On Mar 10, 10:32 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dan wrote :



On Mar 10, 7:32 pm, "Dan Luke" wrote:
"Dan" wrote:

You've made a number of assertions in this thread, but you haven't
made a single substantive criticism of AGW science that you would
have to defend on
the merits. Why is that? I think I know, but perhaps you have an
excuse to
offer.

Since your the expert and I am apparently the dullard, please help
me reach your loft perch by answering this very simple question:
Will there be a 20' rise in sea level in the next 100 (or 200
years), or will there not?

Which is it?

Still nothing? Thought not.

But I'll hold up my side of the conversation, at least.

The answer to your question is "I don't know."

How's that?

Now, I've got a question for you: What convinces you there
definitely will not be?

I'm glad we're having a conversation (Life sometimes impairs my usenet
access, so you may have to wait for my replies).

I appreciate your candor.

This may help to explain the reluctance of apparently reasonable
people to jump on the GW bandwagon. The science -- while compelling --
is still less than conclusive. The IPCC is peppered with terms such as
"likely" -- which while understood in the scientific community, is not
the the type language required to move millions to action.

Hmm, you dont like science speak and you don;'t like hyperbole.

Waht about just looking at the data for yourself.

Bertie

I Did. See previous post.

But I left out this part: "For the next two decades, a warming of
about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission
scenarios. --- Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and
aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming
of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. ---- {10.3, 10.7}"

In an essay supporting the consensus view, we find this gem, "The
scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of
science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted
for failing to act on what is not known."

To which the answer is -- Yes we can be faulted for "acting on what is
not known." Especially since "acting" will have measurably harmful as
well as a host of unintended impacts.

As far as sea level rise, consider "The widely quoted altimetric
global average values may well be correct, but the accuracies being
inferred in the literature are not testable by existing in situ
observations. Useful estimation of the global averages is extremely
difficult given the realities of space-time sampling and model
approximations. Systematic
errors are likely to dominate most estimates of global average change:
published values and error bars should be used very
cautiously." [http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/
Wunschetal_jclimate_2007_published.pdf]

Also consider: "Changes in the Earth's radiation budget are driven by
changes in the balance between the thermal emission from the top of
the atmosphere and the net sunlight absorbed. The shortwave radiation
entering the climate system depends on the Sun's irradiance and the
Earth's reflectance. Often, studies replace the net sunlight by proxy
measures of solar irradiance, which is an oversimplification used in
efforts to probe the Sun's role in past climate change. With new
helioseismic data and new measures of the Earth's reflectance, we can
usefully separate and constrain the relative roles of the net
sunlight's two components, while probing the degree of their linkage.
First, this is possible because helioseismic data provide the most
precise measure ever of the solar cycle, which ultimately yields more
profound physical limits on past irradiance variations. Since
irradiance variations are apparently minimal, changes in the Earth's
climate that seem to be associated with changes in the level of solar
activity--the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice age for example--would
then seem to be due to terrestrial responses to more subtle changes in
the Sun's spectrum of radiative output. This leads naturally to a
linkage with terrestrial reflectance, the second component of the net
sunlight, as the carrier of the terrestrial amplification of the Sun's
varying output. Much progress has also been made in determining this
difficult to measure, and not-so-well-known quantity. We review our
understanding of these two closely linked, fundamental drivers of
climate." [http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/goode1349.pdf]

Threats to the planet are multiple and varied. Why haven't we
empowered an intergovernmental panel to combat tsunamis? Volcanoes?
Meteorites? Mudslides? Earthquakes?


Dan