That would be true if not for the restof the story. The rest of the story being a now exposed effort by the IPCC, the leaders of East Anglia, and others like Mann to distort data and trends to create hysteria to further bad science.  The reason for it is simple.  Money and power.  It is not laziness, it was intended with the hope that no on would notice.  Just check out the circular logic of the Amman-Wahl Papers.  They broke every scientific standard in order to promote a cause that has yet to be even observed from a scientific standpoint.

...

I understand what you are trying to say, but that is not what the wattsupwiththat.com article is conveying as plainly shown by the title of the article: "Hiding the Decline in the Future Global Population at Risk of Water Shortage", an exerpt from the article (not out of context):

your link text:

There is a clear distortion of the big picture that is the truth. There is a general portrayal (in that article) that global warming will actually bring more water to the masses that need it and that is simply NOT true.

Furthermore, you are attempting to compare the difficulty in predicting climatic changes that takes thousands if not millions of years (the Sahara) to climatic changes that could happen over the course of the next century. Conversely, you compare it to predicting the weather which is equally untrue. While obviously, it is very difficult to predict where extreme weather patterns will arise, there is still reasonable empirical evidence to show where these extremes may arise and thus place a risk factor on those locations, as Arnell has shown. There is also a lot of trending data that shows what are high probability areas (greater than 90%) that will face extreme water shortages due to global warming.

Secondly, I never claimed that global warming is going to create worldwide droughts, nor did the IPCC claim that. What is claimed is that areas that are facing droughts currently (affecting millions of people) will face even bigger problems as the temperatures increase.

Your second post on this issue differs greatly in the point it attempts to convey compared to your first post with the link to the article. If you were trying to convey a point more similiar to what I've quoted at the top, then you were probably better off not linking to the article to begin with (which is very skewed) and simply stating it. Because, your argument went essentially from claiming that global warming was going to bring more water to the masses (as implied by linking to that article with the link text you chose) to basically claiming that any sort of future predictions on water shortages are shaky at best. That is a great foundation for an argument if you ask me.

Oh, and if you can quote me on where I stated or implied that there was going to be worldwide droughts, I'd like to see it.

Way to state the obvious, have you heard of context?  Now, prove the warming effect after they go off to validate his previous statement that I was responding to.  No, you can't use what he said, it's wrong.  I'll tell him why right away.

While I appreciate that you're making note of it before posting something pointless, you need to realize your mistake and correct the error.

So close, and yet... not.  If you did your research, you'd know that there is no such warming period following any of the recent volcanic activity.  The reason being the gas output is insignificant, momentary, and quickly absorbed back into the system.  It does not stay in the atmosphere.  There's no magic CO2 layer floating up there, it circulates through and absorbs into the oceans and flora.  The rate at which it does so is based on how much of it there is.  When a volcano puts more out there, it gets absorbed faster.  Simple physics, something the climatologists can't seem to grasp for unknown reasons.

The evidence you point to was a massive, five million year long eruption.  The boom was a minor event, cooling the planet.  The following five million years of magma buildup as the crust disappeared would have been all warming.  The effect of CO2 is also vastly insufficient to account for it, despite being a force equal to burning every bit of fossile fuels in existence, today.  The theory is that they've simply under-estimated the forcing effects and that the huge warming period was a result of those forcing effects.  The problem is no such forcing effects are being observed.  Recent warming trends from CO2 increases have been zip, we're actually below normal despite little volcanic activity and high solar output.

Yes, I know, the surface stations say we're really warm and the trees say we were never this warm.  The trees still say we aren't this warm, they are in disagreement.  All the glacial core samples say we've been much warmer, with no change in CO2 to account for it.

You don't consider an ice age to be harmful to humanity?  I realize it's a less immediate concern than southern Florida disappearing under the ocean in a century or two, but doesn't the absurdity of preserving this state of glaciation occur to you?

I wear shorts are thirty below, I shit you not, I've no wish to unthaw the planet.  I laugh mercilessly at you reptiles that can't handle a few flakes without wearing a fur lined parka.  It makes it all the more hilarious that anyone who's looked at the ice core records and seen how utterly fucked civilization is in a few thousand years would be worried by a little warming.

Edit:  Right, I forgot.  To the millions of idiots living in the middle of a desert, bitching about the lack of water.  Fuck you.

Seriously.  If I move to a desert, water a fucking lawn, and then bitch at someone else when there's a water shortage, I want someone to hunt me down and kill me.  I've become too stupid to continue my existence and need removed for my own good.

I guess it is in how you read it.  Clearly what I got from the reading was that while some areas are going to have less water, other areas are going to have more, so in the end, it is a net wash at worse, and probably a net increase as warm air holds more water vapor (that creates clouds that creates rain, etc.).

No, I am just emphasizing the fact that while we can form general conclusions about an object, we cannot form specific ones.  As an example, we can predict with some certainty what a mob of people will do.  However, we cannot predict what an individual will do.  So itis the same with Climate.  They cannot predict now what is going to happen, water wise, one week out for your town, so it is also clear they are not able to predict years out what is going to happen to your town.  That is what Watt is refuting, and you were claiming with yoru reference.

You may not be, but clearly the source you cite is.  That is the gist of the arnell report.

Trying to untangle your paragraph up there is beyond the gordian knot!  Clearly NO ONE is claiming more water for all masses, only that there is not going to be less either.  Beyond that, you probably need to use bullet points as the paragraph is so twisted upon itself as to not make sense.

Just look at the graph.  Do you know what the average annual rainfall is in the Mohave desert?  IN the Napa Valley?  clearly a change of 40% in average rainfall would turn many now normal areas into deserts.  And he did not limit the red spots to one area, but liberally sprinkled them throughout the world - hence world wide.  It is not your graph, you just posted it.  But if you do not believe it, why post it?

So close, and yet not making the connection. As was said, volcanoes do emit CO2, but not a lot as has been studied and shown. My mentioning of the prehistoric eruption that created the Atlantic was to show that an eruption on such a massive scale is what is needed to create the cooling that you claimed in your post. But, the effects of the current low level of volcanic eruptions has very little impact on the climate (as you said). This is shown in the CO2 measurements taken each year. If volcanoes really spewed out a lot of CO2, then we'd see huge spikes in CO2 measurements each year that witnessed a volcanic eruption. But, we don't see that. So (current) volcanoes don't put a lot CO2 in the atmosphere to account for any warming. However, the eruptions that occurred near Greenland was so extreme that is changed the atmospheric composition (as has been discovered in sub-aquatic fossil records by geologists) that is ended up changing the climate (warmer) for 222,000 years.

The problem with skeptics is they attract other skeptics

I'm skeptical of the authenticity of this so-called e-mail hack.

But that bold part is exactly the opposite of Arnell's underlying conclusion and exactly the skew that wattsupwiththat.com puts in the article. It won't be a net wash at worse and there will certainly be extreme water shortages due to global warming. Who cares if Canada is going to receive more rainfall! What about the places that need it like the midwest and Africa?! That does not equal a netwash, sorry to say.

That is not climate, then. Climate does not pertain to week in-week out results.

That is not the gist of the Arnell report nor is that what the IPCC reported. "Worldwide droughts" is very different from "regional water shortages" that are mentioned in the reports. But, that does not make them any less significant.

Basically I was just trying to say that the tone and underlying point that your first post (with the link) made was vastly different from the point that your second (retracting) post made. So much so that it went from claiming that global warming will be beneficial to the worldwide water supply situation to simply stating that any predictions that can be made a simply inaccurate.

I understand what the graph shows and believe (for the most part) in it. But, it certainly doesn't warrant a claim of "worldwide" shortage. At the most there will be vast regional shortages, but like you said, some areas will receive more water. But many of those areas don't need more water. For example, I live in New York and it is shown to be expected to receive more rainfall...but we don't need it. The main areas expected, with enough certainty, to be in short supply of water are the midwestern USA, Northern Africa, South Africa, and parts of Europe. That is hardly worldwide, yet is substantial enough to be a concern.

So, yes I posted it because it backs up my claims pretty efficiently.

Congratulations, you've posted absolutely nothing in disagreement with the cold, hard reality.  The warming effects from five million years of magma build up eroding away a piece of a continent and expelling more CO2 than mankind will ever produce in a short enough length of time to matter is still unexplainable and conflicts with the lack of effect we have now.  Possible lesson learned?  Going from one thousand ppm to one thousand seven hundred ppm might be a really bad idea.  Practical use?  None, we can't even get it to one thousand to begin with.  Never mind that CO2 levels have been over twice that with no such warming trend.  Oh, right, you wouldn't know that because you only looked at the short version of the Vostok core sample.  I'll help you out. 

CO2 levels shot up by oh... a thousand PPM, leveled off around 2200 ppm, and then started dropping all the way down to current levels, gradually.  This all happened in the last two hundred million years.  The temperature on the other hand completely ignored the spike in CO2 and dropped five centigrade at it's peak, staying that way several million years.  It then regained those five degrees after CO2 started declining, maintaining that temperature for another hundred million years or so as we got to our current levels.  Walla, ice age climate ensued.  Correlation between temperature and CO2 levels?  Zip, unless you want to claim that too little causes an ice age.

Next time you try to make a point, use a pencil sharpener.  It's easier than revising your understanding of a subject each time you post because you were wrong in the previous.

I'm skeptical of your skepticism, aren't they admitting the emails are valid?

It is very easy to criticise someone without explaining why or how they are wrong. Your mention of stromatolites only emphasises my point.

Saying that CO2 levels were very high in the past is also meaningless. 200 million years ago the flora and fauna were totally different. They coped well in that environment with high CO2 levels, but that in no way guarentees that we or any other modern organism will.

Also, human activity is totally different to volcanic eruptions. Human activity continually pumps gases into the atmosphere and does so on a worldwide scale. Volcanic eruptions usually are localised, relatively short term and their effects are localised. Furthermore, the forests are being bulldozed, so the ecosystem's ability to take CO2 out of the air is reduced.

And there is no statistical evidence of earthquakes occuring is there? Why do you think that the Japanese build their structures to withstand earthquakes? Furthermore earthquakes cannot be predicted, but that doesn't magically cause the risk to dissapear.

You truly are completely missing the point. If there is no evidence regarding what your actions will do, then a disaster could be anything from certain to unlikely. Doing nothing about it is really stupid.

And the next time you try to blurt out facts that aren't true, use a guillotine.

Scientists don't have any exact measurements of CO2 levels going back to 200 million years. So the fact that you blurt out figures such as 2200ppm is complete BS. In fact, it wasn't until recently (October, 2009) that scientists found a way to go back to 20 million years ago with a new technique that matches up with all the current data we have gathered from today's CO2 levels and from the ice cores. In their research, they found that you had to go back to 15 million years ago since CO2 levels have been this high.

But, the fact that you use exact (or even approximate) figures of PPM shows how full of it you are. They may be able to approximate certain ratios (hence why when going back that far they usually report CO2 levels as RCO2), but you can't claim with any evidence of certainty PPM.

Furthermore, I am not saying that CO2 levels weren't that high in the past. They most likely were. But, the Earth was also dramatically different then as well. Because at that point in time there was no permanant ice caps in the Arctic as well as sea levels being much much higher than they are today.

Also, the atmospheric composition was also dramatically different as well. In fact, one of the reasons why they believe dinosaurs got so big was because there was so much oxygen in the atmosphere than compared with today. Because of the dramatic difference in the atmospheric composition 200 million years ago than compared with today, then you can't make any comparisons between the relationship of CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere way back then and what it is like today. Understand that?

Finally, I just wanted to say that I haven't not gone back or retracted statements like you said I have (about the volcanoes). Let's look at the timeline, shall we?

-Dr Guy mentions volcanoes putting CO2 into the atmosphere.

-You chime in and say, "oh and just look how those volcanoes cooled the Earth so nicely."

-JuleTron and I both call you out and explain elegantly how you were wrong and how volcanoes while at first cool, extreme cases of volcanism have actually shown to warm the Earth.

-You then further chime in to try and uncorrelate CO2 and temperature by saying how recent volcanic activity has not caused any such increase in temperature.

-I then explain to you how recent volcanic activity has not put much CO2 into the atmosphere as made clear by the fact that there are no spikes in our CO2 measurements during years that volcanoes went off. Thus, the correlation between CO2 and temperature still stands.

Did that sum up things pretty clearly for you? Now where along that timeline did I retract my statements?...I didn't think so.

You're conveniently leaving out your post inbetween there.

Really?  I thought you were ignoring that you replied to a statement on less than prehistoric volcanos and then pretended you knew what you were talking about by finding an instance that fit your original, misleading statement?  I like how you describe your posts as elegant.  I find mine insulting.  Do you think perhaps you have a problem with honesty?

Somehow, I think your main problem is reading comprehension.  The rise in temperatures from the rise in CO2 according to your volcano example, were between four and six times as high as expected.  The rise in temperature from the modern increase in CO2 has been negligible, well below predictions.  Do you get the difference between what I just said and what you think I said?  You should apply full brain power to complicated tasks like reading complete sentences.  If that's still not enough, I don't know what to say.

Now if only you were right.  The lack of recent spikes in CO2 to account for all the recent warming periods has completely negated any cause to consider the current warming trend other than typical and unrelated to CO2.  As you keep blowing your horn about how CO2 levels are higher than ever, you should at least know that temperatures are no such thing.  They go up and down every thirty years or so, and there are some much sharper spikes, and much higher, just over the last few thousand years.  The correlation between CO2 and temperature is zip.

Please tell me this was an intentionally stupid post?  You were being funny right?

I hoped that you wouldn't need to ask. Of course, I did a feeble imitation of the stupidity of your post. Maybe thats why it wasn't so obvious.

Where is one of the key CO2 measuring stations in the world...........................................

Give up?  Mt. Kilauea.  And what volcano has been errupting for the last 30 years?...........................................................

Give up?  Mt. Kilauea.  Coincidence?

Clonmac:

See, there is that disconnect.  For some reason, AGW supposes that the heated earth is going to "boil off the water" and it is going to leave the eco system.  How?  The truth is the net effect is not going to change as the water is not going to leave the planet, just move around (which it has done since the beginning of time).  That is what Watt is stating and Arnell never explains.

Weather creates climate.  If you cannot predict what one aspect of weather will do, how can you predict what climate will do in that aspect?  Clearly you cannot.  They say that after a year, weather becomes climate.  So show me where the doughts will be next year.  Cant?  No one can, and we are to believe that faulty data and bad science is going to show us where they are in 50 years?

Which just goes back to bad science and faulty data.  Relying on either to prove a point (as Mann, Briffa, pachauri, Jones, Schmidt, Amman, Wahl, hansen, et. al. do ) basically nullifies your claim.  By pure luck your claim may not be invalid, but using flawed data and science does not support a claim.

You mean this one that I made?

"Agreed, but my comment was in regards to AGW. We were discussing the morals of our excess emissions and so I was strictly referring to as it pertained to AGW. No doubt nature has put tons of CO2 into the atmosphere via volcanic activity. There has also been huge climate swings due to such activity as well."

Ok, what about it? I never said any examples and then in my very next post I gave the example that I was talking about which was the prehistoric one that opened the Atlantic. There were also other notable extreme eruptions similiar to that millions of years ago. Did you have a point you wanted to make about me leaving that one out? My point still stands. The difference between you and I is that I make points with my statements as opposed to you who just tries to pull stuff out of your butt to counter my points.
 

You find yours insulting? lol, ok, we finally agree on something, haha. I didn't ignore that I commented on modern era volcanic eruptions. In fact, I explained those quite perfectly that you've even commented on. Short term memory loss on your part perhaps?
 

You like to jump all around and make completely misguided conclusions don't you? Yes, the volcano example I mentioned was an extreme case that I mentioned simply to prove my point. I had to mention an extreme case (when it comes to volcanoes) because volcanoes to output that much CO2.

Then you go from volcanoes to concluding that the current rise in CO2 has caused negligible temperature rise. As has been said a ton of times before in this thread, temperatures don't change immediately on Earth. It is a process called thermal inertia. Think of gripping a really hot pot with a not so great potholder. You are fine for the first few seconds and then it starts to get hotter and hotter until you have to let go. The planet is the same way. CO2 in the atmosphere is appling heat and a heat energy imbalance to the planet and it will take a few years for that heat to show in surface temperatures and radiate through the ocean as well.

Yes, temperatures have not yet hit anything dramatic (historically speaking), but they have been going up steadily since the increased CO2 output since the industrial revolution. You mention it goes up and down every 30 years which is a completely skewing of the actual truth. Sure it will drop a tenth of a degree over 5 years or level off for another 5 years here and there. But, you need to look at the trend which is very obvious. As was said, temperature variability is caused by many things. So the fact that it will go down slightly over a 5 year period or level off over a decade does not change the overall trend.

And yes, there have been much larger spikes over the last several thousand years. For example at the end of each ice age. Natural processes cause ice ages to end (such as the Milankovitch cycle), but as the ice melted and oceans warm, CO2 is released into the atmosphere and acts as a catalyst to the warmer and spikes the temperatures on earth. They is why historically and the end of ice ages, the temperatures spikes as you've seen.

I have a reading comprehension problem? What did I misread? Was it this statement?

You're right, the gas output is insignificant from recent volcanic activity (as I stated in my post). But, it actually does stay in the atmosphere. CO2 that gets turned into gas and is released into the atmosphere stays in the atmosphere for up to 200 years. That is hardly "quickly absorbed" back into the system. Do you have a point with any of your sentences?

Arnell nor I ever claimed to say that water was going to leave the atmosphere. We are essentially talking about 2 different things. The article, Arnell, and I are all talking in relation to how global warming will effect the population. But, I think you are simply referring to how water will be dispersed period. Of course there will not be any more or less water as far as we're concerned. It will all go somewhere. But, Arnell's whole entire theme is how it will impact humanity. In that respect it will NOT be a net wash. Because population is not dispersed according to how the planet is going to distribute water. So I agree with you in the sense that the water has to go somewhere. But, it isn't going to go to the places that need it.

Also, I agree that we cannot determine where exactly those droughts will happen. But, they've been able to place risk factors on specific regions that have a high probability of being affected.

To Clonmac: (cause the forum is broken for me and i cannot quote ):

i would not operate much with Milankovitch cycles and their influence on ice ages, cause it is incomplete theory....just like AGW...

Well insert which ever theory into those parentheses you want to use to which triggered the end of an ice age. My point of the sentence I was trying to make still is conveyed for whatever theory you want to use.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/01/nasa-2009-tied-for-2nd-warmest-year-00s-hottest-decade-too.ars

Article title says it all.  00's hottest decade, and 2009 warmest year.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/01/nasa-2009-tied-for-2nd-warmest-year-00s-hottest-decade-too.ars

Article title says it all.  00's hottest decade, and 2009 warmest year.

OK.

That article says nothing.  It's based on the manipulated surface station data, which is proven to be bullshit.

The satellite data proves it's bullshit.  Get over it already.  1998 smoked the entire decade like a cheap cigar, none of them are even close to matching that temperature spike.

Clonmac, Juletron, both of you are too stupid to bother with.  It's bad enough arguing with idiots that can't accept the surface station data being wrong, I have zero interest in arguing with idiots that can't even read.  Have fun with your delusions.

You have no idea what I was saying. You clearly didn't even read anything that I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything regarding surface station data. Nowhere did I say "AGW is correct" or even "AGW is wrong". Nowhere did I take sides with clonmac on any issue. You also need to take context into account.