Will this AGW rot ever end; not when true believers like warmy, Mr Redux and Agro still keep plugging along.

Warmy says:

"1 Retreating ice reduces the amount of heat reflected back to space.
2 Increasing temperatures cause more water vapour in the atmosphere enhancing global warming.
3 Increasing temperatures cause rising levels of CO2 and methane further enhancing global warming."

1 No. Increased cloud would reflect more 'heat'.

2 No. WV is maybe a negative feedback [and clouds certainly are which increase with more WV in the atmosphere]:

http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf

3 The sensitivity of CO2 to temperature is much lower than assumed by alarmists:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/full/nature08769.html

Agro says:

"So any argument that “warming precedes CO2 increases” is entirely spurious for the current situation. Such an argument would mean that CO2 concentrations would still be not much more than 275 ppm, which clearly is not the case."

No.` See Knorr discussed painfully here:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14581&page=0

And Gloor et al:

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/9045/2010/acpd-10-9045-2010.html

cohenite, I looked at Knorr 2009 and Gloor et al. 2010 and I remain unsure of why you have introduced these pieces of work into this argument.

In essence what Knorr and Gloor et al. are arguing is that the fraction of human CO2 emissions that remain in the atmosphere has stayed relatively constant or increased slowly over 150 years. What this means is that as human emissions have increased, the ability of sinks to take up that carbon has also increased. In contrast, Le Quere et al. 2009 argues that the fraction of human emissions remaining in the atmosphere has increased from 40 to 45% in the past 150 years.

Regardless, this still means that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activity. In 1850 humans put less than 0.5 GT of C per year into the atmosphere and about 40% of that has stayed there. In 2000 humans put almost 8 GT of C into the atmosphere per year and about 45% of that has stayed there. This means CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing see Figure 1 in Knorr for an example.

cohenite's argument in the post linked to seems to be that Knorr’s works shows that humans are not responsible for most of the CO2 in the atmosphere. This is almost the complete opposite of the argument in Knorr and is frankly weird.

This is no way addresses any argument about whether temperature increases precede CO2 increases in the atmosphere. Prior to 1850, there were no temperature increases. Indeed, you have argued here that global temperatures in the Medieval warm period and the Roman warm period were as high as today. So taking the argument that temperature increases precede CO2 increases, there is currently an unprecedented increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

imajulianutter puts this down to the action of terrorists, cohenite uses two papers that state CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing to argue … well I am not sure what.

'So taking the argument that temperature increases precede CO2 increases, there is currently an unprecedented increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.'

So explain the current pause in temps while co2 is still increasing.

Agro; I don't think that is the right interpretation of what a constant Airborne Fraction [AF], or the amount of anthropogenic CO2 [ACO2] remaining in the air means. The long discussion between me and Bugsy about Knorr established 2 things; one you've already mentioned, which is sinks are increasing.

The other more problematic issue is whether nature is supplying ANY CO2 at all to the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

The constant AF is one piece of that puzzle which I think indicates some contribution by natural CO2 to the overall increase.

I am also impressed with the work of Gösta Pettersson:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/01/the-bombtest-curve-and-its-implications-for-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-residency-time/

In respect of sinks see this:

http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f3_online.jpg

The point I made was if sinks are increasing the assumption of an equilibrium between natural CO2 and natural sinks before ACO2 began increasing is probably wrong; as is the fact that natural CO2 is not contributing.

Imajulianutter

The global climate since the 1970s has warmed at the of rate of about 0.17 deg C per decade. It appears that despite increasing CO2 levels, the rate of warming has not significantly increased over the last decade. Note it is not true that warming has ceased recently it is only that warming rate has not increased.The period 10 to 20 years is in fact too short to prove anything due to other factors listed below.

1 In a single year the global temperatures can vary by more than 0.17 deg C amount depending on whether we are in a El Nino or La Nina. Since the early 2000s we have had more La Ninas than El Ninos. La Ninas favor cooler conditions.

2 We have had a number of large volcanic eruptions over the last decade which pump sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere and we know from previous eruptions that this temperately reduces temperatures.

3 Global sulphate aerosols have risen due to increased pollution from the developing world particularly China. Again thus tending to cool climate.

4 There has been a small decrease in energy output from the sun.

5 A possible increase in heat uptake by the deep ocean.

So it is not surprising that increased GHGs levels have not managed to increase the rate of warming in such a short time.

warmy; keep flogging it;

1 So what, according to Foster's seminal [sic] paper rebutting Mclean et al natural variation cannot produce trend.

2 Nope. The VEI is not unusual.

3 Nope aerosols are declining and sunlight is increasing; see Wild 2012 and O'Dowd 2013.

4 As above; more sunlight is reaching Earth due to aerosol decline.

5 Nope; SST are declining and deep OHC increase is problematic.