Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

There are some interesting charts at the Hadley site linked to by Anthony.
This one is supposed to be the MSU satellite-equivalent temps for stratosphere, mid-atmosphere and lower troposhere back to 1958.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/msu_timeseries.png

so how is this altitude cooling data not some indication that the AGW hypothethis has some validity? Enquiring minds like this non-ideological skeptic want to know!
Couldn’t it just as easily be a signal of less stratospheric heating by the mechanisms of the Sun?

Dreamin: Why do you consider the recent downturn in global temperatures short term? Southern Ocean SSTs have been declining since 1980 and dropping like a rock for more than 10 years.
http://i34.tinypic.com/1411sti.jpg
South Atlantic SSTs have been relatively flat since the mid-80s.
http://i33.tinypic.com/2rge5wx.jpg
The Indian and South Atlantic Ocean SSTs are influenced by the Southern Ocean.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/08/indian-ocean-and-south-atlantic-ocean.html

Pofarmer says: “Couldn’t it just as easily be a signal of less stratospheric heating by the mechanisms of the Sun?”
The problem is that a change in solar luminosity is expected to cause the same sign change in the temperature of both the stratosphere and the troposphere, i.e., that they would both go up if it is increasing or both go down if they are decreasing.
Anthony Watts says: “The fact that we can still observe such changes, that are of significant magnitude, such as the 0.6C drop in satellite derived temperature in the past 18 months, or the radiosonde data above, tells me that the postulated CO2 forcings are still not in primary control of the atmosphere.”
No, it just tells you that different things control the changes over different timescales. After all, if you looked at the weekly weather here in Rochester, you would find that even in the fall there would be weeks where the temperature trend would be up even though we are going from summer toward winter. Does this disprove the seasonal cycle as being in primary control of the weather here? I think not.
old construction worker says: “In other words CO2 forcing in lost in the noises. No wonder we don’t have CO2 induced climate control systems in our homes.”
Well, it may be lost in the noise on short timescales…but that doesn’t mean it is not a very important effect over a longer timescale, just as the fact that the seasonal cycle in the weather here in Rochester is lost in the noise over short timescales but is nonetheless very important.

For stratospheric cooling, but tropospheric heating no greater than at the surface, does this make sense as a possible explanation:
It has been suggested (and shown to be possible) that increased solar activity -> reduced cosmic rays -> reduced cloud cover -> less sunlight reflected away -> higher temperatures.
*WHAT IF* it is mainly high-level clouds that are reduced? In that case lower-level clouds would still trap heat as usual (allowing temp to increased from increased sunlight), but without so many high-level clouds the stratosphere would not trap as much heat (and thus temp would reduce). This is well beyond my expertise, so I would appreciate feedback from any climate experts here.

Mr. Watts, your analogies are appropriate for if we were discussing burps of CO2 being injected over a short period of time. However, that’s not the case here whatsoever. Notice that both of your analogies deal with the absolute magnitude of the “forcing” being introduced to the system.
Here’s the appropriate way to think about it: imagine that each oscillation and trend is a distinct signal which can be plotted on a rectangular coordinate plane. The expected trend over a given period of time, then, becomes the sum of each signal at each timestep over the interval of time in question. Essentially, it’s the law of superposition; each signal’s amplitude must be added together in order to determine the signal at each point in time.
With this analogy, it’s much easier to illustrate several things. First, let me illustrate why one would not expect CO2 to drown out other forcings: for starters, over 12-18 months ,what will the net change in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere be? If you look at the Keeling curve, you could guesstimate that it would actually be close to zero due to the seasonal oscillation of the biosphere. However, there is still most likely a overall trend of perhaps 1 ppm at the max. Now, reference my above posts with SOI and PDOI values; you see a dramatic shift over a 12-18 month period. Now, which would you expect to effect the weather (not the climate, since we’re talking about a 1 year trend) the most: a 1 ppm increase in CO2, or a shift of the warm waters in the Pacific from the center of the ocean all the way to the coast of South America? It’s not a trick question.
HOwever, this analogy (or “model”) let’s us also clear up a common misconception about the anticipated 10 year “flat-line” of the AGW trend. It has been estimated that we will enter a strong phase of hte PDO oscillation, which will essentially mitigate a rapid upward trend in temperature for a short while. What does this mean on our signal-graph analogy? The PDO would be dipping very low, like a damped sine wave; if you have a roughly positive trend coming from overall AGW added to a severely negative trend? What do you get? An artificial period of either reduced warming or even possibly cooling.
I appreciate your time in deducing analogies for your explanations, but they’re just not appropriate for what we’re discussing here. My analogy is closer to the one you’d find if you sat through a University course on climate trends. If you wish for me to elaborate on it further, let me know, and I’ll try to write an entry to my own blog which could address some nuances in it.
Pamela: You’re a bit confused here. For starters, climate is not equal to the sum of the weather conditions over a period of time; climate is the de facto “stable” or standard state of the atmosphere after you remove the dramatic swings seen over short temporal or spatial frames. Many of hte things you talk about – such as volcanoes, urban heat, pollution, etc – are not “patterns.” Many of them introduce distinct forcings into the overall climate system. But the bottom line is that after decades of study, these forcings (for the most part) are pretty well understood and incorporated into models. Clouds and aerosols are really the only major forcing which is still an active area of intense research, although great strides occur each month.
You’re right that patterns are a significant part of climate change. And the clear pattern is that global temperatures have been rising for the past century.
REPLY: Hmm, interesting twist, but I’m unconvinced at this point. I’ll look into it further.

What the AGWers are unable to explain is the 10 year flat trend in global temps. With rising CO2 ongoing, why would temperatures stop rising over such a period? Give me an answer more substantial than the meanigless “decadal variation” or “noise”.

I think what’s happening is that as more CO2 is introduced to the atmosphere it is becoming saturated hence the effect is less and less… ergo no crisis as far as global warming is concerned. Some scientists have proposed this theory and it seems they might be right.

“You must remember, for a decade we’ve been lectured that CO2 and other greenhouse gases overwhelm other “natural” climate forcings over multi-decadal, long periods of time.””
Puleeze counters,
There have been several “weather events” that’ve occured that’ve been tagged as proof of AGW. Here are just a few:
The remarkably hot European summer of 2003, in which 35,000 died due to heat realted deaths.
The 6 year Austrailian Drought.
The Nov 2006-Feb 2007 period, in which NOAA highlighted was the warmest Nov-Feb in recorded history.
The 1995-2005 uptick in North Atlantic Basin TCs.
In each of these events (short term events), you can find a number of Climate Experts who cite AGW as the cause. Again, I will also mention Dr Hansen’s assertion that we have a decade or less to act in order to avoid an climatic tipping points. SInce Hansen has narrowed the interval to years, and Dr Hansen is one of the most respected Geoscienists, Anthony is well within his bounds to highlight a 12-18 month cross section of data.
How about a truce: you get the “peer reivewed climate experts” to refrain from using short term “weather events” a proof of AGW, and maybe Anthony will do the same. How about we use non-MBH paleo reconstructions and up the debating interval to say 400 years (that would take into account a full cylce of the solar Gliessberg Oscillation). I imagine the debating hall would get awfully quiet.