One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
“I think that this, at moderate scale, is what is going in the AGW debate. When one side finds the other denying the “obvious” relevance of some fact, the principle of charity breaks down. Either the other guy doesn’t know what he’s saying, or he’s too much a fool to be worth talking to. Which is a reasonable position, provided we note that what will seem obvious, or indeed “reasonable”, will depend upon one’s background theory and different background theories will lead to contrary conclusions about who is and who is not a fool. Thus the unalloyed mutual acrimony of the AGW debate.”
Continue reading about The Climate Change Debate – Why We Can’t Agree
Perhaps most surprising to me personally is the Vostok ice core data that goes back 100’s of thousands of years as shown plotted in the graph below. You’d be right if you concluded that this data shows a clear correlation between Co2 and temperature. But a closer analysis reveals (not discernible in the graph) that the CO2 lags behind the temperature by an average of 800 years! Temperatures do indeed appear to control carbon and not the other way around (perhaps through temperature driven solubility changes in sea water). And while it’s possible that carbon also influences temperature the data don’t show much evidence of that. As temperatures rise, on average it takes 800 years before carbon starts to move. The extraordinary thing is that this CO2 lag is well accepted by climatologists, yet virtually unknown outside these circles.
