We’ve seen examples time and again of the cooling of the past via homogenization that goes on with GISS, HadCRUT, and other temperature data sets. By cooling the data from the past, the trend/slope of the temperature for the last 100 years increases.
This time, the realization comes from an unlikely source, Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground via contributor Christopher C. Burt. An excerpt of the story is below:
Inconsistencies in NCDC Historical Temperature Analysis
Jeff Masters and I recently received an interesting email from Ken Towe who has been researching the NCDC historical temperature database and came across what appeared to be some startling inconsistencies. Namely that the average state temperature records used in the current trends analysis by the NCDC (National Climate Data Center) do not reflect the actual published records of such as they appeared in the Monthly Weather Reviews and Climatological Data Summaries of years past. Here is why.
An Example of the Inconsistency
Here is a typical example of what Ken uncovered. Below is a copy of the national weather data summary for February 1934. If we look at, say Arizona, for the month we see that the state average temperature for that month was 52.0°F.
The state-by-state climate summary for the U.S. in February 1934. It may be hard to read, but the average temperature for the state of Arizona is listed as 52.0°F From Monthly Weather Review.
However, if we look at the current NCDC temperature analysis (which runs from 1895-present) we see that for Arizona in February 1934 they have a state average of 48.9°F, not the 52.0°F that was originally published:
Here we see a screen capture of the current NCDC long-term temperature analysis for Arizona during Februaries. Note in the bar at the bottom that for 1934 they use a figure of 48.9°.
Ken looked at entire years of data from the 1920s and 1930s for numerous different states and found that this ‘cooling’ of the old data was fairly consistent across the board. In fact he produced some charts showing such. Here is an example for the entire year of 1934 for Arizona:
The chart above shows how many degrees cooler each monthly average temperature for the entire state of Arizona for each month in 1934 was compared to the current NCDC database (i.e. versus what the actual monthly temperatures were in the original Climatological Data Summaries published in 1934 by the USWB (U.S. Weather Bureau). Note, for instance, how February is 3.1°F cooler in the current database compared to the historical record. Table created by Ken Towe.
Read the entire story here: Inconsistencies in NCDC Historical Temperature Analysis
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The explanation given is that they changed from the ‘Traditional Climate Division Data Set’ (TCDD) to a new ‘Gridded Divisional Dataset’ (GrDD) that takes into account inconsistencies in the TCDD. “.
Yet as we have seen time and time again, with the exception of a -0.05°C cooling applied for UHI (which is woefully under-represented) all “adjustments, improvements, and fiddlings” to data applied by NCDC and other organizations always seem to result in an increased warming trend.
Is this purposeful mendacity, or just another example of confirmation bias at work? Either way, I don’t think private citizen observers of NOAA’s Cooperative Observer Program who gave their time and efforts every day for years really appreciate that their hard work is tossed into a climate data soup then seasoned to create a new reality that is different from the actual observations they made. In the case of Arizona and changing the CLimate Divisions, it would be the equivalent of changing state borders as saying less people lived in Arizona in 1934 because we changed the borders today. That wouldn’t fly, so why should this?
Sure there are all sorts of “justifications” for these things published by NCDC and others, but the bottom line is that they are not representative of true reality, but of a processed reality.
h/t to Dr. Ryan Maue.
UPDATE: Here’s a graph showing cumulative adjustments to the USHCN subset of the entire US COOP surface temperature network done by Zeke Hausfather and posted recently on Lucia’s Blackboard:
This is calculated by taking USHCN adjusted temperature data and subtracting USHCN raw temperature data on a yearly basis. The TOBS adjustment is the lion’s share.
Time to call the cops!
This is an outrageous foul! Where’s the Umpire when you need him in this game?
It is called modelling. And as I know they are not very good in that.
What are “Inconsistencies”? – Modern term for “Cooking the books”?
We need Ed Begeley Jr on this. He can reassure us that it’s all Peer Reviewed and thus the people who measured the temperature back then, not being Climatologists with letters after their names, didn’t know how to read thermometers.
If 1934 was cooled by an average of three degrees, wouldn’t that mean we are actually cooler now than then?
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory.”
Doubleplusungood!
Not familiar with the American system. Can you impeach the weatherfolk?
Or is Andrew geenfield riht – and the only option is to call Phoenix PD and lay information about a fraud? That won’t do science, generally, a lot of good.
Are we moving to a post-scientific age, where celebrity – or Teamwork – trumps facts, carfully researched and un-dramatically presented?
[On present trend, DC and much of Maryland will be covered by a kilometer-deep ice cap by 2025, extrapolating the cooling seen last night, using a model I made (up) earlier. /Sarc. /Not real!]
Seriously, a rational human would expet adjustmenst to be, basically, fairly evenly distributed about the neutral.
As described, it smacks of a very biased die.
Cui Bono?
War is peace. Hot is cold. What else is new?
I hope these data vandals are keeping a careful record of their ‘adjustments’ so the records can be un-bent later.
People have gone to jail for less than this.
All who still trust government, raise your hands.
Both of them… this is a stickup.
Don’t they have to adjust for the sea floor sinking or something like that…………………
Steven Goddard has been posting these “inconsistencies” for years…………….
Its time the big people that matter that are likely to be running the show soon are made aware of this and the Hockey stick Scandals (yes it has now become plural) ie persons such as Romney, Abbot and with money like Gina Rhinehart in Australia
“From the Peoples Central Statistical Office. The current five-year plan continues to advance well ahead of schedule thanks to the glorious foresight of the Great Leader. Tractor production is up 45.3% since last year. Work harder, dedicated Stakhanovites, for the Great Day will soon dawn for us all.”
Got to hide those warm 1930s!
Being NOAA, wouldn’t Congress have oversight??? Someone ought to send this info. to the proper oversight Congressional Chairmen!
Well – it should be obvious that if the explanation is true, then as many of the gridcells should have increased temperatures as have decreased temperatures.
Without knowing how thorough the survey and its reporting is, we can’t say this is systematic bias. Hopefully the author will confirm whether they balance out.
Is this purposeful mendacity, or just another example of confirmation bias at work? Either way, I don’t think private citizen observers of NOAA’s Cooperative Observer Program who gave their time and efforts every day for years really appreciate that their hard work is tossed into a climate data soup then seasoned to create a new reality that is different from the actual observations they made.
You cut off the Weatherunderground story just as it gets good. In your view, if I happened to be stationed a mere ten yards away from another researcher, and we are supposed to be two people covering an area of hundreds of square miles, I should be concerned that my hard work was “tossed into a climate data soup” rather than properly considered as not accurately representative of the region we were supposed to be covering? If you had reprinted the full quotation provided over at weather underground that they had taken from Transitioning from the traditional divisional dataset to the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily gridded divisional dataset it would be clear that these adjustments make scientific sense and are not biased. I think the right thing to do at this point would be for you to bring the substance of that reference over here to prove me wrong, but I’ll wager you don’t do that.
REPLY: And you didn’t read what I said about them. They make no sense to me. Explain why virtually every adjustment made to the raw data causes a temperature trend increase. That’s your challenge. See also comment directly above. Moving the data boundaries around should balance out. It apparently doesn’t. This sort of adjustment wouldn’t be tolerated in a stock report if it made trends/performance improve. The SEC would be on that like white on rice. Why should it be any different here? – Anthony
Why is it that the older data that had less influence from man made structures, roads, changes to land, no air conditioning units, fewer parking lots and smaller airports is considered to have inconsistencies and must be “adjusted”?
The newer data is what is truly messed up with “man made” changes that affect the measurements.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/13/warming-in-the-ushcn-is-mainly-an-artifact-of-adjustments/
As Dr. Roy Spencer said about the NOAA-NCDC USHCN record, 1973-2012 (read original post for full context):
A year ago, I believed global warming was a gentle linear trend, starting around 1850 after the Little Ice Age, easily manageable and not a problem.
Now, I’m wondering if there really is any sort of linear trend, from about the start of the 20th century to now, or if there are really just “surges” like the short 1998 Super El Nino and longer ones like a positive PDO, a “charging” of the global temperature systems, that wears off in time, a “discharging”. And if that noticeable long-term trend is only a result of the data mangling.
And with the negative PDO and other indicators, we have about 20 years of global cooling coming which should knock down that slope, provided more adjustments don’t “hide the decline”.
Is it now conceivable that the already-seen “climate change” the CAGW doomsayers insist foretells devastation to come, never even happened?
What is the point of placing (I assume) calibrated thermometers at various locations and then later on, adjusting what those thermometers recorded in the past?
That’s about the same as measuring and recording the height of say trees in a location at a certain date and then at some point in the future, going back and adjusting the recorded height of those trees.
Fraud comes to mind.
I kind of would like to see an all comprehensive report on all the temperature adjustments ever made and ‘weather’ (it’s a pun) or not the vast majority of adjustments have made global warming look worse, about the same, or not as bad. If I were to guess, I’d say these adjustments on the whole, make AGW look worse.
Reminds me a bit of what James Lovelock said a few years about about how 80% of the ozone measurements were either faked or incompletely done. (I’m still waiting for the MSM to pick up on this and do an investigation into this claim just like they would do if a scientist from big tobacco or big oil had admitted in a newspaper that 80% of their measurements were faked or incompletely done.)
How extensive are the anomalies? I can’t find where he says that in the article
Well, the problem is that the highly authorative IPCC has shown that there is an overwelming consensus that anthropogenic factors have caused warming in the 20th century which is unprecedented. Therefore any data which does not agree with this consensus, such as the Arizona data from February 1934, must clearly represent the fringe viewpoint and must be corrected. The adjustments made to the data is obviously in line with the 98% consensus viewpoint and is therefore scientifically justified. Many, many, studies in Science and Nature have confirmed this.
/sarc (did I make you feel nauseous just now.)