This whole series is about defending the mountains of work that has been published and put forward professionally. As yet, there are no alternative theories to AGW that stand up to even a moderate amount of scrutiny. If you have one that you think is credible, please put it forward so we can debate it, just as long as it does not involve the gravitational force of jupiter.

Actually Gavin that is not such a bad suggestion !
Io is certainly a volcanic moon due to such forces , so are you sure that gravity has no role in heating the Earth's core ?
As for AGW, well , it is a statement isn't it.
"GW with a small anthropogenic contribution" would be a more accurate description of what we have.
The extent & degree of the contribution of the "anthropogenic portion" is what the discussion should be about.The GW is down to many factors & personally I think it should mean "grateful world" as far as it's inhabitants go ! We are , after all , living in an 'inter-glacial-period' which (by definition has a start & an end ) has allowed our entire species to advance beyond survival mode to the pleasures of (mostly non-sensical ) discussions by e-mail & website-blogs.
After all , we are so well-informed & intelligent that we can't be fooled by a falacious argument , can we ? I mean , we have all these 'climate scientists' giving us the gee-up & a sufficient smattering of facts that should be sufficient & if not let's just have it imposed anyway seems to be the only concensus !
And of course there are no reasons to doubt the facts & the honesty of "scientists, governments , bureaucrats & entrepreneurs " ( ' the establishment' ) as presented in "reputable journals" EXCEPT ,of course , for ALL the OTHER exceptions to the rule ! eg. 'the weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq' which necessitated an immediate military intervention (their presence was 'confirmed by telemetry & satellite observation to a high level of certainty' & various 'intelligence sources' {now there's an oxymoron for you ! } )
& further e.g. 'The Cold War' which existed for about 45 years which could NOT have existed or have continued without the total co-operation & collusion of 'scientists' & politicians & their 'apparatchiks' & the all important media !
During this period (roughly 1945 to 1991 ) there were numerous 'cultural exchanges' when various 'cultural (propaganda opportunities) activities' to maintain the one-up-man-ship were facilitated. An English actor & comedian , Leslie Phillips , was interviewed on his return from a visit to Moscow & asked how did he find it .(apart from the usual ...go to St Petersburg,turn right ,then straight ahead..type jokes ) he said that "the Russians were so disorganised that they couldn't conduct a Sunday-school picnic, let alone a war ! "There were many such supporting comments from defectors (various KGB agents ,"Kim" Philby ,Nureyev etc ) & other 'western cultural groups' over the years (published in only the 'trashy newspapers ' ) BUT the deception ,hatred , fear & rage was maintained & persisted.
The FACT that 'the western powers ' knew all along that the USSR had neither the will nor the wherewithall to wage a war was always concealed by a collusion of the above-mentioned culprits...........curiously enough , a precursor of the current bunch of 'experts' ( who are to be believed above & beyond the realms of any mere mortal ', BUT JUSTIFIABLY SO , 'sceptic' ). ANY of the groups could have revealed the truth & ended the entirely artificial division of the world at any time in that roughly 45 years , but our generation were allowed to grow up in the shadow of 'fear of nuclear annihilation' & yet they now say 'Trust us !"
Many of these 'cultural exchanges' brought benefits , e.g. , training of Russian doctors in the treatment & management of cystic fibrosis by bringing then to Britain & British doctors going to Russia & teaching their medical staff.
Eventually , journalists & the media eventually prevailed ( & one can only presume ) 'broke their gentleman's agreement' & published. Some e.g.Wilfred Burchett were 'demonised' (for his honest Japan evaluation initially ) much as 'sceptics' are being demonised today.
Sorry that this is NOT a scientific treatise that will settle
the AGW debate ...but I think it gives a very valid perspective on why we should NOT allow ourselves to 'get-given-the'bum's-rush' on this , or any other , issue simply because it does not conform to the view espoused by 'the establishment'. (who have shown their contempt & deceipt on many past occasions when it suited them )

your response had nothing to do with this article.

Yes it does Gavin ! This article was entitled "Rogues or respectable ? " and I was pointing out that quite often the rogues ARE respectable , at least in the 'eyes' of a crooked establishment !
Further , I was showing how corrupt & giving examples of where 'scientists' were as corrupt as people in other fields of enterprise .'Scientists', by virtue of their 'good-works' in their field do NOT automatically hold the high moral ground ( e.g. Crick & Watson failed to acknowledge that they based their work on X-ray crystallography they 'obtained' from Rosalind Franklin when accepting their Nobel Prizes .......only to justify it later with the remark that.."she was dead anyway, & they don't award posthumous Nobel Prizes" ...which I regard as a pretty low act !).
In other words , they are mere mortals like the rest of us !
Gullible, corruptible,able to be bought & sold,honest,diligent,& all the other human traits ,strengths,weaknesses & foibles common to us all. So , to quote (Paul Hogan at least & probably others ) "Don't come the raw prawn with me ! "
What I wrote IS in keeping with the topic & TOTALLY RELEVANT !
And thank you Ian Enting for your gratuitous insult "perhaps unwittingly". I am well aware of the "Health Issue regarding smoking" and you , perhaps unwittingly , have further illustrated my point that corruption & 'science' are frequently one & the same thing, especially where MONEY is concerned.
What I wish to add is that I am NOT impressed or over-awed by distinguished titles ( so many of which are awarded as 'honorary' to absolutely appalling people....such as a "Sir" to Robert Mugabe & doubtless he has many "peers"....and that doesn't impress me much either ! ) Any 'swot' can , with the passage of time , obtain letters after their name,by diligence or by recognition by others for making outstanding contributions. The difficulty arises when one has to decide which is which & which is worthwhile. Then it becomes a gender,race,skin-colour,political affiliation,sexual orientation,religious beliefs & all the other factors which can influence ( but in a secular ,scientific evaluation shouldn't ) their individual response & opinion on a subject.Regretably,I find that too many 'tainted' opinions are offered and not very many genuine ones.
Most of the contributors on the AGW ('doom-sayers, catastophic global warming , death & disaster & 'see,I TOLD you so...' ) side come with 'financial baggage' , although they claim otherwise. Be it government employment ( dependent on producing the results the government requires ! ) , the continuing tenure(probationary ? ) or next research grant ( again , producing the required results etc ) , an academic promotion , promoting a new book or a series of lectures based on the 'required controversial field',advisor to the government or business community etc.....but all have some remuneration involved........& in my experience this WILL colour any opinion, usually green !
This charge can be levelled at the "other side" with equal vehemence & some validity......................BUT , this is the only side which contains the great bulk of people who simply want the facts.They don't want payouts from a carbon-tax etc , they just want the plain , untainted truth and an understanding of the issue and it seems to have gone missing , AWOL.
For whatever reason , 'we' no longer want opinions reinforced by wads of degrees from 'scientists'.....just basic facts.
The maxim...... "Bullshit baffles brains" .......is a given !
IF it cannot be explained in words on one syllable it is probably untrue ! It may take longer but you have all the time in the world at your disposal.......what's the rush !
Many of "us" think that time is NOT on the AGW side.
The weather has reverted to more-normal conditions ( loosely translated: it's winter & it's raining ! ) & yet AGW proponents are still obfuscating & offering 'technical summaries'(loosely translated: bullshit in camouflage ) & claiming that the sky-is-falling-in ! ( loosely translated: The chicken-licken excuse ) & that even 'normality' is part of the whole disaster-scenario !
Incidentally , when WAS the 'climate' perfect in your humble opinion ? & in which part of the world ? Certainly NOT Africa ! Even back at the dawn of time 'people' were busting-a-gut to go elsewhere ! And the climate has changed many times since then & yet 'we' have adapted & survived. Why can't we leave well-enough alone & simply adapt as & when & where it proves necessary ?

Trevor, the changes that are happening are far faster than have occurred in at least the last million years - see our good friends at NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php

When warming occurs 1000%+ faster than previous exits from ice ages, you know something is wrong, and the various ecosystems and flora and fauna living within it simply cannot keep up.

And more normal weather patterns? Thats your narcissistic interpretation. you know better than than all the collective knowledge of all the top universities and research organisations around the world.

You are simply wrong. The winners will be wealthy people, the losers will be the poor and the flora and fauna that cannot adapt at record speed.

Gavin , thanks for the character assessment !
Faster than the last 1 million years ......and that from a cash-strapped outfit that has been around since 1958 ! So then , it's not from personal recollection is it ?
You are right of course ! The winners will be rich......because they are already setting up to help themselves to the massive 'rewards' currently on offer for promoting this eco-nut 'dodgy brothers' science & tax impost.
Wake up to yourself.They are playing with your 'guilt complex' & your mind & then your money !

Gavin,
Surely you mean "discuss" not "defend" . If the science is so substantive, whay does it need defending? I think this approach is already too wide spread and has been for a very long time. At aconference in Europe in 1985, when this debate was still in its infancy, the Professor of Chemistry at Imperial College London, Jack Barrett, presented the results of spectroscopic measurements on carbon dioxide which showed that the additional absorption remaining in the atmosphere, the claimed reason for the Enhanced Green House Effect, could not have the residual effect claimed by others at the conference who were simply making ssumptions. Modeling at that stage was very primitive (26 years ago) but the idea, perhaps even the belief, of warming was well established, Contrary forces got to work and Jack could no longer obtain research funding, could no longer publish under the banner of ICL, and eventually was effectively drummed out of his job! Much more recently, an adjunct Professor at Bond University in Australia, had his (unpaid) appointment terminated for writing an article in the Australian questioning Global Warming. (I can give you chapter and verse if you want) Any non global warming advocate at any university in Australia and New Zealand and who is invited to talk by a department, has to have express permission from the VC to do so. Such permission has been refused. (again Ch & V if required). Requests for two years by a physicist to CSIRO head, Penny Whetton, to provide articles, one paper, one internal report, stting out the fundamental scientific case for claiming CO2 caused warming, as opposed to the "results" from models, ended after many promises but NEVER providing any such paper. Requests to other heads of Units in Australia, not yet to Ian Enting, for similar literature, has resulted in a couple of general articles from "Science World" and "Scientific American". That is why the discussions such as this remain at the level of "He said...", "You said..." but with out any guts to the discussion at all. The real physics of the behaviour of CO2 is never discussed, yet all of the Global Warming debate hinges on one and only one thing, the physics of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As a start see http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/co2/climate_and_co2.pdf
for a very simple initial contribution. If you could refer me to others I would appreciate it.

Ian, Thank you for taking the time to point us in the direction of some of the basic material which might lead to a dsicussion on the Green House Effect.

But before going into that, could I just comment on a few other remarks.
“Like Gavin says, the series is about defending the science against an anti-science campaign of misinformation.”
I should have thought this series would be about defining the science upon which the hypothesis of the Enhanced Green House Effect is based.

The denigration of carbon dioxide as a “pollutant” and the demonising of the many honest, capable and dedicated scientists who are striving to determine accurately the real effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its possible role in warming, is hardly an uplifting project

I had thought it would be better to leave remarks aimed at putting down efforts by those who wish to raise the standard of discussion on the “Conversation”, to sites like John Cook’s Climate Skeptics, which was designed specifically to allow a voice to those whose knowledge of Anthropogenic Global Warming is fairly basic and discuss it through the use of terms like “deniers”, “weirdos” and “flat earthers”..

1. I would suggest reading the IPCC technical summaries. (If you use the technical summaries you bypass the whole issue of whether, for the policymakers' summaries the approval by government appointees means that the results are:
(a) sexed-up for political reasons
(b) blanded-down for political reasons,
(c) left unchanged because the different political pressures counteract each other).

Yes, Thanks Ian. I have actually read quite thoroughly and carefully through the IPCC chapters 8, 9 and 10 and their references but have not found anything which discussed the basic processes involving carbon dioxide. There are explanations of the careful use of “line by line” inclusion in the models using pre-calculated structures of radiation fields some of which are not physically possible, such as the return field to the earth which is claimed to supply the additional warming at ground level, and the magnitudes of forcings which lead to various results. The only papers which relate at all to the behaviour of carbon dioxide is the favourite Arrhenius and a couple in the same vein by Callendar and Hansen which are just a rehash of Arrhenius. I was amazed to find that of about 180 references in Will Steffen’s report to the Tax Committee, only four gave any suggestion of discussing the Green House Effect per se, the prime one being of course Svante Arrhenius’ 1895 pre quantum mechanics paper, the only reference to Calendar was quite odd – a book about his life by I believe, a non-scientist, I wondered whether, on the morning he wrote the report, Will was actually aware that the Tax is being levied because of a belief that carbon dioxide causes Global Warming! A similar impression is gained in reading the IPCC Science Chapters. There are thousands of references to warming here, rates of change of ice sheets there, effects of “warming” on many different environments etc but surprisingly few on the science of carbon dioxide and the application of thermodynamics.

It was for the above reason that a couple of years ago I wrote to Penny Whetton to ask if she could help me to determine the references from AR4 or any papers or internal reports which they might have on the topic. After promising to do so over about eighteen months and forwarding a couple of low level papers at about Scientific American standard, she eventually referred me to some pages in their own “definitive” report – Climate Change in Australia: 2007 – where I found for the second time in my life “We believe that most of the increase in global temperatures during the second half of the twentieth Century was very likely due to increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” I have noted over some time now that much debate surrounds the use of the words “Very Likely” as to whether these should be interpreted to mean 85%, 90%, 93% or 95% with very little discussion as to why this is “believed” but cannot be demonstrated. I noticed in Will Steffen’s report to the Government’s committee that the interpretation had been upgraded to 100%. .
.
2. Spencer Weart's book "The Discovery of Global Warming" is a good description of the science and how it evolved. The website http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm gives all the information (and more) as a free download.

Yes, thanks again Ian, I have read Spencer Weart’s historical account of Global Warming and did discuss some aspects of his thesis directly with him, and he was very helpful up to the point of what is in it. None of it, as he agreed, gives any detailed physics of the processes representing the Green House Effect and when I asked him if he could help me with the missing details he explained that he was a “Science Historian” not a working physicist so regretfully could not help.

3. The Australian Academy of Science: "The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers" is available from www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange2010.html. Unlike the printed version, the on-line version includes references.

I note again that the Academy of Science suggests, among its priorities in 2010, as did the IPCC in AR4, that there is a need for “hind casting” as they call it. We would have referred to it as “truthing” whereby they start at a time of reasonably well known climatic conditions, they suggest 1900, which I would have thought was a bit early, and try to reproduce the known climates since. If from 1900 to 1901 is too close, then surely they can try 1950 and beyond since the modelers have always claimed that modeling the general climate in 2050 or 2100 was more accurate than predicting the regional climate next year. There is certainly plenty of evidence to backup the claims that accurate predictions one year in the future are impossible, but one cannot understand why, after nearly 35 years of work on models, they had not got around to “truthing” by 2007 and certainly there is no excuse for leaving it till after 2010!!! If this had been done, and they were able to show that by publishing their results as well as the measured climate behaviour over the last twenty years and could show consistency between them, then we would not now be having this debate. By withholding details of their work, by failing to discuss it with scientists outside the club and by failing to show any demonstrated accuracy in their projections, they are wide open to disbelief. Last year, regional models presented for Australia, published in June for the last quarter of the year showed SE Queensland generally drought stricken yet again. Western Australia was shown as being particularly wet. The projections were 100% wrong in both areas. To boot, the charade continue when they forecast for the January to march quarter – again dry south of Rockhampton-Longreach. No need to explain further!

I was unable to find any references on the Green House Effect, beyond a journalist level article from Science News, headed The Enhanced Green House Effect – A Hot International Topic which seemed out of place in a report of this standing. It also quoted in the first paragraph, the nonsensical claim that “without Green House gases” we would be living at 33 C lower temperatures. This is a well used myth, since if we only had oxygen and nitrogen, no water as a GHG, no CO2, the air would warm by contact taking up about 50% of the surface energy, the solar insolation, with the other 50% being radiated through the non GHG atmosphere. What happens now? We have hot air, we have circulation but no green huouse gases to radiate the heat away. So tomorrow, the sun gets up again and heats it a bit more – no energy escaping from the air and so the temperature rises further eventually rising to at least the equilibrium temperature of the midday sun in the tropics.

So unfortunately I couldn’t find any erudite references to the action of carbon dioxide in either the IPCC Report, The CSIRO report, nor in the Academy of Science Report. Where should I go from here?

how about try talking about this article instead

I thought I already confessed to being a rogue?

The contribution of humans to the observed change is always where the real debate was.

There is also debate about feedback in the system

There is also debate about the adjustments of historical records.

There is also debate about the proxy reconstructions validity.

But this site has a lot of articles about the big bad deniers and crackpot conspiracy theories. While people write womens day gossip type articles about the bad meany denier secret organisations we are never going to actually get real debate on the science. I think the editors have done well with the site format and free commentary but the content is very cheesy emotional stuff, not much science to see here but lots of hubris and demonisation.

There is much less debate about those things in the scientific community than you imagine. The debate has been largely manufactured, and to me this is what "the conversation" in this series is about. in response to yoou I'll make a couple of observations:

1) The scientific 'debate' happens in the scientific literature and at scientific conferences. However it is not a debate in the 'debating society' sense where the best arguer wins, but rather one in which the best evidence, or accumulation of evidence wins. It is noteworthy that the skeptics who talk so big in the press are pretty timid when it comes to exposing their ideas to real scientific scrutiny in scientific fora. Swaying a gullible public is much easier, and it is this two faced behaviour that has made those few skeptics who actually have scientific credentials so much 'on the nose' with other scientists, who expect them to back up their big talk with real science.

2) You need a great deal of background knowledge of the science to have sufficiently deep understanding to challenge it on a technical level. Those that actually have that expertise think the science around anthropogenic global warming is solid. To have a load of amateurs such as ourselves 'debating the science' in the internet is utterly pointless - about as useful as our debating the best approaches to brain surgery. Promoting this kind of debate among the voting public, however, has considerable benefit for those who wish the govt to do nothing about climate change.

By the way - where I work (as a non-climate scientist) virtually everyone has a PhD - we don't generally go putting it after our names though, except in those few contexts where our own expertise is directly relevant (and I always burst out laughing if someone calls me "Dr"). So I find all these people citing their BSc's and MBA's and whatnot on these threads as though they believe it gives them some kind of credibility to pronounce on climate science quite laughable.

Dear Sherry Mayo,

There are indeed a lot of complex issues involved in discussing the global climate and the problems with its acurate modelling, Attempts seem always to be made to solve all of these problems in one hit by looking at all facets over the whole of the globe.

In atomic physics, another supremely complex area of research -which by the way has, with a few other related areas of physics, brought us the instrumentation of radio and electronics, the transistor, the microchip, the computer, the laser in our lounge room CD player, the large CO2 industrial laser for cutting steel, the X-ray and MRI scanner, the fundamantal knowledge to understand molecules, cells, eventualy cancer treatment,...... - makes use of simple building blocks. Work continues to further our understanding by measurments on the simplest atoms hydrogen (one proton, one electron, Helium, two protons, two neutrons, two electrons, sodium.....as well as the modeling of atoms of Uranium and the very complex molecules of different atom combinations using techniiques developed before computers were invented known as Hartree-Foch calculations. The fundamental aspects of a simple atom can easily be discussed on a forum such as this. So too could the fundamental contribution of the individual parameters in a climate model which are essential to its correct operation. The processes of convection, the heating in the atmoshere between -20 and + 20 degrees latitude - often discussed by one of the senior researchers from CSIRO, Dr David Evans, (whose work on this "signature" of the enhanced green house effect changed his attitude from pro-warming to a sceptic), the workings of a cloud, atmospheric and ocean circulation, and most importantly, the physics of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But try to raise this in the simplest way on a forum which, somewhere in its title, includes the word science and you will be drummed very quickly out of town, often by some nasty abuse - I have been there, done that. There are many other forums with titles such solar physics, planetary science, the physics of carbon dioxide, hydrology, atmospheric tides, the behaviour of clouds, the characteristics of Arctic Ice, which do exchange ideas and the results of work among specialists on these topics. So yes, trying to discuss the distribution of climate over the whole world against the very approximate results from a model to determine whether the results do or do not fit with the assumed inclusion of a forcing from different quantities of CO2 is not possible in any reasonable way. However, discussing the basic effects of carbon dioxide, the most fundamental physics in the whole of this debate is comparatively easy, compared with the analysis of the inner soul of hydrogen. So if people wish to change the quality of debate, it would only take Professor Enting, Penny Whetton, David Karoly.... a few minutes to write what they assume are the real essential characteristics of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which they expect could lead to its causing global warming, and we could have a useful scientific discussion. I am not going to try here as experience tells me it would not be welcome, but the invitation is there for anyone who wishes to contact me at jonicol18@bigpond.com See also http://ruralsoft.com.au/co2/climate_and_co2.pdf or http://ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific
John Nicol

"The processes of convection, the heating in the atmoshere between -20 and + 20 degrees latitude - often discussed by one of the senior researchers from CSIRO, Dr David Evans, (whose work on this "signature" of the enhanced green house effect changed his attitude from pro-warming to a sceptic),"

Ho hum, DAVID EVANS got a PhD in EE and has been doing mostly software, but labeled himself a "rocket scientist".
See:
http://theconversation.edu.au/rogues-or-respectable-how-climate-change-sceptics-spread-doubt-and-denial-1557
"From 1999 to 2006 Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office designing a carbon accounting system that is used by the Australian Government to calculate its land-use carbon accounts for the Kyoto Protocol. While Evans says (pdf) that "[he] know[s] a heck of a lot about modeling and computers," he states clearly that he is "not a climate modeler."

Got that, he was doing software for tracking, not climate modeling.
They are different.

To use an analogy that might make sense, you have mistaken a dentist for a heart surgeon, both fine, useful professions, but if you ask the former to do a heart bypass on you, you likely won't live to regret it.

With all due respect for the impressive-sounding physics-babble, I suspect you don't associate much with real physicists. Are you a member of any Physics society? Know any Nobel physicists?
Here's a good one: Burt Richter, a guy whose "retirement": would wear out most people. Here's a talk Burt gave for a ~30-person group in my town ~2005:
http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/do/brichter/presentations/2004_10_05.htm

Too bad you couldn't attend such a talk and trip him up and show that he was wrong. Two guys confidently tried, repeating one long-debunked idea after another. (see http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php for examples).

He patiently answered, then finally got tired of it, saying:

"You are just repeating some junk, much spread from some physicists I know personally, who've gone seriously wrong and I don't think much of." (or words to that effect. This was Seitz, et al covered in Merchants of Doubt, physicists Burt would have known.).

Ten feet from him, they visibly shrank in their seats, suddenly realizing that a Nobel physicist (and long Director of SLAC) might just know more, and they'd just come off as ignorant fools in front of their neighbors. When we broke for coffee, they slunk out without another word.

Try it sometime, live, with a real expert, preferably on video, giving your name so it can go up on YouTube, your chance for eternal fame.

I am surprised to find a Professor of Plant Biology (Stephen Smith) spreading gloom about sustainability when surely he must know these two equations which show how combustion of hydrocarbons promotes growth of plants, unlike windmills and solar panals:

C3H8 + 5O2 → Energy + 3CO2 + 4H2O …(1)

2CO2 + 2 H2O + photons → 2CH2O + 2O2 ...(2)
Or, in words, carbon dioxide + water + light energy → carbohydrate + oxygen.

Why is the RHS of (1) wicked when as the LHS of (2) it enables all life as we know it?

The quantities are not negligible, 30 GCO2 and 18 GtH2O on the RHS of (1), while the recyling of water vapour in the cooling of all steam power stations adds a new flux of 300 GtH2O of water up and rain down, as against the 30 GtCO2 up (but 18 down into plants and aquatic life) which are allegedly going to destroy the plant. Are you really a professor of Plant Biology?

Narcissism would be a very high trait found in the deniers i would think. They all seem to know better than the collective brainpower of the CSIRO, all the major universities etc etc.

If somebody says "We understand X comprehensively and anyone who says we don't understand everything about X is a denier!" and another person says "I dont think we understand X well enough and we need to do more work." - which one is displaying narcissism in this example?

Thanks for the encouragement Paul. The timber industry certainly has a bright future because timber is easy to work with, non toxic, strong, attractive and renewable and is made from sunlight, Co2 and water. Although my industry will be a big winner in any carbon sensitive economy I think it is a superior product to alternative materials anyway even without an artificial boost. When it comes to wood I am biased! It really is one of the most awesome materials on the planet. Global population growth and its associated consumption of finite resources plus its land use and environmental pressure are the major challenge on our planet right now in my opinion! People generally ignore these problems though to talk about CO2. How many population and land use articles are on this website as at June 25 2011?

Hi James, fair comment, but that is not what is occurring here. Anyone who says "we dont understand everything about X" is not a denier in my book, far from it.

A denier is someone who can look at all the arguments and evidence for AGW and say its all rubbish, that there is definitely no connection between man made GHG and climate change. There are a few of those in here, such as persons claiming that the real reason behind the recent warming trend is the gravitiation pull of jupiter among other things. If thats not narcissim i dont know what is.

I have no arguments against people who think more research is required, only if they think that it justifies not taking any action to reduce carbon emissions.

Gavin , how interesting that you defined narcissism as being someone mentioning "the gravitational pull of Jupiter ".

I checked the articles ....and lo and behold........IT'S YOU !!

Well done !

I think you'll find it has been Douglas Cotton and John Dodds going on about 60 and 900 year cycles of jupiter and other planetary forces causing varioius climatic changes, i have been on their case about it and find their answers entertaining.

Do you believe they are on to something?

Dear Ian, (I don't have your email, or I might have sent this very long reply directly to you. Sorry if is a nuisance on this already over-full set of comments. I think the editot should arrange to have a sequence of pages.)

I have previously gone through both Ian Plimer's book and you r many criticisms of it. I do not disagree with a lot of what you have said but right now would need to do a refresher course by going through it all again. While a lot of your criticisms are correct and justified, many of them are a matter of finding pretty obvious and sometimes trivial mistakes which are bound to occur, I'm sure you might agree, in a text of this size, when trying to use the huge number of references as appear - many unnecessarily in this book, and trying to get the book out in a hurry - both of which would be seen in hind sight to be serious mistakes. However, while you will probably not agree, I believe there is much in Ian's book which covers aspects of this very serious discussion correctly, are not contentious, are cited elsewhere and do indicate that many claims by CSIRO and IPCC are exaggerated in the accuracy they claim. I will reread your analysis and get back to you some time.

I am also very interested in pursuing discussions on the physics of “atmospheric” carbon dioxide with someone who also understands the basic physics of CO2, absorption, emission, radiation transfer and the analysis of gas spectra. I already have discussions with one person who accepts the IPCC’s analysis but came looking for someone in the sceptics camp to hold a pleasant but “combative” discussion rather than with someone who continued to agree with him. We have quite long and detailed exchanges which are stimulating and which we both enjoy. If anyone who reads this would care to participate, I could arrange for an email group on Google or expand and improve my very new and primitive blog at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific. I am at jonicol@bigpond.com .

Following my “defense” of Ian Plimer and others, I have included below a few comments on accuracy which I think may be relevant to discussions on this topic in relation to the workings of the models. I am also interested in knowing just how well projections of the known climate, say in the period June, 2007 to June, 20011 can be reproduced by our own CSIRO assuming initial conditions, which should be reasonably well known to exist in 1960 – about 50 years ago. From a comment by David Karoly a little while ago, the assessment of the value of a model involves running such an analysis and assessing the various average conditions pertaining to various parts of the world using different levels of forcing which are assumed to be provided by the known different levels of carbon dioxide. Through this comparison, the accuracy of the models can be assessed and the contribution from CO2 may be determined. The only question then, is to establish that the background to the forcing is robust, in that it cannot be possibly ascribed to another cause. Or alternatively, finding whether another differently structured forcing, causing a different distribution of the initial warming from that attributed to carbon dioxide, say solar effects, leads to the same or to a different climatic distribution.

[Actually, in looking at the errors listed in all of the IPCC reports and in particular in its latest, AR4 2007, from a physical science point of view, the expected accuracy of the models would be honestly stated as almost zero. The analysis of an atom, such as Helium, using a full relavistic Hartree-Foch representation, is very different from a climate model, and would probably be much less complex in some ways, but more difficult in others with its own multiple interactions between particles, than would an AOGCM with the vagaries of initial and boundary conditions, and the coupling between the many distinct but important parameters at each of (how many?) grid points. Yet if even one of the inputs to the atomic analysis was as uncertain as that suggested for the many parameters in the climate models (IPCC AR4 2007), with results for the “best known”# atomic parameter (Energy Levels), came out with a range in those atomic energy levels of from, say, in each case, about -8.2 to -24.5 eV for the ground 1s state, -2.5 to -7.5 eV for the resonance 2p level, -2.9. to -8.7 for the... or whatever, who would want to know – not your supervisor for sure!

(# the “best known” result (IPCC AR4 2007 Ch 9) from the 23, selected as “plausible” models– AR4 2007, is that single one of temperature at +1.5 to +4.5 C for doubling CO2 – a ratio of 1:3 or an error between models of larger than the value of the smallest parameter and 1/3rd of the largest accepted value. But of course taking the average of 23 results, of which 22 are demonstrably incorrect since all are different, and the 23rd may be also but we don’t know, and we have no error bars to indicate the range of error in each, it is difficult to assess the correctness of the models when none of the model details is available. Is it not time that CSIRO opened up and gave interested scientists access to the detail?

The IPCC happily tells us that they have difficulty with clouds and convection, they don’t do El Nino, the IPO or PDO, not too good on circulation, precipitation and are, or were in 2007, only just starting to look at truthing their output (AR4 2007) against known climates but at that stage did not, I believe, have any results to report. This situation may well have changed but I am not yet aware of it. However, in “almost the same paragraph”, they confirm for us that they have confidence in the value of this one single parameter – the global temperature. However, they fail to explain how this confidence is founded.] I just wonder whether any of Ian Plimer’s errors are of this magnitude?

Ian, hanks for your response. I can hear what you are saying and it will be interesting for me to revisit your analysis of Ian Plimer's work. I may then of course agree that only 10% of your comments refer to sloppiness and the rest are wrong. However, I don't think you should acuse Plimer of dishonesty. That is unfair and unbecoming of a senior scientist who could better explain some science instaed.

In the broad brush of geological analysis there is probably some latitude in discussion which would not apply in mathematics - not that allows him to say something that is totally without basis. I was hoping you may have picked up a couple of my other comments rather than leaving them to others. I have been throwing some of these types of ideas into the ring on a few blogs recently to try to stimulate a "conversation" on the topic of causes of global warming, but just as I find in writing to Penny Whetton, David Karoly and others, it is difficult to impossible to engage in any interactive discussion beyond accusations of some one being "wrong" while someone else is "right" and that is it. May be sometime we might be able to discuss the actual basic physics which should be considered before trying to build a model of the atmosphere. That is where one should start - far beyond Arrhenius primitive and very approximate attempts to formulate an hypothesis on the physics of radiation transfer and heat distribution in the atmosphere. But thanks again for your courteous reply.

Hi Mike , don't you just love to"hoist them on their own petard" !

It is often said that "genius is one part inspiration and 99 parts perspiration"

Thank goodness that noone told Thomas Edison that a lightglobe was illogical !
Oh ! That's right ! Lots of people told him that !
Serendipity intervened , fortunately !
Good thing that he persisted & turned a 'deaf ear' to his critics & came up with the goods ( after almost countless attempts).
Likewise with this 'catostophic climate change' I hope !

Tim, I look forward to Ian's response.

Your first and last bits seem odd if you're claiming to be well-grounded in climatology. It has long been acknowledged that there is variability in things like ocean-atmosphere heat exchange (even if all the details of that fluctuation aren't clear). But the latest ocean studies I've seen don't seem to support cooling, or even a lull in total heat content. Skepticalscience had some thoughts on the "stopped in 2003" business (following the "stopped in 1998" cherry pick etc.):
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-global-warming-is-happening-Part-2.html

And of course, if you look at longer-term anomaly vs. a multi-decadal base period (instead of just making comparisons between short periods subject to lots of internal variability) the trend is still clear, even at the surface:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif

And the last part seems to have been repeatedly discredited over the decades:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=87

http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Saturation.html