A few weeks ago, I posted a continuation of a two-year old discussion with “Stand-up Economist” Yoram Bauman on the subject of “global warming".  Dr. Bauman responded on his web site with a note that I will copy verbatim below and, as with my prior post, intersperse my comments in maroon bold text.

Before I get into the details of my response to Dr. Bauman, I should note that Tom Bethell, a senior editor of the American Spectator has written an article which could easily be read as applying perfectly to Bauman: “Global Warming Flaks Reduced to a Strategy of Denial“.  (Article title is a clickable link and the piece is a worthwhile read.)

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Here’s Rossputin’s response to my recent post on climate change. This statement stands out for me:

There is probably an atmospheric data set we could agree on…

Great, Ross, what is it? The hallmark of science is testable predictions, so give me a data set and make a prediction about it. How about the satellite data from Roy Spencer and John Christy? Roy Spencer ever provides a handy prediction (made in late 2008):

If the PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] has recently entered into a new, negative phase, then we can expect that global average temperatures, which haven’t risen for at least seven years now, could actually start to fall in the coming years. The recovery of Arctic sea ice now underway might be an early sign that this is indeed happening. The next few years of satellite data might provide some very interesting insights into whether the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is indeed a major force in climate change.

Sure, I can go with that satellite data, but here’s the key:  If temperatures rise, that absolutely does not prove that humans have had any substantial (or even statistically significant) impact.  If I brush my teeth every night before bed and then the sun comes up every morning, it does not mean that my personal hygiene habits caused the sun to rise.  The Arctic Sea Ice Extent is also an interesting data set, but it’s a bit too “local” to represent planet-wide climate changes.  Also, people generally overestimate the importance of the quantity of Arctic sea ice.  The Antarctic ice pack  holds about 90% of the world’s sea ice.

Are you willing to make this same prediction? And if the PDO (which Spencer calls his “favorite candidate” for a non-anthropogenic natural cause for global warming) does stay in a negative phase and temperatures nonetheless rise as predicted by the IPCC, are you going to admit that you were wrong? Or are you going to continue to avoid making any testable predictions?

I don’t know enough about PDO versus sunspots or the other many large factors in our planet’s climate to make a prediction about any one of them.  Serious scientists have serious debates about these things and it’s above my level of scientific understanding to try to say who’s right or wrong.  My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that both solar and oceanic factors contribute measurably.  So, of course I wouldn’t admit I’m wrong about AGW if one possible factor doesn’t end up dominating all others.  It’s extremely hard to propose a test when you don’t know all the factors.  I’ll simply say that I’d bet that now that scientists and magazine editors will be less afraid of publishing “skeptical” articles, there will be a MUCH better explanation than human activity for whatever comes next.

Please tell me you like this data set (or can provide me with another one) and that you like Spencer’s prediction (or can provide me with another one). Otherwise I’m going to lump you in with the “birthers and truthers“.

Do you think I’d give a damn whom you would “lump me in with"?  Though for the record, I think there’s a real chance that Obama was not born in the US.

Now I have a few questions for you:

You did not address ANY of the various “gates” which have shredded the bogus “consensus” around “global warming".  Are you going to explain how these events have left your faith in the “science” unshaken?

Have you looked into the issue of measurement bias in terms of the elimination of sensors from locations which are least likely to show global warming, and the effect of urbanization and development and wear-and-tear on existing sensors?  I continue to believe the terrestrial data is flawed beyond redemption.

What about the FACT that the total human contribution to the so-called “greenhouse” effect is MUCH smaller than most people believe, primarily because the majority of the effect comes from water vapor (unaffected by humans) and the vast majority of atmospheric CO2 is naturally occurring?

Please show me just what in the SCIENCE makes you believe that humans are causing warming?  If you start pointing at CO2, you’d better do your homework on which comes first, CO2 concentration increases or global temperature increases.

What about the fact that supporters of the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill admit that it would at most lower world temperatures by a fraction of a degree in a century, less than a typical annual random variation?

PS. The issue above is what I want to focus on, but let’s take a quick look at one of the nine pieces of evidence that you use to back up your claim that “the collapse of the global warming paradigm is… happening daily”: India withdraws from the IPCC, an article dated Friday Feb 5 2010. There’s only one problem with this piece of evidence: It’s not true. The headline indeed says “India quitting IPCC”, but the body of the article doesn’t really support that statement. And this Feb 9 Wall Street Journal piece says that “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed support for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri, at a local energy conference in New Delhi Friday”. (Don’t believe the WSJ? Watch the video yourself.) Now, let’s see if you’re honest enough to admit that you were wrong in claiming that India withdrew from the IPCC. Or maybe you’d like to bet $100 (or $1,000?) that on January 1 2011 India will still be listed as a member of the IPCC? (See here, linked from here. )

Are you really that desperate that you’re going to say I made a huge error when saying that India was leaving the IPCC when reading a news article that appeared to say that?  In any case, whether or not India stays officially involved, the key action is that they are starting their own parallel organization because the IPCC is not reliable.  Spending a long paragraph asking me to admit that I was wrong to believe a news headline smacks of standard leftist desperation, but if it makes you happy then, yes, I was wrong to re-report the headline that India is withdrawing from the IPCC.  Now I dare you to admit that what India IS doing is a major slap in the face of the IPCC and is in the same league as withdrawing:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7157590/India-forms-new-climate-change-body.html