Troll. No substance, just undirected anger. I'd say a solar panel installer on the dole. With a humanities degree.

Engineers are fiercely proud of their degrees (which are usually a BSc anyway, unless they do a BEng) so I doubt it.

StewGreen, you asked me to join you in condemning Green for doing things that you are unlikely to disapprove of - ie. "over consumption", a concept that sceptics I've spoken to do not accept as applying to them. That is illogical. You might more logically have asked me to condemn them for being hypocritical, but you didn't. As you, unusually for a sceptic, seem to condemn "over consumption", I wondered how you define it.

Mike Jackson, there's plenty of evidence, including rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting Arctic, rising ocean acidity, receding glaciers and of course rising CO2 levels and the inevitable 'trapping' (oops, delaying) of heat. Take your pick.

3-degrees, I've worked with many engineers but this is the first time in 25 years I've had a discussion about pride and degrees. If my colleagues are fiercely proud, they hide it well.

[A] 1001 said that his degree was "in a branch of engineering".

[B] He also said:
..... I have no degree relevant to climate science, like most of those here I suspect.....
(Aug 26, 2013 at 7:05 PM )

Sounds a bit dubious to me. I suppose there may be branches of engineering that don't include studies of some of the following: thermodynamics, radiation, statistics, maths of fluid flow, quantum theory, differential equations,... -- all relevant to climate science-- but I can't think what they are, offhand. Agricultural engineering? Hygiene engineering?

1001's [A] and [B] don't go together.

Hey Humanities, why don't you just tell us what subject it was.

What is your obsession with degrees? If it pleases you, consider me a high-school dropout. It makes no difference to my questioning of why CO2 should not be considered to 'trap' heat. Despite your erudition, you have failed to dent that proposition beyond observing that the heat is not 'trapped' but merely delayed. As that delay means there is an increase in energy in the system that remains until something changes to let it out, anyone not versed in "sceptic newspeak", would take that to mean the heat is trapped.

If I were arguing from authority my qualifications might be relevant but the only person doing that is you:

1001 is way out of his depth here, he would do well to read some of our discussion threads on this topic before making veiled accusations that we don't understand physics. *points to his 3 science degrees on the wall*
...
Nice of you to join us here 1001, but scientifically, we will eat you for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

You'd make a bigger contribution if you put your energies in to correcting the pseudo-science propagated by your friends, rather than by polishing your nameplate and nit-picking terms.

1001: I doubt anyone here doesn't understand that, in the laboratory, without feedbacks, extra CO2 will result in a rise in temperature. But the Earth's atmosphere isn't a laboratory, so rising heat will cause other things to rise, one of them being water vapour, which will both act as a GHG and as an inhibitor of heat entering the atmosphere by cloud formation. Beyond all this there are the oceanic oscillations, volcanoes (which prior to the current hiatus were said to have little effect) man made aerosols and a myriad of natural and human induced forcings. If any of these could be described as the dominant factor in heat retention it is water vapour, hence my frequent references to deserts and the tropics, which I'[d hoped would make you stand back and think, but resulted in you calling it a red herring.

We are now near 200 months of a hiatus in rising temperatures, with a concomitant increase in CO2 of around 8% in the atmosphere with both the Antarctic and Arctic at record sea ice extents, we have tropical storms and tornadoes are at an all time low, there are receding glaciers, but many of them started receding well before humans were supposed to to have caused their recession (one such glacier has just revealed a forest demonstrating that the earth was much warmer in the past).

Now in a scientifically secular world all the above would challenge the pre-eminence of CO2 in causing rising temperatures, but we aren't in a scientifically secular world, we're in a world where many eminent scientists have made a mistake no engineer could afford to make, they have confused correlation and causation. They have emphatically pinned the modest 0.7C rise in temperature to the rise in CO2, and they now have nowhere to go because temperature and CO2 have ceased to correlate and they have no scientific explanation. So they're sticking to their guns.

I don't agree with my co-posters that your qualifications matter, after all, what I've explained above is simple to understand (else I wouldn't understand it!) and you don't need to be able to do hard sums to grasp that there's more to this than CO2. You are making the mistake of believing that the climate science community are as one in blaming CO2 for the rise in temperature, which gives you the authority you need to come onto this blog and insult the denizens instead of engaging with them and taking on board their arguments, and, yes, rebutting them if you can with your own scientific evidence.

1001,

I'm not really obsessed with degrees, my academic record is pretty ordinary, I just enjoyed annoying you, which is a bit childish, but I was bored and you sounded condescending, sorry. I'm glad you've actually hung around, it gets like an echo-chamber in here sometimes, and it's nice to have a voice of dissent now and again.

You'd make a bigger contribution if you put your energies in to correcting the pseudo-science propagated by your friends, rather than by polishing your nameplate and nit-picking terms.

Been there, done that. Some of the most entertaining (and some of the most irritating threads) on here is when I do just that. Here's a few of them if you

What do we want this blog to achieve? - once you get past the first couple of pages, turns into a real page-turner, on p3, I do a back-of-fag-packet calculation of climate sensitivity and get 1.8 degrees, which doesn't please many people.

(A)GW Lite - where they call me bad names for being a lukewarmer, and then it's sibling Lukewarming where they find some more.

Where has all my Back Radiation gone? - it's only short, but my first run-in with my arch enemy

An experimental demo of GHE. - ther granddaddy of all GHE threads on this site, my contribution is from p10 onwards, where I argue in favoutr of the GHE against nearly the whole blog :)

Then there's the threads where a few of us again try to do a noddy bit of analysis.

The Moon and 255KWhere we analyse (and ultimately disagree with) the N&Z pressure paper

Numerical calculation of Planetary Black Body Temperature

Simulation of Temperature where Roger and I work on a proper numerical model

Have fun.
TBYJ

Geronimo: there are clearly factors other than CO2 at play and it is true that the effects of these are not well understood. But with negative feedbacks conveniently popping up whenever there is a change in forcing it is a wonder that climate ever changes. Yet it does and has by many degrees. The way it seems from sceptics, we can have a small orbital change and wham! we're into or out of a glaciation, but double the CO2 concentration and, well no problem the negative feedbacks will take care of it. One might argue that the slides into or out of a glaciation take thousands of years (corresponding to slow orbital changes) and so CO2 changes are likely to work over similar time scales. But I've not seem such discussion, the sceptic arguments being that there will be no significant change.

Your second paragraph lists some talking points that have become items of faith within your community that 'prove' whatever you want to show, but are in fact only partial truths or are only true with caveats that rob them of their value. There are many of these 'facts' that get churned around the mixing bowl that have become separated from their caveats and are now taken at face value by sceptics. That is why I said that you (in general) would no longer recognise relevant fact from irrelevant fact from half-truth from fiction.
--
TheBigYinJames: Sorry, I misjudged you. But I am curious,

- whether as a result of your efforts you think the conversation has changed in your direction (ie people have become more rational).

- why you stick around if it hasn't. It must be very frustrating to see bad science popping back up like the un-dead.
--
Mike Jackson: it was a bit unfair of me to lump that accusation on you (that you were inured to pseudo-science). I wanted to give a different answer to each of my 'accusers' and had nothing very interesting to reply to you. All the same, you do sort of prove my point. The items I listed are each worrying signs of climate change, and all point in the same direction. Your refutations are unconvincing to me. Surface temperature may not be rising in lock step with CO2 levels but sea levels are. Arctic melting is happening despite what sceptics say. It is thoroughly documented over the whole region whereas the evidence people point to for earlier times is virtually non-existent by comparison. Antarctic sea ice may be increasing in extent but its land ice is decreasing. Ocean acidity changes do not go away just because you prefer to call it alkalinity. Retreating glaciers are a worldwide phenomenon (where do you think the sea level rise comes from if not melting ice). As for questioning the heat trapping (sorry, delaying) effects of CO2 "in the wild", that is straight from the pseudo handbook. Calling in lots of negative feedbacks for support just in case the pseudo excuse fails ices the cake. As I said there is lots of evidence pointing the same way.

1001: You have it wrong, I believe the technical term is "arse about face". Sceptics don't say that negative feedbacks will take care of a doubling of CO2, because a doubling of CO2 will give a harmless 1.16C rise in temperature, all parties are agreed to that. Alarmists say this rise in temperature will give rise to POSITIVE feedbacks (you see the opposite) causing a 2 -4.5C rise in temperature. There is no empirical evidence for this assertion and such empirical evidence that we do have indicates that the sensitivity (positive feedback) will be below 2C.

Everything in the second paragraph is true, nobody but you and presumably Skeptical Science is arguing that temperatures have risen since 1998, and some data sets give earlier dates.. Meanwhile CO2 has gone up by around 8% in the period since 1998. Sea ice has gone up by 2.2Mk^2 since this time last year.

"...but are in fact only partial truths or are only true with caveats that rob them of their value." So educate us tell us what the partial truths and caveats are." Arm waving won't do, give us some factual arguments.

1001,

- whether as a result of your efforts you think the conversation has changed in your direction (ie people have become more rational).

I'm not sure people have become more rational, but I think the mix of opinions has definitely shifted towards what I call scientific skepticism in the few years I've been posting. I'm not claiming all the credit, there are other people who have similar opinions to mine, some of them are working scientists. Now and again we see the complaint that this site "has become a Lukewarmer site" and I think we have lost quite a few posters who don't like it.

- why you stick around if it hasn't. It must be very frustrating to see bad science popping back up like the un-dead.

Yes, it can be, in some cases. But also an opportunity for educating people on this side of the fence. I believe that scientific skepticism is a valid position, and for too long we've been lumped in with the media image of the more traditional "denier" demographic. Anything that I can do to put this side on a firmer scientific position and turn it away from the minority ideas that we have traditionally been portrayed as having then I feel a duty to do so.

There's no denying that some people on this side of the fence do argue from a purely ideological or financial standpoint, but having been here for a few years I don't think you'll find any frequenting these pages. You do see thrm at other blogs such as WUWT, but not here. By the same token, there are extremists on the warmer side who tell lies, exaggerate and want political power because they hold a political position. I try not to let that extremist stereotype be my guide either, and equally they don't come here either. We attract a fair number of visitors, for example Richard Betts from the Met Office pops by now and again, and we have serving physicists and chemists among our ranks.

We are, by and large, a group of people who don't buy the panic, are interested in the science enough to find out where the holes and uncertainties are. We're not a monobloc of opinion, we argue amongst ourselves all the time. We're not evil, and not funded by Big Oil. We could be described as contrarian, but that's no crime.

1001, you seemed to come on this site with an attitude that indicated engagement with "us" would be like shooting similar fish in barrel. I even got the impression that this show was for others.

This blog is in fact a very large aquarium, with all different types of fish swimming around. Put your arm in and you may get it either bitten off or some playful interaction (whilst still being careful of losing a finger.)

There are sometimes feeding frenzies, but not often. If you climb in without a spear gun then you will be generally welcomed.

The species here are varied. But rest assured most contribute something positive to our eco-system. And all realise that visitors help improve the life of the aquarium. Just those visitors who are not trying to contaminate the water..

Guardian: Cooling Pacific has dampened global warming, research shows

I am an engineer. Engineers deal with systems. They have to understand the inputs/outputs, the requirements, and most important they risk manage. Engineers have to make valued judgements continually.

If you want to make an analogy, if you have a spreadsheet of "area of knowledge", scientists would be columns i.e. specific areas of expertise, engineers would be rows i.e. a layer. Each has benefits the other does not. Whilst you may find comfort in a column of knowledge, being a jack of all trades, master of none has many distinct advantages. Whilst not being a climate scientist, it does not mean you are not a climate expert.

The climate is 4 billion year old complex, chaotic system. Layers upon layers of different rhythms operating on wavelengths and frequencies unknown.

10-15 years ago the science was settled. The simple bell jar experiment (that no one denies) was extrapolated to the planet. The world was going to fry. To contest this argument you were a denier. We were trapping heat.

But the world has not warmed these last 16 years or so. Even the Guardian is now doing damage limitation on this.

So the above article states in effect, 10-15 years ago we do not know what we were talking about, but now we do,

An engineer looks at this and thinks... hmmm, so we did not the answer back then, but were certain. But we know the answer now? Do not buy it. it tells an engineer that uncertainty is everywhere in the definition of this system,

You have a huge hole in the model and now after the fact you are trying to fill with ONE cause?

Why one? Why not 100 causes? Why is it necessary to fill the hole with one cause, a magic cause? It is a complex chaotic system. There is no reason to assume there is one reason.

Basically you cannot model such a system with much confidence. You can try. Nothing wrong with that. But is is an intellectual masturbation. It has little value in forming the future of this planet.

The above article tries to fill a hole. There will be another. And another. The model is full of holes, making it more complex with faster supercomputers cannot hide that fact. And it is a fact. It cannot be ignored.

Well it can, but then that comes down to ideology.

Geronimo: so when you said, " I doubt anyone here doesn't understand that, in the laboratory, without feedbacks, extra CO2 will result in a rise in temperature. But the Earth's atmosphere isn't a laboratory... ", were you not suggesting that 'feedbacks' would reduce the effect of extra CO2? Or did you put 'feedbacks' in there as a throw-away aside, not of significance? You now say you don't believe negative feedback is what saves the day. Strange.

My point about half-truths etc stands I think. Your 200 months since 1998 seems to contradict what your Bishop said (http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/6/12/nyt-almost-always-exaggerated.html) about not using 1998 as a starting point. Why not use 1995, 6,7,9 etc? An 8% rise in CO2 sounds about right, but guessing the significance of the a rise in sea ice over one year is just a game. The Arctic is very unlikely to be at a record sea ice extent just now (August!) as you suggest and Antarctic sea ice growth contrasts with land ice decline (the caveats). I can't argue that glaciers have not been receding for a long time, but their rate of retreat seems to have accelerated. And I didn't think we needed evidence from retreating glaciers to know that the past has been warmer.

Mike Jackson: I'll admit that although the CO2/sea-level nexus sounded plausible to me, a little checking tells me it is bunkum. However the level of documentation of Arctic changes is hugely greater now than in the past. Evidence for past Arctic changes must have been from people visiting parts of the area. Satellites now give us constant data on the ice. So as I said, we now have incomparably more data on the Arctic than in the past. Quibbles about the use of "acidification" to characterise ocean pH changes are really not worth addressing and denying the process is to deny the carbon cycle. Retreating glaciers greatly outnumber advancing glaciers and that sea level rises are caused by warming is a nice idea but I'm pretty sure it is untrue (its nice to see you believe the oceans are warming sufficiently to raise
their level by 3mm a year though - you clearly are not one who questions Trenberth and his missing heat). As for CO2 and 'trapping' heat, well I can see that if one doesn't accept that one can reject any idea of global warming. You are clearly not one of Geronimo's "all parties" that accept CO2 will increase temps by 1.16C.

1001; " I doubt anyone here doesn't understand that, in the laboratory, without feedbacks, extra CO2 will result in a rise in temperature. But the Earth's atmosphere isn't a laboratory... ", were you not suggesting that 'feedbacks' would reduce the effect of extra CO2? Or did you put 'feedbacks' in there as a throw-away aside, not of significance? You now say you don't believe negative feedback is what saves the day. Strange.

1. There are feedbacks, positive and negative mainly due to water vapour, I explained that in the post. I was not saying negative feedbacks would save the day, I was just trying to show someone who is clearly ignorant on the topic that increases in CO2 cause multiple other effects, positive and negative, and that on top of that there were natural oscillations, volcanoes, aerosols etc. which affect temperature. The point is that CO2 isn't a big player in this field, if you had understood the reference to deserts and tropics you would have grasped that. No one has ever said that negative feedbacks would save that day, although if you know nothing about the topic then it is possible that you could have interpreted that way.

2. There are a number of temperature data sets, GISS, HadCRUT4, NCDC, RSS and UAH, the last two being satellites. None of them show any statistically significant rise in temperature since 1996, around 200 months. Go and look for yourself.

3. Mike Jackson is as cogniscent of the 1.16C rise in temperature for a doubling of CO2 as you are ignorant of it. It comes from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for a black body and nobody disagrees with it, except for a few ignoramuses who refuse to address the science. So the "trick" with feedbacks comes from the alarmist side, they choose to assume that temperatures would rise by 2C (safe) - 4.5C (not safe). The truth is, as they've explained before, they cannot predict the future state of the climate. Moreover, even if they could they couldn't predict the resulting weather extremes.

"the earth's climate is a coupled non-linear chaotic system and therefore its future state cannot be predicted" IPCC TAR

3. The arctic is at a record for the summer, and has been free of ice in the summer many times before, you're right about the satellites, but there record is only since 1979, and we know Amundsen sailed through the North West passage in the early 20th century. And if you were keeping up you'd know that there has been an Arctic expedition nearly every summer for the last decade to emulate this passage, and all have failed.

And there was this in the Washington Post;

Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish And Icebergs Melt*

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the waters too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen , Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions
and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been
met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3.100 meters showed the gulf stream still very
warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points
well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are being found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

The Washington Post, November 2, 1922

As for the small issue of the sea water getting more acidic, to get more acidic it would have to be acidic in the first place, it isn't it's basic and will remain so until the ph drops below 7, it might be getting less basic, but that wouldn't frighten the horses, so just like CO2 "trapping" heat is more scary than the real process, then sea water getting more acidic is more scary than getting less basic.

I do wish you'd produce some evidence for your assertions. According to Dr. Moerner a man who has studied sea levels all his life they aren't rising at all, even the IPCC predicts they will rise by 59cm by 2100, but they do it with models. To put that in perspective the sea levels will increase by 17 inches in the next 87 years.

Go read the scientific literature.

"The above article tries to fill a hole. There will be another. And another. The model is full of holes, making it more complex with faster supercomputers cannot hide that fact. And it is a fact. It cannot be ignored.

Well it can, but then that comes down to ideology." Jiminy Cricket.

Climate science bears a worrying similarity to an NHS supercomputer system. A basically flawed core with countless incongruent bolt on sections that hide the fundamental mistakes, while at the same time making it more unstable. Year after year they throw more money at the thing and claim that completion is only months away.

I wait for the day when a new broom comes in and admits it's never going to work.

@ stewgreen.

Yes, it's wrong to assume sceptics overconsume on energy. Anthony Watts is a prime example with his solar panels and electric car. The guy scored huge ponts with me when he turned down flights to meetings so he could drive and assess weather stations en route. That's the kind of honesty and dedication you can't fake. His site is one of the few climate sites that discusses energy saving. The absence on warmist sites is almost embarassing. On the contrary, the only time they mention personal CO2 footprints is when they nervously try to excuse yet another fight to a conference they know will have no effect. I'm tempted to refuse to converse with warmists who don't put their CO2 footprint out there for all to see. If they were serious they should all include it as part of their signature.

So 1001, what footprint have you got? No cheating and counting offsets. I'm certainly not ashamed of mine.