The sun? Sometimes it is more or less intense. It does not really need CO2 or water vapor. If those feedbacks were positive, the period where Earth had 20 times more CO2 would have been the time ultimate catastrophe.

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Seriously guys, there are such things as empirical models. They are models based on empirical data. Scientific Laws are empirical models, models that fit the observational data. Like Newton’s Law of Gravity which is enormously successful in predicting the motions of bodies governed by gravity. It is still a Scientific Law because the formula still fits the observational data. Newton’s Law of Gravity merely gives us a way to calculate future or past positions of objects, but it requires a Scientific Theory to explain just why the model matches up so well with the empirical data.

All of this is secondary; The real issue is that, in order to save a whole mess of computation, they are using LINEAR models, even though we all know that heat absorption of CO2 does not increase linearly with increasing CO2 concentration. It’s a safe bet that they are using linear models for many other non-linear relationships as well.

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You’ve pointed out a significant disconnect between what the skeptics think and what the AGW crowd believes the skeptics think. The debate is not over whether or not anthropomorphic CO2 emissions have any effect, but whether or not the net magnitude of this effect is large enough to be concerned about. The multi-trillion dollar question is whether or not the effect is large enough to justify an expensive experiment in climate modification through the use of carbon taxes.

You have also correctly pointed out the king pin in the AGW argument is an assumption, which is the basis of other arguments used to ‘prove’ the assumption. This is a classic example of junk science derived from flawed logic. The ‘warmists’ are reluctant to acknowledge this because if they do, their entire house of cards comes crumbling down, moreover; the many ancillary agendas, which are otherwise unsupportable without AGW, are significantly undermined.

My favorite argument is that even if AGW was significant, it would be more beneficial than harmful. A few displaced coastal residents and polar bears is far less inconvenient than 1 KM thick wall of ice bearing down on Manhattan. The later has occurred many times over the last few million years and unfortunately, no amount of AGW will stop it from recurring.

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Boris #59 said I said: “have I ever said that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Nor have I even inferred as much.”

If you are going to quote me, how about actually quoting the complete sentence, rather than leaving things out of context.

I said:
“Nowhere in this discussion or in any discussion on any blog, have I ever said that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.”

…the assumption that a change in CO2 caused warming.

Again you quote me out of context. What I said, in response to one of your comments was:
“As you phrased it, that is an excellent example of an assumed positive feedback based on the assumption that a change in CO2 caused warming.”

Since in real life, as opposed to the virtual reality of models, warming precedes rise in CO2 anyway, the assumption of the response (warming) being a result of the assumed forcing (CO2 increase is already falsified.)

Halleluiah! You finally actually return the complete quote. Now comes the fun part.

Boris asks: Then what are you talking about here?

We’ve already established that English comprehension is not one of your strong suits, which will be made clear as we continue to dissect your nonsense.

Boris says: You are saying that warming from CO2 is falsified because of the paleo record.

Ok, so you at least comprehended that much. But lets be real specific, the Vostok Ice Cores (Which your side once used as proof for the opposite conclusion, only to have that turned on its head with better analysis.)

Here’s where you score real low on comprehension.

Boris says: If you acknowledge that CO2 is a GHG and causes warming then why are you saying it’s an assumption that CO2 causes warming.
???

That’s more high school debate tactics Boris.

The sun causes warming. GHGs moderate the loss of heat back into space and they may amplify or dampen warming, but they don’t cause warming.

That’s not the same as saying GHGs cause warming and I haven’t said that GHGs cause warming. No, I don’t buy the assumption that CO2 causes warming!

Without the sun, all the GHGs on Venus and Earth combined wouldn’t make it warm.

The main thrust of the discussion is about the validity of the Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis.

That is: whether or not humans are causing the change vs natural causes. Most of us skeptics are saying you “warmists” haven’t proven the human causality.

Boris said: You make no sense whatsoever.

Making sense assumes you possess both an ability to comprehend the English language and an ability to read entire statements in context, skills you obviously lack.

Go ahead, declare yourself the winner again.

No need, I leave that to the readers who can follow the thread and note that you never produced proof of your outlandish assertions.

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Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol but, in the following 810 days didn’t get it ratified by congress. Enron was all prepped and ready to jump on wind & solar cap & trade here.

Bush was labeled “in bed” with Enron. Strange, he did not sign on to or press cap & trade. Maybe because of big oil interests? Or he thought it would be bad for the economy.

Now we have GE stock in the toilet but, GE is big into “green” and owns NBC. NBC and MSNBC slobbered all over Barrack Obama before the election and still are. Critics here were labeled as racist if they disagreed with his radical left voting history as a senator or current leadership.
I realize our US congress makes the real decisions but, the American people were mislead with Obama’s campaign for moderate leadership.

Our Mainstream Media is so far left! We don’t have any real journalists at ABC, NBC or CBS. The people are not getting the truth. They are getting corporate made propaganda.

Sorry, this might sound off base of the topic here but, I think it is spot on. Tell me, if you think I am wrong.

Keep up the good work on real science Joanne Nova!

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http://www.palisad.com/co2/sdata.zip

This zip file contains UNIX format text files with monthly summaries, 4 month running averages and 12 month running averages for the percentage of ice coverage, surface reflectivity, surface temperature and the percentage of clouds as accumulated from weather satellites since 1983. Each 15 degrees of latitude are accumulated and summarized independently in one set of files and the other set of files contains hemisphere averages and the global averages. If you take the time to understand what this data is telling us, you will no longer believe in anthropomorphic forcing. Pay special attention to the running 12 month averages and how the 2 hemispheres differ.

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Driving the surface is what you are doing by considering the energy captured by GHG the same as energy from the Sun. More precisely, you are driving the system from the lower layer of the atmosphere where most of the greenhouse absorption is taking place as well as from the Sun.

Yes, the effect of increasing GHG has a finite effect on the surface energy and thus temperature, but this effect is quite small. Even the IPCC heuristic claims only about 4 W/m^2 for doubling the CO2 (about 1% of the total surface energy). An increase in GHG absorption of 4 W/m^2 would result in a ‘no feedback’ surface temperature increase of less than 0.7C. The CO2 levels in 1750 were 275 ppm. The ice cores show a range of from 180 ppm to 330 ppm over a 12C temperature range, or about 12.5 ppm per degree C. For an 0.7C increase, the additional would be about 9 ppm (upper limit) as compared to the 275 ppm increase that is presumed to have caused the 0.7 rise. This additional 9ppm adds less than 0.1 watts of additional forcing and another 0.01C increase. Even using the flawed IPCC metrics and assuming maximum positive feedback, the data illustrates the upper limit for the gain from CO2 feedback is so small, that additional feedback related increases drop off very quickly. BTW, the additional 9ppm now makes the new CO2 more than double 1750 levels, so the initial doubling criteria is no longer valid. Even if we were to use your highly inflated 1.1C rise, the net rise would be less than 1.2C for doubling the CO2.

In order to achieve the IPCC nominal 4C increase for doubling CO2, even starting with the highly inflated ‘no feedback’ 1.1C value, requires the the 4 W/m^2 to be amplified to 22 W/m^2, which simply can’t happen under any circumstances. We are currently close to minimum ice, so there is little ice feedback left to push the temperature much warmer. Unless you can say where all of the extra power is coming from, your position that greenhouse forcing from anthropomorphic CO2 matters relative to the climate is unsupportable. A more accurate analysis of doubling CO2 shows less than about 0.25C of difference, after accounting for all feedbacks. It this worth the multi-trillion dollar cost of a climate modification experiment based on carbon regulation?

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