I was responding specifically to this comment:

“GISS and HAD data series have without exception and invariably been “adjusted” upwards to show not only warming but an increased rate of warming, the latest “adjusted” GISS anomaly data being par for the course.”

This seems to pretty clearly state that the GISS and HAD data are being doctored. It could be that I misinterpreted the statement, of course.

If you took that as a criticism directed at all those who have issues with the GISS or Hadley data, I apologise.

I also understand that the troposphere data is predicted to show 1.2 times the surface warming, and that prediction is not coming to pass.

However, the specific post that I was responding to was talking about Hadley and GISS data showing an increased rate of warming over the past decade, which is simply not true.

That would be like saying “How dare people trying to estimate the age of the Earth accuse Lord Kelvin of doctoring his calculations by not taking into account radioactivity! Lord Kelvin was a genius!”

Well, no, Lord Kelvin doctored nothing. He just did not know about radiation.

BTW: “if Hadley are doctoring their data, they must be in cahoots with Christy” There is a good point here, in that that WOULD be unlikely. HOWEVER and this is the last time I want to have to say this (Zeke ducked this one already, claiming to have better knowledge ) THE SURFACE TREND SHOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS THE LT TREND! It also should not be greater, rather the opposite. UAH data in fact has a trend which is less than HadCrut over their period of overlap-RSS has a trend which is about the same as HadCrut. But that means that the LT trend is about 20% lower than it should be.

Someone is doing something wrong. Either it’s the theorists (WRT the ratio of surface trends to LT trends), the satellite groups, or the surface groups (this is seems most likely). And remember to apply Hanlon’s razor: It ain’t malice (conspiracy) it’s stupidity (incompetence, ignorance).

Andrew

Another rule of thumb: if something can be explained by conspiracy theory or stupidity, stupidity is the correct answer.

I understand your point. There are many truly wacky conspiracy theories out there. But there is also the standard Accuse the Political Opponent of Things Unprovable. Racism, In The Pocket of Big Oil, Anti-Science, etc, etc, which in essence are conspiracy theories, just more politically correct than ‘wacky’ ones.

Andrew

I do not understand enough about that particular issue to be able to comment, but in general individual scientists will always make errors due to subconscious bias and wanting their particular pet theories to be right.

It is a general rule of thumb. Basically, if someone starts talking about a conspiracy theory, bet that they are talking crap and you will win that bet 99 times out of 100.

“conspiracy theory = stupid”

This is too simplisitc. There is such a thing as a conspiracy. To theorize about one that actually exists isn’t stupid. The argument couldn’t possibly be “There is no such thing as conspiracies”. Didn’t Evil Genuis GW and his Dark Minions conspire to perpetrate all kinds of evil on the world for 8 years?

Andrew

I for one, agree 100% with you and it gets tiring reading the conspiracy comments. However the scientific bias in this field is mind boggling and makes my head want to explode.

(e.g.) Assuming you’re up to date on Rahmstorf’s recent kerfuffle – do you think he would have lengthened his “embedding period” from 11 to 15 years (from 21 to 29 years effectively) if the last 10 years of temperature observations had made his chart tick upwards instead of downwards?

conspiracy theory = stupid