Continued Bias Reporting On The Climate System By Tom Karl and Peter Thorne
By Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
Today, there were news articles concerning the state of the climate system; e.g. see the Associated Press news release in the Washington Post
Climate change study: More than 300 months since the planets temperature was below average
The news article refers to the 2010 climate summary that will be published in a Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society article. The article will undoubtedly include informative information on the climate.
However, the news article itself erroneously reports on the actual state of the climate, as can easily be shown simply by extracting current analyses from the web. Two of the prominent individuals quoted in the news report are Tom Karl and Peter Thorne. They make the following claims
“The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm,” Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010.”
“There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University.”
“Carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl added. Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas accumulating in the air that atmospheric scientists blame for warming the climate.”
Karl is correct on the increase in carbon dioxide, but, otherwise, he and Peter Thorne are not honestly presenting the actual state of the climate system. They focus on the surface temperature data, which as, we have reported on in peer-reviewed papers, has major unresolved uncertainties and includes a systematic warm bias; e.g. see
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841.
The climate system has not warmed since about 2003 either in the upper ocean or in the lower troposphere as shown in the three figures below.
Tom Karl is wrong in his first quote – The indicators DO NOT show unequivocally that the world continues to warm. This warming has stalled, at least for now, since about 2003. Peter Thorne is misrepresenting the actual data when he erroneously reports that (assuming he means ‘unequivocal warming’) “There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans”.
Second, the lower troposphere (from both the RSS and UAH MSU data) also do NOT SHOW unequivocally that the world continues to warm! Indeed, warming has also stalled since about 2002.
Figure caption: Global average (70 south to 82.5 north) lower tropospheric temperatures (from RSS)
Figure caption: Global average (70 south to 82.5 north) lower tropospheric temperatures (from UAH)
It should not be surprising that Tom Karl and Peter Thorne are not honestly reporting the actual state of the climate system, which involves a much more complex signal in response to human and natural climate forcings and feedbacks, than they report on; e.g. see
Christy, J.R., B. Herman, R. Pielke, Sr., P. Klotzbach, R.T. McNider, J.J. Hnilo, R.W. Spencer, T. Chase and D. Douglass, 2010: What do observational datasets say about modeled tropospheric temperature trends since 1979? Remote Sensing, 2(9), 2148-2169.
Previous documentation of the biases and efforts to manage the information provided to policymakers by Tom Karl and Peter Thorne includes the following examples
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences“. 88 pp including appendices
It is disappointing that the media do not properly question the claims made by Tom Karl and Peter Thorne. They are presenting a biased report on the actual state of the climate system.
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jaymam says:
June 30, 2011 at 2:20 am
“Looking solely at the three graphs shown above, they all appear to show a warming trend over the entire width of the graphs.
How can I explain to a warmist that this is not the case?”
Dunno, I’m still trying to comprehend the outgoing longwave radiation. Does it include the reflected solar radiation or just that that is released by the Earth?
Month to Month values (and a few trend lines). The orbital influence can be seen here.
http://i54.tinypic.com/95q8g7.png
And a full plot, latitude vs date. Seasonal variation can be seen here.
http://i51.tinypic.com/287zqdt.png
Again… dunno much about it, but it plots nicely.
As is often the case in climatological debates, the notion of a “statistical event” is missing from this one yet it is by observing the outcomes of statistical events and by comparing the predicted to the observed outcomes that one determines whether the outcomes are reliably predicted by the model that is being promoted for use in making policy. Rather than issuing inflammatory press releases, climatologists should get down to the business of identifying the statistical events that underlie the IPCC’s conclusions. In the design of a scientific study, to identify the statistical events is the first order of business yet despite the expenditure of 100 billion US$ on allegedly scientific research, climatologists have not yet identified those events which underlie the IPCC’s conclusions.
Ross says:
June 30, 2011 at 12:40 am
I see all the rubbish about how the earth would be “on average” minus 18 C without greenhouse gases then they play with the incoming solar radiation by reducing it to a quarter so they can justify their “back radiation” to explain the extra 33 C – ie “average” plus 15C.
They exclude downwelling thermal infrared – the actual heat we feel from the Sun… Instead they say only the shortwave visible/uv/near infrared heat the Earth’s land and oceans, these are not thermal wavelengths, they can’t physically do this.
So the back radiation must be pretty fierce in Alice Springs when it hits plus 45 in summer – so the back radiation supplies 63C?? Do these people really believe this sort of nonsense?
🙂 Not only believe it, but argue til they’re blue in the face that Light heats organic matter to produce all this infrared upwelling and bouncing back to toast Alice Springs.
But shrug, I haven’t seen any of the ‘major skeptics’ deal with this either.
In all my long life, I have never worked with scientists or engineers who take so-called “trends” seriously. Just look at who uses “trends.” Some people in the field of economics known as econometrics use “trends.” But has there ever been anyone who believed that some part of economics qualifies as scientific? I have not met such a person. The techies on Wall Street are always making their magical calculations on past market behavior. I guess they talk about “trends” in that behavior. But if techies on Wall Street are scientists then so are alchemists. Does anyone know of some kind of study that physicists and chemists recognize as science that uses “trends?” Don’t get me wrong. I am not against statistics. Population geneticists use statistics and they are genuine scientists; however, all their work is based on Objective Probabilities which are falsifiable. Anytime a population geneticist makes a claim, he will be quite happy to specify the conditions that would falsify that claim. “Trends” are by definition not falsifiable and, for that reason, not scientific. So, enough with them already.
wsbriggs says:
June 30, 2011 at 8:53 am
“Thanks Anthony for offering the World this island of calm. Like the coral in the sea, I have no doubt that this island too, will remain above the water level of the sea of nonsense that surrounds it. Keep up the great work!”
One of the keys to Anthony’s genius. Another is that the site offers the charm found in good Natural History. Another is that posters and commenters engage in criticism that would have made David Hume proud. There are many more, as you know.
The original article quotes the scientist Jay Gulledge making the analogy:
This is interesting because last time I looked, and despite an enormous amount of research to obtain hard evidence of this link, very little evidence of a salt-heartdesease link has been obtained. And this reminds me of a similar case at an anti-deniers CSIRO talk last year. The speaker compared the extremism of AGW scepticism to scepticism of the flurocarbon-ozonehole link in the example of the only scientist he knows who is still sceptical of both. The implication was that the ridiculousness of his scepticism on that issue explains his scepticism of AGW…as also ridiculous. That the current state of knowledge in the peer-review literature contradicts widespread popular belief in supporting scepticism of both analogous claims (of salt and of flurocarbons), this is revealing of how careless (or persuadable) these scientists are when it comes to popular myth and propaganda.
And did anyone see this extraordinary claim tacked on right at the end about the earth getting fat around the belly:
Nigel Harris says:
June 30, 2011 at 1:41 am
“There seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of what a time series consisting of a steady upward trend, plus random, but autocorrelated noise, should look like. Steps up followed by flattish periods, are exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to see. I wonder whether Bob Tisdale has ever tried applying his “eyeballing” techniques to some control series consisting of a linear trend plus AR(1) noise?
Try it for yourself in Excel. In A1 enter 0. Then in A2 enter the formula “=A1+0.001″. Copy that formula down column A for 400 cells or so. This gives you a linear upward trend. In B1 enter 0.5. In B2 enter the formula “=0.9*B1+0.1*RAND()”. Copy that formula down column B. This gives you some autocorrelated AR(1) noise. Now add the two columns together in column C and chart the result as a line chart. Hit the F9 key to calculate different sets of random, autocorrelated noise.”
The random noise component of an AR(1) process is typically nomally distributed, not uniformly distributed as in your Excel formula. Change “0.1*RAND()” to “0.1*NORMSINV(RAND())”, copy and paste and see what you get. Note that the trend is nowhere near as obvious. You should also see what happens with a negative or no trend, and also what happens as the degree of autocorrelation is changed (ie the 0.1 term). While you’re at it you could also plot out a complete random walk, ie in cell D1 enter 0. In D2 enter “=D1 + NORMSINV(RAND())” then copy and paste it down. Note that your random walk will often end up a long from 0 and there will often be a strong apparent trend. Of course the apparent trend is highly unstable and varies greatly for different data sets, but in real life we only get to observe 1 data set.
Wil. But then those ladies would just be average.
jaymam says:
June 30, 2011 at 2:20 am
Looking solely at the three graphs shown above, they all appear to show a warming trend over the entire width of the graphs.
How can I explain to a warmist that this is not the case?
Yes, there seems to be no doubt that the climate has been warming ever since we started to emerge from the end of the Little Ice Age around the mid-1800’s. The point is that the warming started long before manmade industrial CO2 levels started increasing…and the rate of increase has not increased since. The correlation with CO2 is very poor so something else is driving the temperature increase, not manmade CO2.
The random noise component of an AR(1) process is typically nomally distributed
For most processes inverse normal would be more appropriate. I strongly doubt weather is one of those, as it does tend to exhibit extremes. In particular the use of standard deviations based on normal predictions to give probabilities of extreme weather is very doubtful.
If I were to model such behaviour I would combine the two, say using = 0.05*(RAND() + NORMSINV(RAND()).
Nigel Harris says:
June 30, 2011 at 1:41 am
This is the first graph I plotted. A very good hockey stick.
http://i52.tinypic.com/2ymt3s5.jpg
I hit F9 lots of times but the first graph was the best.
Is that cherrypicking? Is that wrong?
The NOAA released a document on the state of the climate for 2010 where they claim that Greenland melting has increased 400 times since 1950. Further they predicted a 25 increase in the water level in the oceans by 2100. Can someone direct me too the projections for melting ice in Greenland since 1900.
Just read the article. Oh dear, it is all a bit sad isn’t it?
It was Disraeli, if I recall correctly, who observed thet there are “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Talk about nothing new under the sun!
In similar vein, Voltaire observed that some things are too stupid to be spoken and so should be put in a song ( to make them at least entertaining I suppose).
So lets hear it for Mike and the Mannufacturers with their hit, “I got the AGW Blues” !
Mooloo says:
June 30, 2011 at 4:02 am
“The warmist case is that the warming is accelerating and that is dangerous and it is caused by carbon dioxide and it is caused by man. If any of those four are wrong then their case is wrong.”
Well, if you would read Pielke closely, along with data other than the obviously warm-biased surface temperature measurements made by NOAA/GISS/CRU, you would see that your first point is wrong, therefore your second point is irrelevant; your third point remains unproven, making the fourth point equally irrelevant (of course, if it is sole causation by CO2 that you are talking about, that also happens to be wrong, because there is increasing evidence that there are other factors involved in warming as well, especially given that even Mike Hulme of CRU is now saying that CO2 is contributing less than 50% of the human-induced forcing). Therefore, the case is wrong. Move along.
Larry;
Yep; to update the primitive cosmology, “Trash, all the way down.”
I was wondering why the spivs used the hundred year average and not the normal anomaly. I graphed it up and it turns out that had they done that, it would only have gone back to 1993 before and average month crossed the line or seventeen years. By using the hundred year average they could go back too 1985 or 25 years. So it was for dramatic effect. However they spin it, it’s still only 0.4C warmer than the warmest months around 1945.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/had100.png
jon shively:
This paper reports that Greenland lost an average of 195km\3 annually from 2003-2008, mostly from fjords etc. That’s .0068% / annum of the 2,850,000km\3 area. It also reports this “potentially” translates into a global sea level increase of 0.0005 m/annum. It will also suggest additional sites for data.
Run for the hills.
/off sarc
Wouters., B.D. Chambers etc
Grace observes small-scale mass loss in Greenland
Geophy Res Letters Oct 2008
Tim Clark – re the Wouters paper: the abstract (presumably the one you refer to) is at http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034816.shtml and says
GRACE observes small-scale mass loss in Greenland
Using satellite gravity data between February 2003 and January 2008, we examine changes in Greenland’s mass distribution on a regional scale. During this period, Greenland lost mass at a mean rate of 179 ± 25 Gt/yr, equivalent to a global mean sea level change of 0.5 ± 0.1 mm/yr. Rates increase over time, suggesting an acceleration of the mass loss, driven by mass loss during summer. The largest mass losses occurred along the southeastern and northwestern coast in the summers of 2005 and 2007, when the ice sheet lost 279 Gt and 328 Gt of ice respectively within 2 months. In 2007, a strong mass loss is observed during summer at elevations above 2000 m, for the first time since the start of the observations.
So it’s 0.5mm/yr, not 0.0005, and there’s enough additional info to allow alarmists to say it’s getting worse. Of course, the study ends in 2007/8, so doesn’t cover the “recovery” years since then.
There’s a comment on RealClimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/how-much-will-sea-level-rise/comment-page-8/#comment-99902
Nigel Harris says:
June 30, 2011 at 1:41 am
well – I played a bit more & put in a sine curve as well as the other suggestion – 4 columns
for rows 0 and 1 :
0 0 = 0.05*(RAND() + NORMSINV(RAND())) =A1+B1+C1
=A1+$G$29 =SIN(A2*$G$30)/$G$31 = 0.05*(RAND() + NORMSINV(RAND())) =A2+B2+C2
where the three $g$n cells are
$g$29 linear const 0.001
$g$30 sin_freq 100
$g$31 sin_amplitude 50
now I can add in a sine curve to see something cyclic on top of the linear trend – – and I let the graph show all 4 columns. And I can vary the input parameters.
One observation – before adding in the sine curve; was that if I made the start -0.200 the resulting summed curve looked remarkably like some of the before & after adjustment curves so frequently stared on WUWT
thanks
Great review! You actually covered some interesting things in your post. I came across it by using Bing and I’ve got to admit that I already subscribed to the RSS, will be following you on my iphone 🙂
Mods, You’ve been spammed! (free iphone, above).
[don’t yer hate it when that happens ~ac]