1934 is now shown to be the warmest year -- at the height of the Great Depression, i.e. right in the middle of a time when the industrial and economic slowdown that the Greenies preach had in fact happened. The corrected data now show that there was NO overall temperature trend during the 20th century! Will that bother the Greenies? Unlikely. You cannot fight a religion with facts. Post below lifted from Daily Tech. See the original for links. See also Bill Hobbs. Note that there is A MEDIA BLACKOUT on this story with the exception of one mention on Fox News. You basically have to be a reader of blogs to know of it
My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.
These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data. McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.
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. Then again-- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.
Note from one of the bloggers at "Climate Audit" (John A [climateaudit@gmail.com]) -- where the error was first reported: "CA has been knocked off the internet by a DDOS attack. We are going to move the CA domain to a temporary page while I move the CA files and databases to a new server behind a much better firewall. Its obvious that someone can't take constructive criticism. We should be back in a few days"
A desperate attempt to keep the myth alive for two more years
Greenie scientists know from the solar data that it is really cooling that we face so they are now trying to set us up to ignore cooling events
SCIENTISTS predict temperatures will plateau [They have ALREADY plateaued --- since 1998] before climbing again to a succession of record-breaking highs, in the most detailed forecast of global warming's effects. Powerful computer simulations used to create the first global warming forecast suggests temperature rises will stall in the next two years, before rising sharply at the end of the decade. From 2010, they warn, every year has at least a 50 per cent chance of exceeding the record year of 1998 when average global temperatures reached 14.54 degrees.
The forecast, from researchers at Britain's Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter, south-western England, shows that natural shifts in climate will cancel out warming produced by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity until 2009, but from then temperatures will rise steadily. Temperatures are set to rise over the 10 years by 0.3 degrees. Beyond 2014, the chance of breaking the temperature record is even greater.
The forecast of a brief slump in global warming has been seized upon by climate change sceptics as evidence that the world is not heating. Climate scientists say the new high-precision forecast predicts temperatures will stall because of natural climate effects that have caused the Southern Ocean and tropical Pacific to cool over the past couple of years.
The forecast marks a shift in thinking by climate change researchers. Instead of using their models to look many decades ahead, they will focus on the very near future. [How wise!] The hope is that forecasts will be more useful to emergency planners in governments and companies by warning of droughts and other extreme conditions a year or two ahead. Previously, the models have been used to show that global temperatures may rise 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
"If you look ahead on a 50- to 100-year time frame, then global warming is the big thing for the climate," Doug Smith, a climate scientist at the Hadley Centre, said. "But if you're working on a project that is only designed to last for the next few years, that information doesn't make much difference to you." A team led by Dr Smith set computers working on the forecast after plugging in temperature measurements taken from the world's oceans and atmosphere. The team then checked the accuracy of the forecasts by getting it to predict climate change throughout the 1980s and 1990s - making "hindcasts".
Existing global climate computer models tend to underestimate the effects of natural forces on climate change, so for this analysis Met Office experts tweaked their model to better reflect the impact of weather systems such as El Nino and La Nina, or fluctuations in ocean heat and circulation.
So far, only forecasts of temperature changes have been released in the journal Science, but the models also calculate changes in rainfall, drought risk and other aspects of climate change that affect flood defences and other vital responses to global warming. "The people who can use long-term climate information are few and far between," Chris West, the director of the British climate impacts program at Oxford University, said. "It's fine if you're building a skyscraper or something else that's going to be in place for 100 years, but for most people it doesn't matter much. It's much more critical to know what is going to happen in the next year or two, and that is something climate scientists have always struggled with."
Source
From error to fraud: Centrally important research on urban heat islands was fabricated
Post below lifted from Doug Keenan. See the original for links and references
Wei-Chyung Wang is a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has been doing research on climate for over 30 years, and he has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has also received an Appreciation Plaque from the Office of Science in the U.S.A., commending him, "For your insightful counsel and excellent science. .". Yet there is conclusive evidence that some important claims that Wang has made in some of his published work on global warming were fabrications.
I have written a Report on those claims, which details evidence that the claims were fabricated. The report was submitted to the University at Albany on 03 August 2007. Below are additional notes.
1. The term "fabrication" is formally defined by the U.S. government to mean making up data or results and recording or reporting them. Fabrication is one of the three officially-defined types of scientific misconduct (the other two being plagiarism and falsification).
2. The cited publications of Wang concern an issue with measurements of global temperature. As a simple example of the issue, consider a thermometer in the middle of a large grassy field. Suppose that there was a city nearby, and over time, the city expanded to replace the field with asphalt and buildings. Then the temperatures recorded by the thermometer would be higher, because asphalt and buildings give off extra heat.
This issue has been a concern in global warming studies, because many thermometers used by weather stations are in areas that have undergone increased urbanization. Such thermometers might show that temperatures were going up, even if the global climate was unchanging. It is widely accepted that some of the increase in measured temperatures during the past century is due to many of the weather stations being located in areas where urbanization has increased. The question is this: how much of perceived global warming is due to such urbanization effects?
3. The latest (2007) assessment report by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) concludes that such urbanization effects are insignificant overall. One of the main studies cited by the report to justify that conclusion substantially relies on the claims that Wang fabricated-indeed, Wang is a co-author of the study.
The study is authored by Jones et al. (see the reference below). It treats not only China (where Wang was responsible for supplying the data), but also Russia and Australia (where Wang had no responsibility). The regions of Russia and Australia are not considered here, but there is some evidence that they too are problematic.
The study of Jones et al. is not the sole study relied upon by the IPCC report for its conclusion about the insignificance of the urbanization effects. Hence even if the study was wholly invalidated, this would not imply that the conclusion was unsupported. On the other hand, one of the other main studies, by David E. Parker at the Hadley Centre in the U.K., has since been strongly criticized, both in the peer-reviewed literature and on scholarly blogs. None of this means that the conclusion of the IPCC is incorrect. It does suggest, though, that a re-evaluation of the evidence would be appropriate.
4. The lead author of Jones et al. is Phil D. Jones. Jones is one of the foremost global warming researchers in the world; he is also one of the two Coordinating Lead Authors of the chapter in the IPCC report subtitled "surface and atmospheric climate change" (here "surface" refers to the surface of the Earth, i.e. where people live). This might be considered the most important chapter of the IPCC report. It is also the chapter that cites the study of Jones et al.
How much did Jones know about Wang's fabrications? As discussed in my Report on Wang's claims, it appears very likely that Jones knew nothing at the time (1990). In 2001, however, Jones co-authored a study, by Yan et al., which considered two meteorological stations in China (at Beijing and at Shanghai). This study correctly describes how the stations had undergone relocations, and it concludes that those relocations substantially affected the measured temperatures-in direct contradiction to the claims of Wang. Thus, by 2001, Jones must have known that the claims of Wang were not wholly true.
On 19 June 2007, I e-mailed Jones about this, saying "this proves that you knew there were serious problems with Wang's claims back in 2001; yet some of your work since then has continued to rely on those claims, most notably in the latest report from the IPCC". I politely requested an explanation. I have not received a reply.
5. The fabrications of Wang were only discovered after the data for Jones et al. was made available, in April 2007. For years previously, several people, most prominently Warwick Hughes and Stephen McIntyre, had attempted to obtain this, and other, data from Jones. Jones had refused almost every request. Indeed, in response to requests for data about his work on global temperatures, Jones replied, "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?".
Jones is a professor at a public university in the U.K. (the University of East Anglia). In early 2007, McIntyre and I separately filed formal requests for the data under the U.K. Freedom of Information Act. The university initially refused to release the data. I then drafted a letter to the U.K. Information Commissioner's Office, alleging that the university was in violation of statute, and sent the draft to the university, asking them to let me know if they believed the letter to be inaccurate. Only then was the data was released. It is worth noting that obtaining the data was only possible because Jones is in the U.K. In the U.S.A., where Wang is resident, data for publically-funded research does not have to be disclosed.
6. Although the claims of Wang were fabricated, this does not necessarily mean that the conclusion reached by Jones et al. for China is incorrect. It might be that the conclusion is correct, and there is other, valid, evidence to support that. Since the publication of Jones et al. (1990), there have been several studies on the effects of urbanization on temperature measurements in China. The most recent study, in 2007, is by GuoYu Ren and colleagues at the Laboratory for Climate Studies in China. This study concludes that a large part of the warming that has been measured in China is due to the effects of urbanization on measurement. (The study is also supported by the analysis of He et al. (2007) for the years 1991-2000.)
Hence the conclusion of Jones et al. does seem to be incorrect. Even if the new study had concluded the same as Jones et al., though, the central issue here-lack of research integrity-would remain valid.
7. A draft of my Report was sent to Wang, who replied as follows.
The only valid scientific issue described in your June 11, 2007 e-mailed pdf file . concerning our 1990 GRL paper is the "station histories", while others are strictly your own opinions and therefore irrelevant to your inquiry. So let me elaborate further on this issue.
Digitization of the hard copies of "station histories" was prepared in 1989-90 by Ms. Zhao-Mei Zeng (IAP/CAS) only for the 60-station network, while the "station histories" of other stations, including those we used in 1990 urban warming study, were available in paper form, as I have already indicated in my 4/30/07 e-mail to you. Therefore, the use of the word "fabrication" in your document is totally absurd.
Concerning the current status of these hard copies of "station histories", Ms. Zeng told me when I was in Beijing in April 2007, that she no longer has the access to these information because it has been a long time (since 1990) and also IAP has moved office. .
The reply is contradicted by the DOE/CAS report (Tao et al.), which gives "the most comprehensive, long-term instrumental Chinese climate data presently available". Moreover, Zeng is a co-author of the DOE/CAS report. Further information is adduced in my Report on Wang's claims.
The conclusions are clear. First, there has been a marked lack of integrity in some important work on global warming that is relied upon by the IPCC. Second, the insignificance of urbanization effects on temperature measurements has not been established as reliably as the IPCC assessment report assumes.
SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUSLESSNESS
Writing in New Scientist this week, James Hansen tells us that the scientific community (you know, those 'thousands' of specialised scientists at the IPCC) are wrong, and have massively underestimated the extent of polar ice melting as a consequence of anthropogenic global warming. "I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?"
Apparently he is. And the reason? All the other scientists are being too cautious. "I believe there is pressure on scientists to be conservative. Caveats are essential to science. They are born in scepticism, and scepticism is at the heart of the scientific method and discovery. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, excessive caution also holds dangers. "Scientific reticence" can hinder communication with the public about the dangers of global warming. We may rue reticence if it means no action is taken until it is too late to prevent future disasters."
Scientists, in other words, should adhere to the scientific method except when it's politically inconvenient. (And only, presumably, when it's Hansen's politics that are inconvenienced.)
Most scientists who go against 'the consensus' get labelled as mavericks, sceptics or denialists. New Scientist covers their work only to show it up as scientifically flawed, politically motivated, the result of industry-funded misinformation and bad moral fibre, just as they did when they reported on Willie Soon's paper challenging received wisdom that climate change is imperiling polar bears. Or just as Michael Le Page did in May this year when he wrote: "Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil."
Hansen, however, gets a 3000-word feature all to himself. Even though it doesn't take much digging around to find that Hansen himself has more than his fair share of dodgy financial interests. The consensus, it seems, may only be challenged from one direction.
Source
THE HYPOCRISY OF CELEBRITY ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Eric Alterman, a liberal journalist friendly with the Davids, has worried in print about the hypocrisy of Hollywood environmentalists. "The response," he writes, "has been not so much explanation or excuse as a plea for indulgence -- as if one were, after all, dealing with children."
This seems to be Larry David's own assessment of his domestic situation. Larry David contributed a comic introduction to his wife's 2006 book, Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You. "Thirteen years ago, I met a materialistic, narcissistic, superficial, bosomy woman from Long Island. She was the girl of my dreams ? Finally, I had met someone as shallow as me ? But then, after a few months, I began to sense that something had changed ? She was growing?I, Larry David, the shallowest man in the world, had married an environmentalist."
But is it really true that environmentalism precludes materialism, narcissism and superficiality? If environmentalism is to Democratic America what religious morality is to Republican states, there is at least one Laurie David for every Ted Haggard. The gossip site TMZ in October, 2006, compiled a short tally sheet: George Clooney drives an electric car that gets 135 miles to the gallon -- and then hopped on a private jet to Tokyo, burning enough fuel in one flight to power his car back and forth across the Pacific 57 times. Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt: same story.
But maybe Larry David put it best. Asked by reporters for reaction to the divorce, he answered, "I went home and turned all the lights on."
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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film but it is in fact an absolute gift to climate atheists. What the paper says was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 for more detail on the Lockwood paper
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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