The China Syndrome: Don’t Blame China For Temperature Standstill

I sent the following to Real Climate yesterday (13 July) but my name must now be on a “kill” list as it didn’t get posted. Or they recognized the snake-oil agreement with what they were saying. I put it here as I reference the Chinese smog excuse Schmidt et al are jumping on to explain why temperatures and sea-levels aren’t rising as expected. Though he and Hansen say that over the 20-year time-frame they are actually still rising as expected (including the 3.1 mm/yr sea-level rate, though 2.0 mm/yr over the last 9 years is the current pattern; irrelevant, don’t ya know).
Looking back at the records to 1860 or earlier is useful if you believe that “normal” temperature rises and consequent sea-level rises are still occurring: you will get the minimum, non-AGW trend. If you think that at some point the “normal” processes stopped and became AGW/A-CO2 now causes 75% or more of global temperature and sea-level rise, then the prior history is useful for showing when the break occurred and the deviation from (say, 25%) the normal processes still in-place.
AGW has as its premise that the majority and an increasing proportion with time of both global temperature and sea-level rises are anthropogenically caused by A-CO2 emissions, specifically fossil fuel burning. Thus the last 16 year average of 3.1 mm/yr, (ignoring the more recent, 9-year average of <2.0 mm/yr rise) must have at least a 2.5 mm/yr anthropogenic component if AGW is happening. The question to be answered for the skeptics is "when" the current heating and sea-level rise stopped being natural.
I had thought the initial IPCC/Hansen work suggested an anthropogenic signal would not be evident until the 1980s, which would make sense as it was about 1979 that GISTemp shows a marked shift in the rate of global temperature increase. If this is the case, then in the AGW science-as-understood there MUST be an acceleration of sea-level as well as temperatures in the pipe. The forecasts are fixed by established science and mathematics to have severe outcomes by 2050, not just 2100. If we are to see those forecasts occur in the next 39 years, the increases must begin right away. Every year they are held back – by whatever means, natural or Chinese coal pollution – there is a greater rebound building in.
If, by 2015, the sea-level has not risen by 15.5mm, to 45.5mm in total, a serious re-working of mechanisms operating must take place. At the same time the GISTemp global temperatures must be in excess of 0.17C greater than today (to get another 2.2C by 2100). The rise to disaster cannot be postponed much as the science is pretty much determined; only details remain not understood.
The next 4 years are critical for the progress of dangerous growth in temperatures and sea-levels. The calculated power of CO2 is greater now than it was in the post-WWII days when aerosols are calculated to have been able to reduce planetary temperatures. The industrial West is no longer the smogland it was; I understand you can see the volcanoes near Mexico City as well as the mountains outside L.A. these days, and the green fogs of London are gone. Nowhere have we seen evidence that China, India and Indonesia are generating the level of aerosols that the industrial West used to.
By 2015 the difference between what the skeptics say is going on and the IPCC calculations will be too significant to be controversial. The Archibald/WUWT skeptics just yesterday proposed a Canada-US Border temperature decline of 1.2C in the next few years. So the skeptics say it is going to get cooler as AGW theory says, just as CO2 will go up by a certain amount (8 ppmv by 2015), the global and sea temperatures will rise. And cause the sea-level to continue to rise. The telling is almost upon us.
The most difficult case will be if the trends of post-1979 continue. Then either the minimum case of AGW is happening – which means we cannot really stop the rise (low CO2 sensitivity means a massive reduction in CO2 emissions to be effective) or – horrors! – natural processes are stronger than understood. Which could mean that if now natural cooling is tempering the situation, in 2050 or so when the cycle turns and natural warming occurs again, the last half of the century will be a potboiler. And beyond the help of "preventative" measures.

Doug Proctor wrote:
“The industrial West is no longer the smogland it was; I understand you can see the volcanoes near Mexico City as well as the mountains outside L.A. these days, and the green fogs of London are gone. Nowhere have we seen evidence that China, India and Indonesia are generating the level of aerosols that the industrial West used to.”
Well I have been to Shanghai and Suzhou a few weeks ago, and the air was very very opaque, grayish brown, with a bad industrial smell. I never saw a blur sky or a star at night.
I agree about the industrial west, near Chicago I see a brilliant blue sky today.

The met office averages for the UK, June, show that the difference between the maximum and minimum temperature is greater than the mean for 1961 to 1990. The East and North East of England shows an increased 1 degree centigrade difference from the average. The opposite to what one would expect from increased CO2.