" "One small data point is all that's needed to thwart a trend." --scientists everywhere " --no one ever

North America and Antarctica are the only places in the world right now with below average temperatures. Every other location on earth is above average

I like warm weather.
Let's pollute more. That'll most definitely make the world warmer. But then, the earth goes through warming stages and cooling stages. So, why are we worried about a natural occurrence?

Actually, Southern California has experienced a warm Christmas and New Years. Warmer by about 10-15 degrees F. We are finally getting back to normal Southern California winter temperatures. (55-65 degrees F) The best way to see if global warming exists is the average temperature over a full year. If it is steadily rising, then we have global warming. If it stays constant, then I guess no global warming.

The weather in Britain has been very very wet lately, we have flooding all over, including in my garage! It's the worst it's been since ... 20 year ago. In other words, it was *worse* back then, so it isn't global warming, it's just extreme weather.

While some fears surrounding global warming are warranted, most are just a manifestation of people's irrational fear of change and the need to stop it even if it's a naturally occurring change.

You know, when it's winter somewhere, it's summer somewhere else. You may want to keep Australian temperatures in mind when using the USA as a datapoint.

Very true. Much of Australia is experiencing the opposite. Record high temperatures.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/highly-significant-heatwave-smashes-australian-records-20140106-30dx5.html

Is this thread real

also, evolution is just a theory amirite

When someplace is really cold, someplace needs to be really warm

I love discussions like this, since they tend to show all kinds of amusing scientific illiteracy. Of course, the notion that warming will upset all kinds of existing patterns and create unstable weather patterns is pretty well established, so the extremes we see with increasing frequency (both warm and cold) are precisely what scientists have been predicting for ages. Obviously, we know that CO2 and methane trap heat, but the denialists have never been able to come up with a magical cooling mechanism to explain where that heat is supposed to go if not the atmosphere and oceans.

Always good for a few laughs, at least until fast cycles of droughts, floods and freezes drive the farmers out of business and food shortages kick in. THen, not so much laughing

And yet we don't see extremes with increasing frequency. The weather was considerably more extreme when my parents were young. The bed advice of climate scientists a couple of decades ago was for farmers in the south of England to invest in crops better suited to warmer climes. Those that did have suffered because it never got warm enough.

Whilst the principle of global warming seem solid enough, the best attempts at prediction have been rather wide of the mark thus far. Every time we try to rewrite history and say "that is what we said all along" we convince those with better memories that we're not worth listening to.

http://i.imgur.com/03kZU0I.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/51g6m1Z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Klt8lgi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5w4fgg7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GTGinqs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xbYbbJi.jpg

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/mon-january-6-2014-oscar-isaac

This 10 minute opening segment really sums up everything I've ever felt when this question is "raised."

http://www.azcentral.com/weather/articles/20140106th-hottest-record-phoenix.html

Seven of the hottest summers in Phoenix, AZ, USA have occurred since 2000.

it is unusually hot now in mainland europe (at least where i live).

does this prove global warming? no it doesn't.
do unusually low temperatures in north america defy global warming? no they don't.

There have been 375 consecutive warmer than average months compared to the 20th century average. If you are 28 or under, you have never lived a cooler than average month. If this were a natural cycle, one would expect variation, but there is none

* Obviously, we know that CO2 and methane trap heat,……..*

Just a couple of points on this-

1) CO2’s capacity to trap heat falls off logarithmically with increasing temperature. Something that is not too widely publicised, but it is even there in the IPCC report itself.

2) I too remember the scare stories about the melting of the permafrost and the so called subsequent catastrophic release of methane (CH4) – turns out it was alarmism. Here is a Nature paper from last year explaining that the released carbon will stay in the soil, going on to contribute to increased “increased plant biomass and woody dominance”. Mineral availability is also enhanced contributing to this effect – another negative feedback loop constraining AGW. Let’s hope the modellers do their level best to incorporate this in their constructions (!)
(Sistla, Seeta A., et al. "Long-term warming restructures Arctic tundra without changing net soil carbon storage." Nature 497.7451 (2013): 615-618.)

* If this were a natural cycle, one would expect variation, but there is none*

Am I missing something here, but assuming your figures are correct, doesn't that depend on the cycle's wavelength? Moreover, can you put a figure on how much global surface temp. has increased say in the last 200 odd years? That might help us constrain better how much of this rise is due to the emergence from the little ice age and how much is anthropogenic. Please bear in mind that the latter does not only have CO2 as a driver. The urban heat island effect, for example, is also significant and very difficult to accurately understand/model on an overall Global context.

What I was saying, Fulham, is that if this were a steady state, then one would expect variation around a mean. Since this isn't the case, then we have global warming. Whether it's natural or not is more the question you're asking. I would tend to think that the nature of the data (something like 9 of the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 2000) would indicate a cycle much, much shorter than anything previously known to occur naturally ( the little Ice age occurred over centuries). This by itself would make me believe that this is an unnatural phenomenon

Goldfinger one thing we can agree on is that the Earth's climatic system is not and likely never has been in a steady state - all the geological evidence points otherwise. So shall we try to construct a Null hypothesis based on that, presumably agreed, fact? Could you suggest one which you might be happy with? One that you might dismiss with a minimum of 95 % confidence?

Those absolute figures I asked you for - would you agree that the temp. rise in the last 200 odd years has been < 1degree C.? To go back further involves the very questionable tree ring data - we can discuss this too if you like.

I wonder if people realize we are still in the early stages of coming out of the little ice age. The Earth goes through cycles as the plates shift. With the moving if the Earths plates it changes what part if the Earth is in what climate zone. Even if it is just a few cm a year. Global Warming is a scam. Al Gore laughed at us when he started making millions off of an idea instituted by him.

Hopefully some people from NASA and the worlds major universities around this world will stumble on this thread and realize the glaring mistake they have made - how could they have possibly overlooked the fact we are coming out of the little ice age! No one has ever though of this before! This explains everything! The worlds best climate change scientists made to look like fools by people play a board game.
Well done webdiplomacy.

"The Earth goes through cycles as the plates shift. "

Such a great insightful point! The warming in the past 150 years is nothing to do with CO2. The continents have simply shifted closer to the equator. Of course its getting warmer.

I can't help but feel the sarcasm?!

Contrary to popular opinion climate change scientist are aware of the little ice age. They are also aware that climate does change over time. Deniers often say "but the world's climate has change naturally before - therefore it must just be nature". And with simple observation actually believe they have disproved AGW. Of course they have done nothing of the sort. All they have shown is that they have over-estimated their own competency to understand climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

What they fail to understand is that climate change scientist are aware that climate does change naturally over time. Scientist have actually looked for other factors to explain the current warming - but given what we presently know, none match match the data as well as the the theory of AGW.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age.htm

I think it is fine to keep an open mind. If new evidence comes to light that disproves AGW - great. But the appropriate time to reject the consensus is when that evidence does in fact come to light. That time is not now.

This link also discusses the litttle iceage.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=279

Well the fact you used Wikipedia just discredits what facts you have absorbed. I'm not here to argue just state my opinion. I will not deny CO2 doesn't play a part because it does. But with the population increasing as quickly as it has been then an increase in CO2 makes sense.

"Well the fact you used Wikipedia just discredits what facts you have absorbed."

You say this as if it were a self-evident fact.How so?

A bum at a public library could post a fact about something on Wikipedia

Could you be a little clearer about which of my points you disagree with.
My guess is it must be this one.

That deniers frequently overestimate their ability to question the core tenets of AGW theory.

I did not use Wikipedia to prove this point, merely to show that this is a known psychological phenomena. But this is not central to my point - more an interesting aside.

Wikipedia has its place by the way, as a handy quick reference. It should never be viewed as the final arbiter , of course. But if you disagree with a point supported by a Wikipedia article then the onus is on you to provide a better source.

Here some other article which discusses the Dunning Kruger effect.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolved-primate/201006/when-ignorance-begets-confidence-the-classic-dunning-kruger-effect

This one relates it to climate change (I am not sharing this as proof of anything - its simply another summary of Dunning Kruger effect).

Oops. forgot to post the link:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2013/06/26/the-dunning-kruger-effect/

I was at a conference of water treatment professionals a few years ago with experts from around the world. Most of them had examples of recent extreme weather events (droughts or floods that should be 1-in-250 to 1-in-750 year events) with their experts predicting that those will be more like 1-in-50 to 1-in-150 year events from now on.

Climate change is happening; climate change is always happening. The question is how much is human caused.

I agree that climate scientist have overestimated their ability to predict the amount of climate change. Predicting next week is a challenge. Still, the overwhelming evidence points towards it being at least largely human-caused.

People who deny it seem to deny regardless of evidence...pointing to a minor point here or there and saying that disproves the whole thing. If that point is refuted, then they move to a different point. It reminds me of a guy that refuses to wear a seat-belt since, in a collision, there is a very small chance it will cause more damage than it prevents. He's looking for a reason not to wear a seat belt; he doesn't care what it is.

Climate change deniers don't neutrally, start with science, and work their way to a conclusion; they have come to a conclusion and then dissect the science, looking for something to back their views, not caring what it is.

Wanting something doesn't make it so.

...Climate change deniers don't start neutrally,...

Sorry.

live game, starts in an hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
password=swag
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=133242

Ummmm............... ^

There has always been a notion that Global Warming was a left agenda to get people to stop buying gas guzzlers. Also often affiliated with people preaching how we need to stop eating meat as well as put a stop to oil drilling, fracking ect.

How bout this for a argument against fracking
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151764582876734

@fulhamish - how about this?

'The rate of change at which global temperatures are warming is not significantly different than past warming periods in earth's history'

That's a good null hypothesis I think to work on. I'm not sure exactly how accurate ice core data is, but if we measure time in centuries, I'm sure that is good enough of a mark.

At goldfinger: no mention of CO2 in your hypothesis wow! Even bigger wow no mention of catastrophic climate change.

Anyway at some point we could start be agreeing in absolute terms how much temperature has risen in the last 200 years. Did you catch my suggestion?

I'll find figures for temperature changes tomorrow, fulham (or some nice good samaritan could do it for me). It's late here so I'll be headed to sleep soon.

And my agenda isn't to say C02 is driving it, nor that it will lead to catastrophies (though I'm sure it will). I just wanted a null that we could both agree upon which if refuted would simply say that human actions have significantly contributed to the current warming period.

I think that for a myriad of reasons, CO2 is vital to this debate. Moreover, if we take out the "catastrophic" bit for all we know the proposed global warming might have a beneficial effect. In my view you set your hurdles very low goldfinger. It is quite early here so look forward to catching up later. Thank you for the discussion.