CO2 will continue rising, but the effect on the climate is not as strong as once believed. No, this doesn't mean that the deniers are right. ;-) It means that climate science is getting better at teasing out the effect of changes in the various components.

From 2009 (Lean is a section author of the IPCC report that won the Peace Prize in 2007):

http://www.unity.edu...9_Lean_Rind-5.pdf (5 page .pdf):

4. Summary

[15] By representing monthly mean surface temperatures in terms of their combined linear responses to ENSO, volcanic and solar activity and anthropogenic influences, we account for 76% of the variance observed since 1980 (and since 1889 [Lean and Rind, 2008]) and forecast global and regional temperatures in the next two decades. According to our prediction, which is anchored in the reality of observed changes in the recent past, warming from 2009 to 2014 will exceed that due to anthropogenic influences alone but global temperatures will increase only slightly from 2014 to 2019, and some regions may even cool.

[16] Northern mid latitudes, especially western Europe, will experience the largest warming (of as much as 1 C), since this region responds positively to both solar and anthropogenic influences. Minimal warming is likely in the eastern Pacific ocean and adjacent west coast of South America, and parts of the mid latitude Atlantic ocean, which may cool slightly at southern latitudes in future decades.

[17] The major assumption associated with our forecasts is that ‘past is prologue’; climate will continue to respond in the future to the same factors that have influenced it in the recent past and the response will continue to be linear over the next several decades. The demonstrated ability of our empirical model to reproduce the historical record of monthly surface temperature changes on a range of time scales from annual to multidecadal suggests that the same atmosphere-ocean interchange (both internal and forced) that governs annual surface temperature changes may also control climate change in the immediate future.

[18] While the ability of the climate system to depart from its historical response should not be underestimated (e.g., ocean circulation changes), the demonstrated ability of our empirical model to reproduce with some fidelity the historical surface temperature record, and in particular the geographic variations of the last decade, provides cautious confidence that a similar capability may be available for the next two decades in association with the expected climate forcings. Over this time scale, anthropogenic radiative forcing is forecast to continue growing at close to current trends with all of the different trace gas emission scenarios currently being employed, while the solar cycle changes can be anticipated within a range of uncertainty. If strong ENSO cycle events and/or volcanoes arise, they can be factored into the forecasts with the method described here. In future work we plan to characterize and forecast the seasonal responses to the natural and anthropogenic effects.


IOW, they have constructed a model that accounts for the vast majority of the observed temperature trend over the last 100+ years. Changes in Solar activity, atmospheric cycles, volcanoes can all affect the strength of the effect of increasing CO2 on the Earth's temperature. The Solar cycle in 2009-2014 is expected to cause the temperature changes to be larger than that estimated in the recent IPCC report, and smaller in 2014-2019. Nature can be expected to throw a monkey wrench in straight-line temperature predictions, but the model tells them what to expect if those events happen.

The long term temperature trend is, of course, up (Fig 1a).

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who agrees with you about that Mercedes. Of course, it's actually just a truck with a fancy box on the back. It's the Mercedes Zetros 6x6 - http://www.mercedes-...zetros.flash.html ).