Hi Sean,

You say:

"But show me a scientist that ISN"T dishonest.

Now that really is a rarity."

So do you think the ~97% of active climate scientists who accept that human activity is the major contributor to climate change are being dishonest on that point?

So why are climate scientists being dishonest?

I think you've got it right - you do have a rare intellect.

I have to agree with you on the data Sean. But surely, if Dr Levison was a liar, then we could detect some 'tricks' and 'fixes' (nodding towards climategate) to ensure that your perfidious perceptiveness did not unveil such a fact.
But just to pedantically correct your numbers, assuming you were looking at Dr Levison's, we have 7.2% not happening and 43.8% as natural giving a total AGW denial of a simple majority of 51% - it is the 'AGW' qualifier that gets the simple majority as the 43.8% may well accept it is happening but deny the anthropogenic cause. But then, just because a simple majority think something is this way doesn't make it so.

You sound brilliant. Care to link any of your peer reviewed journals?

"When studies ask more sophisticated questions - like "do you think climate variation being observed is largely man made or due to natural variation" then the number is much higher than 5-7 %.

The CSIRO researchers know this, so their design of the survey was essentially dishonest."

What I like about this comment is that you obviously didn't follow the link to the paper. The CSIRO researchers had human caused and natural caused answers to the question as well.

"But show me a scientist that ISN"T dishonest."

The good old ad-hominem. This will also excuse you for not reading the paper, after all, it was written by evil scientists.

BTW, I notice you're using a computer or smartphone to make this post. Did you build it yourself from scratch, or are you happy to use the results of science while still vilifying the people who have gone in to the field to make our lives better?

Trolls like Sean are like graffiti artists - they all think that they are "rare talents" - the next Banksy. In reality they are mostly people whose only skill is the ability to sign their name with a spray can on any available space.

Sean's arguments never rise above "it has happened before" (his favourite) or "the climate is always changing". They are the climate science denier equivalent of the the creationist argument "If humans evolved from monkeys, why do monkeys still exist?"

"for example for me climate change is tautology, climate is always in a state of flux"

Has it changed in the past 16 years? If your answer is no then why do you use a dishonest cherry-pick?

"I like to think of myself as rare, a rare talent, a rare intellect."

Not rare enough unfortunately.

So, in order to cling onto your views, you are willing to drag CSIRO's name through the mud as well? Maybe it's worth asking yourself, "is it really the whole world is against me, or could I possibly be wrong about this?"

" Why if being an objective editor use the emotive and offensive term "denier"?"

Denier has very much entered the popular lexicon. It's fairly accurate, this is after all the denial of science due to ideology.

"Without seeing the actual questions it is hard to comment"

Agreed! and the human driven aspect of climate change is what we're all focusing on. ACC is a common enough term, where A is for anthropogenic.

I think that you're making things up.

A search on Google Scholar for papers and publications with the phrase "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Caused Climate Change" returns zero results.

I don't think that the term "Catastrophic" has a strict scientific definition. Certainly in climate science it doesn't. There may be some meaning in epidemiology.

If you want to see the questions, there is a link to the paper in Nature Climate Change in the article.

What the survey found many things. One notable thing it found is that Australians expect that about 23% of Australians flat out deny that the climate is changing, whereas this expectation is quite wrong, with the correct figure nearer 7%.

The estimates of people who attributed the warming to natural or anthropogenic causes are much nearer expectations, with those attributing it (correctly according to our current best scientific understanding) to human activity, only a few percentage points more common that those who attribute it (mistakenly according to our current best scientific understanding) to natural causes.

You will note that most of the articles of this site are now authored by the Media Studies "editorial" crew, rather than actual scholars.

Ironically the very people responsible for the whole "deniers under the bed" hysterical meme in the first place.

Paul Savage - I also found 21 google scholar hits - 3 from legal journals, 1 letter (Energy and Environment) 1 annual review (Energy and Environment), 6 pieces of grey literature, 5 blogs, forums or websites and 5 items from unrelated fields (ethics, anthropology etc).

It does not appear to be a term in use within climate science at all. it is however used by sceptic/denier groups.

Actually, this just proves how ill-informed you and your obsessive ilk have become. As tedious as medieval heresy-hunters and witch-burners. The Social Psychology hivemind really does not to get out more.

But I thought skeptics accepted that climate was changing just for reasons which were not exclusively man made and there has been no temperature increases for sixteen years. An article a few items ago showed devastating climate change from agriculture in Central America. Are you suggesting we give up agriculture?

So someone who denies there has been no temperature rise for sixteen years, who denies the medieval warm period or denies the Roman warm period or denies the Gergis hockey stick paper or the Lewandowsky moon landing paper have both been withdrawn is a ????

Why not provide a link to the actual questions and settle the argument? Don't deny it

"But I thought skeptics accepted that climate was changing"

No, the pseudo-skeptics try to tell us there has been no global warming for the past 16 years (with a dishonest cherry-pick) so they don't accept that the climate is changing. They just contradict themselves.

Maybe your intentions are good and you are just mistakenly linking and confusing CO2 climate change crisis with environmentalism. Climate change was a 26 year old "failed" death threat to MY kids and billions of others. You should be glad it was exaggerated so dump the CO2 mistake because further support of the non-crisis isn't helping anyone or the planet. REAL planet lovers are former believers.
We can't continue to love a planet with fear with the CO2 spear of fear stuck in our kid’s backs.

@ John Coochey - having trouble reading and understanding english again John?

The survey and the article point out that, regardless of opinion on climate change, those who deny it or don't know tend to radically over estimate those who agree with them whereas those who accept it is happening (human caused or not) tend to radically underestimate those who agree with them.

The secondary conclusion that denialists such as yourself have jumped on - totally ignoriing the main premise of the article - is that the number who accept that Climate Change is human induced has reduced by a little under 6% between the two survey time periods.

Of course, deniers such as yourself wouldn't have a habit of cherry picking the data they want to support their conclusions and studiously ignoring everything else now would they?

The term 'denier' is used for someone who will deny and ignore any evidence that goes against their beliefs.

As seen by reading the conversations on this website, there are may regular posters who can very fairly and reasonably be called 'climate change deniers'.

Most people, even those who doubt climate change, are not deniers because if they are given the opportunity to properly evaluate the evidence they will follow the evidence.

The art of denial was practiced with a vengeance at the time of Galileo, until the science could no longer be denied and the Church fathers forced into retreat and eventually, an apology.

Following the controversies about evolution once it hit the scene, there are many who still cling to the old myth, as if their would is a tough bubble.

The most amazing modern denial latches onto the Moon landings, that they were a hoax, even though an experiment is still being run on the Moon, to test its distance from the Earth.

To deny science is a time-honoured convention and if any individual wants to follow this path and argue their case, that is their liberty in a free society.

It is also our liberty to ignore the denial, or speak to it, if the drift from veracity does not amuse us.

Kim Peart

Well done David. You have memorised all the talking points from the climate science denial blog that you visit. Do not risk deflating that bubble by actually reading some science.

Climate change: How do we know?
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

How do we know the Earth's climate is warming?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/

David,

You are getting your evidence from the same people who confidently predicted a massive Romney victory. Does that not give you pause?

PS What do you teach?

David. You have the same distinctive style as John Coochey. You are not identical twins by any chance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)

Statisticallly David, they haven't - but don't expect Mike Hansen to understand that. His grasp of statistics is somewhat limited. When challenged by lack of understanding he resorts to denigration instead.

However, if you analyse long term trends a hiatis of up to 17 years is consistent with the trends predicted by models. If it continues for more than 17 years then some serious questions will have to be asked about the modelling.

It is early days but already some empirical science is emerging that challenges the assumptions built into the models:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/abs/ngeo1580.html

As I have said many times before in this place, science is never cut and dried, and never settled.

Temperatures have increased by 0.08 degrees since 1997, on a standard OLS regression.

Deforestation and land degradation by Mayan agriculture contributed to the collapse of their civilisation, as did climate change. There is a good overview of all the different factors in this article (free): http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/6/575.full

These factors are implicated in lots of different ancient civilisational collapses. The Tigris and Euphrates valleys in the middle east used to be some of the most fertile areas on earth (hence the old name "the fertile crescent" for Iraq and Iran, places we are more inclined to think of as deserts), and intensive deforestation and irrigation by the sumerians and their successors caused rising salt levels which eventually made their agriculture, and hence their civilisations, unsustainable.

@ Peter Sommerville

A very interesting paper - though a shame it's behind a paywall so can't read the details.

But what does it mean? It goes to the heart of something that those who study the science already know - that the main uncertainty is to do with climate sensitivity - how much warming will be associated with increased CO2 levels and how fast will it occur. And the paper only indicates that the measured uncertainties in heat flux (more back radiation than was thought which suggests greater warming influence from CO2 but a greater latent heat flux exchanged between the surface and the atmosphere due to the evapotranspiration cycle) are much learger than thought.

The trouble is such uncertainties cut both ways - warming could be much higher than the models suggest or much lower.

As for your reference to the temperatures over the last decade or so - as a scientist I know you understand the actual global temperature measurements are thw "last" indicator - what is more relevant is the actual heat being retained (and yes, a system with a positive trend coupled with a periodic variation will produce regular flat or even downward trends over the short term - as anyone matheictally oiterate can verify by combining a sinusoidal plot with a linear trend).

The real indicators of increased heat being retaiend by the planet would be accelerating loss of ice mass and a more unstable climate (as the heat is moved around).

As you know that is EXACTLY what the observations are.

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/piomas1.gif
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/glaciermasstrend1980-2010.gif
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/unnatural-catastrophes/

So, no, nothing is "settled" - but the picture is perfectly clear for those willing to actually study the data

James Bush - What a great example of confusing logic. You seem pleased that science is being ignored, and your proof that man-caused climate change is wrong is based on public opinion.

Of course almost all normal people know that "climate change" means what is happening now. So your assumption that people assume that the question was about the ancient past is rather novel.

Posts like yours really make me miss the down-vote button.

Michael Wilbur-Ham - The article above is entirely about public opinion. Public opinion does not ignore science, it has not been convinced by the man-made global warming hypothesis. "Normal people" are increasingly dismissing the hyperbolic and catastrophic claims being made by proponents of man-made global warming.
If you have a problem with surveys of public opinion on climate change then I suggest you contact the authors of the study.

James, the interesting question when determining science based on public opinion is which public?

Do we end up proving that evolution is wrong because of public opinion in the USA whilst also proving that evolution is true because of public opinion in Australia or Europe?

Public questioning of the science of climate change is only significant in the USA and Australia where not only have the deniers got great press, but climate change had been turned into a battle between the left and right of politics.

In most of the world the science of climate change is accepted by even the parties of the right, such as now is the case in the UK and Germany.

So if we are going to use the Western World's public opinion then the science of climate change is the clear winner.

But why be so Eurocentric? If the public determine what is correct scientifically, then surely we should turn to China and India because as these countries have the most public, they must know better than us.

of course they will keep trolling Mark - it's their oxygen - please, I mean in all seriousness - http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/ - flat-earthers are still with us. It is unthinkable that psuedo-sceptic deniers are going to disappear any time soon - we should embrace them as part of the rich tapestry of insanity that permeates the human species.

@ Leo - thanks - gave me a wry smile. Rich tapestry indeed - just that this mob could cause a total unravelling if their foolishness prevails

I think there is a level of activism surrounding the deniers, they seem to be active on a number of comment boards. View a few boards and you will find the same few user comments (either the same user handle or a sock puppet) repeated ad nauseum.

It is hard to disagree with science after all. No matter how much cherry picking, distorting, etc, are done, at some point these deniers become the shunned weirdo at family gatherings and work events. There is a term for this isn't there? Lunatic fringe?

Mark Harrison, your comments here are spot on the money. It is the 'increased frequency' that you allude to that I also think is too dangerous and revealing to ignore.

The sceptics come across to me as being idotic because invariably their main 'argument' is to point to constant climate change over the millenia as if to say, because climate has always changed, ergo its changes now are as 'natural' as they have always been.

An equally inane analogy with this, in my view, is the issue of species becoming extinct over great passages of time, but with Nature always filling the vacuum created, therefore it 'doesn't matter' if man's behaviour and actions directly cause any animal to become exinct, Nature 'will eventually put it right.'

Actually I re checked Peter's calculation and I make if we start from now as year one in four years seventy per cent of Australians will believe climate change is a natural phenomenum if present trends continue but of course four years will take us beyond two elections. What puzzles me is how alarmists take comfort from these figures.

It's hardly surprising that there would be a decrease in "man made" belief and a rise in other categories in Australia from 2010 til 2011, because that is the timespan that our political/media spin cycle has been consumed with the carbon tax. It's also the time when the latest drought broke.
Since belief that humans have caused climate change would be linked with supporting action such as a carbon tax, and since the carbon tax (pre-introduction) was very unpopular due to the "broken promise" and "great big new python wrecking ball" campaigns by Abbott, people would change their beliefs to match their political alignment. Similarly, people tend to believe their personal short term perceptions over longer-term statistical trends ("the drought is over, therefore climate change isn't happening/man-made")
Now that the carbon tax has had almost no impact on business and prices, and people have got the compensation money in their pockets, and short-term weather news is dominated by hurricane Sandy, belief will shift back towards the scientific consensus, because people generally trust scientists when their hip pockets aren't at stake.

@ Mitch again

Mitch - it is ridiculous to ask for unequivocal proof of anything in science - such a thing does not exist.

I've provided many links in the past. The basic physics confirms that CO2 produces more warming - this is well established. As I have just posted eleswhere the question is how warm how fast.

I am not here to do your work for you - but if you have a genuine open mind a good site is here http://www.skepticalscience.com/

and a laymans layout here http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Human_Fingerprints_1024.jpg

As has been pointed out, there are problems in the position that people aren't causing global warming (by which I mean the evidence for increased heat being retained by the planet - something for which average temperature measurements are a proxy). 1) Something is. 2) GHGs provide a mechanism that's supported by quantum mechanics AND which has been observed and measured in the laboratory. (So, it's safe to say than an increase in GHGs has produced an enormous amount of energy.) So. 1) What else is warming the planet? (Remember there's no secret ingredient called "Natural Variation". There must be an increase in the natural variation of some forcing.) 2) What mechanism has vamoosed the energy produced by the increase in GHGs which simultaneously disposes of the energy and which acts as a prophylactic so that it doesn't warm the atmosphere. Happy hunting.

Hi David,

Not sure if you're on topic...you're just telling us all you don't believe the climate scientists' findings. It must be very difficult for someone like you who has such a firm belief that there is no AGW to see that climate science is scientifically unscathed despite the unprecedented blitz against it in the media over the past few years.

It is scientifically unscathed because no major credible scientific attacks have taken place. The attacks have mostly been in the form of opinionating by the inexpert or the cynical who tend to (knowingly or unknowingly) misrepresent data and use rhetorical arguments.

Actually if you try to inform yourself about what has been researched - the IPCC physical sciences working group report is a good place to start, in particular the chapter/bibliography on detection and attribution - you'll see that an enormous amount of effort has gone into trying to determine causes.

If you'd like an example of a "smoking gun" that is suggestive of GHG warming, data shows that the upper stratosphere is cooling while the lower troposphere is warming. This is exactly consistent with greenhouse warming and rules out warming due to the sun.

Igorant Twittery abounds - typicla of someone who denies climate change is to not know what they are talking about. Your post is a great example Mt Gibson.

The argument "they changed the name" suggests that the term 'global warming' was previously the norm, and the widespread use of the term 'climate change' is now. However, this is simply untrue. For example, a seminal climate science work is Gilbert Plass' 1956 study 'The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change' (which coincidentally estimated the climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 3.6°C, not far off from today's widely accepted most likely value of 3°C). Barrett and Gast published a letter in Science in 1971 entitled simply 'Climate Change'. The journal 'Climatic Change' was created in 1977 (and is still published today). The IPCC was formed in 1988, and of course the 'CC' is 'climate change', not 'global warming'. There are many, many other examples of the use of the term 'climate change' many decades ago. There is nothing new whatsoever about the usage of the term.

Mark Harrigan says that I am ignorant and don't know what I am talking about in his ad hominem attack.. Simply googling the terms climate change and global warming from 1990 to the present day indicates the change in number of references to predominately climate change over global warming. Of course this is all now old hat because the new bogeyman is "extreme events" which can cover anything ! Mark is right that climate change papers were presented in the last century but many of them were on global cooling which was the fashion in the 1970's.

@ Neil

You claimed "the term "climate change" was invented when it was obvious that global temperatures were not co-operating with the warmist theories."

I have comprehensively shown your claim was false by presenting evidence - e.g that the IPCC was named as such when the term "global warming" was still in popular use in the press

You prentend it was an ad hom attack but cannot admit your error. I still say this demonstrates ignorant twittery - which is not an ad hmonem attack (claiming some one is wrong because they are, for example, a fool). I have proven you are wrong with evidence - and this demonstates foolishness - none of which you apparently understand.

But if you wish to continue to deny logic, evidence and the facts - that is your choice.

What, pray tell, do you think is causing the following?

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/unnatural-catastrophes/ )
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/glaciermasstrend1980-2010.gif
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/piomas1.gif

To provide just 3 lines of evidence

Pixie Dust?

Neil Gibson:

"The term "climate change" was invented when it was obvious that global temperatures were not co-operating with the warmist theories"

Mark proved you were flat out wrong since the term "climate change" was invented way before "global temperatures were not co-operating with the warmist theories". That you ignore that and attempt to shift the goal-posts proves you are just another dishonest denialist.

Mark - do you have a parrot called Chris? He seems to be repeating what you are saying. I accept that the term climate change was being used by warmists from the start of the global warming campaign.
However "global warming" was the predominant meme at the start and that has replaced by "climate change and you can use google to check that. There is now an attempt to shift the focus to "extreme events" as it is difficult to scare people with global warming when they are ass deep in record snow.

@ Neil Gibson - you are just endlessly parroting discredited denier arguments.

But if you prefer to call it global warming that's fine - the evidence clearly supports this

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_17/shifting.gif

if you bothered to study the science - instead of trolling here - you would discover that the melting arctic ice caps leads to "stalling" in the jet stream which can actually cause snows storms (shifts in cold weather patterns) in unusual locations in the northern hemisphere.

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/climate-change-makes-snowstorms-more-likely-0506.html

Instead of continuing to sprout off based on ignorance I suggest you follow the excellent post on this thread from James Haughton replying yo Mitch Dillon - where he answers the question "Q) What's causing the temperature to rise?" and then sets out quite clearly the basic science explanation quite well -perhaps you could learn more beffore you continue to waste time here.

@ Neil Gibson - if you use known denialists as your data source who are known to falsify the data to support their so called skepticism then there is no hoipe for you

Steven Goddard is a global warming skeptic and guest author at the climate change skeptic blog WattsUpWithThat (WUWT).

Goddard is known for a 2008 article in The Register where he posited that Arctic Sea ice is not receding and claimed that data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showing the opposite was incorrect. Goddard later issued a retraction on his statement.

His temperature record is the falsification

Desmogblog (http://s.tt/1mnb7)

@ Neil Gibson - I have returned to this thread to find you continue to spread climate denial misinformation. Yet you have not had the integrity to acknowledge the blatant misrepresentation you made in your initial post about "global warming" versus "climate change". Readers can thus make their own judgements about your credibility.

The issue raise about the apparent discrepancy between the two graphs of US temperature anomaly is a subtle one - which on your past record I doubt you will understand. But I will nevertheless try in the hope that readers who have an open mind might learn something they find of use. You might try that too if you are willing?

1) Both graphs are not absolute temperature but refer to an "anomaly" - in both cases the difference between the observed average temperature across the 48 contiguous US states and the average across 1951-1980. The source of the data is from NOAA that Nasa imports

2) The link you made a 1999 publication by Hansen http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/ was comparing the then anomaly (as it was known) with the global anomaly and noting that it appeared the US had not warmed much in the latter half of the 20th century whereas the rest of the world had. Hansen raised this to point out (a) the US was less than 2% of the global surface area and (b) there might be some biases in the data. The first is a fact, the second turned out to be prescient

3) The second link shows http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif the same anomaly but measured at later period - and there ARE clear differences. Why? Because in 2000 NOAA made adjustments to the data that reflected a cool bias in the baseline
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/1986tk02.pdf
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/temperature-monitoring/image002.jpg
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/temperature-monitoring.html
" The most important bias in the U.S. temperature record occurred with the systematic change in observing times from the afternoon, when it is warm, to morning, when it is cooler. This shift has resulted in a well documented increasing cool bias over the last several decades and is addressed by applying a correction to the data."

4) This had the important effect of making the baseline period (1951-80) a higher overall temperature - thus reducing the apparent high anomaly in 1934 and also showing a higher anomaly in later years - (incidentally bring the US data more into line with the global picture) - so in fact Hansen was right - and his later graph uses the corrected data.

5) These was some confusion at NASA when this first occurred as they were unaware of the details and it caused some glitches - which were acknowledged and fixed
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2007/20070810_LightUpstairs.pdf
The net effect of tall this in GLOBAL temperatures (which is all that really matters) was less than 0.1 degrees. Big Yawn.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/GISS_temp_Y2K_adjustment.gif

But of course the speudo-skeptics regularly trot it out (although mostly out of ignorance in the case of Mr Gibson I suspect) as some sort of evidence that global warming (or climate change or whatever you want to call it) isn't happening.

If it isn't happening (lord I wish it wasn't and they were right) one has to wonder what pixie dust exactly has led to the arctic sea ice recently reaching a record low - far worse than even the most pessimistic models. Or what has caused the enormous loss of ice mass on land, or the dramatic increases in weather and climate related disasters?
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/piomas1.gif
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/glaciermasstrend1980-2010.gif
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/unnatural-catastrophes/

Most scientists think climate change IS happening and it is happening because of extra heat in the earth's global climate (ocean and atmosphere) system brought about by greater retention of heat due to the increasing levels of GHGs put these by mankind's burring of geosequestered carbon. The fact that evidence supports this (higher CO2 levels globally, with isotopic signatures confirming humans put it there, rising sea levels, disappearing ice, nights warming faster than days and winters warming faster than summers etc etc) is of no matter to denialists like Mr Gibson - they just want to focus on some tiny aspect and claim it all isn't happening.

Climate change deniers may indeed be rarer than we think but they sure do spew out a lot of nonsense to give the impression otherwise.

It's astoundingly stupid but alas no longer surprising.

Hi Mitch,

There are a number of different sub-questions tied up in your request. I take it you agree that the temperature is rising, as shown by that NASA page, so I'll skip that bit.

Q) What's causing the temperature to rise?
A) Rising levels of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere. We know greenhouse gases are rising from worldwide measurements in isolated locations away from point sources (e.g. power plants), of which the most well known is Mauna Loa: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/. We also observe increasing levels of ocean acidity caused by water combining with increased atmospheric CO2 to make carbonic acid.

Q) How do Greenhouse gases cause temperature rise?
A) By reabsorbing radiation that would otherwise escape to space and readmitting it randomly in all directions - including downwards, thus heating the earth (and evaporating more water, which itself is a greenhouse gas). We know this from spectrographic analysis of absorption bands in the atmosphere, which show it is CO2 doing the absorption and reemission: http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf , and from top-of-atmosphere energy flux measurements from satellites, which show that less energy is leaving the earth than is being absorbed by it - (and therefore the temperature must rise): http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/TFK_bams09.pdf

Q) How do we know that the increasing greenhouse gases are caused by humans?
A) That burning fossil fuels emits CO2 is basic combustion chemistry. So the question is whether the significant increase in CO2 (and methane) in the atmosphere is from human combustion activity or something else, e.g., hypothetically, some ecological imbalance between trees and animals, or forest fires, or volcanoes.
Because fossil fuels have been buried for millions of years, the different isotopes of carbon in them have had longer to undergo radioactive decay. That means there is less C-13 and more C-12 in fossil fuels than there is in recently deposited carbon in trees. Consequently CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels has a different balance of carbon isotopes in it than that coming from burning trees, or breathing animals (or volcanoes for that matter). Over time, measurements of carbon isotopes in the CO2 in the atmosphere have shown a changing ratio of C-12 to C-13 exactly consistent with what we calculate would occur if the increase in carbon dioxide was caused by fossil fuel burning: http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf

Q) Couldn't it be something else?
A) The sun is being quite quiet. We are not in the phase of our milankovitch cycle where we would expect warming, nor are there any signs that the earth is undergoing some sort of spontaneous climate phase change. Any alternative would have to explain why, even though it isn't greenhouse gases doing the warming, the warming looks exactly like what we predict from greenhouse gases, in _every_ detail: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirically-observed-fingerprints-of-anthropogenic-global-warming.html

At this point, "skeptics" are really getting into fantasyland trying to find alternatives. Climate scientists have so many smoking guns that they trip over them on their way to doing another slam dunk. Which is why people who are, broadly speaking, fans of the scientific endeavour and using it to improve humanity's lot get so short-tempered when dealing with "skeptics". The big problem is that observed warming (which, btw, conforms to what has been calculated) is still at a level comparable to natural fluctuations (e.g. El Nino/La Nina shifting heat between different layers of the ocean), partly because there is a time lapse between greenhouse gas emission and observable temperature increase - the earth's atmosphere + oceans are big, and, like a big pot full of water placed on a low heat, it takes a while for it to start to bubble, but bubble it will, eventually. Consequently, if we just keep emitting GHGs at the rate we are now, by the time we see huge temperature increases, we will already have doomed ourselves to even more huge increases - turn down, or off, the heat under your big boiling pot and it keeps boiling for a long time.

I recommend www.skepticalscience.com as a good point to learn about the common arguments, counterarguments, and get links to the peer-reviewed publications.

HTH.

James Haughton ~

That is a really excellent summing up of the science.

Do you know if the work has been done on identifying exactly how we could have avoided the carbon crisis, including consideration of human evolution and geopolitics?

That would be a very valuable pot of information, that may give us a clue of what we should do next.

Also, is the plan for meeting the carbon challenge on the table and up to the task?

I get the feeling that the planning is a bit like a fish out of water flipping about as the heat increases with the rising Sun.

Kim Peart

Hey Kim,

If you want a completely arbitrary historical point of diversion, I'd say Operation Eagle Claw's failure. If it had succeeded, we'd have had President Carter instead of President Reagan, the solar panels would have stayed on the white house roof, oil prices would probably have been higher due to Iran being in more chaos after the rescue, the oil embargo, and Carter's windfall profits tax on oil companies (which Reagan repealed). It would have been Carter rather than Reagan who was handed the JASON report "The Long-term impacts of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on climate" in 1980. All this + an environment-and energy-conservation minded president in Carter - look at his "moral equivalent of war" speech: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Jimmy_Carter%27s_Moral_Equivalent_of_War_Speech ) or his anti-pollution actions, setting up the EPA superfund. Greenhouse gas reduction would have fit with and given extra support for his preexisting policy agenda, so he would have promoted it.

Sigh - well, that was nice to indulge in for a bit.

Are there potentially successful plans to tackle climate change on the table? Yes. Are they being adopted? No. We are all the proverbial slow-boiled frog.

James Haughton ~

Great insights with President Carter.

His 1977 energy speech resonates for me as the year Professor Gerard K. O'Neill's book ~ 'The High Frontier' ~ was published, summing up the work of his Princeton team mapping out a plan for space development and settlement.

The key plank in that vision was Dr Peter Glaser's 1968 proposal to construct solar power stations in space for energy, of which O'Neill wrote, "if this development comes to pass, we will find ourselves here on Earth with a clean energy source, and we will further improve our environment by saving, each year, over a billion tons of fossil fuels,” (p.162).

I wonder if the last point in Carter's speech may have had space based power in mind ~
"must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century."

Strangely, many fell in love with the Earth in 1968, when they saw an image of our planet taken from the Moon and seemed to forget that it came from space.

If we had kept the space ball rolling, we could have kept a safe Earth, by making the transition to stellar energy gathered in space and on Earth.

Now I wonder, if we imagined a different future spinning out from 1977 that included O'Neill's vision and Glaser's power option, whether we would find that we can save the Earth now, by reaching to the Sun for energy and launching industry beyond Earth.

I now suspect that a clear vision that includes space will be how we inspire the numbers needed to safe the Earth and get us out of "the proverbial slow-boiled frog" thing.

A space vision for a safe Earth may also be the key to inspire our miners to invest in the future of our nation, rather than all that wealth be blown to the four winds and nothing left but holes in the ground.

Kim Peart
http://www.islandearth.com.au/

John Coochey:

"why does he cite papers"

Imagine, the nerve of someone citing papers. What appalling behaviour.

This is a good post, Kim Peart.

I've noticed on here some cretinous postings about the reasons for the changing of terminology from 'global warming' to 'climate change', as if the reasons for the change were driven by those concerned with global warming but who were running scared, as it were, because not every inch of the planet was experiencing global warming.

I recall disctinctly that the change in terminology was a political and economic one driven by right-wing forces concerned about the negative connotations of 'global warming'. The interesting revelation here is their implicit admission that nonetheless we are affecting the climate by our economic and industrial practices.

The real issue here is not even, anyway, climate change per se, but the way mankind looks after and relates to his environment, planet Earth.