The data sets are not in disagreement, they are merely over time spans. This decade is warm. Temperature has stalled at a warm point and, between 2001 and 2009, cooled a little.
The link below, reposted from the post earlier, shows that virtually every model in use showed warming while real world data from GISS and HadCru3 show a temperature decline for the period.
The point to which the temperature has risen puts us almost dead center in a roughly 2 degree range of varience established over the last 8000 years. This is a point 0.7 degrees warmer than 2000 years ago and a point 1 degree cooler than 8000 years ago.
Do you remember the Ice Man discovered as a glacier melted revealing him in almost perfectly preserved condition complete with wardrobe and axe leaned against a rock nearby? He was seated on the ground, not on the ice.
The Glacier had formed over him, freezing him and preserving him, and there was no evidence that scavengers got the chance to take a turn with him.
We know that the glacier had been there for some time, but had melted in current times. We further know that the glacier was not there when poor old Otsi originally sat down to die as he was on the ground, half buried by the ice, when discovered.
We have apparently RETURNED to the climate prevalent before this poor guy froze to death in a blizzard that buried him and his way of life. As AGW Proponents are fond of doing, let's examine what nature is doing, has done, to determine if there is cause for panic.
Thank you for an intelligent and insightful approach - I really wish the quality of all posting on this subject was as good as this.
I agree that the various sets of data do largely agree - and that we should be able to draw basic conclusions as a result.
One issue which I think needs to be taken into consideration is not only the extent of the change in mean temperatures - but
the pace at which that change has taken place, and I think it is here that it becomes difficult to explain away the changes as being natural.
The data on Alaska glaciers shows warming between 1950 and 1990 as being relatively steady - but then quite suddenly doubling in pace. This research is reflected in similar studies conducted in New Zealand, France, Spain and South America - all of whom have seen catastrophic collapses in glaciers taking place since 1990.
This text from BBC is useful here, I think:
There have been many periods in Earth history that were warmer than today - if not the MWP, then maybe the last interglacial (125,000 years ago) or the Pliocene (three million years ago). Whether those variations were caused by solar forcing, the Earth's orbital wobbles or continental configurations, none of those causes apply today. Evidence for a Mediaeval Warm Period outside Europe is patchy at best, and is often not contemporary with the warmth in Europe. As the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) puts it:
"The idea of a global or hemispheric Mediaeval Warm Period that was warmer than today has turned out to be incorrect". Additionally, although the Arctic was warmer in the 1930s than in the following few decades, it is now warmer still.
BBC NEWS | Special Reports | 629 | 629 | Climate scepticism: The top 10
Sinatra, Concept -
The original data used by the UK Met Office is available on their website, and has not been thrown out. The data is from their own field offices, and I've yet to hear anyone question their methodology. Rather than just flail away, please try and actually stick to facts - not what you wish would happen.
I challenge you to research the issue, and then consider the reports conclusions.
As far as the quality of posting goes, generally, I don't have this kind of time, but I had to either use or lose vacation time during this month and have had some time to think. But thank you both for this comment and for your thoughtful reply and previous posts.
Evidence for past temperature is what it is. Some of the proxies seems to be fairly reflective of what actually happened and other of them fairly reflective of a chosen outcome the researchers were asked to find. Examples of this are recently famous.
The Otsi Ice Man seems to show a very fast change in temperature as he sat on ground, was covered by snow and remained covered by that snow then ice for centuries. No scavenger evidence on the corpse shows that no scavengers got to him before the hard freeze occurred and no subsequent damage shows that he stayed under the ice constantly in the interim.
In the early Renaissance, every artist that was worth his salt climbed a hill to paint the beautiful image of his village with roofs covered in show. It was unusual. Like snow in Dallas on Christmas. Or in Baghdad any time. Or 4 inches in Copenhagen in Early December.
In 1986, I was traveling allot and in January in Ohio, it surprised me that there was very little snow on the prairie areas as I drove from one location to another. In Wisconsin, where I lived at the time, there was plenty of snow. In this area of the world, there is a scallop of cold that comes out of Canada and covers the land in a semi circle that seems to have the center of radius in North Dakota and covers the upper Mid West.
Anyway, today I live in Indiana and the snow cover seems about equal to what I remember from Ohio those decades ago. I understand that there are plants and bugs moving north that have never been in this area before, but I moved south so I had never been in this area before, either. We probably annoy each other. With Orkin's help, I intend to annoy them more.
Climate change is a geologically slow thing, or maybe not. Maybe all of the changes are quick. Certainly the change for Otsi was. The Snow on the rooftops was. Tree rings show us two things: First, they show if the conditions changed and are reflected in tree rings. Second, if the tree is old, the conditions to grow that tree have remained favorable for a good long time.
Where there were trees which are no longer there, maybe they died all at once as the bark beetle stopped dying in winter and was able to lay eggs that produce larvae that eat the seeds. That's life. Literally.
The evidence of warming is all around us and I personally have had better times in warm sand than cold snow, but that's just me.
The case that AGW Proponents need to prove is that in this instance of warming, for the first time in history, this warming, that is well within a set limit of varience over the last 8000 years, is actually caused by CO2. They need to prove both that it is caused by CO2 and that it would not have happened if the CO2 was not increasing.
It would be helpful to their case if they could actually quantify the effect of CO2 and make an accurate prediction of future climate that can be reviewed and found to be accurate in the fullness of time. It would also be helpful if the warming did not pre-date the Industrial Revolution, but that ship, the Mayflower, has already sailed.
Incidentally, the warming of the 1000 years ended in 1000 AD was quicker thant the warming for the 1000 years ended in 2000 AD. .4 degrees vs. .3 degrees respectively.
The fast warming of today which you mention was the second instance of quick climate change in the last millenium. The first, of course, was the Little Ice Age. The only recent examples we have of climate change seem to indicate a pretty quick turn around.
Is it justified to suppose that the sudden warming of today is both unusual and man-made when we see that there was an opposite and equally sudden change in climate direction that ended only 400 years ago?
Entire human lives are a single tick on a stop watch to a glacier. Our lives end pretty suddenly. One second we breath and the next, we do not. Perhaps the lives of glaciers, which are born suddenly and bury Otsi, also end suddenly and reveal Otsi just like ours.
Our understanding changes and maybe we are just witnessing things right now that will change our understanding.
