Quote from dcraig:
No. It's the science. And no, it's not the latest hobbyhorse. The first climate model attempting to estimate the effect of CO2 on climate was produced in 1895 by the Swedish chemist Arrhenius who came up with a figure for climate sensitivity to CO2 not so very different from IPCC estimates today. He did this from the physics not statistical correlations - there was no temperature record to speak of. After it was shown in the 1950s and early sixties that humans are increasing CO2 in the atmosphere by large amounts, there was a lot more scientific interest and it has grown ever since. There is an free online book detailing the history of the discovery of global warming:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
You are under the misconception that climate models are just statistical models. This is completely untrue. They are physical models that rely on the physics of the interactions of the various parts of the climate system. Suggesting that climate models are based on statistical correlation of such things as CO2 and temperature is incorrect and a straw man.
There is no question that the Sun heats the earth. However the earth sheds heat by radiating it into space - otherwise we would just get hotter and hotter. Hence an energy budget for the earth. The atmosphere has a major effect on the shedding of heat (something like 30 degrees). Introducing extra GHGs into the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect, upsets the energy budget and raises temperature. Measured solar variations are just too small to explain warming in the last hundred years. The last decade is that hottest on record. The sun is at it's weakest in a century.
Your conclusions are based on a false premise.
There is a mountain of evidence for AGW. If you go to http://www.skepticalscience.com/ just about every skeptical argument is dealt with individually by proper reference to the relevant scientific publications. It is possibly the most informative site on the net.
I went to that site and was not persuaded at all. I read the BBC interview,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm# , with Professor Phil Jones who was one of the lead authors of the UN study and is at the epicenter of the Climategate controversy. He is about as prestigious a supporter of AGW as one can find. From the interview:
"
B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods. "
So he is admitting there is no statistically significant global warming during the decade the media incessantly lecture us has been the warmest on record.
Moreover, he acknowledges the inconvenient issues presented by the medieval warm period:
"G - There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?
There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.
We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere. "
Briefly put, they refuse to make the logical assumption, that the MWP was global, because it destroys their house of cards. They are only too willing to make far more dubious assumptions regarding tree ring data and the like when it supports their cause. It must be emphasized as well that Dr. Jones was one of the ringleaders in trying to silence skeptics and authored damaging emails referring to "tricks" he employed in manipulating the data. of course, he denies it all, but what would we expect? So even the high priests of this new religion admit to staggering holes and inconsistencies in their theory, yet we are supposed to ignore it all and wreck our economy...for what reason?