For those of you who want more info on the last sentence. link

You notice how much media that got.

That last sentence made me blink several times. To go from global warming doom and gloom, to ending the paragraph saying that the expansion is near a record high, with a straight face? Wow, just wow...

Liberal journalists prefer to blame the NRA for the rate of murders in this nation and these same bunch of lie a day left-wing news media would rather blame america for this global warming poppycock bull kaka SCREW THOSE DIRTY LIBERAL LIARS BOYCOTT THEIR LYING NEWS RAGS

When you believe that human-induced global warming constitutes a doomsday scenario as a matter of faith, any obvious indications to the contrary simply MUST be anomalous, so of course they are only mentioned in passing.

The preceding four paragraphs are nearly as big a hoot, though. The "scientist" manages to deliver complete double-talk, offering not the first shred of evidence supporting his conclusions, while in the next breath acknowledging there isn't any exact science to call upon to explain his observations in a way which might justify those ominous statements.

In other words, he thinks it, so he insists the data doesn't disprove what he thinks, then insists the variations must prove his assumption, then admits he can't prove any such thing.

And we are interviewing you as an "expert" WHY, again, Einstein?

This last winter in Ak(palmer)was the coldest in quite a while. I have lived up here on and off since '93. Last winter we had many below 30 days not including the wind chill. A ton of snow as well. The last few winters had me wondering why I bought a snowblower.

Not that that had much of anything to do with the subject.

Rich

Cliff Notes version NYT article:
"Look over here! The ice is receding Look over here! Not at that other silly large, record-breaking ice cap..."

Pay no attention to the man behind the screen...

No wonder 40% of you Wizbang geniuses think Saddam attacked us on 9-11.

The Arctic and Antarctica are two different places.

The media bias is that a lot of writers assume that conservative minds are capable of understanding complex thoughts.

The Arctic and Antarctica are two different places.
No Shi_, Sherlock.

The much more logical inference is not "global warming" but a zero-sum ice movement: as the Arctic has less, the Antarctic has more. Except, that runs counter to "global warming" thus relegated to an "oh, by the way . . ." at the end of the story. "Move along, nothing to see here, move along . . ."

Dr. Lava demonstrates a necessity for liberals -- an inability to synthesize from facts. He sees the last sentence and concludes that the Arctic and Antarctic are two different places -- that's it. Might as well be on two different planets.

Conservatives see that sentence and realize that the two different places are connected. And that they are linked -- both being on the same planet.

And he makes fun of "Wizbang geniuses" while demonstrating an obtuseness greater than any he is pointing out.

Splendid. Let's keep him. Or her. Or it.

Dr. Lava,
Please, I beg you, continue voicing your opinions publically. And do not hesitate to proudly announce your political affiliation (not that it's needed). You are clearly one of the best friends in the opposition we "conservatives" have.

The Arctic and Antarctica are two different places.

The media bias is that a lot of writers assume that conservative minds are capable of understanding complex thoughts.

This is some seriously deep thinking. I realize now why so many on the Left® drink the Global Warming Kool-aid. The are incapable of actually reasoning their way through a problem. As a a result, they are forced to believe whatever they are told. We really need to do something about teaching higher-level thinkng skills in our schools.

Thank you Dr. Lava, for proving that the typical liberal troll is a complete moron.

Of course they are different places, THAT'S THE POINT..

While we have ice breaking in the ARCTIC the ANTARCTIC has a record ice cap. Notice the ice that was breaking got a whole gloom and doom story and the record ice in the south got a single sentence at the very end...

Of course you didn't notice, you're a moron!

dr. lave:

The Arctic and Antarctica are two different places.

It is called global warming correct? Last time I checked both locations were part of the globe.

NIMROD

Hey fellas, he can't be wrong, he's a doctor.

I liked the part where the "ice expert" said that, while there are no records further back than 1979, this year's ice retreat is much bigger even than that in the 30s and 40s.

So I'm going to have to assume the Dr. Polyakov has been an "ice expert" for some 70 years to remember that far back.

The global temperature is cooling starting in the last decade. The temperature is determined by clouds, determined by cosmic rays, determined by the earth's magnetic field, determined by the sun's magnetic field, determined by the distance of the sun from the center of gravity of the solar system. Gerlich and Tscheuschner have shown that the IPCC model of greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide is unphysical. It violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

So, bundle up; it's not warming again for awhile.
=====================

So, to draw a correlation (which is, of course, causation), satellites (there since 1979) cause ice melt. Just as invention of the microscope caused germs.

The NYTimes had better watch such slip-ups, they may end up on the California AG's "enemies" list. See:
http://www.junkscience.com/Skeptics_on_trial.htm

Are you now, or have you ever been an AGW "denier?"

Anticipate more furious shucking and jiving from 'global warming' to 'climate change' (already well under way) - it's hard to justify 'global warming' when some places are getting colder, but it's nice and easy to spout 'climate change' for something that, let's be honest, changes constantly (here in the northeast we're experiencing a notable decline in average temperatures, especially overnight lows, such that some areas are receiving frost warnings when mere weeks ago it was in the 60s at night, and is expected to continue for at least the next few months - trees are expected to suffer badly with their leaves first withering on the branches and then falling in massive quantities, you'll barely be able to walk without going through the evidence of climate change in action - birds have been seen fleeing the area and the numbers of those flying to more habitable areas should continue to rise, and we all know that the animals and plants are the first to know what's going on! Hillary Clinton is going to propose some drastic changes involving higher taxes that will steer the temperature back to a more temperate level by next April or May).

Our children may well see the day when liberals try to panic them (remember, psychologists are reporting exploding numbers of children that are now having panic attacks and such because they're afraid the earth will blow up soon or turn into a fiery wasteland or something) about 'easterly sun-rising' or something like that. Maybe they'll discover that tides rise and fall and find a way to link that to the end of the world.

And nogo, you want science, go read Gerlich and Tscheuschner.

Show me the science that proves greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide on the scale of Gore and the IPCC hysterics. You can't. You don't even think with your gut. You regurgitate from your gut.
=============================

(about the three of you I delted)

Good grief... can we have just one thread without turning it into Bash Bush/ Defend Bush dumbshit.

ANSWER: yes we can, because I have the delete button.

Kim, I left the last one because it was back on topic.

But be careful playing with trolls.

Aaaack! I found more satellite proof (from NASA) that AGW is real and connected to fossil fuels! See:
http://www.ecoenquirer.com/NASA-vegetation.htm

Comprendo. It is indeed difficult developing an opposition worth contending against. I'll try to behave, though I'm such a thug it's reflexive.
======================================

Omigod what a great site. Ecoenquirer.com.
====================================

Setting up their premise in the opening paragraph is this gem:
"below the average minimum area reached in recent decades..."

Not the below the MINIMUM reached in "recent decades"....just below the AVERAGE minimum.

So using less than 40 years of imagery (the science of which has itself changed in those 40 years) they can't even make the case that this is LOWEST...just that it is below the AVERAGE MINIMUM.

The NY Times, all the news that fits their agenda.

I like,

All the News that's Left to Print.
===============================

Heh, Dr. Lava, the dots are very close together but I guess I must connect them for you anyway...

Given the same set of facts, an irrational believer in doomsday global cooling could have written the same article with an opposite conclusion, finally mentioning in passing the contrary result from the other pole.

It's funny how the religion-hating moonbats believe in things purely on the basis of faith in the party line, and can't see contrary evidence or form a rational conclusion.

Veeshire caught the sentence I found funny. That the records only date back to 1979 yet the expert is ready to say that the ice retreat is absolutely-positively-definately-no-doubt-about-it--- PROBABLY greater than the 1930's.

This statement points to one of the greatest problems the climate change doomsayers have: Extrapolation from proxy data. This expert knows that there was a warm period in the 1930s so he extrapolates that the ice was thinner then but that the current retreat exceeds the 1930 reatreat. How could he possibly know that? Well he has a chart of proxy data and the proxy data says that the warm temperatures in the 1930's weren't as warm as they are currently so the thinning of the ice then probably didn't exceed what it has now.

Well Dr. Ice Expert. There are 3 possibilies:

1) That the ice retreat in 1930 was much greater than the current one despite the proxy data showing that it wasn't as warm;

2) That there wasn't a great ice retreat in the 1030s at all but that the ice mass increased; or,

3) that you are right and the ice mass is perfectly correlated to lower atmospheric local temperatures and that the ice losses in the 1930s can be extrapolated exactly from the proxy data.

Given that you only have a 33.3% chance of being right in the first place, and that natural statistical variations in data collection does not bode well that your data might exactly correlate the proxy data to the ice mass... I don't think Im gonna bet on you being right. Sorry Igor.

Then Dr. Serreze makes a blunder. He devulges his political bias by describing the ice losses and gains using terms like "helping you" or "hurting you". He has anthropomorphized the Earth (like all good tree huggers do) and he may actually believe that when ice melts it hurts Mother Earth.

Who is he to say that ice melting isn't an overall positive factor for all life on Earth? Do any of you good liberals have any evidence that a warmer Earth isn't a going to be better? Why must it in your minds be neccesarily worse?

scotty, NASA recently had to change the data, the 30s were colder and the coldest year was in the 30s, not the 90s. So by extrapolation, the ice is thicker today than then. This was just a global warmonger trying to get a quote in the paper.

kim,
I personally prefer, "All the news that's fit to slant."

Veeshir:

I think you mean the 30's were hotter.

Ummm, yes Proud Kaffir.
I can only assume that someone edited my comment.

Written slips are easy. I'm amazed at the ones I find that I've written.

Bingo, Scotty. Ice, and ecological niches, are froth thrown to the surface of the chaos we preciously call climate regulation. They are here today, and gone tomorrow, even faster than global temperature change.
==========================

For those who are interested in the difficult to predict behavior of Antarctica, this is a good start. Ad hom rejections of RealClimate or Eric Steig will fall on deaf ears (as they are tired and completely unfounded). If you want to discuss the science, I'll be around.

Mantis, you've got an inappropriate use of "ad hominem" there. It is not ad hominem to point out that Real Climate is written by the group of Mann et al who have been severely criticised for their failure to cooperate on the examination of their purported studies as well as other academic shenanigans.

Meanwhile, their attacks on McIntyre truly have been ad hominem. So citing Real Climate is pretty hilarious, all the more so with that note of yours.

All right, I'll address it and move on, since SPQR here cannot handle discussing science.

Mantis, you've got an inappropriate use of "ad hominem" there.

No, I don't, and your dismissal is the very definition.

It is not ad hominem to point out that Real Climate is written by the group of Mann et al who have been severely criticised for their failure to cooperate on the examination of their purported studies as well as other academic shenanigans.

1) It is ad hominem to dismiss everything written on that site just because Mann is associated with it. It's also guilt by association (even if there is no "guilt" to be associated with) 2) The fact that someone is criticized is not important if those criticisms are without basis, 3) Mann's failure to submit to the demands of cranks is not out of the ordinary and is evidence of nothing, 4) what "shenanigans"?

Meanwhile, their attacks on McIntyre truly have been ad hominem.

Calling someone a crank while simultaneously showing how wrong their arguments are is not ad hominem.

So citing Real Climate is pretty hilarious, all the more so with that note of yours.

You're refusal to address substantive claims and your objection to ad hominem arguments, while employing them yourself, is noted.

What is noted is that you claim to discuss science but resort quickly to ad hominem yourself. You've proven my point mantis and unfortunately demonstrated your hypocrisy. And you've done it all with very little prompting.

You have no point (notice how you haven't said a word about the topic, Antarctica?), and obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Thanks for playing.

>3) Mann's failure to submit to the demands of cranks is not out of the ordinary and is evidence of nothing,

Yeah... those people who want to examine scientific claims before they accept them as gospel. Stupid cranks.

(mantis, you're losing)

Yeah... those people who want to examine scientific claims before they accept them as gospel. Stupid cranks.

The cranks in question are cherry-picking, dishonest, conspiracy-mongering dupes who make a living off of inflating any error, real or imagined, into far greater significance than it warrants. They ignore any criticism which points out their errors in data or analysis (unlike their opponents who correct their errors when they are pointed out), and continue to make claims long after they are disproved. This, of course, is the ones who even bother to pretend to do any science. Plenty of honest brokers have examined, and do examine, the claims of climate and other scientists. Serious scientists don't like to waste their time on cranks, because that's exactly what it is. A waste of time.

(mantis, you're losing)

Just because you say it, doesn't make it so.

"Just because you say it, doesn't make it so."

We'll add that little amusing line to your one about ad hominem above, mantis.

Because you've just made my point again with more ad hominem. And if "honest brokers" had really examined the work of people like Mann and Hansen, the code would have been disclosed, the data sets shared, data adjustments explained and methodologies fully explained. And Hansen would not be spending the last couple of weeks revising data sets without notice as he is.

mantis, SPQR has it all over you on this one. (well on Hansen more accurately, but the tar hits you as his defender.)

Let me preface by saying that I agree that data sets, source code, etc. should be made publicly available. Unfortunately, this is not standard practice in much of the natural sciences, as it is in such fields as economics. Traditionally, scientists have not published such things and I believe that a change in that culture toward more disclosure of such is warranted. However, the fact is that such a culture exists, and has existed since the beginnings of these fields, and to presume some sort of conspiratorial coverup by certain scientists who are merely doing what has always been done is unfounded (this has more to do with Mann than Hansen, as Hansen and NASA are special cases, but NASA in general has always been reluctant to release any source code).

And Hansen would not be spending the last couple of weeks revising data sets without notice as he is.

Hansen and the GISS have been explaining any changes, both here and here. Hansen deals with all the Y2K mess in here.

What you people fail to recognize, in all your condemning and conspiracy-theorizing (or by attaching yourself to that of others), is that the GISS research has very little money, and after recent cuts it is on what Hansen calls "a going-out-of-business budget". If any of you have ever written code that has been continually updated over a period of years, you would know that documenting tends to be ignored, and releasing undocumented (or with poor or out-of-date documentation) code can be a mess, and preparing code to be released is a lot of work. As Hansen noted:

Because the programs include a variety of languages and computer unique functions, Reto would have preferred to have a week or two to combine these into a simpler more transparent structure, but because of a recent flood of demands for the programs, they are being made available as is. People interested in science may want to wait a week or two for a simplified version.

Algorithms in English, as have always been available on the studies, are way more useful than undocumented code, as Schmidt has noted. But I don't believe that releasing every bit of code or data will ever make cranks like McIntyre happy (he certainly isn't, even though now all the data and source code, and of course all of the studies, are now publicly available), as their aim is not really to arrive at accurate data and conclusions, but to make people actually doing research jump through hoops and to trump up any error, real or imagined, as evidence of a grand conspiracy.

In any case, I'm glad to see everything available publicly, and hope this practice continues. Let's see what the cranks can come up with. I'm sure it will completely dispute the surface temperature analysis, and then all they'll have to do is deal with the satellite data, which agrees with the surface data. Another day, another dollar.

No more from me this evening. Maybe tomorrow.

Oh, guys, guys, guys. Didn't you know? Global warming doesn't happen in the winter.

>Let me preface by saying that I agree that data sets, source code, etc. should be made publicly available.

Thanks you.

>Unfortunately, this is not standard practice in much of the natural sciences,

Then it ain't science, it's voodoo. I can produce a number that says anything I want and use it as proof. What makes my number any better than your number or Hansen's number?

>Traditionally, scientists have not published such things and I believe that a change in that culture toward more disclosure of such is warranted.

Look... let me be crystal clear.... I don't care if they don't show their numbers... just as long as you don't expect public policy to change. Ya can't have it both ways. -- If we want that we'll bring back the royal wizards and let them make policy. Where is Merlin when you need him?

>However, the fact is that such a culture exists, and has existed since the beginnings of these fields, and to presume some sort of conspiratorial coverup by certain scientists who are merely doing what has always been done is unfounded

See last answer but let me add... When errors (multiple errors) are found and they STILL won't release the data... that makes it a cover up. Do you not agree?

>NASA in general has always been reluctant to release any source code

Arguments against: Public Policy argument (above), taxpayer (public domain), common practice in every other scientific disciple.

It's simply wrong. -- And we're not "cranks" for pointing it out

>Hansen and the GISS have been explaining any changes, both here and here

Bullshit. Everyone knows why he changed the data, he's a hacktard. (Yes, I spelled that right, I just made it up... but it is the perfect word.)

>What you people fail to recognize, in all your condemning and conspiracy-theorizing (or by attaching yourself to that of others), is that the GISS research has very little money,

How much money does it cost to be honest? Another bullshit smoke screen.

>If any of you have ever written code that has been continually updated over a period of years, you would know that documenting tends to be ignored, and releasing undocumented (or with poor or out-of-date documentation) code can be a mess, and preparing code to be released is a lot of work.

mantis, mantis, mantis... Don't make me lump you in with the dishonest broker bullshit artists... Releasing code in progress is what open source is all about.... three letters CVS

Now apologize to me for trying to get that one past me.

>as their aim is not really to arrive at accurate data and conclusions, but to make people actually doing research jump through hoops and to trump up any error, real or imagined, as evidence of a grand conspiracy.

Ouch... a wee bit biased and judgmental huh? Shouldn't the people who want to wreck the entire global economy have just a bit of a burden of proof? Are we "cranks" asking too much.
=======================

mantis, this was not your finest attempt.

mantis, you are a good man, and so is Steve McIntyre. He is not a 'Cherry-picking, dishonest, conspiracy-minded dupe'. Neither are you. He is a brilliant statistician auditing these government fed frauds like every business on earth gets audited. The Piltdown Mann, and Hansen have contributed to the biggest academic fraud ever.

You need to look at the shape and tone of the rhetoric. Why do Mann, Gore, Hansen, and now you, sound desperate?
===================================

Satellite data measuring atmospheric temperature is not backing up this erroneous surface data, mantis. Pictures of ice made from satellites show a varying picture, but we know ice is just the froth on chaos, and speaks to local conditions, not global temperature.

The surface data is a mess. Look at it yourself, and for God's Sake, withdraw from RealClimate for awhile. It is THE ECHO CHAMBER. It can be quite convincing to laymen; they convince themselves.

By the way, peruse Lubos Motl. I think you'd enjoy him.
===========
==========================

"You can't dismiss this as natural variability," he said. "We're starting to see the system respond to global warming."

So which is it, a natural process or a response to global warming? Where's Waldo strikes again!

Please, mantis, review this one statement of yours "Algorithms in English have always been available". Now tell me, do algorithms in English give the same results they got when you run them on the data? Is there reproducability of results? Where did you get this 'algorithms in English' nonsense? From Real Climate?

Say it ain't so, mantis. You didn't come up with that on your own, now, did you?
==========================

This was basically what got Steve McIntyre interested in the first place. He'd try to run the data according to their methods, and couldn't reproduce the results. It is natural to ask about methods and algorithms, then, and even the climatologists knew better than to tell him that it was written in English. Where did you get that thought?
========================

Its been established that the english descriptions of the algorithms used by Mann et al were incomplete, and inaccurate. They've even admitted it in print - albeit only after calling McIntyre and McKitrick cranks. Likewise, attempts to reverse engineer Hansen's algorithms for the GISS summary records were impossible because of undocumented steps that have only been filled in since the release of code this month.

This is where we see that Real Climate and mantis are both propagandists pushing lies down our throat. Whatever they are doing, it is not science.

By the way, for those actually interested in seeing just how dishonest Mann et al are, check out their responses to questions from congress about this problem. Mann actually claimed - to justify his refusal to release his code - that the code they used to perform the statistical analysis of various proxy temperature records was intellectual property that had value that he'd lose if he published it.

As if there were not already scores of implementations of the statistical methods in question already published and in the public domain. It was a very silly claim.

mantis should take his passion about the issue and get right with the facts.
=========================================

So even the climatologists were stupid enough to try to slip 'algorithms written in English' past Steve McIntyre? Do you see who you are hanging out with, mantis? Do you see what they do to your argument?

You really ought to try reading a little of Steve at his blog, climateaudit.org
===========================

A small relief; a California judge has thrown out the state's suit against 6 auto companies claiming damages from a conspiracy to hide the effects of Carbon Dioxide. They had used tobacco litigation as a model.

Of particular note, the warmers had celebrated the chilling of free speech the suit represented, because skeptical academics were deposed and threatened with being included in the defendants.

Amusing, huh, mantis?
=====

mantis, read about the March 14, 2007 debate in New York City sponsored by Intelligence Squared. Skeptics won, convincing a sophisticated audience. I googled 'Schmidt Lindzen debate' to find it.
=====