And now, the most influential station in the GISS record is …

Take a temperature reading – record it
Add 37
Multiply by 8
Divide by 12
Add 16
Throw the result away
Pick a number that fits your theory – report it
Call it science

Mary Hinge (03:29:38) : The current uptick in AMSU may or may not be meaningful, but that does not negate the fact that GISS shows a much greater uptrend over the past several years than does either RSS or UAH. It also does not validate the GISS methodology. Anyway, warm is better than cold any day. Warmist are wrong headed on so many levels.

E.M.Smith (04:41:58) :
“There was one systematic issue (a use of a non-standard “extension” to the language that some systems allow, but most do not) and there were a couple of cases of “type mismatch” in parameters. A couple of those were just parameters being passed to “write” statements, so they ought not to cause too much mischief. Another was more worrying in that a REAL data type was passed to a significant zonal subroutine with an INTEGER type for the variable.”
This is interesting. I’ve been retired for nearly two decades, but all the Federal Government software contracts during my working days specified that compliers used must meet ANSI Standards. Surely the extensions you noticed don’t meet ANSI standards.
I remember vividly that compilers for code developed for NASA had to meet that specification.

“Check this on Google scholar. Quite a few of these studies are available as PDFs. Some US lakes, such a Lake Mendotae (WI) have data on the date of ice cover and ice out since about 1850. One study, cited below, has long term data on ice duration for 62 lakes in the Great lakes region( see below). ” – Bill D.
Gosh….
That’s what a lot of people thought when they headed to Northern Minnesota for the fishing opening last year, only to find the lakes solid with ice in mid-May.
This year, we are wearing jackets in July.
When is the media going to recognize and acknowledge that climate changes from decade to decade?
The “average” for freeze-up and ice-out includes ’98, a very odd year.

Smokey (08:37:18) :
Mary Hinge (08:05:32),
I simply provided the dictionary definition of “bugger.” That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? So why the emotional response? Was it due to hormones?

You provided one definition but not the original meaning but bye the bye…
I was actually hoping you might have something relevant to say…still waiting!

The coolest July in Kentucky history is on the way. Hats off to Roy Spenser, the clouds roll in every afternoon. We are saving money and using less electricty Mr. Gore, no AC needed and it’s July! WooHoo, I love your global warming! Can you turn it off however in Oct. we don’t want snow that soon.

Just goes to show – some averages are more average than others.

Judging by the names and locations, I’d expect to find most of these airports are for small, generally private planes, are grassy, don’t see a lot or activity or generate a lot of heat and would qualify as rural or semi-rural (quite different from the big city airports we use to get around this great country).
My question is more basic and you have probably already addressed it somewhere. Is there any validity at all to these “adjustments”? Is there any reason to believe that taking a temperature reading and then smoothing it out based on other area temperature readings will get you a more meaningful (or even just meaningful) number?

Mary Hinge (10:10:56) : That was a nice try, but typical of warmers, you did a shake and bake on the data. You can’t use normalize only on GISS … we’ve been down this road before.
Normalise – Scales and offsets all samples so they fall into the range 0..1
See the farily rendered chart instead:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1980/plot/uah/from:1980/plot/wti/from:1980

To tty, AllanM et al, regarding medieval maps and the colonization of Greenland:
If any significant research is done on the topic, the statement “As for 16th century maps of Antarctica, may I point out that nobody visited Antarctica until 1820.”
has no more weight than Colombus’ claim that he “discovered America”, even though there were clearly long-established Native Americans prior to his landing. Such attitudes reflect the ignorance of Europeans in the Dark Ages, and the widely held belief that only white-skinned Christians have any valid claims to discovery. A thorough discussion of the medieval maps can be found at:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198001/piri.reis.and.the.hapgood.hypotheses.htm
The alleged “discovery” of Antarctica in 1820 is, of course, the main point of contention. Quoting from the above website:
“The cartography of the Age of Discovery, for instance, often seems to have been independent of the voyages themselves; that is, certain early maps of America contain features before their supposed date of discovery.
The most notable example of this is the map of America made by Glareanus, a famous Swiss poet, mathematician and theoretical geographer, in the year 1510. This map, which was probably based on the 1504 de Canerio map, clearly shows the west coast of America 12 years before Magellan passed through the strait that bears his name. In other words, Piri Reis was not the only one to include anachronous information.
The map of Glareanus, furthermore, was reproduced in Johannes de Stobnicza’s famous 1512 Cracow edition of Ptolemy and is unquestionably similar to the map of Piri Reis. Did Piri Reis have a copy of this early printed edition of Ptolemy before him when he drew his map? Is this what Piri Reis meant by “maps drawn in the time of Alexander the Great”?
Aware that ideas that deviate from traditional scientific beliefs get short shrift in the scientific community – as did, for instance, Wegener’s theory of continental drift, now widely accepted, Hapgood, therefore, pointed out in Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings that civilizations have vanished before. No one knew where Sumer, Akkad, Nineveh and Babylon were until 19th-century archeologists dug them up. And as late as 1970 – only 10 years ago – no one even suspected the existence of a civilization called Ebla (See Aramco World, March -April l978). It had existed. It was real. But it vanished without a trace. Why then, argue Hapgood advocates, couldn’t there have been other civilizations that vanished?
The same is true of Hapgood’s unspecified advanced technology. Greek fire – something like napalm – was developed in the ninth century but its composition has never been duplicated. Arab scientists of the Golden Age were able to perform delicate eye surgery – using advanced instruments – but these skills were later lost. And in 1900, according to Scientific American, archeologists discovered an astoundingly advanced gearing system in a Greek navigational instrument. It dated back to 65 B.C. and its existence had never been suspected.
Although unquestionably an amateur theoretician, he did do his homework and had it thoroughly checked by professionals. The U.S. Air Force SAC cartographers, for example, worked with him for two years and fully endorsed his conclusions about Antarctica.
Furthermore, the Hapgood team identified 50 geographical points on the Finaeus map, as re-projected, whose latitudes and longitudes were located quite accurately in latitude and longitude, some of them quite close to the pole. “The mathematical probability against this being accidental,” says Hapgood, “is astronomical””
Scientific studies have been done in the Ross Sea, which show the effects of river-born sedimentation:
“In 1949 coring was done to take samples of the ice and sediment at the bottom of the Ross Sea. They clearly showed several layers of stratification, meaning the area went through several environmental changes. Some of the sediments were of the type usually brought down to the sea by rivers. Tests done at the Carnegie Institute in Washington DC, which date radioactive elements found in sea water, dated the sediments at about 4000 BC, which would mean the area was ice free with flowing rivers up until that time – exactly what is recorded on the Reis and Finaeus maps.”
If science means anything anymore, these findings cannot be dismissed by armchair theorists.
Whether Greenland’s naming was to promote colonization, or as other sources claim, as an apt description, the point is moot because no one disputes that Greenland’s climate was warmer around 1000 AD, and that farming once supported colonists. The ruins of Hvalsey Church are clearly visible, and are one of the best-preserved signs of Middle Age settlements in Greenland.
And I should point out that the central theme of WUWT, that climate change is natural, cyclical, and not necessarily human-caused, is a “deviation from traditional scientific beliefs” at this period of time. To dismiss anything that is outside the realm of consensus undermines the whole purpose of finding the truth.

There is a new report that provides evidence connecting the earth’s magnetic field to warming: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/index.htm?nn=2009072101
You can download two PDF Files, the original report and the latest magnetic field map.