Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, ice ice baby.

[Phier]

Did you hear about the record levels of sea ice? No, not there, Antarctica.

http://www.livescience.com/23912-ant...ord-image.html

The sea ice circling Antarctica reached record levels late last month, extending 7.51 million square miles (19.44 million square kilometers), the most ever recorded by satellite.
The previous record was set in 2006, at 7.49 million square miles (19.39 million km), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
On Sept. 26, microwave imagers flown as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program captured the maximum sea ice extent. Dark gray land fills the center of the image, and light gray ice shelves float just offshore. (Ice shelves are the tongues of land-bound glaciers that extend out into the sea.) The yellow outline circling Antarctica defines the median sea extent from 1979 to 2000 — the total area in which the ice concentration in the ocean was at least 15 percent.


The record ice pack is likely due to stronger winds caused by warming temperaturesin the Antarctic, according to a NASA statement. These circumpolar winds generally act to blow sea ice outward, except in the Antarctic Peninsula region, where winds from the north push the ice southward. Thus, sea ice extent near the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula declines rapidly, while areas in the Ross Sea and the southern Indian Ocean show significant increases, according to NASA.
Just as the Antarctic reached its zenith, the Arctic ice pack shrank to its minimum extent for the year– and it was a record low. The minimum was set on Sept. 16, at 1.39 million square miles (3.61 million square km). That is almost 300,000 square miles (777,000 square km) less than the previous record minimum set in September 2007 (1.61 million square miles or 4.17 million square km).
Scientists with the NSIDC have noted that the growth in Antarctic sea ice does not disprove global warming. For one thing, the two hemispheres are in opposite seasons; the geology between the Arctic and Antarctic is also different, leading to different effects on sea ice. The ozone hole may also be linked, as it influenced the atmospheric circulation, and therefore the winds, above Antarctica.

Now it is quite true that this doesn't "disprove" global warming, but lets be clear then, it also means that the near record lows in sea ice in the arctic does not prove global warming either, despite the knowing nods in that direction.

This of course doesn't get "quite" *ahem* the press as RECORD SEA ICE LOWS does. I leave this here to help again reinforce the idea that we really have very little idea whats going on with global climate, what causes these changes, and even less idea for what the future holds.

Whats interesting is wind is also been blamed for the lack of sea ice in the arctic, but that doesn't fit the narrative. Right now in science its important to fit the narrative.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Nobody takes one year or low ice and say thats global warming. Its patterns that mean anything and winter is coming so the ice grows and then shrinks during summer.

As you saw the article also said the ice shrunk to records low.

[Vizsla]

The latest HadCRUT numbers (a combination of sea surface and land surface temperatures) were recently released.
They show that the global temperature record has not risen in 16 years.

That piece of information hasn’t made it into the mainstream media either. Despite more than a decade of denials that there was even a plateau in the first place.

The climatologists are now spinning that their models include 15 year periods of no increased warming and still result in catastrophic warming.
Presumably in another 5 years 20 years of no warming will still count as global warming.
In 10 years time 25 years without warming will still be global warming... and so on.

If you made this stuff up no one would believe that it could happen.
It’d be funny if it weren’t for the massive increases in taxes and energy bills these distortions have inflicted.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Nobody takes one year or low ice and say thats global warming. Its patterns that mean anything and winter is coming so the ice grows and then shrinks during summer.

As you saw the article also said the ice shrunk to records low.

Its going into summer in the southern hemisphere, not winter.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Its going into summer in the southern hemisphere, not winter.

Exactly.

[Col. Tartleton]

If meteorologists can't predict the weather tomorrow why exactly am I supposed to trust climatologists to predict the weather 100 years from now?

Those few degrees of Global Warming over the rest of my life would be nice for us Boreal Climate guys. It gets pretty cold this time of year in the Subarctic. I mean it's only mid October and it's just above freezing here.

I've got a vineyard to sell you on Baffin Island.

[Elfdude]

Did you hear about the record levels of sea ice? No, not there, Antarctica.

Gross oversimplifications for the win. A nice way to bias the information however. I see your game. I feel like I have to explain this every time but since you insist on your sophistry I must provide the alternate.

Now it is quite true that this doesn't "disprove" global warming, but lets be clear then, it also means that the near record lows in sea ice in the arctic does not prove global warming either, despite the knowing nods in that direction.

Phier. You don't need the sea ice to prove global warming, the theory of global warming is a very simple theory to follow. You can do the math yourself in your house. We've trippled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 is massively potent compared to the primary GHG (water vapor) about 10 times more impacting. This is equivalent to the earth suddenly generating 30% more water vapor. Can you remain intellectually honest and tell me that does not influence the climate?

More importantly than the GHG is where the GHG is located. GHG in the upper atmosphere reflect solar radiation driving the temperature down. GHG in the lower atmosphere absorb solar radiation driving the temperature up. This is a major reason why we see the widest temperature fluctuations in Antarctica. WIth no Ozone layer the density of GHG in the upper atmosphere is significantly reduced. This results in a massive increase in radiation of the ground temperature to space durring winter months and a massive increase in the ability of the sun to warm the area in summer months. CO2 levels probably has little impact due to the fact that Ozone is of much more critical importance to the regulation of temperature. The Antartic area also has a lower ozone density but it still has some and the difference is massive.

Now lets retarget the question of global warming to areas which are actually impacted by it. Notably the equator. The surface equatorial water temperatures have risen an average of .06 degrees Celsius over the last many years. This increase has no plausible explanation beyond human activity. There's no more water vapor in the air than there was. The earth is not producing more CO2 than it has historically (it's actually quite silent since the industrial revolution), there is not an increased presence of methane or SO2 or other appreciable GHG's in the area. The sun's radiation and the earth's orbit also defy a temperature increase. I fail to find anything which can contribute to the vector of temperature more so than CO2 which again has trippled since the industrial revolution. What was formerly a 1% CO2 atmospheric concentration is up to 3% CO2 atmospheric concentration. As a global mean. This should have an effect, you know far too much to think it doesn't. Because again the most important and prevalent GHG is water vapor which is 90%+ our Green house effect. This CO2 increase is like adding 20% more water vapor on top of that.

Please tell me why in your mind you can dismiss the significance of this and state global warming isn't happening. It's a rather laughable conclusion and you don't need any large scale observations to prove it. The large scale observations are the most faulty because we have to include variables we don't understand yet, however we know three central things:

1. CO2 levels have trippled from 1% to 3% (140 ppm to 340 ppm) globally
Most likely due to human activity
2. CO2 is 10 times stronger than water vapor as a GHG (absorbs 10x more energy)
3. Water vapor is the most prevalent and important GHG and accounts for over 90% of the Green house effect.
Q: Does CO2 have an influence on the GHG system of the planet?

Now that's all we need to do to prove that global warming is real. A more important question is asking what it will do. Well if we increase surface temperatures up to 2.0 degrees the effects on the ocean floor (if it acts as it does now) should result in the spontaneous boiling of methane hydrates releasing huge tons of methane globally. Methane is 20 times stronger than CO2 but typically the sun breaks it down so fast it has no real influence with relative to CO2 or Water Vapor. However the half life of a given amount of methane in the atmosphere is 50 years. If the methane hydrates were to boil off this could lead to a drastic increase in in the global GHG effects which could in turn lead to something you'd probably be most familiar with in Sim Earth, the oceans vaporizing and eventually boiling off. Introduce more energy into the system and it will find a stable state. There is no way to predict the unintended consequences of introducing 20% more energy into the atmosphere. If you want to see an atmosphere with a lot of energy you don't need to look far.

This of course doesn't get "quite" *ahem* the press as RECORD SEA ICE LOWS does. I leave this here to help again reinforce the idea that we really have very little idea whats going on with global climate, what causes these changes, and even less idea for what the future holds.

You're perpetuating ignorance? Are you serious. Explain the problem and the issues with it. Your third party sources are giving you a much too generalized view of everything. When something becomes more complicated than a two page article can explain it's just left out as 'we don't really know' not to mention the political impact that occurs when taking sides. As a scientist you should have no issue understanding the numbers. You can do the math yourself. I could do the math myself in highschool, you can't expect me to believe that with your training in science you do not see the same parallels. The media regularly biases science to say what it wants. But this doesn't mean that the real science doesn't still support global warming. Which it does for the plain, easy to understand reasons above.

Whats interesting is wind is also been blamed for the lack of sea ice in the arctic, but that doesn't fit the narrative. Right now in science its important to fit the narrative.

What?



Evidently you don't understand how glaciers work. Further the easy test of your claim is to check where the wind doesn't blow to the ocean. Oops, I suppose you missed that part which is available even in your quote. I do like the baseless attack on science however, as though media = science and science = fitting a narrative. You've ceased to speak about science and have tortured a strawman. All the while forgetting your own dismissal of evidence goes both ways and cuts off your own head as a scientist. We're seeing exactly what we expect to see according to science. It's journalists searching for a story that convey it otherwise.

[GrnEyedDvl]

1. CO2 levels have trippled from 1% to 3% (140 ppm to 340 ppm) globally
Most likely due to human activity

"most likely" according to the global warming nutjobs.

There are lots of other sources, and we can argue back and forth all day long, and not get anywhere. But there is one fact you cannot dispute.

Not one single computer model ever made to predict this stuff, has ever been close to accurate. I cant remember the guys name, I will have to try and find it, but one of the biggest computer programmers in the global warming industry (yes, its an industry worth billions) recently published a big paper on how ridiculous all the models are.

James Lovelock, which is the guy who started all this nonsense back in the 70s (and yes I can remember that) also came out and said he had been overly "alarmist" in his theories.

Fifty scientists at NASA signed a letter this year about the crap that NASA puts out, asking them to stop. And this is the agency so many environmentalists point to when trying to prove their point.

The earths climate moves in cycles, always has, always will. To think that things can or ever will remain completely static is nonsense.

[Elfdude]

"most likely" according to the global warming nutjobs.

You do understand you're dismissing 98% of climate scientists with that right?

There are lots of other sources, and we can argue back and forth all day long, and not get anywhere. But there is one fact you cannot dispute.

Maybe it would suit us better if I were to calculate the amount of CO2 released per year and how it influences parts per million which directly influences CO2 levels in the atmosphere? CO2 has increased by 2.5 PPM per year since records started. This is equivilant to 2.5 extra mg of CO2 in every liter of air every year at standard atmospheric pressures. This is something we can measure with very little degree of uncertainty. The biggest thing that could be said against it is that my measurements in my backyard are not representative of the global mean (they aren't) but unfortunately these measurements are compared across the world.

We can do this another way and look at the total tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere and calculate what effect that should have in atmospheric concentrations. This is an empirical value which allows us to draw a calibration curve and figure out the trend worldwide. If we do this the same values appear. Are we just crazy, or does the theoretical calculation match the predicted calculations which match the empirical calculations? It's much harder to dismiss simple math 1=1 no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on.

Not one single computer model ever made to predict this stuff, has ever been close to accurate. I cant remember the guys name, I will have to try and find it, but one of the biggest computer programmers in the global warming industry (yes, its an industry worth billions) recently published a big paper on how ridiculous all the models are.

I'd love to see that but I'm not sure it threatens global warming at all. One of the biggest issues with the models is that they don't know all of the variables. It's hard to plug in CO2 into the atmosphere increased by as much as it has and get any real accuracy out of it. It's really hard to explain this without a stats class, essentially people don't understand probability. When an aids test has a 99.99% accuraccy that does not mean you're 99.99% likely to have aids if you pass it (actually you're about 20% likely due to fundamental counting rule). The same issue applies to CO2 in accuracy. It's a tiny amount which has enormous effects. Like I've said it's got the heat absorption properties that allow it to absorb roughly 10x more sunlight in the lower atmosphere than water. This is a huge increase in atmospheric energy.

James Lovelock, which is the guy who started all this nonsense back in the 70s (and yes I can remember that) also came out and said he had been overly "alarmist" in his theories.

Many people have been over-alarmist about global warming, doesn't mean it's not happening.

Fifty scientists at NASA signed a letter this year about the crap that NASA puts out, asking them to stop. And this is the agency so many environmentalists point to when trying to prove their point.

The scientists who did this are a tiny tiny fraction of the people that work at Nasa, Nasa is not the only agency that perpetuates this claim either. 98% of all climate scientists agree that global warming is real, it's exceedingly difficult (impossible) to get this many people to agree on something. Every government agency I'm aware of recognizes global warming as real and caused by CO2, from the EPA to the American Medical Association and every remotely credible organization in between. These 49 scientists are using their fame to assert their political ideologies and would get zero attention if they had come out denying gravity exists, funnily enough we can see far more disagreement about gravity amongst physicists than global warming amongst climate scientists.

The earths climate moves in cycles, always has, always will. To think that things can or ever will remain completely static is nonsense.

Well I wouldn't say anyone has ever claimed that it was static so I'm not sure I see the relevance with this statement. However I must ask what happens so the 'stable state' (the self balancing act it does) of earth when it gains a ton of extra energy? For example, the stable state of Venus's atmosphere is howling winds 800 mph lead boiling etc. This is because of the Venusian atmosphere which consists mostly of H2O, CO2 and SO2.

The same green house gas components we have are what makes Venus's position in the solar system less than enviable. They give venus a huge amount more energy it can sink (think a global heat sink) into it's atmosphere which in turn drives atmospheric disturbances. You needn't be near the sun however to feel the power of the atmosphere attempting to find a stable state, see jupiter and saturn.

Now we do know that we're sizing up our heat sink by about .33% a year, which means the potential energy of our atmosphere is increasing. It's important to understand the geological time frame and what happens to the earth when it's stable state is massively changed. Iceball earth which caused an ice age for 10 million years is a great example. The earth is prone to sliding to either extreme, remove a bit too much energy from the atmosphere and we freeze quickly. Our increases are unprecedented. It's also important that with every volcano on the planet contributing to CO2 it still took millions of years for them to even approach our modern production.

So while I agree with you, regardless of us earth will probably find a stable state and self regulate. Whether that environment is good for us is an entirely different question.

[Stario]

CO2 levels have varied between about 190-300 ppm over the last 800,000 years; today's levels are about 380 ppm. However, during the Miocene period CO2 levels were sustained at about 400 ppm. Long term reconstructions estimate atmospheric CO2 being approximately 20x higher than present levels 500 million years ago, it then dropped, and rose again some 200 million years ago to about 5x higher than current CO2 levels. Point being, nature is quite capable of achieving current CO2 levels (and beyond), on its own.

[Elfdude]

CO2 levels have varied between about 190-300 ppm over the last 800,000 years; today's levels are about 380 ppm. However, during the Miocene period CO2 levels were sustained at about 400 ppm. Long term reconstructions estimate atmospheric CO2 being approximately 20x higher than present levels 500 million years ago, it then dropped, and rose again some 200 million years ago to about 5x higher than current CO2 levels. Point being, nature is quite capable of achieving current CO2 levels (and beyond), on its own.

And what pray tell is the slope of said increase? A two hundred year increase is far more significant than a million year high. You're also ignoring the more important question; even if this is entirely nature (nature doesn't produce enough CO2 to do this in the time frame we're talking about as entertaining as that is) what are the effects of it across the world? Further the huge amount of methane hydrates are already ready to boil. I'm sure the earth could survive a tropical environment and I'm sure humanity would survive. But I highly doubt the ensuing chaos will be good for society or the environment. If the Artic and Anartic ice sheets melt we also have the increased stirring of the ocean resulting in massive warming of the planet from the ocean itself. Currents and temperatures shift in the time period of decades and hundreds of years when they encounter human influence. Biospheres do not.

As the environment is damaged its ability to undo the damage done is compromised. The healthier the ecosystem the more able to self regulate it becomes. For example Pleistocene Park found the odd effect that when reintroducing megafauna to the area the tundra reinvigorated. Current estimates show the biodiversity capable in the tundra environment to be greater than the current biodiversity of a tropical forest. What do you suppose the effects on genetic diversity will be?

[Stario]

Elfdude,

There is little reason to believe that a raise in C02 levels will lead to catastrophic global warming. Several studies in fact suggest the opposite, that is climate change drives changes in CO2 levels and not vice versa. Fischer et al. (1999) examined contemporaneous records of atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature derived from Antarctic ice cores that extended back in time through the last three glacial-interglacial transitions. The authors found air temperature always rose first, followed by a rise in C02 with a lag as much as 400-1000 years.

In all three of the most recent glacial terminations, the earth warmed well before there was any increase in the air's CO2 content. In the words of the authors, "the time lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect to temperature change is on the order of 400 to 1000 years during all three glacial-interglacial transitions." During the penultimate (next to last) warm period, there is also a 15,000-year time interval where distinct cooling does not elicit any change in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 content gradually drops over the next 20,000 years, air temperatures either rise or remain fairly constant.

Similarly, Petil et al. (1999) found that for the glacial inceptions of the past half-million years, air temperature consistently dropped prior to atmospheric CO2 levels, again a lag of several thousand years could be observed between the temperature decrease followed by CO2 decreases.

What was done
The authors, partners in a long-term collaboration among Russia, the United States and France, retrieved the deepest ice core ever recovered - reaching a depth of 3,623 meters - from the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica. By careful analysis of this historic ice core, they reconstructed trends of many climatic and environmental parameters, including temperature and CO2 concentration, over a period of 420,000 years.

What was learned
Over four glacial-interglacial cycles, the succession of changes through each cycle of glacial growth and termination was similar, with atmospheric and climatic properties oscillating between fairly stable lower and upper bounds. Surface temperature, for example, varied over a range of approximately 12°C, while atmospheric CO2 concentration ranged from a low of 180 ppm to a high of 290 ppm.

The authors note that "the new data confirm that the warmest temperature at stage 7.5 [238,000 years ago] was slightly warmer than the Holocene [the current interglacial]." They also note that the interglacials preceding and following the one at 238,000 years ago were warmer still. In fact, from the graphs they present, it can be seen that all of the four interglacials that preceded the Holocene were warmer than the current one, and by an average temperature in excess of 2°C.

The authors additionally found that (1) "the Holocene, which has already lasted 11,000 years, is, by far, the longest stable warm period recorded in Antarctica during the past 420,000 years," (2) "the climate record makes it unlikely that the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed during the past 420,000 years," (3) "during glacial inception ... the CO2 decrease lags the temperature decrease by several thousand years," and (4) "the same sequence of climate forcing operated during each termination: orbital forcing followed by two strong amplifiers, greenhouse gases acting first, then deglaciation and ice-albedo feedback."

Furthermore, Staufer et al. (1998) found the rapid warming and subsequent slower cooling that resulted over the course of the start-and-stop demise of the last great ice age is typically credited with causing the minor CO2 concentration changes that followed them.

What was done
The authors derived a common timescale for earth's last glacial period based on records of atmospheric methane concentrations from Greenland and Antarctica. They then used their findings to compare millennial-scale climate oscillations inferred from Greenland ice cores with concurrent variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration inferred from Antarctic ice cores.

What was learned
During large rapid warmings over Greenland of several degrees Centigrade, which were followed by slower cooling regimes that returned the climate to full glacial conditions, atmospheric CO2 concentrations typically varied by less than 10 ppm. Furthermore, the weak correspondence between the two parameters was considered to have been caused by the change in climate, rather than by the change in CO2.

What it means
Climate can, and does, change significantly without any help from atmospheric CO2. Hence, there is no compelling reason to believe that the modest warming of the last century has necessarily been influenced by the concommitant rise in the air's CO2 content. Even when correlations between these two parameters have been observed in the past, as in some of the longer-term variations in this study, the climate change is believed to have been the independent variable, with atmospheric CO2 concentation following its lead.

References:
Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.

Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N.I., Barnola, J.-M., Basile, I., Bender, M., Chappellaz, J., Davis, M., Delaygue, G., Delmotte, M., Kotlyakov, V.M., Legrand, M., Lipenkov, V.Y., Lorius, C., Pepin, L., Ritz, C., Saltzman, E., and Stievenard, M. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429-436.

Staufer, B., Blunier, T., Dallenbach, A., Indermuhle, A., Schwander, J., Stocker, T.F., Tschumi, J., Chappellaz, J., Raynaud, D., Hammer, C.U. and Clausen, H.B. 1998. Atmospheric CO2 concentration and millennial-scale climate change during the last glacial period. Nature 392: 59-62.

[Elfdude]

Elfdude,

There is little reason to believe that a raise in C02 levels will lead to catastrophic global warming. Several studies in fact suggest the opposite, that is climate change drives changes in CO2 levels and not vice versa. Fischer et al. (1999)

Awesome, I love arguing with people who use actual papers. The biggest problem I see with your interpretations however is your interpretation. Which is to say, that a lag in ice cores does not defy what we expect to see. In fact it confirms the IPCC's data and narrows it in the IPCC's favor.

This study does not conclude that climate change drives changes in CO2 levels and not vice versa as you have described. You've dreadfully misinterpretted it. The study does state that the relation between CO2 and temperature is not straightforward however. What we see by looking at the data is that the maximal limit of CO2 is approached after the temperature maximum. As the ocean cools it absorbs an increasing amount of CO2 and thus the levels of CO2 in the ice cores are (as expected) high as the temperature decreases. Leading to a lag time between CO2 highs and temperature. This does not imply that CO2 does not lead to warming, rather that it does. This is because for the CO2 to have dissolved in the colder oceans it must have come from the atmosphere which in fact supports the GHG theory. Perhaps you should reread the article and think a bit more about these concepts? In fact this is printed within the IPCC report, this paper narrows the values of the lag from 2,000-4,000 years reported by the IPCC (rather inaccurate) to the more accurate conclusions provided by a larger more precise data pool of this paper. Which is to say, they narrow the lag from 2-4 thousand to 2-6 hundred. This is what we expect. The IPCC report in this case would actually be more confusing for global warming than the paper you used.

A good attempt, but the paper simply doesn't perpetuate what you think it does

examined contemporaneous records of atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature derived from Antarctic ice cores that extended back in time through the last three glacial-interglacial transitions. The authors found air temperature always rose first, followed by a rise in C02 with a lag as much as 400-1000 years.

This is simply due to the nature of working with water and ice. As temperature increases the amount of CO2 in the ocean decreases. As temperatures decrease the amount of CO2 in the ocean increases. Which is to say the ocean sinks more carbon the colder it is.

Similarly, Petil et al. (1999) found that for the glacial inceptions of the past half-million years, air temperature consistently dropped prior to atmospheric CO2 levels, again a lag of several thousand years could be observed between the temperature decrease followed by CO2 decreases.

Perhaps another misinterpretation?

"the same sequence of climate forcing operated during each termination: orbital forcing followed by two strong amplifiers, greenhouse gases acting first, then deglaciation and ice-albedo feedback."

Which is a way to say that GHG's seemed to be the trigger for deglaciation which in turn trigger reduced albedo.

Furthermore, Staufer et al. (1998) found the rapid warming and subsequent slower cooling that resulted over the course of the start-and-stop demise of the last great ice age is typically credited with causing the minor CO2 concentration changes that followed them.

Which again is expected of the predicted climate change, it doesn't counter it in the least. I might suggest actually reading the IPCC report, although some of your data is more recent and more accurate, it provides more evidence for the IPCC not less.

References:
Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.

Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N.I., Barnola, J.-M., Basile, I., Bender, M., Chappellaz, J., Davis, M., Delaygue, G., Delmotte, M., Kotlyakov, V.M., Legrand, M., Lipenkov, V.Y., Lorius, C., Pepin, L., Ritz, C., Saltzman, E., and Stievenard, M. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429-436.

Staufer, B., Blunier, T., Dallenbach, A., Indermuhle, A., Schwander, J., Stocker, T.F., Tschumi, J., Chappellaz, J., Raynaud, D., Hammer, C.U. and Clausen, H.B. 1998. Atmospheric CO2 concentration and millennial-scale climate change during the last glacial period. Nature 392: 59-62.

Beautiful.

So now that we know none of this defies expectations we can move forward with what the conclusions do tell us. First they tell us that the Ocean is a major CO2 sink. Currently the ocean sinks about a third of human CO2 production which is measurable by empirical, and theoretical PH changes due to atmospheric increase and human activity. As the oceans warm more CO2 however is released back into the atmosphere as energetic water molecules kick the gaseous ones out of solution. This in fact provides evidence that were the oceans to continue warming CO2 dissolved in them would massively fall. However more concerning is long before that happens methane hydrates (dissolved methane in the ocean) come out of solution. Methane again is much much stronger than CO2 as a GHG.

The inrfared response of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is curved not linear.
Clear evidence that a runaway CO₂ induced greenhouse effect is impossible:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And I am always happy to list my sources: http://wattsupwiththat.com/, unlike some people.

This is not a valid source. It is a tiertiary source and is in fact an intepretation of interpretation. The founder is not objective in the least and willfully obscures real information with his own interpretation. He has taken legitimate studies and bastardized them to provide ideas which are simply not true. This graph tells us absolutely nothing however, I'd search for the blog post where it came from but honestly if you're going to use blogs to base your science on you'd better get ready to admit to every other conspiracy and controversy humans have ever come up with.

These threads always make me laugh.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow...192334971.html

Alarmism very objective.

This might qualify as a secondary source if it wasn't for the fact it bases a large part of it's stances upon wattsupwiththat.com unfortunately because of it's poor basis it's a tiertiary source of the worst kind.

The paper in question is particularly poor itself. It's published in a geographers journal and it's quite clear it did not get the proper peer review it deserved. Because it was published in a highly unrelated journal the paper is immediately suspect. Further the paper is further suspect simply due to the title, On the "Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance" Now before I move on from the title I want you to remember science creates its titles as objectively as possible. Most titles have no subjective interpretation to them and often when they do are offhandedly rejected by quality journals. A title should not be provocative and that this title reads like a news headline and not a science paper is a major point loss on first impressions.

Now that's just the first thing I can tell you without even looking at the paper. I've read the paper several dozen times however.

Problem 1: What is the statistical significance? I don't know because the authors neglected to provide that information. This immediately calls into question the credibility of their data. What about uncertainty? Error bars? The few of these that do exist occur improperly in the figures or the text itself. This is utterly poor form from a science perspective. Most journals would reject a paper for this and force the authors to rewrite it.

Problem 2: The methods described are not reproducible. The authors did not describe the methods thoroughly which inherently prevents the study from being replicated or verified. This in itself would also result in a rejection from most journals.

Problem 3: What we can check results in contention. Now the basic idea of their paper is somewhat reproducible, they do use a dataset that produces a much lower than usual magnitude. The reasoning for this isn't entirely clear but the data they use is far from the most precise available (they're using data from a nearly failed ancient NASA satellite) much of the data seems to have no significance either.

Problem 4: The major conflict occurs where Spencer and Braswall say the models are not reproduced in climate models. In fact dozens of models fall within the limits of uncertainties of the experiment, where uncertainties are not provided a bit of math and guesswork leads us to believe far more than they give credit actually do fit within their values.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The black represents the data from NASA's much more accurate and much more advanced satelite CERES. The solid red represents existing climate models and the dashed lines represent the variability of the ENSO study. The top represents the variability we would expect to see with high variability (this would defy global warming). Unfortunately the data does not resemble this variability this is the GISS data. The middle represents the data with a predicted low sensitivity climate or the MPI data (this would support global warming) and the bottom represents a combination of both.

Unfortunately the model Spencer uses is none of the above. He uses a drastically simplified model which is actually too simple. Science is all about simplicity but if you simplify something more than you can you're generalizing. This is where the entire paper really falls apart. His model has no realistic ocean. No el nino nothing that seems to reflect a real world model. In fact it seems to be tuned to give the result it gave. I.E. Specer decided to throw out the variables which didn't suit his conclusion.

If you'd like to know more about this: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenbert...0_GL042314.pdf

Regardless there's still more reasons why the spencer paper has no merit. The interannual global temperature variations were not radiatively forced (as claimed) which means their information has zero bearing on climate sensitivity. Further Spencer has regularly made this error of confusing feedback and forcing before.

I'm loving the climate debate here guys, I'd be more than happy to explain what other misinformation or misinterpretation is leading to the faulty conclusions on display in this thread.

[Vizsla]

The inrfared response of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is curved not linear.
Clear evidence that a runaway CO₂ induced greenhouse effect is impossible:



And I am always happy to list my sources: http://wattsupwiththat.com/, unlike some people.

[Phier]

Elfy, look I've done this a 1000 times on the internet I'm not doing it again.

I was hip to global warming before you were quite literally born

Please, inform me with your wikipedia like knowledge some other time.

[Elfdude]

Elfy, look I've done this a 1000 times on the internet I'm not doing it again.

I was hip to global warming before you were quite literally born

Please, inform me with your wikipedia like knowledge some other time.

I don't believe I can teach an old dog new tricks, you'll use logic and rationality and even make pretty awesome posts when you so desire though it's clearly not with this subject. Most people simply argue to state what they want, most people learn information simply because it supports their views and most people overstate the extent of their truths in argument. I have little doubt that you fall into this category in this subject. On the other hand I would be remiss to allow your terrible argument go unaddressed in some form. I do appreciate the attempt to undermine the credibility though. Anyways seeing as your cynicism has sapped your willingness to argue your point I would encourage you to simply stop perpetuating misinformation. It's a lot easier on your old bones.

[Aanker]

But hey, the worst thing that could happen would be a climatic change akin to that of the late Permian, and that wasn't so bad...

[conon394]

double

[conon394]

Whats interesting is wind is also been blamed for the lack of sea ice in the arctic, but that doesn't fit the narrative. Right now in science its important to fit the narrative.

As far as I can tell it does in fact fit the narrative and tiny marginal expansion in the Antarctic is not outside the narrative. It certainly is hardly comparable to the vastly larger decline in the Arctic:

Compare these versions of the story with some numbers -

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/20...er-and-winter/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...les-apart.html

[Nikitn]

Obviously extreme cases are irrelevant, and using them as examples to disprove/prove something is just misleading.