Ok, the clouds are largely SO2, but which is a tiny part of the atmosphere. And it's a coolant. How does this help your argument?
I remember being told nothing travels faster than the speed of light... now we are not so sure. http://gizmodo.com/5908206/did-scientists-really-just-break-the-speed-of-light
The vertical, numbered lines, arbitrarily drawn (not in the data itself) would lead one to believe the lag in the CO2/temperature relationship is 0-1 years, but if one looks at the chart with an assumption of 2-4 years lag in the relationship then it appears CO2 increases preceded land and ocean temperature increases. Not unreasonable, land and water heat and cool more slowly than the atmosphere.
i do not see what you are seeing but do the numbers tell us the correlation values as salby and humlum have done in their work. Salby shared his values and it was a very strong correlation between change in ocean temps and change in co2. you can see in the chart how well they match up but lag by about a year.
Fair enough, I don't know how Salby arrived at a "lockstep" time relationship between the two. But I think you see what I'm saying. The shorter time you assume is valid for the relationship, the more vertical the pointer line will be, the more sensible it is to look and see what temps are doing at the same moment as CO2 volume. But the longer time lag you assume is valid, the more the relationship line would slope downwards to the right. And you don't have to slope it very much to find a peak in temps which follow a peak in CO2 (yoy). I admit the relationship doesn't chart as clean that way, but as you have said yourself, there are a lot of variables involved.
we are now focusing on the lead lag... your al gore sponsored website is presenting a different argument.
Regardless. It's an irrelevant red herring. We are not interested in seasonal CO2 variations. It's the long term rise in CO2 that is causing temps to rise. Not the other way around,.
I just reread the article. (from the al gore website) my take is the author is a bit mixed up. he and some of the others speak of the mass balance equation and the conservation of mass.... but the earth is not a closed system so the conservation of mass would not apply. I have read studies show our earth off gasses co2. Therefore you cant argue the mass balance equation applies to figuring out inputs. (co2 contributors.)