Isn't it curious that our local pioneer of classical Christian education, the Don of the Disputatio whose sniping criticism of stupidity in secular pedagogy has elevated him to the upper ranks of Reformed academia, would be so cheerfully dense as to continue joking that April snow in Moscow deals a death blow to the theory of anthropocentric global warming?
I hope this isn't an example of New St. Andrews' announced commitment to teaching its students "how to think." Perhaps its founder hath decreed that in matters of public policy, logic, reason, and perspective just get in the way of a good ol' serrated edge, carelessly whipped out and wielded with a predictable clumsiness that somehow looks deft, not daft, to his acolytes.
Pity.
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As Keely must know, given my numerous posts to Vision2020 on this topic, I follow the skeptics arguments regarding human impacts on climate change. Many of the skeptics are not truly skeptics, but dogmatists who reject a balanced consideration of all the data, theory and expert opinion. They might apply their skepticism in a more thoroughgoing fashion.
The analysis of global mean temperature by NASA's Gavin Schmidt, quoted at the bottom, from 12/16/08, reveals that global mean temperatures over the past decade do not refute that there is a long term warming trend.
No climate scientist expects the temperature trends to be increasing in a linear fashion, with each year inexorably warmer than the last. Natural variability will induce warming and cooling trends from year to year.
What would convince me that anthropogenic warming is on hold is a decade or longer temperature record with the global mean temperatures falling below the top ten record setting years. This would require explanation that either reveals natural variability overcoming the anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, or that indeed, the climate science community has made some serious errors in their consensus opinion. We shall see!
The two days of record daily cold temperatures Moscow experienced in March, or the recent April snowstorm, are nothing more than local weather variability:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/2008-temperature-summaries-and-spin/#more-632
"More
robustly, the most recent 5-year averages are all significantly higher than
any in the last century. The last decade is by far the warmest decade
globally in the record."
NASA's Gavin Schmidt
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Ted Moffett
I don't know of anyone in Moscow who has done more than Ted to educate us all on global warming, and I appreciate not only his efforts, but the irenic way he engages with those who oppose him. Thanks, Ted.
Keely
Thanks for the compliment, keely.
As far as "those who oppose him," him being me, I find this puzzling, in a way, given that I am merely a messenger for the work of climate scientists, a researcher who investigates this subject, from all angles. I have numerous times referenced scientists who doubt anthropogenic warming, and make a point of learning about the skeptical theories.
If someone opposes what I am doing, it is as though they might be saying, don't do wide ranging research on the subject and present the findings. Don't correct mispresentations, distortions or important omissions regarding climate science, when this is publicly presented, like in some of New Saint Andrews Ed Iverson's Moscow/Pullman Daily News Op-Eds, or on Courtney's right-mind.us blog.
I'd be happy to discover that indeed human impacts on climate are minimal, and that the American Institute of Physics, and NASA's climate scientist James Hansen, are political hostages of those pushing big government regulation via climate change legislation, the environmental and alternative energy lobbies, and agnostic or atheist humanist Earth lovers!
I doubt the scientific article, at the website below, from the AIS, on CO2 and global warming, or the presentation from NASA's James Hansen, at the second website below, which discuses one of Courtney's skeptical theories that current climate change is more due to solar forcing than human impacts, are politically influenced or biased in any way, beyond providing an honest description of the science involved, as well as they understand it, by qualified scientists of integrity:
Article from the American Institute of Physics on CO2 and global warming:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Presentation from NASA's climate scientist James Hansen on climate science and energy issues, also discussing current and past solar forcing of climate:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf
Ted Moffett
The link to the website on the presentation by NASA's climate scientist James Hansen appeared inaccurately when I posted it in the previous post in this thread, so I'll try again. The discussion of solar forcing of climate by Hansen is very important given that this involves one of the main skeptical theories that is often presented to shed doubt that human impacts on climate are substantial. Maybe some of the local anthropogenic climate change skeptics will read Hansen's presentation and become a bit skeptical about their skepticism. However, I doubt some of them would, given they are not really skeptics, but ideologues on this issue:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf
Ted Moffett
Given for some reason the link to the ...TripReport.pdf is not showing accurately on your blog, I'll offer a link to a Vision2020 post containing the link to the presentation by Hansen mentioned below:
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2009-April/062833.html
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The link to the website on the presentation by NASA's climate scientist James Hansen appeared inaccurately when I posted it in the previous post in this thread, so I'll try again. The discussion of solar forcing of climate by Hansen is very important given that this involves one of the main skeptical theories that is often presented to shed doubt that human impacts on climate are substantial. Maybe some of the local anthropogenic climate change skeptics will read Hansen's presentation and become a bit skeptical about their skepticism. However, I doubt some of them would, given they are not really skeptics, but ideologues on this issue.
Ted Moffett
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