I will enjoy you being totally annihilated over this pile of rubbish.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/

"4) Why do the climategate emails talk of tricks and manipulating the peer review process? "

They don't talk of either and this misinterpretation of the emails has been thoroughly debunked time and time again. It is very interesting that climate changes skeptics hold themselves to such low standards when it comes to their "facts".

"Why when the proxy measurement of tree ring growth is good enough to be a key marker in reconstructing historical temperature, where thermometer-derived measurements are not available, does the recent (post 1960s) data move in the opposite direction to current temperature as recorded by thermometers?"

The divergence only occurs at high altitudes. Why'd do you leave that little fact out? More evidence of your intellectual honesty?

"2) Why did the hockey stick graph smooth over the mediaeval and roman warm periods? "

Those were regional, not global phenomena. The overall temperature was cooler despite warming in some areas. Again playing fast and lose with the facts in order to smear people.

Good grief. Someone is eager to display his scientific illiteracy.

1) This is a trivial statement. All models are approximations, so if you want to hold to a impossible standard beyond what models are designed to do, then yes, they are "wrong." In large measure models give a sense of the qualitative behavior and point out where there are aspects of the climate system we don't have a good handle on and how much they are likely to influence outcomes. However, qualitatively (ie, at the level such models are intended to operate) they are very very much accurate. YOu also ignore the fact that the models have generally underestimated the rate of change, which is not the strike against them that climate change deniers want to prove

2) They don't. The hockey stick graph is a long historical trend, so they show up, but they're pretty insignificant when a time interval average is used, especialy compared to the unprecedented warming we see now.

3) Cherry picking is silly (I'd like to see your peer reviewed reference for this one) because first, tree ring data do correlate well with other predictions, and furthermore that is one of literally thousands of independent records of climate change. So, maybe there's something odd with tree rings. What about species range shifts, glacial retreat, isotopic records, etc. etc. etc. trying to attack one strand of what is now a huge fabric of indepedent evidence shows you have very little understanding of how science actually works.

4) Climate gate is a non-scandal cooked up by oil company funded hackers. The "trick" is of course (for anyone who understands beans about science) is shorthand for a clever approach to analyzing data (which that certainly is). Talk of manipulating peer review? That's, well, again ignoramus' grasping at straws who don't understand how the process work

You make a statement that it is too complicated, yet the actual professionals have done an excellent job and have a good handle on where they uncertainties are. The uncertainty is only in how much warming there will be, and the biggest uncertainty there is political, not scientific.

As a Ph.D. biologist who has studied climate change myself, I have little patience for ignorant misrepresentations of science. Frankly, I am ready to openly mock the stupidity, laziness and ignorance of climate change deniers, creationists and flat earthers as idiots who seem to think that you change lead into gold or whatever other superstitious nonsense they believe. Here's a clue. Instead of ranting on the internet, why don't you do the actual hard work of educating yourself?

Sorry for the testiness, but after decades of watching this I've had enough.

PS a reference from green peace on Koch Industries is sort of the response I expected. Here is the other web-site which I am sure will come up - www.skepticalscience.com. I could respond by throwing in quotes from here - http://wattsupwiththat.com/. But does that actually get us anywhere, except shouting at one another at the top of our voices?

"But does that actually get us anywhere, except shouting at one another at the top of our voices?"

It would have been nice if you hadn't begun this nonsense with attacks on the character of scientists, but you can't help yourself. This isn't a serious inquiry this is a smear job out of some misplaced notion of contrarianism. If you want the temperature on the debate to be cool then show some good faith effort to appreciate that scientists aren't part of some greedy cabal out to distort the truth.

Well, Putin, you should at least believe that it is possible. Are you implying that ALL scientists are perfectly-moral people?

yippeee....let's watch all the religious zealots swarm and froth at the mouth!!! Woohooo...

dance climate monkeys!! dance!!!

I'm sorry, fulhamish. I shouldn't have launched so much invective at you since you seem to have a good attitude. It's just after decades of the nonsense, I'm out of patience and you ended up reaping the whirlwind.

The wattsupwiththat blog is run by a crank who can't go two steps without making major major errors. ANthony Watts is a meteorologist, who has virtually no clue about energy, physics, climate science or biology, and it shows. He likes to be controversial to drive his ad revenue, and it works as a business model.

Denialism is a full blown industry, yes funded by business interests who don't give a rats ass about what the science says, provided it doesn't interfere with their profits. This has been demostrated over and over and over.

Look, we have over 150 years of solid evidence of the evolution of species by natural selection, yet creationism still thrives because vested institutions like churches or businesses can always create controversy among those who don't really understand science. These guys have been at this for a long long time. Evidence will not ever carry the day.

If you look at the actual professionals on this matter, they show an astonishing degree of unanimity. This is a group that thrives on disagreeing with each other and don't agree unless it is pretty incontrovertible. Go read the IPCC AR first.

"Are you implying that ALL scientists are perfectly-moral people?"

No I'm simply rejecting the implication that they're all amoral evil people.

And I'm certainly rejection the implication that they're simply alarming people in order to get grant money.

I will tell you, unlike the oil industry, scientists aren't going to make a killing on this. Not perfectly moral, but you don't go into science to get rich. And yes, the scientist who could disprove global warming would be instantly hugely prominent. Many have tried, but reality, sadly, does not cooperate.

No, Putin, I wasn't saying that all scientists are "amoral evil people." I was just saying that at least one (implied by your agreement with not all scientists are perfectly-moral) is denying climate change for the money. But probably not only one - how about as many as 25 (the number that argued against climate change at a UN conference vs 640 that agree).

"all scientists are "amoral evil people.""

That funny coming from Putin, our resident rapist. Right Putty baby? (I wish I didn't have him muted...) Putin is a Teacher, and some teachers are rapists...therefore all teachers are rapists.

That is how you deal with the moronic Putty baby and his "everyone X is Y" bulshit. Putin the Rapist.

Putty baby...if you are still out...crawl back into yoru closet.

"I will tell you, unlike the oil industry, scientists aren't going to make a killing on this"

lol Moron! Scientists in the AGW business ARE making their lush acedemic living foisting bullshit disfunctional "models" on us. It is the ONLY industry inteh entire world where you can literally be wrong 100% of the time, and still collect a fucking paycheck.

And you zealot climate monkeys hiding under your desk so the sky doesn’t fall on you are making it happen. Suckers….

"Many have tried, but reality, sadly, does not cooperate. "

Complete and utter bullshit. No scientist need to disprove what does not exists. You see, the funny little thing called REALITY disproves global warming, assclown. You know..."scientists" make bold scary predictions year after year after year with their scary models....and then NONE OF THE PREDICITONS COME TRUE. Reality itself is all you need to disprove the fraudulent "science".

@ Krellin: "It is the ONLY industry inteh entire world where you can literally be wrong 100% of the time, and still collect a fucking paycheck."

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'd just like to point out that you forgot about the banking sector. If you're a senior banker you can lead your bank to the brink of collapse, post a loss running into billions of dollars, and still be paid a bonus on top of your fat salary.

If Krellin is talking about scientists, no, you can't e wrong 100% of the time and do well. You won't get grants or publications and you are done.

However, being wrong as a corporate executive is highly lucrative. Recent studies show that there is a negative correlation between corporate pay and economic performance of the company. Seems that most industries you can be wrong and rewarded massively for it

1) The vast majority, if not all of the models were wrong in their projections of global temperature over the last decade. Where they were correct is their fitting of past data, not so much of an achievement really. There has been minimal, if any, increase in globally measured temperatures over the last 10-15 years, period.
2) The mediaeval warm period was a global event (Rosenthal, Y., Linsley, B. K., & Oppo, D. W. (2013). Pacific ocean heat content during the past 10,000 years. Science, 342(6158), 617-621). Temperatures then matched current ones (Büntgen, U., & Tegel, W. I. L. L. Y. (2011). European tree-ring data and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Pages news, 19(1), 14-150). Why is this absent from the hockey stick? What could be the motivation?

3) D'Arrigo, R., Wilson, R., Liepert, B., & Cherubini, P. (2008). On the ‘divergence problem’in northern forests: a review of the tree-ring evidence and possible causes. Global and Planetary Change, 60(3), 289-305
Here is the abstract in full
An anomalous reduction in forest growth indices and temperature sensitivity has been detected in tree-ring width and density records from many circumpolar northern latitude sites since around the middle 20th century. This phenomenon, also known as the “divergence problem”, is expressed as an offset between warmer instrumental temperatures and their underestimation in reconstruction models based on tree rings. The divergence problem has potentially significant implications for large-scale patterns of forest growth, the development of paleoclimatic reconstructions based on tree-ring records from northern forests, and the global carbon cycle. Herein we review the current literature published on the divergence problem to date, and assess its possible causes and implications. The causes, however, are not well understood and are difficult to test due to the existence of a number of covarying environmental factors that may potentially impact recent tree growth. These possible causes include temperature-induced drought stress, nonlinear thresholds or time-dependent responses to recent warming, delayed snowmelt and related changes in seasonality, and differential growth/climate relationships inferred for maximum, minimum and mean temperatures. Another possible cause of the divergence described briefly herein is ‘global dimming’, a phenomenon that has appeared, in recent decades, to decrease the amount of solar radiation available for photosynthesis and plant growth on a large scale. It is theorized that the dimming phenomenon should have a relatively greater impact on tree growth at higher northern latitudes, consistent with what has been observed from the tree-ring record. Additional potential causes include “end effects” and other methodological issues that can emerge in standardization and chronology development, and biases in instrumental target data and its modeling. Although limited evidence suggests that the divergence may be anthropogenic in nature and restricted to the recent decades of the 20th century, more research is needed to confirm these observations.
To repeat: The divergence problem has potentially significant implications for large-scale patterns of forest growth, the development of paleoclimatic reconstructions based on tree-ring records from northern forests, and the global carbon cycle.
4) To the PhD student I thoroughly recommend this article, please be brave and read it.
Mahoney, M. J. (1977). Publication prejudices: An experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system. Cognitive therapy and research, 1(2), 161-175.
On the detail here are a couple of examples which illustrate the unfortunate language used:
On tree ring divergence from Phil Jones: ‘’ "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." What he means is that he has ignored tree ring data after the point where they diverged from the thermometer-derived temperature record, but include them prior to that where they suited his case. Is that good science?
AND
On keeping an unfavourable paper out of the IPCC report Jones wrote this – ‘’ “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Pretty clear I think, what is he so afraid of?

Ogion, there is no need to apologise. I appreciate you taking the discussion on rather than just throwing websites at me.

"There has been minimal, if any, increase in globally measured temperatures over the last 10-15 years, period."

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Dec_102.gif

Absolutely wrong.

"The mediaeval warm period was a global event (Rosenthal, Y., Linsley, B. K., & Oppo, D. W. (2013)"

"A frequent conclusion based on study of individual records from the so-called Medieval Warm Period (∼1000-1300 A.D.) is that the present warmth of the 20 th century is not unusual and therefore cannot be taken as an indication of forced climate change from greenhouse gas emissions. This conclusion is not supported by published composites of Northern Hemisphere climate change, but the conclusions of such syntheses are often either ignored or challenged. In this paper, we revisit the controversy by incorporating additional time series not used in earlier hemispheric compilations. Another difference is that the present reconstruction uses records that are only 900–1000 years long, thereby, avoiding the potential problem of uncertainties introduced by using different numbers of records at different times. Despite clear evidence for Medieval warmth greater than present in some individual records, the new hemispheric composite supports the principal conclusion of earlier hemispheric reconstructions and, furthermore, indicates that maximum Medieval warmth was restricted to two-three 20–30 year intervals, with composite values during these times being only comparable to the mid-20 th century warm time interval. Failure to substantiate hemispheric warmth greater than the present consistently occurs in composites because there are significant offsets in timing of warmth in different regions; ignoring these offsets can lead to serious errors concerning inferences about the magnitude of Medieval warmth and its relevance to interpretation of late 20 th century warming."

How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period?
Thomas J. Crowley 1 and Thomas S. Lowery
AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 29(1):51-54. 2000

"What he means is that he has ignored tree ring data after the point where they diverged from the thermometer-derived temperature record, but include them prior to that where they suited his case. Is that good science?"

No that's not what he means at all. But you ignored Ogion's explanation of what this meant. Not surprising, considering your record.

"“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is"

Why are you still clinging to the widely debunked climategate nonsense? Is there your definition of responding to new and inconvenient information, by simply clinging to what you had initially thought was true?

"Recent studies show that there is a negative correlation between corporate pay and economic performance of the company. Seems that most industries you can be wrong and rewarded massively for it "

First and foremost, negative performance doesn't mean the executive was wrong. It means the market isn't friendly at the moment and he may have kept it from going completely under. You don't know what else might have happened so you can't judge the right or wrongness of his decision. Secondly, many CEOs are brought in to save companies that are going under. So the poor performance is still an improvement over the previous performance that was sinking the company. My brother in law is one such CEO. He goes in, cleans house and turns a company around, but it takes years so on paper for the first 3 or 4 years, it looks like he is being rewarded for the company doing poorly when in reality they are doing better each year over year and on the recovery.

"He goes in, cleans house and turns a company around, but it takes years so on paper for the first 3 or 4 years, it looks like he is being rewarded for the company doing poorly when in reality they are doing better each year over year and on the recovery."

Says the Obama critic.

+1 Draug....funny, all the fucking Libtards around here that **still** say Obama is a good President and say his numbers only suck because of Bush but don’t grasp that a turn-around specialist may have lag-time between on-boarding at a company and turning it’s product/marketing/sales around…lol Mornonic libtards will be moronic libtards…

I gave Obama his first 4 years, Putin. I'm a critic now because he hasn't even shown year over year improvement. Compare the percent of employed versus employable people now and when he started and there is a smaller percent employed now. Compare median and mean salaries versus median and mean costs of goods for necessities and the is a loss of income equity. *That* is why I am an Obama critic. I voted for him over McCain. I voted for neither him nor Romney because Romney would report back to the almighty Mormon Prophet and he clearly was failing with year over year numbers. Show me a reduction in the deficit, I'll consider there to have been some success. But there hasn't been. Not only has the debt increased, but the annual deficit has as well. Show me an increase in the employed versus employable and I'll consider it an improvement. That too has been on the decline. Show me at least a consistent raise in salaries equal to goods inflation for necessities (milk, bread, eggs, gas, etc.)... Again, inflation of necessities is outpacing wage increases.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

Annual deficits have gone down every single year Obama has been in office. So you're full of it.

ok, I have work to get done, but a few points:

First, we know the physics of CO2 and methane molecules well and can measure these concentrations with a certainty. We KNOW that heat is being trapped by these concentrations, and we know how much. If anyone wants to propose that the atmospher is not warming, then were is the heat sink? Any skeptic needs an alternate answer to that question if we are to reject the evidence that the earth is warming.

some points.
First, warming has not stopped in the last 10-15 years. Your statement only holds water (pardon the pun) if you completely ignore the largest heat sink in the climate system: The oceans. Yes, air temperatures haven't gone up a lot, but that's because ocean temperatures are shooting up as the oceans take up the heat.
HEre's the ocean temperature record:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Also, the 10 15 year time span is completely the wrong way to view it. For an solid analysis of this view look here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/going-down-the-up-escalator-part-1.html
In particular, that lovely first figure that demonstrates the giant hole in the notion that there's been a halt.

Second, I have no clue where you get this notion that the models haven't done a pretty good job of capturing the dynamics. OF course, there are limitations from unknown mechanisms of where the heat is going (e.g., great oceanic uptake), but overall, the climate models have been pretty good.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/01/ipcc-global-warming-projections-accurate

Long story short, if you use the temperature record pre-1990 dynamics to parameterize the models, the predictions going forward have been good. This has been remarkably true (given known limitations) from 1990 through 2007.

See also, http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-8-1.html

2) take a look at box 6.4 here :
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html

3) as for the Rosenthal study, it seems to be behind a paywall and is one study. Hard to know what to do with it. Is it methodologically sound? MIght be, but there are a ton of contradictory studies here. Are we to ignore all those?

As for the tree ring business, as noted, that is one tiny corner of the entire story. Frankly, as a plant ecophysiologist I would say that anyone looking to a complex biological system to respond in some linear way to temperature needs to have his head examined. Consider the dataset: mid 20th century northern temperate region. Can you think of anything, say, anomalous that happened in that region during that time? In fact, a major portion of those forests were cleared and abandoned and were aggrading during that period, were subject to shifts in water regimes (as noted), nitrogen fertilization at a massive scale, invasion disruptions, and carbon fertilization. Anyone expecting this region to behave as it has historically isn't paying attention. Period. Whatever random out of context quotes may be pulled from, they don't say a rats ass about the thousands and thousands of studies out there. In fact, as I just pointed out, yes excluding data you know a priori to be not reflective of prior trends because of known factors is good science. It entirely depends on the justification and scientific basis for dealing with those outliers. Here, as I said, given the changes in the 20th century in the northern temperate regions, they absolutely should be ignored or held with skepticism. Not sure what the sources of these quotes are or their relevance. As for that last quote, maybe it's because they know the studies in question to be junk? As noted, look at the bibliography of the IPCC report. There are GUARANTEED to be technical issues with some paper, given the massive number. But that doesn't address the fact that the ther 95% are telling the same story.

Long story short, people pushing this bizarre conspiracy theory have zero concept of how science actually works. And funny how they all seem to be either in the fossil fuel industry or conservative ideologues who despise the idea of protecting the environment with a passion. Coincidence? Not really.

Anyway, as I say, I have actual work to do, so that's all I'm going to bother with.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000

Here's the ratio of employed vs working-age population. Notice it is rising.

So you're 0 for 2.

"Compare the percent of employed versus employable people now and when he started and there is a smaller percent employed now. Compare median and mean salaries versus median and mean costs of goods for necessities and the is a loss of income equity."

You can't blame Obama for the loss in income equality when it's your party that opposes unions, the minimum wage, and supports corporate decisions to reduce benefits and freeze raises, all the while extolling tax cuts for the super rich. You also can't blame for Obama for increases to global fuel and commodity prices.

Oh that's right, you're the same person who was jumping for joy when the SC recently implemented right to work laws everywhere, and you're sitting here whining about income inequality? Are you serious?

"Long story short, if you use the temperature record pre-1990 dynamics to parameterize the models, the predictions going forward have been good. This has been remarkably true (given known limitations) from 1990 through 2007."

This is the same guy (Fulham) who extols the ONS despite being off on its population predictions by 16 million people for the UK.

Surely, Putin, you understand that attacking workers rights will make everyone richer due to the trickle-down effect?

It's not "my party". I haven't voted Republican in the presidential election in the last 3 elections. I've voted third party twice and Democrat once.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=942750&page-thread=1#threadPager

Right, because here you are slamming people for voting 3rd party.

And look at all your posts from 2012 defending Romney and calling Obama a socialist.

"Oh that's right, you're the same person who was jumping for joy when the SC recently implemented right to work laws everywhere,"

Hell yeah I did! Unions shouldn't have so much power that they can force someone to join them. That gives the union a monopoly on the jobs. Jobs should be for *everyone*, not just the union elitists.

Do you actually read what you link? My entire point in that thread was that voting third party splits and potentially causes the other guy to win. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just means you should be aware of that fact. In the end when the election came around, I decided Romney was just too Mormon for my tastes and I couldn't vote for someone who would be some religious figures puppet.

Relevant article recently on effectiveness of carbon tax in BC. Don't know much about the legislature but may interest those here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-insidious-truth-about-bcs-carbon-tax-it-works/article19512237/

The fact that it is revenue neutral alone (and that BC has actually had more tax cuts than the money it has raised) is what makes it successful. But the debate is whether it is an issue that even needs tackling. Assuming it is (I'm not jumping into that fray), then B.C's implementation is well done. And even if there were no climate change, the reduction in carbon fuel use is worth it if just to reduce that part of Canada's dependence on oil in general.

" I decided Romney was just too Mormon for my tastes and I couldn't vote for someone who would be some religious figures puppet."

So you agreed with Romney and defended him but ultimately couldn't vote for him because of your dislike of Mormons? Nice.

http://qz.com/233051