Climate Audit takes a look at some of the Australian weather station data that has been used by several authors to support the case for anthropogenic global warming.
He shows, rather successfully, that if you adjust the data at the start of the series - the 19th century- downwards, you can create a warming trend out of nothing! A set of data with no clear trend....
is magically transformed into this....
And if this isn't to your taste, it's possible to produce the same effect by careful choice of your start and end point.
Mind you, the authors have excellent reasons for tweaking the numbers:
For example, cows and goats have been known to mill around the instruments at country stations, and in one case an eagle destroyed a Stevenson screen by flying into the side of it. A dingo once stole a thermometer which had been read following the slaughter of farm animals (the observer was advised to wash his hands in future), and crows also like to make off with these shiny objects. An irate wife, tired of being woken every morning as her husband made the 3am observations, took to the valuable screen with an axe, turning it into a pile of firewood.
Amazing.
It is startling to think that we are making multi-trillion dollar decisions on the back of science of this "quality". Do you think anyone will notice?