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
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.
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
From: Trausti Jónsson
To: paul homewood
Cc: Halldór Björnsson
Sent: Monday, 23 January 2012, 17:40
Subject: Re: monthly temperatures
We have sent a questions to the GHCN database regarding this and they will look into the problem. Regarding your questions:
No we were not aware of this.
No, but we are asking for the reasons
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”.
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.
Til: “Trausti Jónsson”
Sent: Mánudagur, 23. Janúar, 2012 17:09:30
Efni: Re: monthly temperatures
From: Trausti Jónsson
To: phomewooduk
Cc: Guðrún Þórunn Gísladóttir
Sent: Tuesday, 17 January 2012, 11:19
Subject: monthly temperatures
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 –
[Snip. Anthony is not a liar, and I won’t tolerate you labeling him as such. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip. ~dbs]
Although I’m a (moderate) sceptic the points Tom Curtis made about Iceland seem quite reasonable. The British occupied Iceland on 10 May 1940, one month and a day after the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. Iceland could have been a useful base for the German navy and airforce so to prevent that up to 25,000 British troops were stationed on the island. A little more than a year after the start of the British occupation the governments of the UK and US agreed that responsibility for the defence of Iceland should be transferred to the still neutral United States in order to free up the British forces engaged on that task. Thereafter 40,000 Americans were stationed in Iceland.
Of course this might not have anything to do with the adjustments to the temperature records but it does seem a plausible explanation. However there will probably still be doubts about the adjustments until those responsible for them provide a detailed explanation of what they did and why they did it.
Tom Curtis says:
January 26, 2012 at 11:54 am
You absolutely cannot find the correct conclusion to this issue by observing that there has been an adjustment and concluding that therefore the adjustment introduces an error.
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Of all the obnoxiously arrogant and absurd statements……… Read the post.(Including the update) Do you believe the people of Iceland don’t know these things? Do you honestly believe we need GISS, NOAA or anyone else to tell us what the real temps of Iceland are? Do you understand that those people are educated and aware of the issues just as well, if not more so, than you are?
I weep for western civilization.
@Camburn
Is the apparant error confined to only Iceland or is manifest throughout the data set as a whole?
It seems basically Iceland and Greenland. Also Lerwick, in the Orkneys! The concern is that if these “errors” have happened this time, how many others have slipped through the net previously?
And the ‘Team’ knows about errors in their adjustments. From ClimateGate 2.0 # 1057.txt
From: Thorne, Peter (Climate Research)
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 2:34 PM
To: Phil Jones; Parker, David; Stott, Peter
Subject: Tom’s thoughts on urban errors …
… Everybody wants to add an estimate of what UHI bias might be into their error bars, but it seems to me that rather than trust folk lore that there is a uhi bias, they first need to find one systematically in the network. Until they do that, the former is just hand waving to appease the know-littles. Jim Hansen adjusts his urban stations (based on night-lights) to nearby rural stations, but if I recall correctly (I’ll send that paper shortly), he warms the trend in 42 percent of the urban stations indicating that nearly half have an urban cold bias. Yet error analyzers want to add a one sided extra
error bar for uhi…..
Regards,
Tom
Explain how urban areas get cold?
@Tom Curtis
As it happens, I know for a fact that the second suggestion above (increased traffic at the airport) is in fact what happened
You will find the same pattern of adjustments at other Iceland stations e.g.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=620040130000&data_set=12&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=620040130000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
But I agree, lets wait for GHCN to explain.
It is good to see the correspondence between Paul Homewood and Trausti Jónsson. Trausti is a specialist in climate research and probably one of the most knowledgeable persons in Iceland’s climate history.
Trausti has a new blog post almost every day where he discusses the current weather, the weather trend, how to read and interpret weather maps, climate and weather history, theory, unusual weather patterns, etc… See http://trj.blog.is He is constantly educating his readers in his humorous writing style. Every day more the 1000 people read his blog which is quite a lot considering that the population is only about 320.000, or 1/1000 of the US population. Equivalent to one million readers every day is something…
Well, his name Trausti means a person you can trust. I am sure you can trust what he tells you 🙂
By the way, I have updated my blog with links to the interesting posts and discussions here at WUWT and at Paul’s site.
Keep up the good work Paul and Anthony!
http://agbjarn.blog.is/blog/agbjarn/entry/1218545/
Regards
Agust
Ryan says: January 26, 2012 at 7:43 am
“Please give us just one clear example where the same algorithms have resulted in a cooling trend instead of a warming trend.”
I did that in the post that I linked, with the histograms. I listed a large number, and showed in detail Coonabarabran in New Soulh Wales, where adjustments produced a steep decline. But the histogram gives the more complete picture.
Tim Clark says: January 26, 2012 at 9:54 am
“At some point in my life, my fervent desire would be to see a visual with all the known or available original, unadulterated, temperature records from around the world averaged together in a single graphic.”
It’s been done, many times. As occasionally grudgingly conceded here, GHCN produces two data sets, one adjusted, one not. The unadjusted set comes straight from the data supplied by Met offices. That’s formalised for the last fifteen years or so with CLIMAT forms, which are lodged monthly and can be inspected on the web. The published GHCN set does not deviate from those. In this case, it is in accord with the Icelandic Met set.
Several indices have been produced using this set. BEST uses unadjusted data. I maintain a set myself, TempLS. Here is a post comparing several such efforts; I don’t think any of them used adjusted data.
If you want to see a plot of individual station trends from raw GHCN data, with no processing other than local regression, collected in a global shaded plot, it’s here.
Missing link – here is the Blackboard post comparing numerous indices using unadjusted GHCN data, showing that it made no systematic difference.
“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?”
These questions from Paul’s letter to the Icelandic Met clearly show the confusion about the GHCN data sets. GHCN was not in any way saying that the Iceland data was wrong, or should be replaced. They continued to publish it in their unadjusted data set.
Here is GHCN’s own statement about the status of the sets:
” V3 contains two different dataset files per each of the three elements. “QCU” files represent the quality controlled unadjusted data, and “QCA” files represent the quality controlled adjusted data. The unadjusted data are often referred to as the “raw” data. It is important to note that the term “unadjusted” means that the developers of GHCNM have not made any adjustments to these received and/or collected data, but it is entirely possible that the source of these data (generally National Meteorological Services) may have made adjustments to these data prior to their inclusion within the GHCNM. Often it is difficult or impossible to know for sure, if these original sources have made adjustments, so users who desire truly “raw” data would need to directly contact the data source. The “adjusted” data contain bias corrected data (e.g. adjustments made by the developers of GHCNM), and so these data can differ from the “unadjusted” data.”
Glenn Tamblyn said @ur momisugly January 25, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Hmmm… first thing I did was check the data underlying the graphs. They checked out. Then I applied the Principle of Charity to Paul’s claims regarding the emails from the Iceland Met Office. There appears to be no good reason to assume that Paul is lying. I have no problem with checking with the Iceland Met Office, but accusing someone of being untruthful is going a step too far IMHO. Good journalism? I don’t think so.
Barbara Tuchman relates in her book Practicing History that she was scoffed at by fellow journalists for researching before writing her articles; they thought she was wasting her time.
Her book seems to be available for free download here:
http://www.ebook3000.com/Practicing-History–Selected-Essays-By-Barbara-W–Tuchman_19865.html
She was not only resented by journalists BTW, but academic historians also. By the latter because she wrote clearly such that ordinary people could understand her. Academic historians hate that.
@ur momisugly Nick Stokes
The “adjusted” data contain bias corrected data (e.g. adjustments made by the developers of GHCNM), and so these data can differ from the “unadjusted” data.”
Yes we know they have adjusted them, Nick. We want to know why.
Nick Stokes says:
January 26, 2012 at 1:05 pm
In the link you presented showing raw data, it only goes back to 1951. Would be much more informative if it went back to 1900. Then we could see actual climate rather than weather.
Yes, the world is warming following a ~1000 year natural cycle likely to pass its maximum within 200 years, such maximum being about 1 degree C higher than at present.
As the yellow line on this plot http://climate-change-theory.com/360month.jpg shows, the rate of increase is declining … 0.06 deg.C per decade, down to 0.05 deg.C per decade, down to zero within 200 years when temperatures should pass a maximum and then decline for ~500 years.
There has been no additional effect of carbon dioxide because any radiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot warm or slow the rate of cooling of a warmer surface. (Claes Johnson “Computational Blackbody Radiation.”) In fact, “backradiation” can’t even melt frost on the ground, let alone warm the oceans.
If anything, carbon dioxide might have a slight cooling effect as it can absorb some of the solar insolation which is in the IR part of the spectrum.
Paul Homeward, as it happens, you will not find the same pattern of adjustments in other Icelandic Stations, as you could confirm for yourself following the links provided by Ágúst Bjarnason at 10:44 pm, Jan 25th. The only one (other than Reykjavik) showing adjustments even close to those at Reykjavik is Vestmannaeyja, about which the only thing I know is that it is an Island of the south coast of Iceland.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004048000.gif
Grimsey, and island of the North coast of Iceland has adjustments which reduce the warming trend.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004065000.gif
The Stykisholmur data to which you link has an adjustment which reinforces a warming trend, but has a very distinct pattern from that for Reykjavik, most notably in lacking the large adjustment in the early 1940’s, and also the somewhat smaller adjustment in the 1950’s and early 60’s.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004013000.gif
I cannot be certain, of course, that the GISTEMP adjustment is identical or nearly identical to that by NOAA, but neither can I distinguish their effects by eye.
Given the very specific nature of the adjustments at Reykjavik, with the large adjustment coinciding, first with the first introduction of commercial air traffic to the airport, and then with the sealing of the runway and commencement of intensive military operations from the airport, it would be remiss of the IMO to not make careful inquiries of the detailed history of the station to see if, in fact, the NOAA adjustments have not in fact picked up on the impact of real events on the station record.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004030000.gif
That sounds familiar.
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/09/new-zealands-niwa-temperature-train-wreck/
“New Zealand’s NIWA temperature train wreck
Posted on October 9, 2010 by Anthony Watts
This is an old argument, adjusted data versus non adjusted data, and why does the adjusted data show a trend and the unadjusted data does not? We’ve battled this here on WUWT many times with GISS and NCDC, now the battle is spreading down under to New Zealand. And surprise, they cite NCDC’s own adjustment techniques. And it’s the same thing NCDC and GISS does, “
Tom Curtis says “If you will look at it, you will see the most frequent adjustment is a very slight cooling adjustment (ie, one that reduces warming trends). Small adjustments are more frequent than large adjustments, and except for the smallest adjustments (where cooling adjustment predominate) are of about the same frequency whether warming or cooling. Overall, this means the adjustments are close to neutral with respect to the global trend. ”
It just gets to be tiresome when all of these little ups and downs in temperatures (which are not applied randomly, especially after 2007, as shown over at Climateaudit ( http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/26/nasa-giss-adjusting-the-adjustments ) invariably results in a “Hockey Stick” after the “necessary corrections” are applied. Even when the most famous hockey stick of all has been thoroughly discredited, the most ardent supporters of CAGW continue to trash their credibility and reputations defending it rather than admit it is not an accurate representation. In the current example we now have temperatures profiles for Iceland that were widely accepted by the publishing scientific community in 2000 ( http://www.smhi.se/hfa_coord/nordklim/old/rapport0900.pdf ) that have been once again morphed into a hockey stick. And the rationale being given for morphing this temperature history into a hockey stick?…. a few prop driven airplanes on a grass field a couple of years in the 1940s after the temperatures started spiking up in 1939. Sounds like Chinese aerosols hand-waving to me.
Interesting comment here from Trausti at the IMO
“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).” (my emphasis)
Seems there are issues with the Icelandic records that do need to be looked at and quite probably some sort of adjustment is needed. Which is what the agencies have done. Were they reasonable adjustments or not? Dunno. But when we know the raw data has inaccuracies in it – Trausti said as much – due to the measurement history of the sites.
If you look at the GISS station record from GISS shown by Paul, what you see are gaps in the 20’s, 40’s and 60’s. Whenever you see something like that, that is a red flag saying that you shouldn’t just assume that the disconnected sections can be treated as one series. Connecting up those sort of gaps without understanding why the occur is a BIG NO NO. But in Paul’s second graph, which doesn’t show any attribution for its source by the way, those gaps are joined up.
We seem to now have a quite clear case that adjustments WERE needed to the Icelandic records and the agencies have made them. Were the adjustments an improvement or not? Dunno. There may be an issue with the specific changes made for Rekjavik but then again they may be spot on. But I see no reason to draw any conclusion of any sort of malfeasance or subterfuge. Just people actually doing their job, trying to improve the quality of the temperature record.
Yet look at the Kangaroo Court type opinions from many previous commenters. Would you want your freedom and liberty left to the judgement of these sort of people. Those folks a completely entitled to live in their ‘Conspiracy Theory filled alternate reality’. Enjoy playing in that little sand-pit of yours. But please don’t attack the grown ups.
Paul Homewood says: January 26, 2012 at 2:49 pm
“Yes we know they have adjusted them, Nick. We want to know why.”
Well, here is the current reference. But my point in setting out that quote is that GHCN make it quite clear that they provide one set adjusted, for those who like that sort of thing, and one set that is the original data. The latter is essentially unchanged from the Iceland Met set, in this case. So I think the phrasing of your questions to the Met was quite misleading.
Alcheson says: January 26, 2012 at 4:46 pm
‘It just gets to be tiresome when all of these little ups and downs in temperatures (which are not applied randomly, especially after 2007, as shown over at Climateaudit ( http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/26/nasa-giss-adjusting-the-adjustments ) invariably results in a “Hockey Stick” after the “necessary corrections” are applied.’
Tom, who you are disputing, cites an actual histogram of results to show that the adjustments do not increase trend singificantly. You respond with unsupported assertion. Many people, most recently BEST, have shown that the adjustments have no significant effect on the global trend.
Paul…
Congratulations for you attitude and information throughout. You have kept your end of the discussion on a rational, even keel, and have not risen to the bait of either those who would steer the discussion in different directions, or those who would incite an emotional reaction by suggesting that you’re just making things up. You have even offered to work WITH some of your critics to resolve the issue.
I understand both skeptics and warmists are angry, but there’s been too much emotion and not enough discussion on WUWT lately. The noise to signal ratio is way too high. I hope others can look at Paul’s demeanor and take example.
I look forward with interest to the furthering of this discussion.
Note this in the reply from Trausti to Paul
“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)” (my emphasis)
Next look at the graph for Rekyavik from GISS that Paul posted. Gaps in the series in the 20’s, 40’s and 60’s. Gaps like that are a Red Flag. They mean that ‘something’ happened at each point in time and that the disconnected series may have biases relative to each other. So there is demonstrably, from Trausti’s comments and the GISS graph, issues in the Icelandic records. So adjustments are needed if they can be determined. Which is what the folks at the agencies have done. Just doing their job. There may be an issue with the specific changes made for Rekjavik but then again they may be spot on. If no change had been made then that would be suspicious.
And as has also been highlighted here the range of adjustments made to the trends from around the world tend to be small and pretty evenly balanced between warming and cooling, perhaps with a slight cooling bias.
Yet the idea that the surface temperature products are wrong, biased or being manipulated is an idea that some people just can’t let go of, no matter how much evidence there is that the temperature records are pretty solid. Multiple temperature products in good agreement, BEST, Multiple independent analyses on the Net, surfacestations.org and the analysis from it, even this little storm in a thimble. All saying the same thing. The surface temperature record is pretty solid, not distorted and there is no malfeasance, manipulation or any such thing.
So why can’t some people let this whole idea go? A classic Idee Fixe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idee_fixe_(psychology) perhaps?
Paul Homewood – thanks for the correspondence copies.
Nick above –
“Many people, most recently BEST, have shown that the adjustments have no significant effect on the global trend.”
This begs the question why adjust? Also are any of the sets you linked at the Blackboard raw data only?
slow to follow,
When the BEST data is not “adjusted”, the result is no longer alarming:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/article-2055191-0e974b4300000578-216_468x4731.jpg