“Who Turned on the Heat?” was Written for Persons Who Know there is a Difference between the Lower Stratosphere and the Surface of the Oceans

In other words, it was not written for people who cannot differentiate between the two.

BACKGROUND

Satellites measure the skin temperatures of the global oceans. Sea surface temperatures are the primary focus of my new book Who Turned on the Heat? – The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Other satellites are used to determine the temperatures of the atmosphere at different heights above sea level. One of the heights is the lower stratosphere. Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) is one of the suppliers of satellite-based atmospheric temperature data. They explain Lower Stratosphere Temperature data at their webpage Introduction to MSU and AMSU Data Products:

TLS stands for the Temperature Lower Stratosphere, and is constructed using data from MSU channel 4. As we can see from the diagram, TLS corresponds to a layer of the atmosphere from about 12 km to about 25 km above Earth’s surface. This layer is so high that its temperature has little direct impact on life and human society. People only go this high in commercial airliners, which can fly as high as 12 km, and in military aircraft, which may fly as high as 25 km.

Basically, Lower Stratosphere Temperature data represents temperatures 12 km (about 7.5 miles) to 25 km (about 15.5 miles) above the surface height of the oceans. In other words, never the twain shall meet.

A NEW LOW FOR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENSO BEING THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE LONG-TERM WARMING OF SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES

Who Turned on the Heat? was introduced in the post Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about El Niño and La Niña… That post was also cross posted at WattsUpWithThat as New easy to use reference book for El Niño and global warming.

In his September 7, 2012 at 12:07 am comment at WUWT, a proponent of anthropogenic global warming quoted a portion of my blog post and then commented. His comment reads in full:

“Sea surface temperature data for the past 30 years show the global oceans have warmed. There is, however, no evidence the warming was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases in part or in whole; that is, the warming can be explained by natural ocean-atmosphere processes, primarily ENSO.”

No evidence? Bob, unless you are ever able to provide evidence of how your fabulous ENSO ocean cycles can be scientifically linked to magically reduce temperatures in the lower stratospheric at the same time (http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/2__Ozone/-_Cooling_nd.html; http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp), I think I will keep my $8.

His comment is, of course, a classic case of the debate tactic of misdirection—smoke and mirrors. The anthropogenic global warming proponent has no grasp of the subject matter discussed in the book, or, if he does, he cannot argue against how the sea surface temperature data accounts for its natural warming, so he presents a dataset that has no impact on sea surface temperatures.

I replied to his nonsensical comment at September 7, 2012 at 1:31 am (which is awaiting moderation at the time of this writing), in part, with:

Please read what you quoted, and then read your response. For some reason, known only to you, you elected to discuss stratospheric temperatures during a discussion of sea surface temperatures.

Thank you for not buying a copy of my book. It was written for people who can differentiate between the surface of the oceans and the stratosphere.

His argument does not appear as one of the 13 chapters in Section 7 of Who Turned on the Heat? That section is titled “Common ENSO-Related Myths and Failed Arguments Against ENSO as the Primary Contributor To Global Warming”. I had never had the above argument presented before now. It also never occurred to me that something so foolish would be attempted.

Who Turned on the Heat? – The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño-Southern Oscillationis now on sale in pdf form for US$8.00 – Please click here to buy a copy.