Blink comparator of GISS USA temperature anomaly – h/t to Zapruder
The last time I checked, the earth does not retroactively change it’s near surface temperature.
True, all data sets go through some corrections, such as the recent change RSS made to improve the quality of the satellite record which consists of a number of satellite spliced together. However, in the case of the near surface temperature record, we have many long period stations than span the majority of the time period shown above, and they have already been adjusted for TOBS, SHAP, FILNET etc by NOAA prior to being distributed for use by organizations like GISS. These adjustments add mostly a positive bias.
In the recent data replication fiasco, GISS blames NOAA for providing flawed data rather than their failure to catch the repeated data from September to October. In that case they are correct that the issue arose with NOAA, but in business when you are the supplier of a product, most savvy businessmen take a “the buck stops here” approach when it comes to correcting a product flaw, rather than blaming the supplier. GISS provides a product for public consumption worldwide, so it seems to me that they should pony up to taking responsibility for errors that appear in their own product.
In the case above, what could be the explanation for the product changing?
Chris V: “In regards to your statements about CO2, the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that increasing CO2 will produce warming,”
In much the same way, the fact is that a burning candle produces heat, therefore burning a candle will warm a room (even if you leave a window open on a windy day)
“Chris V. (08:29:23) :
Katherine (06:13:00) :
I think that if you look into it, you will see that that Hansen’s “B” scenario is closest to the actual CO2 increase.”
Are you talking about emissions or Mauna Loa ppm? I suspect you mean the latter, in which case Hansen was incorrect insofar as he underestimated oceanic sinks etc?
Chris V. wrote:
I think that if you look into it, you will see that that Hansen’s “B” scenario is closest to the actual CO2 increase.
The problem with AGW is that CO2 increase doesn’t actually track historical temperatures. Here’s a comparison of CO2 levels to temperature from the Medieval period to the current century.
CO2 vs Temperature Change: 800 to 2006
Chris V,
Your claim that UAH and RSS are diverging is not correct.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1978/plot/rss/from:1978
Why do your graphs end several years ago? Satellite measurements show 2008 temperatures no warmer than 1988.
In other words, have we had A scenario emissions but resulting in B scenario measured CO2? I’m just passing through in a rush on this occasion so I’m asking the question genuinely, not rhetorically – normally I would research properly before questioning another poster.
This is the best i can find in a 5-sec google search:
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/research/30073
Chris V.
“In regards to your statements about CO2, the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that increasing CO2 will produce warming, is accepted by virtually every scientist, including most of the AGW skeptics (Christy, Spencer, Lindzen…). ”
Sorry…but broad brushes are almost always patently false, and this is within that group.
Every scientist does not accept this, and I believe you know that, so I’m unsure or your purpose in stating it.
Bait?
Jim
Chris V,
If you use charts stopping in 2007, of course you miss noting the big drop which has created all the hubbub this past year.
In 2007 Hansen was predicting a super-El Nino, apparently thinking another spike would appear on the charts, rivaling the 1998 spike. Instead a La Nina developed, and 2008 is turning out about as different from what Hansen predicted as you can possibly get. Arguing about .1 degree can’t get around this fact.
2007 was when mighty Casey tapped his spikes and confidently stepped up to the plate. However now it is 2008 and mighty Casey has struck out.
There is no joy in Mudville.
There seems to be a pair of “anchor points” in the GISS blink comparator data, one about 1895 and another at 1965. The years in between adjust down, while those on the ends adjust up, especially post-1965. It gives the impression that, in adjusting the middle values down, the analysis forces end values to adjust in the opposite direction.
Is there an explanation for that “anchor-point” effect, i.e, does the analysis hold those points steady on purpose?
**Also, if you think Hansen is trying to sell something, do you feel the same way about Spenser and Christy (who produce the UAH temps)? Spenser and Christy (well known AGW skeptics) are certainly as publicly vocal as Hansen.**
Although to be fair, only one has suggested that certain individuals should be charged with crimes against humanity.
Katherine (10:12:30) :
Your response is unclear to me- do you agree that Hansen’s “B” scenario is closest to the actual GHG concentrations?
JimB (10:17:57) :
I said “virtually every scientist”, not “every scientist”.
Do you dispute that the leading AGW-skeptical scientists (Spenser, Christy, Lindzen…) all accept the basic idea that: 1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas; and 2) that the reason the temperature of the earth is greater than the moon is in large part because of the presence of GHGs (water vapour, CO2, methane…) in the atmosphere?
Caleb (10:30:07) :
Short term noise (i.e., weather) vs long-term trend.
Catherine says:
The graph is interesting, but I wonder if it is truly correct?
We have reasonable evidence that the MWP existed, and indeed the graph shows elevated temperatures, but not elevated CO2 levels … Oh, I see. A little matter of the 800 year lag time.
Chris V::
Again, let me quote from the alarmist blog that you cited as your authority:
NASA’s graph is deliberately skewed — “adjusted” — to make it look scarier. It’s just their version of the Hockey Stick.
Chris (10:09:28) :
Hansen gave three different temperature projections, for three possible future GHG scenarios.
The GHG projections for his scenario B are closest to what actually happened GHG-wise, so we must compare his scenario B temperature prediction to the real temperatures.
It wasn’t an exercise in prediction of future GHG levels.
Chris V,
Your claim that the last two years are “weather” rather than “climate” are absurd. Weather forecasts are good for maybe three days to a week, tops. The climate models did not predict the sharp temperature drop over the last two years, indicating that they don’t model the climate accurately.
However, the several month long 1998 spike was seized on by alarmists as proof the climate was warming out of control.
Smokey (11:18:04) :
The reason GISS uses the baseline it does (1950-1980) is because Hansen started doing his temperature anomalies in the early 1980’s- he just used the most recent 30 period when he started.
Should GISSTemp keep changing their baseline every few years, to include more recent data? That would just lead to confusion, especially with all the scientific literature that has referenced GISSTemp.
The fact that some people can’t understand a simple graph, or understand that the choice of ANY baseline is essentially arbitrary, or understand that changing the baseline of a graph doesn’t affect the magnitude of the CHANGES that graph shows represents of failure of the US educational system, not GISS.
Hansen’s B scenario assumed a constant increase of CO2 in the atmosphere per annum (based on the values at the time the paper was written) which is fairly close to what occurred.
Greg (10:43:10) :
I agree- Hansen was a bit over the top with that one.
However, if Hansen turns out to be right, we all might feel a little different about that.
Chris V. (11:31:48) With ‘all the scientific literature that has referenced GISSTemp’ lately, wouldn’t it behoove Hansen and NASA to see that the integrity of their numbers would be a little more defensible? We have it on Gavin Schmidt’s word that only 0.25FTE’s are spent on the task. I won’t even mention the trillions of dollars of policy decisions that also hang on those numbers. Oops, I already did.
========================================
Andy Beasley: Consider that the NOAA procedure is to round daily temperatures to the nearest degree. The claimed 0.1 accuracy is achieved only by way of oversampling.
Chris V
Still not willing to look at what’s happened since 2000?
And no comment on what Scenario B will look like after this year?
That’s after 20 years, not “short term weather”.
Chris V: “…that the reason the temperature of the earth is greater than the moon is in large part because of the presence of GHGs ”
The reason the temperature of the earth is greater than the moon is probably mainly because of the atmosphere, full stop.
It could be argued that the presence of GHGs may have a moderating effect on surface temperatures, by allowing some heat energy to be elevated above the insulating effect of the air.
Hmmm…. Correcting data which was labelled as provisional before it was published… Yeah, conspiracy. Yeah.
oldjim: Confusion? About aerosols net effect? yeah, a bit. (thanks for the Nature link, BTW)
Jacobson et al suggest that aerosols are a positive forcing agent.
Jacobson, M., 2001: Strong radiative heating due to the mixing state of black carbon in atmospheric aerosols, Nature, 409:695-697; Sato, M. et al., 2003: Global atmospheric black carbon inferred from AERONET, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 100, no. 11: 6319-6324.
Crozier at al says there is a large uncertainity in aerosol forcing, as it relates to GCMs.
“Because of the large uncertainty we have in the radiative forcing of aerosols, there is a corresponding large uncertainty in the degree of radiative forcing overall”, Crozier said. “This introduces a large uncertainty in the degree of warming predicted by climate change models.”
http://news.usti.net/home/news/cn/?/tw.top/2/wed/dg/Uus-climatemodels.RjIW_IaB.html
These authors suggest that aerosol levels were much HIGHER at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, than at present. This would indicate that aerosols levels were highest during the warming leading up to 1940.
McConnell et al. Coal burning leaves toxic heavy metal legacy in the Arctic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2008 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803564105
And, oddly, the same author of the UNEP paper, only a year earlier, suggested that aerosols were a net POSITIVE forcing, and contributes to the glacier retreat.
We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 per cent. Our general circulation model simulations, which take into account the recently observed widespread occurrence of vertically extended atmospheric brown clouds over the Indian Ocean and Asia, suggest that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends. We propose that the combined warming trend of 0.25 K per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed retreat of the Himalayan glaciers.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7153/abs/nature06019.html