A global warming experiment you can try at home

As I frequently mention, I'm no scientist but I am endowed with a degree of common sense and common sense tells me that "global warming" is entirely or, at worst, mostly, due to natural causes - and mostly due to that big ball of fire we call "The Sun".

Canutists scoff at this suggestion - even while conceding that the sun was indeed the cause of previous warming cycles. They claim that they know the sun isn't causing the warming this time because there has been no significant increase in something called Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) during this warming cycle. What they frequently fail to mention, however, is that TSI has been at historically high levels both before and throughout this period of warming.

So, armed with this info and my common sense I conducted a small experiment which you can try at home. All you need is a "sun", an "earth" and a little time. As the earth is predominantly water I used a large saucepan of water. For the sun I used a gas hob.

Now turn on the heat and set the setting to low then place the pan of water on the hob. You'll notice that, the water does not suddenly become warm, but, at first, the water remains cold - over time it gradually heats up. What is more, that heat dissipates out of the pan - if you hold your hand over the water you will feel the heat.

Now turn the heat up to medium. What happens? Yes! The water heats up some more and the heat it gives off is increased. Now turn the heat down to low and you'll notice that even though the source of heat is decreased, the warmth from the water remains high for some time after. It does not suddenly return to the previous temperature. This is because the water stores the heat and releases it slowly into the "atmosphere".

Now the clincher. Turn the heat right up and leave it there on high for 30 minutes (to simulate thirty years). Does the water reach it's optimum temperature in the first minute? Not even in the tenth minute. It keeps getting warmer and warmer and giving off more and more heat until it eventually started to boil (about 25 minutes in my case). When I turned the heat off the water did not suddenly become cold - it only cooled gradually.

So, you see, TSI didn't need to get any stronger - just by being turned up high it warmed the oceans for 30 years and those oceans stored up the heat and gradually released it to the world causing a slight warming. Now the sun has "turned off" and those oceans are starting to cool - very slowly. As long as it stays turned off that will continue to happen - hopefully that won't be too long.

I know it's not "scientific", but I have limited resources. I'm sure if the IPCC were to give me some of the billions it spends on research - say, £5,000,000? - I could come up with a peer reviewed (reviewed by my peers down at the Red Lion) study.

You can keep all your bull about watts per sq metre, upper tropospheres and minute increases in an essential trace gas - my common sense says warming is natural and normal and so is cooling. Only one is better for humanity than the other. Can you guess which?