Re: Not So Hot? Not So Fast ...

I refuse to scrap the entirety of my brilliant post about the new analysis of problematic temperature data stations just because Justin, the smart apple, beat me to it.

The most critical element of the theory of anthropogenic global warming is ... well, you know, some actual warming of the globe. Data - more specifically, an upward march of global temperature readings - is the heart of the theory. Remember that less than a month ago, the upward march had startling proved not so steep (a temperature rise of only 1.4 f since the dawn of the Industrial Age instead of the anticipated 3.8 f). In other words, there wasn't that much warming happening to begin with. With these critical looks at temperature station placement, we now have to ask: could what's left of global warming now be attributed to an extremely local - air conditioning vents, hot roof tops, jet fumes - anthropogenic source?

Under Justin's post, "HardRight" brings up the matter of the age of the Earth. In fact, it is AGW advocates who wish to disregard the age of the Earth. Any reasonable person, including most AGW skeptics, understands that the statement, "Earth has never warmed this fast!", not only is patently not provable about a planet that is 4.5 billion years old, it's also highly unlikely. In the process of "proving" the phenomenon, AGW scientists have relied in substantial part on inferred data. What would we use for inferred temperature data over a three hundred year period from, say, 3 billion years ago?

In fact, it is not necessary to go back that far to disprove the point. Earth has "warmed this fast", and as recently as 12,500 years ago.

... temperatures from the end of the Younger Dryas Period to the beginning of the Holocene some 12,500 years ago rose about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in a 50-year period in Antarctica, much of it in several major leaps lasting less than a decade.

Not so fast, indeed.