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.)
Jim.
I respect your obvious wish to distance yourself from the disgraceful “science” and “peer review” and the intellectual dishonesty that has dotted its history. Also, for standing up to the carpetbaggers who are trying to milk this issue through carbon trades etc – aka bloodsuckers by not going to Copenhagen. I am opposed to the people who would harm you for no other reason than that you are on suspicion of being truthful.
I ask you now please, to demonstrate your integrity, throw open the data sets and the rationale and the assumptions (all of them) behind them the wider (truly) scientific community for open review.
Either that, or stop calling yourself a scientist.
It takes courage to do so, and I applaud you in advance. You are 68 years old. Will your enduring heritage and that of your children be that a con artist and a family of liars, respectively? Over to you.
obruinsma (23:38:35) :
“it [Hansen’s piece] shows how politicized the”debate” is ( e.g. the word climate contrarians).”
Contrarians is a fairly neutral word–it means dissenters from the consensus. It’s miles better than deniers, although it hints at wilful perversity or factionalism for its own sake. “Critics” or “dissenters” would be even more neutral, but “climate critics” and “climate dissenters” have an absurd face-value meaning, which “climate contrarians” does not, because it somehow connotes “about” before “climate.”
Caleb (01:15:26) :
“Dr. Hansen doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. Rather he “adjusts” reality to massage his ego, and prove he wasn’t mistaken. I believe this hints at self-delusion.”
Narcissism. (Read books on the topic to see the feature-match.)
imapopulist (01:46:04) :
“I have worked in government for and with individuals like Hansen who master the art of power and control. One element of there approach is a near fanatical insistence on controlling the message.”
Narcissism again.
Incidentally, just to come back on topic, another view of mine is that the greens are correct—people of the world don’t want to acknowledge global warming (as portrayed in Hansen Warming) because they are too selfish to share or reduce consumption—and therefore, the world, 99% of its people, will approach any global warming problem from a position of selfishness—world peoples will be looking to exploit it—governments will be using it to further their own interests—because people are selfish—and this is a basic human selfishness that has been around since wars began, for thousands of years, and will continue for centuries to come. Progress is certainly accelerating (at some environmental cost), but human spiritual progress—that will take a while longer.
In principle I disagree with AGW activists because they are right.
I am extremely disappointed that from Anthony Watts’ initial comment down – there was only one condemnation of the death threats against Dr. Hansen.
As a left critic of AGW – there is much that I find unappealing on this website, especially in the comments. But if you cannot find it in yourself to condemn terroristic threats – simply because the person threatened has views different than your own – then you don’t deserve the time of day.
You may or may not support abortion rights, but abortion remains a legal procedure in the United States. Last year, George Tiller, an abortion provider, was murdered in the aisles of his church. Is this what you want debate to devolve into?
The violence runs both ways. Last week someone attacked Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, breaking his nose. The attacker’s justification? – “that man is ruining Italy. I don’t agree with anything he says”. Thirty years ago, Italian premier Also Moro was kidnapped and murdered.
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.
PS – And I disagree with much of what Hansen has done.
REPLY: I was ready to condemn the threats in the initial comment, but I decided to check first for any reference on the web, Googling “Jim Hansen police escort Houston” and variations yielded nothing other that references from his PDF file (based on the date they appeared and/or links). Googling again this morning yields a few more, mostly based on this article that have now been added. Since it would seem that supporters of Dr. Hansen would make a big deal out of this in social media, I found it puzzling that there was no reference to it. There was a Dec 1st interview conducted here: http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/12/james_hansen_the_interview_in_its_entirety.html by the Houston Chronicle “Sci Guy” and there was no mention of it. This seems very odd to me.
At that point Hansen having a police escort is unsubstantiated and remains so this morning. Given that there was no mention of it anywhere that I can find until JH’s Dec 17th essay, it may not have occurred, but only have been a suggestion, or simply dramatic license. If there is confirmation somewhere that somebody can point out, I’ll gladly retract that statement and issue a condemnation of such threats. I agree violence has no place in the debate. The violence and vandalism seen in Copenhagen is an example. However I’ll point out that Dr. Hansen has been prone to making some exaggerations and some outlandish statements in the past such as “death trains” and “crimes against humanity by energy executives”, so I’m taking his comment with a grain of salt. – Anthony Watts
Hansen:
“There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.”
“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.”
Intrade.com will let you bet (after you’ve registered, etc.) on whether 2010 will be the hottest year on record. Click on:
Markets –>
Climate & Weather –>
Global Temperature –>
Will Global Average Temperatures for 2009-2011 be THE warmest on record? –>
Trade (in the 2010.GLOBALTEMP.WARMEST box) →
Buy (if you think 2010 will be the warmest on record),
OR Sell (if you don’t).
PS: Intrade uses the GIS data.
Politics as usual.
There must be established a neat difference between the so called science methods which only observe the observer own´s navel and those of experimental science with eyes opened to the world and testable results. The first is psychologically onanism, the other reasoning.
One plays with child´s computer games or gropes in the dark proclaiming shadows as realities, the second one grown up men and women investigate laws of nature, describe them, calculate them, so any of us can check its universal validity.
Just tell me if just one of those computer games describe, if only nearly, natural phenomena, if only by chance.
Just tell me if just one of solar science´s “new age” forecasts has fulfilled, if only by chance.
Of course, we can imagine a lot of things, kids imagine more, however, where is it the experimental positive science?
Petty theories of selfindulging and overpaid individuals?
Well I’m convinced, fire all the government paid AGW hacks like Hansen and the AGW ‘problem’ will simply disappear on its own. Problem solved.
nanuuq
You write: “EVEN if humans are not responsible for global warming, how are we to minimize the effects of the REAL TRUE WARMING we are currently seeing?”
As far as I can tell the real true warming is a net benefit. Longer growing seasons, more arable land, higher crop yields due to higher CO2, warming taking place predominantly in higher latitudes right where it does the most good. Compare this to the demonstrable downside of an ocean that will rise a foot in the next century as it did in the past century. A one foot rise was easily coped with in the past century so it doesn’t seem like it should be any more difficult in the next century. World hunger is still a big problem despite large advances in agricultural productivity due both to the improving climate and technological advances.
So tell me again what’s the best temperature for the earth and why. If you can convince me there’s a best temperature and that the earth is moving away from it instead of towards it then I’ll get, as Obama puts it, all wee wee’d up about it.
TO: Hans Verbeek (02:39:30) :
“There is a slight downward tick at the end of the record, but even that may disappear if 2010 is a warm year.”
“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.”
Hans,
You miss the point. Hansen is telling us in advance that according to the “instrument data” 2010 will be warmest. GISS controls the data FROM ‘instruments’ and adjusts and “extrapolates” the temp record. Hansen is telling us he will make damned sure that 2010 comes out warmest, because GISS will rig the result. Outrageous.
I agree with all of the other commentators here that Hansen is owed no sympathy. He has been a political activist for his agenda for 30 years. he is no dispassionate scientist.
This website is to be respected. It is great to allow Hansen to speak.
Hansen needs to step up and comply with freedom of information requests.
You have been a bad boy Jim and reluctant to do so. We are tax payers and you work for us and not yourself. I see your employee Gavin Schmidt reports to you and you give him time to blog his heart out all day long on Real climate instead of working. This is cheating us. Contrary to the socialist model, you work for the people and we do not work for the government.
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”
I absolutely condemn any death threats against Dr Hansen. I would also condemn threats by a ‘reputable’ scientist to ‘beat the c**p out of Pat Michaels.
“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.”
We wait and see. That’s a nice hostage to have.
I liked this para from Hulme of East Anglia:
“But this episode might signify something more in the unfolding story of climate change. This event might signal a crack that allows for processes of re-structuring scientific knowledge about climate change. It is possible that some areas of climate science has become sclerotic. It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.”
Swift-boating? Sorry?
And this from Jones, can he not see a question being begged, indeed, implored?
“In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.”
I thought you were a temperature record expert? How can that line POSSIBLY be the first line of your response to the hacking?
I am nearly speechless. Nearly.
As a concerned layman, trying to understand the respective claims of “warmists” and “deniers” (I hope I’m not being too technical in employing these scientific terms), I would greatly appreciate a companion article that systematically considers Dr. Hansen’s claims and provides a refutation, where warranted (geared to a layman, like myself). Subsequently, I would appreciate it if Dr. Hansen would offer his rejoinder. If an issue does not seem sorted out through the above evolution, then I recommend that further iterations of the dialectic be engaged. Both the science of climate change and the public policy ramifications of that science are of incredible importance–may I boldly suggest that those with a genuine competency in climate science have something of a good-citizen duty to thrash out relevant controversies in a public forum like this blog and in a way that can be understood (if possible) by a concerned layman, like myself. It is obvious that there are strong feelings at play in climate science, but, please, could I ask that those be put aside in favor of dispassionate, compact, and systematic review of Dr. Hansen’s article?
Mr. Hansen-
On the one hand you say,
“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”
And on the other you participate in civil disobedience and state that coal fired power plants are death factories:
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090219/james-hansen-issues-video-call-action-stop-coal
Why on earth would I trust your scientific credibility?
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.
That anyone should need a police escort is truly sad.
“How did we devolve to this state?”
Some AGW people turned AGW into a pseudo religion by heavily politicizing the science, with religious underpinnings, thus creating the either or view of the world, just like the socialists did in the 1930’s.
“Any useful lessons?”
Put science back into focus, or rather into scientist. And keep a healthy skeptic distant to all overly politicized organizations that want your money, or the world will go mental.
“The distance over which temperature anomalies are highly correlated is of the order of 1000 kilometers at middle and high latitudes,”
Doesn’t this only holds true if the whole area, 1000 km, is either about equally cloudy or about equally free of clouds and are within the same weather systems, and of course being of the same elevation and situated about the same relative to the coast? For instance the temperatures between the beaches of LA don’t necessarily correlates with the temperatures 1000 km to the north east.
“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.”
Certainly if those 1.5% land coverage only contain 1.5% of the total amount of data coverage. Otherwise it gets a bit sloppy doesn’t it?
“The quality control program that NOAA runs on the data from global meteorological stations includes a check for repetition of data:”
It also scraps data that are above or below the set min and max, i.e. excluding improbable natural phenomenon. However the filters used seem to allow for the inclusion of faulty reading as long as those reading are within the bounds of the filtered area. To me it seems that they rather heavily trust their QA filter to check the integrity of readings, rather then properly checking the equipment rightly before and rightly after taking a reading to make sure the reading was done with sound equipment, like there isn’t much of QA for the actual equipment. On top of this there doesn’t seem to be any QA for the actual “QA-filter” itself, i.e. its algorithms and code. Part of the QA for the “QA-filter” is actually a functional peer-review process.
Roger, I accept that contrarians is an ok word. But this sentence surely equates contrarian with plain wrong?
“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.”
It’s just completely amazing, the whole piece. I write as someone with no idea about the science, but i do speak English.
I am not vindictive. I am a scientist/engineer (physicist and electrical/electronics/radio/tellecomms). Why do I say this? Because for years I have known that the science of AGW was crap. Itried speakingn with the wassocks at the MetOff, RC etc. What I got was insults.
For the sake of all science Hansen et al must go to prison. All of them. There has to be a punishment so severe that we can be reasonably certain that this will never happen again. So pack your bags Jimmy boy; toothbrush as well.
Next in line is the UN. I seem to recall a past US President who told the UN to clean up its act or loss the US contributions. That needs to happen again. Unfortunely, It can’t with Oh Barmy in charge. BUT I can wait.
Man’s earliest and so-far unique achievement over other animals is the control of fire. Now our ‘leaders’ tell us heat and smoke is bad. Its time for us rednecks to revolt against the ignorance of the educated.
1. Kudos to Anthony Watts for giving Dr. Hansen the opportunity to use WattsUpWithThat to state his case.
2. I agree with comments above that Hansen appears to have skimmed past some issues regarding the manner in which temperature records are prepared. But it is still a substantive presentation worth a careful respectful reading.
3. I think it is unlikely that there is any overt “cooking the books” so much as an institutional bias such that that small errors, tweaks and methodological choices will all break in the same direction. When we take about projections over a century, very small fractions of a degree in the short term do matter.
4. Dr. Hansen cannot expect a broad public presumption of professional detachment on his part when he has been such an open advocate of policies whose only justification is an extreme outcome that the science does not currently support.
Gotta love it.
Hansen cites the solar estimates, which bounces around 1366,
but his models assume a constant 1 W/m^2 greater held constant forever:
“This Model assumes the constant orbital parameters of 2000 AD, and that the solar constant is fixed at 1367 W/m².”
http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/solar4x3.html
while ignoring the longer term proxies:
http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/srsun.html
I can’t leave it alone. Surely this is the same sentence?
“…. some contrarian papers will slip through the peer-review process…..”
Exactly. Some will get through the Team.
Jimbo sez:
“Fast forward to December 2009, when I gave a talk at the Progressive Forum…”
Nothing more need be said. It is clear where his political interests are these days. It is also clear from his essay that he is unrepentant and will NEVER admit to any of the myriad problems with the GISS data products.
Jimbo also sez:
“There are lessons from our experience about care that must be taken with data before it is made publicly available.”
Translated – “Despite your FOIA requests, we still ain’t gonna you deniers any stinkin’ data!”
Jim Hansen has reached the end of his career at NASA (he’s in his late sixties, I believe). It makes no sense for him to remain as head of GISS, given that his true interests lie in the politics of global warming. He should retire and take all the George Soros / Al Gore money he can, write a book, go on tour, etc. – he would certainly have more free time to do those things.
Nanuuq:
“PLEASE sit back and think a bit instead of behaving like a religious revival.”
I, for one, would love a rational, reasoned debate on AGW. However, as the Copenhagen conference has shown (and as reflected in Hansen’s essay), one side wants to have NO debate. They simply want to impose economically crippling taxes, corrupt carbon trading schemes, and draconian rules on carbon emissions which will affect everyone – and they want to do it NOW! This is why skeptics are speaking up – they are seeing their freedoms and liberties eroded, all because some eco-zealots think they can control the earth’s climate.
And to those who think they can control the earth’s climate through “science” – I have an ozone hole I’d like to sell them – an ozone hole that we “fixed” after the world banned CFCs…
http://www.theozonehole.com/ozone2009.htm
“In 2009, the ozone hole reached its 10th largest measured size since careful measurements began in 1979.”
Twenty years ago Hansen predicted that the West Side Highway in Manhattan would be underwater today.
‘Nuff said.