"Bonos Ego" wrote
Also, all this global warming evidence seems to be based on surface
temperatures, has there been any evidence that the upper atmosphere
is
either cooling or getting warmer than say 30 years ago?


.... see the Scientific Report from the IPCC (AR4)
http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html

specifically page 268, which confirms earlier work that states that
the troposphere *is* significantly warming (and is expected to
continue to warm), and the lower stratosphere is significantly cooling
(and is expected to continue to do so). However, the report (and other
sources) do highlight the difficulty of maintaining consistency in the
various over-lapping records due to changing instrumentation (type of
Sondes, use of satellite radiance retrieval etc.): despite the
difficulty in analysis, I don't believe that there there is any
serious argument over the _general trend_ (there was a few years ago,
but I believe the doubts expressed by some have now been answered).

Also, for the BI specifically, I have been keeping a log of total
thickness values (1000-500 hPa) since the early 1970's; the result of
that I put in the (old) FAQ at Q/A 2A.22, still available from my web
site (as under). Broadly, this confirms the warming in this layer at
least (by this measure). The Hadley Centre have also produced data
which confirms the upward march of total thickness values in recent
decades.

Incidentally, AR4 (and indeed earlier issues) is useful reading before
entering the debate relating to issues such as whether specific
weather events are 'due to Climate Change' or not.

Martin.

--
Martin Rowley
E:
W: booty.org.uk