Regarding the sun: it certainly is not the case that the sun is being ignored by climate change scientists.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm


Over the last 35 years the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. However global temperatures have been increasing. Since the sun and climate are going in opposite directions scientists conclude the sun cannot be the cause of recent global warming.
The only way to blame the sun for the current rise in temperatures is by cherry picking the data. This is done by showing only past periods when sun and climate move together and ignoring the last few decades when the two are moving in opposite direction.

"2. Will the sun's output change in the future? I don't know. I don't even know if this can be predicted"

of course it can be predicted. The direction not so much but that it will change, absolutely. It will eventually either cool into a useless large ball or supernova burning up the entire solar system or collar in on itself and suck in the solar system. But it's temperature will most definitely change no matter what.

:-)

Collapse not collar

@Krellin: 'The problem is there was a theory, and then they studied it to try to prove it. They did this with models that were *grossly* insufficient, such that they have *never* been able to accurately predict damn near anything...none the less, they massaged the data, cherry-picked information, and reported the theory as not only true, but NON-debatable...they gave it the weight of fact, despite no on-going evidence to suggest it is true, and in fact a growing stabel of evidence that contradicts it.'

That is completely incorrect. You can easily model what happened in the past 20 years, the theory is well understood and correct - BUT that doesn't mean modelling becomes suddenly easy.

There are many variables in the theory which aren't known precisely, so difference models give different answers (say a range of possible heating effects for a given increase in CO2)

There is nothing to discredit the theory, in fact the models are demonstrable proofs. The theory predicts warming, and models demonstrate this prediction (and give an estimate of how much warming there will be) Now the models aren't necessarily predictions of what will happen to our climate, but that isn't the point, we KNOW the effect that increased CO2 will have, even without knowing with precision - we CAN make good estimates for our models (and every model confirms the theory), we can also model the past, which not only helps us understand the details of the system but it help making those good estimates.

@Draug & '"2. Will the sun's output change in the future? I don't know. I don't even know if this can be predicted" '

Our best understanding of the sun, based largely on stars like the sun and models, is that they are stable during their 'main sequence' - which should last another ~4 billion years. With, i think, an increase in temperature over that time - but it's be slow considering it is over billions of years.

That's a prediction, again based on models, again based on the best data we have. It may be wrong... and it doesn't include small variations based on sunspot activity, and other things related to the plasma-magnetic interactions... but it is the long-term prediction.

Sunspot changes seem to go from ~ 1365-1367 W/m^2 That is a 0.15% variation over a decade scale. (estimate based on : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0 /Solar-cycle-data.png )

@Orath - modeling the past is of limited value if it does not consistently predict the future.

I can observe a digital clock...I watch it count from 1 to 11, and decide I am going to use this history to model the clock. I product a model and set it running. Let's say i come back 2 1/2 days later. My model has counted up to 62. Oh sure...when it was *emulating* the history I built the model on, it was accurate. Then the model broke down and became useless, giving me incorrect data.

Thus it is with the simplistic environmental models. Yes, they *might* work for historical data, but they have overwhelmingly *failed* to predict the future. Thus, they are *useless*.

If we knew back when the climate "scientists" first starter pushing their bullshit models and claiming global warming was real and a threat what we know now, we would have laughed their asses out of their bogus research jobs, and we wouldn't have destroyed our economy with insane, nonsensical environmental policy.

Models as a tools used between experiment and theory have been used since the 70s when computer processing power became available and it actually became cheaper to use some modelling to help understand theory, rather than relying entirely on (sometimes very expensive) experiment.

This is not controversial. And is used fairly successfully in 5-day weather forecasting (for example)

'we wouldn't have destroyed our economy with insane, nonsensical environmental policy.'

If i recall correctly, it was a credit bubble that wrecked the economy, not environmental policy. Or have you got a very short memory?

@Orathaic - It is used fairly successfully in 5-day weather forecasting?!?!! lol good lord, man, on what planet do you live? Even our local weather forecaster mocks the models on a regular basis when he tells us "This is what the models say...but this is what is really going to happen today".

Sorry, pal, models are over-rated. What you said above is that the scientists got lazy, and instead of doing science, they created models designed to support the pre-formed conclusions. That isn't science. That is propaganda meant to secure further funding.

As an automotive engineer, I used to model shit all the time. Then we produced the real things and tested it...and inevitably went back to the design phase...over and over again. Automobiles are far less complex than the global environment...and yet we still can't reliably produce reliable vehicles on the first go round.

Models have a use, no doubt, but that use is limited and often unpredictable. Climate model, for AGW, are useless at best, intentionally fraudulent at worst.

Orathaic...the credit bubble is over. The cost of energy that nobody discusses - the doubling of gas prices over the past 6 years - which impact the price of **every** single product you pruchase, be is milk, clothing, paper, Putin's imported gerbils...they are all ipacted by the price of gas. Add on top of that that increasing cost of electricity used to power our manufacturing facilities, and the gas/electricty that power our homes and take money away from other consumer spending....yes...the cost of energy has had a *huge* and largely ignored impact on our economy. And just because the pretty lady on the nightly news hasn't told you so doesn't mean it isn't true.

Milk prices have not gone up in the past 6 years. Krellin lies. Fact - price of milk was lower in July of 2013 than it was in July of 2007.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ap

Average price:
2003: 2.76
2004: 3.15
2005: 3.18`
2006: 3.08
2007: 3.50
2008: 3.79
2009: 3.10
2010: 3.25
2011: 3.57
2012: 3.49
2013: year not complete for average price calculation.

Yes, price of milk has gone up over the last decade. Yes, the price of milk now is higher than it was going back 6 years with complete data (2006: 3.08...+ 6 years to 2012: 3.49)

As 2013 is not complete, we can not go back 6 years to compare to 2007 data.

Putin is wrong.

And he cherry-picked from my list a product that is subsidized by government to stabilize prices...and even his precious government hasn't prevented the price of milk from rising over the past decade

Putin lies.

Putin...you are such an ass clown. What next shall i humiliate you publicly about?

Keep backpedalling Krellbot. First you say energy prices have raised milk prices - next you use government subsidies as an excuse for your lack of evidence.

Average yearly price change from your table from 2006 - 2012 is +7 cents. That's virtually nothing. Average price thus far in 2013 is 3.46, which is lower than last year, which itself was lower than the year before. You lie.

@Krellin 'As an automotive engineer, I used to model shit all the time. Then we produced the real things and tested it...and inevitably went back to the design phase...over and over again. '

So you understand that modelling is cheaper than going straight into production every time you want to try a small change. It's actually not the same in science, but there are reasons for using models, just as they exist in engineering.

And it is not down to laziness.

'Orathaic...the credit bubble is over. The cost of energy that nobody discusses - '

That's a fair point, except the recovery from that slump has not been seen (at least in Ireland, i've spent time in the UK as well in the last year, because of the economy in Ireland - though here we had a housing bubble which collapsed along with the credit bubble : no credit, nobody can buy houses, the market collapses)

How and Ever. Is energy not controlled by the law of supply and demand?

@ora - I was just being a smart ass hence the smiley. :-)

@Draug, sorry... but i did learn something about the % impact of sunspots :)

fullhamish wrote: "Moreover, you have conceded that the crucial variable in this matter is the heat radiated from the sun. This variable is largely excluded from climatic model predictions."

spyman wrote -Are you serious? It goes without saying that the amount of energy received from the sun is included in the calculations. The cornerstone of this whole issue is the difference between energy in and energy out.
I think that we need to have some basic comprehension skills brought to bear here, even if only on spyman's cherry picking scale. It is the variability of the sun's output which is largely not modelled. I agree an average overall factor is put in for that output, but are you happy that input accurately models what is actually going on in the system itself? It appears that perhaps even you are not fully comfortable with this when you yourself go on to say: ‘’Will the sun's output change in the future? I don't know. I don't even know if this can be predicted. If it can't be predicted then of course it can't be included in the models. Scientist can only work with known facts.’’ Absolutely, couldn’t agree more, and not just at the level of the sun’s variable output, trouble is does that make the error bars on the data sets so wide as to render prediction meaningless? Yes, as Ora has pointed out, we can reasonably accurately ‘’model’’ the past, but is this anything more than arithmetical data fitting? These guys certainly have their doubts:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1972.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201309 (http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf
I notice to that you mention clouds in the context of global warming, saying that this is, in effect, all under control. May I refer you to this PowerPoint presentation from a guy who should know what he is talking about? http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/presentations/climate_model_clouds.pdf
His conclusions are –
• clouds have strong and varying radiative impacts on the climate system
• clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in quantifying climate feedbacks and sensitivity
• it is very difficult to simply and accurately parameterize the small scale processes affecting clouds in a global climate model (*my note* please read the body of the text for the explanation, it is very pertinent)
• anthropogenic aerosol might have a large influence on cloudiness, but the overall impact is unknown
• this is also difficult to parameterize in a global climate model

It seems like those error bars get ever wider. Might it be that natural variability (of which the sun’s output is just one part) lies at the root of so called AGW? Some well-qualified German scientists are starting to think so:
http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming

fullhamish what do you mean by "spymans cherry picking scale". What have I cherry picked?

fullhamish in some ways I agree with you. The Earth's climate system in incredibly complex. Making accurate predictions is very difficult. Often predictions are likely to be wrong, as there are so many potential variables that might not be properly accounted for. But this doesn't mean that AGW theory is wrong and that we have nothing to worry about. We know that carbon emissions is a significant variable. You yourself have said that the increase in emissions means that there will be "more energy in the system".

I can't guarantee that the Earth will continue to warm (in the medium term). No one can. The best we can say is that given what we know and as flawed as our models and our understanding is, we think the Earth will warm. But this is enough to be concerned, and to want to do something about reducing our emissions, even if only until we know whether a problem really exists.

In the long-long term if we keep on increasing emissions then unless another significant variable is discovered then the Earth will certainly warm, and that warming be significant. The right time not to worry about emissions will be when we discover this other variable. But that day is not today.

spyman let's forget about the cherry picking remark, it kind of was in response to your ''are you serious''. I take your point about acting sensibly on emissions, if no other reason than to preserve limited (absolute and geographical) fossil fuel stocks - I love windmills, pv panels and most of all the vastly underrated potential of tidal power. It is also verging on the criminal that we haven't a programme of solar water heating for buildings Even in northern Europe such a programme would be more effective than any other renewable measure we might take.
I am, however, becoming increasingly sceptical about the CO2-GMST link; I just don't think that conclusive evidence is there, particularly over hundreds of years (and beyond) rather than just recent decades. Do we do the scientific process any favours by ignoring this and proceeding to engage in a polemical fashion for what we perceive as ‘’the greater good’’?
I started having my doubts when a pretty reasonable palaeontologist acquaintance of mine pointed out in a post-lecture questioning session that an eminent modeller’s so called polar cold spell actually coincided with the presence of alligators in the fossil record. The modeller actually had the bare faced cheek to say that the stratigraphic record must be wrong because his model was most assuredly correct. What a pompous arse! This guy had a whole brigade of p-g and p-d students taping away on computers, the majority of whom had never even seen a glacier. I am afraid that is just what they were - modellers - and not in any way scientists acquiring real data. I hope that goes some way to explain my seemingly denialist position.

"I just don't think that conclusive evidence is there,"

Well, it's a good thing you aren't a climatologist, or what you think might actually matter. You are not entitled to an opinion. Shut your mouth and listen to the experts.

@orathaic - my point on models is that can only get you so far, and then you must have real world data - and modeling car parts is simpler than a global climate.

So I understand your point, you start with modeling, blah blah blah...but the climatolgists STILL rely solely on models, but the real climate has a pesky way of *never8 cooperating with them. Every time they try to say, "This is what the model said x number of years ago...and look now, we were right..one of two things happens: 1. they are wrong, and the model didn't work, or 2. we find out they rigged the model or massaged the data to make the model match. That's not modeling...that's paint-by-numbers.

So the problem again lies in the fact that climate "scientists" are *stuck* using models, and refuse to acknowledge the real world's refusal to comply with their dire predictions.

They also seem to have this pesky habit of failing to acknowledge that *history* demonstrates dramatic changes in climate regardless of the presence of men and their machines, thus making their idiotic claims that any change in climate *now* must be man made foolish to anyone with *common sense* (as opposed to being a natural cycle...).

Couple all this with recent peer-reviewed discoveries...such as CO2 being a *lagging* indicator of temperature change...meaning it cannot cause the changes...and the whole fucked up lie is falling apart...and never had any *real* support anyway.

The only reason this hype ever got off the ground was because the "scientists" used the model to make dire predictions, which caught the attention of media-whoring politicians who coudl tie dire climate change to their political fiscal policies and BOOM...made up bullshit becomes real.

By the time people realized just how *bad* and wrong (read USELESS) the models were, global warming was a social movement, and school chidlren (you, probably) were well on your way to being brainwashed with the doom scenario....just as I was brainwashed as a child to think all Ruskies were evil and wanted to kill me, and we made movies about evil Russians and everything too, just like you got all yoru scary climate movies to support your brainwashing.

But bottom line..the "science" doesn't hold water...

:P

(Taht should piss my buddy YJ off...)

lol yes, it does, krellin :)

But I'm not jumping on the hamster wheel with you on this one anymore. You aren't going to be swayed, but fortunately, you won't sway anybody either.

YJ - I don't need to sway anyone...since there is no cause for real alarm. I'll just spend the next 5 to 10 years watching and laughing at all the hysterics...and being a little sad at all the extra money I am spending on high-priced stupid energy policy...but eventually you will all breath a sigh of relief and sheepishly admit you were wrong.

'Couple all this with recent peer-reviewed discoveries...such as CO2 being a *lagging* indicator of temperature change...meaning it cannot cause the
changes...and the whole fucked up lie is falling apart...and never had any
*real* support anyway.'

In theory, and i'm not a climate scientist, a increase in temp could trigger a CO2 increase which then spirals out of control as the CO2 forces the temp up - which also means we can jump start the process with a massive release of CO2.

I have seen responces to your claim stating the 90% of the warming happened after the 'lagging' CO2 increased.