Two years ago during the scorching summer of 2012, July 1936 lost its place on the leaderboard and July 2012 became the hottest month on record in the United States. Now, as if by magic, and according to NOAA’s own data, July 1936 is now the hottest month on record again. The past, present, and future all seems to be “adjustable” in NOAA’s world. See the examples below.
Josh has been busy again and writes at Bishop Hill with a new cartoon:
The temperature adjustments story has been brewing for weeks principally due to the many posts at ‘RealScience’ but taken up by others, for example, Paul Homewood, see here and here. Judith Curry has a great post about it here, as does Anthony here.
H/t to Real Science/Steven Goddard for suggesting including Toto. Cartoons by Josh
Bruce at Sunshine Hours has been doing some unthreading, er plotting, and at my request, prepared some USHCN maps of Kansas, first May’s high temperatures.
I’ve annotated the plot, to include “zombie” weather station that have been closed for years, but still show “estimated” data from NOAA. Those marked NRF are “no report found”…typically meaning NOAA hasn’t gotten the data from the observer yet, which is often mailed in on paper B91 forms. It is interesting to note how NOAA has been changing the data, in most cases adjusting it higher, though in a couple of cases, lower.
Bruce also plotted some other maps of Kansas, for July 1936, and for July 2012. Note how in July 1936 the Tmax temperature are almost all adjusted cooler, and in 2012, most all Tmax temperatures are adjusted warmer. Click images for larger versions.
Whatever happened to just using actual measured data? There is no justification for this.
And, NOAA can’t even keep their story straight about July 1936 temperatures. From a report I did in 2013:
NCDC’s SOTC July 2012:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/07
Screencap of the claim for CONUS Tavg temperature for July 2012 in the SOTC:
Note the 77.4°F value for July 1936. It is actually still in their SOTC for July 2012 today.
Now let’s look at some plots from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance. I just happened to have one from two years ago. It also says 77.4°F on the plot. The numbers match with the SOTC report. The annotations are mine.
Today, I ran the same plot again, and here is the NEW number for July 1936. The annotations are mine.
NOAA helpfully provided the data which I have saved as an Excel file, it has both 1936 and 2012 July data: NOAA_Tavg_Data_July_1895-2013 (.xlsx)
You can’t get any clearer proof of NOAA adjusting past temperatures.
This isn’t just some issue with gridding, or anomalies, or method, it is about NOAA not being able to present historical climate information of the United States accurately. In one report they give one number, and in another they give a different one with no explanation to the public as to why.
This is not acceptable. It is not being honest with the public. It is not scientific. It violates the Data Quality Act.
But wait, there’s more. In January 2013, I ran this story based on an article in the Wall Street Journal: July (2012) Was Hottest Month on Record
My story was: Does NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) keep two separate sets of climate books for the USA?
In that essay, I revised the WSJ graphic. At that time, it looked like this based on new numbers for July 2012 that I found from NOAA:
Now, with the new numbers in the Excel File above, output from NOAA, I had to revise it again. It looks like this now:
Now, once again, July 1936 is the hottest month in the US, even if by the slimmest of margins, all thanks to post-facto adjustments of temperature data by NOAA/NCDC.
I suggest that NOAA/NCDC have another one of those meetings like where they decided to keep long dead weather stations reporting as “zombies”, like I showed with Marysville, yesterday, and work on getting their story straight.
This constant change from year to year of what is or is not the hottest month on record for the USA is not only unprofessional and embarrassing for NOAA, it’s bullshit of the highest order. It can easily be solved by NOAA stopping the unsupportable practice of adjusting temperatures of the past so that the present looks different in context with the adjusted past and stop making data for weather stations that have long since closed.
NOAA has been accused by others of “fabricating” data, and while that is a strong word that I don’t like to use, it looks to be more and more accurate.
That said, I don’t believe this is case where somebody purposely has their hand on a control knob for temperature data, I think all of this is nothing more than artifacts of a convoluted methodology and typical bureaucratic blundering. As I’ve always said, never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence.
We already showed yesterday that NOAA can’t get their output data files correct, and we are waiting on a statement and a possible correction for that. But I think the problem is even larger than that, and will require an investigation from an unbiased outside source to get to the root of the problem.
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Ja, ja
these NOAA people are the same guys who say that Alaska is still warming….
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
“it’s bullshit of the highest order.”
Unexpected from you, but warranted. Has anyone put forth a reasonable argument as to why the adjustments favor cooling the past while warming the present?
How does incompetence square up with revising earlier temperatures downwards and more recent temperatures upwards? It seems that the errors are not random, but frequently in a direction that produces more warming.
So right all along we all seen it Anthony why didn’t you ? ;>)
REPLY: I’ve seen it before, I wrote about it before, Goddard made one claim that I thought was badly wrong, that’s not ignoring everything “all along”. Go look at the WUWT archives and see all the stories I’ve done along these lines.
Don’t presume to judge me until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. – Anthony
That knob needs numbers … and numbers that go to 11 🙂
The fact that they have to keep adjusting the past is indicative that they don’t actually know what the temperature was. Or they do but CAGW needs to kept alive – it’s currently in intensive care.
Small typo.
“But I think the problem is even larger than that, and will require an investigation from and unbiased outside source to get to the root of the problem.”
Should be:
“But I think the problem is even larger than that, and will require an investigation from an unbiased outside source to get to the root of the problem.
Otherwise, thanks for working towards, “Let’s all just be honest about this.”
(To an honest person, crow is welcomed. Proverbs 17:10)
That is an old saying, but often it is incorrect. What if the convoluted methodology is known to produce results that are desired? What if the convoluted methodology evolved because cooling the past and warming the present were seen to be highly desirable? What if the convoluted methodology evolved via human guidance with today’s results in mind? What if many people on the inside already knew what we all know now and kept their mouth shut about it?
As an aside, I have be saying for years that there was wholesale cheating going on with the data sets and now there is proof. How the heck did I know? It is the nature of bureaucracies (and group-think) to provide the ruling elite with the results desired. Why would the “scientists” keeping the temperature records be any different from the minions of the rest of the agencies?
So the difference is 0.03°F with no estimates of error and no statistical tests of means? Three significant figures with one decimal place and four significant figures with 2 decimal places. Without some more statistics the only thing you can safely say is there was no difference.
Shades of 1984.
Anth0ny:
Many thanks for this.
Some of us have been trying to publicize the frequent data adjustments – and what they mean – for a very long time (see e.g. this) but with no success.
The fact of “July 1936 now hottest month again” could be the news about data adjustments that may interest the main-stream media (MSM).
In my opinion, it is now important to determine how to publicize your news to the MSM, and I commend people to post any suggestions they have for the publicity when they make comments in this thread.
Richard
It seems the past is still under debate, lucky for us the future is much more certain.
“I think all of this is nothing more than artifacts of a convoluted methodology and typical bureaucratic blundering.”
Really ?
“never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence.”
Unless, of course, the malice is a given.
Let us go back to early August, 2007, when NASA had to readjust its adjusted temperatures due to the work of Steve McIntyre over at Climate Audit. That was a real wake up call for me. I cried foul, but everyone was telling me to calm down. It was just an “understandable mistake,” perhaps due to “confirmation bias.” I know human nature, however, and smelled a rat, and went up like a sheet of flame and was so apoplectic that most of my comments got snipped on most sites. I wish I had saved them, now that the data has been re-re-re-re-re-readjusted.
The only good thing to come out of this “adjusting” is that, when Steve McIntyre’s site crashed due to abruptly getting a zillion hits, I heard about another site, called “Watts Up With That.”
Anyone interested in ancient history should look back at the posts from August 8, 2007 at Climate Audit and WUWT.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/08/08/a-new-leaderboard-at-the-us-open/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/08/08/1998-no-longer-the-hottest-year-on-record-in-usa/
In my opinion Skeptics have been amazingly patient and amazingly polite, as they have pointed out error after error after error after error. But for crying out loud! This has been going on for seven bleeping years! I think it is high time to state that obfuscation, at the very least, has been occurring and is of the highest order. It is high time to remove the babies from the bathwater, and dump the bathwater in the sewer. (And you bathwater-people know who you are.)
If memory serves me, 1934 was the hottest year on record. Then it mysteriously wasn’t a few years ago. Another victim of the adjustment process?
NOAA has been accused by others of “fabricating” data, and while that is a strong word that I don’t like to use, it looks to be more and more accurate.
And that was what made AW throw his toys out of the pram. Instead of following through on the SG’s method and analysis he threw the toys and came up with the wrong conclusions.
It took guts for SG to face down AW at a time when he has been struggling to find work because he was exposed through skeptic blogs.
This episode was one of the most digusting I have witnessed from a skeptic blog since the whole thing started. Yes AW has apologised and yes that is far more honest than any team climate scientist but it was still very wrong.
This issue when SG raised it was about as serious as anything yet seen in the climosphere. This is fabrication, it is cheating both themselves and the pûblic who pay their salaries and it has enabled the EU, Obama democrats, the UN and every other public teat succour to rob the poor of their hard earned cash while they live the life of absolute luxe.
junior says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:59 pm
It seems the past is still under debate, lucky for us the future is much more certain
Brilliant !!
Anthony, I really do appreciate very much your work but please avoid this damage in the future. We need a coherent skeptic blogerie. Thanks
REPLY: “And that was what made AW throw his toys out of the pram.” No, it was because Goddard originally claimed 40% of USHCN STATIONS were missing, which I knew from my survey to be wrong, and then he changed it to DATA after I complained but did not note the change in hist story. It seemed like sweeping the issue under the rug. Plus I could not get his code to run to replicate the problem, and our own USHCN data didn’t show the problem.
Let me make one thing clear, if somebody says something that I think is patently false, I’m not obligated to go along with it. That’s tribalism like we see from Mann’s buddies not speaking out about his work being a train wreck, and there is no place for it here. – Anthony
I wonder what NOAA has to say about this statement by the Chief:
“We also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or 10 years ago.”
Obama said that in 2013. Does anyone within the federal agencies have the guts to say, “Hey, you are quite wrong, Mr. President.”
Have there been any UHI adjustments to any of these data sets? And if not why not?
The argument for TOBS is that the conditions (time of measurement) have changed. Same holds true for UHI (conditions have changed).
unless papers get retracted its all just another run of coverup.
The past is a moving target and it doesn’t matter if the papers are not using the wrong numbers as long as they support the proper goal.
Caleb:
At June 29, 2014 at 1:17 pm you say
No, much longer than a mere seven years.
I again draw attention to this which cites, quotes and discusses a climategate email (from me) about this subject dated 23 November 2003.
And please note that the paper about the data alterations which was blocked from publication had 18 signatories.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:58 pm
“The fact of “July 1936 now hottest month again” could be the news about data adjustments that may interest the main-stream media (MSM). ”
No. MSM stopped doing reporting a long time ago.
That’s why noone’s watching it anymore.
Guess they’ll have to make it mandatory.
Just did a little checking at NCDC Climate at a Glance site. I’d like to include the actual graphic in this post but I don’t know how so here is the URL: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/ You can plot the data for Michigan from 1895 to 2014. The trend is given as +0.2 degrees F per decade. However, I have archived an older plot from 2010 (wish I could show it to you) that gives the decade trend as +0.01 degree F. The new plot has cooled many of the temperatures prior to 1930 by 2 to 3 degrees F giving a century trend that is now 200 times warmer than their previous plot. Astounding!
The IRS, the EPA, the Justice Department, BATF, all filled with corruption and cronyism. I should think NOAA is no different. NOAA’s head, Kathryn Sullivan, has made a number of alarmist statements, many debunked here at WUWT. On the NOAA web site is their statement on AGW, alarmist and backed up by the very data we are questioning. So no, the null hypothesis is not incompetence.
I am sure there are good people over at NOAA but I cannot expect a satisfying response, especially if the real data shows no warming, or shows the past as being warmer than today. This is going to be a long hard slog through the slime of post-normal science.
All the persistence by Steve/Tony was a steady drip, drip but it was Christopher Booker that really made this a serious news item and has raised Tony’s kudos despite people on his side trying to diminish his reliability to new giddy heights. So I think Booker deserves some respect as he has frequently put his neck on the line in criticising AGW theory.
But now everyone of the sceptics is on board and maybe the luke warmers- what next?
If the Las Vegas do next month does anything surely it is to shout from the rooftops how government officials (NOAA) have either been totally incompetent or IMO lied just as with Lerner
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/06/29/issa-lerners-attorney-has-outright-lied/
Surely if I can be forgiven for speaking in cliché’s , this is a game changer.
It’s got to give Mark Steyn a fillip as well.
Well done all and especially Steve/Tony who I hope makes his mind up soon as to what he bloody wants to be called 😉
One last word: do you think Mann, Obama, Mooney, Stoat, Cooke and all that crowd are wincing and writhing these last few days?
Please Sir? Can we call it “fraud” now? It’s staring to look more like it…