“U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005”: A follow-up

“U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005”: A follow-up

My column last week titled “NOAA: U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005” attracted a large number of readers and a number of skeptical comments. A letter to the editor from Mark Rosenthal offered an alternative interpretation of NOAA’s data as did several commenters on the Independent’s Facebook page.

At the risk of wearing out my welcome on this subject, here is additional background information about NOAA’s Climate Reference Network and how its data contrasts with other NOAA data.

As a start, note that NOAA spent tens of millions of dollars to construct the Climate Reference Network — or CRN — in 2005. NOAA intended to gather temperature data that did not require the “adjustments” it has been making to historical temperature data and the controversy that surrounds them. In so doing, it acknowledged that there is uncertainty in its historical data.

As my critics have suggested, there are several ways to analyze NOAA’s CRN temperatures collected from 2005 onward. Rosenthal computes the average CRN temperature over the 14-year interval, noting that it’s higher than the single-year 2005 average. A Facebook commenter computed a linear regression: a sloping, “best fit” straight line through the data. Both methods indicate increasing temperatures by incorporating the distinct upward spikes in temperature in 2012 and again in 2015–16.

I chose instead to compare what NOAA calls the average temperature “anomaly” (the difference from NOAA’s National Temperature Index, or NTI) for the beginning and ending years, 2005 and 2018. NOAA uses the NTI as a reference to eliminate seasonal variations that otherwise would mask underlying trends. NOAA presents its 14 years of monthly CRN data as the difference or “anomaly” between the CRN measurement and the NTI for that month. Since the same NTI is used for all 14 years, the anomaly graph makes comparing monthly temperature trends over the 14 years much easier to analyze.

In 2005, the average anomaly was +0.78 degrees F, and in 2018 it was +0.94 degrees F. That method shows a slight rise of about +0.1 degree F per decade. Note, however, that the month-by-month trend starting in 2016 is distinctly downward. In fact, NOAA’s CRN anomaly data averages minus 0.05 degrees F for the most recent 12 months, September 2018 through August 2019.

None of us knows whether future CRN data will continue downward, stay about the same, or trend back up.

But the point of my article, the one that caught so much attention and flak, is that CRN data show that temperatures today over broad swaths of the country are about what they were in 2005.

So what about the temperature history graphs that show ever-rising temperatures that NOAA itself puts out?

I made the point in last week’s column that these graphs show temperatures after NOAA has “adjusted” them to account for known problems in its data collection: urban heat islands, varying time of day readings, etc. As I stated, these adjustments are both estimates and controversial.

A thorough technical analysis of how NOAA and NASA “adjust” historical raw temperature measurements is covered here. The bottom line is contained in NOAA’s own graph. Raw, unadjusted temperature data show a clear cooling trend since 1934, the hottest year on record in the U.S.

That’s right, 1934 was our hottest year on record. But only after adjustments, not fully explained by NOAA, do we get the familiar sharp temperature rise since about 1980 with 2012 as the record year.

A graph in a second article here shows clearly how NOAA’s adjustments dramatically lowered U. S. historical temperatures from about 1900 through the 1980s then began to raise them thereafter.

All the handwringing about global warming is based, naturally enough, on global temperatures, which have shown a distinctive rise although they are based on a much sparser set of temperature stations whose quality is less certain. The net effect of NOAA’s “adjustments,” whatever their provenance, has been to make U.S. temperature history match the global history.

All the above is fact, not opinion. If you disagree, you disagree with NOAA and NASA.

What follows are my opinions: Take issue if you will.

For the reasons I gave in last week’s column, global warming has been the environmental cause du jour for the last three decades or so. Understandably, many have relied on NOAA as the country’s official weather and climate source and as a result have been convinced by the upward march of NOAA’s “adjusted” data. Who other than a small chorus of skeptics could doubt the official data?

This legitimate (although possibly misplaced) environmental concern has been co-opted by liberal politicians and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media. It provides ideal cover for their desires to commandeer the economy and remake it as a socialist paradise. The drumbeat of impending climate doom is intended to leave the country with no other choice than government control of the means of production. If this sounds overwrought to you, read the Green New Deal, endorsed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates.

I don’t accuse NOAA of an “adjustment” conspiracy: I’m sure its adjustments reflected its best estimates and were intended to improve the historical record. Nonetheless, NOAA has put itself in a quandary as CRN data accumulates.

NOAA’s adjusted historical data and CRN data are diverging. Yet since the entire global warming thesis depends on NOAA’s “adjusted” historical data, NOAA is naturally reluctant to attempt a resolution until it’s sure that CRN data are the real deal. CRN covers only the last 14 years, long enough to raise serious questions but not long by climate standards. Hence NOAA continues to report both data sets without explanation leading to confusion.

On the political front, any NOAA restatement based on CRN data would be seen as the Trump administration trying to undercut political opponents. If lower or approximately constant temperatures continue, don’t look for reconciliation any earlier than after next year’s elections and likely well after that.

As I noted in last week’s column, “Barring a definitive upswing in CRN temperatures,” we can expect global warming concerns to fade. But I am completely data driven: If future CRN data shows an upturn over a period of years, I’m on board with the data.

In the meantime, ask yourself if you want Bernie Sanders to spend $17 trillion to “fix” the problem when we can’t even be sure there is a problem, or that humans are the root cause, or that anything we do to reduce emissions will be cancelled out by the world-champion greenhouse gas emitters in China and India.

The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.

How to submit an article, guest opinion piece, or letter to the editor to The Independent

Do you have something to say? Want your voice to be heard by thousands of readers? Send The Independent your letter to the editor or guest opinion piece. All submissions will be considered for publication by our editorial staff. If your letter or editorial is accepted, it will run on suindependent.com, and we’ll promote it through all of our social media channels. We may even decide to include it in our monthly print edition. Just follow our simple submission guidelines and make your voice heard:

Articles related to “‘U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005’: A follow-up”

Letter to the editor: Howard Sierer’s “U.S. Temperatures Unchanged Since 2005”

NOAA: U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005

Democrats’ Green New Deal is a sham