Satellite Temperature Data Flat for Over 16 Years

Global warming hysteria is ramping up in anticipation of the UN releasing its latest work of fiction, AR5. So here is a simple antidote to the craziness: via Watts Up With That, the satellite data set RSS shows no warming over the last 16 years and 8 months, with a cooling trend currently in progress:

The graphic above shows 3 lines. The long line shows that RSS has been flat from December 1996 to July 2013, which is a period of 16 years and 8 months or 200 months. The other slightly higher flat line in the middle is the latest complete decade of 120 months from January 2001 to December 2010. The other slightly downward sloping line is the latest 120 months prior from present. It very clearly shows it has been cooling lately, however this cooling is not statistically significant. …

[S]ome people insist on saying global warming is accelerating by comparing the decade from 2001 to 2010 to the previous decade. They conveniently ignore what has happened since January 2011. However, when one compares the average anomaly from January 2011 to the present with the average anomaly from January 2001 to December 2010, the latest quarter decade has the lower number on all six data sets that I have been discussing. Global warming is not even decelerating. In fact, on all six data sets, cooling is actually taking place.

Why are the satellite data important? Because they are not subject to the biases that so often infect land-based weather stations. The most obvious of these is the urban heat island effect. Most weather stations are located in and around cities, which are warmer than the surrounding countryside (“Chance of frost in the outlying areas…”). Such stations will record rising temperatures as the urban area grows. Moreover, many ground stations are poorly sited and maintained. The only survey that has been conducted found that something like 60% of them are not in compliance with applicable standards; e.g., they may be located a few feet away from a heat outlet.

Further, agencies like NOAA that make a fortune from global warming hysteria have been systematically altering past temperature records at land-based stations. The temperatures that you see reported today for past decades, like the 1930s, are not what was recorded at the time. Instead, the reporting agencies “adjust” those temperatures downward to make it look as though the past was cooler. This, of course, makes the present look warmer by comparison. Satellite temperature records have not been tinkered with in this way, and therefore are more reliable.

Global climate has been changing for millions of years, and it will continue changing, for reasons that have nothing to do with human activity, until the Earth ceases to exist. The climate might well get warmer in years to come; currently, the Earth is cooler than it has been the vast majority of the time since the end of the last Ice Age. But for what it’s worth, the claim that the Earth is currently experiencing a rapid increase in temperature is simply false.

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