Posted on 08/09/2007 2:58:33 PM PDT by Neville72
A change in climate history data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen, and went unreported until Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit discovered it Wednesday.
For some background, one of the key tenets of the global warming myth being advanced by Hansen and soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore is that nine of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 1995.
McIntyre has been crunching the numbers used to determine such things as published by GISS, and has identified that the data have recently changed such that four of the top ten warmest years in American history occurred in the 1930s, with the warmest now in 1934 instead of the much-publicized 1998.
As McIntyre wrote Wednesday (emphasis added, h/t NBer dscott):
There has been some turmoil yesterday on the leaderboard of the U.S. (Temperature) Open and there is a new leader.
[...]
Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.
Most importantly, according to the GISS, 1998 is no longer the warmest year in American history. That honor once again belongs to 1934.
As global warming is such a key issue being debated all around this country and on Capitol Hill, wouldn't such a change by the agency responsible for calculating such things be important to disseminate? When this correction was made by Hansen's team at the GISS, shouldn't it have been reported?
In fact, it is quite disgraceful that it wasn't, as it suggests that a government agency is actually participating in a fraud against the American people by withholding information crucial to a major policy issue now facing the nation.
Think this will be Newsweek's next cover-story?
No, I don't either.
Post facto thought: If Hansen's team had made changes to the data which showed that ten of the ten warmest years in American history occurred since 1995, do you think that would have been reported?
Yeah, I do, too.
*****Update: This appears to be necessary given some very silly e-mail messages that I've received. Gore's claim concerning warmest years in history pertains to data for the entire planet. The changes at GISS are only for American data.
However, as e-mail messages from various scientists around the world have pointed out, American climate data collection is the finest on the planet. It is expected that when these changes are made to numbers across the globe, the worldwide rankings might see some changes as well.
Yet, still more to the point is the fact that American data were changed without any announcement.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Alabama and Texas flip-flopped this year. It was 103 in Birmingham yesterday and it's been dry as a bone for months!
Congratulations, thanks, and KEEP DIGGING. Some of us noticed in 2001 that NASA tweaked the ENTIRE US temperature database (see: http://www.john-daly.com/press/press-01c.htm#past-usa). Dozens of small changes were made and EACH and EVERY ONE OF THEM helped to reinforce the “hockey stick”. Breathtaking. Again, thanks and congratulations!
It seems like enough counter info is accumulating that scientists are going to become more and more careful about jumping on the GW/climate change bandwagon. Of ocurse that will probably only encourage more hysterics from the hot and bothered side...
He has said he likely would not have. For that matter, he also credits Rabbets defense of Hansens adjustments as well.
Watts picture-taking project began in May when he took the St. Marys firehouse pictures, and he's been getting people together to perform systematic surveys of the 1200 USHCN sites. He and volunteers have managed to get about 260 surveys so far.
Part of how this discovery came about was with the open release of data under the critical view of adverserial argument...which is what the Climate Science field is very often lacking. Rabbet made some silly arguments in defense of Hansen, but he and his allies also pointed out that the biggest rise in temperature did not coincide with the air-conditioner move...and, this acknowledged, McIntyre dug about and discovered what did - a programming shift to a different dataset.
1) Hansen has long been a true believer...even in the abscence of warming.
2) his chosen gas driving the warming is not CO2, it’s methane.
1) Hansen has long been a true believer...even in the abscence of warming.
2) his chosen gas driving the warming is not CO2, it’s methane.
3) Note that he considered AGW “settled science” in the 80s.
Though it can reasonably be taken that way, I didn’t mean to suggest that that was a quote from him. More appropriately, I should have noted that back in the 80s he was making statements as to the certainty of AGW that correspond with the current usage of “settled science”.
A friend of mine has access to Lexus/Nexus so next time I talk to him I am going to see if he can find just when the term “settled science” came into the popular lexicon. That term may be the one thing we can say with 100% certainty was caused by global warming. :)
Explains Algore refusing to debate these days, doesn’t it?
Wake me up when the story actually changes. NASA didn't fire Dr. Roy Spencer when it turned out that he couldn't distinguish a + from a - (which had substantially influenced the tale told by the MLS lower tropospheric data set, a data set widely touted by skeptics until it suddenly reversed course and showed significant warming, just like it was supposed to), so a slight and necessary revision to the warmth in the 1930s compared to now is supposed to be a major deal?
But thanks for the note, anyway.
So President Bush has reduced Global Warming.
Folks messing with Statistics. Who’da thunk it?
*snort* Can't you just see the headline in the Old Grey Lady. "Climate skeptics' research fueled by alchoholic beverages!"
Since a bag of coal is involved, he’s just smarting over the bags of coal he’s accumulated one lump at a time from Santa. ;’)
LOL
susie
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