Heated data deviance at the UN

IBD Editorial:

On Day 2 of the Copenhagen climate conference, the United Nations announced that the current decade is the warmest on record. Please allow us to unravel this web of deception.

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization released Tuesday a preliminary report that claims the 10-year period from 2000 to 2009 is the warmest since records began in 1850. We find the claim to be, well, a bit silly.

How, for instance, can serious scientists compare data from record keeping in 1850 to modern record-keeping? The report says the data are culled "from networks of land-based weather and climate stations, ships and buoys, as well as satellites."

It might be rude to challenge the leaders of the faith, but we have to ask: How many satellites, ships and buoys were used in 1850? Whatever the answer is, the WMO needs to explain to the public how adding data sources in later years skews the overall picture.

Furthermore, how do the land-based weather stations match up? Are they the same set of stations used since 1850, or have stations been added and dropped through the decades? Have there always been enough stations to adequately represent the global temperature?

A global map of weather stations shows they are highly concentrated in the U.S. and Europe. Their presence in Asia, Africa and South America is almost nonexistent. How can their readings from only a portion of the globe be indicative of the entire planet?

And what about the placement of weather stations? Developed areas create heat islands that register higher temperatures, which aren't relevant to climate or global temperatures. How many stations located in undeveloped areas 150 years ago are now surrounded by growth and are recording distorted temperatures?

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These guys are no longer entitled to the benefit of the doubt in their forecast and their record keeping. They need to produce the data on which they made the assertion so it can be examined against relaity. These guys are pushing for totalitarian and draconian control of the use of energy and thus the world's economy. They should not be allowed to just shoot from the lips. Transparency requires that they produce the data and not just tricked analysis.