GISS Arctic Trends Disagree with Satellite Data

Phil Clarke:

Equally, why throw away information?

You cannot ‘throw away’ information that wasn’t there in the first place.

why not use that information to interpolate an estimated temperature where coverage is sparse?

What reason could anyone possibly have to do that?

@ur momisugly RACookPE1978
Hansen could state the moon is turning to cheese as a result of CO2 and these twits would use it as proof of CAGW. Hansen has been caught arbitrarily changing historical temps to make it fit his fantasy (premise, sorry). He’s probably extrapolating now because he’s tired of getting called on the temp changing. As far as the ice melt, I’m hoping it completely melts. We’ll see that the poor polar bear will still thrive as will seals ect. Maybe, just maybe, then they’ll understand how much of a non-event it would be. Oddly, I think I’d miss the laughable image I have in my head of people running amuck with their arms waving and wailing “We’re all going to die!!!! We’re all going to die!!!”

Alexej Buergin says:
“May 20, 2010 at 11:37 am
There is the Amundson-Scott station at the south pole.
I wonder: How would one proceed to have a station in the vicinity of the north pole?”
Have a look at Life on a Russian North Pole Drifting Station here: http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/gallery/

This is an important analysis, and I am most intrigued by the fact that Hansen himself says that satellite IR measurements of surface temperature justify the extrapolation. The problem that I see with the current state of the analysis is that it does not invalidate the extrapolation, it just casts uncertainty, via argumentum ex incredulus, that the extrapolations aren’t useful for estimating Arctic temperature trends.
So here are some quotes from the principals regarding the issue:

Schmidt: It’s mainly related to the way the weather station data is extrapolated. The Hadley Centre uses basically the same data sets as GISS, for example, but it doesn’t fill in large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic regions where fixed monitoring stations don’t exist. Instead of leaving those areas out from our analysis, you can use numbers from the nearest available stations, as long as they are within 1,200 kilometers. Overall, this gives the GISS product more complete coverage of the polar areas.
NASA: Some might hear the word “extrapolate” and conclude that you’re “making up” data. How would you reply to such criticism?
Schmidt: The assumption is simply that the Arctic Ocean as a whole is warming at the average of the stations around it. What people forget is that if you don’t put any values in for the areas where stations are sparse, then when you go to calculate the global mean, you’re actually assuming that the Arctic is warming at the same rate as the global mean. So, either way you are making an assumption.
Which one of those is the better assumption? Given all the changes we’ve observed in the Arctic sea ice with satellites, we believe it’s better to assume the Arctic Ocean is changing at the same rate as the other stations around the Arctic. That’s given GISS a slightly larger warming, particularly in the last couple of years, relative to the Hadley Centre.
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Our analysis differs from others by including estimated temperatures up to 1200 km from the nearest measurement station (7). The resulting spatial extrapolations and interpolations are accurate for temperature anomalies at seasonal and longer time scales at middle and high latitudes, where the spatial scale of anomalies is set by Rossby waves (7).
Hansen, J.E., and S. Lebedeff 1987. Global trends of measured surface air temperature. J. Geophys. Res. 92, 13345-13372.
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Hansen: For example, we extrapolate station measurements as much as 1200 km. This allows us to include results for the full Arctic. In 2005 this turned out to be important, as the Arctic had a large positive temperature anomaly. We thus found 2005 to be the warmest year in the record, while the British did not and initially NOAA also did not. Independent satellite IR measurements showed that our extrapolations of anomalies into the Arctic were conservative. I am very confident that our result was the correct one in that instance.

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So of what “independent satellite IR measurements” does he speak? Is there something other than the MSU lower troposphere data? This point should be addresed and then summarily dismissed, but admittedly that could require scholarship of a high order to ferret out the basis for the off-the-cuff remark.
So, while you can do what was done here: initially examine the discrepancy between high-latitude satellite lower tropospheric temperatures and the extrapolated surface temperature record, the next steps in refutation are to undercut the assumptions and their support. I.e., examine the statements that are used to support the methodology, such as the spatial scale of the anomalies being set by Rossby waves. Is that a valid statement? Are there data sets of any kind that can be brought to bear on the question of extrapolation, even if they might be only two- or three-month long cruise data? If you had, for example, a ship-based data set from somewhere in the Arctic Ocean, and you could compare that to the nearest station used by GISTEMP, and significant discrepancy was found, then this pushes the refutation forward. I for one would really like to see the exaggerated Arctic warming put to rest, once and for all; this in turn would discredit the surface global trends, which put GISTEMP in the lead, due to their dependency on the supposed strong warming signal in the high Arctic. So while this is one or two steps down a long road, it’s a definite start and I look forward to continued reports of progress toward a definitive and rigorous refutation.

Thank you all for the help.
Anthony: your readers are fantastic! (you too)
peace

Oakden Wolf says:May 20, 2010 at 9:42 pm—–
So of what “independent satellite IR measurements” does he speak? Is there something other than the MSU lower troposphere data? This point should be addresed and then summarily dismissed, but admittedly that could require scholarship of a high order to ferret out the basis for the off-the-cuff remark.
Phil. says:
May 21, 2010 at 5:52 am
Yes, there is data other than MSU, it’s in the NSIDC database (the one that Steve doesn’t think they have despite the DC standing for data center).
Here’s an example from April: http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100504_Figure4.png
Phil: I don't get to read here as often as I use to, but you really like to give novices erroneous information. I say this because I'm sure you were well aware that the NSIDC performs algorithyms on OPD (other peoples data). They do not collect temperature data (at least in sufficient quantities to perform seperate analysis) on their own. Are their computer manipulations appropriate? That's the point of this discussion.
They get their data from MADIS:
Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS)
MADIS provides value-added, quality-controlled observational data from sensors around the world, for the purpose of supporting meteorological research. MADIS also develops software to improve access to observational data
Description
Surface land and maritime observing stations report various meteorological variables that describe the current weather. These variables include basic measurements such as temperature, relative humidity, wind, precipitation, etc., as well as various types of weather occurrences such as hail, fog, and thunder.
The MADIS meteorological surface dataset includes reports from many observing networks run by different “providers”. Through the MADIS API, the user can select only a subset of the total by specifying which providers to include or exclude. Most national-scale networks in North America that report surface conditions are included. Over land, this includes all stations that report standard METARs (ASOS, AWOS, non-automated stations) or SAOs (Canadian stations), the UrbaNet mesonet, as well as reports from climate networks such as the Climate Reference Network (CRN), the Historical Climatology Network – Modernization (HCN-M), and the New England Pilot Project (NEPP). Maritime reports are also available, including the Coastal Marine Automated Network (C-MAN), fixed and drifting buoys, and ship reports.
The MADIS meteorological surface dataset also contains a unique collection of thousands of mesonet stations from local, state, and federal agencies, and private firms.
The “High Frequency METAR” dataset consists of experimental 5-minute observations from select Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) stations, and from Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) stations. These stations are also included in the standard METAR dataset, which has mostly hourly reports. The stations report an “AWOS Format Weather Message” each minute to the distributed FAA AWOS Data Acquisition System (ADAS). The data from all the ADAS units are then conglomerated at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, NJ, where they will be routed to MADIS. Currently, MADIS is receiving about 230 stations in the Northeast, Midwest, and along the Gulf Coast, via a feed courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (click here, to see a map of the station locations). In the future we plan to get all of the available data direct from the Technical Center.
The UrbaNet mesonet and some of the other mesonets are restricted. Click here for details.
http://madis.noaa.gov/mesonet_providers.html
Data Providers and Station Counts
Geographic Coverage
The geographic coverage is densest over North and Central America, plus Hawaii (METAR, maritime, CRN, mesonet, SAO – Canada only). Global datasets include maritime and METAR, along with some mesonets: APRSWXNET has a significant number of global observations, and the PCDINPE mesonet is in Brazil.

I not surprised that GISS “research” and so-called data is so often quoted by AGW alarmists – that is their intended purpose. But it is scarcely “scientific” …
It is GISS (Hansen’s) so-called “corrections” that are fundamental to the surface temperature “records” of the past 130 years. It is GISS that is at fault: deliberately (?), accidentally but opportunistically (?), or merely through institutional incompetence and deliberate partisanship and “a religious fervor” to “stop global warming at all costs”?
1. They (the GISS “corrections” to the original data) are undocumented, unaudited, and untraceable. That is – exactly WHAT is being changed to the original data, and what theoretical reasons are justified to CHANGE the original data has not been published, is deliberately being hidden from FOIA requests, and is NOT independently reviewed on a theoretical basis.
It is especially suspicious that past records are changed every month, that EVERY GISS temperature record manually and independently investigated against actual data shows that early temperature records are consistently “made cooler” and recent data unchanged or “warmed up” – thus fulfilling Hansen’s goal of creating a significant warming trend (where none is actually present), and of hiding the significant decline in real-world temperatures between 1940 and 1973.
2. On a practical basis (that is – how the original data records are changed by the “GISS corrections”) is also disputed. The programs changing the original data are NOT independently checked either, and the computer program(s) claimed to process the records is a gibberish of undocumented and unchecked hacks and spaghetti coding that cannot be traced. Versions of this (publicly funded and economically VITAL) code are only being discovered by whistleblowers and accidental leaks – again, FOIA requests are denied and programs hidden – even from Congress. (The RESULTS of the hidden coding are vigorously publicized and propagandized, but what the coding is is deliberately hidden from independent eyes.
3. Hansen’s GISS “corrections” to the original data are proven to rely on data that is generated from thermometer stations inside urban heat islands (which are 3 to 5 degrees C HIGHER than regional uncontaminated temperatures – rather significant when the entire AGW claims are only based on a trend of less than 1/2 of one degree C in 25 years).
4. Related to this this, over 80% those temperature stations outside the urban heat zones have been checked, and most those checked are shown to be locally contaminated and incorrectly sited with local interferences that consistently ADD to the recorded temperatures. That is, NO weather recording station has yet been found artificially lowering, or with interferences and local environments LOWERING the recorded temperature. Site errors are consistently creating false positive temperatures to feed the GISS “corrections”.
5. Exaggerating the failures of these GISS “corrections” is the (deliberate?) misuse of the UHI to artificially INCREASE regional warming by averaging “up” rural and well-sited records by merging them to artificially “high” urban and newly urbanized records. Hidden (deliberately) by so-called “studies” and “factors”supposedly related to assumed night light effects, population surveys, and satellite photo’s is the net actual result – the net effect is NOT to reduce or factor “down” the artificially high records to make them equal to the uncontaminated rural sites, but to INCREASE the rural sites by merging them to the regional record.
That is, I CANNOT make the actual data “more accurate” by these so-called “studies”: if I have 100 sites, 65 of them artificially raised by 2, 3, 4, or 5 degrees over a period of time, only 35 sites have accurate temperature records. If I factor “down” the false data by averaging it with the 35 good records, or by lowering the artificial data by factors of anything less than the full and exact value of the +2, +3, +4 and +5 degree differences, then I have done nothing but inflate the good data by INCREASINGLY artificial and arbitrary amounts of the false data.
Worse, by continuously changing the “good data” over time (by continuously re-processing the entire history of each site each GISS run) Hansen can arbitrarily and evasively change the past to create whatever new trend he wants. Without “peer-review” or checks or revealing his changes – which, as stated, are kept secret.
GISS (Hansen) refuses to remove the contaminated records from his GISS surface temperature record – (because to do so invalidates the past 30 years of his carreer: promoting AGW agenda.)
Hansen refuses to reduce the UHI contaminated records by the complete difference of the between UHI (arbitrarily assigned!!!) stations and accurate records (assumed to still be “rural” – but not audited by the GISS or any other (AGW-supporting) government or scientific agency. (Because they don’t want to know the actual degree of contamination is an obvious conclusion, and do not want their arbitrary assignments of weather stations widely known is another conclusion.)
Hansen refuses to plot the UNALTERED original data (the “good records”) separate from the UNALTERED UHI contaminated records – again, apparently because doing so refutes his claims that the 1973 -1998 temperature record is NOT global nor even country wide.
Looking at all the above, what makes any part of Hansen’s GISS a “scientific” or valid source of information about anything related to surface temperatures? And, because Hansen’s temperatures are the source for thousands of conclusions and comparisons of OTHER data, all of those other catastrophic conclusions and extrapolations in all those other so-called “scientific” documents are invalid. By that alone, he deserved criticism and seclusion, banning form from federal funding.
Instead, for Obama’s political purposes, NASA’s entire federal space and research budget is now targeted towards global warming and ecology. Not a bad payoff.