rstuart
I became interested in this subject about 6 years ago & read peer reviewed literature whenever possible. However my current personal interest is in cloud, water vapour & associated atmospheric processes & oceanic circulation & their interaction. Apart from Spencer & his colleagues, I find particularly interesting the current work of Piers Forster (School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds), Jonathan Gregory (Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling, Dept. University of Reading), Karl E Taylor, Program for Climate Model Diagnosis & Inter-comparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA, and Joshua Willis, Jet Propulsion laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA.

I'm a retired chemist, trained in the scientific method, and believe I have a pretty sharp eye to sort out the grain from the chaff on what has become a highly politicised subject (and unfortunately I'm only talking at the scientific level here). The issue I have with the current IPPC line is not AGW as such but its degree. I suspect that climate sensitivity to GHG is very small.

Spencer & his colleagues have produced many peer reviewed articles in various journals. On the subject of atmospheric processes see recent articles: -

Spencer et al, "Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations", Geophysical Research Letters, Published 9 Aug 2007.

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf

Roy Spencer, "Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Description", Journal of Climate (pending publication).

Spencer, Roy W. "Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitivity" in press, J Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (submitted June 25, 2008). See simplified version.

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Climate-Sensitivity-Holy-Grail.htm

See also attached the power point presentation he & William Braswell are giving today (Thurs 17th Jul), at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, with further updated analysis of satellite data. "Feedback vs. Chaotic Radiative Forcing: "Smoking Gun" Evidence for an Insensitive Climate System?' This will break a few rocks.

http://climatesci.org/wp-content/uploads/spencer-ppt.pdf

I will comment on this last link tomorrow, with feedback if possible, as I believe it's content is very important; space prohibits now.

rstuart - perhaps you should read this review of your "peer reviewed" IPCC report by a fellow Aussie.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/McLean_IPCC_bias.pdf

In fact everyone should read it!

and you should read this

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=310&Itemid=1

PROVED: THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS
"The value of this paper lies in its dispassionate but ruthlessly clear exposition – or, rather, exposé – of the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. The detailed arguments in this paper, and, indeed, in a large number of other scientific papers, point up extensive errors, including numerous projection errors of climate models, as well as misleading statements by the IPCC. Consequently, there are no rational grounds for believing either the IPCC or any other claims of dangerous anthropogenic global warming.”

Arjay
Yes, the major players must jump on board. China and India are very aware of the impacts of climate change (I won’t begrudge better lifestyles for them). They are also aware that Australia and the US have been somewhat ‘recalcitrant’ lately – this is changing. Rudd is taking a “measured” approach and both McCain and Obama have more proactive climate change policies than Bush. I think China and India will follow relatively soon thereafter. I was looking forward to Don Aitken’s answers to the questions I twice posed – he is a political scientist after all, but he chooses not to. I can understand people’s confusion over the current warming/cooling ‘debate’ – we have to find a better way to inform the general public, particularly since there is a lot of misinformation (intentional or otherwise) out there.

G Larsen
I am very serious - this planet of ours has a finite resource base and Humanity is living beyond its present and future means. We have to learn, grow and develop in a more sustainable way. Many of our problems are directly associated with our misuse/abuse of energy resources. Further, you may understand the bun-fight that the UNFCCC and IPCC go through in their processes and procedures, and if you do you will also understand that their conclusions are more on the ‘conservative’ side – the US and China makes sure of that.

I respect Roy Spencer’s work (I'm particularly interested in coupled ocean/atmosphere systems) and am looking forward to seeing his team’s research on feedback mechanisms. If his work is robust I will feel some relief, time will tell. However, it disturbs me that neither he nor the sceptics didn't acknowledge the reported errors in the Argo data, leading to a false cooling bias.

Don Aitken
I visit Lucia’s ‘Blackboard’, I prefer Tamino ... not because he's convincing , but because of the proper analysis. Given the stats are correct, you will see the continuation of a rising trend before 2015 – I suspect much sooner.

rstewart
Heard of the ‘Green House Mafia’? Follow the links to John McLean.

Janama: "PROVED: THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS"

Oh please, no one in the right mind is going to take to word of Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, journalist, social policy nutter, and failed extreme right-wing politician, over thousands of real, qualified climate scientists. The fact that you say "PROVED" on the basis of one article indicates that you haven't a clue about scientific research.

The same Monckton is also on record as saying: "there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently."

O .. K ...

To Q&A: Your maths/stats must be better than mine because I can't see that Tamino provides proper analysis and Lucia doesn't. What I can see is a debate, and on the whole I find her outlook, humility and preparedness to argue more appealing.

For all, I also recommend John McLean's incisive account of the authorship and reviewing of Chapter 9 in AR4 fascinating and disturbing reading. Janama above gives the URL. I also think that Roy Spencer is also worth reading.

My original point, first made in April, is increasingly confirmed by observation and new peer-reviewed literature (yes, peer-reviewed, but after reading McLean you may be less dazzled by the peer review process): there has always been much more uncertainty about the extent to which human beings have affected their climate than the IPCC, Garnaut, the Australian Government and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all have maintained. It is now argued (see above) the the warming trend will pick up again in 2015, but none of what has happened in the past few years was predicted by the IPCC, and if 'natural' forces can subdue AGW for 15 years how strong is it anyway?