There is general scientific agreement that the globe has been warming, in fits and starts of course, for the last three centuries or so. And since it has been thusly warming for centuries, the obvious null hypothesis would have to be that the half-degree of warming we experienced in the 20th century was a continuation of some long-term ongoing natural trend.
But that’s not what Dr. Trenberth is doing here. Keep your eye on the pea. He has smoothly segued from the IPCC saying “global warming is ‘unequivocal’”, which is true, and stitched that idea so cleverly onto another idea, ‘and thus humans affect the climate’, that you can’t even see the seam.
The pea is already under the other walnut shell. He is implying that the IPCC says that scientists have “unequivocally” shown that humans are the cause of weather ills, and if I don’t take that as an article of faith, it’s my job to prove that we are not the cause of floods in Brisbane.
If Global Warming is so settled, why do they keep changing it’s name ?
We had Global Warming, then Climate Change (I assume this is to cover their backsides now that it appears to be cooling), and now Global Climate Disruption.
If they can’t even settle on a name, what makes anybody think it’s “settled” ?
My grandfather died after saving people from flooding during a 100-year worst storm….in Russia back many years ago.
We have had historically famous weather as long as there have been humans.
Only in the last 100 years, however, have human populations begun living right at the shorelines of earth.
Look at Earnest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea to note how far the old man traveled to fish from his home.
It is NEW to live where storms hit.
That’s why all the deaths and destructions, not that the climate (or even the weather) has changed.
@Neo: Every see the same old stuff in the grocery store, now packaged in a different package with NEW AND IMPROVED emblazoned?
It is called “Marketing” (or running the rubes).
Truth is not a part of it. (Or if it is, it is regarded as a contaminant.)
This is a very good article. As I posted in an earlier debate, Larry, this article describes the scientific steps and procedures that Climate Scientists who sell AGW fail to follow. Willis Eschenbach bowled 300 on this article. In case you missed it!
@Nan – Great point! I hadn’t thought of that particular explanation.
It IS silly that they have to keep changing the name, that is why I just gave up and started calling it Global Climate Warming Change, but now I might have to amend even that.
Global Disruptive Climate Warming Challenges Change??
Aw hell, it MUST be Bush’s fault.
/sarc
What caused the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian era? Estimates of 96% of all known insects and 80% of all terrestrial species disappeared. Columnar lava studies in Siberia are indicating lava fractures of at least 1500 miles in length and lava flows covering at least 750,000 square miles. Gases emitted were the halogens( chlorine, bromine,fluorine, etc.),oxygenated and hydrated sulphurs(so2,h2s), oxygenated carbons(monoxide, dioxide, mostly from underground coal beds) and methane( from heated oceans and lakes). Remember the year 1700 when thousands of Englishmen died from the eruptions in Iceland where the wind blown gases covered Great Britain that spring and summer. Some estimates have co2 levels up to 40 times of what it is today. We can’t compete with the ancient chemical fogs. Man made global warming is a sham compared to volcanology.
Remember the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Estimates of .25 million tons of pyroclasts shot to 80,ooo feet in the air.Thousands of tons of hydrogen sulfide and sulphur dioxide emitted from the flows and the blasts were noted and estimated.Take a sniff test around Yellowstone Natl. Park. Man made global warming is about money and power.