The GISS Temperature Record Divergence Problem
Guest post by Tilo Reber
“Areas covered occasionally by sea ice are masked using a time-independent mask.”
So if there is sea ice coverage for any part of the year, GISS will not use SST values to cover those cells for the entire year. Those cells must be covered by extrapolations from land for that year. This means that when the area is cover with ice or with water or with part ice part water, it will have it’s anomaly extrapolated from land, regardless. HadCRUT, on the other hand, does not extrapolate their coverage. But they will use SST values for a cell when SST values are available for part of the year. If the area is covered with ice for the entire year, HadCRUT will not assign it a value. Therefore we get polar areas that are covered by extrapolation by GISS and not covered at all by HadCRUT.
When we look at the HadSST2 record, we see that the cool cells that show up above Svalbard in 2005 are consistent with the numbers in that record. And these then go into creating the sea surface portion of the HadCRUT3 temperature record. So, obviously, how cells are filled with data can have a profound effect on the anomaly value that those cells have. This leads one to wonder if extrapolations at the pole are legitimate. I decided to look at some of the northern Russian stations, at the GISS site, that show up as being so hot in the 2005 version of the GISS chart when compared with the 1998 version of the chart. I found that those big changes are in fact represented in the individual records – especially for the coastal stations. Here are three of them.
1998 Annual Mean – -3.39
2005 Annual Mean – 0.60 1998 – 2005 delta 3.99 C
1998 Annual Mean – -14.99
2005 Annual Mean – -10.79 1998 – 2005 delta 4.2 C
Gmo Im.E.K F: 77.7 N, 104.3 E.
1998 Annual Mean – -15.96
2005 Annual Mean – -12.67 1998 – 2005 delta 3.29 C
For comparison, let’s look across the Arctic ocean and see what was happening in Canada and Alaska at the same time.
Eureka, N.W.T.: 80.0 N, 85.9 W.
1998 Annual Mean – -17.38
2005 Annual Mean – -17.34 1998 – 2005 delta 0.04 C
1998 Annual Mean – -8.80
2005 Annual Mean – -10.44 1998 – 2005 delta -1.64 C
So it seems that the North American side of the Arctic changed little, or even got cooler between 98 and 05, the Russian side warmed considerably. Why is that? I think that this ice cover map gives us the answer. As is immediately apparent, the coastal ice cleared out far earlier in 2005 in northern Russia than it did in 1998. This is even though the rest of the globe was slightly warmer in 1998 than in 2005. When dealing with coastal stations, removing the ice and exposing the water is like taking the hatch off a heating source for the coastal thermometers. For stations that are in areas where the temperature is well below zero, exposing the immediate area of that thermometer to a surface that is above zero, changes everything. Looking at Ostrov Vize, we see that it is a small island, and therefore even more subject to changes in coastal sea ice. And when we compare 1998 months on this island with 2005 months we can see that there are differences in some of the monthly means that are larger than 10C. Even a partial ice cover as opposed to a complete ice cover will supply the stations with more heat.
So I think that we can safely say that the huge change in the anomalies of Russian coastal stations is mostly due to coastal sea ice changes. In fact, if we look at stations further inland in Russia, the coastal effect begins to decline. With this in mind, we need to ask if the GISS extrapolations of land based stations, particularly coastal stations, to the poles is appropriate.
The answer would seem to be that it is not, and the Svalbard case makes this perfectly clear. There we had a case where the SST anomaly was actually cool, and yet the land based extrapolation actually turned those sea based cells more than 3C hotter. Reaching across the Arctic Ocean with temperatures that are the result of a coastal sea ice effect cannot give valid answers for what the temperature anomalies away from those coastal stations should be. In fact, taking the variation that is represented by those coastal stations and extrapolating into the interior of Russia is also not appropriate, because the interior areas did not undergo the magnitude of temperature change of the coastal stations.
Looking at the SST temperature anomalies that NOAA uses for 1998 and 2005 it again looks like nothing exceptional was happening in the Arctic (Note, the chart will not retain the months that I selected; so use your own sample months and they will plot). It seems, from this analysis, that GISS polar extrapolations and interpolations are likely to simulate large variations away from the Arctic coasts that are really only present as changes at the Arctic coasts. And the GISS divergence from HadCRUT, as well as from UAH and RSS are likely to be errors instead of enhancements.
Slabadang (10:54:31) :
The systematic efforts to manipulate data to get it warmer is so obvious!
Mr Hansen is NOT a scientist. He is an activist acting as scientist. Embarrassing for NASA and the whole American state. [snip -OTT]
Is there any list anywhere were I/we can protest against this [snip]
Good work Anthony!
REPLY: Thank Tilo Reber, he wrote this piece, not I. -A
It’s interesting that you would reply to this comment without correcting the assertion that James Hansen is not a scientist. Dr. Hansen has a Ph.D. in Physics, and is widely published in scientific journals on climate science, and his work is widely cited in other climate scientists works. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences more than ten years ago. He is a scientist. Instead, you write to inform the author of the post that he should thank Tilo Reber who, if he is a professional scientist, sure does an excellent job of hiding that fact from Internet search engines. Can you tell us more about this guest author of yours?
REPLY: Oh please. Here we go again with your troll word play. He makes a personal opinion. By your logic should I then snip any personal opinions you don’t like? Shall I snip yours? He is right though, Hansen IS an activist. He got arrested for his activism last year, but you neglected to mention that.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/23/dr-james-hansen-of-nasa-giss-arrested/
Tilo’s right here, ask him questions if you like. -A
Bah, ignore that… it was head slap indeed. Both are zeroed to 1961-1991 mean.
If it’s worth anything I can testify to the tremendous heating effect of open water. Earlier this winter I had -6F at my house which is 6.5 miles inland, and +15F at work which is a couple hundred yards inland. It does require dead calm and clear sky to produce that steep of a gradient. (Anchorage Ak)
lichanos:
“The plots at Hansen’s house don’t look like more than 0.1 degree, and the trends are close.”
The divergence since 1998 is about .12C. But then the entire AGW trend since 98, as specified by the IPCC, should only be .24C. The important thing is that people who support AGW continue to point to GISS to show that we still have warming and to claim that 2005 was the warmest year.
Actually this was known by Hansen and the CRU, they talked about this in the emails:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=795&filename=1178107838.txt
Notice that they deleted out data from before the reference period of 61-90 becuase it was warmer.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=854&filename=1200421039.txt
Leif:
“Not that I’m mounting a defense of his method, but it is worth pointing out that the polar regions are but a very small part of the whole.”
This is why I never believed that the divergence between GISS and HadCrut could be due to the polar regions alone. But I think that Hansen’s masking experiment more or less proved that it was the difference. This means that all of the divergence had to be due to a very small area. And that further meant that the small area needed to be radically different. Now we know why it is radically different. It is a coastal sea ice coverage effect that is extrapolated and interpolated far beyond the coast.
This good work makes me think about a chain.
Each event is bad enough on its own, but they are building a sequence, where errors in each step go all the way to the final one:
-> Suspicious readings, based on poor station quality (UHI etc.)
-> cherry picking of stations used (south, urban, flatlands)
-> fill-in of blanks with at least questionable methods
-> “adjusting” all of those data
-> manipulate the past
-> select “smart” timeframes to compare
-> get rid of raw data and hide adjustment methods
-> report the results as undisputable science
-> blame man-made CO2 only for those results
-> suppress any questions that may occur
The results may be come out of the computer with 2 decimals, but it’s garbage, nevertheless. Expensive garbage.
Still thinking about chains, other context …
bryan:
“Shouldn’t this have lead to a 2007 that would be similarly proven statistically warmer than 2005?”
I think that it depends more on how early you get ice clearing from the coastal areas than it does on the absolute minimum ice coverage, brian. And of course the contribution of the rest of the globe makes a difference.
Tilo Reber (12:29:15) :
The breakdown of changes to the US mean temperature anomaly due to the different adjustments is given in Menne et al, 2009, in BAMS. There is a net warming due to TOB, a net warming due to other homogenisation, and a negligible effect due to FILNET.
The graphs you’ve seen before are maybe outdated, because they’ve changed the homogenisation method.
But that is all for the US only. Globally, there is a minimal net effect due to homogenisation in GHCN. See Q4 here
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/temperature-monitoring.html
and here
http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/
“boballab (12:52:52) :
[…]
Phil Jones:
In the AR4 chapter, we had to exclude the SST from the Arctic plot as the Arctic (north of 65N) from 1950 was above the 61-90 average for most of the years that had enough data to estimate a value.
”
Great detective work! …yes that would have shown that there’s no warming, Phil, you did that very nicely, now is that an admission of fraud to receive more grant money or what?
boballab:
“The infilling is partly the reason they got 2005 so warm, by extrapolating across the Arctic from the coastal stations.”
Thanks boballab. Now I know that I’m in agreement with Phil Jones. But I don’t know if that is a good thing. LOL.
I’m not sure that I saw a recognition, on Jones part, of the extreme variation in temperature that is produced in the coastal stations depending on when sea ice opens up.
And the GISS divergence from HadCRUT, as well as from UAH and RSS are likely to be errors instead of enhancements.
UAH NoPol readings show 2005 ~0.74 deg warmer than 1998 and a linear temperature increase of ~0.6 deg over the 8 year period. There has also been more summer ice melt since 2000. GISS are probably closer to the true picture than Hadley.
I build artificial intelligence systems intended to simulate human thought processes including high level complex mathematical constructs and how they are impacted by instinctual and emotional motivators. I built a two sided model to simulate information exchange between different scientific disciplines. This revealed an unexpected end state feedback loop that constantly corrupted the information exchange. I’ve run the simulation thousands of times and am at a 95% confidence level that the observed feedback loop is the principle component causing a divergence between logic, results, and data corruption that posters above keep asking about. While there is some variability in output, a typical example output follows:
Climatologist; I have a system of undetermined complexity and undetermined composition, floating and spinning in space. It has a few internal but steady state and minor energy sources. An external energy source radiates 1365 watts per meter squared at it on a constant basis. What will happen to temperature?
Physicist; The system will arrive at a steady state temperature which radiates heat to space that equals the total of the energy inputs. Complexity of the system being unknown, and the body spinning in space versus the radiated energy source, there will be cyclic variations in temperature, but the long term average will not change.
Climatologist; Well what if I change the composition of the system?
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Perhaps you don’t understand my question. The system has an unknown quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere that absorbs energy in the same spectrum as the system is radiating. There are also quantities of carbon and oxygen that are combining to create more CO2 which absorbs more energy. Would this not raise the temperature of the system?
Physicist; there would be a temporary fluctuation in temperature caused by changes in how energy flows through the system, but for the long term average… see above.
Climatologist; But the CO2 would cause a small rise in temperature, which even if it was temporary would cause a huge rise in water vapour which would absorb even more of the energy being radiated by the system. This would have to raise the temperature of the system.
Physicist; there would be a temporary fluctuation in the temperature caused by changes in how energy flows through the system, but for the long term average… see above.
Climatologist; That can’t be true. I’ve been measuring temperature at thousands of points in the system and the average is rising.
Physicist; The temperature rise you observe can be due to one of two factors. It may be due to a cyclic variation that has not completed, or it could be due to the changes you alluded to earlier resulting in a redistribution of energy in the system that affects the measurement points more than the system as a whole. Unless the energy inputs have changed, the long term temperature average would be… see above.
Climatologist; AHA! All that burning of fossil fuel is releasing energy that was stored millions of years ago, you cannot deny that this would increase temperature.
Physicist; Is it more than 0.01% of what the energy source shining on the planet is?
Climatologist; Uhm… no.
Physicist; rounding error. For the long term temperature of the planet… see above.
Climatologist; Methane! Methane absorbs even more than CO2.
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Clouds! Clouds would retain more energy!
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Ice! If a fluctuation in temperature melted all the ice less energy would be reflected into space and would instead be absorbed into the system, raising the temperature. Ha!
Physicist; The ice you are pointing at is mostly at the poles where the inclination of the radiant energy source is so sharp that there isn’t much energy to absorb anyway. But what little there is would certainly go into the surface the ice used to cover, raising its temperature. That would reduce the temperature differential between equator and poles which would slow down convection processes that move energy from hot places to cold places. The result would be increased radiance from the planet that would exceed energy input until the planet cooled down enough to start forming ice again. As I said before, the change to the system that you propose could well result in redistribution of energy flows, and in short term temperature fluctuations, but as for the long term average temperature…. see above.
Climatologist; Blasphemer! Unbeliever! The temperature HAS to rise! I have reports! I have measurements! I have computer simulations! I have committees! United Nations committees! Grant money! Billions and billions and billions! I CAN’T be wrong, I will never explain it! Billions! and the carbon trading! Trillions in carbon trading!
Physicist; how much grant money?
Climatologist; Billions. Want some?
Physicist; Uhm…
Climatologist; BILLIONS
Climatologist; Hi. I used to be a physicist. When I started to understand the danger the world was in though, I decided to do the right thing and become a climatologist. Let me explain the greenhouse effect to you…
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/monthly/anomaly.png shows UK 1-3c warmer than average in December. This is completely fraudulent. http://www.climate-uk.com tells the true story.
Tilo, Anthony or anybody,
I have a different question that seems very pertinent. Why is all the land masses cooler in the hadcrut chart than the giss? Not just the artic. The differences in colors are startling yet the anamoly numbers are not so startling (GISS vs Hadcrut) considering the artic differences in their as well. Are the color charts wrong or the printed anamolies? Sincerely, John…
Good work Tilo,
The offhanded excuse, we extrapolate CRU doesn’t, has always bothered me, but I never dug down into the details. I think most of us have argued consistently against this kind of extrapolation because it was essentially untestable. Now, you have identified a specific problem with extrapolation that makes the flaw obvious. It might be nice to send a copy to Gavin and Hansen and ask them for a comment. Also, It would seem your could also test other years ( if we had hansen’s code for the masking”) and get a nice paper out of it. Or better, Do a fancy Hansenism and check the icemaps before extrapolating.
Perhaps with EM smith running GISStemp with a hansen mask and jeffId
pulling in CRU data and Ice data a nice little study could be done.
Steve
John Finn:
“UAH NoPol readings show 2005 ~0.74 deg warmer than 1998 and a linear temperature increase of ~0.6 deg over the 8 year period.”
That’s possible, John. But the GISS differences are much larger than that. And those differences are extrapolated to the pole.
davidmhoffer (13:42:55) :
That is funny, well done.
Related to Dr. Hansen’s handling of the grid’s data:
Might read http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadGreenhouse.htm first to get some generalities from AGW proponent’s “science” stories, diagrams, and graphs out of your mind.
Then read http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1045824?ln=sv on “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” at CERN. Go to the link to the PDF paper at the bottom of page or directly at http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161.pdf .
If you can not follow the math and physics, at least read “Physicist’s Summary” near page 92 for a summary of what this paper contains. Hope it’s a little enlightening!
Tilo,
I must say that I enjoyed reading this one. I’m not sure about your reasoning, but you do ask a useful question (how good is the GISS Arctic infill).
I think in general it’s best to always show both GISS and HadCru results; if the argument being made specifically requires one or the other but fails if both are shown, then the argument may not be a good one.
In any case, even if you are on to something here, I still think the HadCru global mean is running a bit low. Omitting the Arctic in effect means that you are setting it to warm at the exact same rate as the global mean, which appears unlikely. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between the two data sets.
“Interpolate” can be found in any English Dictionary. It fits nicely with Galileo Galilei’s “Dialog on the Two World Systems” Wherin he proves that somewhere in between the end points there must exist some place with any value between those end points.
“Extrapolate” is a swear word; not to be used in polite company.
George
Its party-time for a computer when given no data and asked to contour it.
John from MN:
Are the color charts wrong or the printed anamolies? Sincerely, John…
John, the colors cover a large range. For example the hottest color can be anything between 3 and 6.5 C anomanly. For me, it’s hard to tell what the effect is accross the rest of the globe. The arctic is so drastic that it was obvious. When Hansen masks off the cells that HadCrut does not have he comes up with a global answer that is very similar to HadCrut. You can follow the link to the RC article. There Hansen has charted the difference when the area coverage is the same. The only thing that bothers me about Hansen’s GISS/HadCRUT mask maps is why some of the cells that remain change value only as a result of other cells being masked off.
Perhaps we should make it really easy for them. Do away with all reporting stations except for Death Valley Ca. They could then average out the temperatures reported with relative ease and claim thet they had done so due to the lack of stations. The whole would would be basking in the summer in 120deg temps. Talk about warming…WHEW
meant to say “whole world would” instead of whole would would.