“Observe the amount of the time the anomaly stays around zero upto around 2003 and how much it remains below it after that.”
Huh. Perhaps if I make comments about 30 years as the minimum in climate studies, you might think about retracting this comment or at the very least cease complaining that “deniers” need to get their heads around the concept (if you make such complaints), or at the very least, deride anyone who uses <30 year trends as "proof" of anything in climate.
“It’s simply amazing the number of people who think things that are wrong with even basic research are instead being “overlooked”. “
I did not mean to imply that scientists did not know of this or were wrong, but rather was pointing out that it seems to me that the advocate community seems to pick and choose when “global” is important and when “regional” is important. Much like your arguement above about trends in arctic ice since 2003, how much traction would I get suggesting that surface temperature trends in some region the size of the arctic showed a negative trend? Would I not be told that “global” matters? Surely the same is true of all indicators such as ice cover, cloud cover, precipitation etc? Sure, it does matter to people where these things happen, but if I need to consider only global temp, why not global ice coverage?
“This is wishful thinking based on the “Nothing to see here, natural variability” concept. It could be true but by all means show me the mechanism that regulates the polar ice caps in this way. “
Have we already change the null hypothesis from “it’s all natural until you can show otherwise” to “it’s anthropogenic until you can show otherwise” while I wasn’t looking? If you can’t demonstrate that it’s unusual, why do I need to prove it’s natural? If there is evidence of climate “cycles” (IOW, semi-cyclic, stochastic driven oscillations in weather patterns) on the scale of 60 years, 180 years etc etc – and I believe it’s fair to say there is – under what conditions can you expect to be able to extract something “unusual” in the 30 year record of sat coverage?
You seem to be of the opinion that I think “climate scientists” are idiots – for the record, I do not. I merely think that in many cases, they go a bridge to far based on what is known and what is infered. And if history in general, and science history in particular, is any guide then I want something a bit more concrete than what I have seen so far before I’m prepared to commit to the sorts of actions being contemplated, and in some cases enacted, to deal with the “problem”. You may acuse me of ignorance if you wish and I most certainly will not suggest that I am any sort of expert on matters climate, but I believe it’s fair to say that I am a level 3 on Judy’s scale (having followed this with varying zeal over about 15 years), so I am not completely ignorant on the matter. Just not convinced the level of certainty is justified, or that the urgency suggested is justified. Feel free to attempt to convince me.