Reality has a liberal bias.

His CAPITALS make him SPECIAL!

Hey Conversation people - rather than just having 'insightful' and 'unconstructive', can we have a third button called
'unfit to stand trial' ?

sure Mike..see below, but I'll suspend final judgement until I have a chance for a closer look.

lol. Marc refers to Steve McIntyre as though he was an expert in this field (he's not). And he gives himself away as a full blown denier by saying "The pronounced Hockey Stick all to (sic) reminiscent of other studies debunked long ago." Debunked? Try replicated independently numerous times. Oh, sorry I forgot, in the denialosphere, the more something is proven, the more wrong it is...

Ian if you choose to be deliberately ignorant of the recent history of palaeoclimatology then I can't help you.

The parable of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind.

In climate, we have a planet-sized elephant. We need to understand, not only the surface, but the entirety from ocean depths to the edge of space (keeping in mind influences from beyond those bounds).

No individual can possibly know more than a tiny fragment of the whole. Climate scientists have the advantages of devoting more resources to the task and of collaborating to combine their fragments into a better picture of the whole.

Some inevitably ignore whatever the majority may say that disagrees with their view of what should be.
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/258/parable.html

Mike Swinburne and ian Ashman,

Could you both please enlarge on your very interesting, intelligent and thought provoking comments, to explain how they actually contribute to this conversation.
Thanks. Sincerly, John Nicol. jonicol18@bigpond.com

That is very true David.

It also applies to the suggestions that an anlysis of an area of land in the tropics, which makes up 2.5% only of the surface of the elephant earth, can provide any significant claim to being a representative the whole.

It was the use of a similar selection of limited data by the infamous Michael Mann that lead to the earlier claims of a Hockey Stick for the world. Since this has been shown not only to have used specially selected, dodgy, data, but also an algorithm to plot a "convincing" trace of temperature in what turned out to be a fraud, one has a right, I believe. to be at least cautious.

Perhaps this new paper is correct for Australia. The trees here may be similar to those used by Mann.

But, there seems to be no doubt that Greenland and Icelend (admittedly only 1/3 the area of Australia) were particularly warm in the middle ages when the growing of cereals flourished and when villages were built by the Vikings, many of which still lie buried under ice. Both declined when ice begain to reclaim the land in the 13th and 14th centuries, if I am reading the histories correctly.
To make a useful analysis of what influences are important over the whole earth, one must first take into account, the behaviour of the temperature, also over the WHOLE of that earth.

Local influences may well have determined our temperature in the MDB, as well they might over the last 50 years.
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

"the infamous Michael Mann"

Mr Nicol, if you want to show that you're not being a hypocrite when you ask for polite discussion, then stop insulting scientists.

John Nicol: I imagine someone will probably do a proxy study of the entire Southern Hemisphere at some point. Would that convince you if it proved to have a similar fit to the Michael Manne plot?

John Nicol: "... suggestions that an anlysis of an area of land in the tropics, which makes up 2.5% only of the surface of the elephant earth, can provide any significant claim to being a representative the whole."
Has anyone suggested that? Would any sane person suggest that the 2.5% should be ignored? Isn't the analysis a valuable contribution to understanding the whole?

Are you trying to ignore whatever is said that disagrees with your view of what should be?

John Nicol = deep deep denial.

deny deny deny Marc. Alex asks a good question - who is paying you? I'd actually respect you more if you were being paid by fossil fuel interests because the alternative - that you believe the nonsense you spew - means you are a dunce and worthy of nothing but contempt.

John, why does your group promote the Heartland Group? A group proven to tell lies and distort the truth?

Ian,

I am very sorry to find that you would use this space to simply write insults. In relation to the payment received by anyone, this is a strictly personal matter and should NOT be used as a stick to belt someone over the head.

Most if not ALL, the climatologists who most strongly promote their own take on the science of Global Warming and simply make use of super computers to provide what they suggest is evidence of the influence of carbon dioxide, are all paid by the government.

For 20 years, the funding of projects, the "success" of which is vital to maintaining their positions in the many Climate Units at Melbourne, Adelaide, UNSW, ANU..... ... is based on one thing and one thing only, that their results continue to demonstrate that carbon dioxide is to balme for higher temperatures. I do not blame them for that. However, for you to criticise someone for not disclosing his source of salary or pension as the case may be - most scientific sceptics are in fact on superannuation - is totally unwarranted.

What you might like to try to do is to find some actual PHYSICAL evidence which shows that CO2 leads to an Enhanced Green House Effect and by what magnitude, and present that evidence on the pages of this blog.

I may be wrong in what I say, but I will always try to debate the issue of whether or not CO2 can do what is claimed by the IPCC. I would be delighted if someone came back with some contrary evidence to my simple statements instead of simply saying that others whom they respect have claimed a different result.
John Nicol

Not by me but by co-author David Karoly...Errors founds in that paper and its been withdrawn, Perhaps The Con can provide an update.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/08/gergis-et-al-put-on-hold/

Via Climate Audit:
Dear Stephen,
I am contacting you on behalf of all the authors of the Gergis et al (2012) study ‘Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium’
An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, which may affect the results. While the paper states that “both proxy climate and instrumental data were linearly detrended over the 1921–1990 period”, we discovered on Tuesday 5 June that the records used in the final analysis were not detrended for proxy selection, making this statement incorrect. Although this is an unfortunate data processing issue, it is likely to have implications for the results reported in the study. The journal has been contacted and the publication of the study has been put on hold.
This is a normal part of science. The testing of scientific studies through independent analysis of data and methods strengthens the conclusions. In this study, an issue has been identified and the results are being re-checked.
We would be grateful if you would post the notice below on your ClimateAudit web site.
We would like to thank you and the participants at the ClimateAudit blog for your scrutiny of our study, which also identified this data processing issue.
Thanks, David Karoly
Print publication of scientific study put on hold
An issue has been identified in the processing of the data used in the study, “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” by Joelle Gergis, Raphael Neukom, Stephen Phipps, Ailie Gallant and David Karoly, accepted for publication in the Journal of Climate.
We are currently reviewing the data and results.

C'mon, Marc, we all make errors: "Errors founds in that paper"
;]

But again, kudos for hiding in the variances of air temps and studiously avoiding discussion of what your meter stick and pH meter would tell us all, if you had nerve to use them. Or, were paid to use them. Maybe we could bid for your services for truthiness? What would be the starting Au$ to consider?

Alex, I think Marc has a point here. It appears the study is being withdrawn and that there are errors in it that have been found after the paper was released.

As one of our researchers said when this blew up yesterday, this is a great example of the public testing of a paper and the robustness of this public process when data is publicly available. The comments on the Steve McIntyre blog on the whole really explored the science in the paper, which is really good to see as opposed to the usual rants which are aimed at climate science.

This is exactly how science is supposed to move, with results being challenged and discussed. While it is unfortunate that the paper was published and may now have to be withdrawn, it is a great example of how how science will be challenged now and in the future.

I will be interested to see how the reinvestigation of the method, the data and the final results goes once the scientists concerned come at this problem again.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/toc/clim/0/0

The second one down on this page looks like it.

following on....

cave sites in Australia crying out for more detailed analysis. Plenty of swamps etc.

4. Statistical methodology. I'm sure Steve McIntyre and others will be interested in seeing how this study was put together. Will the methodology be robust enough to survive McIntyre's forensic dissection? On past experience probably not. One does hope the authors will be more forthcoming with the algorithms required to repeat their results than Michael Mann was with his Hockey Stick.

5. Only 2 proxies that just touch on the 1000AD mark. Not much confidence there. This does not comprise a "high resolution" study, quite the opposite.

Congrats to the authors for their hard work in getting this published. The timing seems just right for inclusion in AR5, but the real value of the work and whether it will stand up to scrutiny is yet to be realised. The pronounced Hockey Stick all to reminiscent of other studies debunked long ago.

Just had a read through of the entire paper. I'm seeing it from a very different perspective to yours.

To me the paper looks measured and quite robust in it's conclusions. There is a great deal of time spent on explanation of the methodology to the point of making most of the paper quite boring.

My take on your points:

1. "Geographic bias in proxy locations. ..." Agreed it would be nice to have a proxy from central Australia - however the proxies are broadly distributed and include land based tree rings, oceanic coral and even Vostok from central Antarctica. The paper itself discusses the statistical power of the proxies and selection of proxies that best correlate with the mean field.

2."...Questions about the exclusion of certain datasets over others need to be asked and answered." They are - in the paper. Your suggestions about cherry picking is an accusation of scientific dishonesty and should be withdrawn unless supported by evidence.

3."Following on from the above it is something of a travesty that not one proxy is available on mainland Australia. Did the authors look hard enough? ..." Are you serious? The work presented here is a substantial and major contribution. I am sure further work will continue on.

4."... One does hope the authors will be more forthcoming with the algorithms required to repeat their results than Michael Mann was with his Hockey Stick." This is an attempt to damage the percieved reliability of the paper with no substantiation or evidence or measured consideration of the results. Very poor form and an illogical argument.

5."Only 2 proxies that just touch on the 1000AD mark. Not much confidence there. This does not comprise a "high resolution" study, quite the opposite." t At least one of the proxies (Huon Pine tree rings) extends back to 3600years before present. The authors themselves have applied a very comprehensive statistical method to select for proxies with the greatest statistical power and hence although they report on some observations extending beyond 1000 years before present they do not draw any strong conclusions from the earliest proxy data - most of the discussion seems to focus on those periods around the medieval warm period and the little ice age where the proxy data is judged to be very reliable.

I also congratulate the authors.

From the press release presentation these comments...
http://www.smc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Aus2K_AusSMC_briefing_May_2012.pdf

"The model agrees well with the reconstruction, and accurately reproduces the late 20th century warming"

This is not the case. If one looks at the detail the comparison shows the modelled temps consistantly below the reconstructed temperature Until about 1900. The model then climbs while the reconstructed temps stay on trend till about 1970, when they kick up. There is in fact a strong disparity between the models and the reconstructed temperatures contrary to what the author's claim. Te differences and why they are present are glossed over.

Fred,
If you don't think cherry picking is a problem among recent palaeoclimate studies you need to read Andrew Montord's book, The Hockey Stick Illusion. If you read his excellent account of the Hockey stick wars you would also appreciate concerns about the free availability of data and algorithms for the purposes of repeating and verfying studies of this nature. If in any doubt see the recent to and fro between Gavin Schmidt and Steve McIntyre over recent FOI discussions about tree ring proxies from Yamal.

See http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/16/schmidts-conspiracy-theory/

The results of the study outlined above, even approximately close are relatively unspectacular. Be mindful that variation in interglacial periods is rather benign after all. It will be interesting to see in detail which proxies give rise to the hockey stick shape at the recent end of the graph and if they are beset by similar problems to the northern hemisphere equivalents (bristle cones, Tiljander etc).

The pre 1430 reconstruction is based on only 4 proxies, I would not be relying too much on anything reconstructed prior to this and any statements about precedence need to be taken with appropriate grains of NaCl. Perhaps a few more proxy's similar to that Huon pine record will provide much needed extra data. Note that it's full record was not used in this study.

Further work definitely required, but a starting point for discussion.

Fred, good points. If Marc bothered to refer to the 2011 paper on this topic, he would see why these sites were chosen.

Marc you have accused the authors of the article being discussed here of a form of scientific dishonesty without a hint of evidence. This is very poor!

Fred,
Forgive me for being more than slightly cynical about the potential for observational bias and a lack of impartiality in this study. And yes this would be a form of scientific dishonesty, though the authors would be blind to it and I dare say would not be doing it intnetionally. The lead author of the study reveals a certain lack of impartiality her personal blog. It seems that someone's mind has been made up before the evidence is in.

http://joellegergis.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/dawn-of-a-new-era/

In regard to cherry picking the name D’Arrigo which appears on this paper also features prominently in Steve Mcntyre's post linked to above. In comments regarding getting access to data used in a study Jacoby and D’Arrigo (Clim Chg 1989) Steve states:

"Jacoby and D’Arrigo stated that they had selected the 10 most “temperature-influenced” sites from the 36 northern North America (boreal) sites that they had sampled in the previous decade, to which they added Cook’s (very HS) cedar series from Gaspe “because of the scarcity of data in the eastern region”. However, if you pick the 10 most “temperature-sensitive” series from a network of 36 autocorrelated red noise, you will get a HS. This phenomenon has been more or less independently reported by me, Jeff Id, Lucia, Lubos Motl and David Stockwell. We noted this phenomenon in our PNAS Comment on Mann et al 2008, taking some amusement in citing AIG News (Stockwell) since it was unreported in the Peer Reviewed Litchurchur. The phenomenon seems to baffle climate scientists.
Not only did Jacoby and d’Arrigo pick only 10 of 36 sites, they only archived these 10 sites. I asked for the data from D’Arrigo but got nowhere. At the same time, I had also learned that a new Gaspe version had been calculated – one which did not have a HS. (See CA here). I asked D’Arrigo to archive or provide me the data. She refused, saying that the version on file (cana036), which had a huge HS, was a better guide to NH temperature.

Rosanne D’Arrigo is wonderfully quoted as saying “you had to pick cherries if you want to make cherry pie”.

From the current paper "This proxy network showed optimal response to Australasian temperatures over the SONDJF period, and contains the austral tree ring growing season during the spring–summer months."

So they went looking for a hockey stick and found one!

Fred see also this discussion at Climate Audit regarding requests to access data from the two lead authors of this study. Open access to data and methods is a corner stone of the scientific method. Seems someone missed that lesson.

"Neukom (together with Joelle Gergis) has also published a recent survey of Southern Hemisphere proxies Neukom and Gergis 2011, one of the objectives of which was to report on the “availability” of SH proxies. Unfortunately, with the sort of blindness all too familiar from Climategate, Neukom and Gergis conflate availability of data to cronies with public availability – a situation that I am presently testing with a long-unarchived Eric Steig data set. "

http://climateaudit.org/2012/01/19/neukom-and-the-steig-overunder/

Optimal Mark, not the most extreme or one that fitted any pre-conceived findings but proxies that were consistent, reliable and responsive to conditions over the 1000 year period. The proxies were selected because there was a high level of consistency over a very wide area and they were the best.

To suggest scientists would go hunting for proxies that fitted pre-conceived notions is just another way of accusing them of scientific fraud.

Claiming scientists are dishonest on blogs without actually publishing any science is not the scientific method.

This is the standard operating procedure for McIntyre and Hendrickx. Keep throwing mud and hope that it will stick.

Marc - you continually criticise posters for linking to blogs - but that is all you do.

Gavin Schmidt deals with McIntyre here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/yamalian-yawns

Marc says
"The lead author of the study reveals a certain lack of impartiality her personal blog. It seems that someone's mind has been made up before the evidence is in

Unlike Marc who runs the blog
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com.au/
where he refers to the "Klimate Kommissar" and much more in a similar vein.

Marc: "There is in fact a strong disparity between the models and the reconstructed temperatures contrary to what the author's claim. Te differences and why they are present are glossed over."

No. My reading of the paper is that the principal features of the signal purportedly due to AGW are recovered by the models with the recognition that there are differences in some detail. These differences are explicitely discussed and accord well with understandings of the impact of neglect of industrial aerosols in the models used.

Schmidt and co have been well and truly bested by McIntyre.

I note your links to the lamentable SS blog above. PKB my friend.

Here's a summary of Yamal you might like.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-death-of-the-hockey-stick/?singlepage=true

Well hats your opinion Fred, but it does'nt gel with the graph in the paper.

The disparity between the shape of the curves at the modern end where data is better is striking.

Ian,

I have not seen the 2011 paper but would like to if you could give me a pdf freference to it in full.

However, looking at the selection from the main paper, I must say that Marc has a valid point since all of the sites are on very small land masses or close to the ocean. There may be quite a variety of different ocean and atmospheric circulations involved which could quite conceivably make major modifications to the evidence from tree rings etc. One ice core from Antartica seems a bit limited! .

In fact, at a glance, it appears that some of the proxies in fact do show a quite high temperature during the MWP of the Northern Hemisphere but presumably these are outweighed by others. Unfortunately, in this region there is no collaborative historical information such as exists in the Northen hemisphere where the settling of Grrenland and Iceland provides very strong corroborating evidence of the warm period.

Since some of the villages built on Greenland are now covered by glaciers, and yet in the time of the earlier Viking colonisation, grain crops including wheat were grown on land which had previously been under ice and is still under ice today, there is fairly convincing evidence of a higher temperature at those places during the MDB of signifcantly more than 0.6 C but more like 10 to 15 degrees and may be more.

Further analysis of this paper may be revealing. One thing which does need to be said is that if the conclusions from the measurements cannot be obtained excepot from a reported extraordinarily complex statistical analysis, then the measurements are quite insufficient to show any definitive result.

Any set of scientific measurements worht their salt and to which one can attach realistic error bars, MUST be able to reveal themselves to visual scutiny. These are not the kind of measurements where the values can lie mysteriously tucked away from human sight and can only be revealed by some kind of special digital analysis, no matter how clever is the algorithm. For God's sake, while these are "proxies" to be sure for temperature, what the raw data purports to show, at each point in time and at each location, is the temperature at that point.

If there are a set of rings being used, these must be identified by year and MUST have a contiguous and continuous set over a significant number of years to have any value at all. Thus each set of readings over say 30 years must provide a value for the temperature over those years, with appropriate errors.

To pretend that some sort of fancy analysis, whether it is tested in 2 ways, or the claimed 3,000 ways will not make the results any better than what can be read from the points, which as Marc has pointed out, are very thin on the ground and taken from very selective positions in the ocean. I am yet to be convinced that this paper has any value at all. Another helpful inclusion in what is a very long paper, would have been photgraphs of examples of the the rings which provide the data for the major part of the study.
John Nicol

McIntyre runs a particularly mendacious gossip blog about climate scientists designed to titillate the weak minded.

I do not read it.

When he or his fellow travellers publish some science let me know. I do not expect a call anytime soon.

What a total misrepresentation of Climate Audit.
The list you are looking for is here...http://climateaudit.org/multiproxy-pdfs/

So come on Mike give Steve a call! Or does leaving the comfort and safety of the echo chamber of ideas that is the SS blog cause you some trepidation? Are you afraid that you might learn something?

Call me Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any way
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any day-ay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6QBaZHltJw

From **your** link
MM Published Articles
McIntyre and McKitrick, Energy & Environment, 2003 MM03 SI
McIntyre and McKitrick, GRL 2005a SI
McIntyre and McKitrick, E&E 2005b SI
McIntyre and McKitrick 2005c, Reply to Von Storch and Zorita
McIntyre and McKitrick 2005d, Reply to Huybers, GRL

Ignore the junk E&E - one publication and 2 replies in 2005 - nothing in the last 7 years yet in that 7 years plenty of op eds, plenty of gossip and accusations of scientific dishonesty on his blog.

http://www.desmogblog.com/steve-mcintyre
http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/04/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-1-in-the-beginning/

Links to smears from the gutter and no attempt to deal with the science. Is that the standard response from Kookite HQ?

Marc will chaff on and on, as his handlers demand.
;]

Actually I thought the fit between proxy and model remarkable! There may be some decadal signal there that the model hasn't captured but once again ... it's discussed very openly in the paper.

It does seem to me that you have two standards of proof: an incredibly severe (basically unmeetable) one for climate scientists and a lackadaisical one for your preferred bloggers.

Lol! Climate Audit. Even the deniers have disowned these jokers. Marc needs to update his denialist portfolio. McIntyre and McKitrick - the Bevis and Butthead of climate science...

Fred, we can note the latest satellite observations of Cyanobacterial blooms in the Southern Ocean, which is unusually large and raising sea surface temps there over 1 additional degree C.

We're fortunate that the current sunspot maximum is mild, as it is every 90 years or so. The worldwide temp rise would have been larger this year, had the solar maximum been as strong as, say, in the Medieval Warming.

Hope you folks get to see Venus transit the Sun on the 5th...
http://www.spaceweather.com/

With that, and our eclipse up here tomorrow, maybe folks like John & Marc can record some data to show we're all really cooling?
;]

If the shoe fits....

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/7/another-hockey-stick-broken.html

Ken, I believe the moderation you are calling for is called peer review.

Alvin

I agree, but no one believes them.

We need to deal with the reality of the popular mood or this argument will be lost.

Ken Swanson,

I agree with you entirely for the need for an ongoing forum, debate, Royal Commission or whatever to clarify the basic scientific approach to this horrendous problem.

However, it has to date proven impossible to obtain an agreement from any one from the Australian Climate Units or CSIRO to provide people who are prepared to debate either in public, or even in private, with other scientists who do not share their views on the role of carbon dioxide in the warming of the earth.

One does not understand their reasons for this but it is one of the reasons that the public are not convinced of the claims made for Anthropogenic Climate Change. (AGW). Another problem exacerbating this issue of public trust has been the very exaggerated claims made for increased global warming

(a) being DEFINITELY caused by carbon dioxide when no tangible evidence is presented which one can clearly identify as plausible - claims based solely on the results from models into which "assumed" inputs are set up without the presentation of any preceding logical analysis

(b) claims that bushfires in Victoria, bleaching on the Barrier Reef, flooding in Queensland and the prolonged earlier drought, are the result of Global Warming when in fact they are all phenomena which are absolutely no different from many similar events which are well known by the public to have taken place many times over the last 180 to 200 years.

(c) gross exaggerations regarding sea level rises when all of the world wide data shows that in recent years the rate of sea level rise has slowed rather than accelerated as was once claimed.

(d) promises by people such as Prof Will Stephen and in particular by Climate Commissioner Flannery that rainfall would almost certainly diminish and that cities such as brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne would no longer have sustainable supplies of water without desalination plants, all of which have been at great expense, mostly with built in contracts to also supply water for some years when it has turned out not to be needed, and the palnts have fairly limited lifetimes and will probably deteriorate, as Queensland's has already, before the now full dams could again approaching lower levels - four or five years down the track even if no more useful rain falls.

It is these many unhelpful statements made in an attempt to somewhat dishonestly have an influence on the mind of the public which, surprise, surprise, have in fact had exactly the opposite effect. The only way to overcome the level of distrust that has been built up over many years of exaggeration is for climate scientists to become open to questions by other scientists and to allow an ongoing face to face debate. To my knowledge this has never happened since the 1980s.
John Nicol

This gets so intriguing when Nicol enters and grouses about "unhelpful statements"! It reminds me of when John asked me for direct discussion last year and then fell silent when he got from me clear proof that what he was saying was incorrect.

Apparently to John, who advertizes himself as a "spectroscopist (a technician, not a scientist or engineer), any facts are "unhelpful".

So to help you, John, why not re-engage our email exchange? You sputtered off into your own chaff without a murmur. At least Monckton, when faced with the same facts, emitted some very Brit putdowns (but that's for another page).

To economize server space & emissions, let's add Marc (with a "c") in here too, since he claims to be a geologist, but won't reveal who pays him for that & his chaffing here. Maybe he thinks folks could never imagine a geologist working for combustion industry?

So, let's review, for Marc & John, some basic facts & physics...

a) Seas have risen 8" since 1880. Most of that rise isn't due to melting ice anywhere. About 60% is just thermal expansion. Guess seas have gotten warmer around the globe, eh? That's what satellites & surface measurements show too. Sound like "global warming" of something?

b) The ~40% of sea rise is indeed caused by melting ice, as from glaciers, , and grounded sea ice. Greenland alone was losing >50 cubic miles of ice per year, and now much more, apparently doubling losses every decade or less.

c) Ocean acidification is now the highest in about 300 million years (lowest pH), threatening all fisheries. In just the industrial age, pH decrease has come over half way to shutting off Carbonate ion incorporation by life forms that form the base of the ocean food chains. How do we know that's human induced? C'mon John & Marc, get ready to chaff reality some more!. Isotopic analysis demonstrates the excess Carbonic acidification of seawaters stems from fossil Carbon and fresh atmospheric Oxygen.

d) We don't need to argue on land/sea temps, since all records show average increases and increased moisture content of over-water air. Even the Koch Brothers funded a university study that confirmed how accurate recent temp measurements & upward trends are. But, they're still giving $ to our beloved Heartland Inst., which doles dome coins out to the odd Aussie 'institutes' helping the combustion industry combust.

If you, John & Marc, have interest in facts about melting Greenland & glaciers, etc., and you really are scientifically engaged, then you should have access to recent reports, such as: AAAS Science (peer-reviewed mates): 4 May, p550; 20 April p310; and 27 April p455. If you don't get journals like this, your handlers can likely provide them. Your efforts to disinform here must be valuable to some interests.

Now avert your eye, J & M, so others can get recent "unhelpful" facts...
http://tinyurl.com/bueq2ev
http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/2012/mar12.html
www.economist.com/node/21541028

And we certainly don't want you being embarrassed into adult responsibility by some girls who display responsibility...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0 (1992)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3e6G_7GY4&feature=channel_video_title (Durban South Africa)

But, John & Marc, at any time, you can reveal the trusts you've set up for your offspring to draw upon to stem any disasters that just might occur, if you just might, on slimmest chance, be wrong.

And, you could still take the bet Monckton reneged on.
;]

Ken, you exemplify the problem. You don't even wait for the information to be published before you dismiss it. Normally it's polite in denier circles to at least read what is published before you throw it on the "CAGW alarmist" junk heap.

Alex
Great links.
Now lets get these contributions into a public forum broader than the Conversation.
Scientists of both sides then questioned in a structured legal environment under oath and asked to state what it is their study actually says and what it does not say, free of spin and journalistic overreach. Remember Alex I said both sides.
Scientists should then be asked directly a few recurring questions about how what they say they have found empirically affect some basic metrics like for example:
Global Temperature
Sea Levels
Sea Levels
Melting Ice Caps
More floods
More droughts
I pick these simple ones as these are the metrics most used in the press daily, and which have become familiar with the public at large.
A common framework for the public as a reference point is what is needed.
Only then will public opinion of Climate Science improve.
What we discuss and point score on here in this blog matters little and will do little.

Yes Ken, but getting folks who are used to fibbing to agree to be legally bound by anything is counter to their human nature -- just look at how we 'discovered' and, after killing a few thousand of our soldiers, sort of 'undiscovered' Iraqi WMDs some years back!

One 'official' review this past month covered the state of knoledge, even including ocean acidification, which is too often skipped over. It will likley be the first truly regrettable cause of grief for a billion or so folks, and sooner than plain old effects.

Here's the recent USGS summary...
http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/2012/mar12.html

I myself have criticized a few researchers, who report climate-modelling results, for spending more time on the models than on actual measurements. The denier douche-bags love to play in the natural variability that models always leave open. One needs no models to read hundreds of years of tide gauges, or to read a pH meter.

Talking about models allows the denier termites into the structure that's based on real measurements, and inevitably, some that are left out or coarsened for computational tractability. Models are essential to complete and verify to allow predictions. But real data also speak for themselves, and more strongly.

The recent reports in AAAS Science re glaciers and sea changes (April & May) are real, with or without modelling.

This reminds me of an email exchange with Monckton a few years back, whose carefully-confused presentation slides make gazillions of data points look inconclusive. After showing him how his misstatements about explaining the apparent "pause" in pre-2000 temp rise was due to just 4 measurable real variables, he then tried to say there was so little CO2 in the air anyway that going up 100ppm wouldn't matter. I asked him if he'd think having his bank increase their interest on his savings by 380/280 wouldn't matter. Silence ensued.
;]
As Sam Clemens said: "A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on."

That's the Heartland, etc. mantra.

Alex
What do you think could be done to establish an accountability framework that the public could buy into?
What we have now in the IPCC is no longer respected by the public and is seen to only represent one side of the argument by most.
I just cannot see how we can advance acceptance of climate science without changing our current approach, which leaves it too open to be torn down by skeptics.

Bob: I think many of us share your frustration.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, ignoring the trolls and blogs is probably not a good idea because the denialist rhetoric is very damaging. It has succeeded in derailing appropriate actions that should already be in place to properly mitigate and manage across the identified risks. It also besmirches many honest, dedicated and hard working people.

It can't go unanswered.