Comments on: Month of May, Global Temperature Recap

By: Jerry S

Jerry S — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:43:09 +0000

It’s a good graph Zeke and something I’ve been wondering about but haven’t seen anywhere else (not that I’ve looked that hard). Thanks for putting it together.

By: Zeke Hausfather

Zeke Hausfather — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:21:22 +0000

Sven,
GISS and HadCRU are on different baselines than the satellite records. GISS anomalies are calculated relative to the 1951-1980 mean temperature. HadCRU is calculated relative to 1961-1990. To effectively compare the different records, you have to put them all on the same baseline, so their anomalies mean the same thing.

To convert HadCRU to the 1979-1998 satellite temperature record baseline (used by RSS and UAH) you subtract 0.146 degrees C. To convert GISS to this baseline you subtract 0.238 degrees C.

So for May you actually get (0.132+0.122)/2-((-0.083)+(-0.18))/2=0.127-(-0.1315)=0.2585

This is the highest value in some time, though there were a number of much higher deviations in 1998. My apologies about the lack of clear labels on the graph; I threw it together a tad quickly. The numbers on the x axis are months, and it spans the period between 1979 and present.

By: Pamela Gray

Pamela Gray — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:50:04 +0000

My daily check indicates it is a rounded 5 degrees colder than last month and last year in Wallowa County at 6:35 AM. The weather trend continues here. It matters little when I check, morning, noon, or night, the temperature differences are evident. Sometimes they are large and sometimes they are small, but overall, at least for this privately run published data weather station, we are colder (http://www.enterpriseweather.com/).

This is like being pregnant. You know there is a baby inside but you can’t take it out and show everyone it is indeed a baby. You can only take grainy pictures of it. You know the wait must happen before you can show the new baby around and everyone admits it is a baby. I know it is colder. I know I must wait before GW as a theory ends and a new theory takes its place. Some people just don’t want to change their minds till they are forced to buy long underwear.

By: Sven

Sven — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:44:40 +0000

That’s true – outlier this month was HadCRU (that was rising) not GISS

By: Sven

Sven — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:21:24 +0000

What do you mean, Zeke? I have to say I can’t undrestand your graph. Firstly, for May this year (HadCRU+GISS)/2-(UAH+RSS)/2=(0.278+0.36)/2-((-0.180)+(-0.083))/2=0.319-(-0.1315)=0.4505. I don’t see this in your graph. And secondly, though the first graph in the article above is only for six years, at no point the difference comes even close to that of May. What’s the catch?

By: Paul Clark

Paul Clark — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:57:21 +0000

I agree with Zeke; it seems to me the satellite sources (UAH/RSS) react more strongly to short-term events – both positive (El Nino 1998) and negative (El Nina now) than the land/sea ones (GISTEMP/HADCRUT3). With my rather simplistic engineer’s understanding, this could simply be a matter of thermal mass.

Take a look at the different series around the 1998 El Nino (baseline adjusted).

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/to:2002/offset:-0.15/plot/gistemp/from:1997/to:2002/offset:-0.24/plot/uah/from:1997/to:2002/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2002

Would people be screaming that UAH/RSS had faked their data in (say) April 1998?

The current divergence is not unusual, and I do think we need to stop this name-calling. Detailed work ensuring the quality of the data is one thing; accusing people of faking it on the basis of a few months’ (fairly routine) divergence is another.

By: Zeke Hausfather

Zeke Hausfather — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:39:50 +0000

I went ahead and plotted the normalized (HadCRU + GISS)/2 – (RSS + UAH)/2 to show the variance between satellite and land-based temperatures. You can see it here: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/Land-Satellite.jpg

While the differences for the last two months are on the large side for the last 10 years, its certainly not that far beyond the norm.

By: Zeke Hausfather

Zeke Hausfather — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:28:04 +0000

Its rather odd to call GISS an outlier when its lower than HadCRU this month when you normalize all the data series on the same baseline period.

The more interesting development is the unusually large divergence between satellite and ground-based series.

By: adam bisol

adam bisol — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:43:38 +0000

Anthony,
A little off topic here. Have you seen the NASA Earth Observatory posting on the predicted effects of the closing of the southern hemisphere ozone hole? http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2008/2008061226928.html I’d be interested to hear your take on it. It seems to strike a blow against the alarmism but I haven’t seen it picked up anywhere else yet. Thanks–Adam

By: JP

JP — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:39:04 +0000

Harold,
You do have a point. We are close to an ENSO neutral period, which should be followed by an El Nino event shortly thereafter. I would expect, if the pattern remains constant, of a weak to moderate El Nino event. This should cause the NH to see relatively mild temps in the short run (esp for winter). Expect any positive anomaly to be amplified by NASA and The Team. Look for a return to the daily highlights of record breaking high, etc…

But, what if this negative PDO is a 30 year event? The next expected El NIno could be even shorter and weaker than the last one, or even fail to come at all. The Pacific could go ENSO neutral followed by another moderate La Nina. And what if the N. Atlantic basin continues to remain neutral or even cool, thus shut-off the supply of warm equatorial air masses to Western Europe?

These are a lot of what-ifs. Not one major forecast center can with any precision forecast the next 3 months let alone the next 3 years. However, the sun continues to slide into some kind of dormant phase and the SH shows no signs of warming.

By: Harold Vance

Harold Vance — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:10:37 +0000

What interests me is that the satellite datasets show lower lows for May, something which can’t be said for either GISS or Hadley. (Lower low meaning May’s anomaly is lower than January’s trough.) This is what I would call a significant divergence between the datasets.

I would also guess that GISS thinks that they can bide their time with the divergence problem since they believe that the earth must start warming again in the near future. The anomalies have to continue to trend upward because of CO2. There is no other possibility, according to their models. They can just wait it out.

By: tarpon

tarpon — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:23:41 +0000

Gary Gulrud — Yeah, count me with “GISTemp: “Fake but accurate”.”. Who is it in charge of GIS data, I forgot, but it may be a clue. When everything is going against you, fake it, who will know. It’s also the problem inherent with computer mathematical models, easy to fake the output. I’m just saying, not accusing …

This the whole problem with the global warming for taxes scam — pay more in taxes and government will PRETEND to control the weather.

By: Ken Gregory

Ken Gregory — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:56:31 +0000

NASA applies an urban correction of its GISS temperature index in the wrong direction in 45% of the adjustments. Instead of eliminating the urbanization effects, these wrong-way corrections makes the urban warming trends steeper. This article by me discusses Steve McIntyre’s audit of the GISS corrections.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/CorrectCorrections.pdf

It is in the Urban Heat Island section of our website here
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=228

This is the reason GISS shows too high a warming trend.

By: Dell

Dell — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:12:47 +0000

Sven: “What seems peculiar to me (apart from the fact that 3 out of 4 have a decline for May and one has a rise?) is that the difference between satellite (UAH and RSS) and landstation (GISS and HadCRU) measurements has become so enormous. They seem to have lost any correlation that, in broad terms, existed up until lately. The difference between the highest (GISS) and lowest (UAH) anomalies is a whopping 0,54 deg that is, even understanding the different base line, totally unprecedented!”

Yes it is interesting that the gap between the surface temps and the satellite temps seems to be getting bigger and bigger. All this, while according to CO2/AGW theory,The troposphere is what should see more warming due to “enhanced greenhouse effect” that occurs in the atmosphere.

What is also interesting is that the US surface temps are way below “average” this year, yet on the GISS maps, they aren’t being reported to the same degree of cooling as what NOAA is reporting. Given that the base period is different, makes you kind of wonder.

What I would like to see is an analysis of the RSS data for the Continental US, compared to the surface temps from the US. I think this could be a significant way of looking at how accurate the Satellite data is, compared to respective US temps, and then GISS and Hudcrut Global temps.

If there is indeed a fairly close correlation between the US surface temps and US satellite temps, then that would show just how “whacked out” the GISS and Hadcrut temps could be.

So there’s the challenge for anybody else out there to come up that comparison.

By: Gary Gulrud

Gary Gulrud — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:45:09 +0000

GISTemp: “Fake but accurate”.