I’ve noticed there’s a lot of frenetic tweeting and re-tweeting of this “sound bite” sized statement from this Climate Central piece by Andrew Freedman.
July was the fourth-warmest such month on record globally, and the 329th consecutive month with a global-average surface temperature above the 20th-century average, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
It should be noted that Climate Central is funded for the sole purpose of spreading worrisome climate missives. Yes it was a hot July in the USA too, approximately as hot as July 1936 comparing within the USHCN, No debate there. It is also possibly slightly cooler if you compare to the new state of the art Climate Reference Network.
But, those comparisons aside, here’s what Climate Central’s Andrew Freedman and NOAA/NCDC won’t show you when discussing the surface temperature record:
Since I know some people (and you know who you are) won’t believe the graph above created by taking the final adjusted USHCN data used for public statements and subtracting the raw data straight from the weather station observers to show the magnitude of adjustments. So, I’ll put up the NCDC graph, that they provided here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
But they no longer update it, nor provide an equivalent for USHCN2 (as shown above), because well, it just doesn’t look so good.
As discussed in: Warming in the USHCN is mainly an artifact of adjustments on April,13th of this year, this graph shows that when you compare the US surface temperature record to an hourly dataset (ISH ) that doesn’t require a cartload of adjustments in the first place, and applies a population growth factor (as a proxy for UHI) all of the sudden, the trend doesn’t look so hot. The graph was prepared by Dr. Roy Spencer.
There’s quite an offset in 2012, about 0.7°C between Dr. Spencer’s ISH PDAT and USHCN/CRU. It should be noted that CRU uses the USHCN data in their data, so it isn’t any surprise to find no divergence between those.
Similar, but not all, of the adjustments are applied to the GHCN, used to derive the global surface temperature average. That data is also managed by NCDC.
Now of course many will argue that the adjustments are necessary to correct the data, which has all sorts of problems with inhomogenity, time of observation, siting, missing data, etc. But, none of that negates this statement: July was also the 329th consecutive month of positive upwards adjustment to the U.S. temperature record by NOAA/NCDC
In fact, since the positive adjustments clearly go back to about 1940, it would be accurate to say that: July was also the 864th consecutive month of positive upwards adjustment to the U.S. temperature record by NOAA/NCDC.
Dr Spencer concluded in his essay Warming in the USHCN is mainly an artifact of adjustments :
And I must admit that those adjustments constituting virtually all of the warming signal in the last 40 years is disconcerting. When “global warming” only shows up after the data are adjusted, one can understand why so many people are suspicious of the adjustments.
To counter all the Twitter madness out there over that “329th consecutive month of above normal temperature”, I suggest that WUWT readers tweet back to the same people that it is also the 329th or 864th consecutive month (your choice) of upwards adjustments to the U.S. temperature record.
Here’s the shortlink to make it easy for you:
“Lies. Damn lies. And statistics.” We in England have a statue to the guy who (apparently) said that – President Lincoln. It’s in Parliament Square.
And, I suggest, he would recognise the import of the post above, that much – at least, of the touted CAGW is a statistical artefact.
Have a wonderful one!
Mark Twain: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
How come we can’t get the Main Stream Media to report on this Graph from the NOAA??
It would seem to me that the Graph itself would put much of the AGW hyperventilating to rest.
What are the physical processes that underlie the upwards adjustment of the raw tempertature records?
After much reading, I have not yet heard one good explanation, based on a physical process for doing so.
If you consider Urban Heat Island, then present temperatures should be adjusted down. But they adjust them up?
Freedman??? I wonder if he sees the irony in there.
I wonder if the warmistas get away with a lot of their “unprecedented”,”never seen”,etc statements is because they are aimed at,and devoured by,KIDS? Of course 100F is going to be all of the above,if you are only 20 yrs young.
USHCN is only the U.S. [“adjusted”] data. But the central question concerns global warming. So let’s look at the global satellite record, which is by far the most accurate temperature measurement.
Well, when you realise the headline scary stuff was made by government, and/or, quasi-government bureaucrats just doing the bidding of their political masters, which is:
“Make us look green and good when we increase taxes and give out insane subsidies for renewable energy to our buddies.”.
lame……three times it was hotter
It looks like during the 90ies they found other ways to manipulate the temperature – probably by killing thermometers – so they stopped adjusting upwards. Do they have a political reason to show ever increasing temperatures? Maybe they get paid more on hot days?
Anthony:
Your post pertains to the frequent adjustment to the U.S. temperature record by NOAA/NCDC. However, the same problem exists for all the global temperature data sets obtained from ‘surface’ measurements.
The frequency of these adjustments prevented publication of a paper of which I was lead author. That paper shows the global temperature data sets are ‘not fit for purpose’. An email about this from me was one of the documents leaked from CRU by ‘climategate’. Hence, I made a submission about it to the UK Parliament’s Select Committee that did the so-called investigation of (actually a whitewash of) ‘climategate’.
My submission explains how the frequent changes to the global temperature data sets prevented publication of the paper, and why those data sets are not ‘fit for purpose’. It includes as Appendices the pertinent email and a draft of the paper. It is on the UK Parliamentary Record where it can be read at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
Richard
Dr. Deanster: “How come we can’t get the Main Stream Media to report on this Graph from the NOAA??”
Because that would go against MSM’s political agenda. The MSM is not about reporting truth or fact. MSM is about disseminating propaganda and driving society to a predetermined goal. Global Warming has never been about man-made CO2 and it’s claimed effects on earth’s climate.
Global Warming is about driving society to a elitists group’s idea of Utopia. While, the United Nations saw Global Warming as a way to redistribute wealth, power, and control via guilt trip and fines using a well orchestrated ruse. Naturally, the Greenies who despise wealth and power, and longed for Utopia, were all to eager join in the SCAM. As for the so called scientists of Global Warming, they jumped on board Global Warming, since it meant nearly unlimited funding forced out of Taxpayers. Global Warming continues now, because they are all in so deep; some to the point of prosecution for waste, fraud, and abuse.
“comparing within he USHCN” missing T
Smokey on August 19, 2012 at 2:14 pm
That’s nice smokey, pity we don’t live In the
Lower Stratosphere!
RSS shows a trend of .133k per decade down here, but you already know that don’t you….
There is a very clear description of the reasons behind the adjustments here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
You really do not adress the reasons for the adjustments in this post. If you want to make the point that the adjustments are not justified, or not correct, you need to give arguments for that!
REPLY: And yet, it still doesn’t change the headline whether the adjustments are valid or not. – Anthony
Absurd. And a scientific fraud.
Could someone please tell me why the general public is never told that the temperature records are changed by government activists to make the tempuratures look hotter? If FaceBook was cooking the corportate records in such a fashion someone would go to jail. How does Hansen and crew get away with this so blatently? Serious question: how do they get away with it?
I believe 329 is a lie.
Here is the most recent January’s
Year Temperature Rank
2012 36.49 115 115
2011 29.87 35 35
2010 30.92 56 56
2009 31.19 59 59
2008 30.83 55 55
2007 31.66 67 67
2006 39.71 118 118
2005 33.61 95 95
2004 30.61 51 51
Look at all the low rankings!
Well, we are still creeping out of the little ice age. What would you rather have, a frost every month?
Smokey, the global satellite record seems to reveal the real source of the current USHCN U.S. data adjustment amount. The drop in the satellite record from 1980 looks a lot like an inversion of the amounts of the increasing USHCN adjustments upward, Perhaps they monitor the most accurate temperature measurement from the satellites to see what they have to add each month to keep up with Nature.
CAGS = Catastrophic Antrhopogenic Global Scamming
Jan 1900 to Jul 2012 = 1339 months.
1200 months for 1900 to 2001, leaving 139 months for the start of the 21st century.
So far, then, 139/1200 of the 21st century is above the average of the 20th century (about 11%). In another 1061 months, we’ll see if this century is hotter or not.
But now to the 20th century values. Their values imply that the last 190 months of the 20th century were warmer than the average of the 1010 months prior. Since they like ratios, a quick calculation means there was at least a 1010:190 (101:19) ratio of cooler months (below the average) to warmer months (above the average).
Wow. Sure seems that it’s worse than we thought.
Well, it is.
For example, GISS says that the best ESTIMATE for absolute global mean (based on an averaging period from 1950-1981) is 57.2 deg-F. So that’s their “zero”, the point at which they’d say a particular month is above the 20th century average..
But this article is based on NCDC data, and their page says the 20th century average is 60.4 deg-F. And they used the entire century for their averaging period.
NCDC’s 20th century average is 3.2 degrees HIGHER than GISS’s 20th century average.
Seems that none of the “climate scientists” can say exactly what the 20th century average was – which makes the whole “it’s been the 329th consecutive month with a global-average surface temperature above the 20th-century average” an exercise in stupidity.
Looking at those two graphs you might wonder If they changed the correction from degF to degC but forgot to adjust the numbers. Reminds me of when we decimalised the pound sterling and a lot of shops simply changed the d’s to p’s. The effect was similar.
I read the adjustments description at the site given by Peter Roessingh, and it is clear that they are happily adjusting against the UHI when sites are moved from urban to rural or airports. But that presupposes that the UHI was constant at the old site throughout its history, when in fact the UHI would have been gradually increasing throughout. The old sites would have been well-placed at their inception, with subsequent urban development necessitating the eventual shift of sites. I daresay that process of steady UHI build-up throughout the life of the old sites has not been adjusted for in the official datasets, as that would constitute a significant downwards adjustment, negating much of the existing upward adjustments.
Smokey says: August 19, 2012 at 2:14 pm
“USHCN is only the U.S. [“adjusted”] data. But the central question concerns global warming. So let’s look at the global satellite record, which is by far the most accurate temperature measurement.”
Smokey, you should understand the data you cut & paste before drawing any conclusions. “TLS” data is for the stratosphere. Since the total energy from the earth is about constant, a drop in temperature (and hence a drop on energy from the stratosphere) would be expected in order to counteract the warming (and increased energy output from the ground.
The DROP that you point out for the STRATOSPHERE is, in fact, exactly what the IPCC expects to accompany WARMING in the TROPOSPHERE. So your data is supporting the IPCC’s models and conclusions. Thanks! 🙂
To Dr Deanster
You stated “How come we can’t get the Main Stream Media to report on this Graph from the NOAA??
It would seem to me that the Graph itself would put much of the AGW hyperventilating to rest.”
I believe you answered your own question. They are part of the progressive team pushing for the real agenda of controlling peoples actions. I think it has, long ago, passed from being about saving the planet. The climate, along with environmentalism in general has just become a means to an end.