Readers may recall when I pointed out a sensor failure that caused NSIDC’s Arctic ice graph to go haywire. In a similar vein, this essay below appeared as part of a comment on WUWT from reader “Kate”. I have been asked to carry this story before, and I refused. Now that I see it being used to back up arguments, I think it is time to point out how wrong it is. My comments follow after the end of the essay.
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Satellite Data Fraud
Dr Charles R. Anderson; “It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records, and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth.”
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Leading US Physicist Labels Satellitegate Scandal “A Catastrophe”.
Respected American physicist, Dr Charles R. Anderson has waded into the escalating Satellitegate controversy publishing a damning analysis on his blog.
In a fresh week of revelations when NOAA calls in their lawyers to handle the fallout, Anderson adds further fuel to the fire and fumes against NOAA, one of the four agencies charged with responsibility for collating global climate temperatures. NOAA is now fighting a rearguard legal defense to hold onto some semblance of credibility with growing evidence of systemic global warming data flaws by government climatologists.
Anderson, a successful Materials Physicist with his own laboratory, has looked closely at the evidence uncovered on NOAA. He has been astonished to discover, “Both higher altitudes and higher latitudes have been systematically removed from the measured temperature record with very poor and biased interpolated results taking their place.”
Like other esteemed scientists, Anderson has been quick to spot sinister flaws in official temperatures across northern Lake Michigan
The website operated by the Michigan State University published ridiculously high surface water temperatures widely distributed over the lake many indicating super-boiling conditions. The fear is that these anomalies have been fed across the entire satellite dataset. The satellite that first ignited the fury is NOAA-16. But as we have since learned there are now five key satellites that have become either degraded or seriously comprised.
In his post, “Satellite Temperature Record Now Unreliable”
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/08/satellite-temperature-record-now.html
Anderson’s findings are that NOAA sought to cover up the “sensor degradation” on their satellite, NOAA-16. The U.S. physicist agrees there may now be thousands of temperatures in the range of 415-604 degrees Fahrenheit automatically fed into computer climate models and contaminating climate models with a substantial warming bias. This may have gone on for a far longer period than the five years originally identified.
Anderson continues, “One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us.”
The Indian Government Knew of Faults in 2004
The Indian government was long ago onto these faults, too. Researcher, Devendra Singh, tried and failed to draw attention to the increasing problems with the satellite as early as 2004 but his paper remained largely ignored outside of his native homeland.
Indian scientist, Singh reported that NOAA-16 started malfunctioning due to a scan motor problem that caused a “barcode” appearance. Singh’s paper, “Performance of the NOAA-16 and AIRS temperature soundings over India” exposed the satellite’s growing faults and identified three key errors that needed to be addressed.
Singh writes, “The first one is the instrument observation error. The second is caused by the differences in the observation time and location between the satellite and radiosonde. The third is sampling error due to atmospheric horizontal inhomogeneity of the field of view (FOV).” These from India thus endorse Dr. Anderson’s findings.
NOAA Proven to have engaged in Long-term Cover Up
Investigations are proving increasingly that such data was flagged by non-NOAA agencies years ago, but NOAA declined to publish notice of the faults until the problem was publicized loudly and widely in the first “Satellitegate” article, “US Government in Massive New Global Warming Scandal – NOAA Disgraced.”
Official explanations initially dismissed the findings, but then NOAA conceded their accuracy in the face of the evidence.
A succession of record warm temperatures in recent years may be based on contaminated satellite readings.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/16/noaa-warmest-january-on-record-in-both-satellite-records/
But NOAA spokesman, Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis declined to clarify the extent of the satellite instrument problem or how long the fault might have gone undetected.
In another article, “Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful”
we saw the smoking gun evidence of a cover up after examining the offending satellite’s AVHRR Subsystem Summary. The official summary shows no report of any ‘sensor degradation’ (NOAA’s admission) since its launch in September 2000.
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/componentStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=16&subsystem=4
Subsystem Summary Details Censored Between 2005-10
But even more sinister is the fact that the official online summary now only shows events recorded up to 2005. All subsequent notations, that was on NOAA’s web pages showed entries inclusive to summer 2010 which have now been removed. However, climatechangefraud.com is displaying a sample of the missing evidence copied before NOAA took down the revealing web pages after it entered into “damage limitation” mode.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/images/stories/pics3/2010_Jul04_959EDT.gif
As events have unfolded we are also learning that major systemic failures in the rest of the satellite global data-collecting network were also not reported. Such serious flaws affect up to five U.S satellites as reported in an excellent article by Susan Bohan.
NOAA Tears Up its Own “Data Transparency” Policy
But rather than come clean, NOAA has ordered their lawyers to circle the wagons. Glenn Tallia, their Senior Counselor, wrote “The data and associated website at issue are not NOAA’s but instead are those of the Michigan State Sea Grant program. Thus, we have referred your email to the Michigan State Sea Grant program.”
Yes, Glenn, clearly the final data output was published by Michigan but the underlying fault is with your satellite!
With NOAA now hiding behind their attorneys we appear to see a contradiction of NOAA’s official pledge that ” The basic tenet of physical climate data management at NOAA is full and open data access” published in their document, “NOAA/National Climatic Data Center Open Access to Physical Climate Data Policy December 2009″.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/open-access-climate-data-policy.pdf
Sadly, we may now be at the start of yet another protracted delay and concealment process that tarnished NASA’s and CRU’s reputations in Climategate. We saw in that scandal that for 3-7 years the US and the UK government agencies cynically and unlawfully stymied Freedom of Information requests (FOIA).
NASA’s disgrace was affirmed in March 2010 when they finally conceded that their data was in worse shape than the much-maligned Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the UK’s University of East Anglia. CRU’s Professor Phil Jones only escaped criminal prosecution by way of a technicality.
The attorney credited with successfully forcing NASA to come clean was Christopher Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
American Physicist Pick Out Key Issues
Meanwhile, back on his blog, Anderson points to the key issues that NOAA tries to cover up. He refers to how Charles Pistis, Program Coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant project, tried to pass off the flawed data as being an accidental product of the satellite’s malfunction sensors taking readings off the top of clouds rather than the surface temperatures.
By contrast, Anderson cogently refutes this explanation showing that such bogus data was consistently of very high temperatures not associated with those detected from cloud tops. He advises it is fair to assume that NOAA were using this temperature anomaly to favorably hype a doom-saying agenda of ever-increasing temperatures that served the misinformation process of government propaganda.
As Pistis admitted, all such satellite data is fed automatically into records and apparently as long as it showed high enough temperatures to satisfy the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) advocates of those numbers were not going to make careful scrutiny for at least half a decade.
Anderson bemoans, “One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us. Charles Pistis has evaded the repeated question of whether the temperature measurement data from such satellites has gone into the NOAA temperature record. This sure suggests this is an awkward question to answer.”
Now Satellites NOAA-17 and 18 Suffer Calamities
While NOAA’s Nero fiddles ‘Rome’ continues to burn, and the satellite network just keeps on falling apart. After NOAA-16 bit the dust last NOAA-17 became rated ‘poor’ due to “scan motor degradation” while NOAA-18′s gyro’s are regarded by many now as good as dead. However, these satellites that each cross the US twice per day at twelve-hour intervals are still giving “direct readout”(HRPT or APT) or central processing to customers. So please, NOAA, tell us – is this GIGO still being fed into official climate models?
http://www.ofcm.gov/slso/2008/NSLSOP_Draft_V6.pdf
NOAA-17 appears in even worse condition. On February 12 and 19 2010, NOAA-17 concedes it has “AVHRR Scan Motor Degradation” with “Product(s) or Data Impacted.”
Beleaguered NOAA customers have been told, “direct readout users are going to have to deal with the missing data gaps as best they can.”
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/SPBULL/MSG0502024.01.txt
On August 9 2010, NOAA 17 was listed as on ‘poor’ with scan motor problems and rising motor currents. NOAA admits, “Constant rephase by the MIRP was causing data dropouts on all the HRPT stream and APT and GAC derivatives. Auto re-phase has now been disabled and the resulting AVHRR products are almost all unusable.”
NOAA continues with tests on ’17′ with a view to finding a solution. On page 53 we find that NOAA-17 has an inoperable AMSU Instrument.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/weather-satellite-reports/message/2352
The status for August 17, 2010 was RED (not operational) and NOAA is undertaking “urgent gyro tests on NOAA 18.”
More evidence proving NOAA is running a “degrading” satellite network can be read here.
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/spacecraftStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=15
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Anthony: This entire episode got started much like mine – pointing out a problem to NSIDC. Here is the genesis of it, faulty water surface temperatures over Lake Michigan:
This analysis by Dr. Anderson, saying things like “favorably hype a doom-saying agenda” is ridiculous. There’s no cover up. This sensor degradation and failure is normal for the technology. Yes, the temperatures were off, the sensor failed. It happened to NSIDC also.
The only thing that can be said here is that they weren’t watching the output of automated SST product closely enough, which was the same issue with NSIDC when I found them (unknowingly) plotting faulty satellite sounder data. NOAA19 is now online and 100% for the AMSU channels, and many automated sea/ice products are moving to that. If you look at the spacecraft status page:
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/spacecraftStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=14
You’ll see this spacecraft was taken offline, after running for 12 years…and as you go through the spacecraft numbers, NOAA 15, 16, 17, 18, through NOAA 19 you’ll see they get progressively better, with NOAA 19 being fully operational, except for a caveat on the humidity sounder for channel H3.
Dr. Anderson The article says: “While NOAA’s Nero fiddles ‘Rome’ continues to burn, and the satellite network just keeps on falling apart.”
Technology fails with age. It’s normal. Just like an automobile losing a battery after 3 years, or needing a new water pump, spacecraft also have failures. Unlike your car, sometimes redundant sensors and systems keep its mission going. Also unlike a car, you just can’t bring it into the shop and ask them to swap in a new AMSU unit in an afternoon.
Despite many requests to carry this story on WUWT, I refused to, because it’s wrongly presented with the cover up angle. There is no fraud here, only simple and expected technological failure compounded by people not catching data errors soon enough.
Quality control is the issue, and yes, there has been a lot sloppy quality control lately at NOAA. For example, see my essay on Nuuk, Greenland and surface temperature.
Further, this data isn’t used in any global temperature calculations that I am aware of, as both UAH and RSS global satellite temperature data sets use different data from different sensors and platforms.
UAH in fact uses a completely different satellite, dubbed AQUA.
Thus the claim of “Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful” is simply false, especially since the well respected UAH global temperature anomaly satellite data set doesn’t even use this satellite.
This sort or essay by the “CO2 insanity” blog on Dr. Anderson does nothing to advance the cause of climate skepticism presented as it is. I suggest ignoring it (the fraud issue), and for skeptical websites carrying it, I suggest you either place a caveat on your posts or delete it. Focus on the quality control issues, get them fixed, then we can have useful arguments over the results of the data. – Anthony
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With due respect, though, the issue here is not the sensor failure, but rather the failure of the responsible institution to perform at least a modicum of quality control before releasing the data.
That same lack of care, or self discipline, is manifest in the data pilloried by your Surface Station project.
Clearly very little has changed since you started that effort.
REPLY: And I allude to the QC issue in my text. On this we agree. I just think the issue is presented in an over the top manner – Anthony
“either degraded or seriously comprised.”
Compromised ?
Like I am the typo Palice [lol] LOL
Good job Anthony, we can fight with truth not ,rotten tomatoes and cabbages…
Minor points of order. The Michigan Sea Grant Program is jointly administered by both Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/about/index.html
The Coastwatch webpage now carries a bold warning in red text on their main webpage that reads:
http://coastwatch.msu.edu/
“NOTICE (8/11/2010): Due to degradation of a satellite sensor used by this mapping product, some images have exhibited extreme high and low surface temperatures. Please disregard these images as anomalies. Future images will not include data from the degraded satellite and images caused by the faulty satellite sensor will be/have been removed from the image archive.”
Kudos to you Anthony for being even handed. It belies the claims of some that WUWT is an attack dog for the anti-AGW movement, and shows the justification for being the number 1 science blog.
Anthony, Are you saying that this no likelyhood that the global temp data set has been polluted as a result of the lack of QA at NOAA? Aye, Bob.
REPLY: No, but I am saying the that the failure of sensors on NOAA-16 and 17 has nothing to do with the global data set UAH and RSS, who use AQUA.
Checking on NOAA’s QC procedures is something we should always do. But never assume malice where simple incompetence will do. – Anthony
I’ve always found that the more the public pounds on a real problem, like quality, a problem that can be illustrated and understood, the more those in power are likely to listen. But if people persist in imagining there are problems or conspiracies or frauds where there are not, then the legit points get lost. Good call here Anthony. the noise of bad arguments drives the good arguments out of the room.
Right on Anthony Watts. Data quality is the most important issue. Data quality problems have been and probably will always be a frustration in any empirical science. It is all to easy to get sidetracked. Unfounded or questionable accusations are not useful in science or in public discourse. Dr. Anderson and others are free to express their opinions to anyone willing to listen. It is the listener’s choice to hear or not.
These near-real time products from the NOAA polar orbiters were never advertised to be climate-monitoring quality. NOAA instruments were designed for weather monitoring, and those of us who use them for climate do so at our own risk.
Everyone who works in the field knows that the data have a variety of problems…seldom do we ever get a satellite instrument that is fully functional, without some sort of calibration issue.
I would wager that the quality flags automatically generated by the AMSU in question would have made it clear that the bad data should NOT have been used to retrieve SSTs. It is the responsibility of the data user to determine whether the data are of sufficient quality for their purpose, using both data quality checks, and the quality flag values, before they generate SSTs from them.
The only other option is for NOAA (or NASA) to CENSOR some of the data…which none of us wants! We want to see the raw stuff, with all the warts…and as soon as we can get our hands on it!
We fought NASA for that right back in the 1980s, arguing that the scientific community should not have to wait until a handful of government employees decides their data adjustments are the final say.
This whole conspiratorial article fiasco has been a step backward, in my view. Thanks to Anthony for speaking out on it!
I live up in the area shown and I assure you it was not this warm. 🙂
Although it is clear that conspiracies clearly do exist (after all a major part of what the CIA does could accurately be described as conspiring), I find most conspiracy theories fall down because often it is cock-up, rather than conspiracy.
Anthony,
It is not always what a person or persons do. What is important is what they say/do when their errors are brought to them. If they circle the wagon, It is reasonable to assume there is more fire behind that smoke. Yes, there is a lot of data, and not enough clock cycles in person’s life to deal with it, and the paid employees have personal life too. but acknowledging the error is the only way it can be honestly rectified. 5 years after devendra singh, there has been no response.
another thing that relates to india. not directly related to this NOAA issue. in the last 63 years, indian metros have become huge, and their airports have grown more than even our own ( USA ) airports. population around the airports have grown enormously. lot more than the population and energy usage growth of india itself. but we are still picking up the temp data from those airports, and use them as representative of indian subcontinent’s temperature. That can’t be anywhere near acceptable
Steven Mosher,
“But if people persist in imagining there are problems or conspiracies or frauds where there are not, then the legit points get lost.”
I agree with you up to a point but feel you ignore the fact that in large bureaucracies, and this is what these government departments are, there exists, perhaps not ‘groupthink’ but at all times a ‘prevailing wind’ which conditions how
the organisation reports and responds. This prevailing wind is generally strong enough to subsume the science. It is therefore no wonder that people begin to see conspiracies.
Anthony and all others:
The UAH and RSS data sets use a different sensor as Anthony has pointed out, however that sensor on NOAA 16 also failed years ago and caused spurios readings back in 2005. Dr. Christy found the problem back then and UAH stopped using NOAA 16 data in Dec 2006 and removed all NOAA 16 data from Oct 2005 up to Dec 2006 from their dataset. RSS followed shortly their after. You can see what UAH did at this link :
ftp://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/pub/data/msu/t2lt/readme.13Apr2010
RSS can be seen here:
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
The problem with the whole thing is not that NOAA was trying to “boost” temps it was that they knew NOAA 16’s AVHRR was in permanent Yellow status since 2005 and they were still using it to do automatic dumps into a database, instead of using the at time new NOAA 18 (which had a good AVHRR at the time, this scan motor problem has plagued all AVHRR sensors on all the sats over time) and then over to NOAA 19:
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/componentStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=16&subsystem=4
That was the last entry for NOAA 16 and 5 years on that scan motor is still in yellow condition, never back to green status and it was used in 2010 for the Coastwatch program. Did they do that to “cook” the numbers, I highly doubt it, does it help show a pattern of incompetence? Yep. How else do you explain using a known bad sensor 5 years later in a program open to the public, while you had two new satellites in green at the time?
Re: never assume malice where simple incompetence will do.
Malice would have had them raising hundreds of readings a degree, not a few readings hundreds of degrees. It seems most likely to me that this was a glitch that didn’t get caught. When outsiders found it, they thought they could smooth over the problem quietly to avoid giving the skeptics another angle of attack. CYA.
Anthony
If there is nothing to hide,why call in the lawyers?Lawyers don’t get called in just because of a degrading satellite,not suggesting conspiracy or any such, but it just does’nt seem right to go to that length for equipment failure!!!
REPLY: The lawyer may be a reaction to initial over reaction. But, I don’t know the full story. I agree with the lawyer’s response though, the QC failure was at UM also, had they noticed, it would have traveled up the food technical food chain. – Anthony
Why do they use the term “interpolate” (which is the method of obtaining a value between data points), when the process they evidently used to come up with boiling lake water temperatures is “extrapolate” (the method of obtaining a value BEYOND data points by projecting an unsustainable trend)?
“But never assume malice where simple incompetence will do.”
Why prefer incompetence over malice as the cause? Does the evidence demonstrate it? I mean, we humans have overcrowded prisons, a unbroken history of criminalty, and personal experience with chicanery of all kinds. We observe means, motive and opportunity here. Is there something we are missing?
Andrew
Anthony says: “….people not catching data errors soon enough.”
Some are hard to miss & others require teasing out, the latter being what you and others have so ably demonstrated are somewhat more important to accomplish.
Why bring in lawyers for failure of a satellite, somethings not adding up here??
Anthony, You are pretty much correct in that these satellites age and their data begins to show errors and biases. I work on the control center systems for NASA/NOAA satellites and they spend a lot of money processing telemetry to not only detect failures, but predict them before they get serious. Everyone should hesitate on crying ‘cover up’ when satellites age as they all do.
I got about a quarter of the way through this screed and had to stop. I can only take so much spin before I get dizzy, even if it is in the direction I am already spinning in. Sheesh!
Don’t attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by selection bias.
BTW, a major part of one of my jobs was qualifying IC devices for NASA satellites. 12 years for a measurement instrument, getting temp cycled daily and blasted by the solar wind, to survive, is quite a feat.
[Reply – if you actually read it properly, the whole point of this post is to say that calling it a conspiracy is just plain wrong ~jove, mod]
Knowing that Dr. Anderson has carefully examined the physics behind the hoax of the Greenhouse gas effect, and commented on it in a very technical manner, to tell others to ignore his comments shows your own concern to cover your As* with your own, weather /temperature records. The fact that your data has shown that there has not been an atmospheric temperature increase, and is your bases for being a” skeptic” does not provide a reason to defend what’s is obviously gross malfeasances on the part of NOAA and the University of Michigan. It is time to let the chips fall where they may because there has been to much covering up of facts by CRU, NOAA, NASA, Judy Curry, and an endless list of Universities just to be sure that the “free government cheese” keeps coming.
Mann-made global warming is a hoax, fairy-tale, lies, Mother Goose rhymes etc. The Trillions of dollars, EU’s, Pasos, that have gone down the rat holes of fraudulent research because “bad scientists” have not been prosecuted for there crimes is more than criminal, it is a crime against humanity. This money could have been used for many useful and beneficial projects.
REPLY: CYA? Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. – Anthony
[Reply – if you actually read it properly, the whole point of this post is to say that calling it a conspiracy is just plain wrong ~jove, mod]
I think I might have done a poor job of stating what I was trying to say. Communicating is kind of difficult for me. I was in agreement with what Anthony was saying in this post. I was just stating my twist on the “malice” saying. What I had difficulty reading was the original article that was the subject of the post. E.g.
“In a fresh week of revelations when NOAA calls in their lawyers to handle the fallout, Anderson adds further fuel to the fire and fumes against NOAA, one of the four agencies charged with responsibility for collating global climate temperatures. NOAA is now fighting a rearguard legal defense to hold onto some semblance of credibility with growing evidence of systemic global warming data flaws by government climatologists.”
Wow!
1. Why does any error (“error”) always (without exception) favour the Warmists case?
2. Why is any error (“error”) only acknowledged(reluctantly)/corrected(even more reluctantly) when we (you, and all like-minded individuals) discover it?