Ken Stewart shows how GISS adjusts temperature records in two adjacent sites in Australia
This issue was also recently covered on the Climategate blog here
Introduction
Despite its assurances, GISS has adjusted the temperature records of two sites at Mackay to reverse a cooling trend in one and increase a warming trend in another. This study presents evidence that this is not supportable and is in fact an instance of manipulation of data.
I decided to have a look at the temperature records of the weather stations closest to where I live, near Mackay in North Queensland. The Bureau of Meteorology lists 3 current stations: Mackay MO, Mackay Aero, and Te Kowai Exp Station, plus the closed station Mackay Post Office. GISS has a list of nearby stations. One is “Mackay Sugar Mill Station”. I had never heard of it. Te Kowai Exp Station, only a few kilometres from Mackay, is in fact at the same co-ordinates as Mackay Sugar Mill. I checked on AIS for the GHCN site, and there is Mackay Sugar Mill on the map. The co-ordinates given by GHCN put it in the middle of a cane paddock 600m to the south of Te Kowai Sugar Experiment Station, so that’s definitely it! (If not, it’s identical in every other way!) And that is the closest weather station to my home, so I became even more interested.
Te Kowai is an experimental farm for developing new varieties of sugar cane, run by scientists and technicians since 1889. It has a temperature record of over 100 years with only a couple of gaps. So in fact it’s an ideal rural station for referencing a nearby urban station, as it should have a similar climate.
Analysis
I plotted data from BOM for maxima and minima and obtained the means for Te Kowai, all Mackay city stations, all GHCN stations in our 5 x 5 grid, and several other towns and cities with long records (Te Kowai’s starts at 1908). This is because “ In our analysis, we can only use stations with reasonably long, consistently measured time records.”
GISS combines GHCN data from all urban stations at the same location, and then homogenises this with data from neighbouring rural stations. So I then plotted the same-location data and the post-homogenisation data.
A problem that appeared immediately is that the GISS annual mean runs from December to November, while BOM’s raw data is for calendar years. Most of the time it matches pretty well, but there are several examples of poor quality data. Another problem is that BOM does not compute a mean for any year with even one month of data missing, while GISS tolerates several missing months.
Here are graphs of the results.
Read his entire post here
Did it not occur to GISS that people might eventually look at these “adjustments” and start piecing together what was done?
No, David, it didn’t. Because when they started doing these things nobody was faintly interested in what they were doing. A very arcane subject was “climatology” in those days and if you had asked the man in the street he would have said it was something to do with weather forecasting (and he would have been right, up to a point).
Whether (and if so when) they started “improving” the figures we don’t know but the end result is that they have been able to present climate change to us as a fully-fledged philosophy and we have had to play catch-up because we all know that scientists are trustworthy, don’t we? And anyway who would have the time or the inclination to go hunting out the sites and even if they did and found something amiss they didn’t have a way of bringing it to public notice, did they?
It is absolutely true that the internet has made sure that science (along with a lot of other things) will never be the same again.
A little O/T – Richard North has a worthwhile piece today (“A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing) at
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
I especially like his description of Hulme and Parry as “expert in climate change impacts”. Since I’m not aware that there have as yet been any impacts for them to be expert in it makes one wonder what they are doing and how we have let them get away with it all these years!
Could someone explain to me what the Earth-shattering ground-breaking purpose of NASA-GISS is that blends space seamlessly with the terrasphere?
Can’t we just petition Congress to dump GISS Climate and put the money into more worthy projects, like space probes and landers?
We already have NOAA, and they contend that they understand all there is to know about everything there is to know about climate.
Or maybe we could use the GISS Climate funding to re-establish the rural network.
And then there is NCDC.
Simplify.
OT – Many IPCC scientists say it’s impressive that so far only four errors have been found in 986 pages of the second report, with the overwhelming majority of the findings correct and well-supported.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100210/ap_on_sc/sci_climate_report_woes
Only 4 errors and they want to totally revamp the system. That’s another big lie. These guys can’t stop lying.
For Harry:
Well, the Portland article made great claims “..In the 5 years since he first published his results, not one peer review has come back disproving his theory..”
But the journalist was taking her cue from the physicist. She obviously didn’t check – and how would she be able to?
Probably 10 or 100 papers have been published in that period which would disprove his theory. Maybe no one actually mentioned his theory – why would they if no one takes it seriously..
At the time, I saw that article and in the comments I cited one peer-reviewed paper, which I happened to have open on my PC at the time. After all, the article said “not one..”
Since then I’ve seen many others. The paper I mentioned was Dessler’s paper which showed that relative humidity stayed constant (while temperature changed) over a period of 10 years.
One day his paper might be covered on Science of Doom, but why not understand mainstream science properly first?
CO2’s impact on the atmosphere is not so hard to grasp. There is a huge gap between the simple aspects of how CO2 absorbs and re-emits energy and the doom predictions that we read about.
Check out CO2 – An Insignificant Trace Gas? Part One
btw I was just scrolling down the page and notice white precip on one of the weather maps. Is that another snow storm in Texas?? The jet stream has moved really really far south this year.
Harry
I think in essence the paper is restating the argument that cloud coverage is a significant determinant of climate.
I don’t think the consensus voices what to hear this argument.
NASA GISS
Home of James Hansen? Manipulating data? He wouldn’t do it unless it needed manipulation.
What a group of thugs.
We’ve gotten a few inches overnight; not a blizzard since there is no wind, just a covering that is very pretty as it sits on trees, grass, etc (north of Dallas) …
Somewhat O/T, but the UEA have just announced a “New scientific assessment of climatic research publications” in a further attempt “to win back the hearts and minds of the public on the issue of climate change”
The local papers story:
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/eveningnews24/norwich-news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=xNews&itemid=NOED11%20Feb%202010%2012%3A01%3A16%3A370
And the UEA’s own announcement:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/New+scientific+assessment+of+climatic+research+publications+announced
K2
Or was it 3000 pages or even 6000 pages, both figures I have heard quoted in the context of the errors/page count. Can they not even get the number of pages in the report right!
It’s still not clear to me why adjustments are made. Oh, I’ve read the specifics, unfortunately with less than a full understanding, but it seems to make sense at the time.
Unfortunately, it is like Car Salesman Double-talk: sounds great at the time, but when you think about it later it just does not make sense.
I believe the ‘adjustments’ and ‘filler temperatures’ are useful to get a broad picture of localized weather for use by, say, airports, farmers and the general populace who need to know if it’s going to be below zero of a scorcher. This gives those users an indication of how the localized weather will affect their specific application.
From my experience, based on the two temperature readings in my local area (an airport reading and a coastal reading) my actual temperature where I live can be independently higher or lower than either, depending on the temperature, time of year and wind patterns (Cold front? Warm front? Occluded front?).
In addition temperatures can vary over a 60 degree temperature variation in a single 24 hour cycle (More in some areas, less in others, also depending on time of year).
I won’t get back into my ‘pet peeve’ of calibration certificates, but suffice to say, these data points represent temperatures where sensors don’t necessarily exist, which aren’t calibrated, which have a dubious measurement technique, with a suspect siting, yet can produce accurate temperatures over the long term with an accuracy to the tenth of a degree.
It’s not surprising that any adjustment is called into question when the adjustment produces a trend which mates quite nicely with a political agenda (which AGW is).
Keep it up! Keep collecting a mountain of evidence and proof. It is easy to see why these snake oil salesmen don’t want you to look at their data; nobody wants to volunteer something that will discredit them. But thanks to the internet, the evidence is mounting so that only con artist “scientists”, politicians, and the eco-communists will believe in climate change. When that happens, they will make another crisis. I’ve already seen reports of the water crisis. They will keep changing the scam until the goal is achieved.
Followed this link, and then another at that site by Warwich Hughes, to an email exchange with Hansen in 2001. Hansen basically says this kind of exercise is cherry picking, and you need a larger area before the overall impact of these adjustments becomes rational.
To me, this implies there must be other sites where “cooling” is introduced by these adjustments. . . but I can’t recall those being held up by the skeptic community. So, has any effort been made to test Hansen’s claims, if not globally, at least in a large enough area to satisfy Hansen’s “large area” parameter, and was there significant cooling introduced in other sites vs the ones where warming was introduced?
Re: “another snow storm in Texas??”
Meteorological/weather conditions in North Tejas have even warranted their own mesoscale discussion this morning:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0118.html
Excerpt:
As a note to my previous post, I’m an engineer: If I want to know how fast my car is going on the interstate, I measure it. I don’t use the speeds of all the cars around me to ‘guess’ if I’m going over the speed limit.
While it’d be true I’d be going about 70mph (or whatever), it won’t hold water in court for that 72mph speeding ticket.
When even a few hun’red bucks are at stake, the rules and regulations about even a simple measurement are very well defined. The temperature measurements will amount to billions/trillions of dollars of money being spent.
Summarily, my question to any scientist (er, statistician) using these temperature readings to ‘prove a point’ is: How do you know these temperature readings are accurate?
Anthony
From BBC:
A panel of independent experts has officially begun its inquiry into the “Climategate” affair.
The experts, headed by Sir Muir Russell, will investigate how e-mails from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) appeared on the web.
They will also consider if the e-mail exchanges between researchers show an attempt to manipulate or suppress data “at odds” with scientific practice.
The panel hopes to present “preliminary conclusions by spring 2010”.
Speaking at the launch of the inquiry, Sir Muir, who is chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, said: “We are free to pursue and follow any line of inquiry that we wish.”
Climate sceptics suggest that the affair shows that either human activities are not affecting the planet’s climate system, or that the impacts are not as bad as many climate scientists suggest.
The panel’s investigation will:
• “Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice.”
• “Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings.”
• “Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the university’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act.”
• “Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.”
However, the panel will not review the past scientific work of the CRU, as this will be re-appraised by a UEA-commissioned study, which will involve the Royal Society.
The other members of the inquiry, which is being funded by UEA, are Geoffrey Boulton, general secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; Dr Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief for Nature journal; Professor Peter Clarke of the University of Edinburgh; David Eyton, head of research and technology at BP; and Professor Jim Norton, vice president for the Chartered Institute for IT.
I need help replying to this author (Unity)
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/02/09/quote-mining-is-never-a-good-idea/
He states:
“This is Hansen’s recent review of the 2009 global temperature record, which you’ll note not only discusses the differences between his methods and those used by HADCRUT but also includes references to the FIVE published papers in which Hansen documents his methods.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100127_TemperatureFinal.pdf
From memory, there are AT LEAST FOUR separate review papers that set out the methodology used by NOAA to homogenise the station data used in the US surface temperature record, all of which can downloaded from NOAA’s website.
Try reading the literature instead of Anthony Watts’ website, you might actually learn something of value for a change.”
What is the best link to post there in response?
Climate-Gate, Climate Change and New Physics
Climate Change is a Fact, Its Supposed Anthropogenic Cause is Fiction
Dr. Gerhard Löbert*, Munich
o There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different time behaviour in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner (mean period = 70 years), with temperature maxima in 1870, 1940 and 2006, (see Fig. 2.1 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm) the CO2 concentration – after having essentially remained constant for centuries – increased exponentially with the onset of massive hydrocarbon burning in the1950’s.
In contrast, there is a close correlation between mean global temperature and the geomagnetic aa-index which reflects the effect of energetic solar eruptions on the Earth’s magnetic field. The solar activity leads the terrestrial temperature by some 6 years.
This proves that climate change is not man-made but is driven by solar activity.
o The extremely close correlation between the changes in the mean global temperature and the small changes in the rotational velocity of the Earth in the past 150 years (see Fig. 2.2 of http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e03.htm) – two, within present teaching, unrelated physical quantities – clearly shows that
a) these two physical quantities are driven by a common extraterrestrial agent, and
b) a new physical theory is required to identify this common agent.
Note that rotational velocity leads terrestrial temperature by some 6 years.
o The author has developed a new theory of gravitation that not only covers the well-known Einstein effects but also shows up a number of post-Einstein effects that are substantiated by geophysical and astrophysical observations. This new physical theory is, in contrast to Einstein’s theory, based on quantum mechanics. It is called Seaon Theory and is explained in the post of September 19, 2008 in http://www.pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/a-new-book-elucidates-the-life-and-work-of-Dr.-Abdus-Salam
o The following paragraphs give a physical explanation for the strong correlation between fluctuations of the rotational velocity of the Earth and solar eruptions on the one hand and the corresponding retarded changes of the mean surface temperature of the Earth on the other hand.
Seaon Theory, a new theory of gravitation based on quantum mechanics that was developed eight decades after Einstein’s corresponding Theory of General Relativity, not only covers the well-known Einstein-effects but also shows up half a dozen post-Einstein effects that occur in nature. From a humanitarian standpoint, the most important super-Einsteinian physical phenomenon is the generation of small-amplitude longitudinal gravitational waves by the motion of the supermassive bodies located at the center of our galaxy, their transmission throughout the Galaxy, and the action of these waves on the Sun, the Earth and the other celestial bodies through which they pass. These vacuum density waves, which carry with them small changes in the electromagnetic properties of the vacuum, occur in an extremely large period range from minutes to millennia.
On the Sun, these galactic waves modulate the intensity of the thermonuclear energy conversion process within the core which is highly sensitive to small changes in the permittivity of the vacuum, and this has its effect on all physical quantities of the Sun (this is called solar activity). This in turn has its influences on the Earth and the other planets. In particular, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field strength are modulated which results in large changes in the intensity of the cosmic radiation reaching the Earth. Cosmic rays produce condensation nuclei so that the cloud cover of the atmosphere and the Earth albedo also change. A mere 1% reduction in cloud cover explains most of the temperature increase of the past 150 years.
On the Earth, the steady stream of vacuum density waves produces parts-per-billion changes in a large number of geophysical quantities. The most important quantities are the radius, circumference, rotational velocity, gravitational acceleration, VLBI baseline lengths, and axis orientation angles of the Earth, as well as the orbital elements of all low-earth-orbit satellites. All of these fluctuations have been measured. The modulations of the Earth’s circumference (in the decimeter range) trigger large earthquakes. By closely monitoring the foregoing geophysical quantities, the approach of a devastating vacuum density wave can be detected in time for a global earthquake warning to be issued. Such a global earthquake warning system has to be supplemented with local earthquake alarm systems and suitable human protection devices.
*Physicist. Recipient of the Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics.
Conveyor of a super-Einsteinian Theory of Gravitation that explains the continual climate changes and the associated, closely correlated fluctuations of the rotational velocity of the Earth, as well as the triggering of devastating earthquakes as the result of the action of galactic vacuum density waves on the Sun and the Earth.
The adjustment algorithm is really simple. They call Rudd and ask him what he wants it to be, and they make it so.
As E.M. Smith stated above:
“Well, a single thermometer can look up to 1000 km away to get missing values ‘filled in’.”
——–
Reply:
Ladies and gentleman, that just blows my mind. I can see no justification for this “filling in” data charade. Since when are thermometers allowed to “look” anywhere except right where they’re at? No, it isn’t the thermometer “looking” at all–it’s some dimwitted programmer that had a hairbrained idea and made an arbitrary decision.
Why isn’t the “looking” distance 1200, 500, 2, or 17,000 km away? Was 1000 km selected because somebody likes round numbers? And why not look up (into the sky) or down (into the ground) instead of horizontal? It makes just as much sense!
Has some climatologist or programmer somewhere got such an obsession about numbers he has to go hunting for data? Are they so insecure in their personal or professional lives that they can’t bear the thought of a “missing” value?
In the scientific and engineering fields I’ve worked in for decades, there is no justification for “filing in” data. A missing data point is acceptable, even preferable. It simply means you have less data to work with, but it’s far better than inventing or borrowing data. “Filling in” is another term for falsify.
(“Hey… you don’t have that check amount listed in your check register–let me put one in for ya! Oh, you don’t like $1,589? But that’s close to what this other check was written out for. I’m just “filling in” like the climatologists do. Why do you have a problem with that? You think you’re smarter than a climatologist??”)
No wonder the profession has such a devious reputation.
My solution? Record the temperature at the station and if the thermometer is broke, FIX IT!
I remain unconvinced that the “surface temperature record” can ever be more then a measure of local weather. Extrapolating point measurements, that have significant incidental variation over a wide area cannot be done without introducing a significant error component. The mechanism for “gridding” these data points concerns me and I can’t find a decent reference for the spatial statistics used to accomplish it.
A bid to win back the hearts and minds of the public on the issue of climate change has been launched today with news that the Norwich university at the centre of the “climategate” scandal has asked for an independent review of the research in question.
The University of East Anglia has announced experts identified by the prestigious Royal Society will look again at key publications by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including the work of Prof Phil Jones,
Experts recommended by the Royal Society, ummm.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/eveningnews24/norwich-news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=xNews&itemid=NOED11%20Feb%202010%2012%3A01%3A16%3A370
The chief executive of the U.S. approves of the actions of GISS. He currently wants to expand their efforts to measuring the rising seas. The fact that the data is manipulated to show global warming is a requirement of the job. The AGW agenda continues from the top down and has not changed even with all of the current discoveries of falsified data because politics is in charge not science. Has anyone noticed the huge deficits, has anyone ever wondered where the money is going while there is around 10% of the population still unemployed. Have these numbers been adjusted as well?
OT: Speaking of our friends at RC, here is a clip from a recent comment by Kevin McKinney…
A different example would be the “we don’t need no stinking greenhouse effect” meme which comes out in various blog discussions. This is the idea that “a non-conducting N2/O2 atmosphere” will by itself raise planetary temperatures by somehow “keeping heat in.” (It seems intuitively obvious to some, apparently, but those folks must be overlooking the fact that zero heat can leave the atmosphere–any atmosphere– by conduction in the first place. “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing,” and this line of er, thought, clearly gives us “bupkes.”)
I think it’s interesting…they apparently believe a CO2 molecule will radiate, but a nearby N atom at exactly the same temperature will not. Why do they keep talking about greenhouses when a hot water bottle in a blanket is a better analogy?
This reminds me of arguments I used to have with my cell phone company. In complaining about various excessive charges that appeared on my bill the helpful representative would expalin that some were glitches. This glitch problem was attributed to the wireless reliability not being as good as a land line.
I was told that over and over again.
Naturally I then wondered why there were never any glitches which resulted in under-charging me.
They were always over charging glitches.
And any and all corrections were always related directly to my level of complaining. The more agressivley I complained the more they took off the bill.
My conclusion was they were deliberate glitches and all of the people who never complained meant millions for the company.
So if there are no CRU and/or glitches which showed mistaken cooling then the glitches may not be so innocent.