Is the warming happening at the wrong time?

Slide 7

20th C warming happened at the wrong time

• Proposition:
• Global temperature should have started rising from 1940 when CO₂ levels started rising significantly
• Inference we are meant to draw:
• Because it didn't do so the theory is wrong
• Proposition is invalid because:
• Implies (falsely) that CO₂ should be the only driver of climate
• No single factor controls the temperature--solar variations, volcanic eruptions, & industrial aerosols all matter
• Thermal inertia of oceans implies it takes decades to respond fully to changes in CO₂

Sorry, but the raw data still says that the warming happened in the wrong time in the 20th century compared to prediction. Now Merchant can come up with accessory hypotheses like aerosols and that is completely permissible. But the accessory hypothesis is used to salvage the theory. All he has proven is that his favoured theory has not been totally discredited because there are further sub-theories. But a theory that is able to be salvaged is not automatically the correct theory, it just may be. There is a difference between a theory being able to explain data and the data being proof for a theory. For data to be proof there needs to be a prediction that is confirmed by subsequent investigation. I will talk more about this in the modelling discussion.

It is interesting that the global warming fanatics don't ask us to start burning fossil fuel in a dirty manner again (to increase aerosols) until alternative fuel sources become adequate! (Actually this has been proposed by one man). But if Merchant really believes it is aerosols that lead to cooling maybe he should be an advocate for this.

He is correct about the delays in the change in global temperature but we certainly wouldn't expect a decrease in temperature as a result of CO₂ if the global warming theory is true.