First, by way of refresher, refer to Rory Robertson's arguments here (the charts in particular) and here. Second, in response to my question below, Professor Sinclair Davidson comments:
"We probably are talking at cross-purposes. Taking the temp anomaly series at face-value, the world is warmer now than it was 30-50 years ago. I don't think that is controversial - mind you I'm sure to be corrected on that point. The point about whether of not there has been 'a trend break' isn't IMHO addressed by the paper. Even if there has been a trend break the temperature would still be warmer now than it was 30-50 years ago. As I understand it there is no argument (or evidence) that the world has cooled over the past ten years or so, rather that there is no statistically significant warming trend since 1995 - that is what Phil Jones told the BBC in 2010. Whatever else we think of him Jones is one of the world experts in precisely this area. What Phil Jones has said is consistent with Trevor Breusch and Farshid Vahid's findings. But what we're really interested in is further exploration of Jones' argument. John Quiggin and I have posted on this quite extensively. Some good background here."
