Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers.
Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.
Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada.
In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.
Worse, only one station – at Eureka on Ellesmere Island – is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada.
Yet as American researchers Joseph D’Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer, point out in a study published on the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, NOAA uses “just one thermometer [for measuring] everything north of latitude 65 degrees.”
Both the authors, and the institute, are well-known in climate-change circles for their skepticism about the threat of global warming.
Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have “cherry picked” the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea – which has a warming effect on winter weather.
Over the past two decades, they say, “the percentage of [Canadian] stations in the lower elevations tripled and those at higher elevations, above 300 feet, were reduced in half.”
Using the agency’s own figures, Smith shows that in 1991, almost a quarter of NOAA’s Canadian temperature data came from stations in the high Arctic. The same region contributes only 3% of the Canadian data today.
Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and GISS also ignore data from numerous weather stations in other parts of the world, including Russia, the U.S. and China.
They say NOAA collects no temperature data at all from Bolivia – a high-altitude, landlocked country – but instead “interpolates” or assigns temperature values for that country based on data from “nearby” temperature stations located at lower elevations in Peru, or in the Amazon basin.
The result, they say, is a warmer-than-truthful global temperature record.
“NOAA . . . systematically eliminated 75% of the world’s stations with a clear bias towards removing higher latitude, high altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler,” the authors say. “The thermometers in a sense, marched towards the tropics, the sea, and to airport tarmacs.”
The NOAA database forms the basis of the influential climate modelling work, and the dire, periodic warnings on climate change, issued by James Hanson, the director of the GISS in New York.
Neither agency responded to a request for comment Wednesday from Canwest News Service. However Hanson did issue a public statement on the matter earlier this week.
“NASA has not been involved in any manipulation of climate data used in the annual GISS global temperature analysis,” he said. “The agency is confident of the quality of this data and stands by previous scientifically-based conclusions regarding global temperatures.”
In addition to the allegations against NOAA and GISS, climate scientists are also dealing with the embarrassment this week of the false glacier-melt warning contained in the 2007 report of the UN Panel on Climate Change. That report said Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear within three decades if current rates of melting continue.
This week, however, the panel admitted there is no scientific evidence to support such a claim.
The revelations come only two months after the “climategate” scandal, in which the leak or theft of thousands of e-mails – private discussions between scientists in the U.S. and Britain – showed that a group of influential climatologists tried for years to manipulate global warming data, rig the scientific peer-review process and keep their methods secret from other, contrary-minded researchers.
:tinfoilhat:
Cliffs? Way too long to read.
Cliffs:
NOAA: “No Canada, we’re not interested in data from every fucking thermometer you own.”
Scienticians: “Hey, yer doin it wrong!”
Canada: “Ha ha!”
NOAA: :uhh:
600 themometers were installed in the 1970s and now only 35 are being used which happen to be in warmer areas of Canada.
:bigtup:
Why wouldn’t they just take readings from all available points to make the statistics more accurate? Is it really that hard to take recording from 700 thermometers and put the data into a database? Really?
Did our technology fall apart somewhere that I missed? I’d imagine a thermometer reading being put into the database from everywhere all at once would be do-able.
That’s the point.
Because when politics and popular opinion decide to “settle” scientific theory before the science can prove it you need to start manipulating data so it continues to fit your “proven” theory.
At least cap and trade died with the MA election of Brown.
Cap and trade was to pay for healthcare(no matter what Joe says), this should be interesting.
<3 lol
Just like how ocean temperatures are also cooling, or staying moderate… and not increasing 20degrees or some bullshit like al gore said they would in 10 years or whatever (he has like 2 years left since this claim and they have NOT changed at all lol)
they were also taking measurements off of tree rings, and the data was inconsistant with “global warming scientists” thermometers (which are manipulated), they decided to discard natures measuring tool
it’s all a whole bunch of bullshit
Throwin’ in a grenade…
“Why are the polar ice caps melting at an alarming rate if the temperatures aren’t rising?”
I saw a show on Discovery Channel showing maps of the loss of ice and how it’s happening a lot faster than it should. It’s the only thing about this whole “Global warming is fake!” thing I don’t quite get. If there is no change, why is there a drastic change in the polar ice caps?
Global warming…the issue where people make decisions, THEN do research to support their side.
I was seriously saying “I’m ignorant and haven’t done research… so please educate me.” 
I have no clue, so that’s why I asked.
I can believe that the earth is always changing and goes through cycles. The polar ice could be melting on it’s own, without the help of humans but just by coincidence that it’s time…
I just can’t believe how much has disappeared yet there isn’t really a rise in the oceans that affects all of the coasts?
Check out this picture from Ecology.com:
And the percentages:
Do you remember the ice age bro?
prob not because you weren’t there
guess what, all the ice melted because the earth goes thru cycles
just like bitches get their periods
Global warming is bullshit because of what they associate the causes of it with
Baldy, you’re probably the only one in this thread that ISNT guilty of that. I didn’t post because I haven’t done enough research on the issue to come to a conclusion yet, but based on what I have read I lean toward it is a real issue. I think there are definitely some alarming trends. But everyone’s so damn entrenched on this issue that their idea of research is googling “global warming is fake” or “global warming will kill the planet”
Per century, the heat of the earth with projected collected data has been going up 2.5*F per 100 years
the average rate of sea level increase per century is generally 4 feet
in the 20th century it only rose 8 inches
sea level has not shown a drastic increase at islands around the world for the past 17 years
since 2007 the earths oceans have actually been cooling
artic ice extent has remained constant pretty much… over the past 8 years with 2007 being the lowest of the 8 years (which is the computerized graph that u have posted)
I sit back and realize that the human race as a whole thinks they are superior to their surroundings when we are all just frail animals with a little larger brain than the rest of the tree dwelling beings. Do we really think we are so important as to have any ability to wreck the world? The only thing we can wreck is the ability for humans to survive here.
As George Carlin once said “Earth is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas”
As a species, we are weak and pathetic. We are also one of the only animals on the planet that doesn’t use 100% of it’s brain. Something has damaged us, and for that I think we are no better off than the deer that runs out in front of a car because it doesn’t understand what will happen. We don’t work together, we are extremely emotional beings and act irrationally in most desperate situations. We all act like sheep, following the leader blindly. We are lemmings, all walking off the same cliff. etc. etc.
Humans can pretend they understand everything, but we are just dumb animals all working together like a pack of wolves. We may be a little smarter than the rest of the creatures, we can use tools and build things and form language and technology, but in the end, we all will meet the same fate.
I could care less if global warming is real or fake. No human beings on this planet today will be able to work together to solve the issue, even if it does exist. We just aren’t that in control of our surroundings. We like to divide ourselves up into different nations, states, cities and towns. We fight over money, power and religion that can’t all be right.
We need to get over ourselves as a species and move forward or die. I have a feeling the “die” part will happen first.
/rant