Why did NASA quietly revise the U.S. temperature data?

Question

According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the hottest year ever. 1934 is.

Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.


and why wouldn't global warming enthusiast James Hansen make his algorithm public?

How much confidence does this give you in the global temperatures?

And again.. Why does MMGW enthusiast Hanson refuse to make his methodology public?

Answer 1

Hansen has taken money from democratic presidential candidates for the quid pro quo of his endorsement and also from George Soros who runs MoveOn.com.

Hansen has admitted to exaggerating global warming claims to scare people into taking action.

There's no doubt that keeping the myth of global warming alive is very profitable to the man.

Any scientific data that shows global warming isn't happening would impact Hansen's lifestyle immensely.

Answer 2

Quietly? Hardly! There was a big story about it, and NASA was open about the story to the public. We all heard about it. 1934 is BARELY the warmest year in the lower 48, and the reason why is because we were suffering through the man-made dust-bowl. Remember that the lower 48 represents 2% of the global surface. It is rather insignificant when considering the GLOBAL in global warming.

Answer 3

Hansen "quietly" corrected his numbers? It's prominently described on his web site:

"Fox, Washington Times, and their like have gone bananas over a flaw discovered in the computer program that produces global temperatures at GISS each month. They have even managed to get Congress and NASA Headquarters involved. Now we know what mom meant when she said “don’t make a federal case out of it.” Hey, what is really going on here?

The said computer program is rerun every month as new meteorological station data and new satellite sea surface temperature data are reported. The program produces a global surface temperature field using an analysis scheme documented by Hansen et al. (2001) http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Hansen_etal.pdf

The flaw affected temperatures only in the United States (by about 0.15°C) and only in 2000 and later. We corrected the flaw in the program, thanked the fellow who pointed it out, and thought that was the end of it.

Although the media is always very interested in the ranking of individual years, the precise ranking is not only difficult to define accurately, it is also less important than the climate change averaged over several years. Figure 3 shows surface temperature anomalies of the past 10 years relative to both a 1880-1920 base period and the usual 1951-1980 base period. The figure also shows these results both with and without the flaw in our temperature analysis."

He further explains why 1998 stands out:

"Note, however, that the 1998 and 2006 temperature anomaly maps differ fundamentally from the 1934 and 1921 temperature maps. In 1998 and 2006 the world as a whole has become warmer, 1998 being aided by a very strong El Nino, but 2006 by only a very weak El Nino. In 1921 and 1934 the United States happened to be a relatively hot spot compared to the world as a whole. The next time that the U.S. temperature happens to be unusually high relative to the globe, it may be quite a barn burner."

Noting the ridiculous media reaction to the minor correction, Hansen goes on to point out:

"The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species (see “Dangerous”, “Trace Gases”, and “Gorilla” papers)."

What part of his method (algorithm as you put it) documented here is supposedly not "revealed"?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Hansen_etal.pdf

The claims grossly misrepresent Hansen and the work of many NASA scientists; perhaps that's why the source for the baseless and misleading accusations included with the question is not revealed. Negative assertions like that have little credibility when the source is not revealed, and they'll have even less credibility if the source is revealed.

Answer 4

i contemplate whether guy is relatively clever sufficient to construct a working laptop or laptop style that takes under consideration each and every of the complexities of international climate exchange. Now we hit upon yet another flaw interior the advice. i assume technology needs to take yet another look and reassess. the actual question seems to be no be counted if guy can influence the climate or not. If we don't take steps to guard the ambience, we are able to make a large number of it. on the different hand, too many human beings decide directly to apply environmentalism as a political weapon to unfold their variety of administration over others. If we are able to ratioanally debate the subjects and look at each and every of the advice and attempt to locate the certainty, we are able to understand what to do. i don't think of being rational is merely too possibly into in the present day's polarized political climate. this is the polarized political climate that actual international warming is occuring.

Answer 5

Come on dude, this story is freaking old.

They revised the data quietly because the revision was virtually irrelevant. It made less than a one-thousandth of a degree Celsius difference in the global data.

Who cares that 1934 was the hottest year in the lower 48 United States? On a global level it was an utterly unremarkable year, as you can see here:

http://profend.com/gtr/graphs/meangraphave.html

Do you expect them to hold a worldwide press conference to announce that the global temperature data has changed by less than one-thousandth of a degree Celsius, and the hottest years on record are still 2005 and 1998, but in the lower 48 US it's 1934? Would anyone care?

Answer 6

I love how Dana says that, when there really wasn't an easy or effective way of tracking Global Temperatures until NASA put satellites into space to take infrared photographs of the planet.

Answer 7

It wasn't quiet and it was by a trivial amount.

1934 and 1998 were within a few thousandth of a degree (in the US, not remotely so globally, see the graph below) of each other and this very trivial change caused them to flip flop. This was not hidden, but publicly done, because of a very minor error in the satellite data.

In the global temperatures, the difference was smaller than the width of the red line on this graph, completely insignificant:

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

The fact that right wing blogs made such a big deal of this tiny change is a sign of how desperate they've become, as a mountain of scientific evidence makes global warming undeniable.

Answer 8

The global warming people would not really pay much attention to this because it did not change the warmest years for the GLOBE. This is the difference between GLOBAL warming and REGIONAL warming. The GLOBAL warming people are interested in GLOBAL temperatures not the US only temperatures.

Make sense now?

Answer 9

The Antarctic ice levels hit a record high. Not kidding.

Answer 10

Looks like NASA has something to hide. Very interesting. Obviously, they feel the need to do things secretly.

I smell money.