“While we can applaud the fact that the BEST results agree with other analyses of weather station data, we still need to explain why they don’t agree with atmospheric trends that are close to zero, or with ocean data that show no appreciable warming.”
Fred Singer writes at AmericanThinker.com:
… But I do claim that the commonly reported and accepted warming between 1978 and 2000 is based only on thermometers from land surface stations and is not supported by any other evidence that I could find. Specifically, ocean data (from 71% of the earth’s surface) and global atmospheric data (as recorded by satellites and independent balloon-borne radiosondes) do not show such a warming at all. In addition, most proxy data, from non-thermometer sources such as tree rings, ocean sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, etc., show no warming during this same crucial period. (One has to be careful in this analysis since the year 1998 shows a major warming spike caused by a Super-El Niño. But by 1999 and 2000, temperatures had returned to pre-1998 values.)
Now, I am well aware of the fact that the recent release of the temperature data from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project does show a warming trend from 1978 to 2000. Many would jump to the conclusion that this represents confirmation of the existence of global warming — or even of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). However, that would be an error in logic.
What the BEST result shows is that surface thermometers from the land area of the globe (about 29% of the earth’s surface) show a warming trend. But this is not global warming. And BEST director Professor Rich Muller explicitly disclaims that his trend results indicate a human cause…
Muller himself admits “As with the world sample, the ratio of warming sites to cooling ones was in the ratio of 2:1. Though some clumping is present, it is nonetheless possible to find long time series with both positive and negative trends from all portions of the United States. This reemphasises the point that detection of long term climate trends should never rely on individual records.”
The attached map shows this well. UHI and other local factors are far greater than any underlying long term trend.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/kansas-temperature-trend-updatemuller-confirms-there-is-a-problem/
UHIE and really poor instrument placement are the major cause of this ‘heating’. Once again, it’s all BS and magic numbers.
You also need to add on why the thermometers do not agree with the tree proxies.
Hide the decline being the obvious answer – ie. Cooking the books