Circling Yamal 3 – facing the thermometers
Guest post by Lucy Skywalker
Let’s look closely and compare local thermometer records (GISS) with the Twelve Trees, upon whose treerings depend all the IPCC claims of “unprecedented recent temperature rise”.
For my earlier Yamal work, see here and here. For the original Hockey Stick story, see here and here.
Half the Hockey Stick graphs depend on bristlecone pine temperature proxies, whose worthlessness has already been exposed. They were kept because the other HS graphs, which depend on Briffa’s Yamal larch treering series, could not be disproved. We now find that Briffa calibrated centuries of temperature records on the strength of 12 trees and one rogue outlier in particular. Such a small sample is scandalous; the non-release of this information for 9 years is scandalous; the use of this undisclosed data as crucial evidence for several more official HS graphs is scandalous. And not properly comparing treering evidence with local thermometers is the mother of all scandals.
I checked out the NASA GISS page for all thermometer records in the vicinity of Yamal and the Polar Urals, in “raw”, “combined”, and “homogenized” varieties. Here are their locations (white). The Siberian larch treering samples in question come from Yamal and Taimyr. Salehard and Dudinka have populations of around 20,000; Pecora around 50,000; Surgut around 100,000; all the rest are officially “rural” sites. Some are long records, some are short.
Russia has two problems. First, many records stopped or became interrupted around 1990 after the ending of Soviet Russia; worst affected are the very telling Arctic Ocean records. Second, during Soviet Russia (and possibly now for all I know), winter urban records were “adjusted” downwards so that the towns could claim more heating allowances. Nevertheless, it will become clear that these issues in no way impede the evidence regarding treerings.
Click to enlarge these graphs. The first shows the 20 GISS stations closest to Yamal and the Polar Urals. The second shows treering width changes over time (only 10 of the 12 trees here). This was supposedly compared with local thermometer records, and used to calibrate earlier treering widths as temperature measurements to create a 1000-year temperature record. It was a pig to turn these graphs into a stack of transparent lines at the same scale as the GISS records for comparison, but finally, interesting material started to emerge.
I scaled all the GISS thermometer records to the same temperature scale, and ran them all from 1880 to 2020 at the same time scale (GISS graphs do not do this). I overlaid them as transparent lines along their approximate mean temperatures for comparison. Mean temperatures (visually judged) vary from around -2ºC (Pecora) to -13ºC (Selagoncy, Olenek, Hatanga, and Ostrov Uedine) and even -15ºC (“Gmo Im E.K. F”). The calibrations are degrees Centigrade anomaly, and decades.
Ha! Straightway we see clear patterns emerging. Let’s agree them:
Thermometer records: (1) time-wise, thermometers show temperatures rising from 1880 to 1940 or so; (2) temperatures fall a little from 1940 to 1970; (3) temperatures then rise a little but do not quite regain the heights of the 1940’s; (4) despite mean temperatures ranging from -2ºC to -15ºC (total means range 13ºC), and a range of temperature anomalies from each mean of only 9ºC from warmest year to coldest year, when mean temperatures are aligned, clear correlations emerge; (5) there are high variations between adjacent years. We shall investigate all this more closely in a minute.
Treering records: I’ve shown here the full records given for the 10 trees that runs from 1800 to 2000; but below, I use the same timescale as the thermometer records (1880-2020) for comparison. It is useful to see a few things here already: (6) treering sizes are increasing from 1830; (7) before that they show a decrease; (8) they do show correlation from 1880 on (this is NOT proof that the correlation is due to temperature).
Yamal area: (9) The 7 stations around Salehard seem to go in lock step with each other pretty well. (10) The five Yamal treering records (YAD) also correlate with each other, showing spikes around 1910, 1925, 1940, 1955, 1965, and 1980-1990. (11) But the treerings fall out with each other 1990-2000; and (12) these treering spikes do NOT correspond to the thermometer temperature spikes; but (13) there is a slight correlation with the longterm temperature; however, (14) crucially, there is no hockeystick blade in the thermometer record (15) nor is there one in the treering record if we remove the red YAD061 which is clearly an outlier – only a plateau’d elevation of the peaks throughout the 20th century starting before the real CO2/temp rise (and this is actually matched by pre-1800 values at times).
Excuse me for wondering if treerings beat to a different drum than temperature – it is certainly curious that there appears to be something causing correlations in the treerings. Wind? Sunspots? The moon? But let’s check by zooming in a little closer…
Salehard close-up: (16) all the nearby thermometer records mirror Salehard closely, although stations are up to 500 miles apart, the range of mean temperatures is -2ºC to -9ºC, and the range of annual temperatures at each station is up to about 9ºC – altogether a remarkable consistency. Click to see animated version of these records. (17) The close fit of Mys Kamennij (pale sea-blue) is particularly significant, since it is maritime and rural, and the same distance as Salehard from the treering site (some 120 miles), but in the opposite direction; (18) Ostrov Waigatz (Vaigach Island) shows the same pattern but with greater extremes; (19) in comparison with all this, the treering records show virtually no correlation at all – yet since treering differences between summer and winter exist at all, one would expect to see some correlation with warmer and colder years. (20) Perhaps if a far larger sample were used, a correlation might be detected, but clearly (21) we have trees here that are far too individual – especially YAD061.
Polar Urals: Here are seven station records around the Polar Urals site, compared with the five Taimyr (POR) treering records. (22) Mean temperatures are lower here – further North but also more continental, so perhaps the summers are as warm as Yamal, with similar near-treeline environment. (23) more noise in the temperature record, but the overall pattern is still the same; (24) 1943, 1967, 1983 are warm in common with the Salehard records, and 1940 is cold; other years are harder to compare. (25) The early fragmentary records for Dudinka and Turuhansk still fit together and overlay the Salehard records well, showing clear temperature rise between 1880 and 1940. (26) The treering records are fairly coherent, more so than the Yamal ones, and (27) they fit the Yamal records’ spikes in 1910, 1925, 1940, 1955, 1965, and 1980 on, but (28) again, this does not fit the temperature record.
The best of both record series: Really rural thermometer records from the maritime Arctic: (29) show the strongest pattern yet which (30) fits the other two sets of thermometer records but (31) does not fit the treering records even though (32) the treerings show coherent patterns within themselves, despite the two sites being some 800 miles apart.
Briffa’s full chronology: The Yamal chronology Briffa used (black) is compared with Polar Urals (green) and shows recent temperatures exceeding the Medieval Warm Period but (33) this is highly questionable, as is the recent final uptick. No MWP supports the alarmist “Unprecedented!” yet Polar Urals generally have been shown to fit local thermometer records better than Yamal for the period of overlap.
More GISS Arctic graphs: There are many serious problems with GISS but we can only take the evidence here. (34) GISS 64ºN+ shows a misleading trend line – temperatures rise to 1940, fall to 1970, rise to 2000 but not higher than 1940, then level off after 2000; (35) I don’t know what stations went into this composite – the final uptick alerts my suspicions to some UHI or other station problems; (36) Tamino takes the biscuit for cherrypicked trends in the GISS 80ºN+ North Polar winter record (sea green) – it clearly opposes the general worldwide fall in temperatures 1940-1970. However, it’s interesting to see such extremes.
GISS’ homogeneity adjustments: Thankfully, only a few of these Russian records are “adjusted”. But the alterations are telling. Surgut spikes upwards over Salehard from about 1960 on – but (36) the adjustment (probably UHI) is perversely done by truncating and moving earlier records upwards, instead of adjusting later records downwards. And (37) why were Salehard’s and Ostrov Uedine’s earlier “raw” records omitted in the adjusted records? I think every correction here will tend to amplify global warming trends.
GISS world temperatures, 2008: This map was shown in Tingley & Huybers’ latest Hockey Stick presentation at PAGES conference. GISS’ own station records around Yamal and Polar Urals appear to show (38) this map is misleading, since according to GISS’ own records, above, averages local to Yamal / Polar Urals after 2000 are at the most 1.5ºC anomaly (above local mean).
CRU Arctic temperatures, seasonal anomalies: (graph by romanm) Since this is from uncheckable individual station records, (39) the figures could be contaminated by various “correction” factors, (41) UHI is especially likely in the winter. But note that (42) the difference in character between months, and between summers and winters, is striking – summers have hardly changed – and (43) still no definitive Hockey Stick as per illustrations and per Briffa’s Yamal treering record, nothing beyond the range of natural patterns clearly evidenced here. Even the known slight overall increase during the twentieth century takes place mainly earlier in the century.
Conclusions: There is no sign whasoever of a Hockey Stick shape with serious uptick in the twentieth century, in the thermometer records. Yet these records are clearly very consistent with each other, no matter how long the record or how cold, high, or maritime the locality, with a distance span of over a thousand miles. Neither does the Hockey Stick consistently show in the treerings except in the case of a single tree. Even with thermometer records that are incomplete and suffering other problems, the “robust” conclusion is –
“Warmist” treering proxy temperature evidence is falsified directly by local thermometer records.
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bill said (amongst other things) :
“A warm optimum month will give a ring width of x. A similarly warm month out of growing season will not give much if any growth – no leaves – no photosynthesis. A cooler longer period in the growing season may of course give a ring width of x.”
Tree growth is a little more complicated than that. Root growth and shoot growth are not on the same schedule, for one thing, and, of course, photosynthesis is only part of the story. Remember respiration?
The soil cools more slowly than the air and roots go on growing well after the foliage has ceased to exist ( in the case of deciduous trees). In fact, vigorous shoot growth suppresses root growth. The roots get to do their thing when those hormones from the shoot stop coming.
So, it’s not hard to imagine a warm autumn with plenty of moisture leading to a great deal of root growth, whose benefit is only revealed the following spring, when the shoot is able to capitalize on the sugars it sent below ground the previous fall.
Bill,
As you are aware, there are MULTIPLE LINES of evidence supporting AGW.
There are three possible conclusions regarding AGW:
1) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts agree about much of the tenets of AGW and are honest.
2) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts are ignorant about their own expertise in a sudden and collective manner. (Although Lucy is nicer and calls this choice “group think”.)
3) They have all agreed to conspire to delude the billions of folks on the planet and just a very tiny percentage of them (and mostly unpublished) are trying to save us all from this mass hoax.
Common sense and a sense of probability should lead one to the likely correct choice (#1) above but almost every poster here chooses #2 or #3. If you look at Lucy’s Website you can see the sources she has used to arrive at her choice of #2 and her choice is not surprising.
Scott
If you want to post a reply can you do it on ‘In betweeners’ as this particlar thread is just about to drop off the edge of the flat world.
Tell me, do you agree with the IPCC’s claim of persistently cool temperatures throughout the 16-19th century and the Met office claim of lack of climate variabilty prior to the modern age?
Do you also believe we have such a thing as a reliable single global temperature and that the Giss data is a pillar of certainty and rectitude? Do you realise that much of the data covers urban areas but the allowance for UHI is virtually zero? Do you realise that ‘Global’ temperatures started at the bottom of the last climate cycle?
Are you aware of the abundant proof of warmer temperatures in the MWP and Roman periods?
tonyb
Scott Mandia,
It is not unusual for an entire scientific field to be wrong about something for extended periods of time.
The atom can’t be split, the world is flat, the Earth is the centre of the universe, temperatures will be +0.85C in 2009, temperatures will continue rising at 0.2C per decade as long as there isn’t a volcano, the ENSO can be ignored, etc.
TonyB (11:34:45) :
Scott
If you want to post a reply can you do it on ‘In betweeners’ as this particular thread is just about to drop off the edge of the flat world.
That’s why–as I suggested in the thread that asked for site-improvement ideas–the number of clickable threads in the sidebar should be doubled, especially now that new threads are being added at such a brisk pace.
Scott A. Mandia (09:50:09) :
Bill,
As you are aware, there are MULTIPLE LINES of evidence supporting AGW.
I am not aware of any peer reviewd evidence that is not dependent drastically on computer models with hidden inner parameters, assumptions etc.
Please give a link to a non model dependent evidence of AGW .
There are three possible conclusions regarding AGW:
1) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts agree about much of the tenets of AGW and are honest.
tenets? From webster:
Main Entry: te·net
Pronunciation: \ˈte-nət also ˈtē-nət\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, he holds, from tenēre to hold
Date: circa 1600
: a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially : one held in common by members of an organization,
could describe a cult.
if it is science, it can only have axioms, theorems derived from them and data to check the theory and falsify it if possible. Honesty is good, but an honest fool is not to be trusted on his/her statements.
2) An overwhelming majority of international climate experts are ignorant about their own expertise in a sudden and collective manner. (Although Lucy is nicer and calls this choice “group think”.)
3) They have all agreed to conspire to delude the billions of folks on the planet and just a very tiny percentage of them (and mostly unpublished) are trying to save us all from this mass hoax.
I agree that 3 is extreme. If they were that good at conspiracy , they would already rule the world.
That leaves 2,which I would phrase “An overwhelming majority of international climate experts are depending on their own expertise and are not bothered with the facts, the data that is. ( see Lindzen’s deconstruction posted here)
I can’t tell you how tired I am of people saying “A consensus of scientists believe in AGW” or the like.
The problem with this is that the statement itself is meaningless.
Let me explain what I mean by looking at various statements of what scientists agree with and don’t agree with.
1. The earth is warming over the last century or more. There is general agreement with this.
2. Humans have had some affect of an unknown size on the climate. Again, there is widespread agreement with this as well.
However, at this point the agreement starts to break down very badly. How are we affecting the climate? Is it CO2, or methane, or what? How much do humans affect the climate? Is the total effect responsible for 10% of the changes we see, or 90%, or somewhere in between? And once that is answered, how much of that effect is from each putative cause? Is it 90% CO2 and 10% black carbon, or the other way around, or neither?
My own belief, sustained not by models but by evidence, is that we have affected the climate in several ways. Primarily, these are through changes in land use/land cover (LU/LC), aerosols, and black carbon. I suspect that the largest effect is from black carbon in the arctic, which warms the arctic but doesn’t have much effect elsewhere. LU/LC changes generally tend to warm the planet. When you cut down the trees, you cut down the clouds. Aerosols seem to have different effects, and those effects can be quite subtle (e.g. aerosols affecting cloud formation).
However, as I detail in my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis, I don’t think that these affect the climate all that much.
So tell me … do I believe in AGW, or not? Most people would say that, because I don’t believe that CO2 sets the global temperature, I don’t believe in AGW. I would say I do believe in AGW, I just think the effect is very small.
And more to the point, as an AGW “believer”, am I driven by honesty, by ignorance, or by conspiracy? Are those the only possibilities? Or am I just some guy doing my best to make sense of a complex world, with my own valuable insights happily coexisting with my own total blind spots and incorrect beliefs?
That’s why I grow weary of claims of the consensus. Yes, many scientists believe that humans are affecting the climate … but how much are we affecting it, and in what ways, and how much of each way?
And once we get past that, how much of the so-called “consensus” is “group think”, and how much is based on a misplaced faith in tinkertoy models, and how much is driven by wanting some of the funding which goes mostly to AGW supporters, and how much is driven by fear of losing a job, and how much is driven by a desire for publicity, and how much is …
There is no simple multiple-choice “pick one of three” answer to that question about the “consensus”.
Finally, I don’t care in the slightest if there is a consensus. It is totally meaningless. As Michael Crichton succinctly put it,
Read Crichton’s speech, it is well worth the time.
So despite the facile claim that
this is just another example of the “fallacy of the excluded middle”. There are many more possibilities than the trio of honesty, ignorance, and conspiracy … to start with, there’s the possibility that Scott A. Mandia (09:50:09) has asked a question which is so poorly posed as to not have an answer. Then there’s the possibility that the “consensus” disappears when we ask more carefully phrased questions. There’s also the possibility that people are driven by more than honesty, ignorance or conspiracy. Like fear of disagreement. Like fear of losing a job. Like a desire to appear to know the answers. Like a craving for publicity. Like a wish to obtain funding. Like a desire for power. Humans are complex beings, the idea that there are only three possible answers is nonsense.
So please, let’s get past simplistic questions that claim to have only a few possible answers. As with most things on this planet (including the climate), it ain’t as simple as people like to claim …
Bill, I’d be really delighted to get graphs of:
(a) Salehard in as many seasons as you can manage reasonably
(b) UK records that are NOT on the GISS list (you used Hadley I think) especially Ross-on-Wye and outliers like Lerwick, which ones did you mention? – if they have good long runs – or even if they don’t.
(c) comparisons between outliers like Lerwick with AMO. Which brings me to a puzzle. They graphs you put up distinctly DO show correlations, and I’m totally bemused and not comfortable why on earth you say they don’t. Heck, they show far more correlation than Yamal treerings to thermometers. You have to allow smoothing because the AMO is a slow stately creature, not like the capricious jet streams which can put lots of different weather signals over the short term.
Now if you are still game, please email me via my website. Thanks!
Willis, thanks, you said my POV pretty thoroughly.
Scottie, there were several phrases you used that just made me think “this man is simply not doing real science, he’s regurgitating, not investigating or checking”. For a start, I’ve already told you that while I was a warmist, I investigated all those “MULTIPLE LINES of evidence supporting AGW” to which you refer, linking Bill as a co-expert but by inference counting the rest of us out. I told you that not only did I investigate them, I believed them because for a while they seemed to hold up… then holes started to appear and I investigated… again… a bit further… and hole after hole after hole started to appear. Although you refer disparagingly to my sources, you fail to note that I also STILL reference those warmist websites I once used to believe… Gristmill, Skeptical Science, the New Scientist’s pages, etc. So please don’t put words in my mouth until you have investigated a bit more thoroughly. But let me encourage you at this point. It is worth it, and it is, in the end, satisfying, therapeutic, and fun, to really do science, believing nobody, in essence. It was the same love of investigation that took me into warmist science and then took me right through and out the other side.
Lucy, there is a very long term dataset (1796-) from Armagh University in Ireland located here.
w.
Lucy I will see what I cane do for salehard (unfortunately GISS has locked me out of their site after I wrote a programme to download the GISS data for surface stations of quality 1,2. Too many accesses and they thought I was doing something naughty!! Have to use a proxy now!)
So in the next few days I will send the excel file to you. It will not be small!
bill (10:45:20), you say:
To avoid this in future, you need to put a pause of a few seconds in the loop.
Typically, the problem is not the number of accesses you are making. It is that constant access prevents other people from accessing the data. So just put a pause in the loop to allow other people to access the data, and you should be fine.
Now I see why there are no “Climatology” programs at major universities. As a physicist, this is voodoo with a Kryptonite doll to me. I will assume given the rigor that went into this and the kudos all around, that this is good work, but as I see it, this METHODOLOGY is the source of my skepticism about Global Warming, not the conclusions.
What proven methodology was followed that assures that the answer derived here is the correct one and the other is not. And what methodology proved that?
I fully agree in principle that this work operates on a better set of assumptions and reaches a conclusion more in agreement with other independent assessments. However whether this type of work is done in support of Global Warming or against it, I will unilaterally harbor heavy skepticism, as ultimately NOTHING IS PROVED while the water gets muddier.
So while offering a great logical challenge to Briffa’s conclusions drawn from these 12 trees, we are still left with the most relevant question that can be asked. And that question is not “Is Briffa right or wrong?” but rather “Does anyone really feel that 12 sets of tree rings from one forest present an accurate representation of the climate of the entire planet over two centuries?”. The fact that this caveat does not precede any and all such presentations, is the primary thing that leaves the bad taste in my mouth when it comes to this issue.
If you feel some reality is represented here, I hope you work in retail. But there are better, more scientifically valid fronts upon which to fight this battle. So as long as it is fought on THIS front, the blame for the damage done to science is shared…
Willis, your post is a perfect illustration of where it’s all gone wrong. I have no problem with your tone, assessment, logic, frustration or questions as a rational being. But science is a razor’s edge. It has no feeling, no fairness, no cordiality, no middle ground and no consolation prizes. Its dominion is very small but its reach is infinite.
So while in this modern day e-world where words travel instantaneously and everyone has their own soapbox, it makes you look nice and enlightened to qualify your words with niceties or a nod to this or that. But from the standpoint of science, statements like:
1. The earth is warming over the last century or more.
2. Humans have had some affect of an unknown size on the climate.
…are complete garbage. Not nice at all of me to say that, I know, but if science were a person he would say:
“Prove it”
And you wouldn’t be able to. Neither one. Even despite the fact that it all may be true. And until someone CAN produce a provable statement, EVERYONE needs to shut up and get back to work.
So to me and many like me that’s the debate. And I’M tired of are people trying to craft the ‘perfect take’ on the issue. The one that sounds nice, nobody can disagree with, and everyone can sleep at night thinking about. Concessionary caveats and unquantifiable suspicions about black carbon and LU/LC ratios are no more valid than the loose conclusions of the non-scientist who just read his first article about AGW. When either of you can predictibly quantify your predictions and rectify them with all known, proven physical mechanisms, then we can have a nice 3 way talk. But I won’t even pencil it into my calendar
Global Warming, like any science lives and dies by this:
Prove it.
And they can’t. Not even the most basic watered down statements like yours. When they can, I’ll believe it. Until then none of the billion trillion words published every day debating the topic are worth a cent or a second of mine or anyone else’s. This article included.
So spare yourself the agony of trying to explain your position but still be a nice guy. Science is about calling a spade a spade, not meeting people halfway. You are not a bad person for doing the same…
Derek D (16:13:18), thanks for your comment. You boil your argument down to:
This merely reveals that you have a deeply flawed understanding of how science works. Nothing in science can ever be proven. Nothing. It can only be shown to be untrue.
As Einstein showed, Newtonian mechanics could be proven wrong. That’s how science advances, by proving that a claim is wrong, because there is nothing that could ever prove Newtonian mechanics right. This in not a new idea, it was laid out in detail in 1962 by Karl Popper.
Please come back when you understand how science works … and in the meantime, don’t bother trying to explain science to people who do know how it works. It just proves you haven’t done your homework since 1962 …
Lucy I’ve put the excel temperature plotter on skydrive and emailed your website the location