Global Warming Doubts Eliminated by Correction of Data Error

If it gets warmer and rains less in Oregon, should I embrace global warming (see here for a report this is already happening)?  Three new papers in Science undercut one of the few remaining scientific doubts about the existence of global warming:

Scientists find errors in global warming data, By Dan Vergano, USA Today: Satellite and weather-balloon research released Friday removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say.  Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating - and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data. Climate expert Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, lead author of one of the papers, says that those fairly steady measurements in the tropics have been a key argument "among people asking, 'Why should I believe this global warming hocus-pocus?' " … "Our hats are off to (them). They found a real source of error," says atmospheric scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, whose team produced the lower temperature estimates. …

For the record, I am not promoting global warming so I can have a few more sunny days.  Besides, the research also says the winters are getting cloudier which only makes the dreariest days even drearier.

The science is convincing, especially now, but I doubt this will end the debate over this issue.  Even if the warming is acknowledged, the next step for opponents will be to say it's not very costly.  For example, from the report above from USA Today:

Mark Herlong of the George C. Marshall Institute declined to comment. The group, financed by the petroleum industry, has used the data disparities to dispute the views of global-warming activists. In recent years, however, the institute has softened its public statements, acknowledging that the planet is indeed getting warmer but still maintaining that the change is happening so slowly that the impact is minimal.

These groups will not be easily convinced that the long-run benefits of reducing global warming exceed the long-run costs.

[Note:  A slighly different version is posted at Environmental Economics.]