persuasion I've put in this thread. If my argument has become more slanted over time it can only be in the face of your repeated obstinance in failing to read anything I write yet still responding with dismissive petulance.

You've read my position on ice caps/sheets. I don't need to repeat myself, you need to respond to my requests for evidence. Distraction again?

[Exile]

PS - congrats on your ERA masters. My miserly degree in geology means I only know the basics of palaeoclimate and how the earth's evolved over the last 4.5bn years so sadly I've had to do some research over the last decade instead of accept what I was told in the classroom. :wink:

[Exile]

I stand by a simple belief that our transport systems support the automobile above all else which is not the most efficient means of moving goods or people, car / truck transport is the most publicly funded transport mechanism in the world and the most costly to operate yet it is still the choice of the vast majority who have no alternative.

Any way - time for a curry soon isn't it.

I agree, on both counts!

[SaigonSaddler]

Saigon - it's not careless abandon, it's analysis that leads me to my conclusions. What's new facts to you I've known for some time, so I appreciate it'll take time for you to digest.

Keep taking the tablets

No need for that - why the cheap jibes all the time? Do they support your position or demean you?

Here's the crux of the matter for me...

1 - The AGW model favoured by the UNIPCC says that carbon dioxide contributes hugely to global warming and that man made emissions are "highly likely" to be the cause. If this is the cse, then how could it be that the planet has been warmer in humankind's past, such as Minoan optimum (2000BC ish without checking), Roman optimum (BC-AD turn without checking), Medieval optimum (800-1100AD) without CO2 levels as present?

2 - If CO2 has been rising since the industrial revolution and has such an effect on climate, why would it be that the temperature record for this period shows no direct correlation with CO2 emissions?

3 - All IPCC climate change models predicted a temperature hotspot in the upper atmosphere. Measurements have shown that this does not exist.

On each one of those three counts the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis fails. It has failed on all three.

I think that the more people that look into climate change the better, as they'll eventually see the truth as I do - mankind isn't responsible. Unfortunately for most, their sources of information are the broadsheets, the BBC and their friends. That's a problem. Already the BBC has said 'the consensus says it's man made so we don't need to report the other side of the argument any more'. That's not journalism, that's publishing press releases! If the IPCC model is wrong, do you think you'll hear about it from the BBC? I don't. Same goes for most newspapers, although I do sense a small change in the tide there. When that's the level of investigative journalism and reporting I find it a relief that the internet includes science bloggers and websites to provide information that counters the status quo in journalism.

1 CO2 isn't the only cause of climate change. It accounts for an estimated 9-26% of warming. There are a whole host of other reasons for climate change, including vulcanism, el nino, earth tilt and distance from sun and many more.

2 But CO2 has been increasing - agreed? The MET office, the neutral collector of such info, uses the average temp from 1961-1990 and then charts anomalies to it. There is an increasing warming over this time, the trend is ever upwards. You spontaneously reject this data though because of perceived government interference. Is everyone involved in this arena completely under the spell of government dictat? And not just here, but across the rest of the world.

3 Does this really matter? So far the models predict warming and they've got it pretty much right, we're warming. You may be blowing this way out of proportion, having read it on a website dedicated to finding all sorts of info that doesn't quite add up. Does this mean the general conclusion is automatically wrong? I think not, most others agree.

The evidence is there, and it has been building up from decades of meticulous research by 1000s of scientists all the over the world. If you choose to reject this in favour of some other, far less reliable information, then that's up to you. But I do have to question your ratonality in doing so. You dismiss one set and accept another.

1 - agreed (but man made CO2 I think is near to irrelevant)
2 - Yes it's been increasing but so what? There is no increasing warming to correlate from 1998 to now, so again the Hadley mob hypothesis fails. I've not mentioned government or conspiracy so I fail to see why you try to cast aspersions on my viewpoint by bringing it up (unless of course you're part of it :wink: )
3 - YES OF COURSE IT FREAKING MATTERS! This whole thing led to Copenhagen, which was trying to allot a carbon tax on each and every one of us for no apparent reason. If the earth warms for any reason other than CO2 what right has anyone to tax it? If there's another reason for warming that is not man made why the heck are we taxing CO2 instead of concentrating resources on mitigation instead of a lame 'cap and trade' scheme that will beggar consumers in the developed world (that's me and you) whilst enriching bankers (on the trade floor) and tinpot third world dictators? Robert Mugabe got a standing ovation at Copenhagen - how f*****d up is that?

The evidence is not there - god knows you've never linked to it despite denigrating my salient points, and many dedicated scientists have had their papers ignored, squashed and otherwise obfuscated by the baying mob. If you choose to believe the throughly disreputed and tattered hypothesis of mann made warming thorugh CO2 then I have to respect your stubborn loyalty to a discredited idea. You accept one set yet fail to even consider another.

I look forward to your evidence.

please don't cast aspertions on my intellectual qualifications in this area as it is both erronous and dismissive

I believe you are the one making regular attacks on character, not me....

The entire crux of your argument appears to be and I quote 'massive fraud'

A bit like that. One comment in a ten page thread yet you fixate on it ignoring all else. Is that called distraction?

Read the thread again then perhaps you'll see the varied and colourful thinking, argument and persuasion I've put in this thread. If my argument has become more slanted over time it can only be in the face of your repeated obstinance in failing to read anything I write yet still responding with dismissive petulance.

You've read my position on ice caps/sheets. I don't need to repeat myself, you need to respond to my requests for evidence. Distraction again?

You talk a good game I'll give you that, and the casual observer may well be impressed with your seemingly confident manner when describing what's wrong with the currently accepted thinking. There is a consensus, like it or not and this is not due to the perverse backwards thinking of media bias, but through the mainstay of the scientific community validating, independently, the evidence. While the media reports, independently, what's going on. I've been looking at the area in concern too, since 1992, well before any of those blogs came online which aroused your interest.

You have avoided the question of ice sheets. The reason for this is because you think they are growing, or adhereing to the norm. Your primary piece of evidence here seems to be that vaunted sea ice area graph. All the information on ice density, speed of progression to the sea, ice thickness, reduction of glaciers worldwide and observations of ice reduction are conveniently disguarded in favour of this one flawed assumption that consistent area = consistent ice. How can I or anyone else take what you say seriously after this? The media has reported opening sea lanes, untrammelled access to the north pole and huge parts of the Ross Ice Shelf and others breaking into the sea. Yet you persist in this fantasy arena, fuelled by internet websites and blogs. I have observed 2 major ice sheets in retreat - the ice field parkway in Banff, Canada and the glaciers in the Alps. Both exhibit long term and ongoing retreat from the snout back - nothing to do with precipitation.

The evidence of linked is to the MET office, the body with responsibility to measure and predict climate change, a body with support from most of the scientific community. There you will find all the information that perhaps you have been seeking. You may find it too rational and ordered though, as you possibly prefer the screaming hyperbole of the latest blog entry of the latest energetic individual.
You say all the evidence is completely biased, and dismiss everything collated over the last 50 years. Everything that doesn't support your fringe view. And then you have the audacity to label me as closed minded. Absolutely fascinating insight into your psychology there. Why should I link to evidence when you will reject even the most persuasive items as being biased and negligable?

192 countries' representatives didn't meet in Copenhagen to discuss the latest blog entry that you seem to enjoy, they met because they accepted the overwhelming evidence gathered by multiple agencies across the globe. You are a loud voice, but one that must feel increasingly isolated and alone in the electronic stratosphere as you rale against the injustices of science and the media.

I don't know what you're going to say when global warming continues, probably keep tacking the same line - rubbish data, media bias. I'll look at the positive evidence you have though, the stuff that gives an alternative to the present idea. I'll post some of my own for you to peruse too, the stuff that most involved people (not subscribed to bizarre websites loaded with handy soundbites) agree with.

[SaigonSaddler]

Here is a link to over 1700 land surface climate station records, and a whole list of helpful questions that you can ask.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html

These are just part of what helped the MET office achieve it's results. That is before the men in yellow uniforms got hold of them and spirited in some 'helpful' data that altered the information in favour of global warming.

Here Reuters comments on arctic ice melting, rising sea levels and the like. That was after the men in yellow uniforms stormed the editors desk, demanding that it was published.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN17442487

Here's New Scientist feature of some scientist refusing to divulge his analysis software. Yet more evidence on a warming cover up! Hang on.....he's one of yours!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html

Nature: An article summing up this year's climate change news. Look here for confusion over the cooling that you may be referring to.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1001/full/climate.2010.134.html

And I've looked at those links you posted for me via PM. You were a bit defensive about them. Without being rude, there isn't much there, but then again you did ask me to look more deeply at them. Most of them are blogs, written by one man. The interesting stuff are items that again challenge specific conclusions, but many of the attacks are a little over-wrought and the science ranges from adequate through to paper thin. Many of them are attacks on specific individuals, which is a bit meaningless. I was hoping for some real data.

[Bernie]

Here's New Scientist feature of some scientist refusing to divulge his analysis software. Yet more evidence on a warming cover up! Hang on.....he's one of yours!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html

Do you really not see the irony of the New Scientist running an article condemning a sceptic for not revealing his methods, when it has NEVER made an issue of those behind the AGW alarm doing the same?

Nicola Scafetta has been condemned on sceptical sites for his refusal to release his software, and it is very unusual for a sceptic to do this.

On the other hand the whole basis for the alarm over global warming is the product of secret data and software, but NS thinks that is just fine.

[SaigonSaddler]

Here's New Scientist feature of some scientist refusing to divulge his analysis software. Yet more evidence on a warming cover up! Hang on.....he's one of yours!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html

Do you really not see the irony of the New Scientist running an article condemning a sceptic for not revealing his methods, when it has NEVER made an issue of those behind the AGW alarm doing the same?

Nicola Scafetta has been condemned on sceptical sites for his refusal to release his software, and it is very unusual for a sceptic to do this.

On the other hand the whole basis for the alarm over global warming is the product of secret data and software, but NS thinks that is just fine.

Mann's software (hockey stick) has been released, and the UK is moving for the MET offices raw data to be freed too, 1700 monitoring stations already released (see link above).

I presume you conclude that New Scientist is biased in what it reports, favouring the climate change remit too?

[Exile]

Saigon - here's another graph (of the sort you love so much, from the internet) which you can rubbish on the way past as you try to talk the audience round with nothing but your own erudition. It shows very, very clearly the link between swiss glacial advance/retreat and the Atlantic Mutlidecadal Oscillation. The AMO index determines what precipitation and cloud cover hits the Alps region, so funnily enough, with a positive index (see graph) there's less precipitation and more direct solar radiation (not increased warming) so the glaciers shrink, growing again when it turns negative. My understanding is that the AMO has recently swung back to the negative.



Note that Mann's 'hockey stick' software was released some time ago, and led to the rather more interesting McIntyre/McKitrick paper which completely debunked his analysis, showing that whatever information he'd entered into his programme, a hockey stick would result. Outtright fraud at worst, flawed sloppy science at best and Mann was completely discredited.

On monitoring stations, I believe this was discussed a few pages ago, where I pointed out the change in station numbers and problems with locations leading to a jump in reported temperature of an order of magnitude much greater than observed temperature.

[SaigonSaddler]

Saigon - here's another graph (of the sort you love so much, from the internet) which you can rubbish on the way past as you try to talk the audience round with nothing but your own erudition. It shows very, very clearly the link between swiss glacial advance/retreat and the Atlantic Mutlidecadal Oscillation. The AMO index determines what precipitation and cloud cover hits the Alps region, so funnily enough, with a positive index (see graph) there's less precipitation and more direct solar radiation (not increased warming) so the glaciers shrink, growing again when it turns negative. My understanding is that the AMO has recently swung back to the negative.



Note that Mann's 'hockey stick' software was released some time ago, and led to the rather more interesting McIntyre/McKitrick paper which completely debunked his analysis, showing that whatever information he'd entered into his programme, a hockey stick would result. Outtright fraud at worst, flawed sloppy science at best and Mann was completely discredited.

On monitoring stations, I believe this was discussed a few pages ago, where I pointed out the change in station numbers and problems with locations leading to a jump in reported temperature of an order of magnitude much greater than observed temperature.

Glad you posted that - here's the view from New Scientist:

Climate: The great hockey stick debate

IT IS a persuasive image. Dubbed "the hockey stick" soon after it was first drawn, the graph shows the average temperature over the past 1000 years. For the first 900 or so years there is little variation, like the shaft of an ice-hockey stick. Then, in the 20th century, comes a sharp rise like a hockey stick's blade. The graph seems proof at a glance that we are drastically altering the climate of our planet.
So it is not surprising that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chose to put the graph in the summary for policymakers in its 2001 report. Some of the scientists must have hoped that the image would become an icon of climate change.
An icon it has certainly become, but not always for the reasons those scientists hoped. For the sceptics who dispute that global warming is real, or say it's nothing to worry about, the graph was like a red rag to a bull. They made it the focus of their attacks, hoping that by demolishing the hockey stick graph they would destroy the credibility of climate scientists and the notion of global warming as a phenomenon caused by human activity.
In the minds of many people they have succeeded. The hockey stick graph is widely regarded as controversial, if not plain wrong. "The hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics," physicist Richard Muller wrote in Technology Review in 2004. Others have described it as rubbish or even as a downright fraud. So what's all the fuss about? And who should you believe?
The saga began in the late 1990s, when palaeoclimatologist Michael Mann, then at the University of Virginia, and his colleagues embarked on one of the first serious attempts to work out the average global temperature over the past millennium. Direct temperature measurements go back only as far as 1860, so to extend the record back in time they had to use indirect or "proxy" records of temperature, such as the annual rings of trees and isotopic ratios in corals, ice cores and lake sediments.
Such proxy records have been painstakingly assembled by thousands of researchers around the world, but their reliability varies and there are also regional biases. Many records come from temperate parts of Europe and North America, for instance, where scientists are plentiful and trees have clear annual rings; there are very few from the southern hemisphere.
Prior to 1998, attempts to reconstruct past temperatures had been based only on a handful of regional tree-ring records. Mann's team tried to build a more global and reliable picture by including as many proxies from as many different regions as possible. It was pioneering work. The first version of the hockey stick graph, showing average temperatures in the northern hemisphere going back to AD 1400, was published in Nature in 1998.
The following year the team extended the reconstruction back to AD 1000, relying on the few proxy records that go back this far. This 1999 version appeared in the 2001 IPCC report, and is the one to which the term "hockey stick graph" usually refers.
At the time, 1998 was the warmest year on record (now surpassed by 2005, according to NASA), so based partly on Mann's work, the IPCC summary stated that "it is likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year during the past thousand years". That got headlines. And trouble - not least for the voluble, self-confident Mann. It was the start of a barrage of detailed questions and well-publicised attempted refutations. The hockey stick turned into an implement with which to beat climate scientists.
The debate has spread well beyond the scientific community. Republican senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who calls global warming a "hoax", has repeatedly attacked the hockey stick. Last year, Congressman Joe Barton of Texas ordered Mann to provide the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which Barton chairs, with voluminous details of his working procedures, computer programs and past funding. "There is a concerted effort to undermine the IPCC. There are people who believe that if they bring down Mike Mann, they can bring down the IPCC," says Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California. Santer himself came under attack after writing a chapter in the 1995 IPCC report.
Mann, however, still brims with self-confidence. Now at Penn State University, he treats his critics with something close to contempt. "A lot of scientists would have retreated, but Mike is tenacious," says Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, his collaborator on the climate science blog RealClimate.
Mann's style does not always help matters. "The goddam guy is a slick talker and super-confident. He won't listen to anyone else," says Wally Broecker of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York. "I don't trust people like that."
So the politics is nasty, but what about the science? First, the big picture. The rise in temperatures during the 20th century is generally accepted because it is based on direct measurements. What the hockey stick graph shows is that such a sustained and rapid rise is an anomaly in the context of the past thousand years. This is what you would expect if human activity is to blame for the 20th-century warming, but it is suggestive only. The warming might be caused by natural factors.
Evidence of human involvement comes from many other sources, including climate models. The simulations created by these models can be made to match the temperatures measured over the past 140 years only when the increase in greenhouse gases is included. These graphs also appeared in the 2001 IPCC summary.
The hockey stick has been repeatedly misrepresented as the crucial piece of evidence when it comes to industrialisation and global warming. It is not. Even if the hockey stick were shown to be a doodle that Mann did on a napkin during a night out, the evidence that the world is getting warmer, and that this warming is largely due to human activities, would still be overwhelming.
Fraught with danger
Leaving that aside, did Mann get it right? Does the hockey stick accurately reflect northern hemisphere temperatures over the past 1000 years? There is no doubt that reconstructing past temperatures from proxy data is fraught with danger. Take tree ring records. They sometimes reflect rain or drought rather than temperature. They also get smaller as a tree gets older, so annual or even decadal detail is lost. "You lose roughly 40 per cent of the amplitude of changes," says tree ring specialist Gordon Jacoby at Lamont-Doherty.
To reveal the "signal" behind the noise of short-term and random change, a proxy record for one region must be based on as many tree ring records as possible. It must also correlate with direct measurements of local temperature during the period of overlap - which adds another layer of complication, as in some cases human factors such as pollution might have affected recent tree growth.
So the first question is whether the proxy records Mann chose are reliable indicators of temperature. Some have been questioned. "He has a series from central China that we believe is more a moisture signal than a temperature signal," Jacoby says. "He included it because he had a gap. That was a mistake and it made tree-ring people angry."
Mann accepts that some of the measurements he uses do not directly represent temperature change. His argument is that, for instance, coral records showing rainfall levels in the Pacific are proxies for the El Niño cycle and so for changes in ocean temperatures. Jacoby is not convinced. "I'm not slamming what he did overall. It was a great effort, a great step," he acknowledges. "But he got into hot water by defending it too hard in places where he shouldn't."
Broecker is less accommodating. He says that Mann's hockey stick cannot be right because it does not show the Little Ice Age from roughly 1550 to 1850 or the Medieval Warm Period after 1000, whereas most tree-ring chronologies do show these periods. It is a point seized on by many sceptics, but Mann is unmoved. His point of departure almost a decade ago was that tree ring records alone won't do when it comes to measuring global temperatures, because they are biased towards temperate North America and Europe.
Many other researchers agree. "The Little Ice Age is primarily a European and North Atlantic phenomenon," says Keith Briffa, a tree ring analyst from the University of East Anglia, UK. "And the geographical extent of the Medieval Warm Period is still massively uncertain, because data is sparse."
Indeed, the proxy records suggest that high temperatures in one region tend to be balanced out by low temperatures in another. The tropical Pacific, for instance, appears to have cooled during the Medieval Warm Period and warmed during the Little Ice Age. "The regional temperature changes in our reconstruction are quite large; it's simply that they tend to average out," Mann says.
Most attacks on the hockey stick, however, focus on Mann's statistical methods. The meta-analysis he pioneered, in which different proxy records are merged, involves sorting and aggregating these signals and smoothing the result. Mann then meshed this proxy synthesis with the instrumental record.
Critics complain that by combining smoothed-out proxy data from past centuries with the recent instrumental measurements, which preserve more short-term trends, Mann created a false impression of anomalous recent change. "To be fair, Mann did correct that later on," Jacoby says. This made the blade shorter, but did not change much else. Mann also points out that he was one of the first to include error bars, which show how much variance is lost due to smoothing.
Flaw in methodology
A more serious accusation has come from two non-climate scientists from Canada, who claim to have found a flaw in Mann's statistical methodology. Stephen McIntyre, a mathematician and oil industry consultant, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph, Ontario, base their criticism on the way Mann used a well-established technique called principal component analysis. This involves dividing "noisy" data into different sets and giving each set an appropriate weighting. McIntyre and McKitrick claim that the way Mann applied this method had the effect of damping down natural variability, straightening the shaft of the hockey stick and accentuating 20th century warming.
There is one sense in which Mann accepts that this is unarguably true. The point of his original work was to compare past and present temperatures, so he analysed temperatures in terms of their divergence from the 20th-century mean. This approach highlights differences from that period and will thus accentuate any hockey stick shape if - but only if, he insists - it is present in the data.
The charge from McIntyre and McKitrick, however, is that Mann's computer program does not merely accentuate this shape, but creates it. To make the point, they did their own analysis based on looking for differences from the mean over the past 1000 years instead of from the 20th-century mean. This produced a graph showing an apparent rise in temperatures in the 15th century as great as the warming occurring now. The shaft of the hockey stick had a big kink in it. When this analysis was published last year in Geophysical Research Letters it was hailed by some as a refutation of Mann's study.
McIntyre and McKitrick say that their work is intended to show only that there are problems with Mann's analysis; they do not claim their graph accurately represents past temperatures. "We have repeatedly made it clear that we offer no alternative reconstruction," McIntyre states on his Climate Audit blog.
The obscure statistical arguments were overshadowed in late 2005 when Mann refused to give Congressman Barton his computer code. Mann regarded the code as private property, but his opponents claimed he feared refutation of his findings. Mann did eventually publish the code, but the damage was done.
In the meantime, three groups had been scrutinising the claims of McIntyre and McKitrick. Hans von Storch of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, concluded that McIntyre and McKitrick were right that temperatures should be analysed relative to the 1000-year mean, not the 20th-century mean. But he also found that even when this was done it did not have much effect on the result. Peter Huybers of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts came to much the same conclusion.
The work of Eugene Wahl of Alfred University, New York, and Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, raised serious questions about the methodology of Mann's critics. They found the reason for the kink in the McIntyre and McKitrick graph was nothing to do with their alternative statistical method; instead, it was because they had left out certain proxies, in particular tree-ring studies based on bristlecone pines in the south-west of the US.
"Basically, the McIntyre and McKitrick case boiled down to whether selected North American tree rings should have been included, and not that there was a mathematical flaw in Mann's analysis," Ammann says. The use of the bristlecone pine series has been questioned because of a growth spurt around the end of the 19th century that might reflect higher CO2 levels rather than higher temperatures, and which Mann corrected for.
What counts in science is not a single study, however. It is whether a finding can be replicated by other groups. Here Mann is on a winning streak: upwards of a dozen studies, some using different statistical techniques or different combinations of proxy records (excluding the bristlecone record, for instance), have produced reconstructions more or less similar to the original hockey stick.
More variability
Some reconstructions show much more variability, especially those based only on tree rings, but every reconstruction to date supports the main claim in the IPCC summary: the past decade is likely the warmest for 1000 years (see Graphs). Whatever the flaws in Mann's original work, it seems the broad conclusion is correct.
McIntyre is not impressed. "There is a distinct possibility that researchers have either purposefully or subconsciously selected series with the hockey stick shape," he told one reporter.
The sceptics are unlikely to give up, whatever the conclusions of a panel set up by the US National Academies to assess temperature reconstructions. But for most climate scientists, the controversy is a sideshow. Whatever happened before 1860, the world has been getting warmer since that time, and there is no doubt in their minds that industrialisation is mostly responsible.
What really matters is the future. The IPCC is predicting a rise of between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by 2100. Now take a look at the scale on the hockey stick graph. As Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany points out: "If humanity takes no action and this century sees a temperature rise of 2 °C, 3 °C or even more, the current discussions over whether the 14th century was a few tenths of a degree warmer or the 17th a few tenths cooler than previously thought will look rather academic."
The subtext of many attacks on the hockey stick is that if the world was warmer 1000 years than it is now, this shows there is nothing unusual going on and we can all stop worrying. Not so, says Briffa. If the world was warmer 1000 years ago, it would suggest the climate system is very sensitive to outside influences, whether past solar cycles or present accumulating greenhouse gases. "Greater past climate variations imply greater future climate change," he says. From this perspective, it would be most worrying if all the hockey sticks really are wrong.

[Exile]

I wonder what side of the climate change debate the New Scientist sits on? It's a shadow of the great magazine it once was, by the way.

[Magic Man Fan]

This thread could only get worse if ncfcboy or matt-the-saddler posted on it. :D

[Whitti Steve]

Saigon wins the battle of the longest cut and paste in this debate :D

[Exile]

Saigon wins the battle of the longest yet least accurate cut and paste in this debate :D

That's better. :mrgreen:

[SaigonSaddler]

I wonder what side of the climate change debate the New Scientist sits on? It's a shadow of the great magazine it once was, by the way.

So that's the BBC - dismissed (you invited me not to link)
Wiki - dismissed (same)
MET office - dismissed
New Scientist - dismissed
Reuters?
Nature?

The only acceptable source of information will soon be your blog links, some of them the work of individuals, all of them free from peer review. Nice way to stonewall an argument, but I suppose when you're running out of ideas....

Will there be any comeback any time soon on the conclusions made on the evidence in the above, cos I've got a whole lot more ready to go. Funny, but none of them seem to follow your reasoning. Feel free to post stuff that contradicts in the mainstream media, or with subscribers over 100. :wink:

[SaigonSaddler]

Saigon wins the battle of the longest cut and paste in this debate :D

:D

Running out from work when I posted that. More time and I would have cut to the salient points, but I would have been accused of doctoring the evidence (very common) :D

[SaigonSaddler]

This thread could only get worse if ncfcboy or matt-the-saddler posted on it. :D

It's actually really good and Exile and me have been sharing PMs. May get a bit passionate in the mix but all good fun.
Join in!

[Magic Man Fan]

This thread could only get worse if ncfcboy or matt-the-saddler posted on it. :D

It's actually really good and Exile and me have been sharing PMs. May get a bit passionate in the mix but all good fun.
Join in!

I don't have a lot to add except it's cold now and it will be warm in the summer so it all evens itself out. :D

[Exile]

I wonder what side of the climate change debate the New Scientist sits on? It's a shadow of the great magazine it once was, by the way.

So that's the BBC - dismissed (you invited me not to link)
Wiki - dismissed (same)
MET office - dismissed
New Scientist - dismissed
Reuters?
Nature?

Beeb - dismissed for reasons stated.
Wiki - dismissed as run by rabid green Connolley
MET Office - dismissed as chairman is rabid green
Reuters is a press agency. They distribute what they're given. With the amount of money being shovelled into the effects of global warming it's no surprise they release more of that.
Nature - dismissed as run by rabid greens (they get everywhere :wink: )

Don't see what readership has to do with anything. Science is about facts, not who believes what's reported, or consensus.

Did you know that globally, glaciers advanced rapidly and measurably between 1948 and 1979. How's that fit in with global warming?