[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!
There are three color cones in the eye. Red Green and Blue. The red cone is sensitive to a wide range of wavelengths, it is not only activated by wavelengths of red light, but also (to a lesser extent) by wavelengths of orange light, yellow light and even green light. The green cone likewise is sensitive to an even wider range. Red and Green combined produce the yellows and oranges visually in the brain with the most impact. Blue is the least sensitive with the least range coverage.
So guess what the color scheme is for colder areas? Duh..pale blues…less impact visually.
“Unusual cold, and record warmth”. I think they meant Unusual warmth, and record cold. Funny how you can easily change the emphasis..
I call bullshit. I live in central Virginia, and we WEREN’T “near normal.” I’ve been freezing my a@ur momisugly@ off for months. And I don’t even want to THINK about my power and oil bills. >:-(
@Barbara Skolaut – I live in the same area, and am SOOOOO glad I just got a new heat pump last year!
Why not use degree-days (and thus year’s departure from averages) to give a sense of how “much” cold we have had. A kind of index of the integrated un-warmth experienced over the whole course of the season; in a form that anybody who’s paying a heating bill can readily appreciate.
Barbara Skolaut says:
March 27, 2014 at 11:27 am …..And I don’t even want to THINK about my power and oil bills. >:-(
….“Under my cap and trade plan,” Obama said, “electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.”
I have five beautiful scantilly clad fashion models who all agree that this winter was very cold east of the rockies and north of the gulf ….. They don’t like pastels either
as little as 1.5+ (FL) means above average but -3.4 (ME) is near average.
thats pretty telling.
If I wasn’t somebody monitoring the weather every day and having stats for everything, that includes a record drawdown(from last Fall) in natural gas supplies/storage because of sustained, extreme cold over such a vast portion of our nation and only read this blatantly biased description, I would never guess the WInter they described above was the one we just had.
Having the Great Lakes almost completely frozen is incredible. You can throw out the thermometers or human interpretation ………or human influence. This was of course one of the “regional” extremes related to the widespread cold/snowy weather over a huge portion of the populated Midwest and East Coast.
They felt the need to throw in that this Winter was just the coldest since 2009/10 and that it was in sharp contrast to the previous two winters, and most winters of the past 2 decades, when temperatures were predominantly warmer that the 20th century average. …That caveat, was an obvious way to lessen the significance of such a cold Winter with biased interpretation. Winter precipitation was much below average. True but this was Winter and Arctic air does not hold alot of moisture. The real story for anybody that was watching were the dozens of snow and ice events over the eastern 2/3rds of the country.
Why not this: This Winter and the one from 2009/10(Just 4 years ago) were the 2 coldest Winters in the last 35 years? Sure, I might be biased on the other side but in the context of the past decade featuring the 5 Winters with the most snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere since 1978 and the halt in global warming that also coincides exactly with those years, it’s clear that their description, painting 2013/14 as an “outlier” because it was cold and had “regional” heavy snow is a very misleading one.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1
Based on their description, I would expect the predominately warmer winters of the past 2 decades to resume now. This is an attempt to lead the reader down that path.
You don’t use more natural gas for residential heating than ever before in history during Winter, unless extreme, sustained cold was the dominating factor over a massive part of the US.
Their map does not convey this reality, which could be intentional or unintentional viewed by itself. However their verbal description to me, clearly attempts to down play the significance and chosen words are VERY intentional, so my biased opinion is that it is not just a coincidence that maps which were released are very misleading and supportive of the wording.
Thanks KenF. I agree that NCDC is obscuring the data of near cold winter days by their choices of temperature threshold.
oops –
of near record cold winter days
Their choices of temperature threshold and color probably didn’t happen by accident!
“compared with 1981-2010 normal”
What is the normal temperature? I believe you mean 1981-2010 average. Use of the word normal implies the current weather is abnormal or not normal.
I wish everyone would look for their cities and tell this group if the map makes any sense. Here in Virginia I can tell you the map is full of BS. We have been below average for the entire 2014 year and most definitely the the 2013 year. This map shows us at average.
Thanks for your post, Ken. I’m preserving it because your explanation as a professional GIS mapper and the examples you show of what NCDC has done are stunning to me, much more than the D’Aleo numbers overlaid on NCDC’s original freddy flintstone map.
Someone here at WUWT should ask you to write about a post about this.
Ah! Just saw you updated this post with KenF’s comment. Excellent.
Global warming is global is it occurs in one region, apparently. Because that is the point of the map, to show “warm”.
By simple addition, the “warm” adds up to +50.9, the “cool”, to -266.6. So February is “cool” in the contiguous United States. Unless climate is weather.
Regional, not global, but since the news media is exception-reporting-dominant, regional IS global (just as one shooting in Texas means that gunmen are going crazy all over America this week).
Like someone said above:
These people are not Scientists.
Doug Huffman says:
March 27, 2014 at 4:25 am
Apropos book? How about a classic; The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte
###
Great book. As a Software Engineer specializing in the test of Microwave test equipment, this book was indispensable.
So now we’re berating them for not using the right shade of blue? I think there are worse distortions then this.
The invention of colors (this must have occurred during the late 1970’s), has changed everything.
I would also propose that while temperature measurements in degrees are linear in a physical sense, the changes to biological systems due to temperature are not. A swing from 40 F to 20 F is one thing, and after this winter in the Midwest, 20 F is almost shirtsleeve weather, but another 20F drop to 0F is downright nasty. Temperatures near zero F and below get dangerous in a hurry. I assume someone has quantified this, but I think temp extremes at either end the data should have a weighting factor.
Willful deception. Most people will not read the articles, nor the explanation of the colors. they will see the colors and that’s it. Those colors are highly suggestive and I’m pretty sure that’s done on purpose.
They are harming themselves with obvious lies. People know it was cold, trying to tell them it was normal will only increase the number of skeptics. Skeptics know the truth and won’t be swayed by the BS.