By Steve Goddard
From reading the press and some blogs, one would think that the hot week in early July on the middle Atlantic seaboard was a rare or unprecedented event. Some believe that the weather used to be perfect before the invention of the soccer mom.
One of my favorite stories growing up was told by my New York relatives. The reason why movie matinées became very popular during the 1930s was because movie theatres were the only place that was air conditioned. People would go to the theatre just to get out of the oppressive heat. I tend to trust historical accounts from reliable sources, but for those who want data – keep reading.
Prior to being corrupted adjusted in the year 2000, this is what the GISS US temperature graph looked like.
The 1930s was by far the hottest decade. After being “adjusted” in the year 2000, it magically changed shape. The 1990s became much warmer. 1998 added almost half a degree – ex post facto.
The video below shows (in reverse) how the graph was rotated in the year 2000. Older temperatures became colder, and newer temperatures became warmer.
Rewriting history is not a good approach to science. It was very hot during the 1930s, as anyone who lived through it can tell you. Someday Hollywood will make a blockbuster movie about the global warming hysteria of the early 21st century.
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davidklein40 says:
On the same theme. Show us the proof that millions of kj are in the oceans. The argos bouys don’t appear to be showing it, do they?
It was very hot during the 1930s, as anyone who lived through it can tell you.
Yes, I have met a few of those, and they do say it’s never been that bad since.
Heat, bugs, dust and horrid economic times.
The latter condition is a work in progress, though.
Mike,
Most of us have repeatedly seen charts of all time highs in North America. And they don’t resemble the story GISS is peddling. Still trust Mr. Hansen?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DrKeen2.jpg
davidklein40 says:
July 23, 2010 at 6:55 am
Graphs may be adjusted for sound reasons, do you have proof that it was not? Making assumptions is skating on thin ice.
They may be adjusted for political and environmental activists reasons too.
James Hansen is not open to other people looking at his work. That is where your focus should be, not on those who are looking at his work at wanting answers.
Heat waves in the 30’s, the”Dust Bowl” years:
Further to the first comment in this thread by James Brisland, it is a very safe bet that, in England, 2010 will NOT be the warmest year ever.
In fact, 2010 is on course to be the COLDEST year in England since at least 1998.
The warmest calendar year since end-1997 is 2002 when the average monthly temperature was 10.51°C.
Last year the average was only 9.88°C.
This year January and February were both very cold months with the result that the sum of monthly temperatures up to the end of June is only 43.9°. For the same period in 2009, the sum was 49.3.
The coldest calendar year in the series since 1997 is currently 2008 at 9.78°C.
For 2010 merely to equal 2008, the sum of the remaining 6 months of the year must exceed 73.5. Such a total has been achieved only once since 1997, in 2006 when both September and October were exceptionally warm.
Typically the total for the second half of the year is around 70, although it has been a few degrees less than this for the last three years. Tantalisingly, if the second half of 2010 were to produce a figure of 70, the monthly average would be 9.49°C, which is the average for 1961-1990, a period that has been the reference point for the Met Office.
I accept of course that England is only a small place and its contribution to global temperature is easily offset by above-average temperatures elsewhere.
Still you might have thought that the Telegraph would at least have mentioned something about England when referring to 2010 as the warmest year ever.
davidklein40
Both graphs have the original NASA links embedded in the article. The video uses the same graphs.
@ur momisugly davidklein40:
Because it is correct? Do you have proof that it isn’t?
Because God told me it isn’t. Do you have proof that he didn’t?
I am fully aware of the rationalizations behind the “adjustments.” I just don’t find them credible. You don’t mess with data like that.
Mike,
I believe the justification (in brief form) was that there is (in the raw data) a growing divergence in the anomaly data between rural and urban sites — with urban sites reporting warmer anomalies.. Homogenization algorithms were developed to adjust the temperature record such that the anomalies were eliminated. Given the consensus climate science position that there is no significant Urban Heat Island affect, the only choice for the algorithm was one that effectively lowers past rural temperatures in order to remove the divergence.
That’s what my old grad adviser called “jumping from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion with no intervening steps.”
So Mike, are you comfortable with that adjustment?
kwik says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:22 am
If I needed money to investigate some dubious issue, Hansen would be the man to contact, no doubt. Like e.g. the bacteria flora around the rectum of the Polar Mice.
But would I buy an “Old, Used Climate Model” from him? No, I dont think so.
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Ad hominem.
davidklein40: July 23, 2010 at 7:12 am
You use the word altering (with sinister connotation) while adjusting is the proper word.
An alteration is an adjustment and an adjustment is an alteration.
Have you any data to prove that data was ‘altered’ to create a false result? Are you aware that this is about US temperatures and not global.
The world was not created thirty years ago. The unadjusted data is from the US National Weather Service archives, and — obviously — addresses US temperatures. If you want global temps, good luck with that — you won’t find measurements that even pretend to be accurate within 2°C for the Southern Hemisphere (except for HadCRUT, and they’re obviously fooling themselves with their one station per 5°x5° grids) until after 1979.
@ur momisugly davidklein40 (again):
Yes, you should worry. Excess energy is stored in the oceans and they will remind us for hundreds of years to come.
Oh, I see how this works! I can’t prove there isn’t excess heat stored in the oceans, so it must be there! Of course, nobody can prove it didn’t radiate away to space either, but that is just splitting hairs…
The works of Briffa, Mann and Hansen fall more and more into the realm of cryptohistory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptohistory#Goodrick-Clarke.27s_description_of_cryptohistory
The works of Rahmstorf, Trenberth and Hansen with respect to modeling are better described as fringe science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_physics
Here’s the working principle: fringe science variant of backradiation explained.
http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/19541.html
So we can say that Hansen is not only a leading cryptohistorian but also a leading fringe scientist.
stevengoddard says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:02 am
davidklein40
What am I doing? I am spotting questionable and unreliable science.
Most companies go to great lengths to get their bugs out before releasing a product. In climate science, they have nothing but a sloppy and incestuous “peer review” process. Can you imagine if a corporate accountant made an after-the-fact adjustment like that? He would end up in court.
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If you consider anything questionable and/or unreliable, give me the justification.
Your generalised statement about climate science is hysterical and not justified and the analogy irrelevant. An accountant may well make a justified adjustment, be it before or after the fact.
bruce says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:22 am
As you said, weather notes; weather will still continue under global warming.
Dave F says:
July 23, 2010 at 8:00 am (Edit)
@ur momisugly davidklein40 (again):
Yes, you should worry. Excess energy is stored in the oceans and they will remind us for hundreds of years to come.
Oh, I see how this works! I can’t prove there isn’t excess heat stored in the oceans, so it must be there! Of course, nobody can prove it didn’t radiate away to space either, but that is just splitting hairs…
Actually, there is some excess heat-energy in the oceans, as the rise in steric sea level shows, but it was put there by the sun, not co2, and we’ll be thankful for it as solar activity takes a dive for a couple of cycles.
Mike and davidklein40,
When it comes to financial audits, the “adjustments” you are talking about result in people going to prison.
Come on! Are you going to pretend with a straight face that you don’t know something that a child can see from the first sight: the real data have been manipulated to show much more warming than really exist (if any), to scare politicians and the general public into giving up more and more money.
La
patrieplanete est a danger!What could be more pathetic than your way of making a living?
stevengoddard says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:51 am
davidklein40
Both graphs have the original NASA links embedded in the article. The video uses the same graphs.
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Who combined and rotated the graph?
davidklein40 says:
July 23, 2010 at 6:55 am
“Graphs may be adjusted for sound reasons, do you have proof that it was not? Making assumptions is skating on thin ice.”
Ah the burden of proof – prove it, prove it! Yet these same alarmists cannot “prove” that CO2 has caused most of the twentieth century warming, and when pressed simply appeal to precautionary principles and the like. The solution to the question of data adjustments is simple – release all raw data, methods and computer code and then all will be revealed. Would you support such scrutiny or should we do nothing and accept bland assurances?
Steve:
Adjustments are made to homogenize individual station records for changes in station siting, population changes, and discontinuities. For other global temperature data sets it’s been shown that the distribution of the adjustments is nicely centred around zero. I.e. raw and adjusted datasets have essentially the same mean temperature trend: up.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/are-the-cru-data-suspect-an-objective-assessment/#more-2351
http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/
http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/#comment-383
It would be interesting to see what the net effect of adjustments are in GISTEMP, but visually comparing data on graphs with different x and y axes is not the way to do it.
Dave F says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:52 am
@ur momisugly davidklein40:
Because it is correct? Do you have proof that it isn’t?
Because God told me it isn’t. Do you have proof that he didn’t?
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A stupid comment, belief is not science, just give me proof.
Is it possible to obtain NASA’s original data sets and also precise descriptions of their adjustment methods, including copies of their adjustment algorithms, so as to enable the construction of a fully traceable, fully auditable process pathway from the pre-2000 graphic to the equivalent 2010 graphic?
Nightlights not population? On the face of it the adjustments should be the other way around, lowering latter temps to account for UHI, population growth, reduced use of rural data, dramatic increase in the size and use of airports since the 70’s, not to mention the deplorable state of sites all over our country. It doesn’t make sense to people like me, I may not be as educated as mike but aren’t these the questions that should be asked and answered (accounted for first). It’s why I have a difficult time with AGWs and the things they care and write about, the king is naked as a jay bird but they seem not to notice. If the world is warming dramatically and we are headed for trouble, I want to know it so that we could do something about it. Don’t ask me to turn my world upside down on the basis of tortured logic, obfuscation and computer fantasies about the future.
I do believe that before trillions of dollars etc. are spent on causing total economic chaos because of reducing fossil fuel use and the resulting huge reduction in the standard of living in those countries that adopt these unworkable stategies and consequently all of the third-developing world countries we need to sort out these issues.
A few tens of millions and a rigorous,frank and open rework of the records and the science is what is required and in my opinion essential. If they have nothing to hide why would they object?