@ Andrew Adams
“Firstly, if “natural warming” is the null hypothesis how does one falsify it? ”
First, be clear about the hypothesis: ACO2 is driving the TOE upward at an unprecedented rate and if action is not taken to control ACO2, the consequences will be catastrophic. (If that is NOT the hypothesis, then why the weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and demands that governments establish a world-wide ‘climate policy’, designed to use taxes, regulations, and multiple variations on the ever-popular income redistribution theme to drastically CURTAIL ACO2?)
The null hypothesis is that climate is doing pretty much what it has always done–changing, and, until it does something out of character, we should leave it alone and do something useful with our time, energy, and money.
The null hypothesis can be falsified by demonstrating that TOE has climbed well above the bounds of its historical range (not small fractions of a degree) during periods with no arguable ACO2 signature, that the rise in the TOE is highly correlated with ACO2 emissions, AND there is convincing evidence that an increase in the TOE of a few degrees, amortized over a couple hundred years, represents a catastrophe that requires us, in the here and now, to take heroic measures to prevent it..
Citing the output of Climate Models whose only socially redeeming feature is that they provide textbook examples of the ‘GIGO Principle’ won’t do the trick.
