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holy guacamole said..
Gee the irony pf that statement.
What you are in fact doing is guessing that it's about half natural variation when all the observable phenomena points largely towards the only measure that's changing - radiative forcing due to GHG's.
Moreover, the increasing temperature profile does not match the known natural variations in such a short timeframe, nor is there any evidentiary observation that can attribute that quantum of forcing to about 50% natural factors.
The only significant measurable difference we can observe, is rising greenhouse gases.
I would hope that you accept the hypothesis that radiative forcing is a primary driver of climate and global mean temperature? Yes?
Or, perhaps you also deny that radiative forcing is the major factor at play currently and you have some other hypothesis you are willing to back up with verifiable measurable evidence?
Good question, thanks for raising it.
Your main point is that radiative forcing via CO2 is the only observable change and therefore has to be the primary driver for increases in Global temperature.
The thing is, there is significant natural variation in the climate, without our meddling. ( this expert explains it well
www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/ )
Even if CO2 stayed at base levels the temperature would still be changing. I know you know this and a simple search for historical global temps will show the story. Your first statement suggests that if CO2 stayed at baseline so would the temperature, but that's not true, it is never static. Climate is hugely complex with many things influencing it and all are constantly changing. Global temps started trending upward about 400 years ago after a decline following the medieval global warming spike about 1000 years ago. I think all charts I have seen show this, so based on this I would suggest that
some of the upward trend is highly likely natural and has nothing to do with AGW. The question of course, is how much but I don't think anyone can reasonable claim that ALL warming in the last 50 years is AGW.
I don't want to go into a graph or chart war, but lets agree that some charts show the medieval warming as less strong than current trends and some show it is pretty close to what we are seeing now. (
www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.pdf check the charts on page 775). And if you go back even further there are big changes that make whats happening now insignificant. So based on that I will say that your second point that what we are seeing is unprecedented is also unreasonable. There is good evidence to suggest something similar happened 1000 years ago, and definitely has happened before that. That said, i doubt anyone can dispute that recent warming is definitely a strong increase even on the natural scale of things, but I don't think it could be called unprecedented.
I would argue that if one takes the position say that 50% of the current warming trend is AGW driven, then the remainder is natural climate variance. An adjusted chart showing this would not look at all unusual given the warming trend that was already in place.
So, I still maintain my position that even though the current temperature increases are at the higher end of what we might expect naturally, I do not believe that they are outside of what can and has happened naturally in past. That said, I also do not believe much in coincidences hence my view that AGW is likely driving it up as well. But I can see no compelling reason for it to be more than about 50% contribution given the warming that was already in place.