This is an addition to the post Fishy Temperature Proxy by Anthony Watts.
INTRODUCTION
A new paper about fish migration patterns from 1970 to 2006 is getting some attention by the press. My Figure 1 is Figure 2 from Cheung et al (2013). Click it to enlarge it.
Figure 1
As usual, global warming enthusiasts in the press overlook some basic issues—like the sea surface temperatures for the Indian and Pacific Oceans from pole to pole haven’t warmed in 19+ years, and the Atlantic data show little warming for more than a decade. Further, the tropical Indian and Pacific sea surface temperatures haven’t warmed since 1986. It’s therefore difficult to make claims like “more evidence of a rapidly warming planet”, but that doesn’t stop proponents of hypothetical human-induced global warming.
BACKGROUND
Anthony Watts presented the press release for the paper Cheung et al (2013) Signature of ocean warming in global fisheries catch in the WattsUpWithThat post Fishy Temperature Proxy. And ClimateDepot’s Marc Morano alerted me earlier in the day to Lenny Bernstein’s May 15th article in the Washington Post. See “Worlds fish have been moving to cooler waters for decades, study finds”. The first two paragraphs of Bernstein’s article read (my boldface):
Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday.
The research, published in the journal Nature, provides more evidence of a rapidly warming planet and has broad repercussions for fish harvests around the globe.
Rapidly warming planet? Maybe the author of the Washington Post article should check sea surface temperature data before making nonsensical comments.
The University of British Columbia press release for the Cheung et al (2013) paper is titled “Fish thermometer” reveals long-standing, global impact of climate change. The opening two paragraphs of the press release provide a good overview of the paper:
Climate change has been impacting global fisheries for the past four decades by driving species towards cooler, deeper waters, according to University of British Columbia scientists.
In a Nature study published this week, UBC researchers used temperature preferences of fish and other marine species as a sort of “thermometer” to assess effects of climate change on the worlds oceans between 1970 and 2006.
I found no explanation in the paper about why they ended the study period in 2006 for a paper published in 2013 or, phrased another way, why they overlooked the most recent 6 years of sea surface temperature data. That aside…
WHAT THE PRESS RELEASE AND THE WASHINGTON POST AREN’T BOTHERING TO TELL THE PUBLIC
As noted in the introduction, the sea surface temperature anomalies of the Indian and Pacific Oceans from pole to pole (90S-90N, 20E-70W) haven’t warmed in 19 years. See Figure 2. The sea surface temperature anomalies for this major portion of the global oceans obviously warmed during the study period, 1970 to 2006, but they show no warming if the data is extended to current times and if we start the trend analysis in January 1994. In other words, the sea surface temperature data for about 70% of the surface of the global oceans provide no indication of warming for almost 2 decades.
Figure 2
That leaves us with the Atlantic data. It also shows warming from 1970 through 2006, but if we examine the data from January 2002 to January 2013, the trend has been remarkably flat—which suggests a possible slowdown in the warming rate of the sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic, too. It’s a little early to tell there, though, because there have been similar decadal slowdowns in the rate of warming in the Atlantic since 1970. It’s only a matter of time there, though. Eventually, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation will cause the sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic to peak, flatten and then start to cool—as it has for hundreds if not thousands of years. See NOAA’s FAQ webpage about the AMO.
Figure 3
The press release provides a link to a Pew Charitable Trusts – Environmental Initiatives overview of Cheung et al (2013). There they state (my boldface):
The authors found that, except in the tropics, catch composition in most ecosystems slowly changed to include more warm-water species and fewer cool-water species. In the tropics, the catch followed a similar pattern from 1970 to 1980 and then stabilized, likely because there are no species with high enough temperature preferences to replace those that declined. Statistical models showed that the increase in warm-water species was significantly related to increasing ocean temperatures.
What they forgot to tell you was that the sea surface temperatures of the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans (24S-24N, 35E-80W) warmed drastically in response to the 1976 Pacific Climate Shift, see Figure 4, and then have remained relatively flat since then. In fact, the sea surface temperatures of the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans show no warming since 1986, or for more than 2 ½ decades.
Figure 4
So where’s the “rapidly warming planet”?
CHEUNG ET AL (2013) DIDN’T SPECIFICALLY IDENTIFY THE HADISST SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE DATA
Usually, peer-reviewed papers identify what datasets were used in the study. This courtesy appears to have been overlooked in Cheung et al (2013). Figure 2 in Cheung et al (2013) suggests a sea surface temperature dataset that has been infilled, because the trend analysis maps in their Figure 2 show data in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. And they also refer to the Hadley Centre’s sea surface temperature climatology in the paper. But for sea surface temperatures, Cheung et al (2013) don’t cite the expected Rayner et al (2003) for HADISST. They cite Belkin (2009) Rapid warming of large marine ecosystems, which cites Rayner et al (2003).
CLOSING
The Cheung et al (2013) paper hasn’t yet received the normal end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it hype from the alarmist blogs Climate Progress and SkepticalScience. It’s still a little early, though. Give Climate Progress and SkepticalScience a little while before they join the Washington Post, where Lenny Bernstein elected to make the claim of a “rapidly warming planet”. As so often happens, claims about warming sea surface temperatures are not supported by sea surface temperature data.
And of course, ocean heat content and satellite-era sea surface temperature data indicate the oceans warmed naturally. If this topic is new to you, refer to the illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” [42MB].
Sorry Bob. As soon as I read the “Journal”, no need to carry on. I could write their peer-reviewed propoganda in my sleep.
Fish populations are an interesting subject. There has definitely been some serious over-fishing, especially by the former Soviet Union back in the 1950-1980 period, and the damage they did to fish stocks, (and to the sea bottom, in places,) caused a derangement of the ecosystem, and that system still seems out of kilter, using the standards of “how the fishing used to be.”
I don’t think the “experts” understand what exactly is going on. Considering a single female codfish lays 4 million eggs, the codfish population off the coast of New England seemingly ought to have bounced back swiftly, but it has remained unchanged, even when they cut back on how many fish are allowed to be netted, more and more.
The deranged ecosystem likely has some species which thrived when the population of codfish shrank, and in some ways replaced the codfish’s niche in the ecosystem. Also there may be some tiny critter that just loves codfish eggs, which is thriving in the warm AMO. Or perhaps one of a multitude of other factors are involved.
In any case the ecosystem is in a state of flux and transition, and using it for any sort of proxies seems fraught with danger. Proxies require a stability which is utterly lacking in the oceanic ecosystem at all times, and especially now.
For example, every La Nina leads to rich up-welling off the coast of Peru, and fish populations boom. However sometimes the big boom is in the anchovies population, and sometimes it is the sardines. They haven’t figured out why it is one fish one time, and another fish another time. A mystery is involved, and the mystery occurred even back in colonial times, when no over-fishing was involved.
I love mysteries, but mysteries make lousy proxies.
I second the motion:
“I love mysteries, but mysteries make lousy proxies.”
Just a flawed paper and an even more flawed ‘peer-review!’
Much is fishy here. But not how cold nutrient rich upwelling bottom dwelling waters increase fish food supplies which then (unbelievable science!) attract fish. That, after all, is how South American fishermen came to name El Niño (when it doesn’t happen).
This discussion including of the paper seems to be, to quote the Bard, Much Ado About Nothing.
Let us take a look at who Mr. William Cheung is. According to his biography:
‘William is an Assistant Professor at the UBC Fisheries Centre since 2011. William obtained a BSc. (Biology) in 1998, and subsequently a M.Phil. in 2001 from the University of Hong Kong. After working in WWF Hong Kong for two years, he moved to Vancouver and completed his PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies in the UBC Fisheries Centre in 2007. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Sea Around Us project for two years. From 2009 to 2011, he was Lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Services in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia in the UK.’
What the foregoing leads me to believe is that he doesn’t know diddly-squat about fish. For some not very surprising reason I see positively nothing in his academic description that even remotely alludes to the idea he might possibly be an ichthyologist. Did I just say there wasn’t a very surprising reason not to expect him to have ichthyologist hiding somewhere in his résumé? Could it be because he was a lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Services in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of … East Anglia? My, my that university gets around. And it sure seems to house, feed, and caress an exclusive club. And the more I see of this tight knit bunch I realize that none of them are genuine specialists in the areas they attempt to bamboozle us.
I’m confused here. Why would fish move to cooler waters? If they liked cooler waters they could have all swum to the poles during the Devonian and just stayed there. Wouldn’t they move to waters of the same temperature? In which case why not just show the changes in water temperature and be done with it?
Following up on Tom J’s comment, my experience is, if you want to identify a fish, best to look at a fishing reference book rather than an academic one.
My view is, this lot are …. lying scum. [edit if necessary]
Miles long and thousands of foot deep gill nets, pulled by industrial fishing ships that strip the entire marine ecosystem of life are no laughing matter, and the probable cause of the remaining fish moving to the food, or safety of the depth. However, this and the preceding “Fishy Temperature Proxy” indicates that today’s topic is funny fish stories, so my favorite….
An old man goes out to a lake to fish one day, baits his hook and casts into the water. He hears a voice….
“Pick me up”
Looks around, doesn’t see anything, then hears the voice again….
“Pick me up”
He looks down and sitting on lilly pad is a frog, who clearly says….
“Pick….me….up”
The old man reaches down, picks up the frog who then says….
“If you kiss me i’ll turn into a beautiful princess and be with you for the rest of your life”
The old man pauses….”Ummm”….sticks the frog in his shirt pocket….
The frog panics….
“Didn’t you hear me ? Kiss me and i’ll turn into a PRINCESS ! ! !”
The old man opens his pocket and says….
“At my age i’d rather have a talking frog”
I think we are all done with the AGW princess….kindly give us back our functional science….
BTW….a talking frog would be far better conversation than a climatologist.
I know for a fact that in the EU zone fisheries are being over-fished/depleted and have been for decades not because fishery supply can’t meet demand it’s purely because of stupid EU regulations, quotas and quotas on certain fish. Any fish caught that is not in the quota, it’s thrown back into the sea, dead of course. Estimates for this waste are something in the order of 1.5 million tonnes annually.
[Just a little bit of the fish tale to give you an idea of its flavor]
“Study Methods
Dr. William Cheung of the University of British Columbia … They assigned each species a temperature preference based on the average sea surface temperature in areas where that species was predicted to have occurred between 1970 and 2000. … researchers determined the connection between ocean warming and changes in fisheries catch by using a statistical model that separates out other factors, such as fishing effort and oceanographic variability.
Results
… Statistical models showed that the increase in warm-water species was significantly related to increasing ocean temperatures.
Implications
Earlier research led by Dr. Cheung predicted continuing changes in fish distribution and catch as oceans warm (Cheung et al. 2010). … Additional impacts could include … conflicts over new fisheries that emerge because of distribution shifts</b … .”
[Emphasis mine.]
Source: http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/fact-sheets/warming-oceans-are-reshaping-fisheries-85899475142
***********************************************
Key line of entire abstract: “new fisheries that emerge because of distribution shifts.”
Thus, (granting, ad argumentum, that fish are even migrating due to warming ocean water) this (as stated above by others) IS NOT A REAL PROBLEM.
Thus, (again, ad argumentum) the mystery [indeed, Caleb], continues.
Oh, Mycroft? Mycroft?? Where is that deuced brother of yours? Out at East Anglia doing drugs with the Climatologists? Oh. Pity. Well, somebody, ring up Poirot, would you? =|(:})[–)K
Must be time to panic, it’s not just fish, but whales too: http://pindanpost.com/2013/05/12/more-non-science-at-murdoch-university-and-canberra/ the pocket liners need more funding.
As with many other commenters I’d like to see something in the paper that accounts for an increase in human fishing activities in recent decades and indeed overfishing. If the fishermen are fishing more in temperate areas then unsurprisingly fish that can live on both temperate and colder waters will be see in greater relative proportions in the colder waters where there are fewer fishermen
“‘At my age I’d rather have a talking frog.'” LOL, Joseph Olson — great fable.
And, then, the old man sold his talking frog to Michael Mann et. al. who upon its answering, “No” to the query: “Can humans alter earth’s climate?” smashed it over the head with his hockey stick, killing it. Then, he turned it into a hand puppet, er “model.” Now, Mann and Hansen and all their buddies carry it all over the world, charging a lot of money to hear their frog “talk.” When little kids ask them why their lips move when the puppet talks, they bring out the AGWer’s favorite explanation: “SHUT UP!” [from Ring Lardner’s “‘Shut up,’ he explained.”]
“Well, what in the world does that pupp-, er model say?” You may ask. ANYTHING.
******************
Thanks, Bob Tisdale, for keeping us in the real world where data is data and facts are facts.
Researchers are clueless when it comes to fish and water temperatures. Every diver knows that temperature can vary by a few degrees in just a few feet change in depth, or a few feet further out. Professional fisherman look for those boundary changes all the time, because that’s where the pelagics hang out. Some like it hot: http://pindanpost.com/2013/02/21/propaganda-heating-up-now-its-scorched-fish/
Hello Bob
Tangentially, I am planning to do an upgrade/update to the WUWT ENSO Reference page;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/enso/
and in researching it I came across these NOAA Nino 3.4 and 4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly graphs that extend back ~ 112 Years:
Nino 3.4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly 1900 – 1953
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/eln-f1-pg.gif
Nino 3.4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly 1950 ~ 12-Jun-2012
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/eln-f-pg.gif
Nino 4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly 1900 – 1953
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/lan-f1-pg.gif
Nino 4 Region Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly 1950 ~ 12-Jun-2012
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/lan-f-pg.gif
Not sure why they decided to split the graphs at ~ 1950,… Are you familiar with the data set/s that these graphs are based upon? Do you have a sense for how accurate the data is, especially during the first half of the last century? Do you think the 1900 – 1953 graphs are WUWT Reference Page worthy? Do you see any issues with combining the two graphs to show the full 112 years?
If you followed their arguments, any man seeing a horny woman should have a 25ft penis by daybreak, always assuming you caught the ‘rising libido’ index at the critical times………
Stock markets would only ever rise, never fall.
Okay kids…one more fish story….
This couple are in bed watching TV one night….and the husband has the remote control….
as things should be….he keeps changing the channel….
porn….fishing….
porn….fishing….
porn….fishing….
Finally the wife says….
“Will you STOP that….that is SO annoying”
Husband says….”stop what”‘
Wife says….”Look just pick one channel or the other”
Husband…”Well….fine….since it’s your suggestion….why don’t you pick the channel”
Wife….”Fine….let’s watch porn”
Husband…”And WHY do you….want to….watch porn ? ? ?”
Wife…”Cause….you already know how to FISH”
BTW….If there are any talking frogs out there….i’m interested.
One of the things I’ve noticed about biologists studying fish behaviour – they rarely talk to fishermen. Fishermen have known for centuries that fish migrate based on the thermal water currents – following the food supplies.
Fish don’t move to cooler waters. The move to waters that are comfortable or less turbulent, or cleaner, or dirtier, or which have more food, or have less fish poo, or is more or less cloudy – who really knows. They don’t move to cooler waters or they would always have been in those cooler waters. Unlike climate scientists fish are not stupid. They go where it is best suited for fish of their ilk. And also unlike climate scientists, fish are both understand adaption and are adaptable. Hell, even muskox understand this and migrate. Someone please tell me why oh freaking why this natural adaption is news.
Stalled!!!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/50-to-1-project-the-true-cost-of-action-on-climate-change
This needs to go back on page one on all the pro-human climate blogs. Dig deep.
Fish follow food. Small fish follow the plankton, that food follows the currents. bigger fish follow the smaller fish. Sea creatures above the bottom of the food chain simply go where the food is rather than move to a more ‘comfortable’ spot.
Sure fish can seem to migrate to cooler waters at certain times of the year, every coastal fisherman knows you need to wait until at least November before you have any chance of catching cod off the south west coast of England. That’s because the cod arrive, with the food around then.
Could mean that over fishing releases more food so new species take over that area. ”Tropical” fish actually swim in water of varying temperatures, ie. GBR species can be found in the cool south and warm north.
Just The Facts: I would assume the NINO3.4 and NINO4 graphs are based on NOAA’s ERSST.v3b data.
Like many parts of the instrument temperature record, the data before the 1950s is somewhat questionable. This is especially true for sea surface temperature data along the equatorial Pacific. The following two graphs are of the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region based on the ICOADS source data. If we require that the KNMI Climate Explorer exclude the data when the available data drops below 30% of the valid points in a given month, then there’s only occasional NINO3.4 data before the late 1950s.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/ps2pdf.cgi?file=data/icoads_sst_-170–120E_-5-5N_n19812010a.eps.gz
But if we ask for all of the data regardless of how many cells are occupied, then we get NINO3.4 data from the KNMI Climate Explorer all the way back to the 1870s with only a few short breaks:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/ps2pdf.cgi?file=data/icoads_sst_-170–120E_-5-5N_n_0p_1840:201419812010a.eps.gz
The suppliers like NOAA and the Hadley Centre who create the reconstructions then apply the bucket, etc., “corrections”…
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/figure-14.png
…and infill missing data.
I’ll let you decide whether you want to include the graphs of the earlier pre-1950s data on the WUWT ENSO page, but, as you know, I do present it. Examples:
http://oi43.tinypic.com/2vwcho0.jpg
And:
http://oi46.tinypic.com/11s36ua.jpg
It helps to show that there were also some pretty strong El Niño events in the early part of the record, too–though Giese et al (2009) indicates the 1918/19 portion of the 1918/19/20 El Niño was comparable in strength to the El Niños of 1982/83 and 1997/98, and that the 1911/12 and 1939-41 El Niños may also have been stronger.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Gieseetal2009.pdf
Regards
Yet another study which starts with 1960’s/1970’s as a starting point.
I’m not expecting to see as many bass caught in the English Channel this year compared to the last few years. Still too cold for them.
This is sort of like deja vu all over again. Doesn’t anyone remember that the PDO was discovered by a fisheries researcher who found the ~60 year cycle in the fish catch off the western coast of the US? Seems fish have been tracking their preferred waters (probably following the food) for years.
Fish have always had a preference for cold water. As any marine biologist or physical chemist can tell you, the colder the water the more dissolved gas it can hold.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html
Ice water can hold up to 3.3 g O2 per liter, twice what it can hold at 20° C. This is great news for phytoplankton, which convert CO2 into marine biomass, for zooplankton, which eats the phytoplankton, and larger animals which eat the smaller animals.
Now you might understand why whales migrate from pole to pole – that’s where all the food is!
http://w3.shorecrest.org/~Lisa_Peck/MarineBio/syllabus/ch9vertebrates/mammals/mammalwp/class_of_2005/ian2/ianmiganddist.html
Less obvious is the reason whales breed in warmer waters. The calves are more vulnerable to hypothermia.
Rhys Jaggar says:
May 16, 2013 at 10:05 pm
If you followed their arguments, any man seeing a horny woman should have a 25ft penis by daybreak, always assuming you caught the ‘rising libido’ index at the critical times………
Stock markets would only ever rise, never fall.
——————————————————————
Actually, using Cli-Sci-Fi methodology an occilating stock market would rise.
Example: $100 stock increases $10 to $110 one week and then falls $10 over the second week. This is a 10% increase in week one and a 9.1% drop the second week. You have a net gain of .9% after 2 weeks. Just imagine a doubling of your money in only 2 years!d Why would someone not invest with them?!?!
The Post article makes the claim, based on the press release from Pew, that clam populations no longer commercially viable in Virginia are now being harvested in New England. Given that the study runs from 1970 through the present, this means that coastal Maine must now have the climate of Tidewater Virginia of the 1970s. In fact, NCDC records show that the current average temperature in the coastal Maine CD now is running about 7.5degC, while the early 1970s temp in the tidewater Virginia CD was 14.5. Absolute complete failure of the simplest hypothesis.
I sent this to Len Bernstein at the Post–in a nice, cheery note–and I don’t think I will be hearing anything back. I also sent it in a letter to the Editor. Think they will print it?
Pat MIchaels
The paper by Cheung et al (2013) stresses fish migration patterns from 1970 to 2006 and claims that this is a general trending that will last in the future.
This claim, however, is quite misleading. The major reason is that only data covering the period from 1970 to 2006 are studied in Cheung et al (2013).
On the contrary, there exists a large scientific literature stressing a quasi 60-year oscillation in the climate and marine system. The 60-year oscillation is quite evident in indexes such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
A quasi 60-year oscillation is commonly found in fish commercial stocks once longer records than the 36-year 1970-2006 period are analyzed, e.g. in
Klyashtorin, L. B., Borisov, V., and Lyubushin, A.: Cyclic changes of climate and major commercial stocks of the Barents Sea. Mar. Biol. Res., 5, 4–17, 2009.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17451000802512283
The failure of recognize the natural 60-year oscillation in the climate system is a typical error encountered in the scientific literature predicting alarming scenarios for the 21st century, for example in the sea level rise.
Two recent scientific papers authored by me discuss extensively this issue and highlight the error:
1) Scafetta N., 2013. Multi-scale dynamical analysis (MSDA) of sea level records versus PDO, AMO, and NAO indexes. Climate Dynamics. in press. DOI: 10.1007/s00382-013-1771-3.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-013-1771-3
2) Scafetta N., 2013. Discussion on common errors in analyzing sea level accelerations, solar trends and global warming. Pattern Recognition in Physics, 1, 37–57.
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/37/2013/prp-1-37-2013.pdf
Paper (1) discusses the importance of the ocean oscillations (since 1700). Paper (2) in section 2 discusses the case of the sea level rise in New York and how it has been misinterpreted in other papers by misinterpreting the bending of the 60-year cycle. Paper (2) discusses also other typical mathematical errors in interpreting climatic records.
Visit my web-page for additional comments about the 60-year oscillation, etc.
Since LWIR (the main heating radiation) doesn’t penetrate down to the fish and ultraviolet does, maybe with the fish are swimming north and south to thin out the UV intensity. This would be an easy experiment to do. This U of W must have an CAGW dictator at the top.
Gary Pearse says:
May 17, 2013 at 8:08 am
Since LWIR (the main heating radiation) doesn’t penetrate down to the fish and ultraviolet does, maybe with the fish are swimming north and south to thin out the UV intensity.
Well what do you know? Here is a link to a paper that found UV does cause migration of fish! Hey I’m only an engineer, but a better ichthyologist than they turn out at Hogwash U.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20426345
“Climate change has been impacting global fisheries for the past four decades by driving species towards cooler, deeper waters. . .”
How can the deeper waters be cooler? I thought Trenberth and NCAR said all the missing heat is down there.
Bob Tisdale says: May 17, 2013 at 3:15 am
The suppliers like NOAA and the Hadley Centre who create the reconstructions then apply the bucket, etc., “corrections”…
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/figure-14.png
…and infill missing data.
Those are some interesting corrections… According to the Hadley Centre:
Here’s the paper “Improved Analyses of Changes and Uncertainties in Sea Surface Temperature Measured In Situ since the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The HadSST2 Dataset”, Rayner, et al., 2005:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst2/rayner_etal_2005.pdf
Within it it states that:
Here’s Parker, Folland, M. Jackson (1995):
ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/gosta_plus/retired/L2/binary/docs/document/papers/3_clmchg/3_clmchg.htm
Here are some of the corrections:
Here’s their Fig 7. Which shows the impact of the adjustments:
ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/gosta_plus/retired/L2/binary/docs/document/papers/3_clmchg/fig_7.gif
It turns out that Rayner, Folland and Parker all worked at the Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/part_1_figinline.pdf
ftp://ftp.wmo.int/Documents/PublicWeb/amp/mmop/documents/JCOMM-TR/J-TR-13-Marine-Climatology/REV1/joc1171.pdf
So I dug a little deeper, and look who showed up; “Corrections to Pre-1941 SST Measurements for Studies of Long-Term Changes in SSTs” P. Jones and T. Wigley, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
http://icoads.noaa.gov/Boulder/Boulder.Jones.pdf
If you have not already, you should look at “The Bucket Model” in Jones and Wigley’s paper, as it is a classic work in gibberish:
http://icoads.noaa.gov/Boulder/Boulder.Jones.pdf
Continuing…
Here Jones and Briffa team up to summarize it for us, “Global Surface Air Temperature Variations During the Twentieth Century: Part 1, Spatial, Temporal and Seasonal Details P. D. Jones and K. R. Briffa, 1992 Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK”
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/stgeorge/geog5426/Jones%20The%20Holocene%201992.pdf
Steve McIntyre has written extensively about bucket adjustments since 2005, i.e.:
http://climateaudit.org/2005/06/19/19th-century-sst-adjustments/
Buckets and Engines
http://climateaudit.org/2007/03/17/buckets-and-engines/
The Team and Pearl Harbor
http://climateaudit.org/2007/03/18/the-team-and-pearl-harbor/
Bucket Adjustments: More Bilge from RealClimate
http://climateaudit.org/2011/07/11/more-misrepresentations-from-realclimate/
Rasmus, the Chevalier and Bucket Adjustments
http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/23/rasmus-the-chevalier-and-bucket-adjustments/
Did Canada switch from Engine Inlets in 1926 Back to Buckets?
http://climateaudit.org/2008/06/01/did-canada-switch-from-engine-inlets-in-1926-back-to-buckets/
HadSST3
http://climateaudit.org/2011/07/12/hadsst3/
However, Steve has not really dug that far into the pre-1940 rise highlighted in your graph.
One piece of this puzzle I can’t seem to find is the oft cited Bottomley et al., 1990, i.e, Bottomley, M., C. K. Folland, J. Hsiung, R. E. Newell, and D. E. Parker, 1990: Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas. MIT Press, 20 pp. plus 313 plates.
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/descriptions/.GOSTA.html
Here is the GOSTA Data:
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/descriptions/.GOSTA.html
I would really like to find this; “These correction are based on scientific research summarized in the introduction to the hard-copy version of GOSTA (Bottomley et al., 1990).” but even Google Scholar comes up dry:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Bottomley+temperature&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C31
All very interesting, I may post an article and use your SST graph at the head of it…
I’ll let you decide whether you want to include the graphs of the earlier pre-1950s data on the WUWT ENSO page, but, as you know, I do present it. Examples:
http://oi43.tinypic.com/2vwcho0.jpg
And:
http://oi46.tinypic.com/11s36ua.jpg
I like the second graph, however would prefer if you could remove the blue box from the bottom of the graph and host it on bobtisdale.wordpress.com/, as I avoid “editorializing” on the reference pages and prefer that all graphs be hosted by their creator/source, i.e. not tinypics.
It helps to show that there were also some pretty strong El Niño events in the early part of the record, too–though Giese et al (2009) indicates the 1918/19 portion of the 1918/19/20 El Niño was comparable in strength to the El Niños of 1982/83 and 1997/98, and that the 1911/12 and 1939-41 El Niños may also have been stronger.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Gieseetal2009.pdf
Frankly, you know this area much better than I, and I want to be careful that I don’t mislead anyone, thus would you be open to serving as an advisor/resident expert on the WUWT ENSO Reference Page? Would you be open to collaborating on a crowdsourcing thread to update/upgrade the ENSO page, i.e. we post a bunch of new potential graphs and graphics in an article, we solicit addions and input, you provide your recommendations on inclusion, exclusion, changes to order, graph labels, etc. and I’ll make the changes to Reference Page as we go?