I wanted to examine a quote from a book by Ralph Alexander...

I wanted to examine a quote from a book by Ralph Alexander called "Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming". I haven't read the book yet, I have only just become aware of its existence. But I noticed a quote in Miranda Devine's column the other day and I would like to give my opinion on it.

The quote from Miranda Devine's column was:

"The third problem for the panel hypothesis is that CO2 lags behind temperature in the Ice Age era, which has been explained by the delayed release of stored CO2 from oceans, but the panel model has CO2 and temperature rising together since 1850. "Either temperature and CO2 go up and down at the same time or they don't … You can't have it one way during the ice ages and another way today.""

The quote at the end is from Ralph Alexander.

Let's look at the observations:

1. Ice age era - CO2 lags temperature by hundreds of years
2. Modern era - CO2 is in lock step with temperature

Surely a rational person would look at these two situations and ask themselves what is the difference? Perhaps they may postulate that the temperature driver is different in the two scenarios? Whatever the case the observations are different so it follows that the explanations are different, fair enough?

We all know that climate change has happened in the past, both glacial and interglacial periods. We also know that many factors have influenced climate over the histiory of the earth: Millakovitch cycles (perturbations in the earth's orbit around the sun), solar luminosity (apparently the energy from the sun has been slowly but steadily increasing over the millenia), sunspots and other factors such as greenhouse gases and cloud cover.

Let's say that temperature did lag behind CO2 in the last ice age era, which is true. The warming that occurred as we came out of the last ice age was not likely to be due to CO2, because there was a lag. The warming was therefore most likely due to a Milankovitch cycle, the solar luminosity or perhaps some other mechanism. So as the ice sheets melted and the oceans warmed, extra CO2 was expired into the atmosphere.

As for the modern era, we all know we are now pumping large amounts of CO2 (and other GHG's) into the atmsophere. We also know that as CO2 has gone up temperature has gone up. We know this due to verified instrument records that are not in dispute. This is therefore the most likely cause of the warming we are seeing. When CO2 is the driver of climate change, of course it won't lag behind temperature.

For Ralph Alexander to say there is some unwritten scientific law that "either temperature and CO2 go up and down at the same time or they don't" shows that his understanding of the earth's climate is simplistic and flawed. It is not either/or for the planet. Over time there are a number of different drivers for the climate and they may vary in relative strength from era to era.

If this is a fundamental precept of his book then it is based on a falsehood and not worth a read because this guy is plain and simply wrong. I cannot see how a rational person can't see past these basic errors. Plus you don't need to be Einstein to work it out.