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   Some scientists argued that the existence of the pause meant the world’s   
   climate is less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought,   
   so that future warming would be slower. One of them, Professor Judith   
   Curry, then head of climate science at the Georgia Institute of   
   Technology, said it suggested that computer models used to project   
   future warming were ‘running too hot’.   
      
   However, the Pausebuster paper said while the rate of global warming   
   from 1950 to 1999 was 0.113C per decade, the rate from 2000 to 2014 was   
   actually higher, at 0.116C per decade. The IPCC’s claim about the pause,   
   it concluded, ‘was no longer valid’.   
      
   The impact was huge and lasting. On publication day, the BBC said the   
   pause in global warming was ‘an illusion caused by inaccurate data’.   
      
   One American magazine described the paper as a ‘science bomb’ dropped on   
   sceptics.   
      
   Its impact could be seen in this newspaper last month when, writing to   
   launch his Ladybird book about climate change, Prince Charles stated   
   baldly: ‘There isn’t a pause… it is hard to reject the facts on the   
   basis of the evidence.’   
      
   Data changed to make the sea appear warmer   
      
   The sea dataset used by Thomas Karl and his colleagues – known as   
   Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperatures version 4, or ERSSTv4,   
   tripled the warming trend over the sea during the years 2000 to 2014   
   from just 0.036C per decade – as stated in version 3 – to 0.099C per   
   decade.   
      
   Individual measurements in some parts of the globe had increased by   
   about 0.1C and this resulted in the dramatic increase of the overall   
   global trend published by the Pausebuster paper. But Dr Bates said this   
   increase in temperatures was achieved by dubious means. Its key error   
   was an upwards ‘adjustment’ of readings from fixed and floating buoys,   
   which are generally reliable, to bring them into line with readings from   
   a much more doubtful source – water taken in by ships. This, Dr Bates   
   explained, has long been known to be questionable: ships are themselves   
   sources of heat, readings will vary from ship to ship, and the depth of   
   water intake will vary according to how heavily a ship is laden – so   
   affecting temperature readings.   
      
   Dr Bates said: ‘They had good data from buoys. And they threw it out and   
   “corrected” it by using the bad data from ships. You never change good   
   data to agree with bad, but that’s what they did – so as to make it look   
   as if the sea was warmer.’   
      
   ERSSTv4 ‘adjusted’ buoy readings up by 0.12C. It also ignored data from   
   satellites that measure the temperature of the lower atmosphere, which   
   are also considered reliable. Dr Bates said he gave the paper’s   
   co-authors ‘a hard time’ about this, ‘and they never really justified   
   what they were doing.’   
      
   Now, some of those same authors have produced the pending, revised new   
   version of the sea dataset – ERSSTv5. A draft of a document that   
   explains the methods used to generate version 5, and which has been seen   
   by this newspaper, indicates the new version will reverse the flaws in   
   version 4, changing the buoy adjustments and including some satellite   
   data and measurements from a special high-tech floating buoy network   
   known as Argo. As a result, it is certain to show reductions in both   
   absolute temperatures and recent global warming.   
      
   The second dataset used by the Pausebuster paper was a new version of   
   NOAA’s land records, known as the Global Historical Climatology Network   
   (GHCN), an analysis over time of temperature readings from about 4,000   
   weather stations spread across the globe.   
      
   This new version found past temperatures had been cooler than previously   
   thought, and recent ones higher – so that the warming trend looked   
   steeper. For the period 2000 to 2014, the paper increased the rate of   
   warming on land from 0.15C to 0.164C per decade.   
      
   In the weeks after the Pausebuster paper was published, Dr Bates   
   conducted a one-man investigation into this. His findings were   
   extraordinary. Not only had Mr Karl and his colleagues failed to follow   
   any of the formal procedures required to approve and archive their data,   
   they had used a ‘highly experimental early run’ of a programme that   
   tried to combine two previously separate sets of records.   
      
   This had undergone the critical process known as ‘pairwise homogeneity   
   adjustment’, a method of spotting ‘rogue’ readings from individual   
   weather stations by comparing them with others nearby.   
      
   However, this process requires extensive, careful checking which was   
   only just beginning, so that the data was not ready for operational use.   
   Now, more than two years after the Pausebuster paper was submitted to   
   Science, the new version of GHCN is still undergoing testing.   
      
   Moreover, the GHCN software was afflicted by serious bugs. They caused   
   it to become so ‘unstable’ that every time the raw temperature readings   
   were run through the computer, it gave different results. The new,   
   bug-free version of GHCN has still not been approved and issued. It is,   
   Dr Bates said, ‘significantly different’ from that used by Mr Karl and   
   his co-authors.   
      
   Dr Bates revealed that the failure to archive and make available fully   
   documented data not only violated NOAA rules, but also those set down by   
   Science. Before he retired last year, he continued to raise the issue   
   internally. Then came the final bombshell. Dr Bates said: ‘I learned   
   that the computer used to process the software had suffered a complete   
   failure.’   
      
   The reason for the failure is unknown, but it means the Pausebuster   
   paper can never be replicated or verified by other scientists.   
      
   The flawed conclusions of the Pausebuster paper were widely discussed by   
   delegates at the Paris climate change conference. Mr Karl had a   
   longstanding relationship with President Obama’s chief science adviser,   
   John Holdren, giving him a hotline to the White House.   
      
   Mr Holdren was also a strong advocate of robust measures to curb   
   emissions. Britain’s then Prime Minister David Cameron claimed at the   
   conference that ‘97 per cent of scientists say climate change is urgent   
   and man-made and must be addressed’ and called for ‘a binding legal   
   mechanism’ to ensure the world got no more than 2C warmer than in   
   pre-industrial times.   
      
   President Obama stressed his Clean Power Plan at the conference, which   
   mandates American power stations to make big emissions cuts.   
      
   President Trump has since pledged he will scrap it, and to withdraw from   
   the Paris Agreement.   
      
   >>   
   >> In his home county of Kent, Sanders charges that four of the eight   
   >> sites identified by the Met Office, namely Dungeness, Folkestone,   
   >> Dover and Gillingham – which all produce rolling temperature averages   
   >> to the second decimal place of a degree – are “fiction”. Sanders notes   
   >> that there has been no weather station at Dungeness since 1986. The   
   >> Daily Sceptic is able to confirm that none of the four stations appear   
   >> in the list of Met sites with a classification from the World   
   >> Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The Met Office directs online   
   >> inquiries about Dover to the ”nearest climate station” at Dover   
   >> Harbour (Beach) and provides a full set of rolling 30-year averages.   
   >> According to Met Office co- ordinates, the site is on Dover beach as   
   >> the Google Earth photo below shows. It seems unlikely that any   
   >> scientific organisation would site a temperature monitoring station   
      
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   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)