1934 Warmest Year, Not 1998

I found a very odd foot note in an article. Why has this not been discussed in the media?
This is an "odd" oversight by Hansen et al. Or did McIntyr find yet more of the conveniently massaged data?

In August 2007 blogger Stephen McIntyr noticed that many U.S. temperature records from the Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) displayed a discontinuity around the year 2000. NASA corrected the mistaken data and reported that "data for 2000 and later years were inadvertently appended to USHCN data for prior years without including the adjustments at these stations that had been defined by the NOAA National Climate Data Center." The correction resulted in a slight (0.15 degree C) decrease in U.S. average temperatures post-2000, and 1934 replaced 1998 as the warmest year in the U.S. Note that the years have changed rankings before: in a 2001 paper 1934 was marginally warmer than 1998.

NASA
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708.html
Recently it was realized that the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global temperature analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data. We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that this flaw might be present.

And NASA states:
Also our prior analysis had 1934 as the warmest year in the U.S. (see the 2001 paper above), and it continues to be the warmest year, both before and after the correction to post 2000 temperatures.

Temperature Data

Temperature data. There is confusing temperature data out there. The best summary showing the 0.6C temp
Comparison of 4 sources
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
HadCrut Data
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/another-global-temp-index-dives-in-jan08-this-time-hadcrut/

Recent History of Sunspots

In an atmospheric science class at CSU in the late 70's the professor provided a fairly convincing discussion that sun spots control human activity and the earths climate. Sunspots are historically correlated with temperature on earth. During the Dalton Minimum, beginning in 1790, the number of sunspots was low, as the earth's climate turned cold for a few decades. I had not heard nor read much on sun spots until recently.

Background
Sunspots are areas of strong magnetic activity, where material wells up from below. The sun goes through a number of cycles, one including 11 year cycles on sunspots. The dark spots are like tops on a soda bottle, and sometimes they erupt and send bubbles of superheated gas called plasma, into space.Solar storms spew charged particles into space, and when they interact with Earth's protective magnetic field, electrical charges can dip into the lower atmosphere and even to the ground. These can disrupt radio transmissions and sometimes even power transmission.

Solar Cycle 23 peaked in 2001
Solar Cycle 24 is predicted to start about now

Current situation
You can see the current sunspot activity at SpaceWeather.com
As of today, April 25 - NO SUNSPOTS?

Implications of low activity?
Geophysicist Phil Chapman was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut and served as mission specialist on the Apollo 14 lunar mission. Chapman has written that the previous time a cycle was delayed like this was during what was called the Dalton Minimum, a particularly cold period that lasted several decades starting in 1790. "Northern winters became ferocious," he says

So far this year, SOHO has detected just three sunspots, including number 992, which appeared on April 23. One was found in January and lasted only two days. Another appeared earlier this month but vanished within 24 hours. There should be more, many more.

Recent Prior Predictions/Observations
Looking back at recent predictions regarding sunspot activity:
Sun.com May 26, 2008
Adding to the tangle of understanding, the new sunspots have a magnetic polarity consistent with Solar Cycle 23 rather than the new cycle, proving yet again that much remains to be learned about the temperature of the sun. One of the new sunspots, No. 989, kicked up a moderate solar flare Tuesday. NOAA forecasters put the odds at 50-50 for additional moderate flares today.
Sun.com Dec 2007
"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," Hathaway explained in a NASA statement. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude. The shift is not certain, however. If it's really the start of a new cycle, there ought to be a sunspot associated with the magnetic knot, but there is none. In fact, Hathaway announced a possible beginning to Solar Cycle 24 back in August, 2006.

Sun.com July 2006
Astronomers say the sun has begun its next cycle of activity, part of an 11-year ebb and flow in sunspots and solar flares. Solar activity is near the low point in the cycle now. Few sunspots appear and solar flares are rare. But on July 31, a tiny sunspot appeared and then vanished after a few hours. It was a normal event, except that it was magnetically backward. "We've been waiting for this," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."

The sophisticated models at UCAR in Boulder predicted increase sunspots for cycle 24, beginning in 2007. "The scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98% accuracy."
UCAR Boulder CO March 6, 2006
The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR team's computer model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research by NCAR scientists. he scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.

Sunspots

What if the earth is cooling? What have we done to prepare?

Charleston Daily Mail April 25, 2008
By focusing all our attention on meeting the challenges of global warming, we are ignoring even remedial preparation for global cooling that could be more disastrous than global warming. A colder earth would mean less land to raise food in northern and even temperate climates.

The first sunspot appeared in January of this year and lasted only two days, Chapman wrote. There are other occasional sunspots, but they last only a day or two usually.

"The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790."

Global Cooling

The Australian April 23
It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

Physicist Phil Chapman said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930.

there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.

Speech by Hon Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism Speech by Hon Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic
Excerpts Include:
“Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism."

"the fact that from the very beginning, the IPCC has been a political rather than a scientific undertaking."

If we really want to decrease ECO2 (which most of us assembled here today probably do not consider necessary), we have to either stop the economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of living, or stop the population growth

I am afraid there are people who want to stop the economic growth, the rise in the standard of living (though not their own) and the ability of man to use the expanding wealth, science and technology for solving the actual pressing problems of mankind, especially of the developing countries.

I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions, want to regulate and constrain the demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to think about or experiment with. Without resisting it we would find ourselves on the slippery “road to serfdom.” The freedom to have children without regulation and control is one of the undisputable human rights and we have to say very loudly that we do respect it and will do so in the future as well.

What do Scientist Think

150 Manhattan Declaration endorsers are climate science specialists or scientists in closely related fields

A few excerpts from the International Climate Science Coalition
Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate

Danger of Environmentalism

A perspective on the motivation of SOME who call themselves environmentalists, not all. But, it leads one to question the motives of some of the so called environmentalists.

Michael Berliner
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8403&news_iv_ctrl=1021

The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives.

Books to Consider

Books to Consider, that I have read and found scientifically/factually based:
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years
Singer and Avery present the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Using historic data from two millennia of recorded history combined with natural physical records, the authors argue that the 1,500 year solar-driven cycle that has always controlled the earth's climate remains the driving force in the current warming trend.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming
provides a provocative, entertaining, and well-documented expose of some of the most shamelessly politicized pseudo-science we are likely to see in our relatively cool lifetimes.

Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming
convincingly demonstrates the remarkable differences between what we commonly read about global warming and what is really happening........new appreciation of the complexity of the climate issue and will question the need for expensive policies that are likely to have little or no detectable effect on the planet's temperature
Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death
explode the myths behind much of the doom and gloom of today's environmental movement. You will discover how the hysteria about global warming, overpopulation, mass extinctions, imminent famines, biotechnology, energy shortages, and more are grounded not in reason but in false science and a fear of progress

Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate: How Truth Became Controversial
Contrasting the exaggerations and glib explanations of politicians, advocacy groups, and bureaucracies, Mathiesen provides a clear and revolutionary account of the actual science behind five major environmental campaigns. As the title indicates, Mathiesen's work culminates in a relentlessly objective analysis of the real causes of the present global warming.

New Books to Consider, that I have not yet read.
Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor
shows that fears about global warming are vastly exaggerated and are driven by politics, not truth.......helping the reader to better appreciate why scientific research in this area has become tainted and untrustworthy.
wanted to counter currently proposed policy "solutions" to global warming that will have devastating effects on the world's poor.

An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming
that global warming is not the devastating threat to the planet it is widely alleged ot be; and that the remedy that is currently being proposed, which is in any event politically unattainable, would be worse that the threat it is supposed to avert.All this is argued with logic, commmon sense, and even wit, and thoroughly sourced and referenced. The book concludes by outlining the form a rational response to global warming should take, and explains why the mistaken conventional wisdom has become the quasi-religion it is today, and the dangers that this presents.

Cooling since 1998

Telegraph UK 9/4/2006
Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

No Global Warming Since 1998

Prison Planet April 4, 2008
Excerpts include:
On the whole, the world is getting colder (see above), which is why "global warming" suddenly became "climate change" when temperature levels since 2003 started to prove the alarmists wrong.

Cato April 18, 2008
Our Climate Numbers are a Big Old Mess
Excerpts include:
The earth's paltry warming trend, 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since the mid-1970s, isn't enough to scare people into poverty. And even that 0.31 degree figure is suspect.

There have been six major revisions in the warming figures in recent years, all in the same direction.

But every climatologist must know that Greenland's last decade was no warmer than several decades in the early and mid-20th century. There's a photograph in the journal Arctic, published in 1953 by R.H. Katz, captioned "River disappearing in 40-foot deep gorge," on Greenland's Adolf Hoels Glacier. It's all there in the open literature, but apparently that's too inconvenient to bring up. Greenland didn't shed its ice then. There was no acceleration of the rise in sea level.