Russ Steele
Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times, wrote an article about the BEST climate change data base project at Berkeley, which is headed up by Dr. Richard Muller.
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study is led by physicist Richard Muller, a longtime critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, who plans to testify on the effort Thursday before the House Science Committee in the latest of several congressional inquiries on climate science since the GOP majority was seated.
Willis Eschenbach, writing at Watts Up WithThat has some serious concerns with Dr. Muller's testimony before the House Science Committee, but I am writing about as statement in the article by Peter Thorne, who is suppose to be an expert on temperature data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Peter Thorne, a leading expert on temperature data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said the three main data sets by the NOAA, NASA and Britain's Hadley Centre adjust for the heat island effect, as well as for measurements at different times of day. Muller's use of 39,000 weather stations, he said, "will make next to no difference" in the final result.
ooo
But temperature is only one indicator of global warming, Thorne said. "Even if the thermometer had never been invented, the evidence is there from deep ocean changes, from receding glaciers, from rising sea levels and receding sea ice and spring snow cover. All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world.
"There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating."
OK, you have an option, you can believe a rent seeking scientist or the facts? Here is the temperature data plotted from Thorne's own NCDC.
Do you see any acceleration in this data from about 2003 forward? In fact if your do the calculations there is no significant warming for the last 15 years. That is one hell of an acceleration.
I have written about the acceleration of sea level rise in San Francisco Bay here. As you can see the trend is down, which is deceleration.
Or, this graphic of sea levels around the globe. This increase is very linear, with a slight decline. Look close, do you see any upward acceleration claimed by Thorne?
How about those receding glaciers. The ones on Mt. Shasta have been growing since about 2003. As a matter of fact, many Himalayan glaciers are growing, including some 230 glaciers in the western Himalayas - including Mount Everest, K2 and Nanga Parbat - are growing. Even Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, is slowly regaining it's snow after several years of drought in East Africa.
Warming, what warming? What acceleration? I would be very happy if Dr Thorne would show me and you the acclerated warming.
