I couldn’t resist one last item from the news today

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

You didn’t cite studies, you cited articles and yearly reports noting that in 2007 and 2008 there was more ice than in 2006 – and one guy who was wrong in his prediction (it happens). But 2006 was the lowest level of ice on record, and the gains don’t even bring the ice back to pre-2006 levels. It takes a hypocrite of the highest order to claim that we need hundreds of years of perfectly calibrated data to determine whether the climate is even changing, but 2 years of ice gains after the biggest drop in history is proof that “the ice caps aren’t melting, they’re getting thicker!” Well, two can play that game – I’ll just come back in July and since it’s summer, the ice will be melting and you’ll be wrong. So there.

I’m actually surprised you wouldn’t take the bet. If you actually checked out that chart, you’d realize that statistically it’s an even wager – over the 30 years on the chart, 15 years the stats went up, and 15 years the stats went down… it’s just that the jumps down are bigger so the trend is definitely downwards. I’m pretty sure we’d both end up winning and losing a few years, but at the end of that time the dot would be way below where it is now and there’d be no way you could honestly tell me that the arctic ice is “getting thicker.”

Phil: the ice caps weren’t melting (they were in fact thickening)

Chasm Comment 25: “False, and I showed you why …”

Phil: Here are several sources that confirm what I said.

Chasm: Comment 41: Well, um, er, “so, yea it is ‘getting thicker’”, but I’ve got another excuse to explain this inconvenient fact away.

I show you recent history, which you now want to forget about — quoting from the same NSIDC said that North Pole ice could be gone in the summer of 2008 — and say we should now believe that their data is accurate, unbiased and objective. Remember all, this coming from Chasm who thinks tree rings tell temperatures (Hey Joe, does that ring shows it was 86.2 degrees in 1372, or 91.6 degrees?), and who pulls ratios of Sun/man/nature’s contributions out of thin air because, well, ya know, they could be accurate.

NOW you want to discuss the length of time to establish a “trend”, and suggest that all we need is 40 years in a several billion year old planet to establish a geological or climactic “trend”. This 40 years is important to you because the last 10 years don’t substantiate your pre-conceived notions that the earth is getting warmer (and in so doing melting the glaciers), and that man is responsible.

Once again, only a fool would suggest that 10 years, 40 years, even 140 years is a climactic “trend” — assuming we actually had accurate data about it in the first place.

To disprove your idiotic claim that the ice caps are melting, I showed you data that said it was not. I’ve made no claim that the ice caps thickening is a “trend”. I’ve simply used the actual data to show that your statements are not correct. Since the ice caps-are-melting is a component part of your, um, analysis, this means your analysis is flawed.

All of which returns us again to my central proposition: The question what do we really know? is at the heart of my skepticism about the whole man-made global warming claim. We don’t know with enough precision the temperature of, not to mention the temperature change of, the earth to make the claim that unnatural global warming exists, and man is primarily responsible for it.

All your hyperventilating and pesudointellectual dodges are meaningless, as is the integrity of anything you say, because when presented with contradictory evidence you either want to re-write your words, or say “yeah, but” after first saying “no, never”.

Since your original claim was that the polar ice has “never” thickened, you’ve already lost the bet. You can send your money to http://www.junkscience.com/

Each October, to great fanfare, the winner can announce which ultra-lefty enviro-nazi charity you’ll be making a check out to.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure3.png

from this article

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html

From the NSIDC. So, yea it’s “getting thicker” after the disastrous plummet of 2006. Aren’t you the one moaning about data? Well, two years of rise hardly discount the pattern of the last 40 years.

If this were a stock, would you buy or short? I’ll take the short side for $100 on a 10-year contract. Any takers?

For me, it’s impossible to have a debate now. I can almost overlook citing college kids as a source authority on climate issues, or quoting the Rolling Stone as another fountain of knowledge — all when not saying that everyone who disagrees with him is a “creationist”. But now the bar has been lowered to a new level. Once I point out how wrong Chasm is, he just says he never really meant to say what he said.

The problem is, his substitute language is equally inane. His revised thesis: “the sun could be responsible for 30% of global temperature rises, which leaves a whopping up to 70% plus on the table for mankind to pick up.

Okay, in Chasm-land, man could be responsible for 69%, 68%, 67% 66% … all the way down to, I guess, 1%, with nature picking up the remaining slack.

After observing that the mixture could be 30-60-10 Sun/man/other (a number pulled out of the thin air), Chasm concedes this is just a guess “for all you or I know”. He’s “sure there are some people who know better than we,” but damn if he can find one.

The question what do we really know? is at the heart of my skepticism about the whole man-made global warming claim. You’d think that anyone with common sense would realize that Chasm just validated my thesis. We don’t know with enough precision the temperature of, not to mention the temperature change of, the earth to make the claim that unnatural global warming exists, and man is primarily responsible for it.

But having just admitted this, Chasm will now say that’s not what he really said, or meant to say, or wanted to say, or knew what he was saying, or whatever it is he’ll say next.

I’m the guy who is “too politicized to even trust science and what it can tell us,” when Chasm just said it can’t really tell us anything exact … which is what I’ve been saying all along.

Irony is lost on the ironic.

Have a go at this, anyone else, if you want to run around in circles. Or just ask the next college kid you see to provide an expert judgment, or as a fall back, pick up the next issue of The Rolling Stone.

You literally cannot make this kind of stuff up.

Only an idiot, when caught with his own words, would then claim that he’s misquoted — and then blame the other guy for not debating honestly.

It’s the same kind of stupidity one sees when talking about the existence of an ice age, and measuring the temperature of the earth precisely enough to know that it has “warmed” .6 degrees. Tree rings can tell you about an ice age, but they can’t give you the temperature.

Why is this even an issue?

Alan, you are indeed correct. There’s nothing more to be gained from Chasm. It’s not even funny anymore. It’s just sad.