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By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt

(Translated/edited by P Gosselin)

Photo: Vahrenholt/Lüning; Source: DkS

The GISS-Institute of NASA is playing a shady role in the climate debate. For years it was directed by creedal climate activist James Hansen, and has since squandered much credibility. Now his years-long colleague Gavin Schmidt is at the helm, also an activist. Dubious data alterations with the GISS datasets will likely become interesting material for science historians.

GISS went public with a press release on December 18, 2015. The first part of the release was quite reasonable. Indeed we should not neglect calibrating the models with the known temperature history. Various climate factors have been at play and all had impacts in their own way:

Examination of Earth’s Recent History Key to Predicting Global Temperatures

Estimates of future global temperatures based on recent observations must account for the differing characteristics of each important driver of recent climate change, according to a new NASA study published Dec. 14 in the journal Nature Climate Change . To quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth. Both values are projected global mean surface temperature changes in response to doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations but on different timescales. TCR is characteristic of short-term predictions, up to a century out, while ECS looks centuries further into the future, when the entire climate system has reached equilibrium and temperatures have stabilized.”

Very good, we thought. Did GISS finally realize that CO2 sensitivity had been over-estimated for years? See our earlier reports on the subject:

No chance. After the good introduction came the return to the climate alarmism mode: Climate sensitivity is not lower, rather it is higher than previously thought, Schmidt & Co spin. Anyone wishing to read the sad story in its entirety can do so at their press release.