Actually, events have overtaken this post, which was written in 2008. Since then we’ve learned, via no less a source than Phil Jones, former head of the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University, that there has been no “statistically significant” warming since 1998, and some cooling since 2002 (although he says it’s not statistically significant–apparently, for Jones, nothing but warming can be statistically significant).

A gadget on the NOAA website shows cooling, on average, in the continental U.S. since 1997 (see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html). In general, temperatures in the U.S. mirror global temperatures, in part because the U.S. has the best temperature record. The temperature claims in this post, however, are not for the U.S., as you state, but the global record as recorded by the Hadley institute (HADCRUT).

In other words, there’s been no warming, on average in 12 years. During this whole time, the public has been bludgeoned with fears about warming—the 2007 IPCC report even declared that the warming in the 21st century was “unequivocal”— when no warming has occurred.

You are right that the planet is cooling because of a lack of solar activity and, although you don’t mention it, a cooling of the Pacific Ocean is also involved. In other words, natural variation has overwhelmed carbon dioxide (and definitely overwhelmed anthropogenic carbon dioxide) as a source of temperature change. When the solar activity returns, and the PDO goes into its warm cycle, the planet will warm again. No humans need apply.

On a decadal scale, the earth was a bit warmer than today during the 1930s, and the 21st century is slightly cooler than the 1990s.

As for carbon dioxide saturation (the myth you mention): even alarmist climatologist William Ruddiman (and many others) acknowledges that the warming effect of additional carbon dioxide decreases logarithmically. So, Ruddiman has written: “Earth’s temperature reacts strongly to small changes in CO2 values at the lower end of the range (less than 200 ppm), but changes much less at the high end of the range (greater than 800 ppm).”

We are well past the point where additional carbon dioxide will cause more than minimal additional warming, perhaps a degree or two Celsius, not more. Which is pretty much what the current climate record is telling us (no warming, despite additional CO2). I’d say it’s illogical to argue that we are facing “oblivion” if we add more CO2. Other factors are far more important.

I am a scientist. It appears to me that you are not objective. You are trying to ‘prove’ your thesis, and are cherry-picking data (e.g. showing temperature data for North America and not global temperature, when there has been localised abnormally cool conditions going against the global trends; repeating the myth that additional greenhouse gases will not absorb any more heat; and rerunning may other theories that have been tested and found to not explain warming as well as the AGW thesis.). According to your logic, there was ‘cooling’ during the early 1990s (similar to now - there were some cooler years and people who don’t understand statistics - like yourself - could have claimed a cooling trend). Answer this - how much ‘cooler’ is Earth today compared to 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990?

I hope you are right about AGW, but to imply that there is ‘no evidence’ is frankly deceptive and shows a lack of impartiality. As I see it: Greenhouse gases cause warming. Increasing these will result in some warming and some climate change. There is risk that doubling or trebling pre-industrial levels will result in catastrophic climate change. Prudent risk management is to show caution until we better understand how much impact there will be. Short term ‘cooling’/slowing in the warming trend during a period of very low solar/sun spot activity and increased dimming smog throughout China, India, SE Asia does not ‘disprove’ the risk.

You want to sell a book - and you will not let logic get in the way. But for the sake of the future don’t try to claim an objectivity.

I find the same frustration with this kind of argument that, I guess, global warming believers feel when skeptics like myself challenge them on whether warming is human-caused or not. It is true that the record shows warming or cooling depending on when you start the series. If you start in 2001, you get no warming, on average. If you start earlier, you get warming.

The key thing, for me, is that not one of the IPCC models predicted the current non-warming, even though they must have been aware at the very least of the alternating cooling and warming of the Pacific and Atlantic currents, and perhaps the reduction of solar activity, too. Why don’t the models show cooling, then? They do, actually, but only if the anthropogenic influence is removed. In other words, the models are overestimating the human influence, which is what most skeptics believe. We don’t believe that warming has stopped–we’re in an interglacial, after all, which means overall the planet is warming. And thank heavens it is; the alternative is cooling. Warming doesn’t mean humans are principally at fault, although we may be contributing slightly.

As for the NASA figures: this site is run by James Hansen, and the Goddard temperature figures are consistently higher than the other three climate auditing institutes (UAH, RSS and Hadley). I don’t think Hansen is a trustworthy guide to what’s happening with the climate, given his extreme political position on the topic.

Even RealClimate has admitted that the planet hasn’t warmed, on average, for the past 10 years. But you can find definitive proof, I think, in the East Anglia University CRU emails. What they are about is non-warming (or, as Stephen Schneider calls it, 10 years of “stasis”), and how they can keep the public from finding out (”hide the decline”).

The emails also reveal a pattern of trying to suppress alternative points of view (if the AGW view is correct, there’s no need to suppress other points of view–they will be obviously wrong) and of fixing the data to show warming. There’s no reason to believe Goddard isn’t doing the same–it’s all the same gang (Schneider, Mann, Trenberth, etc.).

I could be wrong, of course, but at least I’m not deliberately trying to deceive the public….

Paul

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=175

All of you should read “State of Fear” by michael chrichton.

And that tropical forests were generating more CO2 than transforming it into oxygen, which would disqualify them as the planet’s ultimate lungs.