Uncovered: decades-old government report showing climate data was bad, unfit for purpose

WUWT:

In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences, the research arm of the National Research Council, released a study expressing concern about the accuracy of the data used in the debate over climate change. They said there are,

“Deficiencies in the accuracy, quality and continuity of the records,” that “place serious limitations on the confidence that can be placed in the research results.”

The people who reached these conclusions and their affiliations at the time follows.

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• THOMAS R. KARL (Chair), National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
• ROBERT E. DICKINSON,University of Arizona, Tucson
• MAURICE BLACKMON,National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
• BERT BOLIN,University of Stockholm, Sweden
• JEFF DOZIER,University of California, Santa Barbara
• WILLIAM P. ELLIOTT, NOAA/Air Resources Laboratory, Silver Spring, Maryland
• JAMES GIRAYTYS, Certified Consulting Meteorologist,Winchester, Virginia
• RICHARD E. HALLGREN,American Meteorological Society, Washington, D.C.
• JAMES E. HANSEN, NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York
• SYDNEY LEVITUS, NOAA/National Oceanic Data Center, Silver Spring, Maryland
• GORDON MCBEAN, Environment Canada, Downsview, Ontario
• GERALD MEEHL, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
• PHILIP E. MERILEES, Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, California
• ROBERTA BALSTAD MILLER, CIESIN, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
• ROBERT G. QUAYLE, NOAA/National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
• S. ICHTIAQUE RASOOL, University of New Hampshire, Durham
• STEVEN W. RUNNING, University of Montana, Missoula
• EDWARD S. SARACHIK, University of Washington, Seattle
• WILLIAM H. SCHLESINGER, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• KARL E. TAYLOR, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
• ANNE M. THOMPSON, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
• Ex Officio Members
• W. LAWRENCE GATES, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
• DOUGLAS G. MARTINSON, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
• SOROOSH SOROOSHIAN, University of Arizona, Tucson
• PETER J. WEBSTER, University of Colorado, Boulder

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These are prominent names, many of them important in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and promotion of its ideas. For example, Gordon McBean chaired the formation meeting of the IPCC in Villach Austria in 1985. Bert Bolin was appointed first IPCC co-chair along with Sir John Houghton. Thomas Karl and James Hansen were two dominant figures in terms of the control and manipulation of the data right up to their very recent retirements.

Karl chaired the study, so he knew better than any that to achieve the results they wanted, namely a steadily increasing temperature over the 120 + years of instrumental record, was made easier by the inadequacy of the data. They ignored the fact that the inadequacy of the data negated the viability of the work they planned and did. For example, the extent, density, and continuity of the data are completely inadequate as the basis for a mathematical computer model of global climate. In short, they knew they would have to create, make up, or modify data to even approximate a result. The trouble is the data was so inadequate that even with their actions the results could not approximate reality.

Despite this, the IPCC committed to the surface data even though elsewhere decisions were made to reduce the number of stations and thus further limit the coverage. There were two main reasons for the reduction, the increasing diversion of funds to global warming research and expensive computer models, and the anticipation of weather data from satellites. NASA GISS produced a plot (Figure 1) to show what was happening. I expanded each graph to show the important details (Figures 2, 3, 4).

Figure 1

Commendably they upgraded the data, but all that does is emphasize the anomalies.

Figure 2

Important points:

· There are no stations with over 130 years of record.

· There are approximately 300 stations with about 120 years of record.

· Virtually all the stations with over 100 years of record are in the eastern US or western Europe.

Figure 3

Important points;

· First significant decrease after 1960 anticipating satellite replacement.

· Second decrease around 1995 associated with switch of funding to global warming away from data collection and reduction of stations used.

· Figure 2 shows maximum number of stations at approximately 7200, but Figure 3 shows it at approximately 5500.

Figure 4

Important points;

· Despite reduction in number of stations, coverage only declines slightly. That is scientifically not possible.

· Currently 20 percent of the Northern Hemisphere and 25 percent of Southern Hemisphere has no coverage.

· Quality of the coverage is critical but very variable as Thomas Karl notes in the forward “Unlike sciences where strict laboratory controls are the rule, climate researchers have to rely on observations collected in different countries and using differing instruments.” Remember, the US coverage is the best yet, but only 7.9% of their stations are accurate to < 1°C. Here is an example from the preface to the 1951-1980 Canadian Climate Normals of what Karl is reporting. “No hourly data exists in the digital archive before 1953, the averages appearing in this volume have been derived from all ‘hourly’ observations, at the selected hours, for the period 1953 to 1980, inclusive. The reader should note that many stations have fewer than the 28 years of record in the complete averaging.”

Although he did not contribute to the study, Kevin Trenberth commented on its release that,

It’s very clear we do not have a climate observing system…This may be a shock to many people who assume that we do know adequately what’s going on with the climate, but we don’t

Despite this Trenberth, created an energy balance model that is central to the entire greenhouse effect climate claims.

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