The Temperature of Science (PDF available here)
James Hansen
My experience with global temperature data over 30 years provides insight about how the science and its public perception have changed. In the late 1970s I became curious about well known analyses of global temperature change published by climatologist J. Murray Mitchell: why were his estimates for large-scale temperature change restricted to northern latitudes? As a planetary scientist, it seemed to me there were enough data points in the Southern Hemisphere to allow useful estimates both for that hemisphere and for the global average. So I requested a tape of meteorological station data from Roy Jenne of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who obtained the data from records of the World Meteorological Organization, and I made my own analysis.
Fast forward to December 2009, when I gave a talk at the Progressive Forum in Houston Texas. The organizers there felt it necessary that I have a police escort between my hotel and the forum where I spoke. Days earlier bloggers reported that I was probably the hacker who broke into East Anglia computers and stole e-mails. Their rationale: I was not implicated in any of the pirated e-mails, so I must have eliminated incriminating messages before releasing the hacked emails.
The next day another popular blog concluded that I deserved capital punishment. Web chatter on this topic, including indignation that I was coming to Texas, led to a police escort.
How did we devolve to this state? Any useful lessons? Is there still interesting science in analyses of surface temperature change? Why spend time on it, if other groups are also doing it? First I describe the current monthly updates of global surface temperature at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Then I show graphs illustrating scientific inferences and issues. Finally I respond to questions in the above paragraph.
Current Updates
Each month we receive, electronically, data from three sources: weather data for several thousand meteorological stations, satellite observations of sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research station measurements. These three data sets are the input for a program that produces a global map of temperature anomalies relative to the mean for that month during the period of climatology, 1951-1980.
The analysis method has been described fully in a series of refereed papers (Hansen et al., 1981, 1987, 1999, 2001, 2006). Successive papers updated the data and in some cases made minor improvements to the analysis, for example, in adjustments to minimize urban effects. The analysis method works in terms of temperature anomalies, rather than absolute temperature, because anomalies present a smoother geographical field than temperature itself. For example, when New York City has an unusually cold winter, it is likely that Philadelphia is also colder than normal. The distance over which temperature anomalies are highly correlated is of the order of 1000 kilometers at middle and high latitudes, as we illustrated in our 1987 paper.
Although the three input data streams that we use are publicly available from the
organizations that produce them, we began preserving the complete input data sets each month in April 2008. These data sets, which cover the full period of our analysis, 1880-present, are available to parties interested in performing their own analysis or checking our analysis. The computer program that performs our analysis is published on the GISS web site.
Responsibilities for our updates are as follows. Ken Lo runs programs to add in the new data and reruns the analysis with the expanded data. Reto Ruedy maintains the computer program that does the analysis and handles most technical inquiries about the analysis. Makiko Sato updates graphs and posts them on the web. I examine the temperature data monthly and write occasional discussions about global temperature change.
Scientific Inferences and Issues
Temperature data – example of early inferences. Figure 1 shows the current GISS
analysis of global annual-mean and 5-year running-mean temperature change (left) and the hemispheric temperature changes (right). These graphs are based on the data now available, including ship and satellite data for ocean regions.
Figure 1 illustrates, with a longer record, a principal conclusion of our first analysis of temperature change (Hansen et al., 1981). That analysis, based on data records through December 1978, concluded that data coverage was sufficient to estimate global temperature change. We also concluded that temperature change was qualitatively different in the two hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere had more steady warming through the century while the Northern Hemisphere had distinct cooling between 1940 and 1975.
It required more than a year to publish the 1981 paper, which was submitted several times to Science and Nature. At issue were both the global significance of the data and the length of the paper. Later, in our 1987 paper, we proved quantitatively that the station coverage was sufficient for our conclusions – the proof being obtained by sampling (at the station locations) a 100-year data set of a global climate model that had realistic spatial-temporal variability. The different hemispheric records in the mid-twentieth century have never been convincingly explained. The most likely explanation is atmospheric aerosols, fine particles in the air, produced by fossil fuel burning. Aerosol atmospheric lifetime is only several days, so fossil fuel aerosols were confined mainly to the Northern Hemisphere, where most fossil fuels were burned. Aerosols have a cooling effect that still today is estimated to counteract about half of the warming effect of human-made greenhouse gases. For the few decades after World War II, until the oil embargo in the 1970s, fossil fuel use expanded exponentially at more than 4%/year, likely causing the growth of aerosol climate forcing to exceed that of greenhouse gases
Flaws in temperature analysis. Figure 2 illustrates an error that developed in the GISS analysis when we introduced, in our 2001 paper, an improvement in the United States temperature record. The change consisted of using the newest USHCN (United States Historical Climatology Network) analysis for those U.S. stations that are part of the USHCN network. This improvement, developed by NOAA researchers, adjusted station records that included station moves or other discontinuities. Unfortunately, I made an error by failing to recognize that the station records we obtained electronically from NOAA each month, for these same stations, did not contain the adjustments. Thus there was a discontinuity in 2000 in the records of those stations, as the prior years contained the adjustment while later years did not. The error was readily corrected, once it was recognized. Figure 2 shows the global and U.S. temperatures with and without the error. The error averaged 0.15°C over the contiguous 48 states, but these states cover only 1½ percent of the globe, making the global error negligible.
However, the story was embellished and distributed to news outlets throughout the country. Resulting headline: NASA had cooked the temperature books – and once the error was corrected 1998 was no longer the warmest year in the record, instead being supplanted by 1934.
This was nonsense, of course. The small error in global temperature had no effect on the ranking of different years. The warmest year in our global temperature analysis was still 2005.
Conceivably confusion between global and U.S. temperatures in these stories was inadvertent. But the estimate for the warmest year in the U.S. had not changed either. 1934 and 1998 were tied as the warmest year (Figure 2b) with any difference (~0.01°C) at least an order of magnitude smaller than the uncertainty in comparing temperatures in the 1930s with those in the 1990s.
The obvious misinformation in these stories, and the absence of any effort to correct the stories after we pointed out the misinformation, suggests that the aim may have been to create distrust or confusion in the minds of the public, rather than to transmit accurate information. That, of course, is a matter of opinion. I expressed my opinion in two e-mails that are on my Columbia University web site
Click to access 20070810_LightUpstairs.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2007/20070816_realdeal.pdf.
We thought we had learned the necessary lessons from this experience. We put our
analysis program on the web. Everybody was free to check the program, if they were concerned that any data “cooking” may be occurring.
Unfortunately, another data problem occurred in 2008. In one of the three incoming data streams, the one for meteorological stations, the November 2008 data for many Russian stations was a repeat of October 2008 data. It was not our data record, but we properly had to accept the blame for the error, because the data was included in our analysis. Occasional flaws in input data are normal in any analysis, and the flaws are eventually noticed and corrected if they are
substantial. Indeed, we have an effective working relationship with NOAA – when we spot data that appears questionable we inform the appropriate people at the National Climate Data Center – a relationship that has been scientifically productive.
This specific data flaw was a case in point. The quality control program that NOAA runs on the data from global meteorological stations includes a check for repetition of data: if two consecutive months have identical data the data is compared with that at the nearest stations. If it appears that the repetition is likely to be an error, the data is eliminated until the original data source has verified the data. The problem in 2008 escaped this quality check because a change in their program had temporarily, inadvertently, omitted that quality check.
The lesson learned here was that even a transient data error, however quickly corrected provides fodder for people who are interested in a public relations campaign, rather than science.
That means we cannot put the new data each month on our web site and check it at our leisure, because, however briefly a flaw is displayed, it will be used to disinform the public. Indeed, in this specific case there was another round of “fraud” accusations on talk shows and other media all around the nation.
Another lesson learned. Subsequently, to minimize the chance of a bad data point
slipping through in one of the data streams and temporarily affecting a publicly available data product, we now put the analyzed data up first on a site that is not visible to the public. This allows Reto, Makiko, Ken and me to examine maps and graphs of the data before the analysis is put on our web site – if anything seems questionable, we report it back to the data providers for them to resolve. Such checking is always done before publishing a paper, but now it seems to be necessary even for routine transitory data updates. This process can delay availability of our data analysis to users for up to several days, but that is a price that must be paid to minimize disinformation.
Is it possible to totally eliminate data flaws and disinformation? Of course not. The fact that the absence of incriminating statements in pirated e-mails is taken as evidence of wrongdoing provides a measure of what would be required to quell all criticism. I believe that the steps that we now take to assure data integrity are as much as is reasonable from the standpoint of the use of our time and resources.
Strong correlation of global SST with the Nino index is obvious. Global land-ocean
temperature is noisier than the SST, but correlation with the Nino index is also apparent for global temperature. On average, global temperature lags the Nino index by about 3 months.
During 2008 and 2009 I received many messages, sometimes several per day informing me that the Earth is headed into its next ice age. Some messages include graphs extrapolating cooling trends into the future. Some messages use foul language and demand my resignation. Of the messages that include any science, almost invariably the claim is made that the sun controls Earth’s climate, the sun is entering a long period of diminishing energy output, and the sun is the cause of the cooling trend.
Indeed, it is likely that the sun is an important factor in climate variability. Figure 4 shows data on solar irradiance for the period of satellite measurements. We are presently in the deepest most prolonged solar minimum in the period of satellite data. It is uncertain whether the solar irradiance will rebound soon into a more-or-less normal solar cycle – or whether it might remain at a low level for decades, analogous to the Maunder Minimum, a period of few sunspots that may have been a principal cause of the Little Ice Age.
The direct climate forcing due to measured solar variability, about 0.2 W/m2, is
comparable to the increase in carbon dioxide forcing that occurs in about seven years, using recent CO2 growth rates. Although there is a possibility that the solar forcing could be amplified by indirect effects, such as changes of atmospheric ozone, present understanding suggests only a small amplification, as discussed elsewhere (Hansen 2009). The global temperature record (Figure 1) has positive correlation with solar irradiance, with the amplitude of temperature variation being approximately consistent with the direct solar forcing. This topic will become clearer as the records become longer, but for that purpose it is important that the temperature record be as precise as possible.
Frequently heard fallacies are that “global warming stopped in 1998” or “the world has been getting cooler over the past decade”. These statements appear to be wishful thinking – it would be nice if true, but that is not what the data show. True, the 1998 global temperature jumped far above the previous warmest year in the instrumental record, largely because 1998 was affected by the strongest El Nino of the century. Thus for the following several years the global temperature was lower than in 1998, as expected.
However, the 5-year and 11-year running mean global temperatures (Figure 3b) have continued to increase at nearly the same rate as in the past three decades. There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.
Indeed, given the continued growth of greenhouse gases and the underlying global warming trend (Figure 3b) there is a high likelihood, I would say greater than 50 percent, that 2010 will be the warmest year in the period of instrumental data. This prediction depends in part upon the continuation of the present moderate El Nino for at least several months, but that is likely.
Furthermore, the assertion that 1998 was the warmest year is based on the East Anglia – British Met Office temperature analysis. As shown in Figure 1, the GISS analysis has 2005 as the warmest year. As discussed by Hansen et al. (2006) the main difference between these analyses is probably due to the fact that British analysis excludes large areas in the Arctic and Antarctic where observations are sparse. The GISS analysis, which extrapolates temperature anomalies as far as 1200 km, has more complete coverage of the polar areas. The extrapolation introduces uncertainty, but there is independent information, including satellite infrared measurements and reduced Arctic sea ice cover, which supports the existence of substantial positive temperature anomalies in those regions.
In any case, issues such as these differences between our analyses provide a reason for having more than one global analysis. When the complete data sets are compared for the different analyses it should be possible to isolate the exact locations of differences and likely gain further insights.
Summary
The nature of messages that I receive from the public, and the fact that NASA
Headquarters received more than 2500 inquiries in the past week about our possible “manipulation” of global temperature data, suggest that the concerns are more political than scientific. Perhaps the messages are intended as intimidation, expected to have a chilling effect on researchers in climate change.
The recent “success” of climate contrarians in using the pirated East Anglia e-mails to cast doubt on the reality of global warming* seems to have energized other deniers. I am now inundated with broad FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests for my correspondence, with substantial impact on my time and on others in my office. I believe these to be fishing expeditions, aimed at finding some statement(s), likely to be taken out of context, which they would attempt to use to discredit climate science.
There are lessons from our experience about care that must be taken with data before it is made publicly available. But there is too much interesting science to be done to allow intimidation tactics to reduce our scientific drive and output. We can take a lesson from my 5- year-old grandson who boldly says “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit!”
Click to access 20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf
There are other researchers who work more extensively on global temperature analyses than we do – our main work concerns global satellite observations and global modeling – but there are differences in perspectives, which, I suggest, make it useful to have more than one analysis. Besides, it is useful to combine experience working with observed temperature together with our work on satellite data and climate models. This combination of interests is likely to help provide some insights into what is happening with global climate and information on the data that are needed to understand what is happening. So we will be keeping at it.
*By “success” I refer to their successful character assassination and swift-boating. My interpretation of the e-mails is that some scientists probably became exasperated and frustrated by contrarians – which may have contributed to some questionable judgment. The way science works, we must make readily available the input data that we use, so that others can verify our analyses. Also, in my opinion, it is a mistake to be too concerned about contrarian publications – some bad papers will slip through the peer-review process, but overall assessments by the National Academies, the IPCC, and scientific organizations sort the wheat from the chaff.
The important point is that nothing was found in the East Anglia e-mails altering the reality and magnitude of global warming in the instrumental record. The input data for global temperature analyses are widely available, on our web site and elsewhere. If those input data could be made to yield a significantly different global temperature change, contrarians would certainly have done that – but they have not.
References
Frölich, C. 2006: Solar irradiance variability since 1978. Space Science Rev., 248, 672-673.
Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Climate
impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213, 957-966.
Hansen, J.E., and S. Lebedeff, 1987: Global trends of measured surface air temperature. J.
Geophys. Res., 92, 13345-13372.
Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, J. Glascoe, and Mki. Sato, 1999: GISS analysis of surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 104, 30997-31022.
Hansen, J.E., R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl, 2001: A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 23947-23963.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, R. Ruedy, K. Lo, D.W. Lea, and M. Medina-Elizade, 2006: Global
temperature change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 103, 14288-14293.
Hansen, J. 2009: “Storms of My Grandchildren.” Bloomsbury USA, New York. (304 pp.)
BRAVO TILO REBER!!
Real analysis by a real scientist!
Thank you sir!
John Egan (05:00:34) :
“I am extremely disappointed that from Anthony Watts’ initial comment down – there was only one condemnation of the death threats against Dr. Hansen ………………….
……………………………………………………………………..
Until and unless the proprietor of this website states unequivocally that the threats against Dr. Hansen are utterly unacceptable – states so first before any other discussion is begun – then it is a self-indictment.”
Unbelievable. Most here, I suppose, assume because one doesn’t ever see threats of violence on this site, TOWARDS ANYONE, that the people running this site are against violence towards all people involved in the discussion. Really unbelievable that anyone would write that tripe.
The point is not whether 1998 or 1935 or 2008 was the “warmest year” of recent times. No one denies that the world has been warming since the Little Ice Age. The question is whether there is substantial reason to believe that powerful positive feedback loops will result in catastrophic warming (the Hockey Stick), and whether current climate change is unprecedented (the Medieval Warm Period issue.) These are not addressed here.
In addition, Hansen’s use of the term “swift-boat” indicates an ideological bias and an unwillingness to address the issues in good faith – unless of course he is using the term in the historically accurate sense, to mean “to tell the truth about a Democrat.”
Well he said it in his own words; they extrapolate anomalies out to 1200 km, to get “better coverage” of the globe. Well Dr Hansen, if you extrapolate out to 20,000 km you can cover the whole globe with one measurment.
It was useful to learn that HadCRUD is deficient in polar coverage. I was aware that they and GISS used somewhat different data sources, and that one had better “global coverage”, just wasn’t sure how they differed.
But Anthony’s station analysis to me points out a serious weakness in GISStemp. Clearly, too many of the weather stations, are actually airport (airfield) runway weather stations for the benefit of pilot; whose interest is quite different from global climate recording. And if hansen is extrapolating these runway temperatures out to 1200 km, then of course we have a major heating bias, in GISStemp.
Well of course now we know from Canada that it is all ozone holes and definitely not CO2.
I still have very little confidence in the measured data, and no confidence whatsoever in any historic record data prior to about 1979/80.
I’ll take the Argo Buoys, and the polar orbit satellites over any tree ring.
–“there is a high likelihood, I would say greater than 50 percent, that 2010 will be the warmest year in the period of instrumental data.” – Dr Hansen
Way to go out on a limb! Now I’m no rocket scientist but if one chooses to make a prediction on a binary result, doesn’t that imply, at minimum, a greater than 50 percent likelihood! Duh!
From Newsbusters, again: NASA’s Hansen Mentioned in Soros Foundations Annual Report:
2006 Soros Foundations Network Report (relevant section on page 123):
Steve Goddard (09:47:44):
What value have you derived for the temperature correlation distance in the northern hemisphere? Could you point out the errors in Hansen’s 1987 paper?
Or do you just “feel” Hansen’s analysis that temperatures are well correlated at distances less than 1000 km is wrong?
I don’t think that the temperatures of Leeds and Manchester should be smeared together.
Ryan Stephenson (03:13:17) :
Thought this was interesting:-
“A new Washington Post-ABC News poll after “climategate.” Scientists “significantly” losing credibility with the public:
“Scientists themselves also come in for more negative assessments in the poll, with four in 10 Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment. That’s up significantly in recent years.”
If they want to keep that trend intact, all they have to do is continue to blow off Climategate, reaffirm their Scientific Societies’ endorsement of CAWG, and close ranks in a demonstration of guild solidarity.
Willis Eschenbach (00:57:36) : ..He says nothing about the effect of GISS ascribing temperatures to gridcells which don’t contain a single temperature station. He says nothing concrete about the effect of UHI and the curious way that GISS adjusts for it. He says nothing about how the “gridcell” averaging method distorts the results. He says nothing about the effects of the huge decrease in stations in the last twenty years, coincidentally the time of a large increase in trends.
..I fear I have little sympathy with him. He has been a con man from day one, giving thousands of interviews on my taxpayer’s dollar and then complaining about being “muzzled” … would that he were muzzled, because his con continues to this very day
Hear Hear! My post would get swallowed – but he deserves to be in the same “gridcell” as Michael Mann, Phil Jones and the rest of the gang.
“These data sets, which cover the full period of our analysis, 1880-present, are available to parties interested in performing their own analysis or checking our analysis. The computer program that performs our analysis is published on the GISS web site.”
Stop right there. Those data sets are mangled.
The original observations that they were derived from have been altered/replaced/destroyed.
Put the data back the way you found it before the AGW crusade embarked upon it’s scorched data policy.
Tom P,
I asked you a simple question and you tried to change the subject. I’ll ask it again.
Do you think that the temperatures of Nice and Manchester should be smeared together?
“The important point is that nothing was found in the East Anglia e-mails altering the reality and magnitude of global warming in the instrumental record. The input data for global temperature analyses are widely available, on our web site and elsewhere. If those input data could be made to yield a significantly different global temperature change, contrarians would certainly have done that – but they have not.”
This confirms that the messaging of sensible nonalarmists continues to be drowned out by the messaging of “nutjob deniers” (for example, extremists threatening Dr. Hansen).
The issue is that natural climate variations are not as well-understood as the tides. (Hacked e-mails provide “goofy sideshow” material for those who want to be involved, but don’t know how.)
Implicit assumptions that warming is predominantly anthropogenic are being challenged.
Perhaps alarmists will soon realize they can’t lump all nonalarmists into the “unreasonable” category. I encourage alarmists to simply “ski” (skim & skip) through the ‘noise’ made by “nutjob deniers” and focus on concerns expressed by sensible nonalarmists.
The 2nd sentence here appears to be where Dr. Hansen is going wrong:
“The different hemispheric records in the mid-twentieth century have never been convincingly explained. The most likely explanation is atmospheric aerosols, fine particles in the air, produced by fossil fuel burning.”
Dr. Hansen, I encourage you to look very carefully at combinations of functions of EOP (Earth orientation parameters), LNC (lunar nodal cycle), & solar system dynamics using harmonic cross-wavelet (or comparable) methods in conjunction with a review of the Russian literature, rather than assuming anthropogenic causes of spatiotemporal fluctuations. You will find striking phase-concordances with various functions of climate & other geophysical indices.
The common ground shared by alarmists & nonalarmists is the need to understand natural climate variations as well as the tides.
Nevermind all the “goofy sideshow” noise about “whether or not” temperature has risen – I suggest leaving that nonsense for the riff-raff. Please feel welcome to work with those willing to be sensible, who only end up appearing to be associated with those uttering threats & spewing nonsense because alarmist-blogs block, censor, &/or ban sensible nonalarmists – believe me, I feel like I’m chronically swimming in a cesspool, but due to my fierce commitment to parks, natural forests, the scientific truth, & toxic-pollution-elimination (preferably achieved via honest means), I hold my nose & endure.
Season’s Best to All.
* Leading Climate Scientist James Hansen on Why He’s Pleased the Copenhagen Summit Failed, “Cap and Fade,” Climategate and More *
We speak with the nation’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen. He wasn’t at the Copenhagen climate summit and explains why he thinks it’s ultimately better for the planet that the talks collapsed. We also speak with with Dr. Hansen about his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity, and much more.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/22/leading_climate_scientist_james_hansen_on
Hmmm (05:34:41) :
“Mr. Hansen-
Do the emails disprove your AGW theory? No. But do they cast doubt on the scientists, the techniques used, how the data is presented (or hidden)? You bet your a$$. Do they show that there is a bias against scientists, journals, editors, and/or reviewers who don’t toe the line? You bet your a$$. Do they indicate that there is more uncertainty and error in your field than you care to admit? You bet your a$$. Does it convince us that many top climate scientists are politically motivated? You bet your a$$. Do they show that these same scientists try to block the replication of their work, to the point of avoiding FOI requests? You bet your a$$. Are these emails damaging to your movement? You bet your a$$. Do they deserve to be? You bet your a$$.
If you want to attempt to maintain credibility, don’t tell us to blind our eyes to this while you demand we break our backs changing our very economy, energy, and political structures.
The arrogance of climate scientists is ASTOUNDING.”
This is the point to stress: that the scientific alarmists’ word can no longer be taken on trust, and that an independently supervised “do-over” of “the science,” with a fine-tooth comb, is needed to avoid the appearance of partiality and thereby obtain popular consent.
If this moderate request is all our side asks for, we’ll win in the long run because, if outsider scientists get placed in charge, and contrarians are allowed input into discussions, the hitherto self-sustaining group-think and grant-chasing behavior of warmist science will evaporate.
If we make a stronger claim (even if it’s really justified), we may gain a temporary advantage, but the well-entrenched and financed other side will wear us down over time. Don’t aim for a quick victory.
HotRod (05:36:08) :
“Roger, I accept that contrarians is an ok word. But this sentence surely equates contrarian with plain wrong?”
Oh, sure, but that’s only in his mind. I’m sure he equates “Republican” with just plain wrong too, but “Republican” is a neutral word regardless, unlike (say) “wingnut,” which is akin to “denier.”
Tom P (10:51:18) :
Steve Goddard (09:47:44):
Steve wins. See p 13,349:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf
“…where we have taken D=1200 km as a representative
direction-independent distance over which the temperature
changes exhibit strong correlation.”
PS.
Everyone – look at Figure 3 of the above paper. The correlation is terrible, especially at low latitudes…
And, of course, this kind of temperature “index” has no real physical basis (and certainly no thermodynamic meaning). It is simply one of many possible ways to interpolate sparse data.
Tom P
“Hansen’s analysis that temperatures are well correlated at distances less than 1000 km”
Is that how Hansen put it? Temperatures are well correlated at distances less than 1000k ? That would have to be a pretty rough rule of thumb for anyone thinking of themselves as a climatologist or planetary scientist to use as a gauge of things. It hugely depends if your going on a N-S line or an E-W line – to say nothing of considerations of altitude and intervening terrain. If that’s what Hansen said in that 87 paper I would say that Hansen uses tools that are crude enough to be called “wrong.”
Tom P
A simple question: Are you Thomas C. Peterson from NOAA, mentioned in CRU mails?
Bob Kutz (06:33:14) :
…………..
Open question; if somebody went to microfiche archives of local newspapers and began extracting published daily highs and lows, could that rise to the level of scientific data, or is it’s provenance immediately suspect? Not that I have a lot of time, but I least I have experience in this type of ‘research’. If it was gone about in the same manner as surfacestations.org project, could it produce a useful temperature record?
There may be better sources than local newspapers, but in my opinion anything related to an academic source has been under the control of people who’s agenda is very much in question. At least with local newspapers, it would be very difficult for anyone person or organization to have had widespread influence. Just some random thoughts from a laymen in Iowa.”
I’ve done microfiche research and it’s an incredible drain after a few hours. But it’s not necessary any longer. A much better source is an online site where you can do keyword searches through hundreds (maybe thousands by now) of newspapers, mostly from the US & Canada. Once you’ve set up your search template on the search page, you can search through a long time series of a paper and harvest the hits, then click on them one at a time to go straight to the temperature data for the day.
(Note–the site is a bit awkward and cranky and there are tricks to navigating it and using the search feature that take time to learn. Also, I haven’t done a temperature search myself–I’m drawing on my experience with searching for other material.)
The cost is $12/month on a month-by-month basis, or $6/month if an annual subscription is bought. (I.e., $72/year.) I think there’s a free one-week (or so) trial subscription. Here’s the link:
http://www.newspaperarchive.com
It was James Hansen’s computer program that NASA scientists used in the 1970’s to predict a coming ice age. And the cause? Particulates from coal plants of course! Fast forward to 1988 and a warmed up Congressional hearing (after they deliberately sabataged the AC), Hansen was predicting a 1 degree rise in 20 years. Well those 20 years have passed and there’s not even close to a 1 degree rise. Now he’s predicting a rise in sea level by 2100 of 80 FEET!
Perhaps capital punishment is a bit harsh, but we certainly should not have incompetent, and policitally motivated “scientists”. That are being funded at taxpayer expense.
Here’s a great way to cut the Federal budget – FIRE HANSEN!!!
Hansen has cried wolf once too often.
The temp records are corrupt or non-existent and therefore useless.
None of these myoptic clowns (Hansen and “The Team”) has explained how the earth warmed to allow the farming of Greenland by the Vikings.
Nor have the clowns explained how the earth came out of ice ages multiple times Prior to man.
When hansen starts acting like a real scientist i will listen.
INGSOC (07:13:42) :
Bill Illis (06:14:33) :
“Hansen comes out of the climategate scandal relatively unscathed since he is in only a few of the emails”
——–
With all due respect, you make it sound like the scandal is over, and that Hanson “comes out of the climategate scandal relatively unscathed”. I would paraphrase Winston Churchill here, by saying that this is only “the end of the beginning”! I am hoping Nasa/Giss will be compelled to adhere to the many FOI request pending; which I’m certain will open up an entirely new can of worms. This scandal is nowhere near over yet!”
That’s long-term thinking — congratulations. (And things will really heat up after the 2010 elections.)
I’m wondering about this phrase in the paper:
Later, in our 1987 paper, we proved quantitatively that the station coverage was sufficient for our conclusions – the proof being obtained by sampling (at the station locations) a 100-year data set of a global climate model that had realistic spatial-temporal variability.
It sounds to me as if he is saying that they proved their conclusion by showing that a data extraction from model-output showed the same pattern. Does anyone have a different interpretation?
If this is what he is saying, I’m not at all clear on how he proved something. I imagine it is described in detail in his paper – if someone has read it, I’d appreciate hearing your view.
Steve Goddard (11:40:35) :
According to Hansen’s 1987 paper the weighting of a station varies linearly from 1 at the center of a GISS box to zero at 1200 km.
Nice is 1290 km from Manchester so the GISS temperature at a box centered at either city would be independent of the the temperature of the other city. Not a particularly clever choice on your part.
Back to my more substantial point, though. What would you choose as a maximum distance to combine temperatures with a linear weighting into a gridded array and why?