Global warming bugs, update

I’ve made several updates to my original post on the errors in NASA’s GISS database for US temperatures. After half a dozen, another major inline update seemed immoderate.

Since Steve McIntyre’s site, Climate Audit, remains down, he borrowed Anthony Watts’ blog to explain in considerable detail why the error isn’t trivial, and to forward a response to a letter by GISS warmer-in-chief James Hansen (link in PDF).

Hansen’s letter appears defensive, argumentative and not a little arrogant:

No need to read further unless you are interested in temperature changes to a tenth of a degree over the U.S. and a thousandth of a degree over the world. <…>

My apologies if the quick response that I sent to Andy Revkin and several other journalists, including the suggestion that it was a tempest inside somebody’s teapot dome, and that perhaps a light was not on upstairs, was immoderate. It was not ad hominem, though.

From McIntyre’s reply to the letter:

Hansen may have been for 1934 before he was against it. But now that he’s for 1934 once again, he can’t say that he was for it all along.

Hat tip: Kriek Jooste.