Part 2:

A further way of describing how absurd your comparison between 2XCO2 and a 2% in solar radiation is can be done with power conversions: 341.5 W/m^2 of incident power from the Sun heats the surface to 287K (384.7 W/m^2 of radiated power) for a net gain of 384.7/341.5 = 1.1C, while the IPCC, and by proxy you, claim that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing from 2XCO2 absorption causes a 3C rise in the surface temperature. If you add 3C to 287C and convert to power, the Earth’s surface emits 401.1 W/m^2, which is an increase of 16.4 W/m^2. This means that the IPCC claim of gain, relative to power from 2XCO2 forcing, is 16.4/3.7 = 4.43, which is about 4x higher than solar forcing.

By this reckoning 2XCO2 = an 8% increase in solar energy. Ridiculous. You obviously have no idea, which is fine but do you have to so patronising about it?

Dear cohenite,

Good lord mate what an extraordinary reply.

I mean what on earth is 'solar main sequence evolution'?

Perhaps dialling it back just a fraction might be assist us all.

What the fellows over at Real Climate did was run the model for a doubling of CO2 and again for a 2% increase in solar irradiation and found similar results confirming the position that much of the resultant projected hotspot is dependent on surface temperature not specifically the CO2 increase. Nothing more or less. Quite simple really.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm

Why you felt the need to bang on with all the rest is puzzling to say the least. It was also diversionary so let's get back to tin tacks.

The signature effect from the CO2 alone was a cooling of the stratosphere, something that is real and observed. I can see why you didn't want to address it.

You wrote;

“A THS is a rate of warming in the Troposphere which is greater than the rate of the surface warming. Is this happening: yes or no?”

Yes it is. Is it definitive? Not yet. Are small errors in the adjusting of data to handle externals going to have a large impact over decades? Of course! Is more work being done to bring us closer to getting a robust result. Yes.

However there is a way forward for us here. You mentioned Santer earlier. In his 2005 paper was the following; “Both model and satellite data indicate that variability in TS is amplified in the tropical troposphere (Fig. 1, B and C). Amplification of surface warming is a direct result of moist thermodynamic processes”.

He was talking about an observed effect of El Nino occurrences. Are you at least prepared to acknowledge the described hotspot effect even if it were only over the duration of the El Nino? Or do we add Santer to your mound of rejected papers? I'm having difficulty in keeping up with who is still in favour.

csteele, I think you are taking the piss. Some points:

"I mean what on earth is 'solar main sequence evolution'?" Google it.

Santer's THS paper is dealt with here:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/models-get-the-core-assumptions-wrong-the-hot-spot-is-missing/#comments

Santer found a THS by NOT using all the data; why would he NOT use all the data if all the data shows NO THS?

Stratosphere cooling is ONE of the predicted effects of AGW; do you know why csteele; consider 'characteristic emission layer' in your research.

In any event Stratosphere cooling is NOT happening; bonmot's thoughtful link to the discussion on the THS shows that:

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/files/2012/01/T4.png

Even though the trend lines are down from 1979 [when the satellites came on line] this is due to overcompensation after the El Chichon and Pinatubo eruptions which initially spike temperatures upwards in the Stratosphere but after the volcanic aerosols fall back to Earth they take agglomerated natural aerosols with them leaving a cooler Stratosphere; but this is only temporary. Natural aerosol production reoccurs; the graph shows a flat Stratosphere temperature since the recovery from Pinatubo in about 1995 reflecting that.

If AGW theory were correct the Stratosphere would have kept cooling after Pinatubo; it hasn't; so thanks for bringing up the Stratosphere csteele; it is another bit of evidence DISPROVING AGW!

Dear cohenite,

Okay so Santer is out.

I get why now. To sustain the argument that the absence of a definitive Tropical Hotspot tied to CO2 increases disproves AGW you certainly can't concede accelerated Tropospheric warming occurs via any other means such as an El Nino event. That was why you went to such lengths to try and discredit the modelling on a 2% solar irradiation increase.

Aren't we getting rather circular again. The El Nino research that showed increases in surface warming induced certain changes in the Troposphere temperatures which in turns informs the IPCC projections about the likely consequences of a warmer surface through CO2 increases. You are now dismissing the El Nino research in order to discredit the GW science? Whew. Tangled webs indeed.

So just to make this crystal clear, you totally reject the rather basic physics that shows under earth's atmospheric conditions a warming of the surface will result in an accelerated warming of the troposphere?

As to your interpretation of the posted graph http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/files/2012/01/T4.png , that the Stratosphere isn't cooling you have got to be joking. It is big and grey and has a trunk, and while I concede both have a tail it is actually an elephant and not a tiger. Forgive me but you must have a pretty ingrained ability to declare white as black if you want us to take from the graph that it is 'evidence DISPROVING AGW'.

Are you sure you don't want to move on to the next paper as this is getting a little surreal.

There has been NO Stratosphere cooling since 1995:

http://acd.ucar.edu/~randel/SPARC_revised.pdf

I don't deny the logic of a warming, evaporative increasing surface being the mechanism for a THS; what I am showing you is incontrovertible evidence that a THS is not happening! So, either the explanation is deficient or missing crucial factors; do you have a better explanation?

The El Nino, or ENSO, of course affects temperature but it is NATURAL! Or are you saying ENSO has changed due to AGW?

Dear cohenite,

You wrote;

“I don't deny the logic of a warming, evaporative increasing surface being the mechanism for a THS; what I am showing you is incontrovertible evidence that a THS is not happening! So, either the explanation is deficient or missing crucial factors; do you have a better explanation?”

Wow! Okay. That's certainly progress.

I take it then that you are prepared to allow the IPCC use of that same logic when they have projected a THS from a warming surface. All very straight forward.

You say; “what I am showing you is incontrovertible evidence that a THS is not happening!”. Yet from the one of the 'key' papers you have given your fulsome support for comes this;

“While satellite MSU/AMSU observations generally support GCM results with tropical deep layer tropospheric warming faster than surface, it is evident that the AR4 GCMs exaggerate the increase in static stability between tropical middle and upper troposphere during the last three decades.”
Fu et al 2012

Is Fu now to be told FU and consigned to the growing mound of rejected papers?

I think the best you can hope for from the papers you have given me is that I recognise the modelling has overestimated the THS effect and I will be happy to do so given the evidence thus far.

To claim it has pulled the foundations out from the whole AGW case is hardly supported and should be withdrawn.

As to an explanation a central theme in all the papers you have supplied has been the difficulty of collating, assessing the robustness of, and evaluating the data. If, as everyone seems to agree, the physics is sound, and the surface temperature is indeed increasing again as all agree, then there may well be an unrecognised confounding factor impacting on real world observations. To be thinking metaphysically is to slide into Creationist territory.