Global Warming: Adjusting Temperature Measurements.
The latest salvo in the War on Reality comes from the U.K. paper the Telegraph, which is a safe haven for some who would claim—literally despite the evidence—that global warming isn’t real.
The article, written by Christopher Booker (who flat out denies human-induced global warming), is somewhat subtly titled “The Fiddling With Temperature Data Is the Biggest Science Scandal Ever.” In it, Booker claims that climate scientists have adjusted temperature readings from thermometers in Paraguay to make it look like the temperature is increasing, when the measurements off the detectors actually show the opposite. The theme of the article is that scientists “manipulated” the data on purpose to exaggerate global warming.
This is nonsense. The claim is wrong. The scientists didn’t manipulate the data, they processed it. That’s a very different thing. And the reason they do it isn’t hard to understand.
Imagine you want to measure the daily temperature in a field near a town. You want to make sure the measurements you get aren’t affected by whether it’s cloudy or sunny—direct sunlight on the thermometer will increase the temperature you measure—so you set it up in a reflective box. Look: Right away you’ve adjusted the temperature, even before you’ve taken a measurement! You’ve made sure an outside influence doesn’t affect your data adversely. That’s a good thing.