The temperature readings that are the main basis of global warming are being challenged by former warming proponents

An article in the February 14 London Times focuses on a problem being brought out by one-time exponents, now critics, of global warming. The local weather stations that have been the sources of data on global atmospheric temperatures over the last 150 years have showed higher temperatures not because of increases in average global temperature but because of increases in local temperatures due to urbanization. Thus John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and formerly a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that in three regions he has studied, East Africa, Alabama, and California, “The story is the same for each one. The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

The Times continues:

The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review its last report.

The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published a research paper questioning its methods.

“We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,” he said.

As an example of the problem, writes Jonathan Leake of the Times, “a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings.”

Such are the sources of the “unequivocal” scientific truth of global warming on the basis of which we were told that industrial civilization must be shut down or humanity will be destroyed.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 15, 2010 08:30 AM | Send