The World May Not Be Warming After All - Who Could Have Guessed?

While we have shivered in the cold shoveling snow, some scientists have tried to explain the cold snowy weather as being evidence of global warming. Maybe not.

An article in today's UK Times Online shows the evidence for global warming is starting to fall apart.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

Apparently, the weather data collection centers were places near buildings, in urban areas, and other positions that would give abnormally high temperature readings. Can it make that much of a difference? Sure it can. I have a real world example.

The thermometer on my back deck is out in the open, exposed to the elements and on the north side of my home. The thermometer on the front porch is in a sheltered alcove on the south side of my home. On any day, regardless of weather conditions, sunlight, etc., these two instruments will have a variation of nearly 5 degrees. The variation will remain no matter which of the two thermometers is in either location.

I'm no scientist, but I have enough common sense to realize that if the data is flawed the conclusions drawn from it are also flawed.

I also found another study, Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception,  published January 29, 2010, that goes into great depth on the faulty evidence gathering methods and data altering. In one photo, a data gathering station is shown, on a parking lot,  in Tucson, AZ! This photo is on page 30 of the report.

The study states on page 36:

"US STATE HEAT RECORDS SUGGEST RECENT DECADES ARE NOT THE WARMEST

The 1930s were, by far, the hottest period for the timeframe. In absolute terms the 1930s had a much higher frequency of maximum temperature extremes than the 1990s or 2000s or the combination of the last two decades."

I would suggest you check out this study. It will be a nice break from shoveling snow.