Ah - but are the headlines from the IPCC or from journalists? There are plenty of cases where journalists have hyped up scientific reports to give them that "headline grabbing, 30 second prime time news grab stuff"

Interestingly enough, I read Ann Henderson-Summers article Climate Whistpers: Media Communication about Climate Change yesterday. One of points of the article was how she presented findings on models that made two important predictions:

"

• the threshold sea suface temperature for tropical cyclones increase (by 2 C) for a doubled CO2 greenhouse scenario; and
• the MPI achieved increases by between 10% and 20%

"

(MPI = Maximum Potential Intensity)

The Age ran an article titled "Super cyclones on the horizon, say scientists"

nice hey?

Temporary fluctuations that occur, and have occurred for thousands of years without human interference.

Not only does the ocean go through cooler and warmer periods, so does the entire planet. The CRU may have taken the medieval warming period out of its graphs, but it still existed. So too did the Victorian ice age.

I agree that the sea is a huge problem to measure, given that it is subject to currents and convection.

Notwithstanding that, about 80% of AGW heat should end up in it. Where is it going if the seas are cooling?

I agree Iolande,

But I also believe that the IPCC deliberately included data from environmental advocacy groups (WWF etc) to deliberately “spice up” the argument for urgent action. These documents were not peer reviewed.

The head of IPCC has admitted this.

Such practices are reprehensible. They bring science into disrepute.

The research said that the ocean is cooling over the last 5 years and that could temporarily offset the warming.

So there appears to be two events -

The first is a short term fluctuating cycle where the ocean cools, following by warming.

The second is a long-term trend of warming due to AGW.

In the long-run, when you put the two events together, there should be an overall trend of warming.

>>The Argo project has over 3000 submersible robots measuring the temp. of the upper 2km of the world's oceans. These have consistently reported a cooling of the oceans over the last 5 years.<<

....which is what I would expect if thousands of cubic Km of ice had melted. And presumably the heat had been previously absorbed from the lower atmosphere, cooling this relative to what it would otherwise have been?

Which WWF data was it? The WWF does support (not financially) research by academics and has a list of areas that they would like academics to investigate. It also employs scientists who work in conjunction with academics.

And the research conducted by these scientists is as untainted as those employed by the coal industry?

I didn't realise environmental groups made money out of protecting the environment?

Good point, and I dont understand why the AGW lobby didnt use this argument instead of pressure issues ( which were valid).

The Argo data is online, I might pull it down and take a look.

WWF papers used in the IPC WG4 report:

the WWF and cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC AR4 report:
Allianz and World Wildlife Fund, 2006: Climate change and the financial sector: an agenda for action, 59 pp. [Accessed 03.05.07: http://www.wwf.org.uk/ filelibrary/pdf/allianz_rep_0605.pdf]
Austin, G., A. Williams, G. Morris, R. Spalding-Feche, and R. Worthington, 2003: Employment potential of renewable energy in South Africa. Earthlife Africa, Johannesburg and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Denmark, November, 104 pp.
Baker, T., 2005: Vulnerability Assessment of the North-East Atlantic Shelf Marine Ecoregion to Climate Change, Workshop Project Report, WWF, Godalming, Surrey, 79 pp.
Coleman, T., O. Hoegh-Guldberg, D. Karoly, I. Lowe, T. McMichael, C.D. Mitchell, G.I. Pearman, P. Scaife and J. Reynolds, 2004: Climate Change: Solutions for Australia. Australian Climate Group, 35 pp. http://www.wwf.org.au/ publications/acg_solutions.pdf
Dlugolecki, A. and S. Lafeld, 2005: Climate change – agenda for action: the financial sector’s perspective. Allianz Group and WWF, Munich [may be the same document as "Allianz" above, except that one is dated 2006 and the other 2005]
Fritsche, U.R., K. Hünecke, A. Hermann, F. Schulze, and K. Wiegmann, 2006: Sustainability standards for bioenergy. Öko-Institut e.V., Darmstadt, WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main, November
Giannakopoulos, C., M. Bindi, M. Moriondo, P. LeSager and T. Tin, 2005: Climate Change Impacts in the Mediterranean Resulting from a 2oC Global Temperature Rise. WWF report, Gland Switzerland. Accessed 01.10.2006 at http://assets.panda.org/downloads/me...nal8july05.pdf.
Hansen, L.J., J.L. Biringer and J.R. Hoffmann, 2003: Buying Time: A User’s Manual for Building Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems. WWF Climate Change Program, Berlin, 246 pp.
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_...limate_savers/ index.cfm
Lechtenbohmer, S., V. Grimm, D. Mitze, S. Thomas, M. Wissner, 2005: Target 2020: Policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. WWF European Policy Office, Wuppertal
Malcolm, J.R., C. Liu, L. Miller, T. Allnut and L. Hansen, Eds., 2002a: Habitats at Risk: Global Warming and Species Loss in Globally Significant Terrestrial Ecosystems. WWF World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland, 40 pp.
Rowell, A. and P.F. Moore, 2000: Global Review of Forest Fires. WWF/IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, 66 pp. http://www.iucn.org/themes/fcp/publications /files/global_review_forest_fires.pdf
WWF, 2004: Deforestation threatens the cradle of reef diversity. World Wide Fund for Nature, 2 December 2004. http://www.wwf.org/
WWF, 2004: Living Planet Report 2004. WWF- World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), Gland, Switzerland, 44 pp.
WWF (World Wildlife Fund), 2005: An overview of glaciers, glacier retreat, and subsequent impacts in Nepal, India and China. World Wildlife Fund, Nepal Programme, 79 pp.
Zarsky, L. and K. Gallagher, 2003: Searching for the Holy Grail? Making FDI Work for Sustainable Development. Analytical Paper, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Switzerland

Interestingly the WWF partially funds the CRU...
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/

and?

US WWF 2008 Annual Report

Operating revenues grew to $196.5 million, a 22 percent increase over the FY07 total of $160.8 million.

We received $85.7 million from our members and donors, $26.1 million in government awards, $19.3 million from foundations, $14.6 million from other WWF Network organizations, $10.1 million from corporations, and $40.7 million in other revenues,

...it's fair enough to list funding sources: the oil, coal, gas and energy industries fund dozens of anti AGW institutions and scientists.

indeed. At least the environmental groups make it public.