In January of 2013 co2 was at 395ppm, some 50 points higher than it was in 1985. However, in spite of rising co2 the Earth was losing energy to space at a higher rate, giving a lie to the greenhouse effect. See http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2013/03/misunderstanding-of-the-global…
Over at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/27/many-climate-reconstructions-incor… … Tim Ball, a retired climate scientist and one with 'little faith' in younger climate scientists, it would seem, claims IPCC reports have focussed world attention on co2 and higher temperatures rather than on reality, a clearly planned strategy to limit climate change to a narrow window of human causes. The position was most evident in palaeo-climate research papers and reconstructions, either done by IPCC participating scientists or for inclusion in IPCC reports (over the last 30 years).
We can, most of us, play along with that, but he goes on to talk about Hubert Lamb, the first director of CRU. He guided most of the early research on climate, and in the process, made some groundbreaking discoveries. He was succeeded by Tom Wigley. He was a major influence on the younger climate scientists as revealed in the leaked emails of Climategate. It was he that changed CRUs direction after Lamb retired. It appears that Lamb came to regret hiring Wigley, according to Tim Ball, and wrote about their difficulties. Wigley, he said, was chiefly interested in the prospect of world climate being changed as a result of burning fossil fuels and wood, rather than looking at climate in the round. He wasn't interested in natural changes to climate – only in human effects. This was quite different to Lamb's approach. He rarely mentioned humans affecting climate and began by assuming natural factors were at play. Wigley started from the opposite direction – natural factors were a hindrance to the agenda. This is self evident in the emails of his former students – employed by CRU. What then transpired is that this focus by CRU was transferred to the IPCC – and Hubert Lamb was airbrushed out of climate research history. No wonder he is rarely quoted – in spite of being the director of CRU for many years.
It is all beginning to click into place – all it takes is a few personalities (and lets not forget the role of Houghton, and on the other side of the pond, Hansen and Schneider). These people genuinely believed in man-made global warming – they had a preconceived agenda (for better or worse). They collected around them a goodly crowd of useful idiots – and they still exist (and will do for a long time to come).
Tim Ball is also illuminating in respect of tree rings. Mike Baillie is on record as disputing the notion they are specifically a temperature record – and Ball maintains they are a record of moisture rather than warmth, the amount of rain or snow that root systems are able to acess. This is not the whole story. Ball also claims speleogy, the measurement of stalachtites and stalagmites, are also a record of moisture – and the amount of water percolating through rocks into cave systems. Temperature is not involved. The same treatment is accorded ice cores and glacial stratigraphy – varves related to annual sedimentary layers in periglacial lakes. The thickness of the layers, he says, is due to temperature – but also how much rain fell during the summer. Seasonal layers in a glacier reflect temperature change – but they are modified by rainfall levels. Hence, the thickness of each layer varies with the amount of snow. When sufficient layers form, to about 50m in depth, the ice becomes plastic under pressure and flows. Ice always flows towards the snout within a glacier, in for instance the Alps, and is as much about snow accumulation as it is about temperature. In theory, a snout can advance or retreat without a change in temperature. Melt water from a glacier is a formation from temperature – but also from precipitation. Rain falling on a glacier will increase the melt rate of snow and ice. You can witness this in your garden every year. Snow will linger in shady corners but as soon as it rains it disappears. Hence, a continental glacier can slowly build up as a result of the accumulation of snow layers but they can rapidly melt as the snow turns to rain. This appears to be what happened on Mt Kilimanjaro – or something quite similar.
Ball's point is that water in all its forms and functions is more important than co2.
Geologists appear to have taken co2 onboard to account for changes in temperature at geochronological boundaries. Geologists are very enthusiastic about the ability of co2 to cause such things as tropical conditions in Europe during the Jurassic era, for example, and so on. It is almagamated into Plate Tectonics Theory – which is increasingly looking very shaky. I'm looking at the back cover of a geological map of England and Wales, 'Geology and Scenery in England and Wales' (Pelican Books, 1949) and Tertiary deposits appear to be confined to the Hampshire Basin, the London Basin, Essex, and a narrow strip of East Anglia, the Tertiary being the whole of the post Dinosaur Age period, some 60 million plus years. Where did all the other layers go? Seems like geologists underestimate the role of water just as much as climate scientists.