No data should be used blindly. What's so ridiculous is when people start talking about the "raw" data like it's a gold standard. Hardly. Raw data is filled with errors. This is true in meteorology or any other field. There are lots of things to consider before using data, such as (1) Is it correct? (2) Is it representative? (3) Does it add information? If you use data without running these sorts of tests on it, you will end up with garbage--that is the true meaning of "Garbage in, garbage out".
Even old data needs to be reexamined and discarded if it's unreasonable. That's why the world record highest temperature is no longer in Libya, but in California. The new record is more solid, but still questionable.
Anyone that believes that data should be used "raw", just tell me what area you live in, and I will find wrong data from there. People spend there whole careers worrying about how data should be used.
By the way, don't take away from this that all data is bad--it's not, most of it is great, but assuming that will get you in trouble.
EDIT: I don't know what a "pristine" station is. Even if there were such a thing, what if you had two right next to each other, should you use both? What if you had "pristine" stations near each other, but they had vastly different readings? Data needs to be vetted, that's the way it is. I don't understand why if people think they can do so much better, they don't do it. I thought that's what BEST was, then when it turned out to be eerily similar to all the other measures, suddenly BEST couldn't be trusted anymore. The only temperature time series that gave data that was radically different was the UAH data, and error after error was pointed out, and as those errors were fixed it started looking more and more like all the other time series.
Surveys of weather stations in the USA have indicated that some of them are not sited as well as they could be. This calls into question the quality of their readings.
However, when processing their data, the organisations which collect the readings take into account any local heating or cooling effects, such as might be caused by a weather station being located near buildings or large areas of tarmac. This is done, for instance, by weighting (adjusting) readings after comparing them against those from more rural weather stations nearby.
More importantly, for the purpose of establishing a temperature trend, the relative level of single readings is less important than whether the pattern of all readings from all stations taken together is increasing, decreasing or staying the same from year to year. Furthermore, since this question was first raised, research has established that any error that can be attributed to poor siting of weather stations is not enough to produce a significant variation in the overall warming trend being observed.
It's also vital to realise that warnings of a warming trend -- and hence Climate Change -- are not based simply on ground level temperature records. Other completely independent temperature data compiled from weather balloons, satellite measurements, and from sea and ocean temperature records, also tell a remarkably similar warming story.
For example, a study by Anderson et al. (2012) created a new global surface temperature record reconstruction using 173 records with some type of physical or biological link to global surface temperatures (corals, ice cores, speleothems, lake and ocean sediments, and historical documents).
temperature records in Australia have been adjusted down recently apparently. they were ok for about 150 years but now they suddenly need adjusting
One could be forgiven for thinking that they are being adjusted to verify the global warming theory
Temperatures do not seem accurate this year. A family member lives in the country and has his own weather station. He said it didn't get above 7c the other week but BOM claims that the maximum every day of that week was over 11c
The weather bureau are writing off really cold days here to wind chill but on most days there are extended periods of NO wind and it feels freezing several degrees below what the weather bureau claims to be the temperature
In summary before AGW the records where what they were read a temperature and write it down but now with the AGW they are another animal
More accurate than you are scientifically literate or intellectually honest . The error identified by McIntyre effected the ranking of individual years in the US by a couple hundredths of degrees, Longer-term averages did not change; neither did the temperature trend. Global yearly rankings were not affected.
What errors have you found? Can you cite one adjustment to any data that did not follow well-understood, time-tested, and widely-accepted procedures employed by scientists and mathematicians in numerous disciplines all over the world? What analytical methods or procedures have you identified as being superior?
More to the point – Can you provide any scientific explanation or mathematical examples demonstrating that McIntyre’s correction, July 1936 temperature, or your question have anything at all to do AGW or science?
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edit --
>>Gary F's definition of "time tested": Procedures used by climatologists since last Tuesday.<<
Actually, it would be the 1800s, I don't expect to know that - because if you knew anything about anything you wouldn't ask questions that highlight your ignorance.
The range in plausible global temperatures for a given month is about plus or minus 0.13 C:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/glo...
Over a smaller region like the USA, uncertainty will be higher. This explains how small updates can change around which is the warmest recorded year in the USA. To be accurate, we can only say that with current information, it appears that 1936 is more likely than any other year to be the warmest year in US history. Globally, the warmest year is most likely 2010, with 1998 a close second. The uncertainties are small enough that we can be very confident that the 1930s were globally cooler than today.
Accounting for all of these uncertainties, global temperature trend is +0.171+-0.04 C per decade.
They made that change when they were hot and heavy to get their anti-...(long list here) agenda through. It wasn't an honest mistake. It was an outright lie but to alarmists it wasn't even a mistake.
So I guess we could honestly say that not only hasn't it warmed in 17 years, it has actually cooled in the last 77 years. I can feel those down arrows slinging past me.
They must really really hate McIntyre. I notice the anti-science types, spew their most venom towards him. It is because he was correct and harmed the cause.
The Y2K error found by Steven McIntryre was a failure to make corrections.
But if you're so smart and know better than the climatologists about temperature adjustments, publish your findings in Nature and book a flight to Stockholm to collect a Nobel Prize.
Jim Z
< I notice the anti-science types, spew their most venom towards him. It is because he was correct and harmed the cause.>
Provide one example. And let's talk about Michael Mann.
About 60% because nearly 40% is infilled and estimated
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/30/noaa-quietly-reinstates-july-1936-as-the-hottest-month-on-record/
I know from most alarmists that historical temperature data and adjustments made to it are super duper accurate and those brilliant climatologists never make a mistake. Well except for when that anti science good for nothing Steven McIntryre found their Y2K error... which I'm sure is the only error they have ever made and I'm positive they would have found it out and corrected it if he hadn't told them about it. And if you believe that I have a beautiful bridge I would like to sell you.
