NASA adjustment - still plenty hot
I've been seeing some misleading buzz in the blogoworld today, in part I think thanks to shoddy reporting by FOX.
First the bad news, global warming is still a reality we have to deal with. As you can see from the graph above (with the adjusted figures), our planet is heating up. The graph (courtesy of NASA), shows global annual mean surface air temperature change. "The dotted black line is the annual mean and the solid red line is the five-year mean." (NASA)
So what is all this fuss about 1934 being the hottest year on record? Here's what happened. Steve McIntyre sent a note to the folks at NASA about an odd 1999-2000 jump in data for North American monitoring stations. NASA looked into it, made an adjustment a few days later (and sent McIntyre a thank you email).
FOX, and others, pounced on this, saying, McIntyre "forced NASA to admit it was wrong when it said that 1998 was the hottest year on record". The FOX report goes on to say, "In fact, five of the hottest 10 years on record occurred before World War II."
What the FOX anchor somehow failed to mention is that these changes are for US data only. For the world as a whole, 2005 is still the hottest year on record, just as NASA has said all along.
See Real Climate for details and discussion. See Media Matters to watch the FOX report. McIntye's blog is here. The data in question, including a US only temperature graph, can be found on NASA's website.
Follow Greenpeace »
Comments
Talk about missing the point!
McIntyre has been trying for years to get climate scientists to release their proprietary algorithms that are used to determine adjustments in surface station data, tree ring proxies, ice core sampling, etc. with little to no luck. When they deign to reply, it's usually some form of "trust us, we know what we're doing."
Now he's found a .15 degree C error that exceeds the amount of temperature reduction (0.07 degree C) the Kyoto Protocol would achieve by 2050! AGW proponents should be screaming for a Global Climate Audit. but they're not.
I don't believe the AGW warmmongers, but if it turns out in years to come I was wrong, my conscience will be clear. Climate scientists could have opted for total transparency in their methods years ago, but for whatever reasons they prefer to keep their little secrets. The Hansen Y2K error shows I'm correct to not trust them at all.
Posted by: Chris Christner | August 13, 2007 11:14 PM
Actually, the point is that the climate is heating up and we need to do something about it. (See graph above.)
So there was a small error in the data for North America. Looking at the global data it is obvious even to a non-expert like myself that our world is heating up. And in fact the vast vast preponderance of (actual) experts agree with this view.
NASA made a small correction to its figures. Good. That's how science works. But I don't think people like McIntyre are interested in genuine scientific investigation. They put far too much effort into exaggerating the significance of things like this.
And I don't think much of your conspiracy theory that there is some sort of secrecy surrounding climate work. It sounds wako on the face of it.
Posted by: Andrew | August 14, 2007 6:30 PM