Updating temperature data

July 28, 2003
J. Marshall Adkins, an analyst in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc., St. Petersburg, Fla., noted in a recent weekly report that the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has "changed the methodology of calculating population-weighted temperatures for natural gas consumption"

J. Marshall Adkins, an analyst in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc., St. Petersburg, Fla., noted in a recent weekly report that the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has "changed the methodology of calculating population-weighted temperatures for natural gas consumption" by replacing 1990 census data with updated information from the 2000 census, effective during the summer of 2002.

"With the revised population data, it now appears that last winter was 1.2% colder than normal rather than 3.5% warmer than normal," said Adkins. "Does that seem odd to anyone, since most of last winter's cold weather was in the same regions that have seen the least population growth?" He worries that the revision "has given the gas price 'bears' more ammunition in their fight to convince the world that US natural gas prices are poised to fall back to $4/Mcf or lower."

NOAA officials told OGJ, "It takes time for the National Climatic Data Center to collect and make all the necessary computations, and these data were not sent to us until February 2002. The new equations were inserted for July 2002, which was the earliest we could have done it without interrupting the current heating season (which starts July 1)."

However, they said, "The rate of population growth had no effect whatever on the differences between the corrected and uncorrected data. An error was found in estimating climate division (1-10 divisions in each state) temperatures from temperature measurements from nearby weather stations." That, they said, is why last winter was reclassified as colder than normal, instead of warmer than normal.

Temperature studies

A July debate over temperatures puts me in mind of Benjamin Franklin. Back in 1976 when I worked for a major Houston daily newspaper, I was the "bicentennial reporter," assigned to cover the yearlong celebration of 200 years of US independence. That included writing a 30-part series on day-by-day events from June 5, 1776, leading up to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

The job required much research on the people involved in those events. And at the forefront, of course, was Franklin, the only person who signed all four of the great documents of that era—the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution, and the US Constitution.

Franklin also pioneered shuttle diplomacy, traveling first to England to try to iron out differences and later to France to enlist military aid once the revolution started. On those eight voyages, Franklin—who was as well-known then for his scientific research as for his witty writings in Poor Richard's Almanac—took temperature readings and other measurements of Atlantic Ocean currents. As a result, Franklin was one of the first scientists to chart the Gulf Stream.

The roots of democratic government that Franklin and the other founding fathers championed can be traced back to ancient Athens, but the scientific study of global temperatures started in his lifetime and has proceeded on a somewhat spotty basis for little more than 200 years. Today, most of the world still hasn't got a good grasp on the basics of democracy; yet a great many people have embraced the theory of global warming with an almost religious fervor.

Scientifically challenged

Personally, I'm still uncertain about global warming. But it seems to me that before we can make a definitive assessment of the heating and cooling cycles of a 4.5 billion-year-old planet, we need more than 200 years of data.

Like most people, I know little about science. I did take a basic geology course for liberal arts students in college. But I was so dumb that during our lab exams, I had to lick each rock sample just to identify salt.

Yet, there was one thing my geology professor said that I still remember. Back during the Ice Age, he said, there were periods when the earth warmed and the ice receded, only to advance again as the climate cooled. According to geological evidence, he said, the periods in which the ice sheets receded were as warm, if not warmer, than today's temperatures in the same areas. And the period between the advances of ice, he said, sometimes lasted longer than the number of years since the Ice Age supposedly ended.

"For all we know," he said, "we may still be in the Ice Age."