Discouraging Data
In this commendably balanced story by The New York Times’ Andy Revkin about the recent NASA temperature data fiasco, a certain someone at NASA plays a Jedi mind trick:
Dr. Hansen and his team note that they rarely, if ever, discuss individual years, particularly regional findings like those for the United States (the lower 48 are only 2 percent of the planet’s surface). “In general I think that we want to avoid going into more and more detail about ranking of individual years”; he said in an e-mail message. “As far as I remember, we have always discouraged that as being somewhat nonsensical.”
Huh? A few sample feature articles from the NASA web site:
- 2005 Warmest Year in a Century (note the use of an “always discouraged” league table on the left)
- 2006 was Earth’s Fifth Warmest Year (oops, another discouraged league table!)
- Earth Gets a Warm Feeling All Over (about 2004 – ooh, and look what’s on the left there!)
- Global Temperature Trends 2003 (no league table, but begins “The year 2003 is the third warmest year in the period of accurate instrumental data”; and prominently mentions the two warmer years)
- Global Temperature Trends 2002 (well whaddaya know, begins “The 2002 meteorological year is the second warmest year in the period of accurate instrumental data”)
In contrast to what he told Revkin, Jim Hansen and his colleagues serially discuss individual years and rank them. Perhaps it takes a Court Jester to point that out.