There has been a lot of discussion lately about the accuracy of measuring Sea Surface Temperatures prompted by a new study from Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia and Director of UEA’s Climatic Research Unit. The measurement issue for sea surface temperatures that Dr. Jones is studying was recently showcased in an article in the UK Independent.
I’m going to present the article here first, and then we’ll talk about how sea surface temperatures have been measured, and what sorts of issues the changes between cloth buckets, metal buckets, and engine inlets actually entails.
At first glance, I see this issue raised by Phil Jones as not being well thought through, and ignoring the measurement environment actuality, instead focusing on the change in bucket types as being “absolute”. I think it has a lot of grey area, and a lot of potential errors that haven’t been considered. I’ll cover those in the next part, but for now please read the article and let me know what you think.
Case against climate change discredited by study
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Thursday, 29 May 2008
A difference in the way British and American ships measured the temperature of the ocean during the 1940s may explain why the world appeared to undergo a period of sudden cooling immediately after the Second World War.
Scientists believe they can now explain an anomaly in the global temperature record for the twentieth century, which has been used by climate change skeptics to undermine the link between rising temperatures and increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The record for sea-surface temperatures shows a sudden fall after 1945, which appeared to go against the general trend for rising global average temperatures during the past century.
Skeptics have argued it supports the idea that rising temperatures have more to do with increased solar activity – sunspots – than increasing levels of man-made carbon dioxide exacerbating the greenhouse effect. Read the rest of this entry »
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