The current state of arctic sea ice (see graph below) sends a
chill down my spine. So what it says is that the ice is melting
furiously, and looks like it’s not yet slowing down even though
the days have started to draw in. However, any scientist will
tell you that no single data point can be used as evidence of
global warming, there are simply too many fluctuations for
anything to be concluded over anything but the longest
timescales. We cannot simply look at the mean temperature for a
hot year and say, there you go, global warming! Now, the issue
is, there are well-known cycles over pretty much all timescales
– this pretty much undermines all serious attempts at
prediction. So, what to do? Well all is not lost; there are
still some clever little leading indicators we can look at to
give us that sobering wake up call. Firstly, we know CO2
concentration is up, no doubt or argument, this can be seen in
the famous Hawaii data above, complete with the seasonal
‘breathing’ by global plant-life. The argument is ab