UPDATE: The “ghost author” has been identified, see the end of the article.
When I first saw it, I laughed.
When I saw the internal memo circulated to top managers at NOAA, I laughed even more.
Why? Because NOAA and NCDC are rebuking an analysis which I have not even written yet, using old data, and nobody at NOAA or NCDC had the professionalism to put their name to the document.
First let’s have a look at the National Climatic Data Center’s web page from a week ago:
I was quite surprised to find that my midterm census report on the surfacestations.org project evoked a response from NCDC. I suppose they are getting some heat from the citizenry and some congress critters over lack of quality control. I was even more surprised to see that they couldn’t even get the title right, particularly since the title of my report defines most of what NCDC is all about; Surface Temperature Measurement.
Here’s the title of my report released in March.
“Is The U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?”
But NCDC calls it: “Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?”
True, a small omission, the word “surface”. But remember, this is a scientific organization that writes papers for peer reviewed journals, where accuracy in citation is a job requirement. Plus, the director of NCDC is Thomas Karl, who is now president of the American Meteorological Society. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society is considered a premiere peer reviewed journal, and Karl has written several articles. For him to allow a botched citation like this is pretty embarrassing.
[NOTE: For those that just want to read my report, please feel free to download and read the free copy here PDF, 4 MB]
But the citation error is not just in the NCDC webpage, it is in the PDF document that NOAA and/or NCDC wrote up. I can’t be sure since they cite no named author.
You can download it here (PDF 91KB)
I had few people point out the existence of the NCDC rebuttal to me in the last week, and I’ve been biding my time. I wanted to see what they’d do with it.
Over the weekend I discovered that NOAA had widely circulated NCDC’s “talking points” document to top level division managers in NOAA. I was given this actual internal email, by someone whom appears not to agree with the current NOAA/NCDC thinking.
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:26:48 -0600
From: Andrea Bair <Andrea.Bair@noaa.gov>
Subject: Talking Points on SurfaceStations.org
To: _NWS WR Climate Focal Points <WR.Climate.Focal.Points@noaa.gov>,
_NWS WR MICs HICs DivChiefs <wr.mics.hics.divchiefs@noaa.gov>,
_NWS WR DAPM-OPL <Wr.Dapm.Opl@noaa.gov>,
Susan A Nelson <Susan.A.Nelson@noaa.gov>,
Jeff Zimmerman <Jeff.Zimmerman@noaa.gov>, Matt Ocana <Matt.Ocana@noaa.gov>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Windows/20090302)
Recently I was asked if we had any official talking points on the surfacestations.org report that came out recently. Attached are some talking points from NOAA that we can use.
AB
Note the “NWS WR MICs HICs DivChiefs” It seems pretty much everyone in management at NOAA got this email, yet a week later the citation error remains. Nobody caught it.
I find it pretty humorous that NOAA felt that a booklet full of photographs that many said at the beginning “don’t matter” required an organization wide notice of rebuttal. Note also some big names there. Senior NOAA scientist Susan (1000 year CO2) Solomon got a copy. So did Matt Ocana, Western Region public affairs officer for the National Weather Service. Along with Jeff Zimmerman who appears to be with the NWS Southern Region HQ. The originator, Andrea Bair, is the Climate Services Program Manager, NWS Western Region HQ.
There are lots of other curious things about that NCDC “Talking Points” document.
1. They give no author for the talking points memo. An inquiry as to the author’s name I sent to my regular contact at NCDC a week ago when I first learned of this has gone unanswered. Usually I have gotten answers in a day.
2. They think they have the current data, they do not. They have data from when the network was about 40% surveyed. They cite 70 CRN1/2 stations when we actually have 92 now. Additionally, some of the ratings have been changed as new/better survey information has come to light. They did their talking points analysis with old data and apparently didn’t know it.
3. They never asked me for a current data set. They know how to contact me, in fact they invited me to give a presentation at NCDC last year, which you can read about here in part 1 and part 2
Normally when a scientific organization prepares a rebuttal, it is standard practice to at least ask the keeper of the data if they have the most current data set, and if any caveats or updates exist, and to make the person aware of the issues so that questions can be answered. I received no questions, no request for data and no notice of any kind.
This is not unlike NCDC’s absurd closing of my access to parts of their station meta database in the summer of 2007 without notice just a few weeks after I started the project:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/07/07/noaa-and-ncdc-restore-data-access/
4. They cite USHCN2 data in their graph, but they can’t even get the the number of stations correct in USHCN2. The correct number from their AMS publication is 1218 stations, they list 1228 on the graph. While the error is a simple one, it shows the person doing the talking points was probably not fully familiar with the USHCN2.
On page 6 of Matthew J. Menne, Claude N. Williams, Jr. and Russell S. Vose, 2009: The United States Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data – Version 2.(PDF) Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (in press) there is this sentence:
As a result, HCN version 2 contains 1218 stations, 208 of which are composites; relative to the 1996 release, there have been 62 station deletions and 59 additions.
Sure maybe it is a typo, but add the fact that they couldn’t get my report title correctly cited either, it looks pretty sloppy, especially when you can’t count your own stations.
When I was invited to speak at NCDC last year, I had a lengthy conversation with Matt Mennes, the lead author of the USHCN2 method and peer reviewed paper here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/12/ncdcs-ushcn2-paper-some-progress-some-duck-and-cover/
What I learned was this:
a) The USHCN2 is designed to catch station moves and other discontinuities. Such as we see in Lampasas, TX
b) It will NOT catch long term trend issues, like UHI encroachment. Low frequency/long period biases pass unobstructed/undetected. Thus a station that started out well sited, but has had concrete and asphalt built up around it over time (such as the poster child for badly sited stations Marysville, now closed by NOAA just 3 months after I made the world aware of it) would not be corrected or even noted in USHCN2.
5. They give no methodology or provenance for the data shown in their graph. For all I know, they could be comparing homogenized data from CRN1 and 2 (best stations) to homogenized data from CRN 345 (the worst stations), which of course would show nearly no difference. Our study is focusing on the raw data and the differences that changes after adjustments are applied by NCDC. Did they use 1228 stations or 1218 ? Who knows? There’s no work shown. You can’t even get away with not showing your work in high school algebra class. WUWT?
For NCDC not to cite the data and methodology for the graph is simply sloppy “public relations” driven science. But most importantly, it does not tell the story accurately. It is useful to me however, because it demonstrates what a simple analysis produces.
6. They cite 100 year trends in the data/graph they present. However, our survey most certainly cannot account for changes to the station locations or station siting quality any further back than about 30 years. By NCDC’s own admission, (see Quality Control of pre-1948 Cooperative Observer Network Data PDF) they have little or no metadata posted on station siting much further back than about 1948 on their MMS metadatabase. Further, as we’ve shown time and again, siting is not very static over time. More on the metadata issue here.
While we have examined 100 year trends also, our study focus is different in time scale and in scope. If I were to claim that the surfacestations.org survey represented siting conditions at a weather station 50 or 100 years ago, without supporting metadata or photographs, I would be roundly criticized by the scientific community, and rightly so.
We believe most of the effect has occurred in the last 30 years, much of it due to the introducing of the MMTS electronic thermometer into the network about 1985 with a gradual replacement since then. The cable issue has forced official temperature sensors closer to buildings and human habitation with that gradual change.
NCDC’s new USHCN2 method will not detect this long period signal change introduced by the gradual introduction of the MMTS electronic thermometer, nor do they even address the issue in their talking points, which is central to the surfacestations project.
7. In the references section they don’t even cite my publication!
References
Menne, Matthew J., Claude N. Williams, Jr. and Russell S. Vose, 2009: The United States Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data – Version 2. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, in press.
Peterson, Thomas C., 2006: Examination of Potential Biases in Air Temperature Caused by Poor Station Locations. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87, 1073-1080. It is available from http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/87/8/pdf/i1520-0477-87-8-1073.pdf.
Yet they cite Mennes USHCN2 publication where the 1218 USHCN2 station number is clearly found.
It seems as if this was a rush job, and in the process mistakes were made and common courtesy was tossed aside. I suppose I shouldn’t be upset at the backlash, after all bureaucrats don’t like to be embarrassed by people like me when it is pointed out what a lousy job has been done at temperature measurement nationwide.
I’m working on a data analysis publication with authors that have published in peer reviewed climate an meteorology journals. After learning from John V’s crash analysis in summer 2007 when we had about 30% of the network done, few CRN1/2 stations, and poor spatial distribution that people would try to analyze incomplete data anyway, I’ve kept the rating data and other data gathered private until such time a full analysis and publication can be written.
As NCDC demonstrated, it seems many people just aren’t willing to wait or to even respect he right to first publication of data analysis by the primary researcher.
By not even so much as giving me a courtesy notice or even requesting up to date data, it is clear to me that they don’t think I’m worthy of professional courtesy, yet they’ll gladly publish error laden and incomplete conclusions written by a ghost writer in an attempt to disparage my work before I’ve even had a chance to finish it.
This is the face of NCDC today.
UPDATE:
WUWT commenter Scott Finegan notes that Adobe PDF files have a “properties” section, and that the authors name was revealed there. Here is a screencap:
Thomas C. Peterson is the author.
The whole consept of talking points is repugnat. It realy seems to have an air of “I am smarter than all of you. My 2 second statment with nothing to back it up should be taken as truth; even though your argument was backed up with years of reasurch and facts.
This is all a part of the push for “Cap and Trade” Bill. The bill is to be released to the floor of the House of Representatives within the next few days. The Surface Stations Project would make it an embarrassment for the hearing if the data and pictures were released during this critical event without rebuttal.
Probably some congressional staffer doing research saw this site and requested something be done about it. This would explain the rushed nature of the rebuttal and the inaccuracies contained therein. It is not written for a scientific discussion, but as political cover for members of congress. This may seem cynical, but given the actions of various bureaucracies and elected officials, well within their accepted normal behavior.
I find that the Surface Station project to be one of the most objective studies I have experienced, far better than most grant supported studies. All data is included without “cherry picking” to get the desired result. All rules for the study are shown up front and followed. The best part of the study is that it starts with a question, “how well are the climate stations sited, and do they meet the requirements?”. Due to other commitments I have not been able to participate, but hope to assist in surveying the remaining stations in my area.
While I am personally skeptical the magnitude of the effects caused AGW (as all scientists should be), as an engineer the data must drive the result. My employer would not tolerate sloppy data or biased analysis, and we as citizens should demand the same regarding the data and analysis. If AGW is as bad as the proponents say it is the data should show it. This data must be accurate, and the analysis open and objective. Unfortunately, the more data and analysis I see the less confident I am with the AGW Theory.
In the coming austerity of US govt. I predict govt. run ‘science’ will be a big loser, right behind women, children and the poor.
There is more on Thomas C. Peterson right here at WUWT at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/01/ncdc-changes-from-national-record-keeper-to-advocacy-group/
Different parts of surfacestations.org show different numbers, and that’s probably why their hasty paper gets the numbers wrong. They cite 70% coverage for example, the same number I saw on the site.
George Patch (05:58:42) :
” But, as many different individuals participated in the site evaluations, with varying levels
of expertise, the degree of standardization and reproducibility of this process is unknown. ”
I can’t help but find this offensive. The thinking must be “If professionals can’t site the stations correctly, how can volunteers survey them?”
I guess they have a point. It must be difficult since the network was screwed up so badly.
—
George, I saw that too. I wonder if they know who the persons are (or were) that have been manning these stations all of these years? I wonder how many of the dedicated folks have advanced degrees? In any case, I don’t quite understand why they consider the “reproducibility” or “standardization” to be unknown. Just download the information (and pictures!) from the surfacestations.org website for goodness sakes! And, if they are so inclined, they could, you know, actually VISIT a few of these sites to see for themselves – what a novel idea!!
Scott,
Interesting, Thomas Peterson is a General Physical Scientist in the Climate Services Division…..
It’s not surprising that he wrote this, since he is the one that wrote “Examination of Potential Biases in Air Temperature Caused by Poor Station Locations” back in 2006.
Any guesses to what his conclusions were then? Hmmmm
Maybe it was just amateurs reporting poor station sightings, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the relationship between concrete, asphalt, air conditioners and their effect on temperature monitoring.
@terry
“I just can’t understand why they don’t accept that there are flaws, FIX the bloody problem and get on with doing the science they were trained to do.”
Terry I’m currently visiting very cool Cape Cod. Anthony’s Surface Stations report is on the couch beside me. On the other side is my planetary atmospheres scientist son.
He suggests that the answer to your question is ‘follow the money’. Certain persons who have invested their careers in supporting AGW are not going to go softly into that night of admitting their sloppiness and the resulting bad science.
Watt can we say about the tenacity and courage of one individual to take on these bureaucracies? And remain civil in the face of some chillingly transparent attempts to discredit the work?
I guess ‘thanks’ will have to do.
A good article. Nice to see the bureaucratic spin meisters are still active.
One small point though; I don’t think the recipients of the e-mail should be so clearly identified, and especially not their e-mail addresses.
REPLY: Normally I would, but research shows their email address are all over the web. If you put in the names and NOAA in Google, the email addresses pop right up. They put their email addresses in all sorts of documents and web pages. – Anthony
Richard Percifield (08:33:08) :
“If AGW is as bad as the proponents say it is the data should show it. This data must be accurate, and the analysis open and objective.”
I think that boat sailed long ago. Data as we understand it is different in the politicized climate science arena, with CGM projections being afforded the same official confidence (and sometimes more) as directly quantifiable, empirical results. Its a travesty.
This kind of hubris among political quasi-scientific headquarter groups is typical and should ALWAYS be rebutted by a dry, technical letter pointing out both analytical and professional courtesy errors and should include, again dry and technical, professional advice on how to behave better.
Before the public internet, this kind of back and forth was par for the course. The fact that we get a sideline seat doesn’t make it a new thing. There has always been a muddied trenchline actively engaged in back and forth feather ruffling. And quite unmannerly at that.
Anthony, write the rebuttal letter on letterhead and send it registered mail, receipt required. Keep it as dry and technical as you can, especially in your section on professional courtesy 101.
“Peter Hearnden (02:18:21) :
Anthony, I ALWAYS post using my real name, would that many of your most outspoken correspondents, notably the people who ad hom James Hansen, here showed that same ‘professionalism’…”
Should Mr. Hansen show the restraint expected from a civil servant, avoid inflammatory sensationalism and extreme declarations, his personality would not attract the same passionate and sometimes over the top reactions. Perhaps Mr. Hearnden may want to offer the GISS director some professional advices?
The following statement is preposterous:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but I think its now clear that the real “peer review” is happening in the better science blogs. The journalistic “peer review” is beginning to look more and more like the “crony review”, rather than the much-vaunted intellectual review it probably never really was.
That, no matter how one feels about the issue of climate change, is a sad indictment on the attack on science today.
And I have had scientific research both accepted and rejected via the peer review process.
And just to bring a little perspective into the debate on calibration, the study I did would have never been published in a public journal if I had not calibrated EVERY time I took measurements. And my study had only 6 subjects in it. Even if the AGW’s prove right, the entire premise of relying on surface station data will have to be called into question due to this most basic missing step in data collection. Calibration. In the end, to further the global warming premise, scientifically calibrated data must be used. It simply must. Why? Because the overall rise in temperature is STILL within the error bars of surface station measurements. Therefore, based on everything I have learned about statistical significance, global warming has not been shown to be significant using surface station data. To say otherwise is not scientifically defenseable.
Period.
They’re scrambling like ants who’s hill got stepped on. Great job, Anthony. I don’t know what your final conclusions will be but they seem to realize a shoe is about to drop.
This looks like a preemptive strike on behalf of the NCDC. Some times countering a pre emptive strike can go back to their statement. They used the word “disagree” in reference to your work.
Anthony you have neigher completed your work nor offered a final summary.
I would drop them a very short and complimentary note and ask them to give data they have and compare it with data you have not yet released and have them tell you what they disagree with and ask them to be very specific. They are simply disagreeing with data you haven’t given them and they need to be called on it. In court this is referred to by “I know what you are thinking”.
I’ve lurked here for some time, but I thought I might be able to add a little to this particular debate.
1. If NOAA doesn’t have good knowledge of siting, how does it know that it has 70 “good or best” sited stations?
2. If there are only 70 “good or best”, what does that say about the rest of the 1218?
3. The graph very helpfully confirms that the temperature has been falling steeply for the last few years and is now at a level lower than in the ’50s. Good work!
As you say, hurriedly constructed and perhaps not taking full account of the implications of their rebuttal.
And if they eliminate the ASOS stations (which evidently are not deemed suitable for climate monitoring) from the best of, how many “good” stations are left?
All but three CRN1 stations are located in airports.
If AGW is as bad as the proponents say it is the data should show it.
Even stipulating that the adjusted trend is correct, the data represents no crisis, whatever. The crisis is only shown in the models which project around five times as much warming for the 21st century as during the 20th.
And as the temperatures have decreased around 0.2C so far this century, they’d better get move on.
“But, as many different individuals participated in the site evaluations, with varying levels of expertise, the degree of standardization and reproducibility of this process is unknown. However, at the present time this is the only large scale site evaluation information available so we conducted a preliminary analysis.”
“Train wrecks” are usually pretty easy to spot though, as are air conditioning exhausts, BBQ grills, burning barrels, and asphalt. I would also bet that most folks can tell at a glance a horizontal measurement that is say less than half of the required 100 ft, and with probably 99.99% reproducibility.
But please note that these folks, who are not even sure of where their sites are located, nor apparently how many reporting stations exist, or even what instrumentation is being used, “conducted a preliminary analysis,” and found no problems.
It kind of reminds me of the old Doctor Joke where the Dr. looking over test results says to the patient, “I’m not sure, but I think the problem may be drinking. So the patient says, “Oh – I’ll come back when you’re sober Doc.”
NOAA. The document’s only identification is its being on NOAA letterhead. The email also calls it an NOAA document.
REPLY: Yes but it is posted on NCDC’s website, the name on the letterhead “NOAA Climate Services” relates to NCDC, and as we’ve recently learned, the document was authored by Thomas C. Peterson who is in fact at NCDC in Asheville, NC. Peterson is one of the most public faces of NCDC.
– Anthony
If RC chortles over this document, then they will only do so because Anthony put the document in public for them to point at, and himself labelled it a “rebuttal”, when it does not label itself that way nor anything close to that. The language in the doc is generally very neutral and cautious.
It’s not only internal work product not meant for public consumption, it’s *early* internal work product. I think it is regrettable it is getting this much attention and smacked with the label “rebuttal” to boot. No one should give this document the kind of credence nor scrutiny that a document meant to be published to the public or submitted to a journal would justly receive. Goodness sakes, how many of you would like your early internal drafts given this kind of public scrutiny?
As WUWT’s reach and influence grows, Anthony is liable to find himself the recipient of more of this kind of “over the transom” early work product –but it needs to be treated for what it is and not blasted for being what it isn’t intended to be.
REPLY: Actually they posted this on the public web page under “what’s new” see the screencap of the NCDC web page at top. it is still there in public view.
Hardly an “internal” document anymore when they post it on the public web page. – Anthony
” But, as many different individuals participated in the site evaluations, with varying levels of expertise, the degree of standardization and reproducibility of this process is unknown. ”
Sure, but we can standardize all of that with some RegEM and PCA work.
You’ll remember that Peterson is also the guy who wrote that moronic paper attempting to DENY there ever was a ‘Global Cooling’ scientific consensus in the 1970’s. Ha!
From his bio:
“Dr. Thomas C. Peterson is a research meteorologist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. After earning his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University in 1991, Tom primarily engaged in creating NCDC’s global land surface data set used to quantify long-term global climate change. Key areas of his expertise include data archaeology, quality control, homogeneity testing, international data exchange and global climate analysis using both in situ and satellite data. He was a lead author on the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. Currently he is a member of the Global Climate Observing System Atmospheric Observation Panel for Climate, chairs the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology Open Programme Area Group on Monitoring and Analysis of Climate Variability and Change, and co-chairs the Unified Synthesis Product: Climate Change and the United States: Analysis of the Effects and Projections for the Future. The U.S. Department of Commerce has honored him with three Bronze Medal Awards and one Gold Medal Award. Essential Science Indicators has ranked him as one of the top 1% of scientists in the field of Geosciences based on Journal Citation Reports. He is the author or co-author of over 60 peer-reviewed publications and three data sets.”
Anthony, instead of trying to marginalize the surfacestations.org project, Peterson should be thanking you for doing his job for him.
On the subject of internal e-mails suggesting shenanigans, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is making some dramatic accusations about the EPA.
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/Endangerment%20Comments%206-23-09.pdf