What precision.
There is on average one thermometer for every 66,000 square miles (now) and no good precise measurements for most of the space-time since pre-industrial days, and the Financial Times can report with precision to the hundreths of a degree!
Mr. Brooks: Thank you for the information. I was unaware of such a scale of an elimination of reporting stations. You are absolutely right that this will bias results. And that those “scientists” play games with the numbers as well.
Something that profoundly affects this “temperature rise” is the elimination of almost all high altitude, high latitude, rural reporting stations in the 60’s and 70’s, both here and in Russia. This left only the warmer station to base global temperatures on.
I’m not impressed with these British “scientists”. They know full well that the mediaeval warm period was warmer than it is now. They know that England had a wine industry back then and it has been too cold for one since. They also know about the little ice age, and how, in winter, the Thames River froze hard enough and long enough to be used as a road. Just think of the pounds per square inch foot print of a heavy horse and a heavy coach on ice. The concept, at least for me, becomes a “WOW”! A smallish horse will sink to the belly in mud that a human can walk on.
My sophomore Physics professor openly poked fun at me for giving 5 significant digits in an answer based upon 2 digits of precision in the data. That lesson about the deception of precision has stuck with me for 43 years; I will not forget it.
And that’s before we get to the arguments about the accuracy of the data itself, regardless of the precision with which it is reported.