The OP linked to a Guardian article which referenced a Journal of Climate article published in May 2016 that claimed to correct RSS data, link here.

Now you link to an article in a different journal that does not mention RSS data

That link was the second link OP had posted, I assume the "nope" was because that wasn't a rehash of the RSS discussion from 2016, as you suggested.

One Swiss scientist seems to believe that CO2 isn't the main driver for climate change.

Infrared absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide

Nobody has ever been able to demonstrate the simple correlation between "greenhouse effect" of CO2 and global temperatures in a laboratory.
The theory is simply based on correlation, not causation.

Until there is solid experimental proof then everybody is free to come up with alternative theories.

This scientist is claiming that the increase in global temperatures due to increasing CO2 concentrations is much lower than others estimate. He writes a convincing case but all theoretical; no experimental proofs.

He does not make any claim about "CO2 isn't the main driver for climate change" and his view sounds better than the ever more complex theories about deep ocean temperature absorption.

That is a word document, it hasn't been published or even peer-reviewed. The author is also not a climate science researcher, but rather a retired professor who used to work in opto-electronics with a PhD in the area of advanced electronics. The latter is not the most relevant reason to not give much weight to "paper", I'd rather see the review comments of publishing climate scientists and physicists. But again, not peer-reviewed.

I'm not sure what "proof" might exist that you find satisfying, there are numerous studies showing the absorption rates of infrared radiation by CO2 in the laboratory. Is your argument that extrapolating this to the atmosphere is inappropriate? Maybe you take issue with "causation" not being determined, which i suppose is why you used the word "proof" instead of evidence. The short answer is that scientists seldom work in absolutes (mathematicians do, hence proof vs evidence), which is why these things are assigned likelihoods and probabilities. By your logic we would need to purposely pump x amount of CO2 into the atmosphere and measure the resulting change in temperature. Since such a ridiculous scenario won't come about, the best scientists do is provide estimates of the amount of CO2 released through human activity and try to account for other natural releases and cycles to determine the likelihood of what is driving the observed pattern of temperature increase.

It is somewhat ignorant to say that anyone's guess is as good as all others, or you would have to allow for my uncle's assertion that the warming is due to the atomic bombs north Korea has been setting off next to the earth's mantle.

Wrong. The theory is based on physics, however the complexity of an atmospheric system makes experimental proof extraordinarily difficult.

The planet as a whole is having a pretty good go at it though.

"there are numerous studies showing the absorption rates of infrared radiation by CO2 in the laboratory" I quote from the mentioned link "Its [CO2] rotational-vibrational absorption properties play a crucial role in quantifying its effectiveness as a greenhouse gas. This fact appears to be often overlooked, as the discussion is usually restricted to a few dominant absorption lines." Whether this is correct or gobbledegook I do not know, maybe you do?

"Is your argument that extrapolating this to the atmosphere is inappropriate?" No, my argument is that the exact rate of global warming due to the absorption rates of infrared radiation by CO2 is uncertain, not that the absorption rates of infrared radiation by CO2 does not exist?

"Maybe you take issue with "causation" not being determined, which i suppose is why you used the word "proof" instead of evidence." Not really, I use the word proof because the usual statement about global warming is an increase of CO2 by x ppm gives a global warming increase of yC which seems to me to be a mathematical relationship?
If you wish to assert the rate of increase due to increase in CO2 is unknown then that is OK with me

"By your logic we would need to purposely pump x amount of CO2 into the atmosphere" No, I wrote "in a laboratory".

"It is somewhat ignorant to say that anyone's guess is as good as all others" I suppose that is something like what they said to the Swiss railway official who invented the Theory of Relativity. Of course his theory stood up to peer reviews, laboratory experiments and more but likely your Uncle's theory will not?

On the topic of the master
I suppose he should have written evidence?

Well no Einstein didn't actually say that, since it was a paraphrase of a translation.

'The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe," and in the great majority of cases simply "No." If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe," and if it does not agree it means "No." Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"—most theories, soon after conception.' [My emphasis]

So the point being that you can only really get a maybe from evidence rather than a specific proof.

Climate change not as threatening to planet as previously thought, new research suggests.

The new research was published as the Met Office announced that a “slowdown” in the rate of global temperature rises reported over roughly the first decade of this century was now over.

The organisation said the slowdown in rising air temperatures between 1999 and 2014 happened as a result of a natural cycle in the Pacific, which led to the ocean circulation speeding up, causing it to pull heat down in the deeper ocean away from the atmosphere.

Source

Here's the last few sentences of the abstract from Nature Geoscience, which the Telegraph article you cited conveniently forgot to mention:

The Paris agreement is not nearly enough, they claim.

Global temperatures sliding down again.

September 2017 was colder than September 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Source

Here are the temperatures for the whole of 2017 (the black blobs) compared with those of every other year since 1880.



You can see that for most of this year, the temperatures have been the 2nd highest of all time. Only 2016 has been hotter. Describing September 2017's temperature as "sliding down" compared to the historic upward trend looks excessively optimistic to me .

" the temperatures have been the 2nd highest of all time" Not of all time; just of the last 140 years.

I agree that for most of this year, the temperatures have been the 2nd highest for the period quoted. But September was only the 4th highest....
Maybe it is optimistic to say "temperature are "sliding down""; time will tell!

If the age of the earth was 24 hours, man's time here would be 3 seconds. What would 1880 to 2017 be??

Sorry, I should have said "highest recorded", since reliable estimates using thermometers did not exist before 1880. However, I could have said it, if you are prepared to accept "proxies", for a thermometer, like tree rings. But you know, you can't be too careful with those evil scientists whose aim is to bring down civilisation as we know it...

We have so much other evidence of climate change that I find it impossible to refute it.

Going back, we have the Dickensian vision of a snow covered Christmas landscape, which was common during the 'little ice age'. Going forward, we have rural ways of life being destroyed by weather changes. Tourist destinations that won't exist in a decade or two. New species that are under threat.

Last weekend, I watched Simon Reeve's 'Russia' series back to back. I'm a travel geek and have a considerable crush on the presenter (Phwoarrr!) Now this was not a series about climate change, but time and again, that factor was raised by the people interviewed. I'm still gobsmacked by the Batagaika crater which was featured.

Here is a temperature graph over the last ca. half million years based on ice cores which seem to provide reasonable results.

There are some objections to tree rings as a source;

• Trees do not grow in winter!
• There were only few Bristlecone pines used in the studies so are the results statistically significant because there are many external factors other than temperature that effect growth?
• The divergence problem where in recent times the rings did not accord with the expectations based on actual accurate temperature records

Myself I started my career as a physicist so I do not believe all scientists are evil; not much more than the general population anyway

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Opposition to the consensus opinion of climate scientists at this point really seems like it sits in the domains of psychology and sociology.

It seems that many people argue about climate change in the abstract, and only really hold their strong positions by virtue of the psychological force of not wanting to admit they are wrong.

It is ironic that one of the psychological points used by those who deny the reality of climate change is that everyone else is gullible and have bought into a big lie. But why are they themselves not susceptible to the lies? Because they are smart, they are superior, they possess qualities that most other people do not have. The reason they can't accept having been wrong is that their self-esteem is now tied to their position.

They were susceptible to a big lie because they wanted to be special, they wanted to be smarter than the rest of the herd. So, not only was this not true, they fell for a lie that "lesser minds" didn't buy. Or at least that is what they would face if they were to change their minds.

Within that structure, things lose their definition and become strawmen.

Who in this thread has opposed the consensus opinion of climate scientists?