You, my friend, need to read Chaptor 1. Then tell us what radiative force is the primary factor in climate change. It’s so obvious it’s ridiculous. If you had taken a lower division college section on climate you wouldn’t even have the read Chaptor 1 to know the answer.

Then tell us why the IPCC explains why natural forcing factors cannot be excluded from explaining climate change. (hint: what radiative forcings also play an essential role in climate, then tell us which one’s climate scientists have a poor understanding of).

And while you’re at it. Do you understand the high degree of uncertainty in a statement that uses the qualifiers “likely” and “unlikely” in a statement from the IPCC report? It’s not enough certainty to use as a basis for cognitive reasoning. It’s amazing you would even use such statements to support your argument.

Who’s ignorant?

You would think that referencing Chapter 1 and Chapter 12 clearly in my posts would be good enough for someone who is familiar with the report. I didn’t get my information from a link. I got it from reading the hard copy report.

The sections I cited speak specifically to the role of anthropogenic emissions in the global climate balance. Besides, you don’t even understand how your cited sections support my argument.

For example,
Detection and attribution studies consistently find evidence for an anthropogenic signal in the climate record of the last 35 to 50 years.
Does not describe anthropogenic emissions as the primary factor.

Nowhere in the report is there anything that describes anthropogenic emissions as the primary factor in climate change. You obvioulsy to not understand the difference between detection and attribution.

However, the detection of a change in climate does not necessarily imply that its causes are understood.

Here are the ultimate conclusions of the report, which go against everything Hippie says the report stands for: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/007.htm
“There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
The SAR concluded: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. That report also noted that the anthropogenic signal was still emerging from the background of natural climate variability. Since the SAR, progress has been made in reducing uncertainty, particularly with respect to distinguishing and quantifying the magnitude of responses to different external influences. Although many of the sources of uncertainty identified in the SAR still remain to some degree, new evidence and improved understanding support an updated conclusion.

* There is a longer and more closely scrutinised temperature record and new model estimates of variability. The warming over the past 100 years is very unlikely7 to be due to internal variability alone, as estimated by current models. Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years (Figure 1b) also indicate that this warming was unusual and is unlikely7 to be entirely natural in origin.

* There are new estimates of the climate response to natural and anthropogenic forcing, and new detection techniques have been applied. Detection and attribution studies consistently find evidence for an anthropogenic signal in the climate record of the last 35 to 50 years.
* Simulations of the response to natural forcings alone (i.e., the response to variability in solar irradiance and volcanic eruptions) do not explain the warming in the second half of the 20th century (see for example Figure 4a). However, they indicate that natural forcings may have contributed to the observed warming in the first half of the 20th century.

* The warming over the last 50 years due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases can be identified despite uncertainties in forcing due to anthropogenic sulphate aerosol and natural factors (volcanoes and solar irradiance). The anthropogenic sulphate aerosol forcing, while uncertain, is negative over this period and therefore cannot explain the warming. Changes in natural forcing during most of this period are also estimated to be negative and are unlikely7 to explain the warming.

* Detection and attribution studies comparing model simulated changes with the observed record can now take into account uncertainty in the magnitude of modelled response to external forcing, in particular that due to uncertainty in climate sensitivity.

* Most of these studies find that, over the last 50 years, the estimated rate and magnitude of warming due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases alone are comparable with, or larger than, the observed warming. Furthermore, most model estimates that take into account both greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols are consistent with observations over this period.

* The best agreement between model simulations and observations over the last 140 years has been found when all the above anthropogenic and natural forcing factors are combined, as shown in Figure 4c). . These results show that the forcings included are sufficient to explain the observed changes, but do not exclude the possibility that other forcings may also have contributed.

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely7 to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”

IPCC: Climate Change 2001
Summary for Policymakers

Looks like TP trolls are ignorant at best, wilfully misleading for their own, inexplicably twisted reasons at worst.

Chapter 1 continues…principal cause, primary factor or essential role? Looks like TP libs are ignorant or at least exaggerating the facts.

The atmosphere is the most unstable and rapidly changing part of the system. Its composition, which has changed with the evolution of the Earth, is of central importance to the problem assessed in this Report. The Earth’s dry atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen (N2, 78.1% volume mixing ratio), oxygen (O2, 20.9% volume mixing ratio, and argon (Ar, 0.93% volume mixing ratio). These gases have only limited interaction with the incoming solar radiation and they do not interact with the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth. However there are a number of trace gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and ozone (O3), which do absorb and emit infrared radiation. These so called greenhouse gases, with a total volume mixing ratio in dry air of less than 0.1% by volume, play an essential role in the Earth’s energy budget

Hmm, The IPCC doesn’t agree.

Chapter 1, The Climate System: An Overview:

Climate is determined by the atmospheric circulation and by its interactions with the largescale ocean currents and the land with its features such as albedo, vegetation and soil moisture. The climate of the Earth as a whole depends on factors that influence the radiative balance, such as for example, the atmospheric composition, solar radiation or volcanic eruptions. To understand the climate of our planet Earth and its variations and to understand and possibly predict the changes of the climate brought about by human activities, one cannot ignore any of these many factors and components that determine the climate.

Ezra is aguing that anthropogenic emissions are the principal cause for climate change. And now Setternbrini is, too, but nowhere in the IPCC will you see anthropogenic emissions described as the principal cause of climate change.

Some key points in Chapter 12,
Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes.

Uncertainties in the estimated climate change signals have made it difficult to attribute the observed climate change to one specific combination of anthropogenic and natural influences.

The response to anthropogenic changes in climate forcing occurs against a backdrop of natural internal and externally forced climate variability that can occur on similar temporal and spatial scales. Internal climate variability, by which we mean climate variability not forced by external agents, occurs on all time-scales from weeks to centuries and millennia. Slow climate components, such as the ocean, have particularly important roles on decadal and century time-scales because they integrate highfrequency weather variability (Hasselmann, 1976) and interact with faster components. Thus the climate is capable of producing long time-scale internal variations of considerable magnitude without any external influences. Externally forced climate variations may be due to changes in natural forcing factors, such as solar radiation or volcanic aerosols, or to changes in anthropogenic forcing factors, such as increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases or sulphate aerosols.

The presence of this natural climate variability means that the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change is a statistical “signal-in-noise” problem. Detection is the process of demonstrating that an observed change is significantly different (in a statistical sense) than can be explained by natural internal variability. However, the detection of a change in climate does not necessarily imply that its causes are understood. As noted in the SAR, the unequivocal attribution of climate change to anthropogenic causes (i.e., the isolation of cause and effect) would require controlled experimentation with the climate system in which the hypothesised agents of change are systematically varied in order to determine the climate’s sensitivity to these agents. Such an approach to attribution is clearly not possible.

Anyone who reads the IPCC knows that it doesn’t support your position.

One of the central tasks of climate science is to predict the sensitivity of climate to changes in carbon dioxide concentration. The answer determines in large measure how serious the consequences of global warming will be. One common measure of climate sensitivity is the amount by which global mean surface temperature would change once the system has settled into a new equilibrium following a doubling of the pre-industrial CO2 concentration. A vast array of thought has been brought to bear on this problem… culminating in today’s comprehensive atmosphere-ocean general circulation models. The current crop of models studied by the IPCC range from an equilibrium sensitivity of about 1.5°C at the low end to about 5°C at the high end.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=229

I suppose you’re now going to come out with the standard-issue, cut-and-paste complaints about models dreamed up by Tech Central Station, Heritage, etc.?

But there are, reasonably speaking, no other explanations for the anamolous warming that we’ve seen other than CO2–as those studies I showed you indicate. Now, you might be able to come up with some other explanation for the warming other than CO2, but those are all far, far less robust than the case for CO2. And a hypothetical is not evidence as Dr. Naomi Oreskes points out in this LA Times piece that she did recently:

Some climate-change deniers insist that the observed changes might be natural, perhaps caused by variations in solar irradiance or other forces we don’t yet understand. Perhaps there are other explanations for the receding glaciers. But “perhaps” is not evidence.

The greatest scientist of all time, Isaac Newton, warned against this tendency more than three centuries ago. Writing in “Principia Mathematica” in 1687, he noted that once scientists had successfully drawn conclusions by “general induction from phenomena,” then those conclusions had to be held as “accurately or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined…. “

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-oreskes24jul24,0,7925596.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Listen, Hippie, do you need help getting a real job? There’s a very good website out there. It crawls all the major websites like Monster, Yahoo Jobs, etc.

No, it’s really good. You should try it: http://www.indeed.com/

What’s the Monster tagline? “Never Settle.” Or this one’s good too: “Job good. Life good.” I know those taglines are from ads, but there’s some wisdom there too. You should seek real employment.

“All of the principal causes of climate change are beyond the control of human beings.” Given this statement, which is wildly out of whack with scientific consensus…

Now find a credible study that claims that anthrpogenic emissions are the principal cause of climate change.

You provided those old studies, none of them claim that anthropogenic emissions are the principal cause, and neither does your BBC link.

You can continue to create these strawman arguments, but you’re getting nowhere.

You picked the oldest of 9 studies on that page and nitpicked some of the language. There are 8 more recent ones.

Anthropogenic emissions are contributing to climate change. To what degree the IPCC is uncertain.

This is taken into account with the IPCC’s prediction of temperatures rising 1.4-5.8 over the next century:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/climate.stm

The high end of projected temperature increases (~5.8° C by 2100) would be catastrophic: widespread drought, floods, sea-level rises, possible sudden, nonlinear changes, etc. …The low-end of changes (~1.4° C by 2100) would still bring worse storms, flood, droughts, and spread of disease, with all the effects on our economy and health that come with that.

Sounds like that’s fine with you.

Now the IPCC is ready to declare anthropogenic warming dead in the water, right ?

No, that’s not my argument. You need to provide a study that claims anthropogenic emissions are the principal cause of climate change. You have yet to do that. That’s what your arguing isn’t it? Anthropogenic emissions are contributing to climate change. To what degree the IPCC is uncertain.

although the role of increased anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations in such circulation variations is poorly known. Since the indices are influenced by natural changes and variations that can either add to or subtract from any underlying long-term anthropogenic-induced change it will be important to carefully follow their behavior over the next decade to see if they sustain their incipient trends or return to previous levels.

OK, now it’s been a decade since this 1995 study was done. Now the IPCC is ready to declare anthropogenic warming dead in the water, right ?

Take a look at the rest of the studies. They all point at the same thing from different sources.

I don’t know why I’m arguing with you over this. It’s not like you’re ever going to agree with me. Because then you’d be fired.

Confirmed by who? Not by the IPCC.

And funny you criticize me. Your own single study is 11 years old:

I’m sourcing the 2001 IPCC report which is not 11 years old. Those were YOUR studies in the heatsonline link, which do not make the case that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the principal cause for climate change.

Your arguments aren’t even coherent. Give it up.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/08/boudreaux_do_nothing_about_glo.php