It's interesting that this subject popped up the last couple of days because I've just been having a re-look at some of my data over the last few days. Some 9 years ago, I did my own statistics on data available from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
First of all, I stand by my claim in my posts at the top of this page that our attempts to reduce the rate of increase of carbon dioxide have been a dismal failure and IF we regard carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming, we are destined to absolute failure. I'm surprised that the IPCC has not made an attempt after 23 years to validate, as scientists should, the success of measures to date. Even 'Blind Freddie' can see that they are flogging a dead horse.
The slopes of the carbon dioxide graphs have not changed a fraction since I last posted them (see top of page above).
The graphics that Roston and Migliozzi have shown here are as unscientific to my mind as the original alarmist predictions made by the IPCC and Al Gore (Our Nobel Laureate in 'Atmospheric Science'?). They may be based on NASA data, but they are a shamefully distorted and narrow view of the facts IMO.
I have no idea where 'the Earth's Orbit', 'ozone depletion' and 'aerosol pollution' have even been seriously considered as contributors to average global increases in near-surface temperatures (AGINST). And isn't 'deforestation' regarded as destruction of a source of removal of carbon dioxide?
"Is it the Sun?", the author's ask. They then shallowly looked at the sun's emissions. The aspect of the sun's role we need to look at, is the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface. Is there more sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. Judge for yourself. These are some statistics I came up with on Australian data nine years ago.
MEAN ANNUAL SOLAR EXPOSURE MEAN ANNUAL MAXIMUM TEMPS PEARSONS
90-99 00-10 TTEST (P=) 81-90 00-1 TTEST (P=) n=220 CORRELATIONS
ADELAIDE AIRPORT 17.27 18.85 0.002 21.45 22.01 0.026 0.87
DARWIN AIRPORT 21.24 21.99 0.026 32.18 32.37 0.015 0.64
PERTH AIRPORT 18.93 19.84 0.021 24.33 25.24 0.0007 0.84
SYDNEY AIRPORT 16.39 17.36 0.035 22.56 22.87 0.0071 0.85
MELBOURNE AIRPORT 14.78 16.22 0.003 19.59 20.3 0.008 0.88
STRAHAN AIRPORT 12.73 14.43 0.005 0.84
BROOME AIRPORT 22.38 23.05 0.025 32.38 32.17 0.42 0.61
WOOMERA 19.73 20.88 0.007 25.68 26.4 0.009 0.86
EUCLA 18.38 19.05 0.25 23.03 23.36 0.26 0.81
CEDUNA 18.77 19.84 0.007 23.42 23.99 0.032 0.84
ANDAMOOKA 20.21 22 0.001 27.21 28.05 0.005 0.91
DONNYBROOK, WA 17.99 18.8 0.056 23.19 23.5 0.19 0.85
As you can see I looked at a range of weather station data across the continent. The figures at that time suggested a significant increase of 0.5 to 1.7 megajoules per square metre in many of the stations from the decades 1990-1999 and 2000-2010. I would leave it to the mathematicians to convert that into degrees C at those stations.
Well, I suppose, a reflection of that is the significant increases in mean monthly maximum temperatures at those stations shown in the middle columns of the Table of 0.2 to 0.9 degrees C over 30 years.
I had copied and pasted the data straight from the BOM records, and using comparisons of 220 pieces of paired data, shown the Pearson's correlations between these monthly averages of daily maximum temperatures and solar exposure measurements. There is no doubt that maximum temperatures are correlated with solar exposures.
So, the question is asked,
"does the sun have a role?" My answer is "Yes.", according to the 2010 figures of the Australian BOM. Roston and Migliozzi have been extremely shallow in their considerations.
And because there is a close correlation between greenhouse gases and the temperature rises, their ONLY conclusion is that greenhouse gases are THE culprit. How unscientific!!
Here's a graph of world population and actual carbon dioxide emissions by Onozaki (2008). The correlation coefficient was in the order of 0.95. You could substitute Population Figures for carbon dioxide figures in models and you would come up with the same predictions.
(This graph's vertical co-ordinate by the way should be labelled 'Temperature Anomaly from a mean')
Here's another possibility. We have to be open-minded. This is a graph of World Annual Total Energy Usage which includes traditional biofuels, coal, crude oil, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, wind, solar and other renewables. In effect, our annual total energy usage has increased by about 80,000 terawatt hours since 1970.
The question is whether this translates into an increase of temperature at near-surface weather stations. We need a mathematician to calculate the energy per square metre of Earth's surface.
There is also a high correlation (0.85) between annual world populations and temperature anomalies. I produced this graph some years ago.
As you can guess, my opinion is that the presentation by Roston and Migliozzi is a shameful representation of 'science' in a discussion of causes of AGINST.
Footnote -- Although the Table data lined up in the Post box, the data went all over the place in the 'Preview'.
I'll produce a better Table if anyone is interested.