NOAA’s Data Debacle …Alterations Ruin 120 Years Of Painstakingly Collected Weather Data

“O, what a tangled web we weave,
When we first practice to deceive.”

Walter Scott

============================
By Michael Brakey, New Gloucester, Maine
Part 2/2

As an energy consultant, I have been implementing energy efficiency improvements over the past six years to help transform our very inefficient log cabin home in New Gloucester, Maine into one of the most energy efficient homes in the United States.

In order to measure the results, I wanted to compare apples-to-apples on heating and cooling demands. Therefore, I have been closely tracking and archiving local heating and cooling degree-day statistics over the last decade.

To do this I have local, unfiltered heating degree-day (HDD) history going back to 1893 from nearby Lewiston/Auburn. Seeing people are more familiar with degrees Fahrenheit (0F), I have converted the HDD to temperatures, and averaged them over running 11-year solar cycles. Those results are shown in the following chart:

Brakey_1

While I was continually updating my local data, I also had cause to visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) website in January 2013 for data on the entire state of Maine. Here I noticed that NOAA’s data indicated that the state of Maine was a total of 1030F colder over the last 117 years compared to local Lewiston data. That worked out to 0.880F per year for “statewide” Maine compared to Lewiston in a southern interior climate.

Brakey_2

That seemed reasonable because of the inclusion of northern Maine. I archived NOAA data for Maine, Ohio, Tennessee and the 48 contiguous states, as one entity.

Adjusted dataset twice in 18 months, adjustments totaling of 254°F

In early 2015, I revisited the NOAA website and updated my HDD and cooling degree-day (CDD) data for a local television presentation. Here I was shocked to discover that NOAA had not only rewritten Maine climate history for a second time in the last 18 months, but with all the tinkering they also screwed up southern interior Maine averages. Southern Maine temperatures were now colder than all of Maine as a whole! NOAA had inflated HDD figures so high that they had lowered Fahrenheit temperatures an additional 1510F summed over the years! Southern Maine interior was now 2540F colder over the last 119 years versus original Lewiston data. This means the NOAA rewrote Maine climate history to the extreme of lowering each year the equivalent of 2.120F per year colder. In order to counter Mother Nature’s recent cyclic cooling, the earlier historic years were lowered as much as five degrees while recent temperatures remained almost untouched.

Brakey_3

Black line before adjustments. Green line after adjustments.

Past adjusted downward also throughout the USA

Upon comparing NOAA data from other states that I had archived in 2013 to current NOAA data, I found similar discrepancies:

  • Ohio’s historical temps were lowered total of 83.80F.
  • Tennessee’s record had been lowered total of 51.50
  • The U. S. temps for 48 contiguous lowered total of 73.40

Why all the alterations?

Why would NOAA be dramatically lowering temperature records for Maine as well as for other states? A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. In the following illustration I charted the different phases of change by NOAA in 2011 and then in 2014.

Brakey_4

  • The black line shows the local data that I collected and archived from local Lewiston, Maine websites (see reference 1).
  • The blue line is data I downloaded in 2013 from NOAA’s website for the entire state of the Maine.
  • The green line is data I downloaded recently from the same NOAA website for the southern interior region of Maine, which includes Lewiston.

There was little if any difference between NOAA and local data in 1998 – until a few years ago. It was only after Mother Nature started cooling local temperatures that NOAA began altering the climate history record. The chart above shows three versions of a rolling 11-year average of historical temperature data since the early 1900’s for the Lewiston/Auburn area.

NOAA confirmed in writing that it’s altering climate data

NOAA was contacted and asked for an explanation. On May 6, 2015, NOAA confirmed in writing the massive changes to Maine’s data. NOAA stated the changes were intentional and justified! NOAA’s written statement included these words:

“…improvements in the dataset, and brings our value much more in line with what was observed at the time. The new method used stations in neighboring Canada to inform estimates for data-sparse areas within Maine (a great improvement).”

NOAA’s statement about the need to recently introduce colder Canadian data into Maine’s past temperature history seemed fishy to me. How do they explain similar adjustments to the data for Maine’s southern interior region? 

Worse, they made southern Maine colder than the entire state of Maine! They also revised downward historic temperatures for Tennessee, Ohio, and the United States as a whole. Every U.S. state for which I kept archived NOAA data from 2013 had been adjusted in an almost identical manner.

On June 4, NOAA responded through a general Associated Press statement that they continually readjust thousands of weather data points to account for different measuring techniques through the decades (see part of article to right).

Public deserves facts, not fantasy

My question to NOAA is: Why?

Why does NOAA feel compelled to apply different measuring techniques to climate data? Why not give access to the raw collected data? Why must NOAA apply a master algorithm to the data that not only has been proven to be corrupted, but also whitewash major climate cooling events in recent years. The American public should be given facts not fantasy.

Brakey_110Could NOAA explain the recent climate measuring techniques implemented in the spring of 2014 that have resulted in the CD2 southern interior of Maine (seen in blue area of chart to right) being a third of a degree 0F colder per year when compared to the entire state of Maine?

Again this is fantasy over both fact and common sense. The information below is drawn from NOAA’s most current website. Below is NOAA’s most recent “adjusted data’ for Maine on their website.

Brakey_111

NOAA simply ignoring reality

The charts above indicate that southern Maine has on average been 1/30F colder than all of Maine for the last 120 years! NOAA’s recent response to all these questions and observations can be found in their June 4th press release. They reiterated the same mantra; ignore satellite data, ignore facts given by non-scientist (and scientists alike) that disagree with NOAA’s climate data enhancements! We should just trust what NOAA tells us.

Trust is lost

Little wonder recent surveys indicated 76% of the American population does not trust the government to do what is right.

NOAA data cannot be relied on

As stated in yesterday’s post, decision makers in the state of Maine, and across America, cannot and should not rely on NOAA data for setting energy policy. If we are indeed experiencing regional cooling, then we should be encouraging insulation and less expensive sources of heating, such as natural gas, heat pumps, geothermal and future technologies associate with thorium and hydrogen.

However, based on NOAA’s data, which indicates a warming trend, lobbyists are focused on electric generation by means of wind and solar. It is important to gather data from other non-governmental sources to make sound decisions. It appears that we presently live in a nation where an agency of the Federal government has rewritten our climate history. Decisions worth trillions of dollars are being made based on fraudulent climate data.

Resources:

 

10 responses to “NOAA’s Data Debacle …Alterations Ruin 120 Years Of Painstakingly Collected Weather Data”

  1. AndyG55

    It should be noted that USCRN has the USA cooling at -0.32ºC/decade since it was established in 2005.

    But from the NOAA graph, it seems that Maine has been warming over that period.

    I wonder how many other individual NOAA/Schmidt USA localities also show warming over the period that USCRN shows cooling. I suspect a large percentage of them do.

  2. Brian G Valentine

    This indecorous revision of history can be traced to the directives of a single Democrat Party operative by the name of Thomas Karl.

    I leave it to the reader to examine the history. NOAA has a long record of Leftist ideology promulgation; the mission has evolved to the expected revision of history, and there has been no Leftist regime anywhere on Earth that has not done the same.

    Or has lasted longer than 40 years, as far as I can see

    1. DirkH

      “and there has been no Leftist regime anywhere on Earth that has not done the same.”

      They need to. Real history is just not so flattering about them.

  3. ColA

    It is not just NOAA but the Australian BoM is doing the same thing with their “new” ACORN temperatures and homogenised station data (= tortured so badly you can almost hear the numbers groaning) and we get feed similar verbal diarrhoea.

    Don’t you find it fascinating that all those millions of measurements, taken with instrument that we still use today by thousands of diligent, trained public servants (most temp stations were run by the town Post Office in Australia) could ALL so significantly wrong and all wrong in the same manner!!!!

  4. Mark Stoval

    This is an important story. Thanks for covering it. I sure hope it gets some traction.

    1. Mkelley

      Don’t worry. The DNC/MSM will cover this story right after pigs fly.

  5. pyromancer76

    The question is: Whose NOAA is this? Seems like it does not belong to the people of the U.S., but to the bunch of elites (marxists, etc.) who are planning to rule the world. They have had access to the Whitehouse for long enough.

  6. Gail Combs

    Too bad the general public actually believes the crap put out by NOAA although I think the fence sitters are seeing the light. The Useful Idiots will never admit they were wrong despite 262,000,000 people MURDERED by their own government in the 20th Century. — from DEMOCIDE: DEATH BY GOVERNMENT By R.J. Rummel

    If the Useful Idiots still believe Communism is the best form of government after that many deaths there is no hope for them.

    What does Communism have to do with all this? Everything:

    Christiana Figueres, a disciple of Al Gore, was appointed as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Jan. 2015 she said;

    “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,”

    United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model.

    1. DirkH

      “Christiana Figueres, a disciple of Al Gore,”,

      oh, also the offspring of a popular leader. Her brother is Branson’s CO2 buddy. Family Figueres has become one big Global Warming Nomenklatura leech.

      They’ve got it all Figuered out. How to get the taxpayer money.

  7. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #187 | Watts Up With That?

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