Amaranth, my link works in Opera and worked just now in firefox.

You will need to prove your theory that the oceans are warming. According to Stephen Richards (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1882#comment-128209), "[the MET Office] may also have noted that world sea temperatures are falling..."

In your http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=23840#Post23840 post, you said that "Most uncertainty is still in cloud parameterization and of course socio-economic projections..." That is wrong. The most uncertainty is with the oceans response and, more importantly, life's response to increased OCO levels. A few years back, salps were found to be flourishing. They transport carbon quickly to the bottom of the ocean. Beyond biology, there has also been the realization of the dirty snow positive forcing in, primarily, the arctic.

"Water vapor feedback: Strongly positive, but still some uncertainty in its magnitude due primarily to the upper troposphere contribution"

This is not credible. You say it is strong, but uncertain. Besides failing to quantify the level of uncertainty, you are missing the link between water vapour and clouds which is a negative feedback (reflection of the sun's energy). You cannot separate them. I have no idea why you suggest that coulds could have a negative feedback (even if small), but the models do not take that into account. You say the "models produce..." but that is backwards. It is not the models producing, it is the models working the way they are programmed. It is not magic. If clouds are entered with a positive feedback formula, then the models will output that as the forecast.

"...the IPCC (2007) report clearly show the temperature trends in the atmosphere are in line with the greenhouse forcing and not explainable by natural variability." This is wrong. The signature of warming for anthropogenic forcing has not been realized. The computer models show that anthropogenic warming will have a significantly different warming signature on the atmosphere above the tropics. Those models do not match the observed data as shown in the IPCC 2007 report. You are placing too much faith in the models.

You want it in the form of a question? Fine. From where did the extra energy come in 1998 to make it such an anomoly? How about why would El Nino or La Nina warm or cool the earth when they just transfer energy? As El Nino warms North America, it cools much of Asia. That indicates that there is a problem with the temperature record. Too much weight is assigned to North America.

You explain the theory very well, (The rapid rise of carbon dioxide is more than the slow response time of the oceans can keep up with and you get more solar radiation coming in than infrared going out, and you heat up), but you do not mention that the theory does not match observations. And I am still waiting for you to explain why, in light of increasing OCO levels, has the temperature not been increasing steadily over the past 7 years? This happened around 1991-1994, but that was because of a volcano eruption. No one seems to know why this time. You gave the http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Short_Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png link which shows the Pinatubo eruption. It shows that 2005 is barely warmer than 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006. So far, 2007 is "the fourth warmest on record for January-August year-to-date period." The average for the past seven years has been almost flat. The rate of temperature increase has been reduced in direct opposition to the theory.

When you discussed the solar cycle, you failed to note that cycle 24 has not yet begun. You also said that "we might get 0.2 C on top of CO2 warming over the next 5 years when we head toward maxima" but you did not express any confidence levels in the word might. What is the probablility of getting a 0.2 or even -0.2 temp change?

You discussed the poles saying that we expect the poles to warm faster, but failed to note that only one pole is warming and that is due to irregular wind patterns. Granted the wind information may be newer than your original post.



"Some studies even suggest we might not warm much until 2009..." Might? What is the probability? Ocean currents will be able to change how heat is distributed, not the amount of energy retained. What are the other short term natural changes? Why would you "fully expect to be warming as time goes on" when you don't seem to know what the current negative forcing is? These should be easy questions for you since "Natural variations have been extremely well studied and documented in the primary literature..."

" but we simply cannot explain it without adding the anthropogenic CO2"

This is a logical fallacy. The fact that you cannot yet explain it does not mean that anthropogenic causes are the reason. I have a Veizer quote in my http://greycanada.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-settled-science_14.html post:
"... reconstruction (via fossil shells) of tropical sea surface temperatures for that last 550 million years only made sense if carbon dioxide were not the principle driver of climate variability on a geological timescale."

"water vapor is not a climate forcing, it is a climate feedback" Any greenhouse gas can be either a forcing or a feedback. It is a forcing if its concentration changes first thus making the temperature change. It is a feedback if the temperature goes up first. When land use changes cause the air to be more arid, that is a negative forcing. When a desert is greened, then the air gets more moisture which forces the heat content of the air to increase.

Why do you bother with realclimate.org? They only present one side of the story. When there is intelligent dissent, the posts get deleted. They are not interested in a scientific discussion.

From my http://greycanada.blogspot.com/2007/06/save-us-co2.html post:
"the mean global sea level rate of rise did not trend upwards after 1950, nor has it subsequently exceeded its 1950 rate-of-rise"

How can you say that "[w]e know the troposphere and surface are warming, and stratosphere and above are cooling, in line with AGW theory (but not other natural forcings like the sun)" when that is contrary to "[s]ome studies even suggest we might not warm much until 2009?"