Getting it wrong: George White's argument against AGW (Pt 2)

Continuing my critique of George White's argument against AGW*, I must first note its general structure.  After the introduction, White proceeds to analyse the various energy flows into, and out of the the Earth's atmosphere as revealed by satellite data.  He does this in the sections on Albedo Effects and Energy Flux.  He then mounts an argument that Thermal Lag does not influence the rate at which the Earth warms or cools due to changes in forcings.  White claims this result is itself an argument against AGW, but this is not so.  Rather, if he could make his case, it would be a necessary auxiliary hypothesis to the argument he mounts in his introduction, and to a lesser extent, his second argument.    That second argument uses the same data and an unusual method to determine the Earth's climate sensitivity, and is presented in the section on Climate Sensitivity.  I had hoped to deal with both of those discussions in one post, but on reflection I will require two (making this a four part series).

Getting it wrong: George White's argument against AGW (Pt 1)

George White mounts an argument;that the theory of global warming fails certain essential emperical tests. Specifically, he argues the temperature increase in the lower troposphere is to low to be consistent with global warming over the period of satellite observations; and that climate sensitivity is, at most, about one sixth of that determined by the IPCC.

Considering the former argument first, he writes:

"The first prediction of AGW to fail, is that a 20% increase in CO₂ is expected to cause an increase in the average global temperature of about 0.8°C. Detecting trends in satellite data is difficult for many reasons. Year to year differences can exceed 1°C, global seasonal variability exceeds 3.5°C, hemispheric seasonal variability exceeds 12°C and discontinuities arise as the data from different satellites is merged, however; a 25 year trend this large should be evident and it's not."