Who said that we approach truth through statistics?
The folks who defend the lack of falsifiability in AGW by promoting the masses of "evidence" that are "consistent with" their hypothesis. The argument goes something like this:
* we've got all this evidence
* most of this evidence (call it a vast majority) is "consistent" with our hypothesis
* therefore even if there is contradictory evidence, we can ignore it because it's outweighed by the rest of the mass of evidence.
So, you find a Cancer who doesn't fit their astrological profile, and you dismiss them because *most* Cancers do fit their astrological profile.
Temperature increases lead to an increase in CO2 and increases in CO2 lead to increases in temperature.
That's not necessarily true - we have temperature increases independent of CO2 changes, and CO2 increases independent of temperature changes at times.
The part you missed was "all things being equal", which, of course, is never true of our climate system :) It *never* stays still and lets only one variable change.
seeing higher rates of change of temperature than are seen in the ice cores.
You'll note that rates of change detected in ice cores are dampened by the nature of air flow through ice, as well as the poor resolution. Can't compare apples and oranges here :)
Thought experiment for you:
Imagine a chemical buffer (a solution which when acid is added, it's neutralized, and when base is added, it's neutralized). It seems miraculous that it can in fact, react to both acids and bases in the *opposite* way (it will make acids more basic, but make bases more acidic). What if this is the way CO2 in the atmosphere works?
What if, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are actually *buffered*, and "excess" CO2 emissions are removed (neutralized), while any "excess" CO2 sinks generate a reaction of *more* CO2 (neutralized)? Can you imagine the possibility that CO2 levels in the atmosphere could be independent of various emissions/sinks, and are instead buffered towards a set point primarily driven by something else? Say, for example, the temperature of the oceans (driven by all kinds of thermodynamic currents and albedo controlled not by CO2, but by clouds), driving the sourcing and sinking of CO2 as a matter of partial pressure...