An excerpt from the article:

Fellow report author John Church said he had long been suspicious about the historical data because it did not match results from computer models of the world's climate and oceans.

"We've realigned the observations and as a result the models agree with the observations much better than previously," said Church, a senior research scientist with the climate centre.

So, if I am reading this correctly, they adjusted the actual, measured data so it would fit what the computer models were predicting. (Reply: We do not know that for sure.) When the real data didn�t match what their concocted computer models were telling them they didn�t question the concocted models, instead, they questioned the actual data? I can certainly appreciate the fact that man-made equipment has faults and requires calibrating but this just doesn�t pass the smell test. On second thought, that is a little too diplomatic. THIS IS GALACTICLY STUPID!!

Is there a credible scientist left on the AGW side? If so, what is his/her name?

Nature ... they should change their name to the Journal of Data Torture ... torture the numbers until they yield the answer you want!!
This constant "correcting" to show the desired warming trends is getting tedious.

Looks like they have adopted the Hansen Method, "If the data doesn't fit the model, change the data."

And to back up that assertion, we have these statements from the article, John Church said he had long been suspicious about the historical data because it did not match results from computer models of the world's climate and oceans. and "We've realigned the observations and as a result the models agree with the observations much better than previously," Warning!! Warning!! Will Robinson. Danger!! Danger!!

If those statements don't raise the warning flags, nothing will. But then, bloom will fall for this hook, line, and sinker and chastise us for lack of faith in AGW.

Another convenient glitch. Findings aren't fitting in quite right with AGW; wait a minute there was a glitch. Big surprise.

Oooh, another "adjustment" that happens to be biased toward warming. How stupid do they think we are? On second thought, it seems a lot of us are stupid enough to buy this barrage of nonsense that passes for science among those that have been initiated in the cult of global warming catastrophism.

Thanks again Brett for an interesting and informative post.

At the time Hansen himself called the 'climate scientists'(sic) adjustment for a putative methodological change-buckets to inlets- "ad hoc".
Now after a half century they actually review their work, find it trivially erroneous, and this is supposed to build confidence in AGW? Dream baby.

Another study that shows global warming is much worse than we previously thought. I'll keep this in mind when I look at the Argos data that shows no warming in the oceans.

Once again, we show the science isn't settled. Remember, a single study means nothing by itself. As always, this study needs to be discussed and digested by the scientific community and it's result validated by independent researchers and independent experiments. Peer review is not the same a validation and verification.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." There is data adjustment happening all over the place, in surface station records, in SST, in radiosonde, etc, etc. The datasets are so unreliable/unstable that making definitive conclusions one way or another about AGW.

More cooking the books?

Oh please - not another 'backward adjustment' that just happens to prove what the AGWers want it to prove. This is getting pathetic. If the present won't warm up, keep cooling the past. Is there no legitimacy or credibility left in climate science?

There was a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in August, 2007 which said that XBTs exhibited a warm bias. According to this report, the XBTs underestimated the warming. I am not a subscriber to GRL so could only locate a draft of the report which I have linked below.

Can someone shed some light on this for me?

Here is the link: http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/heat_2006_1.pdf

I stumbled upon a draft of this report entitled, "Correction to 'Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean'" which was later published in Geophysical Research Letters in August, 2007. The report states that XBTs exhibit a warm bias. This article from Reuters says that the research team found that XBTs underestimated the warming by 50%. That's quite a difference!

Here is a link to the report:
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/heat_2006_1.pdf

Which report are we to believe?

From

www.junkscience.com

Hilarious: Ocean temperatures and sea level increases 50 percent higher than previously estimated

"Ooh! Ooh! Let us get this one: 2.5"/42 years equates to... 2.5/42*100 = ~6"/century. And the average over millennia is thought to be... ~8"/century, meaning the rate 1961-2003 is only three-fourths that expected, right? What do we win?"

I wouldn't touch anything Reuters refers with a long pole. They were posting global warming scary story on daily basis long before their competition (i.e. AP) caught up. Sure they would never publish anything that contradicts their pet theory.

Argos network proved that oceans warming is a myth, deal with it.

What another error found causing the temperatures to Increase and matching the computer models? This just isn’t science it’s a farce. What data can be looked at without adjustments? What can be trusted! In this field absolutely NOTHING!

You guys got 46 years of data wrong? Again? I want my tax money back that supports this kind of stupidity. How can anybody believe anything?
What kind of validation does this field of study do?(answer: NONE we leave that up to computer models) I will no longer call this field a science because it you can’t calibrate your scientific instruments for 46 years you belong in Junior High school. This is completely unacceptable behavior in any field that wants be considered a legitimate science.
Your data is wrong, adjusted and then it is put through quasi Hansenonian analysis proving that your theory of 2+ 2=6 is correct. HOW? Simple just tell the programmers to add 2 when that mathematical calculation is presented.
“So a colleague, Susan Wijffels and other associates, figured out a mathematical formula to correct the error.
That, combined with a wider statistical analysis of global ocean temperature data, revealed a clearer picture that better matched widely used computer models that project how the climate and oceans behave because of global warming.”

We use statistics instead of the actual data? Why not? What’s next telling me to put one foot in boiling water the other on dry ice and then after careful adjusted statistical smooth out analysis I am actually comfortable?

Brett: Just how many times can the AGW side claim the actual recorded data is wrong before it is acknowledged that this field has absolutely no data that cannot be changed to meet the computer models?
Why waste the time gathering data if you are going to take it home and adjust it, even after 40 plus years? The whole world needs to take a long hard look at this field and what they are doing. What can you trust? What can you believe? Nothing!
It’s embarrassing to anybody who knows anything about the meaning of science. This is not science this is agenda driven fictional prose.
This entire field of study needs to be put through a microscope of intense scrutiny before anybody should believe anything they say.
Folks who have not converted to the mindless minions to AGW I beseech you to think for yourself. You don’t need to have gone past the third grade to see that it’s not a coincidence that when gathered data does not agree with the theory it is simpler to change the data than rethink your theory. That is just moronic twaddle.
I don’t mean to insult Climate studies because to do that I would first have to respect that field of study. Forty plus years of data that was never validated is completely unacceptable and indefensible. You want respect? Earn it by becoming scientists that follows the science, not kids playing with inaccurate scientific equipment calling yourselves scientists.

I thought yesterdays post was funny. You managed to surpass funny and gone straight to farcical.

Hmmm. There's new math involved in that claim of a 50% increase. Looking at SST data available on line, from 1961 to 2003, HADSST2GL increased 0.51 deg C, ERSST.v3 rose 0.38 deg C, and ERSST.v2 increased 0.39 deg C. Whatever their correction is, it doesn't account for much, other than good, but incorrect, statements.

Measuring the temperature of a 2300 foot column of water is a daunting task. Even more so to assign those measurements to acruately represent the temperarure and change over time for all the earths oceans.

It's good that people are looking at these measurments with great care.

It's been known for a while that the Ocean levels are increasing faster than could be accounted for by previous measurments of how fast the ocean levels are rising. Obviously, something wasn't right and now it looks like it was the temperature rise that was being underestimated.

And so science marches on.

In the meantime, I'd suggest anybody living within a 500 year flood plain to consider that the next flood will probably come a lot sooner than had been expected.

Would it be fair to say that if we cant actually get reliable measurments and that we are constantly correcting the ones we do get, that perhaps we should'nt be talking in absolutes in terms of whats going on?!?!
Wouldn't the responsible thing be to pull the troops back until we have a better (any) understanding of what's controlling the climate? If these things are off and other data is unreliable, we are not only making uninformed policy decisions, but worse, ill-informed policy decisions that will DEFINITLEY have a negative impact on all of our lives.
I think the real benefit of this blog, and others like it, is that people have a means of getting the truth out. It truley seems to be the only place were that can be done. The media, hollywood, and politicians can pretty much contol everything else. We are fortunate that in this day and age, a soapbox can reach millions.
Thanks Brett,
Monsoon

Thanks Brett for the article. I was able to get my boots on before I read it just in time. Thank goodness it was an international team as we all feel more confident with them. Funny I remember back in high school when some friends were able to find the answer sheet to a test. They too were able to adjust their answers so it fit the correct answers also. This is fun.

What poster jep just said.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned that NASA studies have shown that recent sea levels have been falling. Since the launch of Topex/Poseidon in 1992, followed by Jason-1 in 2001, scientists have had a precise measurement of the height of the global ocean every 10 days. In fact recent NASA reports show average sea levels have receded by close to 5mm since January 2006.
Reply: Do you have a link to that?

If the current rate of fall continues sea front properties may be three metres above sea level by 2100. Of course, this is in line with updates on average world atmospheric temperatures which have been declining since 2002 and during the last 12 months have seen a sharp fall.

From the top comment in this thread:

Denier-in-Chief: So, if I am reading this correctly, they adjusted the actual, measured data so it would fit what the computer models were predicting.

Brett's reply: We do not know that for sure.

Brett, perhaps it was inadvertent, but read literally your reply means that you think the scientists are guilty of professional misconduct although there isn't the evidence to prove it.

Is that what you really meant? No, Steve. I personally do not think that they adjusted it so it would fit the model output and the article does not say that they did, but I know nothing (I sould like sargeant Shultz) about this group of scientists and very little about how they actually performed this study. All I know is what was posted in the article, which is probably just a tiny tidbit of the whole study process. So I cannot be 100% sure of that. A number of commentators here think that they adjusted the data to fir the model output, not just this one.

Rick Ressler:
The Opacity of CO2!
What did the mission to Venus prove!Because of the cloud cover,Venus should be -42c.In reality the surface of Venus is 467C.The atmosphere of Venus is CO2. On earth the rise of CO2 is warming mother Earth. Greenland is melting with the Arctic and Antarctic. The reason the waters may be warmer is not because they have absorbed 80% of CO2, but our atmosphere cannot let any of this stuff out,warming our planet. We should use other kinds of energy ASAP. Global Warming is REAL.
KIPP

I find it totally amazing that the majority of the commenters here find it hard to believe that data collected out there in the complex environment we call the atmosphere and oceans has errors in it. It is obvious that none of them have ever worked in an actual field study in the real world and are living in some dream world of a controlled experiment being conducted in a controlled laboratory environment. I have news for you, even data collected in controlled lab experiments have errors in them, so imagine the number of potential situations out there in the actual atmosphere and oceans that can cause errors in the data being collected. Even the reading of simple thermometers can produce errors if the observers don't have their heads level with the top of the temperature column in the tube (assuming none digital, computerized systems like we have today).

We have just had an excellent example of what happens in the real world with the forecast of river flood levels in Missouri today. Despite all of the accurately produced algorithms in the hydrological computer models that use as input the amount of precipitation that fell in the river basins (including the dimensions of the river banks) along with actual river level gauge information, the model codes could not be programed ahead of time to accurately predict when and where future breaks in the river levees would occur. As a result all of the downstream forecast river crests are now known as being too high simply because of those upstream levee breaks. The scientists recognizing the errors in the data had to adjust for and input the corrected upstream river flow data in order to produce more accurate downstream river forecasts which were updated today.

Does this blown river forecast downstream of the levee breaches mean the actual hydrological computer programs were wrong? Had the scientists not adjusted their numbers due to the levee breaks, the computer programs would still be predicting higher river crests. The real world makes continual adjustment to data used as input to the models a necessity.

Data collection devices and computer programs are all created and developed by man, who is obviously not a perfect machine when it comes to creating reliably consistent measuring instruments and methods over time. So get out of your perfect idealized world of data collection and develop a better understanding of how scientific data analysis and prediction really work. Remember, the same data with all of its errors are also being used by the "professional" skeptics too.

I also find it fascinating that everything that is being presented in current research literature that shows a needed data correction, the deniers all proclaim with resounding voices that it is all because the AGW alarmists simply want to make the data fit their climate model