I imagine you’ve seen the 6 part youtube video on Henrik Svensmark?
Have you seen the analysis by “dad & son” using NASA GISS data, comparing urban / rural pairs, temperature data since 1900 ?

http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2009/12/rural-us-sites-show-no-temperature.html

http://www.climategate.com/the-one-chart-you-need-to-convert-global-warmer

Then I have limited explanations:

1. CO2 does not evenly distribute. This would require very complex models showing CO2 sources, sinks, flows and localized heating effects (which also distribute). Impossible to show “global warming”.

2. CO2 does not cause local heating or is counteracted by other local effects.

3. CO2 does cause local heating, but this heating is counteracted by other changes in the global climate which are also caused by CO2. I think you have an Occams Razor problem with this because you have to imagine a global change that just happens to counteract the minute amount of heating caused by the CO2 induced warming.

“Finally this month, a peer-reviewed analysis of the temperature data was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The paper used Watt’s station ratings to split all US weather stations into two categories: good (rating one or two) and bad (ratings three, four or five). The analysis then compared the raw, unadjusted data from the good and bad sites. In typical peer-reviewed understatement, the results were described as “counterintuitive”. They were in fact, a great surprise to many. Poorly sited weather stations actually show a cooler trend compared to the good sites.

The cause of this cooling bias appears to have been a change in instruments. In the late 1980s, many sites converted from Cotton Region Shelters (CRS, otherwise known as Stevenson Screens) to electronic Maximum/Minimum Temperature Systems (MMTS). This had two effects. Firstly, MMTS sensors record lower daily maximums compared to their CRS counterparts. So the switch from CRS to MMTS sensors caused a cooling bias in certain stations.”

So when I got home, I did a little googling (Denali temperature 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990). At the top of the list was a study on central Alaskan temperatures based upon a very continuous and uncomplicated recorded history — roughly 80 years.

The format isn’t cut and paste friendly, so I will summarize:

– There has been about 3 deg F warming over the last 30 years.

– However, taken over the entire 80 year record, warming is nearly invisible; about .5 deg F.

– Once accounting for the PDO, it is essentially impossible to detect any climate warming.

And this is from an organization that is looking at the consequences of AGW for central AK.

However, it’s not clear to me that the theory is even falsifiable. Given that climate (and weather) patterns are chaotic, any finite number of measurements will not really be sufficient unless the trend is very strong and clear. Furthermore, the attractor states generated by the chaotic system cannot be predicted, for the same reason they can barely predict tomorrow’s weather, so there is no way to really know where to measure. Using such logic one could make a case that Global Warming is “not even wrong.”

I assume:

1. Because CO2 is a gas, at equilibrium, it is evenly throughout the atmosphere.
2. The heat retaining properties of CO2 are also evenly spread.
3. If some long running thermometers show no net warming (plenty fall into this category), then global warming is falsified

There is no need to have hundreds or thousands of thermometers, since we are looking for a trend, a small number will do. For global warming theory to be correct all the thermometers must show a warming trend. Even one trendless thermometer dooms the theory.

If its OK for warming to be localized then doesn’t this demand a much more complex theory that has CO2 sources, sinks, flows, differential warming by concentration, some areas warming, some cooling, etc. etc.

Am I missing something?

Here are the Jan to Dec differences:

-0.7
-0.75
-2
-1.25
-0.5
-0.65
-0.85
-0.5
-0.55
-0.95
-1.2
-1

In this case the State College actual temperatures averaged .9 degrees cooler than the simple interpollated records. It could easily have been .9 degrees warmer. The point is, interpollating temperature records of VERY, VERY inaccurate and more than 50% of the global grid is filled in with interpollated data.