Tropical Troposphere Not Warming

Authentic science uses computers to analyze observational data. It’s the meticulous adherence to real world measurements that makes science truthful and useful. Luboš Motl picks up on a story Steve McIntyre posts about the lack of observed warming in the upper atmosphere.

Lubos sums the graph up this way: The three complicated colorful lines are the temperature data for the tropical troposphere - where the warming should be most rapid - according to RSS MSU, UAH MSU, and CRU: they seem to almost fully agree with each other. In terms of words, there has been no warming over there since 1980.

MSU: The Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) is a microwave radiometer that flies aboard NOAA's polar orbiting weather satellites. Each day, the MSU observes approximately 80% of the earth's surface, with the orbit shifting slightly each day so that 100% coverage is achieved over a three to four day period. … The air temperature computed directly from channel 2 is representative of the middle-to-upper troposphere (centered about 7 km above the surface).

RSS and UAH are separate research groups using NOAA’s MSU data. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data is from a British research group of true believers that nothing other than human influence explains the vagaries in our present limited snippet in the long history of our dynamic gas bubble. On a side note: Madison, Wisconsin receives trace amounts of snowfall this afternoon, adding to our record setting snowfall total for 2007-08.