After GISS’s embarrasing error with replicating September temperatures in the October analysis, the NASA GISTEMP website was down for awhile today (at least for me).
This evening, the new gridded data was posted, and I generated a world temperature anomaly map with the new data. It clearly has some changes in it from the previous erroneous version.
See below:
GISTEMP 11-12-08 – Click for larger image
You can plot your own here at this link to GISTEMP’s map maker
Now compare the above corrected version with the erroneous one below:
GISTEMP 11-11-08
I’m sorry for the small map, as I was traveling during much of this debacle, and was not able to be online much at all. This one above comes courtesy of Kate at SDA who saved one (thanks Kate).
Note the bottom scale, the top end on the erroneous one was 13.7°C, while the corrected one tops out at 8°C. That alone should have set off alarm bells at GISS. Personally, I don’t believe the 8°C anomaly either, since much of the Russian weather data is suspect to start with, and the data distribution is sparse.
So far, no mention of the new data beyond this yesterday at the NASA GISS news page:
2008-11-11: Most data posted yesterday were replaced by the data posted last month since it looks like some mishap might have occurred when NOAA updated their GHCN data. We will postpone updating this web site until we get confirmation from NOAA that their updating programs worked properly. Because today is a Federal Holiday, some pages are still showing yesterday’s data.
We live in interesting times.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What’s really interesting to me is not only was the scale changed, but also the breath of temperature covered by the last color (brown). In the erroneous set brown covers 4 – 13.7 C, a spread larger than the other colors combined. In the new the brown scale is 4-8 C (which accounts for the relatively lack of change in the Russian area). If someone wasn’t watching the scale, they might think the ‘error’ wasn’t as egregious as it was since there is still a good bit of ‘brown’ over Russia.
I do wonder also (as others have) what happened to the temps in Australia? In the erroneous map there is almost no coverage of temps in Australia, in the new Australia is completely covered (and warmer). What gives? If they plot it again will it change again? Same goes for the Hudson Bay area of Canada, erroneous no temps, revised it got a lot hotter. I thought the problem was just with the Russian temps? It appears from this there were massive errors in several areas of the world.
Given all this I don’t see how any rational scientist could possibly consider GISS temp data credible
As an engineer myself it is difficult to imagine the scenario in which I would record the warmest October ever and not step back and say, “Hmm… perhaps I should double check that before Watts, McIntyre and the rest of the Internet makes me look foolish.”
Then after double checking it myself I would find some completely independant people and say, “We are about to make history, can you check this and make sure I didn’t screw it up?”
I’m not accussing them of malfeasance, but I would like for them to know it sure looks like it.
Common sense would dictate being overly cautious before releasing data claiming the warmest October in recorded history.
How does a group that has such an omnipotent grasp of the climate as to be 99% certain of the causes of any changes make an error like as this? I’m so disillusioned.
(my tongue has cut clean through my cheek)
A Nov. 11 poll by Democratic pollster Douglas E. Schoen that sought to measure American sentiment toward climate change policy during the economic crisis found that a majority of Americans think that creating green jobs could be a solution to both.
“A lot of arguments say you don’t want to be messing around with climate change policy when you have a difficult economic context, but the numbers came back pretty strong in terms of support for what the president-elect is talking about doing,” said Steve Cochran, national climate director at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Pierre Gosselin (02:22:53) :
“Off topic: I’ve been predicting the following for some time, with no one really taking me seriously. Now here it is!”
From the link you provided, the last paragraphs:
“There aren’t many policies where you get a triple bang for your buck,” he said. “The public really does see that there is a real opportunity to invest in clean energy and in the process create jobs.”
Creating green energy would require the manufacture, transport and management of countless new products and resources, from windmill parts to solar panels, which would create jobs in many industries.
“Those are hard-headed, hard-hatted jobs that come with the new energy economy that people are talking about, and it’s not always thought of that way,” Cochran said.
I would be quite happy with such a project. I am all for creating green energy if and where possible. New jobs will be great for the economy. What one should be against is, destroying and stifling old energy before the new can be seen to work.
What should be stifled is “cap and trade” and it seems to me the economic realities are such that it will not be put into effect until the economy recovers, and by that time the cooling trend may save the day.
“Taxes will have to rise 13%”
* Massive outcry *
“OK we’ll only raise them 8%. See, aren’t we generous?”
Does anyone else see another adroit ‘step change’ occurring?
@ur momisugly Werner Weber.
Thanks for the explanation. I knew the theory, but was having trouble getting
my mind around the idea of freezing seas creating “global warming” so to speak.
In theory, musn’t you have lower air and/or ocean temperatures to start the freezing that creates the warmth.
Global Sea Ice is at about the average of ’79 thru ’00
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Which means that it is a little over average for the entire record.
It is time that someone take the step of calling a spade a spade. Hansen has done this crap countless times ( more than we probably know). It has to be someone with credibility in the science community. Someone who has consistently found these “errors” in their data and MSM publications. Can you think of anyone who fits that bill, CA? Time to put up or shut up and expose this fraudulent escapade. Too much money has been spent and valuable time wasted on their BS. Hansen is no dummy, and I get the distinct impression that he is purposely doing this to keep those of us watching him off balance. The old “misdirection” trick that magicians use. Whatever he is up to, it sure isn’t science.
Werner Weber (02:07:11) :
The arctic ‘October heat wave’ is the signature of the rapid freezing of the arctic sea ice, because a lot of latent heat is freed.
Remember, we had roughly 2 million km2 less ice extent in this September than normally.
Rapid freezing occured in October, especially along the Siberian coast. At the end of October, the sea ice extent was almost back to normal.
This freezing was driven by very low arctic temperatures. Every kg of water frees 80 kcal or 330 kiloJoule of latent heat, equivalent to heating 80 kg of (liquid) water by 1degree Centigrade- or roughly 100 cubic meter of air at surface pressure by 1 degree. 1m3 of water will thus cause a 1 degree temperature increase for 100.000 cubic meters of air at sea level pressure. This is a column of air of 100 m2 which ist 1000 m high. Correct then for the air pressure, and you have a column of air extenting almost to the end of the troposphere.
You seem to assume that each kilogram of water-to-ice releases its energy to 80kg of liquid. Certainly the liquid still not iced below this one kilogram is a column to the bottom of the sea containing much more than 80 kgs . I would expect convection currents would be set up distributing this heat, as the ice does not form wholepiece. Considering that the air is not a good heat conveyor, compared to water, it would be infrared radiation that would go towards the air, and the air is transparent to infrared and there is not much CO2 or vapor in the arctic, so it would escape to space. I would think that the amount of rise in temperature over the ice is not a simple calculation, even approximately.
It is true that the temperature rises if it snows, and if there is no blizzard taking the rise away.
From the Gistemp website:
“2008-11-12: It seems that one of the sources sent September data rather than October data. ”
So, which ‘one source’ sends them the data for Russia, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Australia…..
That chart is wrong, al least for Peru, we are having lower than normal temperatures. Do these guys fabricate data?. Recently there was a hail storm in the middle of peruvian amazon jungle!!
I called the Canadian and Australian anomalies here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/giss-october-anomaly-warmer-than-september/#comment-6474
From: James Pfefferle (21:12:39) :
Anthony – Can you explain the meteorological phenomena that would cause the step change in the temperature anomaly that occurs across the Bering Straight?
…
Well, James, you see, it is that pesky international dateline.
When the prevailing NW-to-SE Arctic winds cross the international date line between Alaska and Siberia, they go into a temporal warp that moves them from October into September (and vice versa) that immediately adds 24 hours of heat into the Siberian air mass. This subsequently warms up Alaskan and Northern Canadian polar bears, who immediately have a heat prostration problem and suffer a massive population increase.
If it’s true that freezing adds heat to the atmosphere, then is it not also true that melting ice should remove heat from the atmosphere?
If so, then why did we not see low temperatures in the Arctic in 2007/2008 during the larger than normal melt?
mcates,
My friend, you forget these are the same people who confused feet with meters, fired off a shuttle with known problems with O rings in the cold, and tried to bring back a shuttle with a hole in the leading edge of the wing. You and I were handed our butts several times in our careers by some very good folks, and learned that pobody’s nerfect, especially us. We are not surprised at our mistakes, NASA always seems to be.
We are the lucky ones not to have killed people by our bad judgement. These people have.
“Nuff said”
A post script to the above –
Most folks try to learn from their errors because to do same thing over and over again and expect a different result is – insanity. NASA is trying the same gambit with climate as it did with the above mentioned crashes – it’s called engineering arrogance.
I’ll shut up now…
Mike
geeks..everyone can do a mistacke calm down 😛
Granted.
But the question of the refried Australia and Canada remains to be answered.
Canada and Australia WERE warm as per the links I provided at Lucia’s The Blackboard. Why GISS didn’t incorporate them in their first version when they were in the GHCN database, I don’t know. But it is no surprise to me that they have positive anomalies.
Gavin at Real Climate has now said that there are still some errors in the NOAA data…some stations were still being reported from September’s numbers. So the final GISS number will likely be revised again.
That accounts for the gray areas. But what made some of the surrounding areas warmer?
It’s called interpolation, homogenization and 1200 km smoothing that happens with the Gridded data by GHCN and GISS.
Evidently it’s not rocket science
It’s called interpolation, homogenization
Hmmm. I see. Yes, I suppose.
But I can’t help noting the uncanny resemblance to pasteurization.
“It’s called interpolation”
Main Entry: interpolate
Part of Speech: verb
Synonyms: add, alter, change, estimate, foist, inject, insert, intercalate, introduce
Yeah, that’s what it is alright.