I had enough statistics classes in college, and enought scientific methodology to know when I'm being bullshitted, and my bullshit detector is finely tuned after 25 years in law enforcement.
Also, while I was taking those methodology classes I helped put up a climate thermometer for the local bank, you know, the kind that you could call and it would give you the current time and temperature? Our themometer was housed in a wooden box and we had to make sure it was mounted at least ten feet off the ground and that it was at least 20 feet from any concrete, or existing structure. We did the best we could, but we put it on the end of a long pole, 20 feet up in the air on the side of a microwave tower. We figured that it was close enough for government work, and every time I drive past it nowadays, I smile. It serves just fine, I guess.
Methodology taught me that if you are gathering data with 100,000 instruments and one of those instruments is giving you faulty data, then all of your data is faulty until you fix/replace/ignore the faulty instrument.
And weather data is gathered from thermometers just like the ones I described above.
Here's the problem. Your readings are based on instruments. If you have bad instrument siting, you have bad weather data.
There is a guy who is collecting data on instrument siting, and it doesn't look good. The guys at surfacestations.org are collecting photos and siting information on thermometers used to collect daily temperature information.
Thermometers on roofs, thermometers on parking lots, thermometers near A/C units, thermometers near burn barrels. Hell, even the one at the Royal Observatory in Scotland is housed in a bad location. It's sitting in a grassy area completely surrounded by buildings. THere is now way possible that thermometer is giving good temperature data. It just ain't happening.
What's a degree here, or a degree there? Close enough for government work? The problem is that the temperature variations that folks are talking about are a tenth degree here, a tenth degree there. When you have a problem collecting the raw data, it's tough to believe any of the conclusions that result from that data.
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Remember all those sailing ship expeditions looking in vain for the northwest passage? Guess what? It's there now.
Until now, I never even considered this. Now I'm reminded of an old computer aphorism: "GIGO" Wikipedia states that Garbage In, Garbage Out is an aphorism in the field of computer science. It refers to the fact that computers, unlike humans, will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output. GIGO is usually said in response to users who complain that a program did not "do the right thing" when given imperfect input. The first example of this was probably cited by Charles Babbage, inventor of the first programmable device who said: On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" [...] I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." It is also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. Garbage In, Gospel Out is a more recent expansion of the acronym. It is a sardonic comment on the tendency to put excessive trust in `computerized' data, on the propensity for individuals to Blindly Accepting What the Computer Says. Because the data goes through the computer, we tend to believe it. The term can be used in any field in which it is difficult to create a good result when given bad input. This is not just a non-computer-related use. "Decision-makers increasingly face computer-generated information and analyses that could be collected and analyzed in no other way. Precisely for that reason, going behind that output is out of the question, even if one has good cause to be suspicious. In short, the computer analysis becomes the gospel."
Is the Earth warming? Could be. Wouldn't be the first time.
IIRC, we are in a solar peak period. That would certainly explain why the polar caps on Mars appear to be melting. I don't think American SUVs are causing that........heh.
Termite
I do remember back in the 70's when a family friend was moving his boat to Toledo Bend in Western LA. I had the chance to sit with my Papaw near Robeline and hear him tell of a snow storm during his youth. It must have been during the 1910-1920 time period, but it left 4" in his memory. I also remember my childhood in Alex during the 70's when we'd get 1/2 to an inch every few years. When was the last time Alex saw snow? I now live in Vermont where the snow has been coming later and leaving earlier each year since the 80's. Lately the local maple syrup makers have been having a harder time making enough syrup to justify the work.
We might be in a time of solar activity increase, or we might have started to change the environment. I'm not going crazy, but I am making small changes in the way I live my life. I'm saving money and possibly saving part of the earth for my children.
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