This story in the UK register today outlines some of the modification that has occurred in climate data.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
Climate Audit and Steve McIntyre figure in greatly. They gave me a mention too.
NASA’s original data: 1999
NASA’s reworked data: 2007
I can’t elaborate much, I’m posting this from a WiFi in McDonald’s as I’m traveling again today. Comment approval will be delayed a few hours.
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I am surely not an my own but the bare faced effrontery of the NASA/GISS people beggars belief. If the facts don’t fit they have had no issue with changing the data to fit their story.
If that’s not true then why are all the revisons UPWARDS ?
Why had you no interest until Steve McIntyre pointed out your Y2K error ?
Was it because it was a DOWNWARD revision and that wouldn’t fit the story ?
Then they have effrontery to masquerade as holier than thou ‘experts’ who’s views are sacrosanct and should be held in awe.
The only awe I have is awe that they got away with it for so long.
The game’s up guys and you should be hanging your heads in shame.
This implies serious malfeasance on NASA’s part. In my dream world, some objective authority would investigate the science behind this.
Anthony: I believe Mr. Goddard misused the graph of adjustments to U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) by the NCDC, which is a part of NOAA not NASA, when he included it in a paragraph about global temperature adjustments by NASA. But then again, all those initials get confusing at times.
His link:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/04/28/ts_anomaly_org.gif
NCDC link:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
Which is part of this NCDC discussion:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html
Great blog, I am a AGW skeptic, but not a scientist so get lost in much of the details….. how does the information you are finding and generating square with a story such as this, noting continued thining of arctic ice etc.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_sc/on_thin_ice
Can someone actually provide an objective explanation of NASA’s reasons for adjusting this data? Presumably they don’t just make stuff up, and must have a rationale (valid or otherwise) for the adjustments.
I would have thought this has extremely serious implications? (legal)
Meanwhile it is still snowing in the high plains:
Above from Accuweather
I am sure Tamino the cherry picker has an answer to this cherry picking?–no crickets???
This is a real shame. Maybe what should be done is to contact our Congressmen and Senators, and have them demand an accounting of this possible fraud. Not saying it is, but someone needs to be accountable at GISS for this discrepency. A full investigation is in order. And with the current climate situation, it may just get that kind of attention. It would be nice to know the “how’s and why’s” of this situation.
i think it’s just getting worst day by day. we have try some way to reduce this effect but, whatever we have done seem to be useless to preventing this climate change.
The vast majority of the increased temperature trend since 1900 is, in fact, the “adjustments” which have been made to the record.
I’d like to be able to say the RAW data only shows this 0.XXC trend since 1900 but I don’t believe anyone actually knows what that number is anymore since the RAW records are no long available.
Some of these adjustments sound perfectly reasonable when explained in theory. For example, the largest adjustment is the Time of Observation Bias (the TOBS adjustment). In the 1920s, record keepers measured the temperature at 9:00 am and 4:00 pm which gives a particular average temperature versus the true 24 hour day average temperature. So models are developed which convert the 9:00 am and 4:00 pm temp to a better 24 hour average. But how was this done exactly? How was it applied to 5,000 different locations? This adjustment, while sounding reasonable, is very susceptible to a biased researcher tweaking a number here and there to get the rising temperature trend that the researcher “knows”/”wants” to be there.
The hot 1930s are now just a slightly warm period. The 1990s are hotter (except in the US when there is only so much “adjusting” which can be done). The Russian and Asian records, however, have been adjusted by far the most of any locations and this is the areas which drive the global temperature trend over the past 100 years up to its 0.7C.
I’m skeptical. I play with data all day long and I know how easy it is to show whatever helps the case I’m trying to make. A person can be completely ethical in any kind data analysis but bias will always creep in. I’d like to see the RAW data with no adjustments shown along side the adjusted trend.
Perhaps NASA should be asked; Watts up with that?
Wow sounds to me like NASA GISS and Dr. Hansen have just been dinged. It appears that when you adjustments get to obvious and start to have obvious variance with all the other metrics. I once read a study of the 4 major metrics,
Giss, HAD CRT, UAB, and RSS and GIss was labled an ourlier some of the warmers were quite angry. It appears to me that the temperature situation is getting debatable. I can’t wait to hear the rebutal,
Bill Derryberry
I guess I’m not sure what the answer is to this – GISS uses a baseline of 1951-1980.
When they go back and adjust past month’s average temperatures, do they also adjust the baseline? I guess it will need adjusting, since the data that leads to an adjustment lies outside of the 1951-1980 range. If things are warm, then the new data will adjust upward the old, right? The 1951-1980 range should also go up, but by less. If an April adjustment affects months MAM and the baseline, then MAM will seem warmer, but the other three seasons will appear cooler.
Or am I all wet and should’ve gone to bed an hour ago?
sid,
Good question.
“Major arctic ice melt is EXPECTED”.
Last year the UK Met Office also expected the hottest on record, and got something completely different. Everyone can make a prediction, and then boast if it just happens to be right. Every broken clock is correct twice a day.
Yes, it has been warm, and so things melt. The temperature on a winter’s day peaks at about 1 p.m. and cool afterwards. Even when it is cooling at 2 and 3 p.m. it is still warm and you still can have melting.
Overall though, the total sea ice worldwide is near record levels.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
We may have just passed the peak climate warm point, meaning it’s still warm. But it looks like this may be ending. Except for the CO2 concentrations, lots of leading indicators certainly point that way. Looks like we’re entering a Gore Minimum.
Ric Werme,
Makes sense to me. If you adjust the data upwards, then you have to do the same with the baseline. Would Hansen adjust the data upwards, but use the old cold baseline? The guy is pretty desparate.
Spam,
When you’re convinced of an outcome, but the observations show the complete opposite, then you are left with 3 choices:
1) You admit you were wrong and look like an ass, or
2) You change the data and hope people will not notice it, or
3) You do like the Herrs at the Leibnitz Institute: You leave yourself a back door and try to sneak out without anyone noticing!
My guess is that many will opt for no. 3.
This is all overblown. The GISS curve easily fits within the error bars of +/-4 degree celsius 😉
sid,
Good question.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080430124607.htm
Last year the UK Met Office also EXPECTED the hottest on record, and got something completely different. Anyone can make a prediction, and then boast if it just happens to be right. So what! Every broken clock is correct twice a day.
Yes, it has been warm, and so things melt. The temperature on a winter’s day peaks at about 1 p.m. and cool afterwards. Even when it is cooling at 2 and 3 p.m. it is still warm and you still can have melting.
Overall though, the total sea ice worldwide is near record levels.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
We may have just passed the peak climate warm point, meaning it’s still warm. But it looks like this may be ending. Except for the CO2 concentrations, lots of leading indicators certainly point that way. Looks like we’re entering a Gore Minimum.
Sorry this is very of topic…
Jimmy Wales the founder of wikipedia is having a net meeting in a Norwegian newspaper on Monday. Readers can send in question, that hopefully will be answered. Have anyone, any good questions regarding wiki’s censorship of sceptical views?
For the cooling, there must be admission of the benefits of carbon dioxide, which will ameliorate the ill effects; for the long term, as we switch to a natural warming phase, the market will make alternative sources more attractive as hydrocarbons get more difficult to recover.
=======================================
Man Oh man, the original article is wayyyy more damning than AW’s version. After seeing it here yesterday I was determined to eventually put up the charts at my site, but after reading the Register article, any thought of delay was removed.
CoRev, editor
globalwarmingclearinghouse.blogspot.com
We were to see it snow an inch or two last night but none in evidence; everything is dry with steady 25mph winds.
But we’ve had one stretch of consecutive days (3?) above norm since Nov. Historical adjustments and heat island effect notwithstanding, the SH had no summer, how can we be above global norm at all?
The Brits seem to be stirring, maybe there’s hope the insanity will end?
More and more this whole surface air temperature tracking and predicting activity is reminding me of the chained men in Plato’s “Republic.” Sitting in a cave and unable to turn toward a light source, they perceived the passing world as shadows on the wall before them. They each would achieve prestige and their fellows’ admiration by being the best at predicting what the next shadow would be.
In the air, land, and sea system, the part with the least ability to track the total energy in the system must be the least massive part – the air. The land is fairly well balanced between the fires above and the fires below so that leaves the sea as the most appropriate place to track the energy in the system. The sea has about a thousand times the heat capacity of the air.
If greenhouse gases are really overwhelming the natural balance, then the place to track the effect is in the sea. Tracking the surface air temperature for trends of increasing or decreasing energy in the system must, therefore, be chasing shadows of what’s really going on.
“It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible”
by:
http://kimeraldsters.wordpress.com
i’ve studied earth science and statistics and i suspect that if someone did their homework right then a null hypothesis might discredit the global warming alarm.
remember these people are the same ones that help the manufacturers of r-124 to force all of us to use an inferior refrigerant that forces us to use more energy to cool ourselves off while generating more heat losses into the environment and entropy which suits their market just fine. they have a captive audience and the corner on the market.
sadly there always seem to be enough ignorant people who believe such rubbish to win support for all of this nonsense. you know the french revolution seemed like a good idea to robespierre at the time but if you remember history then you know what happened to him in the end. it’s about time we stopped the reign of terror that all the GW and the ozone people want to impose on us as minions of anti capitalists.
and futhermore, before you go out and buy fluorescent lights to replace all your incandescent ones, understand that when you discard a fluorescent light you also seed the good earth with a couple of tenths of a gram of mercury to be gathered up in the worlds food chain and ending up on your seafood platter. what a delicious irony.