Earlier this month, another announcement was made regarding the measurement of temperatures in the U.S. which are often the basis for many claims made by advocates of man-induced global warming.
Well it turns out that the data may have been off, due to faulty algorithms (No pun intended) used to analyze the data.
Here is a Link to an article which explains the recent lowering of the official U.S. temperature data. A short excerpt from the article is pasted here:
McIntyre suspected that one of these adjustments had a bug, and had had this bug for years. Unfortunately, it was hard to prove. Why? Well, that highlights one of the great travesties of climate science. Government scientists using taxpayer money (underling added) to develop the GISS temperature data base at taxpayer expense refuse to publicly release their temperature adjustment algorithms or software (In much the same way Michael Mann refused to release the details for scrutiny of his methodology behind the hockey stick). Using the data, though, McIntyre made a compelling case that the GISS data base had systematic discontinuities that bore all the hallmarks of a software bug.
Today, the GISS admitted that McIntyre was correct, and has started to republish its data with the bug fixed. And the numbers are changing a lot. Before today, GISS would have said 1998 was the hottest year on record (Mann, remember, said with up to 99% certainty it was the hottest year in 1000 years) and that 2006 was the second hottest. Well, no more. Here are the new rankings for the 10 hottest years in the US, starting with #1:
1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939
Another Link to a Blog Post entitled, “Some Final Thoughts pm the NASA Temperature Restatements” includes a good analysis of the significance of recent findings.
Another analysis on this issue, by Edmond Contoski, is also Linked Here.
I suspect that scientists will discover more errors in the assumptions being made by many advocates of anthropogenic global warming theory. James Hansen has been one of the scientists advocating the current global warming theory, and advising the IPCC.
Newsweek portrays James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, as untainted by corporate bribery.
Hansen was once profiled on CBS’ “60 Minutes” as the “world’s leading researcher on global warming.” Not mentioned by Newsweek was that Hansen had acted as a consultant to Al Gore’s slide-show presentations on global warming, that he had endorsed John Kerry for president, and had received a $250,000 grant from the foundation headed by Teresa Heinz Kerry.
I mention this because some people have suggested that think tank scientists and advocates who get funding from Exxon are somehow “tainted” or biased in their opinions.
A scientist friend of mine told me that James Hansen is aware of his errors, but doesn’t know how to reverse his position publicly, given everything that is on the line. Time will tell. However, I am grateful for skeptical scientists, who continue to challenge “consensus” theory.
I am a regular reader of your article. And I am very impress with your blog upon Global Warming. Now I am also write a blog upon effects and causes of Global Warming. This blog is collection of news & reviews like the study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays. Some researchers had also suggested that the latter might influence global warming because the rays trigger cloud formation.
Tom, it seems the blog you cite is cherry-picking from the graph. Yes, there may have been an adjustment, but look at the trends:
From 1985-2006, the five-year average mean has a high trend, with *no negative numbers*: this sort of trend, with five-year average means that high, is absolutely missing from any other point in the chart. Elsewhere in the chart, there’s always a faster trend toward dipping back into negative numbers or annual average means. There’s no denying this. As such, it still proves a warming trend.
GISS still claims, from other data than these clear US heating trends, that there is a global danger:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070530/
And the fact that Gore consulted Hansen doesn’t confirm that Hansen is right. It might just mean that Gore was more unbiased, objective and inclusive — far more than Exxon in its choice of advisor-experts.
Tom, here’s another view about the gleeful antics of some conservative blogs regarding the error, and how these bloggers fail to see the forest for the trees:
………….
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38919
CLIMATE CHANGE: Deniers Jump on NASA Gaff, While Greenland on Verge of Meltdown
- By Stephen Leahy
TORONTO, Aug 16 (IPS) - Scientists warn that climate change tipping points are imminent, and will lead to potentially catastrophic events like a seven-metre sea level rise. Meanwhile, conservatives in the North American media are focusing on a NASA admission of a climate calculation error.
………….
Again, Tom, those 5-year averages on the same, corrected list (about which the conservativs are so gleeful in pointing out the error) still show that, even in the US, even if the hottest year was in the ’30’s, the hottest run of high 5-year averages is still in recent decades. The trend is clear.
Why is pointing out the error more important than recognizing the real warming trend, even in the corrected graph?
If someone had warned that terrorists would attack on September 10, 2001, would it be more important to rejoice in the date-error of the political opposition, or to heed the seriousness of the warning in spite of the error?