Mohonkgate

The "Climategate" scandal raised doubts many of us have long had about the integrity of the temperature data that allegedly support the AGW hypothesis. A new article attempts to strangle this newborn dissent in its cradle by praising temperature records from the Mohonk Preserve in New York:

It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years....Mohonk offers a powerful confirmation of warming climate, as well as a compelling multigenerational yarn.

If these records really comprise "a powerful confirmation of warming climate," why is there any need to stress that point? Surely, the data should speak for themselves, without any need for "warmist" editorializing! Right away, one begins to suspect that there's more here than meets the eye. And sure enough:

The weather log, for many decades kept on hand-written sheets, lacks only 37 days of precipitation data from 1901, 1908 and 1909, due to a missing data sheet, and a few days when observers apparently didn't look at the rain gauge.

"Only" 37 days? Clearly, the authors of this piece fail to understand that in Science, no detail is unimportant. A butterfly flapping its wings in Cairo can cause hurricanes in the Arctic, as the Law of Unintended Consequences conclusively shows. And yet, we're expected to believe that 37 days' worth of missing data are "unimportant" to the climate models upon which the alarmist case rests.

Consider this: If these data are unimportant, why are they missing? And what transpired on those days when observers just "happened" to ignore the rain gauge? If there's nothing to hide, then why hide anything?

Apologists will say that the missing data pertain to precipitation rather than temperature. Of course, it's an article of faith among warmists that higher temperatures result in more precipitation (I guess they've never been to Death Valley). We know that if the missing data had shown heavy rainfall, they would've been hailed everywhere as "proof" of AGW. The fact that the data are missing suggests that they were...well, let's just say "embarrassing," from the warmist perspective.

Of course, there may be an innocent explanation, like incompetence or stupidity. However, Science does not advance by giving charlatans the benefit of the doubt. On the contrary, Science requires us to check and recheck data until we are 100-percent positive that they weren't gathered by moral cripples.

With this solemn duty in mind, I have sent upward of 400 FOIA requests to Mohonk personnel and their families, requesting all their data in double-reverse triplicate with knobs on. Furthermore, I have requested all handwritten correspondence to and from the "scientists" who collected these data, so that their handwriting can be subjected to a fully transparent process of ethico-graphological time series analysis (the precise details of which I'm not able to reveal at this time, for obvious reasons).

I'm also trying to find out where their kids go to school, just in case a little pressure is needed to encourage these bean-counters to obey the Constitution.

Needless to say, I will keep you informed about my growing suspicions as this case unfolds.