Since we missed a few weeks on this feature while climategate roiled, I’m treating readers to a double feature this week.
This QOTW is from our friends at NASA GISS, who never excel in their quest to provided enlightenment and insightful windows into the way they work via recently FOIA’d emails from NASA GISS.
This one came from one of those emails, and centers around the Y2K error discovered in the Detroit Lakes data via the surfacestations survey done there and the controversy that surrounded a peculiar jump in the data.
“Hide this after Jim checks it”
Head on over to Climate Audit and read this gem by Steve McIntyre.
This is what I wrote on July 26th, 2007 about it in:
How Not to Measure Temperature, Part 25
This picture, taken by www.surfacestations.org volunteer Don Kostuch is the Detroit Lakes, MN USHCN climate station of record. The Stevenson Screen is sinking into the swamp and the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units.
The complete set of pictures is here
From NASA’s GISS, the plot makes it pretty easy to see there was no discernible multi-decadal temperature trend until the A/C units were installed. And it’s not hard to figure out when that was.
And as you know, that curious jump in the GISS record, even though it coincided with the placement of the a/c heat exchangers (I checked with the chief engineer of the radio station and he pulled the invoices to check), it turns out that wasn’t the most important issue.
Who says pictures don’t matter? In this case a single photo started an entire chain of events.
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It’s data, Jim, but not that you’d know it.
After one Marguerite in the blissfully warm Florida sun – I deem this quote of the week – a real winner.
Warm is good.
WUWT is too .
Brilliant….
I cannot say here what I would like to say when I see the jump gap in the graph.
The mad scientist at NASA creating the hottest decade on record.
Do his graphs have bolts in their neck?
Moderators: quick editing check.
Above Title: “Quote if the week”?
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs]
What would America think if it saw Steve M, and EM Smith painting James Hansen into a corner at a Senate Investigation hearing?
The actual analysis of individual temperature records will tell many interesting tales that aggregation of data hides. Appropriate measurement should always trump calculation.
“Quote if the week #27”
Seem to speak for itself.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs]
Hmm. Where do you hide an air conditioner that big?
“Hide this” is fast becoming the laugh line of the year. I need not elaborate.
Oh! “Quote of the week” not “if the week”
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs]
“. . . quest to provided enlightening . . . .”
Typo?
[Thanks, fixed. ~dbs]
Jim
Wait a sec… this proves that that warming is man made!
Are you kidding? That is ths strongest temperature station in the country:
Sorry, your “sinking into the swamp” line triggered a flashback 🙂
I blinked the Detroit Lakes chart above with the current GISS homogenized version.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2llga6w.jpg
They corrected the Air Conditioning temp jump by raising the pre-AC temperatures.
How many frauds must be revealed by auditing before the alleged Anthropomorphic Global Warming Climate Change Hypothesis (AAGWCCH) dam breaks and collapses into shards in public view? What will be the proverbial last straw? How long can Blood & Gore, Pachauri, Maurice Strong, Mann, Jones, …, et. al. and others keep their fingers in the dam holding back the devastation that awaits their careers? How long before they end up in that newly reopened supermax prison in Illinois for their crimes against humanity?
Of course some, such as Strong, are out of reach of the law as he allegedly resides out of reach inside the perimeter of the Great Wall of China likely plotting his socialist take over of the planet via the climate scams.
I suppose we won’t know which audited claim or discovered factual piece of information will be the one that tickles that last card holding up the house of cards that is the fracturing AAGWCCH edifice.
Excellent quote, but Anthony’s piece here misses Steve McIntyre’s interesting piece on what was hidden, with his conjecture as to why. What was asked to be hidden was Hansen’s note at the NASA website, a note about the GISS adjustments that were rapidly made in response to Steve Mc’s discovery in August 2007 of a glitsch in January 2000 throughout the GISS records.
Despite having its own serious station problems as well, Detroit Lakes was in this episode the trigger that alerted Steve to look closely at the whole record. GISS responded by altering the “raw” US data up to 2000, to “hide the incline” at that point, and smooth the line. Hansen and his followers wrote a note that was to be “hidden” on the NASA website, Steve surmises, because going to the official NASA website by the front door would require peer-review, and this was not desired.
photon without a Higgs (11:38:42) :
It won’t happen. Certainly not as long as “Don’t call me Ma’am” Senator Boxer runs the show.
Even Senator Barton didn’t call McIntyre – he had North and Wegman testify. North gave just enough tetimony to cloud the issue and Wegman destroyed the Hockey Stick. Guess who the press covered?
Just read Steves piece from your CA link. Unbelievable what the flies on NASA’s wall knew but the world didn’t.
Never been to Detroit Lakes but with those av temps I’m surprised they need aircon. A roaring fire, maybe.
This is the funniest global warming picture.
Makes me sick to see the errors and cheating.
@ur momisugly Mike McMillan (13:00:34):
They corrected the Air Conditioning temp jump by raising the pre-AC temperatures
Which is why, as a numbers guy, this whole GISS “adjustment” thing smacks of someone got a sign wrong in the computer code. Like they’re counting backward and adjusting prior years rather than adjusting “future” years. Counting backward in a loop rather than forward would be easy to do, and difficult to discover without good testing, which is something that these guys probably don’t do.
Of course, now they’re in too deep to admit the error, even if discovered.
It’s all that Heidi DeKline’s fault. She’s bad news, distracting those hard working datafudgers.
@Britannic
Mean annual temp for MN is a nearly useless metric. We have some of the largest temp swings on the planet. We can easily range 100+F over the course of a year. We get some lovely humidity in the summer to boot.
The whole process of gathering, processing and reporting of these temperatures needs to be completely re-evaluated and redone. There’s just too much doubt. The first thing I would do is discard all readings that are located at urban areas like airports, buildings and car parks. These are definitely “poisoned” and should be invalidated for the purpose of generating an average world temperature. If I were to take the temperature of a sick patient, I would not be placing the thermometer on the cigarette that patient happened to be smoking at the time. One would say this is just common sense. When it comes to climate science, there’s definitely not much of that.