Global Warming on Hold?

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/02/global-warming-pause.html

Please read the above link. Back when I started this blog, I posted about how global temperatures have stopped rising, and opined that this halt in warming (perhaps even with some global cooling) could persist for the next 10-20 years given some of the climate shifts and odd solar behavior we are seeing. Well, it seems that this has dumbfounded some climate "scientists". I put scientists in quotes because I cannot figure out how some of the junk they say is even worthy of being called science. Consider a portion of what is shown in the article concerning the halt in the warming in recent years.

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"This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn't have one."

Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.
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This Swanson guy is a climate scientist? So he mentions that large la ninas can lead to cooling, yet cannot find any explanation at all as far as what is going on. Hello! You might want to actually check out some actual data! Or we could just choose to ignore the fact that we are in the second year of a LA NINA, which was actually a pretty strong one last year. And the second paragraph above... the strong el nina jarred circulations into unison? That doesn't even make any sense, but since a supposed climate scientist cannot even tell we've been in a solid la nina, I guess nothing more should be expected.

At the end of the article, Swanson then states that this "halt" may go on for 30 years, but says "explosive" warming WILL resume thereafter! Gee, thanks. I'm supposed to believe that someone who apparantly cannot recognize a la nina, and admits to not having a clue what is going on right now somehow has what will happen 30 years and beyond all figured out. Forgive me for having no faith in this.

As I have said previously, the point is not that I doubt the role of human influence in global warming (some will read this and make that blind assumption). I think it probably is there. We just don't know if we account for 5%, 50%, 75%, or whatever. Until we have a better understanding of natural cycles (which this shows we obviously don't), there is no way to quantify our role in it.