Climatologist Patrick Michaels recently notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the government agency maintaining certain government thermometers) that the agency’s thermometers at Reagan National Airport were reporting temps that were 2 degrees hotter than the agency’s thermometers at the Dulles airport (also in Washington, D.C., just miles away). Michaels had tracked this 2-degree difference for more than a year. See here.
The 2-degree difference could not have been real; both airports are located in the same weather system. NOAA quickly admitted that the temps being reported at Reagan National were inaccurate, and adjusted the digital thermometer “sensor” at National to more closely match the thermometer at Dulles.
But the agency announced that it would not “adjust” the past year’s temperature record. The record would stand as it had been reported–admittedly hotter than real temperatures for at least a year.
The government has, however, “adjusted” temp records where it suits the government. NOAA climatologists have been systematically “adjusting” the temp record for earlier decades to make that older record appear colder than the actual temp readings. See here, here, and here.
The lesson is that the public should do its own temperature and weather monitoring–and should constantly check and challenge the government’s reported temperatures. Join us on Sunday, September 13 at Glacier National Park for our glacier-photographing trip. See here. And here.
