In article daBee.50320$r53.11838@attbi_s21, Jay Honeck wrote:
Further, when the "climate scientists" (what a farcical name!) can tell me
what the weather is going to do this weekend, I MIGHT start listening to
their dire warnings about the next 400 years.

There is a HUGE difference between climatology and meteorology. If you
don't understand the difference between a climatologist and a
meteorologist it's no wonder you have the misconceptions you do about
climate change.

A climatologist is NOT a meterologist. They don't try and predict the
weather tomorrow or this weekend; that's up to the meteorologist. Think
of it this way: a climatologist might be able to tell you that
generally, the weather in the north Irish Sea for the last 300 years has
followed a certain pattern (mild, wet winters seldom going much below
freezing, mild, wet summers seldom going above 20 degrees Celcius). A
meteorologist will tell you 'there is a 30% chance of isolated
thunderstorms this afternoon'. Although the two fields are related, they
are VERY different.

As a metaphor for this, imagine a large pan of water on a gas stove and
turn the gas on full. You can predict quite accurately that the water
will boil, and when it will boil. However, predicting where individual
bubbles of boiling water, or a specific convection in the pan of boiling
water is a completely different science. The meteorologist is predicting
the bubbles and convection, where it will occur and what effect it will
have on a specific square millimetre of the pan's surface, the
climatologist is saying some time in the future the water in the pan as
a whole will boil, based on calculating the energy going in, the energy
being lost, the specific heat capacity of water etc.

Equally, it is proven scientific fact that if you increase the
concentration of carbon dioxide, more solar radiation is trapped. The
concentration of carbon dioxide has provably increased in the last 50
years. The concentration of chloroflourocarbons ahs provably increased
in the last 50 years. The concentration of methane has provably
increased. Given the proven fact that CO2, CFCs and CH4 reduce the
escape of infrared radiation from the planet, and that the sun's output
has not decreased, just as 1+1=2, the planet's energy balance (heat in
versus heat out) has also changed towards keeping more heat in. It
doesn't even take a degree in climatology to prove that this is true.

Just as it's difficult to predict where the bubbles appear in a pot of
water being brought to the boil, it's difficult to predict what effect
it will have on the day to day meteorology of a given location on the
Earth's surface. But just like turning the stove from low heat to full
power, the fact that more energy is being added to the system is easy to
say with certainty (even though in the case of the whole planet it's
undoubtedly difficult to say exactly how much due to the number of
variables).

Those that deny otherwise are simply in denial about the laws of
physics.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"