Lamar Smith (R-TX) has been on something of a tear lately. In early October, he demanded that NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) turn over all data and resources related to the organization’s latest revision of its global surface temperature information. Since NOAA’s data sets are already available online, this wasn’t a problem. Smith, however, didn’t just want publicly available data — he demanded access to all of the scientist’s internal emails and intra-staff communications.

When NOAA refused to turn over that information, Smith got personal and flat-out accused the government organization of acting in partisan fashion, writing:

It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda. The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents.

Now, the American Meteorological Society has weighed in, with an open letter to Smith criticizing his actions and statements. It writes: “Singling out specific research studies, and implicitly questioning the integrity of the researchers conducting those studies, can be viewed as a form of intimidation that could deter scientists from freely carrying out research on important national challenges.”

The data sets in question are indeed available online — in fact, NOAA’s retrieval and display systems are surprisingly spry. You can select to download information from specific data ranges, or focus on the entire country. Reports can be generated that focus on daily or annual statistics, and there are multiple methods for retrieving and searching the data. All of the information that Smith seeks, including information on how and why NOAA adjusted its temperature estimates across the relevant periods, is actually already freely available.

Data adjustments and climate forcings

In his letter to NOAA, Smith alleges that the organization’s decision to adjust its data set is evidence that its conclusions are politically motivated. This betrays either a fundamental misunderstanding of how climate models function or a willingness to disregard the same information. When climate scientists speak of “adjusting” data or talk about climate forcings, they aren’t admitting to fraud, but discussing necessary changes to bring data sets into compliance with each other.

The term “climate forcing” is defined as “any influence on climate that originates from outside the climate system itself.” The El Nino / La Nina cycle, for example, is not a climate forcing, because it originates within the Earth’s climate. Industrial pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, volcanic eruptions, and the amount of sunlight the Earth reflects (its albedo) are all examples of climate forcings.

Not all forcings are created equal. While volcanic eruptions can have short-term impacts on the Earth’s albedo, it takes a truly massive eruption to impact global climate trends. A 2006 paper estimated that the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa may have had profound impacts on climate well into the 20th century, as did the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambor (this created the so-called “Year without a summer”). Eruptions powerful enough to exert this much impact on global climate are, however, extremely rare, and climate models are designed to include their effects.

Here’s one pertinent example of necessary adjustment (as relayed by Ars Technica): Prior to World War II, commercial vessels measured ocean water temperatures by pulling up a bucket of water and dropping a thermometer in it. Around World War II, the measurement changed, and most ships began to measure the temperature of the water inside the engine room intake pipe. This temperature, however, is slightly higher than the temperature you’ll measure if you drop a bucket over the side of the ship. If you want to create a comprehensive map of ocean water temperatures across more than a century, you have to know which ships used which methods, and adjust the model accordingly.

Researchers with the IPCC had assumed that ships stopped using the bucket method of measuring temperatures after WW2, but NOAA discovered that this method of measuring temperature didn’t go away. When you adjusted the data set to correct for the temperature differential between intake and bucket, it changes the shape of the curve very slightly, as shown below:

The impact of these adjustments does annihilate the so-called “pause” that climate change denialists have claimed existed between 1998 and 2012, but not because of politics. Correcting for an error in previous data sets and including data points from a large number of smaller weather stations is precisely the kind of accuracy scientific research is supposed to champion. What Representative Smith appears to dislike is that the data suggests climate change is not a myth.

As the AMS points out, “The advancement of science depends on investigators having the freedom to carry out research objectively and without the fear of threats or intimidation whether or not their results are expedient or popular.”

Smith’s decision to subpoena NOAA is the latest example of the Congressman’s war on environmental regulation and climate research. Smith became chair of the House Science Committee in November, 2012. When he subpoenaed the EPA over its use of supposedly secret data, he noted in a press release that this was the first subpoena issued by the Committee in 21 years. Since then, he’s subpoenaed the National Science Foundation, proposed slashing $500 million from NASA’s Earth Science division, and is now attacking NOAA.

In early October, climate researcher Jagadish Shukla, of George Mason University and director of the Institute of Global Environment and Societ (IGES), signed a letter urging the White House to use the anti-racketeering RICO statute to investigate energy firms like Exxon that paid huge amounts of money to create doubt about the issue of climate science. A recent investigation from Inside Climate News found documented evidence that Exxon’s own scientists had confirmed the reality of climate change by the late 1970s. Rather than disclose this information, the company embarked on a sophisticated, decades-long campaign to sow doubt and uncertainty that climate change existed.

Whether you believe that the comparison with the tobacco industry is warranted or not, there are clear parallels between the two. Smith’s response to this information, thus far, has been to notify Shukla to prepare to turn over all correspondence and internal communication from 2009 to the present day as part of an investigation into the non-profit.

Late on Wednesday, Smith’s office doubled-down on its intent to investigate NOAA, claiming that the agency had identified no legal reason not to turn over its internal communications to the Committee. Additionally, Smith claims, “your failure to comply with a duly issued subpoena may expose you to civil and/or criminal enforcement mechanisms.”