The press release is out, and the usual serial bloviators are rushing to trumpet the news. July 2012 was the hottest ever on record! “Yikes! We’re gonna roast! Global Warming!” they wail on Twitter and blogs. The driver of this is AP’s Seth Borenstein, who never met a hot story he didn’t like. Here’s a quote from that story Ouch July in US was hottest ever in history books:
The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees. That breaks the old record from July 1936 by 0.2 degree, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Records go back to 1895.
…
Three of the nation’s five hottest months on record have been recent Julys: This year, 2011 and 2006. Julys in 1936 and 1934 round out the top five.
Of course the first thing I do when I see these sorts of things is go look at the data. It tells a far more interesting and credible story. Here’s some graphs NCDC and Seth won’t ever put in a press release or AP story:
From NCDC’s Climate at a glance page:
Now let’s compare to July 1936:
A few things stand out right away.
1. Due to regional weather pattern variability, one state in 1936 had below normal temperatures, Texas. Take the 1936 Texas below normal temperature out of the mix and there goes your 0.2F record making difference with July 2012.
2. Many states had warmer temperatures in 1936 than 2012. Here’s a table, all numbers in degrees Fahrenheit:
| State | 1936 | 2012 | ||
| Montana | 74.7 | 71.4 | ||
| N. Dakota | 79.7 | 73.8 | ||
| S. Dakota | 83.8 | 78.8 | ||
| Minnesota | 76.2 | 74.4 | ||
| Wisconsin | 74.8 | 74.7 | ||
| Nebraska | 83.1 | 80.0 | ||
| Iowa | 82.7 | 79.4 | ||
| Kansas | 85.1 | 84.3 | ||
| Oklahoma | 85.8 | 85.5 | ||
| Missouri | 84.9 | 83.7 | ||
| Illinois | 83.1 | 81.7 | ||
| Indiana | 80.9 | 80.2 | ||
| Mississippi | 82.0 | 81.8 | ||
| California | 76.3 | 75.0 |
Now compare that to the same map of 1934, and we also see many warmer states than in 2012.
What’s interesting is that that if AGW had overcome natural variability, and many claim this, we wouldn’t see any statewide temperatures in 2012 lower than in 1936 or 1934.
And with all the adjustments that have been going on, which 1930’s are we really talking about? The real one or the adjusted one? NASA GISS uses NCDC adjusted data, which according to this graph from Steve Goddard, suggests there’s been a whole lot of adjusting going on.
The graph below shows the almost two degree US upwards adjustment trend being applied by USHCN between the raw thermometer data and the published monthly data.
The adjustments they are making are greater than the claimed trend, meaning that all man made US warming is occurring inside ORNL and GISS computers.
Speaking of adjustments, I recalled the GISS Y2K debacle in 2007 where McIntyre discovered a mistake in GISTEMP. I’ve recovered the graphs from Hansen’s 1999 press release. This was originally part of “Lights Out Upstairs”a guest post by Steve McIntyre on my old original blog. Just look at how much warmer 1934 was in 1999 than it is now. Much of this can be attributed to NCDC’s USHCNv2 adjustments.
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Steve McIntyre wrote then:
In the NASA press release in 1999 , Hansen was very strongly for 1934. He said then:
The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability.Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934.
This was illustrated with the following depiction of US temperature history, showing that 1934 was almost 0.6 deg C warmer than 1998.
From a Hansen 1999 News Release: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif
However within only two years, this relationship had changed dramatically. In Hansen et al 2001 (referred to in the Lights On letter), 1934 and 1998 were in a virtual dead heat with 1934 in a slight lead. Hansen et al 2001 said
The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6)… the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree.
From Hansen et al 2001 Plate 2. Note the change in relationship between 1934 and 1998.
Between 2001 and 2007, for some reason, as noted above, the ranks changed slightly with 1998 creeping into a slight lead.
The main reason for the changes were the incorporation of an additional layer of USHCN adjustments by Karl et al overlaying the time-of-observation adjustments already incorporated into Hansen et al 1999. Indeed, the validity and statistical justification of these USHCN adjustments is an important outstanding issue.
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I’ve prepared a before and after graph using the CONUS values from GISS in 1999 and in 2011 (today).
GISS writes now of the bottom figure:
Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States
Annual and five-year running mean surface air temperature in the contiguous 48 United States (1.6% of the Earth’s surface) relative to the 1951-1980 mean. [This is an update of Figure 6 in Hansen et al. (1999).]
Also available as PDF, or Postscript. Also available are tabular data.
So clearly, the two graphs are linked, and 1998 and 1934 have swapped positions for the “warmest year”. 1934 went down by about 0.3°C while 1998 went up by about 0.4°C for a total of about 0.7°C.
And they wonder why we don’t trust the surface temperature data.
In fairness, most of this is the fault of NCDC’s Karl, Menne, and Peterson, who have applied new adjustments in the form of USHCN2 (for US data) and GHCN3 (to global data). These adjustments are the primary source of this revisionism. As Steve McIntyre often says: “You have to watch the pea under the thimble with these guys”.
So the real question is: which 1934 and 1936 is NCDC and Seth Borenstein comparing to? It looks to me like we might not be comparing real temperatures to real temperatures, but rather adjusted ones to highly adjusted ones.
Finally, remember this statement from the AP July 2012 “hottest ever” story:
The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees.
I have a way to apply a sanity check to this. but I’ll need some crowd-sourcing help. Stay tuned.
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UPDATE: Dr. Roy Spencer makes an interesting plot, which I’ve annotated to show a color key and years 1934, 1936, and 2012.
He writes in: July 2012 Hottest Ever in the U.S.? Hmmm….I Doubt It
Using NCDC’s own data (USHCN, Version 2), and computing area averages for the last 100 years of Julys over the 48 contiguous states, here’s what I get for the daily High temps, Low temps, and daily Averages (click for large version):
As far as daily HIGH temperatures go, 1936 was the clear winner. But because daily LOW temperatures have risen so much, the daily AVERAGE July temperature in 2012 barely edged out 1936.
…
So, all things considered (including unresolved issues about urban heat island effects and other large corrections made to the USHCN data), I would say July was unusually warm. But the long-term integrity of the USHCN dataset depends upon so many uncertain factors, I would say it’s a stretch to to call July 2012 a “record”.
GP Hanner says:
August 8, 2012 at 4:33 pm
“I would have to guess that the mid-1930s saw ENSO in a La Niña phase. Does anybody know?”
Info here (scroll down):
http://www.stormfax.com/elnino.htm
I don’t see the source of this, so . . .
You’d think these guys would slow down their adjustments now that people are looking closely at them.
Well No.
The fact that they are continually getting away with it and have so many apologists on their side, they have just been emboldened to go even wilder.
So we can’t stop Karl, Peterson and Menne as long as they are in charge of the NCDC.
MV: “”Can’t find concrete data either way though, except Saharan dust in the upper atmosphere making oceans cooler, but I’m not sure if that’s apples to apples.”
Seems like an apple to me. But if you’re not satisfied then we must throw the gauntlet and settle this like men that fancy pocket protectors. Replicate the experiment until we’re both satisfied that enough variables are accounted for to allow us to reject at least one hypothesis.
We’ll need several Okies, some old farm equipment, and a few trillion in Federal science grants.
“You have to watch the pea under the thimble with these guys”
There is no pea under any of the thimbles.
Being an agency of the United States government, the NOAA report was specific to the United States. Why are some of you drawing conclusions of this to the world’s climate and how it is changing?
Sleeper says:
August 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm
“Can someone explain (in layman’s terms) why we did not see glacial and sea ice retreat in the 30′s like we have seen in the last 30 years? ”
The first thing to note is that the 1930s did not last for 30 years.
The second thing to note is that some glacial ice did melt in the early part of the 1900s and there is documentation. Even the Wikipedia article mentions this – note paragraph #2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
See for example ( retreat starting in 1780 to 2001):
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/4000/4594/gangotri_ast_2001252.jpg
Do an ‘image’ search for: glacial retreat
Lots of links to follow and beautiful photos. Enjoy.
So, there is no reason to explain a lack of melting. Melting happened.
If it’s exceptionally warm in the US, it has to be exceptionally cool elsewhere.
It’s been a cool few weeks here in Australia and I believe they’ve had rare snow in South Africa.
Similar would have happened in the 30s. Somewhere other than the US would have experienced exceptional cold.
@Alfred Ledner Hartley
50% of ALL temperature measurements are “above average”. Another 50% are “below average”. Why is it surprising that during a heat wave year more than half the states have above average nighttime temperatures? That is why they are called ‘heat waves’.
Anytime I hear the talking heads claim a weather record here in the Denver area, I ignore them. In the 1930s, the official temp was taken at Stapleton Airport. Currently, it’s at DIA, 16 miles to the northeast and in a completely different micro-climate. They are comparing apples to oranges.
I live in Arvada on the west side of town near the foothills, 19.57 miles from DIA and about 14 miles from Stapleton. So similar distances apart. During a recent hot spell of 5 days of over 100 degrees, the temps in Arvada only went over 100 once. The other days we were 5-9 degrees cooler. I’m assuming that the temps differ between DIA and Stapleton in a similar way.
Also, when we get afternoon thunderstorms, which are frequently very localized, it can be 20 degrees cooler in one area than out at DIA. If the storms come in early enough in the afternoon, those areas aren’t anywhere near the official temps for the day. Since the usual thunderstorm pattern here is from the southwest to the northeast, the Stapleton area would usually cool off earlier in the day than DIA.
So who’s to say what a record is when, even at the same location, the temperature can vary from day to day and year to year depending on a thunderstorm and physical location of the equipment.
So far, summer is still hot and winter is still cold with some variation based on things like La Nina. When that’s no longer true, THEN I’ll consider getting worried.
Sleeper says:
August 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm
“Can someone explain (in layman’s terms) why we did not see glacial and sea ice retreat in the 30′s like we have seen in the last 30 years? ”
You should check out the 1930’s satellite record…..
NCDC is well known as the Federal Government`s “agenda driven” AGW agency!!
I have been told time and time again by Warmists that the USA is only a small part of the globe and therefore record cold temperatures are not representative of the globe. OK. What has changed now?
We are dealing with a bunch of adjusting cherry pickers.
RE: “J. Felton (the Cowboy) says:
August 8, 2012 at 6:49 pm…@Caleb
….Would you happen to have a link for the talk on Steve Mcintyre that Rush Limbaugh gave?”
No. But I imagine Rush has transcripts of all his old shows at his website, however I think you might have to be a paying “member.” (I’m not.)
I first heard of McIntyre’s posting on a very small, morning radio show, which mentioned an article in the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star gave a link to Climate Audit, which hadn’t crashed at that point.
I’m not sure, but I think the news spread from the Toronto Star to “Instapundit,” and Rush got the news from Instapundit. It all happened between August 8 and August 10, 2007. Check out Anthony’s archives. People were pretty nervous when Climate Audit went down.
Back at the time I was chewed-out for mentioning Hansen’s re-readjusting. It was assumed I had heard the news on Rush’s show, and I was accused of being a “ditto head.” I was taken aback by the magnitude of the venom I faced, from people I was quite close to.
I’ve never been very good at handling rejection, (especially rejection slips.) One good side effect of the Global Warming debate is that it has toughened me up, and taught me how to rebut in a firm but (somewhat) polite manner.
Given the United States is a small area of the planet. Id love to see how the rest of the planet fared back in 1936. It’s clear to me that 36′ was a good deal warmer than in 12′, yet Co2 levels are much higher than back then, humm. A lot of focus this year has been about US warmth but when you look at the overall world, it’s not been so warm. Take last winter. It was warm in US and here in the UK but a large chunk of Eurasia was brutally cold. They seen to use and focus on any warmth over the United States as a weapon to fight their lost and unjust cause.
markvoganweather.com
It might be hot in the U S A but in Australia it is bloody cold enought to freeze the nuts off a monkey
Ted hartley says:
August 8, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I would say the the 2012 does indeed confirm AGW, the best ANY state did was normal, with the bulk of them above average.
So a one month record, in just the USA which is only 0.2deg Farenheit ( 0.1 deg C ) above 1934 proves that Man has heated the planet. My god, that’s amazing how you correlated warming to man, with just that meagre evidence. Outstanding work Ted
/sarc
As an ex seafaring gentleman and ex operator of a maritime mobile weather station reporting every 6 hours in the 70’s I treat these “Mummy, mummy, it’s the end of the world….save me!!” moments with the contempt that they deserve. I took sea temperatures as part of the report. If it was rough we would ring down to the engine room for an inlet temperature. On a really hot day send the cadet down to the deck with a bucket and rope that stood in or out of the sun behind the bridge wing. He might carry the thermometer or bring the bucket of water back up. Sometimes we would swing the bucket over the side from the bridge wing and haul it up. We might use the same bucket for washing the bridge windows. Every now and then the met office man would come on board, have a few beers and sign the instrument inspection and calibration report.
All good fun. All we were asked to do was get a sea temp to the nearest 1/2 degree!
Then I read about sea temps to the nearest thousandth of a degree being spewed out of computers and that the sea has warmed by half a degree in a century and the land by 1.5 degrees in 200 years. With moved, built around, changed position, changed screens, multiple replacement instruments, different height operators reading them, lazy observers, guesswork on wet days, asking the kid to nip out and read it, dropped, coughed over temperatures, randomly placed, near airports, roads, a/c units, the list goes on…
It is such complete and utter bunkum.
Take away their computers. give them window cleaning kits and road sweeping brushes. Make them useful members of society again.
If you want my highly scientific assessment of the current state of knowledge, here it is:
Its about as warm as it has been for the last thousand years give or take a degree or so.
Get over it.
Ivor Ward
dennisambler says:
August 8, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Sleeper says:
August 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm
“Can someone explain (in layman’s terms) why we did not see glacial and sea ice retreat in the 30′s like we have seen in the last 30 years? ”
You should check out the 1930′s satellite record…..
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That is bloody hilarious… thank you !!!!
Australia`s 12 operational tidal stations also have air temperatures recorded and there not been an increasing trend for the last 20 years. The BOM has advised me that the trend is too short a period for judging climate trends, yet the government climate change commission used the sea level data from these same stations to try and convince Australians to agree to a carbon tax. The BOM also advised me that the data equipment for air temperature was not up to the standard required for climate assessment. To be fair to the BOM , they did not compile the climate commission report. You pick up this on the WACLIMATE SITE
In July, 1936, MD’s all-time high was recorded surprisingly near me (only 12 miles away) at 109F. WV (112F) & PA (111F) also set their all-time highs. 100F+ days were a dime-a-dozen. This July here, one day was 98F, and 2 days, 97F.
Nuff said.
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REPLY: Noooo, they didn’t “prefer” they were ordered to, and if you’ve talked to as many observers as I have, you’d know what I know…they didn’t always get and/or follow orders. the TOBS adjustment is a mess. I’ll explain why in a future post. Until then stay comfortable in that thought cocoon of “climate science always does everything perfect and people always do what they are told”. – Anthony
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Anthony, TOBS seems to me almost intractable. Other than going manually thru each & every record & pinpointing any double counts (very difficult) & calculating that way, the only reasonable solution I see is taking NCDC’s “algorithm” and checking its results against some smaller subset of random stations (w/their TOBS determined the manual way). It least that could get some idea of how close their algorithm is.
@Maus: I don’t think dust in the upper atmosphere compares to an entire column of dust from the surface on up. This wasn’t bright sand being kicked up either, but midwest topsoil. I’m obviously a warmist, but I don’t mind being proven wrong.
Appreciate the humor, I’m applying for a grant now. I’ll let you know when we’re rich^H^H^H^Hfunded. 😉
I’ve been studying the difference between how much the daily temp rises – how much it falls at night.
Here’s a chart for the US 1940-2010
http://www.science20.com/files/images/Global%20Annual%201940-2010%20Diff_1.jpg
Can anyone show the simple math on TOBS over a two week period for one station? Please show how, when your thermometer records the high and the low in the past 24 hours, how changing the time you read it changes that recording other then for the one day you make the switch. After that you will always get the true high, and the true low. Over time the change from the one day (when observation times changed) becomes meaningless as all the days since the change must have the true high and low. What am I doing wrong here?
Could someone help me understand why these types of data are never reported with margins of error. It seems to me the differences discussed are not only within the amount of “adjustments” applied to the data, but potentially within the margins of error. Further, it seems to me the data from the 1930’s has to have a significantly larger margin of error than the satellite data. Surely there must be some articles on this somewhere? And being trained scientists, why are margins of error seldom provided with the data?