The authors argue that public policy discussions have abandoned science and resorted to ad hominem attacks:
"Global warming ceased to be a subject of scientific debate years ago. Watch how critics jump straight to an examination of motives or credentials rather than the substance of an author’s argument whenever books like this one are published. The argument, it seems, is that what you say, whether it is true or not, matters less than the way you say it or who you are. Scrutinizing the messenger rather than the message may be an effective political ploy; but what we are engaged in is not, at its heart, a political question. Our society has already done substantial harm to itself by not grasping this crucial point."
Stephen McIntyre - He is best known as the founder and editor of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data. He is most prominent as a critic of the temperature record of the past 1000 years and the data quality of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is known in particular for his statistical critique, with economist
Ross McKitrick, of
the hockey stick graph which appears to show that the increase in late 20th century global temperatures is unprecedented in the past 1,000 years.
Anthony Watts - He operates Watts Up With That?, a weather and climate change[6][7] blog that focuses on the global warming controversy and his opinion that the human role in global warming is insignificant. It is described by climatologist Michael E. Mann in The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars as having "overtaken Climate Audit as the leading climate change denial blog".
Watts Up With That? (or WUWT) is a blog dedicated to climate change skepticism or denial created in 2006 by Anthony Watts. The tagline of the blog is "News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news."
The blog predominantly discusses climate issues with a focus on anthropogenic climate change, generally accommodating beliefs that are in opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change. Contributors include Christopher Monckton and Fred Singer as guest authors.[4] In November 2009, the blog was one of the first websites to publish emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit controversy, and a driving force behind its coverage.
In the early months of 2010, it was suggested the site might be "the most read climate blog in the world," and
is among the most influential climate change denial blogs on the Internet."
Yeah.. you get the idea..
hushing up instrument failure: temperatures are measured from space by radiometers, which do drift over time, as also other components fail or age. To keep using the satellite data, arbitrary adjustments are made and/or interpolations between more reliable stations and/or other satellites. Even though scientists are obliged to document and report such failures, they make an exception for 'global warming'. link.
drifting satellite measurements: temperature is measured at a distance by a radiometer. Although these instruments have great short-term acuracy, they have the habit of 'drifting' over time, which makes baseline adjustments necessary. The way this is done, is to bring the satellite data in agreement with (corrupted) ground data. See orbiting thermometers in chapter1.
undocumented arbitrary adjustments: arbitrary adjustments have been made to past records (downward) and recent records (upward), giving the impression of a steady rise. No documents have been kept to explain these adjustments. 1, 2,
selecting favourable stations: fraud can be committed simply by selecting certain stations over others.
promoting urban thermometers: by gradually phasing out rural thermometers in favour of urban thermometers, the Urban Heat Island effect became dominant, giving the impression of steady global warming as world's populations and cities grew.
promoting lowland thermometers: the number of sites at higher altitudes (thus colder) diminished in favour of more lowland sites that are warmer.
promoting low-latitude thermometers: the number of sites closer to the equator increased and those from higher latitudes (thus colder) decreased.
promoting daily maxima: while downplaying minimum temperature measurements, the maximum readings became more prominent where it suited, and minima in other periods.
accidental data corruption: where data was corrupted accidentally, it was not corrected when the error gave warming."
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate3.htm
So "everybody's scratching their heads" huh? You mean all the climate change deniers like you? That "everyone"? Those same guys who repeat the same old debunked bullshit arguments at all their conferences who never shut the fuck up about it and admit they were wrong when all the data says they are, like you?
Conspiracy theory, fucktard. Enjoy getting your brain turned into mush by the likes of con artists, it will only make you dumber