How Climate Scientists Cheat And Deceive

By Paul Homewood

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/03/opinions/sutter-climate-skeptics-woodward-oklahoma/

 

Apparently some CNN hack has written an article about deniers in Oklahoma. It is a long, rambling piece, with the usual cliches about creationism, 97%, settled science, droughts, blah, blah.

Paul Matthews has a good summary here.

But he alerts me to one particular section where the ubiquitous Katharine Hayhoe crops up with some astonishingly dishonest comments. Seasoned Hayhoe watchers will no doubt be aware of her regular attempts to mislead by, for instance, ignoring climate history from the inconvenient past. Nevertheless, she really hits new lows this time:

 

 

 

Ferguson, the rancher, was giving me a half-smiling death stare throughout my mini-rant. We batted ideas back and forth several times, with him pulling preclipped charts from an agricultural magazine off of his desk.

"We don’t see an honest debate going on," he said.

One of the charts, which used data from upper troposphere, appeared to show that the climate isn’t warming as much as scientists would expect. I checked that out with Hayhoe, who told me this is a common data manipulation: The upper troposphere is above the area of the atmosphere where most carbon dioxide accumulates, meaning it’s not a representative way to measure climate change.

 

I don’t know which chart the rancher pulled out, but I do know that no serious sceptic has ever used data from the upper troposphere to argue that there is no warming. On the contrary, the satellite datasets from RSS and UAH, which show no warming for the last 17 years, are specifically measuring the LOWER troposphere. Hayhoe will certainly also be aware that, according to general climate theory, the lower troposphere should warm faster than the surface.

Apparently these two facts were deemed too inconvenient for CNN readers to see.

 

 

But then she goes on to compound her deception, as the hack relates:

 

After this article was first published, Hayhoe wrote me that, more importantly, there were errors in troposphere data, which are commonly misused by climate skeptics.

 

And the link she gives as the basis for this claim? A paper written back in 2006:-

 

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/tmlw0602.pdf

http://www.fws.gov/southeast/climate/policy/Climate%20USCCSP%20Temp%20Trends%20sap1-1-final-all.pdf

 

The paper certainly acknowledges previous errors in the satellite dataset, but clearly and most importantly states:

 

This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected.

 

For Hayhoe to claim that sceptics commonly misuse error filled satellite data to disprove global warming is dishonest bunkum unworthy of a proper scientist. Even NOAA, who organised this paper, with Tom Karl the Chief Editor, admitted back in 2006 that the earlier errors no longer existed and that the new datasets showed no discrepancies.

Nobody is arguing that satellite data is perfect, and we know that surface data certainly is not. But the increasing divergence of satellite and surface temperatures in recent years is a serious and embarrassing issue for the climate establishment. For Hayhoe to attempt to try to hide this by building strawmen is an abuse of her position, and shows that she can no longer be regarded as a serious scientist.