Back in February, Phil Jones, of Climategate infamy, did an interview with the BBC. Out of that interview came some very significant revelations that boarded on AGW heresy, including:

"neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.

There was no significant warming from 1998-2009. According to the IPCC we should have seen a global temperature increase of at least 0.2°C per decade.

The IPCC models may have overestimated the climate sensitivity for greenhouse gases, underestimated natural variability, or both.

This also suggests that there is a systematic upward bias in the impacts estimates based on these models just from this factor alone.

The logic behind attribution of current warming to well-mixed man-made greenhouse gases is faulty.

The science is not settled, however unsettling that might be.

There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers. "

Now, several months later, Jones has published a paper with others that concludes the 1970's land surface cooling was due to cooling in the North Atlantic Ocean. Obviously, Jones and company are now recognizing that natural, large-scale factors are forcing global changes in temperatures besides the IPCC favored trace gas CO2 from human emissions.

Update: More fascinating information, including this chart immediately below, that seemingly supports the ocean oscillation and land temperature relationship of the Jone's paper.





And apparently, Jones and company are not claiming that human CO2 is the cause of the ocean oscillations that are associated with sea temperature changes in the first place. Gee, I wonder why.....could it be that CO2 levels have zero influence on ocean cycles/oscillations as the below charts suggest? Or, phrased another way, could the actual CO2 level at a given time be the cause of the given peak/valley of an ocean oscillation at that same point in time?

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (like other ocean oscillations) is a climate pattern with a mode of variability, which seems to naturally occur regardless of atmospheric CO2 levels.

"A climate pattern may come in the form of a regular cycle, like the diurnal cycle or the seasonal cycle; a quasi periodic event, like El Niño; or a highly irregular event, such as a volcanic winter.....A mode of variability is a climate pattern with identifiable characteristics, specific regional effects, and often oscillatory behavior.....the mode of variability with the greatest effect on climates worldwide is the seasonal cycle, followed by El Niño-Southern Oscillation, followed by thermohaline circulation." Other well-known modes of variability include: The Antarctic oscillation; The Arctic oscillation; The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation; The Indian Ocean Dipole; The Madden–Julian oscillation; The North Atlantic oscillation; The Pacific decadal oscillation; The Pacific-North American teleconnection pattern; The Quasi-biennial oscillation.



Of course, Jones is well aware that climate patterns, like ENSO, have existed for thousands of years, well before any traces of industrial CO2 entered the atmosphere. Again, these climate patterns with large variability are happening regardless of CO2 levels. (click on images to enlarge)

The above charts have the historical atmospheric CO2 levels (red curve) simply super-imposed on the various oscillations. For more information on natural ocean oscillations, go here, here and here.

[Note: Other prominent deniers of natural factors being principal agents in climate change are also starting to see the light.]