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
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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/
Someone made an “adjustment” to the instrument recording procedure in 2001 to remove the difference between the ERSST v3b data set and the TRMM TMI data set. They assumed the TRMM TMI data set was more accurate despite being an older sensor technology. The adjustment of the ERSST v3b dataset upwards shows the bias of the person making the data recording adjustment. It would have been more accurate to have made the sensor adjustment to the TRMM TMI data set downward to bring it in line with the more advanced sensors on the ERSST v3b. A global warming fanatic manipulating the data again. It has taken 8 years to find it. How many more subtle manipulations are going to have to be removed from the Earth’s climate database.
Roy Spencer,
I didn’t have the Grreatest job in the world when I was working; but, I’m really, really glad I didn’t have yours.
Really Glad.
Hang in there.
pochas (17:55:58) “This NOAA map show the antarctic ocean very warm!” http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_07a.rnl.html
Paul Vaughan (18:26:16) :”That’s air temperature. Here is the view for SST:” http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/sst/sst.anom.gif
Good catch, Paul.
For fun check out the latest forecast for Vostok this coming week:
By Tuesday the temperature maximum is forecast to be a balmy -85 F.
The low? -119 F. Can’t imagine what that feels like….
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=vostok,%20antarctica&wuSelect=WEATHER
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
If it hasn’t been said enough: Bravo, Dr. Spencer for uncovering the truth here.
Well see if Seth Borenstein is man enough to admit his mistake.
Oh….uh…..its the AP.
Never mind then…because they [the AP] can say whatever they want, and never retract their words, even if they are wrong.
Why? Because they can.
So don’t count on a correction.
Surprise me, Seth!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Dr. Spencer,
Did you compute the same validation statistics for the ERSST as you did for TRMM? It would be nice to see a chart.
I’m waiting for the first ‘error’ that gives a cooling bias.
Steven Kopits (15:21:13) :
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.
Steve,
I very much enjoy reading your work, as well as your comments on Econbrowser. (Assuming you are one and the same) Keep up the good work – I am equally impressed!
http://www.epmag.com/WebOnly2009/item41209.php
J.
Kum Dollison, Bob Tisdale, & Others,
The misunderstanding about Southern Ocean/Antarctica SST anomalies got underway in the recent thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/26/spencer-analysing-alternate-satellite-data-suggests-july-2009-was-not-a-record-for-sea-temperature/
See pochas (07:54:27) & Paul Vaughan (16:07:22). (Kum, note the dates on the plots there and on the plots here. Different dates have been thrown around.)
– –
Rather than studying misunderstandings, I suggest following Bob’s lead to here:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?lite
That way people can make their own maps of SST anomalies for different weeks & months.
Bob suggests setting “white” to “0” — I agree – this is the best choice.
Note also at that site that hovmollers can be produced. I made several for different Southern Ocean latitudes and found no widespread SST hot spots for recent months. (I also found some interesting results for high-latitude NH OLR beginning around 2001.)
–
Alternate SST anomaly maps are available here:
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/
Note that the anomaly maps are lower in the directory (with “anom” in the file names).
–
This July 2009 SST issue has been a useful learning opportunity.
Anthony thank you for providing us with a daily dose of sanity. Its hard to come by these days.
Here is the higher-level link:
http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/ncep_data/index.html
(for anyone looking at variables other than just sst)
Thank you again Dr Spenser for your exhaustive and maybe brave analysis.
“Sir Roy” if I had any say.
Am I correct with the following extrapolations?
* Both Hadley and GISS monthly anomalies are the average of the global SST anomaly and global land anomaly
* If SST is 0.15 to 0.20 C too high, does that mean that all Hadley and GISS monthly anomalies back to 2001 should be adjusted downwards 0.075 to 0.1? Or am I dreaming?
Can someone confirm whether Hadley and GISS is this specific product for their monthly global SST anomalies?
John Aiken (20:38:12) :
“…A global warming fanatic manipulating the data again. It has taken 8 years to find it. How many more subtle manipulations are going to have to be removed from the Earth’s climate database….”
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Again and again and again……….
NOAA SST do show more warm than cold basins around Arctic in July 2009:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html (click July – Full Global)
Despite satellite data suggest that there is no significant difference between global and 40N-40S anomalies, it might happen that global was a bit higher than 40N-40S data on that very month.
How can changing the SST normal to 1979-2000 create such a jump in the dataset?? If they changed normal to later (most probably warmer), data should shift down, not up – but all data, not only those since 2001. [snip]?
John Aiken (20:38:12) :”… A global warming fanatic manipulating the data again. It has taken 8 years to find it. How many more subtle manipulations are going to have to be removed from the Earth’s climate database….”
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Oops…Sorry for the double posting.
One can now make a prediction. The rising ocean temps and Borenstein’s article have now become Party Line. The Movement will now follow its usual practice. It will defend to the last detail obviously mistaken and unimportant assertions which have become Party Line.
So we will now see a chorus of personal attacks on Dr Spencer, who will be accused of everything from vegetarianism to living in Georgia and perhaps driving the wrong model of car, being a bad parent, and disliking Coke, or perhaps Pepsi. He will be compared to Cheney, Judas and Attila the Hun. Incredible statistical convolutions will be gone through to try to prove that the original data was correct. Tamino will engage in pages of models full of irrelevent equations, followed by a ringing endorsement of the Democratic Party.
Whatever this stuff is, its not science.
I think the most notable revelation in all this is the way Dr. Spencer’s mind works. His initial reaction was not the all too common C.Y.A. obfuscation we have unfortunately come to expect. His first reaction was, in effect, “Here’s how it is and maybe I’ve been wrong!” That reaction, coupled with his open admission of the possibility, reflects a reverence for “truth for its own sake” that has sadly gone lacking in our recently politicized scientific community.
I tip my hat to the good Dr. Spencer!
CH
@Walter Dnes
You may be underestimating the effect given that the sea area is about 70.8% of the total http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
Before anyone goes too far with extrapolations, we ought to wait for the people who produce the data to identify the cause of the jump. As shown by the initial error Dr Spencer made whilst performing this analysis it is easy to miss mistakes in calculations – especially when comparing complex sets of data. Once the mistake in the data is found, then we should start worrying about which other data sets do or don’t need to be updated as a result. All this does show us to date is that having independent measurements is very valuable, and some of the scientists are trying hard to ensure that their product is accurate. Any divergence would have resulted in one data set being wrong, this isn’t a case of an adjustment that would automatically reduce the global trend.
Thank you again Roy Spencer, knight in shining armour.
I’m aware of more and more problems with the most fundamental data that are needed to support the AGW hypothesis. Surface stations. And all the issues of loss of global surface stations, Siberian and Chinese anomalies, and the mess of Phil Jones’ records. Likelihood of satellite irregularities, as shown crucially here, crucially by Scafetta, and now, I discover issues making me doubt satellite measurements of sea levels, highlighted here on the recent Climate Audit thread.
Reminds me of the battle between Merlyn and Madam Mim in T H White’s novel “Once and Future King”. They used shapeshifting (cf. change disciplines) and Madam Mim seemed to be winning as she shapeshifted into ever bigger beasts. Then Merlyn, using knowledge gained from his time-travel ability, shapeshifted into the microbes, viruses and bacteria we now know, and plagued Madam Mim with measles and all the rest, until she died.
Or that film “The Firm”… anyone remember it? Floored the corrupt law company on an overwhelming mass of tiny falsifications.
So in 1998 the bulk of the hot SST’s was between 40 degrees North and South, consistent with the vast El Niño of that year.
On the other hand the record average SST July 2009 was established mainly in the polar regions, particularly the Arctic as we all know.
The article obviously had to leave 56% of the earth’s surface out in order to meet the title 🙂
Lucy Skywalker (01:41:45) :
Likelihood of satellite irregularities, as shown crucially here, crucially by Scafetta, and now, I discover issues making me doubt satellite measurements of sea levels,
Indeed, none of this stuff is easy to do. Nonetheless, I’va attempted some quantifications and cross correlations which do at least show some consistency in relationships between sea level rise due to thermal expansion, SST’s, ocean heat content, and TSI.
I don’t claim to have a ‘right’ answer, but the exercise itself is worthwhile when trying to get a handle on what might be wrong where…
> Oldjim (01:00:03) :
> @Walter Dnes
> You may be underestimating the effect given that the sea area
> is about 70.8% of the total http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
I remember the 71% number from school. What I was talking about in my previous post was that, to the best of my knowledge, Hadley and GISS compute monthly global anomalies as 50% land and 50% sea.
RR (03:09:55) :
the record average SST July 2009 was established mainly in the polar regions, particularly the Arctic as we all know.
So how come the arctic melted less this year than the previous two years?