Temperature is such a simple finite thing. It is amazing how complex people can make it.
– commenter and friend of WUWT, ossqss at Judith Curry’s blog
Sometimes, you can believe you are entirely right while simultaneously believing that you’ve done due diligence. That’s what confirmation bias is all about. In this case, a whole bunch of people, including me, got a severe case of it.
I’m talking about the claim made by Steve Goddard that 40% of the USHCN data is “fabricated”. which I and few other people thought was clearly wrong.
Dr. Judith Curry and I have been conversing a lot via email over the past two days, and she has written an illuminating essay that explores the issue raised by Goddard and the sociology going on. See her essay:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/28/skeptical-of-skeptics-is-steve-goddard-right/
Steve Goddard aka Tony Heller deserves the credit for the initial finding, Paul Homewood deserves the credit for taking the finding and establishing it in a more comprehensible
way that opened closed eyes, including mine, in this post entitled Massive Temperature Adjustments At Luling, Texas. Along with that is his latest followup, showing the problem isn’t limited to Texas, but also in Kansas. And there’s more about this below.
Goddard early on (June 2) gave me his source code that made his graph, but I
couldn’t get it to compile and run. That’s probably more my fault than his, as I’m not an expert in C++ computer language. Had I been able to, things might have gone differently. Then there was the fact that the problem Goddard noted doesn’t show up in GHCN data and I didn’t see the problem in any of the data we had for our USHCN surface stations analysis.
But, the thing that really put up a wall for me was this moment on June 1st, shortly after getting Goddard’s first email with his finding, which I pointed out in On ‘denying’ Hockey Sticks, USHCN data, and all that – part 1.
Goddard initially claimed 40% of the STATIONS were missing, which I said right away was not possible. It raised my hackles, and prompted my “you need to do better” statement. Then he switched the text in his post from stations to data while I was away for a couple of hours at my daughter’s music recital. When I returned, I noted the change, with no note of the change on his post, and that is what really put up the wall for me. He probably looked at it like he was just fixing a typo, I looked at it like it was sweeping an important distinction under the rug.
Then there was my personal bias over previous episodes where Goddard had made what I considered grievous errors, and refused to admit to them. There was the claim of CO2 freezing out of the air in Antarctica episode, later shown to be impossible by an experiment and the GISStimating 1998 episode, and the comment where when the old data is checked and it is clear Goddard/Heller’s claim doesn’t hold up.
And then just over a month ago there was Goddard’s first hockey stick shape in the USHCN data set, which turned out to be nothing but an artifact.
All of that added up to a big heap of confirmation bias, I was so used to Goddard being wrong, I expected it again, but this time Steve Goddard was right and my confirmation bias prevented me from seeing that there was in fact a real issue in the data and that NCDC has dead stations that are reporting data that isn’t real: mea culpa.
But, that’s the same problem many climate scientists have, they are used to some skeptics being wrong on some issues, so they put up a wall. That is why the careful and exacting analyses we see from Steve McIntyre should be a model for us all. We have to “do better” to make sure that claims we make are credible, documented, phrased in non-inflammatory language, understandable, and most importantly, right.
Otherwise, walls go up, confirmation bias sets in.
Now that the wall is down, NCDC won’t be able to ignore this, even John Nielsen-Gammon, who was critical of Goddard along with me in the Polifact story now says there is a real problem. So does Zeke, and we have all sent or forwarded email to NCDC advising them of it.
I’ve also been on the phone Friday with the assistant director of NCDC and chief scientist (Tom Peterson), and also with the person in charge of USHCN (Matt Menne). Both were quality, professional conversations, and both thanked me for bringing it to their attention. There is lots of email flying back and forth too.
They are taking this seriously, they have to, as final data as currently presented for USHCN is clearly wrong. John Neilsen-Gammon sent me a cursory analysis for Texas USHCN stations, noting he found a number of stations that had “estimated” data in place of actual good data that NCDC has in hand, and appears in the RAW USHCN data file on their FTP site
From:John Nielsen-Gammon Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 9:27 AM To: Anthony Subject: Re: USHCN station at Luling Texas
Anthony –
I just did a check of all Texas USHCN stations. Thirteen had estimates in place of apparently good data.
410174 Estimated May 2008 thru June 2009
410498 Estimated since Oct 2011
410639 Estimated since July 2012 (exc Feb-Mar 2012, Nov 2012, Mar 2013, and May 2013)
410902 Estimated since Aug 2013
411048 Estimated July 2012 thru Feb 2014
412906 Estimated since Jan 2013
413240 Estimated since March 2013
413280 Estimated since Oct 2012
415018 Estimated since April 2010, defunct since Dec 2012
415429 Estimated since May 2013
416276 Estimated since Nov 2012
417945 Estimated since May 2013
418201Estimated since April 2013 (exc Dec 2013).
What is going on is that the USHCN code is that while the RAW data file has the actual measurements, for some reason the final data they publish doesn’t get the memo that good data is actually present for these stations, so it “infills” it with estimated data using data from surrounding stations. It’s a bug, a big one. And as Zeke did a cursory analysis Thursday night, he discovered it was systemic to the entire record, and up to 10% of stations have “estimated” data spanning over a century:
And here is the real kicker, “Zombie weather stations” exist in the USHCN final data set that are still generating data, even though they have been closed.
Remember Marysville, CA, the poster child for bad station siting? It was the station that gave me my “light bulb moment” on the issue of station siting. Here is a photo I took in May 2007:
![marysville_badsiting[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/marysville_badsiting1.jpg?quality=83)
It was closed just a couple of months after I introduced it to the world as the prime example of “How not to measure temperature”. The MMTS sensor was in a parking lot, with hot air from a/c units from the nearby electronics sheds for the cell phone tower:
Guess what? Like Luling, TX, which is still open, but getting estimated data in place of the actual data in the final USHCN data file, even though it was marked closed in 2007 by NOAA’s own metadata, Marysville is still producing estimated monthly data, marked with an “E” flag:
USH00045385 2006 1034E 1156h 1036g 1501h 2166i 2601E 2905E 2494E 2314E 1741E 1298E 848i 0 USH00045385 2007 797c 1151E 1575i 1701E 2159E 2418E 2628E 2620E 2197E 1711E 1408E 846E 0 USH00045385 2008 836E 1064E 1386E 1610E 2146E 2508E 2686E 2658E 2383E 1906E 1427E 750E 0 USH00045385 2009 969E 1092E 1316E 1641E 2238E 2354E 2685E 2583E 2519E 1739E 1272E 809E 0 USH00045385 2010 951E 1190E 1302E 1379E 1746E 2401E 2617E 2427E 2340E 1904E 1255E 1073E 0 USH00045385 2011 831E 991E 1228E 1565E 1792E 2223E 2558E 2536E 2511E 1853E 1161E 867E 0 USH00045385 2012 978E 1161E 1229E 1646E 2147E 2387E 2597E 2660E 2454E 1931E 1383E 928E 0 USH00045385 2013 820E 1062E 1494E 1864E 2199E 2480E 2759E 2568E 2286E 1807E 1396E 844E 0 USH00045385 2014 1188E 1247E 1553E 1777E 2245E 2526E -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999
Source: USHCN Final : ushcn.tavg.latest.FLs.52i.tar.gz
Compare to USHCN Raw : ushcn.tavg.latest.raw.tar.gz
In the USHCN V2.5 folder, the readme file describes the “E” flag as:
E = a monthly value could not be computed from daily data. The value is estimated using values from surrounding stations
There are quite a few “zombie weather stations” in the USHCN final dataset, possibly up to 25% out of the 1218 that is the total number of stations. In my conversations with NCDC on Friday, I’m told these were kept in and “reporting” as a policy decision to provide a “continuity” of data for scientific purposes. While there “might” be some justification for that sort of thinking, few people know about it there’s no disclaimer or caveat in the USHCN FTP folder at NCDC or in the readme file that describes this, they “hint” at it saying:
The composition of the network remains unchanged at 1218 stations
But that really isn’t true, as some USHCN stations out of the 1218 have been closed and are no longer reporting real data, but instead are reporting estimated data.
NCDC really should make this clear, and while it “might” be OK to produce a datafile that has estimated data in it, not everyone is going to understand what that means, and that the stations that have been long dead are producing estimated data. NCDC has failed in notifying the public, and even their colleagues of this. Even the Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon didn’t know about these “zombie” stations until I showed him. If he had known, his opinion might have been different on the Goddard issue. When even professional people in your sphere of influence don’t know you are doing dead weather station data infills like this, you can be sure that your primary mission to provide useful data is FUBAR.
NCDC needs to step up and fix this along with other problems that have been identified.
And they are, I expect some sort of a statement, and possibly a correction next week. In the meantime, let’s let them do their work and go through their methodology. It will not be helpful to ANYONE if we start beating up the people at NCDC ahead of such a statement and/or correction.
I will be among the first, if not the first to know what they are doing to fix the issues, and as soon as I know, so will all of you. Patience and restraint is what we need at the moment. I believe they are making a good faith effort, but as you all know the government moves slowly, they have to get policy wonks to review documents and all that. So, we’ll likely hear something early next week.
These lapses in quality control and thinking that infilling estimated data for long dead weather stations is the sort of thing happens when the only people that you interact with are inside your sphere of influence. The “yeah that seems like a good idea” approval mumble probably resonated in that NCDC meeting, but it was a case of groupthink. Imagine The Wall Street Journal providing “estimated” stock values for long dead companies to provide “continuity” of their stock quotes page. Such a thing would boggle the mind and the SEC would have a cow, not to mention readers. Scams would erupt trying to sell stocks for these long dead companies; “It’s real, see its reporting value in the WSJ!”.
It often takes people outside of climate science to point out the problems they don’t see, and skeptics have been doing it for years. Today, we are doing it again.
For absolute clarity, I should point out that the RAW USHCN monthly datafile is NOT being infilled with estimated data, only the FINAL USHCN monthly datafile. But that is the one that many other metrics use, including NASA GISS, and it goes into the mix for things like the NCDC monthly State of the Climate Report.
While we won’t know until all of the data is corrected and new numbers run, this may affect some of the absolute temperature claims made on SOTC reports such as “warmest month ever” and 3rd warmest, etc. The magnitude of such shifts, if any, is unknown at this point. Long term trend will probably not be affected.
It may also affect our comparisons between raw and final adjusted USHCN data we have been doing for our paper, such as this one from our draft paper:
The exception is BEST, which starts with the raw daily data, but they might be getting tripped up into creating some “zombie stations” of their own by the NCDC metadata and resolution improvements to lat/lon. The USHCN station at Luling Texas is listed as having 7 station moves by BEST (note the red diamonds):
But there really has only been two, and the station has been just like this since 1995, when it was converted to MMTS from a Stevenson Screen. Here is our survey image from 2009:
Photo by surfacestations volunteer John Warren Slayton.
NCDC’s metadata only lists two station moves:
As you can see below, some improvements in lat/lon accuracy can look like a station move:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=20024457&tab=LOCATIONS
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=20024457&tab=MISC
Thanks to Paul Homewood for the two images and links above. I’m sure Mr. Mosher will let us know if this issue affects BEST or not.
And there is yet another issue: The recent change of something called “climate divisions” to calculate the national and state temperatures.
Certified Consulting Meteorologist and Fellow of the AMS Joe D’Aleo writes in with this:
I had downloaded the Maine annual temperature plot from NCDC Climate at a Glance in 2013 for a talk. There was no statistically significant trend since 1895. Note the spike in 1913 following super blocking from Novarupta in Alaska (similar to the high latitude volcanoes in late 2000s which helped with the blocking and maritime influence that spiked 2010 as snow was gone by March with a steady northeast maritime Atlantic flow). 1913 was close to 46F. and the long term mean just over 41F.
Seemingly in a panic change late this frigid winter to NCDC, big changes occurred. I wanted to update the Maine plot for another talk and got this from NCDC CAAG.
Note that 1913 was cooled nearly 5 degrees F and does not stand out. There is a warming of at least 3 degrees F since 1895 (they list 0.23/decade) and the new mean is close to 40F.
Does anybody know what the REAL temperature of Maine is/was/is supposed to be? I sure as hell don’t. I don’t think NCDC really does either.
In closing…
Besides moving toward a more accurate temperature record, the best thing about all this hoopla over the USHCN data set is the Polifact story where we have all these experts lined up (including me as the token skeptic) that stated without a doubt that Goddard was wrong and rated the claim “pants of fire”.
They’ll all be eating some crow, as will I, but now that I have Gavin for dinner company, I don’t really mind at all.
When the scientific method is at work, eventually, everybody eats crow. The trick is to be able to eat it and tell people that you are honestly enjoying it, because crow is so popular, it is on the science menu daily.
Anthony
One word sums up this post.
Respect
i now return to the reason that i previously voted for in the Weblog awards,
Very well done Anthony! With many excellent assists/posts.
Cognitive bias’s = the arch enemy of the scientific method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Has anyone contacted the poley bear folks and asked for their input on this whole “in-filling” debacle? It seems as though they may have some pointers as to how one can manage to lower the agenda-driven data signal, instead of always getting a
higher-than-desired data signalfrom the places that have actual data. Just a thought.PS: Anthony, kudos for the mea culpa. I’ve always had a great deal of respect and admiration for both your and Steve/Tony. The two of you have very different methodologies for getting your point across, but we’re all on the same team— seeking and speaking the truth, no matter the consequences. Just remember, one doesn’t go into battle with an army of monotone clones— you fight with the team you have and everyone has different personalities. Some of them/us may not be as rhetorically-restrained as you, your staff of moderators or other big-name skeptics, but they’re every bit as important in fighting the tyrant wannabes who are pushing the CAWG agenda. Let’s try to keep the “Blue-on-Blue” fire to a minimum, if at all possible.
Again, thank you for your yeoman’s work over the years. History will remember you (and Tony) as members of a movement on the level of Martin Luther. (The one who nailed that obscure little paper to the door.)
I hope everyone realised at this stage, whenever getting an update of any data you’ve looked at, NEVER overwrite the old file to update it. Save to a back-up name first and then the first thing you do when you have the current release is to ‘diff’ it with the old copy to what has changes apart from the addition of the more recent data.
Have the goal-post moved??
Question?
When infilling is needed, is it calculated against only other USHCN stations, or are non-USHCN used as well?
Greg
NEVER overwrite the old file to update it
That would be far too inconvenient!!!!
A thorough outside audit is in order. The House should authorize it. It should get full explanations for ALL of the procedures and assumptions being used, with several sample cases used as examples. Outside experts, including foreign experts, should be hired and encouraged to cross-examine everything.
Gracious of Anthony to put things to right. And, though I do not know enough of “Steven Goddard” and his history to make a an endorsement, I can offer kudos for pursuing this issue doggedly.
The picture, though, which sprang to mind reading all this was of a certain climate scientist, whom others have noted shares a resemblance to a particular cartoon character, crooning, “Mmmm…. Crow…”
Excellent post, Anthony.
I am unqualified to discuss statistics, so would like to start at the other end, so to speak. Can Steven Mosher, or anyone else from BEST say whether the impression I have that temperatures over 50 years ago have been overwhelmingly corrected downwards, and more recent temperatures increased is right?
In other words, do you keep a running average of your adjustments (sorry I know you don’t use that word, but I don’t know how else to say it)?
From the procedures you describe, no general tendency should emerge, should it? After all, stations may move downhill, and so need to be ‘expected’ to be cooler than they report. Surely, releasing the happy news that on average there was no significant change to the overall picture should resolve the matter. It is this persistent impression of constantly increasing warming that is damaging to the image of the datasets. Or perhaps there is a perfectly acceptable accounting for such a consequence of the doubtless valuable work being done.
Regards
Stephen
Goddard has been showing this stuff for years. He has been showing how the temperatures for early years have been cooling and recent years warming every time the data is adjusted.
I am gobsmacked. Gobsmacked that you have been ignoring Goddard all this time.
He has been showing exactly what you are showing in the Maine temperature record above. Yet you tell us that you were not concerned by what has happened to the temperature record? Curry says “acknowledging that Goddard made some analysis errors, I am still left with some uneasiness about the actual data, and why it keeps changing”. Uneasiness, to say the least! Goddard has been doing a great service and I am gobsmacked that someone like you, who knows what it is like to be in his shoes, would not have had the same uneasiness.
In any case, it’s refreshing to see this post.
Although I’ve never had the opportunity to eat fresh crow, I do have an amateur interest in cooking.
In order to optimize the taste of this much-maligned bird, use crow in a Sri Lanka chicken curry recipe. If there are any off-tastes, they should be overpowered by the burning sensation of the cayenne pepper. Enjoy.
Well done Steve Goddard, and crow to many but that is what debate and science is frequently about. Those who refuse crow will ultimately have a larger portion later 🙂
Look at Maine again, this is a state bigger than most European countries.
Note that 1913 was cooled nearly 5 degrees F and does not stand out. There is a warming of at least 3 degrees F since 1895 (they list 0.23/decade) and the new mean is close to 40F.
We’re talking 5 degrees F! Done by an adjustment in the year 2014! For an entire state! Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows this is absurd! It’s getting into the realm of the ridiculous! And it was Goddard rated “pants on fire”? Curry says “acknowledging that Goddard made some analysis errors, I am still left with some uneasiness about the actual data, and why it keeps changing”. Curry is stating the obvious.
I would add my voice to those who suggest that we should not be quick to assume that these issues with the USHCN data set result from unintentional mistakes. Consider:
1) These practices (infilling data and adjusting temperatures) both involve the opportunity to bias the final result intentionally in a way that might not be noticed. Furthermore, these practices provide deniability of intent in the case that someone does notice.
2) It appears that the practices under discussion do in fact bias the final data set in the direction of greater warming. It seems to me that Goddard and others have shown this to be the case concerning the infilling and zombie stations. As for the temperature adjustments, the bias has not been shown as convincingly, but it does seem that if UNBIASED adjustments were being done, the net effect of all adjustments would not always be in the same direction (just sayin’).
3) The top of the organization chart of the executive branch of the U. S. Government STRONGLY desires to push a global warming agenda. In fact, the Obama administration is in a full court press on this issue. You see it in the actions of every relevant federal regulatory body and in the statements and publications of every federal science organization. You see it in speech after speech from top officials, including the president. When I heard Barack Obama (who would not know a CO2 absorption band from a candied apple) essentially insult (by implication — without mentioning names) the intellectual chops of the likes of Freeman Dyson and Richard Lindzen, I realized that he is very driven on this issue. I’m sure that everyone in the chain of command down to and including the NCDC employees realized this too.
4) When EVERYBODY in an organization knows what the bosses want, it does not take a big conspiracy to get the desired results. All it takes is a few people willing to institute “helpful” practices and procedures when they get a chance, and a general tendency of others to go along with the program. If one considers this to be group think, perhaps the group think could rather be thought of as a complicity with practices that will tend to produce results that everyone knows are sought by the supervisors up and down the organizational chart.
I am not saying that this is all intentional rather than unintentional. I am saying that it might be.
PS: Initially, a House committee should hold hearings taking testimony from contrarian experts on temperature-taking methodology and the problems that Goddard has uncovered. This hearing should also bring GISS’s procedures under the microscope. It, too, should be audited. (Or perhaps that can be deferred until the USHCN audit is complete.)
It is just worth reiterating, the TOBS adjustment at a couple of stations in Alabama, which I noted in 2012, have increased by 0.6F.
I mean by this the 2012 v 1934 adjustment, as it was declared in 2012, was 0.6F less than USHCN now show for 2012 v 1934.
Unless Nick Stokes, Zeke , or anybody else can explain the reasons for this, I can find no other explanation other than sheer fraud.
The details are here.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/more-news-on-ushcn-temperature-adjustments/
PPS: The GOP is under attack on the climate change issue this election cycle. It is on the defensive, which is a poor place to be. If it has any political savvy (doubtful), it will realize that its salvation lies in seizing the offensive and turning the spotlight on the trustworthiness of those Obama has analogized to deference-due-doctors-with-a-diagnosis.
PPPS: The NCDC’s USHCN temperature for the US is about two degrees above its own high-quality network. That means that its adjustments have all been going in the wrong direction. That means the NCDC is untrustworthy. Very few people know that now—but the GOP can enlighten them—repeatedly, and in thunder.
REPLY: You need to back up that claim of 2 degrees, because as far as I can tell, you have no basis for it. – Anthony
There will be NO ‘SURPRISES” when they finally jigger all this stuff to cull out zombie stations. They are NOT going to allow something that shows they have been wrong for a long time. They have too big a stake in the product they have been bashing skeptics with and supporting trillions in expenditures on non carbon and shutting down coal. There WOULD BE ENORMOUS LAW SUITS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT IF THIS WERE to prove significant. There WILL BE a bone thrown to calm us down. Maybe July 2012 will end up being only the 3rd hottest July on record instead of the hottest. There will be a tenth of a degree C and it will be a tenth cooling or they know the outrage will only widen. But don’t expect any real changes.
sunshinehours1 demonstrates: “NikFromNYC: “The bulk of the adjustment is time of day adjustment (TOBS)”
Wrong.”
…and…
“Infilling in USHCN tends to emphasize the trend. If the trend is up, the infilled data makes the trend steeper in the upwards direction. If the trend is down, infilling makes the trend steep in the downwards direction.”
I hope you’re right about this in a way that affords a highly public downgrade of the average temperature uptrend. Since the trend overall is indeed upwards, this seems rather likely now that attention is being focused on something being goofy with software. I’ve been confused by the natural excitement of Watts towards technical sloppiness versus whether there is expected to be any actual correction to the final trend. And confused too about whether Goddard’s claim that TOBS itself is out of control in software or not? Nick Stokes asserted: “No. All you have done is given the difference between USHCN final and raw in the USHCN dataset. They include TOBS, and all the adjustments that have been endlessly described. There is nothing new there.”
It seems to me that with the temperature standstill Warmists will also learn about ‘truth’. If you are right you are right, and if you are wrong you are wrong. Time is the arbiter with climate. If it starts getting too hot, then we will also learn the ‘truth’.
How can one make any policy decisions relating to climate issues now that, apparently, we have no idea what the global temperature has been doing since the industrial revolution?
Can anyone demonstrate that there has been any warming at all?
Stephen Wilde:
At June 29, 2014 at 1:44 pm you ask
No, nobody can do that, but several teams say they can.
I yet again draw attention to this.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
June 29, 2014 at 1:55 pm
Without resort to the defective & highly distorted, at best, instrument record, IMO science can with some confidence conclude through proxy data that earth was cooler than now 320 years ago, with somewhat less confidence 160, but not 80 years ago, when it may well have been (& probably was, IMO) warmer than now. It was also most likely warmer than now 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, about 3000 years & 5000 & longer years ago, with cooler spells in between.
The same pattern is detectable in previous interglacials.
milodonharlani:
re your post at June 29, 2014 at 2:09 pm.
Yes, I agree, but the question I answered, my answer, and this thread concern the various determinations of global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA) and not proxy data.
Richard