Target $10
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Hidden Behind Climate Policies, Data From Nonexistent Temperature Stations
by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts July, August, and September will be hotter than usual. And for those who view warmer temperatures as problematic, that’s a significant cause for concern.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” said United Nations secretary-general António Guterres on March 19. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink.
“Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts. Sirens are blaring across all major indicators: Last year saw record heat, record sea levels, and record ocean surface temperatures. … Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting.”
President Joe Biden called the climate “an existential threat” in his 2023 State of the Union address. “Let’s face reality. The climate crisis doesn’t care if you’re in a red or a blue state.”
In his 2024 address he said, “I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a climate crisis. At least, I hope you don’t.”
When recalling past temperatures to make comparisons to the present, and, more importantly, inform future climate policy, officials such as Mr. Guterres and President Biden rely in part on temperature readings from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).
The network was established to provide an “accurate, unbiased, up-to-date historical climate record for the United States,” NOAA states, and it has recorded more than 100 years of daily maximum and minimum temperatures from stations across the United States.
The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore.
“They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist.
“NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”
He calls them “ghost” stations.
Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements.
NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.
The addition of the ghost station data means NOAA’s “monthly and yearly reports are not representative of reality,” said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and senior fellow for environment and climate at the Heartland Institute.
“If this kind of process were used in a court of law, then the evidence would be thrown out as being polluted.”
Critical Data
NOAA’s complete record of USHCN data is available on its website, making it a vital tool for scientists examining temperature trends since before the Industrial Revolution.
Jamal Munshi, emeritus professor at California’s Sonoma State University, wrote in a 2017 paper that because many of the stations in the USHCN, and their data, date back to the 1800s, they’ve been “widely used in the study of global warming.”
“The fear of anthropogenic global warming has generated a great interest in temperature trends such that even minute changes in the temperature record are scrutinized, and controversial implications for their effects on climate, extreme weather, and sea level rise are weighed against the cost of reducing emissions as a way of moderating these changes,” Mr. Munshi wrote.
“Energy and development policy around the world are impacted by these evaluations.”
Mr. Shewchuk said the USHCN data is the only long-term historical temperature data the United States has.
“In these days of apparent ‘climate crisis,’ you would think that maintaining actual temperature reporting stations would be a top priority—but they instead manufacture data for hundreds of non-existent stations. This is a bizarre way of monitoring a climate claimed to be an existential threat,” he said.
“Observed data is real. Altered and fabricated data is not real. Period.”
The website, noaacrappy, lists all of the ghost, or “zombie” stations, their location, how long they’ve been closed and then links to NOAA’s recordings.
Significantly, the map shows, not all of the stations used to interpolate temperature data are near the closed station. Thus, hypothetically, it’s possible that since Oklahoma City’s stations are all “zombies,” interpolation data is coming from as far away as Gainesville, Texas, which is more than 136 miles away, and Enid, Oklahoma, which is more than 100 miles away.
“For various reasons, NOAA feels the need to alter this data instead of fixing equipment problems they think exist,” Mr. Shewchuk said.
“Fixing temperature reporting stations is not rocket science. If we can go up to space to fix the Hubble telescope, we can surely come down to earth to fix a few thermometers.”
Prosecutor assigned to probe Ga. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Trump election interference case
A Georgia prosecutor has been assigned to criminally investigate the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, for his alleged role in former President Trump’s attempt to subvert the state’s 2020 election results.
Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, tasked himself with the probe 21 months after the Fulton County district attorney’s office was disqualified from Jones’s case.
The office was disqualified because Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) headlined a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate who went on to face Jones in his race for lieutenant governor. The judge overseeing the matter described Willis’s decision to partake as a “what are you thinking?” moment.
In a brief statement Thursday announcing his appointment, Skandalakis’s office said “no further comments will be made at this time.”
Jones was one of 16 pro-Trump electors who allegedly falsely signed documents claiming the former president won the state in 2020. While he was a state senator, he also allegedly attempted to convene a special session of Georgia’s Legislature with the aim of overturning President Biden’s win.
Jones said in a statement to The Hill that he looks forward to a “quick resolution” of the matter, slamming Willis for making a “mockery of this legal process.”
“I’m happy to see this process move forward and look forward to the opportunity to get this charade behind me,” Jones said.
Skandalakis’s office assumed the responsibility of appointing a prosecutor to investigate Jones in July 2022, the same month the state judge removed Willis from investigating Jones.
The development came about a year before the district attorney went on to indict Trump and more than a dozen of his allies on sprawling racketeering charges in what became Trump’s fourth set of criminal charges. Trump pleaded not guilty, and no trial date has been set.
Jones appears to be listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment, though he is not identified by name in charging documents.
Cartesian started at Buy by Needham
Needham & Company LLC assumed coverage on shares of Cartesian Therapeutics (NASDAQ:RNAC – Free Report) in a report released on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm issued a buy rating and a $42.00 price objective on the stock.
Amphastar Interested In Potential Acquisitions In Endocrinology
At the Needham Healthcare Conference, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc
highlighted why they remain excited about Baqsimi, the inhaled glucagon product for severe hypoglycemia.
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals develops, manufactures, markets, and sells generic and proprietary injectable, inhalation, and intranasal products.
Needham says the company still believes Baqsimi is the best glucagon product based on its expertise, which is difficult to genericize, and its IP that goes to 2036.
Needham notes that the market opportunity for Baqsimi is promising because only a small fraction of insulin users currently receive a prescription for glucagon to manage emergency hypoglycemia.
There’s a widespread recommendation among doctors and guidelines that all insulin users should have access to a glucagon product, akin to an Epipen, for diabetic emergencies.
Baqsimi is projected to reach peak sales of $250-270 million, a significant increase from $153 million in 2023.
These sales estimates might be conservative, especially if the market expands, as Baqsimi currently faces competition primarily from Gvoke, another injectable glucagon product.
In 2024, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals anticipates Baqsimi’s inaugural full-year performance to be fueled by a modest increase in product units sold, coupled with a slight decrease in prices due to elevated wholesaler fees compared to those paid by Eli Lilly And Co
.
In anticipation of competitors re-entering the market by the second half of 2024 and 2025, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals foresees new opportunities emerging despite potential shortages.
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals is keen on exploring business development prospects, particularly in the endocrinology sector, to expand its product portfolio by leveraging Baqsimi’s commercial infrastructure. With $300 million in cash reserves and strong cash flow, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals is inclined towards debt financing for potential asset acquisitions.
Needham keeps the Hold rating for Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.
Alkermes positive results in sleep disorder study
On Tuesday, Alkermes plc
revealed topline results from the narcolepsy type 2 (NT2) and idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) cohorts of a phase 1b, proof-of-concept study evaluating ALKS 2680 for narcolepsy.
ALKS 2680 data demonstrated clinically meaningful and statistically significant improvements from baseline in mean sleep latency on the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT) compared to placebo at all doses tested.
ALKS 2680 was generally well tolerated in both patient populations at all doses tested.
In Narcolepsy Type 2 (NT2), treatment with ALKS 2680 resulted in statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in sleep latency, with a mean change from baseline versus placebo of 12 minutes at the 5 mg dose, 19 minutes at the 12 mg dose, and 21 minutes at the 25 mg dose.
Placebo treatment in this cohort resulted in no change in mean sleep latency.
The company plans to initiate a phase 2 study in patients with NT2 in the second half of 2024.
In the eight patients with Idiopathic Hypersomnia (IH), treatment with ALKS 2680 resulted in statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in sleep latency in these patients with IH, with a mean change from baseline versus placebo of 8 minutes at the 5 mg dose, 11 minutes at the 12 mg dose, and 18 minutes at the 25 mg dose.
Placebo treatment in this cohort reduced mean sleep latency by two minutes.
At the 12 mg and 25 mg doses, the observed mean MWT scores over eight hours post-dose were within the reported normal range for healthy individuals.
Jefferies writes that Alkermes’ ALKS-2680 data looks excellent. The analyst increased the price target from $42 to $50.
Jefferies increased the probability of success for ALKS-2680 to 50%, with peak sales of $1 billion, up from $700 million.
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