Over on Climate Audit, Jean S points out a curious anomaly in the March GISS Temperature data for Finland.
Maybe that’s where all of Trenberth’s “missing heat” went. Note the deep red anomaly is in a sea of blue that surrounds it.
Jean writes of the data:
GISS station values are even more spectacular, the warmest March on record is set in every Finnish station GISS is following. For instance, according to GISS, the mean March temperature in Sodankylä (61402836000) was a remarkable +1.5 °C beating the old record (-2.2 °C) from 1920 by 3.7 °C!
Well, according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, March 2010 was colder than usual all over Finland, especially in the northern part. For instance, the mean temperature in Sodankylä was -10.3 °C, which is almost three degrees below the base period 1971-2000 average (-7.5 °C). So the GISS March value for Sodankylä is off by amazing 11.8 °C!
Even more curious, when you look at the NASA data from another division. NASA’s Earth Observations (NEO) The GISS Finlandic Temperature anomaly disappears!
Here are the satellite derived daytime and nighttime temperature anomalies for the world. Just like what the Finnish Meteorological Institute says, Finland was well below normal.
Here’s the daytime temperature anomaly:
Here’s the nighttime temperature anomaly:
The whole of Finland remains a cool blue in both images. So we have NASA NEO saying Finland is “below normal” and we have the Finnish Meteorological Institute saying below normal, but GISS shows a hotspot.
Gosh, who to believe?
I have a working theory as to why this happened, look for an update to this post if I’m able to confirm it – Anthony
UPDATE: GISS has posted a correction on their website which reads –
2010-04-15: The data shown between 4/13 and 4/15 were based on data downloaded on 4/12 and included some station reports from Finland in which the minus sign may have been dropped. NOAA updated GHCN on 4/13 by removing those data and we updated our displays today. The March 2010 global mean temperature was affected by about 2/100 of a degree Celsius, well below the margin of error (about 15/100 of a degree for monthly global means).
Back in January, I was working on a minus sign issue in data, and GISS making mention of this confirms it to be a real problem. I’ll have more later today. -A
UPDATE2: A commenter calls this “fraud” – folks please don’t go there. See below and wait for my next post. – A
Hockeystickler
even if Giss accidentally dropped the minus sign, -1.5 (C) would still be 8.8 degrees warmer than the -10.3 figure from the Finnish Meteorological Institute. there is only one word for this – fraud.
REPLY: Actually, it’s not fraud, but common human error. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll demonstrate how this happens. GISS is a consumer of GHCN data, compiled by NOAA, and while their quality control may be nonexistent or slipshod, it’s not fraud that they plotted this erroneously transmitted data. – Anthony
Anthony, unless I’m mistaken, Iceland looks very hot in the graphic! We saw where that has recently led…
Could we be seeing potential volcanic eruptions in Europe? I couldn’t find anything on any volcanoes in Finland….then again, Mt. St. Helens was a surprise too!
Maybe Steve Goddard could comment? He’s the only legit volcanologist in this bunch that I know of!
included some station reports from Finland in which the minus sign may have been dropped</i<
is it know WHO dropped the sign?
Kelvins, I tell you, Kelvins. report the temps in Kelvins. Of course to save space in METARS and whatnot so they’d probably have people report just the last two digits or something silly or have non-standard rounding alogorithms to drop tenths of Kelvins (and even less standard algorithms to try to restore that precision in historical data)….
Programmers really shouldn’t be having sign problems these days. Hmm, the C language introduced a scheme where 123 is decimal, 0123 is octal, and 0x123 is hexadecimal. Air pressures are often reported in millibars, but only the last three digits are sent, e.g. 993 is clearly 993 mb, 023 is clearly 1023.
I wonder if there’s any software out there that treats 023 as octal (19 in decimal) and converts it to 1019 mb.
Canada sure was warmer than usual in March. I think it was due to the overheated RE market. The readings should be dropping soon. Not to worry.
Dear NASA:
We are delighted to inform you that we have found the $$$ to fund your Moon Mission. We’re cutting GISS to the bone, and transferring the proceeds to Space Flight. We are also shutting down major parts of NOAA, handing the local data collection and information system over to individual State Meteorologists. Once again, the funding will pour into NASA Space Flight.
Oh, and all those myriad global warming study troughs: We’ll be pulling the plug on the majority of them, so get ready to put the Can back into Can Do.
even if Giss accidentally dropped the minus sign, -1.5 (C) would still be 8.8 degrees warmer than the -10.3 figure from the Finnish Meteorological Institute. there is only one word for this – fraud.
REPLY: Actually, it’s not fraud, but common human error. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll demonstrate how this happens. GISS is a consumer of GHCN data, compiled by NOAA, and while their quality control may be nonexistent or slipshod, it’s not fraud that they plotted this erroneously transmitted data. – Anthony
“allen (09:58:38) :
just read the FT.com article about ongoing investigations into suspected hiring of Russian hackers by U.S. based climate skeptics. can’t wait until someone’s ass is nailed and would love it if it were you or Marc Morano in tribute to the disinformation you are so devoted to.”
brought to you by
http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384
CACC – Campaign against Climate Change
“Ric Werme (10:12:13) :
[…]
I wonder if there’s any software out there that treats 023 as octal (19 in decimal) and converts it to 1019 mb.”
Python does this in the eval() function.
If CA had not reported it would have been kept there as long as possible. Maybe CA should not be reporting this… so they can be really archived and then hammered in the future.
Meanwhile the SOI marches on. Positive 23 of the last 25 days.
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/SeasonalClimateOutlook/SouthernOscillationIndex/30DaySOIValues/
Goodbye, “little boy.” It was good to know ya.
MattyS (09:27:52) :
No conspiracy re Canadian temperatures. The last two months have been warmer than usual – one of the more pleasant winters I can remember in Southern Ontario, and a few summer-like days already this April. Last night and this morning, however, it felt like winter had returned.
a land surface temperature anomaly map for May 2002 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Marchs between 2000 and 2008.
the point is 2000 – 2008
i`m really a skeptic, but you can`t compare anomalies 1971-2000 with 2000-2008!
Anthony, great sat. pics. Really illustrates your post on the high winter temps being from the overreaching release of heat from the oceans. Just by eye, it appears that during the day, about 50% of landmass is nuetral/cooling, but by night, it appears to jump to about 70%.
Then on the Giss pic, you can almost see the northern trade wind route, in the cooling/nuetral band.
It just seems to me, that if the globe is going through a prolonged cooling state, which it may be, then for the first few years of this change, we should expect to see higher then “normal” temps/energy release, for how else does a body cool?
It’s the “wobble hypothesis”.
{DirkH (10:37:13) :
brought to you by
http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384
CACC – Campaign against Climate Change.}
Thanx Dirk, just signed up, so that I can comment also and bring some balance to this debate!
Suggest others do the same.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (09:41:22)
Quite right Sir, in the days of moon landings there were thousands of recorded temperatures in the temperature calculations of the day, not a few well chosen hundred with more than half the world an area of no record.
Also in that time there were people who checked the unusual, such a stupid assessment would not have got of the ground.
There are hundreds of surface stations worldwide that have historic records and modern equipment that are not referred to in any global data, if these records were correlated, the scientific community would defiantly have a reference to challenge, WUWT has the ‘manpower’ ( 42 million plus hits, ) to definitely become a reference point, Anthony?
If minus signs are mistakenly dropped today with the people responsible for the mistakes knowing there is such intense scrutiny of the data it makes one wonder how many minus signs were dropped in the past when there was far less scrutiny.
Interestingly one of the trends in “global warming” isn’t hotter summers but rather milder winters in the higher northern latitudes. Given that summer temperatures in higher northern latitudes seldom carry minus signs but winter temperatures often do this is just more cause for suspicion.
The surface station temperature record is essentially worthless for tracking small changes on the order of less than one degree and no proxies exist that are accurate enough either. I’d compare it to making a mountain out of a molehill except this mole’s hill has such a small slope that we can’t even be certain it’s not a molehole instead of a molehill.
I think I have finally found something not caused by AGW – it’s sure to offend someone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/dorset/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8621000/8621852.stm
Can anyone replay to this:
“””a land surface temperature anomaly map for May 2002 shows how that month’s average temperature was different from the average temperature for all Marchs between 2000 and 2008″”””
The point here is 2000 – 2008
NOT 1971-2000
Now what are we going to compare here, Anthony and friends?
Some Russian guy reported in that article about coldest winter in a long time has been going off the reservation:
“Which NASA climate data to believe?”
Easy answer. None.
Better question: Which NASA climate data is more reliable?
Or: Which NASA climate data is produced with the least bias?
The answers will by necessity be filled with caveats, whichever way one decides.
AW said: “Actually, it’s not fraud, but common human error.”
Accepted, Anthony. But isn’t it curious that these human errors always seem to be on the side of extra warming. That is except, of course, when the Warmists themselves announce their own errors, and make the necessary adjustments… in favour of more warming. When was the last time an IPCC scientist announced error corrections that showed LESS warming?
AW also said “…their quality control may be non-existent or slipshod…” –
Yes, but only when it suits them. I mean, when the figures are pleasing to them, where’s the incentive to check them? Especially in a culture where ‘scepticism’ is a dirty word. I’d bet my @ss that wherever the figures are not to their satisfaction, they’re checked, and checked, and checked again.
I just got off the phone to my bank – they’re trying to tell me I’m overdrawn.
I guess when I balanced my checkbook, I shouldn’t have dropped the minus sign…
OT:
I have started hitting the ads that post here to drive some bits of revenue to this site.
It is fun since some of the ads, like the Global Warming National Fax In, let you create and directly send letters to all in Congress and all Governors.
Think about how skeptics can be empowered by directly communicating using AGW promotional tools.
And bring in money to skeptics while doing it, to boot.
So my free advice is to help WUWT financially, and to play some of the AGW promoters tools against them. They certainly have no trouble using tax payer money to sell their fear.
Turn about is more than fair play.
Northwest Africa looks a little weird on the GISS map, too.
Not too many thermometers sited in NW Africa, one or two microsite effects or UHI issues might influence a lot of the local area.
The hot spot over Finland is too far to the east. It should be over Iceland… 🙂