I think the earth has generally been warming slowly since the nadir of the little ice age. I think the human contribution to that recently has been pretty much insignificant. Though frankly, the historical temperature records have been butchered over the past several decades so we don't know what the temperature changes over the past century have really been:
NASA GISS caught changing past data again – violates Data Quality Act
Posted on September 26, 2012 by Anthony Watts
From American Thinker – NASA’s Rubber Ruler
By Randall Hoven
A funny thing happened on the way to determining how hot 2012 has been on a global basis: temperatures changed in 1880.
We’ve been hearing that 2012 has been the “ hottest on record.” I had written earlier that those claims were based on the contiguous United States only, or 1.5% of the earth’s surface. The “global temperature” in 2012 through June was only the 10th hottest on record. In fact, every single month of 1998 was warmer than the corresponding month of 2012.
I thought I’d update that analysis to include July’s and August’s temperatures. To my surprise, NASA’s entire temperature record, going back to January 1880, changed between NASA’s June update and its August update. I could not just add two more numbers to my spreadsheet. The entire spreadsheet needed to be updated.
I knew NASA would occasionally update its estimates, even its historical estimates. I found that unsettling when I first heard about it. But I thought such re-estimates were rare, and transparent. There is absolutely no transparency here. If I had not kept a copy of the data taken off NASA’s web site two months ago, I would not have known it had changed. NASA does not make available previous versions of its temperature record (to my knowledge).
NASA does summarize its “ updates to analysis,” but the last update it describes was in February. The data I looked at changed sometime after early July.
In short, the data that NASA makes available to the public, temperatures over the last 130 years, can change at any time, without warning and without explanation. Yes, the global temperature of January 1880 changed some time between July and September 2012.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/nasas_rubber_ruler.html#ixzz27YZRxqIW
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Once again it appears NASA has violated the Data Quality Act. Steve McIntyre wrote in 2007: NASA Evasion of Quality Control Procedures
The U.S. federal government has a detailed set of regulations requiring scientific information to be peer reviewed before it is disseminated by the federal government. NASA, which says that it has “employs the world?s largest concentration of climate scientists”, has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies. Once again, the system involves an employee purporting to be acting in a “personal capacity”. Here’s how it works.
Peer Review Policy
U.S. federal policy on data quality is set out in a variety of steps. The Data Quality Act itself is very short and states:
The guidelines under subsection (a) shall ?
(1) apply to the sharing by Federal agencies of, and access to, information disseminated by Federal agencies; and
(2) require that each Federal agency to which the guidelines apply ?
(A) issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by the agency, by not later than 1 year after the date of issuance of the guidelines under subsection (a);
(B) establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the guidelines issued under subsection (a); and
The OMB has issued several guidelines under the act. The first statement is here . A subsequent OMB Bulletin clearly required peer review of important scientific information before dissemination by the federal government as follows:
This Bulletin establishes that important scientific information shall be peer reviewed by qualified specialists before it is disseminated by the federal government.
There’s an interesting exemption in this bulletin (and we shall see below how this comes into play):
This definition includes information that an agency disseminates from a web page, but does not include the provision of hyperlinks on a web page to information that others disseminate.
NASA Policies
NASA has several manuals and policies setting out its own procedures for ensuring compliance with such policies. NASA guidelines specify far-reaching obligations on data quality for information disseminated by NASA. It notes the wide use of NASA information:
NASA?s information from its missions and programs is used by: government and national and international policymakers to enable sound and better public policy; NASA?s scientists and others cooperating with NASA to pursue their important work; the media in describing to the public the importance and advances of research; the educational community to educate a new generation of citizens in science, math, and engineering; and members of the public to enable them to be knowledgeable and inspired about NASA?s goals and accomplishments.
It states that the policies apply to NASA Centers as well as to headquarters:
These guidelines are applicable to NASA Headquarters and Centers, …
It states that NASA will ensure the quality of its disseminated information:
NASA will ensure and maximize the quality, including the utility, objectivity, and integrity, of its disseminated information, except where specifically exempted. Categories of information that are exempt from these guidelines are detailed in Section C.3….
Information products disseminated by NASA will be based on reliable, accurate data that has been validated.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/26/nasa-giss-caught-changing-past-data-again-violates-data-quality-act/#more-71520
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HG says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:08 am
GISS changes on a month by month basis. Changes throughout the entire record all the way back to 1880 are the rule rather than the exception. See:
https://www.changedetection.com/log/gov/nasa/giss/data/glb2_log.html
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Resourceguy says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:14 am
Orwell did not consider this form of manipilation of minds because back in his day the weather was just the weather.
C. Quesenberry says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:18 am
This is soooooooooooo unbelievably frustrating! It is downright deceitful and disgusting! I am reminded of the old Soviet joke, ““The future is certain, it is only the past that is unpredictable.”
They are making a mockery of science and a mockery of the U.S. Is there anything at all that an ordinary man can do to stop this nonsense? Write my Senator or Congressman? I’m from Oregon; that won’t help at all. Any ideas? I am at my wit’s end.
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Matthew W says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:51 am
tallbloke says:
September 26, 2012 at 8:55 am
Please could Jim Hansen make it warm last winter, I was frozen, and still haven’t thawed out..
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Would that also make last years heating bill go down?
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http://i54.tinypic.com/fylq2w.jpg
GISS ca 1980, 1987, and 2007 compared
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http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/gw-us-1999-2011-hansen.gif
US temps 1999 & 2011 compared
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/USHCN_revisions.htm
Illinois USCHN temps July vs Nov 2009 versions compared - the temps in my hometown in the year of my birth got cooler between those two months in 2009. Major changes in the historical temp records occurred in 2009.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01675ef0785c970b-pi
NOAA/NCDC changes since 07/11
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E.M.Smith says:
September 26, 2012 at 4:10 pm
The way GIStemp works is that it takes as input the jiggered NOAA data, then re-jiggers it.
I’ve been through all the code and it is designed to be “never the same way twice”. (IMHO with an upward bias). As the GHCN and USHCN data change each month (actually, on a nearly continuous basis throughout the month, with some ‘zombie’ stations reporting and updating prior months long after they have passed… sometimes years later) those changes are then used to make more and different changes in the homogenizing and UHI steps.
Then even more in the final “create a grid box zonal anomaly process” (that comes AFTER all the temperature shenanigans… ).
It can NEVER have a consistent prior / historical temperature. They will always change.
@kadaka (KD Knoebel):
I did get it running (on Linux. Does fine on a 400 Mhz AMD chip from the ’90s ;-) but the process was painful.
I’ve not gone back to re-do the effort for the newer release. I will… if someone wants to pay an hourly rate to do it; but the product is so crummy it really ought to just be thrown out instead. Details, for those interested:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
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Louis Hooffstetter says:
September 26, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Steve Mosher says:
“Nasa does not change the data of the past. GISSTEMP is a computer program that estimates the global “average “temperature of the past and present. It relies on inputs made available by other sources, GHCN, and SCAR.
There are ongoing projects to improve the coverage and quality of the incoming data sources. that means the input data can and will change on a monthly basis. Since the past is an estimate made relative to a 1951-1980 baseline period changes can and will ripple through the system. To put it simply, we don’t know the temperature of the past. We estimate it based on the data that is available. When that data changes, the estimate will change.”
Steve, I have the utmost respect for you, but you need to carefully re-read what you wrote above. You’re famous for your drive-by quasi-explanations, but this is the most patronizing drive-by BS I’ve seen you write here on WUWT. Please take the time to clearly explain exactly what you were trying to convey.
Here’s where I disagree with what you wrote: Temperature data from the past does NOT change. Recorded past temperature data is fixed, empirical data recorded by human beings at specific points in time. For the periods when recorded empirical data is available, we DO know the temperature of the past (at specific locations). This data is fixed and unchanging, period! It is what it is. The people who recorded the data didn’t get it wrong, and climatologists have to deal with it. That’s the whole point of this post! Climatologists can’t adjust the data at will to suit their desires, and that’s exactly what it looks like NASA, Hadley CRU, etc., do on a routine basis.
And any computer program, model, etc. that “estimates, projects, etc.” global average temperatures or whatever, but doesn’t match up with empirical recorded data, is flat out, plain WRONG! That’s why it’s called a “reality check!” If it fails the most basic test, which is simply to match reality, it cannot possibly be correct.
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Blade says:
September 26, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Ric Werme [September 26, 2012 at 1:39 pm] says:
Steven Mosher [September 26, 2012 at 11:20 am] says:
“To put it simply. we don’t know the temperature of the past.”
“If “we don’t know the temperature of the past,” then how do we know there is global warming?”
Ouch! Ric cuts right to the chase.
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