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.
wayne (23:33:19) :
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 thought mankind back then thought the world was flat!!”
Mmm – so did I until I checked this from wikipedia…
“Various cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including ancient Babylon, Ancient Egypt, pre-Classical Greece and pre-17th century China. This view contrasts with the realization first recorded around the 4th century BC by natural philosophers of Classical Greece that the Earth is spherical.
The false belief that medieval Christianity believed in a flat earth has been referred to as The Myth of the Flat Earth.[1] In 1945, it was listed by the Historical Association (of Britain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history.[2] The myth that people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat entered the popular imagination in the 19th century, thanks largely to the publication of Washington Irving’s fantasy The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
I understand that it is not a true mercator map, but it is -ish. It does distort the data, visually. We are a species that prefer visual information. I am not preaching to the scientific minded. It is the masses who are exposed to these images. They draw their conclusions from what they see. I was,merely, pointing out that this day and age we could display information better. This sort of ‘fudging’ is subtle but effective. I suggest we try to educate others to reality and present things in the way they understand, otherwise we become just as guilty as the warmers and their elitist attitude. I am not the enemy, neither a fool, but I understand human nature
There will be a need for auditing investment in grid interpolation methods in die course, but first there has to be an agreed set of station temperatures.
It would, I think, be a premature investment to start looking at gridding/interpolation/weighting algorithms while the surface temperature data are in such a ragged state. One logical step at a time.
Have looked at almost all listing CO2, scrutinizing others in the South Pacific away from land. I know the slopes tend the same but most show ups, some downs, giggles, wiggles superimposed over the sine component, the way you would expect data in chaotic climate to be. You normally expect variance. Mauna Loa is surprisingly almost perfect line. Not saying it is necessary wrong, just different than most in its perfectness, that’s all.
Why is it such a dead strait line when mankind is expanding logarithmically. Can’t answer that for myself. Do you know why?
JB Williamson (00:00:10) :
Interesting. Learn something every day. I meant that as a joke. But, seriously, if Ptolemy wrote that, I believe him. Great mind.
Can anyone explain Hawaii it looks like there are two weather stations one at either side of the island chain. The picture show 3 different colors. To me it looks like they added the two weather station anomalies to get the third higher reading. I would like to know were the .5 degree data is coming from.
Syl
According to the BOM, WA was +1.7C above average for Nov, 09.
Averaging out?
I notice a few people talking about why this baseline and not another and some going it’s not 30 years for the satellite. Well in one of the emails released from CRU you get to find out that the reason 30 years is set as the “official” length is that it was easy to use and the WMO slected that length. As shown GISS uses 51 to 80 and CRU 61 to 90. Now here is another little fact the WMO, who along with the UNEP, are the founders of the IPCC slected the 61 to 90 baseline as their “official” baseline and passed that on to the IPCC. That means that the Satellite datasets are out and so is GISS because they use 51-90. That is why CRU is so tied to the IPCC they have the only dataset that uses the WMO baseline.
Another little fact there was those that wanted the IPCC to switch from the 61 to 90 baseline to a 1981 to 2000 (yes thats right a 20 year baseline) to help them out. One of the objects to the switch is that the Global warming trend goes down. Phil Jones was hoping to be retired before the IPCC switches the baseline, which according to the email chain would have been after 2020 when they selected a 1991 to 2020 baseline.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=462&filename=1105019698.txt
The data that is aggregated is based on the readings on clear days when cloud is not present.
That would be true for the base readings too.
If the satellite is only comparing its own readings over the decade then the colder days being clear will correct (and this is why anomolies beat absolutes, I suppose).
So unless there is some reason why cloudy days now are different from cloudy days then, I don’t see a problem.
“NASA -vs- NASA: which temperature anomaly map to believe?”
Neither as belief has no place in science, nor does non-belief for that matter. Belief, that which is thought to be true or false without any evidence, is not science, it’s belief which is something else entirely.
What we need is evidence. Since the evidence of the two alleged data sources potentially contradict each other it seems that in a deeper understanding of how exactly these two “map visualizations” are constructed. What is the raw data and how is it processed into these visualizations. Just like any other “manipulations” of data it must be explored and comprehended before conclusions can be drawn especially when other data contradicts it. Actually the problem prevalent in climate science seems to be “manNipulations” of the “manN” made kind. At least that needs to be ruled out… with auditing… funny that.
It’s time to take it to the next level with Nasa’s data, manipulations, software and conclusions.
Happy 2010!
ps. It makes sense that Al Gore believes that it’s 2 million degrees just a few miles below, he believes in AGW so I guess some one is heating up the center of the Earth one heck of a lot! Heh heh…
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=11&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
250km smoothing is better, but it shows that the GISS algoreithm spreads warm anomalies into not covered areas. Check like empty north of Canada of central South America gets suddenly warm, few stations west from Greenland have infected the whole Arctic to be 4-10C above average and cold anomaly measured directly at Yamal peninsula (oh, did I told Yamal?) become +2C in the 1200km smoothed map.
Bob Tislade did a great job some time ago, comparing trends in certain parts of the globe between GISS and MSUAH, finding that vast areas of Asia, Africa and Antarctic show the biggest differences and North America and Europe are quite OK.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/06/part-1-of-comparison-of-gistemp-and-uah.html
Spencer (00:35:52) :
If there are actually TWO stations, then I know one way this could occur, a phantom value injected between. I am a programmer of forty years and have seen similar cases. We know via some of Hansen’s papers (goto GISS) that he has “proven” that, in the case of anomalies, he claims you can interpolate and project up to 1200 km with acceptable error bounds over missing data cells in an anomaly map. So some interpolation is occuring. In programming, the interpolation function applied on every cell in the map, the adjacent cells would be adjusted via some “unknown to us” function (more properly called a 2D filter of some size, 3×3, 4×4, so on). The gray unvalued cells would either have to be ignored (proper) or take on a zero value since zero is “no energy difference here” in an anomaly map. Depending on the particular function used, the blank cell between the two real stations can take on a larger value than either on either side due to the linear or logarithmic interpolation correction performed by the filter.
Very close to what you do when you adjust the sharpness or smoothness of a photo in image correcting software. Looking at the pixels closely, this same affect will appear. I know, wrote image manipulation/correction and color separation software back in the late 80’s.
If this is the actual case, it could be sloppy science depending on how the gray areas are handled. With no gray areas (missing data values) the filter could be perfectly correct. This is only one way this could feasibly occur, there are others. To me, any tinkering of the values is incorrect, especially if not stated where and why in a crystally clear way at the bottom of every image or a link to it.
ShrNfr (19:01:53) :
Its the Han Sen effect. I guess I can understand the lack of ocean if you have to use Argo. Its not been running for 10 years, but the sat network has been running for 40. I cut my teeth on the Nimbus E microwave spectrometer.
——————————————–
Might you have worked with J Houghton then? Didn’t he have a hand in developing those gadgets?
OM
@ur momisugly JB Williamson You forget that the Koran says the earth and sky are flat and that the sky is held up by 4 pillars.
Interestingly, GISSTEMP allows you to play around with the baseline period. Changing it to 2000 – 2008 for November 2009 produces something a bit closer to the NEO map, but there are still significant variations. Africa correlates quite closely, but South America? Australia? Greenland?
( http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=11&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=2000&base2=2008&radius=1200&pol=reg )
I’m not a scientist by any means, so apologies if I’ve misunderstood how this is supposed to work.
Anthony – congratulations on a superb site. Best wishes and a happy new year.
Andy
Sorry to spoil the party but this post is misleading.
It would have been easy to use the same 2000-2008 period for the GISS map. On the NASA GISS web site you can change the base period from the default 1951-1980 to whatever period you want.
When the same base period is used for both maps, most of the differences between the maps disappear. It is also a good exercise to compare the MODIS night time temperature map to the GISS map.
I am actually quite surprised how well the GISS and MODIS maps compare.
Bill H (22:01:48) :
Overlay the % of the time spent cloudy.
I can see a warm anomaly take place simply due to a location being clear at the start of Nov, then being cloudy the rest. It would bias towards warm.
Put that same clear period at the end of Nov., and you get a colder anomaly.
Alex (00:07:07) :
“I understand that it is not a true mercator map, but it is -ish. It does distort the data, visually. We are a species that prefer visual information. I am not preaching to the scientific minded. It is the masses who are exposed to these images.”
You make a very valid point and I agree with the thrust of your argument. However, how would you present the data in this case?
I like how people commenting on this post immediately pointed out how the two maps are in some ways like comparing apples and oranges. It demonstrates scientific scrutiny and honesty which has been sadly lacking at GISS.
I feel GISS has been far too concerned with impressing the public, and influencing public perception. That has more to do with how you present the data, and less to do with the data in and of itself.
Simply showing these two maps demonstrates how very different perceptions can be drawn. This is a point in and of itself, separate from exacting scientific discussions of the two data sets.
…The current baseline 60-90 includes half of the last 100 years ‘ice winters’ in Denmark. An ‘ice winter’ is a winter where the Danish belts and fjords freezes and normal ships need assistance.
1995-96
1986-87
1985-86
1984-85
1981-82
1978-79
1969-70
1962-63
1955-56
1946-47
1941-42
1940-41
1939-40
1928-29
1923-24
(From DMI.DK)
In other words, the current north-west European winter baseline must be very cold.
Very convenient – if you are a warmist.
I wouldn’t normally agree with Rattus Norvegicus (19:16:45) : but for once I do. We need (a) same baseline (b) same measurement timespan (c) same colouring system.
DirkH (19:39:02) : re Segalstad – Segalstad is important.
Just The Facts (19:58:16) : I think it’s time for an immediate and aggressive investigation of NASA’s GISS temperature measurement, adjustment and reporting methodology.
I hear Hansen complaints of being “overrun” with FOI requests and I’d like to see concerted action to take away that complaint option. GISS does at least make “data” available – as “raw” and “homogenized” and already these give a lot of insight if we look at them carefully. What seems most crucially missing is (a) station data right up to the present from good “rural” stations like John Daly notes (b) what if anything is done even to “raw” data (c) a realistic rule-of-thumb UHI correction factor
Rattus Norvegicus (20:13:58) :
It might also point out that using the warmest decade on record for the baseline is likely to lead to some areas which show up as cooler than normal. They could still be quite warm in the scheme of things.
Ok- in an earlier post (John Finn (17:14:53) 🙂
I might have misunderstood the source of the second MODIS image. I was assuming it was from the DEc 11-18 image that was used in the previous post. However, there is still the issue of the different base periods.
There is a facility on the GISS webite which allows you to specify whichever base period you want. This is the GISS (land only) anomaly map for November using 2000-2008 as the base period.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=11&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=2000&base2=2008&radius=1200&pol=reg
The MODIS and GISS maps now look much more in agreement. GISS still has a slight positive anomaly (0.14) but we need to remember that the UAH November anomaly was a record for that month.
Just for completeness, here’s the GISS global map using the satellite base period (1979-1998).
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=11&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1979&base2=1998&radius=1200&pol=reg
Note:
GISS anomaly is +0.51 deg
UAH anomaly is +0.50 deg
CET figures are out.
December 3.1: 2009 10.11
Coldest December this decade and the coldest since 1996.
Year is 3rd coldest of the decade (2001 and 2008 colder).
On the 351 year record, December ranks 255= along with 1779, 1811, 1816, 1835, 1946; 2009 is 30th between 1686 and 1831.
None of which means anything at all of course!
Alexandre Aguiar – MetSul, Brazil (22:03:02) :
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]“.
Alexandre
I do apologise. My only excuse is that I had been ‘celebrating’ earlier. It was the early hours of New Years day when I posted my comment.
However, in a later (more sober) comment I have pointed out that it is possible to obtain GISS anomaly maps for whatever period you wish. I have done this for 2000-2008 and, as we would expect, there is more agreement in the MODIS and GISS maps.
I also feel it’s useful to look at other independent data before jumping to conclusions (I don’t mean you – I mean other blog readers). The UAH temperature data, maintained by Roy Spencer and John Christy, shows that November 2009 was the wamest November on record. The relative anomalies (i.e. same base period) for UAH and GISS are in very close agreement.
PS Thanks for your comment.
I see from the above posts that analyse in depth the zits on the dead elephant, the corpse of AGW is still twitching.
The very idea that you could measure the temperature of the whole earth to any degree of accuracy is risible.
Referring to my recent wildfowling trip, on the way back, after evening flight, from Dornoch Firth to Findhorn, the temperature ranged between -7C at Dornoch to -1C at Findhorn, both sites being at sea level. The coastal journey by road was 65 miles but as the Pink footed goose flies, only 20 miles. There was no wind and the snow cover and depth were similar throughout. The variable was time, as, lacking a Tardis, 1 hour 20 mins elapsed whilst I travelled between points.
Interestingly, Inverness UHI effect was noticeable as the temperature in town rose to 0C only to fall again to -2C at the airport.
Global warming? 0.7C rise in 100 years? Hundreds of miles between data points? Six degrees difference in 20 miles? If Trolls had brains they would most certainly be dangerous!