Discussion > Masstra2014 questions to sceptics.
Geronimo, it illustrates how new it is as a field. They've gone from unregulated obscurity to the most important issue of our time (supposedly) but not gone through the processes of regulation that all the other important fields have been forced into. They prate on about peer review and how we wouldn't question our doctors but when did a drug ever go from paper to patient without testing and countless hurdles in between? Climate scientists want to stay in their nice comfy science lounge where the fiercest critic was a mate dicussing some small point over a cup of tea. The very existence of a consensus at this early stage should be one of the biggest clues to its lack of rigor. For it's very survival climate science needs to man up.
TinyCO2
I'm afraid I come back to my perennial complaint. The global warming meme was never about science. People like Strong and Tickell had a vision of how the world should be and the influence to do something about it. Strong, remember, was a deputy UN Secretary-General and had various other posts within that hyper-ambitious and corrupt organisation.
The environmental establishment — Club of Rome, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, FoE — have always taken the view that the end justifies the means and the end is a reduction in world population (they are all Malthusians) and a weeding out of the "uncivilised" (they are mostly eugenicists).
Where science got its foot in the door I'm not sure though I do remember reading somewhere (and the Climategate emails might be a help) that most of the CRU scientists had political (small 'p') affiliations with environmental groups.
There was no need for rigour; there was no need for the basic "honesty" that science encourages — such things as making sure the dog doesn't eat your code or that you don't cut the sort of corners that they have been cutting or that you don't manipulate your raw data — because no-one (at least no-one who mattered) was going to ask any questions.
I very nearly fell out with a very good friend around the end of the 90s on the subject. He has an engineering degree and worked (still does) for one of the major power companies. He had a mind as inquisitive as mine but he couldn't get over the hurdle that he didn't know CO2 from a hole in the head. As far as he was concerned what was being said about the effects of CO2 on temperature seemed quite reasonable; after all they were the scientists and this was what they were telling us the research was telling them. Why would they lie? Why would anyone like him query what they were saying?
It took him a few years. I left the subject alone; the friendship was more important and he would either come round or he wouldn't. But it became clear that there were too many unanswered questions and too much "noise", not just in the data but in the world in general. The science was full of obsessives all of whom were trumpeting a different tune and there were some who patently were not much good at science and eventually he got tired, as he put it, of being treated like an idiot child.
I reckon it was because he was actually a bit of a "green" — very pro-recycling, organic vegetable growing, that sort of thing — that he finally lost patience. That and what he saw as the in(s)anity of wind farms!
The question about trusting doctors, TinyCO2, is easily cut off at the knees by "when these guys know one-tenth as much about climate as a brain surgeon knows about the human brain, I might start listening to them"!
Mike Jackson
Follow-up question for those who were kind enough to help me start this journey for more information: can anyone address for me the claim that the pause in increasing global temps is attributable to heat being "swallowed up" by the ocean?
I'm now increasingly distrustful of what I read in a random google search, so if anyone happens to have a link to a source you trust that can explain this a bit more for me, I'd again be grateful.
Maestra2014
Welcome back.
I think the 'heat swallowed by the deep ocean' has to be complete and absolute nonsense and is a made-up fanatasy. So finding a clear explanation may be hard. I think there is no reasonable reason to think it is true (except that it seems to explain where the 'missing heat' that climate scientists talk about might be hiding).
The temperature change would be too small to be measured (since the thermal capacity of the ocean is truly collossal) so there can be no confirmation it exists.
There is no known physical mechanism for energy from incoming sunlight to spirit its way to the bottom of the ocean.
Others here will probably elaborate in more detail but I'm guessing that there will not be a commenter on BH who will be able to point to a clear explanation of the effect - because the effect does not, in reality, exist.
Martin A
Thank you, Martin!
Maestra2014
Maestra,
If no one else has mentioned it, a good source for actually looking at some of the most frequently published data sets is the Wood for Trees website.
It doesn't claim to be fancy or all-encompassing, but it does a good job of making the data honestly available without comment or added interpretations. Files can be downloaded, or plotted using the site's simple graphing facilities under the 'interactive' tab, and generally seem to be up-to-date. That is pretty much all there is to the site, and Paul Clark, the owner/creator, has done a good job of keeping himself above the discussion on his own pages.
For instance, you asked a question about the "hottest years" issue. This graph, is that of the RSS satellite observations (they started in the late 1970s). This is the data almost 'straight-from-the-horses-mouth', given as a series of monthly averages. You can learn a lot just by looking.
Of course there may often be other factors to consider, and some people may point out certain factors while conveniently forgetting others, even if not attempting to manipulate the data in a deceitful way. For instance: satellites are not perfect (nothing is), and they don't actually measure precisely at the surface, but a generalized region in the lower part of the atmosphere above the surface.
Now I could have chosen the Hadley Centre CRU surface-temp data set (which, of course, has it's own problems, such as limited-area coverage. Otherwise nobody would have bothered with expensive satellites). For the same period, it looks like this. Again, I have plotted the data as given, no tricks, no "smoothing."
There are both simple, and more complex, operations that the site will let you do, and it can be fun and instructive to play around with them. Wisely, Paul Clark cautions
"with sharp tools comes great responsibility... "Thus, I could plot them together.
Or I could "smooth" the data with an applied 12-month mean, and say it makes it look easier on the eye. Which it does. You don't really need to understand the science of the data to begin with. It is more important to have a grasp of the mathematics involved in plotting graphs.
My apologies if your math is already more advanced than this, but it is beyond this point where so many journalists and 'the media' seem to become either blind or vulnerable to deceptions, even before the serious mathematical chicanery begins (btw Did you notice that I reversed the colors in the last two graphs? Green is seen by some as 'friendlier' than the nasty hot red color.) Real trickery, I will not go into here (and I am by no means a master, anyway).
Perhaps most usefully, once created you can simply post the address of any graph, so that in discussions elsewhere on the web people don't have to take your word for it, and can look and check for themselves by following your link.
michaelhart
Hi Maestra2014. Good question, what happened to the missing heat? I’ll try to answer it as I understand it, but have to admit I’ve never discussed this with anybody and it is just my understanding. Given the brains on this site I expect what I’ve got wrong will soon be corrected.
Before we proceed, if you haven’t seen this before I promise you one of the most entertaining and informative 10 minutes of your life. If you have, well it’s always worth seeing again.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
Keep this lesson to hand as we go over my understanding. The excess heat comes from this particular Earth energy budget diagram, one of many, but this one prepared by Dr. Kevin (travesty) Trenberth.
http://bobfjones.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/trenberth-cartoon-ex-colose.jpg
You will see that the energy coming in at the TOA (Top of the atmosphere) is 340W/m^2 and that some of this is reflected out by clouds, some comes back as evaporation, some is reflected out by the earth etc. etc. and, according to this diagram there is a 0.9W/m^2 imbalance in the incoming and outgoing energy (0.25%, what’s the probability of a number with that accuracy would turn out among all these parameter). I am definitely not an expert, but if someone had come to me to review this chart the first thing I’d have asked is how can you get a chart with an energy imbalance of 0.9C from a bunch of clearly variable conditions, like cloud cover, energy emitted by the Earth, back radiation, evaporation, energy from the sun, which needs to vary by 0.01% to throw this out of balance? It doesn’t make sense to me, but, I’m assuming the scientists involved know what they’re doing and accept, at least for the time being, there is an imbalance.
Clearly an energy imbalance of 0.9w/m^2 (lately 0.6W/m^2, but it doesn’t matter) will accumulate an awful lot of heat over the periods of time involved. This heat will need to manifest itself in an increase of atmospheric temperatures, or turn up somewhere else in the system.
It hasn’t increase atmospheric temperature as forecast and nor has it shown up somewhere else, so I’ll refer you to Feynman, reality does not reflect the theory. But in the unique case of AGW the theory cannot be wrong, so reality must be wrong. Well they tried always to Christmas to find this heat and it’s nowhere to be found.
Please acquaint yourself with Occam’s razor, a proposition which states that if you make an observation the most likely reason for it will be the most obvious (or words to that effect). So there’s no heat and we have three possible solutions:
1. There never was and the earth’s energy budget is in reasonable equilibrium;
2. There is heat but it has escaped into outer space using the 2nd law of thermodynamics;
3. There is heat, but it’s hiding.
As the theory is always right only 2 and 3 could be right, and 2 has to be discounted because if that’s what’s happening the whole theory of CAGW is down the toilet. So your man Trenberth came up with the theory that the heat is here but it’s hiding in the depths of the ocean – I don’t know about you but that has the response, “Yeah right, let’s move on”, written all over it. But not in climate science where it gained some traction. The problem is that (a) the 3000 Argo buoys didn’t see this heat creeping past them and (b) there has been no noticeable increase in ocean heat content (OHC). If it is dispersed uniformly across the ocean then as Martin A says it won’t be noticeable, literally in hundredths of a degree, but I don’t believe it could do this without being noticed somewhere along the way.
So is the energy budget diagram right? Are there things happening the scientists don’t understand/know about? Is the theory wrong and the constant changes in energy budget from positive to negative wipe each other out? Or is it Father Christmas taking the heat to make toys? I swear to God this would get traction with the cliscis if they thought it was going to keep the alarm alive.
The main thing is the hear can't be found, and the most likely reason is it was never there, not that it had taken on a life of it's own and is now sitting stroking a white cat in some subterranean ocean waiting to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting humankind. What does your common sense tell you?
That’s my take, there are enough people on this site to correct my mistakes.
geronimo
Geronimo - As I pointed out to EM recently, the imbalance between incoming and outgoing is not the result of a measurement. It's the result of calculations from models which, by their nature, are incapable of being verified.
Recently I commented: 'The "ongoing insolation/outgoing radiation imbalance" is a fabrication of climate science. It is certainly not supported by measurement - the accuracy of satellite measurements is insufficient to indicate an imbalance either way. '
EM challenged me on this: "Mere denial, or do you have evidence to support it? Most of what I get from you is stale propaganda memes, without evidence."
So, from the horse's mouth (Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, and J. Kiehl, 2009: Earth's global energy budget. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 90, No. 3, 311-324) I quoted:
"There is a TOA imbalance of 6.4 W m−² from CERES data and this is outside of the realm of current estimates of global imbalances" (Martin's translation: "the imbalance from satellite measurements is too large to be plausible so it's got to be measurement error.")
"The TOA energy imbalance can probably be most accurately determined from climate models" (Martin's translation: "so we use climate models (unvalidated, uncalibrated) to give us what we pretend are actual values for radiation imbalance"
An unvalidated model (as someone said) is an illustration of a hypothesis. It is not evidence. In the absence of genuine evidence for 'missing heat', it is futile to try to explain it. (Unless you are someone who wishes to perpetuate the myth that the Earth is still warming despite its temperature remaining constant.)
Martin A
The missing heat may or may not be in the deep oceans but the key issue is – how many times do you let people change their mind before you realise they don’t know the truth?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/17/nasa-revises-earths-radiation-budget-diminishing-some-of-trenberths-claims-in-the-process/
Too much of the theory is based on guesses that are in turn based on poor data. They’re trying to see patterns in noisy data without having long enough records to extract the natural signal. The very fact GISS and HadCRU issue new temperature series, indicates that even the thermometer air records are a cause for concern. We only have decent records for the mid and upper oceans since 2004 when the Argo floats got going. We have almost no measurements for the deep ocean.
If heat can be sequestered in the deep ocean, then one must assume it can escape by the same mechanism. Was any of the rapid warming in the 80s and 90s the result of such a process? We haven’t even got accurate measurements for a full set of ocean phases (Pacific, Atlantic, positive and negative) to judge how the oceans react to those phenomena. If instead we conclude that aerosols are the prime driver, then if Chinese current emissions cool the planet wouldn’t the rapid desulphurisation of Europe and the US have warmed us in the 80s and 90s?
If you read WUWT, CO2 Science and The Hockey Schtick, you soon realise how many papers are published that throw doubt on some part of climate theory. It might be about ocean currents or cloud cover but each one reminds you how new climate science is.
So is that a reason not to act on the side of caution? No, not on its own, but that’s where looking at the solutions comes in. Very soon you realise that without a new technology, renewables can’t replace fossil fuels. The only thing that could radically cut emissions is having less, doing less, travelling less. Are people ready for that? Is climate science strong enough to spur such a radical change in human progress? I think not and emissions levels seem to back me up. Have you noticed how even the strongest believers do little more than pay lip service to cutting CO2?
The other day Lindzen said that doing nothing was the best policy when the route forward was unclear. I agree. We shouldn’t throw money at the problem just because we’re scared. All that achieves is a truculent public who reach a point where they wouldn’t listen even if climate science came up with good proof of catastrophic warming.
TinyCO2
A timely post by Bob Tisdale
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/31/open-letter-to-kevin-trenberth-ncar/#more-102471
It's quite technical and it isn't the last word because there's ALWAYS a counter claim. And to that there will be a counter, counter claim. Unless you want to become an expert on climate, there isn't the time or the skill to untangle every argument. We need governments to set up proper evaluation of the science in the way we would expect any complex, life threatening issue to be handled. It's not enough to find CO2 guilty because it's the only suspect. I kid you not, one of the arguments for CAGW is 'we can't think of what else it could be'.
A common call from consensus supporters is that sceptics need to prove their case, which is impossible. We haven't the money to set up teams of scientists to go through every claim. We can't create alternative climate models. But just as you don't need to be an automotive engineer to work out that your car doesn't work, we don't need to be climate scientists to know the science isn't fit for purpose.
TinyCO2
Maestra2014,
If you've been reading recent posts, you know that Dr. Richard Lindzen (among others) testified this week to the House of Commons' Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change. He was asked about that claim. His response:
It's a very opaque way of saying internal natural variability is the reason. In other words, to say "the heat is hiding in the ocean" is another way of saying that there's always heat exchange between the upper levels of the ocean and the deeper ocean, leaving the surface out of equilibrium and leading to the surface undergoing climate change. So instead of saying, "well, yeah, it could have been natural variability," they said that.
In my words, "natural variability" is not just random noise, it's unpredictable but determined by physical effects, and dominated by oceanic behavior. There is variability due to volcanos and the sun, but most short-to-medium-term variability seems to arise from ENSO patterns and the longer patterns such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. And as has been pointed out many times earlier, if oceanic effects currently result in less surface warming, it is logical to suppose that the accelerated warming of the 80s and 90s was enhanced by oceanic effects. As the recent surface trend rate is near zero, my own guess is that "natural variability" is of approximately equal magnitude to the forced warming, and therefore about half of the 80s-90s warming was due to the oceans.
HaroldW
... the key issue is – how many times do you let people change their mind before you realise they don’t know the truth?
Jan 31, 2014 at 11:14 AM TinyCO2
As I sometimes say, they make it up as they go along.
Somebody changing their story each time something contradicts their previous version is a classic sign they are not telling the truth - most often because they don't know the truth, while at the same time not knowing that they don't know the truth.
Martin A
Thank you Michael, Martin, Geronimo, Tiny, and Harold for taking such time and thought in constructing responses to my question. The more I read, the more questions surface for me, which is, I suppose, the name of the game. Thank you again.
Maestra2014
Maestra2014,
> Where do the statistics come that this is the 4th hottest year on
> record, if global temperatures have not increased since 1998?
What do you understand your proposition that "global temperatures have not increased since 1998" to mean? What do you understand by "global temperature"? Do you understand enough about statistics to even know whether your question is sensible? And why chose 1998 as a starting point? Why not ask your question relative to 1996 or 1999 - if you get a different answer, you should consider whether those from whom you have your 1998 starting point are being honest with you.
> In your opinions, what is causing the accelerated decline of
> Arctic sea ice?
People who study climate think it is a result of an energy imbalance caused by increased CO2 levels. That imbalance is causing the earth to warm and Arctic warming is one aspect of that (long predicted to occur). Those you are asking here do not study climate and have a strong ideological reason for wanting to believe that CO2 is not causing changes to the climate. In other words you are asking the wrong people.
> Do any of you believe that the climate is changing, just not as a
> function of man?
There are people here who believe the oddest of things. There's a good chance someone fits the bill.
> Can anyone address for me the claim that the pause in increasing
> global temps is attributable to heat being "swallowed up" by the
> ocean?
If an energy imbalance exists because of increased CO2 levels, most of the resulting accumulation of energy (over 95%) will occur in the oceans. I have seen nobody seriously question that - much of the earth surface is covered by oceans. Hence the majority of the imbalance is indeed being "swallowed" by the oceans. If you concentrate on deviations of measured near-surface temperatures from a stright line you are missing this bigger picture.
It is not bad to question, but it is best to ask people who are likely to know the answers. There are no commenters here who study climate; they are not as knowledgable as they would like you to believe. You will get a dozen different answers to many questions and you are in no position to judge which is right and which wrong. You might just as well ask them to diagnose a stomachache.
Chandra
Chandra, enough with the dogma already!
If an energy imbalance exists because of increased CO2 levels, most of the resulting accumulation of energy (over 95%) will occur in the oceans.
If you refer to a TOA energy imbalance then;
1. For a system in equilibrium there will be no energy imbalance even though there will be dynamic energy re-distributions within it.
2. For a system with some internal and dynamic change there would be a corresponding internal and dynamic re-distribution of energy. It does not follow that that would cause a change to the external dynamic system governed by temperature, emissivity and area but not by energy (unless you believe CO2 creates energy).
3. TOA energy imbalance is the product of computer models. Attempts to accurately measure it have failed. Those models are therefore not validated.
However, I see that you state "If". There may be some hope for you yet.
ssat
"There are people here who believe the oddest of things."
Pot meet kettle.
geronimo
Yep, do as Chandra suggests, ask a climate scientist or one of their hangers on. They’ll be absolutely sure what causes global warming and have the job title to prove their credibility… until they have to think up a new excuse and then they’ll be absolutely sure then too.
Or follow the only bit of good advice that floats around the paranoid parts of the internet. Watch what they do, not what they say. Look at the behaviour of all those who have been exposed to the best that climate science has to offer and even the scientists themselves. Do they act like they think CO2 is an urgent problem? Look at all those politicians jetting about the planet. Nearly all of them try to get the opportunity to hug a husky or watch an iceberg calve with a concerned expression. They don’t see the disconnect of travelling to a pristine and remote wilderness to promote energy conservation. Bunch of oxymorons.
Does Al Gore and his many mansions seem like he’s worried? When Obama flies to Hawaii for one of his numerous holidays is he thinking of his emissions? Does he imagine having a vegetable garden at the Whitehouse balances the separate plane for his wife and kids? And let’s not even mention the helicopter for the dog. Was Prince Charles acting logically when he brought Gamal Albinsaid, the first winner of his Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize, from Indonesia was he thinking of the 2 tonnes of CO2 involved? Or what about when he flew to South America to lecture the poor? When you think of all those pointless climate conferences where everyone knew that there would be no progress, do you ever wonder why they can’t use teleconferencing? Was Dr Chris Turney acting in character when he put together a tourist trip to the Antarctic with the thinnest scientific justification? What where the Guardian and BBC reporters thinking when they signed up for a trip that could have been covered by internet and phone reports from the scientists? Were they concerned about global warming or how fantastic it was to get an all expenses paid trip of a lifetime to the Antarctic?
You will never get more proof than they have. Does it matter if you’re a sceptic or a believer if you carry on as if it wasn’t real?
TinyCO2
Masstra2014 has probably worked out that Chandra B is a True Believer and has strong feelings on these matters - probably not much different from the people she mentioned in her early posting.
"It is not bad to question, but it is best to ask people who are likely to know the answers. There are no commenters here who study climate; they are not as knowledgable as they would like you to believe. You will get a dozen different answers to many questions and you are in no position to judge which is right and which wrong. You might just as well ask them to diagnose a stomachache."
Feb 1, 2014 at 3:02 AM Chandra
It's a common theme from True Believers that only a card carrying 'climate scientist' can really understand what's happening. The rest of us should accept what we're told.
However, anyone with, say, a degree in physics, engineering or chemistry, should have little difficulty reading papers from the climate science literature or the IPCC reports and forming an opinion about them. The level of physics, maths or statistics are rarely, if ever, above than what is taught in a 1st year engineering course. A critical reader rapidly starts to notice the lack of experimental or observational evidence for what is presented - for example in papers in 'radiative forcing'.
I don't think anyone here is pretending to have more knowledge than they actually have. But there is no question that among regular commenters here there is a lot of knowledge and experience of computer modelling of physical systems, statistical analysis, radiative physics, system dynamics, and mathematics that probably exceed all but the most exceptional 'climate scientists'.
"...you are in no position to judge which is right and which wrong"
Gosh. Nothing like a bit of condescension to convince someone who is clearly in the process of making just such judgments.
"You might just as well ask them to diagnose a stomachache."
I'd surmise that chandra has not brought up children - most parents would probably consider themselves quite adept at diagnosing stomach aches. [From the 'how long since you went to the toilet?' ache, through the 'how many of those green apples did you eat?' ache, to the 'do you want a note to excuse you from sport?' ache.]
Martin A
Let there be no confusion, you ARE in a position to judge. Man is on trial, charged with destroying the planet... at some point in the future!
You're perfectly capable of hearing the testimony of expert witnesses, determining their veracity, assessing the weight of the evidence in the case - or, indeed, the lack thereof - and considering your verdict. This is a well established process, and one you're more than capable of participating in.
Chandra's view of justice seems authoritarian and his preferred cultural make-up is apparently totalitarian.
Simon Hopkinson
Martin A
Not to mention, very occasionally, the "Hospital! Now!" ache.
Like you, I don't believe that there is anyone here pretending to have more knowledge than they do. Certainly I am very conscious of the fact that I am not a scientist but as an ex-journalist with an enquiring mind (a dying breed, it would seem) my BS antennae are reasonably acute and as has been pointed here and elsewhere, you don't have to be a qualified car mechanic to know the difference between a flat battery, an empty fuel tank, and a wheel falling off!
I also agree 100% that the combined scientific qualifications among the posters here and on other blogs as well as among the established corps of sceptics/lukewarmists — like Pielke père et fils, Curry, Lindzen, McIntyre, McKittrick and others too numerous to mention — probably exceeds that of the combined knowledge of the relevant disciplines among those who claim to have a monopoly on wisdom in this field.
It's a great pity that when, as occasionally happens, someone comes to this site looking for assistance in understanding climate science they have to put up with the sort of implied ad homs that the likes of Chandra are expert at. Hopefully Maestra is sharp enough to note the content-free responses and filter them out.
Mike Jackson
Masstra2014
If you are really interested in getting at the truth then you need to do some research.
Start by going to YouTube and type in “Prof. Bob Carter” He is a geologist who studies ocean cores and climate in a very scientific and balanced way.
Read “ Climate: The counter consensus “ and “ Taxing Air “ by Prof. Bob Carter” for a good overview of the subject. Available on Kindle.
To understand some of the natural cycles that effect the climate.
Climate Models Fail By Bob Tisdale. Also on Kindle.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts
and the research by Jasper Kirkby youtube etc.
Some of the works exposing dodgy things past and present worth viewing are
“The Hockey stick illusion” and other publications by the host of this site
A.W.Montford.
On the credibility of the IPCC
The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert . Ivy Donna Laframboise, (2011-10-09. Also on Kindle.
I am sure other correspondents can suggest other material but this is my starting selection. Then come back and contribute to this forum and learn more. Best of Luck.
Ross Lea
I presume Chandra had good intentions. However, here is what I know for certain: when you condescend to me (your intended audience) and presume that I have begun to ask questions because I am too ignorant to parse information for myself, then the intended point of your comment is utterly moot, if for no other reason than i have no interest in hearing what further insults you are about to throw my way. Now, had she wanted to share with me statistics that she found particularly moving, then by all means, I'm more than happy to listen. But the tone of her post suggests I'm taking a break from learning to tie my shoes to engage in discussion here. How I manage to type these very words also appears to be a Herculean feat, so kudos to me for figuring out how.
I am acutely aware that I am not an engineer or physicist or climatologist. So, I cast a wide net, ask questions, read all I can get my hands on, and go from there. In the end, I'll draw my own conclusions. A bullying tone doesn't work for me. If it did, I suppose I wouldn't have begun asking questions in the first place.
Maestra2014
MJ Not to mention, very occasionally, the "Hospital! Now!" ache.
Yes indeed. I had not overlooked that one but I did not include it as, happily, I have never been faced with it.
Martin A
Maestra2014, I'm sorry if my tone appeared condescending. That was not my intention, but reading what I wrote, I think you are right. Here's what I meant. You seem to be in the same position as me. I have no relevant high level qualifications and I have insufficient time to read, let alone understand, enough of the many scientific papers on climate-related topics that I would need to come to my own informed conclusion on the science. Hence I have to trust the opinions of others. The real question then is who am I going to trust - cos I sure don't trust myself?
By all means read the wildly conflicting information on skeptic blogs written by people who are not climate scientists and who have their own agendas and motivations. Just don't think they are telling you the truth. That is not to say that they are necessarily lying, or know it. Just that there are probably few "facts" that you will read on one of these blogs that climate scientists haven't discussed and disected and argued over and found to be far more complicated than the black and white certainties (in all their variation) you will encounter on skeptic blogs.
As a counterbalance to skeptic blogs, I recommend you read up on the various myths propagated on those blogs by visiting Skeptical Science. If you are interested in the physics and want an unbiased view of the science, read Science of Doom (see the "Roadmap" on the right of the page).
For further reading try Real Climate and perhaps And Then There's Physics. If you are interested in staistics, you might read Tamino's Open Mind.
One thing you might notice is that when friendly commenters (ie. not "trolls" like me) post rubish on skeptic blogs, it is very likely to go uncorrected by the regulars on that blog. On serious blogs it is likely that the error will be pointed out quickly. Bear that in mind.
Chandra
TinyCO2/Martin A.
What has struck me throughout the years I've been following this debate is that the cliscis don't seem to know anything about QA in the sense that it's expected in engineering, my discipline, where everything is documented, where there are rigorous methodologies for specification and design and where all stages of the process are documented, and all documentation is reviewed etc. On the other hand we have a discipline that lost it's temperature records in an office move, where the provision of data, methods and software for a paper are irksome and difficult tasks, for me the big one, the practitioners use statistical analysis but don't use statisticians. It's all very odd to me.