How do global warming alarmists divert attention away from the fact that temperatures have risen much more slowly than their computer models have predicted?
In last week’s column we saw how alarmists claim we should trust their computer models even after the models have been proven inaccurate when measured against real-world data. As shocking as that assertion is, it pales in comparison to another common tactic employed by global warming alarmists: doctoring the real-world temperature data.
NASA satellite instruments have been measuring temperatures in the earth’s atmosphere since 1979. The satellite instruments are highly valuable because they can collect and report temperature data from the earth’s lower atmosphere that are not corrupted by urban heat island effects or local land-use changes that impact local temperature readings.
When the satellite instruments first began collecting and reporting temperature data, scientists expected the satellite readings would report more warming than actually occurs at the earth’s surface. The reason for this is carbon dioxide traps heat disproportionately in the earth’s lower atmosphere rather than at the ground. Accordingly, global warming theory postulates that the earth’s lower atmosphere will warm more quickly and to a greater degree than the earth’s surface.
The scientists who oversee the collection of temperature data at surface temperature stations have long assured us that they effectively filter out urban heat island effects and local land-use changes. Therefore, if they have indeed properly filtered out these sources of heat bias, the surface temperature reports should show less warming than the satellite-collected data.
For more than 30 years now satellite data and surface station data have been available for analysis. Surprisingly, the scientists who oversee the collection of surface temperature data report more warming than the satellite data report. This tells us either that sources of artificial warming have not been properly filtered from the surface temperature data, or the warming of the past 33 years is not due to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Interestingly, the raw temperature data collected by surface stations are fairly compatible with the temperature data reported by satellites. Neither shows much warming. In an attempt to draw the public’s attention away from such inconvenient facts, alarmists doctor the raw data and actually add more warming to the raw data, while disingenuously claiming they are filtering out urban heat island effects and other heat biases.
Climate scientist Roy Spencer, who oversees the NASA satellite instruments measuring global temperatures, reports that virtually all of the warming claimed by the overseers of U.S. surface temperature stations is the result of adjustments government-employed scientists make to the raw data. The objective, unaltered temperature readings show essentially no warming since 1973.
and report temperature data from the earth’s lower atmosphere that are not corrupted by urban heat island effects or local land-use changes that impact local temperature readings.
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Well, if its not corrupted, its not measuring the UHI is it?
I don’t understand the problem with the Secret Service in Columbia. The guys were availing themselves of a legal regulated service, so how can they be fired?
Shouldn’t doctoring data to force economic harm to coal producing communities be of more concern than boys being boys in Columbia?
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”
“LOOK! Squirrel!”
etc.
Somethings gotta give, surely. Please.
Not to worry, the Death Threat Du Jour industry will come up with a replacement soon enough. They recently tried oceanic acidification but that appears to have fallen on the sword of massive ennui of the public.
[ and to think I wasted all those years learning how to validate data instead of how to 'adjust' it... oh well]
And the doctoring of satellite temperature data should come as no surprise. The GISS is the group who collects and publishes official satellite temperature data. The GISS is run by James Hansen, the Father of Global Warming. Do we need to draw a picture?