Over at her blog Climate Etc. Judith Curry looks at the mainstream forecasts of greenhouse warming over the coming 30 years, combines them with the likely implications of the current slowdown in solar output, the phases of natural climate oscillations and expected volcanic eruptions, and comes to the conclusion that the likely range of global temperature change over the coming three decades is between -0.5 and +0.7 degrees C. As in we're not likely to see much warming and might even have net cooling. That should make the alarmists happy, though we suspect it won't.

Her essay is an exercise in combining conventional wisdom on a bunch of topics often discussed in isolation, that, once they're gathered together, create an unexpected and interesting conclusion. One of her observations is that while most solar experts believe we're headed into a lengthy solar minimum, they still don't agree on how big the sun's effect on the climate is, once all the direct and indirect effects are taken into account.

Of course the same could be said about all the elements of the climate system: The experts don't agree and it could do this or that or something completely unexpected. Despite the constant claim that climate science is completely settled it just keeps throwing surprises at us.