WG Lockhart – your understanding is extremely inaccurate. The proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is irrelevant when discussing its effect. No other source of CO2 is comparable to mankind’s input – all of the increase from ~280ppm to ~387ppm is due to human activities. Oceans are a net sink of CO2, not a source. Honestly, have you never even seen the Keeling curve? From all you’ve demonstrated of your scientific insight here, I really hope you never get a job in science.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas for sure, and therefore has an effect on the greenhouse effect, but let’s lay the facts on the table. CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas relative to the others, with diminishing returns as you add more and more of the stuff. It makes up less that 0.06% of the atmosphere. Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans, and animals produce a greater quantity than that again. Decaying plants produce more CO2 (again) than animals do. And the oceans release more than the whole lot put together – this is part of the natural carbon cycle, and is surprisingly self regulating (i.e there are negative feedback loops in addition to the positive ones, which the IPCC report conveniently ignored).

So yes, the CO2 emitted by humans will have an effect, but only in the same way that my stomping feet cause the planet to recoil according to Newton’s third law. The science of Newton’s laws is sound, but in practice the effect is negligible. So, just how in god’s name are we supposed to prove (read = detect) the effect of human CO2 emissions when the other effects are so much more substantial? Al Gore tried to explain away the little jumps and zig zags in the graphs. How did he accomplish this? By ignoring all the other sources of natural temperature variation. That includes the 5 sources of CO2 i mentioned, and it also includes methane, water vapour, solar activity, the precession of the earth’s axis, and variation in the shape of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Plenty of scope for graph wiggles and huge variability. The anthropogenic greenhouse warming hypothesis is impossible to falsify either way, so is needless scaremongering.

Hehe, of course it is a moral question, it is obviously not practical to rapidly change our behavior for a problem which takes centuries to occur. I’d rather advance technology and adapt mankind to handle changing climate, then try to change the actual climate itself (for warm or cool). That’s why man made global warming will have to be billed as ‘catastrophic and fast’ in order to even be considered worthwhile.

I better finish my Phd so that I can ‘peer review’ your models. I wonder if I can get a chunk of that IPCC (aka “Big Warming”) money too? Oh wait… they don’t fund skepticism… and yet we can’t question the IPCC’s intentions based on all the pro-warming money they give out…

You give me $1,500,000 of the UN IPCC budget (a pittance) and 1 year, and I will hire 1) morganovich, 2) coyote, 3) Stevo, 4) Methinks, and 5) Dr. Lockhart, and his interns.

We will destroy your current climate models, AND build you new ones based on open data sets and architecture, with testable statistical bases, unlike your current “models,” which fail every laugh test.

You in?

And wrong, retardo Scientist, you’re the one who thinks of this as a moral question “You shitheads, can’t you see we must save the planet?1?!?!?”

Unfortunately, you lack empirical evidence to even identify the problem.

[i]for example, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum[/i]
1. Didn’t that take thousands of years? It is not a rapid mass extinction. This doesn’t seem like a “practical” problem. And when it comes down to it, mass extinction is probably the best solution.

2a. Anyway, since we can’t being “practical”, let’s be “scientific”. If you want to look at percentages of increases, and possible causes for ETM1, look no further than methane. I don’t believe I’ve seen you mention this in your posts (although I haven’t read all). This is surprising because increasing CO2 has been attributed to the release of methane from the ocean. As we stand now, methane is up at a higher percentage.

2b. What about clouds and water vapor in general?

Now, why not adopt a more sensible approach to scientific discussion and give reasons and evidence rather than just making pointless unsubstantiated statements, and then childishly saying “I’m not telling you!” when asked for the evidence.

Of course, I’m still curious why Scientist is so adamant about the pro-man-made global warming position. If man made global warming is proved 100%, will this change anything? In other words, if warming the climate is wrong, then why would it be right to change our behavior and in effect, change the climate again? Mankind has existed for barely a spec of time in Earth’s life, where do we garner the right (and have the knowledge) to decide the optimal climate and then control subsequent warming/cooling?

I have your answer, but I’m curious about your answer to my question first?

Evidently you missed the point of the last question. The lower troposphere is warming but the stratosphere is cooling. That is an observed fact. My question is, how do you explain that observation, or what theory do you believe explains that observation?

I disagree with Scientist on No other forcing is in operation that can explain the 0.2°C/decade rise in temperatures over the last thirty years. – so tell us what other forcing is causing it.

I disagree with Scientist on No other forcing is in operation that can explain the 0.2°C/decade rise in temperatures over the last thirty years.

Of course, I’m still curious why Scientist is so adamant about the pro-man-made global warming position. If man made global warming is proved 100%, will this change anything? In other words, if warming the climate is wrong, then why would it be right to change our behavior and in effect, change the climate again? Mankind has existed for barely a spec of time in Earth’s life, where do we garner the right (and have the knowledge) to decide the optimal climate and then control subsequent warming/cooling?