I’m sorry I’ve (scan)-read the links three times and see no mention of consensus. So I do not follow the reference.

My mistake. Consensus is the word used to denigrate the "deniers" when they ask for any proof. In this case proof would be accuracy of the predictive models.
It's the term used by politicians given no scientific accuracy. One minor example here -

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

Given that the models are now many years old you would think that their predictions could be checked - no examples have been shown of this yet.


Similarly I don’t know the authors of the pieces or their qualifications to interpret either the base data or the adjustments.

I do know that a ‘full disclosure’ of the raw data to the uninitiated or poorly qualified could be like asking a plumber to explain the full and detailed workings of the Hadron collider.

Doesn't matter, they are not releasing their data to anyone, even those qualified to review.

Even then, with a reasonable explanation, as a graduate Liverpool Univ. engineer, I should probably be able to follow the workings of the Hadron collider. The simple plumber explanation should also fit in with the engineer explanation - right now it's over-simplified (and alarmist) and is not fully connected to all of the available data.

And I would hope that the kids at the Science Fair are aware that there is no ‘proof’ in science. Science moves forward based on hypothesis and probable explanation. The scientific community is its own forum within which certain explanations gained more or less credence as time goes by.

I agree 'no proof', but theories are put out, along with observed data, and others review them. That is the way in all other scientific fields. The "climategate" e-mails showed how IPCC authors wanted a scientific journal editor removed becuase he dared to publish a paper from a qualified author that they disagreed with. The AGW community is not playing straight here...

Explanation previously held as true becomes superseded by newer truths (from Newton to Einstein to Pauli). Perhaps not consensus but near enough to it as makes no difference.

True, but with data and observations to back it up. All of the AGW is based on predictive models, and not one has really been checked - often the model internals are not even released to others inthe scientific community.

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/IPCC1995_Fail.htm


I can remember year after year winter snow in Liverpool. I went to a wedding in Zurich in December about two years ago - not one flake, in the sky or on the ground.

Interesting, I cycled 2.5 miles four times a day to Quarry Bank HS in the early 60's and remember very few days when I couldn't go. My dad didn't have a car and the bus routes sucked so I would have walked, and remembered it. Last year in Feb. in Liverpool there were a few days when I couldn't even walk around the block to my sisters because of the ice. When I was a teenager I had a nice tobaggon given to me. I can only remember one period of 3 days or so when Holts field was covered well enough in snow to use it. In the last two trips to Liverpool in the last three years I saw more snow on Holts field than that.

In the climate world our personal recollections don't cover enough time span and are not uniform. Our minds cherry-pick the data.

Your Zurich trip isn't a good example either, you could have gone to Venice this winter and seen the canals frozen over for the first time in several decades...

***

As for one or two degrees being good, tell it to the birds - literally, the ones dying out because spring is coming too early and insect larvae are peaking too soon to feed the chicks. Not a joke.

Again, surveys by scientists to get AGW grants. Most of what you quoted is based on predictions from the IPCC worst cases. It tries to make a good case for govt. intervention.



Or if you don't believe CO2 emissions are the cause, you can laugh about it with those affected by lack of water availability, flood risk, rising sea levels, storms and disease transference.

Again, based on the trend. Global Warming just got renamed in the last year to Climate Change - now everything can be blamed on CO2, hot/cold, wet/dry it's all our fault. What should the sea level be? Even the US can't come up with more than 6 inches in a century. Not cherry picking data, which the alarmist newspapers usually do, this is by where I lived in CA - Arizona doesn't have a sea level problem unless CA gets a giant earthquake...

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/slt...?stnid=9410840

At less than 1/16 inch per year even the accuracy could be called into question....

If the alarmists call for more storms in the US, then we may have more water available. I'm not arguing against conservation, I don't think we should waste stuff, but I see attempts at recycling and saving energy that make folks feel good, but actually use more energy overall.

Solar panels are one - sounds like free electricity from the sun, but how much energy went into making them? Prices have fallen in the US, but it's distorted due to cheap Chinese panel imports - made with probably the dirtiest energy on the planet.

In a similar vein, what should the temperature of the planet be? What is good and what is bad? Things change on their own - England grew grapes outdoors in Medieval times - Greenland was settled and farmed at one time. In climate timelines these were recent events, especially since the IPCC is predicting temperatures a century out.

Note that every "solution" proposed so far involves the taking of money from your pocket and giving to the govt....

UPDATE

I found the good description of feedback and model accuracy I mentioned earlier, and it even comes from an ex-Australian govt. scientist. He was in the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) - Hey, there's that name change I mentioned earlier! Note that since he looked at more data and changed his stance, he is now ex-govt....

http://mises.org/daily/5892/The-Skeptics-Case

It's the best clear explanation of feedbacks within climate systems I have come across. Even the plumber mentioned above could probably follow it. It even follows the scientific method that the kids could understand - make a prediction (theory), take the data, and then check if your prediction (theory) was true.

The summary is here - my highlight -

"The data presented here is impeccably sourced, very relevant, publicly available, and from our best instruments. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media — have you ever seen anything like any of the figures here in the mainstream media? That alone tells you that the "debate" is about politics and power, and not about science or truth.

This is an unusual political issue, because there is a right and a wrong answer, and everyone will know which it is eventually. People are going ahead and emitting CO2 anyway, so we are doing the experiment: either the world heats up by several degrees by 2050 or so, or it doesn't.

Notice that the skeptics agree with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2; they just disagree about the feedbacks. The climate debate is all about the feedbacks; everything else is merely a sideshow. Yet hardly anyone knows that. The government climate scientists and the mainstream media have framed the debate in terms of the direct effect of CO2 and sideshows such as arctic ice, bad weather, or psychology."