Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the “hockey stick” were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves “the Hockey Team”, and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC’s scientific elite, including not just the “Hockey Team”, such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC’s 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore’s ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt’s blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

The entire article is available here.

My favorite comment is that UEA is the Pentagon of AGW, and that these are their Pentagon Papers.  Still nothing really new here for those who have been following the data without having consumed the AGW cool aid.  In a reasonable world, careers would be ended, government policy would be changed, and a few people would do jail time for obstruction.  Being cynical, and knowing the deep devotion of many to this secular religion, I am not going to hold my breath, CO2 levels rising or not.

Now we know what “anthropogenic” means in AGW - it means people created the data.

“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Mark Twain

If the global warming is the worst scandal of science, let me nominate the politicization of the medical science of homosexuality as number two (striking of homosexuality from the DSM using Kinsey data, born “gay” theory, suppression of reparative therapy on ideological basis only, etc.)

The threat of climate change is a crisis too good to be missed by those who want even more government control over our lives. Almost any government action can be justified and this is a threat to personal freedom.

Although it seems like a shame for the scientific community, some good might come of this if we get more transparancy in peer-reviewed circles including peer review of government grant requests.  To say this has been the ulitmate “good ole boy network” is an incredible understatement.  “This is the lottery of lotteries, hold the line boys and we can win big, bigger than you have ever dreamed!”  A hard line to resist when you do not have a solid grounding in ethics, morality, and Christianity.  As one poster noted, no doubt some big fish will get away.  But thanks be to God if we can stamp this form of heresy out before it gets codified into law as Cap and Trade or some other such monstrosity.

Thanks for posting this Jackie, but I would say it is most definitely NOT “off topic”.

Al Gore and the rest of the climate-liars are trying to make us all feel guilty.  In religious terms, they suggest that we are abusing creation—not being good stewards of what God has given us to manage, to have dominion over.

Of course we need to be responsible stewards, but these climate-liars are using flat out deceit.  And, certainly in the case of Algore, it’s all about making a very tidy profit off of our guilt. 

Turns out that these are little more than inconvenient lies.

It will be tempting to focus on these emails, but the real debate is still the question of whether climate change is occurring and whether mankind is contributing to it.
1) the Ammount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric figures for their Mona Loa observatory are available at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
In pre-industrial times, CO2 was relatively stable at around 260 to 285 parts per million.
We can debate the interprtation of this information and what needs to be done about it, but the science is the place to begin.

2) If the greenhouse effect is occurring we would expect to see less heat radiation from the Earth. Here’s some scientific papers that report that effect
Harries, J. E., H. E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, and R. J. Bantges, Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997, Nature, 410, 355– 357, 2001.
Griggs, J.A., Harries, J. E., Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, Proc. SPIE, Vol. 5543, 164 (2004); doi:10.1117/12.556803

3) So if some reports say some parts of the planet are cooling where is this heat going? Around 95% goes into warming the oceans. Measurements of ocean heat content find a warming trend through to the end of 2008. Here’s the reference: 12 von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard, and P.-Y. Le Traon (2009), Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09007, doi:10.1029/2008JC005237.

Plenty more to debate - but lets start with working from the data. Discount the UEA scientists and others like Al Gore. That still leaves a lot of data to work through.

Obadiah:
Global warming has been happening for about 10,000 years -since the last ice age.  I suggest we can’t blame humans for that.

1) if the Oceans are warming (for whatever reason) they will release CO2 - hence the higher levels (note the cause-and-effect)

2) the reduction in heat emissions would normally be associated with a cooling of the Earth - or are you suggesting our instruments are so sensitive we can detect the derivative of the Earth’s energy? 

3) if the planet is cooling, why would the oceans be warming?  You would need a heat pump to simultaneously cool the land and heat the oceans.  A more plausible explanation is that the oceans act as a low-pass filter on mean temperature and (like all low-pass filters) have an inherent time delay.  That time delay has been observed at about 10 years.

The deeper problem is that we don’t know what data to trust.  With ClimateGate, there is now evidence that data not supportive of AGW might have been “fixed” or blocked from publication.  I suggest we all refer to raw data whenever possible (such as this New Zealand data ), as it is difficult to trust published “fixed” data.

Michael,
I think everyone would agree that there is a natural variation in climate. So to say that humans are not responsible for the 10,000 year event does not answer the question about whether we are or are not linked to a more recent effect.

1) You would need to show that the warming in the oceans is responsible for the ammount of the extra CO2 rather than assert the possibility. (I note you cite no research)Strangely enough we are emitting CO2 at a greater rate than the measured increase in atmospheric CO2. It may be that the ocean is absorbing C02.

2) If the earth is emitting less heat there are (at least) two possibilities. One is as you say that the earth is cooling. the other is that the earth is retaining more heat. Imagine you are in a climate where you have to heat your house (a bit hard for me to imagine right now). You do a good job of insulating your house while making it hotter: you then have a house with greater heat retention (ie hotter overall) but less heat is emitted from it. This is similar to the the greenhouse effect trapping heat

3) Good point. You would need a heat pump. that transfers heat from the atmosphere to the ocean. it is called the La Niña effect and it has been at record levels. (The year by year climate of my country Australia is influenced by the strength of the La Niña effect and it is measured by the Southern oscillation index).

I would have thought that the NOAA figures I mentioned in my first post were fairly relaiable. One Good effect of the email controversy is that the CRU data will be released publically.

Oh now, you guys are so cynical…

It’s not about the truth.  It’s not about transparency.  It’s about control.  Control of money, of power and behavior.  It’s about wanting to tell everyone else how to live.  A few controlling the behavior of the many.

hi Obadiah,

With regard to (2): if the net amount of energy arriving at my house is constant, then the total energy emitted will eventually stabilize no matter how well it is insulated.  The only thing that can change is what wavelength that energy will have.  There may be a very very tiny change in emissions due to the derivative of the temperature (which everyone agrees is much less than 1 degree per year).  Surely you aren’t suggesting that we can detect that derivative as a change in energy flux?

#4 Robroy, number three might be string theory in physics.

String theory and AGW have some interesting similarities:
1) both theories have become orthodoxy for their respective fields

2) decenters find it very difficult to advance in their careers

3) there is very little in the way of proof for either theory

4) supporters of both theories claim we lack the tools or the ability to test the assumptions or predictions of each theory

5) as new data comes available it tends to create questions rather an answer them

I have no dog in the fight of string theory and I can’t begin to defend or refute the theory itself. But, I think the way supporters of AGW in climatology and string theory in physics have created cultures and power structures is just the latest illustration of the Enlightenment’s failure. If science can not deal with objective truth with integrity then man is not rational and our systems will ultimately fail.

There are times when string theory seems to me to have been designed for untestability.

Is this “science” worse than the “science” of the theory of evolution?  They both reek of being completely unscientific and being unprovable by design.

Thoughts?

@12 Interesting response. The energy emitted from the house will eventually stabilize - sure - I guess we might be discussing how long eventually is. If you add a little more insulation year by year this change will affect that process. This issue is, do you end up with a warmer house? (Or in my case with a cooler house). The company selling you the insulation will tell you their product works.

A little bit of chemistry to keep in mind—as a liquid warms, it can more easily dissolve solids, but the solubility of gases decreases with increasing temperature.  A warmer ocean will be less of a carbon sink than a colder one.

We see an awful lot about the CO2 in the air, but what about the oceans?

Please don’t forget—it is essential to remember—that there is NO SCIENTIFIC proof that Homosexuality is genetic. That claim is also based on desire rather than fact—media driven by wealthy (gay) community members to affirm their right to make demands on the rest of us.  NO SCIENCE—oh woops—I forgot, there is one little school in Sweden (desperately in need of funding) they came up with kind of claim that was immediately repudiated by most of the world’s medical community. That’s it folks.  So if you think Al Gore and his climatology are a big mess, just look at what the political/financial interests of the homosexual community have done to the rest of us!

what about the increase in paving the surface of the planet?  I live on an island off the coast of Maine, and in the summer, it can be in the 70s on island, but in the 90s up the road a bit in Ellsworth, where there are several malls and lots of road/parking lot. In the last couple of yrs, there’s been a new car dealership, a new Lowe’s, a new Home Depot, and just opened last month or so, a new mega Walmart, a mile or so up the road from the regular one, which is now a parking lot and bldg for sale. Same w/ Bangor, farther inland. Lots of black tar/asphalt to absorb and release the heat of the day. Even in the towns where the ferries from the island dock, it will be significantly warmer, w/ roads, houses closer together forming a tunnel of reflected heat; and in the winter, the island’s warmer than the mainland becs the salt air is insulating (and hell on automobiles, bicycles, and anything else metal….). 

Has anyone considered that in all the global warming stuff?  Look at the population maps of the last 50 yrs - NYC-DC has basically become one large mess of heavily developed land, instead of the separate spots from when I was a kid.  2 hrs is considered “commuting distance” from NYC or San Francisco; the NJ Tpke is 12 lanes for a significant part of it.

walk by a brick bldg on a sunny day in the winter: the bricks absorb the heat and you can feel it radiating out.  Then think of the same effect in mid summer, add >80% humidity, and you get a sauna effect. (a big reason we moved to the island!)

You all may badmouth Al Gore, but the Bush admin is known to have held back evidence they didn’t like.  (I don’t like or trust either of them, btw, I’m not trying to exonerate Gore.)

@17 Co2 release from the oceans is certainly part of the natural climate change involved in the cycle from ice age to warm periods. Ice age ending warming was/is due to the 100,000 year eccentricity cycle as the Earth’s orbit changes from a more circular to a more elliptical orbit. This is aplified by the effect you suggest, as a warming ocean releases more CO2, which increases temperature due to greenhouse effects. In the Ice age cycles ss temperature rises, CO2 also rises but lags the warming by 800 to 1000 years.

Just for fun, as a kind of thought-experiment if you will, what if we imagine that in the 1980’s, when global COOLING was the “hot” theory, the PTB decided that was a MUCH worse threat to our continued viability as a civilization (based on whatever real evidence they had), and they therefore took whatever steps they thought necessary to induce global warming…? Climatic paleontology (it seems) offers at least as strong a case that cooling is a) likely to be happening and is b) quite likely to be thoroughly devastating to global civilizations.

@21 You might not be surprised to learn that the Global Cooling theory of the 1980s was mostly a mainstream media creation. Some scientists have prepared a paper for the bulletin of the American Meteoroligical society. The paper surveys climate studies from 1965 to 1979. “They find very few papers (7 in total) predict global cooling. This isn’t surprising. What surprises is that even in the 1970s, on the back of 3 decades of cooling, more papers (42 in total) predict global warming due to CO2 than cooling.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
which has a link to the paper.

#15: I would say that the science of evolution and climate change are in fact very different.

Any field of study is necessarily going to have some ground rules, and as one might expect, those ground rules have an enormous influence on what passes for scholarship in that field. Science is, by its own ground rules, strictly limited to empirical, observable, and testable data. Theories in science must also be natural and falsifiable. Obviously, a theory of Creation by Yahweh simply cannot be advanced in the realm of science given these particular ground rules. The theory of evolution as it exists today is the product of sound execution of the scientific method over the course of 150 years. It we assume that the origin of the universe and the species on earth is wholly naturalistic, rationalistic, and in accordance with empirical, testable data, the theory of evolution is fairly unimpeachable. Evolution wonderfully illustrates a monumental problem with science: not everyone (indeed, perhaps few) are willing to accept the critically assumption that everything which happens in the world can be fully explained on a wholly naturalistic basis. Science says that men don’t rise from the dead, but unless your name is John Shelby Spong, this well settled and indisputable scientific truth isn’t going to cause Christians to reject the Resurrection. Correspondingly, Christians should neither feel the need to fear, nor feel the need to embrace the scientific theory of evolution insofar as it relates to the origins of the universe and man.

Climategate, unlike evolution, is not a quibble over the underlying assumptions of science. Rather, it is an example of proper scientific method being completely ignored. In true science, hypotheses must constantly be adjusted to fit the data - it’s the only intellectually honest way to conduct research. Instead, Mann and Co. have fudged the data to conform to their unamendable hypothesis.

Obadiah [16].  Yes, the out-radiant energy flux will always be very close to the incoming energy flux.  Better insulation will cause the house to get warmer, thus causing a greater thermal gradient across the insulation. This warming will continue until the out-radiant energy flux equals its old value (i.e. the incoming energy flux).  If you are measuring the total outgoing radiance, you will not see any change - that’s why I questioned point (2) in [8]. 

Thus: a warmer Earth’s surface would radiate more, but more of that radiation would be blocked from escaping by the notional increased CO2, and the net emitted thermal radiance would not change. This assumes thermal equilibrium.

If the Earth’s temperature is steadily increasing (non thermal equilibrium), you would see a slight reduction in emission in proportion to the derivative of the average temperature and the magnitude of the heat sink. That, it seems to me, is a very insensitive way to detect global warming.

Michael,
In my case the house gets cooler! The Australian Government has provided free insulation as part of the stimulus package that has kept this nation out of recession. In the case of my house the increased thermal mass will mean that on a very hot day (45 degrees celsius) the house will not heat up as much inside as it used to. The insulation changes the rate at which the house takes in energy and it typically.will dissipate on a cold day or at night.
The satellite data may be a insensitive way to detect global warming (or perhaps you mean a counter intuitive means) but the data is there.

Obadiah,

Here’s a link to a paper that says climate data reported by the CRU (and other agencies using their “fixed” data) shows much more global warming than is observed by satellite based sensors.  Now perhaps we know why.

Glad to hear that insulation is keeping you cool.  Here is Canada it keeps us warm.

Obadiah,

Here’s a link to a paper that says climate data reported by the CRU (and other agencies using their “fixed” data) shows much more global warming than is observed by satellite based sensors.  Now perhaps we know why.

Glad to hear that insulation is keeping you cool.  Here is Canada it keeps us warm.

I analyze it as follows:  The earth has experienced dozens, hundreds or thousands of cycles of global warming and cooling.  If you divide the entire history of the earth into cooling or warming cycles, the chances of being in a warming cycle are roughly fifty percent.  Therefore, the burden of proving that we are in a warming cycle is not particularly onerous.

As to human-caused global warming, you are asking me to believe that something is happening now that has never happened before in the history of the universe.  The burden of proving a unique and unprecedented event is much higher.  That burden cannot be met on the basis of data that is doubtful, deceitful or destroyed.  Without reliable data, the hypothesis will remain unprovable.

When a party gets caught lying about one thing, the jury is justified in throwing out his entire testimony.  Falsus in unius, falsus in omnibus.

Michael,
That is why I made sure to point you to US and satellite sources, leaving CRU (AFAIK)to one side.

#5.

The threat of climate change is a crisis too good to be missed by those who want even more government control over our lives.

I suspect there will be an attempt to link climate change to healthcare “reform” making it even more imperative that we pass legislation ASAP.
Speaking of numbers, I’d like to see the numbers demonstrating that those over 65 years of age don’t need H1n1 flu shots. As a 65 year old I personally believe that even if our age group is less likely to get H1n1, what happens if we do get the virus? Are we more likely to die? My daughter in law who is a pharmacist told me to say that I am 64. This is just a way to make the vaccine shortage look less severe. One could even come to more serious conclusions but you know how overly suspicious we older folks are.

While we’re on the subject of huge studies, has anyone considered the effect on the weather system, and thus the climate, of taking huge amounts of energy out of the system by the use of windmills to generate electricity? If so, what is the result?
desert padre

hi Padre,

I know of no study of this (and can’t take the time to do one now).  Pointy thinks sticking up from the ground (e.g. big trees, windmills) present more surface area and thus more resistance to the wind.  Fluid dynamics says that wind speed will be zero at the ground, though it may increase rapidly even in the first few millimeters.  Inserting pointy things will cause the wind speed to increase slightly more slowly with altitude.

1) I suspect you could insert a lot of windmills before you made up for all the trees that have been cut down.  A city with buildings significantly taller than the forest (or prairie grass) that was there before, has the same effect.

2) The height of a windmill is still neglible compared to the height of the Troposphere, so I think even if you covered Saskatchewan with windmills it would not have a noticeable impact on climate.

Speaking of numbers, I’d like to see the numbers demonstrating that those over 65 years of age don’t need H1n1 flu shots. As a 65 year old I personally believe that even if our age group is less likely to get H1n1, what happens if we do get the virus?

The last time I checked the figures in my state, fully 1/3 of those who had died of H1N1 were in their 50s. And ineligible for the vaccine. Stories in the press say obesity is a factor in deaths as well - obese people are not eligible for vaccine either. We should all be asking some questions.

The wind speed near the ground is not the point. The point is that as the wind does work on the windmill blades to operate the alternators which produce the electricity, it loses energy, which has to do with what the wind can now do to produce weather.
desert padre

The Iranians are building thermonuclear weapons and have delivery systems. THAT is something to worry about. Can you spell Holy War?

#31. Desert padre.
A side effect of windmills is dead birds and more law suits from environmentalists. speaking of side effects, where I used to live, the ecological balance was to fragile, we had to take down the barbed wire fences b/c they were interfering with the wind powering our windmill pumps. [smile]

hi Padre,

Sorry I expressed myself poorly.  The wind continually loses energy to the ground.  Inserting a windmill increases the wind’s energy loss.  Cutting down a tree decreases the wind’s energy loss.  Easy come, easy go.

Yes, Michael D, I understand now. And you’re right. We worry so much about infinitesimal things, yet when we have something measurable which cannot be anything but deleterious to the weather system, we ignore it. Doesn’t make sense to me!
desert padre

Obadiah,  CO2 is a bit player in the whole climate picture, not a driver.  At 388 parts per million it is a tiny fraction of the atmosphere.  Plants love CO2, and grow more lush when it is available.  I read that at 150 parts per million life dies.  There is not enough CO2 to support vegetation.  Greenhouses, so I understand, rely on 1000 parts per million to encourage lush plant growth.  I have also read that humans are responsible for only a very small percentage of that CO2.  Volcanoes and natural wild fires emit much greater amounts of “greenhouse” gases.  Do you know the mechanism by which CO2 is supposed to warm he earth?  Only a very limited fraction of sunlight is absorbed by CO2, and increasing the amount of CO2 does not increase the portion of light absorbed.  Are you aware that during the medieval warm period it was much, much warmer?

Ann,
I wish that your argument that because CO2 is a tiny part of the atmosphere we could safely ignore an increase in it meant we did not have to do the hard work of working through the climate change data.
It is perfectly true that some plants will grow more with increased CO2 and increased temperature. World Vision in my country released a good examination of th effects of climate change on crops. It is true that warmer temperatures and higher atmospheric CO2 levels are not completely negative—they do suit some crops. Up to a point higher temperatures increase the growing season of melons, okra and sweet potatoes. Higher CO2 —‘carbon fertilisation’—typically causes plants to grow larger (although in some cases this means they are less nutritious) and allows some plants to use water more efficiently.
But there is widespread agreement that the negative effects of climate change “fertilisation” clearly outweigh the positive, particularly if warming exceeds 2-3° C above pre-industrial levels.

Moderate increases in temperature can decrease yield in corn, wheat, sorghum, beans, rice, cotton and peanuts.
Some countries will be hit especially hard. Sudan and Senegal can expect crop reductions of 50 per cent by 2080.
The Climate Systems Analysis Group estimates that within 30 years, the rain season in Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Limpopo province will start a month later and that maize yields will be nine per cent lower by 2045.

The mechanism by which an increase in greehouse gas warms the earth is the greenhouse effect. Here is a quick summary

How does CO2 trap heat? Sunlight passes through our atmosphere and warms the earth. The earth cools by emitting infrared radiation back towards space. As infrared radiation travels through the atmosphere, some is absorbed by greenhouse gases such as water vapour and CO2. This warms the atmosphere which then reradiates the infrared radiation in all directions. Some escapes to space while some radiates downwards and further warms the Earth.
With more CO2 in the air, we expect to see less infrared radiation escaping out to space. This is exactly what’s happening. When we compare satellite readings in the early 1970’s to satellite measurements over the last decade, we find less energy escaping, providing direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect.

Volcanoes are indeed a long term source of CO2 in the atmosphere. Volcanoes emit 0.3 Gigatonnes of CO2 per year -on average - about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 26.4Gt per year.
But volcanoes also emit aerosols which have a cooling effect. A large volcanic eruption such as the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 can have a global cooling effect of 0.1°–0.3°C for several years. (If you need the footenotes I can supply them)
The Medieval warm period data for places like Greenland is matched by evidence that during the same period the Pacific was colder. The fact that my country is experiencing record heat waves in summer needs to be blanced against the cold winters in yours, when we consider climate change data.

Sorry, Obadiah, but the mechanism for warming the earth that you describe is much more true of water vapor than CO2.  There is not enough CO2 in the atmosphere to have that effect.  As for a cooler Pacific, a paper just came out in German showing that the medieval warm period was global, giving evidence from China and India.  As far as impact, no way will there be the kind of temperature rise that you expect.  In fact, there has been no temperature rise in the last 15 years.  Global cooling seems to be in the works at the momment, much to the embarrassment of the warming “team.”  Some of the leaked e-mail messages discuss the problem that recent data does not match the predictions, and also how to fudge the data and how to fudge the graphs for public consumption.  These guys have been duping the world.

Ann,
What we are looking at is the possibility that there is climate change. Water vapour as you point out is an important greenhouse gas. The INCREASE in the ammount of greenhouse gas is t the centre of the debate. (You might be saying that there is an INCREASE in water vapour - a position put by some, but I am not sure if you are putting the forward.)

My postion is that we look at the evidence rather than the ideology of “the other side”, so of course I welcome any data bought to the table. Can you provide a citation for the paper in German (and something in English please - you may have good German but many of us don’t).
Here is the paper about a cool pacific I cite:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;326/5957/1256?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT;=&fulltext=Global+Signatures+and+Dynamical+Origins+of+the+Little+Ice+Age+and+Medieval+Climate+Anomaly&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Here is a graph showing what the cool pacific pattern shows globally: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html
China and India are both warm under that model so there may be no inconsisntenct between this model and that of your german paper. they could beth be right.

Its absolutely true Data that shows “no cooling” using land surface temperatures need to be taken into account. (and on the other thread I explained a liitle of the other evidence that needs to fit alongside it in whatever theory is formed by you or anyone else including me). It a big, complicated picture. ALL the data needs to be taken into account, not just the bit that supports one side or the other. Climate Change supporters need to explain the data you cite. Equally, climate change skeptics need to engage with the data that points the other way.
This is a big issue. We need to get being being embarrassed whether one team “wins” or “loses”. No ego here. I hope that the skeptics turn out to be right - it would be better for my kids.

Let me correct. “We need to get beyond being embarrassed whether one team loses or wins.” A sober assessment of the facts. We have seen false triumphalism on both sides.

This is a big issue, and those who have panicked over it are prepared to ruin the economies of the major nations in order to “save the planet” on the basis of very poor data and NO scientific consensus which is pretty ridiculous.  A new article published in Nature just came out of Woods Hole Oceanic, which studies medieval warm period temperatures of the India/China Pacific warm pool, and shows that area experienced the medieval warm period.  The German article can be found at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/#more-13397.  An increase of a small amount of CO2 is still a small amount and has a small effect.  Since CO2 is still rising, and global temperatures are falling, I believe that undercuts your argument.  Nothing like getting real data.  If you are depending on Hadley CRU data, or GISS, you are getting false data.  Haven’t you heard about the ridiculous siting of GISS stations?

I could be wrong, AnnR, but that “paper” appears to be an article on a anti-global warming website. Which is fine. I would want to avoid a war of pointing to articles - it be better to point to scientific papers. Where I must note that what you called a “paper” in your earlier post became an “article” in your more recent one.
Skeptical-science.de points to a series of land surface temperature graphs in support of its claim that the “medieval warming period” was global. Which rather misses my point about a cool Pacific.

AnnR, if you read upthread, you will see I trust that I have avoided the GISS/CRU data.

Obediah, I referred you to two different sources: one is the Woods Hole article in Nature, the other is an English translation of the German paper.  You said you wanted an English source, that you didn’t read German.  If you check out the source I gave, you will find a Google English translation, and later on in the comments a better translation done by a German scientist.  So, you take your information from only one side, eh?  Won’t touch Wattsupwiththat because it is a skeptic site!  That pretty much tells where you are coming from.  I believe you just lost any credence as an impartial scientific observer.  The real crime of the CRU team was messing with the data set, and then dumping the raw data when other scientists noticed that it did not match up with other sets of raw data and asked under “freedom of information” for the original raw data set.  That is not good science.  And it may turn out to be lousy politics in the long run as well.

Can you give me citation for the nature article please?
I am happy to read pro and anti climate change sites. I hope you do too.
The What’s up site seems to me to be one of the better skeptic sites. I do not dismiss it.  But the core discussion is about the data.
We can both find endless websites that might agree with us. The challenge is to interact with the inconvenient data. And there is inconvenient data for both sides.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7259/full/nature08233.html  but it requires payment to read it all.

AnnR,
Thankyou.
Without access to the whole article I cannot be sure, but the abstract is very cautiously worded.

Our record from the Makassar Strait, Indonesia, exhibits trends that are similar to a recent Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction. Reconstructed SST was, however, within error of modern values from about ad 1000 to ad 1250, towards the end of the Medieval Warm Period. SSTs during the Little Ice Age (approximately ad 1550-1850) were variable, and approximately 0.5 to 1 degrees C colder than modern values during the coldest intervals.

This would seem to indicate that the Makassar Strait temperatures were not significantly warmer than today during the Medieval warm Period (during the period cited). You may have access to further information from the paper and may be able to correct me.

Obadiah,  I suggest you contact the author by Correspondence to: Delia W. Oppo1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.W.O. (Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).

AnnR,
I thought I was having a discussion with you. Oh, well. There’s a lack of the more sceptical who want to engage. I’m puzzled.

Obadiah, I suggested that you contact the author because I thought you were seriously interested in getting information about the medieval warm period in the Pacific near Indonesia, and I thought she would be the ideal person to answer your question.  To refer back to an earlier comment, very little warmth leaves the earth by radiation.  It leaves by convection, which is why cloudy nights are warmer than clear nights.  The clouds prevent convection.  Thus water vapor has a much greater influence on warmth retention than CO2.

AnnR,
happy to read and discuss with you - but I am not your research assistant.
The greenhouse effect is concerned with the amount of heat trapped within the atmosphere, and whether an increase of CO2 will affect this. How heat leaves the surface of the earth is not what the debate is (primarily) about.