Gosh Davsab, there is no doubt in my mind that you are a "solar/cosmic denialist" with no need on my part to invent nor misunderstand your position. Climate is not driven by the radiation balance of the planet as you say because these many and varied systems in the atmosphere, on the surface and "underground" are the effect not the cause. Our planet's orbit changes and resulting wobbles are also effects. The "Little Ice Age" is an effect driven by solar/cosmic changes but any true blue Michael Mann devotee would like to write that one out of the history books. You present your credentials like an open book by support for the realclimate website with its obvious editorial policy as well as promoting BAMOS's publications. Need I say anymore?

I have no doubt in my mind also that I have always expressed the view that solar and cosmic plasma discharges DRIVE earth's climate. It is also my expressed view that the solar/cosmic driver should influence our behaviour and understanding of our place in an infinite connected environment. e.g. With all this additional CO2 fertilizer courtesy of an active sunnyboy, we should be out there doing the greening, improving an efficiency with water and improving bio-diversity especially within the soil structure.

EclipseNow, I must say that you are unfortunately a simple pushover if you believe your "myth 3, “The Hockey stick has been disproved”". Also,our earth and atmosphere are simply not expected to be in thermodynamic equilibrium with the solar/cosmic driver. Does that make sense?

No it doesn't make sense Kieran — you are believing mutually contradictory theories at the same time. Don't pour scorn on the IPCC work when you resort to quoting an already debunked economist!

How can the sun be the main driver and yet the earth not be in sync with it on a daily and seasonal basis? Nope, BUZZZZZZ, try again. You obviously believe in "slowed sunlight" as well. ("I do believe in fairies, I do, I DO!")

If sunlight was the main driver, surely daytime maximums would be rising faster than night time minimums. The opposite is true, showing that there is a residual storage of heat energy in our atmosphere — NOT driven by "sunnyboy darling dearest." (Aren't you cute — you call the sun "Sunnyboy" all the time. Whoopee for you.)

The so-called "Medieval warm period" was ruled out as:-
1. Viking real estate propaganda in so called "Greenland" (The ice there is hundreds of thousands of years old, and any so called appeal to massively larger agricultural areas than there are now is yet more Never-Never land stuff)
2. various local warm patches in Europe or England resulting from a COOLING stratosphere which resulted in strange, patchy activity in the Troposphere.
3. Natural scientific skepticism — which is alive and well thank you — reviewed the data. Many different fields of science failed to confirm a GLOBAL warming period — from tree rings to other data. There is a difference between a local weather event and GLOBAL CLIMATE.

THERE WAS NO WARM PERIOD, there were possibly some warm local events. Next you'll be quoting the 4 elements of Air, Water, Earth and Fire as an older model we should adopt!

Anyone confused by Kieran's illogical posts should refer to the New Scientist article on 26 myths (that Kieran's ilk keep quoting like a mantra).

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

Grand Admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Navy - thanks for the sympathy. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than man has ever dreamed of” – WS.

Sunnyboy, read my lips: “there are three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change, causing a climate change:

1) changing the incoming solar radiation (e.g., by changes in the Earth’s orbit or in the Sun itself),

2) changing the fraction of solar radiation that is reflected (this fraction is called the albedo – it can be changed by cloud cover, aerosols or land cover),

3) altering the long-wave energy radiated back to space (e.g., by changes in CO2-e concentrations, increasingly like what is happening now).

ALL OF THESE FACTORS PLAY A ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE.”

Which point/s (1, 2, 3) don’t you understand?

Sunnyboy, please go and do some homework (research), if you are capable of taking off the blinkers that is.

It may help you if you also researched "attribution studies", papers are there for you to seek and find, or as you say "find and ye shall seek" (sic).

Eclipse Now, now I wish you well.

"1. We are producing more CO2 than ever before, so even IF we were producing as much sulphuric particulates as just after WW2, the CO2 forcing for warming could finally outstrip the sulphuric dimming."

So why have global temperatures not risen since 2000? In fact they are slightly declining. Is the sulphuric dimming still outstripping the CO2 forcing?

"2. We are not producing as much sulfur. Aerosols are not all the same. Clean air regulations have reduced the Dimming particulates because they caused acid rain."

Clean air regulations have indeed reduced the dimming particulates in western countries. China however is releasing more sulphur dioxide and sulphates than any other country, easily overtaking the US and the USSR as the main contributor. The increasing global emissions of sulphuir dioxide can be seen here:
http://capita.wustl.edu/CAPITA/CapitaReports/GlobSEmissions/GlobS1850_1990.htm

"3. Global Dimming has been a known phenomenon for decades. "

Oh forgive me for questioning a phenomenon. Global dimming doesn't account for why the southern hemisphere is not warming as quickly as the northern hemisphere. The NH is where all the sulphate aerosols are, yet it is also where all of the warming is occurring. The SH is realtively clear of aerosols compared to the NH, should therfore be receiving more direct solar radiation, and according to greenhouse theory be trapping more of that radiation.

"How can the sun be the main driver and yet the earth not be in sync with it on a daily and seasonal basis? "
It is not in sync...there are lags both daily and seasonally.

"You’d rather believe in a fictitious UNIDENTIFIED mechanism than read about the many clearly IDENTIFIED forcings "
No I believe in clearly IDENTIFIED forcings as well. It is the magnitude of the clearly IDENTIFIED forcings that I question. Obviously the IPCC does too or they wouldn't put such large error bars on them.

Davsab, I read your words on "three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change" and gave my response in the last posting. Perhaps i need to elaborate further to make my point more clearly.

The first impression one gets is of a flat earthcentric stance where change is associated with being somewhat unusual. Maybe just my imagination here but when considering your "three fundamental ways" I then find myself asking the question ...... Does this clearly demonstrate an understanding of the difference between cause and effect? I am convinced the answer is NO.

No 1 is quite tentative with no mention of the cosmic connection, hence treating the Earth’s orbit and changes in the sun as mere isolated events. Just as an example using the sun, can you offer a coherent explanation for the approximate eleven-year sunspot cycle if you don't acknowledge causality?

No2 and No3 are products of the solar and cosmic plasma discharges that DRIVE earth's climate. They are not the cause of their own changing behaviour as they adjust and interact within their environment.

Whilst you can proclaim in capitals "ALL OF THESE FACTORS PLAY A ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE" you do not say with any causal certainty that the solar and cosmic plasma discharges DRIVE earth's climate. As a real true blue scientist it seems you have the inability to differentiate cause from effect, or pusher from pushed, or process from product.

The temperatures of Southern Hemisphere are warmer and a little more slow to change than the Northern Hemisphere because the Southern Hemisphere is predominantly ocean and the Northern Hemisphere has most of the land mass.

The climate has not cooled at all these last years have been the hottest globally. Some industrial gases actually can feeze local areas. Greenhouse is probably a bad description of the climate change we have caused through unprecedented pollution. We must also keep in mind the effects of some gases will be with us in 500 years if we stopped today and certainly we can blame industrial practices of the 19th century for some of our woes. Lead from petrol up until the 1970's and asbestos will continue to kill us for hundreds of generations to come. Global warming should be called Pollution Based Climate Instability Syndrome. It is a pity that pollution is not addressed in the climate change debate because on our path to economic, social and environmental destruction the exactly same things that are creating climate change are also making us sick if not cancerous and dead.