I edited my post too late so I will repost.

1) No it is not independent. The point is that if the data is not accurate, there would be a TON of people with agendas who would analyze the data and show it to be false. The databank is open to everyone.

2)That IS the issue. If the data is faulty inaccurate or false it would be EASILY shown, via self-checks or external analysis. The data base is open and freely (and easily) accessed. The link is in my above post. Where are the multiple analyses showing the data to be false?

Think of the multiple wins that would be achieved by showing the data to be false. Political win ('The Greenies are falsifying data for their own political means'), economic win ('More lefties over-spending money from hard working people'), cultural win ('Those egg heads will do anything to keep the common man scared'), etc. All that has to be done is to analyze the data and show it to be bunk. Where are the studies showing the data to be cooked?

In edit-Here is a letter from the OIG to members of Congress about the data collection of the USHCN. Please note the first and fourth paragraphs.

http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/STL-19846.pdf

Heh, Heh.

A detailed analysis of the stations took a long time for Anthony Watts to do.  It is not like the data is readily accessible on the Internet (it is now thanks to him).  So each site had to be independently verified and analyzed.  Hence why there is not a "ton" of people taking on the responsibility.

And I thought the agenda was good science.  However, I am getting the impression is not about science, but merely presenting a united front for talking points.

The subject is "Global" not American.  The quality of data is an issue, but it cannot be easily shown.  The problem is most do not care about the quality of data, they just use the data.  The quality of the data is suspect as has been demonstrated.  What has not been demonstrated is if it impacts the conclusions reached.  Since (so far) there has not been a quantitative inspection of the data to determine the UHI influence (only in specific instances has it been quantified), there is no way to tell.

To your first point-Who cares? I say this not in jest; it sounds like an excuse. I do not doubt that there is a tremendous amount of data to analyze; however, if the data is junk, if the collection is junk, if the analysis is junk, all that has to be shown is one misstep in the chain to discredit the conclusion, correct? Where is that smoking gun? If he cannot recruit others to find fault with the data, he should get more people to assist him. Again, look at all the 'wins' the deniers would have if they show that the data/collection/analysis is faulty. That seems like a great motivator to me.

To your second point-Sounds like more excuses. In fact, how can you say this with a straight face 'The quality of data is an issue, but it cannot be easily shown.' That is laughable. How do you know it is an issue if the work is too hard for someone to do? Let's say that you are correct; at least wait until you have the data in hand before you say 'The quality of the data is an issue'  because then you would have proof from more than one source. What you stated is at best hopeful speculation. It sounds like you THINK/WISH/HOPE that the data quality is an issue. but by your own admission, you have no proof of it. The 'quality of the data has been shown to  be suspect' by ONE PERSON. Where is the rest of the legion?

To your point about it being US data, in your post  #153, you were refuting the post of jackswift85 in post #135 which mentioned BY NAME the USHCN data, which is why I showed you the links I did. The data is available for anyone to analyze and draw their own conclusions. I cannot speak for data collected by any other entity.

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Interesting.  I'm sure the (indirect) source will be disparaged by 'some'.

Huh, if you don't mind indirect sources, you'll love ones that actually have direct commentary from the researchers themselves about how "skeptics" have misconstrued their research doing the usual "skeptic" cherry-picking and taking information out of context.

Umm, that's the exact opposite of the method they use to homogenize data. They homogenize the urban stations to match the rural stations, to better calculate the Urban Heat Index and make sure that increasing urban amplification does not bias those urban stations' trends one way or another. If you meant to say that the homogenization process affects the rural temperatures, sorry, there's nothing funny going on. The methods to homogenize the data are sound. There is no intentional hoodwinking going on here.

I also recommend you revisit the 97% study as well. There's been more than one consensus study. Yes, about 68% of the abstracts do not state a specific position on AGW (and only 1% say AGW is not real, that's the more important number here), but even so, much like there aren't any specific positions by astrophysicists' papers on how the Earth revolves around the sun, climate scientists don't state a position on AGW. Just in case that the methodology used did cover up a large amount of "skeptic" scientific papers, they asked the authors of the papers themselves to state the position their papers take... and guess what, only 39 authors disagreed with the AGW theory while 1342 endorsed it. (With 761 authors still stating no position/undecided) That's 2.9% of scientists that rated their own papers against AGW. You would think if the 'anti-AGW' crowd had more credibility, they would get more than 39 guys out of over 2000 (and those anti-AGW papers aren't even cited often...!).

You guys really need to stop just parroting disinformation and debunked talking points from Watts. I'd love for you guys to be right, I really do. But the spell of confusion and doubt cast by those motivated by purely political or economic reasons will seriously hamper the efforts of those trying to avert disaster. Frogboy posted earlier that he'd love to hear what excuses I would have if we had another decade of "stagnant" temperatures (stagnant meaning the hottest decade on record) goes by. I'd like to hear the excuses when we don't.

Yet another source that claims they've removed the bias, while failing to explain how removing a known positive bias from nearly the entire collection of stations, results in a higher end result.

According to AGW, the TLT measurements show higher warming than the direct surface measurements, because the opacity of the atmosphere to the 3% of the infrared spectrum CO2 has an effect on is a wee bit taller than the stations.  Bunk theory or not, this principle is sound, a matter of simple physics.  Warming caused by the air is naturally going to be warmer in the air.  How much is arguable, which one should be higher is not.

Globally, the surface data shows around .16C per decade, this while the satellite records show between .13C and .14C in the TLT.  Warmer?  Digging up worldwide station data sets would be a great deal of effort though, a comparison against the USHCN measurements is easier.

Unaltered "good" stations in the US show .155C per decade, GISS and the TLT measurements both show .16C per decade over the US.  Plausible numbers, surface stations reading within the margin of error for that necessarily lower reading against TLT measurements.  After your wonderful climatologists get through "correcting" the surface stations, they show .3C per decade over the US.  This is the warming trend you've bought, a bullshit number twice as high as the TLT measurements that must necessarily outpace the surface trend.

You can pretend I'm just a kook all you want, but this isn't the work of conspiracy theorists.  We start with a number in line with the satellite measurements, courtesy of NASA, and end up with one twice as high, courtesy of the NCDC, and I'm supposed to be convinced because the models are right in line with the doctored data sets.  Politics and science don't mix, you've been sold a bunch of bullshit by people with an economic agenda.

Maybe I'm wrong and they just forgot to convert to Celsius.  Maybe they actually believe the temperature on Venus is because of CO2, and not because the planet has 93 times as much atmosphere.  Maybe they shit perfumed gold bricks...

Are you people still going at it?  Don't you have jobs?

What is this "job" you speak of?