The Global Warming Data Y2K Problem

DISCLAIMER: My opinions may not necessarily represent those of AccuWeather, Inc.

I think it's important to point this out, and I would have done so sooner but I have been waiting to see how it was handled in the media. A report came out earlier this month that the official data used to calculate Global Warming from the U.S. government was incorrect -- because of a possible "Y2K problem"* in the code that computes the numbers and creates the popular graphs that everybody uses to discuss Global Warming.

It's unclear what effect this had as of the time of this writing. Certainly, U.S. yearly rankings were shuffled and now 1934 is ahead of 1998. Changes were more pronounced in the U.S., and though some effect was had on global data, the NASA GISS folks who maintain the records believe it is negligible. Nobody has more graphs and charts of this than Anthony Watts, (who kind of started the whole investigation) and somewhere in his August blogs (I didn't have time to read it all) is probably a graph showing the difference between the new NASA "fixed" data and the old "incorrect" data. The New York Times also has an excellent illustration of the shuffle of "Top 10" U.S. years.

Since the report, the NASA folks have officially responded, *saying that it was actually not a Y2K problem persay, but rather disagreements between two different datasets, one ending in 1999 and one starting in 2000, that caused the problem, and are downplaying the importance of the changes to the official records, according to RealClimate.Org. But the guy who originally posted the information still isn't happy.

This was written about both in the AccuWeather.com Global Warming Blog and Global Perspective Blog (PREMIUM | PRO). So I won't say much else here, except to issue this warning:

- Just because it's "official" data, it's only humans programming computers to compile it and mistakes can be made.
- It's up to you, the Internet public, to check, recheck and monitor this data because the eggheads won't.
- The methods used to compile the data introduce their own inaccuracy and their importance is somewhat a matter of opinion
- All of this raises AccuWeather's concern that (quote) "our knowledge of the extent, progress, mechanisms and results of global climate change is still incomplete"
- NASA is part of the U.S. government (ref) and the fact that it "does not fully publish the computer source code and formulae used to calculate the trends" that they promote (ref) is unacceptable. The rule of U.S. government is that they have no secrets except in cases of national security, so there's no reason we shouldn't be able to get a hold of this data.

LET US KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS: Don't just email me your comments; post them publicly on our Global Warming Blog or the WeatherMatrix Climate Change Forum so that others may hear your voice and discuss this issue.