The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXII

My post from Sunday, which was Part XXI of this series, achieved a record number of readers for any of my posts — around 100,000 and counting — and has 50 comments so far. Thanks to all who have taken the time and effort to comment. Many of the comments are thoughtful and insightful, which I greatly appreciate. Several commenters express doubt or skepticism as to some or all aspects of the post. Being a lover of all doubt and skepticism, I thought it would be worthwhile to respond to some of these questioners.

Several commenters point out that Part XXI discusses only one temperature station — Darwin, Australia — out of about two thousand that are used to produce the world’s official temperature records. For example, Shawn comments:

Ok that's one station one sample over time,, can u do the same for all the other stations around the world.

And NorEastern comments:

The problems with any single point analysis are numerous.
1: Adjustments because of sensor changes are opaque to everybody without an electrical engineering degree. We, the public, cannot evaluate adjustments because we do not have the needed expertise and the device specs.
2: There are tens of thousands of sensors distributed across the globe. . . .

My first recommendation to such questioners is that they read Parts I through XX of the series. If you do that, you will quickly find out that this is not about just one station, but hundreds, if not every single one of the 2000 or so (not “tens of thousands”) that make up the world’s official surface temperature records. For example, the very first post of the series, from all the way back in July 2013, compared two graphs put out by NASA covering historical temperatures for the U.S. The U.S. has something in excess of 1000 stations contributing to the record, around half of the world total, and is generally thought to have the best surface temperature records of any country in the world. One of the NASA graphs covered in my post was published in 1999, and the other in 2011. In the 1999 graph, the warmest year is 1934, and the second warmest is 1921. In the 2011 graph, the earlier years have been adjusted downward, and the warmest year has become 1998. That first post also contains a comparison of raw and currently-reported temperatures for the very prominent weather station at Central Park in New York City. Earlier year temperatures there had been adjusted downward by an average of 1+ deg F, and up to about 2 deg F. (There have since been additional downward adjustments of the early years.)

Part II of the series, from July 2014, introduced readers to the work of Tony Heller. Heller is truly the guru of this subject (that is, data tampering of the official temperature records). His work covers thousands of stations, not by any means just one or a few. Here is a link to a representative piece of Heller’s work, this one covering all U.S. stations (again, over 1000, and about half the world total). This post of Heller contains one of his iconic graphs, demonstrating the cumulative effect of downward adjustments on U.S. temperature history:

As my series has progressed, I have attempted to provide a good mix of posts that focus on one or a small group of stations with inexplicable and unjustifiable downward temperature adjustments, with other posts that cover large numbers of stations. For example, Part III focused on the stations in the nation of Paraguay in South America; Part VI focused on an overall comparison of the thermometer (“surface temperature”) records with satellite records of the same time period (thus, essentially covering all stations in the world); Part XII focused on a certain station in Connecticut with which I am personally familiar; and so forth.

Another commenter, gkam44, posts this recommendation:

Go here and look at the data and the graphs of real numbers.

gkam44 then provides a link to temperature graphs that appear in the IPCC’s latest “assessment report,” that came out back in 2013. For example, here is a key one from among the graphs at gkam44’s link:

Here’s the problem, gkam44: These graphs derive precisely from the surface temperature record that has been adjusted downward in the early years. The IPCC does not even so much as acknowledge the issue. Sorry, but with the enormous evidence of data tampering now out there, no reasonable person is going to accept these graphs only on the basis of the authority of the proponent.

And finally, commenter Peter picks up on my use of the term “impenetrable” to describe the Australian BoM Report describing the basis for its adjustments:

When you admit that a scientific report is "impenetrable" to you that's a good sign you don't know what you are talking about in this field and should not brave to wade into the discussion.

I had picked up the term “impenetrable” from Joanne Nova, who had also used it to describe the Report. Perhaps it was not the best term for my purpose. What I really mean to say about the Report is that on its face it is not science. “Science,” as I understand the term, has several bare minimum requirements. First, to qualify as science, work must address a hypothesis that is falsifiable. Second, to qualify as science, work must be replicable, and all data and methods (including computer code) needed to replicate the work must be disclosed. Despite its great length and use of official-sounding jargon, this BoM Research Report does not contain the fundamental information to meet those two bare minimum requirements. Therefore it is not science. It shares that characteristic with the entire field that falsely calls itself “climate science.”