I'm glad for this thread. If co2 continues its trajectory and surface temps remain flat we'll get to watch a lot of crow eating.

It's been hot here in Sweden for atleast a month now so If you go out, you get sweaty and tired. I want rain, wind and less sun!

This is actually not too far off from the truth.  Plants actually are coming in earlier in the spring.  One of the papers so horrendously categorized in the survey was one showing that the advancing spring was a product of CO2 directly, not a supposed temperature increase.

Starkers...it's not the calendar...it's the daylight saving....fades the blinds too...

I still bemoan bitching about a thread as opposed to participating in it.  It's a form of unnecessary condescension, a sort of indirect ad hominem, whether expressed as a Mod or just a Member.

To be sure, Hankers' contributions to the community (and yours, Doc) are respected and greatly appreciated and we can agree to disagree on this minor point (if there really is any disagreement).

Nuff said.

I'd rather see crow eaten than global warming, but the science is good enough that plans should be made in case of global warming.

Also remember, weather is short-term, climate is something measured in decades and centuries.

The anti-global warming folks in the US are trying to prevent those plans from even being made (see the House trying to ban the Defense Department from making plans, or NC's attempt to ban the use of it from being used in any plans along the coast).  I don't think we should wreck the economy unilaterally, especially since it would just lead to outsourcing and a bigger problem.

(In other words, while I'm not a skeptic on the science, I am a skeptic on the policy side of things- I don't think the solutions proposed by some on the left would be effective, but I'm not in favor of the anti-science position of some on the right)

Weather is not the same as climate.  Climate changes do cycle.  There have been several ice ages, and several warmer interludes.  Are we in another interglacial interlude?  I don't know - nor does it probably matter to me, or any of our descendents.

Variations in our distance from the sun, albedo of the earth, percentage of ice cover, cloud cover, minor variations in orbit, etc., all affect the amount of total energy from sun that remains in the biosphere/troposphere (yada) of Earth.  Energy in, energy reflects, radiates out.  This is the energy balance re: solar energy hitting the earth. Sometimes volcanoes spew out enough ash and smoke to cover enough of the planet to cool things down a bit.  But, additionally, has our species modified this energy balance in any way?  Probably.

Eons ago, the advent of plant life (photosynthesis) added Oxygen to a planetary atmosphere that had little.  Its now about 20-21%.  Changes in the composition of the atmosphere change the energy balance as well.  Additionally, we, as a species, have been releasing massive amounts of carbon based energy from 'fossil fuels.'  We have also added energy via nuclear fission processes.  Does all this additional energy released by our species get immediately and totally vented outside our atmosphere?  Or does in accumulate in the water and air, thus adding energy to the weather?  I think it takes time to get vented totally. Some places are colder / hotter now than they were in the recent past.  That is weather. 

The climate, however, does seem to have storms that are incrementally more powerful (having more energy).  We have added a bit of energy to the system. Seems to be that is the definition of global warming.  Whether or not the natural cycles are moving earth into a warmer period, or not, is irrelevant.  Our species is modifying things on a planetary scale - and those modifications result in more energy being added to, and remaining longer, in the biosphere/troposphere (yada).  That is global warming - no matter what label you put on it, or how one rationalizes their choices. 

Good news; Earth will be just fine.  We can do our worst - and the worst result, for humans, will be to modify planet earth into a state where we don't survive.  Making the planet a global midden will toxify earth to the point where humans can't live here anymore.  But Earth will do fine.  New species will evolve to fill the niches we vacate.  New species will evolve to fill the new niches created by our global garbage dump. Perhaps our name, 'wise apes' is premature.  Intelligence has short term survival value, for sure. But intelligence seems to have a negative when it comes to planet wide species survival.  How wise are the current hominids on earth?  Profits are the new prophets.  But are we wise enough?

That myth is indomitable...

I'd shoot it down, but I just did it on the last page.  Someone else explain that whole "not very many powerful storms" bit this time around.

I'm going to try and clarify something that I haven't been clear on here.  Its really confusing because statistics can be confusing:

The phrase "no statistically significant warming" DOES NOT IMPLY that there has been no warming.  Yes, this is really confusing and counterintuitive.  Its a result of (frequentist) hypothesis testing, and is one reason why people butcher science so badly.  Essentially, science works around falsifying a null hypothesis, which is the opposite of what you actually want to show.  It is fallacious to have what you want to show be the same as your null hypothesis, but that is exactly what you would be doing if you were to claim that "no statistically significant warming" implies no warming here.

A more in depth analysis:

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19291/have-global-surface-temperatures-not-shown-significant-warming-since-the-late-19

This is part of the reason why I've been objecting to this thread.  The premise its based on is based on incorrect statistical reasoning.

Sure.  There is a vast amount of literature that does this, as I'm sure you are aware.

The problem is that the skeptics/deniers fixate on the few exceptions.  So if you have 99 trials that are consistent with climate change and 1 that seems to be anomalous, guess which one gets discussed to no end.  Of course, that one usually gets explained after a few more studies, but then its on to the next seeming oddity.

So the underlying problem is that every study which affirms climate change is immediately dismissed by skeptics/deniers as being part of the groupthink conspiracy.  It doesn't amount to anything.  But the few anomalies are a bit deal even though anomalous studies are a part of any branch of accepted science and are almost always reconciled eventually (but not always, which is why they need to be looked into).  That kind of biased perception leads to a skewed view of the state of the art.

I have to agree with Karl and ElanaAhova on this.  I have not read this whole entire thread so I will not attempt to throw my knowledge (opinion to some) in as I do not know what has been discussed.

Not exactly.  Mostly we/they fixate on the fudging/falsification of data to create a desired result.  psychoak is on the mark.  If current AGW theory failed to predict the observed multidecadal isothermal 'trend' (especially with the fudged antecedent data) then it ain't much of a theory.  What was threatened would happen hasn't happened, despite atmospheric CO2 concentration exhibiting a virtually linear (that's 'straight line') climb of 17% from 1975 to 2012, from ~330 to ~385.  What I'm saying is we need a better, more reliably predictive model, not to mention the ability to predict the effects of 'interventions' (a far, far bigger problem) before we go sawing the limb off behind us.

Global warming is a reality.

It is caused by all the repetitious hot air vented over it in threads like this....

...and THAT is not open to debate....