I think it’s significant that of the well-known surface temperature indices, there is one—GISS—which has the highest recent temperatures.
For the purpose of assessing the rate of global warming, whether a temperature index has the highest recent temperatures is less important than whether it has the highest difference between more recent temperatures and less recent temperatures.
AFAIK, the GISS index is put together the authority of James Hansen who is pretty well known for his advocacy on the warmist side of the debate.
The code for generating the GISS index is available online, as is a more user-friendly reimplementation of the GISS algorithm. So it should be possible to independently reproduce the GISS index oneself without relying on “the authority of James Hansen”.
[Edit, 27 hours later: not really sure why someone’s downvoted me for pointing these things out.]
For the purpose of assessing the rate of global warming, whether a temperature index has the highest recent temperatures is less important than whether it has the highest difference between more recent temperatures and less recent temperatures.
I believe that GISS also wins by that standard.
So it should be possible to independently reproduce the GISS index oneself without relying on “the authority of James Hansen”.
Evidently, when creating a temperature index, judgments must be made about what data to use; how to crunch the numbers; and so on. Presumably that’s why the leading temperature indices don’t all agree. In the case of GISS, those judgments seem to have been made in such a way as to favor the warmist side of things. I strongly suspect this is the result of some kind of bias.
For the purpose of assessing the rate of global warming, whether a temperature index has the highest recent temperatures is less important than whether it has the highest difference between more recent temperatures and less recent temperatures.
The code for generating the GISS index is available online, as is a more user-friendly reimplementation of the GISS algorithm. So it should be possible to independently reproduce the GISS index oneself without relying on “the authority of James Hansen”.
[Edit, 27 hours later: not really sure why someone’s downvoted me for pointing these things out.]
I believe that GISS also wins by that standard.
Evidently, when creating a temperature index, judgments must be made about what data to use; how to crunch the numbers; and so on. Presumably that’s why the leading temperature indices don’t all agree. In the case of GISS, those judgments seem to have been made in such a way as to favor the warmist side of things. I strongly suspect this is the result of some kind of bias.