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No... but the previous 90 is not a seamless data stream either. There are changes in methodology, estimates of missing data, etc. But if you go back to my original statement, I said I believe that global warming is happening. It's just that the last 10 years (data for 2008 isn't ready yet) haven't shown any warming. The usual explanations of solar output reduction don't hold water in light of the effects elsewhere in the solar system (the temperature gains on Venus & Jupiter are not related to orbital positions). Other reasons for the lack of warming are also flimsy at best.
Does it mean global warming isn't happening? No. Does it confound the climatologists who say it is? Yes. BTW... as a general statement, more environmentalists see human-mediated global warming than do climatologists. It is the human-mediation that is, IMO, the real issue.
One of the best (from a predictive POV) climate models is by a Russian climatologist who can't get his research/predictions published anymore. The reason? His model is showing global cooling, an extension of the 1970's predictions. His model predicts up to 3 periods of global warming like we've seen from 1980 - 2000 over the next 200 years, but with a general cooling trend overall. I've been trying to re-find the link to his site, but haven't had any luck.
One of the great issues the nay-sayers point to is the incorrect use of the correlation of C02 & temperature in the past. There is a correlation, a strong one... but it is reversed. There is an 800-year lag between increases in global temperature and increases in C02 levels. This is true, but it doesn't invalidate the issue. What most likely happens is that the oceans absorb incredible amounts of C02. The additional greenhouse impact of relatively small changes in the atmospheric content of CO2 causes minor changes in temperature over time, which causes the dissolved C02 to "boil" out of the ocean, exacerbating the effect, until it becomes a major increase in atmospheric CO2 800 years later. By that time, other mechanisms have begun to counteract the temperature rise, and levels start to drop.
The polar ice caps are melting, and causing a great deal of concern, and seem to confirm global warming. What's never mentioned is, that from a geologic POV, the current icecaps are unusually large. Historically, the icecaps have tended to be much smaller.
All this is just some of the data/information that the collusive work at Hadley/CRU and other groups want suppressed. THAT is what is so disturbing about the leak. It is the deliberate suppression or falsification of data to prove a particular point of view. Whether the warming is really happening (I believe it is), or the Russian is right & we're slowly approaching another ice age (recent data says he's wrong), and whether it's a natural cycle or human-mediated are all issues that HAVEN'T been properly debated, largely for financial/publicity reasons. And that's just wrong.
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