Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: Arctic Methane - This Does Not Sound Good... [View all]Nederland
(9,976 posts)Perhaps it would be helpful for me to give you a little background since you are new. I believe in AGW. I believe that the world is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible for that change. What I don't believe in is Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, or CAGW.
The point of the graphic therefore is simply to demonstrate that the rate of warming is below what IPCC models predict, and far far below what many people around here claim will happen. You really should have picked up on that from the prior post. Regardless, the bottom line is that there are a fair number of people around here that routinely talk about how temperatures will rise 5 or 6 degrees by 2100. Current temperature trends simply do not support that notion. If anything, recent findings suggest that IPCC predictions have been too high with regard to temperature.
Regarding your dismissal of HadCRUT3, I would point out that it was included so as to appear as unbiased as possible. I could have displayed only the temperature record that most strongly supported my view, but unlike many around here I try hard to avoid cherry picking and so I displayed all the land based records. I would have included the satellite records, but I've learned from experience that people around here don't respect them so I don't bother (the funny thing is in this case, it would have been to their advantage).
Naturally you are completely free to bash the HadCRUT3 record if you want to. I believe that Phil Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Jones_(climatologist)), one of the most respected experts in the field with credentials that far exceed your own would take issue with that assessment, but you can take that up with him. Perhaps you could write him an email to explain why the temperature record he has spent his career refining sucks. Best of luck with that.
Finally, I have to laugh at the notion that I should make myself a little more acquainted with the factual record. I know the factual record quite well, much better than you evidently, since the point I was making in that last post has to be explained to you step by step. A person more familiar with the arguments would have grasped immediately both my position on the issue and the reason for posting the graphs.