UPDATE: 8/22/12 9AM The problem has been solved, GISS responded to my complaint -Anthony
Like the erroneous graph at California Governor Jerry Brown’s climate denier slam site, here’s another one of those things that I’ve been sitting on for about a week, waiting for somebody to fix it. Since they haven’t, and I’ve given adequate time, I suppose it is time to bring this latest GISS miss to the global attention of everyone.
Last week during my email group exchanges, somebody (I forget who) pointed out this graph from NASA GISS:
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.gif (click to see yourself)
That is part of the GISTEMP graphs page here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
I chuckled then, because obviously it is some sort of data error, and not worth reporting since I figured surely those RealClimateScientists would notice in a day or two and fix it. Nope. But still there a week later? Now it is newsworthy.
That “off the charts” Figure D image has been around on this highly cited NASA GISS page, apparently unnoticed, since August 13th, 2012, here’s the proof in the image info:
I decided I’d have a look at the tabular data they offer, to my surprise, what I discovered was an “unprecedented” value in the dataset, larger than the hottest years of 1934, 1998, and 2006:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.D.txt
Year Annual_Mean 5-year Mean 1930 0.1060 0.1156 1931 0.9860 0.2346 1932 -0.0360 0.5856 1933 0.6520 0.5716 1934 1.2200 0.4072 1935 0.0360 0.3868 1936 0.1640 0.4110 ... 1997 0.1330 0.5700 1998 1.3020 0.6248 1999 1.0630 0.8214 2000 0.6920 0.9284 2001 0.9170 0.8046 2002 0.6680 0.7124 2003 0.6830 0.7560 2004 0.6020 0.8304 2005 0.9100 0.8824 2006 1.2890 0.7766 2007 0.9280 0.6926 2008 0.1540 0.6276 2009 0.1820 0.5006 2010 0.5850 0.8220 2011 0.6540 * 2012 2.5350 *
Wow. 2.53°C ? I thought maybe the very warm, and warmest to date this year, July 2012 was the issue causing this. But, we know that can’t be right, because NOAA tells us in their July State of the Climate analysis:
The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during July was 3.3°F (1.8°C) above the 20th century average, marking the warmest July and all-time warmest month since national records began in 1895.
So, I’m not sure where they come up with 2.53°C since NASA uses NOAA’s data, and one month shouldn’t skew half a year so much, but that is what seems to be happening. Plus they have the 2.53C in the annual mean column, which as we know isn’t complete yet, since 2012 is not complete.
GISS makes no direct caveat about presenting monthly data in the section on Figure D, though by inference, they possibly suggest it in the “five year running mean”, but aren’t clear if that is a monthly or annual calculated running mean.
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
Even so, if that running 5 year mean is using monthly data rather than annual data, updating one part of an annual graph with monthly data (for the annual mean as seen in the tabular data) can be very misleading to the public, and as we know, that page at GISS is used worldwide by media, scientists, and advocates. Therefore, it is very important to present it accurately and not mix monthly data and yearly data types without explanations of any kind.
I wanted to look in the Wayback machine to see what the Figure D graph said earlier this year, like maybe up to June, but to my surprise, GISS apparently prevents that public page from being indexed by the Wayback machine. In fact, they seem to have prevented a lot of content from being indexed and stored since 2005, see the dates:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/*
In fact if you look at this graph of plots
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
…and then try to go to the GISTEMPS graphs page, you get a lot of this:
I find it troubling that the publicly funded NASA agency GISS would block archiving of such an important global resource. This is not cool, guys.
Fortunately, Steve Goddard archived the GISS figure D image on January 29th, 2012, right after the year 2011 was updated with annual data:
So clearly, the effect is in 2012 data to date, but why would they plot monthly data to date on a graph depicting annual values?
This brings up some points.
1. The current US data Figure D graph compiled by GISS for 2012 is clearly erroneous the way it is presented.
2. The Figure D graph at GISS is clearly being updated with incomplete annual data, since this update showed up on the GISS website on August 13th, 2012. The graph portrays annual data. No mention is given of monthly data. This is wrong and misleading.
3. As before, as I pointed out to Governor Browns office, (now corrected) if I made a dumb mistake like this in a time-series, plotting incomplete months and presenting it as annual data, Tamino and his followers would “rip me a new one” (his words).
4. Why do I have to be the one to keep pointing these things out? Doesn’t the Governors Office and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies have any quality control procedures for the climate data they present to the public? Apparently not.
5. Why does GISS block the archiving of such important resources like the global temperature data they produce by such public domain services like the Wayback machine? Could it be they don’t want inconvenient comparisons like this one below to be made with their graphs?
Inquiring minds want to know.
h/t to Art Horn for the reminder today.
UPDATE: Shortly after this piece published, I emailed Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS:
From: Anthony
Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 12:44 PM
To: Gavin.A.Schmidt@nasa.gov
Subject: courtesy note
Dear Dr. Schmidt,
I doubt you’ll credit me when you fix this, or even acknowledge receipt of this message, but I’m informing you of the error anyway.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/21/climate-fail-giss-is-presenting-2012-us-temperature-as-off-the-chart-while-preventing-older-data-from-being-archived/
Best Regards,
Anthony Watts
UPDATE2: Commenter Jim P. points out 2012/08/21 at 1:50 pm
Anthony, there’s no error. It’s just the chart doesn’t extend high enough for this year.That’s the data for the year to date, not July.
As you can see from this NOAA chart: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2012&filter=ytd&state=110&div=0. The mean temperature for the year-to-date is 56.4F, or 13.6C. The normal is 52.2F, or 11.2C. The departure is 2.4C or close to what GISS is reporting.
REPLY: Yes, I see, thank you. But, presenting monthly year to date data, in a graph labeled annual mean data, with no caveat at all, is most certainly wrong and misleading. I’d be excoriated by the climate community at large for presenting an annual mean graph with incomplete data for a year like that, so why should they get a pass for being sloppy like the California Governor? – Anthony
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GISS: data Gone In Sixty Seconds!
If it’s from GISS, you know it’s volatile…
They don’t know their backsides from their elbows – probably spend too much time on both!
But more importantly, as has been said before – I really don’t think they ‘know’ what the genuine/real data is or where it is or what they have done to it anymore……….
I ask everybody here to contribute their 2 cents if they have it about the notion that perhaps the 1930s was hotter than today.
Also, I’m look for a best reference to use if I want to make that argument. Steven Goddard has been a good source of strong points, if you follow some of links in this google search of 1930s related Steven Goddard articles, that is a start.
That is a great “blink” graph.
Do you have a source fro the two data.
A warmist would never believe it…I need a good source.
This obviously shows the role of spurious adjustments to increase the appearance of warming.
@Jay, see the link in the article to Steve Goddard’s page. The data is all from NASA GISS. – Anthony
Get It Somehow Someday !
However this issue gets resolved in the end, we have to keep the big picture in mind, namely what has been happening globally. Basically the answer is not much, even according to GISS. With the GISS anomaly for July at 0.47, the average for the first seven months of the year is (0.34 + 0.40 + 0.47 + 0.55 + 0.66 + 0.56 + 0.47)/7 = 0.493. This is about the same as in 2011 when it was 0.514 and ranked 9th for that year. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.88. If the July anomaly continued for the rest of the year, 2012 would end up 10th. In order for a new record to be set in 2012, the average for the last 5 months of the year would need to be 0.82. Since this is close to the highest monthly anomaly ever recorded, it is virtually impossible for 2012 to set a new record. As well, GISS has a flat slope since March 2001 or 11 years, 5 months up to July.
(slope = -0.00023746 per year) See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2001.16/plot/gistemp/from:2001.16/trend
Steve Goddard maintaims the “historical reference” site at Real Science.com. It is well worth a daily visit. This “blinking graph” has been displayed for months.Also check out the newspaper clippings from previous times. Historical references seem to be his ‘niche’ in this march for the truth.
On a slightly off-topic note, I got a chuckle out of the fact that they point out that the US is 1.6% of the world’s surface area. But, back in 2007, I looked at the data in the GHCNv2, and found that most of the data points come from the U.S.. When I looked at the direction of adjustments in the GHCNv2, the U.S. (and Turkey) really stuck out as the main source. If you do watch the video, you can skip to the last minute to see some interesting stuff happening, especially in the recent two decades.
PS: I know GISS is not the same as GHCNv2 but the GHCN data is a major component in their analysis. I haven’t looked at GHCNv2 data in detail, but I would like to know if anyone knows whether they went back and re-generated adjustments to historical data.
In response to the California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown’s page and to me closer to reality:
http://i47.tinypic.com/io2at1.png
(data from http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif)
Talking of Giss, Tom Nelson has posted this little gem.
However, this year is worse than we thought.
Corrections to my comment: 1) I haven’t look at GHCNv3 data in detail; and 2) The video I mention is GHCN-v2: Geographic pattern of adjustment type for monthly mean temperatures.
@eyesonu. More up to date would be the stevengoddard site, as Steven has stopped using the Real-Science url: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/historical-references/
Jay says:
August 21, 2012 at 12:32 pm
That is a great “blink” graph.
Do you have a source fro the two data.
Yes – you can still find it on official NASA site here – look for US temperature:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
“while preventing older data from being archived”
I’d suggest that readers go to the site for their local weather service and copy/paste or import their area’s list of record highs and lows into a file on their computer. Do it again every few years. (I did it in 2007, 2009 and 2012. I put them all into an Excel workbook.) See for yourself how numbers are being changed. Make you’re own personal “archive”.
Anthony, any suggestion as to how or where such records could be uploaded for anyone who may know how to use such information would be able to get it? I wouldn’t expect you to do it. You’ve got your hands full with WUWT plus. Is someone out there already set up to receive such uploads?
Let us know if Gavin replies to your email Anthony
Anthony, I’m sure you’ve seen that the http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fig.D-2.gif graph is not showing up in this article. There are problems with linking to Steve’s graphs at real-science.com, since someone else is now running that site (Steve is now at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ ), and the older real-science.com seems to often be served up by cloudflare, which apparently blocks cross-site linking. (At least, that’s my best guess as to what’s going on that’s breaking your img links.) The same thing is happening at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/12/envisats-satellite-failure-launches-mysteries/ (one of my many favorite WUWT pages, BTW).
Please just download copies of the needed graphs, and store them on your own server, instead of linking to images at real-science.
REPLY: Fixed, thanks – Anthony
Just a correction guys the real-science site is no longer under steven goddard control. He is back on his first blog which is http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
It is basically a mirror copy so all you have to do is replace real-science with the stevengoddard addy and it should run through.
Am I alone in not being able to see the archived figure D? I have a blank box with a question mark in it. Only one like that in the posting. And when I clicked on the Steve Goddard link I was treated to some very warmist pop ups. Green gremlins in the works?
@Joanna
That graph visibility has been fixed, linking issue, refresh please
Anthony, there’s no error. It’s just the chart doesn’t extend high enough for this year.That’s the data for the year to date, not July.
As you can see from this NOAA chart: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2012&filter=ytd&state=110&div=0. The mean temperature for the year-to-date is 56.4F, or 13.6C. The normal is 52.2F, or 11.2C. The departure is 2.4C or close to what GISS is reporting.
REPLY: Yes, I see, thank you. But, presenting monthly year to date data, in a graph labeled annual mean data, with no caveat at all, is most certainly wrong and misleading. I’d be excoriated by the climate community at large for presenting an annual mean graph with incomplete data for a year like that, so why should they get a pass for being sloppy like the California Governor? – Anthony
@Anthony
Got it, thanks.
Eric Simpson wrote:
“I ask everybody here to contribute their 2 cents if they have it about the notion that perhaps the 1930s was hotter than today…”
Happy to oblige.
Thomas Jefferson, what does he know. He grew tobacco! I’ll bet he was funded by the whale oil industry [sarc].
Nothin’ new under the sun.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov lists 149 personnel, of whom 30 are NASA affiliated. That makes me feel optimistic that the data is fundamentally accurate. If GISS was systematically inventicating its data you would have to get at least one whistleblower. Otherwise, imagine the scenario that the ice sheets have already swallowed Toronto and Stockholm, and GISS is announcing yet another month of record-breaking maxima…
say …..how about some error bars so we can make fun of those too !! Would they include the “adjustments” in the standard error of the mean or the 95% confidence interval ? Does the 95% confidence interval become the 0% confidence interval since the adjustments are larger than the standard error ?
Please explain how does one calculate the standard error of the mean with a sample size of ONE anyway ????
ROFL Garbage In, Garbage OUT — WAX On, WAX Off !!!
Werner Brozek says:
August 21, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Thank You. Just what I wanted to know.
The EPA strikes out.
Appeals Court Blocks E.P.A. Rule on Cross-State Pollution
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/science/earth/appeals-court-strikes-down-epa-rule-on-cross-state-pollution.html
Court strikes down EPA rule on coal pollution
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/21/us-usa-epa-ruling-idUSBRE87K0NQ20120821
And for the foaming at the mouth at the mention ‘FoxNews’ (and we know who you are):
Coal Firms Up After Court Rejects EPA Smog Rule
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/08/21/coal-firms-up-after-court-rejects-epa-smog-rule/