How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it must be done

Second, the theory that the warming trend is due solely or mainly to manmade CO2 emissions has not been proven. The sunspot theory is viable as well. The nice part of this is we're approaching a solar minimum in the next ten years, so if that camp is right, we should be able to measure considerable cooling.

If cooling occurs rather than the predicted warming, will that be enough to satisfy scientists? Or will we face new theories based on manmade climate change that explain it away?

And worsening that challenge is the fact that knowledgeable people tend to be utterly un-interested in endlessly discussing discredited, unsubstantiated or nonsensical theories, only to find the listener is simply not listening anyway. An understandable preference.

But the result is surprise at the number and influence of climate change deniers when they suddenly emerge in force.

Unfortunately, science is extremely hard when it comes to climatology. If you are too close to datasets and hypotheses without experiments, you end up with situations like last week's election.

this happens outside climate science, why should it be different because Climate ?

See the physics lady critical of the Higgs boson project: http://backreaction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-lhc-nightmare...

"I hope that this latest null result will send a clear message that you can’t trust the judgement of scientists whose future funding depends on their continued optimism."

in this case translate optimisim for Climate Pessimism

https://xkcd.com/1732/

What are you referring to?

Not only is the raw data included in these graphs and used to readjust the computed data in new studies all the time, so obviously not destroyed, but you can go download the raw data right now:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2.5/readme.txt

You don't see a difference?

The adjustments were in response to new data and new analysis, which you can see if you bother to look at the paper before posting ill-founded speculation. The article is pointing out that the UK did the analysis first, so NOAA was behind. You've turned this into some kind of harmonization of some other kind which just isn't there. This sets off "tamper" alarm bells only for someone who is (a) expecting to find tampering and (b) didn't do even the most trivial research to falsify their suspicions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

For this to be an "illustration", as you put it, you'd have to first demonstrate that what they did was scientifically dubious, then conclude that they must have done the dubious thing because of incentives. You can't just point at the sign of the adjustment and invoke incentives. I'd say you'd be much more convincing if you raised actual scientific issues, instead of making vague assertions about their incentives.

It's like claiming that mass extinctions of species are probably not happening, biologists are just biased and want to make their field look more important... The argument is absurd when applied to biology, but somehow climate science is considered "crooked" it seems.

Where is the supporting evidence of organizational incentives actually seeping into the data, as opposed to a meaningless correlation? Without such evidence, you don't have an illustration of it, you have just another conspiracy theory.

> The result is that, overall, modern corrections adjust past temperatures downward -- what we'd expect if these biases exist.

Yes, yes, just like "I didn't kill that person" is exactly what we'd expect a murderer to say. Also all the non-murderers, sure, but we're looking for a murderer and here's this person saying just what they'd say!

You've prevented zero evidence. Your argument is entirely postulation. We're in FSM/Russell's teapot territory here; with no evidence your made-up theory is as likely as any other postulate.

Maybe it was twice as cold but researchers have rounded up as the numbers seemed too preposterous! Maybe the numbers went complex in the 1800s but none of our proxies are set up to measure imaginary temperatures!

Totally false.

Data which proves the opposite of the general consensus and is scientifically defensible would be of massive impact.

Your name would be everywhere AND every climate change denier would be trumpeting your results. You would be famous AND well-funded for life.

The problem is that you WILL come under heavy scrutiny, so your data, methods, and conclusions better be beyond reproach. Everyone who has attempted to defend the opposite of the consensus, so far, has collapsed when challenged.

It's fun to think about, but not very informing or insightful.

This comment is complete nonsense.

Or rather, it is the perfect example of the type of comment that is impossible to argue against because it is specifically designed to be never wrong.

Instead of trying to argue (for example) that one shouldn't adjust for things like changing the time temperature is measured from the morning to the afternoon, the argument is that "there is an incentive".

It's clearly useless to argue against this. One could make the point that there is always large amounts of funding available for anyone to go against the climate change consensus, but then we'd end up arguing details of funding models etc which would (in the main) be completely ignored.

You'll note that there is the concession But this doesn't mean any specific correction is based on "fabricated" research. It's probably perfectly valid. - but you'll also note that the author goes on arguing motivation points, and saying things like "it requires statistical wizardry" and questioning ice core data etc.

This is such an attractive technique for arguing on forums. It's just about impossible to stop, and much more damaging than "fake news" IMHO.

> This is actually an excellent illustration of how organizational incentives seep into data.

For that claim to be anything other than bullshit, you would need to show that they actually have seeped in. Instead, what you showed is a creative hypothesis about how that might happen, supported by no evidence, and with a glaring hole.

The glaring hole in your hypothesis is that there is intense skepticism of climate change and the incentive structure you imagine simply doesn't exist.

What you've written is a nice way to cast doubt on the data, which is a bit unfortunate given where the science and the politics actually stand.

all articles like the one we have today is simply explain that its not a decided science and anyone claiming otherwise is just as bad as those who refuse to believe any changes occur.

the question that must be answered is, are the estimates for change in line with what has occurred and is occurring and if not, why.

satellite observations over ~30 years have tracked the amount of outgoing radiation in various regions of the electromagnetic spectrum over time. The amount of outgoing radiation has decreased, only in the spectra that co2 and methane block. The amount of reduction is as expected given the amount of co2 and methane we have added to the atmosphere:

chart: http://static.skepticalscience.com/images/harries_radiation....

This is just one of many ways we can confirm the attribution of climate change, it is IMHO the most clear, and obvious one, and the one for which I have never seen a refutation that even sounds serious, so I like to use it. There are many other ways to confirm this though.