A further riposte from a flat earther

In 1915 Einstein released his Theory of General Relativity which in part predicted that light rays would bend as they passed by a sun. In 1919 a team of researchers led by Sir Arthur Eddington confirmed this prediction by measuring the location of stars during an eclipse. It was this experimental confirmation that established the Theory of General Relativity and Einstein's credibility.

This is what climate change needs; an hypothesis that is proved or disproved by experimental observation. The best attempt at this I have been able to find is in a 2006 report, Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere by the US government's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). According to this report if greenhouses gases are warming the planet, that warming will happen first in the cold blob of air 8-12 km above the tropics. It is freezing cold up there, but it ought to be slightly less freezing cold thanks to greenhouse gases. The report clearly states that all 20-odd climate models predict warming there first-it's the fingerprint of greenhouse gas warming, as opposed to warming by some other cause, like solar magnetic effects, volcanic eruptions, solar irradiance, or ozone depletion etc.

This "hotspot" should have emerged over the period of global warming which occurred from the late 1970s until the end of the twentieth century. But many thousands of radio sonde and satellite measurements from 1979 to 1999 found it did not.

In the words of the 2006 CCSP Report: "In the tropics, most observational data sets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, while almost all model simulations have larger warming aloft than at the surface." In other words, the observations disprove the hypothesis.

The best explanation of this that I have been able to discover is that the increase in humidity does not lead an increased greenhouse gas effect (positive feedback) but increased cloud cover which reduces the sunlight reaching the earth and so has a negative feedback effect.

In our climate, water vapour concentration is closely tied to temperature. A reduction in temperature reduces water vapour concentration, which reduces the effects of clouds more than the greenhouse effect so the temperature goes up. A rise in temperature increases water vapour, which increases the effects of clouds more than the greenhouse effect, and the temperature goes down again.

Look at all the disasters currently being caused by the weather such as the Queensland floods. How can you not believe in Global Warming?

Supposedly the worst floods to hit Australia were the Maitland floods of 1955. Yet these are well before the increases in carbon dioxide. Yet when flooding now occurs in this country the Maitland Floods are never mentioned.

Doing nothing about climate change is reckless

To quote Malcolm Turnbull: " ...this is an exercise in risk management. Given that the consequences of unchecked global warming would be catastrophic, responsible leaders should give the planet the benefit of the doubt. Few of us imagine our house is going to burn down tonight, but most of us will have taken out insurance. So the political or indeed moral issue is not whether you are totally convinced by the climate change thesis, but what you propose to do about it. Being sceptical about climate change is not unreasonable; doing nothing about it is reckless."

A similar argument I have heard is that you adopt Pascal's reason for believing in God, if he does not exist, you lose nothing.

My problem with this view is that the economic costs of the policies being proposed are going to be catastrophic for Australia. It is not a 1% cost. Bob Brown has already stated he wants to close down completely coal mining in Australia. Gillard's riposte that Australia will develop 'clean' coal lacks credibility. One is reminded of Labor Minister Rex Connor who in 1975 wanted to ban the exports of iron ore and natural gas. If he had succeeded, where would Australia be now? What I find amazing is that the trade union leaders, normally so vocal about the protection of jobs, are making no comments.