Andrew Revkin asked me to provide comments on this article of his where the National Climatic Data Center was asked to respond to Watts et al 2012:
A Closer Look at Climate Studies Promoted Before Publication
Here is what I sent to him:
My comments on Thorne’s response are pretty simple.
They still refuse to get out of the office, to examine firsthand the condition of the network and try to come up with hands on approaches for dealing with station inhomogeneity, but instead focus of trying to spot patterns in data and massage it. In my view this is the wrong approach and the reason that we are in this polarization today. We are conducting a grand experiment, and like any scientific experiment, you have to carefully watch how the data is being measured in the experiment environment, or problems will invalidate the measurement. If Climate Science operated under the same rules as Forensic Science, the compromised data would be tossed out on its ear. Instead, we are told to accept it as fully factual in the court of public opinion.
Until I came along with Watts 2009, they really weren’t looking closely at the issue. The SurfaceStations photography forced them into reaction mode, to do two things.
1. Close the worst USHCN stations, such as Marysville, CA (the station that started it all), Tucson, AZ (the University Science Dept/Weather Service Office that had the USHCN weather station in the parking lot), and Ardmore, OK (the USHCN station on the street corner). There are many others that have been closed.
If they are able to correct the data gathering problems back in the office with algorithms, why do they need to close these stations? Additionally, if they think they can get good data out of these stations with the myriad of adjustments they perform, why did they need to spend millions of dollars on the new Climate Reference Network commissioned in 2008 that we never hear about?
According to communications I received from Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, the National Weather Service is developing plans to eliminate up to half of all COOP network stations (of which USHCN is a subset) as a potential cost-cutting measure.
Some possible reasons: (1) not central to the core mission of the NWS; (2) poor data quality; (3) too much of a public relations headache with people putting embarrassing photographs online.
I would argue not for removal of bad stations, but rather for the replacement of bad stations with well-sited stations, with simultaneous overlapping data collection so that biases can be both measured directly and permanently eliminated. I don’t see anything in what they are doing with Thorne that addresses this. To me, all they are doing is trying to put lipstick on a pig.
2. Attack me without publishing an appropriate paper intended for peer review first, such as the ghost authored “Talking points” memo issued by NCDC’s Dr. Thomas Peterson, who wouldn’t put his name on it, yet circulated it to every NOAA manager and the press. If the data from these stations is so strong, and the adjustments and corrections so valid, why the cloak and dagger approach?
Note, that in the Thorne response, they carefully avoided saying anything about station siting, preferring instead to focus on data manipulations. From my viewpoint, until they start worrying about the measurement environment in which our grand global experiment is being measured, all they are doing is rearranging data without looking at and learning from the environment and history that created it.
Perhaps they should follow the advice of the General Accounting Office report that backed up my work:
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)
Finally, let’s spend a few moments looking at another network in the USA that doesn’t seem to suffer from the same sorts of magnitude of issues. The U.S. Population-Adjusted Temperature Dataset (PDAT) developed by Dr. Roy Spencer, which better handles UHI.
The following plot shows 12-month trailing average anomalies for the three different datasets (USHCN, CRUTem3, and ISH PDAT)…note the large differences in computed linear warming trends (click on plots for high res versions):
Where’s the warming?
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Bill Tuttle says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:40 am
Where’s the rapid, severe, debilitating, catastrophic warming? The official plant hardiness zones have been changing ever since they were first established. When I was a kid back in the ‘50s, Black Birches (which are cold-soil trees) on Long Island were vanishing – now they’re common.
http://pbisotopes.ess.sunysb.edu/esp/Science_Walks/Weld/Weld.htm
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Here in w MD Sugar maples (a cool-soil tree) are invading toward the SE into areas where they didn’t occur originally. Initially they invade along the stream floodplains & eventually up the adjacent slopes to some extent.
How does satellite data compare with the three datasets?
The problem with that observation is that the most recent available data appears to have these “highest quality” sites being adjusted as well. If the “data adjustors” were intent on bringing all data into line with the most accurate available records, you would expect “adjustments” to trend toward zero as superior new equipment and methods of data collection are introduced and replace older stations and equipment. This doesn’t happen.
A look at adjustments shows an increase in adjustment with a crossover in adjustment direction in the mid-20th C. Current adjustments make the first half of the 20th C somewhat cooler (though not consistently, and persistently increase temperatures with time after the mid-century point. See this:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif. It’s right there on the NOAA site. That ski jump to the right should not appear if more recent data is superior in quality. Instead, it shows the greatest “adjustments” occurring in data that should be of the highest reliability. From about 1969 onward the adjustment is about 0.1 deg-C per decade. Since the NOAA graph shows the difference between “Raw and Final” data the slope is not showing an increase in temperature. It is an increase in adjustment. As of the last few years on the graph where there is a plateau (ca. 1990 to 2000), the adjustment is tacking on about half of a degree C to the raw data for each of those years to “correct” it.
That could mean a couple of things including: 1) the superiority of modern gear and methods is overblown and is not openly acknowledged, 2) the researchers really expect a signal that isn’t there and are inserting it deliberately or unconsciously. I say unconsciously because it’s quite possible that there are errors in the correction algorithm that are showing the analysts what they expect, and because of this they aren’t questioning the increasing magnitude of adjustments when such adjustments should be diminishing as methods and gear “improve.” One scientific issue is that in most “hard” sciences, and even in most of the “soft” ones, numerical data is not “adjusted.” It is collected with an error estimate. Adjusting data is “blue sky” winging it.
That should be The Quote of the Day.
/Mr Lynn
Duster: You didn’t understand what I was talking about, at all! I was referring to the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) stations installed between 2003 and 2008. These stations were sited across the CONUS to give us an exemplary temperature record database. Almost all the stations have been operational (114 stations at 107 sites) for five years now, which should be more than enough data to use as the comparative standard against both the Class 1/2 stations and Class 3/4/5 stations in this paper.
USCRN stations don’t require any of the normal adjustments inherent in the US Historical Climate Network. Therefore your comments are completely off the mark.
If there are significant siting biases, or faulty adjustments, a comparison of the last five years data with the USCRN station in the same grid would show the problem. Its such an obvious and relatively easy exercise, that one wonders why Watts et. al. didn’t do this? The authors of Menne (2010) did check their USHCN stations against the USCRN stations, and got an excellent degree of correlation.
You can’t excuse away this gap in the current paper methodology.
[The use of a 5 year record to show anything of significance seems to be way off the reservation . . whatever happened to standards? . .kbmod]
Interested says:
July 30, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I am still in a state of disbelief that so many so-called scientists have been willing to abandon the basic tenets of the scientific method in accepting, and even actively peddling, a hypothesis so clearly lacking in supporting data. Worse yet, it’s becoming more and more obvious that many of them are even prepared to manipulate the available data to produce a biased outcome.
What on Earth is happening to us? ….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
MONEY, POWER and POLITICS in action.
Money: Gore pocketed a tidy $18 million from now defunct Chicago Climate Exchange.
Remember the outcome of all this is Kyoto & Agenda 21 If you have paid attention to what has been happening recently the fourteen year old outline at the bottom of this comment by a VP of Shell Oil should seem very familiar. Isn’t it nice the OIL COMPANIES have decided to take such an interest in “governing us”? (/sarc)
These snippets from the first Climategate e-mails show the “Team” is with the agenda (21) and were actually asked to vet it.
So what is “The Cause”? The complete restructuring of the world politically and economically from the currently available evidence.
Think about it. Economically the US, EU, Canada, Australia and the rest of the First World is a “mature” market. We HAVE our plumbing and houses and cars and computers and TVs. The middle men (corporations), banks and governments make their profits from commerce that is buying/selling transactions. Every time there is a transaction all three groups take their slice which is tacked onto what the consumer pays. The third world is a “Young market” with lots more transactions available for milking in the future so grabbing money from the first world to jump start India, China and others makes sense to the movers and shakers who run the world. Also wiping out the first world’s prosperity as was done to Europe during WWI & WWII allows a reset to a “younger market” To some extent this is done using zoning and regulations but “Sustainable Development”/ “Smart Growth” is equivalent to a lost war, the complete make over of our countries and cultures.
This is why you see the unholy alliance between Bankers, Corporations, Government officials and socialist groups like Greenpeace and the Universities. The only ones left out are Joe and Suzy homemaker, the ones who are paying for it.
(Thanks to NoTricksZone 129 Climate Scandals for links)
This is the KEY Climategate e-mail sent to over 40 people including Greenpeace, the World Bank government officials and universities professors. This is what Anthony and the rest of us are trying to stop.
More on Ged Davis Shell Oil VP and recent head of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) Scenario Project team responsible for producing work on sustainable development aka Agenda 21. He is the guy who wrote the attachment below.
Without a motive behind it, I understand the resistance to the idea that a temperature monitoring site should only be influenced by, well, temperature. Not heat from a nearby solid that “overheats” but just the “uninfluenced” air.
We I work one of the things we do is measure turbidity. We use a turbidity meter. With no sample in the chamber, the meter usually reads about 0.025 NTUs. (Nessler Turbidity Units) We could legitimately subtract that amount from any of our readings. We could also put an empty cuvet in the chamber and subtract whatever NTU’s the cuvet itself adds to the sample put in it. (Each individual cuvet may give a different reading.) Honest, legitimate adjustments to determine what the NTU of the actual water is.
If we’re to base the world’s economy (let alone my family’s) on the theory of Human CO2 induced Global Warming, don’t you think it’d be worth spending a few bucks per site to ensure accuracy before spending trillions per country just to be sure first?
The paper should serve to turn the stampede to ruin.
OOPS!
Typo. “I understand the resistence” should be “I DON’T understand the resistence”.
(See. Even people that aren’t writing papers make typos.8-)
Bill Tuttle says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:49 am
Phillip boccuto says:
July 30, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Remember the laws of thermodynamics Carbon dioxide traps heat , where do you think it goes.
“Which laws did you have in mind when you wrote that?”
That would be the 19th Law of Quantum Thermodynamics. It holds that the trapped heat goes where the observer thinks that it goes. The Stones had a song about it in the mid-Sixties. It was a huge hit.
Phillip boccuto says:
July 30, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Remember the laws of thermodynamics Carbon dioxide traps heat , where do you think it goes.
__________________________________
And water vapor traps a Heck of a lot more, all you have to do is look at the IR bands. See this Graph (Also note that both CO2 and H2O block incoming solar energy so it is not one sided)
Water is 4 percent of the atmosphere while CO2 is less than 400 parts per million. On top of that the Relative Humidity has DROPPED. That is the amount of water in the atmosphere has DROPPED since 1948. See this Graph
If you really want to get into it. A large chunk of the high energy solar radiation ends up in the oceans that cover 70% of the earth’s surface, see this Graph and penetrates and is absorbed, see Graph 1and Graph 2. And the heat capacity of the ocean is much greater than the atmosphere link
Earthshine is low energy and spread out. See Graph and this is the IR energy you want me to consider the “Control Knob” of the Earth’s Climate? Just look at what happens during a solar eclipse link
TSI shows as much as 2Wm2 variation see Graph But that is not where the big variation is. See NASA Link1 and NASA Link2 Also see Article or this Article
At this point I do not thing we really have a good handle on what controls climate, but after 40 years of looking we have not managed to prove it is CO2. All that has been proven to me is scientists will lie and cheat when there is grant money involved and when bucking the “Consensus” means you lose your job. I am not alone in this opinionPaper 1and paper 2 and Paper 3
I’m not sure it’s even on-topic, but I have a problem with the graph presented above. It shows approximately the shape(s) I would expect, until I look at the dates along the x-axis. What happened to 1998? “Adjusted”? When I look at the dates, this just looks “wrong”. What am I missing?
Frank Kotler says:
July 31, 2012 at 8:26 pm
I’m not sure it’s even on-topic, but I have a problem with the graph presented above. It shows approximately the shape(s) I would expect, until I look at the dates along the x-axis. What happened to 1998? “Adjusted”? When I look at the dates, this just looks “wrong”. What am I missing?
1998 is there, Frank, but it sorta “blends” if you’re using a laptop. Go for the hi-rez version.
Theo Goodwin says:
July 31, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Bill Tuttle says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:49 am :“Which laws did you have in mind when you wrote that?”
That would be the 19th Law of Quantum Thermodynamics. It holds that the trapped heat goes where the observer thinks that it goes. The Stones had a song about it in the mid-Sixties. It was a huge hit.
You’re right — first cut on the “Beggar’s Banquet” album.
Howinell could I forget that one?
Gail Combs says:
July 31, 2012 at 6:52 pm
All that has been proven to me is scientists will lie and cheat when there is grant money involved and when bucking the “Consensus” means you lose your job. I am not alone in this opinionPaper 1and paper 2 and Paper 3.
From Paper 3: More than half (53%) of the faked research papers had been written by a first author who was a “repeat offender.” This was the case in only one in five (18%) of the erroneous papers.
Which renders the criterion of judging an author by the volume of his *submitted* work rather suspect.
Gail, you wrote, “All that has been proven to me is scientists will lie and cheat when there is grant money involved and when bucking the “Consensus” means you lose your job.”
Very true Gail. This is something I’ve been fighting against and trying to explain to people for years. See:
http://www.jacobgrier.com/blog/archives/2210.html
and read my comments there for a pristine example of researchers promising to produce the “desired” results if they’re given the half million dollars in research money. I was fortunate that with a bit of digging I was able to come up with the grant proposal that included this:
“We believe that this research will provide public health officials and tobacco control advocates with information that can help shape adoption and implementation of CIA policies, and prevent their repeal. The proposed study … will contribute to MPAAT’s overall mission by providing information that enables adoption and successful implementation of policies to protect employees and the general public from secondhand smoke exposure.”
And of course, just as with the Global Warming studies, you’ll see how the researchers manipulated the data to provide the answers showing that there’s “no economic harm” from implementing the granting agency’s agenda.
The problem is that this approach to research has been enshrined in antismoking grants for the last 30 years. It’s now a completely accepted practice and has spilled over to those pushing the global warming science. You need to do what I did and dig out their grant proposals and show how they promise results BEFORE they do the research! That’s a simple enough argument that you can make it quickly and clearly to the public so that the casual “passersby” will absorb it and realize that maybe, just possibly, conceivably, you all aren’t just a bunch of “denialists” after all.
It’s an uphill battle though when the media is solidly against you. On the plus side however you’ve managed to gather together an excellent group of very scientifically literate critics here — and I’m guessing there are other similar gatherings as well that I’m not familiar with.
– MJM
Bill Tuttle says:
August 1, 2012 at 2:11 am
Frank Kotler says:
July 31, 2012 at 8:26 pm
I’m not sure it’s even on-topic, but I have a problem with the graph presented above. It shows approximately the shape(s) I would expect, until I look at the dates along the x-axis. What happened to 1998? “Adjusted”? When I look at the dates, this just looks “wrong”. What am I missing?
1998 is there, Frank, but it sorta “blends” if you’re using a laptop. Go for the hi-rez version.
————————————————————-
Heh! Not a laptop – practically in a wooden box with the crank on the side. 🙂
Yeah, 1998 is there but it’s a great gaping Grand Canyon of a thing. The peak I expect to see in 1998 appears to be shifted up to 2000-2001. I thought maybe it was an artifact of the “12 month trailing average” but it seems like too much. Maybe it’s just me… Thanks for the reply!
I’m laughing at your very apt “They still refuse to get out of the office, to examine firsthand..” and will suggest why they won’t.
– they’d have to acknowledge reality more strongly, including to themselves
– politically-driven organizations are inward-focused, the reward-risk system depends on politics (government departments are at much higher risk of that, due to who they work for and the lack of market feedback that private businesses have)
– if you aren’t dedicated to the job, and aren’t outdoors oriented, why bother going to the sites?
– bureaucratic procedures impede appropriate effort by getting in the way of new approaches.
– bureaucratic procedures often restricting travel. (Travel is a favourite budget-trimming target.)
– computers and satellites are fancy and obvious thus can be easier to justify than slogging
– grandiose “initiatives” with catchy names are started but never amount to much (perhaps the NCDC’s surface stations program is one of those)
– analysis seems easier than getting the bureaucracy to support data collection (site visits in this case, test rigs in the case of structural design for example)
– bureaucracies move very slowly (“Gary” on July 30 at 6:57 pm effectively says that).
Stories of avoiding getting into the field, to illustrate:
I once worked for an ex-Navy person who avoided going north of Edmonton AB to deal with equipment problems in High Arctic operations. He hurt his reputation by that maneuver. (I did go north to try to help, got almost as far as Eureka though didn’t stay there as I was with the airplane.)
I once worked for a company that refused to send the person coordinating test software to Singapore to visit the developers there. When the software arrived in Seattle it was found to be of mixed quality among the modules and not well enough coordinated between the modules. It was not used, a local team started from scratch to do the job right.
“Paul K2”: be specific about which sites from which databases Watts and Menne used. Until then I ignore your claim.
“Gary” on July 30 at 6:57 pm:
Aren’t you overlooking that the changes you list are regional, whereas for example Antarctica is not warming? When glaciers were shrinking in BC they were growing in Norway and NZ. Winter weather has been brutal in Mongolia in some recent years, worst in several decades. The challenge is global temperature, anecdotes aren’t good data.
Is anyone claiming there is zero warning? Certainly not Anthony Watts in his new paper, though there are unanswered questions about other errors in the temperature databases.
The real issue is of course not warming or cooling, it is the cause. Muller’s latest effort uses a claimed correlation to support his claim that humans are to blame for warming. But correlation is not causation – for example, two correlated phenomenon may have a common cause. Muller assumes CO2 increase causes temperature increase, but it may be the opposite – I doubt the data will ever be good enough to show which leads which, as there is too much scatter in too little data (poor coverage of measurement locations around the earth).
And I’m rolling on the floor at laughing at “Phillip boccuto”’s drive-by shooting about CO2 trapping heat. He doesn’t understand step one of the physics of the atmosphere and temperature, let alone the complexity of absorption and emission from various elements of the atmosphere and surface. Too little knowledge can be dangerous – to his reputation in this case. (And some people seem to confuse H2O vapour with CO2 gas.)