Is Spencer Hiding the Increase? We Report, You Decide
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
One of the great things about the internet is people can post anything they want, no matter how stupid, and lots of people who are incapable of critical thought will simply accept it.
I’m getting emails from people who have read blog postings accusing me of “hiding the increase” in global temperatures when I posted our most recent (Dec. 2009) global temperature update. In addition to the usual monthly temperature anomalies on the graph, for many months I have also been plotting a smoothed version, with a running 13 month average. The purpose of such smoothing is to better reveal longer-term variations, which is how “global warming” is manifested.
But on the latest update, I switched from 13 months to a running 25 month average instead. It is this last change which has led to accusations that I am hiding the increase in global temperatures. Well, here’s a plot with both running averages in addition to the monthly data. I’ll let you decide whether I have been hiding anything:
Note how the new 25-month smoother minimizes the warm 1998 temperature spike, which is the main reason why I switched to the longer averaging time. If anything, this ‘hides the decline’ since 1998…something I feared I would be accused of for sure after I posted the December update.
But just the opposite has happened, with accusations I have hidden the increase. Go figure.
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I have asked what has happened to the 1km temperature that used to be on the AMSU site This showed a rapid rise but then the CHLT data was discontinued in Nov. 2009:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2104/amsutemptrends.png
rise is about .1degC/year!
This data was then replaced with sea surface temperature
What I find most strange is that so many sceptics consider AMSU data the most accurate – “all the others have been adjusted”. Satellite temperatures must be some of the most tweaked temperatures around – Temperature is not being measured at all it is a microwave proxy, The height of measurement is not a spot height – it is the combined “temperature” from a range of heights.
nunuuq
Regarding this question:
have any of you dudes calculated how many joules of energy have been inserted into the biosphere by the burning of “buried sunshine”?
Ha ha ha, no way no how, the total joules released by all the burning of all the fossil fuels does not amount to a gnats belch in a Hurricane compared to the natural flow into and out of the earth system nor is that enough to have any measurable effect on world temperature, not by orders of magnitude.
If you are such a true believer invest your money in Beach property in Nunavut, nunuuq prices are still low.
nanuuq
You used the word ‘thus’ which is out of character with your posts. You’avvin a larf?
It’s a bit like how the CPI is calculated these days. By the time they take out some of the “inflationary” components the official CPI is meaningless. It’s time we went back to just raw numbers without any alteration, and make conclusions based on them, not “value add” data, which is another word of say “corrupted” data.
http://newton.umsl.edu/infophys/lsp.html
Many of the participants in this blog are scientists and engineers with enough education and experience to know the anthropogenic contribution of thermal energy to the planetary envrionment is virtually insignificant in comparison to natural insolation.
Try studying some elementary physics…but don’t expect the bloggers to do your schoolwork for you.
Some Rates of Energy Capture & Use
http://newton.umsl.edu/infophys/lsp.html
nanuuq (18:06:59) :
No, but I have subscribed to Science News continually since late 1969. I was a freshman at CMU then and saw a program titled “Our Restless Universe.” Half the content was unfamiliar to me and I considered that unacceptable. A couple years later and “Our Restless Planet” covered all the new plate tectonics and the only thing I didn’t know about was a theory about the formation of the Alps.
These days I tell Science News about climate change!
Also, my employer recently hired two recent MIT grads. They’ve worked out
very well, though they don’t know too much about OS internals, rather
surprising given Linux is a great place to learn. They also speak normal
English and capitalize sentences.
nanuuq (18:04:35) :
So like the above graph shows that there has been global warming.
______________
OK Nanuuq, look at the graph of temperatures at the link below and tell us why we should be any more concerned today than our ancestors were… well, whenever
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/wuwt_icecoreanim_image51.png
nanuuq (18:04:35) :
So like the above graph shows that there has been global warming.
You dudes here are totally hell bent against any possiblity that humans have in any way contributed to this.
SO
what has caused this warming? eh?
Warming of this approximate magnitude has occurred before in the MWP, the Roman Warm Period and the Holocene Optimum, all without human effect.
I’m not going any further with you, nanuuq, because you are way way behind the curve. It only gets worse for you, but I also add that the ipcc and its elite Climate Scientists have simply not been doing real Science.
Joel Shore (16:18:53) :
This is where it started in this blog, with the fabrication of a troll:
MJK (08:00:13) :
It is intersting how Dr Spencer has shifted his running average from a 13 month running average to a new 25 month average. This conveniently “hides” the return in 2009 to well above average temperatures since the cooler (but still warmer than average) year of 2008.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/05/december-uah-global-temperature-anomaly-down-by-almost-half/#more-14851
—————————————————————–
It was complete fabrication for MJK to say this. There never was any hiding of any incline. As can be seen there was a slightly greater incline with the 25 month than the 13 month. But MJK (whoever he is) claimed the opposite.
——————————————————————-
“It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.”
nanuuq (18:04:35) :
So like the above graph shows that there has been global warming.
You dudes here are totally hell bent against any possiblity that humans have in any way contributed to this.
Huh, really? So like you haven’t been paying attention.
“One of the great things about the internet is people can post anything they want, no matter how stupid….”
Having been one of your “stupid ones”, I stand by my criticism. I think it was poor judgment on your part to change a longstanding practice that was your choice to begin with. One of the most damning charges against the AGW “true believers” is that they change the rules of their temperature recording game as they go along, leaving us comparing apples and oranges. I still do not understand why you did it. What was the harm in letting the chips fall as you originally saw fit?
CH
R. Craigen (15:55:53) :
> I’ve noticed this tendency to smooth over intervals of length n years + 1 month. What is the basis for this?
I think the main reason is to keep the two graphs in phase. For example, the January 2009 monthly value represents the temperature of each day (or hour or satellite pass or derivation of one of those) averaged over the month. The 13 month average includes the six months before and six after. If the graph used six before and five after, then that average would be centered around the first of January, not the middle. While that’s not much of an issue on a graph, it becomes a bit awkward in a table. If the table lists month&year, month average, -6:+5 average, then you couldn’t use month&year as the X coordinate in a graph without a phase (time shift) adjustment.
So I think the 13 month average is a bit of a compromise. At least it has all the months, something an 11 month average wouldn’t.
Now one thing “13 month average” might imply is to use the average of the end months. Some weather data does that to come up with a daily average temperature by summing the temperatures of each hour from 0100 to 2300 and half of the temperatures at 0000 and 2400.
I don’t think that’s the trick here, but I’m not certain.
Claude Harvey (18:56:56) :
I think it was poor judgment on your part to change a longstanding practice that was your choice to begin with.
I will agree with this. Don’t open yourself up to unnecessary criticism.
nanuuq says:
Actually, that calculation has been done and the answer is that the amount of heat being produced is pretty insignificant in comparison to what we receive from the sun. However, the global warming is not due to this direct heating but is rather is due to the changing composition of the atmosphere and how that changes the radiative balance by “trapping” more of the energy that the earth radiates back out into space (i.e., increasing the magnitude of the greenhouse effect).
While I agree with you (and disagree with most of the other posters here) on the significance of the problem, it is important that this problem be presented in a scientifically-accurate way.
Louis Hissink (12:31:56) :
Thank you for your contribution. I find it interesting that you put climate science in the same category as geology and astrophysics. Is Climatology indeed so well established and exalted scientific discipline?
It is unfortunate that most AGW faithful would read your comments in hostile spirits. For them any criticism, however minor, logical and reasonable, of the validity of the AGW and credibility of climate science is ‘denialism’ and a heresy against the prevailing orthodoxy.
While denouncing climate skeptics as ‘flat-earthers’, the AGW believers are trying to enforce a ‘scientific consensus’ similar to the geo-centric model that became the standard description of the universe for nearly two thousand years. Most people don’t know that the true order of the planetary system, the helio-centric model, was speculated about by Aristarchus as early as 3rd Century BC. Yet the geo-centric model triumphed and thrived for so long because, despite its growing complexity and inaccuracy for centuries, the science was based on the authority of Aristotle, Ptolemy, the Church and the consensus of the times.
It became a matter of faith that humanity was at the centre of the universe. Like our “carbon footprint” being at the centre of so much of what goes as climate science.
‘Hide the incline’ rapidly bobbed up here in Australia. But Dr Spencer seems to have its measure. One query, probably a naive one from an onlooker whose statistics was largely confined to many chi-squared tests in genetics:
(a) why does Dr Spencer’s 13 month running average seem to start six months earlier than the 25 month running average?
(b) why does the 13 month running average also finish six months later than the 25 month running average?
Are these end effects? Also is there any significance in the fact that the running average values in months, 13 and 25, are of the form 12n + 1 where 12 = number of months per year? Apologies to the many readers for whom these questions are doubtless naive ones.
Feature (b) was seized on by Spencer’s detractors here – the 13 month graph was going up at the time (El Nino I presume). They did not mention that his 25 month smoothing reduced the previously dominating 1998 El Nino temperature peak.
[quoute Luboš Motl (12:35:07) :]
Well, I would be more likely to guess that UAH overestimates the increase, especially the very recent one.
The January warmest record for the brightness surface temperature – on Jan 15th, 2010 – is now minus 16.29 deg Celsius, almost 0.2 deg Celsius warmer than the previous record I can see (but it’s conceivable that they were warmer days in January 1998 that I can’t access).
[/quote]
I see what you’re saying Luboš, but I’ll point out that UAH and RSS data tend to be in close agreement with each other. This suggests that if there is a problem, it’s not in the processing of the data, but in the raw satellite data itself.
Also recall that the UAH values are cross-checked against radiosonde weather balloons. So the error would have to be in both the satellites and the balloons.
I’m not saying this is impossible, but it may be worth checking the UAH hemispherical data first. We’re having an El Nino right now. The northern hemisphere had this effect hidden somewhat my a simultaneous Northern Oscillation, but the southern hemisphere is getting the full brunt of the El Nino. Perhaps temperatures there are high enough to account for the current high global temperatures.
As to the raw satellite data, I’m working on parsing this up and will share my results with everyone as I go along. I’ve documented my current progress here: http://magicjava.blogspot.com/2010/01/dangit-more-climate-stuff-uah-and-rss.html
If anyone wants to lend a hand with this, I’ll happily accept the help. 🙂
So like, i’m new to this, and only a couple of you have been of any help
thanks D. Patterson, but it will take me a bit to read that stuff
tho none of you really answered my questsions.
I’m sorry i’m not smart enough for you guys 🙁
One of the great things about the internet is people can post anything they want, no matter how stupid, and lots of people who are incapable of critical thought will simply accept it…..something I feared I would be accused of for sure after I posted the December update.
It is a typhoon in a cup to make anything out of this 25 month smoothing. It was done for a reason. Smoothing on any time scale is perfectly legitimate.
We all reveal who we are and what we know when we talk. We create our own reputations.
I think you’re a good guy Mr. Spencer.
————————————————————
Maybe we should be spending our energies on getting help to Haiti instead of this nothing issue. And also figuring out why the airport in Haiti is full of planes loaded with relief supplies yet it is not reaching the people who need it.
Yes. And he should have anticipated the criticism he’d receive by not showing both at the point where he switched. (A peer reviewer would have suggested this.)
nanuuq (19:55:57) :
You didn’t seem to be asking for help. You seem to be condescending and sarcastic.
If you had a different approach you may have found a lot of people helping more than you needed.
[quote: nanuuq (18:04:35) :]
So like the above graph shows that there has been global warming.
You dudes here are totally hell bent against any possiblity that humans have in any way contributed to this.
SO
what has caused this warming? eh?
[/quote]
Sorry I didn’t see your questions earlier nanuuq. I’ll try to answer them as best I can.
First, I don’t think there is a “universal sceptic viewpoint”. Some think sunspots or cosmic rays are causing it, some think CO2 but not at anywhere near the levels claimed by the IPCC. Different skeptics have different viewpoints.
My own opinion is it’s mainly clouds and some secondary “other stuff”. Cloud cover has decreased in step with temperatures going up, and at just about the rate needed to account for the change in temperatures. I personally think reduced cosmic rays account for the reduced cloud cover.
I do believe man has an effect on the environment. This effect comes through urban heat islands and pollution like black carbon. I believe the IPCC greatly underestimates the effects of both of these conditions. This is the “other stuff” I referred to above.
As too AGW, my personal belief is changes in CO2, CH4, and water vapor account for _zero_ percent of the changes in temperatures. There’s no historical evidence to suggest either CO2 or CH4 drives climate. And the change in water vapor seems to follow the changes in cosmic rays and the Earth’s distance from the sun, not changes in CO2 and CH4. Specifically, the claimed “feedback loop” of globally increased water vapor caused by increased CO2 that’s supposed to cause all the “catastrophic warming” simply doesn’t exist.
So that’s my opinion. If you want to discuss it further, I can show you various charts and graphs and papers that explain why I have that opinion.
This whole looking for a signal in the annual data is absurd anyway. The GH effect is most significant on a daily timescale. If it weren’t for our atmosphere, we could look forward to days similar to the moon’s. So, the GH effect should have its radiative effect in the daily noise as well as the smoothed signals. If we were in trouble, we would know for sure by now.
“Note how the new 25-month smoother minimizes the warm 1998 temperature spike, which is the main reason why I switched to the longer averaging time. If anything, this ‘hides the decline’ since 1998…”
It might be advisable to continue providing both running averages on the same graph for a while longer to re-assure the reader. The AGW faithful will continue making an issue out of this. No matter that it’s an argument from ingorance.
like dude, i was just askin
whats causing it to get warmer?
i just want to know