At least, that was the story in the first two drafts of the 2007 Report. Then the people measuring temperature provided the disturbing news that the 2005 figure actually showed a fall in temperature, and they had to put that into their final Report.

Then there was overwhelming pressure on the scientists to backtrack on such a disturbing observation, and , loyally, they discovered a “rogue” unreliable sensor
which restored the IPCC “confidence” that the ocean temperature is rising.

So they increased their coverage with a new sophisticated system called ARGO which has 3,000 probes. The results are disastrous, and they have yet to admit it. They are given in the following paper

K von Schukmann, F Galliland, and P Y Le Traon 2009 Geophysical Research Letters Vol 11124.09007. doi:1029/2008JC005237 “Global hygrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008″

To start with, the average temperature is falling. But what is worse. the variability is so great that it could not possibly be heated from the atmosphere. So it must be heated from below, from all the underwater volcanoes and plate movements that have so far been neglected. I attach the record for the Pacific basin which includes the variability of salinity,

This all comes on top of the paper by Douglass and Knox at

Douglass, D.H. and R. Knox, 2009: Physics letters A. Volume 373, Issue 36, 31 August 2009, Pages 3296-3300 “Changes in Net Flow of Ocean Heat Correlate with Past Climate Anomalies”
The abstract reads

“Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960- mid 1970s (?0.15), mid-1970s-2000 (+0.15), 2001-present (?0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.”

The summary reads

“We determine Earth’s radiation imbalance by analyzing three recent independent observational ocean heat content determinations for the period 1950 to 2008 and compare the results with direct measurements by satellites. A large annual term is found in both the implied radiation imbalance and the direct measurements. Its magnitude and phase confirm earlier observations that delivery of the energy to the ocean is rapid, thus eliminating the possibility of long time constants associated with the bulk of the heat transferred.

Longer-term averages of the observed imbalance are not only many-fold smaller than theoretically derived values, but also oscillate in sign. These facts are not found among the theoretical predictions.

Three distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative imbalance are found: 1960 to the mid 1970s, the mid 1970s to 2000 and 2001 to present. The respective mean values of radiation imbalance are ?0.15, +0.15, and ?0.2 to ?0.3. These observations are consistent with the occurrence of climate shifts at 1960, the mid-1970s, and early 2001 identified by Swanson and Tsonis.

Knowledge of the complex atmospheric-ocean physical processes is not involved or required in making these findings. Global surface temperatures as a function of time are also not required to be known.”

The periodicity found coincides with the behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and as the heating is from below, this heating is related to the PDOmust also behave in a periodic fashion.

The finding that the earth’s energy is not balanced shows that the fundamenmtal assumption of all the computer climate models that it IS balanced is incorrect, and means that all the models are wrong.”

Oh dear! Back to the drawing board?

The relation of the rings to the solar cycle was much stronger than to any climatological factors. As for the mechanism, we are puzzled.
–Sigrid Dengel, University of Edinburgh, 19 October 2009

A sense of panic is setting in among many campaigners for drastic cuts in global carbon emissions. It is becoming obvious that the highly trumpeted meeting set for Copenhagen this December will not deliver a binding international treaty that will make a significant difference to global warming.
–Bjorn Lomborg, 17 October 2009

Now something else:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6879251.ece

But then it scores own goals by failing to distinguish between scientific and tinhat. In the second minute it presents a paper on the earth exploding as it it were from a real scientific journal. It sure looks like a real scientific paper – I mean, they did it in LaTeX and everything – but somehow I think the “NU Journal of Discovery” lacks some scientific credibility compared to say Nature.

However, loess is deposited from dust.

Seems like it’s in the models

IPCC TAR 5.2.2.1 Soil dust

Soil dust is a major contributor to aerosol loading and optical thickness, especially in sub-tropical and tropical regions. Estimates of its global source strength range from …

Is dust included in the models? How about loess? I doubt that anyone has thought of including that, or if they did they found it too difficult.