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.
stevengoddard says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:53 am
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.
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Just because you don’t find it credible, doesn’t mean that the data was ‘messed’ with. Have you investigated peer review? I guess not because in your words it is a “sloppy and incestuous process”.
Davidklein40, nice for you to give us all a refreshing reminder of the major flaw in the sceptic movement–the lack of even a shred of evidence in support of their claims surrounding manipulation of data. You see, after countless inquiries into the science follwoing the so called “climategate” no act of manipulation of climate data has been found. Yet still the sceptic movement refuses to believe it, now attacking the integrity of the inquiries themselves. The movement is no longer showing health scepticism– it is completely in DENIAL.
MJK
Bill Tuttle says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:57 am
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.
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Either can be justified.
From Icecap:
More: http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/creative_enhancement_of_global_temperature_trends1/
See also http://wallstreetpit.com/20710-climategate-goes-back-to-1980
Remember history is written by the winners. I’m guessing it is “adjusted” by those who want to be more important than they are…
davidklien40
Yes, you should worry. Excess energy is stored in the oceans and they will remind us for hundreds of years to come.
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If you know where that heat is call Dr. Trenberth right away ‘cuz he’s missing a whole pile of it—I think he’s even offering a reward.
stevengoddard,
“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.”
Why not link to NASA’s explanation of the adjustments then? Or to anything you’ve written previously explaining why you don’t find their explanation credible? Otherwise, it seems you’re simply saying any adjustment at all to the raw data is prima facie evidence of skullduggery. Which seems a pretty ridiculous attitude here, given Anthony’s obsession with poorly sited temperature measuring stations, since it would preclude making any adjustment to correct for biases that might be introduced to the temperature record by those poorly sited stations.
Dave F says:
July 23, 2010 at 8:00 am
@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…
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You can’t prove; are you a scientist?
There’s only one group they’re fooling.. and it isn’t us
True tallbloke but all of that excess energy is concentrated in a thin veneer that resides on the ocean surface above the thermocline. This notion of heat hiding away in the depths is fantasy at its best and purely a get-out strategy. It defies logic and physics.
Remember the similar thing that happened to the NH sea ice anomaly chart between March and June 2007? Don’t know whether you ever did a post on it. The separate images are available at the internet archive.
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/1728/seaicegif.gif
We are repeating the cycle that ended the Roman Empire, when the Roman maximum ended. Thus no surprise. Buy more pop-corn!
The present time version of those times church is the Green Church….now we need a Circus, Lions and martyrs!!…However would they like Al Baby?
I put up a comment in unthreaded at CA back on December 22 concerning the GISS changes to US temperatures since 1998. With Climategate in full swing it didn’t get much notice at the time. The adjustments made between January and November 2009 are stunning. That comment seems to fit well with this post by Steve Goddard so I am reproducing it below.
I utilized three Giss graphs from publications with data ending in 1998, 1999, and 2006. Sources are Hansen et al. 1999, Hansen et al. 2001, and the recent Hansen PDF “The Temperature of Science” which is currently under discussion at WUWT.
Oddly, in the recent publication Hansen included the outdated 2006 US temperature graph in a mix with other graphs from 2009. Kind of makes one wonder why he didn’t use a more recent one. A look at the available graphs and data 1998-2008 may aid in solving that conundrum.
I also used a copy of Giss US 48 data updated 01/01/2009 which I downloaded awhile ago. Recently I went back and got the latest update 11/14/2009. That was three weeks before Copenhagen and a few days before Climategate erupted. Both updates have the same url so the older copy is no longer available. Here is the link for the current data.
Extracting temperature values from the Giss graphs by blowing them up in Photoshop and doing a pixel count was rather tedious. So my concern focused on the history of the current top six US annual temperatures as of the end of 2008. Combining the graph data along with the two data files downloaded allowed production of a useful graph.
Here is the Graph.
We now have new co-leaders in the race to the top of the US temperature world. Although aged 1934 broke quickly from the gate with an anomaly of 1.45c, it has now faded to 3rd with a value of 1.26c. The 1998 contender got off to a slow start with a mediocre value of 0.92c, but came on strong to be in a neck and neck tie with the 2006 youngster who recovered after an early stumble to tie for the lead with 1.29c.
Is it possible the new rankings were to be announced to coincide with Copenhagen, but Climategate put the kibosh on them sticking their head up unnecessarily by making the announcement?
With all the Climategate fallout in recent weeks, perhaps the solution to the conundrum of mixing old and new graphs lays with Hansen not wanting to draw unnecessary fire concerning 1934 falling to third in the US temperature rankings.
I don’t know, but hey, when you see temperatures move around like that I guess anything is possible in climate science.
Here are links to the Giss provided graphs and the ones I made.
Giss graphs from publications. x,y axis are not uniform in length.
Jan 2009 data graph.
Nov 2009 data graph
Data adjustments made between Jan 2009 and Nov 2009.
PS.
In 1998 the year 1953(not shown) was ranked 4th with a value of 0.94c, but fell to 11th in the current temperature rankings at 0.86c.
Raw data is available, though it’s a pain to work with. I did a little workup after climategate.
“Yes, you should worry. Excess energy is stored in the oceans and they will remind us for hundreds of years to come.”
Nope. The ocean heat content has actually dropped since 2003 http://i47.tinypic.com/20kvhwn.png. There is no “excess energy stored in the oceans”.
Where can I find a list of 2009 WUWT articles? My blink graph came from a WUWT article sometime after Dec. 2008( I lost everything before that time because my C drive was wiped out by a virus).
My grandfather was a wine-grower and farmer in southwest Germany for his entire life. He was born 1899 and passed away in 1995. When I was a kid, he told me the story of his coffee tree. In the 1930s he was given a few raw coffee berries from a friend who worked in a botanic garden. He planted the berries in the warmest spot he could find: near the (stone) terrace wall of his south facing terraced vineyard. The coffee berries sprouted and after a few years he harvested enough coffee beans to roast and make a few cups of his own coffee (real coffee being an expensive rarity in 1930s Germany). Soon thereafter (toward the end of the 1930s) the small coffee tree froze to death in the winter, no matter how well he tried to protect it.
He said the weather was never that warm since then.
So much for “today is the warmest ever”, and for “but this 1930s anomaly is valid only for the US”.
Djon,
When someone makes changes to data which support their very vocal belief system, the sirens start screaming.
davidklein40 is real upset.
David, since the science is settled, why are they still arguing with skeptics after all these decades?
It’s been almost a 1/2 century.
Can’t they prove it yet?
jose,
The x and y axes are identical in the two graphs.
davidklein40: July 23, 2010 at 8:19 am
Bill Tuttle says:
July 23, 2010 at 7:57 am
An alteration is an adjustment and an adjustment is an alteration.
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Either can be justified.
Neither can be justified if the intent is deception.
;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
These adjustments/alterations/modifications/etc. have never been satisfactorily explained.
“Someday Hollywood will make a blockbuster movie about the global warming hysteria of the early 21st century.”
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Nope! Don’t think so! Bollywood will likely have to do the job. With AGW sucking the life out of everything in California these days, it won’t be long at all before Hollywood and LA burn up in a Giant Brushfire anyway. Besides, the US film and tv folks have terminal cases of brain cancer and foot-in-mouth disease. Bet the Indians get Brit actors to do a lot of the stuff we used to do before all our studios died. The Brits are the only real actors anymore who speak English.
If you torture the data long enough, it will eventually ”confess” anything you want.
CAGW supporters will be as cruel to the data as they need to be, in order to ”prove” their point.
While it’s certainly more fun to attribute nefarious purposes to something that’s very difficult to understand (i.e. the proper analysis of millions of data records collected over the entire globe during a 130 year period), sometimes it’s prudent to withhold judgement until more evidence is provided.
Data analysis this complex is bound to have errors and mistakes. Good science, in any field, will continually attempt to improve the quality of the data and results obtained through analysis. That’s bound to result in different graphs and plots over time. If it didn’t, then one might consider nefarious activities.
Several posters commented that all of Hansens adjustments result in more warming. That is incorrect. The latest paper (currently in draft form, soon to be sumitted for publication) linked to on the GISS analysis page (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/)discusses errors in their previous 2001 paper. The corrections in the latest paper show a decrease in the US warming from that previously published. That is how science is supposed to work.
It’s also important to keep in mind that data corrections for just the US tend to be almost inperceivable when incorporated into the global temperature. And the good agreement on global temperature changes between Hansen, NOAA, HadCRUT, and the Japan Meteorological Agency should produce some level of confidence for any observer.