By Steve Goddard
h/t to reader “Phil.” who lead me to this discovery.
In a previous article, I discussed how UAH, RSS and HadCrut show 1998 to be the hottest year, while GISS shows 2010 and 2005 to be hotter.
But it wasn’t always like that. GISS used to show 1998 as 0.64 anomaly, which is higher than their current 2005 record of 0.61.
You can see this in Hansen’s graph below, which is dated August 25, 1999
But something “interesting” has happened to 1998 since then. It was given a demotion by GISS from 0.64 to 0.57.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
The video below shows the changes.
Note that not only was 1998 demoted, but also many other years since 1975 – the start of Tamino’s “modern warming period.” By demoting 1998, they are now able to show a continuous warming trend from 1975 to the present – which RSS, UAH and Had Crut do not show.
Now, here is the real kicker. The graph below appends the post 2000 portion of the current GISS graph to the August 25, 1999 GISS graph. Warming ended in 1998, just as UAH, RSS and Had Crut show.
‘
The image below superimposes Had Crut on the image above. Note that without the post-1999 gymnastics, GISS and Had Crut match quite closely, with warming ending in 1998.
Conclusion : GISS recently modified their pre-2000 historical data, and is now inconsistent with other temperature sets. GISS data now shows a steady warming from 1975-2010, which other data sets do not show. Had GISS not modified their historic data, they would still be consistent with other data sets and would not show warming post-1998. I’ll leave it to the readers to interpret further.
————————————————————————————————————-
BTW – I know that you can download some of the GISS code and data, and somebody checked it out and said that they couldn’t find any problems with it. No need to post that again.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
H. Haug says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:30 pm (Edit)
NASA GIS station temperatures could earlier go back to about 1800. I have a print from 2003.
Today all temperatures earlier than 1880 are deleted!!! As far I know mean temperatures were higher before 1880. To get a constant rise in temperature they had to cut just there. Is that the reason?
No. PLEASE.
“NASA GIS station temperatures.” NO SUCH THING EXISTS. they pull data from GHCN which starts in 1701.
There is nothing of interest in how GISS process data. nothing. That is why I know with certainty that every time Goddard writes something that says “Giss fraud” that he has gotten something wrong. The difficulty as always is finding his exact error. But you can be sure. if goddard criticizes GISS, he did something wrong. it’s that simple.
jeez
“So the estimation algorithm has actually made the 1998 anomaly 0.02° C higher in 2010 than the the value calculated and used in 1999/2000.”
Oh my god! they rewrote history. therefore all of global warming science is bunk. They are making changes that are within a standard deviation the whole process is a fraud. and Mosh is an arrogant dope. This kind of thing would never fly in health care science, therefore, its colder now than in 1850, and the ice isnt melting.
WRT your question. RSM is not used in the SST ( there are no stations) as far as I recall. so your surmise would be correct
james sexton
“Will the real 1998 please stand up? Is it the 1998 of the 1998 vintage or the 1998 of the 2005 vintage or the 1998 of the 2010 vintage? OMG!!! I just realized GISS has fixed the quantum time difficulty!!”
There is no REAL 1998.
there is the 2005 estimate that is based on ONE set of data. There is 2010 estimate that is based on MORE data.
MattN
” It would seem to me that if what Mosher says is happening is really happening, some would go up a little, some would go down a little, but by and large they should bounce around the same point by a few hundreths. Not ALWAYS go one direction (down) by up to a tenth.
Something else is going on…”
Ya, Goddard is showing two different indexes. doh!
So, Matt.. calibrate your BS meter.
latitude says:
August 31, 2010 at 4:20 pm (Edit)
I have never seen so much tap-dancing in my entire life, just to say “yeah, they backcasted and adjusted it down”
Which still means that any “records” they say about today’s temperatures are not worth the paper they were printed on……….
#########
well, since goddard got the wrong charts, and since you supported him, I’ll say this.
Iff GISS is worthless and if Goddard cant even get the critcism of a worthless thing thing right, and if you cant see that goddards worthless critcicsm of a worthless thing is less than worthless, then I suppose that would make your opinion even more worthless. you follow? you supported a sloppy analysis. an analysis MORE sloppy than GISS. your support of goddard was your own fault. as you said…”and then I stopped reading.”
And if Steven Goddard is still in denial that he used two distinct indexes here are the links to the current underlying data.
Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature Anomalies (Land-Ocean Temperature Index, LOTI)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Means Based on Land-Surface Air Temperature Anomalies Only (Meteorological Station Data, dTs)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
Sam:
“You have created a 0.5 anomaly where no such anomaly exists. It looks to the layman like an inability to see the wood for the trees. Or alternatively a neat trick to confound the unwary.”
As I tried to explain the example was just to show how the algoritm would include older data going forward.
AND YES you do get spurious anomalies when you stitch stations together in my example. AND YES thats one issue with RSM. did you even READ the Mcintyre post I linked to. The question is do these biases normalize. a question steveMc left unanswered. They are a known artifact of the approach.
I predict than no supporters of Goddard will see that their bias blinded them.
So Mosh, what was the real problem again?
Data quality.
Like so, when Goddard plots a chart, question that he got it right. put as much effort into questioning him as you put into questioning Hansen.
perhaps steve can publish his “get the chart wrong” algorithm.
Ok Im done
James Sexton says:
August 30, 2010 at 5:19 pm (Edit)
stevengoddard says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:28 pm
“From now on, everyone must promise to only talk about things which Steven Mosher is interested in.”
lol, I promise! I wish people were half as smart as they make themselves out to be.
###########
Thanks James.
Steve Mosher, that’s enough, don’t spam up the thread.
Thanks Mr.Mosher, now we know the gospel. The temperature anomaly record of a past historical year or years will vary every time you run the GISS Algorithm. That is absolutely normal in your Alice in Wonderland world.
Yet, it is also absolutely normal that the same people who make up such data, can claim absolute accuracy to 6/10ths of a degree or even lesser and state today that they were always right and that this year is the hottest year. They can repeat it for any number of years by magically adjusting past years downwards, irrespective of what the actual fgures were. It has to be true because of their algorithm.
Pull the other leg and it has bells.
When one dataset alone shows such results, contrary to what the other 3 show and when the adjustments are always lowering past temperature decades later, the BS meter starts buzzing in full flow. In any other field, such a data set would be called as an artifact and disregarded.
For some more info on NASA games on temperature, read below post
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Steven Mosher says:
September 1, 2010 at 4:28 am
I think you have explained well as far as you can. However what your explanation has shown – and the GISS anomoly as well – is that the truth is NO ONE knows what is happening with global temperatures in the short term. In other words, we can agree with some certainity based upon ice core samples, what the temperature was during the last ice age. However, we have no clue what the actual temperature was 12 years ago since there is no global thermometer.
The 1998 anomoly shrunk by .07 in 12 years. Who is to say it will not shrink another .07 in the next 12, and another .07 in the following 12? Apparently no one. Because they do not know what it was then, nor now. It is just a SWAG.
“Fig. 1: Annual and 5-year mean surface temperature for (a) the contiguous 48 United States and (b) the globe, relative to 1951-80, based on measurements at meteorological stations.”
So, you’re telling me “the globe” does not actually mean, “the globe”? “The Globe” = “land only” in 1999?
In the paragraph above Hansen’s graph:
“Figure 1 compares the temperature history in the U.S. and the world for the past 120 years. The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years.”
He uses the terms “global” and “world” for that graph. You are telling me that is land only? Y/N?
At this point I feel compelled.
This has gone on long enough, the horse is not only dead, but now only a bloody pulp remains.
Sorry, but I must now declare everyone on this thread to be Nazi’s, only for the purpose of invoking Godwin’s law and (mercifully) ending this thread;
You are all a bunch of Nazi’s;
I now summarily invoke Godwin’s law.
And now I will summarize the entire argument;
Goddard; Giss is really bad, look what they’ve done now!
Mosher; They’ve n’t done anything. It’s all right there in the data, it’s perfectly legit.
Everyone; They changed the old numbers in order to make 2010 the warmest ever!
Mosher; But statistically, from a data integrity perspective; they’ve followed the rules. So what if it’s an artifact of the methodology, it’s all perfectly sound.
Everyone; yes, but they’re rewriting history to make their statement true. 2010 isn’t any warmer than they claimed ’98 to be!
Mosher; well, no, they’re not rewriting anything and anyway’s nobody even cares about Gisstemp and that Goddard fellow is just a wanker and he didn’t even do this right.
Everyone; well if no one cares about Giss, why are they going on about 2010 being the warmest ever and eveybody is publishing it as fact? (Oh, but we do agree about Goddard being a wanker though.)
(My apologies to Steve and Steve; this was intended only in good fun).
There. Done. Now can we move forward?
MattN says:
September 1, 2010 at 6:30 am
“Fig. 1: Annual and 5-year mean surface temperature for (a) the contiguous 48 United States and (b) the globe, relative to 1951-80, based on measurements at meteorological stations.”
So, you’re telling me “the globe” does not actually mean, “the globe”? “The Globe” = “land only” in 1999?
See the part I’ve highlighted, ‘Global Land-Ocean Index’ is a different statistic which includes SST as well as the land stations. They shouldn’t be directly compared which was the error in the original post.
Thanks to all for a spirited debate. GISS is not without it’s problems, but at least this one has been put to bed. Mr. Goddard made a mistake, and should have investigated complaints earlier.
As jeez points out, at least here at WUWT we allow the dissection of mistakes. We try to maintain an open mind about such things.
Good luck to Steve Goddard on his new blog.
This thread is now closed.