Humans are causing global warming—at least on paper.
Give scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) credit for chutzpah if not for scientific integrity.
They are among the many global-warming proponents who have been chaffing over the fact that global temperatures have remained basically flat for the past 17 years or so—often referred to as the global warming “hiatus.” So they decided to manipulate the raw data and, low and behold, discovered the earth HAS been warming!
According to a statement released by NOAA on June 4, Thomas R. Karl, who directs NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, said, “Our new analysis suggests that the apparent hiatus may have been largely the result of limitations in past datasets, and that the rate of warming over the first 15 years of this century has, in fact, been as fast or faster than that seen over the last half of the 20th century.”
NOAA takes ocean surface temperatures using both ships and buoys. According to the agency, “Compared to ships, buoys provide measurements of significantly greater accuracy.” So you might expect that means buoys were indicating higher temperatures than the ships, so NOAA adjusted the ships’ temperatures up to conform with the buoys. But you’d be wrong.
NOAA’s statement continues: “’In regards to sea surface temperature, scientists have shown that across the board, data collected from buoys are cooler than ship-based data,’” said Dr. Thomas C. Peterson, principal scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and one of the study’s authors.”
Got that? Buoys are more accurate and they were showing cooler temperatures than ships, so NOAA manipulated the temperatures HIGHER!
Of course, this isn’t the first time warmists have been caught manipulating data to prove the earth is warming. Five years ago, leaked emails showed that University of East Anglia environmental scientist Phil Jones and others “sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.”
The university eventually cleared Jones of wrongdoing, though many charged that the investigation was a sham.
But there is another point that NOAA ignored in its statement: Environmentalists track the earth’s temperatures in three basic ways—thousands of thermometers around the planet, weather balloons and satellites.
While there is some difference of opinion, many scientists argue that satellites provide the most accurate temperature-measuring method—and, one might add, the least opportunity for data manipulation. And the satellites show no global warming for nearly two decades.
Of course, the earth might start warming again—just as temperatures have risen and fallen for millennia. And human-generated carbon dioxide might play a role in that temperature increase, if it occurs.
But for now we can say with absolute certainty that humans are causing global warming—only it’s not carbon dioxide but data manipulation that’s doing it.