By Steve Goddard
As Bob Tisdale pointed out, Tom Karl’s NCDC trend claims don’t match his graph. The trend line is less than either of the claimed V2 or V3 trends in the graph below.
But beyond this blatant error, there are other problems with his graph. Why did it start in 1900? NCDC has data going back to 1880. As you can see below, temperatures dropped from 1880 for about 30 years, which reduces the long term slope considerably.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/global-jan-dec-error-bar-pg.gif
Now let’s compare his graph vs. Had-Crut, which goes back to 1850. Had-Crut is shown in green, and NCDC V3 is shown in red, at the same scale. Note that there is a huge divergence over the last ten years vs. Had-Crut. The Had-Crut long term trend is 0.45C/century, about half of what Tom Karl is claiming.
It appears that someone is hiding the decline at both ends of the graph.
UPDATE from Steve Goddard:
When I wrote the article I did not recognize that the “global” data presented to the Senate in slide 21 was land only. Thanks to Bob Tisdale for pointing it out. The land only data has diverged from global data over the last decade and explains the discrepancy at the right side of the graph. It does not explain why the slide is marked as “global” or why the land only data set was presented to Congress as “unequivocal” evidence of “global” warming. My apologies to Tom Karl for not recognizing which data set he was presenting to Congress in that particular slide.
Nigel Leck says:
May 20, 2010 at 6:45 pm
A doubling of the CO2 levels by itself is predicted to produce 1.1c increase in temperatures BUT it’s the feedbacks both positive and negative that the debate is over. One of these feedback is as ice caps melt the dark oceans will adsorb more heat.
—…—…
No. We have observational evidence that this so-called “melted icecap” spiral is false.
September 2006 was observed with an average AMSRE low point for the past 10 years.
September 2007 – with near identical temperatures (NO global warming NOR cooling occurred between the two dates! – was extremely low (to the delight of the AGW extremists – and completely UNPREDICTED by any AGW models for that year at those temperatures.
September 2008 saw a 30 % increase from that low point – at the same temperatures and a slightly higher CO2 level. NO FEEDBACK loop nor “Freezing death ice age spiral” occurred.
September 2009 saw even higher sea ice extents, again with the same global temperatures. Again – NO sea ice feedback (positive or negative) on temperature has been observed in the real world – away from Al Gore’s movie and ten thousand (false) so-called experiments (propaganda demonstrations) at schools across the nation..
It is a figment of the AGW community’s (vivid) imaginations.
OK, thanks, Mike.
Steve Goddard,
GHCN is a land-only series. Showing land/ocean trends with GHCNv2 and GHCNv3 would be rather pointless if one was trying to highlight the effects of the change from v2 to v3, since they would be drowned in the ocean data.
Still no rebuttal to the fact that 1880-1900 NCDC land data is quite chilly and doesn’t depress the trend? Also, comparing 1850-2009 trends to 1900-2009 (or 1880-2009) trends is slightly disingenuous…
Zeke Hausfather,
It is you who are being disingenuous, accepting payola from the far-left Grantham Foundation. Don’t try to deny it, we’ve been over this before.
You are bought and paid for. Go away.
Zeke Hausfather
Land makes up 30% of the planet, and a much smaller percent of the southern hemisphere. Calling land trends “global” is simply dishonest.
http://i48.tinypic.com/4j4c60.png
Hansen says that global warming is about the temperature of the oceans, and we all know that land temperatures are tainted by UHI effects. Try being honest with yourself. It feels good.
stevengoddard,
Its a mistake that others have made (e.g. http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/thermal-hammer-part-deux/ ), but I agree that global land temperatures or just land temperatures would be preferable. I tend to use the former (for example, in http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Picture-381.png ).
As for me, I always try and be honest with myself; I show my work, justify my reasoning, and call a spade a spade. Arguing that your original post doesn’t make sense given that GHCN is a land-only series is meant to be constructive criticism, and I apologize if it came off as somewhat antagonistic.
In yesterday’s critique of this bogus presentation I suggested that it reminded me of just using the DOW (stock market) from about 2002 to 2008.
After reading this one an even better analogy comes to mind: a graph of U.S. house prices during that same period. Its more relevant because the powers that be, including all the ‘experts,’ kept telling everybody that housing prices could only keep going up – just as this gang is trying to project its straight line up into the future.
There were a few sceptics about those housing prices, of course, but they were ignored and ridiculed until reality started to set in. Sound familiar?
Problem is, the Wall Streeters fooled Congress completely, or they chose to be fooled, because too many of those noble politicians were in bed with them or had vested interests in that sham. I sure hope that is not the case with this but I’m really starting to wonder, especially given what Obama has turned out to be.
stevengoddard: With the “both ends” the latest readings from both the skeptic crowd and NASA are as high or nearly as high as they have ever been so shorting the range only serves to give you a lower trend, which you would accept. So I think we are only talking about the start point correct ?
Now when do you think we started burning the majority of the fossil fuels ? before or after the second world war ? If you wanted to show the highest slope you would start at 1970.
Tell me how many cars where driving around in 1880 ? how many in 1680 ? if we had the numbers back to 1680 would it be appropriate to draw line of best fit from 1680 to 2010 ? do you think that may obscure the issue a bit ? please be honest.
[REPLY – After WWII. So far as we know, temps have been rising c. 1C per century since the nadir of the Little Ice Age. The Medieval Warm Period is now believed to have been worldwide and as warm or warmer than today. ~ Evan]
RACookPE1978: Ice caps melting ? see http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
Have you heard the expression “a dead cat bounces if drop from a high enough point” ? So to ice caps but hardly a recovery.
Smokey: Are you seriously saying that we haven’t measured an increase in CO2 concentrations ? That is the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in 1810 ~= 2010 ? If so I’d love to put some money on that one
Evan: ( I assume you’re the moderator, wish you wouldn’t edit my replies) I think the current “best science” says on average the MWP was cooler than current temperatures BUT and this is the kicker, if it turns out to be warmer then that means the feed back effects are higher than we think they are and therefore we need to adjust the models UP.
This also leads me to another point Ian Plimer and Christopher Monckton on the same stage arguing against climate change but from opposite points of view. One saying it has always changed and will continue to do so, the other saying climate sensitively is low they both can’t be right.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm
Mike G,
Hockey stick has been validate by multiple peer reviewed papers from many angles
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs/Wahl_ClimChange2007.pdf
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/research/ONLINE-PREPRINTS/Millennium/mbh99.pdf
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/Resources/Seminar/readings/Huang_boreholeTemp_Nature%2700.pdf
Zeke Hausfather says:
May 20, 2010 at 8:23 pm
“Also, comparing 1850-2009 trends to 1900-2009 (or 1880-2009) trends is slightly disingenuous…”
Hmmm, If S.G. is being disingenuous maybe you can get an answer for Steven mosher @ur momisugly May 20, 2010 at 7:44 pm regarding the disappearing of presentations that have previously been public. Once again, I smell fish and it’s a nasty smell!
I analysed the data myself and use a 25 year period for the linear fit to compute slope, interesting result.
http://weathernotclimate.wordpress.com/
SteveGoddard: You replied, “From looking at the copies of his slides on WUWT there is not much indication that they are land only, but after graphing the NCDC data from the web site I think you are correct.”
The slide (Slide 21) you’re referring to that I used in my post was GHCN data. You cropped the title block off of it:
http://i48.tinypic.com/4j4c60.png
GHCN is land only. The title of Tom Karl’s Slide 16 reads “GHCN – Monthly Land Surface Stations”.
http://i46.tinypic.com/2mow50k.png
You asked, “Why would he be using land-only data????”
Because he was presenting the new GHCN dataset. He later discusses SST data in Slides 25 to 28.
You wrote, “Hansen tells us that global warming is about the oceans.”
Do you have a link?
It is one of the positive consequences of climategate, that some of the enablers and people in the background had to give up some of their low profile, because others are discredited.
Steve Goddard: In one of your replies to Zeke, you wrote, “Land makes up 30% of the planet, and a much smaller percent of the southern hemisphere. Calling land trends ‘global’ is simply dishonest.”
http://i48.tinypic.com/4j4c60.png
Huh? How else would you describe “Global Land Surface Temperature Anomaly” data?
The slide you linked clearly states GHCN. GHCN data is land-only data. Your overlaid comparison was obviously a comparison of land-only versus land-plus-ocean data, which was why I asked the question at the top of the thread. For example, I presented this comparison of CRUTEM and HADCRUT for blogger geo above:
http://i50.tinypic.com/rscs45.png
Now if I delete the first 50 years of CRUTEM data, the graph replicates your overlay illustration:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2zpnjif.png
Nigel Leck,
Why are you arguing with everyone? It reminds me of the story about the young child who was watching a parade that his father was in. He asked his mother, “Mommy, why is everyone out of step but daddy?”
Mann’s original Hokey Stick chart has been thoroughly debunked. It is a fraudulent chart that pretended that there was no MWP or LIA.
As a direct result of McKitrick and McIntyre’s debunking, the UN/IPCC can no longer use Mann’s chart in their publications. Instead, they use pale imitations, all of which lack the visual impact of Mann’ original [and fraudulent] hokey stick chart.
Make no mistake: the UN’s 100% political appointees in the IPCC absolutely loved Michael Mann’s scary chart. They published it repeatedly in their Assessment Reports, before M&M debunked it. Mann’s chart was much better than any of the current hokey stick chart imitations. The UN would never have dropped Mann’s chart, if they had not been forced to.
But if you want to believe that Mann’s chart is accurate, then by all means, carry on. Cognitive dissonance is almost always incurable using facts, and there is no payoff in trying to correct your alarmist belief system. Everyone else knows that the UN/IPCC would never have deleted reference to Mann’s Hokey Stick chart, if they had not been forced to dump it.
Smokey,
Where are the peer reviewed research saying the hockey stick is invalid ? I just listed four recent ones supporting it.
Something has bugged me since the Wednesday’s WUWT article. Given that Karl messed up by showing his trend line starting in 1900, what happens to the trend line slope if it starts in 1909? Does the trend, using his data, go higher?
— John M Reynolds
Bob,
I am not sure what you are looking at, but your image of Karl’s slide does not make any reference to land. It creates the unequivocal impression that it is discussing “global temperatures.”
http://i48.tinypic.com/4j4c60.png
The fact that you (Bob Tisdale) know that GHCN temperatures are land only doesn’t help out the policy makers which the slide is intended for. The slide uses the word “global” twice, including the punch line “Confirms that global warming is robust.”
No, what it confirms is that “UHI is robust” over the last decade.
Bob,
Remember that the slide was presented to the US Senate. It is either gross oversight or intentional deception that he is presenting land only temperatures to the US Senate – which show warming over the last decade.
Nigel Leck:
“Where are the peer reviewed research saying the hockey stick is invalid ? I just listed four recent ones supporting it.”
Either your reading comprehension fails or you are mendaciously trying to re-frame what I clearly stated. Look at the link in my post above. That is the hokey stick chart that the science-challenged UN/IPCC political appointees have repeatedly published, and which they can no longer use because it has been debunked by McIntyre & McKittrick.
So now they try to back and fill by using visually inferior charts — many of which are just as fraudulent, eliminating the MWP and the LIA.
You want a peer reviewed paper showing how corrupt government climate science is? Here.
I’ve been patient with you since you recently appeared, hoping you were here to learn something. Now it looks like you are just another troll from an alarmist blog, coming here to clutter up the internet’s “Best Science” site. If I’m wrong and you’re here to learn, fine. Otherwise, go away.
“Oh that’s a simple one… why start at 1900 ? well tell me what would happen to the line of best fit if I started 10,000 years ago ? it would be flat or so close to it that it wouldn’t matter.”
Actually that would result in a “steep” decline of temperatures. Global temps were higher than current times throughout most of holocene period.
Pete H says:
I think you go too far to suggest a fishy smell. There are many reasons why they could take it down.
For example people pounding that server from WUWT. I enjoy browsing through the ftp site turning over rocks just like going to a goodwill or army surplus or thrift store.. anyways, dont always assume the worst motives