I’ve heard that UV accounts for only 20% of the variance of temperatures (but, of course, this is the surface record, and everyone here knows a thing or to about results from that). But large changes in UV would have interesting effects.
Whatever amplifiers are correct, the sun is a great unknown as far as climate goes, at least for those who can’t see the obvious importance of it.

Andrew I think the CRF has a large effect. I have heard conservatively its 2% change in clouds where less or more. This is an indirect relationship to TSI while UV / Ozone connection is a direct relationship to TSI, UV can change as much as 100% from solar max to min. I have also heard some rumblings about solar wind effecting the east to west patterns in the atmosphere.

Wotthehell, I have nothing to lose. I am aleady a fool at best and an idiot at worst so far as the Open Mind is concerned.

Sooooo . . .

Temps have supposedly gone up, what 0.7K or whatever during the 20th Century? Temps are c. 300K. That’s an increase of c. 0.23% total energy.

What % has TSI increased during the 20th century? From c. 1364.7 W/m.sq. to c. 1366.1. That’s an increase of c. 0.10%. (tamino’s graph being the source.)

Therefore, TSI went up c. 43% or so as much as recorded temps. And I think we suspect that recent recorded temp rise itself may have been a bit exaggerated. (And the TSI bump is less from 1950 on.)

Just a thought . . .

During the 20th Century, we had an active sun and two warm phases of the PDO with only one cool phase. Even if we ignore the solar influence, it appears that the PDO alone changes global temperatures by about 0.3 degrees C. Since the 20th century began in the cool phase and ended at the peak of the warm phase, clearly half of the estimated 0.6 degrees warming was due to the PDO. That leaves only 0.3 degrees of warming due to CO2, assuming the sun had nothing to do with the trend, which is highly unlikely.

Low and behold, it appears that the real world sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 would be close to 1.0 C, which is exactly what the absorbtion science says it should be.

If we continue the general cooling trend for the next decade, the only defense the AGW’ers will have will be the aerosol wild card. Any natural cooling (or even lack of warming) means they have to reduce their current CO2 sensitivity estimate. Blaming aerosols, on the other hand, will allow them to keep their CO2 sensitivity high and still manage to blame humanity for everything. Evidence of natural variability must be suppressed in order to save the AGW theory and their reputations.

Anthony, since I’m not a scientist, the arrogance and condescension on the part of many Alarmists are two factors that weigh heavily on how I evaluate the whole issue. There are some, like Ferdinand, who argue the science very effectively while still maintaining a degree of skepticism. From everything I’ve read, that’s what science should be about — always questioning what you know, or what you think you know. That is something you do very well, and the main reason I’m drawn here every day. I hope the Bastardi article gets wide dissemination. It should be posted on the bulletin board of every elementary and high school science classroom in the country.

Bill

REPLY, looks fine

Basically, the current +0.007 trend is the lowest seen since 1989. The highest 10-year trend point was about +.47 degrees per decade in late 1998 (January 1989 to December 1998), the peak of the 1998 El Nino. Since 2003, the progressive trend (“the trend in the trend”) has been in almost continuous decline.

The trend figures will rise a bit once the 1998 El Nino moves out of the 10-year frame; however, with the current La Nina, it is likely to stay relatively low for some time.

An interesting point is that the climate disaster scenarios require a massive acceleration in the warming rate over that seen in the 20th Century. There is absolutely no sign of that yet. Quite the opposite.

I have only primitive web skills but I have tried to post the graph here

http://www.sportstats.com.au/progtemp.jpg

REPLY: Nicely done. But don’t let Tamino see it, he doesn’t tolerate such errant graphing on the web, especially when trend analysis is involved, and even more so when a running average is used. That said, I may just bump it to the main page.