my point is that there is measurable warming in sea temperatures which i feel are responsible for atmospheric warming. prior to the CO2 craze, the strengthening el nino effect was broadly considered the impetus of global warming. ocean water temps jumped up in the mid/late 70s and the atmospheric temps followed.
First off we have nowhere near enough data covering aggregate sea temps to make such an observation.
The adage that we know more about deep space than deep sea is largely true.
the logic which old rocks and the typical global warming scientist puts forward is not plausible because the attribution to CO2 is not realistic. here's how:
the warming is effected at sea surface temps. the thermodynamic advantage of water to air makes the idea that air temps increased at the levels recorded could heat the sea to near equilibrium as instantaneously as indicated seem far fetched.
while this is abundantly obvious if you had accurate data and were measuring the ocean temps at all depths it is complete conjecture if you are relying on surface temps.
For example in 2005 surface temps in the gulf were off the ******* charts with mean temps for the top 5 feet of water nearly 5 degrees above normal.
The cause of this was that the upper Mississippi valley had a combination of super warm weather coupled with super low rainfall, the result of course was a much warmer off shore flow from the river and Katrina.
this is where sensible heat advantage comes into play. water can quite easily effect this equilibrium where air cannot. water has the sensible heat advantage with respect to absorbing more energy from the sun and effecting equilibrium vs air. it also has the evaporation mechanism which relies on a ratio of latent and sensible heat. this has a substantial net atmospheric warming effect.
Altho I think this is 40% fiction I still say "so what?". If the air heats the ocean or the ocean heats the air, what is the difference? They are in fact so intertwined as to be nearly indistinguishable. I streamlined a whole lot of my previous commentary because the complexity of the relationship between air temps, water temps and the cycle of water make it impossible to separate one driver from another.
water vapor is the dominant GhG. nobody can deny this. quantitatively and qualitatively the most abundant and effective of the GhGs before even accounting for clouds. this is the atmospheric vector for heat absorbed by water as discussed.
on that much we agree except the distinction you make eliminating clouds from the equation undermines your very statement. Clouds are significant players in the GHG effect of water vapor. Operative word being vapor.
the forcing/feedback argument is BS. we've explored that air is not contributing significantly to the sea temps.
Explored it and found it to be unknowable, unprovable and inconclusive. Air insulates the entirety of the earth it's effect on global climate is surely much higher than that of water that isn't integrated into the atmosphere as vapor.
it is not plausible as above. CO2 is not forcing higher levels of H2O vapor.
Do you actually know that? I ask because higher atmospheric temps by definition require that the atmosphere be ladened with more water vapor. This is mainstream kiln science. Water vapor is a direct function of temperature and the availability of water to vaporize. If water is available the RH is a direct function of temperature.
the argument about residence times of these substances is inane.
can't possibly agree.
the enthalpy/enthropy cycle of water is an atmospheric heating mechanism. arguably atmospheric heating would increase with an increase in this frequency - a shorter WV residence time. i see these as illogical frame-ups of CO2 which don't add up scientifically.
something else is responsible for warming the atmosphere. there is no doubt whatsoever that something is water.
as if water has somehow changed and is ever changing ever since 1998, 1971, 2005. Right!
the mystery is how the ocean has changed in the last 30 years or so whereby surface temps are higher than before. we dont understand what el nino is completely. we cant account for the loss of glacial and polar cooling and the knockon of these effects. there is a predilection with CO2 for obvious reasons, but which are external to the facts available. the bottom line is global warming wont be the end of the world so i think folks would rather make a living off of it than crank up the AC and circumnavigate the northern oceans. if it is going to be looked at seriously and scientifically the focus on CO2 is not credible.
that's where i'm coming from.
OK while we don't understand el nino and the warming of the oceans surface, well we don't. We just don't understand it and we don't have the data to understand it.
Which is probably where most of your thinking went awry.
Meanwhile it is a nearly certifiable fact that CO2 is an effective greenhouse gas, that it has been steadily increasing and that past correlations of CO2 and warmer temps are abundant.
It is also well established that there are other drivers for warming besides energy inputs. For example the alignment of N and S America dividing the world from pole to pole and the presence of a continent straddling a pole (like Antarctica) have also proven to be agents that facilitate warming because they prevent the oceans from distributing the world's heat evenly.
And as water warms it's ability to transfer massive, massive amounts of heat into the atmosphere increases exponentially.
If there is anything water does well it is to surrender it's heat and retain heat readily.
i'm a drunkass. sensible heat not sensitive. here: 
working with what we know, some of the very bases for the idea that the planet is warming in the first place, we can tell that the sea surface has warmed through consistent satellite and surface measurement over the time that i've referenced. what is insufficient about these measurements which makes you feel conclusions drawn from it are not credible?
