UPDATE 1/25: Mr. Hays has has provided a follow up letter, posted at the bottom of this article. – Anthony
This letter below, reprinted with permission, is from Ross Hays. Ross was a CNN meteorologist for many years. He works for NASA at the Columbia Balloon Facility.
In that capacity he has spent much time in Antarctica. He obviously can’t speak for his agency but can have an opinion which he shared with several people. It is printed below in entirety, exactly as he sent it to Eric Steig today, the lead author of the University of Washington paper highlighted in a press release yesterday that claims there is a warming in Antarctica. There were some of the pronouncements made in the media, particularly to the Associated Press by Dr. Michael Mann, that marry that paper with “global warming”, even though no such claim was made in the press release about the scientific paper itself.
I agree with Ross Hays. In my opinion, this press release and subsequent media interviews were done for media attention. The timing is suspicious, with the upcoming Al Gore’s address to congress, he can now say: “We’ve now learned Antarctica is warming”. A Google News search shows about 530 articles on the UW press release in various media.
I ask my readers that share this opinion to consider writing factual letters to the editor (in your own words) or make online comments if any of these media outlets are near you. – Anthony
letter dated 1/22/09
Eric,
Let me first say that this is my own opinion and does not represent the agency I work for. I feel your study is absolutely wrong.
There are very few stations in Antarctica to begin with and only a hand full with 50 years of data. Satellite data is just approaching thirty years of available information. In my experience as a day to day forecaster that has to travel and do field work in Antarctica the summer seasons have been getting colder. In the late 1980s helicopters were used to take our personnel to Williams Field from McMurdo Station due to the annual receding of the Ross Ice Shelf, but in the past few years the thaw has been limited and vehicles can continue to make the transition and drive on the ice. One climate note to pass along is December 2006 was the coldest December ever for McMurdo Station. In a synoptic perspective the cooler sea surface temperatures have kept the maritime storms farther offshore in the summer season and the colder more dense air has rolled from the South Pole to the ice shelf.
There was a paper presented at the AMS Conference in New Orleans last year noting over 70% of the continent was cooling due to the ozone hole. We launch balloons into the stratosphere and the anticyclone that develops over the South Pole has been displaced and slow to establish itself over the past five seasons. The pattern in the troposphere has reflected this trend with more maritime (warmer) air around the Antarctic Peninsula which is also where most of the automated weather stations are located for West Antarctica which will give you the average warmer readings and skew the data for all of West Antarctica.
With statistics you can make numbers go to almost any conclusion you want. It saddens me to see members of the scientific community do this for media coverage.
Sincerely,
Ross Hays
Follow up letter, sent 1/24 and posted on 1/25 with permission:
Anthony,
A prerequisite to going to work for the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility was to pass an Antarctic physical. During the southern summer each year CSBF launches large (up to 40 million cubic feet) scientific balloons that orbit Antarctica for up to 42 days with scientific experiments. Most of the payloads are astrophysics, but scientific balloons discovered the ozone hole over Antarctica.
The meteorologist job is to do daily forecasts for our launch site at Williams Field near McMurodo Station on Ross Island. When campaigns are going on daily briefings are provided to personnel and a written summary is provided for daily situation reports sent to the Balloon Program Office at Goddard Space Center. We also monitor the stratospheric winds while the payloads are being readied to launch and to make sure the winds are in the correct direction and the balloon will stay over the continent. We also forecast payload termination and impact areas.
I have only done two tours on the Ice but have provided forecasts from Palestine, Texas on the years between after the balloon launches we take over forecasts for the payload and handle termination from our command center. I will be returning to the Ice in November.
My main problem with the study is the data sets. I know of only 4 stations for all of Antarctica that have fifty complete years of data. I am trying to find the exact number now. Most stations have been on and off in operation for a few seasons during field experiments. One of our retired meteorologists, Glenn Rosenberger was a US Navy meteorologist that did tours in Antarctica. He helped install the first automated weather stations on the continent: In conjunction with Stanford University, believe it was in 1978-1979 that 4 were put on the ice. One was on Minna Bluff, one on the Plateau, one on the slope of Eribus. They were powered by the RTG (radiological thermoelectric generators) and the I was the Radiological Officer for the command. There is just not enough data to support the results in my opinion.
The discussion about the warming in West Antarctica is also questionable to me since the majority of stations with several years of data are on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is surround by warmer maritime air, and doesn’t give a good balance over the interior.
I hope this gives you some idea about me.
Sincerely,
Ross Hays
Tis interesting that a reconstruction says that warming is at .1C/decade since 58 when the following using actual measurements says only .2c/century.
Twentieth century Antarctic air temperature and snowfall simulations by IPCC climate models. Andrew Monaghan, David Bromwich, and David Schneider. Geophysical Research Letters, April 5, 2008
“We can now compare computer simulations with observations of actual climate trends in Antarctica,” says NCAR scientist Andrew Monaghan, the lead author of the study. “This is showing us that, over the past century, most of Antarctica has not undergone the fairly dramatic warming that has affected the rest of the globe. The challenges of studying climate in this remote environment make it difficult to say what the future holds for Antarctica’s climate.”
The authors compared recently constructed temperature data sets from Antarctica, based on data from ice cores and ground weather stations, to 20th century simulations from computer models used by scientists to simulate global climate. While the observed Antarctic temperatures rose by about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) over the past century, the climate models simulated increases in Antarctic temperatures during the same period of 1.4 degrees F (0.75 degrees C).
The error appeared to be caused by models overestimating the amount of water vapor in the Antarctic atmosphere, the new study concludes. The reason may have to do with the cold Antarctic atmosphere handling moisture differently than the atmosphere over warmer regions.
Smokey,
Your proposed comma makes no difference to the implication of experience in Antarctica over more than one season.
I have not made an accusation. I have simply quoted Hays’ own words and asked for an account of the fact that he has had only one season’s experience (by his own words) yet refers to experience of seasons.
I get the feeling that nothing would satisfy those who believe in AGW.
What a bizarre diversion. I am simply trying to establish the truth of Hays’ experience. He is welcome to clarify. Do you consider an interest in the truth to be something particular to “those who believe in AGW”? I am inclined to agree.
I also suspect that Ross Hays’ summer in the Antarctic is probably one season more than you have spent in the Antarctic.
You are absolutely correct – I have never been to the Antarctic. I have also never implied that I have had the sort of experience of the Antarctic that would qualify me to make statements about the trend in summer temperatures. Hays does make such statements, yet seems only to have been there once. Perhaps he would like to clarify, if he is reading?
GREENHOUSE EARTH
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/hotstinky.htm
In conclusion, the Earth’s has alternated between warm periods (‘greenhouse Earth’) and cold periods (‘ice house Earth’). We are now in the ice house; green house periods have been much more common than ice house periods over all of Earth History. During warm periods there were no polar ice caps, the continents were flooded and shallow seas (commonly with reefs) were extensive. The oceans contained little dissolved oxygen, and oceanic primary productivity may have been low, on average. The species diversity of oceanic organisms was high during these times of low productivity. Cold periods (such as we have now) characteristically have large ice caps, low sea level and relatively few shallow seas, high primary oceanic productivity but relatively low species diversity. During the warm periods, the dissociation of gas hydrates may have caused climatic instability, extreme warming, and anoxia.
I e-mailed the following comment to the U of W:
>>>I read with interest your press release regarding the claimed antarctic warming. Then I saw the rebuttal by Ross Hayes: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/22/antarctic-warming-part-2-a-letter-from-a-meteorologist-on-the-ground-in-antarctica/#more-5241
This extreme differences in opinion are disturbing. The community of scientists should have a much better grasp on the trend.
Sincerely,
Craig Moore<<>The “community of scientists” is many thousands of people. This is new
research, and some people will find it convincing and others will not, at
least until more research is done. That is the way science works.
I would note, however, that in his letter Mr. Hayes seems not to have
actually read the study or he would have a better understanding of how the
work was done, or at least he would have expressed it better in his
letter. He certainly is free to disagree with the conclusions.
But the article you cited also suggests some suspicions about the timing.
None of the paper’s authors had anything to do with when the paper was
published by Nature. However, it is the fact that the paper WAS published
Nature, one of the world’s leading journals for peer-reviewed research,
that made it newsworthy and prompted the issuance of a news release. This
is very common and there is nothing suspicious about it.
Vince
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vince Stricherz, science writer
News and Information
Box 351207
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
*********
http://www.uwnews.org
http://www.washington.edu
*********
Covering: Astronomy, atmospheric sciences, biology (and astrobiology),
chemistry, climate change, Earth and space sciences (seismology), physics.
Phone: (206) 543-2580
Fax: (206) 685-0658
e-mail: vinces@u.washington.edu<<<
Joel Shore (12:13:52) :
I lost you there Tim…If I read the received and accepted dates correctly, this paper took almost a year to get accepted (although there whole thing is a bit confusing given that the publication data says “2008″ when they clearly meant “2009″). Where is this 56 days and +- two weeks predictability that you are talking about?
Furthermore, are you arguing that the authors would write up their work and then purposely sit on it to try to time it for some event?
Opps! You’re right about the dates.
Yes, I’ve seen papers withheld for various reasons. They used imagery up to 2006. Then:
By 2007, Steig finally had the 25 years’ worth of data he needed, and teamed up with Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
A year for statistics, um well. Hope I have my dates right ;o).
Since “The Fear of God” losts its impact on people, the next best subject that people always felt uncertain and certainly vulnurable has always been about the weather, as far as we can go back in humanity’s history. Weather is the number one subject for people.
Having press releases saying that the Wrath of God has been seen on a Silver Ship around Jupiter and is heading this way would certainly not be catchy anymore nowadays but using weather related doom stories stikes a chord at our very soul and existence… and nobody is deaf at weather events because we all lived through bad weather and see what it can do. It’s a feeling related subject.
Anthony: Your comment that newspaper editors rarely publish input that is a verbatim extract from a blog does not apply to the Seattle Times. As a life-long resident of the Seattle area and ST reader, I guarantee you that none of the ST editors every read any blog like yours. They are well-known for their “don’t confuse me with facts” approach to journalism.
BBC Newsnight – Warming up President Obama’s inaugural speech?
http://endofmen.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/bbc-newsnight-warming-up-president-obama%E2%80%99s-inaugural-speech/
Perhaps Ross Hays isn’t a reader on this blog. Pity…he should be.
If it’s any help to solve the ongoing drama of his experience in Antarctica, here’s a newsletter of Lyndon State College (Vermont) from Nov 2006 at http://community.lyndonstate.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=1188
ALUM ROSS HAYS FORECASTS FOR NASA BALLOONS
The work of Ross Hays, who studied meteorology at LSC from 1982 to 1984, will appear as part of Discovery Science Channel documentary November 7 at 9:30 p.m. Hays forecasts weather for the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility and travels the world for the best atmospheric conditions.
These launch picture below was taken at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where Hays and the team launched balloons with different science payloads for both colleges and NASA. Hays reports:
“We have launch campaigns twice a year in New Mexico, during the time of the stratospheric wind turnaround . . . during the turnaround, many science groups like to launch so they can spend many hours at float with the winds light and variable. We also have a campaign in Antarctica every year . . . Last year was my first time to Antarctica. There are three launches planned with 40-million-cubic-foot balloons down there. The balloons reach float and circle the continent two to three times, with over 40 days at float.”
“My next assignment is to the Arctic. We work with the Swedish Space Agency at Esrange, near Kiruna. In January JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) wants to send payloads into the polar vortex for study. We also have a campaign each spring at Esrange, with the payloads crossing the Atlantic and being brought down in the Northwest Territories. We have future campaigns planned in Alice Springs, Australia, as well.”
[…]
I would infer “Last year was my first time to Antarctica” to have meant the SH summer starting in late 2005 (as Nov 2006 would be just beginning a new one). He describes it as a “campaign…every year”, but without his input, we wouldn’t know how many he personally participated in. Apparently, though it’s been at least two.
I posted on Real Climate, asking about the statistical significance of the findings, in view of the lack of accuracy in the measurements noted in the 2007 NASA press release.
The answer
“[Response: The 2-3 deg C uncertainty is an absolute error, it isn’t the same as the uncertainty in the trend (i.e. you can often tell that something has warmed much more accurately than you can tell it’s absolute temperature). The WAIS temperature trend is estimated to be 0.17+/-0.06 deg C/dec (95% confidence) – so yes the changes are statistically significant. – gavin]”
I tried stats at school and found that lying under my desk and going “Wibble” made more sense.
So, statisticians, does the reply make sense?
Comment #53 is interesting http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/state-of-antarctica-red-or-blue/langswitch_lang/sk
as it asks what satellite coverage is used, noting problems with TLT and that RSS doesn’t include any information Polewars of 70 degrees.
No answer to that.
I must wander over to Tamino’s and see what abuse is heaped upon non-believers who question there, at least on RC no accusations of stupidity are levelled.
Let’s look at the real data again to see if it is warming in antartica, shall we!
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/VOSTOK.pdf
Remember way back a couple of weeks ago when sea ice was all the buzz? Wonder what happened to the warmies on that one… No I don’t, but still.
Simon’s question to Hays is absolutely fair. Skepticism never sleeps towards either side.
Adam, Schmidt’s answer is not quite to the point but essentially correct. A large number of imprecise measurements can lead to a more precise estimate of an average value or of a trend.
However, that requires presumptions about the uniform nature of the conditions all the measurements were made under. In general these presumptions are only approximately true, leading to unknown biases in the derived statistical results.
A separate issue which Schmidt appears to confuse matters with is that you may know relative temperatures more accurately than absolute temperatures.
Been reading this site for a few months now and just want to express appreciation to Anthony et al for the terrific job of presenting lots of truly “inconvenient truths.” Keep up the good work.
[thanks and sorry, snip, no more about cell phones]
The problem is preconcieved conclusion and people with low enough ethics and morals to only collect data that supports the conclusion they have. They are manipulating data. When they say that 2008 is in the top 10 warmest years, one has to question the data. When you do that, you have opened a very big can of worms. They are eliminating weather stations and data. Not good.
“Rain predicted every day until next Tuesday. It’s raining as I type this. If precip is inhibited, what’s the wet stuff running down my neck when I step outside? Why did I have to plow snow last month for the first time since I’ve lived here? These predictions of La Nina-caused drought make no sense.”
I’m talking about almost 3 weeks of no rain from Jan 2nd to Jan 20th. For Central Coast, that is very dry. Rain predicted till next monday up here, followed by at least 6 more days of guess what, sunny dry weather to end the month (hopefully the forecast changes). All in all, you’ re talking about 6-7 total wet days for January. Believe me, that’s dry for up here. We had decent rain ( and as you mentioned, cold temps) in december, but October, November were mostly dry. That leaves all the reservoirs pretty low for this time of year. I’m hoping the next few months bring some consistent rain.
>From what I can find, RSS is also on a NOAA-(x) sat, all of which appear to have that same 98.7 inclination (typical of sun-synch). RSS only seems to report data to -70 degrees, however they go to 82 degrees in the North.
The UAH data over the Antarctic is fictional. The weighting function peaks well below the surface. That is why RSS don’t have these “data”.
You won’t see this for long however as Anthony gags my comments – because I called him a denier for his publication of David Stockwell’s defamatory comments on Hansen.
Alan W (14:50:42),
Yes, but it’s an ad-hom question, intended to divert from the real issue. The question wasn’t a polite, “Mr. Hays, have you been to Antarctica more than once? It isn’t clear in your letter.” But, No-o-o. Hays must be lying, right? So let’s all chatter about putative lying liars and the lies they tell, and get distracted from the real issue. Such distraction is a tactic.
I disagree with the presumption that it is clear that Hays’ statement… “In my experience as a day to day forecaster that has to travel and do field work in Antarctica the summer seasons have been getting colder” …means what Simon insists that it means. Maybe, and maybe not. So why the hostility over an admitted “implication.”
As I pointed out above, Mr. Hays’ statement: “In my experience as a day to day forecaster that has to travel and do field work in Antarctica, the summer seasons have been getting colder” could have used that comma to make himself more clear. Also, Hays has stated that he is returning to Antarctica.
Why the ornery nit-picking of Hays’ statement? Obviously, to distract from the real issue: the empirical evidence that Antarctic is getting colder.
As Hays points out, “In the late 1980s helicopters were used to take our personnel to Williams Field from McMurdo Station due to the annual receding of the Ross Ice Shelf, but in the past few years the thaw has been limited and vehicles can continue to make the transition and drive on the ice. One climate note to pass along is December 2006 was the coldest December ever for McMurdo Station.” [my emphasis]
The crucial point is not the quibbling over whether Hays has gone to the Antarctic one time or several times. It is that real world evidence is presented that the Antarctic is getting colder.
Smokey, I didn’t read Simon that way at all. He asks for clarification of the basis for saying that the summer seasons are getting colder.
If it is not direct personal experience but simply the history Hays quotes in the statement, that is fine, but that clarification would be helpful in view of the easy inference from of his wording that he has visited Antarctica frequently.
I’m with Smokey on this one. I’m wondering if Simon expects each scientist to personally experience the temperature data for it to be considered reliable? Or is it okay to read other scientists recorded data and make some opinions from that?
For Lucy Skywalker…
Hi Lucy – Perhaps you could expand on why you celebrate the fact that the latest survey finds that the number of US voters disbelieving in manmade global warming has just tipped into an outright majority, 51%. given that The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/
Is uninformed opinion now to be elevated over the opposite? Where will that take us, I wonder?
In the repost, I notice that the antarctic temperatures seem to track closely to the solar cycle. This isn’t based more on eyeballing the graphs than any more sophisticated analysis.
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfmms.html
The expanded date range of the study manages to include the weakest solar cycle in the last five.
What is going on here. Only yesterday we had the report in the media about Antarctica supposedly warming (all with dodgy methodology). Today we have a new media report about the Seasons Changing. (From “Nature”).
See link to media article.
http://www.newsday.com/features/lifestyle/green/ny-green-climatechange,0,7900500.story
This same report was on the news media this morning in Australia.
So the question is: Who is orchestrating this?
Are all the media outlets on Earth getting their information from a few major distributing sources? The fact that such a report is in the US and Australia at synchronous times means either that there is an orchestrated scheme being planned to disseminate mis-information by some group or organisation OR there is a a key dissemination body that controls the media flow from one central body to the worlds disparate media outlets. It smacks to me of management.
If there is a management of these media reports all supporting AGW, is it that there is control of all the world’s media or do the world’s media only report what they are fed? The question is: What report will be next and to what end or purpose are these reports leading to?
Readers might be interested in listening to a radio interview of the paper’s authors Eric Steig and Drew Shindall including a question and answer session. It’s about an hour in length.
http://uwnews.org/relatedcontent/2009/January/rc_parentID46448_thisID46586.wma