By Blake Snow – FOXNews.com
Image: NASA / Goddard Institute for Space Studies – Maps from NASA’s GISS reveal temperatures where no data exist, thanks to mathematical extrapolation of data.
NASA was able to put a man on the moon, but the space agency can’t tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA’s temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data.
E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) — the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.
The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA’s data “was more accurate” than other climate-change data sets, NASA’s Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said “the National Climatic Data Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate,” admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.
“My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means,” Ruedy told the reporter.
“NASA’s temperature data is worse than the Climate-gate temperature data. According to NASA,” wrote Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who uncovered the e-mails. Horner is skeptical of NCDC’s data as well, stating plainly: “Three out of the four temperature data sets stink.”
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Global warming critics call this a crucial blow to advocates’ arguments that minor flaws in the “Climate-gate” data are unimportant, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion — that the Earth is getting warmer. But there’s a good reason for that, the skeptics say: They all use the same data.
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Neither NASA nor NOAA responded to requests for comment. But Dr. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground, still believes the validity of data from NASA, NOAA and East Anglia would be in jeopardy only if the comparative analysis didn’t match. “I see no reason to question the integrity of the raw data,” he says. “Since the three organizations are all using mostly the same raw data, collected by the official weather agency of each individual country, the only issue here is whether the corrections done to the raw data were done correctly by CRU.”
Corrections are needed, Masters says, “since there are only a few thousand surface temperature recording sites with records going back 100+ years.” As such, climate agencies estimate temperatures in various ways for areas where there aren’t any thermometers, to account for the overall incomplete global picture.
“It would be nice if we had more global stations to enable the groups to do independent estimates using completely different raw data, but we don’t have that luxury,” Masters adds. “All three groups came up with very similar global temperature trends using mostly the same raw data but independent corrections. This should give us confidence that the three groups are probably doing reasonable corrections, given that the three final data sets match pretty well.”
But NASA is somewhat less confident, having quietly decided to tweak its corrections to the climate data earlier this month.
In an updated analysis of the surface temperature data released on March 19, NASA adjusted the raw temperature station data to account for inaccurate readings caused by heat-absorbing paved surfaces and buildings in a slightly different way. NASA determines which stations are urban with nighttime satellite photos, looking for stations near light sources as seen from space.
Of course, this doesn’t solve problems with NASA’s data, as the newest paper admits: “Much higher resolution would be needed to check for local problems with the placement of thermometers relative to possible building obstructions,” a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that “90 percent of them don’t meet [the government’s] old, simple rule called the ‘100-foot rule’ for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we’ve got documentation.”
Read the entire story at Fox News.com
In the mid Atlantic there’s a patch of blue overlying red !
I’m worried about the JAXA graph. If the red line crosses the blue line, then that will mean that the Arctic has the most ice EVER. It will only be a matter of time before New York is once again covered with 1000 feet of ice, and sea level will drop 100m which will cause substantial property value loss to todays beach front property. We will need government mandates for everyone to not only buy SUV’s, but to also keep them running 24 hours per day. Everyone will also need to be mandated to have their own ceaseless backyard tire fires, and we will need to dispatch our military to fly continuously over the arctic to spread soot.
Stephen Skinner (22:21:45) said (with tongue in cheek): “The Map showing the warming anomaly in the Arctic is obviously correct because warming will increase ice coverage, just as it causes more snow. In fact it’s so warm in Northern Canada that all the ice roads are open.”
Quite right. I am reminded of some “underground” comics from the 1970’s, called “Ice Age funnies”. The first issue was when people really did think another ice age was coming, and dealt with the post-modern (i.e. counter-culture triumphalist) world that would exist after the Big Cold hit. A later issue (there were only 3, I think, issued yearly) was after the paradigm had shifted to global warming, but the author was not deterred, he boldly projected that the open Arctic Ocean would cause huge snowfalls (due to increased evaporation) and thus a new Ice Age. Both at once! The “Climate change” that knows no boundaries.
Thank God all this lunacy will soon end. Kudos to Anthony for his role in ending all this. And kudos to the Arctic Ice cap for it’s sudden shift back to the 1979-2000 mean, causing all the Warmistas to scurry for cover.
Greg Cavanagh (22:40:11) :
So three wrong answers must be correct because they are all similar answers? This must be the new politicaly correct scienctific methodology, or the post-normal scientific method.
They use the same line of logic that dictates that two wrongs may not make a right, but three lefts make a right.
jorgekafkazar
Over at “The Air Vent” Roman has a fascinating post on data-mining for correlations and “teleconnections” that are quite simply spurious.
Its well worth a look and should probably be posted-up here.
Leon Brozyna (22:49:04) : And what, pray tell, is the raw data that is being used?
It isn’t. The “raw” dailies go to the individual country B.O.Met. and they cook up a Monthly MIN, Monthly MAX and a “Mean” (that can be calculated any of several ways and may vary from place to place and time to time). It is these MONTHLY AVERAGE computed things that are sent off to the rest of the world (as the individual BOMs expect to sell the dailies to make money if someone wants them…).
So all you get in the NCDC, GISS, and CRU sets is a further “processing on” of these already non-raw averages of “stuff”.
The Monthlies are circulated in a form called a CLIMAT report that NOAA / NCDC sometimes catches, and sometimes doesn’t. These get bundled together from time to time, maybe, and put up on the FTP server as the GHCN “unadjusted” data set. (Except it’s had some “QA” process done on it that tosses some values, and some others have been “corrected”, and sometimes they go back and “fix things up”…)
The CLIMAT reports can also be seen here:
http://www.ogimet.com/gclimat.phtml.en
Just for fun, you can look up Bolivia and Papua New Guinea that have CLIMAT reports but that NCDC does not put in the GHCN because, er, um, they must not have CLIMAT reports or they would be in… except, there they are…
That is “the closest to raw” I’ve been able to find…
Is it the data as recorded and reported by each individual station to each country’s own official weather agency, without having been tweaked? Or is the data that’s being shared been so homogenized, pasteurized, & harmonized that it bears little semblance to the data as originally collected?
Interesting question. New Zealand or Australia (I think it was Australia?) had announced an intent to ‘recompute’ their data or some such due to an improved methodology… not sure how you improve “base” data by recomputing it to be different, but hey, maybe it’s just me… So what you get sort of depends on what each BOM decides they want to do.
From everything I’ve seen of the quality of stations and the standards as well as the jerry-rigged nature of the assorted networks of stations, NOAA, NCDC, & GISS get a resounding F; perhaps it would be even more appropriate to give them an I, as in Incomplete.
IMHO, it’s worse that that. For example, in the GHCN data set for France, there are 13 stations used in 1999. ALL but 1 is an Airport. (The one is on the Spanish Mediterranean boarder…). The CLIMAT reports say there were somewhere around 40+ reporting.
http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gclimat?lang=en&mode=1&state=France&ind=&ord=REV&verb=no&year=2009&mes=02&months=
So why only use 1/3 of the data and that strongly biased to Airports and Southern locations? Perhaps because when they were using all of them they had a dropping anomaly trend line:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/france-hide-the-decline/
and they needed to splice on a “Pivot” of +1C / DECADE to get back up to the zero line…
So when you use GHCN (and the CRU Crew said their data were more than 90% identical with GHCN) you are getting a selected subset with locational biases all over it and built in via selection bias.
Robert W: Steady, steady, lad. It will be OK.
DavidMHoffer 21:51:25 explained it. Man’s evil effect on climate takes place in the most remote regions where, curiously enough, it is hardest for amateurs to measure.
And it is caused by poor people, polar bears, and penguins. He forgot baby seals. So everyone’s favorite place, NYC, need not worry at all.
But we should still make everyone healthy, wealthy, and wise as those at the Copenhagen Conference wanted. Then poor will be gone and the polar bears and penguins won’t have enough power to ruin Earth by themselves.
Is the clock ticking on James Hansen’s employment at GISS/NASA?
NASA command has to be displeased that its reputation has been damaged by GISS temp product mismanagement and by the biased advocacy promoted by GISS climate studies leadership..
I think it is probable that he will be replaced within this year. I project he will go to some some CAGW supporting NGO as their scientific PR/Lobbyist. He will, perhaps’ be openly funded by Gore?
His replacement probably will be a more neutral appearing individual from the ‘hard science’ area of NASA.
Tic Toc Tic Toc …
John
John Whitman (00:36:39) :
“NASA command has to be displeased that its reputation has been damaged…”
Not to worry, NASA is on the Toyota space ray acceleration problem.
Stephen Skinner (22:21:45) :
KTWO
“Off topic. What is going on with Arctic ice extent?”
Not of topic at all. The Map showing the warming anomaly in the Arctic is obviously correct because warming will increase ice coverage, just as it causes more snow. In fact it’s so warm in Northern Canada that all the ice roads are open.
The anomaly map is for Dec-Jan-Feb. Are you disagreeing with this? I only ask becuase the UAH satellite anomalies for the same 3 months are also well above normal. Perhaps you’re just trying to be misleading.
Greg Cavanagh (22:40:11) :
So three wrong answers must be correct because they are all similar answers? This must be the new politicaly correct scienctific methodology, or the post-normal scientific method.
There is a 4th answer which, although it shows slight disagreement with the other 3 in the pre-1990 period, agrees very closely with them over the past 20 years.
Re Hansen’ job on the line
The really shameful thing is that the Americans have taken so dam long to wake up to the blindingly obvious.
An avowed activist should not be in charge of both the creation of the base line data and the underlying CC or AGW research that may flow from that.
When the appalling ethics of that are resolved perhaps people might ask why is Pachauri allowed to be actively invoved on the Chicago Climate Exchange along with Maurice Strong et al
That is just not good enough ….
The amalgamated data sets like GISS and CRU are not suitable for the job of producing a temperature anomaly of a fraction of a degree.
A better indication can be made by looking at raw data from a global spread of individual rural thermometers, but the problem here is that some show that temperature is increasing while others show it has gone down.
This indicates that CO2 is not the main climate driver, because if it was temperatures would be effected everywhere. Natural deterministic chaos is the real cause of climate change, as the Earth’s system adjusts to the constantly varying energy inputs from the exosphere.
This is recycled news from something I read a couple weeks ago, where they published the actual e-mail chain, and I have to say that the e-mails don’t quite say what is being alleged. As I recall, the reporter asked whether NASA’s data was more reliable for determining something specific. The initial answer he got was that he should use NCDC data for what he wanted, because NASA applied adjustments to meet their own purposes and the NCDC data would be better. Hansen jumed in and said something a lot more equivocal. The thrust of the e-mails was not that the quality of NASA’s data was better or worse than that of NCDC, it was simply that the two agencies had different objectives, hence collected the data and/or applied corrections with those differing purposes in mind. In this instance, the NCDC data was more suited to what the reporter wanted.
Don’t mistake this post as a defense of NASA’s adjustment procedures or data quality. It’s just that this particular e-mail exchange isn’t really the indictment it is made out to be.
@jorge (23:14:00) :
“NO DATA means NO DATA. Climatologists are trying to tease out a signal so small that the slightest bias introduced by extrapolation methodology will mimic apparent warming. Artificial data is artifact-laden. Add conscious or unconscious tweaking and cherry picking and the result is drivel instead of science.”
Not just climatologists. You have just brilliantly resumed what I see as the greatest pitfall of research in general: bias introduced by extrapolation methodology mimicking a desired outcome. Something to this effect should be inscribed in letters of gold in any laboratory.
” Steve Goddard (22:39:21) :
Stephen Skinner (22:21:45) :
Thanks for the explanation of how ice is caused by warmth. I’ll stick my ice tray in the microwave next time I need some fast cubes.”
That’s ok , the climate change trends to milder earlier springs means i’ll be shoveling more global warming off the driveway by the weekend (If the UK met office forecast is to be believed…….)
“I see no reason to question the integrity of the raw data,” he says. “Since the three organizations are all using mostly the same raw data”
Huh!
(and yes; comparing todays ice area with the graphic at the top of this post does give one pause)
Seems to me no one knows nufink
And meanwhile the 30% sea ice keep rising like a phoenix, we are of course all still doomed…
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Could you provide links to tell us about these ice roads?
Stephen Skinner (22:21:45) :
KTWO
“Off topic. What is going on with Arctic ice extent?”
Not of topic at all. The Map showing the warming anomaly in the Arctic is obviously correct because warming will increase ice coverage, just as it causes more snow. In fact it’s so warm in Northern Canada that all the ice roads are open.
Wren (23:17:36) :
Of course if the mpemba effect is real and at work in the arctic, it means it will lead to more ice and more ice albedo.
Taken from the previous thread: Results of the Climate gate Parliamentary Inquiry in the UK. Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, said: “Climate science is a matter of global importance. On the basis of the science, governments across the world will be spending trillions of pounds on climate change mitigation.” Add to this another statement from NASA scientist Andrew Lacis “Anthropogenic warming of the climate system can be detected in temperature observations taken at the surface, in the troposphere and in the oceans.” And we have the result that governments (tax payers) will be paying for “something” based on “measurements” about as accurate as gauging wind speed by licking your finger and sticking it into the air. I would be more supportive of building a pipeline from the “melting” Arctic to irrigate the Sahara.
In just a matter of days now there will be a new record high Ice cover in the DMI plot.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
My guess is, it wont be long before the Bjerknes Centre in Norway will claim this is caused by AGW.
The theory will be very robust.
( Let the Government take your money, we need it! )
The end is nigh.
ΟΤ
Moderators,
Something wrong with the the newest thread “Carbon Emissionaries ”
It gives an “not found” error, either from the side bar or asking for further input.
[Reply: Anna, it comes up OK on my computer. ~dbs, mod.]
Obama to open Gulf and VA coast to oil drilling!
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/31/obama.energy/index.html?hpt=T1
“I guess the skeptics haven’t heard of the lower tropospheric satellite data.”
We’ve heard of it, but since they use instruments on weather satellites that were never meant for climate research and are only expected to be acurate to 1Celsius, its hard to see how they can be sure they have detected a 0.15Celsius per decade change in just 30 years of observations.