From American Thinker – NASA’s Rubber Ruler
By Randall Hoven
A funny thing happened on the way to determining how hot 2012 has been on a global basis: temperatures changed in 1880.
We’ve been hearing that 2012 has been the “hottest on record.” I had written earlier that those claims were based on the contiguous United States only, or 1.5% of the earth’s surface. The “global temperature” in 2012 through June was only the 10th hottest on record. In fact, every single month of 1998 was warmer than the corresponding month of 2012.
I thought I’d update that analysis to include July’s and August’s temperatures. To my surprise, NASA’s entire temperature record, going back to January 1880, changed between NASA’s June update and its August update. I could not just add two more numbers to my spreadsheet. The entire spreadsheet needed to be updated.
I knew NASA would occasionally update its estimates, even its historical estimates. I found that unsettling when I first heard about it. But I thought such re-estimates were rare, and transparent. There is absolutely no transparency here. If I had not kept a copy of the data taken off NASA’s web site two months ago, I would not have known it had changed. NASA does not make available previous versions of its temperature record (to my knowledge).
NASA does summarize its “updates to analysis,” but the last update it describes was in February. The data I looked at changed sometime after early July.
In short, the data that NASA makes available to the public, temperatures over the last 130 years, can change at any time, without warning and without explanation. Yes, the global temperature of January 1880 changed some time between July and September 2012.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/nasas_rubber_ruler.html#ixzz27YZRxqIW
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Once again it appears NASA has violated the Data Quality Act. Steve McIntyre wrote in 2007: NASA Evasion of Quality Control Procedures
The U.S. federal government has a detailed set of regulations requiring scientific information to be peer reviewed before it is disseminated by the federal government. NASA, which says that it has “employs the worlds largest concentration of climate scientists”, has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies. Once again, the system involves an employee purporting to be acting in a “personal capacity”. Here’s how it works.
Peer Review Policy
U.S. federal policy on data quality is set out in a variety of steps. The Data Quality Act itself is very short and states:
The guidelines under subsection (a) shall
(1) apply to the sharing by Federal agencies of, and access to, information disseminated by Federal agencies; and
(2) require that each Federal agency to which the guidelines apply
(A) issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by the agency, by not later than 1 year after the date of issuance of the guidelines under subsection (a);
(B) establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the guidelines issued under subsection (a); and
The OMB has issued several guidelines under the act. The first statement is here . A subsequent OMB Bulletin clearly required peer review of important scientific information before dissemination by the federal government as follows:
This Bulletin establishes that important scientific information shall be peer reviewed by qualified specialists before it is disseminated by the federal government.
There’s an interesting exemption in this bulletin (and we shall see below how this comes into play):
This definition includes information that an agency disseminates from a web page, but does not include the provision of hyperlinks on a web page to information that others disseminate.
NASA Policies
NASA has several manuals and policies setting out its own procedures for ensuring compliance with such policies. NASA guidelines specify far-reaching obligations on data quality for information disseminated by NASA. It notes the wide use of NASA information:
NASAs information from its missions and programs is used by: government and national and international policymakers to enable sound and better public policy; NASAs scientists and others cooperating with NASA to pursue their important work; the media in describing to the public the importance and advances of research; the educational community to educate a new generation of citizens in science, math, and engineering; and members of the public to enable them to be knowledgeable and inspired about NASAs goals and accomplishments.
It states that the policies apply to NASA Centers as well as to headquarters:
These guidelines are applicable to NASA Headquarters and Centers, …
It states that NASA will ensure the quality of its disseminated information:
NASA will ensure and maximize the quality, including the utility, objectivity, and integrity, of its disseminated information, except where specifically exempted. Categories of information that are exempt from these guidelines are detailed in Section C.3….
Information products disseminated by NASA will be based on reliable, accurate data that has been validated.
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How do they measure concentration of scientists? Parts per million? Or do they mean degree of undivided attention? As in “Our scientists concentrate more than yours; ours don’t even eat lunch they’re thinking so hard.”
Or do they jam all their scientists into one little room with no windows? “Watch where you’re putting your elbow, Doctor.” “That’s not my elbow!”
Or maybe they boil their scientists down to a thick paste, like tomato sauce.
Is there a Latin name for this particular logical fallacy? Ad defigo esculentum? Lord Moncton, help us out here.
I’ve posted this before. The old Death Valley temperatures also match those on John Daly’s site. This is old news.
Jim
So, does that mean our ancestors were colder than we thought?
If they died early from hyperthermia does that mean we weren’t born?
It IS worse than we thought!
My guess is that among WUWT readers and others, there must have been thousands of downloads of the GISS data over the last decade. Perhaps we could all search for such files, pool them together in one location, and sort them out chronologically.
@ur momisugly guido guidi Sept 26th 9.45
You ask whether CRU has made adjustments. I read an article perhaps a year ago that described some changes they had made. I’m sure others here would have the info or links more detailed than my recollection which is as follows:
CRU changed the way it used data from its more northerly stations in order to reflect more faithfully the weighting needed in areas with lower coverage. The methods they used were said to bring them more into line with those used by NOAA. This resulted in the HadCRUT being revised to make 2010 the warmest year, rather than 1998. It’s hard to believe that this happened without a song and dance and I am still seeing the old data/graph being trotted out, even by warmists. So take it with a pinch of salt, but I did read it on a ‘respected’ site. Quote marks are because I can’t remember which site and one of those I read is the BBC which can’t always be respected on this subject. Has anyone got more info on this?
Two paragraphs excerpted from said cited/referenced document above:
– – – – – – – – –
Why did NCDC change to a new incremental version of GHCN‐Monthly?
The software used to perform operational updates and reprocessing of GHCN‐M version 3 was modified to correct coding errors and to improve its run‐time efficiency.
In particular, coding errors were corrected in the Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm (PHA) that had been identified during the course of a project led by Mr. Daniel Rothenberg in July 2011. The project was carried out as part of Google’s “Summer of Code” and supervised by the Climate Code Foundation (with collaboration by NOAA/NCDC).
These software changes were combined with other minor changes to improve debugging and processing efficiency. A total of eight software modifications were made. The version number of the GHCN‐Monthly temperature dataset was changed from 3.1.0 to 3.2.0 to reflect these changes in the processing system.
…
Why is the century‐scale global land surface trend higher in version 3.2.0?
The PHA software is used to detect and account for historical changes in station records that are caused by station moves, new observation technologies and other changes in observation practice.
These changes often cause a shift in temperature readings that do not reflect real climate changes.
When a shift is detected, the PHA software adjusts temperatures in the historic record upwards or downwards to conform to newer measurement conditions. In this way, the algorithm seeks to adjust all earlier measurement eras in a station’s history to conform to the latest location and instrumentation.
The correction of the coding errors greatly improved the ability of the PHA to find these kinds of historic changes. As a result, approximately twice as many changepoints (inhomogeneities) were detected in v3.2.0 than in v3.1.0.
While the PHA makes adjustments upwards and downward to historic data in approximately equal numbers, the algorithm identifies the need for a slightly larger number of positive adjustments (which correct abrupt, artificial cool steps in a station’s record) than negative adjustments (which correct warm step changes).
While the adjustments for the v3.2.0 changepoints are on average smaller than v3.1.0, the greater rate of detection and correction resulted in changes to global land surface air temperature trends. Because there are more cold step changes (which require positive adjustments) than warm step changes (which require negative adjustments), most notably from the 1930s through 1970s, data for many years from the middle of the 20th Century and earlier have lower values in v3.2.0 than in v3.1.0. In brief, the global average land surface air temperature trends are higher in the adjusted data than in the unadjusted data and higher in v3.2.0 than in v3.1.0.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Hmmmm … note the bolded two paragraphs up re: “While the PHA makes adjustments upwards and downward to historic data in approximately equal numbers, the algorithm identifies the need for a slightly larger number of positive adjustments (which correct abrupt, artificial cool steps in a station’s record) than negative adjustments (which correct warm step changes).”
george e smith says:
September 26, 2012 at 10:04 am
“””””…..NASA, which says that it has “employs the worlds largest concentration of climate scientists”, has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies. …..”””””
Why on earth does NASA employ the world’s largest concentration of climate scientists ?
george has a very valid question. NASA is delivering a useless temperature chart based on GHCN as many others.
Another “curiosity” could be on the planet you name with the money wasted on useless repeats.
Why on earth does a space agency employ “the world largest concentration of climate scientists”?
@Steve Mosher
Nasa does not change the data of the past.
GISSTEMP is a computer program that estimates the global “average “temperature of the past and present. It relies on inputs made available by other sources, GHCN, and SCAR.
Mosh is right upto a point here. It is GHCN that produce a lot of the adjustments. (And let’s not forget, at least some national met offices adjust figures before they send on to GHCN).
I had a long round of conversations with Reto Ruedy at GISS a few months ago about the ever changing past. The poor fellow was clearly getting exasperated and was getting fed up with explaining that it was GHCN’s doing, telling me
Looking at GHCN’s data for the first station (Santiago Del ..) and comparing it to the unadjusted data, I found that last month that record was not adjusted, this month it was adjusted – that seems to indicate that this station is according to GHCN’s criteria near the boundary of being exceptional and a single additional data point may have caused it to cross that boundary; I would not be too surprised if next month it would switch back to being unadjusted.
Unfortunately the buck has to stop somewhere.
> Kurt in Switzerland says:
> Why doesn’t someone just look at raw temperature records in predominantly
> rural areas over the 100 y+ record?
As someone who grew up in Northern Ireland I have possibly mis-placed pride in the Armagh Observatory. (All school kids were dragged there for a trip at some point.)
This isn’t what I was looking for but if you check out Figure 6 of…
http://star.arm.ac.uk/preprints/445.pdf
…”Mean annual temperatures at Armagh Observatory 1796–2002″, it doesn’t give you a lot give you a lot to get worked up about!
This is what NASA said to explain the differences between the two data sets:
“How does this version of GHCN‐Monthly compare to the previous version?
The September 2012 release of v3.2.0 has no effect on the unadjusted (raw) data and little effect on global temperature rankings based on the adjusted data. However, the century‐scale global land surface air temperature trend is higher using the adjusted v3.2.0 data. With v3.1.0, the adjusted annual global land surface air temperature trend for 1901‐2011 was 0.94°C/Century. Using data from version 3.2.0 this trend is 1.07°C/Century. The greatest differences between the two versions of the adjusted data sets are in the data for years prior to 1970.”
It is always the same – absolutely never changes – make the data more scary by changing the past. In this case, the warming trend has changed from 0.94°C/Century to 1.07°C/Century – an increase of 13.8%!!!!!!
Such is ‘climate science’, even from once highly respected sources, the mantra is always the same: “just make it up as you go along, but don’t forget to always make the conclusions/’evidence’ worse than before.”
Mosher: “There are ongoing projects to improve the coverage and quality of the incoming data sources. that means the input data can and will change on a monthly basis.”
Then there is an even greater need to archive of their own product. The Memory Hole is not a data archival service located in San Jose.
“The other thing is that you can expect more changes going forward as the newer versions of GHCN-M are rolled out.”
This, and the above, only state that the temperature record is not a ‘record’ and the data is not ‘data’. To the degree that your statements are correct then it is impossible for any science to be performed at all, and that none has been to date.
It is improper in all cases to state “We haven’t finished measuring, therefore the experimental result is…” or “We haven’t figured out how to measure, therefore the experimental result is…”
The reason NASA is employing the largest concentration of climate scientists harks back to the words of Pres. John F Kennedy. He likened the fair achievent of reaching the moon by 1969 to the mountain climber who, when asked why he climbed the highest peak, said, “Because it is there.”
So Pres. Kennedy inspired the nation to reach the moon when he said, “Well space is there. And we are going to climb it!”
Note to NASA: “Climb it,” not “climate.”
“Space is there, and we are going to climb it.” Not, “Space is there, and we are going to climate.”
Here’s a more direct link to the GISS table:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
As has been discussed here before, two-thirds of the ‘adjustments’ seem to go the warmists way.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/17/new-paper-blames-about-half-of-global-warming-on-weather-station-data-homgenization/
Same old/same old……. all this boils down to is having a dynamic history where nothing can be known. And nothing stated relying on the old information can ever be correct.
It is an egregious affront to humanity.
As Watts et al 2012 clearly showed the issue is poor data quality:
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
With adjusting and readjusting the data they go further and further away in Adjustment Nirvana but not getting better estimations.
If one takes GISS old data:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120119/
including uncertainty the slope was from -0.4 to +0.6 for the whole timeframe.
The value I see now communicated with 1.07*C per century is outside the uncertainty range of their old work, invalidating all their old data – and all work based on the old data.
If they estimated so wrongly the uncertainty in Jan 2012 what makes anybody believe that they did a better job now?
Getting back to Watts et all 2012 the difference between good quality stations and the total stations more then halved the trend.
So all these historical reconstructions are glorious guesstimates supported by computer programs. “Madame Irma astrology” comes to mind: same approach: put in some data, give it a “scientific touch”= run a program that makes glorious guesstimates and here is your horoscope.
I had put this up before. I don’t know if it’s “GISS” or not. I don’t know if it went into the GISS calculations.
But I have the record highs and lows the NWS posted in 2007 for Columbus Ohio. One small spot on the globe. I also have the record highs and lows they posted in April of 2012. Here is a comparison of the record highs. It does not include new records set after 2007. I was looking for changes to records recorded in the past.
(Note: The 2012 list included ties. The 2007 list did not.) Again, I hope the copy/paste works right!
Newer-April ’12 Older-’07 (did not include ties)
6-Jan 68 1946 Jan-06 69 1946 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
9-Jan 62 1946 Jan-09 65 1946 Same year but “new” record 3*F lower
31-Jan 66 2002 Jan-31 62 1917 “New” record 4*F higher but not in ’07 list
4-Feb 61 1962 Feb-04 66 1946 “New” tied records 5*F lower
4-Feb 61 1991
23-Mar 81 1907 Mar-23 76 1966 “New” record 5*F higher but not in ’07 list
25-Mar 84 1929 Mar-25 85 1945 “New” record 1*F lower
5-Apr 82 1947 Apr-05 83 1947 “New” tied records 1*F lower
5-Apr 82 1988
6-Apr 83 1929 Apr-06 82 1929 Same year but “new” record 1*F higher
19-Apr 85 1958 Apr-19 86 1941 “New” tied records 1*F lower
19-Apr 85 2002
16-May 91 1900 May-16 96 1900 Same year but “new” record 5*F lower
30-May 93 1953 May-30 95 1915 “New” record 2*F lower
31-Jul 100 1999 Jul-31 96 1954 “New” record 4*F higher but not in ’07 list
11-Aug 96 1926 Aug-11 98 1944 “New” tied records 2*F lower
11-Aug 96 1944
18-Aug 94 1916 Aug-18 96 1940 “New” tied records 2*F lower
18-Aug 94 1922
18-Aug 94 1940
23-Sep 90 1941 Sep-23 91 1945 “New” tied records 1*F lower
23-Sep 90 1945
23-Sep 90 1961
9-Oct 88 1939 Oct-09 89 1939 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
10-Nov 72 1949 Nov-10 71 1998 “New” record 1*F higher but not in ’07 list
12-Nov 75 1849 Nov-12 74 1879 “New” record 1*F higher but not in ’07 list
12-Dec 65 1949 Dec-12 64 1949 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
22-Dec 62 1941 Dec-22 63 1941 Same year but “new” record 1*F lower
29-Dec 64 1984 Dec-29 67 1889 “New” record 5*F lower
PS Here’s where I got the list.
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/cmhrec.htm
It seems to have changed again. Now they include the date it was updated, June 28, 2012, yet they have new records set in July of 2012. Perhaps they should at least update update date?
Steven Mosher says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:20 am
Yes, I know the answer to my question, but I’ll ask it rhetorically anyway….
If “we don’t know the temperature of the past,” then how do we know there is global warming?
And some of those GHCN changes have gotten pretty substantial.
Yeah, back when I was a growing up in Ohio, thermometers were so poor that we thought water froze at 30°F. </sarc>
Arrrgh! I’ve got a couple of mistakes in my list. Both are typos. (Surprise!)
Dec-12 note should say “Same year but “new” record 1*F higher“.
Dec-29 note should say ““New” record 3*F lower”
Ric Werme said on September 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm:
Well to be fair, it probably seemed that way when the grownups were making applejack on the back porch…
“The future is certain, it is only the past that is unpredictable.” Very True!
The whole saga is becoming less and less like science and more like one of the fairy stories that grandmothers used to make up to entertain their grandchildren. Unfortunately this NASA, GISS, NOAA fairy tale has no moral lesson embedded in it and is not in the least entertaining.
Steven Mosher says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:20 am
“so it wil be interesting to see how more data changes the picture”
Why do I get the distinct impression that you already know how this is going to turn out?