Global Warming Watch: Reports of ‘Record Temperatures’ Are the Product of Data Manipulation, Not Science

The American people are bombarded with claims that every recent year is apparently the “hottest year on record” (implying that human CO2 emissions must be the cause for this “unprecedented” climate change). However, a new study further demonstrates what EIR presented in the 2015 report, “Global Warming Scare Is Population Reduction, Not Science”—the historical records of global temperatures over the past 100 years have been adjusted to make the past appear cooler, and the present appear warmer (making what are actually natural variations look more extreme).

On June 27, three researchers — Dr. Craig D. Idso (founder and current chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change), Dr. Joseph S. D’Aleo (meteorolgist, first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel) and Dr. James P. Wallace III (statistician) — released a report demonstrating that the adjustments made to the historical records in the Global Average Surface Temperatures (GAST) dataset make it an unreliable representation of historical reality.

“It was found that each new version of GAST has nearly always exhibited a steeper warming linear trend over its entire history… The conclusive findings of this research are that [GAST data is] not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments… are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever despite current claims of record setting warming.”

What is the significance of this GAST database? The GAST historical data provides 90% to 95% of the data going into the historical temperature records produced by NASA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the UK’s Climate Research Unit “HADLEY” Center — probably the three most cited historical temperature records over this period (the past 100 years). When people claim that NASA, NOAA, and HADLEY data all independently show record temperatures, that is a lie—it all comes from one database, a database now shown to be “not a valid representation of reality.”

The authors intend to send their findings to the Trump EPA, which is currently reviewing whether to repeal the 2009 Obama-era “Endangerment Finding” — the Obama EPA ruling which asserted that human CO2 emissions are a pollutant, providing the cover for the EPA to take direct actions against the coal industry, power plants, and other emitters of the plant food known as CO2.

Many leading opponents of the climate-change scare view the “Endangerment Finding” as a key item to be reversed. 

For further background on the climate-gate lies, see Benjamin Deniston’s February 8, 2017 presentation, “Climategate II.”