Friday, August 28, 2009

As we warm ourselves by burning another mistaken global warming report...

Those of us here in God's country who are just now thawing ourselves out from the coldest summer in memory ... Excuse me just a moment while I throw some more wood on the fire ... are breathing a sigh of relief. Some of us had believed that the End was not Near. But when we heard that July, 2009 "was the the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880," we thought, wait a minute, if this is hot, we're in big trouble.

Recently, ... Wait, I'll be right back. I've got to unfreeze the dog ... Okay. Back now ... the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Bet you didn't know the oceans and atmosphere are now under federal control. But, hey, this is the Obama administration) reported:
The planet’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for July, breaking the previous high mark established in 1998 according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2009 ranked fifth-warmest since world-wide records began in 1880.
The report made its way into the Associated Press, which dutifully reported that the End is Near because of global warming.

Only one problem, says climatologist and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer, the NOAA's study "has a spurious warming since 1998 of about 0.2 deg. C, most of which occurred as a jump in 2001." In other words, the July, 2009 ocean temperatures are overstated in the report:
... I have no idea how such a large warm bias could have entered into the ERSST dataset, but I’d say the evidence is pretty clear that one exists.

Finally, the 0.15 to 0.20 deg. C warm bias in the NOAA SST product makes it virtually certain that July 2009 was not, as NOAA reported, a record high for global sea surface temperatures.

So now those of us here in the heartland ... Excuse me once again as I rub my hands together to keep the blood flowing ... are thinking that maybe we're not going to have to build igloos and chew whale fat.

And so now I am trying to find the AP story on the warm bias in the NOAA report. Maybe I already burned it.
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