by WorldTribune Staff, February 5, 2017

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used “unverified” data for a landmark study that claimed the planet was warming much faster than expected, a whistleblower said.

NOAA in 2015 made a “blatant attempt to intensify the impact” of global warming to eliminate the “pause” in temperature rise since 1998, Dr. John Bates, the former principal scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, told the Daily Mail.

The study was meant “to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy,” Bates said.

Bates said his objections to the study were ignored by his superiors, who let scientists make “decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation” in advance of a major United Nations climate summit in Paris.

Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, subpoenaed NOAA in late 2015 for records related to the study that adjusted global sea surface temperature upwards.

Smith was heavily criticized for subpoenaing NOAA scientists, and the agency refused to hand over any internal deliberations.

“Dr. Bates’ revelations and NOAA’s obstruction certainly lend credence to what I’ve expected all along … that the study used flawed data, was rushed to publication in an effort to support the president’s climate change agenda, and ignored NOAA’s own standards for scientific study,” Smith said in a statement.

NOAA has now “decided that the sea dataset used in the study will have to be replaced and substantially revised just 18 months after it was issued, because it used unreliable methods which overstated the speed of warming,” The Daily Mail reported, adding NOAA’s revised data will show “lower temperatures and a slower rate in the recent warming trend.”

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