Roger Pielke (right) claims NCDC removed weather station data to dodge public scrutiny. (Source: University of Colorado)
Posted on 08/11/2007 1:27:55 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Roger Pielke (right) claims NCDC removed weather station data to dodge public scrutiny. (Source: University of Colorado)
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The theory of global warming began to explain one simple set of factsm-- surface temperature monitoring stations have shown a roughly one degree rise over the past century. But just where does these temperature readings come from? Most are reported by volunteer stations, usually no more than a thermometer inside a small wooden hut or below a roof overhang. In the US, 1,221 such stations exist, all administered by the National Climatic Data Center, a branch of the NOAA.
Two months ago, I reported on an effort to validate this network. A volunteer group headed by meteorologist Anthony Watts had found serious problems. Not only did sites fail to meet the NCDC's requirements, but encroaching development had put many in ridiculously unsuitable locations -- on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills.
Soon thereafter, a Seattle radio station interviewed the head of the NCDC, Dr. Thomas Peterson, informed him of the effort and quizzed him about the problems. Three days later, the NCDC removed all website access to station site locations, citing "privacy concerns." Without this data (which had been public for years), the validation effort was blocked. No more stations could be located.
Scientists were quick to respond. Climatologist Roger Pielke from the University of Colorado called the act a "coverup" and said it was designed to prevent public scrutiny. More shockingly, he revealed that researchers had been for years pressuring the government to validate the network themselves, and that the NCDC had begun to do j so, but cancelled the project and refused to make the data public, presumably to avoid this sort of scandal. Joined by Watts and others, Pielke called upon the government to recant.
The resulting furor forced the NCDC to again made site locations public. But so far, they've failed to address to root of the problem, which is the wholly unsatisfactory locations of many of their recording sites, loations which make the resulting data unreliable, and compromise a dataset upon which much of US energy and environmental policy is based.
Don’t you love paying the government to lie to you? For the life of me, I can’t figure why there aren’t a lot more libertarians.
This will not play well with the DU crowd.
Oh, and since urban sprawl around the country means that weather stations are warming up, then duh, it kinda artificially supports the global warming crowd.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya!
Y2K Bug Drastically Changes US Climate Data
Good thing for these so-called public servants that I'm not a Congress critter, or these guys would be fielding a raft of subpoenas.
Fraud!
NOAA and that ARK again! No one will believe there will be a great flood.
Good interview:
PS: Thanks for this post, Ernest.
GIGO
Hot news: NASA quietly fixes flawed temperature data; 1998 was NOT the warmest year in the millenium
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By Michelle Malkin • August 9, 2007 10:02 PM
Mind the gap.
Some big environmental news that you haven’t heard much about: NASA has revised much-publicized US temperature data that have been used to claim 1998 as a record-breaking hottest year in the millenium. Michael Asher at DailyTech reports:
My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or “jump” in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.
These graphs were created by NASA’s Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide [McIntyre ]with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.
[McIntyre] notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an “oversight” that would be fixed in the next data refresh.
NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.
The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the US global warming propaganda machine could be huge.
Then again– maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.
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McIntyre’s blog is down at the moment. (*Update*: It’s down because his work has gotten some major media attention…no, not from the MSM, but from Rush Limbaugh.) His work on this is extraordinary and hopefully the website will be back up. (Another update: McIntyre also debunked the famous “hockey stick” analysis linking human activity to global warming, which turned out to be an artifact of poor mathematics.) In the meantime, see Anthony Watts, who walks you through McIntyre’s findings and adds some helpful charts:
Urban sprawl is a big contributor to the false readings.
They build an airport in the wide open space outside a city and a weather station is invariably placed at the airport.
They get normal readings for a few years until the new suburb grows up and brings the average temperature up. This has happened in just about every city.
See #15 and the links also!
When I was actually working in meteorological research 40 years ago there were about 200 weather stations worldwide plus Tiros, but if you wanted weather data from a hundred years earlier there wasn’t much of scientific interest. Thin data: could be anything.
referance ping to myself
Added some updates...
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