The “search strategy” was to see exactly how the -18°C that the Earth would supposedly be without the greenhouse effect is derived – and to confirm it with multiple sources to see that it is indeed how it is derived.
Here’s a recent article that explains the derivation: What Would Earth’s Temperature Be Like Without an Atmosphere? | WIRED . As you can see, it doesn’t factor conduction or convection at all, nor the rotation of the Earth, the varying solar intensity at different latitudes, the oceans, etc…
I suspect this really is the crux of it. Because what you wrote here applies equally well to the arguments, papers, IPCC reports, etc., that are in support of global warming. What is the reason to, by default, accept what they write without “competently and comprehensively” reviewing it yourself? How do you know they don’t have “errors in [their] reasoning” and "misrepresentations of research" and “glaring omissions” and “cherry picking of data”?
For an example of “misrepresentations of research” see my recent article: How We Know the Effect of CO2 on Global Temperature . A lengthy read but I think worthwhile.
For an example of “glaring omissions” – how about not considering conduction and convection and the rotation of the planet and 99% of the atmosphere in the calculation for the supposed +33°C magnitude of the greenhouse effect?
For an example of “cherry picking of data”, one commonly-cited type of evidence in support of the AGW hypothesis is satellite data. The “Intermediate” version of the skepticalscience.com article titled “Is the CO2 effect saturated?” says, for example:
What they found was a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy. The change in outgoing radiation over CO2 bands was consistent with theoretical expectations. Thus the paper found “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect”.
This result has been confirmed by subsequent papers using the latest satellite data. Griggs 2004 compares the 1970 and 1997 spectra with additional satellite data from the NASA AIRS satellite launched in 2003.
If we access said Griggs paper (pdf) we see the following Table 2 on page 5:
IRIS is the satellite from 1970, and you can see that they kept 25 of the 3,662 data points from that data set…
That is, they only kept 0.6% of the data! They literally discarded 99.4% of the data to get the results they got in their paper and support their conclusion.
They say it’s to remove the influence of clouds but… how do you know they didn’t just pick a plausible-sounding physical reason that just gets them the result they want?
Also they threw out OVER NINETY NINE PERCENT of the data!! Lol.
So essentially it comes down to this: why trust what the AGW-proponents say over what the AGW-skeptics or “deniers” say? Or even more poignantly, why trust anyone at all? Why not ascertain the facts for yourself, or absent that, just acknowledge that you yourself don’t know and are making a choice to accept what the mainstream says? And if you are doing the latter, why automatically doubt people that have gone and looked into the facts for themselves and come to different conclusions, without “competently and comprehensively” reviewing it yourself?
Cheers,
Claudiu