Regarding the section of the article which starts

(quote)

In a press release of April 2, 2012, it was announced that:

New UK Met Office ...
(end quote)

which is presented as though it is a quote from some source (and obviously Ollier is hoping the reader will assume it is from some respectable and reliable source)

So far as I can see it probably comes from an outfit called the Global Warming Policy Foundation
(for why I say so, see, eg,
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45695
http://beforeitsnews.com/environment/2012/04/no-global-warming-for-15-years-1969859.html
http://able2know.org/topic/187532-1 )

For the GWPF see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation and/or the sources cited there.

It's not a predominantly scientific organisation. Recall that the best it could get for its 2011 "Annual Lecture" was Australia's own Cardinal George Pell!

http://www.sydneycatholic.org/people/archbishop/addresses/2011/20111026_1463.shtml

Good article that adds to growing doubt about the whole AGW industry. The IPCC is corrupt and the loudest shills for action are anti-capitalist.

This article is certainly not amongst OLO's finest.

There's nothing new here.

Other comments indicate that each of the feeble arguments presented to support this retired ex-professor's notions have been dredged up from old garbage and have long been debunked.

Supporters from both sides of this phony war will maintain their entrenched positions. The climate scientists (real ones, not the retired geologists such as this author and that fellow Monkton) will shrug their shoulders and keep on toiling.

Readers interested in more about the author's credentials could refer to http://www.desmogblog.com/cliff-ollier

Those interested in seeing real evidence of sea level rising and increasing acidification of oceans and increasing temperature of oceans will find the following reference valuable. It is an easy and informative read. http://www.skepticalscience.com/David-Evans-All-at-Sea-about-Ocean-Warming-and-Sea-Level-Rise.html

Like some others, I was bemused by the press release. The way it is written made it sound like a press release from the UK Met Office. But it in fact is not. It comes from an article written by Benny Peiser a member of Nigel Lawson anti-global warming think tank. However, that is not the only error in the article.

As for the claim that the HADCRUT4 data set shows no warming since 1997. That one is easy to test. The data set is available (although it only goes to the end of 2010) and a plot of temperature against time shows a slope of 0.84 degrees per century from the beginning of 1997 to the end of the data set. And the slope is significant. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/download.html

Satellite data for temperature do show warming over the past 30 years. http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_decadal_trends

Land-based measurements do not show 1936 was the warmest year http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/Fig.A4L.txt

Sea ice has retreated over 30 years http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Ollier is clearly wrong. So many statements he has made are wrong that I consider it is likely he was attempting to mislead when he wrote this article.

Sir Vivor, Kenny, shal, WmTrevor, JohnBennetts and Agronomist

Now fellas, come along its time to update yourself about what your own side is saying. This business about there being no warming since 1998 is well known and acknowledged by all sides, and never mind what it says in the Met Office press release. James Hanson himself has had two goes at explaining it, both concerning aerosols. the latest effort is ...

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/13421/2011/acp-11-13421-2011.pdf

Before that the official line was to blame the temperature pause on Chinese industrial emissions. Didn't have time to find a reference to the first paper, but if you hack around you'll find it.. its open source..

I was astonished to read attempts to refute this basic point. You guys really need to read up more on this stuff..

As for the rest, you do realise Ollier's speciality is ice??.. the reason the IPCC had to dump the wild-eyed nonsense of the Greeland and Antartic ice sheets melting away and 6 metre increase in sea heights was precisely the points he outlined, that ice sheets simply don't disappear that quickly. Again, now widely acknowledged, albeit it seems that that the greenhouse foot soldiers have yet to catch up.

Ollier is a reputable scientist; and as Curmudgeon says, an expert in ice formation.

But he is a sceptic so will get the slings from the entrenched 'official' position and from its supporters, some of whom have popped up here in their usual flea like fashion.

Amongst them Agronomist has the most links; let's look at them.

1 He uses HadCrut 4; I don't know why; as he admits it ends in 2010. HadCrut 3 is variance adjusted to get rid of discrepancies in the data and makes a useful comparison with RSS satellite data:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:1997/trend

The satellites show cooling from 1997 and the statistcially insignificant warming on the land is UHI.

2 The satellites do show warming over the last 30 years, in fact since they started in 1979:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1979/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/trend

But that is due to the +ve ENSO, El Nino domination from 1976 to 1998. When ENSO turned -ve in 1998 the temperature dropped; this is entirely natural.

3 1936 was not the warmest year. It was in the US:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/14/newly-found-weather-records-show-1930s-as-being-far-worse-than-the-present-for-extreme-weather/#more-67475

And the Arctic:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/arctictemps.jpg

4 Sea ice has retreated over the last 30 years; in fact it has slightly reduced over the 20thC; but the variation is clearly not a product of AGW:

http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view&current=arcticice.gif