Many readers here marvel at the scope of adjustments that NASA GISS performs on weather station data.
Along those lines, Michelle at Read N Say points out something interesting in Jim Hansen’s NASA page.
Below is an excerpt from her post:
This is his background copied from the official NASA GISS web page:
Research Interests:
As a college student in Iowa, I was attracted to science and research by James Van Allen’s space science program in the physics and astronomy department. Since then, it only took me a decade or so to realize that the most exciting planetary research involves trying to understand the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition.
One of my research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially interpreting remote sounding of the earth’s atmosphere and surface from satellites. Such data, appropriately analyzed, may provide one of our most effective ways to monitor and study global change on the earth. The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.
I am also interested in the development and application of global numerical models for the purpose of understanding current climate trends and projecting humans’ potential impacts on climate. The scientific excitement in comparing theory with data, and developing some understanding of global changes that are occurring, is what makes all the other stuff worth it.
He actually says, in the second paragraph, “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”
To me this sounds like spin for “The hardest part is making the numbers show what I want them to”. Let’s see how long it takes for that sentence in the NASA GISS website to get changed.
The above in italics is from Michelle’s post.
In Hansen’s defense, perhaps what he meant was something along the lines of trying to extract useful information from a noisy signal.
On the other hand, with a plethora of issues with GISS data, including adjustments to pristine data, failing to catch obviously corrupted data, significant errors in splicing and reporting pointed out by bloggers, and pronouncements from the man himself that such people are “jesters” and that vandals in England should be defended and energy company executives should be put on trial, one wonders if Hansen really wasn’t just speaking his mind.
Blink comparator of GISS USA temperature anomaly – h/t to Zapruder
UPDATE 1/26 Lucia at The Blackboard wrote to Jim Hansen to get his take on it. Surprisingly, he emailed back.
Lucia,
This sentence refers to satellite measurements. You could look at the report “Long-Term Monitoring of Global Climate Forcings and Feedbacks”, which is available from my office — but you could also find several papers that I wrote in the early 1990s if you go to www.giss.nasa.gov, then Publications, Authors, my name.
Jim Hansen
But now a new question arises. Why doesn’t then GISS embrace satellite measurements?
[snip- no more of these comparisons please – Anthony]
I agree entirely with Greg (15:25:13). This site is turning pathological and is a sad loss now.
I would, like Greg at 15:25, cut him some slack in that he could be referring to not having a way to perfect the collection of the data he analyses, meaning that the data comes with baggage he has to (or can’t, legitimately) rationalize.
That would be an especially difficult consternation for someone who appears to have predicated it all with the apparent self-satisfaction that his hypothesis is true, and only requires that the evidence be adequately catalogued to substantiate it.
He presents this as an apparently obvious fact he has known since college and still states it, implying that he has not changed his view. If his text means otherwise, then his scientific writing needs very close scrutiny as there is a problem with language. If the text means what it says, then the science needs very close scrutiny, as it may not be what it seems. The bio confounds his credibility, without even looking at the science.
Greg (15:25:13) : wrote:
==“The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”==
Never thought I would find myself defending Hansen, but…
Anyone who is responsible for analyzing data that others collect, especially when others own the instruments or write the data collection protocols, knows exactly what he is talking about. A statistician trying to analyze a clinical trial for example, when others have more direct authority over the clinical trial protocol, and MDs collect the data at the investigative site, often have to struggle through their inability to “influence the nature of the measurements obtained.”
On the wrong track with this one I think.
—————————————–
Greg, that is a most charitable thought, but isn’t that the exact reason that the data for an FDA-approval is collected by independent MDs and blinded, unbiased Clinical Research Organizations in double-blinded placebo-controlled studies ?? The job of the statistician is twofold – to adequately power the study, and then determine the statistical significance of results obtained.
“Influencing the nature of the measurements” by a statistician is not something the FDA would take kindly to during the drug approval process, believe me.
On the same subject, if data for a drug approval was collected and documented as badly as temperature data appears to be collected and massaged (with no regulatory control, or even transparency), the drug would not be approved, and heads would roll for the abject sloppiness.
Luckily, Al Gore’s big mistake was inventing the internet BEFORE he invented global warming, otherwise we would never have figured all this out.
George E Smith:
George,
You have misread the paper. They do not claim the GCMs predict a 7% increase in total evaporation. What they say is this ( http://www.nasa-news.org/resources/pdf/Wentz_How_Much_More.pdf ):
So, in other words, the models predict that both the precipitation and evaporation will increase by about 3% and that the concentration in the atmosphere will increase by about 7%. So, yes, the GCMs “understand” that the amount of evaporation and precipitation should remain balanced.
I know you have little faith in climate models and the people who create and run them, but please give them the benefit of the doubt that they might actually be smart enough to recognize what you call “grade school stuff” rather than jumping to incorrect conclusions based on a misreading of the paper!
George E. Smith (12:31:54) : “The other piece of nonsense is that the earth’s albedo, and the amount of cloud cover do not change.”
I’ve posted the following links before, but to me they are so devastating that they are worth posting again.
http://climatesci.org/2009/01/02/new-jgr-paper-inter-annual-variations-in-earths-reflectance-by-palle-et-al-2009/
http://climatesci.org/2009/01/07/sea-level-budget-over-2003%E2%80%932008-a-reevaluation-from-grace-space-gravimetry-satellite-altimetry-and-argo-by-cazenave-et-al-2008/
(I have posted indirect links via Pielke Sr’s website, but he gives the links to the full papers)
The first shows that albedo decreased from the mid-1980s to about 2000. It then increased rapidly for 1-2 years and has since maintained the increased level (see graph figure 2 in Palle paper).
The second shows that ocean warming had slowed down dramatically by 2003, and that the oceans have been cooling since about 2006.
If you put these two papers together, prima facie it looks like they match quite well (I would like to see someone analyse it properly). In which case, it would be reasonable to suppose that the ocean warming in the late 20thC, and the recent ocean cooling, were both driven by clouds.
George E. Smith (12:31:54) : “the air temperature increases were only about 60% of the water temperature increases”
Is it unreasonable to suppose that in the short term, air temperatures are affected by all sorts of factors, because of the way that stuff is sloshing around all over the planet, but that in the long term air temperatures are driven by ocean temperatures? Note that oceans are a far larger heat body than the atmosphere, so are the place to look (after radiation from/into space) to confirm the Earth’s heat budget. Certainly air temperatures changing less than ocean temperatures would be consistent with that idea, but possibly be inconsistent with the idea that temperature changes start in the atmosphere (greenhouse theory).
Smokey (10:29:16) :
Amazingly, most, if not all of Hansen’s adjustments result in what looks like increasing temperatures. What are the odds, eh? click
Colin Aldridge (11:23:04) :
. . . Have you got this blink chart the wrong way round? It seems to show the adjustments are all up for old temperatures with no adjustment for recent ones
David S (11:34:38) :
That blink comparator is interesting. At first I thought the recent high temperatures were simply shifting the average up which would have the effect of making the anomaly go downward in earlier years. But the 1880 to 1890 timeframe shows an upward change between the 1999 graph and the 2008 graph.
Ed (a simple old carpenter) (12:47:26) :
Colin, I think the blink chart is okay. Put your mouse on the chart at about 1965. Right around there the chart pivots, Hanson made temps before that cooler and temps after that hotter. In this way he makes current temps seem hotter when compared to past temps.
Ahem (pride of authorship, here). I’ve done blink charts for all stations in three states so far, IA, IL, WI, and the adjustments break pretty evenly both warmer and colder. (I’ll post the rest on ClimateStations.org as the stations get surveyed).
The Racine blink shows an upward adjustment of the past, which reduces the warming slope. It would be just as easy to find a station adjusted the other way. Were GISS to make All adjustments in one direction, that would be obvious manipulation, and it is not the case.
What I’ve found was some stations were left alone, some tweaked a little up or down, some wildly displaced. Overall, the GISS homogenization algorithm produces a tangle, with no clear adjustment trend. One would have to average all the adjustments to the yearly numbers to find the real trend.
I have seen that chart on WUWT in the past (but I haven’t been able to find it) and it shows a clear, gentle rise, mainly from adjusting past temperatures downward. The variety of individual results lets one fiddle with the weighting of different adjustment variables to produce the desired overall result, without being overtly manipulative.
Our work on the Climate Station survey will let us find the stations that Should be adjusted, and remove the malign fiddling with the more pristine (I hate that word, but it applies) stations.
From the ‘documentation’ file of the GISSTEMP code, per Step2:
Step 2 : Splitting into zonal sections and homogeneization (do_comb_step2.sh)
———————————————————-
To speed up processing, Ts.txt is converted to a binary file and split
into 6 files, each covering a latitudinal zone of a width of 30 degrees.
The goal of the homogeneization effort is to avoid any impact (warming
or cooling) of the changing environment that some stations experienced
by changing the long term trend of any non-rural station to match the
long term trend of their rural neighbors, while retaining the short term
monthly and annual variations. If no such neighbors exist, the station is
completely dropped, if the rural records are shorter, part of the
non-rural record is dropped.
Result: Ts.GHCN.CL.1-6 – before peri-urban adjustment
Ts.GHCN.CL.PA.1-6 – after peri-urban adjustment
It looks to me like ‘step2’ is where the ‘magic’ happens. Interestingly enough, the docs claim that both an adjusted and a non-adjusted output file are produced… wonder when the ‘straight stuff’ goes…
I also wonder if there is an accidental bias in the rules. Stations either get their slope adjusted to match their neighbors or they are dropped. Looks like a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ to me.
Hansen never ceases to amaze.
Have you read the other kind of global warming -direct heating from power stations and cars. This one won’t cause as much trouble though. The numbers are more simple. If you’re a fan of peer review, this will change your mind.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/another-kind-of-global-warming/
You know, he’s just like Mann. There’s no fear at all of unreasonable comments. The media keeps eating it up like the messiah has spoken.
Philip McDaniel — A more correct concept would be ‘…trying to understand the climate changes on earth and whether or not anthropogenic changes influence those changes.’
Nonsense. OBVIOUSLY humans alter their environment, and have done so with increasing ability for the past 10,000 years. This isn’t in dispute. Hansen is looking for the amount of human influence on climate. This is a perfectly legitimate thing to study. In fact that makes him pretty smart for being among the first to seriously attempt to answer at least part of the question.
It’s one thing to note that the climate is changing and dispute signal levels (natural vs human) but it’s bordering on silliness to suggest that humans have no measurable influence whatsoever. Unless of course you’re suggesting (laughably) that the effects of deforesting an entire continent (Europe) is something that could never be quantified (just for one example.)
There are those of us who are skeptical that humans can cause ENOUGH change to be problematic in the future (i.e. tipping points where runaway conditions occur) and/or that any such negative change is solely due to CO2. This is completely different than attempting to argue that humans cause no changes whatsoever.
As “ad” says above this site is turning pathological. A few days ago there was a claim that Hansen was fudging numbers and some sort of magical statistical analysis could prove it (it can’t tell the difference between equipment issues or rounding or anything else, much less malign intent.) Now this.
Can’t we simply be skeptical that Hansen is right? It it truly necessary to pillory the man for his every utterence?
Hansen does seem to be fond of massaging the data, but I’m not altogether convinced that it really has had much of an effect on the long-term GISS data trend, if viewed from a big-picture perspective. Small-scale yes, long trends, not so much.
As an example, check out Bob Tisdale’s blog. He has a really terrific post where has has taken a synthetic temperature anomaly dataset that he created from a number of climate-forcing variables and compared it to the historical HADCRUT, NCDC and GISS datasets. The synthetic dataset compares really well to them all, even GISS, with it’s Hansenizations.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
This isn’t to say that I approve of Hansen’s actions, I do not. I just think that it has done more to cast a shadow over Hansen’s integrity than it has done to undermine the utility of the GISS dataset, in terms of long-term trends.
Blink comparator of GISS USA temperature anomaly – h/t to Zapruder
Who is Zapruder?
(Other than the tourist whose 8mm film proved Kennedy was shot by Castro sympathizer Oswald ?)
I’m with those who think there was no sense of data tweaking intended in Hansen’s statement but that it does show he conceives himself as having to act politically in a political bureaucracy and also believes he has a just cause in the interests of defending the planet against AGW.
None of that is news.
James Hansen would not come under anywhere near the current level of criticism if he simply provided transparency of his data and methodologies. He does not. He deliberately refuses to provide what is necessary to falsify his catastrophic global warming hypothesis. That refusal contradicts the scientific method, and it is a slap in the face to the taxpaying public that pays his salary.
Instead, Hansen makes highly inflammatory public statements like this:
In other words, James Hansen is 100% right, and no one has the right to challenge him in any way. And the accusation of payola comes from from Hansen, who has taken upwards of a million dollars from organizations with views identical to his. Anyone who does not have a problem with taking piles of advocacy cash when on the public payroll needs to revisit the meaning of ethics.
If Hansen’s predictions were anywhere near accurate, he might get away with his arrogance. But he has been uniformly and consistently wrong, going back to the 1970’s. And he knows it; thus his stonewalling.
James Hansen brings the criticism on himself by his statements, which include his demand for the jailing of law-abiding company directors, and by volunteering to testify in foreign courts on behalf of admitted lawbreakers, while he is being paid by American taxpayers.
Mr. Hansen has the right to these opinions — but not as director of GISS. If he wants to demonize anyone questioning his one-sided views, he should run for elective office. But it is a travesty that the head of NASA GISS acts the way he does and says the things he says.
I am going to do a set of toxicological studies on human derived cells from families that have an individual with a gene-related disease. I will have one affected individual and three controls (twin/sib and unrelated age matched) x 11.
During all the trials I will not know which is the affected/twin/sib. I will do the while study without knowing and do all the stats within families without knowing.
This is standard, as it is VERY easy to round-up or down, as it were, based on bias. You don’t even have to be deliberately cheating, it is something innate for people to influence the outcome. The most common problem for young scientists is that they throw away data sets that are ‘wrong’, and do so until they get a good data set with a good n-number. Throwing away outliers may improve your error bars, but it is not science.
E.M.Smith (16:43:26) :
Any group that like Python can’t be all bad, I use it for all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to help out at the moment. You can contact me through contact.html on my web site with questions. I’ll look a bit, but it’s approaching 2300 here.
Are you familiar with the Climate Audit folks playing with GISTEMP? I’m not, but http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3090 is one step on the way, you may want to move discussion about this over there. Actually, go to http://www.climateaudit.org/ and search for GISTEMP. Lotsa relevant info.
I thought you were looking at ModelE. GISTEMP is certainly an easier thing to port.
“… the danger that we face is the Venus syndrome. There is no escape from the Venus Syndrome. Venus will never have oceans again. … If the planet gets too warm, the water vapor feedback can cause a runaway greenhouse effect. The ocean boils into the atmosphere and life is extinguished.”
Obviously, the most exciting planetary research involves making models that blow up and predicting the End of Creation. Now that’s science!
Jeff Id
re direct heating from power stations and cars.
This has long been one of my contentions, that we should employ the most efficient means for producing power — it reduces waste heat into the atmosphere and prolongs the life of natural resources. That is why a combined cycle natural gas plant is superior — it wastes only about 30 percent of the fuel as waste heat, compared to roughly 60 percent for coal, and around 80 percent for nuclear.
As for cars, hybrids will help reduce fuel consumption. And today’s news states that this week, Obama will direct agencies to cease blocking states’ rights to implement their own vehicle efficiency standards. California will once again have cars that will be different from many other states. Although, 13 other states also want the same mileage standards as California.
Roger E. Sowell
Two sentences stand out to me in those paragraphs. The first is:
“…understand the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition.”
His current actions are an embodiment of an existing belief structure. If he already believes that humans are affecting climate through changes they are causing in the atmosphere then it’s a small step to convince himself the change is there whether it is or not.
The second is:
“…development and application of global numerical models for the purpose of understanding current climate trends and projecting humans’ potential impacts on climate.”
As someone who worked with computers for over 8 years on 3d and 6d orbital and sub-orbital trajectory reconstruction, I can tell you that computer models make lousy predictors of the future. They are great at helping us understand events where we’re modeling between known end-points. But with any type of future projection they suck. The reason is because very small errors in inputs lead to very large errors in output.
Computer models are iterative by nature. Small errors are compounded into large errors over time. These are not additive errors. They are multiplicative. And with no way to constrain the results they will lead to wildly divergent outcomes.
Given the set of unknowns in solar, earth and climate modeling I don’t know how anyone can purport to predict accurately. What they are doing is fudging the inputs to deliver the results they believe should be correct. That is not science. Where I come from that is called science fiction.
Roger Sowell — As for cars, hybrids will help reduce fuel consumption.
Not as much as diesels. BMW has a 55 mpg model. Observations:
1. I’m not sure why I’d want to drive something like a Prius when I can get better mpg out of a vehicle that I’d actually want to drive.
2. Even if better/faster/funner hybrids come out, the diesel surely has to be cheaper to maintain and the end to end energy budget — from construction to recycling — *has* to be less expensive.
Are you married to hybrids as an idea or were they an example? Any other thoughts?
Time Mr Hansen was “retired”.
his position as I understand it is a political appointment and subject to the kinds of pressures associated with that. Put the right pressure in the right places Goodbuy Mr Hansen.
REPLY: I think you might be confusing the director of NASA with his position, which is not a politically appointed one. – Anthony
G Alston re high-mpg cars
LOL, I am not married at all! (been there, done that, etc ) I favor economics, and let the geeks and engineers develop technology that will survive in the marketplace. It took German engineers to develop diesels that can be sold in the U.S. Hats off to them! I think you are referring to the BMW 116d, a three-door hatchback. It appears to be a hot car; probably will fly off the showroom floors and be back ordered, if the price stays around $24,000.
My statement on hybrids holds for any car, whether powered by gasoline, diesel, natural gas, or bio-fuels. The concept of hybrid, as currently used, means recovering energy from friction braking that would otherwise be wasted as heat. So, even a diesel car could have a hybrid system installed. Most will not because the cost is prohibitive.
And, you don’t have to drive a Prius to get hybrid benefits. There are lots of choices now. Most do not achieve the mpg of a Prius, but still they do better than non-hybrids. I have a couple of friends with Toyota Camry hybrids and they are very happy with them. One guy carpools about 40 miles each way, with 3 large men. The extra weight does not reduce his mpg much, as the hybrid system compensates. A heavy car generates more power when stopping than a lighter car.
Another thought is that T. Boone Pickens is correct, that it is an excellent idea to generate power where and when possible via wind, and use the natural gas saved thereby in vehicles. I would go one better, though, and have it burned in a CNG plug-in hybrid car. We then have a win-win-win solution, less imported oil, renewable power to the grid, and cars that achieve high mpg. With the AFS Trinity design, the car runs on battery for 40 miles then the gasoline engine kicks in. They demonstrated a Saturn Vue with 150 mpg, although most of those miles were achieved on batteries and a nano-technology ultra-capacitor that were recharged through a plug-in system.
Batteries are getting much better, and very quickly. Some research at University of Texas at Austin produced a nano-sheet of carbon that will improve capacitors, too.
As E.M. Smith and I have swapped comments on a lot of this on other threads, the key will be what the Saudis do in regulating oil production and thus the price of oil. The Saudis are of course acutely aware that hybrid cars are now available, and will likely do all they can to keep oil price low so that hybrids are not economically attractive. I am on record as predicting oil price will not exceed $80 per barrel for the next four or five years. But, there is likely to be significant disarray in the OPEC ranks, as member nations begin running out of oil.
If President Obama is as smart as some of us hope he is, he will ask for, then authorize, a mechanism to greatly encourage hybrid vehicles, perhaps an instant rebate upon purchase and not having to wait until tax return time to realize the benefit of a tax credit. Then, car makers can confidently make the hybrids in mass quantities, driving down the per-unit cost and including them on most if not all new vehicles. He could also use government funds to pay for half the cost to convert existing vehicles to hybrid with an after-market system. The new car federal rebate program could be kept simple by having the car dealers reduce the price, then send in all their rebate requests once per month.
I wrote about some of this on my energy blog, if you are interested click here:
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/search?q=hybrid
http://earthsciences.gsfc.nasa.gov/organization.htm
I stand corrected Anthony its clear from the organisation chart where the pressure needs to go.
Franco.Einaudi@nasa.gov
It seems this is the person who is finally responsible for keeping Hansen in his position .