Why RealClimate Drives Me Nuts

The guys over at real climate presumeably are experts, and know what they are doing, but I can tell you what they aren't doing: running a site that explains climate to the layman. Gavin has recently posted this article which is so arch that it looks like it is arguing that global warming is a myth:
In another forum (on a planet far, far away), the following quote recently came up:

....the combined effect of these greenhouse gases is to warm Earth's atmosphere by about 33 ºC, from a chilly -18 ºC in their absence to a pleasant +15 ºC in their presence. 95% (31.35 ºC) of this warming is produced by water vapour, which is far and away the most important greenhouse gas. The other trace gases contribute 5% (1.65 ºC) of the greenhouse warming, amongst which carbon dioxide corresponds to 3.65% (1.19 ºC). The human-caused contribution corresponds to about 3% of the total carbon dioxide in the present atmosphere, the great majority of which is derived from natural sources. Therefore, the probable effect of human-injected carbon dioxide is a miniscule 0.12% of the greenhouse warming, that is a temperature rise of 0.036 ºC. Put another way, 99.88% of the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with carbon dioxide emissions from human activity8.


We've discussed the magnitude of the greenhouse effect before, but it might be helpful to step through this 'back-of-the-agenda' calculation and see what the numbers really give. (Deltoid has also had a go at some of these mis-statements)...
There is a refutation, of course, but the boys at RC cleverly put that "below the fold", so that it's totally invisible to the casual observer. The failure to cite the source of the quote up front is another annoying feature. Finally, core flaws in the argument aren't exposed until deep within the below the fold text, and still lack clarity and directness. Try leading off (above the fold!)with something like this:
The skeptics numbers are wrong, and his logic is wrong, and he even screwed up the arithmetic, see below for the details.

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