BBC News Article: 2009 One Of 5 Warmest On Record

[MR EXTREMES]

we the economic downturn trillons in dept and the global warming stories come thicker and faster than ever what makes this even worse is during a el nino event they hype it up futher.

of coarse warming has happened is this normal well some say yes some say no.

but alot of forecasting agencies are very confident this is not a typical nino event with cold being the topic of winter coming regardless of my thoughts on this winter,

if it where to turn out colder than some years there will always be an excuse to why this happened.

but as it stands the warming continues and is out of control with 6c rise forecasted for the future and its all our fult so we have to pay for it.

but will nature turn round and ruin the goverment feast.

[Stu_London]

The current climate is within the bounds of natural variability- any reconstruction of past climates will show this.

However, that actually says very little about whether or not humans have been affecting the climate. If, for example, the world's climate has been 10C warmer than at present in the past, then if natural forcings provide a net negative impact of 1C over the 21st century then we would need 11C worth of AGW to bring the climate outside of its natural variability range. The implications of that would be massive- and only the most extreme of model outliers project AGW having anywhere near that degree of effect!

Re. Stewfox, actually there are quite a lot of people who are arguing that the Earth is about to cool down. Regarding the lack of warming in the last decade I'm afraid there is little evidence to suggest that the AGW premise isn't happening at all, but there is certainly some evidence to suggest that there was more than just AGW behind the rapid warming of the 1980s and 1990s, which may imply that the impacts of AGW may, so far, have not been as bad as has been feared.

As all of this is very uncertain I've been careful to use terms like "little evidence", "some evidence" and "may" here.

very good post Ian

[Pingo]

The current climate is within the bounds of natural variability- any reconstruction of past climates will show this.

However, that actually says very little about whether or not humans have been affecting the climate. If, for example, the world's climate has been 10C warmer than at present in the past, then if natural forcings provide a net negative impact of 1C over the 21st century then we would need 11C worth of AGW to bring the climate outside of its natural variability range. The implications of that would be massive- and only the most extreme of model outliers project AGW having anywhere near that degree of effect!

Re. Stewfox, actually there are quite a lot of people who are arguing that the Earth is about to cool down. Regarding the lack of warming in the last decade I'm afraid there is little evidence to suggest that the AGW premise isn't happening at all, but there is certainly some evidence to suggest that there was more than just AGW behind the rapid warming of the 1980s and 1990s, which may imply that the impacts of AGW may, so far, have not been as bad as has been feared.

As all of this is very uncertain I've been careful to use terms like "little evidence", "some evidence" and "may" here.

I agree with this. Climate may have fluctuated wildly in the past but AGW can still occur. Climate may have been much warmer in the past but AGW could still be an issue.

However it seems to be the method of operation of the AGW types that climate can not be seen to have fluctuated in the past, nor can it be seen to have been warmer in the past, because today's temperature/change must be seen as unprecedented. I don't undertand this.

If they would be honest about historical temperatures they would get more trust. The lies about the hockey stick etc are unnecessary and counterproductive to the cause of getting us to acknowledge a catastrophic climatic crisis.

Just one last thing to say, I admire your deprecation for admitting being associated with UEA.