Thursday, June 18, 2009
How not to measure temperature
In case you were wondering why some people question the surface temperature data used to "prove" that average global temperatures are rising, this would be one of many reasons. Another would be the divergences between the land readings (in May, an anamoly over the baseline of +0.87C, the 9th warmest May in 130 years) and lower troposphere readings from satellites and balloons (in May, an anamoly of only +0.05C to +0.09C, the 15th-16th warmest May in 31 years of such readings). One would think there would be more coverage in the popular press about this sort of thing, but the big media organizations seem to be in the tank for the "consensus."
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Jun 18, 11:52:00 AM:
Anthony Watts is a model for what is missing in climate science these days. More credit where more credit is due.
M.E.
By , at
Thu Jun 18, 04:51:00 PM:
Mr. Anthony Watts is a broken-record cretin. This tired issue of land stations was discredited long ago:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/surface-stations/
Short version is that whatever the methodology may be for throwing out local temperature maximums, the general data already takes into account the urban heating effect.
Re troposphere, TH is only quoting the data from creationist Roy Spencer. The RSS data is much closer to a regular fit (.09/.16. As for disparities, these will happen in monthly data. Get used to it. The longer term data set, January to May, is 8th warmest.
By , at
Fri Jun 19, 10:32:00 AM:
So in response we get a few personal insults from Brian, along with some data that doesn't refute the premise.
Why fix some of the data and not all of it?
Since Tigerhawk's conclusion is unrefuted, it stands.
