Heartland – by H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D.
Switzerland joins a growing list of countries whose temperature measurements have been adjusted to show greater warming than actually measured by its temperature instruments. In previous editions of Climate Change Weekly(CCW), I reported weather bureaus in Australia (CCW #139) and Paraguay (CCW #158) were caught adjusting datasets from their temperature gauges. After the adjustment, the temperatures reported were consistently higher than those actually recorded. Science journalist Markus Schär of the Swiss news weekly Weltwoche discovered the Swiss Meteorological Service (SMS) tampered with its datasets as well.
For example, in Sion and Zurich, SMS adjustments resulted in a doubling of the temperature trend. Schär notes there has been an 18-year-pause in rising temperatures, even with data- tampering. As a result, Schär calls the adjustments a “propaganda trick, and not a valid trend.”
In light of significant urbanization resulting in an expanded heat island effect near many temperature gauges, Schär argues the adjustment of raw data to report higher temperatures than are actually measured is unjustifiable. “The corrections … appear so massive that they represent half of the entire temperature increase,” said Schär.
Even with fudged data, governments have been unable to hide the fact winters in Switzerland and in Central Europe have become colder over the past 20 years, defying predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is launching an investigation to determine whether data adjustments by government meteorological bureaus are justified and have been carried out using sound scientific methods. GWPF ultimately seeks to determine whether those adjustments have exaggerated the warming of the twentieth century.
Dr. Benny Peiser, director of GWPF, says the panel’s work will be transparent and all data will be published on a public website.
According to the Daily Mail, the panel’s chairman, professor Terence Kealey, former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said:
While we believe that the 20th Century warming is real, we are concerned by claims that the actual trend is different from – or less certain than – has been suggested. We hope to perform a valuable public service by getting everything out into the open.
We hope that people who are concerned with the integrity of climate science, from all sides of the debate, will help us to get to the bottom of these questions by telling us what they know about the temperature records and the adjustments made to them.
Concerning cooperation from institutions with financial and reputational stakes in the warming scare, all I can say is, “Good luck with that!”
— H. Sterling Burnett
SOURCES: NoTricksZone; Global Warming Policy Foundation; and Daily Mail
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/05/18/temperature-fibbers-being-investigated
THIS WILL BE THE LAST WE HEAR FROM IT….. AINT NO TRUTH IN EM
Temperature “adjustments” are done this side of the pond, too. Many times I’ve caught wunderground recording the heat index as the day’s high rather than the ambient temp.