Two years ago during the scorching summer of 2012, July 1936 lost its place on the leaderboard and July 2012 became the hottest month on record in the United States. Now, as if by magic, and according to NOAA’s own data, July 1936 is now the hottest month on record again. The past, present, and future all seems to be “adjustable” in NOAA’s world. See the examples below.
Josh has been busy again and writes at Bishop Hill with a new cartoon:
The temperature adjustments story has been brewing for weeks principally due to the many posts at ‘RealScience’ but taken up by others, for example, Paul Homewood, see here and here. Judith Curry has a great post about it here, as does Anthony here.
H/t to Real Science/Steven Goddard for suggesting including Toto. Cartoons by Josh
Bruce at Sunshine Hours has been doing some unthreading, er plotting, and at my request, prepared some USHCN maps of Kansas, first May’s high temperatures.
I’ve annotated the plot, to include “zombie” weather station that have been closed for years, but still show “estimated” data from NOAA. Those marked NRF are “no report found”…typically meaning NOAA hasn’t gotten the data from the observer yet, which is often mailed in on paper B91 forms. It is interesting to note how NOAA has been changing the data, in most cases adjusting it higher, though in a couple of cases, lower.
Bruce also plotted some other maps of Kansas, for July 1936, and for July 2012. Note how in July 1936 the Tmax temperature are almost all adjusted cooler, and in 2012, most all Tmax temperatures are adjusted warmer. Click images for larger versions.
Whatever happened to just using actual measured data? There is no justification for this.
And, NOAA can’t even keep their story straight about July 1936 temperatures. From a report I did in 2013:
NCDC’s SOTC July 2012:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/07
Screencap of the claim for CONUS Tavg temperature for July 2012 in the SOTC:
Note the 77.4°F value for July 1936. It is actually still in their SOTC for July 2012 today.
Now let’s look at some plots from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance. I just happened to have one from two years ago. It also says 77.4°F on the plot. The numbers match with the SOTC report. The annotations are mine.
Today, I ran the same plot again, and here is the NEW number for July 1936. The annotations are mine.
NOAA helpfully provided the data which I have saved as an Excel file, it has both 1936 and 2012 July data: NOAA_Tavg_Data_July_1895-2013 (.xlsx)
You can’t get any clearer proof of NOAA adjusting past temperatures.
This isn’t just some issue with gridding, or anomalies, or method, it is about NOAA not being able to present historical climate information of the United States accurately. In one report they give one number, and in another they give a different one with no explanation to the public as to why.
This is not acceptable. It is not being honest with the public. It is not scientific. It violates the Data Quality Act.
But wait, there’s more. In January 2013, I ran this story based on an article in the Wall Street Journal: July (2012) Was Hottest Month on Record
My story was: Does NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) keep two separate sets of climate books for the USA?
In that essay, I revised the WSJ graphic. At that time, it looked like this based on new numbers for July 2012 that I found from NOAA:
Now, with the new numbers in the Excel File above, output from NOAA, I had to revise it again. It looks like this now:
Now, once again, July 1936 is the hottest month in the US, even if by the slimmest of margins, all thanks to post-facto adjustments of temperature data by NOAA/NCDC.
I suggest that NOAA/NCDC have another one of those meetings like where they decided to keep long dead weather stations reporting as “zombies”, like I showed with Marysville, yesterday, and work on getting their story straight.
This constant change from year to year of what is or is not the hottest month on record for the USA is not only unprofessional and embarrassing for NOAA, it’s bullshit of the highest order. It can easily be solved by NOAA stopping the unsupportable practice of adjusting temperatures of the past so that the present looks different in context with the adjusted past and stop making data for weather stations that have long since closed.
NOAA has been accused by others of “fabricating” data, and while that is a strong word that I don’t like to use, it looks to be more and more accurate.
That said, I don’t believe this is case where somebody purposely has their hand on a control knob for temperature data, I think all of this is nothing more than artifacts of a convoluted methodology and typical bureaucratic blundering. As I’ve always said, never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence.
We already showed yesterday that NOAA can’t get their output data files correct, and we are waiting on a statement and a possible correction for that. But I think the problem is even larger than that, and will require an investigation from an unbiased outside source to get to the root of the problem.
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And why do the Zombie stations in Kansas seem warmer than their neighbors ?
More fudge anyone ?
B sadly this is exactly what Zeke says they do, each month, past temperatures are adjusted down as new monthly data comes in.
We should not believe the numbers produced by the NCDC.
Just take 0.35C off whatever trend they produce. This is what other analysis suggests is the unjustified adjustments.
We need to bring in an independent team of forensic auditors and real statisticians to see what has actually happened. Then it should be turned over to a national statisical agency who do not have a stake in advancing the AGW agenda. Population, employment, GDP numbers are produced in this way (and almost everyone who has a stake in this data believes the national statistical agencies are doing a good, objective job in maintaining this data) so why is the global and US temperature data done in a different way. This is what as referred to as the “best practise”. Write your congressman.
This is absolutely true. How could all the people working on the data set not know what is going on? Each month the past cools and the trend line is therefore made to look better for the alarmists. No one will ever be able to say “we just did not know this was going on!!” There is just no credible way to explain this situation without invoking malice and on a grand scale at that since every single employee knows what is going on. (unless they have some blind people working there of course)
Every day the data changes as it turns out, not just at the end of the month.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/luling-keeps-changing/
Tom J says:
June 29, 2014 at 4:08 pm
Tom J on June 29, 2014 at 2:58 pm
My sincere apologies. I meant no offense. I guess the joke didn’t work.
================
Don’t ya hate it when that happens.
The written words, lose the humor.
I feel your pain.
FlyingFox says:
June 29, 2014 at 3:39 pm
To get around the paywall on the WSJ article…
https://www.google.ca/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=What+Is+the+EPA+Hiding+From+the+Public%3F+
The “/webhp?complete=0” is just my personal choice to switch off Google search auto-complete.
Anthony, this is a Catch 22 situation for temperature measurement and assessment and I cannot see a clear way around. The methods used all involve infilling and data from surrounding stations which is needed to maintain a set data base 1218 in the case of USHCN. When they infill they have developed rules that allow them to input and use data from previous years and also to then refill previous years (smoothing?) .
One option would be to say,no, only infill the current month based on the best information we have for that month and leave it alone.
The problem may have been compounded from the desire to fix past observations with TOBS changes, but having opened this can of worms the changes were not cast in stone immediately but left in place to continually alter the past based on what happens in the present.
The option here is to stop using TOBS alterations altogether.
Put a caveat on past absolute records saying “methods were not as robust as in current measurement”
then use that system as our baseline with infilling as suggested only allowed once each month with no reference to the past.
“Every day the data changes as it turns out, not just at the end of the month.”
So the whole record has become a roulette wheel of sorts.
The ultimate application of Monte Carlo Methods.
And the house always wins.
This is “off-topic” but could become ON-TOPIC in a few hours.
EPA-Denver Ofc, “Trouble In The Jungle of EPA [Vietnam]”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/epa-pooping-hallways_n_5530650.html
From the report it appears that the rank-n-file at EPA-Denver know full well that
EPA and they as employees are doomed.
Doomed by the Religious Righteous of Obama, Holdren and the EPA Admin.
to their detriment.
Fragging the Lieutenants is starting … such as feces in hallways … and we can expect the stakes
to go higher for sure! Not just EPA-Denver but all over the USA.
Rightly the rank-n-file know full well that EPA is the laughing stock in the “Global Warming”
circus, including IPCC at the top of the list.
Well, the morgues are waiting for the “chosen” hopefully those will be the admins of regional and National Office.
Oh dear. I should click the ….
LOL
On the other hand, this is kind of like the TSI/SSN data series. There are, as we have discussed, different reconstructions and observations that differ from one data set to another. The fact that it is being corrected is a matter of scientific correction. Not necessarily evidence of wrong doing.
Could this be a good sign when dealing with a very horrible set of measuring issues?
Ric Werme mused: “I’m uncomfortable using the word “fabricated,” but I do like “zombie.” I wonder how NCDC reacts to zombie. I wouldn’t be surprised if they adopt it themselves in internal meetings.”
I coined the term “zombie station” about a month ago:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/if-current-trends-continue-100-of-ushcn-data-will-be-fabricated-by-2020/#comment-362395
…then Goddard in paranoid fashion attacked me for wanting to continue the scam when I enthusiastically asked for plots of those stations since I lacked the software set up to do my own.
Anthony,
I grabbed a copy of the code Friday evening and started looking through it. I grabbed it to see how they were combining multiple time series for a single station. It is a later version of Fortran than I am familiar with, but with enough time I should be able to make heads and tails of it.
REPLY: John, thanks, and welcome back. The last time I used FORTRAN was in the punch card era.
Menne’s papers might provide some insight
http://climateaudit.org/2011/10/31/best-menne-slices/
– Anthony
Anthony,
It is you that have been fighting a strawman of your own making …
No, it was because Goddard originally claimed 40% of USHCN STATIONS were missing, which I knew from my survey to be wrong, and then he changed it to DATA after I complained but did not note the change in hist story. It seemed like sweeping the issue under the rug. Plus I could not get his code to run to replicate the problem, and our own USHCN data didn’t show the problem.
This is what Steven Goddard actually said …
This is the line Anthony is referring to, from his original E-mail
This claim: “More than 40% of USHCN final station data is now generated from stations which have no thermometer data.”
Is utterly bogus.
I didn’t say the stations were missing. I said they had no thermometer data, which is exactly what is happening. Every month in 2014, about 40% of the stations have no thermometer data.
What Steven Goddard has always been saying is that the reported data has an increasing proportion of estimated data rather than measured data and that proportion is now up to 40%.
REPLY: But then when I complained about the STATIONS MISSING issue, he went and changed his text on his website:
BEFORE: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/goddard_before.png
AFTER: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/goddard_after.png
So if it wasn’t about stations being missing, and my perception of it being about that, why did he need to change it? That suggested to me he had made a mistake. Had I been able to get his code to compile, it might have been different.
Its all water under the bridge now, unless you just want to keep on playing some sort of “gotcha” game. Me, I’m moving forward, I have work to do. Kindly move out of the way. -Anthony
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern; and beyond three-point patterns, consistent anomalies constitute a trend.
In law and logic, discernible patterns are evidence of non-arbitrary incentives, motivations, tendencies. Regardless of bruited cause-and-effect, Ockham Rules: Whether by ideological diktat, incompetence, or sheer stupidity, NOAA’s manifest dereliction renders this malfeasant agency’s productions strictly worthless.
When “official” becomes synonymous with “lie,” the question does become: Qui bono?
The BoM in Australia has been fiddling the books for ages in order to arrive at “the hottest summer ever” and when an audit was about to take place cancelled that system and started another which was just as fraudulent. We do have a new government with a representative that’s a real scientist. He has been calling for another audit and will probably get it as many Coalition members are skeptics. The whole land based temperature system is in disarray as the keepers of the records all seem to be warmists except for the Russians and Chinese.
This stuff gets me so hopping mad I can’t enjoy the web. Because I’m no good at math I can’t attack by going through thousands of itty bitty numbers like some of you do. Instead I go out and chop wood or shovel the stables, thinking of nasty things to say.
The best I could come up with this:
Someone gave these NOAA data manipulators the same advice I got before my first date: “Start out by massaging, and pretty soon you can take advantage.”
Menne?
As in “menne menne tekel upharsin” ?
Which means that after the 2012 temperatures are duly adjusted down, 1936 can later be eased down again slightly and the stage will be set for another new “hottest month on record”.
Am I being too cynical?
Now seriously.
Here is a suggestion for making this go to the MSM.
I am aware that there are people here who are regular readers and subscribers to the WSJ, specifically James Taranto’s daily column (The Best of the Web Today).
I have read Macrena Sailor’s name here (it is a small world) who is one of those people and a regular contributor (her name often is listed in the acknowledgements list at the bottom of the column). There are probably others.
Taranto is in the Editorial Board of the WSJ and is a skeptic himself. And one of the most intelligent and fearless journalists I know of. He is immensely influential and people like Paul Krugman expel foam from their mouths when referring to him.
If Macrena (or others) cans give him this hat tip, I am pretty sure we can have the WSJ to cover this in no time.
The temperature is whatever we say it is. So there. Nuhhh-neee-nuuuuh-neee-nuuuuuh-nuuuuuh.
Clay Marley says:
June 29, 2014 at 1:45 pm
The IRS, the EPA, the Justice Department, BATF, all filled with corruption and cronyism. I should think NOAA is no different.
=============
You forgot NASA GiSS “Science Division”.
When you look at the year by year NCDC data, they have adjusted it multiple times. I noticed them changing it last year, for 2012, and they changed it yet again for 2013.
Obviously present-day AGW is having a nefarious quantum effect on the past, causing previously “settled” temperatures to fluctuate. This means AGW is more dangerously diabolical than previously thought. Not only is our future existence at risk, so is our past! Only strong, immediate, and total government intervention can save us.
As hard as malice is to define, especially in this hair trigger libel/slander environment, I think the old saying is just about worthless. It probably isn’t malice that has energy poor citizens cold in the winter, that’s just an unfortunate side effect in the hoaxters quest for riches. But it certainly isn’t incompetence.
The thing is, let’s say the real warming is only 0.4C instead of 0.75C.
Then the theory is substantially wrong and everything has to be rewritten. Reputations are forever ruined. Lots and lots of people, thousands of people, face this scenario.
if you are Tom Karl, the head of the NCDC or, Tom Peterson, the head of temperature measurements at the NCDC, and you have both staked your reputations and scientific career in promoting global warming for 30 years, (30 years of promoting this stuff at the very highest levels including advise to the President, Congressional testimony and dozens of papers), are you going to put your thumb on the scale when you have complete control of the scale and nobody can check where your thumb is and your employees do not dare to talk about the thumb on the scale because they have cushy, high paying jobs and they believe in global warming in the first place or they wouldn’t have been hired by Tom Karl and you have back-up scientific papers about why your thumb was justified to be close to the scale …
… would you put your thumb on the scale.
Human nature does not go against human nature. People are what people are and people do not let opportunities like this go by.