"but in that period we will neglect all data prior to say 1800"

Huh? No we didn't.

"And what was the result?"

The result is that they switched over to green technology and their economy did not end. We can do the same. It is a question of challenging entrenched power (and of course, stop making excuses).

"No company will pay millions of dollars for people who produce meaningless results (unless you are in sports). "

That's why it's called fraud. That's also why I refer to what you're implying as conspiracy theory. As we know, our best and brightest have been utilized to create math constructs which project profitability from unverified loans (which means no one has checked to see if these loan applications are truthful) and projected them as profitable into the future despite downturns. If you can get incompetents in today's gov't (Bernanke, Geithner, Rahm Emmanuel) is it really so controversial to say what must be true, that the financial services industry engaged in fraud??

In other words, one big difference is that the numbers didn't even exist because the loans were unverified to begin with.

Hence this is why you are a conspiracy theorist, because the banksters did this on purpose for Billions of dollars. I await with baited breath what you postulate is Mann's motivation.

"When an oddity turns up in climate data, either the model gets adjusted or the interpretation."

But there are no oddities, you haven't given any. All you've done is alluded to Vikings, wine, and MWP which may be an oddity but has nothing to do with global warming.

"I just gave the medieval warm period as an example of one of the only periods where we have some sort of data which illustrate that climate has been warming before."

It's nice of you top leave out so much detail, both in your statement and my quote. 

It is NOT data that demonstates that climate has "just" been warming before. It is data that indicates a bump in warming over a specific region and cannot be compared at all to today's anthropogenic warming.

"The fact alone that we only know about the northern part of our globe..."

A sufficient knowledge set to refute the notion that global, I said GLOBAL, I said G-L-O-B-A-L warming has occurred  during the middle ages. Logically, you didn't need to know more than that. But as a function of denialism, you have to know weather everywhere through-out time, don't you, Willempie?

"So we are having an unprecedented warmth, but we arent allowed to compare it to the only other known occurrence of a warmth, just because we only have data from the north."

No, you're not. If it were a question of you and theRomantic curled up in magic cave wishing to put squares into holes shaped like triangles (they're both polygons!!) and discussing the existence of the unicorn, well, who'd care? But whole ecosytems may be at risk. Millions might end up displaced. So no, stop being illogical and rehashing old tired arguments that have been refuted.


"If that period isnt global so it cant be used in the theory, how can there be a theory about warming? If the only other documented period of comparable (if less) warming cant be used how can you have a working theory. 
They use the period for the theory."

Global Warming, or climate change, theory is not explaining warming periods through geologic time, or human history. It is about accounting for the warming that we see now, and which is world-wide in scale. It cannot explain away natural variability anymore than a Darwinian can explain what motivates me to play chess. There is such a field as evolutionary psychology, but it doesn't explain particular motivations that individuals may have as a consequence of unique motivations or personal upbringing. To invalidate it because of that would be equally stupid. Or should we invalidate Einstein because he could explain the macro, but not the universe at the quantum level? WTF?? You're like a creationinist trying to criticize evolution by trying to discredit abiogenesis.

"According to you extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I am not the one calling the current warming unprecedented."

No, you're the one saying that such a result can only be the result of callusion or mass hypnosis (?) between Mann et al, the National Academy of Science, and the UNFCCC. 
I guess that unprecedented warming thing must really be IMPOSSIBLE, right??

"I rest my case."


Ah, you're into self-P'wnage I see.

Quote:


Most datasets show effectively no warming since 1998.

"...have no idea what point you are trying to make here."

That's really your problem not mine. But if you want to get it, ask yourself if Denmark ended up having the GDP of Gaza because they went with taxing fossil fuel use.

"So please enlighten me what difference is there between what they do with their data and what the economitrist does at the bank?"

Are you serious? You're comparing what a few Ivy League hot shots do because they're paid millions to produce a number that is totally meaningless, and math that the majority of economists (and the tv program 60 Minutes!) can't make sense of, with multiple proxy analysis that has been approved by the National Academy of Science? Why don't you come right out and say that you hate science? 

But thank you for coming out as a conspiracy theorist.

"Maybe you should read what I wrote earlier, before making these kinds of assumptions. The main difference currently between evolution and AGW is that the former is falsifiable."

You could falsify climate change based on climate data over the last 1,000 years. You could also falsify it if the time of warming and increased temperatures were inconsistent with CO2 as the main culprit. However, solar heating has been eliminated as this culprit and the increased temperatures in the upper atmosphere is consistent with CO2 being the cause.


"I dont remember saying anything that contradicts this. But before I get dragged further down into a position I am not taken. "

You are not aware of your own contradictions. You believe in global warming, you say, but then you suggest it's perfectly normal given the medieval warming period. 

In other words, the current increase in temperature is comparable to what happened then. But of course, global rising temperatures by definition are global, while your warming period did not even extend to the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore the comaprison is inapt. GET IT?? You should not have even mentioned it. Global DOES NOT equal the North Atlantic. Really is this so hard???

If you thought this to begin with, you would have never mentioned English wine or , God help us, the tired old rehashed story of Vikings, blah blah...it's 

(wait for it)




irrelevant.

And if the data by Mann (and a boatload of others) was cooked or made up (conspiracy theory) then it follows that the most logical thing for them to do is to make it disappear altogether rather than appear regional. If they really wanted to prove you wrong they would have eliminated it or suggested it was only present in Northern Europe. 

"Warming periods before that we know even less about. In particular when we go back into geographical ages. It makes no sense to make the unprecedented claim."

Unprecented in a natural relative existence. I'm sure you can go back in time and find comparable temperatures that are global (ergo NOT the MWP) but then again, there was either no global human civilization, or ecosytems under pressure to the extent they are now. And the issue that is most relevant is warming over the last thousand years.

But your statement is deeper than that isn't it? Because we don't know what the temperature has been since the Earth had an atmosphere (!) there's no frickin' way we can call it unprecedented in the last thousand years!!! We have to know what the changes have been since the amoeba came into existence!!!

"Pointing to weaknesses is hardly something extraordinary."

You haven't done anything of the kind. But the implications of what you're saying are pretty clear (conspiracy theory), so yes the burden is on you.

"I dont seem to be the one with the personal issues here... "

On the contrary, you're obviously intelligent. Therefore your failure to grasp these issues is not a matter of your intellect but rather a function of your personality. You refuse to believe it. Clear and simple, denial dressed-up as skepticism.

First of all: I superficially read that thread and with my post I by far not only meant you Willempie. I’m simply touched by the ignorance that some guys show here. It reads like “I don’t like it so I don’t believe it” (again this awful "believe" against any nature by God if there is one). They have now real answers besides “I will not stop to behave like this” 

I repeat my two most important and up to now undisputed points: 

• Every single year we combust carbonic resources (oil, coal) that took 500000 years to be build in the earth
• with that we crammed and cram on in only a few years our actual atmosphere with the carbondioxid of former eras in geological scale (!!)

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 13:54:00:

Ah, yes. Heard about it at the university. 
Come on, no platitudes, give useful arguments. I think I know how the pawns move...

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 13:54:00:

Oh yes. And you surely know what this means: H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 and that is carbon acid. And an acid attacks the calcareous shells of coralls and molluscs etc. reef builders.
But yes, most of us aren’t divers inclined to the beauties of reefs. So those little unimportant creatures can die if we only have a good feeling in our thunderous cars and all the other devices we use in our restless lives. 
By the way: It’s disputed that the oceans are an onging sink for CO2

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 13:54:00:

As so often: Last resort to mankind - let’s play god. But we aren’t good enough. A few days ago I heard an interesting reportage from Argentina. There they pushed through the allowance of monsanto’s round-up rubbish genetic stuff in only 60 days. Parliament didn’t even had a translation of the monsanto papers into Spanish. As so often the theory sounds good but the practice isn’t. People living on the countryside get ill from the toxine. And all that only to feed the world with soja, maize or else. And you suggest to combust corn as substitude for other energy carriers (which infact takes place, I watched it while myself reporting on a farmer)...

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 12:59:30:

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 13:54:00:

Excuse me but exactly this is ridiculous. First you want to educate the world the western philosophy of democracy by a sort of embargo. I agree with you that this is probably the best way to live together. But we learned it painfully through a bunch of wars. Do you really think the world is waiting for our suggestions? That is the exact reason why we fail in Afghanistan! We, well adapted, bring democracy to them, but they in their "ancient" way of living don't understand it ("Women shall take part in elections? Come on - and pigs can fly").
And back to economics: You seem to believe that the price for a barrel oil is the one and only real price. But that is far from true. It is a highly artificial price (as is our whole economy - thinking different about it would help - simple example: What’s more worthful, a kg of air or a kg of gold? Depends on what you breathe). The oil price actually is largely driven by greedy idiots on the spot markets. What makes the price absolutely artificial is that it does by no means take the possible damages into account that result from the emissions. First to health, second to nature (but that’s the same). If you would take all the bad effects into account then the price of fossil energy would be much higher. I think even higher than green energy. And if you do not take it into account you make your calculation on the cost of your children and grandchildren...
“Every human still thinks about his own wellbeing first” - of course. But most people have no clue what that is...wellbeing. We are stressed between the fear that we loose our jobs and thus the basis of our lives and the constant shower of advertising, marketing and so on. Do we really know what we need for a wellbeing or is all that mostly dictated by others who constantly induce new wishes  on and on (because otherwise our bubble of "wellbeing" would implode)? It’s quite useful to ask those who have, on grounds of illness or injury, yet knocked the door of death. Most of them have another view on wellbeing...

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 12:59:30:

Sorry again, that's even more ridiculous. First you write about “some model makers and data analysts” as if they are a little minority. But as I see it your informants are the likes in the small minority. But much more important: Now you convert the damage our weird economy has suffered by many egoistic greedy idiots (in the very economy you defended before), into an argument for your purpose - trying a bit of Schopenhauers eritische Dialektik, or?
Again: Economy is what we make of it. We are the price makers. We judge the worth of things. In middle Europe water isn’t worth to much, cause there is enough - but ask an African in the Sahel Zone. We have lost scales. As we aren’t the last of our breed we simply should look for sustainability. Children would find that nice, I think...

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 12:59:30:

Depends how you use it. It is an interesting discussion (after all there even was a climate changing before the rise and fall of mankind) - but it is a scientific one. To use it as an crucial argument against any warning on climate change (resulting from intensive research as well) is like to ignore a road sign warning from rock fall or serpetines or oncoming traffic with highspeed just because you don’t see any obstacle till the next curve...

Willempie wrote on 03/06/10 at 13:54:00:

As I see you live in Holland. So I’m happy to see you agreeing in that conclusion concerning our senseless life style. If it is for the reason of global warming or for another one is of lesser importance. Overall it’s your country, a very nice one btw., that has to put large quantities of money into measures to save your coast line. Amsterdam is infact some meters below sea level, you nearly can call it drown under.... 

cheese

Quote:


Now you're stepping into my area of expertise, which is politics. I can tell you, it's not logical at all. Goverment often does things which are bad for the economy under the guise of helping it. And furthermore, the reason it won't reform on this matter is because the corporate sectors that would be affected by change have finacially and intellectually captured the gov't. The hesitation has to do with challenging power, not concern over the real economy.

Quote:


I don't really have to point out that's it's matter of investment in newer technologies, do I? Actually, I don't. Because Denmark already did what we're proposing the US do. Of course, the government won't go for direct tax coupled with consumer incentives. Instead they water down the prospect even further below cap and trade (which won't work). But please, make an argument about all those Whale blubber merchants and seaman that will be hurt if we mover from whale blubber to petroleum!
The failure at Copenhagen was predictable. Why should the Chinese move on this anyway? It's up to us! WE have to go first!

Quote:



Oh I see, the National Academy of Science, the gold standard in American Science - they're just a bunch of "data analysts."  Just like those "scientists" that have confirmed Mann's findings independently are just "researchers" who do "science." 

You should write for Ken Hovind. Let me see, ah:

We know evolution is unsound because there are no transitional forms in the "fossil record" produced by "paleontologists" - whatever those are. They just sit around and classify fossils all day, what do they know?

The bump was in the North Atlantic (regional) and was smaller than what we currently face. The conclusion of dozens of researchers and the National Academy 
( and the UNFCCC ) is that the current man-made warming is unprecedented.

But what explanation are you proposing for this? Their data is all wrong, taken by modelmakers who analyze for a living, right? And why do you suppose they're all wrong? They must be doing it wrong to increase their funding. Or maybe they secretly like Nuclear Power and that's why they're cooking the numbers!

The burden of proof is on you to demonstate how the scientific community is wrong and why that is. Remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 

Gee, I don't think I bolded or put anything in caps. Is that ok Willempie, I wouldn't want to damage your fragile ego here...everything alright? Please let me know if my font offends you, m' k?

You dont have to yell I am not blind. But you are nicely illustrating my point, I am not even talking about sceptic theories and I already get bolded in reply.

Firstly I am not rehashing anything, but if you insist I can argue the points you bring up, which in no way contradict my points btw. To start with the economy:
-Simple logic would dictate that if these proposed measures were not a drag on the economy there wouldnt be such a debate about them. Also nicely illustrated by how quick the argument for such measures has changed from climate to the finity of fossil fuels
-The whole idea of the proposed measures is to make fossil energy artificially more expensive and green energy cheaper, both of which just make the dollar/euro per Watt more expensive. You can't do that without a negative impact on the economy or measures which counter that effect.
-However for some more arguments I'll refer you to the same guy (as he is apparently more reliable than me) who has written about the failure of Copenhagen as well. http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/17/climate-crackup

The medieval warming period discussion:
Apart from physical evidence we have the advantage that in Europe people wrote things down and left archeological evidence. Just some minor tidbits:
-The ability of the vikings to travel to Greenland without too much hassle (and calling it Greenland)
-The ability of the vikings to travel to Southern Russia without too much hassle
But also the IPCC report: the warmest period prior to the 20th century very likely occurred between 950 and 1100...The evidence currently available indicates that NH mean temperatures during medieval times (950–1100) were indeed warm in a 2-kyr context and even warmer in relation to the less sparse but still limited evidence of widespread average cool conditions in the 17th century 
So yes it was probably warmer during that period, how reliable this is we dont know. And as we go further back it becomes much more troublesome to talk about the climate, so claims that the current warmth is unprecedented are only supported by absence of evidence. One of the main problems being that physical evidence becomes scarcer and more difficult to interpret.

But hey go ahead, just blindly follow the advice of some model makers and data analysts. It has worked for the banks as well.

"This is an article from 5 years ago which only describes the conclusions of a scietific [sic] article, hardly anything new. "

I love how you describe the quote as old news...and then you proceed later on to re-hash old tired denialist arguments. You are so consistent!

I included the quote, because this guy works for a Libertarian outfit and was a skeptic of both climate change and ozone depletion. But, if he was still skeptical you guys would probably have no qualms about reproducing his arguments here. The point is, IF EVEN HE is convinced, then we know that denialist claims are as refuted as neocon claims about Iraq. It's irelevant that its from 5 years ago. YOUR arguments are much much older.


"As anecdotal evidence: in the middle ages there was proper English wine (otherwise the [sic] William the conquerer would never have invaded )"

Oh GOD, not the  Medieval Warming period again! Look, by now every scientist knows that this data was taken from Northern Europe and OVERWHELMINGLY from Central England. In fact, the rest of the world was much colder. This is based on tree rings, historical records, ice core and coral samples from the, uh...are you ready for this? ....the REST OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE...not just Europe which was experiencing some warming (as in local to the North Atlantic region). In other words, the warming could have easily been regional and not global/hemispheric. In fact, this claim of  medieval warming stems from an UNFCCC chart from 1990 - HELLO - much older than a supposedly ancient quote from 2005. In fact researcher Michael Mann from Penn State collected the aforementioned data from the rest of the world that eventually resulted in this:




Now I am very well aware that the deniers don't believe this either, and that Mann must have manipulated the numbers with some darn interesting algorithms or some such thing...so read this :

"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years...."

- National Academy of Science 
(of the United States of Frickin' America)

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=1

There was some criticism there, particularly of Mann's claims that the 90's could be said to be the warmest decade of the last two thousand years. Although that is likely, there is not enough data to compare on a decade by decade basis. However, the basic science and methodology were upheld. 


"Not only are they setting the economy back..."

HUH? If anything reliance on fossil fuels is a drag on the economy and an anachronism. I find weighing Exxon Mobile stock in one hand against millions of displaced, and potentially diseased (or dying of thirst/starvation as a result of drought) people in the developing world on the other hand - a rather immoral calculus, nez pas?

"who contradict the current paradigm, have been treated (and judging from this thread still are). "

You should see the way I treat Young Earth Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, and Moon Landing Hoax aficionados.