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Are climate records (of temperature, CO2, etc.) reliable?

Climatologists require data from many sources, such as the temperature of the atmosphere and ocean around the globe. While recent history affords us direct measurements, such as by satellite, more distant history requires indirect measurements, such as those derived from examining ice-cores and tree-rings. Some skeptics claim that the data climate theories and climate models are based on is both insufficient and unreliable.

Implications to Other Questions

Will IPCC climate models make accurate predictions?
Are climate records (of temperature, CO2, etc.) reliable?

Experts and Influencers

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Agree
Experts In Climatology


James Hansen    Climatology Professor
Agree
We find larger warming at urban stations on average so we use the rural stations to adjust the urban records, thus obtaining a better measure of the true climate change.
05 Nov 2001    Source


RealClimate    Climatology Blog
Agree
[Skeptics] have been motivated by the idea that climate science is somehow unfairly restricting access to raw data upon which scientific conclusions are based. ... However, many of the people raising this issue are not aware of what and how much data is actually available. ...we have set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc.
27 Nov 2009    Source


Disagree
Experts In Climatology


Patrick Michaels    Climatology Professor
Disagree
Global warming theory and GCMs (General Circulation Models) are found to be fundamentally flawed. A significant, if not dominant portion of temperature increases in recent decades has resulted from local surface heating processes due to land use change, urbanization, and even anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
17 Mar 2004    Source


Experts In Science


Denis Rancourt    Physics Professor
Disagree
Determining an average of a quantity (Earth surface temperature) that is everywhere different and continuously changing with time at every point, using measurements at discrete times and places (weather stations), is virtually impossible; in that the resulting number is highly sensitive to the chosen extrapolation method(s) needed to calculate (or rather approximate) the average.
27 Feb 2007    Source


Encyclopedia


Conservapedia    Christian Encyclopedia
Disagree
The primary issue from Climategate is the data manipulation. Science requires data, and inadequacy of the climate record was always a problem even before Climategate became known to the public. ... Climategate has jeopardized the integrity of worldwide scientific data on climate change.
09 Jul 2010    Source



Comments

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0 Points      Benja      13 Sep 2008      General Comment
Blaming urban warming seems like a bit of cheap shot on the skeptics' part. Besides, there's multiple lines of evidence scientists use to determine the past temperature of the planet. Skeptics seem to suggest that if one line of evidence has doubt, then "everything falls over", without holistically assessing all the lines of evidence. Another point here - if our records really do contain errors, then this fact potentially undermines anyone who says we know the cause of climate change - whether that cause is the sun or anthropogenic CO2. Once again, we have a case of inconsistency between skeptical claims.


0 Points      Tyler      08 May 2009      Stance on Question: Mostly Agree
I believe the data is accurate enough. However, the IPCC reports could be outdated. By reading IPCC publications, it is evident that climate change is taking place. A great deal of these reports are over a decade old; however, more current reports are being published. If new data is fed into these climate models, instead of older data, then I would say the models would be accurate enough. The important thing, climate models give us an idea of what type of climate-related changes could take place and this data serves as an important tool in understanding climate changes.