By Steven Goddard
As discussed in my last post, GISS claims to have better Arctic coverage than Had-Crut, and uses that as an explanation of why they are trending upwards when Had Crut isn’t.
“A likely explanation for discrepancy in identification of the warmest year is the fact that the HadCRUT analysis excludes much of the Arctic ….. (whereas GISS) estimates temperature anomalies throughout most of the Arctic.”
In this post, I will show a number of things wrong with that claim. GISS uses the maps below as evidence of their better coverage.
The problem is though, that GISS actually has very little Arctic data. The “GISS 2005” map above uses 1200 km smoothing (which assumes that the weather in London somehow affects the weather in Monaco.) If we look at the un-smoothed GISS data from 2005 (below) we see something very different.
GISS actually has very few temperature readings in the Arctic. much less than Had-Crut. The map below shows the differences in coverage. Areas where Had Crut has better coverage are shown in green. Areas where GISS has better coverage are shown in red. Note that Had-Crut has more extensive coverage than GISS on almost every continent.
Now, let’s look at some of the specific problems with the GISS smoothing in the blink map below, which alternates between Had-Crut and GISS 2005 data.
- GISS completely missed a cold area north of Svalbard. They show that region several degrees above normal.
- GISS has almost no coverage in the Canadian Arctic
- GISS has almost no coverage in Greenland
- GISS has no coverage in the Chukchi Sea or Arctic Basin
- GISS has very poor coverage around Antarctica
- GISS has very poor coverage in Africa
- GISS missed large regions of below normal temperatures in the southern oceans and Antarctica
Now, let’s compare GISS Arctic coverage with UAH, below. Note that UAH has much better coverage at both poles than GISS (as well as everywhere else.)
![[Image]](https://i0.wp.com/discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/browse/AMSU_A_15.latest.a_04.png?resize=531%2C283&quality=75)
Conclusion: GISS implications that that they have better Arctic coverage than other sources are simply untrue. They have very little actual data near either pole, and their extrapolations in those regions are demonstrably poor.
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Bob,
I hear you, but it still looks to me like Had Crut has better coverage.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_635ftj7fzgc
JimB
I would have thought that the warmest year on record would require a Northern Hemisphere summer.
Here you can compare them all:
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html
page 27 of this report give the temperatures from 1796 to 2009 for Armagh Ireland (the northern Hemispehere):
http://star.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2009/annrep2009.pdf
Compare the temps with the temps given by DMI for the arctic and you can see the trends fit well: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
In Armagh 2006 and 2007 have been the warmest years and there has been no warming from 1995. Interesting are the trends in warming in the beginning of the nineteenth century and in the years 1920 -1950 with the temps in 1945 and 1949 being in the range of those from 2006 and 2007.
stevengoddard says:
May 18, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Phil,
Here is Greenland zoomed in
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_633g5n729fz
I think the version I posted in reply to your comment about Greenland on the other thread is clearer, it shows that your statement about Greenland was incorrect.
Ibrahim
You made a bunch of statements, and then post links which don’t seem to have much information supporting your statement. For instance, the DMI graph doesn’t show trends. In fact non of your links show trends.
Well, well, well. The satellite measurements (UAH) and GISS seem to be in close agreement. Certainly ENSO is part of this, but the baseline is steadily rising.
Have you ever watched shows where hikers ignored seemingly small pieces of information and ended up in trouble?
2010 is the fifth warmest year in HadCru to date, the warmest in GISS, the warmest in satellite records…
A storm cloud gathers at the head of the valley. It looks a long way off. Do you continue up the mountain?
GISTemp warming menses from the active imagination of James Hansen.
Ammonite
I’m terrified about that 0.65 degrees warming over the last 130 years. If it keeps up like that, Colorado may have a decent climate in about 500 years. Why can’t it warm up faster???
If you place a glass of ice water on a warming plate and turn on the heat, heat will flow into the glass and drive a phase change, consuming all of the heat. The temperature you measure in the glass will show no change, no warming, until all the ice has melted. Then it will rise steadily (ultimately producing a second phase change).
A portion of the current thermal imbalance is going into melting land ice, and both the satellite-based GRACE mission and the land-based GPS measurements of post-glacial rebound show an acceleration of the melting of Greenland land ice. GRACE also shows an acceleration of the melting of Antarctic land ice.
When the ice quits melting, I’ll believe that CO2 is not driving climate change.
Clarifying Owen’s point, the energy being absorbed by the oceans is a couple of orders of magnitude higher than that melting ice.
Steve Goddard and Bob Tisdale: Why don’t you guys do a “Surface Stations” type approach and figure out who is measuring what in Arctic/Antarctic areas. And either reply coherently and definitively to this troll named Phil. or ignore him.
The ranger warns of possible inclement weather. Steven has lived near the mountain his whole life. He laughs into the breeze and sets forth.
Ammonite
You are a lot more likely to get killed in a car accident than by global warming. Perhaps you should stop driving?
Given that understanding the Arctic region weather conditions may be so important, I am surprised that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Data Buoy program has not been extended to include a set of buoys that are specially designed to populate the Arctic Ocean. I expect this would be a real design challenge, but I do think it could be done.
Below is a link to NOAA’s NDBC (National Data Buoy Center) site where you can use a map to select any of their Weather Buoys in the world and get a list of recent observations.
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
Mr. Goddard (May 18, 2010 at 5:05 pm)
Where is your skillfull eye?
Regards
My understanding, from what I’ve read here, is that ice loss in the Antarctic is the result of increased glacial outflow, which is due to increased snowfall on the surface, and also to the breaking off of shelf ice that had blocked outflows, not to the melting of surface ice. It’s always below freezing in Antarctica, except maybe briefly in the Peninsula.
In Greenland ice loss is also mostly due to increased glacial outflow from increased snow. There is also increased melting around the edges of ice shelves when there is a warmer than normal current passing by locally, which happens occasionally due to natural variation.
My point is that (for those who are not totally committed to the it-ain’t-ghg’s bandwagon) it is worth pausing to consider the net ice loss in the Arctic, Antarctic and world’s mountain ranges, the rising ocean heat content and the persistent occurence year-on-year of global temperatures in the top 10 ever measured. The prudent course is to treat this information with respect and carefully consider its implications. Perhaps people who study climate for their living and design successful interplanetary spaceships (eg. Venus Express) may be worth listening to!?
Jim F wrote: You asked Steve Goddard and me, “Why don’t you guys do a ‘Surface Stations’ type approach and figure out who is measuring what in Arctic/Antarctic areas. And either reply coherently and definitively to this troll named Phil. or ignore him.”
Let’s look at what Phil wrote: “As I recall UAH cover up to 82.5N so that’s no coverage within ~450 nautical miles of the pole.”
And as far as I know, Jim F, the coverage Phil listed is correct. The satellite coverage only reaches so far, so UAH infills north of 82.5N and south of 70S. This is similar to what GISS does. GISS also infills where there is no data. The Hadley Centre, on the other hand, leaves the areas without coverage blank. If an area is left blank, it is easily recognized as being an incomplete measure of “Global” temperature. But GISS and UAH aren’t presenting a true “Global” product either. In my eyes, the problem with the infilling used by GISS and UAH is that it gives the impression of complete coverage, when it’s far from being complete.
Bob,
I don’t see any reason to believe that either UAH or RSS “infills” data. Their coverage near the poles is much greater than GISS.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/AAT_Browse.php?chan=1&satnum=15&aord=a
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/plots/MSU_AMSU_Channel_TMT_Trend_Map_v03_2.png
Snow in Czechia second half of May!
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/05/snow-in-czechia-second-half-of-may.html
stevengoddard says:
May 19, 2010 at 6:13 am
Bob,
I don’t see any reason to believe that either UAH or RSS “infills” data. Their coverage near the poles is much greater than GISS.
As I said before they don’t have data closer than 82.5ºN and S and in the case of the South Pole RSS don’t produce data beyond 70ºS for TLT because of interference from the ice.
A few months ago, over at treesfortheforest , Chad did a comparison of GISS and HadCRUT trends using common spatial coverage. I think he found that about half of the trend difference in recent years could be explained by differences in areal coverage, leaving the rest to procedural differences…at least that was my interpretation of Chad’s results.
-Chip
Phil.
82.5 degrees is what the RSS and UAH maps show. I don’t see any evidence of infilling.
stevengoddard says:
May 19, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Phil.
82.5 degrees is what the RSS and UAH maps show. I don’t see any evidence of infilling.
There certainly isn’t on RSS since their cut off line is very clearly shown. It’s not so clear with UAH since their maps are rubbish and don’t show lat/long, the implication of their maps is that there is infilling since the contours run to the top and bottom edges of the map which are by implication 90ºN/S. Even indicating the projection used would be a help or using a unambiguous one like RSS do.