The first press release announcement thread is getting big and unwieldy, and some commenters can’t finish loading the thread, so I’m providing this one with some updates.
1. Thanks to everyone who has provided widespread review of our draft paper. There have been hundreds of suggestions and corrections, and for that I am very grateful. That’s exactly what we hoped for, and can only make the paper better.
Edits are being made based on many of those suggestions. I’ll post up a revised draft in the next day.
2. Some valid criticisms have been made related to the issue of the TOBS data. This is a preliminary set of data, with corrections added for the “Time of Observation” which can in some cases result in double max-min readings being counted if not corrected for. It makes up a significant portion of adjustments prior to homogenization adjustments as seen below in this older USHCN1 graphic. TOBS is the black dotted line.
TOBS is a controversial adjustment. Proponents of the TOBS adjustment (Created by NCDC director Tom Karl) say that it is a necessary adjustment that fixes a known problem, others suggest that it is an overkill adjustment, that solves small problems but creates an even larger one. For example, from a recent post on Lucia’s by Zeke Hausfather, you can see how much adjustments go into the final product.
The question is: are these valid adjustments? Zeke seems to think so, but others do not. Personally I think TOBS is a sledgehammer used to pound in a tack. This looks like a good time to settle the question once and for all.
Steve McIntyre is working through the TOBS entanglement with the station siting issue, saying “There is a confounding interaction with TOBS that needs to be allowed for…”, which is what Judith Curry might describe as a “wicked problem”. Steve has an older post on it here which can be a primer for learning about it.
The TOBS issue is one that may or may not make a difference in the final outcome of the Watts et al 2012 draft paper and it’s conclusions, but we asked for input, and that was one of the issues that stood out as a valid concern. We have to work through it to find out for sure. Dr. John Christy dealt with TOBS issues in his paper covered on WUWT: Christy on irrigation and regional temperature effects
Irrigation most likely to blame for Central California warming
A two-year study of San Joaquin Valley nights found that summer nighttime low temperatures in six counties of California’s Central Valley climbed about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 3.0 C) between 1910 and 2003. The study’s results will be published in the “Journal of Climate.”
Most interestingly, John Christy tells me that he had quite a time with having to “de-bias” data for his study, requiring looking at original observer reports and hand keying in data.
We have some other ideas. And of course new ideas on the TOBS issue are welcome too.
In other news, Dr. John Christy will be presenting at the Senate EPW hearing tomorrow, for which we hope to provide a live feed. Word is that Dr. Richard Muller will not be presenting.
Again, my thanks to everyone for all the ideas, help, and support!
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UPDATE: elevated from a comment I made on the thread – Anthony
Why I don’t think much of TOBS adjustments
Nick Stoke’s explanation follows the official explanation, but from my travels to COOP stations, I met a lot of volunteers who mentioned that with the advent of MMTS, which has a memory, they tended not to worry much about the reading time as being at the station at a specific time every day was often inconvenient.. With the advent of the successor display to the MMTS unit, the LCD display based Nimbus, which has memory for up to 35 days (see spec sheet here http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/dad/coop/nimbus-spec.pdf) they stopped worrying about daily readings and simply filled them in at the end of the month by stepping through the display.
From the manual http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/dad/coop/nimbusmanual.pdf
Daily maximum and minimum temperatures:
· Memory switch and [Max/Min Recall] button give daily
highs and lows and their times
The Nimbus thermometer remembers the highs and lows for
the last 35 days and also records the times they occurred. This
information is retrieved sequentially day by day. The reading
of the 35 daily max/min values and the times of occurrence (as
opposed to the “global” max/min) are initiated by moving the
[Memory] switch to the left [On].
So, people being people, rather than being tied to the device, they tend to do it at their leisure if given the opportunity. One fellow told me (who had a Winneabago parked in is driveway) when I asked if he traveled much, he said he “travels a lot more now”. He had both the CRS and MMTS/Nimbus in his back yard. He said he traveled more now thanks to the memory on the Nimbus unit. I asked what he did before that, when all he had was the CRS and he said that “I’d get the temperatures out of the newspaper for each day”.
Granted, not all COOP volunteers were like this, and some were pretty tight lipped. Many were dedicated to the job. But human nature being what it is, what would you rather do? Stay at home and wait for temperature readings or take the car/Winnebago and visit the grand-kids? Who needs the MMTS ball and chain now that it has a memory?
I also noticed many observers now with consumer grade weather stations, with indoor readouts. A few of them put the weather station sensors on the CRS or very near it. Why go out in the rain/cold/snow to read the mercury thermometer when the memory of the weather station can do it for you.
My point is that actual times of observation may very well be all over the map. There’s no incentive for the COOP observer to do it at exactly the same time every day when they can just as easily do it however they want. They aren’t paid, and often don’t get any support from the local NWS office for months or years at a time. One woman begged me to talk to the local NWS office to see about getting a new thermometer mount for her max/min thermometer, since it wouldn’t lock into position properly and often would screw up the daily readings when it spun loose and reset the little iron pegs in the capillary tube.
Some local NWS personnel I talked to called the MMTS the “Mickey Mouse Temperature System” obviously a term of derision. Wonder why?
So my point in all this is that NWS/NOAA/NCDC is getting exactly what they paid for. And my view of the network is that it is filled with such randomness.
Nick Stokes and people like him who preach to us from on high, never leaving their government office to actually get out and talk to people doing the measurements, seem to think the algorithms devised and implemented from behind a desk overcome human urges to sleep in, visit the grand-kids, go out to dinner and get the reading later, or take a trip.
Reality is far different. I didn’t record these things on my survey forms when I did many of the surveys in 2007/2008/2009 because I didn’t want to embarrass observers. We already had NOAA going behind me and closing stations that were obscenely sited that appeared on WUWT, and the NCDC had already shut down the MMS database once citing “privacy concerns” which I ripped them a new one on when I pointed out they published pictures of observers at their homes standing in front of their stations, with their names on it. For example: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/newsletters/07may-coop.pdf
So I think the USHCN network is a mess, and TOBS adjustments are a big hammer that misses the mark based on human behavior for filling out forms and times they can’t predict. There’s no “enforcer” that will show up from NOAA/NWS if you fudge the form. None of these people at NCDC get out in the field, but prefer to create algorithms from behind the desk. My view is that you can’t model reality if you don’t experience it, and they have no hands on experience nor clue in my view.
More to come…
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[SNIP: Once again, this is not up for discussion. A first time-commenter pursuing this tack looks and sounds much like a “concern troll”. -REP]
Sorry Anthony, but every military weather observer / forcaster attended the same school and we all knew each other. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine – we all trained together.
We do get a little upset when “scientists” years later try to tell us that our records were wrong and must be “adjusted.”
We were there and took those measurements every hour and fully understood how strict the quality control was. In the military, if you make an error, someone may die because of it.
Semantics. Replicate/reproduce … ‘replicate – reproduce or make an exact copy of …’
The source data is well identified, and all available already as far as I can see. The key issue in question would be the application of the Leroy 2010 standard to that data and the results thereof.
The Leroy 2010 standard seems well identified. An attempt to reproduce the Watts results would have far more value than trying to replicate his exact results. Knowing the answer ahead of time adds a strong bias in my non-technical opinion.
This does not seem to be hard work. Grab the readily available identified data set – read the Watts report and follow their process – apply Leroy 2010 to the data and see what you come up with for siting bins. Run the calcs from those and see if they match Watts 2012.
If they do commend him. If they don’t THEN ask him to work with you to identify the differences. This will only strengthen the Leroy 2010 standard and its application.
Add a TOB’s review on top and see where that leads as well.
The difficult work is reviewing the sites. If I recall there were 779 to start with – they are your beginning station data. Watts et al spent over a year completing that work. I can well understand his reluctance to put that in public domain before the paper is ready for submission.
It is that work – how the Leroy 2010 is applied – that is important here. It is that work that should be replicated or reproduced. And having the answers beforehand would not seem to make a lot of sense here – at least to me.
If the tennor of the comments on slashdot is any indication, this paper has the AGW croud totally freaked out!
Secondly I can see tobs being adjusted to 2 PM for the expected high temperature, but how do you adjust for the Tmin expected at just before sunrise? It shouldn’t be to much of an issue in the tropics, but in high latitudes, sunrise changes quite a bit, high enough it can take weeks.
And observation from today and related questions for Zeke:
As I left my club today about 1:45pm, the temperature reading in my car was 95F. I check this reading regularly against the time/temp displays all around town and I’m normally +/- 1F. My drive home of 7 miles (only 4 mile south of starting point) takes 15 minutes this time of year. The temperature at my condo complex was 86F, or 9F less. My condo is only 1,500 feet from the ocean while my club is about a mile from the ocean. Also, it was a cloudless sky at my club and the cloud cover was nearly 50% (approx) by the time I got home. But those two locations were only 4 miles apart on a direct line.
How would your TOBS algorithm adjust those two readings taken only 15 minutes apart?
How can you use area spacings of up to 1,200 square meters to approximate the temperature of the Earth (or even the USA) when the temperature can vary by 9F over a four mile distance?
I have the feeling that you know your algorithms and their functionality extremely well, but you’ve lost site of the real world variables.
serious question…
Does the tree ring growth data, that Mann excluded, in favor of hiding the decline agree better with the corrected temp data set?
I would also note the Leroy 1999 siting results data is known from prior studies … it would seem that station data would be an excellent place to start. Add the Watts comments on classification category changes and appears you could well narrow the station list initially pretty quickly – at least create a list of most likely culprits to start with …
TOBS is the temperature at the time of observation. The observer records the max/min temps, records the current temp (TOBS) and resets the device. The reported TMAX and TMIN are valid for the time period between resets (the time of the previous ob to the current ob), If the observer takes the reading after sunrise, TMIN will be the low that occurred on the day the observation was taken UNLESS the previous day was colder. For example, the observer recorded TMIN 25 degrees and TOBS 26 degrees on the 10th at 8am and reset the device. On the 11th, the observer recorded TMIN 26 degrees and TOBS 42 degrees. Obviously, the TMIN recorded on the 11th actually occurred on the 10th seconds after the device was reset. The closest we have to TMIN on the 11th is TOBS unless the 12th happens to be warmer than the 11th and so on. It would be nice if the MMTS timestamped TMAX and TMIN. Just another example of the mess that is climate. Trees are probably more accurate.
Time of observation can get extremely tricky. In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for example, the daylight hours can vary from about 17 hours in June to 7.5 hours in December. So if readings are taken at 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM every day, for half the year, this would be after sunrise and before sunset. Then for the other half of the year, it would be before sunrise and after sunset. Then there is daylight saving to throw in a further complication. Rather than having a specific time of observation, perhaps times connected to local sunrise and local sunset would be more useful. But who has a computer that can sort that out on a global basis? And who is going to get the readings at just the right times which can change by 3 minutes every day in a place like Edmonton?
REPLY: The max and min thermometers have memory posts on the meniscus. Captures the high and low of the day. – Anthony
While I understand the TOBS issue, what I don’t understand us why TOBS must be applied to this particular analysis. Is the point not to determine if station siting issues influence the trend? Would it not be as valid to compare both trends with TOBS out as it would be to compare both trends with TOBS in?
Because minimax aren’t the only temperatures recorded, hence TOB adjustments.
Will you tell Steve McIntyre he’s a moron trying to figure out something completely unnecessary or shall I?
REPLY: Retract your statement about Mr. McIntyre or get out permanently. I have zero tolerance for that – Anthony
“If the observer takes the reading after sunrise, TMIN will be the low that occurred on the day the observation was taken UNLESS the previous day was colder.”
Good assumption unless other raw data (such as atmospheric pressure) is available that actually showed a frontal passage moving though the area on that specific date. Even a frontal passage will require a sudden change in temperatures, pressure and wind directions.
Keep it simple and use the 99% standards of normal TMIN and TMAX date and times, unless other information becomes available that can identify a frontal passage.
Anthony, I was being completely sarcastic. I don’t for a second think that about McIntyre: my point is the opposite. That he’s obviously trying to calculate TOBs because he feels they are significant.
I should have added a /sarc tag. It was a back-handed compliment. In my posts today, I’ve done nothing but laud Steve McIntyre.
REPLY: OK point of order – ALWAYS use the sarc tag when using sarcasm And, that’s probably my cue to step away for awhile, I’m getting really tired. – Anthony
Several studies show that tree ring data agrees well with the maximum temperature.Unadjusted maximum temperatures throughout the USA on average do not exceed the 1930’s and 40’s and thus reveal a slight decline.
The latest Esper paper agrees well tree rings but their mean Scandinavian temperatures likewise does not exceed the 40’s.
I think Maximum temperatures are more representative of the heat stored in the atmosphere because of the tremendous vertical mixing of mid day convection. Minimums are more often biased by land use, GHGs, wind patterns and what not that disrupt the boundary layer. Any warming not radiated back to space by dawn can be carried to the stratosphere by the next day’s convection. Minimums likely do more to obscure any climate trend.
Bob Johnston says: July 31, 2012 at 6:03 pm TOBS example
http://climateaudit101.wikispot.org/Time_of_Observation_Bias
This example is WRONG. It is wrong because a change to 3 pm observations changes not only the 2 days discussued, but all days in a time series read at 3 pm. Therefore, the average will not be the same as that given.
TOBS is tricky. You have to work the examples quite carefully. Others are also wrong.
In Australia, the vast majority of observations in relevant years were made at 0900 hrs. It is rare for there to be a need for any TOBS correction. If NOAA or GISS whomever add a TOBS correction to Australian data, they will create an error. Probably, the same applies for many other countries outside USA.
AW, keep up the good work. Remain open to comment. TOBS is going to be a distraction rather than a problem, as pointed out on this thread already by others.
I would however suggest that since 71% of Earth is ocean, your wonderful analysis of US siting bias be extended to oceanic measurement error. That way, becomes much more compelling. There are some possible ways to begin such an effort. Satellites versus thermometers, various thermometer depths. Stuff that is already in the literature, and provably ‘over-corrected’ by databases such as GISS.
There are also critiques of AR4 beyond data quality. The combination should become quite powerful for AR5. I will get my own book chapter on this out before the election, since was not originally targeted at AR5.
At http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/initial-thoughts-on-the-watts-et-al-draft/, Zeke Hausfather says [Leroy 2010] results in a less strict criteria than that of Leroy 1999, and considerably more stations are rated as class 1 or 2 (160) than in the prior classification scheme (~80). This should by itself raise a yellow flag: if using a more strict classification criteria found no difference in trend, why would a more lax classification criteria result in very significant differences in trends (at least in the raw data)?
I think Zeke uses strict in two different senses here: (1) how many sites get “high/low” grades; (2) how many sites are “good/bad”. It seems to me that the newer classification scheme will improve the rating of some sites and lower the rating of others.
Consider: if the older scheme jumbles all sites around, then all five classifications less difference one from another than if they are “more correctly” assorted, so that the classifications better reflect real differences in stations.
Have I missed something in Zeke’s reasoning?
NeedlesFactory, great observation. I noticed that too, but you took the time put it very cogently.
It seems to me Leroy 2010 is simply a better standard — of course the surface area of nearby heat sinks matter.
Many times today I have seen statements of 02:00 PM or even 03:00 PM times of observations.
This may be good on a theoretical basis, but NOBODY has ever based their 24 hour weather records upon those times. If I am wrong, then please show me a single station anywhere in the World that used those times.
I posted this comment on another thread in response to vvenema’s unfounded joy at having found a TOB “out” from the pain of the paper. I feel it is also relevant to this thread.
——————————————————–
vvenema says:
July 31, 2012 at 1:06 pm
——————————————————–
Hand flapping about TOB adjustment in the hope that it will remove this thorn from the side of the consensus is not going to work. In fact it may have the opposite effect than what you intend. You are just attracting attention to Tom Karl’s pet rat TOBy.
There are two types of TOB adjustment that may be valid. The first is time zone adjustment, to account for the true sidereal position of the sun over a station. The second is a one time only step adjustment to individual station data for a change between evening or morning reading of max/min mercury thermometers. The second type of adjustment cannot be validly made from a desk in a distant city. It can only be valid if it is made on an individual station basis with direct reference to individual station paper records. Which method do you think Toms rat TOBy has been using? Yes, that’s right, from a desk in a distant city, not on an individual station basis and with no supporting metadata.
To make a valid TOB adjustment you would need to know whether an individual station was making evening or morning readings of a mercury thermometer, if and when the reading time for that station changed and when the station changed to an MMTS sensor. To achieve this for USHCN stations would require a project similar in scale to Anthony’s surface station project.
Anthony has shown that you cannot adjust for station site issues from behind a desk with any amount data smearing. NOAA thought you could. NOAA also thinks you can adjust for TOB from behind a desk with no supporting individual station metadata. So by all means make a fuss about TOB adjustment invalidating Anthony’s work. Lets drag TOBy squeaking into the disinfecting sunlight.
No worries, Anthony.
Great work, on balance. I’ve critiqued you today for rushing to press so it may not seem like it, but your site is and has been for years one of my favourites and I greatly appreciate your work. I think it’s valuable not just to science, but to humanity … considering the terrible ramifications of bad environmental and economic policy.
You’ve earned a break tonight, that’s for sure! It’s a valuable discussion and once the paper’s tightened up (linguistically too), i hope to see it published. If you’re right, it’s huge.
We’ll need and want more “SurfaceStation”-type projects in other countries. Like Watts 2009, this should improve how science is down and increase, however marginally (!), the numbers of people looking at popular climate science with a skeptical mindset.
Anthony,
I seem to recall but cannot find it now, that your original interest was to investigate the effect of different paint surfaces on Stevenson Screens. From that study you determined that the surface coating did have some effect on the temperature readings.
Where in the ‘adjustments’ is this taken into account and, if not, why not?
I notice that Steve McIntyre said on his blog that, unfortunately, he has to get into TOBS, which he regards as a time sink (presumably with non-commensurate results).
I’m guessing that one of the reasons for his frustration is that the significance of TOBS varies a great deal by location. In the tropics, the temperature often does not vary much throughout the 24 hour cycle. In the desert, it can vary enormously, as it can in places (like Melbourne, Australia) where you can have ‘4 seasons in one day’. Trying to find appropriate corrections for these sorts of variables would be challenging, to say the least.
From personal experience, I know that any decent piece of work one does raises further questions – otherwise it is not a decent piece of work. But, at some point you just have to draw a line under it and say ‘it is what it is, it’s not the Grand Unifying Theory, just another small step forward. We acknowledge that X,Y and Z are not yet resolved.’
My best wishes to you and your family, Anthony, and good luck with resisting the taunts to follow every rabbit (or rabbet) down every hole.
Christoph Dollis: July 31, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Said:” …. Ummm, the difference is the temperature doesn’t fall and rise with the regularity of a Sine wave. …”
On average, yes it does.
And we are not talking about an “on the spot observation”, it is the recording of an earlier maximum or minimum.
So IMHO Steve Huntwork: July 31, 2012 at 5:46 pm is right on the money.
markx, the average amplitude of a Sine wave is always 0. This isn’t the same thing as temperature values despite that, yes, they both rise and fall.