Thanks for this post. I have a new youngster here at work who has only heard about the "calamity" of global warming. How the sky is falling and it's all SUV's fault. I don't have time to get into a full fledged discussion right now. Maybe this will hold him over for a bit.You might also want to mention to him that the data from this group had been promoted by greenhouse-warming skeptics for years as showing virtually no warming trend in the troposphere, and with a few adjustments and corrections, it is now showing a definite warming trend in the troposphere. So this data can be used by both groups, as in "it's not warming very much" vs. "it's warming a lot more than they said two years ago".
I'm just hoping it pushes him to do a little research. If I can just get him to think for himself, it'll help in alot of other areas...like the work he does for me. It's amazing to me how many first jobbers(recent grads) really cannot do things on their own. Their decision making process seems very skewed. Just an observation from the real world.
So this data can be used by both groups, as in "it's not warming very much" vs. "it's warming a lot more than they said two years ago".
Question has never been is it warming or cooling, the trend can be either both depending on your time frame.
The question's are quantitative, how much is due to mankind and under our control? And, is makind's impact sufficient to make a difference, if we were to change our techonolgies and economies sufficiently.
The answer for Greenhouse gases and the Greenhouse effect is clearly that mankind can affect the climate only negligibly, and it is even questionable if mankind could make a measureable difference in Climate at all:
Mankind's impact is only 0.28% of Total Greenhouse effect
for all emission control or other technical fixes politically feasible to apply:
" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "
Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist