[cogitator]

Then a correction in the bias was done to the data set and it showed the stratosphere temperatures to be warming and the scientists said that that was exactly what they had expected to see the stratosphere temperatures warming. Can't have it both ways.

Yes, but you can be confused between the troposphere and the stratosphere, which is what you've done here. The stratosphere has been cooling since satellites started measuring -- primarily due to ozone depletion and secondarily due to global warming. The troposphere was not showing warming (in the Spencer & Christy MLS data set), but they adjusted it -- and 1998 kicked it higher -- and now it does. Other groups analyzing the same data get higher lower troposphere warming trends than Spencer and Christy do.

I also see from the RealClimate link that they used a weighted formula for temperatures values to arrive at the "average" global temperature.

This is required for areas with sparse spatial coverage, for one thing.

[avacado]

"Yes, but you can be confused between the troposphere and the stratosphere,..."

You are right... I had them mixed up. But it still leaves me puzzled that before the correction they explained the cooling as a valid result of global warming. And now they do a correction and and get a warming trend and explain that as valid.

"This is required for areas with sparse spatial coverage, for one thing."

Yes I know. And attempting to "regularize" data based on a simple weighting algorithm is not very accurate whatsoever.