Feedbacks are the name of the game. If carbon dioxide doesn’t trigger off powerful positive feedbacks, there was and is no crisis. Even James Hansen would agree — inasmuch as he himself said that CO2 would directly cause about 1.2ºC of warming if it doubled, without any feedbacks (Hansen 1984).

Consider the warming from1979 to 2007, when we measured temperatures using satellites and not corrupted and adjusted land thermometers. Douglass and Christy (2008) point out that, given how much CO2 levels increased in that time, the warming only amounts to what the IPCC scientists predict we should get from CO2 alone, from the direct effect of CO2, and not from the effect of CO2 plus positive feedbacks.

The warming trend expected from CO2 without any feedbacks at all is 0.07 ºC/decade. The trends [...]

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We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. Fortunately the climate models got all their major predictions wrong. Why? Every serious skeptical scientist has been consistently saying essentially the same thing for over 20 years, yet most people have never heard the message — here it is, put simply enough for any lay reader willing to pay attention.

The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century.[2]

Feedbacks are due to the ways the Earth reacts to the direct warming effect of the CO2. The threefold amplification by feedbacks is based on the [...]

This paper by Lindzen and Choi was submitted and rejected by GRL in 2009, then rejected twice more by PNAS. (And in part because it needed to meet impossible standards. In the end, it was supposed to include “the kitchen sink” but fit into a sandwich bag — see below). The paper could have been out for discussion in 2009, and while it has improved upon revision, was it worth the two year wait? Those gains could have been made in two months (or two weeks) online.

Even the reviewers understand how significant these results would be if they are right. One admits the new paper shows the models don’t match the observations.

Science needs free and open criticism, and competing theories. If Lindzen’s analysis is revolutionary, but potential wrong, is it so bad to publish those results? He is one of the most eminent researchers in the [...]

Dr Noor van Andel spoke at the Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI), provocatively concluding there is no observational evidence for the influence of CO2 on past or present climate. He has released a high caliber slide set. He is the former head of research at Akzo Nobel.

In the very long run, we need not mind about CO2 or global warming, but instead about higher [galactic cosmic ray] activity and global cooling. There is no way we can influence [galactic cosmic ray] activity, originating in active black holes and imploding supernovae.

Essentially he uses empirical evidence to draw the conclusion that most recent climate variability is due to Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and to Cosmic Ray effect as described by Svensmark. This fits with what William Kinninmonth explained and I described as essentially a massive pool of “stored cold” in the abyssal depths of the oceans, which erratically reaches up and pulls in heat from the insubstantial atmosphere above. Air temperatures are at the beck and call of the releases of this “cold” (yes I know cold is just an absence of heat). In El Nino years when the cold pool lies deep and unstirred, the incoming [...]

Al Gore describes how carbon dioxide beats up Mr Sunbeam and stops him leaving the atmosphere. But he “forgot” to mention that clouds reflect around a quarter of all the sunlight that hits the earth. Those beams of light travel all the way from the sun to get bounced off into space when they are just a few kilometers from the ground.

Any change in cloud cover makes a major difference. The IPCC assumes clouds respond to warming, but clouds could easily drive the warming.

There are lots of things that could potentially change cloud cover, which would affect our climate. Things like cosmic rays (see page 18), changes in patterns of ocean temperature, land clearing, or aerosols all affect clouds.

The models not only get the feedback effects of clouds wrong, they appear to mix cause and effect

Clouds reflect around a quarter of all the sunlight that hits the earth

Evaporation and rain keep the planet 50°C cooler. Fifty! Eighty percent of the natural greenhouse effect is due to humidity and clouds. Clouds cover 60% or so of the entire planet. No one has [...]

Carbon dioxide only causes 1.1°C of warming if it doubles. That’s according to the IPCC. Did you know?

The real game is water.

Researchers made guesses about humidity and clouds in the early 1980s and they built these guesses into their models. We now know they were wrong, not about carbon, but about water in the form of humidity and clouds. Here’s how the models can be right about carbon and wrong about the climate.

Here’s how the models can be right about carbon and wrong about the climate.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and it warms the planet. The modellers guessed that as the world warmed, more water would evaporate, and the rising humidity would lock in more heat. Makes sense. Humid nights are warmer than clear nights.

This is called “feedback” — carbon warms us, which lifts humidity, which warms us even more, at least in theory. But water is complex and fickle. Humidity can stay ‘humid’, or turn into low clouds, high clouds, or fall out as rain, hail or snow. And they all have a different effect.

Every prediction over 1.1 degrees relies on “feedback” of some sort. But what if that [...]

UPDATED (see below)

Richard Lindzen is unarguably one of the top meteorologists in the world, with over 200 publications to his name, as well as awards, medals, prizes and is a member of the NAS, AAAS, AGU, AMS. He is The Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his work includes major contributions to our understanding of the Hadley Circulation, small scale gravity waves on the mesosphere, as well as atmospheric tides and oscillations in the tropical stratosphere. From the beginning, he has questioned the claims that there is a crisis due to carbon dioxide emissions, pointing out that even with the poor resolution of ice cores back in the 1980′s it was still evident that there was a lag—as temperatures declined, carbon stayed high for thousands of years, something which didn’t sit well with the idea that carbon had a strong and constant force on the climate.

What follows are his thoughts on the current state of the science. They must make it awkward for those who can’t help themselves but believe in authority. Here’s a man who knows more than most of us could ever hope [...]

1-Some AGW supporters claim that Santer et al has found the hot-spot. But his paper boils downs to a statistical reanalysis that suggests that due to noise and error, the hot-spot might be there. Santer hasn’t actually found the missing hot spot. He has a case, but it’s not a strong one. The statistical counterargument is at Climate Audit.

Even if Santer is right and the hot spot IS hidden in the noise, the most generous interpretation is that greenhouse gases must have a pretty weak warming effect…

2-Sherwood (another co-author of the Santer paper) published research suggesting that the hot spot is there – but he threw away the temperatures from weather balloons and [...]