When the vast majority (98%+) of climate scientists agree on the principles of Anthropogenic Warming, its highly unlikely that one inexpert voice, however bright, is likely to have discovered something that everyone else missed.

And, most ordinary people in the West, including finally in the US, understand that the world is warming up.

There's an abundance of evidence that contradicts the assertions in this one paper.

In 2007, Harris Interactive surveyed 489 randomly selected members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The survey found that as of 2007 97% agreed that global temperatures had increased during the past 100 years; 84% said they personally believe human-induced warming was occurring, and 74% agreed that "currently available scientific evidence" substantiated its occurrence. Catastrophic effects in 50-100 years would likely be observed according to 41%, while 44% thought the effects would be moderate and about 13 percent saw relatively little danger, and 5% said they thought human activity did not contribute to greenhouse warming.

However, the person he actually consulted and cited is not even a scientist.

Op-Ed pierces are fine with regard to certain issues, but with regard to science I would like to see something published. Otherwise, it may be true, but it is impossible to evaluate.

Forster/Gregory 06 regressed changes in net radiative flux imbalance, less net radiative forcing, on changes in the global surface temperature, to obtain a direct measure of the overall climate response or feedback parameter (Y, units Wm-2 °C-1). This parameter is the increase in net outgoing radiative flux, adjusted for any change in forcings, for each 1°C rise in the Earth’s mean surface temperature. Forster/Gregory 06 then derived an estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity (hereafter “climate sensitivity”, with value denoted by S), the rise in surface temperature for a doubling of CO2 concentration, using the generally accepted relation S = 3.7/Y °C.

Measuring radiative flux imbalances provides a direct measure of Y, and hence of S, unlike other ways of diagnosing climate sensitivity. The method is largely unaffected by unforced natural variability in surface temperature and uncertainties in ocean heat uptake, and is relatively insensitive to uncertainties in fairly slowly changing forcings such as tropospheric aerosols. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression approach used will, however, underestimate Y in the presence of fluctuations in surface temperature that do not give rise to changes in net radiative flux fitting the linear model. Such fluctuations in surface temperature may well be caused by autonomous (non-feedback) variations in clouds, acting as a forcing but not modelled as such. The authors gave reasoned arguments for using OLS regression, stating additionally that – since OLS regression is liable to underestimate Y, and hence overestimate S – doing so reinforced the main conclusion of the paper, that climate sensitivity is relatively low.

Forster & Gregory found that their data gave a central estimate for Y of 2.3 ± 1.4 per °C, with a 95% confidence range. As they stated, this corresponds to S being between 1.0 and 4.1°C, with 95% certainty – what the IPCC calls ‘extremely likely’ – and a central (median) estimate for S of 1.6°C.

Forster & Gregory considered all relevant sources of uncertainty, and settled upon the standard assumption that errors in the observable parameters have a normal distribution. Almost all the uncertainty in fact arose from the statistical fitting of the regression line, with only a small contribution from uncertainties in radiative forcing measurements, and very little from errors in the temperature data. That supports use of OLS regression. The Forster/Gregory 06 results were obtained and presented in a form that accurately reflected the characteristics of the data, with error bands and details of error distribution assumptions, so permitting a valid PDF for S to be computed, and compared with the IPCC’s version.

It follows from Forster & Gregory’s method and error distribution assumption that the PDF of Y is symmetrical, and would be normal if a large number of observations existed. Strictly, the PDF of Y follows a t-distribution, which when the number of observations is limited has somewhat fatter tails than a normal distribution. But Forster & Gregory instead used a large number of random simulations to determine the likely uncertainty range, thereby robustly reflecting the actual distribution. The comparisons given below would in any case be much the same whether a t-distribution or a normal distribution were used. From the close match to the IPCC’s graph (see Figure 5, below) achieved using a normal error distribution, it is evident that the IPCC made a normality assumption, so that has also been done here. On that basis, Figure 2 shows what the PDF of Y looks like. The graph has been cut off at a lower limit of Y = 0.2, corresponding to the upper limit of S = 18.5 that the IPCC imposed when transforming the data, as explained below.

The Rational Optimist: Matt Ridley’s regurgitation of denialist propaganda

Ridley’s paragraph is fraudulent nonsense.
When one turns to the footnotes section we can see how flimsy Ridley’s arguments are. In order to support his assertion that “average temperatures are more compatible with a low sensitivity model of greenhouse warming” he relies upon one discredited paper by MITs Richard Lindzen.
Real Climate has pulled this apart:
With the hype surrounding the manuscript, one would think that the article provides a sound, rock solid basis for a reduced climate sensitivity. However, our examination of the study’s methods demonstrates that this is not the case. In an article in press (Trenberth et al. 2010 (sub. requ.), hereafter TFOW), we show that LC09 is gravely flawed and its results are wrong on multiple fronts.
Ridley picks just one paper to support his argument that is fashionable amongst the denial community, but has been shown to be badly flawed by the science community.
For his contention that the average global temperature was warmer during the Medieval Warming Period, her relies upon papers from the dubious journal Energy & Environment. Again, for those not familiar with E&E, it is journal whose editor is a known sceptic and has been involved in numerous controversies over publishing flawed research

The conclusion—taking the best observational estimates of the change in decadal-average global temperature between 1871-80 and 2002-11, and of the corresponding changes in forcing and ocean heat uptake—is this: A doubling of CO2 will lead to a warming of 1.6°-1.7°C (2.9°-3.1°F).

This is much lower than the IPCC's current best estimate, 3°C (5.4°F).

taking the best observational estimates of the change in decadal-average global temperature between 1871-80 and 2002-11

Ray Jay wrote:

freeman2 wrote:A financial expert talks to one scientist and overturns the work and beliefs of thousands of scientists? Meanwhile, Greenland melts...

Your bias shows. Here's Matt Ridley's bio on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Wh ... unt_Ridley

Matt Ridley (Matthew White, 5th Viscount Ridley), FRSL, FMedSci, DL (born 7 February 1958), is a British scientist, journalist and author.[1] He also is a former Chairman of Northern Rock.[2] He has written several science books including The Red Queen (1994), Genome (1999) and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010). Ridley has been short-listed twice for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.[3] In 2011, he won the Hayek Prize, which "honors the book published within the past two years that best reflects Hayek’s vision of economic and individual liberty."[4] Ridley also gave the Angus Millar Lecture on "scientific heresy" at the RSA in 2011[5] and his TED.com talk on "when ideas have sex" has been viewed 1.86 million times.[6] He was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[7] and won the Julian Simon award in March 2012.[8]

I consider the most significant – but largely overlooked – revelation to be the substantial reduction since AR4 in estimates of aerosol forcing and uncertainty therein. This reduction has major implications for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). ECS can be estimated using a heat balance approach – comparing the change in global temperature between two periods with the corresponding change in forcing, net of the change in global radiative imbalance. That imbalance is very largely represented by ocean heat uptake (OHU).

Since the time of AR4, neither global mean temperature nor OHU have increased, while the IPCC’s own estimate of the post-1750 change in forcing net of OHU has increased by over 60%. In these circumstances, it is extraordinary that the IPCC can leave its central estimate and ‘likely’ range for ECS unchanged.

I believe that the response to Ridley I linked, specifically challenge this assertion

taking the best observational estimates of the change in decadal-average global temperature between 1871-80 and 2002-11
,

Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.

­The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.

Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.

The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.