Tag Archives: giss

Climate Change

Battle of the climate scientists part 3 – Gray attacks the science

Leave a comment
Hot or not? Are the global climate models accurate or are they full of hot air?
Hot or not? Are the global climate models accurate or are they full of hot air?

The science behind the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or manmade climate change, has been said to be ‘settled’.  The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Al Gore, and Dr. James Hansen make up a triumvirate of climate change advocates.  Wielding studies, computer models, and various charts and analyses, they believe man is heading down the road to self-destruction of we do not reverse course immediately and do everything and anything to stop what they believe is an unnaturally warming climate.

Last week we first brought to light a letter by Dr. William Gray, Professor Emeritus of Colorado State University, admonishing the American Meteorological Society’s decision to give its highest award to Dr. James Hansen.  Hansen is head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), an astronomer, and a very divisive figure in the global warming debate. 

We continue our analysis of not only the battle between Dr. William Gray and Dr. James Hansen but the larger issue of anthropogenic global warming.  In his letter Dr. Gray raises some very interesting arguments about Hansen’s research and about the science behind the theory of AGW.  Today we take a closer look at the science as Dr. Gray sees it.

Get all the details on Examiner.com!

For all the details, read the rest of this story on our Denver Weather Examiner page. Examiner.com - Get inside Denver weather
Climate Change

Battle of the climate scientists part 2 – Gray questions Hansen’s credentials

Leave a comment
Dr. William Gray is a vocal opponent of the anthropogenic global warming theory and recently took issue with Dr. James Hansen of NASA's GISS.
Dr. William Gray is a vocal opponent of the anthropogenic global warming theory and recently took issue with Dr. James Hansen of NASA's GISS.

Last week we wrote about an extremely strongly worded letter from William Gray to the American Meteorological Society (AMS) objecting to their awarding James Hansen their highest award.  This letter pits two of the giants in meteorology and climatology against each other in the debate over manmade climate change and global warming. 

The letter itself (available here on icecap.us) takes issue with some of the decision making processes within the AMS which is not particularly relevant to us.  What is revealing however is Dr. Gray’s arguments against the global warming theory and Dr. Hansen’s research.  Today we will take a look at the discussion in the letter about Dr. Hansen himself and his credentials.

For those that aren’t familiar with him, Dr. Gray is a Professor Emeritus of Colorado State University who is best known for his hurricane forecasts.  He is a highly trained and respected meteorologist with decades of practical experience in monitoring the earth and its climate.

In the letter he points out that Dr. Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), is not a trained climatologist nor a meteorologist.  His formal background is actually in astronomy which does make one wonder how he has become one of the primary mouthpieces for anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or manmade climate change.

There is much more to this story!  Get the rest of it on Examiner.com.

For all the details, read the rest of this story on our Denver Weather Examiner page. Examiner.com - Get inside Denver weather
Climate Change

NOAA says October hottest on record – Oops – Maybe not

4 Comments
In this GISS image, incorrect data shows much of Russia under a heat wave in October.
In this GISS image, incorrect data shows much of Russia under a heat wave in October.

Scientists at NOAA and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) announced last week that October global temperatures were the hottest on record.  Naturally this caused quite a bit of hubbub and had the global warming alarmists in quite an uproar.  As we wrote about previously, the year has been cooler than normal in North America but this new data showed that Asia experienced record high temperatures last month.  Word of the “hottest October on record” quickly spread of course. 

In a bit of an embarrassment for NOAA and GISS, their claims were short lived when two blogger meteorologists went through the data and found a number of anomalies.  They discovered at least 10 Russian stations that oddly enough reported the exact same temperatures as September.  Well, since October is almost always cooler than September in the northern hemisphere they did some checking and found that GISS had used the incorrect data and it influenced the calculations significantly. 

Al Gore's infamous "hockey stick" graph that was used in An Inconvenient Truth was quickly debunked, as were many other "facts" used in the movie.
Al Gore's infamous "hockey stick" graph that was used in An Inconvenient Truth was quickly debunked as were a number of other "facts" used in the movie.

This isn’t the first time “anomalies” with data used to measure the earth’s temperature have been discovered and have caused incorrect calculations.  In other curious happenings, measuring stations have “disappeared” from data only to reappear later, stations have been found to be sitting next to heaters and gas wells and more.  Then of course there was Al Gore’s infamous “hockey stick” graph which was debunked soon after he began showing it.  Perhaps in the most grievous error just last year, NOAA had to revise their published figures for U.S. surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as they had claimed, but the 1930s.

When GISS and NOAA recalculated October’s temperatures it dropped the month to the 2nd warmest on record and that is significant.  However, these types of problems serve only to fuel doubt in the minds of climate change skeptics and highlight the need for more careful analysis and a level-headed approach to studying the subject – from both sides of the discussion. 

For more information:  NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration