Another GISS miss, this time in Iceland

Ever wonder why NASA’s Jim Hansen (and many others) see red at high northern latitudes?

Above 2011 Temperature Anomaly. Source: NASA GISS interactive plotter

With all that red up north, you’d think Jimbo, Gore, and Trenberth would want to get a look at that firsthand, instead of making a fossil fueled boat trip to Antarctica during peak of the southern summer melt season so they could give us grand proclamations about the melting there.

All the “hot action” is up north according the the latitude plot that accompanies the GISS anomaly map:

Funny how in the anomaly map above, with the great Texas Heat Wave this year, Texas is not red. WUWT? (The way it was portrayed in media, you’d think it was a permanent condition).

It seems to be all in the adjustments. Cooling the past helps the slope of the trend:

How GISS Has Totally Corrupted Reykjavik’s Temperatures

Guest post By Paul Homewood

GISS Surface Temperature Analysis

image

Now that GHCN have created a false warming trend in Iceland and Greenland , and GISS have amended every single temperature record on their database for Reykjavik going back to 1901 (except for 2010 and 2011), we should have a look at the overall effect.

image

The red line reflects the actual temperature records provided by the Iceland Met Office and shows quite clearly a period around 1940, followed by another 20 years later, which were much warmer than the 1970’s. GISS, as the blue line shows, have magically made this warm period disappear, by reducing the real temperatures by up to nearly 2 degrees.

Meanwhile the Iceland Met Office say that “The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik”.

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Just for completeness, here is the GISS trend map and latitude plot for the start of the GISS baseline (1951) to 2011.

UPDATE: 1/26/2012 10:30AM

I added (The way it was portrayed in media, you’d think it was a permanent condition) to the body of this post. since my intent with that statement about Texas wasn’t clear. I got distracted by phone calls and other business in the middle of writing this post and lost my train of thought (and I haven’t been following comments on it either). It is one of the pitfalls of trying to run a business and family while trying to keep up with the demands of this venue. Apologies to anyone who thought I was suggesting Texas summer temp data would show up in December data. Such transient events are just one more indication of the synoptic scale blocking high which caused that event, not any long term climate issue.

Paul Homewood sends his email correspondence and supporting data from the Icelandic Met Office.  Here is a PDF file containing the data (referenced in the emails): Reykjavik-1871_Akureyri-1881_Stykkisholmur-1845

—– Forwarded Message —–

From: Trausti Jónsson

To: paul homewood

Cc: Halldór Björnsson

Sent: Monday, 23 January 2012, 17:40

Subject: Re: monthly temperatures

 

Hi Paul.

We have sent a questions to the GHCN database regarding this and they will look into the problem. Regarding your questions:

a) Were the Iceland Met Office aware that these adjustments are being made?

No we were not aware of this.

b) Has the Met Office been advised of the reasons for them?

No, but we are asking for the reasons

c) Does the Met Office accept that their own temperature data is in error, and that the corrections applied by

GHCN are both valid and of the correct value? If so, why?

The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik but not quite as bad for the other stations. But we will have a better look. We do not accept these “corrections”.

d) Does the Met Office intend to modify their own temperature records in line with GHCN?

No.

No changes have been made in the Stykkisholmur series since about 1970, the Reykjavík and Akureyri series that I sent you have been slightly adjusted for major relocations and changes in observing hours. Because of the observing hour changes, values that where published before 1924 in Reykjavík and before 1928 in Akureyri  are not compatible with the later calculation practices. For other stations in Iceland values published before 1956 are incompatible with later values except at stations that observed 8 times per day (but the differences are usually small). The linked paper outlines these problems (in English):

Click to access Climatological1960.pdf

The monthly publication Vedrattan 1924 to 1997 (in Icelandic) is available at:

http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pubId=278&lang=is&navsel=666

and earlier data (in Icelandic and Danish – with a summary in French) at:

http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pubId=240&lang=is&navsel=666

http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pubId=241&lang=is&navsel=666

Monthly data from all stations from 1961 onwards :

http://www.vedur.is/Medaltalstoflur-txt/Manadargildi.html

Best wishes,

Trausti J.


Frá: “paul homewood”

Til: “Trausti Jónsson”

Sent: Mánudagur, 23. Janúar, 2012 17:09:30

Efni: Re: monthly temperatures

Many thanks for this.
I have noticed that in the latest version of the GHCN database, NOAA have made certain adjustments to temperatures at several Icelandic stations, which have the effect of reducing temperatures from around 1940 to 1965, and increasing temperatures since.
For instance in Reykjavik, there is something like an extra degree of warming added by these adjustments, as per the following link. Also affected are Stykkisholmur , Akureyri and Hofn.
Can I ask :-
a) Were the Iceland Met Office aware that these adjustments are being made?
b) Has the Met Office been advised of the reasons for them?
c) Does the Met Office accept that their own temperature data is in error, and that the corrections applied by GHCN are both valid and of the correct value? If so, why?
d) Does the Met Office intend to modify their own temperature records in line with GHCN?
Many thanks

Paul Homewood


From: Trausti Jónsson

To: phomewooduk

Cc: Guðrún Þórunn Gísladóttir

Sent: Tuesday, 17 January 2012, 11:19

Subject: monthly temperatures

Dear Mr Homewood,

I attach a table including the monthly temperature averages for Reykjavik (1871), Akureyri (1881) and Stykkisholmur (1845).

Best wishes,

Trausti J.

Lýsing: Could you please send me, or let me know where I can access, annual mean temperatures for Reykjavik and Akureyri, back to 1900,(or when records are available from).. Many thanks Paul Homewood –

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Camburn
January 30, 2012 5:34 am

This won’t help with the historical adjustments, but a thought occured.
Is there any way to compare the past 30 years of GISS in the Arctic area verses UAH data?
I would think that UAH must use some type of grid. I know one channel is gone, but the historical data should still be there. That might clue us in as to whether the adjustments are more of a persistent problem rather than a one time item.

Camburn
January 30, 2012 8:52 am

Using the global mean, there is a divergence problem between UAH and GISS. I don’t know the reason for this, however, after observing the adjustments to temperature exibitied in this thred, it may be that GISS needs to look at its algorithims.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1977/to:2012/trend:0.5/plot/uah/from:1977/to:2012/plot/uah/from:1977/to:2012/trend:0.5

Camburn
January 31, 2012 8:01 pm

It would seem that GISS has corrupted more than Iceland:
Compare and if you have answers I am all ears:
http://webcitation.org/63wGUTWt6
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif

slow to follow
February 1, 2012 2:23 am

Camburn – your webcitation link doesn’t work for me?

Camburn
February 1, 2012 11:14 am

slow to follow:
I just clicked on the links and they took me to the url’s presented.
I am using IE as a brower.

slow to follow
February 3, 2012 4:27 am

Camburn – thanks. Worked ok in IE with cookies on.

Mailman
February 5, 2012 8:00 am

Apologies if this has already been posted but has anyone had a look here;
http://moyhu.blogspot.com/2012/01/reykjavik-and-ghcn-adjustments.html?showComment=1328457411120#c5587337558620352701
Looks like an attempt at refuting the claims of this article but I must admit that being a mere human I still couldnt work out why they reduced the temps of the past (and how come every change ever made has always been in the same direction…downwards).
Regards
Mailman

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