The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which keeps all and one informed about the climatic conditions and changing environment around the world, is considered the world's largest source of climate data.
Rumors that NOAA could have manipulated the climate data to create a greater impact on global political leaders attending the Paris Conference comes as a shock.
Whistleblower Alleges NOAA Hid Facts
John Bates, the retired Principal Scientist of the National Climate Data Centre, claims that the main author of the 2015 NOAA "pausebuster" report — Thomas Karl — has based it on false and misleading data. The report, he claims, overlooked the "pause" in global warming in the period since 1998.
The report completely denied the fact that the slowdown in the global warming during and after 1998 never existed, and that temperatures worldwide had been rising faster than generally expected by scientists. The pause in the global warming was first revealed by UN scientists.
However, according to reports, Dr. Bates produced irrefutable evidence that proved the report was totally baseless and completely wrong.
He also accused the Karl of "insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation." Bates also added that NOAA actually overlooked its own protocols by not allowing the report to go through the organization's strict evaluation process.
"Gradually, in the months after [the report] came out, the evidence kept mounting that Tom Karl constantly had his 'thumb on the scale' - in the documentation, scientific choices, and release of datasets - in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy," said Dr.Bates from on Climate Etc.
The report produced by NOAA in 2015, which is now accused of being untrue and deceptive, was prepared using two sets of temperature data. The first set measured land temperature, whereas the second measured sea temperature. Interestingly, both the sets have now turned out to be fake.
To cover its own goof up, NOAA has now decided to change the set of temperatures taken from the sea only after 18 months of it being published.
According to Bates, NOAA could have used the correct data supplied by its floating buoys but instead, the organization chose to use the wrong data just to make the sea seem warmer.
The temperature data which was sourced from the land, on the other hand, fell victim to bugs. The bugs on the GHCN software led things to become "unstable" so much so that each time a temperature reading was run on the PC, different results emerged.
A bug-free GHCN software version is yet to be issued and approved.
Photo: Yong L | Flickr
