Richard: “However, there is no evidence (n.b. none, not any of any kind) for significant influence of recent increase of CO2 on climate.”
The evidence is the increasing concentrations of heat-retaining CO2 correlating with increasing temperatures. What other evidence do you have in mind?
“One of many major faults of the GCMs’ predictions of future climate is that they cannot predict the El Nino and La Nino phases of ENSO in future years and decades.”
That’s because ENSO-type events are not directly relevant to global warming, since the ENSO only redistributes the existing energy within the climate system. And since the ENSO is a short-term event, there is no need to make predictions for any specific event to make general forecasts or scenarios for the future.
In the same way, although we cannot precisely predict the temperature in any specific week in spring, we can be reasonably confident that overall temperatures will increase over time.
“Please try to be skeptical when considering all these matters. Just as few climate data are trustworthy, few of the most well-funded data sources can be trusted, either.”
I believe that I have approached this subject with an open mind. But the reality remains that my understanding is at the level that I flatter myself is that of the ‘intelligent layperson’. That means that I cannot realistically appraise scientific reports and must rely on the appraisals of others.
Ultimately, it comes down to whom I am prepared to believe, although as I said earlier I can realistically make informed judgments about matters of fact and logic, using my own ‘proxies’. For example, the preface to the Heartland Institute report suggests that there is a worldwide conspiracy of activist scientists and governments to foist AGW theory on an unsuspecting public for the purposes of amassing wealth and power. Not only is this highly unlikely, it also poisons the well and inevitably colours the evidence that follows.
Another example is your claim that the IPCC has “dropped” Mann’s hockey stick. This is not the case, as evidenced by the latest report. Like the 1998 claim, the term “dropped” may not be exactly false, since the hockey stick has a less prominent place in the report than previously, but it is certainly misleading.
Similarly, the sceptic claim that ‘anthropogenic global warming stopped in 1998’ is also subtly misleading, not just due to the cherry-pick, but also because many claimants reject AGW. In that case, any claim that AGW stopped in 1998 is for these people not a scientific claim, but in fact a political one, even if ironic.
These sorts of subtle misdirections can be more destructive to reasoned debate than outright falsehoods.
