Readers may recall yesterday where I posted this stunning image of cold for Europe and Russia for mid December 2009 from the NASA NEO MODIS satellite imager.
Deadly Cold Across Europe and Russia
Click image above to enlarge or download large image (3 MB, JPEG) acquired December 11 – 18, 2009
In that story were links to additional images, and I’d planned to return to them for a comparison. Inspired by my posting, METSUL’s Alexandre Aguiar saved me the trouble. There’s an interesting comparison here between the surface anomaly done by weather stations (NASA GISS) and that of satellite measurement (NASA NEO MODIS) – Anthony
Guest post by Alexandre Aguiar, METSUL, Brazil
COMPARE THE TWO MAPS
NASA GISS on the left, NASA MODIS on the right
Here’s the same images but larger – click either image for full size:
South America: The vast majority of the continent is near average or below average in the NEO map, but according to GISS only the southern tip of the region is colder. The most striking difference is Northeast Brazil: colder in the NEO map and warmer at the GISS.
Africa: Most of the continent is colder than average in the NEO map, but in the GISS most of Africa is warmer than average.
Australia: The Western part of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, but the entire country is warmer in the GISS map.
Russia: Most of the country is colder than average in the NEO map, a much larger area of colder anomalies that presented in the GISS map.
India: Colder than average at NASA’s NEO website and warmer at NASA’s GISS map.
Middle East: Huge areas of the region (Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria) are colder than average in the NEO map and average/warmer in the GISS map.
Europe: Near average or slightly above average in the NEO map and much above average in the GISS map.
Greenland: Entire region colder than average at NEO and much of the area warmer at GISS.
Same source (NASA), but very different maps !!!
Why:
At NEO, land surface maps show where Earth’s surface was warmer or cooler in the daytime than the average temperatures for the same week or month from 2000-2008. So, a land surface temperature anomaly map for November 2009 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Novembers between 2000 and 2008.
Conclusion
Despite being very warm compared to the long term averages (GISS, UAH, etc), November 2009 was colder in large areas of the planet if compared to this decade average.
See PDF here. December should be very interesting in the northern hemisphere.
Mapou (17:35:51) :
The tale of the two contradicting maps. Which one is correct? James Hansen knows.
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I think we all know.
[REPLY – They’re both “correct”. Same data, different baselines. (But, of course, one might well argue that GISS-adjusted data of any variety is suspect.) ~ Evan]
NOTE: due to the inconsistency of the maps shown hereon. caution should be used in the formulation of opinions from these products.
The GISS map vs the MODIS map.
Reminds me of the early images of Mars through telescopes vs the Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager images.
Is the resolution on the GISS map 1950 ish, or is it just dumbed down?
NASA spaceborne is what always gets the public’s eye.
Hot Damn, Sam, do they deliver, or what?
Alex (20:54:17) :
“Why are people looking at mercator maps? Primary school kids know that land surface is grossly distorted the further you move from the equator. Maybe it looks cool and scary to see all that red on the tops and bottoms. A camp fire becomes the size of a forest blaze and Ice cube looks like an iceberg. ”
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Because Greenland (with all of that nasty melting icecap) looks reeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllyyyyy big in a Mercator projection. (Good observation, but you’ve answered your own question.)
Considering a complete cycle is about 60 years, should a baseline not be identified as the period between two minima or maxima? I suggest the period from 1934 to 1998, two maxima. The period between 1951 and 1980 is known for its declining temperature. The period afterwards is the warming phase of the cycle.
Several scientists estimate that we are 10 years into the cooling phase of a cooling cycle that will last 20 years before the start of 30 year warming cycle, jus like the two previous 60 years cycles. They are looking at the correlation of solar and oceanic cycles.
Andrew30 (18:05:29) :
Actually they ran out of blue pegs, they once had the whole set but the dog ate most of the blue ones 🙁
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That’s right, that’s right, , I remember now, the dog again.
REPLY – They’re both “correct”. Same data, different baselines. (But, of course, one might well argue that GISS-adjusted data of any variety is suspect.) ~ Evan]
This is true, Evan, but the selection of the baseline is very arbitrary, as are map coloration schemes. I don’t object to the red/blue scheme if it is colored at every tenth.
If I am correct, GISS uses the 1961-1990 baseline? This would show the data warmer. It may or may not be a bad selection because it wouldn’t fudge away a warming trend by moving the baseline up. Of course, you also have the issue of just how significant is a warming trend when you measure an anomaly against the baseline. Are the anomalies measured against the 1961-1990 trend also? I am unclear on what the anomaly is a deviation from.
rbateman (20:26:10) :
I would like to see the MODIS map overlain with cloud cover %.
In the far north, one could easily get a large winter anomaly between areas exposed to clear and cold conditions vs overcast and precipitating conditions.
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Interesting point of view..
Anomaly or just differential?
it would however be interesting to see the difference between those areas at night and during the day…. just to see what reflection (albedo) change it makes to temps in general.. vs heat retention..
John Finn (17:14:53) wrote: “Hang on a minute. The GISS anomaly map is for the month of November whereas the MODIS map is for ONE week (11th-18th) in December. This is not a fair comparison. Leaving aside the fact that the anomaly base periods are completely different should we not at least wait until GISS release their December figures before making any comment”.
Dear John, the map Anthony published on Europe is for ONE WEEK. He mentioned that twice here. The two global maps I refer are from the 30-days period of November in 2009 available at NEO’s website, so the base periods are the SAME (November 1 to November 30, 2009), not comparing oranges and bananas. Regarding your point that the anomaly base periods are different, please notice that I clearly mentioned that in the text: “Despite being very warm compared to the long term averages (GISS, UAH, etc), November 2009 was colder in large areas of the planet if compared to this decade average [MODIS]”.
Happy New Year to All Skeptics,
Hmmm…
As a Canadian living in the coldest captial city in the world, I would like to make a few observations from the layman’s perspective.
In Ottawa in the winter, it is generally much colder on clear days than on cloudy days.
MODIS does not see through cloud. MODIS imagery aggregates data from a number of passes to put together a full image. The data that is aggregated is based on the readings on clear days when cloud is not present.
Therefore a MODIS land temperature image for colder areas might be biased towards colder readings?
I assume that this bias would apply to land or ice, but not to open water ocean areas?
Anthony, just a small correction: Alexandre Aguiar is a Brazilian meteorologist working at MetSul, a private forecasting company located in Porto Alegre, Río Grande do Sul, Brazil.
I wish we had him and his colleague Eugenio Hackbart working in Argentina instead of our five thumb meto bureaucrats.
REPLY: Thanks for the note, fixed. -A
OK, my bad in my comment above. They use 1951-1980. But why use one period for the baseline and another for the anomaly? If you are measuring deviation from 1951-1980, that should be your baseline if all the anomalies are calculated that way. I have all this data sitting in Excel, and the graph of the data against the baseline it is calculated from isn’t any scarier than the others, but it does have a weird double peak signal in it after the baseline period. 1934 is also strangely flat.
John Finn (17:14:53) :
Look closely, the map Anthony shows is, as you say, for part of December but the comparison maps are both for November. Notice the MODISS maps don’t look the same. I looked it up on the web site and it’s definitely the November monthly data for both.
Alex (20:54:17) :
Why are people looking at mercator maps?
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One of the best points all thread… why is this primitive method used? It is an extremely poor and biased representation of the data.
Max Hugoson (18:05:59) :
Someone has to speak up! This “average temperature” fraud is just that.
It is a FRAUD. It’s a trick with NUMBERS.
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The cooling isn’t a travesty for James Hansen. No, no, no. Because he found away to hide the decline!! Hey, when you’re the boss you can get bossy with the data!
Alex (20:54:17) :
> Why are people looking at mercator maps?
We aren’t. The maps typically used are not projections, they have latitude on the Y axis and longitude on the X axis. I’ve been through this before, It’s too late tonight to do it again now. (Mercator has something like latitude / cos(latitude) on the Y axis.) I think it’s the projection of a sphere onto a cylinder – the poles are infinitely far away on a Mercator map. The main advantage of a Mercator map (other than making Greenland look too big) is that a compass heading, e.g. NE, is always 45° on the map. I don’t know any other map projections with that feature. Most likely given that constraint, one can only come up with the Mercator projection.
I’d prefer a sinusoidal map, i.e. latitude on the Y axis longitude * cos(latitude) on the X axis. That’s a cheap equal area map so counting pixels and related tasks are easy and visually the poles aren’t emphasized.
Why do so many people think those are Mercator projection maps?
Alex (20:54:17) :
“Why are people looking at mercator maps? Primary school kids know that land surface is grossly distorted the further you move from the equator.”
I think you will find that this is not a mercator projection. Perhaps a Equirectangular projection?
/quote/
The projection is neither equal area nor conformal. Because of the distortions introduced by this projection, it has little use in navigation or cadastral mapping and finds its main use in thematic mapping. In particular, the plate carrée has become a de-facto standard for computer applications that process global maps, such as Celestia and NASA World Wind, because of the connection between an image pixel and its geographic position.
/unquote/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection
I can speak a lot just about the historical knowledge of papers writing, but I would state that the essay editing service can write the great quality custom write ever. Is that correct?
Images are amongst the best brainwashing tools – especially if repeated often. A picture speaks a thousand words, or, in this case, a thousand lies.
phlogiston (17:36:50) :
Speaking of CO2 levels, have you checked out World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (WDCGG) at http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/catalogue.cgi . Go to a location other than Mauna Loa with CO2 listed in “Parameters”. Look for entry listing “monthly”, not “event”. Pick “Quick Plot” then “png”. None I’ve seen look like Mauna Loa. Some even show drops in CO2. Look also at 13CO2 (CO2 isotope with extra neutron) levels. Watch the date ranges, some stoped years ago. Interesting why Mauna Loa is the wierd duck but is the only one broadcast everywhere as correct.
You guys make a lot of good points, but some of you miss things.
There are three maps the original one from the 11-18th of December,
then the two new ones that are the same month, different value scales, different reference years for base averages, and completely different color scales.
Some noticed the lack of Ocean masking on the GISS map and the apparent size, of the area over which the stations were extrapolated (the large dots, about 1000Km in diameter) And yes a third grader, with new crayons could have done better.
The main problem is no standardization, the increase in resolution of the satellite data, gives many more separate pixels, and better shaded gradients for better understanding of the data.
It makes the problems in the system easily seen, and graphics should be optimized to best convey, as much clarity of the data, as possible.
Unless the goal is to confuse and conceal real trends. I cannot believe that with the budget, manpower, and equipment they have, that a better overall product was not produced with my tax dollars.
(insert “November” after “same month”, in first paragraph)
Dont worry, the MODIS graph will be Homogenized next month and will show warming in all regions.
JB Williamson (22:49:22) :
Alex (20:54:17) :
Wow, Wikipedia says Ptolemy claims Marinus of Tyre invented the equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection) in 100 A.D. I always though mankind back then thought the world was flat!! Another first century Wikipedia revelation!
” wayne (23:07:02) :
phlogiston (17:36:50) :
Speaking of CO2 levels, have you checked out World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (WDCGG)… Mauna Loa is the wierd duck but is the only one broadcast everywhere as correct.
”
Mauna Loa seems to be heading in the same direction as others I looked at. Which sites did you select ?