[Steko]

"What situation would falsify the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"

A rapid unexplained significant decline in global temperatures over a decade despite increasing carbon use would clearly falsify the idea of AGW.

edit: or just a theory that explains global temperature trends better than the current climate models that use anthropogenic carbon emissions. Or data that conclusively overturns the record of recent warming.

[001sky]

...didnt that just happen? check the data post 98

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

[Steko]

"didnt that just happen?"

No. The claim that AGW implies that mean global temperature will increase every single year is a naked straw man.

http://ete.cet.edu/gcc/style/images/uploads/GlobalSurfaceTem...

[refurb]

Ok, but what would need to happen to demonstrate that global warming is not happening? If the warming stopped or reversed over a 5 year period? 10? 20? 50? Never?

[Steko]

"to demonstrate that global warming is not happening? If the warming stopped or reversed"

You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent.

If it's not happening you need better data showing it isn't happening or reasons why the current data is being massively misread.

If, all else being equal[1], global warming is happening and then stopped/reversed without anthropogenic carbon emissions going down then the case for rejecting AGW gets stronger. You'll need a replacement theory/model though. At what point does the new model become more convincing then the current one? Scientific consensus might be a good starting point.

[1] obviously if a bunch of volcanos or nuclear winter are responsible for the cooling that's not going to falsify the ideas behind AGW. For example, cooling in the 1940's.

"5 year period? 10? 20? 50?"

How much reversing are we talking about? We have 100+ years of warming to reverse. The fact that it's hard to easily falsify AGW isn't because AGW is unfalsifiable, it's because the science and data supporting AGW is enormous.

[refurb]

* You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent. *

No need to get hostile. I was referring to two possible outcomes: (1) global warming was never occurring (2) global warming was happening, but for what ever reason stopped or even reversed.

Make sense now?

[001sky]

You can't stop/reverse something that's not happening, that's not even coherent.

You'll need a replacement theory/model though.

Wait, what??

[Steko]

What follows is a brief outline of my post above:

I. points out incoherence. {first he says show it isn't happening, then he assumes it's happening but it stops or reverses}

II. you could show warming is not happening this way (data)

III. if it was warming and then started reversing falsification might happen this way (new theory/model)

IV. additional considerations about falsification