UW scientists subtract stratosphere, find global warming

There's a study in Nature about using microwave measurements of temperature in the atmosphere to reconcile the apparent discrepancy between temperature change at the surface and in the upper troposphere (about 11 km up). The problem is that everything we know about physics tells us that there should be commensurate warming, but the measurements haven't really born that out. According to this study, it is the cooling of the stratosphere (predicted in a global warming scenario and observed) that is contaminating the measurements. Some folks at UW made a statistical relationship, and then subtracted the upper level signature from the temperature, and lo and behold, global warming. [LINK] There are critics of the method, and that is good. But since there seems to be mounting evidence that observations really do show the kind of warming expected, we can give this study the slight advantage over skeptics. I expect we'll hear about similar studies doing slightly different things and getting basically the same results in the next year or two, which along with new observations will pretty much seal the deal.