Bruce is certainly right about the presence of error in every method of measurement. Still, based on Anthony Watts’ work, I suspect the surface station readings are seriously affected by urban development and station placement.

As for Gavin Schmidt, he is only doing what he has to do to maintain his status and perks. NASA was almost destroyed under Al Gore’s tenure. The money wasted on the climate crusade takes away from NASA’s true mission–the space program.

Roger has suggested that the heat changes in the ocean represent a better measure of planetary temperature changes than atmospheric readings that are subject to many variables, not the least of which is the temperature sensing equipment.

I think your focus on Climate Sensitivity and Positive Feedbacks is probably the best point to be made.

However, in an attempt to remain skeptical (of both sides) and find the weaknesses in my own arguements before the other side does, I’ve been bothered by GISS temps. I know that GISS seems high and out of whack with other measurements. We were all skeptical of GISS temps since we didn’t know what adjustments Hansen was making to the data. But, it seems that Hansen finally made his code available in Ocyober 2007. I’ve seen an effort on climateaudit to review the code and I expected that a “smoking gun” would have been found. It seems that John V. demonstrated that 17 good rural stations matched the GISS results. I also have seen no evideence that a “smoking gun” was discovered. If the GISS temps were right, where’s the acknowledgement on CA and what explanations can be given for the GISS divergence from other sources? If the GISS code had problems, why can’t I find out what they were?

I know this isn’t your effort, but I was hoping you could steer me in the right direction.

Thanks