No. We are talking about a change in temperature, not about the absolute value of temperature. What difference did the sun make in the last 1,000 years really and what difference will the sun make in the next 1,000 years?

....and rather than edit your post making mine look odd.....just take a pause and compose a cogent intelligent comment that doesn't need editing.  You're too eager to make your point, whatever it takes.

No, it's not 'semantics'.  It's about getting all your ducks in a row when you are trying to convince someone of something.

If you have holes in your argument it will sink as surely as holes in a boat.

As to 'agreed on'...again, no.

'roughly' is like the cleaner that kills 99.9% of germs.  What's so good about that 0.1%?

You cannot argue/debate 'roughly' as it's arbitrary and open to different interpretations of just 'how rough' roughly is.

Last I checked the sun isn't the earth's sole source of heat....so 100% isn't 'rough' it's simply wrong.

Bottom line?

You can't even get some simple basics that others will be happy to 'agree on'.

Perhaps this article is convincing?

http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/radiation/

Or maybe this is better as a starting point?

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php

Was reading through the last couple pages, and this was just sooo much win 

Frog, ya got your head on straight sir.  

Seems there is way too much speculation and assumed cause/effect relationships that are not fully understood nor connected going on with environmental science nowadays.  Sad that science is slowly becoming a bastardized form of argument rather than a fact finding mission of enlightenment...

Must you?

I'm starting to suspect 'troll'.

edit: I think I'd better double-check everything

Nope. No change. Geo continues to believe that someone having a model in itself counts as evidence of something (or doing a lab experiment proves something about global climate).

I could spew links through the thread too that demonstrate that CO2 has a trivial effect on temperature but what's the point? Geo would just be back showing a formula or a lab experiment thinking he's "proven" something.

The thing that continues to baffle me is that if a person really really is convinced that CO2 is a major driver, then why aren't they actually doing something about it?  If every AGW alarmist put in some solar panels it would be a lot more convincing that they really think there's a problem than the usual tactic of smearing skeptics as "denialists".

Yeah I dont see any of these guys giving up their private jets or large SUVs....

It helps to understand 1 aspect of the climate.

It is not even rocket science... it's almost like predicting the position of a car.

If you move at 50 km/hour, then it'll take you 2 hours to get from A to B.

If you move at 100 km/hour, then it'll take you 1 hour to get from A to B.

That's useful to know, even if it doesn't tell you anything about the driver, or the route, or about other cars. There could be a traffic jam and in reality it could take 3 hours to get there instead of 1 hour. Or there could be an accident and you'll never arrive.

Still, it is better than knowing nothing at all.

For 1 person in his daily life that is fine. But the present is not enough, even 1 person has to plan ahead: he has to fill up his car before a long drive, he has to earn money otherwise he cannot buy food, he has to fill his fridge with food otherwise he goes hungry the next day.

Confining yourself to the present means that you're too late.

To make policy for a country a government needs to plan ahead on a larger scale and further into the future.

Democracies do that on a scale of about 4 years, sometimes more if it is necessary.

To make policy on such a longer time scale, people need to make predictions using equations.

Those equations are a summary of the observations from the past.

Sometimes they're off. Sometimes they're ok. But they're the only thing we have to work with to make predictions and that's just the way it is... and whether you like it or not, policy makers actually use such predictions to plan ahead. Not because they like it, but it's the only tool they have.

And if everyone does his own thing, then what are we going to end up with - a huge mess and an enormous waste of money, that's what.

I just cannot believe that people think that doing something on your own is going to make things right. Because they could actually make things worse...

In my case, I moved closer to work so that I could take the bike to work instead of a car. Even if it rains or if it's cold, I take the bike. I turn off the lights when I don't need them. I wash the dishes by hand. I am not in a position to buy solar panels because I live in a flat.

Not everyone is willing to invest in new technology. Many people still invest lots and lots of money in oil, gas and coal companies. They're betting that everything goes on as usual and that policy-makers will fail at containing the CO2 problem.

Some economists even predict that those kind of investments are forming a huge bubble and that they can cause the next financial crisis.

And does that make sense? Yes, people tend to see profit rather than loss. They get greedy and bubbles form as a result of it. Does it mean that everything is peachy? Nope... it's just human nature to ignore things as long as they can and to continue as usual.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/19/carbon-bubble-financial-crash-crisis

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/26/432617/the-20-trillion-carbon-bubble-interview-with-john-fullerton-part-one/

(this last link doesn't seem to work anymore atm...)

But then again, the solar panel market is also a complete fuck-up. It's broken because of policies in China. It's broken even more because of the seemingly random policies of governments. Yes - no - do this - no do that. If I had invested in the solar-panel market 5 years ago, I would've lost a lot of money. I wouldn't want to invest any money in such a market... it's just too unpredictable what governments will do.

Will they go for cheap coal-based energy? Or will they go for more expensive renewables?

 http://www.businessinsider.com/europes-soaring-energy-prices-2013-11

(I placed that link in the peak-oil topic, but it's also appropriate here).

That kind of unpredictability is a real killer for making investments. It makes it really hard to change things.

I see it in the Netherlands... my country has a lot to lose because of global warming so to me it would make perfect sense to make huge investments in renewables, but nothing is done. Absolutely nothing. All the government cares about, is getting out of the current crisis and having everything cheap cheap cheap.

But what they dont get is, that cheap becomes meaningless once there's a 10 meter high wall of water waiting to flush my country down the toilet.

And before someone tells me that won't happen... it's an observation that sea levels are rising and that the huge glaciers are melting, ok. So don't even try to tell me that nothing's going on.

"What We're Fighting Against," says the Think Progress website, are: "Corrupt Establishment," "Incompetent Establishment," "Braindead Media," and "Radical Right-Wing Agenda.”

Sounds good to me.

Anyway, did you know that the "left" democratic party in the US is considered "right" in the Netherlands ?

Do you think that the 20 trillion figure is exagerrated?

It might be, in the same way that pension-fund gaps are exagerrated.

But in this case the exagerration has merit. It's the value of all oil that's in the ground... for example, Saudi Arabia will go back to being just another sand-desert if the oil and gas become worthless. A lot of money is at stake, not just yearly but also integrated over time. Oil companies are also valued at their holdings. For example Shell suffered a pretty big blow a couple of years ago, when their resesrves were downgraded. Now just imagine what happens if such reserves become entirely worthless?

Of course this is all artificial and it will depend on politics whether or not they keep their value ...

So realclimate.org offers a one-sided view? That's hardly a surprise, all sites are biased.

Their articles seem reasonable to me, and I usually read first before I believe...

Anyway what are you suggesting really? That they're liars?

Gosh... heartland.org references a site like this : http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

They go completely against the established scientific community .... the same community that had such a hard time being convinced of climate change. As far as I'm concerned that's just a bunch of those stubborn scientitsts that live in the past.

For example take this

http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Chapter-2-Forcings-and-Feedbacks.pdf

Figure 2.1.1.1.1

Where did they get that plot, this is utter and complete misinformation! This doesn't look anything like the historical CO2 concentration that I've seen... more recent data show pretty deep lows of 300 ppm in many eras... and even deeper lows during that short-period ice age 400 million years ago.

Actually sometimes plots like these show up. The CO2 profile is a very rough one, it's from an old model that shows extremely long-term trends, and it's also a bit outdated as far as I know. I think it's strange that it is used at all ... and then to correlate this with cold/warm periods and make some serious conclusions based on this, I think it's just too much.

Figure 2.1.1.2.1

An 800 year offset... gosh that again. Hasn't this been reduced to 200 years already?

Figure 2.1.1.2.2.

Really... seems like cherry-picking to me.

Ok and then chapter 2.1.2 Atmospheric Residence Time of CO2

This is just completely missing the point. There's a lot of mixing going on of CO2 in the atmosphere and CO2 in the ocean... but this occurs while there's a balance between the two. What's really import is how quickly the ocean can bury the CO2, and that's very slow. How quickly CO2 from the ocean and atmosphere mix is completely irrelevant.

Need I say more? It seems to me like heartland.org is an ultra-right wing media outlet, and intends to disinform people by twisting data to their own liking. If you leave enough data out, then you can support any conclusion you like.

Whatever ... if you look at those articles from heartland.org ... the way they present the data and then make conclusions... that's so obviously flawed, how can someone take that seriously?

It has nothing to do with science, that's for sure. Who the hell are the people who write such things? They're not established scientists, they cannot be otherwise they wouldn't have made such mistakes ... or  can anybody get a degree nowadays and then write all kinds of garbage and then publish it on some website and then call it science?

Tilting at windmills, Don Jafo.