A related point, the 18O/16O data provide an operational definition for historical global temperature. How do current isotope ratios compare with current averaged temperatures?

Moreover, do we know when the 18O/16O ratio is “frozen” in glacier ice? Is it when the snow flakes form (thousands of feet in the air) or does it happen on the surface of the new fallen snow through sublimation/deposition in the sun. If we are going to use the isotope ratio for ancient times, why not just scrape up this year’s snow fall and measure the ratio and call it a day.

I don’t get the tree ring thing either since tree growth is affected by temperature, water and CO2 levels. How do you resolve these factors.

DO we really have any data on the thermal balance of the biosphere?

If you think the temperature record is unclear, or that the isolated instances of variance that you cite somehow obscure it (which, as a statistician, I would think you understand to be wholly unrepresentative and useless for examining trends), I would posit that it’s because you have not done due diligence in investigating it. I suggest you crawl through the references at the GISSTEMP page, here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/references.html

NASA won’t release its data, which casts huge doubt on its approach. Furthermore, it is indeed a serious flaw to use only US data – it makes the sampling process totally non random and that means worthless. Couple that with some other new data – Austalia and Argentina (never included in the studies) experiencing their coldest temps ever and in a 5 year cooling trend, the subsurface ocean temps in the Atlantic in a four year cooling trend and lower than normal, the 40,000 square mile area in Texas where I live experiencing this summer it’s coldest temps on record (July the coldest in history while the publicity was all about Las Vegas which was 2 degrees above normal) and I conclude that before we start wondering about what’s causing warming, we should establish a mathematically valid case for it. To my mind (and the group of mathematicians with whom I correspond regularly) that simply has not yet been done. In fact, the data we can analyze (admittedly imperfect) show the earth’s overall temps to be in a period of stability and on the verge of a cooling trend.

My concern here is with the analysis of the data, as it’s a blot on an already misunderstood subject (statistics, in general) to publish any study on any subject which is blatantly wrong in its approach and then hide the data and methodology from fellow researchers.

Your comments are typical and expected. The first step from the environazi’s is always to claim that we’re wrong, the data the is right. Then when proven that the data is indeed wrong they cry “insignificant.”

Oh, of course you threw in the expected “impossible to dispute” crapola also you are indeed being a good little environazi and sticking to the talking points.

It’s actually quite humorous. Watching people like you squirm because people are starting to come around to your religion and it’s complete stupidity.

You’ll note that, globally, 1998 is WAY WAY above 1934. And the warming trend is impossible to dispute. QED.

For all who were sarcastic, etc., about that .1C. As pointed out that is 16.7% of a total phenomena claimed to be valid. Not only is it significant, considering that IPCC claimed that the correctness was about 99% and now part has been shown to be at best 83.3%, should cause an appreciation that potential (not actual) problems have been proven. The correction has falsified an important claim of at least the significance, if not the relation itself.

As to the “result” above – 1934 was #2, 1998 was #1. Now the situation has reversed because of a .01 point change in the annual mean. This is laughable. That you would play this up is laughable. Seriously, get some better data.

the USA has been the single biggest source of CO2 emissions in the world over the past 100 years. We have for 20 years or so been asked to accept as the fundamental hypothesis the postulate that an increase in CO2 is the primary and single most important independant variable forcing increased temperatures. CO2 ppmv has continued to increase, temperatures have not. The hypothesis has been falsified for North America.

Try again

And if you follow the money, the wheels fall off of the “carbon credit” trading market and many relatives of politicians who have managed to place themselves in companies that “mitigate” global warming.

Not only does one of THE main issues of the “green left” disappear, but so does an entire market segment and those who were capitalizing on it. Don’t look so much at Gore’s snake oil, look at the value of the carbon credits he owns.

But that gives me an idea … a snake oil powered car.