By Steve Goddard
Dr. John Christy recently wrote an excellent piece “Is Jim Hansen’s Global Temperature Skillful?” which highlighted how poorly Dr. Hansen’s past predictions are doing.
This post raises questions about GISS claims of record 2010 temperatures. The most recent GISS graph below shows nearly constant warming from 1965 to the present, with 2010 almost 0.1°C warmer than the actual warmest year of 1998.
HadCrut disagrees. They show temperatures flat over the past decade. and 2010 about 0.1°C cooler than the warmest year 1998.
Looking more closely, the normalised plot below shows trends from Jan 1998 to the present for GISS, HadCrut, UAH and RSS
GISS shows much more warming than anybody else during that period. Hansen claims :
The difference of +0.08°C compared with 2005, the prior warmest year, is large enough that 2010 is likely, but not certain, to be the warmest year in the GISS record.
The discrepancy with the other data sources is larger than Hansen’s claimed 0.08 record. Is it a record temperature, or is it good old fashioned bad data?
Either way, it is still far below Hansen’s projected temperatures for 2010. This is not pretty science.
Hansen made temperature forecasts which have proven too high. Now his “measured” temperature data is pushing higher than everyone else. Would you accept the other team’s coach doing double duty as the referee? In what other profession would people accept this sort of conflict of interest?
It looks like temps are headed to negative anomaly by the end of the year.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/AMSRE-SST-Global-and-Nino34-thru-July-29-2010.gif
If in January GISTemp shows 2010 as the hottest year ever, that disconnect with reality will make NASA look bad. And people will know even more clearly something is up with ‘global warming’.
(p.s., Steven Goddard didn’t lead me to say that)
Suppose in January GISTemp shows 2010 as hottest year ever—just suppose. I wonder what the public would think if they heard along with the story that the man that runs the NASA department that produced the data was arrested at a coal protest?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/23/dr-james-hansen-of-nasa-giss-arrested/
Just askin…….
Steve Goddard:
What I am trying to say is that there truly is a problem between GISS and DMI data, because they diverge during 2000’s! But which one is closer to actual temps? I contacted DMI and they regard their temperatures as the best approximate of that area. If this can be scientifically “proven”, HadCRUT and GISS should take values from DMI for the area! It would be better than remain area grey (HadCRUT) or guess the values (GISS)…
” EFS_Junior says:
August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm
the global temperature record (any global temperature record) will not produce the sharp peaks …”
Nonsense. All you need is to take the monthly UAH data, copy them to Excel and make a graph. You will be surprised how sharp the peaks in 1998 and 2010 are. They remind me of a Bowie knife. A newly sharpened Bowie knife.
(But of course you will change the scale of the ordinate, use -1000°C to +1000°C and get a straight line).
Steven Goddard writes:
“The start/end date was chosen to be El Nino peak to peak.”
and a bit later:
“The reason I used 1998 (even though it shows less divergence than later years) as a start date was because it was the previous El Nino peak. Satellites amplify ENSO events relative to surface data, so it becomes essential to use El Nino to El Nino or La Nina to La Nina when comparing vs. surface data.”
You do realise that you have just openly admitted to cherry picking the observation window to maximise the chance of getting a negative trend. You have even admitted that you know the satelite data are more sensitive to ENSO, making the cherry picking more effective? Sorry, that really is rather funny!
Dikran Marsupial
The start/end dates were chosen because they are the ones most likely to produce an accurate result. In this case, it produces a negative trend.
Amino Acids in Meteorites,
Or one can examine the code and the documentation and make a real analysis and not data mine a few short term trends for gotcha’s and then decide if the perceived conflict of interest is relevant to the results. Multiple bloggers, such as Mosh, (not me) have done this and determined that the differences in interpolation between GISS and CRU don’t really matter over the complete record. It’s a subjective choice.
But…rather than actually look at the code and the documentation, and do a real critical analysis, Steven plays with WFT, makes a few assumptions about trend periods and then casts innuendo about motives while maintaining plausible deniabilty.
This is tabloid science and provides ammunition and confirmation to those who consider this site populated by paranoid conspiracy theorists. This is why I object vociferously to this kind of post.
” Dikran Marsupial says:
August 18, 2010 at 12:42 am
You do realise that you have just openly admitted to cherry picking the observation window to maximise the chance of getting a negative trend. ”
The window has two sides. If you start with a maximum, AND end with a maximum, it is OK. If you start with a minimum, and end with a minimum, it is OK. If you select to start with a minimum but end with a maximum, you are from GISS.
Alexej Buergi. Yes, I know, however the 1998 El-Nino was very strong, stronger than the most recent one, so as satelite datasets are sensitive to ENSO, a peak-to-peak window is STILL cherry picking and biased towards cooling. It is far from O.K., but then again drawing conclusions about long term trends from short term (e.g. decadal) trends isn’t O.K. anyway, whatever start and end dates you choose, as they are dominated by ENSO and hence are unstable.
BTW GISS know better than to draw conclusions ablut climate from short term trends. Read the paper by Easterling and Wehner.
Steven Goddard wrote:
“The start/end dates were chosen because they are the ones most likely to produce an accurate result. In this case, it produces a negative trend.”
Just because you are not aware that it is cherry picking, doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Read the paper by Easterling and Wehner and you will find that short term periods are what you would expect as the long term warming is small in comparison with the effects of ENSO. They are there in the observations (not just over the last decade) and they are reproduced in the output of GCMs.
jeez
Hansen constantly running to the press and claiming a cherry picked record high El Nino temperature without agreement from other data sources is “tabloid science.”
Paying attention and asking questions is real science. You can recalculate a flawed data set as many times as you want, and come up with the same answer. Garbage in, garbage out.
With its questionable science and conclusions it’s clear that the Easterling and Wehner paper was hand-waved through the pal review because it follows the agenda. For a look at how the climate peer review system has been thoroughly corrupted, see:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
The issue isn’t the flawed paper, but the rigged peer review process. Unless that is corrected, submissions will be required to toe the globaloney line. That’s not science, that is grant-fueled advocacy.
I look forward to any defense of the way climate peer review is currently done.
Dikran Marsupial
So how do you feel about Hansen cherry picking El Nino start to end to calculate the earth’s average temperature? Doesn’t take a NASA rocket scientist to see the problem there.
Do you think he will retract his claims after cherry picking a La Nina 12 month period?
Steven Goddard wrote:
“Hansen constantly running to the press and claiming a cherry picked record high El Nino temperature without agreement from other data sources is “tabloid science.””
Oddly enough, Hansen is not constantly running to the press about record temperatures, he only runs to the press when a record actually appears in GISSTemp.
You do know there is a good technical reason why GISSTemp gives a higher trend value than e.g. HADcrut don’t you (hint: they are not quite measuring exactly the same thing)?
“Paying attention and asking questions is real science. ”
so is a bit of self-skepticism and paying attention to the criticisms of ones finidings, in this case that short term trends are unreliable as they are dominated by ENSO and tell you very little about the existence of long-term warming or cooling, and secondly that aligning your window according to ENSO with the highest El Nino peak at the start is bad science as it very obviously biases the result in favour of apparent cooling. I am afraid this type of analysis is just another canard, the error in which is well understood.
Smokey says:
August 18, 2010 at 5:50 am
“With its questionable science and conclusions it’s clear that the Easterling and Wehner paper was hand-waved through the pal review because it follows the agenda.”
In other words smokey says “I can and will disregard any paper that says something I don’t like, but can’t refute, with vague accusation and an ad-hominem”. Fine rhetoric, but science doesn’t work that way, sorry.
James Hansen gave some 1,400 interviews while GW Bush was President, loudly claiming that he was being muzzled.
Since the election he actually has been muzzled: Good doggy! Good job. Now stfu, you’re a liability to the new Administration.
Dikran Marsupial
I have written probably half a dozen articles in the last few weeks explaining in great detail why GISS gets higher temperatures than HadCrut. Apparently you haven’t bothered to read them. Instead of making nonsensical insinuations, why don’t you read them?
Steve Goddard writes:
“So how do you feel about Hansen cherry picking El Nino start to end to calculate the earth’s average temperature? Doesn’t take a NASA rocket scientist to see the problem there.
Do you think he will retract his claims after cherry picking a La Nina 12 month period?”
Looks like Steve doesn’t understand the difference between an annual mean global temperature and a trend. If Hansen was making a point using a 12 month trend, then I would be the first to criticise, whether he started it in an El-Nino year or not. However, he wouldn’t be that daft, he was talking about global mean temperatures, are you really saying he is not allowed to talk about temperatures in El-Nino years? If so then “skeptics ” should be banned from mentioning temperatures in La Nina years, fair is fair, no? ;o)
“I have written probably half a dozen articles in the last few weeks explaining in great detail why GISS gets higher temperatures than HadCrut. Apparently you haven’t bothered to read them. Instead of making nonsensical insinuations, why don’t you read them?”
Good, so we both know then that the difference is explainable by the arctic warming faster than the rest of the globe (based on what evidence is available), and hence Hansen has a valid point in noting a possible record year in GISSTemp, even though it isn’t as likely to be a record in the other datasets. In which case, you weren’t being very even handed when you wrote:
“Hansen constantly running to the press and claiming a cherry picked record high El Nino temperature WITHOUT AGREEMENT FROM OTHER DATA SOURCES is “tabloid science.””
Against the preponderance of the evidence, Easterling and Wehner claim that temperatures are going up because of human activity. Then they cover their grant trolling butts by claiming that if temperatures go down, the models predicted that, too.
Silliness like that is not science because it is not testable. The temperature goes up, unless it goes down?? That’s just an unscientific WAG. How can it be falsified?
Answer: it can’t be falsified. Therefore, it’s not science.
Smokey: The finding of the Easterling and Wehner paper is that there may be decadal periods showing no warming or even cooling. That is perfectly falsifiable, it just needs a longer period of cooling than is observed in the model runs.
Their findings wouldn’t be in the least surprising to a decent statistician as you can see by just eyeballing the plot that any trend is small compared to the noise. If you want a more objective test, when you compute a trend, first see if the trend is statistically significant or not, and if it isn’t don’t use it to support your assertions. Sadly that will have the effect of preventing any discussion of short term trends as (as I have pointed out) they are unstable (which is why competent scientists tend not to make arguments based on them).
jeez
If you just want to argue trend/anomaly you would have a point. But if you argue temperature you don’t. And I don’t care about anomaly. I’ve already said that. GISTemp shows temperatures others don’t show. You can have the same anomaly but a warmer temperature snuck in. I can’t see justifying trends and anomalies.
Maybe you haven’t seen how the anomaly trick is done.
Part 1
Part 2
*The planet is heating up because of human activity. But if it cools instead, hey, we predicted that, too.*
That is not science, no matter how much they wish it was.
Arguing incessantly that a prediction of all possible outcomes is in any way credible reminds me of someone… who was it …?
Oh. Right. Admit it: you’re really Barrie Harrop, aren’t you?☺
Temperature station drops that create warming but have the same anomaly.