Steelie, get on Google and find some graphs showing CO2 and world temperatures for the last 600 million years. 570 million years ago, global temperatures were much higher than today and CO2 was around 6000 ppm. Over time, both temperatures and CO2 levels have significantly decreased, but in no way in correlation with each other. There have been times when there was very significant increases in CO2 coinciding with very significant decreases in temperature.

It is only when temperatures are comparatively low, as they are at the moment, and atmospheric CO2 levels are almost non existent, that any correlation between temperatures and CO2 levels exist. And then that correlation is very close. Because sea water holds 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere, and warm water holds less CO2, and cold water holds more CO2.

When temperatures rise through differences in the way solar radiation is distributed, the oceans warm, more CO2 is released, and Al Gore can get a Nobel Prize for telling everybody that CO2 drives temperatures. But it doesn't. Temperatures drive CO2 levels. At 320ppm, CO2 levels were the lowest they have been for 300 million years and plant life was beginning to choke. Fortunately, humans accidently became the cause of putting some much needed (by plants) CO2 back into the atmosphere. Satellites confirm that the Earth is greening as plants respond. Some commercial greenhouse operators growing fruits and vegetables actually pump CO2 into their greenhouses to make their plants grow bigger and faster.

If you think that CO2 drives temperatures, then I hope you are right. Because we get an Ice Age every 10,000 years with 10 "interglacial" warming and cooling periods between them. Guess what? The last Ice Age was 10,000 years ago and our present warming period is right on schedule. And it is the tenth of the series. The planet has not warmed since 1998. You had better hope that this is just another period of temperature no growth like in 1945 to 1977.

Because if it isn't, and you're right, then we had better start setting fire to every coal field now.

Hmmmm.. what about a global Royal Commission into the workings of the IPCC? Now that would be democracy!

Tell ya what, Steelie, I am going to help you.

Google "CO2 and temperature graph hundreds of million years." No correlation between CO2 and temps, other than both are decreasing, with temps sometimes rising significantly while CO2 is significantly decreasing, and vice versa

Now google "CO2 and temperature graphs 10s of million years". Exactly the same deal.

Now google "CO2 and temperature graphs hundreds of thousands of year" Very serious ice ages occur every 100,000 years, with each one's warming period getting progressively colder. And it is only when you get to this scale that the correlation between CO2 and temps appears. That is because after almost 600 million years, most of the atmospheric CO2 is now locked up in carbonaceous rocks like limestone, or fossil fuels. And what little is left is affected by the only major storehouse of free CO2 gas, the oceans of the world. Ocean CO2 solvability is affected by temperature. You will probably also find Al Gore's graph with which he "proved" to a auditorium full of cheering naive students that CO2 causes temperature rises. By now you should have figured out that he is wrong.

Next "tens of thousands of years" and things start to get really interesting. Less severe ice ages appear every 10,000 years, with 10 interglacial warming and cooling periods in each.

Lastly, "Major Holocene warming periods. We find the expected 10 warming periods since our last ice age Drawing a line along the peaks of the last four interglacial warming periods, we find that our present Holocene warming period has probably already reached it's extrapolated peak. Even Foxy and Ant could do this (with a bit of coaching).

So all of this newspaper nonsense about "this is the hottest year ever" is complete BS. We are at the top of just another routine warming period and we may still be warming, with a degree or so to go. Let's hope so. Because when we begin that plunge, THAT is when human civilisation is going to have real problems.

Eat, drink, and be merry, Steelie, because tomorrow we may freeze.

It has been known for decades that temperature rise causes CO2 rise. That doesn't alter the fact that rising CO2 levels cause the temperature to rise. Together those phenomena constitute a positive feedback mechanism.

Hey Aiden. First you make a correct statement and admit that temperature causes CO2 levels to rise. Then you make a statement which may be technically true, but which skips over the thorny question as to if this is significant.

As for your "positive feedback loop". The globe has not warmed since 1998 when humankind was belching out CO2 all over the place. Nor did it rise from 1954 to 1977, when once again industries and power stations were going full tilt. What does that say about your feed back loop?

The global pause in rising temperatures was what the Climategate thing was all about. You remember that, don't you Aiden? That was where a bunch of scientists at the east Anglia Climate Research Unit were bemoaning the fact that the globe was not heating up, and they discussed various ways of covering that up.

The whole HIGW thing is coming apart at the seams, AIden. Time to jump ship. The stupid predictions of the Alarmists made thirty years ago about immanent climate catastrophe have been proven to be completely false. Too many eminent geologists, astrophysicts, and physicists, like serious people, are coming forward and giving evidence to government panels that the whole thing is a sham.

41 remaining ex NASA scientists from the Apollo (you know, the guys who put astronauts on the moon)program have petitioned NASA to completely shut down NASA's climatic research unit because of the serious harm that self aggrandising climatologists have done to the authority and prestige of science.