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
George E. Smith (18:28:36) :
???
As I said before, GISSTemp plots the global average temperature ANOMALY, not the average global temperature. It shows the change in temperature close to the surface; the satellite show temperature changes at different levels higher up in the atmosphere.
The GISSTemp surface anomalies and the satellite lower troposphere anomalies (which provide essentially continuous coverage- no interpolating between measurement points) match very closely. That shows that the surface station anomalies plotted by GISSTemp are a good “proxy” for the lower atmosphere as a whole.
Hi George. Let’s pretend that, instead of being me on or near the frozen Minnesotan lake you describe, I am a humble joule of long-wave infrared heat leaving Earth after arriving here on, say, May 6 of this year, while the Sun was shining. Now, if I happen to have been ultraviolet radiation on my way in and happen to have hit the planet at the midsection, then I am going to struggle to get out, all things being equal. I will struggle not so much because of C02, although it is not impossible that I will be caught by a molecule of same for a period of time, but because of water vapor and the other gases mixed together in the impressively high atmosphere above me. I try to escape but get absorbed and re-emitted several times by any number of gases in this region of the planet, over the course of several days, possibly weeks, possibly months, and possibly, in the odd rare case, years.
Again, the “blanket” is thick here. Now, as time elapses, it becomes increasingly likely that I will get caught up in some feature of weather. In fact, with the passage of enough time, it becomes nigh on impossible that I will not get caught up in a local precipitation event, and be carried to the ocean, where I am carried directly by a major current or where I evaporate and am transferred poleward by a storm.
OK. So, now I’m in the Atlantic, say, off the coast of Iceland. I may still get caught up in a current that extends into the Arctic basin itself. Or I may get involved with some local weather. Somehow, though, inexorably, I keep moving north, as though it was my destiny. Now, one day, minding my own business, I get caught up in the evaporation of the sea and wind up in the troposphere. After a couple of more shenanigans I wind up getting released during a snowstorm at 87 degrees north one October morning.
I’m nearing freedom now! Why? Because the atmosphere here is only one-third the thickness, or height if you prefer, that it was when I was stuck for all that time at the equator. My chances of a successful jailbreak from this planet and all the arguments here about climate are much, much better now. And — finally — away I go, taken for granted by the somewhat chilly expanse of our solar system.
I do not mean to suggest that none of my fellow joules make their way off the planet at the equator. Some do, but they are the lottery winners, so to speak. Most of us have to work, and wait, before we get out of here.
I think that neither of us is likely to be able to prove, or disprove, your statement that more heat is sent into space at the equator than at the poles, however.
My education, such as it is, and intuition, such as it is, tells me that the action is at the poles. However, and it’s a big however, you have taught me plenty with your comments. And you’re quite gracious. If you would like to be interviewed for a book on climate I’m researching, feel free to look up my e-mail through one of my music websites, http://www.haroldambler.com or http://www.myspace.com/haroldambler (some people find one or the other more easily accessible). All the best, H.
P.S. I see that I stayed with your largely land-based initial discussion in terms of initial IR release at the Earth’s surface and that you have progressed to a more robust investigation of the ocean. No matter, it’s all grist for the mill. Thanks again.
George Smith
People are noticing you’ve done some wonderful expositions here. In particular, you get things in proportion, and not just what boffins behind computer screens in air-conditioned offices think of.
I think this is really important: re-empower people with the basic climate science they can feel, touch, shiver, sweat, see, taste, compute with human-scale maths, and get excited over – then conmen lose their hold.
Would you like to consider doing these posts as proper educational web pages? Completing them with nice pics would help greatly, since “a picture is worth 1000 words.” If you don’t have a website I’d be happy to host them on ours – even as they stand.
I think your posts are potential seeds for what I believe we need eventually – a wiki for a really transparent Climate Science – when we can implement adequate standards that are still fun, and don’t get so highfalutin scientific that ordinary folk and kids cannot understand – the sort of thing you’d like to find in a Science Museum, attractive, human-scale, hands-on, tells the story, etc.
…Like our host does here
Oh my God, does all this wrangling mean that over two months of erroneous data that AGW is now not happening at all? The thermometers have been wrong or the automated reporting have been wrong and that GHGs do not cause AGW. We can all continue to develop coal, oil and gas then. Forget the sustainable sources of energy, the new low latency transmission systems we need, the efficiency gains we need to politically encorage. Phew, AGW must be a fallacy based on a single or two months of erroneous data.
🙂
George E. Smith, I found your posts above to be educational and fascinating. You tie things together well, providing a good explanation and overview of climate mechanics.
Lucy Skywalker has a great little climate site [just click on her name above one of her posts]. As she suggests, maybe you could do a little collaboration.
George, that was T-riffic. I could never have written anything on this topic that cuts so brilliantly to the chase. With your permission (or without if I get impatient) I would love to post your comment on my blog – sonicfrog.net.
George,
I wonder about a couple of things.
One: Is using the term feedback, and thus appealing to amplifier terminology wrong? That is, in the sense that in an amplifier, feedback changes the gain of an amplifier, and as long as the power supply can supply power (energy) we can crank up the power delivered if the feedback is positive. However, in the atmosphere, the energy input is constant, and various parts of the system seem to only change the residence time of portions of energy in the system.
Two: since the amount of H2O in the atmosphere is almost two orders of magnitude greater than CO2, and H2O is better at absorbing EM energy in the range of frequencies that it is available at, and H2O readily undergoes phase changes that cause it to dump large amounts of the energy it is carrying, I tend to agree with your narrative that H2O is the regulating element in control of the temperature on the planet … it would seem to easily compensate for any relatively minuscule increase in energy uptake in the atmosphere caused by CO2 increases from 385 ppm to even 500 ppm.
George E. Smith (18:12:44) :
You “infer” that increasing evaporation will increase cloud cover; I don’t think this has been demonstrated. Are there any studies that show that cloud cover is greater in the summer than the winter? I don’t believe so (though I may be wrong).
Also, the effect of clouds is not as straight forward as you seem to think. Clouds that form over warm ground tend to be higher, thinner, and less reflective. Also, clouds produce their own “greenhouse effect” at night. That’s why clear winter nights tend to be colder than cloudy winter nights.
In short, their are still many unanswered questions about the effect of global warming on cloud cover, and the overall effects of clouds themselves. Right now, I think most scientists believe them to be a slight negative (cooling) feedback, but that conclusion is still very uncertain.
RE: Neven (19:28:25) : “Of course they aren’t. But if the AGW theory turns out to be correct with possibly dire consequences for a lot of people they have made a considerable contribution – in my view – to delaying action that could have lessened those consequences.”
Neven, you need to get out more. The idea that this website and others like it are delaying actions that could have lessened consequences is ridiculous and naive. This website and others such as CA are simply pointing out in many cases gross inconsistencies in the positions taken by the AGW / IPCC “industrial complex”. Proponents of AGW don’t like that, they want to steamroll over any opposition, irrespective of the numerous holes in their position. My personal view is that they know their position is bogus, but they are exploiting the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) Principle to use AGW as an excuse for imposing their desired big government regulatory / taxation / control structure over the people. Granted some of the posts on sceptical websites are over the top, but so are many claims of the other side, the infamous “Hockey Stick”, for one. Practically everything bad has been linked by someone to AGW. So don’t be the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. If anything, you should thank Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre and others like them for holding back the torrent of government programs that will literally suck the hard-earned money out of your wallet while accomplishing no good, whatsoever.
If you haven’t read any sceptical books, you should do so.
You should read the books by Bjorn Lomborg, in particular, “Cool It”. Here is a link to his website: http://www.lomborg.com. I don’t speak for Lomborg, but he takes the viewpoint that even if AGW is true, attempting to reverse it reducing CO2 emissions is fundamentally flawed and economically destructive.
You should read the blog “Global Warming Politics” by Emeritus Professor Philip Stott. Here is a link to an excellent piece about Bjorn Lomborg which highlights the failure of the UK’s renewables policy: http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/9/30_UK_%E2%80%98Renewables%E2%80%99_Policy_Laid_Waste.html.
You should also read the book by Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick, “Taken By Storm”. Here is a link to their website: http://www.takenbystorm.info. It’s an excellent book that exposes many of the fallacies in the AGW position.
George E. Smith (18:12:44) :
I like this too and saved the text on a file. Your description of what happens when a CO2 molecule absorbs a photon fills in a significant gap in my understanding about how that behaves. More details on molecular collision times and re-radiation times would be appreciated.
If you’d like, I can turn that into a page off my http://wermenh.com/climate/ page.
If you want, contact me via http://wermenh.com/contact.html
One very minor error – “those snooty loner A guys” should refer to “Ar guys” of course. BTW, I’m an ex-HP person too, except they laid me off as part of the end-of-life phase of the product I worked on.
Does anyone else believe that Neven might be a pseudonym for someone within NASA?
We can’t presume so. Bear in mind that there were speculations that:
1.) Steve Goddard is actually Steve McIntyre, and,
2.) I am actually Steve Goddard.
3.) It’s all a malign El Reg conspiracy.
Come to think of it, no one has ever seen us in the same room . . .
One very minor error – “those snooty loner A guys” should refer to “Ar guys” of course. BTW, I’m an ex-HP person too, except they laid me off as part of the end-of-life phase of the product I worked on.
That could be a great epitaph!!!!!
“”Richard Sharpe (10:31:31) :
George,
I wonder about a couple of things.
One: Is using the term feedback, and thus appealing to amplifier terminology wrong? “”
Absolutely not. The assumptions in an electronic feedback amplifier system, are that you have an input signal, and an as yet undefined “feedback” signal that are vector summed, and fed into the “amplifier” which is simply a device that produces some response to the input signal, most often proportional to that signal, and mostly more powerful. If the feedback signal that is summed with the original is in fact obtained as a function of the amplifier output, then you will get a modified overall result that in electronic systems is made to depend on the feedback function rather than the amplifier system.
The exact sem result can be obtained in any physical system, so the electronig analog is quite an accurate description. And therein lies the rub; in feedback amolifiers of the electronic kind; THE TIME RESPONSE OF THE AMPLIFIER AND FEEDBACK is of paramount importance as far as stability of the system.
When was the last time you saw a climate paper, that talks about greenhouse gas feedbacks, that even mentions the time response of the system. Quite often the delays in climate systems are such, that if the feedbacks were real, the system would oscillate wildly.
The fact that they seldom do, suggests that either the claimed feedback is much weaker than suggested, or else there is some other influence that overpowers that feedback; like a different mechanism that is also acting.
But absolutely the mathematics applicable to electronic feedback systems is applicable to any physical system with multiple signal loops.
Google “NASA GISS” under Google News and then sort by date… The coverage is piling up…
Here we go again! NOAA GHCN have released a statement that October, 2008, was the second hottest month recorded – NOT SO FAST!
A number of science bloggers have concluded through research that October, 2008, was the tenth hottest.
It has become evident that NOAA, GISS, GISTEMP and GHCN are adjusting their temperature datasets skewed toward the high end. Could this be deliberate?
Off topic
Anthony, I was wondering if you saw this article at the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml
You and Steve McIntyre are mentioned by name.
Brit Hume of Fox News ran a small story summarizing the article and mentioning both Climate Audit and WattsUpWithThat during the 6:30pm news on Monday or Tuesday.
You can always find the UK Daily Telegraoh (right wing deniers newspaper) and Fox news (right wing deniers outlet as well) to try and show that CA and here to be right about climate change when they aint got a single peer reviewed article or theory of the warming between all the posters here.
They must be right though of course……….not.
The STATS blog gets the significance of this
A colder than usual fall does not mean that global warming is not happening, nor does one or more errant sets of data suggest that it’s all a bunch of hooey; but the admission that there isn’t “proper quality control” over how this data is collected should be seen as alarming – as should the failure to spot the anomalous findings until critics began speaking up.
What it suggests is a bad case of confirmation bias: Goddard’s researchers are so focused on confirming that global warming is getting worse that they were overly disposed to accepting data which confirmed their worst fears and under disposed to double check its veracity. This is how science gets skewed.
http://thestatsblog.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/when-confirmation-bias-affects-global-warming-analysis/