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Hello John,

The Vikings and Greenland was in the Mediaeval Warm Period was it not?

And using Sunspots as a proxy it's reasonable to suppose that the MWP was as a result of high levels of solar actvity.

Yet in the last 50 years there has been no trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays, and since at least 1978 no trend in total solar irradiance. (Willson 2003 shows a trend - but as Frohlich 2006 shows this is an artefact of processing).

And in the last 30 years there has been an increase in temperature of around 0.6degC.

Sorry, but there is no evidence that the factors behind the MWP are behind the current warming. And many model attribution studies since the IPCC's last report in 2001 still show that the recent warming is largely due to CO2 emissions, and that CO2 emissions had a significant role in the climate of the 20th century before that.

Global Warming - the globally averaged change in temperature, indicative of changes in the Earth's energy balance.

Climate Change - the secondary practical effects of that change in energy balance upon our climate.

John Cooknell wrote:

"A final little thought for all the amateur scientists, the NOAA web site tells me sea temperatures have been falling for the past 5 years, as most (75%) of the human induced global warming is stored in the sea, what is the explanation for this. Just a clue the head of NOAA says his climate model might need a bit of adjustment. And by the way what happened to all the hurricanes the climate catastrophe believers (and NOAA) said we were going to get this year!"

As one of those amateur scientists, I really think you need to learn more before you offer opinions.

1) Check out the research, i.e. read the papers concerned. You will find that there was a substantially greater cooling episode in the 1980s (I think it was at least twice as big as the 2003 cooling). However, in line with modelling studies, the oceans have continued to warm since then. The recent apparent cooling needs to be understood, but it does not challenge the theory, or the models.

To quote from Lyman et al.
"These [past] increases provide strong evidence of global warming. Climate models exhibit similar rates of ocean warming, but only when forced by anthropogenic influences [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005; Church et al., 2005; Hansen et al., 2005]."

And Lyman/Willis recently found "a net loss of 3.2 (± 1.1) x 10^22 J of heat from the upper ocean between 2003 and 2005." While Levitus et al previously found 6 x 10^22 J of heat lost in the 0–700 m layer from 1980 to 1983.

6 x 10^22 joules is almost twice 3.2 x 10^22 J. Even allowing for error ranges the cooling in 2003 was significantly smaller than that in the 1980s.

2) It wasn't just the NOAA who predicted an active hurricane season, so did Bill Grey, who doesn't believe in AGW. The mitigating factor is wind shear that stops the formation of hurricanes. This does not challenge the theory of a sea surface temperature/hurrican intensity link. It is an extraneous factor, outside the remit of that theory that has reduced hurricane intensity thie year.

Hello Bob,

I think that number 3 is the 300lb Gorrilla in the corner of the room. The party continues around it, and everyone politely ignores it's presence. But it's still there.

Granted many people don't use half as much as the wealthy minority. But if all of the 6 billion aim for a standard of living that the few (like us in the UK) enjoy. Then as what we're doing now is unsustainable. 6 billion with a 'western' lifestyle has to be more so. And the UN project a population of almost 10bn by 2050.

Having watched "Planet Earth, The Future" on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ4 last night I was reminded once again that we're engaging in a game of "Global Jenga".

We keep pulling out the blocks because we make a living, directly or indirectly from removing the blocks.

We deny the risk of collapse because we make a living, directly or indirectly from removing the blocks.

This is an activity that is inherently stupid. Not that I think we'll change our direction or behaviour. But it's still stupid.

Hello Bob,

I think that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are in a difficult position here. They cannot be seen as opinion leaders, to do so would attract criticism of bias, and they are funded by the License payer. They do not have the leeway of a privately funded organisation.

I now think that the evidence is now accumulating to make a pretty sound case that what we are seeing is significantly attributable to the pressure of sheer numbers of people, although certainly not exclusively so. Up until only about 2 years ago I was a sceptic with regards anthropogenic global warming, my scepticism has been shattered. Like me, others are being shaken by the implications of the evidence. Views are changing. A realisation of the reality of climate change and the wider human impact has knock on effects in terms of wider political outlook as well.

All that said, I really don't think we'll do anything substantive about it. So it remains an interesting scientific issue for me.

Frankly I want an accurate reflection of the current state of science from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, which I get, unless they allow 'people' like Viscount Monckton onto Question Time (Good Grief!). Likewise the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ can only reflect debate that is current in wider public life. I don't think the Gorilla has been spotted by enough people for that debate to become widespread yet.

Hello again John.

Nobody knows what has caused this cooling.

Nobody knows what caused the cooling in the '80s.

Yet prior to and since the '80s cooling, the models have been able to track the overall trend in Sea Surface Temperatures (SST). And despite the '80s cooling, which bear in mind was twice as big as the once Lyman/Willis reveal, the long term trend has been one of continued warming indicating a substantial long term increase in energy stored in the oceans.

Given that this trend, an expected outcome of increased GHGs trapping energy, has continued through the '80s cooling.

What reason do you have for seeing this cooling as different?

And how do you explain the long term model agreement?

The NOAA prediction was in line with expectations from all centres making predictions. It is not based on a climate model. GCMs are not suitable for geographically limited short term work. Indeed they do not make 'predictions' they make 'projections' of long term change based on scenarios. This is an important and significant difference.

The NOAA and all other hurrican forcasts were made based on expected SSTs, which have proven true. However, I repeat, upper level windshear (not related to SST) has prevented hurricane intensification. That does not throw doubt upon the SST/Hurrican intensity link, which is generally accepted.

If you are prepared to do some trawling you can probably find SST base data freely available. I can't point you to it, but this is true of many other data sets. They are not typically 'secured' in the way you seem to imply.

Perhaps you could explain to me how Hansen's 1988 model projections have proven correct in predicting the increase in temperatures since then (allowing for the 1998 El Nino- cannot be accounted for in advance)?

Perhaps you might also like to address how the numerous attribution studies conducted in the last decade have been able to demonstrate model's ability to hindcast 20th century global average temperture?

I used to believe (without evidence) that the models were wrong. I am unable to explain the above 2 points. That is just a tiny subset of the reasons I now accept the science. Sorry, belief implies a lack of evidence. I don't accept without evidence. I've had my fingers burnt discovering how unfounded my former scepticism was. I consider that th models are able to produce good agreement with past gross climate indices. I consider that as we continue to increase atmospheric CO2 the atmopshere will continue to trap more outgoing longwave radiation, thus implying an increase in temperature. I do not consider that there is good reason to expect the models to underproject the changes to come.

When I get home later I will try to post some links for you.

Hello Bob,

Your post wasn't on when I did my earlier post this morning.

I've never heard of the Didcot atmospheric puddle.

The Met Office's press release concerning this years anomalously warm summer. May to September, the warmest (~2deg C above the baseline average) protracted period of unusual warmth in the Central England Temperature record (350 years), does include reference to a study that attributes it to AGW.

However I tend not to concentrate on local variations like that. All that the theory predicts from enhanced greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing is an increase in global average temperature, (troposphere and land/sea surface) i.e. a global effect that may or may not be reflected in any one specific local example. The global temperature is used as an indicator of changes in the planet's energy balance. My physics background and approach means I'm not overly aware of the extent of current impacts.

Next year's Fourth Assesment Report by the IPCC will make very interesting reading. To some extent I feel people may as well suspend discussion of the issue until we get that summary of the state of knowledge. I may put aside some weeks to read it.

Y2K - yes, sales hype, it was obvious beforehand.

Avian Flu - I'm more concerned about that for myself than I am about climate change. The similarity with the 1918 variant is alarming, and that killed more than WWI.

Thanks, but I'll decline Bob.

I've got quite a lot on. Which is why I won't be re-posting the epic fully referenced reply I gave to John Cooknell (Sorry). I posted it this AM and it's vanished.

I just had a very nasty brush with flu 10 years ago and am not overstating when I say it could have killed me. (For 3 days I was unable even to get to the basin for water.) The idea of a 1918 pandemic with something worse than normal flu worries me more than what happens to my nephews in 2050 after I'm gone Selfish? Yes, arguably.