Matt Andrews and Eclipse Now - I regret there were no misunderstandings and no errors. The article is very clear and straight forward. The warming side has admitted that temperatures have flatlined at best or declined at worst (from their point of view) and are scrambling to explain this. The statements I quoted, from the warming swide, make this clear. It is also clear that there are several different stories.
If you have an argument to make with the statements then what are they? To quote old New Scientist assertions, particularly those made before the cooling trend really became clear in the past couple of years and warmers could still laugh off the trend, is pointless.
True el nino is back and so temperatures will be higher for the next few months, but basically they just are not following script. Time for the die hard to work on getting their stories straight.

Enough of your data diddling Mark Lawson. Scientist Richard Deebe also advised:

“It’s possible that other greenhouse gases such as methane could have contributed to the (PETM) warming……. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account.”

Other vicious climate circles have occurred in the distant past and CO2 has been implicated in four of the five largest mass extinctions of life on Earth: Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic.

Meanwhile the latest study in Conservation Biology claim that the Earth is in the throes of its “sixth great extinction event” and Australia and the Pacific are becoming the worst regions on the planet for the destruction of animals and plants.

The study, said that since records began, Australian agriculture had changed or destroyed half the woodlands and forests of the country. Logging has degraded more than two-thirds of the remaining forest and land clearing and overlogging of forests have been highlighted as the greatest threats to land-based flora and fauna in the Oceania region, according to their review of 24,000 scientific papers.

The report sets out several recommendations to slow the decline by introducing laws to limit land clearing, logging and mining; reducing carbon emissions and pollution; and limiting bottom trawling in the oceans. How will that impact on your “free” market buddies Mark?

In addition, scientists at Griffith University last month determined that global warming has cut the average snow cover at Australia’s highest altitude snow course, Spencer’s Creek in the Snowy Mountains, by 30 per cent to 40 per cent in the last 50 years.

Salinity is rampant and major rivers are on life support due to carbon based emissions and other toxic chemicals dumped there by industries out of control so enough of your tedious endeavours to dupe. The discerning among us have less concern on whether it's warming or freezing. It's the empirical evidence that disturbs them most and that overwhelming evidence causes your diddlers to appear quite hilarious - so I guess at least they're good for a giggle?

Then NASA reports that 1998 was the hottest year on record in a super-El Nino year, the largest El Nino humanity has ever witnessed. However, according to NASA 2005 BEAT 1998 WITHOUT the help of an El Nino, and 2007 equalled 1998. What cooling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y15UGhhRd6M
To claim that the world has been cooling since 1998 can only be justified by narrowing in on that year and stretching your temperature range out to 2004, falling conveniently short of 2005. It's a misleading selective use of data called cherry-picking, and would not pass 1st year science courses if submitted as a paper.

From climate sceptic Dr Patrick J Michaels again:

"Make an argument that you can get killed on and you will kill us all…
If you loose credibility on this issue you lose this issue!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnrpwctIh4

Dear Mark Lawson

No, I did not buy the Meehl et al paper.
Being an active scientist in the discipline and member of respective academies and organisations, I receive the papers as a matter of course (often in advance and sometimes for review).

As others have noted, you are completely ignorant of the science or have a more malevolent agenda. I would say a bit of both given your propensity to cherry-pick, take things out of context and deliberately distort or misrepresent what scientists actually report – despite your protestations or affirmations to the contrary.

Either way, your credibility as a ‘straight-shooting’ journalist has flown out the window, imho. Indeed, I would suggest you are giving Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun shock-jock columnist) a run for his money. If the journalistic standard you have shown in this OLO piece is typical of your efforts for the Australian Financial Review, then I can only despair.

By the by ... in your article, on a number of occasions, you refer to a Senator Field.
Many OLO regulars may be wondering if you suffer from the same affliction as the sad, sombre Senator Fielding?

You have done this a number of times now (Dr Noel Keenleyside immediately comes to mind). Nevertheless, I find it disturbing that a journalist (even of your 'calibre') can’t get the facts right, let alone have the capacity to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s ... as real scientists are expected to do whenever we make an utterance (another reason I use a pseudonym ... by the by :)

Whether you believe in AGW or not is irrelevant, Mark.
Adopting strong ‘climate change’ policies (energy, food, water, defence, transport, health, trade, etc, etc) is required by all stakeholders ... and is NOT premature. However, if your views and assessment is representative of the human condition, I am not optimistic.

Oh, by the by ... sun spots are back (group 1026 & 1027) - each capable of producing Senator Fielding’s ubiquitous solar flares. Do try and keep up :)

The author inadvertently points out the reality of climate science in that the influences affecting our climate are many and varied and may never be able to be completely understood and predicted. That doesnt mean we should ignore what we do know and risk catastrophe and death. Only a fool would take such a gamble.

There are never-ending claims from those who refuse to extend their reading beyond denial blogs (e.g. "Watts Up With That", infamous among climate scientists for shameless cherry-picking of data and spectacular ignorance of the science) that the warming trend is under significant scientific doubt.

Depart the "denialosphere" and return to the real world, however, and you'll find this is 100% false.

Yes, natural variability over the short-to-medium term is a feature of temperature. There is nothing in the temperature record to date that constitutes a significant departure from the long term warming trend.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

It might be useful to review this discussion of temperature data:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/what-if/

More fundamentally, we have empirical observations of the big-picture energy imbalance that the planet is experiencing: the amount of energy received by the Earth is greater than the amount of energy released by the Earth. See a brief explanation here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Measuring-Earths-energy-imbalance.html

Given this imbalance, it's basic physics that the planet is warming, and it will continue to warm over the medium-to-long term until, some centuries or millenia after greenhouse gas levels have stabilised, a new equilibrium state is reached at a higher global temperature.

That does not mean that this process will necessarily be gradual; if anything, the paleoclimate record shows that sudden climate disruptions are more common than long and gradual changes.