quote:I can't seriously believe that ice from the North Pole has kept Earth cool, so this must either be due to solar variability, or ocean to atmosphere temp hysteresis : insolation to ocean temp hysteresis (ocean insolation to atmosphere temp change lag : lead).
Try this.
I found the Realclimate article you quote a hoot. If you look at their 2nd chart that shows the record from continuously monitored sites from 1900 to 1998 where they have excised the 1998 "Super El Nino" (don't you love the evolving phraseology) the trend looks pretty flat from 1930 to 1997. When they show the first chart that has all the record (full hadcrut3 from 1950) it's pretty clear that the growth has been introduced by the non-continuously monitored sites. My scepticism just grows and grows.
They claim the continuous graph is not global but anthropic CO2 is meant to be a global signature so should be clear in the continuous non-global record.