JohnB

John, that's fair enough. My point was really that just because some foaming at the mouth moron like Beck has some influence in the US doesn't mean that others from his "side" actually share his views or have heard of him for that matter. So please don't treat us as though we work for the sucker. In an open debate, I'd be telling him to shut up and p*ss off because he adds nothing intelligent to anything AFAICT. (I've seen some of his rants on youtube) Something I should have put in the post above is that our rabble rousers get zero airtime in the visual media. Newspaper, the net and radio is the most they get. Having seen some Beck rants I can safely say that he would last about 5 minutes on Oz TV. Loud and boring, the 3 AM test pattern would score higher ratings. For similar reasons, evangelists don't get very far either. There is a major difference in the psyches of America and Australia. You are quite happy to let somebody get up on a soapbox and preach to you, topic is irrelevent. We are quite happy to let them get up too, but we ignore them. When someone down here gets up to preach we assume two things; 1. He is full of his own self importance 2. He is full of sh*t. swansont, we've done nothing about the "problem" except change some light bulbs and offer more accurate power meters to home owners. The ETS is stalled and if the Coallition gets in on Saturday it's dead. Everyone accepts climate change is real and we accept that the climate will always change regardless of what we do. As to the other parts; 1. Is it bad? 2. Can we do anything meaningful about it? It has been pointed out to the Australian people that if we cut emmissions to zero and went back to the stone age, the difference in world temps in 50 years would be around .00045 degrees.(Or some such rediculously small number) We're probably 55-60% in the sceptic camp. If the figures were any other way, then the Labour Party would be campaiging on the issue and they are silent. If they thought CC and the ETS would bring in votes, they would be loud, if they think it would lose votes, they keep quiet. They are keeping quiet which shows that CC is a vote loser in Oz. Three years ago the ALP campaigned strongly on CC and had a good victory , now they are silent. What does that tell you? Aside from that, we've been "panicked out". The boy has cried wolf once too often for many of us and we've stopped listening. (In this case I'm talking Queensland) I'm 49 and got interested in politics in Primary School. Starting just to the North of me is possibly the greatest natural wonder in the world. The Great Barrier Reef. In the 1970s it was attacked by the "Crown of Thorns" starfish which does incredible damage. We were told that if we didn't act in a quick and major way the Reef would be dead within 15-20 years. As usual, our gov didn't act all that quickly. They paid some divers to hunt the starfish. But the Reef is still here. In the 1980s we had good rain and were warned that unless "something" was done, the influx of agricultural runoff would poison and kill the Reef within 10 years or so. But the Reef is still here. In the 1990s we had a drought and were warned that the lack of fresh water flowing to the Reef could destroy it. But the reef is still here. By the late 1990s, we were being warned that Global Warming would burn the coral and we had to act or the Reef might be destroyed within 20 years. The increased warmth and sunlight would kill the coral. But the Reef is still here. In the early 2000s we were being told that Sea Level Rise would drown the coral and destroy the Reef. But coral grows faster than the sea rises. And the Reef is still here. Now we are being warned of "Ocean Acidification" and how it will destroy the Reef. Given the record of the Greens and the "scientists" involved, what do you reckon the chances are? So why am I sceptical when some "scientists" announce the end of the world? 40 years of experience. 40 years of "scientists" predicting disasters that never happen. Sorry, but I'm bored now. With an unbroken record of wrong predictions, why should I worry? This isn't attacking science or those who practice science, this is calling "advocacy science" what it is, pseudoscience. The advocates of course then go running back to the real scientists and complain about "attacks on all science". This is exactly the same tactic that scientology is using now the pressure is on. They are running to the mainstream religions claiming the attacks on scientology are attacks on "all" religions.

swansont, we do have rabble rousers but their influence is more limited. A small percentage would agree with them automatically, a similar percentage will instantly disagree and the majority will say "He/she is left/right wing, so of course they would say that" and ignore it. Likewise the Bible thumpers have far less influence. Fundamentalism just isn't popular down here. I think the greatest difference though is in our media. From the outside the US media seems to be very biased. I don't mean in the "liberal media" sense as we get the same claims here, but in the sense that the media is as partisan as the politics often is. Some channels will grill a Republican if they get the chance byt go easy on a Democrat, others will try to destroy the Democrat and go easy on the Republicans. Our media just goes for the throat. The Senator that thought Guam might "tip over and capsize" would have been the laughing stock of the nation within 24 hours. (And his party would have told him to STFU until told otherwise.) If one of our Senators made comments about relocation as one of yours did recently he would have been invited onto every show that could get an interview and been hauled over the coals until he bled. Every attempt to avoid the question would have been met with "Yes Senator, but you said.....". Basically, "You said something disgusting, now explain yourself to the Australian people." And they wouldn't let it go. Of course we have those politicians who do "odd" things for business. We have a Federal election next Saturday. My Federal Rep, during the course of his last term negotiated some sort of coal deal and asked for a $60k commission. He was thrown out of his party and is standing as an Independent this time. I doubt he will get back in. In contrast, everybody who looks at US tariffs knows that certain Democrat Senators are deep in the pockets of the sugar industry, (That's why you pay more for sugar than everybody else) yet they never seem to get called on it. It should be a media goldmine. High sugar prices drive up the prices of most foods, even a can of Coke is dependent on sugar prices. There's plenty of scope for stories about "hitting hardest those who can least afford it", but where are they? Honestly, it sometimes seems like John Stewart is the best political reporter you have. Why is that?

Ah, I see the problem. Outside the US, the names Inhoffe, Beck, Limburg (isn't that a cheese?) mean nothing. While it might offend some sensibilities in the US, I fail to see why an International debate on world issues should be held hostage to the vagarities of American internal politics. Please, get over yourselves. Outside your borders these "opinion formers" mean less than nothing.

How do you know? Are the people that do make such silly statements actually in the debate or are they just some guy down the pub? If you were to go through the archives of the major sceptic blogs, do you think that you would find "many" holding that position? What you "know" may not be the truth at all. Those who say "It's a cold day....." frankly I don't even bother with. This sort of comment shows that they know absolutely nothing about what is going on. Weather is not Climate. These people are just as bad as those who sieze on a hot spell or heatwave and cry "See! See! I told you so!" Unfortunately this group now includes a number of leading lights in the climate community. John, I'm not trained in science like a lot of people here. But in the last 6 years, with the examples set by people like swansont, mooeypoo, DH and others I've come to hold the works and opinions of two people in very high regard, Carl Popper and Richard Feynmann. If there is one thing that bugs the daylights out of me WRT climate science it's the constant looking for things "consistant with" the theory. Climate science doesn't "test" of "falsify" their models, they "validate" them. One of the most basic principles of the scientific method as I have been taught by the people here is falsification. Try to prove yourself wrong and every time you fail, your theory is stronger. Some areas of Climate science turn this whole concept on it's head. Take the stats paper I linked to above. They did their own reconstruction using the data archived by Micheal Mann for Mann 2009, the most recent reconstruction. They show that by the time you go back 1,000 years the error bars get too big to make definitive statements. To quote from the paper; (Emphasis mine.) I expect that this will mean that the paper will be declared as "consistant with" the previous reconstructions. Why not? Hot, cold, less snow, more snow, drought, flood, every other thing that happens is declared as "consistant with" the theory. I can only echo the words of Professor Kelly from the Oxburgh inquiry; AP, environmentally crippling the landscape is not a good business practice as it cuts down on the scope for future profits. Which is the big flaw in the "Big Oil" or "Big whatever" argument. It assumes these companies have no future plans, which is simply false. Large companies have plans for decades in advance. Fluid plans perhaps, but the general direction is there. Allowing the ecology and therefore the economy to be seriously compromised would be poor business strategy as it reduces profit. The second flaw in the concept is that it assumes that executives from these either companies either 1) have no children and grandchildren or 2) have no concern about their welfare. Why on Earth would somebody intentionally destroy the world their children will live in? I realise the concept agrees with the Marxist ideal of the "greedy capitalist", but come on, get serious. All the execs will sacrifice their children and grandchildren for money now? You'd have to live in fantasy land to believe that.

While the trend is more outside the point, I have to disagree about correcting the bias. cypress is deconstructing the temperature rise. If we consider the temperature to have risen by .7 degrees, then it is just as valid to show that .2 degrees of that warming was due to bias as to any other factor. What makes up the .7 degrees? Factor A =.z degrees Factor B =.y degrees and so on. Since the bias was used to arrive at the .7 degrees total, then its removal must be germane. For the simple reason that the warming becomes .5 degrees and not .7 if for no other reason.

DH has covered a lot of it, but here's my bit. In regard to the OP, John you aren't being specific enough. What are we supposed to be denying? Do we deny the climate changes? No. Do we deny the world has warmed over the last 100 years or so? No. Do we deny that CO2 is a GHG? No. Do we deny that introducing CO2 into the atmosphere must have some effect? No. Do we deny that physics tells us that doubling CO2 should lead to a roughly 1.1 degree increase in global temperature? No. After that, things get a bit stickier. Some of us have been concerned at the level of confidence expressed by such a new science. For example the amazing lack of statisticians who are involved in some of the very heavily statistical areas. There is a rather interesting paper being discussed in the blogosphere at the moment. Mc Shane and Wyner 2010 (2.5 meg pdf) has been reviewed and is about to be published in the "Annals of Applied Statistics". Since a paleoclimatic reconstruction relies heavily on statistical techniques, it is interesting to see what statisticians have to say about those techniques as used in the published papers. Basically they followed what the paleo people were doing and critiqued it from a statistical POV. It's not pretty. Some have been looking at the temperature record and finding some problems. Some think this is vital and others don't think it's that important. Personally I think it's important to do right, whether it has importance after that is another matter. We know the world has warmed over the last 100 years, but is it that important as to whether it is by .6 degrees or .8 degrees? Possibly. Now we come to the fun part. Attribution. We are told "The world has warmed", no argument there. We are also told "Man has played a major part in this warming", hmmm, possible. We are told "It's mans production of CO2 that is the major cause", sorry, no. Not proven. Note however that it's rarely phrased that way. It's normally "The world has warmed and mans production of CO2 is the culprit." When we disagree with this overarching sentence the response is "You don't believe the world has warmed?" and we are accused of being anti-science. This is a standard technique in propaganda. Make the broad claim but use the correct details to demonise. Another useful technique is to quote out of context, iNows video has some great examples. There are many things that man does that effect the climate, CO2 production is only one of them. We dam rivers and irrigate thousands of square miles for crops, we've built huge cities covering millions of square miles of grass with black asphalt. There is also natural climate variation. The IPCC thinks these forcings are small, we (and a number of published papers) disagree. Here is a plot from CRU data. You will note that there have been three periods of warming since 1850. 1. 1860-1880 (20 years) with a trend of .163 degrees/decade. 2. 1910-1940 (30 years) with a trend of .15 degrees/decade. 3. 1975-1998 (24 years) with a trend of .166 degrees/decade Each of these is separated by a cooling trend period which is also (and amazingly) 20-30 years long. A linear trend since 1850 with a multi decadal oscillation would give a pretty good fit to the data. But we would have to find a multi decadal oscillation with the same time frequency as the warming and cooling trends for this idea to be reasonable. The PDO and ANO would fit the bill quite nicely, but the IPCC says that natural forcings are small. I find it fascinating that 30 years worth of El Ninos only give a "small" forcing yet one big one in 1998 blew out the worlds temps by about .3 degrees, don't you? Back to the warming trends. The first two are unequivicably described as "natural", yet the third which is of the same length, period, and trend is predominantly "man made". Isn't it just an amazing coincidence that the "man made" warming trend just happens to fit so exactly the previous "natural" warmings? Aren't we just so damn lucky that the natural forcings that caused exactly the same warming trend stopped when they did, or we would have been in real trouble. The other point is that we don't actually know what the forcings were for the previous warming trends anyway, but like many things "It doesn't matter". I'll be blunt. Given the obvious oscillations in temperature the "Null Hypothesis" is that nothing unusual is going on and that the most recent period of warming is nothing more than a natural trend. The most recent period is not unusual in any way, statistically there is no difference between the three periods. There is no evidence in the record of any extra forcings coming into play. It is up to the AGW side to prove otherwise. They cannot. FWIW, I think that a reasonable hypothesis (since adding CO2 must cause some warming) is that the slight increase due to CO2 is probably being negated by particulate pollutants and negative feedbacks. A further area of doubt are the model projections. And I'll get the first response out of the way. iNow, all of them. I've mentioned this paper before, Solomon et al 2010. I quote from the abstract (which contains the salient point); Changes in Stratospheric Water Vapour is not included in calculating the model forcings (How could it be?) and is a strong forcing. Come back with the projections after the new factor has been included. This is indeed the point re model projections, the sheer volume of what we don't know. Not knowing everything != knowing nothing, that is accepted, but the problem here is we don't know how little we know. A simple example. Over the years we've heard that the models predict changes in hurricanes, that's fine, if the climate changes we would expect hurricane patterns to change. But our models are "based on" physics, (I love that phrase, it's like saying the movie "Titanic" was "based on" fact) so we should be right. Except for this. It would appear that chlorophyll has a lot to say about hurricane formation and track in the Pacific. As people will be quick to point out, this conclusion was reached by using a model. That's fine, but hurricane generation models are not the same as GCMs and their predictions are normally for 1 season. As the formation (or not) of hurricanes effect the transport of water vapour over large but regional areas and therefore the ability of the planet to cool itself. Hands up all the GCMs that include chlorophyll and ocean colour in their computations. I echo the words of DH re the vilification spread by the AGW crowd. When few speak up at the idea of relocation, you can plainly see how you have sunk. But concerning that particular piece of ice which has many in the AGW camp wetting themselves with glee I quote two people from a Voice of America article; The Greenpeace activist; The researcher who studies that glacier; Note also the misdirection in the Greenpeace statement. A "growing body of knowledge that shows that the climate change is happening" is not in any way proof that man has a single bloody thing to do with it. Which is what I was getting at concerning attribution. The generic statement "Climate change is happening and man is responsible" actually, and wrongly combines two issues. Once combined it is assumed that proof of the first concept (Climate change) is also proof of the second concept (Attribution). This is logically false. As has been pointed out ad nauseum. The climate always changes. There has not been a time in the entire 4.6 billion years of history on this planet when it did not. Betting that the climate will change is a surer bet than betting that the sun will rise tomorrow. (If, for some strange and incomprehensible reason the Sun did not rise tomorrow, the climate would change rather rapidly) Combining the two concepts into one statement as it is often done is just as logically stupid and pointless as "Climate change is happening and Democrats are responsible". And since the climate changes then obviously the Democrats are responsible. Let's go futher using exactly the same logic. "The climate is changing and fairies at the bottom of the garden are responsible." Great, I've not only proved the existence of fairies in the garden, I've proved they are responsible for climate change. It's so easy to prove stuff when you use crap logic, isn't it? That should do for now, it's getting late. But one question for the "Warmistas". Why is it so much easier to pontificate about the sceptics percieved moral and political shortcomings than have a real close look and see if they might not have a point? Is your certainty really that weak? Is that the same thing as when people hear their favourite mouthpieces claiming a "Big Oil" conspiracy or that something is "debunked" and blindly parrot the things they are told? I don't deny it happens, but I find it interesting that some people seem to believe that it only happens on one side.

I can't speak for how well it applies to any political party. I find it echoes something I've been worried about for some time. The drain on a national economy by these protected financial institutions is I think, larger than most believe. Compare the original form of the Stock Market and the one that exists today. Those who make large amounts of money from "trading" actually contribute nothing to the economy. I'm separating here those who move their money between companies to maximise their investment potential and those who profit from the action of trading alone. One stimulates business and investment and the other is simply a parasite on the economy. Of course it shouldn't come as a surprise that the economy has evolved to suit "money men", accountants and lawyers when the majority of politicians are accountants or lawyers and are all backed by "money men".

Not quite needimprovement. Science deals with predictability. Once you add "miracles" into the mix, then things are inherently unpredictable. Whether or not they exist is irrelevent, it is their nature of pure unpredictability that puts them outside the field of science.

Truth, I think the problem with your question is the multiplex of "Gods" out there. Turn your question on its head for a minute. If science proved beyond a doubt that the Universe was a created thing, would that prove the existence of "God"? The only real answer is "Which one?" Would it prove the existence of the christian God of the West more than the existence of the crocodile God of Upper Whertheheckarwe? If so, why? and if not, why not?

Then perhaps you need to read more carefully. The factor "E" that I referred to was in the paper by Solomon. You cannot claim high confidence in your attribution, get blindsided by a newly discovered factor that may be worth 30% and still claim high confidence. That is nothing more than pure intellectual dishonesty. Note well that this (should it prove correct) relegates your pretty attribution picture to nothing more than than an illustration. Note also that this is in no way, shape or form "minor", as it equals somewhere between 10 and 30% of the attribution. Or do you consider that 30% error is "minor"? If so, what is in your opinion a "major" cockup? Again, read what I wrote. Clouds are both a forcing and a feedback. Cloud cover changes as a result of many factors, one of which is temperature. My point here is that cloud cover can change as a result of (for example) changes in ocean currents. In this case they are a response to the changes in currents however they are a forcing WRT temperature. Since you are making the claim that all natural forcings are accounted for, could you please cite a reference demonstrating how this factor was evaluated? I would dearly love to see how you got world wide cloud cover figures for the past 100 years accurate to >.5%. There's a Nobel waiting for you. Again, the onus is on you to prove your assertion of "Global Catastrophe". And if you are going to talk baseless, will these "catastrophes" do? http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html (I've made fun of this before.) http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/793/melting_icebergs_causing_sea_level_rise (all 49 micrometres of it) Oh heck, why be specific? Go here and pick the first 15 or 20 catastrophes that you like. Rather than prse the whole thing. Sediments and cores are not always proxies. The O18 (for example) is a direct measurement of atmospheric concentration and in that repect is not a proxy. When calibrating for paleoclimate usage it may become a proxy. The factors are not just temperature however, the concentrations also change depending on how far from the ocean the sample is taken. So using them as a proxy increases the uncertainty. It certainly "indicates" temperatures and temperature changes in a qualitiative fashion, but it's harder to pin down in a quantitative sense. Another example is from ancient history. Pharonic Egypt rose and fell a number of times. Each fall can be linked to prolonged periods where the Nile flood was extremely poor. Once the good floods returned the civilisation rose again. This is also indicitive of climate change in the African continent since there were a couple of centuries of drastically reduced rainfall in the Nile catchment region. Qualitively it tells us change occurred, but doesn't allow us to pin a quantitive figure to it. If you think that the "divergence problem" is related to "small flaws" I suggest you reread the literature. The Paleo community seem to think it's rather a big problem. Not so much for temp reconstructions but simply trying to work out why it is happening in the first place. Strangely enough, that is what a scientist does, try to work out why things happen. As to your graph on proxies, two points; a. They aren't proxies but reconstructions. Noting that error bars and uncertainties are not shown. This is of course in accord with good scientific practice as found in other fields. b. The agreement is not really surprising when you realise that 4 out of the 9 reconstructions were authored by Mann and Jones. Why on earth would I be surprised that the same people, using the same datasets and similar methodologies derive similar results? I'm not surprised at all. However I do call it blatant bloody dishonesty when these thing are presented as "indepenent" results. A short Quiz from Numberwatch; You have made some observations and calculations, which show that humanity is doomed unless it changes its ways. You have total belief in the accuracy of your predictions. Do you: a. Announce your results, but keep your workings secret for fear that someone will criticise them. b. Announce your results, but set up a group of companies to make yourself mega-rich on the back of the scare you have created. c. Drop everything, including secrecy and profit, and devote yourself to saving the human race. Skippy, you're new here. (Welcome to the Forums by the way and sorry if the previous sentence sounds condescending, it wasn't meant to. ) If you do a bit of a search in the Climate and Politics Forums you'll see that we have had many discussions on climate change, with both sides referencing their arguments. Frankly, I don't really want to go through all that again. I take pride in the fact that I'm considered by the "warmists" on this forum as a "sceptic" and not a "denier" (and extend a compliment to you for not using the term). Over the last couple of years I believe that I have demonstrated that there is indeed a scientific basis for my scepticism which is generally about attribution and certainties. I realise that it might seem that I dismiss your graphs out of hand, however the search will show that they have been discussed previously and at length. Although I must admit that your first one is a version of the spaghetti graph I haven't seen, where did you get it? We differ from the blogs that you've probably seen in that we require proof. Depending on which side of the debate you are on, there are plenty of places on the web that you can go to and say pretty much whatever you like and get away with it. You can go to RC, Deltoid and CP and rubbish CA as much as you like, you can go to CA and WUWT and dump on RC. We aren't like that here, we require proof and references and a polite attitude. As I said, welcome to the forums and enjoy your time here. Have a read through the older threads and if you would care to, also have a look at this oneabout the GISS maps. I must have messed up somewhere, but I don't know where. I'm trying to find the time to get it into a usable form to ask at Lucias or the CCC for their ideas. Again, welcome to SFN. Fair enough.

Agreed. I thought it worthwhile to note that he was arguing from a paper that the author suggests shouldn't be referenced. By arguing from S&B 2008, his argument was flawed from the start.

I trust nobody from the US would be concerned by the large number of Russian, Chinese, North Korean and other weapon sats that would then proliferate the skies? Not being mean, but is there anywhere that the US hasn't wanted to put a weapons platform?

Not to derail the thread, but it might be worth taking a break. cypress, the main paper being used as a basis for Dr. Spencers work described in this thread is Spencer and Braswell 2008. Murphy and Foster published a "Comment on" in JoC last month and a response paper has been prepared by Spencer and Braswell. Spencer and Braswell 2010 is now in press at JGR and Dr. Spencer suggests most strongly that S&B 2010 be referenced rather than S&B 2008. S&B 2008 did have some problems correctly identified by M&F 2010 and these have been answered in S&B 2010. The to and fro can be found on Dr. Spencers blog. I suggest a hiatus on this topic until the latest research and results are considered. There are some interesting comments on how JoC does their peer review, but that is another matter.

Skippy, before passing judgement, it might be better to aquaint yourself with the field a bit more. These methodologies aren't all that old so to say that they have "always been accepted" is a bit strong I think. Your statement implies that these methodologies have been around and considered accurate for decades and have only recently been called into question. This idea is patently false. I would add that there is a difference between using a core for paleoclimatology where it is not a proxy and paleothermometry where it is. There is quite a difference between showing the concentration of O18 in the air 1,500 years ago and tying that fact to temperature. The accuracy of the measurement in the core does not directly relate to the accuracy of the proxy. I suggest you read up a bit on the "Divergence Problem" to see why this might be so. Skippy, I would point out that the "Null Hypothesis" requires you to prove that natural causes are not responsible, rather than the other way around. The onus is on you to demonstrate that something out of the ordinary is happening. Good luck with that. I'll even help. It is generally accepted that a change of about 1.5% in average annual planetary cloud cover extent is quite sufficient to explain all or most of the warming of the 20th Century. Could you please outline and cite references as to the historic values of this factor and show why natural changes in cloud cover can be ruled out as a forcing? I add that in regard to Sea Level Rise, so what? Sea levels will rise and fall with temperature and are indicators of changing climate. However SLR in itself says nothing at all about the cause of the warming. You have a logical problem here Skippy. The argument has always been that "All factors have been taken into account". However this cannot be true if you can add factors and still come up with the same answer. Your argument is basically this; A+B+C+D=10, all factors are correctly valued and taken into account. Then someone discovers another factor "E" with a value of 3 so your equation is now; A+B+C+D+3=10, all factors correctly valued and taken into account. Both statements cannot be true. You simply cannot claim high levels of certainty, make changes equivilent to 30% of the value and continue claiming high levels of certainty. That is what religions do, change the narrative to show the church as always right. You might want to read "1984" to see about historical editing as well. I add that many of those factors you mentioned are not modelled in the GCMs and so have not been "taken into account". Values have been parameterized and guessed at, but that is not the same thing. A number are simply not used. Phi, your evidence perhaps isn't as strong as you would like to believe. Once you take out the "Appeals to emotion" and the pictures of polar bears and the scary "city flooding" and the rest, you don't have much left. Note that all these things, Sea Level Rise, migration pattern changes, etc are a result of warming however they do not indicate the cause. Arctic ice will melt and freeze whether or not we have anything to do with it. Take out the BS and the only thing left is the thing that the vast majority of sceptics don't argue with. Under direct radiative forcings, the planet will warm by about 1-1.10 K for a doubling of CO2. Any estimate above or below that figure relies entirely on estimates of feedbacks. GCMs are currently levelling off at around the 2.4K mark for doubling, but this is by no means certain. Given that the increase in temps relative to CO2 is logarithmic and not linear, then for the increase since the preindustrial we should have seen between .6 and .7 K of warming which is roughly what we've seen. Since we have been roughly tracking the result for direct RF the theory now requires some sort of accelerant to get to the 2.4K the models use. This is how the idea of "Tipping Points" came to be, simply an ad hoc response to the theorys failure to correspond to reality. "Tipping Points" have not been observed and are purely theoretical constructs, the existence of which is required to keep the theory afloat. Without evidence from the paleo record, they are merely "really bad things" that must happen sometime in the future, like a day of judgement. Without them, we will gain about .4K over the next century and nobody will even notice. One of the worst parts of this debate is that too many people are arguing either or. It has to be CO2 or something else. I believe this to be wrong. In a chaotic system like climate, one could liken the addition and subtractions of forcings to the Drake equation. (The difference being that we don't know if we know all the factors yet.) Some of the factors we know pretty well and others we are virtually clueless about. If we overestimate positive feedbacks from clouds but underestimate positive forcings from land use change then even though our final answer might be correct we will be misled when applying those values to the future. The true situation could be that we are overestimating three factors (by varying degrees) while underestimating six others, and we have no way to tell which is which or by how much. Frankly, I've always thought the "It's CO2" to be way too simplistic for something as chaotic as climate. Is it swansont? In 2007 the IPCC declared levels of certainty re various forcings (which is fair enough) and you might accept those levels of certainty. Fine. In 2010 Susan Solomon released a paer in Science "Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming" which showed; Interesting that people can be certain in 2007 about factors not discovered until 2010. I put to you that the certainty rather than the uncertainty is manufactured. Similarly, how do you reconcile "certainty" with Dr. Trenbaths "travesty" comment? "We are certain about what the climate is doing, we just have no idea where the energy is going, how it gets there or what it's going to do next"? Yes weather is not climate, unless you're Micheal Mann talking about heatwaves in Philly. Silly comments come from both sides, it's just far more embarrassing when it's a climatological "leading light" that makes them. PS. iNow, I came across a paper a while ago about the divergence problem that was quite interesting. Apparently some trees in cold climates grow along the ground (for some reason) but when temps pass a certain point they start growing straight up. This causes changes in the ring thickness and density and may go quite some way to explaining the problem. The point of divergence is the point where the growth pattern changes. I can dig it up if you wish. PPS. How do you get the system to show who you are quoting like the old one did? Currently having a brain freeze and can't work it out.

I guess that makes me Q.

And two excellent degrees they are too.

From the outside it looks very different. While neither Bush nor Obama "get a pass", some hundreds do. Either the US is a Dictatorship and the "Word" of the President is the final and only word or you are a democracy with a Congress. Hold the Congress critters to account. Arguing about whether it's the fault of Bush or Obama just lets them off scot free. Why should Congressmen and Senators give two hoots about new policies and laws? If it goes belly up the President is going to get blamed anyway. Every single bad law in the history of the USA has been voted on and passed by Congress, the President at the time did not act in a vacuum and alone. Why this concentration on the President? It's not the President who fillibusters. It's not the President who attaches rediculous "riders" to sensible Bills. It's not the President who sits on the Committees that keep your prices and taxes high. Start putting the blame where it belongs. While ever you are caught in the Bush/Obama debate, those who have really been screwing you for years are walking away laughing.

Births/Deaths no. I think I've seen Roadrunner flipping the bird. In Oz each State gov puts some stupid saying across the bottom of the plate so bumper stickers doing similar becomes redundant. Down here bumber stickers are generally places people have been, or some sort of political comment. You do see the occasional "If you can read this I've lost the bloody caravan again" or similar around the traps.

Oh Dear Lord. There is no missing 1/64. The early version of the mathematical system was based on the idea that each fraction was 1/2 the size of the one above. They stopped at 1/64 because the next one was 1/128 and as the system was more important for practicality rather than accuracy ans the standard of measure was a piece of knotted string there was no real point in going to the next step. The 1/128 was added later for some time but was then pretty much superceded by the easier to measure but harder to write system of added fractions. This gave answers like 10+1/4+1/11+1/28. Messy but easier to measure. To ask where the 1/64 has gone is the same as asking where the extra area in a circle came from. Since the Egyptians used A = ( 8d/9 )2 their Pi was 3.16049 and so the area of their circles was greater than the area of circles now. Perhaps g-f could next bend his phenomenal intellect to the problem of why circles have got smaller in the last 5,000 years. For those interested a short article on Egyptian maths and fractions is here. (Small pdf) I'll let the complete idiocy of this statement speak for itself.

Neither a guess nor wrong. It was a very clear demonstration of how words need to be used carefully. Just because you "reap" "corn" doesn't mean that the rest of the world does. They might "harvest" "maize" instead. Corn, as in "corn on the cob" was unknown in ancient Egypt, it was brought to Erope and Africa after Columbus. If you have any proof to the contrary, then please present it. This should be rather easy, all you need is a glyph that translates to "maize" as "corn" can be a generic term with multiple meanings. I do accept that there are some problems with Isolationist theory as the recent autopsy of Ramses II has shown, but there is as yet insufficient evidence to state categorically that corn aka maize was grown in Dynastic Egypt. What guess? reaping hook is almost identical the third one in the picture and for that matter very similar to the one in drawing. To remind you of what I really said; Your own picture shows that I speak the truth on this. Also,if you had read your own link more carefully you would have noticed that the author swaps easily from "corn" to "wheat" when referring to harvested crops. As has been pointed out by others and as your own link shows "corn" can mean "wheat" rather than "maize". Again you fail to read and understand your own links. The McCormick Reaper and others in the article were harvesting oats and wheat. The machinery for harvesting corn aka maize was called the "Corn Binder". Your rather poor attempts to show unusual meanings in a translation of a very old language are not enhanced by your often demonstrated inability to read and comprehend english. Unless you post the relevent passages this is nothing more than unsupported rubbish. I asked you twice in my last post to do this, but you have failed. However, if you wish to be viewed as nothing more than an under educated, over opinionated tosser then please continue on your current course and we can all ignore your bleatings that much sooner. This might be the Speculations sub forum but we still have standards. You are continually ignoring requests for references. You are mis quoting the meanings of others. You are simply repeating yourself rather than providing proof to back your assertions. Frankly I think that you are well on the way to suspension or banning. (as I suspect has happened to you on a number of forums before) Repeating unfounded and unproven assertions does not impress us, providing proof and references does. I suggest you learn this with speed. On a more general note. Your reliance on one version of an ancient text is worrying. There really isn't a "definitive" translation for most of the texts and if the translator makes the translation "more accessable" as Faulkner does, then he must perforce sacrifice accuracy. I didn't set out to learn heiroglyphics because I wanted to get a degree or to make others think I'm smart. I did it becuse I understood that since there are multiple translations of a given passage it was better to learn the language for myself than to rely on what others told me. The Royal Society has the motto "Take No Mans Word", I follow that principle. Where you and I differ is that I take no mans word where you have decided that one man (Faulkner) is the definitive word and all that disagree must be wrong. This is akin to religious fundamentalism where it is not only decided that the Bible must be the only written truth, but only a particular version of the Bible contains the "Truth". There are undecyphered glyphs and passages in many texts that are not clear. There are many untranslated texts. There are still mysteries left. I will be quite happy to converse with you on any of these topics but you have to come to the party too. Learn the language and learn to reference. What you are currently doing is like somebody who cannot read Chinese trying to argue the inner thoughts of Confucious.

Good point. I forgot that one.

g-f. If you are going to quote from texts, then please provide a reference so that they can be checked. I personally don't give two hoots in hell what you use, but reference them. This is particularly important if using the Book of the Dead or the Pyramid Texts. The diet of the ancient Egyptians changed over time and so it is vital to know the source of the text so that the crop referred to is known. A reference from the Book of the Dead can come from anywhere between the Second and Twentieth Dynasties and the dietary changes over this vast span of time. I'm particularly concerned about this quote; You don't "reap" corn, you reap grains like wheat or barley. The particular tool used for reaping grain is one of the earliest known, the "Reaping Hook". As can be easily seen, its use for harvesting corn is quite, um, limited. Either the translation of "reaped" is wrong or the "corn" is wrong, a translation of "harvested corn" or "picked corn" or "reaped grain" is to be expected, but certainly not "reaped corn". I would be most interested to see the original glyphs for this quote. Corn was grown, but it's crops had little to do with the inundation, most often it was grown in irrigated fields above the flood level so your point is moot at best. At worst it shows a complete lack of knowledge regarding agricultural techniques of Pharonic Egypt. Concerning the inundation itself, that is a fascinating study. Nothing is grown on the floodplains during inundation. The annual floods laid down a (generally) thick layer of silt all over the plain. This rich alluvial soil was so good that 2 and sometimes 3 crops could be harvested between floods. Depending on the fields, these crops could be anything from lettuce, onions and radishes through to wheat and barley. The staple food of the people was bread made from wheat, the staple drink beer or wine. Foods were supplemented by fish, sometimes gamebirds and roots etc that the people could gather. As an aside, Celibate Priests were forbidden during some Dynasties to eat onions as their aphrodesiac qualities were thought to cause problems. Another interesting sidenote is one that most people don't think of. The Inundation was in many ways responsible for the quite advanced surveying techniques of the Pharonic Egyptians. Rather than fences, stone markers were used to deliniate fields. These markers were often lost, swept away, buried or moved by the floodwaters so a sophisicated system of surveyors was required to remark the fields after every inundation. Excellent record keeping and a scribal bureaucracy become required just for society to function. (Okay, I'm rambling, but I find it fascinating. ) So g-f, as you can see, there is nothing wrong with my comment. The rising of Sothis did indeed herald the inundation. Your attempt to counter it with corn is strange to say the least. I will repeat myself though. Please reference the passages that you are quoting so they can be checked. Crops changed, religions changed. A society that lasted for 3,000 years changes in many and subtle ways so a reference that places the quote in it's historical context is vital for understanding. Edit to add. Klaynos it's very hard to use AE texts without using at least some religious texts. The religion was very closely tied to astronomical observations however that doesn't make the debate religious in any way. In the old religion there was a saying "As above, so below" for the Egyptians this was literally true in many respects. The Duat was both "Heaven" and a very real place in the Northern sky.

I agree to a great degree. It comes down to what is needed to make the story work and the point of the story. Using normal physics works if the story is set within a system or allows for generation ships. However if the story requires an intersystem civilization then the effects of communications change the structure of the story. The background and entire society changes to suit. In "Ringworld" by Larry Niven, Harloprillalar was surprised that her civilization had fallen when she came back from a 900 year relativistic voyage. Note the mix in Heinleins "Time for the Stars". While the ships travel at relativistic speeds, communication is via telepathy and instantaneous. Aside from a straight adventure story it was intended as a comment on how a society changes over time. H. Beam Pipers "Terro Human Future History" is a collection of stories about societies, how they evolve and die. Communications travel by ship which log about a parsec per day. Not a problem if the planets are within 30 odd light years of each other but it's very difficult to run a Galactic Commonwealth if it takes 4 months for a message to arrive. Speed of communication defines the possibilities of the society, so some scifi magic might be needed to allow the intended plot. Depending on the point, you might have to let the physics slip a bit to allow the sociology to work. It just depends on the needs of the storyline.

However, since we have a sentience that can upload itself into hard drives, is it such a stretch? Is it so far out of bounds to postulate that these very advanced intelligences can cause the waveform to collapse in a non-random fashion? That's all that is required to make the idea work. Waveform collapse random = no communication but waveform collapse non-random = communication. Allowing for non-random waveform collapse strikes me as a minor point when talking scifi. We already accept Hyperspace, Warps, Wormholes and Thor only knows what else. It could be explained as an offshoot of developing the technology for "molecular" or "Atom based" computing. Once you are using atoms and molecules to store and manipulate data, the ability to collapse waveforms in a non-random manner would seem a logical development.

There is also the possibility that existence is both real and imaginary, depending on the POV at the time. Assuming the existence of an "eternal" part to our being leads to an unusual situation. What happens during "life" is real and can effect the body, mind and spirit. (Mostly body though) Life is therefore "real" from the POV of the body. However the effect is not neccessarily the same for the spirit. A simple example is that if I died by being cut in half in a freak sawmill accident there is no reason to assume that my spirit was also cut in half. So while the accident and death was "real" from the POV of the body, it is "imaginary" or "a dream" from the POV of the spirit. The logic can follow through to every moment of a life. All times are "real" for the body and "dreaming" for the spirit. An interesting question is: If we are spirits sharing the same dream, what happens when one of us learns to lucid dream and can then control (at least in part) the dream? Is this a cause of mass psychoses?