Did Federal Agency Commit Climate Fraud? Sure Looks Like It

IBDEditorials.com

Junk Science: Worried about climate fraud, Congress is investigating a federal agency for allegedly manipulating weather data to show recent global warming when there is none. So why is the agency refusing to cooperate?

First, a little background: Satellite temperature readings clearly show no warming trend for the last 18 years, 8 months and counting. None.

This fact is significant for two reasons: One, satellite temperature readings are the most comprehensive and thus the most accurate. And, two, the pause in warming since 1998 undercuts the entire global warming agenda of the environmental movement and its allies on the left who see in climate change an opportunity to impose greater government control over our lives.

Yes, we're skeptical of "climate change," at least as defined by the green extremists. Climate is always changing. No one denies that. What's at issue is how it's changing and why. The science is still unclear.

Earlier this year, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists took part in a study that found — no surprise — that the "pause" in global warming from 1998 to 2013 didn't exist.

Their change didn't come from actual temperature readings. It came from extensive data manipulation and tinkering. Instead of a pause, they found a surge.
What's strange is that major temperature revisions by NOAA and others in recent years have always been up — never down — a clear sign of possible bias.

Earlier this year, for instance, it was revealed that nearly half of all supposed global warming in recent NASA data came from the agency's own highly suspicious statistical changes, not from actual temperature readings.

Enter Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Science Committee. Curious, he subpoenaed NOAA for research documents related to the study. NOAA refused to hand them over. Smith's committee wants to know why.

"The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made," Smith said this week.

We agree. For too long, global warming proponents, both inside and outside government, have tried to halt debate over their extreme conclusions and data manipulation, all in the name of "science." Looks political to us.

Taxpayers pay for this research, which is being used to justify massive new federal spending and regulation. They deserve to know what NOAA and other federal agencies are doing — and whether they're being honest or serving an unspoken extreme political agenda.