Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature

You may have seen the results of the PR campaign from a group from Berkeley who has analyzed and compiled land surface temperatures (no SST info yet) into a new data set with improved statistical methods than the current major indicies, NOAA, GISS, HADCRUT.   Some highlights:

• Close agreement with other major datasets
• UHI has minimal effect on final value of GMST, but local effects remain
• There are surface station quality issues but 30% of land surface stations show long term cooling trends
• There are significant co-relations with oceanic decadal cycles

My reaction: none of this is too surprising, as with most "skeptics".   Current land datasets agree for the most part with the satellite datasets.   Long term SST datasets are a much bigger issue than land station.   Remember, 70% of the earth is ocean.   And how the negative trend stations jive with CO2 driven Climate change theory is a mystery.
Causal issues are not addressed, at least skirted in the decadal cycles portion.  The study authors emphasize that causes for the measured land warming is not the issue dealt with in these studies.   Some blog entries on this with the first couple from co-authors of the studies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html#printMode
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/20/berkeley-surface-temperatures-released/
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/skeptic-talking-point-melts-away-as-an-inconvenient-physicist-confirms-warming/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/berkeley-earth-surface-temperature/
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/10/21/keenans-response-to-the-best-paper.html
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/the-long-pause-in-warming-confirmed/
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/comment-on-the-article-in-the-economist-on-rich-mullers-data-analysis/
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=4525

I will provide updates when required.

Update1:  Back in the day when I had time, I played with some numbers and came to a similar conclusion as the Berkeley group regarding the decadal oceanic cycles.