By Steve Goddard
h/t to reader “Phil.” who lead me to this discovery.
In a previous article, I discussed how UAH, RSS and HadCrut show 1998 to be the hottest year, while GISS shows 2010 and 2005 to be hotter.
But it wasn’t always like that. GISS used to show 1998 as 0.64 anomaly, which is higher than their current 2005 record of 0.61.
You can see this in Hansen’s graph below, which is dated August 25, 1999
But something “interesting” has happened to 1998 since then. It was given a demotion by GISS from 0.64 to 0.57.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
The video below shows the changes.
Note that not only was 1998 demoted, but also many other years since 1975 – the start of Tamino’s “modern warming period.” By demoting 1998, they are now able to show a continuous warming trend from 1975 to the present – which RSS, UAH and Had Crut do not show.
Now, here is the real kicker. The graph below appends the post 2000 portion of the current GISS graph to the August 25, 1999 GISS graph. Warming ended in 1998, just as UAH, RSS and Had Crut show.
‘
The image below superimposes Had Crut on the image above. Note that without the post-1999 gymnastics, GISS and Had Crut match quite closely, with warming ending in 1998.
Conclusion : GISS recently modified their pre-2000 historical data, and is now inconsistent with other temperature sets. GISS data now shows a steady warming from 1975-2010, which other data sets do not show. Had GISS not modified their historic data, they would still be consistent with other data sets and would not show warming post-1998. I’ll leave it to the readers to interpret further.
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BTW – I know that you can download some of the GISS code and data, and somebody checked it out and said that they couldn’t find any problems with it. No need to post that again.
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Ive learned much since becoming a frequent reader of WUWT. One of the things Ive learned is proponents of AGW are charlatans.
This all extremely interesting (especially the note at the end saying how we don’t need to hear that nobody who knows how to work with the GISS code and data can strengthen your implied accusation of fraud), but I think most people are more interested in the next fair, comprehensive and balanced Sea Ice News.
The falsifications being made to the record are made before they’re posted. Looking back even further in time, there are versions of this graph that correctly place the 1930s as the warmest era.
Revisionist history is alive and well at NASA I see…
But this isn’t surprising, as GISS use proxy data for the Arctic – where there are no recordings. So Hadley are correct in their assertion (to me, by email, from Phil Jones – yes, really) that their’s is the one to choose. If there are no recordings, you can’t simply ‘assume’ by using a proxy that is a massive distance away, and may itself, be subject to surrounding influences. GISS assert that you can, but that’s ‘science’ now!
I wonder if hanson took a data plotting seminar from the financial folks at GE?
I’ll offer a hypothesis.
A UHI adjustment lowers the historical temperature of a place.
Apparently it’s just a flag that goes with the station location. In reality it needs to have a date associated with it. I.E. Before 1950 it’s rural, after 1950 it’s urban or something like that.
And I always thought Fiddle Faddle was some sort of candy popcorn.
Now we know Hansen and Mann and company actually codified a truer definition to the phrase…
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Wow here we go again!
GISS 1998tempgate anyone???
Could this discrepancy be related to Hansen’s post Y2K adjustment error? That was discussed here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/08/11/does-hansens-error-matter-guest-post-by-steve-mcintyre/
Regarding the code of course changes (and their effects) can be valid but the fact that you can only check out the GISS code now says a lot. They don’t seem to have had their code in anything resembling a reasonably modern Change Management system.
For GISS to have credibility all code and data for each of the “versions” of their temperature records should be formally documented and a few clicks away.
Daniel H says:
August 29, 2010 at 8:45 am
Could this discrepancy be related to Hansen’s post Y2K adjustment error? That was discussed here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/08/11/does-hansens-error-matter-guest-post-by-steve-mcintyre/
As I explained when I first posted about this that’s exactly why the adjustment was made but that appears to have been left out in this post.
Phil.
It is one of the miracles of modern science how GISS corrections almost invariably seem to make the past cooler, and the present warmer.
Sooner or later they may be able to correct away the Dust Bowl entirely.
“Uncertain Climate – In a special Radio 4 series the BBC’s Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin questions whether his own reporting – and that of others – has adequately told the whole story about global warming”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tj525
“He finds that the public under-estimate the degree of consensus among scientists that humans have already contributed towards the heating of the climate , and will almost certainly heat the climate more.”
The first programme is on tomorrow morning at 09:00 BST. It looks lim AGM is not to be questioned but the alarmism may be.
Steve McIntyre has a say in this program. I wonder if they’ll mention GISS and James Hansen.
Welcome to the temple of conceptual climatology. The projections are robust, as the continually evolving historical records clearly demonstrate.
Phil.
And what of 1934 Phil. ? The GISS Y2K data step failure made 1934 the hottest year in the USA on record by a small margin.
That seems to have been reversed also.
Here’s GISS in 2008:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/
“The data processing flaw did not alter the ordering of the warmest years on record and the global ranks were unaffected. In the contiguous 48 states, the statistical tie among 1934, 1998 and 2005 as the warmest year(s) was unchanged. In the current analysis, in the flawed analysis, and in the published GISS analysis, 1934 is the warmest year in the contiguous states (but not globally) by an amount (magnitude of the order of 0.01°C) that is an order of magnitude smaller than the certainty. ”
Seems off the radar now it never gets a mention anymore, either in global or CONUS context:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
“Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade, due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years — 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 — as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began. ”
For readers that want to see the behind the scenes shenanigans that went on at GISS, Steve McIntyre’s post with Climategate email context is helpful.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/23/nasa-hide-this-after-jim-checks-it/
Personally I have no trust in GISS whatsoever. Hansen has blown his agency credibility with his conversion to “activist” by his own admission:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100824_Activist.pdf
“I was about to protest the characterization – but I had been arrested, more than once. And I had testified in defense of others who had broken the law. Sure, we only meant to draw attention to problems of continued fossil fuel addiction. But weren’t there other ways to do that in a democracy? How had I been sucked into being an “activist?”.
I really can’t trust a scientist who combines global data gatekeeper role with a jailbird role.
These adjustments of the past are always happening. A couple of years ago, one of these blogs (maybe it was The Blackboard), noticed how temperatures back to the early 20th century were being adjusted down by small amounts. I think that in another 100 years, it will look like the ice age didn’t end 14000 years ago or whenever we think it did now. If you were to ask what the temperature was in 1930, you would also have to state what year you want it referenced from – the number you get this month is different than last month or last year.
When people look back on this era, they will shake their heads in disbelief and disgust at how corrupt, inept and down right crooked science became.
Climate Scientology . . . the Alchemy of our generation.
Creativity is alive and flourishing at GISS:
Creative science
Creative thinking
Creative writing
Creative graphing
Creative statistics
Creative data tweaking …
Anthony Watts says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:44 am
Personally I have no trust in GISS whatsoever. Hansen has blown his agency credibility with his conversion to “activist” by his own admission:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100824_Activist.pdf
I really can’t trust a scientist who combines global data gatekeeper role with a jailbird role.
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In twenty years time I think the world will thank “the jailbird” and
curse the Heartland and other disinformation teams.
REPLY: With people like William Connolley helping such efforts at Wikipedia, perhaps, but what will Nature say? And I’m not talking about the publication. – Anthony
Tamino says—“the modern global warming era starts in 1975.” With or without the 1998 adjustment there has been warming since 1975. And it can be called ‘modern’ since it is. And it is ‘global’ if you talking about the mean temperature. So he’s right, it’s modern global warming. I wouldn’t use the word ‘era’ though because that’s an exaggeration.
But I know why he puts that in: he wants the reader to infer its the “manmde” global warming ‘era’.
All kinds of implied meanings going on in ‘global warming’, i.e., sophistry.
Stephen Schneider, a lead in the 2007 UN IPCC report, had said the following in 1989:
“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. EACH OF US HAS TO DECIDE THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN BEING EFFECTIVE, AND BEING HONEST” (emphasis mine)
I guess the GISS just wanted to be more “effective” in this case
Refresh my memory. Didn’t four of the world’s most distinguished meteorological organizations record a worldwide temperature drop of 0.595C in 1998?
Hansen’s graph only shows about a 0.24C drop. Is this the homogenized version of 0.595C? This might explain the fifth sentence “But something interesting has happended to 1998 since then”. Looks to me like Dr. James “thumb on the temperature scale” Hansen is back at work again doing what he does best – cooking the books!
I’m glad some one else noticed this. I was involved in a few climate debates on different forums a couple years ago and used NASA graphs to make my point of mild cooling post 1998. Later when I looked back on those conversations, I found the links were dead and those graphs were no where to be found. This was the first time I realized that revisionist practices were in play at NASA. Since then I try to save such pieces of information to hard drive just in case.
They are not really adjustments. They are an artifact of the way GISStemp estimates missing monthly and seasonal temperatures. I wrote about it on WUWT a little over two years ago here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/08/rewriting-history-time-and-time-again/
(Looking at the old article it looks like the format of the formula got a little hosed.)
If I am missing the temperature for March, 1990 in East Podunk, Maine, GISStemp will use all the historical March, April, and May temperatures for that station in an effort to GISS-timate that missing monthly temperature. Because GISStemp is run start to finish every month with the most recent monthly data added to the pot, that previous estimated temperature can change due to the addition of recent data.
The GISStimation might not be that big a deal if there were only a few data points missing, but the problem is there are lots of data points missing. As a result we notice the results of GISStemp changing over and over.