sass

Your attempt to use a largely pointless stat about record temps in the continental US was a great example of this kind of thing. When other people point out isolated examples of cold weather you're the first to jump on them for using inappropriate data and missing the big picture

But the stat about record temps isn't an isolated example. In the story I linked it explains that it continues a trend ... and that's the important piece of information. Its also not isolated in that it didn't come out of the blue.
The continuing trend confirms many model predictions, and ties in with the observations about CO2 levels in the atmosphere, Arctic ice surface melt and etc.
An example of using one stat would be taking the year 1998, the hottest on record, and noting that the earth has been cooling since then...that single piece of trend data...
Climate is the accumulation of weather and weather events. A regions climate is predictive of weather in the region, but not guaranteed. You choose to go to Bahamas in February because its likely to have warm weather. But its not guaranteed.
In the same way, as climate changes, we can predict that conditions will change in a certain way. And as every piece of information comes in, we can compare it with the predictions and other information to see if it confirms the general prediction.
When climatologists predict more severe weather events due to warming it isn't possible to say any individual event was directly related....because the thing that is happening is that our warmer climate is the result of more energy in our oceans and atmosphere. Probabilities are changing as energy amasses.
So although you'll not see climatologists confirming that any single event is the cause of climate change .... the trend, that is the increasing probability, is that the increasing severity is the cause of warming. And one part of that decision has to be a search for an alternative cause.... In the absence of any other reason for increased severity and relocation of events, warming becomes the only likely cause.
You can choose to read the weather data in the US as a single largely pointless stat, only by ignoring the wealth of other information and the science behind AGW. The other way to read the statistic is "And the trend continues as predicted and confirmed by other sources ...."

Here's the thing, North America warms, Asia cools. The Arctic Warms, the Antarctic cools. IPCC predictions that we are warming are followed by IPCC reports we cooled, but wait, we are warming again. We have seen this over and over and over, the weather has done this before humans had any impact, it will continue to change when humans are gone. Look at charts over time and you can maybe say that the currenty trend is a bit warmer but c'mon, it's a brief snapshot that can be seen to have been similar at different points in our past. How can 20-30 years be a trend we get over excited about? Statistics can be shown to cause us great freight and the warmists are preying on these statistics. But other statistics show it's no big worry and they (the warmist activists) poke holes in all those statistics as being false when they refuse to accept any errors with their own heavily manipulated stats.

Hurricane Sandy was just a bad hurricane, meteorologists said had nothing to do with global warming yet here again we find activists pointing to it being yet another warning from God. Myself, I'm not worried in the least and welcome warmer weather, the overall benefits far outweigh the negatives. People will have to move possibly, gee, that hasn't happened before?

tom

. IPCC predictions that we are warming are followed by IPCC reports we cooled, but wait, we are warming again. We have seen this over and over and over, the weather has done this before humans had any impact, it will continue to change when humans are gone

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Tom I challenge you to find IPCC predictions that the earth is cooling.

You have an ability to refuse to believe information that is considered fact. Earlier you referred to Climate Gate .... I suppose you are ignorant of the conclusions of three different investigations into the so-called Climate Gate. Why, since it was discussed by you on these very discussion boards is hard to fathom...

The notion that climate changed before humans therefore humans aren't changing the climate today is nonsensical.
What we know is that "forcing events" change the climate. And we know, within a reasonable degree of certainty, what the previous forcing events, before modern man, were....
We also know that CO2 and other gases retain more heat than most other gases in the atmosphere. Therefore we know that when the concentration of these gases increases, the atmosphere will retain more energy...
We also know, that observed temperature, averaged world wide have increased and continue to increase... The only explanation that has stood up to scrutiny for this phenomenon is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere....
In simple terms, this is the reality of the science today. Not wishing to believe that this is happening doesn't make it so. Neither does clinging to fallacies or debunked conspiracy theories.

The IPCC Hadcrut data showed declining temps not rising, not a prediction just the facts.

Tom for a full review of the Hadcrut data here you go:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ture-data/

What you are probably refering to is the use of 1998 as a starting point for examining warming trends...1998 was the warmest year on record, so when denialists start their trending from 1998, what else are they going to get but a gentle decrease? However the next 9 warmest years on record are all in the last 10 years. Though they are less than the scorching 98...

Have a look at the graph of hardcrut data on the link I provided..... the direction from about 1915 on is up....But, individual years here and there, the average dipped. Its the general direction that we care about, not an unusual year one way or another....

GMTom wrote:The IPCC Hadcrut data showed declining temps not rising, not a prediction just the facts.

Way back when, you posted a quote where a sceptic had been talking to a climate scientist, and it was clear that:

1) the 'decline' they were referring to was cherry picked and referred to a specific period (I believe it was 7 years).
2) the 'decline' was not statistically significant

It was juxtaposed with a claim that another particular 'rise' was not statistically significant, and your sceptic (and you, apparently) were trying to argue the lack of significance for the rise meant it should be rejected, but that the fall should be taken as read.

The reality is that if you compare individual years, you will get random patterns. However, if you compare averages and trends, those get ironed out. Over the past 20 years, the use of averages and trends shows a pretty consistent rise in temperatures - and as Ricky shows, that goes back over most of the past century.

At the time I recall becoming very annoyed at you for your failure to accept that you could have dips in point data while still seeing an overall rise, even a period of no change.

so I got you annoyed?
then I'm doing something right.

Thanks, Troll.

Not that this study will change any minds but it gives some idea of the stakes involved in global warming . http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/2 ... d%3D349055

Methane is a greenhouse gas usually trapped as methane hydrate in sediment beneath the seabed. As temperatures rise, the hydrate breaks down and methane is released from the seabed, mostly dissolving into the seawater.

But if trapped methane were to break the sea surface and escape into the atmosphere, it could "speed up sea-ice retreat, reduce the reflection of solar energy and accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet," the study said.

It said that could bring forward the date at which the global mean temperature rise exceeds 2 degrees Celsius by between 15 and 35 years - to 2035 if no action is taken to curb emissions and to 2040 if enough action is taken to have a 50 percent chance of keeping the rise below 2 degrees.

So even if we spend an specified but presumably enormous sum on reducing emissions to give us only a 50/50 shot of hitting this largely arbitrary target date we only delay the onset by 5 years ? That's hardly a clarion call for action.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 12464.html

Per the upcoming IPCC report, not as bad as previously thought

Since the last IPCC report in 2007, much has changed. It is now more than 15 years since global average temperature rose significantly. Indeed, the IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri has conceded that the "pause" already may have lasted for 17 years, depending on which data set you look at. A recent study in Nature Climate Change by Francis Zwiers and colleagues of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, found that models have overestimated warming by 100% over the past 20 years.

...The most plausible explanation of the pause is simply that climate sensitivity was overestimated in the models because of faulty assumptions about net amplification through water-vapor feedback.

Well I guess if we can trust anything Matt Ridley says on climate change. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... l-climate/
I think we had this debate the last time Matt Ridley posted in the Wall Street Journal. I guess I believe he is an advocate for debunking climate change and I don't really want to hear from anyone who is an advocate on this issue--whatever side they are on. Can't the Wall Street Journal find a scientist in the field who doesn't have an ideology with regard to global warming, but simply let's the science dictate what we should conclude about global warming?

freeman3 wrote:Well I guess if we can trust anything Matt Ridley says on climate change. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... l-climate/
I think we had this debate the last time Matt Ridley posted in the Wall Street Journal. I guess I believe he is an advocate for debunking climate change and I don't really want to hear from anyone who is an advocate on this issue--whatever side they are on. Can't the Wall Street Journal find a scientist in the field who doesn't have an ideology with regard to global warming, but simply let's the science dictate what we should conclude about global warming?

You do realize that the piece you quoted is also from an advocate on this issue. That being said it is a very interesting piece. Figuring out which of these 2 guys has a better handle on the facts is beyond me.

Absolutely I cited an advocate on the side of global warming and I was going to point that out but just neglected to. This is an area where I would prefer to hear from a non-advocate, because I cannot independently assess what they are saying. Finding that non-advocate and knowing them when you see it is another matter...

That is part of the problem. Finding truly independent scientific thought is near impossible. Many would claim scientists are simply impartial and reporting the facts but they owe their livelihoods to warming and if warming goes away, so goes their job. We have seen many (certainly not all!) reports that have distorted data and hid facts from any outsiders. On the other side you have those employed by big oil or power companies who are also not 100% trustworthy. Another serious problem many like to simply dismiss is the way this is now taught is as if this were simple fact yet the field has grown tremendously and teaching this as fact employs more of their own, it simply does not make sense for climate scientists to report facts that don't fit into the agenda, things spiral downhill fast!

What happened to questioning authority? We used to question everything and science at one time was above reproach, yet that is no longer the case, science is now part of that "Authority" and should certainly be questioned, they have reason to lie and cheat and scam, never fully trust anyone who has a possible ulterior motive yet here we have liberals used to trusting "science" who simply fail to comprehend this as even possible ...why?

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