Great cast of characters in this debunking the GW scandal.....ping
In a July 18, 2008 widely circulated article entitled "No Smoking Hot Spot," Australian Greenhouse Office scientist David Evans came out of the global-warming skeptics' closet. Although having written the carbon accounting model used to measure Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, Evans was wrestling with a problem: the greenhouse-gas signature is missing. If CO2 is the cause of global warming, then it must be absorbing solar energy and warming the air, which in turn warms the surface. Both alarmists and skeptics agree that all models predict a "hot spot" at 10 kilometers above the tropics. But there is no such hot spot. Quoting Evans:We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes — weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot, then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature, then I would be an alarmist again.
One thousand years prior to 1850, (CO2) levels remained steady at 280 ppm.
So the Medieval Warm Period starting about 950 A.D. and the Maunder Minimum, 1645 - 1715, enjoyed a stable CO2 conentration. It's currently 380 ppm.
Even if man was entirely responsible for all of the increase, ignoring volcano activity and degassing from the oceans as surface water warmed, the difference is equivalent to one part in ten thousand.
The latest crisis du jour - ocean acidification due to anthropogenic CO2 - is out of sync anthropogenic global warming, i.e. warmer water contains less CO2 than colder water.
There's something driving the argument, but it's not science. It's fear mongering, money, bogus climate models and power lust dressed up as the precautionary principle.