With all due respect, which may not be much respect, my own thesis differs from Boris' in one fact. I am speaking of "Science" being the nutjob political hacks who are creating their own "truth", to the extent of deliberately ignoring many truly significant factors in "climate" such as the total heat content of our oceans in relation to the much smaller heat content of our atmosphere, as they spin their yarns for their politically-motivated power brokers in the grant-funding agencies of government.
Most people look at the climate change "crisis" with some justified disbelief when it is hijacked by political hacks to justify the carbon tax proposals which will have severe economic impacts on the US, on our lives, while requiring virtually nothing from China and India. In fact, the proposal does not effectively address the "problem" if it were really "the problem".
"the problem" is how to redistribute wealth worldwide to achieve more social justice across the globe, and how to cememt political power in the hands of fascists. I mean "fascists" as the general club of top interests who have the best lobbying access to governments across the globe, corporate cartelists who have found it profitable to have governments endorse their interests while more severely hamstringing smaller competitors.
I don't quibble at 1.8F or whatever the data really is. I believe we are still within "normal" for interglacial warm periods, which may in fact carry a feedback sort of mechanism for starting a new ice age..... warmer oceans.... not just surfaces but at depth.
warmer oceans may also contribute to the CO2 rise in a shorter time span, as warming oceans could expel significant amounts of dissolved CO2.
And those warmer oceans supply the water vapors needed to increase snow over sub-arctic areas most susceptible to the formation of great ice sheets, like the Hudson Bay/Great Lakes area.
depletion of glacial ice would logically lead to a point in time where there will be less arctic or antartic net melting, maybe enough to affect temps in the deep ocean, which are generally thought to be something close to 4C, the temp at which water is most dense. At any rate, it may be more important to look at heat flux from the earth's core in assessing deep sea temps. Or, maybe, the "solar wind" or deep space debris fields we are encountering as we move along around our little galaxy....
But who the hell wants all that information when we have chump science professionals who will just make up the science we need to panic mankind into the desired political course.
Nope, when I read "Science" publications, even peer-reviewed publications, I never quit asking obvious questions.
Nobody should. I'm proud of the human race for having the guts to dispute "established science".