In my book "The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Clinmate Change 2001'"  (still available from http://www.multi-science.co.uk), I point out that the globally  averaged energy given off by combustion of fossil fuels is about 0.02 Watts per square meter. The claimed "greenhouse effect" since 1750 is 2.45 Watts per square meter; much greater.

 

However, the energy from combustion is emitted in a highly irregular fashion. Over the USA it is 0.31 W/sqm, in California 0.81 W/sqm, and in San Francisco 89.24 W/sqm. New Zealand is 0.08 W/sqm, Auckland 28.2 W/sqm and Essen (Germany) 221.65 W/sqm

 

Weather stations in industrialised countries, particularly if close to cities, are therefore likely to record temperature increases from local energy production which could be much greater than predictions from the greenhouse effect. The effect could extend into the lower troposphere.

 

Support for this likelihood was supplied by my NZClimate Truth Newsletters No 39 and 44, which showed that much of the claimed recent surface and lower troposphere  temperature increases came from industrialised countries..

 

A recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters  by De Laar and Maurelis (2004, Vol 31, L05204, doi:10.1029/2003GL019024. available from   http://www.sron.nl/~josl/Documents/2003GL019024.pdf>   

 

confirms what I have said. 

 

They found that the lower troposphere temperature trends for the period 1979-2001 are spatially correlated to anthropogenic surface CO2 emissions, a measure of industrialisation. They also showed that two important climate models do not reproduce the geographical climate rtesponse to all known forcings as found in the observed temeprature trends. They say

 

"We speculate that the observed surface temperature changes might be the result of local surface heating processes and not related to radiative greenhouse gas forcing"

 

They also say  "a change in focus may well have far-reaching implications for the socioeconomics of climate policy which would have to be considerably reevaluated."