IPCC Must Go!. Part 2-Global Temperature Manipulation

There are many examples of manipulation of temperature data.   In this posting,  I will give you a number of recent examples.   Lets begin by discussing the scientists and their organizations that have been manipulating the data.

Fabulists—scientists who are willing to alter data to serve their cause.

The predicate of AWG is unprecedented global warming; meaning the recent warming is greater than the historic rate of natural warming since the last glacial period.  This “observed” deviation from natural warming is assigned to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. CO2 is chosen because they say there is no change in any other forcing agent, QED it must be CO2.   The observations come principally from land-based temperature monitoring stations around the world.  The data from these stations are collected, and massaged into a value that shows how much the global temperature has changed from some arbitrary standard.  The amount of the change is called an anomaly.   (The infamous Hockey Stick temperature graph was a work of the group of people that supply the anomalies.)

It has long been know that the temperature anomalies put together by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in England, and by the two United States suppliers, Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and National Climate Data Center (NCDC) have been massaged to the point that they could be considered unrecognizable.  But their allies in the mainstream media never showed the public these analyses.  Fortunately, the skeptics have gained some traction and the word is getting out.

In the following,  there is a reference to the  Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE).  We all know that as population increases, the immediate area experiences higher temperatures from the higher level of activities and the effect of many heat-absorbing objects in the city.   A point of fact is that more than half the population of the world lives in cities that cover about 3% of the land surface.   Thus most of the rest of the 97% does not experience the heat caused by large populations.  And when you consider that only 30% of the Earth surface is land, the rest being water, the 3% is about 1% of the total global area.  How much weight do you think you should you give it when matching it with the rest of the temperature data.

Dr. Long’s has a posting that allows you to  see how NCDC manages this relationship. Lets look at his  recent analysis:

CONTIGUOUS U. S. TEMPERATURE TRENDS USING NCDC RAW AND ADJUSTED DATA FOR ONE-PER-STATE RURAL AND URBAN STATION SETS

by Edward R. Long, Ph.D

Long introduces the topic by saying:

“The Goddard Institute for Space science (GISS), the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and centers processing satellite data, such as the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH), have published temperature and rate of temperature change for the Contiguous United States, or ‘Lower 48’.  (I know some of you are wondering what happened to the rest of the 57 states.)

Both GISS and NCDC have been criticized for their station selections and the protocols they use for adjusting raw data, (Ref 3 – 5). GISS, over a 10-year period has modified their data by progressively lowering temperature values for far-back dates and raising those in the more recent past (Ref 3). These changes have caused their 2000 reporting of a 0.35 oC/century in 2000 to increase to 0.44 oC/century in 2009, a 26-percent increase. NCDC’s protocols for adjusting raw data for missing dates, use of urban locations, relocations, etc. has led to an increase in the rate of temperature change for the Contiguous U. S., for the period from 1940 to 2007, from a 0.1 oC/century for the raw data to a 0.6 oC/century, for the adjusted data (Ref 4). {emphasis added by Cbdakota} Whether or not these changes are intentional, or the consequence of a questionable protocol, has been and continues to be, discussed. This paper does not intend to add to the speculation of which but rather to determine the rate of change for the Contiguous U.S. from the two NCDC data sets, raw and adjusted, from meteorological stations, based on a rural and an urban stations locations, and comment on the result.”

In Long’s posting on the AmericanThinkerBlog  he said the following about his methodology and results:

“We selected two sets of meteorological stations (48 each, with one station per each of the lower 48 states) from the NCDC master list. The stations in one set were at rural locations — a rural set. The stations in the other set were at urban locations — an urban set. The NCDC latitude and longitude station coordinates were used to “fly over” the locations on a computer, using a GPS map application to confirm the rural and urban characteristics. For each of the 96 stations, the NCDC’s raw and adjusted temperature data were entered into a spreadsheet application and studied. The “raw” data are the annual average temperatures of the measured data. The “adjusted” data are the annual average temperatures the NCDC derived from the raw data by making a set of “corrective” assumptions for time of day, type of instrument, etc. and guessing the temperature at stations for missing data based on temperatures of other stations at the same latitude and/or region. For a more in-depth understanding of the NCDC protocols for converting raw data to adjusted data, click here. A summary of the findings is in the following table.  The values in the table show that the NCDC’s rate of increase of temperature, 0.69^oC/century, is based on an over-selection of stations with urban locations.

The values in the table highlight four important considerations:

1) The rate of increase for rural locations, based on as-measured (raw) values, is small (if not, in effect, zero) at 0.11 ^oC/century.

2) There is definitely a UHIE in that the urban raw data has a rate of increase of 0.72^oC/century. This tells us that man has caused warming in urban locations. This finding should not surprise anyone. On the other hand, because the rural value is 15% of the urban value, the UHIE has not caused warming in the rural locations, and it certainly has not caused a global sense of warming other than the aspect that the urban location values when averaged with the rural values produce an average increase which is larger than that of the rural alone.

3) The rural + urban value for the adjusted data, 0.65^oC/century, is still less than the 0.69^oC/century published by the NCDC. Thus, likely, there are more urban than rural sites used by the NCDC.

4) And this is the “Temperaturegate” aspect: The NCDC’s massaging — they call it “adjusting” — has resulted in an increase in the rural values, from a raw value of 0.11^oC/century to an adjusted value of 0.58^oC/century, and no change in the urban values. That is, the NCDC’s treatment has forced the rural value to look more like that of the urban. This is the exact opposite of any rational consideration, given the growth of the sizes of and activities within urban locations, unless deception is the goal.”

So Dr Long shows us that the vast 99 % of the global is adjusted upward to more nearly match the UHIE in the 1%.   So when you read that the globe is experiencing an unprecedented rise in global temperature,  can you believe it?

Dr Long’s full posting can be read here.

Lets look at other examples of manipulation:

SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECORDS: POLICY DRIVEN DECEPTION. See here

“RUSSIANS ACCUSE HADLEY CENTRE OF FALSIFYING RUSSIAN TEMPERATURES.  This posting can be seen here.

TOO HOT TO HANDLE.   This posting can be seen here.

CRITEM 3 ERROR GETTING ATTENTION BY MET OFFICE.  Click here.

BRITAIN’S WEATHER OFFICE PROPOSE CLIMATEGATE DO-OVER. Click here.

TIME TO TURN UP THE HEAT ON THE WARMISTS.  See here.

WHY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS ARE HURTING THEIR CAUSE.  See here.

THE HERETICS: MCINTYRE AND MCKITRICK  See here.

FUDGED FEVERS IN THE FROZEN NORTH.  See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/21/fudged-fevers-in-the-frozen-north/

CONCENSUS OR CON.  See here.

THE DISAPPEARENCE SCIENCE  OF GLOBAL WARMING. See here.

WHY THE EPA IS WRONG ABOUT RECENT WARMING. See here.

Climategate 2.0 The NASA  Files.  See here

CLIMATEGATER JONES’S STUNNING GLOBAL WARMING ADMISSIONS IGNORED.  See here

CLIMATEGATE: PHIL JONES HAS MORE REFLECTING TO DO.  See here

CLIMATEGATE’S PHIL JONES CONFESSES OT CLIMATE FRAUD. See http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/climategates_phil_jones_confes.html.

WORLD MAY NOT BE WARMING, SCIENTISTS SAY.  SEE HERE

WHY THE EPA IS WRONG ABOUT RECENT WARMING.  SEE HERE

CLIMATEGATE”CRU WAS BUT THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.  See here.