It would appear that once again NOAA climate data is being looked at, and the entire idea of climate change is being called into question.
The alleged mishandling of data by NOAA is being scandalized. A recent blog post by a former NOAA scientist has ignited this round of chicanery, and it shows no signs of abating thus far.
It would seem that comments from a recent blog post are being taken wildly out of context, and unfortunately the debate has reached the highest levels of the United States government.
In a congressional committee on Tuesday the complaints from the NOAA scientist in question were heard. They center around how data was handled, and a claim that claim that falsification took place has even been made.
Strangely the retired NOAA scientist never made this claim, and it would appear that there are some obvious political motives in play.
The blogger is retired NOAA data scientist John Bates and the claim that he made was that his former division leader, then director of the National Centers for Environmental Information Thomas Karl, “constantly had his “thumb on the scale”.
This claim is made in regards to the release of datasets, documentation, scientific choices. There is also a claim made by Mr. Bates that Mr. Karl wanted to discredit the theory of, “a global warming hiatus”, by rushing a study that was published in the journal Science.
In an interview on Monday with The Associated Press Mr. Bates claimed that he was most worried by the way the data was handled, documented and stored. Citing the areas of availability and transparency as the most dire preoccupations that he had.
He also mentioned that more than 20 crucial data storage and handling steps that he created for NOAA were not followed by Mr. Karl.
Mr. Bates went on to state unequivocally that the Earth is warming because of carbon dioxide emissions that are of human origin. He also implored people to know that there was “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious.”.
“It’s really a story of not disclosing what you did,” Mr. Bates emphasized, “It’s not trumped up data in any way shape or form.”.
It is shameful for politicians to take such meager amounts of mildly critical information and blow it up to the point of absurdity.
But with Trump in the White House in the EPA in the process of being hacked up and sold for scrap, what would one expect from the clowns that somehow find themselves in power?
At least China is taking climate change seriously.
[via ap]
