UPDATE: See
via SpaceRef.com
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Source: KUSI-TV
Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on Jan.14 at 9 p.m. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14th at www.kusi.com.
In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D’Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.
The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. “That leaves much of the world unaccounted for,” says D’Aleo.
The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the “Climategate” controversy.
This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. “For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges,” says Smith. “When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons,” added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is “scientific travesty” that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.
Smith and D’Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, “Global Warming: The Other Side” seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
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While the points made in the report are those that many have previously noted, the grammatical and typographical errors in the document do not help its credibility.
e.g. “Though the population of the world has increased from 1.5 to 6.7 million and dozens of …”.
Just as Gore is castigated for flubbing his comments on the temperature of Earth’s core, these flubs in a report such as this might be used to ridicule some very interesting observations in the report.
Dr. Bob (17:25:02) :
I’m never sure where I stand.
Sometimes I am on the “well, maybe CO2 contributed a very very tiny percentage to the most recent warming period of 1975-1998″, and the other half of the time I think “the temperature record is so worthless that I’m not even sure if we’re warmer than the earlier part of the century.”
Ditto.
If, as alledged, the core data have been tweaked, manipulated or whatever… to my mind the biggest travesty is that all the research based upon false data is null and void. Every single study involving this data would then be suspect… surely?
Dr. Bob (17:25:02) :
This might help:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+002
With a value of 0.79 C we’ve just overtaken the monthly peak of the 1998 Super El Niño. We appear to be seeing a massive release of stored thermal energy in the Pacific.
After 1998 temperatures did not settle back to their values before the El Niño. If the same happens again it will be very difficult to explain how just natural processes could have added so much energy.
Anthony,
It would be very useful with items such as this one if we could obtain the relevant time in GMT (UTC) as well as local time at the event.
Kindest regards
Gillian Lord (17:24:41) : “It is a worry that soon someone will decide that we do not even need 1000 temperature readings. Could it be done with, say, 50?”
Heck, you could get equally useful numbers from a single crystal ball…or a coin.
The discussion of the effects of reducing station numbers on temp trends is worth a more nuanced discussion. Though Anthony should be able to speak of the effects on U.S. temps of the changing number of stations used (vis-a-vis using all stations or “best” stations).
The argument that raw station data was destroyed, however, seems patently false given that its all archived here: http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds570.0/
I do wonder, if historical raw data has been deleted, whether copies will be found to exist once the AGW edifice has crumbled. I can not believe all the researchers are truly loyal to AGW even if forced to be to get a job and may have taken clandestine copies. Not quite ‘Fahrenheit 451′, but it does come to mind.
Is any independent organisation trying to create a store of untainted data?
There is one modification that might get things across to the general public a little more clearly:
“added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is ‘scientific travesty’ that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.”
Should be something like:
“added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is ‘scientific travesty’ that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda which brings them millions of dollars in additional research grants.”
Oh, and Danny Glover today blames the Haiti earthquake on global warming.
I was wondering how long that would take.
Certainly it would save money, time and effort if all the stations were shut down and the figures simply made up. Do they still need the fig leaf of being vaguely based on actual data?
Actually yes – then the only real data would be from satellites, and that data is ‘wrong’.
Gary Hladik (17:51:41) :Heck, you could get equally useful numbers from a single crystal ball…or a coin.
Henceforth, ALL global temperatures will be determined by the CRUde Hansen-Mann AlGorithm based on the most accurate temperature proxy known – Mauna Loa CO2 readings. And that is “settled”.
/sarc
u.k.(us) (16:54:56) :
“the collapse of a house of cards, is sudden.
one can hope.”
___________________________
Unfortunately the house of cards we’re speaking of is a huge single entity. For want of a better name, let’s call it “The Western World” or “The Second Roman Empire”. When character, integrity, and honor play no function in a civilization, the civilization has no future. Time to buy a pair of mules (or a team of oxan) and a wagon? Or maybe a miracle? Yes, let’s pray for a miracle. Hark! Are those the barbarians at the door?
I imagine the RC will have a detailed technical refutation of this by tomorrow. Something like:
This report is from a non-peer reviewed source with known connections to the fossil fuel industry. Further, the lead author is known to be a sniveling little rat faced git. This is the kind of analysis we’ve come to expect from the blinkard, phillistine pig-ignorance types who produce this noncreative garbage. They sit there on their loathsome, spotty behinds, sqeezing blackheads, and not caring a tinkers cuss for the peer review process, what excrement! What whining hypocritical toadies they are, with their Tony Jacklin golf culbs and their bleeding denialist handshakes. You don’t frighten us, you oily non-climate scientist! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called skeptics, you and all your silly Exxon/Mobile funded shills. I fart in your general direction.
Or something like that.
PaulT above is absolutely right. Correct this: “Though the population of the world has increased from 1.5 to 6.7 million people and dozens of peer review papers have established”… immediately! (billions, not millions)
“NASA manipulated data”
Maybe, but they have a history of peer pressure and manipulation from example below right through the solid rocket (Thiokol) booster tragedy and on into this current Hansen mess.
Thomas Gold:
At the time, scientists were engaged in a heated debate over the physical properties of the moon’s surface. In 1955, he predicted that the Moon was covered by a layer of fine rock powder stemming from “the ceaseless bombardment of its surface by Solar System debris”. This led to the dust being jokingly referred to as “Gold’s dust”.
In any case, NASA sent an unmanned Surveyor to analyze the conditions on the surface of the Moon. Gold was ridiculed by fellow scientists, not only for his hypothesis, but for the approach he took in communicating NASA’s concerns to the American public; in particular, some experts were infuriated with his usage of the term “moon dust” in reference to lunar surface. When the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon in 1969 and brought back the first samples of lunar rocks, researchers found that lunar soil was in fact powdery. Gold said the findings were consistent with his hypothesis, noting that “in one area as they walked along, they sank in between five and eight inches”. However, Gold received little credit for his correct prediction, and was even criticized for his original prediction of a deep layer of lunar dust.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Gold was a vocal critic of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, deriding claims that the agency could fly 50 missions a year or that it could have low budget costs. NASA officials warned Gold that if he testified his concerns before Congress, his research proposals would lose their support from NASA. Gold ignored the warning and testified before a Congressional committee headed by Senator Walter Mondale. In a letter to NASA administrator James C. Fletcher, George Low wrote that “Gold should realize that being funded by the Government and NASA is a privilege, and that it would make little sense for us to fund him as long as his views are what they are now”
The last sentence (emphasis added) says it all…
Joe D’Aleo is relentless. Give ’em hell, Joe!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
royfomr (17:37:21) :
Dr. Bob (17:25:02) :
I’m never sure where I stand.
Sometimes I am on the “well, maybe CO2 contributed a very very tiny percentage to the most recent warming period of 1975-1998″, and the other half of the time I think “the temperature record is so worthless that I’m not even sure if we’re warmer than the earlier part of the century.”
Ditto.
==========
Same here.
I wish these expletives would come shovel the record high temps and global warming off my walk and driveway.
Pascvaks (18:21:09) :
u.k.(us) (16:54:56) :
“the collapse of a house of cards, is sudden.
one can hope.”
___________________________
Unfortunately the house of cards we’re speaking of is a huge single entity. For want of a better name, let’s call it “The Western World” or “The Second Roman Empire”. When character, integrity, and honor play no function in a civilization, the civilization has no future. Time to buy a pair of mules (or a team of oxan) and a wagon? Or maybe a miracle? Yes, let’s pray for a miracle. Hark! Are those the barbarians at the door?
============
yes it is, they want to come in out of the cold. shall we let them ? they keep talking about some travesty??
i agree with your premise.
Brian Madeley, re UTC time for the 9 p.m. PST Jan 14th showing: it is 05:00 hours, on January 15th.
see this link for the conversion to :
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/zones.html
how many hours since this story broke? about 11 hours.
do a google ‘news’ search and u get precisely ONE link and that is to delingpole’s BLOG in the UK Tele:
Dodgy GISS temperature records exposed: the US Climategate?
Telegraph.co.uk (blog) – James Delingpole – 3 hours ago
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100022334/dodgy-giss-temperature-records-exposed-the-us-climategate/
the AGW cabal has nothing on the “MAINSTREAM MEDIA” cabal.
who would have thought NASA AGW ‘workings’ could be legally brought to light, hot on the heels of climategate, and the media would simply ignore it?
If NASA can be convincingly shown to have manipulated data…
It opens a new chapter in Climategate.
From the PDF linked to at the end of the article (atop this page) comes a Latin tag I was unfamiliar with:
Well-done (again) Mike! Maybe some others will get busy and try this – a little above my tech savy.