Global warming

[CapelDodger]

Well, yes, I was just quoting from part of the paper that I thought was particularly disturbing. The idea that it's ok to remove uncertainty about things just because it's a political environment? Please... that's ridiculously unprofessional.

You're referring to the IPCC report, not a paper. The purpose of IPCC reports is to collate the current science and present it in a comprehensible manner to the governments of the world. If some scientific language is removed to make the report more comprehensible, it's not surprising.

The paper you're quoting from has "Bias" in the title, and not in a scientific sense. Given that, are you going to take every interpretation in it as gospel?

Furthermore, the quote is from the history section of the paper talking about what leads in to the Mann reconstruction existing... basically, the initial IPCC reports didn't have much to show in terms of verifying AGW because the temperatures were not very far off the MWP, so they needed some graph to show that the MWP and little ice age were just blips compared to the current warming trend. Oddly enough, the Mann hockey stick graph suddenly came about for the following report and the MWP and little ice age were downplayed, as if on cue almost.

"They needed". Who are "they"?

Many people still believe that the MWP and little ice age didn't really exist or were very minimal. Which camp do you fall under for that?

The MWP and LIA are there to be seen in the Mann et al reconstruction. Not what they were cracked-up to be in the Eurocentric view. Which was mainstream historical opinion before the reconstruction.

It means it's not independent in the sense that with the group running the IPCC appears to have a bias towards the AGW hypothesis rather than being objective observers that are reporting what is going on in the scientific community to the world at large.

Don't you think the scientific community at large would object if the group appointed by politicians and diplomats was biased? After all, the IPCC only collates scientific research, it doesn't perform it.

The science behind AGW is very sound, going way back before it was a political issue, and the observations of the last few decades are equally sound.

Also, that some of the researchers that head up the IPCC reports or various chapters have a stake in the research and tend to highlight their own research very specifically (for example, the large presence of the Mann hockey-stick graph when he was heading up the IPCC report).

Mann headed-up the IPCC report? Did he dictate it?

Except that, well, for the most part the IPCC are the people telling us that AGW is happening the way it is and that it'll cause the problems they say it'll cause.

What's telling us that AGW is happening is the real world. And it's happening in line with the predictions of scientists, as collated and reported on by the IPCC - very conservatively. The scientific world in general is is shouting - in its inherently restrained manner - about the problems it will probably cause.

If you discredit that and take it away, AGW really isn't that big of a deal. I'm not sure about you, but the vast majority of the information in support of AGW that I see out there is directly referenced from the IPCC report. Heck, look at the first dozen or so pages of this thread... have you counted just how many responses are along the lines of "read the IPCC report, it'll answer everything for you"?

If the IPCC is indeed hiding facts and editing their IPCC reports to push the bias of the paper towards a specific direction, we should NOT trust the IPCC anymore. Simple as that.

If you think that the IPCC is behind it all you're not seeing the big picture. AGW is not simply a matter of IPCC, Mann, Hansen, Al Gore. Knock them all down to your own satisfaction and the warming will continue. That's because the climate only responds to the accumulated CO2, not to human attitudes towards it.

 

[Pipirr]

Professor Martin Parry, Co-chair, IPCC Working Group II wrote this for the BBC today.


The IPCC:As good as it gets

The process of producing the IPCC assessments is a long, painstaking and sometimes painful process.

It is careful and controlled but, of course, it is not perfect.

The three 1,000-page volumes do not always make gripping reading. However, they represent by far the most comprehensive and authoritative statement that we have about climate change, its potential impacts and how we can respond to the challenge.

Read more at the link about the processes behind the IPCC reports.

 

[David Rodale]

Since I'm talking about history I'd have to point you to a number of books, probably too many to mention. I was taught in the 60's that a global LIA was a Eurocentric error; I don't recall the MWP coming up, but reading the history of the period there's no obvious sign of it. The scattered examples that are brought up to support the idea are not climate-related. Lots of other things were going on, as ever.

The LIA and MWP were first brought into the AGW debate to support the argument that "these things just happen, and they've happened before". The people that brought them up were not historians, they were people with vague memories of Frost Fairs and the Greenlanders getting frozen out - an old-fashioned view, but then many of them were old. World history is a lot more complicated than that.

If you look at the Mann et al reconstructions, and the other independent reconstructions, you'll see that the MWP and LIA are in there, just not with the prominence expected in the old-fashioned Eurocentric view. This immediately became not informative (as it is), but firm evidence of a scientific conspiracy. As it remains; Mann is one of the arch-demons of the anti-AGW case, along with Hansen and Al Gore. All the other scientists involved are simply minions.

If you look at the Mann et al reconstructions, and the other independent reconstructions, you'll see that the MWP and LIA are in there, just not with the prominence expected in the old-fashioned Eurocentric view. This immediately became not informative (as it is), but firm evidence of a scientific conspiracy. As it remains; Mann is one of the arch-demons of the anti-AGW case, along with Hansen and Al Gore. All the other scientists involved are simply minions.

Are there data that disagrees with the Mann et al hockey stick?

This one is particularly interesting:
http://www.ifir.edu.ar/~redes/ps/EPSL2005.pdf

It appears there are several:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/mwp/mwpp.jsp

Of course problems with Mann et al would shine brightly when tracking the threads at ClimateAudit, but are you interested in reading anything that contradicts the IPCC version (which BTW use the same flawed methodologies)?

 

[a_unique_person]

Beats me.

Would you be going with Gore, the Valiant Defender of the Hockey Stick of Warmers, supported by overlapping and multiple confirming lines of research and a clear consensus of the overwhelming majority of scientists throughout the world?


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_142244739ac8177fa7.png

If so, then I suppose we should discuss the hockey stick, which must then also be supported by overlapping and multiple confirming lines of research and a clear consensus of the overwhelming majority of scientists throughout the world.
.

The hockey stick is only a small part of the case. How much of AIT did it take up? The observations and records we have are more than enough to show an alarming rate of change.

 

[CapelDodger]

Are there data that disagrees with the Mann et al hockey stick?

This one is particularly interesting:
http://www.ifir.edu.ar/~redes/ps/EPSL2005.pdf

It appears there are several:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/mwp/mwpp.jsp

Of course problems with Mann et al would shine brightly when tracking the threads at ClimateAudit, but are you interested in reading anything that contradicts the IPCC version (which BTW use the same flawed methodologies)?

I took a quick flick through the CO2Science project, and it seems to be a bit heavy on caves.

The last gem I was presented with from CO2 Science concerned the Ural Mountain tree-line, and it assumed that trees spring into existence overnight when local temperature increase. Is there something less laughable you'd like to present?

(The other link got me nowhere.)

As I've pointed out before, the MWP and LIA are evident in the Mann et al reconstruction, they're just not as prominent as the anti-AGW camp demands. The MWP may well have been as warm as the world was twenty years ago, but it certainly wasn't as warm as it is now, let alone as warm as it'll be in another twenty years. Or even in three-to-eight years.

 

[David Rodale]

The hockey stick is only a small part of the case. How much of AIT did it take up? The observations and records we have are more than enough to show an alarming rate of change.

With a MWP, AGW is worthless. That's why the big push to rewrite history and simply pretend it didn't exist. The hockey stick did that.

What observations and records? An unreliable surface temperature network?

Let me guess. The IPCC addressed UHI and land use change right? No they didn't. Cite the methods and procedures used to calibrate and maintain the temperature station network. It's a crapshoot at best. Do you also ignore the evidence of a very substandard system? Not one study providing this evidence was in the IPCC AR4. Why?

How did IPCC account for UHI? What gives you confidence the current temperature record is within ~+/-.06 degC? To those used to lab quality standards, the surface station network is a bad joke.

 

[a_unique_person]

Are there data that disagrees with the Mann et al hockey stick?

This one is particularly interesting:
http://www.ifir.edu.ar/~redes/ps/EPSL2005.pdf

It appears there are several:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/mwp/mwpp.jsp

Of course problems with Mann et al would shine brightly when tracking the threads at ClimateAudit, but are you interested in reading anything that contradicts the IPCC version (which BTW use the same flawed methodologies)?

It's a very nice Java application, but what evidence is it based on?

 

[mhaze]

Is it my imagination or is there a reluctance among AGW here to actually defend the veritable icon of Warming, the Hockey Stick, presented in all its glory by the High Priest Gore himself?

If so that is completely rational and worthy of respect.

Otherwise we can start at one end of the chart as displayed and go through the constitute portions and their lacK of scientific accuracy (very politely put...)

Hint: you won't be happy.

 

[CapelDodger]

Ooopss...those darn skeptics have already read that stuff and have answers ready, many of which are in the comments to the Grist threads. Oooppss....

Your obsession with the provenance of arguments, rather than the arguments themselves, becomes increasingly evident. This argument is presented on Gristmill, ergo it's invalid, no thought required; this other argument is on ClimateAudit or CO2Science or whatever and is therefore valid, no thought required.

I guess we have to add some more arch-demons to the list : RealClimate and Gristmill.

 

[David Rodale]

I took a quick flick through the CO2Science project, and it seems to be a bit heavy on caves.

The last gem I was presented with from CO2 Science concerned the Ural Mountain tree-line, and it assumed that trees spring into existence overnight when local temperature increase. Is there something less laughable you'd like to present?

(The other link got me nowhere.)

As I've pointed out before, the MWP and LIA are evident in the Mann et al reconstruction, they're just not as prominent as the anti-AGW camp demands. The MWP may well have been as warm as the world was twenty years ago, but it certainly wasn't as warm as it is now, let alone as warm as it'll be in another twenty years. Or even in three-to-eight years.

CO2science didn't perform the studies. It really bothers you there is evidence in direct conflict with your finite AGW hockey stick world, doesn't it?

Is there something wrong with the article I cited? What is it? Be specific.

What crystal ball are you using? More climate model soothsayer prophecies that need constant "updates" and "new and improved" predictions that can't be validated?

Really CD, after reading so many posts with "the climate models got it right", none of you have ever that I can recall produce specific models with specific prediction dates, what was predicted, what was wrong and what was right. With over 20 models and minions of monkeys on the keyboard, it shouldn't be difficult to find at least one that gets something right.

Again, AGW proponents simply ignore the fallibility of climate models in spite of the evidence supporting what I've been saying all along about them. Here's another. Read it and try to get past the AGW scripts you folks rely on:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1891-2005.49.pdf

The biggest problem with models is the fact that they are made by
humans who tend to shape or use their models in ways that mirror their
own notion of what a desirable outcome would be. (John Firor [1998],
Senior Research Associate and former Director of NCAR, Boulder, CO,
USA)

Instead of being empirically represented, sub-grid and insufficiently
understood phenomena are ‘parameterized’.

For example, the intricate microphysical processes that make up
clouds are not well understood, nor is the overall climatic effect of clouds.

Remember what I said? Climate models are basically numerical expressions of the programmer's preconceived notions.

 

[CapelDodger]

[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_142244739ac8177fa7.png[/URL]

Is it my imagination or is there a reluctance among AGW here to actually defend the veritable icon of Warming, the Hockey Stick, presented in all its glory by the High Priest Gore himself?

Why should we bother? You've proclaimed him High Priest, and none of us are impressed. Including Al Gore.

If so that is completely rational and worthy of respect.

Your obsession with personalities is worthy of something very different.

Otherwise we can start at one end of the chart as displayed and go through the constitute portions and their lacK of scientific accuracy (very politely put...)

Hint: you won't be happy.

I'll be bored.

Take refuge in the past if you like; you've got nothing else, after all. There's no refuge for you in the last thirty years, nor will there be in the next. Nort even in the next three-to-eight. That Old Man CO2, he just keep warming along. At an unprecedented rate (in the recent geological past, which is all that concerns us).

 

[CapelDodger]

CO2science didn't perform the studies. It really bothers you there is evidence in direct conflict with your finite AGW hockey stick world, doesn't it?

There's an infinite world that I've missed?

Is there something wrong with the article I cited? What is it? Be specific.

The first link hung; the other was to a CO2Science link page.

What crystal ball are you using? More climate model soothsayer prophecies that need constant "updates" and "new and improved" predictions that can't be validated?

The Hansen et al 1988 model outputs have proved out without any adjustments. That indicates that the science - and programming - behind the model was sound. The real world has confirmed the model.

I'm no more using a crystal ball than I would be in predicting that the Sun will come up tomorrow or that winter will be cooler than summer.

Really CD, after reading so many posts with "the climate models got it right", none of you have ever that I can recall produce specific models with specific prediction dates, what was predicted, what was wrong and what was right. With over 20 models and minions of monkeys on the keyboard, it shouldn't be difficult to find at least one that gets something right.

The Hansen et al 1988 model is a specific model that I - amongst others - have specifically referred to. What I haven't heard specified - despite asking - is the other models that didn't get it right. I've heard that they existed, and that the Hansen model is cherry-picked from them as the lucky one, but further detail is hard to elicit.

As I recall, the Hansen et al 1988 model predictions have been particularly notorious since 1988. Were there 19 other models waiting in the wings that, by chance, weren't called upon?

Again, AGW proponents simply ignore the fallibility of climate models in spite of the evidence supporting what I've been saying all along about them. Here's another. Read it and try to get past the AGW scripts you folks rely on:


Remember what I said? Climate models are basically numerical expressions of the programmer's preconceived notions.

Contrarians (such as youself) are obsessed with models, not people that understand AGW, not even people that observe the world around them. you're stuck in the past, arguing about predictions after the event.

 

[mhaze]

If you look at the Mann et al reconstructions

and the other independent reconstructions, you'll see that the MWP and LIA are in there, just not with the prominence expected in the old-fashioned Eurocentric view.

This is the Mann hockey stick (Gore thinks it is Thompson, he is just confused).

Where is the MWP?

Here are Gore's words to help.

The correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations over the last 1000 years - as measured by Thompson’s team - is striking. Nonetheless the so-called global warming skeptics often say that global warming is really an illusion reflecting nature’s cyclical fluctuations. To support their view, they frequently refer to the Medieval Warm Period.

But as Dr Thompson’s thermometer shows, the vaunted Medieval Warm Period (the third little red blip from the left below) was tiny in comparison to the enormous increases in temperature in the last half-century - the red peaks at the far right of the graph. These global-warming skeptics - a group diminishing almost as rapidly as the mountain glaciers - launched a fierce attack against another measurement of the 1000 year correlation between CO2 and temperature known as the “hockey stick”, a graphic image representing the research of climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues. But in fact scientists have confirmed the same basic conclusions in multiple ways with Thompson’s ice core record as one of the most definitive. (AIT, The Book)
​

 

[David Rodale]

There's an infinite world that I've missed?



The first link hung; the other was to a CO2Science link page.


The Hansen et al 1988 model outputs have proved out without any adjustments. That indicates that the science - and programming - behind the model was sound. The real world has confirmed the model.

I'm no more using a crystal ball than I would be in predicting that the Sun will come up tomorrow or that winter will be cooler than summer.



The Hansen et al 1988 model is a specific model that I - amongst others - have specifically referred to. What I haven't heard specified - despite asking - is the other models that didn't get it right. I've heard that they existed, and that the Hansen model is cherry-picked from them as the lucky one, but further detail is hard to elicit.

As I recall, the Hansen et al 1988 model predictions have been particularly notorious since 1988. Were there 19 other models waiting in the wings that, by chance, weren't called on?



Contrarians (such as youself) are obsessed with models, not people that understand AGW, not even people that observe the world around them. you're stuck in the past, arguing about predictions after the event.

No CD, it is your side obsessed with climate models. You just proved it with resurrecting Hansen once again. GCM's are the Holy Writ of AGW.

Once again, ending in 2006 with the correct zero starting point:


But as your side always say, 10 years isn't long enough right? Unless of course it's Hansen's unimpressive carnival guess.

Where are the cloud feedbacks? Precipitation calculations? Solar? It was nothing but a best guess based on an already established decadal temperature trend, but you treat his scenarios like error bars, which of course he doesn't include. There's nothing impressive about it.

By the end of next year it will have been 20 years and your unwaivering loyalty to Hansen will look even more silly.

Here's a public link to MediaFire for the Alps study:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0tzt03uq4yn

Yes, CD, CO2Science archives studies. Believe it or not, they are scientists. Let's try again. Click on one of the links available in the list here:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/mwp/mwpp.jsp
I realize you don't want to see them, but they won't go away if you close your eyes.

Climate models, any model for that matter, must include all relevant factors for them to be considered skillful. Hindcasting is not "validation"; the models are parameterized, or tuned, to get the results they want. Here again, on clouds, just one missing from climate models:
http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS_spring2006/Stephens2005.pdf

If you want to believe in 5-8 years temperatures will rise excessively, fine. However, there is nothing truthful in that statement; it hasn't happened yet and your saying that has no basis in science. Climate models are not evidence.

Let's recap Met O's predictions:
2003- "new" climate model more accurate; temperatures to continue to rise:
Didn't happen.

January 2007- 2007 will be warmest year on record, eclipsing 1998.
Didn't happen.

August 2007- "new and improved" climate model; global warming will return with a vengeance by ~2012, starting in 2009.
That's what you're hanging your hat on, and Met O is counting on SC24. Good luck, because that's all you've got left. It must mean global warming has stopped. How can that be?

If Hansen's model was right, why all the fuss constantly improving on current models? It would have saved a lot of money and Met O could have saved themselves the embarrassment. What did Hansen's model predict for 2007?

 

[mhaze]

It appears there are several:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO...a/mwp/mwpp.jsp

Of course problems with Mann et al would shine brightly when tracking the threads at ClimateAudit, but are you interested in reading anything that contradicts the IPCC version (which BTW use the same flawed methodologies)?
​

It's a very nice Java application, but what evidence is it based on?

The map links world wide to peer reviewed studies which show the MWP, thus contradicting the claim of Mann that the MWP was only European in nature.

That means we don't have an "unusual and historically unprecedented warming". And that means AGW went byby...

Next.

 

[mhaze]

The map links world wide to peer reviewed studies which show the MWP, thus contradicting the claim of Mann that the MWP was only European in nature.

That means we don't have an "unusual and historically unprecedented warming". And that means AGW went byby...

Next.

Link fixed. Must have java to run. So there was a MWP and the Hockey Stick is junk science to put the matter very politely.

What's left for AGW?

• Models
• sea level rise
• sea ice
• Polar Bears?

 

[Pipirr]

With a MWP, AGW is worthless.

Why?

 

[Locri]

Thanks for replying... I was wondering how many times it would take of posting it before someone responded.

Already we have a problem. What "natural climate variations?" The Earth's climate has, in the past, been considerably warmer than it is now; it's also been considerably colder, and both of those have happened in the very recent past, geologically speaking. In the deep past, it's been a great deal warmer, and a great deal cooler. Given that there were no people around at any of these times, it's fair to call all of that "natural."

Do you not believe that there are natural climate variations? Did they suddenly stop happening after humans started industrializing?

First, this ignores the hiatus around and after WWII, caused apparently by the injection of sulfates and other aerosols into the atmosphere in large quantities. These aerosols artificially suppressed the temperature for a period perhaps as long as thirty years, up until the 1970s when pollution laws began to be put into place to deal with them. As a result, the first twenty years of the second half of the 20th century represent a statistical anomaly that is being ignored by this statement.

He talks about that later, in check the section labeled (go figure) "Sulfates, Aerosols, and Dimming" You do realize that the intro was just a summary, right?

Second, CO2 is the largest individual contributor, but may not be as much as half of the problem. Other gases also have warming effects, and many artificial gases have been released that have strong warming effects, primarily chlorofluorocarbons. Methane is also a strong warming gas, and as the global population increases, and as the standard of living increases and more protein is consumed, more methane is produced for a variety of reasons. It is all of these together that are creating the problem, not CO2 alone.

Again, CO2 is not alone. It is merely the majority culprit. There are other things that will have their own effects, and they also will most likely need to be dealt with; CO2 is merely the highest nail, and therefore gets the hammer first.

You answered your own question, CO2 is the highest nail and the one that gets pointed at so much by the AGW side that it is the nail he focuses on.

But, regardless of that if you go through and read the whole paper he talks about the different gases and isn't stuck on just CO2... it's just the one that he focuses on the most.

Hmmm, a nit-pick; that's "climatic" disaster. "Climactic" refers to a climax, not a climate. Other than that, I don't see a problem, but I'd like a lot more specific statement of what precise feedbacks are involved here. There are feedbacks ranging from environmental, to climatic, to physical, that we know about- and doubtless yet more we do not. I think it is a vast oversimplification to limit the discussion essentially to a single specific feedback.

1. Yes, that is just a nit-pick... "Climatic" can also refer to a tipping point or peak, so he's probably just being clever and witty with a nice double-entendre.

2. I'm glad you picked up on the feedbacks thing. That's kind of one of the major points in his article (and I don't see where you get him limiting it to just a single specific feedback). We have a very poor understanding of feedbacks right now, yet the AGW side wants to say that there are far more positive feedbacks when it comes to CO2 then negative feedbacks which would make for a fundamentally unstable system. Yes, we don't know feedbacks very well, so why does the AGW side rely on them so much?

It is entirely possible that we are already seeing an effect on the salmon catch from this, and that's quite a lot of protein that might not be available to eat soon if that's correct. The effects extend a lot further than polar bears and glaciers, right into your local supermarket, if that's the case. I'd like to see a much more realistic evaluation of what we may be talking about, in terms of food people eat every day, rather than far away polar bears and glaciers. This strikes me as propaganda.

You have a bizarre idea of propaganda. Yes, the areas where it would be best for people to farm might change with the climate change *gasp* But assuming that things will always stay the same if we aren't pumping CO2 and other chemicals into the air is naive. Fish populations change, animal populations change, the world's climate will change, but it doesn't always have to be our fault. It seems like the AGW and environmentalists in general feel that way though.

 

[Locri]

The LIA and MWP were first brought into the AGW debate to support the argument that "these things just happen, and they've happened before". The people that brought them up were not historians, they were people with vague memories of Frost Fairs and the Greenlanders getting frozen out - an old-fashioned view, but then many of them were old. World history is a lot more complicated than that.

So, why was it that the MWP and LIA were in the first IPCC report (and accepted)?

“We conclude that despite great limitations in the quantity and quality of the
available historical temperature data, the evidence points consistently to a real but irregular warming over the last century. A global warming of larger size has almost certainly occurred at least once since the end of the last glaciation without any appreciable increase in greenhouse gases. Because we do not understand the reasons for these past warming events, it is not yet possible to attribute a specific proportion of the recent, smaller warming to an increase of greenhouse gases.” 1990 IPPC Report, page 362

If you look at the Mann et al reconstructions, and the other independent reconstructions, you'll see that the MWP and LIA are in there, just not with the prominence expected in the old-fashioned Eurocentric view. This immediately became not informative (as it is), but firm evidence of a scientific conspiracy. As it remains; Mann is one of the arch-demons of the anti-AGW case, along with Hansen and Al Gore. All the other scientists involved are simply minions.

Please show me a reconstruction that isn't discussed in the paper I referred to that verifies that... I personally feel I've read enough evidence on the Mann et al reconstructions that I don't take them seriously and all of the other evidence that supports the Mann reconstructions are either still unpublished (yet sited in the IPCC report... how's that?) or are closely linked to the Mann et al team. This is discussed in depth in the paper I referred to.

 

[Locri]

You're referring to the IPCC report, not a paper. The purpose of IPCC reports is to collate the current science and present it in a comprehensible manner to the governments of the world. If some scientific language is removed to make the report more comprehensible, it's not surprising.

Sure, the scientific language might be reduced down, but the language that imbues the text with a scientist's sense of uncertainty? Really?

The paper you're quoting from has "Bias" in the title, and not in a scientific sense. Given that, are you going to take every interpretation in it as gospel?

No, but it lines up with a lot of the science I've read related to the Mann et al reconstructions (and "independant" verifications) as well as having quotes from the IPCC itself that are enough to make me concerned about what's going on there.

The MWP and LIA are there to be seen in the Mann et al reconstruction. Not what they were cracked-up to be in the Eurocentric view. Which was mainstream historical opinion before the reconstruction.

See my response to your other post about this.

Don't you think the scientific community at large would object if the group appointed by politicians and diplomats was biased? After all, the IPCC only collates scientific research, it doesn't perform it.

Scientists are objecting, that's the thing. But scientific groupthink and political inanities are muffling them because they don't agree with this mystical "consensus" we keep hearing about. I've already pointed out several peer-reviewed papers that cast down on global warming. Heck, some scientists have gotten fired just for having Non-AGW viewpoints... (as I've said before)

Mann headed-up the IPCC report? Did he dictate it?

No, but he made the focus of the second IPCC report his research on paleoclimatology. Regardless, it seems a bit odd that the person heading up the IPCC report is also someone with major research invested into it, from a political view. If you want a balanced evaluation, you don't choose someone who would be likely focus on their own efforts over other people's.

If you think that the IPCC is behind it all you're not seeing the big picture. AGW is not simply a matter of IPCC, Mann, Hansen, Al Gore. Knock them all down to your own satisfaction and the warming will continue. That's because the climate only responds to the accumulated CO2, not to human attitudes towards it.

I could be nasty and nit-pick that the climate obviously does not respond to only accumulated CO2, but that would be silly wouldn't it?

What I want to know is, after several of the links I've posted, do you still trust the IPCC? It's ok if you trust the science behind it... I'm ok with that. But do you trust the IPCC itself? You've already marked them as a political entity (which I believe has changed since the beginning of this thread) and political entities are often likely to have agendas, yes?