Skeptipundit - Critical Thinking About Politics and Science

The Climate Change Science Program, a Bush administration panel charged with resolving scientific disputes over global warming has concluded that one of the major discrepancies touted by the global-warming deniers, an apparent difference in warming rates at the surface vs. the troposphere, has been resolved.

"there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere"

As reported in the New York Times,

"The report's authors all agreed that their review of the data showed that the atmosphere was, in fact, warming in ways that generally meshed with computer simulations. The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil."

This is a panel that has been set up for the express purpose of giving the skeptics a full hearing, and forcing the two (rather unequally populated sides) to accommodate each others perspective. One of the authors, John Christy, himself somewhat a skeptic, notes that there remains some inconsistencies that need to be resolved regarding model predictions of localized temperatures, especially in the tropics, but does conclude: "part of what has happened over the last 50 years has clearly been caused by humans."

Also from the Times:

Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said, "We welcome today's report" and added that it showed that President Bush's decision to focus nearly $2 billion a year on climate monitoring and research was "working.