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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R. Gates
You must be getting desperate to reduce yourself to ad homs.
If you have a specific complaint, state it.
Why are so many people intent on changing the subject?
Apparently I must have hit a nerve.
tonyb says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:45 am
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
______
While I might enjoy researching and writing such an article, it is hardly my area of expertise, and I am far more familiar with and comfortable looking at the longer term effects on climate, rather than looking at the short-term ups and downs of 1, 2, 3, or even 10 year temperature fluctuations that ride on the back of much longer trends.
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:28 am
“With the effects of the solar minimum of 2008-2009 now behind us”
Sunspots are still pretty close to ‘solar minimum’. My eyeball view is that Sc24 is currently running at about 1/2 of what had been forecast.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/sunspots.htm
The last time we had a solar cycle as sad as the current one folks were ice skating on the Thames.
tonyb
UAH chLT shows daily temperatures this summer well below last year.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdGtqQ0ljZG1JZUVFMmc2dTRyTHRDU1E&hl=en&output=html
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/data/amsu_daily_85N85S_chLT.r001.txt
The notion that this year is in any way “warm” is laughable here.
As pointed out many times, we’re skipping summer this year. Two days ago was our warmest day of the year and it just touched 29.1C before plummeting in the evening. All of Western Canada (and as I understand it, the Western US as well) will be a tough sell for “warming” alarmists. The ag people I talk to are seriously concerned about having record low crops, if any.
Last year wasn’t much better, our warmest day of the year was September 24.
This year reminds me of 1992… which as we all should know was Pinatubo weather.
Warming? Record warmth? Hottest Year Evah…?! Laughable.
Is HadCrut still omitting Arctic data?
I think it is pointless to dwell on which year is the hottest, although as humans we like to see records broken.
All these indices measure different things, son’t they?
But here are two graphs that show the overall trend nicely.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/?ts=land
and
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/?ts=troposphere
If all the indices were in lock step, then maybe we would have a global left-wing conspiracy to produce one world government.
R. Gates, I take no notice of solar anything. I look to things that actually vary to the degree necessary to produce changes in temperatures. That would be oceanic oscillations, the jet stream, and atmospheric weather pattern variability. These intrinsic causes of temperature changes produce the necessary energy to force temps up and down beyond the error bands. Solar, planets, the moon, and CO2 do not.
Which is why I support a change from a global average to a three month running average by climate zone. That means no infilling from adjacent stations outside of the climate zone. We should have several indices of temperature, not one, which would be far more representative of land surfaces just as the ENSO El Nino, La Nina measure is far more representative of that oceanic region.
It is absolutely ridiculous that “A” global temperature has come to mean so much. If there EVER was a statistic that is data rich and information poor, it would be that one.
With that, you paint sceptics with an overly broad brush in much the same way you treat global temperatures. Your assumptions are making an …
Doug McGee
Here is a comparison of GISS Arctic coverage vs. HadCrut and UAH
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpgrVFoqQL0]
” Ian L. McQueen says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:29 am
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.”
Having studied mathematics, I should agree with you. I would prefer “GISS is 70 times higher than…”. But on the other hand I doubt very much that any reader other than you did not understand what was meant.
For those of you who think a straight trend is more important than running up and down averages, I suppose you DON’T like the way ENSO SST parameters are statistically displayed for El Nino and La Nina conditions and events. It would be interesting to take those SST numbers and just do a straight trend line. But then we wouldn’t be able to plan for coming attractions based on this important measure. However, that is the way AGW’ers prefer their data so let’s just do it that way. Use straight trend lines and one averaged number for the whole lot of it. And be damned with El Nino and La Nina methods. The world is an uncomplicated entity and one number per month with nothing but straight trend lines oughta do it.
” Doug McGee says:
August 20, 2010 at 8:29 am
Is HadCrut still omitting Arctic data?”
Yes, and if DMI is right and the arctic temperatures were stable, that makes for a little bit of additional warming.
But nothing compared to the clowns at GISS who invent a strong arctic warming that is not there.
One positive to take from Hansen’s numbers – the prices on a nice pellet stove and an emergency heater that I just purchased for some older relatives were quite reasonable. Might even consider getting a snow blower in the off-season.
Can someone please show a link that demonstrates only 17 countries temp data are used forthis “warmest year ever” statement.
” R. Gates says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:34 am
Funny Steve. I think when it comes to picking cherries, you are pretty much King of the Orchard.”
Since you know a lot about cherry picking: What interval would you recommend to calculate the trend of y = ( x – ¦x¦ ) + cos x ?
¦x¦ = absolute value of x
Wasn’t it a NASA employee in an email who effectively stated HadCRUT was a better product for global temperature data?
The comparison of GISS with Hadcrut, RSS and UAH makes the GISS warm bias obvious. Policy makers and the general public should be questioning not only their methods, but also their ethics.
The NOAA index hasn’t been mentioned. It is also (just) running ahead of 1998 at this time, and well ahead of 2005, which is also the hottest (completed) year to date for NOAA.
RobW said;
“Can someone please show a link that demonstrates only 17 countries temp data are used forthis “warmest year ever” statement.”
I originally posed the question at the start of this thread, to which Gunter replied with this link;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperatures-world
(I haven’t been able to find the original source so this report is second hand)
I responded at 3.51 expressing surprise that so few countries could skew the records especially as some of the countries cited have experienced weather cold enough to get in the news. Russia has been warm, so maybe its over influencing the record, hence my suggestion to Steve he might like to pursue this with a further article. I then extended the suggestion to Phil and R Gates.
Steve responded at 8.21 with two links which as he says shows this year is not especially hot. So the mystery deepens.
Is this the hottest year ever? No
Is it the hottest year since records began? (in 1880 according to Giss) If you see my post at 3.51 I express my doubts, but it would be good if someone wiuth the necessary skills looked at it.
tonyb
This is a terrible analysis. For GISS, the record is 2005, not 1998. And that record will likely not be broken.
Pamela Gray says: “It is absolutely ridiculous that “A” global temperature has come to mean so much. If there EVER was a statistic that is data rich and information poor, it would be that one. With that, you paint sceptics with an overly broad brush in much the same way you treat global temperatures. Your assumptions are making an …”
Very well said! I always appreciate the wit and wisdom in your comments, thank you.
Who cares if 2010 is the hottest year or not? There is inconclusive evidence that it is. No one can really say why, even if it is so. No one has seen any real proof of what is causing what and the probability that CO2 is a major player is also unproven not to mention that there is no real proof that any addional CO2 exists relative to longer time periods or if it does that it is due to people and what they do. Too much beating flies to death with sledge hammers.
[snip off topic ~mod]
R. Gates says:
August 20, 2010 at 8:12 am
You need at least a tourist trip to Puno, Peru, where you will enjoy -30C. Please do it as many other funny GW believers “gringos” and wear only t-shirts and short pants. LOL!