Source: Watts Up With That?

by David W. Schnare, Esq. Ph.D.

When Phil Jones suggested that if folks didn’t like his surface temperature reconstructions, then perhaps they should do their own, he was right. The SPPI analysis of rural versus urban trends demonstrates the nature of the overall problem. It does not, however, go into sufficient detail. A close examination of the data suggests three areas needing address. Two involve the adjustments made by NCDC (NOAA) and by GISS (NASA). Each made their own adjustments and typically these are serial, the GISS done on top of the NCDC. The third problem is organic to the raw data and has been highlighted by Anthony Watts in his Surface Stations project. That involves the “micro-climate” biases in the raw data.

As Watts points out, while there are far too many biased weather station locations, there remain some properly sited ones. Examination of the data representing those stations provides a clean basis by which to demonstrate the peculiarities in the adjustments made by NCDC and GISS. (more…)

Source:  The Reference Frame

by Lubos Motl

Edward Long, a retired NASA physicist, wrote a fascinating 14-page paper for SPPI that needs to be read and verified:

Contiguous U.S. temperature trends using NCDC raw and adjusted data for one-per-state rural and urban station sets (PDF, frames)

He looked at the NCDC surface temperature records of the 48 main U.S. states (you don’t want me to spell “contiguous” right, do you?). If his work is valid, it is a shocker that actually reveals how the urban effects work and what a major team has done with them.

He took one rural and one urban station from each state among 48 of them. And let’s hope he didn’t cheat or cherry-pick. (more…)

Source:  SPPI

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) has released another paper examining the surface temperature data adjustments by U.S. Government-funded scientists.

Both the Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS), the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC),  have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism for their station selections and the protocols used for adjusting raw data.  The outcome of the on-going tampering with raw data is the appearance of significant warming in the contiguous 48 States. (more…)

Source:  Courtesy of Watts Up With That?

by Anthony Watts

27 01 2010

Image: NOAA USHCN COOP station at Hanksville, UT, sited over a grave. Click for larger image. Photo by surfacestations volunteer Juan Slayton

There’s been a lot of buzz about the Menne et al 2010 paper “On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record” which is NCDC’s response to the surfacestations.org project. One paid blogger even erroneously trumpeted the “death of UHI” which is humorous, because the project was a study about station siting issues, not UHI. Anybody who owns a car with a dashboard thermometer who commutes from country to city can tell you about UHI. (more…)

[SPPI Note:  The Smith-D’Aleo paper mentioned in this press release was commissioned by SPPI, and the full copyrighted version will be released and posted at SPPI in the next few days.  We consented for a shortened version to be used by John Coleman for his program.  All five segments of the program can be viewed here:  http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81583352.html ]

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Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as “the warmest year on record.”

KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on January 14 at 9 p.m. EST. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14 at www.kusi.com.

In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D’Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf. (more…)