Yes is maps very closely to the inverse of the average temperature, lagging around a good decade. Who would have though? But If you take the current decade average the trend is flat. If you take the 1979 - 2014 time range you get a clear temperatures up, ice down trend; but that does not tell you much about the future. If we had good data on the last couple of decades before that...

GTK is not the Gnome Toolkit, it is the Gimp Toolkit. That it sort of was absorbed into the Gnome project is rather a sad reality. While the Gnome 2 days it seemed like an OK trade of. But as they purposefully broke Windows support in GTK 3 for Gnome 3, the writing was on the wall. Although they brought Windows and Mac OS support back in line, GTK stopped being the reliable UI library it once was.

Yes good points, but that means that you have very few data points, as this does not occur that often. Although an interesting subject, it is clear that is becomes really hard to get good data.

You are correct, the effect, without feedback mechanisms that is, is well understood. When going from 300ppm to 600ppm the average temperatures should rise around 1C. So how did the climate scientists come to the 4C figure or the current IPCC figure of 2C? Assuming that these figures are correct, the exact feedback mechanisms that lead to these figures are not understood.

Take for example this Plot from the NISDC: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_i...

As I mentioned, it is low against the 30 year average, but far from a downward trend in the last 10 years.

So far we can conclude that it is not in the upper atmosphere, it is not in the lower atmosphere, it is not on land surfaces and not on the ocean surface. Now we have an additional data point, it is not in the lower oceans and the ice caps are low but a slow positive trend. These last two decades have seen runaway CO2 emissions but no noticeable warming. Few people claim that high CO2 levels are a good thing, but as GP stated, we are far from understanding climate.

I think the 500km / 4h figures are with stops included. So an average of 125km/h is not bad; even though it may be better. In most areas the problem is not the train, not even the track, but restrictions because of noise. (One of the primary reasons the German railway sucks.) On the other hand high speed train service in the US, especially in almost empty mid west should work quite well.

Good that you mention Karl Benz. The restrictions imposed on him, led to the first long distance driver being a woman. As the story goes, Karl Benz was only allowed to drive the car with prior police permission and only on closed off roads. He never drove the car himself, because of fear it would explode on him. So on 5 August 1888, when Karl was out, his wife Berta decided to visit her sister in Pfortsheim. As there where no other means of transportation she and her two sons took the car on the 106 km trip. This was without the permission of her husband and the police. They had to refuel on the way and bought the ethanol in a pharmacy. This story was a PR wonder that got many restrictions lifted.

Yes, genetic factors, like who your parents are... For example Bankers, Engineers...

The problem with such a study, is that when looking at genetics it is almost impossible to divorce them from the socio-economic circumstances. The obvious problem being that the socio-economic circumstances are in most cases literally hereditary... though not genetically.

To clue you in, the comic ray line was started by Prof. Svensmark in 1998. Now it has been shown that, yes comic rays have an influence on cloud generation; but no it is not a dominant effect and definitely can not explain the trend in the later 20th century. But this one of the small puzzle pieces that was shouted down as complete nonsense, just to be reviled as being something; even though not something big.

I think it is impossible to come up with a more accurate model that does not take into account AGW. Because changing the atmosphere and composition of the land masses (e.g. deforestation/urbanization) does have an effect on climate; anybody claiming the opposite is daft. The problem is/was that the fixation on CO2 lead to the neglect of other external factors, such as the sun, cosmic radiation, deforestation... If prediction did incorporate the pause (to a certain extent), the apocalyptic 4C would seem more plausible, but as it stands we are none the wiser.

No mom, I am looking at those little cute birds...

Early arctic explorers reported walrus and seal colonies that stretched miles. Like the buffalo they where industrially hunted in the 19th and early 20th century. The Walrus population has rebounded since their low in the 1950s. Walrus colonies only form on islands, not ice. Now pray tell, how does ice cover in the arctic come into play? (That is a real question, after researching the subject, I can not find any clue how ice cover affects walrus populations.)

I think you hit the nail on the head. Plausible futuristic space fights will probably be quite dull. But that misses all the nice and nasty intrigue that can play out in the attempts control a system.

I did not claim it was, now did I?

But two things are certain, we can assume that the climate models from the late 90s can be rejected with a high certainty (99.9% for a 18 year span*) and that currently there is no climate scientist that can reliably predict when the earth will go out of the pause. The problem is that during the AGW debate too much science and policy was dedicated to the A part of the AGW. I personally think that indiscriminately changing the composition of the atmosphere (anything about the earth actually) will have consequences and as a result we as species should tread lightly. But I am quite disappointed of climate science community, especially in the late 90s.

* Their own definition, if the trends align on an 18 year span the model "must" be accepted with a 99.9% certainty. If you had a course in statistics, you know that the opposite is also true...