In this article on the Daily Caller, George Mason University physicist Fred Singer discusses what should be some very uncomfortable facts for the true believers out there. First, and possibly the most important is that conclusions that global temperature from 1978-2000 based on land based thermometer measurements are not corroborated by any other measurements of global temperature. Here is what Singer points out:
…the commonly reported and accepted warming between 1978 and 2000 is based only on thermometers from land surface stations and is not supported by any other evidence that I could find. Specifically, ocean data (from 71% of the earth’s surface) and global atmospheric data (as recorded by satellites and independent balloon-borne radiosondes) do not show such a warming at all. In addition, most proxy data, from non-thermometer sources such as tree rings, ocean sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, etc., show no warming during this same crucial period. (One has to be careful in this analysis since the year 1998 shows a major warming spike caused by a Super-El Niño. But by 1999 and 2000, temperatures had returned to pre-1998 values.)
But apparently there is one time period where there is no discrepancy between the surface data and other measurements; that is in the period from 2000-present. Here’s what Singer points out:
There are many other such tests that can be performed. They might help us discover why land surface data disagree with all other data; thereby, we may get a better handle on whether the planet is really warming. We note here that the BEST results [surface data] do not show any warming trend in the 21st century — even though carbon dioxide levels have been rising more rapidly than before.
