" ... the spurious precision of various measurements and calculations is a major obstacle to clarity on climate.
... the already imprecise thermometer record is then “adjusted” by complex algorithms before being presented as “the temperature” to ... two decimal places over a span of centuries.
... a recent World Meteorological Organization press release claiming “The annual mean global temperature is likely to be at least 1° Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) in each of the coming five years (2020-2024) ...
... NBC reports that the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, claims 2020 was in fact the 2nd-hottest year, with an average of 58.77°F being just 0.04°F below 2016 not tied with it.
But NOAA adds that 2020 was the hottest ever in the Northern Hemisphere, beating the 20th-century average by 2.3°F.
... Since 2.3°F is 1.28°C, this story claims the Northern Hemisphere temperature in 2020 was 1.28°C greater than the global 20th century average.
But a few weeks ago we were told that the global temperature in 2020 was 1.25 C greater than the pre-industrial average.
... “pre-industrial” is remarkably vague ...
... how (is) the 20th-century global average is well above the pre-industrial average and the Northern Hemisphere average in 2020 is 1.28°C greater than the 20th-century global average?
Only by having the Southern Hemisphere be relatively cool in 2020.
Cooler, in fact, than the global 20th century average, which they don't mention and which would either put the kibosh on the whole notion of a warming planet ...
... an additional disturbing feature of the “adjustments” performed by official American agencies committed to the global warming narrative is that they seem invariably to cool the past with the effect of increasing the adjusted warming trend.
So when you are shown “the temperature” today and seventy years ago, it ought to come with a warning label that it has been vigorously massaged and may be in some pain as a result.
... This has a direct impact on the ‘validation’ of climate models relied upon by the new Biden Administration for establishing energy policy.
I would not be surprised if such problems exist in global land temperature datasets in addition to the U.S.
... Since those datasets, especially the American ones, are pretty much the gold standard for historical and current temperature, what do we really know about how warm it was in the past, or even how warm it is today?
Well, we know we don’t know it to two decimal places. "