Patrick, it also seems that a study in Science was published providing satellite data as evidence for global warming and disputing Christy's position. It was published, though, the same week that Christy gave the congressional presentation.
Here is an article about it (the article does come from an
environmental group, though).
Here's a relevant quote:
In the research published in the May 2 issue of "Science," scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Remote Sensing Systems and the University of Birmingham found that temperatures in the troposphere rose "by roughly 0.1 degrees C per decade relative to the corresponding ... data, which show little net change."
Furthermore, the group compared this change with those predicted by the Department of Energy Parallel Climate Model, and found that the model predictions and the actual satellite observations were compatible. "We note two important points," the authors write. "First, claimed inconsistencies between satellite estimates of tropospheric temperature changes and either model results or surface temperature trends depend critically on which satellite data set is used. These inconsistencies are minimized with the RSS data.
"Second, our identification of a model-predicted stratospheric temperature fingerprint is robust to satellite data uncertainties.
"Take together, these points strengthen the case for a pronounced human influence on global climate."
and, to be more clear about the relevance of this...
Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and one of the authors of a paper published in Science on the subject said, "This is an interesting area because of the political/policy situation. Among the skeptics who say that there are no human influences on the environment, and therefore we shouldn't do anything about it, one of the pillars of their arguments is the Christy and Spencer data set. They say these data are manifestly better than anything else. It is much harder now to say that, because there are two different data sets out there."
talli
