Temperature Data from Satellites: Inconvenient but Accurate
Posted by jennifer, November 14th, 2008 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
IT is my prediction that in not so many years time weather station data will be collected more for fun, a sense of history and for site-specific information, than for serious regional and global climate statistics. In the future it will be data from satellites that is recognised as much more reliable for understanding regional and global temperature trends.
The recent debacle with the global temperature data set compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) from thousands of thermometers in little white boxes all over the world will probably hasten the transition from a primary reliance on thermometer to satellite data.
While we have known for some time, including through the work of Anthony Watts, that many weather stations are poorly maintained and positioned in wrong places – including next to air conditioning outlets on bitumen – the recent GISS saga indicates how subjective the system of compilation can be. Indeed it appears that when Australia sends data in late, rather than wait, the team in New York might be inclined to best guess based on last month’s pattern and climatology.
A problem for those who have hitched their careers to claims that global temperatures will continue to rise is that the satellite data is much less subject to manipulation in favour of confirmation bias.
The latest UAH global temperature data from the satellites, with a trend line added from Klockarman, shows temperatures have gone down a total of 0.37° F. (or 0.205° C.) since the movie ’An Inconvenient Truth’ was released at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2006.
NT “There are so many questions amongst you posts, I don;t have time to answer them”.
NT…you don’t have the time or you don’t have the answers? I only respond to you because you insist on making comments about my posts, but that’s about as far as it goes. You have no in-depth understanding of science and you have no intention of learning. All you do is spew old rhetoric from the likes of Hansen and realclimate. I’m waiting for you to offer one original thought, but I doubt if you have the courage to go that far out on a limb.
What a strange notion. If the science is sound, then it bears repeating. It might sound a little boring after the hundredth time, but it can’t be any more than what it is.
SJT…how do you manage to make responses that have absolutely nothing to do with the post you’re commenting on? It is certainly worth repeating science that has truth as its basis, but you and NT are regurgitating consensus, even when observation refutes your consensus. That’s what makes both of you ideologs as opposed to students of science.
Gordon,
SJT excels at the non sequitur because he doesn’t understand the science. But not to worry, the consensus is collapsing daily.
[...] I have previously suggested that in the future, satellite data (as opposed to data compiled from thermometer-based weather stations), will be recognised as more reliable for understanding global temperature trends. [...]
The debate about global warming is surely not the point. It is really about using a non-renewable resource as a primary energy source for the world economy and in the process stop polluting the atmosphere. No-one argues about the need for a non-polluting and renewable energy source do they?
Tonygpc – the real point is more – if global temperature is changing, has it got anything to do with human activity. I’m yet to see any scientific data that supports this hypothesis. This site is focusing more on what the temperature is doing (I suspect we’re coming into a cooling period), However, some people seem to be assuming that, if it’s increasing, humans are to blame. Have a look at temperatures for the past few thousand years – they could go up or down, with nothing anthropogenic about it. I agree with reduction of pollution (CO2 doesn’t fit into this category).
[...] have previously written that in not so many years time weather station data will be collected more for fun, a sense of [...]
[...] have previously written that in not so many years time weather station data will perhaps be collected more for fun, a sense [...]
[...] have previously written that in not so many years time weather station data will perhaps be collected more for fun, a sense [...]
Dear Jennifer,
Sorry but I am a complete novice and frightened as heck. I am sitting in Seattle where the glaciers were 3 miles high in the last ice age. I look out my windows at the snow covered mountains that have been bare for years. I was a global warming believer, now I am not so certain.
After reading what T. Landscheidt and Rhodes Fairbridge have written. I find what they had to say is far more convincing than any global warming or NASA scientist has to say. Unfortunately the issue is so one sided at the governmental level.
The stock market realizes what is coming. When this summers harvests colapse and next falls snows return. I am sure there will be a reason they have to cut off our fuel, food and electrical supplies due to all the global warming.