“Some people really, really want to believe that some major statistical error is going to be discovered tomorrow which demonstrates that such trends are a mirage.”
And some people really, really want to believe that error after error and flaw after flaw in modeling, in assumptions, in climate sensitivity estimates, in CO2 sink assumptions, etc. means nothing to the credibility of catastrophic AGW alarmism.
We recently found out that climate models vastly underestimate precipation increases wrt temp increases, and thereby are getting feedbacks like clouds completely wrong.
New paper studies the temperature impact and deduces that the temp sensitivity estimate by IPCC is too high by factor of 3. They are modelling the heat capacity of oceans in an incorrect way in order to get those scary scenarios.
The temp increase for 290ppm -> 380ppm is, according to the 5.35. ln (C/C0) equation for CO2 forcing, as impactful as another 30% increase, to 550ppm, which wont happen until 2070. So far it was 0.6C, there is another 0.6C in store in case of ‘doing nothing about CO2’ for 50 years.
Meanwhile, methane in atmosphere has *levelled off*, rainforest destruction is *slowing down*, and the ‘doubling of CO2’ looks less and less likely.
But what you don't see are radical changes in the in the projections as a result.
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We recently found out that climate models vastly underestimate precipation increases wrt temp increases...
If you are referring to "Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations"
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2007GL029698.shtml
I doubt the authors would agree that current models are "getting feed-backs like clouds completely wrong". Climate modelers know (and acknowledge) that cloud interactions are one of the less well understood inputs, but also that unrealistically large changes to current understandings would be needed to significantly affect their results - IMO this s another example of a case where critics of the models are just not being realistic about the likely results of improved modeling. ---------
"Meanwhile, methane in atmosphere has *levelled off*
See:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2709.htm