NASA quietly revises temperature data

[mustang84]

Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.

Then again, you might not. They're not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The "hottest year on record" is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it.

And yet we survived.

So why is 1998 no longer America's record-breaker? Because a very diligent fellow named Steve McIntyre of climateaudit.com labored long and hard to prove there was a bug in NASA's handling of the raw data. He then notified the scientists responsible and received an acknowledgment that the mistake was an "oversight" that would be corrected in the next "data refresh." The reply was almost as cool as the revised chart listings.

Who is this man who understands American climate data so much better than NASA? Well, he's not even American: He's Canadian. Just another immigrant doing the jobs Americans won't do, even when they're federal public servants with unlimited budgets? No. Mr. McIntyre lives in Toronto. But the data smelled wrong to him, he found the error, and NASA has now corrected its findings – albeit without the fanfare that accompanied the hottest-year-on-record hysteria of almost a decade ago. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but, when it comes to global warming, the experts prefer to stick the thermometer where the sun don't shine.

One is tempted to explain the error with old the computer expert's cry: That's not a bug, it's a feature. To maintain public hysteria, it's necessary for the warm-mongers to be able to demonstrate that something is happening now. Or as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put it at the end of 1998:

"It's December, and you're still mowing the lawn. You can't put up the Christmas lights because you're afraid the sweat pouring off your face will short out the connections. Your honeysuckle vines are blooming. Mosquitoes are hovering at your back door.

"Hot enough for you?"

It's not the same if you replace "Hot enough for you?" with "Yes, it's time to relive sepia-hued memories from grandpa's Dust Bowl childhood."

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opini...cle_1804986.php

And slowly, the premature global warming hysteria is starting to unravel. Like I said a while ago, we'll look back on global warming hysteria by Gore & Co. as one of the great scams of this era.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the US global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

http://www.kxmc.com/News/Nation/151418.asp Edited August 13, 2007 by mustang84

[deftonesfan867]

Thanks for the post. Love it when people help get myths dispelled.

[ocnblu]

That's hot.

[mustang84]

The thing that annoys me about global warming fanatics, Gore & Co., the Sierra Club, etc. (plus the quarter of my studio that are now eco-nuts) is that the whole thing is based on grabbing people's emotions rather than relying on historical evidence, data trends, and logic. PETA pushes "methane warming" to claim that raising livestock is harming the planet so they can push the vegetarian agenda. The Sierra Club pushes global warming because they don't like SUVs and trucks rolling through national parks and wildlife preserves. Discovery Channel puts on TV spots showing East Coast cities flooding, massive hurricanes wiping out Miami, and tornadoes wreaking havoc in the Midwest. These people all conveniently ignore the devastation to agriculture during the Dust Bowl, the higher average temperatures during ancient Rome, the Little Ice Age, and a number of other different climate cycles our planet has gone through since humans have been observing the weather. What happened to the 1960s when these same people were predicting we were entering an ice age?

[Snate]

Last time I checked global warming wasn't a myth..it was a fact. The only thing in question is if human activity is cause of the increase or if it is a natural weather cycle.

[FAPTurbo]

[Cory Wolfe]

Al Gore and all the enviro-weinies ->

[CARBIZ]

Every decade has to have a fad, and I guess the first decade of the 21st Century is going to be remembered for the Carbon Caper.

[loki]

whether it's happening or not, reducing 'tricity usage and gas usage is good for your pocket book, and the world. /soapbox

ok. so it moves from 1st to second....unless more years have to be altered(lowered) it's only a scratch in the media's armour (haha, European spelling) of the global warming craze. it's just sad, I get this "the world is supposed to be static" idea from global warming/climate change stuff and obviously it can be. A year of every day averages and rainfall/month will never happen (outside of startrek enabled tech).

[pow]

Like everyone here, I'm no scientist, but based on reason and logic alone, I think it's rather odd to believe that pouring tons of gases into the atmosphere - those that wouldn't have been there without us - will have no side effects on us whatsoever. And while there may be debate over the actual "tipping point" of irreversibility (most scientists say 500 ppm CO2), rather than speaking in absolutes, how about a simple philosophy of minimizing energy waste whenever possible? Just because we have new conflicting tidbits of information isn't cause for several smoky burnouts.

[mustang84]

Like everyone here, I'm no scientist, but based on reason and logic alone, I think it's rather odd to believe that pouring tons of gases into the atmosphere - those that wouldn't have been there without us - will have no side effects on us whatsoever. And while there may be debate over the actual "tipping point" of irreversibility (most scientists say 500 ppm CO2), rather than speaking in absolutes, how about a simple philosophy of minimizing energy waste whenever possible? Just because we have new conflicting tidbits of information isn't cause for several smoky burnouts.

Oh, I totally agree with you empowah...I think we should continue to investigate ways to conserve resources and minimize our effect on the environment.

I'm against the ones who profit from and/or sway political policy and public opinion all in the name of achieving personal desires, especially playing on fear. Al Gore is a slimeball and no better than the ones he ostracizes; he seems to be doing pretty well for himself if he can pay $30,000 utility bills. I'm still trying to figure out what his agenda is...maybe he just wants the spotlight that he could never get as vice president.

The ones with the loudest voices tend to be the ones that don't practice what they preach. Anything that exposes these guys as the scam artists and fear mongers they are, the better off the rest of us will be.

Edited August 13, 2007 by mustang84

[ZL-1]

1934? That means the Great Depression is responsible for global warming

[NOS2006]

Whew, and I was just going to trade in my Cobalt for a Prius. I still might; rather be safe than sorry!

[CARBIZ]

Like everyone here, I'm no scientist, but based on reason and logic alone, I think it's rather odd to believe that pouring tons of gases into the atmosphere - those that wouldn't have been there without us - will have no side effects on us whatsoever. And while there may be debate over the actual "tipping point" of irreversibility (most scientists say 500 ppm CO2), rather than speaking in absolutes, how about a simple philosophy of minimizing energy waste whenever possible? Just because we have new conflicting tidbits of information isn't cause for several smoky burnouts.

Right you are, Empowah. I remember when I was a kid, my mother walking me to school and I was teetering on snow banks so high that I was looking down on her: that was Mimico (west downtown Toronto) on the mid-1960s. We owned a snowmobile in Bolton in the mid-1970s (about 20 minutes north of Toronto). Now, downtown Toronto rarely gets more than a few inches of snow, and most winters there is poor snowmobiling within an hour or two of Toronto. (I am starting to sound like my grandfather: "When I was a kid...........)

However, since carbon is the new whipping boy, I am tired of being lectured to by all the usual do-gooders about how we in the West are raping the environment, using up all the resources, etc. while everyone conveniently ignores the fact that there are 2 1/2 billion Chinese and Indians, whose combined breathing and farting is doing more to damage this planet than we are in North America.

Until they zip up their pants and stop breeding, what we do over here isn't going to matter a hill of beans.

[mustang84]

Here's a video called "The Global Warming Swindle"....it's a great watch if you have 74 minutes free.

If you don't have that much time, watch from 33:40 - 45:00.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3028847519933351566

[regfootball]

the more money the global warming freaks get, the less NASA gets.

change the data and maybe keep your funding.

activists and envorwhackos and other liberalish nerds are often unhappy with themselves so they seek to complete their lives by picking an emotional cause and then belittling others who don't agree. then they use social and media means to constantly pound away. they feel better about themselves and never need to resort to fact in that process.

its easier to win that than say, arming yourself and going overseas to fight a war. but they think they are doing the same thing.

Edited August 15, 2007 by regfootball