Image Credit: WoodForTrees.org
Guest Post By Werner Brozek, Edited By Just The Facts
In reference to my previous article RSS Reaches Santer’s 17 Years, and taking into account the good work already done in analyzing Cowtan and Way by Steve McIntyre, Judith Curry, Bob Tisdale, David Whitehouse, and Christopher Monckton, I will focus on one of Cowtan and Way’s methods, which used UAH satellite data to infill missing HadCRUT4 data.
In a nutshell, what Cowtan and Way have done is use the HadCRUT4 data, which covers 84% of the globe, and combine it with UAH data which covers much more of the globe. They have attempted to show what HadCRUT4 would show as a slope if a greater part of the globe could be accounted for by HadCRUT4. Their conclusion was that the warming over the last 16 years would be 2.5 times larger with more extensive global coverage. The main areas where HadCRUT4 is weak is the polar areas and parts of Africa. However it seems as if they did not have many issues with the African coverage nor with the Antarctic coverage. But it seems as if it is in the Arctic where they perceive the problems to lie. Apparently the Arctic has warmed up eight times faster than the rest of the globe over the last 16 years and HadCRUT4 does not reflect that.
What does all this have to do with RSS? Since it is the Arctic that is the issue, I will focus on how well RSS covers this area. RSS covers up to latitude 82.5 degrees. With the circumference of Earth being about 40,000 km, the distance from 82.5 to 90 would be 7.5/90 x 10,000 = 830 km. So the area in the north NOT covered is pir^2 = 2.16 x 10^6 km2. Dividing this by the area of the earth, 5.1 x 10^8 km2, we get about 0.42% NOT covered by RSS for the portion relevant to our discussion. As a fraction, this is about 1/230 of the area of the earth. So for argument sake, let us assume that this 1/230 warmed up more than other parts over the last 17 years. How would that change the length of The Pause according to RSS?
The slope for RSS over the last 17.0 years is -0.00012/year. So over the last 17 years, the rest of the globe would have cooled by 0.00012 x 17 = 0.0020 degrees C. And if that portion of the Arctic not covered by RSS were to make up for this, it would have had to warm by 0.0020 x 230 = 0.46 C. Is this possible? I do not think we can rule it out.
If we take the RSS slope for shorter times than 17 years, the slope gets more negative with each passing month for a year. What happens if we use the slope for 16 years and 11 months? That slope is -0.000444/year. In 16 years and 11 months, that amounts to a decrease of 0.0075 C. If the area north of latitude 82.5 were to make up for this, it would have had to warm up by 0.0075 x 230 = 1.7 C over this time period. I could be wrong, but I do not think this could have happened.
My conclusion is that even if we had accurate data to the north pole, it may have pushed the 17.0 years back a month, or possibly two months at the very most. When we get the RSS data for November, it may well show a pause of 17 years and one or two months. If that is the case, then Cowtan and Way will have negligible implications for RSS. Furthermore, it will make the discrepancy between HadCRUT4 and RSS become larger that it already is.
Now I will provide an explanation of the four trend lines in the graph at the head of this article. The slightly downward sloping line is the trend for RSS since 1997. The slightly upward sloping line is the trend line for HadCRUT4 since 1997. The steeply upward sloping blue line is the trend line one gets by applying the analysis of Cowtan and Way to the HadCRUT4 data. The yellow trend line is for UAH since 1997.
GISS and HadCRUT4 treat missing data in opposite ways, yet both have very similar times for a pause in the warming: GISS is at 12 years and 6 months and HadCRUT4 is at 12 years and 10 months. If Cowtan and Way are correct, I would have expected the difference between GISS and HadCRUT4 to have been much larger.
In the sections below, we will present you with the latest facts. The information will be presented in two sections. The first section will show for how long there has been no warming on several data sets. The second section will show for how long there has been no statistically significant warming on several data sets.
Section 1
This analysis uses the latest month for which data is available on WoodForTrees.com (WFT). All of the data on WFT is also available at the specific sources as outlined below. We start with the present date and go to the furthest month in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative. So if the slope from September is 4 x 10^-4 but it is – 4 x 10^-4 from October, we give the time from October so no one can accuse us of being less than honest if we say the slope is flat from a certain month.
On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 5 years and 5 months to an even 17 years.
1. For GISS, the slope is flat since May 2001 or 12 years, 6 months. (goes to October)
2. For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since May 1997 or 16 years, 5 months. (goes to September)
3. For a combination of GISS, Hadcrut3, UAH and RSS, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 11 months. (goes to October)
4. For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 10 months. (goes to September)
5. For Hadsst3, the slope is flat since November 2000 or an even 13 years. (goes to October)
6. For UAH, the slope is flat since June 2008 or 5 years, 5 months. (goes to October using version 5.5)
7. For RSS, the slope is flat since November 1996 or an even 17 years. (goes to October) RSS has reached Ben Santer’s 17 years.
The next graph shows just the lines to illustrate the above for what can be shown. Think of it as a sideways bar graph where the lengths of the lines indicate the relative times where the slope is 0. In addition, the sloped wiggly line shows how CO2 has increased over this period.
When two things are plotted as I have done, the left only shows a temperature anomaly.
The actual numbers are meaningless since all slopes are essentially zero and the position of each line is merely a reflection of the base period from which anomalies are taken for each set. No numbers are given for CO2. Some have asked that the log of the concentration of CO2 be plotted. However WFT does not give this option. The upward sloping CO2 line only shows that while CO2 has been going up over the last 17 years, the temperatures have been flat for varying periods on various data sets.
The next graph shows the above, but this time, the actual plotted points are shown along with the slope lines and the CO2 is omitted.
Section 2
For this analysis, data was retrieved from Nick Stokes moyhu.blogspot.com. This analysis indicates for how long there has not been statistically significant warming according to Nick’s criteria. Data go to their latest update for each set. In every case, note that the lower error bar is negative so a slope of 0 cannot be ruled out from the month indicated.
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 20 years.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH: Since November 1995: CI from -0.001 to 2.500
For RSS: Since December 1992: CI from -0.011 to 1.950
For Hadcrut4: Since August 1996: CI from -0.006 to 1.358
For Hadsst3: Since March 1994: CI from -0.020 to 1.711
For GISS: Since June 1997: CI from -0.032 to 1.283
Conclusion
Due to the extensive coverage that RSS already has in the Arctic, a similar analysis of Cowtan and Way on RSS would have little impact on the length of the pause as shown by RSS. However it does make the discrepancy between RSS and HadCRUT4 even wider than it is at the present time. On the other hand, the new trend line gets closer to UAH. What would have happened if they had used RSS instead of UAH?
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Nick stokes
Do you not think that the hundreds of scientists at the met office would already have used the Cowtan and Way method if they thought it would improve hadcrut?
They have been at this game for 150 years and whilst I may disagree with some of their interpretations they are not daft or impervious to change in order to make their products better
Tonyb
Steve from Rockwood says:
November 20, 2013 at 10:30 am
If temperature coverage for RSS extends to 82.5 degrees latitude then why not just show the average temperature around that latitude for the past 16 years.
Good points!
I was sent the following by justthefacts:
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_northern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
It shows that the region from 60.0 to 82.5 warmed at a rate of 0.327 K/decade from 1979 to the present. In the same period of time, globally, the change has been 0.127 K/decade.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/trend
Of course, this 0.127 includes the 60.0 to 82.5 part. So it would be lower without that part. But before it is worthwhile calculating how much lower it would be, we need to know a number of things:
1. Over what time period are the polar regions increasing 8 times faster than the rest of the globe?
2. Exactly what areas do Cowtan and Way consider in their calculations? For example, Judith Curry says:
“Hence, the importance of sorting out exactly what is going on in the Arctic Ocean and why is of outsized importance relative to its 2.8% effect.”
While Dr. David Whitehouse says:
“Given that Antarctica shows no overall warming and that the missing Arctic region is a very small section, about 6 per cent, of the globe, it is curious, perhaps even a fluke that such a small region of the Earth has come to the rescue of climate science from the undermining ‘pause?’”
So unless we know the answers to the above two questions, it is hard to go too far. And suppose we find that they just used the Arctic circle for example, do we have a data set that gives this information?
But in the end, are they really doing any more than rearranging chairs on the Titanic?
“It would be interesting to have him come up with a means to answer that question and include two sigma error bars.” –Werner Brozek
“Error bars? We ain’t got no error bars! We don’t need no error bars. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ error bars!” –Various Climate “Scientists”
Tonyb says: November 20, 2013 at 12:37 pm
“Do you not think that the hundreds of scientists at the met office would already have used the Cowtan and Way method if they thought it would improve hadcrut?”
I have to say that I’m surprised that they don’t try to improve on just omitting the cells from the average. Kriging etc is rather fancy, but even just using latitude averages for empty cells goes a long way. Works for NOAA too.
After all these years it amazes me that we are still having problems measuring the temperature. It’s funny how Warmists now insist that global surface temps are not that important. Yet earlier they told us it was important. CAGW, remember? The animated reddening global surface temperature throughout the 21st century.
Even if the global surface temps fell 1C they would argue that we are warming dangerously – but it went hiding where we can’t find it.
Nick stokes
I am no apologist for the met office but there are a huge number of very highly qualified scientists there working in a state of the art environment.
If they thought hadcrut would be improved by the methods you suggest I am sure they have tried it but discarded it as being inferior to their existing methods.
Tonyb
What this shows is that the highest latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere warmed significantly during the period covered. It says nothing about CO2 or climate on a global scale other than the Arctic is tiny part of the planet. This is a regional event and should be studied more.
No question that there was massive amounts of ice melt in this regional warming event as cooberating evidence that it really did happen.
Something similar happened in the past with a double temperature peak in the 1920’s and 1940’s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/19/new-paper-arctic-temperatures-peaked-before-1950-declining-since/
This is very intriguing. It apparently did NOT effect the Antarctic(highest latitudes in the S.Hemisphere).
Also, adding to the intrigue is the huge downward spike in temperatures and gain in ice(less ice melt) in 2013 in the Arctic this year.
Has the Arctic turned the corner, at least for the next several years? What force of nature is causing the Arctic to warm in this manner. The occurrence of a similar warming before the 1950’s, rules in Nature with high confidence(though humans could have played some role in the recent warm up)
Corroborating
Werner Brozek says:
November 20, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Steve from Rockwood says:
November 20, 2013 at 10:30 am
If temperature coverage for RSS extends to 82.5 degrees latitude then why not just show the average temperature around that latitude for the past 16 years.
Good points!
I was sent the following by justthefacts:
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_northern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
_________________________________________________________________
The 1979 date looks very cherry picked, yes I realize that is the start date for the dataset. I would suspect some silliness involved in the beginning of that time frame. After the first few years there is very little trend in that measurement. Most likely just looking at the last 17 years will show some trend but I doubt it will show 8x warming.
If there is no warming, but the CO2 is increasing, the question to ask is not where the missing heat is. But that may be there is no heat! That the CO2 back radiation warming is fiction.
David Riser says:
November 20, 2013 at 4:06 pm
Most likely just looking at the last 17 years will show some trend but I doubt it will show 8x warming.
I agree that it looks pretty flat to me since 1995. Is there anyone reading this who can take the data from here since 1995 and find the slope for the region from 60.0 to 82.5? Thanks in advance!
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
George Steiner says:
November 20, 2013 at 5:35 pm
That the CO2 back radiation warming is fiction.
I do not agree that it is fiction. I believe the effect is logarithmic and by now the atmosphere is so saturated that any additional CO2 has very little additional affect. And things like a quiet sun can totally mask and counter the effects of additional CO2.
Because there’s no actual data, K&W are free to imagine anything they want there. No data = no proof or disproof. The absence of a warm anomaly gradient in the nearest latitudes is suspicious, however!
Bill Illis says:
November 20, 2013 at 10:25 am:
Let’s make another connection here.
What do the authors of the study, “Kevin C” Cowtan, and Robert Way, have in common with Dana Nuccitelli and John Cook.
They are all part of the Skeptical Science team.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/team.php
I don’t think we have to take the paper seriously anymore
I cannot agree more. I urge WUWT readers to read the the latest Climate Audit post and comments, “Behind the SKS Curtain” (http://climateaudit.org/2013/11/20/behind-the-sks-curtain/#more-18621), and the post previous to that,: “Cowtan and Way 2013”. Robert Way is the guy who in the allegedly hacked SKS “secret” forums, called McIntyre a “conspiracy wackjob”. Those on the Skeptical Science “team” obviously support John Cook and the activities of SKS. They are advocates, pure and simple. WUWT readers are no stranger to the shenanigans of John Cook and SKS..
If Robert Way and Kevin Cowtan want to be taken seriously as a scientists, they need to disassociate themselves from the vitriolic SKS agendists. In this case “guilt by association” rings true. Their work cannot be trusted.
I would also add that Robert Way was co-author of the SkS consensus project paper, “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature”, along with John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli. That speaks volumes.
Well, this won’t help me to prophesy DOOM.e
Nick Stokes says:
I think it’s oversimplifying to say they combine the two. They are infilling HADCRUT 4, which is to say they are improving on what is currently done…
They are infilling, but not with measured data. They’re infilling with modeled data. Not only are such processes highly prone to bias, but additional skepticism is in order considering the fact that the models are what created this whole AGW fustercluck in the first place.
The most consistent thing about climate is the inaccuracy of the climate models.
So I seriously doubt the methodology. But even if one accepts it at face value, the significance is rather small as Werner Brozek has shown.
One thing I have not seen mentioned is that we really shouldn’t be appending this stuff to Hadcrut4 since prior to 1979 there are as many or more holes in the data. In fact, one could argue that if the Arctic warming claims are true there needs to additional warming added to the 1920-1940s time period. This has been further enhanced by the recent Arctic proxies showing these periods were warmer. They either need to recreate an entire history of Hadcrut4 or none at all.
Now, since they have no data we know this is impossible. So, I guess like Harry we can just make it up. What they have done is open up an argument that the early 20th century could have been warmer than today.
Mike Smith says: November 20, 2013 at 7:13 pm
“They are infilling, but not with measured data. They’re infilling with modeled data.”
No, there is no modelled data involved. They make a hybrid using UAH and kriging, which is an interpolation, but the UAH is subtracted out, tho it leaves some effect.
I don’t think you’ve calculated your missing area properly. You need to calculate the surface area not pi r^2.
Nick Stokes says:
No, there is no modelled data involved. They make a hybrid using UAH and kriging, which is an interpolation, but the UAH is subtracted out, tho it leaves some effect.
Yep, modeled.
It’s very difficult to take anything Robert Way say’s or produces in a paper at face value when he was part of the 97% Consensus paper. What was this guy, who claims he is a serious scientist, thinking about when getting involved with that. All his future work will now be tainted. Nothing he produces in future will be of any real value unless it is thoroughly audited.
That’s not to say he will not be able to produce something of value in future, but he has now put himself in a very very difficult position. He could help himself greatly by denouncing his links to, and involvement with, SS.
Nick Stokes
“No modelled data involved”
LOL
MikeN says:
November 20, 2013 at 10:55 pm
I don’t think you’ve calculated your missing area properly. You need to calculate the surface area not pi r^2.
Thank you for your comment. I was well aware of the fact that the earth is a sphere so pir^2 is not the most accurate way of doing things. And I certainly would not have used that if I had to go to latitude 60. However I felt that assuming north of 82.5 would be flat was appropriate for my purposes.
As a complete and total ignoramus on all of these matters ,I have spent the last 6 hours reading various reports ,hardly a huge amount of time given the financial repercussions of blind acceptance of the IPCC party line.
I have been sceptical of much of the science involved having lived through the various catastrophes which should have killed off billions of us by now ,aids, Jacob kreutsfield disease, swine flu, zero oil predicted in the 70.s as being used up by 2000, the millennium crisis, Bird flu ,etc etc .Not that I have become in any way cynical you might understand , but I do tend to reserve opinion until absolute proof has been provided. That is the point that I have been at for the past 10 or so years , waiting for the absolute proof .Instead of which as a rational sceptic , I have been harangued,shouted down and declared a poor blind fool by the militants of AGW who I can only assume might have been Druids in a previous life so strong is their quasi religious fervour to embrace “greenness”.
As a simpleton , I cannot grasp the “pause” ….. I put a kettle on to boil , it boils, it continues to boil until I remove the heat, it boils until all the water is out of the kettle and the kettle burns! So ,in my extremely uncomplicated way of thinking, if CO2 ,is the enemy, the catalyst ,the green house toxic asset, and it has increased , unchecked throughout the last 20 years ,then there can be no decrease in the overall worldwide temperature, there can be no staying the same either ,cause and effect !
I am sure that many learned gentlemen /ladies can point out the fallacy of my very basic understanding of the laws of thermal dynamics ,but I am inclined to believe that there are several other macro , perhaps cosmic events, which offer a deeper understanding of our weather patterns and hence our temperature ,so that building windmills to counteract the problems we may or may not face should be called ( like so many good books tend to find a name ) The Don Quixote Paradox.