I’d like to add what I think is important here. Its not the Met office or any pro agw people think the data will still confirm their views. We will have to wait and see about that. Also, the Met seems to be focusing wheter or not the planet is warming or not. Thats not the big issue. The big issue is whether humans are causing global warming. But what is important about this announcement is that it proves that the scientific process had been corrupted and needs re-examination. No cya “investigation” by them, the UN, the CRU or anyone else would have shown that as well as releasing the data does.
Absolutely, and that is the $64 trillion question.
Nobody can dispute that the temperature has risen during the 20th century.
AGW theory has three parts:
1) It was colder in the past than it is today, and CO2 was lower.
2) When CO2 increased in the atmosphere in the past, temperatures rose.
3) Therefore, as CO2 rises, temperatures must also rise.
Disprove any one of those three "legs of the stool," and their arguments fall flat.
1) If it can be shown that it was just as warm or warmer during the Medieval Warm Period, when CO2 was lower, then the whole AGW theory is wrong.
2) If it can be shown that CO2 increases lagged, rather than led, temperature increase, then the whole AGW theory is wrong.
3) If it can be shown that temperatures have held steady in the past decade while the CO2 continued to rise unabated, then the whole AGW theory is wrong.
Number two is the closest to being disproven. In spite of Algore's movie, scientists have conceeded that CO2 did lag temperature increases by about 800 years in the past. However, they claim a nebulus and unexplained "forcing effect" that theorizes that "something else" started the temperature rise, then CO2 increased, then temperatures ran away. See RealClimate: What does the What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming?
What they never explain is that temperature decreases also led CO2 decrease by 800 years, so even with all that CO2 in the atmosphere, temperatures fell caused by an equually nebulus "something."
Number one goes to the heart of trying to create the Hockey Stick temperature chart, which has been modified but CRU and IPCC still insist that today is warmer than the Medieval Warm Period.
And number three is still in dispute by the CRU and NASA, saying only that some unknown natural short term effect is "masking" the larger AGW signal, and that temperatures should begin rising again any day now.
What happens if we stall a Worldwide treaty for another decade, and temps don't rise? They were supposed to get this shoved down our throats in 1997 with Kyoto but didn't. They have to get it passed in Copenhagen in 2009,but won't.
The next decade will finally tell the tale one way or the other, if CO2 continues to rise, but global temperatures do not.