Bishop Hill Lilley in HuffPo
Jun 22, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Kudos to the Huffington Post for giving Peter Lilley space to put forward a dissenting view on climate change (see here). His thoughts will be unremarkable for BH regulars, but might come as a surprise to many HuffPo readers.
What most clearly distinguishes the Catastrophic Global Warming cult from science is that it is not refutable by facts. As Parliament enacted the Climate Change Bill, on the presumption that the world was getting warmer, it snowed in London in October - the first time in 74 years. Supporters explained "extreme cold is a symptom of global warming"!
The Met Office - whose climate model is the cult's crystal ball to forecast centuries ahead - has made a series of spectacularly unreliable short term forecasts: "Our children will not experience snow" (that was 2000, before the recent run of cold winters), a barbecue summer (before the dismal 2011 summer), the drought will continue (last spring before the wettest summer on record). Now they say that rain and floods are the new normal. But - hot or cold, wet or dry - global warming is always to blame.
I'm amused by some of the comments, with the outraged HuffPuffers apparently unsure how to deal with him. Lilley's observation that he accepts the existence of the greenhouse effect has been met with angry denunciations and claims that he is arguing with 97% of scientists. His noting that he studied Physics at Cambridge is met with accusations that he is unqualified to comment.
What fun!
[Please note that comments about radiative physics will be snipped]
Reader Comments (163)
Johanna
Tides turning seems to be the theme of the day and might possibly be reflected in this piece at the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23021212
Can't say I am in favour of the death penalty, but 2 out of 3 aint bad
@Alder & Brumby: 97% of male car drives believe that they drive better than average.
Bad Andrew
My own view is fairly mainstream. Global climate changes due to forcings, changes in the planetary energy budget. These are usually solar, orbital, cyclic, volcanic or plate tectonic. CO2 changes driven by the temperature changes act as a positive feedback amplifier to increase upward or downward temperature shifts.
In a few situations CO2 change itself becomes the forcing agent, as in thawing Snowball Earths and our current industrial civilization.
There is a considerable published scientific literature describing this paradigm at work over a billion years.
I come on sites such as Bishop Hill and many people tell me this is wrong. Nobody shows me it's wrong.
Entro - Thanks for attempting to answer my question "As someone who clearly has both the education and wit to see through such manipulative bullshit, would you care to enumerate the untruths in Lilley's piece for the benefit of lesser intellects?"
So far as I can see you have failed to demonstrate any untruths in what Lilley said. I'll annotate my assessment of your replies below.
Martin A.
Peter Lilley has form regarding inaccuracies in his criticism of others;for example consider the errors in his critique of the Stren report, described by the man who produced Stern's figures.
http://www.chrishopepolicy.com/2012/09/errors-in-peter-lilleys-critique-of-stern/.
*** Not relevant to my question. ***
"global surface temperature has not increased for 16 years"
The highest global land/ocean average temperature on record was in 2010, followed by 2005. 1998 came in third.
http://www.mettoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature .
*** Your statement does not equate to "global surface temperature has increased over the past 16 years". You have nitpicked his wording but this does not equate to identifying an untruth.***
"This implies that doubling the concentration of CO2 will raise the temperature by a fairly harmless 1.2ºC. But the models amplify this several fold using assumptions about complex phenomena which cannot yet be reduced to simple physical laws."
This is doubletalk. The secondary forcings are physical phenomena like any others, and obey physical laws. By implying that they are not reducable he falsly ampifies the uncertainties. .
*** I agree with Lilley that feedback CO2<=>H20 cannot yet be reduced to simple physical laws. If you think otherwise you are on your own amongst climate scientists. You have not identified an untruth here***
"As Parliament enacted the Climate Change Bill, on the presumption that the world was getting warmer, it snowed in London in October"
Another old canard. Climate change is a long-term change in conditions. One weather event on its own is not an indicator of climate change, though as part of a sufficiently large statistical sample it may indicate a change. .
*** That statement is factually true so it cannot be classed as either bullshit or untruth***
"it anathematises as 'deniers' anyone who casts doubt on its certainties"
The researchers in climate science are quite open about the uncertainties. The IPCC talks in terms of probabilities.It is the sceptics who project certainty that nothing is happening, in the face of considerable evience to the contrary.
***You have not shown that Lilley has said anything untrue here. A UK govt minister recently used the 'denier' earlier this month. The Met Office, apart from the occasional weasel word 'may' expresses great certainty about climate change- see its publications on climate change around 2009.
You have not shown that Lilley has said anything untrue here.***
Sorry Entro, your statement " people without the education or the wit to see through such manipulative bullshit" does not hold water. You have not shown anything Lilley said to be false.
"I come on sites such as Bishop Hill and many people tell me this is wrong."
Don't let the commenters at BH distract you from getting the evidence for and against scientific hypotheses. It's not their job to get evidence for you. Get the evidence from the people who would presumably have it, which in this case would be climate scientists. And if it appears they are only presenting one side of the story, press them for ALL the evidence.
Andrew
Entropic Man (Jun 23, 2013 at 5:10 PM) said "Peter Lilley has form regarding inaccuracies in his criticism of others;for example consider the errors in his critique of the Stren report, described by the man who produced Stern's figures. http://www.chrishopepolicy.com/2012/09/errors-in-peter-lilleys-critique-of-stern/"
Thank you for the link, which includes within its comments section Mr Lilley's explanation and acknowledgment of the minor error he made... very unusual for a politician and suggests that Mr Lilley is not only honest but has sufficient civility and integrity to admit his mistakes. I'd be interested to see an equivalent example of honesty, civility and integrity from a proponent of CAGW?
"I find the sceptics preference for the political approach revealing. It implies a cynical willingness to run your own civilization into the ground for short term gains."
Jun 23, 2013 at 5:45 PM | Entropic Man
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EM, your tender slanders continue. No thanks.
You frequently generalize and then categorize those who disagree with you as being only wrong, ignorant, politically Machiavellian, financially conflicted, or some combination thereof.
Then there is the usual over-confident technical assertions.
As you well know, sea level has been rising fairly continuously since the little ice age (and also for much longer than that. Long before "cAGW").
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/indicators/sea-level-rise.gif
The recent ups and downs seen here are certainly interesting to scientist, but hardly cause for alarm.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/pia16294.html
It may also give you food for thought about some other possible explanations that you missed, wilfully or otherwise.
Entropic Man:
"Another old canard. Climate change is a long-term change in conditions. One weather event on its own is not an indicator of climate change, though as part of a sufficiently large statistical sample it may indicate a change."
but two year's sea level rise is a trend, even though you back pedalled later, having perhaps realised an inconsistency within two recent comments of yours?
"I struggled with dyslexia as a child and still won my school's O-Level English Language prize.
Jun 23, 2013 at 2:27 PM Entropic Man
Congratulations!! How did you do in maths and the sciences?
Clearly it was a "novel experience" they didn't much enjoy Paul.
When I tried to join in with you and Geoff my comment never got past moderation.
When they get the slightest whiff of right wing sulphur there - they have a fit of the vapours and come over all CIFfy.
I think Alice explained the NLP's attitude to debate in an earlier thread:-
"you can’t do that here. It’s our space and we won’t allow it. The NLP comment threads aren’t a space for straightforwardly open debate. Sorry if you find that frustrating, but we’re quite proud of our policy and our site."
So basically - "we only want to hear views we agree with - otherwise it's fingers in our ears & LaLaLa can't hear you!"
entropic man says -
'I struggled with dyslexia as a child and still won my school's O-Level English Language prize.'
well done sir.
Bad Andrew
I come here for the other side of the evidence. I'm familiar with the mainstream papers, the evidence and uncertainties of the current climate science paradigm.
I come here looking for evidence which might not get into the literature. Unfortunately it's not been very productive. Mostly it has been sceptics telling each other everything is wrong, without anything of real substance. Often I'm told things which flatly contradict the physics, or that all the evidence is wrong because it contradicts X's opinion, or that there's a conspiracy.
Having given whatever science might be behind the sceptic case a chance to express itself I'm going away with very little.
Entropic man
What would it take to falsify the theory (or hypothesis) in your mind ? give us something to work with
Foxgoose 7.56PM
Alice Bell’s and Adam Corner’s position with respect to discussing with us sceptics is a bit more complicated than “LaLaLa can't hear you”. They’re both academics, after all, with a special interest in climate scepticism. Refusing to talk to us would be like a nineteenth century abolitionist refusing to talk to negroes. Or a Jesuit astronomer refusing to look through a telescope. Or an academic refusing to discuss his opinions with people who don’t agree with him. Being environmental editor on a left-wing blog like New Left Project, Alice naturally has to obey orders from above.
I made the mistake of making unanswerable points, so it’s only natural that she refused to answer. But I shall persevere, and I urge others to do the same. I’m sure Adam and Alice would love to be able to claim “Some of my best friends are sceptics...”
@entropic
Persuade me that a 1 or 2C rise in global atmospheric temperature over 50 years or more should be something to worry about. At the moment by underwear remains undampened and unsoiled by the prospect.
And please be prepared to justify your assertions about all the terrible things you envisage.
@entropic man
As I said earlier, all the major parties are committed AGW believers (although I don't recall climate change being an election issue anyway): it doesn't matter who we elect - we get roughly the same policies in this area. (Although it's possible that one or other of the main parties may change their tune a bit in response to the recent successes of UKIP.)
The general population as a whole are not sufficiently bothered about climate change to do anything about it themselves (we know that from the figures on such things as energy usage and the tiny number of people who opt for "green" tariffs for their electricity), so I think it's reasonable to assume it's an issue that just doesn't exercise people much.
I think you're making one or two erroneous assumptions there. For example, you seem to think the political measures proposed to deal with reducing CO2 emissions will actually achieve their aim. The evidence since the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol suggests otherwise. Still, given that alarmists are happy to ignore the actual temperature data, I suppose they're quite willing to ignore emissions data too.
"I come here for the other side of the evidence."
You're not listening. This is the wrong place to find climate science related evidence. We don't have any. Climate scientists would have the evidence, if there is any. All we have are opinions.
Makes me wonder if you are actually looking for evidence.
Andrew
If entropic man wants evidence, just look out of the window at rain clouds which get dark underneath as droplets coarsen.
Sagan's aerosol optical physics claims that small droplets cause higher cloud albedo, not larger droplets. The evidence points the other way. In 2004, NASA published the 'surface reflection claim'. It's diametrically wrong.
Entropic Man, a personification of a living breathing product of our [once sublime but now] failing education system. Lo! Yet again - in his own words, without any prompting provides the irrefutable proof.
And then has the temerity to say:
Trying - indeed it is, to make any sense of the above [first] quote - how can you deconstruct and then instruct someone who reels out reams of contradictory claptrap and all the time talks in a confusion of pseudo-scientific riddles?
You can lead a horse to water.............
Entropic Man "CO2 changes driven by the temperature changes act as a positive feedback amplifier to increase upward or downward temperature shifts."
Logical fallacy or Occam's Razor: take your pick. What even greater negative forcing agent than CO2 gets you back to an ice age again?
I come on sites such as Bishop Hill and many people tell me this is wrong. Nobody shows me it's wrong.
Jun 23, 2013 at 6:45 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic Man
This sounds a bit surprising... however I will tell you your wrong and be happy to explain in brutal detail why you are however. However as it would be a scientific debate it is important to set some non-moving goal posts as such I would have to ask alot of questions some of which will seem silly but they are important. So if you want to have at it just say so.
hope doesn't double post
Thinking scientist
Milankovich cycles.
robotech master
I would enjoy a discussion of the science.
My 6.45 pm post defines my basic position. Ask away. Let's try to find what we agree on, before we discuss where we differ.
EternalOptimist
To falsify my position and convince me to change it , you would need to do two things.
1) Demonstrate that the physics on which it is based is wrong without having to rebuild all the rest of physics.
2) Provide an alternative paradigm which explains the behaviour of the climate over all timescales at least as well as mine.
Athelstan
Carbon sinks such as seawater and tundra tend to take up CO2 when climate cools and release CO2 when climate warms. As an example of a mechanism, consider solubility of CO2 in seawater. As the temperature rises each cubic metre of water can hold a smaller amount of gas, so warming the oceans causes them to release CO2 into the air. Cooling causes CO2 to be taken up by the coceans , reducing the amount in the air.
A temperature rise due to a forcing effect such as orbital variation causes CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. This leads to a further increase in temperature, followed by a further increase in CO2, the positive feedback loop I described.
Note that CO2 release is not linear. The most loosly held CO2 leaves the sinks first and each subsequent unit of temperature rise releases less CO2 than the previous one. This leads to new equilibrium conditions, not runaway changes.
Cooling works the same way. A small drop in temperature due to reduced forcing causes the sinks to take up CO2, leading to further cooling. As the sinks fill up, it becomes harder to absorb more gas and the decrease slows to an equilibrium.
With natural forcings these processes tend to be slow and better thought of as a gradual drift in a system always close to a temporary equilibrium. Our CO2 release has pushed the system a lot further out of equilibrium than normal, which is part of the reason we're getting so many unexpected effects.
Entropic Man,
First let me congratulate you on overcoming your dyslexia. My niece suffers from the same problem, but unfortunately she gave up rather than perservered.
Now, on to your claim about sea level now rising at 10 mm per year. heere is the sea level data from around the world. Click on any of the trend arrows to get the actual data at that site. http://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/
I think you would have to agree that the data does not support your claim.
Most quotable reply at Huff:
richard_barrington | 38 minutes ago
just read that last year the US has 11 severe weather related events each costing more than $1B the second highest ( after 2005 ) since the figures have been collated (1980 ) Climate Changes Fact. Number of events have doubled over the period.
...
grahaml221 | 32 minutes ago
add my tomato plants that the rain flattened to the cost 50p each they were
Ahhh but EM you used "paradigm", a bit out of favour, but still the psued's preferred way of sounding like they know something. Any candidate using that word, always counted against them in interviews with myself. It's time in the limelight was in the late 1990's, but is still hanging on I see in vaudeville acts at the end of Clacton Pier.
Our old friend BBD was a super-psued, I do hope you EM are not going down the same route. Be careful.
Boris Johnson for Prime Minister
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10138096/The-weather-prophets-should-be-chucked-in-the-deep-end.html?placement=mid2
Geoff & Foxgoose - it looks like Alice has now closed off comments on the NLP blog. Perhaps there were too many elephants in the room (third world poverty, China...)
As with the Graun - the truly mammoth sized elephant, that can never be confronted, is that most people don't agree with them.
If you devote your life to leading the masses towards glorious revolution, but the masses aren't interested - I guess it's a bit of a downer.
Entropic Man "Milankovich cycles."
So...lets follow that logic. Milankovich cycles cause us to go in and out of ice ages. So far, so good. CO2 changes lag temperature changes - all consistent with ice core evidence.
But you have stated that positive feedback from CO2 accelerates the warming. So when we have our accelerated warming to a temperature peak, how do we get back to an ice age again? Once we get to a CO2 peak, how can the negative forcing in the Milankovitch cycle overcome the CO2 effect?
More importantly, the evidence shows very clearly that you only need Milankovitch to explain all the observed data and that there is no evidence at all in the ice record that CO2 ever leads temperature, which it would have to do for your hypothesis to have validity.
As I said before, logical fallacy or Occam's Razor: take your pick.
Entropic Man,
You firstly presuppose that mankind's emissions are somehow 'changing' the 'equilibrium' of the atmosphere and consequently the earths' climate, heavens above that's some stretch. However, in all of the somewhat stumbling efforts to analysis of this presupposed mechanism made by climate scientists - there has been no evidence produced, certainly no proof provided that this 'extra' CO2 does anything of the sort, convenient supposition though it may be.
Sea water, when it is cool absorbs CO2, warm sea water out gases CO2 but it is reckoned because there is much cool sea water - warm water is a surface phenomenon, oceanic currents and the conveyors keep the overall balance of sea water presently - it is a carbon sink.
The permafrost absorption mechanism, is again poorly understood but frost heave and syngenetic permafrost growth do cause CO2 to be absorbed by the gelisols of northern and southern sub polar regions. Warming permafrost soils in spring and summer, triggers growth within the organisms and plant life living within the soils to release CO2 through photosynthesis. This is no mystery, once more though CO2 is an resultant effect not the primal cause, meaning that CO2 is not the primal driver - it is effected and affected by changes in Temperature [the Sun] and that biological processes are significant factors.
Me and you argue - never - you tell me what I need to know:
Surely a blatant admission on your behalf, that, the primary factor, the main driver is not CO2 but
very probablynay - definitely an "orbital variation" and changes in CO2 are then so influenced by extraordinary factors. Erm, let me throw an idea 'up in the air' here - "orbital variation" affecting distance [from Earth] and Helio-positioning and orientation?>T= >CO2. < T=< CO2.
Now lets talk about something really far more important - like the hydrological cycle, water vapour, clouds, albedo effects and the solar influence.
Entropic Man says-
"The long term trend is 3.2mm/yr, but in the last two years the sea level has risen 20mm"
This climate change concern was quickly stomped by this comment, blessed by the 97% consensi-
"Another old canard. Climate change is a long-term change in conditions."
Do you realize that you wrote both of these?
Or as NOAA explains-
A 40 year trend in SLR has 95% CI of +/- 0.9 mm/yr.
A 30 year trend in SLR has 95% CI of +/- 1.5 mm/yr.
A 20 year trend in SLR has 95% CI of +/- 2.9 mm/yr.
NOAA does not bother with intervals shorter than 20 years.
Someone who brings up a 2 year trend in SLR as having any relevance to CACC is an ignorant nincompoop.
While I admire the fortitude of the Entropic Man, and those who continue to debate with him/her/them, the real problem with this thread IMHO lies with the Bishop:
"Please note that comments about radiative physics will be snipped"
This is ONLY about radiative physics - the supposed "imbalance" in the radiation budget due to rising CO2 concentrations is modelled without justification as 5.35 * ln (C/C0) - or some such unverifiable nonsense. This gives forcing values of order 1 w/m^2 for rises over the last 50 years or so, while it is admitted that uncertainty in albedo is an order of magnitude higher. That is not even to mention the conductive, convective and other phase change effects in the overall thermodynamic calculation, and their unknown relationships.
So all that they have is "radiation imbalance", dwarfed by other "known unknowns", and think that they can model average planetary surface temperatures decades into the future - all based upon radiative physics! The current excuse for flatling tempetratures is the "missing heat" hiding in the deep oceans. Martin A described this elsewhere as a classic case of "overmodelling". In any other field of scientific endeavour this nonsense would have been binned long ago.
With all due respect to all here, you are all wasting your time.
Rant over. Over and out.
but what about radiative physics ?
Sorry about the spelling Martin A
Jun 23, 2013 at 11:59 AM Martyn
We all make spelling errors.
I imagine you would agree that if, our next sentence involves deriding others for their lack of education, then using a spelling checker makes sense.
Jun 23, 2013 at 3:17 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A
Your have a presumptuous imagination!
robotech master
I would enjoy a discussion of the science.
My 6.45 pm post defines my basic position. Ask away. Let's try to find what we agree on, before we discuss where we differ.
Jun 24, 2013 at 1:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic Man
Wonderful. I will say the first set of questions do borderline on stupid but i feel they are important as if you can't agree to the basic simple stuff then moving on is pointless. Generally you will probably respond yes to all of these question if no or not sure just leave the question number and explain.
1. Do you know what the scientific method is?
1a. Do you believe all science must conform to the scientific method?
1b. Do you know what a hypothesis is?
1c. A hypothesis CAN NOT be used as evidence.
1d. Does the scientific method only accept empirical or observational data as evidence?
2. Have you read any information on global warming?
3. Do you understand what logical fallacies are?
4. Correlation does NOT prove causation.
5. Computer models are at best hypothesis under the scientific method?
Woft.
Paul Mathews, Geoff and Foxgoose:
Those so-called academics at NLP are utter cowards: one whiff of an uncomfortable argument and they run away. I'd planned to call Alice out on her confused responses to Geoff by posting the following:
But the thread was closed - perhaps Alice saw me coming.
Alice's NLP post was based on the following proposition:
What I think I've demonstrated is that the elephant in the bit of the room occupied by "green" lobbyists is that their interest in the climate issue is confined exclusively to its value as a means of achieving economic and social changes that would not otherwise even get a hearing.
I plan to keep the link to this NLP post - it may be useful one day.
Altheston, thinking scientist
This is from NOAA, discussing glacial/interglacial transitions.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
And an enlargement of Figure 3.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/images/data2-dome-fuji-lg.gif
Note that temperature and CO2 both follow insolation at 65N. The driver is the insolation, with both temperature and CO2 reacting to it.At this time resolution it is hard to tell which leads the way. I'm quite happy with temperature as the leader under natural conditions.
Note that interglacials tend to start when insolation exceeds 450W/M^2, with a rapid change of temperature, much faster than the corresponding insolation change. This is where I regard the positive feedback from CO2 as being most intense.
Roger Longstaff
No need to rant, You are in a good position to falsify the CO2 radiative forcing formula. I recall your mention of working in satellite engineering. Ask your company's testing lab to shine 13 micrometre infrared through a tube of air and measure how much passes through and how much comes back towards the source. Repeating at four different CO2 levels should be enough check you data against the formula.
robotech master
1) yes
1)a In an ideal world , yes. In reality, there are practical limitations. For example, it is hard to provide proper controls for our ongoing experimental test of the effect of adding CO2 to a planetary atmosphere when you only have one planet.
1)b Yes
1)c Yes, it is the prelude to evidence collection.
1)d I would need to know your definitions of empirical and observational evidence. Many sceptics reject evidence offhand, which I would regard as being both empirical and observational. Roger Longstaff's rant about the CO2 radiative forcing formula would be an example, as would be rhoda's rejection of all paleoclimate data.
2) Yes, rather a lot.
3) yes
4) yes, but neither does it preclude causation. Using that statement as a disproof of a hypothesisis is one of those logical fallacies you mentioned.
5) Computer models help refine your hypothesis. When trying to understand a natural system experiment and observation are the final test.
I hope you are not leading up to the argument that climate change is not yet proven and therefore must be wrong. That's another logical fallacy. Remember that the null hypothesis is itself an assumption and should not be used as a guide for policy without evidence to confirm it.
Also, do not assume that a hypothesis not yet fully proven is not useful.By analogy to other science; Quantum mechanics and relativity are mutually inconsistent and unproven, yet quantum effects run your computer and relativity corrections improve the accuracy of your GPS. Newton's Law of Gravitation is wrong, but still accurate enough for use in orbit calculations.
When did I reject all paleo data? When it conflicts, when very small samples are relied on, when its time resolution isn't very good, in all those cases one must take care not to put too much faith in it. When numerous different series corroborate each other and are truly independent, I'll listen. Like in the support for a global MWP.
EM, where were you on the thread where I asked for experimental evidence? They told me it couldn't be done, now you say I just need an IR meter. Which in itself shows you are missing the point. The hypothesis needs to logically link all the steps from absorption to warming and show observational data at each step. That's not too much to ask, is it? Why would anyone ask me to believe it based on less?
Jantar
Thanks for the kind comment about the dyslexia. It still shows up as occasional spelling mistakes, but is no longer a serious problem. I would encourage your sister to persevere, especially with help like spell checkers available.
Your NOAA sea level reference is fascinating, but leads you to look at the trees, rather than the wood. Tide guages are prone to many local effects. For example, UK sites in the South and East of England are gradually sinking, while thos in Scotland and Northern Ireland are rising. Both are due to isostatic rebound after the last glacial period. Thus Dover might record an exaggerated sea level rise and Inverness might show a below average value. Most of the Eastern seaboard of the US is sinking.
Look at Greenland and you would see both uplift and the sea receding as melting reduces the gravitational attraction of the ice sheet.
The CSU site I linked discusses many such local variables, and how they integrate all this into an overall change in sea level. The satellites are probably the most independant check, since they measure sea surface height relative to the centre of the Earth, not a local reference point which may itself be moving.
Once geological corrections are included, an alternative way of thinking would be to regard changing sea level as a proxy for changing sea volume. Ice melt and temperature induced expansion are what climate researchers are most interested in, and both increase sea volume.
Regarding the 20mm rise shown in the CSU graph over the last two years. I know it is a short term change. I am not trying to use it to make climatic debating points, but I am curious about why it is happening.
rhoda
I'm unregistered, which keeps me off the discussion sites.
I'm engaged with robotech master at present. Hopefully the chain of evidence you seek will emerge as we go.
For a good summary of the scientific basis of climate change, see Ira Giickstein's five part series on Visualising the Greenhouse Effect at WUWT. This is the fifth, which provides links to the previous four.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/07/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-light-and-heat/
Entropic Man-
"The satellites are probably the most independant check, since they measure sea surface height relative to the centre of the Earth, not a local reference point which may itself be moving."
That is not correct. Satellite measured SLR is calibrated using a subset of tide gauges. The "centre of the Earth" is, of course, completely synthetic, moves about constantly, is a major source of error in the satellite SLR dataset, and has been pointed to as the major justification for JPL's GRASP program to reduce the uncertainty in defining where the "centre of the Earth" is relative to the satellites in orbit. This will involve, among other things, the use of stable land-based reference points for the satellites.
More at this award-winning website-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/30/finally-jpl-intends-to-get-a-grasp-on-accurate-sea-level-and-ice-measurements/
Sorry about that.
If you should wish to deride people's lack of education, as another commenter did whilst misspelling a commonly used term, you are obviously under no obligation to check your spelling before posting and I am sorry to have presumed to imagine it was something that you might think was worth doing.
"Ice melt and temperature induced expansion are what climate researchers are most interested in, and both increase sea volume."
Jun 24, 2013 at 8:19 PM | Entropic Man
--------------------------------------------------------------
Except when it is grounded-ice at the Antarctic periphery, when melting will reduce sea volume.
I honestly think you are doing well in your attempts to learn more. I like to think I am in the same situation.
But also I think you should be a bit less confident about what other people are thinking or "most interested in".
" The satellites are probably the most
independant check, since they measure sea surface height relative to the centre of
the Earth, not a local reference point which may itself be moving."
That is just daft. The only place sea level rise matters is where it joins the land. If you want to remove errors due to land movement just average all the global tide gauge readings together. Plain common sense tells you that figure will be very close to the 'true' global figure. Also why not just look at Roman harbours in the Med from 2000 years ago and basically no tide to work out what sea level is doing..
chris y
Interesting reading, though I went to the JPL site, rather than reading WUWT's filtered version.
Glad to see an opportunity to improve the quality of the data is within our GRASP. :-)