Look Eclipse, it is a matter of reading the figures, not of what other people say. I instanced the Kaufmann et al paper not as proof of the fact that temperatures have plateaued, but that others on your side of the argument were being sensible and admitting the unavoidable.

The NOAA and GISS media releases go beyond what their own figures say. The margin of error in measurement is such that all you can say is that there is a plateau. I'm not claiming anymore than that, but I think it does demonstrate the weakness of the IPCC argument that what ought to be a non-issue is so vigorously argued.

In terms of the satellite measurement, there was an issue with Satellite drift, but it has been corrected. Much less of an issue there than with the issues with the terrestrial measurements which include the siting of thermometers, the choice of which thermometers to use, the adjustments made over time to them, and the elimination of some thermometers over time from the measurements, not to mention the fact that some areas of the world are very sparsely covered by thermometers.

But NOAA and NASA interpreted the data and margin of error and still unequivocally state that 2005 and 2010 are the hottest.

The paper only went to 2008 anyway — so with NASA and NOAA both claiming 2010 was as hot as 2005, and hotter than 1998, what we can say is that a super-spiked 1998 has been equalled by a variety of ENSO events in the following decade — the hottest decade on record.

Even though it was the hottest decade on record the drama in that paper is that it wasn't *hotter* — and so they did a round up of the usual suspects. (Sulphur, etc). This is actually quite encouraging as it means the 'sulphur shield' might actually work if we get into a runaway-warming scenario.

And the Urban Heat Island effect is not a problem at all. The climatologists have stated that it was relatively easy to tick off the erroneous sites and have the database correct for them.

Overall, the picture I get is that the science is sticking together. Hottest decade on record yet the climatologists are *honestly* saying that it should have been hotter! That's peer-reviewed science at work. I wouldn't expect to see that if some conspiracy were in play.

So Eclipsed, so we now have an admission from you that it hasn't got any warmer over the last 13 years. I guess that is as good as it is going to get, but it shouldn't have to take all of these posts to get to this point.

What the underlying trend might be is still the issue, but it does your credibility no good to refuse to accept plain facts.

To all interested posters:

The following website is an educational one sponsored by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS). It is free to join and offers educational programs on understanding both weather and climate. I am sure that people interested in the climate debate will find the articles and programs offered to be of use in continued debate on OLO with scientists, giving greater information and understanding.

https://www.meted.ucar.edu/about.php

The following links to the educational modules from which one can learn about the many events climatologists study. It is not linked to the IPCC nor the Heartland institute. This is climatology pure and (not so) simple.

https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_detail.php

I am hoping people will access this opportunity for information, and not use the excuse of 'not enough time'. If one doesn't have time to properly inform oneself, then I can only ask why post on climate topics at all?

Many inquiring posters to OLO do make the effort to understand the topic they are discussing. True, not nearly enough. And I don't claim to be an expert only having a degree in Applied Science in Environmental Studies. However, this is 2011 we have the internet literally at our fingertips, no excuse for complete ignorance and relying on organisations that have vested interests in maintaining misinformation about climate - such as those who fund the Heartland Institute.

Cheers

Graham,
How can you say that? We still haven't tracked down which database your *one* peer-reviewed paper used and why they used it. As for a trend, you still haven't admitted 2005 and 2010 as the 2 hottest years on record (according to NASA and NOAA) and the last 15 years being the 15 hottest years on record.

Let's just clarify this: other than the vagaries over which database the Mann PDF used, do you deny both NASA and NOAA's temperature claims? If so, why? And do you deny the last 15 years are the 15 hottest on record, and if so, why?

Ammonite,
you are probably far more qualified to comment on this than anyone here. My argument has been that anyone with basic reading can clearly see when vested interests like the Heartland Institute are producing studies that cherry-pick information out of context. One doesn't even have to be a scientist to detect when someone is deliberately misrepresenting what the other side of the case has argued.

But thank you for your post, I'll keep those links in mind. I'm starting a new career tomorrow and (recent surgery permitting) will hopefully be helter skelter adapting to my new job. So I'm not sure how much time I'll have to respond here to comments like the following.

EG: I would *never* have put it the way GrahamY did:

//So Eclipsed, so we now have an admission from you that it hasn't got any warmer over the last 13 years. I guess that is as good as it is going to get, but it shouldn't have to take all of these posts to get to this point.//

That's just ignoring the plain facts as reported by NOAA and NASA. (But let's not let actual data from enormous temperature databases cloud our *opinion*!)