> There is a large social penalty for false alarms There is absolutely no social penalty for false alarms of that sort - not so long as the alarm goes in the r

> There is a large social penalty for false alarms There is absolutely no social penalty for false alarms of that sort - not so long as the alarm goes in the right direction. Remember Schneider's "we have to offer up scary scenarios" quote - coming up with alarms (that might be false) is essentially part of the job of environmental activists, even ones who choose to do science for a living. If there were a large social penalty for false alarms, Ehrlich wouldn't have remained credible after all his past prediction failures. (predictions such as: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.") The idea that our "missing heat" is hiding in the deep ocean is still a speculative hypothesis. It could potentially be correct but it's hard to be sure because the data coverage wasn't there until recently. The trend one gets depends on how one does the reanalysis. Curry discusses the question here: http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/21/ocean-heat-content-uncertainties/ http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/21/ocean-heat-content-uncerta... Pointing in particular at this paper (which I've only skimmed so far): http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/OHCA_1950_2011_final.pdf http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/OHCA_1950_2011_fina...