NOTE: An update to the compendium has been posted. Now has bookmarks. Please download again.
I have a new paper out with Joe D’Aleo.
First I want to say that without E.M. Smith, aka “Chiefio” and his astounding work with GISS process analysis, this paper would be far less interesting and insightful. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I ask WUWT readers to visit his blog “Musings from the Chiefio” and click the widget in the right sidebar that says “buy me a beer”. Trust me when I say he can really use a few hits in the tip jar more than he needs beer.
The report is over 100 pages, so if you are on a slow connection, it may take awhile.
For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here or the image above.
As many readers know, there have been a number of interesting analysis posts on surface data that have been on various blogs in the past couple of months. But, they’ve been widely scattered. This document was created to pull that collective body of work together.
Of course there will be those who say “but it is not peer reviewed” as some scientific papers are. But the sections in it have been reviewed by thousands before being combined into this new document. We welcome constructive feedback on this compendium.
Oh and I should mention, the word “robust” only appears once, on page 89, and it’s use is somewhat in jest.
The short read: The surface record is a mess.
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Anthony;
This is Huge!
Excellent work by all involved.
As a person who heard Richard Feynman deliver that famous Cargo Cult Science talk in 1974, I’m very sure he would be a huge fan of your work.
He loved to skewer stuffed shirt science, and you guys really di a great job on this one.
On behalf of my children, THANK YOU.
RR
REPLY: I appreciate that, but please thank Joe D’Aleo and in particular E.M. Smith, they did more work on this than I. – Anthony
Downloaded; saved; scanned (full read not doable tonight).
Already I’ve seen enough to say:
Every member of the US Congress should be required to read this.
Mega congratulations to Anthony and Joe. This is the most important climate realist report written to date. A blockbuster. Kudos to all involved, including E.M. Smith, the surface station crew, and SPPI.
This report marks the tipping point. From here on, the AGW scare will steadily decline and disappear. The whole world is in your debt.
Excellent piece of work. Certainly a far cry from the IPCC’s standard of research. I like to see the IPCC provide a response – a scientific one not their usual political spin.
Would you object to my quoting extensively from this in an upcoming article?
REPLY: No but since this is a large compendium, do try to attribute who said what. Ask if needed. -A
WOW!
And Thank you!!
Copy off to the Canadian Minister of Environment.
Cheers!
Clive
A grateful Canuck! ☺
You have a gift for understatement:
Anthony, this will make good reading on my trip to SF. Joe is not one to fly off the handle, so it ought to be interesting to see to where this leads.
Anthony;
I found the linked website to be an extremely insightful distillation of the unstated assumptions that you are up against with this debunking effort.
I think that the first 3 are pivotal in this case;
1. Authority confers virtue.
2. Authority bestows wisdom.
3. Authority implies benevolence.
4. Authority creates wealth.
I expect that the non-sceptics that you might seek to reach will, without question, assume that
the NCDC is intrinsically virtuous, (more so than 2 guys on a website), wiser (than 2 guys on a website), and more benevolently trustworthy (than 2 guys on a website).
I don’t know how to get those unstated presumptions to be ‘in play’ for the folks you seek to reach, but perhaps it would be by explicitly discussing your pathway from initially sharing those presumptions, (as opposed to having rejected them from the git-go).
You might even note (along the way) in passing your surprise at the situation;
That despite your assumption of (NCDC) virtue, wisdom and benevolence, , you nonetheless have found contrary evidence.
Maybe this would be relevant if you find yourself reprising this Augean effort for a TV camera.
Just an idea from decades of marriage counselling…
RR
Great Work!
I’ve skimmed it twice and will do a full read tomorrow.
This just is:
“Andrew Weaver, probably Canada’s leading climate scientist, is calling for replacement of IPCC leadership and institutional reform.
If Andrew Weaver is heading for the exits, it’s a pretty sure sign that the United Nations agency is under monumental stress. Mr. Weaver, after all, has been a major IPCC science insider for years. He is Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, mastermind of one of the most sophisticated climate modelling systems on the planet, and lead author on two recent landmark IPCC reports.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/01/26/terence-corcoran-heat-wave-closes-in-on-the-ipcc.aspx
Anthony,
Do you still plan on releasing the journal paper you spoke about last summer? Or is this the one?
REPLY: Well this isn’t a journal paper, just a compendium of important issues discovered about the surface temperature record, and yes a full journal “peer reviewed” article is being worked on. – A
Strong stuff!
“…NOAA and NASA in the manipulation of global temperature records…”
Yes, the surface temperature is a mess. I’ve gotten all of Southern Ontario’s data from 110 stations from Environment Canada and started to compile it, first to see how good the data is. It’s pathetic. Only 76 have data at all the rest from Ontario only have pecipitation data, no temperatures. The best coverage was in the mid 1980s with 72% data, but it drops off dramatically to a mere 10% today (up until the 1950’s it was less than 5%). This is because most stations started their data collection after the 1950s’, but for some reason many of them stopped data collection (budget cuts?). Only 10 stations are still collecting measurements and all of them started after the 1960’s. Only 4 have a long data range starting in 1900, but all of them ended before 2005.
What I have been able to get out of this data is very similar to what I found with the one location in Belleville (http://www.scribd.com/doc/25338819/What-Does-Averge-Temperature-Actually-Mean) The increase in the average mean temperature for all of southern Ontario is due to a narrowing of the variation. The number of days above 30C have dropped since the 1920s and the number of days below -20C has also dropped since the 1920’s. The length of the growing season is also increasing since the 1920’s.
Thus I have more evidence that this “warming” is nothing more than a narrowing in the extreme ranges of years temperatures to more moderate ranges today. British Columbia is next on my list.
Congratulations Anthony. I am pleased to see the fruition of your’s and others’ hard work. Keep it up, as you *are* much appreciated.
Anthony I thought this was the one that needs an answer:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/On-the-reliability-of-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record.html
Does your book cover this? or are they too thick to understand. He/they say you only show pics, they show data and their conclusion: there is no significant effect. I would doubt that very strongly…..
REPLY: This was well along when the Menne paper came out, but I do touch on it in this compendium. I had to get this wrapped up before I could do any substantive replies here. I have a Paper with Pielke Sr. and others we are working on, and it is a fully detailed analysis. That will be the best rebuttal. – A
Cinderalla – The short story – The shoe fit
Just love stories you can sum up in a few words
Just what the doctor ordered!
A copy is being sent to my MP.
Thank you!
Well I just downloaded it and got it safely saved in my Climate file. Haven’t had time to do ther than look at the table of contents; but it looks like a substantial piece of work.
Very nice effort there Joe and E. M. Smith and Anthony.
I’ve already stated many times that I have little confidence in the surface data prior to the age of polar orbit satellites, and the oceanic buoys, which I date from about 1979/80.
So I am happy to read that you too feel that early record is highly contaminated.
Jolly good show chaps.
Gentlemen, hat’s off to you!
Anthony, is this true:
Or is it more a case of something like:
Global terrestrial temperature data are gravely compromised because more than three-quarters of the 6,000 stations that once existed are no longer having their reports included in the database.
I know that many of the stations that have been dropped from the GHCN are still there and still reporting, it is just that their reports are no longer included in the data.
REPLY: It is a combination of both, but I agree that could be worded for improved comprehension – A
So it seems to me that E.M. Smith deserves authorship credit along with Joe and you. Smith may not have written much of the text, but he was certainly a major contributor.
REPLY: Most certainly he is.
You’re being mentioned over at Weather Underground;
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html
Primarily as an aside to a report given by Dr. Matthew Menne and co-authors at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). In a talk at last week’s 90th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Menne reported the results of their new paper just accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research titled, On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf)
You really need to read Dr Jeff Master’s take on this paper.
At the end, he states:
“The surfacestations.org effort coordinated by Anthony Watts has made a valuable contribution to science, helping us better understand the nature of the errors in the U.S. historical temperature data set. In his talk last week at the AMS conference, and in the credits of his paper, Dr. Menne had some genuinely grateful comments on the efforts of Anthony Watts and the volunteers of surfacestations.org. However, as of this writing, Watts has made no mention on surfacestations.org or on wattsupwiththat.com of Dr. Menne’s study.”
Looking forward to your take on this paper.
REPLY: Been a little busy, see above, that’s my next project. Besides Menne’s paper was a surprise. I’ll explain in a future post. – A
It’s Chile, not Chili.
Just a quibble. Still reading and digesting.
REPLY: Damn spell checkers 😉
Anthony,
I downloaded a copy and sent one to Congressman McClintock and to California Assemblyman Dan Logue who is sponsoring and initiative to resend AB32, which calls for a California Cap and Trade scheme. I hope this will help them make the case the surface record is an unreliable mess, and any Cap and Trade bill would be based on faulty data.
Congratulation to you, Joe and E.M. Smith for a very interesting document.
I am please to hear that you are working on a rebuttal to the Menne paper. It see to be more of a cover their (you know what) paper.
Good work!
One relatively minor criticism: You have only one bookmark in the PDF, for “CASE 4: CANADA’S WEATHER NETWORK”. A fully-fleshed out set of bookmarks based on the TOC (and clickable links in the TOC itself) would make it much more reference-friendly.