My main postions are;
1/ the evidence is that there is currently an unprecidented rise in average global temperatures
This is semantics at its best. Your claim is not supported by evidence of warming periods in the recent past. Here again you rely on Mann and his camp to bolster your fear. If there is proof of your claim you do not supply any in support of it.
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html
The above graph shows no less than 16 spikes in global temperature of a greater magnitude (time versus temperature increase) than the one of our past 120 years. Of those 16 there are 11 that are as high as today's warming and 8 or 9 that are higher than today's.
Strike one!
2/ that there are no natural forcings which can explain this
There are no natural forcings other than GHG? Even that is a new position from you that shows your disingenuous nature. You have up to this point argued that such "other" forcings are minor, you even stating that 33% was minor. However, it has been shown that these "other" forcings have indeed been behind "unprecedented" temperature rise in the past as GHG caused by man was not a factor at those times.
There are several climatologists who disagree with your statement which is demonstrably #2.
Besides who I have shown previously there is also Jan Veizer a renowned geologist Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
(Mar 16, 2006) -March 16, 2006 - A prominent University of Ottawa science professor says what we know about global warming is wrong -- that stars, not greenhouse gases, are changing Earth's climate.
Jan Veizer says high-energy rays from distant parts of space are smashing into our atmosphere in ways that make our planet go through warm and cool cycles.
The Royal Society of Canada called him "one of the most creative, innovative and productive geoscientists of our times," and added: "He has generated entirely new concepts that have proven key in our understanding the geochemical history of Earth."
He was the director of the Earth System Evolution Program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He held a special research chair at the University of Ottawa.
He won the 1992 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, worth $2.2 million, and representing the German government's highest prize for research in any field. The judges said he "has in front of his eyes the overall picture of the Earth during its entire 4.5 billion years of evolution," and he is "one of the most creative ... geologists of his time."
Here is what he has to say about your camps tactics to silence criticism:
The recently retired professor (he still holds a research chair and supervises grad students and postdoctoral fellows) knows that to challenge the accepted climate change theory can lead to a nasty fight.
It's a politically and economically loaded topic, and as polarized as an election campaign.
Yet he is speaking out -- a bit nervously -- about his published research.
"Look, maybe I'm wrong ," he said in an interview. "But I'm saying, at least let's look at this and discuss it.
Further
Yet for years he held back on his climate doubts. "I was scared," he says.
He still is.
Questioning the fundamentals of climate change -- the theory that man-made gases such as carbon dioxide are building up and warming our climate -- is a fast way to start a nasty , personal fight in the science world. The weight of scientific opinion is overwhelmingly pro-greenhouse-gas, which means anti-Veizer. Doubters tend to be written off as paid mouthpieces for the oil industry.
Here is his argument:
In his paper, Mr. Veizer concludes: "Empirical observations on all time scales point to celestial phenomena as the principal driver of climate, with greenhouse gases acting only as potential amplifiers."
Even in recent times he argues that other cosmic factors can affect our climate as plausibly as carbon dioxide, or moreso. The warming of Earth in the past 100 years -- about 0.6 degrees Celsius -- matches a time of the sun's growing intensity, he says.
"Someone like Jan Veizer comes out -- he has absolutely nothing to gain from doing so. He's taken a lot of unfair criticism for publications that were perfectly reasonable and well researched and well done.
"He's going where the data has led him and he's willing to come out and say so."
Ottawa Citizen (article)
"And how much of the superimposed 0.6°C temperature rise over the last century can be attributed solely to the 70 ppm (or 30 %) CO
2 rise believed to be of anthropogenic origin is an open question. The situation is very complex.We are not saying that CO 2 is not a greenhouse gas. It is. But so is water vapour. How much each contributes to the greenhouse, let alone to climate change is something that we have yet to figure out.”
Do some more reading: http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Veizer/Scherer_paper/veizer_scherer_paper.html
Strike 2
3/ that the vast majority of climatologists support AGW
Again it is you who are "Disingenuous."
Dantheman even in his own ignorance stated the truth of the matter:
How is the fact that the editors of an American news periodical chose Hitler as their Man of the Year 70 years ago an appropriate analogy to the consensus of the scientific community regarding GW?
The overwhelming consensus is that we are in a period of GW as he stated, I also agree with that "consensus". However, the argument breaks down after that.
You have not argued from the beginning an overwhelming "majority", but a consensus. Further you have argued such a consensus is in support of CO2 as the main driver of AGW. You only changed horses when I pointed out Peisers critique of Oreskes article on consensus. Since then you have subtly pushed this new position of yours because Peiser admits a majority on the AGW side while still disputing your original consensus.
Abaddon: You MUST know about the percentage of peer-reviewed paers that support the concensus (thus the term 'consensus') as opposed to the percentage of peer-reviewed papers that disagree with the consensus. (here you use that word 4 times)
One of those climatologist scientists ( Christy et al. 2007 ) who supports a "majority" of AGW scientists actually believes it is land use, agriculture and millions of square miles of concrete that are the cause of climate change. He argues and proves with the data that the evidence in no way supports CO2 as a major driver. His paper disproves it over and over and shows the models relied on by the IPCC of which he was a participant just do not work either.
What I and BA have successfully disputed is the statement by you of a "consensus". That word is historically used by power posturing tyrants, leaders, politicians and inquisitions and has no place in science. Science does not rely on fear, peer pressure or consensus. However scientists who are human after all sadly do temper their research, findings and opinions by those terms.
Strike 3
Your side relies on "data mining" to support its theory about CO2. Motley Fool did this for a number of years by promoting a stock picking practice known as Dogs of the DOW ( Foolish 4) based on selective data mining from between 1973 and 1996. Altering the data period to include 1949 to 1996 unwound their approach and they abandoned it after several years of promotion.
The same unwinding of your pet theory will and is taking place.
Frank75
