The Cruz response

It was a bit slow coming, probably because people did not really like to been seen to be dissing the poorly performing Sierra Club guy who clearly wasn't expecting it, but here is Phil Plait's rebuttal (follow his many links) to the King of Fools Ted Cruz.

Cruz's performance has been greeted with acclaim by Right wing sites everywhere, from Andrew Bolt to Powerline.

As I have said recently, I think its time for gloves off as far as politicians, journalists (and scientists) who are properly informed on the matter of climate change - start calling out Cruz and his ilk as fools who are refusing to inform themselves on science.   By all means, they can still be pointed to the information to rebut their arguments, but call them fools for not reading or believing it.

It's really the arrogance mixed with ignorance that is getting to me - they genuinely believe that climate science, which has been becoming more certain and understood over the last couple of decades, is teetering on the edge of collapse, all because a mere handful of largely discredited scientists (4 or 5, tops) in the field lend support to the non-scientist advocates, politicians and conspiracy theorists such as Monckton, Watts, Steyn, Delingpole, Bolt, etc.  Guys, you're being fooled.   Your arrogance is entirely misplaced.   If you read more broadly, you might understand.  

Now having said that:  I will still make the observation that the last refuge of the denialists is the satellite temperature record, specifically honing in on the RSS one lately.   I am sure denialists do not know what the satellites are measuring, the history of the problems with this method and sometimes dramatic adjustments (see links I have previously provided), or that that one of the senior members of the RSS team wrote late last year:

A similar, but stronger case can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets (they certainly agree with each other better than the various satellite datasets do!). 

However, the oft repeated line has been that the satellite method may be more sensitive to ENSO and the 1998 El Nino than the surface temperature record, in which case one would expect that the current El Nino may see a similar spike to that in 1998.

Such a spike is not yet appearing in the satellite figures.   If it does, and is of a similar magnitude to the the 1998 one, then the denialists will likely have a serious problem as to how they maintain their lines.
  
If it doesn't appear, then the matter of the method of how the satellite temperature is measured and the records compiled, and the issue of its comparison with radiosonde readings, will be in for some more consideration.

It would simpler for everyone if there is a spike.

But - whether there is or isn't a spike will not matter much to those enduring a temperature rise, and rainfall changes, on the surface.    That's where we live - not in the middle of the troposphere.