Back in June 2008, I did a post titled Color and Temperature: Perception is everything.
One WUWT reader, Jes Simon noticed that since that time, something changed in the way NOAA was presenting the CONUS surface temperature, he worked up this comparison at right, and magnified below. I located the full size graphics as well, and he is correct, there has been a change, but the reason isn’t what he concluded.
Here is the original image from 2008, seen at left in the above image.
And here is an image I got from NOAA’s forecast database on 5/27/2014 that has a similar distribution of temperature:
Now some might say that something insidious is going on here, that NOAA has purposely adjusted the color scale, they’d be half right.
What we have here is a sliding scale where the units change range, but the color range stays the same. Compare the two scales side-by-side:
The reason for this is some small pockets of 110F+ temperatures in the 2008 map, in and near Death Valley, seen magnified below, and with the scale and arrow placed so that it is obvious.
So the point here is that just one station, plotting a single pixel of 110F+ temperature is enough to change the entire sliding scale. NOAA isn’t really doing a purposeful adjustment of color here to alter anyone’s perception, it is just the program adjusting the numeric scale based on the range of temperatures within the CONUS.
A better way to handle this problem is to create a set of fixed colors for temperature, much like Dr. Ryan Maue did for WeatherBell’s CONUS temperature images:
![rtma_tmp2m_conus[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/rtma_tmp2m_conus1.png?quality=75)
Now, NOAA is about to redo the presentation with a new look, like this:
Source: http://preview.weather.gov/graphical/
Note that they say:
Below is a proposed replacement of the National Weather Service Graphical Forecast Page, a product of the National Digital Forecast Database. Comments are encouraged and can be done by taking our survey.
The survey can be taken here http://www.nws.noaa.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=wxmap
Comments can be left. This might be a good time to suggest a color scale that doesn’t give hot yellows and reds for 70-80F temperatures.
UPDATE: 5/29/14 Reader Rick W. sends along this image and notes:
![qrTVPLL[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/qrtvpll1.png?quality=75)
So is one pixel enough to slide NOAA’s magical scale as Anthony claims? Apparently not. Here is the NOAA high temperature map for May 29th at 8 p.m. EDT. Note the temperature scale goes from 0 to 100 degrees.
The coldest point on this map is the Mount Rainer area in Washington State. It is showing a deep blue pixel indicating a temperature in the low 30s.
The hottest area on this map is the southwest. It is showing temperatures between Phoenix, Yuma and Indio above 100 degrees. This is not a pixel we’re talking about; it is several thousand square miles of temperatures above 100 degrees.
Note the temperature scale does not go above 100 degrees in any of these maps.
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So rather than speculate as to how the NOAA system works, I’m going to ask NOAA directly rather than speculate further. When I get an answer on why the map scale/colors are not representative of actual surface temperatures at the high end, I’ll post either an update here or a new post about it. – Anthony
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We are used to 3d contour images for height http://www.scisoft-gms.com/wms_details/DEM_Module.jpg why not use heat to form a 3d contour heat range map, ignoring height ?. That would help those who are colour blind as well.
“So the point here is that just one station, plotting a single pixel of 110F+ temperature is enough to change the entire sliding scale. NOAA isn’t really doing a purposeful adjustment of color here to alter anyone’s perception, it is just the program adjusting the numeric scale based on the range of temperatures within the CONUS.”
For them to be honest every previous map should be revised to reflect the new range and scale. The alternative us for every new range/scale to come with a large font disclaimer.
another coloured map – use the slide underneath:
28 May: Slate: A Filthy History
Interactive map: Which countries have emitted the most carbon since 1850?
By Eric Holthaus and Chris Kirk
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/carbon_dioxide_emissions_by_country_over_time_the_worst_global_warming_polluters.html
pat says:
May 28, 2014 at 6:25 pm
“another coloured map – use the slide underneath:
28 May: Slate: A Filthy History
Interactive map: Which countries have emitted the most carbon since 1850?
By Eric Holthaus and Chris Kirk”
Alaska??? I don’t think so!!
If a fixed scale was used for the weather map
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then the color of the map could be used to judge human comfort. having a sliding scale is nonsense. you could end up in the middle of winter with freezing temperatures appearing comfortable.
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Climate Models…….in Color!
meanwhile there is a REAL science debate in climate science.
the real debate is over how much warming and what we should do.
wasting time and effort and energy on chartsmanship is silly.
I noticed them using this technique on the weather channel as well.
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That depends on the goal doesn’t it? Is the “chartmanship” to accurately portray the temperatures or to just give an impression of temperatures that supports “the cause”?
Did you see this?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/28/study-is-global-warming-about-to-make-a-comeback/
There’s been a PR campaign in progress at least since Hansen and Wirth turned off the cooling.
Gotta keep the gravy train on the path to power.
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I haven’t seen The Weather Channel mention the record highs and lows on the local weather on the 8’s since last November. It’s hard to imply that the weather is unusual when it’s happened before.
There is not even a shadow of doubt in my mind that the new color scale is designed to specifically make the country look hot, hot, hot in full propaganda-like furthering of the global warming agenda which has fully adopted and is being actively promoted by all Agencies of the United States Government. Will it ever end? I doubt but fervently hope so.
Steven Mosher says:
May 29, 2014 at 9:45 am
“meanwhile there is a REAL science debate in climate science.
the real debate is over how much warming and what we should do.”
“What we should do” has no place in science, period. You must be a True (REAL) Scotsman.
A “debate” indicates a lack of consensus, and of whether warming is or will occur.
Steven Mosher says:
May 29, 2014 at 9:45 am
If warming is real, & is caused by carbon dioxide, then why are people like you who claim to believe it still using electricity? If you don’t believe that your electricity use is causing global warming then you are simply lying to us. Kindly do what Malthus, Ehrlich, & a host of other doomsayers would reasonably demand of you.
Celsius is the stupidest thing to come along in a long time. The fact that only the US uses proves how stupid it truly is. 0℉ is very cold while 100℉ is very warm, this is a human scale. 0°C is cold but not very cold while 30°C is very hot. That is not a human scale, only 30° change from cold to very hot is not on a human scale. W
Sorry didn’t mean to post that so quick.
We are all human, lets use a human scale, lets not be dictated to be how water behaves.
It’s global warming wot made it red! /sarcoff
It’s just so easy to fix color scales with computes these days… in Matlab it would be caxis([-50 110]) to clip the scales between -50F and 110F… however, this would make temperatures on a nice 70F day show up as a reddish-orange.
It’s a hard problem, actually, to pick an HSV color scheme (or ROYGBIV) and a linear scale that covers all the range of possible US temperatures and keep 70F from being orangish-red.
Maybe better to clip from 30F to 110F which puts 70F as a nice green comfortable color.
meanwhile there is a REAL science debate in climate science.
the real debate is over how much warming and what we should do.
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“what we should do” is a policy question. it is an economic question and engineering question, outside the scope and competency of climate science.
long before there were climate models their were economic models. Economics developed the mathematics to evaluate models and their predictions. This allows faulty economic models to be recognized and eliminated.
climate science on the other hand has no method to eliminate faulty models. Thus the IPCC includes all climate models in its projections, and we end up with the current scenario where virtually all the models are running hot. Statistically this should be impossible if the models were truly modelling reality.
1/3 of the models should be hot, 1/3 should be cold, and 1/3 should be about right. But we see nothing like this because climate science has not applied the lessons learned in economics to eliminate faulty models.
Once the models have been cleaned up, and we can place some trust in what they are telling us, only then are we ready to evaluate the costs of “what we should do”. This is where the engineers step in. They are the ones that can tell you “what we should do”, because they are the ones that actually have experience in doing something.
Neither climate scientists nor economists should be telling us “what we should do” because they have no experience in actually doing something. They are in large part ivory tower egg-heads about as divorced from reality as anyone can get.
The reality is that no one dares ask engineers what should be done to solve climate problems, because the answer is so obvious. Image you get 100 engineers together and tell them that increased CO2 will lead to warming temperatures will lead to rising sea levels.
Can you for one instant believe the engineers will say “we better get all the worlds leaders together so they can all agree to stop producing CO2”?
Can you for one instant believe the engineers will say “we better slap a tax on CO2, so that everyone will stop producing CO2”?
Can you for one instant believe the engineers will say “we better cap and trade CO2, so that everyone will ship CO2 production from their countries to other countries”?
Of course not. The engineers will say “we better not build new buildings in low lying areas. Since buildings need to be replaced every 50-100 years, by the time sea levels rise all the current low lying buildings will need replacement anyways, so they can just be abandoned to the sea.” Problem solved.
Long before we had engineers, we had farmers. Farmers knew better than to build on low lying areas. That was where you planted the crops, after the flood waters receded. The new soil from the flooding is what made the land fertile. Instead, farmers built their houses on the hill-sides overlooking their fields.
Then along comes generation after generation of city dwellers. No experience living with nature, they start building in the low lying areas where land is plentiful and construction costs are low because the land is level. It costs a lot more to build on the hill-side. And then when it floods and their houses are lost to nature, what used to be called an “act of nature” is suddenly “climate change”. Ignorance by any other name still smells of ignorance.
As a retired NWS forecaster, what is going on here is that the scale is seasonally adjusted, always showing 100 degrees of spread across the color spectrum. The 2008 map is from the end of June, while the 2014 map is from the end of May. They (those who program these changes) will probably switch over to the summer scale sometime in the first half of June. If you really want to see some screwy colors, check out the sky cover and POP maps, we complained about the lack of definition in those from the very start back in 2003, but nobody listened to us.