Larry,

Excellent post and I look forward to reading the others. I have been extremely impressed with your efforts to communiate the science. Although I have yet to meet you f2f, I consider you to be a good friend. Good luck on Patch.

Great introduction, Larry. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Larry:
Excellent introduction to you and your story on how you came to accept climate change. You are following the George Marshall, "How to Talk to the Climate Denier" video tip of sharing your personal story. You really know your stuff on climate change. It is such an honor to know you and to have co-created Climate Reality STL with you. I really look forward to your future blog postings.

With all your knowledge, I hope I can encourage you to do public speaking and teaching about climate change also. With your knowledge and the way you are so organized in leading the Climate Reality STL meetings, I know you would be a great teacher.

Keep doing what you are doing! It is a blessing to have you as a friend.

Brian Ettling

Great start, Larry!
It is good to see genuine concerned citizens stepping up and insisting that the truth be told. Now if we can just get appropriate action before it is too late...

Thank you all for kind comments. I very much appreciate it and hope you will continue to follow throughout the summer series of posts. Thanks again.

Larry:
Excellent introduction to you and your personal story on how you came to accept climate change. You really know your stuff on climate change. The blog is a good start. I would also encourage you to do more public speaking, organizing with others who are concerned about climate change, and you would make an amazing teacher also with all of your knowledge. Look forward to your future blog posts. Brian Ettling

Larry: I thought it was a great start also and looking forward to more! Keep up the good fight. Jeanette

Interesting opening to a very important topic. I, too, finally understood the relevance of climate change after talking with a college professor in Alaska a few years ago. He knew that I was a gardener. When he told me that the length of the growing season (in Fairbanks) had increased by 100%, I understood that it was past time to pay attention to this issue. I continue to observe that that agricultural community of Missouri is still not engaged in this topic. he wine growers across Europe are already adapting to climate change, but the corn growers in the Midwest are still in denial!

Thank you for your comment Dennis. I had not heard that about the growing season in Fairbanks - although it does not surprise me.

I have noticed that gardeners, and others that are close to the land, like hunters and fishermen, are more aware of the changing climate than the general population. It's pretty hard to deny when you see the ecosystem changing right in front of you..

That reminds me of another climate related discussion with park rangers in Alaska just two years ago - this time in Denali National Park (Mt McKinley). The park ranger that I spoke to there said that the park vegetation, and the animals that fed on that vegegation, had changed over the 20 years the ranger had worked there. He was amazed at how quickly the park had changed - almost like it was changing in front of his eyes.

Ecosystem changes that normally occur gradually over hundreds of years, are happening in decades.

We seem to be conducting a grand climate and ecosystem experiment on a global scale. I wonder how it will turn out?

anyways, thanks again for your comments

Larry,

I truly appreciate your zealous approach on the subject. And I definitely appreciate your courage in broaching such a debated topic. That said, I do find it difficult to believe you were unable to find a single reputable scientific source. With a couple quick searches, I did find reports on IPCC errors, Climategate 1 and 2, glaciers growing, etc...

I happen to agree that the climate is changing. In fact, I think it changes every day. And, it may even be warming. Where I struggle is connecting man's activities to said changes.

I do look forward to reading your upcoming articles and enjoy the conversation!

Jeff,
Thanks for reading the post, and for the comment. I appreciate it and look forward to your comments on upcoming posts.

As I indicated in the post, my interest stems from a lifelong interest in science and in the outdoors. I suppose growing up hunting and fishing in a rural area of western Michigan may have contribute to my interest in the natural world. I'm also fortunate enough to have a brother who is a wildlife biologist in Alaska to help me understand what is going on.
My other interest is in applying critical thinking and reasoning skills, including evaluating and weigh sources of knowledge, and have used this issue to help me improve those skills. I hope to use this blog, and the global warming issue, to share those skills with Patch Readers.

Re "debated topic", I'll address that topic in more detail in my 3rd post, but my own research has made it very clear to me that from a scientific perspective, the "debate" is over on the question of the warming and the cause. Again, there are no scientific organizations in the world that dissent with the basic claim that the earth is warming, it's primarily caused by man and that the warming will be harmful to society.

Frankly, it's one of the most accepted theories in the history of science.

Thanks again for commenting.

Larry,

I have to disagree with your premise...which makes me believe the following content may be skewed. Anthropogenic Global Warming is not only unproven scientific hypothesis (not theory nor law), the basis for said hypothesis is fragile.

First, let me state that according to the National Climatic Data Center, a service of the NOAA, the average global temperature has dropped since 1998. Yes, 1998 was one of the warmest years on record...but my point is that real scientific organizations do acknowledge that the climate changes, up AND down in average temp.

Second, numerous scientific organizations disagree that man is the cause of global climate change. On Dec 13, 2007, 100 scientists published an open letter to Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-Moon to request the IPCC stop overestimating the impact of AGW. The Petition Project gathered 30,000+ signatures of scientists stating "There is no scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's
climate." The dispute to this petition is not enough of the scientists were climatologists...but the truth is, physicists, mathematicians, and modelers are as critical to the process as climate experts.

And lastly...if we apply critical thinking, modeling the Earth (4.5 BILLION years) on 162 years of data, 750,000 with ice core estimates. Really?

Re: “I have to disagree with your premise”

It’s not my premise. I would never make a claim about complex scientific topic in in which I have no training or expertise.

It is, however, the “premise” of every accredited earth sciences organization in the world, including NOAA, NASA and the American Geophysical Union.

It’s also accepted by respected scientific journals, such as National Geographic, Discover, Scientific American and others.

It is even accepted by all of the major Oil and Energy companies (BP, Exxon, Shell and Peabody).
All branches of the US military also agree, in fact, the Pentagon views climate change as a threat to our national security.

http://www.cfr.org/climate-change/climate-change-national-security/p14862

There are no organizations that dissent from the consensus view.
See this link for the organizations that accept the theory of anthropogenic global warming/climate change. Again, “AGW/ACC” is one of the most studied, and the most accepted scientific principles in the history of science.

Continued

continued from above:

Re: “100” scientists opposing the IPCC and the “Oregon Petition Project”, I’ll go into detail regarding the very successful effort to “create doubt” about the scientific consensus by financially or ideologically motivated organizations in my third post (this weekend)

RE: “average global temperature has dropped since 1998”

This is a factually wrong statement. 2005 and 2010 were both warmer than 1998.

Interesting, and alarming, to note that the warmest 20 years on record all occurred in the last 25 years. This year, if the current trends hold, will take over the record for warmest year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record

I’ll review this claim, and other “arguments” from those that are outside of the scientific consensus in Post #4 titled “Arguments”

Re: And lastly...if we apply critical thinking, modeling the Earth (4.5 BILLION years) on 162 years of data, 750,000 with ice core estimates. Really?

I’d suggest that this statement is not an example of true critical thinking.

Thanks again for commenting

Larry, regarding YOUR premise that all scientific organization support the theory of AGW, please read the following, pulled directly from the NASA web page:

In spite of what may seem persuasive evidence, many scientists are nonetheless skeptical. They argue that natural variations in climate are considerable and not well understood. The Earth has gone through warming periods before without human influence, they note. And not all of the evidence supports global warming. Air temperatures in the lower atmosphere have not increased appreciably, according to satellite data, and the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been growing for the last 20 years.

It may surprise many people that science cannot deliver an unqualified, unanimous answer about something as important as climate change.
Why is the question so thorny? The reason, say experts, is that Earth's climate is complex and chaotic. It's so unwieldy that researchers simply can't conduct experiments to check their ideas in the usual way of science. They often rely, instead, on computer models. But such models are only as good as their inputs and programming, and today's computer models are known to be imperfect.
Most scientists agree that no single piece of data will likely resolve the global warming debate. In the end, the best we can expect is a scientific consensus based on a preponderance of evidence.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast20oct_1/

Re: critical thinking

The application of critical thinking tells me that neither you, or I, are in any position to challenge 97% of practicing climate scientists, NOAA, NASA, the NAS and every climate/atmosphere related scientific organization in the world on a topic in which we have no relevant expertise or experience.

From my original "Patch" post on critical thinking:

"We are all confronted with new information daily. It comes to us via newspapers, radio, television, websites, conversation, advertising and so on. Sometimes it seems like a deluge.

Not all information is created equal. Some of it is correct. Some of it is incorrect. Some of it is carefully balanced. Some of it is heavily biased. Some of it is just plain crazy.

It is vital in the midst of this deluge that each of us be able to sort through all of this, keeping the useful information and discarding the rest. This requires the skill of critical thinking. Unfortunately, this is a skill that is often neglected in schools."

Hi Jeff, and thanks again for weighing in.

re: "you completely ignored my statement regarding trend. Yes, 2 years were hot...but the ten year trend shows a decline using simple linear regression. Do you agree? "

I believe I responded to your claim that I was wrong about 2005 and 2010 were the hottest years, after 1998. There were indeed hotter than 1998.

The ten year trends from one cherry picked year is an irrelevent and intentionally dishonest argument and I suspect that you know it. It is the long term trends, generally considered to be 30 years, that are relevant to climate change.

Those trends show undeniable warming - at an increasing rate. In fact, the decade of 1980 was the hottest decade of the last 150 years, until 1990, until 2000. Each of the last 3 decades are the hottest in the historical record.

Let me know if you have any other questions or disputes.

"And Larry...did you seriously discount 49 former NASA scientists making a public plea for logic by determining on your own their qualifications? "

"NASA scientists" are not necessarily climate scientists. yes, I discount their "plea" unless they have relevant expertise in climate science, as should you.

Jeff,
My 3rd post on "The Climate Debate" was sent for publication this evening and is pending editorial review. It will be followed with a post on "the arguments". I'll address your comments and questions in those posts.

Please feel free to comment on the new blog posts as those issues are addressed.

Thanks again for your comments - which I am are sure will create more readership interest in this blog.

I really appreciate your attention and the extra publicity that I'm sure the commentary will garner.

Good night and I'll catch up with you on future posts.

Larry,

I suggest moving on. You have been very patient with Jeff but it is clear that Jeff is unwilling to read what the experts have to say. It is also clear that he does not understand how to determine climate trends or that the climate models do in fact project decreasing trends during short ten year periods embedded within the long term *real* warming trend. I give Jeff credit for avoiding rhetoric, but you will keep spinning your wheels with him until he studies up much more.

Jeff, show us how record values of CO2 are not causing the warming that perfectly matches GHG heat trapping: nights, winters, and poles warming faster than days, summers, and tropics. Also show us how increased heat content and record ice melt somehow do not equate to warming since 1998. Global air T is but one small metric.

I sense that you are hesitant to accept the settled science because you question the proposed solutions. It is in the solutions arena where there is real debate. Larry will get to that and then you can fully engage.

This will be my last comment here - let's move on to posts 2 and 3 in the series.

re: "My question should be, do you have evidence that the 49 NASA scientists do not have relevant expertise, or did you make that assertion yourself? If you could, provide a link that I may read."

These "49 former "NASA scientists" seem to think they have greater knowledge on atmospheric science then every climate or atmospheric related science organization in the world, including CURRENT NASA scientists, NOAA, the NAS and the AAAS.

That is quite a claim - especially by "FORMER NASA scientists".

I'm sure you will agree that "Extraodinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and that the onus is on the former NASA scientists to substantiate their claims.

One of the main objectives of this blog is to promote the application of critical thinking skills, one of which is learning how to assess and weigh sources of knowledge.

See below from the critical thinking website "What's the Harm?"

"We are all confronted with new information daily. It comes to us via newspapers, radio, television, websites, conversation, advertising and so on. Sometimes it seems like a deluge.

Not all information is created equal. Some of it is correct. Some of it is incorrect. Some of it is carefully balanced. Some of it is heavily biased. Some of it is just plain crazy.

It is vital in the midst of this deluge that each of us be able to sort through all of this, keeping the useful information and discarding the rest. This requires the skill of critical thinking. Unfortunately, this is a skill that is often neglected in schools."

Application of this skill tells us that we should NOT give "49" non practicing "former" NASA Scientists equal credibility to the views of every National Academy of Science in the World and every accredited science organization that is involved in climate science or atmospheric physics.

In fact, critical thinking tells us we should be highly skeptical of their claims.

This is a series of 12 posts and we are on post #1. Let's move on, shall we? there is a long way to go. Post #3 is posted and open for comments.

http://eureka-wildwood.patch.com/blog_posts/global-warming-the-debate-that-isnt

So, when were the pictures taken? Same month? I saw a series of these a few years ago debunked after the truth showed the "after" pictures to have been snapped during summer months while the "before" were taken in the winter.

No necessarily a denier, but surely a skeptic, given the rampant falsification perpetrated by the climate scientists in recent years.

for anyone following this series, we are now on post #4: "Conversation with Climatologist Michael Mann"

http://eureka-wildwood.patch.com/blog_posts/global-warmingclimate-change-post-4-of-12-conversation-with-dr-michael-mann