Cold January - are the surface temperature record and NASA now reliable?

Question

Anthropogenic global warming skeptics often claim that the surface temperature record is biased and/or that NASA GISS and/or James Hansen are biased and/or unreliable.

Skeptics have also made a big deal out of the fact that January was a very cold month. In fact, the NASA GISS surface station data showed the largest cooling:

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

So it seems to me that either this cooling is unreliable or the surface temperature record and NASA GISS and James Hansen are reliable.

So which is it?

Answer 1

You can't play the "last month was cool so there is no global warming" game.  The problems arise because the overall temperature is going up a degree or so, which can happen because the winter gets warmer and the summer cooler, but not as much or the winter gets colder and the summer warmer by a greater degree or both go up.   If the net amount of melting is more than the amount of freezing each year, more water in the oceans.  Global warming calls for CHANGE in the weather patterns, which can mean colder and worst storms as well as warmer.

Answer 2

I was wondering when this question would appear..  Well it appears that the sfc temperatures no matter if your observing cooler or warmer trends should be taken with a grain of salt.  The point of the matter is, that's all we have to rely on. so does it really matter how inaccurate these readings are, as long as they are consistent with there output, I really don't think it matters.

Answer 3

Well global warming was never caused by man. I have been doing some independent research and I recently reached the conclusion that global warming is not caused by man.

Answer 4

Since most of the temperatures are taken at airports, and most airports have doubled or tripled in size in the past 20 years.  So, the "heat island" effect has increased the temperatures at the airports.  Someone should do a study of temperatures at non-airports.  I bet that the average temperature has stayed the same over the last 100 years.

Answer 5

Sure, I will clear that right up for you Dana. If the surface record was corrected properly you would see that the world really hasn't warmed that much over the last 100 years. Urbanization is a long term warm bias, but it does not preclude short term anomalies from being measured. So in reality the short term cooling anomaly has erased probably 30 years of warming, instead of 15, or it at least that is just one possibility.

No Dana, you will find it is you that is in denial, there are thousands of people just like you that came out of the defective Berkley mold. Can you explain why the HADCRUT and GISS are so different.

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Answer 6

James Hansen is a consummate scientist and his findings are reliable.  Note that Hansen and Christy are in basic agreement about the data, but disagree about the interpretation.  If a cold January makes a cooling trend, will a return to the norm be interpreted as record warming?  One year on the up or down side does not make a trend.  If the average over the next five years is lower, that would be a new trend. If the average over the next five years is higher, then it is a continuation of the present trend.

Answer 7

I don't know where it was so cold.  We still have green grass in places.  The tulips never suffered a killing frost.

I've had leaves on the almond for a couple of weeks, and the daffodils are in full bloom right now, and it isn't the end of February yet.

Those facts don't make a trend, but coupled with the lack of rain, they are troubling.