There has been atmospheric cooling the last 8 years, and no new high global annual temperatures in the last 11 years. You may find it interesting what the head of the IPCC said 1-1/2 years ago concerning the lack of new annual high global temperatures:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1171501720080111

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said (1-1/2 years ago) that he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters 1-1/2 years ago, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.
Also in this article from 1-1/2 years ago, Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate program, said temperatures would have to be flat for several more years before a lack of new record years became significant.
Well, we are 3/4 of the way to being significant.

There has been atmospheric cooling the last 8 years, and no new high global annual temperatures in the last 11 years. None of the computer models replicate this fact. Anthropogenic (or man caused) global warming is not proved.

The global warming adherents base their argument of proof on more than 20 different computer models called general circulation models (also known as global climate models or GCMs). Each computer model is composed of dozens of mathematical equations representing known scientific laws, theories, and hypotheses. Each equation has one or more constants. The constants associated with known laws are very well defined. The constants associated with known theories are generally accepted but probably some of them may be off by a factor of 2 or more, maybe even an order of magnitude. The equations representing hypotheses, well, sometimes the hypotheses are just plain wrong. Then each of these equations has to be weighted against each other for use in the computer models, so that adds an additional variable (basically an educated guess) for each law, theory, and hypothesis. This is where the models are tweaked to mimic past climate measurements.

The SCIENTIFIC METHOD is: (1) Following years of academic study of the known physical laws and accepted theories, and after reviewing some data, come up with a hypothesis to explain the data. (2) Develop a plan to obtain and analyze new data. (3) Collect and analyze the data, this may even require new technology not previously available. (4) Determine if the hypothesis is correct, needs refinement, or is wrong. Either way, new data is available for other researchers. (5) Submit results, including data, for peer review and publication.

The output of the computer models run out nearly 90 years forward is considered to be data, but it is not a measurement of a physical phenomenon. Also, there is no way to analyze this so called data to determine if any or which of the hypotheses in the models are correct, need refinement, or are wrong. Also, this method cannot indicate if other new hypotheses need to be generated and incorporated into the models. IT JUST IS NOT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

The worst flaw in the AGW argument is the treatment of GCM computer generated outputs as data. They then use it in follow on hypotheses. For example, if temperature rises by X degrees in 50 years, then Y will be effected in such-and-such a way resulting in Z. Then the next person comes along and says, well, if Z happens, the effect on W will be a catastrophe. “I need (and deserve) more money to study the effects on W.” Hypotheses, stacked on hypotheses, stacked on more hypotheses, all based on computer outputs that are not data, using a process that does not lend to proof using the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Look at their results, IF, MIGHT, and COULD are used throughout their news making results. And when one of the underlying hypotheses is proven incorrect, well, the public only remembers the doomsday results 2 or three iterations down the hypotheses train. The hypotheses downstream are not automatically thrown out and can even be used for more follow on hypotheses.

A must read - 3000 new record lows in July 2009. Be sure to read all the posts too. An open debate is needed to weed out fact from fiction and then an honest decision can be formulated.

http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?blog=weathermatrix&partner=...

Mother Nature is still as fickle as she ever was. With or with out us, she has been driving plants, animals and now us a bit bonkers as we try and sort out what we can impact and who is kidding whom.
1000 nuc's will provide about 10% of our required energy so we should be getting about doing that instead of tilting at or with windmills.
Thanx,
Upton

NucEngineer needs to review the scientific process!
Apparently the poster, NucEngineer, wants unequivocal proof of "Climate Change" before he/she will accept that humankind has affected our atmosphere's patterns. Whereas, the scientific method does not require that theories are proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt." Quite to the contrary, the scientific method expects the scientific community to accept the validity of theory until a better one is proposed. That is, "Global Warming" as a theory is widely accepted; however, it is not yet scientific law.

The FACT that the theory is so widely accepted is why the rest of us should be alarmed. If the alarming conclusions are true, then our way of life may be destroyed. However, if climate change turns out to be an elaborate ruse, then businesses may be been stressed into using their resources more frugally and the consumer may have been overcharged for energy, etc. Hence, if true, our children may be condemned; if false, our wallets may suffer.
-> Which is more important?

There are very few scientific absolutes: gravity, entropy, etc. However, many theories are accepted because the theories allow for further postulation and do not conflict with scientific laws or other accepted theories. So, like Einstein's Relativity, Global Warming has yet to be fully proven, but it yields valuable information that is difficult to refute.

The Petroleum Institute has funded plenty of research to argue against Climate Change. However, glacial records and the last centuries' measurements point to the conclusion that fossil fuel consumption has affected the world's climate. The scientific process is not so easily manipulated or directed towards a foregone conclusion. Unlike "Intelligent Design", the proponents of Global Warming do not want to be right, but rather, they desire to be proven wrong.

The "cool" temperatures that we are currently enjoying may be the side effect of melting glaciers cooling the oceans, etc. However, if the oceans are infused with too much fresh water, then the Gulf Stream Current's inversion may fail. After which, Northern Europe and North East America would lose the warm waters they enjoy. The ultimate result could be new glaciers covering New York state and England.

However, we should all step-back and look at the bigger picture: Global Warming may be the best thing that happened to us. The Earth's orbit is entering a period associated with the previous long Ice Ages. If we recognize cause and effect, then we could control the climate so that we may continue to thrive on this small gem of a planet.

In other words, the scientific principle expects one to challenge authority with new information; however, NO scientist will refute a valid concept without countering proof. That is, if you want to refute Global Warming, then present evidence that supports your argument! However, if you are another layman reading the findings reported by climatologists, then don't use your "gut feeling" to oppose the majority of research.

Dr. Manic says

"The FACT that the theory is so widely accepted is why the rest of us should be alarmed."

However there are many people that do not believe that HUMANS caused the increased temperatures that we have seen. Rather sun activity has caused it.

More than 31,000 scientist have signed a petition saying so. Read it here http://www.petitionproject.org/

And how come Al Gore WILL NOT debate anyone with research to the contrary.

Read Lord Christopher Monckton's research here - http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm?renderforpr...

And Dr. Pat Michaels: Prof of Climatology and Scholar at CATO Institute - Book "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media" http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=1441216

And there are many more - why do we not see their ideas even show up in main stream media - maybe because they are right and it would wreck the agenda.

Jeff: Where is the harm? What ill has been caused by the alarm over Global Warming? Who is suffering from the reports of Climate Change? When the conspiracy that you purport achieves its agenda, what evil has been accomplished?

Whereas, if we continue to ignore the issue, then great evils could be afoot. The least of which could be the millions of people fighting over arable land and access to fresh water. The greatest of which could be another ice age or a completely uninhabitable planet.

So, what is your position? Protect the petroleum industry from the tree-huggers? Side with 31000 "scientists" against the hundreds of thousands that agree that our activities have affected the planet?
-> What is your agenda?
Do you believe that there is no reason to be good stewards of this Earth?

My agenda - that is easy:

To spread the truth.

What harm - a crushed economy?

1) Cap and Tax - increased costs for energy - a disaster for the economy

2) a new Green Job Czar Van Jones - a few quotes about him

"heading up green jobs initiatives focusing on vulnerable communities." from http://greendig.net/van-jones-green-jobs-czar/

- translated = transfer of wealth

"I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."

and

In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia.

from - http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/the_new_face_of_environmentalism/...

- a communist heading up green jobs???

3) Why are we pushing for windmills and solar cells instead of nuclear power plants

- because of vested interest - it is about the money not the earth

4) Why use CFL bulbs with mercury in them - what is going to hurt the environment more?

And what is wrong with the petroleum industry - they are supplying a product to a consumer that wants it. Or are you just against capitalism (the system that has allowed the people of this great country to prosper more than any other).

And we are very generous.

God Bless America.........

Jeff: "To spread the truth." -LOL -> You are all about politics.

Like Rush proclaiming that all of the old communists are the new environmentalists, another "dittohead" posts unsubstantiated inferences where character assassination is more important than facts. Jeff's agenda is too tied up in political ideology to recognize commonsense.

Jeff has already made up his mind. Although "Cap and Trade" has yet to be negotiated through Congress, the poster uses Ms. Palin's inflammatory term while concluding the policy as a disaster. Whereas, almost all of us know what disasters await if we do nothing.

The poster demonstrates his political agenda further by referencing communism. Through demonizing "greening the ghetto" as a "transfer of wealth", a right-wing agenda is affirmed. Jeff would rather see a sector of our community maintained in poverty instead of being shown opportunities to improve their condition.

Jeff would rather all of us have nuclear power plants (and waste dumps) in our back yards, as if the "clean" energy method has no risks. Although windmills, solar cells, etc. are highly land and labor intensive, they do not need the military-level competence required of fissile systems. Ask any able seaman if he would trust Homer Simpson (or Mr. Burns) with protecting his family from radiation.

When it comes to lighting, I still use incandescent - draw your own conclusions,...

Jeff's final paragraph clearly shows his split between rational and reality. He concludes that because I do not LOVE entities like the American Petroleum Institute, I must be against capitalism. By his rational, I must HATE democracy because I do not like some politicians. Jeff's schizm must be due to his inability to understand that in (real) life, there are few absolutes.

"Take heart in the bedeepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese." - from Deteriorata by Christopher Guest

Excuse me - try reading this article in the Wall Street Journal - The Cap and Tax Fiction

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

and here is Obama himself saying it is going to skyrocket costs

http://pumabydesign001.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/obama-my-plan-makes-elec...

I do not see you linking to anything that has any substance to disprove this.

Jeff: So you believe that embedding a link validates your statements? -LOL
I guess you think that Wikipedia is the end all,...
->
Before Jeff replies with more devisive comments, let's take a very unabridged look at past crises.
Sometime around the fifteenth century, the Catholic church had recognized that there was not enough means to feed the people of the Earth before the seventeenth century. However, finding the Americas and the invention of the steel plow ended such a calamity. Similar predictions were made for the twentieth century, but petroleum based fertilizers, etc. were an adequate counter to feed our growing populations.

Recent history has shown how we have used technology (via government intervention) to resolve issues of photochemical smog and acid rain. Polution control devices may have stressed industry, but the challenges were successfully met with some unintended benefits. Whether we are discussing tax discounts or EPA requirements, almost all U.S. citizens would not want to return to breathing bad air.

Thus, Global Warming could be just another flux in the many changes that our planet has gone through. But inaction will do nothing to improve conditions and may result in calamity. However, "We the people" have the responsibility to work towards that "more perfect union" that we would like to leave for our children.

Jeff,

I think that discussing man-caused climate change (formerly called anthropogenic global warming but renamed for obvious reasons) with Dr Manic is futile.
He freely uses ad hominem attacks rather than listening to valid points. Dr. Manic assumes, without any knowledge, that anyone that doesn't agree with him is paid off by the petroleum industry. He has a bad case of cognitive dissonance that cannot be cured this week on this blog.

Jeff,

By looking carefully at Dr. Manic's words you can see he does not have a clue. Dr. manic said:
"The "cool" temperatures that we are currently enjoying may be the side effect of melting glaciers cooling the oceans, etc. However, if the oceans are infused with too much fresh water, then the Gulf Stream Current's inversion may fail. After which, Northern Europe and North East America would lose the warm waters they enjoy. The ultimate result could be new glaciers covering New York state and England."
Give me a break. He clearly does not understand the orders of magnitude differences between the volume and heat content of existing glacial melting vs. the volume and heat content of the oceans. He read Allan Folsoms novel The Day After Tomorrow (or more likely saw the movie version) and now is an expert. His ideas are right out of the book or movie.

He probably is certain that the Younger Dryas event 14,000 years ago was caused by the sudden drainage of the Great Lakes region disrupting the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic. That hypothesis can explain the cooling at the start of the YD event, a cooling of nearly 20-degrees F in less than 50 years as measured using O-18 in the Greenland ice cores. However, that HYPOTHESIS does not explain why or how temperatures remained low for 1,100 years and then suddenly reversed with 20-degrees F warming in 50 years. A current cannot just start up like that, all of a sudden having that kind of momentum is not reasonable.
Clearly, from the beloved ice cores, the YD event was not caused by CO2. However, the amount of cosmogenically generated Be-10 isotope in the ice cores during the 1,100 year YD event is startling. Clearly, the Svensmark hypothesis has the potential to explain all 3 parts of the YD event, the initial cooling, the 1,100 year duration, and the sudden warming at the end. Also, the science is progressing, have you seen:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1180849

But, I should know better, take my own advice, and quit this silly thread fight with Dr. Manic.

Nice reading you Jeff. You must be an engineer or scientist. Your grasp of this issue (and the potential cost of overreaction) is very good.

Gary Plyler (aka NucEngineer)
BSME, MSNE

NucEngineer doth protest too much! -> Although neither poster has been accused of being "paid off by the petroleum industry", their extreme reactions betray them.
-
Unlike the (im)posters "NucEngineer" and Jeff, I have yet to claim any position on climate change other than to say it is possible.
--
That is, I have talked to experts (one had correctly predicted how Jupiter would react to a recent impact) and have read a bit, but since I am just a mere Mechanical Engineer, I will not be so bold as to accuse published academicians of participating in a conspiracy to destroy capitalism.
-> That is your thesis, isn't it Jeff and Gary?
You two would have this audience believe that the receding glaciers are a normal event that humans have not contributed to. We should all continue to buy big trucks and ignore the Rhode Island sized icebergs departing from Antarctica. Gary and Jeff want us all to continue being good consumers and ignore their political agendas.
-> Did I get that right?
The two belied their cause by making money their main topic. As was the case with acid rain or smog, we were told that smoke scrubbers and air injection pumps would be too great of a burden for the U.S. consumer. However, we now know the consequences of imposing sensible regulations: an improved quality of life.
---
Gary demonstrates his ignorance of natural events. In a world where "glacial" is synonymous with slow, he/she would have us ignore recent rapid changes in the ice sheets. Moreover, the poster makes the false statement that a natural event, like the Gulf Current, cannot change abruptly. However, the history of this planet is riddled with sudden and yet unexplained changes.
----
After accusing Nobel Prize winners of conspiracy (not just Mr. Gore), they call me "clueless"! -LOL
These posters want us to believe that researchers have joined into a communist cabal that is bent on destroying WHO?
-----
Let me see,... What are my choices again?
-> Believing the majority of published scientists or the tirades of Rush?
-> Being concerned about the rapidly decaying glaciers or that the commies are out to get me?
-> Making certain that my progeny have a life worth living -> or that MobileExxon's profit margins are maintained?

Gary,

Yes - both my wife and I are engineers and free thinkers - looking at both sides of the issues and trying to draw a valid conclusion. I am also a business owner, so I follow economics also - if you have never heard Jason Lewis - you should give him a listen - he just syndicated nationwide - www.jasonlewisshow.com.

And Dr. Manic - Real pollution is different than climate change - I do think that we should continue to do as much as we can to keep the planet clean - but do we want to go back living like cavemen?

Balance is the key in life.

And yes this is my last post.

Jeff: So being proactive and using technology to prevent a potential calamity is "living like cavemen"? -LOL
-> I wonder what Og, son of Fire, would say? ("OUCH - fire hot")
Although your statement "Real pollution is different than climate change" is somehow a refutation of my postings, it appears that you recognize our many successes; we have engineered our way out of many previous dilemmas. The "difference" that you are inferring is whether humankind has a part in climate change; as if our polution has no impact. However, when one sees the U.S. at night from forty thousand feet, it is pretty hard to deny that we can affect the planet.
-
-> You say "balance is the key in life", but fail to achieve equilibrium. A balanced opinion would recognize both sides of the issue and consider their implications. However, when you call the majority of research a hoax, you lose all credibility. The point being that "balance" requires seeing both sides and seeking an equitible resolution.
-
"Therefore, make peace with your God, whatever you perceive him to be - hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin. With all of its hopes, promises, and urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate. - give up!"- from Deteriorata by Christopher Guest