Posted on 08/17/2010 2:05:17 PM PDT by Lorianne
US Government admits satellite temperature readings “degraded.” All data taken offline in shock move. Global warming temperatures may be 10 to 15 degrees too high.
The fault was first detected after a tip off from an anonymous member of the public to climate skeptic blog, Climate Change Fraud (view original article) (August 9, 2010).
Caught in the center of the controversy is the beleaguered taxpayer funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis has now confirmed that the fast spreading story on the respected climate skeptic blog is true.
However, NOAA spokesman, Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis declined to state how long the fault might have gone undetected. Nor would the shaken spokesman engage in speculation as to the damage done to the credibility of a decade’s worth of temperature readings taken from the problematic ‘NOAA-16’ satellite.
‘NOAA-16’ was launched in September 2000, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 849 km above the Earth, orbiting every 102 minutes providing automated data feed of surface temperatures which are fed into climate computer models.
NOAA has reported a succession of record warm temperatures in recent years based on such satellite readings but these may now all be undermined.
World-renowned Canadian climatologist, Dr. Timothy Ball, after casting his expert eye over the shocking findings concluded, “At best the entire incident indicates gross incompetence, at worst it indicates a deliberate attempt to create a temperature record that suits the political message of the day.”
Great Lakes Sees Unphysical Wild Temperature Fluctuations
Great Lakes users of the satellite service were the first to blow the whistle on the wildly distorted readings that showed a multitude of impossibly high temperatures. NOAA admits that the machine-generated readings are not continuously monitored so that absurdly high false temperatures could have become hidden amidst the bulk of automated readings.
In one example swiftly taken down by NOAA after my first article, readings for June and July 2010 for Lake Michigan showed crazy temperatures off the scale ranging in the low to mid hundreds - with some parts of the Wisconsin area apparently reaching 612 F. With an increasing number of further errors now coming to light the discredited NOAA removed the entire set from public view. But just removing them from sight is not the same as addressing the implications of this gross statistical debacle.
NOAA Whitewash Fails in One Day
NOAA’s Chuck Pistis went into whitewash mode on first hearing the story about the worst affected location, Egg Harbor, set by his instruments onto fast boil. On Tuesday morning Pistis loftily declared, “I looked in the archives and I find no image with that time stamp. Also we don’t typically post completely cloudy images at all, let alone with temperatures. This image appears to be manufactured for someone’s entertainment.”
But later that day Chuck and his calamitous colleagues now with egg on their faces, threw in the towel and owned up to the almighty gaffe. Pistis conceded,
“I just relooked and (sic) the image again AND IT IS in my archive. I do not know why the temperatures were so inaccurate (sic). It appears to have been a malfunction in the satellite. WE have posted thousands if (sic) images since the inauguration of our Coatwatch (sic) service in 1994. I have never seen one like this.”
But the spokesman for the Michigan Sea Grant Extension, a ‘Coastwatch’ partner with NOAA screening the offending data, then confessed that its hastily hidden web pages had, indeed, showed dozens of temperature recordings three or four times higher than seasonal norms. NOAA declined to make any comment as to whether such a glitch could have ramped up the averages for the entire northeastern United States by an average of 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit by going undetected over a longer time scale.
Somewhat more contritely NOAA’s Pistis later went into damage limitation mode to offer his excuses,
“We need to do a better job screening what is placed in the archive or posted. Coastwatch is completely automated so you can see how something like this could slip through.”
In his statement Pistis agreed NOAA’s satellite readings were “degraded” and the administration will have to “look more into this.” Indeed, visitors to the Michigan Sea Grant site now see the following official message:
“NOTICE: Due to degradation of a satellite sensor used by this mapping product, some images have exhibited extreme high and low surface temperatures. “Please disregard these images as anomalies. Future images will not include data from the degraded satellite and images caused by the faulty satellite sensor will be/have been removed from the image archive.”
[chart]
Blame the Clouds, not us says NOAA
NOAA further explained that cloud cover could affect the satellite data making the readings prone to error. But Pistis failed to explain how much cloud is significant or at what point the readings become unusable for climatic modeling purposes.
As one disgruntled observer noted,
“What about hazy days? What about days with light cloud cover? What about days with partial cloud cover? Even on hot clear days, evaporation leads to a substantial amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, particularly above a body of water. How can this satellite data be even slightly useful if it cannot “see” through clouds?”
Top Climatologist Condemns Lack of Due Diligence
The serious implications of these findings was not lost on Dr. Ball who responded that such government numbers with unusually high or low ranges have been exploited for political purposes and are already in the record and have been used in stories across the mainstream media, which is a widely recognized goal.
The climatologist who advises the military on climate matters lamented such faulty data sets,
“invariably remain unadjusted. The failure to provide evidence of how often cloud top temperatures “very nearly” are the same as the water temperatures, is unacceptable. If the accuracy of the data is questionable it should not be used. I would suggest it is rare given my knowledge of inversions, especially over water.“
How Many other Weather Satellites Are Also ‘Degraded’?
A key issue the government administration declined to address was how many other satellites may also be degrading. ‘NOAA-16’ is not an old satellite - so why does it take a member of the public to uncover such gross failings?
Climate professor, Tim Ball, pointed out that he’s seen these systemic failures before and warns that the public should not expect to see any retraction or an end to the doom-saying climate forecasts:
“when McIntyre caught Hansen and NASA GISS with the wrong data in the US I never saw any adjustments to the world data that changes to the US record would create. The US record dominates the record, especially of the critical middle latitudes, and to change it so that it goes from having nine of the warmest years in the 1990s to four of them being in the 1930s, is a very significant change and must influence global averages.”
Each day that passes sees fresh discoveries of gross errors and omissions. One astute commenter on www.climatechangefraud.com noted, “it is generally understood that water heats up more slowly than land, and cools off more slowly. However, within the NOAA numbers we have identified at least two sets of data that run contrary to this known physical effect.
The canny commenter added, “two data points in question are at Charlevoix, where the temperature is listed at 43.5 degrees – while temperature nearby (+/- 30 miles) is 59.2 degrees; and in the bay on the east side of the peninsula from Leland is listed at 37.2 degrees. These are supposedly taken at 18:38 EDT (19:38 Central, or 7:38PM). These are both taken in areas that appear to be breaks in the cloud cover.
With NOAA’s failure to make further concise public statements on this sensational story it is left to public speculation and ‘citizen scientists’ to ascertain whether ten years or more of temperature data sets from satellites such as NOAA-16 are unreliable and worthless.
John O’Sullivan is a legal analyst, author and journalist. As an accredited academic, John taught and lectured for over twenty years at schools and colleges in the east of England before moving to the United States. As an analytical commentator, O’Sullivan has published over 100 major articles worldwide.
When I argue this subject on liberal sites, their favorite pictures to use are these very satellite data.*
Very cool!
I love to argue with them. They are SO far out of touch with the science. They believe anything that make it look like humans cause the climate to change.
I wonder how many of them bought carbon credits “on the ground floor” and are trying to convince people before they are worthless.
How did you know I took 1000 pen lasers, taped them all together, and pointed them at the weather satellites as they passed overhead which I tracked on heavens-above.com?
Bush + Cheney obviously sabotaged the satellite.
That can be the only possible explanation.
So much for settled science.
Coastwatch is completely automated so you can see how something like this could slip through.Horse manure! A carefully designed and properly implemented automated system would have built-in reasonableness checks.
When politically motivated scientists turn their scientific specialty into a religion, then whether the “high priest” standing on the top of the pyramid that day is one of their own or a computer, their religion-cum-science does not question either statements or results, because they have reached the point where true science has ended and they take the oracle of the high priest as an article of faith.
I suggest everyone get, and recommend for inclusion in your K-12 public school curriculum, the book “Longitude” by Dava Sobel. “The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time” http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-Problem/dp/0140258795
It is a true story. It is about history, science and the corrupt junction that always takes place between science and ruling political and scientific elites.
It is also a story that parallels in many ways the politics, political corruption of science, political suppression of scientific truth, political agenda of the scientific community to destroy scientific “heretics” that we have seen in the “man-made” global warming fraud.
It is also about how, after it all, eventually truth can win.
*Right-wing activists vandalize weather satellite in order so spread doubt about man-made global warming. Baby polar bear film at eleven*
So THAT’S why they want to take away our guns!
They believe that we are clinging to our guns so we can blow the global warming satellites out of the sky.
;-)
*Bush + Cheney obviously sabotaged the satellite.
That can be the only possible explanation.*
HeeHee!
..because they’re racists!
This is why non-scientists should not be allowed to see raw climate data. Anyone with a PhD level understanding of statistics is only too aware that surface temperature levels in the great lakes are often hundreds, even thousands, of degrees above the sea-level boiling point of water. This is because the great lakes are not at sea level, a fact not comprehended by the author of this misleading and ignorant article.
More like "settled sloppiness," at best. Ever hear of a kid who resented the need to wash the test tubes and to check the equipment to make sure it's working properly? Waal, guess what happened to the kid...
*In one example swiftly taken down by NOAA after my first article, readings for June and July 2010 for Lake Michigan showed crazy temperatures off the scale ranging in the low to mid hundreds - with some parts of the Wisconsin area apparently reaching 612 F.
This is why non-scientists should not be allowed to see raw climate data. Anyone with a PhD level understanding of statistics is only too aware that surface temperature levels in the great lakes are often hundreds, even thousands, of degrees above the sea-level boiling point of water. This is because the great lakes are not at sea level, a fact not comprehended by the author of this misleading and ignorant article.*
This explains why al gore says it’s “millions of degrees” 2km beneath the surface of the Earth!
"This is why non-[bought and paid for] scientists should not be allowed to see raw climate data."
After all, they use fancy words like "falsified" in embarrassing ways...
“This is the move to blame technology and let the bad scientist keep their jobs. It’s not their fault the satellite went bad, keep paying them for they know not their lies are doing.”
Exactly. Just like the way old “computer glitch” excuse that used to be used in the bad old days. Never a human error for some reason. Now of course, “computer error” has dropped from vogue since everyone now know that “computer errors” are caused by the humans using the computer and almost never by the computer itself.
In this case, to cry that the system is totally “automated” is completely bogus and smacks of “computer error”. I’ve worked with satellite data systems myself, and any kind of reasonable system must have both calibration methods and built-in range checks that indicate whether the data being produced is physically possible and within the bounds of what can be reasonably expected. Publishing data with wild, physically impossible swings and which obviously don’t match ground data indicates total incompetence, total indifference, or simply the desire to commit fraud.
After all, they use fancy words like “falsified” in embarrassing ways...*
You see “falsified” is a word that scientists use that means roughly, in your *laughs condescendingly* layman's language, “verified.” In other words, falsified means settled beyond a shadow of a doubt. Just like “trick” means “the truth” in scientist lingo.
Do ya follah?
That's the ticket, believe in man-made global warming and nobody gets hurt!
Investigation dropped for lack of evidence on the first one. (Sexual assualt IIRC)
This is from a flaky-looking blog site, let’s get this from an authoritative source before breaking out the bubbly.
giggle
Naah.
He got off.
Apparently she couldn’t prove anything. You know he-said she-said.
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