11/18/2008

Does this count as an Oops?

Click the title of this post to see the article that prompted it to be written.

It would appear that NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has had a small "oops!". This installation, run by Dr. James Hansen is the chief of only four data sets that the UN uses as definitive proof of global warming.

The "oops" occurred when they declared last month the hottest October on record...

To quote the source article:
"This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years."
So leave it to bloggers to set things straight. Two of the leading anti-global warming blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit took the claim to task. It was found upon further investigation that there was an anomalous hot spot in Russia... For some reason Russia was 10 degrees hotter. This hot spot, it was found was due to the fact that data for Russia had not been received, so the GISS simply used September's figures. What is the all too often heard Mythbusters' quote? "Well here's your problem right here!" It's no wonder that the world is getting hotter if you are using September's data for October!

Well the GISS quickly released revised but largely unchanged figures (thanks to a newly found anomalous hot spot in the Arctic and this in spite of the fact that there's 30% more sea ice there than there was at this time last year).

The GISS was quick to push blame off with a lame excuse. They claimed that they had received the data "from another source". This is a utterly flabbergasting admission. The principle source of information for the UN's IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has such poor quality control on their data that month-old temperature readings can sneak into the figures unchallenged...

This hardly lends the global warming theory's incontrovertability. Many follow this fad like a religion. A religion that has as heresy the act of questioning its validity.

An interesting thing happens when you begin to penetrate that barrier of incontrovertability with a believer in global warming. It is the same thing that happens when you start penetrating a Christian's religious beliefs. They both will claim, "well it's safer to simply believe than it is to take a chance and be proven wrong in the end". Hallelujah brother and pass the Koolaid.

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