Steve Schulin wrote:
In article .com,
"Roger Coppock" posted excerpts from AP article,
in part:

...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...n1075640.shtml
...
Greenhouse Effect At All-Time High
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2005
...
Skeptics sometimes dismiss the rise in greenhouse gases as part of a
naturally fluctuating cycle. The new study provides ever-more
definitive evidence countering that view, however.
...
The bottom line: "There's no natural condition that we know about in
a really long time where the greenhouse gas levels were anywhere near
what they are now. And these studies tell us that there's a strong
relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases," said Oregon
State's Brook. "Which logically leads you to the conclusion that
maybe we should worry about temperature change in the future."
...

One feature of the strong relationship _not_ highlighted by Roger's
post is that the temperature rises _follow_ CO2 rises.

Not established. In most cases CO2 clearly leads temperature. In one place,
it *seems* to lag, but then the data has too much error to be definititve.
What IS defined, within the error bars, is the simple CO2/temparature
coorelationship.

The new
analysis explicitly confirms and extends this finding. Graphs of
CO2-temperature relationship were an "icon of calamitology" years
before the "hockey stick".

It is called the 'hockey stick graph' only due to similarity of symbology.
The fact that ther is a long stable period ( the shaft ) folloiwed by a
drastic and rapid rise ( the blade ) does NOT make for an argument either
for or against the facts.

The first finding that CO2 lagged, rather
than led, temperature change was quite a blow

Really. In reality it led to a check of the analysis which found an error in
the timeline related to O18/016 depostion rates that changed the lag to a
small fraction of the error bars. You really have to include the QUALITY of
the data when trying to reach firm conclusiosn.

to the many who had
inferred that the causal relationship was CO2 causing the temperature
rise. Some of the graphs used to promote alarm about CO2 actually
showed CO2 change slightly before temperature change.

Keep spinning Steve. Eventually, you may bore a hole to China.


Very truly,

Steve Schulin
http://www.nuclear.com