[Cretin2]

" i don't disagree that the planet is warming. i'm just skeptical that an increase in co2 is the main culprit."

What if you were shown the science behind the lagging you speak of? Also, what do you propose is the main culprit then?

https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-interm...

Feel free to engage with the author. They comment frequently at the bottom.

[bkirkby]

i don't propose a "main culprit" as i understand climate to be a classic complex system. i simply don't know what the main culprit is or even if there IS a main culprit.

i'm not yet convinced that the temperature increase that we've seen in the past 150 - 200 years is abnormal from a geologic timeframe. esp. considering the warming pause of the past ~20 years.

as far as the article you posted, i've read it before. it's fairly standard in that it adds another theory (southern warming -> release co2 -> increase northern warming) that, for me, would require more observable predictions to prove. that's not an easy task, but my scientific skepticism requires it.

maybe if we could see that effect happening in our modern temperature data? i'm just riffing here, but it seems like if that's the mechanism to explain the ~800 year lag where temperature increase preceeds co2 increase, then it should also be observable today.

[Cretin2]

The climate pause never happened: https://skepticalscience.com/ipcc-global-warming-pause.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-pause-in-ocean...

That's not really a theory (southern warming -> release co2 -> increase northern warming), that is well-established physical and biological processes.

Why should there be a similar 800-year lag today? The past CO2 increases were due to natural processes whereby as the temperature increased more biological activity was occurring and thus emitting more CO2. The historical lag makes complete sense from that perspective.

Currently, were artificially adding sequestered CO2 (which is known to trap heat) to the atmosphere and the temperature is increasing, with a fairly strong correlation, as a result.

here's some further reading for you: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

[underdown]

Not believing in something does not require an alternate affirmative belief.

[Cretin2]

I'm not sure what you are trying to contribute here or what you took from my comment.