[puppypower]

I presented a graph that showed CO2 and global temperature over the last 600M years. On that graph, there are both negative and positive correlations for CO2 and global temperature. This tells me, that there are other factors involved. The sun and water are the two main engines of weather. Water is important due its dominant volume. It is also important because water can change phase between gas and liquid at ambient conditions. This allows water to influence the atmosphere, through partial pressure changes and changes in heat of vaporization. Low partial pressure occurs when water condenses into rain. The phase change between vapor and liquid also changes the emission and absorption spectrum of water in the atmosphere. This can also change the activity of the water with respect to CO2.

In 1970's, science predicted a cooling trend, even with CO2 on the rise. Google global cooling in the 1970's. Those studies assumed other manmade variables as the smoking gun; pollution. Back then CO2 could not explain the cooling trend since it was a greenhouse gas. The reason this conclusion was so different is, instead of focusing on the current 100 year graph, instead of a 600M year graph I presented, they  looked at a decade graph. If you cherry pick the longest term graph, you can get any angle.

The name global warming was changed to climate change. The reason is the computer models tended to exaggerate global warming. The CO2 angle was not perfect; something missing. Climate change is a better marketing tools since it is a win-win scheme, since anything up, down or sideways can be included as climate change. The graph I showed where the correlation of CO2 and temperature goes up and down can be called climate change. This choice of words is like the lovely assistant, who helps the magician do his illusion.

Let me explain how the illusion works with a simple experiment you can do at home or at school. Schools should be require to do this experiment to show how easy it is. Simplicity is the strength of the illusion. It is all based on a bureaucratic trick of using extra resources to justify even more resources; bureaucracy 1.0.

What I will do is recruit high school students, with cell phone cameras, to record all the birds in a city park. We will spend a month, after school, with the team spread out all over the park, to make the search, thorough. Once the study is done and the data is compiled, I will make the claim there are more birds in the park that in any time in recorded history. This is a bold claim, which I can't conclusively prove. However, I do have more data, than anyone in the past ever thought was necessary, in terms of recording birds in the park.

I can support my claim with thousands of photos. That is a lot of birds. Even if the past had more birds, that counter claim will be based mostly on word of mouth and antidotal evidence, which I can make fun of; deniers. Or, even of there are some old photos, that position will not have the same level of hard data I have, to out prove me wrong. I win based on the resources, which were not available in the past. That makes me a scientist and not a magician, even though this is a magic trick. 

The highest amount of resources, of all time, is being spent on weather and climate change, using new technology not available in the past. This allows new ways to collect more data, than ever before. With climate change, we have hard proof that there is more change than ever record before. This is all lawyer talk, which is part of the trick; hidden wire. This is why you need lawyer/politicians. It is not bad science or fake science. It is simply good science recording more data than any time on record; most birds of all time.

Relative to the most birds of all time claim; since nobody can prove me wrong and because I have the most hard data, the skeptics will play into my hand and encourage even more resources, that I used, for a more sound scientific study. Since this new study will be done by  professionals, who know more about birds, they will find ever more birds. This will make may claim look like a breakthrough study of an increasing bird trend, which id the most in recorded history. This is based on two stacked experiments and hundred of unstacked. 

What is going to happen is Trump is going to cut that budget. With fewer resources, the amount of data that is possible to collect, will decrease due to loss of resources. This will prove that less climate change detail is occurring, based on the same trick. The masses will fall for it the same way as the original trick.

[PhysBang]

The ability of climate change deniers to lie never surprises me.

[alancalverd]

You need to distinguish between denial of an obvious fact, and skepticsm about the alleged cause.  It is, for example, a lie to say that CO2 levels are the highest they have ever been, and bad science to allege that global warming is caused by atheism.

The climate is changing, and always has, because it is inherently unstable. There is an apparent correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration, as there always has been, on a very crude timescale. But as puppypower has pointed out, studying the data with increased finesse shows that the phase relationships of historic data do not support the notion that CO2 is causative. The allegation that CO2 is the principal cause of temperature change is without historical precedent and inconsistent with current measurements.  Hence skepticism.

[PhysBang]

[MOD EDIT]

[Tim the Plumber]

[MOD EDIT]

Then you can have the reasonable curtesey to point out exactly what Alancard has lied about? And what Puppypower has also lied about?

Given that you will fail to do so, them being extremely honest types, your own words show that it is you who has the problem with honesty.

[Bored chemist]

[MOD EDIT]

I think Alan's wrong. I also think he's misrepresented what I have said, but I don't think he's a liar (though plenty of climate change deniers are).
So, I think you really need to back up that assertion or withdraw it.

[chiralSPO]

This is a very complex subject, and also somewhat politically charged. I would ask that everybody follow the rules of the forum and restrain themselves from ad hominem attacks.

[Bored chemist]

This is a very complex subject, and also somewhat politically charged. I would ask that everybody follow the rules of the forum and restrain themselves from ad hominem attacks.

It's also a fairly simple question
Q "Are climate skeptics right that there is no link between CO2 levels and temperature?"
A No.
so we could reasonably close the thread.

[PhysBang]

You guys coddle people too much

[zx16]

Isn't this the problem - so many scientists have publicly committed themselves to the idea that climate-change is caused by humans, that they could never admit they got it wrong?

[Bored chemist]

Isn't this the problem - so many scientists have publicly committed themselves to the idea that climate-change is caused by humans, that they could never admit they got it wrong?

No. That couldn't be the problem.
I guess you are not old enough to remember the 1970s when climate scientists thought that we were due for another ice age.
They already admitted they were wrong.
So it flies in the face of the evidence to say that they couldn't admit to being wrong.

[zx16]

Actually Bc, I do remember the 1970s .  Then "Global Cooling" was all the rage,  There were TV programmes about the imminent global freezing catastrophe.
Climate scientists came on the telly and foretold chilly doom.  But when the doom didn't happen, they didn't admit they were wrong. They just went quiet. Or died.

These theories in Science sometimes exhibit a cyclic tendency, don't you think.  Especially when no-one really knows what they're talking about.

OK, today it's all "Global Warming". But what odds would you offer that by, say 2030,  it'll be "Global Cooling" that's the threat, and we must pump up CO2 production to ward off the new Ice-Age?

[alancalverd]

Recent global warming is an obvious fact. The cause isn't. It would come as no surprise to me if the trend reversed in my lifetime, nor if it continued upward.

I just think it is a shame that, having found a convenient scapegoat, the Powers that Be have reverted to the old Judiac tradition of blaming the scapegoat for their woes and hoping they will go away if they release the goat, or at least tax it. It's certainly a lot easier than fixing the real problems that (a) human society cannot accommodate significant  climate change and (b) western civilisation  is controlled by  a few scum who own oilfields. 

[Bored chemist]

Actually Bc, I do remember the 1970s .  Then "Global Cooling" was all the rage,  There were TV programmes about the imminent global freezing catastrophe.
Climate scientists came on the telly and foretold chilly doom.  But when the doom didn't happen, they didn't admit they were wrong. They just went quiet. Or died.

These theories in Science sometimes exhibit a cyclic tendency, don't you think.  Especially when no-one really knows what they're talking about.

OK, today it's all "Global Warming". But what odds would you offer that by, say 2030,  it'll be "Global Cooling" that's the threat, and we must pump up CO2 production to ward off the new Ice-Age?

OK, since, as you accept, the climate scientists changed their minds, they could do it again.
And they would- for the same reason- the evidence showed that they were wrong.

They didn't go quiet or die- they just carried on doing science.
That's how science works.

You ask "What are the odds?"
I'd say the odds are practically zero.
We have a useful understanding of how the world works.
However, I accept that I might be wrong- there may be some other effect that we have overlooked.
And if the evidence changes I, and the other scientists, will change or minds.

And, for what it's worth, they will still get paid for saying the exact opposite of what they used to say.
So they have no real incentive to lie.
On the other hand, the oil barons - who seem to maintain all the denialist claims, do have a very clear incentive to lie (and they have no evidence that they are right)

So why do you keep swallowing their propaganda?

[Bored chemist]

Recent global warming is an obvious fact. The cause isn't. It would come as no surprise to me if the trend reversed in my lifetime, nor if it continued upward.

I just think it is a shame that, having found a convenient scapegoat, the Powers that Be have reverted to the old Judiac tradition of blaming the scapegoat for their woes and hoping they will go away if they release the goat, or at least tax it. It's certainly a lot easier than fixing the real problems that (a) human society cannot accommodate significant  climate change and (b) western civilisation  is controlled by  a few scum who own oilfields. 

That would make sense if there was no evidence that CO2 causes warming.
But, all the spectroscopy + physics (which you seem not to understand) shows that extra CO2 will cause warming.
As I said- and you failed to answer."If you don't think a photon has a memory, why did you think anyone would bother to do the experiment you proposed?"
It's not a "scapegoat" it's a cause.
The theories say so.
The evidence says so.

[PhysBang]

Why do people keep going with this global cooling myth? This was not a widespread hypothesis in the same way that global warming is.

[jeffreyH]

There are far more serious concerns to do with more than just the climate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39238808

[Bored chemist]

There are far more serious concerns to do with more than just the climate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39238808

False dichotomy.We should look after those caught out by famine and strife.However that doesn't mean we should lose sight of our obligation to future generations not to wreck the planet for short term gain.

[jeffreyH]

We are in an era of almost instantly redundant technology where marketeers promote the latest model incessantly. How long do you think it will be before the over consumption of resources wrecks the planet?

[Bored chemist]

We are in an era of almost instantly redundant technology where marketeers promote the latest model incessantly. How long do you think it will be before the over consumption of resources wrecks the planet?

Good question. Perhaps you should start a thread about it.