Haven satellites actually observed cooling temperatures in the lower atmosphere?
No. To monitor atmospheric temperatures, climate scientists rely on measurements taken by a series of satellites dating back to 1979. Because each satellite operated differently, scientists have disagreed about how to correct the data for errors and how to merge all the satellite data into a long-term record. Different techniques used to merge the data resulted in different long-term temperature trends, not all of which showed the warming that climate models predicted should have occurred. Some early analyses even suggested that parts of the troposphere (lower atmosphere), where warming was expected, had cooled. The lack of an unequivocal warming trend in the troposphere was sometimes used to challenge both the reality of human-induced global warming as well as the reliability of climate models. To help resolve the discrepancies, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program undertook a comprehensive review of surface and atmospheric temperature observations and trends. The group identified
