golfCharlie. As are claims about the frequency of severe weather becoming more severe.

Phil's a mess. He doubts the pause and believes in hockey sticks, climate models and weather weirding. How could such a big brain get so desperately misinformed?

I think that he, as do many, doesn't understand the depth to which climate science has become prostituted to political agendas.

Or maybe he does.
============

kim. Is it any wonder that Phil's messed up (a certain song from West Side story keeps appearing)? On the one hand, there is what he is told by his sponsors(?), mentors(?), monitors(?) which is in conflict with what he meets with here. He knows that some of what he hears (ice-free Arctic, rarity of snow, fast melting Himalayan glaciers) is a crock but cannot go the whole ten yards. What is a climate-loving boy to do? Have some pity!

hee, hee, nine yards, and I defy you to source the saying.
============

For Green racketeers, what about selling lucky and enchanted Wadham Phials, containing a spoonful of melt water from the last Arctic summer sea ice? Buy now, whilst Unlimited stocks last!

You could repeat the bogus claims as often as Wadham does, and make it into a nice little earner, for years.

He knows that some of what he hears (ice-free Arctic, rarity of snow, fast melting Himalayan glaciers) is a crock but cannot go the whole ten yards.

From that to ten yards is about 9 yards, 35 and 7/8 inches.

The IPCC predicts ice free Arctic by mid-century, see here for a nice discussion. The 'snowfalls a thing of the past' thing was a secondary source, written by a non-scientist wrapped around a few rentaquotes. The Himalayan Glacier foulup was in WG2 (Impacts), it was in none of the summaries and the information in WG1 (science) was sound, maybe that is why it went undetected for so long.

Bad case of babies and bathwater there. Really? Are these fleabites all there is? As George Monbiot wrote

It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in your palm. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world’s most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. … And you must do all this while calling yourself a scientist.

Source Junk Science

I am glad I retain a sense of proportion.

PS Its usually 'the whole nine yards, but nobody knows why.

Phil I do know the saying involves nine yards, but you have further to go than most, and you've already squandered your previous attempts to convince us.

The saying of course comes from American Football.

What with missing heat, a pause in global temperature rise and ice increasing in Antarctica and still present in the Arctic you desperately need a Hail Mary pass.

Radical Rodent

If everyone here accepts climate change, what are we arguing about?

American football? Interesting. What does the phrase refer to?

RR - Maybe I misconstrued, however to me the implication of ACK's post was that it was legitimate to extrapolate from some examples of flawed science or communication to all of it (the whole 9 or 10 yards) being 'a crock'.

I could be wrong.

Phil Clarke Monbiot's quote is quite accurate, but probably not in the sense he meant it. It is extraordinarily difficult to maintain one's belief that you are correct when all around you and most "authorities" are arguing that you are wrong. I found it exceeding difficult to maintain my anti cAGW opinions at UEA, and often had long spells of doubt. But then I would recall the crooked way the doctrine was originally sold and maintained, and I would repeat the mantra "evidence of warming is not evidence that man causes it". It also helped that I had an old friend, now sadly no longer with us, who was a solar physicist and who would ply me with the unfashionable products of his discipline. Climategate was a game changer and I never doubted from then on.

Monbiot is so besotted with cAGW that he refuses to examine other evidence or opinion. He claims a scientific heritage, but is a prime example of anti-science.

Sigh, Phil is just really hopeless. Witness his attempt to hang denial of climate change upon we skeptics.

No, Phil, it is doubt of catastrophe that underlies most skepticism. I don't think you're going to get it. And we're not going to get climate catastrophe, instead we have policy catastrophe at present.

Yes, Phil, I have to agree with you, nobody knows the origin of the term. My own personal idiosyncratic opinion is that it represents the understated irony so rampant in the humour of the WWII American GI.
===============

Also, Phil, the BRICs do get it. That is why we got 'Say anything, do nothing.' from Paris. Note that the BRICs are not crippling themselves with policy action, and note that the more perspicacious of the more developed nations are now getting just a little bit skeptical about the destructive policies that have already been implemented.

We can't warm the Earth enough for the consequences to become net detrimental. We can green the earth with miraculous consequences, now feeding an extra billion people. If we manage to collect enough extra heat on Earth with our aliquot of ACO2 we might be able to impact the onset of glaciation.

You need to get out more.
===============

Kim, I think 9 yards is the standard unit of error for annual sea level rise predictions, +/- 10.

'Catastrophic' requires definition. What global temperature rise (above pre-industrial) would qualify as catastophic, and why?

Phil Clarke in American Football the attacking team must advance the ball by running or passing it into the opponent's goal area. It does this by advancing the ball in increments of a least ten yards and may take up to four attempts (or downs) to make such an advance. If the attacking team fail to make the ten yards, it passes the ball over to the opposing team. Usually if ten yards have not been made in three downs, the final down is used to kick the ball down field. If, however, late in the game when time is running out an attacking team that is behind may have to gamble and use the fourth down to make the necessary ten yards. Usually such a team will have made a minimal advance, so the worst possible case is where the ball must be advanced the "full nine yards".

BTW The worst possible case is when an attacking team with only seconds to play and behind by up to seven points, and way down field, can only win if the quarterback in desperation throws a long pass downfield to a receiver, hoping he will catch it and score a touchdown - a Hail Mary pass. When it is successful (rarely) it's the most exciting play in the game. It's a genuine game changer.

We can green the earth with miraculous consequences, now feeding an extra billion people.

Now, if that is true, then I will have to rethink my position. Extraordinary claims, however, require extraordinary evidence.

PC: thank you. You are managing to lever your mind open to the possibility that a lot of what we have been sold is flawed – some of it quite seriously so.

You might have noticed that few on here treat you with dismissal or derision (though we might sometimes react with some of your posts that way); indeed, at least one has stated that they have the utmost respect for you. You do have a remarkable talent for debate, suggesting to me your particular profession or training. All we are trying to persuade you to do is to open your mind a little further, so that you might apply your debating skills with Sou (whom even I can stitch up like a kipper) and on Skeptical [sic] Science, et al. I suspect that you will be quite shocked by the reactions should you dare to question as much as you do on here.

It is the skeptical position that has multiple converging lines of evidence. Historical records, successful predictions, data points that all point to the failure of the climate consensus. PC , AttP, and of course the hype professionals have to ignore the reality.

It's not even an extraordinary claim, Phil. With the earth greening by 20-30% with the rise of atmospheric CO2, a 17% rise in crop production from the CO2 fertilization is a conservative claim.
=============

That is not evidence.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6042/616