Jo Nova has more from Frank Lansner on what older records, this time from weather balloons, tell us about recent adjustments to the temperature record. WUWT readers may recall Rewriting the decline where the graph from National Geographic below raises some questions about temperature graphs today.
Above: Matthews 1976, National Geographic, Temperatures 1880-1976
Frank Lansner has done some excellent follow-up on the missing “decline” in temperatures from 1940 to 1975, and things get even more interesting. Recall that the original “hide the decline” statement comes from the ClimateGate emails and refers to “hiding” the tree ring data that shows a decline in temperatures after 1960. It’s known as the “divergence problem” because tree rings diverge from the measured temperatures. But Frank shows that the peer reviewed data supports the original graphs and that measured temperature did decline from 1960 onwards, sharply. But in the GISS version of that time-period, temperatures from the cold 1970’s period were repeatedly “adjusted” years after the event, and progressively got warmer.
The most mysterious period is from 1958 to 1978, when a steep 0.3C decline that was initially recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. Years later that was reduced so far it became a mild warming, against the detailed corroborating evidence from rabocore data.
Raobcore measurements are balloon measures. They started in 1958, twenty years before satellites. But when satellites began, the two different methods tie together very neatly–telling us that both of them are accurate, reliable tools.
You can see how similar the data from both methods is:
So what do the raobcores tell us about the period before satellites started recording temperatures? They make it clear that temperatures fell quickly from 1960-1970.
The decline in the original graph in National Geographic in 1976 is apparently backed up by highly accurate balloon data, and was based on peer reviewed data: Budyko 1969 and Angell and Korshover (1975). These two sets overlap from 1958 to 1960, and correlate well, so stitching them together is reasonable thing to do and it doesn’t make much difference which year is chosen from the overlap period (indeed any other choice makes the decline slightly steeper).
What’s thought provoking is that the raobcore data above is for 30N-30S, covering all the tropics on both sides of the equator, and yet still shows the decline. That begs the question of whether the Southern Hemisphere data has been adjusted too. It would be good to see the raobcore sets further up towards the arctic. It would also be good to look at the Southern Hemisphere. Where are the data sets and peer reviewed papers on temperature from 1965 to 1980? I’d like to follow that up.
Three decades of adjustments
When did the “funny business” begin? By 1980 Hansen and GISS had already produced graphs which were starting to neutralize the decline. His graphs of 1987 and then 2007 further reduced the decline, until the cooling from 1960 to 1975 was completely lost.
(Click to see a larger image).
Watch how the cooling trend of the 1960’s to 1970’s is steadily adjusted up so that 0.3 degrees cooler gradually becomes 0.03 rising (notice the red and blue horizontal lines in the graphs above).
Mathews Graph 1976: 1955 – 1965 was around 0.3C warmer than 1970’s
Hansen/GISS 1980: 1955 – 1965 was around 0.1C warmer than 1970’s
Hansen/GISS 1987: 1955 – 1965 was around 0.05C warmer than 1970’s
Hansen/GISS 2007: 1955 – 1965 was around 0.03C cooler than 1970’s
And in 1974, there was the fore-runner of the “It’s worse than we thought” message.
…
Frank has more information and details on his blog Hide the decline.
If 1958 temperatures were similar to the 1990’s, it rewrites the entire claim of all the unprecedented warming of late. Lansner also remind us of the photos taken in the arctic by submarines that surfaced around the north pole.
One thing I notice is that the first graph shows a curve called “mean” the second has no description, last graph calls the curve “average”. In statistics “mean” number can be the same as “average”, but not necessarily so. A quick reference to Wikipedia shows three main ways of computing a mean number. Arithmetic mean is normally considered the same as average, but there are two other means- Geometric and Harmonic.
Am is greater or equal Gm, which is greater or equal Hm.
Applying different methods to processing the data on different occasions will produce different graphs. We just need to know how these curves were computed to make an informed opinion which is the most appropriate.
When alarmists are reminded of the global cooling panic of the 70s they use the current, substantially adjusted data to try and dismiss it as a minor and inconsequential issue.
This neatly undermines that argument.
So I’m sitting here thinking to myself and saying, “self” if Dr. Joseph Fletcher’s research was the basis for ICOADS (International Comprehensive (Consolidated) Ocean and Atmosphere Data Sets) what methods did he use and, if they are as invalid as his pick-up of historical ENSO patterns for future projections as illustrated on http://sharpgary.org/FletcherForecast.html , is this the basis of the flaw in the data sets?
From everything I’ve read so far, the data set problems started in the 1980s. Was it deeply flawed prior to this point and are the adjustments a means of compensating for a knowledge gap?
You are comparing totally different things here. Matthews drew a graph based on US temperatures. The RAOBCORE measurements are tropical, and not surface level. And you compare these to a totally different global measure.
You cite Angell (1975) in support. But in speaking of global temperatures, he says
“Between 1958 and 1965 there was a significant cooling averaging about 0.3°C over much of the globe, but since 1965 the temperature variations have been small. During the past few years there has been a slight warming in most latitudes.”
And he gives (Table 1) surface temps
1959-65 -0,25
1965-71 -0.08
1971-74 0.04
which is pretty much what you’ll find in GISS for global surface temperatures.
MaxL: The warmist camp and its minions in government agencies just haven’t gotten to it yet
In the referenced PDF, I adjusted for scale. Here is the link
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Byj52912YlSsYzNiM2UwN2QtZmMxYi00OWQwLWFlZjgtYjY5OTQwYTRlMjEy&hl=en
Why is Hansen trying to make it look like the warming after 1970 wasn’t as great as it actually was?
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/angell/angell.html
Nine tropical radiosonde stations in this 63-station network were identified as anomalous in Angell et al. (2003). Upon removal of these 9 stations, the resulting 54-station network results in significant differences in many of the times series and their associated temperature trends. Full details are given in Angell et al. (2003), which will allow users to better judge the utility of the current 63-station-network time series. Please watch this space for the coming addition of corrected, 54-station time series. (4/30/2009)
I hope this gets some wider airplay as this gives a whole new meaning to “hide the decline” – get it to Monckton, Imhofe, ICECAP, Foxnews, etc – it only becomes a nail in the coffin if enough people see it.
There’s got to be some catch. This is absolute dynamite
But in the end it will be all a waste of time unless you start being a bit more professional
I’m handling around dozen press releases a week, and I it’s blantantly obvious to me that the press need to be fed stories almost ready for publication, you can’t expect them to take highly technical writing and try and make sense of it! As I have said, these articles are dynamite, but that’s because I understand the subject, but for those who don’t understand the subject, in their present form they are useless to the media, even if they bother to go and look for them.
Effect of Exclusion of Anomalous Tropical Stations on Temperature Trends from a 63-Station Radiosonde Network, and Comparison with Other Analyses
James K. Angell
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?SESSID=02a2ec8386ab1c5dfa6e4e6a60f5ddc9&request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F2763.1
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_Are,_Its_Wrong
Science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics…
I think this article should be front page stuff here. Shows what has gone wrong with a lot of the climate statistics, though it has nothing to do with climate itself.
Peter
It’s obvious where the last ice age is coming hoax occurred.
So they hide two declines?
It looks like the graph comparing the balloon data to the satellites from 75S to 75N shows that all three temperature sets show a global warming trend of +0.2 degrees per decade. That would seem to confirm the IPCC projections and indicate that we’re in for at least two degrees C of warming on a global average this century, assuming the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases don’t further increase the warming rate and that the oceans instantly respond to forcings (i.e. there’s no warming in the pipeline). If either or both of those assumptions are wrong (i.e. the tens of thousands of scientists who study the problem are correct and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases increases the warming and/or there is warming in the pipeline because the oceans store more heat than the land and atmosphere), then we would see more than 2 degrees of warming.
Also, the Raobcore data in figure showing the temps from 30S to 30N looks like it is flat over the period from 1960 to 1980. Your trend line starts before 1958, the period before the Raobcore data begins. How did you calculate that?
Wren (12:23:18) :
“Why is Hansen trying to make it look like the warming after 1970 wasn’t as great as it actually was?”
You will have to ask Hansen.
There was a huge increase in the size of the North Atlantic fisheries right after WWII. This phenomena has, in the past, been associated with warmer weather. The idiot greens have lately been trying to link it to a reduction in pressure from fishing fleets during the war years. The do this to try to convinces school kids that fishing is BAD.
Change the facts to make man look evil, then change the explanations for the effects of the now hidden facts to make man look evil.
Nick Stokes (12:02:57) :
“Matthews drew a graph based on US temperatures.”
The mathews graphs covers 2 scientific publications as mentioned in the present article. None of these where just US temps.
Could you please document this claim?
K.R. Frank Lansner
Wren said: “Why is Hansen trying to make it look like the warming after 1970 wasn’t as great as it actually was?”
To remove the earlier cooling that does not correlate with the measured carbon dioxide trend, perhaps.
Wren (12:23:18) :
Why is Hansen trying to make it look like the warming after 1970 wasn’t as great as it actually was?
The same reason why he adjusts downwards other historical references. So the temps today can look much warmer. Which, is also why we don’t deal in real temp terms in favor of anomalies. As long as you can “adjust” history downward, then you have a never ending ability to show heating.
“Why is Hansen trying to make it look like the warming after 1970 wasn’t as great as it actually was?”
Same reason as for “denying” the 1920’s-30’s egg-frying-on-the-street
warming, or the MWP or the LIA or even the RWP.
The curve/slant is everything. The trend must be clear and unidirectional.
Should people get the idea or be reminded of past climate fluctuations of almost any kind, they might question the concept of the linear, inexorably rising, with no possibility of natural variability, upward curve that serves
the political purposes of this scheme.
——-
“Raobcore measurements are balloon measures. They started in 1958, twenty years before satellites. But when satellites began, the two different methods tie together very neatly–telling us that both of them are accurate, reliable tools.”
Antonio San
Scott Mandia is a very nice guy who used to post here regularly and believes in the AGW hypothesis. The system is geared towards those propogating alarm, but he is a sincere guy who debates in a courteous manner. So don’t blame him, blame the system. Its exactly the same in the UK-its virtually impossible to get anti AGW funding and our kids are being steadily brainwashed.
“Max Planck said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Tonyb
Unfortunatelly at moment (2010) the UAH data show a much bigger temperature increase than the GISS data, if compared to the same reference period, for example 1979-1998. January and February already were higher and we have to expect the same for march, which will end clearly above the old record from 1998 (UAH TLT data set).
Back around 1970 there were at least 4 reconstructions of the Northern Hemisphere’s tremperature record. They were by Mitchell (1973), Spirina (1971), Budyko (1959) updated by Asakura (1969), and Starr and Oort (1973). All of them show a marked cooling from 1940 to the early 70s. Staar and Oort, for example, show a 0.6 C cooling between May 1958 and April 1963.
The cooling reported by all these authors brought the temperature down to where it was about equal to what it was between 1900 and 1910. That is quite a bit different conclusion than CRU and GISS have if you looking at their reconstructions. They are circa 0.4 C warmer.
See http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/world-exclusive-cia-1974-document-reveals-emptiness-of-agw-scares-closes-debate-on-global-cooling-consensus-and-more/ for more discussion.
Ahh, this is where you have your US-idea from:
“Nick Stokes (11:11:00) :
As Steve Milesworthy found, that old graph is based on US and some European stations. ”
Steve also writes on the blog on hidethedecline.eu, and its wrong. He thought that stations in the budyko writing where only US and UK, but that goes for the stations budyko use for a solar activity curve – an entirely different matter.
No Budyko and Korshover and thus “mathews 76” is Northern hemisphere – this is what the peer reviewed scientific writings states.
By using 30S-30N in stead of NH for raobcore, I am UNDERESTIMATING the temperature decline 1940-75. The thing is, all sources of temperature data agrees, that the temperature decline 1940-75 was bigger in the NH than SH.
So when not using NH but just tropic, and STILL get a raobcore supporting a strong decline 1940-76 like Matthews 76, this means that we have every reason to believe that Mathews 76 decline is rather true.
So why not use raobcore NH? Well as i explained in my original article at hidethedecline.eu , I had trouble finding Raobcore data NH back from 1958 easy available on the net.
I may be blind(!) looking te wrong places, but if you can find the Raobcore data all the way back from 1958, for NH, Global and SH, you would be my hero.
If you do please let me know, for examble in the comments of hidethedecline.eu.
K.R. Frank Lansner