By Steve Goddard
GISS appears to be working hard to make 2010 the hottest year ever. As you can see in the graph above, they show 2010 with much more area above the 1998 line than below. I did a numerical integration of the graph above, and found that they have 2.8 times as much area with 2010 warmer than they do with 2010 cooler.
How does this compare with other data sources? HadCrut has been adjusting their data upwards, but even using their upwards adjusted numbers, their ratio of above to below area is only 0.04. Seventy times lower than GISS.
UAH has 0.12 times as much area above as they have below. Twenty-five times lower than GISS.
RSS has 0.07 times as much area above as below. Forty times lower than GISS.
The chart below shows how much of an outlier GISS is.
GISS is the only one of the four which shows 2010 as #1. The others aren’t even close. It must be their almost non-existent better Arctic coverage.
Conclusion: Dr. Hansen thinks that warming has continued unabated since 1998, while HadCrut, RSS and UAH think it has stopped or slowed to a crawl.
GISS
Had Crut
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Smokey says:
August 21, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Bill Illis says:
“Why don’t you contribute to the debate and calculate the temperature impact from that small difference. Post back if you get a number over 0.01C.”
R Gates responds: “Considering how deep…” …&etc.
Didn’t see much calculatin’ there, brother R. ☺
______
Unfortunately, we don’t have exact measurements for 1998’s TSI data that would be comparable to the current TSI data. The Source TSI satellite data began in 2003. If you know of a data set that I’m not aware of, please pass it on. I do however, feel very comfortable with my estimate of .1C in the difference caused by 1998’s TSI during that El Nino and during the 2009-2010 El Nino. Even looking at this graph:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/SunspotsMonthlyNOAA%20and%20HadCRUT3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1960.gif
Gives you an idea that I’m roughly correct, and certainly the figure is far higher than .01 C.
R. Gates,
SOHO Virgo is covers the two periods and its daily TSI measurements are here. July 1998 is about 0.5 W/m2 higher than today.
ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/data/irradiance/virgo/TSI/soho_virgo_v6_002_1007.plt
Steven Mosher says:
August 21, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Show you are a better mann than Hansen.
This idea that Steven Goddard is a worse man, or as bad as James Hansen is only coming from 2 people. I, for one, don’t agree with them.
Anyone can see now that GISTemp is different than other data sets, and not just a little different. This focus on comparing Steven Goddard to Tamino and Romm makes it look like those 2 people are defending James Hansen. I know one has said he isn’t. But both of these commenters are being heavy handed. They may not realize what they look like to readers.
We will know in January what GISTemp will show for the year and what will be reported in the news about it. We will know then if these defenses of James Hansen were reasonable.
I’ve seen comments from both these names before. My opinion of them has changed over this week. Not just from the 2 threads about GISTemp/James Hansen but also from the mountainous valley post. I’m sure in the grand scheme of things my opinion doesn’t mean anything. But I saw things this week that could have been handled differently. They could have used more tact instead of coming out guns ablazin. But maybe I’m realizing I’m seeing something this week I never would have imagined would happen and I’m still knocked back on my heels over it.
TwoPac says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:31 am
> Mr. Watts, thanks for your earlier reply. I’m new to the site (recommended by a UT professor you may know) … That really wasn’t what I was asking about, …
TwoPac says:
August 20, 2010 at 12:51 pm
> My alarmist coworker said he calculated the areas under the curves with the plot starting at the temperature anomaly needed to make it snow CO2 in the Antarctic, and he claims there’s virtually no difference in any of the areas.
Your coworker is confused about what Steve was calculating. Steve was determining the “area” between two curves, one of 2010 temperature anomalies, the other of 1998 temperature anomalies. I put area in quotes because when 2010 values are higher than 1998 values, that counts for negative area.
What your coworker though Steve was doing was computing the area between the zero anomaly and the temperature anomaly curve. That way your coworker could compute the area between a much lower temperature and the anomaly (it doesn’t really make sense to compare a temperature and an anomaly). However, he did that to come up with a much bigger area and that would reduce the ratio between the areas from the various data sources. That way, the ratio between the two would be very close to 1, not 70.
He couldn’t come up with number because he was sure of what temperature CO2 snow can make snow because he doesn’t know what that temperature is (and please don’t open that pandora’s box), and because Steve didn’t provide numbers for his areas, and if he had that wouldn’t be adequate – he’d still need to know the area between a temperature curve and a constant anomaly (like 0).
Steve was trying to quantify the average temperature difference between 1998 and 2010, and apparently your coworker didn’t realize that. Perhaps he began to figure out his confusion when you asked for details.
Welcome to WUWT. You might find browsing the big picture easiest at the monthly and category Tables of Content at http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html
I only have the title lines, so I can get a lot more on a screen, the WUWT daily indexes have the first few paragraphs too, which does help beyond what the title hints at, but there’s only a few per screenful. They’re both useful.
Should there be this much of a difference?
1998 to 2009:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/uah/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend
I didn’t use to time 2010 because 2010 isn’t done yet.
Bill Illis says:
August 21, 2010 at 6:17 pm
R. Gates,
SOHO Virgo is covers the two periods and its daily TSI measurements are here. July 1998 is about 0.5 W/m2 higher than today.
ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/data/irradiance/virgo/TSI/soho_virgo_v6_002_1007.plt
_________
Thanks for that. if .’s5 W/m2 is even close to accurate, in looking at some calculations I’ve seen, which show that the difference between the peak solar cycle and the minimum is about .322 W/m2 across the entire planet in terms of irradiance, and this translates into about .2 C in global temp difference on average, then my rough estimate of .1 C in TSI effect in 1998’s El Nino versus 2009-2010 is an undershoot, but either way it looks like the TSI effect in 1998 is far more than the .01 C that some have suggested would be the level to be even significant. The net result is that 1998 was a record warm year because of both El Nino, the fact that TSI was higher at the time from the position of 1998 in Solar Cyle 23, and potentially because of the longer term effect of increased GHG. All this goes back to my forecast that if we see another decent El Nino between now and the peak of Solar Cycle 24, there is a very good chance of seeing record high global temps.
I made global maps over at GISS (July 97-98 and 09-10) and expected to see differences primarily in the Arctic, but it was actually in the Antarctic which is much warmer this ElNino than 97-98
R. Gates says:
August 21, 2010 at 8:11 pm
“SOHO Virgo is covers the two periods and its daily TSI measurements are here. July 1998 is about 0.5 W/m2 higher than today.”
The discussing is somewhat muddled:
1) 1998 was near solar max, so TSI was higher than for the recent solar minimum.
2) VIRGO TSI is plagued by calibration problems. The ‘best’ TSI for the moment is that from LASP http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
The ratio between VIRGO and SORCE should be constant if the calibrations were correct. It is not: http://www.leif.org/research/VIRGO-SORCE-ratio.png
As you can see there is a clearly downward drift in VIRGO. This is because the degradation of the sensors [as happens naturally when they are exposed to the harsh space environment] is not taken into account properly [this is difficult]. In addition there are funny spikes every ~90 days. This is another indication that there are issues with the sensors that have not been taken into account. More about the spikes here:
http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD%20TSI-SOHO%20keyhole%20effect-degradation%20over%20time.pdf
There are no good indications that TSI was lower this solar minimum than at previous minima. The degradation alone since the end of 2003 has been 0.2 W/m2.
From warm spot to warm spot in ice age periods are roughly 115,000 years apart.
This cycle is elliptical and the next one is circular??? Like I will be in a Jet liner saying “I can feel the Global Warming.”
If I studied the charts right. We have only so much time left be fore we leave this warm period; maybe a few thousand years.
Maybe we have a 7 thousand years before we come out of our present axis tilt to a more upright axis at 22 degrees.
Somewhere in the next 7,000 years, the Earth begins a 10,000 year slide into the starting points of an Ice Age.
Just guessing:
Glacier Bay refills. Juneau ice field wipes out Juneau, and glaciers reform in the northern US states and at higher elevations.
The Great Lakes, Lake Huron tend to stay frozen over and topography begins to move south and north towards the Equator.
The Mediterranean Sea is cut off from the Atlantic by a silt dam at Strait of Gibraltar. The Atlantic is cut off from the Pacific at Argentina.
Then it is roughly 70,000 years into the pit of an Ice Age before it starts back up.
There appear to be prerequisites that need to be in place at the end of that 10,000 years before the Ice Age really kicks into gear.
Certain things must be shut off before the ice sheets can take over.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
R. Gates says:
August 21, 2010 at 8:11 pm
All this goes back to my forecast that if we see another decent El Nino between now and the peak of Solar Cycle 24, there is a very good chance of seeing record high global temps.
=======================
Your “forecast”?
Not a forecast.
Just conjecture or a guess even.
You are NOT a forecaster, meteorologist, climatologist, sea ice expert, or a scientist.
And so you can not really technically make a “forecast.”
A guess, at best. That is all.
I know that in your self-inflated world, you might want to call it a “forecast”.
But it is not.
Some people like me, a spectator, enjoy watching the game, and if a fly ball ends up in my direction, I might be able to catch it.
But just because I can catch a baseball in the stands….does not make me a player.
In the same vein….you.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
So with reference to an earlier article, it seems that the predicted increase from 1946-2010 of 0.8C is coming to pass…
Bill Illis said:
“The lasp quoted number based on “climate models” of 0.2C is really whack and no climate model would have that number…”
_____
The average 0.2C difference between a solar max and minimum is hardly “whack”, and can be easily seen in this chart:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/SunspotsMonthlyNOAA%20and%20HadCRUT3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1960.gif
The relationship seems to based on the TSI, and as TSI was higher in 1998 than 2009, when the El Nino’s started, so it is not at all unreasonable to suggest at least .1C of the warming in 1998 came from the TSI influence. Going back to the chart above, and using 1967 as a a baseline, because that year was approximately the same point in the solar cycle as 1998 and TSI was approximately the same. You can see that 1998 peaked at approximately .7C warmer than 1967. Roughtly speaking, it would appear that about .45C of this difference was the El Nino, meaning that approx. .25C was some other long term factors. Some could be the longer term PDO cycle, and certainly some could be from GHG forcing.
And just a comment related to another post– so long as it is not a pure guess, where you randomly pick a number, anyone, Ph.D or not, can make a forecast if it is based on a set of data that you believe are reliable and theoretically related to the item you’re forecasting. This is the difference between a guess (not based on any theoretical relationship, and a forecast. A guess is just that– a guess.Your knowledge of the topic should have some relationship to the accuracy of the forecast (at least that is the theory), but that hasn’t necessarily proved true in practice.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2010 at 9:03 pm
“There are no good indications that TSI was lower this solar minimum than at previous minima.”
_____
I would strongly disagree. TSI is directly correlated with sunspot numbers, and the long and deep solar minimum we just came through where the sun was blank for long periods of time would necessarily mean that TSI was also lower for an extended period of time– certainly lower than we’ve seen in the past many solar cycles– perhaps even going back to the early 20th century. Most surprizing to me is the fact that even during this period we only saw a moderate flattening of temperatures and did not see a dramatic cooling of the globe, and now that the solar minimum has passed, temperatures have rebounded (with a big boost from an El Nino of course).
R. Gates says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I would strongly disagree. TSI is directly correlated with sunspot numbers, and the long and deep solar minimum we just came through where the sun was blank for long periods of time would necessarily mean that TSI was also lower for an extended period of time
This is not what the measurements show. So perhaps your assertion that TSI is directly correlated with sunspot numbers is not quite correct. [it is in fact, not].
I repeat, the measurements from VIRGO has a degradation drift which is the reason for the apparent lower value. Here is the conclusion of the other TSI instrument on SOHO: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session1/1.07_Dewitte_TSI.pdf . On page 21: “Good agreement with models assuming no solar minimum
TSI variation.”
I would recommend that such a tight correlation of sunspot correlation be given more space.
We are in a sunspot cycle that per Joseph D’Aleo lasts through at least two. The present size of this cycle is small and should peak about two years from now.
It went black again yesterday.
If it ends up being a sporadic cycle, we may have begun a mini-ice age series of sunspot cycles or a decline towards the next Ice Age, but I still think that is premature.
I have some correlation charts beginning at page 27 or so of “Low Sunspot Activity Cools Global Warming” nationalforestlawblog.com. Oct. Newsletter under my name.
It took nearly 7 cycles to double the number of hurricanes.
It took nearly seven cycles to add one average each of consistent rain.
Of course temperatures climbed.
Accumulated Cyclone Energy reached 1591 in the last cycle.
Topography is about as far north and south as it can go unless there is another Middle-Age type peak, but inter-ice age periods don’t show that pattern.
We should be in a decline Or on the last shelf before decent.
Work your numbers a little longer. It’s there.
Paul
R. Gates says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:06 pm
And just a comment related to another post– so long as it is not a pure guess, where you randomly pick a number, anyone, Ph.D or not, can make a forecast if it is based on a set of data that you believe are reliable and theoretically related to the item you’re forecasting. This is the difference between a guess (not based on any theoretical relationship, and a forecast. A guess is just that– a guess.Your knowledge of the topic should have some relationship to the accuracy of the forecast (at least that is the theory), but that hasn’t necessarily proved true in practice.
================================
Actually, I take part of what I said back.
Even though you are not one, you might just make a good climatologist.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Should there be this much of a difference?
1998 to 2009:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/uah/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/normalise/to:2009/trend
I didn’t use to time 2010 because 2010 isn’t done yet.
You didn’t use 2010 because the UAH, RSS and Hadley trends have change sign (negative to positive) if you use the most recent data. This, though, illustrates the general point. If you use too short a time period the trends can be very sensitive to short term fluctuation in the monthly data – particularly near the beginning or the end of the time period. So, in response to
your question “Should there be this much of a difference?” the answer is that there could easily be a difference of ~0.1 deg over a decade if, as happened, GISS started with a relatively low 1998 anomaly.
I’d give it another 5 years before deciding whether the GISS measurements have been ‘boosted’ recently. Note that the trends for all 4 datasets are in very close agreement over the past 20 years.
Steve Goddard,
I’m afraid I still don’t understand why you’ve introduced this metric of area above / area below. Sure, if it is over 1.0 then 2010 will be warmer. But why not use average temperature anomaly, 2010 minus 1998? That seems to me much more straight forward.
The ratio of areas will diverge to infinity or zero not just when 2010 becomes hot or cold, but also when it converges on the 1998 temperature profile. A rank ordering on area above / area below is not in general the same as a rank ordering by temperature anomaly. A high value of the ratio by month 7 does not in general make it harder for the mean anomaly for the year to fall below 1998. For that, I would think that mean anomaly is a better measure.
What is the intuition that I am meant to take away from the plot showing GISS as an outlier? Of course, it is possible to construct an ‘unnatural’ functional that would make any of the records ‘outliers’. My question is just what motivates you to suggest the area above / area below metric is particularly significant? What additional information beyond mean anomaly is your ratio pulling out?
Leif Svalgaard
The total warming since 1850 has been less than 0.8 degrees. Half of that occurred prior to 1940. Can you please not start this conversation again?
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/hadcrut1.gif?w=510&h=240&h=240
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 21, 2010 at 11:58 pm
R. Gates says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I would strongly disagree. TSI is directly correlated with sunspot numbers, and the long and deep solar minimum we just came through where the sun was blank for long periods of time would necessarily mean that TSI was also lower for an extended period of time
This is not what the measurements show. So perhaps your assertion that TSI is directly correlated with sunspot numbers is not quite correct. [it is in fact, not].
I repeat, the measurements from VIRGO has a degradation drift which is the reason for the apparent lower value. Here is the conclusion of the other TSI instrument on SOHO: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2010ScienceMeeting/doc/Session1/1.07_Dewitte_TSI.pdf . On page 21: “Good agreement with models assuming no solar minimum
TSI variation.”
______
Thanks for that link. I would like your opinion then on these two charts:
http–www.climate4you.com-images-SolarIrradianceAndSunspots.gif
http–www.climate4you.com-images-TSI%20LASP%20Since2003.gif
Let’s assume that the first chart is correct and the irradiance in 1998 was similar to that in 2004, though they are are opposite sides of the bell curve of solar max 23. We see their sunspots numbers are also similar, though again, one is when the solar max 23 is approaching the peak, and the other when it is coming off the peak. Furthermore, from the second graph we see that the TSI during the solar minimum of 2008-2009, was lower than that of 2004, and 2004 was similar to the level of 1998. My original point was that the warmth of El Nino year of 1998, when compared to the warmth of the El Nino period of 2009-2010, got a little extra boost from a higher TSI during that period– far more than .01C, and probably closer to .1C, if you consider that from the top of a solar cycle to the bottom, that on average there is a difference of around .2C.
[Reply: Please learn how to post hotlinks:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/08/wuwt-operational-note
We have enough to do without having to reconstruct them. Thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
Leif has confirmed we should be using a reduction in TSI since July 1998 of about 0.3 W/m2 which (is actually only 0.05 W/m2 considering Albedo and the fact that the Earth is rotating sphere and this) would translate into a reduction of 0.02C in surface temperatures as a maximum.
So, GISTemp is down 0.045C since July 1998 taking into account the most important natural factors we know about (not up 0.24C as predicted by the IPCC).
JK says:
August 22, 2010 at 3:32 am
In Steve’s August 20, 2010 at 8:39 pm post, he says “It is just a simple numerical integration of degrees on the y-axis vs. years on the x-axis done by counting pixels. This yields degree-years for the result.”
So it seems Steve just took the graphs and used image processing software to measure pixels^2. That makes me worry that Günther Kirschbaum’s observation that the Y axis on the graphs doesn’t have a constant scale in degrees/pixel. If Steve’s numbers are in pixels^2, then that’s not proportional to degree-years across all the graphs, and that would make the ratios between graphs wrong.
stevengoddard says:
August 22, 2010 at 3:40 am
The total warming since 1850 has been less than 0.8 degrees. Half of that occurred prior to 1940. Can you please not start this conversation again?
Depends on which series one cherry picks, doesn’t it. GISS gives a different picture, doesn’t it?
John Finn says:
August 22, 2010 at 2:41 am
I didn’t use to time 2010 because 2010 isn’t done yet….You didn’t use 2010 because the UAH, RSS and Hadley trends have change sign (negative to positive) if you use the most recent data.
The reason I gave is the reason I did it. Your reason you gave for what I did is different that the reason I gave. 2010 is not over. We don’t know what adding 2010 to the record will do yet. El Nino ended a few months and La Nina is at work. You did not address the point I made. GISTemp should not be that different. It’s simple really. By the end of this year the other three could be back in down trend. I don’t think GISTemp will be. I think it will continue to be bizarrely different. And the good thing is it isn’t long until January when will all find out for sure.
There still is the issue of data at GISS changing:
http://i31.tinypic.com/2149sg0.gif
Funny that some fellow have to change data from the past. Why do they have top put so much energy into that?