So NASA – GISS says it does not ‘fudge’ numbers

The NASA climate tweet:

“NASA does not ‘fudge’ numbers. All data requires statistical adjustments to remove bias.”

Thanks to Ole Humlum at Climate4U we can see NASA – GISS not-fudging temperatures below. They are very active at it.

This graph shows how thermometers from 1910 still need to be adjusted, even 100 years later. They need constant correction (the bottom blue line is the month of Jan 1910). Strangely, even modern thermometers need  correction too (the top red line is January 2000).

Over the eight years since 2008, the anomaly for Jan 1910 was re-estimated in many steps to be 0.7C cooler than it was thought to be back in 2008. Meanwhile the anomaly for Jan 2000 was adjusted to be 0.09C warmer between 2008 and 2016. Presumably the original raw temperatures were already adjusted prior to 2008. Who knows?

And you thought that temperature data was just a number on a page and once a calendar year was over it was finished. How naive. Turns out it’s a fluid entity traveling through the fourth dimension. Luckily NASA GISS are able to capture the way temperatures of the past are still changing today.

NCDC adjustments to temperature

Diagram showing the adjustment made since May 2008 by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in anomaly values for  the months January 1910 and January 2000. See also this diagram. Last diagram update 16 April 2016.

Climate4U notes that the historic temperatures bumps and troughs are smoothed to a rising line, the “net effects of the adjustments made since May 2008 are to generate a more smoothly increasing global temperature since 1880.”

Climate Audit discusses the background for the lack of temporal stability for the GISS temperature record can be read Rewriting History, Time and Time Again.

Author Goirish, April 6, 2008

“One question that popped into my mind back then was whether or not – with all of the estimation going on – the historical record was static. One could reasonably expect that the record is static. After all, once an estimate for a given year is calculated there is no reason to change it, correct? That would be true if your estimate did not rely on new data added to the record, in particular temperatures collected at a future date. But in the case of GISStemp, this is exactly what is done.

On March 29 I downloaded the GLB.Ts.txt file from GISS and compared it to a copy I had from late August 2007. I was surprised to find several hundred differences in monthly temperature. Intrigued, I decided to take a trip back in time via the “Way Back Machine”.

Here I found 32 versions of GLB.Ts.txt going back to September 24, 2005. I was a bit disappointed the record did not go back further, but was later surprised at how many historical changes can occur in a brief 2 1/2 years.The first thing I did was eliminate versions where no changes to the data were made.

On average 20% of the historical record was modified 16 times in the last 2 1/2 years. The largest single jump was 0.27 C. This occurred between the Oct 13, 2006 and Jan 15, 2007 records when Aug 2006 changed from an anomoly of +0.43C to +0.70C, a change of nearly 68%.

Wow.

See also How much Estimation is too much Estimation?

They haven’t got a space shuttle and cannot fly a rocket without Russian engines anymore, but NASA can bendy-the-space-time-continuii to measure temperatures today back in 1910.

9.1 out of 10 based on 117 ratings

203 comments to So NASA – GISS says it does not ‘fudge’ numbers

  • #
    Peter Miller

    I have said this many times before, but it is a statement worth repeating:

    In climate science, only the future is certain, while the past is constantly changing.

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    • #
      Robk

      To qualify for being scientific, these data should be registered in the original values with a log of any changes and the reasons and methods set out. That may not be rocket science but it is high school science. There’s no excuse in this day and age of data processing not to do so.
      It is anti science. Bad data doesn’t give an estimate it gives the wrong answers. Hopeless.

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    • #
      James Bradley

      I’ve written this before and I’ll write it again:

      The historical records for the normal temperature range of the human body has not changed regardless of technology changes from alcohol and mercury thermometers to digital and infra red thermometers.

      How can more than 200 years of medical records continue to show 98.6° F without homoginisation with modern measuring instrument when surface temperature records require constant homoginisation due to modern measuring instrument?

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      • #
        Robk

        Now you’re giving them ideas.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        But that is a very good point.

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      • #
        James Bradley

        You only need well documented temperature observations that are both replicated and verified to disprove the need to contaminate historical temperature raw data.

        What better than world wide medical records for the past 250 years.

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        • #

          even medical thermometers get calibrated and re calibrated and if they are crap get thrown out. Do you know of any such thermometers that are always in place or inconstant use over decades?

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          • #
            Robk

            Human body temperature has an accepted variance. So should “weather” stations, especially if used for climate. Decimals of a degree are meaningless in this application.

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          • #
            Tel

            He is talking about retrospectively recallibrating the entire historic record, not one thermometer.

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            • #
              Robk

              Yes, I understand that there’s no problem with the thermometers. The various methods of estimating a core body temperature are well understood. There’s not a problem with the methodology.
              What I’m saying is you can establish methodologies without adjustments just accept the tolerances.
              Adjusting the data likely corrupts the method.
              If you adjust the data you must show clear and good cause.

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              • #
                Bulldust

                Main thing I want to know is whether every adjustment for every site is accompanied with a specific reason (i.e. site move/change, thermometer change, instrumental change, etc) and associated knowledge of whether this resulted in an upward or downward variance.

                I bet that many of the adjustments have no such accompanying metadata. If not, they are invalid. One doesn’t simply “adjust” temperatures because they appear different to a thermometer a few hundred km away. Also, why are the changes significantly cooling the past and warming the present over time?

                I know the F word is frowned upon, but I am not sure how else you adequately describe the situation. It is certainly anything but science.

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              • #

                that is not what James wants to know.

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          • #
            James Bradley

            The point is my dear leaf, that even after equipment is re-calibrating the equipment still records the same normal human body temperature now as was recorded on original thermometers 250 years ago – so again: Why is historical raw surface temperature data adjusted down when there has been no such anomalies with the advance in technology requiring any adjustments at all to human temperature data in medicine?

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            • #
              Leonard Lane

              Older recorded temperatures are adjusted downward and recent recorded temperatures are adjusted upward. This is done to falsely and dishonestly show a steeper trend in temperatures with time. How else can the produce ongoing global warming when there isn’t any?

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            • #

              anus, mouth, armpit, ear. What temperature does each measure?

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              • #
                Robk

                Each method has a function to estimate core body temp.

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              • #
                Robk

                You check the maxium thermometer’s slider by measuring someone who is well.

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              • #

                robk that function is called an adjustment. It has errors, makes assumptions and has changed over time.

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              • #

                Gee Aye April 20, 2016 at 9:48 am

                “robk that function is called an adjustment. It has errors, makes assumptions and has changed over time.”

                Never ever! That is called an interpretation of the measurement! NASA and NOAA actually modify the value of the measurement for the record of that measurement. This is politely called “fudging the numbers” for political gain!

                21

              • #
                Gee Aye

                Sorry Will. I never realised that they overwrit and erased the raw data. In that case I’m with you.

                12

            • #
              AndyG55

              And I think you will find that many of the “oldies” used to regularly check the calibration of their thermometers. They were very pedantic about their work, and calibration was part of the job.

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              • #

                Is this another of you lol’s or some romantic notion of the past?

                Given that the oldies knew about what I wrote below how did they do the calibration? Do you have evidence of this or are you just making a statement in the hope it is correct?

                37

              • #
                AndyG55

                Poor Gee Aye, cannot accept that once people took their job seriously.

                Says ALL you need to know about Gee Aye.!

                I did know a guy that did that job, he and his cohorts were FASTIDIOUS. !!

                A lot of old generations scientists were like that.

                A small proportion of modern scientists still are.

                94

              • #
                sophocles

                how did they do the calibration?

                Easily.

                Physics today is still the same as physics from 250 years ago or however long ago you wish. Fresh water still freezes at 0C and, at or near sea level, it still boils at 100C.. So calibrating a thermometer only requires a refrigerator capable of freezing water for making ice cubes and a kettle for making boiling water.

                The scale is linear between those two measurements. That’s exactly how the Celsius Scale is specified.

                Even you can calibrate a thermometer simply and easily.

                It’s actually hard to bungle it.

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                Liking soph’s joke answer and andy’s non answer. Why not just say “lol” so we understand.

                I’ll respond more if you provide evidence of your initial statement *smirk*

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              • #
                AndyG55

                The skeleton leaf returns.. that’s more like the empty Gee we all know.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Did I confuse you with the word “FASTIDIOUS”?

                You have no comprehension of what it means, do you. !

                21

            • #

              HI James,

              a serious comment for once.

              First you need to state what you are testing exactly. You are trying to find out what exactly. Next you need to consider something; 98.6 is not normal body temperature. It varies from person to person, with age, with time of the month, with exercise, physical fitness, illness and a whole lot more. Different thermometers might be affect by altitude and barometric pressure.

              So what are you comparing to what. Also I think you need to bring it back to 150 years.

              45

              • #
                James Bradley

                Fair enough Gee Aye,

                I’m merely pointing out a really simple and general observation:

                The normal human body temperature range is well documented.

                Medical records all over the world with all sorts of equipment have observed this same temperature range for at least 150 years.

                We now have 2 constants observed continually for 150 years:

                1. The normal human body temperature range is about 98.6°F.

                2. Regardless of type, position entry point or location temperature measuring equipment has measured the same normal human body temperature range for 150 years.

                In relation to surface temperature records either:

                1. The historical raw data was always correct and has been amended down for no scientifically valid reason.

                2. The historical raw data was always incorrect and is rounded down to match readings that would be observed using modern equipment.

                *For condition 2 to be valid there would be a similar medical observation and the need to re-write medical texts after 150 years to reflect that normal human temperature is not 98.6°F as first observed using early thermometers.

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              • #
                James Bradley

                Gee Aye,

                ps Don’t fixate on the actual temperature of 98.6° – it’s a bit of a red herring – it’s rather the fact that the same normal human range continues to be recorded on all types of equipment over at least 150 years and has not changed.

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              • #
                Another Ian

                James

                Remember those Gordon Lightfoot lines

                “And they talked about the weather

                98.6 and rising down by Boulder Dam tonight”

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              • #
                James Bradley

                I really believe this would be a fair rebuttal to the BOM/CSIRO temperature homogonisation argument, and would have enough common sense appeal for people to actually begin to think about a small part of the alarmist tripe served up.

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              • #
                James Bradley

                Another Ian,

                I sure do. 🙂

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                Hi,

                Am hoping we don’t get unmoderated [snip, pointless] interruptions from certain. People who specialise in such.

                For my own benefit I am trying to work out if what you say is true. I’ve not found a reference that says that measurements of core temperature are unchanged over the last 150 years (not 250 Sophocles). Have you?

                While the biology is unchanged the methods of measurement, the subjects and the methods of recording have all changed.

                1. Thermometers are not the same

                2. People are not the same.

                3. Standards of recording are not the same.

                The three things I have listed are extensively documented and if you give me time I can produce some reviews that will list primary sources.

                I also don’t understand why you didn’t take the hint about the fact that your assertion about “normal” and “body range” (which you did not provide” is actually wrong? Do you know about the actual average differences among social, ethnic, gender, age etc? Do you see that even if thermometers were all deployed in the same rigourous way, with incredible fidelity across 150 years of medical science with every extraneous detail recorded, that there would still be a difference in readings due to the differences in the physics;l composition of the population?

                [What I changed wasn’t necessary to use and got you into moderation. Please avoid it in the future.] AZ

                05

              • #
                Gee Aye

                Did not notice this earlier and this conversation could be better targeted if you gave evidence for this statement you made.

                Medical records all over the world with all sorts of equipment have observed this same temperature range for at least 150 years.

                Please don’t disappoint and do an andyg and just say it is obvious or common sense (lol)

                26

              • #
                Spetzer86

                This may be something like what you’re looking for: http://www.altmedrev.com/publications/11/4/278.pdf

                It was the first hit using “core body temperature historic average data” as search terms in Google.

                20

              • #
                James Bradley

                Gee Aye,

                It’s all about the vibe of the post.

                The only pertinent question is:

                Have medical texts been amended to reflect a new normal human temperature range (for whatever race, location or gender etc etc) – are medical texts changed due to a discovery that new technology in temperature reading equipment has found historical medical records are now incorrect… or whatever?

                41

              • #
                James Bradley

                To simplify,

                If the answer to my original post is:

                Wow the records show modern day medical temperature measuring equipment readings concur with historical medical temperature measuring equipment readings and the normal healthy human temperature range has not changed since records began 150 years ago, which means there is no difference in the quality of the data due to equipment change.

                If temperature measuring equipment is as accurate then as now the BOM/CSIRO need to explain why historical surface temperature records are amended down.

                41

              • #

                thanks James, your last comment makes things much clearer and that pdf gives a good background to some of the stuff I got sidetracked on (thanks Spetzer).

                Your question ignores the fact that comparative studies ask a question.

                If you were for some reason comparing a study of coal miners from the Hunter Valley in the late 1800’s measured using mercury rectal thermometers, with coal miners today using modern electronic thermometers, you would have to do all sorts of adjustments to correct for bias.

                The uncorrected data would indeed have a different mean, mode and STDev. But here is the other things… so would the corrected data. The physical characteristics of the miners – even if they are all males of the same age and ethnicity – has changed due to developmental changes, improved public health and improved mining safety.

                Forgetting all I said (and I’m sure you have), I don’t like the comparison of body temps and ground temperature readings. The body temp range is so narrow and is heavily constrained.

                13

              • #
                Mark D.

                The [human] body temp range is so narrow and is heavily constrained.

                So Gee, are you saying that surface temps are much easier to fudge?

                I thought so.

                10

              • #

                I believe so. I don’t think anyone would believe a dataset of healthy people with an average temperature of 39C. The fact that climate data is more easily fudgeable does indeed make human body temperature a poor comparison for demonstrating whether or not climate data is actually fudged.

                13

              • #
                James Bradley

                Gee Aye,

                That’s the point – “The body temp range is so narrow and is heavily constrained.”

                Regardless of the natural variations in people – medical observations separated by 150 years are still about the same – no statistical significant differences…

                10

              • #

                Gee Aye April 20, 2016 at 10:05 am

                “If you were for some reason comparing a study of coal miners from the Hunter Valley in the late 1800′s measured using mercury rectal thermometers, with coal miners today using modern electronic thermometers, you would have to do all sorts of adjustments to correct for bias.”

                For comparison The interpretation of a measurement may change as details of the physical “what was measured” may improve or may become wrongly biased. What NASA Goddard does to change the record of measurement of something, cannot ever be considered, scientific, valid, or ethical! It is gross dishonesty for profit!

                20

    • #

      NASA has simply adopted today’s philosophy of it’s not what you are, but what you feel. They ‘feel’ that the temperatures should be warmer and thus they are, and it’s incorrect to say otherwise.

      266

  • #
    AZ1971

    This is precisely why I do not trust the GISTemp record or those who say the planet is unequivocally warming and reference NOAA/NASA temps. Comparing every temperature site and amending the daily record to match other sites nearby is presumed to smooth the data. But anyone growing wine grapes know that microclimates mean the difference between an OK wine and a spectacular wine — and the same can be said about temperature logs and successful business: it’s all about location, location, location. Why smooth everything to be homogeneous in a given area if variations are merely going to give way to adjustments?

    295

    • #
      RB

      I looked at the three main sites in Adelaide for 1979. West Terrace was replaced by Kent Town with an overlap of over a year. This is the differences from the mean of the three max temps, after smoothing with a 5 day moving mean. Unsmoothed, its spaghetti covering ±2°C.

      I also looked at the monthly means for the Airport and West Tce during the overlapping periods 1955 to 1978, for min temperatures in July as I expected to see a UHI effect. The differences are a spread over 2°C with a trend of 0.2°C/decade as the West Tce site showed more of warming trend in this period. West Tce was developed from a residential street to a major thoroughfare during the 50s and 60s.

      They are 6 km apart on a plain with about 40m difference in height, although the AP is only a km from the coast. It does highlight how much variation there is to even think of homoginisation.

      I’ll add that it was very hard to do the second part today. I couldn’t open the downloaded data and copying and pasting the few dozen data points seized up my computer for a while. What’s going on?

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      • #
        AndyG55

        It is the very fact that they even think temperatures should be homogeneous that is the BIAS.

        They then use it to massively increase the UHI effect by smearing small areas of urban affected temperatures over much larger areas of non-urban affected temperatures.

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  • #
    AndyG55

    The thing is , that they just KEEP adjusting the older temperatures down and newer temperatures up, year after year after years, a slow but steady procession of tiny increments, with an every increasing MANUFACTURED trend.

    When you look at the people who “invented” homogenisation, and when it was invented, its almost as if it was specifically designed for this purpose.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      oops missed a line…. add…

      ..just like BEST’s “regional expectation” fudge was specifically designed to make creating a warming trend possible.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Are we witnessing the creation of a false flag organization?

        There has to be an internal divide between believers and realists or the entire place becomes an IPCC campus.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          I’m trying to find out when the homogenisation routines were first used by BOM..

          Can anyone help?

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          • #
            AndyG55

            The name Stott rings a bell. 1990 ish ???

            An import from the “hive” at CRU, working with the likes of Tom Wigley, Jones etc of climategate fame.

            So just in time to start creating the warming trend in Australian data.

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          • #

            AG,
            They were certainly doing it by 2013 with the then HQ Temperature series (HQ =high quality supposedly). This data series is no longer available. Seems it had some problems. Ie it was adjusted a little too simply without clear justification, and too easily exposed. Ken (Kens Kingdom) probably did the most damage to their credibility, and I’m sure Jo has something here also. Here is my Adelaide analysis. https://eyesonbrowne.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/adelaides-hq-temperature-record/

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    • #
      Jason Calley

      Hey Andy! I don’t remember if it was NOAA or GISS, but some years back, when asked to explain their methods of data adjustment, they replied that their software was “working as designed.”

      I suspect they were correct about that.

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      • #
        Peter Miller

        Jason

        You know you are touching a nerve/stating the truth here at Jo Nova, when the trolls give you 3+ red thumbs down for a comment.

        .. their methods of data adjustment…”working as designed”. I suspect they were correct about that.

        How could anyone possibly object to your comment, unless they had a guilty conscience?

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      “When I adjust a temperature,” Nasa Giss said, in rather a scornful tone, “it records just what I choose it to record, no more and no less.”

      “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can change history to have so many different ‘measurements’.”

      “The question is,” said Nasa Giss, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

      With apologies to Charles L. Dodgson, who as a scientist, would understand the parody.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Maybe also as an author? Though I’ve no clear idea why since he never wrote about GISS. 😉

        30

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Perhaps we should refer to all Climate Seancists as Humpty Dumpties.

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          • #
            Robk

            Not all climate scientists.

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            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              No, “seancists” is correct. It is a portmanteau word contracting seance, with its occult meaning of spiritualistic phenomena, and “…ists” implying the practitioners of same.

              It is about as far away as you can get, from any form of repeatable and verifiable science.

              Fortunately, it only applies to the type of religeous fervor, that pertains to climate models.

              62

              • #
                Jason Calley

                Or as the White Knight (if he were a climate scientist) might have said:

                “But I was thinking of a plan
                to make my data “green”
                then hide my method
                from my fans
                so it could not be seen!”

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                That is very good … thank you for that – gave me a good chuckle.

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          • #
            sophocles

            Perhaps we should refer to all Climate Seancists as Humpty Dumpties.

            So-o-o that would make Naomi Oreskes the Red Queen … ?

            52

  • #
    wert

    Trivia question. At which decade the 20th century warmed the most according to GISS?

    – 2010’s

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      You could probably put numbers in a hat and draw one at random and they would’ve claimed it warmed the most at some time or another. They’re nothing if not agile and flexible at GISS. Perhaps even shameless too.

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    • #
      toorightmate

      Wrong.
      It is the 2030’s, then the effects of carbon taxes, windmills, solar panels, etc kicks in and everything is again under control.
      All thanks to geniuses such as Al Gore and Tim Flannery.

      22

    • #
      Mick In The Hills

      Shouldn’t years in the 20th century start with 19– ?

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      • #

        Have you no zeroth century? i.e. prior to the first century date? What is the age of a child before its first birthday anniversary. We are now into the 16th year post the 20th cenntiversary of ‘century’!

        20

  • #
    TinyCO2

    Not so much fudging the numbers as applying an entire sweet shop.

    214

  • #
    Svend Ferdinandsen

    I have lost the trust in NASA GISS, because of the way they handle anomalies.
    Would you trust in buying rubberband by lenght?
    Anomalies are otherwise a genial invention, but it requires very high standards.
    When they talk of the hottest year ever, it could be the past that is the coldest year ever.
    The worst is that it is so difficult to find out what is going on.

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  • #
    cedarhill

    But they are honest. It’s not a “fudge” if it’s outright deception.

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  • #

    A temperature taken at a particular site and a particular time gives a fixed finite value. And yet the average of these values is also fixed and should not be changed irrespective of whatever reason is given since it loses its integrity and becomes meaningless doesn’t it?

    The distance between points A and B in 1880 was 21 miles 10 chains and 50 links according to the old survey data; does it become 21 miles 11 chains and 10 links in 2015? (A chain is 22 yards, or the length of cricket pitch and there are 100 links in a chain) Just think of the problems if it were to change such as land areas increasing, navigational problems for aircraft and ships.

    And yet for climate change it is acceptable?

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Indeed, a measurement becomes a fixed value thereafter. You can’t go around changing your measured values year after year.

      One hundred years after you peg out the land parcels and streets of Brisbane, you’re still shifting the property boundaries.

      This climate science is worse than astrology, worse than phrenology, worse than thievery. It is deception for a noble cause and magical thinking.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        And to top it all off, what does an average temperature even mean?

        I’ve yet to see a good answer to that question.

        I think the answer is, probably not much. Otherwise they might consider their averages to be a lot more sacred and stop messing with the base measurements that make up the averages. But what do I know? I’m only your average (yes, it’s a pun) college graduate who had to learn to get things right on the first try so I could stay employed until I could retire. And I had to stick to reality when it came to ascribing meaning to averages.

        Maybe I should have worked for the government instead of civilians.

        This isn’t the place to document all my reasons for distrust in government institutions but recent revelations I have seen the documentation to support add up to extreme negligence and utter lack of concern for the result.

        So maybe the real question is, why measure at all? Just pronounce from the throne of authority and be done with it. His Majesty, GISS sayeth it’s so. And thus it is so. 🙁

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Government departments won’t admit to extreme negligence. You can get fired for negligence.

          What they have, is extreme incompetance, and you can go on courses, in an attempt to overcome that.

          I am not being pedantic, or even trying to be smart, this is actually the way they think.

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          • #
            toorightmate

            Half the people I know are below average.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Government departments won’t admit to extreme negligence.

            True, they won’t admit to it, not to any degree of negligence. But if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and says, quack quack… …then it’s a duck.

            They may think one thing and I another but they have a bias in their favor that I don’t have. And when they have a duty to get the job done right and they don’t, I can call a spade a spade.

            I might add, it was willful negligence, not just some oversight. They knew they had it wrong, were told they had it wrong and went ahead anyway. That’s willful neglect of their responsibility — the worst possible kind. There is no doubt that they could have done it right so I can’t call it incompetence.

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            • #

              “I might add, it was willful negligence, not just some oversight. They knew they had it wrong, were told they had it wrong and went ahead anyway. That’s willful neglect of their responsibility — the worst possible kind. There is no doubt that they could have done it right so I can’t call it incompetence.”

              Roy,
              I agree with the willful negligence et all! I cannot agree that they know enough to get it correct! This is but arrogant academic incompetence, not only by NASA Goddard and NOAA, but from all of academic meteorology. These folk do not have a correct measurable or viable calculation of the total amount of this Earth’s atmosphere. They have no clue as to why it may sustain the amount that is. It is shear obscenity that they claim their platstation-64 models have any relevance to this Earth whatsoever!

              21

              • #
                Roy Hogue

                I cannot agree that they know enough to get it correct!

                Will,

                It’s a matter of having both the wrong incentive and no accountability. There is no reason they could not have done it correctly but, unlike my career and yours, where getting it right is not only expected but demanded, that expectation and demand are absent. People in government cannot be assumed to be unable to get it right. They’re no less intelligent or capable than you or I. They simply suffer from normal human failings, including the one that allows taking the shortcut, the easy way out and so on. The missing accountability factor always fouls up the soup. If no one is going to eat it I can put any convenient thing in it and it’s just fine. I would have given anything to have it easier many times. But there was that stubborn accountability thing I always had to cope with. Without that my attitude might have been quite different.

                10

          • #
            Robk

            Mark D,
            So what are you trying to say about “torightmate”? 🙂

            00

      • #
        GrahamP

        “The distance between points A and B in 1880 was 21 miles 10 chains and 50 links according to the old survey data; does it become 21 miles 11 chains and 10 links in 2015?”

        Interestingly this is not quite so. When the early surveyors set out the crown grants they used measuring chains that were made up from links These were prone to wear so the chain lost its calibration.

        In addition it is generally thought that the early surveyors “added a bit extra” to make sure the land was a good measure.

        Using modern steel bands and later electronic distance measuring equipment will detect these discrepancies leading to either an overlap or hiatus between properties.

        more info here if you are interested

        http://www.surveyhistory.org/changing_chains.htm

        GrahamP (retired surveyor)

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      AZ1971

      This is why I don’t trust the “expert” data. So much of the refined data graph is the result of:
      1. homogenization of local loci
      2. averaged local re-averaged over regional areas
      3. averaged regions re-averaged over a global scale
      4. output to match a model
      This can easily be demonstrated by using Excel and the =RANDBETWEEN(x,y) function to create a random number generated list of comparable whole Celsius temperature readings. [Note: I used 20 iterations between -15 and 41, theoretical range for a moderate climate like in the UK]

      When averaging all of the actual raw data, in my quick-and-dirty test, I came to an average of 9.4 — for illustrative purposes, say that this raw data average demonstrates a global average. I then averaged pairs of the data (n = 10), and the average of those averages was 9.5 (not a large numerical change, but equal to a 1% difference). The interesting thing was when I sorted the data and ran the test again; this could be the equivalent of addressing a location change to fit “better” with a regional profile. When averaging these resorted pairs, suddenly the average went up to 10.55 — a 12.2% variance.

      Statistics are both a blessing and bane. Data can be massaged most any way desired in order to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. And if the conclusion isn’t as “conclusive” as desired, well, shuffle a few numbers here or there, recalculate, and viola! — a nice, new, this-now-fits-my-theory answer that “proves” I’m right and you’re wrong.

      Unfortunately, the vast vast vast majority of the world’s citizens just do not understand such a simple concept and are content to be led by whatever winds blow against them the strongest.

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    • #

      “A temperature taken at a particular site and a particular time gives a fixed finite value.”

      Indeed a poor measure of local noise power present!

      “And yet the average of these values is also fixed and should not be changed irrespective of whatever reason is given since it loses its integrity and becomes meaningless doesn’t it?”

      An average of local noise power over space and time never has any physical meaning.
      At any place and time you could cook or freeze! The whole concept of average temperature has no meaning except to indicate a scam in progress! Climate also is such a term, used pleasantly but mostly deceptively, by Realtors, earning their keep! Why does a governmental agency persist in such deception, even to their employer?

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  • #
    Rocky

    From your alleged paymasters in Big Oil

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/18/smoke-fumes-part-deux-exxon-knew-the-entire-theory-of-climatic-changes-by-co2-variations-is-questionable/

    an increase in CO2 from 300 to 330 ppm can be compensated for completely by a change in the water vapor content of 3 per cent or by a change in the cloudiness of 1 per cent of its value without the occurrence of temperature changes at all. Thus the theory that climatic variations are effected by variations in the CO2 content becomes very questionable.

    Wait for the howl from the Green Lobby

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  • #
    Manfred

    The Climate Chiropractor‘ or if you prefer, Hansen, the adjuster, over at Real Science.
    GISS (Hansen) and NOAA (Jones) appear to have acquired some extraordinary manipulative techniques reminiscent of political dexterity.
    But the warming causal charade was never entirely about scientific credibility.

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  • #
    Svend Ferdinandsen

    Robert O.
    A temperature taken at a particular site and a particular time gives a fixed finite value. And yet the average of these values is also fixed and should not be changed irrespective of whatever reason is given since it loses its integrity and becomes meaningless doesn’t it?

    Yes, but the system with anomalies can do it without any noticing.
    For each station a reference period defines from where the anomlies are calculated, and they are calculated for each station in that way. It means it gives a lot of small numbers to average, and when stations move, disappear, new ones comes alive and so on, it becomes difficult and it is anyway small numbers, but a lot of them. A station on a mountain could be switched with a station in the valley, it is only anomalies, that corrolates over 100 miles and more, is’n it.
    That the changes mostly goes the same way, should have given some alarm, but no one of these scientists found it suspicious, if they ever checked. They should have done the same as Ole Humlum, and the data must be available, and then wondered what is going on.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Is N.A.S.A. now ironing out bumps,
    And smoothing those long ago humps,
    And anomalies too,
    As it simply won’t do,
    To show cooling and temperature slumps?

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  • #
    Ian G

    Not sure, Andy, but it started in earnest when ACORN began in 2011/12.
    The gridded/shaded maps which BoM uses to show that homogenization have been around for quite a while. They can show a temp shading for an area where no single site within that area shows that particular temp. Totally bizarre.

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    • #
      el gordo

      ACORN started up around 2012 and here is a little background for those who are unfamiliar with how the warm bias was introduced.

      jennifermarohasy.com/2014/05/corrupting-australias-temperature-record/

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    • #
      Ken mival

      BOM started fudging the numbers in a small way when about 12 or 13 years ago they drastically çhanged the scale on their monthly average Australian temp graphs. That instantly demonstrated to me that they were taking a political position rather than accurate reporting. It wasn’t fudging the actual numbers so much as exaggerating the apparent outcome. Until then I had trusted their impartiality. ACORN completely destroyed it.

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  • #

    NASA and the rest of the Warmistas ‘feel’ that the temperatures must be warmer due to CO2 effects. When the temperatures shown by satellites are not supporting this, they have no alternative other than to ‘correct’ the historic records, both surface and satellite. Corrections are normally both positive and negative, due to random causes, however all NASA and other wWrmistas’ ‘corrections’ are entirely in their desired direction.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    So NASA – GISS says it does not ‘fudge’ numbers

    OK then, I suppose you could argue that fudge is not very well defined, that is, does it mean a big change or a small one? And for that matter, what exactly do big and small mean? Therefore they may be justified in saying they don’t fudge the numbers based on how large or small a change they make. So maybe their definition of fudge needs to be examined — as if we could. Har de har har! 😉

    In the final analysis, though, all that is moot because we have caught them changing their numbers and one change is as dishonest as another. They’ve been caught time after time with their hand in the cookie jar and simply don’t care. And they get away with not caring because there is no one with the authority to smack that hand when it reaches for the cookie jar. And that’s our real problem, NASA is accountable to no one, not even to the president in any realistic sense. The president could do more if he wanted to. But he clearly doesn’t care, especially since NASA/GISS supports his climate change goals.

    They change, increase or decrease values to suit their agenda. Fudge is something I like on top of a big bowl of ice cream. And I may just go get some since it’s about 90° F (32° C) today.

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      Roy Hogue

      Quite a longtime back now, I found documentation that said Hansen’s boss had tried to fire him over his loose cannon behavior. When Hansen found out he went public crying every kind of discrimination and suppression of science that he could come up with. I lost track of that article through a restore from backup to fix some file problems (I accidentally deleted something I shouldn’t have :-(). I can’t vouch for it’s veracity, then or now. But it certainly could be true considering the scientific atmosphere at GISS. Timidity is the national disease for anyone in a position of any power. And right now I’ll bet that a good NASA administrator could start smacking down that hand in the cookie jar if the president would just explain the situation and support him. But don’t hold your breath.

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    TdeF

    People speak of NASA, 18,000 busy public service scientists and other employees and 40,000 busy contractors as if they all care about historic temperatures. Like our BOM and CSIRO, NASA the space agency would not fudge. True. They are focussed on much loftier things. However individuals might.

    Consider this might be the work of a single person. A bit of fun hidden in the noise. Smoothing the data to an agenda. An obscure job, a boring task, an interest in the subject and the impact of a single person with a purpose fiddling a few numbers here and there can have an impact out of all proportion to the significance of this boring task. It might pay to ask who actually was responsible for doing this than suggest NASA, the organization. Of course NASA the organization like the BOM will hotly contest any such allegation of impropriety. NASA has no real business in historic weather records, any more than the CSIRO. Privately they may want to know who did it and how they were caught and make sure being caught did not happen again. Those historic online records will be taken offline.

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      ROM

      Unfortunately not the work of a single person TdeF but a quite deliberate and carefully implemented algorithm driven adjustment on the part primarily of the Tom Karl’s NCDC [ National Center for Data Collection, the central global reach organisation to which all weather data and climate data is processed through before dissemination to the other better recognised climate data manipulators and data swizzle stick operators] to past temperature data, further adjusted by GISS , CRU and etc with those adjustments being applied quite frequently again and again to a lot of that recorded daily station temperature data from near the beginning of the 20th century.

      Authority for this is on Judith Curry’s Climate etc site back a few months [ I think July 2014 ] when Zeke Hausfather and Steve Mosher who are involved in the BEST temperature project admitted to a whole truckload of adjustments to past temperature data including day to day adjustments to daily temperatures near a century old.

      That post on Climate etc got somewhere over 2000 comments nearly every one of which just could not get their minds around the casualness and the sangfroid attitudes of those two “scientists” to adjusting historical data often very substantially and often again a few days later.

      And admitting that the algorithms doing some adjusting to some long past station recorded data on a daily basis.

      Plus the range of the types of the various adjustments is pretty mind boggling on its own.

      Most commenters including a number of researchers and scientists and technicians from a number of other science disciplines amongst the commenters were appalled as they believed and understood that historical data was sacrosant and was supposedly and virtually untouchable.

      Sadly with my now 11 year old Mac, I can no longer access Climate etc, or WUWT and Climate Audit to find that “Understanding adjustments to temperature data” post as they have all gone down the better site security route of adding an “s” to the URL’s “htpp” now “htpps” which is the protocol for a more secure communication between server and client.

      Most such “htpps” sites I can access but maybe those climate sites above have designated a different port to the ones that my old Mac can be accessed through.

      Anybody who puts a search on “Climate etc” or google for “Understanding adjustments to temperature data “ will I think come up with that long and highly disturbing post on Climate etc.

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    handjive

    The CSIRO fudged some numbers for good:

    “Australian scientists say they have developed the world’s first WHO-approved “gluten-free” barley, a breakthrough for global beer manufacturers which have had to use alternatives to barley such as rice and sorghum to brew gluten-free beer.

    Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said on Friday it had sold 70 tonnes of the new Kebari barley to Germany’s largest brewer Radeberger, which has produced a beer to be sold in local supermarkets.

    “Gluten-free barley will be highly sought after, with European brewers particularly interested,” said John O’Brien, a brewer of gluten-free beer in Melbourne.”
    . . .
    Is Global Warming destroying barley growth?

    April 30 2015; World barley yield record set by Timaru farmers (NZ)

    “The Darlings credited Timaru’s weather for playing big part in providing the conditions for the crop’s preparation, grain filling and harvesting to set the backdrop for a record attempt.”

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Is Global Warming destroying barley growth?”

      Still nowhere near warm enough in Greenland to grow barley, like the Vikings did.

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      • #
        ROM

        Lightning Camel is around here somewhere.
        He was involved many years ago in the barley breeding game at our local large grain research organisation.

        He told me many years ago that they had found a variety of Barley grown by the monks in a high altitude Tibetan Monastery which grew and matured in a staggeringly short period of around forty days.

        The quality was described quite graphically as being somewhat short of a low quality but it was food grown at a very high altitude in very cool to cold conditions and probably where daylight was very limited due to shading by the high peaks in these areas where these Monasteries have been built hundreds of years ago.

        The real situation is that there is enormous versatility in the Earth’s plant kingdom only a fraction of which we have exploited and used so far.
        And if we can’t find what we want in food plant quality and plant versatility and adaptability , well if food ever gets short and even the inner city elitist greens have to go just a little itty bitty hungry because they can’t buy food when they demand it, then we have the still advancing technology of GMO to transfer the required attributes from one species to another species to make up for the inadequacies or deficiencies of food plants

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    John

    Is there a database somewhere that shows how many temperatures from the late 19th century and early 20th have been adjusted to cooler or warmer?

    It seems whenever I read an article about NASA or some other organization adjusting temperatures, they’re always adjusting the temperatures down. Are the majority of the old temperature records being adjusted down?

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    • #

      Good question John. Alas it is not simple. There is no definitive “temperature” set. There are many interpretations of thousands of thermometers.

      On the whole the old thermometers *must* have been “too high” for some reason (what bad luck for mainstream climate scientists eh?), even though they were not at airports, near carparks, or surrounded by concrete. The net adjustments of older temps is to cool the past.

      We poor uninformed sods would intuitively think that the UHI effect would mean the old readings should be raised to be compared to modern heavily populated cities.

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      • #
        James Bradley

        I’ll just point out again that medical records documenting the normal human body temperature hasn’t changed in about 250 years of observations despite improvements in equipment and technology – still 98.6°F.

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        • #
          TdeF

          Yes, except that as I remember it, the human temperature was 98.4F Biochemically some important things happen at exactly this temperature but now it has gone up +0.2F in just reading this comment and Global Warming is a similar experience.

          The whole business of global warming is about a tiny amount of warming, down at and below the reading resolution and absolute accuracy 100 years ago. How anyone can fabricate steady CO2 driven warming from tiny wobbles like this is as amazing as it is unlikely. The move to electronic instrumentation in the late 1980s and the subsequent adjustment of older temperatures has likely produced the tiny sudden and short term ‘warming’. The coincidence is too much and the fact that there is a plateau either side.

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    • #
      Ian George

      John
      You can do your own checking here.
      This is GISS data in 2009.

      http://www.realclimate.org/images/Hansen09_fig1.jpg

      Here’s the 2014 version.

      http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif

      Note the number of years from 1998 -2009 that now seem to be adjusted higher. And this is only in the past 5 years. Weren’t the thermometers reasonably accurate then. And note the years earlier last decade that have been cooled.

      And this is an example of how GISS adjustment for individual sites.
      De Bilt in Holland. Original data
      http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=633062600003&dt=1&ds=1

      Adjusted data for De Bilt
      http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show.cgi?id=633062600000&dt=1&ds=5

      And this is the same for many sites. Note that the first version is v1/2. Now we are up to version 5. Each version has been adjusted.

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    • #

      I’ve converted and tabulated The Climate and Weather of Australia published 1913 by Commonwealth Meteorologist Henry Hunt which provides mean temps and rainfall for 27 locations.

      They’re another opportunity to consider early unadjusted temps along with <1931 CSIR and 1911-40 Year Book temps, and compare the history books with Climate Data Online deviations where available or provide some early temps not available in CDO.

      See http://www.waclimate.net/year-book-csir.html. Hunt extracts and converted monthly tables are at http://www.waclimate.net/hunt-1913.html.

      The mean temperature at all 27 locations including capital cities increased 0.62C from pre 1912 to 2000-2015.

      Among 20 comparable non-capital locations, 13 ACORN, the mean RAW temp increased 0.50C from pre 1912 to 2000-2015. Toss Darwin into the mix and the mean of the 21 locations increased 0.46C.

      226 stations in the CSIR comparison had a mean increase of 0.5C from pre 1931 to 2000-2014, while Year Book records showed 84 stations with a mean increase of 0.3C from 1911-40 to 2000-2014.

      There’s a Glashier argument but these are mean temperatures and although the pre-Stevenson screens inflated hot max, the evidence suggests they cooled min.

      There are the usual intriguing results from Australia's south-east and sub-tropical north.

      Adelaide – Hunt 1856-1912 17.19C / CSIR 1857-1931 17.24C / Year Book 1911-40 17.27C / RAW 2000-2015 17.73C / ACORN 2000-2015 17.76C

      Albury – Hunt 1869-1912 15.92C / CSIR 1869-1931 16.00C / Year Book 1911-40 16.28C / RAW 2000-2015 15.92C

      Alice Springs – Hunt 1878-1912 20.98C / CSIR 1874-1931 20.90C / Year Book 1911-40 20.63C / RAW 2000-2015 21.26C / ACORN 2000-2015 21.38C

      Brisbane – Hunt 1886-1912 20.44C / CSIR 1887-1931 20.50C / Year Book 1911-40 20.53C / RAW 2000-2015 21.37C / ACORN 2000-2015 20.52C

      Broken Hill – Hunt 1891-1912 18.14C / CSIR 1891-1931 18.14C / Year Book 1911-40 18.01C / RAW 2000-2015 18.50C

      Broome – Hunt 1896-1912 26.60C / CSIR 1899-1931 26.54C / Year Book 1911-40 26.53C / RAW 2000-2015 26.88C / ACORN 2000-2015 26.93C

      Cairns – Hunt 1904-1912 24.48C / CSIR 1907-1931 24.75C / Year Book 1911-40 24.63C / RAW 2000-2015 25.19C / ACORN 2000-2015 25.19C

      Carnarvon – Hunt 1897-1912 21.67C / CSIR 1898-1931 21.8C / RAW 2000-2015 22.59C / ACORN 2000-2015 22.59C

      Charleville – Hunt 1902-1912 20.30C / CSIR 1907-1931 21.08C / Year Book 1911-40 21.31C / RAW 2000-2015 21.40C / ACORN 2000-2015 21.40C

      Cloncurry – Hunt 1900-1912 25.07C / CSIR 1907-1931 25.50C / Year Book 1911-40 25.53C / RAW 2000-2015 26.10C

      Daly Waters – Hunt 1885-1912 26.89C / CSIR 1885-1931 26.88C / Year Book 1911-40 26.90C / RAW 2000-2015 26.42C

      Darwin – Hunt 1875-1912 28.09C / CSIR 1881-1931 28.12C / Year Book 1911-40 28.01C / RAW 2000-2015 27.72C / ACORN 2000-2015 27.71C

      Dubbo – Hunt 1877-1912 17.40C / CSIR 1874-1931 17.63C / Year Book 1911-40 17.58C / RAW 2000-2015 17.51C / ACORN 2000-2015 17.53C

      Esperance – Hunt 1896-1912 16.27C / CSIR 1897-1931 16.2C / RAW 2000-2015 17.20C / ACORN 2000-2015 17.19C

      Eucla – Hunt 1877-1912 17.51C / CSIR 1881-1931 17.42C / RAW 2000-2015 18.01C / ACORN 2000-2015 18.01C

      Halls Creek – Hunt 1898-1912 25.61C / CSIR 1899-1931 25.54C / Year Book 1911-40 25.59C / RAW 2000-2015 26.73C / ACORN 2000-2015 26.77C

      Hobart – Hunt 1870-1912 12.41C / CSIR 1870-1931 12.43C / Year Book 1911-40 12.45C / RAW 2000-2015 13.35C / ACORN 2000-2015 13.47C

      Launceston – Hunt 1894-1912 12.56C / CSIR 1889-1931 12.73C / Year Book 1911-40 12.74C / RAW 2000-2015 13.12C / ACORN 2000-2015 12.18C

      Melbourne – Hunt 1855-1912 14.65C / CSIR 1855-1931 14.69C / Year Book 1911-40 14.86C / RAW 2000-2015 16.49C / ACORN 2000-2015 16.50C

      Moruya – Hunt 1875-1912 16.06C / CSIR 1876-1931 16.03C / Year Book 1911-40 15.73C / RAW 2000-2015 16.36C / ACORN 2000-2015 16.36C

      Newcastle – Hunt 1865-1912 18.08C / CSIR 1864-1931 18.04C / Year Book 1911-40 17.91C / RAW 2000-2015 18.64C

      Perth – Hunt 1896-1912 17.77C / CSIR 1897-1931 17.88C / Year Book 1911-40 18.05C / RAW 2000-2015 18.85C / ACORN 2000-2015 18.84C

      Port Augusta – Hunt 1888-1912 18.93C / CSIR 1889-1931 19.02C / Year Book 1911-40 19.01C / RAW 2000-2015 19.24C

      Robe – Hunt 1889-1912 14.34C / CSIR 1886-1931 14.40C / Year Book 1911-40 14.37C / ACORN 1910-25 14.93C / RAW 2000-2015 14.99C / ACORN 2000-2015 14.98C

      Sale – Hunt 1896-1912 14.04C / RAW 2000-2015 14.26C / ACORN 2000-2015 14.26C

      Sydney – Hunt 1858-1912 17.21C / CSIR 1858-1931 17.33C / Year Book 1911-40 17.62C / RAW 2000-2015 18.88C / ACORN 2000-2015 18.88C

      Wilcannia – Hunt 1885-1912 19.13C / CSIR 1885-1931 19.14C / RAW 2000-2015 19.67C / ACORN 2000-2015 19.67C

      Among 12 of the Hunt non-capital stations above with ACORN data starting 1910 (Eucla 1913), their pre 1912 mean temp was 20.37C and their 1910-1925 ACORN mean temp was 19.35C. Most stations had Stevensons by 1910.

      The Hunt rainfall figures again suggest temp warming is tied to shifting cloud cover patterns. Other influences since <1912 may include Airport Heat Islands with instrument proximity to black tarmac and jet exhaust, compared to small towns before the invention of the motor car or widespread use of concrete. Apart from Glaisher screens, the other major instrument influence was the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations from the early 1990s that may exaggerate high temps.

      There might also be a natural warming influence and even some CO2.

      [Thanks for your dedication Chris! – Jo.]

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    Kiwikid

    TdeF makes a very good point
    99.9% of the NASA staff are true and honest people, skilled in the art.
    Do not judge the people as a whole in the of the organsiation, only those that submit the final values.
    Will we ever know what the true values are, are they the true values ?
    Does it matter.
    Nature will reveal all in the fullness of time.

    The AGW run a very skilful, articulate and narrow dialogue of engagement.
    1, Temperatures are rising
    2, It is Co2 that is causing it
    It is up to the deniers to prove them wrong which at this point cant be done.
    Try taking the argument away from them with something substantive.
    Make a new dialogue

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      1. Temps and CO2 rising is a correlation, but not necessarily causation. CO2 rose from 1945 – 1975, but temperatures fell. One third of human emissions have happened since the Pause started. It’s not even a good correlation.
      2. “Deniers” don’t have to prove anything. We don’t demand you change your lifestyle or pay us money. You do. The onus is on you.

      3. “Deniers” of what? Please define your terms and speak in accurate English. You appear to be namecalling in a science debate. Is that what you call “skillful, articulate” dialogue?.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      The AGW [practitioners] run a very skilful, articulate and narrow dialogue of engagement.

      Not so skilful, I think. You have noticed it. Most of the other visitors here have also noticed it.

      If they were skilful, nobody would have noticed it, and like leemings, we would all be gladly jumping off the cliff.

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      AndyG55

      “Nature will reveal all in the fullness of time.”

      Large La Nina now forecast,

      AMO turning down from its peak.

      Sun having a snooze.

      Yes, I think Nature will reveal all, and the AGW myth will be totally exposed for the fairy tale that it is.

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      Leo Morgan

      Much as I’d like to agree with the proposition that 99.9% of NASA staff are ‘true and honest people’, it’s not true. They are as guilty of sins of omission as those in the Catholic Church who kept quiet while paedophile offences were being committed. It is their obligation to speak up against the fiddling of the numbers. Instead, like those who tacitly supported child abuse, they see it as ‘not their place’ to speak up. Yes it is their place!
      This of course raises the perfectly reasonable question, “is it possible they don’t speak up because there’s nothing to speak up against?”
      The answer again is that that is demonstrably not the case.
      From the abuses disclosed in Climategate through to their ‘NASA Climate science webpage’, they are consistently failing to speak out against anti-scientific practices and rhetoric. Shame on them. this pusillanimous yielding to political pressures to stay ‘on message’ despite certain knowledge to the contrary might explain why the organisation no longer has a space shuttle and has to use Russian rockets to get to the International Space Station .

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    el gordo

    There is no fudging going on in Antarctica or surrounds, Ken has a new post.

    https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/antarctic-trends/

    The pause is real.

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    Tel

    All data requires fudging, it’s hardly going to give the politically correct answer just by accident.

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    Panda

    Haha!

    “And you thought that temperature data was just a number on a page and once a calendar year was over it was finished. How naive. Turns out it’s a fluid entity traveling through the fourth dimension. Luckily NASA GISS are able to capture the way temperatures of the past are still changing today.”

    Very funny! Good work Jo.

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  • #

    Makes it a lot easier really.

    No need to worry about what happens to temperatures in the future.

    Just adjust the past to make it cooler, so that the current normal temperatures that they have always been are now hotter, because history is ….. now anyway, colder.

    They only have to do it now, wait out what they perceive as a tiny amount of people actually asking questions, and then in a couple of years, it will all be forgotten about, and those temperatures that they, umm, adjusted, lower will then be set in stone, so any temperature will appear to be hotter.

    Very clever.

    Tony.

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      AndyG55

      “lower will then be set in stone

      No they will not be “set in stone”.

      Next time around, they will be eased down just that little bit more… then again.. then again… ad inf…..

      That constant sinking feeling, so to speak.

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    Analitik

    Fudge? I thought they just generated the figures from their IPCC modelling.

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    pat

    heard the following mentioned on ABC’s What The Papers Say last nite…with NO MENTION of El Nino. however, if u read far enough, u will find out ***”this event is linked to the monster El Nino event that has now begun to ebb”:

    18 Apr: SMH Exclusive: Peter Hannam: Sydney’s corals now bleaching in ‘pretty shocking’ sign of warming waters
    The giant coral bleaching event that is devastating wide swaths of the Great Barrier Reef has extended all the way south to Sydney Harbour, researchers say.
    The harbour’s surface temperature reached 26 degrees at times during a prolonged marine heatwave in recent months that had also set records for parts of the Australian coast.
    The unusual warmth – several degrees above the peak of 23 to 24 degrees typically seen in summer – was enough to trigger coral bleaching in the harbour for the first time on record, according to marine biologists from the University of Technology Sydney and Macquarie University.
    “It’s pretty shocking,” Samantha Goyen, a PhD candidate at UTS specialising in coral survival in extreme environments, said. “Looking at the entire beds of the coral, we’re seeing bleaching over about 45 per cent [of the reefs studied].”…
    ***While this event is linked to the monster El Nino event that has now begun to ebb in the Pacific, the harbour’s warming is another sign of the background changes under way…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydneys-corals-now-bleaching-in-pretty-shocking-sign-of-warming-waters-20160418-go8qex.html

    the article ends with: And of course, anything that reduced carbon emissions and the effects of climate change” will help lower the risk of future coral bleaching episodes, Dr Sommer said.

    now 9News has NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of El Nino:

    19 Apr: 9News: James Gorman: Coral bleaching in Sydney Harbour could lead to ecosystem collapse
    The damage to the harbour’s hard coral has been discovered by a monitoring team at Macquarie University who have partnered with the University of Technology Sydney.
    Associate professor Joshua Madin with the department of Biological Science at Macquarie University said the issue was the worst case of coral bleaching ever in Sydney Harbour.
    “We have been monitoring the coral in Sydney Harbour for seven years now and we have never seen anything like this before,” Madin told ninemsn.
    Madin warned the bleaching of Sydney’s coral could be the “canary in the mine,” an early indicator of devastating environmental disasters to follow…
    “Whether this coral dies depends on how long they have been bleached – if it’s been more than a couple of weeks they may die, if the water manages to cool in time then a lot of it could survive.”
    http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/04/19/11/04/worst-case-of-coral-bleaching-ever-found-in-sydney-harbour-could-destabilise-local-ecosystem

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    • #
      Mjw

      Been monitoring Sydney Harbour for 7 whole years, wow. What more evidence do you need that it must be CO2.
      No mention of the rest of the crap that gets flushed down the harbour every time the bottom gets disturbed.

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  • #
    pat

    comment #26 is in moderation.

    4 Apr: American Meteorological Society: Making Climate Data Sing: Using Music-like Sonifications to Convey A Key Climate Record
    Here we report on a collaboration between scientists and artists at the University of Minnesota that uses data sonification with added musical elements to transmit evidence of climate change in an engaging and visceral way…
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00223.1

    15 Apr: American Meteorological Society: Using Scientific Conferences to Engage the Public on Climate Change
    Jeffrey A. Hicke, John T. Abatzoglou, Steven Daley-Laursen, Jamie Esler, and Lauren Parker
    Abstract: Climate change is often perceived as controversial in the public’s view. One meaningful way scientists can address this problem is to engage with the public to increase understanding of climate change…
    Here we describe outreach (sending experts into the community) and inreach (bringing the public to a conference) activities at the 2015 Northwest Climate Conference in Idaho, USA that were designed to increase the local community’s understanding of climate change and foster interaction between scientists and the public…We reached an estimated 1000 students and 500 other members of the public in person, and many others via advertising and newspaper articles…
    ***We encourage other conference organizers to consider these activities in their future meetings to increase public knowledge of climate change, particularly given the urgency of action needed to limit future climate change and its impacts…
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00304.1

    11

  • #
    LightningCamel

    All data requires statistical adjustments to remove bias

    What a lot of unscientific cocky poo!

    You need proper experimental design and data collection to ensure your data is not biased. You then need a good understanding of the data to analyse it and draw inferences properly based on its scope and limitations. Adjusting the data after the fact should rarely be necessary and only occur for good and widely understood reasons. Adjustment is almost certain to introduce bias where there are preconceptions or incomplete understanding.

    101

    • #
      LightningCamel

      Replying to myself,hmmm? I suppose it’s OK as long as I don’t start an argument.

      The cosmic consciousness must be having a thought bubble on data adjustment and analysis. I noticed this recent article by Pat Frank in WUWT which has some interesting thoughts on systematic errors in the temperature data and their effect on the conclusions which may be drawn based on the data.

      Abstract: I had a longer abstract, but here’s the short form. Those compiling the global averaged surface air temperature record have not only ignored systematic measurement error, but have even neglected the detection limits of the instruments themselves. Since at least 1860, thermometer accuracy has been magicked out of thin air. Also since then, and at the 95% confidence interval, the rate or magnitude of the global rise in surface air temperature is unknowable. Current arguments about air temperature and its unprecedentedness are speculative theology.

      His abstract gives the gist but the specifics are worth a read. Makes arguments about tenths of a degree rather laughable.

      Commenter David Hagen contributes some thoughts on Type B errors and some useful links with definitions and guidelines on design and analysis issues raised by the different types of errors.

      Type B errors ignored
      Thanks Pat for a superb presentation and clear discussion.
      It appears the “Climate Consensus” willfully ignores the international guidelines for evaluating uncertainties formally codified under true scientific consensus among the national standards labs.
      See:
      Evaluation of measurement data – Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement. JCGM 100: 2008 BIPM (GUM 1995 with minor corrections) Corrected version 20100
      This details the Type A and Type B uncertainty errors.
      Type A. those which are evaluated by statistical methods,
      Type B. those which are evaluated by other means.
      See the diagram on p53 D-2 Graphical illustration of values, error, and uncertainty.
      Type B errors are most often overlooked. E.g.

      3.3.2 In practice, there are many possible sources of uncertainty in a measurement, including:
      a) incomplete definition of the measurand;
      b) imperfect reaIization of the definition of the measurand;
      c) nonrepresentative sampling — the sample measured may not represent the defined measurand;
      d) inadequate knowledge of the effects of environmental conditions on the measurement or imperfect measurement of environmental conditions;
      e) personal bias in reading analogue instruments;
      f) finite instrument resolution or discrimination threshold;
      g) inexact values of measurement standards and reference materials;
      h) inexact values of constants and other parameters obtained from external

      See NIST’s web page Uncertainty of Measurement Results
      International and US Perspectives on measurement uncertainty
      Barry N. Taylor and Chris E. Kuyatt, Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results, NIST TN1297 PDF

      12

  • #
    peter

    Haven’t heard from Climateskeptic or Ross on this one. They have nothing to say?

    Has Jo or anyone got any comment on Hilary Clinton’s promise the other day that (if she becomes President – which is quite possible) the US will go after deniers around the world?

    52

    • #
      LightningCamel

      Hi Peter,

      I’ve got one on that. If the Warmunistas go down that path they should keep a careful eye over their shoulder. There is increasing science both supporting the skeptic position and demonstrating the errors, incorrect assumptions and distortions in the alarmist position. These pseudo-scientific social manipulators may well find themselves called to account for the thousands (or millions) of lives and trillions of dollars wasted in pursuit of their fixations.

      Pierre Gosselin has a piece on this here.

      72

      • #
        peter

        Good, lightningCamel, but the political power is still with the hysterical alarmists. And they are determined to spend public money on this.

        41

        • #
          AndyG55

          “And they are determined to spend public money on this.”

          And to arrest anyone that disagrees with them.

          33

    • #
      AndyG55

      Would be fun watching her go after the Russian scientists who LAUGH at the AGW scam,

      and the Chinese who play the AGW game with ease.

      Good luck with that. 🙂

      22

  • #
    ROM

    NASA was originally known as the NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

    The NACA was formed in 1915 and dissolved in October 1958 when its assets and etc were transferred to the newly created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

    Even with the NACA if you ever go back and read some of the test pilot articles and books of those days just post WW2 when the new jet aircraft were being developed and when the Americans and the Russians killed a lot of pilots as they worked their way through the problems inherent in any very new jet aircraft technology that was pushing beyond the known envelope under the Korean War pressures.
    And with a possibility of an all out nuclear war breaking out against h the Soviets, there was a still a heck of a lot of cynicism being expressed by the test pilots who as a group were right at the pointy end of things going drastically wrong very, very quickly, about the activities and attitudes of the then NACA.

    Then came the new NASA and the development of rocketry which even the new NASA management managed to stuff up quite dramatically quite often.
    In the end, the NASA hierarchy without any expertise in rocketry had to stand aside and let the engineers including a large number of German rocket engineers bought over from Germany’s Peenmunde rocket research and development centre where the V2’s and other lesser known rocket types were developed by the Nazi’s.
    They got on on with the job of designing, de-flawing and building the first of America’s more successful early rockets after sorting out some very feeble and disastrous attempts at rocket design by American engineers and then went on to design and build the giant Saturn rockets that were to take Man to the Moon.

    The Russians were in that same race right up to the point where a Russian cosmonaut volunteer and his stand in replacement were on a plane to the Baikonur Launch Centre for a one way trip to the Moon so as to be the first ever to leave Mother Earth and to set foot on another World when the Politburo then in conference over the flight got very cold feet and called the launch off and the whole Russian moon landing thing off  for good.

    They were about to be done over by the Americans and their German rocket engineers and the Politburo knew it.

    Only later once again did the men in suits get back control of the NASA rocketary and side lined the engineers in regard to rocket design and when to launch.

    And we saw the outcomes of this in the Challenger disaster when an engineer tried desperately to stop the launch from going ahead in very cold conditions when he realised they had never tested the giant O ring seals around the boosters down to the temperatures prevailing during that Challenger launch.
    The launch went ahead.
    We know the outcome.
    The frozen hard O rings and therefore inflexible and therefore unable to seal properly around the solid fuel boosters thruster section on one of the solid fuel boosters burnt through and directed a searingly hot jet onto the connecting stays that held the booster to the main shuttle structure which then burnt through, pivoted into the actual shuttle under full thrust and brought disaster on only a short way into the launch.

    And in the 1980’s we saw a whole series of NASA space craft failures often very early after their launches and sometimes after they had reached their actual destination around another planet.

    NASA has an Earth Sciences division now known widely as the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
    [Robert H Goddard was a very early American rocket pioneer and experimenter who built and launched the first liquid fueled rocket in 1926 ]

    Somewhere along the line the NASA executives have failed in their totality to hold NASA’s Earth Sciences division to its prime object of researching any and every aspect of our planet from a unique position out in space.
    The whole publicity surrounding the GISS has evolved to the point where most people immediately associate GISS with climate alarmism without ever realising that the GISs also has a very large number of other space orientated, earth observing satellites and space sensors in operation.

    GISS as in the name has been almost totally hijacked and shaped and implemented by a very few global warming/ climate change fanatics who were employed by NASA in its Earth sciences division and who have grabbed the opportunity of turning the GISS organisation and its name into a major vehicle to publicise and to lobby for their own personal beliefs and its ideological base which was and is based solely on CO2 being the cause of a [ non existent ] catastrophic increase in global temperatures due to rising CO2 levels.
    Because of their personal ideological investment into the CAGW meme, the GISS employed originators of the CAGW ideology have been forced to keep adjusting the temperature data to continue the public’s perception that the Earth is heading ever faster towards a major climate created disaster.

    Now they can’t get off the temperature adjustment tread mill without a total collapse in the public’s belief in their integrity and in their ideologically based CAGW meme along with a complete collapse in respect for them individually and as a scientific group by the scientific community and therefore a wiping of the slate as to their standings and reputations across politics, science and in the community’s eyes.

    The outcome being as we are now seeing it, an escalating public contempt for the pseudo science of the GISS climate section and a steady and accelerating fall in respect for the NASA name and the NASA organsations all shaped the public’s view of GISS as being almost solely all about climate change and how catastrophic that climate change will be.

    62

  • #
    Mjw

    Were 1910 and 2000 particularly bad years for thermometer manufacturers or the people who read them?

    61

    • #
      el gordo

      The adjustments made in the early 21st century were meant to hide the decline in temperatures by lowering the past and raising the present, it seems to have worked quite well.

      Whereas the temperatures recorded in 1910 and even earlier were very reliable, take a look at the El Nino of 1877-78.

      http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160418/9wpxf8ig.jpg

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    • #
      Raven

      Just you wait till 2100.
      Then you’ll see some pretty schmick thermometers.
      Of course, we’ll all be dead by then so no one’s going to be checking on them.

      31

  • #
    ScotsmaninUtah

    NASA GISS – oh what a tangled web

    They haven’t got a space shuttle and cannot fly a rocket without Russian engines anymore, but NASA can bendy-the-space-time-continuii to measure temperatures today back in 1910.

    I do like Jo’s use of words here , this brought a smile this week in what is otherwise a very serious subject.
    NASA GISS and its director Gavin Schmidt seem to be allowing behavior that is both suspect and dare I say it manipulative.

    If we were to count up all the other datasets from other disciplines that have been adjusted over the years and compare them with the temperature record datasets, I suspect that we would see a “spike” in terms of the number of adjustments.

    32

  • #
    Tim Hammond

    To adjust the data, you have to have a source of better quality data. Otherwise it simply is guessing (or worse, fraud).

    So where is the better quality data that is being used to make these adjustments?

    I don’t believe it exists – unless someone can show us where the more reliable and accurate data comes from?

    This is surely the fundamental point.

    22

  • #
    el gordo

    Breaking News

    Australian PM wants to build huge coal fired power station in North Queensland.

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/coalition-wants-to-build-1-2gw-coal-plant-using-climate-funds-73755

    50

    • #

      Huh!

      There’s one take away line for me in this whole article, which is an obvious trashing of the whole idea for a new coal fired power plant, from a clueless journalist.

      Ignore for a moment the fact that Australia already has a surplus of nearly 7,000MW of coal-fired capacity…..

      Go on then, turn it all of. I dare you!

      Tony.

      80

      • #
        AndyG55

        I hope they LOVE my comments 😉

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          HAHAHA 🙂

          They complain about having the privilege of a reliable coal based power supply all from the comfort of a climate controlled room typing on machines made from oil with information transmitted via satellites that were launched there via fossil fuels, and they’re probably Ok with the rationalization of Drax.

          61

        • #
          Raven

          Well that was funny . . good job AndyG55. 😉

          22

      • #
        diogenese2

        Reading the article I noticed a little box giving current generation for the whole of Oz.

        Coal 19.9GW, Gas 3.5GW, hydro 1.3GW, wind 0.8GW – 3.3% of the total 24.6GW

        Solar 0% – well is was 22.00h however Spain has long cracked the technique of extracting “dark” solar energy.

        ” Between November 2009 and January 2010, about 4,500 megawatt-hours of electricity was pumped by “solar sources” into the Spanish grid after the midnight but before 7 a.m. The subsidized price paid for this amount of solar energy is about 2.5 million euros and the authorities assume that this is the total amount of fraud.” from Lubos Motl site circa 2010

        30

    • #
      Yonniestone

      This is bloody priceless LOL! 🙂

      The article itself is an eco whingefest but the comments are classic warmist delusion, the points being complained about are actually great ideas for North Queensland, exactly the sort of plans Tony Abbott laid out but were poo pooed by the MSM because of misogyny, Catholic, winking, speedos, denier etc etc…..

      81

    • #
      AndyG55

      http://www.eastwestlineparks.com.au/project_iron_boomerang.php

      The first step to opening the VAST unused northern Australia.

      42

    • #
      toorightmate

      Chairman Allbull is very innovative – or hadn’t you noticed.
      Oops, there goes another fast train. The fast trains could be coal powered!!!!!!

      30

      • #
        AndyG55

        “The fast trains could be coal powered”

        They could haul coal !

        Maybe SA could use some, keep the lights on.

        32

    • #
      Analitik

      The best investment the CEFC could ever make

      30

  • #
    ScotsmaninUtah

    You cannot make baby in 1 month by making 9 woman pregnant

    In electronics our measuring instruments are tagged with a date of when it was last calibrated and also include an expiration date.
    This is to avoid the problems of drift caused by components moving out of their operating range and affecting the accuracy of the measurement.
    Measurement is very much done on an individual basis and takes time and effort so large numbers of measurements by many instruments is very seldom employed due to the time overhead and the problem of introducing systemic errors.

    Looking at these NASA GISS adjustments it is perplexing to see such wholesale and somewhat crude adjustments being applied across a large array of sites.
    The UHI effect for each site is not uniform so one has to assume that each site has been a analysed based on its rate of urbanization and a singular adjustment curve applied to each site according to its bias.

    I do not see this from the above graph, in addition to the number of changes within a short space of time and the fact that the change had possibly been done globally via software, it is very worrying and of great concern as to the precision by which these adjustments have been applied.

    Then of course GISS could have just fudged the numbers… 😮

    I wonder if the audit processes of these large scale adjustments which GISS conducts are available for review ?

    32

  • #
    Andrew

    So about 40% of the entire 20ty century warming occurred during the Obama Administration?

    41

  • #
    pat

    carbon fudging.

    19 Apr: CarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: US govt should use proxy carbon price in energy infrastructure decisions – think-tank (Center for American Progress)
    A report released last year by the CDP revealed that by 2017, more than 1,000 private companies worldwide will apply shadow carbon pricing when making long-term investment decisions.
    But governments have not yet adopted the practice, increasing the risk that new energy infrastructure end up financially or environmentally unviable…
    Using a proxy carbon price entails pricing a cost of future greenhouse gas emissions into projects that will run for decades, even if no such price exists at the time of implementation.
    “In the long term – although a specific time horizon is impossible to predict – it is reasonable to expect congressional inaction to give way to legislation that establishes a national carbon price,” said the report.The think-tank proposed that the price could be based on the social cost of carbon, which is already estimated by the US executive. In 2015 that ranged from $11-$105 per tonne of CO2e, depending on the discount rate and the projected severity of climate effects.
    Alternatively, a price could be set in line with the estimated cost of meeting the US’ long-term emission targets or the cost of achieving the 2C goal in the Paris Agreement. The International Energy Agency has estimated that a carbon price of $140 per tonne in 2040 would be consistent with achieving the 2C target…
    http://carbon-pulse.com/18538/

    18 Apr: CarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Report brands New Zealand “climate cheats” over use of dodgy ERUs
    New Zealand’s heavy reliance on dodgy ERUs to meet its emissions targets up to 2020 makes it “party to fraud” and could spark serious repercussions from other nations, according to a report released Monday.
    Some 70% of units surrendered to the New Zealand government under the nation’s ETS in the 2010-2014 period were questionable or fraudulent ERUs delivered by projects in Ukraine and Russia, said the report released by think-tank the Morgan Foundation.
    NZ emitters bought millions of the offset credits after 2012 for prices as low as NZ$0.10, but a report released last year by the Stockholm Environment Institute showed most of those ERUs had little or no environmental integrity…
    The Ukrainian market, which has supplied 90% of ERUs bought by New Zealand, has allegedly been riddled with fraud.
    The government holds 97 million such ERUs in its account, which it has used to meet its Kyoto Protocol target for 2008-2012.
    This, in turn, allowed New Zealand to carry over a huge number of AAUs which it will use to meet its 2020 target, despite national greenhouse gas emissions steadily rising, the report said…
    In New Zealand, foreign offsets make up more than 100% of the theoretical emission reductions it has achieved under Kyoto, the authors added…
    “The government is now working hard to establish links to new international carbon markets for the post-2020 period…We risk undermining not only our own access, but also the international community’s faith in carbon markets as a viable solution at all.”…
    According to the report, NZ emitters have used nearly NZ$200 million ($138 million) to buy ERUs from Ukraine and Russia.
    “This is $200 million removed from our economy and sent overseas to criminals for no environmental benefit; $200 million that could have been spent here in New Zealand reducing our emissions.”
    http://carbon-pulse.com/18506/

    21

  • #
    michael hart

    As people like Richard Lindzen often point out, even if all the adjustments are valid and necessary, they merely underline the huge measurement uncertainties surrounding a very modest underlying trend.

    71

  • #
    pat

    comment #37 on “carbon fudging” is in moderation.

    18 Apr: CarbonPulse: EU ETS needs minimum price to counter traders’ “betting shop” – study
    The EU should impose a minimum EU ETS price to create more certainty for investors and counter a recent trend that has allowed it to become a “betting shop for policy decisions”, German researchers recommended.
    Researchers from think-tanks Mercator Research Institute, the Potsdam Institute, and the Berlin Technical University, examined 29 political events over 2008-2014, and published their findings in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management…
    “A good countermeasure would be a minimum price for the permits, including the prompt implementation thereof after the ratification of the global climate agreement,” he (Mercator CEO Ottmar Edenhofer) said, arguing that greater price certainty would allow investors to better plan and to switch more readily to carbon-friendly technologies..
    http://carbon-pulse.com/18529/

    shifting your carbon footprint to another entity to save the planet?

    18 Apr: CarbonPulse: Ben Garside: Vattenfall confirms sale of German lignite assets to EPH
    Vattenfall on Monday signed a deal to sell its loss-making German lignite operations to privately-held Czech investor EPH, confirming a move that will ***substantially cut the Swedish state-owned utility’s carbon footprint…
    The deal will transfer the ownership of 8,000 MW of installed capacity in power plants Jaenschwalde, Boxberg, Schwarze Pumpe and a 50% stake in Lippendorf, as well as four open cast mines…
    Vattenfall is keen to lessen its exposure to this market and to regulatory risk, and instead focus on developing its low-carbon assets and strengthen its green credentials…
    Environmental campaigners expressed concern that EPH was less likely to ***safeguard jobs and ***fulfil its environmental obligations than a more measured coal phase-out under Vattenfall with German government funding…
    http://carbon-pulse.com/18522/

    safeguarding jobs while fulfilling environmental obligations! how nice of Carbon Pulse to claim anonymous “environmental campaigners” care about jobs. feeling the heat?

    21

  • #
    pat

    18 Apr: Pew Charitable Trusts: Elaine S. Povich: Frustrated by Federal Inaction, Some States Consider Carbon Taxes
    OLYMPIA, Wash. — In November, voters here may make their state the first in the U.S. to impose a tax on carbon-based fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change…
    The levy would hit consumers and businesses by increasing the price of gasoline, fuel oil and electricity…
    The ballot measure here could pave the way for efforts in other states, mostly in New England, that are also considering fees on carbon pollution…
    He (Charles Komanoff, director of the Carbon Tax Center, a pro-carbon-tax group) said it would “measurably lower the state’s carbon emissions, without impeding the economy and without disadvantaging poor and middle-income households.”
    “By doing those things, it’s going to become a potential template for other states and ultimately for Congress.”…
    The effort has run into opposition from unions and the business community, on the grounds that levying more taxes on energy-using businesses would hurt both workers and companies. Liberals also argue that with unmet needs in the state, particularly in education, it’s not smart to create a tax without raising revenue aimed at addressing those needs…
    The state Department of Ecology promulgated regulations based on the governor’s proposal but withdrew them in February, in the face of criticism from businesses, some of which threatened to leave the state.
    ***The agency is looking to rewrite the rules.
    The measure, rather than being perfect, is a “swing at the ball,” said Yoram Bauman, an economist and the founder of Carbon Washington.
    “We are working to set an example for the rest of the world,” he said. “We take this ‘incubators of democracy’ thing seriously.”…READ ALL
    http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/04/18/frustrated-by-federal-inaction-some-states-consider-carbon-taxes?utm_campaign=2016-04-18+Stateline+Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Pew

    11

  • #
    pat

    el gordo & TonyfromOz commented on Renew Economy coal piece.

    here’s another…& highly deceptive it is:

    19 Apr: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Read my lips: Indian energy minister repeats “no coal imports within 3 years”
    India’s energy minister Piyush Goyal has repeated the message that thermal coal developers in Australia, and state and federal governments, do not want to here(sic): India intends to halt all imports of thermal coal within two or three years.
    “Indian companies used to import a lot of thermal coal. We want to completely stop its import over the next two to three years,” Goyal told the Maritime India summit in Mumbai last Friday…
    And more recently he has added to this by saying that solar energy is now cheaper than new coal generation.
    Meanwhile, Indian imports have fallen dramatically, the biggest coal company has slashed the price of domestic coal, and the country has stated its intention to ban sales of petrol cars by 2030,
    Goyal also re-iterated that India intends to fast track its development of solar, which aims to have 100MW of solar by 2022.
    “The previous government had set a target of 20,000 MW of solar capacity by 2022. But we want to achieve this target by 2017. We have set an ambitious target of achieving 100,000 MW of solar capacity by 2022,” Goyal said…
    Coalition MP Ewan Jones even argued on Monday that the government should use climate funds to support the construction of a 1.2GW coal generator that could, amongst other things, help provide power for the (Carmichael)coal mine.
    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/read-my-lips-indian-energy-minister-repeats-no-coal-imports-within-3-years-73239

    read my lips, Giles. India is CONSIDERING, India is CONTEMPLATING…and India might not consider importing from their own mine in Queensland as being quite the same as importing from elsewhere:

    16 Apr: BusinessTodayIndia: PTI: Govt CONSIDERING stopping thermal coal import in two-three years
    India is CONTEMPLATING stopping imports of thermal coal in the next two-three years to save Rs 40,000 crore annually by taking advantage of the increasing production of the dry fuel, union Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in Mumbai on Friday…
    State-run miner Coal India came up with bumper production that enabled the country to cut down on its import bill last fiscal for the dry fuel by Rs.28,000 crore…
    Iterating the government’s commitment to raise Coal india’s production to one billion tonnes by 2019…
    http://www.businesstoday.in/current/policy/govt-considering-thermal-coal-import-in-two-three-years/story/231166.html

    11

  • #
    pat

    19 Apr: BloombergNewEnergyFinance: China lull behind quiet quarter for global clean energy investment
    Global clean energy investment dropped in Q1 2016, despite mega-financings in UK and Norwegian wind, due to a slowdown in China and a dearth of public market equity raises
    London and New York, 19 April 2016 – Global clean energy investment in the first quarter of 2016 was $53.1bn, down 22% on Q4 2015’s $68.1bn and 12% below the $60.5bn recorded in the equivalent quarter a year ago.
    The figures, based on transactions recorded by Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s data team, show that the main factor behind the relatively weak Q1 result was a change in the pace of activity in China. Clean energy investment in that country in the first quarter was $11.8bn, down 50% from Q4, and 37% lower than in Q1 2015, as wind and solar developers paused after a rush last year to qualify for soon-to-expire electricity tariffs…
    The first quarter is often the weakest of the year for global investment, and totals can be revised up if more deals come to light. However, Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “Based on Q1 figures, 2016 is going to be hard-pressed to beat last year’s record investment total…
    China was not the only reason for the downbeat first quarter investment total. Brazil saw commitments there fall 27% year-on-year to $1bn, while South Africa recorded almost no deals in Q1 2016 compared to $3.7bn in the same quarter of 2015, due to the timing of its auction rounds. Japan notched up investment of $6.8bn, down 19% on the year, while Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, all significant centres for investment in 2015, had quiet starts to 2016.
    Investment held up better in India, reaching $1.9bn, up 6% on Q1 2015…READ ALL
    http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/china-lull-behind-quiet-quarter-for-global-clean-energy-investment/

    11

  • #
    pat

    nything you say, Dana:

    19 Apr: Guardian: Dana Nuccitelli: Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
    Global warming attribution studies consistently find humans are responsible for all global warming over the past six decades.
    A new study published in Climate Dynamics has found that humans are responsible for virtually all of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century. It’s not a novel result – in fact, most global warming attribution studies have arrived at the same general result – but this study uses a new approach…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/apr/19/study-humans-have-caused-all-the-global-warming-since-1950

    11

  • #
    F. Ross

    The moving finger writes,
    and having writ
    Moves on. Nor all your piety
    or wit
    Can lure it back to cancel
    half a line,
    Nor all your tears wash
    out a word of it.
    —Omar Khayyam

    Such a beautifully expressed thought…
    too bad NASA, GISS never read it.

    20

  • #
    Raven

    My story:
    I don’t know if anyone will remember Dr William McBride. He came to quite some prominence (back in the 70’s?) as a leading obstetrician for his early work into a morning sickness drug (containing thalidomide) and set up a foundation for research into this area.

    My personal involvement was that he treated my wife on two occasions relating to a problem carrying babies to term. She had had premature miscarriages and he applied a simple fix – a stitch, that solved the problem on two occasions. Brilliant.

    Years later it was discovered that he’d fudged some data on a research paper. Apparently (from memory) he reached the correct conclusion but of course that was irrelevant.

    He was summarily struck off for scientific fr**d and the long running legal battle effectively sent him broke.

    Accountability in Climate Science™ ? . . not so much.

    31

    • #

      He committed fraud regarding debendox late in life. That doesn’t invalidate the work he did for your wife or his thalidomide research. The fact that someone of such standing can be called out for a wrong doing and that his fame and popularity did not protect him, is a very good thing.

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      • #

        I included a word in my other reply that put me in moderation – luckily it was used correctly.

        Anyway regarding debedox as Pyridoxine/doxylamine was called in Australia several decades ago…

        he reached the correct conclusion

        is incorrect. The conclusion was wrong. Wiki gives an adequate description but if in doubt check the primary sources…

        Due to the extensive scientific evidence demonstrating that there is no difference in the risk for birth defects or other adverse pregnancy outcomes between infants whose mothers take pyridoxine/doxylamine during pregnancy and those infants whose mothers do not take this drug combination, the two ingredients of the drug are considered Pregnancy compatible[2] (or category A drugs with the previous pregnancy risk factor classification system).

        Since the mid-1950s, over 33 million women have used the combination drug of pyridoxine/doxylamine in pregnancy, and scientific analysis on more than 200,000 exposed pregnancies has been conducted to determine if the combination of pyridoxine and doxylamine is harmful to the unborn baby.[1][8] No epidemiological studies have found any teratogenic effect.[8]

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        Raven

        Thanks, Gee Aye and there will be no quibble from me regarding the “correctness” of his conclusion.

        You may see that my post was from memory and I’d confess I didn’t look into the research, so I accept my error.

        But yes, his hitherto good reputation didn’t protect him, and nor should it.
        Agreed also that if not for his expertise, I probably wouldn’t have my two youngest.

        The point of my post was to illuminate the accountability differences of the disciplines.
        The warmists are quick to jump on imaginary “spreading of misinformation” and extrapolating that to legal consequences and also to conjuring medical analogies to Climate Science™ but I wonder if they would survive an equivalent responsibility attached thereto.

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    Sparks

    Another report about NASA-Giss Not fudging numbers again? okay, so who is?

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    tom0mason

    As Geoff Sherrington says elsewhere but IMO equally applies here —

    Geoff Sherrington
    Posted Apr 19, 2016 at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Reply

    Most of the argument would-be resolved by using actual temperatures, as proper scientists do, instead of this anomaly contrivance so loved by the climate researchers.
    But then, worse problems would be revealed.
    Is it science or illusion?
    Geoff.

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      Tom
      There is a problem with using actual temperatures. The thermometers on land are not evenly placed and there are genuine biases – due to thermometer biases and UHI effects.
      Problem is that real temperature trends are also different.
      If you do not eliminate the differences through homogenization, the average trend will not compute and/or there will be genuine biases in the data. But if you use homogenization over and over you will end up with something meaningless. If you recompute the numbers every year or so, then past data is likely to be continually adjusted. In Climatic Temperature Variations I discussed how this hypothesis could be tested.

      My comment 1799844 #13 April 22, 2016 at 6:31 am The Law of Averages highlights why the climate mainstream will not notice this bias. They have a preconceived idea of how the trends should look, so will have a lop-sided view of what data is anomalous or not.

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        Harry Twinotter

        Kevin Marshall.

        “They have a preconceived idea of how the trends should look, so will have a lop-sided view of what data is anomalous or not.”

        That is quite a claim.

        I do find it puzzling why some think that “… past data is likely to be continually adjusted”. My understanding is the historic raw temperature data is not adjusted. The derived climatic measurements are adjusted, this is a given as new raw data comes in all the time. Existing temperature stations are upgraded, merged, replaced or moved. When this happens, the climatologists adjust the old runs of derived data to agree with the new temperature series.

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    Harry Twinotter

    “This graph shows how thermometers from 1910 still need to be adjusted, even 100 years later. They need constant correction (the bottom blue line is the month of Jan 1910). Strangely, even modern thermometers need correction too (the top red line is January 2000).”

    You keep misrepresenting what the climate scientists do. This is dishonest.

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    NASA fail. TWENTY-FOUR bolts missing. Satellite topples off assembly jig.

    Proximate Cause: The NOAA N-PRIME satellite fell because the LMSSC operations team failed to follow procedures to properly configure the TOC, such that the 24 bolts that were needed to secure the TOC adapter plate to the TOC were not installed.

    Too many specialists with narrow focus dismissed comments and the responsible engineer didn’t check.

    NASA’s culture is NASA’s disease.

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