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.”
…
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.
…
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.”
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OT –
UK hit by snow as official summer time begins!!!
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Apparently snowfalls were a thing of the past 10 years ago according to the Independent
Hansen will not be replaced by the current administration.
Maybe after 2010 elections when NASA is defunded by the new congress.
OT – follow up
“Colder than Moscow: Thousands of homes without power and drivers stranded as Britain is battered by blizzards and gale-force winds”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262265/Homes-power-drivers-stranded-UK-hit-snow-wind.html
Just watch as CT (cryosphere today) holds back on showing ice going through the roof (above anomaly)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
The’ve done this again and again.. alas
re previous see here dmi
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
I know it may be difficult for one bird here to see the obvious from the conclusive statements reported in the article, but the headline used by Fox is accurate. Perhaps drowning in the incomplete, illogical, arcane, even false news offered by places like CNN and MSNBC has got you confused, exacerbated by the bilge published by Time magazine and the New York Times, now over $1 billion in debt and laying off much of their staff because both their readership and advertising revenues have plunged. (Or is it complete avoidance of an issue by these left-lying oracles that leaves you unaware and unedified?)
Hyperbole masquerading as news and designed to support a false agenda is simply a hard sell nowadays since people can buy a computer for a few hundred bucks and hook into an unprecedented, vast resource of level-headed thinkers. They are no longer held captive and brainwashed by progressive liars who wasted their tuition at liberal universities.
Ahmed,
By sat data are you talking IR? I’ve wanted to know if there were sat based FLIR type imaging available too. The sat temp records are both derived through microwave sounder units.
I’ve been looking for the sat trend vs. surface trend info lately and can’t seem to find an easy reference. I know the surface temp trends are higher, just not sure how much. If I recall from Dr. Spencer’s last post I believe Pat Michaels mentioned in the comments .13C/decade vs. .17C/decade… but Michaels McKitrick 2007 references a .3C/decade trend maybe just for 1980-on. I thought I heard GISS was currently the highest with .22C/decade. If anyone has a reliable reference for this stuff it would be appreciated.
The sat data has been QC’d with weather balloon data, no surface temps although severe differences between the two appear to have led to corrections in the sat data before but never, AFAIK, the other way around.
On occasion some here imply that the sat records are cooked – I strongly do not agree unless someone knows something they’re not telling anyone about. Dr.s Christy and Spencer are of the utmost integrity IMO, if they say its reliable I do to unless proven otherwise.
Robert Wykoff (23:39:47) :
We don’t have enough irresistable force to spin the climate warmer. We can ony make the weather more extreme by messing with it.
It’s like handing a Swiss Watch to your kids to fix.
Ron Broberg (21:34:11) :
<em.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.
I guess the skeptics haven’t heard of the lower tropospheric satellite data.
—————
No, I'm sure they haven't since the lower tropospheric satellite data is developed by a leading skeptic. Of course lower tropospheric satellite data has only been available since 1978 and tells us nothing about temperatures earlier than that or the causes of any temperature changes in the period 1978- present. There is also a 'divergence' between that satellite data and the GISS/CRU et al adjusted data. Dr Hansen doesn't use the satellite data in the GISS temp calcs because, if he did, he'd be guilty of splicing different measurement sets together. The same thing that was done when the thermometer records were 'spliced' onto the dendro records without explicitly saying so (the 'trick' in the emails – he was 'hiding the decline' in the dendro records to solve the 'divergence' problem, not an actual decline in temperature). Of course the 'trick' was actually allowing them to avoid dealing with the problem that the divergence called into question the entire past dendro calculations, not just the 1980 – present record.
What these revelations are telling us is not that there is no 'global warming', they are telling us we cannot have much confidence in the accuracy of past temperatures and, given that, we really can't say with any confidence whether there has been global warming, global cooling, or global stasis over even the past century. From there it follows we can't say with any confidence what the increase in human sourced CO2 is or is not doing to planetary temperatures (or local temperatures either). If that is true then we don't have any idea what current and/or future efforts to 'control' CO2 levels will do, we can't say with any confidence if it will 'help' or 'hurt' the climate.
It would be interesting if someone could do some work to compare the adjustment methods used by the different groups. It would be only nobody seems to know how those adjustments are being/ have been made in most cases. Given that the adjustments are all made from the same raw data, I would be surprised if they didn't come out in 'rough' agreement since I don't think the adjustments are of great significance to the overall temperature.
So there really was no need to create a new surface station network?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/programoverview.html
Why We Need A USCRN
One of the principal conclusions of the 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme was that the global capacity to observe the Earth’s climate system is inadequate and deteriorating worldwide and “without action to reverse this decline and develop the GCOS, the ability to characterize climate change and variations over the next 25 years will be even less than during the past quarter century” ( National Research Council [NRC] 1999). In spite of the United States being a leader in climate research, we do not have, in fact, an observing network capable of ensuring long-term climate records free of time-dependent biases. Even small biases can alter the interpretation of decadal climate variability and change.
I don’t care how much they re-re-revise their data. I ain’t redoin’ my blink charts.
DavidMHoffer’s kid,
Regarding the lab work I used to think the same thing but how do you recreate a 60 mile column of gas in a lab?
The way I see it is that climate is, essentially, no different than economics. We can define very concrete rules on the micro level, but many times they are just noise in the grand scheme of things. We don’t really know how things behave in the wild until we take our lab results and then verify them from real world data.
This is a strong undercurrent in the VS thread. As an Econometrician it’s his job to confirm or deny theories using real world data. I’m not an Econometrician, but I am by training an Economist – and I can assure you we have a very long history of good sounding theories being disproven.
It’s unfortunate that climate science has not learned this lesson. Everything I have read seems to indicate an answer (CO2) in search of a problem. Throw in a little observational and confirmation bias and the debate is over 🙂
Real science will catch up with them eventually, and we’ll all see how myopic they’ve been.
” John Finn (00:56:32) :
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.”
It is well below freezing even with a warm Dec-Jan-Feb time frame.Thus it can favor ice growth because of increased cloud cover or more snow.
It is the winds and warm temperature WATER that are more important at this time of the year.Air temperature is well below freezing at this time of the year,thus not a factor.
anna v (03:37:17) :
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.]
————————-
I’m getting the same error as Anna, 8:12AM EDT, 31 Mar
[Reply: The article comes up on my computer, but comments are disabled. I’m working with WordPress on the problem right now. ~dbs, mod.]
No. The last President who told James Hansen to shut up and do his job had to back down because Hansen went public and said “President Bush is trying to silence me on global warming.” It was a lie. President Bush told him to stop making global warming speeches and do his job. But the lie worked, and President Bush never pushed the issue. If Hansen can survive lying about a President, he surely can survive a President who supports his ideas.
Isn’t it amazing how so much research money has been wasted on these clowns at NASA and other so called scientific organizations? If we add up all the money we could for example have landed a man on Mars by now, or solved at least one of the world’s large problems such as starving millions. But alas that would not keep a lot of the politically minded leaders at those institutions in their jobs. So the big con continues.
Here is a good explanation of why they have problems with the temperature record:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/id35.html
GISS-Gate? Guess not. They weren’t trying to hide it.
And anna v. is right (again..) it – Carbon Emissionaries – comes back with: “Not Found
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.”
@ur momisugly URL-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?p=17961#more-17961
[Reply: it’s a WordPress problem. The article comes up fine here, but comments are closed. We’ll get it fixed, have patience. ~dbs, mod.]
dbs,
Not sure if it helps or not, but I can’t bring the article up from my mobile. Could be that whatever is bodging the comments is also causing touble with the mobile version of the site. It could be that the other folks seeing the “page not found” error are working off a mobile too.
Just thought I’d add in that clue on the off chance it might be useful.
Best Regards
[Reply: Thanks, I will pass it on. ~dbs.]
What we need is a procedure similiar to when there is an election.
The losers claim that ballot boxes were stuffed etc., etc., the leaders say no we didn’t.
Yes you did! No we didn’t! Then there is an audited re-count.
Enough.
We need a audited recount of all the temperature data.
START OVER! From square one.
Shelve ALL the previous data and do a supervised audited data compilation,
taking into account all the flaws exposed by the sceptics.
This is the ony way to get the Alarmists to STFU.
pat: “NASA has turned into a reflection of college campuses all across the world. Bizarre left wingers pretending to do real work while sucking on the tax payers teats. Fake science, fake brains.”
You forgot to mention academics in their ivory towers pontificating about things they have no practical experience of. Like researchers who haven’t a clue about practical temperature measurement and the real bias of human gathered data.
I think that is why so many US forecasters are so sceptical. Its nothing to do with the science, its the day to day exposure with the real problems of using met station data and the real disasters that befall those who try to make long-term forecasts.
Forecasting 100years is easy … you aren’t going to be around to be proved wrong. But forecasting sunshine tomorrow and it snows, and you sure know that forecasts are often wrong!
As I sit in front of a frozen keyboard in darkest Scotland with several inches of global warming lying outside.
“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”
This makes no sense at all, the WMO provides the same data to all 3 and they all come up with the same answer does not validate the data at all, it just says the adjustments they undertake are similar.
It does not answer the following,
Is the data correct.
What are the adjustments and the reasons for the adjustments.
Is there collusion between the 3 datasets on what and how these adjustments are made
Why are adjustments being made retropectively eg 1934 NA wasn’t the hottest year, then is wasn’t and now it is again.
An on and on.
Here’s an amusing “take” on the situation:
Jeff Masters. Tut tut. our typical Global Cooling denier.
Do i understand this correctly that James Hansen’s gridded worldwide temperature dataset – GISTEMP, right? – is now no more used and HadCRUT3 is used instead (except for NA, i consider that a fig leaf)?
HadCRUT3 in turn comes from Phil Jones – who admitted that he’s not very good in record keeping and doesn’t have all the raw data anymore – but still seems to produce a “better” gridded temperature dataset than Hansen.
And after NASA has created a homunculus from GISTEMP and HadCRUT3 they probably use it to compare it to what GCM’s do.
If i made any mistake in my reasoning let me know, but to me this looks like GISTEMP has no more relevance or credibility left (maybe except for making alarmist headlines like “Hottest Decade ever”). Am i right in this conclusion?