This really is a low, why would anyone mess with kids on something like this? There is madness about. Ecotretas looks at the Beeville, TX station data, and I’ve visited the site personally but deferred the survey to surfacestations volunteer Juan Slayton who surveyed it about the same time. What Ecotretas is observing is the change from USHCN1 to USHCN2 adjustment algoritms. – Anthony
Guest post by Ecotretas
Great interest has developed on the Internet relating to the story about Julisa Castillo’s “Disproving Global Warming” project. It admittedly had received a NSF prize, with Al Gore in the jury. It has now been confirmed as most probably a strange hoax.
While most of the Internet is judging why would Al Gore be in this jury, or if there is such a thing as “National Science Fair” associated with the National Science Foundation (note the same initials), which both set my BS detector very high on Sunday, I was quickly on the run to find out what temperatures were like in Beeville, TX. Checking out the paper’s claims was far more interesting than being skeptic about the news…
First thing to check was for USHCN data. Quick to find it out at the GISS website, and first graph above. Looking at it, I wondered what type of station was this. I went to the surfacestations.org site, and discovered it was a reasonably well located station. But then, the temperature graph, a little more than one year old, was slightly different, as can be seen in the above second graph.
Looks like there was some tweaking going on! But discovering anything more about Beeville seemed pretty difficult. Some interesting information about the station can be found at NOAA. But what really surprised me was the graph uploaded by “Tom in Texas”, referenced in the comments section in a Watts Up With That post. It shows that adjustment data for Beeville is greater than 2ºF for the last 110 years.
While other information might help in settling all these different graphs, it seems like the real news will be about how temperatures are being dealed with in Beeville…
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There is no joy in Beeville– GISS/NOAA has struck out.
“I’ve visited the site personally but deferred the survey to surfacestations volunteer Juan Slayton who surveyed it about the same time.”
Would that it were true! I spent the night at Beeville my way north, but I didn’t do that station. I think you want to credit Wisneski. : > )
I hate being a spell/grammar demon, especially when I’ve my own problems with it, but, it’s “dealt with” not “dealed with”.
REPLY: Cut him some slack, he’s not a US citizen, he’s writing in a second language. -A
See http://www.unur.com/climate/ghcn-v2/425/72251.html
We have Beeville 5ne (28.45, -97.70) (not at an airport) and Beeville/Chase Naas (28.37, -97.67) (at an airport).
Could it be that the airport data is being used to adjust the non-airport data?
Sorry, I should have added this to my previous post. See http://www.naschasefield.com/history.htm for the history of The History of NAS Chase Field, Beeville, TX:
Those pre 1950 adjustments need to be explained!
I got the real U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama using the 800 number, but it is after hours there. It would be interesting if they knew anything about this………as far as the changes, this just once again shows there is no one in this world that can with any degree of certainty state whether the earth is getting warmer or not. They’ve mucked with the temps so much, I doubt anyone can re-create a true temp reading for all of the stations they’ve jacked with.
This re-inventing the past data is a common issue in Europe too where dedicated researchers are supposed to look at the archive and redraw the truth…
Texas A&M – sanctum sanctorum of the blessed consensus. Home of Andrew Dessler.. Maybe someone could ask Dr. Andy what happened here. You know. For a giggle.
James Sexton says:
June 8, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I hate being a spell/grammar demon, especially when I’ve my own problems with it, but, it’s “dealt with” not “dealed with”.
REPLY: Cut him some slack, he’s not a US citizen, he’s writing in a second language. -A
REPLY to the REPLY…….I was cutting slack. It was my desire to be helpful that prompted my post. It is my wish for this site and Ecotretas to be able to engage in thoughtful exchange of ideals without being encumbered by word trolls. Yes, it was my own personal sacrifice to risk appearing as one, but it was for the greater good. YW!
Judy Curry said today at climate audit that we need a whole new surface temperature data set.
====================
TomRude says:
June 8, 2010 at 4:41 pm
“This re-inventing the past data is a common issue in Europe too where dedicated researchers are supposed to look at the archive and redraw the truth…”
Well, now that’s at least 3 continents we know of. As shown at this site, they’ve done it Down Under and here in North America. I haven’t seen one in Europe, but I’ll take your word for it. In the Arctic and South America, they just extrapolate. One thermometer per 1200 km! Wasn’t it Darwin that was actually cooler when they showed a significant warming trend? It was one of the Australian locations. New Zealand has their own “oops, got caught” events. I don’t think Africa ever got properly measured and neither has the Antarctic. I dunno, maybe Asia hasn’t been altered or improperly measured? But then, they mostly don’t care. China builds coal plants like its a race. India doesn’t believe Pachy and started their own climate science body. The middle east is otherwise preoccupied. Russian scientists seem to use climatologists as a source of humor. Have we heard anything from Japan since Kyoto? What’s left? It’s just us “developed” peoples that seem to twit about climate and create fictional history. Has anyone looked into why it seems to be just a few players (in terms of cultures) in the climate alarmism? It’s really giving me a complex.
REPLY: Cut him some slack, he’s not a US citizen, he’s writing in a second language. -A
Although the grammar/spelling nazis may seem to be having a go to you (and you seem very sensitive to it) in virtually all instances they are just trying to help people put a final “buff” onto the product they’re producing.
English is a bit of a pain with its irregular verbs, similar synonyms and abhorrent apostrophes but that’s what editors normally do for writers, and they are quite an important part of the publishing process.
REPLY: In a perfect world, I’d have time to do this. – Anthony
The “adjusted data minus raw data” chart shows roughly the same slightly positive 0.25 degree adjustment from 1968 onward. Even though it is a short period, what does the trend from 1968 to the present look like? It looks like an increasing trend.
kim says:
June 8, 2010 at 5:10 pm
“Judy Curry said today at climate audit that we need a whole new surface temperature data set.”
She was right. Our friend Judith seems adept at politics. It would literally take a lifetime(she’s probably angling to be that one to do it) to put all the pieces back together again. We should have 2 independent sets of data……if we could only find out what we did with the original data…….:-| Sadly, the dog ate the homework of one group, and the other doesn’t know how to read a thermometer without upwardly moving the reading. Perhaps it’s the angle from which they’re looking at it.
I would be interested to read Julisa’s project.I hate to see a young person put off by this dispicable act.
I have a similar experience. On the NASA/GISS site, the temp data for Albany, Texas (categorized “rural”) showed a monotonous cooling trend of about 1 degC over 100 years at least two years ago, but today it looks like this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425722660020&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
The “adjustment” consists essentially of a 1.5 to 2-degC suppression (!) of the temp for a century ago. How can this be rationalized??
I did a study for the Dallas area which I have lived in since 1975. If I had a kid in school it is simple enough to enter into a science fair.
The site of the DFW airport was a cow pasture in 1975 and around that time an international airport and a city of around 30,000 people was built. Jet exhaust and thousands of square feet of runway and a small city have to add temperature. Contrary to what you might expect, going from a cow pasture to a small city causes more warming than going from a big city to a bigger one.
Here is the unadjusted data from NASA
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425722590000&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
Note the run up of about 2.5 ° C between 1970 and 2009.
Here is the adjusted data: Note there is no noticeable change.
[The UHI effect was not corrected for.]
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425722590000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Here is an unadjusted plot from Hensley field which is 20 Km away.
Note that there is no upswing after 1970. It was in a slightly more urban area both before and after 1970 and not much changed. [Too bad they stopped taking data in 1996.]
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425722590000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
The meaning of these graphs is that there is a substantial UHI effect in the DFW temperature record which hasn’t been adjusted out.
Does that mean that all UHI everywhere hasn’t been adjusted out ?
No but it makes me suspicious.
To do your own area go to:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Select adjusted or unadjusted
Click on your location on the map.
Please share what you find with us.
kim (5:10pm):
Ask Judith Curry if she’s willing to wait, say, 100 years for that “new” data set to be obtained? What we really need is for AGWers to stop “adjusting”–MESSING WITH–the existing station data that covers the 20th century and stop pretending that most stations have remained in unchanged environments throughout that time. It’s the arbitrary adjustments and the indiscriminate use of UHI-corrupted records that constitute the real hoax of the climate story. It surpasses the Beeville girl’s phony “prize” by many orders of magnitude in its significance.
NOAA GHCN database:
Beeville Chase/NAAS and Beevilee 5NE unadjusted
Beeville 5NE Unadjusted and Adjusted
sky @ur momisugly 6:06
I agree, but read Judy’s entry now at the tail end of the lost glacier data thread. She says no original data has been lost and that two separate efforts are underway to recreate HadCru. So, we needn’t wait a century for better data.
=================
(1) The USA has maintained many missile silos for many years. Each is equipped with temperature recording devices. Plausibly, they have not had site changes.
It would be scientific to compare the USA military record with the other USA compendiums. Why are the military scientists keeping such a low profile?
(2) Some international airline pilots report that temperatures measured by their instruments when the aircraft are on the ground, differ from the national met service advice. Given that so many high class stations are now at airports, this discrepancy needs examination. One pilot has reported verbally “Australia is consistently far worse than Zambia”.
Besides, the difference can be a safety factor for aviation. It was was not, there would be no need to measure it.
Consider that her parents claim to have entered her project in this `national science fair’ and sent it on to the `NSF’ after it didn’t do well in the local contest. So just how is a hoaxer supposed to have induced her parents to do that? How would a hoaxer contact them and supply them with false information about this `National Science Fair’. And why! Why go to all the bother – a letter – a plaque – a cup! It is baroque to imagine that some third party did this for political reasons to make a point (what point?) in the climate debate.
There is a much more likely explanation, and that is that one of the parents did it. Motive? Perhaps they just wanted to make their daughter feel special after her project didn’t do well at the local science fair. Or perhaps one of the parents has strong opinions about climate themselves and helped the child with the project. Perhaps that parent then thought the project hadn’t been fairly evaluated.
I can see why one of the parents or perhaps a close relative might have chosen to do this. Darned if I can see why anyone else would or even could. It would require the resources of something like a spy agency to set this up and deceive the family in this way.
Unfortunately because of the charged nature of the climate debate this sad little fiasco now finds itself the focus of international media scrutiny. Poor girl. She doesn’t deserve that. She is the one person in all this whose innocence, in my opinion, is beyond doubt.
Kim said:
Can you link to that Kim? Thanks
Alan Cheetham says:
June 8, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Similar patterns exist at other locations worldwide. Something fundamental seems to have happened about 1950. Do you have a favoured explanation for it? I tend to relate it to the end of WWII with the increased number of airfields and the growth of aviation in general, affecting the number of airport weather stations quite dramatically, plus scrutiny of their past practices (like type of screen, daily observation time of day). Plus transition of control from military to civvy personnel. This is but a guess.