(My response, if hotlinking allowed, and one from a “friend” expressing it’s approval.)

What, the undergrad research paper from Purdue, or the “Wollfram Alpha?”

WA is just an attempt to get as much data about as much as possible on the internet. He gives sufficient info that if you want to cross check his work, you can. Also, he’s not some off the wall nutter, but has been around for a very long time. Math nerds are probably familiar with his work…
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

And, yes, I saw that link from NASA, but I dismissed it as more of an editorial written to justify his agenda pushing.

As to what he did and why, I posted what I found on it on another thread, here
yonason (09:55:29) :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/02/seat-surface-temperature-makes-a-jump/
“The high-quality Argo data has been embarrassing Warmists because it shows the ocean as cooling. So what to do? Say that the sensors showing most cooling are “bad” and discard their data”

Regarding warm Septembers, I would look at what the Jet Stream was doing to determine why the air might have warmed.

OXYMORON
The Global Warming numpties
Just get more surreal each day,
As scientists here in Scotland
Try to wean our cows off hay;
They’ll stop them belching methane
Flatulating Co2,
Remove their carbon hoofprints
‘Till we have the greenest coo.

Our bovine friends contented
As they lie to chew their cud,
Not asked to save the planet
It’s a mooot point if they could;
With farmers heavy burdens
Of legislation on their backs,
We all pay through our nostrils
With this ecowlogic tax.

As I sit and ruminate
About real scientists who demur,
They say cow-made climate change
Is a load of old manure;
No honest politician
Will stand up, and from the floor,
Call man made global warming
A nightmare of Albert Gore.

Paddythecaddy.

The comment about the U.S.’s surface area is a non sequitur, one designed to completely ignore comments made by several here, which is that people living in those “holes” noted that the weather in their area was unusually cool.

While you may want to dismiss it out of hand, it does at least throw suspicion on the data: why was it tossed? What’s the real reason? When you have people saying “hey, it was cool here, and they left my area out” was it done so that cooler areas wouldn’t skew the average down too low, or was it done for a legitimate, technical reason?

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php

If the data have issues, but those issues can be addressed properly, then what is wrong with fixing the data? That does not automatically translate into “an agenda”.

OK, I really have to go

Indeed you may be right. I am not sure what you point is? About 70% of the planet is covered by oceans, very few thermometers there, and we all know the importance of oceans in modulating/determining climate. One has to, ideally, monitor the entire system. So unless you are talking only of land temperatures, then my point stands.

Can you substantiate this assertion with some facts? Especially, the “agenda” part. Nobody disagrees that one has to be careful with new datasets, but that said, there is a difference between a questioning mindset and a cynical mindset. Unless you can provide evidence, I will remain cautiously optimistic that the Argo data will continue to improve, and will continue to prove to be a valuable tool (as discussed in the paper you provided).

PS: I had a look at the paper– I’m not sure how this is evidence to discount the Argo data. It is a paper in which they are using the ARGO data to calibrate the satellite estimates of OHC. The satellite data were underestimating the OHC as determined by the floats. Did you link the right paper? Maybe a better exercise would be to compare the Argo, satellite and TAO/TRITON data.

Regarding “How about 10,000 years of an on-going, uninterrupted cooling trend? Is THAT “climate”? Or, do only alarmists define “climate”?”

How does one define climate? That is actually a nontrivial question. The definition, was definitely not determined by the alarmists SBVOR. If someone here knows the history of the 30-yr window please pipe up– it is my understanding that the 30-yr period originated form the WMO many decades ago. Many stakeholders use the climate data including agriculture, energy, engineers. Now we could estimate the climate going back 4.3 billion years, but to prepare a climate baseline which is useful one
needs good data (high spatial and temporal resolution). Also, using a baseline from two or three interglacials ago (for example) is not much, if any, use to for stakeholders to place today’s climate in the context of the current state of the climate system, the climate system evolves b/c drivers of that system evolve too (orbital parameters, solar variations, composition of the atmosphere, land use changes, volcanic activity, land-to-mass ratio). Not to mention the issue with using very coarse proxy data– can’t downscale those data, or interpolate those data to your state. So that essentially forces one to look at data since circa 1880, the data is not great, but one does the best with what one has and tries to improve the monitoring system as A. Watts is doing.
Now one could use the average conditions observed for the entire record, currently 130 years or so. But, not all stations in the USA have data for that period of time. Also, one has to allow for internal climate modes etc. And on it goes. Should the baseline be 10, 30, 50, 100 years? What does the PDF of the data look like for those windows? If you choose too short a window the data will be too noisy and not much use. So, this is a complex issue, so how about we let the professionals decide….

As for your references to cults and religion…..physics, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics etc are all blissfully unaware of ‘religion’. I take strong offense to you stating “your particularly intolerant religious cult.” Not only do not know me from adam, but you are wrong, read the judges ruling carefully. Not that is any of your business, I am agnostic and do not cater to any religion real or imaginary.

Now how about we be civil and agree to disagree?

I very much think that positive temperature departures in Siberia should be taken with a grain of salt.

Energy delivered in the form of fuel oil and electricity in the old Soviet Union was delivered based on temperature so the colder they reported the more heat they got. If you’ve ever lived even briefly in one of those buildings you know there was a HUGE incentive to report temperatures as cold as possible.

People who lived and worked in Siberia during that era freely admit doing exactly this. As a result they would show enormously above average temperatures now, even if there was no change at all.

Well, they got KS correct as far as I can tell from the map. However, Oct in South Central KS was -7.1 F. We’ll see if that shows up.

As for the Sept. Hadcrut global anomaly and missing data, it’s obvious Phil’s dog ate the data and the reported temperature is that of the contaminated-food poisoned dog.

Thanks for the link.

Check out Wolfram Alpha, which has data for Concord NH, from KCON (Concord Municipal Airport).

For “All” data, going back to 1958, they have a trend of linear trend: -0.0033 deg F/y+-0.0206 deg, i.e, really nothing to see there.

Also, they don’t have Sept., data separate, but for what it’s worth, they have the following stats for Oct.

minimum: 21 deg F Sat, Oct 17, 5:45am |
average: 43 deg F |
maximum: 70 deg F Sat, Oct 31, 12:30pm |

UPDATE:
Perhaps this is the basis of the decision to discount the ARGO data?
http://gest.umbc.edu/student_opp/2009_sies_reports/BYoung.pdf

Obviously if ARGO data is too low, then it should be discounted? Just because it “shouldn’t be?” It may be a reasonable assumption, but without trouble shooting and locating the problem.

Their “science” appears to be sloppy and agenda driven. What’s not to suspect?

RockyMtn (22:18:51) :

…you need to also keep in mind that the USA represents a meagre 1.9% of the total surface area of the globe.

You need to keep in mind that that 1.9% of surface area accounts for 28% of the thermometers.