By Steve Goddard
In recent articles, I have have been discussing GISS’ claim that their divergence from Had-Crut over the last decade is due to better Arctic coverage.
They use the two images below to justify their claims.
The GISS 2005 image is deceptive, because GISS uses 1200km smoothing. Their actual 2005 Arctic coverage (using 250km smoothing) is below, and shows that they have very little data north of 75 degrees.
GISS 2005 Annual Map – 250km smoothing
In order to make it easy to visualize the differences in coverage between GISS and Had-Crut, I mapped them onto 3D spheres, which eliminates the infinite distortion near the poles in this favorite GISS projection. I also threw in a recent NASA/NOAA/UAH equivalent map. None of these images have been cropped.
![[Image]](https://i0.wp.com/discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/browse/AMSU_A_15.latest.a_01.png?resize=481%2C273&quality=75)
NOAA satellite map used by UAH
The images were created by taking the maps, replacing the gray areas which “signify missing data” with black, scaling the images to 512×512, and mapping them on to an OpenGL sphere. Assuming that the original maps all reach 90N at their top, the images are an accurate representation of their coverage. That probably is not exactly correct, but is close. It appears from the NOAA/UAH map geography that they have coverage further north than 82.5°.
Conclusion: GISS claims of better 2005 Arctic coverage in their recent paper are not justified.
UPDATE: Steve has rendered this video for further discussion.
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It’s not a claim of better actual coverage, it’s a claim that they have anomalies where HadCRUT does, not data. This is a subtle difference, but GISS’s smoothing IS the difference! They diverge because the smooth/extrapolation is used in the GISS final product.
The work you do to keep us educated is magnificent. Keep us in the loop.
He he,
Anyone surprised?
I have stopped relying on GISS for some time now since they have been caught too many times with their manipulative trademark….. create data to suit their agenda.
In any case there are no credible evidence of increased CO2 levels causing large temperature changes in the Arctic region anyway.
Here from my forum is this neat chart showing how little CO2 levels changed for around 10,000 years while we can see major temperature shifts occurs.This based on Greenland Ice Cores:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-188-post-3123.html#pid3123
I’m an avid follower of WUWT – visiting the site (and other like ones) several times a day. I have an old Bachelor’s in Science and still work in IT – where I spend my time translating someone’s business rules into computer systems. I regret that I did not study statistics but I retain a “burnt in” regard for scientific method and the significance of errors – in design and measurement.
I feel happy here because I am surrounded by scientists and mathematicians and others who are happy to put aside “belief” and examine the data, the method, the logic, the sense of the claims made by “experts” – in papers, in journals and most importantly in submissions of summmaries – I include IPCC here.
Why am I writing this?
I looked at the referred GISS “paper” – and it brings home that I am a complete layman – stopped almost immediately by the jargon (not necessarily a fault), the bits of interwoven physics, the massive chunks of statistical references etc etc.
I realised yet again, how much I am dependent on the enormous abilities of the regulars here and similar sites – to wade through the “climate babel” and tease out the gaps, the assumptions, the “gloss overs”, the mistakes or the correctness of an article or paper.
I must admit that I have had some on-site training here – I checked the refererences in the Hansen paper and noted that almost every one was to a paper from “the team”. Just a little too circular for my liking – regardless of the content!
In summary, Tony, Steve(s), Willis, Jeff et al., thanks and please keep up with your fight for the rational application of scientific method – in all of its manifestations and aspects.
“The GISS 2005 image is deceptive, because GISS uses 1200km smoothing.”
That’s putting it kindly.
Interpolation that fabricates data is blatant FRAUD especially when public policy is based upon the claims of such fabricated data.
If they showed the NON interpolated data at the same time and clearly showed that the interpolated data is a fabrication of statistics that would be being honest. However, if they ever show it out of the honest context by itself it clearly is a willful case of blatantly attempting a fraud upon those that they are purveying their misrepresentations of facts. Interpolated data is NOT Factual, it is fabricated.
It’s about time scientists learn that they can’t assert statistically fabricated data is factual when it’s simply invented out of thin air.
How has the GISS fabricated data been used? In how many places and to whom has it been shown out of context without labeling it as statistically fabricated data? Who has shown this data out of context for political purposes? What papers use it without identification of it as fabricated data?
Interpolation = Fabrication = Fraud = Crime, when interpolated data is passed off as real data.
Questions:
[1] Is that data raw?
[2] Is that date adjusted?
[3] If [2] above:
—-[A] WHO adjusted it, and for what reason?
—-[B] WHO says the adjuster was factually INFALLIBLE in his assertions?
[4] If in [3][B] above, the adjuster is NOT infallible, then why are his data used officially without a disclaimer stating such fallibility?
[5] In the case of [4] above, if fallibility is admitted, then WHY is ‘environmental policy’ being made, based upon such fallible data?
sunsettommy says:
May 21, 2010 at 5:46 pm
“…..Here from my forum is this neat chart showing how little CO2 levels changed for around 10,000 years while we can see major temperature shifts occurs.This based on Greenland Ice Cores:”
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-188-post-3123.html#pid3123
__________________________________________________________________________
A super graph Tommy, very clear. I am added it to my bookmarked collection. Thanks
Steve: That 3-globe animation is quite impressive, and quite telling. I am, however, having a problem interpreting the NOAA satellite map with those large purple areas. According to the legend, these are surface brightness temperatures, that vary between -110°C and -130°C. I have always thought that the mesopause, about 80km up, was the coldest part of our atmosphere, at temperatures in the -90°C to -100°C range. Could you explain what those purple areas mean? Thanks in advance.
/dr.bill
It looks just wrong every time one sees all that missing land based data around the–equator?!
I’ll stay in the real world of real data and not James Hansen’s global warming fantasy world of manipulated data.
If it happens to be that I am wrong about my claim of manipulated data then Mr. James, please hand over all of the hard drives you deal with at your job to JeffID, Steve McIntyre, Steven Goddard, and Anthony Watts. We’ll find what is true. You should have nothing to hide but should happy to have verification for GISTemp.
Drew Shindell’s studies have shown the Arctic Temp rise is only 26% from General, Global Warming (whether the Natural 60-year cycle, the Sun, or AGW) — the rest is SOOT (45%), which falls on the Ice & absorbs Sunlight, and the reductions in SO2 (which is 7 times as effective in the Arctic as a Sunlight diffusser because of the Low angle of the Sun, compared to the Equator) .
… There were numerous posts, here (april 2009). I remember (but have failed to find the site for, there are so many) where a Media person challenged him that ” you mean: the Environmentalists are Killing the World ? ! ” Actually, once the Euros started to flow, naturally, a vested interest was formed in actions that would MAKE THINGS HOTTER, so scared People would give out even MORE money. Thus the Demonization of Sulfur.
And the Hadley Centre coverage is deceptive because they are showing Sea Surface Temperature anomalies where there is ice.
It appears from the NOAA/UAH map geography that they have coverage further north than 82.5°.
Yes, but it’s the NOAA surface brightness temperature not the UAH data!
For reasons why that’s not quite what we’d like, read http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/02/new-work-on-the-recent-warming-of-northern-hemispheric-land-areas/
I believe it was also covered here?
It’s always Marcia, Marcia says:
May 21, 2010 at 6:52 pm
I’ll stay in the real world of real data and not James Hansen’s global warming fantasy world of manipulated data.
If it happens to be that I am wrong about my claim of manipulated data then Mr. James, please hand over all of the hard drives you deal with at your job to JeffID, Steve McIntyre, Steven Goddard, and Anthony Watts. We’ll find what is true. You should have nothing to hide but should happy to have verification for GISTemp.
Well no worries, it’s already been done, see clearclimatecode.org
There is something. . . . profoundly odd. . . about the preferring of HADCRUT over GISS, given all the dirty HADCRUT laundry we’ve been treated to the last several months.
Steve, absolutely brilliant de-codification of mundane numeric to stunning visual! REALLY shows the meaninglessness of the GISS maps. And it “resurfaces” (couldn’t help the play on words) a couple of questions: “How do they “adjust” for the overlap in the UAH satellite measurements?” and “That’s at the 14k altitude – right?”
I for one have never liked the GISS presentation and have never trusted it. 1200km smoothing with so few real data points is nothing short of fantasy land. When combined with other errors in the system I suspect the experimental error exceeds the difference.
Steve, thanks. I noticed something in your animation that has prompted a post for me. You will enjoy it.
dr.bill
My purpose in including the UAH maps was just to show the spatial coverage, which is the vast majority of the planet.
I don’t really understand the color coding either. Dr. Spencer would probably be the best person to explain. It would be interesting to hear an explanation.
Thanks Steve,
Glad to see that my puzzlement isn’t unique.
/dr.bill
Phil,
The UAH maps show essentially the same coverage.
http://climate.uah.edu/map_thumb/1208.jpg
You’ve got enough material to make this a paper on it’s own… but would they publish it?
Where I think smoothing over the arctic is particularly egregious is that the data from land stations in the far north is not at all typical of what is going on over the ice.
Typically those far north stations are on coastal sites in a treeless landscape of rocks. The boundary of land and ocean in such places is usually also a temperature boundary, which makes them awful places to be measuring temperature really. The single biggest influence on temperature there is usually wind direction – whether the wind is blowing from the sea or from the land. This is most apparent during the summer when wind from the sea is usually significantly cooler than wind from the land which has passed over sun heated rocks. The temperature physics at these sites is nothing at all like what goes on out at sea over the arctic ice pack. If the wind is blowing from the land, the temperature at those sites is almost certainly going to be a lot warmer than it is even ten miles out at sea. To take the temperature of those land based stations which is for the most part an artifact of land effects and wind direction, and try to use it to draw inferences about temperature across 1200 miles of landless ice pack and ocean is just absurd if you think about it.
Has anyone has checked whether the higher temperatures recorded in some far north sites this year might not be due to a shift in wind patterns? If for example the predominant wind direction has shifted from sea to land at several such sites, that by itself could produce an apparent measured temperature anomaly without the ice pack having signifcantly warmed at all.
It appears from the NOAA/UAH map geography that they have coverage further north than 82.5°.
It’s amazing the amount of yellow and orange where there appears actual available data that GISS just 1200-km-extrapolates over to blood-red and justifies it by claiming missing data, missing data because they have tossed most of the stations from their database.
That 1200 kilometers is a bit less than one-eight of the distance from the north pole to the equator and GISS speaks of one-tenths of a degree anomalies, kind of ridiculous!
Does anyone know why someone with proper scientific credentials has not already refuted Hansen’s 1200-km paper, or could that be work in progress?
Sometimes I think we are still in the middle ages discussing differences between archangels.We have accepted that average global anomalies have a meaning and reason merrily along on differences of representations.
True, the post demonstrates that GISS is making huge extrapolations over the arctic ( antarctic?) in its averaging anomalies. But even if the a arctic were covered on the surface every 100 meters, still the temperature anomaly in the arctic and antarctic would have a very distorted relationship to the energy balance of the planet to be meaningful in judging whether the planet is heating or cooling.
This year we saw a 13C anomaly in the region, http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2010.png , going from 245K to 258K .
All this was driven by the winds and cold masses dispersed lower in the hemisphere where they measured as 2 and 3C anomalies. There can be little meaning in averaging these anomalies globally even if perfectly measured.
Of course the discrepancy shown in this post makes the problem worse. But it is bad to begin with from first assumptions.