Yesterday, NCDC released Version 2.5 of the USHCN data set. For those who don’t know, this is the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) which NCDC considers a “gold standard” for US temperature measurements. Problem is, the reality of the old network is that it is fraught with all sort of inconsistencies throughout its record such as multiple station moves, equipment changes, time of observation changes, encroachment by urbanization, and of course faulty station siting which I discovered that only 1 in 10 USHCN stations met the criteria of NOAA’s 100 foot rule, a charge backed up by an investigation done by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). As a result of the most recent research, we found significant positive biases in the raw data:
Of course the line from NCDC is always that “none of this matters” and that such things can be solved by adjustments. After seeing the differences between the USHCN2.0 and USHCN 2.5 data set, I ask: “in what temperature measurement universe does a hockey stick like this occur“? See below.
Graph from Steve Goddard, source here.
How can adjustments that affect only one decade like this be justified? The answer is that they can’t.
Here’s what NCDC said about it yesterday in their monthly State of the Climate report:
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USHCN Version 2.5 Transition
Since 1987, NCDC has used observations from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) to quantify national- and regional-scale temperature changes in the conterminous United States (CONUS). To that end, USHCN temperature records have been “corrected” to account for various historical changes in station location, instrumentation, and observing practice. The USHCN is a designated subset of the NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network. USHCN sites were selected according to their spatial coverage, record length, data completeness, and historical stability. The USHCN, therefore, consists primarily of long-term COOP stations whose temperature records have been adjusted for systematic, non-climatic changes that bias temperature trends.
Did you know — the National Climatic Data Center periodically improves the quality of the datasets maintained at the center and releases updated versions’ Beginning with the September 2012 processing, NCDC will use USHCN version 2.5 for national temperature calculations as well as in other products, including Climate at a Glance and the Climate Extremes Index.
For additional information on the improvements made to USHCN version 2.5, please see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/.
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The page at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ describes some the procedures, but makes heavy use of references on published papers, rather than provide an operational flowchart. This is an impediment to replication, and I suspect that given the mishmash of references they provided, few if any would be able to replicate the process fully.
Steve Goddard did an additional analysis and showed how the temperature changes over the different phases of the USHCN data:
Also in the monthly report from NCDC is this statement:
The average contiguous U.S. temperature during September was 67.0°F, 1.4°F above the 20th century average, tying September 1980 as the 23rd warmest such month on record. September 2012 marks the 16th consecutive month with above-average temperatures for the Lower 48.
According to the “platinum standard” state of the art US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) which has none of the problems and requires none of the adjustments of the problem plagued and aging USHCN network, the CONUS monthly average was 66.0°F.
That puts the temperature difference (above normal) at 0.4F, within the bounds of standard deviation. Ever wonder why NCDC never mentions the new state of the art USCRN data in their State of the Climate press releases but prefers to rely on the old network and its wonky hockey stick like adjustments? This is why.
I’ll have more on the official announcement about the map above soon.
It’s all about showing significant positive biases. If Nature won’t co-operate then you just have to massage the observations until they are correct. It is to be hoped that eventually people will notice that the weather is cold and the observations are hot, as in “fell off the back of a truck”. Then their funding borrowed from Chgina can be cut and they can get a real job at a power station feeding out the electricity to warm people up again.
Here in Australia is just snowed in States from tropical Queensland to the wildernesses above Adelaide in South Australia!
Prison sentences and civil trials should be the final end of the warmists. I don’t see any of them as anything other than criminals.
ntesdorf says:
October 13, 2012 at 1:35 pm
… Here in Australia is just snowed in States from tropical Queensland to the wildernesses above Adelaide in South Australia!
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I bet it was “warm” snow.
Their “homogenization” algorithms seem to have decided that heating effects from poor station siting are much less than cooling effects from a change-over to electronic sensors. How much work would it take to prove or dis-prove this…?
“…Moreover, the sign of the bias is counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure because associated instrument changes have led to an artificial negative (“cool”) bias in maximum temperatures and only a slight positive (“warm”) bias in minimum temperatures. …”
I see the point they’re trying to make…but I don’t buy it…but I also don’t have the time to try to debunk this…I’ll be curious to see what others can come up with.
That puts the temperature difference (above normal) at 0.4F, within the bounds of standard deviation.
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If that temperature difference was derived by subtracting the average for two different temperature networks, that would be the wrong thing to do wouldn’t it?
Anything is possible —
Kit Carson? Isn’t that one of those unCOOPerative stations? Seems akin to the one next door in Kansas, Dodge City I think, that recorded 121F an hour after midnight! Maybe we have someone at NOAA trying to write a bit of the old Wild West back into the temperature records. 😎
this is truly the beginning of the end…much more at the link, including Met Office dissembling:
13 Oct: Daily Mail: David Rose: Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week…
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported…
Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.
Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.
Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as long-term ocean temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up significantly warmer than the previous two…
The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit…
Not that there has been any coverage in the media, which usually reports climate issues assiduously, since the figures were quietly release online with no accompanying press release – unlike six months ago when they showed a slight warming trend…
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released–chart-prove-it.html
Brilliant work! D’you suppose, if I asked them very nicely, they’d send me a pack of their “special” algorithms? Then I could apply them in reverse to my gruelling uphill slog home from the shops, and make it an easy downhill cruise. Or do these dishonest fiddles (as most of us seem to think) just not apply to the real world? (i.e. they’re Al Gore-ithms.)
Why are any of these source organisations is anyway responsible for the data result- its a bad practice? They should only pump out the raw data and leave to others to correct.
Already those adjustments are skewed from reality. Surely this couldnt go on much longer, global temps are cooling and heading down and they are still adjusting these temps up totally against the trend.
13 Oct: Daily Mail: Wettest start to autumn for 12 years as South West continues to be battered by torrential rain
Britain is set to suffer its wettest autumn for over a decade with more rain and gale winds sparking further flood warnings.
After the UK’s wettest summer in a century, England and Wales are now on course for the wettest start of autumn for 12 years, the Met Office has said…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217206/Wettest-start-autumn-12-years-South-West-continues-battered-torrential-rain.html
A small nit… the acronym “GAO” originally stood for the General Accounting Office. In 2004, it was renamed the Government Accountability Office… which uses the same acronym.
Has anyone made a direct comparison between the raw USCN and USCRN results you recently discussed? They seem to be going in the same directions based on my (often faulty) memory.
I’m with Jack on this. The perpetrators are motivated by self-gain: fame & fortune.
I greatly admire Anthony for his tenacious efforts to demonstrate how the National Climate Data Center continues to use highly questionable data and processes to produce statistics that support the global warming agenda. Anthony, you are a work horse (in the finest sense) and hero of mine. However, when all is said, posted, reported, touted, argued and done, I fear it is all for naught. I give my perspective on temperature records in a new blog on my website. The blog can directly be reached at
http://www.kusi.com/story/19778143/a-blog-about-temperatures
The final line of that lengthy blog is
“I conclude the temperature data does not prove global warming. The alarmists are wrong. But the temperature data is so unreliable and garbled that neither alarmists or skeptics can use it to conclusively prove they are right.”
Let the debate roll on.
Two things:
1) there are at least 4 different phases here all of which might need individual correction.
2) given the list of growing problems with these sites, how does on end up with a positive correction in the latter decades?
To be honest the only part of this that looks like it might be valid is the period up to 1940.
If Romney wins, that will be the time to write to your Congressman, Senator and to the White House, requesting that new people be put in charge of the NCDC.
The record has to be fixed now and we need real statisticians and people from national statistical agencies to take over. No climate scientists should work at the NCDC until the motivation to exaggerate the record is removed.
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’…”
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Just thought I’d point this out in case Bob Tisdale missed it.
Maybe Prof. Jones should seek his advice?
ntesdorf says
Here in Australia is just snowed in States from tropical Queensland to the wildernesses above Adelaide in South Australia!
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I heard about that to. I love snow, sorry I missed it.
Now where I am in the southern part of Australia it’s not cold at all. Outside it’s a brilliant blue sky and the sunlight is filtering through the sparkling greenery. Nice and toasty, a perfect spring day. How’s that for evidence of global warming?
That hockey stick looks like a bug. My first port of call would be tallbloke’s code.
LazyTeenager says:
October 13, 2012 at 7:34 pm
“Now where I am in the southern part of Australia ….”
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A friendly “hello” from the Chicago suburbs.
Winter is approaching.
Did anyone else notice that NOAA’s NCDC collaborated with the Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center ?
The word ‘bias’ comes to mind.
In Australia NCDC has gone even further and created a false warming trend of a staggering 3 whole degrees centigrade !
Roger Andrews has done an analysis on Tallblokes blog;
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/roger-andrews-chunder-down-under-how-ghcn-v3-2-manufactures-warming-in-the-outback/
in which he shows that of 5 cold stations and 1 warm station, the 5 were adjusted up to match the warm one ! The very opposite of what should have happened. This is not science, these are people with a very destructive agenda. Are there any honest scientists at NCDC ?
NCDC, GISS, NOAA, all need to be closed down, all staff fired, all jobs re-assessed, and re-advertised, with an especially careful vetting and recruitment process to completely start afresh with a clean slate.
The US government should take a Tabula Rasa approach to the clearly obvious corruption of science which is being increasingly practised at these US government and other establishments.
If it turns out that the Sun is going through a brief quiet period after which temperatures storm on up to a repeat of the medieval optimum, then the co2 scaremongers will have won and will bring about the destruction of the Western economy. At least it’ll be warm.
But if, as seems more likely, the Sun is entering an extended quiet period, then we have an interesting race on our hands; can the CAGW prophets and acolytes destroy the Western economies before seriously declining temperatures bring the politicians to their senses.
Every time I read about these constant adjustments, I’m reminded of this statement:
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”