Watts Up With That?

This is a mirrored post from ClimateAudit.org which is terribly overloaded.

Mike’s Nature trick

So far one of the most circulated e-mails from the CRU hack is the following from Phil Jones to the original hockey stick authors – Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes.

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

The e-mail is about WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999 -report, or more specifically, about its cover image.

click to enlarge

Read the rest of this entry »

A Critique of the October 2009 NCAR Study Regarding Record Maximum to Minimum Ratios

Guest post by Bruce Hall, Hall of Record

This is a critique of the October 2009 NCAR publication regarding increasing ratio of new daily maximum temperatures to new daily minimum temperatures.

The NCAR [National Center for Atmospheric Research] study titled “The relative increase of record high maximum temperatures compared to record low minimum temperatures in the U.S.” was published October 19, 2009.

“Abstract

The current observed value of the ratio of daily record high maximum temperatures to record low minimum temperatures averaged across the U.S. is about two to one. This is because records that were declining uniformly earlier in the 20th century following a decay proportional to 1/n (n being the number of years since the beginning of record keeping) have been declining less slowly for record highs than record lows since the late 1970s. Model simulations of U.S. 20th century climate show a greater ratio of about four to one due to more uniform warming across the U.S. than in observations. Following an A1B emission scenario for the 21st century, the U.S. ratio of record high maximum to record low minimum temperatures is projected to continue to increase, with ratios of about 20 to 1 by mid-century, and roughly 50 to 1 by the end of the century.”

The following is a graphic representation of the study from the UCAR website: Read the rest of this entry »

One wonders why the story of a new paper covered on WUWT:  NCAR: Number of record highs beat record lows – if you believe the quality of data from the weather stations did not include the 1930’s and 1940’s and earlier, conspicuously missing from the NCAR graphic below:

This graphic shows the ratio of record daily highs to record daily lows observed at about 1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States from January 1950 through September 2009. Source NCAR

From: “The relative increase of record high maximum temperatures compared to record low minimum temperatures in the U.S.”Authors: Gerald A. Meehl, Claudia Tebaldi, Guy Walton, David Easterling, and Larry McDaniel Publication: Geophysical Research Letters (in press)

The answer: those decades are inconvenient to the conclusion Meehl makes from a cherrypicked portion of the US data. There were many many temperature records during this period. For example, Richard Alan Keen writes in email:

My book, Skywatch West, covers the weather and climate of the 11 western states, plus Alaska, plus 6 western Canadian provincs and territories.

The chapter on temperature extremes includes a chart of the occurrences (by decade) of the all-time extreme temperatures for each of the 18 states, provinces, and territories (a total of 36 records in all).

Some fun statistics from this are:

• Of the all-time record maximum temperatures, 10 occurred before 1940 (the first six decades), and 8 after (the second six decades).
• For record minimum temperatures, the reverse is true: 8 records before 1940, 10 afterwards.
• Half of the records – 8 maximum and 10 minimum, a total of 18 – occurred during the middle three decades of the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, and of these nearly a third of the total (10) were during the 1930’s alone.
• No records occurred in the 2000’s up to the publication date of the book (2004).  Since then Arizona’s record maximum was tied, but not broken, in 2007.

cheers, Rich

Here is his graphic: Read the rest of this entry »