Tim the Plumber wrote: The idea that you can predict the climate
based on it's temperature behaviour between 1970 and 1998 is
silly. Just as the statement that the absence of warming since
1998 and 2011 cannot utterly disproove AGW the rise between 1970
and 1998 cannot 100% proove the theory that CO2 is a significant
greenhouse gas at the levels we have today. Nobody is trying to
predict temperatures based on historically temperatures over the
last 40 or so. The predictions are based on our understanding of
earth's climate over hundreds of millions of years and
particularly the last 4 million years of recurring ice ages. The
climate while complicated has to obey some very simple basic
physical rules that is the energy coming in has over time to
equal the energy going out. Change that simple relationship in
some way and the temperature will change change until such time
as the equation is back in balance. It is certain that
greenhouse gases reduce the amount of energy that leaves the
earth. Northern Europe is