See this comment for the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

Hansen in the Iowa testimony (slide 39) tells us that the CO2 forcing during the Cenozoic Era was 100 ppm per million years or 0.0001 pa. Current forcing is 20,000 times greater. That change reduced the temperature of the planet from a ice-free state to the current whipsawing in and out of ice ages as illustrated here.

Have a look at the PETM 55 mya when a similar amount of carbon went into the atmosphere and the temp went up about 6C.

But that is the last you get from me. As I said, you are testing my patience.

It would be interesting to see if you can make a convincing case against its final conclusion for the rest of us.

you state

“the current data does not follow IPCC predictions”.

How do you reconcile your statement with this ?

I didn’t know about the ‘How to defeat the Lie.pdf’ extolling denialists to lie. I have no doubt it exists, but I figured they would have kept it more secret. But then again, the methods employed by denialists are certainly to a nasty playbook we’ve seen before with asbestos, lead in fuel, CFC’s, etc etc.

“Scientists expect ocean oxygen levels to decline by about six per cent for every one degree increase in temperature and areas in the sea which are low in oxygen to grow by at least 50 per cent. This has major implications for the world’s most productive fishing waters in the cool temperate regions. The seas provide around one sixth of humanity’s protein food…”

We are talking: coldwater fish health and wellbeing, fish reproduction, fish stocks… and ulimately fish as a food source.

It is a fat lot of good being able to sail from A to B by a shorter route, if you are simultaneously running out of long-term food supplies.

I wish that flea-brained Fielding would wrap his warped neurons around that thought for a while.

Arctic Shortcut

Should give a bit of comfort

Atmospheric circulation patterns in August helped spread out sea ice, slowing ice loss in most regions of the Arctic. NSIDC scientists expect to see the minimum ice extent for the year in the next few weeks. While this year’s minimum ice extent will probably not reach the record low of 2007, it remains well below normal: average ice extent for August 2009 was the third-lowest in the satellite record. Ice extent has now fallen below the 2005 minimum, previously the third-lowest extent in the satellite record.

Overview of conditions

Sea ice extent averaged over the month of August 2009 was 6.26 million square kilometers (2.42 million square miles). This is 900,000 square kilometers (350,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in August 2007, 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles) above August 2008, and just below the August 2005 value of 6.30 million square kilometers (2.43 million square miles). Arctic sea ice extent for August 2009 was 1.41 million square kilometers (540,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.
NSIDC

I’d encourage anyone interested to look at the frull page frm NSIDC.

Additionally they might liek to look at

Is Arctic sea ice starting to recover?
In 2008, Arctic sea ice reached a minimum extent that was about 10 percent greater than the record low of 2007. So far in 2009, it looks like the minimum extent will be greater than either 2007 or 2008. Does this mean that Arctic sea ice is beginning to recover?

Even though the extent of Arctic sea ice has not returned to the record low of 2007, the data show that it is not recovering. To recover would mean returning to within its previous, long-term range. Sea ice in 2008 remained 34 percent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000, and so far 2009 is poised to continue this lower trend. In addition, sea ice remains much thinner than in the past, and so is more vulnerable to further decline. The data suggest that the ice reached a record low volume in 2008, and has thinned even more in 2009. Sea ice extent normally varies from year to year, much like the weather changes from day to day. But just as one warm day in October does not negate a cooling trend toward winter, a slight annual gain in sea ice extent over a record low does not negate the long-term decline.

In addition, ice extent is only one measure of sea ice. Satellite measurements from NASA show that in 2008, Arctic sea ice was thinner than 2007, and likely reached a record low volume. In the spring of 2009, Arctic sea ice was even thinner than in 2008. So, what would scientists call a recovery in sea ice? First, a true recovery would continue over a longer time period than two years. Second, scientists would expect to see a series of minimum sea ice extents that not only exceed the previous year, but also return to within the range of natural variation. In a recovery, scientists would also expect to see a return to an Arctic sea ice cover dominated by thicker, multiyear ice.

And

Has the Arctic Ocean always had ice in summer?

The last time that scientists can say confidently that the Arctic was free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, during the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. Temperatures in the Arctic were warmer than now and sea level was also 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) higher than it is today because the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets had partly melted. Because of the burning of fossil fuels, global averaged temperatures today are getting close to the maximum warmth seen during the Eemian. Carbon dioxide levels now are far above the highest levels during the Eemian, indicating there is still warming to come.

According to analyses at NASA, 2007 was the second-warmest year globally in the instrumental record; the Arctic was especially warm.

As usual, John Michelmore is engaging in misdirection. Apparently this is a conscious denier tactic.

The task incumbent on us therefore, is to figure out a way to approach the problem from another angle, and while the idea of using misdirection and deceit to teach science is repugnant to me, we simply have no choice but to do so. If we let this madness go unchallenged, the people behind this hoax stand to do irreparable damage to our society, and we just can’t allow that to happen.

orig: http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/HowToDefeatTheLiePt1.pdf now taken down out of embarrassment …