Mr Sleet

It's sad to see you reduced to slinging insults at AFF. You can't pick and choose which "outliers" suit your argument better, it just confirms that you have a bias toward wanting a milder outcome, and this colours your thinking. I could say that the annual CET was "saved" from being lower than 2005 by unusual warmth in July,Sept and October. If it weren't for these months we would be looking at a lower CET than 2005, continuing the downward trend.

The chinese navy bit does seem a bit dodgy , great piece of ammunition to sway the doubters though, I can use that at Christmas parties this year. Still unconvinced about the lack of MWP and LIA in the hockey stick graph though. There are plenty of historical accounts suggesting that things were unusual during those periods.

Well said.

It' s what was said in the article. Strange claim to make if it's untrue. I'll see if I can dig anything up on it.

Jethro , I'm a R&D scientist in the private sector, have been for 20 years now, and I'm still confused. I showed this article to a colleague of mine , a rather experienced vulcanologist, I quote his response below "I think your chum is as guilty as anyone else of rigging. For instance, the Stefan-Boltzmann law is the one that relates radiative energy transfer to surface temperature, assuming black body radiators. For our high-albedo planet, the black body assumption is wrong, and we have to assume a figure for 'emissivity' (I presume related to what they're calling lambda). That figure depends almost entirely on ice cover. If the UN and others are assuming total loss of ice in quoting their high values of degrees per watt, then that's fair enough. They should have said so in their report, but I wouldn't bank on this Telegraph guy to have reported them fairly. There must certainly be justification for assuming total loss of ice, considering how fast it's disappearing. The rate of accumulation of CO2 doubled from the figure he gives a year or two ago (probably due to Amazon deforestation for soya plantations). Also, a man of his background should know that the first greenhouse warming predictions were made by a German scientist (name escapes me) in 1870, so the phenomenon has been anticipated for some time. I think this article falls into the same traps as so many - it's selective and political. In a way, that shows how seriously people are taking this debate; people don't falsify arguments and quote selectively unless they are really quite moved. But how you get at the 'science' is another matter." He then advised me to keep on taking the tablets

...from 5/11/06. Mentioned in another thread, but I've highlighted it here. You can download the full 40 pages by following the link in the article. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...lit/nwarm05.xml Oh dear, I don't know what to think now :ph34r: OK read it now. I'm afraid I've just been tipped firmly back into the sceptics camp. The way the MWP and little ice age were massaged out of the "Hockey Stick" ( allegedly) is a bit of an eyebrow raiser, to say the least. Interesting that a Chinese Naval Expedition in 1421 ( ?) sailed through the North Pole and found no sea ice at all.

Welcome Jethro. I must say that as a bit of a sceptic myself about man-made GW it does make my blood boil when I read about the sorts of things that English Heritage are doing wrt the beech trees. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy !

As a bit of a sceptic (50/50 ) you have to do a risk analysis.The probability of catastrophic warming may be quite low but the consequences are probably mostly very bad. At only 1% of GDP to limit the damage it's worth a punt. If we could limit and then see CO 2 levels drop it would be one of mankinds greatest achievements, in my view.

No. Just lets more UV through.

And if you are right , that still leaves the record annual CET way back 16 years ago, and as near as dammit 57 years ago, if we don't count hundredths of degree.

The losing party always says it got the most votes. Totally agree with the rest though.

Fair points P3.

Yes I saw that too. Instead of going off on one would you kindly like to point out in my original post where I deny the existence of AGW ? For what it's worth I think we are probably ( not totally convinced) the cause of the problem, and we shouldn't be afraid to start the ball rolling. My point was that if the Government wants to push up green taxes so high, they will have to give the money back in some way that when it is spent, it is environmentally friendly. My suggestion to heavily subsidise personal home solar panels was a constructive one. You are obviously coming at it from the " lets stop Capitalism" camp. Well that debate finished in the 1990's. As for Al Gore, he has never got over losing the election to Bush, plain and simple. God I hope my taxes aren't paying for him.

.Nothing, but it's a big if.

Well Mr Lynas must be a very fast reader, 700 pages in a few hours, most impressive. I hope he sells lots of his books. It seems like a reasonable piece of work, the Stern report, however I'm pretty sure the Government will use it to simply jack up taxes ( stick, stick and more stick- no carrot.) What would be more tolerable would be to use the 10 billion pounds to massively subsidise household solar panel installation, which costs about 10 k per house. This would give people something back as well as reinforce the reduction in emissions. However, i don't hold out any hope. Also, you cannot just take out 100pounds per month from a family budget and see no affect on the economy-such a tax hike would be equivalent to about 6 p on the basic rate of tax or 4 percent on interest rates. that would have a devastating effect on our economy, recession guaranteed. The only solution would be a drastic cut in interest rates, slashing the income of pensioners and creating a runaway housing boom, then recession. The solution is to make the tax hikes revenue neutral, but you can only give people the money back in a way which means that they cannot simply use it to pay for the tax increases-that would be pointless ie subsidise personal clean energy. One other thing, the last time Blair warned us of impending disaster ( this time in 45 mins) it was Iraq. As for Al Gore as environmental advisor, that says it all really

Parts of Central Europe , including Austria, had an anomalously COLD winter. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10994127

Plateau it is then.

2005 wasn't the warmest year according to satellite data, 1998 was. I seem to recall you beating the drum for satellite data not so long ago. So the answer to your question is, no it doesn't , does it ?

The devil is in the detail. For the last 7 years things have been stable. See arrowed graph below. I'm not going to continue to argue the point because it is self evident from the very graphs you have produced. There hasn't been a flat period as long as this going back to 1880 looking at the graph. gw.doc Whether or not stability will continue is a moot point, as I said in my initial post.

Rapley isn't stupid, if there is " a problem" the Government won't cut the funds. I wouldn't worry about it. In 10 years time the graph will be heading down and we'll be back to worrying about something else. Nice website by the way. :blink:

I think it is clear that we have had an upward step which has now stabilised into a plateau, that's why no new records are being broken but bumping along on the top of this plateau means that statements like" the top ten warmest years since 1880 have all been in the last 20 years" will be true.Will it start heading up again or will it turn down ? Anyone's guess.

I'm interested in what you have to say about GW and synoptics. Why would a warming climate favour a persistent HP to the east of us ? After all, that has been the reason for the warm weather in July, September , and now October. Increased continental temperatures should favour the formation of a heat low, if anything. Also, the CET and global temperatures have levelled out , at least for now.

But the politicians are the ones bleating on about it so much ( Milliband, for example) yet they do nothing about it. That should tell you something. Leaders like to cultivate a climate of fear, it helps control and tax raising, papers like it because it sells.

It also used to be " a warmer world is a wetter world ".