Climate change another name for Weather

rederob said:

Looks like the naysayers are having consistent problems with rather basic terminology.
But I guess we can't be consistent all the time
I too am looking for an "expert" that thinks weather may be cyclical
I know the Tour de France is cyclical. Even the climate during the Tour is cyclical.

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If cooler temps and increasing ice are consistent with global warming, I was just wondering what would be inconsistent with global warming.

Any ideas?

spooly74 said:

If cooler temps and increasing ice are consistent with global warming, I was just wondering what would be inconsistent with global warming.

Any ideas?

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If cooler temps and increasing ice were consistent global themes over a protracted time span it would be difficult propose the earth was warming.

spooly74 said:

If cooler temps and increasing ice are consistent with global warming, I was just wondering what would be inconsistent with global warming.

Any ideas?

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I know where you are coming from.

One section of Antartica is getting colder while the rest is getting warmer or staying the same temeperature. Is this showing inconsistentcy or is it a result of different current/wind effects?

Global warming has flattened this decade but the earth temperature, weather and current patterns are still be affected by the sharp warming that occurred in the previous decade and still exists. This is despite the fact that we are in a lull in sun activity that should mean we are undergoing cooling.

The next ten years should settle it one way or the other. I am not a convert to one side of the other but read magazines such as New Scientist and the argument we are going to see further climate change appears pretty strong to me. I hope that something has been missed and it doesn't occur however the arguments I have seen in this thread saying its not occurring or is caused by other factors have been pretty weak so far.

Well what do you know....

Scientists admit global warming is a hoax

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By Eoin O'Carroll | 04.01.09


In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.

A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:

“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.

“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituted some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”

After revoking the 2007 prize from Gore and the IPCC, the Nobel committee retroactively awarded it to the more than 31,000 people who signed the Oregon Petition – an appeal challenging the notion that there exists a scientific consensus regarding global warming – “for their efforts to pursue pure, objective science that is free from the influence of any special interest group.”

The prize of about $1.53 million will be divided equally among the petition’s signatories, whose expertise ranges from astrology to Intelligent Design.

For his part, Al Gore has owned up to duping the scientific community. In a blog post on his website, the ex-Nobel Laureate explains the genesis of his scheme, “now that the jig is up.”

'As long as I can remember, my only goal in life has been to destroy free-market capitalism and replace it with global totalitarian socialism. But it seemed that traditional methods, such as guerrilla warfare, were proving unsuccessful. Then, one day in 1988, as I was strolling through the halls of my giant mansion, it hit me: carbon dioxide.

By striking at the molecule that lies at the heart of industrial civilization, I could bring the whole system to its knees and usher in a workers’ paradise.

The rest just sort of fell into place. I wrote a book, held some Congressional hearings, made a movie, dashed off a few pseudonymous journal articles on radiative forcing, and the next thing you know, I was on TV with Dave Matthews and Ludacris convincing people to purchase carbon offsets. Carbon offsets!

I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that darn petition'

The New York Times quotes NASA climate scientist James Hansen, one of the most outspoken advocates of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, who says he bought Mr. Gore’s ruse “hook, line, and sinker.”

“I have to admit, Al got me good,” said Mr. Hansen as he packed up his personal belongings at his office at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “Despite my decades of experience in climate modeling and satellite meteorology, I would just get mesmerized whenever he started showing me all those fancy charts and tables. The man is a real Svengali.”

Not all scientists were fooled by Mr. Gore’s ruse, but many remained silent nonetheless. The Associated Press quotes an anonymous marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who says she knew all along that “this climate change stuff was completely bogus.”

“But I played along,” she said. “The opportunities for securing global-warming-related grant money were just too great for me to resist.”

“Sweet, sweet grant money,” she added.

Following the Nobel committee’s announcement, national scientific academies from 187 countries hastily drafted a joint statement denouncing the theory of anthropogenic global warming and expressing a renewed humility in the face of complex natural phenomena:

It is our hope that, whenever future generations find themselves swayed by the notion that one can derive generalizations about the physical world by gathering measurable data and subjecting it to logical analysis, they will recall the humbling and extraordinary events of today..

The only major scientific body not to sign the statement was the Royal Society of Canada, whose country has been brought to a standstill by a massive infestation of polar bears.

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http://features.csmonitor.com/envir...sts-worldwide-admit-global-warming-is-a-hoax/

I wish this warming thing would hurry up...

1.7 degrees last night and I was at work outdoors at 3am. Oh great, what fun... That's colder than the average for June or July and it's only April.

And it's going down to 2 degrees again tonight. On the positive side, I'm inside right now and I see the cat is toasty warm lying upside down in front of the fire.

For those who are curious....

You might remember the work of the Global Climate Coalition during the 1990's . Basically they were a very powerful lobby group which (successfully) undermined the scientists who were warning about global warming from the early 90's.

Turns out that their own scientific experts told them the scientific basis for global warming was established and undeniable.

But of course they ignored them and spent the next 10 years spreading the disinformation and dribble that seems to have accepted by those who really don't want to hear unpleasant truths.

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate


By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement, policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could dangerously warm the planet. Today, with general agreement on the basics of warming, the debate has largely moved on to the question of how extensively to respond to rising temperatures.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta


I took the opportunity to read the document presented to the Global Climate Coalition by their advisors. Makes excellent reading and covers the scientific knowledge at that time clearly and honestly. See Point 1 . Shame it got lost in the 10 years of propaganda that followed....

http://documents.nytimes.com/global-climate-coalition-aiam-climate-change-primer#p=3

basilio said:

See Point 1 . Shame it got lost in the 10 years of propaganda that followed....

http://documents.nytimes.com/global-climate-coalition-aiam-climate-change-primer#p=3

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Maybe they just read point 2.

Greenland seems happy enough.

Global warming alarmists out in cold

By Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
April 29, 2009 12:01am


IT'S snowing in April. Ice is spreading in Antarctica. The Great Barrier Reef is as healthy as ever.
And that's just the news of the past week. Truly, it never rains but it pours - and all over our global warming alarmists.

Time's up for this absurd scaremongering. The fears are being contradicted by the facts, and more so by the week.

Doubt it? Then here's a test.

Name just three clear signs the planet is warming as the alarmists claim it should. Just three. Chances are your "proofs" are in fact on my list of 10 Top Myths about global warming.
And if your "proofs" indeed turn out to be false, don't get angry with me.

Just ask yourself: Why do you still believe that man is heating the planet to hell? What evidence do you have?

So let's see if facts matter more to you than faith, and observations more than predictions.

MYTH 1

THE WORLD IS WARMING

Wrong. It is true the world did warm between 1975 and 1998, but even Professor David Karoly, one of our leading alarmists, admitted this week "temperatures have dropped" since - "both in surface temperatures and in atmospheric temperatures measured from satellites". In fact, the fall in temperatures from just 2002 has already wiped out half the warming our planet experienced last century. (Check data from Britain's Hadley Centre, NASA's Aqua satellite and the US National Climatic Data Centre.)


Some experts, such as Karoly, claim this proves nothing and the world will soon start warming again. Others, such as Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University, point out that so many years of cooling already contradict the theory that man's rapidly increasing gases must drive up temperatures ever faster.

But that's all theory. The question I've asked is: What signs can you actually see of the man-made warming that the alarmists predicted?

MYTH 2

THE POLAR CAPS ARE MELTING

Wrong. The British Antarctic Survey, working with NASA, last week confirmed ice around Antarctica has grown 100,000 sq km each decade for the past 30 years.

Long-term monitoring by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports the same: southern hemisphere ice has been expanding for decades.

As for the Arctic, wrong again.

The Arctic ice cap shrank badly two summers ago after years of steady decline, but has since largely recovered. Satellite data from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre this week shows the Arctic hasn't had this much April ice for at least seven years.

Norway's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre says the ice is now within the standard deviation range for 1979 to 2007.

MYTH 3

WE'VE NEVER HAD SUCH A BAD DROUGHT

Wrong. A study released this month by the University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre confirms not only that we've had worse droughts, but this Big Dry is not caused by "global warming", whether man-made or not.

As the university's press release says: "The causes of southeastern Australia's longest, most severe and damaging droughts have been discovered, with the surprise finding that they originate far away in the Indian Ocean.

"A team of Australian scientists has detailed for the first time how a phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole - a variable and irregular cycle of warming and cooling of ocean water - dictates whether moisture-bearing winds are carried across the southern half of Australia."

MYTH 4

OUR CITIES HAVE NEVER BEEN HOTTER

Wrong. The alleged "record" temperature Melbourne set in January - 46.4 degrees - was in fact topped by the 47.2 degrees the city recorded in 1851. (See the Argus newspaper of February 8, 1851.)

And here's another curious thing: Despite all this warming we're alleged to have caused, Victoria's highest temperature on record remains the 50.7 degrees that hit Mildura 103 years ago.

South Australia's hottest day is still the 50.7 degrees Oodnadatta suffered 37 years ago. NSW's high is still the 50 degrees recorded 70 years ago.

What's more, not one of the world's seven continents has set a record high temperature since 1974. Europe's high remains the 50 degrees measured in Spain 128 years ago, before the invention of the first true car.

MYTH 5

THE SEAS ARE GETTING HOTTER

Wrong. If anything, the seas are getting colder. For five years, a network of 3175 automated bathythermographs has been deployed in the oceans by the Argo program, a collaboration between 50 agencies from 26 countries.

Warming believer Josh Willis, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reluctantly concluded: "There has been a very slight cooling ..."

MYTH 6

THE SEAS ARE RISING

Wrong. For almost three years, the seas have stopped rising, according to the Jason-1 satellite mission monitored by the University of Colorado.

That said, the seas have risen steadily and slowly for the past 10,000 years through natural warming, and will almost certainly resume soon.

But there is little sign of any accelerated rises, even off Tuvalu or the Maldives, islands often said to be most threatened with drowning.

Professor Nils-Axel Moerner, one of the world's most famous experts on sea levels, has studied the Maldives in particular and concluded there has been no net rise there for 1250 years.

Venice is still above water.

MYTH 7

CYCLONES ARE GETTING WORSE

Wrong. Ryan Maue of Florida State University recently measured the frequency, intensity and duration of all hurricanes and cyclones to compile an Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index.

His findings? The energy index is at its lowest level for more than 30 years.

The World Meteorological Organisation, in its latest statement on cyclones, said it was impossible to say if they were affected by man's gases: "Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point."

MYTH 8

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF IS DYING

Wrong. Yes, in 1999, Professor Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, our leading reef alarmist and administrator of more than $30 million in warming grants, did claim the reef was threatened by warming, and much had turned white.

But he then had to admit it had made a "surprising" recovery.

Yes, in 2006 he again warned high temperatures meant "between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland's Great Barrier Reef could die within a month".

But he later admitted this bleaching had "minimal impact". Yes, in 2007 he again warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by global warming were bleaching the reef.

But this month fellow Queensland University researchers admitted in a study that reef coral had once more made a "spectacular recovery", with "abundant corals re-established in a single year". The reef is blooming.

MYTH 9

OUR SNOW SEASONS ARE SHORTER

Wrong. Poor snow falls in 2003 set off a rash of headlines predicting warming doom. The CSIRO typically fed the hysteria by claiming global warming would strip resorts of up to a quarter of their snow by 2018.

Yet the past two years have been bumper seasons for Victoria's snow resorts, and this year could be just as good, with snow already falling in NSW and Victoria this past week.

MYTH 10

TSUNAMIS AND OTHER DISASTERS ARE GETTING WORSE

Are you insane? Tsunamis are in fact caused by earthquakes. Yet there was World Vision boss Tim Costello last week, claiming that Asia was a "region, thanks to climate change, that has far more cyclones, tsunamis, droughts".

Wrong, wrong and wrong, Tim. But what do facts matter now to a warming evangelist when the cause is so just?

And so any disaster is now blamed on man-made warming the way they once were on Satan. See for yourself on www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm the full list, including kidney stones, volcanic eruptions, lousy wine, insomnia, bad tempers, Vampire moths and bubonic plagues. Nothing is too far-fetched to be seized upon by carpetbaggers and wild preachers as signs of a warming we can't actually see.

Not for nothing are polar bears the perfect symbol of this faith - bears said to be threatened by warming, when their numbers have in fact increased.

Bottom line: fewer people now die from extreme weather events, whether cyclones, floods or blinding heatwaves.

Read that in a study by Indur Goklany, who represented the US at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "There is no signal in the mortality data to indicate increases in the overall frequencies or severities of extreme weather events, despite large increases in the population at risk."

So stop this crazy panic.

First step: check again your list of the signs you thought you saw of global warming. How many are true? What do you think, and why do you think it?

Yes, the world may resume warming in one year or 100. But it hasn't been warming as the alarmists said it must if man were to blame, and certainly not as the media breathlessly keeps claiming.

Best we all just settle down, then, and wait for the proof -- the real proof. After all, panicking over invisible things is so undignified, don't you think?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25402980-5007146,00.html

Bolt is just regurgitating the climatic short term themes, which are shown in the multi-decadal context to be quite misleading.

rederob said:

Bolt is just regurgitating the climatic short term themes, which are shown in the multi-decadal context to be quite misleading.

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so reef bleaching was long term....? lol

the world warmed for 20 years....and that was long term..lol

the polar caps melted for a few years (did they really)...but that was long term...lol

seas are cooling...lol

seas arent rising!! lol

cyclones arent getting worse or increasing...lol

ah the sheep, all jumping on the GW bandwagon, heading to the slaughter by the aptly named al gore. what a mob of fools.

Smurf1976 said:

I wish this warming thing would hurry up...

1.7 degrees last night and I was at work outdoors at 3am. Oh great, what fun... That's colder than the average for June or July and it's only April.

And it's going down to 2 degrees again tonight. On the positive side, I'm inside right now and I see the cat is toasty warm lying upside down in front of the fire.

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That was yesterday. Last night it was a bit colder at 1.3 and according to the BOM we've had the coldest period in April since 1952.

Now, if it were the hottest period since 1952 then those screaming about climate change would be all over it as "proof" of global warming. But they remain absolutely silent when the weather doesn't do what suits thier message.

Obviously a few days is pretty meaningless. My point is about the politics of it all and not the weather as such.

I saw an article the other day that said March 09 was the 10th warmest March on record globally. I guess that makes it into the post 98 period as a sign of warming?

Temperature Highlights

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for March was 55.87degrees F, which at 0.97 degrees F above the 20th century average of 54.9 degrees F ranks as the 10th warmest March on record.
Separately, the March global land surface temperature was 42.47 degrees F, which was 1.67 degrees F above the 20th century average of 40.8 degrees F, ranking it as 10th warmest March on record.
The March global ocean surface temperature of 61.42 degrees F was eighth warmest on record, reaching 0.72 degrees F above the 20th century average of 60.7 degrees F.
The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for the year to date (January-March) was 55.04 degrees F, 0.94 degrees F above the 20th century average of 54.1 degrees F and ranking eighth warmest.
The Northern Hemisphere experienced its 12th warmest March on record, while the March 2009 Northern Hemisphere average ocean surface temperature tied with 2001 and 2006 for seventh warmest.
For the Southern Hemisphere, March 2009 land surface temperature was the fourth warmest March on record, while the March 2009 ocean surface temperature was sixth warmest.

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basilio said:

For those who are curious....

Turns out that their own scientific experts told them the scientific basis for global warming was established and undeniable.

But of course they ignored them and spent the next 10 years spreading the disinformation and dribble that seems to have accepted by those who really don't want to hear unpleasant truths.

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Turns out that that was sloppy journalism by the NYT and the editor has added a correction after being informed by a reader.

The amended version, which was brought to the attention of The Times by a reader, acknowledged the consensus that greenhouse gases could contribute to warming. What scientists disagreed about, it said, was “the rate and magnitude of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ (warming) that will result.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/science/earth/02editorsnote.html

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It would seem disinformation and dribble are only present in the articles you link to.

Ian Pilmer gets it right.

However the hysteria still has a long way to go. Children are indoctrinated in schools that man-made climate change is an established truth.

It is human arrogance to think that we can control climate, a process that transfers huge amounts of energy. Once we control the smaller amount of energy transferred by volcanoes and earthquakes, then we can try to control climate.

Until then, climate politics is just a load of ideological hot air.

To argue that human additions to atmospheric CO2, a trace gas in the atmosphere, changes climate requires an abandonment of all we know about history, archaeology, geology, solar physics, chemistry and astronomy. We ignore history at our peril.

I await the establishment of a Stalinist-type Truth and Retribution Commission to try me for my crimes against the established order and politicised science.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25429080-7583,00.html

Media Ignore Al Gore’s Financial Ties to Global Warming

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Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms. And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.

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Gore is chairman of the firm and, presumably, draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he "buys" his "carbon offsets" from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn't buy "carbon offsets" through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.

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Here's a list indicating what it takes to make money along with Al. Funds associated with these companies have placed millions of dollars under Al Gore's control. And, as you'll see below, Gore's selection for the US President of GIM might raise a few eyebrows as well.

AFLAC INC - AQUANTIVE INC - AUTODESK INC - BECTON DICKINSON & CO BLACKBAUD INC - GENERAL ELECTRIC CO - GREENHILL & CO INC - JOHNSON CTLS INC - LABORATORY CORP AMER HLDGS - METABOLIX INC - NORTHERN TR CORP - NUVEEN INVTS INC -STAPLES INC - SYSCO CORP - TECHNE CORP - UBS AG - VCA ANTECH INC - WATERS CORP - WHOLE FOODS MKT INC


According to their own documents, GIM intends to invest in, or buy companies poised to cash in on Global Warming concerns.

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http://newsbusters.org/node/11149

Humans are 'not hurting' the climate

Cara Jenkin Environment Reporter - April 13, 2009 12:00am

AN Adelaide professor says climate change is unavoidable - but that humans are not the cause of it.

University of Adelaide Professor of Mining Geology Ian Plimer this week launches his seventh book, Heaven and Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science, which aims to refute every scientific argument that humans are responsible for global warming.

Professor Plimer embarked on the project after being incensed by increasing public acceptance of the idea that humans have caused global warming.

Many scientists worldwide agree that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused global temperatures to rise.

Professor Plimer said his book would "knock out every single argument we hear about climate change", to prove that global warming is a cycle of the Earth.

"It's got nothing to do with the atmosphere, it's about what happens in the galaxy.

"You've got to look at the whole solar system and, most importantly, we look back in time.

"There's a lot of talk out there that there isn't any science that supports my view, but I have 2111 scientific references in this book."

Professor Plimer has been awarded two Eureka prizes, for science promotion and best science book, and a Centenary Medal for his geological contribution to Australian society.

He said the planet has endured constant climate change and rapid changes had occurred in the past.

"Not one has been driven by carbon dioxide," he said.

The book outlines how climate is driven by the sun, the Earth's orbit and plate tectonics.

It will be released in Britain and U.S. after its Australian launch

Source: www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25325285-5006301,00.html

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CASE CLOSED! Unless anyone can find impartial scientific evidence to refute Professor Plimers 2111 scientific references supporting his claims

ColB said:

CASE CLOSED! Unless anyone can find impartial scientific evidence to refute Professor Plimers 2111 scientific references supporting his claims

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Plimer did not disprove that CO2 levels have no impact on temperature: Merely that, inter alia, CO2 levels change cyclically and dramatically over geological time.
Climate change proponents suggest that the additional contribution of CO2 from man's activities has been unprecedented, and that it is speeding any natural processes.

This argument is as dogmatic as any discussed on the net. Up there with creationism vs evolution, conservatism vs liberalism ... e.t.c. If you look you will find a reference supporting your viewpoint or refuting any argument. Most are coming at this with a hardline Ya or Na and I would be very surprised if even one or two of the posters on here had more than a high school science education, let alone specialised in atmospheric, climate or earth sciences and were abreast of the data, data collection and interpretation to make an informed decision. What we largely have here is an exercise in cherry picking supportive points of view.

I am a geologist, my daily life is spent immersed in rocks 2.7 billion years old. The Earth was a very different place back then. I understand the time frames involved in the processes of the Earth. It is a complicated beast, with many overlapping and non-synchronised cycles which have durations that range from daily to many millions of years. Then you need to add in the complexity of the interactions and cycles of the atmosphere with the hydrosphere and the lithosphere coupled with solar input.

Many of the propositions and contradictions put forward by both sides of the argument seem credible to me. The amount of data collected from recent history (the last million to half million years) is extremely detailed and continuous, especially at the thickest parts of continental ice, and as we head back in time the resolution of the data we can glean is reduced. So when we are looking at these climatically extreme events in the distant past we cannot make interpretations based on annual data or even data at the 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 year resolution. We can make comparisons between then and now but to say anything with absolute certainty is bollacks. The possibility that humans could be having an effect on the temperature of the Earth is not without plausibility. At the end of the day I do not feel qualified to pin my flag in either camp and it surprises me how so many can with dogmatic fervour.

Plimer is an extremely respected geoscientist. His work promoting geology to the mainstream and his battles with the creationists are to be applauded. One also needs to take into account that writing a book is a commercial exercise and a book of this nature has to find definitively for the stated case. I haven't read the book yet, but I find it hard that you would be able to "knock out every single argument we hear about climate change" without losing some objectivity in your references. Though when you are selling a book there is nothing like a bit of controversy to help sales along.

Ian Plimer has known to be dogmatic himself at times. For example in the Mount Isa area there is large chunks of the countryside where the rocks have Calcium levels much higher than is easily explained. Plimer believed them to represent ancient widespread evaporitic deposits (essentially salt lake deposits). Another hypothesis was that as granites in the area had intruded they have released vast amounts of fluids rich in Ca that dramatically changed the rocks that they percolated through. As the evidence grew the granite hypothesis was overwhelming but Plimer refused to let go of his evaporite hypothesis. I am not sure if he has to date.

Just because someone agrees with your point of view does not automatically make them right.

Well wonders will never cease ..................

US climate change denier James Inhofe joins Al Gore in fight to save the Arctic

In a surprise U-turn, the conservative Republican senator has put forward a bill to review the dangers of black carbon

He has called global warming a hoax, compared the Environmental Protection Agency with the Gestapo, and over the years dismissed Al Gore as desperate and "full of crap". So it was startling when America's arch climate change denier came out ahead of the green curve in the fight to save the Arctic and other icy regions.

Could James Inhofe, a conservative Republican senator from Oklahoma, be the newest recruit to Barack Obama's green revolution?

Inhofe, in a surprise move, joined Democratic senators in putting forward a bill for an official review of the dangers of soot or "black carbon" to public health and the environment late last month.

"Black carbon ... is thought to be the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide," the bill said. It gave experts from the Environmental Protection Agency a year to make suggestions to Congress on reducing the pollutant, caused by old diesel engines and burning wood.

Inhofe has been fighting for years against the growing body of science that claims human activity causes climate change. Obama's determination to move America off fossil fuels – and a series of new green measures – initially appeared to have no effect on the Oklahoman.

In Senate hearings, the Republican continued in his self-appointed mission of heckling Gore and experts on climate change and squabbling with the chair of the environment and public works committee, Barbara Boxer.

His support for the black carbon bill met with astonishment from left and right.

A former aide to Inhofe went so far as to suggest that his staff had been duped into allowing him to support the review. A blogger on the liberal website Daily Kos suggested he had been afflicted with "sudden onset dementia".

Inhofe, in an interview with the Guardian, insisted that there was nothing out-of-step between his concern about soot and his broader views on climate change.

"It's not a pollutant, it's a particulate matter. So we are talking about two different things and I am surprised that anyone would be at all surprised that I would be trying to find out about black carbon while I don't buy the idea that anthropogenic gases are causing global warming."

He said his concern about the health effects of soot grew from his interest in Africa, where poor families who cook on wood stoves can suffer lung diseases from the soot.

As for the oddness of his alliance with the climate evangelist Gore, Inhofe said:"Al Gore probably would be against automobile accidents and I am too. This has nothing to do with the CO2 issue."

But the convergence of interests has raised hopes among environmentalists that it might be easier to reach consensus on the need to act on soot – which is familiar and can be felt and touched – than it has been on greenhouse gases.

"This is a very significant breakthrough from his past positions so we are very pleased," said Erika Rosenthal of EarthJustice.

In a further twist, Inhofe came out a few days ahead of Gore in drawing the public's attention to what scientists have recently identified as the main cause of global warming after carbon dioxide.

Soot was not even mentioned as a cause of global warming in the United Nations' report on climate science in 2007. But scientists now see the pollutant as the main cause of global warming after carbon dioxide – and say it may require even more urgent action because of the speed of which ice in the Arctic is disappearing.

Gore told a conference in Norway last week that soot, from diesel and wood burning stoves, was creating a dangerous haze of pollution in the Arctic that absorbed sunlight and warmed the air.

"A new understanding is emerging of soot," said Gore. "Black carbon is settling in the Himalayas. The air pollution levels in the upper Himalayas are now similar to those in Los Angeles."

Inhofe for now says he does not support the idea of limiting black carbon emissions, saying he is concerned about the cost to poor families in Africa. In Washington, there is little expectation that Inhofe will be an enthusiastic joiner of Obama's green revolution, but some are hoping this might be a tiny first step.

If it is, Inhofe is not telling. "I want to know more about it – nothing sinister about this at all," he said. "Should I apologise that Al Gore and Barbara Boxer agree that we need to know more about black carbon. I don't think so."

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