The earth receives from the sun an average of about 240 watts per sq meter, for the earth to maintain a constant temperature it has also emit 240 watts per sq meter. Now we know form basic physics that the temperature of an object emitting this amount of power will be -19 deg C. This temperature is found around a level of 17,000 feet (527Mb). The average temperature at the earth's surface is about 14 deg C the difference of 33 Deg C is due to the natural greenhouse effect.

How this works it is necessary to understand that majority of the heating that the atmosphere receives comes from the direct contact with surface, which in turn has been heated by the sun. On the other hand the atmosphere directly cools by emitting infra-red radiation. It is the way that greenhouse gases interfere with this cooling process that determines what the surface temperature will be.

The height at which incoming radiation and outgoing radiation are in balance is important because below this height greenhouse gases reduce the the rate of cooling above this height green house gases have the opposite effect.

The point of this preamble is that the observed increase in specific humidity below 17,000ft will cause heating of the lower atmosphere. Above this height if specific humidity falls then the direct effect if anything is to contribute to warming. It is important to understand that here we are only talking about water vapour and not clouds.
The point here is that telling us that that specific humidity levels at 30,000 feet have marginally decreased proves nothing

OK warmair at least you agree that high SH is falling in the high atmosphere, and that has been verified by the Soloman and Pierce papers which I have already linked to as wel as Randel et al:

http://acd.ucar.edu/~randel/JAS_H2O.pdf

You're not going to dispute those peer reviewed papers are you; and note Soloman specifically attrbutes the decline in high water with a decline in global temperatures.

And overall, SH has been falling except below 5000 ft or 850mb:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/21/a-window-on-water-vapor-and-planetary-temperature-part-2/

Even AR5 notes this:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/mims_ipcc_ar5_sod_review.pdf

So, overall there is less water vapor in the atmosphere to acentuate heating.

Your statement about high water not being important is simply wrong and your 2nd paragraph is junk for a number of reasons.

Firstly high water traps incoming solar at the relevant wavelengths; high cloud also reflects incoming solar and traps OLR; if there is less upper water neither of these 2 responses occurs.

Secondly the effect of a forcing is directly related to the depth of the forcing in a system; incoming solar has the greatest range heating the levels of the atmosphere as well as the ocean which GHG forcing does not do.

Finally, in respect of that 33C which is attributed to the Greenhouse effect, a number of qualified people have queried it including Jinan Cao:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/do-greenhouse-gases-warm-the-planet-by-33c-jinan-cao-checks-the-numbers/

Cohenite, still babbling on with a lot of pseudo scientific jargon.

What the denialists are getting all hot under the collar about is:

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system.
What this is actually talking about, is a fringe theory that cosmic rays have an important influence on the climate. What neither Mr Rawls, Watts Up With That or the climate sceptic blogger James Delingpole did, was to point out that the paragraphs on the chapter which follow the one which Rawls quotes, go on to explain why these theories were not robust. Professor Steve Sherwood, is a lead author on Chapter 7. says;
The single sentence that this guy pulls out is simply paraphrasing an argument that has been put forward by a few controversial papers. The rest of the paragraph from which he has lifted this sentence, goes on to show that subsequent peer-reviewed literature has discredited the assumptions and/or methodology of those papers, and failed to find any effect. This guy’s spin is truly bizarre. Anyone who would buy the idea that this is a “game changer” is obviously not really looking at what is there.
http://www.readfearn.com/

This:

"high cloud also reflects incoming solar and traps OLR; if there is less upper water neither of these 2 responses occurs."

Should read:

high cloud does not reflect incoming solar and traps OLR; if there is less upper water neither of these 2 responses occurs.

High cloud therefore warms in 2 ways whereas low cloud does reflect incoming solar.

The high cloud effect is described by Lindzen and NASA as the Iris effect;

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Iris/iris.ph

LePage, you say stupid things, or rather, you repeat stupid things when, I assume, you quote from Sherwood:

"The single sentence that this guy pulls out is simply paraphrasing an argument that has been put forward by a few controversial papers. The rest of the paragraph from which he has lifted this sentence, goes on to show that subsequent peer-reviewed literature has discredited the assumptions and/or methodology of those papers, and failed to find any effect."

The international effort at CERN currently studying the effect of CRs will be disappointed to be so abruptly dismissed as the authors of a few "controversial papers":

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/research/CLOUD-en.html

CERN's latest papers will be in AR5 but have not been leaked yet. We'll just have to wait and see what the CERN team come up with.

And really, you link to Readfearn; talk about the blind leading the witless.

"CERN's latest papers will be in AR5 but have not been leaked yet..."

Gawd! - you lot are slipping. Get Rawls onto that straight away. He can pretend he's an expert reviewer - and when he leaks, everyone can get all excited over at WUWT (8 updates on the AR5 leak when it first came out, if you don't mind - flashing lights, party poppers - Awooogaa!)