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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Top Climate Scientists Speak out on the Satellitegate Scandal By John O'Sullivan Monday, August 16, 2010 US Government admits global warming satellite sensors “degraded” - temperatures may be out by 10-15 degrees. Now five satellites in controversy. Top scientists speak out. In an escalating row dubbed ‘Satellitegate’ further evidence proves NOAA knew of these faults for years. World’s top climate scientists and even prior governmental reports cite underfunding and misallocation as the trigger for spiraling satellite data calamities. Key flaws with five satellites undermines global data. Most disturbing of all is that it took publication of my article last week to persuade the authorities to withdraw the errant NOAA-16 satellite from service. But as Dr. John Christy indicates, the real Satellitegate is not about one satellite. The scandal is endemic with comparable flaws across the entire network; the scandal is also that it took a tip off from a member of the public and the widespread broadcast of my article before one of the offending junk boxes, NOAA-16, got taken down. Readers who missed the details when this sensational story first broke can see here at Climatedepot.com. NOAA’s chief Program Administrator, Chuck Pistis, at first disingenuously tried to discredit my report and whitewash the matter with disinformation. Indeed, we may have a smoking gun of a cover up when we contrast and compare latest announcements with the offending satellite’s AVHRR Subsystem Summary. The official summary shows no report of any ‘sensor degradation’ since its launch in September 2000. Yet on the advice of top climate scientists I’m reliably informed that such failures were made known to NOAA years ago. Nonetheless, the U.S. agency continued to sell its flawed data products to numerous international institutions without making it public that satellite sensors were “degraded” and unreliable for assessing climate change. NOAA-16 had been commissioned as a polar-orbiting satellite featuring AMSU, AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) measuring instrumentation which were discovered by a member of the public last week to have suffered catastrophic failure. Dr John Christy drew my attention to specific concomitant flaws he had uncovered and reported with the AMSU years ago. NOAA in Fear of Rush of International Lawsuits? The snuffed out satellite had been run continuously up until being taken offline soon after my article went viral (August 10, 2010) in which I exposed the full extent of how seriously degraded it’s sensors were. The automatic readings had been contaminated by hundreds, if not thousands, of false and absurdly high temperature readings, some as high as 612 degrees Fahrenheit (boiling point of water is 212 F.). We now know NOAA was aware of these outrageous anomalies at least since 2006 but they were not remedied ( see below). Worryingly, as to how many of its users (mostly international meteorologists and climate researchers) were affected has not beent revealed by NOAA. But we know the automated numbers were sold throughout the world and it’s readings of land and ocean temperatures have been used by climate scientists in their models since the satellite’s launch in September 2000. As a consequence and without full disclosure by NOAA, it is feared innumerable scientific studies about rising global temperatures are now rendered entirely invalid. It is open to speculation whether NOAA may have been hesitant to admit to long standing faults for fear of a rash of lawsuits from its customers, mainly national governments and university research institutes. Based on such data most scientists agree that our planet may have warmed by 0.6 degrees Centigrade during the 20th century (with a margin of error of 0.5C degrees-but this error margin now looks way off). From analysis of the bogus online temperature data before NOAA removed it from view, it may be determined that almost all the false temperature readings were far in excess of expected averages—many by a factor of four or five - almost none of the bogus temperatures were lower than average. US Government Foresaw Satelligate Failures Mounting But it wasn’t just a handful of skeptical climatologists sounding the alarm. The National Academy of Sciences, in its 2007 455-page report concluded that because of degradation in the U.S. satellite network, the country’s ability to monitor the climate and severe weather was “at great risk.” By coincidence, in the same week my article led to the shut down of NOAA-16, Susan Bohan published her excellent article here in which she exposes the broader systemic failures in the wider satellite network. Among the calamities Bohan reported, “the satellite, Landsat 7, is broken. And it’s emblematic of the nation’s battered satellite environmental monitoring program.” The term ‘satelligate’ was coined by the CO2insanity.com blog after it diligently picked up on the piece. At Least Five Climate Measuring Satellites Compromised Crucially, Bohan’s article wasn’t based on any so-called unsubstantiated ‘big oil’ funded skeptic disinformation plot, a dying urban myth anyway, but on a US Government Accountability Office report (GAO). GAO concedes that nine new climate instruments on the latest generation of satellites were canceled or their capabilities scaled back in 2006. GAO is the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. As a consequence at least five such satellite programs have been identified as being either degraded or seriously compromised: Perhaps its no accident that the current head of NOAA, Dr. Jane Lubchenco and hand picked by President Barack Obama, declared that her agency would play its role in developing a green economy. Thus, despite the US Government spending in excess of $80 billion in climate research a failure to allocate sufficient funds to the satellite program has now resulted in serious damage to the credibility of the entire data set (note: the cost of a typical NOAA satellite is around $11 million and the network recoups the US government millions by selling data worldwide). Evidence from Climate Experts Points to Conspiracy to Deceive Dr. Roy Spencer commented, “Obviously, whatever happened to NOAA-16 AVHRR (or the software) introduced HUGE errors. We always had trouble with NOAA-16 AMSU, and dropped it long ago. It had calibration drifts that made it unsuitable for climate monitoring.” Dr Christy particularly addressed faults exclusively with the AMSU instrumentation and not problems with the AVHRR system. He advised me, “We spent a lot of time in 2006 trying to deal with the issues of NOAA-16, but the errors were so erratic, we ended up eliminating it as one of the backbones of our dataset.” As many such analysts have long been advising, these failures go way beyond the shockingly absurd numbers of 604 degrees recorded at Egg harbor, Wisconsin. Dr. Timothy Ball, climate consultant to the military and lead author of a new book debunking the greenhouse gas theory, observes, “At best the entire incident indicates gross incompetence, at worst it indicates a deliberate attempt to create a temperature record that suits the political message of the day.” Mainstream Media Turn Blind Eye to Another ‘Gate’ Scandal In 2006 Christy and Spencer had sought to complete a technical analysis on NOAA-16’s AMSU but Christy reveals that it, “was very tedious and we chased a lot of rabbits that turned out to be dead ends.” Such appalling facts just don’t appear in the ‘on message’ mainstream media and all the while researchers have been struggling in vain to keep pace with the ever-increasing numbers gap due to ongoing sensor degradation. For example, each month Dr. Christy works with Dr. Spencer trying to piece together the faltering patchwork of global temperature datasets given by a total of eleven instruments flying on eleven different satellites since 1979. Over such a long time period it has been suggested that cosmic rays or particle impacts may be deteriorating the highly sensitive instrumentation on board the crafts. Spencer publishes his findings on his blog while a fuller assessment of the satellite problems found by Dr. Christy is found here. Will Systemic Measuring Failures Cost Even more Lives? Respected internationally for his world leading weather forecasts, Piers Corbyn, of Weatheraction.com is another expert lamenting the scandalous failures in the satellite network. Piers thundered on the Climate Realists blog, “This revelation further confirms something I and Tom Harris said on Russia Today TV Feb (5th) 2010 namely that WE JUST DO NOT reliably KNOW what world temperatures are and have been doing over the last decade or century.” Corbyn had correctly forecast this summer’s West Russia heatwave and a general increase in VERY extreme events (evidenced by Pakistan & China horrendous floods and “super cold” in parts of S hemisphere) weeks and months in advance. A Growing List of Global Warming Satellite Measuring Failures Satelligate points to yet another infuriating government cover up of fudged global warming numbers. Despite the clamor for years from scientists from all sides of the global warming debate for more transparency and better access to such data, zealous gatekeepers within NASA and Britain’s CRU have refused such requests and unlawfully defied Freedom of Information (FOIA) demands. As indicated on WattsupWithThat such errors and deficiencies along with plain old-fashioned data fraud have long been swept under the carpet with ever more lives put at risk. Indeed, public confidence in the reliability of official warnings of apocalyptic doom from purveyors of NOAA’s trumpeted fake data has been met with increasing cynicism. A growing number of taxpayers are voicing opposition to the zealous rush towards crippling tax hikes dismantling first world standards of living without first having ascertained the proper facts. Questions NOAA Refuses to Answer In light of concerns that NOAA has officially admitted to only withdrawing “images” from its archives without confirming all bogus data has also been dumped, I posed the following and yet unanswered questions to NOAA’s Dr. Jane Lubchenco: Until Lubchenco comes clean I fear we may be witnessing another ‘Phil Jones’ in the making. For without full transparency and frank answers then the endless media hype about the dangers from the so-called ‘greenhouse gas theory’ remains just that—hype. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#4. To: farmfriend (#0)
This is how you can tell junk science from real science. In real science, bad data has bad consequences. Real consequences. Like a roof caving in.
#5. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#4)
It does show that it was the policy that was important not the actual science.
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