I usually try to give global warming hysterics the benefit of the doubt–sincere but misguided, not good at math, unacquainted with the Earth’s highly variable climatic history, and so on. But sometimes data come along that make that sympathetic attitude hard to sustain.

Like this paper by Dr. James P. Wallace III, Dr. Joseph S. D’Aleo, and Dr. Craig D. Idso, which was published last month. Its title is “On the Validity of NOAA, NASA and Hadley CRU Global Average Surface Temperature Data & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding.” You should read it all, but one portion that struck me related to the changes that the alarmists who are in charge of the temperature record have made to the temperatures that were actually recorded by thermometers in past decades.

There are a number of charts, but this is a good example. It plots the temperatures that a single source, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies–a notorious haven for alarmists–has reported over the years.

Note that the temperatures that were recorded at the time can’t have changed. The only difference is how GISS has chosen to report them, following “adjustments” of various sorts, over the years. The high temperatures that GISS reported in 1980, based on thermometer readings, have progressively declined over the years as the alarmists have desperately tried to shore up their global warming theory:

There is no other branch of science in which such after-the-fact changes in data to fit a politicized theory would be greeted with anything but contempt. Why are such shenanigans tolerated here? Presumably many billions of dollars in government funding have something to do with it.

These charts are interesting, too. Reading the newspapers, you would think that we are suffering through an unprecedented heat wave every year. But that isn’t true at all. Click to enlarge:

There is much more at the link.