I was alerted to two papers by Tom Quirk that will add to the climate science discussion.
Background information on Tom’s credentials are
Tom Quirk
M.Sc.(Melb), D.Phil., M.A.(Oxon), SMP(Harv.).
Tom Quirk trained as a physicist at the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford. He has been a Fellow of three Oxford Colleges and has worked as a high energy physicist in the United States at Fermilab, the universities of Chicago and Harvard and at CERN inEurope. In addition he has been through the HarvardBusinessSchooland subsequently worked for Rio Tinto. He was an early director of Biota, the developer of Relenza, a new influenza drug. In addition he has been involved in the management of gas and electricity transmission systems as a director of the Victorian Power Exchange (electricity) and Deputy Chairman of VENCorp, the company that managed the transmission and the market for wholesale natural gas in South East Australia.
The two papers are
Paper 1:
Tom Quirk, 2012. Did the global temperature trend change at the end of 1990s? Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, accepted for publication 7 May 2012.
The abstract reads
The apparent leveling of the global temperature time series at the end of the 1990s may represent a break in the upward trend. A study of the time series measurements for temperature, carbon dioxide, humidity and methane shows changes coincident with phase changes of the Atlantic and Pacific Decadal Oscillations. There are changes in carbon dioxide, humidity and methane measurement series in 2000. If these changes mark a phase change of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation then it might explain the global temperature behaviour
Paper 2:
Tom Quirk, 2010, Twentieth Century Sources of Methane in the Atmosphere, 43rd Seminar on Planetary Emergencies, World Scientific (pp 365-374) .
The abstract reads
Present global and national schemes for carbon regulation often include methane alongside carbon dioxide. It is therefore important to understand the sources, sinks and control of methane in the atmosphere and then consider if methane should be part of any carbon regulation scheme. Atmospheric measurements over the last 50 years show substantial changes in methane concentration. Natural gas leakage from pipelines has been the major contributor up to 1990. For the last 15 years there has been little increase in concentration and natural climate variability has been the dominant control in changing methane concentrations.
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. 
