Why liberals fear global warming far more than Conservatives do?

[Tickle Me Goody]

<snip>

Here's some more recent science.

• 2005 Warmest Year in Over a Century, from NASA. Note that this is based on temperature data; not on proxies. NASA thus provides a direct confirmation of the Hockey stick inferred by Mann's proxy based analysis. Here is NASA's data, graphed.

The last paragraph in this article says:

"Current warmth seems to be occurring nearly everywhere at the same time and is largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the last 50 years, the largest annual and seasonal warmings have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Because these areas are remote and far away from major cities, it is clear to climatologists that the warming is not due to the influence of pollution from urban areas."

I thought that the contention was that it is the polution from urban areas that are causing global warming. If it is emissions from major industrial areas, why are these remote areas the ones affected the most?

What am I missing?

gg

[sylas]

The last paragraph in this article says:

"Current warmth seems to be occurring nearly everywhere at the same time and is largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the last 50 years, the largest annual and seasonal warmings have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Because these areas are remote and far away from major cities, it is clear to climatologists that the warming is not due to the influence of pollution from urban areas."

I thought that the contention was that it is the polution from urban areas that are causing global warming. If it is emissions from major industrial areas, why are these remote areas the ones affected the most?

What am I missing?

This data is working from direct temperature measurements, rather than from proxies like Mann's work. A major difficulty with direct temperature measurement is that weather stations are often close to urban areas, and such areas are sources of additional heat pollution that have nothing to do with global warming. Cities are often substantially warmer than areas in the surrounding country. The trick, then, is to account for this and take measurements that have nothing to do with localized urban heat pollution.

Indeed, this attempt to get away from local distortions is a major focus of the research. They apply compensations when they have to use urban data, to account for the local effects. The last paragraph is not a denial of the effect of human emissions. It is an indicator that they have been successful in getting real measurements that are not distorted by local effects. Green house gases effect the whole planet; not just urban areas where they are emitted. Therefore it is important to measure the global temperature undistorted by local effects.

By the way, one of the authors of this NASA study is James Hansen; who has been one of the leading scientists in this whole area; a very big name indeed in climate studies and global warming – a very vocal critic of the way government is trying to gag debate. (ref) He's the last person in the world to think of as a critic of the notion of anthropogenic warming. He's much closer to being the one who discovered it.

A good description of the importance of trying to get rid of these local effects is available in a previous report by the same team. See A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change (4 Mb pdf) by Hansen, J.E., R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl in J. Geophys. Res. 106, (2001) 23947-23963.

Other reports, again by the same team, confirm that this warming is indeed mostly caused by human produced greenhouse gases. See, for example, Earth's energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications, by the same researchers, published in Science 308, 1431-1435 (2005).

Cheers -- Sylas

[sylas]

(I am responding to msg #161.)

The media is driving the hysteria of "global warming" and the "crisis" of a so called man made cause.

However, the scientific data doesn't support the man made "green house" gases cause, although yes, temps are rising, and as I have posted, this climatic change.

The scientific data absolutely does support man made effects as the primary cause of the current rapid rise in global temperatures.

Simeon has said recent warming is just normal climate change. He has given no data or evidence whatsoever for this claim. Of course climate does change, over time; but there is no credible basis for doubt that change in recent decades stands out for being exceptional. Studies for the causes of this recent change point the finger at anthropogenic green house gases as the major contribution. That's not hysteria… that's simply a statement of the facts as they stand at present. Hysteria shows up not in the facts themselves, but how you talk about them.

All rational policy takes this as a starting point for guidance of policy decisions and strategy. Ironically, the very policy group Simeon cites is an example!

Apocalyptic visions of climate change used by newspapers, environmental groups and the government of the United Kingdom amount to "climate porn," says the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

http://www.ippr.org.uk

Moreover, the IPPR says overuse of alarming images is a "counsel of despair" that makes people feel helpless and is partly commercially motivated.

The IPPR recognizes the basic facts about global warming and humanity's role in causing it; and their focus is how people can best be motivated to change their behaviours.

Do you get this yet, Simeon? The very people you are citing accept man caused global warming, and are concerned about identifying the most effective way to motivate people to change their behaviour and do something about it. You've completely misunderstood what this article is about; and turned it about face by 180 degrees.

By their own account, the IPPR is the UK's leading progressive think tank. They are a private group, having no special authority or recognition; but they are interesting none the less. To prepare this post, I have read through used the following IPPR documents.

1. Ankelohe and beyond: communicating climate change, Simon Retallack, May 2006.
2. Fortune favours the brave, Simon Retallack, June 2006.
3. The problem with climate porn, Simon Retallack, August 2006.
4. The Low Carbon Programme; an IPPR project that "aims to develop answers to some of the critical questions facing the UK and the international community in its efforts to prevent dangerous climate change".

IPPR policy research is guided by the facts on the ground about global warming, and consequently they recognize that human cause of global warming is a well established phenomenon. Hysteria does not lie simply in recognition of this basic fact; it is an ineffective way of responding to the facts.

Their policy proposals are consistently geared towards finding the most effective way to motivate people to respond and tackle the issue.

Quoting from the article:

The problem with climate porn, by S. Retallack of IPPR, August 2006

Having looked at more than 600 articles and 90 TV, radio and press ads, news clips and websites over three months, the research concludes that the alarmist language widely used to discuss climate change is likely to be having a counter-productive effect. The report argues that it is tantamount to "climate porn" by offering a terrifying, and perhaps secretly thrilling, spectacle, but ultimately making the issue appear unreal and distancing the public from the problem.

This matters because the public is responsible for 44% of the UK's contribution to climate change. If the UK is to take its fair share of responsibility for preventing the problem from getting worse, the public's contribution to it will need to be reduced significantly. Putting effective policies in place to help achieve that is essential, but so too is deploying effective communications. And here we may be failing.

© source where applicable

This same IPPR report also proposes a solution. Retallack concludes with a recommendation: Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? (500 kb pdf; 32 pages). The booklet is free; and here is the preface.

Warm Words, IPPR 2006

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing mankind this century. Unchecked, no one will remain immune from its consequences. Yet we each contribute to it. Every time we use electricity and gas at home, drive a car and get on an aeroplane we are emitting greenhouse gases that are warming the planet and changing our climate. If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, the public’s contribution to it will need to be reduced dramatically.

This report was commissioned by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) as part of its project on how to stimulate climate-friendly behaviour in the UK. Putting in place effective policies to achieve that is clearly essential, but so too is the use of effective communications. Today in the UK, more stakeholders, including every type of media outlet, the Government, environmental groups and companies, are discussing or communicating on climate change than ever before.

But what impact are these stakeholders having? Are they helping or hindering efforts to achieve behaviour change? Will producing more of the same communications do the job, and if not, how could the way climate change is communicated be improved? To help answer those questions, ippr commissioned Linguistic Landscapes to analyse current UK constructions and conceptions of climate change in the public domain, using some of the tools and principles of discourse analysis and semiotics.

© source where applicable

Those interested may like to look through it and see what they recommend. Simeon won't like it a bit. I just find it screamingly funny that he even cited this. Anything further removed from his head in the sand denial would be hard to imagine.

Cheers -- Sylas

[Simeon]

I'm quoting the scientists. You're quoting Wall Street Journal.

O.K., and they have their scientistic sources and you have yours?

Looking in more detail at who is quoting what just makes you look worse at every turn; so let's dig a bit deeper.

You are responding to msg #130, where I cited the report by the NAS into the hockey stick curve. This is about as non-partisan as you can get. It is the National Academy of Sciences in the USA, and the report was commissioned by congress specifically to look into the claims for a sharp increase in recent warming and see whether or not the claims were valid. A large committee was involved in its production, and the NAS itself is not aligned with any political movement.

The sharp rise is called the "hockey stick", and the NAS report confirmed that the conclusions were valid. The NAS report does speak of some scope for tuning or adjusting the trends identified by Mann in 1998; which is normal in the progress of science. But the science involved was good.

From the summary of the NAS report:

Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, NAS 2006, (page 18)

The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years. Not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented, although a larger fraction of geographically diverse sites experienced exceptional warmth during the late 20th century than during any other extended period from A.D. 900 onward.

© source where applicable

The NAS report is thorough. It also considers the criticisms that have been made of the methods used by Mann et. al. Criticism is perfectly normal in science; it is part of what keeps scientific work at a high quality. The report, from page 105, looks at some of the criticisms, and proposes various better methods that can be applied. Their overall support of Mann is thus qualified; but this is mostly a matter of tuning. The basic result is solid.

You've cited Wall Street Journal, an article called "Hockey Stick Hokum". The basis of the Wall Street Journal rubbish is a report commissioned by Rep. Barton, and produced by three statisticians – not scientists. It amounts to a lot of quibbling over the particular statistical methods in Mann's work. This report is from an ad hoc committee, commissioned by the usual political suspects (Rep Barton is notorious for head in the sand refusal to deal with the science), not subject to any peer review, not involving any actual scientists or climatologists, and not even making any new criticisms!

The basic criticisms of this report were already made in the peer reviewed literature by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003, and have been already responded to and dealt with in the literature. That debate is considered in the NAS report on page 86.

Mann has responded to the report commissioned by Barton. He is quoted at Mongabay.com:

War of words over new climate change report, 'hockey stick' model, July 2006

"The un-peer reviewed report commissioned by Rep. Barton released today adds nothing new to the scientific discourse on climate change and is a poor attempt to further personalize and politicize what should be a matter of scientific debate not politics," wrote Dr. Mann in a response released Friday.

…

"Barton's report, written by statisticians with no apparent background at all in the relevant areas, simply uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and an oil industry consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."

© source where applicable

As far as I can tell from looking over the reports in question, Mann is correct.

More seriously, all of this quibbling is beside the point. The science marches on. Mann's work is just one little piece in the continuing accumulation of data pointing the reality of global warming, the role of humanity in causing it, and the extent of warming being substantially greater than the normal swings in climate that take place on our planet. His work is now eight years old, for heavens sake.

Here's some more recent science.

• 2005 Warmest Year in Over a Century, from NASA. Note that this is based on temperature data; not on proxies. NASA thus provides a direct confirmation of the Hockey stick inferred by Mann's proxy based analysis. Here is NASA's data, graphed.
  [attachment=1]
• Climate 'warmest for millennium', reported by the BBC in Feb 2006. Extract: In the late 20th Century, the northern hemisphere experienced its most widespread warmth for 1,200 years, according to the journal Science.. This is research by Dr Timothy Osborn.

But am I picking and choosing? Of course: I'm picking and choosing what is supported by scientists who actually study climate. Could I have chosen scientists disputing that human effects are a major cause of global warming? No, not in the peer reviewed literature. As I showed back in msg #145, there are NO scientific reports actually denying human caused scientific warming, based on a survey reported in 2004 in the journal Science. The scientific debate is all on the details, in the context of a universal consensus of the reality of human caused global warming.

Deal with it.

Cheers -- Sylas

Deal with what? Your perception of a "sharp rise" in our USA or global temps? Compared against what, the last ice age or mini-ice age of the 1880's?

The Politics of the hyped hysteria of the Leftwing nuts?

Sure, as I have stated, temps are rising and have been since the last ice age.

Thank God for that, and I hope Greenland becomes GREEN again!

O.K. you quote NASA and I have NOAA too. I have been researching and sourcing any and all of the trusted sites that I can.

We need more fact gathering, and cool headed analysis, and lunatics like Al Gore will be refuted, and rejected because their hysteria is obvious and politically motivated!

See:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/...jun/jun06.html

Climate of 2006 - June in Historical Perspective

National Climatic Data Center

13 July 2006


In 2007 NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, celebrates 200 years of science and service to the nation. Starting with the establishment of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. The agency is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and more than 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

[Simeon]

(I am responding to msg #161.)

The scientific data absolutely does support man made effects as the primary cause of the current rapid rise in global temperatures.

Sorry, I don't buy it, and Tucker Carlson of MSNBC just demonstrated recently as yesterday on his cable show, at least to my satisfaction, that this isn't so "conclusive" or proven.

Simeon has said recent warming is just normal climate change. He has given no data or evidence whatsoever for this claim.

Are you suggesting that greenhouse gases were the cause of the warming since the say, the last ice age?

Please, provide evidence for the source of the end of the last ice age cycle?

Of course climate does change, over time; but there is no credible basis for doubt that changes in recent decades stands out for being exceptional. Studies for the causes of this recent change point the finger at anthropogenic green house gases as the major contribution. That's not hysteria… that's simply a statement of the facts as they stand at present. Hysteria shows up not in the facts themselves, but how you talk about them.

First prove it.

Next prove that there a demi-god darn chance that you can reverse the reality of the increase of global human activity, including exhaling CO2?

President Bush has asked for voluntary efforts to save our energy supplies and to reduce pollution. This is common sense and good for our economy!

All rational policy takes this as a starting point for guidance of policy decisions and strategy. Ironically, the very policy group Simeon cites is an example!

Of course, and I am trying to pursue any and all sources to further a rational discourse here, free from the inconvenient hysteria from idiots like Al Gore.

The IPPR recognizes the basic facts about global warming and humanity's role in causing it; and their focus is how people can best be motivated to change their behaviours.

Do you get this yet, Simeon?

Sorry, as I see other rational explanations.and evidence for climatic change.

I do agree that with over 6 Billion people on this planet, that our very act of exhaling CO2 may impact our atmosphere and indeed, there will be off setting factors as well.

See:How Global Warming Can Chill the Planet

By Sarah Davidson - LiveScience Staff Writer

Scientists hope new evidence of an ancient rise in sea level from a fresh water flood will tell them how global warming can lead to global cooling. A global cooling event was caused by global warming? Sounds strange. But that is exactly what scientists say happened.

The Earth was emerging from an ice age 8,200 years ago. Seas were warming and life was heating up. Then quite abruptly and for a relatively short period of time -- about 100 years -- the entire globe chilled down again, by almost 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Centigrade).

One widely held theory for the chill was the sudden release of a substantial amount of fresh water into the northern Atlantic. (end of quote)



Our climate has been changing since the dawn of time, and it is my estimating the height of human hubris by anyone to conclude that we know everything or every critical dynamic at work in the past and the future of this planet Earth.

Deal with it, and by all means go and learn more.

The very people you are citing accept man caused global warming, and are concerned about identifying the most effective way to motivate people to change their behaviour and do something about it. You've completely misunderstood what this article is about; and turned it about face by 180 degrees.

No I have not.

The media is out of control on this topic and the dumb Dem's like President Bill Clinton ( I was in error by posting Hillary as the Clinton in question here.) and Tony Blair while recently in California are trying to cash in politically. (Now again, don't get me wrong on this, as an example London has too many cars and wasting gasoline and desires to reduce pollution is real and rational, and we should just call this common sense, not "saving the planet" from evil "greenhouse gases" and other hyped dubious newly created jargon that are clearly become political slogans.)

It remains to be seen if Al Gore runs again for President, but I have demonstrated many inconvenient facts that Al gore missed on purpose or neglected to study or factor into his Porn movie.

Thanks for your research efforts here and the citations and more evidence of hype and hysteria?

Is this really our biggest problem on the planet? Or, the best chance for the dumb Dem’s to win votes in 2008?

Try Islamist fascists mate, and they may want to cut your throat or blow up you and your mates on holiday to Bali?

Those interested may like to look through it and see what they recommend. Simeon won't like it a bit. I just find it screamingly funny that he even cited this. Anything further removed from his head in the sand denial would be hard to imagine.

Cheers -- Sylas

I don't have any problem posting evidence for the hype and propaganda as reported by the liberal media.

Our climate is extremely complex and rational scientific study is required and I look for discussing hard science and the Politics of the Leftwing lunatics like Al Gore!

[Simeon]

This data is working from direct temperature measurements, rather than from proxies like Mann's work. A major difficulty with direct temperature measurement is that weather stations are often close to urban areas, and such areas are sources of additional heat pollution that have nothing to do with global warming. Cities are often substantially warmer than areas in the surrounding country. The trick, then, is to account for this and take measurements that have nothing to do with localized urban heat pollution.

Indeed, this attempt to get away from local distortions is a major focus of the research. They apply compensations when they have to use urban data, to account for the local effects. The last paragraph is not a denial of the effect of human emissions. It is an indicator that they have been successful in getting real measurements that are not distorted by local effects. Green house gases effect the whole planet; not just urban areas where they are emitted. Therefore it is important to measure the global temperature undistorted by local effects.

By the way, one of the authors of this NASA study is James Hansen; who has been one of the leading scientists in this whole area; a very big name indeed in climate studies and global warming – a very vocal critic of the way government is trying to gag debate. (ref) He's the last person in the world to think of as a critic of the notion of anthropogenic warming. He's much closer to being the one who discovered it.

A good description of the importance of trying to get rid of these local effects is available in a previous report by the same team. See A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change (4 Mb pdf) by Hansen, J.E., R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl in J. Geophys. Res. 106, (2001) 23947-23963.

Other reports, again by the same team, confirm that this warming is indeed mostly caused by human produced greenhouse gases. See, for example, Earth's energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications, by the same researchers, published in Science 308, 1431-1435 (2005).

Cheers -- Sylas

And yet, our planets temps have been rising since the last ice age, and as we discussed under Science, this would include the recorded fact that ice has been melting in Antarctica for 10,000 years!

Yes.

Ice sheets in North America and Europe had nearly all melted 10,000 years ago, but this process had only just started in West Antarctica at that time.

"The Ice Age never really came to an end in that part of the world," according to Professor Stone!

Did we cover this article?

Antarctica's ice sheet melting naturally

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has been melting naturally and releasing water to the ocean for the last 10,000 years.

Research published in the journal Science suggests that the last Ice Age never really ended in that part of the world.

If the melting continues at its current rate then the WAIS could disappear in 7,000 years, possibly raising worldwide sea levels by five metres. (Hmmm, a dubious prediction forgetting off setting factors?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2624603.stm

[Simeon]

I neglected to provide the hotlink for this quote in Post 170.

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofn...evel_rise.html


See:How Global Warming Can Chill the Planet

By Sarah Davidson - LiveScience Staff Writer

Scientists hope new evidence of an ancient rise in sea level from a fresh water flood will tell them how global warming can lead to global cooling. A global cooling event was caused by global warming? Sounds strange. But that is exactly what scientists say happened.

The Earth was emerging from an ice age 8,200 years ago. Seas were warming and life was heating up. Then quite abruptly and for a relatively short period of time -- about 100 years -- the entire globe chilled down again, by almost 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Centigrade).

One widely held theory for the chill was the sudden release of a substantial amount of fresh water into the northern Atlantic. (end of quote)

[Simeon]

(I am responding to msg #161.)

The scientific data absolutely does support man made effects as the primary cause of the current rapid rise in global temperatures.

Just how much do you assert that global temps have risen?

Some have believed shocking ranges suggested from 2 - 3 degress.

Evidence? And, look it is not just the media caught this time hyping "global warming", and we will follow the scam of some scientists as they no doubt drive to cash in through grants to study the dubious "evidence" for this natural climatic change.

News: BBC.com

Thursday, 20 April 2006, 11:36 GMT 12:36 UK

A load of hot air?

By Simon Cox and Richard Vadon

BBC News

Hardly a day goes by without a new dire warning about climate change. But some claims are more extreme than others, giving rise to fears that the problem is being oversold and damaging the issue.

How much has the planet warmed up over the past century? Most people reckon between two and three degrees. They are not even close. The real figure, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 0.6C.

It's not surprising most people get it wrong. We are bombarded by stories warning us that global warming is out of control.

© source where applicable

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4923504.stm

[Simeon]

I'm quoting the scientists. You're quoting Wall Street Journal.


....The NAS report is thorough. It also considers the criticisms that have been made of the methods used by Mann et. al. Criticism is perfectly normal in science; it is part of what keeps scientific work at a high quality. The report, from page 105, looks at some of the criticisms, and proposes various better methods that can be applied. Their overall support of Mann is thus qualified; but this is mostly a matter of tuning. The basic result is solid.

You've cited Wall Street Journal, an article called "Hockey Stick Hokum". The basis of the Wall Street Journal rubbish is a report commissioned by Rep. Barton, and produced by three statisticians – not scientists. It amounts to a lot of quibbling over the particular statistical methods in Mann's work. This report is from an ad hoc committee, commissioned by the usual political suspects (Rep Barton is notorious for head in the sand refusal to deal with the science), not subject to any peer review, not involving any actual scientists or climatologists, and not even making any new criticisms!

The basic criticisms of this report were already made in the peer reviewed literature by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003, and have been already responded to and dealt with in the literature. That debate is considered in the NAS report on page 86.

Mann has responded to the report commissioned by Barton. He is quoted at Mongabay.com:

War of words over new climate change report, 'hockey stick' model, July 2006

"The un-peer reviewed report commissioned by Rep. Barton released today adds nothing new to the scientific discourse on climate change and is a poor attempt to further personalize and politicize what should be a matter of scientific debate not politics," wrote Dr. Mann in a response released Friday.

…

"Barton's report, written by statisticians with no apparent background at all in the relevant areas, simply uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and an oil industry consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."

© source where applicable

As far as I can tell from looking over the reports in question, Mann is correct.

More seriously, all of this quibbling is beside the point. The science marches on. Mann's work is just one little piece in the continuing accumulation of data pointing the reality of global warming, the role of humanity in causing it, and the extent of warming being substantially greater than the normal swings in climate that take place on our planet. His work is now eight years old, for heavens sake.

Here's some more recent science.

• 2005 Warmest Year in Over a Century, from NASA. Note that this is based on temperature data; not on proxies. NASA thus provides a direct confirmation of the Hockey stick inferred by Mann's proxy based analysis. Here is NASA's data, graphed.
  
  [attachment=1]
• Climate 'warmest for millennium', reported by the BBC in Feb 2006. Extract: In the late 20th Century, the northern hemisphere experienced its most widespread warmth for 1,200 years, according to the journal Science.. This is research by Dr Timothy Osborn.

But am I picking and choosing? Of course: I'm picking and choosing what is supported by scientists who actually study climate. Could I have chosen scientists disputing that human effects are a major cause of global warming? No, not in the peer reviewed literature. As I showed back in msg #145, there are NO scientific reports actually denying human caused scientific warming, based on a survey reported in 2004 in the journal Science. The scientific debate is all on the details, in the context of a universal consensus of the reality of human caused global warming.

Deal with it.

Cheers -- Sylas

Just a follow up to the Politics involved, and quoting Steve McIntyre's Blog:

I’ve said over and over how frustrated I am that the due diligence of the NAS panel was so negligible and slight and that they relied on mere literature review for so much of their study. It’s ludicrous for them to say that bristlecones should be "avoided" in temperature reconstructions and then to "bring in other evidence" - a "half-dozen other reconstructions" that use bristlecones - without testing for the impact of bristlecones on these reconstructions. I’ll do the testing of the impact of bristlecones on the other reconstructions, but the NAS panel should have done it themselves.

Their report is most usable on specifics, where they make many useful comments, so their poor performance in one area does not make the report unusable in total and, to date, I’ve tried to focus mainly on the positive aspects of the report.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=766

By Steve McIntyre