Still unsure about climate change? Have questions you'd like to ask a real live climate scientist? Join us for a live webchat with Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Monday 8 December 12.30 - 1.30pm

[KateHMumsnet]

As UN climate talks take place in Lima in an attempt to get agreement on how to cut carbon emissions worldwide, join us to ask your questions and discuss climate change with leading climate scientist Dr Emily Shuckburgh.

Dr Shuckburgh heads the Open Oceans research group at the British Antarctic Survey. She is also Chair of the Climate Science Communications Group at the Royal Meteorological Society and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. She has acted as a scientific advisor to the UK Government and is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council's Strategic Programme Advisory Group.

Please join us in welcoming Dr Shuckburgh on Monday 8 December at 12.30pm, or post your questions in advance on this thread.

Thanks Dr Shuckburgh, it was really interesting

Thanks very much and good luck with your work

lapogus2 - I follow this topic closley but have never seen that data presented as such before. It looks like you may have put it together and posted it - any chance we can see the source(s) for it. Thanks - thedoctor14

Yes, thanks Emily, though I don't think you answered my key question - what empirical evidence is there that CO2 is responsible for the late 20th century warming?

After upwards of £80 billion spent on climate science research in Europe and the USA in the last 20 odd years I really so think there should be an answer to that one by now. Personally I think climate science has become a religion: snag.gy/LPUXq.jpg

hi lapogus2 - you missed my question. data as presented is interesting but would just like to know where you got it from.

the doctor14 - which data do you mean? - the Alley / Lappi graph (GISP2 Ice core data for the last 10,000 years as in: snag.gy/tJ7z6.jpg ? If so the data is at:

ftp:ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html

irrc these ice cores were drilled in the 60s, but they can't use the last 40 odd years of ice as it has not been compacted enough, hence 'present' is roughly 1920, which is from where I appended the Hadcut4 gl data (roughly).

Here's another version of the same graph this time with HADcet appended - 2.bp.blogspot.com/-cS5mnEg6SQQ/VBcZmR0EwRI/AAAAAAAAGb0/explu6SXMzo/s1600/holocene%2BGISP2.png

For more context, it is also worth looking at the Antarctic ice core data e.g. Vostok, which as the ice sheet is thicker, goes much further back in time - about 420,000 years: www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/vostok.png

Here's Jo Nova's version with the modern warming in red - jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/vostok/vostok-temperatures-v-modern-warming-a.gif

Vostok data: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html

Climate scientists don't like to think about the ice core data, they suggest it is very noisy, and specific to Greenland, so not representative of global temperatures. But it is interesting to note that there does appear to be good correlation between GISP and Vostok ice core data proxies - www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/DATA/Bender.html (Modified from Bender, et al., Nature, 1994) which tends to suggest they are good proxies for global temperatures.

I have lots more links but this is not the place. The sceptic position rarely gets coverage in the mainstream media, and you have to frequent the blogs to keep up to speed - e.g. Climate etc (Judith Curry), Bishop Hill (Andrew Montford), Climate Audit (Steve McIntyre), WUWT (Anthony Watts), Jo Nova (Australia), Donna Laframboise (Canada), Tallbloke's, notrickszone (Pierre, Germany). If you want to read what climate scientists have said themselves - see sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate and
sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate-2

for a start.

Enjoy.

Thedoctor14 - sorry the best source for global temperature datasets is probably wood for trees - e.g. Hadcrut4gl from 1840:

www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1840

Note that most of these global datasets have been rendered questionable by dubious station selection changes, homogenisation and inexplicable adjustments for UHI (where the adjustments are made to historic data which inevitably make the past appear colder than it was). e.g.:

wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/06/noaas-national-climatic-data-center-caught-cooling-the-past-modern-processed-records-dont-match-paper-records/ and jennifermarohasy.com/2009/06/how-the-us-temperature-record-is-adjusted/ (NOAA chart of the adjustments. It essentially shows that there is NO warming since the 1930s without the adjustments).

This is not unique to the USA, as became clear in Climategate, Phil Jones at CRU lost the raw data, and in recent years both the BOM (Australia) and New Zealand Met Office have been caught adjusting data.

Doc14 - this one is relevant also to the latest bollocks from the Met Office about this being the warmest year:

notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/12/04/records-adjustments/

If climate change is one great conspiracy, Lapogus, as you suggest, then surely it's the least successful conspiracy ever?

Developed and developing economies are almost unanimous in dragging their feet and taking incredibly slow action, when the switch to a low carbon economy could be acheived with a percentage of the effort currently being put into the endless conflict in the middle east, or propping up the oil industry. Really, that Bilderberg lot need to pull their fingers out!

This thread was called 'climate change'. When someone pointed out that climate has not changed beyond previous ranges you changed the topic of discussion to CO2. That doesn't engender confidence.
If you mean 'CO2 change' then call it that.

I still don't quite understand who the sceptics believe is benefitting from this 'conspiracy' - are there evil solar-panel manufacturers rubbing their hands together with glee going 'mhhahaaha... just wait til there's a panel on every roof and Eon and British Gas won't be able to overcharge any more pensioners...mhahhaha'? Or nasty oil industry lobbyists working as double agents for the renewable sector secretly thinking 'yes, let's wait another 30 years for the Green Party to get another MP... no-one will ever guess we were funding her campaign all along... it's the perfect cover.' I mean, surely the Greens would be the ones coming out of nowhere politically, winning over a bunch of disgruntled Tories and shaping the debate and finding big-money backers? Not bloody couldn't-give-a-damn-about- polar -bears unless- they- were- born -here- UKIP! I

"I mean, surely the Greens would be the ones coming out of nowhere politically, winning over a bunch of disgruntled Tories and shaping the debate and finding big-money backers? Not bloody couldn't-give-a-damn-about- polar -bears unless- they- were- born -here- UKIP!"

There's only one problem with that - a little thing called democracy and the people who have to be convinced. The elite are green, but the people are UKIP. Solar panels etc are small fry, not the big picture.

"Really, that Bilderberg lot need to pull their fingers out!"

They're trying but there's a little thing called democracy in the way.

It's like the x-files. Only weirder.

It sometimes seems to me that;

Big Oil wants to show that fossil fuels are not having an effect, and in the back ground they are buying up and sitting on alternative energy patents for when it runs out.

Big Beardy wants to show the link between fossil fuels to continue to fund the climate change monster.

Politics plays devils advocate as they need Big beardy to bash China and the developing world and try to suppress their development and needs Big Oil to fund its campaigns!

If the Labour politicians really wanted to reduce carbon emissions they would have passed a law to shut down coal fired power stations and replaced them immediately with gas fired power stations in 2006.

Problem is that would have completely shut down the mining industry. Labour votes at stake in that decision though. Do you think many Labour politicians have ever seen a coal mine or spoken to a miner? No because there are only 3 coal mines left in the UK and most coal comes on ships from Australia and elsewhere.

Its not about CO2 or climate change at all. Its really about finding an excuse for state control of the economy by any other means.

Well meaning scientists are being used. My best friend is seriously senior climate change scientist. I am an expert in gas turbines. Go figure. We can still be best friends - I just hate the way he is being used. He has to pay the mortgage and no I don't believe research grant funding is handed out in a totally unbiased way. The people who decide on grant applications are all dependent on the climate change agenda for their entire income. They have to say they 'believe' or they lose their jobs.

It really is that blatant the manipulation of science in this area. Only science that supports the climate change agenda is allowed.

I do not support oil companies funding 'anti climate change' research.

Climate research should be totally independent of all biased or interested influence.