This should be amusing
a new world record...sooner
Tut Tut Lewis, surely you're not suggesting.....................
New hottest-ever extreme temperature records now easier to achieve
Americans having just sweltered through a baking summer may not believe it, but there have been hotter ones in the past: for instance in 1913, when the second-highest temperature ever recorded - a brutal 56.7°C or 134 Fahrenheit - was seen in California's Death Valley. Until this year, the disbelieving American reader might be …
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Saturday 22nd September 2012 01:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: This should be amusing
A few years back in Victoria Australia, when 1/2 the state was ablaze and the whole "every thing" was covered in smoke from the bush fires for weeks, we had 120Kmh winds at 52 or 54*C.
To put it in a nut shell, "It was fucking awful."
Of course a couple of years later we had the biggest and deepest floods ever recorded.
LOL
Fuck.
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Monday 17th September 2012 09:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Make up your minds
Can you please decide which of the standard denial memes you are going to run with? At least if scientists can't look back and revise data where there is evidence that its wrong, we can put all that 'urban heat island' nonsense to bed, as clearly all thermometers are always right.
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Monday 17th September 2012 12:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Make up your minds
They don't seem to have decided, on the basis of scientific evidence, that the temperature is wrong. They seem to have decided on the basis of "Well, that person might not have known how to read the gauge on the thermometer, so we'll discount it." No evidence has been put forward to suggest that the reading is incorrect, merely supposition.
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Monday 17th September 2012 13:51 GMT Steve Knox
Re: Make up your minds
"No evidence has been put forward to suggest that the reading is incorrect, merely supposition.
I think rather the evidence suggesting the reading might be correct has been shown to be suspect.
There is no "benefit of the doubt" clause in scientific measurement. If there's significant reason to believe a measurement is suspect, it's expunged. In this case, we have a single measurement, without corroboration, with known complicating factors.
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Monday 17th September 2012 13:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Make up your minds
Yes, the fuel meter on my car often says it's empty, however there is other information that suggests it may not be accurate, in that my car is moving. If this is the case I chose to discount the reading not insist that a reading has been made therefore it should be kept to, although I do make a mental note to get more fuel as it's probably not too far out.
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Tuesday 18th September 2012 04:43 GMT solidsoup
Re: Make up your minds
Nothing wrong with expunging the record in principle. However, "why now" is a pertinent question to ask. Is there some new information that came to light recently that wasn't available in the past 90 years? Because if not, then the impetus behind examination of details as to how that reading was acquired would seem political in nature. After all, a truly scientific examination would look at a range of readings in the data set (i.e. all readings taken with Six-Bellini thermometer), not just one particular reading, even if it is an extreme one.
My personal theory is that there's this well-intentioned but misguided (in the useful idiot sense) attempt by AGW proponents to convince the public at large that global warming is a real threat and should be urgently acted upon. There are pesky things like figures and data that contradict the urgency of the phenomenon. Of course, they must be misinterpreted by the public, or blown out of proportion by the denialists. Those things, while possibly valid scientifically are really inconvenient from a marketing standpoint. John Q may well (incorrectly) say "well, it was a lot hotter in 1920s". Therefore, for marketing purposes, all the instances of politically (rather than scientifically) incorrect data must be expunged. Orwell would be impressed.
Here's what these people are forgetting. In the fog of war, you always lose sight of the truth. They can no longer know which of their data are reliable and which has been massaged for the "greater good"(tm) with "best intentions"(tm). Climate science in essence has become like a company that has two sets of books. And while both show warming, one is just not extreme enough to get people to act.
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Monday 17th September 2012 09:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
All this over one temperature reading?
Could it be worth it? I doubt it, even if it did happen to be the highest ever. Much ado about nothing.
However, all this business of souls beating in hearts: very unscientific. Souls, patently, don't beat, and are not located in hearts. A good scientist would be much more careful with his metaphors.
Added to which, when you've spent over two months of this year at or above 40C (assuming I read the daily figures correctly: who knows, I might have looked at the top of the numerals instead of the bottom) and knowing that other places on this conent exceded 50, thos "record" temperatures, albeit exceptional, are less noteworthy than they would be to you frozen Londoners.
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Monday 17th September 2012 10:08 GMT Steve Crook
Re: Watts Up
Watts already has an article about it (and it does seem likely that the Libyan record wasn't). The more disappointing thing is that the new record is likely to come from a new station in Death Valley that would appear to have been set up (in a compromised location) with the express purpose of recording a new highest temperature. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/13/dr-jeff-masters-shows-why-siting-matters-death-valley-steals-all-time-temperature-record-from-libya/
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Monday 17th September 2012 09:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
About Time Too
As we all know the USA is best at everything, so it's only right and proper that a record logged by the incompetent Italians should be scrubbed. The honest, squeeky clean record should go to the Land Of The Free.
It's obvious that equipment and reading methods would have been much more accurate in 1913 than in 1922.
Anyway, Apple will own the patent on the equipment as it probably has rounded corners and will be suing the Italians and Libyans.
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Monday 17th September 2012 13:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: If at first you don't succeed - cheat!
Darn it - we've been rumbled - I thought arranging that Arab spring shindig just so we could get the SAS to helicopter a new thermometer to the Libyan desert was over-egging things. still, with all those billions of government grants in our bank account in the Cayman islands, i guess we can just get on with training more sharks to shine their lasers on the ice - that seems to be having more effect.
Hope i've got your email address right - since you moved from Norwich to the secret volcano i have found some emails have gone astray
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Tuesday 18th September 2012 02:36 GMT PatrickE
Here's the original story from Wunderground - very interesting.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=89
Here's the Watts Up With That article by Dr Jeff Masters
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/13/dr-jeff-masters-shows-why-siting-matters-death-valley-steals-all-time-temperature-record-from-libya/
Of real interest in the Master's article is a piece by the late John Daly called Badlands (middle of article).
Personally I think it was reasonable making the change to the Libyan record. No records should be hidden away or not be subject to scrutiny and change to correct error. You listening to me CRU? :)
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
