*sigh* :( Because Cal State wasn't letting students in this year for winter and spring, I'm not an earth science student this year, and can't afford the conference. Dang state budget.

Sorry to hear that, Mary. But you can still follow some sessions via live webcast: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/index.php

So I guess that non anthropogenic global warming supporters claim that temperature cycles with periods in the order of thousand hundreds of years (not explored properly due to only 600.000 year old data available ) are now seen in the last 50 years temperature records ?

"The study also found that the two-to-one ratio across the country as a whole could be attributed more to a comparatively small number of record lows than to a large number of record highs. This indicates that much of the nation's warming is occurring at night, when temperatures are dipping less often to record lows"

Lets see...couldn't simply an ... See Moreoverall average increase in cloud cover during the evening keep temperatures from dropping to record lows? We don't need a model to see this occurring. A more interesting question is how much the overall global average record low and high temperature variation deviate from the norm (what is the norm, anyway?). Hard to tell even with modified data--and probably why it wasn't done and limited to generalized ratios instead (6 generalized numbers are used (see graph of 6 ratios) to characterize 60 years worth of temp data) Beware of limited data set statistics. NCAR has also "modified" the temperature data from thousands of sites as stated in their report to arrive at 6 ratios, with no explanation on how they did this. Presumably, the temp data used in this report is extreme lower (boundary level with land) tropospheric data, comprising a small fraction of the atmosphere...essentially 2 dimensional temperature data for a three dimensional system (it is a deep convective atmosphere in which its layered structure is defined by variations in temperature caused by many different types of physical processes and chemical interaction). What is going on in the rest of the atmosphere that is above the land surface thermometers?. This report is fraught with assumptions and based on manipulated data...I am only pointing out one example of not scientifically sound conclusions based on assumptions and problematic data sets seen in this report. ( I am not commenting on the validity of global warming, however, I am concerned with the way data is used to support an anthropogenic cause for global climate change, which the IPCC claims a value of at least 90% certainty that a substantial part of global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.