[Coloring (verb). Definition: to cause to appear different from the reality: Example: In order to influence the jury, he colored his account of what had happened]
NCDC issued their February 2014 climate report, it looked like this:
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-releases-february-2014-us-climate-report
The colored US map (that gets top billing in the PR) can be viewed full size here. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/file/february-2014-us-divisional-temperature-ranks-mapgif
But what happens when we start showing actual temperature data instead of colored areas? Joe D’Aleo sent this map over today, that shows the same map with temperature anomalies for many major cities in February 2014 he added. And with it, is a surprise.
For example. NCDC shows Connecticut as “Near Average” according to the color assigned, but Hartford has a -5.5°F anomaly, but in California, Los Angeles is +2.6F and is shown as “Much Above Average”. You can draw other similar comparisons.
At first glance, it seems that NCDC has a clear warm bias, but I’ll also point out that these divisional ranks are made up from data from dozens to hundreds of weather stations. As we know, some weather stations are good, some are bad in the way the are maintained and produce data, so the city anomalies, while interesting and suggestive that there might be a warm bias, isn’t definitive. Apples/oranges and all that.
Now, have a look at this map which shows temperature anomalies by division. It is from NCDC also, and you can create it yourself using the Climate at a Glance plotter here: http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/map/cag/#app=cdo
That certainly looks different than the rank maps shown above at the top of the NCDC press release, but that is to be expected. Of course, temperature anomalies are a different animal than ranks. Ranks are statistical constructs, removed from the actual measurements by at least two calculation passes. Anomalies require generally only one calculation pass, so they are closer to the measurements, but they have the advantage of showing where the departures from “normal” are. Ranks seem to be less effective at this, IMHO.
Now here is the divisional rank map as plotted by NCDC as the companion map to the one above using the same tool at http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/map/cag/#app=cdo
The divisions are ranked exactly the same as the map used in the February NCDC press release, but do you notice how the colors are significantly different? The blue shade is darker over much of the country in the CAG plotter output than the one in the press release at the top.
Here is that map again for easy comparison. The difference is obvious. The colors are much lighter on the map below, the one used in the NCDC February 2014 press release.
![February-2014-US-Divisional-Temperature-Ranks-Map[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/february-2014-us-divisional-temperature-ranks-map1.gif)
And just to be complete, here are the average temperatures for those divisions, what NCDC calls “values” on the selector tool. It looks a bit more natural for what we’d expect in February, doesn’t it?
My point to all this? Perceived CONUS temperature is in the eye of the map maker and the beholder.
You can create different impressions by choosing color schemes and what maps you put front and center in reports such as NCDC does.
Some people got bent out of shape because we ran a post from Harold Ambler who had criticized the odd way the Divisional Temperature Ranks map was presented in the February press release, which made February look warmer than measurements. Clearly, as I have demonstrated, NCDC seems to have different color schemes for the same Divisional Temperature Ranks map product; one for press releases, and another for the Climate at a Glance plotter. In a place that supposedly prides itself on standards and accuracy, I find that sloppy. Of course the maxim “close enough for government work” also comes to mind.
Most people clearly associate darker blue colors with cold, lighter blue colors, not so much, and yellows, oranges, and reds with warmth. Obviously, in the CAG plotter output of Divisional Temperature Ranks, there’s no washed out colors, and the temperature delineation by color is clear. The question is: why does NCDC need two color schemes to tell us the same thing?
If NCDC wants to avoid criticisms on map perceptions related to color, I suggest they use a single color scheme across the board, so that there won’t be any confusion or perception issues between maps used for press release and maps provided for research.
After all, do they really want people “seeing red” when they really should be seeing blue?
UPDATE: reader KenF writes:
Besides mapping representation (full disclousure, I am a professional GIS mapper), there is another issue about NCDC on presenting February temperatures that worth addressing: the way they present the section of “February 2014 Winter Cold: Historical Perspective”.
If you check their link from NCDC
(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2014/2/supplemental/page-3/) they will provide you the (a) day-by-day temperature from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 compared with 1981-2010 normal and (b) the coldest day of the winter compared with cold outbreaks from the station’s deeper history, by comparing the number of days with temperatures as cold or colder than the threshold occurred each year (in NCDC words).
I have particular issue with (b). Since we know what make this winter so cold is not about the record low temperatures, but rather the frequent (and prolonged) cold wave and the well-below normal AVERAGE temperautre from Dec 2013-Feb 2014. NCDC definitely aware of this and use the more fuzzy approach to represent part (a) and cherry pick the threshold on part (b).
To illustrate my point, I choose two cities from midwest: Fort Wayne IN and Minneapolis-St. Paul MN. According to Northern Indiana WFO, Fort Wayne has the 6th coldest winter (20.7F from Dec 2013 to Feb 201, or 6.7 degrees below normal) and the 19 days with low temperatures below 0F (compared with 1981-2010 normal of 6.5 days)
Then what does NCDC do? On representing average temperatures (part a), instead of showing tables and figures how they ranked with “station’s deeper history, they just do a fuzzy bar diagram in order to show “hey, we know this winter is cold, but there are still some warm days”.
Part b is ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS: instead of using the standard Zero F that normally used, they pick -15F as the threshold, then show there are “only” 2 days in winters with temperatures below-15F, which attempt to make it a “normal winter”!
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/us/2014/feb/thresh/tmin.USW00014827.png
Same thing can be applied to MSP. This is the 9th coldest winter for twin cities (9.7F) in history all the way from 1876 (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/coldest_winters.html). According to NWS regional office, there are 50 days of below Zero F days in twin Cities from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 (53 days if you include Zero days itself, and this figure did NOT include March), which is ranked 5th in history.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mpx&storyid=100778&source=2
Then what does NCDC treat those facts? They pick the threshold at -20F! It effectively reduced the days below -20F to 2 days and the chart show it almost as if it is a warmer-than-normal winter!
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/us/2014/feb/thresh/tmin.USW00014922.png
Welcome to this world, as cherry picking the thresholds and moving the goalposts are NCDC expertise. We must not let their malpractice off the hook!
libertarians take quotes out of context, cherry pick data, mis-use and mis-apply analytical methods, spin, and just plain lie in order to further their agenda.
Bloggers take quotes out of context, cherry pick data, mis-use and mis-apply analytical methods, spin, and just plain lie in order to further their agenda.
Progressivism is the political bowel movement of the left, center and right to make-things-better, damn the unintended consequences that will echo through history.
Michael Mann is not an outlier in the misrepresentation of data. I’m book marking this one to remind me that our national science agencies are anti-science and pro-political. If a mutual fund company tried this, they’d be the subject of massive civil litigation and enforcement actions by the SEC, states and self-regulatory orgs. And then they would cease to exist.
I use NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center frequently and have a devil of a time discerning the shade differences amongst the various color coded notices, “Izzat baby-blue or powder-blue?”
In southern Texas, -1.8 is colored white, but in northern Utah, +0.8 is colored yellow.
Preparing for dramatic climate change as I take off from Managua heading for Los Angeles. 😉 My plan is to adapt…
Tufte says use lighter/fainter colors, and use only one color, with many subtle gradations: the human eye can distinguish between very slight differences, and it is easier to grasp the overall data patterns.
Tufte notes this map of an earthquake’s varying intensity across a region-
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11quak.html?_r=0
As screens get ever-more capable, we should be moving in this direction.
“At first glance, it seems that NCDC has a clear warm bias, but I’ll also point out that these divisional ranks are made up from data from dozens to hundreds of weather stations. As we know, some weather stations are good, some are bad in the way the are maintained and produce data, so the city anomalies, while interesting and suggestive that there might be a warm bias, isn’t definitive. Apples/oranges and all that.”
I’m not buying it. Is it reasonable for all variances to fall in one direction? One of these maps is misleading. At a minimum the variances need to be analysed and understood before individuals can accept that one-way variances are normal and not an attempt at data distortion. The variances MUST NOT BE sloughed off as “apples/oranges and all that.”
Skeptic sites indicate temperature manipulation over the past century with variances magnifying a global warming trend. This chart appears to magnify the current temperature variances in favor of warming. The hockey stick and other charts are claimed to distort historic temperature changes.
We can differ on our opinions, but not on our facts. If the facts are being distorted, then this should be discernible and it would be the clearest evidence that someone is being dishonest, unethical, at the least incompetent, and hence not qualified to participate in the science or its debate.
That NCDC Feb. 2014 map has Graphic Design written all over it. Corporate Graphic Design departments oftentimes fall under either Communications or Sales. I wonder what the government equivalents to these departments are? At least with corporations you’re usually free to choose to buy their products.
If the NCDC is releasing this info for the general public, then it’s disingenuous, and they should be censured for obfuscation. They label the first crudely drawn and uninformative map “February 2014 Climate Report” with the full weight of the government behind it. Regular folk don’t go through the verbal gymnastics of what’s in a chart, what’s not in a chart, based on availability and use of professional software to verify NCDC’s monthly 1600-page data file, and then make a meteorologist’s distinction of what’s being displayed and what’s not.
I first saw Joe D’Aleo’s labeled chart on Steve Goddard’s site, and tried to find the source of D’Aleo’s anomaly values. I certainly couldn’t find the link Anthony publishes above: http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/map/cag/#app=cdo.
NOAA/NCDC have no one but themselves to blame for the disdain the majority of the American public now have (according to polls) for the climate change issue. We feel we’re being dicked with. And we are.
Another interesting take would be to reverse the colors and see how dramatic the map appeared then. Put the bright reds and oranges as they would display if the sign of the anomaly were reversed and the warm in the light blues. Put the maps side by side and see which one stands out more.
Besides mapping representation (full disclousure, I am a professional GIS mapper), there is another issue about NCDC on presenting February temperatures that worth addressing: the way they present the section of “February 2014 Winter Cold: Historical Perspective”.
If you check their link from NCDC
(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2014/2/supplemental/page-3/) they will provide you the (a) day-by-day temperature from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 compared with 1981-2010 normal and (b) the coldest day of the winter compared with cold outbreaks from the station’s deeper history, by comparing the number of days with temperatures as cold or colder than the threshold occurred each year (in NCDC words).
I have particular issue with (b). Since we know what make this winter so cold is not about the record low temperatures, but rather the frequent (and prolonged) cold wave and the well-below normal AVERAGE temperautre from Dec 2013-Feb 2014. NCDC definitely aware of this and use the more fuzzy approach to represent part (a) and cherry pick the threshold on part (b).
To illustrate my point, I choose two cities from midwest: Fort Wayne IN and Minneapolis-St. Paul MN. According to Northern Indiana WFO, Fort Wayne has the 6th coldest winter (20.7F from Dec 2013 to Feb 201, or 6.7 degrees below normal) and the 19 days with low temperatures below 0F (compared with 1981-2010 normal of 6.5 days)
Then what does NCDC do? On representing average temperatures (part a), instead of showing tables and figures how they ranked with “station’s deeper history, they just do a fuzzy bar diagram in order to show “hey, we know this winter is cold, but there are still some warm days”.
Part b is ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS: instead of using the standard Zero F that normally used, they pick -15F as the threshold, then show there are “only” 2 days in winters with temperatures below-15F, which attempt to make it a “normal winter”!
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/us/2014/feb/thresh/tmin.USW00014827.png
Same thing can be applied to MSP. This is the 9th coldest winter for twin cities (9.7F) in history all the way from 1876 (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/coldest_winters.html). According to NWS regional office, there are 50 days of below Zero F days in twin Cities from Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 (53 days if you include Zero days itself, and this figure did NOT include March), which is ranked 5th in history.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mpx&storyid=100778&source=2
Then what does NCDC treat those facts? They pick the threshold at -20F! It effectively reduced the days below -20F to 2 days and the chart show it almost as if it is a warmer-than-normal winter!
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/us/2014/feb/thresh/tmin.USW00014922.png
Welcome to this world, as cherry picking the thresholds and moving the goalposts are NCDC expertise. We must not let their malpractice off the hook!
Might I be so bold, in the “color” sense, to suggest that the NCDC consider using the Martha Stewart line of paint colors to standardize their graphic presentation… Martha’s color schemes seemed appropriate somehow. My personal choices in this respect are:
Record coldest; forget me not
Much below average; Winters Day
Below average; Pale Earth
Near average; Heavenly Blue
Above average; Everyday Green
Much above average; Sunflower
Record average; Terra Rosa
Some commenters don’t seem to understand that they are doing a comparison of the past February to 100+ past Februaries to get the color. If this past February is in the top 10 or 10% (not sure which, it gets the orange color. There were no top warmest Febs, so no reds. If this past February was one of the 10 coldest (or 10% coldest, not sure), then it gets the visible blue.
My question is how they are getting the February averages from 100 years ago. Are those the actual measured temperatures for each day turned into the monthly average, or are those temperatures that have been homogenized or adjusted downwards to make past temperatures colder?
Even if they are not adjusted, it is still highly misleading to use a “top 10 coldest” coloring when the early 20th century was filled with abnormally cold years. Obviously the top 10 could easily be those years and urbanization since that time would make it impossible to beat at many sites.
I should add urbanization doesn’t just make it very hard to make a top 10 coldest in the past 100 years, but it makes it more likely in some cases to get a top 10 warmest primarily from high low temperatures, lack of radiational cooling etc.
I’m also not sure if they use just somewhat crappy USHCN for the data source or add other even crappier sites. But the question of homogenization is the most important one.
We are just one more inane regulation from Utopia. Always.
Shades of pastels on a notebook screen blend and smear to nothing depending on the slope of the screen to your eyes. Baby blue can entirely disappear and become white unless that slope is at an exact degree. Down with NOAA’s stupid use of closely matching pastels!!!!
If anybody thinks it is not unusually cold, this Natural gas report shows a disturbing trend if you scroll down to the graph. Anybody who does not like fracking better get a wood pellet stove and some solar panels quick! What happens when coal plants convert to Nat Gas and we start exporting Nat Gas at the same time? Is our government planning for this or are we going to have a problem if the summer is hot or we get another cold winter? England came within 3 days of running out of Nat Gas recently. Either people have to start conserving or there will have to be expanded drilling. Solar is only 1% of our electricity supply and wind not much more.
oops, forgot the link. http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html
30 years from now, these cold temperatures will be “homogenized” in order to account for natural variation, viewed as a nuisante pest to be eradicated from the holy halls of model data.
Unless we stop this charade by a world-wide collective vote against climate change stupidity and the political engines that keep it both oiled and running.
After all, do they really want people “seeing red” when they really should be seeing blue?
Pretty much.
Good enuf for “Dr.” Karl.
I’m not buying it. Is it reasonable for all variances to fall in one direction?
Yes.
There are two major biases in surface stations both of these biases affect both absolute measurements and (more important) trend as well:
One is TOBS. That is a strong cooling bias. But that is fully corrected for (if not overcorrected).
The other is microsite, which is an even stronger bias than TOBS. A warming bias. That is not corrected for. In fact, it is ANTI-corrected for: The well sited stations are adjusted upwards to match the poorly sited stations.
Stipulating that the above is correct, would you accept that ” all variances to fall in one direction”?
At a minimum the variances need to be analysed and understood before individuals can accept that one-way variances are normal and not an attempt at data distortion.
Been there, done that. It’s a major subject of Anthony’s pending paper. When the paper is published, you will be able to independently review for yourself and determine if said analysis is or is not correct.
We can differ on our opinions, but not on our facts. If the facts are being distorted, then this should be discernible and it would be the clearest evidence that someone is being dishonest, unethical, at the least incompetent, and hence not qualified to participate in the science or its debate.
The facts are being distorted, and very badly. However I see no evidence that the distortion is intentional. It appears to be an unintended of artifact of homogenization combined with the discounting of microsite effect on trend.
DirkH says:
March 27, 2014 at 1:47 am
Don’t give them crayons. They’ll only hurt themselves.
###
The first thing that popped into my mind as I read your comment was of a Josh style cartoon of preschoolers in lab coats sticking crayons up their noses.