I’m going to take this on good faith, but rather than re-type out the standard response, I would recommend few moments googling. This is a non-science blog, with a large non-specialist audience so I will restrict my linking to this vividly presented explanation here.

In essence, the ‘CO2 lags Temperature’ meme is a cynical, professionally concocted piece of deception which has confused many, many people. I know it puzzled me for a while because superficially and intuitively it looks like a very real objection, but as you well know… many things in the world of science are neither superficial nor intuitive.

This oh so doesn’t fill me with certainty on Spencer thinking critically about climate change, per previous experiences over 5+ years of observing ID and creationism…

Also, the “hide the decline” is covered in a recent RC post, and on greenfyre’s blog if memory serves me right, and deals with a break in the temperatures reported by tree samples from measure temperatures in the 1970′s. Anyhow, go hunting there, I’m bloody tired, and not quite interested in link hunting. Though I will leave this here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/giss-ncdc-hadcru/

(sk, it’s Dr Bakker actually but please call me Huub).

I’ll take the solar issue first:

I get my statement from this image taken from Camp and Tung GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 2007 (That would be after your reference Nick.)

http://cce.890m.com/solar-gcr/images/camp-tung.jpg

It shows a fairly strong correlation between temperature and solar activity to my mind. And I do not ‘bandy’ correlations around; this is my direct observation of the graph. Now I do realise that temperature and CO2 can vary over long periods of time sk but here we have a fairly strong correlation that seems to account for most of the changes in temperature. I also see no long-term drift in this graph to suggest that there are other significant factors such as CO2 in play. And I know of no foreseeable effect from CO2 that will cause a ‘temperature crisis’.

OK on to the temperature graphs. Now it’s interesting that you should place a link to realclimate.org Nick. The is the web site that appears prominently in the CRU emails. So when I look up another site and see this
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
- a clearly different temperature plot, I have to ask myself who is right. Do you have any suggestions as to how this disparity could be resolved.

sk, I’m unfamiliar with the terms you use but I can say that the temperature records show that CO2 increases about 700-1000 years after temperatures increase. I would state that it is impossible in that case for CO2 to drive temperature, but I’m always happy to entertain a discussion on how that might be possible.

However I do know that over at Climate Audit (http://camirror.wordpress.com/) they’ve managed to replicate the “trick” to “hide the decline” that apparent;y wasn’t taken out of context at all….

I live a sustainable lifestyle simply because I believe in trying not to take more than I need and to live in harmony with my surroundings.

I think we have serious problems such as the wholesale destruction of out environment and huge pollution problems.

I also happen to think that the debate on Global warming hasn’t finished yet and the whole Carbon credit industry is just that, and industry with people like Al Gore and the oil and banking industry making millions of dollars.

The only response to CO2 emissions if they are so dangerous is planting more trees and killing of huge corporate industries which as we all know is never going to happen.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/

You know, it’s not that hard these days to find and read climate change blogs that actually know their stuff, unlike that magnificently incompetent moron Watts: Watts up with Watts?

And on being angry at human stupidity:
“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”
-Phil Plait, current president of the ever so evil James Randi foundation, aka the sceptics who aren’t making bad arguments constantly.

Capcha: mistake. LOL.

I still remember a fat, angry young man with an Australian outback coat and leather hat in te Papa sticking up his hand as one of only two of more than 300 people after hearing Richard Gage’s presentation sticking to his Conspiracy nutcase mantra. it must be getting lonely were you live. LOL.

Here is some more on NIWA’s measuring methods.

No charge.

Well, there you go, I never realised that science was about making predictions. I always thought science was about observations. Alas I now stand corrected.

Since you are an academic, maybe you can answer some questions for me. It startles me the way ‘correlations’ are bandied about; Given temperatures and CO2 vary over long periods are they I(0) or I(1) processes? In which direction does the causality flow? Does CO2 Granger cause temperature?

Given the time series we appear to be dealing with, and the fact that the co-movement occurs over tens of thousands of years, how can 10 years have any meaning? If atmospheric CO2 Granger causes temperature, but with uncertain lags, at some point humanity is going to have a CO2 caused temperature crisis. Who cares about what has happened in the last 10 years?

It is strikes me there is a hell of a lot of sophistry in this debate

1) http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
- Oh look, no cooling since 1998. There’s also a neat java based app in one of the posts Hot-Topic that can be used to display the issues with taking short term trends in noisy data sets.

2) Laut 2003, Solar activity and terrestrial climate: an analysis of some purported correlations
- <a href="http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?cites=15762865635524181036&hl=en&as_sdt=2000"Citation list for extra reading, though please remember to actually skim over the abstracts further down the citation chain for critical discussions of the articles pub’d in (actual, not crank) peer reviewed journals…

Well of course there is a correlation. By itself this is a statement of the obvious that doesn’t tell us much new.

In fact the sun has just gone through an especially of prolonged and deep minimum of it’s regular cycle. If the sun was the principle factor player in driving the climate, as you are suggesting, then logically global temperatures would have also been at very low levels.

Instead, as you know perfectly well, most of the hottest years in the instrumental record have all occured during this same period when solar activity was especially low.

and that the ice sheet now extends further than it has since 1979

You may not have thought about the difference between area of the ice sheet, and it’s volume. Specifically the volume of multi-year aged ice. This is both pertinent and entertaining.

Huh, I feel chagrined at the previous quote. Thank you for the correction. However I base my conclusions on far more than a simple quote. Trying to get them all into one post is a trifle hard so I try for something short and sharp.

Do I have problems with quote mining other people’s personal communications? Of course I do, but my ethics also requires me to blow the whistle in situations where I see the public good requires it. That is the ethics my profession requires of me regardless of the abuse and invective I might garner from others such as NickS.

1. I would not accept the code that I saw from any my students. I would fail them the paper for having produced such code. I will not include any out of context quotes.

2. This is not a forum that seeks or expects the same rigour of proof that a scientific journal would require. This is a forum to debate issues. As such we make statements that open to proof or contradiction.

Now, let me test your knowledge. Have you looked at the data that shows that the global temperature correlates reasonably accurately with sun activity and does not correlate with carbon dioxide concentration, especially in the last 10 years when the temperature is dropping but CO2 continues to increase?

Have you seen alternate temperature profiles that agree with historical evidence and show that the Medieval warm period was warmer than today?

Do you feel some unease when you hear claims that the Arctic ice sheet will disappear in 10 years because two years ago it covered the smallest extent on record? (And then find that the satellite records only go back several decades and that the ice sheet now extends further than it has since 1979?)

I will not support these with links. I leave that as an exercise for the student.