Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

The 329th consecutive month of hot temperature adjustments

Jerry Stratton, August 19, 2012

NOAA USHCN temperature adjustments: Difference between raw and final United States Historical Climatology Network data sets, from NOAA.gov.; global warming; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; NOAA

As far as I can tell, the NOAA/USHCN hasn’t updated this chart since 2000.

You can always sift through statistics to find something out of the ordinary.

This is especially true when you control the statistics. For example,

July was the fourth-warmest such month on record globally, and the 329th consecutive month with a global-average surface temperature above the 20th-century average, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

However,

July was also the 329th consecutive month of positive upwards adjustment to the U.S. temperature record by NOAA/NCDC.

Actually, 864th, but matching the numbers sounds better. It’s all a matter of what statistics you choose to look at. But, as I said in July, you don’t get to make predictions in hindsight; you don’t get to choose the measurements afterwards. The most important part of this chart isn’t that the numbers are being adjusted upward, it’s that they’re being adjusted differently every year.

In response to I believe in Global Warming (and other conversion stories): Conversion stories aren’t meant to convert skeptics; they’re a bonding tale for the converted, a sign of a religion; science needs theories that make predictions about what happens when they’re right and how to falsify them if they’re wrong. Proof for human-caused global warming is always whatever happened last month or last year, never tomorrow. No application of the scientific method can ever disprove it because hindsight is 20/20.

  1. Global warming cage ->