Why didn't NASA announce what they were doing?

They announced they were making updates.

September 2007: The year 2000 version of USHCN data was replaced by the current version (with data through 2005). In this newer version, NOAA removed or corrected a number of station records before year 2000. Since these changes included most of the records that failed our quality control checks, we no longer remove any USHCN records. The effect of station removal on analyzed global temperature is very small, as shown by graphs and maps available here.

This blanket announcement was simply not explicit enough for McIntyre et al.
McIntyre was easily able to see that the data were processed through FILNET, so I fail to see how NASA was covering up anything.

You make arguments but undercut them by your abject refusal to accept that others may be commenting from a reasonable basis. Have you recovered from finding out the world is not flat.

The flat earthers and creationists are overwhelmingly on the no AGW side of this argument. The hypothesis then, theory then proven fact (to the agreement of almost all) that the earth is a globe rather than a plane either resting on the back of a tortoise or somewhere above hell works far better as an analogy for those denying the AGW hypothesis than for those accepting it. (That also holds true for the "ID" issue.) Perhaps you should find a different analogy.
Do you really think that Gary, Ragshaft, and joated were "commenting from a reasonable basis" in this thread?

Hal:

The difference between now and in the past is that in the past it would have taken fifty years of ruinous government policies before the shallowness of the man-made global warming "evidence" was challenged.

Hal: Bizzaro? There you go again. You make arguments but undercut them by your abject refusal to accept that others may be commenting from a reasonable basis. Have you recovered from finding out the world is not flat.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that, but so what. Man isn't changing that other than possibly releasing some that is sequestered.

and your answer is bolded for you

Re: Wetlands
Wetlands are generally a source of methane (and sulfates) and a sink for CO2. I haven't (with a quick and lazy search) been able to determine the magnitude of the CO2 sink relative to the CH4 source. This would be necessary to calculate any climate forcing by wetlands.
Wetlands on a global scale are and have been shrinking in number and size, so whatever this forcing may be it is and has been decreasing for quite some time now.

If this is true, then why change the data available to the public now? Why not make an announcement of it? Why not make the code available now? They are obviously changing the data so the code must be use currently.

It is a work in progress, due out later this year. They are updating the website piecemeal as they work on updating the entire project.
The earlier code is available now and the new coding will be released later when it is finalized.
As shown and linked to the data source change is not a source change, but an additional process (FILNET) to account for missing data points. Data on this process is also available from NASA.

A classic case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. If a corporation did something like this it would be bad...very bad.

If a company put in place a process to account for missing data and made that process available for review would this really be bad...very bad? Really?
Once again, the data is the same. It is still the SHAP data processed by FILNET to account for missing data. What about this is so difficult to process?

Thomas,
The solar and cloud data break at about 1996. If solar activity were the answer we would be cooling now. A layman's explanation is available here (graphs near the top).

The problem, Steve, is that you *only* post about these bizarro like this one of McIntyre's. You don't post about anything else wrt global warming. Now, your blog and you can post about anything you like, but it's quite telling that this is what you select.

Quite frankly, it's got all the earmarks of confirmation bias - i.e. the tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. It's no big deal as everyone has it in spades (experiments by those evil lefty scientists show this). But the problem is you have to do something to actually deal with it or it simply rules your perceptions.

What's amazing is the level of conspiracy your fellow commenters here - and you, apparently - believe is going on. Seriously. According to the world view that you seem to buy into, the amazingly competitive world of scientific research has failed to produce any serious challenge other than the rag tag fleet of McKitrick, Essex and McIntyre - all conveniently funded by people with a vested interest in confusing the issues surrounding global warming.

I mean, really.

We're supposed to believe that no one would find it to their advantage to poke holes in global warming? I mean, one of your commenters above is even claiming that NOAA is faking evidence to make sure their predictions come true. And no one - except the jokers previously mentioned - is able to take on this conspiracy. Everyone is colluding to stage global warming for? what? Because the left just wants to stick it to capitalists? Because we're all just a bunch of commies (where are they these days, except Venezuela?)

Seriously, what kind of massive conspiracy theory are y'all buying into?

Maybe you're right and you and the M&M team are the only ones who see the truth and are tirelessly fighting the fight so that the conspiracy will be revealed. Or maybe you think the entire scientific community doesn't understand such things as confidence intervals and M&M (and cohorts) are going to set them right. Or maybe you think the entire scientific community has such amazingly shoddy practices such as not releasing their code and/or not providing sufficient notice that they are updating your code and with this campaign you can perhaps do your part to make science whole and trustworthy again.

Whatever the explanation, I think that the application Occam's razor would tell you that you're unlikely to be right and that almost everyone else in the scientific community is right.

What's more likely is that the pitiful attacks which have proven over and over to be the products of people who don't even understand the basic science and tools of the trade which understandably results in blatantly wrong and trivially countered gibberish. And that these misunderstandings and molehills into mountains magnifications confirm your own biases and so you get your shoulders behind them and push.

What it looks like from the outside (to this admitted lefty who's in collusion with all the climate researchers and other "liberal" academics) is that you've bought into at least part of the massive conspiracy theory that your fellow commenters seem to have bought into in spades. Like I said, your blog, your posts, your interests, your rules. But if you don't want to look like a raving Bircher you might want to broaden your horizons to counter your own confirmation bias and start posting something other than these choreographed fainting spells you have over the fact that NASA didn't personally inform McIntyre that they were updating their code.

What is your point here? No one is claiming that humans are manufacturing carbon that isnt present somewhere on earth in the first place. So if X = total carbon on earth, then yes, it is effectivly a constant. But what is the relevance of that? Some of it is buried underground, outside the loop of the carbon cycle operating on land, sea and atmosphere. Until we dig it up.

If you are talking about CO2 specifically, then you are just wrong. Carbon in the form of coal or oil is not in the form of CO2 - so when we burn these fossil fuels we are adding to the total amount X, of CO2.

Thats why, of course, the burning of biofuels can be, at least in theory, a partial solution to the problem. It basically uses the carbon that is already present in the surface flux - taking it from plants, burning it into the atmosphere, where it can then be reabsorbed by plants - thus not increasing the total supply, as is done when you burn stuff that had been buried deep underground.

"...if wetlands are producing methane, then reducing methane output would, in theory, help since it is, IIRC, a "more potent" GHG than CO2."

Aye, there is the ticket. There oughtta be a law against all this bacterial degradation of plant material. If only them plants wouldnt die, or if they did, they wouldnt degrade, then we could sequester away all the excess carbon in plant material. As a side benefit, think what it would do for the rake industry!

You don't think the folks at NOAA are trying to gin up the numbers of named storms to suit their agenda do you? You know, name every little dip in the pressure that looks like it might have circular rotation so they can meet their predicted numbers?

Nah, me neither.

Recent research by Henrik Svensmark and his group at the Danish National
Space Center points to the real cause of the recent warming trend. In a
series of experiments on the formation of clouds, these scientists have
shown that fluctuations in the Sun's output cause the observed changes in the
Earth's temperature.

In the past, scientists believed the fluctuations in the Sun's output were
too small to cause the observed amount of temperature change, hence the need
to look for other causes like carbon dioxide. However, these new
experiments show that fluctuations in the Sun's output are in fact large
enough, so there is no longer a need to resort to carbon dioxide as the
cause of the recent warming trend.

The discovery of the real cause of the recent increase in the Earth's
temperature is indeed a convenient truth. It means humans are not to blame
for the increase. It also means there is absolutely nothing we can, much
less do, to correct the situation.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Canada

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/the-discover-interview-henrik-svensmark

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11462

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188993.php

I see you got nothing other than insults. Guess you can't deal with the actual issue. Same for Lambert. Instead of dealing with the issue of quietly changing data he resorts to insults. Of course, if John Lott had pulled a stunt like this Lambert would be screaming it from the mountain tops. Intellectual honest is not something I expect from Lambert.

Tano,

And what is the relevance of any of that to anthropogenic global warming? In a "natural" state, there is effectivly a finite amount of carbon that cycles through the ecosystem - in the atmosphere, in plants, in animals, and back into the atmosphere (much more complex than that of course).

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that, but so what. Man isn't changing that other than possibly releasing some that is sequestered. That is suppose the upper bound on CO2 is X and in the natural state the actual amount of CO2 is a(t)*X where a(t) is a number between zero and one. All man's impact would be is to cause a change in a(t) not in X. And as you say, this is actually far more complex than how I've represented it.

Boortz is, obviously, retarded. How does drying up a wetland lessen the carbon flux?

As far as I know it wouldn't. But if wetlands are producing methane, then reducing methane output would, in theory, help since it is, IIRC, a "more potent" GHG than CO2.

Grewgills,

How so?
The code is being updated and will be released later this year.

If this is true, then why change the data available to the public now? Why not make an announcement of it? Why not make the code available now? They are obviously changing the data so the code must be use currently.

Hal again,

While not a scientist either, I did work for some years on the acid rain deposion modeling project while at NCAR. Also my wife, a chemical engineer, not a scientist, spent many years doing emissions modeling for regional planning. Both of us, her in particular as she was directly involved in the process of input conditioning to the models, can find nothing unusual here. This is a part of science and as many have pointed out, this is an ongoing process that the ignorant have latched upon in another of their long string of failed attempts to raise questions.

A classic case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. If a corporation did something like this it would be bad...very bad. But when a scientist does it, no big deal. Sorry, that is pretty hypocritical, IMO. And that is McIntyre's objection by the way. That we expect something from a firm that may reach a few tens of billions of dollars, but a multi-trillion dollar government policy...who cares about verifying the data and best practices.

Yes, McKitrick and Essex claim there's no such thing as global average temperature. McKitrick and McIntyre confuse radians with degrees.

Yes you mean like how Daniel Davies and Tim Lambert don't understand confidence intervals. As for Kane and his views on the Iraq study that is way off topic, any more comments on it and I'll delete them. Take it to the appropriate forum.