Must-read NOAA paper smacks down the deniers: Q: “Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?” A: “None at all.”

 

Nothing occupies global warming deniers more than trying to prove the U.S. temperature record — a tiny portion of the global temperature record — is not reliable.  Now NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has issued an excellent Q&A, “Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?” that should settle that question for any objective observer.

The NCDC paper proves we should all be delighted that deniers like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre spend so much time on this:  It is clearly a fruitless effort that consumes time which they might otherwise spend spinning out more potent disinformation.

Consider this definitive NCDC graph comparing the U.S. temperature record since 1950 “using 1221 stations in NOAA’s Historical Climatology Network (USHCN)” [red line] with “the 70 stations that surfacestations.org classified as good or best” [purple line].

No discernible difference!

Imagine all the effort by Watts and his cohorts at surfacestations.org and WattsUpWithThat have expended examining some 70% of the 1221 stations around the country — and all they ended up proving is that the best stations give the exact same output as all the rest of the stations! …

Must-read NOAA paper smacks down the deniers: Q: “Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?” A: “None at all.”

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