Professor Anastasios Tsonis replies plus comments (open letter 3)

{Last edited Friday 9:00pm}

Introduction:

I finished this about a week ago and shared it with some pen pals who are within the climate science community (which includes students and researchers and many other specialties besides "scientist").  I admit, I received little positive feedback.  Instead, I received admonishments about my approach being confrontational, even hostile.  For example:

"My advice when emailing Prof. Tsonis is to be as polite and gracious as possible, and to have a completely neutral, non-confrontational and friendly tone" and "The trick is to keep Dr. Tsonis engaged on good terms so that you/we can understand what the heck he actually thinks/understands."

To the second, I would reply, Dr. Tsonis third email does a thorough job of describing what he actually understands and thinks.

To the first one... what can I say.  I am not some student trying to get in the good graces of a professor.  I am a 58 year old adult who has been watching this Global Warming "dialogue" since the early 1970s!  At my most pompous the title "A Citizen's Indictment" comes to mind, because that's how I feel.

But, more down to Earth and realistic, this is about me trying (to the best of my limited abilities) to describe some of the mechanisms that have been used to so completely misdirect this global warming/climate change dialogue into counter-productive dog-chasing-tail dead-ends - that our children will have to pay for.

Right-wing "think-tank" strategies have forced climate scientists to achieve ever higher and more unrealistic standards of "proof" before anyone of their "preliminary findings" are allowed any real world legitimacy.  
And that is plainly counter-productive.

The success of all the misdirection is appalling and this is my effort to help confront it.  These are memes for the broadcasting...

I have no malice towards Dr. Tsonis, in fact, I suspect if we crossed paths under different circumstances we might actually enjoy each other and benefit from the interaction.  But, this is the virtual internet-world, and I only know the character in the blog quotes and the dishonest things others are claiming in his name - plus his own devious replies to my straight forward questions. 

I hope someone out there might be able to do something with the following.

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Professor Anastasios Tsonis A Critical Review of Claims (open letter 3)

After posting "Professor Anastasios Tsonis: The Art Of Misdirection (open letter 2)"  Professor Tsonis sent me a much more informative letter.  I appreciate him taking the time to do that since I found his first replies disappointingly superficial.  To be clear my issue is not with Professor Tsonis the scientist who has published many interesting studies.  The problem I have is with his selective public commentary which leaves a layperson with a completely contorted and inadequate understanding of what we are collectively doing to our planet's global climate system.

I am reproducing Professor Tsonis's letter (in courier font) complete and untouched except for breaking up paragraphs in order to intersperse my commentary explaining my issues with the professor's words and the impression they project.  Since I will be posting this at my blog I have inserted many links and references to authoritative sources that have helped form my understanding and that support the claims I make.

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Open letter to Professor Anastasios Tsonis: Are you serious?

{I'm just a working guy and writing is a hobby so to speak, so please excuse the rough edges. 
But some of these issues and deceptive practices need to be exposed.
As for the writing I hope this evening's edits have helped a bit.   9/20/2013}
Also see  Prof. Anastasios Tsonis: The Art Of Misdirection (open letter 2)
Professor Anastasios Tsonis replies plus comments (open letter 3)
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I would like to share the following open letter.

Professor Anastasios Tsonis,

We have exchanged a few emails and I must say I am very disappointed by your evasion.  A couple fundamental questions regarding the general scientific understanding of Earth's geophysical processes and you turn silent as a salt pillar.  

While our email exchange has taught me nothing about global warming, it has given me another insight into the perplexing mind of your typical denialist type.

It all started with a pal waiving a quote of yours in my face: "We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped."

When I investigated I discovered that you were considered a distinguished professor in your field.  That's when I decided to write you and ask about the statement.  In truth, I was expecting a bit of explanation that would reveal that your words were taken out of context and that they did not actually mean you believed our planet's warming trend had reversed itself.

Just in case I was wrong, I included these questions:

          "Weren't the 2000s the warmest decade on record?"

          "Where does that claim leave the matter of 'greenhouse gases' and the imbalance in Earth's radiative budget?"

          "What about the heat that is being absorbed by the oceans?"
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To my surprise you acknowledged the quote and it's implication that greenhouse gas driven global warming had actually stopped and reversed itself.

To my first question, you suggested the top of the mountain is always the highest point and that it means nothing, since we are now going down the other side.  - Sort of weird logic... if the warming of the 80s, 90s stopped - how can the 2000s be warmer than the "top of the mountain" 90s?  {Sounds like a variation on that denier's optical illusion know as the "global temperature escalator" }

You altogether ignored the question regarding our planet's radiation budget imbalance: "I don't have a comment on this. It's an open question"

To the third question, about the increasing heat being stored in the oceans, you reply "it is another argument without solid proof."  

I guess here we can go into a philosophical discussion regarding "solid proof".  I mean, it can be argued that there is no "solid proof" the sun will rise tomorrow morning, either.  

In my email, I politely asked for a more detailed response, you said you were too busy to answer any such questions.  But, that doesn't seem to be stopping you from going around making claims that can only be interpreted as denying the basics of well known GHG geophysical facts!  You compound the impression of deceit by denying ARGO deep ocean observations.  Not to mention that you are ignoring our planet's cryosphere observations.

HOW can you justify ignoring such huge chunks of fundamental evidence and understanding?