NOAA's Temperature Adjustments Are Necessary, Peer-Reviewed, And Well-Documented. In a statement to Media Matters, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that adjustments to the temperature record are necessary to "account for a variety of non-climate related" factors and are validated by "numerous peer-reviewed studies":
[N]umerous peer-reviewed studies continue to find that NOAA's temperature record is reliable. To ensure accuracy of the record, scientists use peer-reviewed methods called homogenization, to adjust temperature readings to account for a variety of non-climate related affects such as changes in station location, changes in observation methods, changes in instrumentation such as thermometers, and the growth of urban heat islands that occur through time. Such changes in observing systems cause false shifts in temperature readings. Paraguay is one example of where these false shifts artificially lower the true station temperature trend. However, around the world, the opposite is true a little less than half of the time (see Lawrimore, et al, 2011). Homogenization methods take out these false shifts. [Email to Media Matters, 2/10/15]
NOAA: Largest Adjustment "Actually Lowers Global Temperature Trends." Contrary to Booker's claim that NOAA and NASA make temperature adjustments to exaggerate the amount of warming, in their statement to Media Matters, NOAA noted that the largest temperature adjustment is made "over the oceans," which "actually lowers global temperature trends":
It is important to keep in mind that the largest adjustment in the global surface temperature record occurs over the oceans. Adjustments to account for the transition in sea surface temperature observing methods actually lowers global temperature trends (see Huang, et al, 2015). [Email to Media Matters, 2/10/15]
Ars Technica: Booker's Claims Based On Cherry-Picked Data. Ars Technica's science editor John Timmer similarly affirmed the baselessness of Booker's claims in a February 9 article, explaining that temperature records "have to be processed" to account for a variety of legitimate factors, but that "[t]o the more conspiracy minded, you can replace 'processed' with 'fraudulently manipulated to make it look warmer.'" Timmer added that Booker's claims are "based on a few posts by a blogger who has gone around cherry picking a handful of temperature stations":
We knew this already; we knew it two years ago when Fox published its misguided piece. But our knowledge hasn't stopped Booker from writing two columns using hyped terms like "scandal" and claiming the public's being "tricked by flawed data on global warming." All of this based on a few posts by a blogger who has gone around cherry picking a handful of temperature stations and claiming the adjustments have led to a warming bias. [Ars Technica, 2/9/15]