We should all thank AP’s Seth Borenstein for this, IMHO. Without his article on July SST’s being the hottest ever and it not making much sense, people such as Dr. Spencer may not have been immediately motivated to figure out what was going on with the SST’s. – Anthony
—
Spurious Warming in New NOAA Ocean Temperature Product: The Smoking Gun
Dr. Roy Spencer August 27th, 2009
After crunching data this week from two of our satellite-based microwave sensors, and from NOAA’s official sea surface temperature (SST) product ERSST v3b, I think the evidence is pretty clear:
The ERSST v3b product has a spurious warming since 1998 of about 0.2 deg. C, most of which occurred as a jump in 2001.
The following three panels tell the story. In the first panel I’ve plotted the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) SST anomalies (blue) for the latitude band 40N to 40S. I’ve also plotted SST anomalies from the more recently launched AMSR-E instrument (red), computed over the same latitude band, to show that they are nearly identical. (These SST retrievals do not have any time-dependent adjustments based upon buoy data). The orange curve is anomalies for the entire global (ice-free) oceans, which shows there is little difference with the more restricted latitude band.
In the second panel above I’ve added the NOAA ERSST v3b SST anomalies (magenta), calculated over the same latitude band (40N to 40S) and time period as is available from TRMM.
The third panel above shows the difference [ERSST minus TMI], which reveals an abrupt shift in 2001. The reason why I trust the microwave SST is shown in the following plot, where validation statistics are displayed for match-ups between satellite measurements and moored buoy SST measurements. The horizontal green line is a regression fit to the data. (An average seasonal cycle, and 0.15 deg. C cool skin bias have been removed from these data…neither affects the trend, however.)
I also checked the TMI wind speed retrievals, and there is no evidence of anything unusual happening during 2001. I have no idea how such a large warm bias could have entered into the ERSST dataset, but I’d say the evidence is pretty clear that one exists.
Finally, the 0.15 to 0.20 deg. C warm bias in the NOAA SST product makes it virtually certain that July 2009 was not, as NOAA reported, a record high for global sea surface temperatures.
UPDATE: Dr. Spencer has an update to this post here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/31/spencer-always-question-your-results/
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I can’t wait to hear NOAA’s explanation for this.
Thank you Dr. Spencer for doing this brilliant detective work. I wish every climatologist had your integrity.
Wouldn ya think that “scientists” whose salaries we pay could crunch the data accurately and not have to depend on academic scientists or citizen scientists to set the record straight???? I want my money back for false/inaccurate science in the past and present. I do not want to pay any more of my tax dollars to prevaricators.
Is there actually a climatic data set that is accurate & reliable?
I reckon anyone who claims to know about climate is talking bull… it was warm here today despite it supposedly being cold (according to the BBC!) And I bet they get it wrong tomorrow too! Forget Quantitative easing… I want more Quantitative warming!!
Another “official” dataset bites te dust.
The record ocean temperature for July was due to great warming of the waters near the antarctic according to satelite data. So it makes sense the warming between 40N-40S has not broken a record in July. From my understanding this satelite data has only been available since 30 years, so to claim that the July ocean temperatures are the highest in 130 years seems not right to me.
I am interested to find out what you guys think of this and perhaps include some of this antarctic warming in your graphs?
Dr. Roy Spencer wrote “I also checked the TMI wind speed retrievals, and there is no evidence of anything unusual happening during 2001. I have no idea how such a large warm bias could have entered into the ERSST dataset, but I’d say the evidence is pretty clear that one exists.”
The answer?
“So, we constructed a new SST normal for
the 1971–2000 base period and implemented it operationally
at CPC in August of 2001”
From http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/papers/xue-etal.pdf
Short, sweet, elegant.
Thank you, Dr. Spencer!
We are doomed! lol. No seriously, we are going into an ice age.
http://icecap.us/index.php
Aug 27, 2009
Small fluctuations in solar activity, large influence on the climate
There is an important new paper in Science (H/T Steve Milloy) that confirms what we have been saying for years. It is Meehl, G.A., J.M. Arblaster, K. Matthes, F. Sassi, and H. van Loon (2009), Amplifying the Pacific climate system response to a small 11 year solar cycle forcing, Science, 325, 1114-1118. It blows away the IPCC and CCSP arguments that the sun is a bit player in climate compared to CO2.
Our sun does not radiate evenly. The best known example of radiation fluctuations is the famous 11-year cycle of sun spots. Nobody denies its influence on the natural climate variability, but climate models have, to-date, not been able to satisfactorily reconstruct its impact on climate activity.
Researchers from the USA and from Germany have now, for the first time, successfully simulated, in detail, the complex interaction between solar radiation, atmosphere, and the ocean. As the scientific journal Science reports in its latest issue, Gerald Meehl of the US-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and his team have been able to calculate how the extremely small variations in radiation brings about a comparatively significant change in the System “Atmosphere-Ocean”.
Katja Matthes of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, and co-author of the study, states: “Taking into consideration the complete radiation spectrum of the sun, the radiation intensity within one sun spot cycle varies by just 0.1 per cent. Complex interplay mechanisms in the stratosphere and the troposphere, however, create measurable changes in the water temperature of the Pacific and in precipitation”.
Top Down – Bottom up
In order for such reinforcement to take place many small wheels have to interdigitate. The initial process runs from the top downwards: increased solar radiation leads to more ozone and higher temperatures in the stratosphere. “The ultraviolet radiation share varies much more strongly than the other shares in the spectrum, i.e. by five to eight per cent, and that forms more ozone” explains Katja Matthes. As a result, especially the tropical stratosphere becomes warmer, which in turn leads to changed atmospheric circulation. Thus, the interrelated typical precipitation patterns in the tropics are also displaced.
The second process takes place in the opposite way: the higher solar activity leads to more evaporation in the cloud free areas. With the trade winds the increased amounts of moisture are transported to the equator, where they lead to stronger precipitation, lower water temperatures in the East Pacific and reduced cloud formation, which in turn allows for increased evaporation. Katja Matthes: “It is this positive back coupling that strengthens the process”. With this it is possible to explain the respective measurements and observations on the Earth’s surface.
Professor Reinhard Huettl, Chairman of the Scientific Executive Board of the GFZ (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) adds: “The study is important for comprehending the natural climatic variability, which – on different time scales – is significantly influenced by the sun. In order to better understand the anthropogenically induced climate change and to make more reliable future climate scenarios, it is very important to understand the underlying natural climatic variability. This investigation shows again that we still have substantial research needs to understand the climate system”. Together with the Alfred Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum the GFZ is, therefore, organising a conference “Climate in the System Earth” scheduled for 2./3. November 2009 in Berlin.
Read Icecap story that has shown the importance of these magnifiers like UV here.
Comparison of Total Solar Irradiance (Hoyt/Willson) vs ocean tri-poles (PDO+AMO) vs HSHCN annual temperatures. Larger image here.
We should all thank AP’s Seth Borenstein for this, IMHO.
Perhaps we should thank Mann and McIntyre too. It took years before skeptical inquiry was able to knock over the hockey stick. As a result, scientists and others were reminded that healthy skepticism is an important part of the scientific method.
In the last year we’ve had several examples of studies that don’t feel right get investigated immediately and flaws found quickly. This may be the most important one since McIntyre’s falsification of the hockey stick.
Good job, Dr. Spencer. Of course, this work needs some healthy skeptics to try to falsify it (and others to confirm it), but when you don’t know what the right answer is, that’s how science works.
A “cool skin” bias and the average seasonal discrepancy wrt to moored buoys have been removed here in the last figure, showing quite impressive verification statistics. My question is whether this is also done in computing the monthly anomalies that are presented as SSTs in various satellite data sets. In other words, are we looking at skin brightness temperature or reconstructed near-surface temperature anomalies?
Anthony, the headline of this entry spells “spurious” incorrectly (“spurous”).
Keep up the wonderful work.
[Thanx, fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
Great piece of work Dr. Spencer – think you’ve nailed it!
Trying to measure any climate parameter accurately on a global scale to a degree necessary to draw worthwhile conclusions is an onerous task. Sloppy work makes it nigh on impossible. Hard to believe that these so called ‘experts’ can get it wrong so often, despite their huge budgets. Time for Climatology to go back to getting the basics right, I think.
Please keep up the good work 🙂
But Dr. Spencer, you just need to apply various adjustments to get the results!
Look, the computer models show it must be warming, so obviously the data is incorrect and needs to be snudged upwards until it matches (or exceeds) the ‘expected’ results from the model.
The ERSST v3b product has a spurious warming since 1998 of about 0.2 deg. C, most of which occurred as a jump in 2001.
What is the implication of this on the AGW hypothesis? And their forecasts?
At the very least I should imagine that no AGW warming would be seen to exist in the presence of increasing CO2.
.. I have no idea how such a large warm bias could have entered into the ERSST dataset, but I’d say the evidence is pretty clear that one exists…
This should be the focus of the next investigation
Brilliant work Dr. Spencer.
Thanks Roy for your hard work, but why don’t we ever see the mistake heading south instead of north?
E.g. instead of +0.2c why not -0.2c , perhaps I’m cynical but it does seem to work this way more often, strange isn’t it?
Anthony,
Please remove my full name and replace it with MC. Sorry for the screw up on the my post above
What’s amazing is that Jan. 2008 was the coldest measurement for the entire recording period.
The more time I spend on this website, the more I am impressed by what a complex system the climate is and that our understanding is still, in many ways, quite rudimentary.
Boy I love this…..
Oct 2008, warmest on record!!!….oh, hang on, we copied Sept into Oct….
and now another repeat…..which will be quietly retracted without much fanfare.
Great work Roy and whoever else contributed to this investigation.
Is there any reason why the highest peaks are April’01, Nov ’03, Dec ’06, July ’09, giving intervals of 31, 37 and 31 months. What happens at roughly 33 month intervals? Murray
Spencer’s discovery of 0.175 deg C error (avg of 0.15 to 0.2 deg C) is 24% of the 0.74 deg C global warming claimed for 1905-2005. That’s impressive!
Top work Dr Roy. This seems consistent with my observation of the similarity of the solar and SST situation 1998-2009(red) and 1878-1892(green)
Sunspot number for 1878-1892 in red at bottom of plot
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=sst-1892.gif
Note the modern record is around 0.2C higher than the older record following the recovery from the el nino.
“..Is there actually a climatic data set that is accurate & reliable?..”
Even if there was a climate data set that has been maintained scrupulously with accurate tested instruments, in an environment where there has been little micro-climate change due to the huge changes which human life has undergone during the last 50 years (which I do not believe there is), there would still be the vexed question of ‘what was it detecting?’. I don’t think climate is accurately ‘measured’ by Stephenson Screen readings at 100 mile intervals around the land mass….
Any bets on this error not being acknowledged at all and the international media running with the screaming headlines – “Oceanic warming in runaway increases..” Oh, wait, no responsible news media woould puiblish that, would they? Unfortunately they already have.