TimG

In order for the climate models to be correct the temperature needs to at least 0.2 degG higher that it actually it is today. That is why Trembeth is complaining about the "missing heat".

August, So are you claiming that Canada should just get out of the jet fighter game altogether? If not, how much are you willing to spend to replace the existing planes? And please point us to something that shows us what can be bought for your price.

An interesting factoid but nothing to do with my comment. See:http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/04/in-released-cru-emails-ncar-climate.html

Actually, there is a bit of mystery because climate scientists cannot find all of that energy which was supposedly trapped by CO2. They can't find it in the atmosphere or the oceans and now they are speculating that it somehow made it into the deep ocean without anyone noticing. The missing energy can only be going to space. The most likely explaination is cloud cover changes increased the amount of the sun's energy being reflected back to space.

You were perfectly clear when your comments are taken in isolation. However, you jumped into an ongoing conversation where additional context matters.

Let's back up a bit. AGW is not a fact - it is a theory. The temperature rise over the last 100 years is a fact. When Micheal said be 'believes in AGW' he is declaring a belief in a theory - a belief that is based on his assessment of the available evidence. The trouble is other people look at the same evidence and come to a different opinion on the worth of the AGW theory. It that assessment which is subjective - not the facts available which are used to make the assessment.

If you listen to the entire interview the facts seem to be:1) There is a real plan for an 'International Environment Criminal Court'. 2) During a committee meeting on the topic Griffen asked if the court would be expected to prosecute 'AGW deniers'. 3) The presenter refused to answer (any response other than absolutely not is unacceptable in my POV). 4) After the meeting Griffen asked the presenter for his opinion. 5) The presenter said that the court definately should prosecute deniers. So it seems the idea is not on any official agenda but there are definately people in the EU parliment with facist tendencies.

Because you agreed with Michael's assertion that scientific evidence for AGW is be evaulated indepedently of the possible policy implications.

Yep. Its existence does not mean it is significant or relevant to the anaylses done by the IPCC. The only thing that makes it interesting is it shows that people have tried and largely failed to find a way to make baysian analysis less subject to the biases of the person doing the analyses.

In science there are facts and theory. Facts are measurable. If I drop a ball I can measure its speed when it hits the ground. The speed is a fact. Gravity is the theory that explains why the ball falls. There is no debate about facts if we have reasonable confidence in the measurement techniques.Theories seek to explain the facts and make future predictions. Theories are debated if they don't explain all facts. The willingness to accept a theory as valid depends on how much weight one puts on facts that support the theory vs. facts that do not support it. The relative weighting is a subjective judgement call - it is not something that can be determined objectively.

Most scientists do not read the literature outside of their narrow speciality and this means most scientists know less about the science of climate change than a skeptical blogger who does read the relevant literature.

They cannot be seperated. A person's assessment of the scientific evidence is invariably influenced by their feelings on the consequences of the policies. This is true for layman and for scientists. Objectivity is a myth when dealing with inconclusive and contradictory evidence.

The only one who is confused is you. On the topic of Baysian estimination of confidence intervals it is tough to find a simple explaination that would not leave most people lost. Here is one that does ok: http://www.statisticalengineering.com/frequentists_and_bayesians.htm When I say the IPCC probability estimates are meaningless I am taking the frequentist position. I recognize that Bayesian analysis is useful in some problems but its results are *always* subjective and depend on the biases of the person doing the calculation.The efforts to create objective techniques for detemining priors only work for some problems and (ironically) being forced to choose one of many competing objective techniques turns the analysis into a subjective one no matter what word games are used.

If you add 1cm water to a 2m pool you increase the water level but you will have no effect on the height of the waves on the surface. Same thing with climate. Increasing the average energy content of the atomosphere increases the temperature but it does not change distribution of weather.

I think a lot of people forget that human willingness to accept conclusions based on inconclusive evidence depends very much on the cost of accepting those conclusions. For example, the cost of banning DDT was zero for most people in the US so it was easy to convince them to support a ban based on a few studies of eagle eggs. The cost of the ban was much higher in malaria prone countries which meant they were much more sceptical of the science being used to justify the ban.What this means is one does not believe/not believe in AGW. One must find the evidence convincing enough to justify paying the perceived cost. I use the term 'perceived cost' because most supporters of action on AGW do so because they naively believe the cost to them will be small. People who are sceptical of the need for action perceive the cost to be high. If it was possible to show conclusively that renewable energy is a sham and reducing CO2 is impossible without a USSR style economic collapse then you would see support for action on AGW drop to a fraction of a percent. The reliability of the science has nothing to do with it. IOW, if you want to identify your opinions on AGW you need to identify your opinions on the cost of reducing CO2 because that is the opinion that really divides people into sides on this debate.

The problem is these kinds of decisions are complex juggling acts which involve a lot of intangibles that cannot have a figure attached to them. This makes it impossible to reduce it to a question of price. In fact, our military would be in deep trouble if all procurements were government by the size of the bottom line figure that gets reported to the press.

Stronger extremes is a claim that the variance of the distribution of weather increases. Hotter temperatures is a statement that the mean of the distribution of weather increases. Two different concepts that are completely unreleated with each other. If you don't understand that then go take a remedial course on statistics. I am not dismissing them I say they prove my point: there is no evidence that climate change is causing an increase in the variance of weather (i.e. stronger extremes). There is only evidence of an increase in the mean. Eyeball's original statement was a claim that 'more energy in the atmosphere' would increase the variance of the weather distribution.

The problem is you can't seem to understand the difference between claim 'stronger extremes' and the claim 'hotter temperatures'. They are two completely different concepts which you conflate (I don't know if it is ignorance or deliberate obfuscation).1) The claim of 'stronger extremes' is a relative measure. i.e. a week of 35C in Phoenix is not a heat wave there but it would be a heat wave in Toronto. What this also means the the threshold for determining whether a heat wave occurred increases as the temperature increases. i.e. if average Toronto temperatures increase by a degree the the threshold for determining whether a heat wave occurred must also rise. The studies referenced by the IPCC all assume a constant baseline and that introduces a bias that ensures the number of 'heat waves' will increase as temperature rises even if there is no change in the underlying statistics of the weather. The IPCC studies are also biased because they start in the 50s which excludes the much hotter 30-40s. This has the effect of exaggerating any trend over that period. 2) If one wants to evaluate the claim of 'stronger extremes' one must look at BOTH hot and cold spells. However, the IPCC referenced studies claim the cold spells are decreasing in duration (although this number is also biased by the rising baseline). The lack of any evidence for increasing 'cold spells' conclusively demonstrates that the claim of 'stronger extremes' has no supporting evidence. Now you can obsess about your 'heat wave' quotes from the IPCC as much as you want but it does not support the claim of 'stronger extremes' because the necessary matching 'cold snaps' are missing. IOW, all the IPCC shows by talking about more heat waves is the world is getting hotter - a point I do not dispute. Now, I have tried explaining this a few times but all you do jump around beating up on strawman. This makes it very tedious to engage in a discussion with you.

So what? Planet gets warmer - the number of days which are classed as 'hot extremes' when compared to today's climate will increase. This is hardly an earth shattering revelation. Even then the studies they used cherry picked their data for maximum trends by starting 50 years ago and excluding the much hotter 30s and 40s. But one again you miss the key point: there is NO evidence that the number of cold extreme events will increase. In fact, the IPCC says cold extremes have decreased. I don't see any point is continuing to discuss this point unless you are willing to acknowledge that eyeball's original speculation about increasing number colder cold spells was complete nonsense with no scientific support.

We need the new jets because we need the ability to intercept unauthorized aircraft in Canadian airspace. It really does not make a difference if these aircraft will never be used in combat - the key point is the capability must exist. Just like the fact that most police handguns are never used is not an argument to get rid of them.So the question becomes one of how much would it cost if we did it on the 'cheap'? $8 billion instead of 16? I can't imagine it would be cheaper. So for the extra $8 billion we get aircraft which are state of the art stealth aircraft. We also get to earn some brownie points with the Americans - something we have to do from time to time given they are pulling most of freight for NA defense. It seems to me that purchase is reasonable but I don't expect people who get all worked up over the summit security cost to understand. BTW - what was your response when Harper made those arts funding cuts that so annoyed Quebecers? Did you defend him or lambast him for not understanding the importance of the cultural scene in Quebec.

If 8 out 10 members of group A believe Y then it follows that a random occurrence to members of group A will mostly affect people that believe Y. He keeps his advertisers even in the face of an organized boycott. That is all that matters.

The network has more to worry about than just Donahue's show. He would not have been fired if there were not business interests at stake. Given the context of the time the major advertisers may have refused to support the show which would be a death blow even if it was popular. Advertisers would only boycott a show if their business interests were threatened by it and that would only happen if a significant number of people opposed his views. I am saying many of the people who choose careers in the media have a leftish bent (i.e. through self selection - media is not one that attracts people with a right wing bent). That is very different saying the institution is leftish because many of the people running the media only care about the money which has no left or right.

All of these people were fired from for profit businesses - something that would not have happened if their employers business interests were not threatened.I suspect more likely explanation is the majority MSM journalists and opinion makers hold world views which are not shared by the audience that these businesses need to attract. When these opinions are tolerated as long as they are not so blatant that they damaged the company's business interests. When they cross the line they get fired. Beck, Limbaugh, et. al. have not damaged the business interests of their employers so they stay. If they did they would be gone too. If a left wing 'shock jock' got paid for a Beck style show I suspect he would have the same immunity to controversy.

Fine. It was an exaggeration. Obviously 'all' bad thing are not blamed on climate change by everyone. But many absurd attributions are made on a regular basis. It was a framework for explaining the world around people. Even science has evolved as a explanatory framework. It used to be that a theory that cannot be falsified is not science but some now some reject that and claim the 'consensus of experts' is sufficient.