I was driving in the middle of Nevada when all this happened, and was offline the entire time. So I can’t claim any credit here. But, it sure is nice to see that the collection of people who visit and post here have had an impact. I offer my particular thanks to WUWT contributor John Goetz. It seems Gavin agrees. I’m up early this morning on my trip back home, and I was quite surprised to find this on RC. See this comment from Gavin Schmidt on Real Climate:
You and McIntyre are mistaken. The first intimation of a problem was posted on Watt’s blog in the comments by ‘Chris’ at around 4pm EST. By 7pm in those comments John Goetz had confirmed that the NOAA file was the problem. Notifications to the GISTEMP team of a problem started arriving very shortly after that, and I personally emailed them that evening. However, no action was taken until the next morning because people had left work already. They had decided to take the analysis down before 8.14am (email time stamp to me) since the overnight update to the NOAA file (uploaded 4.30am) had not fixed the problem. McIntyre’s intervention sometime that morning is neither here nor there. Possibly he should consider that he is not the only person in the world with email, nor is he the only person that can read. The credit for first spotting this goes to the commentators on WUWT, and the first notification to GISTEMP was that evening. – gavin
John Goetz writes later in RC comments, it appears that Steve McIntyre at least raised the consciousnous level with his first blog posting:
For what it is worth, Chris posted his discovery on WUWT about 45 minutes before I made my update indicating an error existed. However, I made my posting because of two emails Steve Mc sent me about two hours prior. The first was the email John S. sent him, quickly followed by a confirmation from Steve. I simply had not checked email due to being busy with work. Steve had already written most of his post by the time I saw the emails.
Not sure it really matters who was there first. I am ashamed to say I saw the big red blotch in central Asia and was so insensitized that I did not investigate it further. Perhaps I’ve lost my critical eye.
Despite some commenters there at RC referring to WUWT in less than glowing terms, I’m pleased that this blog has been a vehicle for, ahem, “climate change”. 😉 Being first really isn’t all that important, getting the data right is.
Quality control is the issue. It is the reason that I started the surfacestations.org project. If after QC for climate data has been suitably addressed with a standards compliant methodology, such as ISO-8000, I’ll be satisfied with the final data. Right now I’m not convinced that the surface data is truly representative.
Gavin, if you’d like to do a guest post here on this error, the floor is yours. Just leave a comment or drop an email. – Anthony
Neven,
water scarcity was a topic here a few weeks ago. According to the IPCC research documents there will be a huge net benefit from higher temperatures.
By the way, also the sahara desert has been shrinking (as it was always properous, when climate was warmer.)
Neven wrote:
So you see, one woman’s coconuts is another man’s desert. Or like the French expression runs: If someone is laughing on one side of the planet, someone is probably crying on the other side. I would like to prevent that lottery as much as possible.
Here’s a simpler breakdown of that “lottery” you mentioned, from How Is Global Warming Changing Mortality in Practice?:
“Lack of daily statistics has prevented accurate assessment of this kind for some regions, but outside the tropics, it indicates that rises in temperature over the next few years would increase heat-related deaths less than they decrease cold-related deaths. For example, on this assumption, the rise in temperature of 3.6°F expected over the next 50 years would increase heat-related deaths in Britain by about 2,000, but reduce cold-related deaths by about 20,000.” Emphasis added. That means 18,000 more people survive, given the 3.6°F projected increase in temperatures.
Here’s a nice graphic to help illustrate the difference in mortality rates. It’s Figure 3 from the above article. They attribute the reduced mortality in North America to the greater availability of central heating compared to Europe–the advantage of adaptation, as opposed to mitigation.
“A surprising finding is that the heat-related mortality rate has stabilized or fallen, despite rising temperatures. Air conditioning has been a major factor in the United States.” You can bet that when electricity costs go up due to carbon mitigation, those mortality rates will also go up.
“Britain and the rest of northern Europe still have little air conditioning, and the heat-related mortality rate in London has not fallen. Nor has it risen, however, despite a 3.6°F rise in summer temperature since 1971. ” Emphasis added.
Gavin Schmidt, it is people “who can read”, & not “that can read”. They are living, breathing (hopefully), flesh & blood, not inanimate objects!
Never mind. The WUWT website proves its worth in any case many-fold over!
I think we should give the AGW’ers a rest after all they really believe what they are doing is correct (re earth warming) so their intentions are not harmful. I think once they understand that C02 ain’t the culprit ( and it seems that this is beginning to occur), the money will be better spent on population control, waste ect. Also I believe like Pielke and co that there may be a local warming effect due to land changes (ie cement in cities) after all we all agree on the UHI effect dont we?. On the other hand… they need to be constantly audited until the CO2 madness is over
Re the precautionary principle:
The onus of proof is on those who wish to spend $45 trillion of other people’s money on CO2 mitigation over the next 40 years.
There is a difference between questioning and promoting:
“Promoting whatever goes against mainstream climate science” constitutes questioning.
Campaigning to spend other people’s money constitutes promoting.
Science is about questioning. Politics is about promoting.
Alan the Brit (23:45:51) :
Gavin Schmidt, it is people “who can read”, & not “that can read”. They are living, breathing (hopefully), flesh & blood, not inanimate objects!
Caesar:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
From Caesar, Act I, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare
George E Smith,
Thankyou for taking the time to reply to my post, I can honestly say I meant no disrespect to or imply any sort of ignorance on your part, far from it, your post was very informative, interesting and not at all intimidating, patronising or condescending.
I have no scientific qualifications, like others here I simply wish to understand the basic simplicity that underlies most issues. Did my very simplistic and basic evaluation of GISS/GISTEMP have any value? I deduce rightly or wrongly from your very helpful and informative post that the anomaly maps have no real value in measuring overall climate variations due to the complex nature of planetary thermodynamics and if this is the case then the IPCC computer models also have no real value other than to convince laypersons/polititians of the need for ‘urgent’ legislative action to curb industrial activity and classify industrial carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
I have no doubt that your explanation regarding BBR(as far as I can understand it) has great merit and your understanding of scientific theory is obviously far better than my own and possibly better than most posters but I hope you can see the value of opinions and assessments from the widest spectrum of academic knowledge and expertise.
Many thanks CK.
Looks like GISTEMP has been adjusted (downwards) again. The land-ocean anomaly for October 2008 now stands at 0.55K (was 0.78K, then 0.58K)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/gistemp/from:2008
(GLB.Ts+dSST.txt datestamp 2008-11-13 21:01)
Evanjones: “The cost (according to Stern) is a third or more of GWP growth per year.”
The Stern Review estimates a cost of 1 percent of global GDP (ie total GDP) by 2050.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_exec_sum.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6098362.stm
Total GDP is not the same as GDP growth. Assume a world economy worth $100 with a growth rate of 3 percent. At the end of the first year, the value of the world economy would have risen to $103. Assume a deadweight annual AGW cost of 1 percent of the $100 GDP. At the end of the first year, at the same rate of growth, the value of the economy would have risen to $102.97 ($99@3%).
The difference in growth is 0.01 percent. This is a great deal less than a third of the 3 percent GDP growth, and it would take 30 years at the same rate of growth before the cost hit a third of the original year’s GDP growth.
As for poor countries, Stern says special provision should be made to help these countries adjust to climate change.
“From 1979-2001, the Big Six flipped warm…Do we see a pattern?”
The only pattern I see is this mantra you keep repeating about the “Big Six” flipping to cold. I have yet to see an explanation as to whether or not this flipping will make any difference to the amount of heat energy within the atmospheric system.
Things are already bad. I am one of those people living in Central California. Let me fill you in on a few facts about water scarcity in this state.
Our climate type is known as a Mediterranean environment. Our rain season comes in the winter, with virtually none for the entire summer season. We rely on the winter rains and the melt from the Sierra Nevada snow pack, to fill our aquifers and dams and supply our water needs for the rest of the year. We are in the midst of a severe water shortage. But it’s not caused by global warming, nor even the current drought, which are, every few years, a natural phenomenon in this type of climate. Our water shortage is man made. Because of environmental rules in this state, they haven’t built or improved water storage to meet the needs of the growing population in more than forty years.
Los Angeles gets much more rain than we do here in Fresno, but where do they get much of their water from? Our Sierra Nevada snow pack. They won’t build a dam, why, because the extremely powerful environmental lobby will not allow it and have blocked attempts to do so in the courts. Instead of catching their local rain and using it to supply their needs, which would be the wise thing to do, the rain water simply flows across the landscape and runs out to the sea. So they ship water from here via canal to supply their needs, at our expense. To make matters worse, The Sierra Club successfully sued the state to try and bring back a population of Salmon to the San Joaquin River. The problem is that the river has been semi-dry for forty years due to Milerton Dam, and this reservoir stores and provides water to many of the Central Valley cities and it’s farmers, and me. No one, even the environmentalists know if the fish will ever come back, but because of this stupid environmental policy, the river must flow, and there will be EVEN LESS water available to cities and farmers.
This year many farmers, some who have farmed the land for generations, have had to fold up and abandon their farms because their wells have dried up. Small rural communities have had to survive for portions of the summer on bottled water.
Do not use California as an example of the possible dire consequences that MIGHT happen in a hundred years. It’s happening NOW, because for forty years concerned citizens, such as yourself, who mean well and are trying to save the planet, have had the ear of the state politicians, and have brought real hardship to it’s people, Here, Now.
I’m not against environmental policy. I’m all for breathing cleaner air and having less pollution (another huge problem in this state, due in part to geography). and I am for cleaner drinking water, when we have water at all. I’m against STUPID environmental policy. And basing that policy on either a fish that may or may not come back, or global changes that may or may not happen in a hundred years, is STUPID environmental policy.
BTW, according to most projections, California would actually get MORE rainfall if global warming does happen. as predicted.
Neven,
A lot of the misconceptions involving global warming stem from the grandstanding that occurs when people are passionate about their work. People often cite warming as the cause for any disaster, however tenuous, such as the devastating earthquake a few years back. Nobody knows what will happen to local conditions as the world heats and cools. The process is far too complex to model. All we can do at this point is look at the past record and try to make deductions.
If a computer model indicates that raising temperatures will cause expanding deserts, then the AGW folks jump all over that and predict doom and gloom. In the 70’s, theoretical models of cooling and its effect caused a similar furor. Doom was predicted for every degree drop in temperature.
So, how does one make judgment?
Nobody should take what I and others claim on this site as face value. Instead, we should try to find reliable scientific sources with no agenda to push. There are many geologists and (historical) climatologists working on this very subject, and they are very skilled and clever folk. They also have a good agreement on what the effects of warming and cooling mean for broad areas of the Earth.
If you are looking for sources, I would suggest “Frozen Earth” by MacDougall. He is a geologist who explains step by step how we have learned about past ice-ages, how we infer the temperature of the past, and the reasoning behind many of the theories used to explain these trends.
Works like his are most illuminating. They should be required reading for anyone who is concerned about AGW or responsible for environmental policy.
I will not play spoiler here, just let me say that it is truly amazing how different a picture is painted by those who model the future and those who study Earth’s past.
Difference is that now Homo Sapiens is pumping, per 2007 figures, 9.34 million GT into the atmosphere and that there is a major disconnect of the GHG in the atmosphere and the past glacial cycles. Only around 50% of the 12CO2 from fossil fuel burning is absorbed by the planet, so given time, the temperatures will catch up as the joules stored in the oceans continue to build… hold on to year seats for the next El Nino.
I have no agenda, but sure as heck am I seeing and experiencing climate change.
So, try this reading: http://forecast.uchicago.edu/samples.html
Global Warming, Understanding The Forecast.
Dont limit the reading to what you like. Read all information, than connect the dots.
I’ve just rearranged a few words:
If AGW is happening and my site promotes whatever goes with the grain of mainstream climate science I rightly and intrepidly convince people to spend time and money on something that is real. If AGW is not happening I can apologize all I want but I’m responsible, however marginally, for the unnecessary action which included mitigation of nonexistent consequences that cost huge amounts of money and inflict human misery on a global scale.
Spot the difference?
Nevin,
I haven’t read yet the comments between your 19:28:25 post and this yet, but feel compelled to comment. The biggest problem I have with your logic is that it’s one sided. You try to lay a guilt trip on those who disagree with you, but don’t consider your own ethical position if you are wrong. It is far more likely in today’s political climate that we will indeed spend vast amounts of resources and money trying to mitigate AGW than not. It may be less than you want, but I don’t see how it will be less than substantial. Removing our childrens’ resources removes their ability to respond to “other” man induced climate changes due to changed land use and so on. It also reduces their resources to respond to natural disasters and natural climate change. If the world cools then history tells us that we can expect more variable weather, reduced crop yields, increased deaths due to the cold, and spread of tropical diseases (presumably because people are clustered together more and can spread them easier). If CO2 were to decrease (presumably in response to the cooling) then you’d also expect lower crop yields from that as well as increased crop diseases and crop pests as crops are stressed and their resistance drops. I haven’t even mentioned other episodic super-disasters.
Would you feel the slightest bit guilty if any of this happens? If the influence of yourself and all your friends has led to this? I don’t know you, but will guess anyways. If you are wrong, you will say “I had good intentions” so therefore am not responsible for what happened.
You need to understand that we too are trying to protect the children of the world. We too are trying to protect the environment. But we are trying to protect these from human greed and exploitation, which I at least believe to be a greater danger than CO2.
Neven
Lots of people want to have a “clean” science that tells them “the truth”. But they don’t want to try to understand the workings of the science. It’s too much. And, horror of horrors, it suggests that knowledge itself carries responsibility.
You’ve got to look in your conscience for this. Nobody can tell you what is “right”. Watts Up provides a platform for people to discuss science – and our human reactions to the science – openly. This openness, that belongs to Magna Carta and everything that matters for freedom, is lacking at RealClimate. Without such openness, we cannot develop real science. The development of science is not a clean process even if the results look bright and clean in the end. Most great discoveries were denounced by “consensus” long before they were accepted – and we do not know how much more important science got lost because of this. As Michael Crichton said, “consensus is the first refuge of scoundrels”… it is not science.
People realize our planet is fragile and under pressure from many factors. But what can solve this is truly open science, science that is open to the human (and the spiritual) factors, not alarmist authoritarianism that cannot even do economic comparisons.
IMHO our real responsibility is to become better scientists and not depend on “authority” outside ourselves that we cannot check – because this is where the conmen start, with ten thousand shades of colour in this spectrum.
We could discuss at great length various aspects of the (gradually warming) climate and in which regions this warming would initially have beneficial effect and in which regions not, but I do not feel inclined to do so. First of all, these points have been discussed, are being rediscussed and will continue to be discussed, until such time that the AGW-hypothesis is sufficiently proven or disproven. This will take quite some more time I believe.
Second of all and more importantly I don’t feel I’m qualified to be discussing most of the aspects of AGW, especially not the scientific ones. Of course I have my opinions, hunches and beliefs but spouting them would be of no use at all I fear. In fact I think 99% of the people on most blogs are not qualified and their comments or references to all kinds of researches and papers do not further the discussion or make for any real progress.
However, I do enjoy keeping an eye on climate-blogs and the comments can be quite instructive or stimulating. From a psychological point of view it’s interesting to see the impatient and frustrated tones of a Gavin Schmidt or a Tamino, the pedantic pitbull-like McIntyre or the relentless Watts proudly presenting his web traffic every month to his following. It’s interesting to think about their motivation to do what they do and the way they do it. Add to that the hypotheses I was talking about (AGW happening or not happening) and there’s a lot to think about.
If a Gavin Schmidt for instance is completely wrong about AGW, I think he’d have a hard time dealing with the disgrace and the fact that all of his work was for nothing. He’s a proud man, not very strategic when it comes to his tone when rebutting contrarian views, but he’s far from stupid. Gathering from his articles on RC I think he’s a man who’s well-read, writes well and even if the AGW-theory is a conspiracy, it’s not that easy to get where he is professionaly. This makes me conclude that he’d be happy to accept disgrace in order for AGW and its consequences not happening.
Now the past few months I’ve been coming to WUWT on a frequent basis because I like to read up on both sides of the story (even if that means a lot of careful reading and sifting). I admit I’m alarmed by the potential of AGW but I always like to think that everything is possible and WUWT is one of the best sites if I may say so for reading up on ‘contrarian’ or skeptic views.
An even bigger reason for me to come here is because I’m intrigued by Anthony Watts. What is his motivation for his guerilla against the mainstream AGW-theory? How would he react if AGW turned out to be a real event? Would he feel responsible for the inaction he promoted? Would he put more solar panels on his roof? Or would he justify himself by saying everyone’s responsible for their own actions, like those companies do that sell cigaretts or unhealthy food? Of course I cannot force him to be more specific about what he thinks is and isn’t taking place (warming for instance) or force him to make his site really objective by refusing some of the contrarian views that have been disproven and trying to describe some of that common ground on which we can all stand.
I don’t believe he’s a ‘denier’ or that he’s paid to run this blog by the fossil fuel industry or some intermediary think tank. But there clearly are reasons for him to present his blog the way he does, and I think wanting to promote ‘open discussion’ or ‘an exchange of views’ does not quite fit the bill. The blog is a bit too onesided for that IMO. I guess I’ll just have to keep observing him and his writings carefully (as I do with other figureheads in the climate change blogosphere). Maybe if I read enough between the lines I can something definite about Mr Watts’ motivation for this blog.
REPLY: Neven, one of my principles is that I beleive that people whom foster opinions should stand behind their words with their name. This is why I’ll always have more respect for people like Gavin, McIntyre, Pielke, and yes even Hansen, than I do for intellectual cowards like Tamino and Eli Rabbet that hurl invective from behind monikers. You’ve written well, and asked probative questions, but I’ll be frank: I don’t trust the motivations of someone who wants specifics about me who can’t even use their complete name when asking such questions. Surely if a stranger called you at home, identified himself only as “Bob”, and then asked you to tell him details of your life and your views on the world you would not oblige would you? Most people would tell them to bug off, never call again, and hang up. You want details on me, but offer nothing. For all I know you are just another internet phantom that is playing nice now but has some other motive. So, knowing nothing about you, I’ll politely say “bug off”. – Anthony
‘I think we should give the AGW’ers a rest after all they really believe what they are doing is correct (re earth warming) so their intentions are not harmful.’
What is the Highway to Hell proverbially paved with?
If I were involved with selling a huge idea, and concerned about the impact of that ideas implications, I would want to make sure that the data inputs for my big idea were valid.
By placing modelers in charge of the climate issue, we have people who are in effect constantly polishing their picture of the apple instead of checking on the apple.
The satellite data is allegedly recalibrated on a regular basis.
It is obvious the same is not done for ground data.
I think it would be wise of the AGW industry to take some time and acknowledge that the ground station data, worldwide, needs to be audited and where indicated, corrected in the field.
Massaging the in house analytical algorithms to ‘compensate’ for ‘assumed’ problems is not going to work.
The question raised is clear: How much of the past data used to declare the apocalypse is GIGO?
And now that there are strategic financial reasons for some countries to overstate warming- to induce the West to impose severe carbon restrictions- accuracy is not merely academic grandstanding.
Models are not data, and models that use garbage data are not even good models.
Anthony-
Re the baseline, GISSTemp uses 1950-1980 because Hansen started generating his temperature anomaly graphs in the early 80’s.
Is GISSTemp supposed to change their baseline every time a new temp anomaly series is produced (Hadcru, UAH, RSS…)? It seems to me that changing the baseline would only cause confusion in all the published literature that references GISSTemp.
REPLY: Well perhaps, but NOAA publishes climate summaries based on a 30 year window, so moving the “normals” with the window is standard practice for them. – Anthony
“You are mis-reading the graphs. Simple as that.” – JohnV
So that is how you respond to criticism? I have seen no evidence whatsoever that you understand my point. Let me try one more time. I know it is kind of subtle.
Imagine one data set is normally distrbuted around an average. Let us say that this represents a stable climate with weather.
The second data set has an upward trend added to the normally distributed noise. Lets say it is a stable climate with weather and a growing UHI trend.
Now imagine where the center point is going to be in the first data set, it will be in the “middle” of the data, like a beam balanced at the center.
In the second data set, the center point will be shifted to the right by the trend, in this case UHI. The balance point of the beam will be shifted because the data cannot be said to be normally distributed.
Does that make sense to you? Yes or no?
If that makes sense, and it should, then why wouldn’t the distance between the center line on the left be exagerated for the graph with the trend, and lessened on the right for the graph with the trend?
Do you have any other reasonable explanation for why the the good sites and bad sites diverge so on the left of the graph? As I said before, the probablity of this being due to random chance, assuming that both the good sites and bad sites are geographically diverse, is somewhere around zero.
I would think that you would be intrested in an explanation of the divergence at the left side of your graph between the three data sets at least to the point of trying to understand my argument, rather than rejecting it without consideration.
I would be more prone to suggest using the earliest data as the baseline, since it is likely the least infected by UHI. Unscrambling this egg is a nightmare, and I think that Anthony’s approach is the best we can do. I am not arguing about current GISTEMP measurements either. I have no opinion yet, since the work is not yet complete, I am arguing about that cool period early on, which is used by alarmists to exagerate climate sensitivity to CO2.
“I can’t speak for Anthony, but my personal opinion about ‘human induced warming’ is more in line with Dr Peilke at climatesci.org. Yes, people are affecting the the climate, but CO2 is a minor role player in that. the primary affect is regional, not global and is a result of land use change and ‘real’ pollution, like the Asian ‘brown cloud’.”….
I’m with Bill Marsh on this one.
HadCrut3 is in. October was warmer than September.
JohnV,
BTW, I agree with Anthony as well that the issue is largely rhetorical, and it is the rhetorical aspect of your graph that I take issue with. IMHO that CRN5 line should be aligned on the leftmost with the CRN1-2 data, on the assumption that the factors affecting these sites today, airports, asphalt parking lots, etc, were not factors then. This would leave the CRN5 line with the same shape, but floating over the top of the other lines. The same would be true, but to a lesser extent, with GISTEMP with respect to CRN12. So, when you say “I’ve seen this question asked a number of times at WUWT. Anthony is aware of the results of the comparison between GISTEMP and the best stations.” you seem to imply that your graph settles the issue, where it clearly does not. You are the one misreading your own graph, IMHO.
JohnV (14:52:36) :
I do not claim that my analysis is definitive. It is certainly much more robust than many of the negative claims made about GISTEMP around here.
JohnV (18:12:12) :
I did not “take into account” anything about GISTEMP. I took the published GISTEMP data for the USA lower-48 and compared it to a temperature trend created using only the best rural stations (CRN12R). The comparison was very good. It’s that simple.
So your hypothesis is that all stations are similarly skewed based on mathematically (unpublished methodology) massaged data.
Oops, I thought I had that bold thingie figured out. Only the word published should be bold.