To: Brumar89 who wrote (2434 ) 9/21/2011 5:41:39 PM From: Nadine Carroll 4 Recommendations Respond to of 85487 The models may indeed be state-of-the-art. But if they aren't verifiable, only a damn fool or a politician (but I repeat myself) would waste billions of dollars following their advice. Put simply, we have more pressing problems that are going unaddressed because of this nonsense. BTW, Trenberth's missing deep ocean heat is still missing. From Jan 2011: Recent energy balance of Earth R. S. Knox and D. H. Douglass Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY Abstract A recently published estimate of Earth’s global warming trend is 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2, as calculated from ocean heat content anomaly data spanning 1993–2008. This value is not representative of the recent (2003–2008) warming/cooling rate because of a “flattening” that occurred around 2001–2002. Using only 2003–2008 data from Argo floats, we find by four different algorithms that the recent trend ranges from –0.010 to –0.160 W/m2 with a typical error bar of ±0.2 W/m2. These results fail to support the existence of a frequently-cited large positive computed radiative imbalance. 1. Introduction Recently Lyman et al. [1] have estimated a robust global warming trend of 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2 for Earth during 1993–2008, calculated from ocean heat content anomaly (OHC) data. This value is not representative of the recent (2003–2008) warming/cooling rate because of a “flattening” that occurred around 2001–2002. Using only 2003-2008 data, we find cooling, not warming.wattsupwiththat.com And just so you don't dismiss it because of the site it comes from, here's a similar story from NPR in 2008, which includes these gems from Trenberth himself: The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat ...But if the aquatic robots are actually telling the right story, that raises a new question: Where is the extra heat all going? Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet. That can't be directly measured at the moment, however. "Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says. It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate. "I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."npr.org So Trenberth admits he can't describe the role of clouds (i.e. whether their net effect is part of a positive or negative feedback loop). Good for him for the admission. But continuing to state that we should accept the current model's forecasts for 50 years out as "settled science" despite this obvious gaping hole in understanding -- now that's just crazy. Clouds are significant!