Uh, what’s his name?!

This is a matter of online data. They don’t have to hire a screever to engrave the dang stuff.

Many things the US Gov produces cost at an individual level. Example 1: USGS topographic quad maps. I’ve not found them to be free for the asking. Why? It costs money to print, handle, and mail them (or to visit an office and deal in person). I’ve never met anyone that objected to this. Example 2: National Forest Recreation Pass — You have paid via taxes for the FS to build access roads, boat ramps, potties, and such things as are needed at particular sites. If you want to park and spend the day and use the facilities you are requested to pay. With general taxes we do not get to direct them in specific ways. With fees we do. A non-hiker in NYC having paid taxes has also helped with the provision but will never need to pay the fee. Such a person may pay to visit a National site that I will never visit. The size of the fee, in whatever case, may be objectionable but the concept does not seem to be generally regarded as such.

Actually, over the lifetime of the satellite data, it is UAH that is out of step with the other three major indices.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/trend/plot/uah/trend/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/trend/offset:0.085/plot/rss/trend/offset:0.23

In about the last decade, it is true that UAH and GISS have diverged, and this may be something to do with a strange annual cycle emerging in the UAH data since around 2003, discussed at these places

http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/04/21/interannual-divergence-in-satellite-temperature-records/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/rss-and-uah/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/annual-cycle-in-uah-tlt/
http://deepclimate.org/2009/03/05/seasonal-divergence-in-tropospheric-temperature-trends/

Interesting stuff…

REPLY: OK, suspiciously a little too quick on the draw there chum, and too much like previous comments made here under a similar name.

That made me suspicious. Now I get it, you are the same troll known as John Phillips @ set….. that was hounding us last year. You just changed your network setup and did a slight name switcheroo. John Phillips > Philip Johns Neither of which appear to be your real name in your email address.

The comment origination IP addresses then and now plot out to the same location in the UK. The same DSLAM host was used in both cases as it serves both IP address sets.

So, with deception, now your comments have sub zero value here. Bugger off. – Anthony

“Was I producing peer reviewed articles for climate science at the time?”

Yes. But, since those writings are classified, you can’t read them.
Ha, kinda like Phil Jone’s CRU data.
You should know that the propagation of thermal signatures in the atmosphere was of great interest to those of us who worked in the
“stealth” field. Next.

Now you see how silly your prattling is. I say something that is true, and your retort is to wonder if I was producing peer reviewed articles. Can you say non sequitur?

Therefore they are accountable for all the components. Ford or Toyota don’t get to blame their equipment suppliers for a product failure. Neither should GISS.

Oh really? Ford Motor Company is considering asking Firestone to recall more tyres after the car maker said it found safety problems with other tyres installed on its vehicles, reports say… Nashville, Tennessee-based Firestone says its “making it right” advertisement stresses the tyre manufacturer’s goal of increased quality control and hopes to rebuild consumer confidence, following the Explorer debacle.

First, GISS runs warmer, especially recently. (You also have to consider that lower troposphere trends are 1.2 to 1.4 times greater that surface data, depending on latitude.)

my post above crossed in the mail.

As noted above, the Harry incident was not entirely a one-off. Gavin got involved in the Siberian October mix-up which was also about station data and was the NASA spokesman on the Y2K problem. He’s used realclimate to enhance the public image of NASA GISS and to act as a NASA GISS spokesman, while at the same time pretending that it is a personal hobby. So it is entirely reasonable to view him as the public face of the GISTEMP program. IF Gavin doesn’t want to be criticized for GISTEMP defects, then it’s open to him to let the responsible people speak for themselves. However, he’s been the public face for the past number of years.

I agree that the error originates with GHCN but mutual fingerpointing between federal agencies is of zero interest to me. GISS uses the GHCN data and its their name on the data index. Therefore they are accountable for all the components. Ford or Toyota don;t get to blame their equipment suppliers for a product failure. Neither should GISS.

He also spends time trolling the blogs for signs of trouble with the GISS record. For example, when they goofed last year by using September data in October in Siberia, yielding record “heat” waves, – something identified almost simultaneously at CA and WUWT – Gavin notified GISTEMP.

Last February, as mentioned above, I noticed a problem in one of the stations relied upon in Steig et al. Gavin notified the British Antarctic Survey of this error without crediting Climate Audit. When the issue was raised at realclimate, he said that someone had identified this problem “independently” of Climate Audit. Later the Mystery Man was outed as Gavin Schmidt himself, who admitted that he had learned of the problem from Climate Audit. For some reason, you do not seem to have any problems with Schmidt;s conduct (which was also sharply criticized by Pielke Jr).

In the case at hand, there are precedents for Gavin trolling WUWT and CA and running back to headquarters with his scouting reports, and so it is entirely reasonable for us to leave messages for Gavin when a similar problem was encountered with Dutch Harbor.

Again, Gavin was hellbent for leather to get Harry fixed and now he’s uninterested in Dutch Harbor. Explain that to me.

You’ll have

LOL! He wrote ‘long interview’ in a blog post when he meant ‘longer’ Now corrected.

Steve McIntyre – would you agree that the main focus should now be to idnetify and fix the root cause of the problem – and that this is likely to be the way the station named is spelt by GHCN? And therefore that is is GHCN who should investigate and fix the error? And therefore attempts to personalise the issue against a NASA employee are something of a diversion?

I agree that Gavin took a personal interest in the BAMS / Harry data but that appears to have been a one-off, if it means he gets branded as ‘inconsistent’ if he does not subsequently chase up each and every data problem that emerges, well I guess he can live with that ….

REPLY: “Since this thread is apparently now more about attempts to personalise the issue, and ‘jibes’ than serious debate, I am signing off.”

And yet, here you are. – Anthony

So your extra smarty point that my poor little head is incapable of understanding is that the people at GISS are just too busy to check their work or ensure any level of quality. Powerful argument there. I hope someone smarter than me can understand it.

As far as calling Gavin a liar, I am one of the people who witnessed the events unfolding in real time. He is a liar.

Look for yourself where Seth Borenstein calls him out on this thread at RC.

His credibility is sinking to an all time low, except with his disciples and fellow Team members.

The first step in any analysis has to be to insure the quality of the information. Otherwise, garbage in, garbage out. The scientists in charge of maintaining the database have failed.

Just out of interest, Stan, do you include Dr Roy Spencer and Dr John Christy, custodians of the UAH temperature series, in your generalisation of climate scientists who have ‘failed’?

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.2