What sort of error? How big? Here's what happened. This is from Wired.com:Thought 1998 was the warmest year on record in the United States? That's what Al Gore acolytes have been telling us.
Nope. It was 1934, according to newly revised figures from NASA, released quietly. The error is embarrassing
Ah, well that changes things, doesn't it? They sum it up this way:The data involved temperature measurements made at weather stations in the United States. Back in 2001, scientists the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration realized that some data was being skewed by stations making recordings at different times of day, or being located in once-rural areas that have become heavily urban, causing local temperatures to rise.
They published the a formula to account for the discrepancies. Generally, this lowered the average temperatures recorded. However, NASA's weather-crunching programs weren't updated. As a result, subsequent NASA temperature recordings were incorrectly high, and some earlier data needed revision downwards.
How big was the mistake? About .15 degrees celsius, or .3 degrees fahrenheit.
Now, this isn't a huge number, but it's enough to make a difference -- if, that is, the mistake applied to the whole planet. But the mistake involved only the United States, which covers but a small fraction of the globe. [emphasis added]
Again, the corrections were for data in the US only, not globally. Something the otherwise erudite editorialists working for Dickiecougarmellonscaife utterly failed to inform its readers.We don't have the science to predict accurately what the climate will be in 50 or 100 years. Now we find out that NASA didn't get the previous temperature averages right.
In comparison to making climate forecasts, that ought to have been pretty simple.
Here's NASA's graph of the data. See that little green line? That's the correction.
Notice anything? Like the general upward trend from, say, 1910 on? Granted, things reversed themselves from the mid-40s to the mid-60s, but look at what happens after.
Yea, there's doubt about that the temperature's rising.
10 comments:
I blogged about this a few days ago. The news was posted to a wiki-like news site. I was doing the research for my PodCamp presentation about copyleft news.
A blogger broke the news.
NASA had to eat its data. Chomp, chomp, chomp. The agency made the corrections without fanfare.
We gave it some attention. The rest is history.
Global warming, solved.
What is next, Poverty? War on Drugs? Aging?
Aug 13:
http://rauterkus.blogspot.com/2007/08/blogger-cures-global-warming-n.html
See source article in that link.
Why are the proponents of catastrophic man-made global warming unwilling to release any of their underlying code? Like Michael Mann not releasing the code to his (give it random data and it generates a hockey stick) ‘hockey stick’ model.
McIntyre had to reserve engineer the NASA code to find the “bug”
Some Final Thoughts on The NASA Temperature Restatement
NOAA and GISS both need to release their detailed algorithms and computer software code for adjusting and aggregating USHCN and global temperature data. Period. There can be no argument. Folks at RealClimate.org who believe that all is well should be begging for this to happen to shut up the skeptics. The only possible reason for not releasing this scientific information that was created by government employees with taxpayer money is if there is something to hide.
Apparently Science magazine has been looking at the North Pole, according to Nick Kristof of the NYTimes (today). The ice there is melting faster than anyone had expected, apparently. Funny how there is a disconnect between US tempatures and the Arctic, but anyone who thinks we can keep driving behemoths, burning inefficient lights and living in McMansion's will get what they deserve. Unfortunately so will the rest of us.
Yep 1934 hottest year on record. Records only go to 1880. If this is challenged I ask for the temperature in F for say mid Iowa in 1834. Or Perhaps Northern Arizona in say 1876. History begins for the left when they turned 12 years old.
yea, that's right. The vast majority of the world's weather scientists spend nearly countless hours coming to their conclusions about global climate change and it's all undone by this sentence:
Yep 1934 hottest year on record. Records only go to 1880. If this is challenged I ask for the temperature in F for say mid Iowa in 1834. Or Perhaps Northern Arizona in say 1876. History begins for the left when they turned 12 years old.
Science begins and ends for the right at what they've already chosen to believe.
Great post, David. I thank you for it. I'm in full "get out of Dodge" mode at the minute, so I spend huge chunks of town driving as I pick up even more boxes for packing up the house. So I heared someone on talk radio use this NASA thing in much the same way as the Trib did. I knew there must be more to it than a simplistic "See! There is no global warming", but I didn't have time (or, at this point, a computer that's not in a box) to look into myself. So I thank you for doing it for me.
My only negative comment is that it's a bit unfair to taint the name my favorite Hoosier (after my aunt and cousins, of course) -- John Mellencamp -- when discussing Mr. Scaife. It's embarrasing enough that he took the record company's advice and called himself "John Cougar" for a while. But to associate his name with the Trib is just insult added to injury!
Well still did not get a temperature for Arizona or Iowa. Yet the left will tell you that this is the warmest ever. And I liked the post about closing the argument. In the words of Al Gore, there is no more discussion on this subject. The left has stated its position and that's that.
Unfortunately, there was a guy on a local radio station (you will be able to guess which one after hearing what he had to say!) early this morning trashing global warming and Al Gore. Talked about how Gore made up all of his data. Yawn.
To the braindead on the right, HE DID!
Right after he "invented" the internet.
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