Global warming

[CapelDodger]

You don't like 'Denier', but it's acceptable to use 'Warmers'?

The undeniable taint of hypocrisy. Which may well be denied, from my experience. (I don't have my experience presentable in graphical form yet, but naturally I'm working on it. Without a graph, how can I know it's real? (fnord irony))

 

[CapelDodger]

He takes a leap and goes off about policy and biofuels for some reason.

We know the reason : The validity of science is dependent on its implications, and the more uncomfortable those implications can be presented as, the less valid the science.

Science doesn't imply policies. It implies further science, which is confirmed or isn't. So far the observable implications of AGW science have been confirmed over several decades. The political implications remain a fantasy-land that has nothing to do with science or observation. Comfortable territory for the ideologically-minded that don't get out a lot.

 

[mhaze]

Incidentally...

Tamino has a rather excellent post up, showing various methods for obtaining trends from temperature datasets. Its a great primer on the subject, graphs in abundance.

I really do recommend it to anyone as a beginner's guide to analysing temperature data. And, as he says at the end,

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/analyze-this/#more-465

I like it. One comment on the comments -

• cody // Nov 5th 2007 at 9:52 am
  Thanks, very nice, very clear, very well explained. Have you ever considered R, though? Spoken as one wearily wondering whether its worth the effort, but also tired of waiting for a spreadsheet to get through it all.
  

• [Response: R squared gives the fraction of total variance which is explained by whatever model we fit. This has its uses, but it doesn’t really tell us the statistical significance; that also depends on the (effective) number of data points and on then number of degrees of freedom in the model we choose. So R alone doesn’t enable you to compute statistical significance. For me, it’s usually not worth the wait (but there are cases in which it’s useful information).]
  

R is a statistical package available for download.

It is the package that www.climateaudit.org has standardized on.

 

[Pipirr]

That's an amusing misunderstanding...

 

[stevea]

In response to Schneibster

Originally Posted by stevea

I'm regularly disgusted by illogical arguments, and one of the first signals that things are going off the tracks is when people referring the the "Insert name" theory of such-n-such instead of briefly explaining the fundamental point.

Schneibster

So from this, I get two statements by you:
1. Any scientific theory that requires an IQ greater than 90 to understand, or requires an explanation that takes more than two sentences, is BS.
2. You don't want to talk about scientific theories by name; it's illogical.
Have I got that right?

You have that exactly *wrong*. Perhaps you should RE-READ my post. Any half-wit can walk in the room and say things like, "I find the Hegelian foundation of Marxist dialectic at odds with Hume's view of morality", and pompous undergraduates do say such things. There is no reasonable response since in a sentence they have made indirect reference to 2000 pages of weighty writing. That does NOT make the remark intelligent nor relevant., not does it clarify their viewpoint.

I have no difficulty with poster making reference to a well understood, well established and concisely expressible theory. If you wish to reference the 3rd law of thermodynamics, Lorentzian transform or a Maclaurin series then go ahead. My objection its that some people reference "the Hansen theory" and there is no such thing. They are loosely and vaguely referencing 30 years of climatology work and several dozen papers. Referencing "the Hansen theory" it is like throwing a phone book in a blender and posting the result - pompous nonsense.

Now in a room full of climatologists I expect that there are many theories that are well known and understood by the convention of a name *within that field*. That is NOT the case on this forum. Instead when people start throwing vague named theories around to a general intelligent audience, and particularly when they refuse to explain their points in plain language, it is clearly and obviously an attempt to obfuscate and hide their own ignorance.

If you cannot explain your pet theory to an intelligent audience without these obtuse references - then you really don't understand your topic at all.

Originally Posted by stevea View Post

It's a great debater's technique for inserting a massive and therefore difficult to rebut body of work into a discussion without going to the effort of laying a foundation. It's really only valid when the audience all understand and agree on the definition of the idea.

Schneibster

So basically you don't want to talk about science, when you talk about climate. OK, that's fine, but I have to ask you, why are you posting on a forum titled, "Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology?" Politics is over there ->.

If you want to talk science - then post your original data sources and your equations. I am quite willing to review and comment on SCIENCE. I do this every week. If you want to talk ABOUT science then do post your specific references and the exact inferences you mean to imply. If instead you want to chatter and make cloudy allusions - then go away; you are anethma to any intelligent conversation.

What you and some others want to do is bandy-about half-baked ideas with ill conceived and vague references to other's works. That isn't science Schneibster - that's a "snow-job".


Originally Posted by stevea View Post

NASA recently released the source code for Hansen's model. I performed a brief review and I have toi say the quality of the code is very poor.

Schneibster

It's crufty. That's why it has all those tracers and diagnostics sprinkled all over it. What's the matter, never seen scientific code before? They aren't, after all, professional software engineers. I didn't have any trouble following it. Are you saying you did? That would be consistent with your attitude on scientific theories.

You are dazzlingly ignorant of the fields you comment on, Schneibster. The source code is publicly available HERE for all to see:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources/

There are no tracers (whatever that is) in the code. The term "trace" appear in the code as a comment about "precipitation trace" in half a dozen places and one instance of a variable called "TRACE" appears in exactly 5 lines. In the later mode code l understand "trace" to refer to trace atmospheric gases.

There are exactly two comment references to "diagnostic" and each is in a comment, implying that some variable appears just for observation, not calculation.

No! Sorry, you get an F in software analysis Schneibster. The code includes no verification mechanism nor even minimal diagnostics.

I've sat through many many code reviews in my career and my estimation, based on the code in STEP0, anyone trying to defend this code design would be sent out for a re-work after <15minutes of review. It simply isn't well written !!! No rational company would deploy similarly implemented code (even the 200n update) in a commercial product for fear of liability, Yet Hansen/NASA want's us to bring the planet's economies to grinding halt on this basis. I have difficulty with that reasoning.

Originally Posted by stevea View Post

It contains the sort of organizational problems that I used to see in undergraduate homework programs in the 1970s (before better tools and languages avoided many of the problems)

Schneibster:

Well, gee, considering it was originally written in FORTRAN, in the '70s, THAT'S a big surprise, huh?

Wrong! The code is largely written in Fortran90 which was not available until late ~1989 and the particular code uses features that were not available until after the 1992 ANSI standard. Many of the scripts are written in Python - a computer language not available till 1991. This code was NOT written in the 1970s !

I was not dedgrading Hansen's software based on their use of a commonly available computer language of that era (Hansen's 1988 paper would have been on the trailing cusp of Fortran's era). I was noting that it contained many organizational problems that have been obviated by more modern computer languages.

What is clear is that this version of Hansen's code was greatly modified (re-written) at or after 2001, as the website states. They did not bother to make many of the changes that I would recommend to improve the basic structure.


Originally Posted by stevea View Post

That is not to say the model is wrong, but personally I'd be hesitant to make any major claims based on such a low quality tool. The possibility of error in the code is significant and I wonder what sort of test cases were used to give confidence to the results ? I don't see any test verification suite for the units.

Schneibster:

They test them with the diagnostics and tracers in the code that you apparently overlooked. In fact, according to the documentation, it's only recently that it was modularized. I bet that was fun. Almost as good as hitting yourself repeatedly in the chest with a pickaxe. No wonder it's got cruft all over it.

Since there are no diagnostics or "tracers" your comments are specious !! You are misrepresenting facts !! The facts are available to all in the code (see link).


Schneibster:

And with all that trouble you have with scientific theories and stuff, I bet you have a great deal of trouble figuring out what numerical simulations do, because it's mostly math- kind of like scientific theories are.

You are the one having trouble Schneibster. Let's put a few facts in play.

I have an IQ in the top 0.1% of the population (I dropped Mensa years ago, I think the Alpha Society fell apart too). I was elected to the honorary scientific society 'Sigma Xi' in 1985 based primarily on work I did on signal processing of neurological signals. I have written a substantial amount of scientific software for medical imaging, image reconstruction (CT & MRI), and also DoD related software for optical communication. I have a BS in pure Math, MSEE and MS.Physics. I have developed a substantial body of mission critical well reviewed scientific code.

You , Schneibster OTOH seem to have a great deal of difficulty solving simple high-school physics problems that require only multiplication:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97922

Schneibster clearly cannor read or understand source code. He cannot respond to anyone, particularly mhaze without a descent into name-calling and ad hominem. He regularly makes vague and unsupported claims. Go look at Schneibster's 1st post on this topic. He refers to Fourier's work on greenhouse gases. I've read Fourier's paper in translation and it has virtually nothing to do with greenhouse gases. Fourier proposes a brilliant (for that early era) analysis of heating of the earth that accounts for almost all factors including atmospheric heat capacity. So instead of understanding anything Schneibster appears to parrot certain scientific pronouncements. Unable to hear, understand, integrate and re-iterate the issues he is forced to short-cut and simply hears and repeats.

I seriously am NOT trying to toot my own horn and I absolutely reject any argument from anyone (myself included) based on credentials. (my point is to refute Scheibster's outrageously wrong claims). 'Appeal to authority' is yet another fallacious argument.

==

I fear that as scientific issues become more complex, and more relevant to daily life, that intelligent people will fail to question and anaylze the information. Perhaps rejecting the arguments as too deep, too complex. Instead on this forum it seems the issue is too argumentative and uninformative for most to tolerate.

I had hoped to find an intelligent discussion on the climate topic, but instead I find only moronic insults, and a LOT of orthodoxy and blind systematic belief. It is REALLY sad that a conversation on the actual data and it's analysis cannot take place on such a forum as this.

goodbye,
-S


ps to mhaze:
Your reference to the 1988 Hansen paper claims (in other parts of the text) 3.sd, but that is not consistent with a 1-in-100 chance (more like 1:400). and a normal distribution. Further the paper is remarkably vague (it could never be published in a hydrology journal for example) as they fail to show the method of analysis, and the basic statistical results. The paper repeatedly shows rather pointless graphs covering a 50-80 year period then the text makes the unsupported claim that the recent 30 year [circa 1980] warming period is several SD from the norm.
There isn't enough data presented to support this..

 

[a_unique_person]

In response to Schneibster

Originally Posted by stevea


Schneibster


You have that exactly *wrong*. Perhaps you should RE-READ my post. Any half-wit can walk in the room and say things like, "I find the Hegelian foundation of Marxist dialectic at odds with Hume's view of morality", and pompous undergraduates do say such things. There is no reasonable response since in a sentence they have made indirect reference to 2000 pages of weighty writing. That does NOT make the remark intelligent nor relevant., not does it clarify their viewpoint.

I have no difficulty with poster making reference to a well understood, well established and concisely expressible theory. If you wish to reference the 3rd law of thermodynamics, Lorentzian transform or a Maclaurin series then go ahead. My objection its that some people reference "the Hansen theory" and there is no such thing. They are loosely and vaguely referencing 30 years of climatology work and several dozen papers. Referencing "the Hansen theory" it is like throwing a phone book in a blender and posting the result - pompous nonsense.

Who has referenced the "Hansen Theory" apart from deniers?

 

[a_unique_person]

I've sat through many many code reviews in my career and my estimation, based on the code in STEP0, anyone trying to defend this code design would be sent out for a re-work after <15minutes of review. It simply isn't well written !!! No rational company would deploy similarly implemented code (even the 200n update) in a commercial product for fear of liability, Yet Hansen/NASA want's us to bring the planet's economies to grinding halt on this basis. I have difficulty with that reasoning.

I have difficulty with that reasoning too. You talk about unsupported assertions, yet make a blindingly bald one in the very next paragraph. FWIW, I don't believe anyone wants to bring the planet's economies to a grinding halt, they are actually trying to protect them.

The work of Hansen is only a small part of the case for the IPCC. Australia, for example, has it's own independent temperature records and scientists. Guess what, they correlate with what Hansen has come up with.

 

[a_unique_person]

I fear that as scientific issues become more complex, and more relevant to daily life, that intelligent people will fail to question and anaylze the information. Perhaps rejecting the arguments as too deep, too complex. Instead on this forum it seems the issue is too argumentative and uninformative for most to tolerate.

I had hoped to find an intelligent discussion on the climate topic, but instead I find only moronic insults, and a LOT of orthodoxy and blind systematic belief. It is REALLY sad that a conversation on the actual data and it's analysis cannot take place on such a forum as this.

goodbye,
-S

So you are gone, My .01%, and I'm still here. What use are you then? I said in response to your first post on the topic I'm happy for some education on the matter if you can offer it. So far I've seen pretty well nothing.

 

[Schneibster]

You have that exactly *wrong*. Perhaps you should RE-READ my post.

You mean, and look to see if you actually specified what you were talking about, instead of making cryptic references to something apparently only you saw? Sorry, I'm not looking to do any cryptography here. Spell it out or eat it.

I have no difficulty with poster making reference to a well understood, well established and concisely expressible theory. If you wish to reference the 3rd law of thermodynamics, Lorentzian transform or a Maclaurin series then go ahead. My objection its that some people reference "the Hansen theory" and there is no such thing. They are loosely and vaguely referencing 30 years of climatology work and several dozen papers. Referencing "the Hansen theory" it is like throwing a phone book in a blender and posting the result - pompous nonsense.

So who specified some supposed "Hansen theory" or other? I'm sorry, you'll have to make posts that address what someone actually said, not what you heard the voices in your head tell you they were saying. I can't hear the voices in your head.

If you want to talk science - then post your original data sources and your equations. I am quite willing to review and comment on SCIENCE. I do this every week. If you want to talk ABOUT science then do post your specific references and the exact inferences you mean to imply. If instead you want to chatter and make cloudy allusions - then go away; you are anethma to any intelligent conversation.

Impressive. I believe they call this "projection." If you have some argument to make, get about making it; I haven't seen any so far. You'll need to be coherent and specific. Again, I haven't seen that so far.

What you and some others want to do is bandy-about half-baked ideas with ill conceived and vague references to other's works. That isn't science Schneibster - that's a "snow-job".

Considering that you haven't asked a coherent question yet, I have to question whether you're competent to make such a judgment. Whether you feel you are is immaterial, I'll point out.

You are dazzlingly ignorant of the fields you comment on, Schneibster. The source code is publicly available HERE for all to see:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources/

There are no tracers (whatever that is) in the code. The term "trace" appear in the code as a comment about "precipitation trace" in half a dozen places and one instance of a variable called "TRACE" appears in exactly 5 lines. In the later mode code l understand "trace" to refer to trace atmospheric gases.

Perhaps you should read the release notes and operating instructions. I expect if you're capable of reading source code in Fortran you're capable of finding them, yes? I certainly had no trouble, and it seems we disagree about what's in that source code. Do you really want me to post annotated code, and the source files and line numbers it came from? You do realize this will make you look like an idiot, correct?

No! Sorry, you get an F in software analysis Schneibster. The code includes no verification mechanism nor even minimal diagnostics.

Sonny, I was playing with Fortran when you weren't a gleam in your daddy's eye. I suggest you not try to tell your grandma how to suck eggs.

Wrong! The code is largely written in Fortran90 which was not available until late ~1989 and the particular code uses features that were not available until after the 1992 ANSI standard. Many of the scripts are written in Python - a computer language not available till 1991. This code was NOT written in the 1970s !

Not only do you ignore the release notes, the FAQ, and the manual for the software, you have the temerity to lie about it. Seriously, I hope you're not planning on sticking around- because I'm going to make an idiot of you if you do. It's not very pleasant to watch. I'll need the heavy rubber gloves; I think we can forgo the vaseline, all things considered.

I was not dedgrading Hansen's software based on their use of a commonly available computer language of that era (Hansen's 1988 paper would have been on the trailing cusp of Fortran's era). I was noting that it contained many organizational problems that have been obviated by more modern computer languages.

Welcome to scientific programming. They don't care if it's pretty. What they care about is the algorithms, and that those algorithms be transparent enough that if they need to update them for a change in the understanding of the physics, they can do so quickly. And that it run efficiently- and it will most likely do that, no matter how nasty the commenting is.

What is clear is that this version of Hansen's code was greatly modified (re-written) at or after 2001, as the website states. They did not bother to make many of the changes that I would recommend to improve the basic structure.

They aren't interested in the basic structure. They're interested in whether they can find what they need to modify if the physics changes, and if it runs fast. Everything else is candy.

Since there are no diagnostics or "tracers" your comments are specious !! You are misrepresenting facts !! The facts are available to all in the code (see link).

Since you couldn't find them, or claim not to be able to, it's obvious you're either lying, or incompetent. Which do you prefer?

You are the one having trouble Schneibster. Let's put a few facts in play.

Not having seen a single one so far, I'm game.

I have an IQ in the top 0.1% of the population (I dropped Mensa years ago, I think the Alpha Society fell apart too). I was elected to the honorary scientific society 'Sigma Xi' in 1985 based primarily on work I did on signal processing of neurological signals. I have written a substantial amount of scientific software for medical imaging, image reconstruction (CT & MRI), and also DoD related software for optical communication. I have a BS in pure Math, MSEE and MS.Physics. I have developed a substantial body of mission critical well reviewed scientific code.

I'm sure. It's especially apparent in your ability to analyze code someone else wrote.

You , Schneibster OTOH seem to have a great deal of difficulty solving simple high-school physics problems that require only multiplication:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97922

You are cute, I'll give you that- but you've missed something important, which is the integrity to admit when I'm wrong and move on. A capability you appear to lack. I am content to be incorrect sometimes and remain capable of admitting it. I scoff and sneer at those who are incapable of that; they are, to my mind, children, more interested in their "cred" than in being right and finding out what's right. By this you demonstrate your lack of honor and your lack of integrity; and your lack of respect for honor and integrity. It is people like you who have damaged our society. With luck, your lack of personally respectable attributes will result in your ultimate humiliation, since only in this way can you be broken down far enough to learn wisdom. And it is not an evil I wish upon you, but a good that you will not recognize as such unless or until after it happens.

The remainder of this post I cast to the dogs. Perhaps they can make something of it.

 

[lenny]

For the most part, yes. In this case, it's Chapter 8 of the IPCC stuff that's at question. ... here we address the question of how Armstrong's method helps or does not help in analyzing problems with Chapter 8.

agreed. and if it is shown that Armstrong's method has systematic flaws when applied to physical systems as a whole, particularly in climate-like problems (extrapolation) then we have sufficient evidence to conclude it does not help in "chapter 8".

thanks for the link to his slides.

I find Armstrong's approach and economics in general interesting, but a lot of folks do not - to each their own, right?

i think not. Armstrong's basic claim is that any analysis which fails to follow his principles fails to yield a scientific forecast. the question is whether or not his approach is applicable/helpful or not in climate science, not whether or not i like it.

 

[Megalodon]

For starters, let's try to take a look at the big picture. It seems to be the case - it's being talked about by scientists, meterologists and the like - that the PDO is reversing phase. That has obvious implications, such as less of the El Nino effect.

That's funny, I ask you if you have anything worth discussing beyond your last ad hominem, or refering to the Lyman papers you linked to, or relating to the last graph I posted... and you bring up the PDO.

Obviously you must think it's very important...

Is this certainly happening? I don't think so. But it does look like it could be happening, based on the periodicity of the PDO and the recent "non warming" (however we phrase that).

...or maybe you don't. So you're trolling, once again... No bite from me, though.

Does this sound reasonable?

Less and less of what you say sounds reasonable, hazy...

If so, we can go from there to something of what exactly this may mean. Note AGW skeptics are not the ones saying PDO is reversing phase, that's mainstream science.

Thank you for aknowledging that your flavour of AGW skepticism is not mainstream science. And I would add, in the same way as homeopathy is not mainstream medicine.

There are AGW skeptics. You recognize them when they don't search the blogs for the next factoid that might keep them afloat for a while longer.

 

[Pipirr]

Is it appropriate for authors to evaluate their own work?

No. That's what peer review is for.

However, once an author's work has been evaluated by peer review, then I think it certainly is appropriate for that author to summarise their own work.

If I want an accurate review of the science, I'd ask the scientists in the field.

Who better to summarize a science than it's scientists?

 

[mhaze]

In response to Schneibster

Originally Posted by stevea

I had hoped to find an intelligent discussion on the climate topic, but instead I find only moronic insults, and a LOT of orthodoxy and blind systematic belief. It is REALLY sad that a conversation on the actual data and it's analysis cannot take place on such a forum as this.

goodbye,
-S


ps to mhaze:
Your reference to the 1988 Hansen paper claims (in other parts of the text) 3.sd, but that is not consistent with a 1-in-100 chance (more like 1:400). and a normal distribution. Further the paper is remarkably vague (it could never be published in a hydrology journal for example) as they fail to show the method of analysis, and the basic statistical results. The paper repeatedly shows rather pointless graphs covering a 50-80 year period then the text makes the unsupported claim that the recent 30 year [circa 1980] warming period is several SD from the norm.
There isn't enough data presented to support this..

Thank you for the reply.

I would apologize for the behavior of people on this forum but it's really the job of the moderators to maintain a reasonable adherence to the rules of the forum, also to recognize trolls, warn them, and if they don't get the message, permanently ban them from the forum. Any forum that does not have restrictions on trolling, personal attacks and ad hominems will find that the small percentage of people who delight in such activities will expand their use of such activities on that forum.

If I was to apologize for something it would be for attempting to hold serious discussions on this subject in a forum that could or would not support the serious discussion of science.

 

[mhaze]

agreed. and if it is shown that Armstrong's method has systematic flaws when applied to physical systems as a whole, particularly in climate-like problems (extrapolation) then we have sufficient evidence to conclude it does not help in "chapter 8".

thanks for the link to his slides.

i think not. Armstrong's basic claim is that any analysis which fails to follow his principles fails to yield a scientific forecast. the question is whether or not his approach is applicable/helpful or not in climate science, not whether or not i like it.

Sounds like we are in agreement on the approach to the issue, then.

 

[Megalodon]

I would apologize for the behavior of people on this forum but it's really the job of the moderators to maintain a reasonable adherence to the rules of the forum, also to recognize trolls, warn them, and if they don't get the message, permanently ban them from the forum.

You have no shame...

Any forum that does not have restrictions on trolling, personal attacks and ad hominems will find that the small percentage of people who delight in such activities will expand their use of such activities on that forum.

Fortunately for you the tolerance for trolls is high around here. Unfortunately for you, anyone can look back to the content of the thread.

If I was to apologize for something it would be for attempting to hold serious discussions on this subject in a forum that could or would not support the serious discussion of science.

It can, it did, your "science" didn't hold up to scrutiny. Not one time...
But some interesting things were discussed around your factoids.

 

[CapelDodger]

Since you couldn't find them, or claim not to be able to, it's obvious you're either lying, or incompetent. Which do you prefer?

He did a perl-search on "TRACE", what more can be asked of a chap? He can hardly be expected to dig out a tracer - "whatever that is" - if they don't have a sound naming convention .

So Hansen has an eponymous Theory now. This guy's status just keeps on growing. There'll be a Nobel at the end of it, mark my words.

 

[CapelDodger]

No! Sorry, you get an F in software analysis Schneibster. The code includes no verification mechanism nor even minimal diagnostics.

Verification is against the real outcome. That's in the nature of a predictive model. What sort of "verification" are you expecting? Verification against what is actually going to happen?

As to diagnostics, if the model craps out the OS will tell you where and why.

I've sat through many many code reviews in my career and my estimation, based on the code in STEP0, anyone trying to defend this code design would be sent out for a re-work after <15minutes of review. It simply isn't well written !!! No rational company would deploy similarly implemented code (even the 200n update) in a commercial product for fear of liability, Yet Hansen/NASA want's us to bring the planet's economies to grinding halt on this basis. I have difficulty with that reasoning.

I too have had such experience, so I appreciate that commercial systems are completely different from scientific models. The former can be chock-full of verifications because they're self-contained. A predictive model is not self-contained.

What is clear is that this version of Hansen's code was greatly modified (re-written) at or after 2001, as the website states.

The substantive issue is surely the output of the Hansen et al 1988 model. We've had twenty years of reality since, and it's proved remarkably accurate. However ugly it might have been it worked and is still working. Like the Kalashnikov.

They did not bother to make many of the changes that I would recommend to improve the basic structure.

You've got the existing code, so why not implement your ideas, run some projections, post them here and we'll check in in 2027 to see if your version did any better? Models like Hansen et al 1988 improve with age, so it's quite a challenge.

If you're too busy, send me your spec and I'll implement it for you at a competitive rate. (I, too, cut my teeth on 70's FORTRAN, and I'm cheaper than Schneibster.)

 

[CapelDodger]

Unfortunately for you, anyone can look back to the content of the thread.

There it all is, in fifty-odd pages. A large sample.

Which side does the hysteria come from? The global economy "grinding to a halt" end of things? No greenhouse warming that isn't "runaway", ushering in an "apocalypse", which is just what they want, you know.

It doesn't come from the pro-science side. Ours has been, I think, the more sober and mature presentation to whatever audience is out there. Certainly the more science-oriented, and of course more reality-oriented. Picking at a 1988 model (for instance) without reference to its performance over two decades is sad and barren.

 

[CapelDodger]

You're a bit behind the times. The Lyman update October 26 has confirmed no cooling or warming from 2003-2006, however no new data since then. Based on the latest ENSO/SST data and cyclone energy, would you conclude ocean heat content has risen or dropped?

Would you?

Let's look at NOAA's predictions for ENSO and SST. SCRIPPS (from your link) predicts no drop but in fact a gain in ENSO.

What does a "gain in ENSO" mean?

It looks like no matter what happens, it can be claimed "the models were spot on".
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_10323472f54313fe13.jpg[/URL]
[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_10323472f5478b45f4.jpg[/URL]

Which models? Whose models, and models of what? What exactly do you encompass with "the models"?

Based on the above information, what do you think is going on?

The fluid skin on this planet of ours is accumulating energy in the form of heat. That's what's going on. There'll surely be an El Nino in the next three-to-eight years, and then we'll see how significant September '07 was - which wasn't much.

 

[Locri]

Which side does the hysteria come from? The global economy "grinding to a halt" end of things? No greenhouse warming that isn't "runaway", ushering in an "apocalypse", which is just what they want, you know.

It doesn't come from the pro-science side. Ours has been, I think, the more sober and mature presentation to whatever audience is out there. Certainly the more science-oriented, and of course more reality-oriented.

Only time for a quick reply, but to me, this is just absurd. If you truly feel that the AGW side isn't being hysterical, you might want to let some of the other AGW people know. I hate to bring him up, but Al Gore certainly has done a lot with that... he made a lot of inaccurate fear-mongering statements and a huge amount of AGW supporters go right along with that.

Even on the scientific side there have been some alarmist-type remarks from Hansen and Mann. Lots of stuff on Tipping points and such. Some even claiming that we already took too long and now there isn't anything we can do.