Big Yin, I don't lay down the law. I just ask people to justify what they say and take the piss when they refuse or can't. Your science on "knife edge" is bullshit and you know it, hence your little outbursts trying to hide your blushes. Simon's ability to see a pause while at the same time claiming that he trusts no data set is evident nonsense that he can't defend. Martin ties himself in knots rejecting the concept of a global average temperature as "bogus science" while at the same time being open to the idea that satellite and radiosonde measures of global average temperature might be worth something. You have no alternative "case" and no compelling evidence for it and nobody who witnesses your response to being called on it needs any scientific authority, multiple diplomas or introductory stats courses to see it.

Cat, natural warming would need a source of energy. Where has the energy come from if not from the greenhouse effect?

No doubt Shroedinger's Cat will point out that the greenhouse effect is not a source of energy. Any more than an overcoat is a source of energy.

I didn't think the Cat was a pedant, you on the other hand.... are right that it was badly expressed. The greenhouse effect causes energy that would otherwise be radiated away to be retained and to warm the planet. If you or the Cat think the current warming is "natural" (i.e. not involving our CO2 emissions and the greenhouse effect) where is the energy coming from (or what is causing it to be retained)?

I'd been spending the odd moment reading up on the satellite calibration stuff and the actual physics of the O₂ temperature measurements.

Looking for a way to get yourself off the hook upon which had you impaled yourself, eh? How to pass off the graphs that Spencer and Christie produce as something other than global average temperatures, I expect. I imagine you have found out that estimating a global average temperature of any part of the troposphere or stratosphere is actually rather difficult and most certainly not "validated". While any fool with a spreadsheet can estimate an average global land temperature and find it really is rising, even before adjusting for the imperfections of the data, nobody can do that for MSU data without months of study, computer models and adjustments by the truck load. Adjustments to the data for frack's sake - great amusement occurred when Euan Mearns with supreme hubris complained to Spencer about his adjusting the data. It must be galling too that the data need to be adjusted for stratospheric cooling that was predicted by GCMs and which really seems to occur.

Well, I think it's a sign of progress if it really is reading both Euan Mearns and Roy Spencer.

The only sort of progress would be when it goes the way of the other trolls.

The only reason he gets any traction here is because nothing is happening in the climate world, and we have to do something here, but it does get tiresome going over and over the same old shiz with the troll.

Yin, I bet having to explain to people time and again, as I see you have done, why the greenhouse effect is real etc is rather tiresome too. Especially when it doesn't sink in. Recently on this thread we've got the Cat saying it is "natural warming" which implicitly rejects the greenhouse effect (i.e. if it is natural what happened to the effects of our extra greenhouse gasses).

You might not like me calling you out on your (possibly offhand, unconsidered) remarks that you cannot substantiate (or can you describe this alternative "case" and the compelling evidence for it?) but the GHE denial must really grate.

But we'e used to that with Entropic Man, TBYJ.

Raff, there's a simple solution, stop explaining it. You have neither the skill or aptitude, I have no idea why you think you make a credible explainer of anything.

Yin, "there's a simple solution, stop explaining it". I was referring to you:

I bet having to explain to people time and again, as I see you have done, why the greenhouse effect is real etc is rather tiresome too. Especially when it doesn't sink in.

Perhaps you are not very good at explaining it; you don't seem to get through.