I noticed a few contrarians complaining about this study, so I took a look:
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/preprint/2009/pdf/10.1175_2008BAMS2613.1.pdf
I wasn't sure why they were complaining. It even gave a mild shout-out to Anthony Watts (former weather broadcaster and global warming denier) for the pretty photos, although as other real scientists have noted, his various musings don't have any real implication for the temperature record.
The key graphs are Figure 11 and Figure 12 on pages 48-49.
Figure 11 shows the difference between v2 and v1. Unfortunately, it doesn't reveal mean temperature - just max and min but it's fairly clear. The early 1900's are adjusted upward so that the warming trend early century is a bit smaller. In contrast, from about 1995 to present day, averaging max/min reveals a warmer trend than previously estimated. The recent decade is now even warmer. See Figure 12 (Mean Temperature). Now 2006 and 1998 appear to be the warmest on record in the U.S., rather than 1934. The impact on global temperatures inevitably will be negligible.
"For maximum temperature, the two highest ranking years are 2006 and 1934; for minimum temperature, the two highest values occurred in 1998 and 2006."
Perhaps that's what contrarians are upset about. If we recall the nonsense from not too long ago...
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/347541/nasa_admits_that_1934_not_1998_was.html
I'm wondering if the mainstream press can give us silly articles like these announcing the "significant" findings from such a "massive" correction (making sure to drop the "U.S." qualifier and pretend it pertains to global temperatures).
