JohnB

Yes. It's quite odd that some people have a severe dislike for those who knowingly and intentionally conspire to break the law. Funny how we don't view them as ethical or moral people.

Swansont, Except for the "Team" hockeysticks there isn't anything that shows the rate of change is "unprecedented", so it's probably happened before. The rate of change from 1850-1880 was exactly the same as from 1970-2000. Since 1850-1880 was natural there is no reason to believe that this rate isn't similar to the rates of change undergone by earlier societies that quite easily survived them. If they had to adapt to rates of change similar to ours and survived then why should we fail? So far there is nothing to indicate that the rate of change is outside the rates previously experienced. Solar and wind both still survive due to large subsidies, remove those and they are no longer viable. A nation is similar to a household when it comes to basics and the cost of energy supply is similar to a household power bill. The more money you drain from a purse just to keep the lights on, the less there is available for other uses. If your power bill is $20 per week and goes to $40 per week, then you have $20 per week less to spend. While it is true that you could borrow to cover the shortfall this only works in the short term, you can't keep borrowing forever. In the case of a nation, if it costs 5% of GDP to keep the lights on and this cost goes up to 7%, then this is a drain on the economy and there is less money for other things. Now if wind and solar could supply energy at similar rates to other forms of generation I wouldn't have a problem, but they don't. To use Queensland as an example. I buy power at a peak rate of $0.20700/kwh and an offpeak rate of $0.12760/kwh. The feedin tariff (what the power company pays) for solar in Qld is $0.44/kwh. Check me if I'm wrong here, but the last I heard selling a product for less than half what you paid for it is generally not considered a way to stay in business. So where does that extra money come from? Striaght out of consolidated revenue and there is therefore less for roads and hospitals. Should the silly "Carbon Tax" survive, which I doubt it will, by 2020 we will be sending $58 billion per year overseas to buy carbon credits just so that we can keep the lights on. This is an extra cost on top of the actual cost of generation and supply. For this "Mitigation" by 2100 world temperatures will be lowered by .0045 degrees from what they are expected to be from the model forecasts. So this is $58 billion drained from our economy every year that will make a really big difference to our adaptation requirements. Like I said, if solar and wind can provide power at competitive prices then I have no problem with them. However if they cannot then the extra money has to come from somewhere, either from government coffers or the pockets of average people. Either way there will be less money for other things. iNow, Don't forget the difference in outlook here. From your POV, CO2 is the major driver of the climate and therefore mitigation attempts to cut CO2 will have an effect commensurate with their cost. From my POV, CO2 is a more minor player in the game which makes things a bit different. If you're right then reducing CO2 emissions might mitigate say 80% of future climate change (assuming CO2 is responsible for 80% of the change and we fully reverse the situation) which is obviously a good idea as it will drastically reduce the need for adaptation. However if I'm right and CO2 is a bit player (or isn't particularly relevent at all) then all the money spent on CO2 reduction will have little effect as a mitigation measure and is therefore just as obviously a waste of money and effort. To spend $X billion on mitigation to prevent 80% of climate change effects is a good idea, to spend the same amount to prevent 10% of climate change effects isn't. So I think that here it is an "outlook" thing more than anything else. Virtually all of the economic articles etc I've seen on this question though do tend to find that adaptation is cheaper in the long run. To put it another way. How much money would we have to spend to knock 2 inches off the sea level rise by 2100? Is that cost greater or lesser than building the sea walls 2 inches higher? As with many "policy" discussions, I don't think that this area is at all cut and dried with a single definitive answer. In truth I think the future course will be similar to what mankind has done in the past. We will talk a lot about mitigation and adapt as the need arises. Sorry, but I don't see it as austerity at all, simply basic economics. If a gov has a $1 trillion annual budget then that is what it has available to spend. If it spends more than that it has to borrow and increase the pressure on future budgets with the repayments. If the budget is currently already allocated, then to spend money on mitigation efforts a gov must either make cuts in other areas or borrow since the money has to come from somewhere. I totally agree that spending money now (even if it is borrowed) can make things much better economically in the future, especially if as you say, the spending is on employment drivers. But which is a better long term employment driver? Bridges and infrastructure to allow the economy to flow more smoothly or some wind towers to supply expensive electricity? I simply think that govs should live within their means. By this I don't mean "Don't borrow", I mean "Don't borrow more than you can afford to pay off". By analogy, if you can afford to pay off a home loan at $1,000/month then getting a loan that costs $1,100/month is going to get you into trouble. There is some noise being made at the moment because Oz has $240 billion in public debt but I'm not particularly concerned because that amount is well within the limits of what we can afford to pay off. I tend to use household incomes and home loans as a basic rule of thumb here. If a household can afford a homeloan of 5 times its annual income and can service that debt adequately (and just about everyone can) then so can a gov borrow up to 5 times its annual income (budget). It's only when you go too far above this limit or attempt to reduce the loan amount too quickly that austerity measures are needed. US Federal tax receipts last year were $2.1 trillion. On that basis $10 trillion in public debt should not be a problem to service. That you are at about $14 trillion is a bit of a concern but with good management that amount is still quite serviceable. If it gets to $20 trillion, then I think austerity measures will become unavoidable. (Personally I think you should bump up the tax rates a bit) Anyway. As to having more money later on my thinking is this. Let's say the economy grows by 1% per year so there is an extra 1% for the gov to play with each year. If that 1% is spent on mitigation efforts it won't add much to the economic growth will it? If instead the extra 1% is spent on things that encourage economic growth then the economy will grow even faster. (I'm thinking long term here not short term.) So 50 or 100 years down the track when the money is required for adaptation the economy will be bigger and stronger and can more easily pay the cost. Think of it like a company with some excess profits. The company can spend the profits or reinvest them in the company to make it grow. In 70 years time the company that reinvests will be far larger than the company that has spent its profits. Being larger it will have more disposable income and a far larger ability to service debt and so will be far more able to cope with and adapt to change. So it's not that by spending less now we will more money in the future. It's that by investing that money now we will have more in the future. We can invest in the development of our own nations or we can invest in the economies of developing nations. If we invest in our own development then we will have more money later to help those others when they need it. If we invest in their economies, then 70 years from now they will be developed and won't need as much help from us to do what they have to do. Let's say a nation in 70 years needs $50 billion to spend on adaptation efforts. If we don't help them develop then we have to give them $50 billion. If we do help them develop then they will have a strong economy and will simply borrow the $50 billion like anybody else does because they will be able to afford it. Does that make my thinking clearer?

Yep. We have 76 Senators, 12 for each State and 2 for each of the Territories. There is occasional talk of expanding it by granting the Northern Territory full State status but nothing seems to come of it. The Carbon Tax did pass, but neither it nor the government that introduced it in such an underhanded manner will survive the next election.

I'm with StringJunky. There is something truly beautiful about the handiwork of a great craftsman.

Because to a great degree it is pointless. Let's say we spend squillions. We change over to a totally carbon neutral economy. Even further, due to massive research funding we find a way to extract all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere and bring it down to 280ppm. So we've spent huge amounts and returned the atmosphere to pre industrial condition. Even if we do all that so that the only forcings on the climate system are totally natural ones the climate will still change and we will still have to adapt. We could spend the entire planets GDP every year on mitigation and in the end we will still have to adapt. Policy wise, I think it far more sensible to spend the money on adaptation than to spend heaps on mitigation (that may or may not work) and to then spend even more money on the inevitable adaptation. And adaptation is inevitable unless someone believes that the climate does not change due to natural causes. (And the opinions of people who live in fantasyland don't really count.) It's also worthwhile remembering that the pool of money is not bottomless, most nations are already in the red. Every dollar spent on mitigation is a dollar less available to spend on development or adaptation. To me it's a sort of "Give a man a fish..." type thing. Say you live in a strong house (economy) that is quite able to adapt to change but your neighbour does not. Now you're a generous person and you're worried about the future. So do you spend your money on mitigation and then help your neighbour build a better house when the inevitable need to adapt arrives, or do you help him build a strong house like yours now? That way, when the inevitable happens you are both in a good position to adapt. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly, if not let me know.

Sorry. The point I was using them to make is that regardless of cause, sea level rise hasn't been a real problem in the past. Societies with far less resources than ours have adapted and flourished. Assuming the IPCCs projection of about 2 feet by 2100 is correct, the real question is "Will that be a problem?" Archeaological evidence is that this sort of change hasn't been a problem in the past, so why should it be considered one in the future? If it's not a problem, why worry about it? It can of course be argued that it would be a problem for low lying third world nations. (While not so much for first world ones due to their greater resources.) Wouldn't this then mean that the most effective strategy would be to aid the third world nations in their development so that they have more resources and can therefore adapt the same way that first world nations can? Whether natural or anthropogenically caused, climate change will always be with us, this is the reality. If it is true that first world economies can withstand such changes better than third world ones can then surely we should be doing everything we can to get as many nations as possible to first world status. A bit more on hurricanes. I think Wu et al 2006 helps clear things up a bit. Concerning the Pacific Basin there are three data sets, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) Tokyo (Japan) and Hong Kong Observatory (HKO; Hong Kong, China). Webster et al found that "between the two consecutive 15-year periods of 1975-1989 and 1990-2004, the percentage of typhoons in the western North Pacific meeting the definition of categories 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale has increased from 25% to 41% of all typhoons in that ocean basin" using the JTWC data set, yet the RSMC show a "decrease in the proportion of category 4-5 typhoons from 18% to 8% between the two periods of 1977-1989 and 1990-2004" and the HKO show a "decrease in the proportion of category 4-5 typhoons, from 32% to 16%, between 1975-1989 and 1990-2004". So your answer as whether or not Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes are increasing or not depends on the data set used. Wu go on to explain the possible reasons for the divergence; This last bit is interesting due to Webster and others using satellite pictures to count and assign intensities to some hurricanes. I must stress that this paper concerns only the Western Pacific Basin only however similar problems possibly exist in other basins where a number of nations are involved. (The Indian and South Eastern Pacific come immediately to mind.) Frankly I'm not too sure what to make of this. A 1 minute time span is more that a "gust". Does it mean that with a changing climate we are experiencing an increase in the length and severity of "gusts" but not an increase in overall strength of hurricanes? Are hurricanes changing? Are they more likely to be weaker in general but also more likely to contain a Cat 4 or 5 "burst" within them? But it would appear that the answer to whether Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes are increasing or not depends on how you define a Cat 4 and 5 hurricane. Really, you'd think that by now there would be a standard definition wouldn't you?

It wasn't meant as a red herring, it's just the way my mind works. Things clump together and I go "Isn't that interesting". But to answer your question, no. Many times over the years I've read that photosynthesis pretty much shuts down at around the 150 ppm mark, it's always been taken as a given. Since you asked I've a look and there are very few papers that mention actual figures. I did find one for an exceptional moss that stores chemicals and can photosynthesise at 50 ppm, but that's about it. In general, photosynthesis shuts down when any one of three things drops below a threshold level, those being light, water and CO2. At that point photosynthesis stops and photorespiration takes over, basically what a plant does every night. Anyway I'll keep looking and let you know if I find anything. Or hopefully one of our biology experts will chime in with a figure. However my comment was made in the context of the 150ppm being correct. If it is, then dropping down to 180ppm when for most of the last 600 million years it's been in the thousands, then that to me constitutes "barely above" in this case. Now are we going to talk about CO2 or temps? I think I would quite agree that CO2 is rising faster than before. However that graph is showing (and the one further down the page at wunderground also shows) 4 degrees per century temp rise. Last time I looked we had had about .8 degrees in 150 years. (Or has there been an extra 3.2 degrees that I've missed?) I do find it irritating that some sites attempt to pass off "projections" as "observed fact". But even that is relatively unremarkable. Ice core records show DO events that changed the temps by 12-15 degrees in under 70 years. Even allowing for polar amplification this is still a hell of a lot faster than todays piddly .8 degrees/150 years. As to their list of "Impacts", I'm willing to call BS on pretty much every one of them. If the ecosystem was as fragile and sensitive to change as is made out, there shouldn't be any ecosystem left after the very large number of very large temperature changes over the last 400,000 years. Every previous interglacial was warmer than this one. Coral has survived for hundreds of millions of years, withstanding drastic change and temps both above and well below those of today, but somehow they're all going to die if the temp rises a degree or so. We're talking about the little wiggly bit on the very right hand edge of the graph. But let's look a bit closer. 50,000 years. Modern times are very right hand end. Can you tell me what is exceptional about it? I can see at least 15 events that dwarf modern warming both in rate and size in the last 50,000 years. The SciAm article makes much of "that in the course of a few thousand years—a mere instant in geologic time—global temperatures rose five degrees Celsius", but it's not that expectional, is it? Yes, the rise in CO2 has been exceptional, but the concurrent rise in temps has been neither exceptional nor unprecedented.

That's roughly what I thought. The problem being that the literauture seems to go both ways at the moment and a definitive answer seems unlikely.

Swansont, I think I would call 10% "statistically significant" too, at least as a first approximation. The point being that the two papers came to opposite conclusions. Both papers had support from other papers as well and were part of the "Hurricane Wars" from 2004-2006. In the original version of that post I said "So it isn't as clear cut as either of us would like" and I think that that is the situation. AFAIK the HUrricane Wars were ended with the two sides getting together (as they should) and finished up resolving "We don't know. We need longer timelines and more data to be sure". Papers can be quoted to support both sides of the argument, so the situation is not cut and dried. However I think that it can be definitively said that the North Atlantic is definitely showing an increase which will tend to give Americans the impression that there is an overall increase. Since American disasters are widely shown on World news this might also give others the same impression. I'm not expecting linear effects from the system due to it being strongly non-linear but there should be something. We've gone halfway to the 2 degrees that is talked about and we still can't find an effect? How "non-linear" is the system supposed to be? Again, the argument is that we "have to do something" or else things will get very bad due to warming. So, given the .8 degrees already experienced then things should have started to get bad already in a measurable way. So, where is it? For either the last year or the last 9 depending on which satellite you are using. Envisat hasn't shown an increase since it went up in 2002 while Jason 1 & 2 show a decline in the last year. It's unsurprising the two Jasons agree as Jason 2 is calibrated to Jason 1. Envisat is French and is a different system. Re your link. Where would people be without the redoubtable Dr Mann? Able to glean temps from tree rings that the NSA said shouldn't be used, and from varves that the data collector said shouldn't be used (he used them upside down so I guess that makes it okay ), a student of the spread of malaria and also a sea level expert. Such genius. But seriously. The paper referred to got all it's data from two cores roughly 120 km apart on the North Carolina beaches, an area notorious for its rapid changes and is specifically a NC reconstruction. If you want to extrapolate the planet from a bit of NC beach go ahead, but I would call the number of data points "insufficient" at best. The full paper is here. Care to guess what shape they found the sea level rise to have? Sea level rose at the end of the last Ice Age due to a lot of ice melting. 1850 was arguably the coldest this planet has been in the last 10,000 years, an era known as the "Little Ice Age". Why would anybody not expect sea levels to rise as we warm out of that period? Beaumaris Castle in Wales was built in 1295 and contained a Sea Dock on it's southern wall for resupply by sea by ships of 40 tons cargo weight. That dock is now 160 metres from the waters edge. 100 years at 3mm per year won't be enough to bring the water back to Beaumaris. English salt mines during the Roman period were abandoned due to rising sea levels and were later reoccupied when they fell. If you look on Google Earth at the mouth of the Tiber in Italy you'll see a hexagonal shape about 3 km from the water. That was the Roman port of "Trajan", now so far above sea level that it's used as a reservior. Some Roman ports were rebuilt 2 or 3 times due to sea level changes in a relatively short period (say 300 years). If History and Archaeology teach us anything it is that sea levels always change and at a far faster rate than has been measuered in the 20th Century. Sea level change has been with us since before the dawn of man and we will have to do as they did, deal with it. Moving around of floods and droughts will in general be significant. However the only way for this not to happen is for the climate not to change. When has this ever been the situation? Essay. I was referring to the "Pew Centre". They are possibly a very reputable group, I don't know. The point here is that if someone is claiming that the literature supports their position then they should quote the literature, not someone else who says that the literature supports them. I distrust think tanks from either side due to the high probability of hidden connections and causes. I note for example that the Pew Centre Board consistes of a former UNEP head and a swathe of bankers who would stand to make a great deal of money from carbon trading. Similarly I dislike RealClimate due to its being owned by EMS and the George Soros Foundation, EMS having a history of setting up "scientific" websites to further the aims of advertisers. Hence my comment about the Heartland Centre. I think it is acceptable to quote a paper referenced by a think tank, but not to quote the think tank itself as they are almost certainly biased. Which would make it hard to claim that the incidence is increasing with warming, wouldn't you agree? Almost certainly true and totally expected in a warming world. But I'd like to keep the goalposts in one place if you don't mind. The point was about an increase in extreme events. The warming is in the GAT and most of that comes from warmer nights and winters. The cooler end is becoming warmer faster then the hotter end is getting hotter. So we would expect a slight increase in extreme hot events but a large decrease in extreme cold events. This leads to less overall extreme temperature events and since cold events kill a lot more people than hot ones do a lowering of the death toll from extreme temperature events in general. Fuel or energy poverty is a very real problem in some developed nations as well as the undeveloped ones and this makes cold a big killer. Hot is bad but there are things you can do but cold can't be fought without fuel. This makes extreme cold events far more dangerous than extreme hot ones. In the Update on Fuel Poverty and Health we find this; Granted this is only Ireland, but it can't be classed as undeveloped or third world. However a lessening of extreme cold events will result in less people dying. The question here is whether there has been an increase in extreme temperature events. It is claimed that they will increase according to the models but has such an increase been observed? I have yet to see any proof of such an observation. Congratulations, you've provided proof the Earth is warming. The average is of course the 31 year baseline of satellite observations. How do the current polar trends compare with those from the beginnings of the Roman, Minoan or Medieval warm periods? In short, exactly what is unusual here? I'd like to see some cites about the Eocene soils not being able to support current life. (Not being picky, I'd really like to read them.) Given the changes in Continental layout I think it would be very hard to make too strong a comparison with that time (Sea currents would be wildly different for a start) but let's have a look. I hope you don't mind Wiki as a reference here. Plants. Plenty of trees and grasses. Looks like they were everywhere in fact. Fauna. Evolution of mammals, modern birds appearing, plenty of reptiles, and insects. Life must have been very difficult. The Oceans. So, lots of plants, grasses and trees. Lots of animal life and the seas "teeming" with fish. What exactly are you concerned about? In a way this strikes me as similar to the comment I sometimes hear that "Manmade Global Warming has prevented the next Ice Age" or similar. I'm still trying to work out exactly why it is bad that Europe and the northern United States won't be covered by a mile or two of ice in 30,000 years. Can anybody tell me why this is considered a problem?

Oh goody, a think tank. Does that mean I can start using the Heartland Institute as an authoratative source now? Nice selective quoting BTW, did you miss this bit? (Emphasis mine) Strange as it may seem to some, North America and the North Atlantic isn't the whole world. What you appear to be objecting to is my holding your statements to the same standard as is usual on these forums. If anybody said "Several peer reviewed studies showed...." then the very first response would be "Then name some" and that is all I've been asking. But what do the studies actually show? "Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment" Webster et al 2005 find; Basically they find an increase in the number of Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide, but a decrease in the number of cyclones and cyclone days. So, less cyclones but more of the intense ones. However "Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years" (Klotzbach 2006) makes an interesting point. I must admit to having a problem with the last bit. I would call a 10% increase "significant". Similarly Kossin 2007, "A globally consistent reanalysis of hurricane variability and trends" finds that; And before anybody starts calling Cr Kossin a "denier" or other names I will point out that he is a coauthor of Elsner 2008 from which the SkS diagram for wind speed is drawn. As to the diagram for storm numbers itself, I can only repeat "The North Atlantic is not the entire world". A point that is noted in a couple of the referenced papers is that for reasons unknown the North Atlantic especially is behaving unusually compared to all other basins worldwide. While this is an interesting question it does point to the fact that stats for the NA shouldn't be relied on when considering global trends. Pointing to the NA and saying "Look! Storms are up!" is just as meaningless in the climate debate as someone saying "It's cold here, global warming isn't happening." One little region doesn't tell the global story. Globally the situation is this; (from Maue 2011) From this we can see the large upward swing in the incidence of tropical storms and hurricanes........Oh, wait. We can see a slight downward trend in tropical storms and hurricanes. Oh well, a warming world means more energy in the system so the overall strength (ACE) should be up then. Oops again. As a side note I found that many papers when discussing the frequency of storms etc don't add in the effects of El Nino or La Nina which is a bit curious. Consider this graph of SSTs from 1850 - 2000. (Just the top graph) So SSTs have gone up a degree or so in that time. This is quite small compared to the change in SSTs associated with an El Nino or La Nina. (Although those effects are more regional) So if hurricane intensity correlates with SSTs then one would expect some correlation with El Nino events. Now look again at the graph of tropical storm frequency above. Am I the only one that sees peaks about every 4 years in that data? Corrected. Like I said... Agree with me or what I share and how I share it... Disagree with me and my presentation and content. I don't care anymore. This science has been largely settled for 40 years. It's only the minor points that are still being discussed and debated, not the central theme or overarching theory. Bulldust. I'm the one out there reading the bloody literature and finding that it isn't as cut and dried as either of us would like. You're sitting back quoting bloody think tanks or websites run cartoonist and advertising companies while chucking around gratuitous insults. In all of this I've been providing references to peer reviewed literature while you just offer up predigested pap that reinforces your preconceptions. I'll allow "adequately addressed" after you quote some actual literature and not a moment before. You made the claim that extreme events were more common now than before and you have yet to offer a single paper that backs that claim up. Citing a website where someone says that papers exist to back the claim doesn't cut it. It wouldn't cut it in the physics forum and it wouldn't cut it in the speculations forum, why expect a free pass here? And minor points my arse. We are constantly told that warming should be kept below 2 degrees from preindustrial due to climate disruptions, extreme events, what have you. The fact is that we are almost at half that figure so there should be a clear and discernable signal in the data already. So where is it? Except for the NA there is no increase in hurricanes, there doesn't seem to be an increase in floods or droughts (like I said they seem to be moving around, but the total isn't changing), there are more extreme hot events but far less extreme cold events leading to a decrease overall, heck even the sea level rise seems to have stopped. So where is the increase you say exists and is soooo dangerous? Or is the great goddess Gaia simply being patient for the moment, "But wait and you'll see. She'll get angry soon and all hell will break loose."? The point being of course that if these extreme events haven't come to pass then it is less likely that they will in the future and "climate change" becomes a non problem. As to "not caring", well you should. We all should. Climate change might be a problem in the future, but climate policies are effecting the lives and livelihoods of millions right now. I think Matt Ridley said it very well;

Okay, so AR4 hurricanes section says so. This link http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-3/default.php After checking through to find the report and the relevent section (found here) has some interesting and contradictory things to say. The first paragraph says; (Emphasis mine). Yet further down we find; (Emphasis mine) So it's not "observed", but "likely". There is a rather large difference between the two. The next paragraph says; Hmmmm. The report goes on to say; It would be rather odd if the number of hurricanes went up but the number of landfalling ones didn't, wouldn't you say? The most logical conclusion is that there is no increase. Unfortunately the report isn't internally referenced and so you can't find out what data or papers led them to particular conclusions. Nor do I see why I should have to read large reports to see if they back up your conclusions. If there is an increase in occurrence and severity, then simply link to the peer reviewed literature. That's all I ask, show me the data. The second link in the last post http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report relies on reference 28, the hurricanes section of AR4 for it's conclusions that the number has actually increased. That particular section was one of interest even before AR4 came out. The lead author, one Kevin Trenberth had never published a single paper on hurricanes and so (quite reasonably) approached hurricane expert Dr. Chris Landsea to write the section. Dr Landsea agreed. Shortle after this Dr Trenberth participated in a press conference at MIT where he effectively announced the findings of his section (on hurricanes) before it had been written. This led to Dr Landsea withdrawing his support and participation on January 17th 2005 in an open letter to the Climate community. I quote the relevent sections, emphasis will be mine; So who do you believe? The guys with no experience in hurricanes or the fellow that studies them for a career? This obviously led to a kerfuffle and rather public spat leading to MITs Dr Kerry Emanuel (yet another hurricane expert) to comment; A follow up article by Dr Roger Pielke Jn says it all; How strange it is that the relevent section of AR4 agrees with Dr Trenberths ideas and not those of the people who actually publish in the area. I add that this is one of the reasons that Dr Judith Curry, another hurricane expert is extremely disappointed with the IPCC. The findings on hurricanes do not agree with what is available in the peer reviewed literature. There wasn't any peer reviewed literature then to say that there was an increase and if it exists now nobody can seem to find it. So that disposes of two of the three links discussed above, since they were simply parroting the wrong conclusions and statements of the relevent section of AR4. The third link is saying that while it is likely that incidence has occurred, they can't find any evidence that is has in fact happened. (It is also concentrated on the American region.) So we see that still there has been no evidence put forward that extreme weather events are increasing in occurrence or intensity, despite a rise in temperature of around .8{sup]0[/sup]. The first rule of climate is that it changes, all the time. In the entire record of this planet there has never been a time when the average temps weren't going up or down. Consequently "change" by itself is no proof of human influence and nor are the effects of that change. Whether the world warms from natural causes or human influence the rainfall patterns will change, the arctic ice will advance and retreat, plants will retreat from some areas and colonise others, all these things will happen regardless of why the climate changes. They are evidence of a warming world and not an anthropogenic cause of that warming. To sum up. There is no evidence of an increased strength or frequency in hurricanes (which have to classify as extreme events). I have yet to see evidence of an increase in the frequency of floods or droughts globally. It does strike me as quite probable that in a changing climate the patterns would change, so frequency would increase in some places and decrease in others. This would lead to some "cancelling out" as it were with a possible remainder as the trend. But there doesn't seem to be an increase, they just seem to be moving around. Temperature extremes are a slightly different matter. In a warming world most of the increase in average comes from warmer nights and winters rather than from hotter summers. So we would expect a slight increase in extreme "hot" events but a large decrease in extreme "cold" events so in general a decrease in extreme temperature events is likely. If somebody can point me to some peer reviewed literature that demonstrates an observed increase in extreme weather events, I'll read it, I could be wrong after all. However, if there is no evidence of an observed increase in extreme weather events after an increase in temperature of roughly .80, then the projections of models of increases in these events due to temperature increase would have to be viewed as "dubious" at best. And mate, this isn't "the weeds", this is the nitty gritty of going down into the published literature and reading it, rather than relying on what somebody else says. We "deniers" are a nasty bunch, we ask for proof.

You have a lot of faith in predictions for 20,000 years into the future. We weren't expecting glaciation to occur before then anyway. Are we? The cooling forces seem to be far stronger than expected given the hiatus for more than a decade.

Mate, I honestly find it incredible that you can say that. How many times have we both jumped on people with the "It's cold, so the globe isn't warming". Weather is not Climate. But you have illustrated my point that many people have the impression of an increase. But let's take your 4 "proofs" in order. 1. The NOAA page. Spring brought some severe events to the Unites States. I'm sorry for your losses, but we have had floods and cyclones too. While there is some comparison to previous events there is nothing there about the long term trends for the globe. Evidence null. 2. The EPA page. Firstly the quoted passage from AR4 is simply wrong; I've already provided proof that there is no increase in intensity or duration. (I suppose that's what you get whn you exclude the hurricane experts from the section on hurricanes.) Secondly the table is about predictions. Again there is no proof at all of an observed increase in extreme events. Evidence null. 3. A green activist site. I'm sure that they are impartial and scientific. But anyway, from the site; "Likely to change"? "will become"? I asked for observed evidence of increases, not scary fairy stories. Evidence null. 4. The Wiki graph taken from the 4th link. My first question would be Is "The Environment and Poverty Times" a peer reviewed publication? Nope, it's just an "inhouse" publication for the UNEP. But it is a UN publication, so let's have a closer look. The report uses the data supplied by CRED known as EM-DAT. As the UNEP article says, CRED deals in reported events and has some discussion as to how much improvements in technology would increase reporting even in the face of no actual increase. An important factor here is "What do CRED classify as a disaster?" CRED supply the definition in each of their annual reports, the 2010 one is here, section 1.2; Note the first point. 20 years ago a mudslide in backwater Peru would have barely made the Peruvian National News, now it's on youtube within minutes. The question is not whether reporting has gone up, but has the actual observed incidence gone up? We detect more earthquakes because there are more seismographs than ever before. Americans see more tornadoes because with the spread of population there are people to see them where previously there wasn't. We count more hurricanes and cyclones through satellites (especially the "Shorties") than when we had to rely on ships and aircraft to spot them. I'm reminded of medicine in this. Do increasing detected cases of a disease mean that it's on the rise, or simply that our screening methods detect more of them? Evidence inconclusive. The amusing thing here is that I'm supposed to be the "denier" and "anti science" and "unscientific" yet I'm the one supplying peer reviewed literature to back my argument and the opposing evidence so far consists of 2 articles that don't apply to the question at hand, 1 activist website talking predictions and 1 article that can't even prove or verify its own data. iNow mentioned the drought in Texas. Honestly mate, as an Aussie I really do understand the meaning of that word and I sincerely hope that you guys get some rain. With floods etc you can more the livestock but in a drought there is nothing to do but watch them die. Drought is a truly heartbreaking thing for any area with a large livestock economy. (And I hear that Texas cattle make great steaks) But the bottom line is that there isn't much to the drought trends in the US. Figure 4 in this paper shows that severity trends have increased in the South West but decreased in the North East. This is exactly my point. For them to "continue" to increase then they must be increasing already, so where is the observed evidence? I've been running Google Scolar pretty hot and can find plenty of papers with model predictions that extreme events will increase, but the ones that deal with direct observations show no increasing trend. It doesn't matter if I'm looking for fire, flood or hurricanes, all the predictions are for an increase but the obs just don't show it. (I'll add I do find it a bit concerning that the number of observational papers is quite low compared to the model ones.) The models say there should be an increase and the impression people have is that there has been an increase, but the data doesn't support either. Another point to consider is that there can be many ways to look at the data. In my home State Queensland for example some areas have recorded a drop in precipitation of 100mm/decade for the last 25-30 years. Just looking at that figure is enough to make people go "Holy Sh*t, that's a lot" and worry about drought or similar. But when you consider the figure in line with cyclonic activity there is little to worry about. Those regions are still getting their normal rainfall, the decrease is simply because they aren't getting smashed by 2 or 3 cyclones every year. So a drop in rainfall can be viewed as both good and bad, bad because there's less rain but good because there are less extreme events to flatten the towns. It's things like this that make me look twice at any set of figures and try to burrow down as far as I can to try and get the full picture. There are people out there to whom it is obvious that God created the Universe. I have no interest in what people think is "obvious" I only care about what can be proven.

This proves what? Heck, in the part I quoted it said there was a trend in the US. But at a global level, zilch. Or do only US and not global trends count? The claim was in respect to planetary climate that; What happens in one tiny corner of the world is not indicitive of the entire planet. I provided two links to show that there is in fact no increase in incidence or severity of extreme weather events worldwide. Can you provide opposing data? Very true. We also have quite a few more people now than then and they are living in more and more vulnerable areas, if they are not accounted for in the analysis they will mask a downward trend. If Yasi had struck Queensland 100 years ago most of the towns it flattened wouldn't have been there. Similarly I doubt that the poor in Bangladesh (or anywhere else in the third world) have much access to those improved building codes and early warning systems, yet the worldwide death toll is still down by more than 90%. The point here is that many people are under the impression that there has been an increase in extreme events when there has not. As michel123456 has pointed out, the second link might be biased. (The use of the word "alarmist" in the second quote leads me to think it is.) So how about "Estimating Annual Numbers of Atlantic Hurricanes Missing from the HURDAT Database (1878–1965) Using Ship Track Density" which fills in the period before the satellite data? Published in Journal of Climate and from the NOAA server. Granted it does only apply to the Atlantic, but Americans are told that numbers and severity are increasing. How about "Is the recorded increase in short‐duration North Atlantic tropical storms spurious?" Another NOAA paper from JGL. From the conclusions section; It is also worth noting who they reference as writing papers contaminated by "shorties" to show an increase in storm occurrance. World Climate Report references 4 more papers that can't find increases in China, Hawaii and southern Germany. I've shown elsewhere that the number of cyclones in the Australasian region has been falling, but just to help try here for the BoM graph of "Mean Central Pressure" of cyclones in the region since 1950. Good luck in finding a trend. So there are another 7 references more showing that there is no increase. (And there are plenty more) iNow said (and presumably others agree) that there was "evidence before us" of an increase, would somebody care to actually show some?

Would you care to cite that evidence? I know a lot of people have that impression, but that doesn't make it a fact. From the abstract of a recent paper "A Trend Analysis of Normalized Insured Damage from Natural Disasters"; Speaking personally I would classify cyclones as "Weather Events" and the incidence has been going down for the last 30 years in the Australasian region. ( I do wonder if this means that some other poor sod is getting more since the ACE seems to be very flat.) You might also check out "Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events Global and U.S. Trends, 1900–2006". Are you seriously trying to argue that there are more "Weather Events" when normalised damage shows no trend and the trends for loss of life from all forms of natural disaster are falling? I'd also like to draw attention to Table 2 in the second link. Average deaths worldwide each year due to extreme weather events 19,868, average annual deaths due to Infectious and Parasitic Diseases 10,904,000. Even assuming that there is an increase, all the policies to avert or mitigate warming, for the absolute trillions they will cost will help prevent less than 20,000 deaths. For 1/10th of that money we could save millions from disease and poverty. How about a sense of perspective?

Matt Ridley, author of "The Rational Optimist" gave the Angus Millar Lecture at the RSA recently, describing himself as a climate "Heretic". His speech is about the best overview of the sceptical position I've seen and judging from the comments at the blogs "at least 97%" of the sceptics would agree with me on this. He has allowed a couple of blogs to post the full text of his speech and it's really worth the read. (Unless of course a person is certain that the other side is composed only of pseudoscience and liars and would rather not face evidence to the contrary) The link is to Anthony Watts site simply because this version has some of the explanatory graphs that accompanied the speech and they aren't available elsewhere. The fact that it is the Watts site will, I'm sure, turn some people from reading it. I urge those who do have that reaction to think about their response. Is it a reasoned reaction or a dogmatic response to ignore something that may disagree with your worldview? "Thank you Matt Ridley" While I agree with what he had to say in general, there are a couple of areas that I'm quite as content with. A big bugbear being that the speech has a number of asterisks to denote references, but the actual references are lacking. However I hope the speech can dispel some myths about "denialists" (or whatever derogatory name is in vogue right now) and stimulate an interesting conversation. Edit to add; The RSA was formed 1754 and originally known as the "Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce". It awarded cash prizes for the development of Arts and to help inventors. Later they became a "Royal" Society and shortened their name. One could argue they have possibly the longest pedigree in "Environmental" concerns as they first awarded prizes in 1770 to inventors attempting to reduce smoke emissions. They aslao awarded a prize for the invention of a machine in 1805 the replaced children as chimney sweeps. Also responsible for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the establishment of the Royal College of Music in 1876. Their achievements and timeline can be found on their website here.

Or maybe the "well funded denialist oil machine" is a fantasy and they simply fund research. BP has been funding the CRU for years, so has Shell. Acknowledgements section of the CRU history page. I fully agree. For the first time in history change rather than stasis is regarded as the norm and companies are thinking about how to work in a changing world. Previously they didn't, they just assumed that things would trundle along and the operating environment would remain the same. But the weather isn't getting more severe, is it? The incidence of extreme events has been dropping as the planet warms.

I think you'll find that CO2 varies by a few ppm/decade over the past few millennia, as you suggest "similar to a sine wave;" not changing much on the multidecadal scale, except slowly over centuries. Depends on what you mean by "slowly" I think. The long term ice core records show it as pretty abrupt. (The blue line) Having said "abrupt" however, it must be added that the change is from 190 - 290 ppm over a century or so which is still only 10ppm per decade at most. Interesting that the change can be described both as "abrupt" and "slow". Also interesting is how dangerously low the lows were over the last 400k years, barely above the level where photosynthesis shuts down.

Not neccessarily. English is a required language for all international airline pilots. So would that make english the official language of Japan since all JAL pilots are required to speak it? It's just a regulation.

Professor Julius Sumner Miller was a physicist, a student of the great Albert Einstein and an inspiration to more than a generation of Australian children. His program "Why is it so?" ran from 1963 to 1986 on the ABC explaining in easy to understand terms the way physics effects things in our daily lives. I'm very pleased to say that the ABC are dredging up some of the old clips and making them available for download and watching at their website. These are snippets and some more can be found on youtube. Hopefully the ABC will eventually place all of the programs online. I hope that these, like Mooeypoos "Smarter than that" videos will encourage more younger people to look at the world they live in and ask the question that motivates every scientist, "Why is it so?".

A Lim'rick packs laughs anatomical, Into space that is quite economical. The good ones it's seen, Seldom are clean, And the clean ones are seldom so comical. Favourites being; There was a young lass from Madrass, Who had a magnificent ass, Not rounded and pink, As some people think, T'was grey, had long ears and ate grass. There was a young lady from Nod, Who thought babies were presents from God. But t'was not the Almighty That lifted her nightie, T'was Roger the lodger, the sod.

It's a nice idea in theory but lacks acceptance of a major basic principle. In any organisation authority should equal responsibility. You are giving people authority over the State, but are in no way holding them responsible for their actions when exercising that responsibility. Authority without adequate responsiblility is the problem, not just authority. Add to that, if I'm reading the paper correctly, their basic premise for the model is badly flawed. The assumption is that one of the two partys will never vote for legislation that is to the detriment of both the party members and society in general while the other party will. This is patently absurd. The description for Figure 1 says; By placing party two into the -1,-1 square they are assuming that one party is motivated neither by promoting the personal interests of it's members nor by promoting the interests of society in general. While it certainly does happen (note the current slow suicide being committed by the Australian Left with their Carbon Tax) it is not intentional and both sides of politics can be equally stupid. I also invite readers to consider what the researchers view as "intuitively" true on page 14; It's also worthwhile noting that the study equates greater governmental "efficiency" with the more laws being passed. While this would be great news for the legal and accounting industries, everybody else would grind to a halt very quickly. Good governance is based upon the quality of and not the number of Bills passed. Frankly I think the idea is quite poor and in this case is an exercise in fantasy based on a model that has no resemblance to reality.

I'm getting confused. What happened quickly? The rise in temps or the rise in CO2?

It should also be pointed out that most pyramids didn't require interior lighting anyway. The Egyptians didn't pile up a lot of rock and then cut passages into them, the passages were built as part of the structure. So things like the "Grand Gallery" in the Great Pyramid were open at the top, allowing plenty of light inside. Underground passages and rooms were quite likely cut as part of the foundation work before any actual construction began and so didn't require as much lighting as they would if done later. Also often forgotten is that until the Pyramid of Unas, there were no embellishments inside at all, no paintings or carvings of any kind. There would only need to be some sort of illumination when the actual burial rites were performed. Since there are reasonable grounds for doubt as to whether the early pyramids were actually tombs anyway it is quite possible that the reason there is no flame residue is simply that they were never entered again once finished. (Reasonable grounds being the fact that no mummy, burial provisions, cloth, beads or any other artifacts have ever been found in any pyramid. While we do know that looting went on, the probability of such complete 100.00% clean ups is remote. Carter found many beads in the passageway leading to Tutanhkamuns tomb left behind from the first attempt to loot the tomb. While they were probably dropped by the looters, those who resealed the tomb made no attempt to clean up at and simply filled in the passage. There are other reasons but the big one for me is there is zero, zip, ziltch, nada, nothing to actually prove that anything was ever placed inside any pyramid.)

Specifically, A friend will commiserate with you. A good friend will help you plan the revenge. A best friend will walk beside you swinging a baseball bat, singing "Someone's going to get it".