By Steve Goddard
We are all familiar with the GISS graph below, showing how the world has warmed since 1880.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
The GISS map below shows the geographic details of how they believe the planet has warmed. It uses 1200 km smoothing, a technique which allows them to generate data where they have none – based on the idea that temperatures don’t vary much over 1200 km. It seems “reasonable enough” to use the Monaco weather forecast to make picnic plans in Birmingham, England. Similarly we could assume that the weather and climate in Portland, Oregon can be inferred from that of Death Valley.
The map below uses 250 km smoothing, which allows us to see a little better where they actually have trend data from 1880-2009.
I took the two maps above, projected them on to a sphere representing the earth, and made them blink back and forth between 250 km and 1200 km smoothing. The Arctic is particularly impressive. GISS has determined that the Arctic is warming rapidly across vast distances where they have no 250 km data (pink.)
A way to prove there’s no data in the region for yourself is by using the GISTEMP Map locator at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
If we choose 90N 0E (North Pole) as the center point for finding nearby stations:
We find that the closest station from the North Pole is Alert, NWT, 834 km (518 miles) away. That’s about the distance from Montreal to Washington DC. Is the temperature data in Montreal valid for applying to Washington DC.?
Even worse, there’s no data in GISTEMP for Alert NWT since 1991. Funny though, you can get current data right now, today, from Weather Underground, right here. WUWT?
Here’s the METAR report for Alert, NWT from today
METAR CYLT 261900Z 31007KT 10SM OVC020 01/M00 A2967 RMK ST8 LAST OBS/NEXT 270600 UTC SLP051
The next closest GISTEMP station is Nord, ADS at 935 km (580 miles) away.
Most Arctic stations used in GISTEMP are 1000 km (621 miles) or more away from the North Pole. That is about the distance from Chicago to Atlanta. Again would you use climate records from Atlanta to gauge what is happening in Chicago?
Note the area between Svalbard and the North Pole in the globe below. There is no data in the 250 km 1880-2009 trend map indicating that region has warmed significantly, yet GISS 1200 km 1880-2009 has it warming 2-4° C. Same story for northern Greenland, the Beaufort Sea, etc. There’s a lot of holes in the polar data that has been interpolated.
The GISS Arctic (non) data has been widely misinterpreted. Below is a good example:
Monitoring Greenland’s melting
The ten warmest years since 1880 have all taken place within the 12-year period of 1997–2008, according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) surface temperature analysis. The Arctic has been subject to exceptionally warm conditions and is showing an extraordinary response to increasing temperatures. The changes in polar ice have the potential to profoundly affect Earth’s climate; in 2007, sea-ice extent reached a historical minimum, as a consequence of warm and clear sky conditions.
If we look at the only two long-term stations which GISS does have in Greenland, it becomes clear that there has been nothing extraordinary or record breaking about the last 12 years (other than one probably errant data point.) The 1930s were warmer in Greenland.
Similarly, GISS has essentially no 250 km 1880-2009 data in the interior of Africa, yet has managed to generate a detailed profile across the entire continent for that same time period. In the process of doing this, they “disappeared” a cold spot in what is now Zimbabwe.
Same story for Asia.
Same story for South America. Note how they moved a cold area from Argentina to Bolivia, and created an imaginary hot spot in Brazil.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
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Unbelievable. But here it is. Will Hansen et al take notice? I doubt it.
I understand the loss of the cool spot in Africa, averaging (smearing?) should move temperatures away from extremes. However, the hot spot in Brazil is a winner. I want to hear an explanation of that methodology!
This doesn’t even qualify as ”torturing” data until it confesses what U want:
In this case GISS is effectively pulling whatever data they need to make their ”case” out of UNmonitored thin air.
From the Moon, the Earth does look pretty smooth. Even smoother from Mars. But it looks the smoothest when ones head is up ones rectum.
Smoothing – even in the mathematical/statistical sense – requires reasonable, logical, and defensible excuses. Analytical laziness, or lack of funding for decent data collection does not qualify.
Just wait til next year.
I’m wondering what the source of temperatures for the high arctic was prior to 1950 or so. Alert’s data only goes back to 1950. Certainly aren’t any trees up there.
Interestingly, Alert’s summer temperatures (mean monthly, based on arithmetic mean of hourly data) for May, June, July and August are nearly perfectly flat. The increase in mean annual temperature since 1977 has been most pronounced over the fall from September to November. July and August have negative trends. (Please note I have performed NO quality checks on my data and have limited skills with statistics, beyond a students T test)
All of this information was calculated using the freely available information from the Environment Canada website. Makes one wonder about the CRU claim that Canada was one of the countries with a confidentiality agreement, precluding FOI requests. (hope that link worked!)
JE
If Giss’s credibility were a hot air balloon, how far up do you think it would go, shot so full of holes?
Steve Goddard: I hope you’re aware that the GISS trend maps do not present you with all of the stations used by GISS in their product with 250km radius smoothing.
There are fewer stations used in 1880 than what you’ve presented in the trend maps but the numbers increase with time.
For some time I have tried to follow some of these or similar climate statistical debates on Lucia’s Blackboard blog even though the statistics are way beyond this old farm boy’s understanding.
As an ordinary citizen, one of those who are required by the IPCC, CRU, GISS, Hansen and etc to “trust us as we know what is best for you,” what does strike me about the Blackboard’s debates about many of the statistical techniques for deriving global temperatures and climate analysis techniques are the similarities to the passionate religious debates of the medieval period about “how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin”.
And those claims and debates about climate statistical analysis techniques have about the same relationship to real life [ and real weather and the real climate ] as the “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” did back in those times past and are about as accurate in their analysis of the real situation, be it religion or climate.
There is no other way to put it, fabrication of data – BY ANY means and any way you slice it – IS FRAUD. [snip, a bit OTT]
Who is involved at NASA in GISS?
What scientific basis do they allege allows them to fabricate data?
How can they be prosecuted?
REPLY: please tone it down a bit. – Anthony
Haha, but Steve, they are realistic-looking meteorological patterns, they must be right!
“Qualitative support for the greater Arctic anomaly of the GISS analysis is provided by Arctic temperature anomaly patterns in the GISS analysis: regions warmer or cooler than average when the mean anomaly is adjusted to zero are realistic-looking meteorological patterns.”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf
Steve,
This is one powerful illustration or four. But what’s that big red blob flashing on the bottom of the South America one, have you got a South Pole one for a complete set? What percentage of the land area has been homogenised (looks way more than half) and where have the SSTs come from? Beats me how you can possibly have an error margin less than the anomaly being measured on this basis? Sort of reminds me of an old Christmas tree decoration that’s started to peel and lost its lustre. It’s all coming apart Jim.
Steve
What strikes me, even more that the arctic, is North America.
In your last blink globle, NA is in the top left corner.
Look at the south east. The entire SE US jumps from white to yellow.
When you compare both 1200 km smoothing and 250 km smoothing, the reds
stay about the same. Everything else in the US gets adjusted up. The entire SE US goes from below normal to above normal
they are not ignorant…. for them to take notice.
they are misrepresenting knowingly.
So this is out right lying but why?So many groups are doing this can it be out of self interest and funding.
Maybe there really is something to the Iron Mountain Report.
What? No station on Baffin Island, home of the Coming Ice Age (starring Leanord Nimoy) ?
So there is uncertainty and gaps in the data. Maybe that is why the first GISS graph has error bars on it. If you can demonstrate that their error bars are smaller than they should be you might have something worth talking about.
i can’t help but question…
for the stations that have not been moved, or had their surroundings changed, AND have been around since 1900…. what is the trend line? seems to me that those are the only stations that are acceptable for use.
those smoothed 1200km pictures look far too pretty to be acceptable to anyone who knows that the information comes from stations all over the world.
It’s the whizzer of Ooze.
I tell people when this subject comes up that it’s laughable to compare modern global temperatures measured by satilites to late 19th and early 20th centuries. They don’t care about the reality of it, they just imagine weather stations all over the world with infallible, meticulous records since 1880 lining the bookshelves. When an authority like NASA/GISS says something people assume it’s true and don’t seem to care about the nuts and bolts of it. I usually go back to sea levels because there are meticulous tide gauge records back to 1880 and ask them, “if it has warmed so much, why hasn’t the rate of sea rise accelerated with it? I don’t hear much about that from agwers except that we haven’t reached the tipping point. Well, I live at 3000′ so maybe i’m safe.
Very good video from Lord Monckton- A left-wing environmentalist gives his views on CAGW:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWVXarkPOAo&hl=en_GB&fs=1]
Steve,
Do you know how the sun can change the the heat energy hitting this planet?
How the sun can be responsible to generate an Ice Age even though we are so close to it?
It is a mechanical process from rotation.
What Bob Tisdale said.
Steve Goddard, your primary discovery is that there isn’t much data in GHCN south of the equator in 1880. By forcing a trend to go back to 1880s, you are excluding all the stations whose data series begin in 1890 or 1900 or 1910 or 1920 or …
You can get a better feel for what areas are covered when here:
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/ghcn-station-history-a-pretty-chart-ii/
Yes, it’s true, and well known, that there were not a lot of met stations operating in interior of Africa, or the Amazon jungle, in 1880. And that there is not a long history of measurements on the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean.
So what was your point?
I wonder what gaming system the GISS geeks use to create their artificial constructs.