We're In Serious Trouble on Climate

[eyeball]

That is another assertion that does not support your original claim about the systems not being sustainable.

Please refrain from misquoting or deflecting, or misreading, or misinterpreting my original claim which, for the record one more time is; Our economy cannot, however much we believe otherwise, exist independantly for even a few short years of Earth's ecosystems..

An ecosystem can exist without a human economy but a human economy cannot exist without an ecosystem.

Are you implying that you can sustain yourself without air?

Edited March 16, 2009 by eyeball

[Riverwind]

Please refrain from misquoting or deflecting, or misreading, or misinterpreting my original claim which, for the record one more time is; An ecosystem can exist without a human economy but a human economy cannot exist without an ecosystem.

You are making the assertion that the ecosystem that existed in the past is the only ecosystem that can sustain a human economy. I think this assertion is categorically false. The human economy is changing the ecosystem but the economy can also adapt to these changes. For that reason your claim that that the human economy is unsustainable is missing a logical foundation. Where is the evidence that the human economy cannot adapt to the changes that are happening in the ecosystem?

[eyeball]

Where is the evidence that the human economy cannot adapt to the changes that are happening in the ecosystem?

I'm sure if you go back and read all the posts you've ever written on the subject you'll find all sorts of it.

You are making the assertion that the ecosystem that existed in the past is the only ecosystem that can sustain a human economy.

No I'm not, I'm asserting that an ecosystem can exist without a human economy but a human economy cannot exist without an ecosystem.

You truely do believe you can live without air don't you?

[Riverwind]

No I'm not, I'm asserting that an ecosystem can exist without a human economy but a human economy cannot exist without an ecosystem.

You keep repeating that assertion but you refuse to acknowledge that faulty thinking that underlines it: i.e. you are assuming that changes to the ecosystem mean the ecosystem is "disappearing". The ecosystem always be there - even if humans nuked the planet. The only question is whether humans can adapt to the changes.

To make sense you statement would have to be reworded: humans are part of the ecosystem and the human economy cannot exist unless it can adapt as the ecosystem changes.

You truely do believe you can live without air don't you?

You truely believe that irrelevant strawmen mean something? Edited March 16, 2009 by Riverwind

[WIP]

Do you have kids?

Yes.

If so have you encouraging them to not have kids? Have you considered eliminating your own environmental footprint through suicide? If not then you are all talk and no action.

I would say three children at most....and in Canada or the U.S., many people are having only one or two children because economic factors in the West are a high disincentive for large families. Mandatory population reduction strategies like China has used, would not be necessary if it wasn't for the "be fruitful and mulitiply" directives coming from religion that encourage people to have too many children. Many religions won't allow any forms of birth control, some teach that sex should only be for procreation, and many countries make abortion illegal, often in those very same countries that limit access to birth control; so take away archaic, antiquated traditions that encourage excessive population growth, and the world's population would be reducing on its own.

The cruel reality is that it is not practical to decrease the earth's population without resorting to measures that most would consider repugnant. The only option we have is to promote growth and development in the poor countries that are creating the population problem. Of course, this will only increase the impact that humans have on the environment.

So, do you have some plan for increasing the size of the planet, to accomodate the inevitability of neverending population growth? Find some way to make the Earth grow bigger, along with growing new supplies of natural resources that our civilized world depends on, and then we can have endless population growth without suffering any consequences......if not, the population is going to be reduced either by the easy way of gradual reduction, or the hard way of apocalyptic famine and plagues.

[WIP]

So what? The environment is always changed by the organisms living in it. The idea that environmental change is bad and the planet before humans was in a state of perfection is absurd. That kind of thinking is nothing more than the Christian "orginal sin" myth with "Gaia" recast as the garden of eden/diety.

No, those people are in your camp, not ours! Bible believers expect Jesus to come down and either destroy the Earth and take them to a new heaven and a new earth in the coming rapture, or he'll come down and fix everything after destroying all of the wicked non-Christians (including Christians from the wrong sects). The Gaia believers believe that Mother Earth is alive and more powerful than us, so we can't destroy the Earth.

I'm more of a believer in what paleontologist Peter Ward has dubbed "the Medea Hypothesis" named after the Greek goddess who keeps eating her young, since the history of life on Earth shows that the planet is a hostile environment, and every so often, natural earth processes cause mass extinctions. Aside from earth processes, many extinctions occur when one species invades an isolated island where it has no natural predators, becomes too successful, increases its numbers to too large a size that it causes extinctions of other life forms and ends up dying out from destruction of its own habitat. Normally, this cycle only occurs in nature on small, isolated islands; but we have been so successful at molding the planet to suit our needs that we can consider the planet earth to be our island, and we may have become too successful for our own good.

[Riverwind]

I would say three children at most....and in Canada or the U.S., many people are having only one or two children because economic factors in the West are a high disincentive for large families.

The economic disincentive is not the cost of raising kids: it is opportunity cost of forgoing income to raise kids.

so take away archaic, antiquated traditions that encourage excessive population growth, and the world's population would be reducing on its own.

People living in countries with no social safety net and few economic prospects have children because that is the only viable retirement plan. People living in countries with low life expectancy need to have more kids because that is the only way to ensure that one or two will survive till help the parents in old age.

IOW, it is not archaic religious beliefs that create over population: it is basic economics. Provide education and opportunities to the world's poor and you will see the birth rate decline. It has happened in every society that followed this path even though every society has "antiquated traditions" designed to encourage large families.

So, do you have some plan for increasing the size of the planet, to accomodate the inevitability of neverending population growth?

Where did I say neverending? The current projections are for a population that will top out at 9 billion or so provided the poor countries are able to develop. Any plan to limit CO2 by increasing the cost of energy would prevent the poor countries from developing and would likely excaberate the population problem.

If you think over population is a problem then you should absolutely oppose any attempt to limit economic growth by making energy more expensive than it needs to be.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Riverwind

[jbg]

I'm almost afraid to ask but do you agree that transferring the bulk of North America's manufacturing capacity elsewhere was a good idea?

It may well be that over-educated people will not do manual labor at a wage which manufacturers can afford to pay. I suspect strongly that environmental laws have accelerated the trend which you decry. However, transferring the work to slave labor countries does nothing for the environment.

The problem is however that most of humanity ultimately depends on their progeny to look after them. What we should be doing is taxing the carbon footprint of wealthy people and paying poor people to stop having children.

Ah. So you're conceding the "wealth transfer" aspect of Kyoto. Until China, India and other such countries join Annex I of Kyoto the treaty will do nothing to cut global warming (if indeed human activity has any real impact, which I do not conceded).

[Oleg Bach]

We transfered out manufacturing to palaces so poor that the last thing on their minds was environment. No one looked long term and did not care because contuninued habitual profit taking was the guiding force. You could green all of Europe - South America and North America and it would not slow down a thing as far as climate destruction - India and China on their present filthy course are more than capable of destroying the planet all on their own...and how can you tell a few billion people to continue to be poor and clean when filthy rich is addicting and immediate satisfaction is strong.

[jbg]

More on recent cooling (excerpts of linked article):

Global warming's no longer happening So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?

By Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal

March 16, 2009 8:01 PM

(link)

So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I'm not talking about daily records; I mean they've recorded the lowest temperatures they've ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.

This past Tuesday, Edmonton International Airport reported an overnight low of -41.5 C, smashing the previous March low of -29.4 C set in 1975. Records just don't fall by that much, but the airport's did. Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International's was exceeded by 12 degrees.

To give you an example of how huge is the difference between the old record and the new, if Edmonton were to exceed its highest-ever summer temperature by the same amount, the high here some July day would have to reach 50 C. That's a Saudi Arabia-like temperature.

Also on the same day, Lloydminster hit -35.2 C, breaking its old March record of -29.2 C. Fort McMurray -- where they know cold -- broke a record set in 1950 with a reading of -39.9C. And Cold Lake, Slave Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, High Level, Jasper and Banff, and a handful of other communities obliterated old cold values, most from the 1950s or 1970s, two of the coldest decades on record in the province.

*************

Edited March 17, 2009 by jbg

[WIP]

The economic disincentive is not the cost of raising kids: it is opportunity cost of forgoing income to raise kids.

It's not just about the money!

People living in countries with no social safety net and few economic prospects have children because that is the only viable retirement plan. People living in countries with low life expectancy need to have more kids because that is the only way to ensure that one or two will survive till help the parents in old age.

IOW, it is not archaic religious beliefs that create over population: it is basic economics. Provide education and opportunities to the world's poor and you will see the birth rate decline. It has happened in every society that followed this path even though every society has "antiquated traditions" designed to encourage large families.

How much thought did you put into this argument about people in Third World countries having lots of children for retirement security when you unraveled it yourself by noting low life expectancy. Think about it - there is no such thing as retirement in these places where average life expectancy is less than 50 years. Unless they are gravely ill, they keep working until they drop dead, regardless of how many children they have! Their children are busy trying to earn enough to feed their own children.

The single biggest factor in reducing the incentive for high birth rates is declining rates of infant mortality. When mothers are confident that most of their children will survive, they will have fewer children if they have access to birth control and birth control information.......and that's where religion steps in! In India, the MiddleEast, and Sub-Sahara Africa, birth rates were declining until the clerical establishments started working to remove U.N. and other agencies that were first set up in the 1960's to offer birth control information for women. As a result, the U.N. has had to revise their population estimates upward again, after three decades of decline in the rate of population growth.

Where did I say neverending? The current projections are for a population that will top out at 9 billion or so provided the poor countries are able to develop. Any plan to limit CO2 by increasing the cost of energy would prevent the poor countries from developing and would likely excaberate the population problem.

If you think over population is a problem then you should absolutely oppose any attempt to limit economic growth by making energy more expensive than it needs to be.

The population is not going to top out at any level unless a predicted implosion in global food production actually occurs. The Earth cannot sustain a population of 9 billion, especially 9 billion people trying to exploit more energy and natural resources to enjoy a Western standard of living. You probably won't accept this because of the source, but a research study made for the World Wildlife Fund last year estimated that it would take four more earths to supply the natural resources for the present population of 6.7 billion, if everyone was consuming on the level of the U.S. standard of living.....toss in two more earths for that 9 billion population if they were able to enjoy an American standard of living! Natural resources are not in-exhaustible, and the reliance on fossil fuels for energy is making large-scale changes in the global climate system.

The natural environment is not separate from economic processes, and wastes and pollutants from these processes are already at levels that threaten the environment. There are limits to global economic growth because of the limits to what the planet's biosphere can sustain, and the assumption that market systems can just keep on expanding and consume more scarce and nonrenewable natural resources is absurd.

[eyeball]

It may well be that over-educated people will not do manual labor at a wage which manufacturers can afford to pay. I suspect strongly that environmental laws have accelerated the trend which you decry. However, transferring the work to slave labor countries does nothing for the environment.

I think you're right on the money, and the solution to this is to levy tarrifs on imports from countries with lax standards on the environment, human rights and labour etc. Human rights standards are what we should really be focusing on the most because without these, there will no voices to speak for the rest.

Ah. So you're conceding the "wealth transfer" aspect of Kyoto. Until China, India and other such countries join Annex I of Kyoto the treaty will do nothing to cut global warming (if indeed human activity has any real impact, which I do not conceded).

I think whatever wealth is transferred through carbon taxes would soon be nullified either by the tarrifs I suggest or when their standards started rising and the cost and price of goods being manufacured rose with them.

I think the whole thrust of carbon taxes should focus on producing less humans not less heat. Forget the global warming, as I said we can always build parasols and reflectors and such in outer space if we find we need to regulate the thermostat. I think we should use carbon as the currency that represents the exchanges that take place between the human economy and the natural environment. Right now we just have too many people on the planet, so many that the ability of the natural environment to sustain us could collapse and if that occurs we will be screwed.

[eyeball]

Warming's no longer happening So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?

Whose ignoring them? Record lows and highs are both consistent with GW theory predictions that extremes will become the new state of normal.

THE heatwave that accompanied the bushfires on Saturday smashed records, as much of Victoria, including Melbourne and 20 other centres, registered unprecedented highs, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Melbourne reached 46.4 degrees on Saturday, the highest in 154 years of record-keeping, overshooting the previous high set on Black Friday - January 13, 1939 - by 0.8 degrees and far exceeding the temperature on Ash Wednesday in 1983, which was 43.2 degrees.

"We've never seen anything like this in Victoria's history,"...

Link

[Riverwind]

Record lows and highs are both consistent with GW theory predictions that extremes will become the new state of normal.

Absolute rubbish. The claims of 'increased incidents of extreme weather' has no theoretical foundation nor any supporting empirical evidence. It is nothing more than hand waving propoganda invented by alarmist scientists/activists.

In the few cases were I have seen actual papers making these claims it appears that these claims come from climate models which:

1) Model climate - not weather.

2) Fail miserably at modelling any climate features at less than a continental scale (i.e. the results for regional 'weather events' are meaningless).

Of course, climate scientists are notorious hypocrites so it should come as no surprise that they are happy to use 'climate models' to make claims about 'weather' when those claims support their alarmism yet they are quick to insist that the fact that the climate models cannot be judged by their failure to model regional weather patterns correctly because they are not designed to model 'weather'.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Riverwind

[Oleg Bach]

If you have watched over 50 springs and summers - you are old enough not to need a study - the ground is dryer every year. Plant life struggles incrimentally and is slowly fading - the heat generated off of cities in the summer months is horrific - and their air continues to become more filthy - by the way - what ever happened to that orgainization called Pollution Probe? Is it gone and are we taking on the SUV mentality...what ever happened to that short lived era of creating smaller cars so as to save the air? Looks like we abandoned even trying to make a change - and this China and Indian industrial revolution - why the hell do we support that?

[noahbody]

If you have watched over 50 springs and summers - you are old enough not to need a study - the ground is dryer every year.

One farmer I know might consider stocking his field with fish. It's been a lake for two years.

[Oleg Bach]

One farmer I know might consider stocking his field with fish. It's been a lake for two years.

Hey - in time that pond will dry up and you can tell your friend to plant on the rotted fish..should be a good crop - Listen - Climate has become extreme as you just mention - those that do not like the idea that it is a useless eaters consumerism without purpose that is damaging the climate and the earth - how much money and stuff do you need my friend? Is there no end to greed? _ I guess not - that's why they call it greed.

[noahbody]

Hey - in time that pond will dry up

I wouldn't be surprised. It was once known as a lake before my time. It dried up for years. Now it's a lake again. Climate/weather is never constant.

how much money and stuff do you need my friend?

How much are you offering to give me? I could really use a Hummer right now... and a SUV.

Edited March 17, 2009 by noahbody

[WIP]

If you have watched over 50 springs and summers - you are old enough not to need a study - the ground is dryer every year. Plant life struggles incrimentally and is slowly fading - the heat generated off of cities in the summer months is horrific - and their air continues to become more filthy

The sky must be falling, Oleg, you finally posted a comment I can relate to!

I'm a little older than you, and I've had the feeling for the last few years that the weather is becoming more bizarre and extreme also. Though it seems that the summer heat waves don't last as long, just as in the winter, the temperature zigs and zags from mild to extreme cold from day to day. Instead of rain, we're getting deluged by cloudbursts that often cause flooding because the storm sewers can't accomodate the amount of precipitation.

These sorts of extreme weather conditions always occur from time to time, but for many years I have been starting my workday with a three mile jog to work, and try to dress as lightly as possible, and I find myself adding layers one day, removing them the next, adding more the day after etc. -- and according tracking of severe weather and extreme temperatures by the NOAA, it's not just my imagination that the weather seems to have gotten worse over the last 20 years.

[jbg]

If you have watched over 50 springs and summers - you are old enough not to need a study - the ground is dryer every year.

Well, I turn 52 in a couple of weeks so for around the last 49 or so years I was old enough to remember at least some winters, springs, summers and falls (to paraphrase Carole King). I have noticed astonishingly little change.

I remember scorching heat from as early as the summers of 1963 and 1964, when Mount Tom Day Camp regularly went to "water only" days. This happened again in 1966, 1968 and 1970, when I was in sleepaway camp. I remember 1973 and 1975 having a few such days. 1980 was actually the warmest meteorological summer (June, July and August) the NYC area's ever had. 1983 and 1987 were not far behind. Even during 1986 I remember quite a few 98 degree days, including one day I tossed a set of legal papers through a second story window that was left open for hot air, when the tenant locked the stairwell to resist process service. 1988 was a scorcher that started the current panic about global warming. 1991 and 1993 still hold the record for 90+ days in NYC. 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2005 (the summer of Katrina) were notably hot as well. By contrast, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1974, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1989, 1992, 2000, 2003 and 2004 were notably cool and rainy.

As for winters, there are pictures of me, as a not-quite three year old red-head (now dark brown) frolicking in deep early-March snow during March 1960. The winters of 1960-1, 1966-7, January 1968, 1968-9, 1969-70, 1976-7, 1977-8, 1978-9, 1981-2, January 1985, December 1989, 1993-4, 1995-6, 2000-1, 2002-3, 2003-4, 2004-5 and 2008-9 were notably frigid. Add in the "Megalopolis Blizzard" of 1983, the "Storm of the Century" during March 1993 and other notable events during otherwise mild winters. Winters of 1965-6, 1971-2, 1972-3, 1973-4, 1974-5, 1979-80, 1983-4, 1985-6, 1986-7, 1987-8, 1988-9, 1990-1, 1991-2, 1994-5, 1996-7, 1997-8, 1998-9, 1999-2000, 2001-2, 2005-6, 2006-7 and 2007-8 were dull and mild (though there was a major snowstorm during February 1996 and the "Valentine's Day Icestorm" on February 14, 2007).

Thus, both wimpy seasons and extreme ones have been quite well distributed, without any major trends. No major record bands have been broken during any of those periods. For example, 1991 and 1993's "90+" records beat the old record-holder, 1944, by a grand total of one (1) day, a record which 1988 came one day short of equalling. No cause for panic.

Edited March 17, 2009 by jbg

[WIP]

Well, I turn 52 in a couple of weeks so for around the last 49 or so years I was old enough to remember at least some winters, springs, summers and falls (to paraphrase Carole King). I have noticed astonishingly little change.

And that's why I present my own observations as anecdotal evidence for the claim that more energy in the Earth's climate cycles, will mean more extremes in weather. It may not seem that way every day or every year, but anecdotal evidence on one side or the other is biased by personal viewpoint which determines how we collect information to store as long term memory. Besides that, weather is local, so someone living in a hotspot will think the whole earth is getting warmer, even if overall data gathered from around the world shows a cooling trend.

Speaking of which, climate change deniers are making too much from the leveling or dip in temperatures in the last three years, since we went through several years of annual increase in global average temperatures. The La Nina effect in the Pacific, usually brings a cooling trend, and so does a decrease in sunspot activity, which indicates a decrease in energy from the Sun -- but both trends are cyclical, so what happens when the next El Nino begins and we start going through another active sunspot cycle? Since the levels of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere keep increasing every year, odds are it will mean an increase in the effects associated with global warming.

I'm a little disappointed that no one seems to find the studies of increase CO2 absorption by the Earth's oceans and resulting acidification, to be of significant interest. This is what I find especially stupid and reckless about the deniers' position on this issue -- the acidification of oceans is going to have devastating effects on marine life, which will almost certainly impact on what's happening on land, so even if rising CO2 didn't cause global warming, we still have a problem if we can't stop the increase. The deniers' wave of the hand dismissal of these concerns is mindbogglingly stupid, since they don't seem to be willing to consider that changing climate may impact on us in ways that we can't foresee until it's too late to do anything about it.

[jbg]

And that's why I present my own observations as anecdotal evidence for the claim that more energy in the Earth's climate cycles, will mean more extremes in weather. It may not seem that way every day or every year, but anecdotal evidence on one side or the other is biased by personal viewpoint which determines how we collect information to store as long term memory. Besides that, weather is local, so someone living in a hotspot will think the whole earth is getting warmer, even if overall data gathered from around the world shows a cooling trend.

Speaking of which, climate change deniers are making too much from the leveling or dip in temperatures in the last three years, since we went through several years of annual increase in global average temperatures. The La Nina effect in the Pacific, usually brings a cooling trend, and so does a decrease in sunspot activity, which indicates a decrease in energy from the Sun -- but both trends are cyclical, so what happens when the next El Nino begins and we start going through another active sunspot cycle? Since the levels of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere keep increasing every year, odds are it will mean an increase in the effects associated with global warming.

La Nina may mean cooling in Canada but in many cases means warming in the U.S. Southeast. During the early stages of a La Nina or when it is strengthening the warming often extends as far north as Montreal or Ottawa, though over time the "ridging" over the U.S. Southeast flattens and the frontier of the unusual warmth drifts southward. Still, the prevalence of La Ninas does, net result, create cooling over the 30 year cycles where it predominates, and the opposite is true of the "warm phases" when El Nino predominates. Thus the cooling through 1976-7 and the warming until a few years ago and now, again, cooling. I would not be surprised if this 30 year cycle has some relationship to the sunspot cycle.

I'm a little disappointed that no one seems to find the studies of increase CO2 absorption by the Earth's oceans and resulting acidification, to be of significant interest. This is what I find especially stupid and reckless about the deniers' position on this issue -- the acidification of oceans is going to have devastating effects on marine life, which will almost certainly impact on what's happening on land, so even if rising CO2 didn't cause global warming, we still have a problem if we can't stop the increase. The deniers' wave of the hand dismissal of these concerns is mindbogglingly stupid, since they don't seem to be willing to consider that changing climate may impact on us in ways that we can't foresee until it's too late to do anything about it.

Maybe the Chicken Little set should start some studies of this trend, if they can swim well enough.

[Oleg Bach]

Remember how blue and clean the skys were the day of 9 11 ? There was not a plane in the air over north america - It was the first real blue sky I had seen since childhood - This economic collapse is the only hope for re-newal of the planet. There was no talk about global warming 30 years ago - It was simplier than that - If the air was dirty we called it POLLUTION....this is a case of dirty air and humans are shitting into the sky - we are no longer toilet trained and the house stinks.

[WIP]

La Nina may mean cooling in Canada but in many cases means warming in the U.S. Southeast. During the early stages of a La Nina or when it is strengthening the warming often extends as far north as Montreal or Ottawa, though over time the "ridging" over the U.S. Southeast flattens and the frontier of the unusual warmth drifts southward. Still, the prevalence of La Ninas does, net result, create cooling over the 30 year cycles where it predominates, and the opposite is true of the "warm phases" when El Nino predominates. Thus the cooling through 1976-7 and the warming until a few years ago and now, again, cooling. I would not be surprised if this 30 year cycle has some relationship to the sunspot cycle.

You know, there are people who record solar activity and weather and climate data, so this doesn't have to be left to musing and wondering, a correlation between global temperatures and sunspot activity can be verified:

Over the last 1,000 years most of the variability can probably be explained by cooling due to major volcanic eruptions and changes in solar heating.

In the 20th century the situation becomes more complicated. There is some evidence that increases in solar heating may have led to some warming early in the 20th century, but direct satellite measurements show no appreciable change in solar heating over the last three decades. Three major volcanic eruptions in 1963, 1982 and 1991 led to short periods of cooling. Throughout the century, CO2 increased steadily and has been shown to be responsible for most of the warming in the second half of the century.

As well as producing CO2, burning fossil fuels also produces small particles called aerosols which cool the climate by reflecting sunlight back into space. These have increased steadily in concentration over the 20th century, which has probably offset some of the warming we have seen.

Changes in solar activity do affect global temperatures, but research shows that, over the last 50 years, increased greenhouse gas concentrations have a much greater effect than changes in the Sun's energy.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/4.html

Maybe the Chicken Little set should start some studies of this trend, if they can swim well enough.

Check page 3! I already pointed out one study about increased ocean acidity caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels.

[Riverwind]

Over the last 1,000 years most of the variability can probably be explained by cooling due to major volcanic eruptions and changes in solar heating.

Absolute nonsense for two reasons:

1) Solar scientists now believe that the sun's output has been constant over the last 1000 years or more and *cannot* be used to explain any variations in temperature.

2) Volcanos contributed to the little ice age but they occurred *after* the temperature already dropped. Natural variability is the only explaination for the initial drop.

The fact is the warming trend until 1940, the cooling trend until 1970 and the cooling trend now *cannot* be explained by the climate models without adding unverifiable aerosol fudge factors to models. These fudge factors mean it is impossible to know whether the models have any connection to reality or if they were simply tuned to produce the expected results. In fact, the most recent cooling trend which has gone on too long to be dismissed as weather provides strong evidence that the models do not accurately model the climate system and do not provide useful predictions.

There are number of peer reviewed papers (e.g. Tsonis) that look at the evidence and conclude that the climate system is chaotic and can under go significant internal variations even if there is no change in external forcing and that it would take 1000s of years of realiable data to properly characterize the behavoir of the system (i.e. 30 years of satellite data is not enough to draw any conclusions about the nature of the climate system).

The bottom line is we know next to nothing about why the climate does what it does and people who claim otherwise are simple self-serving snake oil salemen.

Edited March 20, 2009 by Riverwind