Ok, I guess I should at least make some sort of proper page where I at least touch on the topic of global warming.  I'm what they'd call one of those global warming "deniers".  Well, that's not true either.  The Earth has warmed over the last few centuries as we've come out of the little ice age.  I even believe there's a component of what many would call "anthropogenic global warming" (human caused global warming).  HOWEVER, I do not see any evidence of unusual warming, unusually bad weather or other sorts of impending doom.

In order to properly explain the issue I decided I should just make a graph of known temperatures, temperature trends and of course, those crazy ass IPCC projections.

Yes, I literally just cut and pasted a known temperature graph, the IPCC graphs and stuck some stuff on top of it.  The crazy looking rainbow of doom on the right shows some projections for warming (except the yellow and orange part at the bottom which is what the IPCC assumes the temperatures would stay at if CO2 leveled off).  To come up with those figures (and all the other crazy projections you see in the news) they use computer models.  Why do they use computer models?  Well, the weather systems are quite complex.  Unfortunately, we can't even project the weather for a week.

Now, notice the stepped line traced over the temperatures.  Those are the rough trends in temperature.  Do you notice any sort of pattern there?  Yeah, it's pretty obvious, isn't it.  It actually extends back a bit more too.  Well those super-complex computer models...they didn't take any of that into account.  They ASSUMED that the warming of the 1980's and 1990's was almost entirely man's fault and that the trend would continue.  Recently, however they've been forced to admit that 1998 was actually the warmest year and even if you're generous and (rightfully so) agree that yes, 1998 was unusually hot because of an el nino year...we still see that warming leveled off in 2002.  In fact, in the last couple years temperatures have fallen.

The pink line is made by just copying the 1940's to 2000 line and just tacking it on the end and then to the end of that new segment.  I know, you're thinking "But CO2 is increasing".  Why yes, yes it is!  Unfortunately CO2 was ALSO increasing in those years too.  It increased by 2/3 as much during the cooling period as it did in the 80's and 90's. Since the absorption by CO2 is a logarithmic process the more you pile on, the less heat you trap.  In fact, 1/2 the total greenhouse effect we currently have from CO2 would be reached at only 20ppm.  Current levels are pushing 400ppm.  If we doubled pre-industrial CO2 levels, we'd EXPECT to see about 1.2C total increase.  To get it to that first projection by the IPCC...we'd have to burn all the fossil fuels known to exist!  Heh, guess the problem is kind of self limiting in that respect.

Most global warming alarmists will try to explain that it will get MUCH hotter because of feedback mechanisms within the environment...but those feedback mechanisms actually have to be fairly limited in their ability to force warming/cooling or else the world would have long since frozen (permanently) or gotten so hot it could no longer support life.  Also, if they were going to go crazy heating the place they'd have already done it.  CO2's effect is only going to get LESS pronounced even as the rate climbs.  Of course, there's not actually anything historically to tell us that the trend will tend toward continued warming.

Looking at the duration of past ice ages above (0 on the left is modern times)...if you had to bet on any dramatic climate change in the future, what would you expect, warming or cooling?  Do you also notice that temperatures were sometimes higher in the past?  There were even periods where temperatures were actually hotter than the IPCC's projected and supposedly catastrophic warming. Unfortunately, the potential for cold (in recent trends anyway) seems to be far, far greater and cold isn't a warm and fuzzy kind of "gloom and doom" that warming is.  Alarmists act like heat's the enemy but the evidence indicates that even when the world was 20C warmer the life was abundant (incredibly abundant...where do you think the gigantic patches of coal came from?). 

Solar forcing

Then of course we come to the actual source of essentially all of earth's heat.  You see, we have this giant, continuous nuclear explosion going on about 92million miles away.  You'd THINK that that it would behave the same way all the time and overall, it's pretty well behaved.  But...it does have its changes.  The correlation between solar forcing and global temperatures falls somewhere between pretty good and remarkable depending on what you look at.  If you look at the sunspot numbers, it's pretty good.  If you look at the sunspot cycle LENGTH, it's remarkable.  I'll try to get a good graph of this up but I can't seem to find dates for the cycles. Generally speaking the warmer periods tend to have prolonged solar maximums associated with them and the colder periods have solar minimums associated with them.

The affect of solar forcing actually more obvious over shorter terms.  There's a rather pronounced signal within the temperature data corresponding to the regular sunspot cycle.  There are numerous theories on the various direct (the sun's overall output varies by .1% between cycle highs and lows) and indirect (cloud formation caused by increased cosmic ray levels) interactions that might lead to temperature variations but one of the most obvious I've found is that oxygen (both O2 and O3) is actually a greenhouse gas, directly absorbing UV light...and the sun's output in UV is highly variable.  Between NORMAL solar maximums and minimums the output in some frequencies varies by as much as 8%.  It may be even greater during pronounced minimums.

Seeing alarmism for what it is:

 Getting back to the thing this is all about...the Earth is generally warming.  This is well documented and has in fact been going on since the little ice age. Because of this we have generally seen lots of things that one would expect to happen when things warm up.  The sensationalist media and alarmist groups LOVE to bash us over the head repeatedly with "evidence" of warming.  The problem is none of this evidence actually means ANYTHING to the debate about human cause.  Yes, glaciers have receded and have been doing so since the 1800's.  Many sites that use glaciers as "proof" showing that retreat during the 1800's as well as during recent times.  The problem is, man wasn't emitting any substantial amount of CO2 back then.  There were only a billion people and very little was used in the way of fossil fuels.  You can find several examples on the global warming art site.

The media and alarmists will point out that the ice retreat has accelerated, but this is to be expected.  That's what happens when it warms.  It says nothing of CO2 and much of that warming occurred at times that man's CO2 emissions were still relatively low (and once again, the temperature went up AND DOWN during those periods).  That's right, it's warmer, but we already knew that.  That's not the question, the question is ARE WE CAUSING IT.  But what about permafrost?  Yes, it's warmer, thanks.  The media also has this annoying habit (right now) of ONLY showing things that might indicate warming.  The arctic ice sheet shrank a great deal in 2007 due to well documented warming currents but it's unprecedented return this season has gone completely uncovered.  At this moment by one of the two general measures for arctic ice extent...we're actually slightly ABOVE AVERAGE.  The antarctic sea ice actually hit record levels.

So please,when you hear alarmist propaganda mentioning how something was affected by heat...remember to look for evidence of what caused it.  People have worried about warming on every one of those warming periods and worried about an impending ice age (which is actually more likely and more dangerous) during every cooling period.