Read it, see nothing disagreeable.  As far as I know, a meteorology degree isn't required for the operation of a camera, plotting charts from data, or running a website.  Perhaps I'm wrong.

That's only one of the links I posted as well, but you knew that, didn't you?

I don't see how you can reconcile the above two claims.  You've already stated that the long-term models can't accurately predict the short-term perturbations in long-term trends.  Furthermore, short-term qualifies as 'near future' in my book.  I will agree with you that the climate qualifies as a complex and chaotic system.

As for your hypothetical scenario, Sole Soul had it covered.  The problem with the scenario is the same one plaguing AGW - artificial and faulty assumptions.  We have a track record of average temperature 'predictions' that have been substantially wrong.  I've not seen anything to persuade me that our ability to predict temperature trends over the next 50 years has improved in the least.  The number of unknown variables is ridiculously large and any prediction can be rendered 180 degrees wrong by a single major climate-affecting event, earthly or cosmic.  This notion that we're going to fall off some Grand Canyonesque climatic cliff within the next 10 years, with the survival of our species hanging in the balance, on the basis of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, if we don't do something is hokum.  Man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 is simply too small to indict, let alone convict.

Nah, I was visiting family, back in hell, er Oklahoma now..  Besides, some assfucker in the lower 48 decided to steal our cold weather and the last week of it had me sweating my ass off and walking through puddles after it went into the mid 40's...  Vengence was given though, the ice rain they got in return had me feeling better.

I tell you what, if you get the fucktards to admit that even the doctored results show that the climate has been dropping for almost a decade now, I'll start arguing again.

Generally my contributions to this thread have been only to address those that totally deny AGW even exists, other than that I don't have the knowledge, expertise or patience to argue the details of when and how.

Ah, the problem here appears to be one of misunderstanding. In this context, by short-term I am talking individual years, or even less. Current climate models that are being used to predict the effects of CO2 are designed to make predictions on the order of decades at the very least (longer in most cases). Short-term and long-term are relative and depend on the context. I can understand the confusion, though - in geological terms decades and even centuries are nothing. Another difference is that long-term predictions don't tell us precise information about precise times, but rather general information about trends and effects. Most of the different models and simulations that have been put together so far somewhat disagree about specifics - but they all produce the same trends of rising temperatures, they just differ in magnitude. 

I thought of a perfect and related example of how abusing a model will give you meaningless results: weather prediction. It is designed to accurately predict weather for the very near future. We can accurately predict what the weather will be for the next few days, sometimes even a whole week - but try to push it any farther than that and you'll get utter crap. The exact same thing happens when you try to push a model meant for longer-term predictions to make short term or precise predictions. 

He really didn't. But you just did, more or less. Basically, you don't trust the scientific consensus and are willing to bet that AGW doesn't exist or isn't a problem. In that case, a better situation to ask you about would be the following:

It's mostly the same scenario as before; but you don't see the other person as he walks towards the box and dies. Rather, somebody you know but don't trust tells you that that is what happened. Do you decide that he's probably lying, and risk doing nothing? Or do you decide that the risk isn't worth it, or try to do something about it? Throwing the computer at the box won't do anything besides break the computer .

Are you still going to try to tell me that there is no cause to worry that the unprecedented hike in CO2 levels since the onset of the industrial revolution are completely unrelated to human activity? There is no precedent for such a large immediate change in CO2 levels (or even such high levels at all). That begs the question, "well, what's different now?" There is one glaringly obvious answer: the burning of fossil fuels by humans (plus some others, like major deforestation - by humans!). It is true that the amount of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere every year is small compared to the amount of CO2 put out by nature; but that is irrelevant! What is relevant is the net amount of CO2 being put into or taken out of the atmosphere. In a finely balanced system (such as the Earth), a small change is perfectly capable of completely destabilizing it.

I wouldn't read anything by that idiot Thomas Friedman.  He's a hopeless apologist for free trade and globalism.  These dogmas are destroying the middle class and dismantling upward ladders of mobility.

And I commend you for that.

However, the graphical evidence you've kindly supplied is like a few frames or scenes of a 4 hour movie.  You can justify any conclusion you want if you limit your data to just the 'right' time frame.  A fundamental tenet of science to remember is this: association is not causation.  I have never argued, here or elsewhere, that we are not in the midst of a warming trend - the rub lies in the claim that man is the principal cause of it and the corollary, man must 'fix' it.  I also object to the suggestion by some (not necessarily you) that there is a 'tipping point' and that it is imminent.  There have been too many warming & cooling cycles prior to man's presence on Earth for me to buy in to all that.  There are simply too many variables beyond our control to pretend that manipulating the few we can control will matter.  Do things to keep the air & water clean?  Sure, but the CO2 scam, no thanks.

There have been dips in the road behind us, so how can you expect me to believe that what lies ahead is a cliff?  No I won't look at the map for myself, that would mean I had to stop driving so fast...

Let's say you are right, Daiwa - this has all been a misinterpretation of flawed data sensationalized by Leftist types to further their own agendas.  Awesome.  Here's a beer You've exposed the "CO2 Scam!"  Huzzah!

Ok now let's say, just as a hypothetical, that the butterfly effect does apply in this case and that humanity has disrupted a fragile planetary equilibrium and only has a narrow window to correct that, but a set of factions and interests align against this correction for good, sound, scientific reasons. Oh, and also for ideological concerns (but those don't count, right?).  For whatever reason though, those factions end up being wrong, and 50 years later we live in a much grimmer, hungrier, angrier world than the one we have today. 

What does it change if you are right, Daiwa?  What will it cost you if you are wrong?  What happens to our world if we drastically reduce Co2 emmissions for no good reason?  What happens to our world if we don't reduce those emissions and all of the many, many (flawed, biased, wrongheaded) models are even a little bit right? 

If your premise is that we shouldn't interfere in the workings of the world on a meta level, because we know not what we do - you have an ardent supporter sitting right here.  The problem is we have already interfered - it's what we've been doing ever since we came along, it kicked into overdrive with the Industrial Revolution, and it's reached what might be a critical mass.  All we want to do is reduce that interference, ASAP.   

Okay, but the case for climate change would be rather weak if the GISS information was the only basis for it, don't you think? The GISS information is just one data set, after all.

I just read the scientific paper by Hansen et al. that's linked from the page. You should read it because it's most interresting. The clever geniuses at NASA were fully aware that the surface stations measurements can be biased due to environment factors. According to the article there have been attempts in the past to correct the data, based on information of urban areas.

What Hansen et al did was another attempt to disqualify ground stations is urban areas, but unlike earlier scientists, Hansen et al did not rely on existing data, but did use sattelite data of light emitted during night. If there is light or emitted during night in the proximity of the surface station, there is a high chance the station is unreliable. On the other hand, if the proximity of the surface station is dark, they did consider the station reliable.

The nice graphs that we did generate are from surface stations in unlit areas.

Scientists contiuouslty try to refine their analysis. The outcome of the surface stations project is for certain that within some time, scientists will be able to create a new data set from measurements surface stations that are considered to be without bias, and recalculate their climate models. Perhaps it's also interresting to compare the surface stations that Hansen et al did consider to be reliable with the surface stations that the surface stations project consider to be reliable.

You should not expect them to return suddenly different results. The process of refining measurements is an ongoing process. In the 90's we were a lot certain what would happen as we are now, and we will likely be able to present the consequences of global warming even more accurately.

That's not true at all. Just because scientists disagree about something doesn't mean that your average joe who has read up on the subject has just as valid an opinion as any of those scientists. Particle physicists disagree about whether or not the Higgs Boson actually exists; does that mean that some random person off the street who has 'read up' on it will have just as valid an opinion? No - not unless he just self-taught himself extremely complex physics and math, anyway. I'm hoping this post is a joke...

First of all, the biomass of humans is negligible compared to the combined biomass of other species. The biomass of humans is about 100 million tons; the biomass of domesticated animals is about 700 million tons. The biomass of human-grown crops is 2 billion tons. Heck the biomass of Antarctic Krill alone is 500 million tons. A basic understanding of thermal physics is enough to conclude, therefore, that the combined temperature of all the human bodies on the planet is pretty damn negligible when compared to the rest of life on the planet (especially when considering that a significant portion of said life is cold-blooded).

Yeah, because the atmosphere is thinner and farther from most of the surface of the Earth, which reradiates the energy it absorbs from the sun as infrared radiation; and that reradiated energy doesn't make it very far up into the atmosphere (and radiation that does make it that far up has a better chance of escaping the atmosphere all-together). And, because the atmosphere is thinner it will feel colder, because there is less energy per volume stored in it.

Right. So a graph going back 400 thousand years is like a few frames of a 4 hour movie. Right. And the fact that an unprecedented level and rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 that corresponds exactly with the onset of the industrial revolution is no cause of concern whatsoever to you? Really? Sure, association is not causation, but association is what spurs us to look for causation - and this time it appears we've found it. Scientists aren't saying, "Look, we're in a warming trend right now, which corresponds with higher CO2 levels, therefore CO2 is the cause of that trend." Instead, they're saying, "Look, humans have vastly increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2, and a warming trend has followed in its wake. In addition, all of our models and predictions indicate that high CO2 levels can indeed lead to large scale warming and climate change; therefore, human activity is the likely cause of this trend, and so long as we do nothing about our emissions this trend will likely continue."

I refer you to Ke5trel's post (reply #215). Please read it, then read it again, to see what I and others are trying to argue: that the risk of doing nothing is too high, and the costs of doing something are not so terrible.

So we can nearly double the atmospheric CO2 in the span of 100 years, likely causing this 'cliff' (more likely a fairly steep downward slope), but we can do nothing to reverse or largely mitigate it? That is the worst argument I've ever heard. I don't understand this concept that so many people seem to have - that humanity is so small and weak that we are incapable of affecting our planet. We can destroy the vast majority of our forests, throw off all sorts of ecological systems' equilibria, pollute the entire world (just look at DDT - it was responsible for huge numbers of animal deaths even in remote places, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the nearest places it was used) - basically, we are capable wreaking havoc upon our planet for the sake of 'progress,' but we are unable to affect it positively - the responsible but costly thing to do? Why do I get the impression that costly is the key word there?

Forgot to grab this:

And the banning of DDT was responsible for the suffering and death of huge numbers of people.  But then, people are the problem, so banning DDT was a net benefit for the planet.

In no way, shape, or form.  What I am suggesting is that the short-sighted, biased, greedy bastards who find themselves saying "There is a problem here, we need to change our behavior, and incidentally we stand to profit in the short-term" are acting with interests that happen to parallel your own long-term interests and those of your great-grandchildren. 

Greed and self-interest are great motivators, and if we have some directing us to cut carbon emissions all the better, because it is more likely to happen with a cool handful of cynical money behind it than a billion passionate pleas from Treehuggers United.  ^^

Fear-mongering is a timeworn political tool - don't knock it ^^  Beyond the hype, however, are valid concerns about eventualities that we as a species should fear. 

I'm not buying into sensationalist coverage or media hype so much as the quiet and steady conviction of people who make it their life's work to study the places they live in.  Talk to scientists if that is what you trust.  Talk to a San Bushman or a Laplander.  They will all tell you: something is wrong with our world. 

Ignoring it won't make it go away.  If we are lucky, changing the way we interact with the world will make some difference. 

My fear is not that the lense we look at the world with is flawed.  This is clear.  My fear is that the AGW lense is too optimistic...

If a tipping point exists, we might have already passed it. 

As I view the situation, what you did is a common discussion strategy. It is a good test if your discussion partners know what they are talking about and I believe a proper answer to it is necessary for the benefit of the discussion. People claiming something should be willing to back it up, it's as simple as that.

One cannot simply claim global warming is true without proper argumentation. If we would do that, people that do not believe would be fully correct to dismiss it as the latest hype.

I don't mind spending some time here. Wether I play Galciv2 or take part in a discussion, both are fun.