Here’s a story of scientific investigation and discovery I’m proud to have
had a small part in.Regular readers may remember that I posted about a
climate station in Detroit Lakes MN last week, surveyed by volunteer Don
Kostuch, and cross posted it to the website
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1828#comments that had two air
conditioner units right next to it. It looked like an obvious cause and
effect because in 1999 on May 5th, it was determined that the a/c units were
moved off the roof of the radio station where this station resides and moved
them to the ground where the temperature sensor is close by.
Detroit Lakes, MN surveyed by Don Kostuch – Don has
single handedly done almost the entire state of Minnesota!However, some folks on the blogosphere just went, well, a little
ballistic over that assertion. It was a good thing too, because their very
loud and somewhat uncivil complaints led to an examination of this idea: if
its not the a/c units, what then did cause the temperature jump at that
time?
Steve McIntyre, of Toronto operates
www.climateaudit.org and began to
investigate the data and the methods used to arrive at the results that were
graphed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).
What he discovered was truly amazing. Since NASA does not fully publish
the computer source code and formulae used to calculate the trends in the
graph, nor the correction used to arrive at the “corrected” data. He had to
reverse engineer the process by comparing the raw data and the processed
data..
Here is one of his
where he begins to understand what is happening. “This imparts an upward
discontinuity of a deg C in wintertime and 0.8 deg C annually. I checked the
monthly data and determined that the discontinuity occurred on January 2000
– and, to that extent, appears to be a Y2K problem. I presume that this is a
programming error.”
He further refines his argument showing the
and the problems with the
USHCN temperature data. He also sends an email to NASA GISS advising of the problem.
here, stating that NASA made a correction not only on their own web
page, attributing the discovery to McIntyre, but NASA also issued a
corrected set of temperature anomaly data which you can see here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
Steve McIntyre posted this data from NASA’s newly published data set from
Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) These numbers represent deviation
from the mean temperature calculated from temperature measurement stations
throughout the USA.
According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the
hottest year ever. 1934 is.
Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now
from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are
from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003,
2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900. (World rankings of
temperature are calculated separately.)
Top 10 GISS U.S. Temperature deviation (deg C) in New Order
8/7/2007
| Year | Old | New |
| 1934 | 1.23 | 1.25 |
| 1998 | 1.24 | 1.23 |
| 1921 | 1.12 | 1.15 |
| 2006 | 1.23 | 1.13 |
| 1931 | 1.08 | 1.08 |
| 1999 | 0.94 | 0.93 |
| 1953 | 0.91 | 0.90 |
| 1990 | 0.88 | 0.87 |
| 1938 | 0.85 | 0.86 |
| 1939 | 0.84 | 0.85 |
Here’s the old order of top 10 yearly temperatures.
| Year | Old | New |
| 1998 | 1.24 | 1.23 |
| 1934 | 1.23 | 1.25 |
| 2006 | 1.23 | 1.13 |
| 1921 | 1.12 | 1.15 |
| 1931 | 1.08 | 1.08 |
| 1999 | 0.94 | 0.93 |
| 1953 | 0.91 | 0.90 |
| 2001 | 0.90 | 0.76 |
| 1990 | 0.88 | 0.87 |
| 1938 | 0.85 | 0.86 |
I salute the work of Steven McIntyre, he has now made two major contributions to climate science.
1) Proving how the Mann “hockey stick” used in all Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was based on unsupportable data and methods.
2) Proving how yearly temperature anomalies for the USA are based on data that had been processed incorrectly.
Dr. Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado also deserves credit becuase he was the one who encouraged me to pursue the www.surfacestations.org project due to his broad work on land use change and it’s affect on regional and local climate.
This kind of thing goes way back. Nearly 40 years ago I was doing data reduction for a NASA sponsored university research project. At one point, NASA said we could no longer have the original data, because they were going to do the reduction (and charge our project for it).
When we got the results, they had a bug in it that could only have come from a version of my program that had exactly the same subtle bug. Of course, any future user of that data presumably got bad information (although the error in the data was obvious to anyone who looked closely, which the bureaucrats didn’t).
In other words, bureaucrats have always been bureaucrats, and big science turns scientists into bureaucrats.
I would like to suggest that someone that is an expert on these temperature issues take a look at the NOAA satelitte temp data set.
I have worked with the numbers on excel for several years, and realized that the numbers are tinkered with/adjusted fairly often.
The readme file notes this activity.
What I find interesting, is that when NOAA-15 data started to be used around 2000, the temperature numbers seem to bump up. About a year and a half ago, I thought that there seems to be some kind of discrete shift up of about .15C, and seems to be related to the substitution of a new NOAA and the retiring of an old one.
In recent months, they seem to have lost confidence in NOAA-16, and are just showing NOAA-15 data.
But if you take away .15c or about .25f from the data starting in 2000, the trend reverts back to what it was from 1979-2000.
I could be mistaken; I am simply an interested observer of the public data.
Is it only me or all this joy on how 1998 is no longer the hottest year in the U.S. a bit dubious? Isn’t global warming about “global” increase in temperature not rather a single country in the world? Now I don’t know much about Al Gore’s method of analysis but wasn’t he talking about the climate deterioration in the global scale?
Top 10s don’t tell you that much about trends. Let’s say I’m a contractor for a few years and then switch to a steady salary-based job. I could make enormous amounts of money some months while I’m a contractor and in others make almost nothing. I might make more money overall when I’m a salaried employee. If we did a Top 10 analysis of all the years I’d been working then we’d see those “spikes” during the time I was a contractor plain as day. But we’d miss the fact that my earning power had been higher as a salaried employee.
Plus, a helpful commentor on Slashdot had the following to say:
I don’t think demoting 1998 to the 2nd-highest US temperature in a century (barely — by 0.01 annual average degree) is a big deal either. 1998 is an awfully close second. I also wouldn’t ascribe much to the the claim that “half” the top ten years in the US were before WWII (1921, 1931, 1934, 1938). Last I checked, 4 is less than half of ten 🙂 Two others were in the 1950s (1953, 1954), and the rest were 1990, 1998, 1999, and 2006. Perhaps this is merely indicating that, in the US, lately it’s been the hottest it’s been since the “dust bowl” years. That’s not a pleasant thought.
The TOP 10 annual temperature years in the US are (celcius degrees from mean):
year annual 5-year mean
1 1934 1.25 0.44
2 1998 1.23 0.51
3 1921 1.15 0.15
4 2006 1.13
5 1931 1.08 0.27
6 1999 0.93 0.69
7 1953 0.90 0.32
8 1990 0.87 0.40
9 1938 0.86 0.36
10 1954 0.85 0.47
If you look at the top ten ranking for the 5-year means, the pattern is pretty clear:
1 2000 0.52 0.79
2 1999 0.93 0.69
3 2004 0.44 0.66
4 2001 0.76 0.65
5 1932 0.00 0.63
6 1933 0.68 0.61
7 2003 0.50 0.58
8 2002 0.53 0.55
9 1998 1.23 0.51
10 1988 0.32 0.51
The 1930s are down at 5th and 6th place. 2005 and 2006 are left out because you can’t calculate a 5-year window around them yet.
Finally, the error changes the GLOBAL pattern insignificantly, and the global trend in the last couple of decades is greater than the USA trend.
In all, it’s a worthwhile error to catch for the US data, but it doesn’t change much about the overall pattern.
Well for those of you saying you have to look at the global picture, Id just like to say here in Australia this winter has been one of the coldest in many many years, all over the world we have had many many floods this year, looking at the average temp of that flood water, Id say it would have to be cold.
The 1930’s? During the great depression? How do we know some homeless guy wasnt sleeping under the thermometer?
The “1998 is the warmest year” claim originated with the NOAA/WMO estimate, not with NASA. I think they crunch the numbers a little differently. Has anyone figured out whether 1998 is still the warmest year according to NOAA.
It would seem pointless to crow about egg on the face of Hansen when the media’s 1998 claims were originating from the NOAA calculations.
How do you obtain real values from an open system? How do you remove the contributions of solar heating from say road building or ice melt to identify CO2 contributions? If we are only measuring surface temp, how do we account for the entire column? How can a hidden algorithm be the basis for a crusade? just asking.
Annoyed | August 11, 2007 01:22 PM asks:
How are we going to get our energy needs met with business as usual?
May I suggest a search on:
IEC Fusion Technology
The USA has quite a robust program in that area. I expect to see a working reactor in 10 years. Less if we push harder. All our eggs are not in the ITER basket.
The 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was the 2nd warmest on record and within 0.1°F of the record set in 1998. Using final quality controlled data from the recently released USHCN Version 2 data set (see details below), the 2006 annual average temperature was 54.9°F, 2.1°F (1.2°C) above the 20th Century mean and 0.08°F (0.04°C) cooler than 1998.—NOAA website recent quotes
My back ground is in Chemistry and I am well versed in the methodology of Scientific Research.
This leads me to the question: Has anyone thought to question the accuracy of the CO2 concentrations that are so glibly presesented?
I have seen one graph presented by a lone researcher located on one of the Hawiian islands but it lacked the methodology, parameters of sample collection, and confidence values.
I have tried to find a source for CO2 detectors but most are for industrial use and are +- 50 PPM for accuracy. I found a Vaisala CO2 detector with very good detection levels and on their web site I found a link to an outdoor CO2 monitoring experiment.
What astounded me was that over the limited time period that was presented on their graph, the variance of the CO2 levels was 100 PPM!
Since the collection of temperatures presented in support of anthropogenic global warming are not scientifically valid, why would anyone assume that the CO2 levels would be?
It is much more difficult to measure a gas concentration with such precision than it is to measure temperature.
The concept of an average earth temperature is ludicrous on the face of it. I cannot get past the third paragraph of the ASA article on adjusting surface temperature data without wishing I could get the IRS to accept such crap.
You cannot accurately measure it and no average has any meaning.
Couple things here. First of all global warming is NOT defined by one data set. Nor is it defined by “recent highest” temperatures.
It’s good foder for the unconvinced. But it’s not about absolutes – it’s about trends. And every data set I’ve seen trends to warming, and faster warming in the most recent years.
You don’t have to believe. And you go bury your head when articles like this (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2069726720070820?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews) come around.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Personally I would welcome a shorter winter and warmer water here in the North East (US). Shipping companies are loving the reduced ice flow. (You can ignore global glacier reduction all you want, but if you’re a global shipper, you better pay attention).
Obviously the oil companies *like* the idea of global warming if it means easier access to oil.
Go on – ignore it. But if you’re an investor, you can bank on it.
25ft rise in ocean levels? I’ll have water front property!
-CF
1998 was a scorcher. It’s cooler now but still pleasantly warm. Ok warming, stop anywhere round here please. 🙂 As Canute or someone said to the sea.
Thanks Anthony, and of course your aides for your work. It’s appreciated.
How can I get locations for Turkish temp stations? Any assistance appeciated.
Spread the “boomerang theory”. The boomerang theory is a hybrid of the HOCKEY STICK with one difference…. it has the correct numbers in its diegram… it bends in the 90’s and in the 30’s 🙂
NASA is a public agency funded with public dollars. Any research or corrections on climate data that they have made must be shared with the public. That is the law.
You are deeply confused here. The data you are citing is temperature CHANGE data – not temperature data. If you see a large positive number, that means that that year was warmer than the previous year. You need to integrate the data to see relative temperature. (For each data point, create a running total and plot that.) Do this and you will see that the 30s were some of the coldest years in the data set. You will also see that since around 1990, every successive year is warmer than any other year in this data set. You are misrepresenting the data and spreading misinformation.
[…] the much touted year 1998 formerly known as “the hottest year on record in the USA” fell to a close second behind 1934 during the peak of the dust bowl […]