A new paper analyzing government temperature data says the Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) data published by NASA and NOAA are “not a valid representation of reality.” In fact, the three respected scientists who published the paper hint strongly that the data may have been fudged.
The professors argue – and skeptics have been saying this for years – that it is just too convenient for these “adjustments” to almost always show an increase in temperature over the unadjusted data. This is statistically impossible and leads to the inescapable conclusion that the books are being cooked.
Here are the the money grafs from the paper:
In this research report, the most important surface data adjustment issues are identified and past changes in the previously reported historical data are quantified. It was found that each new version of GAST has nearly always exhibited a steeper warming linear trend over its entire history. And, it was nearly always accomplished by systematically removing the previously existing cyclical temperature pattern. This was true for all three entities providing GAST data measurement, NOAA, NASA and Hadley CRU.
As a result, this research sought to validate the current estimates of GAST using the best available relevant data. This included the best documented and understood data sets from the U.S. and elsewhere as well as global data from satellites that provide far more extensive global coverage and are not contaminated by bad siting and urbanization impacts. Satellite data integrity also benefits from having cross checks with Balloon data.
The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments, that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever – despite current claims of record setting warming.
Finally, since GAST data set validity is a necessary condition for EPA’s GHG/CO2 Endangerment Finding, it too is invalidated by these research findings. (Full Abstract Report)