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Ten ships, 600 crew trapped in frozen Sea of Okhotsk

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Rescue efforts are under way to evacuate more than 600 crew on 10 ships trapped in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk.

The ice is up to 30cm (12 inches) thick in some places, according to the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

Signals are reported to have been received from a fishing boat and a research vessel which are in the greatest distress, stuck in the ice about 12 miles (19km) from the coast.

The sea rescue centre says three tugboats have been dispatched.

One of the tugboats is expected to reach the edge of the ice on Friday evening, and the others could be there by Sunday.

The temperature in the area is -22C, according to Itar-Tass, and forecasts suggest it will fall even lower.

Edited by Evil Genius

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Cold wave grips Kashmir Valley, Leh records -23 degree celsius

Published: Sunday, Jan 2, 2011

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_cold-...celsius_1489163

The mercury in Leh town in Ladakh region nosedived to minus 23.6 degrees celsius as Kashmir division was again gripped by an intense cold wave, officials said in Srinagar.

"Leh recorded a minimum temperature of minus 23.6 degrees Celsius which is the coldest of this winter," a MET department official said.

The cold wave has also intensified in Gulmarg skiing resort in north Kashmir and Pahalgam health resort in south Kashmir, where mercury plunged 12 degrees below freezing point. This was the coldest night in both tourist places this winter.

Qazigund, the gateway town to Kashmir valley near Jawahar tunnel, was freezing at minus 7.4 degrees Celsius while Kokernag town in Anantnag district witnessed a night temperature of minus six degrees Celsius.

The summer capital, which witnessed minimum of 0.8 degrees above melting point of ice yesterday, plunged to minus 2.4 degrees Celsius today.

With no downpour forecast over the next 24 hours, the cold wave in Kashmir division, which includes Ladakh region also, is likely to intensify.

Meanwhile, two-way traffic has been resumed on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the only road link between Kashmir and rest of the country.

One way traffic from Jammu to Srinagar was allowed yesterday after remaining closed for two days following snowfall last week.

A spokesperson of the Traffic Control Room said vehicles were allowed to cross the Jawahar tunnel till 12 noon.

"Permission to cross the tunnel after noon will be given only in cases of emergency and tourist vehicles," he said.

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Published: Jan. 1, 2011

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/201...16981293943637/

TOTTORI, Japan, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A New Year's Eve snowstorm blanketed parts of Japan with up to 43 inches of snow whipped by winds up to 63 mph, officials said Saturday.

Up to 1,000 vehicles got backed up in the heavy snow along a 12 1/2-mile stretch of highway after a tanker truck crashed and blocked both lanes in Tottori prefecture, Kyodo News reported. Several hundred vehicles were still stuck as of 9:30 a.m. Saturday, the news agency said.

Meanwhile, an avalanche in the prefecture Friday killed four ski patrol members. Officials said the accident occurred at the Okudaisen ski resort on Mount Daisen.

Ski resort officials said the four went to inspect the area after one avalanche hit and may have been caught in a second one.

Prefectural government officials were arranging for the military's help in getting supplies such as blankets and fuel to those stranded in their cars.

Emergency centers were set up in Daisen and Kotoura for stranded motorists.

The heavy snowfall also forced 18 trains carrying about 1,200 passengers from completing their runs, Kyodo said.

Local meteorologists said 89 centimeters (35 inches) of snow had piled up in Yonago as of 5 a.m. Saturday, the most since measurements were started in 1940.

More than 100 centimeters (about 43 inches) had accumulated in parts of Aomori, Yamagata and Niigata prefectures with similar amounts expected in the Tohoku region.

Winds of more than 100 kph (63mph) were registered in parts of Kagoshima and Aomori prefectures. The winds also were expected to push waves near 20 feet high in western Japan and close to 30 feet in some parts of the north.

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ICE AGE: Emerald Island Covered in White (NASA Photo of Ireland)

ireland+snow.jpg

Jeff Schmaltz

NASA

Monday, January 3, 2011

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/01/ice-ag...d-in-white.html

The Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. are not the only areas dealing with holiday snowfall. Ireland was recently swathed in white on December 22, 2010. When NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a true-color image of the snow. The overnight arrival of 15 cm (6 in) of snow at the Dublin airport forced its closure. Combined with the closure of the City of Derry airport, travel became quite difficult.

user posted image

NASA's Terra Satellite Sees a Snow-Covered Ireland

MODIS images are created by the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The MODIS instrument flies onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

Ireland enjoys a "temperate ocean climate" (Cfb) based on the Koopen climate classification system. Such climates normally enjoy cool, cloud-covered summers and mild winters. Ireland’s climate is also moderated by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, which flows off the western shore. Snow commonly falls only in the highest elevations; dustings may occur elsewhere a few times each year. Significant accumulations anywhere in the country are rare.

The winter of 2009-2010 was unusually cold and snowy. Called “The Big Freeze” by the British media, it brought widespread transportation problems, school closings, power failures and twenty five deaths. A low of -22.3°C (-8.1°F) was recorded on January 8, 2010, making it the coldest winter since 1978/79.

Although it has just begun, the winter of 2010-2011 threatens to be just as challenging. The earliest widespread snowfall since 1993 occurred on November 24, primarily affecting Great Britain and Scotland. Two days later snow began to cover Ireland, and the continuing severe weather has taken a toll. It has disrupted air, road and rail travel, closed schools and businesses, and caused power outages. Livestock and horses have had difficulty finding grass to eat, some relying on volunteer feeding efforts for survival. Local temperature records were broken, including a new record low for Northern Ireland of -18.7°C (-2°F) at Castlederg on December 23. As of that date, 20 deaths had been attributed to the winter weather and associated hazards.

For more information and additional MODIS images, visit:

http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/showall.php

MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

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I would say is it is because of the ash deposited from that volcano that caused havoc with the airlines etc last year

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They changed it from Global Warming to Climate Change so whatever happens with the temperature it is man's fault. My bet is on the volcano.

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Could it have anything to do with the "staged" BP accident?

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I was in Leh a matter of months ago. Temps down around the -20C mar, and even lower are normal.

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They changed it from Global Warming to Climate Change so whatever happens with the temperature it is man's fault.

Actually, it was Frank Lunz who advised the first Bush (Republican, = conservative) administration to change media use of 'global warming' to 'climate change', because he found that it sounded less threatening. He, and the Bush administration, were trying to avoid the implication of human culpability.

On the matter of the cold northern hemisphere winters, there are a couple of points to take into consideration. Firstly, the warming in the Arctic has the effect of moving (still) cold bodies of air further south so that they reach Europe, bringing the cold snaps seen this northern winter - and this is even without any future debilitation of the North Atlantic portion of the Gulf Stream. Secondly, these winter storms still did not stop 2010 from being the hottest year ever for land records, and the second hottest year ever for overall global temperatures. The December data are still being collated, but Joe Romm covers the year to November.

And all this occurred whilst the sun is still sulking in a lengthy solar minimum. When it decides to enter a new solar cycle and warm up, even more record warm temperatures are likely to be set around the Earth.

Call it global warming or climate change, it's still happening.

Edited by WoodDragon
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Secondly, these winter storms still did not stop 2010 from being the hottest year ever for land records, and the second hottest year ever for overall global temperatures.

 

So says the guys who have billions of years of climate records? :scratchhead:

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So says the guys who have billions of years of climate records?

Synchro... actually, yes.

There are many proxy measurements for determining temperature on geologic scales. They're not simple to explain, and they're not simple to do, but thousands of the best scientific minds in the field have scrutinised and re-scrutinised the methodologies, and no-one has come up with anything that seriously contradicts the current understanding.

The thing that strongly supports these proxies is that they corroborate, and are corroborated by, many other paleological phenomena, one of which is volcanic activity, as explained by James Hansen. Any attempt at contradicting proxies, such as the attack a few years back by McIntyre and McKitrick on the "hockey stick" proxies, has thus far been soundly demonstrated to lack scientific credibility.

The bottom line: the best science says that it is warming.

Edited by WoodDragon
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Sea leval rise bahh, couldnt happen :unsure:

Any one want to buy some beach side property??

Edited by shortly

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IMO climate change is a natural phenomenon that has been going on ever since the Earth was formed from space debris. BUT, considering the huge impact human beings have caused during the last tens of thousands of years (particularly since the industrial revolution), I'd be exceedingly surprised if we weren't fucking up the natural order of things either directly or indirectly. Basically we're not helping with what we're currently doing so we have to change our ways permanantly regardless of the percentage we're affecting things right now.

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Well I aint changing nothing cept wearing less clothes when it's hot and more clothes when it's cold :P

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Well I aint changing nothing

but as the price ov fuel, electricity, water, land & food goes up you'll find yourself forced to change

Edited by nabraxas

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Synchro... actually, yes.

There are many proxy measurements for determining temperature on geologic scales.

What, so they can find the average climate of any year in Earth's history? That I find hard to believe...

They're not simple to explain, and they're not simple to do, but thousands of the best scientific minds in the field have scrutinised and re-scrutinised the methodologies, and no-one has come up with anything that seriously contradicts the current understanding.

Are you sure about that?

31,000 Signatures Prove ‘No Consensus’ About Global Warming

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

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What, so they can find the average climate of any year in Earth's history? That I find hard to believe...

 

I believe one of the tools scientists use is isotope ratios to research ancient climates. I was reading yesterday about how this technique came about.

A paper called "Pleistocene Temperatures" was published in the Journal of Geology in 1955 written by Cesare Emiliani at the University of Chicago. He had pioneered the modern use of sediment cores by crushing up the shells of a once living, group of singled celled marine animals called a foraminiferas.

"...Washed them in distilled water, pulverised them in a mortar and baked them at 482 degrees C in a stream of helium gas. From that perfectly clean powder of calcium carbonate, Emiliani extracted the oxygen the forams themselves had built into their shells thousands of years ago when they were alive. With a mass spectrometer he counted how many of those oxygen atoms were the light isotope, oxygen 16 which makes up more than 99 percent of all the oxygen on Earth, and how many were the heavier and much rarer isotope, oxygen 18. Normally the heavy oxygen prefers to be in calcium carbonate over water, because that reduces the overall vibrational energy of the molecular system. But as the temperature of the seawater goes up, that slight preference goes down, and with it the ratio of oxygen 18 to oxygen 16 in the foram shells. That ratio was the thermometer Emiliani used to take the temperature of the Pleistocene..."

Thats an except from a book called, Fixing Climate, The story of climate science - and how to stop global warming by Robert Kunzig and Wallace Broecker. It's a pretty interesting book which might answer some of your questions.

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What, so they can find the average climate of any year in Earth's history? That I find hard to believe...

Nah, what you're talking about is fine-scale resolution, which is a bit much. No scientist would claim that we could "find the average climate of any [particular] year in Earth's history", beyond the last few thousand years at most, and even then at only a fairly coarse resolution.

It's a bit like the fact that we can say that next summer it's likely to be hotter than it will be in the coming winter, but that we can't say on which particular days in summer it'll be 34C, with a storm in the arvo. If you have the Bureau of Meteorology's resources, it's possible to figure out a bit more about trends for that summer period, but at coarse-scale, not fine scale.

Another way of thinking about it is by considering the stock market. If we didn't actually have daily records for the Dow-Jones for the last 50 years, we could still infer what the basic trends were from other proxies, such as national GDP.

The point is, even though we cannot map the global temperature for every single year in the past, we can derive indicative values for climatic conditions over ecologically/evolutionarily relevant periods of time, and this is of enormous benefit to scientists, and especially to biologists such as myself. And the closer the period of time is to the present, the more 'detail' is generally obtained. One of the things that we understand from this is that humans, and the ecosystems upon which we rely, evolved in climatic conditions similar to what we are currently experiencing. If the planet warms up for than 3 or 4 degrees celcius, on average, then the ecosystem conditions to which we are adapted will change beyond recognition, and importantly, at such a rate that evolution will probably not permit a lot of us to adapt in turn.

As to the '31 000 scientists', there are many resources that soundly debunk the claim, but two that are worth starting with are here and here.

And Phil Jones was taken very much out of context with his statement. Skeptical Science has a piece on this too, and more here, with even more here and here. There are many more related topics, if you're interested.

To explain it simply, in climate data there is an inherent 'noise' superimposed on the underlying 'signal', or trend, just as there is in weather data. That is, randomness in many of the factors that contribute to meteorological conditions means that any one instance of weather (or climate) might be higher or lower (in this case, warmer or cooler) than occurs on an occasion before or after. Just think of temperatures going from spring into summer. Where I live we had a warmer spring than the beginning of summer, so for some days temperatures were actually lower closer to summer, but the underlying trend is still one of warming from spring to summer.

Similarly, there is noise in the climate signal over decades, that is independent of the temperature forcing that underlies it. This noise is such that it takes about 15 years of signal to overcome the inherent variance in the year-to-year data. In statistics it takes a certain number of data-points in order to be able to say that there is a statistical probability of x% that a trend is not random. What Phil Jones was essentially saying was that there was a 6% chance of getting at random the warming observed from 1995 to 2009. There is a somewhat arbitrary convention that says that for something to be "statistically significant" there must be a less-that-5% chance of it occurring at random, and Jones was pointing out that the interval not long enough that the underlying trend could be identified as "statistically significant" within it. If the arbitary definition had been 94%, then there would have been a "statistically significant" trend over 1995 to 2009.

Many statisticians these days actually use the p-value (probability) intead of the arbitrary "statistically significant" classification, and in doing so are immediately able to grasp how likely an event is to be caused by an underlying factor, rather than occurring at random. So, for instance, the fact that the warming from 1995 to 2009 was 6% likely to have occurred at random is really not different from it having occurred at random with a 5% probability, and most sensible people would suspect that there is actually warming occurring that is not random.

The clincher though is what happens if 2010 is included in the analysis. In that case the probability of the trend occurring at random is less than 5%, so even by the arbitrary definition it is significant. That is, there is now "statistically" significant warming since 1995.

There is no surprise in this analysis, really, if one thinks about it. It would be extremely unlikely that 1996 would have been statistically significantly warmer than 1995, or that 1997 would have been statistically significantly warmer than 1995, or that 1998 statistically significantly warmer than 1995, or that... At some point though, if there is real warming, the trend will actually emerge from the statistical noise. As I said, with the current trend it takes about 15 years to see it, but even this will vary as other factors impinge on the trend - some years it might take only 13 or 14 years to identify a statistically significant trend, and at other times it might require 16 or 17 or 20 years, or more. But this does not mean that there is not an underlying trend.

[Edit:

For a very basic explanation of the sort of things that cause some of the variation mentioned earlier in this post, see the last minute or so of

.] Edited by WoodDragon
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i thought he was inferring since actual recordings have been kept.

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Synchro, it's best not rely on Anthony Watts for your facts.

He's a crackpot of the genuine pseudoscientific sort, and his postings are mercilessly dismantled across the internet. The big thing that he has in his favour is that he has a number of helpers that assist him in posting several threads per day that sound credible, and even though most of them are scientific rubbish, there is a huge following of numpties posting on his 'blog that cheer him on. All of this swamps the real science, and deceives many people into believing that there is much more controversy about global warming than there actually is. Which is exactly what vested transnational interests such as Koch Industries want.

For a general dismantling of some Watts' nonsense visit Wotts Up With That. Or spend some time at RealClimate, Open Mind, Greenfyre's, Deep Climate, Deltoid, Hot Topic, Climate Progress, or any number of other sites that are linked from these.

It can take a long time to sift through the noise to reach the scientific signal, but believe me - there is a very strong signal underneath that contradicts just about all of Watts', Bolt's and others' claims. Better still, don't believe me... and don't believe Watts either - just read and read and read the primary, scientific literature, and you'll be able to figure it out.

But anyway, to your question... scientists do not say that 2010 was the hottest year "ever". They do, however, say that it is the second hottest since instrumental records began (the hottest for land-based stations), and that it is likely the hottest for a thousand years. These are very different statements to saying that it's the hottest year ever, which scientists do not even try to say - if you look at the links in post #11, you'll see that it's well accepted that the world has been warmer in the past.

In fact, it's why we now have the concept of an "ice age" - a period of time when there is actually ice at the planet's poles. It is trivially accepted in science that there was a time when there was no ice on Earth, because it was so much warmer. This was also the time when high concentrations of CO2 were heating the planet, interestingly...

As an aside, we are still in the period referred to as an "ice age", although many believe that term is used to describe the intervals when there is ice much closer to the equator than there is now. Not so: there is ice at the poles, so we are in an ice age. What we have been experiencing for about the last 10 thousand years is an interglacial period.

[Edit:

One interesting story about Anthony Watts is that the raison d'être for his SurfaceStations.org website is based upon Watts' claim that the US weather stations have produced such "poor" data that they indicate a warming signal over the last few decades, where none existed. The problem for Watts is that Menne et al showed last year that by analysing only those sites that Watts himself classed as most reliable, the US temperature record actually shows more warming than the complete record does.

This blew Watts' completely out of the water, and a year later he has yet to publish his own refutation, although he promised to do so, and in spite of the fact that he has more than enough data for a robust statistical analysis. The simple reason for Watts' silence on the matter is that he knows that he is completely wrong in his claim, and that the real state of affairs is strongly corroborated by hundreds of independent records, and by reams of empirical evidence from all around the globe, that show that the planet really is warming.]

Edited by WoodDragon

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Synchro.

Further to the "31,000 Signatures Prove ‘No Consensus’ About Global Warming" piece from Watts, you might be interested in

.

[Edit:

Although the topic of this thread is "Global cooling", I think that

is likely to be of interest (one way or the other!) to people here, especially given the unprecedented intensity of the recent Australian drought, followed by the floods of the last few weeks and months.
is also worth a look.] Edited by WoodDragon

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Awww heck, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I'm probably going to regret linking to all of this stuff as people reply to it, but anyway...

Some

.

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Synchro.

I'm not trying to put up "disinformation". Read what I said about Watts - my first words were:

He's a crackpot of the genuine pseudoscientific sort, and his postings are mercilessly dismantled across the internet. The big thing that he has in his favour is that he has a number of helpers that assist him in posting several threads per day that sound credible, and even though most of them are scientific rubbish, there is a huge following of numpties posting on his 'blog that cheer him on.

I thought I was being fairly explicit when I said that "he has a number of helpers that assist him in posting several threads per day": and what is implicit - and more important to your point - is that Watts sanctions everything that he puts up on his site. And boy has he put some junk up in the past... seriously, read some of those links and find out exactly what a scientific moron he is.

I'm not asking you to come along for the ride. I specifically also said:

It can take a long time to sift through the noise to reach the scientific signal, but believe me - there is a very strong signal underneath that contradicts just about all of Watts', Bolt's and others' claims. Better still, don't believe me... and don't believe Watts either - just read and read and read the primary, scientific literature, and you'll be able to figure it out.

If you're going to take an explicit position on this issue I don't want you to just accept my word for it - I want you to find out the facts for yourself!

One thing that is extraordinary about the manufactured debate about climate science is that so many people believe that there is actually a scientific controversy, and that there is any appreciable degree of incompetence and/or fraud amongst climatologists. Quite simply, there isn't. What there is, is a very effective propaganda campaign by vested interests in the fossil fuel lobby (for obvious reason), and by a part of the fundamental Christain lobby (who believe that global warming invalidates the Bible), and by scared right-wingers who believe the 'Government' is simply trying to find a way to tax them.

The last group puzzle me, because whilst they are usually for a free market, they never seem to want the polluters to pay (which, quite frankly, is fair enough - why shouldn't they pay for the cost of polluting?), and it seems to escape them that most governments are as scared as heck of pricing carbon. Obama dropped that potato, and so did Rudd: if there really was an intention by governments to just find a way to tax, there are much easier ways than this.

The thing is, though, working as a scientist, I can assure you that the real, scientific facts about anthropogenic global warming are not coming from bureaucrats, or from politicians, or even from dread-locked, bare-footed commie dole-bludgers who want to bring conservative society down. They're coming from very conventional and usually extremely shy scientists, and the scientific community is overwhelmingly in consensus on the matter, and arevery concerned about it. Stuff like the claim on Watts Up With That about 31000 "scientists" is manufactured bullshit, and if you follow those links you'll understand why.

Again, I will say it - do not believe me, or Watts - go and see for yourself. Yes, it will take you a lot of reading, and it will be difficult reading if you do not have a background in statistics or physics, but if you are to understand why Watts and his mates are wrong, and why scientists are not, you need to discover where Watts' mistakes and misrepresentations are. And I'll say again - boy does he make some big ones.

When I am dealing with actual propagandists on this subject I always give them a list of basic questions in order to find out the basis of their (apparent) disbelief of anthropogenic global warming. It is usually something like this:

1) What do you understand a 'greenhouse' gas to be?

2) Do you accept that CO2 is a 'greenhouse' gas?

3) If "yes" to the previous question, what do you understand the sensitivity of warming to be, per doubling of the concentration of pre-industrial CO2?

4) Do you accept that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing?

5) Do you accept that humans are responsible for the current increasing of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?

6) Do you accept that there is much independent instrumental evidence that the planet has been warming over the last century?

7) Do you accept that there is much phenological, ecological, and hydrological evidence that the planet has been warming over the last century?

8) Given the most robustly defensible determinations of climate sensitivity to CO2, does the current observed warming fit with our understanding of orbitally-driven warming? Does it fit with our understanding of the sun's level of activity in the past century? Does it fit with our understanding of 'greenhouse' gas physics?

I think that you ge the idea... It might be worth thinking about these questions yourself, because they help to organise one's thoughts and understanding with respect to the basic aspects where the denial of the science occurs.

The thing is, to believe the claims of Watts, Spencer, Lindzen, etc, at some point in that list of questions the 'sceptics' need to explicitly contradict scientific evidence. When they're just making ambit claims in the media they can skirt these fundamental points, but when pressed to construct their alternative models with respect to the science, they fall apart. If the 'sceptics' are right, then at some point their answers to one of these questions will diverge from the science, and they should be able to demonstrate why. So far though no-one seems to be able to mount a challenge to the science that stands any scrutiny. It's abysmal really.

If you think that the idea of human-caused warming is suss, use these questions to try to find the point (or points) where the science falls down. What you will in fact discover is that for every 'reason' that 'sceptics' claim the science is wrong, there is in fact a solid body of evidence to not only support the science, but to refute the 'sceptics'.

And I use inverted commas around the word 'sceptics', because there is nothing about them that is actually really sceptical. They simple deny supportable science, and ignore it when their own 'evidence' crumbles like a sugar cube in coffee. That's hardly true scepticism! Something that a lot of lay people do not appreciate is that professional scientists are actually very sceptical themselves. When they read a paper by someone else in their discipline, they pore over it looking for ways to either refine it, and thus to take it forward, or to refute it and thus to take the science forward. And when a paper is reviewed prior to publication, the reviewers are merciless in pointing out problems of analysis and interpretation. I've done reviewing myself, and believe me I was not kind... But the end result is that the resulting paper is usually improved, and presents the best fact as it fits with current understanding.

One thing that characterises 'sceptic' claims is that they are very poorly supported by peer-reviewed literature. There are few such papers, and most of those that do exist are published in journals of poor standing, or of no scientific standing at all (Energy and Environment is their favourite), or are not even peer-reviewed (E&E, again). Of those few remaining 'sceptic' papers that are published in credible journals, most either do not actually contradict the fundamental science of global warming, or are quickly and thoroughly refuted, or are actually retracted by the authors or by the journals.

But I will say yet again, do not take my word for it. If you want to disagree with the science by all means do so, but do so after you have informed yourself. I know that you're an intelligent bloke, and is distresses me to see you following a line that is accepted mostly by folk who do not actually know anything about the science. Find the papers, find the data, review the analyses, and keep an open mind to both what the science says, and what the 'sceptics' say. It's a bloody hard thing to do, because it means that you have to learn enough of the science to know when someone's bullshitting you, but if you can reach this level of understanding you'll suddenly realise exactly how is is that people like Watts manage to convince lay folk that they have a point, when they don't.

And think about standing back for a moment and looking at the composition of both 'sides'. Those qualified who support the scientific consensus are professional scientists: those who oppose it are mostly associated with income derived by so opposing the science, and few are actually professional scientists, let alone climatologists. Of those few 'sceptics' who are professional scientists, many are actually paid by vested interests to do their 'work', and thus the independence of these few scientists is completely compromised.

It's a dirty game, but every day that the fossil fuel industry can have decisions stalled about what to do about global warming, is another day where they make apparently about a billion dollars in profit. That's a big incentive to stall action, and the best way they can do that is to do what the tobacco industry did a few decades ago - attempt to discedit the science. Unfortunately, every day that we put off taking responsibility for doing something about the problem is another day where it will become more and more expensive, and less and less possible, for future generations to fix the mess that we're leaving for them.

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