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Incidentally, if I had wanted to cherry pick I could have shown a rise from -0.6 to 0.6 in just 13 years (1985-1998). If I had wanted to cherry pick the other way your example above of picking 1998 as a start date would be a worth investigating. Both of these are obviously nonsense. It is the long term trend that we should be looking at rather than the year to year variance. This is what was chosen in my woodfortrees.org link.

Here is a graph of global temperatures using skeptic Roy Spencer's satellite reconstruction: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah-land/trend

Temperatures have gone from -0.25 to 0.25 since 1980. That is 0.5C in 30 years or 0.16C/decade. Even at the current rate the 1.6C added this century will push us over the 2C tipping point that we are trying to avoid. Even at the current rate the added 1.6C would put us right in the middle of the IPCC B1 scenario of 1.1 – 2.9C (with best estimate of 1.8) by the end of the century. - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html

You can use woodfortrees.org to plot various climate indexes. For example, here is solar activity plotted against global temperatures. There is very good agreement between the two from 1850-1980. Since then they have gone in opposite directions: woodfortrees.org

You might have fun at Wood for Trees , comparing the different temperature records against each other can be enlightening.

One of the things that is present today that wasn't present more than 30 years ago, is a variety of earth-oriented satellites that can do things like actually measure global mean temperature.

Well, no. We can infer the temperature from satellite measurements but not directly measure it.

And... here are the results:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/trend

Funny, the satellites give the same answer as those nasty CRU guys.

I've actually taught calculus. And you obviously should start learning some statistics. Your graph is simply statistically insignificant - it shows only noise. If you use a smoothed graph - you'll get rising temperatures. Try that graph: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:120/from:1960/to:2012

As you see, this graph shows that temperature most definitely has NOT stopped rising - the trend continues nicely. And your graph misses the last several hot years.

Have you ever studied calculus? Are you familiar with the concept of the slope of a curve? What you are saying is mathematically incorrect if you actually look at the data.

You are actually (quite incorrectly, I will assume due to ignorance ) falsely asserting that the rate of temperature increase is increasing. Astonishing. I can only assume you are completely ignorant of basic mathematics, or are ignorant of the datasets.

It is true that this decreased rate of increase may be ultimately statistically insignificant over a century (or even a thirty) year trend. But that is not the core of what you are falsely asserting. To claim that it is not observable within the confines of the 11-year solar cycle is simply to destroy your credibility.

I invite you to peruse woodfortrees.org, where you can look for yourself. Look at the HADCRUT3 dataset, the one most commonly used by climate scientists. Choose global mean, or global mean variance adjusted as I have below.

Here, for example we see a 32-year plot. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/from:1980/to:2012

You are certainly entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Something odd appears to have happened, resulting in a nearly flat slope in a very warm world. Claim all you wish that in fact the trend is accelerating; the data do not bear this out. You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.

Presumably you think Phil Jones was incorrect or even lying when he said to the BBC that there had been no statistically significant global warming in the last decade.

As to interpretation, I suspect warming will resume its upward trend and ultimately, in a 100 year trendline the events of the last 10-12 years may disappear, and simply become artifacts. Time will tell.

You could have argued this, and I'd have provisionally agreed with you. Instead you chose to assert something absolutely nonsensical, and, to compound your error, falsely and ignorantly accused me of being wrong. Good grief.

-Holmwood

There's no "higher trending" since 2004.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2004/to:2012

The graph you link to lacks error bars. Very unscientific.

Don't waste your time arguing why I'm wrong or stupid, just go download that data and draw it for yourself. I dare you.

If you're just drawing straight lines don't bother downloading the data, just head on over to wood for trees.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2012/trend

It doesn't matter what causes ENSO when ENSO can't cause the recent warming

You don't think ocean temperatures can cause warming?

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012

Really?

And if you take pretty much the same data, over time, and show when the sunspot activity grew & shrank, I bet you would show that the temperature rise pretty much is spot on with the rise in geomagnetic activity from the sun

How much do you want to bet?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1975/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:2012/scale:400

Figure 6 predicts a 0.45 degrees Celsius rise from 1979 to 2012, which matches well with the Wood For Trees global temperature index. However, Figure 6 does not predict that all of that rise will occur prior to 1998, with a flat-to-falling trend since then. Indeed, since the model has an exponential behavior (due to feedback/"sensitivity", I'm guessing), it actually shows quite the opposite behavior, with very little rise early in the period, followed by a much greater (linearly-approximated) slope in the last decade. The conclusion is that this model got very lucky this year, and does not well reflect the underlying physics.

The greenhouse effect is real, the earth has warmed over the past 30 years (though not much, if at all, over the last 13), and human behavior may be contributing to this warming by contributing slightly to the greenhouse effect. However the model presented in this paper is not a good explanation for the details of this process, and therefore cannot be relied on to estimate the magnitude of AGW. It therefore has no value as a policy tool, never mind that it has nothing to say about the economic costs of proposed policy solutions (or even its hypothesized environmental impacts).

Fiddling with the cloud feedback also does not eliminate the prediction of serious global warming that is likely to cause financial and human costs that far exceed the cost of mitigation.

Cite some numbers here - if we continue at 0.1C/century warming, why should we assume any sort of catastrophe? Did the world become more catastrophic over the past 100 years where we've experienced that?

So in your mind, there are no physical mechanisms responsible for "natural" climate change that could be studied and mathematically modeled.

Oh, certainly there are physical mechanisms for natural climate change, but I don't have to model them in order for them to be true. The simply *are*. Did electricity exist before we modeled it? Did chemistry exist before we modeled it? Did plate tectonics exist before we modeled it?

Of course it did. And so does natural climate change. Surely you don't deny that, do you?

So if somebody tells me that they believe that the modern warming is due to something other than CO2 ("cloud feedback" for example) and I ask them, "Have you checked your work mathematically? Is your theory consistent with known data?"

Sure we've checked it mathematically - we've got indistinguishable periods of 50 years of warming, one of which is asserted to be "natural" and the other asserted to be due to human CO2. There is no discernible difference, ergo, we have no strong assertion that the 50 year period we'd like to assert as due to human CO2 was anything but the natural course of events. Since things aren't unprecedented, there's no reason to assume that suddenly things happened in the same way for different reasons.

I'd be more convinced if you'd checked your work, and shown mathematically that it was possible to develop a physical model in which CO2 is not a strong climate driver, without losing consistency with the known climate data.

Again, you seem to believe that a flawed, falsified model must be believed in the absence of another mathematical model. This isn't how science works - you don't need to prove something else right in order to prove a hypothesis wrong. I'd be more convinced if the known climate data of the modern CO2 emitting era was unique in the historical climate record - but it isn't.

The sun rises and sets because of the rotation of the earth. But now you want me to believe that the sun rise of April 2, 2012 actually had a different cause? Color me skeptical :)

So first we have a straw man--no scientist has claimed that modern temperature records are unprecedented, only that the natural causes that have produced high temperatures in the past are not present today.

Okay, so let's take this slowly - you agree that modern temperature records aren't unprecedented, and that from a trivial examination of the past climate, we can see this has happened before.

Convince me. Find five periods of historical temperature change within say, the past 100,000 years, that match the historical temperature changes we've observed over the past 50 years. Now explain exactly all the natural factors that caused those past five periods of variation, and compare to the past 50 years.

Go!

When examined over the period of time that statistical analysis indicates is necessary to be able to reliably detect the trend expected from global warming, it is highly significant.

I'll argue that the period of time necessary is 100,000 years. How many years do you want to assert? 5? 10? Maybe 18 years?

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1998/to:2012/normalise

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1998/to:2012/normalise

Are you ready to accept your theory has been falsified, now that you've been presented with the falsification you asked for?

but, if the world DOESN'T warm up then it has been falsified. Sure you have to give a set time like, if the world is colder one day that doesn't prove anything, but if the world just doesn't warm up according to predictions for a long time then obviously something's wrong.

How long? 1 year? 5 years? 14 years? http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2012/trend

I'll assert something is wrong *right now*. Now, what kind of excuse are you going to use to explain away 14 years of cooling?

That's the whole damn problem! We're right now in a part of the solar cycle where we *should* be getting cooling, and we're seeing warming instead.

Look here - the relatively flat solar activity, vs the rising temperatures... Something's making the Earth retain heat beyond the heating and cooling caused by solar cycles. That something is pretty much us...

Don't look at year-to-year variations - you need at least a decade (I think it was 11 years) before you can have any statistical significance. Imagine a moving average of that decade, and you'll get something more easy to understand. That graph has the 11 year cycle removed, and you can see the rise right there. This is HADCRUT3, but feel free to repeat with different datasets. We're clearly seeing an increase here.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1912/to:2012
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1978/to:2012

Fan of selective data, much?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1912/to:2012
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1978/to:2012

Fan of selective data, much?

How odd. Why would repeating a scientific factoid be labelled "denial"? I think we're at the same temperature level in the atmosphere today as in 1996, and if we go by the oceans instead (which is much more relevant due to the difference in heat capacity) we're at temperatures the same as in the late 80s. Making such statements is proper science, no matter your personal views on the causes or remedies.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1995/to:2012

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1988/to:2012

(I also find this whole article to be a bit confusing. The "strategy" document is claimed to be a forgery made by someone who wants to badmouth "deniers", and data forensics support that claim view)

How odd. Why would repeating a scientific factoid be labelled "denial"? I think we're at the same temperature level in the atmosphere today as in 1996, and if we go by the oceans instead (which is much more relevant due to the difference in heat capacity) we're at temperatures the same as in the late 80s. Making such statements is proper science, no matter your personal views on the causes or remedies.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1995/to:2012

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1988/to:2012

(I also find this whole article to be a bit confusing. The "strategy" document is claimed to be a forgery made by someone who wants to badmouth "deniers", and data forensics support that claim view)

I played around with the graphing options there and yeah, there's no correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature I can see...

If you plot the 138 month mean sunspot graph alongside the 12 month mean temperature graph you get pretty good correlation up until the 70's: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/plot/gistemp/mean:120/scale:100/offset:70

Also, it is a chaotic system. You can't expect it to produce nice clean correlation graphs showing how the variance in one parameter influences the result in another graph.

Granted, but if you apply appropriate weights to solar, CO2, volcano, and ENSO, you can come up with a graph that is a pretty good approximation to the measured temperatures. The year to year variation is largely accounted for by ENSO. Volcanic eruptions explain most discrepancies between ENSO and the year to year hills and valleys.

The overall trend correlates pretty will with this ;) : http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/plot/gistemp/mean:12/scale:100/offset:320

I persist in being interested to see what happens during the low cycle ;)

It will be interesting. Out of curiosity, assuming that this solar cycle is smaller still than the previous one, what effect do you suppose this will have on temperatures? Should we see the upward trend reverse?

I played around with the graphing options there and yeah, there's no correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature I can see...

If you plot the 138 month mean sunspot graph alongside the 12 month mean temperature graph you get pretty good correlation up until the 70's: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/plot/gistemp/mean:120/scale:100/offset:70

Also, it is a chaotic system. You can't expect it to produce nice clean correlation graphs showing how the variance in one parameter influences the result in another graph.

Granted, but if you apply appropriate weights to solar, CO2, volcano, and ENSO, you can come up with a graph that is a pretty good approximation to the measured temperatures. The year to year variation is largely accounted for by ENSO. Volcanic eruptions explain most discrepancies between ENSO and the year to year hills and valleys.

The overall trend correlates pretty will with this ;) : http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12/plot/gistemp/mean:12/scale:100/offset:320

I persist in being interested to see what happens during the low cycle ;)

It will be interesting. Out of curiosity, assuming that this solar cycle is smaller still than the previous one, what effect do you suppose this will have on temperatures? Should we see the upward trend reverse?

Yes and no. It's an 11.5 year cycle. Each cycle has been lower than the previous for the last few decades, and this coming cycle looks to be lower still, but we are headed into another maximum. This graph illustrates: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/plot/gistemp/mean:12/scale:100/offset:70

I added global mean temp in blue to illustrate the increasing disparity since the 80's. Skeptics don't need to wait for another impotent cycle to determine whether solar activity is the driving factor.

I hate those graphs... I'm colourblind and showing me three lines of almost-identical colour and then saying 'look, they don't match' is pretty irritating ;)
However, with only two lines I can see the point hehe. I played around with the graphing options there and yeah, there's no correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature I can see...which is interesting but a little irrelevant as obviously solar activity is a forcing, is agreed on by everyone to be a forcing (again, the extent is debated by the various camps) and as you yourself pointed out above, is expected to play a role in setting global temperatures. So obviously just using the raw sunspot activity to match against global temps doesn't mean much. I persist in being interested to see what happens during the low cycle ;)

Also, it is a chaotic system. You can't expect it to produce nice clean correlation graphs showing how the variance in one parameter influences the result in another graph. Chaotic systems don't work like that. Unfortunately political systems do, so there's a lot of effort and political capital that's gone into producing graphs that show increasing CO2 to correlate cleanly with increasing global temperature.

And I thought solar was declining? There's all sorts of excitement on the sceptic sites about the solar minimum we're heading into which will finally prove that solar forcings > emissions forcings. Which will be interesting to see.

Yes and no. It's an 11.5 year cycle. Each cycle has been lower than the previous for the last few decades, and this coming cycle looks to be lower still, but we are headed into another maximum. This graph illustrates: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/plot/gistemp/mean:12/scale:100/offset:70

I added global mean temp in blue to illustrate the increasing disparity since the 80's. Skeptics don't need to wait for another impotent cycle to determine whether solar activity is the driving factor.

But if you take some of the nuts predictions from the political AGW movement they're no saner than some of the nuts predictions in the sceptic movement. And to be honest, some of the predictions in the IPCC publications are verging on nuts, but then a lot of that body is increasingly political rather than scientific.

The skeptic predictions are not at all crazy assuming they genuinely don't believe that CO2 is a major driver of climate - and I believe that many of them are genuine. Global cooling is really the only sane position to take once you remove CO2. There are certainly nutters in Greenpeace/etc, but don't try to determine the scientific consensus by splitting the difference between Greenpeace and the Heartland institute. The IPCC really is a very good representation of the consensus as of 2007. I'm looking forward to the next report in 2013. One scientist with very moderate views that you may appreciate is John Neilson-Gammon. He has published with Watts and Pielk. His web page can be found here: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/

Feedbacks are a consequence of the forcing. Both should be counted. Also, keep in mind that 2C is the difference between a glacial and interglacial period - not insignificant. Human influence is both positive (greenhouse gasses) and negative (aerosols). Damn I hope you read through this post - it took way too long to compile :)

Granted, they are not a coherent movement so I can't say that all skeptics have predicted global cooling. The leaders of the movement who are willing to predict anything at all have predicted or promoted global cooling. They are right of course. If CO2 is not a major driver then global cooling has indeed been imminent for the last couple decades. Here is the solar output since 1985: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:138/from:1985

Here are examples from leaders of the skeptic movement predicting or promoting global cooling:

Joseph D'Aleo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_D'Aleo

John McLean: http://www.skepticalscience.com/mclean-exaggerating-natural-cycles.html

Christopher Monckton: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/monckton-global_warming_has_stopped.pdf

Anthony Watts: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22global+cooling%22+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com

Piers Corbyn: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/global-warming-skeptic-predicts-brutal-winter-warns-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet/

James Dellingpole: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/

Don Easterbrook: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/

Henrik Svensmark http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/

David Rose: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

Alan Caruba, "An Icy End for Mankind?" Science and Environmental Policy Project, November 26, 2005; and Robert W. Felix, "Not by Fire, But by Ice: The Next Ice Age Now," Bellevue, WA: Sugarhouse Publishing.

Lawrence Solomon: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/05/03/lawrence-solomon-arctic-ice-sets-records-in-april-could-auger-global-cooling.aspx

The only notable people missing are McIntyre, McKitrick, Spencer, and Lindzen. None of these people are willing or able to make predictions.

My prediction? We've just had the hottest La Nina on record - hotter even than all but one of the El Nino's of the previous century. La Nina's are cooler part of the ENSO. ENSO neutral 2010 was tied for hottest year on record. Even a small El Nino (warm part of ENSO) will push us into the hottest year on record. So the hottest year on record will come with the next El Nino. Probably within 2 years?

How about the data released by that alleged former skeptic somewhat recently? It showed no warming trend in the past decade or so.

Well, he said absolutely nothing about the last ten years, so yeah, you could misinterpret that as "his data showed no warming trend in the past decade or so".

Anyway: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1998/to:2011/plot/wti/from:1998/to:2011/trend

If you notice the graph, it has some very low outliers near the end. These are based on preliminary data, and have huge error bars. It's best to remove those.

On the site below, you can select your own graphs, and post-processing. I've selected the BEST data from 1950 to 2010, plus trend lines from 1950 to 2001, and a trend line from 2001 to 2010. I've omitted 2011 because of the 2 outliers in the last two months.

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1950/to:2010/plot/best/from:2001/to:2010/trend/plot/best/from:1950/to:2001/trend

As you can see, there's not much difference in trend lines. If you include 2011 as well, the trend changes to mostly flat, but that's because of the still bad quality preliminary data for the last couple of months.

Of course, trends over 10 year are not really meaningful, let alone trends over even shorter period. Really, you should be looking at trends over 20+ years instead.

Why not check for yourself. When I did, it looked pretty flat. http://www.woodfortrees.org

Here's a great site that lets you compare the various temperature reconstructions (as well as CO2 and solar output). woodfortrees.org

I remain unconvinced by the preponderance of evidence presented that we are the major cause, or one of the most significant causes.

We can measure how big an impact we are having on the climate. The direct impact of CO2 can be calculated by: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C /C0}W/m^2), where C0 is the reference carbon level and C is the current carbon level (in parts per million). This is derived from measurement, not theory or guesswork.

So we don't have to guess at the impact of carbon. We know that it is currently 1.8 W/m^2 greater now than during pre-industrial times. 1.8 watts over the surface of 5.1*10^14 m^2 is 9.1^15 watts, or in standard American units, about 52000 Hiroshima bombs per hour. This is enough (if sustained long enough for the system to reach equilibrium) to warm the Earth.

We also don't have to guess what impact various feedbacks are having. A warmer atmosphere holds more water. We can measure the increase and we know the impact of doubling water vapor (also from measurements) so we can quantify that feedback. Likewise methane is released when permafrost thaws. We can measure that increase, and we know the impact etc, etc.

So we don't need to rely on intuition to determine the relative impact of CO2. This can be measured. If you compare this forcing to others (such as solar variability) it becomes clear that this is now the most significant. So much so that even while solar output drops, temperatures continue to rise: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:12/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:136/scale:0.01/offset:-0.8

How can you say "not according to the science"? You look at weather records and you'll see that in the late 70s and early 80s we had some incredible heatwaves.

If you are referring to either of the regions referenced in the papers, then no. The recent droughts were unprecedented. If you are talking about the globe on average, then no. Though the 70's were hot compared to previous decades, and the 80's were hotter still, they were both much cooler than the 2000's. Here are the various temperature reconstructions: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:24/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:24/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:24/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:24

If you are talking about some place in specific that is not mentioned in the papers above (or southern USA which is also experiencing unprecedented heat and drought), but not the global mean temperature in general, then yes. There are places where at some point in the past there was a heatwave greater than one experienced lately - but I wouldn't rely on your or your fathers intuition. Go look it up. In general, records hot days are outpacing record cold days by a large margin, and by an even larger margin over the last few years.

I wonder why you picked that starting point to graph that trend.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/trend

Oh, what do you know.... Look at where that upward spike is....

What I can't understand is how the Earth's temperature has remained essentially static (with a slight downward trend) for the last 12 years.

Because they haven't. Here are all the major temperature reconstructions. All agree that the last 12 years showed warming. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:12/from:1999/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/from:1999/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:12/from:1999/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:12/from:1999

Seriously, how can you imagine that there has been a slight downward trend when 2010 was the hottest year on record?

Yes, they have.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend

What I can't understand is how the Earth's temperature has remained essentially static (with a slight downward trend) for the last 12 years.

Because they haven't. Here are all the major temperature reconstructions. All agree that the last 12 years showed warming. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:12/from:1999/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/from:1999/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:12/from:1999/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:12/from:1999

Seriously, how can you imagine that there has been a slight downward trend when 2010 was the hottest year on record?

Which "warming" that we see are you talking about? Ground stations or satellites? They tell different stories.

There is no difference between the two. Here is GISS (station data) vs UAH (Satellite data): http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:12/plot/uah/offset:0.3/mean:12

Which "warming" that we see are you talking about? Ground stations or satellites? They tell different stories

Oh yeah?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1980/plot/uah/from:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/trend
Looks about the same to me.

This is different. Unlike global warming, for which there has been no recorded rise in global temperature since 1998, this actually has observation backing it.

You are an idiot.

You mean these observations?

Or are you picking your cherries from somewhere else?

I still haven't seen any overwhelming evidence that global warming is real.

Now with free added "anthropogenic":
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/scale:100/plot/esrl-co2/offset:-300/from:1980/plot/wti/scale:100/trend

Then we have the fact that the earth hasn't warmed in the last 10 years.

Lie.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/trend

Oh, you mean you're picking your cherries from HADCRUT? Not so worried about tricks when you want your cherries are you?

(Not that any of this is relevant, only a clown would imagine that 10 years were statisticaly significant).

Regarding the CRU data (again, nothing to do with the Mann report). This was done in the 70's. This was a time when data was stored on reels of magnetic tape. The data was warehoused and someone tossed it. This was well before there was any political maneuvering by either greenpeace or industry. NASA tossed the original tape of the moon landing. I still believe that a man walked on the moon. Either way, if you don't trust the CRU then you should look at one of the other four reconstructions: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14

They all show the same thing.

Be aware that HSThompson holds many strange opinions about science. For instance,

1) He is insistent that that seasonal temperatures are caused by ocean currents. Most people believe that the seasons are caused by tilt of the Earth with respect to orbit. The side tilted towards the sun experiences summer.

2) He believes that the current warming can be explained by the 0.075 W/m^2 heat from the Earth's core but that the ~2 W/m^2 measured warming from anthropogenic CO2 (or roughly the equivalent energy of 56,000 nuclear bombs every hour) is vanishingly insignificant.

3) He believes that anyone who looks at the following graph and concludes that five temperature reconstructions show the same results is guilty of cherry picking: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14

HSThompson's goes into great lengths on each of these topics here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2223172&cid=36382842

Ok. This conversation is beyond tedious. You have been given ample opportunity to clarify your position. To sum up:

1) Seasons are primarily caused by currents (rather than because the Earth's axis is tilted wrt its orbit with summer being on the side tilted towards the sun).

2) The current warming is more likely to be caused by the ~0.075 W/m^2 heat from the Earth's core but the ~2 W/m^2 warming measured from anthropogenic CO2 is vanishingly insignificant. He seems to think that the earth has been stock piling the 0.075 W/m^2 from the core and is only releasing it now.

3) He was able to conclude (after much hemming and hawing) that the following graph shows an upward temperature trend over the last 100 years: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14 However he felt that using all data from all reconstructions was a form of cherry picking, and that even though all five reconstructions show the same results (even the ones done by skeptics) the results were likely fabricated.

You can find out about these and more interesting ideas from HSThompson69 at the following link: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2174026&cid=36300426 [slashdot.org]

Ok, so you agree that the trend over the last century is upward but you feel that selecting all data from all reconstructions is cherry picking... interesting. You agree that they are all in agreement but you still feel there has been tampering. Perhaps the authors of all reconstructions are in cahoots?

Was 1934 the warmest year ever?

Uh, no. Not even close.

By what series?

None of them. Did you even look at the graph? http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14

Ok, I think that we are close to agreeing on your understanding of these issues. Perhaps if we tackle them one at a time. #4 is probably the easiest since it is a series of yes/no questions. You have implied the answer in previous posts but you have never come right out and answered. If you could answer yes or no to each of the following three questions then we could consider this item closed.

#4) When you look at the following graph, you are able to conclude: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14 [woodfortrees.org]

A) The trend is upwards

B) The five series are in agreement with each other

C) Therefor there is no reason to believe that any of them have been tampered with

1) Occam's Razor: You had stated given the two choices, "...primarily driven by CO2" and ".. a complex array of natural forces we have not yet entirely identified", the simpler one is the "natural forces" hypothesis." That is, Occam would rather attribute the warming to forces we don't know of than forces we know cause warming. Do you still stand by this?

2) Perhaps if you elaborated on your currents theory of seasons. Why do the currents push the heat towards the sunny side of the Earth?

3) Perhaps if you elaborated on your theory of core heat global warming. Why did the Earth store its heat for 1000 years only to release it now? How come current measurements show 0.075? Your theories are fascinating. I am sure people will want to hear more about them.

4) I don't think anyone will agree that the Earth is not warming, but they should take a look for themselves before judging you: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14

He believes that

1) Occam's Razor dictates that the easiest answer is always right - and the easiest answer is usually "we don't know".

2) Seasons are primarily caused by atmospheric and oceanic currents pushing the heat to the sunny side of the world rather than because the Earth's axis is tilted wrt its orbit causing one side of the Earth to get more sun.

3) The current warming can be explained by the 0.075 W/m^2 heat from the Earth's core but that the ~2 W/m^2 measured warming from anthropogenic CO2 (or roughly the equivalent energy of 56,000 nuclear bombs every hour) is vanishingly insignificant. He seems to think that the earth has been stock piling the 0.075 W/m^2 from the core and is only now releasing it through mt. st. Helen.

4) He cannot conclude from the following link which direction the slope is in, or whether the five temperature reconstructions show the same results: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14

You can find out about these and more interesting ideas from HSThompson69 at the following link: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2174026&cid=36300426

I suggest you reconsider your rather extreme and strange position.

You didn't read the dictionary did you? Seasons are that change in climate which is attributed to tilt relative to orbit. ENSO is that change in climate which is attributed to El Nino. El Nino is not partly or mostly responsible for ENSO, it is solely responsible. Showing that some summers are cold does not change the fact that summers are attributed to tilt. Showing some short periods of cooling while CO2 rises does not show that the general upward trend cannot be attributed to CO2. This should be obvious.

the hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions about climate variation is the one that assumes that observed variations are natural.

This is the line of reasoning that led you to invoke the following hilarity: "it could very well be the motion of energy from the core of the earth towards the surface, and therefore the oceans, and therefore the air."

That is a pretty peculiar new assumption! Why not attribute the warming to something that we know causes warming in the range that we are observing instead of attributing it to something that could not possibly do so? You may as well have said "it could very well be unicorns!"

You have created a convoluted mess in your head in order to come to the conclusion that CO2 cannot affect temperature.

On the contrary, I believe it can affect temperature, but I believe that it is a vanishingly small effect overwhelmed by other natural forces. Your strawman here fails to illustrate my position.

Vanishingly small is not the same as zero, but the difference is vanishingly small. The point still stands. You have created a convoluted mess in your head in order to come to the conclusion that CO2 cannot have more than a vanishingly small effect on temperature. You would do better to let the conclusion follow from the facts rather than the other way around.

You seem to believe that simply identifying a warming trend, over any given point in time, automatically means that I must accept that humans are the primary cause

No, but I presume that you do. Otherwise you would not be so obstinate. Anyone who looks at the and can't admit the following is deluding themselves: 1) Temperatures are generally going up. 2) The reconstructions corroborate each other. 3) Since some of the reconstructions were made by skeptics hoping to find no or negative trend I do not need to invoke a conspiracy theory to avoid admitting #1 and #2.

You are clearly unable to do this. Why?

This shows trend for all reconstructions since the satellite record began. Guess which direction they are all heading? Even Spencer's UAH is headed that way. Still don't believe that temperatures are rising? Then your monitor is upside down. I give up. As you have stated many times, you are unable to know anything for sure. I find myself finally agreeing with you.

Except it's not water vapor that causes extreme weather events, it's large temperature differentials (those "LOW" and "HIGH" pressure areas during the weather report).

Not entirely true. Water vapour feeds storms. Try a quick google search of that last sentence for more info.

if the ocean transferred a mere *fraction* of its energy into the atmosphere, we could raise the temperature of the atmosphere significantly above anything imaginable.

You have nailed it. We have significantly raised the ocean surface temperature. This extra energy is fueling storms. Do a quick google search on "Sea surface temperature storms"

The trend clearly hasn't accelerated over the past 15 years of increased CO2, and any trend you could possibly discern from CO2 is overwhelmed by all the other natural variables

You are absolutely right. The other natural variables create wibbles and wobbles that dwarf any trend of less than 30 years. In order to see the trend you would need to filter out the wibbles and wobbles by applying a 10 year mean. The good news is that this is easy to do. Check out woodfortrees.org. I have applied a 10 year mean to the temperature data. You can add solar output to the chart to see how the two compare. Woodfortrees is a great resource. You can add other reconstructions to see how they compare. You can even add the solar index and CO2 to see how they match up.

(not to mention, CO2 has an upper limit of effect, and has a log function of effect, diminishing as it gets higher).

We clearly haven't hit any upper limit, and accelerated output of GHG as well as feedbacks are clearly more than making up for the logarithmic rate.

The problem is that the "hottest year on record" metric is an artifact with no meaning. It's a single point that you'll see over and over again during any period of natural temperature increase.

It means just what you said that it means. That the temperature is increasing. I was making the exact same point.

and you'll note we've been exiting a particularly cold period in history

I would hardly consider an interglacial to be a cold period. As you have noted previously we should be expecting the temperatures to be dropping.

Hansen, et. al., regularly massage the data points to make these ludicrous claims, and if there was any sort of quality control,

Now you are getting into conspiracy theory territory. I won't follow you there. I will only note that skeptics Richard Mueller, Roy Spencer, and Anthony Watts have all performed independent validation of the temperature reconstructions and found them to be robust.

Natural changes in the climate and weather due to known and unknown external and internal factors that change in both chaotic and cyclical ways. For example, every wild temperature change, extreme weather event, record high, record low, that every existed for the past 4.5 billion years.

All of these had a cause. What is the cause of the current warming?

Would you even consider that the answer to "why not" is that your original hypothesis is incorrect, and that in fact, natural variability can cause dramatic changes, in either direction, without fully understood causes because of the massive complexity and interconnectedness of weather and climate phenomena?

Yes, of course I would accept that the original hypothesis is incorrect, and no, I wouldn't accept that the reason for the changes is unknowable. I would find out the reason for the change. The alternative is a defeatist attitude that goes against my natural curiosity.