I understand that nobody here agrees with what I am saying or finds my evidence persuasive – but that is the evidence which informs my thinking.

No it is hearsay which informs your thinking not factual evidence. You are of course welcome to your own opinion but in the scheme of things that opinion is worthless for you cannot have your own facts.

As long ago as 1995 Ben Santer produced a seminal attribution paper to back up what was already largely understood. Your, ‘Up until a decade or so ago…’ has no backing whatsoever even given the deliberate vagueness of your words.

There is no excuse for your refusal to accept that pinned down by the empirical evidence assessed in countless scientific papers across a swath of scientific disciplines that produce input to climate science.

Wilful ignorance is not a nice look and given how often you have been shown evidence which makes a mockery of your so called ‘opinion’ you demonstrate this in spades.

Now the person who persists with refusal to get to grips with the scientific knowledge in spite of many citations being presented to them, who continues to spout the bull that you do cannot hide behind any, ‘I am not a liar’ claim.

Nature gives not a flying f about lawyerly rhetoric and sophistry for as Richard Feynman wrote, “…reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

Hence RickA, you are the fool.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/its-a-sad-reality-a-troubling-trend-sees-a-97-decline-in-monarch-butterflies

Yes, there’s a reason: BEST shows the same thing that Mann does…

It’s warming.

We’ve warmed the planet ~1.2 C since ~1750. We’ve already locked in ~0.5 C more, according to Eelco Rohling, and to date we’re doing nothing substantial to avoid further warming on top of that.

~2.0 C warming will severely damage the planet’s biodiversity and humanity’s capacity to maintain a cohesive global civilisation. ~3.0 C will see the commencement of a full 6th great extinction event, and will pretty much guarantee that a globally cohesive civilisation is not possible. More than 3.0 C and all that’ll be left will be the job of picking up the pieces.

“.But I wait and will see and will keep reading and trying to learn.”

You can’t keep doing something you’ve never started.

The temperature swing from the height of the MWP to the bottom of the LIA was almost 1C.

Utter bullshit. There was no global and synchronous ‘MWP’ nor ‘LIA’ so your claim is specious.

Reference this crap or withdraw it.

You’ve come out with this rubbish before so you know it’s wrong because it has been pointed out, several times. So:

This is what I think. This is honestly what I think. Therefore I cannot be lying about what I think.

…this is evidence of complete dishonesty on your part. More lies, in other words.

We first encountered each other in 2009, and since 2009 neither of us has changed our opinion about global warming (oops – I mean climate change). That is because the science hasn’t really changed – the ECS range is still 1.5C – 4.5C, so 1.8C is still within the range and therefore physically possible (in my opinion).

Nope. IPCC AR5 range was distorted by (misleading) EBM stuff subsequently shown to be biased by methodology. Actual range is 2 – 4.5K per doubling of CO2 or equivalent forcing change with a most likely value of ~3C. As it was in 2009.

This has been explained to you over and over again, so you know the facts but keep saying something that contradicts them, which makes you a liar.

Up until a decade or so ago, any change in the climate was assumed to be caused by nature.

WTF? Utter bullshit.

So the burden is on those who say that 100% or 110% of the warming since 1950 is caused by humans.

Burden of proof claim is bullshit stacked on bullshit, but it’s been done, as already explained.

But *you* haven’t answered the question: what caused the other 50% of modern warming per your BS claim? Specific evidence not diversionary bullshit is required at this point. Science already has the evidence stack to support most / all anthropogenic causation. The burden of proof to support your counter-claim is on you.

And bullshit does not suffice.

Try again, with references, of course.

If you can’t back it up with evidence, withdraw it.

So once again, a right wing lawyer with bare scientific literacy has a view that conflicts with 97% of statured experts, and which is at odds with every relevant scientific organization and National Academy on Earth. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or tear out my eyes. This is Dunning-Kruger folks combined with political ideology. Unfortuneately, society is filled with intellectual wannabes like RickA whose views on science overlap with policy because they are polluted by their ultra conservative political views.

It is of no use responding to this level of ignorance. RickA is the kind of guy who would believe in creation theory or intelligent design (knowing the piffle he writes, he probably does) if this in any way had a political dimension that was linked with profit. There are a lot of RickA’s out there with similar kindergarten level understanding of science but who write as if their views are empirically sound. The comments pages of blogs and media outlets are full of them. It doesn’t matter how much evidence accumulates that dismiss their myopic arguments, they will not budge because to do so would knock them off of their political ledge.

The facts are these and they are beyond discussion. The Earth’s surface is warming significantly and well outside of natural forcings. The reason is completely (100%) due to the combustion of fossil fuels by humans combined with other stresses such as land use changes. Of course there is short term variability but we are the culprit, and among the scientific community there is no longer any dispute over that fact. Trying to convince people like RickA of this incontrovertible truth is a waste of time because to accept it means a paradigm shift in their political thinking. Essentially, the planet will have to be in systematic flames before he will acknowledge the truth and of course by then it will be much too late.

Bart Verheggen will give a lecture for a Master’s course I run at the VU University next week and in it he addresses the psychology of the RickA’s of this world. The scientific community, he stresses, is focused on solutions. Causation is no longer on the table. Again, its warming COMPLETELY because of us. This is a hard fact. However, because of the well funded industry of denial, the public debate is miles behind the scientific discussions and is stuck on causation or extent. People like RickA, and again society is full of them, are easily swayed by the deniers because it fits in with their pre-determined ideology. Of course they will deny this because to do so would be to admit bias, but its the truth.

Up until a decade or so ago, any change in the climate was assumed to be caused by nature. This was the null hypothesis (actually it still is the null hypothesis). So the burden is on those who say that 100% or 110% of the warming since 1950 is caused by humans.

Any human effects are going to be laid over the natural effects. But the natural effects are not going to just disappear because humans are emitting a lot of CO2 since 1950. So I see natural changes as still occurring and there is simply no reason for them to have stopped.

So what caused the other 50% of warming – Nature. By which I mean anything non-human. It could be the sun, it could be our magnetic field interacting with charged particles, it could be the heliosphere, it could be volcanic activity (under the sea, under Antarctica). It could be things we haven’t even discovered or thought of yet.

My evidence is the LIA, the MWP and the temperature increase from 1950 to 1940 ish. The temperature swing from the height of the MWP to the bottom of the LIA was almost 1C. All natural (non-human caused I mean).

Also, since I think ECS is 1.8C and not 3.0C, that causes me to subtract almost 1/2 of the warming from 100%. My evidence ECS is 1.8 are the three observationally constrained energy balance studies (two Lewis and Curry studies and one Otto study).

I understand that nobody here agrees with what I am saying or finds my evidence persuasive – but that is the evidence which informs my thinking.

Since the ocean has risen 120 meters in the last 20,000 years, and all of it except for the last 11 inches or so is admittedly caused by nature, and since the high stand was several meters higher during the last interglacial, I don’t see any reason why some portion of the 11 inches isn’t caused by the same trend which caused the 120 meters of rise in the first place. I say 1/2 of the sea level rise since 1880 was caused by nature and 1/2 by humans.

This is what I think. This is honestly what I think. Therefore I cannot be lying about what I think.

Note that I don’t say this is the objective truth of the matter. It is just my opinion (what I think). I could be wrong and I have always admitted this. That is why I say we will have to wait and see.

We have had this conversation before and I have said many of these things to you before. But I repeat them because you asked.

We first encountered each other in 2009, and since 2009 neither of us has changed our opinion about global warming (oops – I mean climate change). That is because the science hasn’t really changed – the ECS range is still 1.5C – 4.5C, so 1.8C is still within the range and therefore physically possible (in my opinion).

I wish we could measure ECS or TCR. I still think it would be interesting to use the global temperature at 560 ppm of CO2 (the doubling point) to estimate TCR and ECS – but we have discussed that many times before and I don’t think anybody will ever agree that this data point will have any meaning. But I wait and will see and will keep reading and trying to learn.

Bernard:
I am not aware of anything wrong with the BEST reconstruction. I think it is a wonderful effort. I really like the scalpel approach rather than homogenization.

I don’t recall having complained about the BEST reconstruction. Do you bring this up for a reason?