Bonzaboy - clearly we would not have a climate without the sun! The earth would be a lifeless shell. So what exactly is your point? "the sun is 99.87% of our solar system's mass...this would suggest it has a far greater influence over earth's climate than any carbon emitted by man". Not sure I agree with your logic there but the conclusion is correct. Yes I do agree it has a "far greater influence over earth's climate than any carbon emitted by man". No amount of CO2 (man-made or otherwise) will keep us warm if the sun were to be switched off! The whole point of the AGW theory is that it is the SUN's radiation that is being trapped by CO2. I don't see how this supports anti-AGW or AGW so it seems like an empty statement that is not really relevant to me. Its like saying "gee, the sun's really big and hot so that's where our climate comes from, cos it hot". Well duh! Where else does it come from???
Petai - Dave goes on and on about CO2 following temperature in the past. And I go on and on about why this happens. Its getting a bit monotonous to be honest. Anyway, the simple answer is that in the past there were many other factors causing the temperature to go up and down (factors which even now would be in play - I am very sure in the future there will be naturally occurring glacial and interglacial periods like there have been in the past - maybe in many thousands of years, maybe even sooner). Factors like Milankovitch cycles (perturbations in the earth's orbit around the sun) and possibly even fluctuations in the magnetic field. So when the temperature goes up, CO2 concentration goes up with a lag of several hundred years - BECAUSE it takes hundreds of years for the oceans to heat up and as they do the CO2 is expired from the oceans because the solubility of the CO2 is reduced as the water warms. It is all very logical and consistent with AWG. But people like Dave go on and on about it ad nauseum and don't for one minute recognise things may not be as simple as they seem on the surface. No one in the AGW camp says that CO2 caused these particular warming events but they like to spruik this so called "fact" as if it somehow invalidates AGW, but when you look a bit deeper it doesn't. The problem is the anti-AGW crew looks at a chart and says "duh, temperature goes up here and several hundred years later, duh, CO2 goes up here" and it just ain't that simple!
