NCDC cites “controversy” with the UAH temperature record, and the search for a “true climate signal” (May 13, 2011). Anthony Watts still thinks the NCDC is after him because of their “ghost authored attack on me and the surfacestations project” back in 2009. I guess it’s easier for him than admitting that their scientific evaluation of his claims found no support whatsoever for his bellowed accusations.

Even the paper that poor Anthony was recently involved with came to the same conclusion, although much more quietly and with a healthy dose of self-congratulation. There was, and is, no warming bias in the US average temperature record. There is no warming bias associated with urbanization of temperature recording station locations. The warming trends are real and the product of human environmental impacts.

What reminded the thin-skinned Anthony of this past insult? A new article by NCDC scientists titled Tropospheric temperature trends: history of an ongoing controversy (full pdf here). They conclude:

The state of the observational and model science has progressed considerably since 1990. The uncertainty of both models and observations is currently wide enough, and the agreement in trends close enough, to support a finding of no fundamental discrepancy between the observations and model estimates throughout the tropospheric column.

Anthony tries to make hay of the bland ‘admission’ that researchers need to “calibrate the data and unambiguously extract the true climate signal from the inevitable nonclimatic influences inherent in the routine observations.” What? “Inevitable nonclimatic influences?” The use of these words mean that Anthony’s accusations were right all along!!!!

Not. It’s quite bold-faced of Anthony to claim that climate scientists have, until now, discounted “noise and uncertainty”. In fact this has been a core concern for decades. He also throws in a snide reference to “observational uncertainty” to insinuate yet again that climate scientists are manipulating the temperature record for their own purposes.

Noise. Something Anthony’s quite familiar with generating in order to obscure facts.