Carl,

I'm not so sure of point 2. Lately, the 'consensus' scientists, (Like Hansen, from NASA, of all places), have been excluding satellite records entirely, (which tend to be the most accurate, and globally encompassing direct measurements available), because they tend not to 'see' what other records tell us. They're also almost entirely free of secret algorithms, and fudge factors, and are free from all urban heat island effects. They measure without any of the suspected personal biases that are added to other ground based measurements, and can't easily be fudged after the fact, (without lots of people noticing, and asking potentially embarrassing questions).

Satellites also cover the entire globe, and eliminate the 'need' to extrapolate between measurement points, which has also proven to be an embarrassment....once the extrapolated data is eliminated, and the remainder combined with satellite measurements, the 'global warming' seems to go almost completely away. You're left with a rather average looking earth, with temp anomalies much lower than have been recently published...and the hot areas tend to be clustered near urban population centers, and heavily farmed land.