Both Lucia and Steve McIntyre beat me on this story, so I’ll defer to them. That’s what I get for going to dinner with relatives last night and sleeping in.
Below is a plot from McIntyre showing the RSS data compared to UAH MSU. Both are down significantly in June 2009 with UAH MSU at .001°C
RSS is down from 0.090C in May 2009 to 0.075C in June 2009
Steve McIntyre writes a little parody of the issue: RSS June – “Worse Than We Thought”
Lucia actually expected RSS to climb and has an analysis here
Even NCDC’s director Tom Karl has something to say about satellite data, read on.
Both of the datasets are available in raw form if you want t plot for yourself.
RSS (Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa)
RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.2)
UAH (University of Alabama, Huntsville)
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data
There had been some comments in the UAH thread earlier that May and June seem to have cycled lower in the UAH data set in recent years. It seems that RSS is following also.
I expect we’ll hear an announcement from NOAA/NCDC soon about it being the nth warmest June on record. They will of course cite surface data from stations like this one at the Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of Arizona at Tucson:
Here is a testimony in March 2009 before congress from NCDC’s director Tom Karl, where he complains about satellite data and the “adjustments” required:
It is important to note raw satellite data and rapidly produced weather products derived from satellite sensors are rarely useful for climate change studies. Rather, an ordered series of sophisticated technical processes, developed through decades of scientific achievement, are required to convert raw satellite sensor data into Climate Data Records (CDRs).
You mean “sophisticated technical processes” like these performed on raw surface temperature data at NCDC?
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Source: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp019.html
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http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml
Plimer getting some traction
I would love to see, along with these two data lines, a corresponding data line of sunspot activity.
Can someone point me to that?
Oh, yeah, add to that the CO2 level. I would just like to see for myself where the stronger correlations are.
tallbloke (13:47:26) : “My uncle told me engineers used to design things 10x stronger than needed,…”
My experience has been that for things that stay on the ground (bridges, a/c systems, etc.), calculate and x2.
Due to weight, aircraft “safety factor” = +15%.
An obvious sign of how man is indeed changing the climate….
Data.
Which is EXACTLY what our “Science Czar” said we needed in his book Ecoscience. I think people need to start taking these people at their word. There is a common theme among them.
And from that same article:
So the accuracy of the “global warming” issue doesn’t even matter to them. They don”t care about climate, it is about policy. This is what many have been saying all along, and now they are finally saying it themselves.
E.M.Smith (09:30:43) Thanks for going through the GISS code. Since it substracts a constant offset, that is how the past becomes conveniently colder, so the slope of warming is steeper. I always wondered how that happened.
Chris V. (14:12:52) : Both the report he cites and the conclusions he states are highly misleading. CCSP really spun the RSS results well beyond what could be concluded from them. The claim that the “discrepancy” was resolved, which he parrots, is really misleading. In point of fact, that the (spuriously warm) data sets show about the same warming as the surface data sets strongly suggests that there is something either very wrong with the precious surface data or the models which predict about 1.2 times MORE warming in the troposphere than at the surface. But I don’t think he even expects people to get the spin message-It seems to me that the intention is to suggest that even the applied corrections are inadequate-obviously a necessary precondition for alarm, given the model results and surface data.
I tend to read more into these things than some, but hey, I’m paranoid. Which in my crazy world makes sense. It’s survival instinct at its best.
Tom in Texas (11:01:34) :
Must not have been a good instructor (scientist or engineer) since he did not teach you about significant figures.
Ben
>>“The CO2 cause is disproved by the current temperatures”
>>Please expand on that.
The fact that the CO2 trend-line is still positive (blue), while the global temperature line has recently been negative (green). We have a divergence over the last ten years that the CO2 theory does not address.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/offset:-.2/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2000/offset:-315/scale:0.005
.
Tom in Texas:-)
I too used to use a slide rule, but for most calcs in my early engineering days pre-qualifying we used good old log tables to get the job done. Engineering ain’t like science, we don’t need too many decimals because a) we can’t set out to those tolerances, & b) we can’t build to them either! OT I do once remember a scientist asking me if he could set out his heavy electro-magnetic instruments the following day after the concrete foundations were cast, on the grounds that he’d read somewhere that concrete “sets” in about 4 hrs these days! I told him that so did jelly but he wouldn’t want to walk on it! 😉 AtB
Gore Global Governance?
I’m looking forward to the day when I can sell a fat bunch of carbon credits for not having any children.
ralph ellis (03:12:35) :
Why I asked for an expansion on the claim that a short-term trend in temperatures as “proof” that CO2 does not effect temperatures is because that claim is a bit dishonest. I mean, there are many variables that effect climate, CO2 being one of them. For folks to present the “other side” of the conversation as CO2 and nothing else is intellectually dishonest.
Also Ralph,
Look how different our graphs are!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/offset:-.1/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2000/offset:-315/scale:0.005
Your green line looks pretty damning, but you had some nice cherry picking there. If you add a regression line to your data, you should use the full spectrum of data you are presenting.
Alternatively, you could have presented this graph if you really wanted to start your trend at 2001.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/offset:-.2/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2001/offset:-315/scale:0.005
That looks like a lot more cooling and should suit your argument better, without ignoring data you are presenting (of course, as we know, you are ignoring a lot of other data, but that’s beside the point).
Benjamin P:
You are wrong. ALL of the global warming hype depends entirely on the repeatedly falsified claim that CO2 is the primary cause of the lack of empirical evidence for AGW. Everywhere we look, we see the propaganda about the evil “carbon” — by which they mean carbon dioxide. You will rarely see an article about sulfur dioxide, water vapor, or methane. No, it is almost always CO2; “carbon.”
Why does the AGW scam depend on demonizing this essential, beneficial, and completely harmless trace gas? Because the claim that CO2 will lead to a “tipping point” and cause runaway global warming is the corner that the AGW contingent has boxed itself into.
You see, if CO2 doesn’t lead directly to climate catastrophe, then there is no rationale for spending $trillions — or any substantial amount of money at all — to mitigate a non-problem. Is there?
No. So CO2 must be kept as the cause of the CO2=AGW hypothesis. The AGW gang has hung their collective hats on demonizing CO2 — and now it turns out that CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature at all. None. The entire argument demonizing CO2 comes from always-inaccurate computer models; real world, empirical evidence that CO2 causes global warming is non-existent.
For you to back away from the failed CO2=AGW conjecture is telling. It means that the realization that CO2 can not be the cause of noticeable global warming is becoming apparent to the general public. Bad news for the climate alarmists.
Smokey, I am sorry, but that is not my understanding of Climate.
I’ve read articles about Methane, SO2, water vapor, as well as CO2. I’ve read articles about solar variance, oceanic oscillations, el nino and la nina. I’ve read articles about aerosols, albedo, land use changes, etc.
For you to claim that the warmist say the CO2 is the ONLY variable in climate change is dishonest, because I’ve never met a scientist who makes that claim.
The only folks I see making the claim that “warmist” say CO2 is the only variable is the “denilists, skeptics, coolists, “.
Perhaps I am reading the wrong warmists and you could point me to where the claim CO2 is the only variable is claimed.
@ur momisugly Benjamin P. (10:02:42) :
The AGW hypothesis is exploited by various warm-mongers, such as Gore, Hansen, Waxman, the Obama administration and the MSM. They misrepresent AGW for their own purposes.
Smokey is right.
Benjamin P, you’re putting words in my mouth that I never said:
Can’t let you re-frame the argument like that.
I thought my point was pretty clear: that the AGW crowd has placed their big bet on CO2 as the main driver of global warming.
Notice my original statement: “You will rarely see an article about sulfur dioxide, water vapor, or methane. No, it is almost always CO2…”. See the words ‘rarely,’ and ‘almost always’?
I don’t see anything incorrect in my original statement.
This is completely disingenuous. Of course all the Warmists will admit that other factors besides CO2 influence climate, but as Smokey points out, the whole raison d’etre of the movement to control ‘carbon’ by establishing vast bureaucracies and spending trillions of dollars on ‘alternative’ ‘clean’ energy is based on the hypothesis that carbon dioxide is the great villain, liable at any moment to turn the poor old Earth into an uninhabitable ‘cauldren’ (to use Hansen’s term) like Venus.
This hypothesis has been abundantly falsified, to the satisfaction of thousands of scientists and laymen here and elsewhere. But nowhere do we see the Warmists, Alarmists, Algorytes, and Eco-fascists saying, “Gee, we were wrong about CO2. It’s not a problem.” Instead they plow ahead with insidious ‘cap-and-trade’ (carbon) schemes, and insane nonsense about ‘sequestering’ ‘carbon’.
John Galt is right: Smokey is right.
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn, Smokey, et al: This really isn’t that hard to understand. Benjamin P’s point is that the correlation between CO2 and temperatures is not good on short timescales (on the order of about a decade or less) because variability in the climate is dominant on those timescales.
It is entirely analogous the seasonal cycle: Nobody ever claims that they don’t believe in the seasonal cycle just because we have a week in March or April where the temperature trend here in Rochester is negative. However, people nonetheless understand that one can predict with great confidence that it is going to be considerably warmer here in June than it is in January.
As for sulfur dioxide, water vapor, or methane: Sulfur dioxide oxidizes into sulfate aerosols that cause cooling. Methane causes warming…and is not ignored…but will not be as major a player as CO2 over the long term, primarily because it has a shorter residence time in the atmosphere. And, water vapor is extremely important but its concentration in the atmosphere is “slave” to the temperature so human emissions of water vapor (at least on the magnitudes that we are currently capable of) are not relevant; of course, the role of the water vapor feedback is very relevant and now quite well-demonstrated (see, e.g., http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;323/5917/1020 ).
Joel Shore,
We already know that water vapor affects temperature. You set that strawman up and knocked him right down, you he-man, you! Gosh, the ladies must be awfully impressed. But not scientific skeptics.
Tell us, Joel, why is the planet’s temperature flat to declining, even as the harmless, beneficial trace gas CO2 continues to rise?
Take your time.
Well, how about a few hundred million years BP? No apparent correlation, and when CO2 rises, it’s generally after temperatures do. Long-enough timescale?
/Mr Lynn
Try doing some lots of temperature and Ice cores. I found that on exit from an ice age CO2 and temperature rise “simultaneously” entry into an ice age does not seem to be co2 related.
The simultaneousness is of course difficult to prove since the record has such large time slices. But it does not look as if CO2 is lagging temperature:
a few examples:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6826/iceage040kkq1.jpg
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/521/iceage560650kld7.jpg
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3479/iceage750800kqf1.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3331/iceage40100kcp6.jpg
John Finn…
John the question has never been that temperatures have risen, or will rise, or will fall… All of those things will occur over the course of the next several thousand millennia. The question is what is the driver of that warming and/or cooling.
CO2 is not powerful enough to do this ( even the IPCC admits to this ) Though it is, I suppose, the gateway gas ( pun intended ) according to the IPCC. Because of the minuscule change in temperature attributed to CO2 they have massive feedback effects that then reshape the temperature to something much higher then it is.
Add onto this that the datasets we are using are NOT scientificaly accurate ( any data you have to adjust is not very scientific ) It is for this very reason this site came into existence. Anthony started doing something that it still seems no one else has thought about doing. Going and looking at the stations that get the bloody data that gets ‘adjusted’ from this I have to admit that I do not see any scientific merit to many of the sites that we use to even say there is global warming.
Now you say that the satellites are behind the curve and they are going to be going up, which I suppose makes sense… It also makes sense that we would see the largest gain in 4 years ( you mean since el Nino started to fade and la Nina came into play? ) Which will certainly effect the temperature data. (as it has in many times past )
I suppose the thing that I am confused about is why any of this is even a question to you? It is readily apparent so why bring it up? A better question would be what is the best way to take the earths temperature so we can actually gauge what is going on. The second question is so long as it is going in the upward direction do we really have anything to be worried about? Hate to say it but I am much more scared of temperatures reversing course on me then I am about them getting a couple degrees warmer. This is mostly because I can see a great many more issues with a colder world then I can a warmer one.
I do not think I stayed on point here I think I rambled a bit. Bottom line. Temperature over last 2000 years looks pretty damn unstable to me, I would rather be at the high end of the temperature spectrum, rather then the low end ( at least during my life ) I am tired of people saying science is settled and then turning a blind eye to anything that disagrees with their ‘science’ which looks more and more like a belief system to me.