By Steve Goddard
People see what they want or expect to see. A great example is in today’s NASA Earth Observatory image of the day article.
A heat wave scorched the eastern United States in early July 2010, straining power grids, slowing transit, forcing nursing homes to evacuate, and prompting East Coast residents to shelter in “cooling centers,” according to news reports. Temperatures topped 105 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) in Baltimore for two consecutive days. The heat wave was a global phenomenon. Beijing also experienced near-record heat, and temperatures soared to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) in Kuwait. This global map shows temperature anomalies for July 4–11, 2010, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2000 to 2008. The anomalies are based on land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Areas with above-average temperatures appear in red and orange, and areas with below-average temperatures appear in shades of blue. Oceans, lakes, and areas with insufficient data (usually because of persistent clouds) appear in gray.
The author missed mentioning the fact that almost all of Mexico and Australia were far below normal. The author missed the fact that much of north and equatorial Africa was below normal, as was much of Asia and eastern Europe.
To quantify this, I did a pixel count on their high resolution image.
It turns out that 5% more pixels were below normal than were above normal. The animation below makes this easier to visualize. Red is above average temperatures, blue is below average temperatures, and white represents average temperatures.
Below are close up animations
This is not a perfect equal area projection – so the pixel count method is not 100% accurate. However, it is clear that NASA claims of a global heat wave are incorrect. Some places were hot, other places (like where I live) were cold.
The author noted that it is hot in Kuwait in July? What are the chances of that?
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You have twelve months in a year; each one could be the hottest, coldest, wettest or driest for 100 years. That is 48 opportunities for a record breaking month. Then if you add that option to each area, let us say worst flooding in Cumbria or driest conditions in the SE you very quickly come up with hundreds of options for records to be broken. And you can multiply everything by countries, warmest summer in Canada or whatever, and you probably get thousands of opportunities for records to be broken. On top of that you have different methods of measuring temperature and inaccurate records from the past; it all gets very obvious that at least one 100 year record will be broken every month.
I would be comfortable to rely on satellite measurements of groups of glaciers from different regions of the world over a ten year period. The Himalaya glaciers are both growing and retracting? How about in other areas, is this a general picture of what is happening in many of parts of the world? We need to be given a more rounded picture instead of the constant stories of freak storms and droughts.
Here in west Wales we had a hard winter, late spring, warm early summer which has turned wet and cold; nothing for the journalists to get alarmed about, not a news story, nobody is taking any notice of what is happening here in West Wales.
It should be mentioned that the reference period is a warm one, 2000-2008, because modis started in 2000. So compared to 1961-1990 there would be more + than -. Those MODIS-images are hardly comparable with real land temperatures.
March, April, May and June were all the warmest since 1880 in the NCDC time series (land + ocean). Global land average temperature set a clear record in June and and ist still very high these days:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=6&submitted=Get+Report
Nevertheless you are right, there are always many areas with very cold conditions.
“Why is NASA making misleading temperature statements? A hidden agenda?”
http://www.newswatchcanada.ca/
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/014447.html
Almost a third of Argentina was covered in snow yesterday, for the first time in decades. It would be good to find satellite imagery of that.
Brad aka says:
From your 3rd reference regarding rebuttals at Skeptical Science, an “interested” commenter says:
“NickD at 01:35 AM on 17 July, 2010
If I can play a bit of Devil’s Advocate here, and speaking purely as a layperson who has a very basic understanding of most of your posts, I am left with the impression that melting glaciers and ice sheets (specifically Antarctica and Greenland) are not necessarily evidence of global warming, as much of the melt is due to factors generally unrelated to temperatures. Is this accurate?
I’m trying to understand for myself, but also I am trying to put myself into the shoes of some who might read these posts and be left with the same impression and would subsequently cite your posts to argue that there’s nothing we can do about Greenland and Antarctica melting. You get the idea…”
Yes we certainly do and we have been getting it for some time now, thank you very much.
@Robert Austin
re; specious vs. spacious
You beat me to it! Don’t feel bad. It made me cringe too.
And this is the best they can do after dumping all properly cited thermometers, moving/keeping only a few in urban areas, airports, and the coast, and then “adjusting” the historical data?!? Yes, spacious reasoning, indeed.
Not getting as much coverage was the July 4 skiing in California.
REPLY: I ran a story on it here at WUWT, search for it -Anthony
Steve,
I want to see the code! How can I trust your pixel count otherwise?
Okay, just kidding.
Thanks for the reply.
If you, or anyone, knows of some good — open source would be nice — pixel counting software, I’d be interested in knowing about it. I know some image editing programs can do a histogram of the color palette in an image, but that is not quite the same thing as counting pixels (the ones I’ve seen just do percentages).
Basil
How sad that the agency responsible for putting a man on the moon is reduced to a political pawn producing activist material for the greatest socialist experiment since the Russian Revolution.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44664
is like an artists impression, don`t take it too seriously !
Check the minimum and maximum anaomalies in Australia for the last two weeks to get a better idea of what is occurring there: http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=history%2Fnat%2F2010063020100706&step=1&map=minanom&period=week&area=nat
Mexico: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/wctan9.gif
S.A.: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/wctan11.gif
The truly ‘Wet’ side of the world also interesting –
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
when the sea boils the steam rises.
The map has 5% more cooler than warmer base on a period(2001-2008) that is 0.5C warmer than average. The map shows anomalies going from -12C to 12C, so 0.5C is about 5% of this range. In conclusion, we could say the map shows the average anomaly is average in comparison to the regional variations. Nothing to be alarmed.
pgosselin says:
July 17, 2010 at 12:30 am
Great job – it went a long way in answering the my question I posted on this.
Are they using the extrapolation method to compute the polar temps?
I find it weird that they keep showing a hot Arctic, when in fact (above 80°N) the DMI keeps showing normal, or even slightly below normal temps.
Eduardo Ferreyra says:
July 16, 2010 at 9:21 pm
The data for South America is false. In Argentina we are having record cold temperatures. This July is a repetition of the 2007 July when it snowed in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918. It snowed again yesterday. It even snowed in the province of Santiago del Estero where it has never snowed!
Today was the coldest day in 10 years in the entire country, in all places. It keeps snowing in Tucumán, Salta and Jujuy, northern provinces close to the boder with Bolivia, north of the Tropic of Capricorn. And not only in the mountains but at low altitudes (300-500 m asl).
A temperature graph for my nearest city Alta Gracia updated to July 15th:
AltaGracia-15-JUL-2010
Any newspaper in Argentina is speaking about this unusual cold weather and the terrible energy crisis it has imposed on the country.
LightRain says:
July 16, 2010 at 7:02 pm
S. Africa is shown as above normal, yet during the World Cup most of the world (outside of NASA) saw and heard how unseasonably cold it was. What’s Up With That?
I’d love to hear more on these topics. Re: S. Africa, I even heard that part of the bay down there had begun to freeze over during the world cup.
_MichaelM
SG wrote: “It turns out that 5% more pixels were below normal than were above normal.”
This is not a meaningful statement useless you know what “normal” means. In the graphic used the baseline was 2000-2008. If instead one used 1960-1990, there would be fewer blue dots and more red dots. If one used 1880-1920 there would be even fewer blue dots. Now the scale on the first graphic is -12 to +12. So, a baseline shift of 1 to 1/2 degree would not make a huge different, but it likely would give more reds dots than blue. Also, the shift is not uniform since some areas have warmed more than others.
This graphic compares 1999-2008 temps with 1940-1980 temps. How much blue do you see?
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Map_jpg
You can pick away at trivialities, but the fact is the earth is warming and this is largely do to us. It is not the end o the world, but it is a serious issue that we ought to be addressing.
A decade from now many of us will look back with incredulity and marvel at how so many people could be so taken in by what is clearly the greatest scientific fraud in history.
The government mouthpieces generating the global warming hysteria are torturing the data to support pre-ordained “scientific conclusions.” The fact that the AGW hypothesis has been thorough discredited is simply ignored.
Within the next few years or so, as the earth enters its next period of long-term cooling, any residual claims about impending global warming doom will be greeted with sneers and contempt.
Mike
No doubt the warm period 15,000 years ago was also “do to us” – as you so eloquently stated.
Mike,
The issue Mr. Goddard was addressing was not about global warming as much as it was about a misinformed author. The problem addressed was whether or not the eastern US heatwave was indeed “a global phenomenon,” as noted by the author. Mr Goddard was proving that that statement was incorrect. I agree that in the big scheme of climate change, an issue like a heat wave is trivial, however, a misinformed public is not.
The thing that jumped out at me first was the cooler temps in Mexico and Texas, mainly that it is SIGNIFICANTLY cooler than normal according to the graphic. Well, during the time period, July 4-11 that area was seeing what was left of Alex move out and another tropical system move in. With all of the showers that were moving through the area because of the very tropical environment, of course it was significantly cooler there.
What I would be interested to see would be 2 weeks before and the week after analysis to see if that trend continued. My guess is 2 weeks before it was hotter, 1 week before it was cooler (Alex), and the week after it was hotter. Removing such a significant area of cooler would skew the over-all trend back to warmer than normal.
Did we forget to remind them that summer is coming? It’s like “50 First Dates” with these people.
“OK, it’s going to get hot now, for about three months. But it’s OK, it does that every year at this time, so there’s no need to panic.”
@joel Hoffman says:
July 17, 2010 at 10:53 am
Mike,
The issue Mr. Goddard was addressing was not about global warming as much as it was about a misinformed author. The problem addressed was whether or not the eastern US heatwave was indeed “a global phenomenon,” as noted by the author. Mr Goddard was proving that that statement was incorrect.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
There was clearly a global drop in temperature in the second week of July, simultaneously in S.America, S.Africa, Australia and New Zealand, there where very low temp`s, much like the middle of July 2009, and the N.Hemisphere the drop has as expected brought heavy rains in many regions. A week before, most regions were displaying +ve anomalies. Temperatures are now on the rise again in most regions.
The N.E. USA temp`s is more of a ciculation and high sea temp`s issue;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/us_weekly_tanom.shtml
My solar based temperature forecast this month was for a warming spurt from around the 2/3rd July, and a drop in the second week, followed by a warming spurt starting aroung the 15th July.
Steve,
While you’re busy counting pixels on inaccurate maps, I prefer to look at the real data on maps like this:
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Atm_Temp/Persistence.html
Note: this map of the persistence in the temperature anomaly shows the cold over California and up into the Pacific NW which your map completely misses for some reason. We know that California and the Pacific NW have had a cool late spring and summer, so which map should we trust? Yours, which fails to show it, or the one I posted? And the map I’ve given the link to quite clearly shows the global warmth over the past few months.
REPLY: Thanks for recognizing that the NASA map is inaccurate – Anthony
No problem…always glad to call things as they are. Here’s another NASA map that tells a more accurate story though:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=6&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=06&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1990&radius=1200&pol=reg
Once more, note the accurately portrayed cooler temps in California and the Pacific NW….oddly missing from Steve pixel counting map…
R. Gates, if there are three maps, all from NASA, how do we know which one is “more accurate?” Who’s to say that all three aren’t innacurate?
(Note: Honest questions. I’m not trying to jerk you around.)
Very easy explanation. Steve’s map is from a short term period of a few days in early July. The two maps I gave links to (which are pretty consistent with each other) is from a longer time period (up to 3 months) and shows persistence over that time period (meaning more than just a short term fluxuations, that does not include July.
Steve is essentially looking at short term weather, as his map covers only a week, versus something longer, and more than that, for him to relate anything at all to CO2 by looking at WEEKLY global temperature map is rediculous. CO2 has grown by 40% over the past three hundred years or so. To look at a weekly temperature chart as any indication of anything related to longer term climate change is akin to talking about a snowstorm in Florida as proof of anything related to climate. But I’ve accused Steve of cherry picking before, and IMO, this is just one more example.