The NIWA data adjusters got away with this by arguing in court that their tampering was based on standard scientific practice, citing a station that had moved to higher elevation and needed to be adjusted for.
The claim of “standard scientific practice” is grossly inadequate for data sets delivered to politicians to influence major policy decisions. Once scientists start tampering with data, it opens the door to confirmation bias at best -and outright fraud at worst. Even if they did one adjustment in a way which can’t easily be proven incorrect, that doesn’t mean they accounted for all other possible sources of error. They could for example focus on adjustments which cool the past, and largely ignore errors in the other direction. Or they could simply weight adjustments in one direction more heavily than adjustments in the other direction.
The fact that nearly every single data set has been repeatedly adjusted to increase the slope of warming, is overwhelming evidence that the adjustments are illegitimate. Particularly since many of the tampering scientists are vocal global warming advocates, and have a huge conflict of interest.
The best policy (which is standard for large data sets) is to assume a Monte Carlo distribution of error, and leave the measured data alone.
The standard needs to be that the scientists who made the decision to tamper with the data, have to prove that they are correct before they start tampering- not that skeptics have to prove them wrong when they are caught ex post facto. Furthermore, they need to prove that their software correctly implements their tampering specification. There is normally zero quality control when scientists start programming.
When scientists turn a negative trend into a positive trend (like in the US data set since 1930) that indicates a signal to noise ratio of zero – meaning the data is worthless.
Skeptics need to take control of the debate, and stop pandering to the plausible deniability front which tamperers are hiding behind.
I have been mystified by NIWA’s re-calibration of past temperature records, apparently NZ has suffered the most warming of the entire world, due solely to data adjustments. Fine then: just ask them to explain how come NZ suffered more “global warming” than any other place on earth during the the era of “safe” levels of CO2, which also happens to be the greatest period of data adjustment, 1940-1960, a massive 0.60 Celcius in twenty years!
From “Report-on-the-Review-of-NIWAas-Seven-Station-Temperature-Series_v3.pdf” :”For example, a markedly large warming occurred through the period 1940-1960.” “The unusually steep warming in the 1940-1960 period”
Hit them with their own falsifications.
You see several studies that purport to match GISS and Hadcrut pre-1979 data.
I call a farce on these studies, since they are obviously manipulated and fudges to match the unreality.
And as for so-called sceptics that actually use GSS and Hadcrut pre-1979 ……. NOT impressed.
My car thermometer, with car in shade and not warmed up, used to never be more than a degree or so colder than Washington National Airport during daytime. Now it is usually 5 degrees colder and has been as much as 9. There are no only biased adjustments to “prove” warming, there is also something very wrong with siting and/or calibration as well. The people are obvious cheats all the way around.
Andy, I am in mid North Carolina. As a farmer I pay close attention to the weather. I look at it first thing in the morning (and normally catch the low for the day) and frequently look at the temp through out the day often catching the high for the day. ALWAYS the next day the ‘Reported minimum’ is 2 to 4 °F higher. Worse last summer we only had five days at 90°F or above when I checked in September but when I checked again this spring we now have FIFTEEN days….
That does not include the 6 inches of snow on Feb 11 that was turned into rain.
Gail, Gail, Gail, you are obviously an untrained climatologist*. Do not ever forget that! Climatology is an inner circle that knows all the secrets (and gets 99.44% of taxpayer funding in that area); you should be glad that they are letting you in on a few of those secrets one at at a time (secret handshakes if you make it to the next level).
Note: Meteorologists on the whole are as out of the loop as we all are. Thank goodness for the climatologists! How else would we know the weather? You only thought it snowed Feb 11, that was your delusion, they have set you straight. Don’t you feel better now? Sit back, become part of climatology group-think today.
*Similar to trained seals. Do as you are told and you get a fish, in this case $$$$$$.
Snow is a thing from the past. You just haven’t gotten the world. Where I live (Greenbelt, MD) we had approximately 46″ of the thing from past last winter, close to triple our normal.
And it’s not even particularly hot out. Alas whenever a layperson shows up here they assume you are a crank making things up since your comment pool is dominated by Ancient Gods and Iron Man.
Ruling by precedent is a dangerous practice, as any real constitutional expert can clearly illustrate. It is the same with science. The ‘scientific community’ has accepted the practice of data adjustment, and so it will be until the revolution.
This web-site and the facts being presented and revealed are a great-great gift; thank you!
When combining similar terminology to various areas of citizen to government interaction(s), it has become apparent to me that only the government is allowed to use “Reductio ad Absurdum” as a defense (you know, the info-mercial actors who make the other choices look ridiculous….).
The climate-change industry seems to have the most influence on their paid professionals and the high-power distance cultures who glow (white-hot) when they receive handouts.
If the site mentioned above was moved to a higher elevation, the recent measurements should be raised to match the lower elevation not lowering the lower elevations’ readings. Since they obviously don’t know, it is called ‘lapse rate’.
Speaking of liars, crooks and frauds…
“Friday’s edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” opened with an unusual segment. It was 12 minutes of an unfiltered discussion of Harry Reid’s almost-daily attacks on the Koch Brothers.
Image: MSNBC Screen Capture
In the course of the segment, Senate Majority Leader was called a “liar,” said to be “lying about” or spreading “lies” about the Koch brothers more than a dozen times — and that was just by host Joe Scarborough. At the 1:28 mark of the clip, Joe began his rant about Reid by declaring, “It’s embarrassing.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/04/msnbc-co-host-rails-on-harry-reids-koch-addiction-calls-reid-a-liar-more-than-12-times/
No Joe, it is criminal.
Paul Homewood today notes very similar things by GISS and GHCN to the Iceland’s station of Reykjavik and Akureyri, where the adjustments have the effect of increasing the warming trend since 1940 by a full degree or more.
The Iceland Met Office staff are not please, and even they can not get a reason for the adjustments from GHCN or GISS since they were implemented on about November 2011.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/cooling-the-past-in-iceland/