The temperatures in this specific area were supposed to rise 1.2 to 1.5 times
faster than surface temperatures, due to positive feedback loop produced by the CO2 - induced warming.
I don't prefer one over the other as an intrinsic metric (they provide two different pieces of information), but I find the ocean heat content data to be a much less mature data set
than the surface temperature data set.
When you see condensation on the bathroom mirror, you know the dew point of the water vapor in the air is equal to or higher
than the surface temperature of the mirror.
John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama published a series of papers starting about 1990 that implied the troposphere was warming at a much slower
rate than the surface temperature record and climate models indicated Spencer and Christy (1992).
Tamino has also previously performed a multiple regression of temperature on various short - term effects, including the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), and confirms that TLT data are much more sensitive to
ENSO than surface temperature data (Figure 2).
The satellite temps are more sensitive (higher swings) to ENSO and yearly
variation than the surface temperatures, and the 5 - year average for 1982 (1979 - 1984) is one of the highest peaks above trend for the UAH record.
The fact that it is still substantially lower in temperature at the top of riser 2
than the surface temperature with no flow indicates that it is still getting enough flow to work OK.
John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama published a series of papers starting about 1990 that implied the troposphere was warming at a much slower
rate than the surface temperature record and climate models indicated Spencer and Christy (1992).
He refers to how Charles Pistis, Program Coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant project, tried to pass off the dodgy data as being an accidental product of the satellite's malfunction sensors taking readings off the top of clouds
rather than the surface temperatures.
You're talking about estimating the Earth's effective or emission temperature, which, due to the presence of an atmosphere, is usually going to be considerably
less than the SURFACE temperature.
It is more striking for Ocean Heat Content which so far you have avoided, despite it being a considerably less noisy record
than surface temperature.
The low troposphere temperatures although they are more volatile
than the surface temperatures — uniformly cover the whole earth (more or less) and should be increasing more than the surface temperatures according to AGW theory.
I also had the impression that he wanted to do that because it suggested less warming (compared to 0 - 2000m data) and was a much shorter record
than surface temperatures.