Climate Change Research Funding

What's the latest flap on climate change? The Washington Times says, "Democrats [are] on [a] ‘witch hunt’ for doomsday-denying climate scientists". 
Explanation: Seven professors from various universities have challenged the theory that climate change is driving extreme weather events such as hurricanes and blizzards. Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona is attempting to castigate them and their position, because at least some of them may have accepted research funding from private fossil fuel industries.
So what? The whole group of global warming/climate change advocates have been accepting research funding from various federal agency sources for many years. It seems that Rep. Grijalva wants to allow funding for researchers only who are favorable to global warming/climate change theory and deny funding to dissenters.
While this is an interesting sideshow, it really has little bearing on science. The whole basis of global warming/climate change theory is the concept of "radiative forcing". This concept was presented in the original papers of the United Nations. The most interesting aspect of the radiative forcing concept is that there is no explanation of what radiative forcing is. Scientists advocating action on global warming/climate change have been accepting government grants for years, but I have been unable to find anywhere an explanation or justification for the concept of radiative forcing. The best I can find is that carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are said to be agents of radiative forcing.
There has been big money spent by the government in so-called university research on global warming/climate change, and now another seven university professors are presumably obtaining funding from the private fossil fuel industry. While this should have been done some time ago, we need to research the fundamental science involved in global warming/climate change. Associated radiative forcing should be investigated and explained in terms available to an average intelligent person. This is not unreasonable. For example, our patent system is based on the fact that a reasonably intelligent person should be able to duplicate an invention previously issued as a new composition of matter or process patent by the US patent office.
In simpler terms, I would like somebody to tell me what radiative forcing is, with respect to what the atoms and molecules are doing and why there are differences among these atoms and molecules. Without that basic information, which would make sense to me, I can't get excited about any supposed disastrous effects from global warming/climate change as said to be caused by man.