News outlets are going to great lengths to throw a wet blanket on the nearly 40-year-long satellite temperature record. Yesterday, the AP’s Seth Borenstein wrote that temperature readings taken on the surface—about 6 feet from the ground—are actually better than satellites, which take their measurements from “high in orbit.” He notes the satellite record’s lack of warming has given ammo to climate doubters like presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who has been holding hearings on the alleged data tampering by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), plus the satellite temperature record.
The reason the satellite records are considered the “gold standard” in determining the Earth’s temperature is because they aren’t affected by the radiative forcings typically found on the surface (like cement and highways and buildings and airport runways). But don’t take the satellite’s record at face value; weather balloons also show that 2015 just wasn’t as hot as NOAA and NASA are now claiming.
Borenstein writes that anyone who casts doubt on ‘accepted science’ are most often ‘non-scientists,’ and they even call out a few names in the process, notably Sen. Cruz. Another person who has been actively documenting and tracking the surface temperature data adjustments is Tony Heller, who runs the popular website Real Science. Another is Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who has taken on the task of cataloging surface weather stations here and abroad. What they and many others have found are gross inconsistencies, data tampering, data readjustments, and the closure of so many rural weather stations as to make the land data skew toward appearing warmer.
Climate scientist and devout evangelical Katharine Hayhoe tells Borenstein that, “We care about what’s happening where we live. That’s why ground-based temperatures are most relevant to humans.” Except ground-based temperatures are only relevant when deciding what to wear before going to work or the beach. Not for determining if the entire planet is warming up from increased carbon dioxide (CO2).
Global warming theory dictates that increased CO2 will cause the mid- to upper-troposphere to heat up, forcing the lower troposphere (that’s the air around us that Hayhoe wrongly believes validates man-made global warming) to heat up and achieve equilibrium. Bake for a couple hundred years, and you start to understand why a few scientists with the best intentions think we are paving our way to a hellish CO2-laden future.
Except we aren’t. And that’s a huge problem for climate scientists who have staked their reputations on this theory being correct. Weather balloons that also measure temperatures that aren’t affected by human error / being poorly situated also show that the planet isn’t warming as fast as all those computer models predicted. Orbiting satellites have been recording temperatures from five miles up since 1979, so there is now a 38-year record. Not as long as 200 years of surface temperatures, but not as spotty or manipulated.
The theory of global warming predicts that the upper atmosphere will warm from trapped heat, just like in a greenhouse. As the upper atmosphere warms, the surface of the Earth warms up “later” to reach equilibrium. But that isn’t happening. The reason satellites are so important in this undertaking is that they are not biased toward warming or cooling. If the mid- to upper-troposphere isn’t heating up, as it should be, then the theory of global warming—regardless of how warm the surface air is around a particular weather station on a particular day at a particular time—is no longer valid.
The satellite data also isn’t susceptible to carefully orchestrated media campaigns, environmental groups’ press releases, the flow of grant money pouring out of government agencies to ‘study’ the issue, or reporters who don’t understand the scientific method. And the insignificant amount of surface warming that vested interests are trumpeting can be attributed to naturally occurring events. One is the ongoing El Ni√±o and the other is the Pacific blob. We also just left a glaciation. To a geologist, that was only yesterday (it was about 20,000 years ago in real time).
One person who runs the satellite measuring system is Dr. John Christy. He explains to Borenstein why satellites are the preferred method for detecting warming from the greenhouse effect. He says that the ground’s “surface is affected by too many other variables and doesn’t represent the real mass of the climate system.” Even Carl Mears, a global warmist and a senior satellite scientist with another group, admits that the satellites are able to take “measurements from thick layers of atmosphere 50,000 feet up,” but aren’t as good as measuring temps “near the ground.”
