Paris climate summit in December 2015

[stewfox]

It appears they could be more co-operation at the 21st Conference preceeded by the BBC comments

 

"""Global temperatures are set to rise more than one degree above pre-industrial levels according to the UK's Met Office.Figures from January to September this year are already 1.02C above the average between 1850 and 1900If temperatures remain as predicted, 2015 will be the first year to breach this key threshold.The world would then be half way towards 2C, the gateway to dangerous warming.The new data is certain to add urgency to political negotiations in Paris later this month aimed at securing a new global climate treaty."""""""""""""""""""""""""

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34763036

 

Would be nice to see a measured approach rather the knee jerk 10,000 windmills followed by power cuts

 

[stewfox]

Surprised no one has a interest in this

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/global-climate-change-2015-police-fire-tear-gas-into-crowds-as-100-protesters-arrested-in-paris-a6753621.html

[Mokidugway]

Surprised no one has a interest in this

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/global-climate-change-2015-police-fire-tear-gas-into-crowds-as-100-protesters-arrested-in-paris-a6753621.html

tear gas can't be good for polar bears . Gets coat and leaves in v8 ........

[stewfox]

tear gas can't be good for polar bears . Gets coat and leaves in v8 ........

 

Even so with 17,000 members . Guess will leave the BBC to quote its twaddle.

Edited November 30, 2015 by stewfox

[Roger J Smith]

I remain skeptical that very much of the recent temperature increase is human caused. I do accept that warming has occurred, especially in subarctic regions, but the cause could be largely natural variability which proponents of AGW seem to think has stopped happening.

Since it may be a blend of natural variability and human modification (and I think it is, perhaps on about a 3:1 ratio), the scientific inquiry should focus on what proportion we can reduce. My guess is that even if the economy of the developed world totally collapsed (which sometimes seems to be the goal of more radical proponents) there would be less than a 0.1 C deg decrease in global mean temperatures, so small an amount that it would be very difficult to separate it out from natural variations.

So does this mean I think we should do nothing? Not really. I don't mind if governments help to accelerate the pace of technological change. There are various non-climate-related reasons to reduce dependence on oil, and it will eventually run out. I don't think this assistance should go so far as to alter substantially the taxes being paid or the subsidies being offered to green energy development. Moderation in all things applies here too.

As to transfers of wealth to so-called vulnerable nations, this contains very large and dangerous assumptions about cause and effect as well as the reliability of those governments in terms of using the wealth transfers to help their own people. One suspects that the program would just be the realization of political objectives that cannot succeed at the ballot box in most democracies. I would favour a results-based direct intervention strategy. This would involve monitoring actual sea level rises and any other postulated impacts (on agriculture for example) and then intervening directly rather than handing over money to clients of the U.N. bureaucracy where a tiny collection of huts in the middle of nowhere is held to be equal to superpowers and great nations.

There also needs to be more reasoned reporting of the climate issue. The internet has done a lot better than the mainstream media in debunking some of the hoarier tall tales of climate change. One gets tired of listening to non-experts breezing on about how they know we have wrecked the atmospheric circulation and that every passing weather event is the fault of people driving cars, etc etc, when almost all of it is unproven speculation mixed with outright nonsense. Just repeating over and over again that the science is settled and everyone agrees, when this is quite far from being true, is the recipe for brainwashing and unwise actions taken in pursuit of goals that nobody can possibly attain (or even measure, really).

I believe there will be an alternative presentation made in Paris towards the end of the climate summit. This will be worthwhile for the media to attend and report on. Valid points are sure to be made and doubts cast on some of the more implausible aspects of the official position, which borders on some sort of mass delusion.

Having said all that, they have finally broken the Al Gore jinx and managed to schedule one of these conferences during mild weather. This worries me too, I'm sure they will now make a big point of how the weather is warming up even more drastically during COP meetings than at any other time.

[BornFromTheVoid]

38 minutes ago, Roger J Smith said:

I remain skeptical that very much of the recent temperature increase is human caused. I do accept that warming has occurred, especially in subarctic regions, but the cause could be largely natural variability which proponents of AGW seem to think has stopped happening.

Since it may be a blend of natural variability and human modification (and I think it is, perhaps on about a 3:1 ratio), the scientific inquiry should focus on what proportion we can reduce. My guess is that even if the economy of the developed world totally collapsed (which sometimes seems to be the goal of more radical proponents) there would be less than a 0.1 C deg decrease in global mean temperatures, so small an amount that it would be very difficult to separate it out from natural variations.

 

The fact that many of the well known natural climate cycles have been identified by proponents of AGW shows the bolded part to be incorrect. It is more likely that natural cycles would have resulted in further cooling of the climate, and that we completely reversed that. Indeed, the climate had been cooling during the past 8,000 years or so, as part of our orbital cycle with reduced summer insolation in the Arctic.

1 hour ago, Roger J Smith said:

So does this mean I think we should do nothing? Not really. I don't mind if governments help to accelerate the pace of technological change. There are various non-climate-related reasons to reduce dependence on oil, and it will eventually run out. I don't think this assistance should go so far as to alter substantially the taxes being paid or the subsidies being offered to green energy development. Moderation in all things applies here too.

As to transfers of wealth to so-called vulnerable nations, this contains very large and dangerous assumptions about cause and effect as well as the reliability of those governments in terms of using the wealth transfers to help their own people. One suspects that the program would just be the realization of political objectives that cannot succeed at the ballot box in most democracies. I would favour a results-based direct intervention strategy. This would involve monitoring actual sea level rises and any other postulated impacts (on agriculture for example) and then intervening directly rather than handing over money to clients of the U.N. bureaucracy where a tiny collection of huts in the middle of nowhere is held to be equal to superpowers and great nations.

I agree with much of this. However many things are already monitored and already changing. Perhaps there is more going on than you realise?

1 hour ago, Roger J Smith said:

There also needs to be more reasoned reporting of the climate issue. The internet has done a lot better than the mainstream media in debunking some of the hoarier tall tales of climate change. One gets tired of listening to non-experts breezing on about how they know we have wrecked the atmospheric circulation and that every passing weather event is the fault of people driving cars, etc etc, when almost all of it is unproven speculation mixed with outright nonsense. Just repeating over and over again that the science is settled and everyone agrees, when this is quite far from being true, is the recipe for brainwashing and unwise actions taken in pursuit of goals that nobody can possibly attain (or even measure, really).

I believe there will be an alternative presentation made in Paris towards the end of the climate summit. This will be worthwhile for the media to attend and report on. Valid points are sure to be made and doubts cast on some of the more implausible aspects of the official position, which borders on some sort of mass delusion.

Given the now weekly attacks on climate scientists, the ridiculous claims of global grand conspiracies, the tendency to put up old think tank representatives, politicians, journalists and activists on conservative media outlets in place of actual climate scientists, much of the mainstream media seems disproportionately against climate science to me. Of course, media outlets get things wrong, and quite often, but it seems more common that these mistakes downplay rather than play up the risks of climate change 

Anyway, ignoring the fact that challenging, refinements and debunking of published science is usually done through the peer review system, could you give some examples of some of the great debunking of climate science done through the internet? Keeping in mind the utility of oil funded blogs and the fact that blogs and message boards can be found to promote anything from a flat Earth to lizard people running the world.

The claim that anthropogenic climate change (with tens of thousands of published supporting studies, 97% agreement among experts, >99% agreement among climate studies, rooted in basic scientific principles and known for many decades, demonstrated through observations, modelling and paleo data) is unproven speculation mixed with outright nonsense sounds a lot to me like unproven speculation mixed with outright nonsense.

 

A lot of rhetoric and speculation, but no substance there, RJS. I hope your response will reverse that.

[Methuselah]

Does it really matter what the ratio, AGCC:NGCC actually is? We can hardly alter the astronomical factors, but we can control the human contribution. And - sooner or later - we'ill have no choice any way?

[Roger J Smith]

With regard to the graph of global temperatures over a ten thousand year period, I have no disagreement with the trends shown or their relationship to earth's orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles have been known since the 1920s so the AGW/CC lobby can hardly be said to have discovered this). As to the current situation, it would be helpful to have just a graph of trends since 1800 or even 1900 as the point for discussion, with the same Hadley data superimposed. This time scale compresses the period we are actually discussing into a very narrow frame where any change will appear vertical.

My point about natural variability is not really contradicted by this graph or any assertions relating to it. I was thinking more of decade to decade scale variability such as Pacific-driven cycles, and making the point that these can account for fairly large changes in decade to decade mean temperatures. The AGW/CC lobby (in particular the political and media wings) ignore these facts and speak as though all observed changes are due to human activity. When it inconveniently turned markedly colder in winter temperatures after about 2007 in some regions, this was then repackaged as further "proof" that the theory was correct. All of this has left the impression that the AGW/CC lobby are trying to fit data to theory instead of fitting theory to data. It has certainly caused a lot of skepticism in the general population.

As to the often quoted statistic that 99% of the science agrees and the notion that most skeptics are paid consultants of the oil industry, these are just plain wrong. The science is really a term meaning the AGW/CC lobby, and when you get out beyond those areas where people may feel coerced into full agreement, you will find that, for example, a majority of members of the AMS have either partial or substantial degrees of skepticism about the theory as postulated. And it is a matter of common observation that a large number of informed laypersons that you might call weather enthusiasts on these large weather forums are to some degree skeptical too. I have no way of knowing the precise percentage but having been around these forums for over a decade now, my impression is that the majority of members are skeptical, it would certainly be well in excess of one third anyway. That's a lot of skepticism for some kind of settled science, so I believe it is not really settled at all.

Getting back to the long-term astronomical factors that accompany glacial and inter-glacial periods, I recall reading that the next five thousand years were not postulated to be a steady decline of northern hemisphere warming potential as some cycles would move in different directions for a while. Unlike the previous glaciation that started over 120,000 years ago, the next one might begin in more hesitant and irregular cycles similar to a reverse signature of the end of the most recent glacial period. That being the case, there may be more variation in the background "expected" temperature trends through the period 1800-2200 than the long-period graph would suggest. But in any case, I am not really disputing the warming in the past half century so much as the 90% dependence on human activity sort of postulations that underlie the political process. What if it's more like 20 or 30 per cent. We know we can't reverse all of our contribution anyway, so what are we actually talking about reducing and what alternatives are there?

I'm sure this counter-summit event next Monday will contain presentations and detailed arguments that would improve greatly on anything I could post here, but I would simply leave it at this -- suppose this was the year 1738 and there was a big conference about how human activity of some sort must be forcing temperatures into an escalating upward trend. What would that look like in 1741? Or in 1800, 1900, 2000 etc? How good are the assumptions of the AGW/CC lobby? Why did they change the name from AGW to CC? These are all questions that have not been given much exposure in the political process.

It was stated that the media seem to be biased towards skeptical arguments (which I presume means that they give them any time at all). Living in a different country, I have a different impression. The Canadian media totally ignore the skeptical side of the argument, and did so all through the period when a conservative government was trying to balance the two sides of the debate into some kind of acceptable policy (they failed, having appeared too timid to one side and too bold to the other side). Now there is a constant narrative about how Canada is doing its part to prevent a climate disaster. This is so widely believed by the general public (outside of what you might call the right wing of the conservative half of public opinion) that I am sure the average person thinks that a conference such as Paris 2015 will "solve" the climate "crisis" and change the weather back to what it was at some earlier time. Personally, I find this to be a serious delusion and a chain of intersecting false assumptions about processes, real potential to make changes happen, and the general political-class lack of understanding of how climate actually works.

I have seen no real evidence that recent changes are anything other than natural variability with a faint modification from the greenhouse gas increase. I don't believe that the increase in greenhouse gases can somehow alter the circulation and make different weather patterns or events happen. I look at it more like a larger scale urban heat island dispersed over a much larger area, just faint signals in the background. And I have to wonder if some natural variation of negative sign develops (as seems to be underway around the Antarctic), will that not swamp the feeble signature of human activity? What if we get into a long-term solar downturn like the Maunder or even the Dalton, the latter of which is already appearing quite plausible?

 

[Methuselah]

So, what you are saying, Roger, is that man-made CO₂ has no effect on global climate? Which, considering the degree to which 'natural' carbon dioxide has had, seems a tad paradoxical to me...What's the difference between the two?

[stewfox]

2 hours ago, Ed Stone said:

So, what you are saying, Roger, is that man-made CO₂ has no effect on global climate? Which, considering the degree to which 'natural' carbon dioxide has had, seems a tad paradoxical to me...What's the difference between the two?

I just wonder if its going to be more rhetoric and pledges without action ? Regardless on ones view on the subject .

 

 

"""""195 countries and nearly 150 world leaders including Barack Obama and Xi Jinping meet in Paris for COP21 UN climate change conference""""

 

 

Edited December 2, 2015 by stewfox

[jonboy]

16 hours ago, Ed Stone said:

So, what you are saying, Roger, is that man-made CO₂ has no effect on global climate? Which, considering the degree to which 'natural' carbon dioxide has had, seems a tad paradoxical to me...What's the difference between the two?

I'm sure Roger can answer for himself but he has not stated that at all but that it is highly likely that natural variability overrides any man made impact

[Relativistic]

Of course, they could discuss this at the summit:

http://www.intellectualventureslab.com/invent/introducing-the-stratoshield

Why no one ever seems to mention this is beyond me. Perhaps it's not the immediate solution, and that we really should focus on becoming less dependent on non-renewables, but surely this is worthy of some discussion at some point?

[knocker]

10 hours ago, jonboy said:

I'm sure Roger can answer for himself but he has not stated that at all but that it is highly likely that natural variability overrides any man made impact

Highly likely? Which natural drivers override AGW in the long term, not the short where they can mute the impact? Or put another way which natural variability actually imparts heat to the atmosphere permanently in order to obtain the steady increase in global temps now being observed rather than redistributing heat in periodic cycles?

It looks very much as if this thread is actually a guise to pedal out the usual sceptic/denier arguments, most of which have been discussed ad nauseam already and found to be specious.

I smell a punch up brewing if anyone can be bothered which I doubt.

 

Edited December 3, 2015 by knocker

[Methuselah]

17 hours ago, stewfox said:

 

Sorry about the empty quote, it might be a bug.

I think by 'highly likely', jonboy really means 'not impossible' - something I'm more than happy to accept.

[knocker]

Explainer: The long-term goal of the Paris climate deal

A long-term goal is a key part of the Paris climate deal being seen as a success, despite falling short on 2C. The goal could firmly anchor the agreement to the latest science, or it could be vague and aspirational. Carbon Brief explains the science, politics and potential outcomes for the long-term goal.

http://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-long-term-goal-of-the-paris-climate-deal?utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&utm_campaign=23c365362c-cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-23c365362c-303447709

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by knocker

[Roger J Smith]

My (delayed) answer would be that we are not actually seeing much sustained warming, a more accurate description of trends from 1997 to 2015 would be steady-state after an undisputed warming 1982-97 that falls well within the range of previous natural warmings (such as early 20th century vs late 19th). As several readers have pointed out, I don't claim zero human impact, rather a much smaller impact than is implied in the more dramatic pronouncements of the AGW/CC lobby. And I am quite happy to wait until 2030 or 2040 to compare predictions. Mine is that global mean temperatures, if we can trust the measurement system, will tend to be similar to the past ten years, or within 0.5 C deg. Their implied forecast seems to be a rise of 2 deg that they are trying to cut off. Now notice I am not saying the measured rise at one station in the subarctic, anyone can cherry-pick statistics that make their point of view look stronger. I am talking about the same global temperature set that is often quoted in the media, the one that has seen annual rises of 0.5 to 0.8 C deg since the base period 1951-80.

I am also willing to hazard a guess on global sea level rises, saying that these will be less than 15 cms by 2040 and more likely less than 5 cms relative to 2001-2015 data. While any rise has some troubling implications (for certain flat islands at least) this is nothing that a bit of technological application cannot overcome.

The whole problem with this argument is that each side feels very sure of its position and not very receptive to the other side's point of view. But I can state with complete candour that I recall hearing dire predictions of how the world would look in 2010 or 2015 back in the early stages of AGW (1980s to about 1990) and none of  those have verified, in fact some look spectacularly inept (no north polar ice, palm trees growing up the east coast of the US, an end to the New England winter sports industry -- what actually happened was that last winter was the snowiest since Colonial times in Boston). So I am optimistic that a more subdued approach will prove the better of two choices in years to come.

[knocker]

The uncertainty monster is not your friend

I think that uncertainties in global surface temperature anomalies is substantially understated.

Judith Curry

 

People often see uncertainty as a failing of science. It's the opposite: uncertainty is what drives science forward.

Dallas Campbell

 

http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/judith-curry-uncertainty-monster-high-risk.html

[BornFromTheVoid]

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

With regard to the graph of global temperatures over a ten thousand year period, I have no disagreement with the trends shown or their relationship to earth's orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles have been known since the 1920s so the AGW/CC lobby can hardly be said to have discovered this). As to the current situation, it would be helpful to have just a graph of trends since 1800 or even 1900 as the point for discussion, with the same Hadley data superimposed. This time scale compresses the period we are actually discussing into a very narrow frame where any change will appear vertical.

My point about natural variability is not really contradicted by this graph or any assertions relating to it. I was thinking more of decade to decade scale variability such as Pacific-driven cycles, and making the point that these can account for fairly large changes in decade to decade mean temperatures. The AGW/CC lobby (in particular the political and media wings) ignore these facts and speak as though all observed changes are due to human activity. When it inconveniently turned markedly colder in winter temperatures after about 2007 in some regions, this was then repackaged as further "proof" that the theory was correct. All of this has left the impression that the AGW/CC lobby are trying to fit data to theory instead of fitting theory to data. It has certainly caused a lot of skepticism in the general population.

You assert that the current warming is largely natural in origin. But the trend over the last several thousand years was for falling temperatures, which then rapidly reversed after the industrial revolution. Given that orbital cycles should still be promoting long term cooling, the graph is evidence against natural cycles driving warming over the last 150 years. Yep, decadal oscillations cause temperature oscillations on a decadal scale, they do not  and by their nature, can not drive long term trends, something conveniently ignored by those with political aversions to AGW. In the current warming world, all these oscillations not do is slow down or speed up warming. 
While some regions may have seen colder winters after 2007, the planet as a whole has continued to warm. Pointing at region short term variability as proof against long term global trends is pointless, like pointing at the 90 year old 40/day smoker to dismiss the link between smoking and cancer.

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

As to the often quoted statistic that 99% of the science agrees and the notion that most skeptics are paid consultants of the oil industry, these are just plain wrong. The science is really a term meaning the AGW/CC lobby, and when you get out beyond those areas where people may feel coerced into full agreement, you will find that, for example, a majority of members of the AMS have either partial or substantial degrees of skepticism about the theory as postulated. And it is a matter of common observation that a large number of informed laypersons that you might call weather enthusiasts on these large weather forums are to some degree skeptical too. I have no way of knowing the precise percentage but having been around these forums for over a decade now, my impression is that the majority of members are skeptical, it would certainly be well in excess of one third anyway. That's a lot of skepticism for some kind of settled science, so I believe it is not really settled at all.

 

But most of the handful of climate scientists/"sceptics" are recieving funding from the fossil fuel industry, and the more well know public deniers previously worked for big tobacco and argued against CFC restrictions and such. The tobacco industry paid scientists for years to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer, and the fossil fuel industry now does the same with CO2/global warming. This is all out there, documented and known. The fact that they get paid by think tanks, they are funded by oil money doesn't change things. If these "sceptical" scientists actually had any science to present, they would do the studies and publish their findings. Instead, they choose to blog, appear on FOX News, write newspaper articles or write up bogus reports.

The opinion of the general public doesn't change the scientific reality. A large proportion of people believe in homeopathy, in the creation story and in guardian angels, however, that doesn't make any one of those any less of a pile of nonsense.

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

Getting back to the long-term astronomical factors that accompany glacial and inter-glacial periods, I recall reading that the next five thousand years were not postulated to be a steady decline of northern hemisphere warming potential as some cycles would move in different directions for a while. Unlike the previous glaciation that started over 120,000 years ago, the next one might begin in more hesitant and irregular cycles similar to a reverse signature of the end of the most recent glacial period. That being the case, there may be more variation in the background "expected" temperature trends through the period 1800-2200 than the long-period graph would suggest. But in any case, I am not really disputing the warming in the past half century so much as the 90% dependence on human activity sort of postulations that underlie the political process. What if it's more like 20 or 30 per cent. We know we can't reverse all of our contribution anyway, so what are we actually talking about reducing and what alternatives are there?

So, if the current warming is driven by something other than GhGs, we can look for evidence for that, rather than just flat out belief. If it's due to solar activity, we should see days warming up faster than nights, and the atmosphere heating up equally. Instead, we see nights warming faster than days and the stratosphere cooling.

If it's ocean cycles, we should see ocean heat content dropping as the heat is released to the atmosphere. Instead, both oceans and atmosphere are warming at once.

For some reason, all of the evidence suggests that it's greenhouse gasses causing the warming. We can even measure the changes in downwelling longwave radiation at the surface (as GhG absorb and re-radiated that) and they are increasing. We can measure the outgoing longwave radiation to space (should be reduced as GhGs absorb and re-radiate it to the surface) and we find that it's being reduced - more evidence for an enhanced Greenhouse effect. We can even measure the specific wavelengths and find that those being altered are the exact ones we'd expect from all the extra CO2. Even more evidence! There simply is no good evidence for any other cause of warming.

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

I'm sure this counter-summit event next Monday will contain presentations and detailed arguments that would improve greatly on anything I could post here, but I would simply leave it at this -- suppose this was the year 1738 and there was a big conference about how human activity of some sort must be forcing temperatures into an escalating upward trend. What would that look like in 1741? Or in 1800, 1900, 2000 etc? How good are the assumptions of the AGW/CC lobby? Why did they change the name from AGW to CC? These are all questions that have not been given much exposure in the political process.

 

Perhaps you could challenge your assumption of the rebranding from AGW to CC? Both terms were always used, going back to the mid 20th century. Is was a memo in the republican party where they suggested only using CC because it sounded less dangerous. Think about it. Was the IPCC called the IPAGW in the 80s? These are silly myths, debunked numerous times that really shouldn't be cropping up still.
Climate models have done very well in predicting the changes so far. Sure, they can't predict what will happen this year or next, but on a decadal scale they have been quite accurate.

 

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

It was stated that the media seem to be biased towards skeptical arguments (which I presume means that they give them any time at all). Living in a different country, I have a different impression. The Canadian media totally ignore the skeptical side of the argument, and did so all through the period when a conservative government was trying to balance the two sides of the debate into some kind of acceptable policy (they failed, having appeared too timid to one side and too bold to the other side). Now there is a constant narrative about how Canada is doing its part to prevent a climate disaster. This is so widely believed by the general public (outside of what you might call the right wing of the conservative half of public opinion) that I am sure the average person thinks that a conference such as Paris 2015 will "solve" the climate "crisis" and change the weather back to what it was at some earlier time. Personally, I find this to be a serious delusion and a chain of intersecting false assumptions about processes, real potential to make changes happen, and the general political-class lack of understanding of how climate actually works.

 

Should we have someone questions whether the Earth is round or not every time we see a satellite image of the Earth? Or how about a voice to say that evolution is a lie any time the media mentions a new important fossil is found. Or someone to claim the vaccines are a government mind control tool with ads for flu vaccinations? There is balance, and there is false balance. As it is, AGW "sceptical" media presence over-represents it's scientific validity and expert support.

 

On 12/2/2015, 6:14:02, Roger J Smith said:

I have seen no real evidence that recent changes are anything other than natural variability with a faint modification from the greenhouse gas increase. I don't believe that the increase in greenhouse gases can somehow alter the circulation and make different weather patterns or events happen. I look at it more like a larger scale urban heat island dispersed over a much larger area, just faint signals in the background. And I have to wonder if some natural variation of negative sign develops (as seems to be underway around the Antarctic), will that not swamp the feeble signature of human activity? What if we get into a long-term solar downturn like the Maunder or even the Dalton, the latter of which is already appearing quite plausible?

 

I've mentioned many of the lines of evidence above which all support an enhanced Greenhouse effect caused by out GhG emissions. There is simply so much evidence to support AGW that it would almost require a deliberate effort not to recognise it.
The GhGs don't directly alter the circulation, but the differential warming does. For example, the basis of most of weather is the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. This drives most of our large scale circulation. If you alter that temperature gradient, such as by causing the Arctic to warm faster than anywhere else on the planet, can that not alter the weather patterns?

Indeed, what if we do get a maunder minimum? Climatologists have thought of this too, and then when and made the effort of writing up and publishing studies, such as these:

 On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth

What influence will future solar activity changes over the 21st century have on projected global near-surface temperature changes?

And what did they find?

Here we use a coupled climate model to explore the effect of a 21st‐century grand minimum on future global temperatures, finding a moderate temperature offset of no more than −0.3°C in the year 2100 relative to a scenario with solar activity similar to recent decades. This temperature decrease is much smaller than the warming expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century

And

Using one of the most recent reconstructions of historic total solar irradiance, the likely reduction in the warming by 2100 is found to be between 0.06 and 0.1 K, a very small fraction of the projected anthropogenic warming.

 

It's all well and good having beliefs about the climate and what the future holds. However, one simply can't ignore the available evidence or unjustly cry fraud if the evidence doesn't support their beliefs. This isn't how science is done, and it certainly isn't the best way for things to progress. As it stands, the vast majority of climate scientists support action on climate change, and despite a lot of nonsense spread by politicians and the media (as they do with every branch of science), the vast majority of evidence supports the role of our GhG emissions in our warming world and the need to reduce those emissions.

Edited December 8, 2015 by BornFromTheVoid

[knocker]

Very fine post Born.

[Roger J Smith]

 Broadening the argument out to include religion and smoking is a technique known as "bait and switch."

Inventing a story about climate change being a construct of the Republican Party is a false attribution.

Saying that there are very few skeptics, and those that do exist are funded by oil lobbies, is an easily refuted untruth.

So what do we have in the "fine post?"

Bait and switch, false attribution, and untruth. So, more or less standard academic orthodoxy. I'm used to it.

 

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

9 hours ago, Roger J Smith said:

 Broadening the argument out to include religion and smoking is a technique known as "bait and switch."

Inventing a story about climate change being a construct of the Republican Party is a false attribution.

Saying that there are very few skeptics, and those that do exist are funded by oil lobbies, is an easily refuted untruth.

So what do we have in the "fine post?"

Bait and switch, false attribution, and untruth. So, more or less standard academic orthodoxy. I'm used to it.

 

Nothing to say about the various lines of evidence that point to warming being due to GhG and the total lack of evidence that it's due to anything else?

Nothing to say about the studies which suggest a grand minimum would have little impact on global temperatures compared to our GhG emissions?

You claimed that AGW/CC lobby rebranded AGW to  CC, which is patently untrue. The thing about the memo telling republican to use climate change and not global warming is, however, true. Here's a link, and another. However, if it really is an easily refuted untruth, then I welcome some enlightenment!

As for funding of "sceptics", I don't believe that the oil money is what really defines their beliefs, but it's more of an irrational fear of environmentalism due to their belief that it's tied to socialism/communism. But anyway, a few example of their funding:

• Richard Lindzen of MIT worked for the Exxon-Mobil funded Cato Institute for years, also happens to be a CFC and smoking/cancer "sceptic"
• Tim Ball, former geography professor, worked for the Exxon-Mobil funded friends of science group, AGW and CFC "sceptic"

The list goes on, these are just a small sample, but there's plenty more to demonstrate the ties between the fossil fuel industry and many of the well qualified AGW "sceptics".  But as I mentioned, the funding doesn't matter too much, it's the science that counts.

 

9 hours ago, Roger J Smith said:

Bait and switch, false attribution, and untruth. So, more or less standard academic orthodoxy. I'm used to it.

How telling.

[Roger J Smith]

Telling what though? That a closed circle of people with their minds made up based on two parts belief and one part logic is trying to exclude those of the opposite mixture (one part belief, two parts logic)?

By the way, the Pope has switched sides so your reference to guardian angels should be left to our side, perhaps? But we don't need that kind of irrelevant stuff, maybe there are guardian angels and maybe not.

What I know for sure is that your own preferred data show quite clearly a slowing down of global warming from 1998 to present. If you were to post the last thirty years rather than the last ten thousand, this would be quite apparent to anyone who can read a graph. I'm not making that up. It just isn't getting that much warmer in the past 17-18 years now.

As to all the other stuff, it is irrelevant to my point of view. I don't smoke and I don't have shares in oil companies, nor am I paid by them. So tell what you want, most of your arguments against me have been bait and switch combined with irrelevant graphs of things I don't dispute.

But I've said what I want to say here, won't be back to read more digs because they have no effect on me anyway. Let's see what the world looks like in 2030 or 2040, should I be fortunate enough to live that long (non-smoker so my chances are good, also those guardian angels seem to be friendly enough). I will gladly retract my interpretations if sea levels have risen and the data show runaway warming (assuming I believe the data). Will your side retract their theories if proven wrong, or will you just rebrand again? Don't waste bandwidth with an answer that nobody will believe.

[BornFromTheVoid]

On 12/9/2015 at 7:54 PM, Roger J Smith said:

Telling what though? That a closed circle of people with their minds made up based on two parts belief and one part logic is trying to exclude those of the opposite mixture (one part belief, two parts logic)?

 

Any evidence for that, at all? So far you've presented nothing more than your own opinions, many of which have been shown to be uninformed and blatantly wrong.

On 12/9/2015 at 7:54 PM, Roger J Smith said:

By the way, the Pope has switched sides so your reference to guardian angels should be left to our side, perhaps? But we don't need that kind of irrelevant stuff, maybe there are guardian angels and maybe not.

Rather than addressing my points, you seem intent on twisting them.  The fact that people believe something to be real, doesn't make it real, belief in guardian angels being an example.

On 12/9/2015 at 7:54 PM, Roger J Smith said:

What I know for sure is that your own preferred data show quite clearly a slowing down of global warming from 1998 to present. If you were to post the last thirty years rather than the last ten thousand, this would be quite apparent to anyone who can read a graph. I'm not making that up. It just isn't getting that much warmer in the past 17-18 years now.

Indeed, the temperature rise did temporarily slow up to last year. That's where your natural oscillations came into play. The PDO went -ve, we has a run of strong and moderate La Ninas and had the least active solar cycle in a century. Yet nowadays, due to our GhG emissions, not even all of that is enough to cause cooling! However things are different now, including the last 18 months or so, there is no longer much evidence of a slowdown, as can be seen in the graph below using the GISS data.

 

On 12/9/2015 at 7:54 PM, Roger J Smith said:

As to all the other stuff, it is irrelevant to my point of view. I don't smoke and I don't have shares in oil companies, nor am I paid by them. So tell what you want, most of your arguments against me have been bait and switch combined with irrelevant graphs of things I don't dispute.

But I've said what I want to say here, won't be back to read more digs because they have no effect on me anyway. Let's see what the world looks like in 2030 or 2040, should I be fortunate enough to live that long (non-smoker so my chances are good, also those guardian angels seem to be friendly enough). I will gladly retract my interpretations if sea levels have risen and the data show runaway warming (assuming I believe the data). Will your side retract their theories if proven wrong, or will you just rebrand again? Don't waste bandwidth with an answer that nobody will believe.

They were used to make a point, to show that the people now pushing climate change "scepticism" have worked cast doubt on the effect of CFCs, smoking and cancer, asbestos, and often more. It's their jobs, and some people like being aware of the backgrounds of those pushing agendas. Of course, you don't have care yourself.

Digs? Rebrand again? Really? C'mon RJS, I know you're capable of better than that. But I'm sure if things don't go how the consensus predictions anticipate, things will be reassessed, investigate, and the science will ultimately improve. However, we will need to re-consider some of the basic laws of physics too.

Edited December 15, 2015 by BornFromTheVoid
Update Graph

[knocker]

Dr. Ricky Rood - always worth a read

Just What is Going On?

Quote

The Conference of the Parties - 21, COP21, is starting to wind down, and our University of Michigan Delegation first-week flight of students is back and the second week flight is in Paris. I hope that some of you have followed the students on Facebook and Twitter. ( @ClimateBlue on Twitter , http://www.facebook.com/ClimateBlue ). We are hoping to keep the student presence more active than after previous COPs, so encourage them.

I wish I had posted these links sooner. There are webcasts of the negotiations at unfccc.int/webcast. There is an archive so that you can watch on demand, and go back and study the process. I think that you want to look specifically for meetings of the Paris Committee. The latest versions of the text of updated documents are posted here. It is really quite interesting, well to those who are interested, to look at the text evolves. It is, also, interesting the large, public role that France’s President Hollande is taking in the negotiations. Such a prominent role by a head of state is different than 2009.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/just-what-is-going-on

Edited December 11, 2015 by knocker

[Hocus Pocus]

On 8 December 2015 at 11:44 PM, Roger J Smith said:

 Broadening the argument out to include religion and smoking is a technique known as "bait and switch."

Inventing a story about climate change being a construct of the Republican Party is a false attribution.

Saying that there are very few skeptics, and those that do exist are funded by oil lobbies, is an easily refuted untruth.

So what do we have in the "fine post?"

Bait and switch, false attribution, and untruth. So, more or less standard academic orthodoxy. I'm used to it.

 

 

Judith Curry remains a thorn in the side of proponents of AGW, more so due to her stance on  subjects such as over amplifying projections and feedbacks and this from a leading climate scientist who has produced several peer reviewed publications for the IPCC summits. Obviously she's been nobbled by big oil and tobacco to fund her lavish lifestyle.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Hocus Pocus