It's interesting that the website you link to states that co2 is the main driver of climate change.
Not really, as it is the same website that you quoted, but an older version before he tried to hid the fact that he is a cartoonist.
Large difference in the values or trend?
I would imagine there is a large difference in the values, as would most rational people, but the papers I have read show similar trends.
I misread your comment. The trend (at UHI-affected and non-affected sites) being similar (albeit not the same) is not surprising, no-one is denying that the world has got a tiny bit warmer over the past decades. The problem is that the UHI-affected sites bias the overall figures upwards. Especially when data is homogenised.
So what is responsible for the trend?
I don't know and nor does anyone else. Some will be due to CO2 slowing down the escape of heat to space. Most of the warming since the Little Ice Age happened before 1950, so anthropogenic CO2 can't be the cause of that and so is highly unlikely to be the main cause of recent warming.
Ah, the old line about funding. I am sure there are plenty of organisations willing to fund studies to disprove ACC.
If you are so sure then I am certain that you can name 30 or so such organisations. Care to do so?
And how about listing how much money they have put in. In the last two decades the US government has spent c. $150 billion, virtually all on the CAGW side.
While you are at it would you care to list all of the university climate science departments where CAGW is not the accepted paradigm?
If he was publishing his own research then that would alarm me, however he seems to aggregating others work, as well as significant contributions from very well qualified climatologists.
So he is a guy on the net with a website. Quite possibly misunderstanding & misinterpreting the science. Why should anyone pay any attention to him?
And if his background is so benign why is he trying to hide it and pretending to be a scientist now?
Also, that site has a, well deserved, reputation for 'playing the man not the ball'. Scientists who take a contrary view are abused, comments asking questions about posts are attacked rather than answered or just made to disappear.
You quote that 17 year period that shows a flat trend, and mention 40 years as a limit for accurate data.
If you extend your 17 year period back to 1976, so nice accurate data from within 40 years, it shows quite a strong correlation. Almost as if a flat period (or even a drop!) during a longer upwards trend doesnt disprove the trend?
l'm not at all sure what point you are trying to make.
The CAGW idea is based on computer models. Those models failed to predict a flat period of even 15 years but there was a flat period of 17 years. Ergo those computer models were wrong. What other errors are there in those computer models?
As for a correlation between CO2 & temperature, there really is not one. The CO2 graph looks like this
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2
but the temperature graph looks like this
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from
You can draw a linear trend line on that but I doubt it has any physical meaning. To me that graph looks like a flatish period, then a jump at the El Nino, then another flatish period, then another jump at the next El Nino. And if we plot those two periods outside the El Ninos we get
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/to:1995/plot/rss/to:1995/trend
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Both of those show a tiny rise (0.1°C or less over 17), whereas the period in between them
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/to:1999/plot/rss/from:1995/to:1999/trend
shows a 0.5°C rise over 4 years.
So no, basically no correlation with CO2 rising the same amount each year.