To: Bill  who wrote (1364 ) 5/19/2015 6:57:37 PM From: joseffy     Respond to    of 1400  More Countries Caught Manipulating Their Climate Data    Michael Bastasch    	2:33 PM  05/19/2015	 Weather  agencies in Australia, Paraguay and Switzerland may be manipulating  temperature data to create a sharper warming trend than is present in  the raw data — a practice that has come under scrutiny in recent months. Most  recently, Dr. H. Sterling Burnett with the Heartland Institute detailed  how the Swiss Meteorological Service adjusted its climate data “to show  greater warming than actually measured by its temperature instruments.” In his latest    article  , Sterling wrote that  Switzerland’s weather bureau adjusted its raw temperature data so that  “the temperatures reported were consistently higher than those actually  recorded.”  For example, the cities of Sion and Zurich saw “a doubling of the temperature trend” after such adjustments were made. But even with the data tampering, Sterling noted that “there has been an 18-year-pause in rising temperatures, even with data- tampering.”      “Even with fudged data, governments have been unable to hide the fact  winters in Switzerland and in Central Europe have become colder over  the past 20 years, defying predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on  Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists,” according to  Sterling. The Swiss affair, however, is not the first instance of  data “homogenization” catalogued by scientists and researchers who are  skeptical of man-made global warming. In January, skeptic blogger Paul  Homewood    documented   how NASA has “homogenized” temperature data across Paraguay to create a warming trend that doesn’t exist in the raw data.  Homewood found that  all three operational rural thermometers in Paraguay had been adjusted  by NASA to show a warming trend where one did not exist before . Homewood also found that urban thermometers in Paraguay had similarly been adjusted by NASA.  “[NASA  is] supposed to make a ‘homogenisation adjustment,’ to allow for [urban  heat island (UHI)] bias,” Homewood wrote. “The sort of thing you would  expect to see at Asuncion Airport, Paraguay’s main gateway, handling  over 800,000 passengers a year.” “However, far from increasing  historic temperatures to allow for UHI, [NASA] has done the opposite  and decreased temperatures prior to 1972 by 0.4C,”  Homewood added. Before that, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM)    was forced to admit    it adjusts temperatures recorded at all weather stations across the  country. Aussie journalists had been critical of ABM for being secretive  about its data adjustments.“Almost all the alterations resulted in higher temperatures being reported for the present and lower numbers for the past– with the higher numbers being used to demonstrate a historical warming trend–than the numbers that were actually recorded,”    wrote   Sterling. “Downward  homogenizations in recent years were rare. In some areas, downward  temperature trends measured over time showed a significantly increased  temperature trend after homogenization,” he added. “The difference  between actually measured temperatures and homogenized temperatures  topped 4 degrees Celsius over certain periods at some measuring  stations.” Global warming skeptics have increasingly become  critical of adjustments to raw temperature data made by government  climate agencies. Such adjustments seem to overwhelmingly show a massive  warming trend not present in the raw data. Such adjusted data  has been used by climate scientists and environmental activists to claim  that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Adjusted    data also shows   that 13 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. NOAA  and other climate agencies have defended such adjustments to the  temperature record, arguing they are necessary to correct for “biases”  that distort the reality of the Earth’s climate. NOAA scientists  increase or decrease temperatures to correct for things like changes in  the locations of thermometers (some that were once in rural areas are  now in the suburbs or even in cities). Scientists have also had to  correct for a drastic change in the time of day temperatures were  recorded (for whatever reason, past temperatures were recorded in the  afternoon, but are now often collected in the morning). Other  adjustments have been made to the data to correct for such “biases,” but  global warming skeptics question if the scope of the data adjustments  are justifiable. The U.K.’s Global Warming Policy Foundation has    created    a panel of skeptical scientists from around the world who will evaluate  temperature adjustments to find out if they are scientifically  justified. “Many people have found the extent of adjustments to  the data surprising,” Terence Kealey, former vice-chancellor of the  University of Buckingham,    said in a statement  . “While  we believe that the 20th century warming is real, we are concerned by  claims that the actual trend is different from — or less certain than —  has been suggested,” said Kealey, who has been appointed chairman of the  foundation’s investigative task force. “We hope to perform a valuable  public service by getting everything out into the open.”   http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/19/more-countries-caught-manipulating-their-climate-data/