Dr. Roger pielke confirms a point made in comments in my earlier post on BEST about all data coming from a single source, which is the National Climatic Data Center. (NCDC)
By Dr. Roger Pielke Senior
Comment On The Article in the Economist On Rich Muller’s Data Analysis
On Climate Etc, Judy Curry posted
Berkeley Surface Temperatures: Released
which refers the Economist article
A new analysis of the temperature record leaves little room for the doubters. The world is warming
The Economist article includes the text
There are three compilations of mean global temperatures, each one based on readings from thousands of thermometers, kept in weather stations and aboard ships, going back over 150 years. Two are American, provided by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one is a collaboration between Britain’s Met Office and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (known as Hadley CRU). And all suggest a similar pattern of warming: amounting to about 0.9°C over land in the past half century.
The nearly identical trends is no surprise as they draw from mostly the same raw data!
I discussed this most recently in my post
The new Muller et al study, therefore, has a very major unanswered question. I have asked it on Judy’s weblog since she is a co-author of these studies [and Muller never replied to my request to answer this question].
Hi Judy – I encourage you to document how much overlap there is in Muller’s analysis with the locations used by GISS, NCDC and CRU. In our paper
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. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-321.pdf
we reported that
“The raw surface temperature data from which all of the different global surface temperature trend analyses are derived are essentially the same. The best estimate that has been reported is that 90–95% of the raw data in each of the analyses is the same (P. Jones, personal communication, 2003).”
Unless, Muller pulls from a significanty different set of raw data, it is no surprise that his trends are the same.
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If you want to see a genuine re-analysis of the raw data rather than just another Tmin/Tmax rehashing, see: J.-L. Le Mouël et al., Evidence for a solar signature in 20th-century temperature data from the USA and Europe, C. R. Geoscience (2008)1.
Funny how the peer-reviewed re-analysis of J.-L. Le Mouël et al., 2008 merited no headlines apart from WUWT and other skeptic outlets, while BEST’s non-peer-reviewed rehashing it in THREE INCH headlines around the world.
Speaking only for myself, I’ve never had much of a problem with HadCRUT3, apart from their misrepresentation of the uncertainty in the data & analysis. GISTEMP is the one in which “the nature of the measurements obtained” appears to have been improperly influenced “so that the key evidence can be obtained.”
BEST has basically added a fourth GIGO to the mix.
I still think that my main conclusion of the temperature data collected proves one thing and one thing only.The temperature measured at airports (where too many stations are located) has increased due to construction, increase passenger volume and changes in airplanes
Forgive me for a simple-minded question, but what does this “new” approach mean, regarding Hansen’s “adjustments.”
Is the BEST data saying “adjustments” are not needed, in which case we can throw away Hansen’s “adjustments?”
Does the BEST data include Hansen’s “adjustments,” in which case we are where we started?
Does the BEST data include a whole new family of “adjustments?”
Is the raw data truly “raw?”
Well, they show that the atmosphere over land has warmed over 150 years! I see no evidence to link this to human activities, just coincidence so far, but they conclude that this is proof of human CO2 emissions causing warming? Weird! Also the BBC claimed this morning in the 7:00am news on Radio 2 this group used to be “skeptical” but now miraculously they are now warmist!
Also I forgot to ask, why does their graph stop in 2006, this is tail ending 2011 now so why the convenient cut-off date? That makes me suspicous for a start!
Skeptics have no issue with the world warming…. It’s natural…. The same with Climate Change. That is natural too…. The issue is the anthropogenic component of the warming as is proposed by the AGW hypothesis…. Why do the AGW proponents keep trying to tell us what our arguements are?
Now…. can they get on with directing us to their observational data that shows this anthropogenic signal of warming so as to confirm their Hypothesis….. To date, there has been no such data.
I’ve been looking at the GHCN data from a different perspective, so I wasn’t looking at the data from a global trend standpoint. Yesterday, I did a quality control exercise. By selecting 15 stations at random, 4 had series that lasted nearly a century, but contained minimal data, 3 had unexplained “jumps” in the data of well over 2oC ,two showed negative trends and the rest showed positive trends in region of 1.2 C/century. Were one asked to make a judgement on data of this quality in process control or medicine, one would decline to do so.
The primary data appears to me to be very uncertain. I am well aware that statistics is the art of making judgements in the light of uncertainty, but I am unimpressed by the quality of the primary data.
In one of the papers, BEST presents a random selection of the 39,000 stations which were not used by the other groups. The dropped stations in other words.
Figure 1: it is quite different.
http://berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Decadal_Variations
One thing to note is using a baseline of 1950 to 1980 and then charting the data from 1950 to 2010 will naturally force the lines to appear to match up in the middle. They all average Zero from 1950 to 1980. They will naturally look to be the same in this period. This is a very important point that chart viewers need to take in account. [I’m a numbers/chart person so perhaps this is just something that I’m tuned into but it is a real effect].
It is only at the end points where differences will appear in a chart designed like this (as in Figure 1, where the random BEST stations are 0.3C below GISS/Hadcrut and 0.4C below NOAA in 2010) .
BEST random – ends at 0.54C in 2010.
NOAA All – ends at 0.95C in 2010.
This is a seriously coordinated media event, I’ve just been on the Telegraph web-site where the “Pro” posters are out in force. Along with the usual insults and lack of substantiated “science” there is now comparison with the Taliban just for good measure.
Can anyone explain this to me:
The Little Ice Age is accepted by practically everyone. We are coming out of the LIA. It is expected that the world will warm when it comes out of a cold period. If we all agree that the world warms when it exits a tiny ice age, then why are we all surprised that the world is warming?
izen says:
October 21, 2011 at 12:07 am
@- Pielke Sr
“Unless, Muller pulls from a significanty different set of raw data, it is no surprise that his trends are the same.”
The point is not that three groups find the same trend in the same data, its that NONE of the studies show any significance difference in trend between urban and rural sites. The meme that the warming is exaggerated by the UHI effect is refuted.”
Concerning UHI I think that Roy Spencer did some work showing that UHI effect can and does happen in very small rural communties, which if true brings UHI back into force as a strong factor in average temperature. Lucy does a good write up on UHI here…http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/UHI.htm which I would like to see Steve Mosher comment on.
Anthony,
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/10/21/keenans-response-to-the-best-paper.html
Take heart the truth will out.
The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism
There were good reasons for doubt, until now.
By RICHARD A. MULLER
Are you a global warming skeptic? There are plenty of good reasons why you might be.
…
Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.
…
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
For many, including many journalists, a simple take-away from this will be that “global warming skeptics” are wrong.
There is absolutely no reason for Muller to use this terminology. The revelation of his analysis isn’t that we have been warming (since the end of the LIA), it is that the possible error in the global temperature reporting system may be less than we thought.
I guess “Global Temperature Reporting systems error less than we thought” wouldn’t show enough “team spirit” as a heading that wrongly belittles skeptics.
But, to be fair, let’s do a quick test:
all the “skeptics” who do not think we have been warming since the end of the LIA, raise you hand.
Hmm… I don’t see any hands raised. Seems pretty conclusive to me.
Even so, I’m sure Muller has fooled some of the people, at least this time.
Considering nobody knows the composition of the land directly around half the stations, I find it amazing they can discern “rural”….
Zeke Hausfather – I realize that he has a much larger set of locations, but many of them are very short term in duration (as I read from his write up). Moreover, if they are in nearly the same geographic location as the GHCN sites, they are not providing much independent new information.
What I would like to see is a map with the GHCN sites and with the added sites from Muller et al. The years of record for his added sites should be given. Also, were the GHCN sites excluded when they did their trend assessment? If not, and the results are weighted by the years of record, this would bias the results towards the GHCN trends.
The evaluation of the degree of indepenence of the Muller et al sites from the GHCN needs to be quantified.
Perhaps they have done these evaluations. However, from my reading of their work, I have not yet seen it.
Apart from the spelling error – “Why do the AGW proponents keep trying to tell us what our arguements (sic) are?” …. EXACTLY. They are champs at knocking down straw men.
Why don’t we all just accept the fact that the earth is warming and move on from there? How many studies coming to the same conclusion does it take?
No one as far as I can see has denied that the earth has got warmer, what they do deny is that the cause is Co2 a trace gas, 0.038 % of the available gas in the atmosphere, it is crazy.
There is a big orange ball in the sky, we call it the SUN, it waxes and wanes, gets hotter and cooler. maybe, just maybe that is the culprit, but it is not taxable, yet>
I agree with the comment early on in the thread. The so called “average” of Tmax and Tmin cannot be statistically supported. If global warming is real, the signature will be much clearer in the details of temperature over a 24 hour period, each day, over each season, and over at least 70 to 80 year periods.
Rick Perry,
I know It’s a long shot, but are you Texas Gov. and presidential candidate Rick Perry?
rpielke says: October 21, 2011 at 6:22 am
“What I would like to see is a map with the GHCN sites and with the added sites from Muller et al.”
In a comment at Judy Curry’s I mentioned a KMZ file which shows the 36700 BEST stations in Google Earth. I’m hoping to extend this to show GHCN also, much as you suggest, when Ive been able to get the years of observation for the BEST sites.
What’s the point of this? Didn’t the Hockey Team use station data to hide the decline?
No one is arguing that the Earth’s climate hasn’t warmed over the last 400 years. HadCRUT3 and OHC (Levitus) indicate no warming over the last decade – But that doesn’t mean that the millennial-scale warm up since ~1600 AD has ended.
I really do not care if the earth is warming.I hate the cold , it kills people really quickly. I do really care that the blame be laid at the door of a trace gas, of which mankind contibutes an even tinier amount. This trace gas, is now the excuse for trillions of extra charges being applied to energy prices, green taxes etc, Old folk will die, turning off their heating because the bills are now too high. It is a form of genocide, keeps the health costs down (sarc) but maybe?
The issues for us here in the non-alarmist camp are not the temperatures for the last 30 years (well, not in terms of alarmism), but the way that the temperatures prior to this have been massaged to make the last 30 years “the warmest ever” (TM).
So far, all that BEST have done is to say (and I don’t make any comment on how accurate their statement is) that the flaws in the collection of US data pointed out in the Surface Stations project don’t matter and that the previously published surface temperature records are broadly accurate (for the last 30 years).
Now, since very few people in the non-alarmist camp have ever denied that it has got warmer in the past 30 years, what does this do to the position that anthropogenic CO2 is not the cause of warming? Nothing. Nada. Zilch
Even Muller says this. So, his point that “being a skeptic just got harder” is nothing more than a straw man argument and reveals that he is not the “independent reviewer” that he claims to be.
Game over as far as I am concerned – this is another bucket of whitewash.