`:If by ``seen in the past`` you mean in a historical time frame, I agree, but I stated it was comparable, we've been warming for more than a century and it is only on the last decade that we have exceeded the temperature a millenia ago, and given the error bars in the temperature proxies even that is uncertain, but the trend is certainly there.  It may seem unfair, but the burden of proof is not on the skeptics, they have the easy job, the consensus was correctly criticized for being unable to explain the satellite data and the residual balloon discrepency.  Now they are in better agreement, but the discrepencies are still great enough to call into question the range of IPCC predictions.  Perhaps the injustice in the burden of proof is compensated by the greater funding and employment on the ``believer`` side.  The skeptics can get by with far fewer people and less funding for research.  Model the clouds better, model the data better, and couple the ocean better, and better incorporate direct and indirect solar influence and the error bars should go down.  Do all that and even if the predictions come in at the high end of the range, the Kyoto treaty may still be completely ill advised and a tremendous waste of human wealth and potential.  It just ain't fair!   I hope you agree that it is fair to demand better science when hundreds of billions of dollars are being committed on the predictions.  This is more than an admittedly interesting academic exercise.     `