What is the temperature doing since 1995? I believe that is the period I referred to, is it not? Prior to that, the field was in chaos, and it still is, although a little less so.. For an indication, See for example Ramaswamy, et al., 2001 review, here: Reviews of Geophysics,39,1/February 2001. Current thinking may favor variation in ozone as a chief contributing factor. Attempts to relate the ozone cycle to the solar cycle, and thus to temperature swings, were I think unsuccessful. As I said, the field is in disarray but some hope exists for sorting things out since better satellite data is becoming available. Since you are obviously trying to imply that changes in stratospheric temperature (which, according to your data, are non-existent since 1995) are linked to CO2, let me just toss in this sentence from pages 102-3 of Ranaswamy et al. "This study along with others also indicates that the cooling due to ozone loss overwhelms the temperature change resulting from changes in concentration of the well-mixed greenhouse gases in the 50-to 100-hPa (---16-21km) region."
Didn't read past this first sentence. Why do you choose such a short time period? We have good data back to '58. Surely you know that it is long term trends that matter and since 1958 the trend is clearly down. It seems that you are doing the usual cherry picking of time periods that intellectually dishonest AGW deniers are so fond of. Why are you doing that? So let's try again, why is the longer term trend of strat temps clearly trending down?
Will Bill Gates Save Us From Climate Change Disaster? The Washington Post's Michael Gerson seems to think he's the only one who can. "... It's also the fact that half the political system doesn't accept the existence of the crisis at all. One half of the political system has a senator who argues against that existence by bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor..." http://www.esquire.com/news-politic...l-gates-save-us-from-climate-change-disaster/
No. It was a mistake for you to use a short cherry picked time period. That's what intellectually dishonest people do and it makes the rest of your argument invalid since you started with a falsehood. Again. Why is the strat temps going down over the fifty years even as the troposphere temps are rising? Could it be partly due to increasing greenhouse gasses?
1. no one really knows... that is the scientific truth... they are studying it from what I read this evening. some say its because the ozone is making a comeback some say its because the sun was cooling some say its co2 some might say its because the density of the atmosphere is changing I would like to here if Piezoe knows more. And perhaps the agw nutters would like to link to some real science on this one... for once.
Nitro this political stuff matters, of course. It can result in sociopolitical outcomes that affect peoples' lives, and it can affect science funding that in turn can influence both the rate of scientific progress and also the topics that receive emphasis; but regardless of the level of sociopolitical involvement, disinterested scientific inquiry will remain a bystander to the natural world. Some , it seems, have unwittingly turned their early hypothesis into a bizarre sort of climate-religion; and are now driven by faith and emotion without any consideration of the many recent findings that are wholly inconsistent with the foundations of their faith. Their faith based "science" rests on limited, unreliable data acquired in the infancy of the AGW hypothesis, and on a strong correlation of temperature and CO2 concentration over the past century, depending on the time gradient between data points. It has got so bad that Hansen did not even submit his last paper to the journals before releasing it to the media. As a scientist I am appalled. His radical behavior is not helping the science one iota. I propose that both halves of the political system are wrong to take sides in a scientific issue that it still very much up in the air -- or is it?
I agree that scientists can fall into the fervor of a belief so much that it blinds them to the data. After all, they are human beings and even the most analytical person can have bouts of irrationality. I also agree that consensus is NOT proof. While there still may not be irrefutable proof of global warming, regardless of their causes – whether you believe in anthropocentric drivers, like fossil fuels from power plants and airplanes and cars and chemicals dumped on the ocean ad-infinitum, or not — the observed changes in climate are scientific facts that have grave implications for the future of natural and human systems. So to answer your point, EVEN IF there is still not enough scientific evidence to give say a 5-sigma definitive signal that the odds of HFGW is real, the cautious thing to do IN THE FACE OF THE EVIDENCE THAT WE DO HAVE is to prepare for the worst, all the while crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. If it turns out that the whole thing was a mistake, then we will not be much worse off due to the caution. Developing renewable resources is inherently not a bad thing and is good diversification in general. But if it turns out to be true (in the five-sigma event case), then we will be really glad that we took steps early to try to dampen the potential catastrophic repercussion that may occur. Time ahead of it is what makes it so damning if we do nothing. At some point, the process is irreversible. So, this debate back and forth about scientific evidence is silly. My guess is that the evidence we have now is something like a 2-sigma event, enough for serious worry, but not necessarily out of the realm that what we could be seeing is conceivably a head-fake and the warming is due to a greater extent by natural processes. But, when you plug in the 2-std into any probability model that says, how should we proceed with this evidence when the stakes are so incredibly high, no one in their right minds takes the position that you and Jem and others do. So I will let you and others here debate for sport whether the scientific evidence is or is not enough to warrant assigning it a 99.999999% true value. I prefer to deal with the evidence in a probabilistic manner. The odds of a asteroid striking Earth is something like 1 to 1,000,000,000,000 against. But if it does strike the Earth all life on Earth is dead for at least a thousand years. So, what is the correct thing to do? To try to avert it if possible and dedicate resources to hedge ourselves. EVEN AGAINST something so ridiculously rare. The evidence for HFGW is a million trillion, yes, a MILLION TRILLION, times more likely than that, with scenarios of devastation similar to an asteroid hitting Earth. Except it will be a slow death instead of a fast one.
" many recent findings that are wholly inconsistent with the foundations of their faith. " like cherry picked non-surface satellite data sets? like Antarctic sea ice expanding while the overall is decreasing? I'm just wondering what these "findings" are.
Calling me out as you are making emotional guesses about 2 sigma vs 5 sigma. before you have a legitimate sigma... you have to have more than speculation. You need a theory and some experimental support for that theory... or in some fields observational support. when asked, you have produced no science supporting the theory that man made co2 causes warming. Ok... I can live with this because there isn't any. But its worse than that... I have asked the agw troll motherfuckers... which you are rapidly becoming... for a list of scientists who state that man made co2 is causing warming... and your team can not even supply a list of scientists. How can that be... no list of scientists stating man made co2 causes warming. a real list with names so we can check on their research. So how can you say there is 2 sigma confidence if you team can't even find a list of scientists stating man made co2 causes warming. Seriously would you not like to know the names of a few hundred so we can read their work and maybe get some evidence. I note... you might find some scientists saying there is warming or that man contributes to it. You mind find that some say the IPCC says such and such... but you all don't seem to have a list of scientists who have the guts to say there is evidence that man made co2 causes warming. I imagine based on your arguments there should be a list of thousands and thousands. --- so let me say this clearly... if you had evidence that gave you 2 sigma confidence that man made co2 causes warming... because of all the hype in this area, you would have a nobel prize. How you don't understand that is testament to the fact you know less than you think you do.