Contiguous U.S. GISTEMP Linear Trends: Before and After
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
Many of us have seen gif animations and blink comparators of the older version of Contiguous U.S. GISTEMP data versus the newer version, and here’s yet another one. The presentation is clearer than most.
http://i44.tinypic.com/29dwsj7.gif
It is based on the John Daly archived data:
http://www.john-daly.com/usatemps.006
and the current Contiguous U.S. surface temperature anomaly data from GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
In their presentations, most people have been concerned with which decade had the highest U.S. surface temperature anomaly: the 1940s or the 1990s. But I couldn’t recall having ever seen a trend comparison, so I snipped off the last 9 years from current data and let EXCEL plot the trends:
http://i44.tinypic.com/295sp37.gif
Before the post-1999 GISS adjustments to the Contiguous U.S. GISTEMP data, the linear trend for the period of 1880 to 1999 was 0.035 deg C/decade. After the adjustments, the linear trend rose to 0.044 deg C/decade.
Thanks to Anthony Watts who provided the link to the older GISTEMP data archived at John Daly’s website in his post here:
NOTE: Bob, The credit really should go to Michael Hammer, who wrote that post, but I’m happy to have a role as facilitator. – Anthony
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Take a blink comparator coupled with an explanation geared to a twelve year old and even a Congress critter ought to be able to smell what’s cooking – and it ain’t steak.
I do my bit.
During this Spring and early Summer, New Jersey has been experiencing unusually cold and wet weather. Whenever I’m out and about, and the crappy weather comes up, with people complaining about the cold, I say “Must be that Global Warming”, and EVERYONE I have said this to either laughs, or makes a sarcastic comment about Al Gore or the AGW movement.
From every other program the government has taken over we know that bureaucracy and mediocrity are synonymous, in fact inseparable. When extremist politics enter and capture the leading bureaucrats, add dishonesty to mediocrity.
This is actually kind of analogous to steroids in baseball. Everybody is dimly aware something is not right, everybody hopes the magnitude of the problem is exaggerated, scientific papers are being written the way home runs were being crushed, the people at the top benefit from the problem, and I am sure that big names will be outed when it all comes crashing down.
While I share the general lack of respect for the GISTEMP “product”, I generally feel that what will send the global warming train into the buffers of reality will be the astronomical cost to trying to control the uncontrollable.
wow.
Perhaps we need a new word for this. “Fraud” does not quite suit. It is a characteristic of scientific misconduct that the perpetrators, unlike financial and other conmen, usually believe in what they are promoting. They need to, because otherwise they would realise that they would be inevitably found out. They make up or adjust results because they think that they will ultimately be in accord with the truth. They are smart enough to come up with elaborate rationalisations to justify their actions to themselves and other believers.
In science the easiest person to fool is yourself.
Consider a town that grows into a city. The temperature apparently goes up because of the built infrastructure. You want to fix this. Should you raise the early numbers or lower the recent ones? Maybe a little of both? Whatever you do, the numbers after the correction are wrong – they do not represent real measured temperatures.
If you lower the most recent temps they will not agree with those measured by someone with an accurate personal station. If you raise the historic ones all reporting, analyses, records and so on will not agree with the new data set. And there are several of these adjustments that go on, or not, depending upon who or what? This is sad.
Perhaps if they could measure the temperature well to begin with . . .
Oh, right. They haven’t, can’t, won’t, don’t recognize the problem, …
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That “Say my name” stuff is hilarious!
David Ball (19:05:09) :
These guys have been caught at this type of shenanigans over and over, by Anthony and Steve Mcintyre at CA. I know you frown on words like fraud, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, ……….
it must be duck methane that has caused the GHG’s !
I smell poo poo!
http://www.examiner.com/x-13886-New-Haven-County-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d28-The-invitation-has-been-sent-but-will-James-Hansen-Accept
Any bets on how this plays out? I have twenty on no response.
Robert A Cook PE (20:40:51) : “Who can we complain to? The ABCNNBSBS media are campaigning this way to support the taxes and economic destruction, refusing to let contrary voices be heard. So how do you break through the voices on the so-called “science” channels as well – PBS, Discover, National Geographic, History – when they push the same propaganda?”
Start a boycott of their advertisers?
braddles (22:03:14) : “Perhaps we need a new word for this. ‘Fraud’ does not quite suit.”
Ecorape?
Jim Clarke (21:04:07) : “That’s not incompetence. That is an agenda!”
There is a well-documented late-20th century political strategy of the “manufactured crisis.” Indeed, Rom Emanuel has been quoted recently, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
When one considers the Draconian response to the “climate crisis” (Waxman-Markey, for example) and such bizarre statements as “the debate is over; time to take action,” the entire matter looks more like a manufactured crisis every day. We apparently have the convergence of three manufactured crises — AGW, credit freeze in the financial markets causing a recession, and the “health care crisis.”
— Hold on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
REPLY: Never ascribe conspiracy or fraud, when simple incompetence will do nicely – Anthony
There are two types of incompetence in this world, the kind of incompetence where the mistakes tend to be in a particular direction and the kind of incompetence where the mistakes are random. The latter being the purer and infinitely rarer of the two.
I wouldn’t worry about adjustments on paper. What will be interesting is how they adjust the ice when they realise it is not conforming to forecasts.
Is someone keeping an accurate register of the people responsible for the release of data such as GISS temps to the public?, ie there needs to be an accountable supervisor who approves release of data such as this. I assume this one falls under Hansen again but there are literally hundreds of examples of climate data and reports that are based on “massaged” data.
When the consensus turns full circle as I feel has already started these people need to be held accountable and not let off the hook.
Never ascribe conspiracy or fraud, when simple incompetence will do nicely – Anthony
“It’s worse than a crime. It’s a blunder.”
Romm 101
Har! Har!
Hi Anthony,
I can tell you that most of that change probably happened at the same time that GISS introduced a very big adjustment worldwide, around April 2005 if I don’t remember wrong, which cooled the past and warmed the present quite a lot. I would love to be more precise but I need data which I have stored in a different computer. I will write more on this within 2 hours.
About what caused that big adjustment, I have absolutely no idea. We should probably ask Gavin. Perhaps it was because of the inlets and outlets thing when measuring sea temperatures. But I don’t know.
“Richard111 (23:16:16) :
I wouldn’t worry about adjustments on paper. What will be interesting is how they adjust the ice when they realise it is not conforming to forecasts.”
The ice forcast will conform to the forecast, because the people who control the real data won’t release it and these very same people know John and Jane Doe don’t have the dough, or interest, to go and find out.
Easy. Find what minimum percentage of ice cover fits the conclusion best, then go with that.
WOW! Just been able to view the animated .gifs, I have to ask, is this real? That’s one hell of a massage session by NASA GISS.
The frown has been turned up-side-down (Going from cooling to warming in an instant).
To put this into perspective it is worth bearing in mind that the figure used by Giss is in itself an artefact, with the 1880 start date based on a very small number of stations (which have contuinally changed ever since in numbers and location). Below is Hansens original paper-used to make his presentation to Congress.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf
To put the low spot in 1880 into context it is worth looking at CET-the 1880’s was the effective end of the LIA. In itself the LIA drastically reduced the overall mean average annual temperature-the recovery from that low point is pretty limited
http://www.cadenzapress.co.uk/download/mencken.xls
Tonyb
I’ve clicked on the Australian government ads a few times.May as well spend some of our money on real science.They are certainly throwing a lot of money at farmers,I thought farmers did a good job in coping with climate change,but apparently they need government funded courses to show them how to cope.Whatever would we do without the government telling us what we need?
(continued from above)
The date when GISS introduced those major changes was sometime between February 2006 and June 2006. Global linear trends for the period 1880-2005 changed from 0.0496 ºC/decade to 0.0547 ºC/decade due to the adjustment that took place. I cannot say the exact time when the change happened because I don’t have the GISS data for March, April or May 2006, only February and June.
Other minor changes since June 2006 have slightly reduced that trend for the period 1880-2005, which is 0.0542 ºC/decade for the current version.
Regards.
There is still substantial warming in both cases. In one, the slope is 0.0044, the other 0.0035.
Why is the last decade of data not included? Did I miss the reasoning there?
This is my favorite hockeystick plot:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/uah/trend/plot/uah/last:140/trend/plot/uah/last:60/trend/plot/uah/last:36/trend