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
Read the title and smile…
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/environment/story/1118989.html
nah, man has more power than that little ole sun anyday.
“NASA is a government funded organisation, it must have somwhere in its systems a methodology for any adjustments it has made to historical temperature records. These should be publically available.
Has NASA given any reason for the adjustments ?
Or is this some sort of internal political game being played?”
Insert Taxpayer for government and yes, they lie now, not like when I was kid and they landed on the moon.
Re ‘fraud’: If that is too strong a word, how about ‘chicanery’?
/Mr Lynn
Cap and trade and Gore is an investor.
Whatever the truth behind the adjustments, the new graph suggests that we’re on the way down again, and quite steeply.
DoctorJJ: You wrote, “Looks like about 1970 is the break point. Before then, they ‘corrected’ everything down and since then everything has been up. Interesting.”
I think you are right, maybe 1975 — the 1970s was the ice age cooling hoax, and now we have the all gonna melt warming hoax. When the data doesn’t fit, make it up and hope no one sees the big picture. Same people, different made-up trend lines.
I wonder what they will do when the driveway snows this year are piled higher than last year?
They will not be denied their control and taxes.
I want to share with all of you how very proud I am of the excellent blink comparator animations which are now appearing on the Internet in the service of exposing scientific fraud. To the best of my knowledge the following “Wiggle” graphic was the very first such animation which John Daly, Jerry Brennan and I did on August 17, 2001 to expose the incompetence of Dr. Phil and his crack team of Climateers at the Climate Research Unit (CRU).
http://www.john-daly.com/cru/wiggle.gif
I should be kind towards poor suffering Dr. Phil but I will not be. How very unreasonable of the British public to expect accurate weather forecasts one day in advance when Dr. Phil is providing forecasts one century in advance.
John Daly observed many times, that it is absolutely critical to the Greenhouse Industry for past temperatures to be lower than today’s temperatures. This is a central dogma of their faith and they will go to extraordinary lengths of “adjust” past data to conform to holly scripture. One of the best weapons in our arsenal is the exposure of these data adjustments. As I have asked on more that one occasion:
“If the evidence for global warming is that compelling, why is it necessary for those who believe in global warming, to misrepresent data in this manner to support their cause?”
Keep up the good fight! All that counts is who is standing when the final bell rings.
Michael Ronayne
Nutley, NJ
Anthony,
What kind of proof do you require before I can apply that term? If it’s “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that you need, I think that info has already been offered by many sources, including this site.
Andrew
“Never ascribe conspiracy or fraud, when simple incompetence will do nicely – Anthony”
I suspect that what we are seeing is a combination of cognitive bias and groupthink. Certain researchers are convinced that AGW is real so they expect to see a particular trend in the data. They are aware of the difficulties in measuring current and past temperatures and CO2 levels, and the difficulties in interpreting and comparing proxies, so they can always find a plausible rationalisation for adjusting the data to fit their assumptions. They are also surrounded by colleagues who think the same, so they will receive praise if their results show the “right” trend and hostility or ridicule if they don’t.
It is not necessary to assume conspiracy, fraud or even incompetence when the common weaknesses of the human mind provide a sufficient explanation. Never underestimate the ability of intelligent, well-meaning people to be blinded by their own preconceptions, and never assume that it can’t happen to you as well.
jorgekafkaza: “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?”
So true. I tuned in to watch my favorite “The Universe”, and they were going to talk about the planet Venus. I should have known better, but naively walked right into the trap. After the few obligatory opening remarks about goddess Venus and the ancient Greeks, out comes the first salvo: “. . . but Venus can teach us about global warming,” followed by a talking head telling the viewer how carbon dioxide is making our planet hotter and hotter, the end result of which can be extrapolated from studying Venus. I switched off at that point.
Stu (23:19:03) :
At the risk of appearing to be a tecnical pedant, what spews forth from GISS is not properly referred to as data. Data is collected from instruments and recorded. Once it has been “massaged” through multiple “black box” computer programs, it is something else. GISS would likely argue with this interpretation, but their output is their suggestion of what the temperature data might have looked like if it had been collected timely from properly located, installed and maintained measuring stations.
Call their final product and the process used to produce it whatever you wish, other than “data” and “data analysis”. However, remember that it cannot be picked up by its clean end.
I don’t know if anyone has said it, but I think that recycling these older articles is a really good way to get the word out. I think there are people becoming interested recently who have missed this older information.
I think it’s time to pull out those oldies from this and other blogs, dresss ’em up, find a new angle or two, pretty up the graphics and pictures and give ’em a spin…
I think there have been comments here that indicate that GISS adjustments are rather esoteric knowledge. Thanks for a new look at this ongoing butchering of the public’s trust.
Mike
“Never ascribe conspiracy or fraud, when simple incompetence will do nicely – Anthony”
Is that a corollary of Occam’s Razor?
REPLY: Never ascribe conspiracy or fraud, when simple incompetence will do nicely – Anthony
Anthony,
We all lived through the Clinton era, where every “mistake” by the administration was explained away not as a conspiracy or coverup or fraud or other criminal malfeasance, but as “a mistake”, “didn’t know what we were doing”, “screw up”, “misplaced”, “misjudgement”, “misspoken”. When the people committing such actions are supposed to be the most capable and competent in the land, such to be judged by the populace as most capable of leading this country or doing its science, then any claims by them of incompetence should automatically result in their resignation or impeachment. No other outcome should be acceptable.
some changes….
visit
http://doomsdayarriving.wordpress.com
So where is the peer-reviewed study used to explain and justify all these adjustments?
braddles wrote (22:03:14) :
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.
From the point of view of this religious non-believer, the sentence “the perpetrators, unlike financial and other conmen, usually believe in what they are promoting” applies equally to the followers of any religious faith. Which, to me, certifies that AGW is a religion. Religions are based on faith, not proof, and that can be said of most AGW belief.
IanM
REPLY: Lets stop any further use of the word “fraud”. It is not supported yet. – Anthony
NOTE: Lets stop any further use of the word “fraud”. It is not supported yet. – Anthony
You know, while they have been busy tinkering with the U.S. temperature record, it is with the global temperature record that they have done their best work.
Somehow, I just am not believing that world-wide the temperatures in the 1920’s and 30’s were only .1 or .2 degrees above average. I have a feeling they looked a whole lot more like the U.S. temperature record.
Has that particular manipulation been discussed on this site in the past?
[post excerpt plus link] ~ charles the moderator
Anthony is absolutely correct. Until evidence comes forward, slinging words like fraud, conspiracy, etc…. is a bit over the top. The obvious problems lies in how our government conducts its business, and how the “scientific community” becomes a political advocate for one cause or another.
In this case, based on the problems uncovered here and other places, not to mention the behavior of Dr. Hansen, the House and Senate should begin hearings concerning GISS. Since the recently passed ACES law depends heavily upon organizations such as GISS, it is incumbent upon Congress to ensure they are doing thier job. One of the obvious questions Congress could throw out is why GISS depends so heavily upon surface weather stations and not satellite derived tropespheric measurements? GISS is, afterall, part of NASA.
Actually, the whole article, purporting to explain how the sun’s role in global warming is less than man’s, is a good example of how media pop-science promulgates misinformation and the AGW dogma. E.g., after quoting a law professor (not a scientist):
May we use “humbug?”
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
A [snip] law invented by powerful deceitful people to explain away their shenanigans after they get caught red handed.
Oh botheration! Must have messed up the ‘blockquote’ function. Unfortunately, this primitive software does not permit us to edit or correct our submissions. Well, you can still figure out which is the newspaper article, and which is me. /Mr L
Nice application of Hanlon’s razor Anthony:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor