The study I linked to makes no such argument. That is a straw-man. What the study shows is that surface temperature warming has been about half of what an average of all models projected. (Note that "surface temperature" is actually atmospheric temperature near the surface.) Regardless of whether there changes happening elsewhere, the models still got it wrong. That is the point. The models are flawed.
Well then let me rephrase what I said: The study you linked to about overestimations basically makes the "only atmospheric warming" mistake, which is what creates the illusion of "the pause."
Same problem. Now you could argue that the models were wrong by failing to predict the amount of heat to be absorbed by the oceans, but that's like accusing someone of mis-estimating the speed of a roof leak because it did not fill a bucket in the expected time, because the bucket had a hole half-way up the side. The problem is still occurring at the expected speed but the damage didn't go where expected. Which is indeed a shortcoming of the models, but not a failure to predict the amount of warming (or damage - oceanic warming is at least as bad as atmospheric warming) on a whole correctly. It's still our best knowledge and a far sight better than every claim that has flown in the face of decades of "mainstream" climate science for many years now.
I admit that I had missed your second link. But this is hardly proof of anything. You brought us right back to the original issue: whether (and how) the datasets like GISS, HadCRUT etc. have been manipulated. It isn't valid to use that data as proof of itself. In order to demonstrate anything you have to compare it to something else. Like, for example... satellite data!
I thought the issue was the models, will you not trust the observed temperature data from the same institutions that are responsible for some of those models? If not, did you make sure the datasets from the 2 satellites and 4 balloons used in Spencer's graph did not come from these institutions? And if so, how does this not lead us back with you standing in front of the C-word and whistling innocently?
So from some quick reading of your two links I take it the main problem with the "97%" study is that it doesn't take into account where exactly the "skeptics" are most lately trying to pick apart the expanding seams of the Mountain of Evidence. So a "skeptic" who believes GW is real and primarily human-caused but won't be bad, (the corner most "skeptics" have found themselves backed into in the last 5-7 years) for example, would not be counted correctly.
I suppose that's true, but it begins to blur the lines between scientific and political opposition to global warming. For example that "skeptic" could be correct for certain values of "not bad" that could be open for non-scientific debate. For example he/she may consider living on Freedom Ship while the rest of the world goes to hell to be "not bad" while I would disagree. They may overestimate the feasibility of domed cities and consider those "not bad," and I would disagree on both points.
At that point the "skeptic" becomes more like a "political opponent" because the room for anything that might pass for scientific skepticism has been practically eliminated.