by Ecotretas
The Beeville story just keeps getting better.
In the comments section of yesterday’s WUWT post, I got a couple of ideas. First, there is a very interesting site where we can graph adjusted vs. non-adjusted temperatures of GHCN. The first graph above is the result for the Beeville station. A clear difference is visible between adjusted and non-adjusted temperatures, especially during the first half of the XX century. And looking at the blue line does give us an impression that Global Warming might not be happening in Beeville.
Being a skeptic, I searched for the raw data. The monthly data is available at the NOAA site. Got the data for Beeville and plotted the second graph above (click the graphs for better detail). Does anyone see any warming going on? Doing a linear trendline on the monthly data gives us “y = -0.0637x + 829.59”, which means that temperatures have gone down! And now, imagine which were the 20 hottest months at Beeville, for the last 113 years:
| Month | Temperature (x 10 ºF) |
|---|---|
| 1951/8 | 888 |
| 2009/7 | 880 |
| 1998/7 | 879 |
| 1952/8 | 878 |
| 2009/8 | 877 |
| 1953/7 | 876 |
| 1902/8 | 875 |
| 1998/6 | 872 |
| 1897/7 | 871 |
| 1915/7 | 871 |
| 1980/7 | 871 |
| 1914/7 | 869 |
| 1915/8 | 869 |
| 1916/6 | 869 |
| 1938/7 | 869 |
| 1951/7 | 869 |
| 1958/8 | 869 |
| 1911/8 | 868 |
| 1954/8 | 867 |
| 1927/8 | 866 |
Might Julisa Castillo deserve a prize, after-all?
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Monthly data can also be plotted at the Appinsys climate grapher referenced in the post (as can individual month data or multi-month averages).
Here is the monthly data for Beeville: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100MJanDecI188020090900110AR42572251007x
that’s a few miles from us here in austin!
Obvious question – just how many more Beevilles are there?
Can someone do a random audit of about 100 stations to try and get an idea of just how systematic this data manipulation has been?
It looks like the temperatures were adjusted down 2 degrees for the first half of the century. Who makes that adjustment. Is there an explanation for it?
Grant
This clearly shows what the weather is ☺. But, seriously, what makes all the difference is, that if the Y axis is scaled in ONE by ONE degree, all warmings (and warmers too) disappear and become straight lines.
You’re doing it wrong, obviously. What you need to plot is “value added”, where the value added is the narrative of CAGW.
Its time to show young Peters project again;
The alarmist sites hail these adjustments as a good thing. An improvement. But as a data pro, I would say that if the adjustments are big enough to be the big story, then their methodology is what ought to be disclosed. It’s not good enough to call it an improvement, programmed by top experts. Precisely what improvement are we talking about? What was wrong with the original data? What was done to it? If for no other reason, what happens if we discover some new factor that ought to be added to the mix? Can’t do it if we don’t know what the mix is.
markinaustin says:June 9, 2010 at 10:55 am
that’s a few miles from us here in austin!
That’s Texas miles, of course, which are biggern’ regular miles.
This is just the regular fiddling with the data that Dr Hansen’s been doing with his GISS homogenization for years. GISS warming is bogus, and now they’ve migrated it into the USHCN data set. Doing all the statistical analyses in the world to tease trends out of the new and improved data won’t do a bit of good, because your only teasing out what the adjustment algorithms have programed into it.
Why the factor of ten? Is this a traditional data-handling method?
What is needed is for some auditor to run through the adjustment process, step after step, and try to replicate the results. I understand that these adjustment algorithms have been published, and also the computer code (in ancient Fortran). Replication should be possible.
That fraudulent shill for big oil fourth grader cherry picked the station! There are TONS of stations out there that have not been corrupted yet!
But you can rest assured AGW supporters are on the job! And they will not rest, until all of the station data proves what is already known to be true. The science is settled, and soon the data will match. Sure the adjustments create warming where there does not appear to be any, and yes, adjusting older temps down seems weird, but it solves some pressing problems with our effort.
We used to have a terrible time with uneducated people calling to complain, saying things like, “Dude, it wasn’t that hot at my house yesterday! Watts up with that?”. Adjusting older temps down gives us the results we need to prove AGW exists without the sheeple complaining. No one (except for pesky fourth graders) notices when we adjust hundred year old data down to make the current period look warmer. The people who still complain about this don’t understand that in the past it was colder than it was, so the records have to be adjusted for that. Anyone who cannot accept such simple, irrefutable facts needs to be silent and let the experts handle it.
/sarc
Does anybody know how many degrees of temperature are we, humans, able to discriminate? One degree?, Half a degree?, two degrees?
I still say this looks like a sign error in their code.
Instead of adjusting future years for UHI, they’ve got a minus in the year counter and it’s instead applying the cooling adjustment to prior years. And each year the focal point moves forward and the adjustment to year 1 gets even cooler. This would account for why adjustments to earlier years are constantly “changing.”
Run it out 100 years and year 1 would fall to below zero.
It’s a simple error to make, but difficult to catch without very exacting tests, and perhaps difficult to locate and correct. Once the program is “done” they just run it every month and never look at the data in this fashion to even be aware that there’s a problem.
The factor of 10 allows them to store and process the temp as an integer. That in itself has some implications within the processing steps.
That’s a very handy tool for comparing unadjusted and adjusted records. Here’s Southern New England:
Groton, CT: 1.5 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record, 0 adjustment at present.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572507002x
Stamford, CT: adjustment adds .5 degree cooling
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572504001x
Storrs, CT: nearly 1 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572508002x
3 out of 8 stations in Connecticut had trends changed by adjustments.
—-
Block Island, RI: over .5 degree downward adjustment at begginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572507001x
Providence, RI: 1.5 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572507006x
Providence is also a HADCRU station.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climapgr.aspx?statid=NH:42572507000
2 out of 4 stations in Rhode Island had trends changed by adjustments.
—
Amherst, MA: 1.5 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42574491001x
Framingham, MA: .5 degree downward adjustment at beggining of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42574490002x
Lawrence, MA: .5 degree downward adjustment at begining of record and slight upward adjustment at present.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42574490007x
Bedford, MA: .2 degree downward adjustment at begining of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42574490006x
Chestnut Hill, MA: 1 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572509001x
Taunton, MA: 2 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572507007x
Plymouth, MA: .5 degree downward adjustment at beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42574492001x
New Bedford, MA: a rare 1 degree upward adjustment at the beginning of record
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020090900111AR42572507005x
8 out of 19 stations in Massachusetts had trends changed by adjustments.
When it comes to the timing of the adjustments, i.e. downwards until the 50s then upwards after, if you really wanted to help fit the temp data to changes in carbon emmissions, in particular those from fossil fuels (i.e. anthropogenic), that’s pretty much what you would have to do. If I look at graphs estimating carbon emissions, for example this one,
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.html
the carbon emissions really take off around the 50s, and the adjustments to the temperature records make the temp graph mirror the carbon graph in a way the unadjusted temps don’t. Would they be so crude and so obvious? As a subscriber to Occam’s razor and its corollary the KISS principle, I would have to say yes until it was demonstrated to be otherwise.
I’ve going through the New England stations using the tool from the post.
So far in southern New England (Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts) 13 out of 31 stations have adjustments that change the trend.
Well as purely anecdotal evidence i can tell you there is a BIG difference here where i am sitting when my AC is set to 78 compared to when it is set to 77.
Don’t forget we can not use the US an example because it only represents about 2% of the earth’s surface.
Guess we can’t use Beeville as example because it is significantly smaller than even 2% of Texas…
Can we have the nearest available satellite cell’s data as well? (Not the hemispheric or global mean.)
This pattern of “adjusting the past” is recurrent. All three of microsite, UHI, and any true warming affect the ground station. The same is not true for a satellite based estimate of the same gridcell. Thus any time there’s a “known” effect, the adjustment appears to be made to the pre-satellite data to minimize any discrepancy during the overlap period.
The problem is: A microsite issue should cause a discrepancy. UHI for cities that are significantly smaller than a gridcell should also turn up as a discrepancy.
The adjustments seem designed to avoid that.
“Might Julisa Castillo deserve a prize, after-all?”
Or the beginning of a college fund started by WUWT contributors?
That might also attract more attention.
Could someone explain to me how you can convert a ‘text’ file to a useable spreadsheet please? I’d like to play with some of these numbers also, but I get defeated trying to re-enter all the numbers. thanks.
Jacob says: June 9, 2010 at 12:06 pm
What is needed is for some auditor to run through the adjustment process, step after step, and try to replicate the results. I understand that these adjustment algorithms have been published, and also the computer code (in ancient Fortran). Replication should be possible.
It’s been done, read all about it. This site is listed on the column to your immediate right.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Paul
Even if I wasn’t a screamingly cynical scientist I would still have to agree with you. It is too much of a coincidence that temps before 1950 were adjusted down after 1980.