Readers may recall yesterday where I posted this stunning image of cold for Europe and Russia for mid December 2009 from the NASA NEO MODIS satellite imager.
Deadly Cold Across Europe and Russia
Click image above to enlarge or download large image (3 MB, JPEG) acquired December 11 – 18, 2009
In that story were links to additional images, and I’d planned to return to them for a comparison. Inspired by my posting, METSUL’s Alexandre Aguiar saved me the trouble. There’s an interesting comparison here between the surface anomaly done by weather stations (NASA GISS) and that of satellite measurement (NASA NEO MODIS) – Anthony
Guest post by Alexandre Aguiar, METSUL, Brazil
COMPARE THE TWO MAPS
NASA GISS on the left, NASA MODIS on the right
Here’s the same images but larger – click either image for full size:
South America: The vast majority of the continent is near average or below average in the NEO map, but according to GISS only the southern tip of the region is colder. The most striking difference is Northeast Brazil: colder in the NEO map and warmer at the GISS.
Africa: Most of the continent is colder than average in the NEO map, but in the GISS most of Africa is warmer than average.
Australia: The Western part of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, but the entire country is warmer in the GISS map.
Russia: Most of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, a much larger area of colder anomalies that presented in the GISS map.
India: Colder than average at NASA’s NEO website and warmer at NASA’s GISS map.
Middle East: Huge areas of the region (Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria) are colder than average in the NEO map and average/warmer in the GISS map.
Europe: Near average or slightly above average in the NEO map and much above average in the GISS map.
Greenland: Entire region colder than average at NEO and much of the area warmer at GISS.
Same source (NASA), but very different maps !!!
Why:
At NEO, land surface maps show where Earth’s surface was warmer or cooler in the daytime than the average temperatures for the same week or month from 2000-2008. So, a land surface temperature anomaly map for November 2009 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Novembers between 2000 and 2008.
Conclusion
Despite being very warm compared to the long term averages (GISS, UAH, etc), November 2009 was colder in large areas of the planet if compared to this decade average.
See PDF here. December should be very interesting in the northern hemisphere.
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I understand the base periods are different but we can’t let it go at that. Look at western Australia, for example. We’re talking almost a 4C difference in anomaly between the two maps.
Am I nuts in saying that doesn’t make sense to me?
Look how much of the ocean the GISS graphic incorporates!
“Despite being very warm compared to the long term averages (GISS, UAH, etc), November 2009 was colder in large areas of the planet if compared to this decade average.>/i>”
Well, yes, that’s what happens with averages (they being, well, the average – so even in warm months globally some localities are cold) and when you use different baselines for comparison you get, wait for it, different results…..
.
Calibrate the freaking surface stations already.
don’t know if this has been posted yet:
31 Dec: ScienceDaily: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm
Was GISS done in crayon? That could explain it.
Bah Syl! That’s nothing compared to Ellesmere Island ( just north-west of Greenland). That’s way over 4°C.
Camp Minnesota (Antarctica) also has a huge difference.
What strikes me as odd is in the GISS map there are a couple of places where extremely high anomalies shade very quickly into low ones. Northern Siberia, northern Alaska, west Greenland, Camp Minnesota. Those are huge differentials.
Call me a cynic (as opposed to a skeptic) but why are all the extremely high anomolies, with the exception of South Australia) in the places where no-one can argue that they are wrong, yet have to fall off very quickly to inhabited places.
The NASA GISS map link is broken
The top left one that is
It was nice of them to put up a satellite to show how poorly they’re other system does its job–has CRU seen this?
What’s the difference in how these “map representations” are made?
What does Roy Spencer say about this? Who will call for NASA GISS to reveal all of its methods, adjustments, and modifications to the data.
NASA needs to worry about real threats-like something nasty from space hitting US
-the Russians are….
NASA- to go back to “Boldy going”…
Look at that GISS map. Who would have guessed that Hawaii’s measurements were good for, what, 1/120th of the globe?
And wow, the Arctic regions are predominantly running 4 to 9.9 degrees high! No wonder Dr. Al Gore, the noted climate scientist, thinks the ice will be gone by 2035, it’s obvious!
Al Fin
The Nasa Giss website documents all of it’s methods, adjustments and modifications. Where you unable to find that information when you went to the NASA site?
Thanks
Edward
Anthony,
Have you seen the new paper by Wolfgang Knorr, supposedly in GRL, that claims their has been no rise in the “airborne fraction of anthropoenic carbon dioxide” over the past 150 years? This contradicts the claim that the existing sinks are saturating and that the rate of atmospheric CO2 will start increasing more rapidly. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet. But I wanted to give you a heads-up.
Merrick
That pretty much confirms that it got warmer up to about ten years ago, the cause being debatable and not certain. Then it has cooled since then, again the cause is not confirmed. Where it goes from here we’ll have to wait and see.
Hang on a minute
The GISS anomaly map is for the month of November whereas the MODIS map is for ONE week (11th-18th) in December. This is not a fair comparison. Leaving aside the fact that the anomaly base periods are completely different should we not at least wait until GISS release their December figures before making any comment.
Part of what we are seeing in the GISS plot is what happens when a sparse data set is used to generate a surface to plot. I’ve seen GMT plotting routines do this with ‘my’ own data set. You can get these weird wrap around areas as the program tries to fill in the empty areas. Of course NOAA/GISS has made the data set sparse by tossing large #’s of surface met stations for no good reasons so they do not get a pass on this, nor on not applying an ocean mask as was done with the Satellite data plot.
Given the totally different methods, the correspondence is very good. The base periods are very different – the GISS anomaly reflects all the late 20C warming, which is why the map is so much redder.
Remember that the differences between regional anomalies for one month are often much greater than the differences between global anomalies over a year. Even if the methods gave exactly the same temperatures, you’d still see differences based on this. The sat data probably is based on less than 20 years base data (they should say). If, say, NE Brazil was relatively warm during those years, and relatively cool 1951-80, it will show now as cool relative to GISS, no matter how accurate the measurement. And there will always be places in the world with such a mismatch.
Just wondering, is any of the difference in spots where a high SST anomaly changes the colder land temps? It could be that by giving the SSTs a chance to allow the ocean to breathe heat out in colder air masses you get a false reading indicating heat. Am I mistaken?
fishhead (16:52:10) :
“Was GISS done in crayon? That could explain it.”
No it is an overlay of their Light-Bright mapping aligned using an Etch-a-Sketch and photographed using a Barbie Fashion-Master camera.
There are using the technology that is appropriate for the quality of the data.
Say it isn’t so. James Hansen claims to be soo very busy. It is hard work to adjust numbers and tweek the data.
I can’t help thinking that Hansen is cherry picking when compares temps to 1951-1980. Why those years. I have often wondered about this.
It is quite clear that not everyone at NASA is nuts like Hansen. A number of times NASA has published studies that disagree with Hansen. The real questions why is Hansen still there?
fishhead (16:52:10) :
Was GISS done in crayon? That could explain it.
They couldn’t keep the orange and reds inside the lines? They overlapped the blues with them?