The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
Rep. Gary Palmer falsely claimed on a radio show that temperature data used to measure global climate change have been “falsified” and manipulated.
Palmer, a Republican from Alabama, cited the so-called Climategate episode of five years ago, in which emails written by climate scientists purportedly showed evidence of data manipulation, and a more recent accusation of climate scientists tampering with data from temperature monitoring stations. The Climategate scandal has been subject to several separate investigations, all of which exonerated all scientists involved from any wrongdoing, and the latest data manipulation charges are a mischaracterization of standard and well-validated methods for adjusting temperature records to eliminate factors that could produce inaccurate readings.
‘Manipulating Data’Radio host Matt Murphy in Birmingham, Alabama, asked for Palmer’s thoughts on the snowstorms in the Northeast and climate change:
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According to one independent international investigation, known informally as the Oxburgh Report: “We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it.” Palmer’s spokesman said the congressman had no comment on the repetition of this claim in spite of the repeated exonerations.
Palmer’s claim that “we are building an entire agenda on falsified data” has no basis in evidence. Even as these claims of data manipulation have resurfaced, there is now a general consensus that 2014 was the hottest single year since temperature record keeping began. This same conclusion has been reached by NOAA and NASA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the World Meteorological Organization. The United Kingdom’s Met Office said that 2014 was among the warmest along with 2010, but it is impossible to say for sure that 2014 was hotter. According to NASA, nine of the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 2000, with 1998 the lone exception.
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– Dave Levitan
