This one just had my jaw dropping.

But a little background first. The scientific method – before being broken and manipulated by the Global Warming Alarmists – was all about proving a theory against reality. If reality and the theoretica predictions did not match, the theory was proven to be wrong and tossed. Or, in other words:

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory’s predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter.

But basically, if the predictions of the theory fail – so does the theory.

We have been experiencing a nearly two decade pause in average global temperature anomalies at the same time atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to climb unabated. The theory of Global Warming is all about CO2 concentrations increasing temperature. But for the last 20 years reality has been proving this concept to be wrong.

So what can an alarmist do?  Well first on my list might be to admit the data used to pull the global warming alarm bell is “lousy” because it broke the theory:

Global average sea surface temperatures rose rapidly from the 1970s but have been relatively flat for the past 15 years. This has prompted speculation from some quarters that global warming has stalled.

Now, Stephen Briggs from the European Space Agency’s Directorate of Earth Observation says that sea surface temperature data is the worst indicator of global climate that can be used, describing it as “lousy”.

“It is like looking at the last hair on the tail of a dog and trying to decide what breed it is,” he said on Friday at the Royal Society in London.

Er…, WHAT? But it gets even better!

Scientists are now trying to simulate the behaviour using computer models. This is difficult because the behaviour of the deep ocean is too poorly known to be reliably included.

“The models don’t have the skill we thought they had. That’s the problem,” said Peter Jan van Leeuwen, director of the National Centre of Earth Observation at the University of Reading.

OK, now we have lousy data and misbehaving models of the climate.  I.e., Models that have no “skill” in reflecting nature but instead reflect something other than reality.

One has to wonder where this is all going to lead? Will the scientific method be salvaged and the clear and sane conclusion reached? Will we finally admit AGW has been DISPROVED in terms of the current data and models? Let’s see:

Christopher Merchant at the University of Reading has been working to understand why the increase in the stored energy has not translated into an increase in sea surface temperature.

“There are a number of contributions and a picture is emerging,” he says. Those contributions include the cooling effect of aerosols from Asian industrialisation, natural variability in the climate system and solar variability.

Seems like we may have! two of the three reasons for temperature not to be following the theory of AGW is NATURAL VARIABILITY!

Also known as – Mother Nature