The great thing about old magazines is that once published, they can’t be adjusted. Jo Nova has a great summary of some recent work from occasional WUWT contributor Frank Lansner who runs the blog “Hide the Decline” and what he found in an old National Geographic, which bears repeating here. – Anthony
Human emissions of carbon dioxide began a sharp rise from 1945. But, temperatures, it seems, may have plummeted over half the globe during the next few decades. Just how large or how insignificant was that decline?
Frank Lansner has found an historical graph of northern hemisphere temperatures from the mid 70’s, and it shows a serious decline in temperatures from 1940 to 1975. It’s a decline so large that it wipes out the gains made in the first half of the century, and brings temperatures right back to what they were circa 1910. The graph was not peer reviewed, but presumably it was based on the best information available at the time. In any case, if all the global records are not available to check, it’s impossible to know how accurate or not this graph is.
The decline apparently recorded was a whopping 0.5°C.
But, three decades later, by the time Brohan and the CRU graphed temperatures in 2006 from the same old time period, the data had been adjusted (surprise), so that what was a fall of 0.5°C had become just a drop of 0.15°C. Seventy percent of the cooling was gone.
Maybe they had good reasons for making these adjustments. But, as usual, the adjustments were in favor of the Big Scare Campaign, and the reasons and the original data are not easy to find.
Above: Matthews 1976, National Geographic, Temperatures 1880-1976
Now compare the 1935-1975 decline for the same area – the entire Northern hemisphere – presented by CRU/Brohan 2006:
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/CR_data/Monthly/HadCRUGNS_3plots.gif
And when the old and the new are overlaid…hey where’s the decline?
Above: The blue line is the adjusted CRU average from 2006, overlaid on the 1976 Nat Geo graph.
If temperature sets across the northern hemisphere were really showing that 1940 was as hot as 2000, that makes it hard to argue that the global warming that occurred from 1975 to 2000 was almost solely due to carbon, since it wasn’t unusual (at least not for half the globe), and didn’t correlate at all with our carbon emissions, the vast majority of which occurred after 1945.
The US records show that the 1930’s were as hot as the 1990’s. And the divergence problem in tree rings is well known. Many tree rings showed a decline after 1960 that didn’t “concur” with the surface records. Perhaps these tree rings agree with the surface records as recorded at the time, rather than as adjusted post hoc? Perhaps the decline in the tree rings that Phil Jones worked to hide was not so much a divergence from reality, but instead was slightly more real than the surface-UHI-cherry-picked-and-poorly-sited records?
Esper – Tree ring widths declined from 1940-1975. Records after 1960 are sometimes ignored because they don’t fit the “temperature record”. (All timeseries were normalized over the 1881–1940 period. RCS, regional curve standardization; TRW, tree-ring width.) Thanks to ClimateAudit. (Link below)
Steven McIntyre discusses the Esper data here.
Frank Lansner also discusses the data from Scandinavia, which originally showed that temperatures were roughly level from mid-century to the end of the century, but that the large decline from 1940 to 1975 was…adjusted out of existence. (My post on that here).
Scandinavian Temperatures: 25 data series combined from The Nordklim database (left), compared to the IPCC’s temperature graph for the area.
Frank points out that while the older graph is not peer reviewed, the modern data sets are also not peer reviewed, so even if the papers they are published in are peer reviewed, it’s meaningless to claim this is significant when the underlying data can be adjusted years after its collection without documentation or review.
The CRU has an FAQ on their datasets, and it includes this comment on the accuracy of the hemispheric records:
In the hemispheric files averages are now given to a precision of three decimal places to enable seasonal values to be calculated to ±0.01°C. The extra precision implies no greater accuracy than two decimal places.
Do I read that correctly? After an adjustment that may be in the order of 0.34°C, the accuracy is ±0.01°C?
At the time when there was a Global Ice Age Scare, this graph appeared in Newsweek.
Newsweek: Global Temperatures 1880-1970 (NCAR)
Either 70% of the decline has been hidden in the years since then, or the climate scientists at the time were exaggerating the decline in order to support the Ice Age Scare (surely not!).
Full references available on Frank Lansner’s & Nicolai Skjoldby’s Blog. Stanley is derived from an NAS document. Mathews from National Geographic.
Thanks to Frank for his good work.
Brohan 2006 is linked here, with a pdf.
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Prior to the International Geophysical Year (1957-58) there were no contnuously operating weather stations in Antarctica and this has to be considered in assessing any estimates of southern hemisphere temperature – and hence global temperature – up till that time. Interesting meteorological work was done – the “wind chill” factor was developed during Byrd’s “Antarctic Service Expedition” of 1939-41 (which was truncated for obvious reasons). Note that the IGY was also the start of the “Keeling Curve” of CO2 concentration on Mauna Loa.
Notice also that this artist-drawn, provenance-free but still accurate to 0.1C graph seems to contradict the idea that the media were unanimously raising the alarm about imminent cooling… the extrapolated portion of graph has the global temperature going in either direction – not exactly a concensus. In fact the artist has drawn a slightly more pronounced possible warming trend. Clearly a visionary.
Nick Stokes (18:03:52) :
Not my picture, it’s what’s on surfacestations.org
Try this one:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1187
or this one:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1196
or even this one:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1201
But I get your point. It did not matter one bit to the temperatures out in Red Bluff, CA. They haven’t moved except in natural cycles in the last 125 years.
Didn’t even matter where they put the Stevenson Screen or the ASOS, the whole place is baked to a golden crisp all by itself.
Have you had the pleasure of being in Red Bluff?
Now how’s about that raw data??
Look ma, Red Bluff, CA pop. 14,000+ , no UHI.
Phil Clarke (18:35:47) :
Notice also that this artist-drawn, provenance-free but still accurate to 0.1C graph seems to contradict the idea that the media were unanimously raising the alarm about imminent cooling…
>>
My 1974 Encyclopaedia Brittanica not only has temp graphs from 1880 to 1960 that show a marked cooling trend in that time period (see my comment above for a link, I scanned it in) but it also has multiple articles and references to the “current cooling trend”. I am also old enough to remember the panic in my high school when a rumour caught hold that an ice age was coming and we were all going to have to move south. I’m not talking there was a discussion, I’m talking kids breaking down and crying.
Alarmism isnt new, its just reversed its polarity.
Decades ago, it was fashionable in certain Afro-American circles to straighten hair by a heating procedure they called “conking.” (Nat “King” Cole and Rep. Henry Rangell come to mind as examples.) That tradition lives on in the data adjustments made by Hansen & Co.
Your prior comment…
Regardless of which weather data were used by the authors of the National Geographic graphical chart, we sometimes had a considerable amount of historical worldwide weather data available in written form and by the weather communications systems when necessary at the detachment weather station in the 1940s-1980s. World Weather Records” (WWR) 1st Ed. was published in 1927. The weather detachment maintained this publicaton in the appropriate subsequent editions and an assortment of other historical sources of this type in its station library for use as needed by the mission. The WWR was subsequently incorporated into the NCDC GHCN dataset, but I am not acquainted with how much of the WWR may have been omitted or adjusted in the process.
How comprehensive in coverage the WWR and other publications were with respect to any given nation is unknown to me, but I do understand how and why you had problems with gridding the Australian data. The geography and population settlement patterns work against the adaptation of a weather dataset never meant to be used for such purposes.
Australian meteorology was undergoing revolutionary and massive reorganizations in the decade of the 1970s. Computerization of the datasets and numerical forecasting did not get underway until the debut of the Automated Regional Operations System (AROS) as late as 1989.
That is a misconception. Although the overwhelming focus was on current weather data for use by aviation, it was not just Air Force data and not just current weather data. We did in fact communicate, disseminate, and use a wide variety of current and historical weather data for use by a wide variety of military, government, commercial, and public customers. The U.S. Air Force Air Weather Service (now the Air Weather Agency) was also responsible for serving the needs, including non-aviation services, of the U.S. Army, allied forces, and joint commands. We also provided some limited services to the local and state communities. These services were sometimes as simple as looking up some historical weather data upon request. Doing so was accomplished a number of ways including use of the WWR and querying the NCDC and its datasets such as those related to the World Weather Watch. Some of the data available to us in written form and by remote communications went well back into the 19th Century.
In the case of Australia, we had extraordinary access to some of the historical data due to USAAF participation in the Allied Air Meteorological Service. Unfortunately, Australia BoM did not submit much of its weather data to the WMO until after the reorganizations of the 1970s, so the number of Australian stations and years represented in the WMO-GRN subsequently supplied to the NCDC was/is limited, as you discovered in your gridding work.
But, that does not mean the worldwide communications and computer systems were not available to archive and disseminate the data. It only means that Australia did not make full use of those systems. The same is true of many other nations then and today, but there have been many other nations then and today who had significant historical weather data and coverage available through the WMO exchanges with the various NMC of the WMO.
It is unfortunate, however, the extent to which the NCDC and CRU have failed to serve as trustworthy custodians of this treasure of worldwide weather data entrusted to their care. It is reported that original manuscript weather records are still being destroyed in the NCDC archive by negligence as a consquence of being eaten by infestations of insect larvae. Under the circumstances, it appears that James Hansen, Phil Jones, et al are doing more to destroy the historical record than they are to preserve it. Otherwise there would be an absolutely clear and unequivocal record of all adjustments and quality control changes at the same level of detail practiced by accountants following GAAP. Furthermore, some of the vast funds being spent on the supercomputer models which fail to model the real world would be put to good use preserving the artifacts of the real world represented by the original weather records undergoing destruction by negligence and by records retention disposals.
The biggest contrast between the Coming Ice Age and the AGW scare is one of provenance:
In the Coming Ice Age we were shown paintings of the Little Ice Age, and that really happened.
With AGW, all we have are artists conceptions of impending doom, though they have yet to happen. More like the early artists conception of what the planets would look like, until we started to get back the Mariner, Viking and Pioneer spaceprobe pictures.
All I got was a lousy UHI Tee Shirt.
Dave (16:59:50) :
And again, wake me when you’re prepared to discuss the criticism of this post.
What criticism? You haven’t provided a single piece of evidence to support your conclusion (or should I say assertion).
I see you figured out your contradiction. At least something was accomplished today.
D. Patterson (19:52:38) :
That is awful about the NCDC’s treatment of original documents.
It’s not like you can go back in time and re-take weather data.
rbateman (20:25:12) :
NCDC didn’t say which records or how many were being destroyed by the larvae, or which records were being destroyed for purposes of records retention. Some of the documents being destroyed under the records retention policies have supposedly been microfilmed, scanned, or otherwise reproduced for archiving. NARA did the same thing with the census schedules, however, and some of the reproductions were badly botched by bad film exposures and misalignment of the pages. So, there is always going to be a concern about how the weather records are handled and reproduced before the original documents are destroyed.
The fact that NCDC, GISS, CRU, and others have failed to maintain the original values of the reported data after applying adjustments to the computer data files makes the whole situation just that much worse for human posterity.
I have seen the records online that were microfilmed. I hope somebody at NCDC is making an effort to rescue what is left. The records are full of holes, only a few stations can be filled with summaries done in the past.
You don’t know how bad it is until you start trying to compile the raw data.
It’s a mess.
rbateman (19:52:41) :
“The biggest contrast between the Coming Ice Age and the AGW scare is one of provenance:
In the Coming Ice Age we were shown paintings of the Little Ice Age, and that really happened.
With AGW, all we have are artists conceptions of impending doom, though they have yet to happen. More like the early artists conception of what the planets would look like, until we started to get back the Mariner, Viking and Pioneer spaceprobe pictures.
All I got was a lousy UHI Tee Shirt.”
Profoundly put, Rob. If you get a chance….mosey on over to the Mister Mean Green thread….I put in a few good words. I have always highly respected your “natural” scientific approach to it all…and if the world had more observers like this…we would solve some problems more quickly.
Cheers.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@John F. Hultquist (00:13:14) :
toyotawhizguy (21:48:43) : ? decline
Try this: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/understanding_climategates_hid.html
– – – – – – –
John, thanks for the link. I’ve read the article and digested as best a possible. So “hide the decline” doesn’t mean temperature, it means reconstructed temperature. I knew all along it had to do with the Briffa tree ring study. And the tree ring sets were cherry picked! No wonder the CRU apollogists don’t want to explain themselves.
What I would like to know is when is some person(s) going to be held accountable for all the fudging of temperature data that has been going on by various scientists and agencies/institutions? It is tantamount to fraud.
Does anyone know of any old CO2 graphs from around the same period?
I would like to see if they have been fudged as well?
Keith Winterkorn (15:17:09) :
You assert:
“It would make more sense to argue that in the 1940 to 1970’s the massive industrialization of the northern hemisphere was pumping aerosols into the atmosphere, differentially affecting the climates (north vs south) and then the clean air movement of the 1970’s reversed the trend. Aerosols declined and the North then disproportionately warmed. At least this would roughly fit the real data and make sense.”
Sorry, but that has been investigated and the investigations show it to be wrong or that the understandings of climate built into climate models are wrong.
For example, I cite a paper I published long ago concerning the Hadley Centre’s climate model and a 2007 paper by Kiehl that says the same as mine but for several models.
My paper is:
Courtney RS, ‘An Assessment of Validation Experiments Conducted on Computer Models of Global climate (GCM) Using the General Circulation Model of the UK Hadley Centre’, Energy & Environment, v.10, no.5 (1999).
It concludes;
“The IPCC is basing predictions of man-made global warming on the outputs of GCMs. Validations of these models have now been conducted, and they demonstrate beyond doubt that these models have no validity for predicting large climate changes. The IPCC and the Hadley Centre have responded to this problem by proclaiming that the inputs which they fed to a model are evidence for existence of the man-made global warming. This proclamation is not true and contravenes the principle of science that hypotheses are tested against observed data.”
Although that paper is dated, I know of no published information that alters its conclusions, and a paper by Kiehl published in 2007 confirms its findings.
My paper reports that the Hadley Centre GCM showed an unrealistic high warming trend over the twentieth century, and a cooling effect was added to overcome this drift. The cooling was assumed to be a result of anthropogenic aerosol.
So, cooling was input to the GCM to match the geographical distribution of the aerosol. And the total magnitude of the cooling was input to correct for the model drift: this was reasonable because the actual magnitude of the aerosol cooling effect is not known.
This was a reasonable model test. If the drift were a result of aerosol cooling then the geographical pattern of warming over the twentieth century indicated by the model would match observations.
However, the output of this model test provided a pattern of geographic variation in the warming that was very different from observations; e.g. the model predicted most cooling where most warming was observed.
This proved that the aerosol cooling was not the cause – or at least not the major cause – of the model drift.
The Hadley Centre overcame this unfortunate result by reporting the agreement of the global average temperature rise with observations. But THIS AGREEMENT WAS FIXED AS AN INPUT TO THE TEST! It was fixed by adjusting the degree of input cooling to make it fit!
Kiehl has conducted similar investigation of several climate models
(ref. Kiehl JT, ‘Twentieth century climate response and climate sensitivity’, Jeophysical Research Letters (2007).
His finding was the same as that in my paper except that each of the several models he studied had been given a DIFFERENT ‘aerosol fix’ to get it to agree with reality.
So, either the climate models are complete rubbish, or the ‘aerosol excuse’ is wrong, or both. Take your pick.
Richard
A C Osborn (06:10:36),
These may help:
click1
click2
click3
If you look at the GHCN data set and compare the mean temps before and after “adjustment” there is a systematic correction to the temperature data. This can be seen at RomanM’s website (3rd graph down)http://statpad.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/ghcn-and-adjustment-trends/
I have independently run the analysis of the adjustments and get the same result as RomanM shows. Ie there is a systematic adjustment made from raw to adjusted GHCN data. GHCN is one of the input data sets used by CRU
Taking the long linear section of the adjustment from 1911 to 1988 gives a slope of 0.03 deg C per decade adjustment (ie 0.3 deg C per century, or around half of the apparent warming). The adjustment makes earlier temperatures colder relative to modern temperatures. For the 40 year period 1935 – 1975 the slope of the adjustments alone accounts for a temperature change of 0.12 deg C. Looking at the spot values of the adjustments for the years 1935 and 1975 gives a difference of 0.16 deg C from the adjustments alone.
The adjustments in GHCN could only partially explain the change from 0.5 deg C to 0.15 deg C described in this post. CRU may include other data or may include other adjustments. We don’t know because they won’t release the data or methods. The problem I have with the adjustments is why are they systematic with time? For a large set of measuring stations (there were 2,756 stations in 1935 and 5,168 in 1975) I would expect the effect of station changes etc to be largely random. I only expect that a UHI correction would be systematic with time and I would expect that to have an opposite sign to the actual adjustments made.
Smokey (06:22:56) : Thanks for that, it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
I was looking for something that would directly relate to the current Article based around the 1970s to see how it compares with those that you showed me and the Ice Core data.
A C Osborn
I wrote an article on Historic CO2 variations carried over at Air Vent which to date has attracted nearly 200 comments. It is here ( To put it in context you need to read the article, links and comments.)
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/
There is a mass of CO2 information here including numerous graphs.
tonyb
I think it’s delicious, with some barbecue sauce and a side of ‘tater salad, that other unadulterated data records, previously published before the CRU, NASA/GISS, or NOAA could get their hands on them, show just as much variability of temps, totally independent of CO2 (which is also what the paleo record shows that we have suffered neither catastrophic warming or cooling, at least not as drastic as the Little Ice Age, though we could certainly suffer from that, again.
Then, again, the AGW theory was never based on actual science, which would explain why the proponents of that theory never felt the need to produce repeatable experiments and explain via basic physics and chemistry. Hence it is a belief, linked with politics, of a fantasy world. Someone should make a movie about it. Oops, they did, and called it “Avatar.”
And some of the soi-disant “science” channels have their own unicorn stories. “Life after humans” is a case, in point. Magically, 6 billion humans are gone, no bodies laying around, no explanation for the loss of mass to the planet, just “poof” no more humans. Then they detail how Nature “reclaims” everything, etc. It’s part of the anti-human rhetoric that has taken over many “environmental” movements, which have, themselves, become tools of power for socialist and communist parties.