Scientists Find That Cooking Books Heats Up The Earth

We look at global temperature data and we see the earth has been cooling for at least 10 and perhaps as long as 20 years, yet the Warmies continue to say that global warming is advancing. How can this be? Shouldn't temperature just be temperature and answer the question?

Not if NASA, the keeper of US temperature data, "adjusts" the data. Here's a description of NASA's process from The Register (UK):

We observe that the data has been consistently adjusted towards a bias of greater warming. The years prior to the 1970s have again been adjusted to lower temperatures, and recent years have been adjusted towards higher temperatures.

NASA's published data is largely based on data from the US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN), which derives its data from thermometer readings across the country. According to USHCN literature, the raw temperature data is adjusted to compensate for geographical movements in the weather stations, changes in the 24-hour start/end times when the readings are taken, and other factors. USHCN is directly affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratories' Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, an organisation which exists primarily to promote the idea of a link between CO2 and climate.

So if you adjust pre-1970 numbers downward and post-1970 numbers upwards, what happens? Here's the map of the US before the adjustment:

And here's the same map after NASA is done cooking the books making adjustments:
Let's see how that really looks. Here's an animation of the book-cooking in progress:



Of course the high priests of the warming cult can fully justify their adjustments to the data and are keen to do so. But those of us who ask for a fair debate on climate change are equally justified in asking why more emphasis isn't placed on the data as it was collected and less on it as it was adjusted.

hat-tip: Jim