Global Warming Hysteria (cooled)

The UN's IPCC reports have been the final 'argument' closing off debate for all GW alarmists. Those of us who know who and how it was put together, including the despicable reality of the 'beefing up' of various phrases by administrators after the scientists went home and the inclusion of names of those who did not agree with its findings on the final reports et al, know only too well they represent the epitome of politicization of science. And here's further proof in the form of a new peer review of the reports themselves:

Excerpt: In “Peer Review? What Peer Review?” McLean writes, “The IPCC would have us believe that its reports are diligently reviewed by many hundreds of scientists and that these reviewers endorse the contents of the report. Analyses of reviewer comments show a very different and disturbing story.” In Chapter 9, the key science chapter, the IPCC concludes that "it is very highly likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed global warming over the last 50 years". The IPCC leads us to believe that this statement is very much supported by the majority of reviewers. The reality is that there is surprisingly little explicit support for this key notion. Among the 23 independent reviewers just 4 explicitly endorsed the chapter with its hypothesis, and one other endorsed only a specific section.

Moreover, only 62 of the IPCC’s 308 reviewers commented on this chapter at all. As with other chapters, simple corrections, requests for clarifications or refinements to the text which did not challenge the IPCC’s conclusions are generally treated favourably, but comments which dispute the IPCC’s claims or their certainty are treated with far less indulgence. In a related finding, McLean observes, “The dominance of research presupposing a human influence also means that the IPCC editing teams are likely to consist of people predisposed to view the situation in that light.” Adds McLean, “The problems continue into the authorship of these reports.

According to IPCC documents, scientists are nominated by governments or explicitly invited by scientists already associated with the IPCC. What a wonderful way to position scientists who support a government agenda on climate and then fill out the IPCC with like-minded individuals.” Concludes McLean, “The IPCC reports appear to be largely based on a consensus of scientific papers, but those papers are the product of research for which the funding is strongly influenced by previous IPCC reports. This makes the claim of a human influence self-perpetuating and for a corruption of the normal scientific process.”

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/ipccprocessillusion.html

Here's a key extract from the excellent Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph on the crumbling world of the GW alarmist in 'Retreat of the warmists begins to accelerate':

Just as we begin to see the colossal price we are being asked to pay for measures to combat climate change, ever more of the evidence adduced to support the global warming scare crumbles away.

A key article of faith for the "warmists" is a supposed increase in the incidence of extreme weather events, such as droughts. As Al Gore claimed to a US Senate committee in March, "droughts are becoming longer and more intense".

But US researchers, led by Gemma Narisma, have now shown that, far from becoming more frequent in recent decades, serious droughts have in fact become rarer than they were a century ago.

In a paper (reported on the website CO2Science.org) they identified the 30 most "severe and persistent" drought episodes of the 20th century.

Seven of these occurred before 1920, seven between 1921 and 1940 and eight between 1941 and 1960, dropping to five between 1961 and 1980.

The last two decades of the century, when the world was supposedly hotting up more than ever, saw just three. The worst drought affecting the developed world was the US Dust Bowl disaster of the mid-1930s.

This corresponds with the recently revised figures for US surface temperatures published by Gore's leading scientific ally, James Hansen of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

Last month, when Steve McIntyre, an expert statistical analyst, spotted a fundamental flaw in the method Hansen had used to calculate his figures, GISS was forced to publish a new graph, showing that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998, as generally accepted, but 1934. Of the 10 hottest years since 1880, four were in the 1930s, only three in the past decade.

This in turn followed the latest satellite figures from the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration showing how global temperatures in recent years have flattened out at about 0.2 degrees below their 1998 level, and that this summer's figures have been lower than they were in 1983, despite a continuing rise in CO2.

It is clear that 2007 is proving quite a turning point in the climate change debate.

Now how could I, a science 'expert', have been so wrong??A new comprehensive survey of peer-reviewed published climate research papers reveals less than half support alarmist Global Warming Theory.   This really is devastating stuff for the whole Leonardo di Gore bandwagon.

A forthcoming article, submitted and accepted for publication at the science journal Energy & Environment here and pre-viewed at Daily Tech, reveals that opinions among climate scientists moved steadily away from earlier alarmist Global Warming Theory post-2004. Here is a key passage:

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no "consensus."  The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of  consensus here.  Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming.  In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that -- whatever the cause may be -- the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.

Let joy be unconfined!! Jump into your SUV and spread the good news! The planet is saved (cos the 'experts' have changed their minds) - unless the environMENTALists get their hands on it, that is.  

Savaga deforestation to grow biofuel crops is rampantWill burning biofuels as an alternative fuel save the world? Apparently not, because its "not green" says a new study. Here's the opening section from the New Scientist article 'Forget Biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead':

It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead.

They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximising the efficiency of fossil fuels instead.

The reason is that producing biofuel is not a "green process". It requires tractors and fertilisers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make "green" fuel. In the case of bioethanol produced from corn – an alternative to oil – "it's essentially a zero-sums game," says Ghislaine Kieffer, programme manager for Latin America at the International Energy Agency in Paris, France (see Complete carbon footprint of biofuel - or is it?).

Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar retired Environment Canada scientist and an expert IPCC reviewer in 2007, writes:

Brant Boucher, in his letter "Scientific consensus" (The Hill Times, Aug. 6, 2007), seems to naively believe that the climate change science espoused in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC documents represents "scientific consensus." Nothing could be further than the truth!

As one of the invited expert reviewers for the 2007 IPCC documents, I have pointed out the flawed review process used by the IPCC scientists in one of my letters (The Hill Times, May 28, 2007). I have also pointed out in my letter that an increasing number of scientists are now questioning the hypothesis of GHG-induced warming of the earth's surface and suggesting a stronger impact of solar variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on the observed temperature increase than previously believed. I would further politely ask Mr. Boucher to do a simple reality check regarding the earth's temperature change. Since mid-1998, the earth's mean temperature as a whole has not increased at all, despite billions of tonnes of human-added CO2 in the earth's atmosphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, the land-area mean temperature has slowly but surely declined in the last few years. The city of Buenos Aires in Argentina received several centimetres of snowfall in early July, and the last time it snowed in Buenos Aires was in 1918! Most of Australia experienced one of its coldest months of June this year.

everal other locations in the Southern Hemisphere have experienced lower temperatures in the last few years. Further, the SSTs (sea surface temperatures) over world oceans are slowly declining since mid-1998, according to a recent world-wide analysis of ocean surface temperatures. It is important to first develop an improved understanding of the earth's temperature trends and changes before committing millions (billions!) of dollars to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). Unfortunately, the IPCC climate change documents do not provide an objective assessment of the earth's temperature trends and associated climate change.

Excerpted from: The Hill Times,  August 13, 2007.

British-born physicist Freeman Dyson has revealed three "heresies", two of which challenge the current scientific orthodoxy that anthropogenic carbon causes climate change."The fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated," writes Dyson in his new book Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe, published on Wednesday (15 August).

He pours scorn on "the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models". "I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry, and the biology of fields and farms and forests," writes Dyson. Biomass holds the key to carbon, he writes - leaving us to infer that he thinks the human contribution is negligible.

Overall, Dyson issues a plea for more scientific research into the behaviour of the planet's biomass. "Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet," he says.

"We do not know whether intelligent land management could increase the growth of the topsoil reservoir by four billion tons of carbon per year, the amount needed to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. All we can say for sure is that this is a theoretical possibility and ought to be seriously explored." That's the first heresy - and it's not the first time he's made it. For several years, Dyson has argued that the carbon religion is self-indulgent, when there are more urgent, fixable problems to face.

Excerpted from - 'Dyson: Climate Models Are Rubbish', The Register, August 14, 2007. 

Now the received wisdom is that 1998 is the warmest year on record, right? Wrong. NASA, who put this 'fact' into the public arena have now admitted the warmest year on record it turns out was 1934!  And NASA's mistake was outed by...a blogger (one with key experience). 

Here's the full story from Canada's Toronto Star:

In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.

After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review.

Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998.

More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. "temperature anomalies" for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.

NASA officials have dismissed the changes as trivial. Even the Canadian who spotted the original flaw says the revisions are "not necessarily material to climate policy."

But the revisions have been seized on by conservative Americans, including firebrand radio host Rush Limbaugh, as evidence that climate change science is unsound.

Said Limbaugh last Thursday: "What do we have here? We have proof of man-made global warming. The man-made global warming is inside NASA ... is in the scientific community with false data."

However Stephen McIntyre, who set off the uproar, described his finding as a "a micro-change. But it was kind of fun."

A former mining executive who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org, McIntyre, 59, earned attention in 2003 when he put out data challenging the so-called "hockey stick" graph depicting a spike in global temperatures.

This time, he sifted NASA's use of temperature anomalies, which measure how much warmer or colder a place is at a given time compared with its 30-year average.

Puzzled by a bizarre "jump" in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn't being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.

McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA's Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.

"They moved pretty fast on this," McIntyre said. "There must have been some long faces."

Ed. The problem here, as always, is that it is the error that lives long in the public memory, largely because the media does little to correct their complicity in broadcasting that error.  

"Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt" --Washington Post headline, November 2, 1922.

If there was any doubt that fear-mongering has long been cherished by the media, the above headline should put the question to bed. But that 80-year old news story also illustrates two of the great problems for the global warming theory -- its inability to explain sudden climate shifts in the Earth's past, and to explain why the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are so unequally affected by warming. 

A team of mathematicians have come forth with a startling new theory that solves both these problems. Led by Dr. Anastasios Tsonis, their model says the known cycles of the Earth's oceans -- the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, El Nino (Southern Oscillation) and the North Pacific Oscillation -- all tend to try to synchronize with each other. 

The theory is based on a branch of mathematics known as Sychronized Chaos.  The math predicts the degree of coupling to increase over time, causing the solution to "bifurcate," or split. Then, the synchronization vanishes.  The result is a climate shift.

Excerpt from: 'Major New Theory Proposed to Explain Global Warming' by Michael Asher in The Daily Tech. 

Making big cuts in emissions linked to global warming could come at considerable cost to the U.S. economy: between $400 billion and $1.8 trillion in reduced growth over the next four decades, a new study says.

The study published Monday by a nonprofit research group partially funded by the power industry concludes that reducing emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming -- will require "fundamental" changes in energy production and consumption.

The Electric Power Research Institute said the most cost-effective way to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to make many changes at once, including expanding nuclear power, developing renewable technologies and building systems to capture and store carbon dioxide emitted from coal plants. Reducing demand for fossil-fuel power is also key, the institute said.

The EPRI cost estimate is based on a 50 percent economy-wide cut in carbon emissions from 2010 levels by 2050. Without such a cut and the shifts in technology it would bring, the Energy Department projects that U.S. carbon emissions will rise from about 6 billion metric tons a year in 2005 to 8 billion metric tons by 2030.

The report calls for more modest cuts in emissions than some proposals currently being considered in Congress. Bigger cuts could well be more expensive.

Excerpted from: 'Study Estimates Global Warming Costs' by Alan Zibel in Business Week. 

In High School (mid 1960's) I was taught that the Earth and its climate operate very much like a conventional heat pump system driven by the Sun's energy. In simplest form, heat energy is added at the equator and extracted at the poles, effecting, at least from our perspective, a "closed system" not unlike a typical room air conditioner. The resulting heat flow, aka The Second Law of Thermodynamics, produces the Earth's weather patterns, heating as well as cooling the planet accordingly.

The term "greenhouse effect" WAS NOT a part of that learning. The term was "invented" by the GHG wackos and has no scientific validity. Now further confirmation that the so bandied about "effect" is fiction is supported by these two German physicists:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

I keep prodding and so far have gotten no response: Will someone please pick up on the truth and begin trumpeting it to both the wackos and a world apparently deluded and under the spell of said wackos??!! The greenhouse effect is fiction; therefore, human production of "greenhouse" gasses is having ZERO effect on "Global Warming" which is itself a fiction!

I am neither a scientist, nor a climatologist (also not a scientist, since climatology is not a science), but I did stay awake in Earth Science classes and have worked in the refrigeration field professionally, having weathered the previous scare of ozone depletion by common refrigerants.

Contribution from (and with thanks to): Dave Dodd, Gary, TX. USA

"One has only to cut away the alarmist rhetoric and the media distractions, one has only to focus on the central question in the climate-change debate, and at once the fact that there is no scientific consensus about climate change is laid bare. 

The central question is this: By how much will global temperature increase in response to any foreseeable increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide?  On that question, the 'climate-sensitivity question', there is no consensus whatsoever within the scientific community.  There is no scientific basis for the current panic." 

Lord Christopher Monckton, international authority on climate-change policy.

A new peer-reviewed study published in the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" finds that climate models fail test against real clouds. Dr Roy Spencer explains:

"To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Spencer said. "The big question that no one can answer right now is whether this enhanced cooling mechanism applies to global warming."

The new results raise questions about some current theories regarding precipitation, clouds and the efficiency with which weather systems convert water vapor into rainfall. These are significant issues in the global warming debate. "Global warming theory says warming will generally be accompanied by more rainfall," Spencer said. "Everyone just assumed that more rainfall means more high altitude clouds. That would be your first guess and, since we didn't have any data to suggest otherwise ..."  There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems.  "Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty." Spencer and his colleagues expect these new findings to be controversial.

"I know some climate modelers will say that these results are interesting but that they probably don't apply to long-term global warming," he said. "But this represents a fundamental natural cooling process in the atmosphere. Let's see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections."

Source: The University of Alabama in Huntsville. 

Douglas J. Keenan, a former Morgan Stanley arbitrageur and current independent mathematical researcher, identified "fabrications" in such studies that suggest a "marked lack of integrity in some important work on global warming that is relied upon by the IPCC" and that "the insignificance of urbanization effects on temperature measurements has not been established as reliably as the IPCC assessment report assumes."

As Keenan stated in his full report concerning this matter (emphasis added throughout):

Meteorological stations sometimes move, and this can affect the temperature measurements of the stations. For example, one of the stations relied upon by the above two papers was originally located on the upwind side of a city and later moved, 25 km, to be on the downwind side of the city. Such a move would be expected to increase the measured temperatures, because a city generates heat. Another station relied upon by the papers was originally located in the center of a city and then moved, 15 km, to be by the shore of a sea. Such a move would be expected to decrease the measured temperatures.

I really do wish that Stephen Hawking was able bodied - then at least we would all feel a whole better ridiculing the increasingly ludicrous statements he comes out with. 

In Leonardo di Caprio's new sci-fi fiction '11th Hour' (its not meant to be fiction you understand) the batty Hawking informs us the Earth could even warm to 250  degrees C! (Well look on the bright side, we could all cut down on our heating bills. Enviro-nuts never see the positives, do they?)  Anyway, here's what the article reports about Deep Throats' ramblings in the film:

The narrative of the film repeatedly emphasizes that the very fate of the human race is at stake. Change isn’t just a good thing to do for nature—change is required for our very survival. Stephen Hawking, the esteemed physicist and author, most vividly describes the direness of the situation: “We don’t know where the global warming will stop,” he explains, “but the worst-case scenario is that Earth would become like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 [degrees] centigrade, and raining sulfuric acid. The human race could not survive in those conditions.”

The film does more than just sound the alarm and call for change; it also devotes plenty of time illustrating the most practical—and economically feasible—ways for us to change our habits. Most engaging is a discussion of biomimicry, a new science that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. This idea has inspired new types of ecologically friendly design that mimic the sustainability of nature (for instance, ecological systems in which one organism’s waste is another’s food).

It's just a politically correct thought, but...isn't it about time we blasted someone in a wheelchair into space?

Where would be all be without our green Hollywood celebs to keep us morally pure?

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett has stopped washing her hair in an effort to do her bit to save the environment and become a green example to her kids.The actress admits she has installed timers all around her home to restrict energy levels - and one is even on her shower head. Now she is no longer washing her hair, Blanchett has realized: "I only need to have a two minute shower."

Ed. By 'shower head' do you think the article author is referring to Cate's bathroom or what goes on under her hairline? 

Cate, of course, lives in a $10 million mansion so, as this article reveals, may have to quit showering altogether to apologize for her ginormous carbon footprint.  

Recent changes to the GISS historical climate data records refute claims by Gore that 9 of the ten hottest years in history occurred since 1995. Yet, these changes went totally unreported. Here is Noel Sheppard:

A change in climate history data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen, and went unreported until Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit discovered it Wednesday.

For some background, one of the key tenets of the global warming myth being advanced by Hansen and soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore is that nine of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 1995.

McIntyre has been crunching the numbers used to determine such things as published by GISS, and has identified that the data have recently changed such that four of the top ten warmest years in American history occurred in the 1930s, with the warmest now in 1934 instead of the much-publicized 1998.

As McIntyre wrote Wednesday (emphasis added, h/t NBer dscott):

There has been some turmoil yesterday on the leaderboard of the U.S. (Temperature) Open and there is a new leader.

Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.

Most importantly, according to the GISS, 1998 is no longer the warmest year in American history. That honor once again belongs to 1934.

For more go here.  

It would seem so...

THE head of the world's leading climate change organisation has backed the Howard Government's decision to defer setting a long-term target for reducing greenhouse emissions until the full facts are known.

Despite widespread criticism of the Government's decision last month to defer its decision on cutting emissions until next year, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said yesterday he agreed with the approach.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, in Canberra to meet government officials, said it was critical that policies to address climate change be rolled out only after informed debate based on rational thinking and rigorous analysis of the impact of different options.

"Otherwise one might come up with a lot of emotional and political responses that may or may not be the best, and I think in a democracy it's important to see there is an informed debate in officialdom as well as in the public," Dr Pachauri told The Australian yesterday.

Confused by the idiotic ramblings of the warming alarmists? Well here is yet more to confuse you from that bastion (I'm not sure that's quite the right word, but kids read this blog) of leftwing cant, The Guardian:

Never mind higher temperatures, climate change has a few nastier surprises in store. Bill McGuire says we can also expect more earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis.

The solid earth also became restless, with an increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes, giant submarine landslides and tsunamis. At the rate climate change is accelerating, there is every prospect that we will see a similar response from the planet, heralding not just a warmer future but also a fiery one.

But how can rising sea levels cause volcanoes to erupt? The answer lies in the enormous mass of the water pouring into the ocean basins from the retreating ice sheets. The addition of over a hundred metres depth of water to the continental margins and marine island chains, where over 60% of the world's active volcanoes reside, seems to be sufficient to load and bend the underlying crust. This in turn squeezes out any magma that happens to be hanging around waiting for an excuse to erupt. It may well be that a much smaller rise can trigger an eruption if a volcano is critically poised and ready to blow.

It may be no coincidence that one outcome of increased volcanic activity is likely to be a period of falling temperatures, as a veil of volcanic dust and gas reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something. It really would be worth listening before it is too late.

"Right now, we are at a peak of the current sunspot cycle, and so there is more risk of cooling of the earth's atmosphere than there is of any warming, let alone catastrophic warming. There is absolutely no justification for burdening people with the huge financial costs of seal level rises that cannot happen, carbon taxes or emission charges, or for placing unwarranted restrictions on the way we live our lives. "Instead, people in positions of political authority should be paying greater and more urgent attention to clear and present problems such as earthquakes, tsunamis, clean air, clean water and the elimination of diseases such as malaria and AIDs".

Professor Nils-Axel Mörner former head of the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University. From 1999 to 2003, he was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution. INQUA, the International Union for Quaternary Research)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0708/S00012.htm

Weather station data hidden from public; scientists allege government cover-up
by Michael Asher at Daily Tech.

The theory of global warming began to explain one simple set of facts-- surface temperature monitoring stations have shown a roughly one degree rise over the past century.   But just where does these temperature readings come from? Most are reported by volunteer stations, usually no more than a thermometer inside a small wooden hut or below a roof overhang. In the US, 1,221 such stations exist, all administered by the National Climatic Data Center, a branch of the NOAA.

Two months ago, I reported on an effort to validate this network. A volunteer group headed by meteorologist Anthony Watts had found serious problems. Not only did sites fail to meet the NCDC's  requirements, but encroaching development had put many in ridiculously unsuitable locations -- on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills.

Soon thereafter, a Seattle radio station interviewed the head of the NCDC, Dr. Thomas Peterson, informed him of the effort and quizzed him about the problems. Three days later, the NCDC removed all website access to station site locations, citing "privacy concerns." Without this data (which had been public for years), the validation effort was blocked. No more stations could be located.

Scientists were quick to respond. Climatologist Roger Pielke from the University of Colorado called the act a "coverup" and said it was designed to prevent public scrutiny. More shockingly, he revealed that researchers had been for years pressuring the government to validate the network themselves, and that the NCDC had begun to do so, but cancelled the project and refused to make the data public, presumably to avoid this sort of scandal.  Joined by Watts and others, Pielke called upon the government to recant.

The resulting furor forced the NCDC to again made site locations public. But so far, they've failed to address to root of the problem, which is the wholly unsatisfactory locations of many of their recording sites, locations which make the resulting data unreliable, and compromise a dataset upon which much of US energy and environmental policy is based.

Ed. It seems it is not just the UN's IPCC data that needs far close scrutiny.