By Steve Goddard
During May I wrote about a growing discrepancy between HadCrut and GISTEMP.
Dr. Hansen discusses it here. Excerpt and comparison below:
(1) insight into why the GISS analysis yields 2005 as the warmest calendar year, while the HadCRUT analysis has 1998 as the warmest year. The main factor is our inclusion of estimated temperature change for the Arctic region.
HadCrut released their January 1850 through June 2010 temperature data yesterday, and something “interesting” happened. Their temperature anomalies from January-April jumped up from their published values on June 3. May probably also jumped, but unfortunately I didn’t capture a record of it previously.
The chart below shows how the HadCrut data changed between June 3 to July 28.
HadCrut still shows 1998 hotter than 2010 so far, but they seem to be working on “correcting” that problem.
Why is it that post facto adjustments always seem to be upwards in later years, and downwards in earlier years? This whole global temperature business looks like a complete joke to me.
========================
Addedum: source HadCRUT data by date:
May 20
June 3
July 28
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdEdMRGVaRlJvUzJSbFNOb21TZmtGeXc&output=html
The current data is available here.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt
All three were obtained from the same link on different dates
>>Jim
>>This means that today’s high school kids being forced to
>>watch Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” – some of them 4
>>times in 4 different classes
And only being able to pass their school exams if they know all about Green issues.
This is a UK physics exam for 16-year olds. Apart from being set for 7-year olds, it is
actually a “green exam”, rather than a “physics exam”. There is no physics in it, just questions on green issues !!
http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/qp-ms/AQA-PHY1AP-W-QP-MAR08.PDF
Just where are the new generation of literate physicists going to come from?
.
Steve I’ve been following your articles for awhile now. But I find your reflex attitude that it must be all a con a little tiresome. Hansen is being more than transparent in explaining the strenghts and limitations of his methodology and your response is invariably one of ‘gotcha’.
I would have thought that a truly skeptical position would be to canvas the strengths and limitations dispassionately, after all you’ve been slapped down already with your nonsense of modeling artic ice as a cone and your article titled ‘Article Ice Graphing Lesson’ was left hanging in the wind as an example of how not to interpret graphs. For the sake of courtesy we’ll pass over your fixation with pixels in silence.
These errors in themselves are not fatal as they are the errors of someone who is obviously passionate in their attempts to educate themselves in a very complex science and that effort should be respected. However when you are continually so dismissive (to the point of abuse) of others whose competence eclipses your own, then
please do not whimper when people judge you with the same rigour by which you judge others.
The simple point is that your ambition runs ahead of your competence. That does not mean that your opinions may not be useful but it does mean that when you want to take a swipe at Hansen then at least accord the man the courtesy of pointing out where his methodology or his reasonong is lacking.
A constant theme on both sides of this debate is that the science gets obscured by abuse. With self discipline and good faith this is the easiest aspect to remedy.
Ralph
I was out working in Silicon Valley last week. Less than 5% of the people I was working with were Americans.
Asian education has become vastly superior to that in America or Europe, because they actually teach science and engineering – rather than the politically correct junk which a generation of drug-abusing American professors have dished out to their students.
Even the UK economy is growing 3X as fast as the US.
If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy shall float past. (Sun Tzu)
I am starting to feel like the war is won.
We have reliable instruments in the form of Argo and Satellite temperature records.
Giss et al will be unable to find new ways to adjust the recent temperature trend upwards (even if they use further legedermaine to cool the early 20th century).
As the long non-warming spell is likely to continue or lead into a slight cooling with the PDO in its negative phase the Church of CAGW will not be able to hold out against the obvious lack of warming for much longer.
The last job that remains is to prevent any stupid mitigation legislation from passing in the next year or two while the world continues to wake up.
I was talking with my nephew the other day and he was discussing how the watched the Michael Moore film… Capitalism: A love fair.
You know, so they could discuss economics.
Zeke,
So what you are saying is that people in hot climates are very sloooooowwwww………..
R. Gates says:
July 28, 2010 at 10:28 am
Get the data correct? That should mean reading the display or guage correctly.
The problem is in ‘adjusting’ the raw readings to suit the correct model output.
I’d still like to know where to get myself a USB powered Anomalymometer.
stevengoddard says:
July 28, 2010 at 3:55 pm
……the politically correct junk which a generation of drug-abusing American professors have dished out to their students.
Oh, come, come, certainly telling students Karl Marx, Upton Sinclair, and Al Gore are a better way to go than Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Banneker, and Jesus Christ.
yes, sarcasm off now
typo,
Oh, come, come, certainly telling students Karl Marx, Upton Sinclair, and Al Gore are a better way to go than Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Banneker, and Jesus Christ…. is what professors should do.
[snip. Your baseless opinion regarding writers of articles at WUWT is not welcome. ~dbs, mod.]
R. Gates says:
July 28, 2010 at 10:28 am
‘It’s all a global con game involving NASA, big government, big business, crooked politicians, and the eco-nuts, and led by the CO2 molecule.’
You could exchange NASA for Microsoft and CO2 molecule for Y2K bug here too but you never want to blame conspiracy when mob hysteria coupled with powerful economic incentive will do just fine.
This is not science.
“The main factor is our inclusion of estimated temperature change for the Arctic region.”
So how is this data estimated? Use a model of course which then causes a temperature increase which supports the model. Therefore the model must be right and so must the temeperatues and the increase.
We are all doomed.
Do these people get state funding for this pseudo-science?
@Ralph
There’s no other way to describe that exam paper as anything but despicable. Our poor kids. They’re being taught that seeking truth is just a hobby in science now. The consequences in the future could be incalculable.
Reading through the comments if Mr James Saxton and Mr RBates are the best devils advocates around here i feel the debate is won.
Do scientists ever apologise when found to be incorrect? my guess is no by some of the ego’s I have seen.
Last night I repeated an exercise I last did in 2005 when I began taking a critical look at global warming science (publishing in 2009). Back then I reasoned that the Arctic would give me the quickest insight and check on the science. I accessed station data held by NOAA for the Arctic region – those with long data sets, ideally from before the turn of the century, to look for any natural cycles and then culminating in recent years with an unbroken record – I found 32 stations. Only one had a recent higher temperature (in 2004) than in what was an obvious previous warming cycle and that was on the east coast of Greenland (the station on the west coast had its highest temperature around 1940). That was my first check on the science – reasoning that as ‘global warming’ was most marked in the Arctic, I needed to understand the dynamics. I discovered for myself what I later read was the 70-80 Arctic oscillation – it takes the form of a double camel-hump, with the majority of stations showing the first hump as higher than the second, some were more or less equal.
I repeated that test last night, updating to 2010 and it took about one hour – first to google GISS station data and find the list of stations by simply clicking on their global map – first Greenland, then central Siberia and then Alaska – much the same set of stations appears. Then I selected those with the long time record beginning before the first hump and ending in 2010 – 32 stations in all throughout Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland (including one for Helsinki), and Russia.
Of those 32 stations, 23 show the first hump equal to or greater than the second hump; 7 show the second hump greater than the first, with 4 of those looking marginal – or with an obvious outlier, or the peak now clearly in decline; two show the second peak much earlier in the period 1960-1980.
Not one of these data sets could possibly be interpreted as showing 4 degrees C of truly anomalous warming. Of the 7 stations that show higher recent values, the range is from 0.5 to 1.5 degrees C above 1940. However, if the reference period for the anomaly is set in the 30-year trough from 1950 through to 1980, then the second peak will produce anomalies of that order – though it ought to be more like 2-3 degrees, and give the illusion of amplified global warming. Typically, if you run the reference period for Anmagssalik from 1950-2000, it will include periods of -3 C and post 2000 temperatures at +1.5 will look anomalous by 3-4 degrees (one record in 2004 is higher than 1940s – all other (8 annual) post 2000 temperatures are lower than in 1940s)- yet the 2004 temperature is only 1 degree higher than 1940 ( and 4.5 degrees higher than 1960).
This leads me to ponder and ask a question of WUWT readers. We know that GISS homogenise data and interpolate and work by referencing nearby stations where data does not exist – but how is this done? Could there be a similar ‘trick’ to that which Steve MacIntyre discovered whereby a computer alogrithm ‘mines’ the data, seeking out any station with a 20th century equivalent of the ‘hockey stick’ and then adjusting the average accordingly? I am no statistician, but this whole Arctic anomaly looks decidedly questionable and overdue for detailed analysis.
This is a simple exercise requiring no particular expertise that anyone can perform for themselves. It is a powerful counter-balance to the ‘hockey stick’ mentality of the ‘consensus’. It shows the presence of a pronounced cycle, with the first ‘hump’ clearly a natural phenomenon and the second as not particularly unnatural. The most pronounced post-1940 peak is on the east coast of Greenland and in 2004 – thereafter there is a decline, as in all of the records
Ralph: July 28, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Just where are the new generation of literate physicists going to come from?
Asia.
Bill,
Probably 70% of the weather researchers at the recent conference I attended were Chinese.
(Sarcastic entertainment alert)
This is how it would go in a courtroom: Fantasy Transcript….
Q. – I wish to remind all of those here present, including the jury, that you are still under oath Dr. _____ . Are you aware of this fact?
A. – Yes…..
Q. – So, Dr. _____ ; I hold in my hand the previously admitted exhibits A and B. Are these your charts?
A. – Yes…
Q. – The differences between the two plainly show that you altered your numbers. Did you change the numbers Dr. ____?
A. – Yes…
Q. – The obvious conclusion that then comes to mind is that either the numbers in exhibit A were wrong, or if they were not, then the numbers in exhibit B are false. This leaves us with only two options, you were either in error then or you’re lying to us now in exhibit B. Are you lying to us now Dr. ____?
A. – No, of course not…
Q. – Well then Dr. ____, were you in error in exhibit A?
A. – Ah, we had to make some adj….
Q. – A simple Yes or No Dr. ______
A. – Yes…
Q. – Thank you. Dr. ______ , would it be safe to say that you were in error in exhibit A because you did not have all the pertinent facts when you created that chart, and have since discovered some relevant ones that made you aware of errors in the numbers in said exhibit, and that therefore you subsequently changed the original numbers?
A. – I suppose so…
Q. – I’ll take that as a Yes. Can you tell the jury with 100% certainty, that you are now in possession of every single relevant fact as they pertain to creating these charts?
A. – Well, there will always be some unk…..
Q. – Again, a simple Yes or No Dr. _______
A.- No….
Q. – And so, if you were in error in exhibit A because you did not have all the facts, and by your own admission here today, you still don’t, would it not then be reasonable to conclude that you are also very likely to be in error in exhibit B?
A. – It’s not very likely No…
Q. – Not very likely, does this mean that there is still a possibility of you being wrong?
A. – There’s always a possibility……
Q. – So can we then conclude, that you are asking this country spend trillions of dollars based on Charts that you created and that have, by your own admission here today been in error, and could still be in error. Is this what you’re asking us to do?
A. – Well,….
Q. – I have no more questions for this witness your Honor.
stevengoddard: July 29, 2010 at 5:06 am
Bill,
Probably 70% of the weather researchers at the recent conference I attended were Chinese.
“Asia” was probably my only one-word comment to any post here that wasn’t intended to be cheeky. Were Indians, Singaporeans, and — maybe — a couple of Pakistanis present in the other 30%?
Bill,
I don’t think I saw a lot of Indians there. However, they make up a major block of the engineers in Silicon Valley. Americans are in a small minority in computer related engineering. Junk education in the US is to blame.
Can you imagine subjecting a bright young mind to Al Gore’s movie? How could they ever get their brains fully back after being subjected to such brash stupidity?