PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.
Chico, CA July 29th, 2012 – 12 PM PDT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A comparison and summary of trends is shown from the paper. Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:
A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.
Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts and the many volunteers and contributors to the SurfaceStations project started in 2007.
This pre-publication draft paper, titled An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. John R. Christy from the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama, Huntsville, is to be submitted for publication.
The pre-release of this paper follows the practice embraced by Dr. Richard Muller, of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project in a June 2011 interview with Scientific American’s Michael Lemonick in “Science Talk”, said:
I know that is prior to acceptance, but in the tradition that I grew up in (under Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez) we always widely distributed “preprints” of papers prior to their publication or even submission. That guaranteed a much wider peer review than we obtained from mere referees.
The USHCN is one of the main metrics used to gauge the temperature changes in the United States. The first wide scale effort to address siting issues, Watts, (2009), a collated photographic survey, showed that approximately 90% of USHCN stations were compromised by encroachment of urbanity in the form of heat sinks and sources, such as concrete, asphalt, air conditioning system heat exchangers, roadways, airport tarmac, and other issues. This finding was backed up by an August 2011 U.S. General Accounting Office investigation and report titled: Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network
All three papers examining the station siting issue, using early data gathered by the SurfaceStations project, Menne et al (2010), authored by Dr. Matt Menne of NCDC, Fall et al, 2011, authored by Dr. Souleymane Fall of Tuskeegee University and co-authored by Anthony Watts, and Muller et al 2012, authored by Dr. Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) were inconclusive in finding effects on temperature trends used to gauge the temperature change in the United States over the last century.
Lead author of the paper, Anthony Watts, commented:
“I fully accept the previous findings of these papers, including that of the Muller et al 2012 paper. These investigators found exactly what would be expected given the siting metadata they had. However, the Leroy 1999 site rating method employed to create the early metadata, and employed in the Fall et al 2011 paper I co-authored was incomplete, and didn’t properly quantify the effects.
The new rating method employed finds that station siting does indeed have a significant effect on temperature trends.”
Watts et al 2012 has employed a new methodology for station siting, pioneered by Michel Leroy of METEOFrance in 2010, in the paper Leroy 2010, and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO-XV, 2010) Fifteenth session, in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard, making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.
Previous papers all used a distance only rating system from Leroy 1999, to gauge the impact of heat sinks and sources near thermometers. Leroy 2010 shows that method to be effective for siting new stations, such as was done by NCDC adopting Leroy 1999 methods with their Climate Reference Network (CRN) in 2002 but ineffective at retroactive siting evaluation.
Leroy 2010 adds one simple but effective physical metric; surface area of the heat sinks/sources within the thermometer viewshed to quantify the total heat dissipation effect.
Using the new Leroy 2010 classification system on the older siting metadata used by Fall et al. (2011), Menne et al. (2010), and Muller et al. (2012), yields dramatically different results.
Using Leroy 2010 methods, the Watts et al 2012 paper, which studies several aspects of USHCN siting issues and data adjustments, concludes that:
These factors, combined with station siting issues, have led to a spurious doubling of U.S. mean temperature trends in the 30 year data period covered by the study from 1979 – 2008.
Other findings include, but are not limited to:
· Statistically significant differences between compliant and non-compliant stations exist, as well as urban and rural stations.
· Poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward, and well sited stations are adjusted upward to match the already-adjusted poor stations.
· Well sited rural stations show a warming nearly three times greater after NOAA adjustment is applied.
· Urban sites warm more rapidly than semi-urban sites, which in turn warm more rapidly than rural sites.
· The raw data Tmean trend for well sited stations is 0.15°C per decade lower than adjusted Tmean trend for poorly sited stations.
· Airport USHCN stations show a significant differences in trends than other USHCN stations, and due to equipment issues and other problems, may not be representative stations for monitoring climate.
###
We will continue to investigate other issues related to bias and adjustments such as TOBs in future studies.
FILES:
This press release in PDF form: Watts_et_al 2012_PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
The paper in draft form: Watts-et-al_2012_discussion_paper_webrelease (PDF)
The Figures for the paper: Watts et al 2012 Figures and Tables (PDF)
A PowerPoint presentation of findings with many additional figures is available online:
Overview -Watts et al Station Siting 8-3-12 (PPT) UPDATED
Methodology – Graphs Presentation (.PPT)
Some additional files may be added as needed.
Contact:
Anthony Watts at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/contact-2/
References:
GAO-11-800 August 31, 2011, Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
Fall, S., Watts, A., Nielsen‐Gammon, J. Jones, E. Niyogi, D. Christy, J. and Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2011, Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, D14120, doi:10.1029/2010JD015146, 2011
Leroy, M., 1999: Classification d’un site. Note Technique no. 35. Direction des Systèmes d’Observation, Météo-France, 12 pp.
Leroy, M., 2010: Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land, Climate, and Upper-air Observations JMA/WMO Workshop on Quality Management in Surface, Tokyo, Japan 27-30 July 2010 http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/qmws_2010/CountryReport/CS202_Leroy.pdf
Menne, M. J., C. N. Williams Jr., and M. A. Palecki, 2010: On the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D11108, doi:10.1029/2009JD013094
Muller, R.A., Curry, J., Groom, D. Jacobsen, R.,Perlmutter, S. Rohde, R. Rosenfeld, A., Wickham, C., Wurtele, J., 2012: Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the United States. http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-station-quality.pdf
Watts, A., 2009: Is the U.S. surface temperature record reliable? Published online at: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
World Meteorological Organization Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation, Fifteenth session, (CIMO-XV, 2010) WMO publication Number 1064, available online at: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/CIMO/CIMO15-WMO1064/1064_en.pdf
Notes:
1. The SurfaceStations project was a crowd sourcing project started in June 2007, done entirely with citizen volunteers (over 650), created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey metadata exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide. This realization came about from a discussion of a paper and some new information that occurred on Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog. In particular, a thread regarding the 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, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res.
2. Some files in the initial press release had some small typographical errors. These have been corrected. Please click on links above for new press release and figures files.
3. A work page has been established for Watts et al 2012 for the purpose of managing updates. You can view it here.
==========================================================
Note: This will be top post for a couple of days, new posts will appear below this one. Kinda burned out and have submission to make so don’t expect much new for a day or two. See post below this for a few notes on backstory. Thanks everybody! – Anthony
NOTE: 7/31/12 this thread has gotten large and unable to load for some commenters, it continues here.
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William Roberts says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I also love how McIntyre is downplaying his involvement. How about the qualifications of all these volunteers to objectively and correctly rate? Now there’s something to audit
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
LOL. The snivelling whine of a troll who has been butted off the bridge so many times that he sits in the stream below complaining instead of actually doing anything.
Changing direction, Anthony Watts gives Professor Muller great deference and the benefit of the doubt regarding his motives and earnestness re: his alleged conversion from scepticism to believing the mainstream theory. I also said above that most of the errors made by people holding the standard AGW and even doing the measuring and data manipuation were the result of bias and so on, but not intentionally misleading.
Alas, I cannot agree with Anthony’s stated opinion about Professor Muller (I wish I could; I really do). I believe Joanne Nova has Muller’s number when she calls him a “Pretend Sceptic”. He attempted to give himself more credibility than he deserved in order to do a scientific hatchet job against a position he always mostly disagreed with.
Minimum-maximum thermometers should not need TOB (time of observation) adjustments applied.
Stations with hourly reporting, thereby also showing the minimum and maximum for each day should not need TOB adjustments.
Stations with more continuous, finer resolution reporting, thereby also showing the minimum and maximum for each day should not need TOB adjustments.
I would like someone to point out to me an example of stations in the set of stations used in this paper that do not conform to the above and then, and only then, will I also feel possible further adjustments to the station records needs to be made. I even think the TOB adjustments may be part of this skew in the records. A second place where bias can creep in is that newer thermometers, or even the method of physical readings, can sense one minute long extremes where hourly temperatures never show that one, two, or three extreme. I see that daily in the NOAA records here in my city in July of 2012.
davidmhoffer says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:24 pm
“Nice try.”
Where do I start?
1) Until it passes peer review and is formally published it is only a potential paper. Perhaps you would prefer “discussion document”? If you feel sensitive about it, I shall use “paper” as a courtesy, but will continue to regard it as provisional, as will any scientifically competent reader.
Peer review is designed to determine if the investigation and analysis has been done to the proper standard, as you would expect of any professional activity. By custom and practice its conclusions are then normally debated after publication. I disapprove of debating this in newspapers before publication, but on a semi-private site like this one, crowd-sourced polishing is fair enough.
2) Watts et al have used the USCHN v2 (this was debated in earlier blogs, but is clearly stated in their paper) data in their analysis. Anyone considering the validity of that analysis would probably want to refer back to the USCHNv2 data.
3) The whole purpose of the paper is to determine what proportion of the data in USCHNv2 is “fact”. Dont jump the gun.
4) Personally, despite being an accepter of cAGW, I would like to see this paper published. Right or wrong, it raises issues worthy of wider discussion. It still needs work, though, before it is likely to be accepted for publication.
William Roberts said July 31, 2012 at 1:11 pm:
Okay then. Point us to the NOAA-NCDC robust analysis of uncertainty in the USHCN dataset so we can get started. Since NOAA is supplying temperature data valid to two decimal places, going from the times of glass thermometers where maybe you could guess a half-degree, their analysis would be interesting reading.
Jeff Condon,
“I am surprised at the vitriol against Steve Mosher”
After all the antagonism, vitriol and fury you, Anthony Watts and others have stoked against climate scientists, you’re surprised when those flames turn against ‘one of your own’ who crosses a line.
What did you think would happen?
At 2:21 PM on 31 July, about Jeff Condon’s “I am surprised at the vitriol against Steve Mosher,” Lazar spumes:
And by “climate scientists,” Lazar, you’re referring of course to the coterie which physicist Jeff Glassman in 2007 termed with eloquent accuracy:
Not myself a party to the animus against Mr. Mosher, I’ve nothing much to say about his sins either alleged or actual, but with regard to the “client scientists” you’re whining about, Lazar, in the light of confirmatory information made public especially since 17 November 2009, I’d say they’re crooked as the proverbial dog’s hind leg, and warrant not only criminal prosecution for lying on their funding grant applications (at the very least) but civil lawsuits seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Oh, such punitive damages!
All these suits at law making conspicuous mention of the words “joint and several liability,” I trow.
I wonder what kind of professional liability insurance coverage your precious “climate scientists” have engaged, and whether such policies are “claims-made” or “occurrence” based?
Speaking as a physician, I’d be just delighted to see what the Plaintiff’s Bar, properly armed and engined, is going to do to your beloved “climate scientists.”
By comparison, all the “antagonism, vitriol and fury” voiced by Mr. Watts and the rest of us online commenters properly skeptical of the fraudulent machinations concerted among your “climate scientists” are going to be remembered in their prison cells as balmy zephyrs against a the Force 12 conditions in which they deserve to spend the rest of their wretched, bankrupt, and broken lives.
God speed the plow.
With over 1000 comments so far, can anyone summarize the state of play?
eg – lots of major errors, a few errors – nothing major….
Smokey says:
July 31, 2012 at 12:58 pm
” I don’t know what he is referring to regarding a press spokesman,”
This what I was referring to.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/07/31/romney-spokesman-to-press-in-poland-kiss-my-ass-video/
Mr Watts is attempting to present his case in a proper scientific forum, where he would be taken seriously by other climate scientists. If a man is judged by the quality of his staff and supporters, you are doing him no favours by your recent comments.
“davidmhoffer says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:49 pm
William Roberts says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:11 pm
davidmhoffer, now let me do some dumbing down for YOU. You can’t actually say whether Watt’s trends are any different from currently accepted trends without robust analysis of uncertainty in the time series and trends.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure I can. ”
Quite simply, no you cannot, see my previous post:
“On p. 34-6, there is a random effects ANOVA test of statistical significance which comes in overwhelming, if that reassures you.”
Again, it doesn’t, geophysical data is notorious for violating random white noise distribution as almost a rule.
Each trend here needs uncertainties. Every slope needs an uncertainty and a correct model of uncertainty to which it must be compared. Period. Otherwise, the results of this “study” are utterly meaningless. Where’s your outlier protection (median, etc.)? Skewness? Kurtosis? That there is not a single robust analysis of the data that was actually gathered. How much do you think your confidence intervals and weighting change. You go from 727 stations to 160, an ~80% reduction in N. That’s an 80% reduction in the number of trends and therefore an enormous potential change where the distribution bounds lie. None of this is addressed.
You can dumb it down all you want into your own fuzzy little blanket; alas, the universe is not so simple.
This is a powerpoint presentation given by Michel Leroy to the WMO Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation in 2010 which gives a simplified overview of the siting classification for surface observation stations on land.
http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/geoss/wmo/TECO2010/ppt/session_5/5(01)_leroy.ppt
This is the WMO Guide to Meteorological Instruments and Methods of Observation:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/IMOP/CIMO-Guide.html
“Meteorological (and related environmental and geophysical) observations are made for a variety of reasons. They are used for the real-time preparation of weather analyses, forecasts and severe weather warnings, for the study of climate, for local weatherdependent operations (for example, local aerodrome flying operations, construction work on land and at sea), for hydrology and agricultural meteorology, and for research in meteorology and climatology.
“The representativeness of an observation is the degree to which it accurately describes the value of the variable needed for a specific purpose.
“Meteorological observing stations are designed so that representative measurements (or observations) can be taken according to the type of station involved. Thus, a station in the synoptic network should make observations to meet synoptic-scale requirements, whereas an aviation meteorological observing station should make observations that describe the conditions specific to the local (aerodrome) site.”
The expression “horses for courses” comes to mind. For true precision only those stations classed as 1/A should be used to try and determine temperature on a wide scale.
Entropic man says:
July 31, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Regarding your point (3), while I think I get what you are trying to say, I think it’s the case that ALL the data ARE facts. It’s what you make of them that matters. If you’re looking to see what the UHI effect has been over time, then the category 4 and 5 (poor) stations would be a good place to look and you would explicitly “cherry-pick” those sites. The Watts paper, obviously, is looking for the opposite: pristine sites that give a clear picture of regional/continental surface temperatures using uncontaminated data.
The whole purpose of the paper is to contrast two cherry-picking methods using the same data; one using an objective ISO accepted standard that anybody can replicate, the other an impenetrable hodge-podge of compounding “adjustments” that give the appearance of conforming to a political agenda.
Entropic has obviously not read A.W. Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, which exposes the corruption, fraud and shenanigans endemic to the climate Pal-Review/journal system. [Montford’s book is available on the right sidebar.] Entropic should read Montford’s detailed exposé before opining about what peer review is ‘designed to do’.
Mainstream climate peer review certainly does not work as claimed, and it appears to be fully captive to those pushing the CO2=CAGW scare. When a single individual can force the resignation of half a journal Board, and get other long time scientists fired simply because they do not agree with his views, there is a big problem in River City. Entropic is either part of the solution, or part of the problem.
A short sample of Montford’s writing:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
Anthony and Evan –
Here are some comments in addition to those I made above, 7/30 at 6:19AM on the equivalence of Leroy 1999 and 2010, plus 7:05AM on CIs.
Title: Shorten and strengthen to “The Impact of WMO Station Classification on USHCN Temperature Trends.”
Concluding sentence and Press Release: A spurious difference of .093 between compliant and noncompliant raw trends is only 30% of the .309 trend using NOAA adjusted data, not half. Some of the NOAA adjustment is for MMTS and TOBS changes, which are legitimate things to compensate for (even if I don’t like the way NOAA does it), so not all of the excess of .309 over .155 is necessarily spurious. Downplay claims to 30% of NOAA trend may be spurious.
Figure 1 caption – change Leroy (2010) to WMO-CIRO(2010) throughout paper, while citing Leroy only once for having originated the new world standard. This are not just the standards of some French guy, but the new international meteo norm.
Figure 4 and many others, the graphs just replicate what’s presented more compactly in the associated tables. The graphs are nice for oral presentations, but a journal isn’t going to want to use up all that space for redundant graphs.
Figures 10-12 are redundant, since they just show the same numbers with different reference points. Just show the conforming (1/2) baseline, since it’s the valid benchmark.
Figure 16 – The graphs and the tables are both illegible. Just give a legible table instead.
Figure 19 is missing, though I think I saw it go by somewhere else.
Figure 20 is OK for an oral presentation, but the rhetorical questions are a bit cheesy for a journal article. In any event, thermometers don’t “say” anything, outside of a Minnesotans for Global Warming video! 😉
Figure 21 – Steve’s graphs don’t show up well, and in any event could be replaced by a short table. In any event, a barplot showing something doesn’t need a caption that begins, “Barplot showing…” Readers can figure that out for themselves. And the title of this or its replacement table should mention ANOVA, since otherwise it’s not clear what you mean by random effects.
Figure 23, if NOAA applies to all cases, it should be a green line the whole way across, not a stray triangle at the left.
Table 2, the title of a list of surveyed stations doesn’t need to begin with “Lists of …”
Doesn’t Table 4 belong before Table 3? It’s part of the summary of the new classifications that goes with Table 2.
Table 3, add the adjusted numbers as two more columns for compactness.
Text, line 534, “higher” should be “lower”, though I think this has already been pointed out. Line 532, “Will” should be “will”.
In any event, Figures 10-12 should be merged into Figure 12.
Line 568, change “significantly’ to “substantially”, since you don’t have any CIs on this. Again, a table would be more precise and compact for an article than the graph.
Line 578, change significant to large.
Line 582, change “the following set of figures” to “figures 14-15”. And then use class 1-2 as your norm, not 4.
Line 585, drop above.
Line 598, are you just using the GISS terms, or their actual classifications?
Line 606, change significant to substantial.
Line 624, discussion of figure 17 missing.
Line 649, change inequities to differencies. Inequities sound like iniquities.
Line 655, change “representivity” to “information”
Lines 664-667, as noted above, this disparity could be due to the fact that you’re not taking TOBS or MMTS changes into account, while NOAA is (if only imperfectly). This does not diminish the fact that WMO station class makes a big difference that NOAA is not taking into account.
Line 666, add “only” before “rural”
Line 673, don’t put R code (or any code) in text. In text, explain your model in words and/or math. If desired, you can then put the R code in a footnote for the benefit of R-users. You might also put Pinheiro et al in the footnote.
Line 684, ANOVA is an acronym (for ANalysis Of VAriance), so it needs to be capitalized.
Line 686, add “holding other factors constant” (?) after “stations”. At least I think that’s the difference between this ANOVA model and what you did before.
Line 691, Figure 22 tells us nothing about statistical significance, just magnitude. This info could be added as two columns to Table 3, as noted above, and the figure omitted.
Line 699, add “ANOVA model” after “the above”.
Line 702, again don’t put R code in text. This also needs more explanation.
Line 703 add “of figure 23” after “left panel”.
Line 719, “more or less correspond to” is not sciencey enough for a journal article. How about “are similar to”?
Line 721, I’d call these the NOAA adjustments, since USHCN is just a set of stations, strictly speaking.
Line 724, specify which version is the present version (eg 4.0, Ocelot, or whatever).
Line 734, capitalize Surface Stations, and mention this more in the article!
Line 735, change “with” to “for”.
Line 737, it seems to me that both Tmin and Tmax are equally important in determining Tmean, even if only one has had much of a trend of late.
Line 742, change “supposed” to “expected”?
Line 752, change to “Substantial”
Line 756-7, add “WMO-CIRO” before Class.
Line 757 – delete “for,”
Line 758, it’s not clear what “of all five data samples” refers to. All 5 WMO classes?
Line 761, change “increase” to “higher”, since there’s no indication that growth rates are growing over time. Change “of” to “for”.
Line 762, change “This is” to “, and so are”
Line 767, again, use class 1-2, not 4, as your benchmark.
Line 772, add “it” before “actually”
Line 774-5, change “warm” to “have warmed”. There’s not reason to think they will continue to warm, just that they did warm as they urbanized.
Line 790, change “its” to “their. “Class 5 sites” is plural.
Lines 803-8. This is getting pretty tangential and detailed about something you might study in the future but haven’t studied in this paper. Omit.
Line 815, change “spurious doubling” to “spurious 30% increase” as noted above.
I look forward to seeing your new ratings when this paper is accepted, if not even before!
[Really ? . . you think the volunteers had an agenda? . . you sound increasingly like a troll. How about some evidence for your insinuations . . kbmod]
I’m not accusing anyone of anything, I’m no troll, and I don’t appreciate you accusing me of making insinuations and putting words in my mouth. Where is info on their training and qualifications on how to correctly collect this metadata? Is all of it verifiable and repeatable by Monte Carlo methods of choosing the metadata from x stations to check on? These are all legitimate questions any peer reviewer will almost certainly ask, just FYI.
[REPLY: I’ve been getting much the same impression. You are quick to denigrate the qualifications of people you know nothing about, failed to look at the surface station web site, offered some-what valid criticisms and then harped on them… and people who are NOT trolls do NOT invent a screen name that looks like a real name. In the event that you even think about insisting that your name really is “William Roberts”, let me suggest that your initials are in fact CRM and that the numerals 8-4-3-7 should have some significance for you. Your participation here can be valuable, so please drop the attitude. -REP]
From Entropic [Mann] on July 31, 2012 at 2:13 pm:
Exactly. Just as no scientifically competent reader ever cited the BEST work as being anything other than provisional, never said it proved anything, and certainly never said it proved Watts and other climate skeptics were full of it.
Why do the (C)AGW-pushers always insist that their side of a double-standard is the correct side?
I don’t know why Entropic would inject something a Romney spokesman said. But that was only a spokesman. So in the interest of equal time, let’s listen to President Zero himself.☺
Entropic Man;
Peer review is designed to determine if the investigation and analysis has been done to the proper standard, as you would expect of any professional activity.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh. My. G_d. Then how do countless papers get published every year despite being pure drivel? Nearly every week I come across papers so poorly substantiated that 10th grade students can debunk it. Peer review repeatedly demonstrates that it cannot prevent absolute junk from being published, and also that valid papers can be suppressed. If your only refuge from the facts is to scream that it isn’t peer reviewed, you are invoking a standard that makes a mockery of science and which you should be embarrased to be part of if you gave one iota about facts and actual science. Shame on you.
William Roberts;
Each trend here needs uncertainties. Every slope needs an uncertainty and a correct model of uncertainty to which it must be compared. Period. Otherwise, the results of this “study” are utterly meaningless.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bad stations were adjusted upward. Good stations were adjusted upward even more.
Your choice is to dispute these facts, or to accept the blindingly obvious.
My expectation is that suitable statistical analysis will appear in due course. Until then, your comment that you are not a troll is rendered dubious by your behaviour.
Ok we made a few mistakes.. But it is still warming right..? U just proven that global warming is occurring (man made or not) and that it is less troubling than we thought?
Sorry.. My mind just got taken over by Al Gore using TV as the channeling signal.
William Roberts says:
davidmhoffer, now let me do some dumbing down for YOU. You can’t actually say whether Watt’s trends are any different from currently accepted trends without robust analysis of uncertainty in the time series and trends.
Well, that certainly is dumb. Mission accomplished.
Watt’s trends are quite different from currently accepted trends as a matter of practical significance. If it turns out that they are not different as a matter of statistical significance, that would demonstrate that the data are too error ridden to be used for the purposes to which they are currently applied.
By all means, keep pushing for the “robust analysis of uncertainty in the time series and trends” that would produce this result. Please.
Below are my editorial comments.
Section 2.1 lines 215 to 226. I would clarify for the reader wither the USHCNv2 data used in the Fall et al (2011) data set, used in this study was the raw data or the intermediate data adjusted for time of observation. I was left to assume the raw & adjusted data was used by the context of later discussion. Reader’s generally prefer to know up front. This could be accomplished in line 225-226 by stating “The USHCNv2 station temperature data in this study is identical to the [raw and adjusted] data used in Fall et al (2011), coming for the same data set”.
Line 237. Table 1 is missing and needs to be included in the PDF containing the Tables and Figures.
Line 242 Typo. Suggest “There is [are] a greater number…”
Line 289. Table 2 is missing and needs to be included in the PDF containing the Tables and Figures.
Line 275. Echoing the comment of a previous reviewer, I would suggest replacing the words “bin” and “binning” in the document with words categorize and categorizing.
Lines 299-302 The author’s meaning is not clear here. It appears author means to say something along the lines “As in Fall (2011), Menne (2010), and Muller (2012), only the heat source/source proximity and area rating[s] from Leroy 201 [are considered in this study. Other factors that could bias the results, such as ground-level vegetation or shade, were not considered.]
Section 2.3 lines 317 to 362. Missing from the sectional discussion is the handling of data for the”6 degree grid boxes” method – only methods for the “regional gridding” method are described. Presumably the data was handled similarly, however, this need to be explicitly stated in Section 2.3. A figure showing the “twenty-six 6 degree grids”, similar to Figure 1 for the regional gird system would also be useful.
Line 329. For clarity, suggest the regional grid map in Figure 2 be modified to include the region number and abbreviation in each region. Also recommend use of the notation shown in Figures 5 thru 8.
Line 346. Suggest Figure 3 be modified to show both the regional and 6 degree grids as opposed to the traditional map shown.
Lines 348- 362. Author may wish to consider moving to lines 348 to 362 from Section 2.3 (Methods of Analysis) to Section 4 (Results) as this would be the more appropriate location for a discussion of results.
Line 348. Recommend author clarifies that he is referring to the “regional grids” as opposed to the “6 degree grids”.
Line 354. As results are presented in the text immediately above this line, Figure 4 showing these results should be referenced.
Line 365-366. Suggest author clarify that USHCNv2 both raw and adjusted data are in use. Perhaps… “.. calculated with [raw and adjusted] USNCNv2 data…”. This will give readers the proper context as they transition from the text to Figure 4. This will also facilitate those readers who prefer to read the text in-total prior to examining supporting figures.
Line 385. Figure 6 shows “raw class 3/4/5” regional trend data for 2-ENC, 2-C, 6-S, and 7-SW as “0”. It looks likely the “0” signifies the absence of data as opposed to a numeric trend of “0”. Suggest clarification with non-numeric notation (say a “NA” or “-“) in these boxes and a note attached to the figure explaining the discrepancy. Would also suggest a second notation in Figure 6 that provides a brief description of how the CONUS trend was calculated in the absence of some regional data.
Lines 444 & 449 . The words “figure” should be capitalized. Suggest universal document check.
Line 458. Typo in data presentation. The SE non-compliant station trend is 0.103 degrees C not 0.113 degrees C (See Figure 8).
Section 3.2 Lines 474- 489. This text primarily discusses conclusions regarding instrumentation that properly belong in Section 3.2.2. Would suggest the bulk of this discussion is premature and should be moved to Section 3.2.2 where the author’s conclusions can be matched with the supporting evidence. Otherwise this text provides the obviously unintended appearance of drawing conclusions without providing supporting data. Recommend the text associated with Section 3.2 should be brief and merely introduce the reader to the topics to be discussed under in Sections 3.2.1 to 3.2.5. Any major conclusion drawn from Sections 3.2.1 to 3.2.5 should be summarized in Section 4.0.
Line 474-476. Conclusion not supported with data referenced in Section 3.2; specifically the conclusion “Significant decal trend differences were observed between compliant CRS stations and compliant MMTS stations, with MMTS stations generally being cooler, confirming what was observed in Menne et al (2010)”. It looks like the author’s supporting data is in Figures 14 & 15. Strongly recommend the text be moved to Section 3.2.2 where it can be clearly supported.
Line 476-479. 2nd Conclusion does not appear to be supported with data referenced in Section 3.2; Specifically the conclusion “But, this effect is swamped by the larger effect of siting bias in the non-compliant stations, particularly in the trends of the Tmin, suggesting a sensitivity to heat sinks within the thermometer viewshed, which is the basis of the Leroy classification system”. Again, it looks like the author’s supporting data is in Figures 15. Strongly recommend the text be moved to Section 3.2.2 where it can be clearly supported by properly referenced data. In addition be cognizant that this is the first point in the paper the reader is introduced to Tmean, Tmin, and Tmax data. Making the reader struggle here can be a real interest killer.
Line 483-484. 3ed Conclusion not supported with data in Section 3.2; specifically the conclusion “Our findings confirm this to have a real effect across all classes, with non-compliant MMTS stations having warmer trends.” Here, the author’s supporting data is in Figures 15 of Section 3.2.1. Again the text needs to be located where it can be clearly supported by properly referenced data.
Line 484-485. 4th Conclusion not supported with data in Section 3.2; specifically the conclusion “Additionally, it was observed that the Tmax trends of compliant CRS stations was significantly higher, suggesting that maintenance issues, such as paint deterioration over time… ”. Here the author’s supporting data is in Figures 14 of Section 3.2.1. Again the text needs to be located where it can be clearly supported by properly referenced data.
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Line 532. Where the author states “Both of these observations… Will be either supported of disputed in various comparisons which follow”. Don’t recommend author leaves the reader hanging like this. Suggest something like “Will be either supported of disputed in various comparisons which follow in Figures (or Section) ___.” This will give the reader confidence the issue of conflicting evidence will be addressed and where… and some readers are likely to skip ahead to weight that evidence.
Line 560. Where author states “… (and/or has been MMTS for a plurality of the study period)….” The word “plurality” appears too vague – essentially plurality is “a number greater than another”. Suggest the author be more specific. Perhaps… “(and/or if the site had MMTS instrumentation for more than half of the period studied)”.
Lines 571-573. A table showing the number of % of systems in each category would be helpful. Reader’s generally prefer to the see the data associated with a comment.
Lines 594-636. This discussion appears outside the subject of Section 3.2.2 (Equipment Comparisons). Suggest this text be provided with its own Section 3.2 subsection and subsection title. Perhaps a subsection title of “Mesosite and Micro Site Considerations”.
Line 599. Figure 16 should be presented in landscape and enlarged. No point making the reader squint. Also, data points are dropping below the graphs lower ranges in some of the graphs & the graphs use different Y-axis ranges. Suggest fixing all of graph’s Y-axis ranges to between 0.5 to 0.05.
Line 610. Typo in data presentation. The Rural Class 3,4,5 station Tmin trend is 0.265 degrees C not 0.278 degrees C as stated (See Figure 16 enlarged). Likely the figure was confused with the 0.278 degrees C figure on line 609 for Rural Class 1&2 station Tmin.
Line 624. Figure 17 should be presented in landscape and enlarged. Suggest fixing all of graph’s Y-axis ranges to between 0.5 to 0.05.
Line 642. Figure 19 is missing and needs to be included in the PDF containing the Tables and Figures.
Line 646. Author appears to have dropped a digit from the analysis. 0.23 degree C trend should be 0.231 degree C; while the 0.31 degree C trend should be 0.316 degree C.
Regards, Kforestcat
Harold Pierce Jr says:
July 29, 2012 at 6:00 pm
ATTN: ANTHONY ET AL
TEMPERATRES ARE MEASUSRED TO +/- 0.1 DEG. ROUND ALL COMPUTED VALUES TO THE ACCURACY OF THE THERMOMETER .
THE MARK OF A PROFESSIONAL IS CLOSE ATTENTION TO DETAIL . BY FAILING TO FOLLOW THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF MEASURED DATA TREATMENT, YOU GUYS LOOK LIKE A BUNCH SLOPPY SCIENTISTS AND AMATUERS, AT LEAST TO THIS CHEMIST.
I love a guy that can’t spell “temperatures”, can’t spell “measured”, puts a space in front of a period, claims people look like a “bunch sloppy scientists”, and can’t spell “amateurs”, who nonetheless claims that the mark of a professional is “close attention to detail”.
By your own standard, you have just proven beyond doubt that you are the rankest of amateurs, Harold. Medice, cura te ipsum!.
w.
PS—In the expression “et al.”, the word “al.” is an abbreviation for “alia”, and as such also requires a period … in case you were wondering.
THTA SI HCAEP!
belvedere says:
July 31, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Ok we made a few mistakes.. But it is still warming right..? U just proven that global warmig is occuring (man made or not) and that it is less troubeling than we thought?
*
Inside that 30 year period, 1979 – 2008, there was warming. It’s natural as we’re coming up out of the LIA. There has been no warming for over a decade and CO2 is still on the rise, therefore CO2 is not the problem people have been led to believe it is. It looks like we are tipping into a cooling phase. CAGW is not evident. This, then, is a reason to celebrate. Human beings are not the destroyers we have benn told we were. We are not destroying the planet or nature with our CO2 production. Wonderful stuff. 🙂
Inside that 30 year period, 1979 – 2008, there was warming. It’s natural as we’re coming up out of the LIA. There has been no warming for over a decade and CO2 is still on the rise, therefore CO2 is not the problem people have been led to believe it is. It looks like we are tipping into a cooling phase. CAGW is not evident. This, then, is a reason to celebrate. Human beings are not the destroyers we have benn told we were. We are not destroying the planet or nature with our CO2 production. Wonderful stuff. 🙂
Yes we are.. Turn on your TV and see for yourself.. We are still being told we are the destroyers of this planet.. Ever visited a zoo lately? I went to BLIJDORP, Rotterdam, Holland, 2 days ago and the AGW story is played down massivly.. Believe me or not but Anthony should move to a more understandebly correct level.
The leading Internet newspaper in Spain mentions BEST and Watts: http://www.libertaddigital.com/ciencia/2012-07-31/un-antiguo-esceptico-dice-ahora-que-el-hombre-provoca-el-calentamiento-global-1276465155/. It is less than favourable for Muller (methods and statistical problems), links to WUWT and adds Mann and Curry opinions.