Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Trakar): "CRU emails reveal Jones lies and conspiracy¹."
(Malcolm): " 1. That's pretty well established. It's not libel, slander, or pseudoscience to call Jones a liar."

Actually it's established that those accusations are untrue. These false allegations have been investigated a half dozen times and rejected every time. This allegation is clealry in the realm of conspiracy theory at this point.

Half a dozen, huh? This I doubt. The official investigation of the CRU after the email release was a whitewash that did not interview any critics and which allowed Jones himself to select the emails that Muir Russell would consider. More immediately, the latest Climate Audit post cannot have been the subject of investigation. Readers may assess. Read the Climate Audit post "Dr. Phil, Confidential Agent". Phil Jones is a liar.

(Malcolm): "2. Dunno 'bout Mann lying, but the dubious treatment of tree ring analyses ("hide the decline") used in the hockey stick is pretty well established."

Again just the opposite. Mann's results have been confirmed by more than a dozen subsequent peer reviewed papers. This means any claims that Mann's results were not accurate are firmly psudosceince.

Readers may assess. Consider this Climate Audit post. What "peer reviewed papers" have confirmed the hockey stick graph?

(Trakar): "All major scientific journals exhibit biased peer-review, indicative of conspiracy."
(Malcolm): "3. Dunno 'bout "all", but see the recent Climate Audit post '
Nature and the Inundation Legend'."

I'm not interested in fixing errors on the internet. If you think that blog article has something substantial to say, digest it and make the argument yourself.

The immediate topic is Trakar's characterization of Climate Audit. Therefore, Climate Audit posts are direct evidence. Readers may assess this evidence for themselves.

(Trakar): "I will list several oft repeated and recycled argument themes that commonly reappear ad nauseum on McIntyre's spew site...Temperature record distorted as part of conspiracy"
(Malcolm): "4. Do you mean the proxy record or the thermometer weather station record? Link, please."

He was referring to your instance there is a conspiracy to alter the instrumental temperature record, but it could equally hold for your insistence that the proxy record is subject to some form of conspiracy.

I'd prefer to see Trakar's explanation as to what Trakar meant, but okay. I don't recollect that I've ever asserted a "conspiracy to alter the instrumental temperature record". The only "conspiracy" that's established conclusively so far is the conspiracy to evade FOI requests. That's documented in the emails.

 

[Warmer1]

As the continued beating of the teflon pinata continues, other news is even more outrageous.

From the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807

As Milankovich cycles are discussed as well as the 240 ppm thingy ....

"Groups opposed to limiting greenhouse gas emissions are already citing the study as a reason for embracing humankind's CO2 emissions.

The UK lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for example, has flagged up a 1999 essay by astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who argued that: "The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world's major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.

"We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating"

So much for the 800lb gorilla of the melting permafrost and the Eastern Siberia shelf?

OMG!

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I recomend this recapitulation by Steve McIntyre.

 

[lomiller]

What "public record"? Link? The Climate Audit post addresses this specific issue. What part of "Please read it" do you not understand?

I have no obligation to read anything you link when you won't give us the specifics of how the link is supposed to support your claim. I don’t care what random blogger (with a demonstrated history of dishonesty) posts on his blog. If you want me to answer some claim you are making or repeating, then outline that claim to us.

What you don’t seem to understand is that the site itself is no authority on the matter, so their opinion is irrelevant and linking to their opinion rather than stating your own has no value. In fact doing so suggests you either do not understand the claim sufficiently to advance it yourself or are simply too lazy to do so. In either case it’s not worth responding to a claim you can’t or won’t present to us yourself.

 

[lomiller]

The official investigation of the CRU after the email release was a whitewash

Typical CT stuff, any investigation that debunks them is a “whitewash”

More immediately, the latest Climate Audit post cannot have been the subject of investigation. Readers may assess. Read the Climate Audit post "Dr. Phil, Confidential Agent". Phil Jones is a liar.

More typical CT/psudo-science stuff. Anyone can put anything they want on the internet, so there is always some blog that supports the cranks opinion. Again, I have no particular interest in fixing every error on the internet. If you want us to debunk an opinion, post your opinion here and your argument for it in this thread and we will debunk it.

The immediate topic is Trakar's characterization of Climate Audit. Therefore, Climate Audit posts are direct evidence. Readers may assess this evidence for themselves.

What evidence? You can’t use ClimateAudit posts as your supporting evidence for the scientific validity of ClimateAudit. Are you really suggesting we just take them at their word that everything they say is true?

 

[Trakar]

(Trakar): "CRU emails reveal Jones lies and conspiracy¹."
(Malcolm): " 1. That's pretty well established. It's not libel, slander, or pseudoscience to call Jones a liar."

Originally Posted by lomiller
Actually it's established that those accusations are untrue. These false allegations have been investigated a half dozen times and rejected every time. This allegation is clealry in the realm of conspiracy theory at this point.

Half a dozen, huh? This I doubt.

1) House of Commons Science and Technology Committee investigation
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf
findings - The Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry reported on 31 March 2010 that it had found that "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact". The emails and claims raised in the controversy did not challenge the scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity". The MPs had seen no evidence to support claims that Jones had tampered with data or interfered with the peer-review process.

2) Independent Science Assessment Panel investigation
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/SAP
findings - published on 14 April 2010 and concluded that the panel had seen "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit." It found that the CRU's work had been "carried out with integrity" and had used "fair and satisfactory" methods. The CRU was found to be "objective and dispassionate in their view of the data and their results, and there was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda." Instead, "their sole aim was to establish as robust a record of temperatures in recent centuries as possible."

3) Pennsylvania State University investigations
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf
Findings - (first investigation) committee determined on 3 February 2010 that there was no credible evidence Mann suppressed or falsified data, destroyed emails, information and/or data related to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, or misused privileged or confidential information.
(second investigation) reported on 4 June 2010 that it had "determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community."

4) Independent Climate Change Email Review
http://www.cce-review.org/
Findings - The commission cleared the scientists and dismissed allegations that they manipulated their data. The "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit were found not to be in doubt. The panel found that they did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, and that the key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any "competent" researcher.

5) United States Environmental Protection Agency investigation of hacked Emails
http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/myths-facts.html
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/56EB0D86757CB7568525776F0063D82F
Findings - The EPA examined every email and concluded that there was no merit to the claims in the petitions, which "routinely misunderstood the scientific issues", reached "faulty scientific conclusions", "resorted to hyperbole", and "often cherry-pick language that creates the suggestion or appearance of impropriety, without looking deeper into the issues." In a statement issued on 29 July 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said the petitions were based "on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy" and provided "no evidence to undermine our determination. Excess greenhouse gases are a threat to our health and welfare."

6) Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce investigation
http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/2011.02.18_IG_to_Inhofe.pdf
Findings - The report, issued on 18 February 2011, cleared the researchers and "did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures". It noted that NOAA reviewed its climate change data as standard procedure, not in response to the controversy. One email included a cartoon image showing Infofe and others marooned on a melting ice floe, NOAA had taken this up as a conduct issue. In response to questions raised, NOAA stated that its scientists had followed legal advice on FOIA requests for information which belonged to the IPCC and was made available by that panel.

7) National Science Foundation Inspector General investigation
http://www.science20.com/uploads/1770191916-429173860.pdf
Findings - closed an investigation on 15 August 2011 that exonerated Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University of charges of scientific misconduct. It found no evidence of research misconduct, and confirmed the results of earlier inquiries.The OIG reviewed the findings of the July 2010 Penn State panel, took further evidence from the university and Mann, and interviewed Mann. The OIP findings confirmed the university panel's conclusions which cleared Mann of any wrongdoing, and it stated "Lacking any evidence of research misconduct, as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing the investigation with no further action."

(many of the above sections of "Findings" text are admittedly borrowed from
wiki page on CRU emails, but I have substantiated the accuracy of such in the listed reference links.)

The official investigation of the CRU after the email release was a whitewash...

it didn't take long for you to dive back to the refuge of grassy knoll conspiracies,...despite the facts you still deny and refuse to acknowledge.

 

[Trakar]

I recomend this recapitulation by Steve McIntyre.

This is a science and technology discussion board, I find the objective researches and investigations linked to previously, to most likely represent more accurate and less biased understandings of the issues involved.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I have no obligation to read anything you link when you won't give us the specifics of how the link is supposed to support your claim. I don’t care what random blogger (with a demonstrated history of dishonesty) posts on his blog. If you want me to answer some claim you are making or repeating, then outline that claim to us.

McIntyre is not a random blogger. He is the immediate subject of this discussion, due to Trakar's characterization of his blog as a "pseudoscience blog". The claim:
(1) The raw data on which Mann, Jones, et. al. base the assertion that current warming is unprecendented, is proprietary and agreements into which Jones, Mann, et. al. had to entert to gain access to these data prevented them from sharing that data. Steve McIntyre demonstrates that this claim, by Jones and the UEA, was false.
(2) Important science journals are neutral and take sides based on facts. McIntyre demonstrates that this does not characterize Nature (at least in so far as one writer for that periodical goes).

What you don’t seem to understand is that the site itself is no authority on the matter, so their opinion is irrelevant and linking to their opinion rather than stating your own has no value. In fact doing so suggests you either do not understand the claim sufficiently to advance it yourself or are simply too lazy to do so. In either case it’s not worth responding to a claim you can’t or won’t present to us yourself.

McIntyre is expert on correspondence between McIntyre and Jones and between McIntyre and Mann.
Or does Lomiller just want to hear one side of the story?
btw, Penn State investigated and cleared Jerry Sandusky, too. "Whitewash" is accurate.

 

[CapelDodger]

("Half a dozen, huh?

Good call, it's at least seven.

This I doubt. The official investigation of the CRU after the email release was a whitewash that did not interview any critics and which allowed Jones himself to select the emails that Muir Russell would consider.

Can you quote Steve McIntyre making that claim? It's ludicrous, of course.

More immediately, the latest Climate Audit post cannot have been the subject of investigation. Readers may assess. Read the Climate Audit post "Dr. Phil, Confidential Agent". Phil Jones is a liar.

McIntyre is a proven liar. His initial assault on the Mann et al reconstruction way back in the 20thCE (in collaboration with another proven liar, Mckitrick), the assault which catapulted him from nobody to guru status, was based on deliberate lies. Oddly enough, it was Wegman who let the cat out of the bag. Guess what Wegman is.

The immediate topic is Trakar's characterization of Climate Audit. Therefore, Climate Audit posts are direct evidence. Readers may assess this evidence for themselves.

Climate Audit is a propaganda site run by a sleazebag. What's hard to understand about that? Look at it.

I don't recollect that I've ever asserted a "conspiracy to alter the instrumental temperature record".

Neither does McIntyre, because he never asserts anything - he depends on sly insinuation and then falls back on "I never said that!" when called on it. He puts his messages in people's heads but he'e too slimy to be pinned down.

The only "conspiracy" that's established conclusively so far is the conspiracy to evade FOI requests. That's documented in the emails.

No it isn't. If McIntyre told you that he's lying. Are you quite sure he didn't just imply it, with plausible deniability?

So here we come to rub. McIntyre is still trying to protect his reputation over Mann et al's reconstruction because he can't ever let that go - even if he did finally bring it down (which he can't) there's all the other reconstructions, using different data and different statistical methods he'd have to move onto. He has to keep Mann alive for active imaginations such as yours. And the rest is slandering climate scientists, especially Jones (another one of the few that you've ever heard of) but never quite in a way he can be pinned down on.

This for you is what the climate debate is about. No fantasy "recovery of Arctic sea-ice" for you, no "we've entered a cooling period", no "most glaciers are expanding", no complete nonsense at all. WattsUpMyButt is the place for that (Watts really is an idiot. McIntyre isn't. McIntyre is a clever sleazebag with nothing better to do, luxuriating in late-life cult-status). Not even "data is being concealed" or "there's just a conspiracy". It's the offence against vexatious FOIA requests, not the abuse of the concept nor the theft of private emails, which concerns you. Where is the world going, eh, if such things can happen?

 

[CapelDodger]

Typical CT stuff, any investigation that debunks them is a “whitewash”

Who didn't see that coming? But Mr Kirkpatrick says he's not a conspiracy theorist, and Mr Kirkpatrick is an honourable man.

More typical CT/psudo-science stuff. Anyone can put anything they want on the internet, so there is always some blog that supports the cranks opinion. Again, I have no particular interest in fixing every error on the internet. If you want us to debunk an opinion, post your opinion here and your argument for it in this thread and we will debunk it.

Don't you mean we'll whitewash it?

What evidence? You can’t use ClimateAudit posts as your supporting evidence for the scientific validity of ClimateAudit. Are you really suggesting we just take them at their word that everything they say is true?

I think Mr Kirkpatrick may well be suggesting that. After all, he does.

I've followed Climate Audit since it first became a major cult-centre, and the sliminess of McIntyre has been evident from the first. A master of the sly innuendo, the transparent but technically deniable implication, the courage to strike but not to wound in an actionable sense. Meanwhile, his believers take a failure to sue him as proof of what he never actually said, as read by a lawyer.

His strategy has been quite sound - he even steered clear of Heatland. WattsUpMyButt has become discredited to all but the idiotic, and Monckton has shrivelled under the very glare of publicity he craves (except for truly fanatic crazies), but McIntyre sails on under many flags which he's never quite hoisted. He even saw the potential in Judith Curry and sleazed in to recruit her, in finest lounge-lizard style

Credit where it's due. McIntyre is a sleazebag, but he's a clever sleazebag. His cult will probably outlive him - and who can ask more than that from life?

 

[lomiller]

(1) The raw data on which Mann, Jones, et. al. base the assertion that current warming is unprecendented, is proprietary and agreements into which Jones, Mann, et. al. had to entert to gain access to these data prevented them from sharing that data.

No the claim is that the data is other peoples property and that you can't simply give away other peoples property.

The again, I guess you just wanted them to share other peoples property, how very socialist of you

(2) Important science journals are neutral and take sides based on facts. McIntyre demonstrates that this does not characterize Nature (at least in so far as one writer for that periodical goes).McIntyre is expert on correspondence between McIntyre and Jones and between McIntyre and

Correct, and as it turns out they have taken Mann's side and rejected McIntyre

.McIntyre is expert on correspondence between McIntyre and Jones and between McIntyre and

McIntyre is certainly an expert on his own opinion to be sure but you still are not going to go to him to get an opinion on whether his opinions are correct. Do you understand this or not?

 

[CapelDodger]

Please translate it then.

It doesn't need translating.

Promises are worthless. Evidence?

It's not obvious to me, and I'm a pretty good judge of such things.

I concur with all the of investigations that all identified the need for transparency. To be clear are you denying the need for transparency was not agreed upon by all of the bodies that investigated this "climategate"?

I was taught to avoid double-negatives. Of course, that was in Grammar School English classes.

All the requested data is now available, and the CRU, UEA's PR and legal departments, and the good old British Civil Service are now much more able to respond to a sudden, coordinated and completely unexpected FOI assault. There hasn't been another one - some ploys work only once.

Stealing emails only works once, but selected releases of those emails can go on forever. Watch it happen. The guys at CRU will continue to release more emails which put the selected releases into context. And the great conspiracy (which you've never even suggested) that some nefarious activity was ever being concealed by anybody was never an issue. Not to anybody but Monckton, at least (and he's mentally ill, poor soul).

I don't. I believe this is continually being confused with what is essentially "climate sensitivity" or "greenhouse effect".

"Belief" is your problem. I remember pointing this out long ago.

I'm not following that, nor do I intend on going back and trying to figure it out at this point. If it's constructive to the discussion and it's easy enough to summarize please do it in your response.

It was exploratory. What do you think the dead Amazon fish story was meant to illustrate?

If not that, what do you think the dead Mongolian cattle story was meant to illustrate?

If this is alluding to the pseudoscience infiltrating climate science, due primarily to environMENTALists, then it's quite possibly true.

That's simple fantasy. Climate science is replete with older scientists who have not suddenly become "infiltrated" by young environmentalists. When scientists such as Mann and Jones got involved in the subject it was still about explaining ice ages. Climate change as an environmental hazard was not even on the horizon. Environmentalists were into acid rain.

That's the generation which is running things. Are you really going to claim that in the 60's and 70's climate science (which wasn't even a recognised field before the CRU was established), glaciology and oceanography (which were recognised fields) were all infiltrated by environmentalists?

If you think there's pseudoscience in AGW, ignore it. Look at the respectable science, and the evidence of your own eyes. Tear yourself away from your comfort zone and ask yourself what's going on here. It's not hidden away in CRU emails, it's not a long-laid environmentalist conspiracy to blame warming they knew was coming for other reasons on CO₂ as a weapon against The Modern Industrialised World they hate, it's stuff happening just as predicted by people who were not easily persuaded.

 

[Reality Check]

What "peer reviewed papers" have confirmed the hockey stick graph?

You really need to stop being obsessed with an climate change denier's blog.
Try looking at sites that present the actual climate science like Skeptical Science: What evidence is there for the hockey stick?
We have the original paper: Mann 1999
Then the McIntyre 2004 paper that was debunked by the Wahl 2007 assessment of the data used by Mann.

These papers support the hockey stick:

• Huang 2000
• Smith 2006
• Oerlemans 2005
• Mann 2008

 

[lomiller]

You really need to stop being obsessed with an climate change denier's blog.
Try looking at sites that present the actual climate science like Skeptical Science: What evidence is there for the hockey stick?
We have the original paper: Mann 1999
Then the McIntyre 2004 paper that was debunked by the Wahl 2007 assessment of the data used by Mann.

These papers support the hockey stick:

• Huang 2000
• Smith 2006
• Oerlemans 2005
• Mann 2008

I particularly like this graphic which plots the results from numerous papers on the same scale. turns out they all make hockey sticks, who'da thunk it...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/fig3.jpg

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

This is a science and technology discussion board, I find the objective researches and investigations linked to previously, to most likely represent more accurate and less biased understandings of the issues involved.

Please explain where you disagree with the material below.

CO₂ is a trace component of the atmosphere. The theoretical relation between CO₂ and atmospheric temperature relies on assumptions about various feedback mechanisms. The predicted empirical relation between pre-historic CO₂ levels and prehistoric ambient surface air temperature is a hypothesis that needs empirical support. Ice cores provide reasonably accurate measurements of prehistoric atmosphere composition. Tree rings do not serve as reliable proxy thermometers, for several reasons.

This is simply wrong. The scientific understandings of CO2 and the greenhouse gas effect, are not merely speculated musings as you seem to be implying, they are well documented, carefully measured and routinely demonstrated facts. To state otherwise is to deny large sections of basic physics, chemistry and planetary science.

This is simply wrong. Some of these scientific understandings are well-established (e.g., absorption and emission spectra by gasses in the lab), while others are not well-established (e.g., strength of feedback processes in the atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans, and the contribution of variations in the solar flux to variations in Earth's mean surface temperature). To state otherwise is to deny large sections of basic physics, chemistry and planetary science.

These perfectly exemplify the denial of science and reality that prevent meaningful policy discussion.

Oh? So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them. Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.
To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? Consider this: if there are a dozen processes which we need to understand, and we only grasp each process within an error of 20 percent, the sum-total of the error adds to more than 200 percent! That is, if we now state that the content of carbon dioxide in the air so many million years ago had to be X, the true answer could be anywhere between 3 times X (200% more than stated) and X divided by 3 (200% less). Even if we make the reasonable assumption that half of the errors will cancel, we still get roughly a factor of two error on either side of the uncertainty statement. Thus, at the present state of knowledge, computing the answers will get us ballpark estimates and overall trends but not much more.

 

[Krikkiter]

I think the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature graph is important too.

 

[aleCcowaN]

This is a strawman and a lie. I made no reference to "the decline" or hiding it or "cold is killing them". I really have no idea what you're going on about.

I didn't mean you, you know. I meant the whole group. You only had been lately abusing of the word statistics in a lot of sentences without discussing nothing statistical, clearly trying to frame it as "a guess" that is many steps away from reality.

That's what lead us to the main point: masses are uneducated and they succumb easily to highly verbose chains of text that are presented in a way they look "scientific" but let them "in" -with their prejudices and wishes-.

Masses are obviously majorities, and majorities are needed in any political or PR process.

Masses also like a good fictional piece, music, entertainment and the typical "massite" prefers avoiding intellectual abstraction.

According to the denying camp, a huge amount of people has been conflated to concoct a "fictional state of climate": Very capable chaps in order to promote a "fiction" decided to use math and physics, and all the science the masses reject, in a numerical, formulaic, complicated fashion masses avoid, what has left to the "real and brave scientists" with their "hands full of truths" the hard work of ... communicating in a verbose way with majorities who love it simple and love it close to their prejudices and wishes.

So masses are massively visiting denying sites -the group of all "climategartersohlala.com" websites gathers 10 times more visitors than the group of "climateishard.com"- what would be a proof of its trustworthiness, the same way it is trustworthy a website with a porno version of Romeo and Juliet just because it gets 100 times the visits of another website academically analysing Shakespeare's works.

What had in fact lead us to the same social, behavioural and intellectual background that requires a creationism just to fight evolution.

 

[Trakar]

Please explain where you disagree with the material below.

two primary issues of disagreement.

1) the editing. - my quoted comment as indicated by the embedded link, contains three examples, and no response other than my single sentence statement characterizing those three examples. Your apparently quoted material, is missing all three of the examples I included and in their stead are three sections of comment that are not listed in the referenced post at all but are sections taken from entirely different posts and exchanges and grouped within my referenced post giving the appearance that they are what I was referring to. Click the quote links yourself, the quoted material is not in the referenced links. I've no objection to discussing the material, but given the nature of the exchange, noting the curious nature of the formatting which seems to be taking bits and pieces of seperate exchanges and then combining and linking them as though they were a single post to which you are commenting upon,...seems relevent and noteworthy.

2) most of the content of your quoted material. I've no problem ennumerating them if it helps to keep the issues straight for further discussion; the following quotes from your statements are ones that I have issue with, both in factual and implied comparison to the actual state of mainstream scientific understanding:

i) The theoretical relation between CO2 and atmospheric temperature relies on assumptions about various feedback mechanisms.

ii) The predicted empirical relation between pre-historic CO2 levels and prehistoric ambient surface air temperature is a hypothesis that needs empirical support.

iii)Tree rings do not serve as reliable proxy thermometers, for several reasons.

The rest are ambiguously stated in implication that the issues they address are in the same state of reliability as these earlier points. When these above three issues are brought into actual alignment with mainstream considerations then we can revisit the rest, if you desire.

Oh? So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them.

That seems a bit of a stretch. rather like saying that in order to produce a paper airplane, one requires advanced computers to calculate random gust patterns across the test grounds, wind tunnels, specially engineered paper and a precision robotic folding assembly. Now, I'm not saying that such assets wouldn't, at the least, marginally improve the characteristics of the final product. These asets, however are not necessary to construct a paper airplane that glides remarkably well. Likewise, the basic elements of the carbon cycle are relatively easy to generally qualify and quantify. Advanced computational models much like the same ones used to design aircraft, prospect for oil and build nuclear reactor cores, do help us to better understand the inter-relationships and complexities of interaction between the various elements of the carbon cycle and between climate variables in general. But they don't significantly alter or dramatically change the fundemental understandings and issues of climate understandings.

Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.
To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? Consider this: if there are a dozen processes which we need to understand, and we only grasp each process within an error of 20 percent, the sum-total of the error adds to more than 200 percent! That is, if we now state that the content of carbon dioxide in the air so many million years ago had to be X, the true answer could be anywhere between 3 times X (200% more than stated) and X divided by 3 (200% less). Even if we make the reasonable assumption that half of the errors will cancel, we still get roughly a factor of two error on either side of the uncertainty statement. Thus, at the present state of knowledge, computing the answers will get us ballpark estimates and overall trends but not much more.

If this is your understanding of computational modelling and how to properly use and assess them, it is little wonder that you have such bizarre perspective of there use, capabilities and findings.

 

[Trakar]

I think the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature graph is important too.

http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Thanks for the response.

Please explain where you disagree with the material below...Oh?

So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them. Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.
To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? Consider this: if there are a dozen processes which we need to understand, and we only grasp each process within an error of 20 percent, the sum-total of the error adds to more than 200 percent! That is, if we now state that the content of carbon dioxide in the air so many million years ago had to be X, the true answer could be anywhere between 3 times X (200% more than stated) and X divided by 3 (200% less). Even if we make the reasonable assumption that half of the errors will cancel, we still get roughly a factor of two error on either side of the uncertainty statement. Thus, at the present state of knowledge, computing the answers will get us ballpark estimates and overall trends but not much more.

...If this is your understanding of computational modelling and how to properly use and assess them, it is little wonder that you have such bizarre perspective of there use, capabilities and findings.

Actually, it's a not just my understanding; it's a quote from a UCSD online course on climate change and CO₂.
It is little wonder that you have such bizarre perspective.