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
ZZZ
Had Crut is surface data.
Ric Werme said: I pointed out that if I were bicycling at 10 mph for a while and then at 3X less, I’d be going backwards at 20 mph.
I think it’s common for most to assume that this semantic means “reciprocal of.” For example, when someone says “That car is moving twice as slow” everyone knows they really mean “half as fast.” Or when a stock person says “that stock is rising 10x slower” everyone knows they meant “rising 1/10 as fast.”
I read “10mph for a while then at 3x less” as 10 – (1/3)10 = (20/3)mph
YMMV, and apparently it does!
Stevegoddard.
Yes .. I read the article. I was not going by the depiction of UAH in the article, I was going by the AMSU site, channel 4, “near surface temperature”.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
When I select 1998, 1999 and 2010, the line for 2010 on channel 4 of AMSU is well above 1998 and 1999 .. although, the line for 1998 only covers the last half of the year and doesn’t include “july”. But that would have had to be one hell of drop in temp from July 98 to August 98 for the graph to show July 98 above July 2010.
Maybe the ch04 data is not what they use for their official temperature metric. Or maybe ch04 is just raw data. I don’t know, and that is why I ask .. WattsUpWithThat??????
dude .. I’m just trying to learn here. I read everything. … and question everything.
jeez
Temperatures before 1960 have gone down. Temperatures since 1970 have gone up. Makes for a steeper slope.
jeez,
Ever read “The Emperor’s New Clothes?”
Some people will delude themselves to almost any degree as part of their need to trust authority.
How about Saddam’s WMDs? President Clinton, Al Gore and the UN were willing to starve a million Iraqi children to convince Saddam to give up his WMDs. According to UNICEF figures.
Ok, one more Steven,
I point out that your analysis is inane and not worthy of a post and describe why and you accuse me of a pathological need to trust authority? Someone is running out of arguments:
Can you understand that by criticizing you and perhaps getting you to tighten up your act I am trying to improve this site not tear it down?
Steve says: ‘either 2010 is the warmest year or it isn’t’.
So what? It doesn’t support your conclusion that only GISS thinks the world has warmed since 1998. Your conclusion statement is totally bogus and you know it. You simply can’t prove that the world isn’t warming by comparing hottest years. It’s a red herring and completely fallacious.
You also don’t deal with that fact that UAH has changed the way they calculate global temps in the past few months to make 2010 look cooler while GISS has been running the same algorithms for some time. (See comment by Jeez that you avoid answering)
jeez says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:04 am
Steven,
I think you mean that GISS has bumped historical records downward. I am familiar with this, having assisted in locating some of the older files. I know this process still continues. It is part of the Gistemp code. None of that changes my point. This train has been on the tracks for years. Unless you can point to a recent change in the codebase that accomplishes the goals you ascribe you are behaving irrationally, ascribing an evolving intent to computer code.
That’s all from me today.
So Jeez the same code has been used BUT the GHCN stations chosen and their number has changed.
That sounds like a good way to alter the result.
Then when individual station records used by GISS are examined they show undocumented and unjustified ‘adjustments’.
Sure the GISS code has remained the same – the garbage being put into it has been changed though and has produced the ‘expected result’.
Ian W
Document such a change and show the other indexes didn’t use the same contaminated station and you may have something worth posting about. My point about Steven is that his posts are nothing more than illustrated suspicions, hunches, and suppositions.
Hansen would claim a Bose Einstein condensate as the hottest year ever. Can we please get rid of the political hacks and get some real scientists working on this stuff at GISS?
Phil in his reply to me at 4.43 said;
“While doing so remember that the satellite data is also showing very warm conditions for the year, as I recall UAH and RSS show a close race between 2010 and 1998. The daily data that Roy Spencer shows was at record levels all year until it was adjusted downwards recently (although it’s again testing record territory now).
Also when doing comparisons Goddard should try to compare like with like rather than the nonsensical comparison between the 12 month running average of GISS to 2010 and the annual HadCRUT data to 2009 (note that Goddard rather disingenuously implies that HadCRUT does include 2010).”
All I am asking is that someone should objectively and methodically examine the claim this is the warmest year ever which seems to be based on 17 countries, most of whom have very limited data sets. If the claim of ‘warmest ever’ is related to back to 1880 how is that possible when Giss seem to be including data sets that are incomplete or only started in 1965?
You are obviously a knowledgeable person who always puts a lot of thought into your posts Phil, why don’t YOU do an analysis for the rest of us to examine? (note: this is NOT sarcasm)
tonyb
With the effects of the solar minimum of 2008-2009 now behind us and solar max ahead in late 2013 or early 2014, a likely El Nino in 2012-2013, look for continued warmth over the next few years and likely record high temps in those years. 2010 tropo temps have been at or nor record highs all year, consistent with GCM’s when looking at the long term forcing from the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s.
What is most remarkable to me during the period the last few years during the long and deep solar minimum is that we didn’t see global temps even fall more, nor did we see the Arctic Sea ice mount more of a recovery. Certainly AGW skeptics were “encouraged” by the solar minimum, and there was much talk of a “rapid global cooling” and the like, but from a GCMperspective with AGW factored in, there is no way this was going to happen, and the warmth of 2010 is is not so remarkable at all. Maybe 2010 will end up as the warmest on record, or only second place, but it really doesn’t matter, as the trend is obvious and we’ll see new records set in the next few years.
Is there any way to send a comment directly to Anthony? I’d like to point out privately (not in the commnets section) that one should not make statements like: “Seventy times lower than GISS”. One can’t compare diminutives in this way. If anything becomes less, it vanishes, so two times, seventy times, etc., less is impossible.
IanM
jeez
You are raising a straw man. I am comparing GISS vs. the other major indices. GISS doesn’t match.
I don’t have the time to look through millions of lines of data and code to find out what it is they are doing wrong. Why don’t you demonstrate what UAH, RSS and HadCrut are doing wrong, since that seems to be your area of interest?
The consequence of these , to say the least, peculiar research, is the following:
China surpasses US energy consumption:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/china-energy-consumption_n_652921.html
Because, as it has been pointed out by many here in WUWT, and by Lord Monckton in particular, the real objective of these scam studies is Global Governance, which to be possible needs a very much more feeble US, in every aspect, so as to achieve theirs “fair world” presided by the UN and justified by the IPCC and its collaborators.
Mark S
If Hansen is going to claim that 2010 is the warmest year ever, he better expect that statement will be analyzed for accuracy.
stevengoddard says:
August 20, 2010 at 6:50 am
Mark S
Either 2010 is the hottest year, or it isn’t.
Tamino’s “cherry picking” zombie troupe is on the march.
______
Funny Steve. I think when it comes to picking cherries, you are pretty much King of the Orchard.
La Nina is already at work. I don’t know if the word bizarre could describe it if GISTemp 2010 ends up highest in last 12 years.
R.Gates
likely El Nino in 2012-2013
Just wait for that kid comfortably seated, it won’t appear soon.
I take back my comment about diminutives. While my statement is true for numbers in general, Steve is referring to a distance on a graph below a reference point. I over-reacted.
But, still, is there any way to make comments off the record?
IanM
Jeez
I don’t know why you think you can be counted a sceptic. In 2008 over at CA I seem to remember that I left you in charge of Baby ice whilst I went on holiday and when I came back you had let most of it melt 🙂
tonyb
tonyb
perhaps the baby ice was kidnapped by arctic strawmen while I was sleeping?
R Gates
See my comment at 7.28 to Phil. I extend the suggestion to you regarding writing an article on the background to ‘the warmest year ever’ in which the temperature records of the 17 countries who are experiencing their hottest year ever needs to be objectively examined and put into the context of the 183 who aren’t.
Anthony is always looking for good articles and would, I am sure, particularly welcome one from a warmist viewpoint which can be examined by sceptics. Again, as with Phil, no sarcasm intended.
tonyb
Jeez
They were great threads!
tonyb
Its a shame that more and more people arent falling for the crap you try and peddle R Gates and Phil.
Well actually its not a shame. I’m actually greatful that many people no longer buy into your BS. I used to pay some attention to your posts but these days they are so totally lacking in any sort of balance I no longer bother.
Continue your endorsement of the accuracy of GISS and watch ppl slowly tune out to anything you have to post as it continues to move further away from reality.
ROFL – 2010 is going to be the warmest year on record? Next try and tell me the pope is Jewish. Do you have any idea whatsoever how little people respect your opinion when you try and pass off such rubbish.
Gates
Give proof of one occasion when an El Niño ahs been forecast correctly more than 18 mths ahead. Please. Stop flapping your backside. You and Jeez.
Just a general comment about the 2010 temps and the developing La Nina. Even if the La Nina is moderately strong, I don’t see it pushing global temps down in a severe way. Yes, there will be a decline, but there is plenty of warmth elsewhere in the global oceans to modulate the effects of the 2010-2011 La Nina.