RE: #141

I have a background in biology, physics and mathematics. My experience base, as I mentioned, is reviewing science missions and their viability. I also have years of experience in space systems, sensors, etc.

I am not sure what the minimal is, but as I said before the topic is incredibly complex and runs across many scientific disciplines. And the language of science is uber-geeky and hard to process for even those of us used to it.

So what underlies my confidence. I know the precision of what a space based sensor is capable of, and I understand the precision (or lack of therein) of ground based sensors, and I understand the error bars around proxies. I also know that when you go back in time the precision of the ‘data’ drops off rapidly.

The error bars around the 1880’s sensor data is easily over one degree C. No one on any side of this discussion would disagree. The error bars on data older than that is even higher (global temp data only goes back to 1880). You can decide for yourself if the technology of 1880 is comparable in precision to technology today.

Furthermore, you have data, evidence and human accounts going back through 100’ s of years about the climate during the MWP and Maunder Minimums. Just one example would be the fossilized forests under the ice in the northern hemisphere dating way back. You can see the agricultural records during the MWP showing longer or equivalent growing seasons with modern times. You can see population numbers in the MWP and Little Ice Age indicating how humanity thrived and strived during warm and cold periods.

Finally, you can take the data that went into the hockey stick graphs and find some things that would blow your mind. For example, many of the conclusions about rapid temperature increases in the modern era are based on selected tree rings from small data sets. If you use the entire data set for that region you see no abnormal temperature increases. These indicates that the proxies used to try to compare modern temps to historic temps beyond 1880 are very suspect.

Look, in science there are theories and there are established facts. Gravity is an established fact. How the Moon was created is all theory (many conflicting ones). As we get more data or more studies are done the origin of the Moon concept changes. Same here with global climate. There are conflicting indicators - it is not settled. Another example would be the evolution of humanity. The recent Ardi discovery through the entire established science out the window!

So you need to know when you are in the midst of theoretical discovery and debate versus dealing with scientific fact.

I see the creationists and the GW alarmists as different camps of the same kind of ignorance and zealotry. They want to believe so badly they refuse to face the contrary evidence and studies. A real scientist does not fall into this trap. They go where the data and evidence leads them.