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Well, well. It looks like a famous NASA scientist activist is on the hot seat after revelations that his data surrounding claims that 1998 was the hottest year on record is bogus.

This is important for four reasons:

1. The scientist at NASA who was responsible for the data is James Hansen. He was catapulted to rock star status by Global Warming activists when he stated very publicly that the Bush administration was trying to silence his research. Hansen is not just any researcher however, he is the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

   James Hansen is the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the deleterious long-term effects of the gas emissions and carbon dioxide that are unavoidable byproducts of coal, oil, and other fossil fuels commonly burned. In 2001, Dr. Hansen twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. But he raised their ire when, in a 2004 speech prior to the presidential election, he divulged that his fellow government climate scientists had been actively silenced. More recently, in December 2005, he argued that, without effective leadership by the United States, climate change would leave the earth “a different planet.” More recently, in December 2005, he argued that, without effective leadership by the United States, climate change would leave the earth “a different planet.” That same month he released a study demonstrating that 2005 was warmer than any other year in the past century. (src)

2. Stating that 1998 was the hottest year on record is a major factor surrounding the claim that Global Warming is a man made phenomenon. Scientists Activists use data such as Hansen’s to show a correlation between record temperatures, the years in which they occurred and increases in carbon emissions to make the man made conclusions.
3. Hansen refused to provide the algorithm to people who found certain spikes in his data troubling. I am not sure what the reason for that was, as a scientist you relish the thought of peer review as that is the only validation that should be accepted, and welcomed. I am suspect of anyone who refuses to divulge something so fundamental to their thesis.
4. Having been caught with their pants down the scientists at NASA quietly changed their data to reflect the findings found by those who questioned the spikes. 1998 is no longer the warmest year on record, the new year is 1934. That simple change puts a major dent in the claims of activists that have been looking to silence serious debate on such a politically charged topic.

Given that Hansen wouldn’t release the computer algorithms people were left to reverse engineer the results in an attempt to verify the numbers. In stepped Steve McIntyre and a team of volunteers who took on the daunting task as reported by Michael Asher of Daily Tech.

Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an “oversight” that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the US global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

Then again– maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.

In a related story the same group that got NASA to quietly revise their warmest year claims caught another government agency placing temperature monitoring stations in ridiculously hot locations. In response the government agency removed all website access to station site locations only to open it back up after climatologists who had been critical of the site locations claimed there was a cover up.

Not only did sites fail to meet the NCDC’s requirements, but encroaching development had put many in ridiculously unsuitable locations — on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills.

Soon thereafter, a Seattle radio station interviewed the head of the NCDC, Dr. Thomas Peterson, informed him of the effort and quizzed him about the problems. Three days later, the NCDC removed all website access to station site locations, citing “privacy concerns.” Without this data (which had been public for years), the validation effort was blocked. No more stations could be located.

Scientists were quick to respond. Climatologist Roger Pielke from the University of Colorado called the act a “coverup” and said it was designed to prevent public scrutiny. More shockingly, he revealed that researchers had been for years pressuring the government to validate the network themselves, and that the NCDC had begun to do j so, but cancelled the project and refused to make the data public, presumably to avoid this sort of scandal. Joined by Watts and others, Pielke called upon the government to recant.

The resulting furor forced the NCDC to again made site locations public.

Activists that stand to make big bucks off the global warming scam have been happily supported by the mainstream media. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that global warming hysteria is a purely fictional creation of politically motivated forces.

Scientists and lay people who dispute the ridiculous claims and knee jerk conclusions of ideologues on the left have been met with nothing but hate filled name calling. We are the global warming “deniers”. That may be true, but at least it puts me in a group of people that aren’t afraid to discuss the topic with facts and figures. I’m not afraid to ask for all Global Warming studies to be peer reviewed.

It’s not the conservative right that has anything to lose by this debate. Our reputation on climate change isn’t based on the left’s inconvenient truths but it is validated every time one of those inconvenient truths blows up in their faces. I guess they really are inconvenient for the left and that is why I am sure the MSM will likely take a pass.

Update: Coyote Blog Asks:

So how is this possible? How can the global warming numbers used in critical policy decisions and scientific models be so wrong with so basic of an error? And how can this error have gone undetected for the better part of a decade? The answer to the latter question is because the global warming and climate community resist scrutiny. This weeks Newsweek article and statements by Al Gore are basically aimed at suppressing any scientific criticism or challenge to global warming research. That is why NASA can keep its temperature algorithms secret, with no outside complaint, something that would cause howls of protest in any other area of scientific inquiry.

Exactly. The whole article is a must read to get the picture that has been emerging for years. Global Warming activists in the scientific community have been fudging the facts, hiding the analysis and resisting peer reviewed requests because they stand to lose a lot more than credibility. Money is tied to this politically motivated hysteria and research funds are made readily available as has been the case since Clinton and Gore helped create this massive fraud being perpetuated on the American public.

See Also: Michele Malkin, Hot Air, Small Dead Anilmals

Trackposted to Pirate’s Cove, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Stuck On Stupid, Woman Honor Thyself, Adam’s Blog, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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