From the we told you so department and The Hockey Schtick: It is all about nighttime influence on minimum temperatures, mostly due to the heat sink effect of urbanization and nearby structures and paving.
New paper finds “surprisingly, there are many US weather stations that show cooling” over the past century
A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds, contrary to popular belief, that US “monthly maximum temperatures are not often greatly changing — perhaps surprisingly, there are many stations that show some cooling [over the past century].
In contrast, the minimum temperatures show significant warming. Overall, the Southeastern United States shows the least warming (even some cooling), and the Western United States, Northern Midwest, and New England have experienced the most warming.”
In essence, this paper is saying the weather/climate has become less extreme, with little to no change in maximum temperatures “and even some cooling” of maximum temperatures in some stations, and warming of minimum temperatures. Thus the temperature range between minimum and maximum temperatures has decreased, a less extreme, more benign climate.
According to the paper, the warming in minimum temperatures is regional, with the SE US showing “the least warming (even some cooling),” suggesting that other processes such as ocean and atmospheric oscillations are responsible, rather than a uniform warming from AGW.
Note these results are after the huge up-justments made to the US temperature data and urban heat island [UHI] artificial warming, which could account for all or most of the warming of minimum temperatures.
Trends in Extreme United States Temperatures
| Abstract |
|---|
From our 2012 draft paper: Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:
A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.
==================================================================
Love that.
“Up-justments”.
“I was colder than I thought!”
Cue the predictable alarmists quote of “the US is just 2% of the Earth’s surface”, then cue the “you’re missing the point” replies.
Note that merely on the basis of atmospheric long-wave absorption bands any temperature increase would likely occur in the minimum temperatures (night, winter, etc.).
Careful not to over egg the UHI effect, Surfacestation irregularities notwithstanding. The reason for this discrepancy is mostly the greenhouse effect which limits the rate at which heat leaves the atmosphere at night. We are all aware of the way high humidity and cloud cover leads to warm nights. The point we should be making is that greenhouse warming is not harmful as it mostly effects night time temperatures and minimums, not potentially dangerous daytime maximum temperatures.
It takes a lot of effort on the part of many bureaucracies to keep that hockey stick from getting limp.
===================================================================
Where I live roughly 60°F overall have been added to the record lows between 2002 and 2012.
===========================
I think it’s gone beyond Viagra.
Are there any ‘proofs’ for global warming that do not involve the use of manipulated statistics or dodgy computer models?
“suggesting that other processes such as ocean and atmospheric oscillations are responsible, rather than a uniform warming from AGW.” (re nighttime warming)
I guess the obvious heat urban heat sink phenomenon warming the nights wasn’t suggesting itself to these fellows. I remember an uncle of mine getting married in Yonkers in 1950 – he was warned that it would be a lot hotter and muggier in downtown NY in July and better in Yonkers. Sheesh, ordinary folk were aware of this over 60 years ago.
Dave N says:
March 25, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Cue the predictable alarmists quote of “the US is just 2% of the Earth’s surface”, then cue the “you’re missing the point” replies.
Yeah, but…
supposedly the US monitoring sites were/are the best in the world.
So, if the US sites have such a debatable level of reliability, how bad must the rest of the world’s information be?
I doubt if there is anyone who calls himself/herself a “climate scientist” disagrees that the planet’s climate has warmed since the end of the LIA, but I suspect beyond that there isn’t so much agreement on how much it has warmed, especially when one analyzes the siting and accuracy problems.
“There are many stattions that show cooling” Even NCDC/NOAA records show cooling .
The following are monthly temperature trends for Contiguous US or 48 states as calculated by the NCDC/NOAA Climate at a Glance web page for the last 16 years [1998-2014]. The figure reflect the linear trend in Fahrenheit degrees per decade per NCDC/NOAA web page data t o March20,2014 using base period of 1998-2013
WINTER (-1.78 F/DECADE) – DECLINING
DEC -1.21 F/decade (declining)
JAN -1.52 (declining)
FEB -2.77 (declining)
SPRING (+0.21 F/DECADE)- RISING
MAR +1.4 (rising)
APR -0, 21 (declining)
MAY -0.56 (declining)
SUMMER (+0.48 F/ DECADE-RISING
JUN +1.19 (rising)
JUL +0.25 (rising)
AUG -0.01 (declining)
FALL( -0.44 F/DECADE-DECLINING
SEPT +0.06 (flat)
OCT -0.61 (declining)
NOV -0.76 (declining)
ANNUAL(-0.38 F/DECADE-DECLINING
Summary
8 months are declining, 1 month is flat, and 3 months are rising
WINTER AND FALL have DECLINING TEMPERATURES
SPRING AND SUMMER have RISING TEMPERATURES [Spring is almost declining with 2months out of three declining]
The night time bias is discussed very nicely by Dr John Christy in the APS transcript at about page 374. Transcript at http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
Dr Christy provides real data for temperatures in the troposphere and compares with the models. Same effect off models running hot. Well worth reading the whole transcript. Dr Christy’s section begins on page 300
This statement is most interesting:
“In essence, this paper is saying the weather/climate has become less extreme, with little to no change in maximum temperatures “and even some cooling” of maximum temperatures in some stations, and warming of minimum temperatures. Thus the temperature range between minimum and maximum temperatures has decreased, a less extreme, more benign climate.”
A more benign climate is a prelude to an episode of long-term glaciation.
UHI is a poor term. Economic Heat Island is a little better, but not very good because of financial distortions. Agriculture and civil engineering/land use changes are probably huge contributors to land surface temperatures.
Having stumbled upon many stations with cooling trends a good while ago (http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/), speculated on the many possible reasons for this (http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/how-best-to-deal-with-cooling-cities/ http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/examining-urban-heat-islands-part-2/), it’s good to see such studies appearing in the literature.
US stations with cooling trends were also fairly obvious when mapping station trends:
Verity, I’ve added your map to the head post, and added the scale from ClimateApplications.com Thanks.
The Climastrology adjustments are objective, unbiased and based on rigorous methods. We can calculate to within very, very small changes in temperature. That’s how we do things, just listen to the
‘necessary’ upward adjustmentsvoodoo science.Adjust for this!
http://youtu.be/t-sXHl3l-rM
The siting classifications clearly nails what’s going on – there is no other explanation of significance except UHI for the data. All the other would-be causes would affect all the sites
equally, which is clearly not the case.
Yeah, we’ve known about the alarmists fiddling the weather data for years. But they are called “the Church of Global Warming” because they act like young-Earth Creationists in that there is absolutely no falsifying their hypothesis. This isn’t going to do the trick, either.
We need to upgrade their ability to face reality. That means searching intently for where they are RIGHT. And they are fundamentally right in Keeling’s CO2 graph. An alarmist site I looked at this week referred to a society for the preservation of the Keeling graph. But I first saw it here.
That graph is not natural–not with that timing. Modern civilization caused that graph. But what does it mean?
The little annual wiggles provide a clue. Carbon dioxide goes up in the winter when plants and animals are dying. It falls in the summer when plants are photosynthesizing. So that graph means either–the Earth’s carrying capacity is rising due to burning fossil fuels (as suggested by leaf area indices) or that we are looking at a Great Dying due to soil-destroying modern agriculture.
I believe it is both.
So how do we make the liars right? By thanking them for pointing out the Keeling graph and directing the Environmentalist movement toward truth. They want to heal the world–which DOES need a great deal of healing. And they can only really heal it if the tell the truth and deal with the truth.
@Dave N – they are becoming predictably boring. Well done.
this goes on and on with MSM coverage of scary CAGW stories; nary a sceptical mind on show:
26 March: Business Spectator: Roz Pidcock: How the media’s preparing for IPCC impact
Ahead of its official launch on Monday, parts of the media have been previewing the second part of the report on climate change impacts, after it was leaked online a few months ago.
Here’s our rundown of which of what’s been making the pages of our newspapers;
‘Immediate and very human’ risks
Seth Borenstein for Associated Press gives a succinct rundown of the “immediate and very human” nature of climate change impacts. On the report’s key messages, Borenstein says:
“The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It’s not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It’s about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse.”
Alister Doyle for Reuters describes how climate change impacts are already being felt across the world, putting pressure on governments to act. Growing risks include food and water security, violence and conflict, health risks, species losses, extreme weather and slowed economic growth…
***Primed and ready
The scale of climate change impacts is huge – from heatwaves, to crop production, to sea level rise. And the range of topics covered in our newspapers so far would seem to bear this out. The media is primed – get ready for a more detailed look at some of these issues as delegates in Japan thrash out the exact wording of the Summary for Policymakers – ahead of its official release next Monday.
Originally published on Carbon Brief.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/26/policy-politics/how-medias-preparing-ipcc-impact
Doesn’t the “US Temperature Five Year Mean” chart show the NCDC reported as cooler than the actual readings? Is the chart labeled correctly? What am I missing?
what pecision!
26 March: Salon.com: Lindsay Abrams: 10,853 out of 10,855 scientists agree: Global warming is happening, and humans are to blame
Virtually all of the scientific papers published in 2013 accept climate change
As geochemist James Lawrence Powell continues to prove, the only people still debating whether or not climate change is “real,” and caused by human activity, are the ones who aren’t doing the actual research. In an update to his ongoing project of reviewing the literature on global warming, Powell went through every scientific study published in a peer-review journal during the calendar year 2013, finding 10,855 in total (more on his methodology here). Of those, a mere two rejected anthropogenic global warming. The consensus, as he defines it, looks like this…
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/10853_out_of_10855_scientists_agree_man_made_global_warming_is_happening/
Am I the only one that questions taking the average of the good sites +.155, and the bad ones +.248 and getting +.3 something, instead of +.202? What the hell kind of average is that?
Verity,
From your map I get the impression that “no change” and “cooling” far exceed “warming.” Am I reading that correctly?
I’m sure glad I don’t have to to present data to A2LA auditors like is done to temperature records; our 17025 accreditation would be laughed off the wall.
Scientists should be required to have not only a statistician accompany all their research, but a metrologist as well. The creative data manipulation climate “scientists” is jaw dropping.
.
This seems to confirm what we’ve been saying for awhile about the discrepancy between rising “average” temperatures and the almost complete absence of new state maximum records.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
I love the word “surprisingly” in that abstract… Only surprising for certain biases, I suppose…
Verity Jones says: March 25, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Verity, I was curious as to the trend period in your plot? Also the data source?
Theo Goodwin says: March 25, 2014 at 5:34 pm
Doesn’t the “US Temperature Five Year Mean” chart show the NCDC reported as cooler than the actual readings? Is the chart labeled correctly? What am I missing?
NCDC cooled the past temperatures and left the recent temperatures unchanged, therefore making the supposed warming look much greater than it actually was, if indeed there was any warming at all in the raw data.
This article suggests that global warming as originally put forth by the alarmists — not much change in the daytime highs but higher lows overnight — is a good thing, calling the result a more benign climate. In fact that is what has been driving me nuts over the last decade, the assumption by both skeptics and alarmists that global warming would be bad for us rather than good. Everyone is eager to debate the science rather than this premise — the premise that global warming would be bad — instead of whether or not the premise itself is true. Personally, I would like warmer winter nights, longer growing seasons, and both greenland and antarctica ice-free and ready for human settlement.
Surely, Mr. Powell understands that literature searches and meta studies are not doing “Actual Research”
“As geochemist James Lawrence Powell continues to prove, the only people still debating whether or not climate change is “real,” and caused by human activity, are the ones who aren’t doing the actual research. In an update to his ongoing project of reviewing the literature on global warming, Powell went through every scientific study published in a peer-review journal during the calendar year 2013, finding 10,855 in total (more on his methodology here). Of those, a mere two rejected anthropogenic global warming. The consensus, as he defines it, looks like this”…
But here’s what I’ve posted on various websites that reported on Powell’s Puffery earlier:
You might want to update that “US stations” to “US and Canadian stations” so that I can feel comfortable knowing the American climate scientists haven’t invaded the Great White North.
It’s interesting how poor the coverage across Canada is (compared to the US).
Just saw an article from Live science stating CO2 levels were 5 times higher during the dinosaur days. How’d they ever survive?
And you took over Mexico too.
Anthony Watts says:
March 25, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Verity, I’ve added your map to the head post
===============
good to see that tiny cross on the map at James Bay labelled Canada. Whole lotta ‘mericans probably couldn’t locate it otherwise.
Its amazing how when you examine a paper that was published by a department of Mathematics, you get completely different results from publications from a department of “Climatology”. The sad thing is that most of the climate scientists aren’t even hiding their bias anymore. They are just churning out garbage year upon year.
Mosher says we only need 5 stations to nail the US temperature trend. Now have a glance at Verity Jones’ map, and make your ‘pick-5’ choices for 5 stations that are dispersed across the country. My guess is that the nailed trend can vary from -5 C/century to +5 C/century.
Dead. Certain.
I guess it’s damn, we needed better fudging factors, why didn’t we adjust all the old temperature data ranges to anticipate that someone might look when we had the opportunity and the world media at our beck and call. Too many eyes looking now to get away with that sort of thing, but double talk and confusion might work in the short term!! I also noted the “surprisingly” but then we are not surprised at all.
This study confirms my own research of a few years ago, that not only do adjacent cities show inconsistent temperature trends, but states do, also. CO2 is an amazing molecule, to be able to decide which of two adjacent states to warm (e.g. New Mexico warming at 0.9 degrees F per century) and which to ignore (e.g. Texas, with zero degrees F per century). Also, Oklahoma is warming, while its neighbor, Arkansas, shows a cooling. Nice trick. CO2 is just amazing.
For NCDC data showing state-by-state comparisons, see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/us-long-term-temperature-trend-from.html
and for the Hadley-CRU data on more than 80 US cities, see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-cities-hadcrut3-temperatures.html
Minimum temperatures are meant reflect the lowest measured point of heat release, and as known from UHI, this is variable and not very important for climate studies. Sure, if you are city confined, knowing if you will need a cardigan at 3am may be important for you but not for long term record keeping purposes.
Maximum temperatures, with all of their problems in consistency across various geographies, are the closest approach we have to record what climate studies need : a reasonably accurate measure of daily insolation on the atmosphere at human level on the surface.
Heat release is just not that important.
Hockey Schtick says:
March 25, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Thank You. By the way, you have an excellent website.
JimS on March 25, 2014 at 4:11 pm
It takes a lot of effort on the part of many bureaucracies to keep that hockey stick from getting limp
——————
Why am I now thinking of hockey stick ‘fluffers’?!
====================================================================
I need to clarify that.
I didn’t mean that the record lows set between those dates have had 60°F added to them but that comparing the record lows listed in those years have have been “up-justed” about that amount.
I also meant 2007 and not 2002.
Gil Dewart says: “Note that merely on the basis of atmospheric long-wave absorption bands any temperature increase would likely occur in the minimum temperatures (night, winter, etc.).”
I stronglydisagree. Longwave absorption from uniformly mixed greenhouse gases like CO2 should be acting equally night and day. That is basic physics!!!
However because daytime convection currents mix the air column all the way up to the tropopause and there is no night time convection, climate scientists have argued that we can detect greenhouse warming more easily at night.
Howeverif there is any “heat accumulation” due to CO2 trapping of heat, then we must see that signal in the maximum temperatures. However that is not the case. Most maximum temperatures in the USA have never exceeded the 1930 or 50s. If the maximums have not increased then ther can not be any heat accumulation.
Droughts also confound any interpretation of heat accumulation because temperatures rise more quickly when the surface is dry even when less heat has been absorbed due to lost heat capacity. Likewise the High pressure systems that create heat waves temporarily suppress convection that traps the heat in a very shallow layer near the surface for days, but once the High moves away the heat is carried back to the stratosphere. Averaging minimum temperatures or tempatures during droughts and heat waves are not a reliable measure of the green house effect.
Minimum temperatures measure a very shallow layer near the surface. At night and during the winter temperature inversions establish, trapping cold air at the surface while warmer temperatures stay aloft. The citrus and grape industries understand this and if there is a frost warning they deploy their huge fans to mix the warmer air down to the surface.
That night time and winter shallow surface layer is more prone to changes in the wind that bring warmer air to the surface. That shallow inversion layer is also prone to more warming from waste heat and surface changes that hold more heat, because the heat is not mixed throughout the air column like typical maximum temperatures. Likely due to such well established physical differences between daytime max and night time minimums, Karl did several studies in the 80s and 90s showing that higher populations created warmer minimums while maximums remained practically unchanged. All that suggests maximum temperatures are the best indicator of climate change while minimum temperatures are better indicators off landscape change.
That’s US, correct or not correct presented data is irrelevant for the climate debate as long as the climate change belivers forgotten to present same type of weather stations for places in for example Indian Ocean……. How many local readings/day out in open sea is to be found in daily reports? Mind you – if there is area where all satelites missed a big plane – how is it possible to believe that same satelites made temperature readings available for let’s say each 20 meter in open sea. Approximation, in- or expolering of data assumtions and models never ever show correct situation. Let alone correct temperatures if there aren’t enough weatherstations on ships to give more figures than the satelites……
jim steele;
I stronglydisagree. Longwave absorption from uniformly mixed greenhouse gases like CO2 should be acting equally night and day. That is basic physics!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jim, you’re one of the best contributors there is to this site in my opinion. But on this, I’m not so certain. Stefan-Boltzmann Law is:
P=5.67*10^-8*T^4
So, for a given increase in downward energy flux, the temperature increase would be expected to be smaller at higher temperatures. For example, at 20 degrees C, it takes 5.7 w/m2 to raise the temperature one degree, but at 40 C it takes 7.0 w/m2. To be fair of course, at 20 C there’s only 418 w/m2 going up from surface for Co2 to work on, while at 40 C there is 551. But the cooling cycle starts at the high temperature for the day, and so it is that higher upward LW flux that the ghe works with to slow the descent into night time lows. Hence I’d expect a more pronounced effect at night than during the day.
Of course it is way more complicated than that once you start considering lapse rate and emergent feed backs and all and sundry other factors. But from a simple radiative physics perspective, I would take a different view.
The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
Hooooo Boy – that’s going to leave a mark. Couldn’t happen to more deserving folks!
davidmhoffer says “Jim, you’re one of the best contributors there is to this site in my opinion. But on this, I’m not so certain. Stefan-Boltzmann Law is…”
David I agree “that for a given increase in downward energy flux, the temperature increase would be expected to be smaller at higher temperatures” so that radiative response must be considered along with the surface effects I mentioned. Radiative effects could explain a difference in trends with a greater rising trend trend in the minimum, but for the 80s and 90s minimum rose 3 times faster than maximum. That does not compute if we consider at most CO2 only added 2 w/m2.
Radiative dynamics do not explain why much of the eastern USA experienced a warming hole. Several studies show landscape changes and urbanization explain a large proportion of the observed warming over the past 50 to 100 years, and many studies show that the minimum is more sensitive to landscape changes and urbanization.
So how do you separate competing effects and attribute the cause to CO2?
jim steele;
So how do you separate competing effects and attribute the cause to CO2?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For that I have no answer. Nor does anyone else as far as I am concerned. If there WAS a way to accurately separate and quantify competing effects, the climate models would be reasonably accurate. The fact that they are not just inaccurate, but horridly so, shows that they have these things wrong in at least one if not many different ways. Given that the models use a wide array of aerosol forcings as fudge factors and STILL get it horridly wrong suggests the latter. Nor have I seen anyone with a strong physics background outside of the climate cabal itself even TRY to justify the notion that we have anywhere close to the amount of data over a sufficient time period to compute such a thing, in fact the opposite.
richardscourtney did attempt an experiment once involving a weather balloon with up and down sensors to measure LW flux at various altitudes with the intent of launching it and recording data during a solar eclipse. The idea was that this would be sorta like instantly (relative to a 24 hour day) turning the SW power source off and on again. Something went wrong and the experiment was never done. But THAT is the kind of experiment that needs to be done (in my opinion anyway) to measure data and begin (just begin) sorting out causes and effects of CO2 on LW. This business of measuring night time lows and day time highs and trying to make some sense out of them over a long term trend is doomed to failure for the precise reasons you just outlined (not to mention quite a few more that come to mind).
All that said, if you break down GISS/LOTI (for example) by latitude, you’ll find that the tropics show the least temperature change, temperate zones more, and arctic zones still more (though even that breaks down at, I forget, about 80 degrees or so). I also broke it down by season, with summer showing the least change, fall and spring more, and winter the most. So regardless of what the net forcing actually is from (CO2, sunspots, butterflies on Mars, whatever) it is certainly more pronounced at high latitudes and winter. By extension, it ought to be more pronounced at night time lows rather than day time highs as well, and that is what the physics in its most simple form would suggest.
But separate and quantify all the components and render unto CO2 what is CO2’s? I don’t think all the data we have, even if properly analysed, can tell us that.
That US 5-year temperature graph is interesting. Looking at the measured temperatures, it appears to be cooling from 1930-1998 then upward jump in 2000 then cooling again 2000-present. If we were to believe that graph, US has been cooling most of the time since 1930.
That brings us to one of the unexplored causes of the “pause”. During the past decade it is becoming increasingly difficult to adjust past temperatures down and recent ones up, because too many people are watching and there are numerous unofficial archives of temperature dataset versions out there. With less opportunity for biased meddling, current trends are becoming flat, that is, activist-scientists have shot themselves in the foot.
davidmhoffer says:
“So regardless of what the net forcing actually is from (CO2, sunspots, butterflies on Mars, whatever) it is certainly more pronounced at high latitudes and winter.”
David, I am not so sure that what you say is not an artifact of GISS “adjustements” to the raw data. As I wrote in a response to Ed Carlye at NoTricksZone:
The GISS, Hadcrut4 and other series show a significant warming during the 20th century that is greatest in the Arctic region, in line with the claims of Arrhenius that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would result in warming mainly in this area, at night and in the winter. However, an analysis of long run raw temperature records from around the Arctic Rim in the database of John Daly (http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm#Europe ) shows that in most cases of those with a 100 year record show warming in the 1930’s to 1940’s as equal to or greater than the end of the century when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were much higher, or no trend. Looking at the recent BEST data shows that they use the same raw data for these stations but by data manipulation change the overall trends to one of +0.7C or greater. , Karlén, a Swedish scientist made a plot of 25 data series from the NordKlim database and found similar results that contradicted the IPCC data:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/scandinavian-temperatures-ipccacutes–scandinavia-gate–127.php
http://geoclimate.se/articles/20131107_GISS_Wibjorn_Karlen.pdf
His studies are detailed in the post at WUWT (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/when-results-go-bad/) in which he states
” In attempts to reconstruct the temperature I find an increase from the early 1900s to ca 1935, a trend down until the mid 1970s and so another increase to about the same temperature level as in the late 1930s. … In my letter to Klass V I included diagram showing the mean annual temperature of the Nordic countries (1890-ca 2001) presented on the net by the database NORDKLIM, a joint project between the meteorological institutes in the Nordic countries. Except for Denmark, the data sets show an increase after the 1970s to the same level as in the late 1930s or lower. None demonstrates the distinct increase IPCC indicates. The trends of these 6 areas are very similar except for a few interesting details. … I have in my studies of temperatures also checked a number of areas using data from NASA. One, in my mind interesting study, includes all the 13 stations with long and decent continuously records north of 65 deg N.
The pattern is the same as for the Nordic countries. This diagram only shows 11-yr means of individual stations. A few stations such as Verhojans and Svalbard indicate a recent mean 11-year temperature increase up to 0.5 deg C above the late 1930s. Verhojansk, shows this increase but the temperature has after the peak temperature decreased with about 0.3 deg C during the last few years. The majority of the stations show that the recent temperatures are similar to the one in the late 1930s.
In preparation of some talks I have been invited to give, I have expanded the Nordic area both west and east. The area of similar change in climate is vast. Only a few stations near Bering Strait deviates (e.g. St Paul, Kodiak, Nome, located south of 65 deg. N).
One example of published data not supporting a major temperature increase during recent time is: Polyakov, I.V., Bekryaev, R.V., Alekseev, G.H., Bhatt,U.S., Colony, R.L., Johnson, M.A., Maskshtas, A.P. and Walsh, D., 2003: Variability and Trends of Air Temperature and Pressure in the Maritime Arctic, 1875-2000. Journal of Climate: Vol. 16 (12): 2067ñ2077.
He included many more stations than I did in my calculation of temperatures N 65 N, but the result is similar. It is hard to find evidence of a drastic warming of the Arctic.”
“Note these results are after the huge up-justments made to the US temperature data and urban heat island [UHI] artificial warming, which could account for all or most of the warming of minimum temperatures”
So the real results would be no warming at all and probably cooling.
davidmhoffer,
What was the time frame you analyzed. I could easily interpret greater poleward changes in LW as a result of periodic cycles of heated water being transported to the poles. The tropic wouldnt change much, but elsewhere would. Mode waters rise to the surface in the winter.After Arctic oscillation blows thick ice from the Arctic, thinner ice will vent more heat.
herkimer says:
March 25, 2014 at 4:30 pm
8 months are declining, 1 month is flat, and 3 months are rising
On closer inspection, the warming is mostly due to March and June.
WUWT?
This is what I’ve been seeing in my analysis of global temp data, but on a world wide basis. Max temp day over day change is flat. And its Minimum temps that changed, but what I think is happening to min temps is its being influenced by SST’s, for instance when the PDO switched, the amount and location of warm pacific air entering the US changes, the same looks to be happening in Eurasia and Africa.
***
jim Steele says:
March 25, 2014 at 9:20 pm
Gil Dewart says: “Note that merely on the basis of atmospheric long-wave absorption bands any temperature increase would likely occur in the minimum temperatures (night, winter, etc.).”
I stronglydisagree. Longwave absorption from uniformly mixed greenhouse gases like CO2 should be acting equally night and day. That is basic physics!!!
***
Initially I thought as Gil Dewart does, but upon further study, the “atmospheric windows” and the CO2 & other GHG absorption bands are present regardless of day or night. So I agree w/you.
@davidmhoffer and Jim Steele
I disagree, you just have to look at it as a measure of rate of change, because that’s what it really is, the Sun goes down, and temps drop. It’s also data we have, as opposed to data we wished we had.
What I was most interested in was how has night time cooling changed over time, and is there a trend. I think the answer is it wiggles around a little, and there is no trend.
Something else I’m looking at is how much do daily temps change as the year progresses, and there is a slight trend in the slope of this, But it has a hint of being the top of a cycle, as it looks like it changed direction in the early 2000’s, when the PDO switched.
jim steele;
What was the time frame you analyzed. I could easily interpret greater poleward changes in LW as a result of periodic cycles of heated water being transported to the poles.
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1880 to about 2008. Just a guess as it was about 5 years ago and am going from memory on that. GISS only breaks the data down into very large zones, so I did it with other data sets that let me break it down into 10 degree increments, but I no longer recall which ones. The pattern held for all but the highest lats (about 80 to 90). That said, keep in mind that ALL the warming was minor, just the tropics/summer least minor. And while the pattern was clear, you’re correct that it was potentially more indicative of poleward shifts of periodic cycles, the root cause of which is probably multiple effects with no way to sort out which ones are which.
Mi Cro;
I disagree, you just have to look at it as a measure of rate of change, because that’s what it really is, the Sun goes down, and temps drop.
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The sun goes down gradually, and during that process everything from evaporation to convection to hadley cell circulation to cloud formation and position and enough other factors to fill a text book change gradually too. Plus large processes like AMO, PDO, ENSO and more are superimposed on everything else. So how do you sort out what portion of the measured change was due to changes in those processes versus radiative processes? Unlikely that you can in my books.
To be honest, they don’t matter.
Pick a period or location where the skies are clear for 3-4-10 days, and the underlying pattern comes through, clear skies cool radiatively, and even with weather superimposed on this, you can see this when looking at large numbers of station reading.
Follow the url in my name and go look at the half dozen blogs there on this data.
The only thing that does seem to matter are the large processes, and they are regional, and the data shows this.
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jdej says:
March 25, 2014 at 4:41 pm
The night time bias is discussed very nicely by Dr John Christy in the APS transcript at about page 374. Transcript at http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
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Thanks — very interesting transcript. Recommend it to everyone.
jim Steele says:
March 26, 2014 at 6:03 am
Sir your idea that warm water rises is in direct contradiction to the now known hiding place of the missing heat i.e. it is in the deep ocean. Please conform your thoughts to the correct meme.
Sarc needed?
The reason why the maximum should be used is because it is better correlated between the different stations. July has a high correlation in many places that I have seen.
March is something else, I live at around 45° of latitude in North America, and this year I could see snow melting on the pavement and the top of houses at -12°C on sunny days. The effect of urban development on March temperature is huge. But this year, new snow was constantly falling so the UHI was not as powerful.
I have come to think that the variation of temperature from January to March might be a good indicator of the level of UHI in mid-latitudes. The reason is that March is probably more affected by the UHI than January, not that January is not affected at all. In January, the ratio of sun forcing to air temperature is low, so surfaces without snow cover are not absorbing too much heat from the sun. Also, the amount of accumulated heat in the pavement during the summer is mostly gone. And March is highly affected by the UHI because the snow is melting on the pavement and the top of houses under a sun that is intense in relation to air temperature. So the change in temperature from January to March would be biased toward a warming when urbanization is increasing. And effectively, at many stations it is now nearly impossible to have a March that is cooler than January.
Some people have pointed out to an increase in temperature at the end of Spring and the start of the summer. Maybe the ground is better irrigated. June is often cold because there is a lot of water to evaporate. Remove that water and it is summer. Again, the top of houses and the streets are very well irrigated, Spring is gone very fast on those surfaces.
I have also come to believe that some of the night warming could be due to an increase in the greenhouse effect. I think that more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that the atmosphere and the ground exchange more heat. So the temperature of both are more tightly correlated. This leads to an increase in diurnal temperature range in the atmosphere as it follows more closely the daily variation at ground level. Because the daily variation in heat content occurs over a greater volume of the atmosphere, it is lower near the ground. The lowering of the DTR actually cools the max and warms the min, it could explain why so many stations have seen a reduction in the number of very warms days. The lower DTR at ground level would increase the mean temperature a little bit. The higher DTR higher in the atmosphere would also decrease the average temperature a little bit. The cooler nights in the atmosphere could also limit the amount of water vapor that travels to the top of the atmosphere. A drier top of the atmosphere would have a higher adiabatic lapse rate that would lead to a cooling of the stratosphere. The energy budget of the planet would be affected in two ways. First, the increase in CO2 would increase the height of emission to space from CO2 molecules. Second, the drying of the top of the atmosphere would lower the height of emission to space from H2O molecules. I don’t know which would be the strongest, they could annihilate entirely. It is interesting to note that even if sea surface temperatures where high in the last 20 years, the amount of water vapor has only increased near the ground. See climate4you.com in the greenhouse gases section.
richard says:
March 26, 2014 at 4:26 am
“Note these results are after the huge up-justments made to the US temperature data and urban heat island [UHI] artificial warming, which could account for all or most of the warming of minimum temperatures”
So the real results would be no warming at all and probably cooling.
I would combine all the readings from UHI and airports into group “CAGW” and the remaining into group “REALITY.” Then see if there is a growing differentiation over time between the two groups. I suspect UHI has a limit on how warm the UHI effect is and while UHI can grow geographically. Why not use Antarctica and the Arctic with no urban affect as a control??
Mi Cro says:
March 26, 2014 at 7:47 am
To be honest, they don’t matter.
Pick a period or location where the skies are clear for 3-4-10 days, and the underlying pattern comes through, clear skies cool radiatively, and even with weather superimposed on this, you can see this when looking at large numbers of station reading.
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Well yes of course. But that doesn’t tell you exactly how much cooling (or lack of) to attribute to CO2 vs water vapour and all the other radiatively active components of the atmosphere, nor does it tell you CO2’s effects on on the global system where they are mixed in with non clear sky effects to the point where we’ve got no idea at all. I just don’t think you can take the clear sky case and extrapolate it to the whole system. Al the clear sky case tells you is what happens under clear sky conditions.
True, but at low temps you can eliminate most of the effects of water vapor, then that leaves any change in cooling due to changes in GHG’s and aerosols.
And if there’s no evidence of any change, what ever the cause of modern warming is, it isn’t an increase in Co2.
Marc77 says:
March 26, 2014 at 8:37 am
Thanks Marc77 for your thoughts about March and June, and the influence of urban development. You make a lot of sense.
On the effect of greenhouse gases, recent research shows that it is mostly about water. Extensive analysis of radiosonde data shows little effect from CO2 upon the temperature profile in the atmosphere up to mid Stratophere.
“The fits for the barometric temperature profiles did not require any consideration of the composition of atmospheric trace gases, such as carbon dioxide, oxone or methane. This contradicts the predictions of current atmospheric models, which assume the temperature profiles are strongly influenced by greenhouse gas concentrations.”
http://oprj.net/articles/atmospheric-science/19
If we look at the data from the Southpole’s winter, there is a slight cooling since the 1950s. To me that suggests no CO2 sensitivity. Due to the extreme cold water vapor is no factor and it is far enough from the oceans to minimize effects from ocean heat ventilation. There is virtually no landscape or urbanization effect, and during the long Antarctic night the only driver of temperatures trends would be CO2 concentrations. Yet no warming trend.
The most important is probably that the daily max has not changed much in the last 60 years. July is not getting warmer. And we should wait to see what happens when the North Atlantic goes cold. The amount of water vapor over Eurasia might be affected.
A question based on the following below, I know this is the thermosphere and therefor not relevant to the lower atmosphere but how come we cannot make the same observations on co2 in the lower atmosphere either looking up or down with the same equipment. They seem to make precise observations, how come we cannot lower down.
Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”
“For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space”
But what you don’t understand is that all of this upsets manbearpig.
What is the point of setting standards for weather stations and then continuing to include those that are “non-compliant” with the required standard?
With respect to the increase of minimum temperatures, see
McNider, R.T., G.J. Steeneveld, B. Holtslag, R. Pielke Sr, S. Mackaro, A. Pour Biazar, J.T. Walters, U.S. Nair, and J.R. Christy, 2012: Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res., 117, D14106, doi:10.1029/2012JD017578. Copyright (2012) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/r-371.pdf
Among our conclusions, we wrote
“it is likely that part of the observed long-term increase in minimum temperature is
reflecting a redistribution of heat by changes in turbulence and not by an accumulation of
heat in the boundary layer.”
In other words, this part of the temperature increase is not a result of warming, just a change in the vertical structure of the temperature,.
Nice discussion, guys. Don’t forget that “etc.” in my post. How about bringing in some geography here – relation of the atmospheric absorption spectrum to “polar warming”(?).
CFACT reports today that the winter of October 2013-March 2014 has been the coldest since 1912.
Who is NCDC and why do they get to adjust historic temperature measurements downward after 100 years of these temperatures being considered accurate? Why is doing this not considered outright fraud?
That’s like investing $10,000 with a financial advisor, and finding after several years your investment had not grown and was still worth only $10,000. Then you discuss with the advisor, and his records show that you only invested $5,000. Thus he claims the current $10,000 shows that he has doubled your investment, and on that basis you should entrust him with your life savings. Save your receipts.
Nature is making a monkey out of the arrogance of man.
As a geologist I frequently look at maps upon which geochemical data is plotted. One of the more comprehensive public file data sets is the NURE data base (with other additions) for the North American land mass. One of the issues with the data is that samples were taken over different times in different areas by different people and were assayed using different analytical techniques. The result was a patchwork of say copper in soil results that were clearly related to the area sampled on a 250 000 scale map.
The map of the temperature trends shows exactly the same phenomena. Canada is different from the USA and both show different cooling/warming results to Mexico. The data presented was definitely not leveled across borders and just goes to reinforce the issue of the unreliable global surface temperature data set. The differences are rather shocking given the color bar scale a the side. Post measurement adjustments can be the only conclusion.
@richard
Great citation:
>Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”
Increasing the CO2 concentration at any altitude increases the absorption of incoming IR and increases the likelihood of its being immediately re-radiated into space. Similarly that elevated number of radiators capturing surface-emitted IR provides additional opportunities to send it up or down, not only down as depicted in GHG cartoons.
Taken as a whole, more CO2 makes the planet have a higher emissivity. The top cools better. The bottom might heat more, but a higher delta T would increase the buoyancy effect and drive convection more strongly, with heat physically passing the additional CO2. Willis’ tropical convection cooling then dominates energy transport.
Thanks for bringing Russel’s observations to the discussion.
@Anthony Watts
Glad to provide something useful
@Theo Goodwin at 5:39 pm
From your map I get the impression that “no change” and “cooling” far exceed “warming.” Am I reading that correctly?
Could be 😉 are you sure you are not cool biased?
@Nick Stokes at 5:48 pm
Verity, I was curious as to the trend period in your plot? Also the data source?
Nick, GHCNv2 unadjusted – original post here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/mapping-global-warming/ which also shows some plots for adjusted data. Yes know all the arguments for adjustment and accept some is necessary, but IMHO homogenisation is generally an adjustment too far (see: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/how-best-to-deal-with-cooling-cities/). Also produced in Google Earth version: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/google-earth-kml-files-spot-the-global-warming/
Also looked at GHCNV3, but can’t remember if Kevin finished that version and we kind of gave up after that because there were so many changes to adjustments at station level through the beta version that it was impossible to keep up. Some of the adjustments due to homogenisation seemed justifiable; some were physically impossible. A first differences version looking at adjustments is here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/the-only-way-is-up/
@chris y at 6:57 pm
Mosher says we only need 5 stations to nail the US temperature trend. Now have a glance at Verity Jones’ map, and make your ‘pick-5′ choices for 5 stations that are dispersed across the country. My guess is that the nailed trend can vary from -5 C/century to +5 C/century.
Dead. Certain.
Yup. And that’s the same Mosh who argues for science and objectivity. Pick 5 without being subjective, and then tell me how you can be so certain that you’ve got 5 that are not artificially contaminated, properly adjusted to correct for moves, and truly representative of the country as a whole.
Roger Pielke
I believe the increase in nighttime temperature is caused by UHI. Nighttime UHI effect can be as high as 12 C. Average temperature in big cities can be 1-3 C warmer than surrounding areas. I suspect many thermometers are in urban areas. Global warming may turn out to be caused by urbanization and waste heat.