Leo Lane - good point.

pedestrian - others have suggested to me that better management of the pipelines was the reason for the methane concentrations no longer growing, although my own thought is that the amounts involved would be too small to make a difference. However, I am prepared to be persuaded. Was there any source on that point??

This is an interesting dilemma.

Are ocean currents affected by climactic conditions, or are climatic conditions a result of ocean currents?

I would think that records of localised weather conditions going back many thousands of years must take into account the prevailing ocean currents at that time.

This author continues to post jumbled conglomeration of 'stuff' perhaps hoping it is somehow convincing. Its not coherent and needs to be proof read. Here's an example:

"Inherent in IPCC climate change projections are continuous trends toward mean global temperatures of 1.8 to 3.6 degrees C by 2100"

That's pretty cold in my book!

Dear Andrew, what is it about advocates with such stunning academic qualifications, that they fail to recognize that they are flogging the proverbial “dead horse”?

Is it because you nailed your colors to the mast prior to Climategate and are now left with nowhere to go except to keep on “selling” the single orthodoxy? Is it because you have so much academic credibility at stake that academia simply “has to be right”?

The shear volume and effort being invested by those who promote the CAGW syndrome is truly astonishing. What is even more astonishing is the fact that although this highly contentious and divisive debate has changed dramatically since November 2009, the advocacy block has not moved forward at all, it has simply been left behind fighting its “link wars”.

Yes you are well qualified, yes you have lots of “research” to support your theories, yes you have some nice graphics, yes there is evidence of warming, yes there may be a human contribution and yes climate change happening, yes, yes, yes and sodding yes. For goodness sake stop proselytizing that which is generally accepted and move on!

Acceptable “quantification” of magnitude can only come from scientists from BOTH sides, please get on with this next stage.

Why are you hitting the non-scientific public with your science? Should you not be answering the questions raised by “other” contrary minded scientists? Is this because as a scientist you can “impress” the non-scientific flat earthers? Is this not like the one eyed man being King amongst the blind?

Like so many advocates you join the march of folly, the pursuit of which is contrary to self interest. The grinding single source of advocacy science lacks context, relevance, rationality and common sense.

Advocacy has nowhere else to go of course, it cannot move forward, it cannot embrace change, it cannot consider other input and clings desperately to the IPCC, it cannot be open and it survives only through political and not scientific sponsorship. That must be truly terrifying.

Fundamentalism offers only one response to challenge, more fundamentalisms.

Just ask any dictator

anyone looking at these graphs should be able to draw the obvious conclusion that there is an oscillation factor internal to our climate that operates on a 100 000 year cycle, the odds of some external factor occuring every 100 000 years ten times is remote