A Myth About The Surface Temperature Record Analyses Perpetuated On Dot Earth By Andy Revkin
By Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
On the weblog Dot Earth today, there is text from Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, that presents analyses of long term surface temperature trends from NASA, NCDC and Japan as if these are from independent sets of data from the analysis of CRU. Andy Revkin is perpetuating this myth in this write-up by not presenting the real fact that these analyses draw from the same original raw data. While they may use only a subset of this raw data, the overlap has been estimated as about 90-95%.
The unresolved problems with this surface data (which, of course, applies to all four locations) is reported in the peer reviewed paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
I discuss this issue in my recent post
Further Comment On The Surface Temperature Data Used In The CRU, GISS And NCDC Analyses
where I document that even the CCSP 1.1. report acknowledged this lack of independence.
Andy Revkin’s post on the surface temperature record data sets is not journalistically accurate.
OKE E DOKE (20:50:59) :
Thanks OKE
I have a hard time watching ORielly but I will be watching this.
OKE E DOKE (20:50:59) :
OReilly is slow to catch on sometimes. Maybe he will catch on to ClimateGate.
Queenslander! (18:17:42) :
King of Cool-
“If the ETS is blocked as looks likely, (although if 7 Liberals vote for it it will get up) the Australian government can call an election of both houses of parliament.”
If read that Rudd has intimated that he will not call a new election.
I suppose that everybody knows that it is “the energy, stupid” that is the underpinning of it all. Energy on earth comes, a) from the interior, b) from gravity through moon and sun tides, c) from radiation from the Sun, which is the major component.
Energy and temperature do have a relationship if the world is an ideal black body:
Stefan–Boltzmann law
This law states that amount of thermal radiation emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. That is
j* = σ x T^4,
where j*is the total energy radiated per unit area per unit time, T is the temperature in kelvins, and σ = 5.67×10−8 W m−2 K−4 is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant
That is where the watts per meter square have come in in climate studies. Given the temperature one could deduce the energy going through and vice versa IF the earth were an ideal black body.
BUT the ocean/deserts/mountains/flood planes/icecaps system is not an ideal black body and so this one to one correspondence between watts per meter square is drastically lost locally in a way that cannot be computed and corrected for in any way. The thermometer temperature is useful for people to know how to dress, cultivate, move, locally, and locally does have a correspondence with the radiative energy input outputs because the type of “gray body” the location is, changes slowly/predicatably(UHI). The integration is meaningless for radiative energy input/outputs because there are different unrecorded gray body constants all over the globe.
And this is only the effect of radiation on temperature and vice versa.
Other energies impinge on temperature, as ocean currents, Jet streams, general wind patterns, convection even turbulences , thunder storms and hurricanes. These drastically change temperatures locally in a way that has nothing to do with black body or gray body radiation to be able to deduce radiative energy flows in the thermometer region by the simple law above.
Example: siberian winds blow and the temperature falls 10C in Athens Greece . The grey body radiation of Athens has nothing to do with this change, from pure convection. The radiative budget will slowly adjust to the air temperature as the earth cools and will reach an equilibrium to start radiating at a new local gray body temperature, but what is the meaning of the recorded temperature for a global budget, but nonsense? On a larger scale are the PDOs, Jet Stream etc changing the temperatures while the real energy budget and the gray body constants from which the real radiative energy flows could be deduced, are unknown.
The radiative energy budget of the earth is also a chaotic quantity, imo.
Ron de Haan (16:58:22) :
“Has Revkin been informed about this?” Ask on Real Climate. They pull Revkins strings.
Now they saying parts of Antarctica are going green and Dr Summerhayes said some western Antarctic glaciers were retreating 10 metres a day . is this true ?.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/3114683/Antarctica-turning-green
“Here in NZ, this was the lead item on the national news and how Copenhagen was the only hope for the world.”
The expert shown on the TV3 news about the Himalayan Glaciers very specifically did NOT say that it was due to global warming. He was quite clear that no conclusion could be drawn. There was no mention of Copenhagen.
I got the strong impression that he was touting for funding, and dare not say that his work did not support AGW, because he knew that would kill off any chance of funding.
His real concern is almost certainly the effect of change on the water supply for the locals.
The TV3 segment did start with an alarming picture of Everest from 40 years ago covered in snow, and one from now largely bare. But I could take photos 40 years apart of some mountains showing the exact opposite (Ruapehu being blessed with snow this year, for example).
[snip. No, we are no longer posting or linking to Hitler Rant parodies. ~ ctm]
That the “raw data is available” is plainly a lie. A lie in the sense that politicians lie. Not a outright lie but an statement designed to misdirect and throw up a smokescreen around the issue.
Technically the “data available” argument is correct but neatly avoids the whole question of exactly what data the CRU are using. The two are not the same. If they were the same then what exactly have the CRU been doing for the last few decades? Millions of pounds for FTP? I don’t think so.
To see scientists using the manipulative techniques of Politicians is more than worrying. It makes them no more trustworthy or believable than Politicians.
Mooloo (23:54:58) :
“Here in NZ, this was the lead item on the national news and how Copenhagen was the only hope for the world.”
The expert shown on the TV3 news about the Himalayan Glaciers very specifically did NOT say that it was due to global warming. He was quite clear that no conclusion could be drawn. There was no mention of Copenhagen
T.V one said on the same topic that the Himalayans have warmed up 8 times faster than the rest of the world.
“a couple of” Himalayan glaciers were receding, some others such as the Siachen glacier were advancing, while others like the Gangotri glacier were receding at a decreasing rate compared with the last two decades.
http://nepaldendro.blogspot.com/
Why do reporters fly to distant parts to show the ‘accelerating effects’ of ‘accelerating warming’ when then last ten year’s thermometer readings show there just aint the cause to have any effects?
Although it must be admitted that an effect without a cause would be news indeed.
Paul Coppin (19:19:26) :
Climate Reference Network Rating Guide – adopted from NCDC Climate Reference Network Handbook, 2002, specifications for siting (section 2.2.1) of NOAA’s new Climate Reference Network:
Class 1 (CRN1)- Flat and horizontal ground surrounded by a clear surface with a slope below 1/3 (<19deg). Grass/low vegetation ground cover 3 degrees.
Class 2 (CRN2) – Same as Class 1 with the following differences. Surrounding Vegetation 5deg.
Class 3 (CRN3) (error >=1C) – Same as Class 2, except no artificial heating sources within 10 meters.
Class 4 (CRN4) (error >= 2C) – Artificial heating sources = 5C) – Temperature sensor located next to/above an artificial heating source, such a building, roof top, parking lot, or concrete surface.”
Source: http://www.surfacestations.org (Where else?)
I believe the CRU has said they deleted/scrapped the raw data, did they not?
Mr Lynn (19:11:03) – Actually , having Hume weigh in on Climategate is a good sign , especially since it was the second report of the show . It means that this is growing legs in all likelihood – on Fox , at least . Britt Hume rarely opines on trivial matters .
4 billion (16:58:33) : said
“As surface temperature records reflect satellite temperature measurements for the last thirty years, the issues with Surface temperature measurement cannot be that significant.”
That is the I gotcha. They WANT you to assume the satellite data verifies and validates the surface data. They WANT everyone to think there are at least two completely independent sets of data. However the satellite data is NOT independent of the surface data.
AJStrata (who works for NASA) explains how it is done.
“….you ask how good NOAA’s global data [can] be worse than local data in Australia and elsewhere? It is simple (and trust me, I work for NASA and this is not beyond the pale). They averaged it (or smeared it) with other data to raise it up. They can rationalize why they need to over ride or lower the weighting of the cooler data. They just need to agree on some lame excuse to dilute good measurements with bad…..
Seriously. The way to fight back is to run scenarios with the same data that takes out the smearing. Make the assumption the satellite data is solid and that the ground based sensors are only there to do local validation of the sat data. What is the answer when we process the data with these assumptions, where we don’t ‘fill in’ holes by averaging the two sets?….” http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/9887
Thanks again AJStrata
William (17:35:15) : said
“O/T. Murdoch’s Sky News here in the UK has just had a “report from high in the Himalayas” (complete with reporter on camera) telling us that the CO2 produced by the western world is, for the first time, melting the glaciers in the highest mountains in the world. The enormous lakes formed by the melt is threatening all the villages located next to the (previously) dry river beds….
Makes you wish they could at least get their story straight.”
That fluff piece was designed to counter this report. You have to give your faith followers ammunition to counter the real science or you might lose ground.
From Wall Street Journal..November 30th 2009 – News Re:Indian Glaciers.
“Most suggestions of rapid melting are based on observations of a small handful of India’s 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers. A comprehensive report in November by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, released by the Indian government, looked more broadly and found that many of these glaciers are stable or have even advanced, and that the rate of retreat for many others has slowed recently.Jeffrey S. Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona, declared in the Nov. 13 issue of Science that these “extremely provocative” findings were “consistent with what I have learned independently,” while in the same issue of the magazine Kenneth Hewitt, a glaciologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, agreed that “there is no evidence” to support the suggestion that the glaciers are disappearing quickly. A cornerstone of the global carbon regulation push has been high concern about evidence that glaciers are retreating worldwide. Glaciers are a crucial source of the Earth’s stored water. The “star” glacier, if you will, has been the Himalayan Saichen glacier, 74 km long and the largest outside the polar regions.India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has released a comprehensive report on the Himalayan glaciers by the eminent Dr. V.K. Raina, ex-Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of India. According to his report, the Saichen glacier has “not shown any remarkable retreat in the last 50 years.” In fact, it is growing.”
Stubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3563714/Stubborn-glaciers-fail-to-retreat-awkward-polar-bears-continue-to-multiply.html
Despite reports from real honest scientist the Warm-mongers continue bleating the same old worn out lines… I actually got this CRUd recently from a guy with a PHd
Jesper Berg (17:49:18) :
Liberal is an anagram of braille. Appropriate because they appear unable to see or read about the climate science scandals.—Tim Ball
True. But they feel so strongly that anthropogenic CO2 will kill Mother Earth.
NO NO you have it wrong. The Liberals feel Mankind is an evil disease in need of eradicating or at least controlling. That is why the truth rolls off them with no effect. I find it amusing that they try to pretend they are concerned about the “unwashed masses” when their leaders at least would just as soon kill off most of the world’s population and enslave the rest.
Gail – You’re Welcome!
As surface temperature records reflect Satelitte temperature measurements for the last thirty years, the issues with Surface temperature measurement cannot be that significant.
Satellite reports are based on calibration from ground stations. If those stations have been “adjusted” then the satellite calibrations are wrong.
We may have nothing but garbage at this point.
NCDC produce GHCN. The leaked emails say that “the lost data” could be easily recreated since it is substantially GHCN. GIStemp uses GHCN for the 98% of the world that is not the USA and merges it with the USHCN data for the USA.
There is no independence between NCDC, CRUT, and GIStemp, they are all variations on GHCN. And GHCN has serious thermometer bias from deletions of cold thermometers.
It will take more than us humans to destroy the planet which has been around for billions of years and had several bouts of high CO2 levels.