Hope you enjoyed the personal replies, but now that I’ve responded to all your scientific, and non scientific, and repetitive, and ill-informed comments I’m officially putting you in my to do list, but prioritized under responses to real people with real names and reputations. Henceforth I’ll be replying first to the Academy of Science, NOAA, Professors, Journalists, Ministers, and other bloggers (with names).

So when they all stop putting their names and institutions to bogus illogical arguments, I might find time to answer yours OK? Until then, if you do finally come up with a real flaw, and you want a faster reply, you can always email it to the real professors eh? I’m sure if you come up with something real – like the evidence they can’t find themselves, they’ll be delighted.

People on my site need to be able to form sentences in context with points that they can back up.

Best of luck.

Report this

00

[So you admit you post arguments which are incoherent and unreferenced

I post comments which are very readable albeit with the occasional typo. People can follow my arguments in other forums without problems. I am happy to expand on anything I have said that confuses you if it helps clarify.

and you repeat points that I have already answered elsewhere without bothering to use the careful index page I set up to help you find my answers,

Yes. You have said that already. So in keeping on topic, using that index, how am I to find out why you cherry pick 8 years in an attempt show that the warming has stopped?

yet you argue that I am not allowed to discuss your low quality style of arguments. I asked you to name yourself, hoping that you could improve, yet you won't, even though you acknowledge that people with real names are less likely to waste the time of everyone else here. You could have ended this whole charade of a scientific discourse just be giving your real name, I would have let you post again without moderation

That you continue to want to get to know me is great, but also totally irrelevant to the argument I make.

, and continually you show that your style of scientific discussion is to emphatically announce a cherry-picked or obsessive micro-flaw, then when someone points out the flaws you deflect attention from the low quality of your original post by using any adjective they wrote (even if it was not about you, but about anonymous posters in general), amplifying it up and claim victory because someone responded to your preposterous argument with an adjective which you call a "personal attack"? Your entire cherry picking focus here amounts to a discussion not of any error I made, but of your feeling that my editorial choice of headings was misleading. What you are claiming is about my style of writing, the headline I used is, in context of the page, quite correct, and in the context of all my writing, not cherry picking any time period.

I made it pretty clear in my previous post why it's more than just your heading. That you fail to answer the rest of my post makes it clear you cannot refute the logic I present.

So you can discuss "styles" and editorial choices but if I do that, you pretend I am avoiding the science? --JN]

Sorry I don’t follow you on this. Rather than call you incoherent, I would ask that perhaps you could elaborate on this point?

Report this

00

I was answering you point by point (even though you weren’t bothering to explain your points, or adding links or references). Even though the arguments were at times incoherent.

I try to be as clear as possible. Please ask for clarification if you don’t understand something I’ve said. I am quite happy to elaborate.

Clearly you are still hiding something and wish to remain anonymous, …

It’s a non-issue in my case. I am addressing the argument, you should do likewise.

[So you admit you post arguments which are incoherent and unreferenced and you repeat points that I have already answered elsewhere without bothering to use the careful index page I set up to help you find my answers, yet you argue that I am not allowed to discuss your low quality style of arguments. I asked you to name yourself, hoping that you could improve, yet you won't, even though you acknowledge that people with real names are less likely to waste the time of everyone else here. You could have ended this whole charade of a scientific discourse just by giving your real name, I would have let you post again without moderation, and continually you show that your style of scientific discussion is to emphatically announce a cherry-picked or obsessive micro-flaw, then when someone points out the flaws you deflect attention from the low quality of your original post by using any adjective they wrote (even if it was not about you, but about anonymous posters in general), amplifying it up and claim victory because someone responded to your preposterous argument with an adjective which you call a "personal attack"? Your entire cherry picking focus here amounts to a discussion not of any error I made, but of your feeling that my editorial choice of headings was misleading. What you are claiming is about my style of writing, the headline I used is, in context of the page, quite correct, and in the context of all my writing, not cherry picking any time period. So you can discuss "styles" and editorial choices but if I do that, you pretend I am avoiding the science? --JN]

Cherry picking is a weak tool of logic. You say I’m cherry picking because I refer to an 8 year period, even though I declare that in the first full sentence

Declaring that you cherry pick years does not make it any more valid as a measurement of long term trends.

[But I'm discussing short term trends.]

In your introduction on page 3 the majority of your text is saying how we are not warming. Only the last line mentions computer modelling; “The models don’t know what it is.”. 4 of 5 lines are telling us we’re not warming, only 1 line mentions models, so I’m not cherry picking there.

On page 6, of the 20 lines you write, the models are mentioned in 3 of them. Again the majority of your text is concerning the “lack of warming”. If I said to someone that this section of your paper is about computer models and how they are inaccurate, they would have asked why would I cherry pick 3 lines out of 30 to come to that conclusion.

and also point out that it doesn’t mean the longer trend is over

You say this once at the end, but that is overwhelmed by the amount of effort you go to, to try and convince us it’s not warming. You even argue against “trends” by saying “Clusters and longer trends are all that’s left when you can’t say ’2008, or 2007, or 2006 was the hottest’”.

, but does show the models were wrong.

I’m not surprised that models can’t predict the future given that it involves climatic events that cannot be precisely predicted such as solar irradiance, volcanic activity and ocean currents.

I make four points in a single 200 word page using the latest data at the time, and you think I could have chosen a different headline.Is that it?

No it’s not just the headline. Most of the rest of the page tries to back up your headline. If your intention was to attack the models, why then would you have as the #1 AGW reply, “In the last decade we’ve had six (or seven, or eight) of the top ten hottest years ever recorded.”? This AGW reply only makes sense if they were arguing about the trend. A reply to the models’ accuracy would have been something like “Models can’t predict some forces that influence our climate, hence they will only give estimate projections under various scenarios, not exacting predictions.”.

Why is it you show a graph that has only surface temp data and NO model prediction, if this was to be the main point of this section of the handbook?

[Because I make many other points on the one short page. The failure of models is only one point].

The cherry picking in your comments is worse. You attack a headline phrase, and ignore the short immediate text below it which takes much of what you say into account.

As I’ve shown, you made a headline, then tried to support it with the majority of your following lines. I’m not attacking the headline, I’m attacking most of the lines on the pages.

[Now after claiming the phrase "the world is not warming any more" is cherry picking x 10 times, you claim you're not attacking the headline? Inane.]

Worse, all those on your team, who you don’t criticize, frequently use a single storm, or single season to make claims, and even those who use decadal averages almost never mention that this century is colder than many past periods. Why do you ignore the longer term … ?

As I said above, I think hitting new highs is newsworthy, but I prefer highlighting the long term trend.

Yes it has changed many times in the past and for various reasons. That doesn’t mean that the radiative forcing of a higher CO2 level cannot have an impact.

See how meaningless “cherry picker” is? Anyone can use it, especially by being one.

That’s why I like to be specific.

Cherry picking 8 years to show that there is “no more warming” is useless because it ignores the major decadal influence of various natural cycles.

You hold my “headlines” to standards that you would never apply to major newspapers.

As shown already, it’s more than just the headline.

Aside from that, you’re writing about science, I would expect higher standards than found in the tabloids. That you currently don’t exceed the tabloids is a concern given that you are a scientist writing about science.

I’m flattered by the attention, but underwhelmed by the reasoning.

Spend more time on understanding reasoning and less on being flattered.

Report this

00

I was answering you point by point (even though you weren’t bothering to explain your points, or adding links or references). Even though the arguments were at times incoherent.

Clearly you are still hiding something and wish to remain anonymous, even though you defend the dominant paradigm. At least you’ve acknowledged that this gives you complete freedom to be demanding, obsessive, difficult or unreasonable*, and presumably you understand why I have more important targets to reply too – anyone with a name/ institution/ real reputation.

*Notice I’m not saying you do all these things, I’m merely suggesting (as per previously) that these are possibilities for anonymous commenters.

Cherry picking is a weak tool of logic. You say I’m cherry picking because I refer to an 8 year period, even though I declare that in the first full sentence, and also point out that it doesn’t mean the longer trend is over, but does show the models were wrong.

I make four points in a single 200 word page using the latest data at the time, and you think I could have chosen a different headline.Is that it?

The cherry picking in your comments is worse. You attack a headline phrase, and ignore the short immediate text below it which takes much of what you say into account. Worse, all those on your team, who you don’t criticize, frequently use a single storm, or single season to make claims, and even those who use decadal averages almost never mention that this century is colder than many past periods. Why do you ignore the longer term … ?

See how meaningless “cherry picker” is? Anyone can use it, especially by being one.

You hold my “headlines” to standards that you would never apply to major newspapers. I’m flattered by the attention, but underwhelmed by the reasoning.

Report this

00

The first line on that page is “The world hasn’t warmed since 2001?. So if you cherry pick the headline and ignore all the text… once again, you are cherry picking. Not me.

You said “I don’t claim things won’t get warmer”, but that’s exactly what you did in the heading for that section of your handbook.

[Headlines in any other publication are not expected to be assessed as a stand alone sentence without supporting material. Yes you are right, I used that phrase in the heading, then explained what it meant and didn't mean in the text. Your need to hold me to standards that you don't hold anyone else too is obsessive and biased. In the big scheme of things my unfunded publication competes with government funded en masse 100 fold more frequent headlines that are similarly short phrases. Timewasting.-- JN]

You then go on to back up your claim that “The world is not warming any more” with your very next line, “The world has not warmed since 2001″ and a graph with a label “no warming”.

Your suggest here to readers is that the warming has stopped.

You say on page 3, in bold, “Temperatures are not rising.” and “Satellites circling the planet twice a day show that the world has not warmed since 2001. How many years of NO global warming will it take?”

[The question goes out for all who believe in the catastrophic hypothesis. Is there any data that could come in where they'd admit the models are wrong? They almost never give a number. If 8 years of no warming (or 15 of no significant trend) doesn't sway someone that the models have serious flaws and larger cycles are at work, how many years of No warming would it take?

On page 6 you say "Clusters and longer trends are all that's left when you can't say '2008, or 2007, ot 2006 was the hottest". You are indiciating to your readers that being able to highlight one year is important when determining if the planet is warming or not.

[ No. Sceptics don't say "2009 was the coolest year since 2007, warmists do. I'm pointing out how mindless that is, and how they can't say that so the PR campaign has moved on to the next best "PR message". Tell your buddies at NOAA that one storm season doesn't count. --JN]

Also on page 6 you say “Satellites have circled the planet 24 hours a day for 30 years recording temperatures continuously. If temperatures were still rising, they would see it.”.

Now if you are saying there’s been no warming in the 30 years then you’d be wrong.

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/to:2011/plot/rss/to:2011/trend

[Why attack things I haven't said? Time-wasting. --JN]

But if you’re referring to the short term period of 8 years not showing warming, well then you’re back to a short term view once more.

You say above “I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.” and I agree that’s also one of your points but it’s not the main crux of your argument as the headline and the majority of your wording within implies.

[I make SIX POINTS in that two page spread. 1. The trend has been flat now (and the media don't mention that) for the last 8 years, and BTW the "cluster of hot years argument" is meaningless (see here for why). 2. We've been warming for 200 years - long before C02 emissions. 3. Temperature Records are short. 4. Ground based stations are compromised due to UHI and to siting problems. 5. The flat trend tells us the models are wrong. 6. Some other factor is involved in climate that the models don't understand. --JN]

You also suggest that CO2 levels climb during this period whilst temps are flat; another example of flawed thinking. The long term forcing of CO2 will never be visible amoungst a short term graph with a large amount of natural variation.

Which is why I didn’t refer to 1998 and won’t use 2010 either. I could have said that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that would be correct too.

To do so would be to repeat the same mistake if you are believing this is evidence that “The world is not warming any more”.

As Jones pointed out, with the amount of natural varation in surface temp data, statistical significance only becomes possible on longer timescales.

Since there weren’t too many climate models predicting temperatures in 1900, I can hardly compare their predictions with a much longer time frame. If you prefer I’ll compare what they said in the FAR 1990 report with the performance for 20 years. It’s damning.

For the record though, I’d be extremely surprised if any computer model from 20 years would ever predict the climate, partly because the models were very rudimentary, but also because of the previous comment I made about computer models.

Current day modelling is far more sophisticated than 20 years ago.

But hey Jo, I’m trying to stay on topic here, something you’ve implored me to do in the past, so I’ll leave it at that.

[I'll edit that when the worlds mass bureaucracies stop saying "xxxx is the warmest on record" without also admitting that records are short and that it's not as warm as it has been several times in the last 10,000 years. OK? --JN]

Every now and again knowing that we’ve hit another warmest year in the past 100 or so years is something to be highlighted.

[Yes it's ok for the major powers in control to cherry pick repeatedly but not for one volunteer pointing out how mindless they are? You admit you have a double standard then?--JN]

Personally I preferred the more recent news that showed how decade after decade we’re getting warmer, though even that picture is susceptible to decadal fluctuations.

Compare that to your message, that we’ve not seen “statistically significant” warming in an 8 year period.

As for previous periods being warmer, other periods will have warmed/cooled for various reasons, that doesn’t mean that GHGs can’t be responsible for most of this period’s warming.

But again I feel like we’re drifting off topic – you wished to focus one question. Point 3 of your handbook “Temperatures are not rising” cherry picks 8 years of data and ignores the long term trend. If you wish to change this point to be “The models are wrong about short term warming”, then we’d be having a different discussion.

[No. I see no reason too. The page is about short term trends, and yet even so, mentions the 200 year trend. It was designed to be a tiny counterpoint to the thousands of repetitions of "The world is warming" which ignore the longer term trends, and overestimate model accuracy. Part of the "warming" is due to UHI and siting, and the powers-that-be don't mention that. Thanks for your dogged attempt to find any editorial minor aggrievement. Obviously this page was a success. --JN]

Report this

00

Conclusion: This doesn’t prove global warming is over…

So, if you read the article you attack you’d see I don’t claim global warming is over, I don’t claim things won’t get warmer, …

Yes you do. Page 6 the heading in large text is “The world is not warming any more”. This is the heading to the section which discusses in detail how the “Temperatures are not rising”.

The first line on that page is “The world hasn’t warmed since 2001″. So if you cherry pick the headline and ignore all the text… once again, you are cherry picking. Not me.

I don’t claim that carbon had nothing to do with it (just that it isn’t the main driver), I don’t claim that the world is cooling, and I don’t use an El Nino year as a start point.

I agree that you don’t say these.

I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.

That would be a different argument to “The world is not warming any more”.

No model will ever perfectly predict the future climate. Models will perform many “runs”, each run showing a different result because of the inherent “randomness”. The results of each run can be plotted on a graph and over many runs you eventually start to see what the more likly result will be. Models also don’t predict what the Sun will do, so none will predict the extended period of low solar irrandiance, nor can the best of models predict exactly how long the El Nino/La Nina periods will be.

But I’m not here to defend the models and I’ll happily concede they have many limitations.

My gripe is that your claim “The world is not warming any more” is based upon an 8 year period. Such a timeframe is well affected by El Nino / La Nina cycles.

Which is why I didn’t refer to 1998 and won’t use 2010 either. I could have said that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that would be correct too.

Perhaps this section of your handbook would be better re-labelled as “Models are not capable of predicting El Nino / La Nina”.

Could it be you mistakenly think 130 years is “long term” and haven’t done much research on what I write?

I am aware of how you talk about other periods of time. But for your argument that “The world is not warming any more” you are using an 8 year period.

Since there weren’t too many climate models predicting temperatures in 1900, I can hardly compare their predictions with a much longer time frame. If you prefer I’ll compare what they said in the FAR 1990 report with the performance for 20 years. It’s damning.

I discuss graphs of the last 200 years, the last 2000 years, the last 10,000 years, the last 420,000 years, the last 65 million years, and the last half-billion years (see Skeptics Handbook II p 19).

These are not referenced to in the “The world is not warming any more” section of your handbook. You only refer to the 2001-2009 period.

With your permission I would be happy to discuss each one of these other periods because there are some problems with your arguments I would like to comment on, but in this thread, in regards to the “short term” argument, I assume that such comments would be considered off-topic.

So Brendon, will you admit I don’t focus on short term trends, and don’t ignore any longer term timetable?

Once your “The world is not warming any more” section of your handbook is amended to no longer look at a short term period, then yes I would admit that.

[I'll edit that when the worlds mass bureaucracies stop saying "xxxx is the warmest on record" without also admitting that records are short and that it's not as warm as it has been several times in the last 10,000 years. OK? --JN]

At the moment it reads “Satellites circling the planet twice a day show that the world has not warmed since 2001. How many more years of NO global warming will it take?” which is a short term view.

Report this

00

[Wouldn't it be more polite to try to stick to one topic at a time, explain what you mean and provide some link, rather than psychic guesses as to the point you are making? - JN]

More polite? No. More helpful? Yes, it would have been very helpful if I had of linked to where the comments were made.

[Thank you]

Brendon, I answered 11 scientific points, and used the word “arrogant” once.

A search of this page shows you used this twice.

[Do you worry about that obsessive tendency to investigate inconsequential things? --JN]

“Incoherent” applied to the argument.

An argument is never “Incoherent”, the people writing the words are.

[Of course an argument can be incoherent. It's an adjective, not a medical condition. --JN]

The other words applied generically to anonymous posters.

Yet it was me you were replying to.

[Obviously I can't use any descriptors on any statement made by you or even on the style of argumentation common to posters like yourself, because you'll take it personally, and accuse me of an "ad hom" (or equivalent) which is the perfect way to distract from the point I raised eh? --JN]

See – you do it again. The flat out incorrect statement. I did address your point about cherry picking. I may not have done the impossible and converted you, but I did address it.

No you haven’t. Perhaps you honestly think you have, but I’ll explain in my next post why you have not addressed the question.

[Brendon, "Addressed" means to speak to a point, which I did. It's not a question of me "honestly thinking" anything - it's just you denying the obvious yet again. You continually carelessly use words which reduce our conversation to a dictionary lesson. It's a minor point, except repeated 100 times makes a mockery out of a meaningful discussion. --JN]

Report this

00

Lets quote me direct. Page 6 The Skeptics Handbook.

Noise is caused by something. And it’s more important than Carbon. Even if the temperatures start going up again, the flat trend for seven years tells us the models are missing something big.

Conclusion: This doesn’t prove global warming is over…

So, if you read the article you attack you’d see I don’t claim global warming is over, I don’t claim things won’t get warmer, I don’t claim that carbon had nothing to do with it (just that it isn’t the main driver), I don’t claim that the world is cooling, and I don’t use an El Nino year as a start point. I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.

You ask: So why is it you focus on the short term, and ignore the long term trend?

Could it be you mistakenly think 130 years is “long term” and haven’t done much research on what I write?

I discuss graphs of the last 200 years, the last 2000 years, the last 10,000 years, the last 420,000 years, the last 65 million years, and the last half-billion years (see Skeptics Handbook II p 19).

So Brendon, will you admit I don’t focus on short term trends, and don’t ignore any longer term timetable?

Report this

00

Brendon, I have made no personal attack on you. How could I? “You” are anonymous.

Personal attacks can be made against anonymous people. It is quite easy to give abuse to a stranger in the street, not that I am promoting such behaviour.

You run a forum where using your real name is not mandatory and email address is not

I stopped answering the endless repetitive questions because it reached the point where you wrote sentences that were confused babble: “You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming.”

If my use of the English language is not sufficient, wouldn’t it be more polite to ask for further explanation rather than label it as “confused babble”, this kind of language is a personal attack.

[Wouldn't it be more polite to try to stick to one topic at a time, explain what you mean and provide some link, rather than psychic guesses as to the point you are making? - JN]

If you had instead asked for clarification I could have directed you to the discussion that was held in the other thread. The oceans also show an increase in surface temps along with the cities and land areas. If the UHIE is responsible for a considerable amount of the increase, then why is it the oceans are also warming.

One person suggest this is because the winds blow the heat offshore, and that the GISS heat anomaly maps show this in some parts of the world. I pointed out how it also fails in other parts of the world.

I have also since learnt that the temp increase in the cities the same whether it be windy or not. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3730.1

I wrote to explain why “anonymity” gives you the power to write careless bluster and drivel. I’m not attacking you – I’m attacking the state of your anonymity – and poor logic, and gave you the chance to improve.

I will continue to point out it is the argument you should be attacking, not the person.

1. You can start by retracting the nonsensical claim that I attacked you personally.

Towards me your language has been full of emotive language. eg. “fool”, “rude”, “arrogant”, “incoherent”, “time-waster”.

Brendon, I answered 11 scientific points, and used the word “arrogant” once. “Incoherent” applied to the argument. The other words applied generically to anonymous posters. Your assertion that “much” of what I write is personally directed at you is not supported by the evidence. You are in denial of that.–JN

These are personal attacks; you are addressing the person, not the argument. As I said earlier, personal insults can be directed at a complete stranger.

2. Then you can admit that people with real names have a vested interest in making more careful comments.

You would hope so; posts like “allen mcmahon”‘s #17 show it’s not always the case.

Good. I’ll take that as a Yes. Bonza –JN]

Personally I am interested in answers to the scientific questions and I will continue to question those that are not answered, or where they repeat themselves without having addressed my point.

See – you do it again. The flat out incorrect statement. I did address your point about cherry picking. I may not have done the impossible and converted you, but I did address it. It’s the repetition of this kind of careless posting of factually incorrect statements that makes your posts fail to reach the bar here for logic and reason.

Once again you avoided answering this:

In the handbook I refer to 2001- 2009 and said “not warming”. Clearly, (thanks to Jones) you can see I’m being very conservative.

You want to influence the general public into thinking that the warming has stopped by picking an 8 year period. We know that El Nino, La Nina, Solar Irradiance all affect surface temps and make them fluctuate on decadal scales.

The period from 1970 to 1979 also had a flattening of surface temps, as we saw that didn’t mean the warming had stopped. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:1979/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:1979/trend

So why is it you focus on the short term, and ignore the long term trend?

Report this

00

Your position seems to be rather weak given that you write much that is directed personally at me, instead of attacking the argument.

I stopped answering the endless repetitive questions because it reached the point where you wrote sentences that were confused babble: “You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming.”

I wrote to explain why “anonymity” gives you the power to write careless bluster and drivel. I’m not attacking you – I’m attacking the state of your anonymity – and poor logic, and gave you the chance to improve.

1. You can start by retracting the nonsensical claim that I attacked you personally.

2. Then you can admit that people with real names have a vested interest in making more careful comments.

Report this

02