By Steve Goddard
WUWT reader “Roy” astutely noted that the NOAA SST map shows a lot of hot yellow, in regions which are just barely above normal temperatures. So I tried an experiment to remove all colors between -0.5C and 0.5C anomaly (i.e normal.) The blink comparator below shows the difference. In the original map, the Pacific looks about 50/50. But when the normal temperatures are removed, the Pacific appears colder. The reason being that there are a lot more pixels in the 0 – 0.5 range than in the -0.5 – 0 range.
The video below takes a tour of the earth with “normal” SST’s painted white.
Note that all of the water around Antarctica is normal or below.
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“The reason being that there are a lot more pixels in the 0 – 0.5 range than in the -0.5 – 0 range.”
Just another way to “Cook the Books”?
Someone in advertising could possibly explain it better but the warm colours are designed to send a message. That message says that the world is getting hotter. Most observers are not going to take the time to analyse the temps ascribed to the colours. It’s simply propaganda and very effective.
If the Republicans gain control after your November elections will there be further enquiries into the named of Climategate?
Steve,
Definitely there is a visual misrepresentation when light yellow is used for the “normal” range. Your color scheme makes more sense.
Out of curiosity, which graphic application did you use to automatically replace the light yellow with white pixels? Or, did you actually do it manually (ouch)?
Beck
Beck,
Thats a rather simple tool in both photoshop, gimp and photopaint where you select a color from the image, then select a second color to change it to, with a range + or – you can set, then just use the selective erase tool and swipe it over your image.
The use of pale yellow for ‘normal’ is quite misleading… seems dishonest.
clever. but someone should be presenting all these visuals this way using the data. anyone?
By the same argument, you should also remove the all pixels between -0.5 and 0, else I fail to see the rational purpose. What’s makes the set of pixels on one side of zero any more important than those on the other side of zero? Otherwise it sounds like an attempt to portray a message that’s not really there.
REPLY:You are in error. He did remove -.5 to +.5, both colors. Watch the blink comparator, and you’ll see both cyan and yellow turn to white. – Anthony
Steve, very interesting exercise! But I’m not sure if you got the conversion of the -0.5 – 0 range from blue to white right – it seems to me that you kept the brightest blue but removed areas that are slightly colder?
Whatever happened to green? Green always means normal to me and it seems to be disappearing from all the weather charts everywhere. If you’re within a degree or two of normal, it should appear as a shade of green. Don’t give me Burnt Umber if it’s really just a little yellow outside.
Lawrie – if the Republicans gain control in November, not much will change. If the “Conservatives” win, you can expect a blood-bath!
Just leave it as is I say, that way people will have proof of the con. Smart people just use unisys
As the oceans are blue by themselves, I instinctively read blue (-0.5 to 0.0) as normal and yellow (0.0 to 0.5) as warmer than normal.
This new color scheme makes the image much better readable.
Even though the makers of the image can rightly claim that they explain the colors precisely, this ocean=blue=normal thing in my mind has a life of it’s own – it’s a subconscious thing that takes considerable practice to turn off.
It’s like these tests where you give people a green button and a red one.
And you ask them to hit the green button when you say red, and to hit the red button when you say green.
Even though you have explained it carefully, people keep making mistakes and hit the green button when you say green, and red when you say red. Especially when they are distracted.
Thanks Roy and Steve.
Are there ANY recent data presentations by NOAA that see the glass as half-empty, not half-full? Also, how does data presentation compare pre-AGW scare? Just a suggestion for future work.
As an engineer who works with CFD contour plots all day long, Steve’s color map is definitely a better visual representation of the data. And, as an aside, contour plots are 10 times better than those ridiculous “red dot, blue dot” temperature anomaly maps!
Steve, we’re talking anomalies, you can’t simply say that .5C either side is normal. Isn’t half a degree C significant over such a large area of water? What’s next? Between 1C either side to remove the next new ‘normal’ batch? Make it 1.5 degrees C and almost all of the blue ones will disappear too. Push your luck a bit further and all will be ‘normal’. The equatorial pacific is colder at present in a building La Nina (date of the graph 2 July 2009) Latest SST from BOM Australia last two weeks agregate Nino 3 -1C, Nino 3/4 -1.2C, Nino 4 -0.4C (the minus meaning lower than normal in degrees C) The normal is the average temperature between La Nina cooler and El Nino warmer events.
How about another way to “Cook the Looks”!
A picture is worth a thousand words. Removing the normal temperatures is very revealing and much more intuitive (and honest). All the ‘surplus’ heat is in the NH which will get lost to space during the coming winter. I’m increasingly think we are in for another cold one in the NH – long SC23 + air temps following sea temps by 3 months + volcanoes in Russia.
mikelorrey says:
August 4, 2010 at 4:00 am
Beck,
Thats a rather simple tool in both photoshop, gimp and photopaint where you select a color from the image, then select a second color to change it to, with a range + or – you can set, then just use the selective erase tool and swipe it over your image.
***
So the + or – range can sneak in a few extra yellow pixels and a few less blue ones?
I believe Steve has various software tools to perform pixel colour manipulations, coming from (correct me if i’m wrong) an image processing software background
Or you can look at the Unisys map instead.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
—-
I totally agree with you. The problem for the alarmists is that when the cooler period comes in they are going to find it a hard sell and bring themselves into ridicule. Though they will argue that they put the numbers up correctly not realising a lot of journalists and members of the public won’t look at numbers but sub-consciously see ‘heat.’ People will feel cheated. Wait for another colour change within the next year. :o)
Steve
I noted Roy’s comments and agree with him, there must be some ‘normal’, so your blink comparator is very useful. Didn’t Anthony do something similar a couple of years ago?
Well, must say, I like it. It does add more useful information, and makes good sense from an accuracy of measurement point of view. I noted the original comment by Roy and wondered what it would look like.. Now we know! 🙂
I obtained different result, much less white color.. but my tinypic upload does not work ATM..
Thanks yo Roy for noticing. Steve, great animation job!
Unfortunately the GAGW crowd just keep on trucking, and asks us to be polite when protesting.
Lawrie
An interesting statistic is that counted by geographical area, Obama won only 28% of the vote in 2008.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h-5yQHGKt4]