AcuuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a question about two datasets and asks: If it is darn warm, how come there is so much sea ice?
Bastardi asks a simple question: how can we have above normal temperatures in the Arctic and the Antarctic and continue to add to the global sea ice trend? After all we’ve been told by media stories that both the Arctic and the Antarctic continue to melt at a frenetic pace. But it looks like this year we’ll see another Arctic recovery as we’ve seen in 2008 and 2009.
Bastardi also wonders about something we routinely ask about here at WUWT: data adjustments. GISS seems to be stuck with Arctic positive anomaly, yet the sea ice isn’t cooperating. Of course just having a positive temperature anomaly doesn’t guarantee melt, but members of the public who are less discerning, who look at red hot color presentations like GISS puts out, usually can’t tell the difference.
For reference here are the images Joe uses in his presentation. I’m going to help out a bit too with some simple comparisons.
First The GISS Dec-Feb 2010 Global Surface Anomaly as Joe presents it in his video:
Note that in the warmest places in the Arctic according to GISS, there are few if any land thermometers:
Above: map of GHCN2 land stations (thanks to commenter Carrick at Lucia’s)
Note the cross section of the GISS data, most of the warmth is at the Arctic where there are no thermometers. The Antarctic comes in a close second, though it has a few thermometers at bases on the perimeter of the continent plus a couple at and near the center. Note the flat plateaus are each pole.
The effects of interpolation become clearer when you do a 250 km map instead of 1200 km:
All of the sudden, the hot Arctic disappears. It disappears because there are no thermometers there as demonstrated by the cross section image which stops at about 80N.
Interestingly, the global surface anomaly also drops, from 0.80°C at 1200km of interpolation to 0.77°C with an interpolation of 250km.
One of the things that I and many other people criticize GISS for is the use of the 1951-1980 base period which they adopted as their “standard” base period. That period encompasses a lot of cool years, so anomalies plotted against that base period will tend to look warmer.
This famous GISS graph of surface temperatures from weather stations, shown worldwide in media outlets, is based on the 1951-1980 period:
Uncertainty bars (95% confidence limits) are shown for both the annual and five-year means, account only for incomplete spatial sampling of data.”]
GISS doesn’t provide a utility to replot the graph above with a different base period on their webpage here http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ but I can demonstrate what would happen to the GISS global maps using a different base period by using their plot selector here http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Watch what happens when we use the same base period as the UAH satellite data, which is 1979-2009. The 1200km interpolated global temperature anomaly for Dec-Jan-Feb 2010 drops more than half to 0.38°C from 0.80°C. That number is not so alarming now is it? As for the graphic, the flaming red is still there in the same places because the anomaly map colors always stay the same, no matter what the absolute temperature scale is. In the first map with the 1951-1980 base period, the max positive anomaly was 6.4°C for 1200km and 8.8°C for 250km, while in the one below with the 1979-2009 base period the max positive anomaly of 7.1C If colors were assigned to absolute temperatures, this map would look cooler than it’s counterpart with the 1951-1980 base period.
And here’s the 250km presentation, note that the global surface temp drops to 0.34°C
So it is clear, with the GISS anomaly presentation, you can look at it many different ways, and get many different answers. Who decides then which maps and graphs with what base periods and interpolations get sent out in press releases? Jim? Gavin?, Reto? Consensus over coffee at Monks?
The answer as to what base period GISS chooses in temperature anomaly maps to present to the public is easily answered by looking at their main page here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Here’s a thumbnail of the page, and the full size version of the second graph from the top, note the caption on the top of the graph:
Clearly, they prefer the base period of 1951-1980 as the default base period for the public presentation [as well as 1200 km smoothing] and by choosing that, the GISS results look a lot more alarming than they might be if a different base period was used, such as the 1979-2009 period used by UAH and RSS.
Anomalies can show anything you want based of choosing the base period. For example, a simple thought experiment. I could choose a base period from 11,000 years ago, during the last ice age, and plot maps and graphs of today’s temperatures against that base period. Would we see red? You betcha.
Here’s a graph that shows reconstructed northern hemisphere temps at the end of the last ice age 11k years ago, they were about 4.5°C cooler than today. Granted it’s not a global temp, but close enough for government work.
So if I used a 30 year slice of temperature 11,000 years before the present as a baseline period, our GISTEMP map would look something like this:
Obviously the map above is not an accurate representation, just a visual guesstimate. The more excitable who frequent here will likely cry foul at my abuse of the image. But it does illustrate how choices of colors and baseline periods can have a distinct effect on the final visual. Using a cold baseline period in the past (in this case 4.5°C globally cooler than the present) makes the present look broiling hot.
Anomalies are all about the starting choices made by people. Nature doesn’t give a hoot about anomalies. Generally, people don’t either. Imagine if your local TV weather forecaster gave tomorrow’s forecast in anomalies rather than absolute temperatures. He might say something like:
It’s going to be a hot one folks! Tomorrow we’ll have a high temperature that is 0.8C warmer than the 1951-1980 historical baseline for this city. Dress accordingly.
Useful isn’t it? Even more useful if he’s the weatherman in Svalbaard and people anticipating a heat wave go out in shorts and tank tops in mid February.
While anomalies are fine for illustrating many things, including temperature, bear in mind it’s all about the starting conditions chosen by the individuals doing the analysis. It’s all about choosing a baseline “normal”, which is subjective.
So when Joe Bastardi looks at the GISS map of the world, sees red, and wonders why we have a growing ice presence, the answer is in the choice of baseline and the choice of colors used to calculate and represent the anomaly.
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As usual, they place all the warming in the world, in areas where nobody can verify their claims.
.
Hi,
Slightly OT. This post about GISTEMP issue uses a few images which should be matched one against the other to have a better view about the topic.
I’d like to pay your attentions to Opera browser which has the embedded ability for such comparisons. I created this Opera Nanoprimer in promptu:
1) Duplicate tab – http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_01.png
2) Tile (them) horizontally – http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_02.png
3,4) Compare the images –
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_03.png, http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_04.png
5) Open GISS homepage, make GIF map and tile horizontally 3 imgs now –
http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_05.png
6) Aggregate 4 imgs: 3 from WUWT post and 1 from GISS website (see the right, down corner – you can applied zoom ratio individually to every page/imag, here: 90% for 4th img) – http://pp.blast.pl/wuwt/giss_06.png
That’s why I wrote last year “Opera Browser – (The) Climate Bloggers’ Best Friend – (ver. 2.0)”: http://pp.blast.pl/articles/opera_friend.html
Best regards
ADE (02:02:58) :
The “climate wars” is like a temperature “see-saw” with warmers and skeptics on each end.[warmers at the left]
Warmers want “their end to fall” to show an upward slope of the see-saw.[r to l]
Skeptics want “their end to fall” to show a downward or flat slope.
The trouble is ,none can really say where the fulcum is,what is earths NORMAL temperature.
Truth is there is a Natural Cycle of the “temperature” determined by Solar,orbit,comet,etc. that can never be influenced by man,or Mann.
A snail crossing the road of time does not know when a roadroller is coming
————————————————
Reply:
And that is exactly why I don’t like the term skeptic/sceptic. Rather, call me a “climate realist” because reality is what I want. It’s what we ALL should want.
The optimist looks at the glass of water and jubilantly says it’s half full. The pessimist looks at the same glass of water and sadly says it’s half empty. The realist looks at the glass of water, considers the situation, and states that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Now, who can argue with the approach of a realist? There is no axe to grind, no agenda to convey, no control to exert.
Be a realist. Especially when it comes to climate.
RR Kampen (01:29:02) :
Likely all Arctic sea ice older than two or three years will be gone by September 2010. Because that, in reality, is the trend.
The image you linked to shows no real trend – it just shows the extreme event of 2007, and that multiyear ice increased again in 2009. I postulate that it will increase further this year – let’s return to this thread in September and see who’s right 🙂
Ian H (00:47:48) :
“The map is using honest data and displays a real effect. ”
That is incorrect as now more than a couple people have pointed out.
The gridding is misleading at best and makes up too much data to be considered valid.
This would never be an acceptable map where I work. (but then we are a bit more ethical than they are).
Oil industry shill. 😉
Ian H (00:47:48) :
“Does anyone here actually have trouble understanding the graph? The choice of red for hot and blue for cold is pretty usual isn’t it. I personally would find it very annoying if the colours were used the other way around.”
What if the anomaly is ‘warmer’ than expected but still below zero? Would you be happy in saying it is hot.
What is interesting is the area of the arctic Ocean along the Scandinavian and Russian coasts are in blue (below average), which I’m sure they were, and have the least sea ice, while the red (hot) area over the Arctic is over continuous sea ice.
How does it relate to the ice area as shown here: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png
Even the ‘blob’ doesn’t appear to be represented well in terms of ice coverage.
“Only idiots will imagine boiling hot arctic seas because of some red on a map, and who cares what idiots think.”
Yes, but because someone is an idiot or says idiotic things deosn’t mean they should be ignored, in fact it might be better to pay close attention.
I posted this yesterday in response to
R. de Haan (14:05:11) : on the The Guardian sees the light on wind driven Arctic ice loss Thread.
The unbeatable logic of Joe Bastardi!
http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynop?zona=artico&base=bluem&proy=orto&ano=2010&mes=03&day=23&hora=12&vte=Te&enviar=Ver
Perhaps this has something to do with – Note the 2 Automatic Stations are 20 degrees warmer than all the others.
So if they are using those Stations in their Calculations you can see what affect it would have on Anomalies.
The UK government has responded to the petition to stop using UEA data.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22924
I particularly like the fourht paragraph “CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.”
and the filel sentence. ” That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.”
Cheers,
Brian
And do remember, once more, that all these maps are Mercator projections, which make the poles look about 10x bigger than they really are.
If we were to use the Lambert Conformal Conic, those big red blobs would shrink to little dots.
.
I’m pleased this has been flagged by JB! This graph has been frontline on another blog for a while but I just couldn’t be bothered to query yet more nonsense!
Can anyone help me with this analysis:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/false-claims-proven-false/
I mean one says so and the other one says so. But what is the truth? I am not a scientist, nor do I have the time and knowledge to calculate. I only have to trust what the scientists say. And thats my problem. Here in Germany people like Rahmstorf and Latif use the graphs above to show that GW is happening. In the UK, USA and other countries prominent scientists claim that we are heading into another ice-age.
Regards
Dirk
It’s spring and we have a half inch of snow on the porch this morning… in Grantham, NH…
TonyB (01:46:33) :
LMAO
E.M.Smith (02:27:51) :
Willis Eschenbach (03:06:44) :
When I was in high school, I checked and recorded the Stevenson
screen thermometers. I took the responsibility very seriously.
My Science Prof. double checked my work, and always sent the
results, in a timely manner……..What a waste!
Ian H (00:47:48) :
Surely anyone with a brain knows that above average for the north pole in winter just means it won’t freeze your balls off quite as fast as usual. Only idiots will imagine boiling hot arctic seas because of some red on a map, and who cares what idiots think.
You need to read a few history books and perhaps look at very recent American history. These charts, also, have nothing to do with facts but are political tools to convince the ‘idiots’ to punish others, and achieve the political agenda in question. Quite literally, wars have been fought over lesser things.
Particularly, it doesn’t matter if you are wrong – legally or morally – if the majority are convinced that somethin’ needs doin’ it’s going to work out very, very bad for a minority.
Ian H
“Surely anyone with a brain knows that above average for the north pole in winter just means it won’t freeze your balls off quite as fast as usual. Only idiots will imagine boiling hot arctic seas because of some red on a map, and who cares what idiots think?”
To me this vid by Bastardi is an example of how the “warmists” sell their AGW crap.
It shows how they misrepresent the truth to the “idiots” that you don’t care about.
These “idiots” that you don’t care about are voters, that vote for the politicians that want carbon taxes and cap-and-trade. [along with more funding].
Glad to see that you are an AGW sceptic. This vid was meant for those “idiots” that you don’t care about. They still have a vote.
Small correction:
“And here’s the 250km presentation, note that the global surface temp drops to 0.34°C”
That is a temperature anomaly, not the “global surface temp” itself (though I know you know that, and just miswrote).
John F. Hultquist (23:23:46) :
The source you quoted for the 30 year normal is not quite accurate. As far as the WMO is concerned, these periods update every 30 years, not every decade, though it has become common for many WMO members, such as the US, to update their normals every decade. The last 30 year WMO period was 1951-1980, so the next will be 1981-2010. But that is little reason for GISS to have hung on to 1951-1980 all this time, since so many WMO nations have updated their normals every decade. But they will soon no longer even have that excuse. It takes a couple of years to collect all the data and publish new normals. But at the end of this year, that process will start, and the new norm will become 1981-2010.
With so much lopsided temperature records, you can make whatever you want from the data.
Oh, I have to remove 90% of the temperature data from the US as there are too many stations for balancing the other station recordings or too few in the colder regions so I have to add data to compensate. How many new stations came on line and where to put there temperatures into the data stream?
What trends can be made from what data?
This is far more complex then just recording all the stations and take the average from all the recordings that day.
With three climate cycling systems on this planet, we need three separate data runs for each region. The Northern Hemisphere, the Equatorial Region and the Southern Hemisphere. From 15 degrees from Northern and Southern Hemisphere, the climate runs fairly straight across due to planetary rotation.
While Nenana, Alaska is not at the north pole, being at a latitude of only 64:55 N, It has been having an increasing ice problem, too. April 5 is the deadline for guesses when the ice in the Tanana River will start moving; last decade the average date was 2+ days later than in the 1990s. The ice thickness on March 17, 2010 of 50.5″ compares to the average April 1 thickness of 42″.
I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but it is an interesting anecdote, don’t you think?
http://nenanaakiceclassic.com/
Yes, and try computing the minute volumes of the total atmosphere and total hydrosphere being sampled. Try computing the percentage of the Earth’s total thermal energy being sampled.
@ur momisugly Stephen Skinner (04:07:45) :
@ur momisugly Ian H (00:47:48) :
Double quote – “”Only idiots will imagine boiling hot arctic seas because of some red on a map, and who cares what idiots think.””
“Red” is beautiful in defying AGW Reds’ false arguments (reds = commies). Read below.
@ur momisugly Ian H (00:47:48) :
Quote – “And all the complaining about the choice of colours in the graph just seems like petty whining, and I’m an AGW skeptic! Does anyone here actually have trouble understanding the graph? The choice of red for hot and blue for cold is pretty usual isn’t it.”
🙂 No, it isn’t. 😉 You (we) should show “normal people” such graphs:
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rnhemsnow.html
With all ICE in RED. 😉 The more RED the more ICE. 😉
Regards 🙂
I stopped referring to GISS temps many moons ago. This very same problem (base periods of baselines) was discussed many years ago at Climate Audit. In that case, it was if I remember correctly NOAA temp anomalies vs GISS and the TOB adjustments.
Concerning Joe B. . I think he is the only mainstream long term forecaster who is predicting a rather drastic fall in global temps once the current El Nino wanes. It does appear that quite a bit of the current warming worldwide is mainly over the oceans (perhaps residuals of the current moderate El Nino?).
Weather change is the “anomaly”. Climate change is the “anomaly of the anomaly”.
Oh, it isn’t the Canadian hockey team colors?
Yes, it is interesting that the presence of red turns out to be in inverse proportion to the presence of actual thermometers (including where the satellites can’t scan).
By the way, why would a satellite be designed to observe MW refections that did not have a direct lookdown sensor so one could observe the actual polar conditions (i.e., the areas of greatest concern)?
OT,
Today I received a Government response to petition ‘UEACRU’
Read the Government’s response
The Government believes that all these allegations should be investigated transparently.
An independent review is currently examining the scientific conduct of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and is due to report its findings later in the spring. More information on the review can be found at: http://www.cce-review.org/. The University of East Anglia also recently announced that there will be a separate review to examine the CRU’s key scientific publications. The findings of both these reviews will be made public.
The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology is also investigating the matter. On 1 March the Select Committee heard evidence from a wide range of contributors, including Professor Jones, who has temporarily stepped down from his post as Director of CRU.
CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.
Our confidence that the Earth is warming is taken from multiple sources of evidence and not only the HadCRUT temperature record, which CRU scientists contribute to. The same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These analyses draw on the same pool of temperature data as HadCRUT, but use different methodologies to produce analyses of temperature change through time. Further evidence of this warming is found in data from instruments on satellites, and in trends of declining arctic sea ice and rising sea levels.
Science is giving us an increasingly clear picture of the risks we face from climate change. With more research, we can better understand those risks, and how to manage them. That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.
I would like to draw attention to the two sections which I have italicized.
Finally I conclude that we must never allow Governments to legislate policy based on a flimsy, unprovable hypothesis which can be falsified by a ten year old.