Seeing the environmental forest

WUWT published a piece by Danle Wolfe which purports to measure the correlation between CO 2 and global temperature.  As you can probably predict, Wolfe's conclusion is that there is no relationship. "Focusing on the most recent hiatus below, both visually and in a 1 st order linear regression analysis there clearly is effectively zero correlation between CO 2 levels and global mean temperature."  Unfortunately for Wolfe, all he's produced is a fine example of mathturbation as well as an example of forming a conclusion first then warping the evidence to fit.

One seemingly persistent myth about the Arctic is that there is no correlation between Arctic air temperature and sea ice extent.  At first glance, that myth appears to be true, as Arctic temperatures have noticeably risen whereas sea ice extent shows little overall change. The correlation appears even worse when plotting sea ice extent versus temperature directly. Taking a closer look, however, reveals the reason for the apparently poor correlation: The large seasonal cycle in sea ice extent data.  The cycle obscures the overall trend in sea ice data—and the correlation of that trend with the trend in Arctic tropospheric temperature.  Once that cycle is removed via a 12-month moving average, the trend in sea ice extent and the negative correlation between extent and temperature is clearly revealed. The direct comparison shows that the decline in Arctic sea ice extent has accelerated as Arctic tropospheric temperature increased. Extent = 11.6846713 + -0.9...