Note: See update below, new graph added.
There’s a new paper out by Dr. Edward Long that does some interesting comparisons to NCDC’s raw data (prior to adjustments) that compares rural and urban station data, both raw and adjusted in the CONUS.
The paper is titled Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets. In it, Dr. Edward Long states:
“The problem would seem to be the methodologies engendered in treatment for a mix of urban and rural locations; that the ‘adjustment’ protocol appears to accent to a warming effect rather than eliminate it. This, if correct, leaves serious doubt for whether the rate of increase in temperature found from the adjusted data is due to natural warming trends or warming because of another reason, such as erroneous consideration of the effects of urban warming.”
Here is the comparison of raw rural and urban data:
And here is the comparison of adjusted rural and urban data:
Note that even adjusted urban data has as much as a 0.2 offset from adjusted rural data.
Dr. Long suggests that NCDC’s adjustments eradicated the difference between rural and urban environments, thus hiding urban heating. The consequence:
“…is a five-fold increase in the rural temperature rate of increase and a slight decrease in the rate of increase of the urban temperature.”
The analysis concludes that NCDC “…has taken liberty to alter the actual rural measured values”.
Thus the adjusted rural values are a systematic increase from the raw values, more and more back into time and a decrease for the more current years. At the same time the urban temperatures were little, or not, adjusted from their raw values. The results is an implication of warming that has not occurred in nature, but indeed has occurred in urban surroundings as people gathered more into cities and cities grew in size and became more industrial in nature. So, in recognizing this aspect, one has to say there has been warming due to man, but it is an urban warming. The temperatures due to nature itself, at least within the Contiguous U. S., have increased at a non-significant rate and do not appear to have any correspondence to the presence or lack of presence of carbon dioxide.
The paper’s summary reads:
Both raw and adjusted data from the NCDC has been examined for a selected Contiguous U. S. set of rural and urban stations, 48 each or one per State. The raw data provides 0.13 and 0.79 oC/century temperature increase for the rural and urban environments. The adjusted data provides 0.64 and 0.77 oC/century respectively. The rates for the raw data appear to correspond to the historical change of rural and urban U. S. populations and indicate warming is due to urban warming. Comparison of the adjusted data for the rural set to that of the raw data shows a systematic treatment that causes the rural adjusted set’s temperature rate of increase to be 5-fold more than that of the raw data. The adjusted urban data set’s and raw urban data set’s rates of temperature increase are the same. This suggests the consequence of the NCDC’s protocol for adjusting the data is to cause historical data to take on the time-line characteristics of urban data. The consequence intended or not, is to report a false rate of temperature increase for the Contiguous U. S.
The full paper may be found here: Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets (PDF) and is freely available for viewing and distribution.
Dr. Long also recently wrote a column for The American Thinker titled: A Pending American Temperaturegate
As he points out in that column, Joe D’Aleo and I raised similar concerns in: Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception? (PDF)
UPDATE: A reader asked why divergence started in 1960. Urban growth could be one factor, but given that the paper is about NCDC adjustments, this graph from NOAA is likely germane:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
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Steveta_uk (00:38:35) said:
I think the author is looking at the data from the wrong perspective…..
Look at a satellite picture of the earth. What makes up the vast majority of the earth’s land surface; urban or rural/natural regions? If you really believe that we should adjust the latter to match the former then it explains why so many climate scientists are fooled into believing their own falsehoods. It would be like measuring the temperature of a sick patient by placing the thermometer on a cigarette the patient happens to be smoking in his mouth, and then use the reading to represent the temperature of the patient. Might as well just measure the temperature of active volcanoes to represent the global mean temperature as that would make Al Gore very happy.
I am pretty sure the post from Steveta_uk about how it makes sense from the perspective of a social scientist is ironic (and a quite funny satire ).
If not….well, then it is even more funny 😉
Anthony, Is the GISS and NCDC code that they use to make their adjustments available? I believe that the CRU code is definitly not available, is that true?
OT sorry but Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC is to face an independent international inquiry into his organisations performance.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7316758/IPCC-chief-Rajendra-Pachauri-to-face-independent-inquiry.html
Anthony
Good work here, and Long’s findings support the work you have put in to expose the bias and exaggeration of the information from the AGW camp.
The IPCC has a rice-bowl charter and runs a classic rice-bowl mission. It’s amazing how easily scientifically-trained people are converted to the new religion and morph into rice-bowl scientists. That is a consequence of their need to attract funding:
http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/02/climate-change-rice-bowl-science/
It is important to note, however, that the AGW theory is not weakened by any of this. It fails because it is based on argument from ignorance. Even if the rate of climate changed actually matched the predictions of climate models, it still would not provide any evidence that the reason for the chage was AGW. Ptolemy was wrong about the geocentric universe, yet his model provided accurate astronomical predictions.
This pretty much goes back to Jones Et Al 1990, where they determined UHI was negligible, and confirmed by subsequent papers like Peterson 2003. This was necessary because the assertion is counter-intuitive.
The widespread inclusion of external thermometers in cars over the last 5-10 years has given the lie to this, at least on an anecdotal level.
John Hooper suggested that Spencer’s satelite comparison nullifies this, but Spencer concludes that his work is at an early stage and UHI may still be contaminating both temperature series.
A more interesting question to me is whether you should correct for UHI. Those towns and cities are there and they have changed their local climate. The cumulative effect of that and other land use changes and the knock on effects (like Kilimanjaro) pretty much is the climate change experienced to-date. However, adjusting rural stations up to match is clearly wrong.
It is worth remembering also that this is the basic data that CRU and GISS take on, then perform their own series of manipulations to. CRU claim there is no statistically significant UHI to correct, GISS claim they correct for it but either don’t, or where they do they usually go the wrong way.
Collection and quality control of the temperature data obviously needs to be put in the hands of people who are not “climate” scientists.
One per state leaves allot of room for error in choosing stations and in geographical weighting. Interesting but needs to be taken allot further before even discussing conclusions, IMO.
re: Steveta_uk Turn your satire detectors on people
I also interpreted the comment from Steveta_uk as irony. It does not surprise me however that so many people took him seriously. Irony is not practiced much in the US and in my experience people from that country don’t really get this form of humour.
Re: Steveta_uk comment…
I think his comment was tongue in cheek, and not meant seriously.
If you read the paper, you can see that station selection of the rural sites was from an evenly spaced grid.
NCDC and USHCN have always made access to the raw data as minimally transparent as possible.
Perhaps Judith would care to comment on these developments and similar problems being laid bare all over the world. If she is really angry that her own research has been affected by these lies, she can explain what these new data have done to her own and others research results.
Wow. People have talked about ‘smoking guns’ and massaged figures and I’ve never been particularly convinced. This looks to be smoking and gun-like though – now you see hockeystick, now you don’t. As a layman I sometimes find it difficult to interpret some of the complex data posted here, but I can see the significance of the graphs and exactly what has been done to the data here plain as day, as should most educated people. Everyone, everywhere needs to see this.
Is the terrestrial record now of any relevance to the issue? We now have satellite data.
There is clearly a lot of doubt about terrestrial measurements, and you have got to wonder why they are given any weight by either camp in the satellite age.
Having said that, I am a little concerned that no-one seems to seriously question the satellite data. I personally found the “warmest January in the northern hemisphere on record” measurement outrageous. I am sure there must be a “mistake” somewhere.
Peter Dunford (04:45:15) :
Re: Steveta_uk comment…
I think his comment was tongue in cheek, and not meant seriously.
————
Reply:
I dunno, Peter… I know people that have that mindset.
Steveta_uk (00:38:35) :
“I think the author is looking at the data from the wrong perspective.
The primary fact to remember is that “global warming” is a social phenomenon, so the impacts in the lives of individual people is what really counts.
As the move of populations from rural to urban locations accelerated over the last century, then clearly the social impact of warming in urban areas has become increasingly important. It therefore is perfectly reasonable to weight temperature readings to match the number of people affected, thus giving the rural readings very low significance due the to low populations.
So you see, when you apply the proper perspective of a social scientist, it is perfectly reasonable, and only a hard scientist like a physicist would fail to see this!”
————————————————————
So the social scientist’s proper perspective is to compare apples with oranges? Thanks for the tip.
They are station graphs off raw data plotted you pair of AGW trolls
It s a debate in science. It’s not sociology or bullshit. It’s science
What happened in 1965, when curves began diverging?
Steveta_uk was definitely being ironic, funny and clever too.
Dr Long’s article in American Thinker is well written.
Again, where oh where is the MSM in the UK.
The Y axis should surely read “temperature anomaly” and not just “temperature”? And we should know what the baseline is.
However – a stunning piece of analysis. You made the case.
Carrick (00:20:36) :
What matters from the perspective of AGW is the temperature trend since 1980. The fact that the adjusted rural data gives almost the same value as the urban is surprising. I think this may be another way of stating, as I have sometimes seen, that the UHI correction overcorrects for urbanization.
What really matters, if this research is confirmed, is that it confirms that the entire edifice of the AGW movement is a sham and that the community of climate change researchers is corrupt! I had taken Dr. Curry’s post as a sign of hope. After reading what Carrick has to say, I see no hope. This will run it’s course with the AGW movement continuing to destroy its remaining credibility. I hope the movement does not destroy the credibility of all science and return us all to the dark ages.
Retract or let Pamela Gray whip me
I chose both.
Please someone answer this simple question, why compare urban with rural, why not just use rural which for he most part are pristine.
“Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice, at the Met Office, said the new global temperature analyses would not change the trend of global warming.”
I’ve got to give her that, she’s right. Their team is measuring temperature, temperature anomolies and caculating a trend. It can’t change the trend of global warming – it will remain what it is entirely independently of whether it is measured by the Met Office. Perhaps she means that it won’t change the calculated trend of global warming which isn’t the same thing at all. You might say that it is a little premature for her to make that forecast, but we know that the Met Office is well-known for the quality of its long term forecasts.
Given that Steveta ends with an obvious ! it’s seems astonishing that anyone would fail to get the satire. Are we Americans just thicker? Hard to say. But
my experience with blogs indicates that satire is quite often taken seriously. Perhaps we just have to many commenters who still live in their mums’ basements?
Re: Steveta_uk comment…
I took steveta’s comment to be sarcasm, but you never know nowadays! 😉
But deep down he has a point. A lot of our concerns are anthropocentric. You should loook at the psychrometric envelope and see how the relationship between temperature, relative humidity and air velocity all make us comfortable or not. Adjusting one will compensate for the others being extreme.
The temperature on a tropical beach is the same as the jungle but the beach has less moisture in the air and more air speed so on the beach we are ‘in the envelope’.
Measuring air temperature alone might be the wrong metric for AGW?? Just a thought.
cheers David