The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments, that removed their cyclical temperature patterns, are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever –despite current claims of record setting warming.
Finally, since GAST data set validity is a necessary condition for EPA’s GHG/CO2 Endangerment Finding, it too is invalidated by these research findings.
If I were a climate scientist, I'd find that to be quite a damning conclusion. Most of the study is information that I've seen before on various skeptics' web sites or writings – there aren't any new “smoking guns” that I detected. At its most basic, this study says that the temperature data being used by the mainstream climate science community is invalid. That's a claim that I first heard over ten years ago. It's also a claim that I find quite persuasive, based on overwhelming evidence I've been reading ever since that first little inkling. I've long since reached the conclusion that the official temperature record has been hacked, with the motivations being variously ideological, political, and (most straightforwardly) financially. And that's really the meat of this study.
I'm certain this study will not change any minds, breathless news reports notwithstanding, as the three authors and most of their list of co-signatories are people well known in the climate skeptic community. All three of them are openly mocked by many non-scientist believers in anthropogenic climate change/global warming. So really this just boils down to a convenient summary of the evidence for the fraudulence of the “official” global temperature record...
